Compatible Faults 10
In which Angel is surprisingly un-dick-like!!
Warnings: Um... things go well, sorry, no badness this chapter. Consider it a break. ;)
Previous Parts Here
Chapter Ten: Contrition Time
The security staff thought Angel had come to chew them out about Lawson getting into the building and threatening most of the senior staff. So Angel obliged them with a rant - peppered liberally with growls and glares. It never hurt to have the staff afraid of you.
Almost as an afterthought, at the end, he asked if they could find out where Spike had been all day yesterday.
“Do you want us to put the tail back on him, sir?”
Angel grimaced, feeling the moral quandary like a stomach ache. Fortunately, the security officer took his expression differently and nodded. “Of course, sir, sorry for asking.”
Angel froze on his way out, suddenly realizing something. He turned back the security chief. “He can’t know he’s being followed. I’m serious. The man who Spike sees tailing him will lose his job, or worse.”
“Yes, sir. I’ll make sure that is known.”
Wolfram and Hart security took death threats almost glibly.
Angel sighed and trudged back to his office, feeling like a big, ugly, rejected tyrant.
Harmony rose from behind her desk as he approached. “Bossy. Your eleven o’clock is early.”
He scowled and looked for a clock. How long had he ranted at security?
Harmony hurried to him with a one-sheet summary and a couple post-it notes written in Wesley’s cramped hand.
Not really meaning to, he leaned toward her and took an experimental sniff. Not that he thought Spike… well, he had run straight for Harmony when he corporealized…
Angel was knocked back with an ice-pick sensation to his sinuses, a lance of overpowering chemical scent lacing to the back of his skull.
“Oh! You noticed my new perfume? It’s so hard to find something feminine that doesn’t irritate the vamp senses, you know? When I was alive, my favorite…”
“I’m late,” Angel gasped, and waved her away.
He had to blink through the tears to find his meeting room.
All through the meeting, all he could think was, “I’ve really screwed up. Spike isn’t coming back. Spike is in Outer Mongolia by now. I’m going to be utterly alone the rest of my days and damn do I deserve it.”
“Angel?” Wes was looking at him with some irritation that indicated this was not the first repetition of his name.
“Uh… sorry. What…?”
Wesley rolled his eyes in that tight way only he had, that never left your face or alerted the others in the room that he was mocking you. Angel felt two inches high. He tried to remember Wes when he’d been less confident. “I wasn’t paying attention,” Angel admitted. “I’m sorry.”
***
Spike paced his apartment - HIS, damn it, not D… Lindsey’s. (“Damn Lindsey”, he amends in his mind, giving the ‘D’ something else to stand for.)
He had $6.28 in his pocket - the remnant of a twenty Damn Lindsey had given him to buy blood and smokes four days ago. He had half a pint of blood left in the fridge - a thermos stolen spitefully from the Wolfram and Hart staff room. And he had one bottle left of beer - an IPA Lindsey liked and he didn’t.
He had a place to stay, at least - for the rest of the month or however long Lindsey had paid up the lease.
Less than a month after supposedly ‘finding his destiny’ he was back to just existing. He paced from the kitchen table to the bed and back, crumpling the cellophane wrapper from his cigarettes just to have some destructive noise. He didn’t want to trash anything he could maybe sell.
He had to get out of here - out of Angel’s town. He’d sell the playstation - someone might want that at least - and steal a car from Wolfram and Hart. (His soul really, really had no trouble with property theft from the openly evil.) Just wait for after five, when most of the minions went home…
He threw the crumpled wrapper at the wall.
He hated waiting.
Someone knocked on his door.
Spike froze in place, confused. Who could possibly knock on his door? Who knew where it was?
He opened it to see Fred waving at him. She had a paper bag under one arm. “Can I come in?”
He stepped back. “Sure, Fred.”
“I have a bone to pick with you.” She waggled her finger and headed straight for the table. “You never even THOUGHT about having a house-warming, did you?”
“Uh… no.”
