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Plus One
by Lilithangel
“So what’s the plan?” Spike asked. “You do have a plan this time?”
“The plan is for you to shut up and let me convince the Black Thorn that I’m trustworthy enough to be let into the inner circle,” Angel said.
“That’s a stupid plan,” Spike replied.
“I have to agree with Spike,” Wesley said. “They won’t trust you without some show of loyalty that is bound to require an act you will regret.”
“Not necessarily,” Angel said. “Anyway having Spike along isn’t going to help convince them of anything.”
“You can’t go in alone,” Fred repeated their earlier argument.
“Firstly senior management is always expected to have a partner,” Gunn said, “and secondly you wouldn’t let any of the rest of us come.”
“It’s too dangerous,” Angel said, “even if Spike is convenient he’s going to offend everyone.”
“You don’t know that,” Fred said spotting Spike’s rising anger at Angel’s constant dismissal.
“Spike has proved himself to be a valuable ally,” Lorne added, “despite being apparently trapped in the 1980s.”
“Hey, this is classic,” Spike said but without heat. He had grown quite fond of Angel’s gang over time and the banter was comforting.
“He could do with some suitable clothes,” Wesley added and Spike glared at him, maybe not that fond.
“I’m not paying,” Angel said quickly.
“It’s not as if I get a salary,” Spike said.
“You’d have to do something to earn it,” Angel said.
“Come on darling,” Spike cooed, “you don’t want to present a bad image to the senior management.”
“You having new trousers is not going to improve my image,” Angel growled.
“You see how he treats me?” Spike said dramatically to Fred who was trying not to snigger. Spike was good at driving Angel mad with rapid shifts in mood when he wasn’t needling at Angel’s attitudes.
“He does have a point,” Gunn said, “a lot of these events are about making a good impression, showing others up, that sort of thing, and there’s likely to be formal activities. Blondie’s going to attract the wrong sort of attention if he doesn’t blend in.”
“I don’t care about making a good impression,” Angel sulked.
“You have to care,” Fred reminded him, “this is our best chance to identify members of the Black Thorn and find out what they’re doing.”
“And you’ll be too busy smoozing to do any sneaky shit,” Spike said with a smirk. “So I can take a look around, listen in to chit chat and maybe stumble across something of use.”
“That would be a first,” Angel said.
“Just because you can’t see past your thick forehead doesn’t mean I don’t contribute,” Spike said. “I’ll fit in better than you will.”
“If I give you some money for clothes will you shut up?” Angel said plaintively.
Gleefully Spike held out his hand and Angel resentfully slapped a handful of notes into it. Spike raised an eyebrow and Angel added more.
“Don’t waste it on booze,” Angel warned and Spike snorted stuffing the notes into a pocket. "Lorne, you go with him and make sure he picks something suitable.”
“So are we going for spouse, mate or concubine?” Lorne asked his eyes brightening as he ignored Spike’s protest.
“Can’t he just be my assistant or something?” Angel said.
“Hell no,” Spike said, “then I’d be forced to follow you around all the time and that ain’t happening.”
“People would believe spouse the way you two argue,” Gunn said not quelled by twin looks of horror.
“I want a pre-nup,” Spike said, “Charlie boy you can draft us something. I need to make sure I’m
provided for when he throws me over for a blonder model. He’s like that you know, fickle.” Spike threw a dramatic pose.
“Spike, go shopping before you come with me in an ashtray,” Angel said through gritted teeth.
“We’ll go with mate I think,” Lorne said quickly, “there’s enough bond relationships not fully mutual for people to believe you’re together through no choice of your own.” He ushered Spike out of the room before words turned to fists.
“The senior partners will be suspicious,” Wesley said, “but that’s to be expected and the other senior managers would be suspicious if they weren’t suspicious. Hopefully they’ll underestimate Spike.”
“They certainly will if you keep treating him that way,” Fred scolded.
“Fred’s right,” Gunn said, “Spike’s handy in a fight and knows his demons but you keep treating him like a disobedient child.”
“That’s because he acts like one,” Angel said.
“Yes, and he’s an irritating troublemaker at times,” Wesley said.
“See,” Angel said triumphantly.
“But…” Wesley held up a finger, “he is a valuable asset and I wouldn’t have suggested him for the job if I didn’t believe he’d keep you safe.”
