Authors: Kita, Jessica and, this week, special guest star Maayan!
Distribution: go ahead. Just let one of us know where it's going.
Spoilers: General BtVS season 4/ Angel season 1, nothing specific.
Pairing: Spike/Angel.
Summary: Two darkfic writers come together in the name of utter lunacy, occasionally kidnapping a third darkfic writer, yay! A series of scenes from the life of Spike and Angel in L.A. Total sillyfic, bring your own history and subtext.
Rating: NC-17 for mad crazy slashiness.
Feedback: "To coin a popular Sunnydale phrase, duh."
Disclaimer: Kita owns Angel. Jess owns Spike. Oh, we wish. The plot ours and nothing else, blah blah blah, Joss is God and the "Grrr, Arrrgghh" monster could kick our asses. Don't sue. It's not nice.
Dedication: To all those who sent such lovely feedback, and then demanded more and more chapters with a frenzied intensity not unlike that of wild dogs. Sorry it took so long. Thanks for your patience, here it is and I hope you enjoy. Extra-long for your viewing pleasure.
~~~
Sometime after three a.m., the car screeches up to the curb and Cordelia deposits me somewhat ungraciously in front of my apartment.
"That's it," she snaps. "I'm getting caller I.D. And this is the last time I take a phone call from you after midnight."
"Cordelia," Wesley pipes up sleepily from the backseat, "mutant demon species are not normally known for keeping regular business hours-"
"That's his job!" she retorts. "Mr. Nocturnal Vampire Guy! This is not in my job description. I type, I file-"
"And you're so good at it," I mutter sarcastically, pushing the door open.
"Oh, just get out," she says impatiently. "Get out before you drip any more slime on my would-be-leather-if-you-paid-me-an-actual-salary interior."
I struggle to retain my human visage as I get out of the car, reminding myself that Cordelia will be back to her normal, quasi-cheerful self after she gets her nightly quota of eleven hours of sleep.
I trod into the apartment, kicking my shoes off at the doorway in a futile attempt to keep demon-slime off my immaculate carpet. I'm tired, sore, filthy, and hungry. I should really remember to eat before I go out. These late-night romps with my associates get me so aggravated that one of these nights I'm liable to have Cordelia as a midnight snack.
I snatch a bag out of the refrigerator and down its frigid contents on my way to the shower. That's right, it's cold. Cold, clammy, gross, disgusting and I don't even care. I just wanna get a shower and go to bed.
I peel off my slime-encrusted garments and toss them into the hamper, grateful for once that I can't see my reflection in the bathroom mirror. I don't even want to know what my hair looks like right now. I step into the shower and turn on the water as hot as I can stand it (considering my stint in Hell, that's pretty damn hot). Mmm. Water. Steam. The massaging pressure of droplets against my skin. The aroma of soap and shampoo. Wonderful and relaxing and-
Crash. Bang. "Bloody hell!"
What the fuck?
I groan and bang my head once against the side of the shower stall. What now? What new evil disaster is interrupting my chances of having a nice, relaxing evening? Why can't I ever just get a shower and go to bed? Is that too much to ask?
Something inside me cries out in protest. No! I'm not going anywhere! I don't care if mutant demon fish are invading my apartment, I'm not leaving this shower until I've gotten all the slime out of my hair!
But considering the nature of my career, and my life, and Fate in general, I realize that there very well could be mutant demon fish and I really can't justify showering at a time like this.
Of course, mutant demon fish usually aren't given to saying "bloody hell," and I could have sworn-
No.
There's only one person I know that uses that expression and... just... no.
I turn off the water, dry off quickly, and pull on my robe, running into my living room to seek out the intruder. Please, God, let it be demon fish. Let it be minions of Hell. Let it be anything in this world or the next as long as it's not-
Spike.
I recognize him immediately, of course. The creak of leather, the stench of alcohol and tobacco, the shock of platinum hair. All the same, my mouth, completely independent of my brain, gasps out the query: "Spike?"
He cocks one scarred eyebrow at me and removes the smoldering cigarette from the corner of his mouth just long enough to take a swallow from the whiskey bottle that dangles from his black-polished fingertips. "Very observant, mate," he quips sarcastically, swaying uncertainly on his feet. "You getting forgetful in your old age?"
~~~
The room's tilted. Not really spinning, not yet, but that's okay, the night's far from over. I look up at Angel and squint slightly. "There's four of you," and to my own ears it sounds like the most complex observation ever made. "No, wait, there's only three." I shrug and raise the bottle again. "Ah well, fuck it."
"You're drunk," he says.
