Title: Matched Pair
Author: Brenda Antrim
Email: bren@bantrim.net
Rating: NC-17 for adult themes.
Disclaimer: No copyright infringement intended.
Author's Note: Alternate universe; severe manipulation of canon. I like Doyle. This is my fix.

He'd gone to Sunnydale. Followed the vision. Protected his love.

Who'd then followed him home, fought with him, loved him, shared humanity and mint chocolate chip ice cream with him, then forgotten it all in the need to continue the good fight.

Sometimes, life sucked.

Angel crouched low, came in high first with a roundhouse kick then a sharp left-right-left combination of punches and jabs. Two of the five demons in the pack were down now, the other three circling. Growling, he went down under their combined weight.

It wasn't that he wanted to be some sort of super hero. The whole thought of tights just made him wince. But somebody had to do it. He was the most qualified somebody on the block.

And maybe, just maybe, if he did it long enough, some of the guilt would dissipate.

He wasn't able to shift the demons clawing at him, and he felt his skin tear. The sharp pain of pointed teeth sinking into flesh and muscle triggered a defensive response, and he vamped out. Demons flew in all directions, one still doggedly hanging on with clenched jaw to his side. He chopped down and felt the lower jaw disconnect, in pieces, from the upper. That finally eased the bite.

Killed the demon, too. Ignoring the blood dripping down his side, eyes gleaming yellow and fangs flashing, he swept down on the final two demons. A clenched hand ripped the spine out of the back of one's neck and the other punched in and through the second's gut. Dropping the first and shaking the second one off his arm with a slight sucking sound, he sighed.

It seemed his work was never done.

Angel made it back to the tunnels as first light was breaking over the horizon. As usual, it was going to be a beautiful day in Southern California. The light wind would carry sea gulls and ocean breezes along it, tawny skinned children would play in the sand, people would drive with their car tops down and the bright sun would warm the land.

He would sleep through it.

Same shit, different night.

"D'you reckon we should wake him up? He doesn't look too good."

"He's sweating. Ick. I didn't know vampires sweat."

"I think ... He's got a fever, Cordelia."

A hand, light, gentle, cool on his forehead. Cool? How could it be cool? It was Doyle. Angel recognized his scent, not to mention the brogue that was thick enough to cut with a knife. But Doyle was human, or at least half human, and his core body temperature was a solid thirty degrees higher than Angel's. How on earth could his hand feel cool?

"I didn't know vampires got sick."

"This one is." The hand disappeared, and Angel whimpered. Bring it back! he thought wistfully. Felt good. Want to feel good.

Don't feel so good.

He didn't realize he's said it aloud until Doyle answered him. "You don't look so great either, man. What happened?"

The covers were pulled down, as gently as the hand had touched him earlier, and he groaned as icy air touched his chest. The fire was all through him, but seemed most intense along the bottom of his rib cage. A tentative finger touched him there, and he cried out in agony.

"Holy Mary, Mother of God," Doyle cursed. From a distance, Angel could hear Cordy gulping. Several times.

"That is so gross," she whined, a hint of horror and a whole lot of revulsion in her tone.

"What happened, Angel?" Doyle was very close to him. Angel could feel Doyle's breath on his cheek. It felt good. But he was asking something. Had to be important, he could hear what sounded like fear in Doyle's voice. Angel didn't like that sound in that voice.

"Grottiche," he managed to croak out. "Bit me."

Fingertips touched his side again, pressing slightly, and agony lanced through him again. With a strangled moan, he gave up the fight and allowed himself to pass out.

"It's grotty, alright!" Cordelia pronounced. "Yuck! It's oozing yellow and green and --"

"I noticed, Cordelia," Doyle snapped. The smell was awful, and from the looks of Angel, the feel had to be even worse. "And it wasn't grotty, it was Grottiche. Kind of demon. Nasty, feral little bastards, the lot of them." He gave Cordy an apologetic look for the obscenity, but she was oblivious as usual. He shrugged. "Doesn't look like we've got a lot of time. We have to find out how to counteract this little poison trick and we've got to do it fast. You hit the books, I'll take the computer."

"I can do computer!" she started to protest. He didn't take the time to argue, just brushed past her and sat down at the keyboard. She grumbled, but did as he'd asked.

It didn't take long to find the requisite chapter and verse. Cordy let out a "yes!" and bounced up beside him. "Got it!"

