You Won't Be Mine (9/12)
Title: You Won't Be Mine (Chapter 9)
Author: thelastchickpea
Pairing: Spike/Angel, Bartleby/Loki (from Dogma), Spike/Bartleby
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: See AN. Slash (m/m sex), angst, crossover with Dogma
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters, background story, or title. It's not for profit so please don't sue.
Spoilers: Post-NFA (so all AtS to be safe) and all Dogma is spoiled.
Summary: It's after the final battle, and Spike waited for Angel to be ready until he couldn't wait anymore. Spike's got a life of his own now and Angel might want another chance.
AN/Warning: This story is only a crossover in that 3 characters from the film Dogma are incorporated in the BtVS/AtS-verse. Therefore, in this story, “The Powers That Be” will be the all-powerful entity. In this piece of fiction, angels are just specific demons created by TPTB to keep humans in line. They'll be doing some demon-y stuff (and they have, um, tackle, which is explained in the fic).
Banner thanks to purpledodah :)
AN: Hey guys, I realize it's been a super long time since I've updated this, but it's still going. My life was being a little strange and I just couldn't get around to this. Anyway, this story will be finished, I can say that. Sorry about the wait and please comment if you're still reading! Knowing if people are reading/enjoying this means alot to me and typo help is really appreciated :)
Chapter Nine
“Poof!”
Spike smiled in relief when he saw Angel heading into the baggage claim area where he and Bartleby had been waiting. To his great surprise, Angel actually looked pleased at the greeting and did a sort of awkward lumber with his large carry-on down the escalator around the standing riders.
“Spike,” Angel stood in front of him and lifted his arms a fraction as though he wanted to hug him, but for some reason decided against it, “you’re okay?”
“So far,” Spike didn’t know what to do with his hands. He wasn’t exactly a touchy type, but he somehow felt that he had been cheated.
“Bartleby,” Angel tore his eyes from Spike for a moment and spoke with a certain amount of respect over the bitterness. Spike was glad that pointing out Bartleby’s good points over the phone had some effect. “Is he telling me the truth?”
“Oi!” Spike put his hands on his hips. “ ‘Course I’m telling the truth!”
“You’d play it off if only you were at risk,” Angel turned back to Bartleby, “is he?”
“We’ve been fine so far,” Bartleby gave the back of his neck a scratch, “they want me, but they’ll take anyone that they think they can use against me.”
“And they could use Spike?”
Bartleby looked at Spike and his face softened a bit.
“He’d be their first choice.”
“So what do we do?” Angel’s hands clenched and unclenched at his sides in a fast rhythm.
“Fight. Effing hell demons. Done it before, yeah?” Spike was a little set off when he saw that Bartleby did not appear as if he entirely agreed with this plan. He was giving Angel one of those looks like…
“Why’re you looking at him like mum and da need to talk after the kiddies are asleep?”
“What?” Both Bartleby and Angel shot confused glances at Spike.
Probably both worried that I think they’re the ‘mum’. Wankers.
“Wot secret are you keeping?” Spike looked at Bartleby’s guilty face and realized exactly what he wanted to talk to Angel about. He’d tried to talk to Spike about the same thing before they left for the airport.
“You’re not cutting of your wings!”
“Spike -” Bartleby cut in.
“No. Wouldn’t stop them anyway. Take away their lolly, it’ll get worse.”
Bartleby looked as though he wanted to say something again, but Spike gave him a sharp glare that he hoped conveyed that it was not under discussion. Also, he really did not want to have any sort of emotional argument in front of Angel. It just…he couldn’t do that.
“B, you’d make a crap human,” Spike gave a little self-deprecating smirk to show that he didn’t think that he would make a particularly good human either, “so we’ll get a better plan, yeah?”
“He’s right,” Angel added with a nod.
“Maybe,” Bartleby replied evenly, giving Angel a look that clearly communicated that this conversation was between him and Spike and that Angel had no part in it.
Spike rolled his eyes. He really did not need to see them do this broody-avenger standoff.
“’m going outside. Got your bags, right?” He waited until Angel finally broke the staring contest with Bartleby and nodded at him. “Let’s got then. I need a smoke from dealing with you lot.”
Spike then swept out into the parking lot, leaving Angel and Bartleby to follow behind him. Without looking behind him, he knew that they were probably shooting each other death glares that they both thought were real subtle. When he was at his and Bartleby’s taxi, he leaned back on it and lit up a cigarette. He really hoped that this problem just kind of…disappeared. All of his previous experience with demons of course pointed to that not really being a real possibility, but one could hope, right? It was just that things were…complicated with Angel. And it was all fine for things to be complicated when Angel was out in California and he was here, but when they were getting along and here together -
Shutting his eyes briefly, Spike shook his head. He was not going to think about that. He and Angel were actually friends now and that was great. That was perfect.
