"We rule," Cordelia said. "This is
just- wow. Look at this. It looks like an actual office."
"The trick is to keep it this way," Fred replied. "We have to keep on top of the paperwork, or it will deteriorate back to utter chaos."
"Well, that's Spike's job," Cordy said.
"He's in charge of getting all the info into the files."
Spike
looked up from the office supply cabinet, his attention drawn by the sound of
his name. He watched the two girls as they chatted about running the office,
both of them intent on the topic at hand.
Cordelia
was wearing a long satin gown, the soft pink flaring around her calves. She
looked softer and prettier than usual, the blush of the satin bringing out the
color in her lips and cheeks. Fred was delicate in comparison, her dark hair a
stark contrast with the paleness of her skin and dress.
They
were both beautiful, but only one of them captured his eye. Fred laughed at
something Cordelia said, and Spike felt a surge of warmth, his blood quickening
with the heat of desire. He tore his eyes away from her and went back to
stocking the cabinet. Carefully he lined up boxes of pens and stacked pads of
post it notes.
'Get
your mind where it belongs', he reminded himself. Do right by Dawn, fight the
good fight; that was all his unlife was good for. He could be a friend to Fred,
and that was all. Friends don't think about friends the way he'd been thinking
about her. Don't be a stupid git, and don't make the same mistakes you made
with Buffy, shooting for the moon when all you deserved was dirt.
His cell phone rang, and he pulled it out of his
pocket. "Hello?"
"Hey, blood breath."
"Hey, bite size," he said happily, smiling
at the sound of Dawn's voice.
"What are you doing tonight?" she asked.
"Well, I have to check with my social
secretary, but I believe I'm free," he replied.
"Do you want to go to the mall?" she said
hopefully. "I have a gold card."
"I'm
not really a mall guy," he explained.
"How about a movie?" she suggested.
"Sure, if you like," he said. "What
time do you want me to pick you up?"
Dawn paused. "Well, actually, you'll have to
come and have dinner."
"Don't
want to have dinner with the parents," Spike said. "I haven't sat
through one of those since I had a set of my own."
"It's
not really optional, Spike," Dawn said. "If I want to go out with
you, you have to come. Plus, they've heard a lot about you, and they'd like to
meet you."
Spike sighed. "Alright."
"There's just one thing," she said.
"What?" he asked, hearing the hesitation
in her voice.
"Can
you look a little less- badassy?" she queried. "I mean, don't get me
wrong. I love the way you look. But you don't really scream ‘trust me with your
teenage daughter.’ It's more like ‘I can unfasten a bra in five seconds or less.’”
"Dawn!" he exclaimed, appalled.
"Just
do me a favor and leave the duster at home. Wear something not black,
okay?" she said. "It will make things easier on me if I don't have to
sneak out of my house just to see you." She listened to the silence on the
end of the phone. "Please?"
"Fine," he said in a clipped voice.
"Great!"
she said happily. "Be here at seven thirty. Here are the directions to the
house." He scribbled down her instructions on a legal pad.
"Alright, niblet," he said. "I'll see
you then."
"Just one more thing," she said.
"Could you maybe bring a girl with you?"
"What?" he asked.
"It
would look a lot better if you brought someone," she explained. "That
way it wouldn't seem like a date to my dad, and he'd be less dad-ish about me
going out with a group than alone with a hot guy.”
"I don't have anyone I could bring," he
argued.
"How about Cordy?" she suggested. “She's a
snappy dresser and she has manners. Dad would like her."
Spike looked at Cordelia. "She also makes me
want to stake myself."
"Don't be that way," Dawn said.
"Please? It'll make things so much easier."
"No fucking way, Dawnie," he said flatly.
"Pleaseeee?" she wheedled.
"Alright, alright, I'll think about it,"
he said, and hung up the phone.
"Problem?" Cordelia asked. "Hair
bleach get recalled or something?"
"You're one to talk, dye job," he
retorted.
Her hand flew to her chic blonde bob.
