FIC: Never Get The Girls (Angel/Spike)
Author: lettered
Title: Never Get The Girls
Pairing(s): Angelus/William, Angel/Soulless!Spike, Angelus/Souled!Spike, Angel/Souled!Spike
Summary: Four scenes, very loosely linked, mostly by sex and violence.
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: No copyright infringement is intended.
Warning(s): Elements of non-con/dub-con, violence, violent sex, a distinct lack of lube at times, non-ritualized BDSM, cigarette burns, graphic description of burns, dirty talk, not just in the good way-I mean some really offensive language, daddy kink, rimming, oral sex, anal sex, knife play, blood, character death--not very central/graphic
Word Count: around 9,000
Author's Notes: Thank you to
lynnenne for discussing ideas with me.
Please, please, please please do read the warnings.
Never Get the Girls
*
London, 1880
“You still think she’s your one true love,” Angelus said.
“Are you going to give me the speech again?” said William.
“Speech?”
“’She’s not mine,’ ‘I don’t deserve anything,’ et cetera, et cetera. You know, sometimes I worry about your self-confidence.”
“I wouldn’t worry, if I were you.”
In the three days since he had watched Angelus fuck Drusilla, William had entered an awkward adolescent phase, his speech changing pattern, his clothes changing texture. Angelus looked at him and thought of Penn, and wondered whether it was possible to bend or break a vampire.
Little girls, after all, were just so easy.
“She cried like a little girl,” Angelus said, “when I put it to her.”
“Yes, good on you,” William said. “You have a simply massive cock; you should be proud, I’m sure.”
Angelus watched him for a while. William sat at the window, looking out, precariously close to the sunshine pouring between the curtains. His arms were wrapped around his knees, a boyish pose; his hair still hung in honey curls. It was almost a pity, Angelus thought, never to have seen sunlight in it.
“I’m thinking of getting her a wee little sailor boy.” William turned back to him. “What do you think of that?”
“Her tastes tend lately toward fops.”
“Do they?” William might once have taken offence. Now he simply smiled in a way that he was learning, which looked almost like a smirk. Angelus liked it less. “Lost her bent for the working man, has she? You know, the Lord Nelson types, common sorts raised above their birth and that rot.”
Angelus waved a hand. It bore the callouses he had had in life; the wrist was clad in silk. “Horatio was a fecking ball-bag.”
William rolled his eyes. “And you knew Byron, too.”
“Of course.” Angelus lounged, legs up. Young William still had not quite got over gentlemen in relaxed attitude, just as he had not quite conquered the thrill of tearing petticoats to shreds. Knowing the effect it had, Angelus let one boot fall to the floor so that his thighs were spread. “He wasn’t dangerous to know at all.”
William’s eyes darkened. He licked his lips and changed the subject. “Perhaps I’ll fetch Dru a poet. We’re approaching St. Valentine’s Day.”
“I thought she had one.” Angelus used that same silky tone.
“Oh, I’m all through with that. Didn’t you know?”
“Run out of rhymes, did you?”
“No. I just don’t need them.” William inclined his head. “Why bother with poetry, when I have everything a poet could ever wish for?”
“I never took you for a philistine.”
William’s eyes measured him a while, a specific invitation, a challenge. Deliberately, he turned back to the window. “I have everything I need.”
Angelus put his other boot on the floor, and stood. Walking to the window, he stopped in front of William, by the edge of light. “Everything?”
Slowly William stood, looking up with that same challenge in his eyes, batting in pretty, light-colored lashes. “Absolutely.”
“True love,” Angelus said, touching William’s cravat. His hand wandered down the frock-coat, brushing buttons, sinking lower to the trousers. “Happily ever after.”
“Soul-mates.”
Angelus’s thumb pressed against the placket of William’s trousers, finding the line of his cock, heavy and hard. He leaned down, his lips against William’s hair. “We don’t have souls.”
William swayed toward him, almost imperceptibly. “Makes it even more impressive. Don’t you think?”
“No.” Angelus’s thumb slid down the hard ridge of his cock. “It makes you a fool.”
William angled his hips, a very small amount, pressing into Angelus’s hand. “Is this foolish?”
“Yes,” Angelus said, and pushed him into the light.
William, who had been ready for it, brought his knee up hard between Angelus’s legs. Staggering in sudden pain, Angelus lunged for William, foot catching on his, going down hard. In moments, William was on top of him in a maneuver Angelus had taught him, and his hips were grinding down. “You don’t think poets dream of this?” William said, breathless despite the air he did not need.
“No,” said Angelus, and pushed him off. Rolling, they switched positions, Angelus now on top. “Well,” he said, “maybe Byron.”
“You think I care if you tup her?” Under him, William lifted his hips. “I let you tup me all the time. Hell, I tup-”
“Say, ‘fuck,’” Angelus said, leaning down to speak into the shell of William’s ear. “I like the way your lips look around it.”
“It doesn’t mean we love you.”
Angelus pulled back and punched him in the face. They rolled around on the floor; Angelus full of fangs and harsh hands until William was the way he liked him best-half in a state of dishabille, and colored red with blood. William was laughing, which Angelus did not necessarily prefer.
He never used to laugh like this.
Rolling into the light, William was crawling to get away; Angelus caught him by the ankle and yanked him back. Kneeling, Angelus held William on all fours, pressing against his arse from behind. “Do you believe in fate?” he asked, leaning down until his chest was against William’s back, his lips beside his ear.
William huffed a laugh. “Philosophy? Now?”
Angelus yanked what remained of William’s trousers down, wetting William’s hole with spit and blood. “I said,” while his fingers worked inside of him, “do you believe in a higher power?”
Snorting, William arched back into his fingers. “I thought we were going to-copulate.” He rolled his hips.
“Drusilla does.” Removing his fingers, Angelus worked his own trousers open now, his own cock hard and ready for it. He pressed his cock against William’s arse, William’s smooth skin looking younger than it really should have, firm and ready to get fucked. “She believes in God and angels. And I bet she’s just like you-she thinks that fate brought you together. She thinks you’re very special-a gift from God, maybe the Devil. I’m not really clear on how her addled mind perceives things.”
William twitched, and then purposefully moved back, grinding his arse against Angelus’s cock. “Going to shove that fat prick in there? Or are you just going to tease?” He definitely sounded irked, but Angelus didn’t necessarily count it a success. William never would have talked that way before.
Angelus reached around, squeezing William’s bollocks, which were tight and heavy with need. “I could make you wait all day,” he whispered, teeth grazing William’s ear.
William shuddered. “Good on you, but I’m more of a man of action, really, so-”
“Drusilla thinks you’re the gift of a higher power.” Angelus yanked him back, holding him in place with the weight of his half his body, and his hand wrapped tight around William’s balls. “Do you know who her higher power is?”
“Let me think.”
“It’s me,” and Angelus pushed inside of him, roughly through the friction of William’s tight, unwilling hole, while William shivered and said, “You’re such a goddamn bastard.”
“She thinks I made you,” Angelus said, pulling back and thrusting deeper, “and I can take you away.”
William caught air in his mouth, arched-and laughed.
He laughed and laughed and laughed.
Angelus wrapped a fist in his honey hair and pulled; he pulled until William’s body was a bow and then pulled harder until William stopped laughing and gurgled. Angelus slammed his hips against him, deep inside and hard.
“Oh, make me,” William said, but his voice was sing-song, mocking. “Make me and unmake me; oh, Angelus-Christ.”
Angelus sunk his fangs in to the jut of William’s shoulder blade, and William writhed.
“Christ-” William never used to swear this way-“bloody hell-do it again-”
“You’ll do anything I want,” Angelus said, because William’s body was turning into a mess under his hands, slick with blood and bruises, pliant under him and pushing back, wrapped tight around his cock, taking him still deeper.
“What?” William said, arching back to meet him. “Oh, right, anything, I’ll do anything-did you want me to keep going?” His voice was dry. “Beg for mercy? Mercy, oh God, please, mercy-”
Angelus twisted William’s cock, biting harder down; William just wheezed a laugh and said, “Oh God, that’s right, hurt me harder-”
“Shut up,” Angelus said, and with his other hand he smashed William’s head down so hard that his arms collapsed, and didn’t hold him up-“shut the fuck-”
“Oh yes,” William said, “hurt me, hurt me, you certainly are the man in this family-”
“-up,” Angelus said, smashing William’s face again, thrusting hard against his arse. William’s hips had gone clumsy, and yet they still erratically pressed back for more; he was taking it and taking it, sporadically clenching tight around Angelus’s cock, as though he really longed for more and harder, even deeper.
“You’re a God just like she said,” William said, the sound strange-his nose was probably broken-“and you’ve got an enormous prick; does she tell you that? You’ve got the cock of the bloody Messiah-such a man, my savior-”
Angelus slid his fangs along his back until skin began to come off in ribbons, and William just kept talking.
“-so big and thick, the way you fuck, you own me, Daddy; I’m yours-” The sarcasm was barely even audible, the sound was so distorted, but the laughter was still distinguishable.
Angelus broke his jaw, and in the raw, sudden silence, with nothing but the sound of bruised hips and dripping blood, he came.
He left him on the floor and got up to pour himself a drink.
William came to slowly; he had to hold his jaw as bone and ligament knit back together, and even then his face was still purple, one eye sealed shut. Angelus had shed cravat, vest, and shirtsleeves, tucking himself neatly back inside his pants. He lounged carelessly on the divan in nothing but boots and trousers, watching William gingerly sit up.
William worked his mouth. “You know what the difference between us is?”
Angelus sipped his cognac. “What’s that?”
“I don’t need to win.”
“I suppose that’s true.”
“I don’t even care.”
“You care.” Angelus nudged him with a boot. “Just about the wrong things.”
“So you think,” William said.
“I’m going to fuck your throat,” was all that Angelus said. “Do you need a moment?”
Tilting his head, William looked at him, and Angelus didn’t like it. It was a thoughtful look, and pensive; it was the way William looked at Drusilla when she quoted nursery rhymes-as though she were from another planet, and he wished he could be from her planet too.
“Well?” Angelus said.
“Are you asking?” William said.
“No.”
The hint of a smile twitched at the corner of William’s blood-caked lips. “Then come on and shove it down my throat, big Daddy,” he said, that arch and teasing tone, “you know how I just ache to have a mouthful of nice big prick.”
“You won’t be laughing soon.” Angelus put down his cognac.
“Break my jaw again,” William suggested. “I’ll take you even farther down.” But he was coming closer, on the floor, and Angelus’s knees were spread. William’s hands settled on his trousers. They were gentle, patrician hands, stained with blood.
William unfastened Angelus’s flies in a slow but thoughtful way. He took Angelus’s cock out gently, and then looked up, his pretty eyes fringed with honey lashes. “You know,” William said, “I don’t really care about the rest. I just love her, and she loves me. It’s all that really matters.”
Angelus tilted his hips. “Suck it,” he said.
“It’s not enough for you, is it? Nothing ever is,” William said, and sucked him.
*
Sunnydale, 2001
“She was your one true love.”
“Spike,” Angel said.
Spike draped himself along the doorframe. “Wasn’t she?”
Angel turned from the door. He knew it would be pointless to tell Spike to go away. “What do you want?”
“Just you, sunshine.” Spike came in and shut the door.
Angel had followed Willow back to Sunnydale the previous evening; what had been left of last night was just long enough to see Buffy’s grave and check on Dawn, make sure everything would be okay. He had called Cordelia from the motel that morning; he planned to drive back to Los Angeles tonight.
“Not me,” Spike said. “I had Dru.”
Angel hadn’t checked on Spike. Willow said that he still had his chip, and that he had helped them in the end. She told him just enough that he got the picture, about Spike and Buffy; Angel wouldn’t have believed it, except that it was Spike, and when it came to him believing anything ridiculous was easy.
“Good for you,” Angel said.
“Yep. That crazy bitch.” Spike took out his lighter, a cigarette; he lit it up, waved the smoke around. “Found her first, didn’t you.”
He wasn’t going to do this. He wasn’t seriously going to do this.
“You found her and you fucked her; you broke her brain and cast her off, didn’t you-useless bint, got tired of her.” Spike sucked on the cigarette. “Found Buffy first, too.”
