The Torchwood graphics on this site are by Lazuli and are not shareable.  TYK

 

 

Part 54

 

 

 

“He’s here a lot.”  Angel made it sound like an accusation.

“Who, Jake?  Well, him and Xander are mates.”

“He has the same feel as Patrick.  Not as strong but it’s there.”

Spike stopped drawing and considered.

“Maybe.  But it’s more likely Patrick’s tainting him.  Don’t care.  All I know is that when Jake’s around Xander’s brighter, he eats better, and he does more than sleep and think bad thoughts.  It takes the pressure off the both of us.”

A week since Xander had come home from the hospital and there hadn’t been a day when Jake didn’t visit, promising not to stay long but often remaining for hours at Xander’s request.  He talked work, gossiped, read to the invalid, sprawled on the bed with him and watched TV or surfed the internet.  He shared Xander’s phone calls to Willow, also getting to know Buffy and Dawn.  He was good at being quiet when Xander dozed.  He persuaded Spike and Angel to play cards with them, displaying a commendable line in emotional blackmail when Angel looked ready to refuse.

“And why does the other one spend so much time with you?”

“Maybe he likes me.  It’s not unheard of, y’know.”

Spike was quite happy with the entire family coming and going, surprisingly content to share Xander during the day, providing their nights were undisturbed.  Angel was right about Rafe, he did spend as much time with Spike as with Xander, and Spike (along with William) enjoyed the company and the attention.  It was still a novelty to make friends with humans, and the fact that Rafe was prepared to make such an effort made him enormously special.

“Out with it, Grandpa.  Why do you resent them?”

“I don’t.”

“You do.  It’s irrational.”

“It’s instinctive.  Someone has to protect our family.”

“From what?  Love and devotion?  Check with Xander, eh?  Check if he wants to be protected from that.”

Spike suspected that, however precious it sounded, his grand-sire wanted time alone with Xander to form some kind of relationship, although the older vampire would never admit it.  And Spike would never admit to the level of compassion he felt for this Angel.  He understood loss and loneliness.  There were times when he woke from a nightmare still caught in the scenario the soldiers had created for him, believing he’d murdered those closest to him; the grief was all-consuming.  Angel’s eyes held the madness of a man who’d bare-handedly dug the bodies of his friends from the ruins of his home, knowing that his cause had led to this effect.  No revenge would be enough.  Loss and loneliness.  So, even though Angel consistently irritated the hell out of him, Spike wasn’t planning on asking him to leave, wasn’t even going to drop hints.  Besides, the family was determined to like Angel, even if it wasn’t reciprocated.  Spike had a sneaking suspicion that it begrudgingly was.

“Why does he keep putting off Willow?  I thought he’d want her here.”

“He does want her here.  But more than that he wants to be strong for her, well for her.  He hates people seeing him like he is so he’s waiting to get a bit better and then the girls will come and stay.”

“He accepts me being here.”

“Yeah, well, he thinks you’re here for me.”

“I am.”  Spike fixed a beady look on Angel.  “What?”

“You being nice.  It makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck.  I worry less when you’re being a bastard.”

Spike threw himself down beside Xander, waiting for his partner to stir.

“Xander…”

“Mmm?”

“I have to get out.”

Xander opened his eyes, blinked a few times, and focused on the vampire.

“What’s wrong?”

“Cabin fever,” Spike smiled.

“Oh, right.  Right, don’t blame you for that one bit.”

“I have to pick up your prescription, some blood.  I just want to drive, clear my head.  You mind?”

“No.  As long as you come back.”

“I’ll be back.  ‘Less I get a better offer.”

“That goes without saying.”  Spike carefully manoeuvred himself over Xander, settling lightly and sharing a long, long kiss.  “Anybody here?” Xander asked as Spike eventually peeled himself away.

“Only Angel.”

“Okay.”

“Sure?”

“I guess he just took some getting used to.”

“I can tell him to stay out of here.”

“No, I’m awake now, I’d like the company.  That is…”  Spike looked the question.  “If he’s in a decent mood.”  Spike chuckled to himself as he pulled on his boots.  “What?”

“You two.  Tiptoeing around each other.  What we need is a blinding night out, chance to get paralytic, let you and grandpa bond over a dose of alcoholic poisoning.”

“Sounds…great,” Xander said dubiously.

“Right, let me get you comfortable and I’ll be off.”

