Balancing Act – The Sequel

Chapter 1

The days began to take on a dream-like quality: things moving slower, everything more intense, and a sense that they couldn’t quite decide, on waking, where reality lay.

Every evening, Spike would begin to watch the clock. He didn’t mean to; he tried not to, but he couldn’t help it. His body was full of anticipation and responded of its own accord to the thought that he would be home soon. The ache in his balls and the rise and twitch of his cock made pretending not to watch the clock slightly ridiculous, so he gave in, watching and pacing.

He always had a drink ready for them both as soon as he sensed the overwhelming presence coming down the path. He tried not to clink the ice, tried not to give any indication of the tension he felt.

When Angel opened the door, there was always a pause in time (it never varied, was never forgotten), a brief, puzzled look at each other: Angel and Spike, sire and childe. Then Angel went outside. He always did this: arrive; puzzled look; then out into the cooler, darker green of their courtyard, as if he needed the additional air of that verdant enclosure to breathe and find a last escape before the reality hit him—they were no longer what they had been.

Then Spike would take him the drink, carrying his own in his other hand. He sometimes wondered why he bothered; they never got to drink them. As soon as his hand touched the back of Angel’s, alerting him to his presence, need overtook them both.

Angel would turn and seize him, forcing him back against the wall. His cock betrayed him, twitching, and Angel would cup it through his pants, groaning at this evidence that he was needed and missed, and that it was right that he was here.

They would kiss, hardly tasting each other’s mouths, something far darker and deeper being explored in that hot seeking.  They sometimes fucked right there against the wall; sometimes, Angel would push him as far as the couch; sometimes, they would fall to the floor between the two places, and Spike would surrender his body to Angel’s need, allowing the hard, deep penetration that was beyond his control to stop anyway.

They would fuck loudly, incoherently, each lost to his own private need, like a four-legged beast rutting on the faded rug. Individual orgasms were reached, and then Angel would pull out, panting, sweating, and confused by this humanity.  He would look down at his expensive city suit; fingering wrinkles; rubbing stains resembling toothpaste on the immaculate, light wool; cursing; standing and stripping and dropping each item carelessly to the floor as he went to shower away the office.  He seemed to think they owned a slave, for he never questioned who picked the clothes up after him, who took them to the cleaners or returned them to the closet, where they hung ready for him to put on - with his other masks - in the morning. These seemed to be details he had freed himself from ever having to think about again—like other things that he seemed now to overlook.

When he came out of the shower, he was invariably wrapped in a large towel, bought in for his sole use: Spike preferring to walk around naked.

He would then accept the drink, possibly curse the melted ice and demand another.  Then, seemingly exhausted, he would lie on the bed and within minutes - whether from the whisky or the orgasm or work - fall asleep: heavy, languorous, breathing deeply.

These were the moments Spike waited for.  

He would tidy away the evidence of Angel’s other life from the floor and then climb on the bed, waiting for it to leave the troubled mind, too.  Inevitably, it did.  After half an hour or so – the time varied according to the amount of pain Spike could sense in his stretched, pounded backside – Angel would wake.

Then he became the other Angel— the one Spike wanted.

Then he became soft and playful.

Then he allowed Spike to play with him, which was even better. 

He would lounge and talk about his day as Spike discovered places he’d already found many times before, but which always seemed so new to both of them.  Then he would suddenly stretch and attack Spike, mock biting and feeding from him, laughing as they rose once more to the stimulation.  They would share blood from cursed bags, feeding each other slowly in as many erotic ways as they could devise for plastic, pseudo-organs.  

Then they would make love for the first time, both well aware that what they had done before was not love, but some kind of residual conflict that they still needed, reasserting with the sexual battle something that scared them with its absence: hatred for each other.

Now they allowed themselves to admit just how much things had changed between them.  They kissed slowly, tasting the love in the other’s mouth, kissing away the things that hung around them like the ghosts in the old house: fear, resentment, and pain. They all dissolved on the sweet saliva tongued between them.

Their bodies played their own games then, rising and stretching out for the other, passing and sharing different fluid, a slickness now forming on their bellies, causing a low ache in balls that made the kissing even more fervid and necessary.

They always held out longer than they thought they could, wanting to keep the anticipation going. Angel’s probing finger usually put paid to that though.  As soon as it found, entered and stroked him, Spike would arch and cry out, and as soon as he said Angel’s name, with aching need catching in his throat, Angel would scramble around and push into his warmed flesh. 

Then time slowed down. Then the dream-like unreality of it all began in earnest, as they bent and pushed and stroked and touched skin for hours, joined, not beast-like now but lovers, entwined.

When it was over - when Angel released his stream into Spike’s body, and caught Spike’s in his hands, drinking it with as much relish as he drank the blood - waking and dreaming became one, for Angel would collapse slowly onto Spike’s friction-hot body and envelop him as they slept - still joined, still twitching slightly - bathed in their own unique juices, which seeped slowly out of them as the night wore on.

Mornings were when time skewed the other way, speeding up until a frantic haste overcame them. Angel was always late. He never wanted to wake and actually leave the bed. Sex was rushed and laughed at; done so quickly that they found it almost painful, but too rushed, so it had to be done again, properly, and then he was so late he didn’t have time to shower, but had to, being Angel.  

Then he was dressed.

Then time slowed down until it almost refused to move at all: he refused. 

They were separated by the small distance between the bed and the door but more by the clothes, and Angel knew he could not return for a kiss or even a word, because if he did, he would never leave again.

Time then played the worst trick of all on them. It stopped entirely, and Angel went through his interminable days, thinking about release.  

Spike went….

Spike went up to the old house and sat in his favourite window seat overlooking his courtyard below. He conjured indistinct, pale figures writhing under the canopy of green, and it amused him to picture them there, and Innocence here, watching them.  She watched him now disapprovingly, from her vantage point on the chaise-lounge. He knew she did, and it did not bode well for his sanity that he did not find this disturbing.

He knew he was going mad.  

For this, and other reasons, he always welcomed certain footfalls on the stairs, but made sure that when he turned to greet Wesley, he was his usual snarky self. No need for the human to know he was going insane.

‘Shouldn’t you be bloody working?’

Wesley smiled, not fooled for a minute by the welcome, and joined in the pretence of mutual antipathy. ‘And that from the world’s greatest sponger.’

The game begun, they often bored of it quickly, and this time, Spike only nodded and stretched, checking a new watch that Angel had bought for him. ‘Want some tea?’

He only asked because he knew what the reply would be: Wesley always wanted tea. It took away the need to examine their feelings on any other subject for another few minutes.

Wesley trailed after him to the small apartment below, commenting on some bushes that were growing dangerously low over the path, telling of some office gossip involving mutual acquaintances that he thought Spike would enjoy.  Once the kettle was on – imported from England, and worrying Angel so much on some fundamental level that he tried never to glance at it – they sat in front of the fire on the couch and felt a dangerous sense of friendship settle over them, afraid of what the other might say, what confidences they might share about the one who held them both in his thrall.

Spike stared at the fire for a while and then said conversationally, ‘I’m getting fat.’ He patted his belly and pouted.

‘I’d noticed. Doesn’t suit you.’

Knowing that Wesley was being facetious, Spike sighed. ‘Feels like it anyway.’

Sensing that Spike’s sudden concern for some non-existent fat was probably his way of leading up to something entirely different, Wesley held his peace.

‘I’ve not been out for weeks. Evil must be running riot.’

‘Well, someone keyed my car the other day. If you’re in the mood for killing, can I suggest you start there?’

Spike didn’t smile but got up to make the promised drink.  

Wesley stretched his legs and wondered when Spike would get around to whatever it was that was bothering him.  He decided to help matters along a little.  ‘What time is it?’

Spike handed over a mug and tossed him a biscuit.  ‘He won’t be back for hours. You know that— relax.’

Wesley murmured something, and when Spike demanded it to be repeated, said pointedly, ‘I value my balls.’

Spike did smile faintly at that.  ‘He’ll know they’ve been here. He always knows.’

‘My balls specifically or the rest of me as well?’

‘I assume he knows they’re attached—plonker.’

‘Does he mind— me being here?’

‘He pretends not to. But he always checks the bed first, ya know? Sniff, like a predator, scenting to see if a rival’s been there first.’

Wesley raised an eyebrow then said softly, ‘Assuming, of course, that Angel’s fears are true – which they’re not - we’d hardly be stupid enough to actually use the bed.  ’

A slight shift in the atmosphere was noticed by both of them.

Spike turned on the couch, pulling up his legs, tucking his bare feet under a cushion.  ‘No. I think we’d do it here— on the couch.’

Wesley sipped his tea, not at all sure how to reply to that. He had enough of his wits left to realise that it had been more than a casual remark and that it related somehow to the increasingly strange mood he had sensed in Spike for the last few days. ‘You’ve given this some thought then?’

‘Once or twice.’

‘Oh. I thought we had rather covered that— with the vomiting on each other.’

‘I’m fickle.’

‘Oh.’ He watched Spike taking a sip of his tea and said pointedly, ‘Nice watch, by the way. I meant to say that yesterday.’

‘Yeah. It was a present.’

‘Hmm. I should think Angel gives you some nice ones these days.’

Spike smiled at the crass introduction of Angel, but gave the human credit for the attempt to make him feel guilty. He stretched his legs, dislodging the cushion, his feet now resting against Wesley’s warm thigh.

‘My feet are cold.’

‘Wear some socks maybe?’

‘Did you know that they straightened out when I died?’

‘What?’ 

Spike grinned inwardly. There was nothing like a titbit of intellectualism to deflect Wesley.  ‘Yeah. You get perfected when you get the demon blood. Teeth, bones in general, I guess.’

Wesley tried not to, but he glanced down at the bare feet. ‘They are rather… perfect.’

‘Straightened right out.’

‘Did it hurt?’

‘Well… it all hurt, so it was hard to separate out the individual pain.’

‘Ah. All pain. I see.’ Wesley trod so carefully he wondered he spoke at all, not fooled for a moment that they were now talking about the past. ‘You’ve always intimated that it was all… sublime.’

Spike turned his head to look at the fire. ‘It was. It was all pain and all pleasure.’

Wesley watched the shamelessly beautiful profile for a while and then asked what seemed to be the critical question.  ‘Do you regret it?’

Spike glanced down at the watch on his wrist then took it off.  It seemed to be a reply of sorts.

Wesley felt a lump rise in his throat, and he frowned, not used to intense emotions for himself, let alone for another.  ‘I’m so sorry.’

Spike shrugged.  

‘I don’t understand Angel very well these days – not now I know there is so much between us that I don’t remember – but he doesn’t seem plagued by these doubts. He seems utterly… consumed.’

Spike turned to look at him with a small, rueful smile. ‘No. That’s me.’  Suddenly, he jumped up.  ‘Let’s go out! Come on! My treat.’

‘Err….’

Spike grabbed his arm, playful now, the pretence carefully reconstructed around the more fragile feelings he had displayed earlier.  ‘I’m hungry.’

‘I wish you could appreciate just how unnerving that is coming from a vampire!’

Spike grinned, but the expression did not quite reach his eyes.  ‘Come on! Let’s go!’

Wesley suddenly caught on, getting the haste with which Spike wanted to be out of the apartment.  He nodded. As he watched Spike pull on some boots, he said hesitantly, ‘The house is very big. Perhaps you’d be happier with some space of your own…?’

Spike looked up from a complicated arrangement of laces. ‘It’s not space I need.  Now, what do you fancy? ‘Sides me that is.’

Wesley rose to the occasion, his heart not really in the banter. ‘Hell would have to freeze more than your unpleasantly cold skin, Spike, before I could ever fancy you.’

Seemingly pleased that he’d put them back on the light, inconsequential track they’d been on before he’d tested the man with the deeper waters of his misery, Spike clapped an arm around the broad, strong shoulders and sauntered out, laughing as Wesley caught his hair once more in the over-hanging branches.

The house settled unhappily in their absence, waiting anxiously for the one who would return and find it empty. It did not want him there without Spike as a buffer to the great anger that permeated his being.

Spike also seemed to feel anxious as the time for Angel to return crept upon them. He kept glancing at Wesley’s watch, talking faster and faster, drinking more and more, until at last, he blurted out, ‘I have to go!’

‘Have to, or want to?’

‘What?’

‘Do you want to go back?’

Spike’s eyes were wide with alcohol and the need to confess. He whispered, ‘I’m going mad, Wesley.’

Wesley didn’t know what to say or do. He rested his hand on Spike’s arm, and it seemed the right thing to do.  He felt something flutter under his palm like a wild bird he had once found stunned on the ground. A desperate need to flee from something intangible crept upon him, oozed into him from the wild creature under his hand.  ‘I don’t know how to help you unless you tell me what’s wrong. Maybe even then I can’t….’

‘I’m going mad….’ Spike seemed unable to articulate his pain any further. 

Wesley lowered his head and spoke without the intensity of the blue eyes distracting him. ‘You’ve had too much change recently. It’s not surprising you’re finding it hard to adjust—dying like that; coming back; the spell; Angel; the inheritance. Your whole life has changed, Spike. Give yourself time to adjust.’

‘Who am I?’ The whisper was so intense that Wesley shivered.

‘I think you are who you ever were. It’s everything else that has changed.’

‘I need him.’

Wesley felt an immediate Englishman’s reticence to discuss anything intimate then forced himself to reply, ‘I expect you do, but….’

‘No!’ The interruption was almost painful.  Spike recoiled from the force of his own words and tried to calm down. ‘No.  What I meant was: I need him as he was.’

‘Huh? I mean: sorry? As he was?’

Spike winced, his whole expression apologetic for something that he knew was immensely contradictory. ‘He was my constant, Wes. I hated him. Where is that all to go?’

‘Why do you need to hate?’

‘NO! I don’t need to hate. I need to be what I was, too!’  Spike snatched his arm away, the force of the movement totally belying the analogy in Wesley’s mind of the fragile creature that needed his protection.  Spike stood up then leant close to Wesley’s face. ‘Let’s go to your place.’

Wesley began to rise, too. ‘We’ll need to stop; I’ve got no coffee or tea….’ His arm was seized.

‘Wesley.’

Wesley looked down at the fingers on his shirt. He’d known what Spike had meant. He’d just put off the import of it for a moment, for his own sanity.

‘No.’

‘Yes.’

‘Please. Remove your hand. If for no other reason than that we are being stared at by almost everyone in this room, and whatever part of yourself you are trying to find, I think I’m on fairly safe ground saying that desperate homo isn’t it.’

This had the desired effect; the hand removed as if the words scorched the flesh of Spike’s palm. He turned and went out into the night. Wesley cursed softly and followed him, walking a little way behind. Spike, he noticed, was leading him toward his own apartment.

‘You are not invited in.’

‘I will be.’

‘Not by me.’

‘We’ll see.’

‘Slow down.’

‘You catch up.’

They kept their mutual distance for some time more.

‘I’ll just stop and leave you to walk on then.’

‘You’d regret that.’

‘Oh, are you threatening me now?’

‘Do you feel threatened?’

‘I feel totally bemused and sad, Spike.’

‘Join the fucking club.’

‘Angel will be wondering where you are. It’s been what? Two weeks and you’ve not been apart….’

‘Scared he’ll work it out?’

‘There’s nothing to work out.’

‘There will be.’

‘No, there won’t.’ It was beginning to get childish, and Wesley blamed this for his sudden need to cry.  He stopped. ‘That’s it. I’m not taking another step.’

Spike stopped, too, but didn’t turn around.  Suddenly, a very soft voice asked, ‘If I said, please, would that make a difference?’

Wesley swallowed and dipped his head. ‘Yes. It would. You’ve actually managed to make me cry now.’

Spike suddenly began to run.  Wesley looked up, and all he saw was a dark figure blending with the darkness around him.  He felt strangely calm and knew it was only some false state before a storm of darkness overtook him, too.

Finding some reserve of strength that he’d been told he’d once shown, he hailed a cab and gave the driver an address.

Once more, branches tangled in his hair, and he cursed, the sound neatly announcing his presence. He knew when he knocked that Angel knew it was him, and he waited, hearing his heart pounding in his ears.

‘Yeah.’

He pushed open the door and found Angel standing with a drink in one hand, a large towel wrapped around his waist, his hair wet. With a sudden rush of blood to his cheeks, Wesley had a startlingly clear image of Angel in the shower, relieving his frustration at Spike’s absence.
 
Glad the darkness covered the outward evidence of his embarrassment, but fairly sure Angel would smell it anyway, he went out into the courtyard, murmuring, ‘Sorry to disturb you at this late hour.’

He knew that Angel was watching him from inside, making no move to follow. He kept his back to the vampire – his friend, his intimate colleague, his undefined more – and stared up at the faint moon behind the thick canopy.  He suddenly realised that everything he knew about Angel and Spike’s relationship was merely conjecture on his part. He assumed they were fucking— neither of them had, obviously, confirmed this to him.  Perhaps they lived here in some vampire, sire and childe relationship.  Perhaps that was what was oppressing Spike. He could not imagine that being fucked by Angel would be oppressive at all.  He shuddered and was about to speak again – something inconsequential, something about work – when he felt a breath on his neck. 

‘What brings you here?’

He whirled around, angry now. That wasn’t allowed: that transgressing of the vampire’s ability for stealth.  Angel saw that he’d over-stepped the mark - literally as well as metaphorically - and stepped back—in both ways.  ‘Drink?’

The harmless offer was accepted, and Angel went back in to mix one. Wesley followed him in and frowned as he crunched something underfoot.  Without turning around, Angel said casually, ‘I dropped a glass. Just as well you aren’t barefoot.’  If there was a slight emphasis on the pronoun, Wesley ignored it.  He hedged around the apparently dropped glass and did not comment either on the stain that was spread, stinking of whisky, over the wall.

‘I saw Spike tonight.’

Wesley was always intrigued by Angel’s control and mirrored his, new, reserved persona on it.  He fancied he saw the griffon twitch slightly, as if the creature eyed him angrily, unhappy at having his feathers metaphorically ruffled, but he allowed that even this small reaction might merely be a trick of the light that spilled in through the French windows.

Seeing that Angel wasn’t going to help him out in any way, he took the offered drink and sat down in front of the fire. Angel had let it go out, and this seemed very significant to Wesley, although he could not exactly say why.

‘He seemed very upset by something.’

‘Spike is a vampire. He doesn’t get upset.’

Angel moved out of sight slightly, into the shadows of the far end of the room, clearly dressing.  Wesley fixed his eyes on the ashes and repeated, ‘He seemed very upset.  I don’t know how else to describe it.’

‘Is that all you came for?’  Angel appeared out of the shadows, a menacing figure of leather and soft, even words.  

Wesley shook himself. ‘You’re upset, too. I’m sorry. I should have realised you would be.’

Angel sat in one of the armchairs and tented his hands under his chin. ‘You are mistaken.’

‘And you forget that I know you too well now.’

‘What did he say?’

Wesley noticed that this was neither a denial nor an acceptance of his claim. He hesitated, now in a dilemma. He could not tell Angel the truth – he wasn’t too sure of what the truth was anyway. He decided to sail close to what he perceived that truth to be. ‘I think he’s finding it oppressive living here… in this house… too many memories, perhaps.’  He saw instantly that this was a huge mistake.  They both knew that the one thing Spike did love, in his crazy, mixed-up world, was this house.  Wesley knew that Angel would not take long to make the obvious correction: something else was oppressing Spike.

Angel rose and refreshed their drinks, and Wesley had never felt more like trying to kill him— not to actually see Angel dead, but because he could not kill him, and the ensuing fight would release some emotion, any emotion - all emotions - that Angel kept so locked down.  In a strange, uneasy, flittering thought, Wesley wondered if Angel released his emotions with Spike, and if so, what would happen if that outlet for such powerful intensity ever got withdrawn….

‘It’s getting late, Wesley. We have an early start.  Meeting with the Krefnos of the Tribes?’

Wesley pushed his glasses higher on his nose and knew the moment had passed. Angel would not revert to anything personal now, and he was wasting his time.

He was about to rise and leave when the door opened and Spike sauntered in.  He did not seem to be surprised to see the human, completely ignored Angel, and tossed Wesley something, which glittered briefly in the faint moonlight before falling onto the cushions of the couch.

Wesley held up a bunch of keys and frowned. He could not see Angel, but he sensed a stab of bitter jealousy from him at even this small exchange.  He looked questioningly at Spike. Spike grinned. ‘Keys. Not gonna scratch any other cars now.’

Wesley suddenly dropped them as if they burnt him.  ‘I was only joking! Did you…?’

Spike shrugged then circled his shoulders as if reliving a pleasant memory. ‘Feel better now.’

Wesley rose and left the keys were they were.  ‘I’ll see you tomorrow, Angel.’

Angel nodded.  

Wesley gave Spike a bitter look. Spike returned this happily and held the door for him.

The mood plummeted like temperature when the human left.

Chapter 2

‘Where were you?’

‘Out.’

‘Well, that’s helpful and mature.’

Angel rose and went to pour another drink. He waved at the wall. ‘I’d get you one, but the glass broke.’

‘Yeah.’

‘So, you’re oppressed.’

‘Wesley’s got a big mouth.’

‘I wouldn’t know. I’ve never pushed anything into it.’

‘Oh, grow up, Angel.’

‘No! I don’t think I will! I like coming back to an empty apartment and feeling lonely too fucking much!’

Spike went out into the courtyard and tried to take calming breaths. As he didn’t need the oxygen, this ending up making him feel more tense, so that when he sensed Angel’s presence behind him, the hairs on the back of his neck stood up.

‘I have to get up early. I have to work. I’m going to bed.’

‘Good.’

‘Good that I have to work? Or good that I’m leaving you alone to piss around in this childish mood and not give you the satisfaction to not tell me what’s wrong?’

‘Huh?’

Angel hesitated. ‘That sounded better in my head.’

Spike smiled and held out his hand, which was taken willingly enough. 

‘Hi, by the way. I think we forgot to say that somewhere tonight.’

‘Yeah. Sorry.’

‘For what, Spike? For finding this so fucking weird that you need to run away from it for a while?’

‘Yeah. I think so.’

Angel pulled him close and brushed a lock of hair off his forehead.  ‘Don’t talk to Wesley about us. Talk to me.’

Spike tipped his head on one side. ‘I’ve never told Wesley anything about us.’

‘Good. Keep it that way.’

Angel turned and led Spike by the hand to the bed. Spike was glad Angel didn’t turn and see the look that he knew was on his face. He couldn’t help it. It seemed frozen there, but whether it was from the way he was being led, or from Angel’s words, he didn’t care to analyse.

Once they reached the bed, they both seemed at something of a loss what to do.

The usual routine had been broken. They were neither in the throes of unbearable lust for each other’s bodies, nor in a relaxed, loving, playful mood. They were both tense, and the first initiation of sex was painful: Angel pulling Spike to him so hard that a faint crack in his wrist was heard by both of them.  Angel’s eyes dilated at the small hiss of pain this elicited, and he kissed Spike roughly, his hand roaming down to unzip him, thrusting his fingers into the opening with no finesse.

‘I don’t want to come here and find you gone again.’

Spike pulled his mouth away and bit Angel’s cheek. It was savage and uncalled for, but as he pulled back, blood reddening his mouth, he said distinctly, ‘That sounded like an order.’

Angel seemed confused by the bite. He pulled his hand away from Spike’s cock and laid his fingers on the tear on his cheek, pulling them away, frowning.  Suddenly, he lashed out and punched Spike, centuries of practice ensuring that the blow was accurate and painful.  Blood spurted from Spike’s nose, and he sat up on the bed, cradling it in both hands, drops falling onto his jeans, catching on the hairs that wisped enticingly out of his open zipper.

