| |
London Rain
by Ducks
A/S Future Angst/Smut
EMAIL: ducksfanfic@yahoo.com
DISCLAIMER: Do I look like a demented little devil monkey? Do I look
like I have a thin dime to my name? Well, of course... you wouldn't know
that, as you've never actually *seen* me... but, the point is, no, I
don't own them. Some suits with sticks up their butts, plus the above
mentioned devil monkey, do.
IMPROV: #8 - glow, rain, bound, crave
TIMELINE: Ten years from now...
SPOILERS: None, really. If you know what Shanshu is, you're fine
SYNOPSIS: As Angel ponders the direction of his life as a human being,
someone from his past appears to remind him what it means to be *alive*.
DISTRIBUTION: Anyone who'd like it, please feel free. Just send the URL
so I can stare at it and pretend that everybody really, really likes me.
*grin* My other masterpieces of obsession and madness can be found at
http://www.geocities.com/ducksfanfic
AUTHOR'S NOTES: I've been feeling a little rusty and uninspired over the
past week, so this is one of those "just write a crappy first draft and
exercise your brain" things that all the writing classes tell you to do
when you're blocked.
FEEDBACK: Hell yeah! I live for the stuff!
RATING: NC-17
CONTENT: Slash (m/m sex), Angel Brooding
DEDICATION: To all the beautiful, wonderful, fantastic slashers I've
gotten to know, of late. And, as per usual, to the Great, Dark,
Sparkling One, Kita, who I continue to worship to an incredibly
unhealthy degree. Also, to all the perverted old ladies at Angel Elders.
Waxed, wet, wearing dead Muppets, lying about his age, or living on
rats... we love him! All raise a glass to grand dorkus DB! ;)
"London Rain"
by Ducks
Of all his homes, the one in London was where he came to be alone.
Anywhere else... the villa in Sicily, the house in Malibu, the apartment
in Paris... these were where he saw visitors. But here... London was
reserved for his solitary thoughts, where he could come and reflect
without the intrusion of beloved others.
Brooding, even these years later. Now that he was human and forgiven, he
still found that introspection was central to his existence. The need to
be by himself, as well. A hundred years living a certain way didn't
change simply because he gained a heartbeat. And like that heartbeat,
like his warm skin, like the cycle of breath, there were long stretches
of time when reminiscing and reflecting were a central part of him.
The room was arranged for exactly this. Dark and warm, soft furniture,
his bed and books. Fireplace. Stereo. Not much else. A fancy monk's
cell, really. He could sit in front of the hearth with a glass of wine,
a book, or simply his overworked brain, and be solitary.
He could sit on a night like tonight, listen to the rain fall outside
the French doors, and wonder... how could so much have changed, and yet
he felt just the same? Tired. Old. Lonely. Still weighed down by regret.
He had been so certain that his reward would mean absolution from all
that. All of his heavy thoughts would simply rush away with his first
mortal breath, and his soul would be burned clean by the blessed light
that restored his humanity. He was sure that he would be fully reborn, a
tabula rassa, and a whole new, perfect existence would simply appear
before him.
His naivet was embarrassing, in retrospect. He was still Angel. Still
the recovering monster, with a soul full of horrors, and a planet of
remorse perched on his chest. Only now, he had to eat and breathe. He
could stand in the sunshine, and for that, he was grateful. But
really... it was the same old life, now made slightly shorter.
Angel sighed and watched the wine roll around in his glass. He knew he
was being overly melodramatic and morose. He had a million things to be
happy about. Their success at ridding the world of demons, for one. The
continued survival and happiness of his adopted family. They were all
married now... working on families. Wesley and Virginia, Cordelia and
Gunn. His happiest days were spent in their homes, reading to the kids,
playing with their dogs, hanging out watching football with the guys on
Sundays while the ladies ignored them. The Sunnydale crew, too... all
living in a tightly knit neighborhood just outside where the Hellmouth
used to be. He was welcome there, now... when he wasn't traveling, he
spent holidays with them all, like the large, motley extended family
that they were.
And Buffy... his beautiful Buffy. Over the past ten years, they'd
carried on a passionate, dedicated love affair... though distinctly
on-again, off-again, due to their respective wanderlust. Their desire
for one another never seemed to dim, but their relationship was still so
complicated... marred by years of pain and separation, individual
struggles and issues, it seemed that they couldn't keep it together long
enough to form any sort of commitment. So they met in Sunnydale for
holidays, weddings, birthdays... New Orleans for Mardi Gras... New York
for New Year's Eve... Rio for Carnival... they made love for days upon
nights, drank and danced and reveled in their genuine like of one
another, and then separated again after a week or two, with a kiss, a
promise to write (which they did), and a "see you next time."
