Chapter 12

The daylight changed everything.

Spike woke and frowned, wondering when he’d been buried.  He stretched and then dislodged Angel with a grunt.  

Angel groaned and opened his eyes, closed them for a moment with a puzzled frown, then opened them again.  He turned his head on the pillow and looked over at Spike.

‘Oh.  Fuck.’  Suddenly, he sat up and said, ‘Wesley.’

Spike sat up, too.  ‘He doesn’t come in here, does he?’

‘No.  Clothes.’  Angel leapt out of bed and pulled on some sweat pants, hopping as he tugged them over his feet.  He ran out into the hallway and peered around the top of the stairs.  Wesley was standing just outside in the sun, talking to Giles.  Angel made a dash for it, grabbing the clothes and shoes discarded in their urgent, passionate haste the night before.  He made it back out of sight just before the two humans came in for work.

When he got back in the bedroom, Spike was sitting on the edge of the bed, inspecting a large bruise on his arm.  Angel came over and deposited the armful of clothing on the bed.  

Without looking at Spike, he said in a low voice, ‘I’m going for a shower.’

Spike nodded and gave Angel a small glance― but no higher than his chest.  Angel added feebly, ‘I always shower alone. I like my… privacy.’

Spike shrugged, rose and stretched, his lean body pale and honed in the early morning light.  He picked his clothes out of the pile on the bed and then began to push past Angel to the door.

Angel snagged Spike’s fingers in his, playing with them once more, pulling on them gently.  

He turned and led the way to the shower.

As soon as the water was as hot as Angel liked, he picked up some shampoo and poured some onto his hand.  He scrubbed it roughly into Spike’s hair, Spike’s head malleable and loose under his hands, tipping this way and that to his command.  He didn’t withstand the temptation for long: bending down to claim the enticing mouth once more.  Once more, the kiss was different.   They were preparing for sex; they both knew that.  However, this was not mindless, passion-induced, in-the-dark sex; this was calculated, knowing, bright-light-of-day sex.  And that was something very, very different.

The kissing became hot― urgent, teeth clashing, tongue battling kisses.  Hot water flooded over them, washing into their eyes, flattening their hair, subduing external senses and making others more intense.  

They didn’t know who moved first― Spike to turn to the wall, Angel to turn him.  Spike braced his hands on the wet tiles, expecting yet another penetration, but it didn’t come.  Angel fell to his knees in the wet shower stall.  He put his hands on Spike’s cheeks, pressing them up, squeezing them in, making Spike arch with desperate anticipation.  Gently, he parted them, spread them, exposing him totally.  Spike twisted his head around to watch, encouraging Angel by sliding his feet a little further apart, thrusting back toward the eager mouth.

They both knew what was coming; they’d done this in another lifetime, without the endless, streaming hot water, when one of them had been human and weak, the other soulless and uncaring.  Angel pushed his tongue deep into the cavity and acquainted himself with the pure taste of demon childe.  

Spike cried out, and Angel heard none of William’s fear and embarrassment in the sound; he heard desperate encouragement, pleasure, and need so great he began to urgently mouth the wet hole, biting, pushing in, licking, moaning to the taste of Spike’s intimate flesh.

He dove his tongue onto Spike’s soft walls, finding the spot that connected to his balls and dick, the spot that fired off all his pleasure nerves, the spot that made him begin to pant and writhe against the tiles.  He cupped Spike even harder, pulling him apart, trying to climb into the hole and take him from the inside; nothing was enough― not tongue, not fingers.  There was only one thing…. Angel rose and slammed his cock back inside Spike, and they both cried out at the rightness and at the need this satisfied.  

Standing, Angel now used his hands to discover Spike’s skin when it was wet, to watch how water changed the tone, how light played and danced in the rivulets that cascaded between his shoulder blades. He dragged his fingers through Spike’s hair, transferring the shampoo down onto his body, soaping him, roaming his hands around on the slickness as he thumped in.

Spike tried to put one hand down to work his own need, but he couldn’t support himself on the one remaining, Angel’s powerful thrusts crashing him against the tiles.  Angel saw the attempt and slid his hands down to discover Spike.  His fingers found a solid, jutting root first, and he played with that a while, cupping the heavy balls and squashing them up against it.  

