a.connor  a.doyle  a.lindsey  a.oz  a.spike  a.wesley  a.xander  a.other  three.somes  het.fic  character.study           
Title: Morning rituals.
Author: Criss Moody
Pairing: Angel/Wes
Rating: NC-17
Setting: Through BtVS 'The Gift' and AtS 'No Place Like'

 

Take the mug with it's hard soap inside down from the
cabinet.  Remove the strap and blade from the wall.  Close
eyes to the sing of the blade against the worn leather.
His hands know the paths, how far to go before the silver
blade slices into hand.  Dribble water into the mug, swish
with finely-bristled brush.  When the mildly scented soap
foams up to lid of mug, bring it up to face and dab, smear,
and cover with thick white soap foam.  Steady razor in hand
and begin.

Wesley is a man of many rituals.

He shaves each morning.  At precisely 6:30, after his
shower and before his breakfast, he begins.  Lets the
individual pieces of this particular habit carry him away
into something akin to meditation.  Parts of the whole
bringing him back to ground after a night of unpleasant
dreams.  Dead friends and failures.

Now that they have returned to the Hyperion, back to the
world where tacos and chosen girls mean different things,
their lives haven't actually changed appreciably.  It makes
Wesley irritable.  As if there should be some huge silver
emblazoned sign in the sky, The Slayer is Dead, Long Live
the Slayer, or just ö a tiny girl who was wonderfully
imperfect is dead and we're the poorer for it.  He's grumpy
because he'd prefer to not have a place in her death, but
he's caught up in former occupations and current
allegiances that make him care more than he'd like to.

This morning he is not in his small flat in a somewhat
unsavory part of town.  Wesley stands in front of a mirror
in one of the many bathrooms attached to the many bedrooms
in this former hotel.  After a night of research and
slaying the demon of the week, he is two doors down from a
vampire, three doors up from Cordy, and 1 door and 1 floor
up from a former librarian and scientist.  His shaving kit
comes with him nearly everywhere he goes, allowing him to
cling to the ritual no matter what happens.

At 6:30, he still takes out the mug, sharpens the blade,
and shaves.

Before beginning, he faces his reflection with a fair
amount of calm for a man shying close to thirty-five.  Not
too bad.  Even a few laugh lines to show that the last few
years haven't been all tragedy.  He's had a few beers and
few laughs and yes, he does have something to show for it.
Water in mug, foam, and in less than five minutes, he has
covered his chin, cheeks, and neck.  Drops a glop of the
thick stuff on his chest.  Wes twists around and grabs a
towel to wipe it off when he sees a toe.  In his peripheral
vision, head bent to his chest, a pair of bare feet under
legs clad in black silk stand off to one side of the
doorway, hidden by the wall.  All he sees are toes and
black silk.  They're not girl toes, and they're not brown
toes, they therefore must be dead toes.

Wes squashes an irrational urge to slap the bastard silly
and close the door.  He hates the interruption of this
time.  Chooses to ignore Angel's falling back into his
lurking habits.  This is not the first time Angel's
wandered into Wes' room.  This isn't the first time he's
sought connection with his 'friends' in the last few
months.  Perhaps a nightmare.  Only to wake up and find the
nightmare true.  The only mystery is why the vampire's
chosen this early hour to do so.  And why he's just
standing there.

Faces the mirror again and takes the blade up.  He pulls
the leather strap, clipped to a ring on the wall, up and
slowly sharpens the knife.  Hears a noise, like someone's
breath catch, and be stifled.  Wes grins, the
ridiculousness spreading his lips apart in a toothy grin
until it almost hurts.  Adopts deafness to sound and
presence behind him.  He drops the grin and the strap and
gets to work.

Starts with his cheeks.  Cheekbone to jawbone and down
again in increments.  Cutting sharply into the white
without slicing open skin takes talent.  He learned it at
the foot of a father who had very little time to care for
his son, but enough time to teach him how to shave, how to
dress, and how not to act.  Then, the chin, being careful,
going in tight, quick swipes.

