~

Blood and flesh; tooth and nail; hard cock and dead heart. History and envy, resentment and jealousy. Endless, hopeless, promise of toil and misery and atonement until the serpent finally swallows its tail.

These are the ways they are bound.

And sometimes a fine set of magically enhanced manacles attached to three-inch links, from which Spike dangles on a hook on the wall in the basement of the Hyperion. His toes drag in a thick layer of grime, evidence the place hasn't been occupied regularly in quite a while, and this is the first time Angel's brought him down here to play.

Chained to the past.

Chained to resentments simmering always beneath the skin, like a pestilence waiting for its chance to burst free and spread. A century of tiny, festering hatreds like vermin bites, like memories of straight razors and steel-tipped cat-o-nine's. Of liquor spiked with laudanum, absinthe, essence of poppy, cocaine, just to see if it changed the way he cried, the way he begged, the way he came. Just for fun. Just because he was the Sire, and he said so, that's why. Just because he could.

((Daddy, my William tastes like night.))

He can smell his own blood. Whipped raw, flesh torn, the tongue of his maker's maker running over the gory grooves like the needle on some demonic turntable. He hears a whine from somewhere far away and only vaguely recognizes the sound as some pathetic echo of his own voice – the song on the record, and the pain is exquisite, like nothing he's felt in… forever.

Do they even make turntables anymore?

"AH!" he cries out in spite of himself when Angel pinches two of the deepest welts together, forcing more blood when he's sure he's dry as bone. "Please!" Not certain what he's begging for – for more, for him to stop, for him to finish, suck him dry, stake his ass and let his dust finally filter into the filth under their feet.

"You taste like shame, William," he whispers, and Spike starts to cry, unprepared for the cruelty of knowing that his source, his God, knows that, remembers that too. Knows what he's been trying so hard to hide because he doesn't want to be another pathetic, broken, sorry ... Him. More than anything, he prays to never be Him.

"Spike?"

He shakes his head and the night is gone, a necro-tempered afternoon assaults his eyes instead. "Huh? What's that now?"

The scene of erotic violence he's been reliving through the staff meeting fades (much to his disappointment, as the sound of the memory in his mind is infinitely more interesting than whatever Angel's blabbering about now). It's hard to believe it's even the same mouth as the one from his vision. He wonders if he left tiny scars inside Angel's lips, or if they're already gone like the ones on Spike's back and hands and thighs.

"You need to pay attention to this," the elder vamp tells him. "I need you to back Lorne up if there's trouble."

It takes a moment for the words to sink in, they seem so out of place in his mind. Understanding and clarity return with a snap.

"You might as well send me in with my sonic toothbrush for all the damn good he'll do," he points out one more time just for form, knowing the lead skulled bastard ain't gonna budge.

"This isn't a vote. This is me, your employer, giving you, my employee, a directive that requires absolutely no debate to immediately be put into effect. However, in order for you to understand that directive, you actually have to *hear* it first. So if you could listen, that'd be great."

It's the same old same old. Bullshit banter and flinging insults like monkeys sling shit, just to pass the time.

"Yeah. Sorry," Spike mumbles, lets his eyes go flat and dead, and slips back into...

Baby oil. His favorite lube. He loves the clean baby smell, like Essence of Innocence, and he slicks them both up until they shine. Got no use for sticky grape shit that heats up when you blow on it. All he needs is this--wet, slow, waves upon waves of want. Strokes his own cock slick. Presses a dripping finger against Angel's ass, traces circles around, slow, circling the tight ring of muscle over and over again like some ritual magick that will bring him to a Nirvana far away from the sheer agony of now.

"Yes, Spike. Yes," Angel moans into the bedclothes, his magnificent face pressed hard into the sheets as he waits.

This beautiful little irony, this uncommon and precious role reversal, the view from above and behind a vista of broad, pale flesh rolling and cut and cool over muscle and bone...

Priceless, as the commercials would say. A Kodak moment if ever there was one. He promises himself a camera as soon as he can scrape up the dosh.

