It's Going to My head (And: Angel in Church)
I've discovered posting fic on livejournal is comment-inducing crack. I am a comment crack whore. Constantly checking my posts for more comments when I'm supposed to be at work! Bad Me!
Right now I'm pretty much just writing to "Feed My Kink" prompts and loving every minute of it. Plus it's helping me meet (and greatly exceed) my personal goal of writing 1,000 words a day.
Now I share with you, my first ever fanfic. (I lied about the Spiles thing I did for FMK being the first, though that was the first SLASH.) This I wrote for myself, it's not slashy, and it's not very in keeping with Cannon. I wrote it around the time I saw "Fool for Love" for the first time, and I'd heard a rumor that Spike eventually got his soul back and immediately I dreamed up a meeting between him and Angel.
And I set it in a church in LA. I hadn't watched any of the Angel series yet, but I knew he was in LA. Oh, and obviously, I was still incensed about the sudden non-Angel-siring of Spike, so I had to throw in an explanation, like many fanfic writers before me.
There was an acrid smell and a faint curl of smoke as he dipped his fingers in the font. Still, Angel touched his fingertips to his brow, where a small red sore instantly formed.
Spike’s smile was part grimace. “You’re insane. You know that?”
Angel turned to him with a cold frown. “Your turn,” he gestured at the font.
“A big ‘no’ on that, thanks, mate.”
Angel grabbed his shoulder and before he could pull away had drawn his thumb in a cross on Spike’s forehead.
Spike smacked him away and frantically checked for his non-existent reflection in the font. “Bloody hell,” he pressed his hand over the fresh wound. “That’s unsanitary! Melting your fingers on me!”
“You’re dead,” Angel said, and then shrugged apologetically. He walked up the church aisle. “Come on.”
"Still no excuse to be unsanitary." Spike followed, checking out the architecture as he went. It was a fine old gothic church, smelling of incense and dust, painted saints weeping in the crevices.
Angel knelt at the front of the pews, crossing himself again and muttering a few words of prayer.
“Just because you have a soul doesn’t mean you have to have bloody religion,” Spike muttered. He folded his arms and tried to not look anxious. The figure on the cross was one of those very grotesque guilt-inducing gothic Christs, all bones and blood, wooden skin as waxy and lifeless as his own. Maybe this really was a church for vampires.
A door closed. Spike spun on his heel to look directly at the priest, who stood with his hand still on the doorknob behind him. High starched collar, black cassock, and under it all a beating heart that was deafening in the silence. Spike’s throat constricted. Angel had insisted they not eat all day. Was this a test? See if he would eat a priest his brand new soul?
“Hello father,” Spike said cheerily, raising a hand. “Don’t mind us. Just damned anxious to get religion at two in the morning.”
The priest tore his stare away from Spike with effort and walked up to Angel, who crossed himself and stood. “Good evening, Liam,” the priest said. “Who is this you’ve brought?”
“A friend,” Angel said, with a backwards smirk. “Family, actually. Will you hear his confession?”
Spike’s jaw dropped.
Angel and the priest talked in hushed tones, serious expressions. Spike threw his hands up, then, realizing that might be mistaken for appealing to God for intervention, just folded his arms and gave the priest a cool stare.
The priest nodded and walked over to the confessional. Angel turned to Spike and smiled. “It’s not going to kill you,” he said.
“This is why you brought me here? I didn’t put up with this crap when I was alive.”
“Just talk to Father Michael. That’s all I’m asking. You don’t have to believe in the trinity or count any rosaries. Just talk to him for a while, and I won’t ask anything else.”
“If I believed THAT promise I would.”
“Have I asked you for anything in a hundred years, William?”
“Yeah. You have.”
They stared at each other. Angel broke it off. “You want my forgiveness, Spike. This is what I’m asking in return. You can take it or leave it.”
“Fine. I’ll talk to the bloke. Just don’t give me the puppy dog eyes. Isn’t dignified.”
Spike strolled over to the confessional, glancing back at Angel with a sarcastic thumbs-up before throwing himself into the uncomfortable little booth. He propped his foot up on the bench and laced his fingers behind his head. “Let’s get this over with,” he said. “I’m not Catholic. Raised C.o.E., if you must know and I was VERY protestant. It’s been…” he cocked his head and thought about the date, “about 122 years since my last confession and that was NOT an exaggeration. And before we go into talking about all my guilty little secrets, tell me, do you know what you’re sitting next to here?”
The priest was just barely visible, moving behind the screen to adjust his seat. “Yes, my child, I know what you are. You are the same as Liam, a vampire.”
Spike cracked a grin. “He calls himself ‘Liam’ with you?”
“It is his Christian name, isn’t it?”