He was Spike, of course he was going to do this.
“I didn’t find her,” Angel said.
“And you fucked her,” Spike went on. “All this epic, breakdown shit.”
“All right.” Angel turned away again. “I fucked her.”
“She get useless too, I wonder,” but it wasn’t a question; Spike wasn’t really wondering. “You get tired of her hot wet cunt, tired of making her your little whore-”
Spike was doing this, but Angel didn’t have to do it too. So he just said, “Yes,” and didn’t turn around.
“You’re a fucking bastard.”
“Yes.”
“You’re just going to stand there.” Spike’s tone was high, incredulous. “You’re just going to stand there and let me talk about her that way.”
“Yes.”
“No.” Spike came toward him, grabbed his arm. Turning Angel around, he flicked his cigarette on the motel floor, and clocked him in the jaw. “I’m not going to let you.”
Angel staggered back, and stood there.
Spike kicked him in the stomach. “Come on and fight me.”
“No.”
Advancing, Spike slammed him up against the wall. His fangs were out and he was pulling Angel down, to get up in his face. “Fight me,” Spike said. “Come on and be a man.”
Angel just looked down, shifting slightly against Spike’s lean hard body. “Go ahead and hit me. Rip me to pieces. See how I like it.”
Spike’s eyes searched his, back and forth and frantic, looking for something, anything in Angel’s face. Then he phased back into human features, and let him go. “Fuck you.” Spike shuddered, turned away. “Fuck you.”
Sagging against the wall, Angel closed his eyes. They flew open when Spike’s knee jammed against his crotch.
“Fuck you,” Spike said again, and his eyes were bright. “You can’t even fucking hit me? You can’t even fucking try to fucking hate me? What, is nothing ever going to be the-” He cut himself off abruptly, fumbled for more cigarettes.
Angel watched him, and didn’t understand it. “You loved Dru,” he said, because that, at least, he knew was true. He hadn’t really understood it, as Angelus, but he understood it later. He understood that he had loved Darla; he had even loved Drusilla and Spike, in his own twisted way, but it had not been at all what Spike had wanted from Drusilla. They had never really been the same.
“Dru.” Spike finally got his cigarette lit. “Yeah. Love eternal.”
“Buffy.” Angel was unable, fundamentally, to really make it a question.
Spike shook his head. “Buff-the Slayer. No. I hated that-that-I hated-hated-” His hand passed over his eyes, chewed nails, chipping black. His cigarette was shaking.
“Why?” Angel said.
“Because, she was a fucking-she was a fucking-” Spike’s hand shook so hard he dropped the cigarette, and then he lobbed another fist at Angel’s face.
Angel, head whipped to the side, spit blood. “Because she was too good for you. Is that it?”
“Poncing-” Spike kicked him in the ribs-“fucking-” blow across the ear-“wanker,” and Angel at last fought back, because there was anything he couldn’t deal with right now, it was William the Bloody fucking crying on his fucking shoulder.
“You’re dead,” Angel said, and hit him. “You’re soulless.” He slammed him down on the floor, and got on top of him. “And you’re filthy.”
“Fuck you,” Spike said, and lunged for his neck, fangs tearing flesh.
Angel slammed his head down. “Is that really all you got?”
Spike’s knee came up between Angel’s legs, and he rolled away with the advantage, coming up again and ready to go. “You worthless bastard,” Spike said, blood running down his chin. “You’re not any better than me.”
“You’re right.” Angel stood more slowly. “I’m not.” His fist uppercut Spike’s jaw; Spike staggered back against the wall. Angel pinned him there, and Spike squirmed.
“That’s right.” Spike’s hips rolled. “You’re fucking filthy too. We’re fucking foul, we are.”
Angel thought that if he had had the ability to feel nauseated, he would have then. Instead he just felt empty-the way her eyes were empty, the way that graves were empty, until filled. He let Spike go. “I-”
“Goddamn raging pillock,” Spike said, and kneed him again. “Don’t you fucking stop. I need-I need . . . just-”
Angel slammed him back against the wall. “You keep kicking me there, you’re not going to get what you need.” His thigh pushed hard between Spike’s legs.
“Yes.” Spike’s voice was more like a hiss; he writhed on Angel’s thigh. “Yes-”
“You’re going to have to work harder for it than that,” Angel said, and let him go.
Spike came after him; Angel knew he would, tackling him from behind, foot catching between his legs, taking him down to the floor, breaking the chair at the motel table. Spike climbed on top of him, slammed a fist against his temple. Angel grabbed him, threw him off; they grappled until Angel was on top, and Spike was moving his hips in that sinuous way all over again. Angel got off.
Spike pulled him down, straddled him again, hit him until Angel was just waiting for the next blow to come, the next, the next. He couldn’t feel anything; he was numb.
He looked up at Spike between the fists and thought that Spike felt things. He always felt everything. He always accused Angel of making him, teaching him everything he knew, but Angel never taught him this.
Angel didn’t know how to do this.
“Fuck you,” Spike said, and suddenly, he just stopped. Sitting back on his haunches brought his ass up against Angel’s groin, and though his cock was hard, Angel was having a hard time really caring. “Just fuck you,” Spike said, grinding down. “What do I have to do to make you fucking-what do you fucking want?”
“I want you to go away,” Angel said, speaking with a mushy mouth, smashed up face. “Leave me alone.”
Spike climbed off of him, sat beside him, knees up, legs open. He held out his hand in front of his face-it was shaking far less. He looked down at Angel, who just lay there, staring up at the ceiling, seeing Spike at the corner of his eye. Spike put his hand down.
“Got to get back to the crew in L.A., do you?” Spike said eventually. “Heard about the little one. What was it-Doyle. Pretty, runty little Mick bastard, I’m sure you’d like that, wouldn’t you. He liked you, too. I saw him. He’d’ve sucked your cock, if you asked him to. He’d have taken it and thanked you for it. And I’ve heard about Wesley, too I’ve heard all about that one. I bet he’d just bend over and take it, wouldn’t he. If you gave it to him, but you won’t, will you, because you’re a self-denying twat, aren’t you.
“You’re pretending to be good. You’re pretending like the power, the control-the fucking faith they all have in you-you pretend like it doesn’t fucking get you high, like your balls don’t tighten like a fucking virgin’s twat every time a fucking one of them professes faith to you, and Cordelia, the tits on that goddamn sodding-”
“Let me have a cigarette,” Angel said.
“No.” Spike’s voice was moody.
Upset, then, that it wasn’t working. Angel sighed. “I’ll use it on you,” he said. “Later.”
Spike thought about that. “Okay,” he said. Taking out another cigarette and his lighter, he gave one to Angel, and Angel lay there while Spike lit it for him.
“Go on a bit,” Angel said, and smoked.
Spike tilted his head. “No.”
Angel just kept smoking.
“Not until you use it,” Spike said. “I lit it up for a reason.”
Angel breathed in the smoky air. He didn’t need the smoke. He couldn’t taste it. He didn’t know why Spike liked it so much. “Okay,” Angel said. “Go stand beside the table.”
“No.”
Angel smoked some more. “There aren’t any other demons who could do this for you?”
Spike rolled his eyes. “No, Daddy, there’s no one else as good as you.”
“Don’t baby talk.” Angel locked his teeth around the cigarette, stood up, leaned down to grab Spike’s arm. Hauling Spike up, he dragged him over to the table. “You’ve got to keep it up,” he said, “or I won’t do it.”
“The tits on that cocksucking cunt, Cordelia,” Spike said immediately. “You want to fuck her raw, don’t you. You think about her sodding cunt all the time, don’t you, and how her blood would taste. You can smell it, can’t you; does the little catty bitch smell like Sunnydale; does she wear her varsity fucking cheerleading-”
Angel jammed the cigarette in his mouth and shoved Spike up against the table, started pulling off Spike’s coat. “Don’t stop,” he said.
Spike proceeded to wax obscenely poetic about all the things that Angel wanted to do to Cordelia, to Wesley, to Doyle; he didn’t include Winnifred or Lorne-they were new, but it was good enough, and most of it was true.
“Keep going,” Angel said, when he yanked Spike’s jeans down.
Spike began talking immediately all over again, naked, bent over the table, ass in the air, and Angel used to like him best like this, all spread out, and Spike used to tolerate it because he found it very funny, that Angelus thought he was in control.
“You think you’re going to save the sodding world,” Spike said, “but what did you do for a hundred years? You wasted it. You’re not a bloody hero-you were a coward. If you were worth anything at all, you would have-bloody hell, Angelus.”
Angel tapped the hot ash from the cigarette onto Spike’s smooth, pale back.
“Bloody hell. Do it again.”
Angel stubbed the cigarette out on Spike’s back. Spike bucked hard against the table. “Where’s your lighter?” Angel asked.
“’N m’jeans.” It was more of a moan, really. “Motherfucking monster, you are.”
“Yeah,” Angel said, but the strange affection in Spike’s words made him move a little faster, getting the lighter from Spike’s jeans. Not wanting to hear it, he flipped the lighter open. Laying his other hand on the long, firm curve of Spike’s flank, he flicked the lighter with the other hand, and brought the flame down onto the pretty wing of Spike’s white shoulder.
The sound that Spike made was not quite human, and he kept making it whenever Angel burned him, making it and making it until he was a moaning, writhing heap, humping the table erratically between pushing his ass back frantically against Angel’s hips.
“That’s enough,” Angel said, after a while, and closed the lighter.
“You fucking maniac.” Spike was babbling. “You’re a fucking head case.”
“I want you to talk like you were before. About me.” Angel’s voice was very flat.
“You would, you sodding, self-involved bloody poofter. All right, I haven’t even fucking got to that disgusting self-righteous fucking display aboard the-”
“I want you to talk about me and Buffy.”
Spike suddenly went quiet, and very, very still. His back was a mess of dead flesh, flaking, sooty skin, ashes, scabs. When he shuddered, broken skin cracked and oozed red. Angel splayed his hand against it, and pressed down into the seared, curled flesh.
“I’m going to fuck you now,” he said quietly. “You’re going to talk.”
“Yeah,” Spike said. “Okay.”
Angel had no idea why he would. He had no idea why either of them would, why either of them were this way. It was not in the least cathartic, and Angel didn’t understand what Spike would do now-whether he would keep looking for this, again-a dozen, a thousand times, or would he look for Dru; what would he do with grief, when neither of them were supposed to feel it; neither of them had any place to put it; Angel didn’t know.
But he knew what he would do. He would go back to L.A. He would pretend to be a man, and for months, he would hear Spike’s cries in his ears, reminding him of what he really was.
That, at least, was a comfort.
“You’re vile and lowdown,” Spike was saying, and Angel pressed inside his body, firm and young and dead, utterly and completely. “You’re obscene, a loathsome corpse, a preserved cadaver, why would she want-why would she want-”
Air caught in Spike’s throat, and Angel pressed in harder. “Keep going,” he said.
“Why would she want you, when you have nothing to offer her, and she’s too good, she is-she was too good, and I’m nothing but a-”
“Don’t stop,” Angel said.
Spike swallowed, arching back, taking Angel deeper, deeper, and Angel grit his teeth, closed his eyes, because he needed Spike to tell him; he needed Spike to tell him-
“You know what the difference is between you and me?” Spike said.
Angel knew them all.
“I don’t care,” Spike said. “I wasn’t good enough, and I don’t care.”
“Don’t,” Angel warned.
“I just loved her. That was all.”
*
Los Angeles, 2005
“You actually think they love you,” Angelus said.
“Fuck hell, now really?” Spike said.
“No, it’s amazing,” Angelus said. “You really think they care. You-oh, don’t tell me. This is too rich. You think you have friends.”
“Can’t you manage to keep a soul in you for any length of time?” Spike said. “How’ve you gone and lost it now?”
“It would be sweet,” Angelus said. “Except it’s sad.”
It was a Vengeance Demon. Angel-brainless shit he was-hadn’t saved her son, so the demon had wished his soul out, and now Angelus had approximately a week of havoc to wreak-he was guessing here-before the soul got shoved back in. Perfect way to torture Angel really, and Angelus planned to make it good. He wondered just how much of Angel’s little life he could utterly destroy before the soul got wished back in.