Doyle was leaning over to read what she found when they heard Angel's voice, weak but determined, calling from the bedroom. Doyle found himself trailing after her as she trotted into the room, perched on the side of the bed, and began to read, running her finger along the line as she said the words. Angel looked worse, with dark circles under his eyes, which were bright and glazed with the fever.

"Says here that the bite of a grotty demon-"

"Grottiche," both men chorused. She shrugged and kept reading.

"- brings 'fire to the blood and brain until the essence is consumed' -- does that mean what I think it means?"

"Means he's going to die if we don't do something, and do it soon. Does it say anything about a cure?" Doyle walked to the edge of the bed, looking over her shoulder, concentrating on the words so he wouldn't have to see how near to gone Angel already looked. It disturbed him on levels he hadn't thought of in years, and couldn't see Angel ever welcoming. There were limits to what friends would do for one another, and generous as Angel was, Doyle couldn't see a buddy fuck, or even a pity fuck, in the foreseeable future.

"Well, that doesn't make any sense," Cordelia muttered.

"Try us," Angel whispered. "Might." Doyle's eyes were drawn to Angel's face despite his intentions. It was incandescent even burning with fever.

"It says that the cure is to drink from a brackish demon. I thought brackish water made you sick?"

Doyle froze. His eyes met Angel's, who was staring back at him. Cordelia continued to natter on for a few moments before Doyle could unlock his tongue and interrupt her.

"S'okay, Cordelia, I can come up with that." She looked askance at him, and he gave her his very best reassuring smile. She didn't appear reassured, so he dropped it and gave her a sincere look. She looked a few degrees closer to convinced. "I happen to know someone who can come up with, er, just the brackish stuff that'll do the trick. Leave it to me. But perhaps it'd be better if you went home now. I can take care of it from here."

She looked like she wanted to argue, but Angel laid a hand against hers, along the edge of the book. "It's okay, Cordy. I know this friend of Doyle's. He can help. Go home."

Cordelia stared at him for a long moment. "Are you sure?"

"Yes," Angel answered simply. The effort to fight the pain was obvious in both his expression and his voice. "Thank you."

"But the sooner done, soonest mended, so on your way now and I'll get on with it." Doyle didn't want to sound like he was pushing her out, but he also preferred she not find out she was sharing company with a half-Human, half-Brakken demon. The Irish was hard enough for her to cope with. He'd a feeling the blue-green spikes and red eyes would be impossible.

"Shouldn't someone stay with Angel?"

As if in response to her question, Angel abruptly vamped out. He lunged at Cordelia, and she backed up with a shriek, the book falling forgotten to the floor. Doyle flung himself at Angel and muscled him back onto the bed, fever weakness the only thing that allowed him to hold the delirious vampire in place.

"Go now, Cordelia!" Doyle barked at her. She gave him a frightened look and scampered for the door. Not a moment too soon. He stunned Angel with a short right cross, long enough to allow Doyle to leave him unattended and go over to turn the deadbolt. He really didn't want any witnesses to this.

Behind him, he heard rustling as Angel gathered himself for another attack. Concentrating, he shifted form, turning and meeting the vampire's rush in the middle of the floor. Calling himself seven kinds of a fool, trying hard not to think of the insanity in those yellow eyes, he stretched his neck to the side, caught Angel against him, and guided Angel's fangs to his carotid artery.

The first tearing bite hurt like the very devil. The spikes standing out from his face were no impediment -- they were softer than they looked, giving easily to pressure. Angel nuzzled into him, growling breathily as he bit. Doyle cursed fluently under his breath, doing his best to recall every Gaelic curse his mother had ever used on the worst days in an effort to distract himself from the pain.

To his utter amazement, Angel recoiled after the initial bite. He was doubled over, retching although nothing was coming up, and spitting over and over again. There was dark red blood on his lips, but apparently it tasted terrible, because he wasn't having any of it. Doyle stared at him. Well, this was a turn-up for the books. Not only was he going to have to let Angel suck his blood, he was going to have to convince him to do it.

He felt like he was seducing a prostitute. It was just ... bizarre.

But it was necessary. Grabbing Angel by the waist, he hauled the larger body over to the bed and slung him down on it, efficiently if not gently. "I know I'm not quite the vampire equivalent of a five course meal," he panted, slinging himself atop Angel and splaying over his supine body like a starfish. "But you've got one chance, man, and that's by taking a taste of me. So you're going to do it, if I have to take a straw and stick it in me own neck."