She pulled a bottle and a box out of the bag. “Well, I brought one to you. Hope you like tacos.”
“Love them,” he said, still sounding startled. He pulled out the table’s one chair and held it for her. “What brought this on?”
“A girl can’t take time out of her busy day to spend time with her second-favorite vampire?”
“Second favorite? Did I beat out Harmony?”
Fred swatted his arm and went back to her professional unpacking of the box of tacos. There were little cups of hot sauce and wax-paper to unwrap. She smiled proudly when she had at last exposed the tortilla-wrapped beef. “You never even told me you had a place. I had to find out by hacking the security reports.”
“Fred, you minx!”
“Naw,” she waved a hand at him and adjusted her grip on her taco. “They use a simple site-to-site security so all I had to do was guess Angel’s password - which was so not hard.”
Spike leaned forward. “So what’s the old poofter’s password?”
She shook her head until she finished swallowing a mouthful of taco. “Oh no. I know you’ll do something silly and then he’ll change it and I might need that in the future.”
“Probably for the best.” Spike shrugged and leaned back against the kitchen counter. “I’m leavin’, Fred. Fast as I can get out of here. I mean… it’s not really my place, is it? Got no way to pay next month’s rent, when it comes around.”
“Oh, Spike! You know you have a job any time you want one. Heck, I’d pay you out of my department in a heartbeat.”
Spike had to smile. “Think I’d make a good guinea pig?”
“You’d be my lab assistant, silly!”
“Naw, love, thanks for the offer, but it’s not about money. I just don’t think two vampires with souls can live in the same town together.”
“Now that’s the craziest thing I ever heard. You and Angel should be relying on each other. I mean, who else knows what you’ve been through? I know Angel can be all gruff sometimes, but he means well, and he does worry about you. Gosh, you should have seen him when your hands got cut off. I thought he was going to wear a hole in the ground with his pacing! The poor doctors…”
“Oh, I know the old poof cares, in his way.” Spike picked up a taco and examined it, deciding on the best unwrapping strategy. “But me and him… we’re too different. Or maybe not different enough. He’ll never see me as more than I was, Fred. He talks about forgiveness, but he hasn’t forgiven himself a damned thing in one hundred years; do you really think he’ll forgive me? No.” He took half the taco in one bite and waved the rest of it at Fred to emphasize his point. “We’re both better off surrounded by people who don’t know what we are. Too much of a reminder, him and me. It’s like wearing a bloody rosary.”
Fred crossed her arms. “Well I think that’s cowardly, running away because it’s too hard or too complicated to deal with him.”
Spike straightened, glaring. “I’m not running away!”
“Good,” Fred winked. “Because I could really use a lab assistant who can survive explosions.”
***
Angel stood in his office, holding the security report. Spike had been alone all the time he was away. He'd played video games for four hours and fallen asleep with a beer in front of his TV.
Angel felt like dirt. He called for Gunn, who now stood, expectantly, waiting to hear what this was about.
“Gunn, of all my friends you’re the most…” Angel rolled his hand, helpless to finish the sentence.
Gunn raised his eyebrows. “Handsome? Charismatic. Intelligent?”
Angel scowled.
“If you can’t spit it out, I have to guess, don’t I?”
Angel set his palms flat on the desk in front of him. “You get along with people.”
“Ah, I think you want Lorne for this.”
“No, I mean… I trust you, Gunn, to tell me what to do.”
Gunn folded his arms and sat on the armrest of one of Angel’s chairs. “Who’d you piss off?”
“I didn’t say I…” Angel sighed at Gunn’s knowing look. “Spike. I think I chased him off for good.”
Gun shifted his hands to his pockets. “Isn’t that what you wanted?”
“No. Yes, maybe… I.” Angel ran his hands over his head. “Look. I want him back, okay? What do I do? If it was Cordy, I just bought her lots and lots of clothes. Spike… every time I’ve bought him clothing, and okay it wasn’t that often, but trust me, it didn’t go over well.”
