Dual Purpose

By Amy B

“You made the biggest mistake of your life, and I’m gonna make you pay. Oh, yeah. Feel my wrath, gorilla throwing barrels.” Spike’s thumbs worked frantically at the controller in his hand, his body tensing and his expression becoming steadily more perturbed; the series of tinny-sounding blip and boop noises announced ‘sorry, you’re a loser’ with an air of false but cheerful regret, telling him what he could already see on the screen. “Bloody hell,” he grumbled, frustrated, but restarted the game nevertheless.

The silent presence of the human in the doorway was starting to annoy him, prickling along his senses as it did. The unannounced quality of the visit also did little to earn the interloper any amnesty. “Really should knock on a bloke’s door… especially one that’s got no qualms about killing trespassers,” Spike remarked without turning his head, annoyance plain in his tone.

“Come on. Is that any way to talk to your benefactor?” Lindsey scolded lightly as he swaggered inside, taking a seat on the other end of the couch. “Just a little concerned about you. You haven’t been out in the field lately.”

Spike frowned, perturbed, glaring at the smirking messenger. “In case you haven’t been keeping up with the sports pages, I got my bloody hands hacked off by that deranged slayer you sent me after.” The accusation was plain in his tone, but seemed to miss its target entirely.

Lindsey nodded, giving Spike a patronizing smile. “Yeah, I’m sorry about that, but, hey, your good old buddies at Wolfram & Hart managed to reattach them just fine, huh? You can sit around here… and play video games.”

The dismissive, judgmental edge the man gave his last statement rankled at Spike; the gorilla won yet again, and he tossed the controller onto the table. “Rehab, mate,” he shot back. “Working out the digits.” He seemed to consider testing out his dexterity by curling said digits into a fist and plowing it into his companion’s face, but settled for waggling them demonstratively instead. “You got no idea how rotten this feels,” he added, rising and retrieving a beer from the refrigerator.

Lindsey snorted, his eyes dancing with barely-contained amusement. “Amazingly enough, I do. Yeah. Got my hand cut off a few years back. Line of duty.” Any more detail than that would be unnecessarily revelatory, but Lindsey found it impossible not to share the basics of that experience, one that had helped to shape him into the man he’d become. “So believe me when I tell you, I can feel your pain.”

Spike turned back to him, his annoyance a bit placated by the other man’s commiseration, a bit of a newfound something—approval? respect?—reflected in the set of his features. “Well, half of it, anyway. I’ll give you that.”

“Don’t forget, you got a job to do,” Lindsey reminded him as Spike headed back towards the sofa, tailoring his words for maximum effect. “The Powers that Be are counting on their champion. So are all the other helpless people—”

Spike cut him off abruptly, clearly growing tired of both the unexpected visit and the unnecessary reminder of who and what he was. “I don’t need your pep talk, Doyle. I already plan on going out. You just get one of your visions to tell me when and where.”

“That’s what I like to hear,” Lindsey said approvingly, giving Spike a smile as he shifted forward and then stood, turning towards the door.

“So that’s it then? Just came by to make sure that your tin soldier’s all ready to be wound up and pointed towards the next big nasty?” Spike asked dryly.

“Pretty much,” Lindsey said as he walked back across the room. “And now that I know that you’re still on target, I can let you get back to your therapy.”

“Mmm,” the vampire grunted noncommittally, retrieving the controller from the table in front of him. “Before I head off on this noble mission you have all planned out, got somethin’ I’ve been meanin’ to ask you.” Spike sounded distracted, almost bored, and the sound coming from the TV told Lindsey that he’d resumed the game Lindsey’s arrival had interrupted.

“And what’s that?” Lindsey asked as he turned towards the couch, one hand on the doorknob, the door already slightly ajar. It didn’t stay that way for long.

Spike moved quickly, faster than the other man could begin to react. Before Lindsey had even processed that the vampire was in motion, he found himself pressed face-first against the door, his ears ringing from the slam that resulted from the impact of their bodies. He could feel the tightly-coiled muscles of the vampire’s form pressed against his back, felt the steel of those hands, one around his wrists, the other around his throat. Lindsey rocked his hands, testing Spike’s hold, and found his efforts rewarded by a fractional increase of pressure, just enough to make the bones scream in protest but not enough to cause a fracture. A low chuckle sounded in his ear, the small huffs of air chilling Lindsey where they brushed against his pulse point.