I roll my eyes and take a gulp of whiskey. He hasn't lost his ability to state the obvious. He is, however, conspicuously underdressed, and there's something in his hair that looks like-
"Is that demon slime?" I ask, reaching in my pocket for a cigarette and jumping when I notice the still-smoldering one already in my hand.
He points to a leather chair. "Sit. Now. Don't move."
"Sir, yes, sir." I attempt to give him a salute and end up stumbling backwards into the chair. But that's all right 'cause it's nice and soft and comfy. Now all I need's my whiskey- where is- ?- no, that's the cigarette-hand. This other one, over on this side, that's the whiskey-hand. Ahhh. Nice and dark and quiet and-
"Spike!"
Where the hell did he come from? And dressed too. When did that happen?
"What are you doing here?" he asks, sitting across from me and buttoning his shirtcuffs.
His hair's all wet. Spiky and ungelled and sticking up in all random directions. With demon-slime still smeared at his temples. I start giggling uncontrollably and I can't stop.
He growls out some odd sound that may or may not be my name. "What's that, mate?" I ask, recovering from my spontaneous amusement and taking a drag of my cigarette.
"Why. Are. You. Here?"
I hold the bottle out to him. "This," I say solemnly, "will give you all the answers you will ever need."
He raises an eyebrow and looks at the bottle with distaste. "Will it tell me why you're here?"
"No," I say, dissolving into giggles again, "but if you drink enough of it, you won't care why you're here, either." I raise the bottle again and am shocked by a terrible burning pain on my lip. Damn. I've gotta figure out which one's the cigarette-hand.
He reaches out and plucks both cigarette and whiskey from my hands. "Oi," I yell indignantly. "Give it here."
"Not until you tell me why you're here."
"Why are any of us here?" I reply, embellishing my speech with extravagant gestures. "I mean, really, Peaches, in the grand scheme of things-"
My poetic waxing is checked with a slap on the cheek. "Talk."
~~~
He won't talk.
All right, that's not necessarily true. He won't shut up. But he still won't tell me what the fuck he's doing at my apartment, drunk, at four o'clock in the morning. And, truth be told, I'm past caring. I just want Spike to pass out so I can go to bed.
He doesn't seem to see things that way. He's got a lot to say and most of it revolves around the subject of drinking. Namely, of my drinking with him.
I have no desire to see the result of an inebriated me and an inebriated him in one relatively small room together, especially when he's maudlin and I'm already relatively pissed off and there are breakable objects. It's a disaster waiting to happen and I want nothing to do with it. Even when he looks at me in that way that makes his eyes sparkle. Even when he gives me that wry grin.
"Yer not man enough, are ya?" he quips. "Oh, how the mighty have fallen."
I ignore him resolutely.
"Sad to see," he murmurs with mock regret. "Time was you could have matched me drink for drink..."
"Is that a challenge?" I growl.
A careless shrug is my only answer.
I shouldn't do this. Bad things when I get intoxicated. I have a tendency to frighten television actresses or let blonde women bite me in the neck. Hell, now that I come to think of it, I seem to recall being drunk off my ass the night I turned Spike. But he was so young and attractive and edible, and his skin was so warm against the cool London air as I said "how do you feel about immortality, boy?" and he shrugged gracefully, lit a cigarette and said "why the hell not?" and, damn it, it seemed like a good idea at the time. Which indicates to me, more than anything else, that a persuasive William the Bloody and a drunken Angelus are a bad combination.
But I am his Sire. I am the Scourge of Europe. I am nearly twice his age. And I'm Irish, goddamnit. I could drink this whelp under the table any day of the week.
There's a knowing glimmer in his eye as he holds the bottle out to me. Idiot Childe, I bet that smartass expression will be gone when you're so drunk you-
Memories spring to my mind suddenly, Dionysian nights across Asia and Europe, a sable-haired Spike that sang off-key drinking songs, crashed into furniture, and vomited blood and brandy all over expensive Persian carpets. Perhaps encouraging Spike to drink more isn't such a good idea.
But it's too late because I've already accepted the proffered bottle and I'm already downing the vodka in burning swallows and I hope to God that this all makes a little more sense in the morning.
Thus it begins.
~~~
He tries to hide his grimace as he knocks back a shot straight from the bottle, but I know him all too well. He talks big, like any Irishman, but he can't hold a candle to me when it comes to the drinking. I'll drink him into the bloody ground. Granted, I'm not feeling too sober at the moment, but I did have a head start after all, give him time, soon he'll be right shnockered.
"You done yet?" I say impatiently, snatching the bottle from his grasp. I take a shot in kind, without a blink, and thrust the bottle back into his hands.