Gunn shook his head slowly and got to his feet. “Angel, Angel. You have much to learn.”
“I mean, one hundred years ago? He was wearing the equivalent of a black tee and jeans. It’s really that hard to get him to wear anything remotely fashionable.”
Gunn paused, eyes ceiling-ward. “I didn’t mean about fashion. Think you have that one covered.” When he looked down, meeting Angel’s eyes, Angel had the disquieting feeling that this is what it felt like to face Gunn from the witness stand. “Tell me why you want him back. I want details, and I want you to be honest, or I can’t help you.”
***
Fred and Spike were on the couch, having finished off the tacos, and Spike was explaining the controls to Crash Bandicoot when there was a knock at the door.
Spike glanced up, frowning. The knock repeated.
“Aren’t you going to get that?”
Spike set down his controller with a sigh. “Only five people know this address, pet. And three of them are counted out on account of being here already or in hell.” He opened the door without looking. “What?”
Angel lowered his knocking hand. “Um… I…” He raised the six-pack of beer Gunn had picked out for him, and then his eyes fell on Fred. “Fred! You’re here. That’s… that’s unexpected.”
Spike said, “Yeah. Thanks for stopping by, she’ll see you at the office,” and started to close the door.
“Wait!” Angel stepped forward, holding the six-pack of ungodly priced imported beer in the path of the closing door. “I brought beer!”
Spike plucked the six-pack from Angel’s grip and let the door swing into his arm. “Ta,” he said and fished one of the bottles out.
Angel gritted his teeth and tried to remember Gunn’s advice. He’s going to bait you. You KNOW that. Don’t let him.
He stepped around the door and closed it behind him. Taking a deep breath, he said the words Gunn had made him practice three times. “Spike, I’m an ass; you were right; can we just have a beer?”
To his surprise, Spike stopped, mid-guzzle, and looked at him.
Angel mentally advised himself to give Gunn a raise. Though this was hard, uncomfortable, with Fred watching them, big eyes behind the television, a game controller held defensively in front of her. Angel cleared his throat. Next step, Gunn had said, be honest. “I want you to stay. Because you’re good for me. You’re right, Spike. The deal with Wolfram and Hart, it’s seductive, and wrong. And I need someone to kick me in the pants now and again, to remind me that the emperor has no clothes.”
Spike lowered his beer. “Who are you, and what have you done with Angel?”
Angel itched to grab the note cards he’d stuffed in his pocket. “You like the beer, don’t you?”
Spike held up the bottle, peered at the label and nodded slowly. “Charlie picked it out, didn’t he?”
“Uh… no, I mean, yes. I… might have asked his opinion.” Angel rubbed the back of his head. “Fred! You’re… visiting? Isn’t it the middle of the day.”
Fred shrugged. “You know research… my hours are dictated by the chromatoscope more often than not.” When she saw Angel’s doubtful frown, she added, “Knox is going to page me when the next batch of test results are done.”
“Anything you got to say, Peaches, you can say in front of Fred.”
“Oh… I don’t…” Fred hurriedly got to her feet. “There’s no need to be awkward on my account. I… I think I hear those gel electrophoresis slides calling…”
“Yeah, Fred, I think you should go,” Angel said.
At the same time, Spike said, “You’re not leavin’ ‘cause of him! One person in this room I actually invited in, an’ she’s staying.” He set down his beer loudly.
“This is really getting awkward,” Fred said, hands out.
Angel sighed heavily. “Spike, I want you to come back. I want you to stay. Because I… please don’t make me say this.”
Spike’s eyes lit up. “Say what?”
“You call me a ‘poof’ and all that already.”
“And?” Spike and Fred shared a significant look. Fred put her hand over her mouth to hold back the stupid grin.
“You know I’m not good at this.”
Spike folded his arms and tilted his head back, looking very smug. “Fred, love, did you know vampires could blush? What do you suppose that says about our circulation?”
Fred sauntered over to stand next to Spike, arms crossed as well. “The capillary action looks as fast as on a living human. I should take measurements.”