Spike’s voice, when it came, was low, controlled, saturated with menace and aggression, tinged with derision. “Therapy’s been more effective than you thought, hasn’t it? See, I’m persistent. Don’ like bein’ damaged, an’ do what I can to change it.” The hand around Lindsey’s throat retracted, the fingers pushing through and fisting in the long dark hair at the nape of his neck instead. “One other thing I really don’t like, Doyle, is bein’ lied to. Pisses me off. Strangely enough, tends to make me hungry, too. Right now,” Spike paused, leaned in against Lindsey’s throat, and took a long, deep inhale, “well, right now—I’m ravenous. And so I’m gonna ask once, very nicely—who in the fuck are you? And I’m going to be wantin’ the truth.” He released Lindsey’s hair, uncurled the other from its manacle grip on the man’s hands, and took one short step backwards. “Two minutes to answer, and make it good. Elsewise I’m goin’ to be dinin’ from the tap for the first time in a long while; least, the first time I can really savor.”

Lindsey turned, rubbing one hand against the reddened flesh of the opposite wrist, forcing himself to slow his breathing, to think through the situation he’d found himself in. The look on the vampire’s face… He thought he’d seen predatory, thought he’d seen the worst that evil could generate. Hell, he’d worked for more than half of it, right alongside it to whatever ends it pursued. But the way Spike was staring at him, coiled and almost eager to strike, eyes narrowed and rapacious, sent a chill down his spine. He’d clearly fucked with the wrong souled vampire; what this one lacked in destiny, he made up for in balls.

“I told you…” Lindsey began, taking a deep breath and preparing to repeat his cover story.

“That your name is Doyle, and you work for the Powers. Got that party line by rote,” Spike interrupted, leaning back and sitting on the arm of the couch, “but repetition doesn’t make truth, now does it.” He cocked his head, studying the other man carefully, picking up the signs of fear that he was trying so hard to quell. “An’ see, the thing is, I even believe you, up to a certain point. I know you’re workin’ for some kind of power. Just don’t believe it’s the ones you’ve got stamped on your business card.”

It was the patronizing tone that snapped Lindsey out of his fear, that brought him back to himself. He brushed past Spike, shrugging out of his jacket and throwing it on the kitchen counter as he opened the refrigerator and took out a beer. “So you’ve got it all figured out, then? If you were that smart, you wouldn’t have had to ask me the question. But I’m interested, Spike—who do you think I am?”

“Name’s not Doyle, for starters. No record of anyone by that name ever working there.”

“Working where? The PtB don’t exactly keep staff dossiers. Not corporeal ones, at any rate.”

“That’s true enough,” Spike agreed, eyes never leaving Lindsey’s. “But Wolfram and Hart does.”

Lindsey’s blood froze for an instant, his hand stalling on its way to bring the bottle to his lips. He got himself back together quickly, but it wasn’t enough. Every player had a tell, and he’d just flashed his. Spike’s eyes radiated a combination of satisfaction, smugness, and knowledge, and it infuriated Lindsey; no matter how angry he got, however, it didn’t make anything about the situation mutable. Somehow, the vampire was onto him. “How did you know?”

Spike smiled, a slow, arrogant gesture. “Now that’s more like it.” He rose slowly, walking towards Lindsey with deliberate and deceptively casual steps. “See, you had it all pretty much down to an art, really; ‘m willing to give you credit for one hell of a performance. But you got a little sloppy. You forgot that I was in that place for months, just walking about; couldn’t touch, couldn’t taste, couldn’t do much of anything, really. But the thing about that was… well, ‘s just like bein’ blind; the rest of the senses will pick up the slack. All that time enhanced what senses I had left, over an’ above the usual.” He was standing in front of Lindsey now, the other man watching him carefully. He reached down and took the bottle from Lindsey’s hand, brought it to his mouth and took a long drink before continuing. “That place, it has a lot of distinguishing characteristics. There’s a vibe to it—not as strong as the pull of a Hellmouth, but not much different, an’ there’s all these screams trapped in the walls that you can’t hear unless you know to listen. But mostly, there’s the smell—like death, and blood, and rot, and brimstone, and tears, an’ a thousand other nameless scents and sins. All of it mixed together, just hanging there in the air…”

Spike set the bottle aside and took a final step towards Lindsey, bringing one hand to rest against the wall, ensuring that he was the only thing the other man could see. He leaned in, voice a conspiratorial whisper, and concluded, “Evil has a smell, boy, an’ that place is steeped in it. An’ whether you know it or not, so are you.”

