A/N: This fic exists because of Seven Seasons, and my wonderful beta, Megan/Peta's constant appeal to my long ignored desire to write a Season 2 story.
Not to be outdone, though, I would be lost without my other indispensable betas, Mari, Teri, and Kimmie. Thank you ladies so, so much!
It should be noted that Darla is alive (so to speak) and well in this timeline. Pretend that Angel just whacked her over the head in Season 1.
This story is dedicated to Megan/Peta. Her enthusiasm (and constant good-spirited nagging for new chapters) has been my driving force.
Lastly, thanks to Mandi for the gorgeous banner and icons.
Author: Holly (holly.hangingavarice@gmail.com)
Rating: NC-17 (for language, violence, and sexual situation)
Timeline: Season Two (Post Passion, although in a verse where Darla did not die in Season One’s Angel)
Summary: A brokenhearted vampire discovers that the truly important things in life often come from surprising places, and even more surprising people. Suddenly, Spike finds himself in a crisis of faith—the better angels of his conscience battling the restraint of his demon, all for the love of a girl he shouldn’t want. A girl he’s drawn to, even beyond his own reckoning.
Distribution: Mandi, Yani, Luba, and the ladies at B/S Diaries...it’s all yours. Everyone else, just drop me a line. You can have it as long as I know where it’s going.
Disclaimer: The characters herein are the property of Joss Whedon and Mutant enemy. They are being used for entertainment purposes out of love and admiration, and not for the sake of profit. No copyright infringement is intended.
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Part I
The fact that he’d known she’d been playing him for a fool the entire time didn’t make the proof smart any less. He supposed it was no small thing to her—after all, all she had to do was smile and coo and murmur that she was his princess, and he’d melt in her hand. He was terribly predictable like that. A toy she enjoyed manipulating. After all, time had proven that there was little he wouldn’t do for her, and little else she couldn’t persuade him into.
Her illness hadn’t changed anything. Despite his outrage at the mob and the hell he’d brought down on their houses, a small, treacherous part of him had rejoiced. The Judas Iscariot to his own redemption; he simply couldn’t help himself. Perhaps with her illness, she’d change. Perhaps with her illness, she’d be more the woman that he’d needed her to be since the beginning. She’d see how much he did for her. How much he sacrificed. How much he gave her without asking for anything in return.
Perhaps he’d been able to fool himself for a while—not anymore. Not even when she batted her eyes at him and cooed about what a success the ritual had been. The second she was well, she and her bloody grandmum had gotten to scheming over his wanker of a grandsire, and various ways to get him defanged.
Their reunion with Darla had been one of the worst things to happen to Spike in the past thirty years. The bint had ditched them nearly a century prior after it was bloody obvious that Angelus wasn’t coming back. That the soul she so scorned was anchored, and he was now what she loathed beyond loathing.
A human. A human trapped in a vamp’s body. Not that Angel had made too much of a name for himself. Saving puppies, occasionally feeding off crime victims that were going to kick it anyway, and most recently, taking to gutters and exterminating New York’s rat population. Or so it was rumored. The Scourge of Europe reduced to a common pest control. Only not now. Now he was at the bloody Slayer’s beck and call. He was the goody-good guy. Bloody hell, the guy should don blue tights and a cape for all the fun he’d ruined since they barreled into town.
Darla had filled them in on everything that had happened since Angel and Buffy became the talk-about-town. Then she and Dru had become best buds, the past of hurt and hatred evidently lost on his sire, and forgotten by the blonde bombshell who, once upon a time, had suggested staking the loony vampire when she was particularly bored. They were thick as thieves with one common goal: kill the Slayer, torture Angel for leaving the fold, then dust the problematic wanker and have that be the end of that. Not necessarily in that order, even. Killing the Slayer had taken a backseat to making the honorary patriarch of the family pay for his numerous sins.
Now even their plans for making Angel pay had been placed on hold. All because Dru had been struck with one of her infamous visions.
Angel’s soul evidently had a clause. A clause they had yet to uncover, but it had given the Aurelius ladies hope that their man could come back to them. That they could find a mystic with enough power to tear the sodding thing from the wanker’s chest.
And now that Dru was fully healed, there was little stopping them. Neither she nor Darla had any use for Spike anymore. Not since he’d nearly allowed the Slayer to kill his great-grandsire during Dru’s ritual by nearly getting them all flattened under a huge organ. So he was in the doghouse, and the girls were planning Angelus’s welcome home party.
