Title: Irish Eyes
Author: Brenda Antrim
Email: bren@bantrim.net
Rating: NC-17 for sex and rampant violence, or perhaps violence and rampant sex.
Disclaimer: Shameless, wanton A/U manipulation of canon. No copyright infringement intended.
Author's Note: This story follows "Matched Pair" and will make more sense if read after that story. I miss Doyle.

Barney attempted to be charming. Doyle stared at him.

Barney attempted to mind-fuck him with some yammer about Doyle's deepest fears and insecurities. Doyle stared through him.

Barney reached for the scotch bottle. Doyle swatted him.

It could have gotten ugly, but The Powers That Be had a case of inconvenient timing. Giant red-hot pincers pierced Doyle's brain at both temples, squeezing until his head imploded, all the pain on God's green Earth poured through his ears, and his body seized up, curling him into a fetal ball that was the point of intersection for every nasty thing he'd ever dreamt up in his worst nightmares. The agony went on and on for eons, disassembling his mind, body and soul, flinging them into the far corners of the universe and giving the bloody fragments to the Little People to play football with 'em.

Then the vision passed and he was able to breathe again.

Barney was staring at him.

"What the bloody hell's wrong with you?" he snarled, furious at having been seen in such a state by anyone but Angel or Cordelia.

"Not a thing," Barney answered absently.

Doyle ignored him, arm flailing out for the bottle of scotch, tears leaking from the corners of his now tightly-clenched eyelids. The worst hangover times ten wasn't a patch on a vision. Idly, waiting for his brain to shrink back small enough to fit in his skull again, he picked up a pencil and doodled the strange image he'd seen in his vision in the margin of the sports page lying abandoned on the table. He wrote a tiny 'ouch!' next to it, his black sense of humor coming to the fore.

Vaguely he was aware of a beeping sound that the tiny portion of his brain not currently concerned with reassembling itself identified as a cell phone, and Barney whispering gleefully into it. He shook his head, bit off a few colorful curses before they could leave his tongue at the resultant mini-explosion of pain, and concentrated on their unwanted client. Frustratingly, he couldn't hear what was being said.

He pulled himself up, shakily hanging onto the kitchen table, and started toward the other demon. He'd gone a whole two steps before Barney swung around, clobbering him full across the jaw. Doyle went down, taking the chair and table with him, then a lifetime's worth of pub-fighting instincts caught him up, and he went with the flow. An uppercut that started at his ankles knocked Barney on his arse, but the truth demon bounced back up, and a right cross hammered Doyle right back down to the floor. He felt something hard and wooden coming down, and rolled desperately to get out of the way.

He didn't make it.

If not for the feeling of impending doom, he'd've not minded blacking out for a spell. Those visions were a real bitch. As it was, he didn't have a hell of a lot of choice. The world faded to black as his arms were wrenched behind him, and that impending doom felt much, much closer.

Then he didn't feel anything at all.

Wesley didn't say much in the tunnels on the way back to the office. It was just as well. Angel was a bit perplexed about the ex-Watcher's move to LA, but half-feared asking. He had a strong notion once Wesley began talking again he'd never get the man to shut up. Coming up along the back alleyway behind his office, thankful for the cover from the overhang between the buildings, he nearly stumbled over a gray mass lying at his back door.

A Goren demon. Dead, or nearly so. Signs of struggle, blood all over his face, and most distressing of all, a hacked off stub on his forehead where his horn used to be. Angel winced. That had to've hurt. The Goren was mumbling. Angel knelt down, trying to hear. Beside him, there was a rustle of leather as Wesley did the same.

"Bishwot li mat po liowen! Bishwot. Mackilet ne jalemon ... bishwot, bishwot ... " His breath rattled in his throat. Angel reached out and gently shut his eyes.

"What did he say?" Wesley asked, more subdued than Angel had ever seen him.

"I was kinda hoping you could tell me," Angel replied, carefully examining the corpse before rising to step over it and enter the building. Behind him, Wesley harrumphed and stepped gingerly to join him.

"Well, some of the words were familiar, but I'd have to do some brushing up on my Gorenli dialects to be certain." They clattered down the back stairs and headed along the corridor toward Angel's place. "The one repeated word, 'bishwot,' is a complex term, which could mean 'be on guard,' 'danger,' or 'perilous.' I think 'jalemon' is something to the effect of 'gatherer' or 'forager' although I don't see how that-"

Angel stopped dead, and Wesley ran into him, effectively cutting off the stream of words. Before the man could remonstrate, Angel tore down the hall at full speed, vamping out as he went. He threw himself at the door, reacting instinctively to the scent of his spawn in pain -- much like the spike of scent Doyle threw when he had a vision, but more intense, with fear and anger mixed in with the pain. The door flew open and he raced inside, snarling, eyes sweeping from side to side.