Lindsey stared at Spike, blinking slowly, lungs burning from the restraint of the breath he’d been holding. The vampire dipped forward and then drew back as he pushed off the wall, turning and walking away as though nothing had happened, leaving Lindsey braced against the plaster, drawing deep, shuddering breaths and glaring at the vampire’s back.

Spike picked up the empty beer bottle from the kitchen counter and frowned at it; tossing it vaguely in the direction of the trashcan, he reached up and opened a cabinet, drawing out two dark glass bottles of ale. He surprised Lindsey by holding a bottle out to him in silent offering, but the other man accepted it quickly, opening it against the counter’s edge and draining it in large gulps.

Spike watched, amused, as the pretender recovered his wits; he could practically see the defenses being rebuilt, one psychic brick at a time. It was almost a shame that he still had another volley to aim their way; then again, Spike didn’t take lightly to being fucked over, and he took even less kindly to those behind the effort. There was no part of him—soul, demon, spirit, or mind—that didn’t want to see the man before him squirm. “Whatever you’ve done to yourself—maskin’ spells or whatnot, whatever it is you’ve got goin’—they’re good. Almost good enough to hide you from me, and I think you walkin’ around with all your parts intact is proof enough that they’re hiding you from whoever else you’re dodging. But they’re not going to last forever.”

“They don’t have to,” Lindsey shot back, old pomposity slipping back into place. He wore it as easily as he had always donned the thousand dollar suits put into his closet by the selling of his soul to the metaphorical devil, found it still fit perfectly. “I put in two years of research and meditation, had consultations with every occult expert in the industry. Shamans, psychics, warlocks, voudouins, and witches to round out the panel, smooth out the rest of the details. If anybody knows how these shields work, it’s me, so believe me when I say that they’ll last more than long enough for what I came here to do.”

Spike simply nodded and shrugged, his mouth twisting a bit behind his bottle as he attempted to smother a mordant grin. “Suppose we’ll just have to agree to disagree then, see how it all works out. Deal with the details if an’ when it does, long as you’re still breathing.” He watched as the other man raided the refrigerator again, choosing the watered-down swill there over the purposely-unchilled decent import beer Spike himself was drinking; narrowing his eyes slightly as the relative stranger slapped open the new bottle, he took note of the haughtiness and condescension into which the man had shrugged as soon as he was challenged. Odd that he was mellow enough as long as he was playing at metaphysical intermediary, but turned on a dime at the slightest whiff of disbelief or opposition. All in all, it seemed as though the Texas Stranger had an insecurity issue or twenty; that was very good to know. Clearing his throat as he watched the other man take a long pull of beer, he cocked an eyebrow when Lindsey’s eyes finally met his. “You know, I seem to recall that I asked you a question, an’ you still haven’t seen your way clear to answering. I’m getting bored.” He let the silent threat lie there, implicit in his tone.

“Lindsey.”

“Lindsey. Lovely name, that. Truly. Only trouble being that ’s only vampires and pop culture superstars that get away with only one name, an’ I’m pretty sure you’re not either one.”

“MacDonald,” Lindsey muttered, raising his chin just a bit in a minor show of bravado.

“Lindsey MacDonald.” As his voice still echoed in the room, Spike’s lips moved silently around the words again, as though he was memorizing the feel of them. “Think I liked Doyle better,” he remarked finally.

“Then be careful what you wish for, hero,” Lindsey sneered.

Spike laughed then, a robust, rumbling sound that slid fluidly up the scale, ending a shade or two above husky; the sound of it, the freedom of it caught Lindsey deep in the gut, twisted its way in and left a spark of something like hunger, something more than mere intrigue, burning there. Not for the first time since he’d walked into a hellhole of a strip club in pursuit of the walking conundrum in front of him, he found himself wanting answers. He wanted to know this one’s secrets, to understand what it was that made Spike so different from Angel, when on paper their basic pedigrees seemed so much the same. Wanted to understand how a vampire renowned for his impulsiveness could be so damned introspective, so astute, so positively terrifying when he fixed that assessing stare upon a target. Wanted to know what made him tick, made him ache, made him burn; wanted to know what made him.

The laughter diminished and then ceased. Gradually, Spike’s face resumed its characteristic sharp angles and sensuous curves as the lines that amusement had formed in his cheeks, in the delicate flesh by his eyes, and at the corners of his mouth slowly smoothed away, leaving his features once again a pale, unblemished canvas. Spike looked at Lindsey curiously, amusement still dancing in his eyes but joined, if not dominated, by something else—something darker, sadder, wiser.

