FIC: "Prince of Darkness, My Ass," Angelus/Spike, PG-13
TITLE: Prince of Darkness, My Ass
AUTHOR: Lamia Archer
RATING: PG-13
FANDOM: BtVS/AtS
PAIRING: Angelus/Spike
WORD COUNT: 3,312
SUMMARY: From Russia with love.
SPOILERS/TIMELINE: Set in Russia, 1897. Spoilers for "Buffy vs. Dracula"
NOTES: Thanks so much shellybelle for the beta. For the fcukficathons Manbits Euphemism Challenge; my prompt was “Vlad the Impaler.”
The snow crunched beneath Angelus’s boots like broken glass. That it packed so hard, that the flakes were so brittle, meant something important, something that Angelus had explained patiently to Will more than once, but right now it didn’t mean a goddamn thing to him beyond ball-busting cold. Will was freezing, had his coat wrapped pitifully around himself like a sickly mortal. He didn’t know how the cold wasn’t bothering Angelus; his coat was unbuttoned, hanging open around his muscular frame. Wanker. Normally he wouldn’t do that, afraid they’d be noticed as out of the ordinary, but now it was dark and the back alleys they were traveling were all close to deserted, and he was flushed enough with recent kill and free reign to be stupider than usual. Stupid and wild; Will couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen Angelus like that, so frenetic that he was sure the old bastard could’ve torn up the streets of St. Petersburg until the sun colored the Russian streets bright and burned his sire to cinders.
“Oy, it’ll be morning soon,” Will complained to Angelus’s back, hoping - not very optimistically - that perhaps the threat of bursting into flames would be enough to buy him passage back to their warm room at a friendly Russian inn.
He half-expected to be ignored, but Angelus wheeled on him, spinning on his heel like the cobblestones weren’t packed slick with ice and snow, and came upon him, menacing Will against the fetid wall of whatever pisshole building they were behind. He didn’t touch him, merely used the span of his large body to negotiate Will into position.
“Tired, are you?” Angelus purred. He looked manic, his eyes glinting with exhilaration.
Will squirmed a little. He was too old to be put through the paces, and he didn’t want to play power games out here, to have to admit to weakness. But for the time being at least, Angelus was in a good mood and Will knew damn well how quickly that could change, and the last thing he wanted was to be stranded in a foreign country with a language he couldn’t speak, freezing to death, without Dru or even Darla to fall back on, with Angelus livid.
“Cold,” Will begrudged finally.
Angelus relaxed once he’d drawn his prize from Will, his mouth quirking into a wolf’s smile. He drew back a little - enough that Will was able to bring his shoulders from the nasty bricks of the building behind him - and rocked back on his heels some.
“There’s a solution to that,” he said generously, eyeing Will languorously. Angelus had been strangely peaceable since the women broke company with them a week ago to see to Darla’s Master, and Will had been wondering if it wasn’t Darla that kept Angelus so tightly wound, “Just need to get something warm in your veins, don’t you, boy?”
***
It didn’t take long to find the girl. She was radiating heat like a dying star and reeking of her trade. Sex was pungent even to humans, and she wore it like heady perfume. She was obviously poor but modestly pretty, and the only person they’d passed in these back alleys that didn’t stink of disease or alcohol. She flirted with Angelus in Russian for a moment until he turned her attention to Will.
God, she was warm, and Will allowed himself to linger for a few moments just burying his face and hands against her hot, living body. The girl made an exclamation in Russian and Angelus laughed, his voice cutting the night.
“She says you’re cold as death,” he translated, brogue laced with amusement.
“She’s not wrong about that,” Will grinned, finally unleashing his demon face.
The girl’s eyes widened in terror, but Will’s fangs were buried in her throat before a scream could escape it. He clutched her nubile body to his; he could almost feel the heat leave her body and enter his. What about that; Angelus had been right.
***
No one worried much about a dead whore, so Will just concealed the body behind a refuse pile and he and Angelus went on their merry way. He was feeling not only immune to the cold now, but full of renewed vigor, as well; he had to catch himself from jumping about Angelus’s heels like an excited puppy. Angelus was in a reasonably magnanimous mood, but unbridled enthusiasm was the kind of thing that got Will smacked regardless of his sire’s current disposition.
A few streets past where they’d found Will’s prostitute, Angelus tensed.
“Hear that?”
“Hear wh-”
“Shut up.”
A minute later, Will heard it, too.
“Sounds like-”
Angelus cuffed him, and he shut up.
Sounds like someone’s having a block party, he thought to himself.