When Spike twisted his head around slightly and moaned, Angel slid his hands up the shaft. It felt as hard as bone… until he reached the end, which was soft and hot and swollen.  He wrapped one arm tightly around Spike’s waist and began to work his cock with a vicious urgency only another man could understand.  It interrupted his thrusting rhythm, so he used it instead to pull Spike onto him, fucking himself with Spike’s lithe body.  

When they came this time, they both swore loudly.  Spike’s cock jumped in Angel’s hand as a first shot of cum splattered against the tiles.  He knew more was to come, and continued jerking him, shooting string after string to follow that first load.  His own ejaculation came all in a rush: an intense pleasure flooding his body followed by spasm after spasm inside the tight rectum.  They were still swearing when it was over― when Angel slipped out and fell back against the far wall, panting as if he needed extra air.

Spike began to turn, but Angel propelled himself off the wall and fell to his knees.  He parted Spike again then slid his hands around to pull the flushed, wide hole onto his mouth.  Gently, he tongued his fluid out, licking around the cavity, salving it with his cool spit, sucking and breathing softly on the friction-heated walls.

Slowly, knees giving way, Spike sank to the floor of the shower, Angel’s tongue dragging up his body, along his spine, and finally into the nape of his neck, where he fastened on with human teeth and made a small, red welt on the paleness.

It was only then that they realised the water was running cold.

Angel cursed and reached for the controls, standing and snapping the water off.  He stepped out and fetched two towels, throwing one to Spike.  He watched Spike as he stood and began to rub his hair, watching how it curled and caught the light.

‘Hungry?’

The word broke the atmosphere between them.  Spike shook himself, nodded and twisted the towel tightly around his waist.  Angel wrapped his loosely and went to his room.  He seemed to feel something was needed and said over his shoulder, ‘I’ll meet you downstairs.  I sometimes cook for Wesley.  You’re welcome….’

Spike nodded and went into his own room.

Angel jogged down the stairs to find Wesley and Giles studying something on one of the computer screens.  They looked up as he arrived and nodded pleasantly.  

He feared that they knew and hovered awkwardly, this ill-at-ease feeling not helped by hearing Spike coming down behind him. 

‘Breakfast?’

Wesley nodded enthusiastically and said to Giles, ‘Angel is something of a cook; believe me, his breakfasts are almost English in quality.’

‘I’ll….’ Angel made a swift exit to the kitchen and leant on the counter his head hung down, trying to summon some control.

‘Mind the way, Luv.’  Spike reached around him and took two mugs out of a cupboard.  As he did, he put his hand to the small of Angel’s back, a gesture of familiarity that seemed almost as incredible to Angel as the memory of what they had done all night.  He turned and looked at Spike as he heated some blood for them both.  Spike.  He still couldn’t quite come to terms with this revelation, but before he could say anything, the humans joined them, and he was silenced.

Wesley sat down.  ‘I was slow last night Angel – tired I think – but it came to me this morning as I was shaving: that incident was a set up.  Angel?’

Angel shook himself and took his eyes off Spike’s fingers.  ‘Set up?’

‘Yes.  I checked it out this morning.  They were importers of rare antiquities, and guess who their lawyers are….’

‘Wolfram and Hart.’

‘Exactly.’

Spike casually handed Angel a mug and leant back on the counter.  ‘You think it was a set up for us?’

‘Well, I’m not sure.  Perhaps we just blundered into something, but it was all wrong; too easy, for one thing.  Giles has suggested – and I think it’s a good suggestion – that we see if Wolfram and Hart have any other such interests in the city and keep an eye on them tonight.’

Giles nodded. ‘We have some work to do first― I’d like to know what that demon species was, for a start.  What are you two going to do today?’

‘Us?’  Angel seemed to feel this was an odd reply, so added a little lamely, ‘Train.  I’m going to train later.’

Giles nodded. ‘Spike?’

Spike raised an eyebrow and said deliberately,  ‘I think I might help Angel train.’

‘Well, good for you. So, did someone mention a spot of breakfast might be forthcoming?’

Angel busied himself with the food.  Spike sat at the table watching him, disconcerting him, but when a plate of eggs and toast was placed in front of him, he grunted with pleasure and tucked in as fast and as silently as the two humans did.

