Whenever Buffy called and asked for Spike, Spike would take the cordless phone and saunter out into the garden, or up to sprawl on the stairs between the second and third levels of the hotel. Both had the appearance of privacy, but were actually just close enough to the office that Angel could hear Spike's murmur, and decipher maybe half of it, but none of Buffy's replies.
Spike's voice changed when he talked to Buffy, but not as much as Angel would have thought. He matter-of-factly related his latest dust-ups, commiserated with her over Council politics, inquired after her friends, whom he spoke of familiarly: Rupert, Nibblet, Red. It was a confident and confiding voice, its very straightforwardness a mark of intimacy: illusionless.
At other times, Buffy would call and Spike would take his cell phone straight up to the roof, banging the heavy storm door shut behind him.
Angel could never decide which kind of phone call he hated most.
*
I'm thinking about New Zealand," said Connor, stretched pantherishly on the counter with a fan of brochures beneath his nose.
"Good hunting in New Zealand," Spike drawled from the sofa. "Weird-arse demons and not much vamp competition."
"You been?"
"Naw, just heard stories. Like to go someday. Got as far as Cambodia once, but there was a thing with a tour bus."
"That wouldn't be for a while, right?" Angel broke in. "I mean, you'll finish Stanford—"
Connor dangled a long arm to the desk behind him and came up with a green pepper stick decorated with a blob of hummus. It was his favourite snack food. Angel distractedly wondered if this was normal. Connor wasn't very built; shouldn't he be eating hamburgers or something? Angel thought about maybe picking up a steak on his next butcher run. Multivitamins.
"Junior year abroad," Connor clarified. "I dunno, though; I've got a sweet deal with the internship. Green wants me back next summer."
Angel thought of Connor chewing on his milk bottle as a baby. He looked around the lobby and thought of Cordy and Fred, Wes and Gunn sprawled there, chopsticks clacking in a small sea of white cartons. Buffy flitted through his mind, licking powdered sugar off her fingers.
Angel tried to be good at keeping his people fed.
"You should go," Connor turned his attention back to Spike. "Down under, I mean. Carpe noctem, right?"
Spike grinned a little. "Per iugulum." But then he shrugged. "Naw. Already got one plane ticket burning a hole in my pocket."
"Dude, are you ever gonna use that?"
"Oh yeah," said Spike, sinking deeper into the couch cushions and pulling on his horrible, bitter beer luxuriously. "Gonna split this town. Gonna fly away, get my girl, hit all the Bombay bars. Any day now."
"Wha's keeping you?" Connor asked around a mouthful of Wheat Thins.
Spike threw a casual glance in Angel's direction. "Ah, y'know. Still got some clean-up to do around here."
*
When Angel jogged downstairs in the afternoon, the hotel was hollow and still. Angel sat in Cordelia's old chair. The phone rang.
"It's me," Connor said tinnily. Angel didn't like the way cell phones scraped the harmonics from people's voices. "Spike and I got bored and went out to clean up those Gooza nests. We'll grab food on the way back."
"D'you need any help?" Angel asked.
"No, we're cool."
Angel met them in the sewers anyway, and chopped a Gooza in two before it bit off Spike's head.
"You should get that bandaged," Angel told Connor, gesturing at a shallow gash on his shoulder.
Connor raised his eyebrows. "This? It'll be gone in half an hour, you nursemaid. Go home. Catch you later."
"Wait—where are you—"
"Come on, Pops," Spike interrupted, snagging him by the elbow and steering him away. "Ta for the swooping, earlier, by the way."
*
Angel waited up in the dark, watching the minutes slink past on the office clock. Spike was elsewhere in the hotel, on the phone. His warm laughter trickled down the stairs, then faded out.
It was after midnight. It was rude of Connor not to call if he wasn't coming back.
Eventually, Spike ambled down and into the kitchen. "Kudos on the not stalking," said Spike. "That's a real step forward for you." From the depths of the refrigerator, he intoned, "For your next project, try not sitting around in the dark wishing you were stalking. It's a different kind of creepy."
"Fuck off, Spike," Angel suggested.
"Seriously, mate, kid's steady as a rock. He's having fun putting together his own life for a change." The microwave dinged and Spike reappeared, propping himself hipshot in the doorway with his blood. "You need to chill before you drive us all bugfuck."
"Oh, look, Spike's giving out parenting advice," said Angel. "And me without my peanut vendor." He glowered. "You're not fooling anybody with the whole hip older brother act, you know. You're just panting after what's mine, as usual."
Spike lowered his mug and stared at him. "Wow," he eventually said. "That was clumsy. Even for you."
Angel half-heartedly tried to stare him down. "See above re: fuck off. In fact, what a great idea. I wish you'd take your stupid free ticket to Europe and get out of here already. I really don't understand what you've been waiting for."
"You wouldn't," Spike muttered. He made an exasperated gesture, and Angel belatedly noticed the second mug of blood in his hand. "You wanker. There is no plane ticket."
Behind them, Connor banged in, calling, "Got a lead on the Miller case. Told them you two'd swing by tomorrow night."
"Good work, tiny sibling!" Spike shouted back.
Connor threw Spike an appalled look and thumped off up the stairs.
"...Oh," said Angel.