At first, Spike didn’t get what he was seeing. It took some moments – long ones – before what he took to be a fight, revealed itself to be… a rape.  The demon was leaning into the boy, and his jerking movements looked so aggressive that Spike had thought the child was being mugged.  When he worked out the positions, he attacked thoughtlessly, coming out of the shadows of the alley, tearing the demon away, ignoring his expression, taking his head in one majestic sweep of his axe.

Something then hit him hard from behind, and he staggered, colliding with the falling torso, pushing it away disgustedly.

Spinning around, he recoiled at the demonic face that greeted him.

Oh, bloody hell!

Mistaking demon for human was never a good idea.

‘Hey!’ Spike finally recovered his senses enough to push back.  ‘I’ve just saved your bloody arse!’

The small figure appeared to recover, too, and he began to fasten his clothes.  ‘He wasn’t very good anyway.  You’ll do much better.’

‘Huh?’ Spike took a step back, turning with a puzzled look to the head at his feet.  The expression didn’t look so aggressive now— it looked confused, scared.

He turned back slowly and licked his lips. ‘I’ll killed the wrong one.’

The creature nodded, grinning.  

‘Never no mind.’ Spike swung his axe once more and took the thing’s head, too.

He blew out a long breath and shook out his shoulders.  With care, he moved the head and torso of the larger demon into the shadows and covered them gently.  ‘Sorry, Mate.  But I’m thinking you were no saint either.’

He shouldered his axe, stepped over the smaller body and stomped through the alley toward the street, unaware that a pair of small, amused eyes watched him from their strange angle on the ground.

He wandered down the street, trying not to think about the incident.  He debated cheering himself up and visiting Angel, making his sire’s evening miserable, too, but decided he’d had enough fun for one night.  An evening in front of the telly with a beer suddenly seemed very attractive— after a shower (or two), which still left him feeling dirty.

The next morning, Spike wandered up through the basement of Wolfram and Hart.  He nodded at a couple of girls from the typing pool he recognised, and took the elevator to the main floor.  As he strolled along toward Angel’s office, he saw Wesley pouring over some books in his office.  He leant in the doorway and lit a cigarette. ‘Hey…Watcher…?’

Wesley didn’t look up.  ‘What do you want, Spike?’

‘You ever heard of a demon that can make…. Never mind.’

Wesley closed his book and looked up.  ‘I think Angel’s in a meet….’

‘Huh?’

Wesley frowned slightly.  ‘Meeting.  I think Angel’s in a meeting.  But I have something to show you.’

Spike pushed off the doorframe and came over.  ‘The poof’s life is so bloody boring these days. What’s that then?’

Wesley stood and offered his seat, and with his this-better-be-good look, Spike slid in and pulled the book closer.  He began to flick the pages over.  Wesley stood at his shoulder, and then, after a moment, put his hand down and held one page still.  ‘There, see?  It’s a….’

Spike heard the voice drain away from him as if he were being sucked into a long tunnel.  He swallowed and began to breathe slowly.  One hundred and twenty years (and counting) of weird things happening to him, and he’d finally found one that took away his ability to act.  

Totally oblivious of the effect he was having on Spike, Wesley continued to stroke his fingers over the back of Spike’s neck, brushing the short blond hair with his thumb.

Then he straightened a little and pushed his hips forward.

Spike turned his head and retreated voluntarily down the rest of the tunnel when he found himself face to face with a considerable tenting.  

His slow breathing turned to a single, loud gulp, and he jumped up, babbling badly, moving toward the door, banging his hip painfully on the edge of the desk.  Wesley began to follow. Spike began to run— to Angel’s office, where he burst in and barricaded the door with his spread-eagled body.

‘Bloody hell!  Bloody hell!  Angel!  Bloody hell!’

Angel, who did not appear to be in a meeting, didn’t look up. ‘Get out, Spike. I’m busy.’

‘Bloody hell! The sodding poof!  Did you know?’

Angel looked up, bored.  ‘Did I know wha—? Why are you barring the—?  Who’s that out—?’  Angel got up and came around his desk, frowning.  

Spike held the doors shut and shouted over his shoulder, ‘Sod off, Poof.’

Angel moved him to one side and pulled the door open.  Wesley almost fell through, then straightened and clenched his jaw.  ‘Spike. I need to talk to you. In my office for a moment, if you….’ 

The growl left him open-mouthed.  

At the same time, Wesley and Spike turned to the low, menacing sound.  Wesley stepped back, automatically.  Angel’s eyes flashed amber at him, his demonic face incongruous in the bright light of the office.  

‘He’s mine.’

Wesley’s fists curled at his side.  Spike began to laugh, but it had an unworldly sound to it.  ‘What is this shit?’

Angel suddenly ran at him and pinned him hard against the glass wall.  He hissed into his ear, ‘Mine,’ as if that small repetition would clarify matters.

Spike shoved him off and threw his hands up in fury.  He turned when another figure came in through the door and said in a pointed tone to Fred, ‘One word from you about fancying me, and I’m outta here!’

Fred curled her lip prettily. ‘I think you’re staying then.’

Suddenly, without taking his eyes off the two males, Spike shouted, ‘Hey! Harm! Get your butt in here.’

Harmony appeared in the door, hands on hips about to protest, when Spike said, ‘Do you want me?’

Harmony smirked. ‘Bit early, Baby, even for a nooner.  Hey! We could call it a….’

‘Harm!  You dozy bint!  Do you WANT me… passionate, lust-type thing?’

‘Eww!  Spike! Get a life!’

Spike nodded at Fred.  ‘There’s some freaky spell here— ask them!’

Fred glanced anxiously at Wesley. ‘What does he mean?’

Wesley shook his head.  ‘There’s nothing magical about it. He knows how I feel. He’s known it for weeks.’

Before Spike could finish a squawked, ‘Hey!’ he found Angel’s hand around his throat, closing.

‘You betrayed me with HIM?’

Spike tried to force the hand off. ‘You bloody idiot!  I don’t need to sodding breathe! Let go! You’re probably bruising me! Angel! This is a spell!’

Fred turned to Harmony.  ‘Get Lorne and Gunn.’

Harmony didn’t seem to want to leave the entertainment, but after a giggle, she turned and left.

Fred came over to Angel and put a hand tentatively on his arm.  ‘Angel? Can you hear me?’

Angel turned to her, puzzled. ‘Of course.’

‘Okay, well, think then… this is a spell of some sort.  You don’t even like Spike— remember?’

Angel’s hand dropped, and Spike nodded approvingly. Angel pouted, but then added, ‘No, I don’t like him: I love him.’

‘OH!  Bloody bollocks to that! NO! NO!  You’re not getting with the programme here!  NO ONE is loving the blond vampire today.  Okay?’

Gunn came skidding into the office. ‘What’s up?’

Fred said calmly, still eyeing Angel, ‘We need to get Spike out of… Gunn?’

‘Hey, man, have you been doing your hair different?’

Spike gazed at Gunn as he might watch a cobra: with a kind of sick fascination.

Gunn smiled and ran a hand over his head, as if smoothing almost non-existent hair. 

‘Damn, Bro, you look good in that coat!’

Angel went into game face again and hissed at Gunn.  Wesley seemed to concur with this assessment and suddenly punched him.

Spike backed away from them all. ‘This is madness.’

Fred suddenly stamped her foot, commanding the room.  ‘Wesley. This is a spell.  Think! That’s Spike! Think about Spike what you thought about him yesterday!’

Wesley swallowed. ‘I thought his eyes were like glass alleys I loved as a boy and that his hair was as perfect as silk unravelling.’

Fred tried not to smile and turned instead to Angel, but before she could tackle him, he said softly, ‘No, you’re wrong.  You didn’t like him yesterday.’

Spike sighed a huge sigh of relief and went to stand close to Angel. ‘At last! Some sense from the dead man.  So, you think it’s a spell that’s worn off you quickly?’

Angel nodded.  ‘Must be.’ He leant closer to Spike, put his arm around his neck and kissed him. ‘We know who you belong to, Baby. Don’t worry.’

Theatrically gagging and rubbing his cheek, Spike went to stand behind Fred for protection.  She put a hand reassuringly on his arm and said to Angel, ‘It’s not affecting you as much as them, Angel. You can see the spell for what it is where they’re concerned. Try harder!  You can’t stand the sight of Spike most days! Try to remember.’

Angel frowned deeply. ‘No, that’s not true.  I know this isn’t real.  Yeah. It’s a spell. But I love him.  But it’s not true. But why do I think about him ALL the time!  Why do I want him now? It’s a spell, and I want him! I want to tear his….’

‘Angel!’ She turned and hissed at Spike, ‘Get out of here….’

Spike nodded and, with his way to the door clear, slipped out to the lobby.

The others were either making to follow him or trying to prevent that happening when they heard a shout and a scuffle.

Angel got there first and shouted as three of the accounting department mauled Spike on the floor.  He heaved them off, and Spike rose, rubbing his mouth in disgust.

Angel roared at the circling group of males, and they all backed off.

Suddenly, Harmony held the phone to her chest and said nervously, ‘Something’s up with Lorne, Boss.’

Hardly hearing her, glaring around the lobby, Angel barked, ‘What?’

‘He’s in… trouble….’

Angel held out his hand for the phone.  ‘Angel-pie, is that you?’

Angel nodded then cursed and said softly, ‘Yeah. What’s up?’ He turned his back on the lobby and adjusted his clothes discreetly.  ‘Make this quick. We’ve got a situation here.’

At the sound of another scuffle, he turned and grabbed Spike’s arm, pulling him close to his side.  He growled in a low, menacing tone at the group of men until they backed off once more.  He put the phone to his ear and snapped, ‘Talk.’ As Lorne spoke, Angel gazed at Spike’s hair, wondering if it felt like silk, too.  

Spike stayed in Angel’s solid presence, where the madness seemed to be slightly less than anywhere else in his world.

Angel put the phone down and nodded toward the elevator.  ‘Let’s get you out of here.’ Spike nodded gratefully and led the way.  Another glare from Angel kept the mob back, and Spike heard the doors shut with a deep sigh of relief, closing his eyes on the insanity for a moment.

Suddenly, he snapped them open, and then narrowed them at Angel.  ‘You okay now?’

Angel was standing with his head hung down.  ‘Don’t talk to me.’

‘Huh? What’s wrong…?’ Spike swallowed and wished he hadn’t asked.  A tic worked in Angel’s cheek, the only outward evidence of the internal demons he fought.

Spike tried to light a cigarette to bring some normality back into his life and said evenly, ‘Cus, like, you hate me, remember?’

‘You need to be very quiet now, Spike. So I forget you’re in here with me.’

‘Look, all I’m sayin’ is….’ Spike decided not to say it when a tonne of vampire crushed him to the wall.  Angel was silent; he didn’t move, but his need was very evident between them.

Angel groaned between clenched teeth. ‘If I concentrate, I can tell myself that it’s only a spell.’

‘Okay. I get that.  And if you don’t concen…?’

Angel lifted one leg and ground himself against Spike.  ‘If I don’t, all I can see in my mind is this, sliding into you.’

Spike brought his hand up and theatrically mimed zipping his mouth.

Angel nodded. ‘We need to rescue Lorne. Then we’ll find out what’s caused this.’

The doors to the elevator slid open, and with another groan, Angel pushed off Spike, adjusted his clothes and strode out toward the cars.

As he crossed the garage, a shadowy figure peeled off from a wall.  ‘Sir.’

Angel cursed. ‘I can handle this…?’

‘Murphy, Sir.’

‘I can handle this alone, Murphy.’

‘This is a case for Field Ops, Sir. There’s no need for….’

Angel turned to see what had distracted the young man and cursed when he saw Spike leaning against the Viper, head down, seemingly deep in thought.

When he sensed himself under scrutiny, Spike looked up, and the young man took a step forward with a small catch of his breath.

Angel growled, ‘Step back, Soldier!’

Spike suddenly cursed and strode toward them.  He poked the soldier in the chest. ‘You want me?’

The man nodded like a child being asked if he liked Christmas.  Spike nodded and punched him unconscious.

Angel suddenly groaned softly and bent forward sharply, resting his hands on his knees.  He waved vaguely at Spike. ‘Get in the damn car.’

Spike meekly to the passenger seat.  Angel straightened and walked back to the elevator.  ‘Wait here!  I need to…. Suits not…. I mean….’

The doors slid closed on him.  Three minutes later, he was back in leather pants and a loose shirt.  Spike stared resolutely ahead and refused to consider the import of these things.

At first, they didn’t speak in the car.  Every time Angel’s hand moved to change gear, Spike jumped slightly, which irritated Angel enough to overcome the desire to miss the gear knob, as Spike feared he would.

At last, Spike said in a low voice, ‘I’m not talking, okay? Only… what’s up with the green one?’

‘He’s run up some debts. He’s being held.’

Spike wasn’t too sure whether to be worried or reassured by the evident control Angel was exercising over his voice.

They pulled into an alley behind a club, and Angel kicked in the fire doors.

They threaded their way up through gloomy hallways until they reached the main bar.

Lorne was sitting anxiously in a chair, and he smiled at them when they arrived.  A group of men lounging by the bar turned as one and straightened.

Angel nodded his head at his friend and said, ‘He comes with us now.’

One of the men laughed. ‘Yeah. Okay.’ He turned back to the bar and said to the others, ‘Get rid of….’ Suddenly, he turned back and stared at Spike.  He stepped forward, smiling shyly. ‘Hi.  My name’s Mike.  You’re…?’

Spike leaned around Angel.  ‘I’m pissed off, Mate; that’s what I am.’

The men began to advance on Spike.

Suddenly, Spike said in a low voice, ‘Thought I was yours, Luv….’

Angel roared and charged the men.

Spike smirked and went over to Lorne. ‘You okay?’

‘I am now, Sweetie.’

Spike took a step back. ‘No. Not bloody you as well.’

Lorne looked puzzled. ‘Me? What honey-pie?’

‘You want me…?’

Lorne chuckled, dodging a flying chair.  ‘Well, I guess I’m flattered – in a strange bizarre-world kind of flattered – but no, Sweet-chops, not big with the wanting. Now… Angel-buns…!’  He grinned. ‘Only kidding.’

Spike nodded relieved, ‘Okay then. Let’s go.’

‘Shouldn’t we – and that’s the you kind of we – be helping Angel?’

‘Nah, he’s working through some issues.’

He led Lorne to the car, and they lounged, chatting, until Angel appeared. He looked relatively undamaged and shook out his shoulders as if something had been eased.

Avoiding looking at Spike, he slid into the driver’s seat and glanced at Lorne in the mirror. ‘You okay?’

‘Do I still owe a big one?’

Angel shook his head grimly. ‘Debt paid in full.’

‘Then I’m mucho-goodo.  Let’s go home. And thanks, Angel.’

They drove for a short time until Spike suddenly said, ‘Pull over here. I’m going home until the bloody universe stops fucking with me.’

As the word left his mouth, he regretted it, and he cast Angel a small, surreptitious look.  Angel looked so close to the edge it was doubtful he even heard the small, earthy curse.

He stared at Spike, emotions flickering over his face. ‘It’s not safe. You need to stay with… me.’

‘Angel! I’m a soddin’ vampire— or have you forgotten?’

‘No… everyone you meet… all the… men… on you….’

‘OKAY! Stop with the visuals in your head! Angel! Focus!’

Angel grabbed the wheel as if drowning, but nodded. ‘I’m okay. I just don’t want you to go. Please!’

This last was said in such a passionate, hushed tone that Spike immediately leapt from the car and shouted, ‘You are just damn freaky! Stop it!’ Clenching his jaw, he strode off into the night.

Angel put his head down on the wheel.

Lorne said hesitantly, ‘So, you’ve finally told him…?’

Angel whirled around, his face wet. ‘What?’

‘You?  Spike? You’ve told…. And I’ll just do that really good impression I do of a shutting-up thing now.’

‘It’s a spell!  I know that it is.  But I can’t stop thinking what I’m thinking….’ This seemed too much for Angel, and once more, he bent over at the waist for a while. This time when he straightened, he slammed the car into gear and didn’t turn around again as he drove too fast back to the office.

When he got back, Wesley, Gunn, and Fred were sitting in his office looking tense.  He strode in, in front of Lorne, and shuddered as he crossed the threshold. ‘What was that?’

Wesley stood up, his voice low, not catching Angel’s eye. ‘Fred’s put a de-forming spell around this office, Angel. It’s very weak; we can’t expand it any further, but while we’re in here? We’re not thinking….’

Angel nodded, looking slightly puzzled.  ‘How long before it kicks in?’

Wesley jerked his head back and looked helplessly to Fred. She shook her head, looking mystified, and Wesley murmured, ‘Well, Gunn and I were fine straightaway….’

Angel immediately shoved his hands in his pockets. ‘Yeah. There you go. All thought-free.’

He went to his desk and began to rummage for something intently. 

Wesley sat back down. ‘Where is…?’

Angel waved vaguely. ‘Gone home.’

‘Oh.  Right. Well, all we’ve got so far is….’

‘I’ve seen this before.’

Wesley’s eyebrow rose, and Angel continued, perching on his desk. ‘In Sunnydale. Somehow Xander Harris became the object of hysterical attention from all the women— even Drusilla.’

‘Right. I need to contact him then.’  Wesley rose and glanced anxiously at the lobby. ‘I’ll be back in here as soon as I can to… cleanse seems a slightly harsh word.’

Gunn looked up, his face very stormy. ‘It’s exactly the right word.’

Angel concurred, but his interjection seemed a little hasty.

He rose from the desk. ‘If you find anything let me know.’

They all trailed out, and he rode up in the elevator, already peeling off his damp clothes disgustedly. 

Suddenly his cellphone rang, and he dug it out of his discarded pants. ‘Yeah.’

‘It’s… me….’

‘What do you want? Jesus, Spike, this is the last thing I need….’

‘Angel…?’

‘What?’

‘Can you, like, come and get me?  I’m kinda… stuck….’

Chapter 2

Extracting Spike was easier than Angel feared after the tense, furious call.  He’d holed up in a broom cupboard, and when Angel got him out, he wasn’t sure which part of Spike was more in tatters: his body or his dignity.

He’d been surprised when Spike had called him, even more surprised when he’d said where he was, but not surprised to open the doors of the public library to find a small, all-male mob crowding against a door in the hallway.

He hesitated, studying their faces, wondering if the same mindless lasciviousness was on his.  He went to join them, made them notice him, felt their stares of jealous anger, then murmured the word window and tried to sneak away.  As he’d planned, the cry went up that he knew something they didn’t, and they gave chase.  When he’d lost them, he doubled back and knocked softly. ‘It’s me.’

After a moment, the door opened.  

Angel uncharacteristically cried out and fell to his knees.  Spike painfully rose from his.  ‘Get me outta here.’

Angel rose and put an arm around his shoulders and half-carried him out to the car.

He propped Spike carefully into the passenger seat and drove angrily through the traffic to Wolfram and Hart.

‘And why the hell where you at the freaking library?’

Spike frowned and gave him a look through swollen, blackened eyes.  ‘You ever ‘eard of books then, Pet?’

‘You use a public library?’ This seemed to worry Angel on some fundamental level.

‘’Sides, they’ve got computers….’

Angel turned to him. ‘But I’d have bought you books, and a computer, if you’d wanted them!’

Spike laughed, but it turned into painful coughing.  ‘That’s the spell talkin’.  You’ve bought me jack-shit, Angel— even blood when I was starvin’, remember?’

‘I didn’t know you were….’ He shut up swiftly, as an image of Spike tied to a chair, the bones of his face so prominent he’d hardly recognised him, flashed into his mind.

‘I’m sorry; I’m sorry.  God, I’m so sorry.’

‘Stop it!  You’re freaking me out again!’ 

They drove in silence the rest of the way, except for the occasional groan: Angel’s in remorse as he tormented himself with remembrance of mistreating his precious, and Spike’s in pain.  

They rode Angel’s elevator to his suite, and Angel helped Spike to the bed.  Spike resisted and said sharply, ‘This is not a good idea, Angel.’

Angel nodded.  ‘Fred has a containment spell.  I’m going to ask her to put it around the suite— it takes away the power of the spell. It will reassure you that this is real.’

Spike was about to get very angry, but instead he glanced down.  Angel’s hand was making slow circles on his thigh.  ‘Maybe now then…!’

Angel winced and reluctantly pulled his hand back.  He looked as if he was about to try and plead his cause, but then left.

Spike stretched out on the large bed and tried to get the faces out of his mind.  Voices played in his head, begging him, threatening him, as they’d dragged him down and hurt him.  

Angel rode back up without the spell, Fred unable to summon more power for it, prepared to tell Spike he had to leave— that he couldn’t trust himself.  He tore himself apart with guilt when he thought about not telling him this and tricking him into staying….

He’d wound himself up to tell him, when the doors slid back, and he found Spike sprawled on his bed asleep.

Angel didn’t fake resistance, even to himself; he went and sat on the edge of the bed, knowing he would not let Spike leave.

He eyed Spike’s wounds with a frown then went to the bathroom to fetch some supplies.  Spike woke to the feel of his shirt being unbuttoned. He tried to sit up, but Angel eased him back and held a cloth up to his eye line.  ‘I need to clean you up, Spike: human nails, teeth….’

Spike winced.  ‘I just need a shower.’

Angel nodded and helped him sit up.  ‘Everything you need is in there.’

Spike gave him a small glance. ‘The de-spell spell isn’t in place, is it?’

Angel pouted as if he resented the implication that he wouldn’t be so kind or generous without a spell.  Spike patted him, ‘Yeah,’ and went slowly and painfully into Angel’s bathroom.

He decided he wanted one of these. There wasn’t much of Angel’s new wealth or possessions he envied, except the cars. Now he added the shower to his list.  He twisted and turned and felt his healing powers working.  The wounds were unattractive, and once more, the sounds of grunting and the feel of pawing came to mind. He sighed, the pleasure of the shower gone, and turned off the water.  Tying a towel so tightly around his waist that it almost lapped him, he padded back into the bedroom.

When he emerged, Angel was still sitting on the bed, twisting the discarded shirt around and around in his hands.  He looked up when Spike came in then unconsciously let his eyes travel down the semi-naked body.  Immediately, he rose and went to stand by the window, his back to the room.

Spike toed his ripped pants furiously.  ‘Can I borrow something?’

Angel twisted his head around.  ‘You can’t leave!’

‘Angel!  I can’t stay here!’

‘No!’ Angel came back.  ‘I’m okay. This is the only safe place until we figure this out.  I’m the only one who can control it.’ 

Spike sneered. ‘Yeah, you’ve got your natural hatred for me helping you out there!’

Angel crossed the gap between them so swiftly that Spike tried to take a step back, but failed.  He grabbed Spike’s hand and thrust it to the top of one thigh.  ‘You think I’m finding this easy?’

Something jumped under Spike’s hand, something that lay heavy and thick under the black leather.

Spike twisted his hand out of Angel’s and shook it as if he could flick the memory of the touch away.  Feeling strangely abashed, he sank to the edge of the bed.  ‘This is utter madness. It’s a cosmic joke, isn’t it?’

Angel sat next to him but kept his eyes fastened on the ground.

‘I’m the least lovable person in the world. That’s why it’s picked on me— cosmic joke, see?’

Angel frowned. ‘Why do you say you’re not lovable?’

Spike turned to look at him.  ‘Jeez, Angel.  Work it out for yourself! Only two people ‘ave ever loved me— an’ one of those was me mum, so she don’t count.’ He pouted, looking down at his nails. ‘And then the other one— my dark princess.  Emotional intelligence of a….’

‘But she did love you….’

Spike shrugged. ‘Didn’t take ‘er long – oh, about three hours – to shrug off one hundred years of loving me for your bed again though, did it?’

Angel’s hand lay heavy on the bed between them.  Hesitantly, he lifted it and put it on Spike’s back.  ‘Don’t resist this now then. Let me love you, Spike.’

Spike shook his head. ‘I wish I had this on vid, yeah? I’d play it back when you’re over it.’

Angel began to circle his hand. ‘I haven’t touched anyone like this for so long.  We’re both starved for it.’

‘Angel, stop it.  It’s freaking me out.’

‘Think what it could be like… if you allowed it to be…. We’d be together— never alone.’

‘Don’t do this, Angel, please.’

‘We could travel together again. Do you remember all the places we went?’

‘Yeah, I remember.’

‘Rome? Vienna? Prague?’

‘Please, Angel.’ He lay back on the bed, his body offering far less resistance to the seductive memories than his brain.

‘Whenever you looked up— I’d be there. Whenever I thought about you— you’d be there.’

‘Stop it, Angel. It’s madness.’

Angel seemed to hear some capitulation in his words, and he eased closer.  Tentatively, he rested one hand on Spike’s thigh, just below the towel line.

‘No.’

‘Please. I need to… touch you.’

‘This is sick.’

Angel began to circle his hand on the shower-warm skin.

‘Think what our bodies would be like together…. Can you picture it?’

Spike’s towel stirred, and he closed his eyes.  ‘If you do this, Angel, everything that holds our relationship together – the long history, the shared lovers, the souls, the occasional flash of friendship, the bitter hatred – will all be gone, and when you wake up, free of this spell, there will be nothing left.’

‘You think too much.’

‘Maybe. Maybe.’

Angel bent his head and fastened his teeth gently over Spike’s nipple, murmuring, ‘So, maybe, stop thinking…?’

With a half-sob, Spike pushed him off and sat up.  ‘I have to go.’

Angel came closer and slid his arm around Spike’s waist, leaning his face on his back.  ‘Please don’t go. I’ll…. I mean…. I’ll sleep on the couch, but please, don’t go…. If anything happened to you….’

‘Stop it! You hate me! Nothing would make you happier than if I got dusted one day!’

Angel rubbed his face gently over the smooth expanse of skin.  ‘I think about you all the time, Spike— wondering what you’re doing, what you’re thinking, what you’re thinking about me.’

‘Angel…. Don’t, please. This is a lie, and it’ll destroy us.’

‘When we argue, I want to drag you to me and kiss you instead.’

‘You’ll destroy me, Angel.’

‘I think a lot about kissing you.  What does your mouth taste like?’ He eased closer, curling around Spike slowly. ‘Do you know who I picture when I touch myself?’

‘Stop it!’ Spike stood up, but Angel held the bottom of his towel, preventing him from stepping away.  

‘I’m sorry.  I promise— lie down.’

Angel moved to the far side of the bed and folded in on himself.  Grudgingly, Spike climbed back on and turned his back to the silent figure.  He pulled the covers high over his shoulder and let the pain of the night overtake him.  

It was strangely quiet without Angel’s seductive words, so he played them back in his head and fell asleep to the thought that now the madness was no longer just external.

He awoke with Angel watching him from a few inches away, an intense look of adoration on his face. Sleepy, warm, Spike pouted, and it seemed to take away Angel’s control, for he leant forward and kissed him. ‘Morning.’

For a moment, Spike wondered if the spell was catching— if he’d caught it sleeping alongside Angel all night.  His gaze dragged down from Angel’s dilated eyes to his lips. Angel groaned at the provocative invitation and leant forward again.  Spike opened his mouth to protest, and Angel’s tongue flicked in for a moment before he pulled away.  Heat and desire poured off Angel’s body in waves.

He came back again and this time, whispered, ‘Please,’ into the kiss.

Before he could ask what, Spike felt a hand opening the front of his towel— parting the folds.

He whispered, ‘No.’

‘Please.’  Angel kissed him again.

When the hand found him, Spike arched like a bow, and any consciousness of who this was deserted him along with the blood rapidly deserting his brain.

When Angel’s mouth left his and the dark head slid out of view, Spike could no more have stopped him than he could have once stopped breathing.

When Angel took him in, he arched again, scrabbling madly at Angel’s hair. ‘No. Off.’

With a surge of intense pleasure, he released strong pellets of cum, like white shooting stars, which then splattered down on his belly and chest.

Rational thought returning with the release, he cried out with embarrassment, flinging his arm over his eyes.

He moved his other hand to his stomach in an automatic reaction to wipe the cum away, and found Angel’s hair once more.  A powerful tongue began long strokes over his glistening skin.

Angel lapped him up like a cat enjoying cream, and just as this analogy struck Spike, he heard a soft rumble, like purring, and he knew his madness was complete.

Angel seemed oblivious to Spike’s anguish. He smiled broadly when his face reappeared, and he kissed Spike swiftly, the taste of salt strong on his lips. ‘Feeling better?’

Spike nodded dumbly. 

Angel play-slapped him. ‘Come on, let’s go see what’s on for today. Hey! Maybe we can go kill things together.’

The joy in Angel’s expression was infectious, and Spike smiled wanly, despite knowing he was now insane.

He went into the shower once more, leaving Angel to find him something to wear.

When he emerged, Angel was putting the phone down.  He watched the dark expression for a moment. ‘What’s wrong?’

‘The anti-spell around the office has faded. Fred said she’s working on acquiring ingredients for another, but even with all our resources, it’s going to take some days.’

‘Oh. Bloody hell. So…?’

‘You’ll have to stay up here.’

‘No way.’

‘Spike….’

‘No, Angel! What if we never solve this! I can’t live like a hermit; you know that.  A minute ago, you were dead-keen to go down!’  He saw Angel’s expression become furtive. ‘Oh! I get it! You thought you’d keep the others in the office and have me all to yourself, and, oh God! What am I saying? This is madness! Okay, I need to stop saying that, too, and come up with something else to describe this utter….’

Angel stopped his mouth with a kiss, and although he resisted, although he pushed Angel away, there was an element of humour in his voice when he held up a censorious finger.  ‘You…!’

Angel grinned, pleased with himself, and glanced at the bed.

‘Angel!’  Spike repressed a smile but not very well.

Angel edged closer.

Spike backed away. ‘Clothes!’

‘I prefer you like that….’

‘So would Wesley….’

While Angel was suitably distracted, Spike stomped to the closet and rummaged in his clothes for something to wear.

He found a pair of surprisingly slim jeans and held them up, puzzled.

Angel came forward.

Spike stuck a finger through the hole in one knee.  ‘These aren’t yours.’

Angel took them from him. ‘No.’

Spike frowned. ‘Something you want to tell me? Cus, like, where this spell had its amusing moments, it’s just become more… serious— you’ve got another bloke’s jeans in your wardrobe.’

Angel nodded. ‘It’s not what you think— at all.’

Spike breathed out. ‘Okay. Can I wear them then?’

Angel held them possessively to his chest for a moment, then frowned and looked at them again.  ‘There’s no comparison between what I felt for him and how much I love you now.’ He looked up perplexed. ‘How can I love you more than him?’ He turned to the window and stared out over the city. ‘Darla and I created life together—real, human life. He was with me for such a short time. He hadn’t even started to turn over by himself.  Then he was taken from me, and when he came back – just a few days, jeez – he fitted these.’

Spike came to stand alongside him silently.

