That was all it took.  Angel howled and bucked beneath the younger vampire’s boneless weight, coming in long, pulsing shots that seemed to go on forever.  With the last of his waning energy, Spike stroked the rigid shaft, feeling each pulse, until it was finally over.  Angel collapsed to the mattress, his childe still upon him.  Human sensation buzzed quietly in the background while their demons writhed slowly and sensually together in the freshly opened circuit of their bond, reveling in the aftermath of their shared and extreme pleasure.

*   *   *

Vampires didn’t dream, at least not in the same way that humans did.  The daytime, so anathema to their kind, was the time to shut down and recharge, in preparation for the hunt and revelries that came with it.  The daytime, the time when they were most vulnerable, was a time to hide, a mini-hibernation, as it were.  Fledglings couldn’t ignore or resist the call of the sun, while their sires and older siblings could to some extent, depending on their age.  With the years came control, and with more years, power.  Given enough years, the power could become, in a very real sense, almost unlimited, until, as with the ancients themselves, they had little in common with the youngest of their descendents.

Angel and Spike, while not truly ancient – it took a good five hundred years to be counted among the handful that reached that state – were very old compared to the majority of vampires currently in existence.  Angel was, nonetheless, included in that category by the vampire community, Aurelian or otherwise, despite his earth-bound years, for two reasons; the unnatural presence of a soul, and the time spent in a hell dimension, the survival of which had, other demons whispered, created an ancient creature in what to them was a blink of an eye.

Whatever the reason, other demons, vampire and non-vampire alike, recognized an other-worldly aspect to one who had already attained preternatural strength and power from his years alone.  As for Spike, well he was a legend both in his own right – all demons knew the exploits of William the Bloody, just as humans knew of the conquests of Alexander the Great – and by association with his elevated sire.  He wasn’t just the childe of the great Angelus, he was the Most Favored childe, and that brought with it a degree of uniqueness that was rare among their kind.

And of course there was one other thing that put Spike in a category of just two; like his sire, he had a soul.

With vampires, it all came down to two things; power and control.  Angel had both in abundance, but Spike had less patience than the older demon, and therefore less control.  That explained why Angel was now awake when he’d just recently undergone a fairly exhausting sexual encounter, while Spike was still fast asleep.  True, his childe had experienced an even more traumatic event, but that had been hours earlier, with a little bit of sleep just after.

For whatever reason, at three o’clock in the afternoon, sixty minutes before the pets would normally arrive in the kitchen anticipating breakfast, Angel woke, while Spike slept on beside him, oblivious, his demon at ease due to the soothing proximity of his sire’s protective presence.  Angel lay on his stomach, pretty much as he’d fallen to the mattress just a short while before, and Spike lay draped half over his back, the tousled blond head sharing his pillow.

Angel stared at the face lying so close to his, studying his childe’s features.  Spike looked so young, so innocent and so peaceful.  Angel had been told countless times, by his sire and many others, that he had the face of his namesake, but he’d always privately thought that it was William who was the angelic one.  That was doubly true now that he’d sought out and obtained his soul of his own free will.  He hadn’t been able to tell him before, when there was such anger and ambivalence between them, how proud he was that he’d been able to do such a thing, but he felt it nonetheless.  Angel had known what an amazing thing that really was.  Maybe he was the only one who could actually understand how truly astonishing it was.

But he had to smile at the contradiction, as well.  Young Spike would always look; first Drusilla and then Angelus had seen to that, but innocent and peaceful?  His childe, no matter how angelic he might appear, had the very devil in him, and often Angel had thought that that fact had very little to do with demon at the boy’s core.  That smirk, those taunting, sexy eyes, the full lips that just begged to be kissed or smacked – Angelus enjoyed both equally back in the day – combined with the hyperactive impatience to just get on with it, whatever ‘it’ might be, spoke to just the opposite of innocence and peace.