Angel hissed with pleasure and thrust his face into the opening, rubbing his torn cheek on the rough hair.  Spike took his hands away from his face and ran bloodied fingers through Angel’s hair.  It was all the encouragement Angel needed, and he pressed his face in more, hands cupping and pulling Spike free.

Angel stared at the achingly hard cock for a moment, released the tight balls and arranged them below, separated.  ‘You bit me.’

Spike arched with the anticipation of pain, and he was not disappointed.  Angel took his anger out on the hardness until it was soft.  He took his pain and hurt out on the decorative arrangement of cock and balls until they were not so pretty. He took out his blinding panic that Spike had stopped loving him on the soft skin and enticing veins until they could not be distinguished from the blood that continued to drip from Spike’s face.

Spike was unconscious by the time he had finished with his game, and he lay back alongside him, refusing to look into the corners of the room.

He tried to make time dance to his tune now: trying desperately to turn it back so that he could come into the apartment and find Spike waiting for him. Time refused to play; he could not torture it; so he let it be.  

Spike came back to an awareness of pain with a grunt of distress.  He’d thought he’d missed this. He realised, with a wave of nausea, that he hadn’t.

He felt something being pressed to his lips and sipped some clear, fresh water, then drank greedily from the bottle until it was withdrawn.  A wet cloth was played over his face, clearing away tears he’d shed toward the end.  He turned his head and saw that light was beginning to creep through the trees, a pale, watery dawn that depressed him.

‘Don’t go to work today. Please.’ His words startled them both.

Angel held the cloth away. ‘All right.’

Spike closed his eyes. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘I know you are.’

‘It’s not enough, is it?’

‘I need for you to tell me what’s wrong.’

‘I don’t know what’s wrong.’

Angel let the cloth drop to the floor and pulled him very carefully into his arms, trying not to enjoy his wince of pain.  ‘I love you.’

‘I know you do. You know how I feel about you.’

He felt something relax fractionally in Angel at this.  He glanced up. ‘Did you think I’d stopped loving you?’

Angel hesitated then said simply, ‘I expect it every day, Spike. Every day, I expect to walk in here and find that you’ve gone. Last night you had.’

Spike struggled to sit up. Maddeningly, he felt like crying and bit his lip to make the pain distract him. He had little need; the pain from his tattered body was distraction enough.  ‘Is that what love has to be?’

‘What?’ Angel ran his fingers distractedly through Spike’s hair.

Possession.

Spike wanted to cry out: Possession!  You’re suffocating me!  Instead, he said softly, ‘I love you so much, Angel. All the hate’s turned to love, and you know how much I hated you.’  He’d not meant this to be funny, but they both seemed to find it so and suddenly chuckled softly into each other’s flesh. Some sense of normality retuned, and Angel glanced down and swore softly. 

‘Jesus. I hurt you.  I’m… sorry.’

Spike lifted the sheet and inspected the damage ruefully. ‘As I don’t need to pee, and as I stopped wanking when we started fucking, I’m thinking you’re the one who’s gonna suffer the most from this.’

Angel suddenly sat up and buried his face into his knees, folding his arms over his head. Spike recognised Angel’s attempt to escape from something he never could and put his head sadly on Angel’s shoulder. ‘Hey. Luv….’

‘I’m sorry.’ The voice was muffled and Spike slipped his hand around Angel’s waist. 

‘Help me heal, maybe?’

Angel seized on the chance to make things right, ripping at his wrist with sharp fangs, then changing his mind and baring his neck instead. He stretched out on the bed and let Spike feed from him and when he heard a faint mewing, he could not have said which of them made that sound of pleasure.

Spike fed long and deep, far more than he had ever been granted before.  He felt Angel’s essence flowing into him, and it was not altogether sweet. It was complex, troubled and dark, but it was powerful, and that power infused him with its healing strength.  By the time he stopped, Angel would not have been able to prevent him continuing if he’d wished.  His sire lay almost insensible on the bed alongside him, very pale, very cold, and very vulnerable.  Spike pulled the covers over them both and, in that false night, held him close and tried also to force the clock back. He wanted it to go further back than Angel had, and he fell asleep with a sense of desolation in his heart that gave him troubled dreams of a capitulation that should never have been made and a possession that he had never asked for.

When they awoke, the darkness of the apartment made their nest under the covers totally black. Each sensed the other was awake, and Angel said quietly, ‘Are you okay?’

Spike took hold of his hand and placed it on his cock. ‘Why don’t you find out for yourself?’

Angel groaned and slid down the smooth, warm body. ‘I’m so hungry.’

Spike arched as Angel took him in, running his fingers through the dark locks.  ‘Fill up with me, Luv.’

Angel slid his lips right down the hard, healed shaft to the root, where he let them rest, allowing the head to rub against his throat for a while.  Spike bucked and writhed satisfactorily in his arms, making the contact on his throat very pleasurable for both of them.  When he felt sufficiently hard himself, he began to work the cock with his mouth, up and down the long column, his tongue exploring the velvety soft skin, revelling in the sense of its newness: virgin territory once more on this familiar body.

Spike began to curse, and Angel smiled into the wiry hair as he plunged down once more.  It was always a good sign when he made Spike swear. He was hungry enough to actually feel his stomach rumble at the thought of swallowing Spike, so brought his fingers up and teased them over Spike’s tight sac as he sucked.  Cursing turned incoherent and Angel slid his fingers down, off the balls, over the thin, tight skin that led to his entrance.  He tickled them over this slightly sweat-damp area, trailing the tips of his immaculate nails over its sensitivity, up and down to the same rhythm he kept up on the cock.

Everything went rigid - Spike, his cock, his balls – and then everything went limp and liquid and warm, and release flooded his mouth and fed him as he quivered into the sheets, brought to orgasm by the feel of Spike in his mouth.

He swallowed greedily, knowing he’d do this again in a few minutes, when Spike had recovered enough to feed him again.  His stomach welcomed the fluid that was so like blood it was fooled for a while, hunger assuaged.

With a sigh they settled into each other’s arms, playing with skin and hair, wondering if they were good now, if they could play with words as well.

‘We slept the whole day, Angel.’

‘You needed it.’

‘You did, too.’

‘Yeah. Maybe I did.’

‘I’m sorry.  I know I already said that, but I’m sorry. I went out cus I knew you wanted me here when you got in. I wanted pain; I thought I wanted yours, but it was mine I missed.’

‘I gave you pain. I wish I hadn’t now. I love you, and I don’t want to hurt you anymore.  We did that. We’ve done that so many times. I want something new.’

‘I know.’ He tangled his fingers in Angel’s hair, tugging his head back, gazing into the deep brown eyes.  ‘You look hungry again.’

Angel groaned and began to slide down Spike’s body once more, but Spike suddenly pushed him onto his back and straddled his chest.  He looked down at the supine figure then knelt up and braced his hands behind Angel’s head. ‘Suck me. Open that pretty mouth of yours.’  It was so unexpected that Angel opened his mouth to protest and found it brushed by the tip of Spike’s wet cock as Spike held it down and tickled it over his lips. 

He swallowed and let the protest die in his throat.  Slowly, never taking his eyes from Angel’s, Spike fed him his cock, controlling how much Angel was allowed to have, easing it in and out to his desire, his need, and making Angel beg. 

They both sensed that something of Spike’s inability to say what was wrong was being worked through in this strange reversal of their usual roles.

Angel, Spike noted, seemed to find this reversal very acceptable.  He could feel the urgent erection pressing against his spread cheeks as he squatted over him.  The temptation to lower himself onto that hardness almost overwhelmed him, but he resisted and denied Angel his cock for a moment, holding it just out of reach of the eager, seeking tongue, until he’d punished them both enough and allowed it to be licked once more.

When he finally came, he made sure he was deep in Angel’s throat, so deep he was sure it must be painful, but Angel didn’t seem to mind.  He groaned around the spurting fluid, swallowing furiously and working himself until Spike felt a something splash against his cheeks then trickle down his cleft and over his hole.  He lowered himself onto Angel’s belly and wriggled slightly, mashing sperm between them, releasing its potent aroma into the already scent-laden air.

They regarded each other for a long time, both processing what had just happened.  Finally Angel said softly, ‘I’m not sure I should have enjoyed that.’

Spike smiled, a small, crooked grin. ‘But you did.’ He cocked up his scarred eyebrow in a gesture he knew Angel couldn’t resist.

‘Flirt.’

Spike grinned again.  

Suddenly, Angel said, with a glint in his eye, ‘Let’s go out tonight and find something to kill.’

Spike moaned softly. ‘You and me?’

‘Yeah. We’ll go remind the evil of L.A. that we’re still around.’

Spike slid off, feeling a sense of calm settle over him. The despair and madness he’d felt creeping upon him earlier was now pushed to one side, dissipated slightly by the events of the night.

They wandered along through the hot night air together.  This part of town had many houses almost as big as Innocent’s, but these others seemed to have been divided into tiny apartments, and the place attracted artists, writers, musicians, and feckless youths who wanted to be thought one or the other of those.

Angel always felt intensely ill at ease whenever they had ventured out for a drink in the early days— all of two weeks ago.  He shivered slightly when he realised how new this all still was, and Spike glanced over questioningly.

Not voicing his thoughts on the odd assortment of people milling around, Angel murmured, ‘I thought we were okay. You never said anything was wrong.’

Spike stopped and stared at his feet for a moment, and Angel had the terrifying desire to stop him speaking, a premonition that whatever came out of his mouth would destroy them both.  Irrationally, however, he said, ‘What?’ in a slightly high-pitched voice.

Spike glanced up through lowered lids. ‘I was just thinking I want to kiss you—wondering what your reaction would be.’

Angel took such a large, swift step back that Spike laughed. ‘Yeah. I kinda had the feeling that would be it.’  He nudged Angel affectionately and carried on walking.

‘We are okay, Angel.  Whatever is wrong is wrong with me— not us, not you.’

Angel frowned as if the conversation were physically painful and said miserably, ‘It’s the same thing, isn’t it?’

It was such a heartfelt plea to be reassured that Spike suddenly glanced around and hedged him into an ally, just steering him in at first then, when they were some distance from other people, taking his arm and pulling him into a dark recess behind some stacked crates.  He put his hand up and caressed Angel’s cheek.  ‘Two weeks…. Jesus. It feels like I’ve loved you three lifetimes, Angel.’

Mollified slightly, Angel put his arms around Spike’s waist.  ‘I don’t want to hurt you, Spike.  I always hurt you, and I don’t want to.  Not any more.’

Spike laid a finger over his lips.  ‘Don’t.  We both needed it.  Whatever else we are, Angel, we’re still demons.’

Angel tightened his grip around Spike’s waist, and Spike sensed there was something coming, something Angel needed this additional support to say.  ‘Maybe….’ Angel hesitated then ploughed on. ‘Maybe you need to get back to that?’

‘Huh? Being a demon?’

‘Well, you don’t… do anything, Spike.’  He pulled away and thrust his hands in his pockets, hunching his shoulders as if preparing for a verbal onslaught.

Spike debated giving him one, but only echoed icily, ‘I don’t do anything.’

‘You lie around in bed all day.’

‘Waiting for you!’

‘Except… you didn’t.  You went out to avoid me.’  He saw Spike’s confusion and added hastily, ‘And I think maybe that’s what you need— your own life again.’ Suddenly, he added with a slight edge of panic to his voice, ‘Just occasionally. Not every night. I mean… Fuck!’

‘That all sounded better in your head again, hey?’

Angel relaxed his shoulders.  ‘Yeah. Last night… when you were unconscious….’ He recovered from saying that word and continued, ‘I was thinking that we should go away – leave here – but then I couldn’t picture you away from the house. As though you only exist there now, and it really freaked me out, Spike. I couldn’t remember what you were like before. Only now. Does that make sense?’

‘I haven’t changed.’

‘Yes.  You have.  You’ve stopped…. You’re…. No. You’ve… become… what I want.’

‘You want me to be what you don’t want?’

‘No! I want you to be what you want!’

Spike leant back against the wall and lit a cigarette. ‘I’m getting a headache.’

Angel nodded glumly then took a small breath.  ‘Invite Wesley over when I’m there sometime maybe?’ He let the suggestion hang in the air then glanced up at Spike to see how it had been received.

Spike was pouting, looking at the red tip of his cigarette as if it sparked other thoughts in his mind. ‘I’m not sure Wes is even speaking to me now.’

‘Wesley is remarkably forgiving, Spike. He’s the most adult person I know.’

Spike allowed their eyes to meet, and he said softly, ‘I thought you were angered by our friendship.’

‘My anger isn’t the point! That’s what I’m trying to say.’

‘Okay, Luv.’  He pushed off the wall and patted Angel’s arm then grinned up at him mischievously.  ‘All my problems stem from needing to see Wesley more. That’s cool.’

Angel growled softly, more through amused intimacy than menace, but before Spike could reply there was a louder growl from the other side of the crates.  They glanced at each other, adrenalin of a different kind now coursing through their bodies, and stepped out, side by side.

Two vampires were facing off over the semi-conscious body of a young man. They looked over to Spike and Angel, and a moment of indecision settled over them all until Spike shrugged and said, ‘Fuck this,’ wading in and dusting them both, brushing his hands together in disgust as if he’d been dusting furniture.

He glanced over at Angel who was lounging against the crates, watching him. ‘Cheers, Mate. Thanks for the help.’

Angel pushed off and came closer, ignoring the sarcasm. He knelt to the shocked boy then glanced up at Spike. ‘You didn’t need any help.’

Spike sucked in his breath slightly at the intensely loving, proud look Angel gave him. He turned away to hide his reaction and heard Angel say softly, ‘You okay? It’s over.’

When he turned back, Angel had the boy supported and they were both waiting for him.  He took the boy’s other arm and Angel nodded toward the main street. ‘We’ll leave him where there are more people. He’ll be okay.’

‘They’ll probably think he’s stoned.’

‘I think that’s what he thought he was going to be.’

‘Yeah. A trip of another kind.’

‘You were… impressive. You were the person I couldn’t remember last night.’

‘Okay, Sigmund, let’s leave him here.’

Suddenly, the boy struggled back to some semblance of consciousness and pushed at them. ‘Fuck off! Fucking perverts!’

Spike chuckled; Angel winced and glanced furtively around, which made Spike laugh more.

They walked swiftly away from the cursing, accusing boy, and when it grew quieter, Spike glanced over at Angel with a look his sire knew only too well and murmured, ‘Wanna go home and pervert me?’

Angel repressed his smile, adjusted his clothing slightly and strode off in the direction of the house.  Spike strolled along a few paces behind, watching Angel’s arse and occasionally commenting on it, much to his sire’s increasing ire.  

Chapter 3

Wesley stretched to put some books back onto a high shelf, and found hands over his eyes, a hard, slim body pressing to his, and a soft English voice, on tobacco-scented breath, in his ear. ‘Guess who…’

It was so pathetic, so endearing, that he laughed, despite the anger that had consumed him all morning.  ‘You bugger.’

He turned and pushed the grinning vampire away, settling back at his desk.

Spike perched on the edge and regarded him for a moment, before saying, ‘Thanks, by the way.’

‘What? For trying to intervene between you and Angel? That’s an experience I’ll treasure in my fond-memories-of-my-life-with-vampires album.’

‘Plonker.  For saying no, Wes.  Thank you for saying no.’ Spike stood up rather rapidly and went to the window. ‘Why did you say no, by the way?’

Wesley smiled privately at the underlying self-doubt in Spike’s tone and rose, joining him.

‘Lots of reasons—not least of which being my undying passion for one Winifred Burkle.’

Spike nodded, suddenly contrite at forgetting this— this topic of many poker session conversations.  ‘How’s that going then?’

‘Oh! Extremely well. I managed to bark and glower at her at the same time the other day. I’m sure she got the underlying sentiment though.’

‘Oh. Not good then.’

‘She’s consoling herself, no doubt, in the arms of Poxy as we speak.’

Spike poked him gently in the ribs. ‘I’ve told you, Wes, one word from you and he’s dead— slow like.  An’ if you’re real nice to me, I’ll take pictures as we go on.’

Wesley shivered. ‘I still find your sense of humour very… taxing, Spike, but thank you for the offer. I’ll keep the torture of Poxy my secret fantasy though, if you don’t mind.’

‘Suit yerself. So….’

Wesley cast his eyes over. ‘I hate it when you do that.  There’s always this sinking feeling in my pit of my stomach that says: Here we go again— another Spike idea.’

‘Wanker! Do you never tire of the sound of your own bloody voice?’

Wesley looked away quickly and didn’t need to point out that he often had no one else to listen to.

Spike lit a cigarette. ‘Yeah, well—timely then… what you doing tonight?’

‘Oh, I had dinner planned with… nothing, why?’  He frowned suddenly and went over to the computer. ‘Angel’s not working tonight…. I don’t think it’s wise if I come….’

‘He wants you to come. I want you to come.’

Wesley straightened slowly. He’d felt something wash – strong and unfamiliar – down his spine.  He thought about it for a moment, realised what it was and said carefully, ‘I’m fairly sure that that is a very bad idea.’

‘I don’t see why I have to see my friends in secret.’

‘No. This isn’t your idea. Don’t try to pretend it is.  This is his idea for some reason.’

Spike came over and sat on the desk once more, putting his feet into Wesley’s chair and spinning it to and fro. ‘He’s trying to help.’

‘That’s thoughtful of him.’ Realising that this sounded bitter and ironic, he added, ‘Honestly. I think it’s good you are trying to work this out together.  And the emphasis there is together, Spike. I don’t want to be a prop to your failing relationship.’

He saw Spike’s eyes rise to his and, for a fraction of a second, saw some truth that the vampire habitually veiled behind his deflective exterior. He winced. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that at all. Adjusting. You’re both adjusting, not failing.’

‘So, you’ll come?’

Wesley gave Spike a pained look. ‘Oh, playing on my guilt now. That’s low.’

‘Yeah. That’s me: sneaky. Please, Wes. He’s making an effort, and I want to show him I can, too.  It’ll be okay. He’ll probably get bored and go out or something.’

‘Deep joy. Maybe he’ll mind-wipe me afterwards. One can only hope.’

Spike smiled and hopped off the desk. ‘Good. And then we’ll discuss the real reason you turned me down.’ He swaggered to the door, waving to Wesley over his retreating shoulder.

He went down the hallway, hesitated outside Angel’s door, but pushed it open and went in.  Angel was making a call and he faltered slightly in some odd, demonic language, but recovered and concluded the conversation.

‘Hi.’

‘Hi.’

‘That sounded boring.’

Angel hesitated. ‘I’m never too sure.  I think I’ve ordered some rare books, but you never know….’

‘So… what are you doing… now?’

‘I thought you didn’t like doing it here.’

Spike shrugged and inched closer. ‘I don’t. Needs must as the devil drives….’

‘Appropriate.’

‘I thought so.’

Angel buzzed Harmony. ‘Hold my calls, and I’m in a meeting.’

‘Yeah,’ said in a tone only an aggrieved female could muster was all he got back.

They rode up in the elevator, kissing.  It was different. The languid time distortions were absent, and they pulled apart, both acutely aware of who they still were.  Angel raised an eyebrow. ‘It’s nice to see you up during the day at least.’  He groaned at his unintended pun, but Spike wouldn’t let the slip rest: putting Angel’s hand to him and moaning the word up until they both laughed.

The doors slid open, and they stepped out into the abandoned apartment.  They began to kiss again, both feeling the pleasant hardness of the other, cocks rubbing together under fabric as their lips met.

Angel finally murmured into Spike’s hair, ‘I’ve no clothes left here. This needs to be something… clean.’

Spike grinned. ‘I suggest you strip then.’

Angel glanced around, feeling intensely exposed in the large, over-lit room.

Spike leant against the back of the couch. ‘Go on then. Make it good for me.’

Angel began to walk off toward the bathroom. ‘Not my style.’

Spike grabbed his arm.  ‘Make it your style.  You’ve had me strip enough times.’

Angel frowned, missing the very real anger in Spike’s tone. ‘I don’t want to. Come to bed.’  He began to unbutton his shirt, carefully, so as not to wrinkle the perfect lines, and heard the elevator doors hiss closed behind him.

Spike was lying on his thinking bed in the big house when his cellphone rang.  He debated not answering it, but as he’d purposefully brought it with him, this struck him as childish, so he stabbed it on and said neutrally, ‘Yeah.’

‘Sorry.’

‘So you should be.’

‘Don’t ever leave like that again.’

‘What are you going to do, Angel? Hit me again?’

‘Nooo… I won’t strip for you— tonight.’

Spike sat up. ‘Oh.’

‘You choose the music….’

Spike suddenly flung himself flat. ‘I asked Wesley over— like you said.’

‘I’m not stripping for him!!’

‘Calm, Angel… flowers… remember?’

‘Yeah. Okay.’

‘When he’s gone….’

There was a pause, and Angel said in a low voice, ‘Will you be picturing it the whole time he’s there?’

Spike groaned. ‘Oh, yeah….’

‘Where are you?’

‘In the house.  Angel…?’

‘Hmm?’

‘We’re not… failing, are we?’

‘It’s been two weeks!’

‘Is that an answer?’

‘Jesus. I’m two hundred and fifty years old, Spike. When we’re - oh, maybe - a hundred years into this… ask me then.’

‘Oh. Okay.’

‘I have to go now.’

‘Meeting?’

‘Is there ever anything else?’

‘There’s me, waiting here for you….’

‘Good.’

They clicked off the phones, and Spike stretched, spread eagling on the huge bed.  He’d have to decide what he wanted to do with the old house. It couldn’t just be left; it needed maintenance. 

A hundred years in…. He wasn’t sure what there’d be left of him in a hundred years.

He pictured telling Angel what was wrong, hoping that by imagining this conversation, he would be able to hear it and, therefore, understand himself where the problem lay.  He started by picturing them sitting by the pond together, drinking. He initiated the conversation— something easy: Angel?

Hmm.

That was a pretty safe reply— neutral. Angel-like.

I think there’s something wrong— with me.

Not news, Spike.

He smiled. It was easy thinking like Angel sometimes.  He concentrated harder. This was the part that he needed to hear.  

Since we’ve started this, something’s been… I’m not…. This isn’t…. I want to….

Fuck it! Why was he so unable even to think these words?  

He sank slightly deeper into the old mattress and tried some free-association. That sometimes worked. Empty his mind. Drift his thoughts over Angel, over the apartment, over the heat in the room and the sound of shutters banging slightly, like tapping.  No, that was tapping.  He sat up and listened. Tapping on the door, which he shouldn’t be able to hear, but could. 

He made his way down the long flight of stairs and opened it, staying in the shadows. He squinted at the boy standing nervously on the step. ‘What the fuck…?’

‘They said you lived here.’

‘Well, I guess they’re half-right then.’

‘You rescued me.’

Spike pursed his lips. ‘I think you said I was a fucking pervert and that I could take my….’ He flicked his head around, a strange tap, tapping creeping into his consciousness once more.   

‘I’m sorry.  I was kinda confused. The fucker bit me!’

Spike smiled. ‘Bad taste creeps into every noble species.’  

‘Huh?’

‘Nothing. Why don’t you go find an alley and sniff something for a while?’

‘Can I come in?’

‘No.’

He stepped inside, nevertheless. ‘Wow. Cool house. Is it yours?’

Spike was about to make a snarky reply when the tapping became more urgent. Distracted, he said sharply, ‘Yes.  What do you want?’

The boy turned. Spike revised his estimate of age. This close up, he could see the boy was no more than thirteen or fourteen.

‘Shouldn’t you be in school?’

The boy turned incredulous eyes on him. ‘It’s… August?’

‘Huh?’

‘So… I was wondering….’

‘This is gonna be good, isn’t it?’

‘I’m trying to buy this bike, see.’

Spike didn’t comment, and the boy shifted uncomfortably onto another foot, his hands plunged into his pockets.  

‘That guy was gonna help me buy it.’

