Hey look - I've managed to write something!
Okay, so my prompts for the current round of roulette at nekid_spike turned out to be: Wes; masturbation (OK so far); sewers; boots. I mean, boots and sewers? Come on! I gave up, early on, the idea of producing a manip using the prompts and decided that perhaps I'd be able to squeeze out a drabble or maybe a flash-fic.
After wailings and lamentations and much gnashing of teeth yesterday, those dangerous things - a flash of a scenario and a snatch of dialogue - came to me and before I knew it, I'd got a story written. It's about four times longer than I thought it would be and, while in no danger of being accused of literature, it's quite funny, I think - and I got all the prompts in, fairly seamlessly. Including da smut.
A million thanks to thismaz who did an immediate beta for me and was kind enough to tell me that she liked it.
I'm feeling incredibly pleased at being able to make this happen - even, dare I say it, the first glimmering of a sense of satisfaction. I certainly feel very surprised, because my mood has been shit, recently. To haul myself over the rim of the well long enough to write this is quite an achievement.
I am now working on a banner to go with it and shall post it later. A manip for a story I can do - a manip for boots, sewers, Wes and wanks I couldn't manage, *G*.
******************
The Cloaca Conundrum
or - Masturbatory Manifestations
Author: mwrgana
Beta: thismaz
Pairing: Spike and Wes
Warnings: descriptions of masturbation; the perils of the sewers; the chance of a certain theme song's lodging itself in your mind.
Word-count: 3,238
********************
Some days the gods smile at you and the sun shines down upon you and all is good in the best of all possible worlds.
Wesley was happy. Well, 'mellow' was probably the better word to describe him. He was a bit too tired for the crass exuberance of your overt happiness. His expression was composed of a quiet, satisfied smile rather than a wide grin. As he walked back to his office from the surprisingly congenial 13th-floor bar - where he had spent a hard-earned hour of relaxation indulging in a light lunch, albeit rather late, and chatting with, and getting to know, members of the firm - his comportment was loose and confident.
His stride was the stride of a man who had done his duty, and done it alone, and done it well.
He had spent a couple of hours banishing a dimension-hopping demon which had been carrying out an efficient, if harsh, form of population control upon the citizens of Los Angeles. It had been a test of wills and cunning which had left Wes feeling tired but smug - and heartfully grateful for the infinite data that were stored in Wolfram and Hart's magical books. He'd spent an hour and a half reading and half-an-hour in mental combat with the forces of darkness, after having summoned the demon to his office for the final showdown.
His stride rolled a little, as the ghost of Gary Cooper drifted in soft tendrils through his mind. Under his breath, he hummed a haunting theme.
By the time his office door came into view, Wesley had got his evening all planned out. He would first of all put away his books, then indulge in just another small whisky, whilst slouched in his ergonomically luxurious chair, at his immaculately tidy - indeed, perfectly empty - desk and allow himself a gratifying and totally gratuitous wank, thinking of nothing or no-one. It was one of his deepest secrets, this habit of dispassionate sensual satisfaction - completely impersonal and completely narcissistic. And it beat the hell out of Prozac.
His pace slowed down, and Coop floated ethereally away to the big coral in the sky to leave him to his imaginings.
He could already taste the whisky - not a great leap of imagination seeing as how his last drink still lingered on his tongue, but that is neither here nor there. He imagined the cushion of his chair shifting gently to accommodate his weight; he could hear the soft creaking of its leather and the soft hiss of zipper-teeth as he loosened his trousers to pull out his swelling cock. He would shift the silken glide of foreskin along the glistening head of his penis. Each time he pulled it back over his cockhead, he would bunch it together and squeeze it, and roll it in his fingers and revel in the sensation as tens of thousands of nerve-endings sent a glissando of rapture through his body. His steps speeded up again, to match his racing thoughts.
As he reached his office door, he wrapped his hand around the doorknob and pictured himself applying just the right amount of pressure to his balls. He would slump further into his chair while his legs fell open, and his eyes fell shut, as he gave himself up to absolute pleasure.
Then he opened the door. And suddenly the gods were no longer smiling on him - they were laughing at him.
