Time is the Fire in Which we Burn

Episode 6 - Chapter 4


When Spike got back, Angel was still a huddled lump under the covers. He was relieved he was there but disappointed he'd not emerged. He shed his boots and crawled in under the covers next to him. It was so quiet in the room Spike fancied he could hear the human's heartbeat downstairs.

It was reassuring knowing he was there.

After the longest of times, Spike heard a small rustle and then a strained murmur. 'I always thought that you had more capacity to love than me: that I was deficient somehow.'

Spike didn't reply but instead of words, laid his cheek to Angel's back.

'I can't be like this, Spike.'

Spike continued in his silence for a long time after this but then asked softly, 'Why not?'

He felt Angel's back twitch as if he found the question strange and difficult. At last, he turned and looked at Spike, only a faint trace of the powerful emotions left on his face. 'Because I need to be in control. It's what I am.'

'Emotionless, you mean.'

'If you like.'

'But you aren't. You're just pretending. You bottle it all up, and then it spills out like this. I kinda know what that's like, Pet; believe me.'

Angel sat up cross-legged, facing Spike. He frowned then said clearly - as if he'd been rehearsing it in his mind, 'I thought I'd lost you, and it was worse than losing you to death. You were here but not here.'

'That was your idea.'

Angel smiled sadly and took hold of Spike's fingers, playing absentmindedly with them. 'He took away my lover; I was gonna be damned if he'd take away my best friend as well.'

'The best friend you felt you couldn't share any of this with?'

Angel flicked his eyes up from where he was watching the fingers and shrugged. 'I kinda shared it all last night.'

Spike leant forward and touched his forehead to Angel's. 'Yeah, you did. We did what we said we'd do: start again. Okay, maybe not as sire and childe, but as friends. I'm laid bare here, like you. You've seen the worst of me now.'

'Father Spike?'

Spike cringed. 'We prayed together, Luv!'

Angel shuddered. 'I cried a lot.'

'I sang a hymn.'

'I threatened to kill all of LA.'

'I gave some money to a fucking charity.'

'I thought about killing him.'

'I pictured having to stake you to protect him.'

'I thought about killing us both.'

'So did I.'

They stopped the mutual sharing and just stared at each other. Spike put his hand on his sword. 'Why not?'

'What? Kill…?'

'Together. Stakes? Sword? Sunlight - tomorrow morning.'

'No more pain….'

'Never separated.'

Angel's face creased up, and he held Spike fingers in a death-like grip. 'I couldn't bear to see you go. I want to be first.'

Spike frowned. 'Together. I don't wanna be left alone.'

'Okay.'

'Okay.'

'I wondered if either of you would like a cup of tea?'

They snapped apart guiltily as if they'd been having sex.

Wesley came warily toward the bed, saw they were both fully dressed and sat on the edge of the mattress, offering a tray with three mugs and a plate of biscuits. 'The last of my hobnobs; I hope you appreciate the sacrifice.'

Spike began to laugh, but there was a distinctly strange note to the sound. Wesley ignored it and passed him a mug. He offered Angel a biscuit, which was taken with a slightly stunned look.

Wesley beamed. 'Now, isn't this nice? All back to normal.'

Still slightly hysterical, Spike hiccupped, 'You call this normal?'

Wesley looked surprised at his scepticism. 'Well, yes. We took on some interesting new cases yesterday that I'm working on. You two are in bed together - not working. Seems very normal to me.'

Angel glanced over at Spike.

Wesley smiled. 'So, it'll be morning soon. Could one of you stir yourself to help today? After a shower preferably…? You'll have to get up in any case… the decorators are coming again.'

Spike murmured softly, 'Three men drinking tea in a bed should get them talking.'

Wesley didn't look at all phased. 'They asked me if it was the place with the "guy who ran naked around the hallway". I think they've been talking about us already. So, up and at 'em, you two. Work to do. Worlds to save.'

He bustled out with the tea tray.

Angel looked at Spike and handed him the biscuit. 'Guess we'd miss him if we….'

Spike dunked the hobnob in his tea. 'Yeah. Lots to miss. I'd miss my TV.'

'Hmm. I'd kinda miss this old place.'

'I'd miss being able to smoke. Oh! And beer! Really miss that….'

'So, we'll take a rain check on the dead again thing?'

'Save it for later.'

'When things get really bad.'

'Like if we start to inherit bat face's features.'

'Or if shoulder pads make a comeback.'

'If I start getting nostalgic for rain.'

'If I start hitting on fifteen-year-old girls again.'

'If I go back to shagging robots.'

'Err… what?'

'Long story, Luv. Good, but long.'

'Jeez. I'm not so worried about my technique now: I can't fail to be better than a robot.'