“Given name. Bloody hell. He doesn’t exactly GO by it, mate. Not since he died. Calls me ‘William’ all the damn time, but I have never heard anyone call him ‘Liam’. Not even Darla. Hell, he’ll answer to ‘Angelus’ first, not that he likes being called what he went by killing babies and all. Not now he’s got a soul.”
There was a pause. “We aren’t here to talk about Angelus, my son.”
“Well, he’s the only reason I’m putting up with this bloody farce. Suppose I should be grateful. He might have tried to drag me to some therapist. Had us sitting on a couch digging up nostalga about our RELATIONSHIP.”
“And what is your relationship to him? He is your friend?”
“Something like. Kind of my unholy father figure.”
Another pause. The priest was doing a good job of sounding patient. “And are you like him? You have a soul?”
“Yeah,” Spike said, bravado failing. “I have a soul.”
“It isn’t a curse,” Father Michael said. “It doesn’t have to be. It is a blessing and a great gift.”
“Pft. Correction there, padre: I’m not like Angel. I bloody well ASKED to have my soul back. Went through hell to get it too. So no, I’m not going to be crying about how awful it is to see what I’ve done and feel guilt for it.”
“But do you? Do you feel remorse for your unholy life?”
Spike rolled his eyes. “I know what I did, all right? Know something else? I wasn’t exactly immune from a sense of right and wrong for 120 years. I knew. Angel knew. Sure, it’s bloody different, with the soul thing going on, you don’t feel it, I mean, you know, but you don’t feel.” He tapped his hands together. “Anyway, I was never half the monster he was. No babies and innocents for me, thank you very much. I was in it for the fight. The thrills. Don’t regret that. You probably think I ought to, but I don’t. Regret the murders. Hell, every single easy kill is like a greasy taste in the back of my mouth. But not the battles. Not the slayers. Someone sets themselves up to kill vampires, right? Well, then it’s soldiers and sides, isn’t it? Can’t be held accountable for that.”
“Why are you here?”
“I told you: Liam.” Spike flexed his fingertips together and peered around the curtain. There was no sign of Angel in the nave of the church, at least not in the slice visible between curtain and wall. “Things were bad between him and me. Between me and sodding everyone. I tell you, it’s not fair. I was never a monster like him. I was the big bad, yeah, but they got me wriggling on the hook like a man can’t change. Like I got to go begging for mercy all over again with each and every sodding one of them.” He ran his hands over his hair and sighed. “And I do. So, yeah, Angel. I asked him to forgive me. You know, for being a git to him. He said I had to come here. Thing is, people… people got souls, and they do things almost worse than I’ve done. I don’t see how they can. It’s burning hot in me, this soul. I’ve not gotten used to it yet. Again, I mean. I suppose I had one when I was alive. Point is, I look back on one hundred years of killing and brawling and you know what I see? I was about the most decent vampire I could have been. Not making that up, or glossing over the ugly bits. Seriously. I killed for sport. I killed for food. I killed for my lady-love. But I wasn’t no monster. Maybe that’s just my way - I like to break rules. Even the ones say you got to be totally evil if you’re a vampire. And still. Still. Angel gets to have all the redemption. Slayer greets him with open arms. What about me? I dunno. Sometimes I think, when I was bad, at least I was good at being bad. Respected. Now I’m just some punk. Whereas Angel, who was, incidentally, a right bastard when he was alive, so I’m told, gets his soul foisted onto him and bam! Sympathy all around.”
“You want sympathy, my son?”
“No. I just…” Spike threw up his hands. “I don’t believe in god, you know that, right? I mean, Angel, he’s been to hell and all, so he says, but I don’t entirely believe hell is hell, not, I mean, not bloody HELL, like in books. Call it an alternate dimension or something. Heh. From what I’ve seen there are damn few alternate dimensions full of puppies and wedding cake. Add to that you’re talking to a dead guy. I think I’d know if there was a god.”
“Angelus told me you weren’t Catholic. He asked me to hear your confession for your sake, my son. That you could feel the peace, the comfort it gives him. I hold no illusions about your presence here.”
“Good, because you’d be a sorry sot if you did. I mean, holy water? Voluntarily dipping your fingers in holy water? Well that’s a damn mockery of the whole POINT, isn’t it?”
“My son, just tell me what is troubling you. What is tormenting you?”
“This is troubling me! I gave up everything I had, to become a better person, to get my soul back. Now my own sodding SIRE won’t take me in unless I come to some church. Quick enough he was to kill me, back when I was human. Now he’s gone holy and ain’t got time for his own piece of work.” Spike hit his head on the back of the confessional. “I didn’t mean that,” he said in a lower voice. “I mean, I sure as hell don’t regret it, being turned into a vamp. Took me 150 years to finally make a man of myself. Wouldn’t have worked with the human heart and the whole aging and dying thing.”
