a.connor  a.doyle  a.lindsey  a.oz  a.spike  a.wesley  a.xander  a.other  three.somes  het.fic  character.study           
Title: And Darkness Comes
Author: Kismet 
Pairing: Angel/Spike (Darla, Dru)
 Rating: NC-17
Setting: After 'Reunion'.

(PREVIOUSLY)

"Ring around the rosy, a pocketful of posies," she was singing when they came in, in a child-like voice from rose-red lips. She had with her a toy carousel, one of those pretty ceramic creations with dainty little fairground horses going up and down on their poles as the music tinkled out. Some expensive and delicate toy one of the young paralegals had found for this expensive and delicate monster.

She was sitting in a pool of crimson skirts when they came in, right in the center of his carpeted floor, singing as those little steeds went up and down, up and down and round and round to that tune that marked remembrance of the time of the Black Death. How perfect it all was, Lindsey had thought, subtly sinister and so pretty. The perfect picture of a vampire stolen into a nursery.

Only when he stopped a scant foot from her did she look up, with huge dreamy brown eyes in they strangest, prettiest face. "Atishoo, atishoo and they all...Fell...Down." Her hand had knocked over the toy deliberately. He remembered that he had always disliked merry-go-round. All that suspiciously saccharin music and the horses pierced through the heart by their poles.

And she was the key. She had been to him the face of salvation, the cog in the works that would stop the ticking of Darla's merciless Clock.

He had bent down, squatted lightly on his toes beside her. She had fed very well; they had seen to it, and her skin was slightly flushed with the faintest touch of dusky rose.

"Are you ready ?" he had asked her gently.

And she had smiled a sly smile, a childlike smile of indescribable sweetness. "The stars are already singing, a chorus like the voices of archangels crying, crying, crying because they bleed. Tonight Drusilla is going to be a Mummy."

( . ( . ( . ( . ( . ( . ( . (

(19TH CENTURY, LONDON)

The blond woman was laughing as she walked up the street. Her face alight with mirth, she turned to face her tall escort, walking backwards as he caught her hands and lifted them to his lips with that sly rogue's smile that she loved.

"Ah, but did you see her face, her face !" Darla tossed her head, Aphrodite triumphant. "My darling, that was a splendid game !"

"I' faith, it was." Angelus pulled his lady into the crook of his arm, warm and exhilarated from the kill. "And that tender young lamb, she did be so full of guilt and trembling virginal modesty. It was all thoughts of her Father and her family and her good name; such a stickler for propriety she was, and her only a member of society's 'crass, vulgar, grasping' bourgeoisie !"

"But there was no doubt that you would succeed, my Angelus, my devil." She brought his head down to her level, kissed him ripely, whispering against his lips. "And when you brought her into the alcove....oh, such a scene !"

"A most excellent piece of villainy !" he quoted from Shakespeare, grinning. "That expanse of fine leg ye hooked around her panting fiancie was a beautiful touch, Darla m'dear."

"And your pretended outrage on her behalf, when she thought she was to gift you with the same intimacies in that very corner all the while ! I could have drunk the very blush in her cheeks then !" Again her laughter chimed out as he caught her around the waist, lifting her off the step she had impulsively climbed on, and swung her around to set her feet on the pavement again. "A pity we had to kill them both so soon and not let them have time to enjoy their wretchedness."

"Forgive me, Darla, but tonight my appetite got the better of me...and here we are." Angelus stopped in front of the imposing brownstone they called home for the moment and looked up. The smile died on his face when he saw the balcony doors above thrown open and the room beyond lighted by flickering firelight, it seemed. The slight figure which had been leaning on the rail had now disappeared.

Darla turned to follow his gaze.

"He's at it again," her boy said grimly as he loped up the steps to the door. Darla could hear him calling even before he reached the stairs. "Drusilla !"

By the time Darla entered the upper floor's main parlour through the French doors Angelus was already pacing in front of the fire. "This is the last time ! The lad has to learn respect for his elders and 'tis time he was taught a lesson."

Darla began unpinning her hat. "Dear boy, do take off your wet boots and cloak; I dislike puddles on the furs if they're not of blood."

Drusilla looked up from wringing her hands where she stood at one end of the hearth. "My Spike was hungry, he was. He said he needed fresh blood, fresh cries. Miss Edith was here with me, she said he needed a hunt of his own."

Angelus hissed as he shrugged his coat off burly shoulders. "And William's idea of a hunt is a damned leap for glory ! He isn't content till news of his ill-chosen kills are being shouted by paper-boys in the streets of any city we're in ! One of these days we will be forced to flee because of him, if he doesn't learn restraint !"

"There are shafts," Drusilla said mournfully. "Cuts deep into the heart of the Earth, where the darkness is always and unbroken. Where those that want to be born wait like little bats, clinging on the edge."

Darla looked at her expressionlessly as she settled herself into an armchair. Drusilla was easily the most sensitive of all of them, and she hated it when the members of their little pack turned their anger on each other. A pity, actually, this girl. Contrary to what most would think Darla did not need to be the lone female. Drusilla could have been such a perfect companion, a perfect complement to....but what use was this ? Drusilla was mad, and that was the end of it.

"Come here, Angelus." She beckoned to him. He shook his head, his shoulder-length hair swirling for an instant, paced a little more, then came to her. His large hands easily spanning her waist, he lifted her and settled himself into the chair, placing her on his lap.

"Gently, gently," she purred into his ear, the softness of her hair brushing his chin. "My two wolves, you can tear each other later. For now, shall we look to softer pursuits ?"
He could not help but smile at her kisses, her coaxing. He had never known any like this woman, his Maker. And she was his, wholly and solely. They were all his, Angelus thought grimly. His pack, his children, these his women. None with the anonymity of minions, all perfect and fatal in their own ways. He would protect what was his, even from one of their own.

