Time is the Fire in Which we Burn

Episode 1, Chapter 4

Wesley took a very long time to answer the door. When he saw who it was, he tried to shut it again.

'Move your foot, Angel.'

Angel pushed past him and went in. 'I'm not going to let him destroy us.'

There was too long a pause. Long enough to force Angel to turn and look at the human. When their eyes met, Wesley said lowly, 'This has nothing to do with him; we both know that.'

Angel came forward and stood menacingly close, invading the human's space, expecting him to retreat. When Wesley stood his ground, Angel had to take a step back, disconcerted. He rallied to say bitterly, 'You weren't the only one in shock. It's not easy to come back and find yourself in someone's arse. What did you expect me to do? Kiss you and make fucking passionate love to you?'

'No. Some recognition of something would have been nice though. I felt no more from you than I had from him.'

'I DID NOT brutally rape you.'

Wesley came forward, and Angel was forced to retreat once more. 'At least there was some emotion in that.'

'You don't mean that.'

'Don't I? Fucking hell, Angel! You made me feel dirty.'

'I DIDN'T rape you!'

'NO! You pulled out so fast you'd have thought I was contaminated!'

'You know that's not what happened. Fuck! Wesley… you were bleeding so badly… I-I….'

Angel turned away, and Wesley laughed, a bitter harsh sound. 'Pretty disgusting, wasn't I - compared to the pale perfection you are used to now.'

Angel flattened him to the wall. 'You were bleeding. It overwhelmed me with… need. Wesley, I wanted you so much. I was in you and so close, so hard and… your blood on me… if I'd…. It's not how I've always wanted it to be with you….'

Suddenly, Angel bent his head and kissed the startled human. Wesley resisted because he felt he ought to, because only a few minutes ago he had hated Angel more than he thought it possible to hate anyone, but his resistance only lasted as long as it took Angel's tongue to find his. Then all he could think about was the feel of Angel's body pressed to his, the hardness of the erection that rubbed against him and the intoxicating smell of this vampire that confused him with the mixed emotions it elicited.

Angel eased them down to the floor and began to unbutton Wesley's shirt, kissing into his neck, trying so hard to make this intense focus on his warm, pulsing column seem natural and loving. He forced himself away and bit Wesley's nipple, by the reaction he got, realising that this was the first time anyone had done that for him.

He began to push Wesley's jeans down slowly, distracted by the desire to stop and run his hands through wiry curls, stroke a stiffening penis.

When he was ready, Angel returned to Wesley's mouth, parting his lips with an eager tongue, seeking him there once more as his finger sought to enter elsewhere.

Wesley eased his mouth away. 'No. No further. No more.'

Angel came back from a place where he bathed already in human warmth and focused on the blue eyes. 'Why? We both want it.'

'I can't. I'm too badly injured there still.'

Angel winced and his mood was broken. His gaze raked slowly over the familiar face and something else crept in and took the place of thoughtless need. Without catching his eye, Angel lifted the human's thigh and gently examined the damage. Wesley lay staring at the ceiling, a deep flush reddening the skin beneath his stubble.

Suddenly, he cried out in disbelief as Angel's cool tongue lapped gently at him.

There was an immediate stillness. 'Does that hurt?'

Wesley didn't reply. Angel took the insistent fingers in his hair as a no. He used his tongue like the softest of healing touches, his cool saliva like balm and after a while, Wesley could not distinguish the throb of pain that had been his constant companion for days from a new throb of deep desire.

Angel began to widen his area of interest, licking up Wesley's bruised perineum. At that, the human put his hands down and lifted Angel's face, rolling away to one side. 'I can tell myself that what you just did was medicinal, Angel. If you go further, I can't use that lie.'

'Why do you need to lie to yourself?'

'Because I want you.'

'Then….'

'I don't want a pity fuck to make you feel better.'

'I was kinda planning to make you feel better.'

At that, Wesley smiled for the first time in many days. The atmosphere shifted between them on that small twitch of facial muscle. Angel sighed and laid his head on Wesley's chest. 'I'm sorry.'

Wesley stroked his hair. 'I don't want this to destroy us either.'

Angel rose up and captured Wesley's face. He kissed him with a gentleness and care that the human did not know the vampire possessed. He kissed into his eyes, kissed deeply into his mouth and then into the hollows of his throat, not pausing there at all before he came back to Wesley's lips. Then, as swiftly as he had begun, he stopped and put his head back on the warm chest. Wesley started at the ceiling for a long time before saying softly, 'It's my turn to apologise, Angel. You have come so far. I don't think I had really appreciated just how far until I… met him. You could take me now, and I could do nothing to stop you. But you kiss me like that and expect nothing more.'

