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Dee Bradfield
FEEDBACK: deebradfield@hotmail.com.
TIMELINE: AU. Set post-chip and Riley is long gone (happy, happy, joy, joy - spontaneous outburst, sorry). It's like Season Five, but without all the Glory/Dawn hoo-ha. (Who? Huh?).
SUMMARY: Spike realized his feelings a bit earlier than depicted in the show and took off for a while. Now he's back, and he's a little different. He experiments with some psychic stuff and is contaminated by a supernatural infection that he may have inadvertently passed on to Buffy and Giles. At least, that's how it started - I kinda went all Forrest Gump with the ball.
DISCLAIMER: I don't own 'em but I'll put 'em back in their Mutant Enemy box when I'm done playing, so don't sue me, 'K?
DEDICATION: To James Wesley Marsters for being such an all-fired hottie.
Xander was confused.
He'd like to say that it was an unusual position for him to be in after all these years fighting Sunnydale's rampaging evil, but he was still the one guy who was always stumbling through the dark. Things just didn't seem to collate well for him.
"So, Angel got some kind of psycho-telegram from Dru?" he asked, just to clarify, and everyone looked at him wearily.
"Yeah, we said that already." Willow frowned, but it wasn't like she hadn't been doing a whole lot of frowning anyway. "A sort of flashy-pictured mind- warpy thing. What we've got to work out is what she was trying to say."
"Good luck, Red." Spike snorted and went back to watching the Magic Box's front door. He was waiting for Buffy to arrive. "Daffy bloody woman," he muttered. "Off her bleedin' scone."
Angel looked at him, still not able to equate this Spike with the violently protective vampire who'd stayed loyal to Drusilla for a hundred years. He didn't mention the outburst, but asked something else that was troubling him.
"Where's Giles?"
"I really don't know," Willow answered. "I haven't seen him since he went to check on Apollyon. And that was, like, hours ago."
"Y-you don't think something ... happened to Mr. Giles?" Tara asked. "I mean, it's not like him to leave the store for this long without putting someone in charge."
"I'm in charge," Anya declared. "I'm the in-charge person when he's not here."
"That's great, honey," Xander assured her. "But again, what's this message thing?"
Angel sighed and shrugged tense shoulders. His eyes were puffy, closed almost into slits, and ringed by dark purple bruises. And his head ached. If this was what Cordelia had to endure with her visions, then he'd have to remember to be more sympathetic. "I'll explain it more when Buffy gets here. She's got a starring role."
"She does?" Spike swung back to stare at his Sire. "And you didn't feel the need to share that earlier? She's only comin' in on her own, Peaches. Some nasty thing could grab her on the way." He shifted a little where he sat on the counter, fighting the urge to dart out and find her.
"She can look out for herself, Spike. You told me that, remember?"
"Yeah, but..." Spike frowned and returned somewhat sulkily to his vigil.
Damn it, he hated having his own words thrown back at him like that. That Angel was right didn't count. Besides, he could feel that she was okay, and he'd know if something were happening...
Spike doubled over sharply, his newfound breath leaving his body in a whoosh. He groaned and fell forward off the counter.
"You alright, pet?" he asked breathlessly, sitting up and gingerly testing his ribs. "Still in one piece?" He nodded and then turned to the Scoobies. "Vamp in the cemetery," he reported. "No big."
"Okay, that was funny." Xander said, a huge grin splitting his face. "Here's hopin' a whole fleet of fledglings are rising tonight, 'cause I'm all for the bumbling Spike show."
"That's only gonna happen when she gets hit, Harris. You really pushin' for a round of Kick the Slayer?"
"Uh, no. I guess not." Xander became subdued and was immediately on the receiving end of a thorough Anya-hugging.
Spike watched the couple for a moment.
He was actually feeling jealous of the whelp's relationship now. Monkey-boy loved the former vengeance demon for who she was, regardless of her nefarious evil-doing past. It wasn't an issue for them. That was exactly what he wanted from the Slayer.
Acceptance.
Spike wanted acceptance - and not because of some daft accidental link either.
He sighed heavily and returned to his countertop lookout. His attention centered on the front entrance an instant before the door opened.
