Paper Pusher :: Chaper 4 of ?
Title: Paper Pusher
Author: fenderlove
Pairing: Spike/Fred
Warnings: This chapter contains scenes of sexual activity by dubious consent, some blood, and some forcible kissing.
Summary: This is a new ongoing series for sockmonkeyhere's Fantasy Island request on nekid_spike. The events of this story include plot points from Angel: After the Fall as well as Angel: Almost Human. Spike is working at a medical examiner's office to earn extra cash after being brought back from Hell. Gunn arrives with a proposition that Spike can't refuse.



In the previous chapter...

Gunn began to thank him, but the eldest Hargreaves held up a crooked finger and interjected, "However, we've been discussing how I might help you, and before we get to the particulars, we must first find out how you may help me."

Paper Pusher
Chapter Four

“In exchange for detailing the location of the permanent files of Wolfram and Hart, I will require that you and yours,” Mr. Hargreaves gave a pointed glance at Spike, “will not move against us personally if we were to try to acquire some of their more prominent clientele and act in those clients’ benefit.”

Gunn took a deep breath and then said decidedly, “I can agree to that if you can acquiesce that my associates and I may have to act against your clients, not you personally, if their interests go against the safety of the general public.”

The crackling of Mr. Hargreaves’s knuckles as he pondered over Gunn’s reply was deafening. He finally nodded slowly, “Agreed.”

Shifting uncomfortably in his chair, Spike glanced back and forth between Gunn and Mr. Hargreaves. This lawyer-speak made him nervous. Spike was more familiar with fighting off bad guys not bargaining with them. While Mr. Hargreaves might not have been necessarily a “bad guy,” he definitely wanted to work with them, play in Wolfram and Hart’s old sandbox. Maybe the aged man even wanted to take over the whole bloody playground.

“As to the second point, that you needed our assistance with using your friend’s contract to restore her soul to her original body,” Mr. Hargreaves coughed as though he were trying to hack up a small reptilian creature from his lungs, “I can assure you that it can be done…”

“But you’ll require some sort of payment for that too, right?” Spike rolled his eyes before turning to Gunn, “Honestly, Charlie, you couldn’t find a mystical attorney that was having a two-for-one special in this city?”

“The young vampire is quite humorous, Mr. Gunn,” Mr. Hargreaves said. “Sadly, we must always meet one deed for another, balances and scales and all that.” He snapped his fingers sharply, and Becker appeared with a long scroll. “We have seen your progress, Mr. Gunn. It is most impressive, and we would like you to join our firm.”

“Charlie-” Spike leaned over to Gunn, hoping to dissuade him.

However, Gunn's replied firmly, "Fred needs this."

Spike's chair screeched across the floor as he stood up. Achilles the Pig threw a piggy eyeball in the direction of the noise but returned to slopping up the spilled tea and treats on the tiles.

A fire had come to a head inside Spike that he had scarcely knew existed until it had bubbled over and he was on his feet. He was angry. He was angry at himself for becoming roped into this, angry at Charlie for whatever deal he was about to make with the crotchety old magician, angry at Angel for running off without a word, angry at Illyria for taking Fred away, angry at Fred for being so damned inquisitive and opening Illyria's sarcophagus, and finally angry at himself again for daring to be angry at Fred for anything.

Gunn's mouth started to open as though he might speak, but Spike beat him to it. Taking a packet of cigarettes from his pocket and tapping them against his palm, he said, "I'll help you, for Fred's sake, but I don't want to know how much of your soul you're selling, all right?"

With his face set in a grim but understanding expression, Gunn gave a short nod as Spike left the room.

Just as Spike had crossed the threshold from the office into the candle-filled hallway, he could hear the elder Hargreaves choking with cruel laughter, "The vampire doesn't seem to have the stomach for litigation, Mr. Gunn..."

Spike shut his eyes as he pulled the door tightly closed behind him. No, he had no desire to know what Charlie was truly leading them into as long as they could manage to pull their collective ass out of the fire when it came to these contracts. Getting Fred restored to them would be a much appreciated bonus, even though, in his heart, she would have been all that mattered if he thought there was a chance in hell that she would be resurrected.

Peeling the cellophane wrapping from his Morleys and bunching it in his hand, Spike pinched a cigarette free from its bedfellows and idly thought that this would be his first smoke since returning from Hell. His lips closed around the paper as he leaned up to the nearest wall sconce, letting the candle's flame be a convenient lighter.