He had no doubt that they could get it accomplished. Dru’s visions weren’t monumental without cause—he couldn’t think of a single premonition that had failed to come true. If the stars were predicting Angelus’s return, then he’d be wise to trust them.
There simply wouldn’t be anything left for him when the grand wanker was back. Nothing left at all. The Slayer remained untouchable, and even with Angelus on the team, Spike had his doubts about getting under her sweet-smelling skin. He knew that grandmum and Dru were counting on her emotional collapse with the loss of her honey; he didn’t think it would be that easy. Oh no. Buffy Summers was one irritating chit who had moon eyes for the wrong bloke, but that didn’t make her any worse at what she did.
She was the best slayer he’d ever seen, and Angelus, while an asset when it came to muscle, had very little to do with the girl’s integrity.
He had the feeling that if she lost the boyfriend to the dark side, it would wound her but ultimately do no more than strengthen her resolve. It’d piss her off something mighty; of that, he was certain. And something told him that the attitude they’d glimpsed at through kicks and punches would explode in a fit of rage the likes of which none of them had ever seen before.
A pissed off slayer was nothing to toy with. He knew that much from experience.
The girls, though, didn’t care much. They just wanted their man back. Their burly hunka forehead with his diabolical plans of world domination, or better yet, world annihilation. Angelus and his stupid delusions of grandeur. There would be no end to his strutting. No end to his appetite or his ego.
He’d also be mightily brassed, Spike wagered, at having spent the past century encased in some righteous pansy’s bleeding soul. Of course, there’d be big talk followed by a load of shadow-work as he taunted the Slayer with the same mind games that had driven Drusilla insane, and eventually he’d get around to the ‘killing her’ part of the plan. In the meantime, to satisfy his demonhood, he’d assert himself as the dominant male in the Order by fucking Darla blind, then fucking Dru blind, then fucking them together. He’d put on a show with enough decadence to shame Caligula, and he’d smile at Spike’s dismay.
But he couldn’t protest Angelus’s return. No. That’d be worse than a priest suggesting Christ might not have died a virgin. Angelus was the deity around here. The girls were his bishops, his legacy written in blood, and the endnote of his tale vaguely promising his eventual return.
Sodding. Wanker.
Spike couldn’t complain, though. Couldn’t complain.
He was, after all, the youngest member of the Order.
He couldn’t complain if Daddy was coming home.
*~*~*
Truth, at times, was easy to overlook in the face of its overwhelming simplicity.
Seemed that summoning a warlock was a fruitless activity. All it took to get the ugly beast out in the open was a young girl’s cherry.
And Angelus, being the superb wanker he was, couldn’t help but brag about every single second of his tryst with the unfortunate Slayer. He laughed and jested, recited the girl’s words of love and affection, commented roughly on how inadequate she was, and even staged a reenactment with the all too willing Darla. Had Spike not loathed the girl, he might have been moved to something resembling pity.
But, times being what they were...
There was nothing left to him beyond the simple abhorring of everything Angelus did and said. Every superior glance he cast his way, every smirk, every taunt, every everything that was played out if only to demonstrate how blasted superior he was. How Drusilla only whimpered for him when he was inside her. How she begged him for fangs and laughed as she bounced on his cock, delighted to have her Daddy back. Delighted to have a saving grace from the boring old curmudgeon she’d been saddled with for the past century. Once upon a time, Spike had respected Angelus; his days as a young vampire were filled with nothing but pure idolatry for his grandsire. Even after he established his ground with Drusilla, even after Angelus threw his misplaced love in his face by fucking the daylights out of her, if only to establish his territory, Spike’s favor for the old man hadn’t vanished. No, the eighteen years prior to that wonderful gypsy curse had been occupied by bending over backwards whenever it was demanded of him. He turned the other cheek, agreed wholly with the git’s judgment—passed, of course, that one wretched incident curbing his name-change from William to Spike. The prat had never forgotten that; never forgotten the audacity a young fledgling had in questioning the discernment of his elders.
A hundred years without him, and there was no room left for reverence. He couldn’t even sum up a smile for the irrefutable fact that four against one were better odds. Angelus’s boasting aside, Spike’s earlier assessment of the Slayer’s mental state, while perhaps altered by the events surrounding the change, remained overall unmoved. The girl had stones where no slayer before her had even tried.
