I’ve never attempted fanfic before, so please excuse me if this is not very good. Thought I’d have a go and see if it was any fun. This tale is set in the aftermath of the final Angel episode and while it might reference a bit of what happened in the comics after, it will only be vaguely. Never read them myself. The story is centered around spike, but will likely venture into a Spike/Buffy thing down the road. Hope you enjoy :)
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Heaven And Hell
Chapter Two: An Old Friend
The ruined devastation of the Los Angeles downtown sprawled out before him in every direction, all too graphic and bleak a reminder of Angel’s, well.. Spikes, failure to contain Wolfram & Hart’s counterstroke. How many people had died because Angel had decided to take the fight to the enemy without any real thought to the repercussions that would fall on the world outside his broody little gel haired self?
No, that wasn’t right. Angel had been an idiot, yes, but the responsibility fell on Spike as well. He’d said yes to that fool plan, executed his part of it all. And the entire time, some tiny niggling voice in the back of his mind had been whispering that it was a bad idea.
Why then? Why did he say yes?
A growl slipped out of his throat and he forced those thoughts away, focusing on the situation at hand. Not the time to indulge in that sort of thinking. Work to be done.
Ruined and toppled buildings surrounded him, but not as many as he’d feared. Spike could only guess that after the initial orgy of destruction, the demon horde had decided to stop torching the city in favor of tracking down the human population. That was the way of these attacks, he knew. He’d seen it before. Hell, he’d indulged in similar things on a smaller scale.
Those memories came back to him as he began to walk and he imagined how it had played out, trying to determine where exactly things would be standing. Likely after the initial waves, the demons had settled in to enjoy the fruits of their labor. That was their way, they’d consume everything here before moving on. And while it might look like it from Spike’s perspective, he knew that most of L.A. was probably intact and in humans hands. Simply not enough demons to wash over a city of seven million or so.
The humans outside this area would have erected barricades, quarantined downtown. So that was it. His charges huddling down in the sewers waiting for him had to be taken to the human resistance line. Lovely.
‘Bugger all,’ he muttered, scanning the streets. Quiet here, but he knew that was only an illusion. They were everywhere, in every direction. In some of the buildings, on other streets. He caught the sounds of hell-raising laughter in the distance.
Food first. There was a place not too far where that could be taken care of. Get the humans their food, then he could see about finding a way out for them. So he walked.
The sound of screeching tires and raucous laughter behind him made him turn. One of the countless upscale SUVs so popular in L.A. roared around a corner in a wide, wild turn that almost sent the vehicle rolling end over end. The top of the SUV had been ripped completely off, leaving the small pack of red skinned demons free to stand and move about. The big car was dragging something at the end of a long chain, which sent sparks flying in every direction as it dragged on concrete. Spike didn’t have to look at that chain to know what was being dragged. Small mercy, the man (he thought it was a man) was dead.
He stood there, watching as the car roared by. Demonic eyes fell on him, and the car began to slow. He didn’t move, didn’t say a word. Electric blue vampiric eyes met hellishly demonic red eyes.
That’s right, you fucking wankers. Stop the car. Easy picking’s here. Come and get me.
Perhaps it was the fact that he was a vampire and they assumed he was with them. Or perhaps there was something in his face, a cold certainty of his desire that they stop for him. Whatever it was, the car picked up speed again almost immediately and roared away amidst howling laughter.
He turned and began walking again, frowning slowly. Why was he so angry? People died everyday in horrible ways. That’s how the world worked. The weak fed the strong. What did he care about one man that he’d never met? Why was something inside him screaming?
“The hell is wrong with me?” he scowled, finally catching sight of his intended destination, a small corner market. It was still standing, thankfully. “I’m not a soddin’ do-gooder. Creature of the night. Nothing I haven’t done myself.”
That thought didn’t help his mood at all, and by the time he reached the market he was hoping something unfriendly would be there. A spot of violence would do him just fine.
There no such luck, sadly. It was obvious why the market had been spared the fires. He stepped through what had been a glass wall and looked around, realizing that all the booze in the small store had been looted. Shame. He wanted a drink almost as much as he wanted a fight.
He walked through the store, ducking behind the counter first to check the register (which had been looted, of course) then to grab a few bags. Those bags began to fill with bottled water and food as he sifted through the ruined shop. Nothing grand, but it would be enough to tide the humans over for a time. Get them strong again.
“Don’t forget to grab some medicine, Spike. They don’t have vampire constitution and they’ve been in that cold room without any warmth for days. They’re sick.’ a soft voice said behind him, causing him to let out an explosive curse and whirl around. What the hell was wrong with him, letting someone get so close unnoticed? Why was he so bloody distracted? “
Then he saw who it was and a second curse escaped him, this one a touch strangled. The bag’s he;d been carrying crashed to the floor, “Tara?’
She smiled at him, that same shy, self-conscious smile that he remembered. Standing there, dressed in that modest way she’d had, as if afraid that wearing anything remotely revealing would draw more attention than she could handle. A lovely young woman, especially when she smiled, though it was easy not to notice her at first. Walking to him in the wreckage Los Angeles when she had been in Sunnydale last time they’d spoken. Alive, when he knew she’d died in Sunnydale.