“Do you think I wished for you?” Spike asked him, voice low, a dark and inscrutable undertone transforming the words into a sort of confession, giving them an intimacy that found its way into the gap in Lindsey that the vampire’s laughter had left just susceptible enough. “Do you honestly think that all I want out of this world is to become another Angel? That I fought my way through the trials, became the first to win my soul just so the Powers, or any other wanker who popped by with a reasonable enough cover story, could shoehorn me into some sort of one-size-for-all destiny?” Spike stood slowly, turned to walk away, but seemed to think better of it, casting a glare tinged with offense over his shoulder. “If you’d done your research, knew anything at all about who I am—you would’ve known that I make my own way, an’ I don’t much hold to other people’s idea of what’s best for me. The only destiny I’ve got is the one I build for myself every new day, Lindsey, an’ no line of Pinocchio promises was goin’ to make me sign over that privilege.”

“Then you and me—we got more in common than I thought,” Lindsey said, directing the words at Spike’s retreating back. “I don’t wait for destiny to find me, either. That’s why I’m here, now. That’s what all this,” he waved one hand vaguely through the space between them, “is—me making my own way, damn the Powers or the Partners or Angel.” The vehemence underlying the last word arrested Spike’s attention, and he turned; Lindsey’s eyes bore into him, burning with a lust for rebirth, for status and deference, for recompense.

“So that’s your stake in all this, then?” Spike asked, eyes locked on Lindsey’s. “Provin’ yourself any way possible, an’ nothing else counts; not right, or wrong, or anything but power.” He shook his head, smirking disdainfully. “Don’t think I want to tell you where I heard those words last. Will tell you, though, that as bad as you think you are, you’re a pretender to the throne. An’ what’s worse, you’re not even doing it for yourself; you’re just doin’ it to steal Angel’s cookies, and that is truly pathetic.”

“And living in his shadow isn’t? Staying in his city when there’s nothing here for you?” Lindsey sneered.

“Isn’t there?” Spike asked enigmatically, face blank. “You know, you really seem to keep forgetting that you don’t know me. Some sort of mistaken impression that ‘cause this apartment door is always open to you, the rest of me is, too. But, Lindsey, you don’t know me. Don’t know who I am, or what I’m here for, so mind your mouth.”

Spike rolled his eyes and fished in his pockets for his cigarettes as he pointedly ignored the sullen glare being directed at him. Collapsing fluidly back onto the sofa and propping his feet on the coffee table, he took a long drag of the cigarette before asking, “So where’s it come from?”

“Where does what come from?”

“This yen you have for bringing Angel down. ‘m askin’ why it’s there. What’d he do to you?”

“Destroyed my career. Cut off my hand.”

“Ahh. So the hand was him, then.” Spike took another deep inhale, letting his head fall back against the couch, watching Lindsey through half-closed eyes. “And still he’s done a hell of a lot worse to thousands of others, an’ I don’t see them skulking about L.A. under a week’s worth of beard and an assumed name. The lot of it’s also a couple of years worth of yesterday’s news, so I’m still wondering what it is about right now that made it your time to move. Unless…” Spike’s head raised, and he looked Lindsey up and down for a long instant before he ground out his cigarette and stood, crossing back to the other man. “You don’t want to just take him down. You want what he’s got. Evil Inc. is his, an’ you want to pull a Robespierre an' don the crown.”

“It should have been mine,” Lindsey snarled. “I put in the years there. Work, and blood, and everything I was, and they hand it to him? So yeah, I want him gone. And I want what I worked for. Figure I’m due my job back with interest.”

“An’ you think they’ll, what, just give it to you? Angel’s gone, and they’ll take back the prodigal with open arms, assume you suffered enough what with being so long out of the bosom?” Spike snorted, dismissive stare trained on his companion. “Face it, Sparky. You aren’t evil enough to cut it with them, never were. I’d wager it’s why you left in the first place, why you’ve been gone all this time—so you can stop bein’ a bright-eyed little boy playin’ in a wicked man’s world. Trouble is, world kept growin’ behind you, kept fadin’ to black. An’ now here you are—all grown an’ tarted up in your finest, an’ still just a little too young and a few shades too light to really fit.”

“Now you’re making assumptions about something you don’t know,” Lindsey shot back angrily, taking a step towards Spike. “Just because I haven’t let you see it doesn’t mean it isn’t there, Spike.”