He was interrupted by his thoughts when he saw three grungy-looking boys with stringy hair and dark circles underneath their eyes brake on their rollerblades in the middle of a parking lot. They all looked at him, made a small grunting noise, and then began to tap the pavement with the blades of their hockey sticks.
“Figures evil comes in hockey flavour,” Spike continued to smoke and rolled his head over to look at Angel who was now at the car with Bartleby.
“It’s not hockey’s fault,” the corners of Angel’s mouth twitched towards a smile, “evil even comes in puppet nowadays.”
The three demon boys then began to skate forward violently with their sticks raised as if they were about to take a slap shot. Spike thought that maybe it would be quite intimidating to a particularly pansy-arsed human. As far as he was concerned though, he was facing a few prepubescents with no particular supernatural powers who were stupid enough that they were apparently planning to use their wooden sticks to strike their vampire opponents in the shins.
“They’ve got to be joking,” he cocked an eyebrow at Bartleby as though it was up to the angel to explain why Hell sent such unworthy adversaries.
“I think they are,” Bartleby said slowly and exhibiting an interesting twitch in his eye, “they’re playing with us.”
“Playing with us?” Spike growled at Bartleby’s answering nod. “Right. Well, always good to get a warm-up in.”
With that he jumped on the nearest approaching demon, grabbed its hockey stick and dug the blade right into the demon’s middle. Before the first cough of black blood even came up, Spike had dropped him and was running towards the next demon.
Spike understood the appeal of playing with your prey. Hell, if you didn’t get some fun out of the fight then it was just…work. And Spike did not like to work.
That did not mean, however, that he appreciated being toyed with and he had no problem sending that clear message right back to Hell.
As Spike went at the second demon with his fists, the third one seemed to decide he really didn’t want to be a red-shirt in this battle and turned to skate away. Angel started as though he was going to head after him when suddenly he flinched from a sudden wind and looked up to see Bartleby jumping over him with his wings spread out. With one more powerful stoke of his wings the angel rushed forward and landed forcefully on his feet in front of the panicking hell demon.
Extremely fascinated, Spike dropped his current opponent (who had gone completely limp several punches back) and watched Bartleby. In almost thirty years, Spike hadn’t ever really seen him willingly join in on a fight. Bartleby would throw in a few hits sometimes if Spike looked like he needed the help, but for the most part he played the comforter and calmed down the victim. Which was good since lord knows Spike was crap at calming down victims who, as far as he was concerned, should have known better than to walk though those neighborhoods alone at night. It was also probably good since Bartleby really wasn’t that strong. Not bad for a human, six foot three of muscle and grit will do that to you, but for a demon? Heh.
Bartleby, who was very aware of his lack of combat skills, wasted no time in grabbing the demon by the neck and lifting himself back off of the ground. Once they were in the air, the demon began to let out gut-wrenching screams that apparently startled Bartleby into dropping the thing. The demon stopped screaming when it fell with a crunch onto the pavement.
Okay, it wasn’t exactly a glorious fight, but honestly better than Spike was expecting.
Bartleby, averting his eyes from the mess, floated back down to the pavement and put his coat back on over his wings.
“Not bad, luv,” Spike had no problem looking at the carnage, “I’ll teach you how to be a bit cleaner next time, yeah? Think you got the poof’s shoes.” He nodded his head over to Angel who, indeed, was rubbing the sides of one of his shoes against a light post to get the syrupy blood off of them.
Bartleby finally raised his eyes and gave Spike a smirk that told him that actually, that drop might not have been as accidental as it appeared.
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“Oh, so your guy’s an elf?” Loki popped his gum.
“Well, humans would call him an elf Buttercup. It doesn’t exactly fit since he’s not short or small, if you get my drift, but hey, if humans don’t catch on, all the better for the rest of us,” Lorne smiled. He’d been ready to go home to his family for a while and was really tired of splitting an apartment that was only meant for two tenants with four other people.
“No, no, I know what you mean. I dated an elf once.”
It was at least nicer now that Loki was actually talking to him. For a while, he had kept his head down and his hand on the gun in his coat pocket whenever Lorne approached. Now though, the angel’s slight nerves were only really discernable through how his gum chewing sped up.
“You never dated an elf,” Bartleby said with complete certainty as he walked into the living room.
“Hey man, you wouldn’t know!”
Bartleby gave a little snort and shook his head.
“Fine, I hooked up with an elf once,” Loki glared at Bartleby who gave a little half-smile back.
