a.connor  a.doyle  a.lindsey  a.oz  a.spike  a.wesley  a.xander  a.other  three.somes  het.fic  character.study           
Title : Spring Thaw
Author : Mer
Pairing: A/S
Rating : NC-17
Setting: Through 'Damage'


"To what purpose, April, do you return again?"

"Don't call me April, mate. Makes me sound like a douche." Spike put his feet up on Angel's desk, a wasted gesture since Angel didn't bother to look away from the window he stood at.

"And I return to check myself out of the Wolfram and Hart double amputee ward. Ta very much for the blood and sympathy, but I've got things to do, blondes to save, helpless to help, you know you can stop me any time now."

Spike waved his hands about. Least they were still good for that. Angel still didn't turn or talk, so Spike fed him his cue. "Get out of here, Spike."

"Get out of here, Spike," repeated Angel dully.

"Right, that's it." Spike bounced to his feet, looped his arm through Angel's and started to walk towards the door. The immobile bulk snapped him back and made his scar ache, but Spike ignored it. At least Angel was looking at him now.

"What do you think you're doing?"

"Getting out of here. Getting you out of here. This place is eating you alive, Angel, and I'm speaking as the bloke who had to teach it some table manners just the other week."

"I've got things to do." Angel shook his head, the decisive way that his whole team knew was the last word without the bother of actually speaking one.

Lucky Spike wasn't on his poncy little team. "Yeah, I can see you've got some very important surveillance going on. What're you looking at, anyway?"

"Leaves."

"Harmony!" Spike's bellow was a spot-on imitation of the big man, if he did say so himself.

Harmony came running in, knockers bouncing, looking to Angel of course. "Yes Boss-y?"

Spike gestured grandly at the window and the budding trees far below. "Angel has an appointment. Watch these leaves until he gets back."

"Sure thing, boss," she said as if Angel had spoken through Spike like a ventriloquist's dummy. She pulled up a chair and settled herself into it importantly.

Spike swept out of the office as Harmony's face puckered in puzzlement. "Wait, why? Are they monster leaves? Angel?"

Spike chuckled as Angel's hurried steps caught up to him. Angel might loathe Spike to the depths of his I-had-it-first soul, but he'd still rather eat live coals than try to explain something to Harmony.

*

As soon as they were well into his apartment and the door closed behind them, Spike caught Angel's collar and tore his (black, linen/silk blend, the old bugger did himself well) shirt right down the center. He savored the pitter patter of a rain of expensive buttons on crappy linoleum.

"What the hell?" Angel blustered. Spike didn't bother to speak, just herded Angel backwards till his legs bumped up against the edge of that cold, knobby single bed. Not as though there was so far to go. For a man who could take a rebar through the ribs without changing expression, Angel seemed oddly flustered by Spike's bare hands reaching for his chest.

"Lie down," said Spike.

"We don't - I don't do that anymore. I don't even like you!" Angel objected. "Bad enough you're fucking my secretary whenever you feel like it. She brings my coffee smelling like you in heat. It's disgusting."

Spike pushed his tongue forward just enough to taste the air after that humiliating admission. "Remember it, huh."

"In my nightmares."

"Don't like you either. Might've mentioned that once or twice. Lie down, Angel."

Spike gave Angel a shove in the shoulder and almost fell with him from the shock of the contact. His new hands - same old hands -- felt like they'd been sanded down to the quick. Every touch was like a sound in the dark, huge out of all proportion.

The demon doctor had muttered something about hypersensitivity and cutting close to nerves. Spike wished he could remember how long he said it would last. At the time Spike had been too busy keeping up his poker face at that first real rasp of gauze. Immediate, physical proof that he wasn't going back to being a ghost: pain was worlds better than nothing. In the day since he'd touched glass, brushed concrete, Fred's hair, and Wesley's leather jacket. But not Angel - not since he'd come back the first time. And not skin.

Angel's shoulders hit and bounced. The thin mattress squeaked in protest. Spike, for no reason he could think of, blushed. Not like he'd picked the bloody bed, but it wasn't much compared to the acre of feathers Angel had back at the evil ranch. If you have to lie in the bed you make, Angel had the better end of the bargain.

Except for the huge spreading bruise, more grey than blue, that still hung on just below his ribs despite vampire healing. Say what you will about Spike's crappy bed, it didn't have bed bugs that turned you into a vegetable.

Spike reached into his pocket and pulled out a jar. That tiny thing had cost the car Angel thought he'd totaled. This had better be good.

Spike straddled Angel - because it was a single bed, Doyle be damned, and there was no place else to sit with Angel's big corpse taking up all the room.

"I said we don't do this, Spike," said Angel, and the voice was dangerous now, but the hands like slabs of beef lay still on the scratchy woolen blanket.

He rocked his hips into Angel's. Angel wasn't hard. Spike could feel his grin slipping off his face. A little hypocrisy would give him something to sink his teeth into. Harder to work with not giving a shit, but Spike had lots of practice.

