Spike City Chapter 11
A short, but pivotal chapter. I'll try to make up for it next time. My muse and I have been arguing and I'm losing.
Wonderful, dramatic manip by the amazing zoesmith
Chapter 11
Outside the partially cracked bedroom window, an indolent rain matched the steady slurp of Angel’s mouth moving with purpose on Spike’s prick. The suction built an overpowering ache that pooled and washed up through his guts to his chest, hardening his nipples.
“Wha...?”
Spike mumbled his eloquently dazed acquiescence at waking to find his cock wrapped in juicy heat, tongue lapping his slit. His hips canted, and he lay an arm across his eyes, focusing all his attention on the glide of Angel’s encompassing lips.
Never before. He’d never been touch like this before, with gentleness, with concern. Not as a boy. Not as a man. He fell into the depths of his mind, searching for something-not sexual-but anything, just a word or a gesture from his past that meant he mattered. Spike’s mother had kicked him out at the age of fourteen with the excuse she had too many mouths to feed, and he was big enough to take care of himself.
Take care of himself. That was a bloody laugh.
He’d lived on scraps, kipped in roach-infested squats that would have made a wino blanch, fought his way up from nothing with fists and rage. When the rage finally chilled to ice, that’s when he’d come into his own, when he’d driven the last softness from his insides. The cold men wanted him then. Spike was their weapon. First with fists. Later, death was his gift. They needed what he had to offer, and they paid him well for it. He was top of the game. Dosh gave him swanky digs and luscious fucks, all the booze he could drink, and Drusilla there to bleed him when the darkness made it too hard to breathe.
Nothing and nobody gave him kindness.
Spike was of a mind to shove Angel off, the blow job pulling him loose from his moorings, making him feel things that confused the hell out of him. The exertions of yesterday still crashed through his body: the rough finish of Harris, the desperate shag on his return to the apartment.
Best get the fuck out of this sodding bed and quit playin’ Romeo and Juli-fucking-et with the pouf.
A hand smoothed across Spike’s lower belly, petting him, distracting his attention, holding him in place. Another worried at his bush, a kitten-soft kneading of hair, accompanying the dirty nursed-on feeling that made Spike’s legs splay wider and his thighs begin to shake.
Fuckfuckfuck. He lost the train of thought telling him to get the hell out of there for another, more urgent one.. Gonna give you cream for your breakfast in a minute now, luv, he crooned in silent gasps, orgasm building nicely.
With no warning, Angel bit him, a barely-there sink of teeth into hard flesh, on the razor’s edge of the kind of pain that could make Spike spill in swift, wild desperation if he didn’t do something to stop it happening quickly. His purpose faltered, torn between getting away from Angel’s tenderness and losing himself in its encompassing maelstrom.
“Sweet Jesus. Pet!” He bit his lower lip, while the mouth pulling at him set his balls on fire. Desperately, he searched for a distraction. “What you doing today, ‘sides me?” he managed in a choked voice.
He lifted his arm to gaze at the man swallowing his dick, a helpless gasp of enjoyment escaping before he reluctantly groped downwards and caught hold of Angel’s ears, pulling him off with a slobbery plop of broken suction.
“Hear what I said?”
A darkly tousled head lifted. “You want me to stop sucking you off?” The questioner was mildly amazed. “Thought I was doing a pretty good job. Maybe you need to go back to the hospital. You could still be suffering from a concussion. Lay down, and I’ll make a thorough examination.”
Angel’s open grin did something cruel to the region where Spike’s heart use to be. It made him all the more determined to get his arse out of there pronto.
“Yeah, sweets. You’re doing real good. Brain’s intact and all. Just wanted to know your plans for a rainy Monday.”
“Why’s that? You goin’ somewhere?”
At Spike’s irritated twitch, Angel shrugged in resignation.
“Planned to start working on my Pulitzer, while you lay around in bed and look...beat up and sexy as hell.” When Spike only pursed his lips in the ghost of a kiss, Angel continued. “It’s past time. I’ve got the twitches. I know Porferro won’t dare come after me. The cops would trace it straight back to him, and he’d still be up Shit Creek. I just get...jumpy before I write a big story. Now can we get back to more important things?” Angel licked his lips and wiggled his eyebrows ridiculously, teeth gleaming a smile in the dampened light. “Unless you need something. Cigarettes? Snacks? Me? I’m your gofer. I wanna pamper you, you frekking idjit. Don’t ask me why.”
