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Just An Insubstantial Trick of the Light - Chapter 3
Angel had only come to Spike's crypt to humiliate
him. This was one of his favorite sports. He had heard Spike's astonishing confession
with glee: more ammunition on him in one go than he could have dreamt of. So,
when Spike had left to go home, he found out from Buffy where Spike lived and
went there to wait for him.
A simple plan, but one in which he had not counted on coming under the spell
of Spike's Angel. He was there in the crypt, his presence palpable. And it made
Angel mad. How dare Spike prefer this Angel to him? His layers of guilt shifted
to accommodate another guilty thought: he had not been a very good friend to
Spike during the last few years, had not been a Sire and had certainly not been
a lover, all three of which he had been once and remembered.
Angel was a complex and deep character. Or, at least, that’s how he wanted others
to see him. On bad days, he had the overwhelming dread that he was nothing more
than an Irish lout with a tendency to run to fat, with little education and
who had a liking for viciousness and littleness that had thrived on being a
demon. That was on really bad days.
He knew he was irresistible to most women. It was knowledge that worried and
scared him. He knew he was equally irresistible to some men. But this knowledge
made him even more uneasy. He was under no illusion about his sexual needs and
desires. He needed sex all the time, and desired anything that moved, or had
been moving within the last day or so. He prided himself on keeping this side
of his character from everyone, especially Buffy, who conveniently fell for
his 'I'm really just a complex, melancholy young man' act and had only found
out his true nature due to an unfortunate foray into sex with him.
He had known it was a bad idea from the moment they started undressing. Nothing
about curses or gypsies though; no, he had taken one look at Buffy's slim, naked
body and wondered how he was to do anything worthwhile with that. The last time
he had had sex had been a hundred years before with Spike. It had been violent,
manic, vicious, bloody, painful, long, and absolutely incredible. Even Spike,
who had once walked away from being hit by a slow moving steam train when he
had fallen drunkenly on the line, even Spike, had had trouble walking for a
week after that five hour, glorious pounding from Angelus. So Angelus' reappearance
had had very little to do with a moment of perfect happiness, and a lot more
to do with an overwhelming need to get away from the soft, sweet, female body
and find some much needed relief.
Of course, Angel now foreswore all sex, and that almost drove him insane with
suppressed desire. But he tried to see himself as a chaste, worthy warrior,
fighting for the Right. This, of course, was only on good days: days when he
wasn’t the fat, Irish peasant.
On some days, Angel felt he was only just holding it all together. This was
not really surprising, considering his unusual history. He'd had a miserable
childhood with a domineering father; he'd been kicked out… well, he'd left,
same difference when you've no job, no prospects, and you get killed by a small
blond vampire. He'd been a Master Vampire; he'd been cursed; he'd gotten his
soul back; he'd lost it again; he'd been sent to hell; he'd survived hell; he'd
had to leave his love; he'd had to become a detective and, finally, to cap it
all, he'd had to work with Cordelia Chase. So, occasionally, he gave himself
a little slack, and allowed himself to be a bit fucked up. Not that he disliked
Cordelia. She was one of the few people who saw right through his 'nice young
man' act. She ate, slept, and worked with a stake close to her heart and often
told him to get over himself. This was good for Angel who did need to get over
his previous, hideous, two hundred and fifty year life and unlife. It was just
that, most of the time, he had no idea just how he was supposed to do this.
So, some of these thoughts had definitely been in his mind when he went to Sunnydale
in answer to a request for help from Buffy. Turning up anywhere in his beautiful
car helped him sustain his chaste warrior fantasy, and not fuel his Irish peasant
nightmare. Buffy and the other girls always made him feel like a mysterious,
dark, slightly menacing, avenging figure with a heart of gold. And he liked
that. He especially liked it that they all thought his re-emergence as Angelus
had been the result of a moment of pure happiness. He particularly liked the
idea that they thought he could cause a moment of perfect happiness in anyone
during sex. It spoke well of his technique.
He also liked going to Sunnydale, because he got to see Spike. He liked seeing
Spike, because it always made him feel smug and superior and successful to see
just how well he was coping with being a vampire in a human world, compared
to Spike, who was usually drunk and always highly emotional.
He had been particularly delighted, therefore, to see Spike stomping in only
a few moments after his arrival. Pleased to see that Spike was annoyed to see
him, and transported beyond delight to be the recipient of Spike's passionate
confession whilst rummaging in the fridge for blood.