Peace was something Angelus had rarely experienced in his numerous households back in the day, thanks to William the Bloody’s volatile presence.  But he had to admit that soul or not, he’d always secretly enjoyed William’s dramatic flairs, both for their own entertainment value, and for the punishments he got to dish out in response to them.  The truth was that his existence was far more fun with his boy about, no matter how much he might have denied that for the sake of his human friend’s and the comfort of his own soul.  William the Bloody had always pushed the envelope, just like he’d done a couple of hours ago…

And now his thoughts were, inevitably, focused on what he’d allowed so recently.  He found it hard to believe, in the cold light of day, that he had allowed such a thing.  Angelus never, ever would have, that was a certainty.  Allow his childe to penetrate him to that extent?  Absolutely not.  It might not have been his childe’s cock that entered him – and to be fair, no matter how little sense it might make to non-demon creatures, there was a huge difference between that and what he had allowed – but still…

He couldn’t believe he’d allowed anything like that to happen after the years spent in hell.  Even when Darla had returned and he’d slipped back into his role as her obedient childe without question, there were a few things he had adamantly refused to allow.  He hadn’t told her no – you didn’t say ‘no’ to your sire without severe repercussions – so much as simply ignored her urgings.  The fact that she hadn’t pressed him made more sense, now that he could see those drug-infused encounters for what they’d been.

No, the violations he’d experienced in that hell dimension were worse than anything Darla had ever dished out – and he acknowledged that she’d been a real pro at torture and torment.  He’d learned from the best, or so he’d thought, until he’d encountered demons who had millennia of experience and absolute power over their charges.  Then he’d learned what true torment really was.  Since that time he’d kept his heart and emotions even more closed off than ever, never letting anyone too close.  The pain he’d experienced then had been so intense that not even he, a true demon with a decided taste for it, could find anything at all in it to enjoy.

But last night had been altogether different.  He’d decided that taking another step forward to prove he was serious would be required.  He’d expected to endure it, but had never anticipated enjoying it.  That he had was even now a source of amazement bordering on disbelief.  The memories of that time in hell and of the anguish he’d experienced there were dimmer than they had been hours ago, and he realized with astonishment that he had his childe to thank for that.

It was an amazing and unlooked for outcome, and part of him thought that he didn’t deserve it; didn’t deserve to put that pain and torment behind him.  Part of him thought that reliving it, along with the continuous presence of the voices and faces of uncounted victims, was part and parcel of his punishment; something he’d have to endure forever, until finally, hopefully, he’d obtained that elusive redemption he sought.  But the memories of hell had faded a bit, and the voices of his victims were, for the moment, silent.  What could it all mean?

Angel sighed.  He still didn’t understand what had made him capitulate so easily.  The fear of hell’s torment was strong, and the conditioning to adhere to vampire lore perhaps even stronger.  The bending of the lore he could understand, and even accept.  This creature was no longer the fledgling William.  He was William the Bloody, one of the most feared and fearless of their kind, and he was Spike, Master in his own right.  The gap in their years would always remain, but it had – and should – become less significant as his childe aged.  They were closer to peers now, though the sire/childe relationship would always be a part of them, preventing absolute equality.  The renewal of the Most Favored bond closed that gap even more, with the soul aiding and abetting on the slippery slope, but there was more to it than those things could explain.

There was another, more elusive reason that he was far less comfortable thinking about; that there was something between them that went beyond the bond of demon spirit and human soul.  It was, for a demon, hard to imagine, and almost impossible to explain, at least to another demon.  But Angel had to admit, at least to himself, that his feelings for his childe went beyond what most sire/childe demon pairs experienced, and maybe even beyond the far more rare Most Favored/Sire pairing, which on its own rivaled that of Mate.  He thought that maybe, just maybe, he might actually love this creature beside him.  The more difficult part to admit to was the suspicion that perhaps he would even love him had he not been Spike’s sire; that what he felt was part of, but perhaps even greater than the blood bond they shared.

It was a frightening thought to one who had always kept a close leash over his heart, beating or otherwise.

Spike slept on as Angel considered all this.  It was hard to comprehend and harder to accept, but there was no getting around the fact that he both wanted and needed this creature beside him.  It was impossible to deny that, given the incontrovertible proof of the last few hours that apparently he would do just about anything to have and keep him.  Spike was beginning to understand, but he wasn’t there completely, not yet.  Angel knew it would still take a lot of convincing, but if there was anything he had on his side, it was time.  And maybe there was something that could speed along the process…

Angel slowly eased off the mattress and pulled on his cotton workout pants.  No time for a shower right now if he wanted to get it done before breakfast.  A minute later he was out the door.  Spike slept on, undisturbed, his features still angelic and peaceful, content in his rest, with his sire’s soothing scent surrounding him.