TITLE: Blood By Necessity 1/5
SERIES: N/A
AUTHOR: Jay-Dee
EMAIL: jmduff@sympatico.ca
FEEDBACK: It's necessity, baby.
ARCHIVE/DISTRIBUTION: Most definitely, but please ask first.
SUMMARY: Spike looks for consolation in old company, attempting to deal with his angry soul.
SPOILERS: Anything up to early season seven.
CONTENT/WARNINGS: Spike/Angel relationship.
RATING: PG-13
DISCLAIMER: I do not own any of the characters related to Buffy The Vampire Slayer. They belong to Joss Whedon, the WB, Fox and Mutant Enemy.




Wreckage - my mind,
Insecure - all the time,
Once loved – now paralyzed,
I once thought – I’ll never die.

Frustrated – our simple life,
No one listens – everyone lies,
Who said "Home is where you hide"?

I'm home - leave it to me.
(Home by Sevendust)

Blood is a fickle attachment to family. Angel isn’t my blood in all relevance, but he is my blood by necessity. I’ve overdosed on the nectar of his undead existence since I was born to Drusilla…but that’s my secret, not yours.

I nursed off Drusilla because she wanted me to; wanted to feel adored by ecstasy and fulfilled by responsibility, anything to distract her frail mind. I fed off Darla on the rare occurrences that she demanded I did because if I refused I was guaranteeing the world would buzz with universal torture. She could do that, you know.

But then there was Angel: sacred, damnable, human Angel. I fed off him because I needed to…needed to feel the freefall of being contaminated by pure power. Long nights were spent when loneliness slept in our beds and we’d end up entangled in one another’s arms, the glint of his ivory incisors plucking at my flesh until I screamed with abandon. And then the moment would come where the blackness of his eyes surfaced and the glitter of gold sparkled moist on his offered neck, purposefully canting my head towards him and instructing, “Drink, William. Be strong.” And I was.

Now I’m as weak as him, a soul caged beneath my breast. Now I feel the madness of what I hated him for. I can hear it tearing out my wits. I can feel it overpowering my desire. So now I come back to you, sweet Angel. Now I come to the ancient blood I left in your wake. Now I’ve come to introduce my soul to yours. I wonder if they share the same pain?






Shivering beneath the pelting rain, clothing tight like a second layer of flesh on his bony, breakable body, he stood outside of the Hyperion waiting for something. He observed light flood through one of the main floor’s windows, followed by the dark shadow of a slow-moving figure. Angel must’ve felt him by now. After all, he could feel Angel. He could feel whispers rushing through the veins of the ground beneath him, images of oblivion flashing behind his eyes.

He moved closer to the front door, pressing a trembling hand to the barricade as his eyes swept shut to relax the wetness of his thick eyelashes. There was no more waiting once the door opened and Spike was suddenly aware that a piece of reality was standing before him. There was trusted clarity in Angel’s black-on-black eyes; so much it stunned Spike’s sanity.

“Sp--” Angel started before the thoughtfulness of his tender expression contorted into utter disbelief, feeding off of whatever it was that reflected in Spike’s fixated gaze. “You’ve got a--”

“Soul,” he finished with an ornery smile that had begun dying at the corners of his thin mouth.

Angel was undoubtedly lost by the way he pensively stood in awe. However, after the momentary visitation of silence, he escorted the blonde vampire into the confines of the hotel.

“You’re soaking wet,” Angel confirmed, looking him over with concern.

“Yes…and I’ll also be dripping all over your expensive hardwood floors until you grab me a towel.”

Angel seemed too exhausted to raise suggestions to the reasoning behind the younger vampire’s arrival, so instead he left wordlessly to fetch a means of dry warmth, his hesitant movements showing visible uncertainty.

Spike watched him leave. Stalking through the vaguely familiar ambiance, his nose flinched at the smell of a distant feminine perfume and young blood. It was young, powerful blood to be exact…something recognizable.

“I like what you’ve done to the place,” Spike notified the unseen vampire, hauling himself up to a comfortable seat on the front desk.