“You don’t know that. You were young. You had years to grow and learn and become a better man. That was taken from you.”
“I bloody gave it away, man.” He reached for his cigarettes and then stopped, thinking better of it. He rotated the pack in his hands, that comforting cardboard and cellophane. “I was what you call ‘well read’. Not like I didn’t realize something was up when Dru sank her teeth into me that first time. And she took her time. Lord. She was weeks draining me. Angel said she wanted to drive me mad like her. That’s why he stepped in, you know, wouldn’t let it go on. Guess that was a decent thing he did. Dru was mad as a wet cat, though. Lord, how I loved her. She wanted to torture me to death and I fell in love with her.” He chuckled and tapped a cigarette out and rolled it in his fingers, just to have something to do. He set it in his lips and got out his lighter. Fuck it. They used incense they could stand a little smoke.
“You must be Spike,” the priest said quietly.
Spike almost dropped his lighter. He turned to the screen and slid it full open. “He talk to you about me? What’d he say?”
“Do you hope or fear what he may have said?”
“Like I care that much.” Spike sat back again. “Seriously, come on, give. Ponce won’t give me half the time of day. What’d I do to piss him off? Was it stealing his girl? Because you know, there was some turn-about-is-fair in that.”
“What is said in these walls does not get repeated,” the priest said firmly. “You seek forgiveness, my son, and from all I’ve heard it seems you are looking externally for what you won’t give yourself.”
“Bollocks. I told you, I did the long inward stare. Came out all right. Not a bleedin’ saint, but I ain’t ashamed.” The slight fire of the lighter brightened the confessional. “I’m not,” he said.
“What would you have to be ashamed of?”
“Exactly. I did what I had to do to survive, and I chased the big thrill. And that’s half of being alive. If you aren’t feeling anything, you may as well be dead.”
“You regret nothing?”
Spike shrugged and took a drag on his cigarette. Realizing the priest couldn’t see to appreciate the gesture he blew the smoke out and sighed. “I did some stupid cruel things can’t be undone, yeah.” He tapped ash onto the floor. “Don’t see the point in talking about specifics, drawing it all out like some… some crown of thorns.” He smirked. “Wallowing in all the angst like Broody out there. Not my style. I just want bygones gone. Get on with my unlife.”
“And what do you see in that life? What will you do with the extra time God has granted you?”
“Watch it with the god talk,” Spike said. “We’re in a church.” He smiled. “I dunno. Beat up demons, mostly. Earn my girl’s love.”
“I must tell you, the church considers your undying an abomination. It’s my duty to advise you to cease drinking blood and let God take you.”
Spike raised his eyebrows. “That the advice you give Angel?”
“I give it to all of god’s fallen children who come to me.”
“And they come BACK? Bloody masochists.” He kicked his way out of the confessional. “Aren’t you blokes supposed to take a dim view of suicide? Talk about your papal bull.”
Father Michael stood at the door to his side. “I’ve not given you leave to go or absolution.”
“Wasn’t asking for it. Thanks for the chat, padre.”
“You won’t receive communion.”
“Can’t tell you how utterly okay I am with that.”
Angel was sitting in the first pew, hands knit on the prayer bar. He stood. “Could you have waited another minute for a cigarette?”
“No,” Spike said, and took a long drag.
Angel turned to the priest, “Father, I apologize.”
“It’s fine, Angelus. It was right of you to try. Will you take communion, then?”
Angel nodded. “Please.”
Spike leaned against the front prayer rail and smoked his cigarette while the priest administered a small communion for just Angel. He thought about his childhood, about serving at the altar, which he had done, in fact. Now Angel, who probably hadn’t set foot in a church before his heart stopped beating, knelt piously. He was really into it. The cross-marked wafer made a sizzling sound on his tongue and Spike saw a slight desperation and hurry in his face as the wine cup was proffered.
When the priest had given his blessing, Spike started down the aisle, giving a friendly parting wave.
“So you’re catholic now,” Spike said. “A Catholic vampire.”
“It’s what I would have been, if I had been,” Angel said. “I didn’t ask you to understand.”
Spike shrugged. “It’s just comical, that’s all. Religion. You with the sacramental wine. Does it taste like blood, eh? That’d be a trick. Get out of killing free card.”
“It’s just wine,” Angel muttered, angrily shouldering his way through the church doors.
The night outside was cool, fresh from recent rain, and much better than the stifling church atmosphere. Spike leaned his head back and enjoyed a long breath. City. There was no mistaking it. He flung his spent cigarette at a mud puddle. It sparked and went out. “Why you doing this, mate? Seriously. It’s… the whole thing’s so façade.”
Angel stuck his hands in his pockets and looked at the sky. “I don’t know. I just… once I started I couldn’t not come back. Maybe it’s just that the father doesn’t judge. He listens to what I have to say, and every week, like clockwork, he forgives me.”