He'd listened attentively, not wanting to disturb Spike's train of thought.
So, he heard Spike declare his love for Angel, heard the underlying loneliness
there, heard, distinctly, the promise of friendship and good demon sex that
Spike offered. Most of all, he heard that Spike had, by now, become so unhinged,
that he had not only created a fantasy Angel in his crypt, but that he thought
he, Angel, was that insubstantial trick of the light.
But nothing in the entire speech delighted him as much as Spike's reaction to
his amused reply.
He'd never seen Spike jump vertically two feet in the air and had, certainly,
never seen him do it whilst producing a high-pitched squeal of terror. Angel
was very pleased with himself and glad he'd come to Sunnydale.
This was going to be interesting.
Determined not to let promising Spike out of his sight, he had no choice but
to follow him when he left.
He hated running. It was undignified and didn’t show off his features to their
best advantage and made those deceitful thoughts about being too fat start to
surface again. Nevertheless, he effortlessly kept up with his much younger prey
and virtually ran side by side with him till they reached Sunnydale Main Street.
Now Angel was in a dilemma. He wanted to stop Spike but would never stoop to
an unseemly display in front of all these humans. It just wasn't him. It would
ruin his pants if he tackled Spike. He was positive Spike would resist such
a tackle and there'd be fists and blood and ruined hair. Without being able
to see in a mirror, it took him long enough as it was to do his hair. So he
compromised and just ran along, too.
He expected Spike to go back to where ever it was he lived and then he'd have
his opportunity to bait, fight and generally piss Spike off. So Spike stopping
at a café and sipping Hot Chocolate had rather fazed Angel. Fazed and annoyed
him. Spike appeared to have taken control of this situation and that was intolerable.
He wasn't used to Spike getting the upper hand, unless said hand happen to contain
either a crowbar or a hot poker. And Angel had developed a very easy way to
deal with those memories. He just never thought about them, as if they had never
happened. So he was absolutely furious to find those tactics being played against
him, by Spike. Spike was ignoring him. More, Spike was actually giving the impression
that Angel did not exist and was not talking to him. It was a bizarre but effective
display. Angel was almost as impressed as he was furious. He put up with it
for about half an hour, was in full flight, telling Spike how much he needed
to sober up, get a life, become respectable and all the other things he knew
would particularly annoy Spike when the object of the improving lecture, got
up, left him to pay the bill and sauntered on down the street. When Angel started
to follow, Spike spun on his heel and headed back to the Watcher's. He seemed
in no rush now. He browsed in windows, he stopped for a cigarette. He wandered
into Giles' with an air of complete unconcern and finished helping himself to
the blood in the fridge. Angel trailed after him like the invisible man in a
bad Hollywood movie.
He was not invisible to the humans, though, and it was clear by their faces
that they had high hopes of enjoying more amusing entertainment at Angel's expense.
This did not fit at all well with Angel's view of himself or how he expected
them to view him. He was not funny. Spike's behaviour, which made him look ridiculous,
made him blood-red with anger. He could literally feel his blood boiling with
rage when Spike interrupted his conversation, when Spike continued to watch
TV through him, as Angel tried to block the screen. The more Xander Harris snickered,
the more Giles tried to placate everyone, the more the girls watched the two
vampires like spectators at a tennis match, their heads turning rhythmically
from him to Spike, the more all this happened, the more he wanted to do something
that would force Spike to acknowledge his presence.
In the end, he suggested the demon hunt just to get out with the humans and
away from Spike. He could have ripped Xander's lungs out when the boy pointed
out to Spike that by not coming, it only proved he could hear Angel, because,
otherwise, he would have come.
Even Angel, though, was slightly amused by the physical pain Spike appeared
to be in trying to work out which of his options most clearly made the point
that he, Spike, did not hear or see said vampire. He was even more amused when
the gang engineered Spike having to sit next to him on the ride.
As Spike's hard thigh pressed against his own, Angel's thoughts had taken a
completely different tack. He was remembering traveling with Spike before, when
thighs together had become mouths; mouths had led to tongues and tongues inevitably
to cocks. His cock swelled at the memory of Spike's small puckered entrance.