Spike, still distracted by the banging in his head, missed the clue and replied carelessly, ‘And this is to do with me how?’

‘Well, he didn’t pay me.  But I thought you might want to….’

Spike got it and stepped back.  ‘You’ve got to be fucking kidding?’

‘It’ll be good…. I’m really good….’

‘You have no idea what you are doing— how little I want this.’

‘But you do. If you think about it, you’ll know that you do.’  He stripped his T-shirt over his head and stood thin and vulnerable in the gloom of the vast hallway.  ‘I’d rather do it in a bed, but here’s good, too.’ He turned and braced himself against the wall.

‘It’ll stain the marble.’  It hadn’t been what Spike had planned to say, but a vision of the boy’s blood running out of where he would bite and tear had poured into his mind.  A vast, urgent bang sounded somewhere upstairs, but Spike ignored it now. He was more intent on the boy’s skin, which seemed too flawless to leave alone. He made it less flawless, dragging his nails down the thin back.  A welt of red bubbled, and thin trails of crimson fluid disappeared out of sight under the waistband.  

The boy turned and looked at him over his shoulder. ‘You can look, if you like.’

‘What would I be looking for?’

‘Yourself.’

‘I’m in there?’ He answered his own question by unzipping the jeans and lowering them off the pale, red-streaked backside. For some reason, the welts seemed to grow in size, and a river of red flooded down the warm, human skin.  Spike could taste it, even though he had not put his tongue to it.  It was salty and hot and made him whimper with need.

‘What are you going to do to me?’

‘I’m going to devour you.’  He bit savagely, and he thrust into the pale, writhing body, and he felt as if he’d come home from a long journey.  There was nothing the boy could do to stop him. He was all power, and strength flowed from his limbs. He thumped the boy into the wall, skewering him on his cock.  Thump, thump—that maddening noise in his head. He needed for it to stop so he could come. He wanted to come, to flood this body with his seed as he was meant to do—as a man, as a predator, as a master of the universe—as a champion. Thump, thump, thump…. 

He woke up, sweat pouring down his face, the bed soaked with other fluids, and the shutter in the room swinging maddeningly to and fro, beating out an insistent wake-up call on the window.  He stared wildly at it, wondering why, as there wasn’t a breath of wind, it should be so agitated.

If his heart could pound, it would have. He laid his hand over it anyway. In his other, he clutched his cell phone like a lifeline.  

He’d wanted to know what was wrong.

He realised there were times when the answers were worse than the not knowing.

Angel hung up from the call and went to the window to his favourite thinking place, too.  

The question had come out of the blue: Are we failing?

How the fuck did he know? He didn’t know what they were doing half the time, let alone if it was failing. He knew he wanted it. That was very, very certain.  Even now, looking out over the city, his mind was half on Spike. He was always in his mind these days— pale, spread.  Angel groaned slightly and adjusted his clothes. Years of virtual abstinence and now he had that waiting for him every day.  He let his mind drift into a pleasant fantasy—one he’d begun that morning in a meeting, but had had to leave off when its affects had become too evident.  Spike was chained, stretched, spread eagled on a rough stone wall. The wall hadn’t been there this morning. He liked that addition. He could do creative. He’d come to rescue Spike. That thought made him thicken, and he adjusted his cock slightly so it could lie relatively unhindered down the top of one thigh.  He liked the idea of rescuing Spike and did it frequently. Spike was always bleeding or broken or chained or imprisoned in some way. And he was always spread— wide, his cheeks opened so….

Angel frowned and broke his reverie.  He wound the fantasy back a little and tried it again. Spike… chained… spread.  As hard as he might, he could not actually see Spike’s head, or his legs. He was just a…. Angel swallowed deeply, not really wanting to admit this, even to himself. Spike was always just a tight, enticing hole that he wanted to plunder and fill.  He didn’t even need Spike to speak or move. He just had to be there, open and ready.  Desperately, he tried to picture Spike turning his head and speaking, but he had no idea what it was that Spike might say. 

When had Spike become so silent? Spike had spent the last one hundred and fifty years being extremely vocal, but in two weeks, he’d managed to silence him.

Angel slammed his palm onto the window in frustration and anger. 

Wesley walked into a sea of unhappiness when he arrived at the apartment. He’d not held very high hopes for the evening, expecting Angel’s surliness and Spike’s weird sense of humour at his expense, but what he had not expected was desperate politeness and the feeling that everyone was walking on glass.

He’d brought beer; this was fell upon eagerly by both vampires, and he had the distinct impression that they’d had quite a lot to drink already.  Angel opened three and handed one to Spike first, saying in a strained voice, ‘This is cool of Wes, isn’t it?’

Spike didn’t reply, but took a sip of his beer, so Angel repeated again almost desperately, ‘Isn’t it?’

Spike frowned. ‘Yeah. It is.’  He went to sit on the couch, and Angel stared at him for a moment then said in the same slightly urgent tone, ‘Tell us what you did today, Spike.’

‘WHY?’ 

Both Wesley and Angel started at Spike’s tone, and he repeated more casually, ‘Why?’

Angel came closer. ‘Because I’m interested.’

The words that’s a first weren’t actually said, but Angel heard them nonetheless.

Spike waved his hand in a non-committal way. Fucked the life out of a kid in my dreams, if you must know.  ‘The usual: slept.’ 

Angel winced and sat down in an armchair, leaving Wesley to perch unhappily on the other end of the couch to Spike. ‘Well, this is nice.’

Both vampires nodded.

Wesley glanced at his watch. ‘As much as I rue making this comment in the present company…. You didn’t say whether we were eating… I’m kinda peckish….’

Spike shrugged. ‘I’ll order something in.’

Wesley looked surprised and turned to Angel. ‘I thought you’d be taking the opportunity to cook every night. You used to love cooking.’

Angel opened his mouth to reply but seemed to shrink slightly as if Wesley words whipped him.  Eventually, he mumbled, ‘There never seems to be time.’ He got up and went to the kitchen as if this somehow mitigated his neglect.

Wesley frowned and seemed to be wondering why there was no time, given Angel was immortal, then blushed as if an obvious reason occurred to him. ‘Oh, well, yes.’

He tried another tack and said brightly, ‘How about a game of poker? Spike?’ He glanced over, but Spike was staring fixedly at Angel’s backside. Wesley swallowed and felt that odd trickling sensation down his spine once more.  He coughed softly, and when Spike jumped and tore his eyes away, the vampire had the grace to look slightly abashed. Wesley repeated his request. ‘Poker?’

Spike nodded and got up to fetch the cards. They were alongside the kettle, and he had to negotiate around Angel to reach them.  Angel seemed deep in thought, staring at the sink, but when Spike was close, he turned to him with an intense, questioning look.  Spike faltered for a moment but held up the cards. ‘Wanna play?’

Angel seemed to mistake the question at first but finally said softly, ‘Why have we never played?’

‘Huh?’

‘What is this, Spike? What do we have here?’

‘This is probably not the time to ask that maybe?’  He flicked his eyes to Wesley.

Angel bit his lip and said enigmatically, ‘I’m sorry.’

Spike leant on the counter and stared out of the window. ‘Something happened at work, didn’t it?’

‘No.  It’s just….’

‘Later?’

Angel nodded, and they sat on the floor in front of the fire, playing and drinking and keeping to their own thoughts.

Spike didn’t particularly want to keep to his thoughts for he didn’t like them. He wasn’t stupid. The meaning of the dream did not escape him for a minute. He finished the conversation that he’d been trying to have with Angel in his head: out by the pond, drinking. Details were important.

I think there’s something wrong— with me.

Not news, Spike.

Angel never changed. It was almost endearing.

Since we’ve started this, some thing’s been… I’m not…. This isn’t…. I want to…. Angel, I’m not a fucking woman. If you want a sodding wife, go find a real one. I want you. I want to fuck and suck and pound you into submission. I want you to be mine. I want you spread and ready for me. I want to be what I once was.  

He’d wanted to hear how it sounded, and now he had. 

Speaking it out loud, however, was an entirely different matter. 

He was working himself up to the idea of not actually telling Angel at all, of just… doing it: when they were in the throes, limbs mingling, flesh confused. Just go for it and see what happened. He’d planned to try after the promised strip. That seemed a likely place to start: Angel already out of character, compliant. It was a small step from Angel willing to strip, to Angel willing to be fucked. Significant – he’d admit that – but small.  The trouble was, Angel seemed in a weird mood, too. He wondered if he’d had strange daydreams at work, or whether he was still pissed about the leaving incident. Angel didn’t like to be abandoned when he was hard enough to dent concrete. 

Angel’s thoughts were no less confusing. It seemed like a dream: the whole of the last two weeks. He wasn’t sure what he’d been doing, but he hadn’t been doing it with Spike. He tried to recall a conversation, a shared moment, but it was like a mind-wipe inflicted on him for once. He suspected he was being too hard on himself – there was certain precedence for that – for they had talked sometimes, usually when he woke from sleep. Then he remembered him talking and Spike…. That thought spiralled him back to the belief that all he could think about the last two weeks was the sex. It consumed him. He was a convert to the altar of Spike’s body. He thought about it all the time, pulled the memory of the taste of him into his mouth during the day, ran his hands over things, imagining them running over that perfect, smooth body. Inanimate objects. Smooth to the touch.  Guilt washed over him again.  He knew it was wrong, but he didn’t know how to put it right.  But he was having a relationship with Spike, for Christ’s sake. How the hell was he supposed to make sense out of that?

Spike knew it was partially his fault, and this did nothing to help his pissy thoughts about the whole situation. That damn spell. He’d called Angel to come rescue him, and like a knight on his white charger, Angel had done just that. How was that for asserting your bloody masculinity? He gave Angel a sour glance from lowered lids and laid a card. He wouldn’t be surprised if Angel got off on fantasies of being a sodding saviour.  Well, he’d burnt up and saved the whole bleeding world, and he didn’t need fucking rescuing! 

A hideous thought that he’d had once or twice before over the last two weeks crept around his defences: Buffy.  What if she came on a visit? What would she find? Her place – the small blond at Angel’s side – already taken? He ground his teeth and took a long swig of his drink. 

Angel glanced up at Spike, watching him take a long swallow of beer.  He tried to see him dispassionately: Spike. Even if he concentrated with everything he had, he could not see him as… Spike. He couldn’t take his eyes off the hands and the long, slim fingers. Those fingers had touched his body in ways he’d never allowed anyone to do; they’d given him more pleasure than his own. The lips drew him like a starving man to ripe fruit. He could taste them, running his tongue along his own lips and transferring the taste.  He closed his eyes for a moment then opened them and let them rest on the place that obsessed him the most. Only a thin layer of worn, pale cotton prevented him seeing the flesh lying hard under the zipper.  And still he did not speak!  He begged him silently to say something, to break this obsession he had with the body. If he could hear Spike’s voice, he could remember that this was Spike. Jeez. He was having a goddamned relationship with Spike!

Chapter 4

Wesley was so enjoying this pleasant evening. He debated just standing up and leaving, testing whether either of them would notice, but he was reluctant to leave them alone in this mood. He knew Spike thought the house protected him, but he wouldn’t like to take a bet on its power over Angel. 

Eventually, however, his decision was made for him. His cellphone rang. It was Fred. She needed him. Even though it was only research, he could not say no to her.  He didn’t want to. She seemed like a bright light of normality after the dark evening he’d spent.

He made his apologies. Unusually, Spike walked him out to his car. He sensed the vampire didn’t want to be left alone.

When they were out of sight of the house, at the end of the long drive, he leant on the car and said thoughtfully, ‘You’ve known Angel a long time.’

As this was pretty obvious, Spike didn’t break his reverie - about other, more interesting things - to reply.

Wesley saw his lack of attention and added, ‘But I’m not sure that you know this Angel— I’m not sure any of us does.’

That caught Spike’s attention. He cast the human a look, which clearly invited him to continue. Wesley pushed off the car and plucked at a fragrant bush overhanging the path. ‘The most significant thing that has ever happened to him, happened without any of us effectively being there. We can’t remember it, anyway. Can you imagine what he has been through with Connor? Imagine knowing that someone you love enough to allow him to forget you is out there somewhere… doing just that— forgetting you.’ Spike was not looking at him, but was staring down at his feet. Wesley added sadly, ‘I think you should try to get him to talk about it. Open up a bit, maybe.’

Spike looked up. His eyes were wild, dilated. He nodded and said with some kind of strange, pent-up energy, ‘That’s exactly what I was thinking of doing.’

Wesley sighed at the obviously private joke that he was excluded from and just wished him a goodnight. As if regretting the reception he’d given to the human’s attempt to help, Spike laid a hand on his arm. ‘You are right, Wes. I am going to get him to share more.’

Wesley smiled and nodded, climbed into his car and drove away with a heavy feeling in his heart.

Spike watched the rear lights disappear then tipped his head back and scented the night. It have him a small, heady sense of what he needed: the predatory, killer instinct once more.  He already felt more like himself than he had since the spell, just from having made the decision.  He debated going out to kill something for real, just to heat the blood, but with a rueful touch to his jeans realised it was hot enough.

It was now or never.

He frowned. That cliché had propped into his mind – now or never – but that wasn’t right at all. The fear that it was literally now or never sent a shiver of fear into his balls.  He’d not thought through what might happen if Angel refused him— had tried to avoid thinking about this—filling his head with the more pleasant thoughts of Angel’s ready capitulation.  Now or never.  Was he willing to lose Angel completely for the sake of this? 

He had to conclude that he was.

He would lose him anyway if he didn’t attempt it, for without this change to what they had become, he would lose himself.  One hundred years? He doubted he’d last another week.

When he strode back into the apartment, his body giving an impression of supreme arrogance and confidence that he did not feel, he found Angel at the sink, washing up.

It was not the heady, sexy ambience he’d relied on.  

He frowned and leant on the back on the couch, watching him for a moment. ‘Hey.’

Angel turned. ‘Who’s done this for the last two weeks?’ He sounded genuinely puzzled.

Spike ignored the obvious fact that Angel’s mind wasn’t running on the same track as his, and said huskily, ‘I think you promised me something for tonight.’

Angel dried his hands and came closer. ‘I’ve been thinking about all this…. I mean, I think I’ve taken you too much for….’

‘Strip.’

‘Huh?’

‘You heard. Get your kit off.’

‘Spike….’

‘No. No “Spike”s… just take ‘em off— slowly.’

Angel gritted his teeth and began to speak once more, but Spike opened his legs and ran a hand over his crotch. Angel’s eyes drifted down to watch, and Spike knew he had him.  He saw that whatever it was Angel thought he wanted to say about their relationship was diluted and washed away on the hot blood flooding his groin. Angel even licked his lips slightly as he watched the blatant display.

‘Strip.’

Angel swallowed, his eyes still on the rising swell of Spike’s pants. Like a man about to dive into strong, irresistible surf, he began to undress, thoughtless, his mind on the water soon to envelop him.

Spike stood up and opened the top button of his jeans— just that. It was enough. He knew Angel could not resist the wanton look.  

Angel shed his shirt, and it fell to the floor in complicit capitulation.  One by one, he slid the zipper of his pants over the small teeth that held his hardness in check.  

Spike stood so close he could hear the throb in Angel’s balls and smell his desire.  It was perfect.  He eased around until he was standing behind the huge figure.  Very slowly, to the pace Angel set with his pants, he licked from the base of Angel’s skull to the loosening waistband: one long trail down the powerful spine glistening in the moonlight.  He felt Angel’s body shiver like a ripple of wind on calm waters then the pants fell to his ankles.

He was naked beneath them, a habit he’d picked up in the last two weeks, always impatience to touch skin to skin, additional clothes a burden.  Spike had not seen Angel’s body for some hours; its beauty struck him once more.  He was so sleek, like a great jungle predator: nothing about him that was not needed for the one purpose of being master of all he surveyed. He was perfect from the front – the face of an angel – but from the back he was magnificent as well. His broad muscles flared from a slim, hard waist. The globes of his backside were like sculptured marble, but they twitched with life, just the small tic of desire as he felt his need grow under Spike’s scrutiny. 

He began to turn, to present his manhood to conquer and take what it was he so desired, but firm hands held his waist and kept him facing away.  Before Angel angered, Spike fell to his knees and picked up his trail where he’d left off: his tongue finding the top of Angel’s cleft and running down the silky valley.

Angel swore softly and bent over the couch, parting his legs.

Spike couldn’t believe it was happening so easily—easier than in the fantasies he’d toyed with all day.

He nuzzled into the soft, damp skin between Angel’s cock and balls, knowing how irresistible that would be. Angel seemed to agree with him, for one knee began to tremble, a deep muscle spasm that ran up into his thigh. He was still swearing softly, an encouragement of fucks and yeahs that made Spike’s belly waver with need.

When the long lapping of his tongue dragged Angel to a peak of need, he shifted up slightly and kissed one cheek.  Subtly, as he did, he blew softly into the very centre of the cleft: his target.  The fine, downy hairs around Angel’s entrance moved to his breath as if parting in preparation.  He smiled and kissed gently into the puckered skin. 

Angel stiffened noticeably under his hands. Quickly, Spike slid his fingers around from Angel’s waist to his groin and brushed up and down his cock for while as if taming a wild animal. When the stallion was calm, he returned to the softness waiting him and wet it with the tip of his tongue.

‘Spike….’

Spike used his fingers more skilfully, teasing one nail over the slit in Angel’s wet cockhead, rubbing the sensitive edge of the glans, until the warning murmur of his name dissipated in the soft night air.  More urgently, he returned to the hole, mouthing it now, lips wide, tongue dancing.  

Soaked, glistening, it lay ready for him, so he rose and brought a hand off Angel’s cock, now playing the fingers over the puckering.  Kissing the hard muscles of Angel’s back, he pushed one finger in.

Angel’s elbow caught him under his chin, and his jaw, open and soft from kissing Angel’s sweat-slick skin, slammed shut on his tongue.  Blood spurted into his mouth, and an awareness of pain stabbed into his brain. He stepped back, and before he could stop it - every fibre in his body pumped with testosterone in preparation to fuck - he fought instead. He lashed out and paid Angel back in kind, thumping his fist into Angel’s nose.  

Angel caught his arm and held it away, but not until he’d been made to bleed, too.  ‘What the freaking hell is this?’  Angel wiped his nose with the back of his hand. He’d turned from stallion to bull; massive, huge cock solid and pointing at Spike.

Spike spat some blood and hissed menacingly, ‘Turn around.’

‘Fuck you, Spike! What the hell do you think this is? You fucking stuck your finger in me!’

‘You’ve been sticking your cock in me for two bloody weeks!’

Angel seemed incapable of processing the connection between these two things.  He just stared at Spike, his eyes dark and dangerous.  ‘Is this what this pissy attitude you’ve had has been about?’

‘NO! Yes. I guess. Look….’

‘No. No!’ Angel knew he was behaving badly, but he felt as if Spike had thrown all his attempts to heal the rift between them in his face. He’d tried to be more considerate, tried not to treat him like an object— jeez, he’d even washed up! He’d wanted to do more: talk to Spike… have him talk for once. (And then fuck him.)  This had totally thrown him.  He squared his shoulders and said icily, ‘What the hell do you think I am, Spike?’

To his surprise, Spike came very close and stared him down. ‘The question is, Angel: What do you think I am?’

Angel felt a tic beat in his cheek, so clenched his jaw. He had no answer to this, other than the obvious, which he was fairly sure was not what Spike wanted to hear.

‘Yeah. Exactly. Now, are you going to turn around and put out, or….’ Spike dried up. Now or never. He had no alternative to offer. Except… he did…. He took a breath and finished, ‘…get out.’

Angel’s reply was chillingly considered. ‘I’m not going to be fucked, no; if that’s what you mean.’

Spike was so hurt it flared in him like hot anger. He refused to recognise it was pain, so sucked in and welcomed the bitter fury.  He pushed Angel, hard.  ‘Maybe I’ll take what I want!’

Angel laughed—not from finding Spike’s threat funny, but from the realisation that it was all happening again: an argument with a child he couldn’t win, and a love dying in front of him  

Spike didn’t take the laughter as Angel’s way of expressing fear at losing him. He took it for what it sounded like: derision at some attempted intimidation. 

He stood a little straighter and said calmly, ‘Last time we fought, I won.’

Angel bitterly regretted laughing and wanted to take it back – explain - but he could see from Spike’s expression that the time for words was done.  They would talk later. It’s what they’d done on and off for over a hundred years: fight, make up, feed together, try to kill each other, fight for each other, and now this— fuck each other.  He turned away and rubbed his shoulder where Spike had pushed him. ‘I’m going for a….’

He never finished his sentence. He was flying backwards through the air then crashing into the fireplace instead. He was absurdly grateful that the fire had long since gone out, before he was kicked in the belly.  Naked, previously very hard, he knew he was vulnerable and twisted away into a ball.  An accurate, hard kick landed on his kidneys, making him wince.

He was about to push to standing and stop things before Spike got hurt, when a hand pressed down on his neck and another twisted his arm up over his shoulder.  He cried out as his shoulder dislocated and tried to twist away.

Spike couldn’t stop.  It was just a dream, and he would tear and rip Angel and come in his body, then wake, without any of it being true. He’d laughed at him, and in that laughter, Angel had confirmed every awful thing Spike had thought about himself: that he was now Angel’s bitch. What do you think I am? 

He held Angel down, knowing that the pain in the shoulder would not keep him down for long. He was too light, and Angel was too strong.  He took his arm off Angel’s wrist and punched hard into his temple.  Angel grunted and rolled him off, dragging himself to his feet, his arm hanging down limply. ‘You’re dead….’

‘Yeah?’ Spike flew at him again, and again, Angel was defeated by his nakedness.  He fell against the edge of a table and knocked his balls, which made him cry out and fall to his knees for a moment, turning green.

Spike swung both hands and slammed them into his face.  Angel was felled, but he crawled away and staggered back to his feet once more.  This time, when Spike ran into him, they crashed out through the door and onto the path, Angel’s naked skin glistening with sweat and pain in the moonlight.

Suddenly, Angel had enough. He picked up a stone from the shrubbery and crashed it down upon Spike’s head.  Blood spurted from a split in Spike’s scalp and ran down into his eyes, making his face ferocious. Spurred on by blood, Spike shuddered into demon form; Angel hissed in remembrance and joined him.  

They continued to fight down the path, Spike punching and thrusting Angel back until they reached the front door of the house.  

They crashed through and onto the exceptionally cold marble. It was utterly unwelcoming, as if the house were trying to freeze them out.  Spike felt its disapproval but did not have time to worry about it; Angel was pounding his face into the floor, grunting with pleasure at every hit.

He faked unconsciousness, and when Angel let up with an ambiguous groan, Spike leapt to his feet and ran for the stairs. He was leading Angel higher, aiming for somewhere he could contain him, when Angel caught his ankle at the top of the stairs. He tugged; Spike kicked back viciously and caught Angel directly on his cock.

It happened in slow motion, as if in a final joke, time played tricks on them again.  Angel fell slowly, twisting down the marble stairs, his head banging and cracking as, totally winded, he was unable to save himself.

Spike ran down two at a time to the sprawled body. Angel wasn’t unconscious, but he was stunned and unable to rise. Spike sat on him and prised open his cheeks. He pushed his finger in again.  ‘How’s that, Angel? Like being my bitch for once?’

Angel swallowed and blood ran out of his mouth into the pool that was flooding out of the red mess on the side of his head.  His voice was croaky, but distinct enough for Spike to hear it very clearly. ‘If you do this, we’re over, Spike.  Everything. Not just this weird shit, but everything. I’ll renounce you as my childe, and I won’t recognise you or speak to you for the rest of my eternity. Or yours. I will wipe my mind of you.’

Spike sat back and regarded Angel carefully.  After a long pause, he said equally clearly, ‘I didn’t want it to be like this. I wanted you to want me. I thought you would.  If I let you up now, we can go back to bed and do this properly.’