“What the hell?” He froze to the spot; his shocked gaze, disbelieving and dismayed, fell on a panoply of destruction, the entirety of which his mind denied full discernment.
Papers were scattered around the room and furniture upturned. Stepping carefully into the room, avoiding the obstacles in his path, his shock turned to ire, and his fury built. He glared at the smashed coffee pot, its contents soaking an indelible stain into his personally chosen silk rug - just one part of what seemed like the ensuing chaos of a tornado - or a small, evil and very bored child.
Books were torn and strewn, some looked very much as if they had been chewed and Wes let out a cry of anguish. Then his heart leapt in horror, and he rushed to the table where he had left the magical reference books, only to find them safe and covered, strangely, with a heavy rug - this one, thankfully, not soaked with coffee. He let out a deep sigh of relief, but there was discernible, on the in-breath, a strong miasma of malt and he stared balefully at the smashed bottle of Glen Moray which lay forlornly in crystal slivers next to the drawers of his desk which had been pulled out and piled in an untidy heap.
Wes's mind dismissed extreme weather fronts and bored children, and fastened onto covetous vampires. Mainly because the right sort of vampire just happened to be present.
The vampire in question stood in the middle of the room, looking distracted and dishevelled. One of the arms from Wes's chair hung broken and sagging from his left hand. His other hand was hidden by the sleeve of his coat which was pulled sideways across his shoulder, the collar down at his elbow. A deep gash on his forehead added bright globs of blood to the room's refurbishment.
“Spike, what the hell have you been doing here? This is my office. My sanctuary. It looks like a damned cloaca. If you've been looking for that magic map, I'll have your guts for garters. I told you Angel had hidden it and that he didn't tell me where.”
“Well thanks a bloody bunch, Mate! If I hadn't come along when I did you wouldn't have a sodding office at all. Nor would anyone else in this hive of evil lawyer-bees.
“May I respectfully suggest that the next time you try banishing a Clevesalt demon, you remember to shut the bloody books of power that you use to do it with? The bloody thing managed to crawl back here using the pages of spells that you, so conveniently, left open for it to access. Just as well I managed to cover 'em with a mat, else we'd be knee-deep in his friends. Has anyone told you recently that you're a bloody disaster waiting to happen, when you put your mind to it?”
Spike dropped the chair-arm and pulled his coat straight, dusted himself down and smoothed back his hair. He kicked the shards of broken bottle and sighed. “Huh, pity about that, I could do with one for the road, right now.”
He straightened his slumped shoulders and looked at Wes. “Right then, we've got to go after it. You're not going to be able to call it back here again - they don't answer the same summons twice. So that means we'll have to go to it. You'd better get your shit-kickers on.”
“What?”
“Your heavy boots, Pryce. Your very heavy boots. 'Cause you see, it's funny you mentioned a cloaca, 'cause that's where we're heading. A pair of waders may be the best thing in the circumstances. Clevesalts always go to ground in the sewers - and the deeper and danker the better. To save time, you can apologise to me as we go. A quarter of an hour's worth of grovelling will do for a warm-up. You can finish the obsequious obeisance when we get back.”
Just then, Angel appeared at the open doorway and peered in cautiously. He stepped in and opened his mouth to speak but Spike strode up to him and punched him full in the face before he could say anything.
“That's for what you were going to say, you obnoxious prick. I was here helping! Where the hell were you when you were needed? Rather than make stupid and wrongful accusations, get your lardy arse ready to move out. We've got some sewers to check out for a Clevesalt demon. You're good in sewers.”
******************
As much as Spike hated to admit it, Angel was good in the sewers. He managed to track down the Clevesalt in record time and, with a some-time Watcher both chanting and wielding an axe, and two vampires carrying out some serious pummelling, it quickly succumbed. Spike, still smarting over being blamed for the destruction of Wes's office, claimed the coup de grace, tearing off the demon's head and drop-kicking it out of sight.
Angel probably would have complained about having to forego the victor's due, what with his being the boss and all that but, right then, he was sitting shoulder-high in the sort of liquid that wasn't... well... shall we say, quite as liquid as might have been desirable in the circumstances.