The neck is the best.  Even without a grieving, perpetually
annoying vampire standing behind him, Wes enjoys arching
his neck to the flat of the blade.  He thinks he hears a
quick shuffle of bare feet.  Wonders if Angel is standing
behind him and if so how close.  He can't feel the vampire,
so the doorway?  Or maybe just inside the doorway.  Waiting
for Wes to turn around, indignant, clutching the threads of
his tattered dignity to his chest, and demand in a
high-pitched voice that Angel leave immediately.

Wanker.

Contrary to his opinion, no one's world revolves around
Angel.  Not even Buffy's did, and she's quite dead and
rotting in the grave so even if hers HAD it hardly matters
anymore.   A petty thought unworthy of him, but it's there
and he rather likes what it means.  He's not the Wesley who
nearly bent over and begged the world to do what they
would.  As long as he could be 'one of them'.  As long as
everyone pretended he mattered to them.  Bugger that.
Didn't last long and he's hardly about to start all that up
again.  He's there in that hotel because he has a purpose
in life.

And honestly, it hasn't a damn thing to do with Angel.

Wes ignores the increasingly looming presence behind him.
Arches his neck back a bit further and slides the blade up
the exposed flesh.  Considers slicing himself, just enough
to make the blood come up, seep through the membranes and
the white foam, drip down the blade.  Angel would smell it
before he saw it.  Wes wonders if he'd drool.  Lovely
thought, that.  The big hunk of vampire, so stoic and
tough, drooling over a bit of soap tainted blood.  Of
course, it's entirely possibly that he wouldn't and Wes is
just putting far too high a lust factor on his own blood.

But.

He has seen how Angel hungers for more.  Opening up a
plastic container of pig/cow/goat blood.  Sniffing at the
liquid, his nose crinkling in distaste.  Then one of them
will walk by, Cordelia or Fred and it's that time, and he
knows.  Scents the dark heavy blood between their legs and
wants it.

Wes thinks that if he cut his cheek, or his throat, Angel
would be on him in a second.  And that would be a bit too
suicidal.  Tormenting the vampire is ever so much more fun.
This has become a ritual too, this treading a careful path
between tormenting and driving over the edge.

Angel is not the only one who lost someone.  He is not the
only one hurting.  They have all found their ways to
complete the ceremonies of grief.  He's the only one still
caught up in sour reminiscence and Wesley is damned well
tired of it.  Wes wouldn't mind so much if Angel let loose
and screamed with all that's he's lost.  As long as he
screamed.

Carefully finishes ridding his throat of tiny black bristly
hairs.  He turns on the faucet, runs the slim blade under
until the water runs clear.  Dries the blade and puts it
back in the shaving kit along with the leather sharpening
strap.  Straightens, faces the mirror again.  A neat, clean
job, barely a spot of shaving soap left on his skin.  Wes
gazes at the mirror, knowing that Angel's standing behind
him, to his right.  Stares the spot, feels something shift
behind him.  He smiles, tiny, no teeth.  Bends over as if
to pick up the towel he discarded on the floor, but shifts
around to face the still vampire.

Wesley would laugh at the expression on Angel's face if it
wouldn't ruin the glass-like silence of the morning.  Like
a memory that dies as fast as a soap bubble.  There and
gone and so terribly hard to recall.  The other man seems
torn between running, making up a good reason for being
there, and jumping Wesley.  And Wesley does not doubt for
an instant that Angel believes that he would be welcome.
Of course.  Who could deny Angel, the Brave Defender of
Fair Maidens and the occasional Handsome Knight?

He can name 6 people offhand.

Walks up to him.  Likes the way Angel steps back, as if
Wesley were something to fear.

"Is there something you want, Angel?" Wes tilts his neck to
the vampire, who falls back even more. "What, not to your
taste? Do you like them female? Or just blonde? Well, no,
there was Drusilla, wasn't there?"

