Lover's Lock
Happy Christmas, Harlots! I'm cleaning out my archive of unposted ficlets.
This one takes place during "Lover's Walk" and involves Angel finding unconscious, drunk Spike and deciding to do something with him.
Lover’s Lock
The lovely oblivion of unconsciousness was slowly, throbbingly interrupted by what appeared to be an ax in Spike’s skull. He groaned and tried to reach for his head, but the rattle of chain and a hard metal cuff stopped him. The light was like knife-blades as he tried to blink his eyes open. He groaned, decided to just nod off again, but then the chains clanked and prevented him from rolling over.
Knowing it was a terrible idea, he opened his eyes. Self, bare to the waist, looking a bit thin, actually, black bedsheets, rusty old chains, big four poster bed, dark room… Angel was sitting in a chair against the wall, hands on his knees, watching him.
“Oh bugger,” Spike said. He was under the increasingly certain impression this was not a dream. He yanked harder on the chain binding his left hand. It held firm through five hard yanks, though he did get a little dust and plaster to fall from the wall anchor.
Angel walked to the bed and stood over Spike, looking down. Spike tried to smile. “Hello, Peaches. So, uh, you’re looking a lot less dusty than I was expecting. With the world still existing and all, I guess you came to your senses on that part? Kill the slayer, did you?” He batted his eyelashes and hoped he looked, well, not the sort to bash one’s sire on the back of the head and run off.
Angel stood there, silent, letting Spike squirm and wonder. Finally he reached down and touched Spike’s face. Spike flinched, but the touch was gentle. “You were passed out in my garden.”
“Uh, no hard feelings, right? I mean, over the whole… sucker punching? A bloke’s gotta do something when the world’s about to end. You’d be regretting it by now if I hadn’t stopped you.”
Angel sighed. He looked weary.
Spike squinted, trying to sit up against the bonds. “Wait a tick… you aren’t all… soul-having again?”
Angel walked back to his chair and sat down. He steepled his fingers and regarded Spike with a frown.
“Bloody hell, you are! Then what’s with the bondage show?” Spike shook his wrists. “Good guys don’t chain people up. Why not just stake me?”
“I can’t let you free,” Angel said. “You’ll kill people.”
“Um, don’t know if you’ve checked, but I’m a vampire, you tit. We kill people.” Spike fell back on the musty pillow. The goose down felt like concrete. “Christ but my head feels like a rotten watermelon. Hair of the dog wouldn’t go amiss.”
“I’m not going to give you whisky,” Angel said. It was the first thing he’d said with any inflection to it. Spike laughed in relief. At least the wanker wasn’t completely batshit. Angel stood over him again. “And I can’t have you making noise. I never know when Buffy might stop by. She doesn’t exactly call ahead.”
Spike noticed Angel had clenched one fist. “Um… so what are you proposing, mate? You can’t just keep me locked up forever.”
And that was when the fist hit his face. Angelus could punch, all right. It was, if anything, harder, more feral than usual. Spike cried out and felt cartilage separating in his sinuses. The bed rocked, the chains bit, he couldn’t escape the onslaught. Angel took hold of his shoulder and anchored his feet. It took three more punches before the sweet, sweet oblivion returned.
***
Angel didn’t know why Spike had turned up on his doorstep, dead drunk. He didn’t care why he had. The depth of how little he cared astounded him.
All he cared about was what to do next. The dark part of his mind, the part that never shut up about how TASTY everyone smelled, had a whole lot of ideas, most of which had been done not too long ago in this very house. He knew first hand the pleasures that could be pulled, screaming, from the helpless body before him. He even had some new ideas from his experience in Hell that he made his darkness cackle with glee.
Why did he have to feel guilty about Spike? Did he have to feel guilty about EVERYTHING?
Tight muscles under his hands, impotent rage just thrumming like electricity under the skin. The joy of knowing just where the numbness began and the sensation ended because he could squeeze a handful of flesh and know he really possessed it, didn’t share the sensation with anyone.
THAT part of Angel’s mind had felt like a starving hound, straining on its leash as he carried Spike into the bedroom and chastely chained him up, still clothed.
Okay, he’d taken the coat and the shirt off, and the boots, but he left Spike his jeans. Which he was half regretting and half liking because rough denim against bare flesh was hot.
…which was NOT something Angel was interested in, these days. Well, not in a non-consensual way. He wanted a lover who wanted him, who cared like he did, about doing good in the world. Someone like…
“Knock knock?” Buffy called from the living room.
Angel sighed, bit his lip, and threw a blanket over Spike’s unconscious form.
Buffy stood in the sunlight, a bag in hand. “Hey,” she said.
“Hey,” Angel said. He grimaced. He didn’t used to be so tongue-tied. “I was just… cleaning up.”
“Great,” Buffy said. “With some work this could go from abandoned evil lair to… not-evil lair.”
“Yeah, I’m going for a reformed-evil lair look. Or possibly art deco.”
Buffy bit her lower lip. She slid one hand into her own back pocket and that made her twist a little and it was adorable and sexy and Angel was thinking about smooth muscles and soft skin and lips.
Lips that were speaking. He blinked. “Huh?”
Buffy held up the bag. “Like I said, I can’t stay. Just dropping off the takeout. Gotta motor. We get our SAT scores this morning and Mom is anxiously awaiting. But I could stop by again later? After school?”
Angel took the bag and said, “Yeah, that’d be great,” before his brain caught up. Oh that would not be great. He watched her stride back out into the sun, ponytail bouncing.
So no, keeping Spike chained up indefinitely was probably not a good idea.
Angel sat down and drank the cold pig’s blood. It tasted of the Styrofoam it was kept in and penitence.
***
Spike tried his best NOT to wake up. Consciousness hurt, even more, because getting a concussion on top of a hangover was like razor blade sprinkles on his chainsaw sundae.
But there was really no denying it. He was nauseous with hunger, and he could smell blood - albeit not human. Something watered down and animal, overly clean like a butcher shop. Still it smelled like just the thing for the sharp agony in his skull. “Angel?”
The door opened, revealing Angel and diffuse sunlight. Angel’s shirt was open and he was holding a Styrofoam cup. Angel set the cup on the chair he’d sat in before and approached the bed. “I’ve decided what to do with you, Spike,” he said.
