Phantom of the Air Ducts

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Human bodies drained of blood? Just another day on Omega for Archangel.

(A little Shepard/Garrus and hints of Buffy/Spike.)

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Disclaimer: This author in no way profits from the writing of this story. Anything you recognize from Buffy or Mass Effect does not belong to me.

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A/N: You can thank the fanfiction community on Reddit for prompting this particular fandom mash up!

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Archangel straightened up from where he'd been crouched over a body. The young human woman was deathly pale, drained of blood. But there was no blood on the ground around her, no injuries on her body. Just two prick marks on her neck, too big to be from needles.

"Have you seen this before?" he asked, turning to one of the humans on his team.

Butler shook his head. "No, boss. Never seen one like this."

"Me either," Garrus said absently. And he'd seen a lot. The Citadel might seem like the height of galactic society, but every society had a dark underbelly. Between that and over a year on Omega, he thought he couldn't be surprised again.

Seems he was wrong.

Garrus gave Butler a nod. "Make sure the right channels hear about the body so it can be recovered. That's the third one this week."

"Some kind of serial killer?" Sidonis asked, sidling up to Garrus.

"Maybe," he said. "But this doesn't follow the usual patterns." He looked at the body and sighed. "I'm taking your patrol tonight," he told Butler. "You and the other humans better stay in."

…

Archangel had expected a few protests to his plan—actively hunting a serial killer by himself seemed foolish on the surface—but it was pretty easy to brush them off. This killer wasn't interested in turians. And if Omega was full of other dangers, well… he was used to that.

He couldn't lie to himself. The close brushes with death were part of what drew him here in the first place.

Garrus spent hours patrolling the station, anywhere near where the three bodies had been found. Protecting these people had given him a reason to keep going after she was gone. He couldn't save the galaxy (not without her), but he could stop some poor strangers from dying senseless deaths on the streets.

Garrus was moving down a back alley when he heard a scuffle.

"What did I tell you?" said an angry voice. The voice was human, with a strong accent. "Catch and release, you stupid twat!" Garrus heard a loud smack, like someone had been hit.

"You want the authorities to catch on?" the voice said. "You want to be hunted?" It got louder. Another smack.

"No!" came another human voice, this one weaselly and scared. "I was hungry—"

"You were hungry," the first voice mocked. "I should stake you right here, you bloody idiot!"

Garrus crept closer. In the dim station light, he saw a human with nearly white hair and a long black coat standing menacingly over another. But the second human's face was twisted… wrong. His face was oddly wrinkled, his eyes strange. Two fangs protruded down from his mouth. Garrus almost recoiled at the sight. Something was very wrong here.

He had just tried to take another step closer when the white-blonde turned suddenly, eyes zeroing in on him.

Garrus raised his gun.

"Get out of here," the first human said to the other, who ran at the sight of Garrus. Garrus fired a shot towards the running human, which missed.

"Would've served him right," the first human said. "But you know that pretty gun won't kill one of our kind. Might hurt like a bugger. But won't kill."

"Trust me," Garrus said, "This gun kills humans just as easily as it kills turians. You look human enough to me."

"'M not," the blonde one said with a shrug. "So why don't you put the gun down?"

Something in Garrus's senses were screaming danger at him, like a predator had him in his sights. "I think I'll keep my gun, thanks." He glanced behind the human to see another body on the ground, looking drained of blood like the last few. "Your work?" he asked dryly.

The blonde human lit a cigarette. "Do you think I'm bloody stupid enough to leave a body just lying there in the alley?"

Garrus took a long look. "No, I don't."

"And you won't see another one, officer." He smirked at Garrus.

"There are no cops on Omega," Garrus replied, irritated.

"Trust me, I know a bobbie when I see one." That word didn't translate, but Garrus understood his meaning.

The blonde took a long drag on his cigarette before stomping it out. "Well… it's been fun, but the party's over. I'll let you handle this one, yeah?" he said, smirking before making what Garrus would have called an impossible vertical jump.

Garrus swore to himself, shining his flashlight up where the human had gone. There was nothing to see. He sighed and called his base. "Got another one," he said.

…

The next few times Garrus patrolled alone, he had the strangest feeling of someone watching him. He'd turn around but see nothing. After a few times, he installed a pinhole camera in the back of his armor. There was movement in the shadows, a flash of something that might have been white.

Garrus turned around, examining the area. He found nothing. Then there was the flap of fabric behind him. He whipped around to see the blonde human grinning at him.

"You've been keeping busy, Archangel."

Garrus stared at him warily. "What do you want?"

"Nothing," the man said innocently. "Just looking for a spot of entertainment is all. My favorite soap's on hiatus."

Garrus blinked at that. He didn't understand what a cleaning product had to do with entertainment.

"I can't imagine my actions are that entertaining." He began walking again, following his patrol route cautiously.

"You imagine wrong," the man said, falling into step beside him. Garrus's senses were on high alert, but something told him this man didn't mean him harm—at least not at the moment. "You've pissed off a lot of people here, you know."

