|
|
Edges of My Mind
by Tami
Chapter 15
Los Angeles, Hyperion Hotel
Spike’s body jostled with each punch Riley gave him. He couldn’t block them. The chip had fired the last time he tried. In reality, he was having an imaginary conversation with Drusilla during this part. He felt his attacker squeeze his throat, not that it would do any good since he didn’t breathe.
The only person that ever touched his neck was his Sire. This human was becoming far too intimate for his liking. He was used to his body being utilized as a weapon, a vessel to slake someone’s lust and anger. But no one touched his neck. Not even Buffy had been that intimate, and Drusilla knew better.
Why was his subconscious making him remember?
“I can’t believe Buffy allowed a dead, evil thing touch her. You violated her body. You turned her into something she isn’t. She was fine when I left her last year and I come back to find her depressed and angry. It was you! You tried to turn her into you! You’re a filthy, soulless . . . you’re not fit to exist.”
Spike grit his teeth as he listened to the barrage of insults. He tried to claw Riley’s hands away from his neck. Then he screamed hoarsely as Riley thrust his dick into him. His body tensed, fighting the violation, trying to force the offensive thing out.
**************************
“—ike!”
Spike bolted awake to the sound of Angel calling his name. He raised a hand rubbed his aching forehead. The dream was so vivid that everything hurt, including his eyes. He slowly opened them and blinked. It was dark in the room and he thanked the Powers for that.
“Spike?” Angel asked inquiringly.
“What time is it?” Spike asked as a distraction from the dream that he knew Angel would ask about.
“Nine p.m.”
“You let me sleep for a day and a half?”
“You needed the rest,” Angel answered and then not to be deterred, he asked, “What was the dream about?”
“The dream?” Spike asked, confused and sleepy.
“You were talking in your sleep, telling someone to get his bloody hands off your neck,” Angel replied.
“It was nothing,” Spike said.
Angel looked skeptical, but let it go. He reached over Spike to the bedside table and pulled his hand back to reveal a glass of blood. “Here. Drink this, take a shower and we’ll see what Cordy has for tonight.”
The dark vampire got out of bed, went into the bathroom and started to collect the necessities. Spike watched his Sire disappear into the room and switch the light on as he drank. The reason for Angel to help him was still a mystery. His Sire could have just as easily kicked him out of the hotel as easily as Buffy had done from her life.
“Spike, are you coming?” he heard Angel say from the bathroom; the deep, smooth voice echoing off the walls.
The blonde vampire downed the rest of the blood, got out of bed and went to the bathroom. He leaned against the doorjamb and watched as Angel readied the shower, retrieving towels and other necessities. Spike stepped around him and got into the shower. He groaned appreciatively as the hot spray hit him.
Spike was vaguely aware of Angel joining him as he reflected on his dream. It hurt his head to try and remember what happened. He remembered the argument and fighting before and Riley ruthlessly pulling out of him after, but not the in-between. Even the vision of Drusilla that sent him here was slowly dissipating.
“What are you thinking about?” Angel’s voice sounded far away.
“Working some things out in my head,” Spike answered.
“You shouldn’t try so hard to remember. It’s a natural defense mechanism. Your mind blocked it to let your body heal. It can’t do both at the same time. You may get the memory of it back today, tomorrow, next week, next year, or it may never come back,” Angel said casually as he helped Spike to wash down.
“What the hell do you know about it?” Spike grumbled in irritation.
“You aren’t the first person to have something like this happen to you,” Angel replied. “My ex-girlfriend sent me to Hell for a hundred years. You think it was a summer vacation? There are things that happened that I wish I could forget and things that only show up in my dreams.”
“You weren’t raped by a human who thinks he’s the judge, jury and executioner of every demon in the world,” Spike pointed out.
“No, but I was tortured and violated by my own memories. Everyone has their own private hell. Finn is your hell. He’s the reason you were chipped, and subsequently used by Buffy, because she knew you couldn’t do anything and he used your chip against you, and I’m pretty safe in assuming they used it against you more than once. Maybe not in a physical sense as Finn did, but in other ways,” Angel said.
