The Gift

AUTHOR: Little Mouse (elf_night@hotmail.com)

DISCLAIMER: Not mine. Joss'. Lucky man.

WARNINGS: Language (duh, it's a Spike fic!) Violence (see former 'duh') explicit M/M slashy stuff! Whee!

ARCHIVE: Please ask first.

PAIRING(S): Angel/Spike; with mentions of Angel/Buffy, Spike/Drusilla, Angelus/Drusilla

SUMMARY: Drusilla gives her Daddy a present.

Angel stood in the middle of the room, still holding Dawn as Buffy screamed at her. The teenager was screaming right back, but she never took her arm from around Angel’s neck, almost as if she expected the vampire to protect her from her sister’s wrath.

Well, he would, if he had to. But she was holding her own well enough for now.

"Why did you let that monster bite you?! I can’t believe you’d be so stupid!"

"It wasn’t stupid! It was to protect me!"

"Oh, and you just believed him?! How many times did he feed from you?!"

"He bit me once, Buffy, and that was months ago!"

"And you never told me?! You know I would have staked him for you, Dawn!"

"No kidding! That’s why I didn’t tell you!"

Buffy paused, blinking a little. "Huh?"

Dawn heaved a sigh. "He bit me to protect me - not to feed. Not to feed. He said that other vampires would know I was claimed property of a Master, and they would leave me alone, and they have. I’ve barely even seen a vampire since."

"That’s because I stake them before they can get anywhere near you! He was just making that up so he could get your blood, Dawn - how much did he feed from you?"

"He was not! He barely took a sip and the chip hurt him so bad that he slept for almost two days!"

Buffy glared. "And how do you know that? Just because he didn’t show up for that long doesn’t mean he was sleeping! Honestly, Dawn, how can you be so gullible?"

Dawn’s glare was wilting. "Because he was sleeping in our guest room. That’s how I know! He slept the whole time!"

"Spike never slept in our guestroom!" Buffy screeched.

"Did, too," Dawn looked distinctly smug. "He sleeps there all the time when you’re out on dates or working all night. He says I’m not safe alone!"

"‘He says, he says’! You can’t believe a thing Spike says!"

"Buffy," Angel said quietly, but the Slayer ignored him.

"And you’re not allowed to let anyone stay over! Forget about murdering, bloodsucking vampires!"

"Well, he didn’t ask, so I wasn’t exactly ‘letting’ him," Dawn grinned wickedly, looking a lot like Spike.

"Oh, yeah? And did he ask before he tricked you into letting him sink his fangs in your arm?"

"Buffy..."

"Yeah, he asked! He explained it and everything after I got jumped by those three vamps on the way home from Katie’s house that time!"

"The vamps that I staked so why were you worrying about them?"

"Because I was scared to go outside! You probably didn’t notice, though, because Rye-lee was back!"

"Don’t start complaining about Riley again! If you were so scared, why didn’t you say something?!"

"‘Cause I shouldn’t have had to say anything! You’re my sister - Spike noticed I was scared half to death and you didn’t!"

"And he wasn’t lying." Angel stopped trying to interrupt politely and just said what he had to say.

"Huh?" Buffy asked, still glaring at Dawn.

"Spike wasn’t lying. This," he gently touched the small mark on Dawn’s wrist, "is the mark a Master vampire puts on a human that he or she wants to protect. It’s very rare for them to do so, and quite an honor."

"It is?" Dawn, Tara and Xander asked at the same time, all three of them staring at Angel.

"Yes, it is," the vampire grinned back.

"It would have to be rare; I’ve certainly never heard of it," Giles mused, walking closer - carefully, and keeping one eye on Angel - and trying to get a better look at the mark.

Angel shifted - just slightly, enough that Dawn was suddenly at a completely useless angle for the Watcher to see her arm.

"Why do you two care?" Buffy was looking from Tara to Xander and back again, deeply suspicious.

"No reason," they spoke the words together, then both of them giggled.

"There has to be a reason - oh, no! He marked you guys, too? I’m going to kill him so bad!"

"Tara, you let Spike bite you?!" Willow shrieked at the same time.

"I - t-there’s no m-m-mark on m-my wrists!" Tara said quickly, stammering under Willow’s disapproval. She hurriedly pulled up her sleeves and held out her arms, showing unblemished skin.

"Mine, either," Xander copied her, even taking off his watch when Buffy eyed the thick, concealing strap.

"Oh - well, good! At least somebody has brains!" Buffy glared at Dawn again.

Dawn just stuck her nose in the air and sniffed haughtily, which looked rather amusing, since Angelus was still cradling her like a baby in his arms.

*

Spike curled in the corner of his cell - not a new one, since there was a faint lingering trace of his Sire’s scent in the air - but he was all alone and he was miserable.

He didn’t know where Sire was or what might be happening to him, and that just made him want to howl.

But when Finn had brought him back here - apparently, even he’d gotten bored of listening to Tucker and that woman argue, and told them he needed to ‘secure the Hostile’ - he’d shoved Spike in here, fastened the glove-like restraints onto him again, closed the blinder, and then chained those to the wall.

And then told him to be quiet.

"Or else," he’d added, and he hadn’t needed to say anything but that. Spike knew what he meant.

So even though he wanted to scream for his Sire, to howl out his misery, to beg someone to tell him where Angel was - he didn’t.

