Ensouled Part Eight

The Adventures of Captain Peroxide and Deadboy

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

Summary: Spike comes to LA looking for Angel, together they try and figure out what it means to be Ensouled.

Rating: Mainly R/NC-17

Pairings: Angel/Spike, Angelus/William, Lilah/Wesley, Buffy/Spike implied, Angel(us)/Darla Implied

Timeline: Runs the gamut

Disclaimer: Joss created my darling boys, I just let them run around in my head until they must come out.

Distribution: Please ask, although why you would want to house a 41,674 word long story is beyond me.

Feedback: Please, by all means, Email Tania

"Excuse me, Fred?" Connor stepped out of the office and headed for her desk.

"Oh, hey, I didn't think you were ever going to come out of there." Fred brushed a long lock of hair behind her ear and adjusted her glasses.

"I just needed to think for a minute." Connor sat down on a plush chair near the wall.

"We’ve all needed a few thoughtful moments today, I think. So do you want to talk now?" She tried to make her smile seem warm to him, even though she was actually quite scared of him.

"I think so. I mean, I'm not real good at just talking, I kind of feel like doing something." Connor fidgeted with the arm of the chair, tracing over the brass nail heads that held the fabric to the wood.

"Can you read? I mean, there probably weren’t a lot of books in the Quor’Toth dimension were there?"

"Holtz taught me to read. We had more spare time than you might think. We would huddle in a cave and he would go over the letters again and again. He loved me. He wanted...it was a good distraction. He would tell me about England and the books he had read when he was my age. I can read." He raised a small hand to his face and covered his eyes.

Fred stayed silent for a moment, letting Connor come back from the memory. "Great, if you can read then you can help me."

"Find Cordy of course. Spike said you didn't know where she was, and I guess if he believes you, I'm going to, too. But if you don't know where she is, and Angel doesn’t, and Wesley hasn't figured anything out, then we are going to hit the books." Fred handed the boy a small pile of books.

"What am I going to do with these?" He asked leafing through the top volume.

"You're going to read every page looking for anything that sounds plausible. Mystical disappearances, any other humans, or demons that had the same abilities as Cordelia, like the glowy thing, or the visions, or how when she hugged you, you let some of your rage go, although obviously not enough. Anything that might explain where she went."

"And you will be reading too?"

"Yep, I'm trying to track down this demon named Skip," Fred took another book out of her desk and opened it. "He seems to always be around when Cordelia is in trouble. Gunn should be back in a minute too. I sent him out for supplies we’ll need."

"What kind of supplies?"

"Ice cream and sandwiches of course." They shared a smile and started reading.

Angel took a step back from Spike and stared in disbelief. "Why didn't you just have Willow do it? Why go all the way to Africa?" He asked.

"Didn’t want none of that pesky gypsy curse action. Not real keen on the idea of brooding for the rest of eternity. My soul is clause free." Spike sat down on the bed.

"How? Spike, how did you get your soul back without the curse. What did the demon do to you?"

"Made me fight a couple of baddies, let some bugs pick at me, took a couple torches to my chest, little trials really, coulda done it in my sleep." Angel knew he was lying, but didn't press the issue. Spike took off his over-shirt revealing a tight black t-shirt. "The soul hit me like a ton of bricks, the pain, there was plenty of screaming, and I don't think it was all mine, I could hear the voices of a hundred years. I sat in that cave for days just crying."

"I did the same thing when I got mine back."

"I remember, although I was daft enough to have no idea what was going on. Darla never even said the word soul, just that you had left and that you wouldn't be coming back."

"Spike, I didn't want to." Angel sat beside Spike on the edge of the bed, glad to be off his feet.

"Angel, I didn't come here to make you feel guilty, remember, happiness clause not an issue for me. It hurts, I'd be lying my ass off if I said it didn't. But, I think what hurts more than all the death and mayhem that followed me around for the last hundred and twenty years or so, is that I have hurt people I loved. The strangers, the victims, I'm not jumping through hoops, but y’know, Evil. It's what I did to you and Dru, and Buffy. That’s what burns."

"I don't get it?" Angel said.

"You don't get what?"

"I get that you're sorry you hurt Buffy, and Dru if you say so, and I'll let you have guilt about the ring issue, but you said Evil. Is that how you see yourself? Still?"

"Um, yeah, there's no magic switch to make that go off, Angel. Well maybe for you there is, you're all night and day with the Angel/Angelus paradigm. I'm not. I didn't wake up William in that cave anymore than you woke up Liam."