Inhaling deeply, Spike wished he could just blow all of the lingering doubts he fostered about this mission away like smoke. He smirked to himself, feeling a bit silly for mentally waxing poetical over cigarettes and mystical contracts.

With a slow exhale, the small hallway was blanketed in tobacco smoke mingling with that of the candles. He could hear a soft phaff phaff noise like someone walking barefoot on the wooden floors. The sound grew louder, and Spike was sure someone was headed towards him down the narrow hallway.

Through the thick haze, Spike could make out a figure. His apprehension grew as he did not know how many other Hargreaves relatives might be lurking about ready to pounce on wayward "guests" Wrong Turn-style. He braced himself against the door, steadying his nerves and trying to plan out a mode of escape for both himself and Charlie if necessary.

"If there's one place it's never good to be in a fight, it's a cramped space with one exit with your back to the wall," Spike muttered to himself, "Unfortunately for those who are not me, those are the kind of fights I like best 'cause I can let my fangs do the work." His forehead shifted into its vampiric ridges as his fangs descended, and his eyes blurred from grayish blue to yellow.

Fred's face appeared in the smoke as she walked quietly towards him. She stopped when she was a mere six feet from him. Her bare feet looking dainty and pale in the glow of thousands of candles. Spike's cigarette dropped to the floor and rolled away into the blackness of a corner, the orange ember of its tip instantly fading. His human features returned as he stared at her.

Her sweet smile calmed him, filled him with a kind of warmth like non-lethal sunshine. Spike told himself that this was a hallucination, a dream, or, at best, a vision, but it was almost like he could really feel her with him, a gingery tingling sensation low in his abdomen. He tightly closed his eyes again. He told himself that when he opened them she would be gone like all his other fantasies.

An unneeded breath hitched in his throat when Fred was still standing there a moment later. She was perfect in her blue cotton dress that clung to her willowy frame. Before he could try to rationalize further, Fred collapsed against his chest, and his arms instantly wrapped around her.

Spike gasped at the contact. He could actually feel her skin and smell that ridiculously citrus-y shampoo that she always used! This couldn't be real, but he wanted it so badly, especially as Fred leaned closer, moving his collar of his jacket away so she could kiss the column of his throat and blow softly on the shell of his ear.

"Winifred," he whispered, afraid to say anything more, fearing to move his hands lest this vision burst like a soap bubble before his eyes.

"I'm here, William," Fred spoke, her voice so quiet, as she cupped his cheek and toyed with the small curls at the nape of his neck.

Growing bolder, Spike moved his hands from her shoulders to her waist, squeezing ever-so gently. She felt like Fred, sounded like Fred, smelt like Fred. Spike's senses screamed out that this was Fred, but his heart told him it couldn't be true. His dick politely told his heart to fuck off as Fred's delicate little thigh was soon situated between his legs, sensually applying friction and pressure to his groin area.

"Maybe you shouldn't," he started to ease her away, but her hands were insistent, pressing on his chest.

Her thigh began to rub against him, slowly at first and then faster, and Spike was rocking himself into her motions as his dick strained against the zipper of his jeans.

Fred kissed him along his jawline as she asked, "Do you love me?"

"Oh, kitten, let me take you away from here. I've missed you so much. You're the first person in a long time that really cared for me in return. God, I've needed you, luv," the words left Spike's mouth involuntarily as his eyes began rolling back in his head.

Spike felt his face flush, recalling briefly how he had babbled incessantly the first time he saw Drusilla's bare legs, and how his brain refused to function after he saw her bare everything-else. Why did he feel like his foppish Victorian self for a moment when Fred's hands had wandered into his jacket and under his shirt? Her fingers were spider-walking down his spine, lightly scratching. Hell, if he wasn't careful, he would be turning into a soppy pool of vampire goo puddled at her feet.

Fred's lips continued their journey, marking the landmarks of his face with honey-sweet kisses until, finally, they had nowhere left to visit but his own. She pressed her lips to his in a soft, closed-mouth kiss. Spike felt his orgasm rush over him, the wetness splashing against his skin, the denim of his jeans now clingy and slightly uncomfortable. He should have been embarrassed that a single chaste kiss had him spilling on himself like a teenager, but he couldn't find a reason to care.

Spike's moans and sighs were all being muffled by Fred's mouth. When they parted so that she could take a breath, Spike at last could look into her eyes. As he tilted her chin up, he was horrified to see Fred's eyes were not, in fact, hers. Sure, these eyes were the same shade as Fred's, but they lacked all life. They were off. There was nothing of Fred's kindness nor her compassion nor her soul in these eyes.