He stayed in his corner like a good little Hostile, curled up against the chill of the metal walls and floor, trying to be as still and quiet as he knew how.

He was cold, and he was hungry, and his head ached from the constant dragging weight of the heavy steel blinder. All he wanted was his Sire - just to wrap himself around his Sire and never to have to let go again...

He’d been sitting silently in his corner for hours, fighting tears, the instinct to howl, and the panic that keep bubbling up the back of his throat, when the door opened again. His head came up and he scented the air like a bloodhound - aw, bloody hell.

It wasn’t Sire.

It was Finn.

"Come on, the doctors are waiting," Riley said, and jerked him roughly to his feet.

"Doctors?" Spike squeaked the word before he thought, his whole body beginning to tremble.

Doctors were bad.

Doctors meant experiments.

Doctors meant scalpels cutting into his flesh to test his healing rate, acid dripped into his eyes, probes sliding into every orifice... doctors meant cutting into his skull while he was still awake, to put in the chip.

Finn ignored the fact that Spike was terrified, unfastening his restraints from the wall and then yanking him out of the room and down the hall, instead of ordering him to follow like he had before. It was almost a good thing, because his grip on Spike’s arm was about all that was keeping the blond vampire on his feet.

Another door opened, and then Finn’s hands were on his face and the blinder was open, too.

"Remember this place?" the soldier’s voice laughed cruelly at him. He only got one brief glimpse of the room - very white, very bright, and reeking of antiseptic. There were doctors in their white lab coats and masks, walls lined with equipment and monitors, and an operating table bristling with heavy-duty restraints, and then Spike’s knees just vanished beneath him.

"Pathetic," Riley grumbled, yanking him up and then his hand was on the blinder and darkness descended on Spike’s vision with a metallic ‘click’.

He didn’t know if this was better, because he couldn’t see the horrifyingly familiar surroundings, or if it was worse, because he couldn’t see what might happen next.

Hands grabbed him and pulled him over to the table, and in that instant, Spike forgot all about Angel - forgot about Riley’s threats - forgot everything except escape. He fought, pure primal fear flooding through his nervous system. He managed to fling one person off, heard a crash of glass and equipment, but another person grabbed him as soon as that one was gone.

"Can’t you calm it down?!" Someone shouted.

"I don’t have my equipment," Finn barked back, which was a completely random thing to say but Spike didn’t have time to dwell on it. He had kept them from getting even one restraint on him, and he wasn’t about to stop his struggles.

"Well, go get what you need!"

"Just sedate it!"

"Sedatives don’t work very well on Hostiles - you know that!"

"Sedate it long enough for me to get back with my eq... with its Sire!"

"You’d better hurry!" and then there was a sharp sting in Spike’s arm, and the heat of liquid injected into his cool veins. Lethargy tried to wash over him, but he fought it as hard as his body continued to fight - another person crashed into the equipment.

"Let it go!"

"Are you crazy?!"

"Just do it!" and then the hands were gone, and Spike found a wall and pressed his back to it.

"See? Just let it stand there until Finn gets back!"

"It could attack us again!"

"It’s fighting the drugs - it won’t spare time for us unless we try to get it on the table."

"Oh, yeah? What makes you such an expert?"

"I’ve been working with this breed of Hostile for months!"

"Yeah - I thought this one was ‘special’?!"

The argument was interrupted when the door opened again and Spike keened with a mix of fear and pleasure when the strong scent of his Sire washed over him.

"Childe," the metallic voice spoke again, firm and impersonal. "Get on the table."

"S-sire?!" Spike couldn’t believe what he was hearing - but he immediately started stumbling forward, hands outstretched as he tried to find the table in the darkness.

Someone grabbed him again - not as harshly as before - and turned him around until another step made the table slam into his waist. "Sire?" he asked again, pleadingly.

"Do as I say."

Spike climbed onto the table, shaking, and held out a hand in the direction of the voice. "Sire, please?" ‘Please don’t make me do this!’

"Are you going to disobey me, Childe?"

"N-no, Sire..."

"Good. Now lay down and be still."

Spike was shaking with fear and disbelief by now, but he did as he was told. Something was wrong - he knew it - even Angelus-of-Old wouldn’t have ordered one of his Childer or a GrandChilde to do something like this. Not without explaining, not without it being a punishment... had he done something wrong?

The restraints were fastened around him, and something like a ball gag was forced into his mouth. Then - the table was - was flipped, somehow, and he was face down and the support at his back was taken away and refastened under him.

A buzzing sound started, and then something was running over the back of his neck and up onto his head.

An electric razor.

Spike moaned, deep in his throat, remembering the last time he’d been here and how they’d shaved part of his hair before they sliced open his head...

"Be quiet," his Sire’s voice snapped, and Angel’s - Angelus’? - scent moved closer. "You promised you would do anything to keep me safe; this is part of the price."

Oh.

Oh, well then - Spike’s whole body relaxed, the tension flowing out of it, his limbs sagging against the restraints.

If this was for Sire, then he’d do it.

No matter how much it hurt, or how much terror was still bubbling in his stomach - as long as he knew why, knew that Angel wasn’t angry with him for something he didn’t remember doing... then it was all going to be all right.

An ice-cold scalpel touched the base of his skull, and Spike didn’t even flinch.