happy week-a-versary!
Yay! I've had this blog one whole week now and I've posted something porny every single day!
How long can I keep it up?
I'm working on a Spike/Xander thing, and once that's done I'm going to go back to "Fun in Cages" a bit (Darn but that's a stupid title. If only I'd known people would read it! I'd have named it something... else. I mean, there's only one cage! So it's not really 'cages'...)
Anyway, to keep my rep up, here's a little something mid season-six with a jealous Angel popping in unexpected at Spike's crypt. I wanted it to eventually turn porny and threesome-y... maybe if I continue it. Right now it's just a little light torture, but I highly doubt Peaches just up and leaves at the end...
(By the way, does Spike ever actually call Angel "Peaches" on the show? I never noticed it. But how I love that nickname!)
Spike picked up the shattered pieces of what HAD been a lovely end table and, sighing, tossed them on the pile of irrecoverable junk. Next he kicked the rug back to make sure there weren’t any other broken bits of furniture under it. Say what you would about the slayer, she was NOT a cheap date.
He was just getting ready to haul the refuse up the ladder when he heard a sound. Someone or something was trying to enter his crypt. He clenched his teeth and silently prayed that it was something he could kill. A lot. His senses vibed vampire and he smiled. Thank you sweet baby jesus. He set the cardboard box of broken bits down and ran up the ladder in two lunges. “Hey there, mate, just because I’m not human doesn’t mean you get away without knock…”
Angel stood near a pillar, the shattered remains of one of Spike’s candle holders in his hands. He turned it over thoughtfully and tossed it over his shoulder. “Redecorating?” It hit the wall and flew into pieces.
“This is my home, Angelus, and I don’t recall inviting you in.”
Angel tilted his head back and gestured in that annoyingly casual way of his. “Tomb says ‘Davis’ on it. Don’t recall you being a Davis.”
“What do you want?”
Angel stuck his hands in his coat pockets and shrugged. “World peace. Redemption. To know what the hell you’re doing with Buffy.”
Spike’s eyebrows rose. “And this would be your business how, exactly?”
“I don’t know. My girlfriend dies, she comes back to life, I come to visit, and there’s this smell…” he put his hand on the pillar and squinted at Spike. “Everywhere. You. Her. Everywhere. Did you miss a spot in this entire god-forsaken town?”
Spike couldn’t help a proud smile. He rolled his shoulders easily. “Well, you know I…”
Angel’s hand grasped Spike’s throat before he could finish. “You hurt her.”
Spike knocked the big lummox back. “Why don’t you go talk to Buffy about that, yeah?”
It only took a simple open-handed push to tumble Spike over the opening to the lower level. Angel jumped down after, having to lunge to the left as Spike tried to roll out of the way. He put his foot on the other vampire’s neck. “No, I’d rather ask you.”
Spike threw Angel by his foot into the largely un-disheveled bed. Yeah, they’d missed a spot. “I was just hoping some cocky son-of-a-bitch would come down here and start trouble,” Spike said, leaping after his sire to wrest an arm behind his back. “Give me an excuse for a spot of violence. Thanks.”
Angel twisted out of the hold and for a while they were rolling and kicking and punching around the room, putting to mess the order Spike had only just re-introduced to the place.
Angel got the better hand. Spike turned his head against the pressing fist to try and look at him. “Jealous ex doesn’t become you,” he said. “Just let it go, Angelus. She’s with me now. Yeah? But don’t go…”
There was an all-too familiar sound, a hum, a sniff of ozone.
“Oh you are not!” Spike pushed with all his force away from the wall, but not before the taser contacted. He actually saw the electricity run over his arm as he reached out… and fell to the floor.
***
He awoke first to that familiar old biting of the wrists that can only mean your dead weight was hanging from them too long. Slit one eye open just a tad. Chain. Check. Cuff. Check. Wall. Yeah. He was still in his own soddin’ bedroom. Closed eye again, hold still.
