Tell The End
Sometimes Xander needs the occasional wake-up call. The kick in the metaphorical pants that the world doesn't end outside of the Sunnydale city limits. Or... bad choice of words.
Maybe it would be better to say that the world can and does do its best to end just as dramatically outside Sunnydale as in.
Or maybe all the L.A. pollution has just gotten really bad.
Some places get acid rain, others get...
Well, okay, no. Xander's not so much on the meteorological sciences, but he's pretty sure that 'rain of fire' doesn't fall into the accepted range of precipitation. And right about now?
He's pretty happy Anya never managed to talk him into the convertible action.
Right about now he's just hoping to God -- that old, strange, psychopath in the sky -- that the roof of his car actually holds up.
There's only a few more miles to the Hyperion, but... yeah.
Apocalypse + Driving = Unhappy Xander.
Had he really volunteered for this little fact-finding mission? Sure, Angel was the only one of them who knew more than a little about the First Evil, and sure Buffy and the others had their work cut out for them just in terms of not killing Andrew and tracking down Spike, but...
Right.
He has a backseat full of presents for the Angel Investigations crew and his own Zeppo nature to thank for the fact that he's currently stuck in the traffic jam -- literally -- from hell and not doing anything remotely useful.
Well, that and his sick days.
His wiper blades are starting to melt.
He's pretty sure that if he looks to his right and a little behind him, he'll get a nice, clear view of an INSANE person just standing outside, waiting to get pelted to death with fiery hailstones.
Buffy always said she wanted to be a fireman when all the evil hellstuff came to an end. Xander? He's pretty sure that a nice, quiet life in a pillow factory would be just fine for him.
Knitting. He could take up knitting.
"THE END IS --"
*KABLAM*
And that would be road rage, friends and neighbors.
He's just going to face front and be happy that the doom-crier landed in somebody else's lane. Yep, happy. That's him. He's a happy, happy guy who did not just drive over anything that used to be alive. Nope, not at all.
In the end, his invisible blinders work so well he nearly drives right past the hotel, missing all the great parking spaces that are right in front --
Wait.
Parking spaces in front mean running through flaming RAIN OF DEATH. Which is, at best, problematic.
He parks anyway, and pulls out his cell phone -- perhaps the best idea Buffy ever had -- and considers his options. Call the folks at home and let them know they aren't the only ones with troubles?
Not likely to be helpful, what with the First Evil still being all there and... Evil. Well, he can at least call in to the hotel and see if there's a parking garage anywhere.
The phone rings about nineteen times before he gives up, and it occurs to him that Angel Investigations is probably hot on the case of the rain of fire, all puns intended. Okay, he can do this. This driving around looking for parking away from Death From Above thing.
Still, it takes a while for him to work up the nerve to pull back out into the street, and he refuses to call himself a wuss about that, because fire! From the sky!
By the time he finds the parking garage -- and he's sure he'd appreciate the architectural wonder of it being all HIDDEN like that if the inside of the car wasn't starting to smell distinctly singed -- he's definitely starting to jitter and jive a bit, and has to just sit still for a while behind the wheel.
Remind himself that he is, for the time being at least, safe.
If there's anything the world has taught him over his twenty-one years of life or so, it's to appreciate those moments where you're reasonably sure you're not going to die imminently.
Wallow in them, even.
Xander makes a point not to look too closely at his paint job as he gets out of the car, but, well, the world is just a little too bright right now for him not to notice the large number of blackened dents.
He's probably not insured for this, Sunnydale-style coverage or not.
Damn.
Okay, focus. Find someplace inside the hotel, away from flaming hell-rain, wait for Angel and company to get back, ask his probably useless questions, distribute the least flammable gifts, run the fuck away.
It's a plan.
A good plan. A sensible plan, even, and he has just enough time to settle on the disturbingly red couch in the lobby -- vampire decorators are all the same -- and be proud of it before he realizes he's not alone.