He heard a faint chuckle from the vampire and pulled his head up. 'What?'

Angel looked down. 'Nothing, only I was thinking I'm beginning to use Spike's method of keeping his employees happy.'

Wesley looked incredulous and then laughed too. He sat up, and Angel helped him to his feet, rearranging his clothes for him.

They were both aware that the blond vampire had been subtly conjured into an already charged situation. 'Does he know you are up here?'

'He made me do it.'

'Ah. I might have known.'

'He bullies me as effectively as you do.'

'I suspect his tactics vary from mine though. I must say, he is exceptionally trusting.'

Angel raised an eyebrow. 'He has his own agenda going on this one, Wes.'

Wesley felt a tingle run down his spine at some implicit promise in this and glanced away to hide his expression.

Angel saw the look, but chose not to comment on it. Instead, he grinned and said, 'We're okay, aren't we?'

Wesley nodded. 'Yes. We're… okay.'

Angel ran down the stairs two at a time and almost made as much noise coming back to Spike's apartment as he'd made leaving it. He crashed into the bedroom flinging off his clothes. He ripped Spike over onto his back, climbed on him and stabbed into his hole. 'Oh. Fuck. I'm gonna burst.'

Spike watched his expression with amusement, allowing himself to be malleable in Angel's hands. 'Good meeting then, Pet?'

Angel didn't reply; he was too busy thrusting. Spike rubbed his hands lightly over Angel's arms, tickling up the hairs, looking intently at the dilated eyes. 'You're in him, aren't you?'

Angel hesitated fractionally, but then resumed his humping.

Soft words slithered over him. 'You didn't pull out, Angel; you're still in him, and he's so warm….'

Angel's eyes focused on Spike incredulously, but then he let out a huge groan of delight and pounded furiously into his hard lover.

'Yeah, that's right Angel; make it good for him. Other you couldn't have… he didn't know shit about this. But you do. You're so good, Angel; make it good for him. There… you're on his spot…. OH! Fuck! He's arching, Pet, bucking to the weight of you. There, do you like that? Shit, Angel, harder, harder. Was he bleeding? Was it hot and slick? I can hear it singing through you, Angel. Remember it for me too.'

Angel's hands began to roam restlessly over Spike's chest, and Spike knew he was seeking for soft, dark hair. He looked up at Angel's closed eyes and knew that in his mind, his lover was bringing himself off deep in Wesley's body. 'Bring him off too, Luv.'

Hands came to cock - more gently that they'd ever taken its silky hardness before. Angel seemed to be playing, as if with some human vulnerability, but he could hold back no longer. His jaw clenched; he stopped pumping into Spike and flung himself down, crushing them together and shuddered a long, hard orgasm deep into the invulnerable rectum.

Angel finished and began to roll off, but he saw Spike's neglected need, squashed between them. Without hesitation, he slid down and took it in his mouth. Intending to suck him off, he merely became a receptacle to catch the sperm that Spike jettisoned. It streamed from him, filling Angel's mouth, running out over his lips and chin. Spike arched off the bed with the pleasure, and Angel was dislodged, a rope of cum still joining them as Spike's cock bounced and waved in its own unassisted dance of pleasure.

Finally, they lay on their backs across the bed, staring at the ceiling. Spike turned his head, looked at Angel, then turned back.

At the movement, Angel turned to watch Spike's profile. Spike grinned at the perusal. 'That was….'

'Different.'

'Good different?'

'For me… oh, yeah. But you?'

Spike heard the worry in Angel's tone and turned, a soft, loving kiss his only reply for some minutes. Finally, he said softly into Angel's open mouth, 'Yes. For me too.'

Angel nodded. 'But that's done with now. That's as far as it goes.'

'Yeah. Sure.'

'I mean it, Spike. You play your games with us; we occasionally oblige you by taking our appointed roles, but this is real life, not a game. Wesley and I are colleagues - nothing more.'

'So… when I ask him tomorrow - and you KNOW I will - how you two made up, he'll confirm that it was all done in a professional way between… just colleagues?'

He laughed at Angel's expression. 'Keep trying, Pet. You're at your most endearing when you're in total denial.'

Angel huffed and sat up. 'Jeez, I must decide what clothes to leave here.'