“You gotta get yourself some more interesting hobbies.” Spike started down the road. “So we can eat now, right? Off to the blood store?”
Angel followed, easily overtaking Spike’s lazy strides. “Did you get nothing out of that? Or are you so dense it just couldn’t penetrate your skull?”
“Nah, felt good, get stuff off the chest with a stranger. Loads easier than talking to folks you care about.” He raised his eyebrows, but Angel didn’t take the bait. He drew out another cigarette. “Interesting thing, fellow knew my name. Not until I started talking about Dru, though. Interesting thing. You prattle on to him about Dru and me?”
“Do you have to smoke?”
Spike paused, eyebrows raised. “Yes. It is called an addiction. And neither of us have to worry about lung cancer, mate.”
Angel smirked. “You aren’t addicted. It’s affectation. And I like the air as clean as I can get it in this town.”
“Well I like the air polluted,” Spike said, and paused to light his smoke.
When he caught up with Angel again, he blew out a calm cloud and said, “Lousy job avoiding the question. I’m not completely stupid. You miss it? Our little dysfunctional family? Me, you, Dru, Darla, all with the killing and the sex and the jealousy?”
“I’d sooner go back to hell,” Angel said.
“Would not,” Spike accused. “I miss it. Sometimes. The hate and violence and pain and all. Not that I’m about to go investing in a time machine or looking Dru up. But… “ he shrugged.
Angel stopped. They’d reached the car, which he had insisted on parking at the end of the block, where the lighting was better. He turned to face Spike. “You refused the priest’s absolution but you want mine?”
“I want blood,” Spike said. “I fasted a day for you. Now why don’t we get a pint? And then talk, for christ’s sake. I want to talk.”
“I don’t know what we have to say to each other,” Angel said.
“You bloody well do know. Angry things. Ugly things. Complicated things. Tell me I was a beast. I’ll tell you you were a sadist. Rehash the fight over Dru. We’ll mix some whiskey in the blood, get absolutely shit-faced and say all those things we’ll want to blame on the drink later.”
“Why? To what end? You want forgiveness, fine, but I’m not your buddy. We have no relationship to patch up.”
Spike walked around Angel to the driver’s side of the car.
“And I’m driving,” Angel said, firmly.
“You drive like a granny. A dead one.”
“It’s my car. Other door, William. Or you can just stay here.”
Spike held up his hands. “Gee, Dad, didn’t think it’d get you all riled.”
He had to hurry to get into the seat before Angel slammed the door and pealed out.
“Just trying to cheer me up by being reckless,” Spike said. “Knew you cared.”
“We’ll go back to the office, have some blood, and then I want you gone. I’m only treating on dinner because I’d rather you didn’t kill someone.” Angel gripped the wheel hard and kept his eyes on the road as though afraid it would escape him.
Spike looked appraisingly at him. “You kill anyone -- for food, I mean -- since getting your soul back?”
“No.”
“No one? Not one tiny little snack? Never caught in the moment, forgetting your all-important redemption?”
“Do you have a point, Spike?”
Spike turned to lean against the door. “Then what makes you think I would, eh? You think you’re that much better than me?”
“I’d be surprised if you hadn’t already,” Angel growled.
“Hurts, that.”
“We drink a pint, and then you disappear,” Angel said. “No talking.”
“Ever think about doing in a suicide? Mercy killing? Be a humanitarian gesture. Like what you did with me.”
Angel almost missed a red light and they both lurched forward as he slammed on the brake. “No talking,” he said again.
“Can’t expect a bloke not to talk over a pint,” Spike said, settling himself back in his seat. He folded his arms and smoked his cigarette, opening the window to tap the ashes outside. Wouldn’t do to mess up Angel’s spotless interior. The car still smelled of chemicals and plastic. Some poncy executive luxury sedan. Seats that felt like they were kissing your buttocks. It wasn’t worth his ash.
“I made it so far,” Spike said, “in case you were wondering. No spots on my sparkly new soul, yet. Might kill a murderer, though. Wouldn’t that be fair? Save the day, kiss the girl, eat the bad guy?”
“You make one exception and you’ll find a dozen more, until it doesn’t really matter anymore.”
“Blood bags don’t shiver when you grab hold of them,” Spike mused. “Don’t have a pulse to beat against you, no heat, no sweat adding to the taste. It’s not like we’re talking about giving up ciggies here. This is something we were made to crave.”
“And he wonders why I don’t trust him,” Angel said.
“Oh, I’m sorry, you got another soulled vamp you want to discuss morality with?” Spike sighed in exasperation. “I mean… this is something we share, mate. You know what I went through… the last part of it, the getting it back. You know how that feels, and I’m not even sure I could describe it.”
