Still Attached

The Adventures of Captain Peroxide and Deadboy

The Angel/Spike Zone of the BtVS Writer's Guild

TITLE: Still Attached

AUTHOR: Jessica Walker

DISTRIBUTION: When people want my fic it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy. If you take it please send me the URL.

GROUP: Kitten Up a Tree

SPOILER: "In the Dark"

CLASSIFICATION: References to Spike/Dru and Spike/Harm.

SUMMARY: My take on "In the Dark."

POV: First-person Spike.

RATING: R for language, violence.

FEEDBACK: I crave it like Edy’s Espresso Chip ice cream. I crave it like Starbucks mocha with a shot of raspberry .I crave it like Gavin Rossdale dipped in hot fudge. I crave it like… oh,just send the damn feedback already.

DISCLAIMER: Spike is MINE!!! (Oh, I wish… pant,pant, drool…) The plot is mine and nothing else, blah blah blah, Joss is God and the “Grrr, Arrrgghh” monster could kick my ass. Don't sue, I'm broke.

DEDICATION: As always, for Jennifer; plus SlashMasterKita for mad crazy betafication.

Everything is going to go as planned this time;everything is finally going to turn out right. He'll bleed,he'll break, and he'll give up the ring. I'll go back to Sunnyhell,kill that annoying little bitch of a Slayer, and take over the Hellmouth. Once my authority is firmly established, I'll go find Drusilla who, upon discovering that I'm now a powerful Vampire Master, will take me back again.

Everything is going to go perfectly according to plan.

If I don't get bored first.

"Marcus is an expert," I say smoothly as he begins to comb through his vast array of tools. "Some say artist, but I've never been comfortable with labels." I sound more confident than I feel. I've never done this before. I've never been one for long, arduous hours of torture; I get bored too easily. It's untrue that my nickname comes from torturing blokes with railroad spikes. Truth is the spikes were only used to pin victims to the nearest wall to make feeding easier. Perversion is a survival tactic, not an art form.

The third party in the room would disagree.

Angelus twitches slightly in his chains, a worried expression on his face. He doesn't think I'll do it. He doesn't think I have it in me. He'll think different when he's scraping his liver off the floor. "He's a bloody king of torture, he is," I continue. "Humans, demons, politicians, makes no difference."

Angel has always differentiated between humans and demons. He sees humans as purer somehow, nobler, and therefore all the more fun to corrupt. I see no such distinction. Most humans I have known were no better than the demons that slaughter them. They don't always act on their aggressions, but it's not noblesse that restrains them. It's fear. He's always been too quick to place his faith in mortals; he trusts those whelps who work for him not because he considers them particularly trustworthy but because he doesn't think they have the same capacity to hurt him as he does to hurt them. He's so stupid.

You know why I let him turn me? Because for all the pain and blood and abuse and sodding mind-games, I was safer in Angelus' home than I was on the streets in the company of men.

"Some say he invented several of the Classics,but he won't tell me which ones."

I'm sure you'd recognize them on sight, though.

I circle around him slowly, like a great cat. He's on edge now, wondering. Did I teach him enough? Will he do it? Does he have what it takes? Does he?

Damned straight I do, and I plan on showing him as much. Not that I have to prove anything to that pillock. I'm paying Marcus to do this but I'll be damned if I'm gonna let him have all the fun. And you know what's gonna be the best part? When he screams and I see that look in his eyes. The one that says that some small part of him- the part that he hates the most- is proud of me. He taught me well.

"Beneath the cool exterior, you'll find he's rather shy. Except with kids," I say offhandedly. "You like kids, don't you, Marcus? Well, likes to eat." I lean in towards my poor sodding ensouled Sire. "And other nasty things."

There are a lot of things Angel regrets about his fangier days. His taste for children is not the least of them;Darla used to bring them back to the house by the sackful. They would cower under tables and chairs and cry as they waited for their turn to die. I bitched about it endlessly; "Can't you ever kill anything quieter?"I'd ask her. Dru liked them, too. I never did- little mouthfuls that hardly put up any struggle. Scarcely worth my effort.

