“Well?” Buffy planted her hands on her hips, a stern expression etched onto her face. Her tiny foot was tapping an irritated tune against the ground as she waited for his response. However, her nudity dampened the effect of her pose a little, but she was still damn scary for a little blonde chick.
“Okay, you’re right. I should have bloody told you.” He admitted with a heavy hearted sigh.
“But you didn’t think I’m smart enough to understand?” Buffy bit the inside of her cheek to keep from exploding into a rant once again.
“No! That’s not it! Don’t do that thing I know you bloody bints love to do.”
“What thing?”
“Where you twist everything round so it seems the sodding way that you want to see it.”
“You ass!”
“Don’t get your knickers in a bunch, love. The reason I didn’t tell you has nothing to do with your smarts. You’re a clever little chit. Too bloody clever for your own good sometimes.”
Buffy ignored the backhanded compliment and waved her arms with a flourish.
“Right…so you just see me as a kid who needs to be protected then?”
Spike grit his teeth before hissing out another frustrated negative through them.
“No, Buffy! I don’t see you as a fool, or a kid, you silly bint. I think we both proved tonight that you’re a woman.” He allowed a smirk to grace his lips for a moment before sobering again. “The reason I didn’t tell you the truth is to protect myself. Because when I tell you, then you’re going to hate me for being the nasty bugger that I used to be. I know what it’s like to lose everything, love. It happened before. I managed to survive that. But I couldn’t bloody well survive losing you, pet.”
Her demeanor softened and she sunk down to the bed, laying a hand on his chest.
“You can trust me, Spike. I won’t hate you, whatever it is that you’re hiding.”
His expression was doubtful, but he was cornered here. If he told Buffy then he might lose her, but if he didn’t then he would lose her for sure.
“Well I should probably start at the beginning then.” He scrubbed a hand roughly over his face, and sat up, fidgeting to try and stall what he had to say.
“I came to California 12 years ago, to live with my cousin. Her name is…was…Darla. She was a sweet little chit, lovely girl. After growing up in London with a Dad like mine, being around someone as caring as her was a big bloody revelation, pet.”
He pointed to the blonde girl in the picture Buffy had found.
“That’s her.”
“She’s real pretty.” Buffy smiled softly, and Spike nodded.
“Yeah, she was a great beauty. Good heart too. But Darla always wanted to please others and be accepted. In a lot of ways it destroyed her…and us.”
“Who’s the other girl?” Buffy asked curiously when she noticed his eyes lingering.
“That’s Drusilla.” A pang of something unidentifiable crossed his face. “She was my girlfriend back then. My first girlfriend really. Back home I was a punk and a loser to most people. They all saw me as the kid who acted out, dying his hair and wearing leather because his Dad was the local baddie.
But she saw something in me that I didn’t even realize existed. She was English, like me, but funnily enough I met her over here. Her mother had been a bit of a tyrant and she moved over to the States to live with her uncle when she was 16. I guess she was what you would call an emo, suffering from all the things she went through because of her loony Mum. But her heart was made of bloody gold. She was even the one who gave me the nickname ‘Spike’.
She and Darla were best mates. They did everything together…bloody inseparable they were. Shopped together, ate together, even went to church together.
And when I came over here, Dru and me…we just clicked. It seemed like I had everything I wanted and nothing would ever change that.”
He paused, his mind transporting him back to the time when all three of them had lived in bliss inside the innocent walls of Darla’s small Los Angeles apartment.
Shaking his head clear he raised tortured eyes to Buffy and she squeezed his hand in hers, reassuring him enough to continue.
“They were both so innocent. Then one day everything changed. I remember it like yesterday even though it was ten years ago. We went up to San Francisco for the week. It was summer and Dru had never been. She wanted to see it so bloody much so I drove us all up there in this old Desoto I got my hands on. I bloody loved that car. We went out to some club and…I don’t even know how they got talking, but Darla met this bloke. Didn’t know what a nasty piece of work he was then, but I could see there was something that wasn’t bloody well right in his eyes.”
“Angel?” Buffy asked.
“Yeah. This photo was taken the first night we met and he had Darla hooked like a trout from then on. Bastard was a bad influence on her, getting her to drink more than she ever had in her whole life before. Same with Drusilla. For some reason the pair of them worshipped that great git like he was their God. And I admit I was a bit jealous, especially about the way Dru was around him, fawning over the ponce when she was supposed to be my girl. But when it came time to get back to LA, I thought that was the end of it.”
“But it wasn’t.” Buffy stated rhetorically.
“No. It wasn’t.” Spike scowled at the memory. “He wasn’t just about to piss off and leave us alone. Liam Angelus is a right royal git and he clings like a bloody barnacle. I used to wonder if he was a vampire, sucking the life out of anyone he met. So, yeah, we hadn’t shaken him off and two bitty weeks later he turned up. And that was the beginning of the end.”
Los Angeles 10 years earlier
“Oh my god! Angel?” Darla shrieked, laughing excitedly as she jumped into his arms. He was the last person she had expected to find on the other side of her open apartment door.
“I was in the neighborhood so I thought I’d stop by.” Angel grinned coyly, sending her heart flip-flopping in her breast.
“Come in! Come in!” She ushered the man inside, and led him to the couch.
“Spike and Dru went out to catch a movie, but they should be back any minute. I know they would love to see you again. We had such fun in San Fran! Although I’m still recovering from it, I never drink like that usually. I’m not sure if we should make the drinking a regular thing.” Darla gushed, completely missing Angel’s bored expression at her ramblings.
