ethrosdemon & Lar ||| Buffy & Angel

Reconfiguration II
by Lar and ethrosdemon

EMAIL: naturallycalm@yahoo.com =and= HERE
Distribution: List archives, people who ask.
Disclaimer: Joss made it up, too bad he is an incompetent ninny. Mutant Enemy and others own the rights. No suing please.
Rating: NC-17
Spoilers: Epiphany, The Body
Notes: Continuation of the answer to the YGTS? Challenge. Yes, more of the requirements are finally addressed. No, we're not even close to done.
Notes II: // - // denotes memory
Dedication: To Aimee who issued the challenge. I bet you wish some non-crack-addicts had taken the challenge so it wouldn't take 500 parts to get the story told, huh?

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Xander lays prone on his new bed. The sheets are Angel's, Cordelia told him. Not the ratty, threadbare sheets left over in the hotel from it's previous incarnation. Angel's boxers also shift and bunch around his legs are he moves. Somewhat too big, but they don't fall off him. After consuming half of Angel's personal blood supply, he let Cordelia prattle at him and apologize endlessly before fatigue overcame her, and she let Gunn drive her home. His new acquaintance was quiet, Xander understood this to be abnormal by the way Angel and Cordelia kept shooting him looks over the course of the night. He did hear Gunn murmur to Angel "He's not gonna go evil if he gets some, right?" Didn't hear Angel's reply. Xander hopes to hell not, since he almost jumped Willow in front of the whole crowd earlier, and he doesn't think he'll be holding out much longer on the impulse. Wesley left quite a while before the other two, after several cups of tea and attempts to get Cordelia to leave him alone, his shoulders sagging and glasses almost rubbed away on the edge of his shirt.

Alone isn't what he wants to be right now. The dawn's rapidly approaching, Xander can feel it in the slight tingle in his toes and fingers, like flesh renewed with fresh blood after falling asleep. Not time enough for his new existence to sink in, his senses on overdrive, every current of air wafting old scents imbued with subtleties he never experienced previously. No need for lights as Angel and he made their ways to their bedrooms. His vision in the dark perhaps better even than in the light. His hearing far too keen for his liking, whispers between others echoing in his ears, the rumble of the cars passing on the street outside the hotel startling him with their rattling and radios blaring.

All of his newfound senses are overpowered, however, by the craving he has to be near Angel. It was there when the humans were on the premises, but he could smother it with focusing on the line of Cordelia's neck, the tea smell rolling off of Wesley, the nap on Gunn's face from his beard. Concentrate on the feel of the ingested blood flowing out from his stomach to the furthest reaches of his body. At this hour, in his bed, all Xander can think of is Angel. The need not suppressed by his revulsion at it. His natural feelings about Angel careening through his mind, distaste, disdain, anger, jealousy. Part of him squeals to not even think about that any longer, to erase it from his memory. He's been of two minds about situations before, but this is something else. Something new and confusing. Finally, he gives up resisting, and slides out of bed, pads down the hallway and stands in the doorway to Angel's room. The thrill increasing as Angel's scent grows stronger.

Angel knew he would come. Freshly made and unable to control an impulse he doesn't even comprehend, Angel lays awake waiting for the figure to appear. Bides his time thinking about Darla. Of missed opportunities and a chance he didn't even allow himself to wish for. Considered it in another moment of blind panic, but let it skitter away when she spoke to him of redemption. Yet another reason to hate himself, and all the lives she's taken since that night even heavier on his chest now that he knows it could have been another way. If only he would have given in the first night. If only he had thought it through. If only he hadn't loved her so much. So many more, the litany he repeats each night before he falls to exhaustion.

Xander's voice interrupts his stream, and his childe's desperation fills his nose and mouth when he sucks in air to scent for emotion. "Angel?"

"It's ok Xander, I'm awake." Sits up against the headboard as Xander walks further in to the suite. Barely a sound, economy of motion somehow innate now.

"I have this freaky urge to be near you. Am I weirding you out?" Stands at the open doors of the bedroom and tugs his underwear up a little higher on his hips.

"It's not freaky at all, it's subconscious, you can't help yourself." Angel isn't sure about the boy. Of how in control his demon side is, which yearnings he has, if they're for pleasure, blood, or his human desire for comfort and reassurance. He's also not positive if he can give any of it, if he's whole enough after the last few weeks to have anything left to spare of himself.

"Could I sleep on your couch? I never snored, or no one ever complained about it, but I doubt it will matter now." Gestures at the couch in the room behind him and attempts a weak smile.