He could do a number on Ash Agency. It wasn’t that Angelus was so keen on the business angle of things-though Wolfram and Hart really had been more his style than Angel’s. It just meant so much to them, their little Angel Investigations 2.0, and Angelus itched to take it down-everything they had made since the destruction of L.A.
But first-oh, but first-there was Spike. The poor little bastard was so vulnerable, so weak, a vampire with a soul.
Angelus hated those.
“Hang on a mo’.” Dragging on his cigarette, Spike walked across his shitty apartment. “I’ll just call the Agency. Warn them and such.”
“Very funny,” said Angelus, still near the door.
“It won’t take a sec.” Spike took his cigarette out of his mouth, picked up the phone.
Angelus came across the room, half a second flat, grabbed the receiver from Spike, and broke it on the table. “You’re not calling anyone.”
Spike frowned down at the phone. “Now what’d you go and do that for?”
“You’re thinking of her, aren’t you. Those wide eyes, full of tears, when I fuck her, and later she finds out it wasn’t Angel.”
Still scowling, Spike puffed on his cigarette. “I don’t think Illyria will really care. You know, she’s not so discerning when it comes to-”
Angelus pulled the cigarette from Spike’s mouth, flicking it to the floor. “I’m not talking about Illyria.”
Spike looked down at the cigarette. “Careful. You’ll start a fire.”
“Nina,” Angelus said, leaning in.
“Oh, her.” Spike moved out of Angelus’s space, picking up the cigarette from the floor and stubbing it in the tray on the table. “Have you thought about, I don’t know, getting another act? Because the one where you terrorize the blonde and taunt her with soullessness-” Spike shrugged. “Strangely, I feel like it’s all been done before.”
Angelus crossed his arms and watched him. “You really do care about her.”
“Nina?” Frowning at the stubbed cigarette, Spike patted down his jacket, looking for a fresh one. “Not really. She didn’t even give me the corner office.”
“No. She gave that to Angel.”
“Giant poofter.” At last finding one, Spike pulled out another cigarette. “I mean, if you ask me. Which you’re going to, knowing you. Look, can we get on with this? ‘M a bit busy right now-things to do, people to warn.”
“Illyria?” was all Angelus said.
“Head case, that one.” Spike lit the cigarette. “Completely nutters.”
“You even care for her.”
“Are you off your nut?” Waving his cigarette around, Spike looked incredulously at Angelus. “You’ve really lost your touch, mate.”
“And then there’s Angel.”
Spike shoved the cigarette back in and started smoking furiously.
“They all love him best,” Angelus said. “Doesn’t that just kill you?”
Stomping over to the kitchen, Spike started slamming open drawers, throwing the doors on cabinets. “Where do I keep them? ‘S a bloody stake somewhere in-”
“You’re not going to stake me.”
Spike whirled around and stomped back into the living room, going toward the hall. Angelus put a hand out to stop him. “Let me by,” Spike said. “Left my stakes in the bedroom.”
“You’re not going to stake me,” Angelus said, very slowly, “because you care about me too.”
Spike barked a laugh. “Oh, that’s rich.”
“But you do,” Angelus said, and pushed him. Spike stumbled back, and Angelus came forward. “You think that I don’t know? You think that I don’t watch you, the way you look at me? You think that Angel doesn’t know?”
“That you’re crazy? Sorry, mate, I-”
Angelus leaned in. “You think that he doesn’t think of it, all the ways I’ve fucked you? You think that’s not what he’s thinking, all the time, when he looks back at you, when you fight? Why do you think I never touch you?”
“We touch,” Spike said. “We touch all the time. Like this.” His fist flew up directly under Angelus’s jaw, and Angelus’s head slammed back.
Spike made to move away, but Angelus grabbed him, slammed him against the wall. “Well, okay,” Spike said, punching him in the eye. “If it’s what you want.”
“You have no idea.” Angelus threw out his leg, tripping Spike, slamming him to the floor.
They rolled around, crashed into the cardboard box that held Spike’s tiny television. It came smashing down-the NES, the controllers, the bottles upon empty bottles of what once held beer. Spike broke one and held it in Angelus’s face; Angelus laughed.
“Why do you even pretend to be a man?” Angelus grabbed his wrist, twisted it away as Spike tried to slice the broken glass down his face. “Why are you even trying?”
“Someone has to.” Spike dropped the glass, punching Angelus in the face again with his other arm. “You’re sure not going to, giant poof like you.”
“Is it for them?” Angelus kicked him in the stomach, bringing Spike down again. He climbed on top of him. “Your friends? You think they think you’re worth something?”
“Worth eighty bucks.” Spike rolled on top of him. “Game of kittens.”
Bringing out his fangs, Angelus leaned up, nipped Spike’s ear. It almost came off when Spike jerked away, and blood poured from the side of Spike’s head. “Or is it for her?” Angelus said. Spike had leapt away; now they were back on their feet, slowly circling. “Tell me, Spike, is it for Buffy? Is that why you play at being hero?”
“Sorry, I can’t hear you.” Spike was in fangs now, too. “Ear must’ve been ripped off.”
Angelus lunged, brought him up against the wall, Spike small and plastered between the hard spaces of drywall and Angelus’s hips. “Or is it-just a little bit-for me?” Angelus asked, and slowly circled his hips.
“I’m sorry.” Spike blinked, phasing back to human form. “Are you still talking? I’ve lost the thread.”
Angelus leaned in, lips close to Spike’s good ear, fangs just brushing it. “Tell me, Spike, is it for me? Don’t tell me you don’t want to impress me-just a little. You want to prove you’re better. You always did.”
“One day when you’re better, and haven’t gone off your meds, we’ll talk about your self-esteem issues. I promise. Cross my heart and hope to-”
Angelus peeled him off the wall and threw him across the room.
“Bloody ow.” Spike brought his hand to the side of his face, brought his hand away, and looked at it. “Scraped my bad ear, you did.”
Standing over him, Angelus said, “You need me, don’t you. I’m the only one who knows all of you. Everything you are.”
Spike just looked incredulous. “Are you a psychoanalyst now? Because I preferred it when you were just plain-”
“You need me, William.” Angelus’s voice was soft. “The sad part is, Angel’s never going to need you. No one is.”
Spike’s leg lashed out, bringing him down. The tussled for a while, trading blow for blow, slick with blood and bruises, cuts and scratches, until Angelus had Spike’s jacket off, and was tugging on his jeans.
Spike burst into sudden laughter. “Are we really going to do this?”
“You want it, don’t you?” Angelus said, jerking on the jeans so hard the button popped. “You want it from Angel all the time. Too bad he never gives it to you.”
Spike just laughed again. “So, without your soul, you’re just a horny fuck.”
“Want to know why he never gives it to you?” Angelus worked Spike’s jeans off, bit down on Spike’s neck, holding him in place with fangs.
“Because he’s a repressed tosser who doesn’t-”
Spike squirmed, and Angelus held him down until the jeans were all the way off. Spike’s shirt was already in tatters. “Because, for some strange reason-maybe it was the way that I was raised-I have all these thoughts on sex.” Angelus wrapped his hand around Spike’s cock. “That’s why I’m going to fuck you, and he can’t.”
“Oh my.” Spike’s eyelashes fluttered. “Are you going to fuck me? I thought we were just having a chat.”
Angelus kept his knee on Spike’s thigh and leaned close in to Spike’s good ear, hand wrapping around Spike’s cock. “Angel doesn’t like to touch anyone he doesn’t care about.”
Spike fluttered his eyelashes some more. “Oh, God, no. Don’t put that big cock in me! I’m not sure I could take it if you rip me wide open without even caring about me. Help! Help! Can I have a fag while you’re at it?” he added in afterthought. “You usually take a while.”
“Spike, Spike.” Angelus squeezed Spike’s cock, with his other hand unfastening his own jeans. “You seem to forget. Remember what I’m like?” He leaned in again. “I’m really really good.”
“At rape and torture? Yes, you’re the grandmaster.” Spike gyrated his hips beneath him. “Now about that fag . . .”
“You think I don’t know you,” Angelus said. “You think I can’t get to you.”
“Oh, did I need to protest more?” Spike shimmied his hips again. “Don’t rape me, don’t plunder my virgin arse, don’t put your big things in my little rosebud cunt-like that?”
“You think I haven’t been watching.”
“Or was it more praise you wanted? Yes, Daddy, your cock is the biggest, you’re the only man for my twat, no one plugs an arse like-”
Angelus phased back into human form, and kissed him. He kissed him long and slow, tongue licking at the tender underside of Spike’s bottom lip, gentle and hungry and not the least bit forceful. Spike’s mouth fell open in surprise, and Angelus kissed him more deeply-wetly, softly, and then began to gently stroke Spike’s cock. He pulled his mouth away.
Spike’s eyes were wide as skies, and very very blue. “What . . . ?” he said.
“I know just how to break you,” Angelus said, and kissed him again.
This time Spike struggled, just like Angelus wanted, thrashing under his mouth, pushing him off and rolling away. “You’re bloody fucking mental,” Spike said.
“You did forget,” Angelus said.
Spike swung at his face, but Angel caught his wrist, twisting. He dragged him across the room. “I’m sure you keep them somewhere,” he said, and jerked Spike down the hall.
“What are you-”
“Of course,” Angelus said. They were in the bedroom, and Angelus went straight for the nightstand.
“No,” Spike said. “No, you bloody don’t-”
“But Spike.” Angelus’s voice was innocent, and handcuffs dangled from his hand. “You love them.”
Spike punched him in the face then, but as they grappled, Angelus pushed the metal down on Spike’s wrist, and clicked it with a cold, inevitable sound. He looked around for a suitable spot, decided the bed would do, and cuffed Spike to the headboard.
“Alright, fine,” Spike said. “You win. Rape m, split me open, make me scream, yadda yadda. Just don’t expect me to-bloody hell.” He threw his head back, cords on his neck standing out, as Angelus held Spike’s hips down and licked Spike’s cock, opened up his mouth and took him-down and down-took Spike all the way down his throat, long and wet, expert and very, very gentle. “Don’t. You fucking don’t-”
Lashing out with a leg, Spike kicked him hard enough to bring Angelus off his cock. Angelus just stood, and went back to the nightstand. “My God,” he said, in mock surprise. “It’s full of toys!”
“Fuck you,” Spike said.
“Maybe.” Angelus pilfered through the drawer, taking out the nylon rope, the lube, a few other things. There weren’t actually nearly as many things in there as Angel liked to keep-Angel was usually much more patient than Spike was, really. “Come on now, baby. Let me tie your legs.”
Spike thrashed and kicked him, but Angelus positioned him face down, tied Spike’s legs to either bedpost. Even if Spike wasn’t as big of a fan as Angel, there was a reason he had an expensive four-poster in this shitty apartment. Once Spike was tied, Angelus’s hand settled on the firm curve of Spike’s ass.
“Go ahead,” Spike said, his voice muffled. “I don’t care. I’ll fucking love it. I always do. You’re hilarious.”
“Yes,” was all Angelus said. “I don’t think you’re going to laugh.” Then he leaned down, and his lips brushed the crease of Spike’s ass.
“Motherfucking hell.”
“I thought so.” Angelus spread Spike’s cheeks, moving father in. He circled Spike’s hole with a careful tongue, and when he began to press in, he did so gently.
“You fucking mangy slobbering cunt-faced-”
Angelus came back up to whisper, “Shh,” and pushed in with his tongue.
Spike moved crazily on the bed, and Angelus had to hold him down, hands hard on Spike’s hips while he pushed his tongue in, thrusting, pushing deeper, then coming back out to circle gently.
“You take that nicely,” Angelus said into the curve of Spike’s pale ass.
“You fucking freak.”
“Did Buffy do this for you?” He gave Spike’s hole a kiss. “Has anyone?”
That did it, really. Spike managed, then, to break the headboard, get his arms free, pushing Angelus off. “Never took you for an arse-licker,” he said, as he furiously worked the ropes.
Angelus laughed. “Just a little tenderness, and you’re in a temper like a child. It’s almost too easy.”