“Are my two favorite vampires up yet?” Lorne asked Bartleby, hoping to change the subject. Honestly, all the sexual tension around here was absolutely lethal! The whole thing was headed towards a violent orgy and Lorne was unsure whether or not he wanted to be around to witness that. He supposed that he should thank his lucky stars that Bartleby and Angel didn’t ever sing, because just a few rhymes of DMC from Loki and some Sex Pistols lyrics from Spike and his head was reeling for the rest of the day.
“They went out to get blood.”
“You sound less than happy about that,” Loki stated in a deceptively casual manner.
“I’m less than happy about his whole situation,” Bartleby sat down on the couch with his legs sprawled out, “This really can’t end well, Loki.”
Lorne saw the almost unperceivable way Loki’s head peaked up when he was addressed in an almost confidential manner. Of course, that didn’t mean that he would give particularly helpful advice.
“It’s going to be fine, you know? I mean, I know you’re all for the drama queen thing, you’ve got the queen piece down solid already…” Despite himself, Bartleby gave a little smile at this.
“Says the guy who’s here so that he can bone me.”
“Aw shit Bartleby, did you just say ‘bone’? Dirty, dirty word there Watcher,” Loki shook his head.
“I think I’m sinking to the level of present company,” Bartleby mused.
“Ah good. ‘the level of present company’. There’s the good old anal-retentive bastard I know,” Loki spit out his gum and Bartleby kicked his shin when he tried to stick it under the table. Loki sighed, examined the flavorless white gum, and then looked at the walk across the rather small room to the trashcan. Glaring at Bartleby, he stuck the gum back into his mouth.
“Simple creature,” Bartleby snorted.
Lorne just observed the two. He liked them both, but had a particular affection for Bartleby. Bartleby had once been talking about how he must have to agree to the wing cutting, otherwise Hell wouldn’t be trying to tire them out with the ‘flunkies’. Lorne knew that he gave just a tiny flinch at that, and as soon as he did, he saw Bartleby’s eyes widen.
But the angel then had just continued with what he was saying. No pity, no hate, no judgment, no unnecessary apologies. He would have thought that was it, except that the next night there was a small note in his jacket pocket.
This isn’t to make it any better.
He wasn’t planning anything good.
And it didn’t make it better. But it was the truth, and Lorne had spent so long listening to lies in that job that it certainly did mean something.
So Lorne could honestly say that he wanted things to work out for Bartleby, and he had to disagree that there was no way this was going to end well.
He was Lorne, and if he gave up hope than goodness knows none of these little sour apples would stand a chance.
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Angel cast a sideways glance at Spike as they left the hospital. He felt a little wary about using an old Wolfram and Hart contact to get blood, but there certainly wasn’t going to be a butcher shop open this time of night and sending anyone out during the day was out of the question. After that vision, he was not taking any risk of Spike being caught, taken into, lured into or otherwise brought into the sunlight.
Of course, he couldn’t actually tell Spike why he was suddenly having this intense paranoia of anyone, not just the vampires, leaving the apartment during the day and Spike was starting to really harp on that and starting to say stuff about how if he had just opened up at Wolfram and Hart, things could have turned out differently.
Which was true, maybe. But absolutely not what Angel had wanted to hear. It had already resulted in a dislocated shoulder for Spike and a leaking black eye for Angel when Lorne came in and firmly gripped Angel’s arm.
“Try talking,” he had whispered to Angel, the disappointment very evident in his voice.
But Angel couldn’t talk about that. He couldn’t talk about the vision because if he talked about how he saw Spike out in the sunlight, then he might also have to talk about how he saw himself beheaded. And he couldn’t share that because if he did, Spike might be stupid and try to be a hero and Angel couldn’t risk that once again he would be the one to make it through while those loyal to him were made to suffer. It was no more than he deserved and -
“Hey, Broody. Where’d you go?”
“What?” Angel looked at Spike and saw the dangerously inquisitive look, “Nothing, it’s nothing, I mean, nowhere.”
“Right, real convincing that,” Spike used the hand that was unburdened by blood bags to pull his hood over his head and then began to walk ahead of Angel.
“Spike,” Angel hurried up and put his hand on his shoulder, “I’m doing the right thing. Understand that.”
“Angel,” Spike tensed, “I’m sure that you’re very sure that you’re doing the right thing. But maybe it would be great if you trusted me enough to let me in on this, yeah? That would be just fucking peachy.”
“I trust you.”
Spike snorted and shook his head.
“I mean it. Spike, turn around. I’m not going to have this conversation with the back of your hood.”
Angel expected an uppercut to his jaw, but instead Spike let out a frustrated sigh and turned around slowly, leaving their faces with little useless air between them.
“What happened to your duster?” Angel whispered as he reached a hand up to push the hood back off Spike’s head.
“Wot?” Spike dismissively slapped Angel’s hand aside, but notably didn’t take a step back, “we’re not talking ‘bout that right now.”
