Disclaimer: Do you honestly think Joss would do this to Angel?
__________________________________________
Chapter 5: The Magnificent Poofter

“What the hell is wrong with Angel?” asked Harmony to the room of assembled people in Angel’s office.

“That is one of the things we are attempting to determine,” said Wesley.

Harmony rolled her eyes and popped her gum.

“Well duh!”

“Go away Harmony,” said Buffy and Gunn at the same time.

The slayer and the demon hunter looked at each other for a second and smiled. Silently there was a mutual recognition that, yes, they were on the same side here.

“Fred?” asked Wesley, drawing Buffy’s attention back to the problem at hand.

“Oh ya, I’ll get on finding out why Spike’s all ghosty,” said Fred eagerly. “He’ll have to come down to the lab with me, is that alright?”

All eyes drifted to Buffy, who was looking at Angel, in Spike’s body.

“I’m going with you,” she commanded.

Fred nodded. “Sure.”

Angel smiled at Buffy, trying to catch her eye. Unfortunately for him, she seemed to be lost in her own little world.

Her own little world where she was trying to process the information that her brain had received that night. The facts weren’t meshing.

Angel didn’t tell her about Spike.

Spike was a ghost.

Angel called her ‘pet.’

Angel was acting like he was trying to make everyone think he was nuts.

There was only one conclusion that her brain could come up.

Buffy took a hard look at Spike.

“Can I have a moment alone with Spike before we go?” asked Buffy suddenly.

Silently the group left the two blondes alone. Shutting the door behind them, she turned back to the ghostly figure.

Angel closed the distance between them in a second and put his hand up against her face, careful not to let himself pass through.

Buffy backed away with a jerk.

“How could you use him like that! You nasty bitch!” screamed Buffy. “Is this the vengeance you get because he defeated your army of ubervamps? Why can’t you just let him rest in peace?” Buffy cried.

Wiping her tears, Buffy looked straight into the face of her dead lover and glared. The taunter was back. The First Evil was standing before her.
__________________________________________
Spike walked down the hallway and to the elevator clad only in angel’s green g-string, holding a pile of Angel’s clothes, Carlos following close behind him.

Spike tossed the pile of Dark and Broody’s clothes before he entered the elevator.

As the elevator doors began to close Spike turned to Carlos and asked, “So where does one get suited up with a cape in LA?”
__________________________________________
The alley was dark and forbidding. Just the place where one would look for the miscreants of society and the demons of the underworld. Spike’s ears picked up the faint sounds of a struggled in the distance. He turned to his side kick who was decked out in crosses and garlic (which Spike laughed at) and was holding his newest toy bought with Angel’s money, a video camera.

“Try to keep up,” said Spike smartly before turning and running towards the sounds of struggle.

Spike happened upon a lone vamp, a fledge, trying to make a meal out of a red head.

Launching himself up over a dumpster, Spike jumped down just in front of the fledge and his victim.

“Behold I am the Magnificent Poofter, the hair gelled crusader, here to help the helpless and save those badly in need of a professional hair stylist,” said Spike his hands on his hips striking a superman like pose.

The fledge turned and looked Spike up and down. He was wearing a pink unitard much in the same style as Superman, it went perfectly with the tint and colour of Angel’s new hair colour.

In the middle of Spike’s chest was the outline of a tube of hair gel, in green and had the letters MP in glittery gold inside. The look was topped off with a green cape and white Reebok runners.

The fledge started to laugh, letting his victim go.

“My work here is done,” said Spike haughtily.

Well almost, Spike took a stake out of his batman style utility belt and staked the vamp, who had lost control and was rolling on the floor.

“Come video boy, to the Angel mobile, away!”
__________________________________________
“Buffy! I’m not the First!” shouted Angel.

“I don’t know why you can’t talk, but I don’t care,” Buffy sniffed, “Leave him alone!”

Angel moved towards the distraught slayer. Buffy backed away.

“Please leave him alone!”

The door to the office opened and Xander walked in.

“Buffy? I heard crying? Aww crap,” said the carpenter, noticing his friend hunched over and desperately trying to keep in the sobs.

“What did you do?” yelled Xander at Angel.

“I didn’t do anything!” yelled Angel.

Angel shook his head and walked through the now open doorway. He looked straight at Fred and shrugged.

“Fix me, I beg you.”
__________________________________________
Spike had managed to take out 3 fledges, a Polgara, who had no sense of fun, and a Troll, who got away whilst in the tights and cape.

