Doyle had been spending so much time either alone with Wes or with Angel's gang as a group, he realized with a start one day, that he hadn't checked in at the Red Key in weeks. He started taking a few nights away from Wesley then, every so often, to head down the pub, though this Yank version was hardly Terry Meany's little pub in McCloskey Street. He thought it might just take his mind off what he couldn't have, though, for a few hours at least.

It didn't quite work out as planned. Every night Doyle was away just reminded him how much he'd love to drag Wes in here, set him down on a stool, and show him off to Caroline. Smack Poddy silly for scaring him; point out the creepy dead twins who only ever ordered Killian's and never drank it, and the college girl in the corner who could see all of them and thought she was going nuts, even though she'd been assured and reassured otherwise. By people other than Doyle, since she couldn't hear him speak.

When he returned to Wesley's flat after a night away, it made him ache all the more to see how happy the man was to know he was there. Odd how that could mix with the joy of knowing he was wanted, like sweet and bitter, like chocolate cake and a good dark ale.

Dennis was driving him nuts as well. Midnight movie time had become stare at Cordy and look pathetic time. Doyle had tried bringing a few girls home from the Red Key, and though Dennis was unfailingly polite to them while glaring at Doyle behind their backs, there wasn't a spark of interest. The boy had it bad, but he wouldn't do anything about it. Even Caroline, brought home more as a test subject than anything else, got a shy smile, a gulp when she started to talk, and a slow retreat to Cordy's bedroom to watch the human girl sleep, leaving Doyle and Caroline exchanging knowing glances in the kitchen.

It all came together one night over "High Spirits." Dennis had tuned the TV in to the pseudo-Irish comedy as a gesture to Doyle, knowing his glum little sighs over Cordelia were getting on the Irish ghost's nerves. The three of them had settled in to watch Steve Gutenberg fall in love with a backlot Irish countryside and a ghostly Darryl Hannah-- who looked a right tasty piece in period gowns, but ruined it all with her learned-it-from-singing-Danny-Boy accent. Maybe it was just Doyle feeling contrariwise, but even Liam Neeson's brogue seemed fake, and as for Peter O' Toole... The only people in the flick who even sounded remotely like they were from the auld sod were the villagers, who were a bit more country than Doyle had grown up with, but still brought a bit of a tear to the eye. Or would've, if Wes had been there to pour a beer or ten down his throat.

Then they hit the love scenes.

Dennis was sympathizing right and left with dead Liam Neeson and his somewhat requited lust for Gutenberg's living wife. Cordy was licking her lips when she thought Dennis wasn't looking, at Neeson in a red wig holding up the blanket and telling Beverly D'Angelo, who didn't even *look* Irish, that he had "the best bahogies from here to Ballanderry," which was, in Doyle's considered opinion, not the case. If he had to pick the sexiest *man* in the film, he'd have to go with old Pete, gentrified, Anglicized accent aside.

But it wasn't the men who had Doyle staring at the television, open-mouthed, nor really the women, but something that happened between one of the pairs. On Halloween eve, the blonde ghost, horrible approximation of a long-dead Irishwoman or not, was touching the dark-haired human she was in love with. Only she wasn't really touching. Her fingers were going *through* him, to the accompaniment of tinkly sound effects, and then she herself fell forward, their entire bodies passing through each other. "What was that..." he asked, or something equally as stupid, while Doyle asked the same bloody thing out loud, and Dennis turned to stare at him.

"Skelping..." she said in that awful accent, and they did it again.

Doyle tried to watch the rest of the movie, but the image of that ghostly touch replayed itself over and over in front of his eyes, no matter what was really on teh screen. A million thoughts were tugging at his attention, the foremost among them being... You never even tried to touch him, you feckin' eedgit! Too many moments of passing through walls, doors, floors, and he'd taken it for granted that he couldn't touch a human. And later...he hadn't dared come close enough to touch Wesley. It would've hurt too much, he'd believed, to confirm that he was nothing more than air and desire when it came to the man he'd come to love over these last months.