He continued to think that someday, they would settle down... when both
of them were done drifting. When they'd found whatever answers they were
looking for in the far corners of the earth. He loved her, and had
absolutely no doubt that if... when... he decided to make a home, a
family... there was no one else he would want to do it with. No one else
he would rather grow old beside.
Sometimes, he didn't know what kept them apart.
So he'd come to London to decide, one and for all -- what next? Continue
his nomadic existence? Go to school, get a job, settle down? Write a
book? Demand that Buffy do the same?
Who was he, now? Who were any of them? No more purpose... no more war.
No more demons but the ones who lived in his mind...
But... like each one of these identity crises he'd lived through since
becoming mortal again, there were no answers easily forthcoming. No
prophecies, no psychic karaoke bar emcees or blue-skinned demi-gods in
otherworldly temples to turn to for guidance. Like every other human
being on the planet, he had only what was already inside him... the
unending circles in which his ruminations led.
He should have some sort of idea of what to do next by now, shouldn't
he? 37 years old, and growing older every day... Shouldn't he have found
the point of it all?
He hadn't. And all this sitting, all this thinking, didn't bring him a
single step closer to the answers he craved. So... he decided to do what
he would have done in his first mortal incarnation: drink until he fell
over. Or maybe puke. But at the very least, he could forget for a while.
One of the joys of this particular part of London was it's wide
assortment of pubs, bars, and clubs. Something for every drunkard, bon
vivant, or pervert's taste--even a 257 year old former vampire having an
existential crisis. Or would it be a mid-life crisis? He wasn't certain
how his unique aging circumstances might effect that sort of thing.
He walked into an Irish pub, and felt a pang of familiar joy to see
brawling young men and half-naked women... horribly off key singing and
general mortal rejoicing. Plus... plenty of shadowed corners to hide in
until his ennui was washed away by the liquor.
He ordered whiskey. Told the waitress (who he had to resist the urge to
call wench) just to leave the bottle. Don't bother with a glass.
Human constitution made getting good and snookered a whole Hell of a lot
easier than it once was. Vision blurred faster. Scummy bar flies looked
far more attractive in a shorter amount of time, and it wasn't long
before he was considering the utility of a sloppy one-night stand to
distract him. Something smarmy, embarrassing, and utterly human that he
could regret completely upon waking to a skull-splitting headache and
the blinding arrival of a sunrise that wouldn't turn him to ash
tomorrow.
"Oi! I'll be a purple welt on a monkey's arse!"
Angel had already been drinking for a good while... most of the whiskey
was gone. So he assumed that he was imagining the drunken bellow that
rocked his skull. His head was firmly ensconced in his arms on the
table... maybe he was dreaming? There was simply no way that fate could
be so downright *bizarre* as to put the two of them in the same place at
the same time... again... could it?
"Shpike?" He forced his head up, and found deep grey eyes and still
stunningly bleached hair... plus a few new piercings he didn't
recognize.
There was no mistaking him.
"FUCK ME, ANGELUS! Lookatcha! You look like Hell, mate! Humanity hasn't
done your broody mick ass one bitta good, as it?"
Before Angel realized what was happening, he was hauled from his chair
and into the blonde's arms, the recipient of a good dose of manly slams
on the back before they both collapsed back into the booth.
Spike was human now, too. Angel never quite got the logistics -- or the
fairness, truth be told -- of that particular happening. But when the
Hellmouth closed, and the entire bloody battle field was bathed in a
holy light, two things had happened almost immediately: the area was
clean of all evidence of the war that had taken place there, and all the
vampires (all two of them) who had fought for the Powers were suddenly
human.
The first thing Spike did was cough until he fell down. About which
Angel commented that he had always warned the younger man that smoking
was bad for his health. Spike's reply was a single finger in the air as
he choked.
Now, here they were. Spike looked slightly older and was wearing
slightly more expensive clothes, but that was as far as the changes
seemed to go. He still even looked pale.
"What the Hell are ya doin' in this armpit, Angelus? I woulda thought
you and the Slayer would be busy raisin' up a brood in Modesto by now!"
