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.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

"Oh, no," Buffy said softly, jumping up out of the porch chair and staring down the street. She’d been waiting for Riley to come by and give her an update; he was very, very late.

They thought it would be less suspicious if he kept coming here, acting normal, and denying anything Angel might accuse him of doing.

But it wasn’t Riley she was seeing at the end of the street.

It was Angel, his familiar, tall, broad body, his distinctive, striding walk, his leather coat and dark hair.

And there was an equally familiar, slimmer figure next to him - hanging on to him, really, and Angel had his arm around the person’s lean shoulders. No distinguishing leather duster, but there was the gleaming white-blond hair and that darn swagger.

Angel had found Spike.

What did that mean, she wondered, her grip tightening on the porch rail until the wood groaned in warning under her hands. How had he possibly found Spike? Riley had promised her - they had come up with a perfect, fool-proof story for when Angel came asking the soldier questions, so that shouldn’t have been a problem.

So... maybe the blond menace had escaped?

It wasn’t exactly a far-fetched idea; the little rat had managed it once before. Or maybe...

Her mind was still racing through possibilities as Angel and Spike reached the walk and then climbed the low porch steps. She opened her mouth to start asking questions, determined to seem as innocent as possible even if she had to pretend that she was glad to see Spike back and safe.

The two vampires breezed right past, like she wasn’t even there.

As soon as they went through the door, the house filled with shrieks of delight and shouts of surprise - she hurried in to see her baby sister wrapped so tightly around Spike that it was a good thing he didn’t have to breathe. Xander and Tara were standing close and beaming at the vampire, making her wonder again about the bite marks that weren’t on their wrists.

Specifically, she was wondering if they were somewhere else.

"Where were you?"

"Are you all right?"

"How did you find him, Angel?"

"Where did you find him?"

"Are you hurt? Why’s your hair bloody?"

"Why’s half of it shaved?!"

"What’s that thing on your head?"

"That’s some sort of blinder," Angel’s deep voice quieted the chatter, "and I cannot seem to get it off. Wesley, can you use a spell to remove it?"

"I should think so," Wesley came over and Dawn reluctantly let go of Spike, still grinning at him as she backed away. "It would be best to know how it was fastened on first, though."

"Well, that will be a problem," Angel grumbled, "I can’t figure it out."

"It’s like glue or somethin’," Spike agreed, giving it a brief tug. "Hurts to yank on it."

"Then stop yanking it," was Wesley’s calm reply. He leaned close, peering at the metal blinder, studying it. "It has seams, sort of - does it move?"

"S’got a button or something, makes it looser or tighter," Spike nodded. "One of ‘em said it was so I could only use game face if they said I could."

"Bastards," Angel muttered.

Wesley just frowned, running his fingers carefully over the blinder. It looked like a smooth piece of metal - the seams that loosened or tightened it and the ones that formed the visor slats were so expertly made that they were almost invisible.

"I simply don’t see how this is fastened on," he sighed, easily seeing why Angel was so frustrated. "It goes all the way around, of course, but being metal, it has no way to stay in place - it should slide right off without straps to keep it on. I would have expected a strap under your chin and a few more over the top of your head - but there’s nothing. Gunn, you’re a bit more mechanically inclined than I am - what do you think?"

The tall, dark-skinned man left his position, where he’d been leaning against the wall and watching everyone else, and approached them. He moved slowly and carefully, and kept his hands in plain sight. This was the first time he’d come near Angel’s ‘new’ Childe; Angel was hovering protectively, and Gunn was understandably cautious.

The blue eyes shining at him through the metal slats weren’t wary or wily or angry, though - they were wide with hope.

Gunn shook his head just a little - he’d thought Angel was a weird vampire, but this one was giving the Boss a run for his money.

He let the thought slip away, frowning harder than Wesley had as he looked the blinder over. "Nasty piece," he commented quietly, carefully touching the sharp edges that were tight against Spike’s skin.

He didn’t think he was imagining the traces of dried blood that lingered there.

Somewhere behind him, Giles, unable to wait any longer, started interrogating Angel again.

"So, you just wandered into the Initiative and took him out?" he sounded more than a little disbelieving. "Provided it was them that had him, of course, I find that difficult to fathom."