‘Things went very wrong between us, but now he has a new life. He doesn’t remember me, and I saw to it that no one remembers him.’

Hesitantly, Spike put a hand on Angel’s back.  ‘I’m sorry, Pet. Bet you made a great dad, too.’

Angel smiled, but the look was so sad that Spike, after considerable thought, hugged him.

‘That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? The deal you made?’

Angel nodded, not speaking, concentrating on the hug.

‘This hug is making you feel better, isn’t it?’

Angel nodded.

‘Much better…?’

Angel chuckled.

‘Give me the sodding jeans, Angel, and let’s go kill something, yeah? Oh, and you can talk as much as you bloody like about the owner of these… only… mention Darla and anything gynaecological? I’m outta here.’

He pulled the jeans on then grabbed one of Angel’s shirts, ignoring the look he knew he’d be getting behind his back.

When they got down to the office, Angel summoned his colleagues. Fred and Lorne arrived together, chatting cheerfully. Wesley slinked in, not looking at anyone.  Spike stayed by the window, his back to the room. They waited for Gunn for a few moments, but when he did not appear, they started without him. Angel perched on his desk then clapped his hands together, smiling happily.

‘So, research. Wes?’

‘Has he been here all night? Up there? With you?’

Angel frowned. ‘That’s none of your business.’

‘I think it is. You’re keeping him from me!  Poisoning his mind against me.’

Spike suddenly drawled lazily from his intense study of the view, ‘I am here, by the way.’

It didn’t help.  Wesley rose, his jaw clenched on clearly painful emotions.  ‘Spike, please, just listen….’

‘Sit down.’ Angel didn’t raise his voice or move, but Wesley obeyed.  Angel added, looking at Fred, ‘Cure?’

Fred smiled, agitated by something in the room even she could sense.  She glanced at Lorne. ‘We don’t have a cure, but we know more about it. Lorne got me thinking… why wasn’t he affected? And you less than them? And me not at all?’

Angel frowned.

Fred glanced again at Lorne, but he folded his hands neatly in his lap and said amused, ‘You tell him, Honey. He won’t rip you a new one.’

Fred smiled an insincere thank you and said, ‘I think it’s all to do with degrees of susceptibility.’

Angel looked relieved.

Seeing this look, she mumbled something.  Angel heard, but he asked, ‘What?’  

She repeated, ‘Reversed….’

Everyone thought about this for a moment, and then Spike turned and raised an eyebrow at Lorne.  He dismissed him with a wave. ‘Poppet, don’t get excited. I’m not susceptible to you in particular, just not much for the ladies— if you get my meaning. Course… being the only green thing in this city is gonna be sticky to get a date of any… oh, and aren’t I just wishing that word hadn’t emerged.’

Angel was still frowning. ‘So, the less likely you were to have this kind of unnatural obsession, the harder it hit you?’

She nodded. ‘I would be the most likely – being a woman an’ all – then Lorne, then…. Sorry.’

‘Hey!’

Spike smiled to himself at Angel’s outrage, but he murmured for his ears alone, ‘It’s a vampire thing, Pet.’

Angel quirked his lips at the intimate tone. ‘So… solutions?’

‘Somehow, the natural balance of things has been reversed— we need to find out how.’

‘Any joy contacting Xander? Wesley?’

‘You won’t even let me talk to him.’

‘Harris?’

‘Spike!  Oh, God, I can’t stay here like this! In those jeans… his knee just peeking….’ 

Wesley suddenly ran out, and Spike murmured to Angel, ‘Security maybe— case he hurts himself?’

Reluctantly, Angel made the call.

Fred and Lorne rose, promising to keep on with the research.  

Angel studied his nails for a moment and then turned to Spike, grinning.

Spike looked immediately nervous. ‘What?’

Angel grabbed his arm and dragged him toward the elevator. ‘I’ve got a good idea.’

Spike was protesting, but not as hard as he felt he should, when Angel punched the down button. Angel smirked, as though he knew exactly what Spike had been thinking and said mysteriously, ‘Something just as good.’

He pushed Spike into one of the cars, and they drove out into the bright sunshine.

‘I will never get used to this.’

Angel tipped his head on one side. ‘I don’t make enough use of it. We could have a house made of glass. Everyway we turned— bathed in light.’

‘Yeah.  Angel….’

‘Hmm?’

‘Take your hand off my thigh maybe?’

Angel pouted but removed it.  

‘What are we going to do if Fred can’t find a cure?’

Angel shrugged. ‘It won’t make any difference to the way I feel if she does.’

Spike rolled his eyes. ‘Yeah. Okay, let’s humour the vampire.  What about Wesley and the other three billion men in the world?’

Angel didn’t reply; he kept glancing at Spike and then said softly, ‘You taste good, by the way.’

Spike shaded his eyes. ‘It was a vampire-in-crisis moment, Angel. Let’s never mention it again.’

‘I want to talk about it.’

‘I don’t.’

‘I love you.’

That silenced Spike completely, and despite pleading or teasing or sulking, he refused to be drawn further.

Eventually, Angel pulled up in an underground garage and climbed out. ‘Coming?’

Spike frowned and climbed out too.  ‘What is this, Angel? I’m not spending another day sitting in a soddin’ broom cupboard.’

Angel laughed. ‘I don’t think that’ll be necessary in this part of town. Come on.’

They waited for an elevator.  Spike flinched when a couple of young men came up and stood alongside them. They gave him a frank once-over and then did the same to Angel, but other than that, they stepped calmly into the elevator and carried on with their conversation.  Spike frowned at Angel, and Angel raised an eyebrow, leaning close. ‘Most likely?’

Spike got it and spent the rest of the ride eyeing the couple suspiciously.

When they emerged, Spike discovered he was in a large mall. Before he had time to take this in, Angel grabbed his arm and dragged him into a shop, saying in a very self-satisfied voice, ‘Anything you want.’

Spike looked around the huge bookstore and swallowed. ‘You’ve bought me shopping for books?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Why?’

‘Because you like reading, and because I love you.’

Spike’s face creased up a little, and to cover, he went to the nearest shelf and busied himself reading. 

Angel smiled and came up behind him.  ‘This may be West Hollywood, but I’m staying close just in case.’

Spike nodded without lifting his face.

‘This is what it could be like, Spike.’

Spike put his hand to his forehead for a moment, and then said raggedly, ‘I know, Angel.  I know.’

Whether it was Angel’s strategy of bringing them to a part of town where the men were immune to Spike’s magical charms, or whether it was his dark, menacing presence alongside him all day, other than endless glances, they had a quiet time shopping.

After the bookstore, Angel wanted to buy him clothes, and as Spike was feeling increasingly small inside Angel’s shirt, he agreed.

They wandered the racks, rejecting things, choosing others, and when Spike had an armful, he stopped, looking thoughtful.

Angel rearranged something on the top of the pile. ‘What?’

‘We haven’t stopped talking for the three hours since we arrived in here.’

Angel smiled shyly. ‘Yeah. Maybe I’m past my taciturn and broody phase… now that I’m in love….’

‘Don’t.’

‘Spike….’

‘No! Angel! Don’t you see what all this is doing?’  

Angel put a hand on his arm, but Spike wrenched away, dropping the clothes. ‘No. I can’t believe I’ve been this stupid.’

‘What!’

‘I’ve let you in.  I swore I’d never do that.’

‘But….’

‘No. I’m not mad. I’m totally sane, and this is insanity.  I can’t do this. I’m sorry, Angel.’

He turned and ran out of the store, blindly seeking the exit in the vast, confusing place.

He found a stairway and wrenched the door open, flinging himself against the rail for a moment.  Angel skidded in after him.  

Spike spun around and backed up as far as he could go.

Angel came close and put a hand on his shirt. ‘I’m sorry. I just wanted to spend the day with you.’

‘Spend the day with me when this is all over, Angel. That would be nice.’

‘Yeah. Sure. Why do you fight this? I won’t change how I feel about you now.’

Spike began to laugh, and he couldn’t stop. Tears began to form, and he wiped them away.  ‘Do you actually remember Buffy?’

Angel tipped his head on one side, curious where this was going, but didn’t reply.

‘Do you remember how you felt when you heard I was shagging her?’

Angel’s eyes darkened slightly, and he hung his head as if to cover this.

‘Do you want to know her favourite kink with me? Shall I tell you where she liked me to….’

‘Don’t.’

‘Thank God! Think, Angel! Remember!’

‘I can’t stand to think of you… touching her….’

‘Yes! Exactly! Now, picture trying to kill me!’

Angel snapped his head up. ‘You should touch me like that. Why won’t you touch me?’  He clenched his jaw but then blinked rapidly.

Spike rubbed his eyes but held out an arm, and Angel came to him, leaning in, whispering, ‘I’m so confused.’

Spike nodded. ‘I know, Luv. I know. We’ll get through this.’

‘Take this thing away. It hurts too much to love you like this.’

‘It’ll be over soon, Pet, an’ we’ll be back to snark and fighting.’ Suddenly, he pushed Angel off, but began to make a show of straightening the vampire’s shirt.  ‘So, what’s happened to my nice day out then? Seems to me something is missing….’

Angel frowned, confused by the rapid change of emotion. 

Spike grinned, gave Angel a little tug on his arm and pushed back through the door into the mall. ‘Come on.’

Spike led them unerringly to a small café.  Angel looked bemused as Spike slid in behind a table and picked up a menu.  He glanced around then did the same, unsure what he was supposed to do.  Spike made it simple for him by pointing to a garish picture of ice cream heaped in a large bowl, and then leaning back and lighting a cigarette.

Still feeling slow, Angel got up and went to place the order.

When it arrived, Spike frowned.  ‘Where’s yours? Don’t tell me you’re still doing that vampire-not-eating shit?’  He saw that Angel wasn’t listening, that he was staring at a table off to one side. Spike turned and looked, seeing a man hunched over a coffee, reading a newspaper.  He turned back to Angel. ‘What?’

‘He was looking at you.’

Spike was about to point out that after yesterday that was pretty tame, when he saw that Angel’s comment went deeper— that it had little to do with spells or false emotions.  The words had been raw, brought forth from a place of pure darkness, and with a stab of something intensely exciting, Spike realised that he now had power over Angel: power to make him jealous.

No one had ever been jealous of him before. No one had ever wanted him exclusively enough before to experience that belly-wrenching emotion.  He saw it now though in Angel’s eyes and in his rigid stance.

Gently, he laid his hand on Angel’s arm. ‘Hey….’

Angle flicked his eyes back.  Spike raised an eyebrow and held out his spoon.  Before Angel could refuse, he eased the cool substance between his lips.

Spike laughed with genuine pleasure, filled it again and fed Angel once more, watching with greedy fascination as he licked his lips to the unfamiliar sweetness.

Spoonful by slow spoonful, he fed Angel all his ice cream.  He took none for himself, but every so often, before filling it again, he would put the spoon in his mouth and swirl it around, licking it clean.  The first time he’d done this, Angel looked faintly repulsed, hesitant to take it in his mouth again, but then he’d flicked his tongue out, licking at the bowl, and Spike could see that Angel was thinking of something else that he had licked and enjoyed earlier.

At the knowing look in Angel’s eyes, a sharp prick of desire made Spike open his thighs slightly and adjust the torn jeans.  The dark eyes changed once more, and Spike knew that Angel was enjoying the reaction he was causing.

For one startling moment, Spike had an image of how they would look to an outsider— to the man at the other table, for example: lovers.  They would look like beautiful, intimate lovers.

He let the spoon drop into the glass with a clatter that startled them both.  He laughed, a brittle sound in the artificial air.  ‘Bloody hell.’

Angel wiped his palms on his thighs.  ‘Let’s go home.’

Chapter 3

Halfway back to Wolfram and Hart - a trip taken in total silence - Angel suddenly pulled over in the shade outside a grocery store.  ‘I wanna cook.’

‘Huh?’

‘Cook— for you. I’ve never even used the kitchen. What do you want?’

Spike laughed. ‘I’m not sure I’d better answer that.’

Angel gave him a look through lowered lids, and just before he slid out of the car, shielded under his coat, he murmured, ‘That’s for dessert.’

Spike stayed in the car, not trusting his legs to get him safely inside the store.

When they arrived back, Spike’s new books had been delivered in a box to Angel’s office.  He hefted it into his arms and entered the elevator, leaving Angel to struggle with the groceries.  They gave each other wry glances as they rode up, and Spike shook his head, feeling that assumptions were being made, which he would only give more credence to by protesting against.

He forgot all his worries, however, as he unpacked his box.  He sprawled on his belly on Angel’s bed, swinging his legs, happily surrounded with his new treasures, reading the backs and trying to decide which to start first. 

Angel, unpacking the groceries, glanced over his shoulder at the scene and frowned. ‘I guess you could have used the book Wesley has— it calls up any book you want. Much cheaper.’

Spike turned reluctantly from his books and digested this.  ‘Angel…. This isn’t just about the words; it’s about the feel of them and the covers, the weight of them in your hand, knowing you can always carry one with you. Sometimes, I wonder if you have a damn soul at all.’

‘I read!’

‘No, Angel, you ponder dull, thick books, because you’re still trying to escape from the fact that your family only had one servant and you still think about yourself as a pretentious Irish peasant: dull and thick.  You’re not, and you know that really, but the part of you that is very, very clever is the part you won’t ever let out to play.’  He cocked up a scared eyebrow, pleased with his own boldness, turned on his back, rested an ankle on a raised knee, and then proceeded to lose himself in a story of other vampires who, like him, drank blood and would live for ever, but who, utterly unlike him, seemed very sure of who they loved and who they wanted to share their bodies with.

Spatula in hand, Angel stared at Spike for a while, taking in the casual way he sprawled on his bed, the easy way he read in his company, as if they were old, old lovers. As he turned back to the stove, something warm trickled through his heart, something that made him smile, then frown, then smile again.

Spike turned his head to look at Angel’s back but, after a small, private smile, went calmly back to his book.

After a few more minutes, Angel produced the first of what was to be many bottles of wine. He poured some of the perfect, red liquid into glasses he hadn’t known he owned and took them over to the bed. Spike brushed some of his books to one side, and Angel took the invitation to sit down.

‘That book good?’

‘Hmm. Very.’

‘What’s it about?’

‘Vampires.’

‘What?  Why?’

‘Because we make for great stories…?’

‘No, I mean why do you want to read about… I mean, aren’t you sick of….’

‘I like being what I am; you know that. Here….’ Spike pushed over another book.  ‘Try this one. It’s good. You’ll enjoy it.’

‘You’ve read it before?’

‘Well, duh.’

‘But you made me buy it for you?’

Spike rolled his head over to look at Angel. ‘Some things improve through familiarity, Angel.’

Angel licked his lips.  ‘Sometimes you find an unexpected newness in the old.’

Spike nodded. ‘Yeah, you can. Sometimes.’

‘Even if it’s been there all the time, only you never saw it before.’

‘Things happen – magical things – that make you think you see them.’

‘Is the magic catching then?’

This so closely mirrored Spike’s own thoughts on his capitulation that he was momentarily floored.  After a moment, he poked Angel in the leg and said annoyed, ‘You tryin’ to be clever, or something.’

Angel laughed and opened the book.

They polished off four bottles of wine between them, reading on the bed whilst the food cooked. Angel broke off frequently, asking Spike things, listening to his explanations, digesting them, and then returning to his story.  Spike watched the lowered head, remembering what it had felt like to hit it so hard that he had heard the skull crack, but wondering what it would be like to run his hands through the silky locks, wet from a shower.

As if hearing his thoughts, Angel looked up and said softly, ‘There’s time for a shower before dinner, if you want one.’

The offer seemed innocent enough, but Spike had an immediate image of them both, pale and glistening, warming up— quickly.

He shivered, swung his legs off the bed, and went to the window.

‘What would you do, Angel, if our positions were reversed?’

‘Huh?’ Angel came and leant on the glass next to him.

‘What if it had been me under the spell—desperately in love with you?’

‘But I love you, so I’d have been happy.’

‘God, Angel! Try to remember, will you! What did you think when I popped out of that bloody crystal?’

‘That my life had returned to me.’

‘Oh, bloody hell. When I became corporeal again! You HATED me!’

‘Yes, but you took Harmony off to have her— not me.’

Spike turned his head and stared at him. ‘The fall that is coming to you is going to be so hard and so fast that you’ll burn, Angel. You’ll burn.’ Then he turned back to the view and murmured, ‘But it’s not going to be nearly as spectacular as mine.’

Angel put a hand on his arm and began to circle his fingers.  ‘I want what’s best for you, Spike.’

Spike looked down at the hand and then, after some hesitation, laid his over it.  ‘Then maybe I’d better go home tonight.’

‘It’s not safe.’  The next words seemed to come from somewhere a very long way away, as though the effort nearly killed him, but Angel added, ‘I’ll go.’

Spike looked over at the stove.  He looked at the bed and the detritus of their afternoon reading and drinking.  He glanced toward the bathroom.

He took his hand off Angel’s and put it to the back of the dark head.

With a tiny gesture of his thumb, he invited Angel to stay.

When their mouths came together, there was equal need, hot between them.  Angel moaned, long and low into the kiss.  Spike stayed rational until he heard that sound, drawn forth by his mouth and his tongue, and then he gave his innate survival instincts a holiday. He just shut down. He refused to think about anything but the taste of Angel’s saliva, the heat of his mouth, the hardness of his body.  His own body betrayed him anyway, so he refused to fight it anymore.  

Angel’s hands sought Spike’s zipper, even as they kissed, not letting them pull apart despite his frantic fumbling. Eventually, he had what he wanted, and he groaned loudly into Spike’s mouth as he stroked him.

When Angel fell to his knees, Spike tipped his head back, hovered his hands in the air, but then allowed himself to sink his fingers into the soft, dark locks.   

Angel sucked, languorously to start with, giving Spike’s cock the same delighted attention he’d given the cold sweetness earlier. He cupped his hands under the heavy, stretched balls, stroking gently with his thumb as he slipped the wide head through his lips.  

Spike had trouble staying on his feet: the intense sensation coursing through his groin made his legs shake.  He pushed his fingers further into Angel’s hair and used the long strands to anchor him, leaning into Angel’s face slightly.

He knew he wouldn’t be able to hold back for long, and when Angel sat back on his heels and began to slide his fingers up and down his hard column, Spike arched back with a cry and shuddered out powerful strings of sperm. Like a child in the snow, Angel lifted his face and caught the falling wetness on his tongue.  Some hit his cheek and began to slide down. He swallowed deeply and ran the tips of his fingers through the spill, pushing them into his mouth as well. He rose from his knees gracefully, like a fighter who has paid some obeisance to his martial God, and returned gratefully to Spike’s mouth.  Into the mix of saliva and sperm, he murmured, ‘Thank you.’

Spike turned away, fastening his pants, his holiday over. ‘I’ve just damned us both.’

Angel caught his shoulder and turned him back.  ‘But I love you.’

Spike took a small breath in and smiled.  ‘Then I’ll fix this moment, Luv, and it will be an unalterable memory when everything else alters— as it surely will.’  Very slowly and very deliberately, he stretched out his clenched fist to the fading light.  

Time seemed to slow down around them, but then Angel stretched his out too, clasping Spike’s.  They sealed this rediscovered bargain with a kiss.  

Angel pulled away first and murmured, ‘Smoke.’

Spike nodded. ‘Kinda not the same effect without the….’

‘No…. Fucking hell! Dinner!’  Angel dashed over and the whipped the food off the stove, fanning the smoke.  

Chuckling, Spike went to the refrigerator and pulled out two bags of blood, waving them at Angel.  With a sigh, Angel tossed the pan into the sink and opened the door of the microwave.  Spike leant on the counter, watching him.  Licking one finger, he wiped at something on Angel’s cheek, and Angel smiled shyly. ‘I’ll take a shower….’

The invitation was evident, but Spike shook his head.  Angel glanced over at the bed. ‘Are you thinking…?’

‘I’m trying not to think about anything.’

‘But….’

Spike put his finger back to Angel’s face, but this time to his lips, preventing him speaking. ‘No. I’m going to save you from that memory, Angel. This far, but no further. Sorry.’

Angel pouted and murmured against Spike’s finger, ‘You don’t have much faith in me.’

Spike closed his eyes briefly.  ‘I can picture your expression, Angel, when it hits you that all this was a spell….’ Suddenly, he snapped his eyes open. ‘Bloody fucking hell!’

‘What!’

‘That sodding, freaky, little, demon kid!’

Angel looked at him bemused.  Spike said grimly, ‘Call a meeting, Angel; things have just taken a whole new twist— wait… shower, and then maybe call the meeting?’

Angel put a hand to the dried cum on his face, nodded, and went toward the bathroom.

It was a very small meeting; Fred and Lorne did not appear to have gone home, so they were easy to summon; Wesley was in protective custody, ranting and reciting sonnets, and Gunn had taken what Lorne called “a break with the brothers to chill”.

Angel eyed his depleted team and nodded at Spike.  ‘Tell them.’

Spike sighed, not particularly anxious to repeat the story.  ‘I was patrolling, ya know? Keeping the streets safe….’

‘The point maybe?’

Spike glared at Angel, but the intensely loving expression that came back to him made him lose his thread even more.  ‘Anyway… there was this demon fucking….’ He smiled wanly at Fred. ‘Sorry. Doing what I thought was a kid. I killed the demon, then the kid wasn’t - a kid - and it turned into a demon, so I killed it too— cut ‘is bloody head off.  But see… he was controlling the other one somehow… making it want him…. It was the expression on the poor sap’s face that I just remembered: disgust, hatred… for himself.’ He avoided looking at Angel.

Fred interjected. ‘But you cut their heads off…. They’re dead, right?’

Lorne chuckled. ‘Well, Honey, as you know, some of us take a little beheading like other people take hot showers: perks us right up.’

Spike looked down, dejected.  ‘If it is still alive, it’s long gone.’

Fred stood up.  ‘There’s always physical evidence left behind!  Angel, get Special Ops to sweep the area.’

Spike nodded wisely. ‘Yeah, you could always bring in the other demon’s body.’

Fred gave him an incredulous look. ‘Maybe mention that first next time!’ 

Spike shrugged and glanced at Angel.  Angel was staring thoughtfully at his nails, then frowned and picked up the phone to make the call.

Angel paced anxiously in the lab as Fred poked and prodded the unpleasant object on the table. She had to work alone as her usual assistant had been banned for attempting to poke and prod Spike instead.

Spike watched the pacing figure.  He couldn’t see any anxiety on the dark features— any fear that the spell would be broken. It made his heart ache to see the easy confidence with which Angel sought the cure for other people, safe in the belief that his feelings were unalterable.  Just to amuse himself – to armour himself – Spike closed his eyes and worked through lots of scenes where Angel came out of the spell. He put them in the office; he put them up in the bedroom.  It made him smile— a bitter twitch of muscles that had nothing to do with humour. He had the feeling that nothing he could imagine would prepare him for what was to come.  He opened his eyes and made a small promise that he would not blame Angel, for he knew he had brought this upon himself. He could have stopped it; he could have found a place to stay away from everyone while the spell played out.  

He had called Angel, knowing he would come like a white knight to his rescue: like a sire.

He had let Angel fall deeper and deeper into the power of the spell by being exactly what Angel wanted, but then, for the first time, Angel had become exactly what he had always wanted.

‘What’s so funny?’

Spike blinked and found himself under close scrutiny.  He shook his head. ‘Nothing, Luv. Nothing.’

Angel nodded and went back to pacing.

What scared Spike more than the thought of Angel remembering what he had done under the spell, was the thought of Angel remembering what he had done.  Angel would now know things he kept private: his loneliness, his need, his liking for blowjobs from his sire….

‘Are you okay?’

Spike shivered slightly and smiled.  ‘Yeah. How’s the unpleasant digging around thing coming on?’

Angel glanced over at Fred.  ‘I think she’s extracted some weird kind of DNA that seems to be additional to that demon’s.’

‘Just don’t go into specifics where she found it, okay?’

Angel didn’t seem to hear, he just brushed Spike’s hand and started to pace the other way around the lab, just for a change.

Spike lit a cigarette and wondered if it would be the last he would light in L.A. That he had to go was fairly certain. Angel would not tolerate his presence in Wolfram and Hart: being reminded everyday that he had fallen to his knees and sucked things that he had previously threatened to cut off.  

He cast a sneaky glance at Angel and then squinted with great interest at the end of his cigarette.  He would go before he got invited to leave. 

‘She’s identified the demon.’

Spike nodded. ‘Oh, good.’  At least if he went on his own terms, he could snatch back some tattered shreds of his dignity.  He would mend; he always did. He’d been love’s bitch before, and he would be again.  It was all shit.

He threw his cigarette to the ground and went toward the door.

‘Where are you going?’

He hesitated, his back to the room.

‘In a few minutes, we should have it.’  He nodded. He sensed Angel very close behind him.  ‘And then we’ve unfinished business….’

He nodded again. They did, but it wouldn’t be finished in this lifetime or the next. It would finish in some squalid alley one day, long into the future, when all this was just another screwed up memory in centuries of screwed up bloody memories.

Angel pressed himself against Spike, the business he had in mind evident between them.  He bent his head and smelt into Spike’s hair.  

For a moment, Spike regretted stopping Angel from fucking him earlier.  Angel was going to hate him so much anyway it seemed a pity not to give him something to really hate him for: memories of their bodies writhing; echoes of their lovemaking in his mind; touch on his skin like ghostly fingers.

Angel rocked them together, something hard and insistent pushing into the small of Spike’s back.

He would then have something to remember, too.

‘Angel?’

Angel buttoned his jacket and turned to Fred. 

‘I have it.’ She held out one of the folios.  ‘It was using a powerful spell on itself— to be irresistible… and I think it just adapted it to spite Spike.  Probably a bit mad at the head thing….’

‘And?’

She jumped. ‘Oh, there’s a reverse spell… here.’

‘And?’

‘I can just say it… if you want….’

‘Go on then! We have an insane Wesley and a missing Gunn….’

She smiled nervously and began to recite from the book.  Angel turned to give Spike a reassuring smile, but Spike had gone.

Spike wasn’t surprised to hear a knock on his door that evening. He was slightly surprised by the identity of his visitor. 

He opened the door and stepped back, kicking his holdall out of the way.

‘Going somewhere?’

He nodded. 

‘Where?’

‘Anywhere.’

‘It’s not necessary. You know that— not on my account.’

‘You’ve got balls to come here; I’ll give you that, Watcher.’

‘Why do you use nicknames for everyone, Spike?’

‘Huh?’

‘Is it some form of defence to stop you getting too close to anyone?’

‘Look, as someone who admired my hair yesterday, you’re on pretty thin ice, and to be honest? I’m really not in the mood to trade shit with you.’

Wesley smiled ruefully. ‘That’s reassuring.’

Spike put his bag on the table and continued packing: folding his few clothes but then stuffing them in untidily.  ‘What are you here for?’

‘Just to say thank you for being so… rational.  There was a time you would have taken advantage of the situation and made me look a fool. I’m grateful that you didn’t. I’d like to think we could continue to work together.’

‘I’m leaving L.A.’

‘Ah.’

‘Yeah. Ah.’

‘He’s… missing.’

‘Not interested.’

‘Well, I’ll just keep talking, and you can go on telling yourself that.  He came down to free me from my extremely embarrassing restraints, and no one has seen him since.’

‘Not interested.’

‘I got the impression – in my five minutes of sanity, before I began to compose odes to your beauty – that he didn’t accept it was a spell: for us, yes, but not for himself.’

‘Not listening.’

‘And I can’t help but wonder if you gave him the same consideration you gave me.’

‘Not interested OR listening.’

‘And if not, why not….’

Spike held the door open and jerked his head toward the hallway.

Wesley nodded. ‘All right.  But do you need anything? Money? Contacts? I think Angel will want to know that I made that offer— eventually… when he can think rationally about all this.’

‘Do I look like someone who needs money?’

‘Frankly, yes.’

‘Just go, Wesley.’

‘Will you promise me something?’

‘No.’

‘Call when you get wherever it is you are going.’

‘Not likely.’

Wesley nodded again. ‘You are a selfish shit, Spike.’

With that he left.

Spike watched him walk down the hallway, reflecting that he had ripped men’s throats out for less.  He slammed the door and instantly regretted his small, petulant display. 

Wesley smiled, a small quirk to one side of his face but regretted his small flare of anger, too. 

Two days later, the phone rang on Wesley’s desk, and distracted with a book he was studying, he picked it up and murmured, ‘Hmm?’

‘It’s me.’

‘Oh. Where are you?’

‘Where I went.’

‘Ah.’

‘So, I called….’

‘Spike….’

‘What?’

‘You didn’t leave, did you?’

‘Not L.A, no.’

‘Good. 

Spike gave Wesley his new address, in a voice that clearly held many emotions in check, and then the call was terminated.

Wesley sat for some time with the receiver, tapping it against his face, totally oblivious to the thing he had previously found so absorbing.

Spike knew who it was this time - recognised the knock - so just called out, ‘Yeah.’

Wesley came in and shut the door softly behind him. ‘This is… different.’

It was an old house – very old for Californian standards, although that did not strike either Englishman particularly – with high, vaulted ceilings that gave an impression of vast space within the rooms.  What had once been the ballroom had been turned into a separate, self-contained, open-plan apartment.  On first glance, the wall of glass doors opening out into the small, private courtyard, seemed to make Spike’s choice of abode very odd to Wesley, until he stood at one window, staring into the gloomy space beyond. Neglected for decades, the trees in the courtyard took out any light whatsoever, and he realised that it would appear like night even during the day. There was a delicious coolness under this canopy of green; heavy vines crowded the high walls, and the whole gave off a sense of being deep under the… earth.

Wesley smiled and turned back to the room. ‘Good choice.’

Spike repressed a smirk, clearly very pleased with his new home.

Wesley raised his eyes once more when he saw a fire blazing in an old, vastly out-of-proportion fireplace. ‘Glass walls and fireplaces. You live dangerously, Spike.’  Spike didn’t need to point out that he liked the warmth, even in the summer; the way he had pulled all the old furniture close to the flames made it clear to Wesley where the vampire planned to spend most of his days— either there or in the bed. The bed made Wesley smile. It was grand, in the style of the house: ornate, huge, and preposterous.  He nodded toward it with a raise of one eyebrow, and Spike shrugged, clearly slightly embarrassed by its proportions, too.

Suddenly, Wesley began to laugh. Spike looked annoyed and withdrew the beer he had been about to pass over.  Wesley sobered and said contritely, ‘It’s all very Anne Rice.  Sorry.’

Spike gave him the finger, but passed over the beer and flung himself into a comfortable couch in front of the fire.

Wesley sat in an armchair further away from the fire’s warmth and murmured, ‘I’m glad you called this morning.’

Spike was watching the flames, and he didn’t look up.

‘I don’t think you will achieve anything by running away.’  Wesley edged forward and was about to sit when Spike snapped, ‘What do you want?’

