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Spike doesn't call. Spike goes West: (Spike/Angel)
Spike put the laminated card down on the nightstand and lit a cigarette. He began to pace. What would it serve, his calling Giles? He'd been dead to the Scoobies for eight years. They'd all gone on with their lives and were doing just fine without him. What did he have to offer that wasn't already being accomplished by hundreds of slayers all over the globe? Oh sure, they'd probably make a place for him somewhere. But he'd be superfluous, and he knew it.Spike picked up the calling card and snapped it in half, letting the pieces drift into the small wastebasket on the floor.
Angel had chosen to operate in LA for a reason. Beneath the glitter and the glamor of a culture of hopes and dreams was a dark underbelly that fed on those dreams. There wasn't a better place to make a difference.
Spike's lips curved in an ironic smile. He and Angel were more alike than he'd ever admit. He'd resisted going back to LA because it had been 'Angel's town' and he wanted to find his own mission. With all the world to choose from, what did he really want to do? He wanted to back to LA and help the helpless, that's what! That brief period of time when he'd been working with Doyle—no, Lindsey—had been more satisfying than anything he'd done since. So, that's what he'd do.
Souled vampire, version 2.0, helpin' the helpless one at a time, comin' right up. Look out, LA . . . here comes Spike!
~*~*~*~*~*~
Spike brushed the vampire dust from his arms and shoulders, then ran his hand through his hair. He grinned. He'd been back in LA for three months and felt happier now than he'd felt for all of the seven years he'd been gone. Apocalypse averting . . . that was Buffy's and Angel's thing. He'd always been better one-on-one. Up close and personal. Nothin' but fists and fangs.Spike glanced at the sky. Still time to check a few of the underpasses before he called it a night. The homeless had a rough enough time of it in this town. He'd made it his personal business to nail the 'Closed' sign on the all-you-can-eat buffet they'd been before he came back. But he couldn't afford to get sloppy. A threat was only good as long as it continued to be enforced.
Spike was swinging by his last stop of the night when he heard screams of terror. A flood of people surged from under the bridge. An hysterical young girl, who couldn't have been more than 14 or 15, gripped his arm. A girl a few years older pulled on her arm, trying to hurry her away.
The fingers clutched tighter on his arm. “My baby!” she sobbed. “It got my baby!”
The other girl gave a yank, dragging the young girl away from Spike.
“Keira! We gotta go! Now!”
Spike watched them go, and then headed under the bridge, pulling his short-handled battle ax from under his coat. He heard a series of grunts and blows, and then a mighty roar coming from a troll at least three times Olaf's size.
“You try to stop me, puny mortal?
“Not mortal.” Angel went into game face. “And yeah, I plan to stop you.”
Angel slashed with a broadsword, opening up a long gash on the troll's thigh. The troll roared with rage and grabbed for Angel.
A battle ax came flying through the air to lodge in the troll's forearm. He let go of Angel, who snatched the ax from the troll's arm and threw it back to Spike.
“Need any help?” Spike swung at the troll's ankle.
“You know how to kill a troll?” Angel whirled the broadsword, keeping the troll at bay.
“Don't happen to have an enchanted hammer lyin' around?” Spike launched himself into the air, landing a flying kick into the side of the troll's knee. The troll's leg buckled and he stumbled.
“Not that I've noticed.” Angel sliced at the back of the troll's other knee with his sword and the troll went down on his knees.
“Barring an enchanted hammer, I'd say go for the—”
“Eyes.” Angel ran up the side of the bridge support, flipped, and rammed the broadsword through the troll's left eye.
With a roar of pain that caused the cars passing overhead to vibrate, the troll fell backwards and died.
“Right, then. That's what I was gonna say anyway.”
Angel retrieved his sword, wiping it off on the troll's vest before storing it in his back sheath.
“Spike.”
“Angel.”
“How've you been?”
“Not bad. And yourself?”
“Hanging in there. So . . . you're back in LA?”
Spike nodded. “Have been for a few months.”
“Got a place to stay?”
“Here and there. You?”
“Back at the Hyperion. Apparently, I still own it. It used to be a hotel — plenty of room.”
“You offerin'?”
“Yeah, Spike. I'm offering. You need an actual place to stay. I've got lots of room. I'm inviting you to come live with me.”
The corners of Spike's lips twitched and then he grinned.
“Don't really need an invitation to enter the dwelling of a demon. You are still a demon, right? Didn't shoeshine or anything when I wasn't lookin'?
“Would that make a difference to you? If I'd shanshued?”
“Well, yeah. Was kinda lookin' forward to spendin' some time with the only other souled vampire I know. We are still the only ones, right?”
“As far as I know.”
Angel slung his arm around Spike's shoulders as they walked off into the night.
“Never thought I'd actually say this, but . . . I've missed you, Spike.”
Spike's arm crept around Angel's waist.
“Yeah, me too. That's just . . . strange, innit?”
The End
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