"And you enjoy that?" Garrus asked dryly.

"What can I say?" the man said affably. "I love a good blood bath." For a moment Garrus thought he saw something on the man's face change, but before he looked it was gone.

"Your… friend hasn't left any more bodies," Garrus said. "I hope that means he's learned his lesson."

The blonde man smiled, but it was a cold smile. "Let's say I hammered the lesson home."

Garrus didn't know what to say to that. He cleared his throat. "So… you know my name. Why don't you share yours?"

The man looked amused. "Didn't know we were on such friendly terms," he said. "It's Spike."

"Spike?" No doubt the man could hear the incredulous tone in his voice.

He smiled. "It's just as real as Archangel." Garrus was sure the man was laughing at him.

"And you're not human," Garrus said, with the same level of doubt dripping from every word.

"No need to interrogate me, officer," Spike said facetiously. "We were having such a good time."

Before Garrus could answer, Spike had disappeared into the darkness.

…

Spike started joining Garrus on patrol with some regularity. Not every night that Garrus went out, but often enough that he was no longer surprised by it. No matter what happened, Spike would never interfere. He would step off to the side, often lighting a cigarette, and watch the violence with something like hunger in his eyes. He seemed less interested in Garrus's entanglements with aliens, but sometimes, when Garrus fought a human, Spike would stare at the injured person in the most disturbing way before he shook himself out of it.

They would talk about things as they walked around, usually unrelated things. Any time Garrus tried to ask about who or what Spike was, he'd disappear. Spike's favorite topics tended to be the three main mercenary groups and how they were scrambling about Archangel's actions. Garrus like to hear it, but would never let Spike in on what he was planning.

"Sorry," he said. "It's just that I don't trust you."

Spike had laughed at that with genuine amusement. "Right you are. You should never trust a soul." Something about that seemed to amuse him further, but Garrus didn't ask.

"Was it a lady?" Spike asked once. "That drove you to the ass-end of the galaxy?"

Garrus thought about Commander Shepard, about how the light of the galaxy seemed to go out with her when she died. "I guess you could say that," he said finally. "She's gone now."

Spike nodded. "I had one like that," he said. "A long time ago." Garrus was fascinated with the play of emotion on Spike's face, something so genuine that he'd never seen before. He glanced away at a sound on his left, and when he looked back, Spike was gone.

…

Spike didn't show up after that. Garrus pretended not to miss the company. Sometimes he thought he was still being watched, but he figured that was probably his imagination.

He patrolled on his usual schedule, all the while moving plans forward against the three main mercenary groups. Things were getting more dangerous now. They were out for his blood. Archangel's team begged him not to go alone, but Garrus didn't listen. He liked the quiet.

He realized he'd made a mistake when he found himself surrounded by Blue Suns.

"Drop it," One of the men said, indicating his rifle. "Or we'll fill you with holes, scum. We know you're one of Archangel's." There was some small relief—they didn't know he was Archangel.

"Okay, I'm putting it down," he said, taking count of them as he bent over slowly. Four humans, two turians. He would take those odds. With his gun nearly on the ground, he began firing, striking the boots of the human in front of him while sweeping the legs out from under the turian to his right.

Two human arms grabbed him from behind while a few pistol shots bounced off his shield. He wrenched out of the human's arms and turned to fire on them. He got a perfect gut shot before he was tackled to the ground, his rifle slipping from his grip and skittering across the ground.

"Damn it," came a familiar voice from above, and down came Spike, like an avenging angel in his black coat.

Garrus's eyes went wide as Spike moved inhumanly fast, attacking with his hands and feet alone. He recovered before the turian on top of him did, giving him the opportunity to get out from under him and knock him out, slamming his helmet on the floor.

Spike had two humans on him, but he seemed to have it well in hand. That left one human and one turian for Garrus. He knocked the weapon out of the nearby human's hands, headbutting the soldier like a krogan. When she faltered, he went in for the kill, snapping her neck.

He heard a shotgun ring out near him, but quickly realized he hadn't been hit.

"Bloody buggering fuck!" cried Spike.

In a fury, Garrus dove upon the turian soldier beside him, wrenching the gun from his hands and firing it repeatedly into his chest.

When he looked back at Spike, there was one human left, whom Spike was holding off despite the awful-looking hole in his stomach. Garrus strode over and broke the human's neck. Without missing a beat, he started reaching for medi-gel.

"Won't work on me," Spike said, slowly moving to rest on a nearby crate. "Drag me over one of those humans. Preferably one who isn't bleeding out."

Garrus hesitated a moment, medi-gel in hand, but did as Spike asked. He dragged the dead weight of the nearest human over, his head lolling to the side due to the broken neck.

Spike took the body in his arms, resting the torso against his own, and his face transformed.

Garrus watched in shock and horror as Spike's face twisted into something unrecognizable. Except he did recognize it. He'd seen something just like it that first night he'd met Spike.