“Fan bloody tastic.”
Angel set one hand next to Spike’s rib cage. He set the other hand down on Spike’s sternum, and then he casually crawled onto the bed. Spike tried to keep calm. The last thing he needed was to reward the bastard with the scent of fear. Spike had learned not to anticipate, when he was in the wheelchair. Well, he’d tried to. Fear just goaded the old bastard on. Spike pretended the moment would stretch out forever and there was no future, no plan to those knees straddling his thighs, that hand sliding up to his neck.
Spike affected a bored tone. “So, what? You want to play cards?”
“Sh,” Angel said. He gripped Spike’s chin and turned his head to the side.
“Uh? Angel? Look, mate, I love a good mind fuck as much as - well, okay, nobody loves a mind fuck like you, but…”
Angel’s hair was softer than it looked, though bristly. Angel’s face bones changed, moved with that gentle crunch into place against Spike’s ear, and then the bite, the pain, with just a spark of pleasure, and he couldn’t stop himself from reacting. No, that would goad the bastard on even worse. Spike twisted his hips to try to dislodge him. “OW! That hurts, you berk!”
Angel growled, feral and low, and shook his head, tearing more skin, digging deep like he was chasing something under Spike’s collarbone. “Angelus! Ow. Stop. Ow. Angel?”
He didn’t stop. Sharp pains crept up Spike’s fingers and toes, into his limbs as they were drained. He started to feel tired, heavy… made of sand. The pain almost faded. “Liam?”
The last thing he was aware of was a snuffling, like a dog, licking the side of his face.
***
Blood. Spike came out of unconsciousness fangs-first this time, itching with the smell of freshly-spilled blood. His vision was dim, cloudy, and everything hurt, everything STUNG, like a thousand wasps crawling over him. No: through him. But there was the smell of blood and he strained toward it with whatever he had left.
Something fragile. Plastic. Straw. Splintering in his teeth, but the blood still came, got him back some sense.
“Ugh.” Spike fell back on a pillow that smelled of day-old vampire gore. He saw Angel, now, holding a cup with a straw. Spike raised his head again. He felt like he was stuck to the pillow. He probably was. Hair and pillow were caked in dried blood and adhered into one nasty scab.
Angel reached behind him, lifted his head for him, and Spike was NOT going to feel grateful for that, since the big pillock had put him in this position in the first place.
The blood was Angel’s. After half the mug was gone he was aware enough to realize that. It had that bland taste vampire blood got, like the spices and nutrients had been cooked out of it. Filling but not good for you. The junk food of the vampire world.
You could heal on vampire blood. It would keep you alive. But you wouldn’t get strong. Which was probably the point. Also, there was that bollocks about sire’s blood being magic. Sure, with the right ritual, he’d seen it work, but old sire’s tales abounded. Power of the blood. They absolutely fetishized the stuff. Some even believed…
Oh no. This wasn’t THAT, was it? The embarrassingly cliché “I bind you with my blood” bollocks? Spike chewed on the straw-end and pushed it out of his mouth. “Oi. I’m done. Wanker.”
Angel gently let his head down and moved the mug out of the way. He heard the soft sound of it touching the floor by the bed. Spike gave Angel all of a second to start talking. He didn’t. So Spike said, “What IS this, mate? What’s your plan, then?”
Angel turned Spike’s head, examining the wound on his neck. Spike hissed involuntarily - he felt like skin was tearing off onto the pillow.
He clenched his teeth and waited for the pain.
But Angel just let out a little growl - a somehow self-satisfied growl, and let go. “Drusilla dumped you again, did she?”
Fuck. He couldn’t stop the tears from welling. He sniffed them back and sneered. “Gonna hold my hand and tell me it’ll be all right?”
Angel ghosted his nose along the shell of Spike’s ear. His lips traced the curve of his neck, just close enough to brush the downy hairs. It was creepy and disturbing and unreasonably sensual. He paused over the bite marks and licked.
Spike twisted away from the gentle torture. “You’re gloating. What are you, twelve?”
Angel settled across Spike’s hips. “She never loved you, William.”
“How would you know? Wasn’t like you were around the past century, you sod.”
Angel slid his hands down Spike’s sides, stopping just above his jeans. “I know it’s hard,” he said. His blunt fingertips brushed inside Spike’s waistline.
Spike bucked, trying to dislodge the wanker. “You always were such a poof, Liam. Get off.”
Angel stroked once, one finger, slow across the lowest exposed skin on Spike’s belly, and then he got up. “You don’t have to be so alone,” he said.
“Sod off.”
Angel left the room.
Spike told himself he didn’t care. He was glad to be alone again.
It got dark. He got hungry. “Angel?”
He couldn’t tell if Angel were in the house.
Spike called after him for hours. His mouth got dry fast, and then his throat. There was just a sticky residue of blood in it.
When Angel re-appeared, some time the next day or the next, Spike wasn’t sure, he was too tired and hungry not to feel grateful. “Mate? If you don’t hate me just let me go, yeah? I’ll leave town.”
“Sh,” Angel said, and lifted his head, feeding him a cup of his own blood.
Spike let him. Hell, it was food. It wasn’t quite enough to take the edge off the hunger, though. As Angel moved the cup away, he said, “I know what you’re doing. It won’t work. Didn’t work last time, did it?”
“Sh,” Angel said, and almost lovingly bit down on the far side of Spike’s neck.
It repeated. On some schedule only Angel understood he would punch Spike until he blacked out, then come back and drain him, then come back and feed him.
Angel didn’t talk anymore. Spike tried insults, pleas, and even flattery.
Spike understood the blood bollocks. It was an old sire’s tale. A minion gets uppity, you drained them dry and fed them your own blood. It was supposed to make ‘em mind. Angelus had tried it twice on Spike and it never worked, but the old bugger was nothing if not thorough. No doubt the git thought he just had to repeat the process a few times to make it really, really work.
But why keep knocking him out? Spike’s head was whirling, never sure if he was going to get a punch or a caress.
The bed was getting nasty.
Spike tried pretending to be already asleep when he heard Angel coming the fourth (fifth?) time.
