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 Five: A New Old Face
Tara walked through the neon purple and green casino that was the Hard Rock Hotel, surrounded in every direction by the jarring sound and gaudy lights that so symbolized Las Vegas. Like every casino, the Hard Rock was an atrocity to good taste, a carnival of color, greed and oxygenated air. Add that combination to the alters to aging or dead rockers of the past that one passed every ten feet or so and you could see why Spike so favored the place.
The young witch was looking for her erstwhile friend as she made her way through the casino, in fact. Even she wasn’t quite sure how she did it, but somehow she knew where he was. All she had to do is concentrate on him and she would get the strongest feeling about where to find him. That’s how she knew he was in the casino, knew that he was in one of the lower levels.
She chewed her lip nervously as she hit the button to summon one of the elevators. They’d gotten into an argument again. The same argument, in fact. He could be so frustrating, she just wanted to shake him. But she knew that wouldn’t work. He had to be handled delicately. Any pushing at all and he would push back harder.
He’d been different in the six months since they’d come to Vegas. She’d expected him to be depressed, could have understood and handled that. What she’d not expected was for him to throw himself headlong into a surreal debauched ongoing party. He drank, he laughed, he drank again. At first, he’d even attempted spending some time with an assortment of young women, but those episodes had ended as spectacular failures and he’d given up the practice without a word about it.
As if to prove something to himself, he’d even done a few shady things. Nothing terribly wrong, but Tara strongly suspected he was the source behind a string of robberies that had gotten some attention on the local news. He had a lot of money all of a sudden, and when she’d asked him about it he’d just shrugged and insisted on paying for her room.
When he wasn’t trying to prove what a good time he was having, he was wandering the strip at odd hours. And while he’d encountered a few vampire attacks and stopped them, it was clear he wasn’t really all that interested. Truth was, nothing much seemed to interest him since Los Angeles. One night he’d shown up at her room, waking her from a sound sleep, half drunk. He’d simply tossed himself into a chair and spoken as if it were the most normal thing in the world to speak to a sleeping person at five a.m.
“Couple of Slayers in town. Saw ‘em tonight,” he didn’t quite slur, but he was close.
“Two?” she’d blinked sleep away.
He nodded, peering out the window absently, “Twins. Little redheads. Good looking birds, I guess. Saw them stake a bloke. Bit creepy, really. Moving all synced up like that.”
“What did they say?” she sat up, finally awake.
He shrugged. “Nothing, I didn’t talk to them.”
“Why not?”
Spike had looked a bit uncomfortable at that and gotten back to his feet, heading to the door, “What’s the point, bit? Night.” And just like that, he’d left. She hadn’t seen him again for a week after that night.
The elevator finally arrived and Tara got on, wondering what she was going to do. Spike was supposed to be doing something and she was sure that this wasn’t it. She had the worst feeling that if he didn’t find some kind of purpose again, the Powers would start nudging him.
The second sub-basement of the hotel had a doorman at the elevator entrance but she was waved through since she’d been there before with Spike. This was the floor that accommodated the less than human clientele of the hotel, where the assorted demons, vampires, warlocks and other creatures of the night with a taste for the Vegas nightlife could relax without a human presence. There was even a large showroom that featured a number of big name acts. Just the month before Tara had seen Elton John. Not that it was a surprise that he wasn’t human.
She found Spike where she’d expected, in one of the smoky back rooms playing poker. With some relief, she noticed they were playing for money. Some of the things the demons used for currency were downright horrifying.
He was slumped back in his seat, a bottle of whiskey on the table in front of him next to a very small stack of chips, smoking like a chimney. Two demons, a granite-skinned looking male and an almost human looking woman if one could get past the blue skin were at the table as well as a second vampire, a greasy looking man that looked like he’d walked out of a Poison video from the 90s. When she walked in, they all looked up. Both demons were regulars at the table and simply shrugged, going back to their cards. The vampire, who she’d never seen before, scowled.
“’Eyyyy, pet,” Spike chuckled good naturedly at her, drawing out the word a bit too long “Pull up a seat. You wanna sit in, do ya?”
He kicked back the chair beside him for her and she smiled at him and took the seat. She was still mad at him, but he could be really endearing when he’d been drinking. Much friendly than he was when sober, he generally found even the small things amusing and tended to laugh a lot.
She reminded herself that she was mad at him and gave his chips a dismissive look, “Losing again?”
“Happens,” he shrugged contentedly, swigging from the half empty bottle.
“Maybe take a break?” she suggested mildly.
“Why’s the juice bag here?” The unknown vampire demanded suddenly. “Unless you’re going to bet her, she needs to get the fuck out.”
