Angel / Pet / Chapter One

CHAPTER ONE

Spike's non-corporeal nature was, in the end, taken care of pretty quickly. Fred's people made with the research, experiments were done, there was that one nasty week where Spike could be heard but not seen ("Just my luck," Angel commented) and then pop! One vampire body, nice as you please. Soul still contained at no extra cost.

"Good," Angel had said. He raised a mammoth hand and made a flicking gesture, dismissing Spike like an appointment he didn't want to keep. "Now go."

But Spike stuck around.

The truth was he was out of sorts. Being faced with a very personalized answer to the ultimate question of "What's all this, then?" was leaving him with a bad taste in his mouth. He wandered around the offices, aimless, trying to find out if he had some sort of purpose or if it was ever going to be possible to vanish back into what he liked to think was the *right* kind of oblivion. The kind where you did whatever you bloody well pleased and no Powers even bothered to notice, even if it did involve saving the world.

At one point he bumped into what he later guessed was some kind of intern. The young chippie had stammered, surprised, then quickly sprung into action with phone calls and fetching things and before Spike could so much as "Boo" he found himself ensconced inside of one of the office's guest suites. Nothing as posh as Angel's digs, not by a long shot, but still, it beat staying in a graveyard. The bedroom was separate from the rest of the suite, the bathroom had a working shower, the sunlight didn't kill him and the telly came complete with satellite and pre-paid porn channels that covered everything from vanilla lesbian to rocky road Fyarl. After convincing Harmony that yes, he *was* allowed to get the same in-house blood delivery that Angel got, Spike decided there were worse ways to spend a second-chance afterlife.

"Go," Angel said, inviting himself in one night and interrupting a rerun of The OC. He made a gesture towards the door as though he could swoop Spike towards it by the force of air currents alone. "We spent all this time and effort to get you *in* the world. Now go and *do* something about it."

"I am," Spike said. He changed the channel. "I'm sitting."

"*Out*," Angel said. "I don't want you here, I didn't ask for you here, I've got enough on my plate, *go*."

"Drop the plate then," Spike suggested. "Not my bloody fault your eyes are bigger than your stomach - hard as *that* may be to believe" he added, giving a significant look at Angel's bulk.

He got hauled out of his chair and slammed into a wall for his trouble. "You're not welcome here, Spike."

"What's it to you?" Spike asked, trying to muster up some casual dignity from a position where his feet weren't touching the floor. "If you don't trust big bad me I'd've thought you'd *want* me under lock and key. Surprised this wasn't your bloody plan to begin with."

"It was never my plan to have you constantly under my foot and watching Klixer porn!"

Spike gave a long suffering sigh. "That's *Fear Factor*, you berk. They're eating that crap to win money."

Angel glanced back at the television. "Really?"

"You know it wouldn't hurt for you to pull your head out of your arse long enough to get a little culture. And a personality, while we're on the subject."

"While we're on the subject, you're still stakable."

Spike jerked his shirt out of Angel's hold, dropping back to the floor. "Very nice segue. Come up with that on your own or did you have one of your cronies do it for you?"

"I don't have time for this," Angel told him. "You wanna have some kind of afterlife crisis, do it on your own. Don't ask me to coddle you."

"Why the bloody Hell not?" Spike demanded. "You're the big hero in these parts, right? Helping the hopeless, saving the unsavable - well here I am! What, I don't count because I'm family? Shoemaker's daughter has no shoes and all that?"

"Glad you finally admitted you're the *girl* of the family," Angel replied. "And you don't *need* help, Spike. You got your body back. What the Hell else do you need?"

Spike desperately wanted to hit him. Stupidly he tried talking one more time. "Life is more than just a *body*, mate. You want me to go? Where? What am I supposed to do? How am I supposed to live? You think it's easy setting up shop again after all I've been through?"

"Is this a money thing?" Angel asked. He pulled out a black leather wallet that was as long as his hand. "Fine. How much? Never mind, here's five grand."

Spike decked him one. "Screw *you*. Screw everything about you! You of all people - "

Angel recovered from his surprise quick. When he punched Spike in return it resulted in Spike flying nine feet through the air. "I of all people know your *tricks*, Spike. All your little schemes - "

"Yes, Angel," Spike replied, the words dry as a bone as he rubbed his newly sore jaw. "It was my grand scheme to die while saving the world, nip down to Hell, then accidentally nip back as someone who couldn't even wank off properly just to make sure that *you* had a really annoying afternoon. However did you catch me?"

"You're here and you're bothering me," Angel told him. "That's all that matters."

"*Why?*" Spike demanded, the absurdity of it getting to him. "I know you were really into the one vampire in all the world with a soul crap, but so bloody what? You so caught up in your own beauty that you can't see the advantage of a peer? You telling me you never once in all those centuries wanted someone you could chat with about it? Someone who *understood*, who - "

"No," Angel replied, his face revealing no more emotion than the wall.

