Rulesverse ficlet: To the Heart (PG)
Author Brutti ma buoni
Title To the Heart
Characters Angel, Spike (Spuffy background)
Words 570
Rating PG
A/N1 For maddie2927, with thanks for this icon *points*. She requested Spike and Angel being friends and/or fighting about Buffy. This is kind of both and kind of neither, but I hope you enjoy it.
A/N2 This ficlet is part of the Rulesverse. It fits after Crossing and before One for the Team. This is early Rulesverse which doesn’t need much backstory, except to note that the Rulesverse version of NFA wasn’t quite the doomed apocalyptic fight, and most of the cast survived. Buffy knows Spike is alive/undead, and they have been in contact in the past year while Spike completed his time in LA.
“The table goes over there. By the chairs. The matching chairs.”
“Look, Peaches, we’ve all had a tough couple of days, and I’m trying to make allowances for your sucking chest wound and all, but I’m dismantling a barricade here, not taking a course in interior decoration.”
Hard to argue.
Hard to believe, too, that they’d got as low as trying to beat back the infernal hordes behind a barricade of second-hand office furniture. But it had been so, and they’d still won.
Damn, that had been a good fight to win.
Angel’s heart, if it hadn’t been a withered walnut of dead flesh and also still healing from the big clawed demon gouge, would have leapt with joy at the memory. Except, and this was getting hard to ignore, Spike was never helpful about the place.
Shifting furniture, even with a heavy side dose of whinge? That spelt guilt.
At which point, Spike ceased his shuffling of lightly-burned chair fragments, and said, “So...”
Spike leaving sentences hanging? Bashful and unwilling to engage?
“So?” Over a century of brooding? Excellent when you need an unhelpful monosyllable. Make him say it.
“Illyria’s getting under your feet, in’t she?”
Shrug. Angel was starting to feel a little like a sulky teenager. But his heart was at the centre of an open wound that wasn’t completely metaphorical, so what the hell?
“Thought I might suggest she give the Council a bit of help. Old One, could be handy, right?”
“Mmmm.” He was really starting to piss Spike off. Which was satisfying, in an unsatisfying kind of way.
“Might go myself. They need fighters.”
“Yes.” Wait for it...
“Besides. Promised Buffy I would, when I was done here. And we are, aren’t we? Done with the wacky lawyers and their evil schemes?”
Spike knew as well as Angel that there wasn’t ever a moment when you say ‘done’ in the fight. But that was thrown in as distraction from the first sentence.
“So, you’re going to Buffy. To stay.” Saying it felt very much like Angel’s recent demon-gouging experience, though it would take longer to heal.
“Yep. Plenty more fighting to be done over there. And... you know I really do love her, right?”
“Yeah.” Right there, in his open wound. Stab, stab, stab went Spike’s sincerity and hope for happiness. He was even continuing to explain, when Angel would have greatly preferred him to shut up and/or explode into flames.
“Not just because you got there first. Not some revenge for Dru. Just, cos she’s Buffy.”
“Yes. I get that.” Who better?
Spike nodded. “Good. It’s what she deserves.”
“No one deserves you. You’re incredibly annoying.” Which was true, in Angel’s opinion, even if Buffy seemed to have developed a weird tolerance for bad hair and backchat. “But if you mess this up, I’ll come after you.”
Spike snorted. “Come after her, more like.”
“No.” Angel’s voice must have been flat as hell, because Spike finally stopped acting like a jerk and waited for more.
“I signed away the shanshu. What I am, it’s what I’ll always be.”
“You signed it away?”
“I had to. To keep my cover with the Black Thorn.”
Spike shrugged. “Fair enough. Can’t see you relishing human life anyway. I wouldn’t have it as a gift.”
Angel watched as Spike mooched off to collect his God King and seek his beloved.
And really, really wished he’d sent Spike to infiltrate the Black Thorn instead.
Title To the Heart
Characters Angel, Spike (Spuffy background)
Words 570
Rating PG
A/N1 For maddie2927, with thanks for this icon *points*. She requested Spike and Angel being friends and/or fighting about Buffy. This is kind of both and kind of neither, but I hope you enjoy it.
A/N2 This ficlet is part of the Rulesverse. It fits after Crossing and before One for the Team. This is early Rulesverse which doesn’t need much backstory, except to note that the Rulesverse version of NFA wasn’t quite the doomed apocalyptic fight, and most of the cast survived. Buffy knows Spike is alive/undead, and they have been in contact in the past year while Spike completed his time in LA.
“The table goes over there. By the chairs. The matching chairs.”
“Look, Peaches, we’ve all had a tough couple of days, and I’m trying to make allowances for your sucking chest wound and all, but I’m dismantling a barricade here, not taking a course in interior decoration.”
Hard to argue.
Hard to believe, too, that they’d got as low as trying to beat back the infernal hordes behind a barricade of second-hand office furniture. But it had been so, and they’d still won.
Damn, that had been a good fight to win.
Angel’s heart, if it hadn’t been a withered walnut of dead flesh and also still healing from the big clawed demon gouge, would have leapt with joy at the memory. Except, and this was getting hard to ignore, Spike was never helpful about the place.
Shifting furniture, even with a heavy side dose of whinge? That spelt guilt.
At which point, Spike ceased his shuffling of lightly-burned chair fragments, and said, “So...”
Spike leaving sentences hanging? Bashful and unwilling to engage?
“So?” Over a century of brooding? Excellent when you need an unhelpful monosyllable. Make him say it.
“Illyria’s getting under your feet, in’t she?”
Shrug. Angel was starting to feel a little like a sulky teenager. But his heart was at the centre of an open wound that wasn’t completely metaphorical, so what the hell?
“Thought I might suggest she give the Council a bit of help. Old One, could be handy, right?”
“Mmmm.” He was really starting to piss Spike off. Which was satisfying, in an unsatisfying kind of way.
“Might go myself. They need fighters.”
“Yes.” Wait for it...
“Besides. Promised Buffy I would, when I was done here. And we are, aren’t we? Done with the wacky lawyers and their evil schemes?”
Spike knew as well as Angel that there wasn’t ever a moment when you say ‘done’ in the fight. But that was thrown in as distraction from the first sentence.
“So, you’re going to Buffy. To stay.” Saying it felt very much like Angel’s recent demon-gouging experience, though it would take longer to heal.
“Yep. Plenty more fighting to be done over there. And... you know I really do love her, right?”
“Yeah.” Right there, in his open wound. Stab, stab, stab went Spike’s sincerity and hope for happiness. He was even continuing to explain, when Angel would have greatly preferred him to shut up and/or explode into flames.
“Not just because you got there first. Not some revenge for Dru. Just, cos she’s Buffy.”
“Yes. I get that.” Who better?
Spike nodded. “Good. It’s what she deserves.”
“No one deserves you. You’re incredibly annoying.” Which was true, in Angel’s opinion, even if Buffy seemed to have developed a weird tolerance for bad hair and backchat. “But if you mess this up, I’ll come after you.”
Spike snorted. “Come after her, more like.”
“No.” Angel’s voice must have been flat as hell, because Spike finally stopped acting like a jerk and waited for more.
“I signed away the shanshu. What I am, it’s what I’ll always be.”
“You signed it away?”
“I had to. To keep my cover with the Black Thorn.”
Spike shrugged. “Fair enough. Can’t see you relishing human life anyway. I wouldn’t have it as a gift.”
Angel watched as Spike mooched off to collect his God King and seek his beloved.
And really, really wished he’d sent Spike to infiltrate the Black Thorn instead.