“They used me and I couldn’t fight back,” Spike said thoughtfully.
“Well, now you don’t have a chip anymore. You can fight back. Whatever they took from you, you can take it back.”
Spike thought back to when he was first chipped. He thought about how Buffy, Xander and Giles treated him, like he was something be tolerated and utilized. He couldn’t bite anyone, but that didn’t stop them from using him for muscle, something to ridicule as a way to distract from their own miserable lives or, in Buffy’s case, as her own personal sex toy because her real vampire lover wasn’t around.
“I was convenient to her because you weren’t there,” Spike commented.
“She said what?” Angel asked, not catching his meaning.
“Buffy said I was convenient because you weren’t there. She said that one vampire got her hot and he was gone. I was your bloody replacement. She came to me, fucked me because of you. Sex with me made her feel something, but I was her link to you,” Spike explained.
Angel’s eyes hardened in anger, some of it directed at Spike for fucking Buffy, but it was more toward the Buffy he remembered. The version of Buffy that hadn’t come to terms with being alive again was someone he didn’t recognize. He couldn’t put the full blame on Spike for her behavior. She wasn’t the same girl he knew. That didn’t excuse the way she treated Spike in Sunnydale or when the few times she had shown up in L.A.
“You aren’t convenient and were never a replacement. You’re just you, however you want to present yourself. Though I have to say, playing the role of victim was never your style. You have to find your way back to the way you were,” Angel said as he finished his task.
“Why is everything always easy for you?” Spike asked angrily. “Being a vampire was easy for you, dealing with a soul is easier for you, handling Darla, Dru and Buffy is easy for you. You even survived hell and were fine in three weeks.”
Angel grabbed Spike’s shoulder and spun him around so fast that the blonde vampire lost his balance on the water-slick shower floor and fell against him. He pushed his childe against the wall and held him in place by a hand on his throat. Not to choke him; it was impossible to do that. The action was merely to hold him still. Spike protested, but Angel moved close to his ear and stroked his fingertips along the younger vampire’s throat, causing him to moan.
“I know you’d like to think it was all easy for me, because the women in our lives chose me first, or because you think I appear fine with the shit I have to deal with every day. You might want to come in from left field and see what the hell has been going on. I’ve spent a hundred years trying to cope with a soul I never wanted. I’ve had to watch you and Dru adore each other and not be a part of that because, without my soul, Angelus is an unfeeling bastard and with it I’m too wracked with guilt. As for Buffy, you think loving her was easy? I lost my soul with her. I couldn’t be around her when I came back from hell. It hurt too much. I left Sunnydale because I couldn’t handle being around her knowing that we could never consummate our relationship.” Angel’s hand slid down Spike’s throat to his chest. “Then I came to L.A. and have an evil law firm out to make my existence a living hell.” He pulled away and looked at his childe. “So, no, Spike. It’s not easy for me.”
Angel stepped out of the shower, dried off and got dressed, leaving Spike to do the same. Then the blonde vampire followed Angel downstairs to the lobby where they were greeted by Cordelia and Wesley. When the dark vampire saw the former watcher, he growled and fisted human’s shirt collar, yanking him up so that his feet barely touched the floor.
“What the hell did you think you were doing by calling Buffy to L.A.?” Angel growled.
“What’s going on? Angel, let him go!” Cordelia hurried around the reception desk and tried to pry Angel off Wesley.
“I thought it was for the best that I warn Giles about the removal of the chip,” Wesley rasped.
“Who died and made you the judge of what was best?” Angel asked angrily. “Giles, Buffy and anyone else up there on the Hellmouth have no right and no business knowing what the fuck is going on with Spike. He’s no longer in their city. He’s here! With me! He came to me for help because they wouldn’t!”
“I take it you saw Buffy,” Wesley choked.
Angel nodded. “Oh, yeah. I saw her and after what she did to Spike and enabled Riley to do to him. She is not wanted in my city. I sent her back home and told her to stay there. If you so much as try to pull another stunt like that again, you had better find yourself another place of employment.”