After some good-natured debate about how many licks, nibbles and kisses Spike needed to bestow upon Xander’s naked body as he did something as simple as turn him onto his side, Spike kissed Xander goodbye and left.  Xander listened to him go, heard the Jag start up and drive off.  It reminded him of that night so many weeks ago when he’d rejected Spike, told him to fuck off, and he wished there was something he could shoot into the IV to take that kind of pain away.

 

“Can I come in?  I promise I’m in a decent mood.”  Xander rolled his eyes at Spike’s subtlety and gestured Angel in.  “Sure you don’t mind?”

“I don’t mind, just come round here where I can see you.  I hate being on this side, he does it on purpose,” Xander grumbled.

“It’s what he was told at the hospital.”

“He likes me facing this way because of the access: he can blow raspberries on my ass more easily.”

“Well, the way Spike tells it, the ass is irresistible.”

Knowing it wasn’t directed at him, Angel ignored Xander’s scowl and sat on the end of the bed.  Waited for Xander to finish mentally calling Spike all the names under the sun.

“What did you do today?” Xander asked when the cute blond voodoo doll he kept in his head was full of pins.

“Made a nuisance of myself.”

“Generally, specifically…?”

“Detective Cawley.”

“He’s okay, he’s been…  What’s that face for?  He’s not okay?  Raging homophobe behind my back?”

“Not that.”

“What then?  You think he’s just shit at his job?”

“No.”

“Deliberately shit at his job because he thinks the fag deserved it?”

“No.”

“Spit it out, Grandpa.”

“He knows…something.”

“About…?”

“Something.”

“Something about something.  Fine.  You’re the one who taught Spike to be so damned irritating, ain’t ya?”

“I may have been,” Angel smirked.

“Bastard.  You think he knows who did this to me?”

“I don’t know.  I can’t get him to talk to me.”

“You’ve driven him nuts, right?  Called every day, gone over this until his ears bleed…”

“Perhaps.”

“Yeah, well, I wouldn’t talk to you either.”

“This is getting away from us.”

“I asked him – Cawley – about the memory thing, if he’d seen it happen before, and he said yes, plenty of times.  He didn’t say people always got their memories back.”  Xander paused uncomfortably.  “I was counting on him saying people got their memories back, I wouldn’t have asked him otherwise.”  Pausing again, Xander took a look at Angel’s poker-face and tried to guess what was going on in his mind.  “I’m sorry.  That I can’t remember for you.”

“There’s still time.”

“Yeah.”  They exchanged a sympathetic look, one that Xander would have been uncomfortable with a few days ago, and even now he couldn’t hold it for more than a few seconds.  Quick attempt at moving on before Angel could start to describe, once again, in infinite detail exactly what he would do to Xander attackers if was left alone in a room with them: “What else did you do today?”

“I spoke to the chip guy.”

“What did he say?”

“More of the same.”

“Fucking hell, I wish you’d never listened to me.”

“Xander…”

“I made you kill the people Spike needs to help him.”

“Xander, there will be a way.”

“It’s just so hard to see the disappointment on his face when there’s no progress.”  Angel agreed with a sombre nod and they sat in silence for a while.  “You think he’s so different now because of William?”

“Different?”

“He’s lost that…that fight he had.  I don’t mean aggression, I…  Can’t explain.”

“You mean he’s gone soft.”

“No!” Xander protested.  Then relented.  “Maybe a little.  Is it William?  Is it what happened last year?  What happened five, six years ago?”

“Or is it simply because he’s happy?”  Xander looked at Angel curiously.  “You didn’t know him when he had nothing to prove.  When he was an established Master with a court.  He was relaxed and calm – as calm as Spike can be – and he was good-humoured, he used to laugh a lot.  He loved his share of violence, he’s a vampire after all, but he was as content reading Grimm’s Tales to Drusilla.”

“How do you know?  You were never that close to them when he was a Master.”

Angel shifted uncomfortably.

“I was closer than he knew.”

“Or we knew.”  No response to that, naturally.  “He was pretty chilled out when we were living together in Sunnydale.  But there was still…something…”

“He was what?  Tense?  Jumpy?  Unpredictable?”

“Yeah.  Not always but…yeah.”

“Try chilled out but sexually frustrated.”

Xander closed his eyes, thought back, inserted Angel’s suggestion into the mix of memories, and…felt very stupid indeed.  In hindsight it was so obvious.  Can we say denial?  Can we say it in capital letters?  Italicised for emphasis?

