Underneath the Grief - Part 5
The day after Wesley's wake, I had scheduled a meeting to get everyone on my team caught up with my plans. The scheduled time came and passed and no one was there. I dialed the phone next to me, yelling, "Harmony, where is everyone?"
"Not here," she whined.
"Well I know that. If anyone were here, I wouldn't be alone. Why am I alone?"
"Settle down, big guy," said Spike, striding into the room carrying a briefcase. "I'm just a little late." He looked around the room at all the empty chairs. "Or maybe I'm early?" He sat down in the chair on my left.
"Why do you have a briefcase?"
"Well I wanted to be prepared for my first official meeting loosely associated with..." He tilted his head and looked at me, one eyebrow raised. "Tell me we aren't Scoobies."
"We don't really..."
"Yeah, knowing you, you'd probably want to call us something poncey, like Angel's Avengers. For the best we remain nameless."
"Huh," I said, rolling the name around in my head. Angel's Avengers. Why didn't I think if that? Spike took a beer can out of his briefcase and cracked it open. I gave him a withering look, but he just smiled at me defiantly.
"Where's the rest of the crew?" he asked, sipping his beer and flipping open the agenda in front of him.
"Not here," was the only answer I could give him. Oh, I had my suspicions, but no confirmations where anyone had gone. As usual lately, Spike was the one at my side, annoying the crap out of me.
"Hey, bullet points!" he exclaimed, reading the assignments I had set out for everyone. "Classy." I stood from the conference table and went over to the window. Wesley was dead and I wondered what horror was coming next.
"Reconnaissance? Angel, why do I always have to do recon?" I sighed and returned to the table. "Why can't I get the good missions, like save the girl? Or save the jewel with the girl? I can be bloody useful!"
"Outside the bedroom?" I asked under my breath, but giving Spike a smile to reassure him it was a joke.
"Oi!" he yelled, keeping a straight face besides the crinkles at the edges of his eyes. "That's harassment, I'll have you know. Harmony made me watch the video and everything. I'm supposed to report this as a hostile work environment."
"Go right ahead."
"I can be bloody useful here. I'm really good to have in a fight, which I proved when I kicked your ass. And I get visions now."
"Have you had any since Fred?"
He looked at me, defiance and grief coloring his face. "No," he said softly.
I hadn't meant to call his worth into question, but the hurt look on his face told me that I had. "Sorry," I mumbled. He nodded in acknowledgment.
"So," Spike said, leaning back in his chair and throwing an arm behind his head, "What would this meeting be about if everyone else was here?"
"It was supposed to be about how the Senior Partners are planning something and I'd like to know what it is. And I'd like to know more about what they are."
"Gee," he said sardonically, "it's too bad we don't know anyone with a direct link to these Senior Partners."
"Eve," I said, pointing at him in recognition of his idea. "We know where she's holed up hiding from them."
"Yeah, so I'm thinkin' we go over there and beat the info out of her." We stood up at the same time and Spike led the way from the conference room.
"You know," I clapped a hand on his back, "sometimes I really like how you think." I was looking forward to kissing him in the elevator when Gunn joined us, spoiling my plans.
"Where we headed?" he asked.
"Gonna go beat some info out of Eve," I said as we boarded the elevator.
"Good. I was hoping it would be something fun."
When we got to Eve's apartment, she was sitting in the living room, surrounded by the painted runes that keep the big guys from finding her. Seeing us, she jumped up. "What are you doing here?" She was a lot less scared this time, and a lot angrier.
Angel stepped up to her, close enough that she had to look up at him. The git likes using his height to his advantage when he's talking to me, as well. "Hello, Eve."
"No," she said, crossing her arms in front of her. "Whatever it is you want, no. I'm done helping you!"
Gunn and I both stepped forward, flanking Angel and making Eve take a step back. "You can do whatever you want to me, nothing could be worse than what I've been through."
"You'd be surprised," muttered Angel under his breath. I've seen what Angelus is capable of, and if you get Angel mad enough, Angelus tends to creep to the surface. I know; I've done it plenty of times on purpose, yeah? Eve should be more careful around him. Everyone thinks he's tamed, that his soul will keep them safe. I know, just like me, Angel works very hard not to do horrible things to people just because he can.
"I've been trapped here for weeks! Like a –"
I cut her off, "Rat? Snake? Beady little rat snake?"
Gunn chuckled.
"You haven't been trapped, Eve," mocked Angel. "You've been hiding behind all these pretty symbols." He motioned to the runes that marked every surface. "And you know that if you step outside, the Senior Partners would find you. I don't know what they have planned for you, Eve," Angel stepped even further toward her, "but I can make just one phone call and find out."