But what if that wasn't true? What if...

Doyle stood, not giving a toss that on the television, the ghosts and the humans were trading places, and Darryl Hannah looked really awful in corpse make-up. He walked over to Cordelia, the nearest human he could find, and softly brushed her forehead with his hand. Dennis watched him, a misplaced jealousy stealing over his face when he realized what was happening. Cordelia looked up.

"Dennis? Hello, personal space issues? What are you *doing*?" She was more confused than angry, though.

"Yeah, *Dennis*, what *are* you doing?" the American ghost asked, crossing the room to Doyle in an instant, and shoving him aside. "You missing it that much, that you have to go after my Cordy?'

"No, Den..." he tried to get out, but Dennis had him up against the wall, and while the smaller ghost's attention was mostly divided between 'Gotta get to Wes' and 'Don't wanna get my backside kicked,' he had time to spare a grin for Dennis and his personal space issues. 'My Cordy.' Well, tell her, man!

"What the hell, then?" Dennis asked, backing off a bit.

"Sorry, mate, I just wanted to see if I could... touch somebody. Like that. Like they did in the movie. And I *can*!" He couldn't keep the exhilaration out of his voice.

"And you needed to touch *my* girl?" Dennis clarified, still threatening.

"No, man, she's yours, if you'd bloody go get her! You can pick up a pen, write her a note. Talk to her, just let me go! I need to go touch *my* guy!"

And he'd sunk through the wall and away from Dennis' grip in an instant, just having time to hear Dennis mutter, "Guy?" before he was zooming over the rooftops towards Wesley's flat.

*****

Wesley woke with a twitch. He was back? A few times, the best times, the ghost had stayed until morning, but he'd never gone, then come back the same night. Wesley wondered if something was wrong, if he should be leaping out of bed and dressing for battle stations. Wondered, until he felt a tingle along his jawline, as if a phantom finger was tracing the shape of his face.

Touching. He was being touched. The strange electric feeling followed a path down his chin, to his throat, his naked chest. At the same time, his face felt like it was on fire, as little--kisses---they were kisses--were seared into his skin. Then his lips... He could feel. Feel, for a moment, as his lips touched invisible others, his lover solid in his arms. Unseen, but solid. Warm.

That sensation faded in and out, accompanied by touches, sometimes solid, sometimes electric, everywhere. Simply everywhere.

"You're here!" he shouted, feeling utterly silly as he did so -- but an answering touch softly ruffled his hair, sending static sparks through it. The touches continued. Sometimes it felt as if the invisible fingers, legs, arms, were reaching inside him, touching places he didn't know could be touched. Sometimes there was just sensation on his skin, tickling, tingling, solid for a moment, then not.

He reached out, trying to touch as well, and found his arms full of nothing. Nothing...nothing... and then... a man. Smaller than him, not heavy at all. Soft hair, well-built back. Wearing a cotton shirt, what felt like jeans-- and what a firm behind beneath that denim. Short legs, but strong, as they twisted around Wesley's own.

"Oh, thank God..." he breathed quietly, ridiculously, not wanting to know why his lover had waited so long, only caring that he was here now.

*****

Wesley warm beneath him, and Doyle was *touching* him. Slipping in and out of tangibility, he knew, but each feeling had something in it to be ecstatic over. The tingling magic of what he guessed was that bloody skelping the girlie had gone on about. The solid touch that, if he concentrated hard, he could hold onto. Drinking in the feeling of Wesley against him, kissing the lips he'd only ever watched speak before. It was like he'd been waiting a hundred years, two hundred, like he'd spent as long in Hell as Angel had, only to finally find this.