“I can tell you’re awake, Spike.” He heard Angel walk across the littered floor. A hand grasped him about the neck. “You breathe.”
“Bollocks,” Spike grunted, opening his eyes. “Bad habit.”
Angel was standing very close, his face all stern, angry parallel lines. His hand tightened.
Spike had to admit, breathing was a hard habit to get out of. His throat contracted, struggling against the pressure for air he knew he didn’t need.
“Always were a sorry excuse for a vampire,” Angel said, letting go. He walked off to the left. What was that smell?
Angel’s shadow loomed larger and shaking - there was a fire just off to the left. Spike leaned forward. “Making me some chicken wings? I like ‘em with ranch. None of that blue cheese, right?”
Angel turned with a twisted bit of metal in his hand that Spike recognized as part of what had been a nice pair of wrought-iron candleholders. It was glowing red at the end. “I think you remember this game.”
“Care to be a little original, Angelus?”
To Spike’s horror, Angel smiled. The slow, broad smile that he remembered distinctly from a hundred years ago. “You forget. I was the original.”
Angel dragged the hot metal across Spike’s chest. Despite a temporary thought that he’d tough it out and grit his teeth, Spike recoiled, squirming back against the rough stone as the poker seared and flesh adhered.
“Hold still,” Angel slammed Spike’s shoulder against the wall with his free hand, holding him there while he drew on him.
Angel drew, dragging the hot metal, and bits of adhered skin, across Spike’s chest until it cooled, griping him hard as he tried to squirm. For a while there were no sounds but the sizzle of flesh, the grunts of pain, and the rattling of the chains.
Finally Angel let go and went to back to refresh his stylus in the fire.
Spike blinked haze away and tried to make out the red pattern on his chest. “Aren’t you going to ask questions?”
Angel rotated the metal over the fire, for all the world looking like he was preparing a meal.
Spike hitched his breath against the pain and straightened as best he could. “I’m not a hero, here. Never said I wouldn’t talk.”
“I don’t want you to talk, Spike. Getting you to talk is like getting water to be wet. I want you to shut up.” He lifted the iron out of the fire, decided it wasn’t hot enough yet, and set it back in. “Well, that and suffer.”
“Got the latter covered just fine on my own. Ta.”
Angel left the iron in the fire and came back to study Spike, frowning at his previous work, he pushed the younger vampire back to catch the light. “Wish I had some acid,” he said. “Or an arc welder. Maybe some holy water. You really have crap for supplies, Spike.”
“Torture was always more your bag. Why do you think I hired Marcus? And, come to think of it, why are you doing this at all? I’ve done nothing to you. Well, nothing recent. And let’s face it, really, nothing you didn’t deserve threefold, what with how you used to carry on.”
Angel stood, considering a moment, then punched spike in the face until the other vampire slumped in his chains. “This isn’t about what you’ve done to me. It’s about Buffy. You hurt her, so I’m going to hurt you.”
“I didn’t hurt her!”
“No? Then why was she crying?”
Angel fetched the iron, which was finally white-hot again.
Spike’s expression expanded into a hopeful grin. “She was crying? Over me?”
Angel answered by pressing his forearm into the other vampire’s throat and resuming his drawing. His expression was serious, but there was appreciation in it; he loved the fine white skin turning red and brown under his hand, like paper being marked by ink. It wasn’t the smoothest surface, but he worked with it. The portrait was starting to come out. If only he had some way to make other colors. Heat, sweat, burning flesh… it smelled good and the struggle felt good under his sweat-slicked arm: bucking and writhing but so completely under his control. Spike was grinding his teeth, grunting in the back of his throat to keep from screaming. That was delicious.
Angel closed his eyes and backed away, the iron poker shaking a little in his hand.
“What’s the matter, Angelus?” Spike’s voice was weak. “Enjoying yourself too much?”
Angel swung the poker, catching Spike across the ribs. The abused iron bent, and Angel’s portrait of Buffy now had a white indent across her cheek that deepened quickly to red.