Angel scowled. “I hate you both.”
“Aw, Peaches, we hate you too.”
Angel saw Gunn’s face. Heard himself asking, “Do I really have to say that?” And Gunn’s unbending, “Do you want him back or don’t you?”
“SpikeIloveyoupleasecomeback.”
Spike leaned forward, half-smiling, but confused. “Excuse me?”
Angel was somewhat worried that Fred didn’t look confused at all. “I want you. I need you. If you leave I… it’ll hurt. Don’t do that to me.”
There was a long pause. Spike looked at Angel like he’d been punched in the gut.
Fred made a loud “Tsk!” and waved them toward each other, “So kiss, already!”
“I’m not so sure,” Spike said. He held a hand out to Fred’s protest. “I know you want the happily-ever, love. But he’s still him, and I’m still me, and that’s not changing. Brilliant shags aside.”
Angel bit his lower lip. “I’m not asking for forgiveness. I’m asking for another chance.”
“Gave you another chance.”
“Well, I’m asking for another one.” Angel snapped.
Fred gave him a glare and he immediately shifted into a contrite expression. “Spike, please. That’s all I can say. You always knew, didn’t you? How I really felt? When you died…”
“Please don’t say you cried for weeks. We both know it isn’t true.”
“I felt relieved,” Angel said. “I was sad, but… relieved. You were a reflection of the worst things in me. Another person I ruined. And you, yeah, you screw up everything I thought I knew about redemption. So I was relieved as hell, Spike, not to have you in the world.”
“I’m guessing this isn’t the prepared speech,” Fred muttered.
Angel ducked his head. “But you came back. You came back all messed up and irritating and you were a ghost. I couldn’t touch you. You… it was worse than not having you, having you be like that. All I could think about was having you solid again, at first so I could wrap my hands around your throat and shut off all the uncomfortable, true things you said. Then it was more just wanting to touch you, and know you were there.”
Spike blinked. “And then I kicked your ass.”
Angel looked at the ceiling, sighed, and nodded.
“I don’t think you deserve a second chance, Angel,” Spike said. He stepped forward and held out his hand, “but I’ll give you one.”
Angel pulled the handshake in, wrapped his arm around Spike’s shoulders for a hug though the smaller vampire protested and twisted away. “Not in front of science girl, you poof. She already thinks we’re cuddly puppies.”
Fred was grinning almost maniacally now. “I’ll just leave you two. Spike, thank you for the hospitality and showing me your game system and all, but I have to go and, um…”
“Spread the gossip like a good busy-body?”
She half-shrugged, trying to look innocent. “There may have been betting pools.” She picked up her keys from the kitchen table and waved on her way out. “Do everything I wouldn’t do!”
Angel stared, dumb-struck, after her departure. “That, I wasn’t expecting.”
“Yeah, because you think you can actually keep a secret in a corporate environment. Haven’t watched a single episode of ‘The Office’, have you?”
“So… you didn’t tell her?”
“Haven’t told anyone a damn thing, you know that. Suspect your people just know you better than you know yourself.”
Spike stepped back. He watched Angel warily.
Angel flexed his hands, hating that look and not sure what to do about it. “Did it work? My apology?”
“They tend to work best when you don’t ask. And you didn’t exactly apologize.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Do you mean that?”
“Yes?”
Spike sighed heavily. “Peaches, you don’t even know what you’re apologizing for, do you?”
“I hit you. And I was stupid and jealous.”
Spike shrugged. “Close enough.” He held out his arms. “Come on, before I lose my temporary insanity.”
Angel folded his arms around Spike. They both felt the other’s strength, squeezing perhaps a little too hard, muscle against muscle. Angel brushed his cheek against Spike’s. “So can there be makeup sex?”
“Don’t push it.”
Angel made a disappointed noise and rubbed his nose along Spike’s neck.
Spike sighed, melting into the tightening embrace. “You’re so lucky I’m easy.”
