Author: Mithril
E-mail: taptap2@gmail.com
Title: Outcast
Pairing: Angel/Spike
Rating: Adult, Slash
Summary: Spike has lost all status and standing in the vampire community.
Distribution: Various S/A friendly lists.
Spoilers: Mid-season 5 AtV spin-off/AU.
Spike appeared from the pendent at W&H,
and later became corporeal again with Fred's help. Angel
and Spike fought for the cup of
Perpetual Torment (btw, did you ever wonder why it was called that when
all
other discussions about it make it out to be such a good thing, and
whether
that might have had something to do with Spike being determined not to
let
Angel drink from it (i.e. save him from perpetual torment) and thus
finding the
strength to beat him in that fight? Hmm...).
Illyria/The Shell never happened – Fred
is still with them.
Disclaimer: I don't own Angel or Spike or anything else from ME.
Feedback: Always welcome.
Part 4:
Spike slammed down his
empty bottle, stood up and headed for the door.
"Pick me up at ten," he threw over his shoulder as he left the
dark bar.
* * *
The next day passed in a hazy blur for Angel, consumed not with matters of importance, but instead with mundane but non-stop minor irritations. For some reason he couldn't seem to focus at all. At least three times he found himself seriously considering going back to bed and sleeping the rest of the day away, as most other self-respecting vampires were – as Spike no doubt was, since he hadn't bothered to show up for work this day.
But each time he'd made up his mind to do it, something came up that needed to be read or signed, or dealt with and apparently he was the only one who could do it. You'd think the CEO of a law firm as large as Wolfram & Hart would have some minions for that sort of mundane day to day crap, but no, it had to be him, pen in hand, dotting the i's and crossing the t's.
It was fucking annoying, that's what it was.
By the middle of the day he was ready to tear someone's head off with his bare hands. Luckily, before some poor unsuspecting lackey could walk into his office with the next bit of trivia that would mark his imminent demise, the team started to arrive for their daily afternoon meeting. When they were all settled down, Wesley began to read through the agenda point by point, and after glancing repeatedly out to the lobby with no sign of their missing member in sight, Angel finally tried to focus on the discussion at hand. He'd caught a few words; something about a demon clan abducting virgins for some ceremony or another, but most of it had been not much more than a steady stream of blah, blah, blah.
Twenty minutes later, when a Special Ops plan had been devised for rescuing the virgins and Angel had given up all hope of him showing up, Spike arrived, silently taking a seat near the far end of the table.
"Sorry," he muttered, picking up a pen and pad of paper from the stack that always sat at the center of the table.
Brows shot up all around the table. Spike never apologized. Ever.
"Ah, yes, that's quite all right, I'm sure. Barely begun, really," Wesley stammered, obviously as caught off guard by Spike's apology as everyone else. "But I'm glad you're here. Something came up earlier today that I've been meaning to ask you and Angel about." He looked back and forth between the two vampires. "May I ask what you two have been up to?"
"What?" Angel asked in turn, frowning.
Spike simply stared back, no expression on his face.
"Well," Wesley began, pushing his glasses up and shuffling through a stack of papers before settling on one sheet in particular. "At least three demon sources have recently reported in with the same information; it seems there's a rumor going round that Angelus and William the Bloody are on the hunt again."
When neither vampire answered, but instead just stared at him blankly, he shrugged. "Well, whatever it is you're doing, keep it up, unless you're doing something that will eventually get us all killed, in which case I don't think I want to know about it. Anyway, vampire activity is down considerably right now, and that makes our lives a little easier. Let's hope it stays that way for awhile. Next item; requested increase in the R&D department's discretionary spending budget."
* * *
The meeting went on even longer than normal, and when it finally ended at seven-thirty Spike strode out the door along with everyone else, making his way across the lobby and heading for the exit.
"Spike."
The blond vampire paused and turned around to find Angel standing in the conference room door, his arms crossed over his chest. Spike glanced warily at Harmony, who was still, much to his amazement, at her desk, then reluctantly retraced his steps.
"We're still on for tonight?" Angel asked.
Spike frowned. "Yeah, course. Why?"
Angel shook his head, but when Spike shrugged and turned to leave again, he caught his sleeve, stopping him once more. Spike glanced down at the hand on his duster then up at the dark vampire's face.
"What?"
"Well, it's just that..."
Spike tilted his head in that infuriating way he had and for a minute Angel lost his train of thought. Oh yeah.
"It's going to be ten soon.
Why don't you stay here and save me the trip to your place.
"Fine," the blond replied, shrugging again. He turned on his heel and moved to one of the soft chairs in the lobby, apparently ready to wait there for the next two and a half hours.
Angel sighed.
"Spike, you don't have to sit in the lobby. Do you want a... a drink?"
Spike gave it some thought, then nodded. "Yeah. I'll be down at the pub round the corner when you're ready to go," he said, getting up and heading toward the door again.
"Spike," Angel called out, exasperated.
Spike turned back again.
"I meant here," Angel clarified. "You can, you know, wait upstairs if you like."
Spike considered this foreign concept for a minute, then shrugged again. "Yeah, okay," he finally said, brushing past Angel and heading for the private elevator beyond him.
Angel followed him and they rode silently up to his penthouse suite. Once inside, Angel waved over toward the liquor cabinet, hesitated a moment, then went in to the kitchen. When he came out a few minutes later, holding two mugs of heated blood, he stopped abruptly. Spike stood staring down at the chess pieces, one fingertip resting on the black king, a glass of whiskey in his other hand. Before he'd become corporeal again, Spike had been in Angel's suite many times, but he'd never mentioned the set before. Angel wasn't even sure that he'd ever noticed it.