Angel pulls back the coverlet next to him. "You can sleep here Xander. You don't have to feel ashamed. I understand what you're feeling." Xander gawks at him for a second, then makes his way to the open side of the bed.

"You sure?" Stands there watching Angel's eyes in the almost pitch blackness of the room, demon visage in place unknowingly for better observation.

"I wouldn't have offered if I wasn't." Pats the mattress, Xander's face slips back to human, and he slides into the bed, pulls the covers over him. Xander rests his head on the pillow for a moment, stares at the ceiling. His muscles relax, and he lets the new sensations darting through his body settle themselves down into a pattern of sorts, one that is exceedingly easier to cope with now that he is so close to Angel. Trips over the fact that he dead now, dead and aware of it. Wants to tell Anya he's seen the otherside now, but doubts this is what she had in mind. Angel shifts next to him, and his thoughts of self drift away, swamped by the hunger for *something * in Angel. Here in the bed, he's close but not close enough.

Angel hears his whistling sigh, keeps his eyes closed as Xander asks, "Is it weird that I feel the overwhelming urge to snuggle with you?"

Props his head up in his hand, elbow creasing the pillow beneath him, looking at Xander in the dim room when he rolls his head. "Nothing you're feeling is weird. You have to adjust. It will take time."

Xander's eyes drop closed for a moment, then he looks up and turns to his side away from Angel, movements careful as if any second he'll be told to stop, or that he was misinterpreting the signs. Is spared the awkwardness when Angel's arm comes around him, chest to his back, and Xander relaxes into the embrace. His skin thrums all along his body, every place that Angel presses against him, all the tiny hairs prickling as if from a static charge.

He holds himself very still and considers for a few minutes before saying, "I thought when I came in here, I just needed to be near you. Then, when I got in the bed I realized I needed more than that, for you to touch me. You might not be wigged, but I am." Wigged, but not going anywhere. The ache he assumed to be unmet hunger subsides to a degree, but new levels of need are making themselves known.

"I'm not wigged because I felt it myself, under extremely different circumstances, but the wanting, the needing was the same." Angel's voice is low and deep, face very close to the nape of Xander's neck.

"So, now that you're cuddling me, that still doesn't seem to be quieting the voice in the back of my mind. The horny as hell part shouldn't be bothering me?" One last quest for reassurance, and he wonders if this is all part of the delirium of being turned. Wonders if the way he feels drawn to Angel's physical presence, to his touch, will somehow lessen once he adjusts.

"Your orgy dreams weren't far off the mark, boy."

Something different in the tone, and it could have been a smile. Could have been, but it isn't, and Xander turns in the circle of Angel's arms. Feels Angel's hand widen across his back pushing him in closer, and he presses his face against the broad chest. Xander's hand moves tentatively, some small and far away voice telling him that this isn't something he wants to do, reminding him one last time before the new presence in his body gets a foothold and takes command. Whispers into his subconscious, paints word pictures of how it should be for creatures like him and the role he was created to assume.

Current of air in the room as Angel pushes the blankets away, and it carries the scent of something unnamable and intoxicating. Angel can detect every subtle shift and drift of desire and distress, allows himself the luxury of remembering the rights of a sire. Taking without thought for anything other than his own pleasure, his own unchallenged ability to show dominance and power over a childe, things long past but never forgotten, in the marrow of his bones and memory of his cells. He can still recall the exact flavor of Druscilla, how her blood was sweet and rich, communion wine; Penn and his bitter herbal tang of anger and resentment that ran so deep as to stain everything about him. And now this fresh possession, his raw creation, so brand new that he hasn't even named the taste of him yet. He feels torn, still torn, even with Xander coming to his bed of his own volition, all but begging to be shown the way. Knows he could explain, just elucidate and present, no reason to take his pleasure here, indulge himself in what he wants to deny he even is. Remembers the raw hunger for contact and can't steal the sating of it from Xander because of his guilt at his own weakness for being here to begin with, here in the arms of yet another abomination he's wrought. One that feels almost perfect against his flesh, blood singing to blood, demons seeking likeness. Wrong, but real and true, and maybe just this once, one more indulgence, and then he'll let go of this childe too.

Rough hands strip Xander's body of the boxers, and he lies still, trembling with some undercurrent of expectation. Heavy weight covering him, Angel's hipbone digging into the dip of flesh, face coming up to brush against his, and Xander can't believe how the simple motion of cheek to cheek friction has made him achingly hard. Wide hand training down the side of his ribcage, grasping lightly at the waist as Angel nuzzles the still rope marked by his teeth, licks, tastes, lets his open mouth trail down to the curve of shoulder.

