Two Parts of the Same

SUMMARY : Year One - Angel and Spike learn to forgive and love again. Year Two - Angel and Spike deal with issues from the past and get closer. Year Three - Spike is human again and he and Angel must come to terms with the loss of forever. Year Four - vamped again, Spike and Angel must deal.

A SPECIAL THANKS TO : Anne, Margaret, Karachi & especially Angel Dust - Thank you ALL for all your advice and help. I honestly would never have come this far with out you!

AUTHOR'S NOTE : Yes, I know I said that I was not writing any more of this. But what can I say… I was inspired! So thank the muses and the afore mentioned people for helping me! Updates might come slowly, but... I'm working on it!

There is nothing like the sound of five hundred hearts beating at once. Hearing the pounding in your ears is like sitting in the back seat of the car with the bass cranked to the max. The sound alone can drive you mad, but the scent of five hundred people's love, hate, fear, sadness, joy… it's amazing.

I glance over at him. He glares at me and flashes me those glorious fangs that I've missed so much. He sits up and looks around, searching, always searching. How long has it been since we've sat in the back of a crowded theatre looking… hunting? His hands grasp my thigh and he cranes his neck out just a bit, pointing toward a woman, brunette.

She's beautiful by all accounts, long, silk hair, brown eyes, slender figure, ample bosom, shapely legs-

"What do you say, Sire?" He whispers in my ear before biting my neck playfully. "Shall we?"

I nod and lick my teeth. Fangs… *my* fangs are *aching* to come out, to sink into tender flesh and feel blood flow over them.

The lights come on and everyone stands up. He takes my hand and leads me down the alley toward the woman. We get in step behind her and as the crowd pushes us out the door, we each grab one of her arms and Spike attacks her mouth to swallow her screams as we drag her away.

Her fear is instantaneous, soaking the air around us and it's so delicious. I open my mouth, just a little, and drink in the scent, tasting it on my tongue, on my fangs. We slam her up against a wall behind the theatre and I watch him rip into her throat savagely.

"Just a dream." A dream I've been having for the past twenty-four hours every time I close my eyes.

So I resign myself to pulling my charcoals out from under the bed. I set up an easel and grab another canvas, the twelfth one today. I place it carefully on the easel and start drawing with a light grey.

Was it just one day ago that I watched him swallow me whole? Was it just yesterday that I begged him to fuck me and relished the pulsing, hot cock deep inside me?

The demon that is now Spike grows stronger every minute and I can feel the beginnings of the sire-childe bond renewing inside me. It makes me yearn for him even more and I've decided the hardness that throbs for him should be his when he awakens. I will not let it subside, as if I could- the taste of his blood still lingers on my tongue and I have not drunk since I last drew his life from his veins.

I held him into early this morning, until the sun's first rays were visible. I carried his lifeless form into the hotel and ran a bath. Could it be considered morbid that I bathed his dead body- that I held him helplessly against me and enjoyed his skin brushing against my own? And is it disgusting that I lovingly caressed his lifeless cock and ran my hands over his body as I cleaned the blood and cum off us both? And would it be revolting that I kiss him, even in his death- even as he should be buried beneath the surface?

No. William was never alive in this world, in this city- not really- and he has no place being buried beneath it.

So is it morbid? Or sick? Or disgusting? No. None of this is. Not to me. He's not dead, not really, and I've never had a problem kissing him before. He never had a problem with me kissing his cool lips. He's not dead. He's just sleeping. And I want *so* desperately to wake him.

My hands begin to move again on the canvas and I just watch them, as if they are of someone else.

His sharp jaw line still makes my mouth water and his pale neck makes my fangs ache.

I put the new sheets on before I laid him gently onto our bed and I curled up next to him, with my head on his chest, as if expecting him to wrap his hand around me and call me Sire.

I still have twenty-four hours or so to wait for that- for my William to be alive again- to say my name.

Cordelia called earlier today and asked how things went. It was strange. I knew she'd ask about him and 'it', as she said. Still, I was dumbfounded. I had no idea how to answer her question. What should I have said? "Things went well, he died." Or "things went bad, he died."