“I don’t need to be kept safe,” Angel protested.
Fred rolled her eyes as she got to her feet. “Would it kill you to say something nice about him occasionally?”
“Yes,” Angel mumbled as the others left his office.
* * * * *
The limo pulled into a large garage and the door was opened. Angel quickly exited followed by an equally exasperated Spike. The flight over to Rome had been filled with sullen silence and too much alcohol (well it would have been too much alcohol if they plane had been stocked properly). Spike had refused to show Angel what he’d bought in the way of suitable clothing and was still wearing jeans, a tee-shirt and his jacket.
“Welcome to Italy,” a well endowed woman greeted them both with enthusiastic air kisses. “I am Ilona Costa Bianchi CEO of Wolfram & Hart Rome. I just had to be the one to meet the great Angelus and William the Bloody.”
“Actually it’s just Angel,” Angel said.
“Ah, yes, of course. The Gypsies, they gave you your soul. The Gypsies are filthy people.” Ilona spat to one side. “And we shall speak of them no more.”
“And it’s Spike,” Spike added.
“Angel and Spike, of course,” Ilona beamed. “Two of the four greatest mated vampires in history you are such a coup. Come let me show you around the villa. All the glass is necro-tempered so don’t worry about the windows. You are in the Renaissance wing. The welcome luncheon and orientation will be served in an hour but there are snacks waiting for you if you’re peckish after your trip.”
They followed Ilona obediently, cowed by her relentless enthusiasm.
* * * * *
After Angel sent the ‘snacks’ away he got a good look at the suite they had been delivered to.
“Of course there’s only one bed,” he muttered, “I’m never going to be finished atoning.”
“Nope,” Spike said throwing himself down on a sofa and turning on the large screen television.
“What do you think you’re doing?” Angel said.
“Enjoy your orientation,” Spike said with a smirk, “I’m going to see if there’s any decent porn or football on.”
“Like hell you are,” Angel said with a wide grin. “If I suffer you suffer.”
And suffer they did, for a multitude of reasons. The first being Spike’s clothes. Giving in to the inevitable Spike shed his tee-shirt and jacket for a fresh blue button down and a suit jacket that should have looked ridiculous over his jeans but didn’t. Spike shifted uncomfortable in the unfamiliar gear and Angel shifted uncomfortable in the sight of Spike almost not Spike.
Then Angel had forced their lunch to get off the table and get dressed much to Spike’s annoyance because she’d been rather attractive. He hadn’t wanted to feed from her but she had made a nice centrepiece. Their disagreement had been halted by the ever charming Ilona coming over with nametags and the schedule for the weekend.
Angel’s day was to be filled with management meetings, workshops on how to eviscerate employees effectively and team dynamics. Spike’s was full of tours of Roman ruins and a spa. (Neither was sure who was getting the worst deal.)
* * * * *
Dinner was black tie (or the demon equivalent) and Spike was dragging his heels about getting changed.
“Look I’m all relaxed from the massage Monique gave me,” Spike said from his position on the sofa, “don’t want to ruin all her good work.”
“You’re going Spike,” Angel said, “and you’re going to wear the no doubt expensive suit Lorne bought on my dime.”
“You don’t own me Angel,” Spike said, “just because you paid for a few clothes. You owe me far more than that.”
“You’ll never let it go will you?” Angel said with a huff. “Just get dressed and let’s get this over with.”
Spike rolled his eyes but shucked his clothes and grabbed his suit from the closet where it had miraculously been hung while they were out.
The reception was as appallingly dull as Spike had expected it to be. Angel was quickly swept away to talk with other CEOs and Spike was left with a gaggle of other plus ones of various species and genders most of whom looked as bored as he felt.
Determined to make the most of the fact that everyone was in the large ballroom Spike made his
excuses and slipped out to do some spying.
* * * * *
“Spike…” Angel growled when he found Spike sprawled on the sofa of their suite.
He was fuming. Spike had disappeared before dinner and left him to make excuses. Ducking out for a cigarette was one thing, making Angel look like a fool was another. The other CEOs had made snide little comments about his abilities to control his mate and ‘wondered’ how he handled
his staff. Others took it as a sign that he was interested in other arrangements and he’d had to fend off advances all through dessert. He was going to express his displeasure on Spike’s body with extreme prejudice as soon as he found the annoying blond.