In the years since the curse, Spike had tasted the lives of two slayers. He’d bathed in blood, showered Dru with gifts, tried to emulate the Big Bad that she so desperately wanted him to be. He’d offered her his heart on more than one occasion and attempted to claim her twice, only to be rejected for her devotion to Angelus. The legend that wasn’t so legendry anymore, and would never be hers even if he was. Angelus, for all his boasting, belonged solely to Darla. He’d fuck whomever he liked, of course, but his loyalty remained with his sire. He simply couldn’t get enough of her. Something about the old bat had him tamed, as far as he’d allow it.
Dru wasn’t bothered by the competition. She actually enjoyed it. She liked being the one who sucked Daddy’s dick while he indulged in grandmum’s pussy. She liked the comfortable relationship she shared with Angelus, sans affection, more than she ever had appreciated the gifts that Spike showered upon her. The love he proclaimed for her; the wealth of things he was willing to do to prove it.
A hundred years of knowing that, and Spike hated Angelus.
Now the bastard was back, and it was the girl’s fault. That rotten slayer and her inability to keep her mitts to herself. To resist Angel’s so-called dark temptation and save her virginity for someone worthy of the prize.
Not that Spike cared much for the Slayer’s pussy, but anyone was more worthy than the self-proclaimed head of the Aurelius clan.
Anyone in the whole bloody world.
He wished so bloody badly that Darla would get it through her thick skull that Angelus was a talking head whose ego rivaled hers, but in his case, he had no reason to assume leadership in their particular Order. It was simply for his sire’s needless infatuation with him that he got to be so fucking self-important. That he got to play the part of the enormous sod he was.
Spike absolutely abhorred this feeling. This sensation of uselessness. Dru wouldn’t let him touch her. She’d gotten what she wanted from him, after all. She was healthy as an undead horse, and he was reminded of her good fortune every day with the orgasmic screams that rang through the factory as she and her sire fucked each other senseless.
It would only be a little while, he told himself. Only a little while. Once Angelus felt like himself again and had thoroughly eradicated the past sexless century. Eventually, he’d get back filling in his self-righteous shoes, and wanting the Slayer’s head on a pike for having drenched his body in all that love that he found so disgusting.
Spike forced himself to think it was okay. Forced himself to remember that once Daddy was done with her, Dru would be all his.
Forced himself to understand that this was simply the way things were. He had no right to object.
He had no right at all.
*~*~*
Spike kicked at a charred plank of wood, glancing upward as his family surveyed the damage.
There was simply no way to ignore the tangible distance between them. Angelus, Darla, and Dru on one side of the burnt factory, and he on the other.
“What a waste,” his grandsire grumbled, kicking at the debris.
Spike huffed and looked away, his jaw ticking. Yeah. Bloody waste. Stupid ignorant sod. There were certain areas that the younger vampire knew his elder owned genuine bragging rights, but none of them landed near the feet of slayers, unless he wanted word to spread that the girl’s cherry had been popped by his soulful self. That, Spike figured, was something the bloke would keep under wraps. After all, he couldn’t say he’d taken little Buff by force. No, it had been purely consensual. And knowing what a spineless git Angelus’s less interesting half was,soulful and loving as he attempted to hold off tears.
Bleeding tragic, that was. Vampires tripping over themselves for the want of slayers.
“She ruined my tea-party, Daddy,” Dru moaned, placing a dramatic hand against her chest. “The bread spoils. No one will sit down for cake.”
“I gotta tell you, Angelus,” Darla said appraisingly, her brows perking. “When you pick ‘em, you pick ‘em.”
Spike smirked but said nothing.
Granted, in this gang, moving a hair never went without scrutiny.
“Something funny, boy?” his grandsire demanded.
“You, but there’s nothin’ new there, yeh?” He chuckled outright and shook his head, ignoring the malice that flashed across Angelus’s face. “What? I bleedin’ told you You don’ play soddin’ mind games with slayers. I don’ give a fuck how well you think you know this one. She’s a voracious spitfire, an’ you’ve been outta commission for too long. Have bloody forgotten how’ta play the game.”
“Somehow, I don’t think mocking your elders is in your best interest.”
His hands flew up. “You asked, mate.”
“You know, William, at times your arrogance knows no bounds.”
His eyes bulged. “My arrogance? My bloody arrogance? Right. You’re one talk, yeh? You snap the neck of her teacher, play a joke on the watcher, an’ think the girl’s gonna take this all with a smile an’ a nod? Or did you actually believe this would break her?” He shook his head. “But I see your point. After all, you have bedded the girl. That’s all you need to go on, right? Doesn’ matter that you haven’ been watchin’ her for months, learnin’ her tactical moves, learnin’ how she digests pain...memorizin’ her every bloody feature. As long as you know how her quim tastes, you have all you need to tear her apart.”
