Trick For Your Treats: A Maypole Dance Around Spike
October 31st, 1997
Part 11: Secrets & Shame
22-1/2
There is nothing to say.
Between master vampires, a glance, a snarl, can shatter a fragile truce, and stead allies can become enemies. The space of a pace separates them, and there is no doubting the sincerity of Spike's fear and rage. The genuine pheromones flood Angel's nose, provoking his demon to a reciprocal response.
Angel fought the instinctual urge to go to game face, desperate that this sudden hostility be mistaken. The brown paper bag clutched between Angel's fingers crunched conspicuously, and he almost dropped it, and then held it tighter. The bottle of aged double malt scotch that Angel purchased to celebrate Spike's newfound employment will make an effective weapon.
And yet, for whatever reason, Spike fails to launch the attack that he initiated, and Angel senses doubt.
"What brought this on?" Angel asked carefully, locking gazes with his grandchilde. He is calm and commanding, deliberately drawing on long dormant alpha skills in an attempt to stare Spike down. He holds the bottle ready, and yet it would be a shame to waste it. Just like it is a shame that he and Spike are suddenly at each other's throats.
"Angel?" Spike's voice is not steady. He has doubt – of what Angel has no clue – and clearly the blonde vampire is attempting to work something through in his head.
"That'd be me. What's wrong, Spike, finally losing your grip?" Angel cannot resist taking a verbal jibe regardless of the questionable wisdom. He too is suddenly scared and angry, and the confrontation unfolding reminds him too much of having to square off against Buffy at the Bronze following Darla's attack on Joyce.
Spike doesn't answer.
A pinched expression appeared on Angel's face, and the twinge behind his eyes signaled the birth of a headache. He exhaled in exasperation. Why why why, he wonders, Must every day in their cozy little nest be the stage for some new drama? He loves, he needs them, he craves their company. He should leave now, but they are family. It is blood that binds them.
Angel doesn't want this. He doesn't want to be forced to choose, and he doesn't want to fight his friends. For decades no one disturbed his drunken stupor until Whistler came along with his big mouth and bigger dreams, filling Angel's head full of things that he cannot have.
Damn Whistler, and damn Spike too…
"My toenails are painted plum," Drusilla announced, lifting her bare foot, arched for inspection.
"Very pretty," Angel complimented with an obliging glance at her toes. Spike remains frozen, in game face, locked in some internal battle.
He is surrounded by lunatics.
Is it somehow his fault?
"But they whose guilt within their bosoms lie Imagine every eye beholds their blame," Drusilla quoted with smug insolence. The look on his daughter's face makes Angel think that she is to blame for Spike's inane behavior.
Insanity weaves her lovely web.
Angel transferred his brooding stare to Drusilla who has named his shame aloud. While, technically, he's never raped either Lucrece or Spike, Drusilla was his demon's rapine feast. Certainly, Angelus' past encounters with young William were rough and violent, but they were both willing. At least, so he thought, though Spike's recent stinging rejection has given Angel reason to wonder whether his advances two centuries past were really welcome.
Drusilla stirs his cock the same as Spike. The same as Buffy. For a glimmering second, his demon surfaces, and Angel's eyes darken with hunger. Dru quivers and mewls in delight; then it is gone and she sobs for the loss.
"Buffy waylaid me again," Spike said. Angel looks back, and the blonde is no longer in game face.
"Wanted me to show her a couple tricks. I figured you'd be brassed off," Spike continues in what is clearly a lie. He is desperately trying to conceal the real reason for his reaction to Angel.
It's not that Angel doesn't believe Spike about having gotten into a scrape with Buffy, because the slayer's scent clings to him. Angel inhales a sharp whiff: a heady mix of adrenaline and violence, and the sweet stink of lust. Spike finds Buffy attractive, which really isn't news to Angel.
To his credit, over the course of the last month, Spike has made absolutely no attempt to contact the slayer. (All dates with Joyce aside.) And while Angel doesn't necessarily trust Spike to keep his fly zipped, the Irish vampire implicitly trusts Buffy. Angel's love for her is pure and consuming, a light that fills his heart with the most amazing sense of joy.
"Why would I angry?" Angel asked, deliberately reasonable even though, yeah, a part of him is pissed. Buffy is his girl. Their love is epic. Spike, of all people, cannot come between them.
"Buffy is unrelenting when she decides she wants something," Angel said calmly, adhering to logic as strictly as he can manage.
"Yeah?" Spike looked both cautious and relieved, like he can't quite believe his luck. "Force of nature, that girl is," he agrees tentatively.
"Yeah," Angel agreed, adopting a deliberately soothing tone, as if he's dealing with an unreasonable child, which is pretty much true.
Don't humor me, Ninny, Spike's wicked glare says, quite the ballsy feat considering how the blonde was just acting.
Another minute of considering silence decides it. They're okay.
Angel feels an indefinable tension easing from his shoulders and neck, which are tightly bunched into knots. The lingering thought that Spike might leave hasn't fully left his mind these last few days.
It leaves them with an awkward, so-what's-up reunion.
"Dru's nanny is missing. Found her alone when I got home," Spike finally volunteered. He and Angel trade a paranoid look. The nanny vampire is their guilty concession to Drusilla's need for female companionship, and their admission to the difficulty of caring for her.
If Nanny has killed some innocent person… The possibility weighs upon Angel's conscience the same as Spike, and they indulge a moment of mutual brooding, which causes Drusilla to whine out a protest.
"Sent her to pick me posies, I did," she declared, drawing a sigh of relief from Angel. He deliberately avoids looking at Spike, afraid that the blonde vampire will regurgitate one of the uncomfortable truths that are his talent.
Thankfully, Spike keeps his mouth shut. Who says that the punk vampire is incapable of diplomacy? Usually Angel, but this time even Spike has the sense to realize that the wrong words could cause irreparable damage to their dysfunctional little family.
"What's that?" Spike asks eventually, nodding toward the brown bag in Angel's hand.
"Oban," Angel declared, stripping the paper away from the bottle, holding it up for inspection. He holds it, a peace offering now instead of a celebratory gesture.
"Gonna open it?" Spike asks, expression knowing. They are milling about in the grip of uncertainty, unsure of what their next step should be.
There is still three hours left till sunrise, and Angel's skin is crawling. Claustrophobia. Confinement. The factory feels like a prison with its dark, echoing interior and constant humid stink.
"Yeah. Let's take a drive. Grab your car keys," Angel said, stooping to scoop Drusilla into his arms. She comes willingly, clinging to him with weak fingers. Needy and lovely, this dark child is his…
Spike cocks his head to the side, and fishes his car keys out of the pocket of his duster. He threads a finger through the ring, and holds them up, giving Angel the bird. "Wanna drive?"
Oh yes, they are both trying hard to make peace.
"Sure," Angel agrees, accepting the keys. He's got a destination in mind.
End Part 11.