Angel threw Wesley away from him. The watcher stumbled back and rubbed the back of his neck. “Spike is a danger to others. Don’t you see that? You had the chip removed and now he’s free to kill again.”
“Spike and I have an understanding, one in which he knows I will stake him if he doesn’t follow through. My deal with Spike has nothing to do with you. It wasn’t your place to call Sunnydale and warn them about Spike or anything I did with him. He’s not their problem anymore,” Angel said angrily as he glared at the watcher.
“Well, I most certainly have a problem with it!” Wesley countered heatedly.
“Then get over it or get out. Your choice,” Angel said dismissively before he walked away towards the hotel’s kitchen.
For all his bravado upstairs when he was alone with Angel, Spike was less confident in front of his Sire’s pet humans. He made a wide berth around Wesley and followed Angel into the kitchen. He watched with a puzzled expression as Angel fixed his own blood.
“Why did you do that?” Spike asked.
“He had no business interfering. I was handling the situation just fine. Wesley’s a watcher. It’s in his blood. He can’t escape it. He doesn’t see anything wrong with an unnaturally incapacitated vampire. You’re not someone’s toy and you’re not a slave. That chip made you both,” Angel said, irritated.
Just then Angel’s cell phone rang. He pulled it out, flipped up the caller ID and grinned wolfishly.
Spike looked at him, confused by the change in mood. “Who is it?”
“A friend who came through for me,” Angel said before answering. “Hey Frank! What do you got for me?”
“I found the kid you’ve been looking for,” Frank’s gruff voice replied.
“How bad a shape is he in?” Angel asked. He didn’t want to have Riley Finn in pieces . . . yet. Angel gave Spike a smirk when he caught his childe looking at him strangely. After the thing with Buffy and Wesley, this was extremely good news. He knew the Boraro demon would come through. At this point, Frank was more reliable than his own team.
“He’s in one piece. That’s all I can say. I found him and that wife of his destroying a nest of Sluggoths. Man, I never knew they still existed. Ugly fuckers,” Frank said.
“What did you do, Frank?” Angel inquired, worried there wouldn’t be anything left of Riley to work with.
“I softened him up for you. When you told me what he did to your boy . . .,” Frank was saying.
“Yeah, okay,” Angel cut in. “How soon can you get him up here?”
“You don’t want the wife?” Frank asked.
“What would I do with a wife? She’d just get in the way,” Angel chuckled.
“Yeah, ain’t that the truth. You should have met my last wife,” Frank said casually. “Anyway, we can be on the next flight up.”
“Good!” Angel said. “I’ll get a few things set up and we’ll take care of this little problem.”
Frank became serious. “How is he?”
“Physically he’s fine. It’ll take a while for his mind to catch up though. He has nightmares and he’s wary of humans even with the chip gone,” Angel replied.
“Well, from what you told me in the past, he’ll bounce back, just give him some time,” Frank said.
Angel gave the Boraro demon his address and hung up. Spike was looking at him quizzically. The blonde vampire had heard the conversation on both ends. He wondered what his Sire was up to. Angel was going to a lot of trouble to help him and he didn’t know why.
“Why are you doing this?” Spike blurted out before he could stop himself.
“I’m hungry and, since you drank my blood, I’m fixing my own?” Angel answered with a raised brow.
“I don’t mean that, git. I mean why are you helping me?” Spike asked irritably.
“You asked for my help.” When Spike’s face fell into a grim expression, Angel stepped closer to him. He added seductively, “You’re my childe.”
“So, I’ve become a charity case. That’s great, Angel. I don’t need . . .,” Spike started to say as he walked off.
Angel caught up with him and grabbed his arm to stop him. “Would you stop running away from me? You came here and asked for my help, didn’t you?” Spike stared at the floor, refusing to look at the elder vampire. “You aren’t beholden to me. You’re my childe and you needed me. I’m trying everything I know to make it better. I had the chip removed, I’m helping you to feel again, I had a friend of mine track that little army punk down and you’ll get your revenge. All I ask of you is that you stop running away from me when you feel uncomfortable or don’t think your behavior is befitting the Big Bad image. I know who and what you are, William. You only have to rediscover it yourself.”