"You wouldn't," she shivered.
"Wanna test that out, Barbie?" asked Gunn in his tough-guy-from-the-streets voice.
All of a sudden the whole place started rumbling. Hey, I thought, my first California earthquake! But then the symbols started disappearing from the walls like the rumbling was washing them away, erasing them.
"You bastard!" cried Eve, dropping her hands to her sides in panic. "You did this!"
Angel looked grim, "It wasn't us."
"Angel, if they find me, I'll die! Please, I'll tell you anything."
Angel nodded toward the window and I strode over there, throwing it open. It was only a one story drop, so I jumped out. Then Angel lowered Gunn and Eve to me before jumping out after us. As we ran off, I heard a door slam open in the apartment. Bastards were too late to catch us!
We piled in Angel's car, me and Eve in the back, Gunn riding shotgun and Angel driving, of course. As he drove, Angel spoke to Gunn. "Is there any way to put Eve under my protection?"
"Uh," Gunn stammered, something I'd never seen him do. He shook his head before he said. "Yeah. There's precedent."
"What do I have to do?"
Gunn had already pulled his phone from a pocket. "I'll make a call."
As we drove, I stared at the back of Angel's head. I had tried to ask him a question earlier, in the bathroom before Fred interrupted us. And now I couldn't get it off my mind. What was I to Angel? How did he feel about me? All I knew was that he liked fooling around with me, and really, who wouldn't? He let me sleep in his bed, but he didn't want his friends to know about us. Maybe it wasn't me he was ashamed of. Maybe he didn't want his friends knowing he wasn't quite the straight arrow they all thought he was. But really, with his fashion sense, how could they not know?
What was he to me? For the longest time after Darla kicked him out, I had just every now and then wondered and worried where he had gone. He was an old friend and rival with whom I'd lost touch. I had Drucilla, and Angelus was Darla's problem. Then, when I found out he had been given his soul, he became a villainous traitor, going back on everything he had taught me. Lost to the humans and his mewling guilt. And when I fell in love with Buffy, just as with Dru, he was the one that got there first, the one she actually loved. And when I was brought back in LA, he was the one with the money and the fancy digs and the friends and the mission. But over the past few months, I had come to see that he didn't really have all those things, not in any way that mattered. He was almost as alone as I was.
We were the same really, outcasts either due to acts of fate or extreme stupidity, in my case. Driven to try and do the right thing by souls our very existences rejected. When we spoke after I'd had my hands reattached, the conversation had gotten me thinking about how we were both 'innocent' victims once, and it was then that I started to really put myself in his shoes. I don't think I can ever fully understand him, but I can understand a little.
So now, in the moment, what was he to me? He had always been family; grandfather, father, brother, cousin. With vampire families it's perfectly acceptable, even encouraged, to sleep with your sire, but the ties are always closer than just lover. Angel had always felt more like my sire. Dru had given me life after death, but Angelus had taught me what it meant to be a vampire. We had been uneasy friends, even. Especially after those first few years when he stopped using Drucilla to toy with me.
Is that what we were again? Friends? Except for the flirting and the shagging, there wasn't much romance between us. But I was growing more and more fond of sharing his company. And there was this wanting, this need for him to accept me. There was this need for him to want me. But did he? It was safer just to be friends. Friends, then.
Did friends wonder what it was like to suck on each other's earlobes? I eyed the back of Angel's neck through the gap between his seat and the headrest. I wondered if he liked to be bitten there, at the nape of the neck with blunt human teeth, like I did. All sorts of fun images filtered through my mind after those first few thoughts.
Just as I was getting to the good part of thinking about what I was going to do to Angel later, he yelled at me, "Spike, stop it!"
"Stop what, mate?"
"You know what," he growled, making a right turn more sharply than necessary.
"What if I don't want to?" I willfully imagined bending him over the hood of the fancy sports car we were riding in, pounding into his arse as hard as I could without tearing him to pieces.
"Please?"
Gunn turned in his seat, frowning. "What are you doing?"
I held up my hands in surrender. "Nothin', I swear." I tried to look innocent, but that never works out for me very well. Eve, sitting next to me, gave me a funny look. See, no one believes my innocent face. I shot back at her a gaze full of lustful promises. That one I'm much better at. She scoffed and edged away from me, pressing herself into the car door. My demon still likes it when they're afraid.
PS. Niori, I hope you liked the send off I gave Wesley. Now will you forgive me for killing him? :-P