Buffy sauntered in, his wayward boots dangling from one hand. She didn't appear any the worse for wear after her encounter in the cemetery, the only evidence of it being the light coating of dust on her clothes.
She immediately gave a mental heads-up and tossed his footwear at him.
"Ta, pet." Spike pulled on the sturdy leather boots and began appreciatively swinging his legs, enjoying their familiar weight. His heels thumped rhythmically against the counter and he reached a grand total of three bangs before the Scoobies collectively ordered him to stop. He slipped in another for good measure, earning a scathing glare from Angel, and hopped off the counter to stand at Buffy's side.
"What's with Angel's face?" she asked him via the link, after instinctively grabbing his hand.
"Dunno, love. Personally, I've always thought his looks were overrated. That whole caveman-brow thing doesn't do it for me."
She didn't bother rolling her eyes at him, but he grinned as if she had anyway. "Dru side-effect," he told her, speaking aloud this time. "Makes me glad she didn't get into this noggin when she tried."
Buffy tilted her head, taking in Angel's injuries. "I don't know, I kinda think you'd look good in purple."
"Well, I've got a recent addition on the old ribcage that's gonna be decorative."
"Yeah," she twisted to peer at him, her brow furrowed. "That was wiggy. You got the full brunt of it, too. I haven't got a mark on me."
"Truly?" Spike feigned gratitude. "Hey, that's just dandy. So honored to be your linky punching bag, Slayer. Fancy another go?"
"Idiot," she muttered, and then turned her attention back to the matter at hand. "So, guys, what did Dru have to say for herself?"
Angel had been observing the Buffy and Spike interplay, thinking that he could be more objective now he'd had a chance to get used to the idea of their connection. Oddly enough, they seemed even closer than they had before. It was sickening. It was more than sickening. He'd felt sickened plenty of times before and this was much worse.
"It's hard to explain," he said carefully. "It was like a slideshow. The first one was Giles as a vampire. Which, by the way, was exactly how Cordy described her vision."
Buffy blinked. "You call her Cordy?"
"Slayer," Spike gave her a mental nudge. "Cheerleader girl's not the focal point here."
"Right. Vampy-Giles. Psycho-bitch. I'm on it." Buffy took a deep breath. "So, how does Dru know about Cordy's vision?" She gave the name a derisive twist, causing Spike to grit his teeth to keep from laughing.
"I'm thinking that Dru probably sent it to her," Angel offered. "Same way that she sent mine. Though Cordy-elia," he stumbled over the name, "Did say that Dru was actually in her vision."
"Stands to reason, I guess," Willow commented. "It would have been around the same time as Apollyon cranked up the screamy-fest."
"Yeah, I'll pay that, but it doesn't explain how Dru knew about the Watcher's condition in the first place," Spike remarked. "She didn't know about the Slayer 'til she tried the mystical prod n' probe on me."
"Maybe the moon told her," Buffy suggested dryly. "Or one of those stupid dolls she carts around."
"Miss Edith," Spike and Angel supplied synchronously.
"Th-they all have the same name?" Tara asked, her eyes wide. "That's just weird."
"Everything about Dru is weird," Xander explained. "She's the certified, card-carrying Queen of Insano-ville."
"Hey," Spike protested, glaring at him.
The glare rapidly lost its heat as he realized that he didn't have to jump to Drusilla's defense anymore. "No, wait. Who am I kiddin'?" He shook his head. "Lad's right."
He didn't understand how it had happened. How had he gone from worshipping the woman to thinking she'd be better off dusty?
Buffy squeezed his hand and he scowled at her. She was doing the 'Poor Sad Spike' bit again. He could feel it.
"What?" she asked, confused by his reaction.
"Don't play the dumb-blonde card now, Summers. I'm onto you."
"Oversensitive much?"
Buffy pulled her hand away from his and Spike was immediately regretful. He really was being unreasonable about the sympathy. And sorry-touchy was better than no-touchy.
He gave her a tentative smile and offered his hand back.
Buffy ignored him. "So, what came next?" she asked Angel, folding her arms defensively across her chest.
