Chapter Two, Token of My Appreciation
Disclaimer: (It hasn't changed; click to first or second section)
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Token of My Appreciation
Spike's paper ended curiously, but not so unintelligible that no one could follow.
'Maybe Alice had the write idea, falling down the rabbit hole. But the rabbit, poor bloke, seemed more a human in the way of life than anything comparitively animal, our confusing way of thought spun his head so loose that he needed to weight it to the chain of a pocket watch to keep it from falling off... Time controls all of our lives I suppose, for we only let ourselves see as big a picture as time will allow for the moment.'
That was something Angel and he had in common, animal instinct. With Spike it was 'Go! Go! Go!', and if it feels good, then do it god dammit. Angel, however had the prowess of a looming predator, patient as an aged cat with the eyes of a hawk. Patience, patience. For him, all of life was clock, and for Angel, in particular, he saw everyone's little clock. For Angel, he controlled that clock, and it was his exclusive and god-ordained right to rule over it. He had the knowledge that all things come to those who wait, and what goes around; comes around. He watched that clock, on which instead of numbers it had little events. He knew when your time would come, oh yes he knew, but he never jumped the gun. Never never never ever.
"Curioser and curiouser," Spike mused as he leaned back in his chair, letting the back to legs of it support his weight as he rested his feet on his desk.
"Hm." Angel said, uninterested from his bed. He had layed himself out comfortabley and was examining a large, thick, leather glove it would seem. He frowned at the scratches and gashes in the tough material, wondering how he would repair it. After all, it wasn't standard issue and it had been a bitch to buy.
Spike took Angel's mutter of response as the go ahead to show what he meant, "Maybe Alice had the right idea falling down the rabbit hole," he looked up hoping to see the smallest glimmer of amusement or interest on Angel's face, but was instead greeted by a glove flying at his face. It head head on, the hard buckles, straps, and hard torn pieces scratching face as he lost his balance in his chair and hit the ground.
"Don't start reading your poetry again," Angel snorted now looking out the window near his bed.
"Sod off! It wasn't poetry, if you had a mind at all you'd know that!" Spike was standing up painfully, glaring at Angel first who didn't respond, then at his own reflection. One of the buckles had cut deep into his left eyebrow, and was beginning to bubble with blood, veering past his eye and down the side of his face. "Jesus, Angel! Throw a knife next time!" He stumbled over the chair to get a better look at the wound in the mirror, he glanced up noticing that he hadn't cleaned the ink off from earlier that morning. "Mrrynddern Philosphy" was what it now read. "Fuck you." He muttered one hand running through his hair as a bad habit as he wondered how he would go about getting a bandaid or something. It hurt, it really did, his pride most of all. Angel hadn't listened at all probably, just noted he was using a dictating voice and decided he preferred the silence. I thought it was some bloody good work... He sighed as he wiped the blood from his eyebrow and, without anywhere else to put it, merely licked it off his finger.
"Don't go poutin' now," Angel almost laughed from the other side of the room, enjoying how he had tampered with time in his own special way. It would scar, a little mark on the clock of Spike's life, a little 'Angel Waz Here' in a corner of his mind every time he looked at his pretty face in the mirror. "Good aim, yea?" He had stood up and walked over to the vanity at which Spike pondered his wound. Spike said nothing, this only caused Angel to start laughing. Knowing that for Spike to stop talking for more than a minute he must be pissed as hell. Angel lived for cause and effect, he enjoyed to toy with people. He was a bad bad boy. He stuck his thumb in his mouth as he stood by Spike now, directly to the side of him in the mirror. Spike was his favorite at the time, for some reason it was he in particular whom he desired to effect the most. "Not much fun roomin with a baby, now is it?"
"You're the childish one!" Spike's temper finally broke, swinging to face him, blood trickling again from the wound. Angel removed his thumb from his mouth and pressed it on the end of the little stream and drug it up Spike's cheek to his gash, catching all the red that had been spilt. Spike froze, half grossed out and half just too surprised to react as Angel popped his thumb back in his mouth and plopped down on Spike's bed as a seat.
"It's mine anyway, I earned I think. Damn good shot."
"You... YOU! You're just SICK." Spike had lept back pressing one hand to his face wiping off where a bit of Angel's spit had stuck to his cheeks. "You're a freak!"