“So, you’re in Sunnydale, intensely hating my kid – almost as intensely as you hate his old man – then you’re inviting him to live with you.”

Xander opened his eyes, fixed on Angel, wondered if he wanted to share.  He’d never told anyone the whole story before but this was…  Family.  …Angel, who seemed genuinely interested and no longer questioned his grand-childe being loved.  Xander considered what Angel had said.

“I had to look at that eventually.  The intensely hating Spike scenario.  Think there may have been some overcompensating going on there.”  Angel waited pointedly.  “Okay, gonna keep it as basic as possible; you know all about the Buffy thing.  Well, after that he—  You ever figure out who that was?”

“I figured it out.  Took some time.”

“It was a spell,” Xander confirmed rather than asked.

“Someone who wanted Buffy out of the way but couldn’t influence her directly.  Picked someone he thought could bring her down.”

“Almost worked.”  Angel nodded, expression grim.  “That was pretty cruel.  On both of them.”  Another nod.   “You get mad over that?”

“I got mad.”

“You get even?” Xander asked with a hint of a smile.

“You could say I got even,” Angel replied in much the same tone.

The hint broke into a full-blown smile.

“Way to go, Grandpa.”

“Tell me about you and Spike.”

Xander took another moment to think about it.

“After the Buffy thing and the Anya thing he left Sunnydale.  Or I’m fairly sure he left, for a while at least.  He was right to go, things had got…impossible,” Xander reflected sadly.  His thoughts rushed ahead and he dragged them back.  “It was almost a year before I saw him again.  I’d been patrolling with Buffy and there was nothing happening so we called it a night and I headed for home.  Of course, that’s when this oogy great demon we’d been looking for appeared, fresh out of hibernation and as ravenous as Willow promised, obviously thinking I’m going to be the perfect breakfast.  I knew I didn’t have a chance, but then Spike appeared out of nowhere, facing up to eight feet of purple scales.  It tried to push past him – Wills told me later that this breed of demon thinks vampires taste pretty bad – push past him and come after me but Spike proceeded to take it apart.  He’d been gone for the best part of a year and there he was, just when I needed him.”

“Did you question just how convenient that was?”

“Not at the time.  At the time I was so damn grateful I went into pure mindless babble mode and thanked him, like, a billion times.  And he was different.  It was different.  The him and me equation felt different.  He insisted on walking me home, but he insisted quietly, and he barely said a word all the way.  He was covered in demon slime and when we got to the apartment I asked him in to clean up, and he almost agreed and then he decided against it.”  There had been a pause, a long impenetrable look, and Spike walked away, on the first day that Xander neglected to be indifferent toward him.  “It was afterwards that I thought maybe he’d been following me ‘cause, let’s face it, Spike gives stalkers a bad name.  But I didn’t care.  It was okay.  Him being around was okay.”  It was eight years ago. ‘For fuck’s sake, Xander, I’ve been waiting eight years just to kiss you…’  Xander closed his eyes and let that sink in.  He could’ve had eight more years with Spike, if he’d been astute, if he’d been less of a bigot, if he hadn’t been scared.  If he hadn’t been…oblivious.

“Xander?”

Xander took as deep a breath as was possible without the ache starting and opened his eyes, definitely not looking in Angel’s direction this time.

“I let the girls know what had happened and they were, ‘Oh, Spike, right, here we go again,’ which was fair comment, I guess.  We’d see Spike every so often after that first time, and he always showed up if we needed him, so maybe he was following me.  Or us.  I never told anyone but I liked to see him.

“Then there was this business with Dawn being hunted down by the tribe of demons who wanted her for their god – you remember that? – and in the middle of that particularly huge piece of shit hitting the fan she disappeared and none of us knew what had happened to her.  Then it became plain that Spike was gone too and, whatever Buffy thought, however much history there was, I didn’t want to believe that he’d done something bad to Dawn because…  Well, he always cared about Dawn, I think he loved Dawn.  He did, he does.

“Anyhow, the tribe was dealt with and Dawn turned up on my doorstep and told me how Spike saved her and asked me to stop Buffy dusting him, but by the time I found them Buffy’d worked him over before he could explain a thing to her.  It really got to me: him saving Dawn and being beaten for doing it, because I didn’t think that’s what she was really hurting him for.  Even when Dawn explained, Buffy still didn’t give him a thank you or a sorry.”