When he’d finished, he leant back and lit a cigarette, much to the disgust of the non-smokers present.  He ignored their protests, and eventually, they abandoned the kitchen, leaving the vampires alone.

Spike stretched and folded his arms behind his head.  ‘I feel shagged to death.’

‘You are dead.’

‘Well, yeah.  Shagged back to life then.’

Angel smiled faintly. 

‘Don’t you eat still?’

Angel shook his head.  

Spike took his cigarette from his mouth and flicked the ash on the floor.  ‘So, what do you want to do now?’

‘You.’  Angel caught him around the neck and propelled him out of his chair, slamming him up against the counter.  He bent to the exposed neck and bit it again, blunt human teeth doing some considerable damage to the hitherto flawless flesh.

Spike groaned and jumped up onto the surface, wrapping his legs around Angel’s waist.  Suddenly they stilled.  Angel pulled away from Spike’s neck and leant back slightly, captured by Spike’s legs.  Spike eyed him for a moment then took a drag of his cigarette, offering it to Angel afterwards. He chuckled at the way Angel took it into his mouth, licking his lips at the blatant expression of lust on Angel’s face.  Angel blew a cloud of smoke into Spike’s face in punishment.  Slowly, provocatively, he began to unzip Spike’s jeans.  Without looking down, he freed the semi-hard erection from its confinement.  Still not releasing Spike’s gaze, Angel separated his balls, arranging them either side of the now swelling column.  

Spike leant back against the wall.  ‘Poof.’

Angel nodded and took Spike’s cockhead to the back of his throat.  Spike hissed and dug his fingers into Angel’s hair, then winced and removed his cigarette, patting a small section of singed hair.  He held Angel’s head languorously with one hand, while he smoked with the other.  

As Angel sucked, he thumbed the balls, massaging them softly, pressing them against the rising root.  After a long, particularly hard suck, he rose and captured Spike’s mouth, moaning at the strong taste of nicotine.  

Spike flicked the cigarette to the floor and took Angel’s head hard with both hands, pulling him into the kiss.  He put his hand down to his cock and met Angel’s there. Pulling apart, they looked down, watching as they shared the erection between them: Angel thumbing the tip, Spike working his root in small, sharp jerks.  ‘Bloody hell… I’m gonna cum….’ Angel nodded at the small murmur and went back down, swallowing deeply as Spike jerked his hips, ejaculating against Angel’s throat.

When he rose, a small, delicate chain of cum trailed between his lips and the tip of the still erect penis.  Spike smiled and bent open-mouthed to catch Angel’s lips, sucking them gently into his.  Angel opened his mouth wide and let Spike taste and share this, too.  The kiss started to become more urgent once more, until Angel pulled away, wiping his mouth with the back of one hand.  ‘If we don’t stop, I’ll be fucking you over the table in a minute.’

Spike leant back provocatively, his cock still bobbing between them.  ‘So?’

Angel clenched his jaw.  ‘You don’t find all this kinda… incredible?  Yesterday we didn’t like each other, now we’re fucking in the kitchen?’

‘Maybe we still don’t like each other.’

‘Jesus.  Get dressed, will you?’

‘You do it. You undressed me.’

Angel gritted his teeth, but zipped Spike up, smiling nastily when hair got caught in the zipper.  Spike growled softly and hopped off the counter.  

With a closed-off expression, Angel watched him heading toward the door, but then said in a more telling voice, ‘Where are you going?’

Spike dipped his head and smiled, as if something amused him in this.  He reached back and snagged Angel’s fingers in his.  ‘Where do you bloody think? Come on….’ He led Angel to the door, dropped his hand as they crossed the lobby, and then jogged down into the basement.  He grabbed Angel’s arm as soon as they were down and dragged him over to a stack of mats in one corner.  He pushed Angel to sitting and knelt between his legs.  Angel hissed at the surge of pleasure he got from Spike’s submissive position and slowly lay back, letting Spike unbuckle and unzip him.  He lifted his hips when asked, and his shaft rose, hard and high into the gloom of the basement.

Spike sat back on his heels, just thumbing Angel for a while, skimming the tip of his cock, collecting pre-ejaculate and spreading it up and down the long shaft.  After a while though he crawled onto the mats next to Angel and lay with his head on Angel’s chest.  Angel lifted his head, surprised, but then relaxed once more and began to run his fingers absentmindedly through the blond strands as Spike teased him with his tongue.  Eventually, he began to encourage Spike: pushing the blond head lower, urging him onto his cock.