Spike licked his cracked lip. “Soul’s a bitch, innit?”
Angel threw the iron across the room, it hit the makeshift bier he’d set up and sparked ashes. He kicked it over, spilling the coals. The carpet immediately began to smolder and smoke. He flipped that over, too. Smoke rolled faster out of the humps of overturned carpet. Angel stomped on it frantically until the fire stopped.
“If you’re finished destroying my room, wanna get me down from here?”
Angel ran his hands through his hair. Right. This wasn’t about torture. It was about justice. Right. He pulled a knife out of his pocket. The half-discernable face burned into Spike’s chest was making him feel sick now. He dragged the knife edge over his handiwork, smearing blisters and ripping raw edges downward, obscuring the design.
“Son of a bitch!” Spike twisted and thrashed. “Sadistic. Hypocritical. Prick!”
Angel leaned into the knife, dragging long swaths of skin free. “This isn’t about me. It’s about you. Never touching her again.” His hands were getting slick with blood now. He backed away and grabbed Spike by the back of the head, to force him to meet his glare. “Do you hear me? Do you understand?”
“Fuck off.”
He pushed Spike’s head into the wall. “You want more? Is that it? You want me to keep going? You know what I’m capable of. If you ever hurt her again…”
Both vampires were startled by a crashing sound overhead.
Spike started, weakly, to chuckle. He rolled his head away as Angel let go of him.
Angel peered anxiously up the ladder, soon to see a pair of fashionable black boots running down them. “Spike?” Buffy had her sleeve over her mouth, in response to the smoke, but she froze at the base of the ladder, taking in the scene before her.
Angel followed Buffy’s eyes to the knife in his hand and awkwardly stuffed the blood-soaked implement back in his pocket. Then grimaced. Great. More blood on his clothes. And Cordy wondered why he always wore black.
Buffy straightened from the half-crouch she had landed in, but her hand was still stretched out. “What. Are you doing?”
Angel felt two very strong, conflicting feelings: first, that he’d been found doing something nasty by someone he didn’t want to see this part of him. Second, that someone had changed the script on him: he was the avenging hero, but she was looking at him like… like the meddling ex-boyfriend. “I… uh. Um… it’s not what it looks like.”
Spike continued to laugh, shaking chuckles punctuated by hitches of breath.
“Shut up,” Angel said, glaring at him.
“’S too funny, mate. Buffy, love. Angel here was just defending your honor.”
Buffy blinked. “That’s not funny,” she said.
There was an awkward silence, broken only by the rattle of chains as Spike tried to stretch.
Buffy bit her lip and pushed past Angel. “How do these come off?” She grabbed the nearest wrist-cuff and turned it as much as she could. She glared at Angel. “Help me get him down.”
Another chuckle. “Yes, do be a dear and help, Peaches.”
Buffy let go of the cuff she was examining. “God can you stop begging for a beating for fifteen seconds while I save you?”
Spike blinked his eyes at Buffy, trying despite the battered state of his face to give her a sweet pout. “He did start it.”
Angel flexed his fists. “Buff… are you… Stop. Just stop. We need to talk.”
Buffy found the spring-catch on the cuff - just like Spike to have bondage gear like this. With an exasperated sigh she tore the cuff open and moved to Spike’s other side.
“Do get the legs, pet,” Spike said, reaching to take over undoing the left wrist-cuff.
Angel, too confused to help or hinder, sat on Spike’s bed. “It’s not as bad as it looks. I was just… trying to, um…”
Buffy rose from undoing the last of Spike’s bonds. To Angel’s sincere relief, she shied away when Spike tried to reach out to her for support. “You,” she pointed at Angel. “Upstairs. You.” She stepped back and grimaced. Spike supported himself against the wall, his other hand flat against his chest, as though to hold it together. “You stay down here. I’ll get some bandages.”
“Ta,” Spike said. He crawled along the wall to the bed and rolled onto his back, sighing.
