Title: Lull
Author: scy
Feedback: scynneh@yahoo.com
Disclaimer: Not mine
Fandom: Angel: the series
Pairing: Angelus/Fred
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: up through season 4
Summary: Fred makes a deal
Author's Notes: a_white_rain requested this, and I was happy to oblige.
October 2008

Fred couldn't hear anything downstairs, but she knew better than to think that meant nobody was down there.

The others were nearly always out looking for Angelus again. Wesley and Gunn had a new plan for hunting him down, and were sure that this time, they would be able to backtrack Angelus' trail to wherever he was staying.

Fred could have told them that there were a lot of things Angelus was, but stupid wasn't one of them. So far, every time the guys went out, the vampire came home for visits.

He didn't always come inside, Fred had seen him in the garden, reading, or just looking up at her window, waiting for her to realize she wasn't alone. So far he was just watching her, but soon, Fred knew that he'd do more.

She walked slowly past the entrance to the garden, and saw a shadow move where one shouldn't have been. The vampire stood up and walked closer to the doorway. They had found a spell to revoke Angelus' welcome, and there was the non-violence spell in place too, but there were ways to get around those, and Fred knew it was a matter of when he got inside, not a question of whether he could.

"Hello, Winifred," Angelus said, and she stood her ground.

"Go away."

"Now, you don't really want me to do that. Then where would you be?"

"Safe."

"There isn't any such thing anymore. The monsters are out and this city is their playground." He spread his arms out and turned slowly like he was presenting something to her, maybe the never-ending night. "It's like a carnival."

"People are dying," Fred said harshly.

"Yeah, they are."

"So, do something about it."

"Why should I?" Demons and monsters didn't care about what happened to humans unless they were the ones responsible or weren't getting a chance to enjoy themselves.

"This was Angel's city, doesn't that mean it's yours now?"

Angelus stared at her, and Fred kept herself from stepping back further into the hotel. She was inside, she couldn't be touched, and reminded herself of how much fear attracted predators.

"You want me to fix this?" Angelus asked.

"Yes."

"Say please, sweetheart."

Fred thought of the news, the morgues overflowing with the victims of vampire and demon attacks, and then what she had heard of Angelus from Wesley and Cordelia. If anyone could stop this, he could. "Please."

Angelus grinned. "We'll see, then. Later, Fred." And he disappeared back into the night.

When the rest of the group got back from fruitlessly hunting Angelus, Fred listened to them rant about what the vampire might be doing and how much danger they were in, but she didn't tell them about her visitor or the deal she had struck with Angelus. There was no point in getting them wound up when she had no idea what would happen and she was going to wait and see what the word of a vampire was worth.

When she rolled over in bed one morning not long after, and was blinded by the sunshine, Fred smiled.

Charles came charging upstairs and threw her door open. "Fred, did you see?"

"The sun is back," she said, and could smile at him in spite of how tense things were between them.

"The Beast must be dead." Charles shook his head. "I'll give Angelus this much, he thought that there was something worse than the Beast, it must have taken him out."

"That makes sense," Fred said, but she knew of another possibility and that night, she stayed up late and waited for an answer.

Cordy stopped in the doorway beside her and followed Fred's gaze outside. "What are you waiting for?"

"The sun."

"It's not going to be up for hours yet."

Fred smiled. "But it's going to rise, and I want to see it."

"Well, watch yourself, there are a lot of scary things out there that probably feel like they're missing out on a party now that the sun is back."

"The Beast is dead."

Cordy looked unhappy. "That doesn't mean there aren't other things to be scared of."

Fred nodded. "I'll be careful," and watched Cordy head upstairs. She turned back to the darkness, feeling it waiting patiently for her to be alone again, and then Angelus was in the garden.

He walked toward her slowly, hands in his pockets casually, like this was anything like a civilized meeting.

Fred didn't know what to say, but decided that being polite would be all right until he gave her reason not to be.

"Hi."

Angelus smiled. "Hello, Winifred."

"How was your day?" Fred wasn't sure why she sounded so much like a woman talking to her boyfriend, but Angelus seemed to find it funny, and he talked more when he was amused, so she went with it.

"I guess the Beast is dead."

"Yeah, the sun is back and everybody is safe, what a relief."

"What happened?" Fred asked.

Angelus took a seat on the bench and explained. "It turns out that the rock head had an enormous weakness and it was obvious, if you paid attention."

Fred ignored the dig and frowned. "But you got close enough to him to figure it out."

"Yeah, he thought that since we weren't fans of the sunshine, that made us perfect allies." Angelus grinned. "I disagreed."

"What did you do?"

Angelus reached inside his coat and pulled something out.

Fred couldn't tell what it was, and motioned for him to come closer.

He laid it down at the edge of the boundary between the hotel and the darkness and then stepped back.

Fred kept her eyes on him until he was a few feet away, and crouched down. She wasn't too worried about being yanked outside, that wasn't playing by the rules they were setting up, but she wasn't so foolish as to make it easy for him.

She turned the thing over in her hands, examining it. He had brought her one of the Beast's horns.

Angelus waited for her to look it over to her satisfaction, and she thought he was also curious to see if she would accept it and what it meant.

"Thank you for saving us."

"You were the one who asked me for my help." Angelus smiled. "The rest of them are out with their torches and their stakes, trying to find out where I spend my days so that they can dust me. As if everything we've been through doesn't mean anything without a little thing like soul."