Angel was quiet a moment, then nodded. "I know," he said.
Right now I'm pretty much just writing to "Feed My Kink" prompts and loving every minute of it. Plus it's helping me meet (and greatly exceed) my personal goal of writing 1,000 words a day.
Now I share with you, my first ever fanfic. (I lied about the Spiles thing I did for FMK being the first, though that was the first SLASH.) This I wrote for myself, it's not slashy, and it's not very in keeping with Cannon. I wrote it around the time I saw "Fool for Love" for the first time, and I'd heard a rumor that Spike eventually got his soul back and immediately I dreamed up a meeting between him and Angel.
And I set it in a church in LA. I hadn't watched any of the Angel series yet, but I knew he was in LA. Oh, and obviously, I was still incensed about the sudden non-Angel-siring of Spike, so I had to throw in an explanation, like many fanfic writers before me.
There was an acrid smell and a faint curl of smoke as he dipped his fingers in the font. Still, Angel touched his fingertips to his brow, where a small red sore instantly formed.
Spike’s smile was part grimace. “You’re insane. You know that?”
Angel turned to him with a cold frown. “Your turn,” he gestured at the font.
“A big ‘no’ on that, thanks, mate.”
Angel grabbed his shoulder and before he could pull away had drawn his thumb in a cross on Spike’s forehead.
Spike smacked him away and frantically checked for his non-existent reflection in the font. “Bloody hell,” he pressed his hand over the fresh wound. “That’s unsanitary! Melting your fingers on me!”
“You’re dead,” Angel said, and then shrugged apologetically. He walked up the church aisle. “Come on.”
"Still no excuse to be unsanitary." Spike followed, checking out the architecture as he went. It was a fine old gothic church, smelling of incense and dust, painted saints weeping in the crevices.
Angel knelt at the front of the pews, crossing himself again and muttering a few words of prayer.
“Just because you have a soul doesn’t mean you have to have bloody religion,” Spike muttered. He folded his arms and tried to not look anxious. The figure on the cross was one of those very grotesque guilt-inducing gothic Christs, all bones and blood, wooden skin as waxy and lifeless as his own. Maybe this really was a church for vampires.
A door closed. Spike spun on his heel to look directly at the priest, who stood with his hand still on the doorknob behind him. High starched collar, black cassock, and under it all a beating heart that was deafening in the silence. Spike’s throat constricted. Angel had insisted they not eat all day. Was this a test? See if he would eat a priest his brand new soul?
“Hello father,” Spike said cheerily, raising a hand. “Don’t mind us. Just damned anxious to get religion at two in the morning.”
The priest tore his stare away from Spike with effort and walked up to Angel, who crossed himself and stood. “Good evening, Liam,” the priest said. “Who is this you’ve brought?”
“A friend,” Angel said, with a backwards smirk. “Family, actually. Will you hear his confession?”
Spike’s jaw dropped.
Angel and the priest talked in hushed tones, serious expressions. Spike threw his hands up, then, realizing that might be mistaken for appealing to God for intervention, just folded his arms and gave the priest a cool stare.
The priest nodded and walked over to the confessional. Angel turned to Spike and smiled. “It’s not going to kill you,” he said.
“This is why you brought me here? I didn’t put up with this crap when I was alive.”
“Just talk to Father Michael. That’s all I’m asking. You don’t have to believe in the trinity or count any rosaries. Just talk to him for a while, and I won’t ask anything else.”
“If I believed THAT promise I would.”
“Have I asked you for anything in a hundred years, William?”
“Yeah. You have.”
They stared at each other. Angel broke it off. “You want my forgiveness, Spike. This is what I’m asking in return. You can take it or leave it.”
“Fine. I’ll talk to the bloke. Just don’t give me the puppy dog eyes. Isn’t dignified.”
Spike strolled over to the confessional, glancing back at Angel with a sarcastic thumbs-up before throwing himself into the uncomfortable little booth. He propped his foot up on the bench and laced his fingers behind his head. “Let’s get this over with,” he said. “I’m not Catholic. Raised C.o.E., if you must know and I was VERY protestant. It’s been…” he cocked his head and thought about the date, “about 122 years since my last confession and that was NOT an exaggeration. And before we go into talking about all my guilty little secrets, tell me, do you know what you’re sitting next to here?”
The priest was just barely visible, moving behind the screen to adjust his seat. “Yes, my child, I know what you are. You are the same as Liam, a vampire.”
Spike cracked a grin. “He calls himself ‘Liam’ with you?”
“It is his Christian name, isn’t it?”
“Given name. Bloody hell. He doesn’t exactly GO by it, mate. Not since he died. Calls me ‘William’ all the damn time, but I have never heard anyone call him ‘Liam’. Not even Darla. Hell, he’ll answer to ‘Angelus’ first, not that he likes being called what he went by killing babies and all. Not now he’s got a soul.”