‘I want something you have, Spike.’

Spike’s eyes drifted from the fire, and at the expression, Wesley added wryly, ‘Information.’

Spike frowned. ‘You’re the one with all those damn b….’

‘Who’s Connor?’

‘Connor who?’

Wesley studied his expression and then let out a small breath. ‘You don’t know. I didn’t expect that.’

‘Why the question?’

‘I hear his name in my dreams. I got the impression you would know.’  He watched the uncommunicative vampire for a while and then said, ‘Well, I’ll be going.’

‘Yeah. You do that.’

Wesley heard something in the voice that gave him pause: something he heard in his own voice all too often these days. Not knowing quite what he was doing, he said evenly, ‘I’m going to stop for a drink before going home. Drinking alone is becoming an increasingly disagreeable habit.’

There was a pause, and then Spike said, with a small, amused glance, ‘Is that an uptight Englishman’s way of asking someone to come for a drink with him?’

Wesley kept his gaze level. ‘No. It’s a lonely Englishman’s way of asking you if you’d like to come for a drink.’

Spike nodded, acknowledging the other’s frankness.  He rose and clapped Wesley on the back as he snatched up his coat. ‘Tell you what, Mate, as we go, you can tell me one of your new odes; I like a laugh.’

Wesley smiled, pleased with the joke on him and that they were easy about the spell, but not fooled for a minute about what Spike really wanted to be told. 

Spike chose a dingy bar that sold surprisingly good beer, and he bought the first round. When he came back to the table and put one in front of Wesley, the man hesitated, but said, ‘I meant what I said about money, Spike; you only have to ask. The rent must be astronomical on that….’

‘Nah. I get it for free.’

Wesley’s expression ranged from suspicious to sceptical. ‘That’s a neat trick then.’

‘’S haunted.’

‘Haunted.’

‘Old lady who owns the house can’t get anyone to live there.  She took one look at me and….’ He grinned, something clearly pleasing him in the memory. ‘Pointedly invited me in— if you get my drift.’

‘She knows what you are?’

Spike shrugged. 
 
Wesley looked at him slightly censoriously and murmured, ‘Let’s hope payment won’t end up being in kind, Spike. Nothing in life is free; everything has a price.’

Spike tipped his head on one side and regarded him frankly. ‘But sometimes you don’t remember making the payment.’

‘Sorry?’

Spike didn’t elaborate, only squinted at him through the smoke of a newly lit cigarette.

Wesley sensed the vampire’s desperate need to ask about Angel, but had no intention of helping him out.  He deliberately chose another topic of conversation and saw a flicker of wry amusement spark in the blue eyes.  Wesley smiled inwardly; it wasn’t often he had someone as grown up as this to play with.  He leant back and began to talk of L.A: an Englishman’s dry observations on such an alien culture.  After a while, Spike relaxed enough to join in, and they ranged over many topics of interest: places they had in common at home, people they now had in common in L.A.

There was only one person they didn’t discuss, but he was present in every word they spoke.

At last, Spike said with a pout, studying his cigarette with oddly intent interest, ‘You know I won’t ask.’

Wesley took a sip of his drink. ‘Then you won’t find out.’

Spike flashed him a look through lowered lids and murmured, ‘You bastard. All right then.’  He took a long drag and blew the smoke out in Wesley’s face. ‘How’s Angel?’

Wesley rose, as if this moment was what he’d been waiting for all along. As he left, he leant down and said very precisely in Spike’s ear, ‘He won’t ask about you either. That’s how he is.’

Chapter 4

He had turned back from not finding Spike to hear Fred finish the incantation, and from that point on, all had been confusion.

He couldn’t work his way through it; it was a net, ensnaring him.

She had said something, and he had to ask for it to be repeated. 

‘It’s done, Angel.’

He’d stared at her, expecting the punch line, the joke.  

He’d torn down to security, wanting - needing - to find Wesley still raving, insane, with lust eroding him.  Wesley had been dusting down his clothes and avoiding everyone’s eyes.

Wesley had asked him something, and once more, confusion made it only a hollow ring in his ears.

‘All well?’

He’d nodded, and then the shutters had come down.  He’d keep his confusion inside and played the age-old game.

He took off for the day and killed a lot of things that needed killing and some that didn’t but hung balanced, like him, on that treacherous edge between good and evil.  A day spent killing, but the net only tightened around him.  

He couldn’t stay in the apartment and moved into another suite— just to shower and lie on the bed, not sleeping.

The next day, he’d gone to work as usual and accepted the confusion along with the guilt, the fear, the hatred, and all the other (far more evil) emotions that pooled in the depths of his being.

He was weighed down with them; they slopped around in his belly and made him sick, like bad blood.

Spike rolled his eyes when he heard the same knock once more, but said, ‘Come in,’ without any particular rancour.

Wesley gave him one of his inscrutable smiles and went straight out into the small, enclosed, gloomy courtyard. Spike wandered out with a cigarette in one hand and a beer in the other.

He gave Wesley a quizzical look, but when the human hadn’t spoken for some time, said annoyed, ‘So?’

‘I’m going to ask you out for a drink. I’m just testing the sound of it in my head: trying to decide whether there is any sub-text.’

Spike laughed, genuinely amused.

Wesley smiled back. ‘I’m using you, of course— working through some things I don’t understand.’ He narrowed his eyes as if pondering them then and there. ‘Why do I dream of someone called Connor, but think about you on waking?’

Spike pushed off the wall he’d been leaning on and ground out his cigarette.  As he passed Wesley, he leant in and said in a low tone, ‘Careful, Wesley, early morning thoughts are dangerous ones.’

Wesley gave him a long look, dark blue eyes meeting, and then he put a hand to his throat, taking long, slow breaths as if somehow, at Spike’s words, his breathing had been restricted.

They walked together to the same bar they’d gone to last time, and relaxed into conversation as easily as before, but every so often, Wesley would put a hand to his throat in an almost unconscious gesture for air.

By the third day Angel had conquered his confusion and was entirely rational once more— for a few hours. 

Then the anger began. 

He felt had been played: expertly.  

His face played in front of his eyes, mocking him, playing on the weakness created by the spell. 

The perfect revenge, and his childe had been handed it on a plate. Spike didn’t need to defeat him physically – the obsession that had plagued their whole acquaintance – he’d done it from the inside now. He’d gained emotional victory, so that every time Spike looked at him now, they’d both know what he’d be thinking, what he’d be remembering, and that lazy smirk would spread….

Angel hurled an axe into his couch as if taking off an imaginary head.  He straightened his shoulders and noticed a secretary watching him from the lobby.  He gritted his teeth and went into his conference room out of sight.

Two days later, the confusion returned, but this time it was not about his feelings – they were utterly under control, locked down with older, more evil ones – it was about Spike.

Now, he was not so sure that Spike had played him, and that was the most confusing thought of all.  He retuned to his own apartment, and then the truth of this new realisation threatened to overwhelm him. 

The books mocked him from the bed.

He knew that Spike had not been faking.  

It occurred to Angel, for the first time, as he stared down at the bed that the spell may not have been intended to reveal his feelings, but Spike’s, and that in this, the demon had won his ultimate revenge. 

For the first time, Angel acknowledged that Spike’s feelings for him were very different from those his childe had ever admitted.  

Hours passed as Angel roamed over their long relationship in his mind, trying to see connections, threads.  

He closed his eyes and felt the anger return: for Spike, for him.  He had not asked to have this new knowledge, and he was pretty sure that Spike had not wanted his true feelings to be so exposed.

Finally, the next morning, still staring at the bed, Angel decided what to do.

He packed the books back into the box.  He carried it down to his office and sat at his desk with his chequebook.  He was generous. It would be enough for him to start again somewhere new.

Finally, he pulled out a sheet of his expensive, new paper.  It seemed faintly appropriate to write such a letter with its hated letterhead staring back at him.

He unscrewed his pen top and wrote Spike followed by a comma.  It was a good start and he eyed it, pleased with his letter so far.

We both know that you have to leave L.A. now. We had an uneasy balance, which is there no longer.  Cash the check. Don’t let your pride make this situation worse.  In a weird kind of way, I wish you well. It’s not easy to be souled in a world of the damned.
Angel

He didn’t read it back, but folded the cheque inside and put the slip of paper in the box.  When it was done, he buzzed Harmony.

She came in with a sly grin, and he gave her a look to freeze the dead.

‘Do you know where Spike’s living?’

‘Ooo, house-warming pressie. How sweet, Angel!’

‘Is that a yes or a no, Harmony?’

‘It’s a: of course!’

‘Have this mailed to him.’

‘Okay, Boss.’

She picked it up sauntered out to her desk.  

Angel watched through the glass as she made a phone call.  He watched her fiddling with the edges of the box, curious, and then saw her cast him an uneasy glance and seal it up with tape immediately.  He saw the mailman arrive with his wagon. He watched it being loaded and trundled out of sight.

He caught the startled mailman just before he reached the next floor, removed the box and rode down in the elevator, wondering which of the myriad of emotions he’d been struggling with over the past week was now driving him. He decided it was guilt, and that small revelation did not make his drive over to the address on the box very pleasant.

He sat in the car, looking over at the old house with another very considerable swell of guilt burning in his belly. With a curse, he ripped the box open and withdrew the folded paper, stuffing it in his pocket.  

Trying not to think any more, he went up to the imposing front door and knocked.

He heard a number of chains and locks being undone, and then a withered, but elegant face peered suspiciously around the door. When she saw him, some animation crept into her face.

Angel glanced down at the address on the box at his feet and said half-angrily, driven by embarrassment, ‘I’m looking for someone called….’

‘William?’

Angel felt odd acknowledging this, but just nodded once. 

A broad smile illuminated the elderly face, but instead of letting him in, she waved toward a side-path. ‘He has his own entrance. It’s easier for him. Shadier.’

Angel wasn’t listening; he was already considering climbing back into the safety of his car and leaving.  

With a nod of thanks at the old lady, he hefted the box once more and pushed through the undergrowth to the path she had indicated.

Once more, he knocked.

This time, he heard distinct laughter, and Spike called out, ‘Hang on.’

Angel frowned and knocked again. 

Spike pulled the door open, still looking back into the room, laughing at something.

Wesley was sitting in an armchair dressed in old jeans and a sweater. The floor was littered with empty bottles and boxes from a take-out, the coffee table with cards. He appeared to have interrupted a poker game.

Angel’s emotions swirled so forcibly, they rose in his throat, and he had to swallow the burning mass down, leaving his throat hoarse for a moment.  

He’s stealing Spike from you, too.

Angel flicked his head as if a voice had actually spoken in his ear.  He let the box of books drop and turned, pushing his way through the undergrowth.  Everything he had planned to say dissipated on that whisper of malice.

He felt a hand on his shoulder, but shrugged it off.

‘Angel….’

He turned.  Spike had followed him out, bare-foot, arms wrapped around his thin frame as if cold after the warmth of the fire or the better company inside.

The vomit still burnt Angel’s throat, and he feared speaking less his hoarseness be mistaken, but he forced out, ‘You need to leave L.A.’

Something flashed in Spike’s eyes, but he said calmly, ‘Come inside, Angel.’

As he spoke, Wesley appeared at the door, a little unsteadily, and he nodded at them both. ‘I’ll be on my way.’

Spike gave him a glance. ‘Re-match tomorrow?’

Even without seeing Angel’s expression, Wesley had the sense not to reply to this.  He pressed past them both, Angel not giving an inch on the path, and left.

Without waiting to see if Angel followed, Spike returned to his apartment.  He began to tidy mindlessly, his thoughts on other things than empty bottles and half-eaten Chinese.

He knew when Angel entered; the temperature seemed to lower. 

Angel dropped the box onto the couch and went to stand by the windows, frowning at the small courtyard, reminded of another time and another place.  

Spike opened the box and let out a small breath. ‘Ah.’

Angel shrugged. ‘They’re yours. I don’t want them.’

Trying to ignore the memories sparked by the sight of the gifts from another, better time, Spike picked up a grocery bag and came toward Angel, holding it out.

‘These are yours. I don’t want them either.’

Angel took the bag with some trepidation and looked in to see folded denim.  Connor, so recently conjured in his mind when he’d seen Wesley, he clenched his jaw and turned back to the window.  ‘I want you to leave L.A.’

‘I tried to stop it going too far, Angel. I tried. I knew this would happen….’

Angel whirled around, and Spike - caught unprepared, trying to be conciliatory and calm - took an immediate step back. That he regretted this small defeat was evident in his expression.

Angel came forward and seemed to be trying to dominate with his size and the power of his presence. ‘This isn’t about ME! This isn’t about how I feel! I don’t feel anything! This is about you!’  He seemed to be trying to calm down and turned back to the window.  ‘We both know how you feel about me now….’

‘Whoa!  Hold on!  No! No, no, no.  You’ve got this all wrong!’ Spike went the window and tried to get Angel to look at him. ‘I don’t feel shit for you.  My God, your arrogance is outstanding! You’re an uptight, humourless, selfish sod, Angel, who’s done nothing but make my life miserable. I have feelings for the Angel who liked and wanted me! I have feelings for spell-boy! And he’s not you!’

Angel turned, the truth of Spike’s words hitting him.  For all his confusion, for all the warring emotions he’d struggled with, this had not occurred to him.  

Suddenly, his shoulders sagged. He felt a huge weight on them, crushing him.  

He closed his eyes for a moment and nodded.  ‘Okay. We both know where we stand then.’

When he opened his eyes, Spike was regarding him closely, but he veiled his look as soon as he saw Angel watching him.  He nodded and turned away.  ‘Let yourself out, Mate.’

He flung himself onto the couch, put his feet up on the coffee table and picked a book out of his box, ignoring Angel totally.

‘Are you going to leave L.A?’

Spike turned his head theatrically, as if surprised Angel was still there. ‘No.’

Angel gritted his teeth.  

Spike turned back to his book and murmured, ‘Why don’t you leave if you’re so keen on the idea.’

Angel came closer. ‘This is my city, Spike. You have no reason to be here now.’

‘Oh, I don’t know. Nice new place, nice new friends.’

‘Wesley?’  The name came out as if Angel was spitting poison, and Spike turned, his eyes widening.

‘Jesus! What’s with you?’

‘I don’t want you to see him.’

A stunned silence fell in the room, Angel as surprised as Spike; it wasn’t what he’d intended to say at all.

Suddenly, he spun on his heel and left, slamming the door just hard enough to make some ancient plaster flake from the ceiling and fall through the air like snow in summer.

The next day, Angel looked up from some paperwork he wasn’t really reading to see Spike in the lobby talking to Harmony. He began to rehearse the speech he’d prepared, fingering the cheque that was still in his pocket, but was disconcerted when Wesley appeared, putting on his jacket. He greeted Spike, and they both went into the elevator.

He came out of his office and gave Harmony some instructions.  He chatted to a few people passing by and then said casually, ‘Where was Wesley going? With Spike?’

Harmony put on her having-to-think-hard-now face then brightened. ‘Ooo, I know the answer to this one: a strip joint.’

Angel’s eyes widened, but before he could comment, she added, ‘Or maybe Spiky was joking.’

‘Why are they going anywhere?’

‘Huh?’

Angel was fairly sure Harmony hadn’t meant this small sound to mean what business of yours is it what they do? but Angel heard this in the small interrogative nevertheless.

‘Shopping!’

Angel looked back at Harmony. He’d forgotten she was there.  ‘What?’

‘Wesley has filled in his appointments.’ She turned her screen for him to look.  She gave him a bright jeez, now I’m actually being helpful look and added, ‘They’re probably buying some new things for the apartment. Have you seen it? Great bed.’

‘You’ve been there?’

‘Well, duh. Are you coming to the party?’

‘Party?’

‘Yeah. House-warming. Saturday. God, I love parties.’

‘No. I haven’t been invited.’

‘Bummer.’  She went happily back to painting her nails. 

By late afternoon, they were back. Angel tracked their progress across the lobby, righteous anger making him feel pleasantly mean.

He strode into Wesley’s office and smiled inwardly when he saw the human’s slightly shifty look.

‘Good day?’

Wesley seemed to sense that this was meant ironically and didn’t reply.  Spike got up from where he was perched on the desk and said flatly, ‘I’ll be off. Thanks for the help.’  He strolled past Angel then, timing it to perfection, turned and said off-hand to Wesley, ‘Tonight?’

Wesley nodded, his eyes still on Angel.

Angel smiled and said, ‘Stay. This concerns you too, Spike.’

Spike pursed his lips and looked reluctant to obey, but hung in the door anyway.

‘I don’t pay you, Wesley, to take time off whenever you feel like it.’

Wesley gave him an odd look. ‘I’m not sure what part of that to challenge first.’

‘You have no sense of responsibility….’

‘Angel. Shut up before you say something that you’ll regret and that I’ll have to act upon. I’ve been demon hunting— with Spike. We’ve been trying to find the little bastard that put the spell on us.’

Angel licked his lips. ‘Harmony said….’

‘I can’t help what she said. I’m telling you what we’ve been doing.’

‘That’s not what you’re going to be doing tonight….’

Wesley came around the desk.  ‘What is wrong with you, Angel? That’s exactly what we’re doing tonight!’

Angel felt he was falling badly.  He grabbed onto something and levered himself up. ‘And I suppose Saturday is demon hunting, too?’

Spike suddenly said, amused, ‘No, that’s a party.  Can we have a pass for the weekend, Daddy?’

He suddenly seemed to regret his choice of words and pushed off the doorframe. ‘Shit. Sorry.’

Angel turned, and their eyes met for a moment. Angel saw genuine contrition and confusion in the blue eyes, and he just nodded, running his fingers through his hair. ‘Yeah. Okay.’ He turned back to Wesley. ‘Sorry. I’ve been on edge.’

Wesley breathed a sigh of relief and nodded.  Angel turned and went toward the door.

As he passed, Spike lifted his head and said hesitantly, ‘Saturday? Wanna come?’

Angel turned, anger and confusion in his face. Spike suddenly looked equally angry. ‘Forget it then! But I would have asked you before this damn spell!’

Once more, Angel felt wrong-footed.  He closed his eyes for a moment and then nodded. ‘I’m sorry.  I don’t do parties though.’

When he opened his eyes, he saw Spike smiling broadly. The expression was wiped off quickly, but he said mischievously, ‘That’s why I’d ‘ave asked you. You know how I love making your life miserable.’

With a sense of intense relief, Angel heard the offer in the words: that they could return to what they had been.

He nodded gratefully. ‘Well, in that case, I’ll come, and I’ll enjoy it— just to spite you.’

‘Don’t forget a pressie, Luv. Something clever and unique.’

This confused Angel; memories of a mall and something cold slipping down his throat, salty and intense, made him look away.

Spike pouted, glanced at Wesley, and left.

He heard soft laughter again as he negotiated the overgrown path, but it was a voice he didn’t recognise. He was surprised he could hear at all over the music, which hurt his ears.  He glanced up at the façade of the otherwise silent house and wondered how long Spike’s occupancy of the intriguing room would be tolerated.  When he reached the door, it was wide open— an obvious invitation to the party.

He brushed his shirt down and felt clumsy. He ran his fingers through his hair and felt old.  He stepped into the large apartment and immediately wished he hadn’t come.

It was full.  Strange creatures drifted around, drinking and talking.  He swallowed and was about to turn and go when his arm was captured. ‘Hi!’ Angel smiled at Fred, but hissed, ‘Who are all these… freaks?’

She was clearly a little drunk, and replied with a giggle, ‘They all work for you, Angel! The whole world works for you now!’

Angel frowned deeply, willing himself to be transported away, and then a drink was thrust into his hand.  Lorne patted his arm. ‘Sea Breeze. Guaranteed to get you over those and don’t I just feel awkward? moments of life. Don’t worry, Angel-Pie; they’re all more frightened of you than you are of them.  You won’t actually have to talk to anyone.’

He shrugged them both off and made for the fire, which was burning brightly, despite the heat.  All the doors had been opened wide, and the flames seemed to be trying to reach out into the night, to join the dozens of candles that had been placed around the courtyard.  Fire and candlelight were the only illumination, and once his sight had adjusted, Angel realised that what he had taken for demonic was human: just drunk, weirdly shadowed, and interestingly dressed.

He scanned the assembled throng, but he could not see the one he refused to admit he was seeking.

Angered, he moved away from the fire and out into the cooler air of the courtyard.

Angel stiffened. He was leaning on the wall off to one side of the glass doors, smoking.

Their eyes met.

Spike smiled, and something in the easy intimacy of that smile made Angel respond in kind.

Spike pushed off the wall. ‘I’m glad you came.’

Angel glanced back into the room. ‘I had no idea you knew so many people.’

Spike took a drag of his cigarette.  ‘I don’t. Lorne’s organized it all.’

Angel felt an odd flood of relief at this, which he couldn’t explain.  Spike saw his expression and chuckled. ‘Feelin’ left out?’

Angel decided not to rise to this and answered truthfully. ‘Totally. I’m nearly three hundred years old, and I don’t know this many people— don’t want to.’

‘Apparently, if you get a new place, you have to invite people over to trash it; ‘s customary.’

‘You may not be here long.’  He glanced at the stereo. 

Spike waved his cigarette at one of the chairs next to the fire. ‘You think?’

Angel peered through the gloom to see the elderly lady he had spoken to earlier, sipping something from a glass with oddly glowing ice cubes.  She had her eyes closed, and her head was nodding slightly to the music. A small, enigmatic smile smoothed her features, the candlelight playing gently over the paper-thin skin.

He looked over at Spike, thoughtfully. Spike came stood alongside him.  ‘Innocence.’

‘Huh?’

‘That’s her name. Angel, she was born in same century I was! She came over on the Titanic.  Isn’t she… incredible?’

Angel studied him for a moment, and then gave him a genuine smile. ‘You live in a house owned by someone called Innocence.’

Spike gave him a small, complicit smile in return and nodded happily.  He strolled to a small pond in the gloomiest part of the courtyard and fished out a bottle of wine – one of many that appeared to be stashed there - and topped up his drink. He hesitated then waved it at Angel.  After a small glance back into the crowded room, Angel came over, drained his drink, and held out his glass.

Somehow they found themselves sitting together on the edge of the pond, under the cover of a dense Cyprus tree, separated from the activity in the light, drinking wine.

After one bottle had been dispatched, Spike turned his head and said, ‘You okay?’

Spike’s question made Angel start, but before he could stop himself, he wobbled his hand— an uncharacteristic acknowledgment of his inner turmoil.

Spike nodded. ‘I’ve been thinking… ‘bout what you said… going away.’ 

Angel glanced over at him but did not comment.  Spike continued doggedly, ‘It makes no sense, does it? I mean me… L.A….’

He trailed off but Angel still made no attempt to help him out.

Spike sighed and topped up their glasses again and then lit a cigarette. Seeing Angel’s expression, he offered him one, and it was accepted.

They smoked contentedly, feeling cut off from the noisy events unfolding in front of them.  Couples spilled out onto the courtyard, but no one disturbed their quiet retreat.  

‘This place is perfect.’

Spike smiled, knowing Angel did not mean their small hideaway.  ‘Yeah. I know.’

‘It has soul.’

‘It’s just the contrast to where you live maybe?  How can you stand living in that soulless bloody apartment, Angel? It’s not you. You like to have nice things around you, too.’

‘It was part of the deal— to keep Connor safe. They want me there.’

Spike narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. ‘Connor.’

Angel nodded, sunk in his memories. ‘My son. The owner of the jeans.’

Spike’s eyes widened fractionally, and he glanced over at the party, looking for Wesley.  He tipped his head on one side and said deceptively casually, ‘Do mind wipes work forever?’

Angel frowned. ‘I guess. Why?’

‘Nothing.’  Spike topped them up again.

‘Shouldn’t you join the party?’

Spike shrugged. ‘Not really in a party mood, ya know?’

Angel nodded then chuckled ruefully and fished in his pocket. ‘Present— as ordered.’

Spike looked intrigued and took the small box.  He shook it then held it to his ear.  Angel smiled and topped up their drinks.  

‘What is it?’

‘Open it and see.’

Spike hesitated, and Angel laughed again. ‘What?’

Spike shrugged. ‘First present you’ve ever bought me.’

Angel balanced his glass on the wall.  ‘The books?’

‘That wasn’t you.’

Angel glanced up through lowered lids. ‘Just open it, Spike.’

Spike ripped off the paper, removed the lid and pulled out an oddly shaped fragment of glass. He tried to hide his disappointment, but then felt Angel’s hand on his.  Angel lifted the glass until it was in front of Spike’s face.

Spike hissed and almost dropped it.  He scrabbled frantically and dropped the box so he could hold it in both hands. ‘Angel!’

Angel was watching Spike’s face, not the one reflected in the fragment.  

Spike looked over to him then suddenly pressed his head against Angel’s, crowding them together and looking in the mirror once more.  He snagged in his breath at their shared reflections.  ‘What… where… how…? I mean….’

Angel took the small, broken mirror from him and studied his own face once more.  ‘I found it in the vaults of Wolfram and Hart one day.’

Spike took it back. ‘It’s… magic….’

Angel laughed. ‘I think rather that we are: not showing up in human ones.’

‘Is it our souls that make this work?’

Angel tipped his head on one side and took it back. ‘You mean….’

‘Would Harmony show up? Or is it just us?’

Angel raised an eyebrow as if the idea intrigued him. ‘A mirror made just for us.’  He suddenly shivered and handed it back.  ‘Anyway. Housewarming gift. Sorry it’s not full-length.’

At exactly the same time, they both had an image of Spike, standing naked in front of a full-length mirror, never moving, transfixed by the… novelty.  Spike elbowed him playfully, grinning.  Angel topped up their drinks again as Spike seemed unable to take his gaze off his own reflection.  Angel watched him trying out expressions.  When he saw he was being watched, Spike pulled them together again, so he could see both their reflections once more. ‘Maybe humans wouldn’t show up. That would be cool.’

Angel chuckled. ‘Freak them out for once.’  

Angel’s cheek felt cool and smooth against his.  He could smell the nicotine and wine.  In the mirror, he could see their mouths close together.  He saw in the reflection that Angel was studying him. Watching his own mouth move as he talked, he said softly, ‘If you want me to go, I will.’

Angel put his hand up and tilted the mirror slightly.  ‘Why do I want you to leave?’

Spike pulled away and laid the mirror carefully back in its box, looking at Angel with a frown.

Angel looked down at his glass then topped them both up again.  ‘It implies there is some reason I don’t want you here….’

Spike said helpfully, ‘Cus you don’t like me?’

Angel looked thoughtful. ‘But I don’t like most people. But you’re the only one I want to leave.’

‘Yeah, but they don’t know just how to niggle you like I do… decades of practice, yeah?’ As if to illustrate his point, he suddenly put his hand up and flattened Angel’s hair a little. Immediately, Angel grabbed the mirror and checked it with a small curse. 

‘I’m surprised you can bear to give that to me.’

‘I didn’t like my reflection very much.’

Spike sighed.  ‘So. Go or stay?’

Angel let his eyes roam over the house. ‘It doesn’t like the party. It wants to be quiet.’

Spike nodded, pleased. ‘You sense it, too. It likes the dead, I think. It’s easy in our company.’

Angel put his head down in his hands and stayed that way for some time.  Spike was about to return them to his question when the overhanging branches parted, and a familiar, green figure pushed through. ‘Well, aren’t we the party-poopers? Is this little private party limited to the dead, or can anyone join in?’

Angel sighed and lifted his head. 

Spike rose and picked up his gift carefully.  He looked at Lorne and then at the house behind them. ‘This was all a waste of good alcohol. Apparently, I’m leaving L.A after all.’

Angel rose and took the box from him. ‘No.  This has to stay here— condition of the gift.’

Spike started to look angry, but then he hesitated and looked more closely at Angel’s expression.  He ducked his head with a shy smile and let out a small breath. ‘Okay.’

Angel chuckled and handed the box back, leaving with Lorne. Spike watched his retreating back with more confusion than he had felt when he knew Angel was only acting under the influence of the spell.

Chapter 5

Lorne seemed to find it as easy to break up a party as to create one, and Spike’s apartment emptied rapidly when he sensed that the vampire was weary of making the effort.

Leaving the doors open, stoking the fire, Spike flung himself into the deep couch and stretched luxuriously.  He sensed the ghosts returning, seeking the quiet corners, and he welcomed them, old friends already.

The intense fragrance of exotic flowers, which grew around the windows, filled the room, and the heat of the fire trapped it there, making the air swim with perfume.  Underlying its sweetness, a salty, earthy, male smell of a Spanish chestnut made Spike breathe deeply, his body already heavy with need.  He knew what he would be doing soon, and the thought depressed him.

He spread his arms along the back of the couch and pictured a hand on his body instead. It was loving and familiar and took its time, knowing how his body worked: where to touch; and where to leave, teasing and drawing out the pleasure.  

With a hiss of anger, he rose and stripped off his T-shirt, flinging it to the floor.  He strode toward his small shower, stepping out of his jeans as he did. 

When he felt the water cascading over his body, he took himself in one hand, running his palm gently over the tight, hard flesh.  It made him shiver, and his balls twitched, a small clench of pleasure that made him groan softly. 

Suddenly he tipped his head to one side, concentrating.  With almost magical clarity, he knew that across the city, in another shower, another souled vampire was touching himself, too.  

Angel flicked his head around, water spraying off his hair. He felt… observed, and it unnerved him to the extent that he slid open the door and glanced around the bathroom, but all he saw was the soulless white and chrome, mocking him.

Spike slid his hand hard down to the root, lower, over his balls, dragging them painfully down. They clenched with pleasure once more, and his shaft jumped a little, hardening enough to swing horizontal. 

Crouching, Angel groaned as he thrust into his fist.  Although he had not come yet, he could smell sperm already, mixed with a subtle scent of exotic flowers.  

Braced against the wall, forehead to the old, cracked tile, Spike pushed into something he had not entirely defined in his mind. It was tight and hot and pushed back to meet him.  

Angel’s body began to spasm, the moment he enjoyed most, almost more than the shooting, which sent rivers of intense feeling through his body.  Then the release began, but he aimed it to the drain, crying out with a sense of loss and waste and desolation.

Spike caught his ejaculate in his hand and rubbed it over his body, where it glistened thicker than the water for a fleeting moment before being washed away, leaving him clean and empty.  When he stepped out of the stall, the smell of the Spanish chestnut was almost overwhelming as if the old tree itself had come.  He walked naked and wet out into the still softly illuminated courtyard and tipped his face up to the night, his body still quivering from the orgasm.

Angel stood trapped in the air-conditioned apartment, leaning his forehead on the window, looking out over the city.  He was naked, too, and he shivered slightly from the contrast with the hot shower.  

When the light of candles began to fade to that of the rising sun, muted and green as it was through the leaves, Spike went back into his apartment and, still naked, slid in between the smooth linen sheets of his vast bed.  They were cold to his flesh, like cool liquid around him, and he spread-eagled, washing them over every inch of his body.  