A knuckle in, and Angel sighs. Two, and he sets a rhythm, rocking forward and back to draw the digit deeper.

"More," he gasps, head thrown back in abandon, the freest he will ever be…

"DAMN IT, SPIKE!" Angel slams his hand on the table, making all the coffee cups lined up like little soldiers down either side jump in shock, exactly like their owners, his employees, do.

Their master and commander so seldom truly loses his creature of the night cool in public.

"I'm listening, ya blathering git!" Spike barks back. 'Cause damn, that was a good fantasymemory, and how much does he need to know about "run inside, hack/slash, run outside" anyway? "Do you want me to sing it for ya?"

His master's eyes go dark, darker than midnight, darker than evil, darker than the death he deals every night. Darker than the pleasure he doles out far less often, and Spike is drawn into their bleeding shadows.

The whip whistles through the air, a harbinger that smashes into his supersensitive hearing, making him cringe long before the leather strikes flesh. He explodes inside when it hits with a brain-numbing CRACK! But declines to make a sound of his own.

"To whom do you belong, boy?"

Angel even uses perfect grammar in the dungeon. Spike bites his lip clear through, refuses to answer. He belongs to no one. He is William the Goddamn Bloody, and he'll be buggered if he'll plead or beg or bend even a little to...

CRACK! "Answer the question, if you will."

Angel's brogue broadens in direct proportion to the amount of blood dripping from Spike's raw carcass onto the flagstone floor. Darla made him pull up the wood once in one of their houses because the gore and puss soaked clear through and she hated the smell of abattoir...

"Say it."

Spike snarls under his breath, shoulders so tense he thinks his head might pop right off, but still he doesn't reply.

CRACK!

"Answer. Now." His voice is so cool, it's almost soothing on Spike's abused skin.

He hears the cork pop on the bottle of holy water Angelus keeps in the cabinet for when he's feeling sadistic. Spike starts to weep when he realizes he's forgotten the question.

"Fuck you!" he sobs, unable to think of anything more clever than that.

It seems like since he got the soul, all he feels is fear and pain, regret and pain, doubt and pain, shame and pain.

(("You should have told me." "Would you have believed me if I had?"))

The first time with the whip and the chains, he can't remember exactly what he did to set Angel off. Said the B word, probably, because he always forgets that he's hers too. Three punches square in the nose, and he wakes up flayed bloody and fixing to get far worse.

"I DIDN'T KNOW!" Didn't know he would love her, didn't know she would actually *accept* his advances, didn't know just how deep she got into your heart, didn't know. Anything.

CRACK.

"If you had half a brain in your peroxide-soaked head, you would have known."

But would he have cared? Would he have believed?

CRACK!

Most likely not.

"Look, Spike, if you can't be bothered to pay attention when I brief you, I'm not going to let you stay on here. You're supposed to be performing a service for your salary, not just taking up a chair with your ass."

He blinks into deep chocolate mirrors that are suddenly in his face. The other flunkies are gone, and all that's left is the pair of them and all the ways they're bound. Is this really the same vampire who bit through his earlobe just to see if he could elicit that noise from Spike just one more time... that particular squeek of barely suppressed pain?

Can one monster be sadistic and heroic? Kind and vicious? Can both the creature and the man really coexist in the same body?

What is he saying? Of course he can. They're both walking proof.

"Was paying attention," he grumps, because it's a lie and they both know it, but he's still stubborn and slow all these decades later. Pride sometimes is all he has, and he clings to it.

At least as far as Angelus goes.

Angel lifts Spike's hand from the arm of the chair, turns it over to examine the wrist he gnawed half through in bed last night. Looks satisfied at the faintness of the scars, but deep down, still plenty horrified that he made them in the first place.

"I'm sorry I hurt you."

He's sorry. Ain't that a bitch.