It throbbed to the thoughts of pressing through the ring of strong, vampire
muscle that guarded that soft, welcoming passage. He felt a slight leak of precum
as he remembered the feel of Spike, the scent of Spike, the taste of Spike and
the sight of Spike cresting in waves of pleasure to his own cock. These thoughts
occupied him in the car as Spike seemingly dozed, his head tipped back on the
headrest behind him, his elegant cheekbones throwing the seductive hollows of
his face into deep shadow, a position that only served to emphasize more his
eternal beauty.
Angel was extremely annoyed with himself now. He'd fallen prey, once again,
to his sexual cravings. He tried to tell himself that it was not Spike in particular
he wanted, just sex. Sex with anyone, anything. He imagined having sex with
the humans, pressing his cock into each one of them depending on who was speaking
at the time. Had they known it, the humans in the car, Giles, Buffy, Xander
and a very squashed Willow might have been horrified that, in turn, they were
being impaled on either Spike's railroad spike or Angel's cock. Some of them
would have had a hard time choosing between those two options.
Angel's mood did not improve when he found out that he had been paired with
Spike for the hunt and kill. If Spike was not acknowledging Angel's existence
then in Angel's book that left him on his own, too. He felt slightly vulnerable
when Spike stalked off without him. He was tempted to let him go until he saw
a huge, hideous demon with awful hair advancing on Spike. He shouted a warning
and was horrified to see Spike hesitate, see the demon, but just….wait for it.
Angel thought that Spike had taken this game far enough. He killed the demon
effortlessly and knelt beside the creature on the ground who had once been his
best and only friend, his favorite, beloved Childe and his passionate, intense,
infinitely fuckable lover. The smell and sight of Spike's blood made Angel's
now urgent erection just a bit harder, just a bit more painful against his pants.
He wanted to plunge his face into Spike's stomach wound, he wanted to lick his
entrails and suck on his cock from the inside, but he didn’t think these desires
quite went with his chaste warrior role, which, so far, he had maintained all
day.
When Spike fainted he carried him back to the car and cradled him in his arms
all the way back to Giles'. He wasn’t unduly worried about Spike. It was a minor
wound for a vampire. He was far more worried about himself. He held Spike directly
over his cock. In fact, if he maneuvered him just slightly, he could hold Spike's
backside directly over his cock. This was very enjoyable. He tried to wish away
the four layers of material separating them, was pleased to remember that it
was unlikely that Spike was actually wearing underwear, and reduced the barrier
to three layers. He wriggled slightly under Spike, but had to stop when he threatened
to cum there and then. That might be hard to explain when they all got out of
the car. So he contented himself with staring at Spike. He had forgotten in
the space of the half hour since they had last been the car, just how beautiful
he was. Angel never tired of looking at beautiful things. He liked them around
him. He remembered having this beautiful face around him all the time, on his
pillow at night, on his cock in the morning, on his mind every other moment
of the day.
Pissing Spike off was fun, tormenting Spike was better, but best of all, he
had to admit, was fucking Spike. There was no getting around it, Spike was very
fuckable.
Angel liked using the word, fuck, and used it every chance he got in his head.
It was one more little revenge he got on the world that had made him a demon
then smacked him on the hand for being one and cut off his bits. Metaphorically.
He would never dream of actually using the word out loud, but he rolled it off
his mental tongue with glee. Being Spike’s favorite word, too, made it seem
as if Spike were present every time he thought it, but this poofy thought was
not something he wanted to dwell on. He was happy to admit he missed fucking
Spike, he was much more unwilling to admit he missed him, liked his company,
and found him entertaining, amusing and a very good friend. If he admitted all
that, then he would want Spike back. If he wanted Spike back, he'd have to ask
him. And that was as likely as him wearing pink and telling jokes.
But he had now incontrovertible evidence that Spike wanted him. And that was
just fine by Angel. He was all for Spike begging and he, Angel, magnanimously
granting favors. That's why he had preceded Spike to his crypt. He had every
intention of making Spike beg for him and possibly, he would grant a hand job,
or if Spike begged particularly well, begging that involved a tongue on Angel's
cock, then perhaps, he would even go so far as a blowjob.
But when he got there he was ambushed by Spike's version of Angel. Angel sensed
him there, haunting the place. He saw Spike's things laid out as if they had
been discussing them, sharing them together. Angel should have been sharing
this with Spike. He saw Spike's TV remote placed on the arm of the chair as
if they had been watching TV companionably together. He wanted to watch TV with
Spike. He saw the discarded and well-thumbed porn mags under the chair. He particularly
wanted to share those with Spike. All in all, he was a very unhappy Sire when
he saw just how real Spike had managed to make his fantasy Angel.
