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Title: The Power of Now
Author:alizarin-nyc
Pairing: Angel/Spike
Rating: NC-17
Setting: Future-fic



Glass Half Empty

A bloody chunk of what was once a hand sat precipitously on the cutting board. Spike glared at it. “Things have gone bad,” he said. “We’ve gone bad.”

Angel glanced up from the waitress’ neck. Blood spurted out over his face as he paused to answer Spike. It was almost comical from Spike’s perspective. “Yeah,” he said thoughtfully, “Things aren’t what they used to be.” He lowered his head and the waitress let out a whispered death moan.

“I know I say this all the time,” Spike said, picking his teeth absent-mindedly with a sliver of bone, “but this is it. I’m done. I’m going back on the wagon and I don’t care how much blood a Thresnos demon leaves behind, I’m not takin’ advantage.”

“Here we go again,” Angel said, throwing the waitress down and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. “Always the first one to stand up and say, hi, my name’s Spike and I’m an out of control vampire with insatiable bloodlust.”

“Alright, look, you don’t have to be so bloody unsupportive.” Spike picked up a severed leg and upended it so the blood dripped into a wineglass he’d picked up off the sideboard.

“You’re not going to drink that, are you? That’s disgusting.”

“Righty-ho Mr. Judgeypants. Who just killed that lovely serving girl and the chef of what was once one of Europe’s finest dining establishments?”

“Judgeypants?” Angel said, trying not to scowl like he had been accused of doing every time Spike started to sound the least bit Sunnydale. “The Thresnos killed the chef. I would have let him live, chained up and preparing our meals every night.”

“What a sophisticated savage you are,” Spike said, toasting in Angel’s general direction and sipping delicately from his glass.

“Enough of this,” Angel said. “Let’s go. I’m bored.”

“’Course you are. Sampled everything there is and nothing left. Nothing good, anyway.” Spike kicked a rubbish can and spilled the contents everywhere. “Party’s over.”

“It was over before we even got here,” Angel said. “This whole world is a fucking piece of shit.”

He wasn’t too far off, Spike thought as they blitzed down the alleyways and under the motorways of a Paris that had long since stopped being Paris. The city was a wreck, just like most other major cities, barring the those that had been walled in and shut off. Some of Spike's favorite cities had become a series of wealthy islands of militant near-dictatorship while the outside went to hell. Paris was one of the last Western cities to go under, the French claiming liberte ou la mort or whatever the fuck, and la mort it had been for most.

The year 2219 was one of the suckiest Spike had ever had to endure.

Angel was good at picking run-down hotels to camp out in and this one had a lovely view of the Champs-Elysees but not of the scorched spindles of metal that had once been the Eiffel Tower. People ran up and down screaming all night long, but it was relatively quiet in the daytime, so Spike gave it three stars.

They climbed the stairs together, exhausted. The sky was steel colored and flat, like an old nickel. The bed creaked under Angel’s weight.

“Move over, you big oaf,” Spike grumbled. “Can’t spend another century sharing a bed with you if you’re going to be selfish an’ all.”

“You can get your own room. I’ll even bust down the door for you,” Angel said, rolling over and taking the mound of blankets and sheets with him. His hair, less spiky but still annoying, stuck out of the cozy burrow he’d created. Spike hated him.

He stomped out to the balcony and lit up. For someone who didn't need to breathe, Angel was constantly up his arse about second-hand smoke. It was like having a wife that you never got to shag. It was a whole new level of hell as far as Spike was concerned.


Grim Gimmicks

Shanghai was a decadent wreck. It was now probably one of the most liberal cities on the planet besides Khartoum and New Rio, of course.

“You know what they say about Chinamen,” Spike said, licking his lips and letting a handsome youth drop dead at his feet. “They taste like chicken.”

“I don’t know if that's racist or just stupid,” Angel said, rolling his eyes. His shirtfront was covered in blood and the silk-black hair of his victim fanned out over his arm.

“I know I always say this,” Spike began.

“But you're going on the wagon and this is your last kill, you feel really, really terrible.” Angel delivered his mimicry and then bent his head again to the lovely Chinese woman who had chosen to take an unfortunate stroll with her boyfriend after the sun had set. Not that the sun mattered anymore. Pollution covered the planet like a wet blanket and it was a good thing that vampires didn’t have living lungs or they’d be dead by forty.

Vampires could now prance around all day and all night. But most of the vampire population had been wiped out by other, more terrible species. Shanghai was overrun with demons, but for the most part, everyone was still having a good time. So much so that Angel and Spike could go on about their usual business.

“I really do feel terrible,” Spike said. He did. That was the downside of having a soul. Even when he and Angel went back to their old wicked ways, broken by longevity and loss, the soul was still there, sitting pretty and not going anywhere anytime soon.