“And yet, despite your—and I say this loosely—accomplishments, you haven’t killed her. I hardly think utter failure makes you deserving of bragging rights.”
“Like it does you, then? I told you this would happen. You punch the girl, an’ she punches back. An’ you din’t kill her last night. She came in, a bloody emotional wreck, an’ you couldn’t handle it.” A taut smirk spread across Spike’s lips. “What’s wrong, Peaches? Have you gone soft?”
“You’re taunting me?” Angelus’s brows perked. “You’re taunting me?”
“Shhh. He’s very cross with you,” Dru whispered into Miss Edith’s hair, swaying slightly with the doll clutched close to her chest. “My Spike speaks out of turn. There will be no cake for naughty boys.”
“Imagine my surprise, luv,” he replied snidely, his eyes never leaving his grandsire’s face. “Jus’ sayin’, we’re homeless because your Daddy got a li’l over ambitious, an’ the girl rightfully pounded his sorry arse into the ground, then set our place on fire.” His eyes flickered to Darla, who was glaring at him with contempt, though for the first time since he beat his way through his coffin, there was a flicker of admiration buried deep beneath the surface. Surprising, but he wouldn’t question it. There wasn’t much to say in rebuttal of a convincing argument, especially when it was drenched in truth.
“It’s nice to see you gaining this sense of confidence,” Angelus said lowly, taking a step forward. “Really, good for you. And I like the way you overlook the fact that killing two slayers hasn’t made you any more of a vampire than you were before. Always trying to fit into the big kid’s shoes. Never really works out for you, does it?”
“An’ yet, here we are. You’re the one that bollixed this one over. You’re the one that got us thrown out on the street.” Spike released a long, mocking chuckle. “You once got on my case for likin’ the attention. Well, well, look at us now. Think there’s a difference between angry mobs an’ a pissed off slayer? What is it, Angelus? This one different ‘cause you’ve bedded the poor girl? You gonna make a bloody exception to your own rules for...what? Make her pay for bein’ dumb enough to fall for your ugly arse in the firs’ place?”
“He’s right,” Darla spat before Angelus could pounce, and Spike would’ve done anything for a camera at that moment; the look on the bastard’s face was beyond priceless. His precious blonde goddess had turned against him. “She came here looking to die for that sorry excuse of a watcher of hers, and you let her get away.”
Angelus’s eyes flashed dangerously. “Maybe you didn’t notice the big flames.”
“I noticed them, right before the Watcher beat the hell out of you.”
“Yeah, and where were you on that? Hmmm?”
“He’s human, Angelus, or don’t you remember? I was under the impression you could handle a middle-aged human who lacked not only super strength, but a history of actively pursuing demons.”
“You’re actually taking his side in this? This is really what’s happening now?”
Darla snickered. “You know I hate it as much as the next person. Spike might be a joke of our kind, but that doesn’t make his rare and wondrous point any less valid. The Slayer was right here and you fumbled it. What the hell is the matter with you?”
“Rules change when circumstances change. Buffy isn’t just any slayer.”
“Yeh. She’s the one you’ve shagged. Oh wait.” He tossed his elder a nasty smirk. “I think I jus’ figured out why li’l Buff isn’t jus’ any slayer.”
“Big talk for someone I could dust whenever I feel like it.”
“Yeh? What’s stoppin’ you?” Spike spread his arms, and for a moment—a flicker of time outside himself—he thought he’d arrived at the definitive answer to the longstanding question: how many licks could the wanker’s ego take before he completely imploded. Goading Angelus, while funny, was the surest way to find one’s heard torn off. Bollocks to the rest, the elder’s sense of self-importance had never been able to stand any such challenge. “‘m right here, mate, an’ it’s not like you need a bloody reason, right?” You’ve jus’ been waitin’ for it.”
A long whimper tore through Drusilla. She began scratching at her skin with her long, manicured nails, and pulling at her hair, her eyes wide and troubled. “Nuuuuhh. My Spike. So lost. Wandering through the dark. No one there. No one. All alone in the cold. Wants his sunshine, he does. Seeking the light.”
“Well,” Angelus drawled spitefully. “Isn’t that sweet?”
Spike, for his part, was thoroughly perplexed. “What the bugger are you yammerin’ about, Dru?”