Spike's newly-grown fangs sunk into the neck of the dead human, who grew paler and paler in his arms. And Spike looked healthier and healthier as he did it.

He dropped the human to the ground, blood dripping down his chin. He let out a satisfied sigh.

"What are you?" Garrus asked. He'd taken a few steps back.

Spike's face transformed back to familiar human one Garrus knew. He looked almost… disappointed.

"Vampire," he said. "Look it up on the extranet." With an impressive flip, Spike was up in the rafters, above where Garrus could see. "And you're welcome for saving your life!" he called down before disappearing.

…

Garrus spent the next several days scanning the extranet for information on vampires. He was obsessed. He learned everything about them, even some things he was sure weren't true. The strangest of all was that everything he read insisted that vampires were mythological. Not real.

Garrus had seen enough. He knew real.

…

Garrus didn't see Spike again for several weeks, and then he was too busy to think about it. It wasn't long before everything came crashing down around him. Sidonis disappeared, thought kidnapped, turned into a betrayal none of them had ever seen coming. His team dead, him ready to go with them. Until he saw her again.

He'd been sure, so sure, she was dead. But then again, a few months ago he would have sworn that Spike couldn't exist. Who was he to know what was possible?

She seemed surprised, but happy, to see him, and baffled by his easy acceptance of her return to life. Things went sideways, but she got him out, and he really didn't think of Spike much after that.

It wasn't until he was back on Omega, waiting for Shepard to bait an ardat-yakshi, that he saw Spike again.

"You look more alive than I expected, Archangel."

Garrus turned around at the voice, inexplicably glad to see Spike leaning against a wall and smoking one of those awful cigarettes.

"Don't use that name," Garrus said quickly. "Archangel is dead and needs to stay that way."

Spike shrugged. "Have it your way." He inclined his head towards the door to the club. "Your lady came back for you?"

"She did," Garrus said, though he wasn't completely sure she was his, exactly.

Spike gave him a bitter smile, illuminated by the cigarette's glow. "Then you're one of the lucky ones."

"Yours didn't?" Garrus dared to ask.

"Can't." Spike took a drag on his cigarette. "She's in heaven. Wouldn't take that from her again."

Garrus was surprised to hear Spike reference what seemed to be such a religious concept, but he let it slide. Spike was full of contradictions. Some of those extranet articles said a vampire couldn't breathe. But here Spike was, exhaling smoke in his face for fun.

"So my extranet search said you were mythological," he commented. "No such thing as vampires."

Spike scoffed. "Humans believe what they want to. Less of us nowadays," he said, sounding as if he might begin to reminisce. "Most back on Earth. Don't know why," he added. "No sun up here. Have the run of the place, don't have to wait for night." He shrugged. "We can be a superstitious lot, I s'pose."

"When I saw you that first night, you said something to the other vampire about catch and release," Garrus said. "Is that how you stay hidden?"

"Don't kill, don't get caught," Spike said simply. "It's worked for me for longer than most have been alive. Except those asari." He shuddered. "Creepy bints."

Garrus snorted. Spike was probably the first being he'd met who didn't like asari.

Spike's attention was drawn to the entrance to the club. "Speaking of creepy," he said. "That one is worse than most demons I've met. Isn't that your lady with her?"

Garrus looked over to see Shepard pretending to flirt with the ardat-yakshi, and his stomach clenched.

"She's the worst kind of criminal. Shepard is the bait," he spat out.

Spike raised a brow at him. "And you are?"

"Not part of this operation," Garrus said bitterly.

"Bugger that," said Spike, dropping his cigarette and crushing it under his heel. "Let's go."

They followed Shepard and Morinth to the asari's apartment, finding a place they could wait and watch through the large plate-glass windows. Just as things seemed to go sideways, Samara arrived, and it looked like they wouldn't be needed. Still, it had felt better to be at the ready, and to wait with company instead of alone.

While they waited for Shepard to wrap things up, Spike tilted his head and looked at Garrus curiously. "So if I can't call you Archangel anymore, what can I call you?"

He considered for a minute before deciding on the truth. "Garrus," he said.

Spike gave him an odd smile before replying, "William." He stuck out his hand to shake in the human way. Just as Garrus released his hand, they could hear the two women approaching. Spike took a step back.

"Looks like it's my time to go. Best of luck to you and your lady." He disappeared into the shadows, coat flapping behind him like a cape.

Shepard's brow furrowed when she came around the corner to see Garrus alone. "Was there someone else here?" she asked. "I could have sworn I heard you talking to someone."

"No one important," Garrus said, glad to dodge the question. "Let's go."

…

Garrus never heard from Spike again, though he thought of him often, still wondering about Spike's lady, about his life, and about what drove a vampire to leave his home and cross the galaxy. He imagined he would never know the answers, but he wondered and imagined all the same.

During the war, when Shepard woke in the night from dreams of terror, he would wrap his arms around her and tell her stories.

"Did I ever tell you," he once began, "about the time I befriended a vampire?"

…