Pairing: Spike/ Angel
Rating: PG-13 this chapter, up to NC-17 later
Summary: Angel gets some puzzling presents. Done both as a Christmas present for Ghostforge and as an answer to the Batpack Holiday Challenge 2004.
Spoilers: Vague for Ats Season 3, BtVS Season 4. Highly AU. Angel is Spike's Sire, Darla was never pregnant, Connor never existed, Spike disappeared sometime during Season 4 BtVS after A New Man.
Disclaimer: I don't own Spike, Angel, or anything else from ME. though I really wish I could.
Distribution: Various lists and Wierd Romance RP- BtVS/Ats RP http://groups.yahoo.com/group/WierdRomance and the website http://www.geocities.com/sireandchilde/home.html . Anyplace else is fine, just let us know where it is going.
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~Part: 1~
"Isn't it beautiful? Just like a fairyland." Fred looks wonderingly around at the lights and the decorations. "I'd forgotten how pretty Christmas decorations are."
"Yeah. Beautiful." Angel says, deadpan and near-expressionless.
"Ohhh, don't mind him. He's not much for holidays," Cordelia says. "Why don't you and I go shopping tomorrow?"
"Oooo, shopping!" Fred says, clapping her hands excitedly. "I never get to do the girly stuff all that much."
Cordelia nods. "It's a date then. Besides, *this* outfit is ruined. Need to get another one."
They are walking back to the hotel after a typical demon patrol. It's a little chilly, and the air is about as clear as it gets. Angel's brow furrows. "Hear that?"
"Hear *what*?" Cordelia says.
"Music. Sounds like a harp."
Cordelia shakes her head. "No, don't hear it. But then I'm not all with the super-senses."
Angel moves more rapidly, honing in on the sound. It's coming from the garden at the hotel. He recognizes the tune.a traditional Irish air. He reaches the garden and throws open the door just as the music stops. He runs out in time to see a fleeing robed figure, long blonde hair flowing in the moonlight. Sitting on the bench is a harp. Angel moves closer. It's exquisite.carved with Celtic knotwork, covered in gold leaf. There's a piece of parchment paper underneath it. Angel lifts the harp and grabs the piece of paper. It has been stamped with some sort of stencil. "The First Day of Christmas- for A."
Angel stops, and opens his senses, scenting the air. It's faint, so very very faint, but there. Family. He can't tell who, but it's family. He takes the harp and the paper inside, and up to his room. He sets the harp gently and reverently on a shelf, where he can see it when he lies down, and goes back downstairs.
"So you've got a secret Santa," Fred says, when Angel finishes telling them the story. "That's so neat!"
Cordelia shakes her head. "Creepy is what it is. I mean, family, long blonde hair.it can only be Darla, and that means trouble."
Angel sighs and shrugs. "I guess so. Just this whole present thing doesn't seem like her. She can't come in unless she's invited, anyway. So just be careful after dark."
There's a few more hours of wearying conversation and contingency plans, especially after Gunn and Wesley come back, and finally around dawn Angel goes upstairs to sleep. He looks at the harp as he slowly drifts off to sleep.
Sleep is fitful. His dreams are disjointed and disturbing, remembering so many things about his past.about Darla. He wakes up several times, twisted and sweating. Each time, he looks at the harp and can almost swear he hears the strings ringing. And somehow, that soothes him, and he lies back down again.
He wakes up the next night and comes downstairs. The gang are all sitting around looking at a leather case that is sitting on the counter.
Fred looks up. "Another present from your Secret Santa."
Wes nods. "We've all been checking it out as best we can without touching it. No spells on it, and no metal in it, so we're fairly confident that there is no bomb inside."
Angel nods, running a hand through his hair. "Ok. Everybody back off then, get in another room, let me open it and see."
There's a murmur of protest but Angel stares them down and everyone backs off. He opens the case and inside, set in velvet-lined recesses, are two exquisite etched-crystal glasses. He lifts them out, looking at the pattern. It's a stylized griffin, holding an 'A' in its claws. His tattoo. He looks at them, turning them in his hands, then sets them carefully back in the case.
"You can come out now," he says. They crowd back in and look at the glasses, briefly, before Angel closes the case and takes it back up to his room.
A typical night follows, patrols and dispatching various bad guys. Once or twice Angel thinks he sees the flash of long blonde hair in the distance, but he can't pin it down or find the scent he knows should be there. He comes back, exhausted and filthy, dragging himself upstairs to shower and pull on a pair of soft cotton pants and crawl into bed.