How was he to explain to his former Childe and nemesis, lover and
hunting partner, just how difficult his once proud and indomitable Sire
was finding being human?
And *why* was he considering explaining it? He simply chose not to
answer the question, and changed the subject, instead.
"Whataboutchoo?" he slurred loudly, "Whatryou doing with your shiny new
life that's so goddamn great?"
Spike laughed -- a clean, deep, resonant sound that sent a shiver
equally nostalgic and hot down Angel's spine.
"Hell, pet! I'm not doing a damn thing differently! Drinking, smoking,
getting my knackers off -- what the Hell else is there? Didya think I'd
suddenly change into a choirboy like you just 'cause I gotta breathe
now?"
That was exactly what Angel assumed. Wasn't that what a creature was
supposed to do when presented with a second chance at life?
"Actually, yes," he admitted aloud.
More laughter from the blonde. "Well, you sure as Hell haven't changed!
Still sanctimonious, self-flagellating, pouting professionally and
generally hating life, eh Peaches?"
Angel found himself strangely warmed by his Childe's (former Childe,
damn it!) obnoxiousness, despite the sudden urge to punch him in the
face.
Which he couldn't very well do. After all... Spike was right.
The blonde punk went on raving about all the great places he'd been
since becoming human, how happy he was that a world without demons
really wasn't as damned boring as he expected, considering there were
plenty of evil humans still walking around, all the various places he'd
drunk or fought, all the birds he'd bagged, and how bloody glad he was
that his soul didn't plague him, unlike certain other depressing wankers
he knew.
Angel wasn't really hearing much of what he was saying. He was too busy
watching the younger man's mouth, and wondering if it would taste as
good warm as it once did cool. Besides, it was the only part of the bar
he could focus on for long without being overwhelmed by the urge to
vomit.
"Hey, ya bloody fruitcake! You know, you can stare at my damn lips all
night if you want, but I bet if we go to whatever convent you're hiding
in these days, I could remind you of other things they're handy for."
Angel blinked, taken aback by the blunt pass, and moved his blurry focus
up to Spike's stormy eyes, which were currently glinting with a mixture
of wry amusement and lust that was yet another thing about him that
hadn't changed.
He had been considering the efficacy of a little carnal fun to perk him
up, hadn't he? Who better than someone he knew, who knew him and his
body already, and who, he could be relatively certain, would not expect
anything more?
The decision made in that instant, he rose. "I live about five blocks
from here. On the park."
"Figures," Spike commented, "Nice to see you're still easy."
The walk to his flat was quick and blessedly quiet, both men keeping
their thoughts to themselves.
Angel was thinking about nothing more than getting this man's clothes
off. Getting next to that still-smooth, warm, marbled frame. He didn't
consider what a relief it was that his thoughts were suddenly so very
simple.
Certainly, he wasn't a man easily shocked-- 250+ years of various sorts
of life, and he had seen and done pretty much everything. But the
violence with which Spike threw him up against his front door and kissed
him hard and deep as he ripped off the larger man's clothes...
This was definitely a surprise.
He and Spike hadn't touched one another in anything but anger in over
100 years... and now, suddenly all that hatred and resentment was gone,
and in its place a consuming passion Angel had forgotten was possible.
All these sensations... Spike's utterly familiar, graceful, strong
hands... but now they were warm. The sweet liquor-smoke taste of his
tongue... without the blood tang. The feeling of his lithe body pressed
against him... alive with breath... heartbeat... pulse.
The last time Angel felt the glorious, writhing live-thing that was
William, he had been fucking him into the mattress as he drank him dry.
But now... now they were both alive. Both warm and human... and the man
whose lips traced the lines of muscles down the center of Angel's torso
was no more and no less than his about-to-be-brand-new-again lover.
A different universe. A different reality. And yet... still so much was
the same.
Gone were the complicated fetters of Childe-Sire relations... the
dictates of vampire law and blood ties. Their history a faded memory.
For the first time, it was one human's desire for another, and no more.
The realization snapped something old, rusted and brittle inside Angel.
He was suddenly and finally just a man... a hard, needful, lusting male,
and the understanding of it was like a cool breeze through his heated
body.
"Spike..." he moaned, winding his hands into the cropped hair of the man
on his knees before him... fingertips scraping warm scalp... and he
couldn't smell his blood. Only whiskey... cigarettes... cologne and
want...
The younger man released him from his slacks... a moment of cold air a
shock to his burning erection before steaming lips closed over it. Hot
tongue, flicking, fingers caressing, guiding him deep into living flesh.