“Do you still have it?”
Spike gave his head a small shake.
“No. Pawned it when B and I needed a bit of dosh in the beginning. Wasn’t really my look anymore anyway. Was moving on, yeah?”
“Oh.”
Spike brought his eyes up to meet Angel’s and for one second Angel felt everything drop away and he was looking at Will, his youngest Childe and Spike, his most fierce competitor and lover and everything in his unlife fit. And then Spike moved his face forward just a fraction of an inch and Angel wanted to just take the moment and pull Spike’s lips onto his.
But he didn’t because that wasn’t what Spike wanted. Spike didn't want Angel to take control. So he looked into Spike’s eyes and waited for Spike to make the first move.
It didn’t happen.
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Spike blinked and managed to pull his eyes down from Angel’s. He wanted to kiss him, yes, but he was with Bartleby. And he’d been royally worked over so many times, including more than one time by Angel himself, that he couldn’t do it to someone else. So he stepped back and looked down so that he did not have to see the disappointment or worse, the anger, in Angel’s eyes.
“Look mate,” Spike started without really knowing what he should say, “this is a bit uncomfortable and all, but -”
At that moment, Angel screamed and Spike looked up to see that a spider-like hell demon that looked as though it was eighty percent teeth and claws had pounced on Angel and was currently slashing at him with it’s butcher knife-like talons.
Roaring, Spike dropped his blood bags and after a brief struggle managed to rip the cat-sized demon off of Angel’s back. The thing skittered backward on its multiple sharp legs with pieces of Angel’s flesh hanging off of its grey claws. It circled the two vampires for a little while and Spike tried to stay between it and Angel, who was still getting up.
The demon reared back and pounced again, but Spike was able to smash it away with his forearm. Apparently angered, it screeched and then opened its gigantic maw, letting a stream of sunlight out into the alley that singed Spike’s arm.
“Shit,” Angel hissed.
Noticing the vampires’ fear, the demon kept it’s mouth open now, swinging it’s head from side to side while Spike and Angel took off running to find decent hiding places along the streets and alleys. Before long, however, they found themselves trapped when several more of the deadly creatures jumped down from nearby buildings and followed the example of the first in using their light as their weapon.
For one brief moment then, Spike, honestly frightened that this could be the real end, reached out and quickly gripped Angel’s hand.
Right then, there was a rustle of wings above, and Spike watched and Bartleby and Loki swooped down from the sky and effectively bowled over several of the closest claw demons. Spike let go of Angel’s hand and Bartleby swept over to the two vampires, telling them to get down on the ground. The two did so, and Bartleby quickly lay over them, spreading his wings to their full span to accommodate their scrunched-up forms.
One of the demons peered menacingly over Bartleby’s shoulder with icy green eyes and rose up its sharp talons over his wings. Suddenly, the demon fell silently backwards, a spew of silver blood left over Bartleby’s wings.
The three of them lay still there until they did not hear any more claws tapping along the ground. Spike cautiously put his hand on Bartleby’s shoulder and lifted his head over to see Loki standing in the midst of the demon carnage with two large guns with long silencers.
“Not bad, huh?” Loki lifted his head towards Spike, “and definitely handy that you both screamed like such girls that some humans took notice.” Spike snorted and gave a weak smile.
Although he was still visibly cautious, Bartleby finally lifted himself onto his knees and drew his wings in.
“Are you alright?” he asked Spike as his ran his hand along a few of the scratches Spike had received while pulling the first demon off of Angel.
Spike nodded, but honestly felt a little…off, like the some phantom light from the demons was inside of him. He looked over at Angel to ask if he was feeling the same thing and quickly realized that Angel was sweating and hot to the touch and definitely not alright.
“Wot’s wrong with him?” Spike asked somewhat frantically as he tried to get Angel’s hazy eyes to focus on him.
“Oh shit, he got scratched up,” Loki hurried over and looked at Spike as though he really didn’t want to say what was coming next, “I used to use those things a lot. They have a potion on their claws that spreads through the body until it pulls the victim into Hell.”
Spike openly gaped at Loki and stroked Angel’s hair as his Sire began to mutter nonsense about wings and dust.
“We can flush it out, right?” Bartleby asked as he steadied Spike who was beginning to sway a little. Loki looked down and shook his head.
Angel suddenly let out a sort of dry scream as particle by particle he disappeared from Spike’s embrace, leaving Spike, who was quickly becoming more and more emotional and confused, weeping at his empty arms.
Bartleby pulled Spike close to him and held on as though if he held him tightly enough, he could prevent the inevitable.
“We’ll get you back, okay Will? I love you and we’re going to get you back.”
With surprising clarity, Spike nodded at Bartleby and gripped his hand before he silently disappeared.