Angel likes the hunt. I prefer the kill.

He thrashes in his chains, disconcerted. I pull away, out of his reach. I glance at Marcus and give him a nod. He's ready to begin his work. He sets his glasses on his nose and tears Angel's shirt open, scattering buttons everywhere. He examines the victim's chest carefully.

I'm already starting to get bored. I already know what Angel's chest looks like; I've watched him fuck Dru a hundred times. I just want to see him get tortured, is that too much to ask,do we need all the sodding preliminaries? I don't see why it has to be so bloody complicated. But, then again, this is why I hired someone else to do the majority of the dirty work for me. I'm paying him a shitload, too. I'd better see some results.

"His skin…" Marcus murmurs.

"Annoying, isn't it?" I answer. "Still attached."

I want to see him ripped to pieces. I want to hear him scream. And I want it to happen now.

"Over 200 years of living," he says in awe. "And so little external damage..."

Sometimes he cut her so deep she wouldn't heal for days. Some nights the bed was soaked in blood. We all have our scars, Angelus. But not all of them heal.

He continues drinking in the sight of my sire's chest. "What about internal?" he purrs.

He wants him. The sodding bastard wants him. My Sire certainly gets a lot of play for a celibate. I personally don't understand the attraction. I always thought I was better-looking than him, anyway.

"Do you two need to be alone?" I say impatiently. "Or can we go on to the ouchy part?"

I want his blood to run across this floor in big,messy, sticky red pools. I want it to stain the concrete for years to come. I want him dead.

But I'll settle for hearing him scream.

Marcus reaches out with one hand and presses it against my Sire's chest; Angel shivers unconsciously at his touch. "He's known love."

He makes it sound so unusual, like it makes Angel something special. We've all known love. The Slayer and her fluffy vampire, the witch and the werewolf, the Watcher and that technopaganschoolteacher. It's nothing unusual. Everyone finds love eventually if they're patient enough. I loved her the moment I laid eyes on her; it took him lifetimes to figure out what the word meant. Yeah, he's known love. But I had a grip on the concept a good century before he did and it took a curse to give him the capacity to understand it.

Briefly I call to mind two days before, the look on her face when I told her she wasn't worth the second go. Yeah,she loves him. Always will, though she's already starting to forget it. Humans and their bloody short attention spans. Doesn't she realize? Only love, true love, can make you hurt like that.

"Yeah, and with a Slayer no less," I say, relishing the expression on my Sire's face. It's only been a few months since he left her, it still hurts him like hell, and I'm glad. "How's that for perversion?"

Two cardinal rules of the predator-prey relationship. Don't fuck what you eat and don't fall in love with someone who has a sacred duty to kill you. Common sense, really.

"And he has a soul," Marcus says disbelievingly.

I roll my eyes. So much fuss about Angel and his poor sodding tortured soul. You know what the only difference is between the demon who sired me a hundred and twenty-six years ago and the superhero I see before me now? Soulboy here doesn't act on his desires. He's still the same demon. He still has the same capacity for cruelty. Poor Angel, always working for redemption, always trying to atone. Why? Because he feels guilty. And why would he feel guilty? Beats me. I've never met a human who felt guilty about eating a steak, pulling up a carrot, cutting down a tree. Nothing wrong with that; you do what you have to do to survive. By the time I died I was wanted for thirty-seven counts of armed robbery, twenty-two of criminal assault, and fourteen of murder. You know how many of them I regret? Not a single one. And if I got my soul back tomorrow, would I regret the last 126 years, that feeling of power, the sound of bones cracking, the sensation of hot blood running down my throat?

Why should Angel feel bad for feeding? Because humans are higher beings? Not most of the ones I've met. So why does he spend all of his soddin' time feeling guilty? Because he doesn't have anything better to do. He's never straddled fences and he never will; if he can't be all bad he'll try his damnedest to be all good. Cruelty was the only thing he was ever good at and without it he's lost. And he doesn't have the balls to admit that he misses it.

Does that mean he shouldn't feel bad for what he did to Dru, what he did to me? I don't give a toss. That's between him and his tortured conscience. Punishment is the drug of choice for those who can't be bothered with guilt. My duty is to punish.