Spike was working on the last rope. Angelus stood up, unhooked the handcuffs-Spike swung wildly, but he was still tied down. Angelus put a knee on his back, and recuffed him to the bedframe, the mattress moved a little aside.
Spike thrashed, went still. “What are you going to do? You wanna stake me? Stake me.”
“Oh, William.” Angelus put a hand in his hair. “You know me better than that. What do you think I’m going to do?”
“Dunno,” Spike said. “You’ve got freakier than you were.”
Angelus stroked his hair. “I’m going to make love to you all night long, silly. I’m going to be so, so sweet to you.”
“Oh. Is that all.” Spike huffed. “I’ll just lay back and enjoy it then, shall I?”
“You can do anything you want,” Angelus said, large hand pulling down the soft hairs at the base of Spike’s neck, trailing down the pretty, pretty knobs of his spine, the soft, firm expanse of his back. There were tiny freckles there. “Anything at all. But all the while you’ll know how Angel really feels. And when he gets his soul back, it’s going to be so much worse than if I had just raped your body.”
“You think?” Spike jerked futilely.
“Oh, yes.” Angelus was stroking him now, long and firm; at first Spike was stiff beneath his hands, but gradually he relaxed. Angelus laid down little kisses, all the way down his spine. “Because he’ll never mention it,” he said, once he had again reached the curve of Spike’s ass. “You know he won’t. You know he can’t. He can’t apologize, and for six months, he won’t even be able to look at you. And when at last he can, you’ll know that he’ll be thinking of this moment. He’ll think of all the ways I made love to you, as though I really cared for you, all the sweet things I’m going to say to you, all the sweet ways your body moved against mine-he’ll look at you, and loathe you for it. But you won’t.”
“I will,” said Spike. “I already loathe him. I loathe you.”
“No,” Angelus said, spreading Spike’s cheeks. “You don’t loathe him. And when you remember this, you will treasure it, because you’ve always wanted him to touch you this way. He knows it, and you know that he would never do it. He’ll despise you that much more for it, and you know what’s even better? The way he’s going to despise himself. Now, where was I?”
“Arse licking, you bloody freak.”
“Right.” Angelus leaned down and kissed him again, right between the cheeks. When he used his tongue again, Spike was stiff beneath him-he was moving oddly, as Angelus held him down. Angelus could tell Spike was trying to figure out whether fighting or giving in was the best form of defiance, knowing he would at last give in, because Spike was Spike: it felt good. He wanted it.
“Do you know what the difference is between you and Angel?” Angelus said, lifting his head from the wet mess of Spike’s tender hole.
Air came into Spike’s throat in a gasp. “I’m better looking?”
“You don’t care that it’s me that’s giving you this. You just want it, and you’re going to take it.”
“You’re the butt muncher,” Spike said.
“He wouldn’t take it on a silver platter,” Angelus said. “But you-you take this kind of things wherever you can get it. Don’t you, love?” He kissed Spike again, knowing that it was true.
*
London, 2075
“He was your true love,” Spike said. “Funny. For the longest time, I thought that it was Buffy.”
“I loved Buffy,” Angel said.
“’Course you did,” Spike said. “I loved Dru.”
“We never get the girls.”
“He did.” Spike put his hand on his pocket, but didn’t take a smoke out. “A lot of people loved him.”
They were standing at Connor Reilly’s grave. It grew green there, but only because the graveyard crew had covered it with living sod. Angel could still smell the soil; it smelled like it had when he had first opened his eyes, buried in his own grave. It was still fresh, filled with living things, and decay.
“He loved a lot of people back,” Angel said.
His son had been eighty-eight years old, when he died. Angel had three grand-children.
“Wonder where he learned it,” Spike said.
“It doesn’t stop,” Angel said. “It goes on and on and on.”
Spike put his hand on Angel’s shoulder. “Wearing out, old man?”
“No,” said Angel.
“And that’s the worst part.” Spike’s hand slid down Angel’s arm, but he didn’t take his hand, letting go instead. “Let’s go.”
After all this time, they were back in England. Connor had lived near the Slayer facility Buffy had founded; he had trained there and then become a trainer, going out on missions in his younger days, supervising them in elder years. His youngest daughter had been Chosen at fourteen. Her name had been Hope.
She had died at the age of forty-four.
Angel and Spike had rented a cottage; it was the only place available on the country-side in Wiltshire that wasn’t taken by the demons, dozen families and ten times a dozen girls that showed up for the funeral. Angel and Spike didn’t live together, but they hadn’t bothered renting out more than the single bedroom place. There were quilts and white-washed walls, rooster decorations; Angel hated it; he hated it; he hated everything. “You’ll hurt the roosters’ feelings,” Spike had said, and made crude jokes about the cocks.
Spike rarely smoked these days, but he did so like a chimney, once they got into in England. Angel thought he would start up again when they got back from the grave. He also thought that Spike would head out for a drink and leave him alone, for once; after all these years, he knew how Spike grieved.
But Spike knew him too, and stayed; when they got back to the cottage he took his coat off carefully-brown now, the black leather finally having fallen apart. He folded it and put it on the table.
Angel sat on the over-stuffed chair by the lamp and didn’t turn it on. He knew what Spike would say about him sitting in the dark. He just couldn’t bring himself to care.
But Spike didn’t say anything, just watched him, head tilted-that soft, thoughtful look he got when he thought other people weren’t looking. Angel wished that he would go away.
Moving deeper into the room, Spike didn’t turn the lights on either. Instead he got out his suitcase, began rummaging around. Sliding something shiny in his pocket, he came over to the chair. Bent to touch Angel’s knees, then pulled them apart, kneeling between them.
“Not in the mood,” Angel said.
“Yes. You are.” Spike took the knife out of his pocket.
“I said that I don’t want to.”
Spike played with the knife. “I know.” Leaning in, he began unbuttoning Angel’s shirt. “I would hit you, but you’d just sit there.”
“Spike,” Angel said.
“I hate to use a knife. Man doesn’t need nearly as many tools as he thinks he does. Or, vampires don’t. But I know you like them.” Spike’s hands slid in Angel’s shirt, opening it up. It was smooth and young and dead, the way it always was, unmoving.
“Spike.”
Slamming the knife down on the table beside the chair, Spike stood up swiftly. “The fuck, Angel. It’s not like you’re the only one who-you’re not the only one.”
Angel looked up. “You should put the blade in a flame. I . . . it’s better.”
“Oh. Right.” Spike blinked. “You’re so picky.” His hand slid down into his pocket.
“There are candles in the trunk.”
Frowning, Spike went over to the trunk, opened in, took out the candles. Brought them back and set a fat one on the table. He pulled his lighter from his pocket and lit it up. Near the flame, his face looked ghostly.
He’d let his hair go back to honey-colored.
“Bloody poofter. Bringing candles.” Spike’s voice was like the candle-light, soft and warm, lighting up the dark. “You knew.”
“I thought we might,” was all that Angel said.
“All right.” Spike put the knife in the fire, his other hand opening Angel’s shirt. “Right across the heart?” He turned the blade.
“If you keep talking, we’re not doing anything.”
“Right,” Spike said again, and drew the knife down Angel’s chest.
The blood came down; Angel’s hips came up; air he’d drawn to talk came out, and the grief went in.
It held.
“Again?” Spike ran his thumb across the blood, burnt flesh, Angel’s still, unbeating heart.
“What do you think?”
“Okay.” Spike put the blade against the candle-flame, then again against Angel’s chest.
He did it again and again and again-the blade, the blaze, the fire and the pain, and by the time Angel’s chest was covered over red and burned black, Angel was fully hard. Spike pressed his fangs to Angel’s non-existent pulse and said, “I could cut your heart out.”
Angel twisted under him. “That would be . . . interesting.”
Spike’s tongue lapped down over Angel’s collar bone, down along the blood and closer to his heart. “I could pour sawdust in your veins.”
“Shit.” Angel’s hips bucked, unexpectedly.
“I could fuck you with a stake.”
“Spike.”
“Are you ready for it now?” Spike’s hand finally came down, found his crotch; his bloody lips moved back up to Angel’s ear. His hand squeezed on Angel’s cock. “I could cut this off.”
Angel twisted again, pushing up into Spike’s hand. “I’m ready for it.”
“Good.” Spike let go. “I don’t really want to cut it off. It’s a bit of alright, sometimes.”
Letting himself be pulled up, Angel stood, took off his clothes. Spike stripped down too, and Angel went back to the trunk. As Angel rummaged around, Spike hopped on the bed, wiggled around, making a show of it. Angel didn’t pay him any mind.
“Come on,” said Spike. “All that blood isn’t enough?”
“Don’t get cocky.” Angel stood, tossed him a little bottle.
Spike just sighed. “You always were a lube man. Come on up.”
Closing the trunk, Angel came on up, his chest still a mess of blood and burned flesh. “Don’t play around,” he warned.
“What are you talking about?” Spike spread Angel’s legs. “I never play. I just like to get it messy.”
“Just do it, Spike.”
“Yes, Daddy.” Pouring the oil on his fingers, Spike rubbed his hands together, pushed his hand between Angel’s thighs. “What nasty things you want me to say this time?”
“Nothing.” Angel shifted, getting used to the feel of Spike’s long slender fingers inside his body. “Don’t say anything.”
“I,” Spike began, thought better of it, and stopped. Pulling his fingers out of Angel’s hole, he pulled up on his legs, hands under his knees. “Budge up,” he said, positioning himself.
“Do it, already.”
“Getting there,” said Spike, and pushed inside.
Angel had done it before, had another man inside him, but Angelus usually told the truth-he had some strange thoughts about sex, and this . . . it always felt like someone having power over him. It felt like not being in control; he didn’t like it. He wasn’t good enough; he didn’t deserve to give it up-
He never deserved to give up-
Spike put his wet hands on either side of Angel’s head. “Stop thinking.”
“Okay,” Angel said.
“You can cut me up after.” Spike pulled out, pushed in slowly, agonizing slow. “Make you feel better.”
“Okay,” Angel said.
“You can do the sawdust thing.” Spike rocked his hips, and Angel looked away. “If you want. I always wanted to try it. Not the cock thing, though.” Spike’s fangs dragged down his face, just the tips, and so sharp that Angel didn’t even feel it until he began to bleed. “That’s just you.”
“Okay.” Angel’s hands settled on Spike’s hips, yanking in, moving Spike faster, harder.
“Fuck.” Spike bit his lips with fangs. “Jesus fuck.”
“I told you not to dick around.” Angel pulled him in again, harder.
“Christ. I forgot how you are. Hold on a mo’.” Bracing himself with an arm, Spike shifted his weight-shallower angle, but he could go faster this way, and Angel knew he’d just have to lie there and take it, take it, take it. He wanted it; he wanted it so badly, but Spike-
Spike, Jesus Christ. Angel didn’t know how many times Spike had done this, just like this, for Connor.
Angel squeezed his eyes closed, and turned his face away.
“Thought I told you not to think,” Spike said, because by now he could almost always follow Angel’s train of thought.
“You loved him,” Angel said. Spike was hard inside of him, and despite the oil the burn was painful, unpleasant, and still not enough. “Say you loved him.”
“I loved him,” Spike said immediately, and thrust in, because it was easy for him. It had always been so easy for him. “I loved your son. Just like this. Like this.”
“He loved you,” Angel said, but Spike must have known what he really meant. Angel supposed Spike had always known, at least a little bit.
Spike wrapped his hand around Angel’s cock, jerked him and bit him until he came. Spike wasn’t far behind.
Then they lay there, the room thick with scents of blood and come and burnt flesh, but not sweat, never sweat. Spike got up and rifled for his cigarettes. “Bring me one,” Angel said, and stared up at the ceiling.
“Sure.”
A box waved in Angel’s face; Angel slid a cigarette out, put it in him mouth, waited for Spike to light it.
“You know what the difference is, between you and me?” Spike said, lighting Angel’s cigarette.
Angel took the cigarette out of his mouth, blew out smoke. “No.”
“I don’t either,” Spike said.
They lay in bed and smoked a while, then Angel took the knife, and did what Spike had promised him. The sheets were soaked with blood and come, by the end of it, the bed full of the knowledge that love would never be enough, except for when it was.