Angelus must not have been worried about the potential block party, because he didn’t hesitate or even right his coat. They continued right into the next street. Will started; they’d seen hardly a soul all night, and no other vampires, and this street was crowded with them, all chattering in Russian.
Angelus did not look amused.
“We’re not staying. Don’t dawdle.”
“But what if-”
Angelus swung on him, his eyes flashing. “Have I developed a speech impediment, boy? Unless you’d like to be left, you’ll stay close on my heel.”
“Right. No deviation from the plan, then,” Will said glumly.
Angelus growled and elbowed through the throng. ‘Elbowing’ was a gentle term; his elbows, on occasion, met with cracking ribs.
“What are they on about?” Will asked, hurrying after Angelus’s glowering frame.
Angelus ignored Will until they’d successfully cleared the crowd. Will, to his credit, knew better than to badger him.
“Ţepeş,” he muttered finally, still looking unpleasant and walking quickly, anxious to distance himself from the other vampires.
“Huh? Slow down, mate-”
Angelus, in his irritation, was quickening his pace. And, frankly, he was faster than Will because he was older and his legs were longer, so Will was having to scurry to keep up. In a moment of idiocy, Will put his hand on Angelus’s shoulder to slow him; Angelus, peevish, batted him away.
“Don’t paw at me, boy. And I’m not your mate, I’m your sire, and I’d be more than happy to remind you how to address me properly-”
Will managed to not roll his eyes. “Sorry. Sire. Really, what are they talking about?”
Angelus’s frown lines deepened, but he was looking less pissed and just more of his usual Will, come now, so Will took it as a step forward.
“Ţepeş,” he repeated. “You think you’d know something about your own breed. But perhaps I’m expecting too much-”
Will regarded his sire blankly. “You’re expecting me to know the Russian word for vampire?”
Angelus gritted his teeth a bit. “Idiot. The word is Romanian and it means ‘Impaler.’ They’re not talking about vampires, they’re talking about Dracul-”
Will had been prepared for another dusty etymology lesson, but suddenly his interest piqued. “Dracul? You mean Dracula? The Dracula? Like Vlad I-make-merry-folly-of-virgins-with-wicked-long-spikes the Impaler?”
Angelus frowned. He had a big-T “the” in front of his name too, and a hideous nickname of his own . . . and absolutely no patience for vampires outside his own bloodline, particularly East European playboys famous for leaking the one-two-threes of dusting to the liberal bloody media. It was lucky he tolerated Will, and he was family . . . not that he always did. Tolerate him.
“Did you want his autograph?” Angelus asked dangerously, one of his canines bared and glittering in the moonlight.
Will scowled. “I didn’t mean that. But maybe we could get a drink with him, slaughter some innocents. Might be fun.”
Angelus’s gaze was withering. Will knew what he was thinking: Angelus liked to hunt alone. It was a miracle of patience that he suffered Will’s company now that he was on a respite from Darla; except on rare occasion, Angelus didn’t like to be accompanied by anyone but the night. He was seducer and artist and the audience was voyeur and it cheapened his work.
“You do what you want,” Angelus said, his voice black silk, flawlessly smooth and endlessly dark. “You and your folk hero paint the streets red.”
Will wanted to protest, because he really didn’t want to be on the Russian streets by himself without a clue as to how to ask where the nearest free virgin blood party was, but he was pretty sure that Angelus was not leaving him another option.
“What are you going to do?” Will asked sullenly, toeing a clump of snow.
“I’m going to feed, and then I’m going to go back to the hotel. And if you, after a glamorous night of debauchery with your idol, should sniff your way back to me, then Lord help me.”
Will’s face must have fallen more than he’d realized, because Angelus sighed and fussed a bit with the boy’s collar.
“Don’t get staked,” he said, his tone gentled some. “And be indoors somewhere before dawn.”
Will started to smile; Angelus caught the look and unhanded his collar, cuffed him on the side of the head.
“And don’t do anything stupid.”
***
If anything was stupid, it was Angelus telling Will not to do anything stupid. Which always resulted in him doing something stupid. So really it was Angelus’s fault that things progressed the way that they did.
After he and Angelus parted ways, Will returned to the teeming street. He felt uncomfortable among the Russian vampires, but screw it, he wanted to meet Dracula. And if it was less than the premier event of the season, the worst that would happen was he’d go back to the hotel and admit that he was stupid and Angelus was right, which would put the old bastard in a good mood again. So really, win-win.
