TITLE: Dwelling Forever

RATING: R

SUMMARY: Takes place in s5 of Angel, after "Lineage". A slayer-turned-vampire legendary for her ruthlessness, unpredictability and love of the wild side, Lex arrives in town to seek out her old friend Spike, meeting Angel and his crew and causing some trouble in trying to decide what's right.

FEEDBACK: Okay, look. I know reviewing is a pain in the ass, but it's really the only way I'm gonna know what you're thinking or even know to continue this lil bugger. So review if you want more. If you don't, ok shut up and leave me alone.

AN: Ok, this is an AOC fic with some SOC flashbacks, as well as scattered about other pairings. This character, Lex, is totally original, and she was sired a little ways after Angel in London as the Slayer during that time. She continued on her own, trying to maintain a balance. You'll see more later, but that's a brief starting point for you to be like, phew, ok. Yeah. Enough me talk, story time!

CHAPTER ONE: LEX

SAN FRANSISCO, CALIFORNIA

Max worked the night shifts at the local demon bar. His life sucked, was boring as hell, if you consider boring serving demons eyeball puss or rum and blood every weekend boring for a college job. It was dangerous, but he really could care less. It would be better than spending so much time on this mortal plane that he would get even more bored and would have to resort to something else. He was only 21, but he already was bored to death with life. Something was wrong with that.
He was working that Thursday night, and had just served a Korrencio demon a Long Island Iced Tea, when she walked in. All the demons started whispering when she did, turning away, some gasping in awe. Max looked up as the young woman approached the bar, and had to do a double take.
She had shining, soft looking dark brown hair that fell just past her shoulders, layered in front so it framed her pale, perfect oval face. A perfect, straight nose lay down the center, leading down to perfect pouty lips with just the right amount of color. Hazel eyes in an almond shape were outlined in black eyeliner and mascara, making her seem dark and defined. Other than this, she wore no makeup. Her long, lean figure of 5' 8" was toned and perfect, her long, muscular yet slim and elegant legs clad in black jeans, a 3/4 sleeve black shirt clung perfectly to her upper figure covered over by a lethal looking black vest. Her jeans were tight around the upper waist, but fell a little more baggy as they got to the bottom in a look that made them look like they were hand me downs that didn't quite fit well, the hems stepped on and torn. Her face remained with one expression, and if looks could kill everyone in the room would have been dead with a single glance. She broke in to a smile, however, when she noticed everyone looking at her. She turned to Max casually, her look of pure amusement now bringing the corners of her mouth up into a slight half smile.
"See that bottle of vodka, mate?" She asked in a cool but deep, North London british accent.
"Uh, yes?" Max responded.
"Hand that to me. I just need to see it a minute." Max eyed her suspicously, but retrieved the bottle of vodka in its glass beauty. He handed it to her. She looked it over, shrugged, opened the top and took a long swig.
"Hey!" Max said, reaching for it. Before he knew what was happening, the girl smashed the bottle of vodka over his head. She smacked him one in the jaw, and he staggered back before he fell to the floor.
"They say this is service." She turned to face the others, now staring. "Oy! Go back to yer own business, ya wankers." She rolled her eyes, hopped over the bar and grabbed another bottle of vodka. She took a long drink, only stopping when she heard a voice.
"Uh, is that you, Lex?" The vampire put the bottle down on the counter and hopped back over to face the young looking other vampire.
"Who're you?" She demanded more than asked.
"Uh, I'm Ray. Remember me? 1969, you, me, some others at Woodstock? Remember?"
"Dunno, got quite stoned off the buggerin humans. Gimme a minute." She paused. "Oooh, yeah. The one with the tie dyed jeans. Now I remember you. Wow, never thought you'd last this long." She admitted. "Good to see you, mate. You still keep up with whosemcallits?"
"Oh, a couple of us got smoked back in Sunnydale."
"Hellmouth? Heard bout that goin kaboom."
"Yeah. Hey, you'll never guess what 'champion' got a soul and did the actual closing." the drunken vamp said. "Spike. An' hes back, ya know? Living in LA. Wolfram and shpart or something like that... I don't know. It's all so strange..."
"Spike. Now there's one bloke I remember pretty well. Got a soul, fell for the Slayer, closed the hellmouth, now a ghostie. Too bad, that one had some potential. Killed a coupla slayers, I recall." Lex sighed sort of dreamily, then snapped out of it. "Well, must go make fun of 'im then. I was actually headed for LA. Came down 'ere from Seattle. Ran into some trouble up there. Goddamn slayers got activated. Killed the few up there, looked for some more hotspots. Figure LA prolly has a coupla good kills in its system."
"So, you're leaving then? You got a ride down there?" Ray asked.
"Actually, no. Why, you offering?" Lex asked, moving a little closer to the vampire, her expression emotionless but her body pretending to be seductive.
"Uh, sure. Let's go, baby." He put an arm around her.
"Not so fast. Maybe I should drive, seein as you're ridiculously drunk."
"Good idea. You're so smart... I remember you were talking about this book or some author or something, something about all things in monolation..."
"All things in moderation?"
"Yeah, that was it."
"Always were a drunkard. Gimme your keys."
Ray plunked a set of keys in her hand.
"Thanks, mate." Lex said sweetly, and before anyone could do anything about it, she yanked a stake from her back pocket and jammed it into the back of Ray, dusting him. Lex brushed the remaining dust off her jacket, twirled her new car keys in her hand, and walked out the door not a few minutes after she'd come in.