Push and thrust of his hips, Xander's rocking up off the bed. Every inch of his skin alarmingly sensitive, like he was wrapped in cotton batting his whole life until now, these feelings are new and urgent. Glide of Angel's cock on his own, low rumbling growl in Angel's chest and Xander finds an amazing rhythm quickly. Turns his head, arms coming up to slip into short dark hair, but Angel ducks his head and instead slips further down Xander's body. Lets the mouth Xander was seeking find a pale nipple, teasing it into a hard nub. Angel's knee parts Xander's legs, his cock brushes the skin of his inner thigh. He feels the cool moisture of precome high on his belly where the boy's dick rubs between them with every rolling twist of his hips.

Sigh, grunt of effort, and Xander wriggles himself down Angel's torso, hand slipping between them to fist his cock, flick of his thumb around the crease of tightly drawn foreskin. Steady, sure grip slicked with his own fluid, Angel groans and bucks into it, collapses onto Xander's body. Pins the hand between them and lets his hips writhe and thrust. Heavy vibration carrying from his chest to Xander's when the pale neck is turned and bared. Shimmer of the change, and he waits for the fast approaching swell to hit him before he buries needle sharp pain in the willingly offered flesh. Gush of borrowed blood tasting so familiar //DarlaDruscillaPennSpike// in his mouth, as heady as the climax that takes him when the white flesh gives way to the slicing canines. Gasp and answering growl from Xander who comes too, shuddering and pressing his other hand to the back of Angel's neck, urging him to a harder bite, a deeper penetration.

An endless moment unrolls, the only sounds in the suite the muffled tick of the clock on table by the door and the rasp of Angel's tongue over the healing puncture wounds on Xander's neck. Urgency gone, need momentarily diminished, and it's easy for them both to slip apart, rejoin the former positions spooned together. Angel's arm lies heavily on Xander's shoulder and his face in his hair. He smells the rich mix of blood and semen that blankets the room, is comforted by the nostalgia of the scent.

Thinking aloud, something he's gotten in the habit of doing just to hear his own voice, break the unending silence. "I've been off the market too long."

"What?" Blurry voice, Xander exhausted from the sex and the lethargy that daylight forces on his body.

Smile into the dark curls and Angel begins to drift. Body in his bed with him, skin to skin after how many years of relentless solitude? Three encounters in a hundred years, one of which is lost to everything other than his own memory. "The curse. Nothing, it's just that kids have a lot more sexual experience these days than they did when I was your age."

"Why would you say that?" Not so much sleep in his voice, but he's newly turned and there's only so much resistance in him.

"Well, Xander, either you're a natural, or that wasn't your first time with another man." Feels him tense in the cradle of arms and legs and takes note.

Xander's eyes squeeze shut, remembering. //Bone weary after yet another fruitless research session on the heels of working 3-11 at the Jack-In-the-Box. Too tired to turn the overhead light on, just flicking the switch on the bedside lamp.

"Could we forgo the bondage session tonight, Xapper? I'll play nice, and I sleep better without rope burn." Don't even turn around, he'll shut up.

"Whatever, but don't tell Giles or Buffy and stop calling me that, it isn't funny anymore, Spork. " Shirt in jeans on a heap on top of my sneakers, it's not Serta, but the bed feels damned good right now. Almost too much effort to flick the light off.juuuuuuustttt a little.there. Blackness and sleep.

"What the fuck?" Someone in the bed with me, way too big to be Anya. Arm around my waist too heavy, legs too long.

"Spike? What the hell are you doing?" Shift, and yes, that is his entire body pressed against my side.

"That flimsy blanket wasn't keeping me warm, I thought you wouldn't mind, being asleep and all." Brush of the back of his fingers against my bicep, stroking over the artery.

"I mind, get the hell back into the chair." He's breathing, can tell by the soft fluttering of hair on the side of my neck and the rise and fall of his chest against my side.

"Why don't you throw me out of your bed if you want me out?" His other arm snaking under my pillow beneath my head, impossibly closer, his leg, naked leg, very not clad in jeans leg, pushing over mine.

"I'm too tired for this shit Spike." I should kick him out, he's right. If he'll just lay still, I can go back to sleep and deal with this tomorrow.

"I'm the dead one, pet, and I have the energy." Tongue and lips tracing the gooseflesh his breath has raised on the skin by his mouth, tightening of his arm over me. And if this was Cordelia, this would be prime fantasy number one. My body still seems to think it is.

