Title: Hope

Author: Buddy

Rating: R

Pairing: Spike/Angel

Disclaimer: The characters in this story remain the property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, 20th Century Fox and related production companies. This is purely for entertainment; I make no monies from it.

Beta reader: Many thanks to cloudsurfing (Jenni) who makes my life so much easier and doesn't make me wait. Smooches her.

Summary: I’m not giving you one so there.

Timeline: Only exists in my imagination.

Author’s notes: This is a birthday fic for stir_of_echoes. Have a great day hon and remember that you’re only as old as the one you feel. I guess that makes you about 128 then *g*.

Posted on 11th October 2003.

Hope
By Buddy
~*~

Rain beat down on him and his hair curled before it became plastered to his head. Droplets trickled beneath leather and soaked aged cotton, made him shiver, although the Watchers told him he shouldn’t feel the cold. He couldn’t remember when he had felt anything else.

Cars were still on the road in this city that never sleeps; they crashed through puddles and wetted his feet, water seeping through lace holes, the only thing holding together well-worn hide. He wondered if a person could drown standing up and then laughed out loud at the irony; already too late.

He’d been dead for a long time but the drowning thing was new. Fighting for oxygen when he didn’t need to breathe and the memory of feminine fingers, loving and cruel, stole the point of trying. Each day for as long as he could remember it had taken all of his strength to go on. Light dimming over hope and sucking out the reason that animated him until he felt like the corpse he really was.

Yet the hands that caressed him now were dry and warm, and the cruelty they dealt was yearned for, fuelling the fire that they lit from his heart to his cock. There *was* no rain and the skin that slid against his was as familiar as existence. Twisting and digging into him, pinching and arousing until he was back in his own body.

Wrapped in strength and held by reverence, he dared to reach out and the clash of skin on flesh made him jump. Made him still. Made him long to breathe for another day even if it wasn’t real and he still didn’t need the oxygen.

Touch like fire and the cold was dissipating, pouring out as the heat seeped in. Murmured words that promised a new beginning and fell from lips that sealed it with a kiss. Kisses. That blazed over every lost inch of him and gave him a place, a somewhere to be, a home.

*He* had found him. And dragged him inside, and words had fallen by the wayside because this was the only thing that would work. The only thing that would reach. Clothes stripped off and thrown, he was tumbled to the comfort of blankets and mattress and then covered by hard planes
and soft curves.

The hand that gripped his hardened length couldn’t detract from the smooth ease with which he was filled. So familiar it anchored him, made him feel substantial as it pleasured him and he wanted to return the emotion but he felt choked by nostalgia. Felt tears as they rolled over nearly transparent skin into his drying hairline.

It made him think of the rain again.

~*~

The weight on his body only added to the disorientated feeling. Unless he was currently being pinned by a Chorago demon, the chances were he was under some kind of debris. This made him think of Buffy and if his eyes hadn’t already been closed he would have shut them.

All too quickly he realised it was flesh and it was curled around him possessively as though it belonged. He fought to get away from the awful truth that he felt that way too, and his sense memory told him all he needed to know before he finally opened his eyes on the sleeping form of his Sire.

"What the fuck is going on? Why am I here?"

Angel opened a reluctant eye that immediately filled with alarm as Spike tried to scramble off the bed. He looked torn, first trying to drag Spike closer and then holding up his hands to let him escape. Spike looked down in astonishment at his nakedness and threw an accusatory look in Angel’s direction.

"What did you do to me?"

Angel sat up and looked around the room as though he believed answers were to be found in the ceiling coving. He cleared his throat and opened his mouth on soundlessness; he *did* have words, there were simply too many fighting for priority.

Spike hated the fact that Angel looked in turns surprised and innocent but more so the fact that he looked … bewildered. He narrowed his eyes and then deliberately pinched himself.

"Bollocks! This can’t be real. It’s a spell; I’ll kill Red with m’bare hands."

"Spike …"

"What? You’re not real; unless …this is hell isn’t it? This is how I get to spend the rest of eternity," he laughed harshly. "Bloody well fittin’ innit? My worst nightmare and that Satan is a right bastard. If he’s corporeal I’m kickin’ his ass the first chance I get."

"You’re not in hell. You’re in my home."

"Struggling to see the difference."

Spike refused to see the ripple of hurt that passed briefly across Angel’s features, choosing instead to blame it on bad lighting. Still, he couldn’t look at him because seeing Angel in pain was ladling it on a bit thick even if Spike did deserve to be in the fiery pits.

A heavy sigh and then Angel climbed out of bed and advanced on him. Spike back peddled a few steps until he realised what he was doing. He had no problems squaring up to him naked but he was taken by complete surprise when Angel grabbed him and kissed him.

Spike pushed him roughly except Angel didn’t seem to be moving away. It was more like he was leaning in casually and enfolding Spike in his arms so he could deepen the kiss. Lips that didn’t wait to tease imprinted on his, turning rough to make entrance for a probing tongue. Forcing remembrance that unbalanced Spike as it took the wind from his sails.

Angel held him tight; trailed the kiss down Spike’s throat and back up to his lips and his fingers scorched their way over flesh until they thrust into Spike’s hair. And Spike knew it was himself he could hear moaning and that it was his hands that were moving over Angel’s taut back. His fingers that were dipping into the hollows above Angel’s buttocks and his lips that were kissing him back, bruising, biting, and the knowledge enabled him to pull away and turn his back.

He searched for his clothes and they were nothing but tattered remains when he found them. Still wet, still armour, still the sum of his life.

Angel pushed sweats into his hands and Spike wondered when he’d dressed himself. Angel’s eyes gave nothing away but his lips were pulled into a thin line and Spike thought that should be impossible, all things considered.

He tugged his boots on and tucked the bottoms of his pants inside. The warmth of fabric enveloped him and he’d take any wager that the comfort would vanish as soon as he was the other side of the door. He risked a surreptitious look at Angel and then stared. Angel was smiling.

"I’ll be here if you change your mind Spike."

"I won’t."

He opened the door with nerveless fingers and stumbled through it to a carpeted corridor. He swallowed hard as he heard the door click shut and then sank to his knees, pressed his trembling back against the wall and put his head in his hands.

Drapes hid the window but not the rain as it lashed against glass, and the sound caused a stir of echoes.

He got to his feet, opened the door, and went back inside.

~*~
END