"Well I *do*!" Spike snapped.

"Should've thought of that before you went off to get one," Angel observed. "Now get out."

"I'm only trying to be *friends*," Spike told him.

Angel turned and walked away. "I don't need any friends."

And something about *that* made Spike realize what he *should* have been doing.

"Oh no," he drawled, trying to make the words cutting. "Not you. Not Mr. Fancy CEO with his big corporation to run. Too important for the likes of me now, aren't you? Yeah, you'd better run along. I'm sure there's a big important memo you could be writing."

Angel kept going. Spike scrambled to his feet, hating that he was out of practice - and that he didn't have fresher material to work with. But when all else failed, there were the classics. He grabbed a vase and hurled it at Angel's head. "You - you arrogant son of a bitch. Put on airs all you like, you know. You're not fooling anyone. Soul or no soul you're still just a bloody vampire, no better than anybody else and you're never *going* to be no matter how much you forget where you came from!"

*That*, more than the vase that shattered down Angel's back, provoked a reaction.

"Don't you *ever* think you can talk to me about where I came from!" Angel snarled, clocking him with a one-two punch this time before grabbing him by the front of the throat. "Do you understand?"

It was close, but not enough. Spike laughed at him. "What, talk about your past? How you're just a whelp of Darla's, same as - "

Spike hadn't expected it that quickly, but the world turned into a blossom of pain that faded to black then faded back in at what felt like several moments later. He was now crushed against the floor, Angel holding him down as he dug his knee into Spike's spine.

"You don't speak," Angel said, his voice dangerously quiet, "about things you do not understand. Are we clear?"

This was much closer, but Spike had to be sure. "Fuck off, you poncy - "

Spike's ears rung from the blow. "Are. We. *Clear?*" Angel repeated, and *now* his voice was that of the devil himself.

Spike smiled, looking over his shoulder to meet Angel's eyes. "Yeah, we're clear. Da."

Angel blinked, the surprise of the moment distracting him from his anger. "What the - " and then comprehension dawned. He hit Spike again, but this time Spike could tell it was for good measure. "For crying out - why didn't you just *say* that's what you needed?"

"Would you have given it to me?" Spike asked. He rolled onto his side and propped his head up on his hand. He gave Angel a disappointed look. "Christ. You surround yourself with the nastiest of the nasties and you last let your demon out when?"

"I let it out," Angel said, defensively. "There's fights and - "

"You know what I mean."

"Well… I've been busy."

"Busy, right," Spike said. He thought about smoking a cigarette. "No wonder you're so bloody cranky. All right then, I need a place to stay and *you* need a punching bag. Think we can come to some kind of arrangement?"

"Dunno," Angel replied, archly. "Think you can behave yourself?"

After decades of living with Angelus, Spike knew the answer to this one. "Think you can make me?"

This time when Angel hurt him, it was a lot more fun.

He hadn't thought he would like it.

Okay, yeah, sure, hitting Spike as a concept always came with a cool sense of satisfaction, but not like *this*. This was - this was *easy*. Familiar. Like sliding into a perfectly broken in pair of jeans you'd forgotten you'd had.

There were a few bumps along the way. Both he and Spike were different. They couldn't fall back into their old roles as easy as that, but it came faster than Angel would have given it credit for. It wasn't long before his own gruff pretense of not giving a shit was quickly eroded away to grabbing Spike at every available opportunity, shoving him against whatever happened to be handy, and hitting, cutting, biting, drinking and/or fucking to his heart's content.

Just not in front of the others.

In front of the others they maintained the same level of sarcasm and disinterest - which wasn't hard since they weren't exactly the best of team mates. Spike was more than happy to make fun of everything they did and Angel was more than happy to tell him to go fuck himself if he was so inclined to be unhelpful. Occasionally this resulted in a few smug looks on Spike's part, but Angel more than knew how to pay him back for it later.

Spike kept his little suite. It was the easiest option since he was hardly ever in it. Instead he was in Angel's apartment night after night, stealing Angel's food, taking things and putting them down in places that Angel couldn't find again, and then later on his knees underneath him, hands fisting the sheets as he writhed and moaned and cursed Angel for making him want more.

Angel tossed Spike's name onto the payroll, under the ambiguous title of Consultant. This gave Spike the spending money he needed to go out and buy a new wardrobe - Angel's insistence, as he found it stupid to steal what could be bought a thousand times over with the money they had on hand - and various amusements for himself. This resulted in Spike clothing himself in various forms of slim, form-fitting pants and shirts which weren't really like anything he'd worn before but looked perfectly like him all the same.

He also talked a lot about buying a car, but in the end preferred having his pick of the company fleet.

During the day he mostly amused himself, flowing in and out of meetings and missions with no particular rhyme or reason to it unless he was ordered there by Angel for whatever purpose. It gave him a somewhat useless air, and one day Gunn, tired of being interrupted, asked "What *exactly* is it you do here again?"