The dreams come to him that night. Memories more than dreams. Memories of how and why he got the tattoo. It was a romantic gesture, an indulgence for William. They were alone, the ladies having gone to visit the Master. William was very quietly bemoaning the fact that while he bore Angelus' mark, Angelus couldn't wear a mark for William. It was ridiculous, of course. Angelus couldn't mate with a mere fledge. Besides, Darla would have never given her leave. But one night, fueled by an excess of drink and hot blood, he sketched out a design from the Book of Kells and added an initial A, and they found a tattoo artist in the Oriental quarter of London. William watched the whole process with rapt fascination, and sealed it with his blood and saliva. After that, the merest touch of fingers on it sent thrills to his cock. The merest touch of William's fingers, that is, as he discovered when Darla came back and touched it. He told her he had it done as a tribute to the Aurelius line, and she bought it. Seemed very taken with it. But only William's fingers and lips and tongue could make it sing.
The next night he doesn't need to ask. The package is there and he just picks it up and takes it to his room. He's tired of hearing questions he can't or won't answer. He opens the crate and inside, packed in straw, are three dust-covered bottles of ancient Irish whiskey. He smiles as he recognizes the shape, and the painstakingly hand-lettered labels. He remembers when they got them. A trip through Ireland, all four of them. They had stopped, intending to devour a local village, and they went into the local pub to have a drink first. The owner of the pub turned out to be a powerful witch. She brought out an intoxicating, half-magical whiskey that kept them all at the table long enough for her to cast a spell to save the village from them. Angelus had been so impressed with her spirit, and with the excellent whiskey, that he had bought several cases. He had shipped them to some of his houses, and thought that the last of the whiskey was long ago gone. But here were three bottles. He sets them next to the glasses, wondering who will be coming to drink them with him, and when.
That night slips away like the night before. Angel is distant and pre-occupied on patrol, spending far too much time thinking about his presents and searching for a glimpse of blonde. He can hear the mutters of the others, wondering if he is lost again, like he was when Darla came back. And maybe they are right. His past is consuming him.
He sleeps, dreaming in formless snatches, remembering touches, kisses, soft murmured endearments. Try as he might, though, he cannot see who it is that is touching him, loving him.
He all but runs downstairs to find the next present. Like the night before, he takes it back to his room, out of sight of the others. There in a box are four perfect china dolls, exquisitely made and dressed. The four of them, his family, all dressed to go to the opera in 1886. He lifts them, scenting that faint smell of family on them. The elusiveness of the scent is driving him mad. He caresses his fingers over their features, and over the silk and velvet of their clothing. He clears off more space on his shelves, and sets them neatly together.
He doesn't go out that night. He sits in his room, watching the moon travel across the sky, watching what stars can be seen in the L.A. night sky. The past is crowding on him so close. All the things he's run from all this time are coming back to him. Things he pushed away to keep sane-family, pleasure, love, obsession.
His next day's sleep is fitful indeed. He stumbles downstairs, bleary-eyed, grabs the small box and a mug of blood and retreats back to his room, doing no more than grunting to the concerned inquiries of his friends. The small box holds five golden rings. He has to smile a little then. Twelve days of Christmas, of course. Well at least now he knew when this game would likely end. That is reassuring. He looks at the rings. Each one is embossed with the same design as his tattoo, and inscribed inside each one is a different name. Darla, Angelus, Penn, Drusilla, William. They are sized perfectly, each one slipping onto a different finger. He puts them on and leaves them on.
He manages to go back downstairs, putting on a façade of his normal self. He patrols, and puts off all inquiries about the golden rings on his fingers.
The next delivery is six goosedown pillows, with silk covers. Soft and heavenly. A luxury he had not allowed himself in quite some time. The next day he sends for silk sheets and a goosedown comforter to match. Might as well have them there for whoever showed up eventually, just in case.
His sleep is still filled with memories of his past, but he isn't fighting it now. He's surrendered. He's letting it come, letting whatever this is unfold as it may. And that surrender brings it's own odd brand of peace.
The next night's delivery is a box of seven CD's. All traditional Celtic music. He plays them, letting the sound soothe him to sleep. The dreams are softer now, sweeter. He can feel it so clearly, the touch of soft skin, the caress of full lips on him. The delicious feel of desire and release. Fingers curled tightly in hair, pulling, demanding. Soft skin, flesh and bone, beneath him.