'Hey! She was pretty good… considering. Bendy. Went for hours. Huh - kinda like you after all.'

Angel pouted for a moment and suddenly said deceptively casually, 'Would you have gone?'

Spike hesitated. 'I don't know.'

Angel put his hand on Spike's cheekbone. 'Forgive me?'

The soft plaintive question after all the commands of the previous days almost undid Spike again, and he pulled Angel to him fiercely, burying Angel's face to his chest. 'Did you really want me to go?'

Angel pulled free and didn't hesitate at all. 'I wanted to absorb you into my body so I would always have you.'

Spike pushed him onto his back and lay braced over him. He began to undo the buttons on Angel's shirt, keeping his eye contact the whole time. 'We're moving on. We've done the sire-childe shit and didn't need it. Now we'll do lovers - see if that suits us better.' Angel smiled and dipped his gaze to watch the fingers that he loved. He sighed and stretched his arms obediently when Spike needed, raised his hips to be stripped and helped Spike shed his clothes until they were both naked. Spike pursed his lips. 'Now, let's see how much of an abomination we can create here, Lover.' He slid a finger into Angel and hissed, 'Are you sin?' He moved it around against the soft walls until Angel cried out with pleasure.

Easing it out, he leant over and offered the tip of his penis to the soft hole instead. 'Will you degrade me, Angel?' On that ambiguous question, he pushed in slowly, every inch drawn out tantalisingly.

When he was fully embedded, he raised his eyes to Angel, suddenly grinned and said, 'Bollocks to this; I'm soddin' bursting here,' and began to pump in and out with a cheerful urgency that made Angel gasp and crunch up, his abs rippling and folding with power.

'Fucking hell!'

'Something like that, Luv.' Spike braced himself on either side of Angel's head, stared at him without flinching, and worked his pleasure in the tight body. Angel jerked up and kissed him harshly as they fucked, biting at the soft lip, demanding entry with his tongue, teasing away, coming back. Spike knew his orgasm would be swift and harsh: he'd been too long without relief. When he felt it swelling in his balls, he pulled off Angel's mouth so he could stare at his lover as he came. Suddenly, a cold shot pumped from him into Angel, and he groaned with pleasure; another, longer and fuller, and he groaned again, finding it hard not to close his eyes. Angel's eyes dilated at the soft, pleasure-filled groans, and he began to fist himself harshly. Incredibly, Spike pumped two more long strings of cum deep into Angel before he felt only a small dry release that left him feeling empty, satisfied and tingling in nerves that had been dead long enough to know better. He stayed braced over Angel though so he could watch the long, thick, wet cock running between the strong fingers. Sometimes Angel worked hard right up and down the shaft; sometimes he held just a small area and twitched that very softy. Spike smiled: he'd seen Angel's technique before, but it never ceased to turn him on.

He began to move softly inside Angel once more. He slid on his own cum, swelling on the cool slickness. His balls began to harden again. This time, he watched Angel's cock, focusing intently on the bubbling, clear fluid: how it pooled in the puffy indentation, how it spilled and rolled like tears down the flushed cockhead, how it wet Angel's fist and made small slapping sounds as he worked himself. Most of all though, he focused on the red, swollen opening. He wanted to see Angel's release, wanted to see the pleasure he could bring forth - the pleasure they created together.

With a gasp, Angel began to spill: strings of milky fluid erupting to splatter down on his sweat-slick skin. At the sight of the pumping semen, Spike released his second ejaculation into Angel, an intense orgasm that left his arms shaking slightly as they held him braced and shuddering over the supine figure.

There was no question of him pulling out. He didn't need Angel's legs to wrap fiercely around his back to force compliance; nothing would have dislodged him.

They lay just running fingers over sweating skin, joining pools of cum by making small, sticky canals of fluid, reminding themselves of the feel of the other's body when it lay sex-warmed and soft.

'I never stopped loving you and wanting you just as much as I do now.'

Angel stirred at the sudden, quiet words, and Spike added, 'My head and my heart were splitting me down the middle.'

Angel chuckled. 'Welcome to the world of living with Angelus.'

'Did you think about my body, Angel?'

Angel hardly felt he needed to reply to that.

'Did you picture taking me?'

Angel chucked when the game became apparent.

'Can you remember what I felt like in your fantasies?'

Angel gave him a significant look and rolled them over, rising above him, their bodies parting with a soft sound almost like a sigh. He held Spike's face still. 'I wanted to pin you down and force myself into you - force you to want me again.' He opened Spike up with his finger. 'I wanted to find this,' he pressed onto the swelling behind Spike's prostate, 'and see if you could resist me.' Spike arched and moaned. 'Yeah, I heard that moan all night; I felt your body dipping the mattress alongside me, although you weren't there.' He began to insert another finger. 'Moan for me again, Spike, just like I imagined?' Spike couldn't help but obey: Angel was scissoring fingers deep in his body, and his empty balls refilled with an urgency that brought forth the soft sounds Angel sought.