Buffy pulled a still taciturn Angel up the ladder. When she had him in the upper crypt, she pushed him away with both hands, not quite hard enough to hurt. “What the hell was that? You come into town for five seconds, I hardly get to say hello, and you’re off setting fire to my… well, to Spike?”
Angel stuffed his hands in his pockets, only to feel the blood-slick knife. EW. He rubbed his hands on his pants. “You know, he chained me up and stuck me with hot pokers last year.”
The lack of surprise or concern on Buffy’s face was chilling. “Angel!”
“I smelled him. On you. In your house. And I could see you’d been crying. What was I supposed to think? That you’re having some kind of relationship with an evil killer?”
“Spike and I are not in a relationship. Not that that’s any of your business.”
Angel’s brow crinkled. “Buffy you smell like you’ve been rolling around in him.”
Buffy looked away, fresh tears pricking the edge of her eyes.
“Buffy…”
She shook her head and took a step away from his proffered arms. “You weren’t here, were you?”
“Buffy!” Angel sagged back as though struck. “If you needed me, for anything…”
Spike’s head poked up from the ladder hole. “Anything you could actually DO, you mean, soul-boy.”
Angel couldn’t help it. He kicked the insolent punk in the face.
“Angel!”
He turned, hands out to Buffy. “What am I supposed to do?”
Spike shook his head and finished climbing up to the main level. There was a nice bruise darkening on his cheek and he’d pulled a t-shirt on. He moved mincingly and Angel was at least gratified to know that every motion was pulling rough cotton over cuts and burns. That’d teach Spike to be vain and always wear tight t-shirts.
“Turn about is fair, yeah?” Spike looked from an angry, huffy Buffy to an angry, huffy Angel. “Figure we both got a bit today. Why don’t you go back to LA and nance about helpin’ the helpless or whatever it is you do?”
“This is ridiculous. You two.” Buffy shook her head and stomped toward the crypt entrance. “Good-bye. If either of you can sort out your machismo, I’ll be at home. Where I should have been in the first place. God, why do I bother?”
Both vampires winced as the crypt-door slammed.
How long can I keep it up?
I'm working on a Spike/Xander thing, and once that's done I'm going to go back to "Fun in Cages" a bit (Darn but that's a stupid title. If only I'd known people would read it! I'd have named it something... else. I mean, there's only one cage! So it's not really 'cages'...)
Anyway, to keep my rep up, here's a little something mid season-six with a jealous Angel popping in unexpected at Spike's crypt. I wanted it to eventually turn porny and threesome-y... maybe if I continue it. Right now it's just a little light torture, but I highly doubt Peaches just up and leaves at the end...
(By the way, does Spike ever actually call Angel "Peaches" on the show? I never noticed it. But how I love that nickname!)
Spike picked up the shattered pieces of what HAD been a lovely end table and, sighing, tossed them on the pile of irrecoverable junk. Next he kicked the rug back to make sure there weren’t any other broken bits of furniture under it. Say what you would about the slayer, she was NOT a cheap date.
He was just getting ready to haul the refuse up the ladder when he heard a sound. Someone or something was trying to enter his crypt. He clenched his teeth and silently prayed that it was something he could kill. A lot. His senses vibed vampire and he smiled. Thank you sweet baby jesus. He set the cardboard box of broken bits down and ran up the ladder in two lunges. “Hey there, mate, just because I’m not human doesn’t mean you get away without knock…”
Angel stood near a pillar, the shattered remains of one of Spike’s candle holders in his hands. He turned it over thoughtfully and tossed it over his shoulder. “Redecorating?” It hit the wall and flew into pieces.
“This is my home, Angelus, and I don’t recall inviting you in.”
Angel tilted his head back and gestured in that annoyingly casual way of his. “Tomb says ‘Davis’ on it. Don’t recall you being a Davis.”
“What do you want?”
Angel stuck his hands in his coat pockets and shrugged. “World peace. Redemption. To know what the hell you’re doing with Buffy.”
Spike’s eyebrows rose. “And this would be your business how, exactly?”