There was a pause. “We aren’t here to talk about Angelus, my son.”
“Well, he’s the only reason I’m putting up with this bloody farce. Suppose I should be grateful. He might have tried to drag me to some therapist. Had us sitting on a couch digging up nostalga about our RELATIONSHIP.”
“And what is your relationship to him? He is your friend?”
“Something like. Kind of my unholy father figure.”
Another pause. The priest was doing a good job of sounding patient. “And are you like him? You have a soul?”
“Yeah,” Spike said, bravado failing. “I have a soul.”
“It isn’t a curse,” Father Michael said. “It doesn’t have to be. It is a blessing and a great gift.”
“Pft. Correction there, padre: I’m not like Angel. I bloody well ASKED to have my soul back. Went through hell to get it too. So no, I’m not going to be crying about how awful it is to see what I’ve done and feel guilt for it.”
“But do you? Do you feel remorse for your unholy life?”
Spike rolled his eyes. “I know what I did, all right? Know something else? I wasn’t exactly immune from a sense of right and wrong for 120 years. I knew. Angel knew. Sure, it’s bloody different, with the soul thing going on, you don’t feel it, I mean, you know, but you don’t feel.” He tapped his hands together. “Anyway, I was never half the monster he was. No babies and innocents for me, thank you very much. I was in it for the fight. The thrills. Don’t regret that. You probably think I ought to, but I don’t. Regret the murders. Hell, every single easy kill is like a greasy taste in the back of my mouth. But not the battles. Not the slayers. Someone sets themselves up to kill vampires, right? Well, then it’s soldiers and sides, isn’t it? Can’t be held accountable for that.”
“Why are you here?”
“I told you: Liam.” Spike flexed his fingertips together and peered around the curtain. There was no sign of Angel in the nave of the church, at least not in the slice visible between curtain and wall. “Things were bad between him and me. Between me and sodding everyone. I tell you, it’s not fair. I was never a monster like him. I was the big bad, yeah, but they got me wriggling on the hook like a man can’t change. Like I got to go begging for mercy all over again with each and every sodding one of them.” He ran his hands over his hair and sighed. “And I do. So, yeah, Angel. I asked him to forgive me. You know, for being a git to him. He said I had to come here. Thing is, people… people got souls, and they do things almost worse than I’ve done. I don’t see how they can. It’s burning hot in me, this soul. I’ve not gotten used to it yet. Again, I mean. I suppose I had one when I was alive. Point is, I look back on one hundred years of killing and brawling and you know what I see? I was about the most decent vampire I could have been. Not making that up, or glossing over the ugly bits. Seriously. I killed for sport. I killed for food. I killed for my lady-love. But I wasn’t no monster. Maybe that’s just my way - I like to break rules. Even the ones say you got to be totally evil if you’re a vampire. And still. Still. Angel gets to have all the redemption. Slayer greets him with open arms. What about me? I dunno. Sometimes I think, when I was bad, at least I was good at being bad. Respected. Now I’m just some punk. Whereas Angel, who was, incidentally, a right bastard when he was alive, so I’m told, gets his soul foisted onto him and bam! Sympathy all around.”
“You want sympathy, my son?”
“No. I just…” Spike threw up his hands. “I don’t believe in god, you know that, right? I mean, Angel, he’s been to hell and all, so he says, but I don’t entirely believe hell is hell, not, I mean, not bloody HELL, like in books. Call it an alternate dimension or something. Heh. From what I’ve seen there are damn few alternate dimensions full of puppies and wedding cake. Add to that you’re talking to a dead guy. I think I’d know if there was a god.”
“Angelus told me you weren’t Catholic. He asked me to hear your confession for your sake, my son. That you could feel the peace, the comfort it gives him. I hold no illusions about your presence here.”
“Good, because you’d be a sorry sot if you did. I mean, holy water? Voluntarily dipping your fingers in holy water? Well that’s a damn mockery of the whole POINT, isn’t it?”
“My son, just tell me what is troubling you. What is tormenting you?”
“This is troubling me! I gave up everything I had, to become a better person, to get my soul back. Now my own sodding SIRE won’t take me in unless I come to some church. Quick enough he was to kill me, back when I was human. Now he’s gone holy and ain’t got time for his own piece of work.” Spike hit his head on the back of the confessional. “I didn’t mean that,” he said in a lower voice. “I mean, I sure as hell don’t regret it, being turned into a vamp. Took me 150 years to finally make a man of myself. Wouldn’t have worked with the human heart and the whole aging and dying thing.”
“You don’t know that. You were young. You had years to grow and learn and become a better man. That was taken from you.”
