I did actually do "real" writing, not just this, today. But the Munchkin decided I could *not* get smutty without giving him his say..although he held back more on the touchy-feely, I would say...I would be embarrassed except I lost my shame in the recession. Same event different perspective. [link]

yay, more V!Giles. You knew there was a reason we were visiting with the MoG.

"Who's got the want ads?" Cordelia asked.

"I do." Angel took the section over to her. "What are you looking for?"

"Oh, this and that," she shrugged. "The personals are a hoot."

Angel picked up the entertainment section as he poured himself another glass of blood. As he started scanning the front page, he noticed Cordy turning to the Help Wanted section. He was ready to ask her if she really was looking for a new job when he saw she was looking over the audition announcements. He tried to remember when she'd last been out on an audition, much less had a call back.

"When did this happen?" Wesley suddenly said, looking at his section of the paper.

"When did what?" Angel asked.

"Hector Ramierez is dead."

Cordy shook her head. "Who's Hector Ramierez?"

Angel folded up the entertainment section. "The car collector?" He ignored Cordy's smirk. Cars were a perfectly acceptable thing to have an interest in.

Wesley re-read the story. "Yes, he. Oh, dear. 'Ramierez was brutally murdered Thursday night when he interrupted burglars who had broken into the garage where his car collection is stored.'"

Gunn snorted. "'Brutally murdered.' Cop talk for he was beaten to death or something equally messy."

"This looks like merely a filler story. It seems the police have brought in his grandson for questioning. Apparently they had a fight not long before Mr. Ramierez died."

Angel drained his glass. "You said burglars. How many cars did they get?"

Cordy poked his arm. "Maybe you can find them, get to keep one as a reward."

Wesley scanned the story one more time. "Just one, it looks like. It was apparently driven away."

Gunn looked over Wes' shoulder. "What kind of car, does it say?"

"Yes, a rare De Soto Fireflite Sportsman."

They all jumped when Angel's glass slipped out of his hand and shattered on the floor. Silent Fred gave a squeak and moved up a step.

"What color is it?" Angel asked in a tight voice.

"It doesn't say. Angel--"

"Cordy, I need you to get me the police report on this. I need to know about this car and exactly how Mr. Ramierez was killed."

Cordy put down her orange juice, but she looked doubtful. "What are we looking for? Why does it matter what color it is?"

"It's a rare car. I'll just feel better if I know what color it is. Especially if it isn't black."

She folded her arms. "It easier to find information if I know why I'm looking for it."

Wesley put the paper aside. "Angel, who do you know who drives a black De Soto Fireflite?"

He sighed. "Spike."

He hadn't admitted it at the time, but Angelus had admired the old car his obnoxious descendent drove--when Spike wasn't wheelchair bound, that is. He was never able to find the keys to the thing, though. Not even Drusilla would cooperate.

"Oh, no, Daddy, the car is my Spike's darling. I think it talks to him," she confided, "like Miss Edith speaks to me. I put its eyes out once, because it was watching me and whispering terrible things." She shivered at the memory. "Spike was terribly cross."

Wesley frowned. "It might have nothing to do with Spike. There must be thousands of those cars out there, and we are in Los Angeles, where the car is king."

"They made a little over two thousand of them. I know it doesn't make any sense, but--that particular car, violent death, it makes me nervous, is all."

Cordy, bent over the computer, shook her head. "Well, score one for the big guy's hunches, then. The car is, indeed, a black 1959 De Soto Fireflite Sportsman. And as for the cause of death?" She looked up. "Severe laceration of the throat resulting in extreme blood loss. Very little blood spatter evidence at the scene of the crime."

"Damn," Angel muttered.

Wesley shook his head. "But Spike has the Initiative chip in his head. He couldn't have killed Mr. Ramierez."

"He might have had help," Angel said. "He loved that car nearly as much as he did Drusilla."

"But why now? Cordy, when did Mr. Ramierez acquire the car?"

She scrolled through the records. "About two years ago, according to the records the police have. He bought it at an auction of seized property. Damn it," she muttered.

"What?" Angel asked.

"I get visions for everything else, why wasn't Mr. Ramierez important enough for the Powers that Be to clue me in that he was going to get munched on by a vampire? Especially one working for Spike."

Gunn interrupted. "We don't know that this Spike character was the one that jacked the wheels."

"True enough," Wesley said. "It could be a vampire who was wanting some means of influence with Spike."