"Oh, it was them," Angel said, his tone careless, "but I had an escort." He was still hovering over his Childe and watching, hawk-eyed, as Gunn worked on the blinder.

"E-escort..." Buffy’s voice sounded choked and a quick glance out of the corner of Gunn’s eye showed him that her face was turning incredibly pale. "You - you can’t m-mean... you don’t m-mean R-r-r..." She couldn’t seem to get the name out.

"I thought you said Finn had nothing to do with this?" Angel didn’t even glance at her.

"He d-do-doesn’t," she managed, still stuttering badly.

"Odd," Angel said, smirking faintly and still not looking at her, "he took me straight to Spike. Strange, if he didn’t have anything to do with taking him."

"He-he-he... you..." Buffy seemed to be out of words.

"Perhaps he just took you to where he knew a special Vampire would be kept," Giles put in after a painful moment of listening to her stutter.

"Your Slayer said she asked him, and he told her there were no new ‘Hostiles’ in that damn lab at all." Angel frowned as Gunn’s hands paused on a flat part of the blinder, about an inch and a half from Spike’s temple. "Gunn?"

"Something’s different here," Gunn said, frowning harder, "Wes, would you hand me a flat screwdriver? A small one."

"Here," Wesley had fished one out of Gunn’s toolbox already.

"Didn’t know you were psychic," Gunn muttered, taking the tool and giving him a half-grin.

Which, oddly enough, made Wesley’s cheeks turn faintly pink.

Huh.

...interesting. He’d have to explore that reaction a bit more, later.

Right now, he pressed the edge of the screwdriver blade into the slight indentation he had found. It was a tiny screwdriver, one he used for working on delicate things like fancy weapons, computers, and the reading glasses that he refused to admit he owned. It was perfect for fitting into the infinitesimal crack.

For a moment nothing happened, despite his prying - he began to wonder if it was a just a flaw in the metal - then it suddenly gave.

A thin little circle popped off the blinder and fell, tinkling, to the floor.

Gunn stared.

And stared.

And felt sick.

"What? What is it?" Angel asked worriedly, coming around from behind his Childe to see what had happened.

"Was a bolt-cover," Gunn managed, feeling like he was going to choke on the words.

Angel leaned in closer, staring at the head of the small bolt that had been uncovered. "That’s not just part of the blinder?"

"No," Gunn forced the word out, "it’s not. It’s not in any place that would make it be holding parts together. It’s - it’s a fastener."

"Fastener..." Angel frowned and lifted Spike’s chin, tilting his Childe’s head so he could see the angle. "But if it’s fastening it on, it would have to be..." he stopped dead, and wow, Gunn had never seen a vampire turn green before.

"It’s bolted to his forehead," he nearly whispered, "they - they drilled that bolt into his skull."

The entire room was deathly silent.

"Oh," Spike’s cheerful voice made them all jerk, "no wonder I got a headache, then!" His fingers went up to feel of the uncovered bolt. "Gonna take it out? I want this thing off."

"How..." Angel paused, cleared his throat, and then tried again, "How do we take it out without hurting him?" He looked at Gunn and Wesley for the answer.

Gunn shook his head. The only way he knew how to get a bolt out of something was with a drill - no way in hell that wouldn’t hurt.

"I think I can use a spell," Wesley said, his brow furrowing in thought, "a transportation spell - I can transport the screw from where it is now to somewhere else - like to the table."

"Or into one of those scientists’ heads," Angel grumbled.

Spike snickered.

"The problem is," Gunn was reluctant to add more bad news to an already tense situation, but there wasn’t any choice, "that can’t be the only bolt. I’d say there are at least three more."

Angel snarled, his eyes flashing gold, but he just turned to Wesley and asked, "Can you transport all of them at once?"

"If Gunn can uncover them so that I can see them. I would almost suggest just transporting the blinder, but I’m not sure if the bolts would... would go with it."

Most of the people in the room gulped and looked sick at the image of what Spike would look like if that happened. True, Wesley would be able to transport the bolts once they were revealed, but such a nightmare image would probably linger in their heads for the rest of their lives. Even the people who didn’t like Spike were in no hurry to see it.

Spike didn’t seem to notice the tension. "Here, here, and here," he tapped out three spots on the blinder; one on the exact opposite side of his forehead from the first one, and the other two on matching spots on each cheekbone, then gave Gunn a hopeful grin.