"Right," I snap impatiently, "vampire with a soul. Cursy-cursed to walk the earth trying to do good. That's not going to be a problem, is it?"

"On the contrary," Marcus replies. "Creatures with souls have something to lose."

Oh, he's got plenty left to lose. He doesn't understand what it's like, to lose everything, to watch the only thing that ever mattered anything slip out of your grasp. He doesn't realize yet what that's like. He's got his detective agency, his own personal Scooby Gang, his damned sense of purpose. He doesn't know yet what it's like to go without. But he will.

"Souls, fingers, toes- let's get chopping, will you?" I say. This is getting really tiring. "I want my damn ring!"

Marcus turns to his subject. "What do you want,Angel?"

Who the fuck cares what he wants? That isn't the point. I hope this isn't going to be a lot of that psychological torture bullshit that Angelus was so fond of because I do not want to spend all afternoon watching that.

"Are you going to torture me?" he replies dryly. "Or just bore me to death?"

Marcus pulls the first heated poker out of a nearby barrel and rams it clearly through Angel's chest. The sound of sizzling vampire flesh is enticing, but not as much as his barely suppressed scream.

"Probably a little of both," Marcus answers.

Two hours and five hot pokers later, Marcus has asked that question seventeen times and Angel's replies are starting to get less and less creative. And that fucking classical music is still playing. Probably part of the boring-Angel-to-death plan, but what Marcus fails to realize is that I'm the one being tortured by that shit. I can't stand it. Even in the old days I hated it, all I wanted was to spend the evening at some pub singing loudly and drunkenly as Angelus dragged me to the symphony, the opera, the sodding ballet. Dru was the same way. We had this old victrola at the factory- before the Watcher torched it all- Debussy waltzes, nothing but Debussy waltzes. And theater! We spent a while in New York in the late eighties; we saw Cats fourteen times. As for Angel- no stereo system at the mansion, not so much as an eight-track. Just classical on the public radio stations twenty-four-seven. I thought I would fucking die.

Marcus pulls out a pair of pliers and begins to play with them. He hasn't done anything with them yet, I wish he'd hurry the fuck up. "What do you want, Angel?" he asks again.

"A house in the country," he gasps through the pain. "A pair of good running shoes that you can also wear out to dinner."

I roll my eyes. Every time he gets a soul,he loses his sense of humor. It's uncanny. The things he said to me while I was stuck in that bloody wheelchair were infuriating, but at least they were fucking funny.

I continue to pace impatiently across the floor. I've been stuck in this sodding parking garage for nearly three hours and I'm about to go fucking insane. I can't stand enclosed spaces, even parking-garage-sized ones, for very long. I get jumpy and nervous. Harm calls me the Attention Deficit Disorder Vampire. "Why do you keep asking him that?" I say angrily. "And why

do you keep playing that bleeding Brahms?"

"Actually, it's Mozart," Marcus replies calmly. "Symphony 41. I find it very effective."

We've been here for three hours; it can't be that bleedin' effective. "Yeah? Personally I prefer his older, funnier symphonies myself. Look, I want my ring back!" I'm sick of this, I'm sick of wasting the day inside this concrete hell, and I'm bloody sick of listening to my Sire crack off hand jokes when he's supposed to be screaming in pain; I want this over, once and for all. I shatter a nearby box with a violent kick and grab the resulting wooden shard, pointing it at Angelus' heart. "If I don't get it pretty soon, I'm going to stake me old Sire, right here and now!"

The fucking bastard doesn't even wince. Stupid, self-assured pillock, I'll teach you to give me that amused smirk when you're being threatened by William the Bloody. I'll teach you to-

"Are you finished?" Marcus asks, interrupting my mental tirade. "He knows you won't kill him until you get the ring. He knows you're lying."

I could kill him right now. I should. For all he's done to me, to her, for all the trouble he'll cause until one of us finally does the other in. I should drive this through his heart and watch a hundred years of memories dissipate into dust. Problem is, Marcus is right. I won't. I can't. He is my sire. He's part of me.

But I can make him bleed.