Most assuredly not alone, unless you wanted to get into the metaphysical stuff about what is or is not behind Angel's eyes at the moment, and hey, that guy really can loom, can't he?
Especially over the back of a certain couch, where a certain wayward Scooby just happens to be lounging.
"Hey," Xander says, only it comes out a lot like 'gah.'
"Xander." And that's... really non-committal.
"That's me. Hey, I called, but..."
"I haven't been answering the phone."
Xander nods slowly, which causes Angel to disappear and reappear in that upside down way that only happens when one individual is looming unhelpfully over another. Xander decides to stand up, since it doesn't look as though Angel is going to, well, move. "So... Apocalypse Right About Now, hunh?"
"What are you doing here, Xander?"
Well, there was definitely some kind of emotion behind that last, though Xander wouldn't bet his own money on what, exactly it was. "Well, originally to deliver gifts and go on a little Scooby fact-finding mission about the First Evil, since you spent some quality time with it, but..." Xander gestures at the world outside the smoke-darkened French doors. "Need some help? And really, feel free to say 'no, we've got it all under control.'"
Angel just looks at him for long, awkward moments.
And continues to look.
And, really, looks some more.
"Er... Is something... wrong? I mean, other than the whole rain of fire thing you've got going on?"
And that gets a smirk out of Angel, or really, more like the ghost of one. "Wrong. Is something..." Small, humorless laugh, and Angel has turned that Deadboy Stare of Doom on his own hand, where he's holding... hair?
Dark hair. A tuft of it. Xander makes a concentrated effort not to run screaming first, ask questions later. God, he is NEVER going to like dealing with vampires. "Yeah. Wrong. Like... um. Wrong." Like, whose hair is that, Angel?
Angel stares at the hair for a few more seconds before dusting it off his fingers. They both watch it waft down to the floor, and Xander is really proud of the way he's not making any assumptions. There's a gold star in this for him for sure.
"Because, hey, if you need to talk about some --"
"Have you ever seen something that you... really didn't need to see? No, that's a stupid question. Of course you have." And now Angel is looking at him, and that's...
Well, that's definitely a look. The kind of look that reminds you about things like vampiric strength, and vampiric speed, and hey, that's a vampire. An apparently deeply upset vampire, and one without the handy modern technology of a chip in its head.
"You've seen... you've seen all sorts of things, haven't you, Xander?"
"Sailing ships, sealing wax, the whole nine yards, hey Angel, about --"
"And you just keep... living. Being human. After everything."
"Well, see, that's kind of my thing. Humanity and all that. Angel --"
"You've never considered... other options?"
"Um..."
"Or do the options just consider you, and somehow move on?"
And Angel is very close now. If Xander were to look down, say, to get a better look at that tuft of hair, his forehead would probably bump into something cold and hard and large and belonging to oddly talkative vampire. This isn't a good thing. Xander takes a very deliberate step back. "That... seems to be how it works."
Angel nods slowly, and keeps nodding. Or rather just moving his head in a very strange way, eyes half-lidded and bright with something Xander doesn't have a name for. After a while, he realizes that he's being... sniffed.
"So... where's that wacky gang of yours? Here any minute, right? Wes, Gunn, Cordy --"
Angel's face... ripples. That's the only word for it. Like there's something right beneath the skin (demon, that's a DEMON) trying very hard to get out and failing only with effort. "No, I don't think so."
"No?" It comes out very small.
"Are you still afraid of me, Xander?"
"Well, you know, I'm confident enough in my own masculinity to say you're being really fucking creepy right now. As opposed to your normal, baseline level of Just Plain Creepy."
Cracked smile. "I think that's right. I think... I think I should be the scariest thing at any given point in time, don't you?"
"Uh... can I have door number two, behind which is the vacation in the Bahamas and never, ever having this conversation?"
Angel closes the all-too-small space between them, still smiling as though he thinks Xander has any hope in the world that it's real. "Just say 'yes,' Xander. It's easier."