‘I’d kill you if you tried it.’

‘But you’ll do it to me?’

Angel closed his eyes. ‘I think at this moment, I never want to again.’

Spike climbed off and stood looking down at the bleeding figure. ‘I guess this is it then.’

Angel turned over and sat up, pulling his knees up to cover his nakedness. Spike squatted down in front of him.  He pursed his lips as if thinking deeply. ‘Tell you what, Angel; I’ll have a picture taken of my butt and send it to you so you can wank off in the shower to it— next time you want me.’

He rose, squared his shoulders and went toward the door.  ‘Don’t come around for your things. I’ll box them and sent them to the office.  In fact, just don’t come around, okay?’

He pushed open the door and went back out into the same night that had so recently made him feel like a man. 

He didn’t even feel enough to be dead now.

Angel sat in a pool of his own blood until he began to shiver— not from the cold. That last image haunted him. Spike had summed him up pretty succinctly.

At last, he rose to his feet and went slowly up the stairs to find a sheet to wrap around his body.  He walked to his car and realised the keys were back at home. 

What had been his home.

He put his head down onto the steering wheel and felt an overwhelming desire to just give in to tears. He could always blame them on the pain.

He didn’t though. He reached under the wheel, hotwired the car and drove slowly and carefully to the place that had never seemed like home, but was now the only place he had left to go.

Spike had suffered more damage than he had realised. Adrenaline had kept the pain away, but now it flooded in. He eased off his shirt and pants, and showered slowly, sucking in the pain, using it to obliterate thought. He dressed in an old pair of loose black sweats and began to build a fire. He was so cold, but he knew the fire would do little to warm him up.

He sat in front of the flames for what seemed like hours.  He thought he heard a soft tread on the path. He ignored it. He was used to ghosts and dreams of a better reality.

Angel pushed open the door.

Spike would still have thought he was a mirage conjured from his grief if it hadn’t been for the very real blood-scent over Angel’s freshly washed skin.

Angel came over to the fire and sat down, cross-legged. ‘I’m not willing to give up on us. I want it too much.’

Spike opened his mouth to vent his incredulous fury when Angel laid a piece of paper on the rug between them.

Angel held his gaze and said calmly, ‘I want to start again.’

Spike was too confused to summon back his anger. He just said weakly, ‘Huh?’

‘We need to try and find who we are, Spike, without the distractions.’

‘Distractions?’

‘Yes. The sex. It’s all I’ve been able to think about. I’ve been possessed by you, I think. I want to see how real this can be without it.’

‘You want…. Are you saying you don’t want to have sex?’

‘That’s exactly what I’m saying.’ Angel turned the paper over. ‘A contract.’

Spike glanced down. No sex had been written in Angel’s elegant hand at the top of a list. It was so ridiculous, so incongruous for two vampires that had so recently fought almost to another death that he began to laugh. Angel watched him closely. ‘Is that amusement, or something else, like mine was tonight?’

Spike cut the laughter off as quickly as it came. Angel nodded. ‘We were too distracted for me to tell you. That’s what I’m trying to say here, Spike. I want this enough to make it work anyway I can. And I think it needs for me to stop wanting you and start loving you instead.’

‘And you think this….’ Spike glanced down at the list and frowned as he read down it. ‘No wanking!’

Angel smiled and shrugged. ‘It actually says no self-relief, but I’ll give you the intent.  And no—not in sight of each other anyway.’

‘No touching at all. Bloody hell! Can I pass you a sodding cup of tea, or is that on some fucking Nazi list, too?’

Angel smiled. ‘Well, don’t touch the back of my hand, if you do.’ 

They both had an immediate flash of them in the courtyard, fucking like mindless beasts at the touch of a finger on the flesh of a hand.  Spike shivered. ‘Yeah.’  He looked down at the list again. ‘Still live together.’ He looked up. ‘You want us to live here—what? Like….’

‘Friends.’

Spike looked down again. ‘No walking naked around the apartment. No showering for more than three minutes. What the fuck is that for?’

‘That’s because I’d be beating off thinking about you, if I’m in there too long.’

‘Oh. ‘K.’ He laid the paper down. ‘How long do you plan on this going on for? Not that I’ve agreed to anything yet.’

‘Two weeks.  The same time as we’ve allowed it to go so wrong.’

‘Jeez.’

‘Can you go without for two weeks, Spike?’ There was a glint of amusement in Angel’s eyes. 

Spike huffed. ‘What do you think this is going to achieve?’

Angel took a small breath. ‘Maybe if you offer me a picture then, I’ll want one of just you— as you are here.’ He blinked and looked down, fiddling with the list. ‘If we do this – if you agree to it – we sign in blood now.’

‘Oh, come on….’

‘No. I mean it. We fight in blood. We’ve fucked in blood. Blood is everything we are. I want this signed in blood, too. We can’t break a blood oath, Spike.’

Spike picked the paper up once more, scanning it to see if it held something tangible that he could refuse. It seemed incredibly threatening, yet so innocent at the same time.

Eventually, he nodded, but before Angel put his wrist to his teeth, he held Angel’s arm lightly. ‘What happens at the end of the two weeks, Angel?’

Angel laid his wrist down. ‘I think that will be obvious to us both—then.’

Spike rolled his eyes fractionally. ‘Bloody hell. All right.’  They put mouths to wrists and drew blood for the second time that night.  Angel went first, trailing his finger over the paper in the approximate shape of an A. Spike added his S then made to dry it by the flames. Angel shook his head and took it back, adding an L. Spike raised an eyebrow but silently added a W.  Finally content, Angel laid it on the hearth, and they both looked at it for a while.

‘Okay. What now?’

Angel pouted slightly. ‘I’m kinda tired. Weird night. I’m going to bed.’

‘Where are you going to sleep?’

‘In the bed…. Where else? It’s a big bed, Spike.’

‘Whoa!’ Spike grabbed the list and scanned it again. ‘I’m not bloody lying alongside you, wanting you all night and not being able to touch you!’

Angel hesitated unbuttoning his shirt. ‘You still want me?’

Spike rose to his feet. ‘Don’t be dumb, Angel. That’s all this was about: wanting you too much—in ways you aren’t prepared to be wanted….’

Angel pursed his lips and sidestepped Spike.  He turned and said softly, ‘I could never deny how much my body wants yours. So, I won’t pretend.’  He went over to the bed and coyly slid under the covers to remove his pants. 

Spike watched this childish display with total disbelief and put his hand to the waistband of his sweats, intent on stripping them off.  Angel pulled his knees up to his chest, and a strange expression flicked over his face. ‘I thought you wanted this more than that.’

‘What?’

‘You’d break the oath so soon?’

Spike looked down at his hands, hesitated then tipped his head back and released a stream of cathartic cursing, but he walked – dressed - to the bed, slid in as Angel had done and pulled his sweats off out of sight.  ‘I just want you to know that I have now plumbed the depths of total self-disgust.’

Angel chuckled and turned on his side, facing him. 

Spike flicked his eyes over but reached under the mattress for his cigarettes and lit one, smoking lazily.  ‘What now?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘This is your dumb plan.’

‘Yeah. It seemed like a good idea when I was sitting in my apartment, bleeding.’

Spike smiled at this but was immediately cross at himself so scowled instead.  

He turned his head and blew a lungful of smoke at Angel. ‘This allowed to touch you?’

Angel rolled onto his back and folded his arms behind his head. Spike glanced over again. ‘How’s the head?’

‘Sore.’

‘Shoulder?’

‘Back in.’

‘Pride?’

‘Dented.’

‘I’m sorry.’

Angel rolled his head over on the pillow and regarded the strikingly beautiful profile before he whipped his head back and resolutely stared at the ceiling. ‘That was a bad idea.’

Spike smiled, pleased and said softly, ‘I had a weird dream today that I was eating that boy we saved.’

‘What boy?’

‘In the alley? The one who called you a fat pervert?’

‘Oh. Him. He was about twenty five.’

‘Huh? I must have younged him a bit then. Anyway… I ate him… and other things.’

‘And that’s what got you to thinking that you wanted… other things… with me?’

‘No, plonker. That’s what gave me the balls to try. I’ve been thinking about it for – oh, let’s see – a hundred years or so.’

Angel turned sharply back at that and was silent for while. Spike shrugged. ‘Not very childe-like, hey?’

‘No.’

Spike flicked his spent cigarette onto the floor and began to punch his pillow in preparation for sleep.  He glanced over at Angel. 

Angel refused to return the look, but he did say plaintively, ‘This is harder than I anticipated.’

Spike sighed. ‘If it’s any consolation, Angel, I’m too pissed off with you to want you tonight anyway.’

Angel hesitated then murmured, ‘I meant I just wanted to kiss you goodnight.’

Spike made a small noise in the back of his throat and turned over, presenting his back to Angel.

Angel clearly didn’t find this a help to his vow of chastity so turned as well.

‘Angel….’

‘No.’

‘I just wanted to say goodnight.’

Chapter 5

Their bodies betrayed them in sleep. Angel woke first, when the last rays of day left the sky, and realised he was breaking the oath. Spike woke at Angel’s soft groan of distress and found himself so tightly entwined with Angel’s limbs that he could not tell where he began and Angel ended.

They lay for a moment; each knowing the other was awake. At the same time, they rolled apart.

Angel sat up and ran his fingers distractedly through his hair.  Spike did the same, and they sat, back to back, wondering what to say.

Angel coughed and slid his pants on discretely. ‘I need to shower and get to work.’

‘Good! I mean… okay.’ Spike slid back under the covers and was still there when Angel came out, dressed.

Angel frowned when he saw him. ‘Is that all you’re going to do all day?’

Spike peered out from under the sheet. ‘No. I might doze on the couch for a while, too.’

Angel made a face then, as he turned, said softly, half to himself, ‘I thought you wanted us to be more equal.’ Before Spike could reply, he was gone.

Having had his small lie-in ruined, Spike got up and stomped naked for a while, smoking, wondering what he was going to do all day. Lying around thinking about Angel was not now an option. He glanced over at the refrigerator and grinned.

When Angel reached the house that evening, he sat for a long time in the car, working himself up to going in. He’d spent centuries honing self-control, but it seemed to desert him whenever he saw Spike. It was like blood: Spike’s body sang a siren call to him, and he was as powerless to its pull as the tide was to that of the moon.

Finally, he squared his shoulders, thought about flowers for a while then marched down the path.

Spike was lying on the bed on his belly, reading, a bottle of whisky propped carefully between a small stack of books with another one empty on the floor.  Various other bottles lay scattered around as well, and Angel kicked one thoughtfully as he came over. ‘You’re drunk.’

Spike nodded, which tipped over his small bottle-prop.  He cursed and snatched up the leaking whisky. ‘Yup. Didn’t say nothing ‘bout drinking on the list.’

Angel had to concede that it didn’t.  He felt an odd stab of disappointment. He wasn’t sure what he’d thought they do, but Spike in this state seemed to put paid to anything.  He sighed wearily. ‘I’m going to shower.’

Spike didn’t appear to have heard; he was engrossed in his book.

It was only as Angel reached over to pick up a towel that he realised Spike was holding the book upside down. He didn’t comment but went thoughtfully to the shower and allowed himself more than three minutes— but only washing his hair and letting the water trickle over his tired body.

When he came out, Spike was leaning into the fire unsteadily, trying to light a cigarette. Angel pulled on some sweats and a T-shirt, and went out to the courtyard.  He sat outside for an hour, his arms folded, staring bleakly at the ground.  Then he rose, came in, grabbed his coat, and said stiffly, ‘I’m going out.’

Spike - now prone on the couch, one arm trailing off playing with the whisky bottle - didn’t bother to reply.

When Angel returned, Spike was in bed and seemed to be deeply asleep. His breathing was even, his eyes fluttering under the lids as if in the throes of dream.  Angel slid in beside him and bit back any emotion.  He’d lived with someone who couldn’t stand the sight of him before. They even fit the same clothes.

Betrayed once more in sleep, they were snuggled close together when Angel woke.  He could smell the slightly sour breath of a heavy drinking session close to his face and had the overwhelming desire to kiss the source of that strong, masculine scent. 

With extreme caution, he eased himself out of Spike’s arms and sat up, concealing his hard-on under the sheet. He had no idea how he was going to walk; his balls felt as if they were full of lead.   

He heard a groan and turned to find Spike peering under the sheet at his own body.  With a small, embarrassed smile, Spike turned and swung his legs out of the bed.  ‘Bugger.’

‘Yeah.’

Spike twisted his head around.  ‘I’ll go upstairs until you’re gone….’

‘It’s Saturday. I’m not going in today.’

‘Oh, fuck. I mean… good.’

Angel chuckled. ‘I’ll go shower.’

Spike looked at him and said softly, ‘Take more than three minutes if you need it, Pet. Think about any damn person you want, hey? And I’m sorry about… last night. I kinda… needed not to be here for a while.’

Angel nodded, debated adding something about Spike’s total lack of occupation, but only stood awkwardly, and with the sheet hiding nothing, slinked toward the bathroom.

He took two minutes, and he kept his hands high. This thing was important to him.

When he came out, Spike was dressed and tidying up the empties. He, too, had clearly not relieved anything in Angel’s short absence.

With a small, pleased smile, Angel said, ‘This is important to you.’

Spike nodded. ‘Yeah. I guess it is. It isn’t going to be easy, is it?’

‘Nothing worth anything ever is.’

Spike pouted and wandered over to the kitchen to make some tea. Angel followed him and bent to look in the fridge. ‘Why’s there no food?’

Spike raised his eyebrow.  ‘Because you don’t eat, and I eat out?’

‘Let’s go to the store and get something for dinner.’

‘Aren’t you going to go out?’

‘Are you going to drink and shut me out?’

Spike look down shyly. ‘No.’

Angel nodded.  ‘Okay. I cook. What time does the store open?’

Spike shrugged, and Angel suddenly said with a frown, ‘Where’s the watch I bought you?’

‘In the closet, with my dresses.’

Angel’s jaw shifted slightly as if he was going to rise to this, but instead, he only asked, ‘Sewers or dash to the car under cover?’

‘Sewers every time.’

They turned together and, grabbing coats, made their way to the door. Angel stopped and inspected it sadly.  Spike almost touched his arm but snatched his hand back in time. ‘We can call someone in to fix it. I’ve been meaning to get some blokes in to look over the house anyway. It needs some attention.’

Angel murmured, ‘Don’t we all…’ and strode down the gloomy path towards the manhole cover. Spike chuckled and jogged to catch him up.  

It was the first time they’d ever been in a grocery story together. It wasn’t easy: one of them not eating but adoring food, one of them always eating but not caring what it was.

In the end, Angel had his way, and they chose carefully selected, fresh ingredients and things in foreign languages that Spike sneered at and said he wouldn’t eat.  For some reason, it didn’t seem to bother him letting Angel decide on this. He liked watching him with the trolley, engrossed. Something warm trickled through his body, and for the first time, he did not think he was thinking about sex— something close, but not quite…. It was more like… watching Angel and thinking that he was his lover. It gave him an intense thrill, and he tried to keep an inane grin off his face.

‘What are you thinking about?’

Spike glanced over. ‘Something that’s banned.’

Angel hitched in his breath at the realisation Spike was thinking about him and hurried on. ‘Dessert?’

Spike chuckled at the obvious thoughts that conjured, and Angel, even more flustered, began to examine different varieties of ice cream.  Spike leant on the cabinet and watched other people for a while. He observed the women observing Angel: that subtle way women had of checking a man out without actually looking at him. He turned back and, once more, had the striking thought that he was what they wanted to be: Angel’s lover.  He wondered if it should be enough: lying down and offering his body to Angel. These women would think it was.  He was pondering these things when he glanced up to find the very same women now checking him out.  He stared them down until they moved on, slightly flushed. 

Their admiration of him made him realise it wasn’t enough. 

Angel needed to lie down for him. His role as the giver had been defined and set long before this strange addiction with Angel had come upon him.  

‘Are you frozen to that thing?’

Spike jumped and saw Angel lining up to pay.  He shook his head and joined him. ‘I’ll pay.’

Angel was about to argue this when Spike said casually, ‘I don’t want to eat the proceeds of evil.’

Angel raised an eyebrow and relinquished the handle.  Spike regretted the slightly pompous comment and had a feeling it would come back to haunt him. He risked a look at Angel and saw an annoying glint in his eye. ‘Wanker.’  He leant against the trolley, wishing he could smoke. Angel was watching a girl in the other aisle. Spike checked her out as well, and for a brief moment they smiled, clearly having the same thought. Then they frowned, realising how odd this was, given the circumstances, and went back to their individual thoughts.

Suddenly, Spike frowned and asked hesitantly, ‘What about buying a telly?’

Angel pouted. ‘I don’t watch TV.’

Spike smiled innocently. ‘We could get cable— for the sports, like’

Angel face showed a glimmer of interest. ‘It would look out of place in the apartment.’

Spike waved his hand dismissively and began to load their groceries onto the belt. ‘We could get some old cabinet, disguise it.’

Angel looked thoughtful, watching the food move along.

The girl looked up, bored and said, ‘Ninety-three fifty.’

Spike put a hand to his pocket and then frowned. He waved imperiously at Angel, ‘You pay,’ and stalked off to the rear of the store, where they’d come in, leaving Angel to carry the bags, too.

Angel chuckled as he caught Spike up in the sewers once more.  ‘We’ll have to speak with Gunn— see about having some actual money handed over to you.’

Spike grinned shyly. ‘Then I’ll buy us a telly.’

‘Okay. But it’s not on when we’re both home.’

Spike tipped his head back and said quietly, ‘Say that again; I like you saying home.’

Angel repeated it softly a number of times, and the sound echoed in the gloomy tunnels as they walked contentedly along. 

A feeling a peace descended on them when they got home. Angel began to be busy in the kitchen; Spike sprawled on the couch reading. 

As if having the same thought at the same time, they glanced at each and murmured, ‘Spell’ then laughed at the realisation that the two weeks since then now seemed more like a spell that the actual spell had.

Spike poured them both some wine and brought Angel’s to him in the kitchen. He was busy with his hands in something floury, so after a little hesitation, Spike held the glass up for him, making a small show of not actually touching Angel’s skin.  Angel drank deeply, his eyes fixed on Spike.  He swallowed and murmured, ‘How can I find this more erotic than fucking you, Spike?’

Spike put the glass on the counter and hopped up next to it. ‘Not allowed….’

Angel grimaced and dropped his head back to the preparations.  

Spike watched Angel’s hands, his arms, the way the muscles flexed as he worked. He watched his profile for a while, studied his hair with interest.  Angel flinched slightly under the unusual scrutiny, his habitual self-doubt kicking in.  ‘What?’

Spike took some more wine. ‘I’m thinking I might stop hitting you.’

Angel laughed. ‘Yeah, that would be nice.’

‘Too pretty to waste, ya know?’

Angel flicked his eyes over, a slight blush on his face, only discernable to someone with the ability to smell blood.  

They ate in front of the fire, a picnic laid in front of them. Spike made Angel eat, passing him things and occasionally feeding them to him, still careful not to actually make contact and precipitate a chain of events he knew neither of them could, or would, pull back from.

Spike ate appreciatively, and Angel refrained from reminding him of his earlier avowal not to even try it.  They drank a considerable amount of wine between them, but unlike the previous night, it wasn’t a barrier, but brought them closer—took some of the tension away and made what was strange and incongruous seem natural.  Spike stretched out with his book after the food and was about to release his top button, but clearly thought better of it and turned over on his belly.  Angel drifted over to choose one, too, and frowned at the boxes pushed into one corner. ‘We should get some bookcases.’

Spike twisted his head around to look. ‘It’s gonna get crowed in here: bookcases, telly….’  He laid down his book and seemed preoccupied by some thought for the rest of the evening; so much so, that when Angel stretched and said he was going to bed, Spike just nodded and followed him over, both undressing discretely, backs to each other then slipping into the bed.

Angel folded his hands under his head, staring at the ceiling. ‘I feel guilty about Wes.’

Spike copied his posture and replied, amused, ‘For what, in a long list of misdemeanours against him?’

‘For the other night. For today—in a way.’

‘Today?’

‘Well, yeah. I wonder what he does on a day off.’

‘I’ve never really thought about it.  Lie around and think of Fred?’

‘Fred.  Why Fred?’

Spike turned his head, incredulous. ‘You do know that Wesley loves Fred?’

Angel blinked and took a while processing this then said irrationally, ‘I can’t see Wesley lying around somehow. I think he’d be more productive.’

‘Yeah, it’s our English Protestant work ethic.’

Angel refrained from pointing out the obvious, but Spike heard it anyway so murmured, ‘Tosser.’

Angel’s mind ran off on another track, and after a few minutes, watching Spike light a cigarette, he said, ‘I have to go away for a few days next month to New York. There’s a meeting of the CEOs from all the branches of the firm.’

‘Oh. That’s sounds like a lot of… fun.’

‘I thought it could be— I thought you could come with me.’

‘New York?’

‘Hmm.’

‘Okay.’

‘Good.’

Then turned and gave each other small, penetrating looks, both very aware that a lot more had been decided upon than a business trip to New York. As if voicing both their concerns, Angel said hesitantly, ‘That’s if we’re still together… after this.’

Spike smiled and turned his back. ‘Two nights ago, I’d have said there was no chance of that. Tonight? I’m not so sure.  Goodnight.’

Angel let a lazy smile soften his face. ‘Goodnight.’

The mornings didn’t get any easier. This time when they woke, they lay and broke the rules for a long time, just twisted up in each other’s arms. Spike pretended to still be asleep, and Angel let him pretend. It was too hard to pull apart. 

Eventually though, Angel sighed and extricated himself, and Spike pretended to wake up. They smiled secretly at each other as if they’d broken rules someone else had made, pleased with the transgression, and then gave each other some space to readjust, shower and dress.  

Sunday hit them like a sledgehammer: the feeling that something should be done but nothing could, and the thought of work again the next day ruining the pleasure in doing nothing.  Spike was restless and twitchy; Angel morose and silent. They didn’t even have the daytime options open to other people.

Finally, Spike said for the sake of saying something, ‘I’m gonna take the car. Get a paper.’

Angel didn’t appear to hear, and then he frowned. ‘Let’s drive around.’

‘Where?’

Angel shrugged. ‘Does it matter?’

So they drove around in the sunshine, feeling a strange sense of disassociation from what they were as the warm light touched their skin.  It wasn’t unpleasant though. Spike put the radio on, and they drove out to the beach, the only people staying in a car, but no one seemed to notice.  

‘We could come back here one evening— if you want.’

Spike shrugged. ‘Not one much for sand. Too….’

‘Sandy?’

‘Invasive I was gonna say.’

Angel smiled. ‘I like the beach.’

‘That’s cus it’s full of half-naked women.’

‘There is that.’

‘When we get the telly, I’ll let you watch Baywatch. Good all-American cultural entertainment. It was Harris’s favourite show.  After The Muppets.’

‘Do you miss all that?’

‘Do I miss Xander Harris?’ 

‘Idiot childe. Sunnydale. Your life there.’

‘That’s the first time you’ve called me childe for a while.’

Angel turned his head. ‘It doesn’t seem so appropriate now.’

‘Sire…? No, guess not. Do you ever hear from Dru?’

‘I think I’d have the resources to find her, but no, I don’t know where she is.’

‘Everything’s changed, hasn’t it?’

Angel narrowed his eyes. ‘Everything always changes. That’s what sets us apart. We have to fight the constant battle to consciously change. They don’t.’ He watched the humans flowing around the car. ‘They have no time; they change unconsciously or they die.’

‘That’s not true. Look at Wesley. He’s reinvented himself— modelled himself on you.’

‘Me!’

‘Oh, come on, the moody, dark, sexy look? The untapped hint of violence? And I’m shutting up now.’