Instead, I said things were fine and that she shouldn't bothering coming in for a few days. I told her if she had a vision and they needed my help, to call, but only if it was an emergency.

I lay down on the bed next to him and take in his naked form. "This is probably the only twenty-four hour period when you *won't* be hard at all." I laugh at my words. I miss his laugh.

The place seems so empty without him in it- without his laughter, without his breath moving the air, without his love moving *me*. It feels so empty without him staring at me or touching me.

I place my hand on his stomach, over his navel. His body is so cold- cooler than I, much cooler. He has yet to feed and move and make the body lived in.

I lean down and place a kiss on his cool lips, wishing his tongue would snake out and kiss me back.

I glance at the small cross pendant I bought him for Christmas. I wonder when he will let me chain him to the bed. I wonder how deep he'll let me cut him- or when he'll beg me to take him for the first time.

Again, I'm sure this sort of thing would be deemed Necrophilia or some other form of perversion. But what is the difference if I kiss him now? Or when he awakens an undead corpse?

"You- you said you wanted it," I insist, pleading with him to remember, to understand. I don't know what's going on.

I want to go to him and reassure him. I'm not sure I should and the choice is made for me when he walks past and pushes me aside. I sink down on the bed, not by choice, rather due to a lack of all muscle control as he walks out the door.

This pencil in my hand is the only thing that gives me comfort, the only thing that allows me to know his body right now. But where to begin?

I focus on his neck, on the scar. His 'sire' scar. It's the one I gave him this past year- when I drank from him, the human him. I begin to sketch out the crook of his neck. I am able to know him better, study his every line, every bit of flesh.

"Ya know, Will, I almost like the calm you, when I can actually draw you. You'd never be this still, of course, when you're naked in our bed; *I* can't be still either."

"Back then, Spike, back then we could have never known real love. But we do now. We knew it this past year, didn't we? And the year before that as well. Although, I suppose we've always known it, we just couldn't admit it."

Now that I think about it, there really was no difference in Spike as human and Spike as the vampire. He can love, probably one of the only vamps that can, without a soul that is. But as I've said, I think it's that poet's heart. Of course, if I ever told *him* that…

I smirk as I draw through half-opened eyes. "That's right, William. We love each other. *Real*, *soul*ful love. You won't admit it, but I *know* there must be something of your soul in you still."

I let the silence consume me as I continue to memorize each shadow that plays on his skin.

When, finally, exhaustion did get the better of me, I fell dead asleep on the bed next to him.

I don't remember what I'd been doing- it was either counting backwards from a thousand or recounting every day since becoming a vampire. Perhaps it was the body count. I don't remember.

I was delirious by then and was happy when a dreamless sleep finally did take me over.

Now that I'm awake, I realize that I only slept ten hours and that I have another ten or so until he'll awake.

I wonder, as I gaze at him, what Spike does when he closes himself in his computer room.

I walk into the room and turn the computer on. I sit in his chair and look at the pictures he's hung on the wall behind the computer. I guess I never realized just how much Spike has become part of the group. He's got a framed picture of Buffy and Dawn from a birthday party. He has a group shot of Willow, Tara, Xander and Anya next to a picture of Cordelia and Gunn. I stare at the picture of him and I, taken last year, when he decided to attack me with the camera. He's got Wesley, Virginia, and Giles up there as well.

I bring up the start menu and select "find". When the box comes up, I decide to see what's under my own name. As it searches, it brings up a bunch of website files for Angel Investigations.

You'd think he'd have saved some of those vulgar picture manipulations of me that he's so fond of. Spike has too much fun with the digital camera and photoshop. And it's not as if I'm not opened to pretty much anything that he could think up, sexually that is, but he feels the need to take my naked pictures and play with them.

I would at least have thought he'd have some of those notes he's left for me. I can't help but smile at the thought of those naughty letters he writes for me. I'd like to read some of them again. I want to know him bet- oh!