"See, that's kind of the thing. I like to know what I'm agreeing to at any point of time. Saves me from those embarrassing --" And that's a hand over his mouth, broad and cool and unnaturally smooth.
If he was feeling the least bit suicidal, he'd bite it.
Or if he wasn't absolutely positive that it would send entirely the wrong message.
"Xander, Xander... I'm really glad to see you here today. Did I mention that? Because I am. Glad."
Xander blinks in what he hopes is an encourage-the-psychotic-vampire-to-return-to-his-senses way.
"This hotel... it's really big, you know? Echoing with everyone whose ever been here. Laughed here. Fucked here... or elsewhere." Angel shakes like a dog but doesn't move his hand. "That doesn't make any sense, does it?"
Xander shakes his head cautiously.
"I didn't think so. But just wait. One day you're going to have a home, and you'll invite people into it. People you love. People you trust. And then you know what'll happen, Xander?"
Other hand in his hair, pushing it back from his face. When did he start sweating?
"Well, I think you can guess."
Xander swallows hard, breathes in smoke and that vague sense of iron (blood) that lingers around every vampire Xander's ever met. There's nothing suspicious here, there's no reason whatsoever for him not to allow himself to blink, joke, brush Angel's hand aside and demand to know what the fuck is going on.
There's a tuft of dark (familiar) hair on the floor and Angel, a guy who just happens to have the very real ability to snap him like a twig, is acting like the part of the movie where the serial killer stops being charming and starts being himself.
What with the sniffing, fake smiles, and complete lack of respect for personal space and... fuck this.
Xander reaches up, very slowly, and grabs Angel's wrist.
Tugs his hand away from his face, watching the smile turn into something briefly bemused before settling back into unlovely smirk-land.
"I think you need to tell me exactly what's going on," he says, and he's proud of how solid it comes out. They can carve it on his tombstone: Didn't act half as shit-scared as he usually was.
"I think... you don't really want to know --"
"Fuck you, Angel, and fuck your creepy asshole headgames. You don't --"
And it's one of those moments when Xander is absolutely positive that the reason people aren't allowed to time-travel is because they'd spend way more time saving their own asses than doing anything useful for the world because that flat, low, ripping sound is nothing but a snarl and those are teeth in his throat.
And his brain is no help at all for this, because all he can think of is stupid, useless trivia:
He's never been bitten before.
He never thought it would be Angel, not really.
This is the kind of pain he never wanted to know, but he does now, and he always will, he knows, he knows, he...
... is heading for the floor.
He knows there's something he should do about that, that the floor is going to hurt, that there's no carpeting, that it's taking a really long time, that he's... stopped.
Caught.
Bleeding and caught and being stared down at by...
"Angel?" His voice is harder to hear than it should be.
"Just me, Xander..." And Angel licks his lips.
It occurs to Xander that no one, not even a vampire, should look that hungry after a meal. It occurs to Xander that maybe, just maybe, he could've made a phonecall back to Sunnydale after not getting an answer at the Hyperion. Or, you know, hightailed it the fuck out of L.A. and his neck feels so wet.
"Your blood is... very sweet. Did you know that?" And Angel hefts him close to upright again, staring at him wildly for long seconds before his eyes settle back into something solid and not at all reassuring. "You probably didn't. Humans never pay attention."
And he wants to protest that, he's been paying all sorts of attention, it was just a matter of not making the right choices with the information he gathered. What comes out of his mouth is only breath, though, tinged only slightly with the hint of speech.
"You're still trying to talk?" Low, amused chuckle that doesn't reach his eyes. Or does, but only by way of 'violent and dangerous' land. "I guess I'd have to rip your throat out completely to get you to stop, hunh?"
Xander gurgles in response. The edges of his vision are way too dark, and he can't tell if it's shock or blood-loss or the fact that twenty minutes ago he was absolutely positive he wasn't going to die. Which is probably just another variety of shock.