That's when the plan had occurred to him. He knew Spike was at the Bronze drinking,
he'd followed him that far. He knew he had a fairly considerable stash of money,
he'd seen him pinch it from Giles. Spike, money and beer equaled incoherent,
not very observant Spike. He might just pull this off. He climbed carefully
out of his clothes and folded them neatly out of sight and went to sit on the
tomb. Then, he got off again and went back to rearrange them into a careless
heap. Warriors didn't fold their clothes. Neither did Irish louts probably,
but the other alternative, the other persona that he dreaded even more than
bog boy was the ponce. Spike had started that one. Angelus had had nothing whatsoever
poncey about him. He was a vicious, imaginative killer. But in trying so hard
to fit into modern day American life, Angel sometimes felt he had gone too far
the other way. A weakness and a concern that Spike had immediately spotted,
preyed upon, mimicked, enlarged and never stopped getting pleasure from. So
Angel did fear he was a bit of a poof. He did worry that he might come over
as a ponce and ruffling up his clothes into an untidy heap relieved him of this
worry. He hopped back up onto the tomb. Then he hopped down again and refolded
his clothes. He wasn’t going to let Spike win. Cashmere was better left folded,
it was just a fact, nothing to do with being a poof.
It was interesting to note that Angel was worried that a pair of folded pants
might mark him as a poof and not the fact that he was naked, erect, weeping
and waiting to stick his cock up Spike's ass. He knew such mental discussions
would only confuse and depress him so, like Spike, he employed the, I won't
think about that, tactic. It was effective and allowed him to retain his warrior-like
persona.
By the time Spike actually arrived, Angel's backside was suffering from sitting
naked on a cold slab of granite for three hours. His cock was suffering even
more. He'd been tempted to relieve himself once or twice. He had even had the
wicked but highly amusing thought that if he jacked off in Spike's crypt and
then buggered off, Spike would come home and find real, tangible evidence that
his fantasy Angel was giving himself hand jobs when Spike was out. Angel imagined
that this might be the final straw that would metaphorically break some proverbial
camel. It might break Spike's final vestige of sanity and, whilst that would
be amusing to watch, Angel still reckoned Spike would be more amusing to fuck,
so he held off adding real Sire cum to Spike's imaginary Sire presence.
But three hours! Angel had never held off for three hours before, because, of
course, swearing off sex didn't mean he didn’t do it himself…frequently, avidly,
and enjoyably. He needed no stimulation, he needed no aids, all he needed was
a free hand, a few minutes without interruption and time to slip back into brood
face should anyone come into the office. So three hours was a bit of a record
for him. He felt he might lose it, so swollen was it. He'd heard of limbs getting
gangrenous and falling off when they were so engorged with blood. He idly wondered
if his would re-grow if it did fall off. It was not a vampire attribute he particularly
wanted to put to the test. So, all in all, Angel was as relieved to see Spike,
as Spike had been to see Angel.
Spike even managed to surprise him. This was the first time he had seen Spike
when Spike was not with him. He very quickly realized that the Spike he knew
was the front the real Spike put up whenever he had to deal with Angel. This
Spike, who thought he was talking to his Angel, was very much not his Spike.
He was new, thoughtful, sad, lonely, sweet, funny and rather vulnerable.
This, Angel decided, was starting to get confusing. He was not Spike's Angel,
who was obviously only an insubstantial trick of the light that Spike saw as
more substantial than him, who was the real Angel, but who Spike called Insubstantial
and this was not Spike, but new Spike who was only real when real Angel was
not around.
Angel decided again not to think about all this too much, he was far too engrossed
anyway in new Spike's monologue. Spike was laying his heart out like a cadaver
on a surgeons table voluntarily saying, 'here you are, examine my innermost
secrets.' Angel almost felt guilty to be tricking Spike like this. Until he
started to hear just how completely Spike distorted the story of their life
together. Angel suddenly had the horrible thought that Spike actually went around
spreading these sorts of lies, that he, Angelus, had been a maniacal, sex-mad
psycho, a pervert, into torture and sexual deviance. He had the even more horrible
thought that perhaps all of this was true. That this was actually how he had
been, how he was, not warrior, not Irish peasant, not even poof, but a homicidal,
fuck-up. His whole view of himself as an elegant, Master Vampire was shattered.