"You didn't." Spike shrugs, tugs the hand away. Of all the things he hates about Angel, it's the babying and sniveling that he hates the most. Why can't the fucker just be what he is and not have to regret everything all the time? There's nothing dirty, nothing wrong here. They're both consenting vampires. Three centuries between them ought to be long enough to know if they can handle a little pain with their pleasure. "S’not a big deal."

The elder stands, big hands shoved in his pockets, and wanders over to the window to look out over the day. He always does that when he's uncomfortable, like the skyline holds whatever answers he's looking for.

"I don't like what's happening to me. Losing control like that..."

Spike doesn't know if Angel's actually talking *to* him, or just making a general observation to no audience in particular.

((On his hands and knees, and Angelus hovering above him; yanks one arm behind the smaller vamp's back like he's about to pin him face down. Which he sure as fuck does -- nails him like it's going out of style, in fact. Spike hears the wrenching POP! and his own distant cry as his shoulder dislocates, but Angelus only twists it harder, yanks it upward and bites into the veins and tendons at his wrist like a wormy-mushy apple. "You taste like sin, William," he moans as he slides himself home.))

"Didn't hear me complaining, didya?" he argues, because *he* at least understands that together, they can let the demons free to rip and tear and plunder and that's okay. Nobody else ever even has to know. "I'm sturdy."

"That's not the point."

"What is the point, then?"

He knows what's going on here, but it's one of Angel's little martyrdoms that he can never grasp no matter how hard he tries. That same old shame about what he is that forever stands in his way, and there's nothing Spike can do about it but listen to him bitch and gripe and try not be insulted. Much.

Angel stares hard at the vista for so long, Spike suspects maybe he's fallen asleep. It happens to crusty old farts sometimes, after all. Damn creepy, how some can sleep with their eyes open.

"Every time it happens," he finally replies, so softly that if Spike didn't have supernatural hearing, he might have missed it. "I feel something dissolve inside me that I know I won't be able to get back."

Like… an appendix or something? Spike wonders, but doesn't say. It's easier to...

He slips in the blood and lands hard on his ass with a sickening THUD! The impact jerks his head back so much he's fairly certain he has whiplash. The pain stuns him for a moment.

"If I dusted you right now, would anybody care?"

He actually opens his mouth to say something in reply; something snide, probably, that would only get him beat into more of a meaty pulp, but Angelus is too quick. In a blink, his whole big assed fist is shoved into Spike's mouth, the other hand clenching his throat, and his skull makes a dull thunk as it bounces off the tiles.

"Do you think I’m strong enough to exert the right pressure to make it pop off like a daisy?" Angel releases his mouth and puts both vice grips to work on his throat. "It's funny, how your eyes bulge like you're actually suffocating. Did she ever choke you? Was this one of your games? The dominatrix Slayer and her bitch the vampire? Did she ever hurt you, Spike?"

"You wouldn't even care if I killed you, would you?" is the next thing he hears (in this moment, anyway) from Angel. His Sire's Sire, the great love of his life, the Him he wished he could be, but who he would refuse to be if given the conscious choice. He sometimes wonders if Angel can read his mind.

"It's all done out of love, William. The pleasure, the pain. All for love of you, my pretty lad."

The eyes are ten times darker this close -- almost black -- but his teeth are perfect white. Spike never expected Angel's mouth to be so... clean. They're dead, shouldn't there be some halitosis or gingivitis or *something* going on? Maybe it really is the cigarettes that make his so nasty. "I..."

"You... want me to kill you." Angel's affect has gone flat. He's starting to look like an animated corpse, or one of those kids been taking Ritalin too long. They walk, they talk, but there's nobody home on the inside. "That's why you don't care what I do to you. It's all the same, since you can't drink yourself to death."

Spike laughs. At this point, is there really much question about either of their sanity? (Sanities? Either way, the answer is no.) "You got me mixed up with some *other* you, mate. Suicidal angst -- not my thing."

Some small, whimpering part of him screams just like it always does, in pain and fear and love of what Angel used to be. What he still is, but just won't admit to it now, so it might as well be over anyway.