"Shh..."
He shudders at the feel of Angel's thumb on his mouth, but flinching just makes his knees go watery.
"Drusilla was so upset when she couldn't drag you home with her. Did I tell you that? Spike was so very, very jealous. Hell, so was I. And incredulous. But you know, I think I see the appeal. You're just so very... very... soft." And Angel is showing more teeth than have the right to be in any smile.
Xander struggles, but there's nothing moving. He feels like a puppet with half its strings cut, and Angel is dragging him somewhere.
"No, really, you have to see this..."
And suddenly they're in a bathroom of all places, and the harsh white light off the tiles makes Xander flinch and squeeze his eyes shut.
"No, no, really, look." Angel yanks his head up and Xander feels more than a few hairs go and then he's staring at himself, wide-eyed and leaking steadily from the throat. Open-mouthed and shocked, paler than he's been since that one winter where it was actually cold for a month, only... not.
Pale under his tan.
Hunched up and alone in the mirror, alone and safe and alone, except that he's not. Except that it's Angel holding him up in this fucked-up position, Angel whispering in his ear, "it's your eyes, Xander. Or maybe it's your mouth. Maybe if you grew a beard you wouldn't look half so... no. It would still be there. Waiting."
And Xander watches in the mirror as the skin at the side of his throat pushes in, seemingly without any outside help, and maybe if he could just focus on the mirror, on the empty mirror...
But Angel's tongue is rough, cool and dry and so hungry on him, licking him clean like a melting popsicle and impossible to ignore. Hand on his head, tilting him away.
Other arm wrapped around his waist, holding him upright. Holding him still.
"... just waiting for someone to open you up and find it..."
And he can feel Angel shift (whose hair oh god whose), feel those bumps and ridges pressed up hard to his skin, feel the hands on him get at once harder and more possessive and he knows...
No. He doesn't have to know anything, now.
Knowledge isn't anything...
He can feel every millimeter of the fangs this time, sinking in slow and cold and hot and wrong, feel the press of Angel's lips when the fangs are all the way in, some awful parody of a kiss, and he can take this, he's sure he can take this, but then Angel slides his fangs out.
Just not all the way.
And then back in, sawing through flesh and muscle and Xander doesn't know if it's the knowledge, or the feeling, or just the horrible control of it.
And his own face in the mirror is slack and dull, eyes flaring bright with every new rip of pain.
He can die like this.
He probably will.
And there's nothing he can do but... take it.
The first suck is almost a relief, if only because the sawing comes to an end, but then Angel doesn't make it fast.
It's slow, and it's dirty, and it's almost soft, the way he'd touch Anya when her nipples were sore but she still wanted sex. The way you touched anyone you knew you could hurt, and hurt easily.
Angel pulls out with a slow, ripping noise Xander didn't need to hear. "You taste so good." Lets him go, making sure he's braced on the small, porcelain sink.
Xander can't decide if it's cold or not, his hands feel just as numbed and stupid as the rest of him.
Or they do until Angel drags his own fingers over them, and up his arms. Slides them under the baggy sleeves of Xander's shirt and shivering just makes the empty feeling in his neck worse.
Makes him more aware than he really wants to be of the body looming invisibly over his, and not even the empty glare of the mirror can help with that.
"I should've done this years ago..."
"Stop..." Nothing but a hoarse and utterly unconvincing whisper.
"No."
And he watches the fabric of his shirt smooth itself down in the mirror, tries not to feel those big hands on his chest, tries not to think, and jerks nearly hard enough to fall when Angel rips the buttons open.
His t-shirt is slicked to his body with cold, clammy sweat he wasn't aware of until now, until just now with Angel's hands pressing it even tighter to his body.
Xander tries to curl his fists tighter around the sink, tries to feel anything but --
"I want you to make a lot of noise." Blunt, human-enough teeth on the back of his neck. "Do that for me, Xander?"