“It itches.” She scratched at her arms with no satisfaction. “The light. So bright. It eats you up inside. My Spike yearns for the sun.”
“So let him have it,” Darla sneered, waving at him dismissively. He wasn’t surprised. Her short-lived support had accomplished exactly what she’d aimed at: the great wanker was guessing. Wondering. She’d planted a seed of doubt, and what’s more, she had questioned her boy’s abilities to live up to his promise. To kill the girl and have it over with. “The fight isn’t here. That Slayer is rewriting history as we speak. Much longer, and even Angelus’s reputation will be beyond salvage. Angel did enough harm. Now the demon himself, soul-free as can be, can’t lay a finger on a little girl?”
“I’d think you’d appreciate the art of the hunt,” Angelus retorted dryly. “Even now.”
“I appreciate dead slayers.”
“Don’ we all,” Spike muttered, plucking a cigarette between his lips.
“And nothing will be accomplished by nagging each other,” Darla spat, sending him a particularly nasty glare. “You made good points, William, but please, you need to learn how to respect your elders.”
Ah, here it came. One of his favorite lectures.
“Should’ve guessed any support of yours would have the life span of a fruitfly.”
“Yes,” Darla agreed with a nod. “You should have. The thing is, despite how miserably we fumbled last night, we do have a frazzled slayer on our hands. She is emotionally unstable. Her Watcher attempted what would have ultimately been a suicide mission. I say we continue on him. Badgering him until he cracks, and we, consequentially, crack him.”
“An’ you’re no longer bothered that the very same Watcher was here las’ night an’ beat the hell outta Angelus, who din’t even blemish his old-man skin?”
“No,” the blonde retorted sharply. “I’ve moved on. You should, too.”
Typical. Fucking typical.
The gorge between them remained. The invisible line. No matter what he did, no matter how much bloody sense he made, it would always be like this. Three against one. He was there to keep Dru satisfied, but only just. He wasn’t allowed anything else.
He never would be allowed anything else. After all, it had been like this for over a century. Even while Darla was off with the Master and Angelus was stuffed up the arse with soul, Drusilla took too much pleasure in reminding him that she was only his on loan.
Always like this. Always.
Only now it was worse. Now even the facade of authority had been ripped away from him.
Only now he had to face the world a little deader than he’d been before.
All because of her. The fucking Slayer.
*~*~*
“Fucking Slayer!”
Spike watched with only minimal satisfaction as the headstone cracked and smashed in chunks on the ground. James Lee Harvey. Bloody unfortunate name to begin with. No one would miss that one. Not that the cemeteries were frequented with folks chatting up their dead relatives, or doing much else but burying the dead or killing vamps and other oogly-booglies. People died and were forgotten with relative ease. No thoughts for the deceased were to cross the boundaries of hallowed ground. Not in this bloody town.
Even the oblivious citizenry knew Sunnydale was a bit off. No one cared much for midnight strolls through local graveyards. No one who cared to live, anyway.
It would end tonight, he told himself. The next time he saw the Slayer, he’d up her move to one of these lonely plots. He’d see her neck snapped, her blood drained, and her body spat upon. He’d rip her limb from bloody limb, then come back after the mourners were gone and dance naked on her grave.
Her fault. Her fuckin’ fault. The lot of it is.
There was simply no denying it. She was the reason Angelus was back. She was the reason Dru wouldn’t let him come near her. She was the reason his life was buggered, and he wasn’t going to bloody well take it anymore. Bleeding chit couldn’t keep her knickers up and now the sod was on an ego-trip to end all ego-trips.
This wasn’t about bagging his third slayer. Not anymore. This was about justice—reclaiming what was his through any means available to him. Dru and her sodding sunlight. Bouncing merrily away on Angelus’s cock, her body marred with gashes and claw marks. But the kicker, the real kicker, was the branded A on her pussy.
“See, my sweet?” she’d giggled, cupping herself as her hips swayed to music only she could hear. “This belongs to Daddy.”
Good. He didn’t want her tainted pussy, anyway. She stunk of Angelus.
He was through being the family’s bitch. It was over. It all ended tonight.
He’d kill the Slayer. Bathe in her rich blood, and ditch town. He’d do what Angelus never could. Not without demons hoisting him on their shoulders. Not without his women draped under each arm. Not without the legions of adoring fans that jumped at the chance to walk in his shadow.
Yeah, he’d do what Angelus never could.
He’d survive.
Alone.
TBC |
