Empty Solace
Angel sat and stared at the burned crib. His hands rested on his thighs, limply, and because he didn't need to breathe he was very, very still. He hadn't moved for hours, probably. His eyes hadn't moved from the scorched bit of wood they'd been locked on for some time. He just sat. Because Connor was gone.
The phone rang. And rang. And rang. He waited, thinking that Fred or Gunn would answer it, and then realized that he had no idea what time it was or if they were even in the hotel. When the phone rang the sixth time he got up and crossed the room to pick it up.
"Yeah," he said, his voice rough with disuse.
"Angel?" Cordelia, sounding tense and breathless.
He tried to shake himself out of the lethargy that had taken over. "Cordy? What is it?"
"A vision, stupid," she said shakily, and he could hear how she was attempting to keep herself together. "Why else would I be calling you from my amazing vacation?"
"Are you okay?"
"Yeah, but these people aren't gonna be. An alley, somewhere near Sunset... you know, near that video store? A couple of big demons. I think they're familiar, but I can't quite..." Angel heard a low voice prompting Cordelia at the other end of the line. "Right, they're big and kind of blue and scaly."
"When?"
"Tonight. Soon, I think." There was an edge in her voice, something close to tears. "Angel?"
"It's okay, Cordy, I'll take care of it. Get some rest, go back to... whatever you were doing." He was staring at the floor now, his eyes tracing a fine crack.
"Is everything okay? How's Connor?"
Steeling himself, Angel lied. "Everything's fine, Cordy. I've gotta go. I'll talk to you soon." He hung up before she could respond.
The alleys were dark and damp - it had rained some time earlier and the pavement held slick oily puddles like rainbows in the places where the street lights and neon signs touched it. Angel had started to wonder if Cordelia had gotten the location wrong, or maybe it was just the wrong night. He'd been down at least a dozen alleyways.
A faint sound like a whimper caught his attention, and he ran toward it without a second thought. By the time he'd arrived a battle was already in full swing without him - two demons, two humans. A young woman - she couldn't have been older than Cordy - was pressed up against the wall, trembling in the face of one of the Ngarra demons. A glance at the other human - a man - showed that he was at least making an effort to defend himself, so Angel turned his attention to the demon who was targeting the girl.
The thing was slow, compared to his own reflexes. It swung at him and he ducked and whirled, kicking it in the torso. It was like kicking a cement wall - almost no give, and he felt the impact rocket up into his thigh. Shit. Okay, there had to be a weakness somewhere. Throat? Eyes? The creature swung again, and he ducked again and then dashed forward and sliced it across the throat with his sword, using all his strength. It made a gurgling noise, staggered, and dropped to its knees (were those knees?) It couldn't be that easy.
"Get out of here," he snarled at the still-cowering girl, and she made a squeal of fright and took off, her very short skirt riding higher up her thighs as she ran. The sound of her high heels on the pavement echoed in his head as he turned back to the demon. It was groaning on the damp ground, seemingly unable to lift itself back to a standing position, so he whirled and went after the second one.
The young man was, surprisingly, fighting it off with the lid from a trash can and a length of rusty pipe. He blocked a hit with the lid, staggered backward under the force of the blow, and thwacked the demon with the pipe. The creature simply shuffled forward some more and reached out to cuff the man again, but with a speed that startled Angel the man whipped the pipe around and hit the demon a second time, in the face. The creature squawked and a gout of thick blood arched through the air, splattering the man and the wall behind him. While the demon was still reeling, Angel moved around closer and drove the tip of his sword into its throat, then pulled hard to one side, ripping the bluish flesh open and unleashing another torrent of blood onto the ground.
The demon fell heavily to the pavement, twitched a few times, and was still.
The other man turned toward him with a muttered, "Thanks," and then caught sight of him and froze. "Angel?"
"Xander." What the hell - "You're... not in Sunnydale."
Xander straightened up and then dropped his makeshift weapons onto the pavement with a clatter. "Nice to see your amazing powers of deduction haven't been lost during your time in the big city."
Shifting his weight to his other foot, Angel said, "You're, um... you're in L.A.."