Cordy shook her head. "I don't know, bribing a vampire with a car? What am I saying, this is Spike. You could probably bribe him with a bottle of whiskey and a candy bar."

Angel almost smiled at that, but he was still worrying at the puzzle. "Why now? What's changed? Cordy, when's the last you talked to anyone in Sunnydale?"

She frowned. "You know, it has been a while. The Glory thing worked out all right because, well, here we are. I think Willow sent me a couple of emails at the beginning of the summer, but there wasn't much in them."

Wesley chuckled. "What, only three pages worth of gossip instead of five?"

"Not even that." She looked at Angel. "Do you think something's wrong?"

"I think I ought to head up there tonight and check on Spike. I should have been doing it anyway. God knows what he might have gotten up to by now."

"Do you want one of us to come with you?" Wesley asked.

"No, I can deal with Spike." He looked down at the broken glass on the floor. "I'd better get that cleaned up." Cordy helpfully handed him the broom and dustpan

A hand appeared cautiously from behind the staircase bannister. "Excuse me?" whispered Fred.

"Yes, Fred?" Wesley asked.

She looked carefully from person to person. "Who's Spike? And who's Willow? What's Sunnydale?"

"That's a long story," Cordy said. "Fresh drinks all around for this one."

No porn today, just a bit to keep the story moving...
MUNCH

Another thrilling briefing(or possibly indoctrination) at Wolfram & Hart. Honestly, I’ve not stuck out this badly since that awful summer after the newspaper, but before the police academy, when I wrote fortune cookies. Not surprisingly, they thought my work reflected a certain nihilistic quality people wouldn’t want with their chicken lo mein.
Every once in a while, I still see the one they kept, “Don’t expect romantic attachments to be logical or rational.”But apart from that,they told me my fortunes put people off their food. Can you believe that? As much bad Chinese food as there is criss-crossing this great nation, and it’s all my fault?

I waited around afterward, outside the door, to see if Lilah would talk about me with Aryan Ken.(They had to have fucked...why else would they distrust each other so?)

“Are you sure about this one?” Ken(I mean Lindsey) said. “The Senior Partners haven’t really forgiven us for the Faith debacle. And, you know they don’t...give many second chances.” Was it me, or was Mr. Perfect afraid? I could swear he was.Part of me loved hearing it, and part of me dreaded anything that could get up a Hitler Youth member’s skirt.

”The problem with Faith was her poor impulse control,” Lilah pointed out. “I can reason with this one...he thinks he’s an intellectual.”

Ouch. And these are defense lawyers? Obviously, I’m not getting her best material.
“ What if he decides to start a revolution, Lilah?”

”I’ll take care of it...the best way to kill this guy is to love him.”

Now and forever, I will see Lindsey and the name to come up will be "Counselor Herrenvolk."

Perfect.

I shouldn't do that. I mean, thinking about what I really look like...apart from the whole "As is" thing.(But it is what Munch would think, but as blonde me I get the wig...even if my pedigree is more "Hitler's nightmare" than "Lebensborn")

“ What if he decides to start a revolution, Lilah?”

I love this line. So funny, and I can see and hear Lindsey saying it.

Thanks, and it's something he would do...or want to do. One of the great disappointments of Munch's life was having a short FBI file. I know somebody that happened to, I think. He was married to the female Munch I grew up with...sweet, smart guy, kind of a "Rebel without A Clue" though.(They were my parents' friends...I think I wasn't supposed to know about that.)

I managed to commit "Smile Time" fic. Includes a great big shout-out to Connie.

"New Life, New Problems"

When it finally happened, it happened quietly, with no fanfare, no booming voices, no flash of mystical light. He, Wesley, Spike, and Lorne were just sitting around his office on a Wednesday afternoon, talking about the demon cult they had defeated just a few hours before.

"It's fortunate we found them when we did," Wesley said. "It turns out that if they had completed that spell, the results would have made last year's blackouts and fire storms seem like a summer squall."

"Another day, another apocalypse," Spike said. He lit a cigarette. "You're sure you stopped the spell, Watcher? It still looked pretty glowy to me when we legged it out of there."

"The foundation spell they used--a variant on a classic Etruscan summoning spell--remains potent for several hours. There's no way to undo the spell, but there's no danger since there's now approximately 50 tons of rubble preventing any spell caster to get close enough to it to finish the ritual. Besides, the foundation spell should dissipate on its own in an hour or two, if it hasn't already."

It was exactly ten minutes later that the spell faded away, the potential for apocalypse fading away right along with it.

