Graveside Ritual
Angel stood in front of the headstone, the bruised-purple sky of twilight casting a sleepy hush over the cemetery. He cocked his head to one side and sighed.
"You can come out, Spike," he said with a hint of exasperation.
Spike peeled away from the shadows amongst the trees and went to stand by Angel. Angel saw a brief flicker of light from a lighter and heard Spike inhale sharply, then slowly release the smoke from his cigarette. He waited for Spike to speak.
"If there's a funeral going on, it must mean Angel's here."
"We missed the funeral," Angel pointed out, deliberately being obtuse.
Spike grunted in annoyance. "You know what I mean."
"Yeah."
Another pull on the cigarette, another moment of comfortable silence. Angel broke it this time.
"He was the last of them. I guess this will be the last time we'll meet like this."
"There's still Drusilla," Spike said.
"I don't think they'll be having a funeral and making a headstone for Drusilla, even if she ever manages to get herself killed," Angel replied. They peered at the gravestone in front of them, then recoiled.
"LAVELLE?!?" They chorused with horror. Spike snickered and Angel looked smug, then they both felt embarrassed for mocking a dead man.
"He was so young," Spike offered as a distraction so he wouldn't think about that middle name and start laughing again.
Angel looked at him directly for the first time. "Spike, he was eighty-seven."
"Well, yeah, that may not be young by human standards. But we're not human."
"Thanks for the newsflash," Angel groused.
"So that humanity thing still hasn't happened yet, I take it?"
"The Powers That Be seem to think it's good fun to let me remain a vampire while everyone I've ever cared about dies. It almost makes me want to be evil again." Spike perked up with interest. "I said almost," Angel warned, and Spike rolled his eyes.
More silence. A breeze stirred the leaves at their feet. Spike leaned over and nudged Angel.
"I used to shag him, you know."
Angel started. "You what?"
"Oh, yeah. After my crypt burned down, you know, with that thing back then?" Angel nodded. "I stayed with him temporarily, you see. Only once Anya left, it became sort of permanent. I'd say we got drunk one night and it just happened, but truth is we were totally sober. Just a couple of two horny goats who knew exactly what we were doing."
Angel was intrigued despite his best efforts to pretend otherwise. "And?"
"And what?" Spike growled. "We fucked. A lot. Went on for several years. Oh, he hated me in public, but in private he gave the best blowjob I've ever had. God, I miss him." A small smile played across his lips at the memories.
"The best?" Angel asked with a touch of menace in his voice.
"Oh," Spike replied with a grin, completely unabashed. "Present company excluded, of course."
Angel felt smug again, then vaguely guilty that he was competing for the Best Blowjob Award with a dead man. Besides which, Spike wasn't exactly wrong. "I have a confession to make. I...I mean, we...I slept with him, too."
Spike shrugged. "I figured. Any two people who claim to hate each other that much must be doing it."
Angel grinned maliciously. "Like you and Buffy?"
Spike dropped his cigarette and ground it out with the heel of his boot. "I was actually referring to you and me. Are we going to do this or what?"
Angel considered provoking Spike some more, just for old times and because it was fun, but decided against it. "Don't you think this is weird?"
"Weird how?"
"We meet up when someone we know dies, fuck like crazed weasels all night and into the next day, then part again until someone else dies. We say all kinds of disgustingly sappy things to each other, actually make love in the truest sense of the phrase, then forget it ever happened until death brings us together once more. That's weird."
Spike thought about it for a long moment. "So what are you saying?" He leaned into Angel and licked along his jawline. "You don't want to do it this time?"
Angel shivered and resisted the temptation to take Spike right there on the grave. That would bring up some bad karma that would take years to erase. "No, I mean, everyone's gone now. This could be the last time. I'm just not sure---never mind."
Light dawned in Spike's eyes. "Oh! I get it. It's not the dirty deed that bothers you. You don't want to lose me when it's over."
Angel refused to meet his gaze and Spike grinned. "I don't believe it! You - Angel, bloody savior of all mankind and bane of all vampires without a soul, and that includes those with electronic chips - you want to stay with me! You want to move into a suburban house with a white picket fence and raise Welsh Corgis with me! You love me!"
"Of course I love you, you idiot," Angel muttered, mortified that he was actually letting Spike know this without the safety net of really good sex to filter the feelings. "You know someone for a couple hundred years and it's hard not to love them, even when you hate them. And I was thinking more along the lines of you moving in with me at the Hyperion and raising nothing more than a lot of dust on all those mattresses. But if you're going to be an ass about it, I'll just---"
Spike grabbed his arm as Angel turned to go. "Now wait a minute. I never said I didn't think about the same things."
"Do you?" Angel asked, cursing the pathetic hopefulness in his voice. "Do you want to come back with me to Los Angeles?"
Spike tilted his head, narrowed his eyes as he regarded Angel, then shrugged. "Why not? I've got nothing holding me here and I rather fancy the idea of domesticity for a change. We can be a couple of old vampire queens, sipping Type-O margaritas and ogling the poolboy." He wrapped an arm around Angel's waist. "Take me home."
Angel started to slip his arm around Spike when Spike pulled away. "Hold on. You're not going to have a big happy and go all evil on me, are you? Because that could be...well, a whole lot of fun, actually." Spike leered and Angel just shut him up with a searing kiss.
A spectral figure watched the couple stumble contentedly away, their passage punctuated with frequent kisses and gropes. The ghost of Xander Harris smiled, peaceful now that he could go on to his afterlife with the knowledge that those two crazy kids would somehow make it work.