Video Boy was a capable sidekick but Spike had begun to tire of this exploit. He was hungry, all he had had to eat since getting plopped into Angel’s body was the glass of blood Fred had gotten for him.

“To the Angel cave, Video Boy!”
__________________________________________
Spike arrived back at Angel’s office to find the room curiously empty, even empty of Angel.

Spike had sent Video Boy on his way to develop the photos of the nights activities.

He settled Angel’s weary body down into the poofter’s chair and kick his white runners off this feet, settling them on top of the desk.

Reaching over to his intercom system, he barked at Harmony to get him some blood, pigs blood.

As it was, when he had come back into the office, Harmony had not been at her desk. Now, as she walked into Angel’s office, she at last spied Angel wearing his Magnificent Poofter outfit, lounging on his chair.

A really rude snort exited her nose, followed by violent shaking and finally, Harmony dropped the glass of blood down her front and fell to her knees convulsing with laughter.

“Now that’s just a waste of good blood,” chastised Spike.

“I’m *snort* sorry, *hic* Angel,” laughed Angel’s secretary. “Did Xander dress you?”

Spike stared hard at his ex girlfriend. “What a horrible thing to suggest!”

Harmony picked herself up off the ground and looked down at her outfit, now completely covered in blood.

“Ewww,” she whined.

“Don’t stand there all day jabbering about it, get me another mug of blood.”

Harmony came back, still chuckling to herself with another glass of blood, completely changed from her bloodstained clothes.

“So where are all the other psudo scoobies?”

“Down in the lab with Fred. Is that a nipple ring I can see through your tights?”
__________________________________________
Spike walked down to Fred’s lab, clad in his tights and cape, and white socked feet. The first of the assembled group to look up was Angel, who turned red.

“What the Fuck do you have me wearing!”

Spike smirked and walked to Buffy’s side, who was very clearly attempting to ignore him.

“I’m glad you could join us at last,” said Wesley.

Fred looked up from her microscope, around which they were all congregated, took one look at Spike and snorted.

“Angel! What are you wearing?” snorted Fred.

Suddenly all eyes were on him.

Spike ignored Angel muttering in the back ground and did a little spin.

“You like?” asked Spike.

“I’ve died and gone to a heaven which I have only dreamed about,” said Xander. “The mocking potential of this is just too good to pass up? So what’s your superhero name? Captain Forehead? The Brooding Wonder?”

“The Magnificent Poofter actually,” said Spike completely seriously.

Buffy looked up from Fred’s results that discounted the theory that Spike was the First. He was just a ghost caught between planes.

“It’s pretty conclusive that it’s a gradual thing, where ever Spike came from, he’s being pulled back here, by this, I think,” said Fred, holding up the amulet.

“So the Liz Taylor collection is what made him all ghosty?” asked Gunn.

“Seems like,” said Fred.

“So how do we get him back?” asked Buffy.

“Well, if we do nothing, eventually he’ll be his normal vampire self...whatever that is,” continued Fred.

Buffy’s brain was working on another theory. She had spent the last couple of hours with a broody Spike ghost. And now here was an Angel who was doing the most he possibly could to embarrass himself. And had just called referred to himself as a Magnificent Poofter.

Buffy took a look at Angel with the pink hair and the Pink tights and smiled.

“Are you done making an ass out of yourself?” asked Buffy.

“Not quite yet,” pet, he added mentally.

Buffy rolled her eyes.

“I wish I had a camera,” continued Xander.

“Oh I had video boy take pictures, couldn‘t let all this effort go to waste. Posterity and all.”

There was silence in the room while the others contemplated the pink haired vampire in tights.

“Best leave you all to it then.” Spike turned with a flourish.

He exited the lab only to be stopped halfway to the elevator by a small hand on his arm.

Spike turned to see the Slayer her eyes slightly moist.

“S..Buffy?” asked Spike, almost slipping into the familiar.

“Before you go...” she trailed off. “I don’t know why exactly you’ve decided to do all this...” Buffy waved her hands at him. “And frankly I don’t care. What was said after Sunnydale...And now with being all ELF boy...”

“Elf boy?”

“Oh, ya, Evil Law Firm...ELF.”

Spike nodded and suddenly flashed back to his days with the nibblet when Buffy was gone and how he couldn’t for the unlife of him figure out what TMI meant.

“Anyway,” continued Buffy, “I just wanted to say that what I said in the Hellmouth was true....”

Buffy looked up into Angel’s brown cow eyes and smiled.

“I love you, Spike.”
__________________________________________
tbc...