"Highlights."
He snorted. "Ever so natural."
She narrowed her eyes. "I totally hate
you."
"My heart bleeds," he said sincerely.
''Why
are you two acting so mean?" Fred asked.
"He started it," Cordelia snapped.
"No," Fred said. "You made fun of his
hair, so he made fun of yours."
Cordelia
sighed. "You know what? It's time for me to go. Files are done, I haven't
had a debilitating vision; it's time to make the most of my Saturday." She
picked up her purse and walked out of the office.
Spike hurried after her. "Wait up. I need a
favor."
She
turned around and burst out laughing. His lip curled in anger as he watched her
shake, unable to control her snorts and giggles. "Yeah, right!" she
chortled.
"I
need to bring a date to Dawn's," he explained. "I want to see her,
and her dad's not too keen on my taking her out alone."
"Gee, I wonder why not?" she said, eyes
wide.
"Please," he said sincerely. "It's
important for me to spend time with Dawn."
"You
know what I think?" Cordelia said. "I think that Dawn deserves to
have a normal life, with regular human friends, not spending time with a
creature feature like you. Hanging with a vampire is only going to drag her
back down into weird Sunnydale-style crap, and that's the last thing she
needs." She turned and walked out of the lobby, leaving him standing
there.
Spike
was stunned. “A creature feature like you.” Cordelia was right. What did Dawn
need him for, reminding her of the past, keeping her from a regular life? The
Slayer had asked him to keep her safe, but there were no threats against her
here. The vampire felt hollow, all of the purpose that had kept him going since
the final confrontation with Glory draining away. For the first time since
Buffy's funeral, he felt truly dead inside.
A
warm hand closed around his, startling him. He looked into Fred's face.
"What's the matter?" she asked. "You look so sad."
He
pulled his hand out of her grasp. "It's nothing," he said gruffly.
"I've just had a change of plans." He turned his back, not wanting
her to see him vulnerable.
"This girl, Dawn. You really love her?"
she asked quietly.
"More
than anything in the world," he replied. "She's all I have,
really." He walked up the staircase, heading for the privacy of his room,
where he could retreat into scotch and not feel for a little while.
"I'll
go with you," she offered. He
turned around and saw her standing at the foot of the stairs, her face pale.
Her hands were shaking, as she held tight to the newel post. "If you need
me to, I'll go with you."
“Do you think you could?” he said. “I know you don’t
want to leave the Hyperion.”
"I
have to leave eventually, right? I mean, I can't just be Miss Haversham in the
attic, all cobwebby. Or was that Rochester’s wife?” Her voice shook, and Spike
could smell her fear. “I can’t hide in the hotel forever.”
“Just
to Dawn’s house, and to dinner, and then I’ll bring you back,” he promised. He
could see the toll the notion of leaving was having on her. Her skin was beaded
with sweat, and he could smell the blood that trickled down her hand from the
cuts of her fingernails against her palm.
“Peachy,” she said wanly. “A fun night out on the
town.”
He
walked down to her and wiped away the sweat from her brow. “You don’t have to,
petal,” he assured her. “You don’t have to go if it makes you this scared.”
“I’m
not scared,” she said brightly. “I’m A-OK. I’m in full bloom, hale and hardy,
fit as a fiddle.” She wobbled.
“Fred?” he asked, concerned.
“A
sound mind in a sound body,” she said firmly, as her head rolled back and she
fell towards the floor. Spike caught her and pulled her into his arms. He
hefted her slight weight and carried her up the stairs and down the hall to her
room.
He set her down on the bed and turned her
radio on, then sat next to her, gently stroking her hair. She was so pale, and drawn, and only her
heartbeat indicated that she was fine. After several long minutes, she opened
her eyes, staring up at him. “I know you,” she said faintly.
“It’s me, Spike,” he assured her.
“The gleam in your eyes is so familiar a gleam,” she
said.
He
knew this bit very well. “That’s right, love,” he agreed. “Can I get you
someone to eat?” He shook his head. “Something.”
