Dear Boy
by Soledad Cartwright
A ''Pathways in the Dark'' short story. Follows ''Firt Blood''.
Storyline: ''Old Bond Re-instated'' (Angel/Spike)
It happens immediately after the 4th season Buffy-episode ''Primeval''.
Disclamer: Most of the characters in this story belong to their respective creators. Only Sister Grace is mine.
Author's notes:
1. This is an Angel story, with a background from Buffy the Vampire slayer. In the canon timeline, this happens between two seasons, during the summeer of 2000, since there an author can have some free roaming space between the canon events.
2. This is entirely about Angel and Spike, about their relationship and they starting to reconciliate - poor Spike has to suffer for it first, however.
3. And no, there won't be any graphic descriptions. It's not about slash and smut, it's about the reconstruction of their centuries-old relationship as Sire and Childe. Yes, I know that technically it was Drusilla who sired Spike, but I think I've found a way around it. Just read the stores that will (eventually) follow!
* * * * * * * * * * * *
The sounds of the fight were so loud even a mortal could have clearly heard them; the noise offended Angel's sensitive vampiric hearing and he was just about to retreat. After all, the stupid fighting of human street gangs wasn't his problem - besides, he'd just finished a really ugly fight, burning out an Anarch nest, and while he hadn't been injured (for a change), he felt exhausted and angry and fed up with his whole unlife.
Just as he turned on his heels to leave the whole area, he heard a voice he clearly recog-nized. The deep, pleasant baritone, the well-known British accent, the typical attitude... and then a wave of pain hit him. No, there couldn't have been any doubt about who was getting beaten up to a bloody pulp, without being able to defend himself. Ever since he'd run into Spike a few moths ago, feeding him his own Vitae in Sunnydale, their bond re-formed itself like the last hundred years wouldn't have parted them at all.
Angel started at top vampiric speed, without thinking. He knew where the most brawl happened in this neighborhood, and the fighting noises came from that same direction.
A small neon sign flickered above the door of the 'Rabid Fox' night-club. Loud pulses of house music issued from the single open door where a large blackish Naro demon was keeping charge. A loose unruly mob hug around outside. When Angel arrived to the scene, his once favourite Childe was bleeding badly, and the nasty remarks of the five human thugs made it clear that killing him wasn't their immediate goal. Later perhaps, but right know, they wanted to play with the beautiful, arrogant - and totally defenseless vampire.
The simple thought of his Childe being beaten up and raped by a few mortal idiots he wouldn't even have considered a meal less than a year ago sent Angel directly into Frenzy. He vamped out, lept into the middle of the melee, growing and snarling, grabbed the two nearest men and knocked their skulls together with such violence that they dropped to his feet dead in the same instance. After that, he wiped the third one away from his Childe with a brutal kick that broke quite a few of the man's ribs and smashed the fourth one against a nearby wall, knocking him out cold. The last one - obviously their gang leader, a 200-pound, disguisting animal - tried to finisg off his victim before Angel could have interfered, but he didn't consider the older vampire's speed. He only saw a whirl of black cloath before Angel snapped his neck like a dry twig.
Spike lay in his own blood, still bleeding heavily and blinking rapidly. For a moment, he really thought, the beating and the blood loss made him hallucinate. But then, his Sire collected him into those big arms, like a child, and carried him to the black convertible, parked several streets away from the bar.
''Angel. Help me.'' groaned Spike.
''Sssh, Childe... I'll take you home'', Angel told him, still in game face, his golden eyes glowing furiously. ''You must be patched up or you'll be dust by the speed you're loosing blood.
Spike blinked again, looking at his Sire in awe. ''An... Angelus...?''
''Not really'', the older vampire started the car.
''B... but... you just killed... three men... at the very last...''
Angel shrugged, cold rage still darkening his demon face. ''They were hurting you.''
''Not that you'd have cared for the last hundred years or so'', Spike remarked cynically. ''I've got hurt before, during that time, ya know.''
''I know'', Angel said, driving like cratzy and totally dismissing any speed limits or red lights on his way, ''but you weren't helpless before. And now, you're in my city, where the helpless are my responsibility. All of them. Even the undead ones.
Spike growled; he'd secretly hoped that Angel cared because of their bond, the past their shared, and now he felt betrayed and very, very hurt. ''I don't need your pity, Angelus. I won't be an item in your soddin' redemption.''
''Fine'', Angel shot back, ''then we can just sit in the lobby with and ashtray and wait until you turn to ash.''