Spike grinned and resisted, dodging slightly to the side, letting the slick cockhead rub against his face.  This seemed to spark something in Angel, for he rose up suddenly and pushed Spike down on his back.  He ripped one leg out of his constricting pants and straddled Spike’s chest, kneeling up, his shaft heavy and urgent over Spike’s face.  He pushed it against one cheekbone, transferring a trail of glistening fluid to the pale skin.  He did the same to the other side: matching streaks of possession.  Spike moaned and turned to the marking, catching the fleshy head between his lips gently as if kissing it.  Angel pushed in a little, but then withdrew and snaked it up over Spike’s nose.  With one hand he closed Spike’s eyes, pushing his cock gently into each in turn, covering them with a shinning sheen of silver.  When Spike opened his eyes again, sticky precum glistened like tears on his eyelashes. 

When he was finished marking Spike’s face, Angel bent down and licked him clean: long, sweeping, feline licks around the sweet-tasting flesh.  He paused the longest over the eyes, until he reached Spike’s mouth, and then he stayed there, kissing and tasting and exploring again, as if this was the first time once more, and everything was new.

As they kissed, Spike fisted Angel, pulling his cock up hard, stretching it, then jerking urgently on the thick shaft, causing Angel to moan into the kiss.  Suddenly, he snatched his mouth off Spike’s, shuffled forward and introduced the tip of his erection between the willing lips just before he arched back and came, long strings of cum squirting onto Spike’s tongue and dribbling out the side of his mouth.

Angel shook the last few drops off on Spike’s face with a small, challenging raise of one eyebrow, then rolled off to the side with a long, satisfied sigh.

Spike stretched then lit two cigarettes passing one to Angel. 

‘This isn’t good for me.’

Spike let the ambiguous comment hang in the air for a while before replying lazily, ‘Stop it then.’

Angel took a drag of his cigarette and blew a small ring.  ‘I’m not sure I want to.’

Spike rolled onto his side and propped his head up on his hand.  ‘One thing’s good, at least. It’s not like with the bints― you don’t actually have to talk to me.’

‘What?’

‘Well, there’s been a lot of sucking and fucking and whatnot, but not much… conversation.’

‘You want to talk while you fuck?’

‘Well, not discuss the bloody weather, no!’

‘I don’t talk when I… with women, either.’

Spike chuckled. ‘Well, that explains a lot.’

Angel pursed his lips.  ‘What did she say?’

‘Who?’

‘Bastard.’

Spike grinned and waited to see if he’d actually beg for information and sighed when he didn’t.  

He rolled back to face the ceiling with a chuckle and took a long drag of his cigarette.  ‘So, what’s there to do around here during the day? ‘Sides shag, that is.’

Rankling from Spike’s allusion to Buffy, convinced that he’d been the subject of some between-the-sheets comparison, Angel reacted more harshly than he otherwise would have done.  He lifted his hips, redressed and climbed off the mats. ‘I’ve got a life, Spike.  I don’t care what you do.’

He stomped out of the basement and across the lobby, going into his office and slamming the door.

Giles raised an eyebrow at Wesley, but the younger Englishman didn’t seem to notice the small explosion.

After a few moments, Spike appeared and perched on a desk, watching them.  

When they didn’t take much interest in his presence, he sighed and studied a nail, as if that could pass the time.  Eventually, with a curse, he rose and went into Angel’s office.

‘Get out.’

‘Yeah.’ He flung himself onto the couch and studied Angel’s lowered head.  ‘Why do you have to be so bloody touchy?’

‘What? I don’t have time for this crap, Spike.’

‘Why? Cus reading the sports’ section is so damn important?’

‘I’m not… want do you want?’

‘We never talked about you. Jesus, Angel― hardly!’

Angel looked up sharply.  ‘Why not? I mean….’

‘Because she was only fucking me to try and forget you.  Duh.’

‘Oh.’ Angel looked pleased then said hesitantly, ‘That’s not what Giles says.’

‘Yeah, well, what does he know? He weren’t there.’

Angel leant back in his chair and studied Spike thoughtfully.  Spike frowned at the scrutiny.  ‘What?’

