Chapter 21
Buffy walked out of the elevator with Gunn and Wesley right behind her. Fred walked up to them. "Oh! Hey! Did you talk to Spike?"
"We did." Buffy said.
"What'd he say?"
"Oh, you know.. stuff." They walked into her and Angel's office.
"Like what?"
"Apparently we're not good enough for him." Wesley said.
"Thinks we sold out." Gunn said.
"We didn't sell out. We're changing the system from the inside." Fred protested.
"You know, when you say it out loud, it sounds really naive." Buffy said, sitting down behind her desk.
"Well, shouldn't we tell Angel about this?"
"Tell him what? That Spike's hung out his shingle and is open for business in our town? I don't think he needs to hear it right now."
"It's not like we need to protect him. I mean, has anyone even heard from him today?"
"We're not going to bug him. He needs rest. I checked on him earlier and he was asleep. I don't want to wake him up. He gets very cranky if he gets waken up from a deep sleep."
***
Angel sat up in bed with a start. There was a piano playing in the background. He turned to see Lorne dressed up in old-west style, complete with suspenders and mustache. "Lorne?"
"Oh, round these parts, folks call me Honky-Tonk." Lorne spit into a spittoon. "Hey, why so down in the dumpster, partner? You look like you just had to put down your last puppy." Harmony, dressed like a waitress at the Copacabana, brought a drink to Lorne.
"I think.. I think I'm lost."
"Order a drink!"
"Everything hurts."
"Now you're gettin' it. Everything hurts, and then we die. Or in your case, everything hurts and.. then you go on.. and on.. and on.. and on."
"I don't know what to do."
"Why don't you give me an earful of them pretty pipes of yours? Let me suss it out. Well, sing out, Louise." Angel tried to sing, but only made faint squeaks. The room was eerily silent.
"I told you he was empty." Fred said. Angel looked over to see Buffy, Fred, Wesley, and Gunn sitting at a bar table watching him and Lorne.
"Yes, but this is ridiculous!" Wesley said. "We paid good money for this. We paid blood for this."
"Crowd's turning on ya, sport." Lorne said.
Gunn snarled, revealing his silvery cat-eyes as he hissed angrily at Angel. Eve walked up to the table where Buffy, Fred, Wes, and Gunn were sitting. She looked at Angel. "You poor thing. You're really suffering, aren't you?"
"You still got that thing on your shirt?" Lorne asked.
Angel looked down to see a blue slimy creature was on his chest, munching away. He put his left hand over it and pulled it off of his chest. The instant Angel pulled the creature off of his chest, he awoke with a fright. He was still holding the creature in his hand. It screeched and he squeezed it to death, still gasping from the pain.
"Wow. You killed junior." Angel turned to see Eve standing at his bedroom door holding a box.
"Eve?" Angel asked.
"I'm not here, Angel. You're dreaming. But don't worry. The dream's almost over." Eve opened the box, letting out a substantially larger blue creature of the same sort that was on Angel before.
Angel groaned and panted in his bed as Eve stood by, watching the melon- sized blue creature crawl up Angel's body. She smirked as she turned to walk away. He finally mustered the strength to knock the creature off the bed. "No!" Angel fell out of the other side of the bed and crawled painfully across the floor towards the desk. He reached for the phone, but couldn't reach. He tugged at the phone cord, pulling the phone off the hook, but fell over in exhaustion. The creature crawled on his chest.
Then, Angel was sitting outside in a sunny, grassy meadow in a comfy leather chair. "This is really nice." Angel turned to see Buffy walking up to him in a country sundress, her hair softly flowing around her face. Fred, Wesley, Gunn, Dawn, and Lorne were following close behind her.
"You can stay as long as you like. Stay forever." Wesley said.
Buffy sat on the chair's arm, beside Angel, and stroked the back of his head, playing with his hair. "No.. there's so much work to do."
"It's fine. We got it covered." Buffy said.
"But I'm not supposed to be here."
"No fighting, Angel. Time to let freedom ring. Let yourself go."
"But I'm not finished."
"You are if you want to be. It'll be fine. Great, actually. All you have to do is stop caring. Just.." Buffy threw her head back in a painful, screeching scream. "Aah!" The rest of the gang threw their heads up and screamed too.
***
Spike reached down, grabbing the blue creature on Angel's chest, pulling it off of him, and threw it across the room, smashing it into a wall and killing it. "That'll be a bitch of a clean-up."
"Spike?" Angel asked, looking up painfully.
"No need to thank me. Just helping the helpless." Spike said.
Angel groaned weakly on the floor, watching Spike leave. A few minutes later, Buffy ran upstairs and burst into the room. "Angel!?" She saw him laying on the floor. "Angel! Oh my God!" She fell down next to him and touched his cheek, laying his head in her lap. "Baby?"