I click on 'new search' and type in the word 'sire'. A folder pops up and… my, *my*. Look at that. All the letters. I love Spike, I love everything about him, but I especially love how he saves his files. And he couldn't just save this one as 'dungeon letter'. He had to save it as 'Slave Angel chained to altar being whipped' and for *this* one: 'Master takes slave hard and fast in fountain at the mall'.

But there are also files named "11.12, 11.14, 12.2…" They all seem to be dates. "12.24."

I… I… wow. That's just- wow. I can't stop the smile from spreading across my face. He writes *poems* about me.

But I guess that these aren't meant for me to see. I suppose if he wanted me to know- he'd have told me.

I walk back into the bedroom and sit on the bed. I pick up my Geoffrey Keating's History of Ireland and begin to read aloud. I relax back into the pillows beside him and take his hand and place it in my lap. His fingers are so relaxed, almost as if we'd just made love and I'm reminded of times past as I run my thumb over his hand gently.

I once used to read to William in bed- after I'd exhausted him physically. He said no one could make history seem quite so interesting. He would slowly fall asleep as I read. I once asked him why I should bother reading if he was going to fall asleep and he said that he liked watching my mouth as I spoke the words. He told me that he liked my voice being the last voice he heard before he slept. I smiled that night and read five chapters before spending a few hours watching him sleep motionless.

"Will-" I whisper. "You're so beautiful," I tell him as I stroke his cheek. "So cold, Spike. I will miss that about you- I'll miss your breath and your heat. But they were never yours to begin with, were they?"

I slide my hand down his body, over his navel, to his sleeping cock. "Even like this, Will, even in death, I want you."

I climb over him and my cock throbs as I look down at my mate and lover and soon-to-be-childe.

Then, I slide down his body and lift his weeping cock to my lips. I take him in my mouth- god, he's so dead.

He barely fills my mouth and he does not throb, does not move, or whimper, or shove himself down my throat.

Sadly, I let him slip from my mouth as I move up the bed. I pull the covers up over us and press myself against his lifeless form.

My cock rests heavy on his thigh and I place my hand over it, pushing it into his skin. "Uh…" gods, the pressure… feels so damn good. I hold my hand tight over my cock and thrust my hips against him a little, moving inside my palm.

I lift his one arm and place it around me as I curl into him. I take his other hand and place it under my own, right above my throbbing cock. I breathe in his scent and even in death, he's so peaceful and soothing to me. Perhaps this is why *I* always enjoyed his falling asleep first. I take deep breaths slowly.

But sleep doesn't take hold. Sleep is for someone *not* waiting for their lover, whom they just killed.

But it feels so nice in his arms, and considering that I may not get to be in them again… it's pretty damn nice!

I can't get my mind off my erection, throbbing away under our hands. I've been hard now for how long? Twenty-four hours or more? And I'm still hoping that he'll *want* to suck me down or fuck me when he wakes up.

But what if he's not completely my Spike? What if he's off the wall and just like a fledgling? What if I have to pull rank on him or dominate him? He won't trust me again because I promised I wouldn't hurt him.

I scream and jump up- what the- I gasp and the oxygen… where the hell is it? I can't see a bloody thing- I just smell death. Fuck. I smell death...

I swing my arm out at the intrusion on my body. "WHAT DID YOU DO TO ME?!" Oh my god. I can't breathe. I can't breathe… WHY THE HELL CAN'T I BREATHE?

Blind terror soaks the air around us as he swings at the air and stumbles around. He's trying to breathe.

He's gasping and I just stand helpless as he claws at his own throat. Shit. I forgot. I forgot all of this. I forgot how terrifying it is. I forgot that usually you'd be in a box under the ground. I've never seen this. I felt it. But I never saw it.

"Spike! Stop!" I try to hold him, but he yanks away from me as he growls and I see his face- HIS FACE!

My beautiful boy is back! Even as his terror and anger swirl around my head, I can't help but be relieved to see the fangs in his mouth, where they belong.

"No- it can't be…" he runs out of the room and I run after him. What if he tries to hurt himself?

