Destiny

FYI: the Irish accent is MUCH better. Still not right, mind you, but better.

Royal London Hotel, 1880

There's laughter outside the closed door, and a just-risen William and Dru come into a very sumptuous suite of rooms. As soon as he closes the doors, William puts his arm around Dru, pulls her back against him, nuzzles at her neck. Hungrily, he turns her around, pushes her against the wall, starts to kiss her. She pushes at his chest.

"Such a hungry little kitty!" she says, amused. "Meeeeeoowwww... You've been a starved one, haven't you? My sweet Willy." She moves away from him, into the room.

"I have you to feast on now," he says. This isn't soppy, milquetoast William, this man is confident, and he knows what he wants from Dru. He looks around. "Is this your home?" he asks.

"Their home." Dru indicates a dead couple on a settee. They're slumped to the side, eyes open, each with a pair of bite marks on their necks. The ambassador to...Dru can't remember. "And his plump, lovely wife. Til their spirits flew away on fairy wind." She gives Spike a conspiritorial look. "Psst. When Angelus took them to dinner..."

William is fascinated by the dead bodies, but he doesn't miss her words. "Angelus," he says, "who the bloody hell is Ange..."

But he senses another presence, and stops, turning toward the bedroom. A dark silhouette looms in the doorway, face hidden in shadows. William is immediately wary.

"Look what I made," Dru says proudly. "It's called Willy."

"William." The correction is automatic, because William is still focused on Angelus. Dru pouts for a moment, then smiles broadly.

"Where's Darla?" she says, "I want Darla to meet William."

"Darla and I," Angelus says, stepping out of the shadows," had a little spat." He's just as focused on William as William is on him. Sizing each other up. "Master sent for her. You know Darla--Master's pet."

"Poor Angelus," Dru says, but not with any discernible amount of sympathy.

"Don't worry, Dru," Angelus says, still focused on William, "we'll make up. Always do." He touches a healing gash on his temple. "After a little tit-for-tat." William looks at him, eyes narrowed. Trying to figure out this new element...

"So instead of feeding on this...William," Angelus says, "you went and turned him into one of us." He steps forward slowly, and William watches him carefully, buthe doesn't move. "Another rooster in the henhouse," Angelus says softly. There's the barest hint of menace in his tone.

"You're not cross with me, are you?" Dru asks.

"Cross?" Angelus says, and suddenly steps forward, grabbing William's forearm, digging his thumb into the tendons to close William's hand into a fist and pulling his hand into a beam of sunlight. "Do you have any idea what it's like to have nothing but women as travel companions, night in and night out?" he says, as William struggles against his hold. Finally William, who clearly didn't expect his hand to start sizzling, breaks away.

"Touch me again..." he says, ready to threaten, but Angelus goes on as though he doesn't notice.

"Don't mistake me, he says, "Love the ladies, it's just, lately, I've been wondering..." He extends his arm, setting his own fist in the sunbeam. Steam starts to rise from the flesh, and Angelus is clearly enjoying the pain. "What it'd be like," he goes on, his voice slow and husky and very, very seductive, "to share the slaughter of innocents...with another man." He opens his hand and smoke rises from his palm. (note: AAAAAAAND the slashometer pegs HARD in the red...) He looks straight into William's eyes. "You don't think that makes me some kind of deviant, do you?" He pulls his hand back and smiles. (And the slashometer jumps another eighth-inch past the red...)

William looks at him, eyes slightly narrowed. Perhaps it's surprise, perhaps it's awe, perhaps something...else...that we see in his eyes. WIthout speaking, he puts his open hand into the sunlight. His arm shakes with the pain as smoke rises from his skin, but he doesn't move his hand out of the light, and all the while he looks at Angelus with that enigmatic expression.

After a moment, when he's sure William is serious, Angelus begins to laugh. He puts his shoulder, pushing William's arm down. WIlliam looks very relieved.

"I like this one!" Angelus says, still laughing. "You and me, we're going to be the best of friends." He laughs, and now William is laughing with him, full out.

"Get the hell away from me, Spike," Angel says, coming down the stairs into the W&H lobby. He's enormously annoyed.

"Would that I could, you big ape," Spike says, walking through a column. "Why don't you make us both happy and give me what I want?"

Angel, on his way to Harmony's desk, doesn't even turn. "You are not getting an office."

"You selfish sod!" Everybody else gets to go home to a nice cozy place, but Spike is stuck in somebody else's nest. "It's not right."

"You just haunt the place," Angel snaps back. Which Spike thinks is a job well done. He asks for Wesley's office--and he actually calls him Wesley instead of Percy--since he's gone, but Angel says Wes is not gone, he's on a leave of absence. He stalks into his office and closes the door.

"Oh, right," Spike says, "Boo-hoo. He thought he killed his bloody father." By now, Angel has closed the door. "Try staking your mother," Spike shouts after him, "when she's coming on to you!"

Harmony looks up at that. "Wow," she says. "That explains a lot."

Spike makes a frustrated noise, but gives up an explanation as a hopeless cause. He starts to go toward Angel's office, but Harmony calls him back. He turns, exasperated. Okay, he'll try... "Look," he tells Harmony, obviously holding onto his patience with both hands, "that was a long time ago, and she wasn't herself." He's about to say more, but Harmony interrupts him.

"You've got mail," she says. Very cheerful.

"What?" The non sequitur throws Spike completely off for a moment.

"It's addressed to you, care of here," she says.

"Who'd send post to a..."

"Ghost?" she finishes for Spike. "Doesn't say. 'S kinda heavy. Here." She sets the package, which is fairly large, say enough to hold eight medium-sized paperback books, on the counter, and looks at him expectantly.

He merely holds his hands in the air and wiggles his fingers, eyebrows raised.

"Oh!" she says, realizing. "You want me to..."

"If you wouldn't mind," Spike says politely. She opens the tape seal with a letter opener, and when she opens the box, there's a bright flash of light.

Spike's eyebrows lift. "Welll," he says, "That was a slap and a tickle."

Harmony looks into the box. There's nothing there, and she's about to say so, but the phone rings. When she answers, there's nothing but a horrible static screech that makes her hold the phone away from her ear in pain.

"Any more fireworks for me," Spike says, walking toward Angel's office as she answers the phone, "I'll be in here, telling your boss what a miserable bastard..." But he collides with the door, instead of going through it, and bounces off, landing flat of his back on the floor. "BUGGER!" he says. "That hurt!"

Angel opens his office door, come to see what the ruckus is. He sees Spike lying on the floor, and Spike looks up at him. "Hold on..." Spike says, realizing what just happened. Angel seems to realize it, too, because he begins to look the tiniest bit alarmed. Spike looks up at Angel, his brows drawing down in a frown...

More to come...

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Dori

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