He reached up and took her hand. "Hi."
"Hi." She kissed his forehead. "I'm sorry I wasn't here for you. I didn't know what was wrong. I just thought.."
"It's ok."
***
Wesley walked out of the bedroom, wiping his hands on a hand towel, addressing Angel, Buffy, Dawn, Fred, Gunn and Lorne in the living room. "It was a Selminth parasite. Its teeth inject an anesthetic, making the host oblivious to its presence. You'd never know you had it on you." Angel drank a glass of blood. "Pumps neurotoxins into the body causing paralysis, hallucinations, fever dreams."
Angel looked at Eve, who was standing behind Wesley. "It seemed.. real. All of it." He looked at Fred. "You were dissecting me, taking things out of me, and there was this..bear." Then Lorne. "You called yourself Honky- Tonk, tried to get me to sing, but.." Then Gunn. "You were big with the heckling."
"Uh, sorry." Gunn said.
"And Buffy.. You were with Spike.. A lot."
"Ew. As if." Buffy said. "I'm a one vampire kinda gal."
"So, if this parasite continued pumping its toxins into Angel.." Fred said.
"He would have been stuck in a permanent vegetative state." Wesley said.
"Well, good thing Spike swooped in and saved the day." Dawn said. "How did he even know you were in trouble?"
"Didn't say." Angel said.
"What I want to know is how that thing even got in here in the first place." Buffy said.
"We're checking the firm's storage facilities." Fred said. "It's possible that a specimen escaped or.."
Angel looked at Eve. "You. You brought it."
"Me?" Eve asked.
"You were here."
"I had a cameo in your little dream sequence? That's so sweet."
"You put the big one on me after I killed the other one."
"The other one?" Buffy asked. "Angel, sweetie, there was only one."
"No."
"Maybe you were confusing reality with your hallucinations?" Wesley suggested.
"Uh-uh." Angel stood. "Changed your clothes."
"Yeah. I do that sometimes.. after a long day." Eve said.
"But you didn't change your earrings. You were wearing those in my hallucination.. except.. I haven't seen you for days."
"I've worn them before. Hey, I can't be held responsible for how you dress me in your fantasies."
Buffy stood and walked over to Eve. "Keep dreaming Psycho Skipper. One: Angel's fantasies are reserved for one gal and you're not her. Two: You did change your clothes. And three: I've never seen those earrings before today. I'm pretty good at remembering stuff like that."
"What is it exactly you think I.."
"Don't know, Eve." Angel said. "But I'm pretty sure the senior partners didn't give Buffy and I the reins to their law firm just to turn me into a vegetable. Playing your own game here? What do you think the partners'll do to you after they find out about your little extracurricular activities?"
"So things aren't going your way, and you're looking for someone outside your little circle to blame." Eve walked to the elevator. "Here's a thought. Maybe you should try looking inward.. Unless you don't like what you see." The elevator doors closed.
Buffy and Angel stared angrily after Eve as she left. The others stared suspiciously at her. After a minute, Buffy turned to the others. "I don't know about you guys, but this has been one hell of a day. I vote R and R, how about you?"
"Fine with me." Dawn said.
"Anyone hungry for Italian?" Fred asked.
"Oh me! Can I go with Fred, Buffy?"
Buffy looked at Angel. He smiled slightly. "Go ahead. It's ok with me."
"It's cool with me too." Buffy said. She whispered in Angel's ear, "More alone time for us."
He smiled as everyone filed out of the penthouse. Buffy sat him down on the couch and straddled his lap. She opened his shirt and looked down at the wound that the parasite thing had left. "How's it look, doc?" Angel asked.
"I give it a few hours and you'll be good as new." She kissed him gently.
"So, what was it like running Wolfram and Hart with no help?"
"You know, I could get used to it." She held a straight face, but then cracked and smiled. "My God, I never want you to get sick or die because it's a lot of work being C.E.O. and having a whole other department to run on top of that."
"I'll try not to get sucked on by any other thing except you."
"At least my drugs are ones that won't kill you."
"They might if you tease me too long."
"Then I'll try not to." She kissed him tenderly. "It's good that we can keep the romance in our lives with everything going on around us."
He brought her head back down and kissed her passionately. "It's good that you're not doing this with Spike."
"I was really with Spike in your freaky hallucinations?" He nodded. "That's so gross. I was only with him like that once. And just for the record, I do regret that. It was a low point and he just happened to be there.."
"Buffy, I don't care. I've got you now and I'm 100 percent sure that you're mine and no one else's."
"Well, there is Johnny Depp.."
"Oh, well he's ok."
Buffy laughed and kissed Angel again, holding onto her husband tighter as he laid them down on the couch.