He breathed Wesley's name into the other man's mouth, and though Wes couldn't have *heard* it, his lover nonetheless widened those clear blue eyes. He had felt it, the breath of a ghost in his own mouth, and he wasn't frightened. He just smiled, the most welcoming smile Doyle had ever seen, better than his neighbor's mum with a warm apple pie in the kitchen, better than Caroline Davis laughing low in the pub, better than anything.

"Can you... er...can we?" Wesley asked, looking into green eyes that Doyle knew he couldn't see, eyes that could see him plain as day in the darkness of the early, early morning.

"Well, I certainly intend to find out." Doyle laughed at him, and moved away for a second to take off his clothes, before discovering that he didn't really need to. Just imagining them gone was enough. He was back on top of Wesley in a second, naked body to naked body, chest to chest, heart to heart. A little concentration, and he could feel that skin beneath him, the warmth, the stiffening rod below, as well. He sat up, running his hand down Wesley's chest, making swirling motions, going in and out of solidity, until he reached the firm stomach, which twitched at his touch. Further, to the shaft that rose up at him, slim, like everything else about Wes, but surprisingly long, and as hard as Doyle was feeling-- maybe harder. Wesley groaned, and Doyle grinned, lowering his mouth.

*****

Wet, warm, around the head of his cock, lips that sucked at him, forcing him to grab the sheets lest he howl out things that a gentleman would never say... Was Wesley Windham-Pryce a gentleman, though?

"Oh, god, yes... Please. Just like that. There. How long... why..." He couldn't really control what came out of his mouth at this point. Why had he waited so long, the other one? The other one. He wanted a name, to call out, to moan, to brand into the skin that he could feel burning against his.

"I don't know your name..." he whispered, as he lost control and let loose into the mouth that he had only ever poured beer into before, and strong hands gripped his legs, stroked his skin, telling him silently, I know. I'd tell you if I could.

*****

"I don't know your name..." and Wesley knew nothing about Doyle, except that he liked beer and he was there to comfort the Englishman at night, with just his presence. Actually, he knew quite a bit about the living Alan Francis Doyle, but not the simple fact that the deceased version was the man who was holding him now. That took Doyle's breath away, not because it seemed suddenly too much, to be doing this to a man who didn't even recognize him, but because Wes... knew everything important to know. He loved, and was loved.

"In me, now. Will you... please?" came the whispered plea, and he was only too happy to oblige. Well, to try, anyway. It wasn't that he'd never done this before, but never as a ghost, that was for sure. Doyle gently guided Wesley into turning over. There was nothing for Wes to see, anyway, and if he happened to catch a glimpse in the mirror opposite the bed... that might be a little off-putting even at the best of times, to see yourself being made love to by empty air. Plus... he wanted to make this good. Sure of what he wanted Wesley might be, but he'd certainly never had it before, not with the sixteen year old shyness in the adult voice, not with the pretty, embarrassed words.

Doyle rubbed at Wesley's back, pulling out kinks of tension, touching each muscle solidly in turn, then slipping his fingers beneath the skin, to work a little of that tingly magic, as Wesley groaned appreciatively. Finally he put his hands on the long legs, spreading them, and Wes helped out, sensing what was coming, moving to his knees, white backside thrusting forward. Wanting. Hell, what was Doyle going to use for lube? The sudden practicality of the question struck him as ludicrous, and he laughed aloud.

He didn't need it, he realized just as suddenly. He had his own intangibility going for him. Slipping a solid hand between the pale cheeks, as Wes shuddered in desire, Doyle gently stroked across the puckered ring, and watched it open and close for him. A bit of Wesley's own juices, wiped from Doyle's appreciative lips, and his finger was inside, as Wes drew in a sharp breath, and let it out slowly. Doyle could *control* how solid he was when it came to Wesley's body-- that was what had dawned on him moments ago-- and now he gauged that solidity by the sounds his lover was making.