The last bits were said with an Irish lilt to them that had Spike snickering his arse off. It was the worst accent he’d ever heard, and for a moment, he forgot his building frustration.
“Who’s calling who and idjit? Idjit!” He shot back.
“Interrupting the best blow you ever had to ask dumb questions? I’d say it was you who fit the bill. Must be those stuck-up English genes. You’re a heathen, me darlin’, and a moron to boot.”
“Hey! Enough with the Mick insults. Don’t go bloody Paddy on me, mate. Bog-trottin’ prat in a white collar is what you are, and what you’ll die as. Too dumb to stay out of the fucking rain.” Spike looked away, expression closed, the earlier humor in his voice trailing off. “‘Sides, what I want, you can’t get for me.”
Angel’s brow furrowed. Never having known Spike, in their short acquaintance, to speak so sharply or turn down sex, he was flummoxed, not only by the growing determination he could read on Spike’s face, but by the strange significance that underlined his reply.
“It suddenly occurs to me, I don’t know shit about you, Mr. Strong Silent Type. Here I am, talking my ass off, and giving you great head, by the way, out of the generosity of my heart, and I don’t even know who you are, what you do for a living.” When Spike only stared at him steadily, Angle barked a short laugh. “Who are you, Spike? Tinker, tailor, soldier....”
“Spy. How ‘bout if I’m a spy?” Spike asked the question with a certain amount of snide defiance, almost as though he meant it.
Angel blinked “A spy? Riiight. You’re a spy? Okay, I’ll bite. Who are you spying for? Which side? The good guys or the bad?”
The weight of the air changed. There was a hint of sulphur on the breeze coming through the window. Outside a stark heat flash lit the sky, followed by the grumble of thunder, still too far away to do more than skitter through Angel’s bloodstream, making him feel twitchy about the approaching storm.
He repeated his query lightly. “Good or bad?”, waiting for an equally joking reply-one that didn’t come.
“The bad, pet.” Spike’s narrowed gaze held a note of contempt. “Was there ever any doubt? M’one of the bad lads. The Devil’s Brigade. You know the kind. Sort who stood your bully boys up against brick walls in the Olde Country, and blew their empty, fucking Irish melons apart.”
“That’s not funny.”
“Wasn’t tryin’ to be funny. S’the way of it. If you don’t know that by now, you bloody well should. Live in a cold, cruel world. The both of us. Look at the corruption you’re writin’ ‘bout. S’dirty, ugly, and real as it gets. Don’t you think that Porferro bloke would swat you like a buzzin’ insect if you caught his eye? M’sure he’s got the grease to smooth over just about anything, ‘cluding your bloody corpse rollin’ in with the surf.”
Spike pushed Angel aside and flung himself from the bed, so full of anger at the reporters’s clueless stupidity, he wanted to smash something to splinters. Wanted to drag the naked punter up by the hair and slap his face until his blinkers fell off.
“Angel. Christ, you can’t be that naive.”
“Who’s naive?” Angel was beginning to work up a gut-load of steam himself. He crawled off the mattress and snagged Spike by the biceps as he bent, rummaging for his clothes. “How the hell can you think I’m naive? What I do, what I see? My eyes are clear.”
Spike jerked away, but Angel followed him, coming up close behind, a few tentative fingers running along the bony discs of his spine to the smooth swell at the top of his arse. A hand snaked around his waist, flattening itself to the hard clench of Spike’s belly as he tried to pull away. Angel held on, subduing him after a brief struggle.
“Let the fuck go of me.” Spike said each word clearly and distinctly, his defenses near to crumbling at Angel’s naked proximity, and the way he was being manhandled, their bare flesh pressed together. He didn’t want to hurt the big bruiser, but he would if he had to.