"How do you know that’s where they are?" Giles sounded really suspicious, like he thought Spike was either faking or had known all along that the bolts were there and was playing up for the attention.

Giles was also really pushing his luck, if Angel’s renewed growling was anything to go by.

"S’where my head hurts," Spike shrugged, not seeming the least bit concerned by Giles or the bolts in his face.

Gunn gave Angel a questioning look - he could tell the bigger vampire was getting angrier, and he didn’t want to be doing something that could be interpreted as threatening if Angel’s feral side took over.

When Angel gave him a short nod, he began exploring the parts of the binder that Spike had tapped, carefully finding and removing each of the next three bolt covers.

"Any in the back?" he asked, before stepping away. It was entirely possible that they had put some more back there - they’d definitely cut the younger vampire’s head open, if the shaved hair and fading marks - looked more like scratches than incisions but that was thanks to fast healing - were any indication.

Someone in the room made a half-muffled heaving noise at the question, and quick feet went running down the hall toward the bathroom.

Gunn didn’t turn around to see who it was, but he knew if the answer was ‘yes’, he was liable to be following them.

"I don’ think so," Spike said, tilting his head thoughtfully, his long, slender fingers going back to run along the edge of the binder, "don’t hurt back there. Not any more."

"How badly did this　hurt?" Angel’s question was soft, as soft as his own fingers brushing against Spike’s shorn scalp, not giving anyone a chance to relax at Spike’s answer before giving their brains more gruesome images to play with.

"Not too bad, ‘cause I fainted," Spike said, still sounding perfectly cheerful.

Why the hell was the vampire so damn happy?! He’d had his head　carved open, and bolts screwed into his bones!

Gunn was really confused.

"How can you sound so perky?" Cordelia, her face so pale she looked ghostly, was apparently thinking the same thing. She was looking at Spike without irritation for the first time since Angel had brought him downstairs - was it only a few days ago?

"I got Sire back, and he’s not mad," Spike shrugged, the answer perfectly obvious to him.

Angel blinked a little, then beamed.

Gunn hid a grin, pretending he didn’t see a gleam of wetness in a pair of brown eyes. "Last one, Wes," he said as the fourth cover popped off, trying to change the subject before things got any mushier.

"Good," Wesley didn’t wait to ask for anyone’s help or permission - he waved a hand, muttered something under his breath, and there was the sudden clatter of four small bits of metal dropping onto the table.

Followed by the louder clatter of the metal blinder flying across the room and hitting the wall.

Blood was running freely down Spike’s face, from the four round, dark holes where the bolts had been, but he was grinning, his white teeth flashing like some sort of macabre Halloween mask.

"Feels better already!" he laughed, turning to his Sire.

Angel immediately snatched him close and started licking the blood off his face; Gunn completely agreed with the various ‘ewwww’!s coming from the rooms inhabitants. Even Willow, Tara, Dawn and Fred looked ill, instead of enchanted like they had at the two vampires’ earlier interactions.

Some of it was left over from the bolt discovery and removal, but there was something about that licking that Gunn’s human brain found wrong - he was pretty sure they were feeling the same thing.

"So what happened to Riley?" Xander seemed determined to change the subject completely, probably hoping Angel would stop what he was doing to answer.

It was a good idea, but as it often happened with the boy, he picked exactly the wrong thing to bring up.

"Yes! Where’s Riley?!" Buffy had been completely silent about the bolts and the blood, but now her tongue seemed to have woken up. "If he was with you, and showed you where to find Spike, then you should have brought him back with you! You didn’t leave him to explain to the Initiative what happened, did you?!"

"Oh, no, nothing like that," Angel lifted his head from the cat-bath he was performing on his Childe’s face and gave her a wicked, unrepentant grin. "He’s there, but I don’t think he’ll be doing any explaining."

The Slayer had left off being pale and was starting to turn red. "What did you do?!" she screeched.

"Nothing more than what you should have imagined could happen when you helped him steal my Childe from me," Angel replied calmly, and went back to licking his darling clean.

He ignored the way the room exploded into noise around them - let the silly humans argue. He had more important things to take care of.

As soon as Spike was cleaned and beginning to heal, he’d move on to his revenge.