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Dark Pleasures
Part 2
by Tami
As Angel cleaned himself up, he puzzled over the reason for Drusilla’s visit. She said she was bored because Spike had gone out. So, where had Spike gone? It wasn’t that he didn’t enjoy what happened between him and Drusilla, but he couldn’t allow it to happen again. There was Buffy to consider.
Buffy!
The whole thing with Billy Fordham slipped his mind when Drusilla appeared. He grabbed his jacket and left the apartment, abandoning the blood packet still in the microwave. Angel went to Willow’s house and asked her to look up information on Billy. Willow asked if he was jealous and Angel went off on a whole declaration of jealousy. When he was done, he couldn’t tell if he was talking about Buffy or Drusilla.
After leaving Willow, Angel found his way outside the factory. The minion guarding the entrance growled a warning at him. Being the elder vampire of the Aurelian clan, Angel growled back menacingly. The minion shrank back and allowed him to pass. He scented Drusilla out, killing three minions along the way. Angel climbed up on the catwalk and looked down to see Drusilla cooing over a dead bird.
“You sing the sweetest little song. Won’t you sing for me, hmm? Don’t you love me anymore?”
Angel felt an ache in his chest as he watched her. He wished they could all be together again. He was forced to leave them in Romania because of Darla, then again in China because of his soul. Now other things separated them, like Buffy. He leaned his forearms on the railing of the catwalk and watched her.
He looked on with interest when Spike came into view. His boy hadn’t changed a bit, still as gorgeous as he ever was. He was all lean muscle and sculpted beauty.
“Darling! I heard a funny thing just now,” Spike said. “Lucius tells me that you went out again.”
“I was bored and you were out,” Drusilla replied.
Angel smirked when she didn’t let on that she went to him. As close as Spike was to her, he knew his boy could scent him on her.
“Come on,” Drusilla cooed to the bird. She whistled to it. “I’ll pout if you don’t sing.”
Spike put his arms around her. “You, um, meet anyone? Anyone interesting . . . like Angel?”
“Angel?” she echoed.
“Yeah, so . . .” he kissed her forehead. “What might you guys have talked about, then? Old times? Childhood pranks? It’s a little off, you two so friendly, him being the enemy and all that?”
Drusilla continued to coo at the bird, “I’ll give you a seed if you sing.”
“The bird’s dead, Dru,” Spike said irritably. “You left it in a cage, and you didn’t feed it, and now it’s all dead, just like the last one.”
Angel growled low in his chest as Drusilla cowered away and whined when Spike became cross with her. Realizing that she was trying his patience when she refused to tell Spike what happened between them, Angel quieted and watched them.
“Oh, I’m sorry baby,” Spike apologized. “I’m a bad, rude man. I just don’t like you going out, that’s all. You are weak.” He took her hand and slowly sucked on the fingertips. “Would you like a new bird? One that’s not dead?”
Angel groaned softly at the sight of them together. He’d missed watching them tease each other. Spike had always been good at taking care of his baby girl. He perked up when he scented a human nearby. He heard the quick pitter-pat heartbeat of a frightened person. As well they should be, walking into a vampire’s lair.
“This is so cool!” Ford exclaimed.
Uh-oh! Buffy’s friend was here. What the hell was he doing? Angel groaned again when he saw Spike turn a predatory eye towards the voice. His boy’s posture went on alert. Would it be wrong for Angel to hope that Spike ripped the human’s throat out for being foolish enough to walk into the factory?
“I would totally live here,” Ford commented.
“Do I have anyone on watch here?” Spike called out. “It’s called security, people! Are you all asleep?” He walked towards Ford. “Or did we finally find a restaurant that delivers?”
“I know who you are,” Ford said.
“Yeah, I know who I am, too. So what?” Spike said unimpressed.
Angel smirked at that. That was his boy. Show no fear, take no prisoners. Damn right, Spike knew who he was. He was Angelus’ boy, that’s who he was, taught by the best to be the best. Angel felt a thrill of satisfaction run through him.
“I came looking for you, Spike. You are Spike, right, William the Bloody?” Ford asked excitedly.
“You’ve got a real death wish coming in here. It’s almost interesting,” Spike said. “So, how did you find me?”
“That doesn’t matter. I’ve got something to offer you. I’m pretty sure this is the part where you take out a watch and say I’ve got thirty seconds to convince you not to kill me?” Ford smiled. “It’s traditional.”
Angel frowned at that. The Aurelian clan left ‘traditional’ back in the sewers with The Master. Besides, Angelus could never use traditional methods in raising either of his childer. Angel stayed long enough to hear Ford’s plans and disappeared into the darkness. He had to check out where Ford’s been staying and warn Buffy of her friend’s little foray into becoming undead.
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Well, the bomb shelter vampire wannabe club that Ford was part seemed to be a bust in a sense. Angel had taken Xander and Willow with him to investigate, but only found a bunch of human kids with ideas in their heads that vampires were really sugarplum fairies.
Still, Ford had gone to Spike for a reason and Angel felt that he had to save those teenagers from their own stupidity. Ford was offering those unsuspecting humans up for Spike’s slaughter in return for being made into a vampire. Angel knew why. He could smell the decay on the boy. He knew Ford was dying, but how desperate could a person be to ask to be turned?