Angel began to laugh, and unable to hit him, trapped in the car, Spike turned the radio up full volume instead and began to sing.

Angel winced and turned it off, still chuckling.  They pulled away from the beach and drove somewhere else.  They spent the entire day driving around, and when they finally got back to the apartment, in the middle of an argument about German versus British cars, they stopped up short and realised they were both standing only inches apart by the bed.

A rush of need flooded into Angel, and he had to turn away, leaning on the sink, clutching it with both hands to prevent himself reaching out.  Spike walked out into the courtyard to try the cooler air out there.  When he came back in, Angel was engrossed with cooking, and the moment had passed.

Hesitantly, Spike came closer. ‘I enjoyed today.’

Angel nodded, still not trusting himself to speak.

‘Drink?’

Angel nodded again, and gradually, over food and wine, they returned to the easy togetherness they’d enjoyed all day.

The argument didn’t begin until later in the evening and neither could particularly have said what started it. They were in the middle of it before they could stop.  However it started, it ended up being about Buffy: something neither of them had really discussed much before. The changes that had taken place between them since Spike had come to L.A. made arguing about a previous, shared lover extremely difficult, and they weren’t sure who they were jealous or angry over. As always, the argument brought out older, more embedded hostilities, and before they knew it, they were trading bitter accusations about things they had once done and people they had once been in another lifetime.

Angel went out.

Spike went out in the other direction.  

They came back, both still furious, but silent now, freezing the other out. They lay side-by-side, glad for the first time that they’d made the list, pointedly lying close and proving that they wouldn’t want to touch each other anyway.

They were still mad the next morning, and Angel had to face a Monday morning already in a foul mood.  He sat in the weekly update conference, glowering at the table and not listening.

When he looked up, only Wesley remained. The human shuffled some papers and said cheerily, ‘Well, that’s good. Pay rises for everyone. I’m surprised you agreed so easily.’

‘What?’ Angel stared at him, alarmed, and Wesley chuckled. ‘Well, you agreed to a party for the Research Department anyway.’

Angel gave him a look and ran his fingers through his hair. ‘Sorry. I’ve a lot of things on my mind.’

‘Actually, it’s rather refreshing.’

‘Huh?’

Wesley hesitated. ‘Well, things are more back to normal.’

Angel watched him depart and leant back in his chair, thinking. 

They’d had an argument. He’d argued with Spike. The overwhelming sense of familiarity in this made him smile. He’d argued with Spike. Spike— who didn’t seem very different now to what he had always been.  

Spike went out and spent the day hunting and killing things with a hunger he’d not felt for a very long time.  It seemed to have meaning again: this tiny attempt to make better things that had become so stale and meaningless.  

They were both in great moods by the time Angel returned from work, and with small, rueful glances, they knew the fight was over. Angel went to the kitchen and glanced into the refrigerator. He heard Spike venture, ‘Let’s go out instead.’

He turned and considered the suggestion.  ‘Okay.’

Spike smiled more knowingly, and Angel just nodded with a small breath of relief.  ‘Let me change.’

Spike drifted away to the courtyard and let Angel shower.

They chose at their leisure, ate slowly, drank a great deal of wine, and generally surfed on the crest of their angry words, enjoying them now as something powerful and thrilling which they could tease and play with. They’d both said things they’d meant, but things they regretted too, and they enjoyed smoothing over the hurt with different words.  

The tension between them shifted subtly, until what had been all anger became all sexual need once more.  It was hard to sit so close, knees almost touching, and not give way to the overwhelming desire to break their self-inflicted rules.  It was fortunate it was crowded in the restaurant, or Spike felt that Angel would have: reaching out a hand to run it over the back of his, pressing the top of his foot on his.  He could almost feel those small touches despite their absence.

They walked back slowly through the neighbourhood that Angel still found strange and slightly threatening, both glad to turn into the driveway to the house.

Angel sensed that Spike had something on his mind but assumed it to do with the fight, so was surprised when he suddenly veered off and went into the big house. He gave Angel a flick of his head, and Angel jogged up the steps after him.

Spike went into one of the downstairs rooms and looked about. ‘I thought so.’

‘What?’

‘This room is directly above us. Same size.’

Angel pouted, got his bearings and agreed. ‘So?’

Spike beckoned and led him back to their apartment. He stared up at the high ceiling. ‘I was thinking of having some stairs put in and taking over that room, too.’

Angel said rather inconsequentially, ‘You own it.’

Spike nodded. ‘What do you think? I kinda thought we could put the telly up there, the books, maybe a pool table….’

‘We used to play billiards all day once.’

‘I remember.’

‘You beat me all the time.’

Spike grinned. ‘I remember that, too. So, what do you think?’

Angel did not miss the significance of Spike asking his opinion and looked up once more. ‘Go for it.’

Spike grinned and threw himself on the couch, seemingly glad at last to have a project.

Once more, they went to bed as if it was no big deal. This time, Spike lay reading so contentedly that Angel was forced to fetch his book and join him.

With only one small murmured comment of derision at such an activity, he read quietly alongside Spike for some hours before falling naturally asleep.

Something woke Angel in the night, and he opened his eyes, concentrating to find the source of the noise.  He realised it came from the pillows alongside him and turned his head carefully. ‘What’s wrong?’

Spike hunched into a smaller ball and seemed to wish to be anywhere other than where he was.

Angel ached to reach out and touch the pale back, to give the comfort that seemed so needed. Instead, he rolled closer and repeated softly, ‘What’s wrong?’

Spike rolled onto his back and blinked, causing a glistening trail to run free down one cheek. He replied sadly, ‘The end of next week, Angel. What’s gonna happen? Nothing’s changed ‘cept I want you more.’

Angel lay for a long time, staring into the soft darkness of the room before he said quietly, ‘I lied.’  He sensed that Spike was listening so continued hesitantly, ‘I lied to you – way back then – when I said I’d not done this before.’

Spike sat up, rubbing his face thoughtlessly with the back of his hand. Nothing Angel could have said would have surprised him more than this.  ‘You’ve….’ He could not say the words for the sharp stab of jealousy they aroused in his gut.

Angel bit his lips and said quickly, ‘Not exactly like you think. In hell.’

‘Oh.’ The soft syllable was drawn out and painful.  

Angel swallowed and continued. ‘Everyone sees hell as a burning pit of fire. It’s not. It’s much like here really, only….’ He swallowed once more. ‘Everything you’ve always feared or hated or been disgusted by is the norm. They took me time and time again for over a hundred years.’ He laughed, and the sound sent a shiver down Spike’s spine. ‘And every time, it was the first time all over again. I was never allowed to get used to it. And I was never allowed to want or enjoy it, because that was not to be my hell. But I wasn’t allowed to forget each one either. The anticipation of knowing the rapes were inevitably coming, just made them so much worse.’

When Spike was silent, Angel glanced at him, his gaze not quite reaching the blue eyes.  Suddenly, Spike looked away and hissed in a ragged voice, ‘Say I can hold you…. Bugger this soddin’ list!’

Angel shook his head, and when Spike made a move to force him, he said distinctly, ‘If I’m to move on from that, I need to want it. And I think… by the end of next week… I might.’

Chapter 6

They woke to an entirely new day; they both felt the change. Spike lay knowing that Angel was awake - that he had probably not slept at all - and all he wanted to do was pull him into his arms and hold him.

He turned his head, looked at the strained profile and said, ‘Fuck this,’ under his breath, rolling over to cover Angel with his strong protection. When Angel cried out, Spike held him firmer and said in a voice that would take no contradiction, ‘We’re still asleep; shut up; you’re just dreaming.’

Angel turned his face into Spike’s chest and made no further protest.  

Spike ran his fingers through Angel’s hair and kissed into the silky locks. He wasn’t even hard; he had no desire to be hard, or to think of Angel in that way.  Angel’s body seemed wracked with pain, and however hard he held it, Spike could not take the pain into his own body and make it his.  Eventually, he tried soothing words – promises of what they could do together - but all he got back was a desperate whisper, ‘Don’t, I’m damaged goods.’

He held Angel at arms’ length and stared at him for a moment then pulled him back into the more comforting shelter of his arms. ‘Hell don’t count, Pet. Don’t you see? We beat it back every day, and we always win. It’s what I got my soul back for. So, now I’ll beat it back for you.’ He hesitated for a moment, and then whispered just as softly as Angel had, ‘I’ll be your first. Like you were mine.’

Then he held Angel away for a moment and gave him a small shake before letting him go and climbing out of the bed, pulling on the discarded sweatpants.  Holding a T-shirt in his hand, he turned and said distinctly, ‘But I need for you to want me before that, so we’ll do this thing for another week, Angel, and we’ll make it right. We’ll make it work.’  With that, he turned, slid on his shirt, and began the domestic routines of the day, humming a tune he remembered from the Bronze.

Angel lay in the bed for some time longer, watching him. He felt bereft without his presence in the bed and wanted nothing more than to curl up again in his arms. No one ever gave him comfort—no one else ever thought he needed it. He’d always thought that if he let go of even a fraction of his pain, it would all flood out, like the lancing of a great boil, drowning him in poison. Last night though, he had pricked his wound, and some of the pain and pressure was gone, but he was still here, intact.

He watched Spike, seeing him once more as the childe he had picked for his eternity and thought, for the first time, that he’d chosen better than he had known at the time.

Spike brought two mugs of blood to the bed and handed one over. ‘You’ll be late for work.’

Angel nodded. ‘I think I’m firing some people today. That’s always fun.’

‘I’ll come in later. I want to see Gunn about the money thing.’

Angel smiled a genuine smile of pleasure. ‘When?’

Spike huffed, stood up and stretched. ‘I wish you’d looked at me like that when I popped out of that bloody crystal.’

‘Why have we wasted all this time?’

Spike shrugged. ‘We take time for granted, I guess.’

Angel laughed suddenly, an unusual sound. ‘I never thought two damn weeks could seem so long!’

Angel didn’t find the day as tedious as he usually did. The anticipation of seeing Spike at any moment kept him on a pleasant edge of suspense, so much so, that when he turned from his view of the city to find Spike grinning, only inches from him, he jumped, annoyed he’d missed the moment when Spike actually arrived.

Pleased with his joke, Spike went to sit in Angel’s chair and put his feet up on the desk.  He lit a cigarette and then peered at Angel through the smoke. ‘So, what’s up? ‘Sides us….’

Angel flung himself onto the couch and rubbed his face. ‘The usual. Have you seen Gunn?’

Spike chuckled. ‘I’m going to have a bank account— like a real person. Cheques and a little bitty card an’ all.’

‘Welcome to the adult world, Spike.’

‘Thank you, Daddy.’ Spike took his feet off the desk. ‘Sorry. My big bloody mouth.’

Angel stared at him for a moment then said, ‘You are so different to him. I used to think there were similarities, but I don’t see them now.’

Spike took a long drag on his cigarette. ‘And is that good, or bad?’

Angel smiled softly and didn’t reply, but he got up and said gruffly, ‘Get your arse out of my chair and go do something useful maybe?’

Spike chuckled; he had the reply he wanted. He swung the chair and pushed out, making way for Angel to sit down. Angel pulled some papers over to read and then glanced up. ‘Well? Are you going to fuck off and leave me in peace?’

Spike twitched up an eyebrow then, with exaggerated care, lowered onto the couch. ‘Nah. Think I’ll stay here and bug the hell out of you all day.’

It was only later in the morning, after he’d suffered and enjoyed Spike’s presence in equal measure, that Angel got the significance of Spike’s words.

When he did, he looked up, watched him blowing smoke rings for a while, and felt another trickle of hell’s poison draining from his body.

Spike didn’t waste his favours entirely on Angel. He went and amused Wesley for a while, too. The human was in an intense conversation with Fred when he arrived, and he immediately tried to backtrack stealthily, but she heard him and turned, smiling. ‘Spike!’  He gave Wesley an apologetic look and came in.  

When she’d left, Spike glanced at Wesley and murmured, ‘Oops.’

Wesley nodded. ‘Yes. A most unfortunate interruption. The romance of a conversation about mucus excreting slime-bugs can never be over-estimated.  Anyway, how are things? Angel seems oddly normal.’ He frowned slightly. ‘Yes, that is the word I want. Normal— for him. Is that good?’

Spike grinned. ‘Oh yeah. That’s good. What are you doing tonight?’

Wesley groaned. ‘The torture continues.’

‘Nah. Things are different now. I want you to see what I’m doing to the place— get your opinion, like.’

Wesley pursed his lips. ‘What does…?’

‘I think you should come over as well.’  Demonstrating more stealth than Spike, Angel was leaning in the doorway, watching them.  Wesley still looked uncertain, and Angel added nonchalantly, ‘I’ll cook. It would be nice to do that for someone who can pronounce the ingredients.’

Spike gave him the finger but turned to Wesley and poked him in the ribs. ‘So?’

Wesley nodded, bemused. ‘All right. Thank you.’

Spike smiled happily and wandered out with Angel.  Wesley watched the vampires leave and tried to suppress the clench of fear in his gut at the thought of the coming night.

He needn’t have worried. Although he walked into a scene of confusion – a large hole in the ceiling, builders’ equipment scattered everywhere, and all the furniture pushed to one end of the room and covered – it was also a scene of complete harmony.  Angel was cooking and nodded at him to come in.  Spike was reading by the pond and poured him a drink, bringing it in to him with a cheeky grin.  

He listened to the vampires chatting and arguing. He’d never heard Angel so talkative before and realised for the first time, that Angel let himself be someone else when he was here with Spike. He supposed after over a hundred years of knowing someone and sharing their blood there was little point in continuing any pretence.

Spike showed him the improvements, taking him upstairs to inspect the plans for the new room, and he’d never found Spike so… normal. Again, he wondered if Spike was able to drop some of the masks he habitually wore when he was with Angel. He felt privileged, as if the vampires had made a conscious decision to extend their little bubble to include him.  He felt he ought to reciprocate, but his masks were too newly constructed to relinquish, and he wasn’t sure what lay beneath them anymore.

They ate around the pond in the soft light of dozens of candles.  Wesley stared up at the huge house looming over them. ‘What about the rest of it? It’ll need an awful lot of maintenance.’

Angel stretched and said casually, ‘Give us another hundred years, and we’ll probably have taken it all over.’

There was a pause, and Wesley said softly, ‘I don’t find that at all hard to believe.’

Spike smiled inwardly. He knew Wesley wasn’t referring to the creeping occupation of the house.

Angel smiled as well and collected the plates, taking them in for washing.  

Wesley relinquished his and turned to Spike with a raised eyebrow at this domesticity.  Spike allowed a small smirk to escape and went back to his wine.

Wesley felt incredibly mellow and stretched out his long legs.  Suddenly, Spike said, ‘Why don’t you just tell ‘er, Wes? What you got to lose? Grab her and tell her. She might surprise you.’

Wesley was silent for a moment then he replied sadly, ‘I think maybe I’m not built for great passion… that a love life is rather like a system of government: we get the one we deserve. I just don’t feel that spark of….’

Spike’s mouth met his, open, gentle, seeking. When entry had been gained through shock, it became hot and wild, sucking Wesley’s false words and eating them whole. With a sudden, irresistible urge, Wesley kissed back, his hands in Spike’s hair, his stubble grazing and reddening Spike’s skin.

Spike separated their mouths and stared, amused, into Wesley’s eyes. ‘So, not one for the passion then…?’

‘Oh God.’  Wesley licked lips, which didn’t feel like his anymore.  ‘Oh God.’

He turned his gaze to the French doors and repeated the words again, but in a tone of deep and genuine fear. ‘Oh. God.’

Angel came over and handed Spike a beer. Spike kept his eyes quizzically on Angel’s face. Wesley looked down at his feet and repeated, ‘Oh, God.’

Angel tapped him on the head and handed him a drink. ‘You can’t take him from me, Wes.  He’s not an infant. He’ll go or he’ll stay, just as he pleases. Now, as I was too distracted to beat you last time, let’s go play poker.’

He turned and went back into the kitchen. Spike rose without a word to Wesley and followed him in.  Angel was leaning casually on the counter and seemed engrossed in the study of his shoes.

Spike stood so close that his breath broke the rules.  Angel looked up. Spike reached out a hand for something – anything - and it connected with a carving knife. He put it gently to Angel’s lips. ‘My finger.’  Angel closed his eyes and flicked his tongue out as if to taste the substitute flesh. Spike drew the knife’s tip down Angel’s chin to his throat and dragged it softly over the pale skin. ‘My tongue.’  He touched the tip to the back of Angel’s hand, their trigger point, and Angel’s eyes flew open.  Feeling Angel’s self-control like a taut wire between them, he drew the knife over the hardness at the front of Angel’s pants, tracing a line down the whole, thick length.  ‘My cock.’ Angel grabbed the counter for support, and his eyes dilated with suppressed need.  Spike put a finger to his cheek, not quite touching his skin. Angel let his breath fall on Spike, the words, ‘I love you,’ caressing him instead of flesh they could not join.

Spike blinked and then smiled. ‘Yeah, I think now that you do. Enough to trust me, Luv. Come on, let’s go play.’

They played together for hours, stupid bets being made for vast sums of money, and Angel won every hand. Neither of the other two could see how he did it, but he ended up winning Spike’s entire fortune, the house, and Wesley’s soul.  Slyly, on the last hand, Angel suggested they bet their hearts, and he won both those, too.

Eventually, Wesley called a cab and left while he still had his intellect. When Spike returned from walking him out, Angel was already in bed.  He shed his clothes and slid in next to him. Angel turned his head. ‘What was he like to kiss?’

Spike hesitated then said, ‘We’re kinda not allowed to talk about….’

‘About us kissing— not other people.’

Spike folded his arms behind his head, staring at the ceiling. ‘Hot. Rough. It flicked something on in my brain. But not my….’

‘Heart?’

Spike chuckled. ‘Balls.’

Angel groaned and turned his back. ‘I can’t do another four days, Spike. I’m gonna pass out or something.’

Spike slid closer. ‘Watching me with Wesley get you all riled up, did it? Oh… or do you want to kiss him, too…?’

‘Jesus, Spike. No fair!’’

Spike slid so close his sweat cooled Angel’s skin. ‘Tell me what you want to do to him, Angel. You said talking about other people was allowed….’

Angel rolled further away onto his belly.

‘No humping that mattress. Your rules, remember?’

‘I’m going to explode if I don’t.’

‘Not allowed!’

Angel thumped the pillow until it broke, feathers drifting up into the air.

Spike chuckled and delicately placed some in a line down Angel’s back. ‘I’m not sure I helped him with his dilemma about Fred. I’m fairly sure, having tasted him, that he won’t be thinking about her when he slowly pumps that hot dick tonight….’

‘Four days!’ Angel’s wail from under the pummelled pillow almost made Spike laugh, but he kept his voice low and deliberately provocative. Very carefully, he took up the largest feather and trailed it across the back of Angel’s neck. When Angel shivered, causing the little line of feathers to jump, Spike slid off the bed and fetched something from the drainer.

Very slowly, breaking the rules, he eased the sheet off Angel’s naked body. It appeared like marble, but he knew the sculptured cheeks could spasm with potent life when they humped into him. It made him so hard to remember the feel of Angel’s cock deep inside him rubbing his tender walls, that he released a stream of cool pre-ejaculate.

With infinite care, he took the knife that he’d retrieved and dragged the sharp tip over the sole of Angel’s foot. A spasm ran up the long, lean leg, and Spike chased it with the knife. Angel gasped sharply and bowed down into the mattress. 

When he reached Angel’s thigh, Spike paused. 

The perfect body moved; with one fluid lift of the thigh, it all lay stretched and exposed to Spike’s gaze. 

He reversed the knife and dragged the cold, blunt end through the shallow cleft.  

It was too much. His balls, so heavy and painful, ached for relief, and he turned away, hanging his head, wishing he’d not begun this game.

‘Lie down.’

Angel’s voice caressed the hairs at the back of his neck, husky with suppressed need.

He did as he was asked. Angel’s face loomed over him then lowered as if to kiss him, but only kissed the air that was cooling on his skin.  Spike felt the kiss though; it seared his flesh like a whiplash of longing.

He cried out, and Angel kissed him again— into his hair, never quite touching the blond strands.

Again and again, Angel air-kissed Spike’s body until Spike felt flayed alive: his flesh so hot and sensitive he lay in a fever.  With a last kiss to the space around Spike’s toes, Angel slid back up the bed and pulled the covers over them both. 

They were so in tune, they could hear echoes of each other’s thoughts, and fell asleep to the incongruously new realisation that love had very little to do with penetration and taking.

When Spike woke, Angel was gone. There was a note on the pillow, and he read it lazily, not fearing what it would say. 

‘Decided to go explode somewhere. A.’

Spike grinned and lay on his back, picturing Angel exploding.  He didn’t even get time to touch himself but shot load after load of thick sperm onto his belly at the image of Angel’s face as he found his relief.

Angel sensed that something was wrong as soon as he walked into the apartment that evening. He took in the advancement of the work then went outside to Spike, who was sitting dangling a finger in the pond.

Spike glanced up then away. Angel noticed a number of empties scattered around and realised Spike had been drinking again. Thinking he’d help the situation, Angel said softly, ‘Only three more days now.’

Spike got up and hedged around him, saying cheerfully, ‘Yeah. ‘S good then.’

Angel frowned but decided not to pursue it.

He kept up a light chatter all evening: his day, who killed whom, general gossip about the people they both knew. 

For one awful moment, he thought that it was exactly as it had been in the first two weeks, when he’d let it all turn so sour. He faltered, and the one-way flow of information dried up. He stared at the food he was preparing then turned and looked at Spike, silent and thoughtful on the couch. With a small, private smile, he realised it was nothing like those first few weeks, for now he was listening to the silence.
 
He finished the dinner and brought it over, watching Spike eat it without tasting.  After dinner, he suddenly said, ‘How still can you sit?’

Spike frowned. ‘Why?’

‘I want to draw you.’

Spike looked interested for a moment. ‘I’ve not seen you draw since… huh… when you were tryin’ to kill Buffy. Good times.’

Angel smiled and collected his sketchpad and some pencils.  He sat on the couch at one end and turned to Spike.  ‘Watch the fire. I want you in profile.’

Spike huffed slightly at something this implied but turned obediently. Angel could hear Spike’s need to speak as clearly as he could hear his pencil scratching on the paper. He kept drawing, silent, allowing him the space he needed. 

‘So… three days….’

Angel smiled inwardly but replied, ‘Don’t worry. I’ve told you; I think I’m ready to….’

‘No! No! This isn’t always about you!’ Spike jumped up and began to pace. Angel laid down his pad, not worried about the ruined portrait: the brief sketching session having served its purpose.

Spike glanced at him then, with a deep breath, sat down again. ‘It’s me, Angel. I’m worried about me!’  He jumped up again. ‘Four days… three days… it’s like a tick tock in my head: a countdown to my bloody command performance. What if I can’t? Angel, what if when the time comes there’s been so much anticipation that it’s… notverygood.’ He trailed off miserably and sank on the couch, his head in his hands. ‘When it was me… and you in me that first time… it was so… hot! Remember? Jesus, I think you melted my brain. I want it to be like that for you, too. What if it’s not?’

Angel leant forward. ‘Let’s end the contract now. Now, Spike! Let’s do it!’

Spike jumped up again. ‘Now? Now? No! I’m not ready!’

Angel began to laugh.

Spike stomped his foot. ‘Don’t laugh at me!’

Angel stood up, too. ‘I’m not. I’m laughing at us.’  He placed his pencil on Spike’s shirt and swirled a perfect circle around one nipple, looking at Spike, amused, through lowered lids.  ‘You talked to me, Spike.  For the first time ever, you talked to me instead of hitting me, or running away, or making up some elaborate lie.’