This entry was originally posted to Dreamwidth. Read Comments | Reply
Title: Never Get The Girls
Pairing(s): Angelus/William, Angel/Soulless!Spike, Angelus/Souled!Spike, Angel/Souled!Spike
Summary: Four scenes, very loosely linked, mostly by sex and violence.
Rating: NC-17
Disclaimer: No copyright infringement is intended.
Warning(s): Elements of non-con/dub-con, violence, violent sex, a distinct lack of lube at times, non-ritualized BDSM, cigarette burns, graphic description of burns, dirty talk, not just in the good way-I mean some really offensive language, daddy kink, rimming, oral sex, anal sex, knife play, blood, character death--not very central/graphic
Word Count: around 9,000
Author's Notes: Thank you to
lynnenne for discussing ideas with me.
Please, please, please please do read the warnings.
Never Get the Girls
*
London, 1880
“You still think she’s your one true love,” Angelus said.
“Are you going to give me the speech again?” said William.
“Speech?”
“’She’s not mine,’ ‘I don’t deserve anything,’ et cetera, et cetera. You know, sometimes I worry about your self-confidence.”
“I wouldn’t worry, if I were you.”
In the three days since he had watched Angelus fuck Drusilla, William had entered an awkward adolescent phase, his speech changing pattern, his clothes changing texture. Angelus looked at him and thought of Penn, and wondered whether it was possible to bend or break a vampire.
Little girls, after all, were just so easy.
“She cried like a little girl,” Angelus said, “when I put it to her.”
“Yes, good on you,” William said. “You have a simply massive cock; you should be proud, I’m sure.”
Angelus watched him for a while. William sat at the window, looking out, precariously close to the sunshine pouring between the curtains. His arms were wrapped around his knees, a boyish pose; his hair still hung in honey curls. It was almost a pity, Angelus thought, never to have seen sunlight in it.
“I’m thinking of getting her a wee little sailor boy.” William turned back to him. “What do you think of that?”
“Her tastes tend lately toward fops.”
“Do they?” William might once have taken offence. Now he simply smiled in a way that he was learning, which looked almost like a smirk. Angelus liked it less. “Lost her bent for the working man, has she? You know, the Lord Nelson types, common sorts raised above their birth and that rot.”
Angelus waved a hand. It bore the callouses he had had in life; the wrist was clad in silk. “Horatio was a fecking ball-bag.”
William rolled his eyes. “And you knew Byron, too.”
“Of course.” Angelus lounged, legs up. Young William still had not quite got over gentlemen in relaxed attitude, just as he had not quite conquered the thrill of tearing petticoats to shreds. Knowing the effect it had, Angelus let one boot fall to the floor so that his thighs were spread. “He wasn’t dangerous to know at all.”
William’s eyes darkened. He licked his lips and changed the subject. “Perhaps I’ll fetch Dru a poet. We’re approaching St. Valentine’s Day.”
“I thought she had one.” Angelus used that same silky tone.
“Oh, I’m all through with that. Didn’t you know?”
“Run out of rhymes, did you?”
“No. I just don’t need them.” William inclined his head. “Why bother with poetry, when I have everything a poet could ever wish for?”
“I never took you for a philistine.”
William’s eyes measured him a while, a specific invitation, a challenge. Deliberately, he turned back to the window. “I have everything I need.”
Angelus put his other boot on the floor, and stood. Walking to the window, he stopped in front of William, by the edge of light. “Everything?”
Slowly William stood, looking up with that same challenge in his eyes, batting in pretty, light-colored lashes. “Absolutely.”
“True love,” Angelus said, touching William’s cravat. His hand wandered down the frock-coat, brushing buttons, sinking lower to the trousers. “Happily ever after.”
“Soul-mates.”
Angelus’s thumb pressed against the placket of William’s trousers, finding the line of his cock, heavy and hard. He leaned down, his lips against William’s hair. “We don’t have souls.”
William swayed toward him, almost imperceptibly. “Makes it even more impressive. Don’t you think?”
“No.” Angelus’s thumb slid down the hard ridge of his cock. “It makes you a fool.”
William angled his hips, a very small amount, pressing into Angelus’s hand. “Is this foolish?”
“Yes,” Angelus said, and pushed him into the light.
William, who had been ready for it, brought his knee up hard between Angelus’s legs. Staggering in sudden pain, Angelus lunged for William, foot catching on his, going down hard. In moments, William was on top of him in a maneuver Angelus had taught him, and his hips were grinding down. “You don’t think poets dream of this?” William said, breathless despite the air he did not need.
“No,” said Angelus, and pushed him off. Rolling, they switched positions, Angelus now on top. “Well,” he said, “maybe Byron.”
“You think I care if you tup her?” Under him, William lifted his hips. “I let you tup me all the time. Hell, I tup-”
“Say, ‘fuck,’” Angelus said, leaning down to speak into the shell of William’s ear. “I like the way your lips look around it.”
“It doesn’t mean we love you.”
Angelus pulled back and punched him in the face. They rolled around on the floor; Angelus full of fangs and harsh hands until William was the way he liked him best-half in a state of dishabille, and colored red with blood. William was laughing, which Angelus did not necessarily prefer.
He never used to laugh like this.
Rolling into the light, William was crawling to get away; Angelus caught him by the ankle and yanked him back. Kneeling, Angelus held William on all fours, pressing against his arse from behind. “Do you believe in fate?” he asked, leaning down until his chest was against William’s back, his lips beside his ear.
William huffed a laugh. “Philosophy? Now?”
Angelus yanked what remained of William’s trousers down, wetting William’s hole with spit and blood. “I said,” while his fingers worked inside of him, “do you believe in a higher power?”
Snorting, William arched back into his fingers. “I thought we were going to-copulate.” He rolled his hips.
“Drusilla does.” Removing his fingers, Angelus worked his own trousers open now, his own cock hard and ready for it. He pressed his cock against William’s arse, William’s smooth skin looking younger than it really should have, firm and ready to get fucked. “She believes in God and angels. And I bet she’s just like you-she thinks that fate brought you together. She thinks you’re very special-a gift from God, maybe the Devil. I’m not really clear on how her addled mind perceives things.”
William twitched, and then purposefully moved back, grinding his arse against Angelus’s cock. “Going to shove that fat prick in there? Or are you just going to tease?” He definitely sounded irked, but Angelus didn’t necessarily count it a success. William never would have talked that way before.
Angelus reached around, squeezing William’s bollocks, which were tight and heavy with need. “I could make you wait all day,” he whispered, teeth grazing William’s ear.
William shuddered. “Good on you, but I’m more of a man of action, really, so-”
“Drusilla thinks you’re the gift of a higher power.” Angelus yanked him back, holding him in place with the weight of his half his body, and his hand wrapped tight around William’s balls. “Do you know who her higher power is?”
“Let me think.”
“It’s me,” and Angelus pushed inside of him, roughly through the friction of William’s tight, unwilling hole, while William shivered and said, “You’re such a goddamn bastard.”
“She thinks I made you,” Angelus said, pulling back and thrusting deeper, “and I can take you away.”
William caught air in his mouth, arched-and laughed.
He laughed and laughed and laughed.
Angelus wrapped a fist in his honey hair and pulled; he pulled until William’s body was a bow and then pulled harder until William stopped laughing and gurgled. Angelus slammed his hips against him, deep inside and hard.
“Oh, make me,” William said, but his voice was sing-song, mocking. “Make me and unmake me; oh, Angelus-Christ.”
Angelus sunk his fangs in to the jut of William’s shoulder blade, and William writhed.
“Christ-” William never used to swear this way-“bloody hell-do it again-”
“You’ll do anything I want,” Angelus said, because William’s body was turning into a mess under his hands, slick with blood and bruises, pliant under him and pushing back, wrapped tight around his cock, taking him still deeper.
“What?” William said, arching back to meet him. “Oh, right, anything, I’ll do anything-did you want me to keep going?” His voice was dry. “Beg for mercy? Mercy, oh God, please, mercy-”
Angelus twisted William’s cock, biting harder down; William just wheezed a laugh and said, “Oh God, that’s right, hurt me harder-”
“Shut up,” Angelus said, and with his other hand he smashed William’s head down so hard that his arms collapsed, and didn’t hold him up-“shut the fuck-”
“Oh yes,” William said, “hurt me, hurt me, you certainly are the man in this family-”
“-up,” Angelus said, smashing William’s face again, thrusting hard against his arse. William’s hips had gone clumsy, and yet they still erratically pressed back for more; he was taking it and taking it, sporadically clenching tight around Angelus’s cock, as though he really longed for more and harder, even deeper.
“You’re a God just like she said,” William said, the sound strange-his nose was probably broken-“and you’ve got an enormous prick; does she tell you that? You’ve got the cock of the bloody Messiah-such a man, my savior-”
Angelus slid his fangs along his back until skin began to come off in ribbons, and William just kept talking.
“-so big and thick, the way you fuck, you own me, Daddy; I’m yours-” The sarcasm was barely even audible, the sound was so distorted, but the laughter was still distinguishable.
Angelus broke his jaw, and in the raw, sudden silence, with nothing but the sound of bruised hips and dripping blood, he came.
He left him on the floor and got up to pour himself a drink.
William came to slowly; he had to hold his jaw as bone and ligament knit back together, and even then his face was still purple, one eye sealed shut. Angelus had shed cravat, vest, and shirtsleeves, tucking himself neatly back inside his pants. He lounged carelessly on the divan in nothing but boots and trousers, watching William gingerly sit up.
William worked his mouth. “You know what the difference between us is?”
Angelus sipped his cognac. “What’s that?”
“I don’t need to win.”
“I suppose that’s true.”
“I don’t even care.”
“You care.” Angelus nudged him with a boot. “Just about the wrong things.”
“So you think,” William said.
“I’m going to fuck your throat,” was all that Angelus said. “Do you need a moment?”
Tilting his head, William looked at him, and Angelus didn’t like it. It was a thoughtful look, and pensive; it was the way William looked at Drusilla when she quoted nursery rhymes-as though she were from another planet, and he wished he could be from her planet too.
“Well?” Angelus said.
“Are you asking?” William said.
“No.”
The hint of a smile twitched at the corner of William’s blood-caked lips. “Then come on and shove it down my throat, big Daddy,” he said, that arch and teasing tone, “you know how I just ache to have a mouthful of nice big prick.”
“You won’t be laughing soon.” Angelus put down his cognac.
“Break my jaw again,” William suggested. “I’ll take you even farther down.” But he was coming closer, on the floor, and Angelus’s knees were spread. William’s hands settled on his trousers. They were gentle, patrician hands, stained with blood.
William unfastened Angelus’s flies in a slow but thoughtful way. He took Angelus’s cock out gently, and then looked up, his pretty eyes fringed with honey lashes. “You know,” William said, “I don’t really care about the rest. I just love her, and she loves me. It’s all that really matters.”
Angelus tilted his hips. “Suck it,” he said.
“It’s not enough for you, is it? Nothing ever is,” William said, and sucked him.
*
Sunnydale, 2001
“She was your one true love.”
“Spike,” Angel said.
Spike draped himself along the doorframe. “Wasn’t she?”
Angel turned from the door. He knew it would be pointless to tell Spike to go away. “What do you want?”
“Just you, sunshine.” Spike came in and shut the door.
Angel had followed Willow back to Sunnydale the previous evening; what had been left of last night was just long enough to see Buffy’s grave and check on Dawn, make sure everything would be okay. He had called Cordelia from the motel that morning; he planned to drive back to Los Angeles tonight.
“Not me,” Spike said. “I had Dru.”
Angel hadn’t checked on Spike. Willow said that he still had his chip, and that he had helped them in the end. She told him just enough that he got the picture, about Spike and Buffy; Angel wouldn’t have believed it, except that it was Spike, and when it came to him believing anything ridiculous was easy.
“Good for you,” Angel said.
“Yep. That crazy bitch.” Spike took out his lighter, a cigarette; he lit it up, waved the smoke around. “Found her first, didn’t you.”
He wasn’t going to do this. He wasn’t seriously going to do this.
“You found her and you fucked her; you broke her brain and cast her off, didn’t you-useless bint, got tired of her.” Spike sucked on the cigarette. “Found Buffy first, too.”
