Binding Angel/Binding Spike Rated NC-17 Email: Kita0610@aol.com/Tink0205@aol.com Pairing: Angel/Spike Disclaimer: Joss is a malevolent god. Summary: Two very pissed off vampires and the nature of grief. Warning: Heavy BDSM. Contains violent slashsex. Notes: Follows the ep "The Gift" and contains spoilers for it. This is a story in two parts: "Binding Angel" = Pissed off Spike, by Kita. "Binding Spike" = Pissed off Angel, by Tink. They really only work when read together. IMPROV WORDS: ragged, cascade, invent, decade Feedback: Please. Never give all the heart For love will hardly seem worth thinking of To passionate women if it seems certain - And they never dream that it fades out from kiss to kiss For everything that is lovely is but a brief, dreamy, kind delight No, never give the heart outright. For they for all smooth lips can say Have given their heart up to the play And who could play it well enough, If deaf and dumb and blind with love- He that made this knows all the cost For he gave all his heart And lost. -Yeats Binding Angel by Kita At night, Spike dreams of falling. His hands ache with the emptiness of just missing that metal ledge, and he falls. Plummets through air saturated with the stench of high majiks and electrical charge. His coat like batwings, and the flash-thought //Damnit, Dracula is a load of bullshit//. He cannot fly. He falls. When he hits the ground he breaks four ribs. And one promise. During the day, Spike watches the humans go about their rituals of death and burial. Covered mirrors and weeping, nights spent pouring over family photos of events invented by monks, fistfuls of white flowers on an elaborate grave. The Undead don't have mourning rituals. Spike tries to remember it is because they aren't supposed to care. He tells himself that a lot when he's alone in his crypt and his chest hurts, and his hands are still empty. Sometimes, he lies in bed and thinks about the aftermath of China and NY. Ceremonial rutting in the still- warm blood with Dru. Bequeathing himself a new calfskin coat. He wonders if now people will say he killed three Slayers. There's a cardboard box under the bed. Dawn comes by sometimes, so he keeps it out of sight. A handful of dirty magazines, two of Drusilla's dolls, Watcher Council books he pinched from Giles. Pictures of Buffy, letters he never sent. A box of chocolates. And he's started a new collection of souvenirs. Every time he kills a demon he takes something small from the body. The night he found a satin hair ribbon in his pocket, he went out on patrol early. Slaughtered five vampires, three Fyoral demons, and a band of Krevlak who weren't doing anything but playing poker in the alley behind Willy's bar. He licked the blood off his hands and got himself a bigger box. There's another box in the trunk of his Desoto. This one is old, and made of wood. It's buried well, beneath the panel where the spare tire ought to be, but he keeps it locked anyway, just in case. Manacles. Leather straps. Bullwhip. Holy Water. That's also where he keeps the directions to the Hyperion. Buffy's been dead two months, one week and four days. Spike doesn't need to look at the directions anymore. *** Angel is naked. Arms bound over his head, crossed at the wrist, not out-stretched. Never out-stretched. No travesty of Jesus here, no martyrs to be had anymore. No redemption. Garish bit of color in Angel's mouth and splatters of blood on the floor. Spike would prefer to use his fists. Fangs. Backhand. Feet. Has neither the time nor the patience for Angelus-like torture devices and stupid wooden boxes that hadn't been opened since Drusilla dumped him the first time..the last time...whichever. He knows if he started to *hit* Angel, really hit him....it could only end with a stake in one's fist and the other's chest. Pretense and sublimation. It fools neither of them. But at least it lasts longer. Spike paces, the crop shifting idly from hand to hand. He wishes he could make the man count, and beg. //Please Master, one.// //Please Master, two.// //Please Master, ten-thousand.// //Please Master, stop..please..please..