Sunnydale Class of ’94, part 4
By Tango

***

Buffy’s hands were shaking as she stepped toward the sound of her boyfriend’s voice. Boyfriend. The term seemed so alien now, so strange after being with Angel these few, whirlwind days. She hadn’t let her mind label what they had, what they were doing or what was bound to happen after the reunion. Now that she was walking toward the slurred and curious voice of the man who had been her lover for years, the full force of the situation was sinking in fast. She took a deep, shuddering breath and didn’t dare look back at Angel as she went.

Even in the one word Spike had called out to her, she could hear the telling slur in his voice. He had been drinking. She wasn’t sure if it was a blessing or not. She knew her lips had to be swollen from Angel’s demanding mouth, her skin flushed from her climax and her hair rumpled from him burying his large hands in it as he made love to her. There was no doubt in her mind that a sober Spike wouldn’t need to smell the tang of sex in the air or the sight of Angel’s cum still wet on her thighs to know exactly what happened. A drunk Spike, however, might be easier to fool. Unfortunately, she wasn’t sure if she wanted to fool him at all. These few steps from the kitchen to the living room, from Angel to Spike, were going to change her entire life.

Spike had been her lover on and off for five years. He had found her when she was still singing bubble gum pop and helped her change her image to the sexy trendsetter she had become. He helped her and had claimed to love her. He also hurt her in more ways than she wanted to remember. His regular abuse of drugs and alcohol made him unbalanced and unpredictable. Some nights he came to her and took her out to dinner, was charming and handsome, and later made sweet love to her before holding her through the night. Some nights he showed up in her apartment raging from chemical overload and treating her as if she were a back street whore.

He had beaten her more than once in a jealous rage, had embarrassed her in public – once at an Awards show, they had nearly been caught on camera while he demanded sexual favors from her backstage – and cheated on her constantly with his longtime lover, Drusilla, and a myriad of groupies that he had long since stopped trying to hide.

Buffy had spent years ignoring most of his bad habits, contenting herself on the times when he was entertaining and even loving. More than once she was convinced that he had a split personality. He was a talented lover and although not brilliant as Angel was, he had a shrewdness about him where business was concerned that sent her contract agreements soaring higher along with his own. Even when her sales had started to decline, he had advised her on how she could keep her millions flowing in like a waterfall.

Spike was not husband material, though he had proposed more than once. He was abusive and manipulating, a liar and a cheat, but she couldn’t seem to make him into a villain. As she had struggled to explain to Willow when her redheaded friend blustered in complaint over the latest tabloid picture of his latest female companion, it wasn’t that Spike was a bad person, he was just….Spike.

She had been able to deny his mistreatment of her and overlook his faults for so many years, it was almost second nature. She didn’t love him and always knew that there would come a time when she would walk away from the disaster he caused her, but she hadn’t even realized how very broken it all was until she had come home to Angel.

The way Angel made love to her and held her, the way she seemed to fit so perfectly in his arms was something that made her ache from the inside out. His sweet whispers in her ear, his gentle hands and overpowering lovemaking made her regret all the years she had wasted. Spike had spent all those years using and debasing her and in a matter of days, Angel’s near worshipping presence set her on fire. He knew her – knew who and what she was, where she came from and her various faults – and still managed to make her feel like she was most precious thing in the world.

“Pet?” Spike called out again as she made her way as slowly as possible into the living room. He was swaying in the middle of the room with a bottle of whiskey dangling from one hand.

“Spike,” she said, the strain in her voice apparent, “what are you doing – um…I thought you were going to be on tour for another week.”

“C’mere,” he said, waving his hand drunkenly at her. “I got a night off after the San Diego gig and swung on over to see my girl.”

He stumbled toward her and yanked her into his arms, seeming not to notice her disheveled appearance. “Where’s my kiss, then?”

“You’re drunk,” she said, wrinkling her nose at his breath, which reeked of cigarettes and whiskey.

“Bloody right I am,” he laughed, biting at her lower lip. “The tour’s been sold out at every stop. The new album’s going platinum. Now all I need is a shag and all will be right with the world.”