The kitchen was a shambles. The table and chairs were splintered, the refrigerator was shifted sideways, the lamp was lying on its side, broken, the shade flung across the room from it. Whoever had taken Doyle had had to fight to get him. Unfortunately, it was a fight Doyle had lost.

A harsh panting in the doorway behind him reminded him of Wesley's presence. For an instant, pure rage nearly made him turn on the man and rip his head off. If it hadn't been for Wesley, Angel would have been there when the attack occurred, and Doyle would have had protection. God only knew who the attackers were. Or where Barney had gotten to, or if they'd gotten him too.

A tiny, fearful whimper brought him back to himself, and he looked down to see Wesley cringing in the corner by the door. Angel willed himself to relax back into human form, and reached a hand down to haul Wesley to his feet. The poor man looked terrified. Not that it was much of a stretch for Wesley.

"What on earth-"

The screech from the doorway brought him around to see Cordelia staring at the wreckage of the kitchen. Her hands were on her hips and her eyes were huge. Angel took a deep breath. He really didn't have time for this, not with Doyle missing.

"What happened? Where's Doyle? What's going on? Have you been fighting? Didn't look like there was too much to fight about this morning, I can't believe even you could mess up a relationship that fast, Angel."

He knew his mouth had dropped open and his eyes were bulging, but he couldn't seem to get a word out. It was just as well, really, because she swept right on, and he wouldn't have been able to get a word in edgewise even if he had been able to get one out.

"What's that in the corner? WESLEY? Good lord, what is this, LA is the reject space for all of Sunnydale's losers? Next thing you know Xander will be camping out on the doorstep. And what is that smell? When did we get a cat? 'Cause that sure smells like cat pee."

A strangled moan behind him made Angel aware of Wesley's complete humiliation, and the smell of urine and leather made him wrinkle his nose. It appeared he'd been even more fierce looking than he'd meant to be when he'd rounded on Wesley earlier. In an effort to distract Cordy and find out what the hell had happened to Doyle, Angel headed for the stairs, sweeping her up on his way.

Over his shoulder, he ordered, "Don't touch anything. There's a shower and clean clothes in the bedroom to your right." Then he turned to Cordelia. "I need as much information as you can get out of the computer on anyone who might come after Doyle, or use him to come after me."

She was deposited at the computer and he was on his way back down the stairs before she could catch her breath. He smiled grimly to himself. Now, to find out what had happened to his Doyle. Then find whoever had taken him, and rip them into very small bloody pieces.

He was sifting through the fragments of wood that used to be his dining room set when Wesley came hesitantly from the bedroom. In the soft gray pants and oversized sweatshirt, face buried in a book, he looked about twelve. Angel felt his anger dissolve. Wesley was another orphan, and Angel had long realized he had a blind spot for orphans, at least when he had a soul.

Angelus liked to eat them.

Shrugging the thought off, he went back to his search. "How's the translation coming?" he asked evenly.

"I think I've got something," Wesley answered softly. Neither of them mentioned the earlier unfortunate loss of control. By both of them.

"What?" Angel prodded. Nothing. A little blood, Doyle's by the scent, some spilled scotch. A lot of broken bits of wood. A scattered newspaper. Not a damned thing.

"Well, in context, 'bishwot li mat' means either 'beware of the danger' or 'beware of the peril,' quite similar really, although not particularly helpful since it's not specific. 'Po liowen' means, loosely translated, 'spinner of lies.' Then the warning again, 'bishwot,' then 'mackilet ne jalemon,' literally 'forager of destruction,' which I take to mean that this liar is some sort of killer who is gathering something from the people he kills. Perhaps like a serial killer collecting trophies?"

Ouch. Angel stared at the tiny pencil drawing and the one word, written in Doyle's distinctive scrawl. "He had a vision."

"Who?" Wesley asked, confused. "The serial killer?"

"Doyle," Angel answered absently, tracing the drawing with his fingertip.

"Who?" Wesley asked again.

"Does this mean anything to you?" Angel asked, ignoring Wesley's perpetual confusion, shoving the newspaper with the drawing under Wesley's nose. Blue eyes behind round glasses nearly crossed trying to focus on the doodle.

"No," Wesley answered finally.

"What?" Cordelia breezed around Angel, glancing at Wesley, then glancing back again, an arrested look in her eye. Angel sighed disgustedly.

"This!" He waved the paper in front of Cordelia. "Doyle had a vision, before he was kidnapped, and he sketched this out. Does it mean anything to you?"

Cordy stared at it for a long time. "Looks a little like a tuning fork that's been run over by a truck. A big tuning fork."

"Modern art?" suggested Wesley. "Perhaps one of the trophies the serial killer took?"

