I stare back at him and blow a few smoke rings.
"It's quiet out there," he says finally.
"Yeah." I sit beside him and uncork the bottle.
"Wes and Gunn... they're... are they..."
"Fucking on the kitchen table?" I say gruffly, taking a swig of whiskey. "Yeah."
Angel and I fucked on that kitchen table once. It's made outta wood, so it had that whole element of danger thing going. Very cool. Too good for the scrawny ex-pat and Phallic Symbol if ya ask me. I take another swig.
He gulps. "Cordelia and Fred?"
"Making out in the broom closet."
His eyes go comically wide. "With *each other?*"
I give him a salacious grin. "I should go fetch the camera, yeah?"
He puts his head in his hands. "And I was just getting used to the idea of Wesley and Gunn."
"Fred and Cor are very, very drunk and probably won't remember any of this in the morning," I retort patiently. "It's not like you're gonna have to help them pick out china patterns any time soon. Don't worry your overgelled head about it, pet."
"Yeah. I guess." He rests his enormous brow ridge in the palm of one hand. "I hate New Year's."
I hand him the bottle, which he accepts gratefully. He uncorks it and takes a long swallow. "How can you hate New Year's? It's fantastic. It's all about the funny hats, mate."
"I look stupid in funny hats," he broods, taking another drink.
"You look stupid all the time, that's not the point." I try to reclaim the bottle and he holds it out of my reach. Goddamnit. I know where this is going; drinking plus brooding equals Big Fat Stupid Boring Ponce. "Gimme that."
"No," he says with another determined gulp of liquor. "I have sorrow and angst and I need whiskey."
I suppress a groan. "Irishmen."
"You're always so mean to me."
"Part of my charm, yeah?"
"No. I mean yes, but." I so need to get that bottle away from him; he's becoming boring *and* incoherent. "You know why? Because you've got this whole obnoxious-teenager thing going. And it works for you, goddamnit. No one looks at you and says oh, it's a really old vampire guy masquerading as a young human guy."
"No one says that about you."
"Yeah, well, they're thinking it."
"Angel-"
"That bookshop guy thought I was 'just north of thirty'! Thirty, Spike! That means they even think I *started out* old!"
"What the fuck are you going on about?" This is getting absurd.
"They all think so. They think I'm old. And Cordelia thinks I'm stupid and old, and you think I'm stupid and boring and old."
"Well, stupid and boring I'll-"
"See, there's that obnoxious teenager thing again!"
"For Christ's sake, Angel, I can't believe you're having a midlife crisis at the age of two hundred and forty-nine."
"Two forty-eight!" He's begun to sound slightly whiny.
"Whatever."
"And this desk." He heaves the most overblown, melodramatic sigh I've ever heard. "This desk thinks I'm old."
I put my head in my hands momentarily. This is really too much. Granted, there's no love lost between Angel and this desk, a sleek steel designer model I bought to replace the very old, very expensive antique desk on which I spilled copious amounts of black fingernail polish (and on which he enjoyed his little possessed-by-old-guy tryst with the lawyer bitch, and no, I'm not jealous). Okay, spilled fingernail polish on, and then later methodically deconstructed with a large axe. While singing 'Let the Bodies Hit the Floor'.
Then set on fire.
I was redecorating, okay?
I'm not jealous about the Lilah thing. I'm not threatened by his ability to have wild, meaningless sex with someone besides me.
I'm not.
Anyway. The new desk has lots of combination locks and compartments for floppy disks and CD-ROMS and other such twenty-first-century features that render him confused, and he hates it. But. "Angelus," I say with strained patience, "the desk does not think you're old."
"It does." He takes another swig of whiskey. "It's all swank and modern and it thinks it's better than me."
"It's furniture, Angel. It doesn't harbor secret feelings of superiority and contempt. I promise." If we were still in Sunnydale, I'd actually entertain the idea of anthropomorphic furniture, but fortunately L.A. is just a little less weird.