'You could buy something new for here.'

Angel's eyes lit up with the prospect of a shopping trip, and Spike poked him in the ribs. 'You are a sad, sad vampire.'

'Come with me, and I'll buy you something.'

Spike sat up. 'What have I done to earn such favours?'

Angel pursed his lips as if thinking. 'Oh, nothing special… bought me back, became my champion, tried to keep Wesley safe, saved my friendship with him when you couldn't…. nothing special.'

Angel smiled at Spike's expression and pushed him onto his back. 'I want just you now.'

Spike pulled him closer and opened his legs so Angel could lie between them. They kissed and played with their mouths and tongues, never letting the other's gaze drop, small flickers of expression flaring desire between them. Their bodies melded together until they shared flesh, shared the sensations that this exquisite intimacy gave them.

Angel went unerringly to Spike's nipples and began to bite and claim them for his own. Arching up, laughing, Spike only presented them more, and Angel moaned into the hard chest and licked a trail down to the enticing belly. He licked repeatedly at small hollow, and Spike pushed his hips up to get more friction against his cock. It bobbed temptingly just below Angel's mouth as he played with Spike's belly button: red, leaking, raw with need. Fluid, clear and heavy, bubbled out over the tip and ran down the side. Angel licked and caught some on his tongue, savouring it. His eyes dilated, and he eased the foreskin down, fastening his lips tightly around the smooth knob. He began to probe with his tongue into the slit until, pulling away, he could see the soft puffy sides spread open and twitching. He grinned and went back on, sucking this time to bring the seeping fluid into his mouth.

Spike sat up and gasped at the sensation of the deep sucking on his raw cockhead. He put his hands to Angel's head to make him ease up, so Angel rose up swiftly and captured his mouth once more, tonguing the fluid back to Spike. They laughed into the kiss, and hands began their restless roaming over smooth, warming flesh, just taking pleasure from the touch and the closeness. Angel put his hand down, caught both cocks in his strong fist and kept them rubbing together while he kissed. Spike eased his mouth away and looked down. He raised an eyebrow and whispered against Angel's cheek. 'Let's dock.'

Angel did nothing but give him a puzzled look, so Spike gave him a fond kiss before taking matters into his own hands. He eased Angel's hand away and then brought the leaking heads of their cocks together. Gently, he worked his foreskin up until it was soft and loose at the end. Angel hissed in anticipation as he realised what Spike was going to do, and then his glans was encased in another, warm skin. He arched back at the pleasure, and Spike grabbed his arm. 'Careful.' Angel nodded and put his hand in wonder to the joining. He moved the foreskin over his sensitive head, and it made their slits rub against each other. Spike swore slightly at the sensation and began to work his shaft with long slow strokes. Angel matched him, and they didn't know whether to look down at the erotic sight of their penises joined and moving inside one skin, or to watch the other's expression and lose themselves in deeply dilated eyes.

Spike slipped his hand around Angel's waist and stroked over his hard, smooth cheek. He felt the muscles tensing under the slick skin and knew Angel was close to coming. He moved his hand further up his shaft and enclosed his foreskin then, looking directly at Angel, worked him under the borrowed covering.

Angel cried out at the intense pleasure and suddenly his cock began to spasm under Spike's hand. Spike held on firmly and, incredulous, felt the foreskin fill and swell with Angel's sperm. The tip of his cock bathed in the jetting fluid, each shot tickling against his open slit. It was too much sensation. His balls contracted with a hard pulse, and he flooded his sperm into Angel's until the two offerings mixed as one. Cum ran out over their hands, dripped between them to swing off in ropey strands to the bed. There was too much cum to keep a grip on the still hard shafts; they slipped apart and each finished in his own way, watching the wet working of the other until they were both spent.

They fell together onto their sides. Spike spread his arm out and cushioned Angel's head. Angel smiled at him. 'It's good to be back.'

'What was it all about?'

Angel frowned and Spike added, 'Spell? Ghost? I didn't really get it.'

Angel shrugged. 'Wesley'll know.'

'And you can ask him in the morning. Now that he's okay with you.'

Angel grinned. 'Yeah, I'll get him to explain it all.'

'And you don't remember any of it?'

Again, Angel frowned. Spike took a breath. 'See… if he was you then, and he came here and then went back there - how come you don't remember that happening to you when you were there.'

Angel kept his gaze. 'Just run that past me one more time.'

'What happened the day after they hanged you?'