Continued -->
Warnings: Um... things go well, sorry, no badness this chapter. Consider it a break. ;)
Previous Parts Here
Chapter Ten: Contrition Time
The security staff thought Angel had come to chew them out about Lawson getting into the building and threatening most of the senior staff. So Angel obliged them with a rant - peppered liberally with growls and glares. It never hurt to have the staff afraid of you.
Almost as an afterthought, at the end, he asked if they could find out where Spike had been all day yesterday.
“Do you want us to put the tail back on him, sir?”
Angel grimaced, feeling the moral quandary like a stomach ache. Fortunately, the security officer took his expression differently and nodded. “Of course, sir, sorry for asking.”
Angel froze on his way out, suddenly realizing something. He turned back the security chief. “He can’t know he’s being followed. I’m serious. The man who Spike sees tailing him will lose his job, or worse.”
“Yes, sir. I’ll make sure that is known.”
Wolfram and Hart security took death threats almost glibly.
Angel sighed and trudged back to his office, feeling like a big, ugly, rejected tyrant.
Harmony rose from behind her desk as he approached. “Bossy. Your eleven o’clock is early.”
He scowled and looked for a clock. How long had he ranted at security?
Harmony hurried to him with a one-sheet summary and a couple post-it notes written in Wesley’s cramped hand.
Not really meaning to, he leaned toward her and took an experimental sniff. Not that he thought Spike… well, he had run straight for Harmony when he corporealized…
Angel was knocked back with an ice-pick sensation to his sinuses, a lance of overpowering chemical scent lacing to the back of his skull.
“Oh! You noticed my new perfume? It’s so hard to find something feminine that doesn’t irritate the vamp senses, you know? When I was alive, my favorite…”
“I’m late,” Angel gasped, and waved her away.
He had to blink through the tears to find his meeting room.
All through the meeting, all he could think was, “I’ve really screwed up. Spike isn’t coming back. Spike is in Outer Mongolia by now. I’m going to be utterly alone the rest of my days and damn do I deserve it.”
“Angel?” Wes was looking at him with some irritation that indicated this was not the first repetition of his name.
“Uh… sorry. What…?”
Wesley rolled his eyes in that tight way only he had, that never left your face or alerted the others in the room that he was mocking you. Angel felt two inches high. He tried to remember Wes when he’d been less confident. “I wasn’t paying attention,” Angel admitted. “I’m sorry.”
***
Spike paced his apartment - HIS, damn it, not D… Lindsey’s. (“Damn Lindsey”, he amends in his mind, giving the ‘D’ something else to stand for.)
He had $6.28 in his pocket - the remnant of a twenty Damn Lindsey had given him to buy blood and smokes four days ago. He had half a pint of blood left in the fridge - a thermos stolen spitefully from the Wolfram and Hart staff room. And he had one bottle left of beer - an IPA Lindsey liked and he didn’t.
He had a place to stay, at least - for the rest of the month or however long Lindsey had paid up the lease.
Less than a month after supposedly ‘finding his destiny’ he was back to just existing. He paced from the kitchen table to the bed and back, crumpling the cellophane wrapper from his cigarettes just to have some destructive noise. He didn’t want to trash anything he could maybe sell.
He had to get out of here - out of Angel’s town. He’d sell the playstation - someone might want that at least - and steal a car from Wolfram and Hart. (His soul really, really had no trouble with property theft from the openly evil.) Just wait for after five, when most of the minions went home…
He threw the crumpled wrapper at the wall.
He hated waiting.
Someone knocked on his door.
Spike froze in place, confused. Who could possibly knock on his door? Who knew where it was?
He opened it to see Fred waving at him. She had a paper bag under one arm. “Can I come in?”
He stepped back. “Sure, Fred.”
“I have a bone to pick with you.” She waggled her finger and headed straight for the table. “You never even THOUGHT about having a house-warming, did you?”
“Uh… no.”
She pulled a bottle and a box out of the bag. “Well, I brought one to you. Hope you like tacos.”
