FIC: Doyle Investigations Christmas (Angel/BtVS) [December Meme]
Very belatedly. 
rheasilvia asked for a Doyle-centric ficlet. It ended up being a Doyle Investigations Christmas fic.
After a fashion, it was the second time I'd opened the door on Christmas Day to have a vampire fall through it.
All right, so the first time wasn't my house or me opening the door or, frankly, me being bloody stupid enough to let the vampire carol singers into the party, and the second time, well, 'fall through' wouldn't be quite the right... that is to say...
Okay, alright, it actually went pretty much something like this:
Spike was leaning on the crumbling jamb when I opened the door. He was hugging a bottle, and the smell of whiskey was strong enough on him to set up a hateful yearning that went down to the pit of my half-demon soul (whatever state that was in). He said, "Invite me in, Doyley," with that aggravating Cockney insistence.
He waved out an unopened bottle of best whiskey in his free hand. The hand he'd been holding behind his back. He pulled it out of my reach when I grabbed for it. "Bastard!"
"Invite me in," Spike said, his voice slightly sing-song, but filled with a tantalising promise as he shook the bottle at me.
I growled, "Oh, all right, get the fuck inside."
What can I say? Faith had drank everything in the place -- including the things I'd have earmarked only for a desperate emergency, figuring 'what the hell, what else is a touch of demon heritage good for?' -- and passed out on the sofa. Wesley wanted to play scrabble. I was desperate. A drink and a bloody good fight sounded just the ticket, and at that point I wasn't particularly caring about the end result.
Spike stepped through the door with his eyebrows bobbing a bit. I grabbed the whiskey off him, pulled the stopper, and upended it over my mouth for a good long moment, letting the warm amber liquid coil inside me. Then I stopped and took it down and pinned my eyes on Spike suspiciously.
"Okay," I said, holding the bottle away from him and stoppering it again carefully. "Fight now, or drink and then fight later?"
His face scrunched a bit in consideration. "You know," he said slowly, "I might still be able to fight you, half-demon and all, so scratch that one in as a possibility. I could bloody well enjoy that -- beating the crap out of you -- after the week I've had."
"Mister Fucking Optimism," I growled, and twitched sort of toward the whiskey, but I wasn't quite trusting him enough or desperate enough to risk diving into the bottle again just yet.
"Where's the Slayer and the Wuss?" Spike asked.
"Unconscious and boring, respectively," I snapped, and only on reflection thought that I probably shouldn't have mentioned the first part.
...That the best person I could more or less count on to take the vampire down -- because the posturing was pretty optimistic of me, 'cept at this point I was really spoiling for that fight -- was flat on her back sleeping off the drain cleaner and that stuff you use to clean crystal glasses with, which I figure Wesley must have bought because I sure as hell never had.
Spike only snorted laughter and reached out to pat me firmly and familiarly on the shoulder. "Knew it was a good idea to come here," he said. "Feel better already. You and the Scrappy Gang, knew you wouldn't let me down, Doyley."
I frowned at him. Vampires and all, who knew, but he didn't look like his usual self. Narrow-eyed, I asked, "So what brings you here? And, hey! Don't we even get a tune this time?" I pointed to the door, which was still open a slice. "Get back out there and bloody sing something."
"Uh -- nope," Spike said, slapping the door shut with one hand and almost keeling over. "Sorry, Doyley. Not up to a cheery sing-song this time." He looked around furtively. "Don't suppose you have any decent quality haemoglobin around here?" He nodded at me with what I thought was actually supposed to be respectful wariness. "Don't know what your demon half subsists on, don't know piss about Brachens."
I curled my hand into a fist and managed to pull some apologetic shifts of expression that just about led to me not punching him.
"...Animal blood?" he tried, hopefully.
"There's the stuff that drained from the turkey," I growled, "still in a tray in the kitchen."
He was in there like a shot.
"What the bloody--?" I charged after him. "Spike!"
I kind of stopped and wavered when I found him drinking -- guzzling, slurping, and humiliating himself like a man starved, more like -- from the metal tray and plastic that had the watery blood remnant from the turkey in it.
Okay, so I'd give. This was not normal or... Spike-like behaviour.
I folded my arms and waited til he'd finished (apart from a quick break in the stern silence to steal another big gulp from the bottle).
"All right. You'd better come into the parlour and tell us all about... whatever the hell this is, then."