'And I was so hard, Spike, all the time. Hard when you sat studying with me; hard when we talked; hard when you fed next to me, and so hard when I went to bed on my own. Did you jerk off? Did you relieve the desperate urgency I could smell in you too? No? Too holy to wank… that's sad. Take yourself now - that's right. Let me see you - damn me with the pleasure you can give me, Spike.'

Angel slid another strong finger into Spike and watched as his childe's thinner fingers stiffened the flaccid shaft. He felt his own cock harden in response and smiled. Removing his fingers, he sat back on his heels and worked himself a little more to make the entry easy. He tipped his head a little on one side as he watched Spike's expression. 'What?'

Spike closed his eyes. 'I missed your body, your scent, your touch, your voice - call me by the names you use… please?'

Angel smiled at the soft plea. 'Wanker?'

Spike rolled his eyes. 'Deep joy; I know I'm back.'

'Baby…? Is that what you want to hear?' Angel pressed himself into Spike and lay over him. 'Do you like that, Baby? Kiss me.' Spike folded his arms around Angel's neck and opened his mouth to a deep kiss that made them both swell to final hardness. Angel grunted and held his mouth against Spike's as he found his rhythm. 'Come for me again, Will.'

Spike lifted his legs; Angel took the cue and leant back, placing them on his shoulders. He gained another few inches of Spike's body, and the position made them both cry out with pleasure. Angel flung his head back and began to unleash a furious passion into the slim body beneath him. He pushed Spike's thighs down, pulled them closer, lifted him up, and pressed him into the mattress. With a huge cry of satisfaction, he burst sperm into the slim body, jerking and heaving his shaft through the tight ring of muscle, until with a final, long-drawn-out groan, he fell as if truly dead on the body beneath him.

Desperately, Spike wriggled out from under the heavy body and knelt alongside Angel's face. He worked his flushed shaft to Angel's lips until they parted, and with a shiver of delight, Spike watched his sperm spurt out and coat Angel's waiting tongue then run thick and cool down his strong throat. At the last moment, Angel reared forward, caught the sensitive, swollen head in his mouth, and sucked hard at the emptying hole until Spike arched back and cried out in pain-filled ecstasy.

He tipped over on his side and lay utterly still. Angel managed to stretch out his hand to find an unknown piece of Spike's skin, but that was all they did for hours.

They dozed in and out of consciousness, both emotionally exhausted and physically replete. At some time, they moved into each other's arms: a tangle of limbs they found hard to separate.

When Angel opened his eyes to the afternoon light he knew Spike was awake and sensed him thinking deeply. The realisation that Spike was lying in his arms once more, thinking about him, gave him a moment of happiness so profound that it terrified him.

'Soddin' hell but I need a fag.'

Angel relaxed and laughed, shaking his head.

'We need to get up and help Wesley. I've been kinda distracted over the last few weeks - no use at all.'

'We need to get up and shower. Hey…. Weren't the dec….' They both looked with slight panic to the door. 'You don't think they came when we were…?'

'We'd have sensed them….'

'Possibly not - I was kinda… concentrating.'

'Yeah. Shit. Wesley wouldn't have let them up. He'd have known we were….'

They shuddered, not sure which scenario they found more appalling. Angel climbed out of bed and picked his way gingerly over the detritus of his outburst, murmuring, 'Who let a fucking demon in here?'

Spike caught him up and put an arm around his waist. 'I did; now, get your poofy shower shit, and let's go.'

When they came down into the lobby, they met some curious stares from the humans. It was clear Wesley had eased the way for them however, for no one commented on noisy, not-being-childe-like Spike. It all seemed very normal for once, and Angel looked around with a pleased expression on his face. He wanted to thank Wesley but couldn't see him. Cordelia glanced up. 'He's gone.'

'Gone?'

'Got a call from some old British guy and went home.'

Angel nodded then frowned. 'I'm hungry.'

Cordelia wrinkled her nose on cue; the vampires laughed and went alone to the kitchen. Angel leant back in a chair and watched Spike heating some blood.

'So…?'

Spike busied himself with some buttons.

'Spike… I thought sharing was the new word of the day.'

Spike gritted his teeth. 'Stop reading me like a soddin' book. I just wanna go out, that's all. Got some things I wanna do.'

'Ah. Without me.'

'Yeah.'

'And if I don't want you to?'