“Hey. We having our first fight?” Angel leant forward and put his mouth to the ivory-pale neck that drew him the way water drew a thirsty man. It tasted cool and sweet under the flat of his tongue. “I’m sorry, whatever brought this on. I don’t get it. What’s sending you into orbit? What the hell are we fighting about? You wake up in a bad mood or something?” Angel reached towards the bedside table. “Let me get your pills.”
“First off, there is no “we”. Get that through your thick skull. We’re nothin’ to each other. A couple of strangers. And I’m gonna be out of your hair as soon as I’m dressed. If you’ll damn well get off me! Can get my own pills. Thanks very much. And furthermore...”
It was almost impossible to finish what he was trying to say with a tongue that far down his throat. The sweet, hot lash of connection melted Spike’s knees. As he was pulled into a heated embrace, he stumbled forward, slinging an arm around Angel’s neck, pushing him bodily down on the bed, landing on top of him with an ooomph as they fell.
Spike’s ribs were getting use to having the hell punched out of them. He ignored the momentary stab of fire along his sides and burrowed fingers into a mess of shiny, soft hair, only letting go of the suction between their busy mouths long enough to hiss, “Just do what I say, prat. Gonna save your sorry arse, even if you are to full of shite to appreciate it. Sodding job can go to the devil. Now shut the fuck up and kiss me.”
Spike was already pulling on Angel’s dick, sharp, hard tugs that made Angel nod dazedly, not sure what he was agreeing to, but needing the slim hand wrapped around him to stay put, to keep squeezing his brain out through his penis. When Spike’s words caught up with him, all the air left Angel’s lungs and his eyes popped open
“Wait, wait!” He pushed the rumple-haired vision off enough to look into Spike’s blue, widening gaze. “What job? What are you talking about?”
The perpetual motion mouth snapped shut, Spike’s expression suffused with wariness. He pursed his lips, Adam’s apple bobbing appealingly.
“Job? Don’t know what you mean, pet.” At Angel’s level gaze, Spike shrugged trying to make light of what had slipped out of his flapping gob. “Oh....that. Well... You asked my line of work. Kind of embarrassing, see? M’that old cliche. The one about the traveling salesman, and I can do without the jokes. Should be back on the road earnin’ my bread and butter, but I’m worried about you. Not gonna go off and leave you to....”
“You said you’re a spy.”
Connections were clicking behind Angel’s brown eyes. His next series of questions told Spike he was in a whole lot of trouble.
“What were you doing at Gunn’s that night? Who were those guys that beat you up?” He wasn’t giving Spike time to recover, his accusing finger jabbing hard at Spike’s chest. “It wasn’t just some random mugging, was it? It was you they were after. Why Spike? Tell me. Why are you spying on me?”
“You got it all wrong, pet. Bloody champion jumper-to-conclusions, you are. I’ll cut you some slack cause I know you’re all nervous and whatnot.”
“Answer me!”
“Not spyin’ on you, sweets. Just give me a chance to explain.” Spike’s usual calm in a bad situation slipped over him. He knew he could finagle his way out of this if he put his mind to it. “After I left the gin mill, heard those blokes talking outside. They were...waitin’ for you. Waiting to beat you up. Didn’t know why, just then, but being the hero that I am, went in both guns blazin’, hopin’ to scare ‘em off before they could get to you.”
“Go on.”
Angel’s expression was a little less adamant. At least he’d stopped trying to ram his finger through Spike’s solar plexus.
“You know the rest. Three.... Four against one, not great odds. Got the shit kicked out of me.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this before? Why all that cryptic spy baloney?”
“When I came ‘round enough to remember who, what, and why, could see you had the wind up already. Figured it was best not to make it any worse if I could help it.”
Angel scrubbed a hand through his hair, looking unsure. Spike could see the great ox wanted to believe him, he just needed another nudge in the right direction. Before he could provide it, Angel eased Spike away. Crawling to the edge of the bed, he swung his legs over the side, staring down intently at his feet.
Spike waited. He could feel what was coming in his gut, his confidence ebbing. Angel’s tense spine shouted punch line, screamed deal breaker. When Angel spoke, it was almost a relief to have the cards spread out, face up on the table.
