Fanfiction: Blood Simple
Faith was so keyed up that her nails were digging grooves into the wall beside her, scratching over and over like a cat cleaning its claws. She hadn’t moved, not a blink of an eye, not the tensing of a muscle, except for that repetitive scratch-scratch-scratch.
She was waiting. Focused. Intent. Everything was clear in her mind. She could see it happening as if it had already occurred. There was no doubt. No fear. No worry.
Just excitement.
When she finally had her prey in site, she actually gasped in glee before standing and stalking with lightning speed to the end of the alley. The lone figure walked quickly ahead of her, the street fairly deserted, large pools of shadow waiting to swallow her and the one she stalked in-between the circles of overhead lights.
She timed her prey’s walk. Click click - light. And click click - shadow. And click click - light. And click click - shadow. And…
And Faith had the dark head in her hands, one covering the mouth, the other holding so tight that the prey couldn’t have gotten loose without breaking their neck to do so. Dragging the body with her so fast that the people on the streets across from them wouldn’t have seen the commotion even if they’d been looking, Faith was back down the alley and through the door at the end of it before anyone could have bothered to notice that the pretty girl with the long dark hair and the armful of books had never come into the next circle of light.
That door at the end of the alley led to a dark and unused basement. The only things down there were rotting cardboard boxes, smashed glass fragments, and rodent droppings from a time when it had appealed to the vermin to live there. And now Faith was there.
And so was Cordelia.
Spike was outside the offices of Angel Investigations, pacing. Angel was inside, far below the street. Spike could feel him, ties of the Sire calling to him despite the many things that divided them. Despite the hatred and anger and resentment, there was always the pull of the bloodline.
Fucking always there.
There was no way for Spike to be within the city and not have Angel know about it. This was not even a point to consider - there was no way to avoid him. So the plan was to go in there and confront him. Occupy his mind while other things were happening. Keep the man busy.
In whatever way it took.
Spike was relatively sure that they weren’t going to have tea and crumpets. Or share a pint of Guinness and talk about how it was in London in the old days. It wasn’t going to be the return of the prodigal childe. It was going to be…messy.
“Bloody hell,” he finally growled out from clenched teeth and strode up the steps and into the building. He walked through the front door and past the outer offices with all the bravado of a school yard bully, and only when his hand touched the doorknob to the stairway leading to Angel’s quarters did he pause. Hand barely brushing the cold metal, he just stopped in his tracks.
Ridiculous, really, Angel knew he was there - he’d come blundering in like a damn war-horse, clumping across the wooden floor as if he was the Anti Stealth Poster Child. But the smell from below was riveting. It was so familiar. It was…
Candlewax, and linen with lavender, and … and blood, warm blood.
Moving as if in a trance, Spike opened the door and began walking down the steps, his tread made lighter by the enchantment of the odors filling his head. By the memories they called up.
Cordelia’s body hit the far wall with a muffled thump and the sound of a scream being knocked right out of itself. She pushed her hair out of her eyes with a hand that was filthy and shaking and looked up to see something out of her worst nightmares. Something lithe and white and human. And not.
“What’s…what’s going on?” she choked out, throat constricted in fear and nearly deaf from the blood hammering in her ears. She tried briefly to stand but when she made the first movement, a sound came from her attacker that made her stop at once.
“Now now, Cordelia.”
The oddly familiar voice paralyzed her. Who was that? Cordelia’s eyes strained to see through the darkness, and as they adjusted to the level of light, she began to see a face, dark eyes, someone she thought she’d never see again. “Faith?”
“See, and they all said you were the dumb one.” Faith laughed with glee, clapping her hands like a child who’d gotten the one gift she’d been waiting for her whole life. “Let’s see what else you know. It’ll be fun.”
“Stay away from me, you homicidal bitch!” Cordelia rasped out, unable to help the thrill of self preservation that suddenly enervated her. She lurched to her feet, hands out in a protective gesture, terrified out of her wits but trying desperately to stall, to wait for Angel to come in here and save her.
Because that’s what he did. Saved people. Like her.
Please God, thought Cordelia wildly, let him save me.
The candles were lit on the kitchen table. Old candles. Beeswax, like they had always had before. And the linens. Where the hell was the smell of lavender in the linens coming from? Dru had had lavender sachets in all the sheets, in all the fine linen sheets that had been soft as silk against their white, white skin. His skin. And Dru’s. And Angelus’. All together in the one bed with the candlelight.
And oh, the blood.
There was the blood, scent of life in the incongruous mug by the microwave. Before it had been right from their throats, and their wrists and their thighs. Sometimes from a crystal goblet, when they were playing. But the smell, that was the same. Then it had been the blood of virgins and urchins. Now it was the blood of animals. Yet it was still the same powerful scent. And Christ how the memories came washing over him.