***
We managed to get Faith awake and alert enough to laugh her ass off at the defanged vampire. Spike looked cowed and humiliated and angry, and honestly, it kind of hurt to watch. There was something about it intrinsically sad and unfair. Slayer of Slayers and all. I snerked around the bottle at him and watched him sink deeper into the pile of the ancient couch.
"Where did you get more alcohol?" Faith asked sluggishly. "And why is Spike here anyway, defanged or not? We don't like him."
"No, but he does bring rather valuable intel," Wesley said, eying me with a hazy, vague suspicion that might have been less obliviously happy had he not managed to polish off at least a little bit of Baileys before Faith drained that, too. "Perhaps an organisation such as this Initiative could be of use in the fight against the Master in Sunnydale. Certainly it's way past time the regular human world started fighting back."
Spike growled.
I was inclined to agree with the vampire. "I'm not liking the idea of a bunch of armed twits who know nothing about demons good, bad or indifferent charging in and smashing everything irrespective..."
Wesley huffed. "Well, I realise perhaps it's insensitive to say so, but the greatest danger in the world right now by far is the Master, and if a few lesser, neutral demons get caught up in the crossfire, then perhaps that is a price worth paying. And I'm not going to shed any tears for William the Bloody." He glowered at Spike.
"Merry fucking Christmas to you, too," Spike said.
"Well, I personally hope that the spirits of those dead slayers are laughing down on you, you--" Wesley flapped.
"Hey! Stop picking on the vampire," I interrupted, then winced as I replayed that. "He is our inside information on this whole shebang, after all," I growled with rather more restraint. "Which I, personally, still don't like the sound of." I glared at Wesley. "These assholes don't know anything about the demon world, about magic, vampires, hellmouths, the shit they're messin' with..."
Spike nodded. "Cheers to you, Doyley."
"Seriously, Doyle?" Faith said flatly. "You're siding with the vampire? Who kills slayers." Her brows crunched. "...Oh, wait. He totally brought you the whiskey, didn't he? And you--" She turned to Wesley. "Yet again with the talk about Sunnydale... investigating a bunch of military asshats in Sunnydale... where I am not going because that path, grasshopper, ends in me dead." She rolled her eyes and flumped back on the sofa with a big whuff of dust and stressed upholstery. "I'm so done here. Let's watch Home Alone."
"Well," Wesley hazarded. "It does seem like it might be a discussion best left for another time. But I am not watching that movie with that dreadful child."
"Nor me," Spike said. "Bloody hell."
"You don't get a vote," I growled.
"Hey," said Faith. "Does this mean the vampire's spending Christmas with us now?"
Wesley and I exchanged somewhat unsettled glances. "Uh..."
"We might need him later, for additional information, so it would be preferable to keep him within sight. He can't hurt us, after all. He's been rendered completely impotent."
Spike sniffed in agitation at that.
"What the hell," I said, "I aready spent last Christmas with the bastard. So if not Home Alone, how about Die Hard?"
Faith cheered, but Spike and Wesley pulled faces.
"We were going to play scrabble," Wesley said snippily, glaring at Faith and at my bottle. "Of course..." Somewhat more uneasily, he eyed Spike. "That was before the vampire got here. Perhaps it's not the best passtime to engage a notorious fiend such as--"
Spike rubbed his palms together and flashed his teeth cheerfully at Wesley as he leaned over the table. "Grand. I could use a bit of the old mucky scrabble..." I groaned. "I'll have you know I was quite the wordsmith, back in the day."
"Face it, Doyle," Faith said, voice hollow with dark, dire forboding, as she cracked an eye out of her huddle to look at me. "There's no escape. On the other hand..." She wriggled her hips on the sofa. "If we manage to spell out anything interesting, we can always put it into practice later."
Spike snerked and Wesley clucked in disapproval. "Now, Faith, Doyle, if you would care to sit up and put the beverage down, and try to concentrate on the game..."
Spike gave an unvampire-like cheer and toasted Wesley's literary ambitions with his half-drank bottle. Then he took out a little pair of gold-rimmed spectacles and perched them on his nose, leaning over to stare with a wholly incongruous bookish intensity as Wesley laid out the board. The pair of Brits suddenly looked like bookends across the table, anticipating the game with a gathering aura of Very Serious Business.
I clutched my whiskey and Faith and I exchanged increasingly desperate glances. Thank God I had the bloody booze, I thought.