"It does, it does. I sit down at the desk and I can almost hear it thinkin'... who's this stupid guy? This big stupid... *old* guy sittin' at me. That's what it thinks."
I take the whiskey away from him before he can get any more ridiculous. "Give me that. Ponce." I uncork the bottle and knock back a swallow. "You remember back when we were alive, mate? I mean, granted, you're like five hundred years older than me, but, generally speaking, the Olden Days..."
"Is this segueway designed to make me feel better?"
"Yup. You remember what things were like then?"
"They were better," he said morosely. "Simpler. No strange beeping phones and- what are those new things called?- DVD players."
"Bollocks. They sucked dick."
He looks up in surprise.
"Yeah, you heard me." I light a cigarette and take a reflective gulp of whiskey. "You know what I remember the most? Horses. Fucking horses. Noble, majestic beasts, my arse. Big, smelly fuckers that shat all over everything. I learned to ride when I was eight, and I use the word "learned" loosely. What really happened is I fell off a lot, and then the horse would kick me." I pass the bottle to him. "We got our first car in 1904. Dru was terrified of it, and we had to wear those fucking coats and goggles 'cause it stirred up so much damn dust. But the car never kicked me. Well, there was that one time, but then it turned out that Dru was right, and that particular automobile *was* a demon."
"This doesn't explain anything except why you get so jumpy when we watch 'Mr. Ed.'"
I snatch the bottle back. "The point is that everything's different now, yeah, but that's not a bad thing. Hell, I think it's great. Think of everything we've seen. The twenties had the best alcohol, the forties had the best films. The sixties had the drugs, the seventies had the music... okay, well, disco, *bad,* but... and now, look! We've got cars and computers and those crazy little cell phones that play songs when they ring. And yeah, so neither one of us can figure out how to use them, but who cares? They're still really fucking cool. Think of all the great things you've seen over the last two and a half centuries. Think of how boring it would have been to live and die in that stupid-ass boring little Irish town." I roll the neck of the bottle uncertainly in my hands. "You woulda died eighty years before I was even born. You wouldn't even..." I run one hand nervously up and down his arm. Shit, I'm no good at crap like this. "I mean, we never would've even met or anything..."
*~*~*~*~*
In which case he wouldn't be here now. No one fiddling with the damn thermostat at night. No one drinking all my booze, stealing cash from my wallet, or leaving trails of cigarette butts in my path. No one would, in all probability, be trying to force me back into that damned party.
"And I'd still have my desk," I mumble.
"Yea, and you two can have a lovely fucking evening together," he snaps back, jumping up and heading for the door.
I grab his arm. "Wait... what's wrong?"
"What's wrong?" he shouts, his eyes furious and suspiciously bright. "You're a stupid fucking wanking bloody *ponce,* that's what's wrong, you stupidass overgelled clueless *bastard!*"
I don't have much a response to that one. 'Cause hey, he's right. And I think he was- ye gods- just trying to be *nice* to me. And I think I just fucked it up. Nothing to do now but take my punishment like a man. And hope it doesn't resemble the fate of my desk.
"Do you remember last New Year's?" he says challengingly, crossing his arms over his chest.
I furrow my brow and try to remember. If I can't remember he very well might kill me.
"Of course you don't. Neither do I. All I remember is a shitload of alcohol and a lot of very inventive, possibly dangerous sex. We woke up in the boiler room on New Year's Day to find we'd lost seven hours *and* all our clothing. But at least it's a *happy* non-memory. We used to - do stuff."
He runs one hand nervously through his hair until it starts to stick up in messy blond tufts and it looks so adorably, childishly stupid that guilt starts just washing over me in big, fat, guilty waves and why the hell are *my* guilt waves always so much bigger than everyone *else's* guilt waves?
"We used to have sex in all these really strange places and break all these local and state laws and we had *fun* and you didn't used to brood all the time and act like I'm a goddamn liability or your kept man-pire or something and I *hate* this hotel! This big, old, stupid, poncey, brooding, good-for-nothing hotel!"
