Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel the Series and all character associated with either show are not my creations. I take no credit and I am still absolutely broke, so I’m not making any money, either.

Author’s Note: I know, I know…very very sorry about yet another WIP. But my hard drive has crashed so many times, lost so many of my chapters…I wanted to kick start my dead muse, so I took a challenge for the very first time. Yep, that’s right, a challenge posted on Bloodshedverse.

Challenge #369. There was just something about this one that gave me a fond kick in the head. I had to do it, simply because I thought I was the only one that could actually see it down. The challenge states:

This can be any season, actually - as an AU/AR, but it'd probably work better as a post-chosen story. Or even a series of stories... So... the challenge...

Buffy finds out Spike's alive.

Must haves -

Angel hopelessly, and rather desperately in love with Spike (why or how or how long is up to you; i.e., he's under a love spell, he's mated with him, etc.)
Harmony and/or Drusilla with a soul (why or how she has one is up to you)
Connor who has somehow gotten addicted to magick
Cordelia in love with Fred
Fred in love with Gunn
Buffy in love with Spike and in LA for him (whether she's angry at him or not is up to you)
Buffy must catch Angel and Spike in a compromising situation the first time she sees both of them.
A plot OTHER than romantic

Can have/can be

Dawn and the rest of the Scoobies
Can be Spuffy-ish or Spangel-ish.... or even Spuffangel (Spike/Buffy/Angel - what? It's good for a laugh...) the pairing is really up to you - you can make it anything BUT Spander or Spillow... sorry - don't understand those ships
Anya in one way or another

Interesting twists I would like to see

Illyria infecting Spike instead of Fred
Spike falling in love with Glory the Hell-God (of course, you'd have to figure out a way to make her come back)

I think this could make up for an interesting story (or stories). It would be interesting to see it as a dark story rather than a parody. I suppose it could possibly work as something other than a parody... but yes...

It's really all up to you.

(this is gonna be fun.)



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Web



“What did she smell like? I can’t remember…”

The dark haired vampire frowned, lifting his arm from where it was draped over his eyes to block out the sight of the ghost standing by his window. It had become a nightly ritual for Spike to haunt his bedroom, regardless of whether or not he was alone.

“The intern?”

Angel’s sheets were still coated with the scent of the woman he’d tumbled into bed with. Once he’d discovered how his soul still stuck to him (a perk in the contract with Wolfram and Hart) he had wasted no time in going to bed with a girl to take his mind off of the affair between Buffy and his most irritating spawn.

Spike’s eyes held only a fraction of their old spark as he glared back at his elder. “No, you pillock…” His shoulders slumped, and the former vampire wished he had the mental strength to gather his concentration enough to simply slump against the wall. “…Darla…”

“Darla?”

The ghost shrugged and stood stiffly by the window. The lights of the city played against his features, making the angles sharper. It was the only part of the world that could touch him.

“’Remember she had a deeper scent…didn’t like it as much as Dru’s…then again, never did like her much at all.”

“You forgot Darla’s scent?” Angel’s tone was doubtful.

Spike snarled. “Not just Darla’s…forgetting scent altogether.”

Angel sighed. The sound of the misery in Spike’s voice meant that he wasn’t going to get sleep anytime soon. He gathered the sheet up over his lap and sat up against the headboard, preparing himself to be the blonde’s reluctant audience.

“It’s like…” Spike sighed. “Like being in this black hole…cut off from the world. Like when you buried me that time, but, worse…there’s no scent, no touch, sometimes the sounds don’t even seem real…and sometimes, when I fade out…sometimes it all goes dark. And when I walk around here, it’s on borrowed time. ‘m just waitin’ to slip back into nothing. ‘nd the more I get dragged through the pitch black, the more I forget what the world is like…scents…touch…” He laughed suddenly, surprising the vampire on the bed. “But, all is not lost…at least I still have the bleedin’ soul to keep me company, ah mate?”

Something about the yawning emptiness in Spike’s gaze gnawed at Angel’s gut. He shuffled his feet against the mattress and stared at the veins under his own skin. They were still, without a pulse, but pleasantly filled with rich otter’s blood. He took a moment to enjoy those vivid sensations, completely aware of his own body, trying not to think about the fact that it was supposed to be his essence trapped in the amulet that had brought Spike to Wolfram and Hart.

“Darla insisted on the best perfumes…” Angel finally spoke. “She smelled like leather and lace, and sometimes a faint hint of gunpowder. She smelled like sex and mystique. And all the rich things in the world…”

“Do you miss her sometimes? Even now?”

His expression hardened in an instant. “Do you miss Dru?”

Spike closed his eyes and tilted his head to the side, imagining he could hear Drusilla’s voice, as he did many times after they had split apart. The familiar ache hit his heart, an almost welcome distraction from all the other aches. “Suppose I always will…”

“Even when you’re supposedly in love with Buffy?”

He opened his eyes to regard his grandsire’s rigid posture. “When have I ever claimed to love someone I didn’t?”

The silence reigned between them for long, tense minutes.

“Did you do it to spite me, Spike? To try and take something of mine, after what happened with Drusilla?” Angel finally asked.

“Had nothing to do with you. Didn’t even want it…didn’t want to love her.”

“How very romantic.”

The tense atmosphere swirled with memories shared between them; each memory centered around the three women on both their minds.

“Buffy…” Spike whispered the name like a prayer. “She smelled like vanilla…and honey…and she tasted like…”

Angel’s snarl was as useless as the bedside lamp he threw. It hurdled through Spike and into the window, cracking the thick pane of glass. When the ghost stared back at him dispassionately, he rose, stalking closer though he knew it would do no good. “Get out of here, Spike…leave! Go back into your little black hole. Buffy’s not here, she’s not going to be here, so what’s the point of sticking around? Stop haunting those that don’t give a damn!”