“I bloody gave it away, man.” He reached for his cigarettes and then stopped, thinking better of it. He rotated the pack in his hands, that comforting cardboard and cellophane. “I was what you call ‘well read’. Not like I didn’t realize something was up when Dru sank her teeth into me that first time. And she took her time. Lord. She was weeks draining me. Angel said she wanted to drive me mad like her. That’s why he stepped in, you know, wouldn’t let it go on. Guess that was a decent thing he did. Dru was mad as a wet cat, though. Lord, how I loved her. She wanted to torture me to death and I fell in love with her.” He chuckled and tapped a cigarette out and rolled it in his fingers, just to have something to do. He set it in his lips and got out his lighter. Fuck it. They used incense they could stand a little smoke.
“You must be Spike,” the priest said quietly.
Spike almost dropped his lighter. He turned to the screen and slid it full open. “He talk to you about me? What’d he say?”
“Do you hope or fear what he may have said?”
“Like I care that much.” Spike sat back again. “Seriously, come on, give. Ponce won’t give me half the time of day. What’d I do to piss him off? Was it stealing his girl? Because you know, there was some turn-about-is-fair in that.”
“What is said in these walls does not get repeated,” the priest said firmly. “You seek forgiveness, my son, and from all I’ve heard it seems you are looking externally for what you won’t give yourself.”
“Bollocks. I told you, I did the long inward stare. Came out all right. Not a bleedin’ saint, but I ain’t ashamed.” The slight fire of the lighter brightened the confessional. “I’m not,” he said.
“What would you have to be ashamed of?”
“Exactly. I did what I had to do to survive, and I chased the big thrill. And that’s half of being alive. If you aren’t feeling anything, you may as well be dead.”
“You regret nothing?”
Spike shrugged and took a drag on his cigarette. Realizing the priest couldn’t see to appreciate the gesture he blew the smoke out and sighed. “I did some stupid cruel things can’t be undone, yeah.” He tapped ash onto the floor. “Don’t see the point in talking about specifics, drawing it all out like some… some crown of thorns.” He smirked. “Wallowing in all the angst like Broody out there. Not my style. I just want bygones gone. Get on with my unlife.”
“And what do you see in that life? What will you do with the extra time God has granted you?”
“Watch it with the god talk,” Spike said. “We’re in a church.” He smiled. “I dunno. Beat up demons, mostly. Earn my girl’s love.”
“I must tell you, the church considers your undying an abomination. It’s my duty to advise you to cease drinking blood and let God take you.”
Spike raised his eyebrows. “That the advice you give Angel?”
“I give it to all of god’s fallen children who come to me.”
“And they come BACK? Bloody masochists.” He kicked his way out of the confessional. “Aren’t you blokes supposed to take a dim view of suicide? Talk about your papal bull.”
Father Michael stood at the door to his side. “I’ve not given you leave to go or absolution.”
“Wasn’t asking for it. Thanks for the chat, padre.”
“You won’t receive communion.”
“Can’t tell you how utterly okay I am with that.”
Angel was sitting in the first pew, hands knit on the prayer bar. He stood. “Could you have waited another minute for a cigarette?”
“No,” Spike said, and took a long drag.
Angel turned to the priest, “Father, I apologize.”
“It’s fine, Angelus. It was right of you to try. Will you take communion, then?”
Angel nodded. “Please.”
Spike leaned against the front prayer rail and smoked his cigarette while the priest administered a small communion for just Angel. He thought about his childhood, about serving at the altar, which he had done, in fact. Now Angel, who probably hadn’t set foot in a church before his heart stopped beating, knelt piously. He was really into it. The cross-marked wafer made a sizzling sound on his tongue and Spike saw a slight desperation and hurry in his face as the wine cup was proffered.
When the priest had given his blessing, Spike started down the aisle, giving a friendly parting wave.
“So you’re catholic now,” Spike said. “A Catholic vampire.”
“It’s what I would have been, if I had been,” Angel said. “I didn’t ask you to understand.”
Spike shrugged. “It’s just comical, that’s all. Religion. You with the sacramental wine. Does it taste like blood, eh? That’d be a trick. Get out of killing free card.”
“It’s just wine,” Angel muttered, angrily shouldering his way through the church doors.
The night outside was cool, fresh from recent rain, and much better than the stifling church atmosphere. Spike leaned his head back and enjoyed a long breath. City. There was no mistaking it. He flung his spent cigarette at a mud puddle. It sparked and went out. “Why you doing this, mate? Seriously. It’s… the whole thing’s so façade.”
Angel stuck his hands in his pockets and looked at the sky. “I don’t know. I just… once I started I couldn’t not come back. Maybe it’s just that the father doesn’t judge. He listens to what I have to say, and every week, like clockwork, he forgives me.”