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA
WOLFRAM AND HART
TWO DAYS LATER

"Leave me alone, Spike." Angel told his non-corporeal sire.
"Oh, come on, Peaches. Jus' gimme an office."
"You don't need an office. And besides, you don't work here, you just haunt this place giving me a pain in the ass. Harmony, any messages?" The dark haired vampire asked his secretary.
"None, boss. Here's your blood." She smiled perkily, and handed him a mug. Spike started to follow him, but the brooding vampire warned angrily,
"You better leave me alone this morning, Spike." Angel headed into his office. Spike rolled his eyes.
"As if bein a noncorporeal ensouled vampire who saved the world ain't bad enough, the great poofter's got to go and be a git."
"Oh, Spike, you got a package." Harmony told him, holding up said package.
"Who'd be sending a ghost a package? S' not like I can open it."
"Beats me. No return address. Do you want me to open it?" She asked. He gave her the go ahead, and she opened up the box, a flash of white light coming out. The box was empty.
"Bleedin' prankster. Well that was a doozy, Harm, but I think I'm gonna go take a lil stroll."
Spike walked over to the general direction of Wolfram and Hart's exit, intending to go through the door, and walked straight into the door. He fell down with a surprised cry, then sat up.
"Bloody hell!" Spike said, excited and in pain. He felt the ground, the opening door, the leg of the lawyer walking in the door, and stood up. "FINALLY!"

~*~

Fred walked downstairs into Angel's office. She had just run into Spike. Literally. And had been met by a big corporeal hug. Which didn't make any sense.
"Angel. I need to talk to you about Spike." The skinny brunette scientist announced.
"I know, I'm trying to get rid of him, too. Listen, Wes just called, he wanted to tell us that-"
"He's corporeal." Fred interrupted. Angel stood up angrily, forgetting what it was Wesley had told him.
"What? How? That's-"
"I know. I just ran into him. As in ran into him, falling on the ground from the contact because he is corporeal ran into him!"
"Yes! Now he can leave, right?"
"Angel, Spike could prove to be a great asset here. He's not going anywhere. Besides, he can't go back to Sunnydale, and the only other place he'd go would be to Europe to see Buffy, and we all know you wouldn't like that."
"Good point. God, I hate this guy."
"So, what were you saying before?"
"Oh, right, Wesley called. He was walking the streets last night, found someone fighting a vampire."
"A new Slayer?" Fred asked.
"No. She killed the vampire, and then took the human the vampire had been feeding off of, took on the face of a vampire, and drank the rest of the human's blood. It's really odd. And Wesley said from the looks of her, she hadn't really eaten much, but by her 'elegant fighting techniques' she seemed to be not just a vampire. An older one, he said her face looked familiar from his studies."
"Well, should we look her up? I mean, it's just one vampire, not that big of a deal, right?"
"Well, that's the problem. It is a big deal. Wesley followed her that night, she massacred an entire hotel downtown. No reason. At all. Wesley tried to step in, but this vampire just totally kicked his ass with the strength of something beyond a normal demon, something beyond a vampire or a human or a Slayer."
"So she's more trouble. We can handle it, right?"
"No, wait, that's the thing. The key is, she's got the strength beyond a vampire, human or Slayer. That's when it clicked for Wesley. She's the only Slayer ever to be sired." Angel stood up.
"Wait, a Slayer was sired?"
"She was friends with her watcher, who was sired by an offending vampire. She staked her watcher for his own good, the vampire comes out, makes a pact with the Slayer. This guy was a vampire, but also a wizard or something. The pact he made was that she would have eternal strength beyond anything known, she would be a vampire, with the strength of a Slayer and demon combined, would live forever, have a conscience, but still have a passion for destruction, hence the saving of the human and then the killing of the human. She moved around a lot, staying by herself, killing or avoiding everything she came into contact with until she found a way to repress her conscience, not soul, but conscience, in 1872, after killing a certain demon in a hell dimension that she was banished to for a few years by the Master and Darla. Angry, she returned with a heart like a block of ice, merciless, cocky and self assured inexplicably. She's legendary. And she's here. I've heard stories about this girl. Completely unpredictable and very dangerous."
"Oh. So, pretty bad then?"
"Yeah." Angel nodded. "She was sired a little after I was. I'd heard tales about her, but never met her. Scared me shitless, to tell you the truth. You never knew whether she'd be your friend, ally, enemy, lover, minion, anything when you met her, but if you did you were almost obliged to give her respect because of what she was. You complied. She's someone who nobody has really heard of much, but you've heard enough to know not to mess with her. We need to approach this carefully. She can't be our enemy, we'd all be dead in an hour. We need to try and get her on our side somehow, but she hates big corporations and big groups of people from what I've heard."
"That's bullshit. I went to woodstock with her, that place had a helluva lotta people. Course, we killed quite a few." Spike said with a smirk, entering. "That girl knew how to party. We were so stoned..." He smiled. "And the music kicked ass. I remember she danced with me, actually spoke to me as an equal. You were too busy being Sir Broody, Peaches, that's why you never met her. So, Lex is in town, then?" The british vampire asked.
"Lex. That what she calls herself?"
"No, that's what people who know her call her. Everyone who fears her cause they've never met her, they call her the Eternal Slayer, something like that. But yeah, she's known as Lex. Won't find that bugger in the books, can promise you that. Wow, that girl, that's someone I haven't thought bout for a long time. I should give her a ring. Missed that girl. So what you're tryin to do is get her on your side? She knows all bout you and this place, prolly hates you both. I would do the smart thing and stay out of it. That's all I got to say. Must go. I'm gonna go see a girl." Spike grinned.
"Wait, Spike. Bring her back here. Just for a little while."
"What, will you let me use your office?" Spike laughed at Angel's remark.
"You know what I mean, Spike. This is something bigger. We need to know what to do about her, and the best way is learning from the source. So, go find her, and-"
"One step ahead of you, mate." Came a voice from the doorway of the office. Lex wiped the blood from her mouth. "'Lo, there, I'm Lex. Heard you lot might be looking for me."