"Again, blinding me with your brilliance." Xander sighed and pulled his shirt sleeve up to look at his arm. "What the heck is this stuff?" he asked.
"Blood? Demon blood," Angel supplied helpfully.
"Demon blood that burns," said Xander. "Can I just say 'ow?' Along with 'why do things like this always happen to me?'"
Angel went over and looked at Xander's arm, and then tried to brush off some of the viscous blood with his fingers. He could feel a slight tingle on his own skin, though nothing really painful. "We'd better get this stuff off of you before it does some real damage. Are you staying near here?"
Xander shook his head. "Yeah. Somewhere. Around the corner, I think." He removed his arm from Angel's grip and started walking.
Angel followed.
"Come on in," Xander said as he walked through the doorway.
The hotel room was grimy and smelled like stale cigarette smoke and booze. And sex. But, strangely, not like the girl from the alley. "Who was she?"
"What?" Xander hesitated in the doorway to the bathroom, his arms partially raised as if he was getting ready to take off his shirt.
Beneath the other smells were layers upon layers of older ones, one on top of the other like ghostly images of everyone who'd ever stayed in this cheap dingy room. Perfume, aftershave, hair spray. The acrylic tang of nail polish. The lanolin-over-synthetic smell of inexpensive knock-off sweaters that reminded him of home. "The girl? In the alley? You didn't seem too interested in finding out where she went, so I assume she's not your girlfriend or anything."
Xander pulled his shirt off, drop-kicked it into the corner near the dresser, and went into the bathroom, swinging the door most of the way closed behind him. "No, she was just someone I... went looking for."
Angel figured he knew what that meant. He listened as Xander stripped off the rest of his clothes and turned the shower on. Not intending on trying to talk over the running water, he went over and leaned up against the window sill and waited.
A few minutes later the water shut off again, and he could hear Xander toweling himself dry and putting his pants back on.
"Sadly," Xander said as he came back out into the room, rubbing at his wet hair with a towel, "these are actually still the cleanest pair of pants I've got." He looked down at them and grimaced.
"What are you doing here?" Angel spoke quietly.
Xander looked everywhere but at him. "Look, Angel, I really appreciate the help and all, but I'm not really - I came here to get away, you know?"
Angel crossed his arms and nodded. "Away from what?"
"From people who ask too many questions. Geez, I don't remember you being conversation-guy."
"Things change."
Xander eyed him for a long moment, thoughtfully. Angel wasn't sure what it was he was seeing. "Yeah. They do."
"You, for example," Angel continued. "You didn't used to be the kind of guy who'd run away from a challenge, did you? Seem to remember you sticking around for the Ascension. Could have cut and run then, but you didn't."
"Bite me," Xander said without heat. "And no, that wasn't an invitation. You want me to say I've changed? Fine. I've changed."
Angel shifted his weight against the windowsill. "What happened?"
"You mean other than leaving the woman I was supposed to marry at the altar? That was pretty much it."
He tried to imagine this, but really couldn't. Before he could think of anything else to say, Xander started talking again, in the way that warned Angel that he wasn't going to shut his mouth any time soon.
"So what's with you? You're looking particularly broody - not that I have anything recent to compare it to. Who died?" Said with the intonation of someone who knew, very well, that someone might have.
Before Angel even realized he was going to move he had flown across the room and pinned Xander to the wall, unleashing the emotions he hadn't dared tap into with the others around. Not since he'd nearly killed Wes. "Shut up," he growled, his face inches from Xander's. "Just shut your fucking trap. You don't know..."
"You're right, I don't," Xander said challengingly, not backing down even though his voice shook and Angel knew he was afraid. The look they exchanged was smoldering. "Tell me."
The fear smelled good - better than anything Angel could remember from the past few days, and a damn sight better than the rest of the room. "I'm not going to tell you anything," he said finally, and loosened his grip on Xander's collar without letting go of him entirely. Beneath the fear he could smell something else - something still better. The unmistakable scent of arousal. Sweat. Pheremones. Blood.