My lungs burn as I run. Something in the back of my head tells me I've been here before. I *know* I have. But I can't… I can't remember. I just run. Up stairs I've been up before. I just… I don't remember. I throw open the door and run outsi-

We both close the distance between us and he's attacking my mouth, plundering it with his tongue. Oh his tongue! I don't remember much, but I remember he's my sire.

I dig my nails into his hips and pull him closer, closer. I need him closer. I slide my hands around to his arse and grab him and pull him closer.

I break from kissing him for a second. "Spike- I thought -" But my words are lost as he returns to my mouth and he's so desperate to touch me. I smell my own blood and I can't help but grab his face and attack his mouth again. I thought I'd lost him- hurt him beyond forgiveness…

I thrust my hips against him and his hands slide down my back, over my skin and it feels so… right.

MY SIRE! I drink him in, let him wash over my tongue, down my throat, inside me.

"What is this?" I asked him while we stood there in the rain, even though I already knew.

I glanced down at the body and licked my lips. "Yes, I know what this is. What *we* are."

"You *will* come to me, Will," he said as he stood there naked. "Or I will *make* you."

Oh and he did! I remember. He made me, over and over and over again while I screamed in ecstasy.

When did we land on the ground?

When did he bury his fangs into my thigh?

Shit. I grab his head and yank him up to my lips and taste us.

******

"You can taste us all, William. You can taste our entire line in our blood, our history. Try it, draw deeply, close your eyes and feel it."

******

I growl and flip us over before sliding down his body and scraping my fangs over his navel.

"SPIKE!" He screams and oh yeah- I remember that too. I sink them in further and he bucks his hips as I suck on his bellybutton and draw his blood out. I close my eyes and I can remember so much.

******

"ROLLERBOY!!!!!!" He roared. "GO GET HIM, DRU!"

"Spike?" She whispered as she came into my room. "Angelus wishes to see you."

"You mean fuck me?" I asked.

"Spike… you should stop speaking ill of him to the fledges is all. The moon says it'd all be better if you-"

"NO!" I growled at her. "It's not *going* to get better, Dru! The moon lies! He's going to kill us all!"

"Noooo!" She hissed at me. "Daddy wishes to see you."

"*What* is it with you, *Spike*?!" He growled as he came in. "Can't follow a simple direction? Of course, you never could… I was just too stupid to ever punish you for it. Luckily, I'm over that now."

He yanked me out of the wheelchair and kicked it across the room. "*LEAVE*, Dru," he growled as he flung me onto the bed.

~*~*~*~*~

A heat hotter than the hottest hot I'd ever felt… hazy, humid…

Cubans everywhere and I wished I'd studied more than just Castilian Spanish.

But underneath my burning desire to get the fuck out of Miami… was the deep-rooted feeling of sire.

******

Good and bad, that's what we had. That's what I taste in his blood as I lick up his body. I kiss him and he kisses me. He flips me over and scrapes his fangs down my throat. He grinds against me and I'm suddenly aware of the ground- the cement and the pieces of gravel and stone. His fangs bring my blood to the surface as my back scraps against the floor beneath me. Jesus fuckin' Christ! I forgot how *good* it feels to feel *everything*.

I can feel each little prick on my back. I can feel the tiny beads of blood that now cover my back and I dig my nails into his shoulders and get lost in the sensations and memories.

******

"Leave town."

I looked up and I'd never expected to see *him* standing there. Especially since if he knew where we are staying, why didn't he bring his new pal with him to slay us good?

"Come again?" I asked, hoping Drusilla would stay asleep.

"Nothing good will come of you being here, Spike."

"Now it's Spike? Not Will?"

"Take Dru and leave town."

"No."

"After the whole Halloween thing, Spike… just leave."

"You gonna start carin' what happens to me now?" And for a split second, it looked like he was going to answer.

But he didn't. "Just leave. If you don't… well, I'm not responsible for-"

"I know, *Peaches*, you're *never* responsible. Now get out of my home."

******

I fall limply beside him, my belly full of our history. My mind, as well.

I'm *beyond* nervous when he falls beside me.

Gods, *say* something besides 'Sire', Will. Say *anything*, but make me believe that you're you.