Sated, every sense satisfied, he let his thoughts wander unhindered over the events of the night.  As he did, his fist curled and uncurled on his new treasure, reassuring himself that it was still there, still his.  He held it to his face once more. It was magic; he was magic, but together they had overcome this and become real, normal.  Was it a coincidence that Angel had chosen to bring him this? A random choice of gift because he had been ordered to, and he was bored and didn’t want it himself. Or had it meant more? 

It seemed to Spike as he lay in his cool bed, that it had meant a lot more.

Angel sank onto the edge of his bed and pushed his fingers through his hair in despair.  He was scared, and the fear clutched at his belly, but nothing ever frightened him, and this contradiction only added confusion to the fear.  He had stepped out into that small, fragrant courtyard and had allowed himself to be someone else— the person he had been under the spell.  There had been no spell, though, unless it was one cast by candlelight and wine. 

Spike lay through the long morning, watching the effect of green shadows filtered through gauzy drapes that shifted in the breeze.  By the time sleep overtook him, he had worked it all out.  The only trouble was, he didn’t know whether he was pleased with his discovery or not— he valued his sanity too much. He had thought that the Angel he wanted had been brought forth by a spell. He had told Angel as much in angry words spat out in hasty defence: That’s not you  

It wasn’t true though. That Angel had been there all the time, under the less pleasant one, silent and still.  He’d been the one he’d sat with all night in the warm darkness. He’d been the one who had obliquely asked him to stay.  That Angel was the one he wanted now: in his bed, in his body, in his life.

Angel finally lay down, tense and anxious. He cursed the sunlight that streamed into his room, unfiltered, unnatural— for him. Whoever he had been in that courtyard, he could not be here.  

He finally fell asleep to the disturbing thought that he what he had wanted in that courtyard, he could not have here either.  His dreams were filled, as they always were, with Connor. This time, however, the dreams were different: compromises and bargains made for his child not leaving him satisfied. He woke once in the middle of the day with a cry, coming messily into his sheets. An overwhelming feeling of loss echoed in his mind— loss of certainty. When he had made the bargain to save Connor, it had been all he wanted, and all his decisions had flowed from that one certainty. 

Now he wanted something else.

When Angel woke after a restless sleep, his first thought was to wonder if Spike would appear that evening. A roll of guilt churned in his guts when he realised this was the first time he had not woken thinking of Connor since Wesley had taken him.

Anger then flared, painful, rising from his heart to his brain. If Spike did come, he would probably come to see Wesley, not him, and this turned Angel’s anger into a hot need for cruelty.

He climbed out of the bed and showered, practicing all his calming techniques - picturing flowers – and was back to his habitual state of repressed fury when he pulled some blood out of the refrigerator.

Why did the bags have to look like obscene, bloated organs? 

The bag tore as he fumbled to open it, and blood ran over his hands.  He glanced at the bed, dangerously tempted to climb back in and stay there for a year or two, but the weight permanently on his shoulders sank a little heavier at the thought, and like an automaton, he dressed and rode down to his office.

It was only as he sat at his desk, wondering where everyone was, that he realised it was Sunday evening.

He sat in the totally empty building, by himself, with the terrifying thought that the great weight he carried was not responsibility, duty, or even guilt; it was loneliness, and that now, this burden crushed him more than the others ever had.

He rose from his imposing CEO chair and strode out into the hallway. He passed offices, still incredulous that alarms did not go off, still seeing Lilah’s sneering expression as he was caught entering the great evil that was Wolfram and Hart.  

Wolfram and Hart and he… merged.  Empty of human life now, it was as if he were the new heart of all this evil: a dead, demonic force at its core.  Then the image shifted, and he saw himself as the victim, trapped in these sterile confines, his soul fluttering desperately to be free. 

The building was not entirely empty.  He went down to visit Pavayne.  He did this every once in a while, staring silently at the eyes that were going increasingly mad; it cheered him up to know someone in the world was lonelier than he was.

He sometimes wondered what the other holding cells contained and thought that, one day, if things ever got too bad, he’d open them all and party in the trail of evil they would leave behind.

Suddenly chilled, he thought of flowers for a while as he paced lower, into the vaults, but the flowers were oddly fragrant and didn’t calm him at all. The previous thoughts of evil now trickled into thoughts of sex, and he played some pleasant memories back in his mind as he paced. He’d been ingenuous back in the day. He’d not been lonely then.

By the time he heard the faint noise from one of the vaults, he was in just the right mood for an intruder, hoping it was large, evil and wanting some serious pain.

He kicked open a door and crashed in.

Spike jerked his head up from a file, clearly very startled. His chair fell over as he jumped to his feet, but then the moment calmed as they recognised each other.  Spike picked up the chair, shaking out his shoulders.  ‘Bloody hell! Is that how you were taught to enter rooms, Mate?’

Angel stared at him— the source of all his confusion.  The intensely interesting thought came to him that this was the weight over his shoulders; not Wolfram and Hart; not guilt; not loneliness— this damn blond vampire and the fog of confusion he habitually caused.

He came closer, picking at this thought.  ‘What the hell is happening here, Spike? Sunday evening, and you’re in the bowels of Wolfram and Hart.’ He picked up the papers on the desk. ‘Reading ancient texts?’

Spike shrugged and shoved his hands deep into pockets, clearly embarrassed. ‘Yeah. So? I’m just doing some research.’

‘Research.  You?’

‘Don’t play the high-and-mighty with me, Mate.  Remember which one of us taught the other to read more than an ale list.’

Angel quickly changed the subject slightly, holding up the file. ‘What is this?’

At Spike’s furtive look, Angel suddenly felt connections forming in his mind: rapid click clicking until it all made sense.  ‘You’re trying to find the demon who put the spell on me! You want him to do it again!  NO! You already have! Last night!  It was the spell making me feel….’

‘Angel!  Calm down! Whoa….’ Spike backed off rapidly as Angel stepped closer. He knew he was trapped in a very small space, and he’d smelt Angel’s ugly mood when he’d first crashed through the door.  He held up his hands in a conciliatory gesture and added softly, ‘The file is about Connor.’

Angel’s whole body lurched.  He felt a hand on his arm, and Spike kicked out another chair and sat him down.  ‘Jesus, Angel.’

‘Connor.’

‘Yeah.  I wanted to find out more about… everything, I guess.’

Angel looked back at the papers on the desk and saw that what he had taken to be arcane language was a page of coding rubbish that printers occasionally spew out before they decide to play nice.  He scanned past it and saw document after document detailing Wolfram and Hart and their knowledge of Connor.  The last one was his contract, but he hardly looked at it, for at the back of the file were the photographs… the first ones he had ever seen of Connor grown: Connor with his new family; Connor smiling into the camera, fingers held up, unseen, behind the heads of his new, loving parents.

Angel’s jaw wobbled, and he bit his lower lip so hard it bled.

Spike swore and put a hand on his shoulder.  ‘Let’s get out of here, Luv.’

Angel didn’t respond, so Spike pulled him to his feet, stuffing the file into his waistband, out of sight under his coat.

He led Angel down to the garages and pushed him into one of the cars.  Angel sat almost catatonic, staring unseeing out of the window.

Spike swore once more and turned the heater up full, despite the natural warmth of the night.

He drove them to a bar he knew and left the car illegally parked outside, easing Angel into a secluded booth and buying a couple of bottles of JD.

He almost forced the first drink on Angel but the second went down more easily.

Angel suddenly shuddered and seemed to come back from a long way away.  ‘Why were you reading it?’

Spike held his gaze.  ‘Because I want to know things I don’t know now… about… people’s motivations, what drove them to make the decisions they did, who they are….’ He held Angel’s gaze, willing for him to read the sub-text of his reply. 

Angel did.  The small malicious whisper Wesley seeped into his mind.

Spike jerked back his head a little, as if he’d heard this then said distinctly, ‘Prat.’

Angel started, and Spike poured them another drink, giving him small, cross glances. 

Angel suddenly looked abashed and nodded. ‘I’m sorry. He took Connor from me, and it doesn’t matter how many times I tell myself that he had the best of motives in his heart, he stole Connor, and I lost my son. It’s such a simple equation.  So I get a little twitchy now when I see him with anything that’s….’

Spike had been following this so intently his lips finished the word mine.

Angel glanced up, and there was a faint smile playing on his lips.  Spike topped them up again, and they tossed the drinks back in one.  One bottle finished, they started on the second.  Spike lit two cigarettes and passed one to Angel, and when the air was suitably thick between them, he said softly, ‘So, you felt you were still under the spell last night….’

Angel repressed a smile and replied deceptively evenly, ‘Well, I sat and talked to you all night— something must have been wrong.’

At the same time, they had an image of the secluded, green privacy of Spike’s new home. Angel saw them once more, sitting in the dark together, hidden from the Wolfram and Hart partygoers.

Spike drained his glass and said hesitantly, as if he’d been rehearsing the words but still felt they were not perfected, ‘Wanna come back for a nightcap?’

Angel let his glass fall to the table. 

They rose at the same time.

They didn’t remember who drove.

They arrived before it was possible, the journey done in total silence.

Angel picked up the file, not wanting to leave it in the car.

Spike shook his head. ‘No. Not in there.’

Angel understood, and with a sense of shedding far more than one small file, he let it drop back onto the seat and stepped lightly down the path, behind Spike’s flowing coat.  He ducked under a branch, stepped into the room then found himself pressed to the wall. For the first time, Spike showed him what he wanted.  Angel was overwhelmed by the sensuous power of the kiss, and realised, somewhere in the recesses of his brain that in his imagination, Spike must have kissed him many times before.
 
He groaned at the pleasure that trickled cold in his balls at this thought, and the small sound brought Spike’s hands under his shirt and onto his belly. They snatched mouths apart, eyes widening, and then all they could think about was more skin: seeing it, touching it, tasting it.  They tried to undress but hasty, needy, they were inelegant: flinging, tearing, bootlaces knotting, zippers sticking.

Free at last, they clashed together, driven by one need.  They tipped over the end of the couch, rubbing, clawing over each other in blood and sweat.  Then, like a storm, the heat between them broke, and cool release rained down.

Their bodies now writhed and jerked in a different way: hands milking, squeezing, eyes tightly shut, lost to their individual pleasure.

When they were done, the room hung heavy with the potent smell of the release where it lay glistening on friction-hot skin.  Angel was half-lying on Spike. He did not remember getting horizontal and frowned as he lowered himself down, Spike shifting over slightly to accommodate him.  ‘Freaking hell.’

Spike chuckled. ‘Yeah.’ He turned his head to look at Angel, and even that small movement threatened his precarious position on the couch.  ‘You okay?’

‘Hmm?’

‘Angel, are you…?’

Angel had been watching Spike’s mouth, seeing it for the first time, and now he stopped it with his.  He kept his eyes open and fixed on Spike’s, kissing his mouth gently, but greedy for tongue and for the taste of him.  Spike ran his fingers through the short hairs at the back of Angel’s head, caressing him gently to the rhythm of the kiss.  Angel rose over Spike once more, and his hand went lower hesitantly.  He found slick wetness, then hair, then something that made Spike’s kisses deepen when he touched it.  Sliding his hand up and down made Spike arch beneath him and then, once more, they were lost to need, no awareness of whether they kissed or bit, but just the irresistible need for release. 

Angel came first, spilling once more onto Spike’s belly.

With a cry, Spike pulled him closer, bucking against him frantically, and they fell, tangled to the floor. With a groan, Spike levered himself over Angel and milked onto the hard belly, some cum shooting onto Angel’s neck and shoulders.

He was about to lie down alongside Angel when strong arms enfolded him, and he lay stretched out, lithe and empty on the broad, muscular body.

‘Bloody hell.’ Spike folded his arms on Angel’s chest and rested his chin on them, watching him.  Angel shook his head in disbelief.  Spike murmured with a throaty chuckle, ‘What?’

‘I’m trying to convince myself that this is a spell still.’

‘Huh. Good luck with that then.’

Angel suddenly grinned and rolled them, crushing Spike with his weight.

For the first time, it seemed to occur to him that Spike was naked.  He glanced at him, then his eyes flicked down.  Spike twitched up an eyebrow.  Angel swallowed and looked for longer, and then he slid slowly out of sight.

Spike folded his arms under his head and watched the firelight play on the ceiling. He hissed and arched occasionally as Angel’s tongue played with him.

Eventually, Angel’s long licks led him back up. He nuzzled into Spike’s neck for a moment, then they kissed again, a slow, desultory joining of tongue and lips. 

Spike could taste semen in Angel’s mouth, and he licked at it, causing Angel to moan softly.

They rolled apart for a while, and then Spike sat up, searching for his discarded jeans. He pulled out a cigarette and leant toward the fire to light it.  He lay on his belly, enjoying the sweet smoke, tracing patterns in the dust that lay on the hearth. His back was pale and muscular, falling in a broad sweep to perfectly smooth, hard cheeks. Angel felt something catch in his throat, something stir below— a quick shudder of desire. He moved closer and stroked his finger over the flattened globes. Spike twisted his head around with a curious look and blew some smoke in Angel’s direction.  Suddenly, he stretched out his hand and ruffled Angel’s hair.  ‘’S a big step, Luv. Scary. I get that.’

Angel looked relieved and scooted up to lie on his belly next to Spike, staring into the fire.  He relieved him of his cigarette, and they shared it between them.

After a while, Angel said, ‘Have you ever…?’

‘No! Have you?’

Angel shook his head quickly and glanced down at Spike’s backside once more.

Spike hesitated, and then leant in and kissed him again.  ‘Want a drink?’

Angel nodded, clearly relieved.

Spike rose gracefully, flicked the remains of the cigarette into the fire and went to his small kitchen area.  Angel watched every move for a while then rose and stretched, saying lazily, ‘Shower first, maybe?’

Spike waved in the direction of the small stall. ‘Sure, help yourself.’

Angel snagged his arm and murmured, ‘You’re not getting it….’

Playfully, he pulled Spike toward the shower and turned it on over them.

They kissed again under the running water, trailing light fingers down sensitised flesh, making it shiver despite the heat.

Finally clean, they lay in front of the fire to dry, silent and thoughtful, drinking wine.

Angel finished his drink quickly, but when Spike made to top it up, he laid his hand over it and glanced at his watch.  He hunched into himself at whatever he saw on the dial, but said, ‘I have to go.’

Spike pursed his lips and narrowed his eyes, hundreds of things he wanted to say spiralling around in his mind.

Instead, he just nodded. ‘I know you do.’

Angel scratched his belly and said pointedly, not looking at him, ‘I needed this.  I’m grateful, but it was a one-off. Nothing has changed.’

Once more, Spike nodded. ‘I needed it, too.’

Pleased, Angel rose and sorted his clothes from Spike’s. He seemed to want to say more and glanced around the apartment, but then left, shutting the door softly behind him.

Spike flung a log onto the fire and poked viciously at it for a while, muttering obscenities at the uncaring flames.

The next day, Angel had three meetings before lunch, one of which overran, so by one o’clock, his head was spinning, and he was starving.  He watched the man from accounts talking to him and pointing to things on a large board, nodding every once in a while as if listening, wondering how loud the man would scream if another use was found for the pointer.  They were still only halfway through the agenda.

Suddenly, the door flung open, and he was about to snap that he was in a meeting when Spike tumbled in and said breathlessly, ‘Sorry. Emergency. We found…. You’d better just come.’

Angel swore and rose, following him out, shouting orders for Harmony to reschedule.  Spike waited impatiently, tapping his foot then led the way down the hallway.  

‘What’s happened?’

Spike waved vaguely to the end of the hallway and began to run.  

Angel cursed and ran after him.

Spike suddenly veered to one side and into an empty office. 

Bracing for whatever lay ahead, Angel crashed in after him.  The door shut behind him.

He spun round.

Spike was grinning, his whole face illuminated with glee. ‘Afternoon.’

Even then, Angel took a while to get it.  He turned slowly scanning the room. 

He turned back.

‘There’s no emergency.’

Spike shook his head, his whole body quivering with laughter.  He began to stalk slowly toward Angel. ‘I’ve been here since ten, and I couldn’t get to see you.’

‘See me.’

‘Boring bloody meetings. So, I… rescheduled you.’

‘I see.’

Spike poked him in the chest, pushing him back a step.

‘It was a one-off, Spike. We both agreed.’

Spike conceded this with a small nod, but he poked Angel again; again, Angel stepped back.

He glanced behind him and saw a couch, identical to the one in his office.  ‘This is not going to happen, Spike.’

Spike suddenly stopped and said innocently, ‘What?  I just wanted to say hi.’

With that he spun around and left.

Spike paced from one end of his apartment to the other: eighty feet. One hundred if he veered in a drunken fashion around the furniture.  He was drunk; he knew it, but he needed it.  

He glanced outside. 

It seemed dark, though it was hard to tell sometimes under the greenery.  

If he came, he’d come early surely?  Surely his need would bring him with the setting of the sun?

Could he sit alone in that glass edifice of evil and resist? One-off!  I said it, and I am the Law!

He drank another glass of wine too quickly, not tasting it.

Perhaps Angel hadn’t got the invitation, not seen it his eyes or heard it in his voice. I just wanted to say hi.

He’d meant to do more – kiss him at least – but the bastard had been so… stern, so not getting it.

He’d thought Angel would fall, laughing into the office, wanting him.

Had he got it all wrong? One-off. Was that actually all it had been?  He cringed, not at what they’d done last night - that was allowed for a one-off - but at his eagerness today, his assumption that Angel was thinking about him, would welcome the joke.

He tossed back another glassful and glanced despairingly at the night. He couldn’t fool himself that it was anything but dark now.  A hideous thought struck him: what if Angel rolled up before dawn for a quickie before going into the office— hand job, desultory kiss. Cheers, Mate.  He drained the last of the bottle and flung himself on the bed.  He hoped he’d have the balls to throw him out.  How needy would you have to be?

Angel sat outside in the car; it was dark enough to leave its safe confines now, but he couldn’t do it, couldn’t take the walk down that secluded path.

There hadn’t been a hint in Spike’s face this morning that he wanted this. I just wanted to say hi.  Yeah. I know where you live now, Angel….

Loneliness had driven him to this.  Can’t get a woman? Use a man. But not just any man— not one who actually wanted or liked you. Oh, no, just an easy, dead thing like you— equally lonely who wanted someone you’d been in a spell. Not you. Never the real you.

It was just need. And he didn’t need Spike to alleviate that. Stick to showers.

He groaned and put his head on the wheel. What if Wesley was there? What if Spike wasn’t? Out being a champion… and he came back to find him on the doorstep… needy… pathetic… grovelling… dribbling. I know where you live now, Angel.

What if Spike was asleep and outraged at being woken?  Angry.  Mocking.  Those mocking eyes.  That voice!

Anger finally drove him from the car.

Spike threw the empty bottle at the wall.

Angel found the door ajar, heard a crash, ducked.

Hands were then on him and the smell of wine. A hoarse voice. ‘I didn’t think you’d come. God, I’m so drunk. But I didn’t think you’d come!’

They kissed in the doorway; they kissed against the wall. They fell onto the couch again, rolled off onto the floor.  They didn’t even have time to remove their clothes before they lost heavy loads, sweating, panting, mouth on mouth.

Angel rolled back, stunned.

Spike dragged himself onto his hands and knees, forehead to the floor. ‘I’m gonna heave.’  He breathed slowly, and didn’t.

Angel caught his arm and pulled him over to lie on top of him, stroking his damp, mussed hair.  Checking that Spike wasn’t going to vomit on him, he said softly, ‘I just wanted to say hi.’

Chapter 6

Spike was too drunk to cope with microwaves, so Angel heated some blood for them both as Spike stood under the shower, trying to vomit.  He smiled fondly at the cursing and retching and counted three empty wine bottles scattered around, the glass from the one that had nearly hit him making four.

When Spike came out, Angel suspected he felt better than he was going to admit, so just handed him a mug of blood and started to peel off his own shirt. His leather pants were completely stuck to him now, the dried cum coming away with a considerable amount of hair, and this seemed to cheer Spike up enormously. He grinned and watched the process with great interest.

Angel cursed and dropped them to the floor, stretching and taking his turn in the shower.

When he came out, Spike was wearing a pair of faded jeans, and he handed Angel another pair with a raise of one eyebrow.  Angel huffed, ‘Yeah, like those’ll fit me.’

Spike threw him a clean towel, and Angel wrapped it around his waist and took his blood to the couch, stretching out his long legs to the fire.

Spike sat next to him, leaning back against one arm, his legs crossed loosely in front of him.  ‘I’m glad you came, Angel. I didn’t think you would.’

Angel glanced over at him, smiling ruefully.  ‘That’s makes two of us. How do you feel?’

‘Pretty stupid, if you must know.’ He waved his mug of blood. ‘But I’m perking right up.’

Angel’s eyes dilated fractionally and grazed down the impossibly defined abs to the unbuttoned jeans. He swallowed, and a stab of pleasure coursed through them both at the thought of what lay ahead.  Spike put down his mug and slid off the couch. He crawled over to Angel and knelt between his thighs.  Slowly, he slid his hands along them to the hem of the towel, then under.

He lowered his eyes, then glanced up from under the lowered lids with a look of seductive supplication.  ‘I’ve never done this before.’

Angel opened his mouth to reply but suddenly swore, fumbled with the towel, grasped the back of Spike’s head and jerked him forward.  Something hit Spike above the eye, dripping down onto his cheek as another splash wet his lips.

He looked up at Angel incredulously, semen dripping off his pale face.  Angel made a small noise, and whether it was shock or embarrassment, they didn’t know, for it turned into laughter.  ‘Sorry.’

Spike wiped his face in Angel’s towel and pouted. ‘Spoil sport.’

Angel continued to chuckle and shook his head. ‘Those damn eyes of yours!’

Spike couldn’t totally repress his smile of pleasure at the extremely rare flattery and crawled back onto the couch, closer to Angel, close enough to lean over and demand a kiss, which Angel gave him willingly enough.

Spike was the first to pull away. He smiled lazily at Angel, and picked up his cooled mug of blood.

Angel smiled, too, but said quietly, ‘I should go.’  He made no move, however, to leave.

Seeing this, Spike replaced his drink on the floor and, locking eyes with Angel, slid his hand down the firm belly and unhooked the towel.  Angel protested with a frown, but Spike continued, parting the folds.  With a yank, he pulled it free and tossed it to the floor, leaving Angel stretched and naked in the firelight.

Angel seemed to feel his nakedness acutely and was clearly resisting the desire to glance furtively behind him. Spike leant in once more and nuzzled into the hollow of his throat. Angel breathed a soft, ‘Yeah,’ and held Spike’s head as he worked his way slowly over the perfect skin.  Angel stretched his legs and arched to the touch, his body coming alive under Spike’s tongue.  

Eventually, Spike reached a nipple.  He hesitated then bit it.  Angel came off the couch, gasping.  Spike glanced up. ‘Mmm, like that, do you?’

‘Oh, yeah.’  

Spike grinned and bit again.  

Angel moaned and crushed him closer, running his fingers through the short blond hair. ‘Jesus, Spike.’

Spike murmured around the small bud. ‘You gonna come again?’

Angel groaned and arched, trying to force Spike’s mouth to pleasure him, grinding his lips to him.  Spike obliged, biting again and twisting Angel’s other nipple between strong fingers.

He glanced down and saw Angel’s hands jerk to his groin, and watched avidly as the softness was revived.  He turned the biting into deep sucking, pulling Angel’s nipple into his mouth, wetly mouthing around the aureole then blowing on the glistening swelling.  Angel’s hands became increasingly frantic, stretching and jerking, his whole body stretched like a bow.

Spike sat back and watched Angel’s face. For one moment he thought that Angel was oblivious of his presence, but then a hand shot out and clasped him around the neck, jerking him forward into a kiss.  Angel’s mouth raped him: his tongue plunging in, his ragged breath carrying the taste of blood.  Spike moaned at Angel’s need for him, but twisted his mouth away, wanting to watch Angel come, letting Angel bite and mouth at his cheek as, with a harsh cry, spurts of cum shot out from the red wetness in Angel’s fist to land with audible splats on the smooth chest.

Angel shuddered his body back onto the couch.  He kept Spike crushed to him, burying his face into his neck, as if suddenly realising what he’d done: jerking off in front of him, abandoned, wanton, noisy. Spike pulled out of his grasp though, and ran his finger through the spills of cum shinning on Angel’s belly.  Holding his finger up to the firelight, he teased it over his tongue. Grinning quietly to himself, he swirled his whole hand around in the mess, and then pushed his fingers into Angel’s mouth, making him lick them, kissing him so they were nothing but mouth and fingers and cum.  Angel caught Spike’s hand and kept two fingers in his mouth, running his lips sensuously up and down them.  Only an infinitesimal space away, Spike breathed deeply at the pleasure, his eyes dilating until they resembled a spill of ink from Angel’s pen. 

Finally, Angel eased the fingers out and kissed down the inside of Spike’s wrist.  As he passed the most sensitive area, where the skin was thin, and pale with blue streaks visible beneath, he slipped into game face and slashed a thin red line across the blue: patterns of lust and dominance on the smooth flesh. Rolling his face back to human, he lapped the trickle of blood, never once letting his gaze drop from Spike’s. Slightly shadowed, the ink eyes had turned almost black now, but Angel knew they were merely heavy with pleasure and lust, the bloodletting their shared narcotic, their special release.  Softly, he climbed over Spike slightly and offered him the wrist, making him drink his own blood, their tongues lapping together at the wound, greedy predators needing the red fluid after so much pale white.

Eventually, Spike draped his wounded arm over Angel’s shoulder out of reach and kissed him deeply, a kiss of gratitude that Angel understood. He nodded and then murmured softy, ‘I need to go now.’

Spike nodded and fell back, his hand just holding Angel’s fingers, playing with them.  Angel sighed, gently disentangled himself and walked naked to the shower.  

When he came out, Spike was drinking a glass of water, leaning against the stove. The sight was so incongruous – Angel couldn’t remember that he had ever drunk water – that he paused naked and wet, rubbing his hair.  Shaking his head ruefully, he held out his hand, and Spike came over, their fingers entwining. ‘I have meetings all day tomorrow. I have to go.’

Spike shrugged. ‘I know.’

Angel looked down at their fingers, running his thumb over the wound on Spike’s wrist. ‘You’ll be okay?’

‘Oh, no, I was gonna hang myself from the old cum tree out there… despair… loneliness… that kind of thing.’

‘Oh.’

Spike poked him in the ribs then dodged to one side. ‘I’m gonna go to bed with a good book and nurse my hangover. Bugger off, okay?’

Angel slapped at him, then bent and picked up his pants, eyeing them disgustedly. With a wince, he dragged them on, slid into his shirt, and then looked at the door.  He glanced at Spike, touched his fingers briefly, and then left.

Spike mentally followed him down the path and into the car, and did not really believe he was gone until he could hear the faint trickle of water in the pond as if it was a waterfall, so silent did the room suddenly become.

Angel was into his third meeting the next day. It was a relatively easy one: Wesley, Fred, Gunn, Lorne— his friends, old colleagues. He could sit and look rough and be grumpy without attracting any suspicion at all.  They were well into discussing company business, when he looked up to see Spike lounging in the lobby, ostensibly talking to Harmony. He was talking to her, but he was looking at him.

Angel rose and came around his desk.  He murmured, ‘Something’s wrong. I have to go.’

Wesley looked concerned. ‘Wrong?’

Angel nodded. ‘I can sense it.’

Gunn got to his feet. ‘Need us, Angel?’

Angel waved him down. ‘This won’t take long.’

He strode out. ‘Emergency?’

Spike nodded very intently. ‘Yes. Emergency.’

They turned and strode down the hallway, glancing into offices as they passed, their steps becoming increasing speedy.  

Finally, they passed a maintenance closet. Angel glanced up and down the empty hallway and shouldered Spike in.  They didn’t know whether to laugh or kiss, and ended up doing neither particularly well. At last, Angel pulled away, holding Spike’s shoulders.  He looked him over so intently that Spike felt he was being tasted.  Angel put his hand to him and cupped him lightly. ‘They won’t miss me for a few minutes….’

Spike removed his hand gently, his face a mask of unwilling resolution. ‘Not here.’

Angel leant on the door, effectively locking it. ‘Quite safe….’

Spike shook his head. ‘I didn’t mean here. I meant here: this bloody firm.’

Angel looked at him thoughtfully, and then trailed his finger down one cheek. He nodded. ‘Okay.’

Spike breathed a very small sigh of relief and perched on a stack of toilet rolls.  ‘So, what ya doing?’

Angel let his chin fall to his chest theatrically. ‘Meetings.’

‘Boring. Wanna go kill something?’

An eyebrow flicked up, then fell. ‘I can’t. I’ve been scheduled.’

‘Painful.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Oh, well, I’ve got a busy day. Better be off….’

There was a pause, and Angel said resolutely, ‘I’m not going to ask.’

Spike wheedled. ‘Go on… it’s no fun if I can’t tell you….’

Angel sighed. ‘Freaking hell. Go on then.’

‘Well, I’m gonna go and lounge on my couch for while… then I’m gonna lounge on the floor… then….’ Angel stopped him with a kiss.  It quickly became… heated. They pressed back against the Danger: Wet Floor signs, moaning softly.

Spike finally pushed him off, breathing heavily, ‘Jesus, Angel. We’re gonna be fucking in a broom cupboard in a minute….’

Angel groaned and bent over for a moment then straightened. ‘Three meetings to go. Deep joy.’

Spike did a bad job of repressing his smirk, checked the coast was clear, and then emerged from the closet, casually lighting a cigarette and striding cockily down the hallway.

Angel hunched into himself, looked furtively around and sidled back to the meeting, reassuring everyone that the emergency was taken care of.

Spike didn’t open either of the bottles of wine he’d bought, or consequently drink them.  He pottered, not watching the falling darkness.  He lit a fire and did not look at the couch.  He had just about achieved a perfect state of not thinking about whether Angel would come, when the door was pushed open, and Angel came in carry two large grocery bags.

Spike turned away to hide his grin.

Angel strode past him and dropped the bags by the stove.

Spike came closer a little hesitantly. ‘What’s this?’

Angel didn’t reply at first, he held Spike off by his shoulders and grazed his eyes down the low-slung combat pants and tight, black T-shirt.  Slowly, he pulled Spike to his mouth, finding a matching heat, a matching desire to explore with tongue and lips.  Only when things began to heat up too quickly once more, did he reluctantly pull away and reply, ‘I thought I’d cook.’

Spike smiled. ‘Well, okay.’  He uncorked the wine, poured them both a drink and took his happily to the couch with an imperious wave. ‘Crack on then, Mate.’

Angel shook his head despairingly, and unpacked the bags, searching to see what pots and pans Spike owned.