"Oh, uh..." Angel was caught out by the question. He'd been watching the couple and dreaming up imaginative ways of having Spike disemboweled. "You did."
"I did what?"
Buffy began drumming her fingers against her folded arms. It was the only sign that she was annoyed, apart from the burning intensity in her eyes.
"The next thing I saw was you being tortured. I don't know by who or what, but the torturer-person felt ... familiar?"
Spike had walked away from Buffy the moment she rejected his hand and was behind the counter, randomly pulling objects off the shelves and pretending to look at them. He dropped the opaque crystal globe he'd been holding at Angel's revelation and it rolled noisily across the hard floor.
"Torture?" He felt the fear slam into him like a sledgehammer - a combination of Buffy's and his own. "Of the pointy variety? Or the not-so- pointy?"
"It was hard to tell. I got the impression of something being cut so there might have been some kind of knife involved."
"Oh, and that's so incredibly helpful," Spike jeered. "You might ask that chatty Girl Friday of yours to give you a lesson or two in vision analysis, mate."
"Whoa, calm down there Pulse Boy," Xander interjected. "Unless you and the Brood King wanna take the macho posturing outside? Some of us more mature types happen to like the productive thing, you know."
Buffy pursed her lips to keep from laughing at Angel's dumbfounded expression. Xander had never stood up to him properly before - not in an honestly unafraid way. He usually kept to bravado in the elder vampire's presence. He'd always given Spike a hard time, though. Theirs was a relationship based on mutual non-admiration. It had respected boundaries.
Spike glowered at the lot of them and stalked out the side door into the alleyway.
Bugger it. He didn't need the aggravation. Buffy was being a bitch and Angel's smug face always rubbed him the wrong way. Okay, so it was amusing to see him looking all raccoon-like with his eyes bruised, but that didn't make it any easier to be in his company.
He only made it out as far as the second dumpster before he realized that he'd never got around to bringing up the subject of his turning. Well, that sucked. He'd have to go back now, just to satisfy his curiosity.
He pivoted around to stare at the door. Buffy already knew he hadn't gone anywhere, but he was risking having the Scoobies laugh at him. Though why he was even concerned about that had him stumped.
Spike sighed. The only way he was going to find out was by swallowing the last bit of pride he had left and asking Angel about his history.
As he took a step back toward the store, he caught a glimpse of something in the corner of his eye - something trailing from the partially open dumpster. He stopped and peered at it.
A long piece of industrial-strength cable.
Was that? Nah, it couldn't be. Could it?
Spike opened the dumpster's lid. He was still dragging the rest of the cable from it as Buffy came out to join him.
"Hungry?" she asked as she reached his side, evidently no longer mad at him. "'Cause I thought you were past the foraging-in-garbage stage. We could order a pizza."
Spike triumphantly held up the other end of the cable and gestured down its length toward the accumulated coil at his feet. "Recognize this?"
Buffy blinked. "Are you adding to your rope collection, or is that -?"
"Apollyon's halter top."
"How'd it get -?" she trailed off, shaking her head. "Why am I asking when I already know that you don't know?"
"Habit," Spike suggested. "Or maybe you just love the sound of my voice."
"I do," Buffy admitted quietly and he gaped at her in surprise. "When you're not being all obnoxious. Which is hardly ever."
Spike frowned. "I'm never obnoxious," he said. "I'm a bad ass villain, a thorn in the side of life, I'm a ... I'm just..." He made a rumbling noise in his throat, a low and frustrated sound. "Sod it. I don't know what the bleedin' hell I am anymore."
He kicked the dumpster savagely, creating a huge crater in its side.
"Oh ... bloody hell. Sorry."
"Hey, it's not my dumpster. What do I care?"
Spike smiled at her, pleased that she cared enough to try and lighten his mood.
Buffy slung a companionable arm around his waist and gave him a friendly squeeze. "Besides the obnoxious thing, you can be pretty stupid sometimes, too."
"Way to be supportive, Slayer."
"No, I mean, you know that we have the link thing, but you try and ignore it. You treat it like it's not real or something. How come you can't accept my feelings like I accept yours?"
"You didn't," he said. "Not straight off. It took the tellin' of it to get it to sink in proper. Didn't feel all that real before that, did it?"