Spike led the way as they returned through the noisome tunnels. He strutted along, humming loudly, feeling better than he had done for days, and plotting ways in which Wes should make due amends for his unpardonable accusations. “You know, Weasley, you're brilliant at making a mountain out of a frigging mole-hill. I mean, all this? And for what? Forget the sodding books, next time. Just call us in to kill the big bad in the first place, and have done with it. But don't worry, I'm sure I can find a few ways to forgive you! I wouldn't like to speak for the dumpling back there, though!”
Wesley, limping along behind, grunted what might have been agreement. He was exhausted and hurting. He had only just realised that during the affray he had badly twisted his ankle. And, he cautiously moved his shoulder, had also pulled a muscle while swinging his axe. It was all so different from what he had been planning less than an hour ago. The trouble was, that walking behind Spike didn't serve to banish his earlier plans from his mind. In fact, walking behind Spike, as he had discovered before, always served to formulate such plans and to stir up his baser instincts to even more basic levels. And then, when he indulged those instincts, it became very difficult to think of nothing and no-one. And almost impossible to remain impersonal.
Taking up the rear, a disconsolate Angel trudged, deep in depression, and still deep in shit. He resisted the temptation to hurl Wesley into the foul channel that ran beside them, and ground his teeth as he watched Spike's carefree progress. It was not his greatest moment but he knew, like the evil that men do, that it would live after him - or at least along with him - for a long while. At times like this he could always count on Spike's being his Mark Anthony and calling upon his friends, at least - if not his countrymen and specific Italians - to recount to them every humiliating detail.
*******
Wesley had decided to leave the clearing-up of his office for the morrow. With the aid of one of Wolfram and Hart's efficient cleaning crews, it wouldn't be too difficult. He would just have to oversee what was to be cleared away and what was to be rescued. He was sorry about that silk rug, though.
Alone at last, in the safety of his own apartment, he sank, heavy-hearted into the cushioned embrace of his sofa and sighed. Somehow, the sensual delights he had been anticipating, now seemed both more essential and contrived. The rush of adrenaline that had come with the underground fight spurred his hormones on to demand satisfaction but the circumstances conjoined to demand a less solitary outlet. The view of Spike's bobbing backside as he climbed the ladder in front of him, had not helped matters in the slightest.
He sprawled on the sofa, like a petulant rag-doll, his hand hovering over his fly, unsure what to do. Finally, he dropped his hand and wrenched open his trouser button. It came away in his hand and flew through the air to land with an accusing 'ping' in the fireplace. As if it were an echo, the doorbell rang. Groaning, Wes hauled himself to his feet and plodded to the door. He was only mildly surprised to find Spike there, slouching decoratively against the wall. That he came bearing the gift of a Chinese take-away, he found infinitely more surprising.
“I called up to your office to get my apology but found that you'd gone home. Being the magnanimous sort of vamp that I am, I got to thinking you might be feeling a bit sorry for yourself, so I've come here to cheer you up. Oh, and to get the grovelling you owe me. Mustn't forget that, must we?”
They looked into each other's eyes and knew. The atmosphere crackled with tension, and both men became painfully hesitant. They stood staring at each other from either side of the doorway as if neither could quite place the other. It was as if they knew each other but the 'how' and the 'from where' were eluding them.
For all of Spike's contrived jocularity and the certainty that he held the moral high-ground, he was uncertain that he was doing the right thing. But then, nil desperandum had always been his motto - along with always get out alive. Oh, and ensure I end up on top, and Angel is always in the wrong, and... Yes, OK, it was one of his mottoes, anyway.
Wes wavered between screaming, running away, and running away whilst screaming. Finally he shrugged, stepped aside and said, “Right then. You'd better come in.
Spike grinned and strode in as if he owned the place.
“So, um, how's Angel doing?” asked Wes. “If anyone were feeling sorry for himself I would have thought it were he.” Despite himself, a small chuckle was fighting to get out. “He was in a pretty sorry state. I can't imagine his mood is one of forgive-and-forget, right now.”