If his heart still moved, it would have been racing. He recited song lyrics in his head to keep from thinking, keep from breathing, keep from doing anything to reveal his wakefulness.
Twenty twenty twenty four hours to go-o-o…
Angel approached the bed. Angel walked back out.
Okay. Time to find out what the big secret was, if there was a secret and the old man wasn’t just bug-shagging after his wee apocalypse/resoulling/wheverthefuck.
Spike tried to track Angel’s movements through the house. Heard him light a fire. Smelled a whiff of whisky at one point that made his tongue want to crawl right out of his head, across the dirty carpet, and dive into that bottle. He could hear the slosh of liquid falling back into place as the bottle righted. How long had it been since his bender? He felt like he never recovered from that.
He waited.
So, you could still get MORE bored after two weeks tied to a bed. Spike tried to scratch an itch on his right shoulder by rolling it without making noise.
Someone else was there. Spike sat up, listening. A woman’s voice, faint. Angel’s baritone responding. Spike strained after the sound.
His opposite-side chain creaked. Angel might hear. “Bugger.” Oops. He said that a bit loud. He dropped back. The chain jangled. “Shit.”
Heavy footsteps. Angel threw the door open and stood there, breathing hard.
Spike gave him a smile. “Hullo, Peaches.”
He laughed at Angel’s expression. It was almost worth getting pounded - again - without the ability to respond in kind.
***
Buffy blinked in surprise. Angel had been acting more normal, but then he just suddenly ran off in the middle of a sentence. And she thought she heard… punches?
She started up the stairway after him, but slowly. Something inside her did not really want to find out what was up there.
Angel re-appeared at the top of the steps, shirt open and chest a little sweaty. “Sorry,” he said.
“What was THAT?”
He shrugged.
“Shrug? That’s the answer I get?” She climbed a few steps.
He met her and took hold of her arms. “I heard movement. I worried it was another vampire. Sorry. I’m still… jumpy.”
“Way with the understatement,” Buffy said, and frowned. There was blood on Angel’s knuckles.
Then she heard a moan. From somewhere behind Angel.
Angel stopped her with a hand on each arm. “It’s not what you think,” he said.
“Oh wow and now I’m thinking,” Buffy said.
The struggle was brief. Buffy slipped through Angel’s hands. She stopped at the top of the stairs, unsure which of the closed doors to go through, but there was another quiet sound and she followed it easily.
A bedroom all draped in red and black velvet, dominated by a giant four-poster bed, which was dominated by the pale form chained to it, white on dark sheets. His eyes were glistening blue slivers in puffy red sockets. His face was battered. His hair crusted with blood. But she could still recognize him. “Spike?” She whirled on Angel, hanging awkwardly in the doorway. “Why do you have Spike chained to a bed? Wait - why do you have SPIKE?”
“He just showed up here. And… he was drunk. So I thought…” Angel shrugged.
Buffy copied his shrug and waited a second for him to say more. He didn’t. “If you’re expecting me to fill in that thought, my brain is stuck on ‘what?’”
“He was harmless, unconscious. I didn’t want him to get away.”
“And chaining him to a bed was your first option?”
“The chains were there. Anyway, I didn’t want to have him around downstairs.”
“First off: eew. Second off: eew? Angel, these are not the points to be making. I’m arguing about vampire bondage and you’re talking like the problem was where to put him. Also, why did you take his clothes off?”
On the bed, Spike started to laugh. It ended in a cough, but it was more than Buffy thought he’d be capable of.
Angel looked pained. “Because of the blood. I’m draining him and feeding him back my blood. It’s an old vampire remedy for…” Angel coughed. “It’ll make him more tractable. It involves a lot of bleeding so I had to remove as much fabric as possible from the messy area.”
“Won’t work,” Spike said. His voice was really weak, practically a croak, but he still raised his head to add, “Dick.”
“You’re keeping Spike alive, but tied up, so you can work some weird vampire mojo to make him your, what? Best friend?”
Again with the laughing Spike. It sounded painful. It looked painful, his ribs shaking.
Angel tried to tug Buffy out of the room by her elbow, but she held her ground. He sighed. “I didn’t want to kill him, but I know I couldn’t just let him loose. At least this way, if it works, I can order him not to hurt anyone.”
Buffy approached the bed. Spike’s narrowed eyes followed her. He licked his lips when she got close. “Spike, what are you doing back in town? I thought we had an agreement.”
He chuckled, coughed, groaned, and after a particularly painful sounding gasp, rolled his eyes toward her. “Obviously, I’m an idiot. Gonna save me, Slayer?”
Angel stepped between Buffy and Spike. “I know it looks bad, but it really could work. Think how useful it would be to have another vampire fighting for good.”
“He doesn’t have a soul.”
“He won’t need one. Give me a month. To try.”
“No.”
Angel glanced back at Spike and then bent to look Buffy straight in the eye. “Are you really going to stake him while he’s helpless?”
Buffy rolled her eyes and pulled a stake out of her pocket. Angel stepped out of the way.
Spike was looking at her. Straining against his chains and his eyes straining open against their own swollen lids.
She’d killed vampires coming straight out of the dirt, who hadn’t even gotten free of their graves. How was this different? He was evil. A killer.
He was looking at her. Buffy lowered her hand and turned away. “A week. You get a week.”
***
Angel had always felt like two beings. There was the soul, and the soulless. The evil and the remorseful. But there had always been a third side to himself, and it was that part that got him through Hell. The animal. Simple, primal, strong. It transcended evil and good both. It was remorseless but also egoless. It just was.
That was the part that was enjoying feeding off Spike.
Angel knew he was making pleased grunts while he dug deep into the muscle of Spike’s shoulder. He’d switched to the other side to enjoy fresh, clean skin. It felt good against the roof of his mouth. There was just something about the feeling when you could dig your fangs all the way in to the root.
Spike moaned and shifted. The slide of his thigh between Angel’s legs lit a fire inside him and Angel had to hold himself very, very still to avoid humping the body beneath his.
Still, Spike managed to slit open one eye and grunt, “Poof.”
“Spike, I’m trying very hard to be kind.”
“By not killing or raping me. You’re all heart.”