“Hi, Spike,” she offered him another shy smile, bending down to collect the supplies that he’d spilled when he’d dropped the bags.
“Bit, you’re… I know you died. I’ve been to your plot,’ he found his voice again as he took squatted to recollect the supplies. “You’re not…” h reached out and poked her in the arm, half expecting his hand to pass through her. But his hand met flesh, poking her harder than he’d intended, and she winced a bit.
“Hey! Vampire strength, remember?”
“Sorry, bit,” he said automatically, shaking his head ‘Didn’t mean to bruise ya. Just.. Soddin hell…”
She offered him another smile to show that she wasn’t upset and he recognized the understated, almost unnoticed humor in her protest. Just like she’d been in Sunnydale. The bags finally full again, she grabbed one and rose to her feet, “It’s okay, Spike. You didn’t hurt me. I’d do the same thin--”
Her voice cut off as they hear shouting outside the store, another pack of demons passing by. These were not driving, but there were more this time. Spike grabbed her arm and pulled her back down behind the cover of the wreckage. A part of him, most of him in fact, wanted to fight. Wanted to jump into the fight and lose himself in the peace of it all, where nothing mattered by the pounding of his blood and the rush of bodies crashing into each other. Where there was no time to think. But he couldn’t, not with her here.
“Love to hear it, Bit, but now’s not really a good time. All kinds of bad going on out there. I need to get you out of here.” He lifted his head enough to peek outside and growled. The pack was coming their way, likely looking for more booze.
She just nodded in response, pointing to the back door, “There’s an apartment building behind this store. It’s empty.”
“Right, lets go then,” he muttered, dragging her behind him as he made a hunched over run toward the back door.
They ducked into the three story apartment complex and ran upstairs. Spike kicked in the door of the first apartment they came across and dragged Tara inside. He pushed the door closed behind them and listened hard, but there were no sounds of pursuit or even that they’d been noticed. A relieved breath expelled unnecessarily from him. If he let Tara get hurt again, Buffy would.. No, no thinking about her. “Think we’re okay, bit,” he muttered more roughly than he intended after it became clear that no one was following.
He found Tara inspecting the small apartment when he turned to face her. Clearly someone had left in a hurry. There were three half eaten meals on the table and the telly was still on, though it only showed snow. It made sense. When the world had started going insane, the first instinct would have been to get the hell out.
“Okay, what are you doing here?” he demanded, tossing the food supplies onto the couch. “Did someone work, oh bollocks, did Red do it again? She did didn’t, she? For a smart girl, that silly bint just doesn’t know --’
“It wasn’t, Willow, Spike,” Tara interrupted him, which was a shocker in itself. The girl never interrupted people. There was a deep flash of sorrow in her eyes when she said her lovers name, and he regretted bringing it up.
“Good, Spike,” he muttered, going to the window and peeking out to get a look at the street “Just bloody great. Sure that’s the first thing she wants to talk about.’
“Spike…’
‘So hey, you’ve been dead for a few years now, welcome back. Ignore all the killin’ and burning goin on around you and by the way, did your old bird happen to rip you out of the soddin’ afterlife?’ he growled, watching the street. He could yet another group of demons loitering in the distance.
“Spike, I need to talk to you. Please,’ she said, moving over and sitting on the arm of the couch watching him.
He looked back at her, hearing a note of.. If not insistence, than something close to it in her voice. Come to think of it, she looked a bit different after all. Not physically, but.. A bit more confident maybe, more sure of herself. He realized that she didn’t have that little stutter anymore.
‘Right, sorry, bit,’ he nodded.
“Spike, what happened here,” she waved at the window.
“Yeah, didn’t quite work out like we planned, I guess. Guess Peaches didn’t quite think it through, after all,” he muttered.
And me. I didn’t think it through either. I let this happen.
“You can’t carry this this around with you, Spike. This isn’t your fault. You were trying to do a good thing here, trying to help,” she pressed. “This was going to happen whether you killed those.. Black Thorny guys or not. It would have been much worse if you hadn’t. Believe me.”
He frowned at her, then, a nasty suspicion coming to mind. There was anger, but he held it down. “Why are you here, Glinda?” he asked slowly, unconsciously using the nickname he’d given her in Sunnydale. She smiled shyly when she heard him say it. She’s always secretly liked the name.
“I’m here to talk to you, Spike,” she replied, looking a touch nervous suddenly. He could see that she wasn’t relishing the thought of having this discussion, but she took a deep breath and plunged ahead regardless “The Powers That Be sent me to--”
“I knew it!” he exploded “Bloody Powers! They ripped you out of Heaven, didn’t they! Probably didn‘t even ask!” It never even occurred to him that she’d gone to the other place, not this one, “Don’t give a bloody damned if a person is at peace, happy where they are. Always trying to push a bloke into being something he’s not. What, they want you to be my soddin’ vision girl now? Try and get me to be their new capped crusader? Sorry, bit, but I don’t play that way. Did Angel die? Is that it?”
He realized he was shouting and stopped abruptly. But the heat in his glare didn’t lessen at all. Bloody tossers.
