E-mail: taptap@mn.rr.com
Title: Most Favored
Pairing: Angel/Spike
Rating: Adult
Summary: The Aurelius Clan chooses a new Master
DISTRIBUTION: Various S/A friendly lists.
Spoilers: Post NFA. Angel slays the dragon, and the battle is won with Illyria's manipulation of time, which also results in Wesley's return. Angel, Spike, Wesley, Gunn, and Fred/Illyria are now back in the 'Angel Investigation' business. All live in the Hyperion.
Disclaimer: I don't own Angel or Spike or anything else from ME.
Feedback: Always welcome.
Suddenly Spike felt a bone-deep weariness settle over him, weighing him down. He turned off the shower, walked into the bedroom and burrowed beneath the covers, still soaking wet. He rolled and kicked, making a nest for himself in the bedding, until he was completely enclosed. When even his vampire eyesight could see nothing, and when he was sure no one could see him – had there been anyone there to see – he let the tears that had been hovering so close fall. He fell asleep with them still wet upon his cheeks.
* * *
The nocturnal nature of vampires is hard-wired into their physiology. They are predators whose prey is most easily accessible in the deepest and darkest hours of the night, when both human visibility and energy levels are at their lowest. The setting of the sun sends out a signal like radar that tingles upon undead flesh, tugging them up from the depths of a slumber that no human could fully comprehend.
Living and working with humans for an extended period of time by definition required some forced modification of Spike and Angel's normal sleep cycle. For Angel, the more disciplined of the two, this was almost welcome, a part of his punishment manifest – if you could call getting up at two, three or four in the afternoon, rather than at six, seven or eight in the evening, punishment for the death of tens of thousands of souls.
For Spike it was a little less complex. The unsouled demon had committed those atrocities. The souled demon, therefore, while inevitably feeling the pain of actions he remembered not only taking part in but reveling in, was less guilty, if not completely blameless, for those actions.
Be it guilt or discipline, Angel frequently forced himself to rise at an hour that most vampires would not or could not do. Over time, Spike had learned to be able to do the same, but being a more decadent creature by nature (at least compared to the souled version of his Sire, for few vampires could match the excess and decadence of the legendary Angelus in his heyday), he generally did not rise until sunset unless absolutely necessary.
Today was such a day.
The training of their human pets had gone on throughout the previous night, till well neigh morning, and after that, well, Angel or Angelus or Liam, or whatever the hell he was calling himself these days, had demanded a considerable amount of his day during perfectly good sleeping hours. Suffice it to say, that with the physical strain of that encounter, and the emotional one that followed it, Spike's sleep was literally that of the dead.
But soul or no soul, his physiology remained that of a vampire, a predator by nature who hunted by night, and so when the sun sank below the horizon, despite being enclosed in a windowless room and nested in a typical vampire lair, he felt the call and awoke.
Angel was there, waiting.
Even buried within the bedding as he was, the scent was unmistakable. Spike stayed absolutely still, focusing on the other presence in the room. There was no movement and no sound, but he was there, of that Spike was absolutely certain. And even though he'd made no movement himself since waking, he knew with the same certainty that Angel knew he was no longer asleep.
Spike considered ignoring Angel, with the hope that he would simply go away, but he envisioned the alternative scenario, the one where Angel waited him out and he looked like a fool for pretending to sleep like some human child. With a sigh he pulled the covers down from his face and stared up at the ceiling.
"Are the others awake?"
"Not yet," Angel replied. "I thought we should talk first before I woke them."
Spike nodded, and after a moment swung his legs over the edge of the bed and sat up, the covers pooling over his lap. Angel was sitting on a chair next to the bed, fully dressed. Spike glanced at his face and then froze, inspecting his eyes more closely.
Whatever the mechanism the soul used to balance Angel and Angelus, the pendulum had definitely swung the other way for the time being. There was only the slightest tinge of gold present now. Even his body language was slightly different than yesterday, though that was harder to define just now, sitting as he was. Perhaps it was a bit more rigid and less relaxed. Angelus could be lounging perfectly at ease one moment, and the next be at the throat of an enemy clear across the room.
Right now he was sitting straight in his chair, legs crossed in that prissy way that drove Spike crazy. Though to be fair, both Angel and Angelus did the same, no doubt a habit obtained during his youth in Galway that had never been lost. Spike had been raised a gentleman during the Victorian Era in England, and so had done the same until his untimely death at the tender age of twenty-six. Thereafter, however, as his persona shifted little by little first into that of William the Bloody, then Spike, he'd begun to adopt a body language that was both deceiving to men and seductive to women.
