Victimized | Chapter Five
A Buffy the Vampire Slayer/ Angel the Series Fanfiction by Majokai Yukiko
Pairing: Angel/Spike, Angelus/William
Warning: Slash. Blood play.
Spoilers: All the way up to Angel Season 5: Damage.
This is an amateur effort and does not intend to infringe on the rights of Joss Whedon, WB, and their associates.
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The door was not locked when Angel arrived. It was as if the owner of the apartment had deliberately left it that way, daring him. Angel frowned. The apartment was silent.
Allowing himself this small weakness, Angel prayed that his childe would not be in, that he could delay, as much as possible, the inevitable death of the last remaining memory from his past. Poetic justice, wasn't it? Like what Spike had said before, this was the circle of death.
The vampire took a deep breath and stepped, uninvited, over the threshold.
The drive over had given Angel time to think. Did the loss of his memories also cause Spike to lose his soul? This was what had been haunting Angel since he saw the cryptic message the other vampire had left for him. The thing was, with Spike, it was always hard to tell. Those azure eyes always betrayed more emotions than a demon should have. It was as if William Bradford had never lost his soul at all. Angel could remember clearly the times his unsouled self had given William the beating of his unlife, wanting to beat the humanity out of him and create a perfect vicious demon. He succeeded.
However, though his dead heart soared with paternal pride the night he found William home with the blood of London's East End on him, another part of him mourned the loss of the God-fearing poet who had shed tears for every life lost, regardless of how small or insignificant it might seemed to be.
***
London, 1879
A loud shrill scream interrupted the musicians in their playing almost instantly. The guests looked at one another in shock and rushed into the one of the many rooms in the mansion when their hostess screamed again.
A dead body, one of the kitchen helps was found laid out on the hostess' bed, hands folded neatly across her abdomen as if an undertaker had already attended to her and readied her for a funeral.
At the back of the room, behind the crowd that had gathered, Angelus watched in morbid amusement how some of the fine ladies had fainted at the sight. The men were not much better, as they struggled to keep their dinner in, making the sign of the cross repeatedly.
Only one man, the vampire noticed, had stepped forward, and knelt down on the floor beside the bed, taking one of the cold dead hands in his warm ones. The mortal was afraid, beads of sweat forming on his forehead, his heart beating rapidly as he reached out and nudged her head a little, gasping at the two neat puncture holes across her jugular.
"Oh my God," the blonde man whispered, and then he looked up, across the room, straight into the dark brown eyes of the Scourge of Europe. At that moment, William thought he was looking at an angel who had come to take this girl's soul away to heaven.
He rubbed his eyes a little, and then blinked. The man was gone.
***
Sunnydale, 1998
"You look like prey."
Spike looked up to smile through long white-blonde bangs. Ducking his head shyly to the side—one human trait he had for some reason unable to get red of whenever Angelus was around—he whispered, "Can't have the Slayer interrupting my chat with Gramps, can I?"
Angel could not help but return that smile. Dressed primly in his cream, well-pressed shirt and tailored pinstriped pants, neatly trimmed and unpolished nails, wire-framed glasses perched on the bridge of that ivory nose, Spike became William again. The master vampire made ruthless by years of tough, unguided survival was now tucked behind the façade of the sweet poet who had made even Angelus want to learn to love.
"Will, take Dru and leave. You are—" Spike jerked back in shock.
"What?" Angel asked, frowning in confusion.
"You never called me 'Will'. William, Willie, boy, Spike, or even Spikey, but not Will. Never Will.
So why did it feel so familiar and yet painful at the same time?
Cerulean eyes met chocolate brown ones. A sudden longing welled up in Spike, an urge to fall into those strong arms like a fairytale princess, wishing that he had never left that embrace.
Left?! I was never there in the first place!
Angel looked away ruefully. The moment had passed. Spike closed his eyes and gritted his teeth. When he spoke again, his voice sounded more like a choked sob than anything else.
"You're right," he ripped his glasses off his nose and threw them onto the floor angrily, "things changed." Spike ran his fingers through his hair, spiking it up slightly, and crushed that fragile piece of wire and glass under his boots almost casually. "You are not my Sire, just a bloody wall between me and my hat trick of Slayers.
"Nor am I your childe," the blonde vampire stared squarely into the other vampire's eyes.
"I'm just another enemy to be fooled."
***
Angel found Spike further in the apartment, lying facedown on the couch in front of the television. Almost empty bottles of Jack Daniels lay at his feet, spilling the foul liquid onto the cold tiled floor. He shook his head disapprovingly, with just a little concern and kicked the bottles away, careful not to get the end of his pants dirty.
Spike did not look so frightening now. If not for the corpse that was now on its way to the mortuary, Angel would never have thought things changed. However they had. Sometimes, it was just beyond anybody's control, immortals included.
The dark vampire froze when his youngest childe sighed a little in his sleep and turned over, a contented smile on his face. Fingering the stake in his pocket, Angel finally took a deep breath and held out the pointed piece of wood, holding it above the bare chest, where the dead heart was. His hands shook.
He had to do this. Spike had lost his memories, and together with it, his soul. He was a champion, and being that did not leave him the choice of choosing a murderer over the rest of the world.
Whispering a 'sorry' under his breath, Angel lifted his hand and plunged the stake down in one swift movement, sending them both into a spiraling darkness.
Back in his office at Wolfram and Hart, Wesley swore under his breath. Beside him, Fred looked up, shock and concern on her beautiful face.
"Why do I think that's not too good?"
The Englishman gave her a grim smile but said nothing. There wasn't anything they could do now to help Angel. Wesley only hoped the vampire had the strength of mind to survive this himself, and bring both of them back safe and sound.
***
"So what you are trying to say is that there's a curse cast on those fluffy pills?" Lorne asked, a look of utter confusion on his face. Wesley nodded.
"Those are very powerful hallucinogens. Mixed with the spell, it is even able to affect those that come into close contact with the victim."
"Wait," Gunn held up his hand, calling a halt. "What exactly does this all powerful spell do?"
"That's exactly the problem," Fred replied helplessly. "We don't know."
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+End of Chapter Five+
+Continue to Chapter Six+