TITLE: London Rain 1/1 - A/S Future Angst/Smut
AUTHOR: Ducks, the Angel Ho. ;)
EMAIL: ducksfanfic@yahoo.com
DISCLAIMER: Do I look like a demented little devil monkey?  Do I look like I
have a thin dime to my name? Well, of course... you wouldn't know that, as
you've never actually *seen* me... but, the point is, no, I don't own them.
Some suits with sticks up their butts, plus the above mentioned devil
monkey, do.
IMPROV: #8 - glow, rain, bound, crave
PAIRING: A/S
TIMELINE: Ten years from now...
SPOILERS: None, really.  If you know what Shanshu is, you're fine
SYNOPSIS: As Angel ponders the direction of his life as a human being,
someone from his past appears to remind him what it means to be *alive*.
DISTRIBUTION: Anyone who'd like it, please feel free.  Just send the URL so
I can stare at it and pretend that everybody really, really likes me. *grin*
My other masterpieces of obsession and madness can be found at
http://www.geocities.com/ducksfanfic
AUTHOR'S NOTES: I've been feeling a little rusty and uninspired over the
past week, so this is one of those "just write a crappy first draft and
exercise your brain" things that all the writing classes tell you to do when
you're blocked.
FEEDBACK: Hell yeah! I live for the stuff!
RATING: NC-17
CONTENT: Slash (m/m sex), Angel Brooding
DEDICATION:  To all the beautiful, wonderful, fantastic slashers I've gotten
to know, of late.  And, as per usual, to the Great, Dark, Sparkling One,
Kita, who I continue to worship to an incredibly unhealthy degree.  Also, to
all the perverted old ladies at Angel Elders.  Waxed, wet, wearing dead
Muppets, lying about his age, or living on rats... we love him! All raise a
glass to grand dorkus DB! ;)

"London Rain"
by Ducks

Of all his homes, the one in London was where he came to be alone.  Anywhere
else... the villa in Sicily, the house in Malibu, the apartment in Paris...
these were where he saw visitors.  But here... London was reserved for his
solitary thoughts, where he could come and reflect without the intrusion of
beloved others.

Brooding, even these years later.  Now that he was human and forgiven, he
still found that introspection was central to his existence.  The need to be
by himself, as well.  A hundred years living a certain way didn't change
simply because he gained a heartbeat.  And like that heartbeat, like his warm

skin, like the cycle of breath, there were long stretches of time when reminiscing

and reflecting were a central part of him.

The room was arranged for exactly this.  Dark and warm, soft furniture, his
bed and books.  Fireplace.  Stereo.  Not much else.  A fancy monk's cell,
really.  He could sit in front of the hearth with a glass of wine, a book,
or simply his overworked brain, and be solitary.

He could sit on a night like tonight, listen to the rain fall outside the
French doors, and wonder... how could so much have changed, and yet he felt
just the same?  Tired.  Old.  Lonely.  Still weighed down by regret.

He had been so certain that his reward would mean absolution from all that.
All of his heavy thoughts would simply rush away with his first mortal
breath, and his soul would be burned clean by the blessed light that
restored his humanity.  He was sure that he would be fully reborn, a tabula
rassa, and a whole new, perfect existence would simply appear before him.

His naiveté was embarrassing, in retrospect.  He was still Angel.  Still the
recovering monster, with a  soul full of horrors, and a planet of remorse
perched on his chest.  Only now, he had to eat and breathe.  He could stand
in the sunshine, and for that, he was grateful.  But really... it was the
same old life, now made slightly shorter.

Angel sighed and watched the wine roll around in his glass.  He knew he was
being overly melodramatic and morose.  He had a million things to be happy
about.  Their success at ridding the world of demons, for one.  The continued
survival and happiness of his adopted family.  They were all married now...
working on families.  Wesley and Virginia, Cordelia and Gunn.  His happiest
days were spent in their homes, reading to the kids, playing with their
dogs, hanging out watching football with the guys on Sundays while the
ladies ignored them.  The Sunnydale crew, too... all living in a tightly
knit neighborhood just outside where the Hellmouth used to be.  He was
welcome there, now... when he wasn't traveling, he spent holidays with them
all, like the large, motley extended family that they were.