“Love them,” he said, still sounding startled. He pulled out the table’s one chair and held it for her. “What brought this on?”
“A girl can’t take time out of her busy day to spend time with her second-favorite vampire?”
“Second favorite? Did I beat out Harmony?”
Fred swatted his arm and went back to her professional unpacking of the box of tacos. There were little cups of hot sauce and wax-paper to unwrap. She smiled proudly when she had at last exposed the tortilla-wrapped beef. “You never even told me you had a place. I had to find out by hacking the security reports.”
“Fred, you minx!”
“Naw,” she waved a hand at him and adjusted her grip on her taco. “They use a simple site-to-site security so all I had to do was guess Angel’s password - which was so not hard.”
Spike leaned forward. “So what’s the old poofter’s password?”
She shook her head until she finished swallowing a mouthful of taco. “Oh no. I know you’ll do something silly and then he’ll change it and I might need that in the future.”
“Probably for the best.” Spike shrugged and leaned back against the kitchen counter. “I’m leavin’, Fred. Fast as I can get out of here. I mean… it’s not really my place, is it? Got no way to pay next month’s rent, when it comes around.”
“Oh, Spike! You know you have a job any time you want one. Heck, I’d pay you out of my department in a heartbeat.”
Spike had to smile. “Think I’d make a good guinea pig?”
“You’d be my lab assistant, silly!”
“Naw, love, thanks for the offer, but it’s not about money. I just don’t think two vampires with souls can live in the same town together.”
“Now that’s the craziest thing I ever heard. You and Angel should be relying on each other. I mean, who else knows what you’ve been through? I know Angel can be all gruff sometimes, but he means well, and he does worry about you. Gosh, you should have seen him when your hands got cut off. I thought he was going to wear a hole in the ground with his pacing! The poor doctors…”
“Oh, I know the old poof cares, in his way.” Spike picked up a taco and examined it, deciding on the best unwrapping strategy. “But me and him… we’re too different. Or maybe not different enough. He’ll never see me as more than I was, Fred. He talks about forgiveness, but he hasn’t forgiven himself a damned thing in one hundred years; do you really think he’ll forgive me? No.” He took half the taco in one bite and waved the rest of it at Fred to emphasize his point. “We’re both better off surrounded by people who don’t know what we are. Too much of a reminder, him and me. It’s like wearing a bloody rosary.”
Fred crossed her arms. “Well I think that’s cowardly, running away because it’s too hard or too complicated to deal with him.”
Spike straightened, glaring. “I’m not running away!”
“Good,” Fred winked. “Because I could really use a lab assistant who can survive explosions.”
***
Angel stood in his office, holding the security report. Spike had been alone all the time he was away. He'd played video games for four hours and fallen asleep with a beer in front of his TV.
Angel felt like dirt. He called for Gunn, who now stood, expectantly, waiting to hear what this was about.
“Gunn, of all my friends you’re the most…” Angel rolled his hand, helpless to finish the sentence.
Gunn raised his eyebrows. “Handsome? Charismatic. Intelligent?”
Angel scowled.
“If you can’t spit it out, I have to guess, don’t I?”
Angel set his palms flat on the desk in front of him. “You get along with people.”
“Ah, I think you want Lorne for this.”
“No, I mean… I trust you, Gunn, to tell me what to do.”
Gunn folded his arms and sat on the armrest of one of Angel’s chairs. “Who’d you piss off?”
“I didn’t say I…” Angel sighed at Gunn’s knowing look. “Spike. I think I chased him off for good.”
Gun shifted his hands to his pockets. “Isn’t that what you wanted?”
“No. Yes, maybe… I.” Angel ran his hands over his head. “Look. I want him back, okay? What do I do? If it was Cordy, I just bought her lots and lots of clothes. Spike… every time I’ve bought him clothing, and okay it wasn’t that often, but trust me, it didn’t go over well.”
Gunn shook his head slowly and got to his feet. “Angel, Angel. You have much to learn.”