“What?” there was just enough of a slur to the word for Angel’s rage to ramp up a notch.
“I hope you enjoyed yourself,” Angel said with a growl, “did you sneak off to a bar outside the hotel or should I expect a large charge on the room account? Were you thirsty or did you deliberately set out to embarrass me?” He sniffed loudly taking in the heady scent of whiskey and something else…
“Shut up you self-obsessed pillock,” Spike replied, “sometimes it isn’t about you.”
Angel stepped around the sofa and the something else coalesced into the scent and sight of Spike’s blood. “What the hell did you do?”
“Turns out the Italian Wolfram & Hart office prefers mechanical defences rather than living ones,” Spike said as he attempted to hold the large wound in his chest closed long enough to heal.
“Wolfram & Hart?” Angel said blankly.
Spike rolled his eyes. “Unless I’m mistaken my role here was to investigate while you schmoozed with the head boys. I went and investigated and didn’t dodge fast enough. Did they remove your brain at that fancy dinner?”
“Shut up Spike,” Angel said pulling his hands away and mopping up the excess blood from around the wound. “You were supposed to accompany me to the dinner and we could have formulated a plan for investigation once we got a lay of the land. Instead you had to go off half cocked on some
harebrained idea and look where it got you.” Angel’s eyes automatically checked for other injuries as his hands applied pressure to the wound.
Spike’s knuckles were grazed and one had split open, there was a burn across his chest nearly bisected the nipple Angel could see through the ruined shirt.
“Ow,” Spike complained, “take it easy. If I’d waited for you to come up with a plan I’d have been forced to spend more time with those stupid people.” He tried to wriggle away from Angel’s ministrations.
“Stay still,” Angel ordered. “You think I had it easy? It was a nest of vipers worse than any vampire council I’d ever attended. All smiles and bites but I did manage to identify at least three potential Black Thorn members. What did you manage to achieve beyond leaving a couple of litres of blood on the floor for the cleaners to deal with?”
“For your information I got some good stuff,” Spike said with indignation hissing when Angel pressed down harder. “A disk thingy full of information for Fred and Wesley to work through.”
“A disk thingy? Here hold on,” Angel added pushing Spike’s hands back over the wound. “You’ll heal faster with some blood.”
“I don’t know,” Spike said, “Fred gave it to me and said put it into a computer and then take it back out when it told me to. I’d just finished when the company terminator found me.”
Angel heated some blood in the microwave discretely hidden next to the bar and brought it over to Spike. Spike took it with one hand and Angel pressed down on the wound. For a moment their fingers brushed and then Spike jerked his away to quickly down the blood.
Angel turned his attention to the wound. It had been a bladed strike and something had scorched the edges but it was already beginning to pink and close over at the end closest to Spike’s heart.
“You shouldn’t have gone on your own,” Angel said, “we should have had a plan.” His eyes were fixed on Spike’s lips.
“Plans are for pussies,” Spike said. “What’s wrong, do I have a blood moustache?” he added seeing Angel’s attention, his tongue running over his top lip self consciously.
“No,” Angel said, “and that’s a disgusting image.”
Spike frowned and looked down to where Angel’s hands were still pressed against his chest. The wound had stopped bleeding, a bandage would be all it needed for a day at most but Spike didn’t mention it.
“We should get rid of this suit,” Spike said instead.
“Okay, good idea,” Angel said absently. “Wait, what?”
“Security is going to know someone was in the office, so we need to get rid of the evidence,” Spike said, “what did you think I meant?”
“Nothing,” Angel said quickly, “just surprised you thought of it.”
“No… you were thinking of me out of this suit,” Spike said slowly.
“It’s been a long day,” Angel said, “I’m not really thinking.”
“Some parts of you are,” Spike said with a deliberate sniff.
“It’s a natural response to the smell of blood,” Angel retaliated removing his hands from Spike’s torso and ignoring the grunt of protest, “and I’m not the only one.”
“Well it’s been a while and I have been in a fight, you know how it goes,” Spike said.
Absently Angel raised one hand to his mouth and licked off the blood coating it. Spike watched intently and suddenly launched himself at Angel taking them both to the ground and splintering the delicate coffee table in their path. Before Angel could do more than grunt Spike’s lips were locked on his.