This was, of course, very true, so Spike shut up and let Angel drive him back to the former industrial building he called home in these days, carry him into his own room (thankful to any higher powers that protected vampires, that his human associates had made an early return to their respective homes) and laid him onto the bed his own bed, not caring, for once, that he messed up the dark silk sheets. Then he pulled up the hem of Spike's t-shirt and winced slightly at the gore under the soft material.
''Oh Will'', he sighed, fetching a first-aid-kid that was omnipresent in his bathroom, and starting to clean up and bandage his Childe, ''how do you manage to get yourself into deep shit every other day?''
Spike stiffened. Never had Angel called him Will again - not since he'd been cursed. It hurt badly, because he knew there wasn't any real affection behind that. It couldn't have been. To much had happened between them to mend the fences again. ''You know me'', he answered evasively. ''Me and my foul mouth.''
''Yeah, I think I do'', Angel undressed him and put him under the blanket. Then he sat on the edge of the bed, took his shirt off and pulled his Childe to his chest, directing his face to his neck. ''Here, drink.''
Spike tried to pull away. It was too intimate, it recalled too much, from a time that could never been brought back. ''No.''
''Don't be ridiculous, Will. You have to feed. And I'm your Sire, my Vitae will help you to heal a lot faster. It healed Dru, remember?''
Spike did remember. He remembered Angel, hanging on his handcuffs from the cieling, being tortured by Dru with holy water and... nooooo! ''I don't want to remember'', he muttered against the older vampire's shoulder. ''I want to forget what I did to you.''
''That's not that simple'', Angel said, sadly. ''Do you think, I wouldn't love to forget the things I did when the course was broken two years ago? Especially the things I did to you?''
''Well, I got my revenge, after all'', Spike remarked dryly, but without his usual spite.
Angel shook his head. ''What have become of us, Will? We used to love each other...''
''I never stopped to love ya, you stupid wanker'', Spike said, sharply. ''You left us without a word, and it almost killed me. I hated you and wanted to kill you for many reasons, the first and worst of them being the fact that I couldn't stop loving you.''
Angel didn't answer for what seemed to be an eternity. Then, he just pulled his Childe to his chest again, kissed the top of his blonde head and started simply.' ''I missed you, Will. Of every damned day of the last hundred years. Now, stop bickering and feed. I'm not willing to loose you again. I just couldn't bear it.''
Spike wanted to deny his need, but the scent of his Sire's blood was simply too strong. He vamped out, too, and sank his fangs into Angel's neck.
When the sweet, rich blood of his Sire hit his throat, he was lost, Sure, Angel had fed him his Vitae already a few months ago, when visiting Sunnyhell around Thanksgiving, but being let to feed from his Maker's neck was an incredibly... intimate thing, bringing back forgotten-thought memories from the beginning of their relationship, when Angelus was still his demon self and a newly-turned William his beloved, most cherished Childe.
Angel suddenly jerked his head roughly to the side, making the two small puncture wound Spike had made to a deep gash, so that the blood no longer slowly oozed but violently gushed into Spike's mouth. The younger vampire adapted immediately, changing from hesitant tasting to frantic feeding in a second, intent to make the best of this unusually generous offer of Sireblood.
And with the blood, he was flooded with Angel's emotions and hidden feelings as well. Memories of shared intimacy drom earlier, easier times and feelings like despair, loneliness, regret, grief - and a painful longing for those intimacies to be shared again.
Spike shivered involuntarily, Angel's blatant need awaking his own desire, after such a long time. His Thirst temporarily satisfied, he licked the wound clean to seal it, but didn't stop there. His hands moving on their own, he unbuttoned Angel's shirt all the way down, pulling it free from tha waistband of the black trousers, his tongue following path, rediscovering every inch of explosed skin, getting himself familiar with the long-missed taste once again.
Angel groaned from the long-forgotten sensation of his Childe's wicked tongue working its magic on his skin. In his two-and-half-centuries-long existence, he never had a lover quite that skilled and dedicated as Spike. Darla, a seasoned professional, did know her stuff, of course, and Dru had her kinks that made sex especially spicy, but Spike - no, Will - he'd taught himself. He made the boy ffor the explicit purpose to be his submissive, to serve his needs. The bond between them might have been broken for a century or so, but his once-beloved Childe still remembered very well what he liked. What Angelus liked.