“I don’t know. My girlfriend dies, she comes back to life, I come to visit, and there’s this smell…” he put his hand on the pillar and squinted at Spike. “Everywhere. You. Her. Everywhere. Did you miss a spot in this entire god-forsaken town?”
Spike couldn’t help a proud smile. He rolled his shoulders easily. “Well, you know I…”
Angel’s hand grasped Spike’s throat before he could finish. “You hurt her.”
Spike knocked the big lummox back. “Why don’t you go talk to Buffy about that, yeah?”
It only took a simple open-handed push to tumble Spike over the opening to the lower level. Angel jumped down after, having to lunge to the left as Spike tried to roll out of the way. He put his foot on the other vampire’s neck. “No, I’d rather ask you.”
Spike threw Angel by his foot into the largely un-disheveled bed. Yeah, they’d missed a spot. “I was just hoping some cocky son-of-a-bitch would come down here and start trouble,” Spike said, leaping after his sire to wrest an arm behind his back. “Give me an excuse for a spot of violence. Thanks.”
Angel twisted out of the hold and for a while they were rolling and kicking and punching around the room, putting to mess the order Spike had only just re-introduced to the place.
Angel got the better hand. Spike turned his head against the pressing fist to try and look at him. “Jealous ex doesn’t become you,” he said. “Just let it go, Angelus. She’s with me now. Yeah? But don’t go…”
There was an all-too familiar sound, a hum, a sniff of ozone.
“Oh you are not!” Spike pushed with all his force away from the wall, but not before the taser contacted. He actually saw the electricity run over his arm as he reached out… and fell to the floor.
***
He awoke first to that familiar old biting of the wrists that can only mean your dead weight was hanging from them too long. Slit one eye open just a tad. Chain. Check. Cuff. Check. Wall. Yeah. He was still in his own soddin’ bedroom. Closed eye again, hold still.
“I can tell you’re awake, Spike.” He heard Angel walk across the littered floor. A hand grasped him about the neck. “You breathe.”
“Bollocks,” Spike grunted, opening his eyes. “Bad habit.”
Angel was standing very close, his face all stern, angry parallel lines. His hand tightened.
Spike had to admit, breathing was a hard habit to get out of. His throat contracted, struggling against the pressure for air he knew he didn’t need.
“Always were a sorry excuse for a vampire,” Angel said, letting go. He walked off to the left. What was that smell?
Angel’s shadow loomed larger and shaking - there was a fire just off to the left. Spike leaned forward. “Making me some chicken wings? I like ‘em with ranch. None of that blue cheese, right?”
Angel turned with a twisted bit of metal in his hand that Spike recognized as part of what had been a nice pair of wrought-iron candleholders. It was glowing red at the end. “I think you remember this game.”
“Care to be a little original, Angelus?”
To Spike’s horror, Angel smiled. The slow, broad smile that he remembered distinctly from a hundred years ago. “You forget. I was the original.”
Angel dragged the hot metal across Spike’s chest. Despite a temporary thought that he’d tough it out and grit his teeth, Spike recoiled, squirming back against the rough stone as the poker seared and flesh adhered.
“Hold still,” Angel slammed Spike’s shoulder against the wall with his free hand, holding him there while he drew on him.
Angel drew, dragging the hot metal, and bits of adhered skin, across Spike’s chest until it cooled, griping him hard as he tried to squirm. For a while there were no sounds but the sizzle of flesh, the grunts of pain, and the rattling of the chains.
Finally Angel let go and went to back to refresh his stylus in the fire.
Spike blinked haze away and tried to make out the red pattern on his chest. “Aren’t you going to ask questions?”
Angel rotated the metal over the fire, for all the world looking like he was preparing a meal.
Spike hitched his breath against the pain and straightened as best he could. “I’m not a hero, here. Never said I wouldn’t talk.”