"I can see you, you know that, don't you? I can see the decision playing over your face, the thoughts warring 'Should I kick him out?' 'Should I let him continue and pretend it never happened?'" Fingers on my face, turning my face to meet his. Pointed tip of his tongue tickling the indentation beneath my bottom lip. "It's our secret. How dirty it is is up to you." Thrust of his hips, and I can't keep my lips locked together, and he takes it as his invitation. Maybe it was one.//

Opens his eyes again, stares unseeing at the far wall where a thin line of light seeps in past dark shades and heavy curtains. "Does the sire thing mean I have to disclose my life story?"

"You feel our intimacy level isn't high enough to discuss previous sexual partners, or is there a reason you don't want to tell me?"

"You could say there's a reason."

Familiar itch of annoyance at the word games, but Angel tempers it. He realizes the events of the last day were traumatic, that there must be oceans of shock for Xander to deal with as he grasps his altered being and adjusts. Perhaps, it's simply the solitude save for the humans he's alienated from his life, used to getting his way through sheer lack of resistance or the ability to override any that fleetingly manifests. He reminds himself to be patient. "Xander, I could make you tell me. I'm not going to do that though, I want you to trust me. Anything you have to say, I've heard it all before, done it before."

"You're more right than you know." And there's a grimace in that remark that sets warning bells clanging.

"I know this person, right?" Realizes he is tensing his arm around Xander's chest, that the comfortable pose has taken on the form of a restraint.

"Uh, know him? It was.. SPIKE, IT WAS SPIKE OK?????"

Angel flinches from the sudden burst of noise, and when he processes the information he's whipped with a crackling flame of possessiveness. Snarls, "Did he bite you?" as he presses Xander's head forward toward his chest, glaring at the reddened flesh in a pale, unmarked plane, seeking evidence of another's statement on something that is *his.*

"No, no biting. He had the chip. Calm down." Tries to push back against Angel's hand, is unsuccessful until the pressure is removed, and this only after Angel's satisfied no marks are there save his own.

"Did he hurt you? Force himself on you?" Hand on his shoulder, fingers digging in enough to make themselves a focus of thought, pitting small bruises that bloom and fade in minutes.

"I already said he had the chip. It was consensual. Can you humiliate me more please, I love it." Wry smile, as familiar as the sardonic remarks at his own expense, but tension beneath.

Angel sits up in the bed, rubs his hands across his face, assesses Xander from beneath half-shuttered lids. "Xander, I want you to understand something. I have my soul, you have yours, but you still belong to me. Now, forever. I'm treating you as an equal, but we aren't. We won't ever be as long as we both walk this planet. You better be telling me the truth."

"Or what, you'd stake Spike?" Wide grin, real one this time, and he continues. "Trust me, there're better reasons than him fucking me. He didn't hurt me, coerce at first maybe, but you've seen him. Tasty. And I don't belong to anyone." Makes a move to roll back onto his side and let the lassitude claim him, dump him into the sleep that's wrapping heavy hands over him. He's startled to find himself instead on his back, pinned to the mattress by an angry and decidedly non-human Angel.

His voice as sharp as his teeth, he explains very carefully, watching Xander's eyes to be sure it's all being digested. "Just because I gave you pleasure and treated you with a soft touch doesn't mean I have to. I can take you when I please, how I please, and don't ever forget it. I don't want to hurt you, but some aspects of my nature can't be subsumed. And I haven't ever been known to share well."

"Great, now I'm your undead ass monkey?" Lifted eyebrow the only sign of any emotion on Xander's face, and Angel wants to let loose, teach Xander the real lesson of maker and made, but he couldn't if he tried. Demon slips away as he laughs, rolls off the boy and lays flat on his back.

"You need to learn some respect." Resignation in his voice that it might be as impossible for this childe as it had been for the others in the end, and he wonders if this is his special talent: turning the most unlikely of humans into the most unconventional of demons.

Xander inches over to him, puts his head on Angel's shoulder, drapes long limbs over powerful thighs and a broad chest. "Don't hold your breath, not that it would matter," he mutters as he finally falls into the sleep he has been seeking.

Angel wraps an arm around Xander's back reflexively. Time doesn't erase the sense memory of ease in repose. Lapses into his own thoughts. Tripping over the disconcerting sameness of Xander, a person he knew only from a distance, and never well. Soul in full control, or close to, Angel drags that thought around. So newly made, the demon should have more power, but how would Angel know, honestly? Hubris to compare his fate to that of the being nestled against his body. No lives on his hands, no blood shed, and no apparent impulse for carnage. Angel allows himself a weakness he infrequently indulges, hope.

=end=

Part III



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