With that, he grabbed the back of Angel's head and stuffed the protesting vampire's face into the side of his neck. By now the fever had gotten a strong enough hold on Angel that he was too weak to fight Doyle off at all.

He still wouldn't drink.

Doyle was getting light-headed himself from the loss of blood from the opened artery, and desperation made him snarl. "Goddamnit, man, help yourself! I'm a bloody buffet, literally now, and you're a damned starving man! DRINK!" He scooped up a palmful of blood from his collarbone and thrust the wet hand at Angel's mouth, fingers probing past the fangs to paint the tongue.

It worked.

Angel's tongue curled around Doyle's fingers, licking hesitantly at first, then more firmly. The demon blood must have started to work immediately, because Doyle saw a hint of sanity return to the blazing yellow eyes at the same time that the fanged mouth rounded about his fingers, sucking them clean.

Even with the pain and the blood loss, it was the most erotic thing Doyle had ever felt in his life.

The arousal must have shown somewhere, if not in his scent or his blood, then certainly in the erection that was digging into Angel's belly. Angel responded to that instinctively, too, following as Doyle withdrew his fingers, licking at Doyle's chin, then his throat where blood had splashed across his skin. He licked further down, along the hollow of his collarbone then up to the savaged vein. Doyle couldn't help but moan. The pain was sparkling across his nerve endings, and it felt uncannily like the most intense pleasure he'd ever known.

He held on to that thought as the suction continued, strengthened, and he could feel the lassitude of death along his arms and legs, creeping up his body. The last thought he had, right after he decided that if one of them had to live it was better it be the warrior than the messenger, was that it was a hell of a good way to go. Then vertigo spun his mind into oblivion.

Angel came fully back to himself with a thud. He was on his bed, with Doyle spread over his lap, head thrown back in abandon. Doyle's shirt was open, his face and body firmly in demon territory, and Angel was nuzzling against his torn neck. There was no blood left anywhere on his soft green skin, because Angel had licked up every drop of it.

Every last drop.

"No!" Angel moaned, low and deep in his throat. This wasn't supposed to happen. For one thing, vampires didn't drink demon blood because it made them sick. And it tasted terrible. For another thing, this was Doyle, his friend, one of the very few friends he had, and Angel couldn't believe he'd killed him.

Although he certainly had drunk demon blood, and far from tasting terrible, after the first flash of nausea, it was actually very sweet. Sweeter, even, than human blood, even the most sweet human blood, Slayer blood. But that didn't alter the fact that this was Doyle draped across his lap. Doyle, in full demon form, dark lashes laying against deep greenish blue skin, Brakken spines drooping sadly against his face.

With no pulse in his throat.

Angel shuddered, drawing Doyle up to him in a fierce hug, and burying his face in Doyle's chest. Waiting for the body to turn to dust. That's what dead demons did, when they died. Turned to ash.

He waited.

Doyle lay there.

After several minutes of nothing happening, Angel reared up and stared down at Doyle, still wrapped in his arms, still draped over his lap. Still in one piece.

Very much in one piece.

Angel unwrapped one arm from around Doyle's body and ran his hand over the previously-gnawed side of Doyle's neck. The skin was smooth, unblemished, unbroken. Greenish blue, but that was normal in this phase of being. As his palm lingered over the cool skin, he felt it pulse under his hand.

He jumped.

Not much, just enough to lose hold of Doyle. Angel stared hard at the demon lying limply across him, and after several long seconds he saw it again. A single pulse. Much too slow to be a normal human heartbeat. Gently lifting Doyle from his lap and laying him on the bedding, Angel heaved himself shakily from the bed and across the room. Picking up the discarded demonology book, he rifled through the pages until he got to the index. Running his finger down the page, he located the entry for Brakken demons and flipped through until he found it.

Very slow metabolism. They could drink for hours without showing the effects. So, that's where Doyle got it. It wasn't only the Irish half.

Angel slowly walked back to the bed and sat down on the edge of it. Timing them over the next minute, he counted pulses. Six. Approximately one heartbeat every ten seconds. Right on the money for a perfectly healthy Brakken demon.

So. Looked like somehow Doyle had survived being midnight snack for the very hungry vampire. Angel stretched, took a deep breath and an internal inventory. Everything felt ... normal. He ran a hand lightly down his side. All healed up. Smiling slightly to himself, he stretched out next to Doyle, curled up with the book, and did a little light studying while waiting for Doyle to wake up and go back to normal.