Buffy walked out of the elevator with Gunn and Wesley right behind her. Fred walked up to them. "Oh! Hey! Did you talk to Spike?"
"We did." Buffy said.
"What'd he say?"
"Oh, you know.. stuff." They walked into her and Angel's office.
"Like what?"
"Apparently we're not good enough for him." Wesley said.
"Thinks we sold out." Gunn said.
"We didn't sell out. We're changing the system from the inside." Fred protested.
"You know, when you say it out loud, it sounds really naive." Buffy said, sitting down behind her desk.
"Well, shouldn't we tell Angel about this?"
"Tell him what? That Spike's hung out his shingle and is open for business in our town? I don't think he needs to hear it right now."
"It's not like we need to protect him. I mean, has anyone even heard from him today?"
"We're not going to bug him. He needs rest. I checked on him earlier and he was asleep. I don't want to wake him up. He gets very cranky if he gets waken up from a deep sleep."
***
Angel sat up in bed with a start. There was a piano playing in the background. He turned to see Lorne dressed up in old-west style, complete with suspenders and mustache. "Lorne?"
"Oh, round these parts, folks call me Honky-Tonk." Lorne spit into a spittoon. "Hey, why so down in the dumpster, partner? You look like you just had to put down your last puppy." Harmony, dressed like a waitress at the Copacabana, brought a drink to Lorne.
"I think.. I think I'm lost."
"Order a drink!"
"Everything hurts."
"Now you're gettin' it. Everything hurts, and then we die. Or in your case, everything hurts and.. then you go on.. and on.. and on.. and on."
"I don't know what to do."
"Why don't you give me an earful of them pretty pipes of yours? Let me suss it out. Well, sing out, Louise." Angel tried to sing, but only made faint squeaks. The room was eerily silent.
"I told you he was empty." Fred said. Angel looked over to see Buffy, Fred, Wesley, and Gunn sitting at a bar table watching him and Lorne.
"Yes, but this is ridiculous!" Wesley said. "We paid good money for this. We paid blood for this."
"Crowd's turning on ya, sport." Lorne said.
Gunn snarled, revealing his silvery cat-eyes as he hissed angrily at Angel. Eve walked up to the table where Buffy, Fred, Wes, and Gunn were sitting. She looked at Angel. "You poor thing. You're really suffering, aren't you?"
"You still got that thing on your shirt?" Lorne asked.
Angel looked down to see a blue slimy creature was on his chest, munching away. He put his left hand over it and pulled it off of his chest. The instant Angel pulled the creature off of his chest, he awoke with a fright. He was still holding the creature in his hand. It screeched and he squeezed it to death, still gasping from the pain.
"Wow. You killed junior." Angel turned to see Eve standing at his bedroom door holding a box.
"Eve?" Angel asked.
"I'm not here, Angel. You're dreaming. But don't worry. The dream's almost over." Eve opened the box, letting out a substantially larger blue creature of the same sort that was on Angel before.
Angel groaned and panted in his bed as Eve stood by, watching the melon- sized blue creature crawl up Angel's body. She smirked as she turned to walk away. He finally mustered the strength to knock the creature off the bed. "No!" Angel fell out of the other side of the bed and crawled painfully across the floor towards the desk. He reached for the phone, but couldn't reach. He tugged at the phone cord, pulling the phone off the hook, but fell over in exhaustion. The creature crawled on his chest.
Then, Angel was sitting outside in a sunny, grassy meadow in a comfy leather chair. "This is really nice." Angel turned to see Buffy walking up to him in a country sundress, her hair softly flowing around her face. Fred, Wesley, Gunn, Dawn, and Lorne were following close behind her.
"You can stay as long as you like. Stay forever." Wesley said.
Buffy sat on the chair's arm, beside Angel, and stroked the back of his head, playing with his hair. "No.. there's so much work to do."
"It's fine. We got it covered." Buffy said.
"But I'm not supposed to be here."
"No fighting, Angel. Time to let freedom ring. Let yourself go."
"But I'm not finished."
"You are if you want to be. It'll be fine. Great, actually. All you have to do is stop caring. Just.." Buffy threw her head back in a painful, screeching scream. "Aah!" The rest of the gang threw their heads up and screamed too.
***
Spike reached down, grabbing the blue creature on Angel's chest, pulling it off of him, and threw it across the room, smashing it into a wall and killing it. "That'll be a bitch of a clean-up."
"Spike?" Angel asked, looking up painfully.
"No need to thank me. Just helping the helpless." Spike said.
Angel groaned weakly on the floor, watching Spike leave. A few minutes later, Buffy ran upstairs and burst into the room. "Angel!?" She saw him laying on the floor. "Angel! Oh my God!" She fell down next to him and touched his cheek, laying his head in her lap. "Baby?"