“I haven’t done anything to the place,” Angel verified as he re-entered from around the corner, a towel and black t-shirt in hand.

Spike exchanged glances with him. “I was just making conversation. No need to get defensive.”

“I wasn’t,” Angel snapped.

“Like how you aren’t now?”

Angel’s eyebrow rose in this delicate little way that offered no room for casual chat, handing over an oversized shirt to the younger vampire. “Get cleaned up. You can’t stay here.”

Spike removed his wet shirt and cloaked himself in the dry one. “I wasn’t expecting to. I don’t expect you to take me in after…” Spike strayed with a wounded stare. “I understand, okay? I get it…I get everything.”

After the loaded pause of thought, Angel inquired in a guilty undertone, “How did this happen?”

“In one word?” Spike’s head rose. “Painfully.”

Angel’s eyes widened slightly, casting the dim interior lights like sparks of the sun against the darkness constantly situated there. It made him look almost human.

“All your little pals seem to have disappeared under mysterious circumstances,” Spike murmured upsettingly.

“They’re still here,” Angel argued apprehensively, his expression hardening. “At least Fred and Gunn are.”

“What about Wesley?”

“He’s decided to use his life for other purposes.”

“The girl--”

“Is gone,” Angel finalized, radiating hostility. “I don’t know where, and I’d appreciate not talking about it.”

Spike rejoined cruelly, “Well, Buffy’s doing just grand, in case you were wondering,” he stopped, shrugging mid-sentence. “You know…about what she’s been up to.”

“That’s good to hear,” Angel mustered with cheerless eyes.

Spike somberly glared at the ageless ridges spooned in his palms. “Apparently you’ve taught her quite well in the torture department.”

There was a sigh of awareness that struck a dull chord in Angel. “You’re going to an awful lot of trouble just to remind me about a girl I used to love, Spike. If there’s a point to this rambling, I wouldn’t mind getting to it.”

An ache in the floor creaked beneath them, wrestling the silence. “Funny thing…how she gave me a reason to get a soul and you one to lose yours.” Spike thought hard on the past, gripping mercilessly to the countertop beneath him as he shook with the succession of cold tears. Pausing with slight surprise, he brought his fingertips into contact with the uninvited discharge blurring his vision, releasing a sickened laugh. “Now I cry like a bloody baby.” He glanced at the composed creature standing not far from him. “I didn’t think it would make everything worse,” he clarified. “I didn’t ask to be like you.”

Angel stood as angelic and idle as a statue carved in pale sandstone, unchanging. “Having a soul doesn’t change you, Spike,” he explained calmly. “You’re nothing like me because you can’t possibly understand what your soul means until you’ve suffered an eternity living in the torture of it. It’s your conscience, and it will kill you before you kill it.” The unnoticeable tightening of his mouth was the only clue of the life he beheld. “Right now you’re only feeling the impact of killing thousands of people. Wait until you start feeling the shame of it…”

As if an earthquake had burdened the world’s surface, the young vampire fell numbly to the ground below him in rapid-fire tears. “Oh, God…the feelings…the voices…you don’t understand how loud they scream!” he cried wildly, digging his fingertips into his skull and violently rocking against the wall. “The singing…” he wailed, his eyes rolling up in his head, “the singing never stops. It’s all around me, Angel. I scream for it to stop…but it’s deafening…”

Angel finally decided to approach and make an attempt to comfort the deranged vampire without showing the commitment of resentment or protection in the process. His sturdy hand cupped the back of the opposing vampire’s head, holding him against his thigh with delicate ease to try and stop the electrical spasms the younger vampire encountered with each intake of unneeded breath.

“Make it stop, Angel…please…they tell me I’ve been bad…they say I’m a bad man,” the tormented vampire chattered, tears cascading from his eyes one by one like the residue of a holy fountain.

There was the virtue of patience and the experience of a saviour in Angel. Tragically submissive, he managed to say, “One day, Spike. You can stay for one day.”



Part 2