Seven hours later he was still waiting, Doyle was still exhibiting the form of his Brakken half, and day was breaking. The pulses were still just as strong, just as steady, and just as slow. Angel hadn't been able to find anything anywhere on what effect being drained had on Brakken demons. He also hadn't been able to find any clues whatsoever about half-demon reactions. Doyle appeared to be in the Brakken equivalent of hibernation. And Cordelia was due in just a few hours.

Putting the book back on the shelf, Angel did some quick planning. He knew that Doyle didn't want Cordy to find out that he was half-demon. So he'd just have to make sure she didn't.

He'd hide Doyle.

Until Doyle woke up, shook away the spikes, and came back to himself. At which point Angel was going to take him to the nearest pub and toast him with the finest malt money could buy.

"Angel! You're alive!" Cordy's smile lit up her face. "Relatively, anyway," she qualified the joyous statement. She patted his arm. He nodded at her, giving her his usual look of somewhat amused befuddlement. "So Doyle's friend came through." Angel nodded. "Where is he?" At Angel's questioning look, she clarified, "Doyle, I mean. Where'd he go?"

"Ah," Angel began, thinking furiously. "Some people came. Asking for him. He's ... away."

She gave him a look that she clearly thought meant he couldn't fool her. She knew Doyle was hiding from some mob guy's enforcer thugs. Which, of course, meant that he'd fooled her completely. He hid a smile.

Not long after, several auditions just happened to find their way onto Cordelia's social calendar, and Angel sighed with relief when she disappeared. Making his way back into the bedroom, he sat on the side of the bed and studied Doyle. No change. Still spiky. Still greenish-blue. Angel leaned forward and lifted one eyelid with his thumb. Yes. Eyes were still red.

Taking his hand away, he watched the lid settle down, and found himself distracted by the length and thickness of the lashes now resting against the spiny cheek. The previous night was becoming clearer in his memory the more rested he became, and his body was reacting to Doyle's in a distinctly unusual way.

Or perhaps arousal around Doyle wasn't as unusual as Angel wished it would be. Doyle had an odd effect on him. Angel didn't trust people. He trusted Doyle. He didn't touch, or be touched, easily. Yet he had his hands on Doyle all the time. He felt protective in a general way of all humanity, because humans were vulnerable, in much the way he would have felt protective of any harmless group of animals who were preyed upon by stronger, vicious predators. Like himself.

Doyle, on the other hand, roused specifically protective instincts. When hired demons went after Doyle, Angel had actively sought to stop them, even when Doyle himself hadn't asked for or welcomed his help. Every time Doyle had a vision, Angel ached for him, found himself holding Doyle up, doing anything he could to ease Doyle through the pain.

Then, the previous night, when Doyle had offered up everything he had to save Angel's life, Angel had reacted very much as he had when Buffy had done the same thing. The thought shook him to his core.

Was he in love with Doyle?

Before he could even fully articulate the question, the answer echoed in his mind. No. He had only one true love. That was Buffy. Only in her arms could he ever achieve perfect happiness.

But he did love Doyle. And on a partnership level, on a friendship level, on a trusted companion level ... given half a chance he'd fuck him through the floor and enjoy every minute of it. Without once risking his soul.

Of course, as soon as he tried, Doyle would stake him. So it was a moot point.

Giving up on pointless mental ramblings, he settled back against the pillows, picked up a book, and ignored it for the rest of the day as he lay there and watched Doyle's throat, counting heartbeats.

The last time he'd felt this horrible, he'd spent the previous evening calling young Oz BamBam. Reciting bad poetry and slaughtering fine literature. Doyle rolled over, further than he remembered being able to in his single bed, and buried his face in the pillow.

It caught on the case.

Now, that was not the usual. Blinking painfully into the soft cotton, Doyle experimentally, and very slowly, brushed his cheek against the pillow.

It caught again.

Wondering just what the bleedin' hell he'd drunk the night before to leave him weak as a kitten, with a head the size of a county, and spiked out in full demon face, he concentrated as best he could on changing his demeanor back to his normal pale skinned dark haired blue eyed self.

It didn't work.

Positive now that he'd gone to a pub, disgraced himself, accidentally outed himself and now stood no chance whatsoever with Cordelia -- ignoring the fact that he never had and clinging pathetically to his dreams -- Doyle let out a wail that would have made a banshee proud.