Angel stroked Spike’s cheek. Spike turned away, jaw clenched. Angel sighed. “I want you to want this.”
How had Angel earned that hatred? That ticking muscle under Spike’s jaw? “Enjoy the wait. Slayer’s gonna come stake me in a week.”
“Don’t say that.”
“Well, if it bothers you so much you could, oh, I don’t know, let me the fuck go?”
“Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, William.”
“Wrong. That’s puns.”
Angel couldn’t help smiling. He hid it against Spike’s skin. The boy always could tell a good joke.
He was so hard, though. He ached. He and Buffy had been making out like teenagers, nothing below the waist, not even…
Angel bit his lip and again tried to hold very, very still.
Spike sighed. “Just bloody do it. Your chastity routine is killing me.”
Angel groaned. He’d cut Spike’s jeans away when he’d washed him and his legs were so smooth, downy, pleasant against Angel’s. Angel had undressed for neatness’ sake himself. It was just to be neat. And because time was short now.
Angel licked the fresh wound until the blood stopped seeping. He felt Spike quiver and smelled faint arousal. He turned Spike’s face toward his own. “I want you, but not without permission. Do you understand?”
“Oh you are too bloody funny, you know that?”
“So you seriously would never say yes?” Angel let his hands wander down Spike’s body. He tickled the base of his semi-hard cock. “I seem to recall you didn’t mind, once.”
“ONCE. And you made sure I regretted it.”
Despite that, Angel could feel Spike’s cock filling in his hand as he worked his fingers up and down. The boy was always responsive, especially when hungry, and after feeding on nothing but Angel’s blood, Angel himself should smell like food to him. Like the source of all things. “Please?”
“I’ve waited this long, I can wait a week. Let me go or watch me die.”
“Come on, Spike - what do you want?”
“Um, oh I don’t know… a fifth of jack? My freedom?”
Angel kissed his jawline, up to the ear. “I’ll give you whatever you want, if you say yes.”
“Freedom?”
Except that, of course, but Angel licked Spike’s lips until he gave in and opened up. Spike kissed back hard, like fighting.
“Please?” Angel flexed his hips. The friction was glorious.
Spike looked wary. He smelled wary. He wasn’t trying to hide his feelings anymore. That was a good sign. Angel bit his lower lip and waited.
Spike closed his eyes and relaxed. “Fine.”
“I need you to say it, Spike. Say it clearly.”
“Yes, Liam, you may fuck me. Please go right ahead and then let me go. I even promise not to kill anyone on my way out.”
Angel wanted to wriggle like a kid on Christmas morning. (So delicious and tender!) He kissed Spike and this time Spike kissed back in earnest, half surrendering, half pushing back. At last Angel was able to feel comfortable settling between those sweet legs. He touched his own hungry dick and nearly shot his load then and there.
“Uh… Liam? You are going to use lube this time, right? People with souls use lube. Or so I’m told.”
“You’ll be fine,” Angel said, and pushed his thumb into Spike, opening him up as quickly as possible.
It was hard, rough, burning. It was just like Hell and a part of Angel really missed that.
Spike’s adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed his screams. Angel bit it. “Come on, baby, let it out. Don’t be silent.” He pressed tight, savoring the moment of being fully sheathed in flesh, even though he wanted to fuck hard and fast. He savored his own delayed gratification.
Spike snarled and bit at Angel’s lips as they kissed again. There was blood in the air, now, not just Angel’s, and it made him frantic.
You didn’t linger in Hell. Your back was exposed. The fear touched his spine. It tripped an animal hunger. He snarled, too. So tight, so hard, so violent, so crashing so so so
Sparks danced across Angel’s vision as he came. He scrambled with his feet, trying to press even farther up into that sweet channel and he let go the bite he was clenching. Blood was all over his mouth and the bed and Spike’s unconscious form.
Angel groaned. He’d JUST cleaned him.
***
Deep down, Spike knew Angel wouldn’t let him go. He hated himself for giving in just to shut the bugger up. He hadn’t expected it to be so quick and savage.
Maybe the lout would feel guilty about it.
Spike felt like he had a fever. Angel dutifully cleaned him and fed him - sire’s blood of course. Did he have a drop in him that hadn’t been through Angel first?
Angel took the sheets off the bed, tugging them away under Spike. The mattress felt cool and clean in comparison, though it was certainly stained through.
Then Angel kissed his wounds. Licked down Spike’s body and up his thighs. Angel nuzzled between his legs, his hair tickling Spike’s dick.
“What ARE you doing down there?” Spike asked, giving up his promise to not talk to the bastard.
Then there was a delicate lick, and oh damn that felt lovely. Spike sighed and mused that it was good he had no self-respect and could enjoy this.
Angel teased and nibbled, intense and soothing sensations that relaxed and heated Spike in equal measure.
Soon little Spike was standing at full attention, glistening eagerly and Spike was fighting the chains. An eternity later, Angel lifted his head to lick the shaft, one long, lazy lick to the tip and Spike made a strangled cry.
Angel smirked at him, and then reached down and undid the cuff on Spike’s ankle. Spike immediately flexed his leg, feeling the knee creak and pop. Angel picked up his foot and massaged it while he kissed the inside of Spike’s thigh. Then he turned and undid the other ankle.
Spike knew he looked gobsmacked. “The old blighter has a soul after all,” he said, as Angel massaged the pins and needles from his calves and nipped at the tender flesh of his instep.
“Don’t joke about that,” Angel said, and set Spike’s leg down. He crawled up between Spike’s raised knees and kissed the tip of his cock. “I’m sorry, Spike. I got carried away.”
It was the “Spike” that made his heart melt, made him think the old git really had changed, made him wrap his newly-freed legs around his captor and kiss his mouth hungrily.
It was slow, this time, comfortable, easy. Like falling into a bad habit. Spike didn’t even mind that Angel waited to undo the wrists until after.
***
He’d left the door open. Angel couldn’t believe he’d been so foolish. He tried to keep his eyes on his book, not to look at the door, to draw attention to it, but Spike walked to it, anyway, and looked out at the garden. The stone path where Angel had first found him.
And then Spike turned around and walked back to the sofa. Angel’s fist unclenched. He knew it would work. Sire’s blood might not bind people, but Stolkholm Syndrome always did.
