A Halloween Story
Thanks to Spyke Raven for being my wonderful beta reader.
I pace the kitchen waiting for Angel to finish in the bathroom. Wesley sits at the table reading GQ and looking like one of their ads from Brooks Brothers. Cordelia is upstairs choosing shoes. She comes in this evening with three or four boxes and is trying to figure out which one goes with her little black dress. None of 'em go with it from what I can see 'cause none of them is black. But it's her gig.
We are going out. Bleeding Going Out! All of us! We are going out. I can't believe the Poof suggested it. He said, "It's Halloween. We should do something." Cordelia says, "Did I hear you say we should actually go out? Somewhere in public? Together?"
" Someplace that has music where we can celebrate, but with no karaoke bar." We all stare at him. He's made a swell new enemy in Wolfram and Hart, he used the cell phone successfully for once, I have fucked his gorgeous ass at least fourteen times in the last 48 hours and he is obviously counting his bloody blessings.
"Why not." says Wesley and before Angel can take it back he adds, "We can all be ready at 9:00. See you then. " He ducks out. "Ok, I'm in,"says the Prom Queen. She gets up, grabs her purse and says, "Back at 9:00. Ciao."
That leaves me and him. I look at him. He says, "What's that quizzical look supposed to mean?"
I say, "Quizzical is right, Pet and here's test question number one. What would make your broody self want to go out on the town tonight of all nights? The night only the most uncool vampires leave the nest. So why do we go out? For fun? Us?"
"I just think we should. We should all bond more. It says so in the brochure from the psychologist's office upstairs. Plus, there's this vampire wannabe bar I've been meaning to check out, The Lair down on Vine."
Natch, hidden agenda. Patrolling as usual. Not possible for him just to have fun all by itself, shagging me aside. But, going out with my lover is not an offer I'm about to turn down. I can watch that coat swing around his ass and through the bar and drink and dance, and smoke and trade witticisms with the Watcher and the Duchess and have a ripe old time. I say, "Let's get dressed."
I find a clean t-shirt and put on my pants and clean socks and spiff up my Doc Martens. I slide into my duster and I'm ready. Not so the Poof. Oh, no. He has to go through three different silk shirts to decide on a dark cashmere sweater along with Boss pants and the boots with the yellow treads on the bottom. Then he has to spend 20 minutes glopping gel into his hair. By then the other two are back. Wesley sits down at the kitchen table with his magazine and Cordelia opens shoe boxes upstairs.
The waiting is making me crazy. I pace and mutter. I light another cig and look for the Jack Daniels in the cupboard. Wesley whines, "Do you have to drink before we get there? All anyone of us needs is a drunk, peroxide vampire drooling over us all night."
I lean forward to give him an acid reply when I am distracted by a sound. It's a tapping, a faint scratching. It's beyond his hearing. He looks surprised that I didn't give him any back talk. I say, "Shh." I listen. It seems to be coming from the tunnel entrance. I sniff. No detectable dangerous odors waft from that direction. The scratching gets louder and suddenly he can hear it. We both look in the direction of the door. Angel walks out of the bathroom, hair well gooed and looks at the tunnel door. "What's that?" he says to me. I shrug.
He walks over to the door. First he listens, ear to the metal panel. Then he reaches over to the weapons cabinet and picks up the ax. He looks at me. I move out into the middle of the room and stand ready to back him up. Parsley gets up and stands by the table. Angel takes the door handle and swings it down and pulls the door open fast and wide so it slams back against the wall and he can have two hands to work with if he needs them. He looks out into an empty tunnel. Then I see him look down. He stands still, ax in both hands. Then he turns around and looks at me. He says, "It's for you." He reaches over and puts the ax away and walks around behind me. I go up to the door and look down. Just below the step are two sets of eyes. One tiny clawed paw reaches up and hooks itself on the top of the step and it pulls itself up. It sits and looks up at me and bats it's long lashes and says, "Meep." I say, "Bloody hell." It looks at the other one. The second one is too little to pull itself up so it jiggles up and down in place and says, "Murp. " Then I see that the bigger one has this old plastic grocery bag. Must have found it in the tunnel 'cause it's filthy. It holds it out to me. "Mate, "I say, "What do I want with that bag?" It says, "Meep," again.
I turn and look back at Angel. He is wearing his bland expression. Wesley is standing next to him looking...quizzical. Cordelia is standing on the second stair down, bent over looking at me, one hand on the railing. Her eyebrows have hit the moon. They are all quiet. No help there.