Spike picked up his book and leant back into the soft cushions, supposedly reading, but actually watching Angel.

Angel shifted under the scrutiny, smiling down, trying to concentrate on the cooking.  Without turning around, he murmured, ‘I could taste you all afternoon.’

‘Run out of coffee?’

Angel twisted his head around and gave him an intense look.  Spike groaned and buried his head in his book.  

When things were progressing on the stove unassisted, Angel brought his wine over to the couch and flung himself down.

‘Tired?’

Angel nodded. ‘I think we massacred a whole demon tribe today.’

‘That’s… good?’

‘Or they could have said… merged with… I wasn’t really listening. It’s all the same, I guess.’  He rolled his head over and sighed. ‘I don’t want to talk about work. Not here.  In fact….’ He shifted closer. ‘I don’t want to talk at all.’

They were smiling as they came together for the kiss, and the emotion carried into the way they teased and played with each other’s lips and tongues.

Angel’s hand slipped under Spike’s T-shirt, and with a soft, ‘Fuck,’ he pushed him back and lay over him, the hand now seeking lower, under the loose waistband.

Spike murmured with pleasure and stretched out, flattening his belly to give Angel better access.

He was lying thick into the top of one pants’ leg. The thin cotton tented when Angel’s hand slid down, and a small damp stain appeared. Spike swore and flung his arm over his eyes, Angel swore too and slid down the thin body until his tongue tasted the damp spot.

Spike’s voice rose in pitch as he swore again.  Angel’s dropped as he murmured his appreciation and opened his mouth wetly on the cotton.  He swivelled his eyes up to Spike’s face and said, muffled, ‘Like that?’

‘Oh, yeah. I’m leaking…. Christ! Am I leaking?’

‘Mmm….’

Spike muttered, disgusted, but Angel only sucked the whole wet area into his mouth.  Very slowly, he worked Spike’s zipper down, notch by notch.

With a deep sigh of contentment, he parted the sides and freed the heavy erection. ‘Oh, yeah.’  He looked up, thumbing the side of the head, smirking slightly at Spike’s expression.

‘So, what did you do today?’

‘Huh!’

Angel shook his head. ‘Wrong.’

‘Huh? Oh! Oh! I thought about you….’

Angel grinned and licked across the leaking head.  ‘Correct.’

‘Yeah, I wondered if you’d come… thought about you all day, coming through… coming… you… coming….’

Angel pushed his wet lips over Spike’s wide head to reward him and flicked his tongue over the hole. 

‘Oh, fuck, yeah…. I pictured you lying here, naked, that fucking huge cock of yours….’ At that, the head of his cock discovered Angel’s throat.

Angel grunted; Spike jack-knifed up at the waist and shouted, ‘Off!’ Angel only dug his fingers into the thin waist and began to swallow as Spike shook and shuddered beneath him.

Long after Spike finished, they lay, not moving on the couch, Spike’s soft penis still in Angel’s mouth, still being gently pulled and sucked. Spike groaned slightly every time the pleasure edged over into pain.

Suddenly, Angel sat up and gripped him urgently. ‘If this is a spell, Spike, don’t give me the antidote….’

Spike sat up.  ‘Huh?’ He eased his pants back up his hips and fastened them, rubbing annoyed at the dampness. ‘What the fuck does that mean?’

Angel stood up and strode back to the stove, busying himself with something that didn’t need it.  ‘I’ve done all this before, Spike. The fucking happiness, the thinking that everything was okay— that I was okay.  It was all a fucking dream to take my soul.  I woke up and everything was back to the shit it was before.’

Spike wandered over, topped up their glasses and then hopped up onto the counter.  Angel kept his face lowered and stormy as he took his angst out on the food. Eventually, he stopped prodding it and laid down the fork. ‘Well?’

Spike jumped slightly. ‘What?’

‘Aren’t you going to tell me I’m being dumb and prove this isn’t a spell?’

Spike pouted. ‘How do I know? It could be, I guess.’

‘You think I’m still under that spell? That all… this… is false?’

Spike shrugged. ‘Yeah. I think it probably is. But, shit, I’m not complaining. Better than my real life.’

Angel came to stand between his legs, leaning into him. He made him put his glass down and then held his chin.  ‘This is not a spell, Spike. I knew that it was last time. It felt so wrong, even though it felt so good.’  He glanced down and then ran his fingers through his hair. ‘This is insane, it doesn’t feel entirely right all the time, but it is real. Okay?’

Spike wobbled his hand. ‘Okay.’

Angel turned away and went back to his cooking more contently. Spike shook his head ruefully at the broad back, smirked and then hopped down and went back to the couch.

They ate outside, sitting on the edge of the small pond.  It was hot, and Spike was barefoot, trailing one foot in the cool water.  Angel didn’t eat much; he just sat and enjoyed watching Spike eat, enjoyed listening to him talk.

He did accept a cigarette, and they smoked quietly, talking of times past, people they had known, places they had been.  

Every word that Angel spoke, Spike like heard like a tick tock in his head: tick tock, I have to go now….

He kept saying the words in his head, so that when he heard them for real he would nod and shrug and say I know— for he did know.  In that, this was so very real. If this was a spell, he’d keep Angel here forever, but Angel existed in that other world now: a world of steel and chrome.

He carried the plates inside, trying not to think of the clock ticking. He knew he was talking too much, trying too hard, wanting to fit everything into this short space of time: an eternity needed, a few hours offered.

Angry with himself, he picked up an empty grocery bag to toss it in the bin when he frowned and peered inside.  He sensed Angel coming in behind him and murmured, ‘Leave some things out, Pet…?’ 

Angel came over and wrapped his arms around Spike’s waist, propping his chin on the bony shoulder. He reached into the bag and hesitantly removed some eggs.  ‘I thought I’d cook breakfast, too— if that’s… okay?’

The tentative offer was accepted with a long, low groan of pleasure.

For the first time that evening, they let the simmering passion between them out completely.  No slow, exquisite unzipping: pants were ripped and flung away so skin could find skin.  Angel made it very clear what he wanted.  He shoved Spike back onto the couch, push by push, until they crossed the space and fell heavy, panting.  He half-knelt on Spike, one leg still on the ground and eased two thick fingers into Spike’s mouth.  He let Spike wet them for a while then murmured, ‘Ready for your first time?’

Spike replied by biting the fingers, hard enough to make Angel wince and then harden, until his heavy, veined thickness lay flat against his belly.

When his mouth was coated with Angel’s blood, Spike let go the fingers and ducked his head, licking up the exposed underside of Angel’s erection, a thin chain of blood and saliva hanging between them as he pulled away.  

He returned eagerly to the sensitive nerve endings around the rim, tonguing them wetly.  Angel moaned and tried to push the head into Spike’s mouth. ‘Take me in….’

Spike let the thick, solid flesh enter his mouth.  Angel tipped his head back and pushed, holding Spike’s hair in one hand, thrusting into the wet warmth of this virgin mouth.  

Suddenly, Spike arched and twisted away.  He tried not to cough, but a small, strangled sound emerged. Angel frowned and shifted his weight on Spike’s chest, and Spike came back to the wavering cock determinedly.  Angel grunted and pushed in again.  This time, Spike reared back, shaking his head.

Angel clenched his fist but only thumped the couch.  ‘What?’

Spike lay back with his head on the arm of the couch and lifted his face up miserably to the ceiling. ‘Sodding hell! This isn’t how I imagined it!’

‘Me neither!’

Angel began to climb off, but he stopped, staring at Spike. ‘Don’t move.’

Spike lowered his face. ‘Huh?’

Angel eased his chin back up to stare at the ceiling and then circled around until he stood at Spike’s head.  He looked down at him.  Spike blinked, but stretched his neck back some more and opened his mouth.

Angel slid into a tunnel of warm flesh that was perfectly straight from the lips to the stomach.  Spike stretched his arms up and caught him around the hips, and he dictated the pace, pulling Angel inch by inch into his throat.

The pleasure was so great, that Angel felt a rippling around his face, and an intense sexual charge as he slipped into his demon face.

He watched the head of his cock bulging the smooth lines at the top of Spike’s throat, like a second Adam’s apple. Spike’s grip on his buttocks increased, urging him deeper.

Spike was drowning in Angel, drowning in his male flesh: balls rubbing his nose, crushing his face; an impossible thickness in his throat; and Angel’s panting and cursing and ragged encouragement in his head.  He dug his fingers into Angel’s solid arse again: fuck me more… and Angel got the message, grinding in further until hair brushed Spike’s lips.  

Spike groaned, and the sound reverberated through the meat filling him.
 
With a huge shout, Angel reached orgasm.  He rose up high and began to pound straight down, rubbing himself off on Spike’s hot, slippery inner flesh.  He used Spike’s face to grind his balls, make them clench and set off the chain-reaction he sought.

Shouting loudly, a stream of incoherent curses, he released.  Fast shots of sperm hit the sides of Spike’s throat, and when he swallowed, Angel only cried louder and jerked more.

At last, Angel’s thighs began to tremble, and he staggered back, his shaft still joined to the swollen lips by a last delicate chain of milky cum.  He sat heavily in an armchair and did not realise he was still swearing until the ringing in his head stopped, and his own voice was loud in the otherwise silent room. 

Spike kept his face tipped back and licked his lips. He stared at Angel from his upside-down position for a moment before rolling off, flat on his face on the floor.  Angel chuckled and slid over to him, turning his face to one side, as if putting him into the recovery position. ‘So…?’

Spike replied, but Angel only frowned. Spike sat up and tried again. He frowned this time and grabbed his throat, his eyes widening theatrically.  Angel began to laugh. Spike continued to try and speak until he was shut up with a kiss and a murmured, ‘Sorry.’

Spike glared at him and mimed something painful.

With a small glance through lowered lids, Angel lifted his wrist to his mouth and sliced it neatly.  He slid back into human face and held the dripping blood tantalisingly out of Spike’s reach.  ‘Does your throat feel… used?’

Spike nodded with a you think? look.

Angel took pity on him and stopped teasing. ‘Tip back again.’ This time, he rose over Spike and dripped his blood in, watching the crimson crystal drops falling onto the swollen flesh. 

Spike grabbed his wrist and took over, feeding with strong, erotic sucks.  Angel wrapped them together, a twist of pale flesh in the firelight. He watched the flames as his blood was pulled out of his body. When they began to turn black and flicker strangely, he reluctantly pulled his wrist out of the insistent hold.  They stayed closely entwined though, neither one wanting to lose the moment.

Eventually, the fire went out, and Spike glanced behind them.  He untangled himself and murmured in a hoarse whisper, ‘Bed?’

Angel turned in his arms. ‘Are you inviting me in?’

Spike suddenly realised that this omission had not escaped Angel’s notice: the bed had yet to be used.

He took a deep breath and nodded. ‘Yes. I am.’

They rose together and walked to it, but Angel hesitated and flicked his eyes over at the shower. Spike shrugged, ‘Help yourself,’ and climbed onto the bed, clearly not intending to join him.

He listened to the sounds of Angel washing, sitting on the bed. That seemed way too presumptuous, so he climbed off and stood in a nonchalant pose by the sink. He leant on the counter just to add to the this is totally normal look.  His hand slipped on some water though, and he jerked back up, glancing around, mortified.  He decided he’d be reading when Angel came out— that wouldn’t look so needy.  Oh, it’s you… let me just finish this page….

He fetched his book and climbed in, arranging the sheet over his lap. Immediately, he climbed back out and threw his book viciously into a corner— that had been nerd waits to be fucked look.

With a flash of inspiration, he stoked the fire up a little, emptying his lighter onto it to speed the process, and lounged in front of it, looking… like a total prat.  He rose and paced.  Another flash of brilliance, and he decided to be outside, smoking. That activity was so inherently cool anyway he knew he was onto a winner. Then Angel could ask him to come to bed; Angel would have to beg him. He really liked that idea and fished out a cigarette from his coat pocket and went out to lean provocatively on the wall. Perfect. He clicked his lighter.  He shook it. He stared at it and then swore colourfully.  

Skittering back in, he flicked the stove on and lit his cigarette from there. Smoking casually in bed… that would look ultra-cool…. He climbed back in and tried some positions. All he managed to achieve was I’m lying here waiting to be fucked and sod off, I’m having a fag, neither of which was exactly what he was going for. Angrily, he stubbed the useless prop out on the wall behind him and hopped out again.

Suddenly, he heard chimes from somewhere in the old house.  With a curse of remorse, he pulled on his jeans and left.

Angel leant his forehead against the shower wall, wondering how long he could stay in there before Spike came to find him.  He’d had longer showers, but they usually involved more enjoyable activities than… hiding. Hiding— he knew he was doing it, and he didn’t like it.

It was just a bed. 

He’d shared a bed before….

He’d bought the damn eggs…! He’d wanted this.  The bed had mocked him every time he’d come here. He doesn’t trust you that much yet. Excuses to leave… wanting to be asked to stay. So… he was here now. And Spike would be waiting for him in that bed. Waiting and expecting….

Angel shivered. He went through it one more time in his head… kiss, turn him over, some… touching… then… in…. 

He began to lather the soap frantically and wash again… places he was sure were clean but seemed critical to the whole enterprise.  

He could do this. 

He was a champion.

He swallowed, kept his order of events in his mind and strode masterfully to the bed. 

He’d climbed in before he realised Spike wasn’t there.

He flicked his eyes around the apartment as if, in its openness, there was anywhere Spike could hide. He even lowered his eyes to the large space under the bed, but refused to sink so low as to actually look. He did climb out and go out into the courtyard, sure he would be out there, smoking.  

Nothing. 

Angel stood naked in the hot night, wondering if it had been a spell after all.

Chapter 7

Angel wasn’t sure whether to be furious or relieved when Spike slid back into the apartment a couple of minutes later. He was sitting on the edge of the bed, eyeing his clothes with increasing fury when he just appeared.

Spike looked startled and glanced to the shower, as if he’d thought he wouldn’t have been missed.

‘What the fuck!’

‘Well, yeah. Sorry.’

‘Where have you been?’ Angel frowned at his bare feet and torso.  

‘Nowhere….’ This was such a blatant lie that Spike flushed, but he said with a hint of defiance, ‘Upstairs, okay?’

‘Up…? Huh?’

‘To see Innocence….’

Angel was silent absorbing this.  ‘Is there something I should know?’

‘No….’

The second lie was pretty obvious, too.  Spike swore and tore off his jeans, climbing into the bed.  ‘It’s just a thing, Angel. It doesn’t concern you.’

‘I think it damn well does. You weren’t here!’ He climbed in alongside Spike and sat staring at him angrily.

Spike made a small dismissive wave of his hand. 

Angel caught it. ‘Tell me. It’s midnight, Spike, and you decide to go visit some spooky….’

‘She’s not spoo….’

‘And you decide to go on a little naked up to Innocence adventure?’

Spike tore his wrist away.  ‘Okay!  Okay! Bloody hell, Angel! You are so soddin’ suspicious.  I go check on her, okay! I go up and make sure she’s locked up… turned things off…that she’s… okay.  Happy now?’

‘Oh.’

‘Yeah. Oh.’

Spike stretched his legs out and studied them for a moment. ‘She’s nearly the same age as me, Pet. But look at me.’

Angel did.  He reached a hand over and stroked the illusion of youth.  ‘I know. I’m sorry. I took away your chance to grow old.’

Spike tipped his head on one side.

‘Why did you turn me, Angel? I’ve never asked you— never seemed the right moment, you know? But I wonder sometimes. Least loveable? Least likely to be a freakin’ demon, too.’

Angel hung his head and murmured something that was too soft even for Spike’s exceptional hearing.  Spike put a finger to Angel’s chin and lifted it. Angel repeated, ‘Exactly for that reason. It would torture you more.’

Spike nodded as if he’d always known this anyway. He slid his hand onto Angel’s face, caressing the smooth, ageless skin.  Angel turned and nuzzled into Spike’s palm, and they then came together in a kiss that was incredibly easy, unrehearsed, and loving.  Still kissing they lay down, exploring mouths gently, smiling at what they found, at the taste and the feel of the other.  Hands began to roam, and the kiss deepened.  Suddenly, Angel stiffened and tried to turn Spike over. Spike pulled away and looked at him for a moment with an odd expression, then he chuckled and whispered, ‘It’s not compulsory, Angel.’ He put on a pompous voice. ‘Staying the night… gotta do the fucking thing….’

Angel let out a long, slow breath of relief and sank into the large, soft bed. ‘It’s not that I don’t want to….’

Spike turned onto his back, too, and caught Angel’s hand, playing with his fingers, twisting his rings around and lining them up.  ‘I know. It’s… not really something I’ve ever thought about, either.’

‘Or wanted…?’

‘No.’

‘But you do now?’ Panic.

‘Calm, Angel. Calm, deep breaths. Yes, I want to.’

‘Okay. I do too.’

‘But not tonight….’

Angel slid his arm under Spike’s head and pulled him closer. ‘No. This is weird enough.’

Spike sighed. ‘I don’t know…. Seems like you’ve always been here sometimes.’ He put his head on Angel’s chest and let Angel stroke slowly up and down his back.

‘How’s the throat?’

‘Missing something in it.’

Angel chuckled and dragged his nails up Spike’s spine, hard enough to leave a faint red mark.  ‘Why did you come here— leave your other place?’

Spike hesitated then said, ‘I couldn’t afford the rent anymore— killing the wrong people kinda began to cost too much. I was given it so I could be this new champion. Hell, it was such a good opportunity to piss you off some more I thought yeah, be a sodding champion again. But I wasn’t. I was fucking around and getting it all wrong— sent to the wrong place, kill the wrong the person. So I quit. Found this. Did I mention I love this place?’  

Angel chuckled and kissed into his hair. ‘Once or twice, I seem to recall.’

‘I never really wanted to be a champion. Not really. Only took that damn necklace thingy cus I knew it’d piss you off so much. If I’d have known I was gonna bloody burn me knackers off….’

‘I had mine burnt off regularly in hell. I came to look forward to it… in a weird kind of way— it relieved the monotony.  Oh, here we go… balls in the pan time again.’

Spike laughed and wriggled down in the bed. ‘Ahh… poor Angel… let me… see….’ He glanced up and then took Angel’s sac in his mouth, sucking on the hot, soft skin.  He smiled around it at the look on Angel’s face indistinguishable from the one he might have worn under far less pleasant ministrations.  He rolled it around in his mouth for a little longer then let it drop and slid back up to his comfortable pillow. ‘There. I cooled them down for you.’

Angel coughed. ‘Appreciated.’

‘So, will they be missing you in the great edifice of evil?’

‘Probably. At least I don’t have a tracer on me anymore.’

‘Huh. Join the club.’

‘I need to leave early….’

‘Yeah, okay, Luv.  ‘S not a problem.’

‘It’s quiet here. No street noise.’

‘It’s quiet in your apartment. Hermetically sealed kinda quiet.’

‘Yeah.  I hate it.’

‘I know you do. Go to sleep, Angel. You’re here now.’

‘I know.’

The only sounds were the faint trickle from the pond and the quarterly chiming from the clock somewhere above in the big house.

He could not describe the relief he felt at Spike’s easy acceptance that they were not ready for the next step. It was unthinkable enough that he was lying, tightly spooned with him…. What his body craved from the slim, blond figure was beyond unthinkable; it was undoable.

He listened to the sounds from the night for a long time before he slid silently out of the bed and went into the dark of the courtyard.  He breathed a long sigh, tense anxiety at something he couldn’t define making his bellyache.

He heard a noise behind him and turned to find Wesley, leaning nonchalantly on the wall.  Angel jerked his head back, not surprised at finding him there, but spooked at not finding this odd. He nodded. ‘Good night?’

Wesley shrugged. ‘Not particularly. I’m very confused.  You’re supposed to be a champion, Angel.’

Angel hung his head. ‘I know. I just can’t do it.’  Angel held up the sword that he knew to be in his hands and stared at it sadly.  It was long and thick, and decorated with tiny seed pearls.  ‘I want to give him this, but I can’t.’

‘You’re trying to put it in the wrong place, Angel, that’s why.’

‘Oh. I’m kinda new to all this. Can you show me?’

Wesley smiled and tried to reply, but his voice had gone. He held his neck as if he couldn’t breathe, going increasingly red in the face, but despite this, he walked calmly to the bed where Spike still slept peacefully.  

Angel took the sword and drew a bright line of crimson across Spike’s belly, just above the hairline.  ‘I can’t push it in further.’

Wesley shook his head sadly then brushed his hand over Spike’s heart. ‘This is where you need to penetrate.’ 

Angel drew back sharply. ‘No, that can’t be right! Something has to be released! I don’t trust you!’

Wesley put his hands over his eyes. ‘I know you don’t, and I’m so sorry, Angel. I stole something from you.’

‘NO! I stole your memory from you. You aren’t whole, and I can’t trust you! I have to do this thing now.’

Angel stared at the blood from the fine sword cut, now smeared across Spike’s flat belly. 

Suddenly, his sword arm was pushed, and he turned to find Cordelia grinning at him.  ‘Harder, Angel, harder.’

Angel smiled triumphantly at Wesley. ‘See? It’s Cordy. I trust Cordy.’

Wesley began to look frantic, and he struggled to find his voice once more.  ‘No, Angel, look in the mirror.’

Angel frowned and said in a low voice, ‘You know I’m damned. You know I don’t exist in God’s universe. I don’t fucking show up!’

Cordy suddenly pushed again, and the sword pierced Spike’s belly, exactly where he had drawn the line. Spike rose from sleep, screaming, his eyes wide.  He gave Angel a confused, accusing look, as if he’d expected more from him.  But before he could speak, a small shape squirmed out of the split in his belly.  Angel shouted in horror, dropping the sword; Spike held out his hand, as if he could save his life, but he dissolved slowly to dust in the bed.  

Angel closed his eyes in shock and denial.  When he opened them, all he could see was a long, empty corridor that he’d now been condemned to stare at for eternity. He couldn’t move; he couldn’t scream; all he could do was stare. Incipient madness pressed upon him, as if he’d inherited it from the previous occupant of this unholy prison.  He’d made his choice though – penetrate Spike - and this was the bargain.

Then there was a flicker of something in his vision. Someone had come to visit him.  He felt a surge of relief, straining his eyes to one side to try and see.  Then he did; it was the squirming thing.  He knew what it was and tried desperately not to watch, but he did, with sick fascination. It grew.  The destroyer stood before him.  For the first time, Angel understood the name. It was his destroyer.  

Connor smiled. ‘Hello, Father.’

Angel woke, silently screaming, his whole body rigid and painful.

He looked around wildly, trying to get his bearings, unable to work out where he was and why the prison had suddenly become so less restrictive.

With a shudder, he looked down to what lay beside him: perfect, warm, sleeping, his.

Everything he had ever tried to have, he had lost.  His passions condemned him.  He’d lost his life, Buffy, Darla, and Connor.  It was all lost.  Now this, now this sexy, enticing, contrary, confusing person he had circled around for the last century.  Condemned by his passions, he would lose Spike, too.  It was inevitable.  He had made a pact with the devil twice, and the devil did not like to lose a good and faithful friend.  He could not go back and refuse Darla and chose life instead. He could not go back and stop Buffy’s infatuation with him: taking back that spill of seed that had nearly destroyed them all. He could not go back and retrieve the spill that had destroyed them all: Wesley, Fred, Gunn, Lorne and him, all now disciples of the devil.

But this - this pale, smooth, infuriating, infinitely complex man lying asleep alongside him, who seemed effortlessly to do the good he had once thought he could do - this one, he could save.

Silently, he slid from the bed and dressed.  He cast a last look down at what his passion craved almost more than his body had the strength to refuse, but then he refused it.  He drew into himself and walked the length of the room.  Even the dust motes rising from the ancient furniture seemed like small ghosts calling him back, telling him that he was wrong and that this passion would be different, this passion would be allowed.  

It wasn’t until he reached the door that he realised how close, on that impossibly long walk, he’d been to turning back and sliding into the warm bed once more.  He cast a last look around the place that had been a temporary sanctuary from the devil’s bargain.  What had he thought? That they could live here together? Waking together in that preposterous bed, sharing their complex, strange lives, talking, laughing…. Sharing passion…?  He closed his eyes and felt once more the hot, eager mouth around his cock… sex whenever they wanted it… passion finally matched and assuaged. 

The devil’s final victory was to show him a tantalising glimpse of what could never be.

Casting aside the entire impossibility that this place represented, Angel went back to where he belonged— what he had bought with his deal.

He went up to his soulless apartment. He showered. He stood in front of the closet and carefully chose what he had now to wear: suits that were his pact manifest.

By the time the sun rose over L.A, by the time he would be waking, Angel was at his desk, signing letters.  

He’d made the deal, and the devil would not take kindly to losing. 

So much passion.  So many lives destroyed.

He would keep safe what he could.

Spike woke on his belly, one arm hanging off the bed.  His first thought on waking was anticipation.  His body ached with his usual early-morning need for relief.  He rocked into the mattress teasing himself with the thought that, for once, he did not have to do this alone.  His body ached with something more than the need for relief; it ached for Angel. He had said he’d not been ready either. He lied as usual. Angel had not been ready, and that had held him back from taking what he’d wanted. 

He turned leisurely in the bed and blinked sharply awake to find it empty. 

Instinctively, he knew the apartment was empty and that Angel had gone.  

He hunched his knees up to his chest and put barriers against the bitter, fearful thoughts that sprang unbidden into his mind.  

There had been an emergency. Angel had left and not wanted to wake him. Even now he was at his desk, longing for an emergency of another kind: hushed whispers in an empty office, need unrelieved but admitted.

With a grin, he dressed and made his way over to Wolfram and Hart, coming up through the sewers as usual. He nodded at a couple of typists he recognized and punched buttons of the elevator, humming softly to himself.  It all seemed disturbingly familiar.

Harmony was only just adjusting her chair, turning on her screen as he exited the elevator. He stopped and gave her a hard time for a while, enjoying the old game of pretending to look anywhere but at Angel.

When he felt he’d earned it, he flicked his eyes over and saw him.  A wash of memory - smell, feel of hair, throat swollen - made him flush. 

He abused Harmony a while longer than swaggered to the door and shoved it open. He went in and leant on it, barring entry, gazing across the large office. ‘Mornin’ stranger.’

Angel moved another letter across. ‘Good morning.’

Spike grinned and came over, perching on the edge of the desk. Angel pointedly moved the stack of unsigned letters out of his way and continued signing them.  ‘What do you want, Spike? I’m kinda busy this morning.’

‘Uh huh. That so? I’m thinking you look in need of some… refreshment. How’s about you and I…?’

‘Spike. Busy? Go and play with yourself somewhere else maybe?’

Spike hesitated and replayed the last few moments, taking off the early-morning, sensual bed lustre it had worn for him.  He dragged his eyes slowly over Angel: lowered head to stiff, office posture.  He got up and went to the window, lighting a cigarette.

He was silent for a long time, so long that Angel was forced to say tightly, ‘Really don’t need the company….’

Spike turned and looked at him.  ‘I need to know if it’s me, Angel. Have I done something wrong?’

Angel appeared to flinch, but Spike saw it was just some ink that had spilt from the pen and ruined the letter he’d been signing. 

Suddenly, he rose from the desk and joined him at that window, folding his arms and staring out over the city.  In a flat voice, he said, ‘It was the spell, Spike. I expected it to end when Fred said the incantation, but it didn’t.  I tore down to see Wesley; he was free of it, but I felt exactly the same. I hid it from you, and I hid it from everyone. I told myself I could go along with things… wait until I was back to normal. And I did. Last night, it just… wore off.  The thought of being in the bed with you was… preposterous.  Freaking hell, Spike; I don’t even like you very much.’

Spike tipped his head to one side, seemed to find this the wrong side, tried the other, but ended up with his head, shaking. ‘This isn’t true.  There’s something wrong, but you’re not telling me what it is.’

Angel took a while to reply, but he turned, his expression cold. ‘Yeah, you’re right. There is. You.  Jesus, Spike? What is it with you?’

Spike’s head continued to shake. ‘No. I don’t accept this.’

Angel shrugged and went back to his desk, placing his palms onto the surface as if to steady it from some non-existent wobble. ‘Not seeing that you’ve got much choice here.’

Spike blinked and came closer, unwilling to stand separated by its vast smoothness.  ‘You know how I feel, Angel. I’m not gonna pretend any different.  You know where I live now.  Are you seriously telling me you’ve changed your mind?’

Angel shrugged. ‘That’s probably a better explanation than mine. Yeah. I just changed my mind, Spike.’ He looked up. ‘Hell, if you want some fun sometime…. We’re vampires; that’s not gonna change.… No other freaking action around here, and I really enjoyed your mouth… ya know what I mean? But, fuck…. Faggoty crap with you? Not gonna happen.’

Spike stepped back, glanced behind to the couch and sat heavily on the arm, staring at Angel. Angel shrugged and went back to his paperwork.  Pointedly he buzzed Harmony and said curtly, ‘What time’s my first appointment?’

Spike watched his small tableau play out, biting the side of one nail. He was almost sure that Angel was acting, that there was some hidden agenda here that he wasn’t getting.  Almost.  He tried not to look too closely at Angel’s face, though, for when he did, he saw an expression he recognized: self-disgust.  It was exactly the same expression Buffy had worn when she’d woken up in his arms, penetrated and filled with his sperm. Exactly the same.  The almost sure wavered, until it faded completely.

She’d not been acting.  Angel wasn’t acting. Disgust.

He rose and came closer to the desk. ‘What am I supposed to do now, Angel? You have me at something of a disadvantage here. I believed you, and I let you in.  I can’t… do this now: coming here, working with you…. L.A.’

‘I wanted you to leave before all this! The offer still stands: car, relocation, money. Whatever you want, as far away as you want.’

‘I have to give up my…? Fucking look at me, Angel! At least have the grace to fucking look at me when I’m talking to you!’

Angel looked up with a weary, bored look.

Spike gritted his teeth and paced to the window, continuing without looking at Angel, now he’d won this small, useless victory.  ‘Why should I have to give up everything?’

‘You can do whatever you like, Spike. This is a huge city.’

Spike was silent for a while, his head low on his chest, his hands plunged deep in his pockets.  Eventually, he said softly, ‘Why are you doing this? Tell me the truth. Whatever you say, I’ll go along with it, only tell the bloody truth. Please.’

Angel sighed. ‘Jesus. You said it yourself, Spike. You’re just not loveable, yeah? I tried― real hard. Christ, I tried.’

Spike nodded.  He turned and shook out his shoulders slightly.  

Angel cast him a small look and said, apparently not that interested in the reply, ‘What will you do?’

Spike didn’t answer.  He pouted for a moment then withdrew one hand from his pocket. ‘I think you should have this, Angel.’ He laid his small fragment of mirror on the desk. 

Angel reared back, his chair reeling dangerously, and then crashing to the floor.  He paced to the window, then to the couch.  ‘What the fuck are you giving it back to me for? It was a gift.’