// But there is nothing left that will make Angel beg, and Spike isn't up for the humiliation of trying and failing at the task. So, the gag. Bright red slash of cotton across that proud face. Bright red slash of blood across that proud back. Both bits of torn flesh ripe and sweet for kissing. First one long swipe of Spike's tongue from Angel's chin to his cheekbone, small circles over the soaked material held fast between clenched teeth. Blood and drool, shimmering spiderweb of saltmiserytime stretches from the tip of his tongue to the corner of Angel's mouth. Flutter of lashes, cruel fists curling into sweat-matted hair. Rape kisses, plundering the spaces left between whimpers and moans with teeth first blunt then sharp. Caressing broken, pink skin with wet open lips until Spike feels the small push of tongue behind the rag, trying to meet his own. Pull away. Lick slowly. Slipslide over that lush, imprisoned mouth; soft cotton and stubbled cheeks. Finally, finally, raise the faintest, choked off plea. //Please Master kiss me// Lashings and kisses. Fangs at wounds that heal too godamned fast for this work. Rend. Chew. Swallow. Make more. The leather heavy in his palm, the wielding of it old, familiar and sacred. Random patterns because Spike isn't trying to create art here. Haphazard suffering across broad shoulders and wide hips. Indiscriminate cascade of pain down muscled thighs and taut shoulders. Let Angelus find beauty in the chaos by himself. It always was his skill. It takes hours for the tears to actually start falling. Spike's arm isn't even tired. (((Some mornings, Spike takes Dawn to school. When noone else can get it done because she refuses to go, refuses to get out of her bed. So he promises her stories if she'll just get dressed and let him take her to breakfast, then classes. Usually she agrees. He watches her make short work of two Egg Mcmuffins and the coffee she's not supposed to have. And he talks. Tells her about Angelus and Acathala. Tells her how he saved the world from them both. Some mornings, she looks like she almost believes him. One day in front of the school, she leaned in and kissed him. Chaste, little girl kiss on the cheek. But she smelled of watermelon lipgloss and bacon, and his vision blurred and his knuckles tightened around the steering wheel. Not made for this, he thought. I'm not made for this. Chanted that all the way to LA. He can't remember who was on top that day. Angel has his own wooden box.))) *** Spike on his knees now, in front of Angel. Angel, who is shivering and bleeding and tearing at the restraints above his head with open claws. Angel, who is flushed and ruddy with arousal, borrowed blood rushing to pool beneath translucent skin. Spike grabs him by the hips, leaves two violet thumbprints on the jutting bones. Still, Angel jumps off his arches when Spike's tongue sneaks out, flat and soft and wet, and covers his balls in one long lick. Angel's thighs and stomach are raw and bloodied, and Spike swallows in furious gulps the drops that gather along the creases in his skin. This is skin Buffy touched. He's not clear on the timing of Angelus' return that long ago Spring night, but there must have been a chance for one good blowjob, somewhere in between the deflowering and the donning of the leather pants, right? Which means that Buffy licked this bittersweet line of flesh from thigh to crotch. Buffy kissed this patch of smooth hair from belly to cock. Not electronic Buffy, not under- some-spell Buffy. But Buffy. The genuine girl. The girl who kissed Spike only once of her own free will. The girl who kissed Angel more times than he can count, even when she couldn't shag him. Buffy. was. here. Curses the fucking train of thought, the godamn metaphor and irony he makes of it, the poet that will not die. But it always comes back to this. To the primal and basic instinct of connection and creation. Spit and semen. He wraps his lips around the thick shaft, slides his mouth along slick, swollen skin. So familiar, so familial. Dru and Buffy and always sloppy seconds for Spike. Blood of the fathers. What makes Angel any better than he? It's not like Angel *asked* for his fucking soul. And Spike didn't need Gypsies or divine intervention to make his promise to the Slayer. Now, Spike can't find any traces of the girl on the other vampire. Angel doesn't smell like stolen humanity, doesn't smell like he's rubbed up against anything living or warm in a long, long time. His cock is cool and thick, and it occurs to Spike how strange they must feel (taste) to mortals. Slick flesh with nothing at all moving beneath it, like death and (plasticine. She went down on him, in his crypt, while he smoked. She never mentioned the taste.) There's death on Angel, and that is real. There's the quivering of hips in a grasp that is harsh and unyielding. There's the low, humming sound of need and ache. There's the obedience of stillness //move again, even an inch, and I'll stop// and the knowledge that if he took the gag out now, Angel probably would beg. Problem is, Spike doesn't know what he would beg for, anymore than he knows what either of them really want out of this.arrangement. They are stealing rivers here, and some nights, that makes him feel alive. //You treat me like a man// And some nights, it's the worst punishment of all. Spike grasps the base of Angel's cock in one fist, slides his mouth around the head, licks in long, slow circles along the entire length. Pulls back the foreskin and tongues the tiny slit, before