"Oh God..."
"Not here."
And it's almost a relief to have Angel pressed so close, if only because he's less likely to wind up on the floor, but then he starts...
It's not really thrusting. More of a slow, purposeful grind against his ass, and blushing just makes him feel more faint.
"Don't lose it now, Xander. We're just getting started..." Harder bite this time, and the back of his neck is getting as wet as the side.
"I'm blaming blood-loss." And is that really his voice?
A laugh. "Don't think of it as loss. Think of it as a kind a redivision..."
"I knew there was a reason Anya hated Commies."
Another laugh, and there's something bright and stinging inside Xander that feels a little like hope. Right up until Angel's hands settle on his hips and hold.
And that's definitely a thrust. Another.
Another, and a gasp that sounds just as painful as it should for someone who doesn't breathe on a regular basis, and Angel is the one shuddering.
"You're like therapy, Xander. Only without the crying. Don't..." And Angel tears the collar of his t-shirt with his teeth before ripping it down the back. "... start crying, now..."
"That's me, good for what ails ya -- fuck, what --"
Tongue pressed to the hollow of his spine, licking its way up, down, and all around, and Xander's knees try to give out on him again, wobbling and weak and he's not feeling this, he's not, he's just...
He's just going to stoically DIE here thanks to the Suddenly Psycho: The Vampire Years, and that's final.
This isn't sex.
This isn't...
Angel's hands tight on his hips and Angel's mouth making him shudder and twitch. Big, bad vampire behind him and if anyone ever had a reason to moan --
"Yeah, just like that."
And Angel bites him again, before he can so much as think of anything to say. Hard and deep and just over his ass, where the skin is thin and more sensitive than he'd ever even considered. Where the blood is apparently right there for the taking. "Oh fuck --"
"Exactly." And Angel yanks his pants down around his knees without so much of a thought for the zipper and button.
A moment to be glad he's wearing boxers, and then he's just... not.
Pants and shorts around his ankles, then torn off with one well-placed kick. Cool, cool porcelain against his dick and Angel, god, dirty bad Angel using his tongue like it's nothing at all. Like this is something...
There aren't words for this, and Xander catches a glimpse of himself in the mirror looking shockier than ever. More helpless. Demon magnet apparently in full effect, at least where his ass is concerned, because...
And he has to look away, because no one should be forced to watch their mouth fall open in a groan. Not when it's Angel.
Not when it's this.
Tongue in his cleft, hard and strong and so fucking wicked, pushing and searching and --
"Angel --"
Inside, oh God, inside and fucking him and it's worse to know that Angel is grinning while he does this, that he knows exactly...
That he knew exactly what this would do to Xander and he's enjoying every minute of it and Xander... Oh God, the sink's not getting any colder, so he's just getting hotter.
Getting hard for this, getting needy, and staring down the black hole of the drain isn't any better than staring at his own fuck-and-blood-loss-stupid face in the mirror, but at least he doesn't have to see.
At least he doesn't have to watch the pull and flex of his muscles, everything in motion to match his traitor hips, push-pushing back against Angel's face, as if it wasn't the most dangerous part of his body.
And the sound he makes when Angel stops is just as humiliating as everything else.
"I don't think you'll be able to stand when I fuck you, Xander..."
"Then, you know, maybe --"
"Let's go."
And it's not a request. What with the dragging Xander through the hotel and everything. Angel pauses in front of the couch, long enough for Xander to really focus on just how weak he feels at the moment, and then they're heading up the stairs, Angel lifting him so his feet barely brush the risers, occasionally nuzzling him like an animal.
Face pressed close for just long enough for Xander to wonder if he's considering another bite, or sniffing him, or just... rubbing. Skin to skin.
He doesn't say a word until they reach a door that looks like any other, until he hauls Xander inside and drops him on the bed like a ragdoll.