Is this how Spike saw him? Is this how it had been for Spike?
He was plunging into the depths that only a very fragile ego can reach so quickly,
when Spike turned to him, asked him if he wanted to pound into him again and
stripped off the top half of his clothes. Angel practically came on the spot.
Only thoughts of giving away his game, which was providing him with undreamt
of access to Spike's mind and now Spike's body, prevented him. But oh, the look
of Spike. He'd gotten considerably thinner since Angel had last seen him. His
arms joined his torso with deep concave shadows. His abdominal muscles were
so clearly defined that Angel actually wondered if Spike had been working out.
Then he remembered that this was Spike, who considered a wank enough exercise
for one day. Spike's belly button, in contrast to most of the intriguing hollows
on his body, was convex. And oh, didn't Angel's tongue throb with desire to
lick over that enticing little bump. That would be just like licking the tip
of a tiny, hard cock. Fuck, Angel realized he had slipped imperceptibly into
poofy mode again and tried to reclaim ground by remembering that at least Spike
had called him a psycho. Psychos were scary. They were very rarely poofs. Or
not avowed ones. Fuck, they were probably all closet ones. Not a good analogy.
Angel really felt he ought to concentrate more on what Spike was saying, because
he had just gotten to the interesting bit. He was explaining just what he wanted
to do with his Angel when he became hard enough. As he'd missed the beginning
of this speech thinking about Anthony Perkins, Angel realized that Spike was,
of course, talking about metaphorical hardness, not the literal hardness that
he, Angel, was suffering from. Even Spike, even drunk Spike, even new Spike,
could not have missed the fact that Angel's cock was now doing the impression
of a well-hung donkey. Not, of course, that Angel had ever looked at a well-hung
donkey up close. Fuck it…he had to stop falling into mental traps like that.
But Spike's description of the activities he wanted to get up to, literally,
with Angel, decided him. His original intention to be Spike's Angel for a while,
then leave for LA, had suddenly changed to, stay and do some of the things Spike
clearly wanted Angel to do. He felt quite substantial enough for any of the
challenging activities Spike was outlining.
So when Spike invited him down to the bed, Angel went.
He almost regretted it when he saw the mattress he was expected to lie on. It
betrayed its origins all too clearly. It almost had, 'dump-find', written all
over it. Angel thought scabies. Angel thought fleas. Angel had the bizarre thought
that if he got bitten by fleas, would he sire a race of evil flea-vampires and
would anyone know given they were still, after all, only fleas and fleas bit
people anyway. This led on to the thought that perhaps fleas were already vampires
which is what he was mulling over when Spike closed his eyes and started bunching
up his pillows. Angel really wished he could have some of Spike's remaining
alcohol, so he could use it as an antiseptic wipe, just in case. He hadn't planned
to admit yet that he was real. He was actually feeling a little less real than
when he had arrived earlier. He wanted to retain his advantage over Spike for
a little longer and see a little more of this new, interesting, adorable, Spike.
Well, quite a lot more hopefully, if Spike would just lift and spread his legs
a little.
So, in the weeks that followed, when Angel got over his self-doubt and personality
angst, aided entirely by Spike's complete faith in him that it didn't matter
whether he was a chaste warrior or an Irish peasant, cus he was still a pillock
either way; when he got over being afraid of being a poof because Spike showed
him the good bits of being one of those; when he got over being broody and sad
and lonely because Spike became the best lover and friend he could have wished
for; in those weeks he often wondered just what it had been that had made him
decide to show Spike that he was real. One night, lying in Spike's arms as Spike
deliberately and thoughtfully rearranged his hair into a hideous, poofy style,
he came to the conclusion that it had been the moment that Spike put his own
hand to his mouth, pretending that it was Angel's lips. At that moment, Angel
had seen his own intense loneliness and sadness reflected back to him more profoundly
than any mirror could have done.
He had decided it was time that he, Angel, found himself by helping Spike find
him. Time that he admitted he had failed as a Sire, as a friend and as a lover
but that being eternal meant he had another chance to put it right.
And being eternal, if he was really, really good, he might one day be just be
as important to Spike as had been Spike's insubstantial trick of the light.
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