Thrusting slightly, he knew at once when he hit that little place that made a bit of "otherwise" not such a bad thing at all, because Wes cried out, not in pain, but in undiscovered pleasure. Ignoring his own flaring need, Doyle slowly prepared the grasping body, using his ghostliness, his fingers, and at one point his tongue, while Wes wriggled and moaned and said, more than once, "I just wish I knew your *name*." Among other, less coherent things.

*****

He honestly hadn't known. That it could be like this. He knew the mechanics, of course. Wesley was a well-educated man, and he wasn't an idiot in the practical sense, either. He'd touched himself, shamefully in his younger days, curiously in his more adult years. Unsatisfied in recent years, as he realized that it was someone else he wanted touching him there. Desperate, these last few months, when he finally discovered exactly who it was that he wanted. This presence who had come into his life and made him feel welcome and whole, without ever speaking a word that he could hear.

He hadn't known it could be this good. There's nothing like actual experience to beat everything you've ever read, he thought, and sent a laugh skyward to his late mentor at the Council of Watchers, who had told him as much on numerous occasions, though he certainly hadn't had this in mind. Finally, he was entered by a hot, hard presence that felt like it was filling him up completely, and...there, just a little pain, and when he twitched, it was gone, and it was all pleasure. His lover was reacting to him, turning more and then less solid as he pushed back against that heat, letting him feel no pain at all, just the joyful ache of that most intimate of touches.

Then there was movement, and warm arms around his waist, hands on his chest, and the length pulled almost out, and slammed back into him. If fingers touching that place inside him had made him squirm, this made his head explode. Over and over, until he wasn't sure a human could take that much excitement and live to tell about it. Would he wake up a ghost too? Could he see his lover if he did? It was lost in the rush, when he finally came, again, and as his muscles spasmed around the hardness inside him, he was filled with that electric tingle of touch, shooting inside him, through him, everywhere, like coming twice, once from himself, and once from his lover's pleasure.

*****

When they fell onto the bed, rolling apart only to curl together again, Doyle thought he would fall happily asleep in Wesley's arms. Maybe wake up in Father Carmody's Heaven, although he was pretty sure he was already there. Instead, as he stroked his fingers through Wesley's mussed-up hair, he was startled by a cry from his lover, who was pointing into the mirror.

"You're here!" Which was what he'd said in the first place, but as Doyle looked, he could see what Wes was talking about. He could see... himself. Just a faint glimmer in the mirror, and when he pulled his hand from Wesley's head, it was gone, though Wes was still staring into the mirror as if he could see it.

"You're here! I can see you. You're..." Wes curled close to him again and whispered. "You're beautiful. Dear God, you're beautiful."

Him? Doyle? He'd never thought he was God's Gift or anything... beautiful? Really? Fuck, what was he thinking? Who cared about Wesley's cracked-up definition of beauty-- Wesley could *see* him! And didn't recognize him, Doyle realized. He tried to think back, to remember if there had been a picture of him anywhere in the office, but his mind was doing a thousand things at once. If Wesley could see him now, maybe he could also...

"Can you hear me?" he asked, and Wes frowned, like he might hear *something*, but not anything like speech.

"I *still* don't know your name," Wesley laughed suddenly.

No, but Doyle could do something about that. He dragged Wesley out of bed, excited beyond all reason. Dressed the poor confused gorgeous eedgit, and did he mean himself or Wesley, and dragged him out the door. Down to the motorcycle on the street, and after a brief, silly pantomime about why he didn't exactly need to wear the pink crash helmet, Doyle was pressed against Wesley's back and guiding him down the road and across town to Cordelia's.

*****

"Here?" Wesley asked in confusion, pulling off his helmet. "Cordelia's? What could you want to show me here?"

The man he could now see, dark hair, green eyes, broad smile, tugged him off the bike and up the stairs. He tried to drag Wesley *through* the door before he gave a sheepish grin, and indicated that Wesley should knock. At three in the morning? It was a bit rude, all told, but...