He looks at me stupidly. "Drink," I encourage him. I'll be damned if I'm the only one who gets plastered tonight. "I don't-"
"Drink," I growl, vaguely aware of the sudden surfacing of fangs and yellow eyes on my visage. "I'm not leaving until you're well and fully fucked. I'll camp out in your living room. I'll stalk you and your pet humans until the end of time. Just see if I don't."
He knows I'm too drunk to know what I'm saying. He also knows that I have an unpleasant habit of actually following through on promises I make while intoxicated. And that's why, with fear in his eyes, Angel seizes the bottle from me once again. I grin. He's a lightweight. He'll never admit it, but he is. He's well on his way to getting drunk off his ass.
~~~
I'm not drunk. I'm not. I'm perfectly coherent and I can form intelligible sentences and I still remember who's the President. Okay, that's a lie. I don't remember who's President. But I don't know who's the President when I haven't been drinking. I could even get up from this chair and walk in a perfectly straight line. If I chose to do so. I just don't feel like it right now. The chair's... nice. I mean, it's just your average, normal, garden-variety (what does that mean, garden-variety? chairs don't grow in gardens, and if they did, it would be an outdoor carpentry shop, not a garden) wooden kitchen chair. But it's suddenly so comfortable. The chair's so comfortable and the air's so warm and the whiskey's so nice. Whiskey. Earlier there was vodka. It's gone now. All gone. I giggle suddenly, for no apparent reason. He stares at me across the kitchen table, one eyebrow slightly crooked, whiskey clenched tightly in one fist.
"You're plastered." His mouth moves quickly, but it takes ten or twelve minutes for his voice to say the words.
"Am not," I retort hotly when his voice finally makes it to my ears. I've been vehemently denying his accusations of drunkenness for the past hour now. I'm not sure why, but it's a particular point of pride for some reason I can't quite remember. Something to do with the mighty falling and drinking him under the table. But I don't want to drink under the table. It's dark down there and the floor's so cold. I like my chair. I don't wanna leave my chair. Even if sitting up is something of a challenge right now. I'm not giving up my chair, goddamnit. I'm not going anywhere. Hell no, we won't go. I giggle again.
"Whasswrong wiv you?" he asks me, pulling a packet of cigarettes out of his pocket and staring at it in befuddlement. I try to shake my head, but the room starts to swing alarmingly back and forth.
"Nothing. Nevermind."
"Oh yeah, whatever, nevermind," Spike sings in an offkey voice.
"What's that?" I inquire, reaching for the bottle again. He shrugs, continuing to stare at his cigarettes.
"Nothin'. It's a song. Band from Seattle. You ever been to Seattle? It rains there. Guy named Kurt. He's dead." "Dead?" I inquire, lifting the bottle to my lips.
"You mean undead?" I don't feel undead right now. I feel warm all over.
"No, no," Spike protests, shaking his head vehemently. "Dead, like really dead." He points his index finger to his temple, miming a pistol. "Ka-pow."
"His head exploded?"
"No. Well, kind of. Yes." I shrug and take another swallow before passing the bottle to him again. I still don't understand what any of this has to do with outdoor carpentry. He's sitting backwards in the chair, black-clad legs stretched over the sides. Very nice to look at, so I stare for awhile. He doesn't seem to notice or mind.
He stares at the end of his cigarette in utmost concentration as he tries to make it meet the flame of his Zippo. In the other hand, the nearly empty bottle of whiskey dangles from his black-polished fingers. "Bloody hell," he mutters drunkenly, tossing down both cigarette and lighter. "Fuck it." I say nothing; I merely hold out my hand for the bottle. I'm starting to enjoy this.
~~~
"Why don't you have any food?" I bitch, going through the empty cabinets again. It's absurd. He wants to act all bloody human. He's got a kitchen. He's got cabinets. And I've got more food in the little mini-fridge in my crypt than he does in the whole bleeding apartment.
"Spike," he says patiently, "I don't eat."
"I don't see why the hell not." "I'm a vampire. There wouldn't be much point."
"It's fun! It tastes good! That's the FUN!!!" I peek into the refrigerator. I need pretzels. You can't get plastered without eating pretzels. It's a rule. Well, it's my rule, anyway. "You do remember fun, don't you, Peaches?" I peer into desolate, chilly shelves. Six bags of blood and a bag of ice. "You certainly don't remember pretzels, at any rate."
"Why the fuck would I have pretzels? I don't even like pretzels."
"If you were a real man you'd have pretzels," I retort. "To go with your beer."
"I don't have beer."
"Exactly my point," I reply, shutting the refrigerator door. "Oh, that's right, you can't eat because it would remind you that you're not a human and then you'd feel all guilty and have to go brood some more." I shake my head and light a cigarette. "You are such a fucking nonce."