“Then,” Spike answered mildly, closing the rest of the distance between them, “show me.”

Lindsey froze, eyes flashing, glaring in response to the challenge and clearly fighting the urge to take a step back. Something in Spike’s eyes—a sort of gloating arrogance, a nonverbal “I told you so”—stopped him, made him lean forward and press his lips to that smug, perfect mouth. The grin he felt shape those full lips sent a shiver down his spine that he couldn’t quite explain, left him with a vague feeling that he’d just approached a starving man and asked to be devoured.

Spike slid his tongue along Lindsey’s lower lip, earning a surprised gasp; pressing the advantage, he coaxed his way further into the other man’s mouth, steady pressure and long, teasing strokes of his tongue against Lindsey’s earning little groans in the depths of both of their throats. Spike raised a hand and slid it up in a long slow caress, coming to a stop and fisting it again in Lindsey’s long hair, twining it around his fingers as he pulled him closer, chest to chest.

Lindsey went blindly along when he felt Spike tug at him, did nothing to break free from either the clinch or the kiss. The muscles he’d felt bearing down on his back were there in front of him, against him—still hard and poised, but this time in preparation for something very much not an attack. Lindsey pressed his hips forward, just the slightest increase of pressure, and felt against his hip the solid proof that what was happening here would end in its own very particular brand of aggression. Spike pushed back, adding a swiveling sort of grind to the movement that took the bottom from Lindsey’s stomach and made him pull back with a gasp.

“Last chance,” Spike rumbled, shifting one thigh just slightly, edging it between Lindsey’s legs and rocking it back and forth. Lindsey groaned and sank into the contact, eyes wide and locked on Spike’s. “You’re turnin’ back, you’re doin’ it now.” One last caution, uttered in a voice so saturated with darkness and promised pleasure that it warned Lindsey to turn away, even as it told him he would be a fool to try.

“I’m not leaving,” Lindsey answered, reaching forward and gliding his hand along the outline of Spike’s erection, tracing it with cautious fingers. A low growling sound deep within Spike’s chest urged him on, and the press of his fingers gained certainty; cupping the bulge beneath his palm, he leaned back into Spike, trapping his own hand between them as he stroked with the full flat of his palm.

“No, you’re not,” Spike agreed, bucking forward, jaw tense, head tilted back. The pale expanse of throat revealed drew Lindsey, tantalized him, and he pressed his mouth against it, tongue tracing the Adam’s apple, the cords of muscle along the side, the slight thickness of sinew where neck blended with shoulder. Suddenly mere taste wasn’t enough, and he tilted his head, scraped the blunt edges of his teeth along the same paths, his hand never slowing or speeding.

A sharp nip against his jugular snapped the bit of control Spike had maintained; a snarl broke the tense silence as he used his grip on Lindsey’s hair to tug him back, lips crashing down to devour, tongue plunging hungrily into the heat of the human’s mouth. Spike’s hand left Lindsey’s hair and trailed around his shoulder, curling around the collar of his button-front shirt. As quickly as he’d begun the kiss, Spike ended it, stepping back; he merely smirked at the confusion written on Lindsey’s face as he brought his free hand up to mirror the other and then snapped them out to the sides, bringing the resultant halves of shirt along with them.

“Beautiful boy,” Spike mused, taking in the layers of muscle, the broad shoulders and chest, the flat planes of abdomen, the slight curve of hip, the bronzed skin. He reached forward and ran his finger along one of the freestanding ebony tattoos that marked Lindsey’s body, standing out in harsh relief from the perfect skin below. Spike could feel the presence of the magic the marks embodied pulsing with the dull thrum of muted power against his hand, raised a brow in response. “Heavy art,” he added, brushing an already-taut nipple with a thumb before finding a new pattern of ink, following its whorls and spirals around Lindsey’s waist and onto his back. Ducking his head, he ran his tongue along the paths his fingers had just traced, the pulse of the spells causing a tingling sensation that echoed in his balls.

“Fuck,” Lindsey groaned, the word guttural and extended by lust, as Spike sank to his knees before him; that wicked mouth was finally mute, busy tongue traveling around and then dipping inside the tattoo-framed navel before venturing lower, following the faint line of hair down until it was hidden by cloth. The vampire’s hands met at the waistband of Lindsey’s jeans; their eyes met and held as the buttons came loose, one by one.