“I mean, one hundred years ago? He was wearing the equivalent of a black tee and jeans. It’s really that hard to get him to wear anything remotely fashionable.”
Gunn paused, eyes ceiling-ward. “I didn’t mean about fashion. Think you have that one covered.” When he looked down, meeting Angel’s eyes, Angel had the disquieting feeling that this is what it felt like to face Gunn from the witness stand. “Tell me why you want him back. I want details, and I want you to be honest, or I can’t help you.”
***
Fred and Spike were on the couch, having finished off the tacos, and Spike was explaining the controls to Crash Bandicoot when there was a knock at the door.
Spike glanced up, frowning. The knock repeated.
“Aren’t you going to get that?”
Spike set down his controller with a sigh. “Only five people know this address, pet. And three of them are counted out on account of being here already or in hell.” He opened the door without looking. “What?”
Angel lowered his knocking hand. “Um… I…” He raised the six-pack of beer Gunn had picked out for him, and then his eyes fell on Fred. “Fred! You’re here. That’s… that’s unexpected.”
Spike said, “Yeah. Thanks for stopping by, she’ll see you at the office,” and started to close the door.
“Wait!” Angel stepped forward, holding the six-pack of ungodly priced imported beer in the path of the closing door. “I brought beer!”
Spike plucked the six-pack from Angel’s grip and let the door swing into his arm. “Ta,” he said and fished one of the bottles out.
Angel gritted his teeth and tried to remember Gunn’s advice. He’s going to bait you. You KNOW that. Don’t let him.
He stepped around the door and closed it behind him. Taking a deep breath, he said the words Gunn had made him practice three times. “Spike, I’m an ass; you were right; can we just have a beer?”
To his surprise, Spike stopped, mid-guzzle, and looked at him.
Angel mentally advised himself to give Gunn a raise. Though this was hard, uncomfortable, with Fred watching them, big eyes behind the television, a game controller held defensively in front of her. Angel cleared his throat. Next step, Gunn had said, be honest. “I want you to stay. Because you’re good for me. You’re right, Spike. The deal with Wolfram and Hart, it’s seductive, and wrong. And I need someone to kick me in the pants now and again, to remind me that the emperor has no clothes.”
Spike lowered his beer. “Who are you, and what have you done with Angel?”
Angel itched to grab the note cards he’d stuffed in his pocket. “You like the beer, don’t you?”
Spike held up the bottle, peered at the label and nodded slowly. “Charlie picked it out, didn’t he?”
“Uh… no, I mean, yes. I… might have asked his opinion.” Angel rubbed the back of his head. “Fred! You’re… visiting? Isn’t it the middle of the day.”
Fred shrugged. “You know research… my hours are dictated by the chromatoscope more often than not.” When she saw Angel’s doubtful frown, she added, “Knox is going to page me when the next batch of test results are done.”
“Anything you got to say, Peaches, you can say in front of Fred.”
“Oh… I don’t…” Fred hurriedly got to her feet. “There’s no need to be awkward on my account. I… I think I hear those gel electrophoresis slides calling…”
“Yeah, Fred, I think you should go,” Angel said.
At the same time, Spike said, “You’re not leavin’ ‘cause of him! One person in this room I actually invited in, an’ she’s staying.” He set down his beer loudly.
“This is really getting awkward,” Fred said, hands out.
Angel sighed heavily. “Spike, I want you to come back. I want you to stay. Because I… please don’t make me say this.”
Spike’s eyes lit up. “Say what?”
“You call me a ‘poof’ and all that already.”
“And?” Spike and Fred shared a significant look. Fred put her hand over her mouth to hold back the stupid grin.
“You know I’m not good at this.”
Spike folded his arms and tilted his head back, looking very smug. “Fred, love, did you know vampires could blush? What do you suppose that says about our circulation?”
Fred sauntered over to stand next to Spike, arms crossed as well. “The capillary action looks as fast as on a living human. I should take measurements.”