Luckily for both of them the door opened at that moment and a giggling Dru walked in hand in hand with Spike who was smiling adoringly at his girlfriend. But when they saw the figure reclining on the worn leather couch the pair stopped cold in their tracks.
Dru’s face illuminated with a beaming smile of excitement, but Spike’s grew cold, a nasty frown marring his brow.
“Peaches. Didn’t think we’d have the displeasure of seeing you again.” Spike scowled.
“Oh, come on Willy-boy. You can’t tell me you aren’t pleased to see me. I know your ladies are...more than pleased.” Angel smiled at the other man with faux cordiality.
“You must be confusing pleasure with disgust, pal. Can see why you might make that mistake. I’m sure it happens with most of the bloody chits you take to bed.”
Angel’s face darkened ominously, but Darla fluttered over to them wanting to break the tension.
“Come on now, boys. Let’s not fight. We’re all friends here.” She smiled at her cousin hopefully, and Spike sighed, fumbling with a cigarette before finally nodding.
“Fine.” He conceded with a resigned wave of his hand.
“Angel?” Darla placed her hands on her hips, wanting to hear the same agreement from him.
“Fine by me too.” Angel responded. “Besides…it might be nice to have another man around all the time. Sometimes there’s…things…you can do with a man that you just can’t with a woman.”
“Ooh! This is so exciting!” Drusilla clapped her hands, happy that the boys were getting along. She flopped down on the couch next to Angel and hugged him tightly. “I’m so glad you’re staying. We want you to stay forever and ever and ever!”
Spike’s perpetual scowl deepened as he watched Dru wrap her arms around another man, but he didn’t want to inflame the tension and upset his cousin, Darla, even more so he stayed silent. Any fool could see that Darla’s feelings for Angel already ran deep, and while he wanted to punch the taller man’s lights out, he felt he owed it to his cousin to let her have some happiness with whoever she chose to be with.
“Don’t worry about that darling.” Angel said. “I plan on staying a long time.” He loosened himself from the dark-haired woman’s grip. “Now…who’s for drinks?”
Finally a suggestion that Spike could get on board with.
Several hours and several bottles later, all four of them were feeling the effect of the alcohol. It was buzzing through their veins like a hive of bees, and through his beer goggles, even Angel seemed amusing to Spike.
“What do you say we crank this party up a notch?” Angel suggested, reaching into his pocket and pulling out a small baggie.
Drusilla looked drunkenly at the white baggie and laughed shrilly. “Ooh naughty Daddy has brought some sugar to the tea party!”
On the rare occasions when she drank, Dru always went a little nutsy, and usually Spike found it endearing, but he was too annoyed with Angel to be mollified by her childlike riddles right now.
“You brought sodding drugs into our apartment?!” Spike raged. “Are you bloody well bug-shagging crazy?”
Angel merely smiled in response. “Now now Willy-Boy, don’t knock it until you’ve tried it.”
“Bollocks!” He shouted irately, glowering at Angel. “First off, the name is Spike. Learn it. Even a tiny brain like yours, Peaches, must be able to retain a little shred of information like that. And second off, none of us will be using drugs.”
Spike’s chest was heaving in anger, and Darla shot him a sympathetic look. She knew just what her cousin had been through growing up with his father, Ethan, and understood why he was reluctant to take them himself.
Ethan had lived for drugs, uncaring of his small son or wife, and built up an insurmountable mound of debt. Eventually Ethan’s drug induced beatings had driven Spike’s mother way and left the teenager to pretty much fend for himself. The day that Spike finally escaped from that house was the best of his life. So seeing Angel with this bag full of cocaine was like a slap in the face.
“I went to all this trouble of getting the best stuff and none of you want to have a little try?” Angel said cajolingly, flashing the two women his best puppy-dog eyes. “Darla? You don’t want to try even a little bit? It would make for a…fun night.”
The blonde hesitated, her eyes nervously darting between the two men. She was torn between her loyalty to Spike and wanting Angel to like her.
“Okay,” she finally agreed, “but just a little.”
Angel nodded understandingly and turned to Dru.
“How about you, Princess?”
“Oh yes, I think it will be better than all the tea and cakes in the land!” Dru cooed, the alcohol dulling her senses.
“Dru, no!” exclaimed Spike in horror. He couldn’t just sit by and watch this happen.
“It’s time to face the music, Willy. The girls have made their choice.” Somehow Spike didn’t think that Angel was talking solely about trying the drugs.
Anger coursing through him, Spike picked up his jacket from the arm of the couch and flung it over his shoulder. Not prepared to stay another moment, he strode toward the door.
“Sod the lot of you!” He yelled, before leaving the apartment, the door slamming behind him.
If they wanted Angel then bugger them!
He would do just fine alone.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Thank you for reading and reviewing.
I'm posting all the next three chapters now, because they go together. It was originally one chapter but it was WAY too long so I divided it into three.
For these three chapters I'm putting warnings for drug use, sexual situations, (non-grapic) Spike/Other, violence, and references to M/M and F/F.
If any of these things are offensive to you then please read with caution.
Enjoy!
I'm posting all the next three chapters now, because they go together. It was originally one chapter but it was WAY too long so I divided it into three.
For these three chapters I'm putting warnings for drug use, sexual situations, (non-grapic) Spike/Other, violence, and references to M/M and F/F.
If any of these things are offensive to you then please read with caution.
Enjoy!
Chapter End Notes:
Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed.
More flashbacks coming up. :)
Please review! Pretty please! :)
More flashbacks coming up. :)
Please review! Pretty please! :)