Spike, who just prior to the meeting had sucked Angel off so good and thoroughly that Angel had *finally* lost the knot in his shoulder that he'd been carrying since the *last* meeting with these clients, merely smiled and said, "Color commentary."

"Ignore him," Angel told Gunn, and the meeting continued from there.

In the end it was the sheer, mind-numbing *drudgery* of it that got to Angel. The evil, the being in charge, all that he could handle. But all of the little tiny details that nipped and snapped at his heels day after day after *day* were just too much. Spike was right. It made him stressed. It made him cranky.

Good thing he had someone to help him get his release. There was just something about abandoning all civil pretense and fucking Spike through the floor that, well, eased the tension a little. Made the day brighter. And if he could practice some of his favorite torture techniques while he was at it - two for one bonus, right?

It was on one such night that Wes showed up.

That's when things got a little weird.

He hadn't had a meeting scheduled with Wes - or at least, he didn't *think* he had. Harmony was usually good about reminding him about these things, and even if she wasn't Spike knew better than to let Angel be interrupted during his downtime. So by all rights they should have been alone.

It had been a good night. Full of Spike at his most obedient, offering himself up with coy willingness as Angel ripped his clothes off and raked fingernails down naked flesh so hard they left deep red lines. Spike had only made content noises, licked at Angel's throat and undid Angel's suit with a careful hand - knowing that a single mar on the expensive fabrics would definitely equal punishment of the unpleasant kind later.

On his knees then, kissing Angel's thighs until he got permission for more, then bobbing his head up and down Angel's cock until the day started to fall away and all that was left was Spike's mouth existing only to please him.

Bed next, for hard, rough fucking. No tenderness on Angel's part, unless you counted the growls and the fangs and the savage bite into Spike's neck as he rammed his cock in harder and harder until Spike was screaming and gasping with breath he didn't need. Which, actually, among their kind was pretty tender. Everything being relative and all.

Orgasms then - Angel twice, Spike once, and then falling to the bed in a content, afterglow-filled pile with Spike's head resting against his chest.

Angel automatically went to stroke fingers through Spike's hair, then stopped.

He knew that scent.

Spike looked up at him, quizzically, but Angel shook his head, not wanting to make noise. He got up, not bothering with clothes as he went into the kitchen and saw -

- blinked, squinted his eyes, looked again, glanced back at Spike for a nod of the head that assured him that no, he wasn't dreaming -

- Wes. Eyes closed. Leaning against the wall. Cock out. Hand wrapped around it.

This could *not* be real.

And yet…

On any other day this would not have happened. Angel would have gone back into the other room, made some noise, startled Wes into realizing what he was doing and giving him plenty of chance to cover up and form some kind of excuse for himself.

Any other day he would have done that. It would have been the *right* thing to do.

But that night Angel was in a solid, honest place. The kind where he had no pretenses with himself.

So instead of lying and ignoring what he felt, he reached out and wrapped his hand around Wes's dick before Wes could finish.

"Don't you dare."

Wes's eyes flew open. Panic filled them. "Angel - "

Angel replied by putting stronger pressure on Wes's cock. Still in the strange, honest place, he said, "If you wanted, why didn't you ask?"

Wes licked his lips, faltering. "I, Angel, I - "

It was too much. Angel kissed him, then nearly died from the wonder of finally feeling Wes's mouth. It was then he knew that this was not the time to worry about details. "Don't talk."

Dazed, Wesley nodded.

Angel's lips formed an approving smile. "Good." He tugged on Wesley's cock, drawing him into the other room as though it were a leash. "Now come here. And *don't* - " he emphasized this with a tighter squeeze " - come until I tell you."

"New pet?" Spike asked, now lying languidly on the bed.

"New pet," Angel agreed, then put Wesley in between them.

It was a fantasy come to life. Angel couldn't deny it. Wes's clothes were quickly gotten rid of, then suddenly Angel had an entire expanse of lovely naked body to play with.

With an unspoken knowledge that came from having done things like this centuries ago, Spike knew to take low while Angel took high. The younger vampire focused his attentions below Wes's waist, teasing him with touch and kisses at the same time that Angel held Wes from above, happily plundering Wes's mouth.

Wes was a furnace, his entire body primed for climax. Angel left him on the edge anyway, showing him how all that heat could be changed into a slow boil.

After a while Wes began to tremble, his muscles taut, his breath coming in shallow gasps of "Angel - Angel - Angel - " until finally, with a snap of his fingers, he told Spike to let Wes come.

The orgasm nearly rocked Wes's body off the bed. He screamed into Angel's mouth. Angel drank it all in, utterly intoxicated by it.

When the last of the shudders faded away, Wes blissfully passed out in Angel's arms.

Angel looked down at him, completely enraptured.