"Wes, it's not what you..."

"Please, credit me with some intelligence, if not enough to
leave you to your grief and go about my business."

Wesley watches Angel process the words and try to form his
own.  It's like watching the colored gears of a tiny
machine through clear plastic.  He can see exactly what the
vampire's thinking.  Angel is trying to find a way out of
this, a way to get what he wants, or a way to turn the
situation to his advantage.  But not this time.  There are
one set of terms and they are Wesley's.

"Do you want it?" Smirks at the drop of the Adam's apple in
Angel's throat as he convulsively swallows words. Wes
slides his hands down Angel's arms to his own flannel
covered dick. Rubs his flesh through the soft cotton,
groaning as he leans back against the sink.   Cares less
about Angel noticing than about getting something out of
this mutation of his daily ritual.

"Once upon a time, I fantasized about sucking your cock,
but I've stopped. Do you know why?" Wes opens his eyes to
see brown eyes glued to his pelvis.  This could be a far
better resolution to his morning erections than his right
hand.

"Because I'm better than that." Leans into Angel, touches
lips to cold skin, kissing lightly up the jaw, small traces
of soap foam dragging onto the vampire. Whispers in his
ear.

"When was the last time someone human touched you, knowing
full well what you are? Or let you touch them?"

Steps back, grunting low at the heavy feel of his dick and
balls.  Wes walks into the bedroom, not waiting to see what
Angel does. By the time he reaches the bed, Angel is
already there, and his answer is in his eyes as he drops to
his knees, and pulls Wesley's pajama bottoms with him.

Angel on his knees.  Wide shoulders pale and silken in the
early morning light.  Good lord, heaven did sigh when this
man was made.  Wesley can admit that.  Easier to give
credit where it's due when the vampire has his face in
Wesley's crotch.  Sniffling, nuzzling, licking around his
pubic hair and thighs until Wes wants to scream 'just suck
my fucking dick, idiot,' but doesn't because there's still
that utterly lovely silence.

Then the lightest touch of tongue on his cock, cold and
wet, and Wes sighs.  And Angel sinks onto his cock like he
was made to do this.  To let this one man's dick rub
against the back of his throat.  To run big cool hands
around Wesley's ass, down the crack, rubbing at the hole.
Wes grunts, lets himself fall onto the bed.  Angel barely
loses contact with the firm flesh in his mouth, suckling at
the tip.  The vampire keeps his hands on Wes' ass, making
him squirm and thrust high and down again, trying to get
more contact with his asshole and more tongue on his dick.
He's wonderfully rewarded when Angel swallows him to the
root.  One little finger wends it's way up to Wes' mouth.
For the briefest of seconds, their eyes meet and this
becomes a moment.  Where Wesley decided whether this is
'just a blowjob' or something more and Wes takes the finger
into his mouth and puts off analyzing the act to later.
Much later.

Cold wet pressure around his cock and a wiggling finger
meeting, fuck yes, that magical spot brings Wes rolling up,
almost unseating Angel as orgasm flashes through him.
Gasps as Angel stubbornly continues to suck until Wes
hisses and pushes his head away.   Flops back and closes
his eyes.  Tries to ignore Angel's heavy body against his
legs.

Gives up the fight and looks down.  He sees this creature
who just sucked him gazing back, expressionless.  A
patented blank look cut from the pages of those who expect
to be pushed away, forgotten and unwanted.  Angel won't ask
for more, and he won't expect more.  To date, he has only
asked to not be left alone.  He likely expects to be told
to leave, without so much as a thank you.  But, he's
forgotten one thing.

Wesley isn't Angel.  And as much as he'd like to turn the
tables on the vampire, make him feel the ripping pain of
abandonment, Wesley does love him.  As much as he can love
anyone he barely knows and frequently loathes.  Friends
through shared experience and time spent together.  He
values that, if not the whole of the creature at his feet.
Can't let this creature slink back into the darkness.  He
does not always like it, but Angel is important to them
all.