The hurt in his eyes was the most vivid emotion he’d seen from his grandchild in weeks. It startled him, and for a moment he felt like he had been dragged back in time, looking into the eyes of the young fledging William, instead of the ghostly pain in his side that dared to call himself a champion.

But soon after it appeared, it was gone. All depths of emotion once more faded into a weariness that sent chills down Angel’s spine when he dared to think of his own future.

Spike tried for his usual smirk, but it was a gruesome parody of what it had been before. There was no attitude behind it, only the world-weary appearance of someone who was far too used to being unwanted. He turned without another word, and walked away without his footfalls making a single sound.

His feet weren’t there. The body that Angel had beaten, fucked and molded had been burned to ash and buried under miles of rubble. It was just a shadow of it that walked through his bedroom wall, and out of his sight.


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Buffy sat with her knees pressed against her chest. Her fingers were busy with the important task of picking at her old nail polish, while she tried to ignore the packed boxes surrounding her. Most of it she didn’t yet associate as her stuff. She hadn’t really had any ‘stuff’ since after the collapse of her home, and all the stuff was new stuff.

But still, it was being packed so it could be moved so that they could go to a new place and collect more stuff to fill it.

London was only the first stop, not a place to rest.

“Come ON, Buffy!” Dawn tried to share her enthusiasm. “It’s ROME. We’re going to Rome!”

The Slayer managed a small smile. “I know. It’s great.”

Rolling her eyes, the teenager flopped down beside her sister, her long legs sprawled in front of her. “Yeah. That was real convincing.”

“No, really…” The Blond shook her head, trying to banish her own melancholy mood. “I am excited, Dawnie…things have been great. It’s just…” Her gaze went back to the window. It was raining again. “Does being here ever make you think of…?”

Buffy let her question drop, her gaze darting to her younger sister before moving back to the window.

But Dawn had caught her look, and she scooted closer. It was rare that they talked about their losses, especially when everyone was focused on rebuilding and making plan for the new Slayers.

“Yeah…” she finally answered. “I think about Spike a lot here. It’s…kind of hard not to. I mean, come on, I think I hear his voice almost every night.”

Buffy nodded, trying to ignore the way the back of her eyes burned at the thought of how many times she’d jumped or turned at the sound of a familiar accent. How her heart went pitter-patter in the anticipation of a familiar tingle on the back of her neck…

“I tried to find him, you know…” Her ruined nail polish became important to her again.

“What do you mean?”

“Spike…” Buffy folded her hands on her knees. “I tried to find out who he was…you know…before he was turned. I kind of wanted to know more…all the things that I never really asked him. And maybe if I knew where he lived…it would be like I had something of his…or some place I could go to…”

“Like a grave?”

She nodded, avoiding the thought of her former lover’s actual grave. The pit in the middle of the desert that used to be the hellmouth…the place of terrible memories and friends and homes that held ashes and dust and bones of the loved ones they had all lost.

“But I couldn’t,” Buffy said after a moment. “Find him. I had nothing to go on, really…I guess I could have asked Giles for help, but…” She shook her head. “And all the newspapers I looked at…I found plenty of ‘William the Bloody’ stories, but I couldn’t find anything on him as a human…not without even knowing his last name…”

“You loved him, didn’t you?”

“Yes!” The strangled confession felt like a gift to Spike that came too late. “Yes…was it obvious, Dawn?”

Dawn looked sheepish. “It kind of got that way, yeah…”

“Good…” Buffy whispered. “I just wish he’d seen it.”

“Does that mean…it’s ok to miss him?”

The vulnerable expression on her younger sister’s face felt like a burn on the Slayer’s heart. She wrapped an arm around her sister’s shoulders and brought her close, kissing the top of her head. “Oh Dawnie, of course it is…”

Dawn played with Buffy’s hair idly, trying to ignore the tears that made her blue eyes shimmer. “It’s just…I thought everyone was supposed to hate him…but then you forgave him…”

The Slayer swallowed and rested her head on top of her sister’s. “It’s complicated…not many people are strong enough to change the way Spike did…”

“Maybe we can make a grave for him, Buffy…you know, some place closer to us where we can go to remember him.”

Buffy was silent for a long moment, trying to put her thoughts to words.

“When the hellmouth closed…I stood by the edge and I thought about Spike, and I felt so much…pride. I was so, so proud of him…and then the world opened up, and everything changed…and I had this glowing happiness, because I wasn’t alone and we could have lives. So I forgot for a little while. When we went to the hospital, then to the hotel…I felt free, and light and glowing. The next morning came, and I still felt that glow. And I turned in my bed, and was ready to share that glow…I was going to tell Spike all about it, and we were going to bask…but he wasn’t there.”

“The day before, he was with me. While I was helping the girls, keeping track of who went to the hospital, helping Giles get the hotel sorted out…he was there with me. He was standing by my side, surrounding me, just like always. It felt like he would never leave me. But the next morning, that feeling was gone…I couldn’t hold on to it anymore…” The sight of Dawn’s brown hair blurred. She felt her sister’s arms tighten around her. “And I kept thinking…why did I stand there by his grave and smile? Why didn’t I tell everyone to stop talking about the future and show respect? Why didn’t I leave flowers or something? And…and did he see? Did he see me just going on with a smile and a light step and just think it didn’t mean anything? Like he thought I didn’t love him? Is that why I couldn’t feel him anymore?

Buffy barely noticed the small hands wiping away the wetness from her cheeks. “Dawnie…did he want to leave me?”