“You think that’s where your problems with Buffy started?”

Xander stopped to consider that.

“Maybe,” he said slowly.  “Maybe it was.  Not so long before that I wouldn’t have given it a second thought but…”  Xander filed that away to think about later.  “So, I helped Spike up and tried to see if he was okay, tried to thank him for caring about Dawnie but he just backed off, and there was no snarky comment, no bitching, he just walked away and when I was honest with myself I was sorry to see him go like that, and even more I hated to see him go without a word when he was hurt.  I found out where he was living, bought him some good blood and took it to him as a peace offering.”

“Was he surprised when you showed up?”

“He was pretty casual about it, almost like he was expecting it; you know his attitude.”

“Oh, yeah, you don’t have to go into his attitude.”

“So, I asked him if he wanted to go for a beer and he said okay.  It was like old times.  But without the underlying hatred thing.  We played pool and he won twenty dollars a game, I bought all the beer and he kept all the change, I bought all the food and he kept all the change, we picked up a couple of videos on the way home and he kept the change.”

“You liked that,” Angel extrapolated from Xander’s expression.

“I did.  I mean, he really looked like he could use the money but I couldn’t just hand it over, could I?”

“Couldn’t you?  Spike was always good at taking without a second thought.”

“But what if this time he said no?  He was different and I thought he’d say no.  He needed the money,” Xander stated definitely.  “Anyway, we went out and we didn’t really get to talk much but it was good, and that was it until I went back two weeks later.”

“Was he pleased to see you?”

Xander remembered the look of surprise and unmitigated pleasure he’d seen on Spike’s face that night.  Before he’d swiftly covered his true feelings with practised indifference.

“Yeah.  He was pleased to see me.”  A pause, a private smile, before Xander continued.  “After that we went out every week, then twice a week.  Then almost every night.  I had to be with him.  Had to.  If something happened and I didn’t get to see him I’d worry, I’d get irritable, I’d be pretty impossible all round.”

“How did you end up living together?”

“This place – fucking awful place – where he was staying caught fire and he didn’t have anywhere else to go.”

“Xander…” Angel grinned knowingly.

Xander glanced at the vampire and quickly away again.

“There may have been an accident that may have involved me that I may not have told Spike about.”  Angel snickered, surprising Xander.  “I had to do something.  If you’d seen this hovel he was living in…  It made his old crypt look palatial.  He deserved better,” Xander finished softly.

“You already loved him,” Angel observed the human’s expression with fascination.

“Want to hear something weird?  I always loved him.  Even when I hated him I loved him.  And the more I loved him the more I hated him.  It took me a long time to figure that out and I still don’t understand it, but I tell him I’ve always loved him and I mean it.  He says he’s always loved me and I don’t question it.  I’m not talking about some great burning passion, that came later.  But…love.  Isn’t that weird?  Don’t be clever or diplomatic, just say it.”

“Weird.”

“Unbelievable.  Absolutely unbelievable, I know.  I’ve tried but I can’t remember a time when I didn’t love him.  I remember hating him, I remember wanting to kill him I hated him so much, and when I tried to kill him I meant it, and to this day I thank God that I was totally ineffectual back then.  I hated him.  But I can’t remember not loving him.”  Xander suddenly recalled who he was saying this to and resumed the history lesson.  “He’d been living with me a few weeks and I could feel him getting antsy, and I was wondering if he wanted to leave.  But then I thought he could leave anytime he wanted, the only thing he’d need to be edgy about was if he wanted to stay and thought I was going to throw him out.  By then there was no way I was prepared to let him go but I knew that if I asked him outright if he wanted to stay he’d give me the, ‘Don’t need anybody’ routine and feel obliged to go to prove the point.”

Xander closed his eyes, relived the scene in his head as he narrated.

“So, one day I ask him if he’d like me to build some shutters for his room so the window would be absolutely light proof.  He knows what I’m saying.  First he looks at me like I’ve grown another head; being Sunnydale I have to go check that one out.  Then he silently smokes every cigarette in his possession, ignoring me all the while.  I give him a beer and he still doesn’t look at me, and by then I’m wondering what he’d’ve done if I’d more than hinted.  Finally he says, ‘That’d be good’.  He’s staring at the floor and picking the label off the bottle and I’m thinking I’ve got something badly wrong and I’m getting pretty nervous.  When he eventually looks at me it’s with this half-smile and he says… ‘Xander’.  And I wait for him to carry on and he doesn’t, so I just say, ‘Yeah?’.  He keeps on looking until I’m ready to panic, then he says, really softly, ‘I just wanted to say it’.”