Before Tara could react to the rude vampire, Spike swung a baleful eye across the table. “Might wanna think about changing your tone, mate,” he said dangerously, voice quiet. “Not sure I appreciate how you talk to my friend here.”
“I’m not afraid of you, Spike,” the vampire blustered angrily.
“Well, Marty,” Spike lounged indolently, staring at the other vampire with a kind of casual smirk, as if daring the man to try something. “That’s were you’d be a bloody idiot.”
“Relax,” Rock Face the demon rumbled in a deep voice. “It’s a friendly game. The girl’s welcome here.”
“I should dust you,” the vampire, Marty, sneered “Do everyone a favor. You’re a disgrace, hunting your own kind. And it’s Martin!”
“You looking to do the world a favor, Marty, then lets have a go,” Spikes smirk deepened and the shift in the scar along his cheek made him go from seeming drunk to almost demonic for a moment. He looked like a predator, waiting for the precise right moment.
“Spike, you sorry sack of shit! Get your ass up and lets see what you got!” a new voice shouted from the door and Tara felt a moment of pure panic. It was an attack. She turned with everyone else to see the source of the angry shout, expecting the worst.
She didn’t know what she was expecting. A demon of some sort, maybe. Whatever she’d had in mind though, it was not the young man that walked through the door, staring hard at Spike. He was in his early twenties with a golden air about him. Everything about him, from the golden blonde curls (she was sure it was his natural color) to the deep bronze tan to the bright, innocent eyes screamed “Boy next door.” Even the way he was dressed was very urban casual, almost preppy. Tara thought absurdly for a moment that if she ever had a daughter, this was the sort of boy she’d want her to bring home. If boys were what her daughter had in mind, anyway.
There was a moment of uncertain silence around the table as the young man glared at Spike. Even the scowl looked somehow strange on him, those features were clearly too used to laughter and honesty to carry an angry expression very well.
“Holy shit!” Spike roared, surging to his feet and flying at the man. Tara was certain they were going to kill each other right there but all they did was embrace, both men breaking into laughter. “Fuck me, mate! It’s been… what… thirty years?” Spike laughed, slamming the man on the back.
Tara blinked in confusion as the man flashed a sheepish grin at the question. Spike had friends? From before, when he was evil at that. This beautiful young man couldn’t be evil, could he? And what if he found out that Spike no longer was? But Spike didn’t seem the least bit concerned. He directed the young man to an empty seat and the man tossed a fold of bills to the dealer before answering.
“Something like that. New York, right?” he chuckled.
“That’s right,’ Spike smirked at some memory.
“Ah.. Spike?” Tara asked weakly. This was just weird. They were acting like old college buddies reminiscing over spring break memory.
“Eh? Oh, that‘s right! Sorry bout that,” the vampire nodded at her, taking another drink. He looked amused, and more than a little drunk “Tara, this is an old friend. Gate. Soddin silly name, I know, but he won’t answer to anything else.”
“Gate?” she looked confused.
Gate looked up from stacking his chips and offered a mock wince as he was named then confided in a pseudo whisper “It really is a silly name, I know. You have no idea how much I was teased in school.”
Spike laughed at that for some reason. “Known Gate for close on a century now, pet,” he nodded at her as if to reassure her “Good bloke.”
“You’re a vampire?” Tara peered at Gate closely “You don’t look like a vampire.”
The young man opened his mouth to reply but Spike answered instead. “No, he’s not. We raised some hell over the years but I never saw him go fangy on anyone,” he unconsciously used a Scooby word, as he often did when he’d been drinking. It happened when he was thinking about Buffy.
“Come to think of it,” he looked unsteadily over at Gate “What the hell are you?”
Gate shrugged, waving a waitress over “Thirsty. You? I‘m buying.”
Spike peered at his almost empty bottle and nodded amiably “Right good of you, mate.”
“Tara?” He smiled at her and she felt her heart skip a bit. Not that she’d ever really thought of playing for that team, but if she had… She caught that stray thought and blushed furiously. “Thank you, I’m not thirsty,” she smiled weakly. Even if the man was evil, he was polite.
He flashed her an understanding smile and turned to place his order but was interrupted by Marty the Vampire. “What about me? You buying me a drink too?” he sounded surly over his confrontation with Spike.
Gate looked at the vampire blankly, then at Spike who shrugged disinterestedly. Pretty blue eyes moved back to Marty and Gate flashed a friendly smile, “Tell you what, you agree to take a shower and I’ll buy you all the drinks you want tonight. Deal?”
The vampire looked offended and started getting to his feet, but he never quite made it. Tara was staring right at Gate when it happened and even she wasn’t sure exactly what happened. One second Gate was sitting there grinning, then he sort of… flickered and he was behind Marty, a hand in the vampires hair. Marty’s face made a sickening thud as it impacted with and went right through the poker table before him. He twitched once, then simply hung there, his head completely beneath the table.