“I know it’s true that visions are seldom what they
seem,” said Fred.
“Oh,
goody,” he quipped. “Visions." He went into the bathroom and returned with
a tumbler of water. He handed it to her and she sipped slowly, draining the
glass. “Do you want to tell me about your vision, pet?” he asked softly.
“Fairies,” she said. “Blue and pink and green.”
Deja
vu rolled over him in a swell. “Fairies?” If the sodding fairies started
telling her what to do, he wasn’t sure he could handle it. Then again, Fred was
sweet and gentle. Her fairies were bound to be nicer.
“Flora and Fauna and Merryweather,” she elaborated.
“And you’re Phillip, but you did it all wrong.”
She
smiled, and he was lost. More than anything, he wanted to lean down and kiss
her. He wanted to rest her head on his chest, close his eyes, and have her hold
him tightly. Abruptly, he scrambled to his feet. “I have to leave."
Spike
walked down the hall and into his room. He opened the bottle that sat next to
the bed, drinking deeply as he closed his eyes. Fred, laughing, her lips
parted. He snarled and tipped his head back, gulping down the burning liquid
until there was nothing left. Think of something else. Anything else. Fred
descending the staircase, fair and shining in her finery.
One
day. One day and this crazy girl had crawled under his skin, in his brain,
twisting things up. He didn’t want to
help her; he wanted to possess her. God, he was pathetic. So much for his
strong, true Buffy love. Slayer wasn’t gone four months yet.
He
smashed the bottle against the wall and stormed out. “Spike?” he heard Fred
call, but he ran away. As fast as he could, he ran down the hall, putting as
much space as he could between himself and a mistake he was hell bent on
avoiding.
Spike
dashed through the lobby and out into the sunlight. Cursing, he pulled his coat
over his head and ran out to his car. Pulling the door open, he leapt inside.
He knew what he needed to burn this out of his system. A smirk formed on his
lips as he remembered exactly where he needed to go to find what he needed.
******
Fred
opened the door and looked out into the hallway. He was gone. She could feel
the lack of him in the air. He probably wanted to get ready for his date, not
hang around with her weirdo self.
A
wave of panic swept over her as she thought about going out. Her skin broke
into a sweat, her heart pounding in her chest. She could do this, she thought
firmly. For Spike, who'd been so nice, and for the girl he loved.
She
wondered what Dawn looked like, if she was as nice as Spike. Maybe she would
want to be her friend. It would be nice to have a friend to talk to, to share
things with. It might be worth leaving the hotel for.
Something
tugged at her memory, and she got up and went across the hall. She opened the
door to her old room and looked at the chaos inside. Living here seemed like
something long ago, a place in her life that she couldn't get a feeling for
anymore.
Fred
dragged the cardboard boxes across the hall to her new room. There was
something inside, something that she needed. She pulled open a box and took out
her belongings: a faded blue teddy bear, a fat scrapbook, a worn looking Bible.
At the bottom there was a crumpled leather bag. She picked it up and ran her
fingers over the tooled leather. Roses and trailing vines were embossed into
the shining surface, surrounding her name. Yes, this she remembered.
"No
one in this whole world is going to look after you the way that I do," her
father had said. He looked at her earnestly, his hand gripping her wrist hard.
"After I'm gone, there's going to be a whole lot of people who want a
piece of you. You need to look out for yourself, baby girl." He'd handed
her a box, his hand shaking.
On
the floor of her room, Fred opened the leather bag and pulled out the wooden
box. It was made of mahogany, polished to a fine sheen. She lifted the lid and
on a bed of velvet, lay a shining silver gun.
Her
father had stood behind her, his hands resting on her shoulders. The gun had
felt cold against her hands, and it was heavy, so heavy that it was hard to
keep it from shaking. "Make that Coke fly, baby," he'd said. She'd
aimed and fired, the aluminum can popping as the bullet slammed into it. Her
father had laughed and slapped her on the shoulder. "You're a
natural," he'd said.