“Oh, he was getting boring," dismissed Spike with a flick of his hand. "Same old complaints, same old stink. Besides, he kept disappearing into the bathroom and I got tired of insulting him through steamed-up glass and over the sound of the shower. I took the piss for a good long while but what he really needs to have taken is the shit - that smell is going to hang around for more than a couple of showers every hour. One of the downsides of the vampire sense of smell is that pongs you don't like, linger longer than you'd long for.
“By the way, I don't know if you know it, but your trousers are all but undone. Anything I can help you with?”
Wes's hand again fell, this time to cover himself up and he froze when Spike stepped forward and took hold of it. “You know, Wes, you don't need vamp-powered senses to smell when a man's got a hard-on. So, what I propose is that I give you a hand with that. And then, when you're feeling suitably obsequious you can return the favour. With interest.”
Spike dropped Wes's hand and pushed the take-away towards him. “Always good to have something to eat after strenuous exertions. Pop this in the oven to keep warm til we're ready to eat...” Spike paused for a moment, looked down at Wes's groin then looked back up at the food, “it.” Spike cocked an eyebrow in emphasis.
Almost falling over his feet, and still trying to keep his trousers together, Wes struggled to the kitchen and, to his amazement, found himself following Spike's instructions.
Spike was as good as his word. He was remarkably gentle as he again took Wes's hand and drew him close to the sofa. “You know what I intend to do to you, don't you, Wes?”
Wes nodded.
“We've been dancing around each other for a while, now, haven't we?”
Wes nodded.
“I think it's about time you let go that death grip you've got on your trousers and let gravity do its job, don't you?”
Wes nodded.
He opened his fist and his trousers crumpled around his feet and Spike pulled him closer encouraging him to step out of them. To an outsider's eye he might have looked ridiculous, stood there in his shoes, socks, pants and shirt - not the dignified, academic with the dash of derring-do, persona he worked hard at to maintain, these days.
Wes's shirt dropped on top of his trousers, then Spike was nudging Wes's arms up so as he could pull off his vest. Wes considered long and hard as he dressed each morning, as to whether or not such underwear was necessary in the Mediterranean climate of California, but it was October, and even rogue demon-hunters found some childhood-instilled conventions impossible to overcome.
Then Spike's hands were at Wes's waist, pulling down his pants and, as they cleared his bum, he found himself being pushed back onto the sofa so that Spike could pull them off, avoiding the hopping around on one leg and falling and cracking one's coccyx which can prove such a passion dampener.
Spike stripped swiftly and efficiently, picked up Wes's legs and swung them the length of the sofa. Wes fell back against the cushions and looked up at Spike, his thoughts running so quickly he didn't have time to catch one of them.
Spike glanced at Wes's feet and then shoes and socks were flying to join the pile of clothing. “Okay?”
Wes nodded.
Spike stood for a moment, looking down at Wesley, a strange expression on his face - mainly comprising glee, awe and lust. Then the persistent bumping of his cock against his belly spurred him to action. He knelt astride Wes and caught hold of his shoulders. He kneaded them, then ran his hands slowly down Wes's chest, sliding his fingertips through the soft hair.
Wes found it hard to believe that, only a few short hours ago, his greatest aspiration had been to have a clinical, lonely wank thinking of no-one and nothing. But hadn't this very creature, who was even now making free with his body, been hovering in the shadows of his fantasies ever since making that extraordinary, incorporeal, entrance in Angel's office?
As Spike took Wes's cock in his hand, Wes abandoned all conceits and pretences of thinking of no-one and nothing and, until such time as his mind went blank moments before he came, indulged in the extremely personal ministrations of Spike. It had been some time since he had been with another man but when, after having allowed him a few seconds doze, Spike produced some lube and with quiet efficiency and loud ribaldry prepared him for action, he had to fight hard to overcome the thought that it was like riding a bike.
*************
And so, as it began, it ends. The gods were smiling again, but now Wes was joined, for the while, in mellow happiness and curious companionship with Spike. The companionship was pleasing to both and, after enjoying an excellent Chinese and the contents of an unbroken bottle of Glen Moray, they wended their weary way to Wes's bed to get even more companionable and even more weary before Dawn's rosy fingers beckoned them to another day's duty.