"You have no idea what this is." Spike unscrewed the lid and dipped his fingertips into the jar. It burned like sunshine. He began to spread the ointment over Angel's bruise in a careful almost-spiral, the way the mage had taught him with finger paints. Talked a lot of psychobabble about labyrinths and mazes and walking backwards through the memories to undo the Selminth's damage. For a moonlighting kindergarten teacher, she sounded almost like Dru. Spike had nodded along till they got to the good part.

Angel's eyes popped wide open, and he screamed. There was the good part, right on time.

Spike's hands closed around Angel's wrists to hold him down. It was the first time since they'd been reattached that he'd tried to hold onto anything. The muscles and tendons shifted and strained, and Spike groaned with the effort. Angel joined him. Angel's body bucked and Spike went flying across the room and hit the wall with a thump. A little rain of plaster fell on his head.

"Bugger that." Spike pulled himself to his feet and tackled the bed, and the struggling vampire on it, again. If strength wouldn't cut it, he'd just have to try smarts - he had Angel beat in that department, hands down.

"It burns," Angel whispered. Spike winced. He caught Angel's hands in his, a twisted parody of Buffy just back from the grave. "I know. Hold on."

Angel's hands tightened around Spike's until he felt the bones grind together.

"Where are you?" Spike asked.

"In a field. In the sun."

"Well get in the shade, you git. No wonder you're burning up." Spike huffed, exasperated.

"Not… that. Feels nice. Like gold… like Buffy."

"That'll be enough of that," Spike interrupted. "Get to the burning part."

"It's like a rope. Tied to my ribs. It's pulling me."

"Why don't you follow it?"

"Too much trouble. Want to stay here. Be done."

Spike wished he had a third hand to slap Angel across the face. "You want to stay here with me yammering at you for all eternity?"

"Get your own field! There's only the one chair, and you can't have it!"

There was a long pause. "All right, I'm going," said Angel. "Jesus, are you going to follow me everywhere and ruin my life?"

Spike thought about it. "Looks like," he said.

Angel whimpered in pain. Spike looked down at his crushed hands and felt like joining him.

"Where are you now?"

"At Caritas… I think. No, the wild west. Lorne has a mustache."

In spite of the pain, Spike couldn't help but laugh. "What are you doing there?"

"Singing."

"This is hell, isn't it," said Spike. "Oh, go on then. It can't be any worse than the time you sang The Tipperary Bull for two weeks straight."

It was worse. Angel writhed his way through Freebird as though his feet were being held to the fire. Spike considered it only fair.

"Keep going," he urged, before Angel could begin another song. "Where are you now?"

"In the office."

"No you're not. I took you out of there, remember?"

Angel's monolithic brow wrinkled in confusion. "Oh, yeah," he said finally.

"So where are you?"

Angel's eyes focused on Spike's for the first time. "In bed. With you."

"Well," drawled Spike. "Isn't that all kinds of interesting." He took a chance on yanking his hands from Angel's, and ran his fingers down over Angel's bare chest, sliding the torn shirt off to trace the muscles of Angel's arms. "What am I doing?"

"Having sex with Buffy."

Angel sounded so petulant and hurt that Spike couldn't resist leaning in to nip at his throat. That always used to make Angelus smile - when it didn't make him backhand Spike across the room. And it's not like Angel would remember in the morning.

"That feel like I'm having sex with - someone else?"

"N-no." Spike could feel Angel's cock hardening even through two layers of suddenly too-tight fabric. He really shouldn't… fuck it. Spike fumbled for the zipper and reached in to take Angel's cock in his hand. To his sensitized fingers it felt like sandwashed silk over stone.

"Are you still burning?"

"Yes."

Spike hesitated. Damned stupid guilt.

But then Angel added, "Always, since the soul."

Well in that case. A few more minutes wouldn't make any difference.

Spike wriggled out of his own jeans, and parted Angel's legs, nearly falling off the slender bed in the process. He stopped short - no lube in this damned monk's cell - and then grinned. There was just enough ointment left in the jar. Hardly what the directions called for, but then Spike was never one for following the rules.

He slicked his aching erection, gasping at the tingle, and then slowly slid himself where no vamp had gone before. "Ah, fuck."

Angel squirmed. It looked strange on him, as out of place as a Hawaiian shirt, but it felt …incredible.

"Hurts."

Spike froze. Not that, not again. "Want me to stop?"

Angel growled and his eyes lit gold.

Spike grinned. "I'll take that as a no."

In his imagination, when he topped Angel, Angel lay there and took it like the boy William had, once upon a time. The truth was different. Angel's hands locked on his hips, his mouth locked on Spike's throat, and Spike had about as much control as a traffic accident. Not that he was complaining. Being bent in ways he didn't know a spine could go was a small price to pay. Between the cream and the friction, Angel was hot as a human inside, and tighter than Spike had ever dreamed of. His hands slid everywhere, a jumble of delights intense as pain to his confused nerves. Someone was keening, and Spike didn't know or care who it might be.

When he came to himself again, the bed was bigger than Spike remembered. He was curled up on Angel's shoulder - Angel's selfish sprawl was taking up most of the king sized mattress.