The silence is killing me, but I'm afraid. I'm afraid to say anything. He's remembering. I can tell, I felt it while I was drinking him.

I just watch him as he processes everything. I've never really studied a newly turned person before. I never saw this happen and I barely remembering going through it myself. But Spike has a couple hundred more to process than the last time he went through this. So I just lay on my side and watch him inhale the air. New senses, everything is sharper, brighter, more fragrant.

God, LISTEN TO IT!

I think I can hear people walking on the street in front of the hotel! It's this huge rush, plowing me over filling every single cell of my being… family- blood- love- desperation- horror- terror- fear- joy- elation- bloody hell!

His body convulses from the power of it all and I gather him up, my William in my arms.

I remember these past few years too. I remember Angel. Through my entire life, I remember Angel.

I remember how empty I was this past year- how weak. I couldn't feel him like before and I can now. His blood connects us both. *Our* blood now.

I can feel how desperate he is, how fearful. Oh! Because-

"I missed really tasting you, Peaches."

"HOLY SHIT! SPIKE!" I scream and hug him tightly. "I WAS SO SCARED!"

"I was too," I whisper softly.

I *am*.

~*~*~*~*~

It's weird to imagine a time when he wasn't in my arms like this. In these past few years, Spike and I haven't just sat like this much- with his head resting back against my chest. My one arm is around his neck, hand on his chest and one of his hands has been holding it there for the past hour. My other arm is around his waist, over his arm, playing with his fingers. I kiss his neck softly before resting my chin in the crook of his shoulder again.

We sit where I took his life two nights ago, him between my legs, which wrap around him. I feel complete.

"Fuck- Spike… I was so scared," I confess once more, breaking the comfortable silence. "I kept having these nightmares- that you would have a soul and hate me… and then when you woke up- I thought I'd destroyed you."

I feel his hand tighten around my arm and it feels good to be holding him and having *him* hold *me*.

I turn my head and kiss his lips softly. Angel's lips. My *sire's* lips. I'm kissing them.

I can feel his blood- *our* blood- behind me, all around me, surrounding me, filling me.

That connection- to him that I used to feel- it's finally back after *so* long. I'm finally filled again- completely. That part of me that had been missing for so long- the pull of your sire… not having it caused me so much pain.

"I'm sorry- I just didn't remember…"

"I know," he whispers. "When you wake up- you just… I should have remembered."

"But I'm here now," I say softly.

"You're here now."

My fangs itch to sink into something warm… I'm so hungry. Famished.

"Angel?" I ask.

"Hmm?" I reply. I'm *so* glad he's him. I feel so connected with him right now. I can only imagine what it'll be like to finally make love to him again.

"I'm hungry," he says and- fuck. I know he's him now. He's *my* Spike- the one I made and loved and kept and held. But- he is *my* Spike. And Spike is hungry.

I *knew* he was going to be hungry. I *know* that every vampire is hungry upon waking. It's a craving- a desire to wash away the last of the humanity and to recognize and affirm the power you know you have. It's a need. The need to feed and kill and hurt and it could destroy us.

He's my Spike. He called me Peaches and he's in my arms and- he's hungry.

I can just hear his thoughts. I could always read his thoughts, even last year. I knew what he was thinking, but now I can feel his thoughts. Finally. After so long- so many arguments and fights over this very feeling…

I reluctantly untangle my arms from him and he unhooks his legs from around my waist. He's such an angst machine. I can just *hear* him thinking how I'm getting up to leave.

But I don't leave. I swivel around and straddle his legs. I look into those eyes and yeah- I was right. Angst machine.

I press my lips to his before running my tongue over his lips. Oh shit! I slide myself a bit closer as I open my mouth more. I run my tongue over his teeth before licking his palate and feeling his tongue on the bottom of mine. His hands wrap around my waist and I think I *just* remembered that we're both naked.

Naked Angel.

Oh fuck, naked Spike.

He's kissing me and I remember how much I love his kisses. Two days is long enough to be without them. He's now sitting in my lap and his skin is so cool and smooth. I forgot how his muscles feel when they react to my fingers.

