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Wordsmith
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Lilah schooled her expression. It could be fatal to let the Diva know she was more trouble than she was worth. The plan was going to hell. They hadn't budgeted for this contingency. A routine security check had found the remains of Glorificus' two Anubian guards. She had beheaded one and impaled the other on his own sword. She hadn't even fed on the minions. The earliest prediction of her destabilizing to the point where she would need to feed was six months, which would have been plenty of time to carry out the firm's plans.
Acquiring such exotic attendants was expensive. The firm had plans to house a supply of disposable humans when the need arose but the preliminary reports Lilah's assistant had drawn up, based upon finding Glory naked in the arboretum shrieking that 'heads would roll' was not good. There had to be some way to distance herself from his disaster.
Lilah walked into the richly appointed suite. There was no sign that it was on an upper floor of the firm's office building. It looked like any five-star hotel - provided that hotel offered an extremely exotic catering menu. The room was banked with flowers, large vases overflowing with lilies. Silver sparkled in dainty serving dishes, an ornate tea service and ice buckets stocked with bottles of champagne and beaded with water droplets. Glory was the jewel in this opulent setting. She lay naked on her stomach on the white silk divan while a small blue Noxxian kneaded her back by walking in place on it.
"I'm bored," the Goddess spat out as soon as Lilah entered.
"You have only to ask and it will be provided, most magnificent one," Lilah smiled, deeply grateful that telepathy wasn't one of this bitch's powers.
~~~~~
Spike had got up to see Dawn off and to make sure that the this Stephanie and her mother were still human. Instead of getting to go back and snuggle with his warm sleeping mate he had ended up going with the Poof to shake down some snitch about one of his bleeding-heart cases.
The walk back through the sewers had been filled with awkward silences and feeble attempts to talk while avoiding the sensitive subjects like Dru, the past, Xander and the future. Spike had to forcibly remind himself that dusting his Sire would get him in dutch with Red and the Nibblet, if not Xander. They emerged in the catacomb of the hotel's single-level parking garage. On the far side from the gated tunnel entrance, past closely spaced support pillars, was a heavy bag and free standing weights. From the scent of sweat, Gunn and Xander had been passing time down here.
Spike and Angel walked toward the indistinct sound of voices. They slowed their strides simultaneously at the sound of the young men's conversation.
"...she trusted me to make everything all right - I let her down. She should never have been involved with the fight." Gunn's voice was raw with suppressed emotions. As Angel and Spike peered around the pillar they saw Xander and Gunn sitting on the floor, their backs against a wall passing a bottle of green liquid back and forth.
"You didn't know - no one can. That friend of mine - the one I told you about - if he had known what was out there, I don't know that he would have been any more careful... hell, I don't know if he would have fought the good fight or hid under the bed. Jessie was always a hell of a lot smarter than me. But I do know that if he had been asked before....before it h.. happened... he would have told me to stop him from hurting anyone."
"But that doesn't make it easier," Gunn said. His voice was toneless and battle-weary and he shared a knowing look with Xander.
"No. Not one little bit." Xander swallowed hard. He said, "I was fifteen when Giles told me... 'that's not your friend, that's what killed him' but even then I knew that that wasn't the whole truth... sure there was something else, something... dark and hungry looking out of his eyes, but part of Jessie was there too - at least some part of him. I knew that. Maybe not his soul, but something that made him Jessie and not the guy down the street... that was what made me hesitate, made me unable to..." Xander cleared his thoat. "That's what haunts my dreams too. The look in his eyes, so familiar and so different. My hesitation could have gotten Cordy killed, or me. If he hadn't been shoved..." Xander handed the bottle back to Gunn.
"You were fifteen?" Gunn said.
"So was he." Xander said
Gunn passed the almost-empty bottle back and asked, "You really think that there's something there - beside the demon - in all vamps?"
"There has to be, man - Angel's proof of that." Xander said
"Huh?" Gunn looked at Xander like he doubted the young man's sanity.
"Look. I should probably just shut up - more than anyone, I don't want to add to your pain. I know how it haunts you - it doesn't ever really stop and I so don't want to make things worse..."
"No. I get it. It's okay, I really want to know what you think." Gunn said.
"Angel - the souled version, he's really into paying for his sins, right?" Xander said.
"Yeah, I guess once an 18th-century Catholic always an 18th-century Catholic - he's real big on penance." Gunn said.
"Whatever. So, if he, all of him, was evicted out of the body during the bad old days....what's he got to repent? All that death, all that mayhem, that's someone else's sin - the demon, the powers that be, Darla; doesn't matter who, just that he wasn't there. If he wasn't even there, how could he be responsible?" Xander drained the bottle of sports drink and idly spun the plastic bottle on a fingertip.