He never even saw Angel, standing at the door to his bedroom, the sheets he’d just replaced lying crisp on the huge bed behind him. And Angel never said a word as he watched his Childe; he saw Spike’s hand reach out to the flame, fingers slowly passing over the heat of it. Old habits die hard, and Angel suppressed a grin that took him by surprise. He was startled to hear the voice that came as silently as a whisper.
“Do you do this often, or only when I’m in town?” Spike never turned, he kept his fingers hovering over the flame and his back to Angel. His eyes were wide open and staring at nothing. This wasn’t how he’d thought things would go. It was as far from what he’d tried to plan out as it could have gotten.
Angel shrugged his shoulders the slightest bit, as though realizing the gesture was unseen but unable to stop himself anyway. He cleared his throat, looked away from the straight backed blonde who was waiting for a reply, glanced back up again. Still no answer presented itself. He was embarrassed at being caught indulging in his memories, at seeking comfort from an era that should have been one he tried to forget forever. But he’d been thrown so far off track by the actress who’d managed to bring the beast to bear not so very long ago and by the consequences that the unleashing of his demon had wrought, that all he wanted around him was the things he found familiar. Warm. Comfortable despite the acts that had accompanied the scents all those years and years ago. The light and the smell of the waxy candles, even the smoke they gave off, presented images of being sure of himself, being content, being where he belonged in the universe. The smell of the linens, Dru’s smell then and always, was a vice for which he would have gladly gone to Hell again before allowing anyone to uncover. Too late for that little secret now.
“Not often, no,” Angel finally offered, aware of the inanity of the statement. Aware of the way everything looked, especially to this visitor before him, who had finally turned and given Angel his gaze. Spike’s eyes were bright, and full of…something Angel hadn’t seen there in ages.
“So, here we are.” Spike leaned back against the table, casual manner belying the tremors running through his body. “Sire,” he added with a smirk.
Angel quirked an eyebrow at him. “Sire? There’s a word I haven’t heard from your lips willingly in…well, in forever.” He crossed his arms and waited. It was not a comfortable silence. Indeed, the air seemed to be gathering sparks, while they waited with the scent of their history heavy around them.
Angel broke the waiting game. “OK, Spike. What brings you here to LA? Some kind of death wish, maybe you need me to kick your ass around again for old times’ sake? Whatever it is, get to it. I don’t have the time -“
A bark of laughter from Spike interrupted him. “Don’t have the bleeding time? Well if you don’t have time, then what exactly is it you do have? All you’ve got is time. Eternity, remember? It’s in the handbook.” Shaking his head, Spike patted down his coat pockets looking for his smokes. It covered the movements of his hands, which weren’t quite steady at the moment, and broke the tension for them just a little. He finally located them and shook one out of the pack. Glancing up at Angel, he lit it and drew in a huge amount of smoke before grinning. The smoke wafted eerily from between his lips.
Quiet again.
“OK, fine.” Spike slammed the lighter he’d been holding down on the table behind him and heard it skitter across the surface. “I’m here to see you. Maybe it’s going to earn me an ass kicking. What the hell. Why not? All I know is that I can’t stay around the bloody Sunnydale Rescue Squad another fucking minute and live with that…look in their eyes every time they see me. They think I’m useless. Impotent is the word they like to use most often.” He stood from his reclining position and walked over to Angel, closer than either was exactly comfortable with, but still.
“So you came here to me expecting something better?” Angel asked him quietly. His eyes were dark, so dark that they looked to be no color at all, just blackness peering into Spike’s own blue depths.
“With you, it’s different. With you, it’s… something else.” Dropping his eyes, Spike felt himself quivering. Where the fuck had this all come from? This wasn’t supposed to be about…well, it wasn’t supposed to be about this. And he did not have these feelings for Angel, not now. Not after all that he’d been through. Not after Dru. Not after everything in the last hundred years. Not at all. So why was he shaking? And where were these words coming from?
Angel had gone stock still. Maybe it was the ambiance of the apartment, one he himself had set up. Indulgences were never good. Maybe it was the things that woman had said to him, teasing him with offers of the end of his loneliness. Companionship. Acceptance. A loosening of the ever-present bonds that held him into the shape he was wearing day to day, night after night. Maybe it was the look in his childe’s eyes, one that he was quite sure that the childe himself was unaware of. He’d never been good at controlling or masking his feelings, not this one. The blood bond between them was screaming as it always did, wide awake at the proximity they shared. Angel felt like he was standing on the edge of something huge, and it was glittering at him so seductively that he couldn’t turn away. Not yet. Just a little more, he told himself.
Then the blonde vampire was a step closer. The smell of him was in Angel’s nostrils, mixed in with the other scents of the night, and he couldn’t help but close his eyes for a moment to savor it: smoke and wax, blood and lavender. And Will.
He wasn’t even surprised to feel the cool lips on his own, and he didn’t open his eyes, or pull away.