*****
Puppy was free and he didn't understand why. He stood in the alleyway and tried to figure the situation out. Simply put, Xander had let him go. There had been no fighting, and no yelling.
Just like that, Xander had let Puppy go.
Looking up at the big pale moon, Puppy mulled over that obvious fact. The last look that Xander had given him had been quite strange and more confusing than anything. Puppy remembered the soft words that had been spoken and they only served to confuse him more.
"He's dead. You're free. Go," and then Xander had leaned over and placed a gentle kiss on the souled vampires cheek. The younger vampires actions really made no sense at all.
"Angel?" A soft cultured voice spoke his name and Puppy whirled around to find out who was trying to get his attention.
"Hello?" Puppy was nervous and he could still feel the place where the manacles had bitten into his flesh...but he still remembered his old name. Angel. The calling of it sounded strange to the recently imprisoned vampire, but he knew that the name was also his. "Who's there?"
Out of the shadows stepped a slender figure with blond hair and a lithe walk. "They told me you would be here."
"Spike?" Puppy shook his head, still not understanding. First he had been let go by one of his worst enemies and then this. Spike just showed up out of the blue even though Angel had not seen his grand-childe in years, and the mystery only deepened. Puppy frowned as his eyes moved over the approaching form of the creature that he had practically raised as his own. "What...what are you doing here?"
The bleached blond stepped closer, his feet making echoing sounds against the hard pavement as he moved. The steps were deliberate and before Puppy could move away, his grand-childe was before him.
With a slender cigarette between two pale fingers, Spike eyed Puppy with a long but not forgotten smirk. "I heard The Master's dead; killed by that slayer."
Puppy tried to remember exactly what had happened, but there had been pure chaos and the events were trying to blur. He remembered running mostly...and a lot of screams from all around. And, of course, Angel remembered Buffy. Buffy aiming the cross bow was clearly etched on Puppy's mind, as was the fighting that had ensued. After that, he wasn't so very sure what exactly had taken place. Mostly, he'd just been confused. "I don't know," Puppy admitted before asking, "why are you here?"
"One track mind," Spike observed, before flicking the extra ashes of his cigarette off with an air that spoke of mild frustration. "Let's just say...I was in town and realized that things were different here. Not as crazy." Spike took a long drag from his cigarette, watching Puppy curiously while he waited to fend off any questions he was certain would came next.
"Not as crazy? What do you mean?" The explanation that Spike had casually murmured, wasn't enough and Angel knew that there had to be more than just the convenience of Spike just happening to be in the neighborhood. Angel opened his mouth to ask more but then the blond was talking, cutting off further investigation with words of his own.
Throwing the cigarette off into the night, Spike said, "Come on, mate. Let's get you inside. It's not that far from morning and I don't want you biting the bullet just yet." Spike then put his arm around Puppy and pulled the older vampire along. "I have a place not far from here. Dru and that girl are there; that slayer..." Spike said it with some distaste and that made Puppy look curiously into the blondes almost blank face to see if he could find more to how his grand-childe felt. Spike only looked up at the sky, continuing in a thoughtful tone, "Come on, Angel. We can talk at my place" and then they were on the move once more.
Puppy nodded, having nothing else to do. Quietly he went along, curious to know what would happen next.
*****
Part 2:
Spike moved quickly down the darkened street and Puppy kept pace behind him. The Bronze was left behind as they turned down one street and then another, moving at the brisk pace set by Spike in his rush to get them to safety.
"Almost there," Spike commented, having stopped several times as though to find his bearings. Puppy didn't answer back, but only nodded, earning a once over by Spike before there were on the move again.
"The Masters dead...?" Puppy asked even though this information was something that he already knew. Something that they both knew, but Angel found himself needing to hear the answer anyway.
Why? Because Puppy still wasn't sure that what Spike had told him was true.
The thing was simply this...even though the knowledge was understood in his head, the dark haired vampire was having difficulties believing the information in his heart. How could the Master possibly have been killed, even by someone who was a slayer? The realization of such a dream come true, was literally beyond anything that Angel would have even considered to be possible, and part of him was almost certain that some kind of mistake must have been made.
"...And Buffy killed him?" Puppy continued, looking for confirmations even though the facts did seem to be very straight forward on that particular point.
But hadn't Whistler said that would be what should happen in the first place? "The Irish demon had told Puppy all kinds of things, so why was the vampire surprised now? Because other things that shouldn't have happened, had.
Puppy wasn't supposed to be captured by Xander and taken to be put in a cage.
Also, Puppy was very certain that being tortured by his captors, really shouldn't have been part of the destiny that Whistler had promised him just several months before.
Again, what was meant to be and what was, blurred because things had happened as they'd happened, and no previous foretelling could change the basic facts of what he had endured. "Are you sure that the Master is dead?"
Spike had stopped as Puppy asked his questions but the dark haired vampire realized then that the blond wasn't about to answer anything at all. Instead, Spike was turned toward a door on the building's front and was inspecting it with a fascination that lead Puppy to believe that he hadn't even been heard.
"Spike?"
The blond ran his hand over the door that had only one step in front of it and nothing interesting to draw attention to it's presence. In fact if Spike had not stopped there, Puppy would have never noticed the door at all. The dull gray finish made the door blend in with the equally faded stone work around them, making the whole thing almost look like a solid expanse of endless wall. Almost.
"Just a second, Angel," Spike finally said and Angel suddenly realized that there was no knobs or handles of any kind on the door shaped flatness before them. How were they supposed to get into a door that had no way of being opened at all?
"Are you sure this is where we're supposed to be going?"
Instead of speaking, Spike let his hand drift sideways just before an audible click was heard by them both.
"I'd say so," he stated before giving the door a shove that sent it opening inward. Spike let his eyes move up and down over the presented darkness within before he moved away to let the other vampire pass around him. "After you, Angel. You go first."
Puppy frowned, not caring for the reversal of roles at his particular time. Spike had led him here and was now asking Puppy to enter a place that he had no knowledge of and also no reason to trust.
"What is this?" he asked with a strong current of worried curiosity undercutting the soft spoken question. "Did Whistler send you?" and that possibility filled Puppy with a new kind of longing. What if Spike really had been sent by his recent friend and teacher? What if all of this was really part of a plan that Puppy couldn't be able to know until he walked through the very plain wooden door? What if....
"Never heard of him," Spike answered back, shattering the hope that had been blooming before he again tried to get Puppy to go through the door. "You going in or not?"
Puppy, for his part, finally just let out a sigh and nodded. He could feel the morning was close to coming and really there wasn't that much of a choice left to either of them at the moment. If they stayed out here much longer, both of them would be so much dust and somehow, Puppy would rather brave the dark then go up in a ball of sunlight induced misery. "I'm...going." He muttered, his tone subdued.
And that was just what Puppy did.
*****
tbc