Spike held it up and looked at his reflection one last time then laid it down and walked to the door. ‘I don’t need to see myself. I know who I am now, Angel.  I suggest you study it carefully.  You may be surprised.’

With that he left.

Chapter 8

Wesley gave the door a small push to confirm that it was open and then stepped cautiously inside. He wasn’t that sure of his welcome, or of Spike’s habits, to risk anything bolder.

It had taken him a long time to decide to come over, but his increasing pain and confusion drove him constantly to seek this person who seemed to him to hold all the answers.  It was an intellect thing: knowing there was something he didn’t know was intolerable. Everything he didn’t know, however, told him that Spike was key to the blanks in his memory.  Everything screamed Angel. Everything screamed child.  Everything, therefore, pointed to Spike.  The dreams were increasingly vivid, and in every one, he was hurting Angel, or Angel was hurting him. The only problem was, he could not get the sequence of this hurt sorted. Blame, it all seemed to come down to blame, but he could not decide where that lay.  

The ghosts that he could only sense at the periphery of his vision seemed restless, and he wondered if Spike was absent.  He murmured his name softly.

A small movement caught his eye out in the courtyard.

Spike was standing on the small wall that surrounded the pond, dressed only in a pair of jeans, trailing one naked foot in the water. His head was lowered, and he seemed intent only on the bottle of whisky in one hand and the cigarette in his other— those and his thoughts, which seemed to engross him.  Wesley was acutely conscious that the vampire was utterly unaware of his presence, despite the danger this represented.

Wesley stood in the shadows of the room and took the opportunity to study the complex figure for a while. It was like a game. He could look at him, and his brain told him it was Spike. Look again, and his heart began to ache because it was… Spike: the one he had adored. The one he had lost his sanity over.  Flip, flop, brain, heart. If he did it fast enough, like a child’s stick-figure drawing, the images merged together, and then other parts of his body ached at what he saw. However hard he tried, he could not separate his brain from his body; he could not just rationalise and see Spike how he had seen him before the spell. Always, when he looked at him now, the ghosts of his passion hung about the slim, blond vampire. His eyes were still just as blue; his hair was still like spun gold, and Wesley’s body ached to have him, despite his brain coolly processing all these thoughts and telling him it was an illusion, a delusion.

Then the shortness of breath began: this maddening reaction he had whenever he thought about possessing Spike’s body.  It was as if something pressed down on his face, something fearful behind it in the shadows.  Just as he almost had the shadowy, lurking thing in his vision, it shifted into Angel’s face, and the sense of relief was so palpable that the air returned, and he could breathe once more.  He had the absurd thought then that he wanted to give Angel a present, something to thank him, something that he had once desperately wanted to give him, but had lost. 

His brain ached to try and remember what it was that Angel wanted and where he had hidden it, but he couldn’t, and then the thought always came to him: ask Spike.  Spike would know what it was that he had to give Angel.  
 
So he continued to come and seek the vampire’s presence, despite the pain and confusion the pale, smooth flesh gave him.  He did it for Angel, the one who stopped the bad dreams and given him back his air.

Wesley could not believe Spike had not sensed him. He coughed softly and stepped out.  ‘Spike.’

Spike still made no indication that he heard, but continued stirring the moonlight that streaked through the cool, green water of the pond.

‘Are you… quite well?’

Spike took a long swallow from his bottle, lost his balance and stepped heavily off the wall. 

Wesley stepped forward instinctively and offered his arm, but Spike snatched his out of reach, slopping the alcohol, and walked unsteadily into the apartment.

Wesley followed and perched on the arm of a chair. ‘Is something wrong?’

Spike took a drag of his cigarette, and then suddenly, he was standing in front of Wesley— close, pressing the human’s knees with his.  He tipped his head to one side, regarding him closely.  He took a swig of whisky and swallowed it slowly, his eyes creasing up in humour.  In a very low voice, he said amused, ‘You’re hard.’

Wesley felt his heart rate increase slightly, but he said calmly enough, ‘Spells are powerful things, Spike. You know that. One keeps you animated and walking around in the body of man.’

Spike lifted one eyebrow and took a long drag of his cigarette, tendrils of smoke escaping as he spoke. ‘Maybe you need a little exorcism, Wes. Suck that bloody spell right out of you.’ He moved forward, forcing Wesley’s legs to open and stood between his thighs, staring down at him with an expression that was far harder to fathom than the meaning apparent in his words and actions.

Wesley breathed deeply and leant back slightly, away from the intimidating presence. ‘And, what, you’re offering to play priest with me?’

Spike smirked unpleasantly. ‘Well, now, I didn’t have anything holy in mind, exactly.’

Wesley stared at the blue eyes. Had he once thought they resembled some innocent childhood pleasure? They were totally demonic now, and he felt a shiver of fear down his spine. He had come a long way from his Watcher heritage, but he had the sense to know when the devil was present.  He licked his lips slightly and said evenly, ‘I came to talk, Spike. I rather hoped we could sit and talk— about Angel.’

A smile split Spike’s face like a gash.  ‘Well, see? Great minds do think alike. I was thinking of conjuring Angel here, too.  Yeah, Angel’s been on my mind all day.’

‘I’m not sure I follow your logic, Spike.’ He looked reluctantly into Spike’s eyes once more and then ducked his head in acknowledgement of something he saw there. ‘I’m sorry. I’m missing the point, aren’t I? This has nothing to do with logic.’

Spike moved his arm slightly and rested the bottom of his whisky bottle on Wesley’s zipper.  ‘I wouldn’t go as far as to say that, Wes. You’re hard. I’m hard. We’re both adults. You’ve gotta admit, there’s some logic to that.’

Wesley glanced down at the phallic rising of glass from his groin.  ‘Have you lost your soul, Spike? Have we been guarding and caring for the wrong vampire, always assuming it would be Angel to turn again?’

Spike began to twist the bottle around on the hardness beneath it.  ‘I’m getting bored talking, Watcher.’

‘This is the one thing Angel seems to become incandescent with rage about, isn’t it? Me. You.’

Spike stopped moving the bottle around and took another long lungful of smoke.  He looked at Wesley thoughtfully through the increasingly thick air between them. ‘Not the only thing, no. But you don’t remember the other thing.’

Wesley’s eyes suddenly flashed, and Spike smirked, raising one eyebrow meaningfully.

‘You do know: what it is I need to know; what I’m missing; what it is I dream about until I’m half mad for knowing!’

Taking a long drink, Spike nodded slowly. ‘Yeah, I do.’

‘Tell me.’

‘I… might.’

Wesley saw the offer as clearly as if Spike had it written in large letters on his forehead.  He shook his head. ‘No.’

Spike raised an eyebrow again. ‘It’ll drive you mad, Wes…. You know it will…. What did you do? What did Angel do, maybe? Why it’s all about me— if it is…. Jeez, what a puzzle….’

‘Tell me. Please.’

Spike chuckled and mimicked his tone.  ‘Fuck me. Please.’

‘Spike!’ Wesley stood up and pushed him away, hearing the actual offer was so much worse than hearing the implied one.  ‘What is all this about? Angel doesn’t even like you sitting on my desk let along on my….’ Suddenly, he jerked around and stared at the vampire.  He began to laugh. ‘Oh, I am dense tonight. Of course. That is exactly what this is all about: making Angel jealous. My God, you want to use me to exact some kind of revenge on Angel.’

Spike flicked up both eyebrows with a pleased grin. ‘Who better? It’s so bloody ironically perfect.  Steal me away from him, too….’ He began to laugh, took a swig of whisky, realised the bottle was empty and swore, walking unsteadily to the kitchen to fetch another.

‘What do you mean?’

Spike took his new treasure to the bed and sat on the edge, patting the space next to him, shaking his head. ‘You don’t get squat from me until I get what I want from you.’

‘You know that isn’t going to happen— and for many more reasons than I would never do anything to hurt Angel. I have an irrational desire for you, Spike, which is merely the phantom of a spell. And I’ll live with that. I’ll exorcise you in my own way. But lie with you? That’s never going to happen. I’m sorry.’

Spike looked up and straight into his eyes. ‘I could force you.’

Something in the way the moonlight struck the vampire’s eyes, suddenly made Wesley’s brain clear, made it focus for the first time on the purely rational. All fear and chaotic desire left him, and connections sparked with their usual quickness in his brain.  

With a deep breath of relief, he nodded. ‘You could. But then I have the distinct impression that that would defeat the very object you are trying – in that very warped and almost endearing way of yours – to achieve here. You want Angel to know that someone else finds you attractive…. You want him to see what he’s missing. Forcing me is not going to achieve that, is it?’

Wesley saw the change with wonder. One minute, he was reasoning with the devil for his life, the next, he was seeing a reflection of himself as a child: realising that the ones he most loved did not love him.

Spike began to shake so badly that when he tried – in defence – to smoke his cigarette, he could not coordinate it to his lips.  This only seemed to turn the shaking into uncontrollable laughter, but there was no humour in it; it was painful to Wesley’s ears, and he wanted it to stop. 

With a slightly shaky step himself, he went and sat next to Spike on the bed. 

Spike’s extreme anguish sparked something deep in his memory: pain so bright that it flared, making him wince. 

When he put a hand out to Spike’s head and pulled him onto his shoulder, he felt he was somehow offering comfort that had once been denied to him.

Stroking Spike’s hair rhythmically as the vampire cried gave him something he had once been desperate to have.

When the worst of the storm was over, Spike pulled his knees up to chest, letting his drink and cigarette fall unheeded to the floor.  He put his face down and folded his arms over his head.  ‘Go away.’

‘I do know what it’s like to be in such a dark place, Spike— I can’t actually remember why I was there, but the darkness is a very vivid memory.’

‘Please, just go away.’

‘What are you ashamed of? That you tried to get me to fuck you or that you cried? Jesus. I think I did fuck my way through my darkness, and I cried me that proverbial river. I sometimes think I still am….’

Spike turned his head and laid his wet cheek on his forearm, gazing unsighted at a streak of moonlight on the cover between them.  ‘I hate him so much I’m trying to decide whether it would hurt him more to tell you or not to tell you.’

Wesley frowned. ‘I thought you two were getting along better since the spell.’

Spike’s face crumpled once more, but he clamped his jaw tightly before replying, ‘Appearances can be deceptive, it seems.’

Hesitantly, Wesley stretched out his hand and brushed Spike’s hair with the pad of his thumb.  ‘Tell me. Tell me what I need to know.’

‘What if telling you destroyed the world?’

‘Huh?’

Spike shrugged. ‘It’s such a fucking balancing act, isn’t it? Worlds saved by sucking out knowledge, as if it was pus in a wound. Should I infect you again? So sterile…. He’s so sterile now.’

‘I’m not following you, Spike.’

‘I can’t tell you.’

Wesley rose angrily. ‘Yes, you can.’

Spike shook his head. ‘I saved the world, Wesley. I’m a fucking hero.’  His jaw trembled, and large tears rolled from his eyes, and he repeated softly, ‘I’m a fucking hero.’

Something in the vampire’s intense sadness made a small piece of Wesley’s resistance crumble, and he felt a matching sadness well up like dark oil, erupting from a darkness he knew was ever present.  He sat back on the bed and hung his head, fearing that if he let the tears come, he would cry more than a river: it would be a flood that would wash him entirely away.  He bent and picked up the discarded bottle, swilling it around to check its contents and then put it to his lips. He swallowed and swallowed and then handed it to Spike.

With a slight hesitation, Spike took it. He nodded his thanks to something they both knew was not the offer for his own alcohol, and then he drank deeply, too.  They glanced over at the other full bottles on the counter and then got down to some serious drinking, each plunging the darkness for their own separate escape.

Spike was back in his bed at home, ill with fever. He knew it must be the past, for he’d been sick in the night, and he could smell the unmistakable smell of human vomit on his skin, in his hair.

Wesley was at school, being beaten by his fagmaster, and every land of the cane was on his temples: thwack, thwack, until he vomited.

Spike sensed there was something he was trying to forget and blessed the unbearable pain in his head.

Wesley sensed there was something he was trying to remember and cursed the unbearable pain in head.

Spike wondered why he was lying on prickly straw.

Wesley wondered why he was lying on silk.

Spike cocked an eye open and saw a pulse beat in front of him, stubbled but a pulse nevertheless.  He bit.

Wesley rose, howling.  Spike shouted. Wesley cried out at the noise, holding his head. Spike discovered he was dripping in vomit that wasn’t his, and vomited at the smell.  Wesley reared back and vomited in reaction to this, tumbling off the side of the bed and hitting his head on the floor.

Spike surveyed the scene and retreated into unconsciousness when his memory threatened to return.

Soap seemed essential, and he scrubbed it over his body and hair, puzzling how he came to be in the shower. The journey from unconsciousness to soap was a mystery, but he did not let it ruin the pleasure of the hot water.  Everything was out-of-focus and lurching, but if he braced carefully enough, he could stand and lather without falling.  He heard the door slide open, and something that still stank of vomit entered his clean place. Silently, he passed the soap over, but the other one seemed incapable of moving at all, so he washed him, systematically scrubbing the soap into the sticky dark hair and rasping it over the rough cheeks.  Without his careful bracing, the swell beneath the shower stall caught him out, and he fell against the other. They both collapsed and lay in the pooling water.  It was warm and did not lurch so much, so they made no effort to leave.

He was cold. Wet and naked. Shivering.  

The bed was not an option, so he lit the fire, the scratch of the match splitting through his head as loud as a rifle retort.

The flames were so good he huddled in front of them, wondering what they made him think of.  Water.  Thirst that made him shudder with its intensity forced him to the sink, and he drank from the tap, pints until his belly swelled.  He frowned and thought of the other, weaker one, and filled a glass, looking for him.  A blurry dark figure was blocking the flames, so he swayed over and handed him the fluid.  The man seemed to realise his thirst at the sight and drank it, pushing past him for more.

Nakedness occurred to them and became important, so Spike found towels.

More water was shared and consumed.

One slept on the couch, one on the floor in front of the flames.

Spike woke to sound of Wesley’s voice and turned over to watch him on his cellphone. His voice was ragged, his throat swollen, but the man barked his orders smartly nonetheless. 

It was too much to process, so Spike curled up and went back to unconsciousness for a while.

When he woke the next time, four men were struggling to put his bed in a bag. He tried to focus and watched, bemused, as they left with his mattress.  They returned with another, new one.  He watched them leave then crawled over and heaved himself up, curling up on its great softness. It depressed next to him, a blanket came over his shoulders, and he curled into something warm that embraced him.

A day later, Spike was woken by a disembodied voice. ‘Are we still alive?’

He chuckled and stretched, not disturbing the tight, hot entanglement. ‘Well, you might be.’

Wesley shook his head. ‘Do you know how long we’ve been here?’

Spike shook his head.  ‘Could be weeks.’

Wesley rubbed his hand over his chin. ‘Four days, I’d say.’

Spike stretched again and looked down at the dark, rumpled head on his chest. 

Wesley sat up at an odd noise.  He saw Spike’s expression and began to laugh too, uncontrollable, youthful laughter that rang around the apartment.  He flung himself back onto the pillow and folded his arms under his head.  ‘I’ve survived death. I feel a sense of inappropriate euphoria.’

Spike mirrored his position, his laughter fading as memory returned.  ‘Yeah.’

Wesley turned his head to look at the thoughtful profile.  ‘I think I trust you enough now to leave the decision up to you: whether it’s best for me to know what it is that eludes my memory.’

Spike flicked his eyes over and frowned slightly.  He went back to staring at the ceiling, and then said quietly, ‘If there was any point you knowing, I’d tell you. If you ever need to know, I’ll tell you, ‘k?’

Wesley made a sound of deep relief.  ‘I feel as if I’ve been let out of prison. The weight is off my shoulders. I’m sorry. Is that very selfish of me? Putting it on you?’

Once more, Spike shrugged. ‘I’ve got strong shoulders, Pet. Had the weight of the world on them for a long time now.’

‘I’ve never had a conversation with another naked man in bed before. It’s rather novel.’

‘Yeah. Focuses the mind.’

‘I’m thinking off offering you something. I wonder what you’ll say.’

Spike lifted his eyebrows and said cautiously, ‘Ask me, Pet; then you’ll know.’

‘Pizzas.  I was thinking six or seven….’

They sat in front of the fire, Spike in jeans and Wesley in a towel, consuming the large, hot pizzas.  They watched each other negotiating dripping cheese and oil, laughing when it fell onto naked flesh.  When they were done, they sat side-by-side aimlessly tearing up the boxes and feeding them to the greedy flames, enjoying the peace and the general lack of lurching.

Eventually, Wesley said evenly, ‘I think I’m a little cross about this spell thing. It seems to have messed everyone up rather.’ He glanced over at Spike. ‘What do you say you and I find that creature and end its games once and for all.’

Spike nodded, still staring at the flames. ‘Pay-back.’

‘Exactly.’  He smiled across at Spike and saw a small, conspiratorial look back. 

Wesley murmured, ‘Do you know, against all odds, I think we’ve managed to achieve the one thing I was trying to avoid.’

Spike flicked another strip of cardboard onto the fire and glanced over at him. ‘What’s that then, Mate?’

‘You wanted to make Angel jealous with some utterly false, utterly unlikely sex act, but somehow, somewhere in these hideous last four days, I think something else has happened that would have made that jealousy seem… rational.’

‘Sharing vomit?’

Wesley cuffed him, and Spike moved his head slightly to the affectionate chastisement. He laughed then said, amused, ‘I’ve never had a single soddin’ friend before. What do they do then: friends…?’

Wesley shrugged. ‘I’m hardly the best person to ask; never in with the in-crowd; never the one who got a seat saved on the bus, you know?’

‘Thought you were Head Boy….’

‘Teachers’ vote. Not a single other boy voted for me.’

‘Huh. I’d ‘ave.’

‘Thank you. I’m not sure a vampire’s vote would have actually helped my popularity at the Watchers’ Academy, but the thought is appreciated.  So, what are we going to do about Angel then?’

‘Who?’

Wesley cast him a small look and held a piece of burning cardboard close to Spike’s face, waving it to and fro, intoning, ‘I seek your inner truth, Vampire.’

Spike huffed and banged his arm away. ‘Ponce.’

‘I take it you’re not leaving L.A? At least, I hope you’re not.’

Spike smiled, trying to turn it into a serious pout, unwilling to let the human see his pleasure at the small amendment.  ‘Nah. I’m not. I like this place too much. I feel… right here.’

‘Except when you’re not….’

‘Well, eight bottles of whisky will do that to you.’

Wesley belched discretely behind his hand and paled. ‘Eight?’

‘’Fraid so.’

‘My God.’

Spike glanced over at him and chuckled at something, then rubbed his own chin.  Wesley’s fingers flew to his neck, and he combed them through the considerable beard he discovered. ‘Damn!’

‘Yeah, you’ve lost that sexy stubble effect, Pet. Idyll is over.’

Wesley’s eyes widened. ‘I haven’t even called in sick! They’ll be going frantic. Angel will be worried.’

‘Good.’

‘Oh, and that was said in a mature and responsible way.’

Spike shrugged. ‘Yeah. Well.’ He watched Wesley get to his feet.  ‘Thanks for the new mattress, Luv. Appreciated.’

‘I think I got off rather lightly, Spike, only having my miscellaneous projects’ budget stretched, don’t you?’

Spike rose too and brushed one finger over Wesley’s chest. ‘But I know where you live now, Watcher. Remember that.’

Wesley grinned, uncharacteristically, and grabbed Spike’s finger. ‘Likewise. Now, what the hell am I going to wear home?’

Angel had enjoyed the most meticulous, precise four days as CEO since he had agreed to take the job. He’d taken a minute interest in everything, kept busy every minute of the day, justifying in his mind his momentous decision to sacrifice everything to the Wolfram and Hart altar.

Being conscientious in response to this new and improved Angel, Harmony decided to get his counter-signature for the odd purchase from the Research Department.  Angel signed it readily enough, his new persona not extending as far as actually taking in anything he concentrated on so closely.  It would have escaped his notice entirely had Harmony not swung back from leaving and said peeved, ‘I never knew, ya know…? But it all makes sense, doesn’t it?’ She stamped her foot. ‘He always had that….’ Totally lost for words to describe anything about Spike, she added lamely, ‘Thin thing.’

Angel looked up, annoyed. ‘What? Get out, Harmony. I’m busy.’

‘But Wesley…. Go figure there. I always thought he had the hots for Fred. Oh my God! It was the thinness!  Spike… Fred…. All those bones….’

Angel laid down his pen and said casually, ‘Spike?’

‘Oh! You already knew then? Childe an’ all. Guess you would.’

‘Harmony!’

‘Huh?’

‘Speak slowly and in a logical order maybe?’

‘Oh. Well… the new bed. Okay, mattress, jeez, picky, or what? You’ve just bought it for them. I mean, well, it’s Wesley budget, although not his personal one…. Hey! Has he just committed some kind of fraud? I think omphhh….’ 

Angel tightened his grip around her throat and said softly, ‘One word at a time. Can you manage that?’

She nodded.  ‘Wesley is moving in with Spike. They’re having some kinda… thing, and if you ask me omphhh….’

‘Why are you saying this?’

‘Omphhh?  Throat? Jeez, boss! Pete from maintenance delivered it, and I really think you ought to tell…. Wait! They were naked and all over each other he said…. I mean, am I the only one who thinks ewwww?’

Chapter 9

Wesley brought a stack of books over the following night. He’d wanted Spike to come into the office with him, so they had access to all his texts, but Spike refused, and Wesley didn’t push it.  Instead, he gathered up the ones most likely to be of use and made his way over there after work.

It appeared Spike had just got up; he looked rumpled, slopping around in old jeans, with bare feet and chest.  Wesley felt the familiar pang of desire, which he squashed determinedly, and put the books down on the floor in front of the fire.  ‘Tonight we find it.’

‘Tomorrow we kill it.’

‘Yes. If it’s still in the city.’

‘’Spect it will be. Where else would you go if you wanted to get poor saps to fall in love with you but a big city full of lonely people?’

‘Quite.’  

Wesley watched as Spike turned away to make them both some tea. He could sense the vampire was in low spirits and suspected the cause. He wasn’t surprised when Spike asked in a deceptively casual voice, ‘How’s work?’

Wesley knew what he really wanted to ask, so replied gently, ‘He seemed very distracted.’  Thinking it would cheer Spike up, be amusing to him, he added, ‘Everyone seems to think we’re having an affair. The veracity of the gossip considerably helped by Harmony’s outrage.’

Spike did not seem quite as amused as he’d hoped.  The vampire snatched up his cigarettes and went out into the dark to smoke.  Wesley followed him out and leant on the wall, pulling petals off one of the exotic flowers. ‘I thought it was what you wanted: for real, not just inaccurate rumour.’

‘Yeah. Guess I did. Lucky me then. Did Angel refer to it? Directly?’

‘I hardly expected him to. It’s not his style, is it?’

Spike shrugged as if denying any knowledge of Angel or his habits.  

‘Shall we hit the books?’

Spike nodded but made no move to follow him in.  Wesley went in alone and began to work steadily through his books. After a while, Spike came in and toed one of them, pursing his lips. ‘We know what species it is. These books are too old to tell us its habits in a city like this.’

Wesley sighed and pushed his book away. ‘Maybe we’re going about this in the wrong way. Maybe we could find a pattern.’

‘Other incidents of weird behaviour?’

‘Well, possibly. If other men or demons have been forced to love this creature – and I am using that in the most euphemistic way – then we may be able to pick up reports of… unexplained madness?’

‘Suicide?’

‘Yes, possibly.’ Wesley suddenly got up, animated. ‘Computer. We need a computer.’

Spike shrugged. ‘Almost got bought one of those once.’

‘Wolfram and Hart.’

Spike immediately refused, but Wesley added, ‘He’ll be out. Dinner and conference.’

‘Oh.’

Looking anything but convinced, Spike pulled on his boots and shirt, and followed Wesley out.

When they got to Wesley’s office, Spike hung around as the human used the computer.  He looked out of the window for a while then wandered out into the main lobby. The light was on in Angel’s office: a soft desk one. It drew him like a moth to its familiar flame, and he felt an almost overwhelming stab of regret that he could no longer go in there and spar with Angel, that they had lost that bitter, familiar, twisted friendship.  He cursed and pushed open the doors, remembering how he had fled in here from Wesley’s sudden weirdness, how Angel had growled and possessed him.  He shut the doors softly behind him and trailed his hand over the chair, brushed his fingers across the desk, sat for a while in Angel’s chair, trying to see things as he saw them.  The office looked very big and intimidating from Angel’s side of the desk.  Finally, he went to the window and looked out over Angel’s city, wondering what he was doing, whether he was thinking of him, wishing he were, even if it was only bad thoughts; they were better than cold neutrality.  He sent out a small prayer that somewhere Angel was hating him, then closed his eyes, trying to feel that powerful emotion so it would fill the huge space inside him that had opened up to absorb Angel’s love.

‘What the hell are you doing in here?’

Spike spun around, all his normal cool nonchalance gone for a moment.  He couldn’t even summon some snark and just whispered, ‘You’re at a dinner.’

Angel grimaced and walked very slowly toward his elevator. ‘Get out.’  He stopped at his desk, leant on it, and then sat heavily, hanging his head.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘Nothing. Get out of my office. I can’t do this tonight. Not tonight.’

‘Do what? And… bloody hell… is that blood?’ Spike’s eyes widened as the smell of blood suddenly hit him. 

Angel didn’t lift his head.  ‘Just go.’

‘It’s human! All over you….’

‘I need for you not to be here.’

‘Wesley said….’ Spike didn’t even see him move. Despite his obvious exhaustion, Angel pinned him against the glass and pressed his face in close.

‘You know what? I’m really not interested in anything Wesley and you talk about.’

Spike felt a tingle run down his spine. He’d felt something like it before, and he flicked back in his memory to locate it.  Café… in the mall… Angel jealous. 

He didn’t know whether to feel intensely pleased, or furious. He opted for furious and pushed him off, walking toward the door. Suddenly he turned back and reversed their earlier position: pinning Angel against the glass. ‘You piss me off, Angel. I seem to remember you telling me to go find some new playmates. Well, you know what? I didn’t have to look too far.’

Angel’s eyes darkened. ‘I don’t believe it, Spike. It’s a pathetic attempt to make me jealous because you still believe, somewhere in that dense cranium of yours, that I’m pretending to loath you, that somehow I have some secret agenda, and if you get me jealous enough, I’ll break down and sob and tell you I love you and that I want you….’

‘Methinks he doth protest too much….’ Spike twitched up an eyebrow and grinned.

Angel pushed him off and paced slowly back to his desk, sitting down on it with a wince.  

He looked so desolate, so empty, that Spike hesitated over leaving and instead came closer. He stood next to the silent, dark figure and said softly, ‘Human?’

Angel didn’t look at him but replied equally quietly, ‘They said they always arranged it for Wolfram and Hart: special clients… they said. She was served to us as an aperitif.  A child. They’d drained her already. There was nothing I could do….’ This final comment was ragged and cut off before more emotion could betray him.

‘Jesus.’ Without thinking too much what he did, Spike pulled the dark, seated figure into his arms. ‘Don’t. It’s not your fault, Angel. You made your decision for the right reasons.’

Something in Angel seemed to break at this.  He lifted his head and stared into the deep blue eyes, and it seemed to Spike as if he was about to tell him something momentous, something about choices and why he made them, but then Angel glanced down at the hands that held him.

With a shudder, Angel jerked away from Spike, and his confession died at the sight of the blood on Spike’s hands. Spike was contaminated just from being in his presence. Everyone he touched… all signed up under this contract of evil.  

He would not extend the contract to Spike.  He would keep him safe.

‘Get out of my office. And don’t come in here again.’

Spike let his hands drop to his side. He’d seen it: a rapid switch in Angel’s expression. He didn’t know exactly what it meant, but he did know that whatever Angel was telling him was not the truth. Instead of a furious, bitter retort, therefore, he just nodded and stepped around him toward the door.  

He walked back to Wesley, feeling Angel’s cold gaze penetrating his skin with every step.

Wesley seemed not to have noticed Spike’s absence particularly, but he looked up and frowned, ‘What’s wrong?’

Spike lit a cigarette and ignored the question. ‘What have you found?’

Wesley smiled and pointed to a map on his desk.  Spike came over and looked at the pattern of dots he’d plotted.  In the middle was a cluster of buildings.  ‘Let’s go.’

Wesley nodded grimly. ‘Large axe, I’m thinking.’

‘I did that before… didn’t work.’

‘Not its head. You need to dissect its body into four parts and scatter them: north, south, east, and west. It’s a ritualistic thing.’

‘Nice.’

‘Quite.’

‘Sword then. Easier for slicing and dicing.’

‘Have I ever told you how much I hate this job sometimes?’

Spike took the weapon he wanted from Wesley’s selection. Wesley took a weapon and a compass, and they went toward the elevator.  

Spike cast a small, perturbed look behind him at the only lighted office left on that floor.  A dark figure leant in the doorway, watching them leave, his features thrown completely into shadow and unreadable.  

He desperately wanted to walk back and say it’s just gossip, Angel; it’s not true, but he couldn’t and didn’t. He got into the elevator with Wesley, and the doors closed on their small intimacy.

The building was dark and deserted: a warehouse of some kind, a storage facility for the undefined, human necessities of life.  They entered warily, and moved to a place where they could scan the empty spaces.  Wesley was about to speak when he saw Spike’s eyes flick to the right, so he murmured, ‘What?’

Spike nodded in the direction of the sound he’d heard. ‘Over there.’

He made to move off, but Wesley laid a hand on his arm. ‘Be… careful?’

Spike frowned. ‘Vampire? Been ‘round for over a century?’

Wesley frowned, just as deeply as Spike. ‘I know. Only you’re… off-balance.’

‘Huh?’

‘He was there tonight, wasn’t he?’

Spike pulled his arm away. ‘Let’s just go kill something, Mate. I’m really in need of some dicing and splicing, yeah?’

‘That’s what I mean. You’re…. All right. Let’s go. Just be careful.’

Spike nodded but murmured, ‘Wanker,’ under his breath, making Wesley smile faintly.  He nodded, and they parted, coming at the sound from opposite sides.

Spike came into a space between some stacked boxes and had an immediate flash back to another time and place. The child was there again, and once again, Spike’s rational mind told him to intervene; his soul screamed at him to save the small, helpless creature.  He knew better this time though and watched, instead, the face of the vampire who thrust and panted and sweated in his enslavement behind.  He didn’t like what he saw and looked away quickly, fearing to see another, dark expression overlaid.

He stepped out into the light.  ‘We’ll have to stop meeting like this.’  

The small demon pushed his victim away and stood up, narrowing his eyes.  ‘You.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Are you arrogant or just stupid? I can’t decide.’

Spike nodded to Wesley, coming in behind the demon. ‘Neither.’