Shit. I can almost forget that he's hungry. Of course hungry for what, I'm not entirely sure anymore, but I don't care because I want this. I want *him*. Two days of nothing but watching him sleep, painting him sleeping, drawing him asleep, kissing his still body, touching his death… I *need* to feel him reacting to me, feeling me, kissing me, seeing me…

"Spike…" I moan into his mouth. "I missed you so much," I whimper when he shifts his body and presses against my cock. I'd forgotten how hard I've been for him. "I just want you here with me forever," I murmur against his skin.

"Angelll…" he groans back. "Too long."

"Too long, what, Will?"

Shiiiit. I *need* him. My *sire*. Inside, like he should be, like he was destined to be.

On the whole- I don't believe in predestination. I'm simple that way.

I don't believe things were 'meant' to happen. I don't think we were destined to be sitting here on this roof because we're supposed to solve the world's problems. I don't think he was given a soul because of some grand plan. And I don't think that he saves people because it was written in a scroll some three thousand years ago that he would. I think he's just got a hero-complex.

However, I *do* believe that he would have found me no matter where I was, no matter where he was. *Some* things were just going to happen- like he and I. No matter the circumstances. I even have proof!

Before, he found me and turned me. Then, he got the soul and even then- we found each other in China *and* Sunnydale (and Miami, but we don't talk about that.) Then, he was soulless and we were still together in some way. And now here- after all that has happened- we're here, together.

See? It's proof. No matter what else- Will and Liam are incomplete without each other. I often wonder what would happen if one of us were to die- *really* die. Would the other as well? Are we *that* connected?

So it's not predestination or fate. It's just what *is*, as sure as the sun or the moon. No one says the sun was meant to be where it is, or the moon was meant to orbit the Earth. It's just what *is*. Like he and I. Will and Liam. Two parts of the same.

*Forever*.

"Too long, *what*, Will?" He repeats.

"Since you've been inside," I confess.

"Sun's coming up soon," he whispers and I inhale the sunrise. I CAN SMELL THE SUNRISE AGAIN!

"Yeah," I sigh. "I can smell it."

"Take this inside?" He asks.

"Yessss," I growl and fist his cock. "I'll take it inside."

"Not what I meant, but very true," he chuckles.

Shit this feels so right. And he's not leaving, not going hunting, not letting me believe anything different than what is between us- our skin, our tongues, our blood... always blood. It will always be blood between us.

We stand and walk, hand in hand, down the stairs to our room.

I'm so glad he's back and *mine*, exactly how it's supposed to be. He'd laugh at that. He doesn't believe in that sort of thing. But I do enough for the both of us.

He pulls me toward the bed, slowly. All those minutes I spent drawing him- my beautiful Will- seem so long ago. Distant memories of times we shared, times we'd rather forget, buried under the rubble of happiness and better times. None of that is important now- ever. Of course it really doesn't matter, because no matter what happens- we'll be together. It was meant to be.

He sits on the edge of the bed and pulls me toward him before placing a gentle open-mouth kiss on my hip. Shit- I missed his mouth kissing me back. I missed how responsive he is to me, and how responsive he can make *me* be.

Angel's skin is *too* good under my mouth. I just- I want to inhale and make it a part of myself- just *be* him- in him, with him, more connected than we are- than we *have* been.

My body craves him, reluctantly at times, relentlessly, and forever.

I watch him kiss around my cock before finally kissing his way up the bottom to the tip. Every kiss is wet, and tender, and is this really the vampire I was scared to create again? It can't be! This is my Will. And my Will is leaving saliva trails all over my erection and I can't help but bury my fingers in his hair and groan.

I need Angel *in* me. I need to feel him like I've never felt him before- burning and thrusting and powerful and-

Everything and nothing all at once.

"Please," I whisper before allowing my fangs down. I look up into his eyes and he watches and growls as I drag my fangs up and down his cock- all around.

Rivulets begin to bleed and drops of blood form and hover on my lips. SIRE'S BLOOD.