Spike's body became tense, and it appeared that Impostor-Fred sensed it. He placed his hands on her- no, its shoulders, trying to move it out of his way, but the thing remained in place. With one tiny hand on the center of his chest, the impostor pinned him against the door with a loud thump.

"You didn't answer my question before. Do you love me?" the thing said, still in Fred's guise.

Spike spat in its face, "Get off me. You're not Fred!"

It forced another kiss upon him, but this time it bit his bottom lip hard enough to break the skin. He shoved it away, and as he drew back his fist for a brawl, it was gone.

Blood dripped down his chin, and he tried to wipe it away with his hand. Spike hated to admit it, but he was shaken. He stood there for several moments, feeling humiliated, his jeans damp and cold from his spendings.

"Bravo!" came Becker Hargreaves's voice from some dark corner of the hallway. He twirled Spike's discarded cigarette between his fingers. Stepping into the light, he smiled a Cheshire grin, all of his perfect yet pointy teeth visible, "Have you ever considered being involved in the adult film industry? The moans you make alone are positively obscene."

"You bastard-" Spike held back any further insults as he was not sure what else Becker was capable of if he could produce a vision so realistic that it could fool his vampiric senses.

Becker smirked cruelly and tsked, "Temper, temper. I may be a bastard, but I'm not the one who came on himself like a little boy."

Spike felt the heat rise into his face as he attempted to draw his leather duster tightly around himself.

Becker took that moment of distraction to his advantage and pounced, his right forearm to Spike's throat and his left hand crushed painfully against the vampire's groin. The boy was stronger than he looked, and he held Spike easily to the door. Spike moved his head from side to side as Becker inched closer, but he could not escape the other man's lips from coming into contact with his.

From the moment their lips met, Spike froze. If anything about Spike's character, he could be accused of over-reaction, but never freezing in fright. His thoughts were flooded with being locked in the dungeon Non had created for him in Hell. Spike's stomach quaked at the revoltion of it only to tighten in apprehension as he felt the pin-prickly texture of Spider's arachnid appendages on his arms and near his groin.

Spike was suddenly transported back to the dark, filthy cell in which Non had imprisoned him. He was chained to the wall, arms nearly dislocated from their sockets from the position. The festering smell of the not-quite-corpses of the people he had tried so desperately to protect that writhed on the floor chanting his name was overpowering.

Spider loomed over him, having just put forth a deal for him to accept or decline. Should he accept, she could just double-cross him, but if he declined, there would be no hope at all of saving anyone, no chance of getting out of this place.

Tortured for days with no rescue in sight, Spike accepted and watched as Spider crouched down and began undoing his belt. He could see under her leather mini-skirt that she was not wearing any underpants.

She knew I'd have to accept, so she came prepared, Spike thought to himself. He told himself that he shouldn't care, that she was a pretty girl, but he was left with a very off-putting feeling.

Spider was licking her lips as she got his tattered jeans down as best she could while Spike tried not to think about the zombie onlookers in the room, their skin rubbing roughly over the dirty floor as they struggled to move anywhere but where they were currently situated.

"Come on now," Spike heard her say tauntingly as she took his still limp length in her hands, "You're not giving me anything to work with. I thought we had a deal."

And indeed they did. Spike had agreed to do this, wanted to do this. However, his shoulders were screaming in agony from being manacled above his head for days on end, and he had only been fed a single rat a week since his capture, not to mention that he hadn't recovered from the severe burns to his inner thighs that Non had inflicted earlier. Who would have thought that holy water would have retained its effect on vampires even in Hell?

With Harmony he had faked it plenty of times, but this felt different. Harmony, despite her faults, had cared about him, wanted to make him feel better. As Spider's mouth began sucking on his dick, Spike definitely wasn't feeling better, only markedly worse. He tried thinking of anyone else- Drusilla, Darla, Harmony, Buffy, even Angel- but it didn't help.

His manhood, for what it was worth, eventually felt up for the task despite its owner's feelings on the matter. As Spider took her time settling herself, Spike's knees dug painfully into the cold, stone floor under her weight as she rutted around. She unzipped the nauseatingly pink hoodie she was wearing, allowing her ample bosom to spring free. Spike had to warn her, as she rubbed her breasts near his face, that if she didn't stop he was going to bite her, but she only laughed. Her extra spider-y arms were all over him, and the small hairs that lined each one prickled his skin and made him itch, which was near-maddening with his arms chained up and useless.

This was wrong, but he had agreed to this deal. He was just taking one for the team. He kept telling himself that, like a mantra, because it was all he had to keep himself from bawling.