He was Spike, of course he was going to do this.
“I didn’t find her,” Angel said.
“And you fucked her,” Spike went on. “All this epic, breakdown shit.”
“All right.” Angel turned away again. “I fucked her.”
“She get useless too, I wonder,” but it wasn’t a question; Spike wasn’t really wondering. “You get tired of her hot wet cunt, tired of making her your little whore-”
Spike was doing this, but Angel didn’t have to do it too. So he just said, “Yes,” and didn’t turn around.
“You’re a fucking bastard.”
“Yes.”
“You’re just going to stand there.” Spike’s tone was high, incredulous. “You’re just going to stand there and let me talk about her that way.”
“Yes.”
“No.” Spike came toward him, grabbed his arm. Turning Angel around, he flicked his cigarette on the motel floor, and clocked him in the jaw. “I’m not going to let you.”
Angel staggered back, and stood there.
Spike kicked him in the stomach. “Come on and fight me.”
“No.”
Advancing, Spike slammed him up against the wall. His fangs were out and he was pulling Angel down, to get up in his face. “Fight me,” Spike said. “Come on and be a man.”
Angel just looked down, shifting slightly against Spike’s lean hard body. “Go ahead and hit me. Rip me to pieces. See how I like it.”
Spike’s eyes searched his, back and forth and frantic, looking for something, anything in Angel’s face. Then he phased back into human features, and let him go. “Fuck you.” Spike shuddered, turned away. “Fuck you.”
Sagging against the wall, Angel closed his eyes. They flew open when Spike’s knee jammed against his crotch.
“Fuck you,” Spike said again, and his eyes were bright. “You can’t even fucking hit me? You can’t even fucking try to fucking hate me? What, is nothing ever going to be the-” He cut himself off abruptly, fumbled for more cigarettes.
Angel watched him, and didn’t understand it. “You loved Dru,” he said, because that, at least, he knew was true. He hadn’t really understood it, as Angelus, but he understood it later. He understood that he had loved Darla; he had even loved Drusilla and Spike, in his own twisted way, but it had not been at all what Spike had wanted from Drusilla. They had never really been the same.
“Dru.” Spike finally got his cigarette lit. “Yeah. Love eternal.”
“Buffy.” Angel was unable, fundamentally, to really make it a question.
Spike shook his head. “Buff-the Slayer. No. I hated that-that-I hated-hated-” His hand passed over his eyes, chewed nails, chipping black. His cigarette was shaking.
“Why?” Angel said.
“Because, she was a fucking-she was a fucking-” Spike’s hand shook so hard he dropped the cigarette, and then he lobbed another fist at Angel’s face.
Angel, head whipped to the side, spit blood. “Because she was too good for you. Is that it?”
“Poncing-” Spike kicked him in the ribs-“fucking-” blow across the ear-“wanker,” and Angel at last fought back, because there was anything he couldn’t deal with right now, it was William the Bloody fucking crying on his fucking shoulder.
“You’re dead,” Angel said, and hit him. “You’re soulless.” He slammed him down on the floor, and got on top of him. “And you’re filthy.”
“Fuck you,” Spike said, and lunged for his neck, fangs tearing flesh.
Angel slammed his head down. “Is that really all you got?”
Spike’s knee came up between Angel’s legs, and he rolled away with the advantage, coming up again and ready to go. “You worthless bastard,” Spike said, blood running down his chin. “You’re not any better than me.”
“You’re right.” Angel stood more slowly. “I’m not.” His fist uppercut Spike’s jaw; Spike staggered back against the wall. Angel pinned him there, and Spike squirmed.
“That’s right.” Spike’s hips rolled. “You’re fucking filthy too. We’re fucking foul, we are.”
Angel thought that if he had had the ability to feel nauseated, he would have then. Instead he just felt empty-the way her eyes were empty, the way that graves were empty, until filled. He let Spike go. “I-”
“Goddamn raging pillock,” Spike said, and kneed him again. “Don’t you fucking stop. I need-I need . . . just-”
Angel slammed him back against the wall. “You keep kicking me there, you’re not going to get what you need.” His thigh pushed hard between Spike’s legs.
“Yes.” Spike’s voice was more like a hiss; he writhed on Angel’s thigh. “Yes-”
“You’re going to have to work harder for it than that,” Angel said, and let him go.
Spike came after him; Angel knew he would, tackling him from behind, foot catching between his legs, taking him down to the floor, breaking the chair at the motel table. Spike climbed on top of him, slammed a fist against his temple. Angel grabbed him, threw him off; they grappled until Angel was on top, and Spike was moving his hips in that sinuous way all over again. Angel got off.
Spike pulled him down, straddled him again, hit him until Angel was just waiting for the next blow to come, the next, the next. He couldn’t feel anything; he was numb.
He looked up at Spike between the fists and thought that Spike felt things. He always felt everything. He always accused Angel of making him, teaching him everything he knew, but Angel never taught him this.
Angel didn’t know how to do this.
“Fuck you,” Spike said, and suddenly, he just stopped. Sitting back on his haunches brought his ass up against Angel’s groin, and though his cock was hard, Angel was having a hard time really caring. “Just fuck you,” Spike said, grinding down. “What do I have to do to make you fucking-what do you fucking want?”
“I want you to go away,” Angel said, speaking with a mushy mouth, smashed up face. “Leave me alone.”
Spike climbed off of him, sat beside him, knees up, legs open. He held out his hand in front of his face-it was shaking far less. He looked down at Angel, who just lay there, staring up at the ceiling, seeing Spike at the corner of his eye. Spike put his hand down.
“Got to get back to the crew in L.A., do you?” Spike said eventually. “Heard about the little one. What was it-Doyle. Pretty, runty little Mick bastard, I’m sure you’d like that, wouldn’t you. He liked you, too. I saw him. He’d’ve sucked your cock, if you asked him to. He’d have taken it and thanked you for it. And I’ve heard about Wesley, too I’ve heard all about that one. I bet he’d just bend over and take it, wouldn’t he. If you gave it to him, but you won’t, will you, because you’re a self-denying twat, aren’t you.
“You’re pretending to be good. You’re pretending like the power, the control-the fucking faith they all have in you-you pretend like it doesn’t fucking get you high, like your balls don’t tighten like a fucking virgin’s twat every time a fucking one of them professes faith to you, and Cordelia, the tits on that goddamn sodding-”
“Let me have a cigarette,” Angel said.
“No.” Spike’s voice was moody.
Upset, then, that it wasn’t working. Angel sighed. “I’ll use it on you,” he said. “Later.”
Spike thought about that. “Okay,” he said. Taking out another cigarette and his lighter, he gave one to Angel, and Angel lay there while Spike lit it for him.
“Go on a bit,” Angel said, and smoked.
Spike tilted his head. “No.”
Angel just kept smoking.
“Not until you use it,” Spike said. “I lit it up for a reason.”
Angel breathed in the smoky air. He didn’t need the smoke. He couldn’t taste it. He didn’t know why Spike liked it so much. “Okay,” Angel said. “Go stand beside the table.”
“No.”
Angel smoked some more. “There aren’t any other demons who could do this for you?”
Spike rolled his eyes. “No, Daddy, there’s no one else as good as you.”
“Don’t baby talk.” Angel locked his teeth around the cigarette, stood up, leaned down to grab Spike’s arm. Hauling Spike up, he dragged him over to the table. “You’ve got to keep it up,” he said, “or I won’t do it.”
“The tits on that cocksucking cunt, Cordelia,” Spike said immediately. “You want to fuck her raw, don’t you. You think about her sodding cunt all the time, don’t you, and how her blood would taste. You can smell it, can’t you; does the little catty bitch smell like Sunnydale; does she wear her varsity fucking cheerleading-”
Angel jammed the cigarette in his mouth and shoved Spike up against the table, started pulling off Spike’s coat. “Don’t stop,” he said.
Spike proceeded to wax obscenely poetic about all the things that Angel wanted to do to Cordelia, to Wesley, to Doyle; he didn’t include Winnifred or Lorne-they were new, but it was good enough, and most of it was true.
“Keep going,” Angel said, when he yanked Spike’s jeans down.
Spike began talking immediately all over again, naked, bent over the table, ass in the air, and Angel used to like him best like this, all spread out, and Spike used to tolerate it because he found it very funny, that Angelus thought he was in control.
“You think you’re going to save the sodding world,” Spike said, “but what did you do for a hundred years? You wasted it. You’re not a bloody hero-you were a coward. If you were worth anything at all, you would have-bloody hell, Angelus.”
Angel tapped the hot ash from the cigarette onto Spike’s smooth, pale back.
“Bloody hell. Do it again.”
Angel stubbed the cigarette out on Spike’s back. Spike bucked hard against the table. “Where’s your lighter?” Angel asked.
“’N m’jeans.” It was more of a moan, really. “Motherfucking monster, you are.”
“Yeah,” Angel said, but the strange affection in Spike’s words made him move a little faster, getting the lighter from Spike’s jeans. Not wanting to hear it, he flipped the lighter open. Laying his other hand on the long, firm curve of Spike’s flank, he flicked the lighter with the other hand, and brought the flame down onto the pretty wing of Spike’s white shoulder.
The sound that Spike made was not quite human, and he kept making it whenever Angel burned him, making it and making it until he was a moaning, writhing heap, humping the table erratically between pushing his ass back frantically against Angel’s hips.
“That’s enough,” Angel said, after a while, and closed the lighter.
“You fucking maniac.” Spike was babbling. “You’re a fucking head case.”
“I want you to talk like you were before. About me.” Angel’s voice was very flat.
“You would, you sodding, self-involved bloody poofter. All right, I haven’t even fucking got to that disgusting self-righteous fucking display aboard the-”
“I want you to talk about me and Buffy.”
Spike suddenly went quiet, and very, very still. His back was a mess of dead flesh, flaking, sooty skin, ashes, scabs. When he shuddered, broken skin cracked and oozed red. Angel splayed his hand against it, and pressed down into the seared, curled flesh.
“I’m going to fuck you now,” he said quietly. “You’re going to talk.”
“Yeah,” Spike said. “Okay.”
Angel had no idea why he would. He had no idea why either of them would, why either of them were this way. It was not in the least cathartic, and Angel didn’t understand what Spike would do now-whether he would keep looking for this, again-a dozen, a thousand times, or would he look for Dru; what would he do with grief, when neither of them were supposed to feel it; neither of them had any place to put it; Angel didn’t know.
But he knew what he would do. He would go back to L.A. He would pretend to be a man, and for months, he would hear Spike’s cries in his ears, reminding him of what he really was.
That, at least, was a comfort.
“You’re vile and lowdown,” Spike was saying, and Angel pressed inside his body, firm and young and dead, utterly and completely. “You’re obscene, a loathsome corpse, a preserved cadaver, why would she want-why would she want-”
Air caught in Spike’s throat, and Angel pressed in harder. “Keep going,” he said.
“Why would she want you, when you have nothing to offer her, and she’s too good, she is-she was too good, and I’m nothing but a-”
“Don’t stop,” Angel said.
Spike swallowed, arching back, taking Angel deeper, deeper, and Angel grit his teeth, closed his eyes, because he needed Spike to tell him; he needed Spike to tell him-
“You know what the difference is between you and me?” Spike said.
Angel knew them all.
“I don’t care,” Spike said. “I wasn’t good enough, and I don’t care.”
“Don’t,” Angel warned.
“I just loved her. That was all.”
*
Los Angeles, 2005
“You actually think they love you,” Angelus said.
“Fuck hell, now really?” Spike said.
“No, it’s amazing,” Angelus said. “You really think they care. You-oh, don’t tell me. This is too rich. You think you have friends.”
“Can’t you manage to keep a soul in you for any length of time?” Spike said. “How’ve you gone and lost it now?”
“It would be sweet,” Angelus said. “Except it’s sad.”
It was a Vengeance Demon. Angel-brainless shit he was-hadn’t saved her son, so the demon had wished his soul out, and now Angelus had approximately a week of havoc to wreak-he was guessing here-before the soul got shoved back in. Perfect way to torture Angel really, and Angelus planned to make it good. He wondered just how much of Angel’s little life he could utterly destroy before the soul got wished back in.