Seemed like otherwise, Wesley and his unexpected new ally had us at their mercy.
rheasilvia asked for a Doyle-centric ficlet. It ended up being a Doyle Investigations Christmas fic.
After a fashion, it was the second time I'd opened the door on Christmas Day to have a vampire fall through it.
All right, so the first time wasn't my house or me opening the door or, frankly, me being bloody stupid enough to let the vampire carol singers into the party, and the second time, well, 'fall through' wouldn't be quite the right... that is to say...
Okay, alright, it actually went pretty much something like this:
Spike was leaning on the crumbling jamb when I opened the door. He was hugging a bottle, and the smell of whiskey was strong enough on him to set up a hateful yearning that went down to the pit of my half-demon soul (whatever state that was in). He said, "Invite me in, Doyley," with that aggravating Cockney insistence.
He waved out an unopened bottle of best whiskey in his free hand. The hand he'd been holding behind his back. He pulled it out of my reach when I grabbed for it. "Bastard!"
"Invite me in," Spike said, his voice slightly sing-song, but filled with a tantalising promise as he shook the bottle at me.
I growled, "Oh, all right, get the fuck inside."
What can I say? Faith had drank everything in the place -- including the things I'd have earmarked only for a desperate emergency, figuring 'what the hell, what else is a touch of demon heritage good for?' -- and passed out on the sofa. Wesley wanted to play scrabble. I was desperate. A drink and a bloody good fight sounded just the ticket, and at that point I wasn't particularly caring about the end result.
Spike stepped through the door with his eyebrows bobbing a bit. I grabbed the whiskey off him, pulled the stopper, and upended it over my mouth for a good long moment, letting the warm amber liquid coil inside me. Then I stopped and took it down and pinned my eyes on Spike suspiciously.
"Okay," I said, holding the bottle away from him and stoppering it again carefully. "Fight now, or drink and then fight later?"
His face scrunched a bit in consideration. "You know," he said slowly, "I might still be able to fight you, half-demon and all, so scratch that one in as a possibility. I could bloody well enjoy that -- beating the crap out of you -- after the week I've had."
"Mister Fucking Optimism," I growled, and twitched sort of toward the whiskey, but I wasn't quite trusting him enough or desperate enough to risk diving into the bottle again just yet.
"Where's the Slayer and the Wuss?" Spike asked.
"Unconscious and boring, respectively," I snapped, and only on reflection thought that I probably shouldn't have mentioned the first part.
...That the best person I could more or less count on to take the vampire down -- because the posturing was pretty optimistic of me, 'cept at this point I was really spoiling for that fight -- was flat on her back sleeping off the drain cleaner and that stuff you use to clean crystal glasses with, which I figure Wesley must have bought because I sure as hell never had.
Spike only snorted laughter and reached out to pat me firmly and familiarly on the shoulder. "Knew it was a good idea to come here," he said. "Feel better already. You and the Scrappy Gang, knew you wouldn't let me down, Doyley."
I frowned at him. Vampires and all, who knew, but he didn't look like his usual self. Narrow-eyed, I asked, "So what brings you here? And, hey! Don't we even get a tune this time?" I pointed to the door, which was still open a slice. "Get back out there and bloody sing something."
"Uh -- nope," Spike said, slapping the door shut with one hand and almost keeling over. "Sorry, Doyley. Not up to a cheery sing-song this time." He looked around furtively. "Don't suppose you have any decent quality haemoglobin around here?" He nodded at me with what I thought was actually supposed to be respectful wariness. "Don't know what your demon half subsists on, don't know piss about Brachens."
I curled my hand into a fist and managed to pull some apologetic shifts of expression that just about led to me not punching him.
"...Animal blood?" he tried, hopefully.
"There's the stuff that drained from the turkey," I growled, "still in a tray in the kitchen."
He was in there like a shot.
"What the bloody--?" I charged after him. "Spike!"
I kind of stopped and wavered when I found him drinking -- guzzling, slurping, and humiliating himself like a man starved, more like -- from the metal tray and plastic that had the watery blood remnant from the turkey in it.
Okay, so I'd give. This was not normal or... Spike-like behaviour.
I folded my arms and waited til he'd finished (apart from a quick break in the stern silence to steal another big gulp from the bottle).
"All right. You'd better come into the parlour and tell us all about... whatever the hell this is, then."