Angel shook his head.  ‘I still can’t believe I’m doing this thing with you.’  He went back to his paper.

Spike smiled secretly but said with an edge to his voice, ‘We’ve fucked on and off for over a century, Mate; ‘s not so special.’

Angel snapped his head up.  ‘No, we haven’t.  I’ve never fucked you, Spike.  Believe me― never happened.’

Spike kept his grin to himself until he got out of the door, then he leant back and enjoyed it, closing his eyes, going over Angel’s puzzlement and anger in his mind.  

Angel got up and began to pace around his office, the carpet worn and threadbare on his well-used circuit.  He was behaving badly, and he knew it.  Everything had been fine when he’d actually been fucking Spike.  That, he’d found easy― very easy.  It was the daylight.  It was the normal, everyday routine that had undone him.  Spike.  Spike!  He was fucking Spike.  Angel shook his head and wished he’d never left the bed.  It has all been so simple in that silent, warm place.

With a pout he went out into the lobby.  Spike was sitting on the counter, swinging his legs and watching the humans, looking as bored as it was possible to look and still be awake.  Wesley glanced up as Angel came in.  ‘You really don’t look good, Angel― even for a vampire.  Sleep badly?’

Angel ignored Spike’s small chuckle and felt how closely Wesley’s observation matched his own thoughts.  He nodded and said surprised, ‘Yeah.  I did.  In fact, I’m going back up.’

‘Do you need waking before tonight?’

Angel shook his head.  He walked toward the gap, passing Spike.  As he did, without looking at him, he trailed his finger over Spike’s legs.

Spike waited a decent amount of time, stretched and went nonchalantly up the stairs as well.

Angel was waiting impatiently for him, pacing.  He had taken off his shirt, and his pants were unfastened and loose around his waist.  He waited.  With a shrug, Spike lifted his T-shirt over his head and kicked off his jeans.  Angel dropped his pants and then climbed into bed.  He folded down a corner, and not catching Angel’s eye, Spike slid in alongside him.  He opened his mouth to say something, but Angel laid a finger over it, turned him and pulled him back into a tight spoon.

A few minutes passed then Spike said in a puzzled tone, ‘Sleep?’

Angel nodded against his back.

‘You actually got me up here to sleep?’

‘I’m tired.’

‘Well, why bloody ask me?’

Angel frowned.  ‘Shut up.’

‘Huh?’

‘Go to sleep.’

‘I’ve been asleep all bloody night!’

‘Do you have something better to do?’

Spike thought about this for a moment, pushed back slightly into the spoon and laughed in a low voice. ‘Nah.  Guess not.’

Angel sighed and fell into sleep― a place where it was very easy to understand what he was doing with Spike.

When he woke, Spike was lying alongside him, propped up on one elbow, watching him.  He did not stop watching him, even when he saw that Angel was returning the scrutiny.  

Angel pouted. Spike licked his lips and said softly, ‘Talk to me?’

Angel rolled onto his back and stretched, checking the window.  ‘It’ll be dark soon.’

‘Well, that’s not the opener I’d hoped for, but it’ll do.  Yes, Angel, it’ll be dark soon.’

Angel ignored the sarcasm.  ‘Get dressed― if you want to come tonight.’

Spike chuckled.  ‘If I didn’t know you better, I’d say there was one of those… double thingies… in there somewhere.’

‘Huh?’

‘You know.  Those things you say… oh, fuck off.  Jeez, you don’t change, do you Angelus?’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

‘Talking to you is like wading through bloody treacle. No― a minefield.  No, that’s too bloody exciting.  Treacle.  That’s too sweet though….’

‘What are you babbling about?’

Spike rolled onto his back and sighed deeply.  ‘I need to shut up.  I do this when I’m nervous.’

Angel sat up, folded his arms on his thighs and looked over at the naked figure lying alongside him.  ‘You’re… nervous.  Of me?’

Spike lolled his head over on the mattress to look at Angel.  ‘Of what you can do to me, yes.’

Angel frowned.  ‘You’re as strong as me― almost.  I don’t think I could….’

Spike suddenly levered himself off the bed. ‘Get a life, Angel.  Shit! How can you be so bloody old and so bloody stupid at the same time?’

He stomped out of the room, returned with a furious look and swept up his clothes, then stomped back out again.