"Wondered where these got off to," Spike said
softly, as
though to himself. When he glanced up at
him a minute later, though, Angel knew that Spike had been aware of his
presence all along. "Thought maybe Darla
had gotten rid of them during one of her rages," he added.
Angel walked forward and set Spike's blood down on the chess table. "Yeah," he said quietly.
"Wesley plays, I reckon."
Angel shrugged. "He was a Watcher. And he's English." he added, as though that said it all.
Spike nodded, still staring down at the board. "He any good?"
"Don't know," Angel answered gruffly. "Never played him."
"Who do you play then? Can't quite picture Charlie-boy at the game, even with the whole Gilbert and Sullivan thing he's got going."
It was the most he'd said in days, but Spike's somber face and tone of voice in no way matched the humor the words might otherwise have implied, and Angel wasn't fooled.
"No one," he finally replied, shrugging again.. "I haven't played in a hundred years, but you know how much I always loved these pieces."
Spike frowned down at the board, then finally nodded again, picked up the mug of blood and drained it quickly, then made his way to the kitchen. Angel heard the water running. When he returned, Spike sat down on the couch, sipped at his whiskey, and then stared down into the amber dregs of his glass.
Angel took another sip of blood and grimaced with disgust; it was now cold and congealing. He took the mug to the kitchen, rinsed it out and set it next to Spike's in the sink, then returned. Spike still stared down at his half empty glass of whiskey. He didn't look as though he'd moved at all, not even to take another sip. Angel frowned. There was something fundamentally wrong when Spike had perfectly good whiskey in hand – or bad whiskey for that matter – and was not drinking it.
Angel went to the cabinet and poured half a glass of Midleton Very Rare then sat down on the other side of the couch. Suddenly he remembered the one other time they'd sat together here. They'd traded insults, as per usual, then he'd actually complimented Spike's poetry, which was in no way usual. It all worked out all right, though, when Spike turned the compliment on its ear by insulting Angel's taste in general, thus saving them from an awkward moment that neither of them would have known what to do with.
It was in the minutes that had followed, however, when Angel had finally begun to realize the depth of anxiety and downright fear Spike had been feeling while caught in that between-worlds, noncorporeal state. It had shocked him. Spike wasn't afraid of any thing or any one. Next to Angelus, Spike really was the Big Bad, just as he'd so often proclaimed.
Angel supposed that that was really the crux of the matter now. Spike came back fighting every time. He was the cockiest, brashest, most annoying, loud-mouth braggart Angel had ever encountered in his two and a half centuries of existence – if he discounted himself as Liam during his human years, of course. Spike wasn't a quitter. Spike took every hard knock and gave back as good as he got, sometimes better, he thought, absent-mindedly rubbing his jaw as he recalled the night they'd fought over the Cup of Perpetual Torment. Spike was the most alive creature he'd ever known, despite his status among the undead. That liveliness shone from his eyes, even when Angelus had been beating him to within an inch of his unlife.
Except now. Now that was gone, and it just wasn't right. It was never supposed to be this way. Angel's own glass sat unfinished in his hand as he contemplated the thought of what should and shouldn't be.
Angel had a great aversion to making a fool of himself. As great as that aversion was, Spike had an equal or better propensity to mock him while uncovering every flaw. Despite that, after a few minutes of the dark and disturbing thoughts that he couldn't seem to shake – probably due to the dead silence that surrounded them – Angel got to his feet and slowly moved forward to stand beside the chess set again. He stood there for a few minutes, contemplating the board, then set down his drink, pulled out the chair on the side of the white pieces and sat down. Picking up one of the pawns, he inspected it closely, as though that were the only reason he was there.
"Do you remember when you told me about Caesar's
policy of
decimating a legion that didn't perform well while we were planning the
strategy
for our attack in
After a short hesitation, Spike replied. "Yeah. That's how we came up with the plan to take out one of each Clan's Houses, and one of each Order's Clans."
Angel nodded. "They didn't know what was happening or where we'd strike next, and by the time they'd begun to circle the wagons, we'd moved on to the next Order. Good plan.
Angel idly twirled the pawn he held in his hand. A minute later, when he finally set it down again, it was on a square two forward of where it had been before.
Angel waited, holding an unnecessary breath.
"Worked well enough," Spike agreed slowly.
"Yeah, it did."
Angel took a sip from his glass and continued to inspect the board, elbows on the table and fingers tented under his chin. He heard the swish of leather upon leather as Spike finally got up off the couch and slowly approached. Something in his chest tightened like a coiled spring.
"You never take the white pieces," Spike finally remarked when he stood beside the table.
Angel shrugged, still staring down. "I've done lots of things in the last hundred years that I once thought I'd never do," he replied. "Change is good. You always said so."
Spike snorted. "Yeah, but you never listened to me, much less agreed with me."
Angel shrugged again. "Maybe I've changed despite myself then."
"Maybe," Spike reluctantly agreed after a long pause.
If he'd still had a heart that functioned, Angel was sure it would explode from the vice-like grip that seemed to enclose it now as he waited.
After what seemed to be at least two hours, but was actually more like two minutes, Spike pulled out the chair from the other side and sat down before the black pieces. He countered the white pawn's move with that of his opposing knight. Whatever it was that had been so hard and tight inside his chest collapsed and Angel closed his eyes briefly with a profound sense of relief.__._,_.___