"Consider it a token of your appreciation." Angel was laughing hard now, "Hm?"
"Appreciation for WHAT?" Spike roared charging forward, aiming a punch at Angel's stomach, "Don't bloody rip a piece of my flesh off and act all casual!" Angel caught the punch barely but stood from where he had sat on Spike's bed to glare at his current enemy.
"You don't think I can take you?" Angel's dark eyes took him on, causing Spike's arm to lose a bit of strength in the grip. "You don't think I could dislocate your shoulder right now?" Angel's happy-go-lucky mood had taken a perverse and dark switch (not that it wasn't perverse before oo;)...
"I-" Spike began to say, still fierce, drawing back his other arm for a punch.
"Try me!" Angel spat pushing him back, Spike tripped back a few times before hitting the chair that he hadn't picked up earlier and fell over it.
Spike looked up, eyes filled with confusion and a tiny hint of curiosity.
Angel seemed a little affected by his expression and a casual smile reappeared on his face, "Sorry," he really meant it and you could tell by how quietly he said, "Have a sense of humour. Not right for one of us to fall on our arse and not laugh!" Spike forced a few chuckles out, but the look remained. Who the hell am I rooming with? "Stop," Angel said, a strange look on his face, "Just stop with the stupid looks already," he thrust out his hand for Spike to grab. Spike took it and stood up, wiping away the blood that had run anew down the side of his face.
"S'alright I guess, a little warning next time. Didn't know you had a short fuse n'all." Spike laughed, a grin once again on his face. It wasn't like him to dwell in his own past for very long. Even the cut had stopped hurting so it seemed to matter less that he wipe it clean every few seconds.
Angel joined with Spike's carefree laughter, his a little more forced. Eyes watching his recent pray with curiousity. Envious of Spike's ability to forgive and forget mayhap? But it was not in Angel's character to be envious, not in his character at all...
Spike fixed the chair, running a hand through his hair, once again reminded that there was still ink there, ink and blood. "Gotta get this cleaned up," he frowned, sitting down, not moving from the spot, "... Eventually." He looked in the mirror, yet again, "Bloody hell!" There was a line of red and black, the red turning pink, in his radioactive messy hair.
"Get it done on the way to class," Angel offered, walking to retrieve his tie from his wardrobe. There was a bit of scuffling in the room next door. "Oh dear... he's up." Spike made a frustrated groan from the desk.
"He means well..." Spike said helplessly, digging out a bit of pity for the geeky is not pathetic boy next door.
"Psshh." Angel ended that argument well enough with Spike grinning at his vanity.
"Alright alright, yea." He waved his hands over his head lazilly, one once again finding it's way through his bright blonde locks. Angel brushed through his hair quickly, it was long for a boy, just long enough to tie back into a low rat-tail with a bit of black ribbon, bow turned under the hair. Angel was a vain man and liked to look his best, project himself as it were, but he never excentuated something that wasn't there, he was not a fan of that. He knew he was good looking and did his best to flaunt it.
"Hm." Spike gazed at his own sloppy mess of slightly curly hair that had been disarrayed by his own hands many times during the morning. He usually brushed it all back and used what ever means necesarry to keep it like that, a slick gel look. But this morning he had nothing to give it that appearance and it fell in a sloppy mop about his face. Angel almost started laughing again when he saw Spike's own vanity show through for a moment. That's rare.
"Here," said Angel with a most serious look on his face as he walked over to Spike as if he might kill him at any moment. But instead he picked up a brush that had fallen on the floor by the desk and began to pull it through Spike's hair. It would have been awkward if Angel didn't have the 'if you move, god dammit, I'll kill ya' look on his face. That made it okay. I guess, Spike thought, still slightly upset by it. Angel, having mastered the art of styling his own hair, was able to style Spike's simply. Pulled back, and some bangs from the front fell forward, all the waves brushed out somehow by the 'magical' rounded brush.
"Wwwoooooowwww," came a muffled voice from somewhere and Spike jerked in his seat, standing up quickly, face turning red.
"Jesus!" he cried as he glared at where the wall, where the sound had come from. Angel too was quickly looking around the wall.
"ANDREW!" He cried at the top of his lungs. There was a yelp and crash from the other side of the wall.
"I thought we filled up all the holes he had drilled in the wall!" Spike excaimed, angered at the situation.