"If you speak to me that way again, I'll have your hide. Do please keep that in mind."

"You can't change things this way, you know. It's still all long over and done. All that's left is us, as usual. Why do you keep punishing us both for it?"

"Shut up."

"Shut up. I'm so sick of your constant disrespect. I'm sick of the *stink* of you. I'm sick of your ridiculous hair, I'm sick of that *offensive* coat, I'm sick of your *face*. I want you to go somewhere FAR AWAY so I can just forget you and anything attached to you exists."

"You are a crazy FUCK!" Spike shouts, taking the bait. He's got to fight or fuck tonight, looks like it’s the distant second place winner: kicking the bastard's fat ass. "What the fuck are you BABBLING ABOUT!? You're going on and on about, 'Oh, you're the only one I've ever really trusted,' or whateverthefuck bullocks you were shoveling the other night, but now when I call you on your schizophrenic melodrama, I'm disrespectful? Fuck you, Angelus. Suck my flaming ass."

Angel blinks at him, that last bit of profanity bumping his 'Off' switch. The corner of his mouth quirks in spite of his almost palpable rage. "Your 'flaming ass'? Jesus, Spike."

Spike refuses to grin. "I'm pissed off, wanker! You're "sick of the "stink" of me? You need some fucking medication and quick, mate, because I'm not going to stand around and take this Rabbit Howling Sybil bullshit every fucking day. You love yourself. You hate yourself. You're good, you're evil, you're beige, you're grey, you're a big, fat sucking void of NOTHING, you're a fucking party in a leather jacket. Pick one already and quit the pussyfooting around! I'm NOT A FUCKING PING PONG BALL!"

He can always work himself into an irrational frenzy when his pride's at stake.

Angel scowls, but his eyes flash dark amusement. "We've been dancing this step for what, 100 years?"

Spike lets his hackles settle. "Give or take."

"I'd give it, if I could."

As if they'd planned it, they both sit down on the arm of the nearest chair. Neither choose to remark on it. They stare out the windows for a few minutes, then turn to stare at each other.

"You'll show me some respect, son, or I'll have to demonstrate the basics of vampire etiquette for you. Again."

"Don't call me son. I'm not your fucking son."

"You're damn right, you're not. My son is strong and good."

"Ooh, I’m so insulted. Your problem child is cooler than me."

CRACK.

"Uh oh, Angelus! You're striking in anger! That's against the rules!"

"I don't want to do this anymore," Angel says.

"This... what?"

"Did you not get the dancing reference a minute ago?"

"No, I got it. I just don't know what you want me to say about it. 'Oh, Angelus, you're an evil fuck. I'm leaving and never ever coming back. Damn you to Hell, you bastard.'" He recites as if from rote. "Better?"

"Not particularly."

Spike stands up, takes the space between them in one long stride, and lets his hand fall to rest on Angel's shoulders. His eyes don't seem so dark or dangerous from this angle. "If you want to go, go. I for one am good right here for the time being."

"Since when did I care about the rules?"

If he wasn't standing there watching it with his own two eyes, he never would have believed it happened: Angel reaches up and places one of his big fucking bear paws right over his smaller, paler hand on the meathead's shoulder, and draws it downward into his line of vision. He cups the appendage gently between his own hands, smoothing it and turning it over as if memorizing its lines. His voice is a different kind of soft this time, but no less resigned as he says:

"Even if I wanted to, where else would I go now?"

Spike feels his dead heart crumble for him, for her, for all of them. Less for himself, because he hasn't felt like Home, like this, since he became a vampire. Okay with just being… still. For all the cost to his pride, he doesn't think he would trade moments like this for anything in all the dimensions. At least… nothing he's ever seen.

Spike takes the beating as he always does... as his fair due, and because Angelus needs it. Needs it so badly that it's palpable, a scent like sulfur in the air, pouring off his cold skin in waves he's sure he could touch if he could move his hands. The poisonous waste products of centuries of agony made and consumed.

