Disclaimer: All the BTVS characters are owned by Fox and Joss Whedon, who is great except for the fact that his show Firefly kicked Dark Angel off the air L . Please do not sue.
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"Oooooh Yeahhhhh."
Fred looked over the landing into the entrance of the Hyperion at the singer who was just finishing the last two notes of "It's a Wonderful World". She hurried back down the hallway to the room that Lorne had claimed, since his place was still too charred to live in.
"Lorne I think a friend of yours is here"
Lorne looked away from the mirror in which he had been admiring his new eggplant purple suit. "A friend of mine?"
"Well, he's singing, wearing a sky blue suit with a red shirt and isn't exactly human so I think so." Lorne glanced once more in the mirror and headed downstairs, hoping it wasn't someone with an urgent problem, the others were out on another of Cordy's vision quests, though they should be back soon the wasn't exactly cut out for heroics and Fred was needed to take care of the munchkin. As he walked down the stairs though he realized that it wasn't someone in need of help but that he might be soon.
"Sweet, buddy what are you doing here." Lorne moved forward arms outstretched. The two greeted and the red demon laughed at Lorne's expression.
"I wasn't called up so you don't need to leave town, just passing through on my way back home." Sweet draped himself in one of the overstuffed chairs. "What's been going on. I swung by your place and there was nothing but cinders, I got clued in that you were livin' here. Nice joint by the way."
"The decor is your style, isn't it."
"That it is."
"Lorne you wouldn't believe the fight…" Angel's voice trailed off as he and the others strode through the doors looking slightly worse for wear. "are you in need of help?" Angel doubted it, the demon looked to relaxed.
"Just swinging by the visit a friend." The demon's eyes widened as he studied the Angel, "another vampire working with humans. I haven't been gone that long."
"From the look of that suit.." Angel managed to silence Cordy before she could finish that thought. Luckily the demon did appear to have noticed.
"Uh Guys this is Sweet, he's an old friend rules a Hell dimension and is a fabulous singer, always brought the place down when he sang at Caritos.
"That's nice, what's he doing here" Gunn had yet to put his ax down.
"Just passing through. Thank Goodness, if he had been called up I would have been out of here faster than Madonna at a Laura Ashley show."
"Oh, I'm afraid I don't recognize you, what is it your summoned to do?" Wesley peered at Sweet, the demon had a similar style of dress to Lorne but they were obviously very dissimilar races.
"Where I go the music follows." Sweet waved his hand negligently in the air.
"What he means to say it that when he's called up everyone has the sudden urge to sing about everything, all of their secrets laid out in musical form."
"So everyone sings." Fred walked down the stairs holding a newly wakened Conner.
"Not just sings, darling, dances, harmonies and sends out hundreds of thoughts for me to read. Not even a boat load of Sea breezes could cure me of the headache I had after I experienced that musical extravaganza." Lorne shuddered at the memory of it.
"Hey how's my baby. Have a good nap." Angle cooed over the Conner but didn't pick him up due to the fact he was still partially covered in demon guts.
"What is the jive with vampires, working with humans, cooing over a baby, saving a slayer." At this last remark Angel, Cordy and Wesley's heads shot over to Sweet.
"Saving a slayer?" Cordy asked
"I was just summoned at the Hellmouth, great place by the way, everyone so willing to go with the flow. Anyhow I found the girl who was wearing my talisman and had my guys grab her, the normal queen deal."
"Queen deal." Fred looked at Lorne
"The woman who summons Sweet is normally taken back to his Hell dimension as his queen, it a very popular tradition."
"Any way. This one was a real looker, young long brown hair, great voice and not a half bad dancer so I laid the plan on her and she kept insisting that she hadn't summoned me. Then she mentions that her sister is the slayer. So I send out on of my flunkies to tell the slayer that I have her sis. Wanted to see the slayer burn."
"Burn." Wesley's voice was taunt and he could see the strain on the faces of Angel and Cordy.
"If the singer goes on to long they eventually combust from the dancing." Lorne looked over at the others for their reaction to this information. Gunn and Fred looked disgusted but the others looked like they were trying to contain something inside themselves.
"So the slayer makes a great entrance kicking down the door. First she argued saying that if she couldn't kill me she would go to my kingdom in her sister's place. Of course I asked what if I killed her and she said it would do any good. So she starts to sing and let me tell you she had a set of pipes. Her friends run in just in time to add in the backup voices. But then the really interesting thing happened she started singing about life and death and how at the end you finish but that she wasn't able to. Turns out she dies and her friends brought her back only they tore her out of heaven to bring her back to earth. That she had been happy and they had destroyed it all. So its obvious that none of the friends knew this; she must have been hiding it from them and then the dance starts and she's not even fighting it, instead she's just letting herself burn and when's she's just steps away from combusting he stops her."
"Who?" Angel demanded
"A vampire, heard the whole confession and was the only one who didn't freeze, managed to say the right things to stabilize her. He had to have known about the whole heaven thing before she sang about it. Anyhow so this vampire who has the whole protective thing happening with the slayer looks like he's about to kill me, when I say that I'll be leaving with the slayers's sis, as is traditional. This witch there starts sending out some majorly powerful vibes so I figure I should hurry things along. Then the sis says that she just picked up the talisman she never actually summoned me, so one of the others, a young guy with a strange dress style says that he did. So I wave the whole making the summoned my queen thing and take off. But weird thing I could swear that the vampire was in love with the slayer. What is going on I ask you." Sweet looked over at the group for an answer and noticed that three of them looked completely ridged. "Well I gotta run Hell Kingdoms don't run themselves you know. Lorne give me a chant when you reopen Cartios you always find bartenders who can make fabulous martinis. Chio." Sweet disappeared into a flash of light leaving a shell-shocked Angel Investigation team.
"Did I hear that dude right, there's another vampire out there fighting on the side of good." Gunn questioned.
"Spike."
"Spike, you mean Billy Idol wannabe I'm going to kill the slayer Spike." Cordy looked skeptical
"Spike was always fascinated by Slayers and now…."
"Willow mentioned that Spike had a chip implanted in his head to stop him from harming humans, but to go from not harming humans to loving the slayer is.." Wesley broke off suddenly realizing what he was saying.
"Spike's there, he can fight demons and from the sounds of it Buffy starting to lean on him for support."
"It doesn't make sense, why lean on Spike, when she has all of the scoobies there."
"Because they were the ones who snatched her out of heaven, Spike didn't." Angel looked out the door as he felt Cordy's hand rest lightly on his arm.
"You could go there." He looked at her, at the woman who had become a demon to help him fight the fight, who had changed so radically from the self absorbed high school queen that she was when he first met her.
"No, if they need me they'll call. I don't understand what's going on there and I would probably understand it even less is I went there. This is home now." As Angel looked about him he realized the truth of that statement. Back in Sunnydale he was just accepted by the group as a powerful ally not as a member of the family that Buffy, Willow, Xander and Giles had formed. Now here he was no longer the outsider instead he was part of the family. A family that included his son and a woman that he was falling in love with. There would always be a part of him that loved Buffy, but there was another part of him that realized that who he was when he had left Buffy was far from who he was now. And perhaps that even if he had the choice he wouldn't go back to her, because they where two different people who had traveled to Heaven and Hell and both come back to make a new life and find a new love.
"Well unlike the rest of you, I'm gonna get these demon guts off me and order some dinner." Gunn tossed his ax on the floor.
"Could we get taco's"
"We've had tacos the last two night, lets branch out, how about pizza."
"I vote for Chinese."
"What about Indian?"
Angel smiled. Spike might have taken his old place in Sunnydale but he himself was happier where he was now.