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| a.connor a.doyle a.lindsey a.oz a.spike a.wesley a.xander a.other three.somes het.fic character.study |
| Title: Quiet Familiars Author: Violetsmiles Pairing: Angel/Spike Rating: PG-13 Setting: Post-'Damage' Most days he doesn't feel real. The sun shines through the windows and warms his face, and if there is anything that makes all this seem like some hallucination, that's it. Standing in Angel's office, staring out onto the street that looks so different in the light, he's sure that the soul is a nightmare. Certain that he's a moment away from waking with Dru curled around him, her nails leaving trails of blood along his back. A hundred years of her marks on him, embedding her into his skin, his pores, and he's afraid to ask if the scars are still there. Doesn't know what he wants the answer to be. Doesn't know much these days. He doesn't have to turn around when the door opens to know who it is. Not just from the scent, which he would know anywhere, but the heavy stride, the connection that he can't convince himself he doesn't feel. More like Angelus these days, but even when Angel was souled up in Sunnydale, it was there. Something distinctive that those sloped shoulders couldn't hide. "Shouldn't you be gone by now?" Angel's words are tired, heavy, more reflex than insult. "Didn't have much else to do, and it's sodding daylight. Not much for being a torch." Angel makes a noise that's part mumble and part grunt before stopping beside Spike, his silhouette taking up more space than anyone has a right to. There's something faintly menacing in him, which is probably why half the people in the building can't stop their hearts from making nervous little skips whenever he's near. Their bodies can sense predators almost as strongly as Spike and Angel sense prey. The longer Spike's around Angel, the easier it is to see Angelus in him. "You doing alright?" Spike asks, surprising himself with the question, the words slipping out before he can censor them. There's a tightness in his gut, a clenching that burns a bit like sympathy but isn't. Isn't empathy or understanding or anything else. Not for Angel. The silence stretches for a moment before Spike turns to look at him, the expression on Angel's face making it clear that he wasn't expecting the words any more than Spike. "I've had better weeks," he says, turning his head away from Spike and back to the view. Spike opens his mouth and then closes it. There's an intimacy that there shouldn't be, that he sure as bloody hell isn't comfortable with. "I gotta..." Angel gestures to his desk and shifts his weight before walking over to it and sitting down, "but there's a thing with a clan of Ekudites later. Might need some extra muscle, if you're interested." "Don't know if I'll have time. Got things to do." Angel just stares at him, impassively, and that's when Spike remembers -- Angel doesn't need his help. He could grab that phone and have a room of men with guns who're probably trained just to fight Ekudites. Instead, Angel's asking him to stay, to help, and it shouldn't mean anything to him, not after all this time, but it does. "Course I could stick around for a bit. Haven't seen Ekudites in a couple of decades. Got into a dust-up with a few last time I saw 'em. Could give 'em a chance at another go." Angel nods and picks up the phone. Guessing that the sharing time is over, Spike heads for the door. "Could use your help tomorrow too - vamp nest on Willshire." Angel's hand covers the receiver, his eyes still focusing on the desk. "Thought you didn't want me around." "I don't, but if you're gonna stay here you might as well be useful, and I can tru --" Angel stops speaking to Spike and turns his attention back to the phone. "No, Harmony, we can't just pretend they weren't -- no. I'm not going to· I want everyone in my office at four." Angel sets the phone down with a long drawn out sigh. "Can we skip this right now? If you wanna stay, stay. If not," he shrugs, "I'll take care of it." "I'm sure you will." * "You just had to open your mouth, didn't you?" Angel asks, ducking a blow. "Hey, you asked me to stay, mate." Spike says, sweeping the legs out from under the demon in front of him. "Stay and help, not start a fight when we actually have them ready to negotiate. Do you know how much paperwork --ä Angel drops the demon in front of him with a slice to the midsection and dodges the blow on his left. "And Gunn is still pissed about the damn Greshloch. Like I was supposed to know it was a ceremonial dagger. It had a three foot blade." Spike rolls his eyes as he straddles the Ekudite, smiling at the audible snap as he wrenches its neck. "Not my problem. And I thought you were the boss, just tell him you didn't feel like playing friendly with things that skin and eat their humans alive." Spike moves to the side a second before an ax embeds itself in the demon he'd been sitting on, the blade scraping his side. He turns to see the largest of the demons with the chipped weapon in its hand. When did they start using axes? "You're getting soft." ãI am the boss, but they're my team -- and I'm not soft," Angel says, decapitating the one directly in front of him and taking a hard blow to his back. "I -- it's complicated." "Yeah, right." Spike says, ignoring the pain in his side as he delivers another punch. No self-respecting demon fights with an ax. 