“How do you suggest I do that?” Spike asked as he watched his Sire retrieve the glass of blood from the microwave.
“You’ll see,” Angel said before he downed the glass of blood.
Spike was perplexed by his Sire’s cryptic answer. “What are you going on about? Want to give me a hint, mate?”
Angel rinsed the glass out and put it in the sink. He walked past Spike, tugging on his shirt to follow and went out to the lobby.
“Where’s Fred?” he asked.
Cordelia looked at him thoughtfully. “Up in her room, I think.”
“Thanks,” Angel said, dragging Spike back upstairs.
The vampires went upstairs to the third floor and Angel led Spike down the hall, past their bedroom to a room four doors down. He knocked on the door and waited until the door cracked open and Fred peeked out.
“Can Spike and I come in?” Angel asked.
“Oh, sure, Angel,” she said with a smile.
Fred opened the door wider and allowed the two vampires to enter, closing it behind them. Spike wondered what woman in their right mind would permit two vampires to enter their room. Her room wasn’t like Angel’s. It was only one room, a closet and a bathroom. He focused on the conversation when he realized Angel was asking her something.
“Fred, can you help us? I promise you won’t get hurt. Spike needs help in remembering who he used to be,” Angel was explaining.
“Angel, you don’t need to do this,” Spike protested. Angel ignored him as he waited expectantly for Fred’s answer.
Fred chewed her lip as she thought over what Angel was asking of her. She would essentially be a guinea pig for Spike. She hadn’t had much contact with the blonde vampire. But the few instances she had been in his company, he was nice enough to her, answering her numerous questions and listening to her tales of Pylea.
“Okay,” Fred said warily.
“Thanks,” Angel said.
He uncharacteristically kissed her on the cheek. The action made her turn beet red in embarrassment. Spike chuckled softly at her reaction.
“If she does that with a kiss on the cheek, do you think she’ll survive this exercise?” Spike asked Angel.
“Of course she will,” Angel answered with a wink at Fred, which caused her to turn even redder, if it were possible. “Come here,” he said, addressing his childe.
Spike stepped up beside Angel and watched Fred with curiosity. He could sense the affection she had for his Sire. Every girl had a thing for the elder vampire. All the women in his life were drawn to Angel first because his Sire had that broody, hurt little-boy air about him where Spike was all attitude and swagger.
“Angel, go sit down somewhere and be the voyeur we both know you are. Let me handle this. If this is your way of thinking that I’ll be back to my old self again, then I don’t need you holding my hand as if I were still a fledgling,” Spike said irritably.
Angel held up his hands in surrender and backed away to sit in a chair in the corner. When he was sure that his Sire wouldn’t interfere, Spike turned back to Fred.
“What do you know about me, Fred?” Spike asked in a low voice.
“Not much. Just that you’re Angel’s childe and came here to heal up,” Fred answered with a small stammer.
“Do you know what it means to be a childe?” Spike asked.
When Fred shook her head, Spike smirked. “It means that you are stronger than a lackey. It means that the person who made you desired you above all else and chose you to hunt, feed and play with them,” he said, trying to choose his words carefully. It would do no good to scare the poor girl with tales of the sexual side of a Sire/Childe relationship.
“Angel chose you to be his companion, then,” Fred concluded.
“Of sorts. Angelus had high expectations for his chosen companions. It wasn’t easy to be a favored childe. I was quite rebellious, still am I suppose,” Spike said. He watched her wide-eyed expression as she absorbed the information. He continued, “What do you think of me, Fred? Am I as nice as a fluffy kitten or an evil, soulless thing?”
“You’re just you,” Fred answered, unknowingly repeating Angel’s earlier words.
Spike stretched his neck as if he were working a kink out and shifted to his demon. Staring at Fred through yellow eyes, he asked, “What about now?”