Resting her head on the breadth of Angelus' chest, Darla watched Drusilla through slitted eyes. Something on the child's face, in those dark eyes. Resentment, interest, disappointment ? She knew that the girl hated it when they were together and her white knight was gone. Darla smiled, murmured a laugh.

"All you have to do is ask," she whispered to Drusilla, a scratch of sound through the room.

The girl's big red lower lip bloomed into a pout like a flower; her dark eyes gave one flash before subsiding into their usual dreaminess, tinged now with worry, perhaps. She withdrew, walking out onto the balcony.

They heard her singing.

Angelus knew the moment the prodigal returned. His eyes, half-closed as they drowsed before the fire, flicked open, heavy-lidded and alert. Outside, Drusilla stopped her lullabies to Miss Edith. In a silence punctuated by the sounds of the fire, they listened to him as he kicked off his boots halfway up the stairs, humming discordant snatches of songs as he made his way heavily up. Drunk, no doubt.

"Had a good hunt ?" Angelus asked deceptively mildly as William walked into the room.

The young one gave a snort as he put the bottle to his lips, tilting his head back sharply. Then a crash as he let the bottle fall from his fingers to smash to the floor, red wine splattering rugs and polished boards in the ultimate gesture of contempt.

Curled up like a cat on Angelus' bulk, Darla watched. Then she slid off her boy's lap, moving to the fire, a lithe little figure with a tiny waist and slightly flared skirts, a beautiful woman dressed for the theatre, giving her tacit agreement to what was surely to come.

"Where were ye ?" The pack-leader's voice sharpened suddenly. "Answer me, boy."

"It's Spike," the youngling slurred, the accents of London streets heavy on his tongue as he turned, grinning in game-face. "Hello, Dru," he said as he saw his lady who had slipped in and was watching the scene with wide eyes. He went over to her and kissed her with a blood-stained mouth, giving her the bouquet of wine and the tang of iron so she laughed, adoration in her eyes.

"Ye will look at me when I'm speaking to ye," came Angelus' abrupt voice.

William looked down into Drusilla's face. "And why's that ?"

"Spike," Dru whispered, pain in her voice. Lying on the chaise lounge, Darla remembered the tone. She herself had used it with Angelus during his one and only interview with the Master, when she had thought he would surely have himself killed and break her unbeating heart.

It was as if Angelus had never moved. One moment he was ensconced in the chair, the next he was across the room ripping the young one away from Drusilla. William's face shifted at once, snarling, but he was young yet and too uncertain, and the thuds of blows on flesh were all dealt by Angelus.

Darla laughed in delight, clapping her hands. Dru hovered uncertainly between a frown and a smile. Silly girl, this was splendid entertainment, really !

Spike swore. The filthy traces of the gutter fell from that pretty mouth easily, until Angelus' boot caught him and it split with red.

"Who was it this time, boy ? Hmmm ?" The larger male lifted his head by the hair. "Some noble heir to a title ? An icy society bride ? Or mayhem before a public audience ? What street theatre did ye perform this time, jester ? William the Bloody ?"

The youngling spat out a spray of blood. "Go...Fuck...Yourself !"

Clicking his tongue, Angelus shook Spike's head from side to side, looking into those slitted blue eyes. "Only failures have to prove themselves like this, lad. Again and again and again. Who d'ye think to convince ? Everyone who ever spat on ye, laughed at ye, mocked ye and denied ye ? Well, m'boy, here's a bit of news: They don't care. If they ever knew ye, William, they've all but forgotten."

Oh, but he could make words into knives, each syllable of sound like a cut on top of a hundred others ! And this young one did not yet have enough hardness in him, was not yet truly Spike. His jaw clenched and his eyes squeezed closed, against the humiliation and the anguish that had not been fully exorcised. The day would come when he would know how to deflect Angelus' words with his own uncontrolled violence and taunting, but the day had not arrived yet.

Angelus drew him painfully into a kneeling position by the hair, curling his other hand in the stained collar of his fine cambric shirt. With one great rip he reduced the garment to shreds, baring a pale expanse of flesh. Spike jerked and snarled but the sound was lost in the pack leader's dominant growl. That same animalistic sound melted into a perfectly intonated request to Darla;

"Will ye hand me the whip, dearest ?"

Darla looked around, but Drusilla had beaten her to it. The girl held the black crop in her hands tightly, biting her lip as she looked at the little tableau.

"No."

" 'Tis not the time for games, Drusilla. Hand me the whip." Angelus reached out his hand without taking his eyes from Spike.

And the Dreamer, the Seer came forward, her little slippered feet making no sound on the floorboards. "No, Daddy. I want to do it."

"Dru, I'm not rewarding him with a bedside game and ye'll no be doing any lashing tonight. The whip, Childe."

"You belong with Grandmother and he belongs with me. Spike is mine and I'll beat him and no other tonight."

Angelus whipped around, snarling, but quick as a flash Drusilla stepped up to him, slipping into game face and snapping back with a vicious growl of her own.

Darla watched the whole, her head slightly tilted to one side, one finger propping up her cheek like a lady reading a good book.

Keeping the rumble of the growl in her throat, Drusilla sidled around her Sire. Slowly, his fingers withdrew to be replaced by hers, and she made off for the bedroom with her prize.

"It seems our Children are growing up," Darla said softly to her best-loved. Then because she knew he did not want her company and because it would not do for her Childe to tell her to leave, she slipped off the recliner and moved away. He heard the slow click of her heels as the first faint sounds of the crop striking flesh came to his ears, making him grip the arms of the chair till his knuckles whitened and he heard just the faintest sound of wood groaning.