And Buffy... his beautiful Buffy.  Over the past ten years, they'd carried
on a passionate, dedicated love affair... though distinctly on-again,
off-again, due to their respective wanderlust.  Their desire for one another
never seemed to dim, but their relationship was still so complicated...
marred by years of pain and separation, individual struggles and issues, it
seemed that they couldn't keep it together long enough to form any sort of
commitment.  So they met in Sunnydale for holidays, weddings, birthdays...
New Orleans for Mardi Gras... New York for New Year's Eve... Rio for
Carnival... they made love for days upon nights, drank and danced and
reveled in their genuine like of one another, and then separated again after
a week or two, with a kiss, a promise to write (which they did), and a "see
you next time."

He continued to think that someday, they would settle down... when both of
them were done drifting.  When they'd found whatever answers they were
looking for in the far corners of the earth.  He loved her, and had
absolutely no doubt that if... when... he decided to make a home, a
family... there was no one else he would want to do it with.  No one else he
would rather grow old beside.

Sometimes, he didn't know what kept them apart.

So he'd come to London to decide, one and for all -- what next? Continue his
nomadic existence?  Go to school, get a job, settle down?  Write a book?
Demand that Buffy do the same?

Who was he, now? Who were any of them? No more purpose... no more war.  No
more demons but the ones who lived in his mind...

But... like each one of these identity crises he'd lived through since
becoming mortal again, there were no answers easily forthcoming.  No
prophecies, no psychic karaoke bar emcees or blue-skinned demi-gods in
otherworldly temples to turn to for guidance.  Like every other human being
on the planet, he had only what was already inside him... the unending
circles in which his ruminations led.

He should have some sort of idea of what to do next by now, shouldn't he?
37 years old, and growing older every day... Shouldn't he have found the
point of it all?

He hadn't.  And all this sitting, all this thinking, didn't bring him a
single step closer to the answers he craved.  So... he decided to do what he
would have done in his first mortal incarnation: drink until he fell over.
Or maybe puke.  But at the very least, he could forget for a while.

One of the joys of this particular part of London was it's wide assortment
of pubs, bars, and clubs.  Something for every drunkard, bon vivant, or
pervert's taste--even a 257 year old former vampire having an existential
crisis.  Or would it be a mid-life crisis?  He wasn't certain how his unique
aging circumstances might effect that sort of thing.

He walked into an Irish pub, and felt a pang of familiar joy to see brawling
young men and half-naked women... horribly off key singing and general
mortal rejoicing.  Plus... plenty of shadowed corners to hide in until his
ennui was washed away by the liquor.

He ordered whiskey.  Told the waitress (who he had to resist the urge to
call wench) just to leave the bottle.  Don't bother with a glass.

Human constitution made getting good and snookered a whole Hell of a lot
easier than it once was.  Vision blurred faster.  Scummy bar flies looked
far more attractive in a shorter amount of time, and it wasn't long before
he was considering the utility of a sloppy one-night stand to distract him.
Something smarmy, embarrassing, and utterly human that he could regret
completely upon waking to a skull-splitting headache and the blinding
arrival of a sunrise that wouldn't turn him to ash tomorrow.

"Oi! I'll be a purple welt on a monkey's arse!"

Angel had already been drinking for a good while... most of the whiskey was gone.
So he assumed that he was imagining the drunken bellow that rocked his
skull.  His head was firmly ensconced in his arms on the table... maybe he
was dreaming?  There was simply no way that fate could be so downright
*bizarre* as to put the two of them in the same place at the same time...
again... could it?

"Shpike?" He forced his head up, and found deep grey eyes and still
stunningly bleached hair... plus a few new piercings he didn't recognize.

There was no mistaking him.

"FUCK ME, ANGELUS! Lookatcha! You look like Hell, mate! Humanity hasn't done
your broody mick ass one bitta good, as it?"

Before Angel realized what was happening, he was hauled from his chair and
into the blonde's arms, the recipient of a good dose of manly slams on the
back before they both collapsed back into the booth.

Spike was human now, too.  Angel never quite got the logistics -- or the
fairness, truth be told -- of that particular happening.  But when the
Hellmouth closed, and the entire bloody battle field was bathed in a holy
light, two things had happened almost immediately: the area was clean of all
evidence of the war that had taken place there, and all the vampires (all
two of them) who had fought for the Powers were suddenly human.

The first thing Spike did was cough until he fell down.  About which Angel
commented that he had always warned the younger man that smoking was bad for
his health. Spike's reply was a single finger in the air as he choked.

Now, here they were.  Spike looked slightly older and was wearing slightly
more expensive clothes, but that was as far as the changes seemed to go.  He
still even looked pale.

"What the Hell are ya doin' in this armpit, Angelus? I woulda thought you
and the Slayer would be busy raisin' up a brood in Modesto by now!"