Fred
traced her hands along the gun. Why would she need one? Who would she need to
protect herself from? The memory of her father was so strong that she could
smell the scent of his cologne, feel the warmth of his hand on her back. Why
couldn't she remember more?
Carefully
she closed the case, putting the gun back in the cardboard box. She wanted
something to make her feel secure, to make her safe outside of the hotel. The
gun just made her afraid, the metallic taste filling her mouth. Her hands
closed on the teddy bear and placed him into the bag.
*****
Spike
stomped into the bar, his duster flaring behind him. The chatter of demons
turned to silence as every eye in the room was drawn to him. A large, burly
demon in biker leathers put down his pool cue and pointed at him. "You," he said venomously.
"Yeah, it's me," Spike said, striding over
to stand inches away from the other demon's face..
"You
got our friend Marcus killed," the demon spat. He snapped off the end of his cue, creating a jagged wooden
stake.
"Can't say that I'm sorry," Spike said.
"Evil sadist kiddie fucker that he was."
The
demon growled loudly and lunged for Spike's chest. The vampire leaped back and
punched his opponent in the face, and the stake flew out of his hand. The other
demons in the bar swarmed around the pair, screaming and yelling for a good
fight.
"Your face is going to be a lot less pretty
when I'm done," the demon growled.
"Still
be a lot better looking than you," Spike retorted. He ducked, avoiding the
demon's punch. The biker's fist plowed into the torso of a Fyarl demon.
"Sor-" the demon began, right before the
Fyarl backhanded him across the throat.
Spike
stepped aside, not wanting to get in the way of an angry Fyarl. He couldn't get too banged up; it would
upset Dawn. He knocked into a serpentine creature who hissed at him, his tongue
flickering. "Bring it on," Spike yelled. "I'm not afraid of the
likes of you."
"You ssshould bbbeee," the snake trilled.
Spike
vamped, baring his own fangs. "Let's see who's got more bite then."
He picked up the creature and threw it into a table of Horlocks playing poker.
Chips and cards flew everywhere.
"You ruined our game," one walruslike
creature protested.
"Added
a bit of fun to mine," Spike grinned. He whooped with joy as a throng of
pissed off demons surrounded him.
*****
Fred walked down the hall and knocked on the door of
Angel's room. "Come in," he called out.
She
turned the knob and stepped inside. He was sitting on his bed, a volume of
Baudelaire resting on his chest. "Hi," she said shyly, as she sat
next to him.
He smiled at her. "You look lovely."
"Thanks,"
she said. "I'm going out with Spike, so I wanted to look nice." She
fidgeted with a lock of her hair.
"You're leaving the hotel?" Angel asked,
his eyes shining. "Fred, that's wonderful news."
"I'm
very nervous," she admitted. "I don't really remember that well, but
I'm pretty sure I don't like it out there."
"Then why are you going?" he asked.
"Did Spike coerce you, threaten you?"
Fred shook her head. "Of course not. He asked,
I said yes. That's all."
"This
really worries me," he admitted. "When I agreed to bring Spike here,
I never thought he would take an interest in you. They told me that he was
grieving, didn't really talk. I thought he'd keep to himself, get the work
done. I didn't think he'd fixate on you."
"He's really good to me," she said.
"He's been a friend, more than anyone else here."
Angel
looked sad. "When I left, after we got back from Pylea, I didn't really
think about you. I should have stayed, helped you adjust, made sure that you'd
be okay here."
"Wesley
and Cordy and Gunn tried," she said. "But I didn't want to see them.
I didn't want to see anyone. I didn't think any of this was real, really, and
it seemed like a waste of time to talk to people who weren't really there at
all."
"Then why am I different?" he asked.
"Why is Spike different?"
"You're not part of this world," she
explained. "You don't really belong here either."
"You are part of this world, Fred," he
reminded her. "This is your world. This is your home."
She smiled. "It might be. I'd like it to be.
We'll see."