( . ( . ( . ( . ( . ( . ( . (

(PREVIOUSLY)

"But where has she gone !?" Lindsey had put his hands to his head, feeling as if he could reach through his temples to squeeze out his brain. The blood was pounding behind his eyes and under his skull. Wild, yes, wild. And she had awakened and she was made New and she was all he had ever dreamed she could be.....Darla ! A cry on his tongue, called to the empty space.

And Drusilla, the mother she had rejected in her confusion, licking the cut on the back of her hand that had come of the fight with her own Sire. "You are too loud, too loud, my rainmaker man. They tell me that she will come back, once the fog clears from her eyes and she sees a sky-full of stars, all pointing Northward, Northward..."

"We're to the East of the building !!"

"Not from where she's standing. North, South, East, West, which shall fit the best ?" she murmured distractedly. But then there was a knocking on the door and it was Holland Manners. The party. Tonight. Would he be bringing a date ?

An effort to keep the pleasant expression on his face and not to scratch, strike, howl. A date ? He had seen her dead, thought for one horrible moment that it was the final death and she would never rise again, but she had, and what had Drusilla said ?

**"Now everybody's home."**

Yes, home. But she had run, and before what had she said ?

**"Angel ?"**

Graveyard dirt and siren song, the light of a voodoo candle in her eyes. And Drusilla cooing over her 'baby' in its crib. What could have driven her to this madness, to this longing ? A life ended before it could begin, a barren existence with an empty and fruitless womb ? An eternity of dolls, with life brought down to scaled-down size save for the splendor of the greatest and bloodiest tragedies ?

He had been thinking of that, hearing the strains of Ring-Around-The-Rosie echoing weirdly in his head, when she burst in and greeted him with a blow to the chest, shoving him aside with her incredible strength. And had he ever thought her frail, that she would shatter at a touch ? This whirlwind who seized her new Maker and disappeared ?

The stars laughed in Drusilla's ears. The streetlights were a crazed whirl of yellow, neon, white and gold. And her baby had her hand in an unbreakable grip, dragging her out so her feet hit the tarmac, strangely hot even on an LA night. And then the open-handed slap that swung her around and made her ears ring till the laughter of the stars reverberated in her head, rebounding and doubling till they sounded like peals of bells.

And that pride in Darla's strength suddenly burnt and blighted to black ash inside her as the hail of blows fell.

** London bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down... **

They'd lied to her, lied by omission, the filthiest tricks. Grandmother was furious, raging, unhappy, smelling sharply of anger. And these blows, oh, they hurt. They did, even on her immortal body ! And she smelt the cars and the humans and the tang of blood, the sharp glass-edge of anger. And this whole city singing in a funeral dirge as the most terrible uncertainty bubbled up.

** Build it up with bricks and mortar, bricks and mortar, bricks and mortar... **

But where, oh where has the Fair Lady gone ?

"Did I do something to displease you? Grandmother, what? Don't be angry !"

And this newborn monster, looking at her with the most sincere confusion in her eyes. "Why ?" Why should I not be angry, she meant. Why should I not hate you and hurt you like the other one, like everyone else ? Drusilla felt it shredding her. Miss Edith, where was Miss Edith ? She couldn't remember.

"For you. All for you. I thought it was what you wanted. --To be saved." The lights from that great big truck were on them, lighting them strangely like actors on a stage. A diorama hanging on threads from the past, caught in the headlights of a merciless future.

And Dru began to cry. When there can be nothing else, there are always tears. The blood of the soul, or lack thereof. You never can tell.

Perhaps it is the tears that break through the fog and make Darla somehow understand, because suddenly the rage is gone and there comes the loveliest smile, lighting up her face. And then there is touch, forgiveness, gladness in the darkest of hearts for Reunion.

And Drusilla knows that the wheel has turned a complete circle again, and that one by one they will all come home, for better or for worse. But she doesn't like the sound of 'for worse', so it will have to be for the better.

( . ( . ( . ( . ( . ( . ( . (

LOCATION : HYPERION HOTEL, LOS ANGELES
TIME FRAME: NOW
He stood there at the desk, his palms flat on its surface, leaning his weight on it as they left the building silently. The air seemed to reverberate with hurt, with shock, with regret.

Preternatural hearing picked up the sounds of their footsteps, of Wesley's bike engine. The sound of vehicles moving away into the night. What was it that he had lost here ? He only knew that it had been something momentous, something vital that he felt the loss of even now, tugging at the edges of his consciousness. There was nothing left save silence and the faint trace of cigarettes.

When he couldn't hear them anymore, Angel lifted his head.

"Why don't you come out now ? I know you're here."

The glow of the ember was what he saw first. "Of course you know, mate. You being the Big Man an' all." The ember was attached to the end of the cigarette, the long narrow roll leading to the cruelly-set lips. Long, blunt-nailed fingers removed the mild narcotic and a cloud of smoke followed. Dark blue eyes squinted the slightest bit behind that obscuring curtain as Spike eased out into the light.

They looked at each other for a moment, two men at either end of the spectrum yet irrevocably linked. Then Spike smiled. The smile became a chuckle, the chuckle a deep rumble of soft laughter. The blond clapped his hands sharply and the sounds were like pistol shots in the quiet.

The rage that rose was fierce and instantaneous and looking for a scapegoat. Angel turned away, intentionally facing his unprotected back to his Childe. "What do you want, Spike ? I don't really have enough time to be playing nursemaid to an eternal teenage rebel."

" 'Course you don't, Peaches. The ladies are back, aren't they ? And that was quite a show you put on a minute ago. Not quite the art you managed as Angelus, but it was bloody up there I tell you that. How long d'you think it'll take 'em to recover ? One lifetime, two ? Guilt has a nasty habit of being infectious, and you just rolled a tractor-load over Mr. Rogue Watcher, Failed Beauty Queen and your new pretty boy there." Spike was laughing so hard he had to stub out his cigarette and hold on to the back of the chair. "You never learn, do you, SoulBoy ? And you were trying so hard to do the right thing, the noble thing. Leaving the Slayer behind and doing that whole soddin' 'crucify me' act."