Angel once killed this being. A million lifetimes ago, William died in
his arms. And now...
Now his victim was stroking and sucking him back to roaring, furious,
burning life.
"Yesssss..." he hissed in encouragement. Take me. Wake me up. Remind me
why I'm here. Why I once wanted so badly to be alive. Don't tell me you
love me. Don't ask me to talk... just let me feel.
And so, Spike did. Closing strong lips in a tight ring around the single
place in Angel's body where all his blood... all his senses... now
focused. Mouth drawing on him like a straw of flesh. Licking like he was
an ice cream cone.
Absolutely new, but ancient, this feeling... evoking memories of hunts
and glutting on blood, animal rutting in parks, in parlors, carriages,
beds and alleyways... fists and chains... cat-o-nine-tails and
Drusilla's sobbing or singing in the background. Hot pokers. Sharp
daggers. Holy water. Sometimes... nothing but hearts that didn't beat
and cold flesh.
But now there was all this fire... blood boiling, screaming, Spike once
told him, and yes, this mortal mouth held the fire that he so craved.
The questions and answers he struggled so to possess. Sounds of
pleasure, of slurping and panting. Living motion. The rushing, pounding,
thrusting realization of mortality...
Angel's ears were ringing, his breath too fast, and he bellowed at the
top of his lungs as he came... Spike drinking him, accepting him, taking
every drop, and a century... two... vaporized in the back of his lover's
throat.
He sagged to his knees, spent. The two men were eye to eye, now, and he
found the blonde's were full of life. Humor. Passion. Just the same
things they had been forever. The stubborn joie de vivre that made him
so uniquely Spike.
"Always wondered what you'd taste like alive," this human... this
familiar stranger... said with a grin that was half remembering, half
condescension.
And right for that moment, Angel loved him. Not partners for life love,
or soul love. Not Sire/Childe love... not even empty promises in the
heat of passion love... but the simple adoration of a mortal man in the
afterglow of consuming pleasure. Post coital love for the lover.
So he kissed him. Captured the chiseled face that had once driven him to
the depths of demonic lust and depravity, and brought his lips to
Spike's slowly... softly. Tasted the tiny salt remnants of semen on his
bruised lips.
A sigh eased from the younger man... a new-old sound of unholy adoration
and blind devotion.
"Sire..."
Angel pulled away, stroking one warm, smooth cheek tenderly. "No, Spike.
Just Angel."
His partner's eyes flew open, the blue flashing almost silver, as though
he had been expecting the old rules to still apply between them. Angel
realized he probably had.
He kissed him again... let the caress linger on lips, then wander...
strong jaw, tender earlobes, pulsing jugular, muscular shoulders. A
long, teasing circle of tongue over a heartbeat Angel's human ears could
no longer hear.
The boy's hands were in his hair, now, gasps drawn from lungs short of
breath with passion. And when Angel undid Spike's jeans, pulled them
away, and let the kiss continue over hips, thighs and penis, the mortal
beneath him began to moan.
He stopped his reverent wanderings and waited for Spike to
look up. When he did, Angel helped him to his knees. He spoke with his
eyes, and hoped his former mate could still hear his thoughts. He rose
and went to the bathroom, returning a moment later with a box of condoms
and tube of lubricant he always kept on hand, just in case.
Angel had never been with anyone else in this apartment, and he had to
think that maybe some part of him had always known that they would end
up here like this.
Spike's eyes went wide as Angel handed him the items, gaping as though
he'd just given him a treasure of unbelievable value and beauty... that
was undoubtedly cursed.
He smiled at the boy and sunk down to his knees, back facing him, and
waited.
For a long moment, Spike didn't move. Didn't even seem to breathe, as
though he needed time just to process what was happening. A human for
ten years now, and Sireless for a hundred before that, and still the
thought of taking his former Master this way set all of the little
fledgling alarms off in his mind.
Angel resisted the urge to chuckle or give him soothing words of
encouragement. Spike needed to accept the offer in his own way, or the
gesture would mean nothing. They were men, not demons. This was sex, not
domination. He wanted Spike to take him. Wanted to feel full, and know
that the younger man felt it too.
Then he heard the sound of a wrapper tearing. The wet spurt of lubricant
squeezed out of the tube, and a warm, strong hand on his back, urging
him forward.