Author: thelastchickpea
Pairing: Spike/Angel, Bartleby/Loki (from Dogma), Spike/Bartleby
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: See AN. Slash (m/m sex), angst, crossover with Dogma
Disclaimer: I don't own the characters, background story, or title. It's not for profit so please don't sue.
Spoilers: Post-NFA (so all AtS to be safe) and all Dogma is spoiled.
Summary: It's after the final battle, and Spike waited for Angel to be ready until he couldn't wait anymore. Spike's got a life of his own now and Angel might want another chance.
AN/Warning: This story is only a crossover in that 3 characters from the film Dogma are incorporated in the BtVS/AtS-verse. Therefore, in this story, “The Powers That Be” will be the all-powerful entity. In this piece of fiction, angels are just specific demons created by TPTB to keep humans in line. They'll be doing some demon-y stuff (and they have, um, tackle, which is explained in the fic).
Banner thanks to purpledodah :)
AN: Hey guys, I realize it's been a super long time since I've updated this, but it's still going. My life was being a little strange and I just couldn't get around to this. Anyway, this story will be finished, I can say that. Sorry about the wait and please comment if you're still reading! Knowing if people are reading/enjoying this means alot to me and typo help is really appreciated :)
Chapter Nine
“Poof!”
Spike smiled in relief when he saw Angel heading into the baggage claim area where he and Bartleby had been waiting. To his great surprise, Angel actually looked pleased at the greeting and did a sort of awkward lumber with his large carry-on down the escalator around the standing riders.
“Spike,” Angel stood in front of him and lifted his arms a fraction as though he wanted to hug him, but for some reason decided against it, “you’re okay?”
“So far,” Spike didn’t know what to do with his hands. He wasn’t exactly a touchy type, but he somehow felt that he had been cheated.
“Bartleby,” Angel tore his eyes from Spike for a moment and spoke with a certain amount of respect over the bitterness. Spike was glad that pointing out Bartleby’s good points over the phone had some effect. “Is he telling me the truth?”
“Oi!” Spike put his hands on his hips. “ ‘Course I’m telling the truth!”
“You’d play it off if only you were at risk,” Angel turned back to Bartleby, “is he?”
“We’ve been fine so far,” Bartleby gave the back of his neck a scratch, “they want me, but they’ll take anyone that they think they can use against me.”
“And they could use Spike?”
Bartleby looked at Spike and his face softened a bit.
“He’d be their first choice.”
“So what do we do?” Angel’s hands clenched and unclenched at his sides in a fast rhythm.
“Fight. Effing hell demons. Done it before, yeah?” Spike was a little set off when he saw that Bartleby did not appear as if he entirely agreed with this plan. He was giving Angel one of those looks like…
“Why’re you looking at him like mum and da need to talk after the kiddies are asleep?”
“What?” Both Bartleby and Angel shot confused glances at Spike.
Probably both worried that I think they’re the ‘mum’. Wankers.
“Wot secret are you keeping?” Spike looked at Bartleby’s guilty face and realized exactly what he wanted to talk to Angel about. He’d tried to talk to Spike about the same thing before they left for the airport.
“You’re not cutting of your wings!”
“Spike -” Bartleby cut in.
“No. Wouldn’t stop them anyway. Take away their lolly, it’ll get worse.”
Bartleby looked as though he wanted to say something again, but Spike gave him a sharp glare that he hoped conveyed that it was not under discussion. Also, he really did not want to have any sort of emotional argument in front of Angel. It just…he couldn’t do that.
“B, you’d make a crap human,” Spike gave a little self-deprecating smirk to show that he didn’t think that he would make a particularly good human either, “so we’ll get a better plan, yeah?”
“He’s right,” Angel added with a nod.
“Maybe,” Bartleby replied evenly, giving Angel a look that clearly communicated that this conversation was between him and Spike and that Angel had no part in it.
Spike rolled his eyes. He really did not need to see them do this broody-avenger standoff.
“’m going outside. Got your bags, right?” He waited until Angel finally broke the staring contest with Bartleby and nodded at him. “Let’s got then. I need a smoke from dealing with you lot.”
Spike then swept out into the parking lot, leaving Angel and Bartleby to follow behind him. Without looking behind him, he knew that they were probably shooting each other death glares that they both thought were real subtle. When he was at his and Bartleby’s taxi, he leaned back on it and lit up a cigarette. He really hoped that this problem just kind of…disappeared. All of his previous experience with demons of course pointed to that not really being a real possibility, but one could hope, right? It was just that things were…complicated with Angel. And it was all fine for things to be complicated when Angel was out in California and he was here, but when they were getting along and here together -
Shutting his eyes briefly, Spike shook his head. He was not going to think about that. He and Angel were actually friends now and that was great. That was perfect.