"Sure, Spike. Sure." Angel turned, resting easily against the desk. "Let's have a quick recap of the 'How My Life Has Turned Out' show. Here we have one vampire, unable to bite and unable to fight. Living on the good grace of a Watcher and a Slayer. I'm surprised you even scraped up enough for the gas to get here."

The demon in him wanted to do battle, wanted to stay and snap at Spike. To deny it Angel spun on his heel and headed blindly for the kitchen. There were too many things he needed to do and had to do...Darla. And Dru. He had loved them once and was not ashamed to say that he loved them still. Had he ever raised a truly threatening hand to Dru, his baby girl ? He couldn't remember. And Darla...third time's the charm, they said. She had given him all she could and he had given her the wrong end of a stake and a first class ticket to Hell.

And in this Spike was safe. He had no duty to kill this last part of his past. If only the stupid bastard would just go away.

The lights were on in the kitchen. Someone had left a mediocre bottle of red wine on the table, unopened. Had they been celebrating something ? He couldn't think what. There was also a mug on the table, full of blood that was still lukewarm. It gave him a pang of pain to think that it had been such a short while ago that Cordelia had been preparing that for him, probably calling him ten kinds of idiot but still concerned enough to do it for a friend.

He kept on giving and giving and giving and it was still not enough. He took the handle of the mug. He needed to keep himself in good condition, needed to fight...

"What do you think they're doing right now ?" said the black and pale shadow that had trailed him down like a wild dog scenting blood. "I'd say they've drunk themselves silly an' are now just getting to the fun part. Wonder what you do at office parties ? Play Pin-The-Tail-In-The-Eyeball ? Or maybe it's Spin the Bottle. I always liked Spin the Bottle, especially if you get to break the finger of the one whom the bottle points to each round. It must've been sweet, mate, this revenge, hearing all those nasty lawyers begging you to play saviour. And it must have been an impressive move to Darla and Dru too, wasn't it ? Leaving all those people to die horrible deaths, taking away their last bit of hope. Like playing God, isn't it, Angel ?"

The name was almost a sneer.

The mug trembled in his grip, and Angel tried to concentrate on keeping it steady in his hand, the blood cooling fast, a skim forming on top. But something in him had snapped at the sound of his name on Spike's lips, some barrier crumbled and washed away.

"And why did you come here ?" he heard himself say softly. "Just to taunt me ? To have this little game we're playing now ? Careful, m'boy, ye were never the one for games." He heard the hint of Irish on his tongue again, the melody of the brogue. He felt Angelus come perilously close to the surface. "No, Spike. Let me tell you why I think you're here. You heard about Darla somehow and thought Dru might be here. She was always your weakness, wasn't she ? But you have so many weaknesses, William. You're so needy, so human, and you've never been weaker than you are now. What do you think our two ladies would do to you when they find you ?" He felt the hint of old anger trickle into him, a forbidden jealousy he had no right to. "Slayer's Pet."

Spike never blanched, but his face might as well have been set in stone. A little too coolly, perhaps, he pulled a new cigarette out of a battered pack, smoothing it with his fingers. "Watch it, mate. Jealousy ain't becoming on you, you should stick to black. It's your colour." And he wondered how Angel had found out. Who was the snitch ? Giles ? Nope. Xander ? Maybe. He'd kill the git when he got back. Maybe roast him over an open fire.

"Oh really ?" There was something as rich as cream and as soft as velvet in the half-purred taunt. "Spike, Spike. You should know you can't fool me. I know you inside out, boy. I know what you like, I know what you need. I know what makes you tick and what you dream about when you lie down in your crypt in the morning. And you can't ever escape that. You've made a habit of picking up my leavings and it's a hard habit to break, isn't it ? Knowing that I made Dru and I know her as you never could, that she cried my name after I left and when Angelus came back it was as if you never existed, that all those years and all that care you lavished on her was nothing at all. Have you kissed Buffy yet ? Have you maybe touched that soft honeyed skin in all those myriad secret places so fresh and so pure it's as if the dew's still there ?"

The game wasn't going the way he'd intended. He couldn't have said himself why he'd come out to LA. Half his life had been done on impulse anyway, but it had been so bloody good and sweet to stick the knife in the pillock and twist it where it would hurt most. But things had bloody gotten out of hand ! Angel was supposed to hurt, not him !

He didn't see the blankness in his Sire's eyes, didn't see the hand that was holding the mug shaking slightly. Didn't see that he was balancing on the edge between Now and Before. p>"I'll tell you what I think has happened," Angel continued softly. "I think that you haven't even told her yet, have you ? Haven't had the guts to make a direct move. But I'll spare you the disappointment and tell you first, Spike, that when at last you hold her and maybe, just maybe she's laying her head on your shoulder, when that golden body's melting against you and you smell her perfume and feel her heat, you'll know that I was her first. When she tilts her head to one side so sweetly like the Buffy in your dreams, you'll push her collar back and you'll see the scar I gave her. That's what you'll see, Spike, that whatever it is you'll always be in second place." And it gave him a giddy triumph that was like the edge of tears to see Spike blink, long lashes coming down over brilliant blue eyes that had gone the colour of Toledo steel. It humbled him beyond words to know that he had lashed out at this one just because he was there and it was easy.

"Maybe." It was Spike's turn to speak at last and the atmosphere in the kitchen could have been cut with a knife. "Let's just say that all that crap you've mouthed is true, Angel, but there's something you forgot. Whatever it is I still have her. I have them. And you have nothing."