*******
Angel... well he went to have another shower.
********
Fin.
After wailings and lamentations and much gnashing of teeth yesterday, those dangerous things - a flash of a scenario and a snatch of dialogue - came to me and before I knew it, I'd got a story written. It's about four times longer than I thought it would be and, while in no danger of being accused of literature, it's quite funny, I think - and I got all the prompts in, fairly seamlessly. Including da smut.
A million thanks to thismaz who did an immediate beta for me and was kind enough to tell me that she liked it.
I'm feeling incredibly pleased at being able to make this happen - even, dare I say it, the first glimmering of a sense of satisfaction. I certainly feel very surprised, because my mood has been shit, recently. To haul myself over the rim of the well long enough to write this is quite an achievement.
I am now working on a banner to go with it and shall post it later. A manip for a story I can do - a manip for boots, sewers, Wes and wanks I couldn't manage, *G*.
******************
The Cloaca Conundrum
or - Masturbatory Manifestations
Author: mwrgana
Beta: thismaz
Pairing: Spike and Wes
Warnings: descriptions of masturbation; the perils of the sewers; the chance of a certain theme song's lodging itself in your mind.
Word-count: 3,238
********************
Some days the gods smile at you and the sun shines down upon you and all is good in the best of all possible worlds.
Wesley was happy. Well, 'mellow' was probably the better word to describe him. He was a bit too tired for the crass exuberance of your overt happiness. His expression was composed of a quiet, satisfied smile rather than a wide grin. As he walked back to his office from the surprisingly congenial 13th-floor bar - where he had spent a hard-earned hour of relaxation indulging in a light lunch, albeit rather late, and chatting with, and getting to know, members of the firm - his comportment was loose and confident.
His stride was the stride of a man who had done his duty, and done it alone, and done it well.
He had spent a couple of hours banishing a dimension-hopping demon which had been carrying out an efficient, if harsh, form of population control upon the citizens of Los Angeles. It had been a test of wills and cunning which had left Wes feeling tired but smug - and heartfully grateful for the infinite data that were stored in Wolfram and Hart's magical books. He'd spent an hour and a half reading and half-an-hour in mental combat with the forces of darkness, after having summoned the demon to his office for the final showdown.
His stride rolled a little, as the ghost of Gary Cooper drifted in soft tendrils through his mind. Under his breath, he hummed a haunting theme.
By the time his office door came into view, Wesley had got his evening all planned out. He would first of all put away his books, then indulge in just another small whisky, whilst slouched in his ergonomically luxurious chair, at his immaculately tidy - indeed, perfectly empty - desk and allow himself a gratifying and totally gratuitous wank, thinking of nothing or no-one. It was one of his deepest secrets, this habit of dispassionate sensual satisfaction - completely impersonal and completely narcissistic. And it beat the hell out of Prozac.
His pace slowed down, and Coop floated ethereally away to the big coral in the sky to leave him to his imaginings.
He could already taste the whisky - not a great leap of imagination seeing as how his last drink still lingered on his tongue, but that is neither here nor there. He imagined the cushion of his chair shifting gently to accommodate his weight; he could hear the soft creaking of its leather and the soft hiss of zipper-teeth as he loosened his trousers to pull out his swelling cock. He would shift the silken glide of foreskin along the glistening head of his penis. Each time he pulled it back over his cockhead, he would bunch it together and squeeze it, and roll it in his fingers and revel in the sensation as tens of thousands of nerve-endings sent a glissando of rapture through his body. His steps speeded up again, to match his racing thoughts.
As he reached his office door, he wrapped his hand around the doorknob and pictured himself applying just the right amount of pressure to his balls. He would slump further into his chair while his legs fell open, and his eyes fell shut, as he gave himself up to absolute pleasure.
Then he opened the door. And suddenly the gods were no longer smiling on him - they were laughing at him.
“What the hell?” He froze to the spot; his shocked gaze, disbelieving and dismayed, fell on a panoply of destruction, the entirety of which his mind denied full discernment.