Waiting for Dracula, though, turned out to be an awful lot like sitting around, which was not so much romantic and full of taut anticipation as it was really, really boring. Will tried flirting with some lady vampires, but they weren’t having it, due to the language barrier - he tried a few rounds of, “For fuck’s sake, does anyone around here speak the Queen’s bloody English?” to no avail - or to thrall or some such nonsense and ended up leaning against a wall smoking a cigarette and looking aloof.
He was about to give it up and crawl back to admit to Angelus that he’d been right when the crowd started with that “Ţepeş” crap again. Will dropped his cigarette to the street, where it extinguished with a hiss in the snow, and looked around for someone big and impressive enough to warrant such a reaction, but the milling crowd was in his way. He straightened and even stood up on his toes a bit, feeling a bit stupid, but oh well. He was under twenty, still young enough to be a bit stupid on occasion . . . a fact that he took advantage of, as Angelus was constantly reminding him.
Will didn’t see anyone big or impressive entering the street, just some thin, poncey pale guy draped in fur, looking important. Will frowned; surely that wasn’t Dracula.
Of course, that would certainly explain Angelus’s amusement. He felt a sudden stab of anger, and hoped again this wasn’t Dracula; screw Angelus for not letting him in on the joke.
Will moved a bit closer to the excited crowd, elbowed a vampire close to him.
“Hey, Tolstoy. That’s not Dracula, is it?”
The vampire hissed at him, irritated and uncomprehending. Will rolled his eyes, tiring quickly of this no-one-speaks-English bullshit. The vampire, when it became evident that no Russian apology was forthcoming, pushed Will and snarled something ugly in his native tongue; Will, growing increasingly unhappy, pushed him back, to the icy ground, growling and coming finally to game face.
“How’s that for communication, comrade?”
The vamp was feeble compared to Will, and had no desire to continue the confrontation; he slunk away. This only flushed Will with more adrenaline, and turned his anger to exhilaration: he was here to meet Dracula, and even if that didn’t work out, he was free from Angelus, and therefore had Russia all to himself until dawn. Invincible. William the fucking Bloody, you Slavic ponces.
Because Will was slightly distracted by this heady sense of self-importance, it took him a moment to notice that his little fight had caught the attention of the crowd, including the maybe-Dracula. When he finally looked up, grinning, he found himself center stage.
Will looked surveyed the scene for a moment.
“Uh . . . what’s Russian for ‘crap?’” he asked finally.
“It’s Дерьмо,” the poncey-looking maybe-Dracula said, speaking thickly accented English.
“Oh,” Will said stiltedly. “Well . . . I can’t pronounce that.”
“I can’t imagine it coming up very often in conversation,” the maybe-Dracula replied.
Will shrugged. “You don’t know me well.”
His thin lips curled into something resembling a smile. “No. Perhaps I should. What is your name?”
Will straightened a little. “Spike.”
The maybe-Dracula frowned. “Spike? I don’t think I have heard that name. Who is your sire?”
Will frowned. “Angelus.” He scratched the bridge of his nose with his knuckle, his hand jolting slightly over the familiar ridges. “Order of Aurelius, an’ all that.”
Will was aware of the crowd murmuring again and he shifted a bit, uncomfortable. He was wishing he’d stayed with Angelus.
Maybe-Dracula almost-smiled again. “Ah. Angelus. You are perhaps William.”
“The Bloody. Yeah, that’s me. You really Dracula?”
He inclined his head gallantly. “My reputation precedes me.”
“Well, yeah. Kinda thought you’d be bigger though.”
Dracula smiled his queer smile again. Will was getting really fucking tired of it.
“We both know that size is not important. You dispatched your attacker quite efficiently earlier, and he was more than your equal.”
Will snorted. “He wasn’t my equal.”
Dracula looked amused. “Of course not; you proved that. I meant-”
“Yeah, I know what you meant. You’re really Dracula?”
“You doubt me?”
Will shrugged. “I kind of do.”
Dracula’s smile cemented on his face and he shrugged off his elegant fur; eager hands caught it before it could collapse into the snow. He spread his arms in something resembling a crucifixion pose and then slowly dissipated into thin white smoke. The crowd watched the transformation transfixed, oohing and aahing appropriately as he went to vapor and then condensed back in the same spot, in the same position.
Dracula collected his coat, looking very pleased with himself. The crowd was a rumble, whistling and catcalling as Dracula slipped back into his fur.
Will frowned. “Parlor trick. Any decent witch can do that, mate.”
And that is how Will got into a fistfight with Dracula.
