Backfire - Spander Files

mostly the smile was wrong. Angel didn’t smile. But apparently this Angelus did.
Buffy scoffed at the vampire’s flippancy. She stood beside Giles in Slayer-stance,
arms across her chest and stake in hand, but from behind, Xander could see that her
shoulders were slightly slumped, a tell that the young girl who had been dissed by
her first love was seeping through.
It had been five hours since Xander and Spike had rejoined the group. In all that
time, a feasible plan had not been devised. They had plenty of ideas, sure. But every
plan had all led to Angelus being dead, and no one would accept that as an option.
Giles suggested going to the factory to retrieve the manacles that had held Spike so
well the night before, but Spike informed them that Drusilla had magicked the
chains to the wall and bed, hence the vampire’s helplessness when shackled.
Of course, Spike didn’t use the word “helpless.” Instead, he colorized the
conversation with a string of curse words that made Giles blush and clean his
glasses. At that point Ms Calendar, who was still in the apartment, but sitting off to
the side on the stairs, and usually only spoke when spoken to, had the misfortune of
choosing that moment to speak up and say with pure sarcasm, “Well, that’s one
excuse for not helping Xander while that monster raped him.”
Spike was across the room and had a hand around Ms Calendar’s throat in an exact
impression of Buffy earlier that day. It took Xander’s soft touch and quiet, “Spike,
we talked about this,” to get the vampire to release her. When he was calmed, the
vampire easily turned his back on the teacher with a dismissive, “Stupid bint.”
So now, with Angelus grinning at them on the other side of the door, they all stood
their ground like fools. Feeling angry and powerless, they envied Angelus’s giddy
mood, and prayed that his day of hatching plans was as fruitless as theirs.
Angelus scanned the group, his face filled with amusement when his eyes landed on
Spike. “Well, well. Looky who got an invite. Now tell me who’s the vampire here
and who isn’t.”
In a cartoonish flash, Spike flew out the door, collecting Angelus in his arms and
molding them into a ball as they rolled across the courtyard. Fists flew faster than