leaning forward, nose to Angel's belly. Then he is still, humming softly. When he moves again, tears and blood fall like rain onto Spike's pale hair. Angel huffs through his nose when he comes. Spike thinks he sounds more like dying prey than a man experiencing pleasure. Doesn't think he's heard anything quite so sweet in a long, long while. *** ((("You could bring her back, couldn't you? That butler guy. Owes you a favor." Stated casually with Angel bound and on his knees. No gag that evening. Spike really wanted to hear the answer. "I-how did you-?" "Drusilla, of course." Of course. "I can't do that. You *know* I can't do that." "All I know is that you're a useless fucking coward." Spike used his fist that time. Once, hard and furious into Angel's nose. Angel let him.))) *** Angel on his back now, bound to the bed by wrists marked and scarred. Have to keep the leathers tight to keep the scars. To make something last. Angel's eyes are pressed tightly shut, dark soaking lashes on white white cheeks. No good. Noone ever looks at Spike. Noone ever sees. Watcher's been in a bottle since the day, and all the pretty children wrapped in bubble-grief and trying to pretend that life goes on. Because they have to. Because they're all going to die before Spike gets around to changing his hair color. So they walk right past the vampire who used to be William the Bloody and present their backs , their necks, their godamned soft bellies. Because it doesn't matter, he won't hurt them, he won't bite here, they tell him, here...take the Slayer's sister. Fourteen and stupid and ancient and wise and not even *real*. And only she. Sees him. No good. He tugs at Angel's hair again, pulls back hardharderhardest til his large body arches into the perfect bow, til his eyes open wide, and wet. Yes. //Watch because this is me, I am here, I am hurting you, I am kissing you, I am beating you bloody and open and stinking of rancid pain and mortal heat and I am drinking you and I am fucking you godamn it so look at me.// Maybe he is really speaking or maybe he is just speaking in tongues, because Angel *is* looking at him now. Staring and blinking slowly, then lowering his gaze in what may as well be submission. Those fucking eyes of sorrow and nevermores, and all Spike can think of is... I can do this too. You may be a better man, a better lover, a better warrior, a better vampire, but godamn you, you sorry sonofabitch, I can grieve. just. as. well. as. you. (((Sometimes, Angel has to be persuaded. Damned if Spike kens the whys and wherefores of the older vampire's mercurial moods. Twice damned if he actually cares. But Spike can be one persuasive motherfucker when he has to be. He pulled a balled up slip of material from his coat pocket, dragged it slowly into his Sire's view. Lace and satin, mostly pink. A few complicated designs resembling hearts. Brought it close to his face and inhaled, before tossing it onto the table in front of them both. "So, what ya think, Peaches? Think she wore these for Soldier boy?" Spike didn't walk for two days after that. Couldn't drive back to Sunnydale without help getting into his car. It was worth it.))) *** Angel is in gameface from the pain, Spike wonders if he is even aware of it. He lays on top of Angel, sticks his fingers under the gag, and pokes at Angel's extended canines. Teeth that drank The Slayer's blood. (He tries not to think that Dawn's blood is Buffy's blood and that some nights when she doesn't want to go home she curls up next to him and falls asleep and she trusts him and he could tear into that sweet flesh and it would be worth the blinding pain to taste that taste that taste that...) There just isn't enough. Not enough screaming, not enough crying, not enough pain. And never enough blood. Tears into Angel instead with both teeth and cock. Spills more. A sacrifice of the only blood that will *not* become life. Dead, borrowed blood that will warm noone and make no heart beat. A sacrament of seed that will never create anything. No portals will open, no secrets will be revealed. Noone here is worthy. Spike does not care. He has found his ritual of mourning in the humble rite of railing Angel into a stained and soaking mattress. A Kaddish of bones slamming and flesh opening. Sometimes, he thinks, an Ave needs to be screamed rather than sung. Sometimes that's the only way the gods listen. It is just so damned difficult to make Angel scream anymore. Spike uses a whole fist to push the stray white curls from his forehead. Peers down between ridiculously long lashes at the vampire bound to the bedstead beneath him, and curves one corner of his mouth into a grin. Angel is still, staring up at him, shaken by that small gesture. So he does it again; lifts his hand, fingers locked inside of thumb, pushes his sweat-sticky hair back. He