Spike chortled with laughter and Gate looked up. It was almost disturbing how he’d never lost that sweet, boyish smile. “You don’t mind, do you? Heard some people talking about how you’d switched teams and all. Got your hero card and everything, I hear,” he was poking fun in a good natured way. There wasn’t anything malicious about the teasing.
Spike didn’t seem offended by the mention, which he often did. He just shrugged and lit a cigarette. “Your business, mate. Whatever gets the drinks here sooner.”
“Good,” Gate nodded companionably. He reached down into the hole created by the unconscious Marty’s head and wrenched hard to the side. Marty’s body dissolved into a fine cloud of dust in response and Gate chuckled “Cause he really did stink.”
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The table went back to it’s game as if nothing had happened. Everyone but Spike and Gate himself studiously ignored the head shaped hole in the table. Those two were too busy sharing old war stories, most of which revolved around some fight or another. Apparently they’d had a strange friendship, bumping into one another on and off over the past century. They’d spent a year or so carousing and “raising hell” as Spike put it before one or the other would find some business elsewhere and move on. Then a decade or so later they’d bump into each other again.
Tara wasn’t quite sure what to make of Spike’s friend. The casual way he’d destroyed Marty had unnerved her. Not the way he’d done it, though that had been strange enough, but the complete lack of any feeling in the act. He might have reacted the same way if he’d stepped on a spider that crossed his path. There was just an air about him that got obscured by that golden boy look of his. A hint of real danger.
On the other hand, he was friendly and polite and very funny. Personable even. When Tara’s natural shyness took over, he took the time to draw her out with gentle teasing nudges, insisting that she take part in the conversation as well, even getting her to relate a story about one of the few times she’d gotten in trouble in school and seemed genuinely entertained when she told it.
She really couldn’t help but like him.
Plus, from all the stories they were sharing, she really couldn’t find one where he’d done anything actually evil. There was a lot of violence, of course. He certainly seemed to enjoy fighting almost as much as Spike did. Never any attacks on someone unable to protect themselves though. In fact, in most of the stories the two of them had managed to entice someone, or a group of someones, into attacking them first.
Somewhere in it all, Tara forgot that she was mad at Spike. It was good to see him genuinely laughing again instead of offering that forced chuckle he used when he wanted to fool you.
“So why you in town, eh?” Spike eventually asked as another hand was dealt. Tara was playing now, though she clearly didn’t know much about the game and wasn’t betting much.
“Big gathering,” Gate peered blearily at his cards. He’d been drinking heavily himself and looked a bit unsteady by that point. “What’s his face,” he waved absently, then made a bet “Forget his name. Put out a call for hired guns for something big. Thought it sounded fun, so I came.”
“Something big? Here in Vegas?” Spike frowned as he matched the bet. “I haven’t heard anything.”
Gate snorted in response. “Your surprised? You got half the demon population thinking you’re a Slayer yourself. Put on a dress and I bet you get the other half believing too. Maybe some sporty shoes.”
Tara winced and waited for the explosion but Spike threw back his head and laughed. The absurd vision of Spike in a short skirt and stylish shoes came to her and she couldn’t help but giggle as well. She tossed in her bet to match theirs, feeling a bit like she was in the middle of a twilight zone episode.
“So what’s the deal?” Spike pressed when the laughter faded. “And don’t pretend you don’t remember. I’m not that soddin’ drunk.”
The silent demons at the table both took the opportunity to fold their cards and leave the table, which Tara found a bit worrisome. Both demon’s had been a bit rushed as they’d walked out. Gate and Spike ignored them, just looking at each other. Finally Gate shrugged.
“Long as your sure you want to know,” he peered at the new cards the dealer provided.
“Spit it out, mate,” Spike frowned.
Gate tossed in a few more chips. “What happened in L.A. is bound to have consequences, you know. Can’t have a fight like that and not have people sit up and maybe take notice of thing’s they’d never paid much mind to before.”
“Notice what?” Tara broke in as Spike looked as his new cards.
Gate smiled that sweet smile and leaned back in his chair, for all the world just some good looking kid with more charisma than was good for him. “One Slayer running around the world is a problem, Tara. But not a very big one. She can only be one place at a time, of course. That leaves a whole lot of world where a creature with an agenda is free to go about his planning and plotting to his hearts content without interference.”
“And army of Slayers, though…” Spike finished for him, scowling now. He didn’t look so drunk anymore as he folded his hand and stared at Gate.
The young man nodded affably in agreement. “That’s another matter entirely. That’s the sort of problem that people all over the place start to worry about. Maybe even one where some of the truly powerful might think about doing something about it, even.” He was speaking casually, as if it were all a hypothetical.