I drop the stake, exhausted, overwhelmed. "You get it for me."

"Soon he'll want to tell me everything he knows,and then some," Marcus replies confidently. "And he knows I'm not lying."

"I believe he does," I say softly, smiling. I can read him so well. My Sire. My Yoda.

Angel attempts a sneer. "You're an idiot,Spike."

I stiffen. That bastard does not get to talk to me like that, like I'm a stupid child. Not anymore.

"You think?" I say scornfully. "Because I'm not the one chained to the ceiling with hot pokers in my side."

You remember that time you chained me up for three days for kissing her good-night?

"You hired a vampire," he tells me.

Yeah, Angelus. Thanks for stating the obvious for me.

"What do you think he is going to do with the ring when he finds it, huh?" he continues, taking on that older-and-wiser tone I hate so much. "Hand it over to you?"

"Oh, good Lord, why didn't I think of that?" I gasp, feigning an expression of shocked disbelief. "Oh, wait half a mo', I did." I gesture towards Marcus, who is resolutely heating a sixth poker, oblivious to our conversation. "I hired a guy who doesn't care about the ring, or anything else on God's green earth,except taking blokes apart one piece at a time. It's called addiction,Angel," I say sarcastically. "We all have them. I believe yours is named Slutty the Vampire Slayer."

The room is filled with a sudden silence- partially because Angel has no retort, although the look on his face is priceless-but also because that sodding record has finally stopped. I glance over my shoulder at Marcus. "Thank you!" I sigh, before turning back to my Sire. "Speaking of little Buff, I ran into her recently," I say cheerfully. "Your name didn't come up. Although she has been awful busy jumping the bones of the first lunk-head that came along." I lean in, baiting him. "Good-looking fellow... used her shamelessly." I grin, more for my benefit than his. If Harmony Kendall has taught me nothing else, she has taught me the dangers of rebound sex. "She is cute when she is hurting, isn't she?"

"She's cuter when she's kicking your ass," Angel replies angrily.

Touché. I'll admit to harboring resentment issues where the Slayer is concerned; she's the only one I've never been able to defeat. But I'm as impressed by that accomplishment as I am angered by it. And, frankly, I'm glad she sent him the gem. Torturing her wouldn't have been half as fun. She's a whiny little bitch, but at least I respect her.

Marcus starts that bloody classical over again. I'm starting to get really claustrophobic. "I think I will go get a bit of fresh air," I say, turning away. "Leave you two kids to it." As I begin to walk away, Marcus spears Angel with another poker and the ponce lets out his first scream. "Now, that's music."

I return an hour later to find Angel's feet in the air and a stake aimed at Marcus' chest. I think the bloke gets so caught up in enjoying his work that he simply doesn't pay attention to what's going on. "Now, now," I reprimand, grabbing the stake and pushing Angel's legs back down. "Staking the torturer is strictly prohibited."

Marcus suddenly bolts up and punches Angel in the jaw. "Easy, fella, still need that ring," I say, pulling him back. I'm impressed; I didn't think he had it in him. But he's getting frustrated. When I hired him he told me that most victims broke within an hour. Of course, most victims hadn't already spent a stint in Hell. I turn to Angel. "Now you've made him mad,"I snicker. "Wouldn't want to be in your chains."

"Won't be long now," Marcus says resolutely.

He's starting to get discouraged, though; I can tell. And I'm tired of just watching, anyway. If it's time for the screamfest to begin, I want in on the fun. "Well," I say,sauntering over to Marcus' table of tools, "what's say I'll grab a pair of needle-nose pliers and give a hand?"

Angelus swallows fearfully. He knows what's coming. Marcus might be an expert, but Angel and I have an agenda. And a history.

He clenches his fists tightly as I approach him. "That won't do you any good," I say cheerfully, taking one of his hands and prying out one of his fingers. "What's the matter, Angelus? This used to be your favorite part."

I clamp down on the nail of his index finger with the pliers; it rips off with a sickening sound and he lets out a blood curdling yell. Blood gushes from his hand. It'll heal soon, thanks to speedy vampire metabolism. But it hurts like hell.