‘There ya go! See? Big fucking nancy-boy here now! No way I’ll be hard enough!’ Angel caught the flash of equal amusement in Spike’s eyes and had never felt more desire for him— desire to lie down and make love on the shared laughter.  

He came closer, teasing one button with the pencil. ‘You’re forgetting someone, Spike.  You’re forgetting I’ll be there as well, and I have no intention of letting you be… soft. Now, sit down, and let me finish. I want to capture a certain… look….’

Angel pushed Spike with the pencil back onto the couch and turned to a fresh piece of paper.  This time, Spike sat full on, facing him, and gradually, exactly the look Angel wanted crept onto his face. Quietly, without lifting his eyes from his sketch, Angel told him exactly how he intended to get him hard, and what he wanted him to do with that hardness. Spike’s eyes darkened, dilating, forcing Angel to return to them again and again to add to their luminosity in his picture.  Strong, masculine scent of need rose from both of them, mingling on the hot, August evening until the air was a heady mix of sexual perfume, and Angel sketched Spike through a veil of desire: soft, wavering lines, broken only by the sharpness of the extraordinary cheekbones.

When he was finished, he knew he’d never done a better portrait.  He turned it, propped on the hardness in his lap. Spike hooked his elbow over the back of the couch and leant on his arm, languid and melting into the sensuousness of the moment. ‘It’s… incredible.’

Angel smiled, pleased. ‘I put my heart and soul into it.’

Spike snorted softly, but Angel could see he was secretly pleased.

Very gently, Angel put the blunt end of the pencil to Spike’s nose and drew a line down it. Spike blinked and smiled softly at him. Angel came closer and mirrored his lazy position, playing some more with the pencil: over the cheekbone and combing into Spike’s hair, lifting the strands until they shone in the faint firelight.  ‘Come to bed?’

Spike sighed and rubbed his cheek on his arm, as if desperate for touch of any kind. Looking at Angel through lowered lids, he murmured, ‘Give me to drink mandragora that I might sleep out this great gap of time….’ 

Angel laid down the portrait and rose. ‘It cannot be thus long; nature will not sustain it.’

Spike looked up sharply; he had not expected Angel to either know the quote or respond to it. He rose, too, and followed Angel to the bed, going to his side so reluctantly that he felt he was pushing through air that had become solid.  

As they lay side by side, not touching, Spike turned his head on the pillow, so close their breath broke the rules with its intangible essence. ‘If we never touch again, Angel, I’d still want you here— by my side.’

Chapter 7

The last day was the worst. The tension got to them both to extent that they could not be together. Angel said he was staying late at the office; Spike said he was going into the tunnels to kill things and would not be home either.  

All day, Angel felt the universe conspiring against him. He passed a man smoking the same brand of cigarettes as Spike, and he hardened at the scent.  His first meeting was with two representatives from the London branch of the firm, and as he listened to their voices, he was there with Spike once more.  He wanted the time over now; it was long enough. They had proved something to each other, but now it time to admit what they were: creatures of blood.  Blood poured into his cock at the slightest stimulation all day, pumping him up so hard that he could find no relief. Eventually, he too went into the tunnels and spent the day working off the tension in the best way he knew, after the obvious, which he was denied until the next day.

Spike did not come back to the apartment until just before dawn.  He slid into the bed, knew that Angel was still awake and, restless, glanced out of the window at the slowly approaching light.

Very slowly, he stretched out his hand and placed it on Angel’s belly.

Angel arched to his touch as if it burned him, and he let out a small cry of desire that frizzled in the air.

The kiss was so intense that Angel actually heard bells ringing in his ears, as if his whole body were under so much pressure that his blood was singing. It was only as Spike tried to separate them, that he realised Spike was hearing it, too.

Angel frowned and peered over the side of the bed, realising that his cellphone was ringing.  He turned back to Spike, clearly intending to ignore it, and Spike murmured, ‘Oh, yeah,’ and took him back to the kiss. They began to roll, flesh on flesh, so intimate and hot for each other that they almost managed to ignore the ringing. Almost. Angel swore and reached down to rummage in his clothes.  

‘I’m going to stick this somewhere I can’t hear it.’

Spike chuckled and ran one finger through Angel’s cleft. ‘Won’t be room in there soon, Luv.’

Angel pulled it out of his pocket and switched it off. 

They went back to the kiss until Spike’s phone began to ring.

At that, they gave each other a slightly concerned look, and Spike climbed out and padded over to his coat, fishing the phone out of the pocket. He climbed back on the bed and held it between them as he punched it on.

‘Spike!’

‘Bloody hell, Wesley, do you know what time…?’ Angel caught Spike’s fingers and twisted them up in his, bringing them to his mouth and sucking languorously.

‘I gather Angel’s there?’

Angel was engrossed in the feel of Spike’s fingers, his tongue flicking and teasing them.  ‘Yeah. I’m here. What do you…?’

‘You need to get here. Now.’

‘This is NOT a good time, Wes.’ Angel bit a finger, and Spike repressed a gasp at the delicious pain.

‘Now, Angel.’

‘No. I’m busy, Wes.’ He bent and bit Spike’s nipple in punishment for being so pretty. 

‘Angel. I’m sorry. You need to come.’

‘Yes, Wesley, I know I do. I’ll be there when I’m there.’  He leant over and bit the other one, just for good measure.

‘No. Angel. You come here, now. I’m not dealing with this alone.’

Angel took the phone from Spike and switched it off, but the mood was broken.  They both had Wesley’s urgency on their minds instead of their own, and eventually, Spike said, furious, ‘Let’s go in, see what the fuck he wants then come back and fuck!’

Angel nodded. He didn’t even bother with a shower but pulled on some clothes. Spike did the same.  ‘Car?’

Angel shook his head. ‘Sewers. Let’s hope something tries it on, yeah?’ Grimly he pulled on some boots and headed out, Spike not far behind.

Angel was in such a foul mood, that Spike didn’t attempt to speak to him for the first mile or so. He let him simmer and work it out of his system.  When Angel finally slowed his pace, he said softly, ‘We’ve got the rest of eternity, Angel, a couple of hours ain’t gonna kill us.’

‘I know that! I’m not fucking stupid!’

‘Don’t bloody take it out on me, Mate!’

‘I’m not! All right, I am… but fucking hell! I was lying there all night, thinking about you. About your… you know what….’ He turned and suddenly smiled ruefully, ducking his head. ‘Sorry.’

Spike pushed him against a wall. ‘Do you think Wesley’s small apocalypse will wait while I…?’ He pushed his mouth to Angel’s, nuzzling his lips, seeking permission, seeking entry, seeking the sense of coming home.  Angel welcomed him in, and they shared each other’s taste for too long, until the need to do other things was almost irresistible. With a groan of frustration, Angel pushed him off. 

‘I’m not being taken in a sewer.’

Spike wiped his hand thoughtlessly over his lips, his eyes wide. ‘I’m not sure I can wait.’

Angel nodded. ‘Come on. Let’s get this thing over.’

They went faster, side-by-side, keeping to their own thoughts, which were the same anyway and didn’t need to be articulated.

They came up through the tunnels below Wolfram and Hart then rode up in the elevator together.  Spike leant on the wall and lit a cigarette.  ‘I don’t think Wesley’s apocalypse is small, thinking about it.  He’s a repressed Englishman; it’s bound to be huge.’

Angel laughed and cuffed him.  Spike grinned and mock punched him back.  The doors slid open, and they were still play-fighting as they pushed open the doors to Angel’s office.

Buffy rose from the couch at their entry, and all laugher from the vampires ceased.

‘Spike.’

‘Buffy?’

She came toward him, and her jaw wobbled. With no hesitation, she embraced him, and Spike buried his face in her hair.

‘Andrew was right. You’re alive.’

‘As I’m ever gonna be, yeah.  Hey!’ He lifted her face. ‘What’s with the waterworks, Slayer? All those bleedin’ years I tried to make you cry, and here you go and blub on me now!’

She laughed through her tears. ‘I’m so sorry. I couldn’t save you.’
 
Spike embraced her again.  

She pushed him away, her eyes suddenly angry. ‘Why did I have to hear this from Andrew?’

Spike looked shifty. ‘Well, yeah, there is that.’

There was a small half-shuffle, half-cough from alongside them, and Buffy turned. ‘Angel.’

‘Buffy.’

‘So, this is… impressive. I’ve gotta give it to you: when you sell out to evil, you do it big time.’

‘That’s not entirely fair, Buffy. You don’t understand the situation.’

‘I understand the huge office and the— what is that? Magical glass?’

‘Why are you here?’  Angel went over to the window, his back to the room, and Spike frowned, looking from one to the other.  

‘Am I welcome?’

Angel turned, softening his look. ‘You know you’re always welcome. Always.’

She smiled coyly. ‘So, do I get the tour from the bossman?’

Angel nodded. ‘If you want.’

‘Wanty girl here.’

‘Go say hi to Harmony, maybe. I need to talk with Spike first.’

Buffy frowned. ‘Harmony?’

Angel nodded toward the lobby, and Buffy looked over to see Harmony sliding in behind her desk, taking off her jacket.

‘Harmony?’ She went out, and Angel closed the door behind her.

He turned and leant on it, looking at Spike. ‘Come here.’

Despite his obvious hesitation, Spike did as he was asked, their closeness hidden somewhat from the occupants of the lobby by the doors.  

Angel bent his face and rested it on Spike’s hair. Spike rubbed against him.  ‘What happens now?’

Angel snorted softly. ‘Don’t ask me.’ 

Spike heard the underlying tension in his voice. ‘Let’s go with the flow, Pet. She’s here, and we’ll deal.’

Angel nodded. ‘Guess I do the tour then.’

‘I’m going to see Wesley. The bastard— he could have told us.’

They both had an immediate vision of them fleeing, like fugitives, from the one who only a few months before they would have both proclaimed undying love for.  

Angel straightened and opened the doors.

Angel walked her slowly through the enormous complex of offices. They were silent for a long time until Buffy shook her head and said softly, ‘I’m sorry, Angel; I just don’t get you.’

‘I’m not sure I get myself most days.’

This was the not the defensive reply she’d expected, and it mollified her somewhat. Angel hadn’t meant being CEO of the evil law firm, but let her miscomprehension slide.

‘Why don’t you leave, Angel?’ She stopped outside an office and watched as demons, sitting around a large conference table, shared something indescribable from a platter.  Angel walked on, silently fuming, but unwilling to get into his feelings on any subject at the moment. 

‘Why are you here, Buffy?’

‘Can’t I have come to see you?’

‘No.’

‘I came for Spike.’

‘Huhuh?’  She gave him a look, and he said more carefully, ‘Spike.’

‘I need him. We’re starting again, Angel. We’re reforming the council— well, Giles is. In London.  There are young slayers all over the world discovering themselves and discovering that kicking the shit out of people can make you unpopular with your parents and school. I should know. We’re bringing them all together, and I need Spike.’

‘As target practice.’

‘I’m sorry, Angel. I know you don’t like hearing about Spike. I know you don’t like him, but he saved the world. I thought he died. Andrew told me he was here pissing you off as usual. So, it’s a win/win situation for all of us.’

‘What if he doesn’t want to go?’

‘Why wouldn’t he? He’s got nothing here.’

‘He’s… settled in. He seems to like it.’

‘Spike would never work here. I don’t believe you.’

‘I didn’t mean… here. I meant….’ Angel pressed the button for an elevator and finished lamely, ‘L.A. I think he likes living in L.A.’ 

She dismissed this with a wave of her hand. ‘Nah. He hates L.A. He told me. It didn’t agree with him.’

They emerged back in the lobby, and she turned to him. ‘Do you still live at the Hyperion?’

Angel shook his head. 

‘I need somewhere to stay tonight.’

‘There’s an apartment here. You can use that.’

‘What’s wrong, Angel?’

‘Frankly?’ He took her arm and led her out of hearing of the few employees milling around. ‘I don’t like the way you make assumptions: about me, about…. We’re doing something important here. Something unique: destroying evil from the inside. And I saved the world, too, Buffy; only, no one remembers it. I saved you from being a mindless slave in a world of fluffy holiness, but do you know what? I’m beginning to regret making the effort.’

He left her staring after him and went back to his office alone.

Buffy found Spike sitting on a desk close to a dark-haired man who rose when she came in with a smile of welcome on his face. She hesitated and did a slightly theatrical double take. ‘Wesley!’

Wesley nodded ruefully. ‘In the flesh.’

‘My God, Spike and Angel aren’t the only ones around here to have changed!’

Wesley cast a glance back at Spike, surprised. ‘Oh, they’ve told you then? I’m glad….’ He turned to express this pleasure to Spike when he saw the vampire’s expression. ‘Ah. I see. Yes. Changed in another way. Well, this is nice. How are Willow and Xander?’

Frowning slightly at something she thought she’d heard, Buffy went through some brief updates then turned to Spike. ‘Can we talk?’

Spike was studying a nail and shrugged. 

‘Not here.’

Spike looked up. ‘You want us to go… what… out together?’

‘It’s not a date, Spike! I need to talk with you.’

Spike closed his eyes. It was there again – in her look and tone – that undefined more that he had followed for so many years.  ‘Sure, Pet. I’ll go fetch Angel.’

She jerked her head back slightly. ‘Angel.’

Spike smiled innocently and, looking straight at Wesley, said, ‘Yeah. He’s my… advisor.’

‘Since when?’

He chuckled at her tone, and as he brushed past her, he murmured, ‘Like you said, Luv. Things change.’

He found Angel in his office, in his favourite position, looking out over the city that he had made so many compromises for.  Spike went and joined him, standing far enough away not to arouse suspicion, but close enough to touch him if he wanted. 

‘Slayer wants to go out— talk.’

Angel didn’t reply. 

‘You know what she wants to talk to me about, don’t you?’

Angel nodded.

‘Can we rewind this day, Angel? Can you find a spell somewhere in this evil empire of yours that will allow us to start this day again? I want to wake up in your arms and make love to you. Is that too much to ask after a hundred years of treading around that simple desire?’

‘I don’t think it was meant to be, Spike.’ Before he could elaborate more, Buffy appeared in the doorway, and they both turned. With the feeling of being a condemned man, Spike went toward her, but he paused and waited. Only when he sensed that Angel was closing the gap between them, did he carry on. Clapping Buffy on the shoulder, he swaggered out toward the elevator, piece by piece replacing the armour he had begun to shed under Angel’s all-embracing passion.

They chose a non-descript bar well away from their home and sat silently around a table for a while. Spike felt awkward knowing that Buffy would be thinking of her individual relationships with them and assuming that they were still thinking of that, too.  Nothing could have been further from his mind, but the only indication of this was that his foot rested on the top of Angel’s shoe, a small, private recognition of how things really lay between them now.

Buffy didn’t waste time; she seemed cornered and harassed by time: constantly checking and re-checking her watch. ‘We’re regrouping, Spike— in England. Giles is putting together a new council, and I’m gathering all the new slayers.’

‘Uh huh. Why the old country?’

‘Giles wants to be there, and I need him.’

This simple admittance of her need made Spike glance at Angel, but Angel was giving nothing away, playing with a small spill of beer on the table.

‘So why are you here now?’

‘I’ve come for you.’ 

Spike lit a cigarette and squinted at her through the smoke. ‘Few years back I’d have been spoiling for the fight if you’d have said that to me. Few years less, I’d have been lying down and offering you my undying love. Why do I have the feeling it’s neither of those you want now?’

She gave one tiny glance over to Angel then said softly, ‘I need you, Spike. It’s… there’s so much to do.’

Spike said quietly, ‘You’re very quiet.’

Buffy frowned for a moment, thinking the comment was addressed to her, so low and intimate was the tone. Then she saw Spike’s eyes were fixed unwaveringly on Angel. 

Angel pulled his foot away.

Spike tipped his head back slightly. ‘Oh.’  With a small laugh, he stubbed his cigarette out in the spill that so fascinated Angel and turned back to Buffy. ‘I think you’re the only one who does need me, Luv. Come on, let’s walk and talk, and you can tell me all the ways you’re gonna be grateful.’

She was getting to her feet when Spike suddenly picked up his glass and smashed it against the wall. He pushed out of the bar, shouldering people out of his way and disappeared into the night.

‘Angel?’

Angel took a slow breath and said flatly, ‘I’ll walk you back.’

The lighting was low as usual. The only sounds were the faint whirring of machines in cubicles, keeping precious, loved ones alive.  Angel pulled the green curtain aside and jerked his head back. ‘Wesley?’

Wesley looked up from Cordelia’s side. ‘Angel.’

Angel seemed floored by Wesley’s presence but the human only returned to holding the smaller hand in his and rubbing the back thoughtfully. ‘I usually come during the day.’

‘To avoid me?’

Wesley gave him a withering look. ‘To spread out her visitors, Angel— so she’ll not be so alone.’

Angel sat heavily in the plastic chair the other side of her bed. ‘Sorry.’

‘Where’s Buffy?’

‘In my bed, I should think.’

‘Ah.’ Wesley frowned. ‘The one in your old apartment…? Sorry, I’m a little confused where you all stand in this.’

Angel took Cordelia’s other hand and seemed to be trying to bring her back to life with the force of his powerful stare.

‘How do things stand between you?’

‘She wants Spike to go back to England with her— help with all the new slayers.’

Wesley laughed. When Angel was still silent, he looked over.  After a moment of studying the closed-off expression, he said, incredulous, ‘I’m sorry. Am I the only one of us who seems to find that ludicrous? You want him to go?’

A small tic flared in Angel’s cheek, but other than that, there was no sign of any emotion.  ‘I want what’s best for him, Wesley.’

Wesley let Cordelia’s hand drop, and he leant back in the chair. ‘I don’t believe you are sitting there saying that! How can you, Angel! You’re what’s best for Spike!’

Angel turned the smaller hand over in his and stroked his finger over the palm.  ‘He’s been looking for himself.’ He gave a small, painful laugh that made him blink rapidly. ‘He’s been planning to look in some really weird places.’

‘And you think he’s going to find himself back in England?’

Angel rose, anger now darkening his face. ‘He’s not made to play second fiddle, Wesley.  It’s the main problem with this damn… thing… we’re doing…. It’s not… natural. I mean… there’s supposed to be a strong one and a weak one: man and woman.  He came back incorporeal, and I’m not sure he ever really became solid. This way, he can. This way, he can be again the champion who saved the world.’

Wesley got to his feet, too, facing Angel off across the end of Cordelia’s bed.  ‘His whole life is….’

‘No! My life is here! He can’t be my supporting character!’

‘I think he’d think….’ Wesley trailed off, a conversation with Spike suddenly recalled. ‘When are they leaving?’

Angel’s face suddenly crumpled, but he pulled it back into his habitual shut-off expression and said clearly enough, ‘Tomorrow.’

‘What about the house?’

At that, Angel’s whole face rippled as if he was about to turn demon but was only holding onto his humanity with the force of his will. ‘I don’t know. I wouldn’t be welcome there without him.’

‘As his supporting character….’

Angel snapped his head up, and Wesley said calmly, ‘It’s rather a matter of perspective, Angel— who’s the star of the show.’

Gritting his teeth, Angel ripped aside the curtain and left.

Wesley didn’t know what to expect when he hesitatingly pushed open the door and went into Spike’s apartment.  The last time he’d come to this place, he’d lost his heart to its occupants, and he didn’t particularly want to find that it was irrevocably broken now.

Spike was standing in the courtyard, and for one moment, Wesley was jolted back to finding him like that, drunk and out-of-control, wanting him to take away the pain of wanting Angel. This time he looked sober, and he glanced over as Wesley stepped out, taking a long drag on his cigarette.

‘What the hell is happening?’

Spike shrugged. ‘You tell me.’

‘Just because Angel seems to want you to go doesn’t mean you have to!’

‘If Angel doesn’t want me here, then there’s no point to anything.’

Slightly unnerved by the calmness in Spike’s voice – he’d have preferred ranting and drunkenness to this ominous politeness – Wesley countered, ‘I think he wants you to want yourself— or what you once were….’

‘Bullshit.’

‘Err….’

‘Tell me, did he give you a speech about how I needed to be a champion again, and that I was being stifled here?’

‘Yes.’

‘If this was about me, I’d do something to stop it. I know what I need Wesley. This is entirely about Angel.’ He saw Wesley’s mystified look and brushed past him, going into the gloom of the apartment. Wesley followed him in.  They sat side by side on the couch, on top of the dust covers.  Spike rested his elbows on his thighs and leant his chin thoughtfully on his hands.  ‘Angel’s just realised he doesn’t love Buffy anymore.’

Wesley leant back, his face illuminated only by the flickering flames, the hollows and ridges thrown into relief. 

‘They were the romance of the century, Luv.  Jeez, you could have made a show about it: blond teenage slayer and her soulful, dark, vampire lover.  He played the role so perfectly: moping an’ looking like some fucking matinee idol. I think, sometimes, he actually believed it. I think he still believed it until he walked into that office tonight and realised that he doesn’t love her anymore— that he loves something else more. And that’s thrown him a huge curve. He can’t sustain love. He’s blaming himself for not still loving her—wanting to love her, wanting to be that steadfast.’

‘Because if he isn’t, then where does that leave… you.’

‘Exactly. He thinks he’s fickle. He thinks he’s going to tire of me like he’s tired of her— grown out of her, I guess.’

‘Ah. That’s why….’

‘Huh?’

‘He went to see Cordelia tonight. That’s where I saw him.  I think he was testing some faithfulness there, too.’

‘And probably finding it wanting.’

‘Well, even you are slightly more loveable than a coma victim, Spike— on your good days.’

‘Thanks. So, Angel tries to save himself from commitment once more. It’s exactly the same as after that fucking spell. He can’t trust himself to love.’

‘It’s not the same, Spike. You’re sitting here perfectly rational and….’

‘Appearances can be deceptive with vampires, Luv; you should know that.’

‘You have to tell him all this, Spike.’

‘No. I told you: if this was about me, I would. But it’s not. It’s him, and I can’t make him see something he doesn’t want to see. It’s like smoking— you’ve gotta want to give up yourself.’

‘It’s nothing like that. You can tell him….’

‘What? What can I tell him?’ For the first time, Wesley saw that his assessment of Spike’s calmness had been quite wrong.  He pulled back into the shadows more. ‘Shall I tell him that I’ve been the one constant of his whole damn life? Shall I tell him that he is my life? He doesn’t need to hear that. He knows it! It’s that that frightens him. Buffy thought like that too, and where is that love now?’

‘What are you going to do?’

‘I’m going to go to England with Buffy.’

‘Oh.’

They were both silent for some time until Wesley leant forward into the light and said sadly, ‘I really wish you wouldn’t do that.  I shall miss you.’

‘It’s not you I want missing me.’

‘You know he will. I think this will destroy him.’

‘Will it be enough though?’

‘Enough?’

‘Yeah, for him to take the risk and just fucking love me.’

Wesley felt himself losing control of his own iron-tight emotions, so he did not reply directly to this, but murmured in an even tone, ‘When do you leave?’

‘In a few hours. It’s going to take three days so we can travel at night.’

‘You have the resources now to travel in a lot more comfort than that.’

‘I don’t want Buffy to know anything about that— this. My life here.  She’s never wanted anything from me but my body— for varying reasons.’

‘I wish to God I’d not called you this morning.’

‘Jesus, was it only this morning?’

‘Why you, Spike? Why bloody you!’

Spike smiled sadly. ‘Because she knows that if the darkness inside her ever rises, I could take her. I’ve killed two slayers already, and she’s knows I could make it three.’ He turned and looked directly at the human. ‘You were a watcher. You know what a slayer is. You know they were created from evil.  I think she wants the reassurance of having me around.’

‘Oh, Spike, please, don’t go. Make Angel miss you from a place a bit closer?’

‘We’ve been playing that game for two weeks, but that’s all it ever was: a game.’

‘What can I do? What are you going to do with the house?’