As it was and will always be. We are renegades, the two of us, and in this world there can only be one.

Perhaps Wesley had been more right than he knew. Maybe he, Cordelia and Gunn had been all that had stood between Angel and darkness. Because Angel would never have done what he did now;

Turning faster than the eye could follow, he threw the mug's content's at his Childe, catching him full in the face. Blood was everywhere and the World turned Red. There was nothing now but that emptiness, that nothing that Spike had called by name as if summoning a demon with a sorcerer's incantation.

Nature abhors a Vacuum.

Spike spluttered, the silver lighter falling from his fingers to clatter to the floor. In that one moment his Sire had leapt over the table that separated them both and landed a series of no-holds barred blows, finishing with an uppercut that sent him staggering. His perfect vision wavered and he tasted a mixture of cold blood in his mouth, the blood from the cup and his own blood like mercury and mud.

What a luxury it was to Angel not to think for one moment, to just spin on the axis of animal instinct and do what feeling dictated for once. To grip the bottle of wine by the neck and bring it crashing down on that blood-soaked peroxide head and hear glass shatter, feel the impact run up his arm and quiver to the very bone.

And then there was Spike, kneeling on the floor blinking in an almost childlike astonishment, twice baptized with Blood and then with Wine.

And they kneel at Church after Mass for the Communion, where the Wine is the Blood of Christ. It always comes back to Blood, you see. No distinction.

The film of rage cleared from Angel's eyes, and Spike was still kneeling on the floor before him as if waiting for chastisement. Glass was everywhere, shining in the kitchen light like spangles on the sea in sunlight. Those blue eyes were full of a rage that shimmered as if to overflow then vanished, replaced by a pain whose sheer intensity made Angel want to close his eyes in turn.

"What happened to us ?" his Childe, his lover, his mortal enemy asked. It was not the voice of Spike but the voice of William then. Young still, wondering. "What happened to what we were and what we had ? What brought us to where we are now ?"

There was nothing to say but the Truth. "I don't know." Then he was down on his knees holding his boy, William, Spike. They were all gone in one way or another and this one was here with him. As he had always been, in a way, the counterbalance to Angel himself. The tears that came were so hot Angel thought for one moment they were blood. He couldn't tell, because he had his face in Spike's wet hair and blood was all over them both, blood and wine and he was murmuring words he had thought he had forgotten, words of remorse and love and hurt.

Soft, smooth those lips under his. Giving to him, they parted and a tentative touch of another tongue welcomed him in.

I Thank You. I Love you; I Always Have.

The kiss obliterated the world. There was only this taste, this smooth masculine mouth under his, this long lean body he was crushing to himself. Spike whimpered under him, whined almost, his body shifting with a need that was rising harsh and hard. Angel gasped as those long maddening fingers ripped at his clothes and scraped their black nails over his skin, finding and seeking those plains of shoulder and chest and belly, longing for the movement of muscle in their sheaths of skin and flesh, circling and pulling cruelly at the rosebuds of his nipples.

"I want you, you sodding bastard. You idiot. You prick." His Childe fed those hot, sweet words into his mouth, sharp teeth nipping his lip, his jaw. Insults that felt as sensuous as a sultry breath over his skin, raising the hairs there. "I want what you can give me. I want it all."

Was that his sound, his groan as he fought to get that maddening obstruction of leather and wool off ? Then there was only that expanse of white skin like marble and silk, smelling of leather and musk and something that was inherently Spike. With a powerful push he forced the smaller male down on his back onto the mess of clothes and glass and floor so he could rise up above him and bend his head like a lion feeding, to lick up that film of blood and wind on that fine white flesh.

Blood sacrifice.

He bit hard, sinking jagged teeth in like he did in his dreams. The blood almost leapt onto his tongue, calling to him and saying This is Yours, You made This. You claim This from Inside Out. Spike yelled out and Angel was up above him again, kissing him hard and swallowing that cry into himself, feeding him the taste of Himself. Feeling that magnificent body arch and toss under him, driving him wild.

"Do it," he bit out, bringing himself on hands and knees up over this cold one, this splendid creature he had birthed and made and fucked and hated and lost. "I want you, you want me. Do it."

Lunging upwards Spike caught him around the hips so hard his nails dug bleeding crescents in skin. The breath of corruption on Angel's breath made him moan aloud, just as those clicking teeth fastened on the zipper of his pants and pulled it down, freeing him to give them both what they wanted.
Sparks exploded behind Angel's eyelids as he felt that mouth take him into its cold wet, the way only the mouth of another male, another vampire could do. The way only this heartbreakingly beautiful one could do. And Spike suckled him, laving him as though knowing that this night he had been stripped and left defenseless to the World.

But, no. "No," he said, lifting himself out of that pleasure-agony and moving back down to kiss that mouth hard and possessively. "Not that. Not just yet."

Long lashes shaded dark blue eyes, casting shadows over perfect skin in the harsh light, as Spike lifted his hips as if in welcome.

Slowly Angel took what was offered, easing in like a weary traveler coming home at last to something he understood. Not love, not quite hate, but something that had bound them both and lasted centuries. They growled, they struggled, the basest of both coming forth to mingle with that which was the finest. Spike sank his teeth into Angel's throat and drank as his Sire began to drive forward with his hips.

The rhythm built like a tide of blood, rising, flowing, cresting. Pulling the both of them over on that kitchen floor under the garish lights of artificial suns. Two monsters made light.

Angel cried out as he came, breaking apart from his Childe who reared up and melded their mouths, sharing the flow of blood as though loathe to break the connection. Their hips jerked spasmodically once, twice.

Then everything was still. The glass glittered in the light.

*

Screams, blood. The smell of fear and of loosened bladders. Of things infinitely worse.