The chill of the mouth that surrounded his erection stunned him, and he was left to hold to Spike’s shoulders, fingers digging into cotton-shielded flesh as his cock was drawn deep into the blonde’s throat. His hips thrust forward and then shifted back, and Lindsey couldn’t quite figure how, didn’t think that he was telling his body to surge and retreat in seeking waves; the tightening to the point of near-pain of the hands on his hips, the sensation of being pushed away and urged forward made him look down, watch his cock disappear between Spike’s full lips, watch cheeks framed by already razor-sharp bones hollow on the upstroke. He groaned in objection as he was released, tightened his grip on Spike’s shoulders and tried to pull him closer, but his lover wouldn’t be moved.

Spike remained just apart from where his companion wanted him, wouldn’t let the shivering man look away as he removed one hand from Lindsey’s hips. Smirking, certain he had an audience, Spike brought his hand up to his mouth and ran his tongue along his index finger, then slid it inside. He withdrew the digit, crooked it in invitation as he curled his tongue behind his teeth. “C’mere, pet,” he urged, and in the space of a moment Lindsey had presented his cock, was groaning as Spike took him down. The dampened finger found its way over and behind full, rounded balls, teased around the tight little pucker there before easing within.

The desperate thrusting that resulted, the hungry groan and whispered chant of “Spike… Spike… Spike” told the vampire everything he needed to know about his partner’s nearness; without warning, he withdrew his finger, removed his mouth, and straightened, pulling his shirt over his head as he stood.

“What are you…?” came Lindsey’s befuddled objection. “I was about to…”

“Yeah, you were. An’ now you’re not.” A brutal kiss silenced further objection, but didn’t dissuade Lindsey from pursuing his need; he ground against the vampire’s denim-covered erection desperately, nearly growling with frustration when Spike pulled away from the kiss, tilted his hips just out of reach.

“You don’t want it like this,” Spike murmured, pressing his mouth Lindsey’s pouting lips, parted in a gasp. “You want to be full. Want to let me inside, let me take you over, make you scream. Everythin’ in you wants to give over, doesn’t it? Wants to surrender?” Spike murmured, fingers brushing long hair tenderly off the young man’s face. “Want it so bad it makes you tremble.”

“Yes,” Lindsey whispered, turning his face into Spike’s palm. “Oh, fuck. Yes. Please.”

Spike smiled, a predatory expression that didn’t quite reach his eyes. His hands fell from Lindsey’s hair to his shoulders, pushed him onto his knees before wrenching open his own denim constraints. He hissed in pleasure as his companion took the hint, tugging the material down Spike’s legs as he gave the damp tip of the vampire’s hardness a tentative lick.

“That’s it,” Spike urged, voice low and seductive. “Get me wet. Make me ready to take you.” He looked down, watched as uncertain lips parted to envelop him, groaned as he sank into delicious heat. “Jus’ like that. Oh, fuck,” he encouraged, feeling a warm hand working the inches of his length that Lindsey’s inexperienced mouth can’t accommodate. “Work me… jack me like you’d touch yourself… that’s it. Soak me, pet, an’ it’ll be so good for you. I’ll slide right in, an’ it’ll feel like the missin’ piece of you’s come back home.”

Lindsey’s fears evaporated further with every word Spike uttered, every gasp and groan urging him on, showing him how to please—and god, how he wanted to please. He sucked voraciously, relaxed his throat as much as possible, relished the feel of the thick cock pressing deep into him, the taste of the hard flesh under his tongue. One hand dropped to his own cock, stroking it slowly; the hand he’d used on Spike’s cock drifted down to cup and squeeze the heavy balls beneath instead, urging a long, lust-drenched moan from the depths of the vampire’s chest.

“Enough,” Spike gasped as he felt his balls begin to tingle, felt the pressure in his stomach that always promised that release was just within reach. “Sucked me so good,” he praised as Lindsey stood on shaky legs. “Now ‘s your turn. Turn around for me, lovely boy… show me that you want me.”

Lindsey turned and bent at the waist, draped his torso over the counter that bridged the tiny den and kitchen. He felt something wet against his hole and sighed, pushing back into the caress; he gasped from a combination of discovery and desire when he felt Spike’s hands curve around his thighs and realized that it was the vampire’s tongue breaching him, drenching him. His hands curved and tightened around the edges of the counter, and he bit back a scream of disappointment when the tantalizing contact ceased.