Angel
looked at her sweet, innocent face. "I don't think that you should go
outside the hotel with Spike. If you want to go somewhere, I'll take you. But
you and him alone- it's a bad idea."
"You think he'll hurt me?" she asked.
He frowned. "No, that's not what I'm afraid
of." He bit his lip. "Spike is a very- passionate creature."
Understanding filled her eyes. "Oh. You think
he wants to comshuck me."
Angel sighed. "Well, yes. I mean you're a
beautiful woman and-"
"He loves someone else," Fred said.
Angel looked at her in surprise. "He told you
about her?"
"Yes," she said.
"I'm
surprised," he said. "His friends in Sunnydale said that he wouldn't
say a word about her. I saw him get upset when her name came up. But if he told
you about her-"
She
heard fast steps coming down the hall. "He's here, he's back," she
said excitedly. "I have to go." She leaned forward and kissed his
cheek. "Have fun reading-" She picked up the book. "Les Fleurs
de Mal."
"Flowers of Evil," he translated.
"Oh,"
she said, taken aback. "Well, you have a nice time with your diabolical
book, then." She left the room, leaving Angel staring after her.
****
Spike
was ripping the cellophane off a dress shirt when a knock came at his door.
"Come in," he said. Fred opened the door and stepped inside.
"I'm running late," he said hurriedly. "Forgot that I'd promised
Dawn I'd dress in something different." He pulled out the blue shirt,
struggling with the straight pins that held the garment to the cardboard
package. "Little pointy bastards," he muttered.
"Let
me do it," she said. "You seem a little frazzled." She took the
shirt out of his hands and he sat down on the bed, pulling out a pair of dress
socks from a plastic bag.
"You
wouldn't believe what I had to pay for this rig," he said. "I could
have bought a bleeding car for this much money not terribly long ago." He
opened a cardboard box and pulled out a pair of gleaming brown oxfords and
slipped them on.
"I
got the pins out," Fred said. He grabbed the shirt from her hands and
shrugged it on, fastening the buttons. She handed him his tie, and he hurriedly
looped it around his neck.
His
sleeves flapped, and he swore. "French cuffs! I didn't pick out French
cuffs! I haven't got any bloody cuff links."
"I have some," Fred said. "I'll be
right back."
Spike
struggled with his tie, the silk slipping as he impatiently tried to knot it.
"Fuck!" he screamed, ripping it off and throwing it onto the floor.
"Damn the bloody sodding stupid tie."
Fred
came back into the room, her hand cupped. "Ssh," she said soothingly,
rubbing a hand down his back. "You don't want to get all upset before you
see your girl."
He
tried to calm down, and looked at her for the first time. She was dressed in a
long, white satin dress. The halter-top was cut low in a gaping vee, and the
skirt was pressed into a flurry of tiny pleats. She wore tall silver sandals on
her feet, and dangling beaded earrings hung from her ears. Her long hair was
gathered on her head in a loose bun, with wispy tendrils let loose to drift
over her shoulders. The only incongruous touch was a huge bag of tooled leather
that hung over her right shoulder.
She
slid a cuff link through the holes at each wrist of his shirt. He looked down at the circles of silver, a
script "L" in the center of each one. "They belonged to my
father," she explained.
"I'll take good care of them," he
promised.
She
looked up at him with a smile. "I know." She bent down to retrieve
his tie, and Spike could see all the way down the front of her dress, the
smooth sweep of skin from neck to belly. Tie in hand, she stood up, carefully
fastening it around his neck in a tidy knot. "You look perfect."
"Are you sure?" he asked. "I feel
like a moron in this get up."
"You
look like every girl's dream," she said seriously. She rested her hand on
his chest, and her mouth was inches from his. The scent of her clouded his
mind, the warmth of her heating his body.
“We
have to go,” he said, shaking himself out of it. "Dawn will be
waiting." She nodded and extended her arm. He slipped his hand underneath
her elbow and escorted her out of the hotel.
-TBC-