He was interrupted by his thoughts when he saw three grungy-looking boys with stringy hair and dark circles underneath their eyes brake on their rollerblades in the middle of a parking lot. They all looked at him, made a small grunting noise, and then began to tap the pavement with the blades of their hockey sticks.
“Figures evil comes in hockey flavour,” Spike continued to smoke and rolled his head over to look at Angel who was now at the car with Bartleby.
“It’s not hockey’s fault,” the corners of Angel’s mouth twitched towards a smile, “evil even comes in puppet nowadays.”
The three demon boys then began to skate forward violently with their sticks raised as if they were about to take a slap shot. Spike thought that maybe it would be quite intimidating to a particularly pansy-arsed human. As far as he was concerned though, he was facing a few prepubescents with no particular supernatural powers who were stupid enough that they were apparently planning to use their wooden sticks to strike their vampire opponents in the shins.
“They’ve got to be joking,” he cocked an eyebrow at Bartleby as though it was up to the angel to explain why Hell sent such unworthy adversaries.
“I think they are,” Bartleby said slowly and exhibiting an interesting twitch in his eye, “they’re playing with us.”
“Playing with us?” Spike growled at Bartleby’s answering nod. “Right. Well, always good to get a warm-up in.”
With that he jumped on the nearest approaching demon, grabbed its hockey stick and dug the blade right into the demon’s middle. Before the first cough of black blood even came up, Spike had dropped him and was running towards the next demon.
Spike understood the appeal of playing with your prey. Hell, if you didn’t get some fun out of the fight then it was just…work. And Spike did not like to work.
That did not mean, however, that he appreciated being toyed with and he had no problem sending that clear message right back to Hell.
As Spike went at the second demon with his fists, the third one seemed to decide he really didn’t want to be a red-shirt in this battle and turned to skate away. Angel started as though he was going to head after him when suddenly he flinched from a sudden wind and looked up to see Bartleby jumping over him with his wings spread out. With one more powerful stoke of his wings the angel rushed forward and landed forcefully on his feet in front of the panicking hell demon.
Extremely fascinated, Spike dropped his current opponent (who had gone completely limp several punches back) and watched Bartleby. In almost thirty years, Spike hadn’t ever really seen him willingly join in on a fight. Bartleby would throw in a few hits sometimes if Spike looked like he needed the help, but for the most part he played the comforter and calmed down the victim. Which was good since lord knows Spike was crap at calming down victims who, as far as he was concerned, should have known better than to walk though those neighborhoods alone at night. It was also probably good since Bartleby really wasn’t that strong. Not bad for a human, six foot three of muscle and grit will do that to you, but for a demon? Heh.
Bartleby, who was very aware of his lack of combat skills, wasted no time in grabbing the demon by the neck and lifting himself back off of the ground. Once they were in the air, the demon began to let out gut-wrenching screams that apparently startled Bartleby into dropping the thing. The demon stopped screaming when it fell with a crunch onto the pavement.
Okay, it wasn’t exactly a glorious fight, but honestly better than Spike was expecting.
Bartleby, averting his eyes from the mess, floated back down to the pavement and put his coat back on over his wings.
“Not bad, luv,” Spike had no problem looking at the carnage, “I’ll teach you how to be a bit cleaner next time, yeah? Think you got the poof’s shoes.” He nodded his head over to Angel who, indeed, was rubbing the sides of one of his shoes against a light post to get the syrupy blood off of them.
Bartleby finally raised his eyes and gave Spike a smirk that told him that actually, that drop might not have been as accidental as it appeared.
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“Oh, so your guy’s an elf?” Loki popped his gum.
“Well, humans would call him an elf Buttercup. It doesn’t exactly fit since he’s not short or small, if you get my drift, but hey, if humans don’t catch on, all the better for the rest of us,” Lorne smiled. He’d been ready to go home to his family for a while and was really tired of splitting an apartment that was only meant for two tenants with four other people.
“No, no, I know what you mean. I dated an elf once.”
It was at least nicer now that Loki was actually talking to him. For a while, he had kept his head down and his hand on the gun in his coat pocket whenever Lorne approached. Now though, the angel’s slight nerves were only really discernable through how his gum chewing sped up.
“You never dated an elf,” Bartleby said with complete certainty as he walked into the living room.
“Hey man, you wouldn’t know!”
Bartleby gave a little snort and shook his head.
“Fine, I hooked up with an elf once,” Loki glared at Bartleby who gave a little half-smile back.
“Are my two favorite vampires up yet?” Lorne asked Bartleby, hoping to change the subject. Honestly, all the sexual tension around here was absolutely lethal! The whole thing was headed towards a violent orgy and Lorne was unsure whether or not he wanted to be around to witness that. He supposed that he should thank his lucky stars that Bartleby and Angel didn’t ever sing, because just a few rhymes of DMC from Loki and some Sex Pistols lyrics from Spike and his head was reeling for the rest of the day.