“Hush now.” Spike’s voice was tinged with amusement, though something darker teased at the edges of his tone. He pressed one finger, then two inside, feeling the tissues stretching and accomodating; one last leisurely exploration of the tender spot with his tongue earned a short, plaintive cry from the man beneath him, and he stood slowly, hands sliding across Lindsey’s flesh in a silent promise. Spike placed the head of his cock against the tight ring, applying just enough pressure to make the man beneath him writhe and attempt to push back. “Promised you what you’re lookin’ for, an’ you’re gonna get it, but we’re gonna go slow,” Spike whispered darkly, pressing forward and easing inside with slow thrusts and withdrawals. “Breathe for me, Lindsey. Let me in.” He gritted his teeth to stave off his reaction to the heat and tightness surrounding him, plunged in to the hilt when he felt the muscles finally relax. His head fell back from the bliss of being surrounded, held so snugly, his husky growl of satisfaction joining Lindsay’s guttural cry to break the silence of the apartment.

The initial pain and subsequent blinding pleasure brought by slow plunging thrusts, breathless grunts, and hot, filthy words yielded strange storms of color behind Lindsey’s closed lids. Eyes slammed shut from the strength of his bliss, he grew drunk from the sounds; the sensations; the streaks and bursts of claret red, gleaming silver, midnight black, vibrant blue and a thousand less distinctive shades bursting in the darkness.

Spike sped his pace gradually, one hand on Lindsey’s hip, the other against his tailbone, holding him steady as he worked up to the pounding cadence that would bring them both over. When reedy, panting breaths began to issue from beneath him, Spike slid the steadying hand down and over the young man’s hip, wrapping it around the eager cock and pumping it in time with his own deep thrusts. He leaned forward, curving himself around the muscular back below, feeling the rhythmic throb that emanated from the ebony scrollwork there in every cell of his being. He sank blunt teeth first into the nape of Lindsey’s neck, then the meat of his shoulder, chuckling as the young man whimpered, as his cock lurched in Spike’s hand.

Spike tightened his grip and lengthened, deepened his strokes, murmuring just behind Lindsey’s ear, “You do love this, don’t you? Love how it feels to give yourself over to something evil, something you hate. Love anything that keeps you from havin’ to be empty anymore.”

Lindsey didn’t answer; instead, he merely grunted, bucked his hips back into Spike’s thrust, then forward into Spike’s hand, working both of them towards release. Spike growled, let his features shift, sank his fangs into the juncture of neck and shoulder and took a single deep pull before pulling back and licking his lips. “Answer me,” Spike ordered, grip nearly painfully tight on both hip and cock as he slammed into Lindsey’s ass, just on the edge of orgasm. “Tell me,” he hissed again, human mask sliding back into place as he sucked on the still-dripping wound. “Tell me you love this. Tell me why.”

“I love it,” Lindsey wheezed, shoving back into Spike’s thrusts desperately. “I love it. Love that you’re taking me. Fucking me. Love… oh, fuck… love not having control. Love the darkness.”

“That’s my boy. Admit it,” Spike purred, sneering, fisting Lindsey’s cock faster, hand flying as he felt the other man’s balls tighten against his own. He felt the body beneath him go rigid and then collapse, felt the warm rush of come over his hand; bringing his now-drenched hand back up to pin Lindsey anew, he let go, stabbing into the welcoming tunnel that surrounded him.

“The thing about the darkness,” Spike grunted, in time with his thrusts, “is that it doesn’t always play your game. See, I’ve had it inside me—in my head, in my blood, in my soul.” Spike plunged deep as he felt the familiar predictive heaviness flow back into his abdomen, welcomed the tingling sensation that wrapped itself around the base of his cock as his thrusts grew jerky, irregular.

Gasping, Spike reached forward, sliding his hand around Lindsey’s throat and pulling him up against him, changing the angle of his penetration, tightening the passage around him even further. He ran his tongue along the shell of Lindsey’s ear, a sinister little smile transforming his features as the man shivered in his arms. “You always think that it’s gonna fill that gap… fill you up… make you whole…” Spike thrust deep one last time, held himself fully inside, groaned satedly as he came in short, powerful bursts, filling Lindsey’s heat with chilled jets of semen.

Spike released his grip on his partner, slumped forward with him, draping himself over Lindsey’s back and gasping as he brought himself back down, hands mindlessly caressing the taut, tanned flesh beneath him. He stood as soon as he was certain that his legs would hold him and withdrew gingerly, running an almost tender hand across one firm cheek as he pulled away. “All that about evil, Lindsey—this love affair you have with it? Let it go,” he warned as the other man straightened slowly and turned to face him. “Bury it. Think of this every. fucking. time. you think you want it again, remember my cock an’ my come cooling you from the inside out, an’ take a step away. Because all that evil will do—all it can do—is fill you up with cold.”