He could do a number on Ash Agency. It wasn’t that Angelus was so keen on the business angle of things-though Wolfram and Hart really had been more his style than Angel’s. It just meant so much to them, their little Angel Investigations 2.0, and Angelus itched to take it down-everything they had made since the destruction of L.A.
But first-oh, but first-there was Spike. The poor little bastard was so vulnerable, so weak, a vampire with a soul.
Angelus hated those.
“Hang on a mo’.” Dragging on his cigarette, Spike walked across his shitty apartment. “I’ll just call the Agency. Warn them and such.”
“Very funny,” said Angelus, still near the door.
“It won’t take a sec.” Spike took his cigarette out of his mouth, picked up the phone.
Angelus came across the room, half a second flat, grabbed the receiver from Spike, and broke it on the table. “You’re not calling anyone.”
Spike frowned down at the phone. “Now what’d you go and do that for?”
“You’re thinking of her, aren’t you. Those wide eyes, full of tears, when I fuck her, and later she finds out it wasn’t Angel.”
Still scowling, Spike puffed on his cigarette. “I don’t think Illyria will really care. You know, she’s not so discerning when it comes to-”
Angelus pulled the cigarette from Spike’s mouth, flicking it to the floor. “I’m not talking about Illyria.”
Spike looked down at the cigarette. “Careful. You’ll start a fire.”
“Nina,” Angelus said, leaning in.
“Oh, her.” Spike moved out of Angelus’s space, picking up the cigarette from the floor and stubbing it in the tray on the table. “Have you thought about, I don’t know, getting another act? Because the one where you terrorize the blonde and taunt her with soullessness-” Spike shrugged. “Strangely, I feel like it’s all been done before.”
Angelus crossed his arms and watched him. “You really do care about her.”
“Nina?” Frowning at the stubbed cigarette, Spike patted down his jacket, looking for a fresh one. “Not really. She didn’t even give me the corner office.”
“No. She gave that to Angel.”
“Giant poofter.” At last finding one, Spike pulled out another cigarette. “I mean, if you ask me. Which you’re going to, knowing you. Look, can we get on with this? ‘M a bit busy right now-things to do, people to warn.”
“Illyria?” was all Angelus said.
“Head case, that one.” Spike lit the cigarette. “Completely nutters.”
“You even care for her.”
“Are you off your nut?” Waving his cigarette around, Spike looked incredulously at Angelus. “You’ve really lost your touch, mate.”
“And then there’s Angel.”
Spike shoved the cigarette back in and started smoking furiously.
“They all love him best,” Angelus said. “Doesn’t that just kill you?”
Stomping over to the kitchen, Spike started slamming open drawers, throwing the doors on cabinets. “Where do I keep them? ‘S a bloody stake somewhere in-”
“You’re not going to stake me.”
Spike whirled around and stomped back into the living room, going toward the hall. Angelus put a hand out to stop him. “Let me by,” Spike said. “Left my stakes in the bedroom.”
“You’re not going to stake me,” Angelus said, very slowly, “because you care about me too.”
Spike barked a laugh. “Oh, that’s rich.”
“But you do,” Angelus said, and pushed him. Spike stumbled back, and Angelus came forward. “You think that I don’t know? You think that I don’t watch you, the way you look at me? You think that Angel doesn’t know?”
“That you’re crazy? Sorry, mate, I-”
Angelus leaned in. “You think that he doesn’t think of it, all the ways I’ve fucked you? You think that’s not what he’s thinking, all the time, when he looks back at you, when you fight? Why do you think I never touch you?”
“We touch,” Spike said. “We touch all the time. Like this.” His fist flew up directly under Angelus’s jaw, and Angelus’s head slammed back.
Spike made to move away, but Angelus grabbed him, slammed him against the wall. “Well, okay,” Spike said, punching him in the eye. “If it’s what you want.”
“You have no idea.” Angelus threw out his leg, tripping Spike, slamming him to the floor.
They rolled around, crashed into the cardboard box that held Spike’s tiny television. It came smashing down-the NES, the controllers, the bottles upon empty bottles of what once held beer. Spike broke one and held it in Angelus’s face; Angelus laughed.
“Why do you even pretend to be a man?” Angelus grabbed his wrist, twisted it away as Spike tried to slice the broken glass down his face. “Why are you even trying?”
“Someone has to.” Spike dropped the glass, punching Angelus in the face again with his other arm. “You’re sure not going to, giant poof like you.”
“Is it for them?” Angelus kicked him in the stomach, bringing Spike down again. He climbed on top of him. “Your friends? You think they think you’re worth something?”
“Worth eighty bucks.” Spike rolled on top of him. “Game of kittens.”
Bringing out his fangs, Angelus leaned up, nipped Spike’s ear. It almost came off when Spike jerked away, and blood poured from the side of Spike’s head. “Or is it for her?” Angelus said. Spike had leapt away; now they were back on their feet, slowly circling. “Tell me, Spike, is it for Buffy? Is that why you play at being hero?”
“Sorry, I can’t hear you.” Spike was in fangs now, too. “Ear must’ve been ripped off.”
Angelus lunged, brought him up against the wall, Spike small and plastered between the hard spaces of drywall and Angelus’s hips. “Or is it-just a little bit-for me?” Angelus asked, and slowly circled his hips.
“I’m sorry.” Spike blinked, phasing back to human form. “Are you still talking? I’ve lost the thread.”
Angelus leaned in, lips close to Spike’s good ear, fangs just brushing it. “Tell me, Spike, is it for me? Don’t tell me you don’t want to impress me-just a little. You want to prove you’re better. You always did.”
“One day when you’re better, and haven’t gone off your meds, we’ll talk about your self-esteem issues. I promise. Cross my heart and hope to-”
Angelus peeled him off the wall and threw him across the room.
“Bloody ow.” Spike brought his hand to the side of his face, brought his hand away, and looked at it. “Scraped my bad ear, you did.”
Standing over him, Angelus said, “You need me, don’t you. I’m the only one who knows all of you. Everything you are.”
Spike just looked incredulous. “Are you a psychoanalyst now? Because I preferred it when you were just plain-”
“You need me, William.” Angelus’s voice was soft. “The sad part is, Angel’s never going to need you. No one is.”
Spike’s leg lashed out, bringing him down. The tussled for a while, trading blow for blow, slick with blood and bruises, cuts and scratches, until Angelus had Spike’s jacket off, and was tugging on his jeans.
Spike burst into sudden laughter. “Are we really going to do this?”
“You want it, don’t you?” Angelus said, jerking on the jeans so hard the button popped. “You want it from Angel all the time. Too bad he never gives it to you.”
Spike just laughed again. “So, without your soul, you’re just a horny fuck.”
“Want to know why he never gives it to you?” Angelus worked Spike’s jeans off, bit down on Spike’s neck, holding him in place with fangs.
“Because he’s a repressed tosser who doesn’t-”
Spike squirmed, and Angelus held him down until the jeans were all the way off. Spike’s shirt was already in tatters. “Because, for some strange reason-maybe it was the way that I was raised-I have all these thoughts on sex.” Angelus wrapped his hand around Spike’s cock. “That’s why I’m going to fuck you, and he can’t.”
“Oh my.” Spike’s eyelashes fluttered. “Are you going to fuck me? I thought we were just having a chat.”
Angelus kept his knee on Spike’s thigh and leaned close in to Spike’s good ear, hand wrapping around Spike’s cock. “Angel doesn’t like to touch anyone he doesn’t care about.”
Spike fluttered his eyelashes some more. “Oh, God, no. Don’t put that big cock in me! I’m not sure I could take it if you rip me wide open without even caring about me. Help! Help! Can I have a fag while you’re at it?” he added in afterthought. “You usually take a while.”
“Spike, Spike.” Angelus squeezed Spike’s cock, with his other hand unfastening his own jeans. “You seem to forget. Remember what I’m like?” He leaned in again. “I’m really really good.”
“At rape and torture? Yes, you’re the grandmaster.” Spike gyrated his hips beneath him. “Now about that fag . . .”
“You think I don’t know you,” Angelus said. “You think I can’t get to you.”
“Oh, did I need to protest more?” Spike shimmied his hips again. “Don’t rape me, don’t plunder my virgin arse, don’t put your big things in my little rosebud cunt-like that?”
“You think I haven’t been watching.”
“Or was it more praise you wanted? Yes, Daddy, your cock is the biggest, you’re the only man for my twat, no one plugs an arse like-”
Angelus phased back into human form, and kissed him. He kissed him long and slow, tongue licking at the tender underside of Spike’s bottom lip, gentle and hungry and not the least bit forceful. Spike’s mouth fell open in surprise, and Angelus kissed him more deeply-wetly, softly, and then began to gently stroke Spike’s cock. He pulled his mouth away.
Spike’s eyes were wide as skies, and very very blue. “What . . . ?” he said.
“I know just how to break you,” Angelus said, and kissed him again.
This time Spike struggled, just like Angelus wanted, thrashing under his mouth, pushing him off and rolling away. “You’re bloody fucking mental,” Spike said.
“You did forget,” Angelus said.
Spike swung at his face, but Angel caught his wrist, twisting. He dragged him across the room. “I’m sure you keep them somewhere,” he said, and jerked Spike down the hall.
“What are you-”
“Of course,” Angelus said. They were in the bedroom, and Angelus went straight for the nightstand.
“No,” Spike said. “No, you bloody don’t-”
“But Spike.” Angelus’s voice was innocent, and handcuffs dangled from his hand. “You love them.”
Spike punched him in the face then, but as they grappled, Angelus pushed the metal down on Spike’s wrist, and clicked it with a cold, inevitable sound. He looked around for a suitable spot, decided the bed would do, and cuffed Spike to the headboard.
“Alright, fine,” Spike said. “You win. Rape m, split me open, make me scream, yadda yadda. Just don’t expect me to-bloody hell.” He threw his head back, cords on his neck standing out, as Angelus held Spike’s hips down and licked Spike’s cock, opened up his mouth and took him-down and down-took Spike all the way down his throat, long and wet, expert and very, very gentle. “Don’t. You fucking don’t-”
Lashing out with a leg, Spike kicked him hard enough to bring Angelus off his cock. Angelus just stood, and went back to the nightstand. “My God,” he said, in mock surprise. “It’s full of toys!”
“Fuck you,” Spike said.
“Maybe.” Angelus pilfered through the drawer, taking out the nylon rope, the lube, a few other things. There weren’t actually nearly as many things in there as Angel liked to keep-Angel was usually much more patient than Spike was, really. “Come on now, baby. Let me tie your legs.”
Spike thrashed and kicked him, but Angelus positioned him face down, tied Spike’s legs to either bedpost. Even if Spike wasn’t as big of a fan as Angel, there was a reason he had an expensive four-poster in this shitty apartment. Once Spike was tied, Angelus’s hand settled on the firm curve of Spike’s ass.
“Go ahead,” Spike said, his voice muffled. “I don’t care. I’ll fucking love it. I always do. You’re hilarious.”
“Yes,” was all Angelus said. “I don’t think you’re going to laugh.” Then he leaned down, and his lips brushed the crease of Spike’s ass.
“Motherfucking hell.”
“I thought so.” Angelus spread Spike’s cheeks, moving father in. He circled Spike’s hole with a careful tongue, and when he began to press in, he did so gently.
“You fucking mangy slobbering cunt-faced-”
Angelus came back up to whisper, “Shh,” and pushed in with his tongue.
Spike moved crazily on the bed, and Angelus had to hold him down, hands hard on Spike’s hips while he pushed his tongue in, thrusting, pushing deeper, then coming back out to circle gently.
“You take that nicely,” Angelus said into the curve of Spike’s pale ass.
“You fucking freak.”
“Did Buffy do this for you?” He gave Spike’s hole a kiss. “Has anyone?”
That did it, really. Spike managed, then, to break the headboard, get his arms free, pushing Angelus off. “Never took you for an arse-licker,” he said, as he furiously worked the ropes.
Angelus laughed. “Just a little tenderness, and you’re in a temper like a child. It’s almost too easy.”