Unfortunately, all it did was make his head hurt. More.

A secondary and unexpected side effect of his wail was the appearance of Angel. Not just at his side, but in bed with him. For a crazy second, Doyle wondered just how far out of that closet he'd roared, when memory hit with all the grace and subtlety of a rock slide.

"Ouch," he managed to whimper. Angel patted him on the shoulder. Even that hurt. Doyle ignored him for a second, not quite sure what to say, and did his own little bodily inventory. Head. Present, though at the moment he wished not. Neck. Check. In one piece, even. Arms, legs, torso, all attached as they should be. Erection. Digging a furrow in the mattress an iron plowshare would be proud to own.

Oh, no.

"Wha' happened?" he faked. Angel bought it. Thank God.

"You saved my life." That hand was back, patting him along the shoulder, lingering here and there to give a little squeeze. Doyle's erection throbbed in sympathy. Doyle growled. The hand patted. "Thanks," Angel said very softly.

"Any day, man," Doyle managed to croak. "Now how come my face has frozen like this?"

Thank the good Lord almighty that hand finally withdrew. Doyle could take a breath. Of a sort. A constricted, painfully aroused sort, but it was better than nothing.

"I'm not sure," Angel eventually answered. "You should be dead."

At that, Doyle rolled over, carefully shielding his too-slowly fading erection from too-sharp eyes. "And why is that? I feel fine for a dead man."

"I drained you."

Doyle gulped. There were so many possible connotations to that phrase. He pushed the more delightful ones deeper into the back of his brain and concentrated on the one that would have the most immediate meaning to a vampire. "So if I've no blood left, what's coursing through my veins, then?"

"Blood," answered Angel immediately. "Very slowly. Not as slowly as yesterday. It's sped up." Doyle looked blankly at him and Angel explained a little further. "After I fed, you had no pulse, then it started at six beats per minute."

"Yipes," Doyle managed. He'd really been dead?

"Normal for a Brakken demon."

Doyle thought, again, Really? then wondered if it was time he revisited the few books he'd seen that had information on his demon half. If he really was stuck like this ...

"Then today it's up to thirty two beats per minute."

He's counting? Doyle couldn't seem to get on track, and couldn't seem to say anything, either, so he stayed where he was and watched Angel's mouth move.

"Well, thirty four two minutes ago, then back to thirty. I'm estimating the thirty two."

Doyle closed his eyes and swallowed. "So, if I'm dead, how come I'm breathing? And my heart's beating, albeit slowly?"

"I have no idea," Angel admitted. Doyle wasn't reassured. "But as long as you are, I'm not complaining."

"Me, neither!" Doyle blurted. "Now, how do we go about getting myself back to my normal face and out of the gay apparel of the Brakken type?"

Angel looked at him blankly. Doyle blinked. Okay, so seasonal humor didn't work after the second century, or so it would appear. He sighed. "Smooth skin? No spikes?"

"Noxzema?" Angel asked, straight-faced.

Doyle rolled back over and buried his face in the pillow.

His spikes caught.

That set the tone for the next week. Cordelia came back after a long weekend and made two specific queries after Doyle. It lifted his spirits, eavesdropping in the next room. The fact that she stopped asking after the first day dropped them like a stone.

Angel was around often. He tended not to say much, and spent most of his time staring at Doyle's neck. If he hadn't known better, he'd've sworn Angel was hungry. But anytime he asked, Angel was immediately able to tell him the current pulse count. It was a bit unnerving.

Especially since it made him hungry. Not for blood, of course.

For Angel.

He'd tried going out and about a few times, but in his current form he couldn't leave the flat, and the few times he'd ventured past the bedroom door he'd nearly gotten caught by Cordelia. So he'd taken to spending most of his time out on patrol with Angel at night and sleeping away the daytime.

It didn't help any that Angel continued to sleep with him. Well, share the bed, anyway. The first time he'd come in to take his daily nap, Doyle hadn't known he was there until he'd rolled into Angel's chest. It was a nice chest. Strong. Broad. Firm, soft skinned, heavily muscled.

Doyle was rubbing his spikes against it like a cat grooming its whiskers before he could stop himself.

"Itch?" Angel asked quietly, with a touch of laughter just under his voice.

