Chapter Text
“So… We’re really going to do this then? Tomorrow we take a stapler to your soul?” Spike asked, sounding excited. He knew it was the plan, but it still seemed more than a little surreal.
“Willow and I are going to do it, you don’t have to do anything except sit there-” Angel began
“I’m going to be taking the full force of how many years of repressed sexual tension? I’m not going to be walking for a sodding week. Sodding being the most emphatically stressed word in that sentence”
“Can you stop making it sound so sordid!” Angel exclaimed, sounding more than a little bashful.
“Fiiiiine. You’re doing this because… “Spike’s voice took on the neutral quality of a public service announcement narrator, not troubling to add even a trace of sincerity “Any chance of releasing your soulless self upon the world is too great a risk for you to subject the world to, so if there’s a means of removing that risk then you have both obligation and responsibility to…blah, blah, blah, won’t someone think of the children, s’all fun and games until someone massacres an orphanage, blah, blah, you need to stop indulging your massively masochistic urges so that you can start focusing on indulging mine, blaaaah…”
Angel looked at the blonde with vaguely incredulous bemusement. It probably wasn’t worth trying to point out the irony involved in the idea that he was having his soul secured in order to facilitate the hardcore whips and chains session that Spike had apparently decided the most appropriate way to celebrate.
Spike held his disapproving gaze with a filthy leer “Keep a tally, and in a couple of days you’ll be able to spank me for every…single….transgression”. He stretched out, locking his arms behind his head, and Angel couldn’t help but smile. “Ah, boy….you know how turned on I get when you use polysyllabic words” he quipped.
“Trangression….consequential… lascivious…temptation…vociferous…temptation…disobedience… atonement…seduction” the blonde’s forehead creased, and he was clearly having difficulty thinking of suitable words “…Effulgence?”
The older vampire couldn’t restrain himself any further, collapsing into a laughing fit which would probably have given him an asthma attack if he needed to breathe, then they settled back down on the bed, lapsing into a comfortable silence that Angel was loathe to break, but duty demanded.
“Are you sure that you want to be there, when it happens?” he asked, trying to keep it light, lest he be accused of being ‘a melodramatic wank pot’.
“Why wouldn’t I? It was me who suggested it” Spike asked, but there was enough hesitation that Angel knew full well that the younger vampire understood what he was being asked. “You’ll only be without your soul for the length of the ritual, which won’t be that long, plus you’ll be behind bars. I’m pretty sure that I can handle it.”
Angel nodded, but didn’t feel certain; the idea of allowing Angelus out, however briefly had been giving him nightmares all week, and the closer that they came to the big night, the more convinced he became that this was a terrible idea. Spike had tried put a rational spin on it. It’s better to do it once, in a carefully controlled environment, that to live in fear of it happening for the rest of eternity, he’d said. Then given him reassurance, held his hand, made the promises he needed to hear. I won’t blame you for whatever you say while you’re not yourself. I already know exactly what you’re capable of, and it’s okay. I promise that if Willow can’t bring you back then I’ll finish things…that had been the hardest promise to extract from him, but Angel was adamant that he wasn’t going to let Willow attempt anything without it.