saw Buffy do it countless times fightingfuckingslaying. The realization hits Angel and he howls, futiley, behind the twisted red cotton. Spike raises one brow and shapes his lips into the mockery of a surprised 'O'. Fucks Angel harder. Earns himself and the gods one more muffled scream. *** And after, Spike doesn't undo Angel's wrists. He leaves the larger man tied to the bed, bruises fading to a ruddy purple, blood sinking copper and crimson into already stained sheets. Spike fancies it looks like sunrise. He removes the gag though; soaked through with tears and sweat and spit, and Angel sucks in one, huge shuddering breath. He lays naked atop Angel's shivering form, licks carefully at the salt covering reddened cheeks, turns his head, and offers his throat. Lets Angel drink his fill, then cradles him some more and murmurs nonsense. Sweet lies and promises that mean nothing at all, because they both know that the world has already ended and this is all just some kind of sick, eternal overtime. He whispers anyway; snippets of lullabyes that Angelus used to sing to Dru after beating her raw, and endearments which he will dearly regret using in the morning. Calls Angel 'baby'. Calls him 'Sire' too, because it seems right, just for now. Because when it is Spike's turn to be tied to this very bed, when he is purple and yellow and red, he can only hope Angel will extend him the same small mercies. Because when he presses close to Angel, the air is thick with pain and grief and blood, instead of electricity and majik. And because when he holds tight to the cool, shaking body beneath his own, he doesn't feel like the only one who is falling. *** Binding Spike by Tink Angel is prowling again. There are long, long hallways in his hotel, hallways that carry him from floor to floor, room to room, a never ending freeway of shuttered and dark places. He tried to sleep during the nights after Willow left. But his sleep was always brief and unrestful, waking every hour on the hour, and his dreams slipped out of his grasp before he could remember them. So Angel prowls, all alone. Except on the nights Spike comes. *** One day Angel decides to look up "grief" in Webster's New Concise Dictionary. Webster tells him, in no uncertain terms, that the definition of grief is thus: "Acute mental pain resulting from a definite cause. A great sorrow or affliction." Angel seizes on the word "affliction" and holds it close to him that night as he beats Spike to a bloody mess. There is a belt made of black snakeskin that finds its slithering way into Angel's hand. The buckle is hard and cold and formed into a shimmering copper crucifix. After it leaves ugly red welts on Spike's flesh, Angel manages to wind the reptilian length around Spike's vulnerable neck. Wonders if it is possible for Spike to lose consciousness even though oxygen to his brain is unnecessary. Wonders why Spike isn't screaming. Why he is staring at Angel with those disconsolate eyes, biting his lips between his teeth, his cheekbones standing out in stark relief. Angel wants. To. Hear. Screaming. He hits Spike with an open palm in an effort to snap his head back, or to the side, or to any position where those endless blue eyes are not staring at him with a mix of ocean and rain and sorrow and ((angelus please just help me through it)) rage. And when Spike is no longer looking directly at him, Angel can bring his head down and pierce a hole in the expanse of white belly with one sharp fang and start the blood to flowing again. And even though he can slather himself with the redness, Angel can bathe in a lake of Spike's blood and paint pictures on the wall with it, there is not enough of it to replace the drops that fell from Dawn Summers' feet. But as long as there is blood, Angel thinks of life. And he does not have to think of ((chocolate and peanut butter)) small but mighty Slayers hurling themselves off of towers. But sometimes, on the bad nights, the blood only serves to remind him of that which was spilled at his first joining with Buffy. (( i love you me too i try not to but i can't stop)) And then lucky Spike reaps the benefits of the remembrance. *** It doesn't matter how many times either one of them has been on top. They always know when it's time to switch, the current in the air or the pull of the moon or the way of the tide has nothing to do with it, Angel doesn't believe in that bullshit anyway. The one thing he believed in is dead. They switch positions when the stale blood in their flat veins tells them to, and tonight is Angel's turn. Angel's turn to play victimizer, and although he ((dreads)) relishes the role when it is first presented, he knows it's only a sham. Big boy vampire playing at dominance. Embarrassing, so embarrassing because he only wants to be submissive and hide in the place that