The house was like the scene of a battleground. Broken bone sticking out of torn flash like a white flag and surrender in death. Moans. Slippery things glistening in pools. The wet gleam of a beautiful green eye, lying in a puddle of crimson.

Beautiful things, ugly without comparison.

Lindsey sat slumped in his corner, watching with a jaded eye.

Across the room she smiled at him, cradling someone else in her arms. "What do you feel, Lindsey ? What do you want ?"

He didn't know the answer.

 ( . ( . ( . ( . ( . ( . ( . (

LOCATION : Private home, Holland Manners
TIME FRAME: Now

She licked the blood from her fingers. She was a neat feeder by nature; none of that blood leaking out the corner of the mouth for her. By comparison the rest of the room was chaos and carnage.

The music thrummed loud out of the speakers, and she was conscious of Dru dancing slowly in the center of the room, surrounded by all this wonderful evidence of violence, like a Blood Goddess.

Yes, goddesses they were and would always be, and they had given their worshippers the massacre they had asked for.

She could not remember ever having had so much fun, but then her memory was fuzzy, wasn't it ? There were big gaping holes that were taking their own time to fill in and there wasn't much she could do to force it. It is a terrible thing to have your memories stolen, whether there is a thief or not.

That was what she said to the young man sitting in the corner. Even over the overpowering scent of spilled blood she could smell his luscious heat and salt, the life pulsing still in him in spite of all the Death that surrounded them all. In the entire house he was the only living thing that remained, and she found something sweetly poignant in that. She tried to explain it to him but he didn't understand messages of blood.

Darla, she was Darla again, she kept telling herself, but how could she be complete without being someone's Dear Beloved ? But this whole trip was like an uncontrolled slide, flight out of the open door of an airplane soaring in the sky where control is gone and there is only exhilaration of the flight.

It was so much fun to be alive, to be beautiful again and stronger than ever. To taste the fashions of the world and not to hear those voices clamouring in her head. To be free. To hunt in leather and lace and a profusion of blond curls. To have with her one of the old pack again, the pack she intended to build till it was as it had been before.

All this she told Lindsey, every now and then bringing the remnant of a woman's heart daintily to her lips, sucking its juices as one would suck a large, succulent fruit. Nothing was more natural than the act of feeding, of glutting after starvation and to experience again that thirst, that swirl of scent and flavour and pure essence of personality and soul. Too see hazily through an immovable veil the lives she took indiscriminately.

"Do you know ?" she asked him. "Do you understand ?" Do you accept this is what I am and what you would have controlled if you could, that what you love could snuff out your life as though you were one poor candle, my sweet. That your frailty is like a red flag to me that I would destroy you just to see if I could ?

As a child she had always been fascinated by birds. Their brilliance, their song, their quickness and their joy. He reminded her of a songbird in a cage and if she reached in with eager hands to capture that spark of life she could easily crush it right out of the bird. All without quite meaning to and easy to forget after.

She crawled on hands and knees to him through the gore. She tossed aside the dead heart and took his face in her blood-stained hands, rouging his cheeks, his lips with it.

"And what should I do to you, Lindsey ?" Darla asked kindly. "Is there anything in particular you want ? Remember, I told you once to take what you wanted. I would never hesitate to do that."

Those pretty eyes looked into hers, and it amazed her all over again that there was no trace of fear in him, not in scent and not in those eyes of his.

"Am I like you ?" he asked her. "Take one good look at me, Darla. Touch me and tell me whether you see any resemblance between the two of us. Would I do what you do ? The way you do it ? You ask me if I understand; tell me, Darla, how well do you understand ?"

She stroked her fingers lovingly and delicately over his forehead, the tender flesh of his eyelids and beneath the eyes themselves. He was young, but there were the rooted beginnings of lines here that Life had given him. She knew his body was aging, slowly dying under him the way her mortal one had been speedily passing away beneath her.

"Read him his fortune, Grandmother," came Dru's soft voice to her over the music. "Tell him what you see in the map of stars and the tea-leaves of a king. The tail feathers of a rooster and the scales of the deep-sea fish. Tell him if he lives or dies, because men always want to know their fortunes and we women must tell them." Lovely Drusilla in her red leather and faux-fur coat, painted at last in the colour of these times. Darla felt a great soft rush of affection for her suddenly.

She rose up, kneeling on one knee between his legs, the other one bent to rest lightly against his updrawn leg. She came close, looked into his eyes till there was barely a whisper of space between them. Then she slipped her hand inside his shirt and felt over the beating of his heart.

"Resemblance ?" she said softly. "Here it is, Lindsey. This is where there is no difference between the both of us. One pumping and one still, the hearts of free people both, free of guilt and free to kill." She rested her forehead against his gently and felt a tremor run through him.

"Then what are you going to do ?" he asked hoarsely. "Do it quick."

Drusilla smiled.

"Do, Lindsey ?" Darla kissed him, letting him taste the strong taint of blood on her tongue. "I'm going to leave you and your warmth, and Dru and I are going out."

"There's plenty to be done before we can play Happy Families." Dru nodded her head, slipping the tip of her tongue over white teeth. "Bye bye, Lindsey. Come home another day."

( . ( . ( . ( . ( . ( . ( . (

LOCATION : China
TIME FRAME : Beginning of the 20th century

The country was like an over-ripened fruit, flushed with its beauty and bounty but balanced precariously on the edge of a fall. Everything was overheated and too vibrant, as if the people were in a rush to live life the way they had for years before everything was swept away.

Anyone could see the storm clouds building on the horizon. Especially such creatures as they, used to seeing the darkness coming. Politics did not concern them and neither did the future; what they wanted was the chaos that would come. The funfair of human tragedy on a grand scale.