"Am not," he says, a bit defensively.
~~~
"Am not!"
"Are too!"
"Am not!"
"Are too!"
"Am NOT!!!"
"Are bloody fuck-all soddin' fuckin bloody TOO!!!" I pause for a moment, struggling to deconstruct a string of drunken British expletives.
"Am not," I deny vehemently. I can't quite remember what we're arguing about, but I am most definitely certain that I am NOT... not... whatever it was that I wasn't. I think it might have something to do with me being a ponce or a poof. Or a nonce or a pillock. Or a wanker or a tosser. Or something. And my hair. There was something about my hair thrown in there somewhere.
"Oh, yeah you are," he snickers, lighting yet another cigarette.
"You want to take this outside?" I challenge. He tilts his head slightly, considering the question.
"No," he answers. "No, not really."
I shrug. Neither do I. I know this is silly. I know that I should just let it go. And I know that the argument has been further trivialized by the fact that neither of us knows what it's about. But that doesn't stop me from muttering "am not" into the mouth of the whiskey bottle as I take another swallow. And that's when he pelts me in the left temple with an empty cigarette pack. From here on out it gets violent.
~~~
"Ow," I whine as I crash into the floor. I raise a finger to my lip and it comes away bloodied from harsh and sudden contact with Angel`s fist. He stands over me, hands on hips, expression slightly arrogant.
"Am not," he says with finality. He expects me to cave to his superior age, experience, authority. He expects me to give in and admit defeat. At the very least, he expects me to stand up and fight him like a man. So I wrap my arms around his knees and bite him on the ankle like a demented puppy. He crashes on top of me with a loud thud. I'd forgotten how nice it was to have him on top of me. Or underneath me, for that matter. Or sideways or upside-down... And there was that one time, Paris, 1876, when he strapped me to a velvet chaise lounge and-
But I am ripped suddenly and violently out of then and back into now as he punches me in the ribs, quite possibly cracking two or three of them in the process, spilling my liquor and crushing my other pack of cigarettes. All right, that's it. He's going down.
Gathering my strength, I prepare to attack right at his weakest point. His hair. I gather a handful of the spiky mess, still slick with the last remnants of demon slime, and proceed to bang his head against a nearby end table.
"Are
((thunk))
bloody
((thunk))
too!!!"
((thunk))
He howls, more in outrage than in pain, and reaches up with one hand to grasp tightly around my throat. Within a few flurried seconds, we have reached an impasse. My arms are locked around his knees in a crushing grip. He pins my legs to the floor, fangs buried in the faded denim covering my thigh. Neither one of us can move and I suspect that we are both in very great pain. We vaguely resemble some sort of half-assed vampire pretzel. In fact, if it weren't for the mussed hair, game faces, and spilled blood and liquor, we'd look like a couple of performers in the Cirque de Soleil. And while it would be very pleasant to escape this death-lock, we both know that no quarter shall be given.
"You know," I mutter against his kneecap, "there are easier ways of settling this."
~~~
The night air has a slightly sobering effect as we stumble into the dimly lit parking garage below the office. "Jesus, Spike," I mutter. "Where the hell did you park?"
"Shuddup," he retorts. "This'll only take a minute."
We finally locate Spike's ancient DeSoto, parked at the edge of the lot. Then I spend a good ten minutes leaning against the wall, trying to fight the urge to either throw up or pass out, as Spike searches in vain for his car keys. He goes through every pocket of his duster fourteen times separately before he finally concludes that the keys are somewhere in my apartment. But by this point it would be silly to go back inside, so, with a grunt and a sigh, he just wrenches the trunk open with his bare hands. I take the flashlight from his hand and shine it into the trunk as he begins to paw through the contents.
"What is this shit?" I ask as he throws things out of the trunk and onto the concrete at our feet. "Why do you have a pogo stick, Spike?" He shrugs, pushing a collection of origami swans out of the way.
"Dunno. Most of this stuff is Dru's." There is a murmur of pained regret in his voice that we both choose to ignore. Is that, I wonder, why he's here? Has she left him again? I direct the flashlight's beam on a suspicious-looking object located near the bottom of the cesspool that is Spike's trunk.
"And that?" I inquire, my voice tight. "What is that?"
He lifts the object out of the trunk with one hand. A human skull, clearly several decades old. "Souvenir," he says offhandedly, before tossing it over his shoulder. I shake my head in wonder.
What the hell have I gotten myself into? "There it is," he says finally, with an air of triumph. He clears away two basketballs and a case of champagne, Vintage 1926, to reveal the cherished object.
"What's that?" I ask, shining the flashlight into the bottom of the trunk.
He smiles. "The playing field."
Continues ~ Twist and Shout