With one savage movement Angel ripped the front of Xander's jeans open, then slid his hand inside to grip the blood-filled erection within.
Xander groaned, his head falling back against the wall. He shook his head, but then immediately his hips thrust forward, pushing himself into Angel's grasp.
"You want a good time," Angel rasped. "You want someone to make you forget, is that it? Forget just for a few minutes how much life sucks?"
Xander shook his head again, then choked out, "Yeah."
Angel tightened his grip, his own cock already achingly hard inside his pants. "I can do that," he said, and, pushing his thigh in between Xander's, proceeded to stroke him ruthlessly.
Moaning, Xander snapped his hips forward, thrusting his cock into Angel's hand.
"This what you need?" Angel asked, licking the side of Xander's throat where the veins ran so tantalizingly close to the surface, calling to him.
Xander jerked his head away, the smell of fear spiking in Angel's nostrils. But his eyes were still closed, his hips still moving. He wasn't saying no to everything. "Not that," he said roughly.
Angel stopped moving his hand and used his own hips to stop Xander's, making sure that Xander could feel his cock. "You think I should give you something and not get anything in return, is that it?"
"Not that," Xander repeated stubbornly, but Angel felt the cock in his hand twitch a different story.
"What if I told you I wouldn't do this," Angel stroked, just once, "unless you let me do this?" He licked Xander's throat again, holding him still, barely needing to exert any effort to prove to the human that he was the one in control. If there had been any doubt.
Xander trembled and panted. His eyes, when they met Angel's, were dark with need and defiance. It made Angel even hungrier. "I'd tell you to do it," he said. "You're going to anyway, right? Whether I say you can or not. So just do it."
"Oh, no," Angel answered. "Not like that. You're gonna beg for it by the time I'm through with you." He started moving his hand again, slowly now, deep forceful strokes that made Xander shudder and groan. "There ya go. See how nice that can be, if you're willing to share?"
"God," Xander gasped.
"You need it, don't you?" Angel didn't let up, stroking smoothly but listening to the sounds of Xander's heart rate and breathing to gauge how excited he was, playing him carefully to make sure that he didn't get too close to the edge. He morphed into game face and pressed his fangs just over a vein in Xander's throat, not breaking the surface of the skin, just teasing himself.
Xander closed his eyes and twitched his head away again, but this time Angel could sense that the movement was half-hearted. "Fuck you," he said.
"Nah, I'll pass, thanks. Other ideas in mind." Angel traced the vein with his tongue. "You want me to do it, don't ya? You want to feel the pain. You want it." He speeded the movements of his hand just the tiniest bit, pushing Xander, testing him. This time when he pressed his teeth to Xander's skin, Xander didn't move away. Angel tightened his grip on Xander's cock and growled, "Say it."
Almost whimpering, Xander thrust his hips forward and said, "Yeah."
"Yeah, what?" Angel coached, stroking faster.
"Do it. Bite me." Xander arched his neck in submission and then fucking screamed as Angel finally, finally sank his fangs into the vein that had been taunting him and drank, hand a blur on Xander's cock. Xander shuddered, hips jerking forward wildly as he came in Angel's grip, but Angel could barely spare him a thought as his mouth filled with rich human blood. The experience filled his senses completely, the smell of the room fading under the onslaught, his own hips pressing his cock against Xander's thigh as he moved into him with enough force to bruise.
He released cock and throat at the same time, and Xander slumped back, letting the wall support him when Angel stepped away.
Angel licked his lips, let his face slip back to human, and then licked them again, not really caring if he got his mouth clean. The longer some of it stayed, the longer he'd be able to taste it. He didn't think about the newly-awakened desperation for human blood, or its cause. He didn't think about what had just happened.
"Don't stay in L.A., Xander," he advised hoarsely. "Go home."
"I can't. It's too... I just can't."
"You can. You've got family there, whether they're - " Blood " - kin or not. Go home."
Xander looked at him uncertainly, and that, finally, was what was too much for Angel.
He fled the room, the hotel. He would have fled the city if he'd had somewhere to go. But in the end, he went back to his son's crib. It was all he had left.