The oldest of them stood before an enormous mirror framed in rosewood and mother-of-pearl, in a pavilion that had once belonged to the first wife of the rich man who had built this rambling family compound. The size and extravagance of kills in turbulent times like these never mattered because people were always more than willing to lay the blame at each other's doors.

She had lighted lamps that threw their mild illumination over the chaos of overturned tables, trunks with their hinges snapped and lids broken so that clothes, jewels and perfumes were spilled and strewn every which way. Her white body gleamed in this gentle light, as smooth as flawless as ivory, the curves and sweep of her waist and back flawless, the tender lines of her calves and thighs perfect. She smiled at her own beauty, lifting up the mass of yellow hair that tumbled down her back in preparation to binding.

Yet there was a sadness beneath that smile, a slow-burning anger. She was not certain any longer of his loyalties, of his capabilities. She knew she must send him away if he failed the rules she had set, but she was no longer certain of her ability to carry even that out.

He was the canker in the rose of her heart. And what was beauty then, what was this shell of brocaded satin stitched with Mandarin ducks that she was enclosing herself in ?

She hadn't been hungry by the time she reached the sloe-eyed Chinese woman who had owned all this; she had snapped her neck for the clothes she wore. First Wife was a perfect fit.

Jade beads symbolizing long life lay thrown in careless loops on the bed. The hanging lantern under the canopy of the huge bed of lacquered wood swayed slightly as she knelt on the mattress, sifting carelessly through the treasures for shell and jade combs to hold her heavy wealth of hair. She placed them as carefully as a soldier going into battle would layer his armour.

Bodies had been easily removed, and in the moonlight the courtyards looked as peaceful as if the family was still in residence, or had fled without taking anything with them but absolute essentials. Already the rich were deserting the cities, often headed for the Western world, already equipped with accented English and such European trappings as western clothes, automobiles, a million pounds or dollars smuggled into international banks.

But for now the moonlight shone down as tranquil as the moon-face of Kuan Yin, Goddess of Mercy. The trailing willows spanned their delicate shadows over the surface of the pool full of fan-tailed goldfish. Drusilla sat at the edge, on the stepping stones of the bank close by the ornamental bridge, sailing lotus-candles past the lily pads so the water reflected a hundred little flickering flames and the dragonflies were illuminated jewel-like as they darter over the water. Her dark eyes too held the image of the flames she sent off with a push of her hand, the other clutching red silk around her.

"The souls of their dead float downstream and there'll be no one to burn Hell-Money and silver ingots for them," she said to the goldfish, flicking their tails as they rose to nibble at the edges of the molded candles, breaking the water into golden ripples. "There will be no processions, no bowing, no dragon-sticks of incense burning to heaven. Why burning ? Why Heaven ? Why feed the children lucky cakes of moon hares with sweet paste and gold egg yolks ? Why sew little shoes for feet like Three-Inch Lilies ? Why the way with the World and me ?" She turned her head, black curls tumbling down her shoulders. "Tell me why, Spike."

"Because, love. Just because," answered the silver-shadowed demon in the dark, where the bamboo stands grew thick and red-tinged at their bases, their shoots rising like hairy cones from the earth at their roots. He looked away from the pool, away from the main section of the household to the gardens where the humps of the pavilions rose like slumbering tortoises.

Here the fourth wandered like a lost spirit during the Feast of the Dead, with no one to pray or to offer the brightly coloured foods, sweet cakes and roast pork, pink-skinned white wheat buns and fruit decorated with red paper patterns. No sweet smoke curled around him to mercifully cloud the suffering in his mind or the struggle with the act he had to maintain. He had stood aside while they tore through the people who had lived in this house this morning, killing only one or two traitorous servants, one murderously ambitious concubine and a maidservant and her mistress who had taken pleasure in venting their spite on the bondmaids bought to serve. And even the wicked ones seemed to have no doubt that their cries should be heard as well, for what had they done that should deserve the sentence of death ? Who was he to take it upon himself to exact that punishment ?

He had carried the bodies. He had tasted blood though the soul in him screamed and sickened. He had closed himself off from the killing the ones he loved had done with relish. They had screamed like the doves when Drusilla found them. That was what he saw in his mind's eye as he explored the pavilions the rich man had built to house his five wives, seven daughters and five sons. A family that would have survived even the coming tragedy, with their wealth and their numbers, but which had been decimated by that which should not have ever been permitted to exist.

Twisted bundles of white feathers and mangled flesh, soaked with blood.

And he thought that she was becoming a little sharp, a little quiet. The one that he loved perhaps beyond reason, the one lifeline he could see in this morass. The one who might suspect what he fought to keep from her. He only wanted to let her see what she wanted to see. Not this.

It was like dying the fabled Death of the Thousand Cuts. Slowly , a little at a time, one wound atop the other.

The pavilions whispered to him, with their tiles and carving and stone guardian lions. The little mirrored discs that hung above each doorway to repel evil and welcome luck seemed a travesty in the unnatural silence. The voices were voices of women, women he had seen for fleeting instants in the whirl of killing, women he saw again with perfect egg-shaped faces and tilted eyes, straight black brows and cherry-blossom mouths, wrapped like precious jewels in silks embroidered with phoenixes and flowers, goldfish and bumblebees and little ducks on their tiny shoes. Beauty covering the disfigured bound feet that sent stabs of pain up the bones with every step, and whose odour of rotting flesh had to be hidden under yards of white bandages.

Like them. Putrefaction at the core and glass-cold beauty on the surface. And the master of the house had chosen these women for their disfigurement, searching them out in this modern time when most mothers no longer had to bind the feet of their daughters and inure themselves to the crying and pleading as the young limbs were crippled.

And was he any better as the master of his house ? What he had done to Drusilla.....he might as well have had bound her feet. Yet the demon had loved her, just as those mothers had loved their daughters.