“They went out to get blood.”
“You sound less than happy about that,” Loki stated in a deceptively casual manner.
“I’m less than happy about his whole situation,” Bartleby sat down on the couch with his legs sprawled out, “This really can’t end well, Loki.”
Lorne saw the almost unperceivable way Loki’s head peaked up when he was addressed in an almost confidential manner. Of course, that didn’t mean that he would give particularly helpful advice.
“It’s going to be fine, you know? I mean, I know you’re all for the drama queen thing, you’ve got the queen piece down solid already…” Despite himself, Bartleby gave a little smile at this.
“Says the guy who’s here so that he can bone me.”
“Aw shit Bartleby, did you just say ‘bone’? Dirty, dirty word there Watcher,” Loki shook his head.
“I think I’m sinking to the level of present company,” Bartleby mused.
“Ah good. ‘the level of present company’. There’s the good old anal-retentive bastard I know,” Loki spit out his gum and Bartleby kicked his shin when he tried to stick it under the table. Loki sighed, examined the flavorless white gum, and then looked at the walk across the rather small room to the trashcan. Glaring at Bartleby, he stuck the gum back into his mouth.
“Simple creature,” Bartleby snorted.
Lorne just observed the two. He liked them both, but had a particular affection for Bartleby. Bartleby had once been talking about how he must have to agree to the wing cutting, otherwise Hell wouldn’t be trying to tire them out with the ‘flunkies’. Lorne knew that he gave just a tiny flinch at that, and as soon as he did, he saw Bartleby’s eyes widen.
But the angel then had just continued with what he was saying. No pity, no hate, no judgment, no unnecessary apologies. He would have thought that was it, except that the next night there was a small note in his jacket pocket.
This isn’t to make it any better.
He wasn’t planning anything good.
And it didn’t make it better. But it was the truth, and Lorne had spent so long listening to lies in that job that it certainly did mean something.
So Lorne could honestly say that he wanted things to work out for Bartleby, and he had to disagree that there was no way this was going to end well.
He was Lorne, and if he gave up hope than goodness knows none of these little sour apples would stand a chance.
~ + ~ + ~ + ~+ ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~
Angel cast a sideways glance at Spike as they left the hospital. He felt a little wary about using an old Wolfram and Hart contact to get blood, but there certainly wasn’t going to be a butcher shop open this time of night and sending anyone out during the day was out of the question. After that vision, he was not taking any risk of Spike being caught, taken into, lured into or otherwise brought into the sunlight.
Of course, he couldn’t actually tell Spike why he was suddenly having this intense paranoia of anyone, not just the vampires, leaving the apartment during the day and Spike was starting to really harp on that and starting to say stuff about how if he had just opened up at Wolfram and Hart, things could have turned out differently.
Which was true, maybe. But absolutely not what Angel had wanted to hear. It had already resulted in a dislocated shoulder for Spike and a leaking black eye for Angel when Lorne came in and firmly gripped Angel’s arm.
“Try talking,” he had whispered to Angel, the disappointment very evident in his voice.
But Angel couldn’t talk about that. He couldn’t talk about the vision because if he talked about how he saw Spike out in the sunlight, then he might also have to talk about how he saw himself beheaded. And he couldn’t share that because if he did, Spike might be stupid and try to be a hero and Angel couldn’t risk that once again he would be the one to make it through while those loyal to him were made to suffer. It was no more than he deserved and -
“Hey, Broody. Where’d you go?”
“What?” Angel looked at Spike and saw the dangerously inquisitive look, “Nothing, it’s nothing, I mean, nowhere.”
“Right, real convincing that,” Spike used the hand that was unburdened by blood bags to pull his hood over his head and then began to walk ahead of Angel.
“Spike,” Angel hurried up and put his hand on his shoulder, “I’m doing the right thing. Understand that.”
“Angel,” Spike tensed, “I’m sure that you’re very sure that you’re doing the right thing. But maybe it would be great if you trusted me enough to let me in on this, yeah? That would be just fucking peachy.”
“I trust you.”
Spike snorted and shook his head.
“I mean it. Spike, turn around. I’m not going to have this conversation with the back of your hood.”
Angel expected an uppercut to his jaw, but instead Spike let out a frustrated sigh and turned around slowly, leaving their faces with little useless air between them.
“What happened to your duster?” Angel whispered as he reached a hand up to push the hood back off Spike’s head.
“Wot?” Spike dismissively slapped Angel’s hand aside, but notably didn’t take a step back, “we’re not talking ‘bout that right now.”
“Do you still have it?”