The child didn’t seem fazed.  He shrugged and turned, smiling broadly at the man.  Wesley stopped his advance and stared back, then a slow, lazy smile spread across his features. ‘Hello. We’ve not met, have we?’

The demon then ignored him and turned back to Spike.  Spike felt a chill run down his spine as the implications of their plight hit him. He glanced at the victim, now lying stunned looking on the ground and dismissed him for any help.

Slowly and surely, the small demon advanced on him, and when he was close, he turned up his startlingly dark eyes and smiled, a broad, possessive smile.  Spike stared into the dilated eyes, and then he took his first quarter off, his sword slicing smoothly through the thin neck.  Without hesitating, he split the torso down the middle, hacking when his blade caught on spine.  Shouting at Wesley, he dropped his sword and dragged his pieces apart, blood pooling around his feet.

Wesley shook himself and came forward. ‘It felt like….’
 
‘It’s over, Wesley. Find the right places.’

Wesley got the compass out and worked out where they should align the pieces of the body and they stood in the middle of the gory mess, panting, more through shock than any particular exertion.

‘Damn!’ Wesley ran his fingers through his hair. ‘It never occurred to me that it would put the whammy on us like that. Well, me…. Why weren’t you affected? I know what Fred surmised about most likely, but I hardly think….’

Spike shook his head and toed one of the pieces thoughtfully.  ‘Nah.  It’s not that. I’ve got nothing left, Pet; that’s all. Dead inside as well now.  Come on… ugh.’

The sword emerged through his belly, at least two feet of the blade clear, and then it wiggled around a little, opening him up, ripping him apart from the inside.

He fell to his knees looking helplessly up at Wesley.  Wesley ignored the look long enough to stake the vampire and then fell to his knees beside Spike.  ‘Christ!’  He caught Spike as he toppled over, wincing as the sword caught at an awkward angle on the floor, only doing more damage.

He cradled Spike in his arms, then with his eyes closed and silently begging for forgiveness, he pulled the sword out.  Spike’s scream rang around the empty building, but free of the constriction, Wesley could pick him up and carry him to the car. He was astounded how light Spike seemed, how thin he was in his arms and tried to ignore the thought that he was getting lighter with every step, his blood pouring out onto the warehouse floor.

By the time he pulled up outside the old house, Spike was conscious once more. He was sitting very quietly, staring up at the roof of the car, his eyes strangely dilated. 

‘Can you walk?’

Spike nodded but made no attempt to move.

Wesley came around and helped him out, half carrying him until they got into the apartment, where he eased him down onto the couch.  ‘What have you got?’

Spike nodded toward the bathroom, and Wesley found some towels, pressing them to the entry and exit wounds, hardly any actual vampire between them.  ‘Blood?’

Once more Spike nodded, and Wesley went to the fridge and pulled out a number of blood bags.

As he fed them slowly to Spike, he murmured, ‘I think it thought we’d killed its lover. I think perhaps I would have killed someone for you when I was under its influence.’

Spike rolled his head over and looked at the watcher thoughtfully.  

Wesley put a hand to his eyes for a moment. ‘I was so careless, so stupid. I should have anticipated all of this.’

Spike lifted his hand away from his wound and put it to Wesley’s cheek, caressing the dark stubble for a moment.

‘What the fuck is this?’

Wesley jerked his head away from Spike’s embrace, and then backed off the couch at Angel’s approach.  Spike seemed about to intervene, but the effort of trying to stand sent him into a coughing fit, and blood seeped bright and shiny through the towel held to his belly.

‘Jesus!’ Angel squatted down in front of Spike, removing the towel.  ‘Fucking hell.  Get me a sheet!’ He shouted at Wesley, the brewing argument seemingly forgotten.  Wesley went numbly to the bed and stripped off the covering as ordered, handing it silently to Angel.  Angel tore it into strips and began to bind the wounds tightly, too tightly, making Spike wince and cry out, ignoring him, his head lowered, his expression hooded, his whole body tense.

Spike flicked his eyes to Wesley and, over Angel’s head, made a small gesture toward the door.  Wesley silently asked him if he was going to be okay, and Spike nodded in response. 

Very quietly, Wesley slid behind Angel’s back and left.

In the middle of fastening the last bandage, Angel suddenly rose and went out into the courtyard.  Spike heard something break and a harsh shout of anger. ‘I made a fucking bargain!’  He tried to turn his head and see Angel, but everything was greying out around him.  As he slid into very welcome unconsciousness, he thought he heard Angel say raggedly, ‘Safe. He was supposed to be safe,’ but the roaring in his ears made it muffled and too indistinct to bother to try and recall.

It had been too sudden to hurt to its full extent at the time. It hurt enough when he came round though. It was like a burning all over his body, centred in the small of his back, as if his spine had been severed. Suddenly, panicking, he tried to move his legs and toes, but it hurt too much so he stopped with a small whimper.

He felt something being pressed to his mouth and opened his eyes in surprise to find Angel’s flesh against his lips.  Blood dripped out of a deep wound in the strong wrist, such a strong easy flow that he hardly had to suck, just lie there and lick and mouth at the food, feeling it roll like desire down his throat.

He took only what he needed though and then let the wrist fall from his mouth. ‘Go away.’

Angel pressed one finger over the wound to stop it bleeding and regarded him evenly.  Spike repeated his command then curled into a ball away from him, with some considerable difficultly, and slid back into unconsciousness.

When he came around again, the pain was only worse, as if the blood had animated him enough to really feel it.  He sat up and hunched over, unable to lie or sit comfortably.  Slowly he swung his legs off the bed and stood up. That hurt even more, but at least it gave him the illusion of being whole.

With a small grimace of puzzlement, he saw that the fire was lit, and as he walked slowly toward it, a low voice said from outside, ‘You shouldn’t be up.’

Spike turned to the voice. ‘I told you to fuck off.’

Angel came into the light. ‘How did it happen?’

‘I’m not having a cosy chat with you, Angel. I feel like shit, and the very last person I want here is you. This is my place, and you’re not welcome here any more.  You lost that privilege.’  He eased himself down onto the couch, very impressed that he’d made it from the bed without falling.

‘When is he moving in?’

Spike jerked himself back from a slump of pain and tried to turn around. ‘Why are you still here, and what?’

‘Wesley.  There’s nothing of his here… yet.’

‘Wesley? Oh, fuck off, Angel. I don’t have to tell you jack-shit about my life. You opted out of it. So, go opt off.’

Angel sat down on the arm of the chair, but Spike resisted looking at him; his resistance wasn’t that good.  The thought that he couldn’t resist, immediately prompted thoughts in his mind of what it was he needed to resist, and his hand crept unconsciously to the front of his jeans.  Suddenly, he frowned and scented the air.  

That made him turn and look at Angel. Angel seemed to sense his scrutiny, for he rose swiftly, turning his back, going to the kitchen area, looking in the fridge, and tossing Spike a couple of blood bags. ‘Feed.’

Spike kept his eyes fixed on the dark form, his whole body yearning toward the musky scent of arousal that oozed off him.

Angel hung his head for a moment then began to walk toward the door.  Just before he reached it, Spike bit his lip and said softly, ‘Angel…?’

Angel didn’t turn around, but he stopped, listening.

‘Don’t believe everything you hear in the office, yeah? Gossip. It’s not… true.’

Angel jerked his head round, and for a moment, their eyes met.  So much emotion poured off Angel in that one look that Spike’s senses were flooded. 

When Angel left, he slammed the door so hard that, once more, a small snowstorm trickled down from the ceiling plaster.

This time, Wesley was sitting alongside Angel in the bed. Angel grunted a small hello, but other than that, he was not surprised that Wesley was there. Every night, he’d had the same dream. Sure, the details varied slightly, the stage on which they strutted their small drama changed, but the players were always the same: Wesley, Spike and Cordelia.  Then Connor, the destroyer. Always Connor, and the bargain he had made.  This time, Wesley tried to force Angel’s hand, tried to make him thrust into Spike’s heart, but Cordelia held Wesley’s arm and directed the thrust into Spike’s belly.  Then it was always the same: the corridor stretching to infinite madness and Connor. 

He woke sweating slightly, still smelling Spike’s blood on his hands. He’d not showered, did not ever want to shower again.  

Three nights later, Spike returned to the warehouse to check that the demon had not reassembled once more. It hadn’t, and the pieces still lay there, obscenely small and sad looking.

He stepped carefully over them and went out into the night, and although he was not to know it at the time, that was when the madness started, the spiralling void, which began to drag him down.  From that moment on, his world became one of pain, and hurt that would not heal on his body, matching the pain of that already in his heart.

He heard the muffled cry, one he knew only too well, one he had brought forth from helpless victims enough times.  He ran to the sound and found a woman pinned down in the grimy alleyway, a demon tearing at her clothes, seeking something warmer: her flesh.

Without thinking, Spike attacked, there was nothing as good as the sound of a blade crunching someone else’s flesh to make him forget that he was lonely and that he ached for Angel.

Sore from his wound, however, he was slower than usual, and the demon raked a claw across his face, opening up a flap of skin.  His shoulder caught a heavy, spinning blow and dislocated.  

It was like that every night then, each new injury compounding the ones he’d suffered before. Eventually, he killed them all, but each time, new injuries added to the toll on his body, taking away its ability to heal itself, until bruises and cuts merged with deep penetrating wounds, and he became walking pain.

He found some respite though, someone who took away the pain for a while as he slowly healed. That first night, dragging himself up into the old house to check around, hand held to his cheek to seal the flap of skin, he’d found her still up, looking through old photographs of people long dead.  It seemed so fitting to join her— the living dead.  She’d welcomed him, and he’d sat alongside her for hours, feeling happier than he had for many weeks.  He knew why; he wasn’t stupid, but if he took comfort in a life he had once known, before Angel had taken it from him forever, who was there to deny him?

Innocence never seemed to question why her young visitor seemed to relax so in her company, why his face lost its careworn aspect, why his harsh edges dissolved and left someone far softer and sweeter. She accepted these things as she accepted his knowledge of events far distant, and they worked their way through her memories and conjured in their minds a time that had been happier for both of them.

Chapter 10

The dreams had become more vivid; the sword in his hand ached and leaked clear fluid; Spike’s blood drew him ever closer to the thin red line that held such destruction in its power.  Every time he woke, he wet the sheet with seed spilling from a twitching, aching cock. Every time, his cry of release was raw, and there was no pleasure from the orgasm, just the smell of a tree and the memory of a person he had been, under its soft, green safety.

Wesley tried to stop Spike’s spiralling descent, tried to curb his zealous enthusiasm for helping others, but he could only watch, helpless, as Spike returned blooded, then left again before he was healed. He stayed in the background, though, helping where he could.

Every day, he longed to tell Angel what was happening, but he had the odd feeling that, somehow, Angel knew, for every day, the vampire looked more and more on the edge of something he could no longer control.

One day, Wesley visited Spike before work and patched him up as usual and made him feed as usual, but unusually, he did to return home to shower and change. He went into the office with Spike’s blood on his shirt, under his jacket; Spike’s blood under his nails; and Spike’s blood on his mind.

Angel did not appear until late into the morning. If he’d been human, Wesley would have said he looked very sick. He just looked defeated.  His head snapped up though, when he entered Wesley’s office, like a man who emerges from a dream to find it true.

He came close to Wesley, clearly scenting him.  Wesley tried to continue with his work, fairly sure Angel would not make a scene with the research assistants hovering so near.  He rose and went to the bookcase, Angel a dark shadow at his side. Then a hissed voice brushed over his ear, ‘Tell me….’

Suddenly, Wesley jerked his head around and caught Angel’s expression before the vampire could veil it.  It seemed to Wesley then that he stood on a great divide, a decision needed from him, which had consequences beyond this intense moment.  He had no idea what to do for the best, until a small, niggling thought returned to him that he owed Angel something— something he had been trying to give him for a long time. So, he made his decision and told Angel the truth.  ‘He’s killing himself— oh, perhaps not as a human would, but that will be the outcome eventually. He’ll be too hurt and too tired one day, and some demon will take him away from us.  He doesn’t care, do you see? He’s empty, drained. You’ve drained him.’

Angel’s hand went to Wesley’s throat, and he spread his huge fingers around the stubbled column.  Wesley swallowed, and the contact of his Adam’s apple on Angel’s hard palm sparked confusing memories in his mind.  He’d been here before, and always, Angel had been the face behind the pillow, the one who saved him…. As he looked into eyes that were in hell, it occurred to him for the first time that Angel might have been behind the pillow for another reason.

‘I’ve drained you all.’

Wesley could only nod, not just because he didn’t understand the comment, but also because Angel’s hold prevented him speaking.

There was a small commotion, and Wesley could see Harmony hovering in the doorway with two security guards, his assistants behind them.  He flicked his eyes over at them, and Angel turned.  Pushing Wesley back against the books, he went out, ignoring everyone, heading for his own, empty office.

He was losing it, and he knew it. Promises had been made to keep Spike safe, to keep him from all this shit that he lived in, the evil he wallowed in, but it wasn’t working. His childe had found his own evil, and it was taking him down.

Sometimes, she fell asleep where she sat, her face serene and strangely unlined. Spike would cover her with a blanket and sit quietly alongside her until she woke once more.  It was silent, and easy, and he could let his defences drop for a while. His mind roamed over his long life. It all seemed very distant as if he was travelling into a great darkness, and his past was just a photograph, torn into tiny fragments spiralling down like snow in summer.  Sometimes he held her papery-thin hand in his, her bones fragile like one of Dru’s birds, with almost no more life than those poor creatures had been granted. His dark princess.  He wanted to be like Innocence: at the end. He thought he’d had that once, that promise of it ending, but it hadn’t, and he remained.  

This time, the dream began in Spike’s apartment.  Once more, Angel rose from the bed and went out into the courtyard. Wesley was there, but he was strangely pale.  Angel frowned, and Wesley turned around slowly, like a marionette. Where his spine should have been was a gaping hole. Angel could see right into his body, the cavity totally empty and drained. He sucked in a sharp breath, and Wesley turned back.  ‘You’ve drained us all.’

Angel wanted to hide his eyes, but the sword was very heavy in his hands, leaden, swollen and aching to be used. He walked of his own volition to the bed and looked down at Spike.  He sensed Wesley at his side, and as ever, Wesley murmured that he needed to push into Spike’s heart.  Angel cried out in fury, screaming into the dream that he couldn’t, that something still had to be released, but then he felt a light hand on his arm and turned.

He jerked back in surprise. 

There was never any innocence in his dreams— ever.

She stood there now though, smiling at him.  

‘Wesley is right.’

‘No. I don’t trust him. Or you. I trust her.’

They turned together to look at Cordy, but Innocence tutted and looked sternly at him. ‘You need to look in the mirror, Angel. He gave it back to you so you could.’ 

Very gently, she took the sword from him and turned him round. On the wall was a large mirror. It was the one Spike had given back to him— shard, full-length; he suddenly realised that it just a matter of perspective. Like life, it depended on how you looked at it.  He was there, Innocence at his side.  He cried out and went closer, feeling over his face, disbelieving.  She smiled at his reflection and said softly, ‘Cordelia?’

Angel looked, but could not see her in the mirror, yet she was there when he turned around.  

He turned back and stared more intently at the reflections.  Wesley joined them, and he said sadly, ‘Can you trust me now?’

Angel turned back, and it wasn’t Cordelia; it had never been Cordelia, but it had taken the mirror to show it to him. It was Darla, and she winked at him. ‘Hello, darling boy. Miss me?’

He saw that it had been her all the time, all the times he stabbed the sword into Spike’s belly and killed him.  With a roar, he snatched the sword from Innocence and drove it through Darla. She looked down, fingered the small seed pearls for a moment and then fell to dust.

The frail hand was on his arm once more.  ‘You must do as Wesley says and penetrate his heart.’

Angel dropped the sword and cried out. ‘No! I can’t!  I can’t! I love him!’

She laughed, a delicate, tinkering, delighted laugh. ‘Silly boy.  Not with the sword. With just that…. With the strength of your love.  You have to tell him. Then you can give him your….’ She winked disconcertingly, ‘Sword.’

Angel woke calm.

He had not spilt into his sheets. He was not confused. 

Somehow, his sleeping mind had cut through his tangled web and set him free.  

He showered slowly, enjoying it for the first time in weeks. He dressed in leather and silk and went down to the office, striding out to Harmony.  ‘Call a conference. I want everyone here: Wesley, Gunn, Fred, Lorne, and Spike. Everyone. No exceptions. Got it?’

Harmony nodded.

He went back to his office and stood looking out over his city. 

He wasn’t a God, and he had to stop trying to be one.  

It was time to tell them.

Tell them all. Everything.

He felt a shudder of anticipation at the thought of Spike’s face when he told him.

They began to arrive, anxious, concerned, nonchalant: each according to his nature. He wondered how they would leave. Hating him?  Whatever. It would be a genuine emotion at last.

Wesley was the last to arrive, and he looked ill, too much worry and strain for the one who was not there yet.  He was about to take his place, glancing at the empty seat as if doubtful that it would be filled, when his cellphone rang.

He rummaged in his pocket and pulled it out, answering it in a low voice.

When the call finished, his hand fell to his side, and he put the other over his face for a moment.  Angel came over. ‘Wes?’

Wesley sat down heavily.  ‘That was Spike.’ He looked up at Angel but saw none of the pain and confusion in the deep, brown eyes that had haunted them for weeks. They were calm, strong— eyes he knew intimately.  With a deep sigh of relief, he said, ‘He’s been arrested. For murder.’

They arrived at the house and found it illuminated by flashing blue lights, incongruous on its ancient façade.

As soon as Angel stepped over the threshold uninvited, he knew what had happened, and the events of his dream flooded back to him.  He ran across the vast hallway and jogged up the stairs, following the sound of voices.

A policeman stopped their entry, but Wesley showed him a card and they were waved through. 

‘What was that?’

Wesley smiled bitterly. ‘The power of evil.’

Spike was sitting on a chaise lounge, his hands hanging loosely between his thighs, studying some pattern on the faded carpet with great interest.  People were milling around him, but he seemed oblivious to it all.  

Dominating the elegant room, despite its relative insignificance to the impressive proportions, was a black bag. It seemed much too big for its contents.

Wesley glanced at Angel and went over to Spike, sitting alongside him.  ‘What happened?’

Spike smiled bitterly. ‘I called nine-one-one. That’s what bloody happened. Just for a minute there, I guess I forgot I was dead. No ID, ya know?’

‘She died of natural causes?’

Spike turned his head slowly to look at Angel, and his face was full of hatred. ‘What did you think? That I killed her?’

Angel frowned. He hadn’t thought that at all.  Before he could explain, Wesley took his arm and murmured, ‘Get Gunn down here. I think more than anything, Spike needs a good lawyer.’

Spike straightened. ‘No. I don’t want anything from that shitting place. Go away and leave me alone. I should never have called you.’

Angel came up close, angry for having to continue this pretence. Angry for starting it in the first place, wanting nothing more than to kiss Spike’s hatred away.  ‘Fine. You go to some maximum-security facility. I’d love to see your fucking arse in a few years time.’ He turned back to Wesley. ‘Call Gunn. I’ll talk to the police.’

Spike realised he had little choice, or he was too defeated to care. He leant back and closed his eyes, removing himself from the decision-making process going on around him.

Angel nodded and began to exercise his power.

He hadn’t expected anyone else to be at the funeral and wasn’t surprised to find himself alone at the graveside.  He’d wanted to go— affinity with the dead. He felt quite at home.  He was surprised when he sensed a presence behind him and turned to find Angel, dressed in a full-length black coat, walking slowly toward him.

‘Don’t pretend you care about this, Angel. This is nothing to do with you.’

Angel came to his side, pursing his lips, staring at the fresh flowers on the damp earth. ‘She came to me, Spike, before she left.’

‘Huh?’

‘I thought it was a dream, like all the others: you, Wesley… Connor. But it wasn’t.’ He turned his dark, pained expression on Spike. ‘Did she leave here just to help me?’

‘I….’ Spike didn’t know what to say. He stared down at the mud, too. ‘What did she say?’

Angel sighed. ‘What are you doing tomorrow?’

‘Huh?’

‘Come in to the office. I want to talk to everyone.’

‘I don’t want to….’

‘Please, Spike. I’m asking you. Please.’

Spike faltered and then nodded slightly. ‘’K.’

They turned together from the grave and began to walk toward Angel’s car. ‘I’ll drive you home.’

Spike shook his head. ‘No. I have things to do.’

‘No.’

‘What?’

‘You’re hurt. I want this to end, Spike. I want….’

Spike knew the tiny, infinitesimally small respite from his war with Angel was over once more. He turned, weary of it all. ‘Someone has to fight the good fight, Angel. When’s the last time you went out on the streets and helped anyone?’

‘Last night.’

‘Huh?’ Spike didn’t like being wrong-footed when in full flow of righteous indignation with Angel.

‘I went out last night. I’ve missed it. I’ve been away too long. You’re right. There’s a lot for us to do, but not like this: injured, half-cocked, dangerous.’  

Spike wanted to echo us, but something in all this was too familiar.  He suddenly had a vision of himself patrolling with Buffy. She’d still needed him too, but not as he needed to be needed. He’d begged her to turn back to him, to love him again; he’d debased himself, but she’d refused. She only wanted his strength. She’d only wanted him as a champion to her cause, but love him? That she would not do. 

He wasn’t going to do that again.  Not with Angel. There was nothing brotherly or chaste about the way Angel made him feel. Even now, even injured, sad, and tired, he was aroused. Arguing with Angel, fucking with Angel, it seemed to make no difference. Angel aroused him. 

‘No.’

‘What?’

‘I’m not falling for your bullshit, too, Angel. I’m not your sidekick in some third-rate TV show. Go find a new Robin.’

‘Huh?’

Spike turned away and began to walk off through the early-evening dew.  He felt a hand on his back, quickly removed. ‘Come to the meeting. At least do that.’

Spike nodded. ‘I said I would.’

‘Spike…?’

Spike turned, his face speaking his disdain.

‘If I said please again, would you stay in tonight?’

Angel was too confusing to deal with sometimes. Sometimes, it was better just to give in. He nodded and shrugged as if it was no big deal.

Angel seemed relieved, and he nodded to himself as if something were falling into place, slowly but surely. ‘Okay then. Tomorrow.’

Spike turned slowly and walked home, but he kept his promise and spent the evening wandering through the empty house, making sure it was still safe and secure, just in case its owner came back and needed him. 

He’d liked being needed.

He didn’t want to go downstairs to his own apartment. He didn’t want to face the prospect that he was going to lose it. He knew he’d lose more than that perfect, delicious living space. This time, he would leave L.A. He should have gone before— gone out on a high. He was like some aging actor, dragged back for another season of a hit show that should have been cancelled long ago. Burning up for the entire world. How the fuck could you top that?

He did go down eventually and began to pack in a desultory sort of way.  He thought he might go back to the old country. Plenty of evil there as well. He had an idea that he might try to find Dru. He was willing to go through the trials again… for her.  Then the thought of Dru coping with her soul hit him, and he frowned deeply as his plan fell to ashes in his head. He’d only just survived his soul, and he was the sanest person he knew.

On this thought, he decided not to pack anything. A totally new start was needed. Again.

Suddenly, he flung himself on his bed and felt a deep shuddering in his body.  What was the point of it all? Going on, immortal— dying, human and alone. Both were so pointless.  At least she hadn’t been alone at the end. One last, enigmatic smile, and she’d just… gone.  He mulled over Angel’s strange words about the dream.  It amused him to think of Innocence visiting Angel in his dreams.  

Had she wanted to die? Had she wanted him to turn her? Is that why she’d befriended him?  He remembered another elderly woman, turned, coming toward him, offering him something he had never asked for. 

All he ever wanted was for someone to want him back, but the harder he pushed people, the more they withdrew from him.  

He rolled onto his back and stared up at the high-corniced ceiling. You shouldn’t get fond of people or places when you were immortal. Who wants to live forever…? He cursed and knew he wouldn’t get that song out of his head now.  He’d been fond of her though. Had anyone thought about that with their lawyers’-speak and formalities-we-have-to-go-through…. He was sad because he’d liked her, and she’d died in his arms.  No one seemed to have thought about that.

That’s what came of being a fuck-up. Unlovable. He was. He couldn’t keep people, couldn’t make them love him.

He wondered what Angel wanted to call a meeting for.  

He had another sharp vision of Angel standing in his office now, looking out over his incredible view of the city.  A fallen angel arisen to lofty heights. 

Once more the thought of leaving his little safe, green hole in the earth frightened him.  He wondered what they’d do if he stayed. Could the dead squat? What would happen to the ghosts if they came in with machines and money to renovate and bring this place into the glare of the twenty-first century? Clear the trees, dig up the pond, and turn his apartment into tiny, boxed-in rooms: modern day living in an expensive city.

He knew he was going to cry. It had been coming on for days, before the death, but he’d put it off, afraid to go down that river again.  

In his mind, Angel was crying too, his face pressed against the magical glass of his window. The thought startled him enough to stop the frightening rise of emotion in his own body. 

He climbed off the bed and began to pace. Eighty feet. It hadn’t changed from when he’d paced it waiting for Angel to come, drunk, scared.

Not sure why he did it, or what he expected, he picked up his cellphone and punched a number.

It was answered after a few rings as if it’s owner had had to search for it, remember how to work it perhaps.

‘Yeah.’  Incredulous, Spike heard the tears in Angel’s voice that he had pictured there.

‘It’s me.’

‘What’s wrong?’

‘Why does something have to be wrong?’

‘Because you’re calling me?’

‘Oh, yeah, well, there is that.’

There was a silence, neither knowing quite what to say. Eventually, Angel ventured, ‘You are coming tomorrow?’

‘I said I would. Why all the secrecy?’

‘I’m a taciturn, brooding kinda guy. It suits my image.’

‘Wanker.’

‘I’m sorry about Innocence. I know you’ll miss her. She had a long life, though. Longer than most.’

‘’Cept us.’

‘Why did you call, Spike?’

‘I wanted to…. When the meeting is over, I’m leaving.  L.A. America probably.’

‘Maybe.’

‘Huh?’

‘Hear what I have to say first.’

‘Where are you?’

‘Still in the office, why?’

‘Are you by the window, looking out over the city?’

There was a pause as if Angel was looking around suspiciously. ‘Yeah, I am.’

Spike breathed softly. ‘Night. I’ll see you tomorrow.’  He clicked off his phone and tapped it thoughtfully against his lips for a while as he paced.  It rang again, and he answered it with a smile. 

‘Goodnight.’  

Angel clicked off, too.

Spike didn’t feel so much like crying now, which was always of the good, being essentially evil and cool, so he went out and smoked a slow cigarette for the last time under the beautiful canopy of green, thinking about Angel, as ever, and knowing, with a pleased sense of calm, that Angel was thinking about him, too.

Chapter 11

They filed in for the meeting over a space of ten minutes. Angel stayed by the window until he sensed that he was there, and then he turned and took his place at the head of the table.  He tried not to glance at Spike’s holdall, left carelessly by the door.  

He looked at each of the others in turn: his faithful friends. Lorne was looking deceptively nonchalant, as ever. Gunn seemed tense and thoughtful, but then he always did these days. Fred was eager, still full of enthusiasms.  Lastly, he turned to regard Wesley.  Wesley was watching Spike, and his expression was completely unreadable. Angel repressed a small, bitter smile. He had a feeling Wesley would not be so unreadable soon.

Placing his palms on the table, spreading his fingers as if to balance some great weight, he began.  He tried to tell the tale in a linear way, but the more he got into it, the more he saw connections, and it drifted and wavered, as it had as he’d lived it with them.  He told it totally faithfully, not from the benefit of hindsight, but honest about his own mistakes and failures at the time.  The entire story - from a rushed, unpleasant night of sex with Darla, to the moment he had made the deal - was told.  He related it all in total silence from the table. He’d expected nothing less, so kept his eyes lowered to his hands, his voice steady, and his emotions under check. He wondered if any of them could know what it took from him to tell of such things, suspected that they couldn’t, hoped that they never would.

Eventually, it was done.  He told of Connor’s new family and showed how the balance had been achieved: each one of them in their allotted place of evil because of a deal he had made.  He looked up to a new set of people than the ones who had sat down with him. He’d known it would be like this.  No one ever accused him of not being able to make the hard decisions.

He did not look at Spike; he still had that confession to make, but that was to be to him alone, after this, after he’d shown Spike that he had looked in the mirror and seen what he’d wanted him to see.

No one spoke for what seemed to Angel like the longest time.  

Lorne was the first one to stir. He shook himself slightly and looked around the table with a bemused expression.  ‘I’m sorry, Angel-cakes, but I’m not getting the punch-line here.’

This was not the reaction Angel had expected from anyone, and he jerked his head back slightly. ‘What?’

‘Well…. I may only be speaking for myself here, but this isn’t a Hollywood movie, Sugar-pie.  There’s no theatrical gasp of shock from this corner of the big-announcement table.  Not remembering any of it here, Poppet.  Tell me another, and try for more shock value this time.’

Fred picked up on his theme wistfully. ‘Does it matter why we’re here? We all stay of our own choice…. Don’t we?’

Gunn nodded. ‘I’m damn glad we are here, man! I’ve always dreamed of something like this, and I got it all for free. Don’t even remember paying the price.’

Angel looked from one to the other, trying to hear insincerity, fear, anger. He heard nothing but confusion and honesty.  

Reluctantly he turned to Wesley.  Wesley was pale and studying his hands.  When he sensed he was under scrutiny, he said softly, ‘I think you’ve left something out, Angel.’

Angel studied the lowered head and said evenly, ‘What I feel about it all now?’

‘Yes. That seems rather critical to the overall point of this story, doesn’t it?’

Angel pursed his lips and waited for the man to look up.  ‘I think we all did what we did for the best motives at the time.  We were wrong. We were played. We were misguided.  But we were never malicious. None of us.’

Something physically loosened around Wesley’s face, as if the man had only held himself in check by the narrowest of margins.  Now, it looked as if he could smile without cracking skin.  ‘Why have you decided to tell us now? It seems almost too late. Bargains made and sealed?’

‘I made another bargain to keep someone I love safe, but I finally got it: you can’t balance evil. It will always win if you let it. I needed to confess that huge freaking mistake, and all this was necessary first. Clean slate.’

Wesley seemed to understand this readily enough. He resisted looking at Spike, but he gave Angel a small, pleased nod.  

Angel frowned and looked around the table once more.  They all looked back at him as if, as Lorne said, waiting for the punch line.  He was desperate for them all to go now so he could speak alone with Spike, the silent one— the one who had not caught his eye once throughout the long telling.  He pouted. ‘Well that’s it, I guess.’

Suddenly, Gunn looked up. ‘I guess this might be a good time to tell you…. Spike…?’  