Spike was working on the last rope. Angelus stood up, unhooked the handcuffs-Spike swung wildly, but he was still tied down. Angelus put a knee on his back, and recuffed him to the bedframe, the mattress moved a little aside.
Spike thrashed, went still. “What are you going to do? You wanna stake me? Stake me.”
“Oh, William.” Angelus put a hand in his hair. “You know me better than that. What do you think I’m going to do?”
“Dunno,” Spike said. “You’ve got freakier than you were.”
Angelus stroked his hair. “I’m going to make love to you all night long, silly. I’m going to be so, so sweet to you.”
“Oh. Is that all.” Spike huffed. “I’ll just lay back and enjoy it then, shall I?”
“You can do anything you want,” Angelus said, large hand pulling down the soft hairs at the base of Spike’s neck, trailing down the pretty, pretty knobs of his spine, the soft, firm expanse of his back. There were tiny freckles there. “Anything at all. But all the while you’ll know how Angel really feels. And when he gets his soul back, it’s going to be so much worse than if I had just raped your body.”
“You think?” Spike jerked futilely.
“Oh, yes.” Angelus was stroking him now, long and firm; at first Spike was stiff beneath his hands, but gradually he relaxed. Angelus laid down little kisses, all the way down his spine. “Because he’ll never mention it,” he said, once he had again reached the curve of Spike’s ass. “You know he won’t. You know he can’t. He can’t apologize, and for six months, he won’t even be able to look at you. And when at last he can, you’ll know that he’ll be thinking of this moment. He’ll think of all the ways I made love to you, as though I really cared for you, all the sweet things I’m going to say to you, all the sweet ways your body moved against mine-he’ll look at you, and loathe you for it. But you won’t.”
“I will,” said Spike. “I already loathe him. I loathe you.”
“No,” Angelus said, spreading Spike’s cheeks. “You don’t loathe him. And when you remember this, you will treasure it, because you’ve always wanted him to touch you this way. He knows it, and you know that he would never do it. He’ll despise you that much more for it, and you know what’s even better? The way he’s going to despise himself. Now, where was I?”
“Arse licking, you bloody freak.”
“Right.” Angelus leaned down and kissed him again, right between the cheeks. When he used his tongue again, Spike was stiff beneath him-he was moving oddly, as Angelus held him down. Angelus could tell Spike was trying to figure out whether fighting or giving in was the best form of defiance, knowing he would at last give in, because Spike was Spike: it felt good. He wanted it.
“Do you know what the difference is between you and Angel?” Angelus said, lifting his head from the wet mess of Spike’s tender hole.
Air came into Spike’s throat in a gasp. “I’m better looking?”
“You don’t care that it’s me that’s giving you this. You just want it, and you’re going to take it.”
“You’re the butt muncher,” Spike said.
“He wouldn’t take it on a silver platter,” Angelus said. “But you-you take this kind of things wherever you can get it. Don’t you, love?” He kissed Spike again, knowing that it was true.
*
London, 2075
“He was your true love,” Spike said. “Funny. For the longest time, I thought that it was Buffy.”
“I loved Buffy,” Angel said.
“’Course you did,” Spike said. “I loved Dru.”
“We never get the girls.”
“He did.” Spike put his hand on his pocket, but didn’t take a smoke out. “A lot of people loved him.”
They were standing at Connor Reilly’s grave. It grew green there, but only because the graveyard crew had covered it with living sod. Angel could still smell the soil; it smelled like it had when he had first opened his eyes, buried in his own grave. It was still fresh, filled with living things, and decay.
“He loved a lot of people back,” Angel said.
His son had been eighty-eight years old, when he died. Angel had three grand-children.
“Wonder where he learned it,” Spike said.
“It doesn’t stop,” Angel said. “It goes on and on and on.”
Spike put his hand on Angel’s shoulder. “Wearing out, old man?”
“No,” said Angel.
“And that’s the worst part.” Spike’s hand slid down Angel’s arm, but he didn’t take his hand, letting go instead. “Let’s go.”
After all this time, they were back in England. Connor had lived near the Slayer facility Buffy had founded; he had trained there and then become a trainer, going out on missions in his younger days, supervising them in elder years. His youngest daughter had been Chosen at fourteen. Her name had been Hope.
She had died at the age of forty-four.
Angel and Spike had rented a cottage; it was the only place available on the country-side in Wiltshire that wasn’t taken by the demons, dozen families and ten times a dozen girls that showed up for the funeral. Angel and Spike didn’t live together, but they hadn’t bothered renting out more than the single bedroom place. There were quilts and white-washed walls, rooster decorations; Angel hated it; he hated it; he hated everything. “You’ll hurt the roosters’ feelings,” Spike had said, and made crude jokes about the cocks.
Spike rarely smoked these days, but he did so like a chimney, once they got into in England. Angel thought he would start up again when they got back from the grave. He also thought that Spike would head out for a drink and leave him alone, for once; after all these years, he knew how Spike grieved.
But Spike knew him too, and stayed; when they got back to the cottage he took his coat off carefully-brown now, the black leather finally having fallen apart. He folded it and put it on the table.
Angel sat on the over-stuffed chair by the lamp and didn’t turn it on. He knew what Spike would say about him sitting in the dark. He just couldn’t bring himself to care.
But Spike didn’t say anything, just watched him, head tilted-that soft, thoughtful look he got when he thought other people weren’t looking. Angel wished that he would go away.
Moving deeper into the room, Spike didn’t turn the lights on either. Instead he got out his suitcase, began rummaging around. Sliding something shiny in his pocket, he came over to the chair. Bent to touch Angel’s knees, then pulled them apart, kneeling between them.
“Not in the mood,” Angel said.
“Yes. You are.” Spike took the knife out of his pocket.
“I said that I don’t want to.”
Spike played with the knife. “I know.” Leaning in, he began unbuttoning Angel’s shirt. “I would hit you, but you’d just sit there.”
“Spike,” Angel said.
“I hate to use a knife. Man doesn’t need nearly as many tools as he thinks he does. Or, vampires don’t. But I know you like them.” Spike’s hands slid in Angel’s shirt, opening it up. It was smooth and young and dead, the way it always was, unmoving.
“Spike.”
Slamming the knife down on the table beside the chair, Spike stood up swiftly. “The fuck, Angel. It’s not like you’re the only one who-you’re not the only one.”
Angel looked up. “You should put the blade in a flame. I . . . it’s better.”
“Oh. Right.” Spike blinked. “You’re so picky.” His hand slid down into his pocket.
“There are candles in the trunk.”
Frowning, Spike went over to the trunk, opened in, took out the candles. Brought them back and set a fat one on the table. He pulled his lighter from his pocket and lit it up. Near the flame, his face looked ghostly.
He’d let his hair go back to honey-colored.
“Bloody poofter. Bringing candles.” Spike’s voice was like the candle-light, soft and warm, lighting up the dark. “You knew.”
“I thought we might,” was all that Angel said.
“All right.” Spike put the knife in the fire, his other hand opening Angel’s shirt. “Right across the heart?” He turned the blade.
“If you keep talking, we’re not doing anything.”
“Right,” Spike said again, and drew the knife down Angel’s chest.
The blood came down; Angel’s hips came up; air he’d drawn to talk came out, and the grief went in.
It held.
“Again?” Spike ran his thumb across the blood, burnt flesh, Angel’s still, unbeating heart.
“What do you think?”
“Okay.” Spike put the blade against the candle-flame, then again against Angel’s chest.
He did it again and again and again-the blade, the blaze, the fire and the pain, and by the time Angel’s chest was covered over red and burned black, Angel was fully hard. Spike pressed his fangs to Angel’s non-existent pulse and said, “I could cut your heart out.”
Angel twisted under him. “That would be . . . interesting.”
Spike’s tongue lapped down over Angel’s collar bone, down along the blood and closer to his heart. “I could pour sawdust in your veins.”
“Shit.” Angel’s hips bucked, unexpectedly.
“I could fuck you with a stake.”
“Spike.”
“Are you ready for it now?” Spike’s hand finally came down, found his crotch; his bloody lips moved back up to Angel’s ear. His hand squeezed on Angel’s cock. “I could cut this off.”
Angel twisted again, pushing up into Spike’s hand. “I’m ready for it.”
“Good.” Spike let go. “I don’t really want to cut it off. It’s a bit of alright, sometimes.”
Letting himself be pulled up, Angel stood, took off his clothes. Spike stripped down too, and Angel went back to the trunk. As Angel rummaged around, Spike hopped on the bed, wiggled around, making a show of it. Angel didn’t pay him any mind.
“Come on,” said Spike. “All that blood isn’t enough?”
“Don’t get cocky.” Angel stood, tossed him a little bottle.
Spike just sighed. “You always were a lube man. Come on up.”
Closing the trunk, Angel came on up, his chest still a mess of blood and burned flesh. “Don’t play around,” he warned.
“What are you talking about?” Spike spread Angel’s legs. “I never play. I just like to get it messy.”
“Just do it, Spike.”
“Yes, Daddy.” Pouring the oil on his fingers, Spike rubbed his hands together, pushed his hand between Angel’s thighs. “What nasty things you want me to say this time?”
“Nothing.” Angel shifted, getting used to the feel of Spike’s long slender fingers inside his body. “Don’t say anything.”
“I,” Spike began, thought better of it, and stopped. Pulling his fingers out of Angel’s hole, he pulled up on his legs, hands under his knees. “Budge up,” he said, positioning himself.
“Do it, already.”
“Getting there,” said Spike, and pushed inside.
Angel had done it before, had another man inside him, but Angelus usually told the truth-he had some strange thoughts about sex, and this . . . it always felt like someone having power over him. It felt like not being in control; he didn’t like it. He wasn’t good enough; he didn’t deserve to give it up-
He never deserved to give up-
Spike put his wet hands on either side of Angel’s head. “Stop thinking.”
“Okay,” Angel said.
“You can cut me up after.” Spike pulled out, pushed in slowly, agonizing slow. “Make you feel better.”
“Okay,” Angel said.
“You can do the sawdust thing.” Spike rocked his hips, and Angel looked away. “If you want. I always wanted to try it. Not the cock thing, though.” Spike’s fangs dragged down his face, just the tips, and so sharp that Angel didn’t even feel it until he began to bleed. “That’s just you.”
“Okay.” Angel’s hands settled on Spike’s hips, yanking in, moving Spike faster, harder.
“Fuck.” Spike bit his lips with fangs. “Jesus fuck.”
“I told you not to dick around.” Angel pulled him in again, harder.
“Christ. I forgot how you are. Hold on a mo’.” Bracing himself with an arm, Spike shifted his weight-shallower angle, but he could go faster this way, and Angel knew he’d just have to lie there and take it, take it, take it. He wanted it; he wanted it so badly, but Spike-
Spike, Jesus Christ. Angel didn’t know how many times Spike had done this, just like this, for Connor.
Angel squeezed his eyes closed, and turned his face away.
“Thought I told you not to think,” Spike said, because by now he could almost always follow Angel’s train of thought.
“You loved him,” Angel said. Spike was hard inside of him, and despite the oil the burn was painful, unpleasant, and still not enough. “Say you loved him.”
“I loved him,” Spike said immediately, and thrust in, because it was easy for him. It had always been so easy for him. “I loved your son. Just like this. Like this.”
“He loved you,” Angel said, but Spike must have known what he really meant. Angel supposed Spike had always known, at least a little bit.
Spike wrapped his hand around Angel’s cock, jerked him and bit him until he came. Spike wasn’t far behind.
Then they lay there, the room thick with scents of blood and come and burnt flesh, but not sweat, never sweat. Spike got up and rifled for his cigarettes. “Bring me one,” Angel said, and stared up at the ceiling.
“Sure.”
A box waved in Angel’s face; Angel slid a cigarette out, put it in him mouth, waited for Spike to light it.
“You know what the difference is, between you and me?” Spike said, lighting Angel’s cigarette.
Angel took the cigarette out of his mouth, blew out smoke. “No.”
“I don’t either,” Spike said.
They lay in bed and smoked a while, then Angel took the knife, and did what Spike had promised him. The sheets were soaked with blood and come, by the end of it, the bed full of the knowledge that love would never be enough, except for when it was.
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