How was he to explain to his former Childe and nemesis, lover and hunting
partner, just how difficult his once proud and indomitable Sire was finding
being human?

And *why* was he considering explaining it? He simply chose not to answer the
question, and changed the subject, instead.

"Whataboutchoo?" he slurred loudly, "Whatryou doing with your shiny new life
that's so goddamn great?"

Spike laughed -- a clean, deep, resonant sound that sent a shiver equally

nostalgic and hot down Angel's spine.

"Hell, pet! I'm not doing a damn thing differently! Drinking, smoking,
getting my knackers off -- what the Hell else is there? Didya think I'd
suddenly change into a choirboy like you just 'cause I gotta breathe now?"

That was exactly what Angel assumed.  Wasn't that what a creature was
supposed to do when presented with a second chance at life?

"Actually, yes," he admitted aloud.

More laughter from the blonde.  "Well, you sure as Hell haven't changed!
Still sanctimonious, self-flagellating, pouting professionally and generally
hating life, eh Peaches?"

Angel found himself strangely warmed by his Childe's (former Childe,
damn it!) obnoxiousness, despite the sudden urge to punch him in the face.

Which he couldn't very well do. After all... Spike was right.

The blonde punk went on raving about all the great places he'd been since
becoming human, how happy he was that a world without demons really wasn't
as damned boring as he expected, considering there were plenty of evil
humans still walking around, all the various places he'd drunk or fought,
all the birds he'd bagged, and how bloody glad he was that his soul didn't
plague him, unlike certain other depressing wankers he knew.

Angel wasn't really hearing much of what he was saying.  He was too busy
watching the younger man's mouth, and wondering if it would taste as good
warm as it once did cool.  Besides, it was the only part of the bar he could
focus on for long without being overwhelmed by the urge to vomit.

"Hey, ya bloody fruitcake! You know, you can stare at my damn lips all night
if you want, but I bet if we go to whatever convent you're hiding in these
days, I could remind you of other things they're handy for."

Angel blinked, taken aback by the blunt pass, and moved his blurry focus up
to Spike's stormy eyes, which were currently glinting with a mixture of wry
amusement and lust that was yet another thing about him that hadn't changed.

He had been considering the efficacy of a little carnal fun to perk him up,
hadn't he?  Who better than someone he knew, who knew him and his body
already, and who, he could be relatively certain, would not expect anything
more?

The decision made in that instant, he rose.  "I live about five blocks from
here.  On the park."

"Figures," Spike commented, "Nice to see you're still easy."

The walk to his flat was quick and blessedly quiet, both men keeping their
thoughts to themselves.

Angel was thinking about nothing more than getting this man's clothes off.
Getting next to that still-smooth, warm, marbled frame.  He didn't consider
what a relief it was that his thoughts were suddenly so very simple.

Certainly, he wasn't a man easily shocked-- 250+ years of various sorts of
life, and he had seen and done pretty much everything.  But the violence
with which Spike threw him up against his front door and kissed him hard and
deep as he ripped off the larger man's clothes...

This was definitely a surprise.

He and Spike hadn't touched one another in anything but anger in over 100
years... and now, suddenly all that hatred and resentment was gone, and in
its place a consuming passion Angel had forgotten was possible.

All these sensations... Spike's utterly familiar, graceful, strong hands...
but now they were warm.  The sweet liquor-smoke taste of his tongue...
without the blood tang.  The feeling of his lithe body pressed against
him... alive with breath... heartbeat... pulse.

The last time Angel felt the glorious, writhing live-thing that was William,
he had been fucking him into the mattress as he drank him dry.

But now... now they were both alive.  Both warm and human... and the man
whose lips traced the lines of muscles down the center of Angel's torso was
no more and no less than his about-to-be-brand-new-again lover.

A different universe.  A different reality.  And yet... still so much was
the same.

Gone were the complicated fetters of Childe-Sire relations... the dictates
of vampire law and blood ties.  Their history a faded memory.

For the first time, it was one human's desire for another, and no more.

The realization snapped something old, rusted and brittle inside Angel.  He
was suddenly and finally just a man... a hard, needful, lusting male, and
the understanding of it was like a cool breeze through his heated body.

"Spike..." he moaned, winding his hands into the cropped hair of the man on
his knees before him... fingertips scraping warm scalp... and he couldn't
smell his blood.  Only whiskey... cigarettes... cologne and want...

