Warning- angst abounds
Description: Spike goes to the only person he can when he's lost.
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"Angel Investigations, we help the hopeless. This is Cordelia Chase, how can I help you?" Rattled off Cordy into the receiver of her cell phone.
"Cor, it's me." I said as I walked down the stairs.
"And you made me go through that whole speech? I hate you sometimes."
"You're gonna love me in a minute." I said walking into the kitchen. "Where are you?" I asked but then saw her leaning into the refrigerator. "You're here early." I said hanging up.
"I was hungry and had no money." She said as she pealed a banana. I smiled and reached past her into the fridge pulling out eight bags of blood and the box of eggs. "So why am I gonna love you? And why are you eating? You never eat food."
"Take the day off." I said pouring the blood into a pot and setting it to boil. "The food is for Spike, he's home."
Cordelia opened and shut her mouth a few times. Sitting down at the counter's stool she said. "Angel, Spike's dead and it's time you came to grips with it."
"How did you know? I didn't find out until yesterday when HE told me himself. Why didn't you tell me?"
"Willow told me. I thought you knew. I thought we were playing the, "let's not discuss the real issue," game. Ya know the one we play all the time."
"Did you know about the soul? That he fought with Buffy for years?" she nodded twice. "Am I the only one out of the loop- don't you dare nod. He shanshued, Cordy, he's back. They brought him back as a human." She looked totally stunned. The blood started to boil and I made a move to put the eggs in.
"A rule of physics says that you have to put the eggs in when the blood's cool and then bring it to the boil." She absentmindedly. "Those eggs are going to crack. It's the rule of heat expansion. I know that and I failed physics."
"But the egg would then be wholly sealed. The only thing that can get through the shell is oxygen. To get blood into the egg I need to get them cracked."
"You're making this for Spike?" I nodded. "Who's human?" she asked incredulously.
"I never said that. I simply said that he was brought back as a human."
"Angel, I can't believe you would be so self-"
"Self motivated, selfish, Yes I was. In forty years time when your youngest comes crying to you, and you haven't seen him cry since he was seven, and he begs for your help. You see if you don't do the most selfish thing in the world. You see if you're not willing to do ANYTHING to not see your baby cry. Then you can judge me." I was shaking with the force of my convictions.
"He asked you to turn him?" she asked bewildered that anyone would throw humanity away.
"No, he asked me to kill him." I looked up at Cordy and I knew I was crying. "He said he understood that I couldn't turn him but could I please kill him?"
"Oh God. Angel, I'm sorry." She said getting up to give me a hug. "Sometimes I forget he's your son and not just William the Bloody." She apologized as I cried into her shoulder. At some point Cordelia had stopped being Queen C. Somewhere down the line she had become a human being. A real live girl. Maybe it was that she helped people daily, maybe it was the visions, maybe it was growing up. As I started to calm down she said softly. "So why eggs?"
"He was a weird fledge. He hated blood and wouldn't feed. I weaned him on to blood with marmite soldiers and bloody eggs." I said as I disentangled myself from her, now in control of my emotions, and put the bread in the toaster. I searched the cupboards of the industrial kitchen for my egg cups.
"Look, I'll call the others and we'll all get lost. Have fun. But not too much fun. Ok? Ya know? I don't want to come in to work tomorrow and find out I'm working for. . . not you?" Smart girl.
"Subtle, Cord, I will not have a moment of perfect happiness."
"The others?"
"Yes?"
"What do I tell them?"
"The truth. He's gonna be here for a while."
"Weeks, months? What are we talking about?"
~~~*~~~
"Forever."- he said it. Not me. He wanted me home forever. He didn't know I was earwiging, it wasn't a ploy to bolster my self-esteem.
"Angel," said Cordelia. "I hate to be totally tactless. . . well no I rather enjoy it sometimes. . . but-"
"He has neither a soul nor a chip, but he won't hurt you."
"Why are you so sure?" she asked with a shaky voice.
"Because he was never evil." Well that's mean, mate, I'm the big bad maybe not Angelus but still. "He was just proving himself to and acting out against his father. It was never his nature."
I decided now would be a good time to make an entrance. "Morn- Cordelia!" I said as though shocked to find her there. "I love the blonde hairdo!" Expecting he to leave quickly she instead smiled and gave me a hug. I guess she took Angel's words to heart.
"It's nice to see you again, Spike. I was strangely saddened when Willow told me you died. And I don't know why as all we ever did was try to kill each other."
"If I had been gunning for you, Cordelia, you'd be dead." I said honestly. The statement was met with a beaming grin.
"Thanks. Ok, well I'm gonna go." She said picking up her purse and leaving.
I suddenly felt guilty for always making fun of Angel's "pet humans" as I called them. Something in her flustered enthusiasm reminded me of Lil' Bit. Smirking as I rounded on Angel I said sullenly, "I didn't like waking alone."
"You knew you would."
"Doesn't mean I enjoyed the experience."
"I'm sorry, baby." It wasn't exactly a term of endearment. It was a label like sire and childe. But I still smiled as I sat on the lone stool at the lone island. I watched him as he pealed soft boiled eggs with a knife. It was a skill that had taken him years to master.
He had only tried as I was incapable with my fledgling coordination to eat a soft boiled egg without ingesting quite an amount of shell. For some reason the fact that he had learned the knack for me, and that he was still capable of doing it years later, touched me. I watching him silently as he buttered the toast, smeared it in marmite, and cut it into thin strips. And slowly it dawned on me.