The ponce had never needed such – the big bastard's body was about as seductive as would ever be required, regardless of the gender of the viewing audience, Spike granted reluctantly. Angelus had always liked things to be just so. There had to be precision in his plans, elegance to his hunts and art to his kills. His posture generally reflected the same precision, elegance and art as well. He'd often thought that the hunched over posture sometimes sported by Angel was not simply a matter of deception, but was part and parcel of the constant punishment he inflicted on himself. God knew Angelus would never have tolerated such sloppy posture from himself or any other member of his family.
"I'm sorry, Spike."
Spike looked up sharply in surprise. Whether as Angelus or Angel, the older vampire never apologized to him.
"I was wrong to give you an ultimatum, especially one that forced your hand by jeopardized the others. The demon is smarter than Liam, and I thought I needed to make use of that, given the circumstances. I let the balance shift too much in his favor. It's not an excuse, just an explanation," Angel added quickly.
Spike was still dumbstruck by the novelty of the apology, so simply nodded.
"We need to decide, between the two of us, what we should do."
Spike's stillness finally ended and Angel waited while he reached for the nightstand where a pack of cigarettes and his lighter waited. He lit up, gathered the sheet around his waist and stood up to pace about the room.
"Go on," he threw over his shoulder.
"The way I see it, we have two options. We can try to take the leadership of the Order as originally planned. It's risky, given the short amount of time we have to indoctrinate the others, but it's still an option. If we do that, we'll still need to perform the Most Favored ritual, and keep up the Sire/Childe appearances for the other Houses, but I won't hold you to any of it. You've earned your status of Master, and I've lost any rights I might once have had as Sire."
Spike turned abruptly to stub out his cigarette, and Angel waited until he'd lit a new one before continuing.
"The second option is to get out of Dodge. Staying here is a death warrant if we don't attend the conclave, but there's a good chance we can keep them off our trail if we handle it right. You should head south and look for Drusilla. She'll be a target. I'll head north. Together we can distract them from Wes, Gunn and Illyria. They should go east. But we need to get them going quickly if we're going to do that – a four-day head start will help. I've got plenty of money to keep everyone in funds for a long time, and we've still got two of Wolfram and Hart's necro-tempered cars we can use."
Angel waited, but Spike remained silent as he continued to pace restlessly.
"If you've got another idea, we should consider that as well," Angel added tentatively.
Spike shook his head and finally spoke.
"No, I agree – those are the only two options we have." He hesitated, then added; "The others won't want to split up."
"I know they won't, but we'd be putting them in great danger going into Jardin's lair, you know that."
"Yeah, I know. But I also know we're stronger together than we are apart. That changes the odds a bit, I reckon."
"Everything will have to go perfectly. If it doesn't... Five of us against the full Order of Aurelius, confined to a tight space?"
Spike shrugged. "It ain't good odds either way, we both know that."
It was Angel's turn to nod silently.
Suddenly Spike stood still and met the older vampire's gaze.
"We've never backed down from a fight before. We faced the best Wolfram and Hart could throw our way and survived."
"Not all of us," Angel reminded him quietly.
"No, not all of us," Spike agreed. "Still, it's what we do now, ain't it? And what about the bloody powers that be you're always going on about? They just gonna sit back and let your little group split up like that? May not be for you to say, mate."
Angel frowned, considering that.
"There's been no sign from them at all since the apocalypse was averted. Maybe that was our big mission and they're through with us."
"Us? It's got fuckall to do with us, Angel, and everything to do with you. 'Sides, can't be, can it? Otherwise you'd be a real boy by now," Spike added as he resumed his pacing.
"Not necessarily," Angel replied warily.
Spike stopped and scrutinized him closely. "What do you mean, 'not necessarily'? What about that Shanshu thingamajig?"
Angel shrugged. "That was never really very clear. Prophecies are slippery things. Besides, do we have souls or don't we? Doesn't that mean we have free will now?"
Spike snorted. "Never noticed a lack of free will in either of us when we were soulless."
"You didn't? You didn't have to obey my commands? I didn't have to obey Darla's?"
Spike pursed his lips as he blew a ring of smoke, staring out into space.
"Maybe there's no such thing as perfect free will. Maybe none of us, human or demon, is meant to have that without restriction, without boundaries."
"What do you want to do, Spike? You make the call."
"Me? Why me?"
"Because I don't want to."
Angel suddenly stood up and began to pace himself.
"I make the hard decisions, it's what I do. That's what I said, right?"
Spike nodded warily.
"I don't want to do it this time. I think I've lost my objectivity. It's your turn, Spike. You tell me, what should we do?"
Angel stopped pacing, standing across the room from the younger vampire, and Spike stared at him for a long moment before nodding.
"All right, I'll make the call. You're the Scourge of Europe, and
I'm William the fucking Bloody. We've got an ex-Watcher, a street
hood-turned-attorney and an Old One in our House – a bloody God for
Christ's sake! We're not running. We're staying right here. The Order
of Aurelius is ours, and we're gonna take it."