***

Angel knew he should probably be buttoning his shirt or possibly making a quiet exit through the kitchen’s backdoor, but he couldn’t make himself do anything but listen. He could barely force himself to breathe as he inched closer, closing the gap between him and the love of his life…and the man who was her lover. A sickening dread filled him as he eavesdropped. She hadn’t gone rushing into his arms exactly, but she wasn’t breaking up with him and booting his bleach blonde ass out either.

Angel ran a hand through his hair and stepped into the hallway, feeling like an idiot. He knew she wasn’t his, from the moment he first set eyes on her again to the last time they made love, he had a bone deep fear that it was just a matter of time before he lost her again, before she went back to her rich and famous life and left him in their little hometown where he belonged.

The longer he listened to them, feeling almost like a peeping Tom, the more he felt like retreating again, until suddenly his self hatred turned to blind fury. Before he could even form a coherent thought, he was storming into the living room. His lips curled into a snarl when he saw connected with what he heard – Spike trying to push Buffy to her knees demanding that she suck him off.

Angel’s fist collided with Spike’s jaw so hard, the bottle went flying from Spike’s hand and crashed against the wall, breaking on impact just before Spike himself hit the wall as well.

“You worthless piece of shit,” Angel snarled, not allowing Spike the time to scramble to his feet, even as the rocker roared in anger. Grabbing him by his leather duster, Angel hauled Spike to his feet and hit him again as hard as he could and was perversely satisfied by the sight of blood gushing from Spike’s nose.

“Who the fuck do you think you are, mate?” Spike roared, sobering immediately with the pain and launching himself at his attacker.

Angel knew Spike had hit him several times, but he couldn’t see long enough through the red haze of his fury to feel it. All he could think of was the debasement of his love, the words Spike had said to her like she was nothing more than a toy for his own personal enjoyment, as if she were nothing more than someone to shove his dick inside. The idea was so infuriating that he fought Spike like a crazed lunatic.

Gaining the upper hand, Angel managed to open the front door and shove Spike through it, following him out and landing several blows hard enough for Spike to fall down the stairs and land none so gently on the front lawn. Fully intending on following him down and not stopping until one of them stopped moving, Angel headed across the porch with a determined stride. Only, the cry of his name and a hand on his arm stopped him.

He jerked his head to see Buffy’s horrified face and felt the murderous rage tamp itself slightly. She shook her head, her eyes wide and shimmering with unfallen tears. Cursing under his breath he pulled her into his arms and held her tightly. She pressed her face into the bare planes of his chest and shuddered, keeping him from murdering her boyfriend. Hands shaking and bloodied, he smoothed them down her back, unable to utter a single word of comfort.

Spike lay stunned on the grass, shaking his head to clear it, before propping himself up and staring in shock at the scene on the porch. Everything had happened so fast that he hadn’t had time to swallow it but now, things were becoming much more clear as he saw Buffy in the dark haired freak’s arms. A new anger filled him. Buffy was his - and some small town pretty boy nobody was trying to slide in?

With a growl, he climbed to his feet and advanced on them. He wiped a hand at his bloody nose in disgust but kept going. He had just raised his foot to climb the first step back onto the porch when someone grabbed his arm and pulled him back. Turning with rapid speed, Spike raised his fist and swung without first seeing his opponent and was shocked when the man anticipated the blow and caught his fist in his bare hand, abruptly halting the motion of his fist.

“What now?” Spike groused in frustration at yet another meddling wanker interfering with his sex life.

“You’d do best to return to your car and leave town,” the man said in a voice that was decidedly British and clearly angry.

“She’s my bloody bint and I’ll go when I damn well please,” Spike roared, trying to shake free and finding himself once again on his back on the lawn.

“Giles!” Buffy gasped, pulling away from Angel to see the newest spectacle on the lawn.

“I’ve waited a long time to speak to you regarding your mistreatment of Buffy,” Giles said to Spike, ignoring Buffy’s cry of surprise. Lowering himself to one knee and hauling Spike an inch off the ground, he continued in a low voice that was both calm and dangerous at once. “However, it is not a conversation I wish to have in front of witnesses,” Giles continued in the same threatening tone. “Do you understand?”