And then he just stares. Eyeing Xander up and down like a particularly fascinating project that he's not sure where to start.
Except that sort of thing is apparently just a little too much to hope for, because Angel nods at him like he's said something particularly agreeable and... strips.
Strips entirely, never once taking his eyes off Xander, and some deeply sick and in need of help part of him is actually kind of flattered. It's not like his limbs are working well enough for him to go anywhere, after all.
He's hard. This is not a surprise to the part of Xander's brain that's still firing on most of its cylinders, but it's still... "I think this is where I point out that this isn't the best idea you've ever had, Angel." There. That sounded reasonable.
Rational, even.
Angel... leers at him. There's no other word for it. And Xander is deeply, deeply aware of just how clothed he isn't.
Of just how much noise he'd made with Angel's tongue in his ass.
Fuck.
"I wonder how much blood I'll have to take before you lose the ability to blush," Angel says, crawling up over him like some smugly predatory animal. "It's funny the things you forget --"
"When you have a soul?"
"When you're out of practice."
And that's... skin. A lot of skin. Cool skin reminding Xander just how alive he still is. There's something deeply unfair about that reminder, if only because he's helpless not to hope. Not to remember every little thing he's genuinely liked about being alive and human and --
"Open your eyes."
"Fuck you."
"Open your eyes, or I'll hurt you more than I already have."
Xander can't decide if it's better or worse that he can hear the hunger in Angel's voice, the hunger that goes so far beyond blood and sex, right back to whatever the fuck it is... right. He forces his eyes open and does his best to stare Angel down.
"So who betrayed you, hunh? Why are you doing this?" Another facial ripple, and Xander flinches before he can stop himself, curls his lip at Angel's mocking little smile.
"I don't think I want to tell you... yet."
"You really think there'll be a later?"
"Xander, Xander... where has the trust gone?"
Laughs before he can stop himself, and winds up laughing into Angel's mouth. The kiss is hard and warmer than he expected, almost enough to make Xander relax until he remembers that the only reason Angel's mouth is warm is because of all the blood he's fed off Xander.
And just like that he can taste it. A thick, iron, familiar taste that has nothing to do with the thin-ness of the spit in his mouth and everything to do with the subtext he does and doesn't want to think about, because Angel is...
A good kisser. A slow, ruthless, implacable kisser. It's a convincing kind of kiss, and Xander's pretty sure he's the one who's supposed to lose that morality (and mortal terror) thing and give it up.
Angel's tongue in his mouth tasting like nothing but blood and sex, moving like everything's already been decided and Xander's just being uncooperative.
Is he supposed to be grateful for getting this treatment?
He supposes he is. To something out there.
It could be worse in a lot of ways that his brain can't seem to stop reminding him about.
It probably will be.
Angel pulls away with one last, wet suck and grins down at him like he isn't just lying there like the soon-to-be-dead. Like a lover, or just a confidante in this little trip down psycho lane.
"So how do you want it, Xander?"
"I don't."
"Wrong answer." And the next bite is nothing but emphasis, because punishment would be redundant right about now. Teeth in his throat and hands on his wrists, and at first he wants to laugh at the utter uselessness involved in any effort at holding him down, but then he realizes that this is just more touch.
Thumbs pressed to the centers of his palms and rubbing soft circles, like Angel's soothing him for his stupid mistake even while proceeding to take him a few steps closer to braindeath.
And yeah, that's a joke he doesn't even need a voice to make.
Angel breaks off with kisses and quick-cat licks, all in rhythm to the grind of his hips. At some point he'd kicked Xander's thighs apart and now every thrust counts. Cock pushed up hard to cock and Angel's little pants and grunts come just irregularly enough to force Xander to focus on everything.
"I'm beginning... to think you want it hard."
"Angel --" Legs pushed up to his chest fast enough that he loses his breath.
"That's all right with me, you know." And he sounds so earnest. Just like anyone you wouldn't mind your sister dating.