Besides, the fact: Old World vampires chose their childer carefully. Darla chose Liam to be a mate and companion. She got one, but not the other, exclusively. Angelus chose Penn to play with. Penn was a mistake in the end, but up to that point he was a tool to hone Angelus’ skills. Drusilla and Spike were different. Drusilla was a lesson in the amount of damage he could do to the fragile human psyche.
Spike was . . . an achievement. Spike looked up to him, wanted to be like him, idolized him, hated him, thwarted him at every turn, challenged him, made him think, made him react. Angelus could never break him. He was fascinated by Spike: the mystery of how far he could push Spike, how he could bend Spike to his will before his boy rebelled.
Spike was only using the human to get to Buffy, which was why Angel was outside her house now. He’d come to warn her.
He readjusted the hardness that suddenly sprung up at the thought of Spike as he quietly stepped onto the back porch of the Summers’ house. He saw the door cracked open and moved closer to peer inside. Buffy was at the counter stirring a cup of tea or something. Angel lightly knocked on the door and caused her to turn around in surprise.
“Buffy, can I come in?” Angel asked softly as he pushed the door open.
“Uh, sure,” she nodded, “I thought once you were invited you could always just walk in?”
“I can,” he replied as he stepped inside. “I was just being polite.” He closed the door behind him while still watching her. “We need to talk.”
“Do we?” she inquired disinterestedly as she picked up her cup and headed into the dining room.
“It’s about your friend Ford,” he explained as he followed her. “He’s not what he seems.”
“Who is these days?” she asked flippantly.
“Willow ran him down on the computer,” he went on.
“Willow?” Buffy sounded surprised.
“We found this address and checked it out with Xander. It turned out to be . . .”
“And Xander?!” she said in disbelief. “Wow, everybody in. It’s like a great big exciting conspiracy.”
That stopped him. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about the people I trust. Who’s Drusilla?” she demanded.
Angel lowered his eyes. He should have been more prepared for this. But, he was preoccupied with keeping Buffy and Spike away from each other, and dealing with his feelings for his childer. Drusilla’s appearances in the Bronze and at his apartment were a distraction. Not to mention the plan Ford had going to give Buffy to Spike. The last thing on his mind was telling Buffy about Spike and Drusilla.
It wasn’t like his relationship with them was a secret to the world, but they were his. Now, Buffy was demanding answers and he hadn’t even come up with the best way to tell her about them. That he turned Drusilla into his own personal experiment and left her broken or that he – Angelus – had turned Spike into the deadliest killer, second only to himself.
“And, don’t lie to me,” Buffy said, “I’m tired of it.”
“Some lies are necessary,” Angel said gravely.
“For what?” Buffy asked.
“Sometimes the truth is worse. You live long enough, you find that out.”
“I can take it,” she said, her voice wavering. She took a deep breath and tried again, “I can take the truth.”
“Do you love me?” Angel asked.
The question threw her. She wasn’t expecting it from him. She barely had time to evaluate her own thoughts on the matter. “What?”
“Do you?” he pressed.
Buffy thought it over for a moment at a loss for the best way to answer. “I love you. I don’t know if I trust you.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t do either,” Angel said and turned away from her.
In for a penny, in for a pound, he thought. Now, he really did have to explain it to her. He couldn’t go on telling her half truths. How do you explain your own actions committed when you were soulless and evil to a
sixteen-year-old high school girl. This was not how he wanted to do it. Hell, he never wanted to tell her.
“How do you know about Drusilla?” Angel asked without looking at her.
“Giles . . .”
“Giles?” he echoed.
“. . . had a picture of her.”
“Watchers,” Angel said the word as if it left a bitter taste in his mouth.
“And . . . I saw you with her the other night when I was patrolling,” Buffy said.
Angel whipped around to face her then. “You were spying on me?”
“No! I was patrolling. It just happened to be in the same vicinity as your little late night fling,” Buffy cringed at the thought of him with another woman.
Angel’s jaw developed a tick at the idea that Buffy watched him with Drusilla in the park. “It wasn’t what you think it was. That was . . . a thing. But, it wasn’t a fling. It’s more complicated than that.” He turned away from her and studied the wall décor in the dining room with renewed interest. “I did a lot of unconscionable things when I became a vampire. Drusilla was the worst. She was . . . an obsession of mine. She was pure and sweet and chaste . . .”
“And you made her a vampire,” Buffy finished.
“First, I made her insane,” Angel corrected as he finally looked at her, silently daring her to look away when he continued, “I killed everyone she loved, visited every mental torture on her that I could devise. I ripped away everything she knew, made a mockery of everything she held dear.” Buffy finally looked away. Angel walked around behind her chair and crouched down to whisper near her ear, “She eventually fled to a convent. I followed her, stalked her . . . toyed with her. Each night was an adventure to me as I discovered new ways to make her suffer and I enjoyed every minute of it.” He stood up and walked around the table. “On the day she took her holy orders, I turned her into a demon.”
“Well,” Buffy said with a sense of trepidation. “I asked for the truth.”
“Drusilla isn’t the issue here. Ford’s part of some society of teenage idiots that reveres vampires, practically worships them. I don’t know what he wants from you, but you can’t trust him.”
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