Author: Meltha
Rating: very mild FRM
Feedback: Yes, thank you. Meltha
Spoilers: Through Angel season 5
Distribution: Fanfiction.net and the Bunny Warren. If you're interested, please let me know.
Summary: Spike is driving Angel crazy. As always.
Disclaimer: All characters are owned by Mutant Enemy (Joss Whedon), a wonderfully creative company whose characters I have borrowed for a completely profit-free flight of fancy. Kindly do not sue me, please, as I am terrified of you. Thank you.
Author's Note: Written for the second Angel round at Maleslashminis for tabaqui who wanted Angel/Spike, waspish bickering, rough and tumble but not violent sex, ripped shirt, and no soulful, sad Angel or Angel as Spike’s sire. Hopefully, this is okay.

Wardrobe Malfunction

“You owe me a new shirt.”

Angel sighed in the put-upon way that had become second nature to him ever since Spike had popped into existence again in the middle of his office. In fact, last week he had caught Harmony mimicking that sound to the steno pool to gales of uproarious laughter before he had stepped into the doorframe behind her and given her a look so deadly that even she’d felt it, turned around, laughed timidly, and run like hell. He took that to mean it was now his signature quirk.

“No.”

He’d found it was best to keep things brief with Spike. The less ammo he was given, the less he could do with it.

“Yes, you do, you sorry excuse for a git. You’re the one who ripped it. Shouldn’t your soul be bothering you over the destruction of another person’s property?”

“You aren’t a person, Spike. Neither am I, when you get down to it.”

“Now is not the time for deep philosophical conundrums. If I want to do that, I’ll go off and contemplate one hand clapping or trees falling in the forest with no one around or some such rot. What I want is a new shirt.”

“Go to sleep, Spike. We’ll discuss it in the morning.”

“It’s five a.m. This is morning. Hence, we are discussing.”

Even with his eyes shut, Angel could sense his fingers drawing air quotes around the last word, and if he really strained his ears, he could hear the sound of Spike’s eyes rolling.

“Work starts in three hours. I’m going to sleep. If you want to stay up and argue with the potted plants, be my guest.”

Thankfully, Angel had learned over a century ago how to sleep through almost anything Spike could dish out verbally. Granted, he’d also wound up waking up to his face painted like an Easter egg once, and with the lack of a reflection and Darla being in Malta at the time, Dru was the only one around to tell him what had happened. It was five days before he figured out that when she said his face was “painted all the colors of the rainbow, swirling and twirling with happy bunnies” she was actually being literal for once. He’d wondered about the confused looks his victims had been giving him.

And yes, Spike was indeed trying to engage the fichus in conversation to back up his argument in favor of Angel replacing his wardrobe. Angel slammed a pillow over his head, telling himself over and over that no, he would not rise to the bait, but then he realized exactly what Spike was telling the fichus.

“…so the next time you’re conversing with Illyria, remember to tell her that Angel has an enormous crush on her, and that every time he stomps off, its really because he can’t trust himself to control himself around her anymore without ripping off that leather carapace she’s wearing…”

Oh, for pity’s sake. Spike was threatening him with imminent sexual assault by a former god via fichus. It was so absurd that it sounded like his luck that it would actually work, and as Angel had absolutely no desire to wind up bent over his desk with the big blue meanie (would Spike please get out of his head) forcing herself on him, he decided enough was enough.

“You’ll get the shirt. Call off the fichus.”

“Eighty-six that last bit, Leafy,” Spike said, and still, even with the pillow over his head, he could hear the expression of glee on the vampire’s face. “I want something nice, though. Don’t go sending Harm out to K-Mart or some such thing.”

“I really don’t care if she gets it from the Salvation Army or Armani. Shut up and go to sleep.”

The soft plopping sound meant that Spike had just deposited himself on the leather sofa in the corner.

“Don’t feel like it. Drank too much cappuccino this afternoon. Makes me hyper.”

What doesn’t, Angel thought. So far, the list of Things That Make Spike Hyper was up to number 728. His personal favorite was #85: the sound of the photocopier making multiple copies. Angel had caught him in the copy room doing a kind of improvised tap dance next to their Xerox last week, apparently not even aware he was kick-ball-changing.

At this point, a projectile hit Angel’s leg, hard.

“Oi! Entertain me, you useless lump!”

“Do not throw things at me, Spike.”

A shoe, Angel decided. It had to be a shoe. The velocity was about right, and he could smell leather. Probably Angel’s new loafers.

“Fine. Entertain me and I won’t need to throw things. See how well that works out?”

He was not going to get any sleep tonight. He could tell. Granted, one of the bonuses of being the chief executive was he could take a five hour nap in the afternoon and fire anyone who dared to interrupt him… “fire” in this case meaning actual flames. And there was his new trademark sigh again. Angel pulled the pillow off his head and sat up, glaring blearily across the room.

“Spike… get in bed.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“I don’t like your bed. It’s too floppy.”

“My bed is not floppy, Spike.”

“Yes, it is! It’s too soft, like it’s stuffed full of chicken feathers or something. That’ll ruin your spine, you know.”

Angel was glaring his very best glare at Spike, and as usual it had no effect whatsoever.

“What do you want?”

“Other than a new shirt?”

“Forget the damn shirt! You’ve worn exactly the same clothes for the last thirty years. I’m guessing you have a closet somewhere stuffed with nothing but identical black jeans and black cotton tees, maybe a few dozen pairs of replacement black Doc Martins. How is this shirt so incredibly unique!”