“Okay. That all sounds fairly plausible. Now tell me why you said you were one of the bad guys.”
Wonderful, dramatic manip by the amazing zoesmith
Chapter 11
Outside the partially cracked bedroom window, an indolent rain matched the steady slurp of Angel’s mouth moving with purpose on Spike’s prick. The suction built an overpowering ache that pooled and washed up through his guts to his chest, hardening his nipples.
“Wha...?”
Spike mumbled his eloquently dazed acquiescence at waking to find his cock wrapped in juicy heat, tongue lapping his slit. His hips canted, and he lay an arm across his eyes, focusing all his attention on the glide of Angel’s encompassing lips.
Never before. He’d never been touch like this before, with gentleness, with concern. Not as a boy. Not as a man. He fell into the depths of his mind, searching for something-not sexual-but anything, just a word or a gesture from his past that meant he mattered. Spike’s mother had kicked him out at the age of fourteen with the excuse she had too many mouths to feed, and he was big enough to take care of himself.
Take care of himself. That was a bloody laugh.
He’d lived on scraps, kipped in roach-infested squats that would have made a wino blanch, fought his way up from nothing with fists and rage. When the rage finally chilled to ice, that’s when he’d come into his own, when he’d driven the last softness from his insides. The cold men wanted him then. Spike was their weapon. First with fists. Later, death was his gift. They needed what he had to offer, and they paid him well for it. He was top of the game. Dosh gave him swanky digs and luscious fucks, all the booze he could drink, and Drusilla there to bleed him when the darkness made it too hard to breathe.
Nothing and nobody gave him kindness.
Spike was of a mind to shove Angel off, the blow job pulling him loose from his moorings, making him feel things that confused the hell out of him. The exertions of yesterday still crashed through his body: the rough finish of Harris, the desperate shag on his return to the apartment.
Best get the fuck out of this sodding bed and quit playin’ Romeo and Juli-fucking-et with the pouf.
A hand smoothed across Spike’s lower belly, petting him, distracting his attention, holding him in place. Another worried at his bush, a kitten-soft kneading of hair, accompanying the dirty nursed-on feeling that made Spike’s legs splay wider and his thighs begin to shake.
Fuckfuckfuck. He lost the train of thought telling him to get the hell out of there for another, more urgent one.. Gonna give you cream for your breakfast in a minute now, luv, he crooned in silent gasps, orgasm building nicely.
With no warning, Angel bit him, a barely-there sink of teeth into hard flesh, on the razor’s edge of the kind of pain that could make Spike spill in swift, wild desperation if he didn’t do something to stop it happening quickly. His purpose faltered, torn between getting away from Angel’s tenderness and losing himself in its encompassing maelstrom.
“Sweet Jesus. Pet!” He bit his lower lip, while the mouth pulling at him set his balls on fire. Desperately, he searched for a distraction. “What you doing today, ‘sides me?” he managed in a choked voice.
He lifted his arm to gaze at the man swallowing his dick, a helpless gasp of enjoyment escaping before he reluctantly groped downwards and caught hold of Angel’s ears, pulling him off with a slobbery plop of broken suction.
“Hear what I said?”
A darkly tousled head lifted. “You want me to stop sucking you off?” The questioner was mildly amazed. “Thought I was doing a pretty good job. Maybe you need to go back to the hospital. You could still be suffering from a concussion. Lay down, and I’ll make a thorough examination.”
Angel’s open grin did something cruel to the region where Spike’s heart use to be. It made him all the more determined to get his arse out of there pronto.
“Yeah, sweets. You’re doing real good. Brain’s intact and all. Just wanted to know your plans for a rainy Monday.”
“Why’s that? You goin’ somewhere?”
At Spike’s irritated twitch, Angel shrugged in resignation.
“Planned to start working on my Pulitzer, while you lay around in bed and look...beat up and sexy as hell.” When Spike only pursed his lips in the ghost of a kiss, Angel continued. “It’s past time. I’ve got the twitches. I know Porferro won’t dare come after me. The cops would trace it straight back to him, and he’d still be up Shit Creek. I just get...jumpy before I write a big story. Now can we get back to more important things?” Angel licked his lips and wiggled his eyebrows ridiculously, teeth gleaming a smile in the dampened light. “Unless you need something. Cigarettes? Snacks? Me? I’m your gofer. I wanna pamper you, you frekking idjit. Don’t ask me why.”