(And Ok, Spike's version of "used to" is nothing more than four days ago, before Cordelia decided that a party with all our friends, of which I know exactly *five*, would be a really good idea, and then proceeded to remake my hotel into the bastard conjoined twin of Better Homes and The Addams Family Christmas Special...)
But still. Ouch. "Spike, I'm-"
"A clueless fucking bastard! It's New Year's Eve!" he rages. "It's New Year's fuckin' Eve and everyone in this hotel is getting laid except for *us!* There is something *fundamentally* wrong with that, mate!"
"Well, I didn't know you wanted to-"
"Oh, don't even try that," he snaps testily. "Of course I want to. Have you ever known *me* not to want to?"
"Well, yeah, but-"
"This is not about *me.* This is about *you* and your stupid mid-unlife-crisis issues and your alarmingly brainless tendency to waste your time moping about when you could be occupying yourself with such a delicious piece of ass as myself. And I bloody well hate you, you know that?" His voice has taken on that slighty screechy Spike-is-Really-Upset-Now edge. "I hate the way I'm in here worrying about your stupid ass when I should be out there getting drunk and finding someone to fuck. And now it's gonna be 2002 in another minute or so and I'm miserable and horny and it's all your fucking fault!"
"Spike-"
Goddamnit. I really have done it again, haven't I? Time for damage control.
Because he doesn't get like this often. Yelling about this kind of thing falls under the heading of Relationship Bollocks, and behaving as if he cares about how I feel about him is potentially damaging to his refined sense of badassedness. Badassity. Badassism, whatever. Point is, all that goes flying out the window if Spike fears that he's Being Ignored, and that's why he's throwing a tantrum now. Spike is like a vacuum that sucks up all the attention in the room, and if you don't stay fully focused on him, he starts to panic, as if he's somehow ceased to exist. Because underneath the leather and swagger and cloud of attitude and cigarette smoke, Spike is insecure, and oversensitive, and all too painfully aware that he is, after all, the concubine, the kept man, the live-in ho.
And yea, he blows it off with attitude and hairdye, he saunters through this hotel with nothing on but his Docs just to scare the help, and I can clearly recall our First Morning together, when we woke up stuck to the Twister mat, covered in blood, whiskey, and various other bodily fluids, and he looked at me, and I looked at him and-
Then Cordelia walked in, brandishing two stakes and a cross the size of Minessota, and shrieked, "OHMYGOD, are you evil!?"
He stood up, naked and unashamed and so fucking glorious in the pink morning light and he winked at her. Lit a cigarette and said, "Completely."
And it's been this way ever since. He drives them crazy, and he shows his ass, literally and figuratively speaking, and I wish I could say that they haven't killed one another out of some semblance of twisted regard, or even begrudging respect, but that isn't nearly the case. Cordelia and the rest are still alive, and Spike is still walking, simply because they all love me. I am the only reason they manage to wander around under one roof without mayhem and bloodshed on an epic scale.
And I don't thank any of them often enough for that. God knows I don't thank him often enough. For being here, for putting up with me, for giving me secret grins and sloppy kisses, and moments when I can find something actually comforting in being a demon. A thing that will live forever even when everything else I love is long dead and gone.
I know he doesn't understand it; but that is what hurts around the holidays. Knowing that it's all really just a celebration of everyone I have become attached to getting one year older, one year closer to certain death.
Except for him. And god help me, but when he looks at me, when he stands close to me, it's all bearable. And sometimes I can even forget.
It's not normal, and it's not *right*, but it's what it is. There's nothing I can say that will turn our unusual, occasionally very fucked-up relationship into sunshine and roses. There isn't any way to guarantee a happy ending for two emotionally neurotic vampires with a few centuries and a score of disastrous relationships to our credit.
But I can at least give him a New Year's Eve worth remembering. I can show him what he means to me the only way I know how, because I know I suck at words and apparently I suck at showing him in every other way.
So.