This one takes place during "Lover's Walk" and involves Angel finding unconscious, drunk Spike and deciding to do something with him.
Lover’s Lock
The lovely oblivion of unconsciousness was slowly, throbbingly interrupted by what appeared to be an ax in Spike’s skull. He groaned and tried to reach for his head, but the rattle of chain and a hard metal cuff stopped him. The light was like knife-blades as he tried to blink his eyes open. He groaned, decided to just nod off again, but then the chains clanked and prevented him from rolling over.
Knowing it was a terrible idea, he opened his eyes. Self, bare to the waist, looking a bit thin, actually, black bedsheets, rusty old chains, big four poster bed, dark room… Angel was sitting in a chair against the wall, hands on his knees, watching him.
“Oh bugger,” Spike said. He was under the increasingly certain impression this was not a dream. He yanked harder on the chain binding his left hand. It held firm through five hard yanks, though he did get a little dust and plaster to fall from the wall anchor.
Angel walked to the bed and stood over Spike, looking down. Spike tried to smile. “Hello, Peaches. So, uh, you’re looking a lot less dusty than I was expecting. With the world still existing and all, I guess you came to your senses on that part? Kill the slayer, did you?” He batted his eyelashes and hoped he looked, well, not the sort to bash one’s sire on the back of the head and run off.
Angel stood there, silent, letting Spike squirm and wonder. Finally he reached down and touched Spike’s face. Spike flinched, but the touch was gentle. “You were passed out in my garden.”
“Uh, no hard feelings, right? I mean, over the whole… sucker punching? A bloke’s gotta do something when the world’s about to end. You’d be regretting it by now if I hadn’t stopped you.”
Angel sighed. He looked weary.
Spike squinted, trying to sit up against the bonds. “Wait a tick… you aren’t all… soul-having again?”
Angel walked back to his chair and sat down. He steepled his fingers and regarded Spike with a frown.
“Bloody hell, you are! Then what’s with the bondage show?” Spike shook his wrists. “Good guys don’t chain people up. Why not just stake me?”
“I can’t let you free,” Angel said. “You’ll kill people.”
“Um, don’t know if you’ve checked, but I’m a vampire, you tit. We kill people.” Spike fell back on the musty pillow. The goose down felt like concrete. “Christ but my head feels like a rotten watermelon. Hair of the dog wouldn’t go amiss.”
“I’m not going to give you whisky,” Angel said. It was the first thing he’d said with any inflection to it. Spike laughed in relief. At least the wanker wasn’t completely batshit. Angel stood over him again. “And I can’t have you making noise. I never know when Buffy might stop by. She doesn’t exactly call ahead.”
Spike noticed Angel had clenched one fist. “Um… so what are you proposing, mate? You can’t just keep me locked up forever.”
And that was when the fist hit his face. Angelus could punch, all right. It was, if anything, harder, more feral than usual. Spike cried out and felt cartilage separating in his sinuses. The bed rocked, the chains bit, he couldn’t escape the onslaught. Angel took hold of his shoulder and anchored his feet. It took three more punches before the sweet, sweet oblivion returned.
***
Angel didn’t know why Spike had turned up on his doorstep, dead drunk. He didn’t care why he had. The depth of how little he cared astounded him.
All he cared about was what to do next. The dark part of his mind, the part that never shut up about how TASTY everyone smelled, had a whole lot of ideas, most of which had been done not too long ago in this very house. He knew first hand the pleasures that could be pulled, screaming, from the helpless body before him. He even had some new ideas from his experience in Hell that he made his darkness cackle with glee.
Why did he have to feel guilty about Spike? Did he have to feel guilty about EVERYTHING?
Tight muscles under his hands, impotent rage just thrumming like electricity under the skin. The joy of knowing just where the numbness began and the sensation ended because he could squeeze a handful of flesh and know he really possessed it, didn’t share the sensation with anyone.
THAT part of Angel’s mind had felt like a starving hound, straining on its leash as he carried Spike into the bedroom and chastely chained him up, still clothed.
Okay, he’d taken the coat and the shirt off, and the boots, but he left Spike his jeans. Which he was half regretting and half liking because rough denim against bare flesh was hot.
…which was NOT something Angel was interested in, these days. Well, not in a non-consensual way. He wanted a lover who wanted him, who cared like he did, about doing good in the world. Someone like…
“Knock knock?” Buffy called from the living room.
Angel sighed, bit his lip, and threw a blanket over Spike’s unconscious form.
Buffy stood in the sunlight, a bag in hand. “Hey,” she said.
“Hey,” Angel said. He grimaced. He didn’t used to be so tongue-tied. “I was just… cleaning up.”
“Great,” Buffy said. “With some work this could go from abandoned evil lair to… not-evil lair.”
“Yeah, I’m going for a reformed-evil lair look. Or possibly art deco.”
Buffy bit her lower lip. She slid one hand into her own back pocket and that made her twist a little and it was adorable and sexy and Angel was thinking about smooth muscles and soft skin and lips.
Lips that were speaking. He blinked. “Huh?”
Buffy held up the bag. “Like I said, I can’t stay. Just dropping off the takeout. Gotta motor. We get our SAT scores this morning and Mom is anxiously awaiting. But I could stop by again later? After school?”
Angel took the bag and said, “Yeah, that’d be great,” before his brain caught up. Oh that would not be great. He watched her stride back out into the sun, ponytail bouncing.
So no, keeping Spike chained up indefinitely was probably not a good idea.
Angel sat down and drank the cold pig’s blood. It tasted of the Styrofoam it was kept in and penitence.
***
Spike tried his best NOT to wake up. Consciousness hurt, even more, because getting a concussion on top of a hangover was like razor blade sprinkles on his chainsaw sundae.
But there was really no denying it. He was nauseous with hunger, and he could smell blood - albeit not human. Something watered down and animal, overly clean like a butcher shop. Still it smelled like just the thing for the sharp agony in his skull. “Angel?”
The door opened, revealing Angel and diffuse sunlight. Angel’s shirt was open and he was holding a Styrofoam cup. Angel set the cup on the chair he’d sat in before and approached the bed. “I’ve decided what to do with you, Spike,” he said.