Papers were scattered around the room and furniture upturned. Stepping carefully into the room, avoiding the obstacles in his path, his shock turned to ire, and his fury built. He glared at the smashed coffee pot, its contents soaking an indelible stain into his personally chosen silk rug - just one part of what seemed like the ensuing chaos of a tornado - or a small, evil and very bored child.
Books were torn and strewn, some looked very much as if they had been chewed and Wes let out a cry of anguish. Then his heart leapt in horror, and he rushed to the table where he had left the magical reference books, only to find them safe and covered, strangely, with a heavy rug - this one, thankfully, not soaked with coffee. He let out a deep sigh of relief, but there was discernible, on the in-breath, a strong miasma of malt and he stared balefully at the smashed bottle of Glen Moray which lay forlornly in crystal slivers next to the drawers of his desk which had been pulled out and piled in an untidy heap.
Wes's mind dismissed extreme weather fronts and bored children, and fastened onto covetous vampires. Mainly because the right sort of vampire just happened to be present.
The vampire in question stood in the middle of the room, looking distracted and dishevelled. One of the arms from Wes's chair hung broken and sagging from his left hand. His other hand was hidden by the sleeve of his coat which was pulled sideways across his shoulder, the collar down at his elbow. A deep gash on his forehead added bright globs of blood to the room's refurbishment.
“Spike, what the hell have you been doing here? This is my office. My sanctuary. It looks like a damned cloaca. If you've been looking for that magic map, I'll have your guts for garters. I told you Angel had hidden it and that he didn't tell me where.”
“Well thanks a bloody bunch, Mate! If I hadn't come along when I did you wouldn't have a sodding office at all. Nor would anyone else in this hive of evil lawyer-bees.
“May I respectfully suggest that the next time you try banishing a Clevesalt demon, you remember to shut the bloody books of power that you use to do it with? The bloody thing managed to crawl back here using the pages of spells that you, so conveniently, left open for it to access. Just as well I managed to cover 'em with a mat, else we'd be knee-deep in his friends. Has anyone told you recently that you're a bloody disaster waiting to happen, when you put your mind to it?”
Spike dropped the chair-arm and pulled his coat straight, dusted himself down and smoothed back his hair. He kicked the shards of broken bottle and sighed. “Huh, pity about that, I could do with one for the road, right now.”
He straightened his slumped shoulders and looked at Wes. “Right then, we've got to go after it. You're not going to be able to call it back here again - they don't answer the same summons twice. So that means we'll have to go to it. You'd better get your shit-kickers on.”
“What?”
“Your heavy boots, Pryce. Your very heavy boots. 'Cause you see, it's funny you mentioned a cloaca, 'cause that's where we're heading. A pair of waders may be the best thing in the circumstances. Clevesalts always go to ground in the sewers - and the deeper and danker the better. To save time, you can apologise to me as we go. A quarter of an hour's worth of grovelling will do for a warm-up. You can finish the obsequious obeisance when we get back.”
Just then, Angel appeared at the open doorway and peered in cautiously. He stepped in and opened his mouth to speak but Spike strode up to him and punched him full in the face before he could say anything.
“That's for what you were going to say, you obnoxious prick. I was here helping! Where the hell were you when you were needed? Rather than make stupid and wrongful accusations, get your lardy arse ready to move out. We've got some sewers to check out for a Clevesalt demon. You're good in sewers.”
******************
As much as Spike hated to admit it, Angel was good in the sewers. He managed to track down the Clevesalt in record time and, with a some-time Watcher both chanting and wielding an axe, and two vampires carrying out some serious pummelling, it quickly succumbed. Spike, still smarting over being blamed for the destruction of Wes's office, claimed the coup de grace, tearing off the demon's head and drop-kicking it out of sight.
Angel probably would have complained about having to forego the victor's due, what with his being the boss and all that but, right then, he was sitting shoulder-high in the sort of liquid that wasn't... well... shall we say, quite as liquid as might have been desirable in the circumstances.