"But I did Spike. I did! When they cursed me, at first I thought I was still in Galway, I expected to see the pub there and my friends, it took hours for it to hit me that it had been more than a century since I rose out of that grave. Then I saw Darla and she threw me out, she told me I was unclean and that she couldn't stand the smell of my soul. That’s when all the memories just flooded me. My life with her, the hundreds of people we had killed and tortured. I couldn't reconcile it in my own mind. I just felt like Liam." He tried to turn his head to hide the glaze forming over his eyes but Spike grabbed his face and held it.

"That didn't happen to me, okay. I was still me, I remembered everything, but I didn't lose anything. It wasn't until the boat ride back to the states that I felt like William at all." He let go of Angel's face but did not put any distance between them. "I was just sitting in this little cabin, I didn't have any blood to drink and I wasn't about to start eating the rats, so I was just burning inside, you know that hunger."

"Yeah, I have a vague remembrance." He placed a hand on the still healing bite marks that covered his arms.

"Oh, yeah guess you do. So I sat there trying to figure out what I was feeling, it was such a rush, I wanted to get back to Sunnydale, I wanted to march up Buffy's steps and say ‘Look, I have a soul, does it change anything?’ I wanted to find Dru and say ‘look, I'm just like Daddy, soul and all.’ But the more I thought about it, I realized what I need more than anything was to come here. To be in this moment, with you."

"With you. I just wanted to tell you that I wasn't sorry that you made me a vampire. That I would have been miserable if I had stayed in London. William the bloody awful poet. He would have married some horrid London townie and ended up working in the presses until he died a miserable death, with no money, no one who loved him. William was better off dying at twenty-six than he ever would have been at seventy." Spike ran a hand along his sire’s jaw. "Thank you."

"No, you're wrong. Dru and I cursed you. We turned you into a killer, a demon. Don’t thank me, don't you ever thank me." Angel was horrified and tried to move from Spike's hand as if it would burn him.

"Thank you Angel." Spike leaned in and kissed him softly on the lips. "In my life I have loved two women deeply and completely. I needed them both, and Drusilla at least needed me. They both gave me more than any English bint ever would have. I was defined for a hundred years by the women that I loved. But now, it's different."

"How?", asked a soft voice.

"Angel, I have my soul back. My soul the one that lets me be William if I want to. The soul that tells me I am an individual, not just a vampire, it reminds me of the man I was. The man that died in an alleyway watching you. Wanting you to be the one taking me. I looked into your eyes and saw an eternity. I had no fear when Drusilla fed on me, because you were there. Like you always were after that. After Rumania, after China. Even when you were lost to us, you were there."

"But I wasn't there for you, I just wanted a babysitter for Dru, and after that I just wanted to wallow in my pain. For a hundred years it was all about brooding."

"Bollocks." Spike kissed him again, harder this time. "You wanted me, like I wanted you. You cannot tell me that in a hundred years apart you never thought of me. You and I Angel, we are forever, we are the only ones like us. That’s why I came here, that's why I pulled you out of that bleedin’ box. I had to be with you. You are the only one left that remembers William. You're the only one left that knows the real me, the man. I need you to let me be a man, if I can't be, then soul or not, all I am is a vampire."

"You're more than that." whispered Angel. He let his dark eyes fall to Spike's hungry blue ones and brushed his cheek against the blonde’s soft lashes. He felt himself falling. Falling into the vastness of Spike's longing, the vastness of eyes that knew him better than any creature on earth. He leaned into his childe’s warmth and let his lips brush against the inviting mouth next to him. Spike parted his lips letting his tongue trace the outline of his sire’s mouth, pulling him closer, taking in the scent of fresh soap mixed with the lingering aroma of salt water. Two sets of muscled arms fought for control. Both men gripped at the other’s shirts, grasping at rippling back muscles and pulling their bodies closer together. Spike was careful to not rub against the bite marks that lined the larger form of his sire. He kissed the small wounds around Angel's neck and face, occasionally returning to his waiting mouth to take in a deep kiss.

"You are William to me." Angel told his childe in a hushed voice. "You are a man if you choose to be."

"I do, Angel." Spike rested his forehead against Angel's, "I want to be with you."

"I know." Angel made no move to break their hold. Then there was a knock on the bedroom door.

"Angel, it's Fred. I think I have an idea about where Cordelia is."

Violators will be beaten to death with a shovel

(A vague disclaimer is nobody's friend)