"Serial killer?" Cordelia's voice rose an octave in five syllables.

"Art," Angel wondered aloud. "Maybe ... Cordy, any luck with the computer?"

She shrugged, mouth twisting into a frown. "Not really. We haven't really been here long enough to have that many enemies. Except those sleazy lawyers that guy who tried to eat me was tied up with."

Angel stared at her for a long moment, mind racing. "That's it. Cordelia, you're brilliant."

She stared after him, a dumbfounded look on her face, as he ran up the stairs to the computer. They caught up with him there as he was searching down every connection he could find between the firm of Wolfram and Hart and modern art acquisitions. Three quarters of the way through his search results, he hit pay dirt.

"The Montecito Hotel on the west side. That sculpture was purchased at auction last November and displayed in the grand ballroom at the hotel. Wolfram and Hart was the firm representing the buyer, who was anonymous. That's what he saw. That's where we're going!"

Cordy grabbed the goody bag, and Angel started stuffing weapons into it. Wesley hovered uncertainly on the perimeter of the activity. Before Angel could say it, Cordelia beat him to it.

"Put your boots on, Wes! We're going to war!"

Doyle had lived through many unpleasant situations in his relatively young life. Discovering in his early twenties that half of him was a spiky, green demonic being with glowing red eyes had been a kick in the shorts. Losing his entire way of life hadn't been all that great. Nearly getting his brains eaten by his ex-wife's future husband wasn't a real highlight, although the subsequent broken engagement had been a nice surprise. And the visions The Powers That Be had gifted him with in payment for letting down his kinfolk certainly couldn't be considered a prize. Getting sparked to a crisp by a bunch of mad Nazi purebred demons hadn't been great fun, but the unexpected side effect of landing in Angel's bed had made the sunburn much easier to bear.

This, on the other hand, was not his idea of a good time.

Barney hadn't been running from the man killing the demons -- he'd been the one killing the demons. Trophy hunting, gathering totems from each demon, whichever portion of their bodies held the seat of their particular power. A Botlean demon's tongue, a Larot demon's hands, a Goren demon's horn. All for the purpose of making a fortune.

At auction. And he was the prize, well, prize. Something about a Seer's Eyes. One more thing to thank The Powers That Be for, if he wanted to push his nonexistent luck. There'd been a bloody bidding war, of all things, and he'd lost. Now Barney was clucking like a bleedin' hen at him and hovering over him with a pair of what looked like giant tongs.

Sharpened giant tongs.

"Ah, now, ye don't want to be doin' that, now," he tried to reason with the unreasonable. "What good are eyeballs without the body to go along wit' 'em, eh? Not much use to have a bag of water with a cornea attached -- it's the brain that makes it worth the takin'!" Alright, so he was desperate. It wouldn't be the first time someone had tried to take his brain. At least it wouldn't be with shrimp forks this time.

"Shut up, Seer," Barney sneered at him. It sat oddly with his badly cut orange plaid sports jacket. Damnit, a man that stupidly dressed just shouldn't be a serious villain. There was something unnatural about it.

"Get on with it," a nasal bitch in a too-tight miniskirt and blazer ordered. "We haven't got all night."

"And why wouldn't we have, then?" Doyle asked brightly. "Got a prior engagement? If you're in such a rush, surely this can wait. I'm not going anywhere, after all, am I?" Behind him, unseen by his captors, his fingers worked feverishly at the knots on the ropes binding his hands. The strands gave just as a commotion at the door distracted everyone in the room.

Angel.

God bless 'im.

Bursting through the doors like the Angel of Death, full vampire face, fingers like talons and fangs flashing. Doyle had never seen such a beautiful sight.

Flanking the light of his life was Cordelia, staking, ducking, squealing, panting. She was lovely. Another man, a stranger to him, fought as well, awkwardly but with enthusiasm. Doyle recognized Angel's track suit on the man, and felt an unexpected, unwelcome surge of jealousy. The rush of adrenaline added to his already heightened urgency to escape, and he drove both fists directly forward just as Barney turned back to him, ready to pluck his eyes from his head.

Instead, he walked right into Doyle's double-fisted pile driver directly to his goolies. Barney was out for the rest of the fight, if not the rest of the decade. Angel was busily tearing the room to pieces, his helpers hot on his heels. Doyle managed to get his feet untied just as the bitch in the suit was escaping past him, cell phone clamped to her head. He took great pleasure in thrusting a foot between her ankles. She twisted as she fell, and he wasn't heartbroken to hear her neck snap as she landed.