“You’re all a few fries short of a bloody happy meal,” Spike sputtered, scrambling back from Giles’ grasp and climbing to his feet. He backed away toward his car, which was half parked in the driveway, half on the lawn. He sneered toward Buffy, “Fuck this whole town if you like, Pet, but you’re going to have to come back home sometime.”

“Spike-“ Buffy started and stopped when Angel’s arm snaked around her possessively and pulled her against his chest.

The three of them watched as Spike climbed into his vintage car and peeled out of the driveway, the sound of the Sex Pistols spilling out behind him. So absorbed in what had just happened, none of them managed to notice the nondescript car parked across the street or the long range lens peeking out of the window, quietly snapping photographs at a rapid pace.

***

“IS SPUFFY OVER?”

That was just one of the less than tasteful articles that appeared in tabloids, newspapers, internet articles and chat rooms. Rumors flew more quickly than the photographs did. The most famous of all, which seemed to display the entire scene in just one frame, was the image of the large, imposing form of Angel in a torn shirt, his bare, muscled chest splattered with Spike’s blood, snarling in fury on the porch. The picture artfully caught Spike in midair, falling down the stairs and Buffy in mid run behind them, reaching out for Angel’s arm.

Angel and Giles both went to work on Monday but both ended up leaving before they even got to lunch. The breaking point for Angel was Candace’s question after attendance had been taken.

“Mr. Roarke?”

“Yes Candace,” Angel had said, rubbing his hand over his blackened jaw.

“I thought you said that you and Buffy weren’t living together and that you had separate rooms,” she asked, keeping her voice innocent and sweet.

“My personal life is none of your concern,” he said abruptly.

“But you’re famous now,” she argued loudly. “Everyone knows that you beat up Spike cause you wanted Buffy Summers for yourself.”

“Buffy Summers and I have a long history and close friendship,” Angel ground out, “and tabloids are not a source of accurate news reporting, Candace. Now, everyone turn to page 200.”

Angel struggled to teach the class as he always had, but as in each class, he saw a new interest in the eyes of his young students. They were looking over him as they would some superstar and giggled when he walked too closely to their desks. The hormones that had previously irritated him now became unbearable because they were now focused on him. The last thing he wanted to deal with during this whole debacle was a bunch of teenage girls fawning over him in class. He liked it much better when they were all disgruntled with the amount of work he made them do.

Even his male students watched him like he was a god, after all, he had not only beat up a badass rock star and thrown him off the porch, but he was Buffy Summers’ new lover. He couldn’t have been cooler if he was the rock star himself. The kids were overjoyed when they saw his blacken jaw and talked excitedly about the cuts in his knuckles from the fight. Overnight, everyone in school seemed to watch him and follow him around. He caught more than one person taking a picture of him during the few hours he was at school that day.

Following the class, Angel headed to the library to find Giles’ working on getting out of the crowd of students who had entered his quiet domain – students whom he was certain previously didn’t even know where the library was. He had spent his day trying to avoid questions about Buffy, Angel and Spike as if he were some secret source of juicy details. He assured the students that he knew little of the love triangle, and thankfully, could not assist them.

A squeal of excitement sounded as Angel entered and Giles waved him back out, following closely on his heels. “I need a drink,” Angel muttered to his longtime friend.

“Immediately,” Giles agreed with a curt nod. In matching long strides, they both made a hasty exit and went to the nearest bar where no young person would dream of entering and found a dark corner to hide.

Not only had Angel had gone from being an unknown schoolteacher to an object of lust for swooning women all over town, but all over the world. Somehow, pictures of Angel and Cordelia had been released and were posted on internet sites. Cordelia, who had been trying to revive her modeling career after breaking things off with Angel, found instant success in the scandal. A few days after her pictures appeared on the ‘net – one of them in a very close to indecent bikini on the beach with her hunky ex-fiancé – she was offered a place in the coveted Victoria’s Secret catalog, modeling a new line of “Angel’s Girl” lingerie.

Willow and Oz arrived in town just as the world was gasping a collective breath and dying to know who the new people were in Buffy’s life. Soon thereafter, they too were caught up in the glory. Willow’s small Seattle Wicca coven became an overnight occult sensation and her website bandwidth shut down after a week of too much interest. Oz’s band, Dingoes Ate My Baby, became an overnight success as well, and bootlegged concerts were soon being downloaded on illegal share sites. A month later, they would be offered a record contract – something that Buffy had been trying to accomplish for a number of years.