Scootches down until his legs dangle off the bed and he's
face to face with Angel.  Closed-mouth kiss.  Angel doesn't
move.  Wes licks the full lips free of semen, sharp and
bitter like love.  Sucks Angel's upper lip into his mouth,
worries it with his teeth.  Draws back to find that Angel
has followed, drawing Wes into a kiss.  He gets heady in
the embrace. Realizes that Angel doesn't need to breathe
and doesn't remember that Wes does.

But Wes almost forgets to care as Angel's huge hands rub
down his back and grip his ass, bringing their cocks into
alignment.  Sharp rub and tug of distended flesh against
his now quiescent dick.  Precome slicking the way as Angel
rocks their bodies together and lets go of Wes' mouth.  He
gulps in air, rubbing his cheek against the pillow cover.
On their sides, sweat and precome loosening the friction,
Wes pants into the space between his face and Angel's.
Wants to be fucked.  Full, and thick, and very hard, he
wants Angel in him.

Leans into Angel, kisses the full lips.  And again,
whispers in Angel's ear.  Low and slurred, like he's gotta
get it out quick or he won't say it.

"You can fuck me if you want."

Sweet accepting moan against his throat.  Angel licks the
spot, sending chills down Wes' spine.  He tenses when teeth
nibble, bringing blood to the surface.  Considers that this
means more than the act for Angel.  Stuff of life, rich and
existing in such finite quantities.  Wes knows that blood
and sex are twins for vampires.  Can't imagine how Angel
has managed without either for so long.  Dance of acts
strung together, making ceremony, connection.  And Angel
needs that above all things, now.  Connection.  And of
course, now Angel knows that perfect happiness doesn't
exist and redemption is a myth.

And still he gnaws at Wes' neck, brings one arm down to
draw Wes' leg up and over his own.   Angel sucks on two
fingers, places them at the entrance to Wesley's body, and
pushes.  Wes bites his lip at the tight burn, the effort of
his body to repel the fingers.  Relaxes, breathes out and
lets the fingers in.  The moment they brush against his
prostate, he knows it will be good.  Better than good as
Angel rubs harder, faster, sending Wesley bucking into
Angel.  His cock's too spent to do much more than stir at
the buzzes of pleasure shooting through his body.

Cockhead pushes up against the tight ring of muscle, slowly
pressing in until Wesley's holding his breath.  Entirely
too full and not full enough all at the same time, like
having his arms pulled in opposite directions, his body
flying apart.  Angel presses close, begins to thrust,
slowly, as he kneads Wesley's ass.  More flesh there than
one might expect and Wes feels Angel grab on.  Thrust
harder into his body as the vampire finds his rhythm.

A hand at his cock, gripping the meat and muscle in a
tight, cool hold, fades all other thoughts.  Angel's hand
begins to jack him off, smooth fingers rubbing hot and fast
against the growing erection.  Feels the bubble grow, ride
the tight wave of pleasure.  Angel thrusting and stirring
his cock into Wesley's ass.  Owning him for the moment.
His body leans back, Angel leans in, thrusts harder until
Wesley sees the crest burst and crash, like a phoenix on
touchdown.  Cool wash of semen in his ass, and Angel
collapses against him, half covering his body as they rest.

Wesley knows the next part.  The prescribed routine of
casual sex.  'Hey, I gotta get going.  Call me sometime?'
No one ever has anyone's telephone number and suddenly a
shower becomes the most important thing.  Wrap up in clean
white terrycloth and make tea.  Enjoy the quiet of the
morning by himself, as he has every morning for almost
forever.

He'd like to do something terribly cutting.  Leave money on
the bed.  Pretend to be asleep.  Start the day without a
word and let this be a lone incident.  But the pressure of
Angel's thigh against his, and the way the vampire's hand
curves over his hip give him peace.  This is good.  This is
nice.

This is not a ritual.
 

~end~
 

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