Spike pouted and put the mugs down on the table. 'I'll go anyway.' He glanced at Angel to see how this was received.

Angel shrugged up one shoulder as if something on his ear irritated him. 'I wish we could stay just like we are now.'

Spike shook his head. 'If we'd said that a few months ago, I'd be chip-boy in Sunnyhell, and you'd be grumpy fuckwit in LA.'

'So, you're just going to go?'

'Yep.'

Angel didn't drink his mug of blood and got up. 'I'm going to call the decorators.'

Spike pouted again. 'See you later then.'

'Possibly.' On that slightly ambiguous note, Angel went to the office and busied himself with some calls.



It was quiet when he arrived, too early for the usual crowd. He spotted him easily enough, leaning on the bar morosely, drinking, a number of empties already lined up by his elbow. Grinning, Spike made his way over. He didn't speak but leant lightly against the human's back, took the hand off the glass and placed it firmly on his bulge.

Sam turned sadly. 'Fuck off, Jordan. I told you last night: you don't do him properly.'

Spike's eyes widened. 'Is that how you've been amusing yourselves while I've been poorly?'

'Spike?'

Spike took the hand again and pulled the human gently onto the dance floor. He held him close and nuzzled softly into his neck. As they swayed to the music, he looked up slowly from the warm neck to the soft lips and kissed the confused man. 'I ain't gonna try and explain, Luv. I'm bored of it all. But I'm here now.'

Sam blinked slowly and breathed alcoholic fumes at Spike. 'My liver is singing a Halleluiah chorus, Babe. Shit… I didn't mention a religion thing just then, okay?'

Spike chuckled. 'Where's the little git?'

Sam smiled and pulled Spike closer, playing with the button on his jeans tantalizingly. 'In the back room. A bear was boasting he could take all the twinks in here tonight. Jordan's kinda testing his stamina.'

Spike laughed. 'Let's go rescue the bear.'

They went together into the gloom of the backroom. Spike steered Sam through the dark, until he spotted them and then pressed him out of sight into a small alcove. A leather-clad man was covering a figure on the wall. When he was done, the figure slipped away. The man leant over, clearly exhausted, but from nowhere another boy tapped him on the shoulder. 'Hiya. I hear you're up for it tonight?'

The man groaned and looked around wildly. 'Where are you all fucking coming from? It was dead when I got here. That's why I said…. Fuck off. Bets are off.'

The young man pouted, but before he could protest, he was seized and pinned against the wall. Spike grinned. 'If he won't take you, I will.'

Jordan screeched and changed back to his usual form. He put his hands to Spike's cheekbones. 'Don't tell me anything else but that you're back!'

'I'm back.'

'I knew it! The cassock shagged you!' Spike shook his head in despair. He beckoned Sam over.

'Your place... it's a party... and you're both invited.'

********************************

Sam created the party atmosphere for them all. As he took the favours, Spike wandered over to the CD player and put on some soft rock. He felt the drugs working in his system; felt a mellow sense of well-being wash over him. The fear of the last few weeks seemed a distant memory; the strain of Angel's reaction to his desertion just something over and done with. He swayed to the music and took the offered beer from Sam. He pulled the human to him and kissed him deeply. Sam responded, opening his mouth to the cool tongue that sought entry. They felt another body; Spike turned his head to kiss Jordan, and they merged together, sharing and giving pleasure.

Somehow, Spike was backed to the bed, and he fell with the other two on top of him. They laughed and rolled and explored and kissed, still drinking steadily.

Spike felt someone unbuttoning him and didn't even bother to look down and find the culprit; he just lay accommodating and loose on the bed as they got him out. Mouths descended on his cool need, hot mouths that made him crease up with pleasure.

Jordan ran his tongue up from the base to the tip of the solid erection, murmuring appreciatively. Sam bent down and took the heavy, cool balls in his mouth, sucking on them gently. Spike arched back at the extreme pleasure and put a hand to each of his worshiper's heads.

He knew he could last for a long time and lay back to enjoy the slow, exquisite blowjob, but suddenly, he felt things falling all over him. With a chuckle, Sam threw another handful of condoms on the bed. He picked one of the small packets up and held an edge temptingly to his mouth with a raised eyebrow.

Spike sat up and looked at the dozens of packets on the bed. He looked at Sam and Jordan and shook his head. 'Put them away, Pet.'

Sam's face clouded. 'No! I want….'

Spike smiled at him, sliding his hand up the human's thigh. 'You're not listening, Human. Put them away; we don't need them. I don't. You don't - with me.'

Sam's eyes widened, and he glanced at Jordan.

Spike grinned, swept all the packets to the floor and knelt up, unbuttoning his shirt.

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