Spike turned then, walking through the bedroom and into the bathroom, closing the door behind him and turning the shower water to full hot. He took his time, letting the water temperature seep through to his bones, turning it off and departing only when it began to turn chill.

When he stepped out of the bathroom, he extended his senses, let them assure him of what he already knew.

Lindsey was gone.

~*~*~*~*

“Lindsey MacDonald.” Spike snapped brusquely as he breezed through the heavy double doors and into Angel’s office. “Tell me about him.”

“Who?”

“Lindsey. MacDonald. You cut off his hand,” Spike answered, enunciating each word carefully, one eyebrow raised in a silent question.

“I remember,” Angel groused. “I just don’t understand what he’s got to do with anyth—” He stopped, eyes widening as he leaned back in his chair. “He’s the one who said he had the visions.”

“An’ here I was thinkin’ you were slow,” Spike remarked. “Who else would he be, Angel? Who the bleedin’ hell else do I know in this place besides you an’ your Avengers?”

Angel opened his mouth for a rejoinder, then snapped it closed and glared at the far-too-smug figure before him. Gritting his teeth, he swallowed his annoyance and asked, “So what does he want?”

“You, dead. Oh, an’ the keys to the kingdom. He really hates you,” Spike remarked casually, perching on the arm of one of the chairs Angel kept for visitors.

“It’s not like I have warm memories of him, either.” Angel shifted forward, bracing his elbows on his desk and fixing Spike with a concerned glance. “Think he’s going to make a move?”

Spike shrugged noncommittally. “Tried to talk him out of it. Was as persuasive as I know how to be. Guess we’ll find out if it took when an’ if he comes poppin’ by bearing stakes or swords or some such.”

Angel nodded grimly, turning his face towards the window and staring out at the thousand other buildings framed therein. His head swiveled suddenly back towards Spike, and he narrowed his eyes, studying him closely. “Did—”

Harmony’s arrival interrupted Angel’s question, and Spike watched as Angel scribbled his way through a pile of contracts, grunting in acknowledgement of the girl’s brief explanation of each. Harmony was gone in less than five minutes, sent from the room with Angel’s order that she hold all of his calls and make sure he was undisturbed for the remainder of the afternoon.

“Did you fuck him?” Angel asked the moment she was gone, the casual air of the question betrayed by the tension in his jaw, the thunder in his eyes.

“’Course I fucked him,” Spike answered, sliding a hand over his crotch and giving his sire a mocking leer. “But then, you already know that, Angel; you can smell him on me.” Spike rose and took a step forward, tilting his head and grinning cockily as he studied Angel. “And you’re jealous.”

“I’m not,” Angel answered, tone still light, eyes still stormy.

“You,” Spike countered, tone low and conspiratorial, walking around the desk and perching on the edge before Angel, “are. You can hardly bear it.” He caught his lower lip between his teeth, ghosted one finger over the back of Angel’s hand. “Is it that I got there first?”

“You need to learn the difference between jealousy and anger, you insolent bastard. They’re not one and the same,” Angel shot back, shoving his chair back from the desk with a furious kick of his foot against the wood. “And for the record, I don’t care if you were the first man to have him, or the last of a gang. But I do care, very much, that you went and fucked a man who’s trying to kill me. You’re supposed to be on my side here, Spike. Did you think I’d be happy about it?”

“Can’t say as I was thinkin’ about you at all durin’ the moment, Angel,” Spike shrugged.

“Then maybe you should have been.” Angel stood and crossed the narrow distance between he and Spike, coming to a stop looming over the shorter man. “Time was I would’ve been the only thing on your mind when it came to such things.”

“Lot of time between then and now,” Spike answered, refusing to cower, instead standing and taking the step that eliminated the rest of the air between them. “Lot of life lived by the both of us, an’ you’re not the center of my existence anymore. Hell, you’re barely on the fringes.” He shot a defiant look at Angel, took note of the spark there in his sire’s eyes, smothered a self-assured smirk. Really, Angel was just so, so easily played.

Angel’s head dipped towards him, one hand coming up to cup the back of Spike’s head. “That’s about to change, William.”

“Not as much as you might think,” Spike retorted, shoving Angel back against the weapons wall before claiming his sire’s mouth hungrily.

~Fin

Special thanks to Jennifer for the artwork