The younger man released him from his slacks... a moment of cold air a shock
to his burning erection before steaming lips closed over it.  Hot tongue,
flicking, fingers caressing, guiding him deep into living flesh.

Angel once killed this being.  A million lifetimes ago, William died in his
arms.  And now...

Now his victim was stroking and sucking him back to roaring, furious,
burning life.

"Yesssss..." he hissed in encouragement.  Take me.  Wake me up.  Remind me
why I'm here.  Why I once wanted so badly to be alive.  Don't tell me you
love me.  Don't ask me to talk... just let me feel.

And so, Spike did.  Closing strong lips in a tight ring around the single
place in Angel's body where all his blood... all his senses... now focused.
Mouth drawing on him like a straw of flesh.  Licking like he was an ice
cream cone.

Absolutely new, but ancient, this feeling... evoking memories of hunts and
glutting on blood, animal rutting in parks, in parlors, carriages, beds and
alleyways... fists and chains... cat-o-nine-tails and Drusilla's sobbing or
singing in the background.  Hot pokers.  Sharp daggers.  Holy water.
Sometimes... nothing but hearts that didn't beat and cold flesh.

But now there was all this fire... blood boiling, screaming, Spike once told
him, and yes, this mortal mouth held the fire that he so craved.  The
questions and answers he struggled so to possess. Sounds of pleasure, of
slurping and panting.  Living motion.  The rushing, pounding, thrusting
realization of mortality...

Angel's ears were ringing, his breath too fast, and he bellowed at the top
of his lungs as he came... Spike drinking him, accepting him, taking every
drop, and a century... two... vaporized in the back of his lover's throat.

He sagged to his knees, spent.  The two men were eye to eye, now, and he
found the blonde's were full of life.  Humor.  Passion.  Just the same
things they had been forever.  The stubborn joie de vivre that made him so
uniquely Spike.

"Always wondered what you'd taste like alive," this human... this familiar
stranger... said with a grin that was half remembering, half condescension.

And right for that moment, Angel loved him.  Not partners for life love, or
soul love.  Not Sire/Childe love... not even empty promises in the heat of
passion love... but the simple adoration of a mortal man in the afterglow of
consuming pleasure.  Post coital love for the lover.

So he kissed him.  Captured the chiseled face that had once driven him to
the depths of demonic lust and depravity, and brought his lips to Spike's
slowly... softly.  Tasted the tiny salt remnants of semen on his bruised
lips.

A sigh eased from the younger man... a new-old sound of unholy adoration and
blind devotion.

"Sire..."

Angel pulled away, stroking one warm, smooth cheek tenderly.  "No, Spike.
Just Angel."

His partner's eyes flew open, the blue flashing almost silver, as though he
had been expecting the old rules to still apply between them.  Angel realized he probably had.

He kissed him again... let the caress linger on lips, then wander... strong
jaw, tender earlobes, pulsing jugular, muscular shoulders.  A long, teasing
circle of tongue over a heartbeat Angel's human ears could no longer hear.

The boy's hands were in his hair, now, gasps drawn from lungs short of
breath with passion.  And when Angel undid Spike's jeans, pulled them away,
and let the kiss continue over hips, thighs and penis, the mortal beneath
him began to moan.

He stopped his reverent wanderings and waited for Spike to
look up.  When he did, Angel helped him to his knees.  He spoke with his eyes,
and hoped his former mate could still hear his thoughts.  He rose and went
to the bathroom, returning a moment later with a box of condoms and tube of
lubricant he always kept on hand, just in case.

Angel had never been with anyone else in this apartment, and he had to think
that maybe some part of him had always known that they would end up here like this.

Spike's eyes went wide as Angel handed him the items, gaping as though he'd
just given him a treasure of unbelievable value and beauty... that was
undoubtedly cursed.

He smiled at the boy and sunk down to his knees, back facing him, and
waited.

For a long moment, Spike didn't move.  Didn't even seem to breathe, as
though he needed time just to process what was happening.  A human for ten
years now, and Sireless for a hundred before that, and still the thought of
taking his former Master this way set all of the little fledgling alarms off
in his mind.

Angel resisted the urge to chuckle or give him soothing words of
encouragement.  Spike needed to accept the offer in his own way, or the
gesture would mean nothing.  They were men, not demons.  This was sex, not
domination.  He wanted Spike to take him.  Wanted to feel full, and know
that the younger man felt it too.

Then he heard the sound of a wrapper tearing.  The wet spurt of lubricant
squeezed out of the tube, and a warm, strong hand on his back, urging him
forward.

