Title: Dear Boy
Writer: Azure K Mello
Part: (11/?)
Rest can be found here: for all the feedback!! And sorry for the bloody long wait.
Challenge/plot bunny by Angela (who is patient), who wanted chipped Spike interacting with human Darla and for Angel to swoop in playing our golden boy's brooding knight!
Not Beta-ed
Setting: After Angel's Untouched and set during Buffy's Crush which has been moved up in the time line as Dru went straight to Sunnydale and was never in LA.
Rated R
Angel kissed Spike's forehead and drank the glass of blood while watching his sleeping boy. Vampires had a tendency to look dead while they slept. But Spike never had. Sucking his thumb, turning over, talking, and on one memorable occasion nearly sleep walking into a day lit street Spike was never still for long enough to seem lifeless. Angel smiled and went into the bathroom again. Filling the huge, insulated ice bucket with hot water he placed it by the bed with the last of the human blood warming in it. A short note ordered Spike not to get out of bed, to drink the blood, and to try and go back to sleep. They had run out of blood amazingly quickly. He had written that he would be back in a half hour and put the time at the bottom of the note knowing of Spike's fear of abandonment. After pulling the blankets up to Spike's chin Angel left.
None of the horrors he had seen earlier in the night had prepared him for what he saw in the stairway. Darla didn't see him, she had her back to him. Only human, she didn't sense his presence. He hadn't thought she would be stupid enough to hang around. The pulse within her body made him feel ill. Already he had planned out dozens of death scenes for her. They all seemed too kind now. Maybe he would turn her, she would last longer as a vamp. From her stance he could tell that she had no idea that he and Spike were in the building but he was still glad that the door had two locks on it. He silently sidled back up the stairs and took the elevator instead. The sky was becoming dangerously light and so he took the sewers to Willy's. The barkeep gave him an odd look when he ordered yet more blood and a box of salt but Angel offered no explanation. He wouldn't give the snitch anything to sell.
The room was silent when Angel walked back in. Spike had moved slightly and all the blood had been drunk. Angel could see tear stains on the note he had left. Spike hadn't expected him to come back. Guilt swept over the dark vampire. The hotel fridge easily held the large containers of blood, he smiled and felt domestic somehow. He slipped out of his shoes and laid down next to Spike. Fingers swept through white hair as Angel said softly, "Will, wake up." Blue eyes opened filled with confusion, "You drank the blood I left. Good boy."
"You came back?"
"I'm not leaving you. Told you that all ready. I just went to get more blood."
"Thank you for not leaving, I was trying to figure out how I was going to run meself a bath."
Sighing Angel said, "There's no need." Spike's wounds were healing quickly, Angel liked watching the process it comforted him, "I'm right by your side. But I'll go run you a bath, I'll be right in the next room. Call me if you want me."
"I think I can deal with you being in the loo." Spike rolled his eyes but Angel still squeezed his hand reassuringly as he got up. He saw that Spike's ear had pretty much grown back as the boy had slept. His fingers were mending slowly. And his eyelids were still missing but the wounds looked as though they would soon knit themselves together and regenerate. "I think I can walk again."
"Good!" Angel laughed slightly as he was jarred from his thoughts.
He ran the bath warm, not hot. And he poured the some of the canister of salt into the bath tub, just enough so that he could taste it. Centuries of wounds had taught him that almost anything could be cured with a saline bath. Spike had been lying on that dirty floor for at least 48 hours. His flesh was dead but that didn't mean that he couldn't get an infection of sorts. Angel had seen a master vampire die from a scratch that had gotten some holy water into itself. The master had not cleaned it properly. Two weeks later he died of a mystical form of septicemia. Angel was going to risk it; he had no idea what was living on the floor of Spike's crypt.
As he entered the bedroom he saw Spike standing and taking small, halting steps towards the bathroom. He surged forward to help but Spike held a hand out in front of himself. "I want to do this meself, let me." Angel nodded but stayed close to catch him if need be. Spike smiled as he entered the lavatory, his sense of smell had picked up the faint traces of salt in the air, "A saline bath? You're Florence Bloody Nightingale!" He looked expectantly at Angel, "Am I allowed some privacy?"
"You can't undress yourself," the old vampire said simply.
"I can do whatever I blood well- oh." Spike looked down at his ruined hands. "I see. . . I don't really need a bath." He suddenly felt extremely awkward in front of his sire, even though the man had been setting his bare wounds only hours before. He had come down from his high, after being starved for so long he had become euphoric after drinking so much blood. He had gotten too emotional, said things he shouldn't have.
Angel had to stop himself from laughing, the boy was filthy. "Don't be daft. You need a bath. It's not as though I'll see anything new. It's me," he realized that perhaps that wasn't the best reassurance, "I won't hurt you, I'll barely touch you, I'll just get you undressed and wash you hair and wounds. Ok? Nothing funny. I won't. . . touch you."
With a small nod Spike looked away. He wanted to slip away, if only into his own mind. Didn't want to see Angel watching him. Didn't want to see Angel's disgusted. Didn't want to see how bad his wounds truly were. Ashamed of his weakness he didn't want Angel to see him so broken. He sunk into memories, dances, poetry, murder, sex, picnics, clubbing, LSD, Angelus, Angelus' hands, times when Darla was gone and. . . he broke that line of thought quickly. Hot Chocolate, weetabix, the Sex Pistols, slayers, killing slayers, souls, electrical chips, fish and chips, consumption, death, Cecily.
A sudden voice broke into his reverie, "Look at me, Spike." He didn't move, "William, look at my eyes and nowhere else."
Spike looked up and saw nothing but love and kindness in those eyes. Something inside him melted as he felt Angel's fingers flutter over his open wounds and he said softly, in a broken voice, "I'm sorry for failing you, Sire. I should have been stronger, fought harder. I'm sorry, Angel."
Shock swept over the older vampire. Had Spike really just called him sire while cognizant of the fact that he was Angel? Not Angelus?