Buffy gazed up at him and was instantly lost in his eyes.
Those clear, pure blue eyes.
She had a flashback to that night in the cemetery when he'd first come back to town. The night that she'd first realized how beautiful his eyes actually were.
"It was before," she said suddenly, still staring at him.
Spike reached up to brush back a strand of her hair. "What's that?" he asked, his voice soft.
Buffy pulled back a little and searched his face. "It was definitely before. Why didn't I remember that?"
"You're gonna have to expand on that statement, love," Spike said. "Apart from the fluttery stomach and increased pulse-rate, I'm gettin' bugger all from you."
"I felt some sort of connection to you before you tried the mind-reading thing," Buffy explained. "Before the Serpiente. Before the link."
"Bollocks."
Spike wrenched away from her, he didn't want to hear this. He bent down and began looping the cable over his arm.
"Okay, now you're doing the stupid avoidy thing again. What is that?"
"Protection," Spike muttered. He stood up and indicated the roll of cable. "And this has priority now." He headed back toward the shop.
"Spike?" Buffy called his name aloud, not wanting to use the link for this.
He halted, but didn't turn around.
"I really do care about you. It's not sympathy or pity. Whatever this is - it's real."
She felt, more than saw, his spine straighten defensively. He looked back over his shoulder at her, as though gauging her sincerity then nodded once and went inside.
Buffy smiled and followed him. It takes the telling of it...
**************
Angel peered up at his Childe as he strolled in from the alley and deposited a huge roll of cable onto the study table.
"Productive trip?" he asked sarcastically. He leant a little to one side to watch Buffy as she followed Spike in.
Spike snorted and folded his arms.
"Hey, is that -?" Willow stared at the cable as if it were a venomous snake. "It's not, is it?"
"The same," Spike said. "It was in the dumpster out back."
"Oh man, I don't like where this is going." Xander reached out to toy with a section of the cable.
"It is going Grr?" Anya demanded. "Because if it's going Grr, I'd like to know what will happen. Would I be the in-charge person on a full-time basis? And would that mean that I get more money?"
"So what's interesting about this?" Angel asked, gesturing toward the coil. "Is it significant?"
"Way significant," Buffy informed him. "It's practically dripping with significant-ness." She paused and wrinkled her nose. "I wish I hadn't used the word 'dripping' there," she said to Spike.
The younger vamp's lips quirked, but he didn't smile. That reaction or lack thereof, conveyed the situation's seriousness to Angel.
"This has to do with Giles," he said.
"And Apollyon." Spike sucked at the inside of his cheek, thinking.
There was that name again.
"Who is this guy?" Angel wondered aloud.
"Oh, he's not a guy," Willow said. "Well, technically he is, but..."
"Keratos demon," Spike supplied. He threw one arm upward. "Yay tall. Green. Scaly. Right royal pain in the..."
"He's also the reason that we're up to our necks in the deep stuff," Xander said. "Ground Zero infectiony guy." He pointed back and forth between Buffy and Spike. "The reason for the loopy type thing between the deadly duo there."
"I think I saw him," Angel disclosed. "In Dru's slideshow."
Spike narrowed his eyes. "So he's alive then?"
"Yeah," Angel drifted a moment, trying to remember. "Unless he's already lost one of his claws?"
"Nope. He was all intact the last time we saw him." Buffy rested her weight against Spike and he automatically threw an arm across her shoulders. "How does he lose it?"
"I couldn't see that part."
Angel gritted his teeth, wanting desperately to leap to his feet and forcibly split the couple apart. He was wearing his forearm stake-sheaths - one good flick of the wrist...
"Was it the same person you saw torturing me?" Buffy asked. "The familiar- type person?"
"You think its Giles," Spike said suddenly, picking up her train of thought. The arm across her shoulders flexed protectively. "Look, there's no way that the Watcher would harm you." He smiled tightly. "Now, me, on the other hand, I'd be way up there on his to do list. "
Angel shifted in his seat. All this talk of Spike and torture was getting uncomfortable. Especially since he'd actually done it before, and had recently been daydreaming of repeating the performance. Sometimes his demon was just a bit closer to the surface than he would like.