Spike didn’t reply. He got up and went swiftly out into the courtyard, and Wesley, feeling his anguish like a stab in his own heart, left him in peace.

They were a small, sad group at the airport, Wesley having driven Spike and Buffy.  He hovered at the departure gate, unsure what to do, wanting to take Spike forcibly and drag him home.  Spike seemed totally shut down: a slim, blond figure moving through the throng as if nothing affected him, nothing meant anything. Buffy, lost in her own thoughts and concerns, did not seem to find this mood of Spike’s strange, and moved with him, equally slim, equally blond. Wesley found himself thinking they were a beautiful couple before his eyes misted up, and he cursed his appalling inability to summon a stiff upper lip when one was so clearly required.

Eyes out of focus, heart aching, he missed the dark figure that peeled off the wall and walked toward them. 

Spike did not, and he snapped up his head, his face rippling with emotion as if he were changing into his other appearance.

Buffy stopped, too, and put her bag down.  ‘Angel?’

Angel pursed his lips but did not speak.  

Wesley suddenly said brightly, ‘Oh, Buffy, Giles asked me to send some… candy… yes, candy back for… the girls! Maybe we could get some in that shop over there— together….’

She glanced at the departure screen, her obsession with time passing her by distracting her from the vampires’ expressions, and nodded. ‘Be quick.’

Alone, Spike turned and went to the window, wishing desperately he could smoke.  Angel came and stood alongside him.

‘You’ll see I’m right when you get there.’

Spike made a small noise in the back of his throat, and Angel said, ‘What?’

Spike shook his head. ‘Nothing. I thought you’d come for something else, that’s all.’

‘Call me when you get there?’

Spike turned, incredulous, his eyes wet. ‘What do you think this is, Angel? This isn’t a hiatus in something that we’ll pick up sometime down the line, just as it ever was. This is us, ending!’

Angel shoved his hands into his pockets, and Spike saw that he’d said exactly the wrong thing—that he’d only confirmed the very things Angel thought about his inability to commit.  Tiredly, he pinched his eyes, willing back the tears before they actually fell. ‘No. I won’t be calling. Will you do me a favour though?’

Angel only nodded. His face seemed calm enough, but Spike saw with wonder that the strong, pale throat was so constricted holding in some emotion, that he couldn’t actually speak in reply.  

‘Look after Wes for me? He’s going to miss….’ Angel spun away and walked rapidly back toward the entrance to the concourse.

When the other two rejoined him, Spike’s back was to them, and he appeared engrossed in the manoeuvrings of the various planes on the runway.  Buffy looked toward Angel’s retreating back and said puzzled, ‘He didn’t say goodbye.’

Spike turned and shouldered his bag. ‘No. He did. He said to say goodbye.’ 

‘Oh. Okay. Are you coming? What’s wrong?’

Spike forced a smile from somewhere in his memory, a place where he’d once been happy, and said brightly, ‘Nothing.’

She went on toward the gate. He looked down at a hand on his arm and kept the smile in place. ‘Cheers, Wes. It’s been fun.’  He followed the smaller blond figure toward the gate as if he’d found his natural role in life.

Chapter 8

Spike spent the first half hour of the flight rigid in his seat, his hands clamped on the armrests and his face lowered.  Watching him out of the corner of her eye, Buffy eventually leant over and whispered, ‘It won’t crash.’

Spike jumped. ‘What?’

‘Big flying machine no crash.’

‘No. I wasn’t…. I was….’ He turned to the window and stared out at the night.

‘What’s wrong, Spike? I come to rescue you from the evil empire; I’m taking you home. Why are you so… moody-vamp?’

Spike didn’t turn his head, but the pressure on his fingers on the arm of his seat increased. 

‘I think I’ve just made the biggest mistake of my life.’

Wesley’s head snapped around at the soft voice, and he saw Angel standing in the shadows of the carpark.  He felt in no mood to pander to Angel’s misery, having enough of his own to cope with.  He unlocked his door and began to climb in, until a hand seized his wrist. ‘Let go!’

‘I need… I need your help.’

Not for the first time, Spike wished he’d paid for a private plane as Wesley had hinted. The trip exhausted him. He felt an ennui so paralysing that he seemed unable to speak or act or even think about the things that were happening around him. He felt more insubstantial than he had as a ghost, except that now everything hurt. The lights were too bright, the planes too loud, people too plentiful. His nerves were beginning to unpeel.  He wanted to scream, and the feeling scared him— such lack of control something he’d fought so hard against. His body betrayed and mocked him, bursting with the illusion of life: swollen painfully hard, aching for the only touch that could relieve it.

He felt his madness returning, but here, in this totally alien world of the skies, he had no respite from that insanity.

‘Spike?’

He jerked back from another retreat into silence. 

‘What’s wrong? This is not good, Spike! You need to….’

‘It’s too high.’ What’s he doing now? Is he missing me yet?

‘Huh?’

‘Up here.  Too high. I’m not supposed to be this high. Creature of the earth, yeah.’ Did he watch the sky? Did he watch me leave?

‘Jesus.’

‘How much longer?’ Is he staring out over the city, lost? Is he lost? 

‘Tomorrow. We’ll be at Heathrow tomorrow, and then it’s a couple of hours drive.’

Spike winced, his head was hurting so much that he couldn’t focus on her words for the buzzing in his ears, but he had to make the effort or he felt the instability pulling him under. ‘You said London.’ Can you hear me? Are you lost, Angel? I’ve got lost, too, and I need you.

Inevitably it was raining when they landed: a cold sweep of horizontal water pushed on a strong northerly wind. Coming from the heat of a Californian August, even Spike shivered as they stepped out of the terminal, but as it suited his mood to be cold and unhappy, he shrugged and tried to light a cigarette in the wind.

A car drew up, and a familiar face leant out of the window, and, with relatively good impression of a taxi-driver, said, 'Anyone for a lift, Love?'

Buffy smiled and slid into the passenger seat, leaving Spike to climb in behind her.  Giles turned and said in his normal voice, 'Spike. Nice to see you alive— given all the caveats to that, of course.'

Spike nodded and turned to look out of the window at the rain.

They drove for some time before Spike interrupted the conversation in the front to say, puzzled, 'Thought you said this gaff was in London?'

Giles chuckled and although he could not actually see him in the mirror, nevertheless addressed the absent reflection. 'I think you must make allowances for the fact that Buffy is American. We're not in Edinburgh, ergo we must be in London.'

Spike sank back into his miserable huddle on the back seat and continued his fascinating study of the wet road. 

Giles continued to watch the empty seat for a while, thoughtfully. 'I hear things are rather different in L.A these days.'

Buffy glanced over at him, puzzled, and Spike hunched further into his coat.

Giles smiled enigmatically and dropped his eyes to the road.

Spike felt hypnotised by the heat in the car and the swish of the wipers on the windscreen. Lights from oncoming cars dazzled his sensitive eyes, and he felt an uncharacteristic headache forming behind his temples, similar to the after-effects of the chip firing off.  He felt like shouting or running, anything to release some pressure that was building up inside his body that he could not control.  He wrapped his arms tightly around his chest. He had the feeling it would be the only touch he would have for a very long time.  Living without touch again.  He thought he would go mad: talking to imaginary people, just to make a connection with someone.  To amuse himself, he began to hum Early One Morning, but a severe, reproachful look from Buffy shut him up. He smiled and enjoyed the mean feeling it gave him.  

They pulled up in front of a small manor house, which appeared to be genuine Tudor, although a later Victorian wing had been added.

Giles took Buffy's bags, eyed Spike's one small holdall then led the way in.

The large hall was dark, gloomy and cold, a granite floor sucking any potential heat out of the house. 

Giles turned to Buffy. 'We have some new girls. Andrew brought them in. You should go and meet them.'

She nodded and turned to Spike, but Giles said swiftly, 'I'll take Spike up to his room.'

Not caring one way or the other, Spike followed the man up the sweeping stairs until they reached the upper hallway.

'Third door on the right, Spike. Remember, we have a house full of impressionable young women.'

'Huh?'

Giles made to turn away then hesitated and turned back. 'Whatever happens, you are actually welcome here— if you decide to stay.'

'I'm bloody here, aren't I?'

'Yes, well. As I said, third door on the right, and don't make too much noise.'

'Stupid git!' Spike stomped off down the dark hallway and half-kicked, half-pushed the door open. He flung his bag onto the bed then put a hand over his face as if by retreating into this small, private darkness he could escape more than just this room or house.

A dark shadow detached from the recess beside the fireplace and waited to be noticed.

Spike lifted his face and paled noticeably. 'Oh, God. I am mad.'  He stumbled away from the figure and back into the hallway.

‘Spike.’

‘No!’ Everything in Spike’s mind screeched, as if he were listening to a vast vehicle trying to avoid a collision. It was impossible that Angel could be there, so the only other alternative was that he was mad. For one moment, everything that had happened since he had emerged from the amulet seemed unreal, wavering on that narrow margin between where reality and dream lay. What was more real, that he was dead and dreaming this, or that he and Angel had really become lovers?  He turned blindly and began to run: down the hallway, down stairs out through a door, where a cold blast of rain splattered across his face.  The rain invigorated him, and he felt the soaked earth beckoning him.  He ran across an ill-tended lawn, vaulted a couple of low walls and crashed into a small, dense wood that crackled under his feet and tangled in his hair.  He pushed through the branches and for the first time heard the one pursuing him.  

He pulled up short and turned. For a ghost, conjured from his madness, Angel seemed very corporeal. He stopped when he saw that Spike had stopped, and they stared at each other across the gap.

Slowly, before Spike could speak, Angel closed the small space separating them. He seemed to sense that Spike needed to touch him, to test his reality, and he laid his hand on Spike’s arm.

Spike looked down then wrenched his arm away as if the touch burned rather than reassured.  

Angel blinked, rain streaming down his face and flattening his hair.  

Spike sobered. He saw that his madness was the phantom after all.  Suddenly, with a hot stab in his spine, anger took the place of fear. He was angry with Angel, but more importantly, he was angry with himself. He’d allowed himself to sink beneath self-doubt once more. He had run away, because he still not could ask Angel for what he wanted in case the answer was no.  It seemed so simple, but its simplicity did not make it any less real or painful, and he was so angry that he had followed meekly behind Buffy’s undefined more and away from the only one who had ever defined that more for him. He was so angry, that he lashed out, catching Angel a stinging slap across his cheek. It wasn’t the usual way he hit him, but it seemed to suit the moment.

Coldly, he turned away and pushed through the branches, just to put some distance between them. The trees cleared, and he found himself in a small clearing. The rain then seemed to ease to a light drizzle, but he was soaked through anyway and hardly noticed the respite.

‘This was never about you, Spike.’

Spike turned, surprised at Angel’s ready confession. He nodded faintly, some of his anger starting to drain away from him. It left him cold and confused again though, and he hugged his arms over his chest.  

Angel came very close as if his presence could warm Spike, but as he appeared even wetter than Spike, this was a vain attempt.  

Suddenly, expecting an explanation, an argument, anything other than what he got, Spike was dismayed when Angel fell to his knees and lifted his face.  ‘Now.’

A jolt of something unpleasant shot through Spike, however, at Angel’s submission, and he realised it was temptation: temptation to do what he knew Angel was asking.  

He tested the situation by pushing Angel’s shoulder, and Angel just stayed on his knees and lowered his eyes. ‘Just take me now, Spike. I can’t explain how I feel, and you won’t believe me anyway.’

‘Get up.’

Angel flinched at something unmistakable he could hear in Spike’s voice, but he rose obediently. He flinched again as Spike put his hands to the waistband of his pants and ripped open his zipper.  Roughly, Spike turned Angel around and pushed him against a tree.  He yanked the torn pants down just far enough to allow his hands to fondle Angel’s cheeks.  They were very pale and felt cold to the touch, quickly becoming slick under the cold rain.  

At his touch, Angel made a small noise in the back of his throat. It was more than fear— a lot more. Spike heard echoes in the tiny intake of breath and realised, with a profound sense of shock, that he was hearing an echo from hell.  He looked around wildly and imagined taking Angel in this place—remembered Angel’s halting confession and the effort it had taken for this great, powerful creature to tell him of such violation.  

As Spike stood with his hands parting Angel for penetration, he knew he couldn’t have summoned an erection if the world were about to end and it would be his last.  He let his hands fall from the cold flesh for a brief moment then replaced one— this time on the small of Angel’s back, sliding it gently under his shirt. Angel turned his head, and at Spike’s expression, he moaned softly in distress and pulled Spike into his arms.

They didn’t speak for a long time. Nothing they said could take away the hurt they’d given each other, or make the understanding between them now any more complete. 

Nevertheless, after some time, Spike lifted his face and said distinctly, ‘When I take you, it will be as perfect as I can make it for you, Angel.  In our bed, at home.’

Angel closed his eyes to the promise and nodded.  

Sensing that Angel now needed to talk, Spike put a finger to his lips then refastened Angel’s pants as best he could.  Taking his hand, he pulled him further into the wood until he found what he was looking for: an ancient tree with disturbed roots.  He ducked in under the thick cover, pulling Angel with him.  Leaves from a previous autumn filled the cavity, and they were still dry, scrunching slightly as Spike made a small nest for them.  

Angel didn’t seem to notice the surroundings; his eyes were troubled.  Spike lit a cigarette, the brief flare from his lighter illuminating Angel’s pain.  ‘Bloody soddin’ weather!’

Predictably, Angel didn’t indulge Spike with a conversation about rain. He spoke haltingly, his voice low and slightly shaky from the cold, stressed at what he had been willing to offer Spike in this place.  His hair was flattened to his scalp, and he began to run his fingers through it continually, as if he could never return it to what it had once been.  ‘I was mad for over eighty years, Spike. I was mad until I met Buffy. In a way, she was my soul for me. Loving her and then trying to be a good man became kinda synonymous. I think I thought, “Without one, how could I have the other?” And the logic kinda got twisted up. I began to think that if I loved Buffy I must be a good man and that my soul must have meaning. And then, there she was, in my office, and I realised that I had stopped seeing myself through her— that I was free of her.’

Angel seemed to find this confession so painful that Spike laid a hand on his knee and said softly, ‘I know.  I worked this out for my….’

‘No!’ Angel turned, and his eyes held a spark of his more habitual spirit. ‘No! I know what you thought— Wesley told me.  I don’t fear not being able to love you enough; I don’t fear that I’m going to lose you! Don’t you get it, Spike? I stopped defining myself through Buffy, because now I do it through you!’
 
‘And that made you turn away from me? That made you deny me?’ Spike’s eyes felt hot, and he blinked them furiously to keep his focus on Angel’s face.

Angel’s head lowered, and the voice was quiet once more, without its usual authority. ‘What am I, Spike, if I’m defined by you? I’ve lost my sense of myself as a man. She was the Slayer; I was the vampire with a soul, but with you, I’m just… me. But I’m not sure who that is anymore.’ He lifted his head, and his voice was angry. ‘So, yeah, I let you go. I turned you away from me.  I came to that fucking airport and watched you leave me, and it was like being in a nightmare where I couldn’t wake up and make it stop happening. It was almost good that it hurt so much. It was what I wanted: to hurt and feel miserable.’ 

‘Why do you need to be defined by anyone? Why can’t you just be… you?’  Spike’s puzzlement was so genuine, that Angel only frowned at him without replying. Spike shrugged and added, ‘You’ve always had everyone fawn over you love, but you’re the one with no confidence. The universe uses me like its own private punch bag, but I always seem to… bounce.’

‘Not helping maybe?’

Spike smiled softly at the petulance in Angel’s tone. It was successfully drawing him away from the despair that he had heard there earlier.  He pulled Angel into his arms and offered him his cigarette.  Angel took a long, sensuous drag, and Spike felt a little more of Angel’s vast tension slip away.

‘Am I dreaming you, Angel? I wanted you to miss me; I didn’t expect you to bloody be here!’

‘Fast jet—CEO perks. We’ve been here two days.’

‘We?’

Angel brought Spike’s hand down for another lungful of smoke. ‘Wesley’s brought the Codex for Giles. I’m giving them to him— to help him start again.’

‘The Watchers’ Council in partnership with Wolfram and Hart? Well, things do change.’

‘Yeah. It’ll wipe that supercilious look off her face….’

Spike smiled into Angel’s hair and only hugged him tighter. Angel being childish was not Angel in despair either, and that was just fine by him.

They were both quiet for some time, enjoying the restful intimacy of smoking and lying in each other’s arms.  As if feeling the moment intensely, Spike suddenly blurted out, ‘Let’s stay here.’

Angel twisted his head around and tried to fathom his expression. ‘In England?’

‘No. Here. In this wood. In this burrow.’

Angel appeared to be considering this then murmured, ‘Living like true creatures of the night….’

‘Under the stars; bared to the earth….’

‘Naked, unencumbered by human concerns….’

‘Hunting and eating small, scurrying…. Okay. Maybe not.’

Angel chuckled ‘We’re sad vampires, Spike. Creatures of showers, designer clothes and microwaved food.’

Spike kissed his hair. ‘Come on. Let’s find Wes and go home.’

Angel crawled out first, cursing the mud now coating some of the designer clothes he had just mentioned.  He put down a hand and pulled Spike out after him. 

Arms loosely around each other – as much as the wood allowed – they strolled slowly back through the rain until they stood on the edge of the lawn, staring up at the huge house.

‘I wonder why they picked here?’

Spike raised an eyebrow. ‘Looking at the state of the roof, I’d say it was cheap.  Where’s Wes?’

Angel smiled. ‘My guess, if we find the library, we’ll find him.’

‘God, I’m so tired suddenly. Jeez, can vampires get jet-lagged?’

Angel frowned. ‘I don’t know. I’ve never flown before— and not for three days. Maybe you are.  You can sleep on the way home.’

Spike tipped his head gratefully onto Angel’s shoulder then straightened. ‘This isn’t going to be easy.’

Angel blinked some rain out of his eyes. ‘I know. Just tell the truth— as far as you can.’

Spike nodded. ‘Okay. I’ll say that I’ve fallen in love for the first time in my life, and that I intend to actually have that life, with you.’

Angel nodded sagely. ‘That should do it.’ He grinned down at Spike. ‘Does it for me.’

Together they went in through the side door they’d left from and wound their way through long, dark stone corridors until they heard voices.

Taking a breath, they pushed a set of large doors open and stepped into light, blinded for a moment by the contract with the darkness they’d shared outside.

All voices stopped, but more disconcertingly, all eyes swivelled to them.  Totally self-consciously, Angel suddenly looked over at Spike. He winced and realised he must look as bad. Spike was dripping wet and his legs were heavily splattered in mud. Leaves stuck out of his hair at odd angles, looking like some ancient, tribal decoration.  Trying to look inconspicuous, he plucked a few of them out.

Spike was staring around the room in horror. Teenage girls wherever he looked. He felt an immediate need to retreat to a cellar somewhere.

Buffy stood, her face registering total confusion at Angel’s presence, but before she could speak, he said, ‘I wasn’t very welcoming, Buffy. I came to say sorry and bring you… have you seen Wesley?’  

She shook her head, as if having trouble processing his presence. ‘Angel?’

Angel smiled weakly. ‘Yeah. In the flesh.’

‘Muddy? And… are those leaves?’

Spike smiled helpfully. ‘Big vamp in the wood needed staking.’

‘And you and Angel… sorry, I’m not getting this.  You and Angel staked a vampire in our wood?’

‘Well, I’m kinda gonna leave him till we get more comfy in L.A. but the thought was there.’

Angel suppressed a smile at Spike’s remark and came toward her.  He laid a hand on her arm then looked around the room at the assembled girls. ‘They’re all… slayers?’

‘Yes, Angel, and they’re not hearing-impaired.’

Angel pursed his lips.  The girls stared back at him.

Overcoming her obvious shock, Buffy looked angry then covered by going back to the front where she’d been addressing them, murmuring to Angel, ‘Can we do this later?’

Angel nodded and walked thoughtfully back to Spike, and they went back out into the large hallway. For the first time, they looked properly at the house, and although they did not speak of what they saw, nevertheless, each sensed what the other was thinking.  Angel tipped his head back and scented the air then led the way down another hallway and pushed open a green baize door.  

Wesley looked up and raised his eyebrows. Giles adjusted his eyes and groaned. ‘God. Have we had another leak? You’re soaked.’

Angel was about to summon Wesley when the watchers turned back to each other, and Giles finished a comment that he had clearly been in the middle of making. ‘So, as you can see, it’s pretty hideous. The girls come here terrified— full of power, I’ll grant you that, but it’s all totally misplaced, untrained.’

‘What’s wrong?’

They both turned to Angel, and Giles took off his glasses, pinching the bridge of his nose.  ‘It’s good in theory: every potential a slayer and all that. But we didn’t really have time to think through all the consequences. Can you imagine a Buffy or a Faith without a watcher’s care and…. Well, Buffy then… can you imagine what she would have been like now without the experiences that have shaped her and made her what she is? You, for example, Angel. Oh, and I suppose you as well, Spike. Are those leaves? See, you have something else in common.’ 

Angel ignored the gibe; he’d suffered them for the last two days since his unexpected and slightly emotional arrival.

‘So, you are bringing them all here?’

‘Well, they come here for the first few weeks— more if they need it. Some of them are very traumatised. Then we’re trying to… well, I suppose foster is the best description We foster them out to suitable people to train and care for.’

‘Why choose this place. It’s…. ‘ Angel tried to be tactful, but Spike helped him out. 

‘A heap.’

Giles frowned. ‘Some of us don’t have the benefit of the millions that support an evil law firm. I’m grateful for the Codex, Angel – very grateful – but don’t come here and criticise what we are trying to do.’

Angel said softly, ‘I wasn’t criticising.’

Giles nodded. ‘Well, all right then. Now, I suppose you are leaving? All of you? Have you told Buffy? She’ll be…. Well, never mind.’

Angel looked down at his feet for moment and didn’t want to look at Spike. Nevertheless, some kind of masochistic impulse made him glance across. To his profound surprise, Spike was not only looking at him, he was clearly thinking exactly the same thing. They had a moment of complete, private, and very intense understanding, and then Spike said casually, ‘Actually, I think I will stay for a tad. Few weeks maybe. If I can help, like.’  He didn’t look at Angel again. He didn’t need to. Angel’s affirmation and love reached him clearly enough without having to see it.

Giles’s relief showed plainly on his face. He just nodded and said brightly, ‘If we have any electricity, would anyone like some tea?’

Chapter 9

Once Spike had declared his intention to stay and help, the vampires had almost no time together at all.  It all seemed frantic; everywhere they went that evening there were girls – slayers – and despite their intimate knowledge of one slayer, en mass, the girls unnerved them.

Before they knew it, Angel and Wesley were standing by the door, with Giles waiting to drive them back to the small local airport they’d flown into.

Spike stood back in the shadows, his hands plunged deeply into his pockets, watching Angel take his leave of Buffy. It was strangely familiar – standing in the shadows watching Angel kiss Buffy – but if he felt a stab of jealousy, it amused him to ponder the very different provenance of that emotion.

Eventually, Angel came over to where he stood, and they looked at each other, to any casual observer, two colleagues discussing schedules.

‘You have my number?’

‘Of course. But I don’t think I’d better call. Too… costly.’

‘Yeah. Too far away. Too hard to be understood… that far away. You have commitments in L.A, Spike. Don’t stay longer than necessary.’

‘As soon as I get back, I’ll see to those… commitments.’

‘I’ll hold you to that.’

The vampires smiled at each other then Angel picked up his bag and strode out.  Wesley wondered if anyone else watching that small exchange with him got the truth behind those smiles.

Spike watched a cobweb on the ceiling for a while then squared his shoulders and said to Buffy, ‘Right. What do you want first? A new roof or plasma-screen TV? Cus, I’m thinking, you could use both.’