Angel reached out blindly, pelling off Spike's open shirt, his large hands roaming the broad shoulders and slender bnack of his Childe, reacquintanting themselves with all those hot spots along his spine, his sides, on the small of his back that probably not even Dru knew so well as he did. Spike started purring while he licked and kissed his way down on the vast expanse of his Sire's chest, sucking the flat nipples to hard pebbles and tongueing his navel until Angel started squirming. It gave him a heady feeling of power that he still was able to reduce his huge, intimidating Sire to a quivering mass of need. He knew, there would be no way back once he gave himself willignly to Angel again, that it would mean - despite their century-long separation and all the hatred that came with it - that he'd acknowledge his Sire's ownership over himself again, according to vampire laws, but suddenly he didn't care any more. Submitting to Angel again would mean cutting back his absolute freedom severely, but it also meant belonging, family, protection, safety... all things he'd desperately missed, ever since Angelus got cursed.
Unlike other people - even other vampires -, Spike knew all too well that Angel and Angelus weren't two separate entities... they weren't even that much different. That Angel was, basically, Angelus with a collar. Just like himself and that darn chip - but even less safe. Angel could lose control over the Beast a lot easier, and right now, the being that had somehow managed to dispose him of the rest of his clothes, without him over realizing it, was closer to his old Sire than the Slayer's tame pet. A lot closer. So close, in fact, that it was only the self-hatred spell the Ravnos inflected on him that hold him back from turning into his old self again.
During the last century, Spike had done a lot of researc about the Ravnos curse. Being a scholar, ever since his mortal days (not many people knew that William graduated in Cambridge with the highest honors as an ancient literature and history major, and knowing the punk vampire no one would have even suspected such a thing), he took high risks to gather information about it. He mingled with Tremere antitribu, gypsies, even the Ravnos themselves, despite the fact that being Angelus' Childe didn't make such a company particularly safe for him. He consulted witches and warlocks, even the Legacy hunters a few times (who, of course, didn't know whom they were dealing with). So he was fairly certain that as long as Angel felt guilty enough for everything, they would be safe.
Spike didn't want the insane Angelus from two years ago to return. Those memories were painful and humiliating; a lesser man, even a vampire, would have been broken completely. Not him, of course. He was a survivor. Angelus - the old Angelus - had looked into it. But again, the oldd Angelus loved him. It was the love of a vicious monster - possessive, passionate, cruel and often hurtful -, but love nevertheless. No one else had loved him quite like that. Not even Dru.
He arched off the bed in ecstasy when his Sire rolled him over onto his back and went down on him. It was something the old Angelus rarely did, only when he felt particularly fon of young William. Angelus liked to be on the receiving end, always; there seemed to be a difference to Angel, however, who obviously enjoyed himself a lot at the moment... and he was incredibly good at his task. Young Liam must have had his fair share of male lovers, because the old Angelus never serviced another male, Spike was sure of that. He felt his eyes roll back under fluttering lids and all coherent thought fell in pieces as the climax hit him with unexpected violence, his whole body shuddering and convulsing so had that he almost passed out from the intensity. No one, aside of his Sire, could make him come this hard. Not even Dru, with her also consideralble skills. Skills that she'd learnt from their Maker in the first place.
Angel waited patiently for Spike to come down from his powerful orgasm before he parted the strong, pale legs to reveal his long-desired prize. Spike grabbed his knees obediently, holding himself wide open for his Sire. Their eyes met in a moment of absolute clarity.
''Are you sure, Will?'' Angel asked, quietly. ''Right now, we still can stop. But after I've taken you, there'll be no way back, you know that. You'll be mine again, and I won't let you go a second time. Do you really want this?''
Spike closed his eyes for a second, half-crazy with desire and desperate love for this man... this creature who gave him eternal life, who loved him and tortured him and abandoned him and almost destroyed him several times - and whom he payed back the same way, eye for an eye, humiliation for humiliation, hatred for hatred - and whom he couldn't stopped loving, no matter how hard he'd tried, no matter what had happened between them.
''Yes, I do'', he whispered, giving up all resistance, his free, independent spirit screaming in protest, but his heart in blissful peace, for the first time in a century. ''I want this. I want you, Sire.''
Angel let out a relieved, albeit unnecessary, sigh. There was no use denying that he wanted his Childe back and wanted him desperately... and not for this one night only. He wanted him back in his unlife permanently. ''Very well'', he said, his features finally relaxing into the old, feral grin of his demon self, ''then I shall reclaim what's mine.''
* * * * * * * * * *
They spent the night and the following day there, coupling and wrestling and sharing blood in waves and waves of hot-red passion, as if they'd have wanted to make up for all the wasted time of the last century. Finally, even vampire stamina could not bear any more, and they fell into an exhausted sleep in each other's arms.