I can't help but lock my lips around the base of his cock and suckle like an infant at a mother's breast. He cradles my head and I don't. fucking. care.

*This* is where I'm supposed to be- call it whatever you like. This is just what *is*.

"Spike!" I protest. As good as his mouth feels around my cock, his tongue drawing heavily on the scrapes and digs… I don't want to come until I'm inside him.

"Stop!" I growl to warn him.

He immediately opens his mouth and my blood dribbles down his chin and hangs on his lips. I look down and my cock is bleeding, covered in blood and still bleeding, aching, throbbing.

Shit. I forgot how erotic he is. I forgot all the times we'd make love covered in blood, how much he loved to cover us both with it, how hard I'd get.

"Now, Will," I whisper, before he can really protest the loss of contact with me. He pushes himself up the satin sheets to where he lay dead not twenty-four hours ago.

So much changes- in a split second things can change. *One* *second* and it's completely new.

My blood drips on the sheets as I crawl up the bed and hook his legs behind my head. I look into his eyes and he nods, knowing it'll hurt. He's going to tear and bleed and he *can* now.

"Please, Liam," he pleads and I really can't resist my boy.

I growl and thrust inside him completely, one. hard. thrust.

BLOODY FUCKIN' HELL!

I growl loudly as I take in the exquisite pain. Our blood mixes inside me as I bleed. But it feels so real- so right- having him inside me. I squeeze him once to make sure it's real- to make sure we're connected.

It's raw and passionate and painful and *right*. Like the sun.

I reach down to feel where we're connected, where he disappears inside me and the blood leaks out. I cup his heavy sac in my hands and he groans at the feeling. I slowly move my hand up and massage his arse a bit. He growls low and pushes ever so much more into me. Shit. I squeeze him to tell him to move.

And he does. Holy fuck he does! Burning, blinding, all-encompassing pain as he stretches a body that has not stretched since death. "ANGELUS!" I screech when he throws himself against me.

Oh his cries are something delicious! I always thought that- no matter where we were, no matter what we were doing. I always swallowed his screams. And I make no change in that pattern now as I devour his mouth. He screams into my tongue and I just suck it up as our hips just *move*. It's almost involuntary how they move, hard, forceful, raw rage and burning passion until I'm buried inside him so deeply so many times that I can't help but scream along with him.

"Please!" He whimpers. "Please!" I look down at his beautiful face and scrape his forehead with my fangs quickly. His blood is sweet beyond anything I've ever tasted. I can taste *us* in him now, more so than I ever could before and just licking a small drop of blood is just amazing. We're connected, now more than ever, because he *chose* it this time. He *wanted* me to make him a part of me because he *knew* what it was and how it would be. He *chose* *me*.

I move down to his neck and announce, "Mine," before sinking into his jugular and coming- fuck. I'm coming.

I'm coming. We're coming. All over. SO much.

"Mine," I growl and follow suit. Tough Angel flesh between my teeth, sweet sire blood in my mouth- flowing like lava- burning my throat with power and love and sex and blood. It's always blood.

~*~*~*~*~

When the dust settles and I can finally *think*- I feel Will, wrapped around me, me around him, tangled on our bed, doused in sprinkles of cum and blood. The way it *should* be. How it was *meant* to be. Forever.

"God, Spike-"

"Sheesh, Peaches. 'God Spike' is a bit much, but I *like* it."

I smack his ass lightly, which only serves in making me harder (again). "You *know* what I meant."

"Yeah," he sighs and I stroke his arm lovingly. I *love* him.

"I love you," I say. I don't think I've told him yet, since he woke up.

"I love you too, Pouf," he announces with a certain- arrogant pride. I missed that about him. I missed his holier-than-thou attitude that completely contradicted the devil he is, the one I made him to be. Spike can go from teddy bear to monster in less than a second. *One* *second* can change everything. So many times he made our gentle lovemaking into something divinely grotesque and exquisitely raw. Darla and Dru often left to go shopping and hunting and, naturally, we used that time for ourselves. I can recall so many times when we would be bathed in candlelight, softly touching and caressing, a finger lovingly sliding inside him… when all of a sudden he'd be trying to pin me down, growling and laughing all the while. He liked to catch me off guard.