***
When Will got back to the hotel, he found Angelus already in bed. They’d rented a room with two beds as to not appear suspicious . . . and because, depending upon Angelus’s level of irritation, sometimes that was for the best. But when he got back, he put Angelus’s possible irritation and all feelings of precociousness aside. Will was feeling all manner of unhappy things, and he was going to have the comfort of sleeping beside his sire, even if it was rather a fledgling thing to do.
He undressed quickly and quietly in the dark and slid into bed beside Angelus, taking care not to rouse him. That would be bad. He lay still for a second beside his sire’s still back, adjusting to the somnolent calm, before scooting close to Angelus and letting his forehead rest against the nape of Angelus’s neck, breathing in his familiar scent: metal, leather, home.
Will had closed his eyes and was settling down to sleep when an even voice rumbled: “Have a good evening?”
Will started, opening his eyes and drawing away from Angelus some, sitting up a little.
“I didn’t mean to wake you-” he started, not sure whether he should be anxious. Angelus didn’t sound angry, but sometimes it could be hard to tell.
Angelus turned to his back, reclined supporting himself on his elbows. “You didn’t.”
Will relaxed. A little. “Waiting up for me?”
Angelus’s brow raised. “Was I up? No. But I like to know where you are.”
“Worried about me?”
The corner of Angelus’s mouth quirked. “Hardly. But I like to know where you are.”
Will frowned. He could not divine the nature of that sentiment.
“How was your hero?” Angelus asked.
Will’s frown deepened. “Tosser. Smoke and mirrors.” He snorted. “Literally, with the smoke, but anyway, nothing to crow about.”
Angelus smiled. “Sorry.”
“Are you?”
His smile broadened slightly. “No.”
Will’s temper flared. “You don’t have to be so happy about it. I-”
Angelus’s smile faded. “You learned something. Which makes this experience valuable. Be grateful, not petulant.”
The flame of Will’s anger was extinguished, but it left a bitter taste. He preferred the clarity of the rage; this was more confusing, less satisfying.
“Do anything stupid?” Angelus asked.
Will looked sheepish. “Mostly not.”
Angelus frowned. “Why do I not believe you?”
While Will tried to formulate a snappy response, Angelus sat up.
“Come here.”
He wasn’t frowning anymore, which made the command sound a lot more appealing . . . but that particular command was generally appealing, particularly when it was made in bed, so Will was happy to obey. He scooted close to his sire, closing the distance between them. Will was about to jump the gun and crush his mouth to Angelus’s, but Angelus stopped him, touching his face and arresting the action.
“You’ve a bruise on your cheekbone, William,” Angelus said softly. “Think I wouldn’t notice that, boy?”
Will didn’t want this, Angelus’s hands on him clinically. He wanted his hands on him, don’t mistake, but petting and caressing and cradling him, not studying him, controlling his movement. It was difficult not to squirm.
“It was just a little fight.”
Angelus was so surprised that he let go of the boy.
“You got into a fight with Dracula?”
“Just a little one,” Will repeated, pleased with the shock in his sire’s voice, comfortable enough with Angelus being off guard that he slid his hand around the back of Angelus’s neck, brought his mouth to the bigger man’s, softly.
Angelus, though, was not quite that distracted. He pulled away, looked Will in the eyes.
“And?”
Will frowned. “And what?”
Angelus just scowled. Will huffed.
“Fine,” he said. “It was kind of a draw. Nothing much happened, a few punches, and then he did that smoke thing. Anyway, there were a lot of those Russian vamps still around, and it was best we cleared out, anyway, because they were raising a bloody great row, and I’m sure the police were going to be about anytime. Happy?”
Impossibly, Angelus smiled a little.
“Didn’t do anything stupid, eh, Will?” he murmured.
Will shifted uncomfortably. “Well, mostly not . . .”
This time, Angelus was the one taking advantage; before Will could figure out what had happened, Angelus had a hand around his waist and one cupped around his jaw and he was being firmly, thoroughly kissed. Will was so surprised that it took him a good thirty seconds to relax into sensation and just be held, just be kissed, and a good thirty seconds after that before he could move his hands to hold Angelus back, or his mouth to kiss Angelus back.
When they broke off, Will started, “I-”
Angelus shook his head. “No. Don’t say anything. It’s become apparent to me that your mouth leads you to stupidity.”
Will was a moment in responding. “Well . . . you’ll need to keep it busy for me, then. For the rest of the night, at least.”
Angelus smiled good-naturedly. “I’ll not have trouble with that, boy.”