The last bits were said with an Irish lilt to them that had Spike snickering his arse off. It was the worst accent he’d ever heard, and for a moment, he forgot his building frustration.
“Who’s calling who and idjit? Idjit!” He shot back.
“Interrupting the best blow you ever had to ask dumb questions? I’d say it was you who fit the bill. Must be those stuck-up English genes. You’re a heathen, me darlin’, and a moron to boot.”
“Hey! Enough with the Mick insults. Don’t go bloody Paddy on me, mate. Bog-trottin’ prat in a white collar is what you are, and what you’ll die as. Too dumb to stay out of the fucking rain.” Spike looked away, expression closed, the earlier humor in his voice trailing off. “‘Sides, what I want, you can’t get for me.”
Angel’s brow furrowed. Never having known Spike, in their short acquaintance, to speak so sharply or turn down sex, he was flummoxed, not only by the growing determination he could read on Spike’s face, but by the strange significance that underlined his reply.
“It suddenly occurs to me, I don’t know shit about you, Mr. Strong Silent Type. Here I am, talking my ass off, and giving you great head, by the way, out of the generosity of my heart, and I don’t even know who you are, what you do for a living.” When Spike only stared at him steadily, Angle barked a short laugh. “Who are you, Spike? Tinker, tailor, soldier....”
“Spy. How ‘bout if I’m a spy?” Spike asked the question with a certain amount of snide defiance, almost as though he meant it.
Angel blinked “A spy? Riiight. You’re a spy? Okay, I’ll bite. Who are you spying for? Which side? The good guys or the bad?”
The weight of the air changed. There was a hint of sulphur on the breeze coming through the window. Outside a stark heat flash lit the sky, followed by the grumble of thunder, still too far away to do more than skitter through Angel’s bloodstream, making him feel twitchy about the approaching storm.
He repeated his query lightly. “Good or bad?”, waiting for an equally joking reply-one that didn’t come.
“The bad, pet.” Spike’s narrowed gaze held a note of contempt. “Was there ever any doubt? M’one of the bad lads. The Devil’s Brigade. You know the kind. Sort who stood your bully boys up against brick walls in the Olde Country, and blew their empty, fucking Irish melons apart.”
“That’s not funny.”
“Wasn’t tryin’ to be funny. S’the way of it. If you don’t know that by now, you bloody well should. Live in a cold, cruel world. The both of us. Look at the corruption you’re writin’ ‘bout. S’dirty, ugly, and real as it gets. Don’t you think that Porferro bloke would swat you like a buzzin’ insect if you caught his eye? M’sure he’s got the grease to smooth over just about anything, ‘cluding your bloody corpse rollin’ in with the surf.”
Spike pushed Angel aside and flung himself from the bed, so full of anger at the reporters’s clueless stupidity, he wanted to smash something to splinters. Wanted to drag the naked punter up by the hair and slap his face until his blinkers fell off.
“Angel. Christ, you can’t be that naive.”
“Who’s naive?” Angel was beginning to work up a gut-load of steam himself. He crawled off the mattress and snagged Spike by the biceps as he bent, rummaging for his clothes. “How the hell can you think I’m naive? What I do, what I see? My eyes are clear.”
Spike jerked away, but Angel followed him, coming up close behind, a few tentative fingers running along the bony discs of his spine to the smooth swell at the top of his arse. A hand snaked around his waist, flattening itself to the hard clench of Spike’s belly as he tried to pull away. Angel held on, subduing him after a brief struggle.
“Let the fuck go of me.” Spike said each word clearly and distinctly, his defenses near to crumbling at Angel’s naked proximity, and the way he was being manhandled, their bare flesh pressed together. He didn’t want to hurt the big bruiser, but he would if he had to.
