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Untitled S/A LJ ficlet by Mer
Post- 'Not Fade Away'
PG-13


"Did you really?"

Angel looked up from his intense study of his own feet.

"Huh?"

Spike perched on the arm of the couch. "Like my poetry?"

Angel closed his eyes. "This makes sense in your world. Wes fucking dies, LA has eight square blocks of smoking rubble in the middle of downtown, Gunn's minus half his colon, the Senior Partners are going to come for us as soon as they get the memo, and you think this is the moment to talk about your pretensions to literature."

"That a no?"

Angel opened his eyes. Spike was still there. Not too surprising, since it was his pathetic secondhand couch Angel was sprawled on, but he sighed anyway.

"Said it to make you feel better."

"You thought I'd feel better about going to hell if I got a good review first?"

Angel reached without looking and chugged the rest of a bag of blood, and dropped the empty on the pile at his feet. "Didn't you?"

"Point." Angel had dug out another bag of blood, and now Spike tweaked it out of his hand and scarfed the lot.

"Hey, I was gonna drink that."

"Too slow," riposted Spike automatically, and then flinched. "I didn't mean..."

Angel was too tired to be properly pissed. "You never do. Fuck off, Spike," he asked almost plaintively.

"My house, mate. Seems like I'm always saying that to you." May I remind you you're a guest.

Angel ran a hand through his hair. "Yeah, well, I'm the one who can't walk this time. So feel free to go fuck my girlfriend if it'll get me a moment of peace and quiet."

"The one you sent to sunny Coventry thousands of miles away? You're all heart. Serve you right if I fed you a poodle."

"She took good care of you," Angel said.

"Both of us," Spike corrected. Angel wasn't sure if Spike meant Dru or Buffy, but it hardly mattered. Angel ran his hand through his hair again.

Spike sat still in companionable silence for all of 30 seconds and then burst out impatiently, "Don't do that, for fuck's sake. You look like Lord Byron after a bender."

"Excuse the hell out of me, I've been saving the world."

"Just don't touch it," Spike said impatiently. He stomped off into the other room, but just as Angel relaxed into the quiet he heard footsteps returning.

"Hold still." Gently, patiently, Angel felt a comb moving through the blood-matted tangles of his hair.

"Remember the first time you did this?"

"Lisbon," Spike responded immediately. "Pretended I was your bloody valet. Draw my bath, William. Lay out my clothes, William. Brush my hair, William. Suck my --"

Angel interrupted. "Shut up, William."

"Yessir, oh great lord and master sir. Are you going to beat me with a carpet slipper if I disobey you?"

"No, but I'll break that mindless beeping thing you like so much."

There was another, longer silence as Spike's fingers worked. Angel felt his shoulders unknot, just a little. It was incongruously soothing, like being groomed by a monkey. He decided not to share that little image with Spike. At least not until he could move under his own power again.

"There," Spike said at last. "Now don't touch it till I get back."

"Where are you going?" said Angel, illogically put out at being abandoned.

Spike hefted the pile of empty blood bags. "To fetch his fat lordship's supper."

"In those days you'd have brought me a blonde."

"In those days you'd have given me a taste of her as a tip for good service. Would you fancy a nice California AB positive? It's a very good year."

He headed for the door without waiting for an answer.

"Spike?"

He stopped, but didn't turn. "What now, your irritatingness?"

"Why'd you ask about the poetry?"

"Thought you might care for something to read."

"I'd rather watch Jerry Springer."

"Suit yourself."

Spike pulled a much-folded sheet of paper from his pocket, dumped it in the trash on top of the blood bags, and went out.

Angel waited until the heavy boots retreated down the hall before craning his neck. To an angel was the first line, in that loopy copperplate the Victorians liked so much.

Angel heaved himself over, and groaned as he landed on the floor with a thump. He started pulling himself across the living room with his hands. It hadn't looked that big from up above, but from a shoe's eye view it was endless. He didn't have time to wait till the pain went off, not if he was gonna be back on the couch like nothing had happened by the time Spike got home.


-End


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