Spike led the way as they returned through the noisome tunnels. He strutted along, humming loudly, feeling better than he had done for days, and plotting ways in which Wes should make due amends for his unpardonable accusations. “You know, Weasley, you're brilliant at making a mountain out of a frigging mole-hill. I mean, all this? And for what? Forget the sodding books, next time. Just call us in to kill the big bad in the first place, and have done with it. But don't worry, I'm sure I can find a few ways to forgive you! I wouldn't like to speak for the dumpling back there, though!”
Wesley, limping along behind, grunted what might have been agreement. He was exhausted and hurting. He had only just realised that during the affray he had badly twisted his ankle. And, he cautiously moved his shoulder, had also pulled a muscle while swinging his axe. It was all so different from what he had been planning less than an hour ago. The trouble was, that walking behind Spike didn't serve to banish his earlier plans from his mind. In fact, walking behind Spike, as he had discovered before, always served to formulate such plans and to stir up his baser instincts to even more basic levels. And then, when he indulged those instincts, it became very difficult to think of nothing and no-one. And almost impossible to remain impersonal.
Taking up the rear, a disconsolate Angel trudged, deep in depression, and still deep in shit. He resisted the temptation to hurl Wesley into the foul channel that ran beside them, and ground his teeth as he watched Spike's carefree progress. It was not his greatest moment but he knew, like the evil that men do, that it would live after him - or at least along with him - for a long while. At times like this he could always count on Spike's being his Mark Anthony and calling upon his friends, at least - if not his countrymen and specific Italians - to recount to them every humiliating detail.
*******
Wesley had decided to leave the clearing-up of his office for the morrow. With the aid of one of Wolfram and Hart's efficient cleaning crews, it wouldn't be too difficult. He would just have to oversee what was to be cleared away and what was to be rescued. He was sorry about that silk rug, though.
Alone at last, in the safety of his own apartment, he sank, heavy-hearted into the cushioned embrace of his sofa and sighed. Somehow, the sensual delights he had been anticipating, now seemed both more essential and contrived. The rush of adrenaline that had come with the underground fight spurred his hormones on to demand satisfaction but the circumstances conjoined to demand a less solitary outlet. The view of Spike's bobbing backside as he climbed the ladder in front of him, had not helped matters in the slightest.
He sprawled on the sofa, like a petulant rag-doll, his hand hovering over his fly, unsure what to do. Finally, he dropped his hand and wrenched open his trouser button. It came away in his hand and flew through the air to land with an accusing 'ping' in the fireplace. As if it were an echo, the doorbell rang. Groaning, Wes hauled himself to his feet and plodded to the door. He was only mildly surprised to find Spike there, slouching decoratively against the wall. That he came bearing the gift of a Chinese take-away, he found infinitely more surprising.
“I called up to your office to get my apology but found that you'd gone home. Being the magnanimous sort of vamp that I am, I got to thinking you might be feeling a bit sorry for yourself, so I've come here to cheer you up. Oh, and to get the grovelling you owe me. Mustn't forget that, must we?”
They looked into each other's eyes and knew. The atmosphere crackled with tension, and both men became painfully hesitant. They stood staring at each other from either side of the doorway as if neither could quite place the other. It was as if they knew each other but the 'how' and the 'from where' were eluding them.
For all of Spike's contrived jocularity and the certainty that he held the moral high-ground, he was uncertain that he was doing the right thing. But then, nil desperandum had always been his motto - along with always get out alive. Oh, and ensure I end up on top, and Angel is always in the wrong, and... Yes, OK, it was one of his mottoes, anyway.
Wes wavered between screaming, running away, and running away whilst screaming. Finally he shrugged, stepped aside and said, “Right then. You'd better come in.
Spike grinned and strode in as if he owned the place.
“So, um, how's Angel doing?” asked Wes. “If anyone were feeling sorry for himself I would have thought it were he.” Despite himself, a small chuckle was fighting to get out. “He was in a pretty sorry state. I can't imagine his mood is one of forgive-and-forget, right now.”