***
We managed to get Faith awake and alert enough to laugh her ass off at the defanged vampire. Spike looked cowed and humiliated and angry, and honestly, it kind of hurt to watch. There was something about it intrinsically sad and unfair. Slayer of Slayers and all. I snerked around the bottle at him and watched him sink deeper into the pile of the ancient couch.
"Where did you get more alcohol?" Faith asked sluggishly. "And why is Spike here anyway, defanged or not? We don't like him."
"No, but he does bring rather valuable intel," Wesley said, eying me with a hazy, vague suspicion that might have been less obliviously happy had he not managed to polish off at least a little bit of Baileys before Faith drained that, too. "Perhaps an organisation such as this Initiative could be of use in the fight against the Master in Sunnydale. Certainly it's way past time the regular human world started fighting back."
Spike growled.
I was inclined to agree with the vampire. "I'm not liking the idea of a bunch of armed twits who know nothing about demons good, bad or indifferent charging in and smashing everything irrespective..."
Wesley huffed. "Well, I realise perhaps it's insensitive to say so, but the greatest danger in the world right now by far is the Master, and if a few lesser, neutral demons get caught up in the crossfire, then perhaps that is a price worth paying. And I'm not going to shed any tears for William the Bloody." He glowered at Spike.
"Merry fucking Christmas to you, too," Spike said.
"Well, I personally hope that the spirits of those dead slayers are laughing down on you, you--" Wesley flapped.
"Hey! Stop picking on the vampire," I interrupted, then winced as I replayed that. "He is our inside information on this whole shebang, after all," I growled with rather more restraint. "Which I, personally, still don't like the sound of." I glared at Wesley. "These assholes don't know anything about the demon world, about magic, vampires, hellmouths, the shit they're messin' with..."
Spike nodded. "Cheers to you, Doyley."
"Seriously, Doyle?" Faith said flatly. "You're siding with the vampire? Who kills slayers." Her brows crunched. "...Oh, wait. He totally brought you the whiskey, didn't he? And you--" She turned to Wesley. "Yet again with the talk about Sunnydale... investigating a bunch of military asshats in Sunnydale... where I am not going because that path, grasshopper, ends in me dead." She rolled her eyes and flumped back on the sofa with a big whuff of dust and stressed upholstery. "I'm so done here. Let's watch Home Alone."
"Well," Wesley hazarded. "It does seem like it might be a discussion best left for another time. But I am not watching that movie with that dreadful child."
"Nor me," Spike said. "Bloody hell."
"You don't get a vote," I growled.
"Hey," said Faith. "Does this mean the vampire's spending Christmas with us now?"
Wesley and I exchanged somewhat unsettled glances. "Uh..."
"We might need him later, for additional information, so it would be preferable to keep him within sight. He can't hurt us, after all. He's been rendered completely impotent."
Spike sniffed in agitation at that.
"What the hell," I said, "I aready spent last Christmas with the bastard. So if not Home Alone, how about Die Hard?"
Faith cheered, but Spike and Wesley pulled faces.
"We were going to play scrabble," Wesley said snippily, glaring at Faith and at my bottle. "Of course..." Somewhat more uneasily, he eyed Spike. "That was before the vampire got here. Perhaps it's not the best passtime to engage a notorious fiend such as--"
Spike rubbed his palms together and flashed his teeth cheerfully at Wesley as he leaned over the table. "Grand. I could use a bit of the old mucky scrabble..." I groaned. "I'll have you know I was quite the wordsmith, back in the day."
"Face it, Doyle," Faith said, voice hollow with dark, dire forboding, as she cracked an eye out of her huddle to look at me. "There's no escape. On the other hand..." She wriggled her hips on the sofa. "If we manage to spell out anything interesting, we can always put it into practice later."
Spike snerked and Wesley clucked in disapproval. "Now, Faith, Doyle, if you would care to sit up and put the beverage down, and try to concentrate on the game..."
Spike gave an unvampire-like cheer and toasted Wesley's literary ambitions with his half-drank bottle. Then he took out a little pair of gold-rimmed spectacles and perched them on his nose, leaning over to stare with a wholly incongruous bookish intensity as Wesley laid out the board. The pair of Brits suddenly looked like bookends across the table, anticipating the game with a gathering aura of Very Serious Business.
I clutched my whiskey and Faith and I exchanged increasingly desperate glances. Thank God I had the bloody booze, I thought.
Seemed like otherwise, Wesley and his unexpected new ally had us at their mercy.