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Reality Check - Chapter 11

 

 

 

Invigorated by his wake-up call, Angel was a person Spike had never really seen before. He seemed to integrate the best parts of his demon and human self. He took Angelus’s sense of humour, his love of life, his energy, his charisma, and blended them with Angel’s good heart and his desire to do right.

It was the worst possible thing to happen, for Spike would have found it hard to resist the desire to stay in this better-than-life world if Angel had just been… Angel. Like this, he didn’t stand a chance.

Once drained, Angel seemed keen to begin their first real day together. He chatted endlessly, wandering naked around the room while he selected and rejected items from the largest closet Spike had ever seen.

Spike watched him from the bed, thinking about doing this every day… or for as many days as they had left….

Despite his slow starvation in the real world, Angel seemed to only grow in energy in this one. Spike guessed it was true that dying boosted the brain’s activity. He wondered if Wesley was in the lab, watching the thin line of Angel’s life dipping inexorably. What about his? How long would Wesley allow him to stay here before he ripped off the wires connecting them? He could go back and lie to the human: tell him that he needed to stay here until the very last minute—to make Angel’s return easier. He could tell him that he’d bring Angel back with him when his resistance was lowest. Then not—bring him back. Neither of them… back.

But then Angel would die, and he might be trapped in Angel’s dead consciousness.

‘Spike!’

Spike jumped.

‘What’s wrong?’

Angel was sitting on the bed alongside him. Spike lifted his hand and ran it thoughtfully over the demon-smooth cheek. ‘Can you make this real for me, too?’

Angel smiled, his odd, enigmatic smile. ‘Things are as real as you want them to be, Spike. You know that. We lived as demons in a human world, but we were real. How real do you want it to be?’

Spike felt tears well and tipped his head back, biting his lip. ‘I want this.’

Angel bent down then whispered and kissed at the same time. ‘Then it’s yours.’

He pressed their mouths together and eased his tongue between Spike’s lips, a little dart for some aftertaste of his own essence. He groaned with pleasure at the discovery of the warmth and sweet-salty flavour of Spike’s mouth.

They played with their tongues for a while, curling them around and around, elegant strands of living flesh. With a small cry, Angel began to kiss around Spike’s face, pressing lips into his eyes, bending around to kiss his ears. Spike’s mouth pressed into the warm column of Angel’s throat, and before he could stop them, his fangs descended. It wasn’t just the smell and feel of human skin; he was responding to Angelus, too. Under the cloak of his humanity, Angelus was still there, enticing Spike as he ever had.

Perhaps if he drank deeply from Angel’s psyche, he too would catch this demon.

Angel’s tongue was hot and insistent in his ear. Spike began to lick and nuzzle at the column of the beating throat. Before they knew it, they were climbing into each other, rolling and entwining on the bed, not sure who was begging whom or for what, only knowing that they needed more: more of tongue or lip or cock or words of love and need.

They ended up as they both knew they would: Spike on his back, Angel braced over him, one long sleek body covering the other.

Very slowly and surely, Angel began to lift Spike’s thigh. The words were ragged but coherent. ‘I want you.’

Spike felt his belly drop as if from a great height. He was falling from that height, and he knew what awaited him when he hit: oblivion.

With absolutely clarity, he knew how the demon intended to enter him—on the flooding release of this other demon held in its thrall. He would be impregnated with Angel’s delusion, and they would be joined until their solid bodies withered and shrank.

But it wasn’t the demon asking him. It was Angel. Angel’s eyes, watching his for assent. Angel’s mouth, descending to his to kiss compliance. Angel’s body hard and urgent and wanting him. And it wasn’t the demon in him relenting. It was the man he’d once been. The one who had fallen in love with a charismatic demon and had fallen for the promises, which dropped enticingly from silken lips.

He could let Angel do this thing—bring him to the dark side once more on the promise of his love, or he could return to the real world.

Spike reasoned that if he had a little longer, he might be able to think of one thing worth returning to real life for.

He was damned if he could think of one now though.

He arched with a hiss of consent and lifted his legs.

Angel moaned with pleasure and whispered into his ear, ‘Have you ever done this?’

Spike chuckled and shook his head.

Angel’s hand slid down fondling him, and Spike winced with intense pleasure. Gradually, Angel’s fingers crept further down, swirling patterns of need on his perineum until they reached their destination.  He rubbed two-fingered on the sensitive edges, pressing gently as if testing resistance.

With a small, crooked smile, he murmured, ‘Keep this thought,’ and began to climb off.  Spike cried out in protest, which led to a prolonged bout of kissing. Eventually though, laughing, Angel cried, ‘Lube!’ in an urgent voice and hopped off the bed, running toward the bathroom.

Spike blushed then blushed some more at the thought that he was more embarrassed by the thought of lubrication than he was at the reason for it.

He stretched on the bed, loose-limbed with anticipation. He was so close to the fulfilment of Angelus’s promise now he could taste it.

‘NOOOO!

The shout made the house wink out for a moment. Spike felt a sickening lurch as the bed dissolved beneath him.  He tore into the bathroom and found Angel punching his fist into a mirror.

Spike shouted and caught the bleeding fist.

The mirror was nothing more than shards, but it didn’t really matter: there was nothing for it to reflect anyway.

Angel stared at his lack of reflection, and the emptiness in the slivers of glass was mirrored in his dark eyes.

The room imploded, and Spike felt it as a burst of pain flaring inside his head.

He opened his eyes and saw Wesley standing at the foot of the bed.

There was a bellow of demonic fury; he clamped his hands to his ears reflexively, rolling off the bed.  

Angel was on his feet, his eyes darting in his head like a cornered animal seeking escape. With another bellow, he bent, upturned the bed on his audience, and left.

 

Continue to chapter 12