"Told you I'd make you feel it," Spike said.

Angel's eyes were closed, but he nodded.

"Numb kills, like frostbite," Spike said. "Blood always hurts coming back. Pins and needles and hot pokers. Means you're waking up. Time to get up, Angel. Sap always rises in spring."

"Spike?"

"Yeah?"

"Shut up. I'm trying to sleep."

"Pain is better than feeling nothing," Spike persisted. "She taught me that." Spike gestured at Buffy, who got up from the bed.

"I'm sorry, William," she said, and turned into a bear.

"Um, pet?" said Spike, but then Fred walked into the room.

"Hi Spike!" she said, and started taking everything but the kitchen sink out of Angel's chest: a goldfish, which Buffy took away with her, a license plate, a handful of raisins, and a pearl necklace, which cracked Spike up until it was a good thing he didn't have to breathe.

When she pulled out the heart Spike sobered up abruptly. "Take it back," he hissed in Angel's ear. Angel moaned, because that was always useful.

"It's just a dried up old walnut!" said Fred.

Spike ignored her. "Angel, it's your heart. Bloody well take it back."

"I can't."

"You can. Just reach out your hand."

"I can't move. I'm so tired."

Spike poked Angel hard in the belly. He let out a surprised "oof" and opened his eyes. "Are you ever gonna let me rest in peace?"

"Not if I can help it."

"Fine." Angel's hand shot out and grabbed Fred's wrist. He squeezed until she cried out and her hand opened. Too fast to see, Angel's hand released her and caught the nut. "I've got it!"

He turned to Spike triumphantly and opened his hand - to show a tiny pile of shards, where the shell cracked from the force of his grip.

"It's broken," said Angel desolately.

Spike smiled a little sadly. "That's all right," he said, "you have to break them to get to the sweet part."

*

When Spike woke up, he was sprawled on Angel's chest and Angel was snoring in his ear. How he could snore without breathing was surely one of the mysteries of the ages. Bloody Watcher's Council ought to do a paper. Spike made a mental note to ask Wesley - maybe they already had.

The bed sagged from their weight, and creaked when Spike shifted, his softening cock slipping free.

Angel woke up and blinked.

"Spike!" He roared. "What the hell did you do to me?"

He threw Spike off him like a blanket, and Spike landed in a heap at the foot of the bed. He grinned insolently up at Angel. "Three guesses."

Angel stood and kicked him in the ribs. "If you fucking even think of setting me up like that again…"

Spike scrambled to his feet. "Hey, it's not my fault you can't hold your liquor." He put on a bleary, beery Irish accent. "Once more, me lad, for old times sake."

Angel belted him in the jaw for old time's sake. Spike kicked him in the shins, and they had a proper turn up for a couple of minutes, knocking over most of what passed for Spike's furniture in the process.

"Oy, not the TV!"

Angel dropped his fist. "You've gone soft."

Spike grinned. You don't know the half of it, he thought. "You break it, you bought it," he said instead.

"I bought it anyway. You think I don't know about you getting into Harmony's petty cash?"

"Just think of me as Robin Hood."

"Robin Hood gave to the poor."

"I am the sodding poor. Not like you expense account types."

Angel wasn't listening. He was rooting around for his pants and pulling them up over his hips. He didn't bother with the ruined shirt. "If you even think of blackmailing me with this, Spike, I will make sure Fred hears every detail of the robot story."

Spike pretended to pout. Angel kicked the empty jar out of the way and went hunting for his shoes. "What was that stuff, anyway?" Angel asked idly. "Smells worse than Ben Gay."

Spike shrugged and looked away. "New Age herbal mumbo jumbo. Had to have some excuse to get you in my bed, didn't I?"

"Idiot," Angel said.

Spike nodded feelingly. Had to be, didn't he, to give up a perfectly good classic car for this and not even take the credit.

"Feeling better?" he asked.

Angel looked surprised. "Actually, yeah. Beating the shit out of you must be good stress relief."

"You even talk like a bleeding CEO now," Spike complained. "Stress relief, for fuck's sake. Want some decaf espresso with a twist of lemon too?"

Angel nodded smugly. "Yeah, you can fetch my coffee, boy."

If he was surprised when Spike actually did wander off to the kitchen and come back with something in his best - only -- mug, Angel was too much of a cool hand to betray it. Probably the stuck up bastard chalked it up to his old training, as if a hundred years wouldn't be enough to get that Pavlov's bell out of his ears. Well, mostly.

Angel tasted what was in the cup and then threw it at Spike's head. Spike ducked and it shattered against the wall. Angel would pay for that, Spike decided.

"Fuck you, Spike. This is my town and my mission. You want to help, fine. But you try to take it from me again and you'll drink pain to the dregs."

Angel stomped out. The corner of Spike's mouth twitched. The old man sounded more like himself already. Make that Angelus at his most pompous. Pity about the sex, but he had memories enough to last a while. Spike settled back against the pillows and closed his eyes. His fingers sought out the torn edges of linen and silk, and he breathed in the scent of come and Mountain Dew and rosemary.


-End


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