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NOTE:
This was something I couldn't get out of my head after reading a conversation on LJ. I can't remember where, though, so if this all sounds familiar let me know so I can point ppl toward it, lol. Anyway, the convo was about Spike and what his true intentions were when he made that trip to Africa and said, "So you'll give me what I want. Make me what I was. So Buffy can get what she deserves." Now, I personally am undecided on the issue of whether he was asking for the chip out or his soul back. I can see merit in both arguments, but this was what popped in my head when I read that convo, so this is what I wrote. It takes place during Not Fade Away. |
After Spike had performed all the poetry he'd ever written and some he had come up with on the spur of the moment—all to a roaring applause that made him feel truly vindicated for possibly the first time in his life—he sat at the bar nursing a beer. He'd laid off the shots a while ago, in preparation for the evening to come.
When the tall, dark figure silently slid onto the stool next to him, Spike didn't have to look to know who it was. "Have your fun then?"
"I did. You?"
Spike chuckled, staring down at his half empty bottle. "They must like Barry Manilow too."
An answering chuckle finally motivated Spike to lift his head and turn to his companion. Huh. There was a thought. Somewhere over the last year, Spike had started to think of Angel as his companion once more.
The snark and the fights were just distraction, a way to forget all that weighed them down constantly and, much as Angel claimed to hate them, hate him, Spike knew different. He knew by the spark of life that flashed through Angel's eyes whenever they had a row. A spark that was missing any other time Spike glanced his way. Most of the time, Angel seemed to walk around in a state of perpetual brood. Hell, Spike started half their fights just to put that spark there. The brood disconcerted him, so far removed from the vampire he'd known since his unlife began.
Curiosity getting the best of him, Spike cocked his head to one side and asked, "How'd you know I'd be here?"
Angel glanced over at him as the bartender set a drink in front of him. "Where else would you be?"
'With Buffy, if she'd been within traveling distance,' hung unsaid in the air between them, and suddenly Spike felt the need to unburden himself with something he'd been carrying around for nearly two years.
Taking a long drink, Spike set his bottle down and played with the lip, carefully watching his fingertip circle the opening. Quietly, he said, "I didn't get it for her."
Spike could sense Angel stiffen next to him, could feel the air shift around them, the mood change. "Spike," Angel started, sounding like he was winding up for a good go 'round, then suddenly his voice deflated and he said simply, "don't."
Spike shook his head and chanced a glance at Angel, the vampire who had once been his God, his everything. "I want you toƒyou said this might be our last day, yeah?"
Angel met his gaze warily, still tense. "Yeah, it mightƒit will."
Spike nodded solemnly. "Right then. Something I haven't told anyone, and nowƒyou're here so you get to be the lucky one."
Angel made a noise that sounded somewhere between a snort and a huff.
Spike's lips quirked up at the corners for an instant, enjoying the sound, remembering it well, remembering he'd been the only one who could elicit that particular mix of exasperation, derision and begrudging affection from his sire. Just as quickly as the corners of his mouth lifted, though, they fell again.
"I didn't get it for her—" Spike was interrupted by that sound again and he glanced sharply at Angel, willing him to understand that Spike needed to say this, needed him—of all people—to hear it.
Angel's gaze met his again and Spike could see the change, see the instant Angel understood the weight of the moment by the way his eyes lost their irritation, the way his face turned solemn, the way he nodded his head for him to go on.
Swallowing, Spike held Angel's gaze and said, "I didn't get it for her because it wasn't what I went to that bloody demon for in the first place."
Surprise flickered through Angel's eyes and Spike took a moment to savor the irony of the fact that, for once, Angel actually hadn't underestimated him; he'd overestimated him. He—and the others—had assumed that Spike had chosen his soul, that he'd fought for it.
True, Spike had done everything he could to perpetuate that assumption, most notably outright lying and saying he'd fought for it, pretending he'd wanted the soddin' thing. He'd done it because he couldn't admit, even to himself most days, that yet another plan of his had been buggered up, had turned into probably the most spectacular failure of all timeƒthough it was disguised and labeled redemption.
Finally, Angel broke the silence stretching between them and stated rather than asked, "You went there to get the chip out."
Spike nodded. "I'm even more of a pathetic wanker than you thought."
Angel's expression vacillated between several emotions at once, not holding any long enough for Spike to read. Finally, Angel settled on inscrutable and asked, "Howƒif you were tricked into it, how did you get over the insanity so fast? It took me years." Angel said the last with bitterness.
Spike shrugged and lifted his beer to his lips again, then answered, "I got over it, as you say, because the one thing I'm good at is adapting. If I wasn't, I never would have survived that bloody chip. Tell me. Do you honestly think pre-soul you would have done what was necessary to survive? Would Angelus have joined up with the slayer and her little slayerettes?" Spike nodded at the expression that crossed Angel's face. "I thought not."
"Iƒwhat do you want me to say?" Angel asked, sounding weary and truly confused at the same time.
Spike sighed and stared at the counter in front of his sweating beer. "Don't want you to say anything. JustƒI didn't want to die with no one knowing 'm not the champion everyone keeps saying I am." At the half-snort, half-huff that received, Spike glanced over at Angel again and smiled ruefully. "Everyone but you, 'course."
Angel studied him for a second, then returned the rueful smile, admitting, "I did, you know. Say you were. Well, actually, I said you were a hero. To Cordelia."
Spike, seeing the flicker of sadness the name brought to Angel's eyes, actually felt a moment of compassion for his sire, something he'd never admit to under pain of death, however imminent it was. "Right. Forgot about that."
Both of them turned back to their drinks then and the seconds stretched into minutes before Angel broke the silence between them again. "You are, you know. In spite of how you got the soul."
Spike tensed and looked over at Angel, gobsmacked. He'd imagined a million and one different reactions from Angel to his little confession, but thisƒhad not been one of them. Finally, he found his voice and managed a quiet, "What?"
Angel chuckled and took another drink before saying, "Don't sound so surprised. You died to save the world. You saved Fred even though at the time you thought it would doom you to limbo forever. You won the fight for the cup and it doesn't matter that it was a fake. You didn't know it at the time and you fought for it with everything you had. Youƒyou've proved yourself over and over this past year. I just haven'tƒacknowledged it."
Spike stared at Angel for a long moment, dumbstruck. Eventually he blinked and said, "Bloody hell. The world really is ending."
Angel offered him a genuine smile then and stood. "Come on, it's time to get back. The others will be waiting."
Spike hesitated. "You still want me there?"
Angel's expression turned serious. "I need you there, Spike. The othersƒthey'll do their best, and Illyria—if she can be counted on—will be a huge asset, but it's going to come down to you and me and we both know it."
Spike felt something swell inside him then. Something like belonging, like kinship, like family. Something he hadn't felt with Angel in over a century, and it made him happy and twitchy all at the same time.
With as solemn a look as he could muster, he slid off his own barstool and nodded at Angel. "Right then. Lead the way."
~ Finis