Spike gave his head a small shake.
“No. Pawned it when B and I needed a bit of dosh in the beginning. Wasn’t really my look anymore anyway. Was moving on, yeah?”
“Oh.”
Spike brought his eyes up to meet Angel’s and for one second Angel felt everything drop away and he was looking at Will, his youngest Childe and Spike, his most fierce competitor and lover and everything in his unlife fit. And then Spike moved his face forward just a fraction of an inch and Angel wanted to just take the moment and pull Spike’s lips onto his.
But he didn’t because that wasn’t what Spike wanted. Spike didn't want Angel to take control. So he looked into Spike’s eyes and waited for Spike to make the first move.
It didn’t happen.
~ + ~ + ~ + ~+ ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~ + ~
Spike blinked and managed to pull his eyes down from Angel’s. He wanted to kiss him, yes, but he was with Bartleby. And he’d been royally worked over so many times, including more than one time by Angel himself, that he couldn’t do it to someone else. So he stepped back and looked down so that he did not have to see the disappointment or worse, the anger, in Angel’s eyes.
“Look mate,” Spike started without really knowing what he should say, “this is a bit uncomfortable and all, but -”
At that moment, Angel screamed and Spike looked up to see that a spider-like hell demon that looked as though it was eighty percent teeth and claws had pounced on Angel and was currently slashing at him with it’s butcher knife-like talons.
Roaring, Spike dropped his blood bags and after a brief struggle managed to rip the cat-sized demon off of Angel’s back. The thing skittered backward on its multiple sharp legs with pieces of Angel’s flesh hanging off of its grey claws. It circled the two vampires for a little while and Spike tried to stay between it and Angel, who was still getting up.
The demon reared back and pounced again, but Spike was able to smash it away with his forearm. Apparently angered, it screeched and then opened its gigantic maw, letting a stream of sunlight out into the alley that singed Spike’s arm.
“Shit,” Angel hissed.
Noticing the vampires’ fear, the demon kept it’s mouth open now, swinging it’s head from side to side while Spike and Angel took off running to find decent hiding places along the streets and alleys. Before long, however, they found themselves trapped when several more of the deadly creatures jumped down from nearby buildings and followed the example of the first in using their light as their weapon.
For one brief moment then, Spike, honestly frightened that this could be the real end, reached out and quickly gripped Angel’s hand.
Right then, there was a rustle of wings above, and Spike watched and Bartleby and Loki swooped down from the sky and effectively bowled over several of the closest claw demons. Spike let go of Angel’s hand and Bartleby swept over to the two vampires, telling them to get down on the ground. The two did so, and Bartleby quickly lay over them, spreading his wings to their full span to accommodate their scrunched-up forms.
One of the demons peered menacingly over Bartleby’s shoulder with icy green eyes and rose up its sharp talons over his wings. Suddenly, the demon fell silently backwards, a spew of silver blood left over Bartleby’s wings.
The three of them lay still there until they did not hear any more claws tapping along the ground. Spike cautiously put his hand on Bartleby’s shoulder and lifted his head over to see Loki standing in the midst of the demon carnage with two large guns with long silencers.
“Not bad, huh?” Loki lifted his head towards Spike, “and definitely handy that you both screamed like such girls that some humans took notice.” Spike snorted and gave a weak smile.
Although he was still visibly cautious, Bartleby finally lifted himself onto his knees and drew his wings in.
“Are you alright?” he asked Spike as his ran his hand along a few of the scratches Spike had received while pulling the first demon off of Angel.
Spike nodded, but honestly felt a little…off, like the some phantom light from the demons was inside of him. He looked over at Angel to ask if he was feeling the same thing and quickly realized that Angel was sweating and hot to the touch and definitely not alright.
“Wot’s wrong with him?” Spike asked somewhat frantically as he tried to get Angel’s hazy eyes to focus on him.
“Oh shit, he got scratched up,” Loki hurried over and looked at Spike as though he really didn’t want to say what was coming next, “I used to use those things a lot. They have a potion on their claws that spreads through the body until it pulls the victim into Hell.”
Spike openly gaped at Loki and stroked Angel’s hair as his Sire began to mutter nonsense about wings and dust.
“We can flush it out, right?” Bartleby asked as he steadied Spike who was beginning to sway a little. Loki looked down and shook his head.
Angel suddenly let out a sort of dry scream as particle by particle he disappeared from Spike’s embrace, leaving Spike, who was quickly becoming more and more emotional and confused, weeping at his empty arms.
Bartleby pulled Spike close to him and held on as though if he held him tightly enough, he could prevent the inevitable.
“We’ll get you back, okay Will? I love you and we’re going to get you back.”
With surprising clarity, Spike nodded at Bartleby and gripped his hand before he silently disappeared.