She opened her mouth to make a snarky reply, and he held out his hand, smiling. ‘Come on, Luv, I’m gonna tell you a little story about the power of innocence.’

Although he would have bitten anyone who called him a fairy Godmother to his face, nevertheless, that’s what Spike became to the new council over the next few weeks. He poured money, from his seemingly inexhaustible funds, into the house and into the search and retrieval of the slayers.  The girls travelled in more comfort, and when they arrived, the house was warm and welcoming. Training equipment became state-of-the-art, and gradually, what had seemed like the false hopes of a few crazed messiahs, became a professional operation with funds and power at its heart. 

Weeks inevitably rolled into a month and there was still so much to do.

It came as a startling revelation to Spike that he did not miss Angel’s body as much as he had thought he would. He had nearly died after only two weeks of not touching him, but now it was nearly seven weeks since they had last made love, yet he was still standing.  He guessed that missing his best friend consumed him so much that there was little room to pick on one feature he missed more than any other.  He had never thought he could miss someone so much.  Everything he did, he either wanted to consult Angel or tell him about afterwards. It felt a little like losing a loved one to death: the gap in his life was so big he was in danger of falling into it entirely.  He had never understood the expression better half before, but he was beginning to see some truth to it now.  He felt halved and it hurt.

Absorbed in missing Angel one evening, he didn’t hear the door open, and started when Buffy sat down on the couch next to him. She pulled her legs up and tucked herself into a tired huddle.  ‘What’s wrong, Spike?’

He turned and saw the genuine concern on her face.  She smiled. ‘I can read you, remember?’

He smiled ruefully. ‘Yeah, I do.’  He leant back in the couch and tipped his head back to stare at the ceiling. ‘I’m missing my life in L.A, Buffy.’

‘I don’t get it, Spike. This is what we…. I mean…. Isn’t this what you’ve always wanted?’

He rolled his head to stare at her thoughtfully. ‘I’ve made new friends.  Well, kinda renewed old ones.’

‘Angel?’

He nodded briefly. ‘Yes. Our souls have brought us closer together, I guess.’

‘I get that. I do, but….’

‘He needs me.’

She nodded sadly. ‘I think he does.’  Spike knew she was thinking about the firm. ‘But I need you, Spike.’

He frowned and took her hand, playing with her fingers.  With a sense of inevitability about this moment, he replied, ‘I know you do. But I need Angel.’  He looked up and held her gaze.

He watched the thoughts flit across her face for a long time. Eventually, she said with a tight, brittle voice, ‘Because he’s your sire, right?’

He knew then that she knew.  He smiled and nodded his head just once, accepting her graceful offer to leave it with that pretence.

She blinked. ‘I think maybe you had better go.’

For a moment, he thought he’d read her wrong— that she was, after all, bitter and resentful, but as if seeing something of this in his hurt expression, she smiled and added, ‘I kinda know how crappy missing Angel can be.’

For a moment they leant close, her forehead touching his for a brief brush of blond hair, and then she drew away and rose. He caught her hand. ‘Will you be okay?’

She knew he wasn’t referring to his imminent departure.  

She smiled and looked around the empty room.  ‘I should love this… quiet, this… emptiness. But you know? I love it when it’s teeming with girls— with slayers. Can you imagine what it’s like for me, Spike? To be surrounded by my own kind at last?’

‘Hell?’

They both laughed ruefully, and he stood up, squaring his shoulders. ‘I’ll get a flight tomorrow night then.’

He looked down at the hand on his arm, covered it briefly with his own then went to pack his few possessions.

A sense of intense anticipation seized him as he waited for his flight.  Although they had agreed not to call each other, nevertheless, he tried to remember how to use a public phone and dialled Angel’s office.

‘Angel.’

‘It’s me.’

There was a long pause then Angel said very quietly, ‘Just tell me you’re coming home.’

‘I’m coming home.’

Spike replaced the receiver softly. They didn’t need to say more.

As he sprawled comfortably, exhausted, in his seat on the way home, Spike stared out at the dark.  He had the absurd notion that this was the closet he’d ever been to God, and then berated himself severely for the rest of the trip for being a stupid wanker.

He was slightly disappointed that Angel hadn’t come to meet him at the airport but understood Angel’s better judgement as he walked up the drive to the house.  

This was better private.

He walked into a sea of soft, flickering light, candles having been lit throughout the apartment, spilling out into the courtyard, and despite the heat of the L.A. summer, a fire crackled softly in the background.

Angel was leaning on the kitchen counter, drinking a glass of wine, staring out of the window. He turned when Spike came in.

Once more, time began to play its games with them. The five weeks since they’d been apart seemed like one day, but then, before they could process that anomaly, it veered violently the other way and became an eternity—a barrier between them making them feel awkward and shy. 

Angel had never seen this person so clearly as Spike—not since before the spell that had brought them together. He found it hard to process that he wanted to go over and kiss Spike.

Spike could not understand why he didn’t fall on Angel and devour his body, as he had in his mind many times whilst on his extended trip to England. All he really wanted was to hear Angel’s voice, to talk to Angel and tell him things that he had not shared with anyone in that colder country.  He was almost afraid that Angel would fall on him and drag him out to the courtyard to fuck him, or take him there as he stood in the doorway.

Angel smiled and came over, holding out his hand for the bag. ‘Hi. Good trip?’

Spike bowed his head, smiling inwardly. ‘Yeah.’  As Angel took the bag out of his hand, their fingers touched briefly, and a look passed between them that stabbed through the exterior politeness, but nevertheless, Angel just held out his other hand for the coat. 

‘Like it?’

Spike followed Angel’s glance to a beautiful, elegant spiral staircase in smoky-grey wrought iron that matched to perfection the other touches of ironwork around the apartment.  Spike cursed softly and went over to them, lightly running up. 

The room up top was entirely empty.  Angel came up behind him, standing close. ‘I thought we could do the buying of cool things together.’

Spike closed his eyes briefly; so much pleasure in such a short space of time threatened to undo him. He ignored the thought that it was actually only extreme hunger and jetlag making him feel so euphoric.

‘Hungry?’

Spike chuckled, wondering if Angel could now read his mind.  ‘I am.’

They ate out by the pond as had become their habit before Spike left.  Dressed only in a pair of old jeans, finding the unfamiliar heat almost overwhelming after so much damp coldness, Spike ate as if he’d not had real food since the last time Angel had cooked for him.  Angel just sat and watched: let off having to join in because Spike was too tired to insist.

They talked about everything and nothing: the agency, the new council, the girls, Wesley, Andrew. Even Buffy was mentioned, although Spike’s slightly less forthcoming replies about her made Angel steer off this topic.  Again, they battled the time shifts, sometimes feeling as if they’d picked up a conversation they’d been having only a few moments ago, and sometimes despairing over how different their experiences of the last weeks had been, and how much distance now lay between them.

When Angel took the empty plate, their fingers touched.

Spike looked up sharply, as if he’d touched something hot.  Angel hesitated for a moment then pulled him to his feet and kissed him.  Neither heard the sound of the plate crashing to the ground; they were too busy finding the familiar in the almost overwhelmingly strange.

Angel had not touched anyone for the whole five weeks. He had noted it every day, missing Spike so much that darkness seemed to hover around him all the time. Not one touch with anyone. Sometimes when Harmony passed him a file, he would watch carefully to see if their fingers connected, but they never did. He would visit with Wesley in his office, but could not ever conceive of a reason that would make them touch. Occasionally, he found himself hoping that he would get shot so the human or Lorne would dig the bullets out of his body, touching his bare skin, but he remained healthy and entirely alone for five long weeks. He’d lived like that for eighty years, so was surprised how hard he found this much shorter solitary sentence. 

Holding Spike’s half-naked body now was revelatory. He didn’t want to split it open and discover its secrets: he’d done that already. Now, he almost wanted to merge into Spike, absorb his skin and his unique scent slowly, almost like feeding, keeping them bound.

Spike had remembered Angel’s kisses, as he’d lain alone during the long days in England. He’d conjured the taste of his mouth to get hard, touching himself to fleeting images of lips and tongue and soft noises of desire.  He realised now, as he kissed Angel in the soft candlelight and heat of the L.A. night, just how two-dimensional memory was.

With a sigh of reluctance, Spike eased Angel’s mouth off his, but took his hand and, without looking back, led him to bed.

They undressed each other slowly, not speaking, listening to things more intimate than speech.  They began to kiss again, hard bodies pressed together, rubbing, enjoying the friction between them.  Skin-starved, Angel licked and stroked and nuzzled into Spike’s hollows and creases, wanting to expand all his senses to the level they had been before his unwelcome abstinence. His only hunger was for Spike, and he fed off him greedily.

They fell to the bed, rolling in a tangled heap of limbs, not really aware of themselves as individual bodies, but as merged and indistinguishable as their soft, flickering firelight-shadows on the wall.  

Need was so urgent between them that they instinctively reached for the other, eager mouths wanting slick hardness to taste.  They lay side-by-side, foot to head, lost then to their individual pleasures for the first time. 

Having intimate acquaintance with their own cocks for five weeks, they both became unbearably turned on by holding and sucking the other’s. It seemed like a line in the sand that they both willingly crossed: the desire to penetrate excused by the natural male urge, but this – this need to suck cock – much more defining and revealing of what they had become under the all-encompassing love they now had for each other.

Unable to arrange matching orgasms, they enjoyed them staggered, Angel coming first because he was rested and filled with the languid sensuality of the house; Spike, tired, taking longer and needing more skilful mouthing.

When they’d both been satisfied, Angel reversed his position, hauling Spike on top of him, spreading his vast magnificence like a sacrifice for Spike’s comfort.

Hot, sticky, still tingling from his orgasm in Angel’s mouth, Spike fell into an almost immediate, deep sleep; while Angel lay beneath him, trailing his mind up and down their bodies, and feeling every inch of where their skin joined.

When Spike woke, in the strange dreamlike time between sleeping and waking, he thought he was under the sea. He could smell ozone; everything was a filtered, opaque green, like pieces of glass he’d seen on beaches; he could even sense a lulling rocking of the waves.  He puzzled over this for some time until real consciousness returned, and then the waves became more solid—a chest rising and falling. Scent became identifiable as maleness, and the light told him he was at home.

Carefully, he lifted his head and looked at Angel.  He looked so young and vulnerable Spike found it hard to reconcile this with the immediate stab of desire he felt for him. Spike knew it wasn’t all illusion, however—this apparent vulnerability.  Angel was vulnerable, memories of hell colouring their lives even now.

With a sense of inevitability, he initiated the end of these bad memories for Angel. 

He gently placed his lips to Angel’s, and as he kissed him awake, he dragged his body lightly up the slick warmth between them.  The subtle movement sparked involuntary swelling in their cocks, erections hardening and stretching with life of their own. 

Angel opened his eyes and wrapped his arms around Spike’s back, grinding them some more, participating in this incredibly welcome wake-up call. As they kissed, Spike reached his hand down between them and began to play with Angel’s hardness, not enough to bring him off, but enough for him to want what was coming, enough to bring drops of thick fluid to the tip for him to wet his fingers.

When he was ready, he slid his open palm down over Angel’s root, causing Angel to curse softly with pleasure.  The tips of his fingers found Angel’s entrance, and before Angel could object, he pressed them against it, just enough to fire off the sensitive nerves, like a warning of something more to come: a siren for penetration.

Angel tensed, but Spike fell on his mouth, ravishing him so thoroughly there, that he was distracted from the stroking and playing.

When Spike was convinced he would not be rejected, he parted their mouths and, inch by inch, slid down Angel’s body, his intent unmistakable.  

He lay between Angel’s legs and returned all his attention to Angel’s cock for a while, rolling the head around in one cheek, teasing the slit with his tongue, sucking it to intense need and then leaving it.  Without pause, he put his mouth to Angel’s entrance and, probing with his fingers, licked around the hint of red on the slick walls.  Angel arched and cried out, his cock hardening to lie totally flat on his belly. 

Spike pulled Angel gently apart with a finger on each side and pushed his tongue into the heat. He played with Angel’s twitching anus with as much intensity as he had Angel’s mouth.  He worked it: mouthing in, pulling off to tease and stimulate, pushing back in until all of Angel’s intimate place was open to him, waiting for him.  

When Angel pulled his legs up in an unconscious attempt to give Spike more access, Spike knew they were ready. Very gently, he stroked one finger in through the opening along the walls he’d prepared with his tongue.  He found the slight swelling he sought and brushed his finger over it as if it were Braille and he were trying to read Angel’s need for him in its hidden language.  Angel tried to lift off the bed; he threw his arms over his face, moaning, but most importantly, he tried to reach Spike’s hand and urge him further in - harder, faster - anything just to recreate that incredible sensation.

Spike gave it to him again, this time gently circling his finger over his prize, closing his eyes and bringing the memory of Angel’s cock rubbing his to his mind.  

Carefully, without taking the finger away or stopping its erotic stroking motion, he eased up Angel’s body and pulled him to sitting so they could kiss.

Angel thought he’d discovered the complete delights of this new activity, and then he experienced them whilst kissing Spike.  He didn’t know where to put his body; it was almost too much pleasure, and he squirmed under the skilful touch, getting as much pleasure from the finger as he was from the tongue.

Sensing that Angel was very near now, Spike brought his thumb into play, pressing it into Angel’s perineum and root as he stroked.  Angel snapped his head back, cried out almost regretfully, and then shot such powerful arcs of cum out of his bouncing cock, that they hit them both: cheeks, chins, lips— all coated with Angel’s release.  

With utmost care, Spike withdrew his finger and laid Angel back on the pillow, still kissing him, sensing that Angel was only half there: half of him still reliving the powerful orgasm brought forth without a single touch on the more familiar object of his manhood.

When Angel’s eyes focused, he frowned and seemed on the point of saying something, but Spike only kissed him again and murmured, ‘That’s enough for now.’

Before Angel could protest, Spike swung his legs off the bed and scratched. ‘What day is it?’

Angel smiled and stretched, thinking of the promise implicit in the for now and replied, amused, ‘Whatever day it is, it’s Saturday, and I’m not going to work.’

Spike padded over to his bag and rummaged for a while, finding his cigarettes.  Angel sat up so he could see Spike’s naked backside better and murmured, distracted, ‘I kinda thought the mall: TV? Pooltable? Bookcases?

Spike produced his cigarettes with a flourish, grinning.  ‘Get dressed then.’

Angel turned in the bed, lying on his belly, facing Spike. Very slowly he held out his hand, and with a grin of compliance, Spike threw his unlit cigarette away and came forward.

This was much more familiar, and they fell into the routine of Angel fucking Spike as easily as if they’d been doing it for decades rather than mere weeks. Angel was aggressive in his demands, Spike playful and resisting, and they enjoyed the pleasures of being strong and invulnerable.  At one point, just before being happily skewered on Angel’s ready cock, Spike made a last bid for freedom, making it to the new stairs, swinging up them, laughing, knowing the tempting sight he was offering his pursuer: cock vertical and bouncing.

Angel caught him at the top of the stairs, and they fell in a tangle to the floor of the vast empty room.  Fucking became wrestling, and wrestling could have been mistaken for fucking. They rolled and tumbled, twisted and fought, mastering each other, only to surrender and begin it all again with a look, a bite, or soft laughter of need that mastered them both.

Eventually, bloody, aching, Angel ended the game and took Spike. There was no elegance, no need to consider underlying worries— they both knew exactly what they wanted and gave it to each other: Angel frantically thumping into Spike’s contorted body until they both got off. 

They rolled away when they were spent, panting and laughing in the aftermath of powerful orgasms. Spike had taken the brunt of all the sperm: in him and covering his belly and chest. Feeling cheated, Angel levered over him and lowered— hard, taking Spike’s breath away with an umph of shock.  Angel grinned and looked at him through hooded eyes.  ‘I missed you, by the way.’

Spike stretched his arms above his head, grinning inanely in response. ‘Oh yeah.’

Angel lowered his face much more gently, and with aching, cum-and-blood-covered muscles, they kissed as sweetly as any human lovers reacquainting themselves after a considerable absence.

Angel couldn’t give his usual concentration to the shopping.  As they wandered around the mall, in his imagination, he could still feel Spike inside him— fingers bringing him to peaks of pleasure he had never anticipated from that act.  He’d had some inkling - watching Spike writhe beneath him enough times - but still, he’d not foreseen the intense, intimate joy that it had given him.  It gave him a whole new perspective on his body, which he had lived in for over two hundred and fifty years, and which he had assumed had revealed all its secrets.  It wasn’t just his body, however, that was revealed in a new light. He was seeing Spike’s through new eyes, too—especially his fingers, which were even now fiddling with a cigarette, lighting it, holding it to his mouth. All these things, Angel watched covertly with new eyes. Spike’s fingers were long and elegant, a pianists fingers (except for the bitten cuticles), with blunt, serviceable nails. Angel had cause to know just how serviceable the blunt tips of Spike’s fingers were.  Watching Spike gave Angel a surge of affection for the human form that he rarely felt, and with that surge, one more layer of his self-hatred peeled off and washed away.  Spike was beautiful; he was beautiful; and the day stretched pleasurably ahead of them, leading inexorably to the time when he would enjoy more than blunt, beautiful fingers.

For the first time since he had purported wanting Spike to take him fully, Angel actually did.  

When they got back to the apartment, Spike shed his coat and began to examine the things they’d bought, carrying books up to the top level in preparation for the new bookcases.  Angel went to the kitchen to put away some food, leaning on the counter. He was in a dilemma: he had no idea how to ask Spike for what he wanted. He turned and watched him surreptitiously, but the words I want you in me wouldn’t come to him.  He hunched his shoulders, desperate for the feel of Spike taking him, for the feel of those strong fingers giving him pleasure, for the intimate newness of lying down and allowing himself to be given pleasure.

Spike came over and began to rummage in the fridge for something to eat. ‘You thinking of cooking tonight?’

‘Huh?’

‘Cooking? Or do you wanna go out?’

‘I—.’

‘Guess we could ask Wes over, too.’

‘I—.’

‘Think about it. I’m gonna unpack some books.’  Spike jogged up the new stairs out of sight.

He ignored the books and went to sit on the windowsill overlooking the courtyard. Angel’s need reached him even there; it was palpable throughout the apartment.

He had never felt so right. He would go down soon and take as the natural predator he was. He would thrust with his maleness, claiming as he had claimed all his lovers.  For the first time though, his desire to take was matched by his lover’s desire to be taken. He lit a cigarette and blew a slow, lazy ring of smoke toward the window. He sensed Innocence behind him, wandering around the vast empty space that had once been her drawing room. She’d wanted him to have the house, and he felt her sense of deep approval that he was finally making it his.

With a slow stretch of anticipation, he flicked his cigarette to the floor and jogged lightly down the stairs.  

Angel was making a desultory stab at making some food, and Spike smiled at the obvious distraction on his beautiful features.  He went up behind him and slid one hand under Angel’s shirt onto the small of his back.

‘Come to bed, Angel. I want you.’

He felt the strong, invulnerable body shudder beneath him. He turned Angel and pressed him back grinding them together.  Slowly, he unbuttoned Angel’s shirt until he had the nipples exposed, and he played with them as his tongue explored the eager mouth.  

Angel had clearly been ready for some time and lay hard and thick down one leg of his pants.  Spike put one hand down, tracing the line of the erection from root to tip, scratching his nail over the head, making a small damp patch appear on the expensive material.  

Angel braced himself on the counter, leaning back, his whole body avowing his capitulation.  Spike grinned and leant in, biting one nipple harshly.  Before Angel could hiss with surprised pleasure, he bit the other then stood back to watch them flush to ripeness.  The pants began to tent, Angel groaning with the need to be released.  Spike ignored this and went back to the nipples, sucking each in turn, as he had with other lovers. If either of them saw the significance of his sudden interest in Angel’s nipples, neither commented on it.  Angel only stretched back some more, his magnificent muscles now shown off to best advantage.  

As he mouthed into the enticingly hard buds, Spike began to release Angel’s belt, slowly working the leather tongue out of its buckle, cracking it slightly as he flicked it back.  At the tiny sting of leather on his bare belly, Angel let out a small sound of pleasure that almost undid Spike’s calm control of the seduction.  He hesitated for a moment, head hung down until he could control his own ache, and then he eased Angel’s zipper down, the sound shockingly loud in the otherwise silent apartment.

Angel was wearing soft cotton boxers under his pants, and Spike grinned, sliding his hand into the warm opening, scratching his nails though the wiry hair around Angel’s root. The whole erection lifted and twitched as he played around its source, but he was careful not to touch its silky length.

He knelt and peeled Angel’s pants down his long legs, helping him step out of his shoes.  It had been amusing to make Angel strip, but undressing him like a possession was a lot more fun.

Angel’s hands began to stray to his obvious need, but Spike slapped them away and rose up again, shaking his head.  Very carefully, keeping Angel’s gaze the whole time, he arranged the swollen cock and balls so they poked up over the waistband of the shorts. 

Possessions should be shown-off to their natural advantage.

When he was satisfied with his toys, Spike played with them for a while: teasing the wet tip with a nail while he bit the nipples, allowing the head to slip between his lips as he reached up and twisted the tiny buds in his fingers, taking the whole length into his throat as his fingers slipped under the shorts to seek out thin, stretched, sensitive skin.  

Angel opened his legs wide, and Spike knew what that small gesture meant.

Rising back to his feet, he took Angel’s hand and led him to the bed.  He made him lie down on his belly and eased the shorts off his backside, leaving them just around the top of his thighs, the smooth curves of his arse exposed.  He palmed them both, spreading his fingers over the cool roundness.  ‘Tell me what you want me to do.’

They both sensed that this telling would be more for Angel’s benefit than Spike’s, as Spike already knew exactly what Angel wanted.

‘I want….’ Angel frowned.  

Spike stroked his finger lightly through Angel’s cleft, increasing the pressure just over the hole.  

‘I want you inside. There.’

‘Okay.  Tell me how, Angel.’ He straddled Angel’s thighs and parted the perfect cheeks, stretching them hard. ‘Like this?’  His tongue lapped at the soft pinkness just visible with the stretch.  Angel shuddered and moaned. 

Spike’s tongue entered him, and he rose off the bed, arching his back.

Spike withdrew and pulled Angel onto his knees.  

Looking at Angel’s cock over one broad shoulder, he hissed softly at how ready it looked: red, the slit puffy and weeping with need.

Holding Angel around the waist, he eased a finger into Angel’s backside, pushing it in inexorably as if to slide right in and stiffen, puppet-master-like, that raised thickness.

Angel was panting.

When Spike began to stroke around the swelling that inevitability drew him, the panting turned into gasping, and without his own volition, Angel came: powerful shots of cum propelled vertically into the air and falling down around their thighs like opaque rain.

Angel growled, sounding genuinely angry, and Spike withdrew his finger gently. Almost immediately, Angel turned on him and Spike laughed, knowing what he intended, knowing how much he would now want to take him.  

Angel pushed him onto his back, and Spike made to raise his legs obediently, but Angel growled again and straddled his thighs. With precise deliberation, he rose up and impaled himself on Spike’s hardness. Slick, prepared by the strong finger, he took Spike in as easily as a woman could, with almost no sign of pain on his strong features. 

Utterly taken aback, Spike arched and hissed, not sure whether he was warning or welcoming.  Angel held Spike’s jaw and forced him to keep eye contact as he rose slowly, now controlling the fucking entirely.

Spike arched once more, but this time stimulated by the intense pleasure of Angel’s tightness around him.  Angel breathed a soft sigh of total capitulation then spread his hands over Spike’s smooth chest and gave himself entirely to the pleasure of the taking.  They kept each other’s eye contact. Angel rode Spike for what seemed like hours, and in that blurring between who took and who was taken, they found that perfect balance between what they were individually as men, and what they could now be together. 

The End

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