In the end, it was perhaps fortunate that Spider was content to get her own pleasure and not worry that he was unable to finish. As soon as she had masturbated herself enough on his prick, Spider pulled up his jeans, rearranged her clothes, and left him alone, reeking of her cheap knock-off perfume. She said she would come back later with an escape plan, but Spike knew she wouldn't be back. If she did return, it'd just be for more sex and wasted promises.

Spike was staring at the hard wood floors of the hallway outside of the Hargreaves' office door as blood rushed from his stomach into his throat. He retched, doubling over from the memory, feeling it more powerfully than he had allowed himself previously. The blood kept coming up until he was dry-heaving, a few furious tears welled up in the corners of his eyes.

"Cross my old man," Becker snarled from what sounded like miles away, "and anytime you even think about experiencing pleasure, that is what you'll feel instead."

Rage boiled inside Spike's already raw throat as he lunged at where Becker's voice had come from, but his fists connected with nothing except the wall. Twins holes stared back at him in the candle light. There was a flurry of movement as the wallpaper fluttered, folding itself back into shape as it mended itself.

Becker's words echoed in Spike's head, and a fissure of dread knotted in his spine. The young incubus, if Spike guessed correctly at Becker's true nature, could twist any joy he felt and force him to relive one of the worst nights of his unlife, one that left him feeling hollow and totally alone.

When Gunn exited the office a few minutes later, his shoe slid in the blood on the floor. Spike offered no explanation, staying uncharacteristically silent as he tugged his jacket tightly around himself. Gunn, in turn, did not find it necessary to explain his dealings with Hargreaves Sr. It was better for both of them that way.

Spike fell in step behind Gunn, keeping his leather coat gripped firmly around himself, both for comfort and to hide any evidence of his earlier arousal. As they left Hargreaves and Sons and watched as the fantastical facade faded into its nondescript concrete surroundings, the silence seemed to be a third party between them with a heart beating in time with the failing street lamps.

After a promise from Gunn that he would contact Spike when things had been prepared for them to continue with their plan, the vampire headed back to his apartment. He didn't care much for the long trek by himself and was looking over his shoulder more than he cared to do.

"If I had the dosh," Spike said as he trudged the final block, "I'd buy Harmony a first class ticket to France, and the biggest bouquet of roses she's ever seen." These were empty words for a gesture that would never be, but it eased his guilt to say them.

As much as he pretended that her annoying behavior warranted it, Harmony hadn't deserved how he had treated her. It hurt to be on the receiving end of someone else's emotional baggage; he knew it well enough. Drusilla's barbs and her constant need to point out that he could never give her what "Daddy" could had stung him deeply, and when he'd found Harmony sitting by herself, newly turned in a Malibu hot-spot, he was out for revenge. Spike wanted her because she was vibrant and alive, his own personal, at times obnoxious, sun-spot. Then the honeymoon ended, and his sobriety brought out just how vapid and boring she was. When he was drunk, Spike had wallowed in self-pity, allowing himself to be petted and adored by the buxom blonde. However, when he was sober, her baby-talk and coddling irritated him into violent bursts. Every thrown vase or broken body was met with a bratty giggle from the girl, always taunting him to do more damage. And he would oblige her.

Yet even after he would throw a massive tantrum, Harmony would inevitably take his side and give him his way for a little while. It was only after the soul that he realized how much he enjoyed her caresses and actual conversations that didn't revolve around bleeding stars or fairies he could not see, but Harmony was not Drusilla or Buffy. Spike was and probably always would be a selfish, needy bastard, and come the morning, he would forget his guilt about his once on again/off again girlfriend.

When he got home, Spike was embarrassed that he checked over the entire apartment, expecting some Hargreaves-owned nasty to pop out at him from behind the sofa or from the closet. Looking at the clock, he realized he would have to be at the newspaper office in less than two hours to make the Sunday morning deliveries. Spike remained unsettled by Becker's warning as he changed his clothes and arranged himself on the sofa to watch a little TV before he would have to leave yet again.

Spike began to ponder, Maybe that little pouf's threat was just meant as one of those mental deals? What if it's more of he told me that so that I can't stop thinking about it, so it seems like he's done some sort of hoodoo when really it's just my own mind working against me? ...

His eyes began to close, and he thought that he might just lay down for a moment, but by then it was too late. When Spike woke up, it was already Sunday afternoon. He had missed his shift.

"Oh, for fuck's sake," he whined, weakly smacking his own forehead. His week was off to a stellar beginning.

To be continued...