He froze mid-strop. "Uhm, hello?" It wasn't the most intelligent thing he'd ever said, but it was the only thing he could think to say. It wasn't easy to find conversational gambits when all the blood he had left in his body was currently heading south at the speed of light.

"Hi," Angel answered whimsically. If serious, quiet and dark could be called 'whimsy'. Oddly enough, Doyle thought they could, if it was Angel.

"Bed?" he asked, then shook his head to try to clear it. "I mean to say, are we in bed? Uhm, I mean, are you in bed? I in you in we in ..." Unable to complete a simple sentence, still nose to nipple with Angel's chest, Doyle floundered. " ... bed?" Angel rescued him.

Angel was good at that. Rescuing, that would be.

"I'm tired. You're tired. If I sleep on the couch Cordy will ask why."

Made sense to Doyle. The Angel rolled over on his side, removing that tempting chest from drooling distance, and Doyle could think in a limited capacity again. Until he looked down.

Good God. The arse was even more incredible than the chest.

At that point, Doyle gave up on sleep. After three days with next to none, falling asleep side by side with Angel was almost easy. Except for the parts of him that were hard, of course.

Determined to get the hell away from Angel's bed and body, Doyle tried everything he could think of to return his face to human normality. Nothing worked. Willing it didn't do a thing. Concentration, meditation, scotch, anger, sneezing, pleading -- nothing worked. Early one evening after Angel had gone out patrolling, Doyle lay back on the bed and finally allowed himself to think about the one thing he couldn't think about while Angel was lying right next to him.

Dark eyes. Soft short tangled hair. Full lips. Square jaw. Broad shoulders. Strong hands with long, artist's fingers. Narrow waist. Long, beautifully-shaped legs. An arse to die for and manly attributes that made the euphemism a truism. Curves and planes, shadows and cream, skin soft as velvet to his touch.

Shortly into the catalog of Angel's charms, Doyle's hands got busy. Roaming over his own chest, through his chest hair to rub at nipples and along muscles, down to his groin to scratch and knead between his thighs. Running his fingers through his pubic hair, weighing his testicles in his hand, sliding back to press at the pressure points behind them. Running his other hand over the shaft of his penis up to the glans, lightly running a nail along the seam, tapping the vein. Gathering the fluid at the tip and using it to ease his way through a thorough and thoroughly well needed session of self pleasure that ended with one hand pulling his balls, the other pulling his cock, and the top of his head feeling like it was flying off.

Panting harshly, the echoes of his final cries still hanging in the air, Doyle fell back against the pillows. Rolled over. Buried his face in the cool cotton.

It didn't catch.

Doyle froze in place, all the tension he'd just released rushing back at the realization that he'd finally found a way to snap out of demon form. He wasn't looking forward to having to jerk off every time he spiked out, though. There had to be another way. As he was turning it over in his mind, he relaxed, relief at the fact that it was possible bringing him a different sort of tension release. As his muscles loosened, he could feel his face changing.

Spikes again.

Well, shite. That didn't help matters. He growled into the pillow, then carefully moved against it, brushing his cheek absently against its surface. His norm had been to appear human, and after a few unfortunate accidents when he first discovered his demon half, he'd quickly learned to suppress it until he called for the change. It had been horrible, like going through puberty all over again. Happily, it hadn't taken as long to endure as puberty had, but then the rewards hadn't been all that great, either.

He concentrated hard, as he did when he was training himself back then. With some effort, and not a little headache, he managed to change back to human. Relaxing, congratulating himself on finally licking the weirdness that had left him Brakken so long, he felt the spikes pop out again. Christ on a crutch! What was it going to take to get him back to human and staying human?

The thought made him pause. He and Angel hadn't been able to find any explanation for either his inability to shift form or for his unusual heartbeat, too fast for a demon and too slow for a human. The fact that he now could shift, but had to concentrate to remain in human form, was the opposite of what he'd done before the ... encounter with Angel's fangs. Perhaps by Angel drawing so heavily on the demon in him, it had somehow brought the demon to the fore, where before the human had been dominant? Turning the thought over and over in his head, he decided that it felt right. Sighing, he set himself to the task of reversing ten years of habit. If he was going to pass as human again, he'd better get used to the idea of keeping his guard up at all times.

The whole idea gave him a headache. But it was better than being in permanent spike-face. And he was both Irish and a demon half-breed. He was used to making the best of a bad situation. He'd just have to do the best he could with what he was given. As usual.




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