The memory, the feeling, the memory of the feeling rushed through Xander and he laughed at himself, attempting to blink away the sentimental tears that threatened.

“I knew then.  I knew.  Couldn’t admit to myself that I knew, but I knew.”

“What did you know?”

“That he was the one.  When me and Willow were kids we used to say about that, about meeting ‘the one’.  I thought it was a joke until then.  But we met them, we both did.”  Sorrow filled Xander’s eyes but couldn’t be dismissed as easily as the tears.  “Poor Willow.  My poor Willow.  She’s never going to get over it.”

“Tara?”

Xander unconsciously dropped his voice.

“Tara.  That’s the first time I’ve heard her name out loud in years.  She was so sweet, she didn’t deserve that.  It was so wrong, what happened, and Willow…”

Xander choked up, hating the abrupt, intense feeling of vulnerability created by being upset and helpless, immobilised by weakness and all kinds of hurting, this close to Angel.  He tried to turn onto his back, efforts brought to a juddering halt by the highly unpleasant sensations rippling through him.

“Can I help you?”

“Just…umm…uncomfortable.”

“You only had to say; I can turn you.”

“That’s a little extreme.”

“Onto your back,” Angel smiled benignly at Xander’s deliberate misunderstanding.

“No.  Spike says you can’t do it with the covers on.”

“That’s not a problem.”

“For you, maybe.”  This was better, indignant was better.  “Naked in here.  Don’t have the vampire no-inhibition thing going for me.”

“Are you in much pain, Xander?”

And there was the vulnerability again.  Xander took a few almost-deep breaths and tried to get over it.

“Only when I make stupid moves like that one.  It’s a kind of…dull ache now.  Not like it was.”  Not exactly a lie, simply…underplaying.  “I can feel the difference just this week has made.”

“That’s good.”

Angel gestured toward the bedside cabinet.  Xander almost asked for water but rapidly talked himself out of it.  If he needed to pee and Spike wasn’t back…

“Nothing.  I’m fine.”  Angel accepted that, rose, and wandered to the window.  Xander knew what he wanted to ask and found it easier to talk to the vampire’s back.  “Angel.  What happened to me?”

“You should talk to Spike.”

“But he won’t talk about this.”  Pause.  “Okay, forget what happened, how badly was I hurt?”

Angel vacillated between Spike’s wishes and what he felt Xander had the right to know.

“Xander…you were soup.”

“Soup?”

“Inside.”

“Why didn’t they operate at the hospital?”

“Despite the damage, nothing ruptured.  You were very fortunate: because of the blood you’d been taking from Spike your entire body, inside and out, was very resilient.  Your internal organs were mush, but remained intact and functional.  Bones were cracked but not one broke.  You didn’t even lose a tooth.”

“So I was always going to survive this?”

“No.  You were weakening fast.  Spike gave you blood, he saved your life.”

Angel came back to the bed, sat a little closer to Xander than before, and told him what had happened at the hospital during the first day, judiciously omitting the part about Spike feeding from him.  Xander couldn’t help the grin when Angel explained the moments that followed his being taken off of the ventilator.

“He a showman or what?”

“It was…destructive, Xander.  To Willow.  Your…family.”

Xander’s grin disappeared.

“Sorry.  Guess you had to be there.”

 

They fell into a long silence, Xander trying to ignore what he’d been told, Angel trying to ignore what he wanted to say.

 

“You think Spike will be back soon?”

“I have no idea.  Is there anything I can do to help?”

“I’m sore.  Shouldn’t have tried to turn before, doesn’t take much to set it off.  Guess you don’t know about the medication?”

“No.”

“Will you give him a call?  He should have his cell with him.”  Angel moved around the bed and picked up the phone from the cabinet.  “No,” Xander said decisively as Angel punched in the number of Spike’s phone.  “No, he needed a break from this, let’s give him a break.  I’ll be okay.”  Not bothering to argue, Angel replaced the handset on the charger and went back to the window, leaving Xander to ponder for a while.  “You think Spike got this wrong?  Wound up with someone too weak for him?”

Angel turned back, surprised.

“No, Xander.  I think he’s lucky.”

“Lucky?  You’re kidding, right?”