I look back down at what's on the step. A memory surges goes through me. Dark streets full of garbage and offal. Stinking gutters and alley ways. Hunger. I bring myself back to this place, warm, cozy, full of Angel, and food. I step back and motion to them to come further in. The bigger one scuttles forward, but the little one can't make it, so I step forward again, reach over, cup my hand under him and lift him up on to the step.
The two of them waddle forward into the room and stare up at Angel, Wesley, and Cordelia in turn. Cordelia is the first one to break the silence. She says, "Hot cocoa. We need hot cocoa." She comes down the stairs and goes over to the fridge for milk and chocolate syrup. "All right everybody, lets make our guests welcome." The Martha Stewart of Angel Investigations. Angel backs up and sits down on the sofa. Wesley leans forward toward the bigger one and says, "Hello, little fellow. What do you want with the help of a detective agency?"
Little Fellow says, "Meep." and pulls the bag around and shoves it at Wesley.
The littlest one jiggles up and down again in excitement. I begin to get it. I go over to Cordelia who's turning the heat on under the milk on the stove. I ask her if she has any of those lemon sours she's always got in her middle drawer. She says she doesn't, but she has some chocolate mints in the third drawer down, the one full of crosses she keeps in case Angelus stops by to visit. I go up the stairs and into the office and open the drawer. I have to use a whole wad of tissues from the box on the desk before I can move enough crosses to pull out the candy. Office smells like burnt Kleenex. On the way back down I see the donut box. Two left not counting the half Cordelia tasted and put back. I take it all down the stairs and go up to Little Fellow. I reach down and open his bag. Inside I see a couple bottle caps, a gum wrapper, a swizzle stick, a couple of pennies, and a piece of broken mirror. Memories rise up again, a sack full of childish treasures behind a stable in the East End of London. Then, a hand sleeved in gray cashmere holding a clean shopping bag reaches around in front of me. I take the bag, pick up the old one, put it inside the new one and add the two whole donuts and six of the mint candies in their silver foil. Then I put it back down in front of Little Fellow. He claws the bag open and squeezes inside. The other one dances up and down around the bag. Little Fellow backs out with a mint in each claw and gives one to...."Bugsy.We'll call him Bugsy because he's about as big as a bug," says Cordelia coming forward with two mugs of hot chocolate.
She sets it down on the floor by the two rug rats. They sniff the air, drop the mints, and then stick their noses in the cocoa. She must have made sure not to heat it too much, because they snuffle right into it and begin lapping it up. I sit down cross legged on the floor next to them. I feel Angel kneel down behind me. His lips brush the back of my neck. "Watch it, Pet." I warn. Humans and souled vampires can get so damned maudlin.
Little Fellow scarfs up the last drop and looks up at me. "Meep," I say to him. He draws himself up, so he's at least 12 inches high and shakes his head back and forth. Tiny motes of sparkley dust fly out around him. Some land on my Docs and some on Cordelia's hose. He nudges Bugsy who is just finishing his mug and motions toward the bag. Bugsy picks up the two mints and puts them back in the bag. Then he hooks his claws around one handle and starts dragging it across the floor to the door. Little Fellow gets behind and pushes. When they reach the step, Bugsy leans out and drops down to the cement. Little Fellow gives the bag a big shove off the edge and jumps down on top of it. We hear meeping and squeaking fade away down the tunnel.
Angel gets up and shuts the door and locks it. I am busy looking at the sparkles on my shoes. They look sort of like fairy dust. He says, "Ready?" Wesley says, "Right, let's go then." Cordelia doesn't say anything. I look up at her. She is staring at her feet. I notice that her hair is unusually shiny, sparkley. She looks down at me and says,"Wow, I never noticed how peroxide hair reflects light. You look all sparkley." Angel walks around in front of me. "What's going on?"
"Don't know, Mate. Everything looks pleasant and...."
"Sparkley." says Cordelia.
"Stand up," says Angel. I do. The light in the room comes out of the lamps in glowing, pulsing balls of ... glowing, pulsing balls of...stuff. Millions of little stars swirl around the edges of the furniture. I look at Angel. He has sparkles on his eyelashes and in the irises of his eyes. Looks nice. I tell him he looks all glimmery. He looks from me to Cordelia. He has uh oh written all over him. He leads me over to the sofa and tells me to sit and not to move. Parsley brings Cordelia over and sits her next to me. Then the two of them stand in front of us and I can tell they are worried. I say, "Not to worry, Pet. The whole place looks kinda nice. Kinda..."