Angel grabbed hold of Spike and kissed back rolling them over so he was blanketing the smaller vampire.
“Fuck,” Spike winced as the movement tore at his wound and he bit down on Angel’s lip as his head jerked.
“Ow,” Angel snarled.
“Watch the wound,” Spike complained even as he ripped open Angel’s shirt.
“Watch the lip,” Angel retaliated, fingers fumbling with Spike’s trousers.
Spike sucked on the offending lip until Angel forgot what he’d been annoyed at. Spike’s trousers were pushed down to one ankle and the remains of Angel’s shirt had been tossed aside before either of them came to their senses.
“What the hell are we doing?” Spike demanded, pushing Angel’s mouth away from his neck.
“It hasn’t been that long that you’ve forgotten has it?” Angel said.
“Between us? Yes,” Spike said indignantly.
“Right now I’m hoping for sex,” Angel said.
“And tomorrow?” Spike stared at him suspiciously.
“Tomorrow we’ll still annoy the hell out of each other but maybe some more sex?” Angel said hopefully.
“Works for me,” Spike said with a shrug.
Spike latched onto Angel’s closest nipple lapping at the smear of his blood there. Angel groaned, rose up and wrapped a hand around Spike’s cock.
Angel lost his grip when Spike bit down on his nipple falling back onto Spike. He still had his trousers on and his dick was pressing hard against the fabric but Spike didn’t give him time
to think, wriggling until their cocks were against each other and then hooking a leg over his thigh and rutting them together.
Angel braced one hand beside Spike’s head, ignoring the piece of coffee table under it and increasing the speed. He was vaguely aware that another piece had pierced his calf but it was closer to a pinprick compared to just how good his dick felt.
It was all over embarrassingly fast which would have been worse if Spike hadn’t been with him all the way. Giving into temptation Angel kissed Spike again. This time it was slower and gentler as they both enjoyed the afterglow of a good orgasm before the sharp bits of reality made themselves known.
“Ouch,” Spike said reaching to pull out the leg of the coffee table from underneath his back.
“Yeah,” Angel agreed looking down to see a piece of the glass top in his leg.
“At least we’ve got an explanation for my suit now,” Spike said as Angel stood up to remove the glass.
Angel looked at the mess and nodded. “And your injury. If you act downcast and beaten tomorrow everyone will just think I disciplined you for skipping out of the dinner.”
“Like hell,” Spike said getting to his feet. “I’ll let them think you fucked me into submission but no way am I letting them think you beat me in a fight.”
“I am your elder and CEO,” Angel protested, “they’d believe it.”
“And I’d never live it down,” Spike said.
“We won’t say anything and let them think what they want,” Angel suggested reaching over and picking glass shards out of Spike’s hair.
“Yeah, well we all know what they’ll think,” Spike said doing the same for Angel.
“What do we care what they think?” Angel said.
“We don’t,” Spike agreed.
“So let’s carry on as normal, get through the rest of the weekend and then get that disk back to Fred.” Angel kicked the fragments of the coffee table into a semblance of a tidy pile.
“Don’t tidy too much,” Spike said clambering out of his jeans properly and distracting Angel
completely. “We want the maid to gossip.”
“Trust you to find a reason not to tidy,” Angel sniped as he followed Spike into the bedroom peeling his rapidly cooling and sticky trousers off as he went.
“You going to shower?” Spike said collapsing onto the bed with a sigh.
“Yeah,” Angel said heading into the bathroom.
When Angel came out Spike was under the covers fast asleep. Angel picked up their discarded clothes and stuffed them into Spike’s duffle bag. Then he crawled into the bed and got comfortable. As sleep claimed him he felt Spike turn over and curl up around him.
At 3 a.m. Angel’s eyes flashed open. He turned his head to see Spike’s equally awake and startled ones.
“How did we get so comfortable together?” Angel demanded.
“Damned if I know,” Spike replied. “What are we going to do about it?”
“I don’t know,” Angel said.
“Nothing then,” Spike said. “Now roll over, you snore.”
“I do not.”
“Like a bleeding freight train.”
“I do not.”
“Do too.”
They both went back to sleep content in the knowledge that despite appearances and evidence to the contrary they didn’t in fact like each other… much.
END