I have my boy back.

And his stomach just grumbled.

He's hungry.

I think somewhere along the way- I forgot how good this feels. I missed the simplicity of being what we are. I missed the incredible simplicity of knowing your purpose: blood. Hunt it. Trap it. Drink it. I missed knowing those simple truths.

I ached for the three simplest words in any language: sex, blood, sire. It's really what it's all about. I've got two out of the three now.

Shit- my fangs are itching, still alive from drinking his blood, still aching for something warm, glistening, effulgent.

I run my tongue over the tips of them. I'm back. William the effin' Bloody is back.

I close my eyes and am taken back to those first few days- lying in bed and feeling this new power surging through my body. I've been dormant for a good year now. But I'm back.

"Spike?" He asks softly, while his hand slides over my belly.

My eyes snap open. I almost forgot he was here- almost. I could never *actually* forget. I feel his fingers tentatively playing with my navel ring. It's funny- the eyebrow ring, the navel ring… he's always had a way of making his ownership of me seem… permanent. Of course, it *is*. And I like it that way. Like I said: blood, sex, sire.

"Hmm?" I say softly.

"Spike- I… I've got blood down in the fridge. I remember what an appetite you had… before…"

Ah! Yes. I remember too, Angelus. I was blood thirsty and finished off half the aristocracy and my professor who hadn't liked my poetry. And that was the first night.

"Do you- want some? I can go heat it up," he offers.

"Yeah- let's," I answer.

Okay! Number two problem: solved.

This is good. He follows me down after we both throw on a pair of boxers and I've gotta laugh. He's wearing a pair that Cordy got him as a joke; they have big lips in the back and front. My beautiful boy… it's all back to normal. Everything is exactly how it should be. I've got Spike and we're back together how it was a year ago.

We get to the kitchen and I open the fridge and pull a few bags out of the drawer. That should be okay for now. I empty them into the pitcher and pop it in the microwave.

"You smell like paint," he says from where he sits on the table.

"I painted."

"Me?"

"No- bowls of fruit. Of *course* you."

"How many?"

"Too many, Will. Too many."

"I'll have to see them later."

"Yeah- after we make love about twenty more times," I say with a smirk before grabbing the pitcher and pouring the warm blood into a cup for him.

He hands me the glass and I take it.

I look down and- "It's not human," I say.

I look up at him and he looks scared- petrified even. I can't remember the last time I saw my sire looking that petrified. (Well, I can- but we don't talk about *that* time.)

"Will- I thought… I mean- I *know* that normally you'd…"

"It's fine," I interrupt quickly and gulp some down.

I watch in horror as his body rejects the blood and spits it all over the floor. The red contrasts with the pale yellow color of the linoleum flooring we put in just last year. I look down at the speckles on the floor from where it spewed. I've seen a lot of splattered blood, but I don't think I've hated it this much before. I don't think I've feared it this much.

He runs to the sink and rinses his mouth with water before dumping the contents of the cup down the drain.

Shit- what have I done?

The only thing I'm good at- is creating monsters.

Fuck.

I can still taste the wretchedness on my tongue, even after rinsing. My stomach is still heaving and growling at me for even *thinking* of accepting the blood as first feed.

God- what if things can't be the way they were?

And what frightens me even more than that is- what if I don't *want* them that way. It wasn't so long ago that Angelus made the choice to leave us. He couldn't be what we needed, so he left. Have we, yet again, created that situation?

I turn to him, still wiping my mouth. We're both afraid, afraid of what happened, afraid things can't be the same, afraid that I won't stay. A year away, and now I'm back- but am I the same? I wish I knew.

I wish I knew.

"It's not gonna be the same, is it?" he asks me. "It doesn't feel the same, does it?"

"It feels like what it felt all those years ago- when I awoke in my grave and climbed out to your arms. It feels like this rush of power being pushed back into me- but this time… I already adore you. I don't need to learn."

"But it's not gonna be the same, is it?"

"I just don't know," I answer softly.