Spark
- You can rush in so hard, and make it so I can't breathe
- I breathe too much anyway
- I can do that any day...
- Ani Difranco
6:49 pm. Hyperion Hotel.
The axe was heavy in his hand, and Angel narrowed his eyes. He knew the way it would go, could feel it, almost taste the trajectory. Right across the lobby, directly into Spike's stomach. That would slow him down. Long enough for Angel to cover the same distance and bury a stake in his chest, anyway. He set his feet apart and waited for the attack.
Spike, however, was refusing to comply with expectations. Instead, he was standing there, one hand raised in supplication. Gone was the leather coat. Gone was the swagger.
"Not here for that," he said simply. "Don't want to fight."
Angel gripped the axe more tightly. "Don't always get what you want."
Spike smiled. "Sometimes you do, Angel, old mate." Then the smile slipped away, leaving hollowness in its wake. "And sometimes you choke on it. Look at me. Look at me."
Angel almost keeled over in shock as abrupt realisation painted an icy line from his throat to his boots. The younger vampire ... there was no other way to describe it ... was glowing. From the inside. It was not anything a human would have seen, but to Angel, it suddenly lit up the room like a bonfire.
Spike held out his hands, both palms up. "Angel. Please. I need you."
7:02 pm
Angel could remember countless occasions upon which he had been infuriated by Spike. When being honest with himself, he could also remember a few upon which he had been aroused by Spike. What he could not remember was an occasion when both emotions had been present in equal force. He had, however, a reputation to maintain. Appearances to keep up. Friend. Mortal enemy. Whatever. Angel sank deeper into his chair and bit his lip.
"Well, ain't this jim-dandy," muttered Spike in dry amusement. "You're afraid of losing yours, and buggered if I want mine." He raised his glass to the older vampire, the amber liquid inside spilling burnt shadows across his already planed cheeks. "To two sorry bastards, then."
"Sorry bastards," echoed Angel softly. When he drank, the whiskey was hot against his lips.
"Mind," Spike continued, "I think you're onto something with this LA jag. Seems the further I get from the girl the more my head clears." His mouth twisted as he acknowledged Angel's fleeting look. "You knew, I reckon. Been there yourself. Recognise her footprints."
Angel tilted his head slightly. "You love her." It was neither condemnation nor approval. Spike nodded, looking away. A piece of information that would once have sent Angel careening toward the nearest bladed weapon, it now merely brushed him, like a touch from a stranger. Which, he realised, was almost what the two people in question were. Buffy, with a life he knew nothing about -- and Spike, who was still talking.
"Spell away from the Hellmouth's probably helping too. No bloody voices and visions."
It did not seem to require a response, so Angel gave none, just sat wondering at the way a person -- a demon -- no, a man, he corrected himself, could be part of your life for a hundred years and still become a stranger. He was suddenly sorry, suddenly sad. When he looked up at the younger vampire, Spike's eyes slid away from him.
Aloud, Angel said, "It weighs two three-thousandths of an ounce."
Spike looked up. "What does?"
"A soul. Two three-thousandths of an ounce. That's all."
"Indulge in a little before-and-after with the bathroom scales, did you?"
"I read it somewhere."
"Well then," Spike said, the corners of his mouth lifting slightly, "it must be true."
When their eyes met this time, the tiny hairs on the back of Angel's neck prickled. He knew what it was, of course. It was the man who now looked out at him through Spike's eyes. A gentleness. Softness. The vicious, laughing rogue who had destroyed for the sake of mere destruction, who had made death an art form, now tempered. Diluted. Irrevocably changed. Spike's soul could never be taken from him. And with that knowledge, Angel found himself grappling with equal parts jealousy and joy.
"Nice mix," Spike continued, lighting a cigarette. "Hundred eighty pounds of demon with juuust a dash of man. For flavouring."
"Spike." Angel's voice was solemn. "Both of us are ... more than that."
Something not unlike a tear blinked suddenly in the corner of Spike's eye as he raised a fist and scrubbed it across his face. "Angel, old mate," he said firmly, "let's get fucking blind drunk, shall we?"
Angel considered this a moment, then smiled and reached for the bottle.
8:52 pm
"Did you ever meet Faith?" Angel asked, his hands slightly unsteady as he refilled their glasses for the ninth time.
A mildly slanting Spike slung a leg over the arm of his chair and hooted with laughter. "Did I, what! Girl's half the reason I started gettin' hot for the slayer in the first place. Thought Buffy'd gone stark raving mad -- in the best way, a' course." At Angel's confused expression, he waved a hand. "Didn't find out it was Faith for a long time, but she gave me the tease of my life wearing a nice, slinky Buffy-suit."
"Faith in a Buffy suit." Angel's eyes glazed over momentarily, and a somewhat stupid grin surfaced on his face. "That's just ... that..."
Spike nodded knowingly. "Wasn't fair on any man, breathing or otherwise. Yeah."