Giles’ previous nickname “Ripper” had also appeared splattered over the tabloid rags and sites. Pictures of him in his 70s rock band also appeared and then strangely his one unsuccessful publication, a dry, nonfiction tome on the history of hierarchical roles in American society, hit the bestseller list a full twenty years after its release a week after he had threatened Spike’s life.

The world had been tossed upside down for the former group of friends that had once been termed “The Scooby Gang” in high school. Just in time for their ten-year reunion, everything had changed so quickly that no one could even begin to deal.

Willow and Oz, upon their arrival the following day, holed up in Buffy’s childhood home as planned, sleeping on the sofa bed, despite their intense desire to find a hotel far, far away. Giles was a frequent visitor for dinners even though he had to fight his way through a mob of reporters and paparazzi to get to the door. The biggest issue in Buffy and Angel’s life, however, was the rift that had come between them. Since their tumble on the kitchen floor the night Spike showed up, Buffy had yet to make a reappearance in Angel’s bed. Mortified beyond belief, she had spent that night in his arms, numb and shaken, but following that, she couldn’t make herself go back to him and he hadn’t said a word to encourage her otherwise.

She had never wanted Angel to know about how Spike treated her and as little as he had made her feel, the disappointment and hurt that showed in Angel’s eyes made her feel even smaller. She suddenly felt exactly how Spike had treated her – like a well-used whore, good for nothing but a quick shag when the time was right.

It was Tuesday, several long days after the incident, when she woke up in the late morning to find Angel sitting in a chair in her room that he had apparently carried up from the kitchen, arms crossed over his broad chest, waiting.

“A-angel,” Buffy croaked out, blinking owlishly at him.

“We need to talk,” he grunted, making no move to get up.

“I just need some time to think about things,” she said, sitting up in bed, absently running a hand over her tousled hair.

“Has he always treated you that way?” he demanded, ignoring her plea. “Is that what you’ve been doing with him all these years?”

“I…it’s…you have to understand Spike,” Buffy whimpered in confusion. “It’s not as clear cut as you’re making it. It’s not like that all the time.”

“But it’s like that sometimes, right?” he growled, rising to his feet to pace around the small room.

“Angel,” Buffy said, “the thing with Spike is complicated.”

“No, it’s not complicated, Buffy. Either he treats you well or he doesn’t. You can’t grade depravity on a curve.”

“He can be sweet. He’s just…”

“Sweet? Are you fucking kidding me?” he demanded. “How can you let him, let anyone, treat you like that?”

“I didn’t ask for your opinion, Angel,” Buffy said, scramble out of bed and shaking, part in horror and part in anger. “I won’t stand here and be lectured on what you think is good for me.”

Cursing, he reached into his back pocket and pulled out a folded magazine article. Crossing the room, he shoved it at her, his hand shaking with anger. She reached out and took it from him, unfolded it slowly and looked at the page. It was just a fuzzy candid that was in the back of some fashion magazine a few years before. There were hundreds of them over the years, but she sucked in a breath and her stomach dropped at the sight of it.

“You know, I’ve looked at that picture a dozen times,” he said in a controlled voice that belied his anger. “It’s off,” he explained. “Took me a long time to figure out what was strange about it and then the other day, I went to my storage place and dug the damn thing out. Your face is uneven, that’s what’s strange about it.”

“Angel…”

“He fucking hit you, didn’t he?” he roared. “He hit you and you tried to hide it with makeup, but your jaw’s so fucking swollen that even half turned away, I can see it. Now, I can’t believe I missed it.”

She stared at him, her mouth trembling. Closing her eyes, she allowed tears to stream down her cheeks as she nodded.

“I’m not stupid, Angel,” she said, her voice thick with tears. “I know he wasn’t good for me, but he wasn’t always bad. He took care of me and he helped my career and in his own cracked up way, he cared about me. I was all alone and you don’t know how those people can be. I never knew who my real friends were, I never knew who I could count on, except for Spike.”

“You could have counted on me,” Angel said softly, digging into her with his dark eyes.

***

TBC…