The girl looked up at him with a hint of fear mixed with interest. Fred was always curious about the world around her. It was one of the reasons she was in physics in college before her sojourn in Pylea. She tentatively reached up and caressed the demon’s ridges. She drew her hand back when Spike purred softly.
Angel reclined in a chair with a leg over the arm, watching the scene. He closely watched Fred’s reactions to Spike and his boy’s reactions to her. He had forgotten what it was like to witness the younger vampire as he teased prey. Angel cursed his traitorous body as it responded to Spike’s seductive tones as he spoke to Fred.
Spike reached up and tugged on a lock of her hair, wrapping the strand around his fingers. He brought the tress to his nose and scented the Pantene shampoo she used.
“You have nice hair with natural waves,” Spike commented.
Fred ducked her head in embarrassment. “Oh, it’s just hair, everyone has hair, and it’s just ordinary and brown, nothing special really.”
The blonde vampire walked around behind her, still scenting her hair. Spike pulled her hair back from her neck and growled low in her ear. The sound sent a frisson of heat through her and she unconsciously moaned. Spike flicked his yellow eyes towards Angel to see if he would stop him. After all, he was dangerously close to his pet human’s neck.
Angel watched Spike work at turning Fred into a puddle with his actions. Normally he never felt the temperature in a room. After watching his childe, though, Angel was starting to wonder if Cordelia had turned the heat up in the hotel. He stared at Spike, who was looking at him with yellow eyes, daring him to step in and stop the scene. Then he watched as his childe slowly moved closer to the curve of her neck and skimmed his fangs across her tender skin.
“Spike, don’t break the skin,” Angel warned.
Spike growled in response which made Fred giggle from the vibration of the sound. In a rebellious move, the younger vampire pressed down with his fangs just to leave impressions in the skin that would be gone in a few minutes and teased Fred’s neck with the sandpaper-scratch of his tongue.
Fred let her head fall back against Spike’s shoulder, allowing him easier access. His arm went around her middle to hold her up as he continued to tease his mouth over her jugular. His fangs itched to sink into her throat, but Spike held himself in check. However, that didn’t stop him from moving his hand down to cup her sex through her clothes and feel her involuntarily grind against his fingers.
Angel rubbed his hard dick through his jeans as he watched Fred try to get herself off on Spike’s fingers as the blonde teased her. He came as he imagined his boy sinking his fangs into her neck. Fred went rigid in Spike’s arms and moaned as the vampire held her writhing body tight against him to keep her from falling.
Ten minutes later, Fred opened her eyes and discovered that she was lying on her bed. She looked up at the two concerned vampires. Angel was sitting on the bed beside her and Spike was standing next to him.
“Are you okay, pet?” Spike asked.
“Uh, yeah,” Fred replied. She felt lightheaded, but otherwise she was rejuvenated. “What happened?”
“You had one hell of an orgasm from my fangs,” Spike boasted with a smirk.
Fred immediately felt her neck for any holes, but there was nothing. “I did?”
Angel nodded. “He didn’t bite you, as I promised he wouldn’t. You only reacted to the seduction and passed out.”
“Is that a good thing?” Fred asked warily.
“You would have been delicious with that orgasm,” Spike assured her as he licked his lips.
Fred shuddered at the memory of that tongue and those lips on her skin. “I’ll take your word for it.” Then, she turned to Angel. “Did I help?”
“Well, you got his cocky attitude back,” Angel said as he looked at Spike, and then back at Fred. “It’s a work in progress.”
Fred smiled triumphantly.
“How about we let you rest,” Angel smirked as he remembered what she was resting from. “Then Spike and I will take you out to get tacos or a Slurpee, whatever you want, as a way to thank you for helping?”
“That would be nice,” Fred said drowsily.
Angel smiled at her. He stood up and went to the door with Spike following.
“You’re smiling a lot, mate. Is there something I should know about? Should I have a stake ready?” Spike asked on his way out, closing the door behind him.
|