“Now that I'm full, how about we get some drinks?” Angel said. Angel was always looking for the next thing to take his mind off it all. He'd get as drunk as a vampire could get, then he'd hit the strip clubs. He'd shoot heroin if it still existed. He'd kill and then kill again and then beat Spike up for good measure. Whatever he was after, he hadn't gotten it yet. And Spike was starting to find it tiresome.

But he never turned down a drink.

“Forbidden City?” he asked, citing Angel's usual Shanghai strip joint. The girls were synthetic robotic half-clones, but who cared?

“Yeah,” Angel said. His eyes fell short of lighting up and his face simply crinkled like a greasy bit of fish wrap. “Yeah.”


Next Year, In Jerusalem

“They never tell you in Vampire 101 just how much time you're going to spend bored out of your fucking mind.”

Spike was lying in a patch of scratchy grass under a freestanding stone archway in the ruins of Jerusalem in the New Protected Territories in what was once the Middle East. It wasn't very well protected, as it happened. Angel and Spike had taken out 20 Landkeeper soldiers on their way in. They thought it would be somewhat of a challenge. They thought it would be fun.

“This isn't fun at all,” Spike said, hauling himself up to play hopscotch on the chalky stones. “Where are all the tasty religious numpties that go so good with hummus?”

Angel sat staring down into the underbelly of Jerusalem, the bowels of the city built on cities. “This place is all about destroy-and-rebuild,” he said. “Destruction in the name of religious belief. They tear down churches, mosques, the whole city, and then put their own on top. Might makes right, the rest be damned.”

“Deep thoughts, peaches.”

“Now look at it. It’s all gone,” Angel continued, ignoring Spike. “Decimated this time around by more firepower than God himself could muster.” In 2082, war had broken out between the Arab world and the Western world and in the end, no one won. And miles of once tractable land was rendered unlivable.

Angel had dropped his head so far it looked like his neck might snap. His fingertips were coated with dried blood and white dust.

“No one can worship here now. Not even if their god was actually listening. We can’t appreciate the history. We can’t learn from it. They wiped it off the face of the earth.” Angel looked up at Spike. “Why?”

“It’s in their nature,” Spike said, dropping down to sit beside him, resisting the urge to put his arm around Angel’s great big poufty shoulders.

“Our nature, yeah. But theirs?”

“We’re the same mate. One and the same.”


All is Vanity

Spike threw a leg over the barstool and perched there with a face full of menace until he got some service.

The dark-haired young man patiently listed the whiskeys available and their toxicity levels along with the calories (it was Buenos Aires after all, a very vain city even in hard times).

Spike knocked back three glasses before he could even begin to brood. He’d look for trouble later.

Fact of it was, he wanted more from Angel. And wanting anything from Angel was a long, dark road to disappointment. They’d been traveling around now for well over a century. A century was nothing in the long haul. Sunnydale was long done and dusted. It was so far in the past, it was starting to become blurry around the edges. And yet it was still a part of whatever was going on between him and Angel.

It had been easier to get Buffy in bed than Angel, and that was really saying something.

He was not a friend, not a lover, still a nemesis; they argued, they fought, they bit each other in fury and frustration. Spike had broken the bones in his hand twice in the past month by punching Angel in the face. And the three days it took for those bones to knit back into place meant no wanking and then he was really frustrated.

Still, Spike could feel the beginnings of a tiny spark of happiness in his addled brain when he thought about how Angel would appear every night in their tiny tin shack in La Boca, arms full of whatever he’d stolen from ships passing through the harbor. To keep a low profile, they’d had to eat more rats and possums than was really healthy, but the occasional artist wandered by and attempted to paint an apocalyptic mural on their corrugated metal walls.

Angel was off the wagon with no intention of going back, not to mention Argentineans were a tasty people, wine-flavored, earthy, with spice. Some nights together were downright romantic, but it seemed Spike was the only one who noticed.

Six more whiskeys went down and Spike was bored with brooding about Angel. The doe-eyed bartender had been sizing him up so Spike indulged him.

“See anything you like?”

“Plenty,” the fellow answered, “just seems your mind is elsewhere at the moment.” The kid had a lilting Boston-South African accented English.

“You’re observant,” Spike said. “You’ve got my attention now.”

“But for how long?” the kid teased. Hauw leaong? “What’s he got that I haven’t got?”

“The ability to say no to me for years.”

“Sounds like a real tough sort. Doesn’t he like boys?”

“Yeah, tough guy, and as for boys, men, girls, whatever, it’s hard to see he’s into anything at all these days.” Spike pondered Angel’s sexuality which had appeared dormant for the last few decades. “Likes a bit of girl tail, enjoys the strip clubs. The blondes make him nostalgic.”

“Treat you well though?”