“Fan bloody tastic.”
Angel set one hand next to Spike’s rib cage. He set the other hand down on Spike’s sternum, and then he casually crawled onto the bed. Spike tried to keep calm. The last thing he needed was to reward the bastard with the scent of fear. Spike had learned not to anticipate, when he was in the wheelchair. Well, he’d tried to. Fear just goaded the old bastard on. Spike pretended the moment would stretch out forever and there was no future, no plan to those knees straddling his thighs, that hand sliding up to his neck.
Spike affected a bored tone. “So, what? You want to play cards?”
“Sh,” Angel said. He gripped Spike’s chin and turned his head to the side.
“Uh? Angel? Look, mate, I love a good mind fuck as much as - well, okay, nobody loves a mind fuck like you, but…”
Angel’s hair was softer than it looked, though bristly. Angel’s face bones changed, moved with that gentle crunch into place against Spike’s ear, and then the bite, the pain, with just a spark of pleasure, and he couldn’t stop himself from reacting. No, that would goad the bastard on even worse. Spike twisted his hips to try to dislodge him. “OW! That hurts, you berk!”
Angel growled, feral and low, and shook his head, tearing more skin, digging deep like he was chasing something under Spike’s collarbone. “Angelus! Ow. Stop. Ow. Angel?”
He didn’t stop. Sharp pains crept up Spike’s fingers and toes, into his limbs as they were drained. He started to feel tired, heavy… made of sand. The pain almost faded. “Liam?”
The last thing he was aware of was a snuffling, like a dog, licking the side of his face.
***
Blood. Spike came out of unconsciousness fangs-first this time, itching with the smell of freshly-spilled blood. His vision was dim, cloudy, and everything hurt, everything STUNG, like a thousand wasps crawling over him. No: through him. But there was the smell of blood and he strained toward it with whatever he had left.
Something fragile. Plastic. Straw. Splintering in his teeth, but the blood still came, got him back some sense.
“Ugh.” Spike fell back on a pillow that smelled of day-old vampire gore. He saw Angel, now, holding a cup with a straw. Spike raised his head again. He felt like he was stuck to the pillow. He probably was. Hair and pillow were caked in dried blood and adhered into one nasty scab.
Angel reached behind him, lifted his head for him, and Spike was NOT going to feel grateful for that, since the big pillock had put him in this position in the first place.
The blood was Angel’s. After half the mug was gone he was aware enough to realize that. It had that bland taste vampire blood got, like the spices and nutrients had been cooked out of it. Filling but not good for you. The junk food of the vampire world.
You could heal on vampire blood. It would keep you alive. But you wouldn’t get strong. Which was probably the point. Also, there was that bollocks about sire’s blood being magic. Sure, with the right ritual, he’d seen it work, but old sire’s tales abounded. Power of the blood. They absolutely fetishized the stuff. Some even believed…
Oh no. This wasn’t THAT, was it? The embarrassingly cliché “I bind you with my blood” bollocks? Spike chewed on the straw-end and pushed it out of his mouth. “Oi. I’m done. Wanker.”
Angel gently let his head down and moved the mug out of the way. He heard the soft sound of it touching the floor by the bed. Spike gave Angel all of a second to start talking. He didn’t. So Spike said, “What IS this, mate? What’s your plan, then?”
Angel turned Spike’s head, examining the wound on his neck. Spike hissed involuntarily - he felt like skin was tearing off onto the pillow.
He clenched his teeth and waited for the pain.
But Angel just let out a little growl - a somehow self-satisfied growl, and let go. “Drusilla dumped you again, did she?”
Fuck. He couldn’t stop the tears from welling. He sniffed them back and sneered. “Gonna hold my hand and tell me it’ll be all right?”
Angel ghosted his nose along the shell of Spike’s ear. His lips traced the curve of his neck, just close enough to brush the downy hairs. It was creepy and disturbing and unreasonably sensual. He paused over the bite marks and licked.
Spike twisted away from the gentle torture. “You’re gloating. What are you, twelve?”
Angel settled across Spike’s hips. “She never loved you, William.”
“How would you know? Wasn’t like you were around the past century, you sod.”
Angel slid his hands down Spike’s sides, stopping just above his jeans. “I know it’s hard,” he said. His blunt fingertips brushed inside Spike’s waistline.
Spike bucked, trying to dislodge the wanker. “You always were such a poof, Liam. Get off.”
Angel stroked once, one finger, slow across the lowest exposed skin on Spike’s belly, and then he got up. “You don’t have to be so alone,” he said.
“Sod off.”
Angel left the room.
Spike told himself he didn’t care. He was glad to be alone again.
It got dark. He got hungry. “Angel?”
He couldn’t tell if Angel were in the house.
Spike called after him for hours. His mouth got dry fast, and then his throat. There was just a sticky residue of blood in it.
When Angel re-appeared, some time the next day or the next, Spike wasn’t sure, he was too tired and hungry not to feel grateful. “Mate? If you don’t hate me just let me go, yeah? I’ll leave town.”
“Sh,” Angel said, and lifted his head, feeding him a cup of his own blood.
Spike let him. Hell, it was food. It wasn’t quite enough to take the edge off the hunger, though. As Angel moved the cup away, he said, “I know what you’re doing. It won’t work. Didn’t work last time, did it?”
“Sh,” Angel said, and almost lovingly bit down on the far side of Spike’s neck.
It repeated. On some schedule only Angel understood he would punch Spike until he blacked out, then come back and drain him, then come back and feed him.
Angel didn’t talk anymore. Spike tried insults, pleas, and even flattery.
Spike understood the blood bollocks. It was an old sire’s tale. A minion gets uppity, you drained them dry and fed them your own blood. It was supposed to make ‘em mind. Angelus had tried it twice on Spike and it never worked, but the old bugger was nothing if not thorough. No doubt the git thought he just had to repeat the process a few times to make it really, really work.
But why keep knocking him out? Spike’s head was whirling, never sure if he was going to get a punch or a caress.
The bed was getting nasty.
Spike tried pretending to be already asleep when he heard Angel coming the fourth (fifth?) time.