"He wouldn't hurt you either," Buffy said. "Not now. He knows I would protect you because of the link."
"Yeah, right. With the link. Without it I'd be linin' the inside of his Dust-Buster."
Buffy frowned and responded with one of his favorite retorts.
"Bollocks," she said.
"Watch your language, pet." Spike admonished. "There are kids present."
"Where?" Xander peered around the store. "Oh, you mean us."
Spike smirked at him.
"Oh God," Buffy detached herself from his side, putting on an exaggerated show of disgust. "You're so incredibly OLD!"
Spike pinched the skin of her arm and she nudged him with her hip.
"How come you can pick and punch each other like that without feeling the other's reaction?" Angel inquired.
Buffy and Spike peered at one another.
"Buggered if I know," the younger vamp replied. "Think it's got somethin' to do with the intent of it."
"Hmm," Willow contemplated the suggestion. "It probably works on the same basis as the chip does. You know, only activating when you really mean to hurt someone."
"That's how I did him damage when I wasn't here," Buffy revealed. "I tapped into his head and make him think he was gonna hurt me."
Spike glared. Then he got a speculative glint in his eye. He blinked and appeared to lose focus for a moment.
"Ooh, ow!"
Buffy jerked back and put a hand to her forehead, her eyes getting teary. She cuffed him soundly on the shoulder, pushing him away.
"Aha!" Spike chortled, ignoring both the blow and his own chip-based twinge of pain. "Works both ways!" He pointed at her triumphantly. "No more of this long-distance discipline, Slayer. Not unless you want a bit o' retribution."
Anya looked at them carefully. "You should have sex," she announced.
Everybody stared at her, shocked.
"Well, they should. I mean, there's always been this suppressed lust between them. They just ... dance around each other and avoid the subject." She seemed to suddenly realize that she was speaking to a dumbstruck audience. "What?"
"Ahn, I thought we discussed the whole 'thinking before saying stuff' thing," Xander looked mortified. And more than a little disturbed.
Angel stood up and walked out of the store.
"Think it upset the vision getting guy," Xander said. "Major clues leaving the building."
"Let him go," Spike sneered. "Don't need him."
Buffy scowled, and he narrowed his eyes at her. He tucked his thumbs in his waistband and angled his chin, determined to put in at least a token protest. He arched his eyebrow and then turned and followed his Sire.
Buffy got the message. It was his idea to go after Angel - not hers.
"'S okay," she told the others. "Spike'll bring him back."
************
Spike stepped out of the store and ran straight into Angel's back. He grunted and edged around to stand alongside him.
"Havin' a soulful moment?" he casually inquired. "Wanna be alone? Right then, I'll just be on me way..."
"Stay," Angel said, so quietly that Spike was glad he'd retained his vampire hearing.
"Why? So you can regale me with your stunning wit and let me know that Buffy'll never love me? News flash, Poncey, I already realize that."
"So..."
"So, what? Why bother?" Spike huffed and lit up a cigarette, staring off down the street. "I'm not like you," he said. "I don't leave the people I love. Ever. I can't."
"You left Drusilla."
"Hey, Mr. Font of Knowledge, she left me. Granted it was because of Buffy, but that's just semantics."
"You're telling me that you would have stayed."
"Would've stuck with the minx 'til she up and staked me for spoilin' one of her little tea parties or somethin'." Spike shrugged. "I'm a sucker for a pretty face."
Angel folded his arms and stared evenly at him, his gaze not wavering once. "Tell me about Buffy."
Spike returned the gaze for a beat, then bowed his head and tossed his half- smoked cigarette onto the footpath. "What's to tell? Fell in love with the chit, got chipped and decided to hang 'round and help out."
He scuffed the tip of his boot against the ground. "That was brilliant for a time, but it didn't last. I wanted more. I wanted the whole sodding enchilada. It wasn't gonna happen, and I figured I could get over her if I left, so I bailed out to Mexico for a few months. Met up with Apollyon, got a few tips on mind readin' and had the brilliant brainstormin' idea to try it out on the Slayer. See how she felt."