“When you look at him what do you see?”  Xander gave the big-eyed is-this-a-trick-question look.  “What do you see?”

Xander thought about it and answered with the obvious.

“Spike.”

“Who is?”

Mine, mine, mine, mine.

“The person I love.”

“Who is?”

Xander re-thought, felt absurd, gave the approximation of a shrug.

“What do you want me to say?”

“It’s what you don’t say, Xander, what you don’t automatically think.”  Xander waited.  “I’m with someone who will always think vampire.  What do you see?  Vampire.  Oh, right, Angel.  Who is?  Vampire.  Oh, right, lover.”

“But you and Buffy: everything’s working out there?  You’re not going to let her down?  ‘Cause the only thing I can reach is the IV stand and it might not kill you but it’d damn-well hurt.”

Angel chuckled.

“I’d have to help you.  You can’t turn over.”

“Yeah, but you would help, you’re in a good mood tonight.”

“You’re still naked in there.  So, unless you‘re prepared to bare more than your soul…”

“You could bring the stand around here.”

“And then what?”  He took a look at the bed.  “I’d have to…wedge it between the headboard and the mattress for you?”

“Uh-huh.”

“And then throw myself on it?”

“Uh-huh.”

“And try not to bleed on the sheets?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Feckin’ high maintenance, Xander,” Angel said with a distinct Irish lilt.

Xander let out a bark of laughter which was quickly followed by a grimace of pain.

“Ow, ow, no laughing.  Fuck.  Fuckfuckfuck.”

“Xander?”

“Okay.  Really.  I’m figuring out why Spike prefers me bored out of my mind.”

“Rest then.  Try to get some sleep.”

“Not yet.  I feel like all I do is sleep.”  Angel sat on the end of the bed again.  After a few minutes he reached over and laid his hand on the lump in the covers that was Xander’s foot.  Xander glanced at him; the vampire’s face was expressionless but Xander got it.  “I’m fine,” he assured.  “You and Buffy…?”

“You can trust me.”  A look passed between them, quite eloquent, and for the first time Xander thought that maybe he could trust Angel.  Really trust Angel.  And not just with Buffy.  “I’m trying to get her to leave Sunnydale.”

“Really?”  That caught Xander totally by surprise.

“You know another slayer was called when Faith died?  Well, I’ve spoken to her watcher and they’re willing to take over the Hellmouth.  I want Buffy to move to LA.  I know she’ll never have what you’d call a normal life with me, but it’d be better for us both.  A little less dangerous for her.”

“She wouldn’t know what to do with a normal life,” Xander observed with a smile.  “Sounds good.  What about Dawn?”

“I think Dawn is pretty struck with this guy she’s been seeing.”

“Hang – who - what?  What guy?”

“The one she met at Christmas.  She didn’t tell you?”

“No.  Is he okay?  Does he know she has family who will tear his lungs out if he fucks up?  And that’s just her sister?”

“I think he’s got the message.  And he seems decent enough.  A little…mild for our taste, but Dawn seems happy.”

“It’s serious then?  As in co-habiting serious?  As in Dawn having someone other than Buffy to look out for her serious?”  Angel nodded.  “So Buffy’s going to run out of excuses to stay?”  Angel nodded a second time.  “Wow.”

Xander lay thinking about that (and the possibility of being able to persuade Willow to move to his part of the country) until he eventually dozed, albeit restlessly, feeling the ache as soon as his breathing deepened with sleep, and resurfacing.  Angel watched, saw the stress on Xander’s face.  Knowing it was probably a mistake, he waited until Xander was as asleep as he could be in this much discomfort, then cautiously laid down beside him and did the only soothing thing he knew: a deep rumbling started in his chest.  A faint smile flickered over Xander’s features, and Angel saw the tension seeping away; Xander reached out to the source of the purr and, although Angel knew it wasn’t him Xander was reaching out to, the touch felt extraordinarily good.  Angel cautiously stroked the young man’s wrist, always waiting for Xander to start awake, for the sudden realisation and revulsion before brutal rejection, but it never happened.  Angel shifted a little closer, felt Xander’s warm, steady breaths against his skin, purred harder and witnessed Xander’s comfort in the sound before he passed into unconsciousness.

“Childe,” Angel whispered affectionately, and his loneliness became a little easier to bear.

 

 

Repossession 55       Repossession Index       Repossession Notes

 

Site Updates     Update List     Home     Fiction     Gallery     Links     Feedback