“I don’t want you to talk, Spike. Getting you to talk is like getting water to be wet. I want you to shut up.” He lifted the iron out of the fire, decided it wasn’t hot enough yet, and set it back in. “Well, that and suffer.”
“Got the latter covered just fine on my own. Ta.”
Angel left the iron in the fire and came back to study Spike, frowning at his previous work, he pushed the younger vampire back to catch the light. “Wish I had some acid,” he said. “Or an arc welder. Maybe some holy water. You really have crap for supplies, Spike.”
“Torture was always more your bag. Why do you think I hired Marcus? And, come to think of it, why are you doing this at all? I’ve done nothing to you. Well, nothing recent. And let’s face it, really, nothing you didn’t deserve threefold, what with how you used to carry on.”
Angel stood, considering a moment, then punched spike in the face until the other vampire slumped in his chains. “This isn’t about what you’ve done to me. It’s about Buffy. You hurt her, so I’m going to hurt you.”
“I didn’t hurt her!”
“No? Then why was she crying?”
Angel fetched the iron, which was finally white-hot again.
Spike’s expression expanded into a hopeful grin. “She was crying? Over me?”
Angel answered by pressing his forearm into the other vampire’s throat and resuming his drawing. His expression was serious, but there was appreciation in it; he loved the fine white skin turning red and brown under his hand, like paper being marked by ink. It wasn’t the smoothest surface, but he worked with it. The portrait was starting to come out. If only he had some way to make other colors. Heat, sweat, burning flesh… it smelled good and the struggle felt good under his sweat-slicked arm: bucking and writhing but so completely under his control. Spike was grinding his teeth, grunting in the back of his throat to keep from screaming. That was delicious.
Angel closed his eyes and backed away, the iron poker shaking a little in his hand.
“What’s the matter, Angelus?” Spike’s voice was weak. “Enjoying yourself too much?”
Angel swung the poker, catching Spike across the ribs. The abused iron bent, and Angel’s portrait of Buffy now had a white indent across her cheek that deepened quickly to red.
Spike licked his cracked lip. “Soul’s a bitch, innit?”
Angel threw the iron across the room, it hit the makeshift bier he’d set up and sparked ashes. He kicked it over, spilling the coals. The carpet immediately began to smolder and smoke. He flipped that over, too. Smoke rolled faster out of the humps of overturned carpet. Angel stomped on it frantically until the fire stopped.
“If you’re finished destroying my room, wanna get me down from here?”
Angel ran his hands through his hair. Right. This wasn’t about torture. It was about justice. Right. He pulled a knife out of his pocket. The half-discernable face burned into Spike’s chest was making him feel sick now. He dragged the knife edge over his handiwork, smearing blisters and ripping raw edges downward, obscuring the design.
“Son of a bitch!” Spike twisted and thrashed. “Sadistic. Hypocritical. Prick!”
Angel leaned into the knife, dragging long swaths of skin free. “This isn’t about me. It’s about you. Never touching her again.” His hands were getting slick with blood now. He backed away and grabbed Spike by the back of the head, to force him to meet his glare. “Do you hear me? Do you understand?”
“Fuck off.”
He pushed Spike’s head into the wall. “You want more? Is that it? You want me to keep going? You know what I’m capable of. If you ever hurt her again…”
Both vampires were startled by a crashing sound overhead.
Spike started, weakly, to chuckle. He rolled his head away as Angel let go of him.
Angel peered anxiously up the ladder, soon to see a pair of fashionable black boots running down them. “Spike?” Buffy had her sleeve over her mouth, in response to the smoke, but she froze at the base of the ladder, taking in the scene before her.
Angel followed Buffy’s eyes to the knife in his hand and awkwardly stuffed the blood-soaked implement back in his pocket. Then grimaced. Great. More blood on his clothes. And Cordy wondered why he always wore black.
Buffy straightened from the half-crouch she had landed in, but her hand was still stretched out. “What. Are you doing?”