Right up until you got a look at his eyes.
Or, alternately, wound up flat on your back with your ass exposed.
"Christ, please --" And he bites it off, because it isn't what he thought he was going to say at all, nothing like it. He knows from vampires, after all, and begging...
"Mmm... what are you going to do when I'm inside you? What are you going to say?" Naked curiosity, all the more awful for being so fucking sincere.
Xander bites his lip, starts to turn his head away and gets a flash of himself exposing his neck. Forces himself to just look up, instead, even though 'up' is just Angel's face, Angel's naked body, Angel's smirking, lunatic hunger bearing down on him like somebody's nightmare of a freight train.
"You liked the way I touched you."
"No..."
"My tongue inside you... yeah, blush just like that. It makes you hotter. Literally." Angel licks his lips, lets go of Xander's left leg long enough to reach for the bedside table and Xander has to turn away, unwilling invitation or not, because he doesn't want to see --
"Oh God no --"
Cold and slick and wet, all over his ass. Messy as hell and Xander clenches up, tries to close his legs and ends up only wrapping them around Angel's body.
Angel slides a finger in like it's nothing at all, like no amount of clenching would do any good, and it probably wouldn't. Because now all Xander's doing is forcing himself to feel every inch of Angel's finger.
Inside and moving, slicking him up, getting him wet and --
"You might as well get ready for this..."
Xander gasps out a breath he didn't know he was holding, feeling the wounds on his throat leak, feeling his back start to stick and tack to the sheets, and Angel slides in even farther, pushing and pushing and God, crooking --
"You wanted to know about the First Evil? Is that what's causing trouble back in Sunnydale these days?"
"Wh-what?"
"That's why you came, right? Or was it just to see me?" Vicious little twist and Xander jerks helplessly.
"I... I..."
"There's not much I can tell you, Xander. Nothing you haven't probably already guessed." The last word emphasized with another finger, and now Angel is fucking him steadily, thrusting in and twisting around and hitting that awful do-me spot inside that Xander honestly used to appreciate.
"Don't... Jesus, don't --"
"Don't what? Make you like this? I don't think you really mean that, Xander..." Smile in his voice and this time Angel crooks with both fingers, much too hard. Just a few ounces of pressure away from tearing him up and yeah, it's funny how the sound of your own screams can sound so distant.
"Please..."
"Shhh... Daddy's talking now."
"Oh, you fucker --"
The only warning is that flatly echoing snarl. The explosion in his thigh is just a little too close to the source to count, close to the bite, close to his fucking cock, and Xander doesn't know if it's the suction, the brush of that hard mouth on his skin, or just the feel of even more blood rushing to that part of his body that's driving him nuts. All he knows is that he can feel himself arching off the bed, hear himself begging and tearing at the sheets, trying to do anything but feel.
Angel pulls off with a wet, dangerous sound and licks a long, bloody stripe over Xander's balls and up his cock before swallowing him whole. Still in full demon-face and watching him with yellow-eyed amusement as Xander gets harder and hotter and needier and --
"Now, where was I?"
Xander can't describe the noise he makes and doesn't want to try. He can't take his eyes away from the blood-streaked head of his cock, and Angel's still talking. Still fucking him with those two vicious fingers and talking to him like a particularly slow child. Which almost makes sense, considering the fact that Xander's pretty sure he's only getting half of what he's saying.
"... make you believe anything, Xander. Show you whatever you most -- or least -- want to see. Tell you whatever you need to hear to make you do what it wants..." A pause, and a nearly gentle smile. "Sound familiar yet?"
"Angel..."
"You see, in the end? It all comes back to trust." Angel pulls out, and Xander can hear the unmistakable sound of him slicking his cock. "Some people," he says, lifting Xander's thigh again, forcing the bite-wounds to bleed a little faster, "go their entire lives without trusting a soul."