Angel scowled. “I hate you both.”
“Aw, Peaches, we hate you too.”
Angel saw Gunn’s face. Heard himself asking, “Do I really have to say that?” And Gunn’s unbending, “Do you want him back or don’t you?”
“SpikeIloveyoupleasecomeback.”
Spike leaned forward, half-smiling, but confused. “Excuse me?”
Angel was somewhat worried that Fred didn’t look confused at all. “I want you. I need you. If you leave I… it’ll hurt. Don’t do that to me.”
There was a long pause. Spike looked at Angel like he’d been punched in the gut.
Fred made a loud “Tsk!” and waved them toward each other, “So kiss, already!”
“I’m not so sure,” Spike said. He held a hand out to Fred’s protest. “I know you want the happily-ever, love. But he’s still him, and I’m still me, and that’s not changing. Brilliant shags aside.”
Angel bit his lower lip. “I’m not asking for forgiveness. I’m asking for another chance.”
“Gave you another chance.”
“Well, I’m asking for another one.” Angel snapped.
Fred gave him a glare and he immediately shifted into a contrite expression. “Spike, please. That’s all I can say. You always knew, didn’t you? How I really felt? When you died…”
“Please don’t say you cried for weeks. We both know it isn’t true.”
“I felt relieved,” Angel said. “I was sad, but… relieved. You were a reflection of the worst things in me. Another person I ruined. And you, yeah, you screw up everything I thought I knew about redemption. So I was relieved as hell, Spike, not to have you in the world.”
“I’m guessing this isn’t the prepared speech,” Fred muttered.
Angel ducked his head. “But you came back. You came back all messed up and irritating and you were a ghost. I couldn’t touch you. You… it was worse than not having you, having you be like that. All I could think about was having you solid again, at first so I could wrap my hands around your throat and shut off all the uncomfortable, true things you said. Then it was more just wanting to touch you, and know you were there.”
Spike blinked. “And then I kicked your ass.”
Angel looked at the ceiling, sighed, and nodded.
“I don’t think you deserve a second chance, Angel,” Spike said. He stepped forward and held out his hand, “but I’ll give you one.”
Angel pulled the handshake in, wrapped his arm around Spike’s shoulders for a hug though the smaller vampire protested and twisted away. “Not in front of science girl, you poof. She already thinks we’re cuddly puppies.”
Fred was grinning almost maniacally now. “I’ll just leave you two. Spike, thank you for the hospitality and showing me your game system and all, but I have to go and, um…”
“Spread the gossip like a good busy-body?”
She half-shrugged, trying to look innocent. “There may have been betting pools.” She picked up her keys from the kitchen table and waved on her way out. “Do everything I wouldn’t do!”
Angel stared, dumb-struck, after her departure. “That, I wasn’t expecting.”
“Yeah, because you think you can actually keep a secret in a corporate environment. Haven’t watched a single episode of ‘The Office’, have you?”
“So… you didn’t tell her?”
“Haven’t told anyone a damn thing, you know that. Suspect your people just know you better than you know yourself.”
Spike stepped back. He watched Angel warily.
Angel flexed his hands, hating that look and not sure what to do about it. “Did it work? My apology?”
“They tend to work best when you don’t ask. And you didn’t exactly apologize.”
“I’m sorry?”
“Do you mean that?”
“Yes?”
Spike sighed heavily. “Peaches, you don’t even know what you’re apologizing for, do you?”
“I hit you. And I was stupid and jealous.”
Spike shrugged. “Close enough.” He held out his arms. “Come on, before I lose my temporary insanity.”
Angel folded his arms around Spike. They both felt the other’s strength, squeezing perhaps a little too hard, muscle against muscle. Angel brushed his cheek against Spike’s. “So can there be makeup sex?”
“Don’t push it.”
Angel made a disappointed noise and rubbed his nose along Spike’s neck.
Spike sighed, melting into the tightening embrace. “You’re so lucky I’m easy.”
Continued -->