“Oh, he was getting boring," dismissed Spike with a flick of his hand. "Same old complaints, same old stink. Besides, he kept disappearing into the bathroom and I got tired of insulting him through steamed-up glass and over the sound of the shower. I took the piss for a good long while but what he really needs to have taken is the shit - that smell is going to hang around for more than a couple of showers every hour. One of the downsides of the vampire sense of smell is that pongs you don't like, linger longer than you'd long for.
“By the way, I don't know if you know it, but your trousers are all but undone. Anything I can help you with?”
Wes's hand again fell, this time to cover himself up and he froze when Spike stepped forward and took hold of it. “You know, Wes, you don't need vamp-powered senses to smell when a man's got a hard-on. So, what I propose is that I give you a hand with that. And then, when you're feeling suitably obsequious you can return the favour. With interest.”
Spike dropped Wes's hand and pushed the take-away towards him. “Always good to have something to eat after strenuous exertions. Pop this in the oven to keep warm til we're ready to eat...” Spike paused for a moment, looked down at Wes's groin then looked back up at the food, “it.” Spike cocked an eyebrow in emphasis.
Almost falling over his feet, and still trying to keep his trousers together, Wes struggled to the kitchen and, to his amazement, found himself following Spike's instructions.
Spike was as good as his word. He was remarkably gentle as he again took Wes's hand and drew him close to the sofa. “You know what I intend to do to you, don't you, Wes?”
Wes nodded.
“We've been dancing around each other for a while, now, haven't we?”
Wes nodded.
“I think it's about time you let go that death grip you've got on your trousers and let gravity do its job, don't you?”
Wes nodded.
He opened his fist and his trousers crumpled around his feet and Spike pulled him closer encouraging him to step out of them. To an outsider's eye he might have looked ridiculous, stood there in his shoes, socks, pants and shirt - not the dignified, academic with the dash of derring-do, persona he worked hard at to maintain, these days.
Wes's shirt dropped on top of his trousers, then Spike was nudging Wes's arms up so as he could pull off his vest. Wes considered long and hard as he dressed each morning, as to whether or not such underwear was necessary in the Mediterranean climate of California, but it was October, and even rogue demon-hunters found some childhood-instilled conventions impossible to overcome.
Then Spike's hands were at Wes's waist, pulling down his pants and, as they cleared his bum, he found himself being pushed back onto the sofa so that Spike could pull them off, avoiding the hopping around on one leg and falling and cracking one's coccyx which can prove such a passion dampener.
Spike stripped swiftly and efficiently, picked up Wes's legs and swung them the length of the sofa. Wes fell back against the cushions and looked up at Spike, his thoughts running so quickly he didn't have time to catch one of them.
Spike glanced at Wes's feet and then shoes and socks were flying to join the pile of clothing. “Okay?”
Wes nodded.
Spike stood for a moment, looking down at Wesley, a strange expression on his face - mainly comprising glee, awe and lust. Then the persistent bumping of his cock against his belly spurred him to action. He knelt astride Wes and caught hold of his shoulders. He kneaded them, then ran his hands slowly down Wes's chest, sliding his fingertips through the soft hair.
Wes found it hard to believe that, only a few short hours ago, his greatest aspiration had been to have a clinical, lonely wank thinking of no-one and nothing. But hadn't this very creature, who was even now making free with his body, been hovering in the shadows of his fantasies ever since making that extraordinary, incorporeal, entrance in Angel's office?
As Spike took Wes's cock in his hand, Wes abandoned all conceits and pretences of thinking of no-one and nothing and, until such time as his mind went blank moments before he came, indulged in the extremely personal ministrations of Spike. It had been some time since he had been with another man but when, after having allowed him a few seconds doze, Spike produced some lube and with quiet efficiency and loud ribaldry prepared him for action, he had to fight hard to overcome the thought that it was like riding a bike.
*************
And so, as it began, it ends. The gods were smiling again, but now Wes was joined, for the while, in mellow happiness and curious companionship with Spike. The companionship was pleasing to both and, after enjoying an excellent Chinese and the contents of an unbroken bottle of Glen Moray, they wended their weary way to Wes's bed to get even more companionable and even more weary before Dawn's rosy fingers beckoned them to another day's duty.
*******
Angel... well he went to have another shower.
********
Fin.