"Look, mate. She's coming," Spike said as he moved out of the shadows. "Take it from me, y'don't want 'er catching you mooning around here. Though that's all you're good for nowadays, I don't get why she don't see it. S'pose you're good enough in bed for her to overlook it."

He made himself give an Angelus snarl and a flash of the demon's face. Spike was growing older, fast. And as it was in any pack the young male was seeking to challenge the older one. Spike scented blood.

"Better than you'll ever be, boy." He was grateful for the cape he wore, because of the cold. Spike was disheveled still from previous activity. He killed like the carefree monster he was, still out to prove so many things to the world. Lately he had been speaking of Slayers and how there was one here.....Darla had to be careful. He felt a stab of worry that he was in no shape to protect them with conviction, and a pale horror that the notion of them dead actually gave him relief. To hide it he asked, "Where's Drusilla ? Weren't you supposed to be watching her ?"

Spike paced a little, kicking at stones, full of a strange nervous energy. "She's crying now. Had another of her visions. Says that time's bloody running out and that everything is flowing apart like wax."

"She's overwrought. You've probably been keeping her up too late in the mornings."

"Dru's visions ain't ever wrong."

Dark eyes met blue in the moonlight. Spike knew. More than Drusilla could see and more than Darla would ever let herself see. With that knowledge he held the power to destroy his Sire and take his place, the ancient formula of Oedipus and Zeus and myriad other ancient gods of ancient peoples where the old must make way for the young. He could have Angelus cast out, or kill him, perhaps, with Darla's blessing.

It flashed unspoken between them. Even the ghosts of the pavilions seemed to have gone quiet, afraid of this one, this silver and white one who wore moonlight as if it had been made for him. He was what Angelus had fallen from and he wore its mantle like a prince.

Spike moved, shifted. Took one step forward and then another, coming closer. Angelus tensed, the new soul thirsty and eager maybe for the silver sharp death that might be hiding up Spike's sleeve, the old demon angry and wanting to lash out and have a violent deed done here tonight.

The hand fell on his shoulder. The boy was so close Angelus could look down and see the individual lashes set around his eyes like fans.

"Keep it together, you old sot," said that London rasp. "Try a little blood, a little killing for show next time. A little cruelty even if you don't want to go the whole way. You've had decades, don't tell me you don't know how to bloody bluff." He hesitated then, and seemed to make up his mind when he moved closer still, the fabric of his jacket rubbing against the folds of the cape. "I'd let her kill you in an instant or do it myself, but I owe Dru something and she seems to have this crazy attachment to you, the Devil knows why."

Angelus looked down at him. His face was so close that he could marvel at the porcelain perfection of the skin. Their skin. And the mouth so close to his it was almost a kiss, the cool tasteless breath whispering over his own lips.

And then Spike broke away, loping towards the pool and Drusilla again, and Darla was calling him, her voice chiming in the distance.

( . ( . ( . ( . ( . ( . ( . (

LOCATION : HYPERION HOTEL, LOS ANGELES
TIME FRAME : NOW

Spike was lying with his legs hanging over the edge of the kitchen table, smoking a cigarette. He hadn't bothered to scrape the glass off his skin or put on clothes. Like a marble version of Michelangelo's David with a modern twist. There were no traces of blood left on the white flesh; their tongues had taken it all.

Angel sat in a chair drawn up to the table, his elbows resting on the wood about level with his Childe's chest, his head resting in his hands. He was bare to the waist and his skin bore scars still from where Spike had put his mouth and bled him luxuriantly.

It was Spike too who broke the silence. "The place smells like a fucking whorehouse."

Blood and sex and salt. Trace of cigarettes and the miasma of barely leashed violence. Whorehouses were full of the last, because customers rarely go out of love for women. It is the desire to do violence that brings them to houses of pleasure, the primal urge to stick it in all the way. To humiliate and dominate.

Then, "Do you think they're finished ?"

No need to ask who he meant.

"A better question," Angel said quietly. "Is what are they going to do afterwards ? And an even better one is, what are you going to do ?"

Spike sucked on the white filterless cylinder.

Then, "Are you askin' me to choose ? Between you and them ?"

What makes me think I stand a chance ? Angel thought.

"Yes. The way you chose once, long ago." I need you, he thought. I've needed you for a long time, only there were so many things between us, too many cross-lines, too many loves and heartbreaks.

Spike laughed humourlessly. "I never chose, mate. That's where you got it all wrong. I did right by all of you and all I got in return was this."

"Which of us can claim to have done any kind of right, Spike ? Name me just one and I'll go to Darla and kneel at her feet, and tell her that we'll try the whirlwind again. That I'll become Angelus again. I'm sure Darla and Dru and you can arrange to make me what I once was."
Spike sat up, muscles leaping out under skin as he raised himself. "You can't ever be what you were before. The guy who turned me ? The one who was an absolute bastard and out and out Prince Charming no poor bastard could deny ? That one's gone for good. What came back in Sunnyhell wasn't him." What he didn't say was, 'The One I fell in Love with'.

"You're evading the question."

Dark blue eyes slanted at him and black nails scraped through white blond hair. "Would you kill them ?"

"If it came to that." Ignore the tremor of pain. You've had so much of it you should be immune by now.

And Spike leaned down, leaned close, invading his personal space and placing his signature there. Licked his cheek, let the damp seduction trail to his ear. Whispered lovingly, "I won't let you, but I won't let them either. Looks like I'm gonna be the glue that holds the Family together, doesn't it ?"

Hours later Spike shrugged on his duster and left the hotel, a lone man walking into the dark of near-dawn. Eyes watched him from a window above, a taller, broader man who struggled with the hand he had been dealt the way he always yet, but who was strangely comforted by this unspoken promise: that there would always be a refuge for him. No matter what came.


~Finish

Feedback