Angel felt two very strong, conflicting feelings: first, that he’d been found doing something nasty by someone he didn’t want to see this part of him. Second, that someone had changed the script on him: he was the avenging hero, but she was looking at him like… like the meddling ex-boyfriend. “I… uh. Um… it’s not what it looks like.”
Spike continued to laugh, shaking chuckles punctuated by hitches of breath.
“Shut up,” Angel said, glaring at him.
“’S too funny, mate. Buffy, love. Angel here was just defending your honor.”
Buffy blinked. “That’s not funny,” she said.
There was an awkward silence, broken only by the rattle of chains as Spike tried to stretch.
Buffy bit her lip and pushed past Angel. “How do these come off?” She grabbed the nearest wrist-cuff and turned it as much as she could. She glared at Angel. “Help me get him down.”
Another chuckle. “Yes, do be a dear and help, Peaches.”
Buffy let go of the cuff she was examining. “God can you stop begging for a beating for fifteen seconds while I save you?”
Spike blinked his eyes at Buffy, trying despite the battered state of his face to give her a sweet pout. “He did start it.”
Angel flexed his fists. “Buff… are you… Stop. Just stop. We need to talk.”
Buffy found the spring-catch on the cuff - just like Spike to have bondage gear like this. With an exasperated sigh she tore the cuff open and moved to Spike’s other side.
“Do get the legs, pet,” Spike said, reaching to take over undoing the left wrist-cuff.
Angel, too confused to help or hinder, sat on Spike’s bed. “It’s not as bad as it looks. I was just… trying to, um…”
Buffy rose from undoing the last of Spike’s bonds. To Angel’s sincere relief, she shied away when Spike tried to reach out to her for support. “You,” she pointed at Angel. “Upstairs. You.” She stepped back and grimaced. Spike supported himself against the wall, his other hand flat against his chest, as though to hold it together. “You stay down here. I’ll get some bandages.”
“Ta,” Spike said. He crawled along the wall to the bed and rolled onto his back, sighing.
Buffy pulled a still taciturn Angel up the ladder. When she had him in the upper crypt, she pushed him away with both hands, not quite hard enough to hurt. “What the hell was that? You come into town for five seconds, I hardly get to say hello, and you’re off setting fire to my… well, to Spike?”
Angel stuffed his hands in his pockets, only to feel the blood-slick knife. EW. He rubbed his hands on his pants. “You know, he chained me up and stuck me with hot pokers last year.”
The lack of surprise or concern on Buffy’s face was chilling. “Angel!”
“I smelled him. On you. In your house. And I could see you’d been crying. What was I supposed to think? That you’re having some kind of relationship with an evil killer?”
“Spike and I are not in a relationship. Not that that’s any of your business.”
Angel’s brow crinkled. “Buffy you smell like you’ve been rolling around in him.”
Buffy looked away, fresh tears pricking the edge of her eyes.
“Buffy…”
She shook her head and took a step away from his proffered arms. “You weren’t here, were you?”
“Buffy!” Angel sagged back as though struck. “If you needed me, for anything…”
Spike’s head poked up from the ladder hole. “Anything you could actually DO, you mean, soul-boy.”
Angel couldn’t help it. He kicked the insolent punk in the face.
“Angel!”
He turned, hands out to Buffy. “What am I supposed to do?”
Spike shook his head and finished climbing up to the main level. There was a nice bruise darkening on his cheek and he’d pulled a t-shirt on. He moved mincingly and Angel was at least gratified to know that every motion was pulling rough cotton over cuts and burns. That’d teach Spike to be vain and always wear tight t-shirts.
“Turn about is fair, yeah?” Spike looked from an angry, huffy Buffy to an angry, huffy Angel. “Figure we both got a bit today. Why don’t you go back to LA and nance about helpin’ the helpless or whatever it is you do?”
“This is ridiculous. You two.” Buffy shook her head and stomped toward the crypt entrance. “Good-bye. If either of you can sort out your machismo, I’ll be at home. Where I should have been in the first place. God, why do I bother?”
Both vampires winced as the crypt-door slammed.