He obeyed, shivering in anticipation as he bent down, offering himself
in this most submissive of positions... one which he had never taken in
front of Spike before, in all the decades they'd known one another.
Cool, wet fingers slid gently into his opening... a place untouched at
all in countless years. His inner muscles clenched protectively, then
loosened once more as they adjusted... the warmth of friction spread
outward through his every nerve as Spike eased deep, and set a slow,
languid rhythm inside of him.
Angel rocked back against his fingers, the contact a billion times
hotter than the memory of vampire flesh. He moaned loudly... an
unconscious exclamation of long-forgotten pleasure. Spike groaned in
return, and draped his wiry frame over Angel's larger, meatier one...
squeezed his hardness inside, and...
"GOD, SPIKE!" Angel shouted as Spike plunged hard to the hilt,
deliciously tearing flesh that would now take days to heal.
"Angel..." he sighed as he leaned into him... took up a graceful, smooth
pace, a jarring depth of hips well used to thrusting motion.
The darker man threw his head back, and cried out as the entire universe
collapsed to a single pinpoint... that place where their bodies were
locked together... explosions rocked his blood as a slick hand wrapped
around him, and his cock hardened... pulsed... a living thing in its own
right now under Spike's exquisite touch.
All of life came down to this, didn't it? This simple act of pleasure
and pain... creation and destruction... connection... all existence
nothing but this in and out... slamming of pelvis against hips... tide
of bliss building.
Why they were here was this... living fire. Angel slammed himself back
into it... Spike drove himself forward into it... past, present, and
future exploding... hot seed spilling on smooth hand... on the soft
carpet. Roars and cries echoing, hearts thundering, breaths racing...
They both crashed to the floor. Spike eased out and off of him, and
rolled away to lie on his back, still panting as he stared up at the
ceiling.
Angel watched his every motion. He was perfectly sober, now, and
surprisingly sated. He looked long and hard at the bleached blonde who,
for thirty years, had been his mate.
Spike shot him a look as he divested himself of the condom and leaned
over to the trash can. "You're not gonna go all gushy on me now, are
ya?"
Angel smiled. "Wouldn't dream of it."
"Good. Just because we had one hearty shag doesn't mean I'm going to
move in here and be your bitch again."
He resisted the urge to laugh. "Of course not."
"Just so we're clear."
Angel rose, and offered Spike a hand up. "We're clear."
The younger ex-demon stared at the appendage for a moment, as though he
expected it to bite him. He let his gaze wander upward, taking in the
Angel's broad form and locking on his eyes before letting his former
Master pull him to his feet.
"You were a better fuck as a vampire," he grumped, and pulled a pack of
Marlboros out of his coat.
"Please don't smoke in here, Spike. Go out on the balcony," Angel
commanded, and padded across the room to slide into the king sized bed.
Spike glared at him for a heartbeat, then shrugged and wandered out the
French doors and into the cool night.
Angel tucked his hands behind his head and relished the faint hint of
tobacco edging the rain scent that floated in on the damp London breeze.
He watched the glowing end of Spike's cigarette through the sheer
curtains, and wondered... were they all still bound together, somehow...
all the humans and now-humans with whom he'd shared his various
incarnations? Did time and altered states of being really have any
effect on their core essences?
He and Buffy had always drifted in and out of one another's reality. He
and Spike had always been like two magnets, sometimes repelling,
sometimes attracting.
Maybe he'd been going about his meditations of what it meant to be human
all wrong from the beginning. Maybe his problem was not that he needed
to change because he was now mortal... but that he needed to accept that
he really hadn't--and possibly wouldn't-- change. Stop over-analyzing
everything, and start actually living life.
"I can hear you brooding from out here, ya bloody pouf!" Spike announced
as he flicked his cigarette butt over the railing and returned to the
room.
"Look. I know you've always been a big, flaming drama fag. But I don't
get why can't you just shut off the damn angst machine already, stop
wasting what bloody precious little time you've got and have some damn
fun!"
Angel gave him a warm smile... one he could feel... maybe the first one
he'd felt so strongly since he'd gained his fondest wish. "I was just
thinking the same thing."
Spike started as if he'd slapped him, then fairly gaped at the elder man
for a few heartbeats. "You're fucking kidding me. You? Fun? That snog
scramble your brains or something?"
"You heard me. Now shut up and get in bed."
After another flabbergasted moment, as the other former vampire laughed,
bounded across the room, and did just that, Angel thought:
It's damn good to be alive.
|
|
|