After a few moments of waiting, staring at his lover, who simply grinned all the wider, Wesley was greeted at the door by a sheet-clad Cordelia, hair mussed from... Well, no, it didn't really look sleep-mussed at all, and Wesley bit his lip. What exactly was he supposed to say? Sorry I interrupted your whatever-it-was, but my ghostly lover here wanted to stop over for some reason?

"Wes? What the hell?"

Before he could even begin to formulate an answer, he was pulled through the door and past a bewildered Cordelia, by his lover, who was shouting silently into the depths of the flat. Wesley shrugged apologetically at its owner, who was getting that Cordelia Chase 'I'm going to kick your backside in five, four, three, two, one...' look on her face.

*****

"Dennis! Dennis, I don't care if you've been moping or reading or watching Cordy snore and tryin' not to drool on her, get out here! I need you, man!" Doyle called from the living room, and Wesley stared at him, probably sure he'd lost his effin' mind.

"Not the time, Doyle!" came an answering shout from Cordy's bedroom. An exhausted, cranky shout, as if... A slow smile spread across Doyle's face. Really? Oho... Oh yeah! Well, good for Dennis. But it *was* the time, dammit. Had to be.

"Dennis, get your arse out here *now*!" He put everything he had into the exuberant command, and Dennis shot out of the bedroom, a sheet wrapped around his waist.

"Way to be subtle, Phantom D." Cordelia pointed out snarkily, stalking over to Dennis' side. If Doyle didn't mistake the smile that sneaked its way onto her sleepy face, though, she was still under the spell of Just-Had-The-Best-Sex-Ever. He was reasonably familiar with that smile, since it was plastered across his own gob at the moment.

Wesley, of course, was staring at the couple in the bedroom doorway with his jaw dropped to the ground. Doyle thought it must've just been the concept of Cordy and Dennis, til hit sunk into his brain that while *he* could see his fellow ghost, Wes couldn't. Wesley saw Cordy having a half-grumpy conversation with a floating sheet. Doyle giggled a bit himself, and Dennis looked down, and let out a smile-- before it sunk into *his* brain that he was supposed to be pissed at Doyle for interrupting.

"Force of habit," he sighed, and materialized his usual clothes around himself, letting the sheet drop to the floor.

"Wes? What's wrong? What're you doing here?" Cordelia asked, more than a little flustered. Then she started to scan his face. Her own disarray forgotten, she pounced on the truth as only Cordy could do, with no tact whatsoever, but a big happy grin. "Wesley, you got laid!"

*****

Well... yes, but... Blush rising from his cheeks and seeping up to his hairline, undoubtedly, Wesley stared at his friend, who had obviously just been doing that very thing herself, and... with Phantom Dennis? And yet she was more concerned with *his* love life?

"Don't make it sound like such a surprise..." he managed to choke out.

"Well, dish! Who is he? It's gotta be somebody good if you woke me up at three in the morning to run over and tell me about it."

Now honestly!

"What makes you think it's a he, and I didn't run over to tell you about it, he bloody *dragged* me here, as you can see for yourself!" Which sort of negated the need for an answer to his question, he realized.

Cordelia frowned at him. "Wes, you're sounding a little more insane than usual, here. What is it that I'm supposed to be able to see for myself?"

Wesley indicated his lover, standing not two feet away, and Cordelia's eyes widened as she caught on. He thought. Then he caught on himself. She couldn't *see* the man. The ghost.

"You've got a ghost too? Oh, I'm sorry, but this is too funny. Dennis? Dennis, where are you?" she called through her laughter.

*****

Dennis was standing in between the three other people in the room, grinning like a loon, if Doyle was any judge of grins. "This is your guy? *Wesley* ?" he asked, jerking his thumb at the red-faced ex-Watcher.

"You got a problem with that?" Doyle responded, getting just a little possessive, or defensive, or something manly that ended in 'ive'.

"No, no problem. Just... Wesley?"