"You're weaning me?" I asked the shock apparent in my voice.
I could see that he was uncomfortable with the sentimentality of the gesture as he shrugged and said. "Well you are my fledgling."
"But that's the weird thing," I said, "I don't feel like a fledge. I'm too hungry, I'm too strong. Your stupid room is on the forth floor and the elevator made me claustrophobic so I got out at the third and I jumped off the balcony and I landed down here just fine. I wasn't hurt. That's not normal for a fledge, my bones shouldn't be that strong. And I'm so hungry and it's not "the thirst" of being turned. Plus I'm not tired, I am but it's not the mad lethargy of a fledge. So what is it? I'm kinda scared, Sire."
His voice was soft as though the realization had just occurred to him or suddenly been proved. "They didn't bring you back as William."
"Tell that to my pulse."
"They brought you back as you with a pulse. When I turned you your blood tasted of Dru, and power, and me. So your demon's been there the whole time but it hasn't fed since you died." He said pouring me a glass of blood which I gulped down and he quickly refilled.
"Do you think. . . " I started the question but couldn't bring myself to finish.
"That you would have come back to me? Yes, you want family and comfort no matter what. Would you have wanted to be turned? I have no idea. But as it stands- do you care?"
"Not as long as you're with me." I said honestly. "But then I never cared about anything if you were with me."
He placed three egg cups in front of me and topped up my glass. And slowly he leaned over the island to kiss my fore head, "I'll never not be with you again. Don't worry. Ok?" I nodded and ate a soldier dipped in blood red egg yoke.
The egg cups were over a hundred years old. Angel was eating one egg in a cup that read: S is for Sire. The three in front of me read: C is for Childe, L is for Liam, and W is for William. They were pastel colours: two blue two green. There had once been seven. But I had smashed Penn's out of spite. Darla's had shattered when she threw it at me and I ducked, it broke on contact with the wall. She beat me for that. And Drusilla's had gotten broken, I had tried to fix it but got disheartened and broke it further.
"What do you think they're all doing?" I asked as I examined one of the egg cups.
"I killed Darla, and I was present at Penn's death. I felt Dru pass; it was fast and violent. She must have loved it."
I felt my mouth go completely dry. "I killed her."
"What?" asked Angel slow and cold like while pulling away from me.
I felt my nose start to run with unshed tears. "I chained them both up and told Buffy 'love me or Dru eats you,' she said I only had a chance with her when she was unconscious. I clearly wasn't going to let Drusilla eat Buffy, so I staked her." By now I was sobbing, I'm such a girly poof. "I thought Buffy would run to you. That you would drag me here, beat the shit out of me, pity me, and then love me." I looked up at him, he was totally appalled. "I never claimed to be a good man, Sire. I just claimed to be motivated by one."
I started to pull away: make a quick retreat before he killed me. But Angel was faster and yet again grabbed my wrist while I would have fled. "I guess it's just you and me then. Well us and Zinnia." He said softly like I hadn't just put a metaphorical skate through his heart.
We rarely mentioned Penn's wayward childe. To say she was the black sheep was like saying that WWII was a slight scuffle. She had no respect for the old ways, the vampiric lore. Never had she submitted to the fact that her elders were allowed, entitled, to rule her existence. Laughing at the lore she never obeyed or revered her sire. Though she paid dearly with beatings and humiliation she never resigned herself to her supposed fate, it never broke her. It was her own form of acting out, in life she'd been a suicidal, cutter whore. In death she was my goddess, Drusilla always hated her for it. I worshiped her much to the chagrin of Angelus, Darla, and Penn who in no way wanted her actions to be rewarded or revered. They liked the lores and traditions and rituals of course they did they were the ones how benefited. In the middle of the night she left us, scared and alone and finally breaking out of the violent system she loathed, the same one that I tried to prove to my sire that I could endure. The same one that deep down I still believed was right, was just. For what were we without our sires?
I had no idea what Angel thought of her all soulful and whatnot. "I wonder what she's doing." I said thinking aloud rather than speaking.
"She's living in a vampire commune in Seattle. They're all vegans, it's very cultyesque. They live off of synthesized blood supplements that have everything you need to live. She and her girlfriend Annie adopted a beautiful baby boy from China." He said pulling a picture of his wallet of the four of them together. "I check up on her. I liked to check up on all of you." His words caught in his throat. "Will, don't try to leave?" The "try" was what got me, if I had made to go would he stop me? "Past fouls don't matter. We've both fucked up so many times that let's stop trying to keep track. Please, Will, can we just be together? Let's just stop fighting over trivial things. I know we're good at petty grudges but can we just stop? You've fucked up, I've fucked up, and doubtless we both fuck up again."
"So can we just fuck instead?" I made the joke mirthlessly knowing damn well we couldn't.
He forged on as though he hadn't heard, "So can we just quit it- neither of us can win. Can we just be happy and love each other?"
I nodded slightly and the pressure on my wrist eased. "Liam, why does this all have to be so hard?" I was the only childe, vampire, being that could still use his name. I don't even think Buffy knew his real name. Anyone who used it was quickly told that it was no his name than Angelus was.
"I don't know, baby. I wish I could tell you that it would suddenly become easy, but after a hundred years you surely know that it would be a lie." He said as he rested his forehead against mine. The expression on his face was pained and tired. "Can you just kiss me now?"
"I can do that." I said pulling him close over the island.