If his heart still moved, it would have been racing. He recited song lyrics in his head to keep from thinking, keep from breathing, keep from doing anything to reveal his wakefulness.
Twenty twenty twenty four hours to go-o-o…
Angel approached the bed. Angel walked back out.
Okay. Time to find out what the big secret was, if there was a secret and the old man wasn’t just bug-shagging after his wee apocalypse/resoulling/wheverthefuck.
Spike tried to track Angel’s movements through the house. Heard him light a fire. Smelled a whiff of whisky at one point that made his tongue want to crawl right out of his head, across the dirty carpet, and dive into that bottle. He could hear the slosh of liquid falling back into place as the bottle righted. How long had it been since his bender? He felt like he never recovered from that.
He waited.
So, you could still get MORE bored after two weeks tied to a bed. Spike tried to scratch an itch on his right shoulder by rolling it without making noise.
Someone else was there. Spike sat up, listening. A woman’s voice, faint. Angel’s baritone responding. Spike strained after the sound.
His opposite-side chain creaked. Angel might hear. “Bugger.” Oops. He said that a bit loud. He dropped back. The chain jangled. “Shit.”
Heavy footsteps. Angel threw the door open and stood there, breathing hard.
Spike gave him a smile. “Hullo, Peaches.”
He laughed at Angel’s expression. It was almost worth getting pounded - again - without the ability to respond in kind.
***
Buffy blinked in surprise. Angel had been acting more normal, but then he just suddenly ran off in the middle of a sentence. And she thought she heard… punches?
She started up the stairway after him, but slowly. Something inside her did not really want to find out what was up there.
Angel re-appeared at the top of the steps, shirt open and chest a little sweaty. “Sorry,” he said.
“What was THAT?”
He shrugged.
“Shrug? That’s the answer I get?” She climbed a few steps.
He met her and took hold of her arms. “I heard movement. I worried it was another vampire. Sorry. I’m still… jumpy.”
“Way with the understatement,” Buffy said, and frowned. There was blood on Angel’s knuckles.
Then she heard a moan. From somewhere behind Angel.
Angel stopped her with a hand on each arm. “It’s not what you think,” he said.
“Oh wow and now I’m thinking,” Buffy said.
The struggle was brief. Buffy slipped through Angel’s hands. She stopped at the top of the stairs, unsure which of the closed doors to go through, but there was another quiet sound and she followed it easily.
A bedroom all draped in red and black velvet, dominated by a giant four-poster bed, which was dominated by the pale form chained to it, white on dark sheets. His eyes were glistening blue slivers in puffy red sockets. His face was battered. His hair crusted with blood. But she could still recognize him. “Spike?” She whirled on Angel, hanging awkwardly in the doorway. “Why do you have Spike chained to a bed? Wait - why do you have SPIKE?”
“He just showed up here. And… he was drunk. So I thought…” Angel shrugged.
Buffy copied his shrug and waited a second for him to say more. He didn’t. “If you’re expecting me to fill in that thought, my brain is stuck on ‘what?’”
“He was harmless, unconscious. I didn’t want him to get away.”
“And chaining him to a bed was your first option?”
“The chains were there. Anyway, I didn’t want to have him around downstairs.”
“First off: eew. Second off: eew? Angel, these are not the points to be making. I’m arguing about vampire bondage and you’re talking like the problem was where to put him. Also, why did you take his clothes off?”
On the bed, Spike started to laugh. It ended in a cough, but it was more than Buffy thought he’d be capable of.
Angel looked pained. “Because of the blood. I’m draining him and feeding him back my blood. It’s an old vampire remedy for…” Angel coughed. “It’ll make him more tractable. It involves a lot of bleeding so I had to remove as much fabric as possible from the messy area.”
“Won’t work,” Spike said. His voice was really weak, practically a croak, but he still raised his head to add, “Dick.”
“You’re keeping Spike alive, but tied up, so you can work some weird vampire mojo to make him your, what? Best friend?”
Again with the laughing Spike. It sounded painful. It looked painful, his ribs shaking.
Angel tried to tug Buffy out of the room by her elbow, but she held her ground. He sighed. “I didn’t want to kill him, but I know I couldn’t just let him loose. At least this way, if it works, I can order him not to hurt anyone.”
Buffy approached the bed. Spike’s narrowed eyes followed her. He licked his lips when she got close. “Spike, what are you doing back in town? I thought we had an agreement.”
He chuckled, coughed, groaned, and after a particularly painful sounding gasp, rolled his eyes toward her. “Obviously, I’m an idiot. Gonna save me, Slayer?”
Angel stepped between Buffy and Spike. “I know it looks bad, but it really could work. Think how useful it would be to have another vampire fighting for good.”
“He doesn’t have a soul.”
“He won’t need one. Give me a month. To try.”
“No.”
Angel glanced back at Spike and then bent to look Buffy straight in the eye. “Are you really going to stake him while he’s helpless?”
Buffy rolled her eyes and pulled a stake out of her pocket. Angel stepped out of the way.
Spike was looking at her. Straining against his chains and his eyes straining open against their own swollen lids.
She’d killed vampires coming straight out of the dirt, who hadn’t even gotten free of their graves. How was this different? He was evil. A killer.
He was looking at her. Buffy lowered her hand and turned away. “A week. You get a week.”
***
Angel had always felt like two beings. There was the soul, and the soulless. The evil and the remorseful. But there had always been a third side to himself, and it was that part that got him through Hell. The animal. Simple, primal, strong. It transcended evil and good both. It was remorseless but also egoless. It just was.
That was the part that was enjoying feeding off Spike.
Angel knew he was making pleased grunts while he dug deep into the muscle of Spike’s shoulder. He’d switched to the other side to enjoy fresh, clean skin. It felt good against the roof of his mouth. There was just something about the feeling when you could dig your fangs all the way in to the root.
Spike moaned and shifted. The slide of his thigh between Angel’s legs lit a fire inside him and Angel had to hold himself very, very still to avoid humping the body beneath his.
Still, Spike managed to slit open one eye and grunt, “Poof.”
“Spike, I’m trying very hard to be kind.”
“By not killing or raping me. You’re all heart.”
Angel stroked Spike’s cheek. Spike turned away, jaw clenched. Angel sighed. “I want you to want this.”