"Oh, that's right," I say innocently. "Must be more fun for the one doing the pulling. I didn't realize that until now." I pull out a second nail; even Marcus blinks at the sight. The sound that issues from my Sire's throat is more akin to a sob than a scream.

"Of course, Dru developed a taste for it eventually,didn't she? Took awhile. Till she stopped screaming and started asking for it. But you're so patient, Angel."

He grimaces again, and it's not because of the pain in his hand this time.

"Am I doing it right? Want to make sure. Everyone should have a teacher like you." I pick up his other hand and move towards it with the pliers when his voice interrupts me.

"Why are you doing this, Spike?"

"I want my ring," I say, deadpan. I don't owe him an explanation. He doesn't deserve an explanation. And I do what I sodding well want to.

"You think you can fool me?" He grins through the pain. "My childe. My- Luke."

"Pop culture reference," I retort, wiping the bloodstained pliers off on my shirt. "I'm impressed."

Marcus looks up in surprise. I'm sure he realized long ago that this is about more than just the ring, but I don't think he expected anyone to say as much out loud. I certainly didn't.

"Shut up, Angel," I say harshly.

"I can't take back the past, make up for the things I've done-"

Just what we need. More brooding. "Shut up."

"-but I'd change it all if I could-"

The discarded poker is about to make contact with Angelus' left temple when Marcus pulls me back.

"He's no good to us unconscious."

I pace away from them, struggling to resume my composure, my hands raking compulsively through my hair. "You're doing it again."

"Playing the Drusilla card, you stupid ponce. Using her to push all my buttons." I chuckle mirthlessly. "You're so good at that."

He winces noticeably at my words. His guilt is almost palpable. I can read him so well. There are two things he did that he regrets more than all his crimes put together: breaking her mind and breaking my heart.

Domination is the most important part of the Sire-Childe relationship. More than the hunting and the killing, more than the teaching of ancient ways, more than the cannon-fodder that so many minions provide. The fledgling follows the Sire's every command, serves willingly,obeys without question. Or is supposed to, anyhow.

But I was always the Problem Childe, the uncontrollable one. Unlike Drusilla, I couldn't be broken. I'd spent my entire life being beaten to a pulp by one person or another; physical pain didn't deter me if I'd made my mind up to do something. Angelus couldn't figure out what to do with me, how to make me mind. But then he discovered the one way I could be controlled. Drusilla.

The signs were subtle as first. Normally a chatterbox, I grew quiet whenever she entered the room. I pandered to her during her crazier moments- hallucinations, visions, dreams. It took him a while to catch on... but when he realized that my crankiness in the evenings was due to my staying up all day watching her sleep, he knew he had me exactly where he wanted me.

I was not permitted to be alone in the same room with her or speak to her unless he was present. Sex between us was not only allowed, it was required- but only if he was watching and I had to beat her first. And I did it. From that day forward I did exactly whatever Angelus wanted, because I knew that if I didn't, he would hurt her. Hurt her much worse than I ever could.

"How is she?" he says hesitantly. I can't look at him; I lower my head and focus on his torn and bleeding fingertips. The blood flow is starting to cease. Thick, red drops stain the concrete beneath him. His blood. My blood. Hers.

"I wouldn't know," I say tiredly. "And if you mention it again, I'll torture you to death whether you give me the ring or not."

He chuckles. "I taught you well."

He sounds proud of himself. Although the new improved SoulBoy Version 2.0 will never admit it, he's as proud of his evil exploits as he is disgusted by them. Cruelty is the only thing he was ever good at.

"Don't call me that."

"I need you to understand something," he says with the air of someone who's spent the last century apologizing for one transgression or another.

"What's that, mate?"

"I do regret it. Every day."