“Angel is still alive,” she didn’t draw back from his rage, nor did she look frightened at all. Just sad as she smiled at him again, recognizing that a lot of that anger was for her benefit, out of concern for her. Silly bint had always been too perceptive for anyone’s good. “And no, they didn’t ask me. I volunteered. I wanted to come.”
He bit back a sharp retort, grunting instead. Of them all, even the nibblet, Tara was the one he’d never really had the heart to rile up. There was something so sincere about her, so gentle. It just hadn’t seemed right messing with that, even when he’d been evil.
He moved away from the window and leaned against the arm of the couch beside her. That’s probably why they’d sent her, come to think of it. It just didn’t feel right to tell this girl to sod off.
“Right,” he muttered “Okay, why are you here then? Captain Forehead is still out there fighting the good fight, you say. Powers have their white knight, even if he is a soddin’ git.”
“Why do you assume this has anything to do with Angel, Spike?” she frowned at him. Not angry, just thinking.
“What then, you going to start with the visions? That the deal? They send you back here so they can stuff your head with their bloody orders? Cause I can tell you right now, that’s not going to happen. I’m not anyone’s soddin’ errand boy. Soul or no soul, there’s too much demon in me to let that happen,” He knew it sounded like he was blustering, but there wasn’t anything to do about it.
“No visions, Spike,” she actually grinned at him then, a small shy grin that was surprisingly amused “You need to get Angel out of your head, okay? He has his own path to walk. The visions are his deal.”
“So what, I’m not bloody good enough to get visions?” he flared up a bit at that.
She just looked at him, wide eyed and clearly trying to decide if she should laugh or just shake her head. Amusement won out and a giggle escaped. He paused, thinking about what he’d said, and then a bit of a grin appeared on his face. A strange feeling, smiling. He felt the wound on his cheek pulling as he did it, but laughed a bit himself.
“Okay, maybe that was a bit..” he shrugged, chuckling “If not the visions and the great heroic broodiness, why are you here then? Not that I’m not thrilled to see you again, mind. Sunnydale wasn’t ever quite the same after you…” he shrugged, trailing off. It was true, anyway. She’d had a calming effect on everyone, a maternal sweetness to balance the fire and confrontational ways of her friends.
“Thank you for that,’ she flashed him a smile.
He grunted, letting his smile fade. What was he, some nancy? It wasn’t okay for the Big Bad to run around spouting off like he was in group therapy or something.
“Right, well.. Lets not make a case of it. You were telling me why you’re back,” he muttered.
“It’s complicated, Spike. For now, can we just say that I’m here to be with you? You’ve been alone long enough.”
Spike frowned at that. “Alone? Bit, I’m not alone. Was working with those wankers that follow around and bloody Wolfram & Hart. And before that I was always around the damned Scoobies cause of--” he cut off abruptly and changed what he was going to say “Hell, even before Sunnydale, there was Dru. And believe me, that pigeon needed worlds of attention.”
“Having people around really doesn’t have anything to do with being alone, Spike. You know that,” she replied gently “It’s time you had around to be there for you.”
He couldn’t resist leering at her at that. “Really now?” lazily said, slouching in a provocative way, his tone going low, teasing “I always figured you for a one team kinda girl, pet. But if you’ve got a mind to try samplin the goods…”
Her face went beat red and she jumped up, blinking furiously at him, stammering “I did… didn’t mean l-l-l-like that, Spike! I wouldn’t, I mean.. you’re very nice.. But I’m n-n-not…” she trailed off when he started laughing. At first she was mortified by his laugh, but when she really listened, she realized he wasn’t laughing at her at all. He was just laughing.
“Ah, sorry, bit,” he grinned “Couldn’t resist.”
She blushed again, but she returned his smile.
“So that’s it? You just want to hang out around me? Gotta tell you, that doesn’t really sound like much of a plan. Powers must be running short on ideas,” he snorted.
“Well, let’s call it a start.”
He seemed to give it some thought. She watched him closely, his pale face marred with filth and caked blood. She watched him struggle with something internally, saw his face firm at some point as if forcing himself not to think about something in particular. Saw a flash of.. Something in his eyes.. Almost pain, but not exactly that. Then he shrugged.
“Whatever, Glinda,” he frowned and stood “Can think of a hundred things for you to do with your time that would be better than hanging around me, but it’s your life. Not gonna decide or you. If you’re around, I’ll keep you safe. Can’t have,” a pause before he resumed speaking “Red going all blacklight nasty on me for getting you hurt, can I?”
“I know you will, Spike. But I’m not helpless. Who knows, maybe I can be some help?”
“Help?” he frowned “Help with what? I told you, I’m not some soddin’ do-gooder. If you’re expecting me to run around being a white hat, you’re in for a nasty tumble.”
She shrugged. “Help with whatever. It’s your life, like you said. You make the decisions.”
He muttered something she didn’t quite catch. “Fine, well I’m going to wash up a bit. See if you can find some clothes.. Four adults. Two men and two women. And a boy, tiny little thing bout four or so. And some blankets. We gotta go get this stuff to them.”
She smiled and nodded, “Whatever you say, Spike.”