'I went somewhere and sulked.'

'You didn't get sucked here.'

'Well, no, obviously not or when I got… here, I'd be waiting for that to happen... Oh. Yeah.'

'Right.'

'Right what?'

'Right… I don't know what right, I've kinda lost my own thread.'

'Maybe I did remember it in some way.'

'Okay, I really am lost now.'

'Well, when you got souled, I told you I thought about you a lot and then began to think about you… differently. Why?'

'Cus I'm so good looking and athletic?'

'Maybe because I was unconsciously remembering already having you.'

'When you were here.'

'Yeah.'

'Remembering the future.'

'In the past.'

'Fuck. My head's hurting.'

'It's like you said to me - that I had a permanent pass to your heart. Maybe you had one to mine because somehow, all that did happen, and I wanted you because I'd had a taste of you. You were already part of my future and time just flowed on - inevitably bringing us together.'

Spike gave him a cheeky look. 'Fate?'

'Kinda.'

'No choice.'

'None. I don't want you, Spike; I'm just condemned by fate to have you.'

'Maybe do less talking and more actually having me then?'

Angel willingly complied.

*************************************************

The next day, recovering (although he would not admit this to anyone), Spike opened his eyes cautiously, aware someone had come into the room while he slept. He grinned inwardly. He'd never seen Jordan do Wesley before and watched, intrigued as the demon sat cautiously on the bed. Spike decided it wasn't one of the best impressions he'd seen the young shape-shifter do. Up this close, the strong smell of cigarettes rather gave him away. Nevertheless, Spike felt Jordan was owed some encouragement. He wouldn't want these amusing wake up calls to stop altogether. He suddenly rose from the pillow and seized the startled face. He kissed him deeply, amused by the very authentic stubble on his face.

'Nice try again, Mate, and ya know…? This time I think I might just pretend to fall for it, cus… fuck do I want Wesley.… Jeez, you've got his eyes just right. They are so beautiful. When he looks at me like that I almost cream…. How well have you done his cock then? Cus I've never seen it, and I want to… I wanna suck it 'til it….'

'Spike….'

'Oh yeah, say my name again. Tell me you wanna fuck with me in his voice; cus he won't, and I want him to. Come on Jordan, say….'

'Spike!'

'Don't pull away - here, put your hand on me. See how hard you've made me? Now, rub….'

'Spike. I came to tell you that Lilah is here. She wants to see you.'

Spike sat back from the amused blue eyes. He tipped his head on one side. He narrowed his eyes and swallowed deeply. Then he coughed slightly. 'Li….' He lowered his voice and tried again. 'Lilah?'

'Yes. In the office. With Sam. Oh… and Jordan.'

'Jordan.'

'Hmm.'

'Fuck.'

'Thanks, but… no thanks.'

'Fuck.'

'Quite.'

'I'll get dressed then.'

'I would.' Wesley got up to leave.

'Watcher.'

'Yes, Spike?'

'This… stays in here, yeah?'

'What does? That my eyes make you… how did you put it? Something to do with cre….' The pillow hit him with some force, and he retreated, laughing into the office.

A few minutes later, Spike emerged and, shaking his shoulders slightly, stomped toward the kitchen. He nodded morosely at Lilah. 'Bitch.'

'Bastard.'

He stopped and sniffed then groaned as he suddenly worked out why Wesley had smelt so strongly of smoke. 'Are you two fucking again?'

'We sure are.'

'What?' He squinted suspiciously at her attempt to repress a smile. He heard other repressed snorts of laughter but turned to find Sam and Jordan engrossed in something on the desk. Wesley was leaning against the wall, inspecting a small flaw in one nail. 'You traitorous bastard.'

Wesley only shrugged slightly. 'But I've got beautiful eyes.'

No one made any attempt to repress the laughter after that. Spike stood in the centre of their circle, no one taking much notice of his theatrical fury. He stood it for as long as it took to successfully hide his own amusement, and then he shouted for silence. 'Right. That's it. I'm changing the dynamic of this agency. I'm pissed off with you all. From now on, there's gonna be a lot less fun and a lot more bloody work.'

They stared at him in wonder for a moment then Jordan said, 'So, who's for a game of strip poker? I'll be Angelina Jolie, and I'll let you guys cheat.'

Sam produced alcohol. Lilah slid around and sat, straddled on Wesley's lap. They all looked at Spike.

He shrugged. 'Fuck it. We'll work tomorrow.'

The End

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