“Few blokes in Vegas might fit that bill,” Spike muttered thoughtfully.
“Sure are,” Gate responded brightly “One of them even stays right here in this hotel, now that I think about it.”
Tara stared at her cards, only just realizing that she actually had a good hand. She threw in some extra chips to make a bet like she’d seen Spike do when he had a hand he was confident was a winner. Most of her attention was on their conversation though,
“What would a man like this,” she stumbled a bit as she attempted to copy their way of talking around the point “be planning? Do you know?”
His grin was conspiratorial and he winked at her, which earned him one of her shy smiles in return. “Might be that a fella like that would be looking to make a point, calling in some high end muscle to let it be known that this Slayer army isn’t so scary after all,” he confided. “Course, it probably would go deeper than that, but I haven’t really met the man, yet, so I couldn’t say.”
“Hiring high end muscle?” Spike looked thoughtful but Gate shook his head immediately, sending those blonde curls swaying.
“Forget it,” he said bluntly. “If you were trusted even a bit, they’d have invited you already. Not like you being in Vegas is a big secret. Hell, they probably consider you part of the problem.”
“This is important,” Tara broke in when Spike’s expression darkened. “We have to know what’s going on. Our friends are…” She trailed off, not quite sure how to explain, or even if she should. She liked the man, but that didn’t mean he was trustworthy.
Gate looked from her to Spike and back again, a bit surprised. “So that’s how it is,” he chuckled after a moment “Wasn’t quite sure what to make of some of the things I was hearing. Bet Dru went catatonic when this came out,” his tone was definitely dry.
Spike looked a bit surly, “Let it go, mate.”
The young man lifted golden brows, even more surprised. “Right, that’s unexpected. Well, I wouldn’t worry about it. I’ll see what the deal is,” he shrugged.
“Just like that?” Tara had to ask. The whole conversation had taken on a dangerous tone. It was clear they were discussing a very dangerous creature behind this gathering.
“Sure, it’s something to do,” he set his hand down, showing two pair, and grinned at her “Beat that, Tara?”
She looked down and smiled in response, showing him her own hand, three queens, “I’m starting to like this game.”
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Spike collapsed on the couch in his hotel room as Tara wandered to the tiny kitchen to make coffee. He’d never bothered to get an apartment or find a comfortable crypt in Vegas, like he didn’t intend on staying very long. He covered his eyes with an arm as he lay there, muttering under his breath.
“Always gonna be a new Big Bad, you know,” he said loud enough for Tara to hear him from the coffee maker. “Send one running and another will show right up like nothing much happened.”
She looked at him through the kitchen door and replied simply, “Does it matter? The things we need to keep safe still need us.”
“S’pose not,” he mumbled after a moment. Then, “Still, she’s got a soddin’ army of Slayers watching her back. She doesn’t need me anymore. Maybe she never did.”
“That’s not true,” she protested, wishing she were more like Buffy at the moment, to put some force in the denial. She knew it wasn’t true, but the way he was feeling, he could take her quiet objection wrong.
He just grunted in response, though, and didn’t say anything in return.
“Do you think your friend will let us know what he finds out?” she asked after a moment.
‘Depends, pet,” he mumbled.
“On what?”
“Whether or not he’s in town to kill those two Slayers,” he sighed.
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Gate exited the elevator on the top floor of the hotel, stepping directly into the penthouse suit, a permanent residence that housed one of the most powerful “men” in Las Vegas. Two rather plain looking men waited for him and motioned for him to follow, which he agreed to with an obliging nod. The two men, he could tell, were anything but. Myyaat Demons, unless he missed his guess. Nasty. It said something about the his host that these served him. They were notoriously expensive and difficult to control to boot.
They led him to a spacious sitting room, where he found his host waiting. The man, who very easily could have passed for human, stood to meet him with an oily smile. Well, that tongue would never be mistaken for human.
“Gate, is it?” the man inquired, coming forward to shake hands. Up close, Gate could sense the other man’s power. It was significant. He wondered absently if the other things he’d heard were true but simply nodded his acceptance of the name and shook the hand. “You’re reputation proceeds you, young man. Quite impressive.”
Gate shrugged modestly, offering his sheepish smile, “Oh, I’m sure people are just blowing things out of proportion to be nice.”
“Of course,” his host said dubiously. “ I am Dominic.”
“Pleasure to meet you,” Gate smiled, sitting when Dominic waved to take a seat. “Heard a lot about you too.”
“Good, now that the pleasantries are out of the way,” Dominic sat as well, dark eyes growing interested. “I assume you’ve made contact with the vampire?”
“Sure did,” Gate nodded, leaning back. “He was exactly where you indicated he’d be.”
“Lovely,” Dominic purred. “Tell me about him.”