The first push is blunt, impossible and impossibly terrifying. The next is slow, hard, and feels like it goes on forever, until Angel is balls-deep inside of him and breathing like it's something unnatural as he is.
Incongruously gentle hand on his face. "I'm beginning to think they're the lucky ones, aren't you?"
But really, Xander isn't thinking much at all. Thinking requires oxygen to the brain, oxygen requires blood, and Xander's blood is Angel's now. Or all over Angel's sheets. Or trapped in his idiot cock, which has chosen perhaps the world's worst possible time to make a stand for young masculinity.
Or the best, depending on how you looked at it. There's a definite haze over his vision, over his mind, and it's probably the kindest thing that's happened to him today. What with Angel whispering the demonic version of sweet nothings in his ear and God, Christ, fucking him. Slow and steady and hitting that spot with every thrust.
Even if he has to twist Xander into a pretzel to do it.
His body is screaming a thousand different demands and questions at him, all confusion and pleasure-blasted agony, and he doesn't know whether to push up into the thrusts or just lay there. Which would hurt less? In the long run?
And that thought makes him laugh so hard he feels himself bleed just a little bit more. Because, really, this was no time to be thinking of the future.
Opening his eyes shows him Angel's own cheerful grin, and somehow that's funny, too. It's all funny. Research, getting fucked up the ass, the apocalypse going on right outside the window... the world is a funny, funny place if you knew how to look at it.
"I've always thought so," says Angel. "Well... part of me..."
"Oh... was that out... was that out loud?" And he's laughing again, or maybe gasping, or maybe just braiding that frayed edge of sanity into something truly interesting, because Angel kisses him again.
And fucks him harder.
Faster.
Biting at Xander's mouth with dull, human teeth and gripping his hips hard enough to leave marks and driving into him, taking everything and leaving nothing behind for Xander to hold onto.
Nothing to do but throw his head back and cry out loud, heedless of the vulnerability, of the helpless response of his own body, of everything but more and yes and now. This thing that should never have happened, but Xander's known for years that never is a promise the universe doesn't know how to keep.
And so this is just part of it, being fucked into an anonymous and creaking hotel mattress and bleeding out and struggling to find his way up and out of...
What?
Something.
There's something he needs to escape here, he knows there is, but he doesn't know what it is anymore, and he's losing the ability to care with every drop of blood, every groan forced out of his mouth, every flash of Angel's cheerfully ravenous grin.
And in the end, it's all about the feeling. Riding it, using it, fearing it so much it makes his heart thump, his breath stutter at the back of his throat. The air's so thick, and trying to catch it just makes him harder, makes him ache all through his body.
Makes him come, helpless and lost.
"... so warm..." Angel says, and pulls Xander's hips in hard against his own, holds them still and loses all trace of humanity on his face.
Pulses inside him like some terrible machine, growling and coming and wild with a joy Xander almost wishes he could touch.
Consciousness is a series of flashes, all thoughtless sensation:
The bright flare of overuse in his ass.
The tickle and chafe of Angel's tongue, licking him clean.
Cold.
Throb of his cock, oversensitized and trapped between their bodies.
Thirst.
"Of course you are..."
And something like awareness flickers up bright and insistent at the back of Xander's mind, but he's so tired. His eyes feel gummed shut with the sticky remnants of tears and sweat and every breath is thick and unbreatheable with sex and pain and --
"I'll take care of you."
Cool and cool against his mouth and --
"You're going to be so much fun to watch..."
Wet and inside, sliding over his tongue, thick as something... something you drank for a holiday, holy day, no more...
"... the way you thought it would go, all those years ago?"
Has to swallow before he can talk, and Angel's laughter is so close. "Less... homosexuality..." More laughter, and his mouth is filling again, flooding, and he knows this taste, he does, all he has to do is make his brain work and it'll all be clear.
Just one more swallow.
One more...
"... it's okay, Xander. You can sleep now."
And really, that's the best idea Angel's come up with in a while.