As it turned out, the apocalypse wasn't the only thing that faded away with the spell.

The first thing Angel noticed was that he felt truly calm for the first time in centuries. The roiling, crashing restlessness and turbulent desire that he kept fiercely in check every waking moment subsided first to a ripple and then to the utter stillness of a pond on a windless day.

"Angel, are you all right?" Wes asked. He leaned forward in his chair, peering suspiciously at his friend. "You look rather...flushed?"

The second thing Angel noticed was that he felt a little bit warm. He wondered if the heat had come on for some reason, but this warmth was coming from the inside out.

He held out his hands and examined them. Was it his imagination, or was his skin a little pinker than before?

"Something's happening, Wes. I think I can feel...ow!"

Somewhere in the past two hundred and some-odd years, he had forgotten the whole pinprick sensation of blood rushing back into his extremeties after they'd been asleep.

Angel stood up, and just before the demon's physical strength faded away, hurled his chair through the necro-tempered glass.

Spike dove out of the way of the unfiltered sunlight. He glared at Angel as he beat frantically at a smoking spot on his leg. "What the hell was that for, you wanker!"

"Shanshu," Angel said. He walked towards the light, nearly breaking into giggles as he realized that he was actually holding his breath. He reached out to stick his hand in the sunbeam, drew back out of habit, then deliberately held his hand in direct sunlight.

Nothing happened.

"Oh my God..." Wesley said. He stood up and walked hesitantly towards Angel, eyes fixed on the not-burning hand.

"Way to go, Angel!" Lorne crowed. "Oh, this calls for some kind of party! Don't worry, though. I'll be sure not to invite Arch-Duke Sebassis."

Then, Lorne was up from his seat, Wesley broke out of his state of shock, and the next thing Angel knew, he was getting fiercely hugged by both men. One of them even ruffled his hair.

Meanwhile, Angel just stood there, stunned, wondering when it would finally sink in that this had actually happened, that it was real.

Spike didn't say a single word. He just stared at Angel for a few minutes, completely expressionless. Eventually, he turned and stalked off who-knows-where and who-cares-where, at least as far as Angel was concerned. Maybe Spike would do everyone a favor and go drown his sorrows in a pool of sunshine.

No, this was no time to be petty. Angel closed his eyes and enjoyed the simple sensation of having a heartbeat. In fact, maybe he should try to help Spike out a little bit. Being a vampire with a soul was no easy task.

A task he no longer had to worry about.

"You know, Angel-cakes, if you don't stop smiling, your face could freeze like that."

"Fine by me," Angel said. "That would be just fine by me..."

He turned his hands this way and that in the late-afternoon sunlight, marveling at how golden it made his skin, and how warm it felt. How much better would it feel on bare legs, bare arms, a bare chest?

He couldn't wait to find out.

His sunlight was momentarily blocked by Lorne, who was mere inches from him, circling around, and peering at him critically from every angle.

"It is amazing what a little blood circulation does for your complexion, honey-bun. You're still pale, of course, but you don't have that whole pasty thing going on any more."

"Pasty? I was pasty? Why didn't anyone ever tell me I was pasty?" Angel looked around, but of course there weren't any mirrors in his office. That was just one of the things he would have to change.

Lorne waved away the comment. "Bygones, Angel. Fact is, you need to get out and get a little bit of a base tan. It will do wonders for your appearance. In fact," he said, giving Angel another lingering once-over, "I think we're looking at a top contender for the next People '50 Sexiest People' issue. Remind me to get my people right on that."

"Oh, we'll definitely have to get you out on the town," said Wes.

"Absolutely." Lorne peered at him some more, and Angel knew from the heat in his face, that he was blushing fiercely. "Plus, we need to hit the stores. The whole dark-and-gloomy thing simply won't work for you any more."

Harmony came in with a tray of coffee--a tray with six full mugs and not a drop of blood anywhere to be seen.

(con't)

"Spike told me all about the good news! And he wanted me to tell you that he's taking out the new Lamborghini for a road-trip to Vegas and that he doesn't know when or if he'll be back. He also said you said it was okay to give him fifty-thou out of petty cash, which is so incredibly nice of you! It was okay for me to do that, right?" She put the tray down on the desk. "Oh, and by the way, Lorne is totally right about the fashion thing, Boss. I mean, now that you're not the walking dead any more, you're..." she squinted a bit, then leaned back to study him, tapping her chin with one finger. "A spring. Yeah, definitely a spring."