“Hey. We having our first fight?” Angel leant forward and put his mouth to the ivory-pale neck that drew him the way water drew a thirsty man. It tasted cool and sweet under the flat of his tongue. “I’m sorry, whatever brought this on. I don’t get it. What’s sending you into orbit? What the hell are we fighting about? You wake up in a bad mood or something?” Angel reached towards the bedside table. “Let me get your pills.”
“First off, there is no “we”. Get that through your thick skull. We’re nothin’ to each other. A couple of strangers. And I’m gonna be out of your hair as soon as I’m dressed. If you’ll damn well get off me! Can get my own pills. Thanks very much. And furthermore...”
It was almost impossible to finish what he was trying to say with a tongue that far down his throat. The sweet, hot lash of connection melted Spike’s knees. As he was pulled into a heated embrace, he stumbled forward, slinging an arm around Angel’s neck, pushing him bodily down on the bed, landing on top of him with an ooomph as they fell.
Spike’s ribs were getting use to having the hell punched out of them. He ignored the momentary stab of fire along his sides and burrowed fingers into a mess of shiny, soft hair, only letting go of the suction between their busy mouths long enough to hiss, “Just do what I say, prat. Gonna save your sorry arse, even if you are to full of shite to appreciate it. Sodding job can go to the devil. Now shut the fuck up and kiss me.”
Spike was already pulling on Angel’s dick, sharp, hard tugs that made Angel nod dazedly, not sure what he was agreeing to, but needing the slim hand wrapped around him to stay put, to keep squeezing his brain out through his penis. When Spike’s words caught up with him, all the air left Angel’s lungs and his eyes popped open
“Wait, wait!” He pushed the rumple-haired vision off enough to look into Spike’s blue, widening gaze. “What job? What are you talking about?”
The perpetual motion mouth snapped shut, Spike’s expression suffused with wariness. He pursed his lips, Adam’s apple bobbing appealingly.
“Job? Don’t know what you mean, pet.” At Angel’s level gaze, Spike shrugged trying to make light of what had slipped out of his flapping gob. “Oh....that. Well... You asked my line of work. Kind of embarrassing, see? M’that old cliche. The one about the traveling salesman, and I can do without the jokes. Should be back on the road earnin’ my bread and butter, but I’m worried about you. Not gonna go off and leave you to....”
“You said you’re a spy.”
Connections were clicking behind Angel’s brown eyes. His next series of questions told Spike he was in a whole lot of trouble.
“What were you doing at Gunn’s that night? Who were those guys that beat you up?” He wasn’t giving Spike time to recover, his accusing finger jabbing hard at Spike’s chest. “It wasn’t just some random mugging, was it? It was you they were after. Why Spike? Tell me. Why are you spying on me?”
“You got it all wrong, pet. Bloody champion jumper-to-conclusions, you are. I’ll cut you some slack cause I know you’re all nervous and whatnot.”
“Answer me!”
“Not spyin’ on you, sweets. Just give me a chance to explain.” Spike’s usual calm in a bad situation slipped over him. He knew he could finagle his way out of this if he put his mind to it. “After I left the gin mill, heard those blokes talking outside. They were...waitin’ for you. Waiting to beat you up. Didn’t know why, just then, but being the hero that I am, went in both guns blazin’, hopin’ to scare ‘em off before they could get to you.”
“Go on.”
Angel’s expression was a little less adamant. At least he’d stopped trying to ram his finger through Spike’s solar plexus.
“You know the rest. Three.... Four against one, not great odds. Got the shit kicked out of me.”
“Why didn’t you tell me this before? Why all that cryptic spy baloney?”
“When I came ‘round enough to remember who, what, and why, could see you had the wind up already. Figured it was best not to make it any worse if I could help it.”
Angel scrubbed a hand through his hair, looking unsure. Spike could see the great ox wanted to believe him, he just needed another nudge in the right direction. Before he could provide it, Angel eased Spike away. Crawling to the edge of the bed, he swung his legs over the side, staring down intently at his feet.
Spike waited. He could feel what was coming in his gut, his confidence ebbing. Angel’s tense spine shouted punch line, screamed deal breaker. When Angel spoke, it was almost a relief to have the cards spread out, face up on the table.
“Okay. That all sounds fairly plausible. Now tell me why you said you were one of the bad guys.”