“You gotta get yourself some more interesting hobbies.” Spike started down the road. “So we can eat now, right? Off to the blood store?”
Angel followed, easily overtaking Spike’s lazy strides. “Did you get nothing out of that? Or are you so dense it just couldn’t penetrate your skull?”
“Nah, felt good, get stuff off the chest with a stranger. Loads easier than talking to folks you care about.” He raised his eyebrows, but Angel didn’t take the bait. He drew out another cigarette. “Interesting thing, fellow knew my name. Not until I started talking about Dru, though. Interesting thing. You prattle on to him about Dru and me?”
“Do you have to smoke?”
Spike paused, eyebrows raised. “Yes. It is called an addiction. And neither of us have to worry about lung cancer, mate.”
Angel smirked. “You aren’t addicted. It’s affectation. And I like the air as clean as I can get it in this town.”
“Well I like the air polluted,” Spike said, and paused to light his smoke.
When he caught up with Angel again, he blew out a calm cloud and said, “Lousy job avoiding the question. I’m not completely stupid. You miss it? Our little dysfunctional family? Me, you, Dru, Darla, all with the killing and the sex and the jealousy?”
“I’d sooner go back to hell,” Angel said.
“Would not,” Spike accused. “I miss it. Sometimes. The hate and violence and pain and all. Not that I’m about to go investing in a time machine or looking Dru up. But… “ he shrugged.
Angel stopped. They’d reached the car, which he had insisted on parking at the end of the block, where the lighting was better. He turned to face Spike. “You refused the priest’s absolution but you want mine?”
“I want blood,” Spike said. “I fasted a day for you. Now why don’t we get a pint? And then talk, for christ’s sake. I want to talk.”
“I don’t know what we have to say to each other,” Angel said.
“You bloody well do know. Angry things. Ugly things. Complicated things. Tell me I was a beast. I’ll tell you you were a sadist. Rehash the fight over Dru. We’ll mix some whiskey in the blood, get absolutely shit-faced and say all those things we’ll want to blame on the drink later.”
“Why? To what end? You want forgiveness, fine, but I’m not your buddy. We have no relationship to patch up.”
Spike walked around Angel to the driver’s side of the car.
“And I’m driving,” Angel said, firmly.
“You drive like a granny. A dead one.”
“It’s my car. Other door, William. Or you can just stay here.”
Spike held up his hands. “Gee, Dad, didn’t think it’d get you all riled.”
He had to hurry to get into the seat before Angel slammed the door and pealed out.
“Just trying to cheer me up by being reckless,” Spike said. “Knew you cared.”
“We’ll go back to the office, have some blood, and then I want you gone. I’m only treating on dinner because I’d rather you didn’t kill someone.” Angel gripped the wheel hard and kept his eyes on the road as though afraid it would escape him.
Spike looked appraisingly at him. “You kill anyone -- for food, I mean -- since getting your soul back?”
“No.”
“No one? Not one tiny little snack? Never caught in the moment, forgetting your all-important redemption?”
“Do you have a point, Spike?”
Spike turned to lean against the door. “Then what makes you think I would, eh? You think you’re that much better than me?”
“I’d be surprised if you hadn’t already,” Angel growled.
“Hurts, that.”
“We drink a pint, and then you disappear,” Angel said. “No talking.”
“Ever think about doing in a suicide? Mercy killing? Be a humanitarian gesture. Like what you did with me.”
Angel almost missed a red light and they both lurched forward as he slammed on the brake. “No talking,” he said again.
“Can’t expect a bloke not to talk over a pint,” Spike said, settling himself back in his seat. He folded his arms and smoked his cigarette, opening the window to tap the ashes outside. Wouldn’t do to mess up Angel’s spotless interior. The car still smelled of chemicals and plastic. Some poncy executive luxury sedan. Seats that felt like they were kissing your buttocks. It wasn’t worth his ash.
“I made it so far,” Spike said, “in case you were wondering. No spots on my sparkly new soul, yet. Might kill a murderer, though. Wouldn’t that be fair? Save the day, kiss the girl, eat the bad guy?”
“You make one exception and you’ll find a dozen more, until it doesn’t really matter anymore.”
“Blood bags don’t shiver when you grab hold of them,” Spike mused. “Don’t have a pulse to beat against you, no heat, no sweat adding to the taste. It’s not like we’re talking about giving up ciggies here. This is something we were made to crave.”
“And he wonders why I don’t trust him,” Angel said.
“Oh, I’m sorry, you got another soulled vamp you want to discuss morality with?” Spike sighed in exasperation. “I mean… this is something we share, mate. You know what I went through… the last part of it, the getting it back. You know how that feels, and I’m not even sure I could describe it.”
Angel was quiet a moment, then nodded. "I know," he said.