He startles the others the next night when he takes them all to a restaurant, and orders and eats food himself. Letting himself feel the pleasure of indulgence. Desire. He has pushed it away for so long, thinking that if he could only kill desire he could somehow atone for the excesses it led him to. He remembers feasting in the old days. Especially with William, his little hedonistic darling. He remembers nights of feeding little tidbits and sweets to him, and eating them off his body. Licking honey and melted chocolate and all sorts of other treats from him. He couldn't get enough of him. He wanted to devour him, consume him in any way he could.
Those thoughts bring a stab of regret to him. Spike had disappeared almost two years ago. He had found out on one of his trips to Sunnydale. Buffy was not sure what had happened. He had been captured by some government project called the Initiative and implanted with a chip. She and the others had sort of helped him for a time, and then one night after helping Giles, with the promise of a fee for services, he had disappeared. The last they knew of him, he was leading the Initiative away from Giles. Buffy thinks maybe they caught him and decided to dust him rather than let him have the chance to escape again, helpless or not.
He orders a glass of whiskey and drinks it, silently, in honor of his sweet childe. When he lays down to sleep, he finds himself crying. Mourning. As he hasn't allowed himself to do, ever. Mourning for Spike, for Penn. His dead childer. He falls, finally, into a deep sleep. He wakes up, feeling lighter, and just slightly more alive than he has in a long while.
The next delivery arrives, as usual. Eight bottles of scented massage oil. Jasmine. The labels were fanciful countryside scenes. Some small herbal company. Angel puzzled over them til he saw that each label featured a beautiful country maid. Eight maids a milking, of course. He savors the scent and then closes the bottles, setting them aside. The night is a blur. Patrol, killing, moving through the city as he always does. But there is an almost-smile on his lips, and he fancies he can smell night-blooming flowers on the air. Jasmine. Like he had planted every place he ever had a house. Like was planted in the garden next to the hotel.
He sleeps that day, remembering Sunnydale. The next-to-last-time he had seen Spike. He was Angelus then, and near-crazed, but he can remember it. Remembers taunting Spike, taking Dru to spite him, and then coming to him afterwards. Taking him violently, without the least bit of tenderness. But after he had finished, and Spike lay bleeding and bruised, he had tended him. Licked his wounds closed, fed him blood, eased him to sleep. Then he had gone to the garden, gathering jasmine blossoms, and scattered them over Spike's skin. That soft skin, that always smelled faintly of jasmine. That boy was his obsession. Little wonder he had come and tortured Angel afterwards, though, after the way Angelus had treated him.
The next night, the present is a scene. A stage. On it nine ballerinas pirouette and move. It's 'Giselle', the same production he had seen in 1890. The one that made him cry. They had all been there that night. Sitting in box seats, ones Angelus had actually paid for. But only Spike had seen his tears. He said nothing, just reached up and brushed them away while the ladies weren't looking, and had licked them from his fingers.
He worries all this over in his mind the next night as they patrol. Why is Darla doing this, if it is her? Why all these reminders of Spike? Was it to spite him for not really loving her, for only really ever loving that wild boy? He's puzzled and subdued, pondering this.
He sleeps, roused by phantom touches. They are growing more and more real each night. They are crowding his mind, waking his heart. It hurts, after all this time trying to be dead, to have something stir him again towards life.
The next night's delivery catches him as soon as he opens the box, before he even focuses on what it is. The lovely smell of leather binding and creamy heavy paper and ink. Ten books of poetry, all his favorites, in beautiful editions. Works of art in and of themselves. He takes them out and caresses them, before opening them and reading at random a poem here or there. Then he picked up the last book. Blake. It opened to a page as if commanded to do so, and he looked on the poem there. It was from 'Songs of Experience', and he had read it to William one night early in their relationship, seducing him with his voice as he did so.
"I went to the Garden of Love, And saw what I never had seen: A Chapel was built in the midst, Where I used to play on the green.
And the gates of this Chapel were shut, And "Thou shalt not" writ over the door; So I turned to the Garden of Love, That so many sweet flowers bore;
And I saw it was filled with graves, And tombstones where flowers should be; And Priests in black gowns were walking their rounds, And binding with briers my joys and desires."