Angel shook off the inward vision of Faith-in-a-Cordelia-suit, and held an over-full glass out. "But you never actually saw Faith?"
Spike shrugged. "Buffy has a photo of the two of them in her draw- ah, room."
Angel sat up a little straighter. "She does? But-"
"She might hate her, but that's only surface. Under ... they've got a bond," Spike said. "Share something no other two people on earth do. Can't get past that, enemy or no." For a moment, he looked almost shy. "Like us, now."
Angel paused, a warmth settling into his stomach that couldn't be attributed to the spirits. "Yeah."
They were both silent then, but not for long. They talked about the girls again, and for longer. Because they were not yet drunk enough to talk about each other.
9:34 pm
"Give up?"
"No! I know one! I remember another one!" Spike exclaimed, his glass dangerously close to spilling onto the floor.
Angel narrowed his eyes. "Fire away."
"Okay. A red nail on the tongue that speaks not so. Right?"
Angel's jaw dropped. "Did I tell you that?"
"No. Why?"
"The pastor used to say that all the time." Angel's voice deepened, roughened, the Irish lilt surfacing. "Boys," he mocked, shaking a fist, "ye're horseplay be the work o' the devil and a red nail on the tongue tha' speaks not so!"
Spike beamed proudly. "Such a pretty language 'ye' got there, mate."
Angel's accent thickened. "May ye be broken over the mason's cliff! May ol' Harry run away wi' ye!"
"Who the hell's Old Harry?"
"Wive's tale," Angel shrugged. "But the idea of him was enough to scare the pants off me as a boy."
Spike grinned. "Like it took a lot to get your pants off."
Angel stopped mid-word, his mouth closing. Select images flickered through his head, like an olden-day movie he had never seen. Pale skin. Coolness. A glow.
He swallowed.
Across from him, Spike let the moment settle over both of them. It was said.
10:56 pm
Spike held the bottle out. "Top up, mate?"
"Can't," Angel groaned, flapping at him. "Can't. Go away."
Spike roared and pointed the bottle, accusingly. "You fucking lousy piker!"
"Six loads o' graveyard clay on top of ye!" cried Angel hoarsely, his accent unplaceable.
Laughter. "Been there already."
Angel squinted at him. "True. Well ... may ... may the seven terriers o' hell sit on the spool o' your breast and bark in at your soul!"
Spike's laughter stopped. "Been there, too."
Angel sobered, though his head still swam. There was a silence. "Irish curses," he mumbled eventually, "never end well."
Spike proffered the bottle again. "Back to it, then?"
Angel shook his head.
"Sod that! You said we were gonna get blind."
"And?"
"And..." Spike trailed off, his voice lowering in timbre, husky. He leant back in his chair for a long beat. "I still see you."
Angel's eyes, though half-closed, were fixed firmly on Spike's. "C'n see you too," he muttered finally, so quietly. "Glowing."
Spike moved forward, the bottle discarded.
11:03 pm
Cool, Angel thought hazily. Cool. There was more to being touched than just hands on your flesh, and more to touching than your hands on another's.
Chairs redundant. Soft carpet. Locked door. Drunk. Empty hotel. And Spike. Spark. Glow.
Smooth fingers circled the base of Angel's cock, tightening, sliding upward, then back again, and for the first time in a long time, it wasn't his own fevered groping in the middle of the night. Wasn't to longing thoughts of a girl who was somewhere in the Higher Realms and never coming home to him. It was real. Moving. Spike. Moving. There. God. There, and thereandthereandthere and there again. Spike. He groaned loudly, past all pride, and Spike whispered in his ear, tickling him.
"Think the Slayers ever shared their bond this way?"
The thought of it, combined with Spike's cool hand and nearness, sent Angel into a mild stupor, before his own fingers felt the lack and reached out for the pale skin before him. There were buttons, there was cloth, and then there was smooth flesh under his own hands.
Spike's head sagged forward, forehead pressing into Angel's bare shoulder. "God..." he managed.
"Has nothing to do with it," Angel murmured, and felt teeth against his skin as Spike smiled.
"Bastard hates us," Spike said, one arm circling the older vampire's back, tracing the outline of words his mind couldn't remember. He was shaking, and didn't know when it had started. "This is all you."
Angel kissed him then, and the glow enveloped them both until the breaths they did not take had travelled from one to the other. They separated, eyes on each other.
"Lie back," Angel told Spike, voice rough with desire, and Spike knew who was leading this dance. He did as he was told, eyes closed ... and sucked back a cry when the cool grip stroking his (sohardsofuckinghard) cock was replaced with knowing lips and tongue. Pressure. Glow.
"Glow," he gasped aloud, choking in his need. "Angel..." And Angel smiled around his task.
"The devil shows you bright colours," was the muffled response, while Spike's hips jerked uncontrollably. He could not stop, and could not stop, and couldnotstop, and it was Angel, oh god, it was all Angel and it was too dazzling for thought.