He reached up and took her hand. "Hi."
"Hi." She kissed his forehead. "I'm sorry I wasn't here for you. I didn't know what was wrong. I just thought.."
"It's ok."
***
Wesley walked out of the bedroom, wiping his hands on a hand towel, addressing Angel, Buffy, Dawn, Fred, Gunn and Lorne in the living room. "It was a Selminth parasite. Its teeth inject an anesthetic, making the host oblivious to its presence. You'd never know you had it on you." Angel drank a glass of blood. "Pumps neurotoxins into the body causing paralysis, hallucinations, fever dreams."
Angel looked at Eve, who was standing behind Wesley. "It seemed.. real. All of it." He looked at Fred. "You were dissecting me, taking things out of me, and there was this..bear." Then Lorne. "You called yourself Honky- Tonk, tried to get me to sing, but.." Then Gunn. "You were big with the heckling."
"Uh, sorry." Gunn said.
"And Buffy.. You were with Spike.. A lot."
"Ew. As if." Buffy said. "I'm a one vampire kinda gal."
"So, if this parasite continued pumping its toxins into Angel.." Fred said.
"He would have been stuck in a permanent vegetative state." Wesley said.
"Well, good thing Spike swooped in and saved the day." Dawn said. "How did he even know you were in trouble?"
"Didn't say." Angel said.
"What I want to know is how that thing even got in here in the first place." Buffy said.
"We're checking the firm's storage facilities." Fred said. "It's possible that a specimen escaped or.."
Angel looked at Eve. "You. You brought it."
"Me?" Eve asked.
"You were here."
"I had a cameo in your little dream sequence? That's so sweet."
"You put the big one on me after I killed the other one."
"The other one?" Buffy asked. "Angel, sweetie, there was only one."
"No."
"Maybe you were confusing reality with your hallucinations?" Wesley suggested.
"Uh-uh." Angel stood. "Changed your clothes."
"Yeah. I do that sometimes.. after a long day." Eve said.
"But you didn't change your earrings. You were wearing those in my hallucination.. except.. I haven't seen you for days."
"I've worn them before. Hey, I can't be held responsible for how you dress me in your fantasies."
Buffy stood and walked over to Eve. "Keep dreaming Psycho Skipper. One: Angel's fantasies are reserved for one gal and you're not her. Two: You did change your clothes. And three: I've never seen those earrings before today. I'm pretty good at remembering stuff like that."
"What is it exactly you think I.."
"Don't know, Eve." Angel said. "But I'm pretty sure the senior partners didn't give Buffy and I the reins to their law firm just to turn me into a vegetable. Playing your own game here? What do you think the partners'll do to you after they find out about your little extracurricular activities?"
"So things aren't going your way, and you're looking for someone outside your little circle to blame." Eve walked to the elevator. "Here's a thought. Maybe you should try looking inward.. Unless you don't like what you see." The elevator doors closed.
Buffy and Angel stared angrily after Eve as she left. The others stared suspiciously at her. After a minute, Buffy turned to the others. "I don't know about you guys, but this has been one hell of a day. I vote R and R, how about you?"
"Fine with me." Dawn said.
"Anyone hungry for Italian?" Fred asked.
"Oh me! Can I go with Fred, Buffy?"
Buffy looked at Angel. He smiled slightly. "Go ahead. It's ok with me."
"It's cool with me too." Buffy said. She whispered in Angel's ear, "More alone time for us."
He smiled as everyone filed out of the penthouse. Buffy sat him down on the couch and straddled his lap. She opened his shirt and looked down at the wound that the parasite thing had left. "How's it look, doc?" Angel asked.
"I give it a few hours and you'll be good as new." She kissed him gently.
"So, what was it like running Wolfram and Hart with no help?"
"You know, I could get used to it." She held a straight face, but then cracked and smiled. "My God, I never want you to get sick or die because it's a lot of work being C.E.O. and having a whole other department to run on top of that."
"I'll try not to get sucked on by any other thing except you."
"At least my drugs are ones that won't kill you."
"They might if you tease me too long."
"Then I'll try not to." She kissed him tenderly. "It's good that we can keep the romance in our lives with everything going on around us."
He brought her head back down and kissed her passionately. "It's good that you're not doing this with Spike."
"I was really with Spike in your freaky hallucinations?" He nodded. "That's so gross. I was only with him like that once. And just for the record, I do regret that. It was a low point and he just happened to be there.."
"Buffy, I don't care. I've got you now and I'm 100 percent sure that you're mine and no one else's."
"Well, there is Johnny Depp.."
"Oh, well he's ok."
Buffy laughed and kissed Angel again, holding onto her husband tighter as he laid them down on the couch.