"Guess he got more, doesn't exactly respond to threats like a normal person." Angel growled.
"He's NOT NORMAL!"
"It's... It's for a story I'm writing! An Epic! A tale of two heros!... Creative writing, no uh PSYCHOLOGY!" Cried the muffled, high-pitched voice from the other side of the wall. There was a few short footsteps, the opening of a door, a few more and finally Andrew knocked on their door. Spike sighed gruffly and walked to the door, opening without sparing a glance to the visitor as he returned to his chair. "You see, it wasn't my fault this time. In fact the hole was there by accident, and I was doing as you said, covering them up with such astounding posters... Like," he paused for a moment, "Like a MOVIE poster. So I decided to put it up there and wouldn't you know it, I saw you and I just thought wow." Spike interjected...
"You said wow."
Andrew paused, looking for side to side momentarilly, "Well I had obviously hoped you had not heard me, but your wondrous ears are quite keen my friend, quite keen indeed." She licked his lips unassuredly, looking from Angel's face with it's confused but nonbelieving and unmoved face, to Spike with an 'Im trying really hard not to smile' look on his lips and one eye brow quirked high. Andrew sought for more, but found he was a lack in the way of 'really amazing' lies, "...Please don't kill me."
"We need to go to class," Spike spoke, as calmly as he could. "Not a word, Andrew."
"Not a word, Spike," Andrew smiled gleefully, almost fluttering in joy.
"And about the holes-" Angel said cautiously.
"Plaster! Yup. Got it allll taken care of. Smooth, like." He did a sweeping motion with his hands and a mini-boogie, "Real smooth."
"Andrew." Spike said, the laughter almost bubbling to the surface, his embarassment already evaporating into the morning.
"Right. Gone," he made a clicking noise with his mouth and pointed at the both, "Check ya later." Walking out the door and almost stumbling upon Headboy.
"Morning, Andrew, aren't we chipper today?" Andrew only nodding vigorously, visions of Spike with bows in his hair flaoting about recklessly in his head, Angel with brush in hand. "Musn't be late for class... Hurry along." Wesley pulled out a pocket watch and let his fingers count down from five.
"Late for-"
The bell rang as Wesley's fingers disappeared into a fist, and Wesley smiled satisfied with himself.
"Right on time, never misses a second, does she?" Wesley sighed.
"Almost like instinct there, like a snake, hunting down his prey! Except, not as... exciting," Andrew said, over-casually, "Yup, that's uh, pretty cool there Wes."
"That's Wesley," Wesley corrected, the same self-satisfied smirk across his face.
"Wesley." Andrew added nervously, "Well I'm gone," he started walking off before turning around and doing the click and point again, "Check ya later."
Wesley remained baffled, before shaking the image out of his mind, he turned to look back into Angel and Spike's dorm, only to find it bare. "Well... just as well, my scolding does little in the end for those children. It's a shame they do not listen to the voice of reason..."
A ways down the hall Spike and Angel laughed as they headed to their first class together.
"Hangon a sec," Angel said pausing, to submerse his thumb in water from the nearby water fountain, "You look retarded."
"Stop it!" Spike squirmed as Angel wiped away the ink, "I can do it MYSELF." Spike pushed him away.
"Hold still!"
"What are you, my mother?"
"What are you five?" There were a few heated moments of silence as Spike let the fountain spurt directly onto his forhead as he scrubbed it off.
"Did I get it all?" Spike shrugged, adjusting to the weight of his brown leather messenger-style backpack.
"Yea sure, come on. Darla might scold us," Angel smiled, not bothering to mention that Spike had missed the large streaks of pink and black in his hair.
"Darla." Spike said noncommental, but angry none the less. "MISS Darla." He pronounced loudly, ironically. "Missss Darla..."
"Shut up," Angel said rolling his eyes.
"Daaaarla." Spike began whispering as they exitted the dormhouse and headed towards the school buildings. "Darla Darla Darla DARLA. DARLA. darla. daaarla. D-d-darla! "
"I said SHUT UP," Angel barked.
"Make me!" Spike stuck his tongue out and started running.
Fin...De Chapitre Deux
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Chapter two is done! I appreciate my reviews, and dont worry there will be story and plot unfolding soon! Explanation POINT.
Lovies,
Zimmy
Once again, couldn't have done it without you Jessica!