"I think it's more the mass slaughter of their loved ones that worries them,” Fred said, but she sort of agreed with him. Wesley and Gunn had insisted that they needed Angelus, even when Angel had objected. Then, Angelus did what they wanted, mostly, and then, just like she thought, he'd gotten away to do what he wanted. It was their fault that he was loose, and they were acting like he had tricked them into bringing him back.

"Have I done that?"

It was true, Fred admitted, Angelus hadn't killed anybody, with the possible exception of Lilah, although she and Wes were in disagreement about whether she had been dead when the vampire bit her, but that didn't mean Angelus wasn't just waiting for the perfect moment to step in and do worse than kill them.

"You haven't had the chance."

"I could have ripped Cordy's throat out instead of locking her in that cage. I didn't. And it would have been so easy to grab you and have a bite, but I knew that wouldn't get me what I want." Angelus was staring at her, and Fred shivered.

"What's that?"

"You. Of your own free will." Angelus stepped nearer again.

Fred shook her head. "That's not all you want. I've read the Watcher Diaries, Wesley made sure we all saw the relevant passages."

Angelus tilted his head back and smiled. "Ah, my greatest hits, that Wes is quite the thorough researcher, too bad he doesn't know that the facts are just part of the story. Did all of that scare you?"

"It would be stupid not to be afraid of you."

"That's not what I asked, Fred." He gave her an inquiring look. "Were you frightened?"

Fred rubbed her hands over her arms. "A little."

"But not enough to make you stay in your room and hide,” Angelus said.

"The monsters like to find you in the dark," Fred said. "I know that, and I'm better at handling myself than most people think."

"I know better," Angelus said. "Even when it's me that comes calling, you come out."

His choice of words was strange to Fred and she picked through it, trying to find the layers in what he was saying. "Are you hitting on me?" She'd known Angelus wanted her, probably just to bite and use up, but this whole thing was beginning to sound more elaborate, like he wanted other things from her too.

"When I was younger we courted young women before we made an offer."

"This is courting?" Fred stared.

"For a vampire, it's very civilized," Angelus said. "Going about it any other way would have been counterproductive."

"Okay, so you want something from me, and you decided not to kill everyone I love first. What's this going to cost me?" Fred asked, holding up the Beast's horn.

Angelus shrugged. "A little trust." He splayed his hand on the air between them, reminding her of the small amount of protection in place.

"You're serious."

"You have that cute little spell to keep me from really acting out, what's the harm?"

"Of letting an infamously dangerous vampire into my home?" Fred asked. "I can't think of anything wrong with that."

The look he gave her was almost soft, and his tone was reasonable. "Fred, haven't I earned it?"

There he had her, and they both knew it. He had done what she asked, kept his word, and so far, hadn't hurt anyone she truly cared about. If she refused him, Angelus could just as easily change tactics, and she didn't think that Wesley, Charles, and Connor would be able to stake him. And, she had made a promise.

Fred stepped away from the doorway, and breathed in and out several times. Then, because there was no real way to prepare for this, she just went ahead and said it. "Come in, Angelus."

He stepped over the threshold, and ran a finger down her cheek. "Thanks, Fred."

"You can't stay long," Fred said. "The others, they're going to be back in the morning, and Cordy is upstairs."

"She's asleep,” Angelus said, and smiled. “Besides, what I have in mind won't disturb her, if you keep quiet,"

Fred gave him a warning look. "We have an agreement, don't try and pull anything funny, or I'll revoke your invitation."

"Fine." Angelus gave her a disappointed look, but recovered instantly. "You know about the chain of command that I just broke?"

She shook her head.

"The Beast has a boss, sweetheart, and I just took out his best minion. I think the management is going to have issues with that."

"Are you worried?"

Angelus rolled his eyes. "Fred, a tiger doesn't tolerate other tigers for a reason. So, I don't want something else calling L.A. home when I've gotten comfortable with it."

"Now you care about who owns the city?" Fred raised an eyebrow, then accepted his change of heart. "Okay, and you want me to help you find out what this thing is?"

"That's how we do things, you mess around with the books, and I decide how we should handle it."

"Usually Angel kills stuff with a sword or something," Fred said.

"I'm not Angel, the loss of a soul doesn't mean I haven't got a brain. And unlike Angel, I don't have to curtail my impulses on how best to take care of problems."

"Meaning that you'll kill anything that gets in your way," Fred said, leading the way into what had been Angel's office. She gave Angelus her back, and knew that she was protected, but also wanted to show him that she wasn't going to let him push her around.

“Exactly.” Angelus walked right on her heels, and as he passed by her, he ran a hand down her back assuredly. He didn't say anything else, and went to sit down behind the desk and put his feet up, so she grabbed a couple of the volumes that had been slightly more helpful in terms of giving them information on the Beast and its possible connections to other supernatural bad guys, and began skimming through it.

She glanced up and saw Angelus playing with one of the knives that Angel kept in the desk. “Stop that, and help me with this, you do know demonic languages, right?”

Angelus raised an eyebrow.

“Good,” Fred passed a heavy book over. “Take this, and check for the fourth tier of demonic entities.”

Instead of snarling at her for being bossy, Angelus grinned and briefly caught his fingers on her bracelet as she leaned toward him. “That's my girl.”

Fred pulled back, and he let her, but she found herself sitting closer than safety would have advised, and when Angelus touched her wrist again, she pretended she didn't notice, and let him.

-end