assures him that what is happening isn't his fault. But it isn't his turn to do that. Tonight is not his turn to go away into the soft, silent space. Instead, he flicks his eyes over the rawhide ties on the floor, the silken gag peeking out from under the bed. Ignores them all. And especially ignores Spike's pleading eyes, begging him to be tied and chained and gagged and whipped and run through with quarterstaffs. It makes Angel feel the smallest bit triumphant that way, and maybe a shade more in control of ((himself)) the situation, which of course isn't really under either of their control at all. There are nights Spike comes to Los Angeles and he reeks of submissive behavior, Angel can smell the stench of subservience before he even walks in the fucking door with his downcast eyes and meek posture. Those are the nights Angel punishes him by forcing him on top. //i'm gonna make you scream, you ignorant piece of shit soul-having sorry excuse for whatever you are. you're gonna scream the fucking walls down.// Tonight Spike swaggered in the front door of the Hyperion and his braggadocio filled the entire lobby. Tonight Angel forces him into submission. //insolent damned boy. i'll make you pay for thinking you're man enough to touch her.// Whatever is within reach of Angel's grasping, bloody fingers becomes an extension of his arm, and he uses whatever he can to make deep gashes in alabaster skin. Sweat and pain and wide-eyed gasping breaths come from useless lungs, from a dead heart, and still Angel doesn't stop the beating until Spike is a quivering heap of bloodied carcass on the bare sheet. There are ever more creative ways for Angel to hurt him, and the things he has done thus far are mild in comparison. But he never, ever gags him. That would quiet the screaming. Angel understands that he is punishing Spike for even coming here at all. Somehow, Spike's castigation is related to Angel's regimented grieving. Angel hasn't figured out how. All he knows is that there is a body in the room with him, a body that is minutely related to the one girl in all the world who had the job of twice sending a loved one into the arms of certain and painful death, but who chose the second time to sacrifice herself instead. Angel very carefully decides not to think about the fact that the one girl in all the world had not sacrificed herself for him. When he looks down again at the shivering body, he discovers one swollen blue eye has pried itself open, and cracked and bleeding lips are forming a ragged word. ((more)) He changes his mind about using the leathers. *** (((Once, during the day, Angel forgets the presence of Cordelia and Wesley and absentmindedly rubs his chafed wrists. They itch, even when almost healed, which he supposes is fitting. When he looks up from his paperwork, they are both staring at his purple scars. Cordelia opens her mouth, but intercepts Wesley's small shake of his head and wisely closes it again. Angel jerks his sleeves down over his wrists and lets his eyes burn a hole in the desktop. And when Spike shows up two nights later, Angel tightens the manacles on him till his wrists run rivers of blood over the pillow. ))) *** Sometimes there is the need for comfort, and to be comforted. Something paternal in Angel speaks its mind and on these ((rare)) nights no blood is spilled, no wounds are inflicted where the eye can see. Angel takes in all Spike is, all he represents, and is awed and humbled by the beauty that Drusilla created. Spike presents his smooth back to Angel, the muscles that flex and ripple slightly, buttocks that clench and tighten. Long, strong legs that bulge with sinew at the calf. Shockingly white hair, mussed and sweat-dampened and maybe getting a shade too long, curls enticingly over his nape, and Angel wants to rubstroketongue the spot and leave a glistening trail of saliva. So he does. And then when Spike is finally straining against the soft cotton that is imprisoning his arms to the bedstead, when Spike is murmuring nothings into the pillow and grinding himself against the satin coverlet, Angel just lays himself over the taut body. Angel knows that tonight will be a night when he finds himself so deeply imbedded in his grief for what is lost that he can't bear for Spike to leave. Can't stand to think of even an hour in the future, when Angel will be left alone again to deal privately and painfully with the indescribable anguish that is becoming so familiar. So he draws it out. Covers Spike gently, so gently, feeling the muscle and sinew and straining fibers, and it helps a small bit. Angel can almost pretend Spike is alive. There are no chains or biting lashes, only the cotton ropes at his wrists and Angel wants to melt into him, wants to become one with him so that he might possibly take away from Spike whatever it was