“S’not really like that. We’re sort of like partners in crime. Enemies who have no other friends, family and we hang together out of habit. We only fight because we'd rather be fucking, s’what I think, but he doesn’t know that.”

“What do you think he’d do if you come home smelling like sweat and sex?”

“Let’s find out,” Spike grinned at the kid and the kid grinned back.

In a storage closet full of liquor, Spike stripped him down and greased him up and then fucked him hard against the bars of a metal cabinet, rattling all the bottles inside. The kid’s ringed fingers clanked against the glass, beating out a rhythm for Spike to follow as he drilled into him.

“Bloody bastard,” Spike gasped. “Ponce.”

“You’re not talking to me, are you?” the kid asked.

“Shut. Up.”

Eventually, Spike left the kid panting and satisfied, and he collapsed half-dressed to the floor. “You’re a sexy enough bloke,” he said in the dulcet tones of post-coital bliss. “Why pine for this one when you could shag what’s left of the whole damn world?”

“I’m immortal,” Spike said, hating that he sounded like a tragic soap opera star. “I’ve had enough lovers die on me. He’s the only one that won’t. We’re two of a kind, he and I. It’s him or it’s no one, and believe me, I’ve tried to think of every alternative and permutation there is.”

“Vampires in love. Can’t say I see too much of that these days.”

“We’re a dying breed. From a classier era. A bygone age.”

“God.” The kid actually rolled his eyes.

“Wish there was one,” Spike said. He stood up, buttoned his jeans. He plucked a bottle of whiskey from the cabinet. “On the house, yeah?” The kid smiled.


The Power and the Glory

New Rio had changed since their last visit in 2109. It really wasn’t new anymore. Dragon worshipers had finally replaced the O Cristo Redentor statue with a very large, very ugly stone dragon in 2090, but now it was missing one of its giant wings and its face was gouged from exposure to shrapnel. Dogfighters flew overhead day and night and all of Angel’s favorite dives were boarded up and had joined the creep of favelas pouring down the hills and tumbling into the water.

Gunfire shattered their eardrums and sleep was impossible. They searched for a place to shelter, even for a few hours. The skies opened up and rain dive-bombed them.

“This sucks,” Spike grumbled as they sat in an abandoned bus stop and watched people running back and forth like wet rats. They’d offered to bite anyone who stayed there with them, so only one man sat waiting on the bench next to them. He was about to die, but he was dry.

“I told you we should have stayed in Cartagena. They were good to us there.”

“Look your highness,” Angel snapped. “Sorry this isn’t your cup of tea. We’ll head back toward Sao Paulo in a couple of days.”

“Damn right it’s not my cuppa. Don’t know why you have this wanderlust anyway. You’re not going to find what you’re looking for.”

Angel rounded on him and before Spike could stand up, he started swinging. “And how would you even know what I’m looking for?” A sharp blow landed on Spike’s cheek, splitting the skin. Dammit. The last scratches from a scrap near Puerto Iguazú had just finished healing. Their meal decided he’d be better off alive and soaking wet because he scampered off between the shanties and disappeared.

Spike flew into a frenzy of punches and kicks. His trusty leather duster swung out around him as his boot connected with Angel’s head. That head was enormous. “I know what you're looking for. You can't keep all your bloody secrets, much as you'd like to think you can.”

Angel wasn’t about to go down, he was a mountain himself. The New Rians could build a shanty town on his shoulders. Spike could shelter there, too, had wanted to for years.

Angel said nothing. He dodged Spike's blows like a ballet dancer, and Spike had forgotten how Angel could be beautiful like that.

“I know you're looking for a Slayer.”

His fist connected with Angel’s nose and finally got some blood to flow. It was bright red and colored the pools at his feet. They’d moved from the shelter of the bus stop and rain sliced down, got in Spike’s mouth, tasted metallic and ashy.

“I just don't know why. Ours have been dead for years.”

Angel picked up his game and started raining blows on Spike. Spike felt his face turn to bloody pulp as Angel beat him. Angel's game face was full blown, his knuckles shredding. Their coats tore away and lay in the road like tiny black animals. Spike fell and felt the sharp rocks of the road dig into his back. Everyone he'd ever loved was gone. Everyone but Angel.

Angel spat. “I'm not looking for a Slayer to fuck.” He turned away and looked at the sky, darker now as night bled into it. “A Slayer to kill me.”

Rain mixed with blood ran down Angel’s neck. It reminded Spike of how he’d looked over two hundred years ago in an alley in Los Angeles. Spike kipped up from the road and flew at Angel, snarling with rage. Why don't we just kill each other? He lost track of himself for a while, falling down, blind, getting up again and assaulting Angel with everything in him. He scratched Angel's face and kicked him in the stomach. Angel threw him into a low, crumbling wall and then stabbed him with a broken bicycle spoke.