His fingers caress the page. Who could possibly know about this poem? A little flame of hope kindles in him. Who else but his boy? Maybe.but he grabs that flame and shields it. Not daring to let it flare, but not wanting to snuff it out either.
He has grown more pleasant in dealing with the others than they can remember. He smiles, from time to time, a little faint curling of his lips, but it's a far cry from his usual brooding somber self. That night the patrol is short. Apparently even the creatures of the night are taking the holidays off. They gather in the lobby, eating Chinese and telling war stories, talking until the wee hours of the morning before heading off to their respective rooms and places.
Angel dreams of William, of Spike. Of that sweet willful childe he had loved all those years ago. The phantom touches are there again, and they are his. He wonders, even as he lets them consume him, if perhaps Spike's ghost is visiting him. A little Christmas miracle, perhaps, or just a temptation leading him to Hell. But at the moment, he doesn't care which it is. He grabs onto that fragrant memory, that slender body beneath him, and savors it for all it is worth.
That night there is no package, and he can barely cover his disappointment. It's childish, he knows, but he's been expecting those packages. He patrols, back to brooding again, grumpy and ill-tempered, even as the others remind him it is Christmas Eve. After the patrol, they exchange Christmas gifts, and Angel tries to feign a better humor, until they leave.
He is getting ready to go to bed when he hears music. Sweet piping, coming from the garden. He throws on clothes and runs down the stairs, bursting out just in time to see a flash of long blonde hair as a robed figure disappears out of sight. He bursts onto the street, wanting to catch whoever it is, but there is no one he can see, and that elusive scent fades before he has traveled far. Defeated, he heads back to the garden. Sitting on the bench is a set of pan pipes. Eleven pipes, bundled together, and a note tied to them. He grabs the note, almost tearing it in his eagerness, and reads the flowing script.
It says, "Tomorrow night, at midnight. Come alone, and I will be here." No signature. He is trembling now, and scoops up the pipes and heads back to his bed. He can barely manage to sleep, tossing and turning, but when he does his boy is waiting for him again in his dreams.
The next night the others are not there. Christmas, and they have their own ways of spending it. Angel doesn't care. Indeed he would have had to find ways to get them to leave if they had been there. He prepares the room, making the bed with the silk sheets and down pillows and comforter. He sets the room with candles and jasmine blossoms and fine chocolates that Cordy had given him for whatever odd reason. He bathes and puts on dark pants and a shirt of red crushed velvet. He fusses over his appearance until he sees it is drawing close to midnight, and he walks down to the garden, stepping out into it, hardly daring to hope what he will find there.
There's a case of wine next to the bench, and a corkscrew and two glasses. He walks over, curious, and picks up a bottle of wine. He smiles as he sees the vintage as 1894. The year they encountered the Immortal in Italy. The only good thing to come out of that year was this really good wine and some fabulous sex. There is a note under one of the glasses.
"Pour us some wine. I'll be here soon." Angel curses himself for not watching the garden earlier, but he gets to work with the corkscrew and pours two glasses. As he pours the second glass, he can smell that scent, that elusive scent, and he feels two warm arms encircle him. Wait, warm arms? He almost spills the wine as he tries to turn to see who is there. He finds himself looking into blue eyes, eyes he thought long gone.
"Don't spill the wine, Angel. S'too good t'waste," Spike says, as he takes one glass from the very confused and shocked Angel, sipping it. "Ahhh. Still as good as ever." Spike's hair is long and soft and golden, and he is dressed in dark blue silk.
Angel stands, open-mouthed, gaping, staring. Finally he recovers a little and starts stammering, "Spike? B-but you're dead, I mean, disappeared, and what with the.heat? And.and." His voice trails off and he just grabs Spike and pulls him close, crushing him in a bone-bruising hug. It's then he realizes no heartbeat, no breath. So Spike isn't alive. He pulls back, staring, even more puzzled.
Spike stares up at him, grinning with the infuriating knowing smile he had. "I know, you've got more questions that you c'n even pull together in that massive brain of yours. But I've got one for you. D'you want t'spend Christmas night talking or getting reacquainted in, shall we say, a more basic manner?" His voice drops into sweet honeyed tones on the last part of that sentence, and he licks his lips and looks up through long lashes.
That decides it for Angel. He downs the glass of wine, scoops Spike up in his arms and starts carrying him inside. Spike curls against Angel, wrapping arms around his neck. "Merry Christmas, Sire."
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