As Gunn thought deeply, Spike watched Angel's reactions to the conversation. His face had been unguarded as the two humans speculated about the nature of souls and conscience. Gunn slowly asked, "You don't like Angel, do you?"
"Deadboy?" Xander smiled and shook his head. "Don't let this get out, but he's okay - he's really grown up."
Gunn's open laughter rang and hid Spike's snicker at the incredulous look that flashed across Angel's face. Gunn gasped for air and said, "But, Cordy said..."
"Dude, I was fifteen - this tall, buff guy was stepping out of the shadows, spouting cryptic comments and stealing all the attention, of course I hated him. He looks the same as he does now when he was stalking Buffy. Buffy was exactly the same age as Dawn is now when she came to Sunnydale. That would be like you making a play for Dawn. Which, by the way, I would so kick you ass for - we clear? That was gross even before I found out he had a couple centuries on Joyce and lacked a pulse... To tell the truth, once I found out about the vampire shit he could have been a saint and ... you know? He got to have friends, he got the girl, he got a shot at redemption and Jessie got swept up off the dance floor and tossed out with the trash." Xander tossed the empty bottle, banked it off the wall and the rim of a waste can. It echoed hollowly in the silence.
Angel turned away and bolted back toward the entrance to the tunnels. Spike grabbed him by the shoulder just before he reached it, turning him around and shoved him against the wall. "He's entitled to an opinion - he lived through that." Spike's hissed words were accompanied by a baleful yellow-eyed glare.
"D... don't you think I know that?" Angel choked. "If I had just stood up to Darla..."
"You? Couldn't have happened, not then. When you were able you did. Souled or unsouled, you dusting her was the most surprising thing you ever did, Peaches. Still have trouble believing it. You were always so whipped," Spike said.
"You know... she's..." he said.
"Yeah, Dru said something semi-coherent regarding that. Just... don't say anything near Xander, eh? Last thing I need is him saddling up a posse of his minions to go hunt the bitch," Spike leaned against the wall beside Angel. He lit up a smoke and before pocketing the pack offer one to his Sire. To his surprise the older vampire accepted.
After a moment of listening to each other simulate breathing as they recycled the smoke, Angel said, "Xander has minions?"
~~~~~
That evening, Angel looked down to hide his amused smirk at his Childe's impatient
fidgeting. They stood in the garish illumination of the West Hollywood strip
outside a nondescript door nestled between a dance club and a sex shop. Rather
Angel stood, Spike paced and smoked, alternately checking his watch and scanning
the street in the direction from which the others were expected. Graham and
Riley had gone into the unmarked door of the restaurant with Lindsey only a
few moments ago. Angel waited outside, not
liking Cordelia to be walking in this neighborhood even with Xander and the
witches. Spike was with him in hopes of seeing Xander sooner.
The witches had kidnapped Xander out of bed four hours ago. As soon as Dawn had been picked up by her friend, Cordelia had mapped out her power-shopping plan and dragged off Willow and her girlfriend. They had returned that afternoon to drop off packages and enslave Xander as bag-boy/valet to give them all a chance to catch up on gossip. Spike had slept two more hours and then started bouncing off the walls and driving everyone in the hotel crazy as he bitched about everything except his Xanderless state.
The red-gold glow of the nearby shop caressed the sharp angles of his Childe's
face, making soft shadows and darkened his unnatural hair color to some semblance
of its original shade. Spike truly was a work of art. In flesh and form he outshone
any of Angel's feeble attempts at art or creation. No mere drawing had ever
captured the fierce beauty or violent tenderness that was this being. All the
effort Angelus had heaped upon Drusilla's torment, or expended in teaching his
cruel Penn were but a shadow of the jewel his mad daughter had plucked from
the refuse in that London alley. Here was a demon unbridled by ritual or hierarchy,
who had achieved infamy in a scant hundred years, even though he had been turned
by a
madwoman - hardly more than a fledgling herself. Spike had from the beginning
only paid attention to the rules so he would know what to break. Clawing his
way to Master status before most fledges would be trusted to hunt on their own
Spike had made a name for himself before he had seen his first decade. Angel
shook his head. It was so easy to forget. To see the childlike impatience which
he displayed now or the pout he used when manipulating Xander and to forget
that here stood - or rather lounged - a legend . Spike had, in the space of
Angel's contemplation, moved from kicking the tire of some parked BMW to sitting
on its hood and leaning back against its windshield. A scuffed Doc Martin rested
in front of him and a casually draped arm on his knee. He finished his cigarette,
blowing the smoke out in an exasperated sigh as he tossed it into the street.
A steely blue-eyed glare was turned on Angel and Spike's lips narrowed dangerously.