At some point the noises Angel made sounded more like sobs than curses and the punches started to wane. Spike should have, if he’d been following the formula, kicked Angel’s ribs in and scrambled around for something sharp. But he didn’t.

The last punch dropped in midair and Angel collapsed into Spike’s open arms. Spike held on tight. And for once, Angel let him.

Spike pulled Angel in, dragged him, so they were both leaning on the burnt-out hull of an old car. The car shivered beneath them, and Spike put his hand on the back of Angel's neck and kissed him. He meant it to be bruising and painful, but the fight was leaving him, too. Angel could have easily pulled back, but he let Spike kiss him, let Spike hold him in place.

Somehow they managed to hold onto each other and climb inside the car. The backseat was really less a seat, more a thin skin over metallic springs. Spike fell back and Angel braced over him, mouths meeting again, over and over, licking blood and rain.

At one point, Angel pulled back and looked Spike in the face. “You keep looking,” Spike said. “No more bullshit. You look at me, you be with me, we’ll go on.” Angel shook his head as if to say can’t go on, but Spike said, “It’s going to be so much better now,” and kissed him again, ran his hands up and down Angel’s torso, and bucked up underneath him so the big oaf might one day get a clue.

Spike shuffled out of his jeans and boots and what was left of his shirt. He yanked at a large tear in Angel’s shirt and the material came away in his hands. Angel was bruised and bloody, and Spike didn’t even want to think about what his own face looked like now. As long as his lips and dick would work, he could get his point across to Angel.

He didn’t have to do much messaging. Angel kissed his way down Spike’s chest and rubbed his damp hands along Spike’s thighs, kneading and spreading them. Then he lifted Spike’s legs up as far as they’d go and put his head between them and licked a long, wide stripe along Spike’s balls. “Christ!” Spike yelled. Angel went down and kept going, tonguing his arse and if he puts his tongue there… Spike thought.

“Oh God, Angel, you’ve got to stop, it’s been…” And Angel’s tongue delved into him and the sensation pushed Spike right over the edge. He came, folded up in the backseat of a burnt out car, seeing stars in a storm-covered sky. Angel didn’t miss a beat, he coated his cock with Spike’s come and stroked himself while Spike’s brain cleared. “Don’t mess about, Angel. Fuck me already.” Angel laughed, but the look in his eyes was dark, intense, and this was what Spike had wanted for so long, and what was Angel waiting for?

“What are you waiting for?”

“I want to make it good,” Angel said.

Spike looked at him incredulously. “You are kidding me.” But there was no denying the gentleness of the nudge that was obviously Angel’s cock. Angel ran a hand over Spike’s head and gripped the hair in back. Spike bowed beneath him, legs akimbo, pliant as hell. Finally Angel pushed his cock inside and Spike groaned and thrashed and it was entirely possible he’d come again. Angel fucked him almost delicately at first, soothing strokes that gained in momentum as he lost control. Spike got a fist on his cock and they worked together in tandem until Angel said, “God, it’s good, so good. I never knew.”

“Your loss mate," Spike gasped. "I knew we’d be fucking amazing.” He came, spurting again over his chest and squeezing around Angel’s cock until he felt a rush of heat as Angel came, the relief etched on his face barely visible but definitely memorable.


Tarde Venientibus Ossa
To the Latecomers Are Left the Bones

Spike and Angel broke into some houses to find new clothes. They also picked up bandages and sunglasses. They fed on some rats but left a group of orphaned kids alone with their broken dolls and vacant eyes.

“That’s no way to start the day,” Angel said and turned away.

They were ready to get out of New Rio, so a car was next on the shopping list. A little harder to get, but they broke into military installation and stole a jeep. They felt better about that.

“Not Sao Paulo,” Spike said as Angel drove them away, tires squealing and soldiers in pursuit. “It can be such a bureaucratic nightmare.”

“No. Not Sao Paulo,” Angel answered, ducking as a bullet shattered through the rear view window. “I was thinking the western coastline of Nicaragua. It’s beautiful there, I hear. And they still have beer. And hammocks.”

“Who are you and what have you done with your broodypants?”

Angel turned to him as they drove out of range of the bullets. “I think I'll give up on my Slayer hunt. So what about a vacation?”

“Again I ask, who the bloody hell are you?”

“Spike. I... Look. It's just you and me now, isn't it?"

“’S what I’ve been trying to tell you for years, you ass.”

"I never listen to you, you should know that."

"Again I say, your loss. Nicaragua sounds good. Overrun with mosquitoes but that doesn't really have much to do with us."

Angel spun the wheel and gunned the jeep. Spike's teeth rattled. He bitched, he moaned, he insulted Angel's driving skills and called him fat. Angel pulled over and they had sex again.

It was a whole new world.

-end

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