Spike was the first to awake. It was almost sunset again, and he felt spent, physically and emotionally alike, the latter probably even more. Contrary to common human belief, vampires were highly emotional (and sensual) creatures, and Spike was one of the most passionates of his own kind. This violent encounter with almost-death and the reacquintance with his Sire had worn him out.
He lifted his head from Angel's still, broad chest and watched the sleeping face of his Sire: calm, beautiful, and, for once, in complete peace. He'd given himself into the power of this short-tempered, violent creature again, willingly and out of love. The last couple of hours had shown, however, that his Sire had, indeed, developed away a lot from that abusive, selfish bastard he'd used to be. There might have even been some hope that they could have a fresh start. Or he just might have made the worst mistake of his unlife and was going to pay for it, bitterly.
Angel felt his eyes on himself, even in his sleep. After a minute or so, he opened his eyes and saw with unease the insecurity on his boy's beautiful face. ''What's wrong, Childe?''
''I was thinking...'', Spike shrugged, trying to hide his sudden fear. ''Now that I'm yours again, what are you planning to do with your re-claimed property?''
''I haven't planned anything, exactly'', Angel admitted, frowning. ''I thought we could work it out together?''
Spike raised a scarred eyebrow sarcastically. ''Do I have a say in all this? That would be a first.''
''Will...'', Angel sighed and started rubbing soothingly the small of his Childe's back; Will always liked being massaged right there, ''I'm not the old Angelus any more. I've taken you back into my unlife because I want you... and I love you. I always did, some way or other. But I'm not interested in sick dominance games, not like I used to be before... before the curse.''
''So what do you have in mind?'' Spike wriggled himself lusciously against the rubbing hand, gods, but his Sire could play his boly like a well-tuned instrument.
''Why don't you spend the summer in L.A.?'' Angel suggested. ''I don't demand from you to move in with me permanently... my redemption is only binding for me and I don't want to burden you with that. But if we lived in the same city for a while, we'd hve more time to figure things out among ourselves.''
''What about your human pets?'' Spike asked. ''They'd freak out havin' me around. Technically, I'm still evil, ya know.''
''I know'', Angel nodded, ''but so am I, deep inside, even if they aren't aware of that. Besides, I could use your help with demon hunting. There are more of them in this city than anyone could handle alone.''
Spike thought about it for a second. Getting not only to share the bed of his Sire and a steady source of food but also regular violence to work the frustration out of his system sas certainly tempting, but... ''I won't become dependant on you again'', he murmured with suddenly reawakened stubbornness.
Angel nodded in understanding. ''What if I'd pay you, the same way as I pay my human employees as long as you work with me? It's not much, but it'll be enough for blood and your damn fags.''
''And for beer'', Spike bargained, getting into the spirit of things.
Angel smiled. ''O.K. For beer. For anything else you'll have to take care yourself.'' Spike shrugged. ''I can do that. Am I goin' to stay here with you? 'Cuz that would make your pets jumpy; and, honestly, I'm not so eager to exchange insults with the ceerleader on a permanent basis. But hotels can be... costly, and, quite frankly, I'm broke.''
''Like always'', Angel added with a smirk. ''But I think I can talk Oz into letting you stay in his... actually, Doyle's old apartment.''
''What?'' Spike asked, delighted. ''Dog Boy is in L.A.?''
''He's lived here ever since he left Sunnydale at the first time'', Angel informed him. ''He's got a new band, besides studying at UCLA, and they are going to a 3-month-gig in a week. He won't mind to let you crash in his place - you might have to promise to keep it in an acceptable shape, though.''
''No prob'', Spike actually wasn't such a messy guy on his own, he just liked to provoke other people, especially Angel, who, in his opinion, had a tidiness tick, ''But what about next week? I still need a place to stay.''
''You'll stay here,w ith me'', Angel shrugged. ''I don't care what my friends say. I like them and respect them, but you're my Childe, the only one of my old family I can still interact with... and I need you here. I won't let anyone come between us again.'' He paused and added in a low voice, almost a growl: ''You're the only part of my past I could never regret.''
''All right'', Spike tried hard not to sound shaken, but barely succeeded, ''I'll give it a try. To see if it works. We can alway decide about anything else later... if you vere serious about me having a say in this.''
''I was'', Angel assured. ''I won't force you to stay, should you feel the need to leave again.''
[Yeah, but would you kick me out of your unlife again, once you get bored or upset with me?] Spike thought, but said only: ''Deal, mate. Now, what have you planned for today?''
The End