that Buffy gave him. Angel wants what the slayer gifted to Spike. There is a difference about the younger ((man)) vampire, and Angel doesn't know what it is but knows it is there, and he sinks himself deeply into Spike in hopes of capturing the essence of it. He kisses him with open mouthed pleasure, reveling in Spike's inaudible groan, clutching and grasping and feeling himself grow even impossibly harder while deep within him. The nights like this, when there is only physicality for Angel, when his entire macrocosm is only Spike, he wants to ask him what Buffy gave him. He wants to know why Spike so willingly takes his punishment ((like a man)) from Angel. He wants to know why Spike is grieving too. But then Spike makes him forget until the next time, because he has smoothly taken Angel's hand and placed it on his own swollen shaft. Angel begins to stroke it with infinite gentleness, and Spike arches and twists and writhes on the satin sheets which will never be free of the bloodstains. A veritable cascade of semen and blood, the givers of life. But all Angel knows to do with life is take it. *** (((One night, Angel tries to talk. Tries to make the mindless act that is half-fucking, half-beating into some semblance of normalcy. "Uh ... so you're back," he says inanely when Spike appears like a wraith in his doorway. Spike looks startled and disgusted all at once. His eyes flick to the sterling band that has appeared on Angel's fourth finger of his left hand. The blond gestures with a lift of his chin. "Why you wearin' that?" //because it's something you can't have something of buffy's you'll never have// "Does it ... bother you?" Angel says softly, using his thumb to trace the ridges of the hands, the heart, the crown, and his ultimate reward is the flaring of Spike's nostrils and the flash of utter despair in the morning-blue eyes. Blood spatters the walls an hour later. Shadows thrown by a lone candle show outlines of a silent, tortured victim. Spike is on top that night and the next day Angel does not get out of bed. ))) *** The night that Angel finally comes to the true understanding of the Slayer's death results in a startling moment of clarity. He finds that understanding while straddling his partner, facing away from the demandingdemeaningdemoralizing blue eyes. Spike's cock is in his mouth and Angel lies with his chest on Spike's pelvis, the short pubic hairs roughening a rash into his skin, presenting Spike with the untouchable temptation of his ass. He ignores the whimpers. The sudden sharpness of comprehension thrusts itself into Angel's mind at the exact moment that he deep throats the angry red cock beneath him, the precise second that he slides his hands around to cup the tight buttocks and bring the shaft even more deeply into his mouth, and then all at once Angel is deathly still. He knows why Spike is here. Spike is his gift. When Angel is truly ready, the Powers That Be will reveal Angel's reward. A small shift of the hips beneath him, and Angel tongues Spike lightly. Traces a finger down to the hole below, draws small circles around it. Angel knows now with the same calm knowledge that blesses the martyrs and saints and all the sons of Christ that his humanity is ascertained. The proof is lying under him, straining, panting, reaching for climax. This is the thing that will bring him his ultimate gift, not the humanity, but the blessed relief that will follow it. And even if it is the biggest untruth Angel has ever fabricated, somehow he will *make* this be about Buffy. Somehow this dance, this ritual between himself and the childe of his childe, is about Buffy, and Angel strains and cries and damns himself to make it so. And he convinces himself in the dark, dark hours before dawn, that Spike knows it too. ((The chip will come out, eventually. And the blond vampire will find Angel when it does. Angel convinces himself of it with placid assurance, the same kind of assurance he has that the sun will rise tomorrow. And then Spike will kill him.)) Still another lie, maybe, but Angel seizes it and grasps it and holds it tight to his torn and dying heart. He knows he must die as a human. To die as a vampire would not result in the very thing that he is crying for inside, the same thing that makes him fuck and beat and hurt and bleed Spike over and over and over. To die as a vampire will never reunite him with the Slayer. So Angel fucks Spike. He fucks him for hope of his own death, he beats him for a promise of his own afterlife, and he bleeds him for a chance at his own salvation. And then he presses in close to him as they both lay quivering in the bed, tries to tell him without words that in the end, they'll both be all right. That there will be deliverance for both of them after the fall. And that tomorrow, the sun will rise. -End