“Oh, and you’re one to talk. You’ve got so much black in your wardrobe that you could work in a funeral parlor. Maybe I’ll just start calling you Herman Munster. The two of you do have similarly shaped foreheads and all.”

There was the sigh again. He really did need to break that habit.

“You haven’t answered my question yet.”

“Which one? The ‘what do I want’ one or the ‘how is this shirt so incredibly unique’ one?”

“Either. Both. Whatever will shut you up.”

“What I want is to do something interesting.”

“So go bother the employees in the all-night evil division or whatever it’s called.”

“I would, but I don’t have a shirt since someone ripped it. Hence, since that’s your fault, you get to help me pass the long hours of boredom until Harmony shows up to buy me something nice to cover my beautiful chest.”

“Your chest is not beautiful, Spike.”

Lie, Angel told himself. Big, huge, stinking lie.

“I’ll grant you, it’s not Faith’s, but as the male of the specimen goes, there’s no better set of pectorals around, nor abs. Like a carved bit of Roman marble I am. I can’t go about the office and drive all the poor maidens to distraction and despair what with me being shirtless and all. That’d be an occasion of sin, and I can’t be tempting the pure with my highly desirable self. Shame on you for suggesting it, Angel.”

“There are no pure people at Wolfram and Hart, Spike. Even the janitors are evil. Feel free to cause bad thoughts to your heart’s content. Also, since when have you been looking at Faith’s chest?”

“I’d have to be blind not to, you dunce. Those should be cast in gold and hung in the Louvre next to the Mona Lisa. Nobody’d give old Mona a second look after that.”

Agreed, Angel thought, but still he found it uncomfortable for Spike to be talking about Faith’s more appealing characteristics while he was sitting naked on his leather couch, particularly after Angel had spent the better part of the night screwing him into his apparently “floppy” bed. It was impolite. Granted, this was Spike, but still, there was a line, and this pretty well crossed it.

“What? I hurt your feelings or summat?”

“No, Spike. I’d actually have to care about what you say for you to do that.”

And with that Angel knew he’d just gone a bit too far himself since Spike’s face fell instantaneously, then immediately masked itself over with a shade too much bravado. He might be over 120 years old, but Spike still had the same fragile ego as when Drusilla dragged him home from that disastrous party full of hypocritical bullies and catty debutantes.

“Good. I hate you too.”

Was this really his fourth sigh in the last five minutes? Or was it five?

“I don’t hate you, Spike. I’m just tired.”

“Right.”

Now he was pouting. Spike excelled at a number of things, truth be told: causing trouble, getting into trouble, getting others into trouble, coming up with daft plans, and bailing on the crazy plans to do something even more insanely stupid were his chief talents, but pouting was very near the top as well, and at the moment, Spike could have won a gold medal in the Olympic sport of Championship Pouting. Even the Russian judge would be holding up a 9.8.

So Angel found himself on his feet, getting out of his nice, non-floppy, comfortable and above all warm bed and padding barefoot across the room to Spike, who was sitting on the couch and looking resolutely out the window.

“I’ll get you a new shirt.”

“Whatever.”

“Quit it.”

“Quit what?”

“Quit acting like that.”

“What am I acting like?”

“Like a big drama queen.”

“Oh, so now I’m a drama queen in addition to not having anything to say you care about.”

Angel rubbed his hands through his hair in frustration. Maybe that’s why his hair was always sticking straight up lately.

“It’s the only shirt I had.”

“Huh?”

“Only one. I lost everything in Sunnydale’s implosion, and of the three I stole in L.A. after I became corporeal again, one got ripped to shreds in a training session with Big Blue and another dissolved when that orange and red demon threw up on me last week.”

Something about that really did seem pathetic.

“Look, I’m sorry. You were just… I wanted you, okay?”

Spike glared in his direction, which was at least an improvement over staring out the window, Angel supposed.

“Did you?”

“Yeah. Obviously. I didn’t mean to literally rip your clothes off; they were just, sort of, in the way. Badly.”

Spike’s gaze became a bit less icy.

“Alright. Fine. I’ll accept my sex appeal turned you into a ravenous, randy beast, especially since you’ve been a eunuch for the last several decades.”

“I am NOT a eunuch! I believe I proved that three times last night!”

“Okay.” An impish smile was lighting up Spike’s face. “Touchy little drama queen, aren’t you, pet?”

“You… I… Gyah!”

Spike never saw it coming, but Angel supposed he had been planning on this reaction during the entire conversation. Springing like a jaguar, Angel knocked him off the couch and onto the floor in one smooth, feline movement, Spike grinning madly and starting a wild wrestling match between the two of them, each one struggling for dominance that Spike knew he was never going to get and Angel knew he was never going to surrender. For a while though it was fun to pretend, to let arms and legs twist and bend, sweat-slicked and hard against the carpet, a mock-fight of epic proportions that would probably have killed a mortal but just set the two of them growling and pawing like overly enthusiastic cubs. Eventually, Angel had to win, and really he knew neither of them would have wanted it any other way.

Afterwards, Spike lay on his back, panting, and Angel loved that he was doing something so human. Delight lit up the blond vampire’s eyes, and Spike was laughing, almost giggling. There was nothing funny between them, not really, and yet Angel couldn’t help laughing too. They were a pair of unlikely heroes the both of them, but when it came down to it, they fit in all the important ways.

“So, will you finally let me sleep now?”

“Sure, Angel. Not like there’s anything better to do around here, is there?”

Angel rolled his eyes and went to sleep. When he woke up a few hours later, Spike was gone. So was one of Angel’s favorite hand sewn Italian shirts. Angel didn’t say a word about it.