"That's bloody wonderful," I retort. "Do you have any idea how little your regret does for me? You regret everything, Angelus. Every meal, every torment, every mistake,every hurt you've caused out of love or hate or hunger. And you tack my name on the end of the list to set aside for your broodier moments,and it doesn't change a goddamn thing for me." I turn away and toss the pliers on the nearby table; Marcus observes us from several feet away with crossed arms. I lean over, scoop up the poker I had dropped a few minutes earlier, and start to swing it around carelessly, tossing it from one hand to another. I can feel anger mounting within me. "There was only one thing in my whole life that I ever really wanted, and you took it away from me, and you did it out of spite. Because she belonged to you, or because I belonged to you, or because you couldn't stand it that someone wasn't as fucking miserable as you were. You took her away from me and you broke her into little pieces in the process and now no one knows what happened to her and you don't care." There's a lump rising in my throat; I ignore it and whirl around, sending the poker smashing against Angelus' side with a violent swing. I can hear the rack of ribs and it's almost enough to make me smile. Torture can be very effective when you need to get something done, but there's nothing so fun as a decent spot of violence.

"Do you have any idea what you did to her, to us, the implications of the damage you caused? No. You have no fucking clue. You don't know what it was like to spend a hundred years with your bloody shadow hanging over our bed every time we made love." Another swing brings livid bruises to his pale abdomen. He bites his lip against the pain, and I have to admit that I admire him for that. He might scream when he's being tortured over a piece of jewelry, but when it comes down to that which he knows he deserves, he can stand there and take his punishment like a man. "You don't know what it was like to listen to her talk about you constantly, to hear her whisper your name in her sleep and scream it while she was fucking me." Another swing and I can hear my laughter, sounding hollow and crazed in my own ears. "I can't do it, Angelus. I can't spend the rest of eternity competing with you."

He struggles to speak around crushed ribs. "I'm not asking you to-"

"No, but she is." A third swing of the poker brings welts to the skin and shatters a hip bone. "She would have taken me back, did you know that? She would have taken me back, if I could have just been a little more like you, she said so. If I had just used her enough, hurt her enough, if I could just have made her bleed half as well as you did, she would have taken me back. But I'm not good enough. I'm not demon enough." I move my aim lower, towards the front of those poofy, well-tailored trousers of his, and a dry scream rips from his throat as the metal rod breaks his testicles. "How does that feel, Angelus? Does that feel demon enough to you?"

Marcus steps forward two paces, a concerned expression on his face. The broken body hanging from the ceiling is nearly unconscious. I'm laughing wildly. I had no idea this would be so much fun. "But it doesn't matter, does it? You're still her bloody fucking Angel. So tell me, SoulBoy, how does all you misplaced Catholic guilt help me now? Because you can stand there in your chains, Angelus,and you can give me that sorrowful look and tell me how much you regret what you did to her and what you did to me but the truth is that she's gone now and she isn't coming back And you. don't. care." I raise the poker again and feel a hand on my shoulder from behind.

"I think you should go," Marcus says calmly.

I whirl around, brandishing the poker. "Oh,really? Why's that, exactly?"

"Because if you keep up like this you're going to kill him," he replies, his voice perfectly even. "We shouldn't let him die before he gives up the ring." That bloke is the most stoic, unemotional bastard I've ever met. It gives me the creeps.

"I'm the one who gives the orders here, mate."

"I'm just trying to do my job," he says smoothly. "If you stay in here you're going to end up doing something you'll regret."

I look up at the bloody, tattered vampire that I chained to the ceiling only a few short hours ago. Maybe he's right. Maybe I should get out of here before I do some very real damage. Although I'll never admit it, I have guilt of my own, but my guilt is nothing like Angel's; I only seem to end up regretting things that I wasn't given a choice about in the first place. Letting him hurt her, letting him take her from me, letting my love for her come between the two of us. I've got enough regrets to last several lifetimes and I don't need anymore.

"Fine," I snap, tossing the poker to the concrete floor. "I don't think I can stand another minute shut up in here with you two anyhow." I glance up at my Sire and, behind fluttering eyelids, he gives me a look that I want to slap off his face. A look that says he knows, in spite of the pain that I've just inflicted, that what Marcus says is true. That I might thrash him to a pulp but I'll never let myself take that last, fatal step. I hate Angelus more than I've ever hated anyone my entire unnaturally long life. But that's not enough to make me kill him.

I want the bastard dead. I wish that I wanted it enough to make it happen. But I don't.