How had Angel earned that hatred? That ticking muscle under Spike’s jaw? “Enjoy the wait. Slayer’s gonna come stake me in a week.”
“Don’t say that.”
“Well, if it bothers you so much you could, oh, I don’t know, let me the fuck go?”
“Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, William.”
“Wrong. That’s puns.”
Angel couldn’t help smiling. He hid it against Spike’s skin. The boy always could tell a good joke.
He was so hard, though. He ached. He and Buffy had been making out like teenagers, nothing below the waist, not even…
Angel bit his lip and again tried to hold very, very still.
Spike sighed. “Just bloody do it. Your chastity routine is killing me.”
Angel groaned. He’d cut Spike’s jeans away when he’d washed him and his legs were so smooth, downy, pleasant against Angel’s. Angel had undressed for neatness’ sake himself. It was just to be neat. And because time was short now.
Angel licked the fresh wound until the blood stopped seeping. He felt Spike quiver and smelled faint arousal. He turned Spike’s face toward his own. “I want you, but not without permission. Do you understand?”
“Oh you are too bloody funny, you know that?”
“So you seriously would never say yes?” Angel let his hands wander down Spike’s body. He tickled the base of his semi-hard cock. “I seem to recall you didn’t mind, once.”
“ONCE. And you made sure I regretted it.”
Despite that, Angel could feel Spike’s cock filling in his hand as he worked his fingers up and down. The boy was always responsive, especially when hungry, and after feeding on nothing but Angel’s blood, Angel himself should smell like food to him. Like the source of all things. “Please?”
“I’ve waited this long, I can wait a week. Let me go or watch me die.”
“Come on, Spike - what do you want?”
“Um, oh I don’t know… a fifth of jack? My freedom?”
Angel kissed his jawline, up to the ear. “I’ll give you whatever you want, if you say yes.”
“Freedom?”
Except that, of course, but Angel licked Spike’s lips until he gave in and opened up. Spike kissed back hard, like fighting.
“Please?” Angel flexed his hips. The friction was glorious.
Spike looked wary. He smelled wary. He wasn’t trying to hide his feelings anymore. That was a good sign. Angel bit his lower lip and waited.
Spike closed his eyes and relaxed. “Fine.”
“I need you to say it, Spike. Say it clearly.”
“Yes, Liam, you may fuck me. Please go right ahead and then let me go. I even promise not to kill anyone on my way out.”
Angel wanted to wriggle like a kid on Christmas morning. (So delicious and tender!) He kissed Spike and this time Spike kissed back in earnest, half surrendering, half pushing back. At last Angel was able to feel comfortable settling between those sweet legs. He touched his own hungry dick and nearly shot his load then and there.
“Uh… Liam? You are going to use lube this time, right? People with souls use lube. Or so I’m told.”
“You’ll be fine,” Angel said, and pushed his thumb into Spike, opening him up as quickly as possible.
It was hard, rough, burning. It was just like Hell and a part of Angel really missed that.
Spike’s adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed his screams. Angel bit it. “Come on, baby, let it out. Don’t be silent.” He pressed tight, savoring the moment of being fully sheathed in flesh, even though he wanted to fuck hard and fast. He savored his own delayed gratification.
Spike snarled and bit at Angel’s lips as they kissed again. There was blood in the air, now, not just Angel’s, and it made him frantic.
You didn’t linger in Hell. Your back was exposed. The fear touched his spine. It tripped an animal hunger. He snarled, too. So tight, so hard, so violent, so crashing so so so
Sparks danced across Angel’s vision as he came. He scrambled with his feet, trying to press even farther up into that sweet channel and he let go the bite he was clenching. Blood was all over his mouth and the bed and Spike’s unconscious form.
Angel groaned. He’d JUST cleaned him.
***
Deep down, Spike knew Angel wouldn’t let him go. He hated himself for giving in just to shut the bugger up. He hadn’t expected it to be so quick and savage.
Maybe the lout would feel guilty about it.
Spike felt like he had a fever. Angel dutifully cleaned him and fed him - sire’s blood of course. Did he have a drop in him that hadn’t been through Angel first?
Angel took the sheets off the bed, tugging them away under Spike. The mattress felt cool and clean in comparison, though it was certainly stained through.
Then Angel kissed his wounds. Licked down Spike’s body and up his thighs. Angel nuzzled between his legs, his hair tickling Spike’s dick.
“What ARE you doing down there?” Spike asked, giving up his promise to not talk to the bastard.
Then there was a delicate lick, and oh damn that felt lovely. Spike sighed and mused that it was good he had no self-respect and could enjoy this.
Angel teased and nibbled, intense and soothing sensations that relaxed and heated Spike in equal measure.
Soon little Spike was standing at full attention, glistening eagerly and Spike was fighting the chains. An eternity later, Angel lifted his head to lick the shaft, one long, lazy lick to the tip and Spike made a strangled cry.
Angel smirked at him, and then reached down and undid the cuff on Spike’s ankle. Spike immediately flexed his leg, feeling the knee creak and pop. Angel picked up his foot and massaged it while he kissed the inside of Spike’s thigh. Then he turned and undid the other ankle.
Spike knew he looked gobsmacked. “The old blighter has a soul after all,” he said, as Angel massaged the pins and needles from his calves and nipped at the tender flesh of his instep.
“Don’t joke about that,” Angel said, and set Spike’s leg down. He crawled up between Spike’s raised knees and kissed the tip of his cock. “I’m sorry, Spike. I got carried away.”
It was the “Spike” that made his heart melt, made him think the old git really had changed, made him wrap his newly-freed legs around his captor and kiss his mouth hungrily.
It was slow, this time, comfortable, easy. Like falling into a bad habit. Spike didn’t even mind that Angel waited to undo the wrists until after.
***
He’d left the door open. Angel couldn’t believe he’d been so foolish. He tried to keep his eyes on his book, not to look at the door, to draw attention to it, but Spike walked to it, anyway, and looked out at the garden. The stone path where Angel had first found him.
And then Spike turned around and walked back to the sofa. Angel’s fist unclenched. He knew it would work. Sire’s blood might not bind people, but Stolkholm Syndrome always did.