Spike jerked his head up as if he’d switched off entirely and had been deep in his own thoughts.  ‘Yeah?’

‘I guess I’m your lawyer now, so you’d better read this….’ Gunn pulled a slim sheet of paper out of his pocket and pushed it over the table to him.

Spike didn’t take it; he stared at it for a moment then back up at Gunn. ‘What is it?’

‘A will.’

‘Oh.’

‘Innocence’s.’

Spike heard a soft sound from Angel, and for the first time turned to look at him.  

Angel was staring down at the slim piece of paper as if it could physically burn him.  He looked up at Spike, and the word don’t seemed to hang in the air between them.

Spike shrugged and picked it up anyway.  He scanned it for a moment then looked up at Gunn.  

Gunn nodded and said to the table at large, ‘She left it all to Spike. House… everything.’

Wesley rose and came around the table to sit next to Spike and read over his shoulder.  He looked up at Gunn, too. ‘Is this legal? Surely someone will contest this?’

Gunn shrugged. ‘She must have had a damn fine lawyer. I can’t find any holes in it at all. It’s rock-solid.’

‘What do these investments amount to?’

Gunn smiled. ‘I’m thinking Spike’s slightly wealthier than Wolfram and Hart now… and every single one is an ethical investment. It’s an incredible portfolio.’

Lorne raised an eyebrow. ‘Ethical?’ He looked at Spike.  ‘No offence, Babe – you know I love you – but isn’t Spike an odd choice to leave anything ethical to…?’

The conversation continued to flow around the two who did not contribute. They had their own reasons to stay silent, but each were curious about the other’s. Spike flicked his eyes over to Angel but found himself under scrutiny, so he darted them back to the paper that was like a hole in the world: its enormity beyond him.  He’d be able to keep his apartment though, and that was kinda cool.

Gunn and Wesley wanted to study the will further so left together. Lorne and Fred drifted out, chatting about it.

Angel looked at his hands for a moment, still spread on the desk and said in a slightly high-pitched voice, ‘Well, that went well.’

Spike nodded. ‘Not such a big deal then— telling the truth.’

Angel shook his head. ‘No.’

Spike waited patiently for a moment then said petulantly, ‘So, why am I here? Why the big deal to get me here? I knew all that.’

Angel suddenly said, dropping his eyes, ‘The will. Gunn told me he wanted you here.’

This was such an odd, blatantly untrue claim that Spike wondered for a moment if Angel was making a joke— that he’d look up, laughing and tell him the truth, as if annoyed at the way his first confession had been received and was trying to boost up the drama of this one.  

He didn’t look up, and his mutinous stance told Spike that Angel was prepared to continue in this bizarre lie.

He rose and made to collect his bag.  ‘Well, I guess I’m not leaving L.A. after all. One day, I’ll have to put me money where me mouth is an’ just go.’  This got no response either.  He stood and looked at Angel’s lowered head and serious, closed-off expression.  ‘What was the real reason you wanted me here today, Angel?’

Angel laughed bitterly. ‘I was going to make you an offer you couldn’t refuse, but you got better one.’

‘Maybe I’d prefer yours….’

Angel snorted faintly. ‘Yeah, evil versus the bright-white light of goodness. I know how your mind works, Spike.’

‘Is that so…? Bet you can’t guess what I’m thinking now.’  With that, he spun on his heel and left.  

He went into Wesley’s office and flung his bag on a chair.  Wesley was standing at the window, his back to the room, and Spike went over and stood alongside him. After a moment, he nudged him affectionately. ‘So, was I right to not tell you?’

Wesley blew out a long breath, thinking.  ‘On the whole? All things considered? I have absolutely no idea.’ He softened this assessment by nudging Spike back. ‘It’s odd. I’m trying to see myself doing those things, thinking those things, and I’m finding it surprisingly… easy. Which is almost frightening. But most of all, I’m almost grateful that I don’t remember it, that I just know it now— as some kind of intellectual exercise.’

‘So… will you shave and become less sexy?’

Wesley chuckled. ‘Talking of being sexy… did he tell you?’

Spike looked in a deceptively casual way at one nail. ‘Tell me what?’

Wesley hesitated. ‘He had something important to tell you….’

‘Yeah. He did. He just didn’t.’

‘Oh. But you know anyway, don’t you? What it was he was going to say…?’

‘I have a fairly good idea, yeah.’

‘And you’re… what? I’m utterly confused here, Spike. I thought, eight bottles of whisky ago, that Angel telling you he loves you was exactly what you wanted.’

‘If this was a show, Wes, what do you think it would be called?’

‘I’m sorry?’

‘This… all of this… if we were in a show on the telly. What would it be called, do you think?’

Wesley frowned, thought for a moment, and then said, with slowly dawning comprehension, ‘I suppose it would be the Angel Show.’

Spike nodded. ‘He’s the centre of everything, isn’t he? He decides what happens— it’s all to his agenda. He decides what we know, what we don’t know. He decides what we think. We all circle around him: the universe-shaped object around which we gravitate.’

‘I’m not sure I entirely agree with you. I think everyone sees themselves as the centre of their own universe. That’s human nature, after all.’

Spike looked at him surprised and interested. ‘Huh. It must be the blood thing then. You don’t walk and talk everyday with your creator, do you?  He’s always seemed like that to me.’

‘But not… now?’

Spike smiled. ‘He thought he could decide for me, see? He always does that. He didn’t trust me enough to tell me the truth. He’s never trusted me. He’s never respected me. Then, when he’s ready to tell me, he thinks I’ll bloody turn back on like a tap of need.’

Wesley huffed. ‘Like you ever turned off, Spike. Impressive speech, but don’t ever try to tell me that you’ve stopped loving Angel.’

Spike nudged him again. ‘Yeah, well. But things have changed now.’

‘Because you’re rich? Angel isn’t motivated by money in any shape or form, you know that.’

‘Not the money, Wes, the power. I guess it’s one and the same thing in the end. Angel is very motivated by power: his and other peoples.’

‘Is this some kind of twisted revenge trip, Spike? Because if it is, I want no part….’

‘Don’t.’ Spike took his shoulders and stared into the still troubled eyes. ‘Don’t tell me that somewhere behind those incredibly blue eyes, you don’t feel angry that Angel didn’t give you the choice either— that he took your power entirely from you.’

‘I love Angel.’

‘This has nothing to do with love!’  Spike let him go and turned back to the view.  ‘I could go in there now, and I’d have him on his knees in a minute if this was about love. It’s not.  It’s about my place in the world, Wes. It’s about balance.  I’m tired of being his supporting character. I want his world to stop for once when his heart gets stomped on.’

‘Eight bottles of whisky later, hey?’

Spike nodded thoughtfully. ‘Love has nothing to do with it.’

Angel was still sitting at the end of the empty conference room long after everyone else went home.  

I am not going to freaking think about this!

He turned a small piece of glass around and around in his hand, wondering if eventually its sharp edges would smooth like a piece of glass he’d once seen washed up on the beach.  

Okay, I’m thinking, I’m thinking. I’m in that damn bed with him.  Happy? Thinking about the bed. I didn’t ask for that fucking dream— and seed pearls? Jeez, lose the fucking irony, why don’t you? Wham, bam, in my head: I’m gonna lose him.  He needed to be protected: from me— from himself.  He’s… dependent, needy… Hey! I did NOT think those words. 

(you did, you’ve always thought that about him)

He couldn’t possibly understand what was at stake. I had to make the hard decisions again! I don’t see anyone else around here willing to make them! 

(you didn’t give them the chance; you took their memories from them)

No! I protected them. I did what needed to be done. It’s what I do! And I did it for Spike. Pushed him away. 

(she said you had to tell him that you love him— unbreak his heart)

Oh, cut the corny crap. I was gonna tell him! Okay! Right here in that frigging seat, sitting there not looking at me…. 

(but he’s not so needy now, is he? He’s not so… dependent….)

I did NOT think those words. But, no, he’s not. He’s… powerful, magnificent, hard….

(okay, concentrate here, maybe?)

How could I tell him? 

(how could you not?)

Some frigging help you’re being.  I couldn’t tell him because….

(go on)

Because… he hadn’t changed at all. He’s never been needy and dependent. 

(ah)

Fuck off. So, I was wrong. I can make a mistake, can’t I? 

(maybe he was too strong for you to push those seed pearls into? Did you think of that?)

(well, did you?)

I pushed him away because I was scared of…?

(well, not being able to name it is kinda a BIG clue here)

I can name it! I can name it. I just don’t want to… do it….’

(because you’re scared of him)

What? Okay, you can just shut the fuck up now. All done with the introspective brooding here!

(what, and waste three lifetimes of honing the skill?)

He always seems so… self-contained. Always at the centre of things, but they don’t touch him. He walks, God-like, through everything life throws at him.  Why can’t I do that? Why is everything so hard? Why couldn’t I have woken him and told him that I was scared to love him, scared to get close? Shit, he knows me. It’s not like he wouldn’t understand: Darla, Buffy, Cordelia, Connor. All lost…. Too weak to hold onto them.  But I wanted to hold him. I wanted never to let go.

(maybe it’s not too late)

Yeah. He’s moving away from me now. Spinning out into that bright light where I can’t follow.

(have you been drinking beaver blood again?)

He’s rich; he’s powerful; he’s… not mine.

Why did he give you back the mirror?

Angel frowned and looked down at it. Rubbing his fingers over the now warm edges. 

To punish me?

(You total loser.  So you can see what he sees when he looks at you: his)

Angel rose and smashed his fist into the wall, breaking three bones and splitting the skin across the knuckles, his blood flecking the pristine whiteness.  He sucked in the pain and banished all inner voices. What the frick did they know?

What the fuck did it matter why he’d ran from Spike’s bed? What did it matter why he’d lied to him and pushed him away? What did any of it matter?  He’d have a few photographs of Spike taken with his new life, smiling into the camera, and he could lock them away in the bowels of Wolfram and Hart with all his other lost chances.

He smashed the wall once more, grinding the smashed edges of bones together until tears ran down his cheeks. 

Maybe he’d go visit Pavayne, open all the doors, let them all flood out. 

Then they’d need him.

Then Spike would need him.

There was some excitement around the offices that he couldn’t define. He sensed it in Harmony and Fred; it rose like a scent from Lorne. He refused to ask what it was. A week from his big announcement, and it was as if he’d told them they were going to change the brand of coffee.  

It was only when Harmony asked for the following Friday off, this request followed by a similar one from Fred and Gunn, that he mumbled casually to Wesley in their daily update meeting, ‘What’s happening on Friday?’

Wesley frowned and pursed his lips, thinking. ‘Nothing that I know of, why? Of course, we’re all keeping our diaries deliberately empty because of the party.’

He could hear himself say in a plaintive voice, ‘Party,’ so snapped his jaw shut and refused to utter one syllable. 

Wesley seemed to take pity on him and added, ‘We’re christening the big house, so to speak.’

We? We? ‘Oh.’

‘Spike’s new house? He’s throwing a party. Open house. Everyone’s going to be there….’

I’m fucking not.  ‘Really?’

‘Are you coming?’

Apparently not.  ‘No.’

‘Pity. There are going to be some real movers and shakers there. It’s a good opportunity for you to meet them. You may never get another opportunity….’

Do you want your fucking throat ripped out again? ‘Okay. I’ll think about it. If I’m invited, of course.’

‘To be honest, Angel, I really don’t think Spike will notice whether you’re there or not— there will be a lot of important people there.’

You die. ‘I’m probably busy anyway.’

‘Good. That’s what I told Spike.’

‘What?’ Lower you freaking voice or you die, too.  ‘What?’

‘Hmm. When he asked if you were coming, I said you’d probably be too busy. So, can we draw a line under these budget amendments, or do you want to go over them again? I’m not in a hurry, if you need me to explain them a little more slowly.’

Angel stared at him, but the man didn’t flinch or blush. He seemed entirely sincere. Angel glanced down at the paperwork and then up again, very rapidly.  Wesley was still looking at him with a disarming innocence. 

Angel shook his head. ‘No.’

Wesley smiled pleasantly and gathered everything up, making toward the door. 

‘Wesley?’

Wesley rearranged his features and turned back. ‘Yes?’

‘Tell Spike I am coming. I wouldn’t miss it for the world.’

Spike was lying in the middle of one of the large four-poster beds when Wesley discovered him. He was staring sightlessly up at the plush velvet hangings and did not seem to hear the man’s arrival.  Wesley perched on the edge of the bed and followed Spike’s gaze, trying to see what he was finding so fascinating.

Suddenly, Spike swung his legs and flipped off the bed, pacing in an agitated manner, a restless energy sparking from him.  ‘So?’

‘He’s coming.’ Wesley looked down, amused. ‘I never knew I had such a streak of cruelty in me. I suppose having your memory taken from you rather does that.  So, he’s coming, just as you wanted. Now what?’

Spike grinned evilly. ‘Now I take his advice.’

Angel would have hesitated on the sweeping steps of the old house, but he got borne along on the crush that seemed to be pouring into its welcoming, lit interior.  

He had no time to gather himself before he was in a room packed with beautiful people.  He made immediately for the wall and planted his back to it, accepting a drink and tossing it back in one.  

With a cringe of embarrassment, he thought about going home to change. Everyone seemed to be in white, or light, summer, elegant clothes, and he stood out like a beacon of darkness in the corner.  He took another drink from a passing tray and drank that equally quickly. 

He didn’t recognise anyone. They were all young, sleek, groomed. Not evil.

With relief he spotted Wesley, pushed off the wall and made his way over to him. 

‘Angel! How nice.’

‘Who are all these people?’

‘Well, most of them are in the business, I believe. Lorne’s triumph.’

‘Lawyers?’

‘Hollywood, Angel? The business?’

‘Oh.’

‘Actors, producers, writers, one or two studio bosses, I believe.’ 

‘Why are they here?’

‘Courting power, I should think.’

Why don’t you just tell me where he is without me having to ask?  

Angel was saved having to ask when another dark figure walked into the room. Except for the hair, which was always startling, Spike had dressed all in black as well: black leather pants and a black silk shirt. It made his skin seem almost translucent. 

He began to circle around the beautiful people as if he knew every one of them.

Angel waited his turn, like a supplicant, and by the time Spike reached him, he was so furious – mostly with himself – that he debated ignoring Spike entirely. He needn’t have worried; Spike gave him a small nod and moved on, laughing easily with a young man who was admiring one of the paintings on the wall.  

Wesley said softly, ‘Why don’t you go and look around the house, Angel? It’s rather impressive.’

Angel nodded, not really hearing or understanding, but he pushed his way out into the vast hallway as if he needed air.

He jogged up the stairs and went to find the room where she’d died.  It was serene, no trace of its recent history, and he flung himself down on the chaise lounge, brooding.

‘Party pooper.’

Angel snapped his head up and saw Spike leaning in the doorway, lighting a cigarette.  He came further in and pushed the door shut behind him.

‘Enjoying it?’

‘No.’

Spike shrugged. ‘Leave then.’

‘I….’ Angel got up and walked away, leaning on one of the long windows, staring out over the front lawns. 

‘So…. I’ve been thinking… ‘bout what you said….’

‘I say lots of things. What?’

‘About us.  You and me.’

Angel turned around, alert, tense, not allowing himself to be hopeful. ‘Us?’

‘Yeah. Remember? You said we were still vampires and we could… do stuff… if we wanted….’

‘Do stuff?’

‘Well, yeah….’ He slid closer, his eyes fixed unwaveringly on Angel. ‘Fun…  you said….  My mouth… remember?’

Angel backed away, but he was against the window so the movement only came over as a nervous start.  ‘No.’

‘No, you don’t remember, or no, you don’t want to?’

‘What is this crap, Spike?’

‘Oh, come on, Angel. Don’t go all coy on me. We’ve sucked each other off… no biggie. I’m bored; I’m horny, and I want you. Quick suck. What’d’ya say?’

‘I…. I wanted to tell you. At the meeting.  I was wrong….’

‘Don’t go all heavy and talky-talky at me. I don’t want it. I want a quick blow and then I’m back to the party. You in or not?’

‘No. I’m not.’

Spike shrugged. ‘’K then. I’ll go for my second choice….’

‘No.’

‘Huh?’

‘I don’t want…. I mean…. I’m trying to tell you that I wasn’t entirely honest with you about….’

‘Angel.’

‘What?’

‘No faggoty crap, yeah? Doesn’t suit you.’

He waved his cigarette imperiously at Angel and walked swiftly back to the door.  As he opened it, he turned and said seductively, ‘Wanna come watch? Nothing like a hot human mouth on your dick…. No? Pity….’

The vast house was so oppressively close he could find no room in it. It closed in on all sides, trapping him.  He could sense a storm brewing outside, its heavy weight of heat pricking even his skin with sweat.  After an hour of staring mindlessly out of the window, he felt something drop on his hand, thought it had begun to rain inside, then realised he had started to cry.

Chapter 12

Angel strode down the to front door and let himself out.  The night air was heavy with the scent of flowers, imminent rain squashing their essence out like blood, and he paused breathing it in, stopping his tears with the force of his will.

He glanced to the side path, and suddenly he wanted nothing more than to sit in the quiet green of Spike’s courtyard, under the old trees, where everything had once held promise.

He pushed quietly in leant on the door, sighing with contentment at the intensely welcoming feel of the old apartment.  

Suddenly, he tensed and looked out into the dark.

He could only see the hair; the rest blended into the darkness, but then the silent, pale face lifted to his.

They stared at each other for a long time, and then Spike flicked a cigarette to the ground, where it glowed red for a moment, a small arc of heat in the darkness.  He stood up, walking slowly across the old flagstones into the hot room.  

When he reached Angel, there was no need for talk. Talk only seemed to pain them, so they found another, better use for lonely mouths.  

Incredulous, Angel could taste salt tears on Spike’s face too, and he ate hungrily at them, as if they said all the things that Spike could not say, as if he could read the mystery of this moment in their damp trails.  He wondered if Spike could taste the tears in his heart. It seemed to him that he’d been drowning in tears since he’d last been in Spike’s arms.

He’d never kissed anyone with such abandon.  It almost hurt.

Deciding at last to speak his truth in this dark, verdant confessional, Angel tipped his head back and closed his eyes. ‘I thought I was protecting you— from me. But I was running away— from us.’

‘Say it again.’

‘Huh?’

‘Us. Say it again.’

Angel smiled. ‘Us.’

Spike seemed to let some great tension flood out of his body, and he moved away, going to the window. He leant on one side, staring out through the patio doors.  

He held out his hand, knowing that Angel would come to him.  He pulled him in tight, so the heavy body leant on him. ‘I couldn’t lie to you— hurt you. Not in this house. Didn’t let me. I got all tied up inside till it hurt.’ His voice was ragged and Angel could tell he’d been crying a long time.  He squeezed him closer and Spike whispered, ‘Say it again.’

Angel smiled and turned the word into a kiss.

They stayed for a long time, leaning against each other, their bodies speaking in their own silent language: skin reacquainting itself with skin, sweat mingling and become one fluid, softness hardening, and mouths whispering love with touch and taste and gentle exploration.

The intense pressure of the imminent storm cocooned them in a physical space that was all warm, soft flesh: the build-up of electricity in the air giving their flesh this fleeting illusion of life.

Angel slid his hands up inside Spike’s shirt onto his bony spine and began to run them up and down, like a lover initiating sex, like a mother giving comfort. Spike responded, also caught between his two roles: lover and child.  When their mouths came together once more, though, they pulled instantly away and stared, puzzled into each other’s eyes. They both sensed that those old feelings existed no more. Whatever imbalance there had been between them was over. Equally vulnerable, equally scared, they brought their mouths softly together again, one falling from a great height of steel and chrome, one rising from a place of earth and despair, and they met, tongues clashing, need rising hot between them, turning and twisting in each other’s arms, moving through the apartment in a dance of desire that left them both breathing yet breathless.

Angel wondered where the painful gut-wrenching need to strip Spike had gone.  Then he realised it was still there, only it had gone deeper, just as he wanted to. No longer satisfied with the thought of sucking Spike or feeling that beautiful mouth around his hardness, he wanted to ease into his core, put his body inside Spike’s, share his flesh and not retrieve it when the sharing was done.   

He took Spike’s hand and squeezed his fingers gently, knowing he did not have to speak of these things: that such passion and need could stay unspoken and still be deafening between them.

Spike sighed deeply and whispered, ‘Can you wait, Luv? I need to….’ He frowned and flicked his eyes up. 

Angel smiled and pulled him close once more, his body trembling with the feel of something so innately desirable in his arms. ‘Sure. I’ll wait here.’

A tiny expression of disappointment crossed Spike’s face, and Angel immediately murmured, ‘I’ve been in hell for you, Spike. Guess one party can’t be worse.’

Spike smiled seductively. ‘I like having power over you.’

Angel’s eyes dilated, and he snatched Spike to him hard. ‘Use it.’

They kissed again, their bodies now heavy and aching for release, mouths stimulating flesh they did not even touch as if, magical, they had power over all flesh.

Spike sucked in his breath, tasted Angel’s saliva one more time, and then took his hand, leading him toward the door.

Angel still waited like a supplicant, but now Spike was his lover, and it was just a game between them: glances understood, small touches, public, but speaking privately of their intense desire.

It didn’t take long for the party to break up on their return, the storm’s approach oppressing everyone.  

Spike did his usual rounds of the house, checking locks, windows, power, but this time, his fingers were entangled with Angel’s, so they made slow progress, kissing through the empty spaces, filling them with the sound of wet flesh on wet flesh, soft moans of pleasure and stifled laughter of anticipation.

Finally, they ducked under the over-handing branches and entered their private place, where they were to be private no longer: where they were to expose their inner beings to the other— flesh and feelings, equally opened and shared.

For the first time, they undressed slowly enough to enjoy the exquisite sensation of revealing flesh, to feel arousal reaching a peak from the merest glimpse of rounded muscle, flat chest, or a nest of shocking darkness against flawless skin.

Utterly heedless of themselves as individuals, they crawled onto the bed, only wanting to immerse in the other: taste, sound, and feel.

So many places gave them pleasure, and they arched and twisted, crying softly in delight as they brought their flesh to life: hands roaming, seeking, finding.

Afraid he would come too soon, Angel had to roll away after a while, begging for a respite from Spike’s mouth and Spike’s flesh and Spike’s soft, erotic intoning of his need.  Parted for the time it took him blink, Spike felt Angel’s absence like death and moaned in greedy need when, after that small blink, Angel came back, cursing his stupidity, now begging for more of Spike’s mouth, now desperate for more of Spike flesh and more of that whispering of need that frazzled like a storm in his balls and made the bed damp with his sticky release.

Spike spread himself like water over the soft covers, and Angel dove into him, bathing in his flesh.  This time, the turning was so very natural, neither knew who precipitated it: Angel murmuring his desires or Spike whispering his need.  He turned and spread languorously, lifting his thigh. 

Angel’s hand found him first, just the edge of one strong palm pressing into the crack, testing out the possibilities and finding them good.  With a groan of surprised desire, he lay alongside the intriguing flesh and explored with his fingers, licking them and trailing them over the place where flesh was sucked in and disappeared to the tantalizing inner mystery that was Spike. 

It was his path to reach the inner core, to discover himself by finding them. Us.  With only the slightest hesitation, he bent his face and rewet the trails with his tongue.  All control deserted him when Spike arched and cried out with as much pleasure as he had when more conventional places had been explored.  He mouthed into the indentation as if trying to bob for apples: lips wide, pushing hard. A finger slipped in without thought, so natural, opening Spike up, exposing soft, untouched walls for his lips.

Everything was so wet and slippery: Spike inside, Angel outside. His shapely, curving, mushroom-shaped head leaked, as if weeping with sorrow for being excluded from such fun.

With a breath of anticipation, Angel pushed into the pink slickness, every inch of the long journey drawing out intense pleasure from his engorged, throbbing shaft.

At exactly the moment when they were joined as fully as was physically possible, an ear-splitting crack rent the air, and a torrent of rain crashed through the green canopy, resounding dully on the flagstones.

The intense, claustrophobic, spell-like languor of their lovemaking cracked apart just as fiercely.  The whole room was illuminated by the harsh blue-white light of sheet lightning, and Angel could hide no longer from the realisation of what they were doing.  He hung suspended over Spike’s arse. He was deep in Spike’s arse.

The thought spiralled his thoughts chaotically.  

Spike turned, equal amazement in his eyes, and then they were plunged into blackness as the power cut off. 

The mood was entirely shattered.  Angel hovered, afraid to stay in, afraid to pull out. Either option seemed unthinkable.  

Suddenly, Spike turned his head once more, and in the low, ambient light, Angel saw a glint of something in Spike’s eyes.  In a slow, lazy drawl, Spike said, amused, ‘So, Angel.  How’s the faggoty crap for you then?’ He jerked up his hips, grinding Angel into him fully.

A breath of indecision, then Angel looked down. He was in Spike’s arse.  

He groaned with delight, and they commenced fucking with a similar joy and abandon they’d always brought to fighting each other.

Spike arched and laughed, the sound of deep satisfaction, drowned by another crack of thunder.  The flash was closer, as if the storm zeroed in on their intensity, seeking their power to fuel its own.

Angel pounded into flesh so hard and tight that he felt even his nipples ache from the pleasure, his balls and cock just a flood of intense, erotic stimulation.

He levered over Spike as if exercising on top of him, his sweat dripping into the blond strands, his cock and balls making sloppy, slapping sounds which merged with gushing drainpipes outside.

He sensed the start of release as clearly as if he’d taken a first step up a long staircase, and he climbed slowly, step by step, the tempo of his fucking increasing until he appeared on fast-forward, a rapid blur of hips jack-knifing into the tight receptacle, and through it all, Spike writhed and begged for more, flesh impervious to the stretch and pain, demon heart revelling in the throb and split. 

Angel came with a flood of release so powerful he feared he’d lose something more than just sperm. His whole body went into a rigid spasm as he pumped.  

He flung back his head, felt a sensation so familiar it chilled his heart and howled out that it was his soul flooding out on the milky spill.

He tore out of the wet hole and flung out of the apartment into the rain, falling for the third time in his life in rain-soaked, post-orgasmic terror: Buffy, Darla, and now Spike….

A split of lightning, everything illuminated, nowhere to hide… and then he knew. For the first time, his spill was safe - where it belonged - where it had no potency to bring forth evil. He had come, but he had not destroyed the world.

He sensed a presence behind him and levered off the wet ground, soaking, his skin glistening in the green light.  He held out his hand, and Spike came to him.

Angel embraced him, running his hands over his back in wonder, then bent to kiss him urgently, the long hour he had spent pounding into Spike’s back, depriving him of this intense pleasure.

The thought of their sex drew his thoughts downward, and his hands roamed over Spike’s hard cheeks as they kissed.  Then he parted them, fingers dipping and seeking.

Angel’s eyes suddenly dilated, and he murmured, ‘Fuck, yeah….’

All his fingers fitted into the stretched hole, and he played sensuously with Spike, pulling him apart, pressing in, teasing around and around the sensitised walls.

Gradually, he eased Spike back against a trellis, fragrant flowers crushed by their bodies. 

Very slowly, keeping his eyes lifted to Spike’s, he sank to his knees, the torrent of water from the sky draining into his eyes and making him blink.

With great concentration, he bobbed to catch Spike’s penis in his mouth, trying to catch its stiff wavering between his lips. When he succeeded, he swirled it around on his tongue, relishing the sweet, salty flavour of his fluid.

A sheet of blue-white in the sky, and he opened his throat to the long hardness, plunging down onto Spike, moaning at his jerk of pleasure.

With a jolt of surprise, his brain registered that the overpowering scent was jasmine, and he laughed around the shaft he pleasured, thinking of bliss and the worship of false gods. He pulled his god down to him and kissed him with the intensity of a convert, fisting him skilfully.

Spike rose up on his knees, dug his fingers into Angel’s shoulders, and offered some more fluid to the wet night, his sperm splashing down over Angel’s wrist, pale and thick compared to the rain that soaked his skin.

With a whimper of pleasure, Spike laid his forehead down to the wet earth and said distinctly, ‘Fucking hell.’

Angel lay back and spread-eagled himself to the storm, the rain drumming on his tight belly, making a martial accompaniment to the softer notes of rain-heavy leaves and flooding pond.

He opened his mouth to catch the rain but caught Spike’s mouth instead, and then his rain was second-hand, dripping off Spike to land on him. He opened his mouth and caught it delightedly then pulled Spike closer and licked it off, first-hand.

Spike lay on top of Angel; their spent cocks nestled snugly together. They’d dried each other off in front of a fire, the only illumination now in the room, and then retreated to the bed to watch the storm.  It had passed now; the air was cool and full of the smell of the ocean.

‘I thought you’d lost your soul.’ The voice was shocking after so much silence, and Angel lifted his head slightly, hearing the deep emotion in Spike’s voice.

‘I don’t know why I didn’t. What I felt was so much more than I felt with Buffy.’

Spike lifted his head and stared at Angel for a moment, then lowered it back down onto the broad, smooth pillow of skin.  ‘You were happy…?’

Angel smiled and corrected him softly, kissing into his hair. ‘You made me happy. You make me happy.’

Spike smiled softly, although he knew Angel would not see it.  He said deceptively casually, ‘What time do you have to leave?’

Angel pouted like a school kid reminded that it was Sunday night and he hadn’t done his homework. He murmured petulantly, ‘I don’t want to go back.’

Spike chuckled. ‘Well… we’ve already established that you can’t wear my clothes, so unless you wanna live naked with me, you’d better go back an’ get yours. Course, I wouldn’t be complaining….’

Angel held him off, and they stared at each other for a long time, until with a small catch in his voice, Angel said, ‘Live here, with you?’

Spike folded his arms and propped his chin on them. ‘You’re still working for them, Angel. So are Wes and the others. Who’s gonna care where you live?’  He grinned shyly and said pointedly, ‘Whenever you looked up— I’d be there. Whenever I thought about you— you’d be there….’

Angel lay back staring at the old plaster of the ceiling, hearing the echoes of the spell in Spike’s seductive voice.

He stared around the old apartment, lit only by the flickering flames of the fire and pictured himself living there, his respite from the evil of the day.  

Suddenly, he began to laugh, and Spike was juddered off to the side. He sat up and punched him softly. ‘What?’

Angel shook his head but continued laughing.  ‘I just got why I didn’t lose my soul inside you. That damn place: Wolfram and Hart. How can I attain perfect happiness knowing that I work there?’

‘And that’s funny?’

Angel nodded wildly, his eyes dilated. ‘They’ve saved my soul, Spike. We’ve just turned Wolfram and Hart into a soul-saving business.’

Spike climbed back on the large body, slowly entwining like a pale vine around Angel’s limbs.  ‘Go to sleep, Pet; you’re over-wrought.’

Suddenly, Angel rolled them, levering over the supple, welcoming body, his intent obvious.  ‘Nah, let’s make them work for a living again….’

The End