"Sparkley," says Cordelia again.
"Yeah," I say, that's it. Sparkley."
But now I can see my words. They fly out of my mouth and spin crazily around the room flashing and bouncing in smoky, glittery spirals until its, like, they diffuse into the walls. A residue of iridescence glows from the paint. The ceiling drips shining bits of gold. I pat my pocket and find the cigarettes. I put one in my mouth and look for my lighter. I find it in the right pocket of my duster. I give it a flick and Roman candles burst from it and blaze upward toward the ceiling. "Oh, wow," says Cordelia, "That was so beautiful. Did you see that?"Yeah," I say. I flick it again. More fire works. Angel and Wesley are staring at us. I get the lighter to stay lit so it makes glowing particles of carbon flicker across the room. I bring the flame over to the cigarette and touch the tip. The end turns red orange like the glare of a bonfire and little sparks fly around my head.
I get an idea. I get up. Angel acts like I need steadying and reaches out to hold me up. But I feel fine. The sparkles are growing all around me and I want something. I head for the bedroom. Cordelia falls over on to the sofa and announces that she intends to stay there until the sparkles stop, because she's never seen anything so lovely in her life. Angel follows me leaving Parsley with her. I flop on to the bed. He pulls the doors closed and leans over me. "Spike?" I can hear the concern in his voice. "I'm OK Mate. I just want to have an orgasm... with you... right now."What?" he says. "Now, right now. Do it. Please, let's fuck." I can see he doesn't know whether I'm possessed, drunk, or enchanted. I roll onto my back and try to wiggle out of my duster. He helps me take it off. I squirm out of my clothes and all the while the sparkles are filling the room. I hear music coming from the stereo in the living room and Cordelia asking Wesley to dance. The music explodes into zillions of individual minute stars and fills the air with radiant light. I 've never seen anything like this. All I want is to have it be still going on when we come. I pull him down and kiss him deep. The kiss sings out through our bodies and glistens on the night table and the bureau and the door. He responds to the kiss in spite worrying about me. He sinks down on top of me and I arch up to him. I try tearing his sweater off, but he sits up straddling me and pulls it over his head. Then he unbuckles his belt and kneels, pushing his pants down and over one leg at a time and yanking his shoes and socks off on the way. I look at him. My beautiful, shining, glimmering lover. My cock rises up hard and I see waves of sparkles spiral up and wrap his body in ecstatic rosy light. I touch his arm and pull him downward until I feel the tip of my dick touch his tight ring of muscle. I fumble for the lubricant, but he finds it first and slides his creamy hand around me and then eases me inside. The room is expanding and contracting as he moves up and down and I can barely see for the light and glittering starry dust falling around us. I take his cock in my hand and pump. He leans down and kisses me, tongue slipping into my mouth and wiping the back of my throat. I taste blood as it catches on my teeth. The blood tastes like bubbles of champagne. It fizzes and twinkles. He's hard against my stomach and slippery in my hand. I moan as my cock catches fire and cool flames rise up around the bed until we're enveloped in a cloud of shimmering mist full of suns. The suns evolve into nebula. My orgasm shakes galaxies loose and bundles of cosmic radiation gale against us and through us. He comes , spilling streams of luminous iridescence over my chest and hand. I am looking at him, a sparkling, glistening souled being, and I see him as I never have before, as a dazzling, scintillating creature, as mine in a blaze of possessive glory. I close my eyes.
When I open them, the room is just the same old room. My lover lies on top of me dozing with his head on my chest just below my chin. I kiss his foofy brown hair. He lifts his head and looks at me for a beat. I say, "Are we going out?" He ruffles my hair in return. "Think we'd fry, if we tried it now. It's 3:00 in the afternoon according to that clock." He nods toward the night stand. I scratch my nose. Then I remember the sparkles. "Cordelia?"
"She made Wes dance for nearly an hour without stopping and then he twirled her out the door and took her home. Guess she's still asleep. Anyway she hasn't shown up here."
I relax back down into the mattress and the pillows, close my eyes and
drift. I feel his soft kiss on my cheek and then his tongue moves along
my jaw line and over my ear. I purr and wrap my arms around his back. I
see him again as I saw him last night. A vision. Incandescent. How did
it all start? I was looking at my shoes. Then it hits me. I can hear their
Momma now. " Say thanks when someone gives you a treat." I snigger a little
and grin. Angel takes the opportunity to slip his tongue between my open
lips and to press down. Together we glide into the softness of the late
All Hallows Day afternoon.