Angel nodded. "And that's when the link kicked in."
"Like a bloody mule, mate." Spike shook his head. "You've no idea."
"You're not happy about it," Angel observed. That was the confusing part about this. He would have thought that Spike would be taking everything he could while he could.
Spike took on a demeanor that could only be described as guilty. He searched his Sire's face for a moment and then seemed to decide something.
"I need her to love me for who I am. Not because of some random mystical thing," he confessed. "I'm a pitiful romantic sap. Always have been."
"Yeah, I know." Angel smiled crookedly. "I used to hate you for it."
"When? Before your miraculous soul-infusion?"
"Umm. It was strange. When we turned you, you didn't just retain the memories of your former self, you kept ... I don't know, an emotional memory - a kind of moral sense or something." He laughed derisively. "I mean, it was almost like a part of your soul was still there."
"Did you say ... part of my -?" Spike stared aghast at Angel, his secondhand heartbeat pounding like the full percussion section of an orchestra, timpani drum at the forefront.
"My soul?" He stumbled away to sit on one of the wooden benches outside the store, a hand pressed against his chest. "My bloody soul. Oh God, no."
"What?" Angel demanded. "I didn't mean literally."
Buffy was suddenly at his side, the Magic Box's front door slamming behind her. "What did you do?"
"I ... nothing." Angel turned to her with his hands held up. "I didn't touch him."
"Not physically, dumb-ass," Buffy snapped. "He's hurting on the inside."
She sat alongside Spike and captured the hand he had clutched to his chest. They locked eyes for a moment then she leant forward and placed a reassuring kiss on his forehead. She swiveled back to Angel and the protective fierceness in her eyes surprised him.
"Soul?" she asked, her voice deceptively soft.
"Oh, you got that part." Angel tried smiling - it didn't quite come off.
"So did he, apparently," Buffy drawled.
Spike glared at his Sire. He shot to his feet and angrily shoved Angel backward. "Tell, you self-absorbed bastard," he challenged. Another shove. "Tell me what happened to make me like this."
Angel reflexively knocked the younger vamp to the ground, where he sprawled in a heap, his duster spread beneath him. The spontaneous action found him on the receiving end of Buffy's powerful right cross.
"Hey, what the -?" Angel rubbed at his smarting cheek, not understanding what all the fuss was about. Spike didn't really have a soul, did he?
Buffy confronted him, standing over Spike's prone body like a mother-bear defending her cub. Angel was startled to see a kind of electric spark in her eyes.
"You never lay a hand on us again," she announced. "Ever. Understand?"
Us? They were an us? That was new.
So was that sparkly thing in her eyes.
Buffy turned her back on him to attend to Spike, crouching at his side.
"Are you -?" she reached out and tenderly cupped his cheek.
"Right as rain, love," he laughed humorlessly. "For a bloke who just found he's most likely got a semi-soul on top of a semi-human thing and a chip that makes him useless."
"Not useless. Unique." Buffy smiled gently. "Uniquely unique, remember?"
Spike snorted and batted her hand away. "Rot," he mumbled, getting to his feet.
"Okay, just stop!" Buffy shouted in his mind. "Stop with the trying to push me away." She moved to stand directly in front of him and set a restraining hand smack dab in the middle of his chest. "I'm a part of this too, you know."
Spike's head snapped back and he watched her distrustfully, the absolute despair in his eyes tearing at her. She could sense him withdrawing into himself. He seemed to get all introspective when he was hurting the most. Not that he'd ever admit to it.
But that was also when he was at his most outwardly violent. He loved to take his suffering out on other things - demons mostly, though anything handy came a close second.
"Uh, Buffy?"
She'd actually forgotten that Angel was there. That was a first.
"Stay out of it," she warned, not even turning to look at him.
"But..."
"Spike and I need to work this out now," Buffy told him. "Or we won't be able to help Giles and Apollyon."
Angel nodded. She was right. But then, she usually was. "Okay. I'll go back inside until you're ready." He lurked for a few minutes, not sure if he really should leave.
"Angel?" Spike lifted his eyes to the older vamp - the pain in their blue depths was astonishingly alive. "Piss off."