Angel needs this: bruises on alabaster that heal before he can so much as raise his fist again. There's nowhere left for his rage to go but here to the flesh of his loverson, the walking reminder, the bane of his existence. His only friend, his worst enemy, the love of his unlife. Although love isn't the right word, he'd would be the first to admit.

He never says any of it to Spike, but the younger vampire can taste it in their family blood when his fangs sink in to Angel's thick neck. They are not Hallmark cards and flowers and boxes of candy. They're… industrial metal and chains upon chains upon chains.

So many ways to be bound.

This is new, this tenderness he feels. It makes the irony of their nightgames so much more…

Hurtful. Intimate. But all and still, he wouldn't trade his soul for anything, because the world has a whole new layer of color to it now, and he can't believe he never noticed its absence before.

He can't believe he didn't see how beautiful this monster in front of him was, either. How strong and broken. How desperately in need of understanding. He had no idea the soul would be so…

'Christ,' he thinks, 'Should just go take a walk on the roof and put myself out of my misery. Can't stand an eternity of this shit.'

But he won't go, because Angel needs him. And he has nowhere else either. And all these new colors are like starting all over again, and he's good with that, even if Hell awaits at the end.

He always wants to see how it ends.

"You should have told me about this, mate," he says, and he realizes his tone is just as soft and gentle as his traitorous thoughts. Part of him hopes that Angel is too lost in his own misery to notice. Part of him wishes… something else. "You should have said everything gets so…"

"Heavy," Angel finishes for him, still not glancing up from their clasped hands. "Deep. Sharp."

(("Would you have believed me if I had?" "Probably not."))

"Pretty much."

Silence settles between them, and for the first time since over a century before, it's a comfortable one. A blanket of familiarity in spite of the uglier ties. Or maybe because of them.

"If I had ever tried to tell you, you would have laughed in my face," Angel says, and the words are a little lighter now. He finally draws those wounded eyes upward until they meet Spike's. The younger vampire feels the glance deep inside himself, in the place where he supposes his soul lies.

"True," he whispers, suddenly frozen. Nailed in place by those…

Angel yanks him downward, and if it wasn't for his vampire reflexes, Spike figures they would have ended up in a heap of broken monster on the floor. But as it is, he is spread flush over Angel's form, sprawled on the leather couch, tangled like a couple of horny teenagers. Two sets of hands scrambling with two sets of clothes while two mouths suck and bite, lick and kiss and moan and grunt. The couch squeaks in protest against their frantic movements.

How do they always end up like this? One of them in chains. One with the fuzzy handcuffs. They play at choosing the lesser of evils when it's all really just ties that bind.

Angel groans long and deep in his chest, his hips pump one last frantic time, and he calls the name of a God he thinks is going to send him to Hell when his service is through and he surrenders what little he has left into Spike's prone form.

The steel bites into the younger vampire's wrists. He takes it, like he always takes everything for him. Stood in his place from one end to the other when he fucked things up. Saving the fucking world, saving Buffy, coming back here and saving his sorry ass.

By accident, of course.

The important thing is that he realizes that Buffy was right, once upon a time.

It is always about Angel.

He dreams that things were very different when he regained his soul. That he had realized back then what he realizes now -- it was more for Angel than for Buffy; that what he sought was approval of Blood, not cock or heart , the way he liked to tell it.

The attitude of their every day is just bullshit. Smoke and mirrors. They both know it, but they both play the game, and neither of them has to say the words to bring them back here again. Habits this deep can't be broken by centuries or souls or mutual lovers. Blood can't be diluted by time or guilt or nightmares of Hell that's here, Hell that still may be coming.

They are bound in ways that require no words. In ways that creatures of other flesh and nature could never comprehend.

Angel flips them over, rips Spike's pants away, and with a last lusty smirk dives tongue first down the meridian of his body, until his cool mouth seals tight around his descendant's throbbing cock.

If this is the only taste of Heaven he ever gets… that's fine and dandy by him.

~Finis~