Lorne took a mug of his usual complicated coffee. "Good eye, kid! Angel, if you don't mind, let's do the shopping trip tomorrow evening." He gave Harmony a one-armed hug. "I bet that this little cutie knows her way around a clothing store like nobody's business."

"You mean I get to go shopping with you and Angel?"

"You betcha, sugar-plum. If you want, I'll see if I can talk my boy Carson into flying in from New York to give us a hand. He owes me a favor or two--and dinner, but that's another story."

Harmony squealed with delight, and she and Lorne started babbling about all the stores they would have to visit.

"Get ready to find out how sore your feet will become," Wes said, shaking his head. Even so, he was smiling. "I'm not sure I could stand going shopping with those two, but it will be quite the new adventure for you."

Wes took his usual mug from the tray, leaving behind four unremarkable W&H mugs in an assortment of colors.

Angel finally interrupted the chorus of shopping-raptures. "Uh, Harmony? Who else is having coffee with us?"

"Oh! I'm sorry. Since you normally drink blood--well, up until now, anyway--I didn't know how you liked your coffee, so there's black in the blue mug, sugar only in the red mug, cream only in the green mug, cream and sugar in the white..." She looked up at him, wide-eyed. Her lip quivered. "Oh, no! I didn't even think about artificial sweetener, or all the different flavored syrups..."

Angel took the mug that had cream and sugar. The heat made him flinch, so he set it back down and picked it by the handle. A lower pain threshold was something he'd have to get used to. "Harm, it's fine. You did good."

"Really? In that case, is it okay if I take all the leftover otter blood home with me? I mean, it's not like--"

"Drink it in good health," Angel said. "Now I think there's a stack of invoices in your in-box that need to be filed..."

"In the meantime," said Wes, "why don't we go out for a little walk. It is, after all, a nice spring afternoon."

Angel looked out the window. A walk. Outside. In daylight.

He wondered if he'd ever stop grinning. "Well, what are we waiting for?"

As they walked out into the lobby, Harmony stopped them to tell Angel that while they had been out preventing the apocalypse, Nina had arrived for her monthly "kennel appointment" and wanted to know if she and Angel were still on for breakfast tomorrow.

"Hell, yeah! Don't tell her about..." he thumped on his chest, "you- know-what. I want it to be a surprise."

"Things are going will with Nina, I take it?" If Wesley's smile was a little wistful, Angel wasn't going to let it ruin his day.

Angel nodded, but also tipped one hand from side to side. "It's going okay. She's fun, she's nice, she's pretty... She's more-or-less okay with the vampire thing--which is now a complete non-issue." He could barely keep from laughing.

Maybe later he'd be overwhelmed by the magnitude of what had happened, but right now he could enjoy gloating and giddiness. Time enough to deal with reality tomorrow.

"How close are we to moonrise, anyway? You think I have time to go down and see her tonight before she changes?"

Wesley checked his watch and pushed a button. "Fourteen minutes and...ten seconds to moonrise," he said. Angel wondered if the moonrise function on the watch was a Wolfram and Hart idea or a Watcher's Council idea. "I would strongly advise against going down there right now. Every werewolf has a slightly different sensitivity to the moon's mystical pull. Some have been known to change nearly a quarter of an hour before moonrise, while others can resist the change for up to an hour or more. There have been some recent rumors in the mystical community about some Tibetan meditation techniques..."

"I'll wait 'til tomorrow," Angel said abruptly. "The last time I made the mistake of visiting her too close to moonrise, she wound up using me as a chew-toy. Not exactly an experience I'd like to repeat."

Wesley stopped dead in his tracks and grabbed Angel by the arm. He looked Angel over as if expecting to see horrible injuries. "You mean Nina mauled you? When did this happen? Why didn't you say anything?"

Angel jerked his arm free of Wesley's grip. The intensity in those blue eyes was a little more than Angel wanted to deal with at the moment.

"It was during that whole puppet incident, which, by the way, you are still not allowed to mention ever again. I was standing too close to her cage, and I guess she thought I was a squeaky toy. Anyhow, Lorne found me and got me back to my office, and I was able to fix myself up with some thread and a little poly-fill, so no harm, no foul." He thought for a moment. "I told her not to worry about it, but I get the idea she still feels kinda guilty about it."

"Angel, I think it's essential that you speak to Nina about this, especially since she's a..." There was something odd about Wesley's voice, but Angel couldn't figure out what it was. "Well, she's a very nice girl. In fact, I think you may find that the two of you may have a surprising amount in common."