Barney was writhing purposefully toward the door, and Doyle wasn't about to let him get away with it. Grabbing the Goren horn up, he drove it directly between Barney's shoulder blades. The sucking sound as the bastard's soul was torn from his body made Doyle feel much better about the events of the evening. Kicking at the pile of ash that was all that remained of his kidnapper, Doyle grinned ferally. A strong hand caught his arm and swung him around, and he managed to pull his swing. Damn good thing, too. He'd have really been pissed off if he'd accidentally staked his lover.

Angel's mouth covering his was the best thing he'd ever known. The world went away, and all there was left was strong arms holding him, a sturdy back under his hands, and the sure knowledge that breathing was vastly over-rated.

Wesley picked himself up off the floor and leaned unsteadily against the wall. He'd never been in quite such a situation before, and he searched the debris of the room for Angel, wanting to make sure the vampire hadn't seen him get ignominiously dumped in the corner early in the fighting. He'd embarrassed himself quite enough for one day. He finally found Angel in the far corner, wrapped around a dark-haired fair-skinned man who was kissing him as if he would never get enough. Wesley cleared his throat. He could feel himself blushing, from his ankles to his hairline. They looked simply ... ravenous for one another. Tearing his eyes away, he looked down to see Cordelia, also staring at the pair, a dreamy look on her face.

"Er, uhm," he stammered, trying to think of something, anything, to say to her. She turned slowly to look at him. The hazy look in her eyes gradually cleared, then sharpened into something he hadn't seen since their fumbling attempts at a kiss back in Sunnydale.

Lust.

He cleared his throat again.

She took his hand, hauled him out the door, and directly to the elevator. When he cleared his throat a third time with a vaguely interrogative noise, she held up a room key.

"Barney won't be needing this," she said firmly.

He couldn't form another word the rest of the night.

Angel wasn't sure how they got home, thankful only that they got there in one piece without being stopped by the cops for reckless driving.

Happily, it was a short trip.

"You okay?" His voice was deeper than usual. Nearly losing Doyle did that to him. Shook him up.

"Right as rain," came the soft answer. "You?"

"Great." You're all right. You're in one piece. They didn't kill you. They didn't maim you. I let you down, wasn't there to protect you, but you made it, we found you, you're all right. I love you.

All the things he couldn't say, probably never would be able to say, in one abrupt word. Doyle grinned at him. He'd heard every one of them, Angel didn't doubt. Doyle always did.

He nearly put the car into the wall of the garage, but he got it parked, got them into the elevator, got them up to their floor. Got them through the door, then dropped all pretense of normality and let his hunger break through. With a sound between a sob and a snarl, he pinned Doyle to the door and dove in, ripping his shirt open, tearing at his trousers, getting as much skin bare as fast as he could. Doyle was far from passive, pulling at Angel's sweater, pushing at his trousers. Both of them had vamped out, and the razor edge of fangs drew lines of blood along throat, collarbone, breast and shoulder, burning on their tongues and urging them on.

Doyle's arms were around his neck, Doyle's fangs sunk into his carotid artery, his tongue lapping at Angel's flesh. Doyle's legs were wrapped around his waist, and Angel's hands clutched at Doyle's ass, spreading him, impaling him, owning him as Doyle owned Angel. His thrusts mirrored the long pulls Doyle was making at his throat, and the world was spinning. Reality was nothing but this, his blood and Doyle's hunger, his hunger and Doyle's flesh. The pressure built with the strength of their joining, and Angel's fangs sank into the opposite side of Doyle's throat, drinking deeply, completing the circle.

The arms around his shoulders tightened, as did the grip on his cock, and the heat of Doyle's orgasm splashed against his belly as Doyle screamed against the side of his neck. The sensations washed over him and through him, shared through their blood and their bodies, and Angel screamed as well as he came. Blood trickled down between them, mixing with the sweat and the semen, tying them together. Angel collapsed against Doyle and they slid down to land together in a crumpled heap on the floor. Doyle shifted as they lay there, and Angel smiled as the soft spikes rubbed against him.

Later, much later, when they could move without falling over and could stand to be far enough apart from one another to actually walk, they'd get some bags of blood and stay in bed for the next three days. But that was for later. For the moment, they were perfectly content with the floor, and with each other. Angel petted the spikes running along Doyle's spine and licked lazily at the trail of blood pooling at his collarbone. There was a vibration against his neck, and, concentrating, he could hear Doyle crooning the tune of a very old music hall song.

"Doyle?" he asked muzzily. "Whatcha singing?"

"Ah, nothin' in particular," came the sleepy response. "Just somethin' me mother used to sing to me when I was a kid."

After listening to a few bars, Angel finally put a name to the song. When Irish Eyes are Smiling. He drew back far enough to smile down into the eyes in question, and thanked whatever Deity looked after wayward vampires that they were still there to smile. "So," he asked whimsically, "how is your mother?"

end