Fortunately for Angel, before Spike could relieve his boredom by beginning a round of Sire bashing, Cordelia's laugher drifted over the night sounds, heralding the arrival of the shoppers. Looking down the strip he spotted the four of them about a block away, strolling leisurely. The witches had their heads together sharing some secret. Cordelia, showing more tanned flesh than she covered in a red halter-topped sundress, was flashing her brilliant smile, obviously amused by something Xander had said. Angel smiled at the sight of them. The fact that they had live though half of what they had was amazing but the fact that they had come though it and could still enjoy life was a miracle. A day didn't go by when he didn't worry about Cordelia. When it had been just her and Doyle with him, Angel had always believed that she could walk away at anytime and be safe. Now that she had inherited the visions, the Powers That Be had effectively bound them together in the fight against evil. He hated that her fragile body was subjected to the pain that had knocked a half demon off his feet and he hated that her all-too-brief mortal existence was being spent in such a frightening and dangerous manner. She had nothing to atone for, yet she was with him every step of the way in his struggle for redemption.
She looked ahead and spotted him. Her face lit up and Angel felt an answering smile stretch across his face. He had come too close to losing her in Pylea. Since their return and Buffy's death they had been dancing around each other in sparring sessions and during late night research. Wesley seemed to think he was still trying to make up for the Darla debacle but Gunn had been shooting nervous glances at both of them, obviously due to the Angelus factor of his curse.
Xander seemed also to sense the change in his companion as he broke off his
monologue with a knowing smirk. Xander looked down so Angel couldn't see what
expression followed. The young man's hair was getting long and obscured most
of his face when his head was tilted forward. His rolling gait had little of
the bouncing stride that Angel remembered of the boy. His long legs were wrapped
in a pair of black jeans and he wore a gauze shirt open at the neck and with
its long sleeves rolled up his forearms. No, these were
not the kids Angel remembered from their sophomore year in high school - they
were adults. Adults who had been tempered by adversity and grief. It was no
wonder that they were turning heads as they moved effortlessly through the gathering
club crowd.
Being West Hollywood, it wasn't at all unusual when a strange man, after watching Xander walk past, approached him and started talking. Spike went past in a blur and Angel pounced and put him into a head lock. Cordelia, who had been watching Angel, started to laugh and nudged the witches before pointing. Xander was blinking in confusion. His attention was on the young man attempting to pick him up and so remained oblivious to the source of his friends amusement. It apparently never occurred to Xander that he was being chatted up since he looked even more baffled when his new friend stepped closer.
Angel marveled that the brilliant mind, which was able to organize a civilian
militia against both the forces of darkness and the secret government agency
attempting racial cleansing had never served Harris well
in interpersonal relationships. Xander seemed to have a blind spot concerning
his personal magnetism. It apparently never occurred to him that random strangers
found him attractive.
"I'm not going to kill him, you tosser. Let me go, before..." Angel released Spike mid-threat. It was odd that he felt he could take his psychotic Childe at his word but he did.
Covering the distance between the two groups in a flash, Spike pulled Xander back flush against his chest and growled, "Mine!"
Xander turned his head slightly to look at Spike, and then turned back to the man he had been speaking to. He blinked, smiled, shrugged and said, "His."
~~~~~~~
The Hagan demons who owned and ran the restaurant had been contacts of Doyle. Angel had returned their half-human granddaughter to them after a local wizard had abducted her for dubious purposes. They were an excellent connection to the more mundane portion of the demon community. They had operated a safe-haven tavern on this site in one form or another over the past one hundred and fifty years.
Cordelia got the wide-eyed reaction from her friends she had apparently wanted. The witches were absorbed in the details of the decor and Xander was fascinated by the green flames on the open grill. After a baffled glance at the menu, Xander had whispered to Spike, "Order me something that isn't human, but won't kill me." The witches had followed his lead, only amending their request to include no meat. Wesley arrived late, having managed to persuade Fred to venture out as a sort of trial run for her excursion with Cordy and Dawn the next day. Gunn had bowed out but was planning to meet them later at Lorne's.
Apparently sometime during the morning shopping Cordelia and the witches had decided that they were going to get Xander on stage. He was currently not having any luck using puppy eyes to try and persuade Spike to defend him, or at least take his place.
~~~~~
Lilah was working late, having ordered in sushi. She was just biting into the spicy salmon when Gavin popped his head in without knocking. She loathed the little upstart. He had the nerve to imagine he was her rival. The manipulative bastard played the role of a sycophant but his ambition hung around him like a bad smell. He was young and ruthless but he was no Lindsey McDonald.
"I don't recall us having an appointment..." Lilah started.
"We don't. Just thought you could use my help," Gavin interjected smoothly.
Given his penchant to help himself to everything including the credit for others work Lilah didn't think that that was likely. "I really don't think you have the security clearance to help with any of my projects, Gavin."
Recognizing the frosty dismissal for what it was Gavin smiled and started to leave, but added just before closing the door, "Of course, Ma'am. I just thought you should know your project just hurled a Noxxian out of the forty eighth-floor window."
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