'Specially when the bloody thing is six feet tall and has four arms. "Could you try to not irritate me? Just for a day. You might like it," Angel says, pulling the demon away from Spike and snapping its neck before dropping it to the ground. "You know, something different." "I coulda handled him." Spike gestures to the body. "I know, but I'm tired, and I have at least another hour of work thanks to you." Angel picks up his sword and stares at it before wiping the blade over the body at his feet. Spike shrugs, walking beside Angel. "Leave it for tomorrow. Not like they're going anywhere." "Which is not the point." Angel says, not bothering to look at him. "Go home, Spike." "Why?" He asks, noticing for the first time just how old Angel looks. "Can't get in quality brooding time unless you're alone? Don't you get tired of playing the martyr all the bloody time?" "I know you're bored and this is probably the only thing you have to do now, but I have things --" The door opens and they walk into the lobby. Completely silent and dim with the smell of old coffee and expensive cologne still in the air, Spike can't help but wonder if this is what Angel sees every night. Remembers his days as a ghost, watching Angel sit in his office, staring at papers or, more often, the walls, long after most of the office went home. Spike's sure it wasn't always like this. Wes has a picture in his office of him, the ponce, and the cheerleader. Smiling at the camera, even Angel looking right happy for a change. And it makes Spike curious, makes him want to know when they all lost those smiles, if it was when the cheerleader took her nap or before. Or maybe he just wants to know what these humans did to make Angel look like that since he never could. "a--and I don't have time to babysit." Angel finishes as Spike notices the amount of blood that's running down Angel's arm. It's soaking through his shirt and dripping onto the sword, streams of it working its way down the blade. Blood and flesh and bone, but he doesn't scream for that slayer. In the hospital, Spike wonders if that's what his victims felt. Wishes he could remember what most of them look like, and he wants to cry, but he bloody well isn't going to do it in front of Angel. And the broken and bloodied mess he's left behind isn't what shames him. It's that he wouldn't give up the decades with Angelus, centuries with Dru, or years with Buffy for those people. When Spike looks up, Angel's focusing on him. "Fine, come in," Angel says, opening the door to his office and setting his sword down. "Where's the rest of 'em?" Spike asks, watching Angel pour himself a drink, and after a long pause, filling up another glass as well. "Rest of who?" "Your friends. You know, the people that deal with your brooding and manage not to stake you." "Fred and Wes are probably still working." Angel shrugs as he walks over to the couch, handing Spike his drink before sitting down. "Don't know about the rest." They both settle onto the furniture, their legs almost touching, and the room is silent except for the clinking of ice in the glasses and the faint buzz of the lights. But it's the smell of Angel's blood and whiskey that he can't stop himself from focusing on. It shouldn't still smell like home. He's on the floor in front of the fire, staring as the blue and black fades from his skin and the shallow cuts stop bleeding. "It happens every time, boy. It's never gonna stop now." Angelus says in Spike's ear as he sets down his drink and reaches to pick up the knife again. Spike doesn't know if Angelus is talking about the healing or the bleeding skin, but it's true either way. It takes days for Spike's wounds to close, but Dru and Angelus can't keep their eyes off the marks. He does his best to earn new ones soon after. It was one of the few times he and Angelus managed to get along without threats of staking. After that he'd thought that maybe Angelus cared for him a little, but it didn't last. "It's too bloody quiet in here." Spike says, knowing that Angel has to realize he's hard. He can never seem make anything last. Angel's staring at him again, his eyes hooded. Angel never gives anything away that isn't earned ten times over in pain. Which is just another reason why he should leave. Get the hell out of this sodding city and away from these people. He shouldn't forget that every form of Angel gives him nothing but pain, but Spike moves forward anyway. He's got nothing now but loneliness, and it's the one thing he never expected the soul to bring. From the look of Angel, he knows what it's like. Whatever it is that makes him do it, Spike knows Angel's expecting it. Can feel the way Angel leans forward just enough that he's the one that actually brings them together. Hands grip his neck as the tongue fucks his mouth, and this is Angel. The demon that Dru wanted and Buffy loved and that he'd spent his life trying to better than, and this is the closest he'll ever get to the other two. Probably the closest he's ever been to Angelus, 'cause there's biting and tugging and his shirt is ripping and Angel's making moans that are more like growls, and Angelus never gave him that. And since he has nothing else, he'll be satisfied with this. -End Feedback |