He obeyed, shivering in anticipation as he bent down, offering himself in
this most submissive of positions... one which he had never taken in front
of Spike before, in all the decades they'd known one another.  Cool, wet
fingers slid gently into his opening... a place untouched at all in
countless years.  His inner muscles clenched protectively, then loosened
once more as they adjusted... the warmth of friction spread outward through
his every nerve as Spike eased deep, and set a slow, languid rhythm inside
of him.

Angel rocked back against his fingers, the contact a billion times hotter
than the memory of vampire flesh.  He moaned loudly... an unconscious
exclamation of long-forgotten pleasure.  Spike groaned in return, and draped
his wiry frame over Angel's larger, meatier one... squeezed his hardness
inside, and...

"GOD, SPIKE!" Angel shouted as Spike plunged hard to the hilt, deliciously
tearing flesh that would now take days to heal.

"Angel..." he sighed as he leaned into him... took up a graceful, smooth
pace, a jarring depth of hips well used to thrusting motion.

The darker man threw his head back, and cried out as the entire universe
collapsed to a single pinpoint... that place where their bodies were locked
together... explosions rocked his blood as a slick hand wrapped around him,
and his cock hardened... pulsed... a living thing in its own right now under
Spike's exquisite touch.

All of life came down to this, didn't it? This simple act of pleasure and
pain... creation and destruction... connection... all existence nothing but
this in and out... slamming of pelvis against hips... tide of bliss
building.

Why they were here was this... living fire.  Angel slammed himself back into
it... Spike drove himself forward into it... past, present, and future
exploding... hot seed spilling on smooth hand... on the soft carpet.
Roars and cries echoing, hearts thundering, breaths racing...

They both crashed to the floor.  Spike eased out and off of him, and rolled
away to lie on his back, still panting as he stared up at the ceiling.

Angel watched his every motion.  He was perfectly sober, now, and
surprisingly sated.  He looked long and hard at the bleached blonde who, for
thirty years, had been his mate.

Spike shot him a look as he divested himself of the condom and leaned over

to the trash can.  "You're not gonna go all gushy on me now, are ya?"

Angel smiled.  "Wouldn't dream of it."

"Good.  Just because we had one hearty shag doesn't mean I'm going to
move in here and be your bitch again."

He resisted the urge to laugh.  "Of course not."

"Just so we're clear."

Angel rose, and offered Spike a hand up.  "We're clear."

The younger ex-demon stared at the appendage for a moment, as though he
expected it to bite him.  He let his gaze wander upward, taking in the Angel's

broad form and locking on his eyes before letting his former Master pull
him to his feet.

"You were a better fuck as a vampire," he grumped, and pulled a pack of
Marlboros out of his coat.

"Please don't smoke in here, Spike.  Go out on the balcony," Angel
commanded, and padded across the room to slide into the king sized bed.

Spike glared at him for a heartbeat, then shrugged and wandered out the
French doors and into the cool night.

Angel tucked his hands behind his head and relished the faint hint of
tobacco edging the rain scent that floated in on the damp London breeze.  He
watched the glowing end of Spike's cigarette through the sheer curtains, and
wondered... were they all still bound together, somehow... all the humans
and now-humans with whom he'd shared his various incarnations?  Did time and
altered states of being really have any effect on their core essences?

He and Buffy had always drifted in and out of one another's reality.  He and
Spike had always been like two magnets, sometimes repelling, sometimes
attracting.

Maybe he'd been going about his meditations of what it meant to be human all
wrong from the beginning.  Maybe his problem was not that he needed to
change because he was now mortal... but that he needed to accept that he
really hadn't--and possibly wouldn't-- change.  Stop over-analyzing
everything, and start actually living life.

"I can hear you brooding from out here, ya bloody pouf!" Spike announced as
he flicked his cigarette butt over the railing and returned to the room.
"Look.  I know you've always been a big, flaming drama fag.  But I don't get
why can't you just shut off the damn angst machine already, stop wasting
what bloody precious little time you've got and have some damn fun!"

Angel gave him a warm smile... one he could feel... maybe the first one he'd
felt so strongly since he'd gained his fondest wish.  "I was just thinking
the same thing."

Spike started as if he'd slapped him, then fairly gaped at the elder man for
a few heartbeats.  "You're fucking kidding me.  You?  Fun? That snog
scramble your brains or something?"

"You heard me.  Now shut up and get in bed."

After another flabbergasted moment, as the other former vampire laughed,
bounded across the room, and did just that, Angel thought:

It's damn good to be alive.