Doyle grimaced at him. "You've gotta tell him my name, Den. He doesn't know who I am!" Which wasn't entirely true -- Wesley knew enough about him that nothing else should matter, really. But Doyle wanted to hear his own name in that light tenor voice. Wanted to hear it spoken by his lover, with the knowledge in Wesley's eyes of who he was talking to. And yes, wanted to hear it screamed out so loudly that the folks down the hall came over and banged grumpily on Wesley's door, but there was time for all that later.

Dennis shrugged. As the other ghost floated a pen and legal pad over to where they stood, Doyle took a moment to study Cordelia again. She looked good that way. Happy, satisfied...He approved.

"Personal space issues, huh?"

Dennis smiled, then. A little kid's smile, filled with the sort of joy Doyle had about given up hope of seeing on that sappy American face. "She's willing to work out a deal, where we sorta share the personal space. Which is none of your business."

"Right, right. Sure. Just tell him my name!"

Doyle's gaze was bouncing back and forth between Wes and Dennis, with an occasional pause to watch Cordy grinning at the empty space where the legal pad was floating. Dennis was scribbling, and Wesley was watching Doyle argue with thin air and probably thinking the place had turned into an utter looney bin. Finally Dennis finished writing, and Doyle stepped up to Wesley, while Dennis held up the legal pad.

"Doyle?" Wesley read, putting a hand on Doyle's arm.

"Doyle?!!!" Cordy shouted, stomping up to him, looking right into his face, or trying, because Doyle's gaze was fixed on Wesley's, as understanding dawned behind the lenses of the wire-frame glasses, and a smile played about the thin lips.

"Doyle," he agreed, saying his own name aloud, and those blue eyes widened.

"Doyle?" Wesley said again, and Doyle rolled his own eyes, backing off so he could look right up into that face and let Wesley read his lips, which he should've bloody done in the first place.

"Yes, Doyle, Alan Francis Doyle the first, last and only, and you're Wesley Wyndham-Pryce and I love you, and can we please go back to your place so these two can shag in peace?"

"You don't have to shout," Wesley said with a surprised smile. "I can hear you perfectly well, Doyle."

*****

Cordelia was trying to stand exactly where Doyle was, which was a bit of a violation of his personal space, if you were to ask Wesley. He wasn't really all that concerned with her confusion at the moment, wrapped up as he was in his own, but she did deserve some sort of explanation. It was her flat, after all, and it was her sex, with her ghost, that he and his ghost had interrupted.

Doyle? All this time it had been the man whose (rather small) shoes Wesley had been mistakenly trying to fill? He didn't know whether to laugh or cry, and settled for being highly confused, topped off with deliriously happy. It was a rather neat emotional cocktail, quite a bit like being completely shitfaced.

"Wesley, what is going *on* ? *Doyle* was just here. Right here!" Cordelia pointed to the spot where Doyle was still standing, his hands spread in apparent confusion, as if to say, 'Hell if I know what's happening.'

"He *is* here. Right where you're pointing," Wesley answered, reaching across to touch Doyle on the arm again.

Cordelia stared at the space that he was touching, as if... as if she could see the ghost, now that Wesley was touching him.

"Doyle?" she asked in amazement, and the little Irishman nodded, grinning at her as she threw her arms around him, almost knocking Wesley's hand away. Doyle grinned a bit wider as the sheet that she had wrapped around her got loosened in the process-- which earned him a glare from Wesley, and, based on his helpless shrug towards the floating legal pad, probably Dennis too. Quite right-- you're *my* ghost, Wesley thought loopily at him.

After a moment, Cordelia backed out of Doyle's embrace. "How long have you *been* here?" she asked.

"Er... May?" Doyle answered, and her eyes narrowed.

"Alan Francis Doyle, you've been here since *May* and you didn't let me know you were alive? Well, here? Around? Whatever?" She grabbed hold of a handful of his shirt, and with a nervous grin, Doyle turned fully intangible, so that her hand passed right through him. Wesley couldn't help but laugh.

"Easy, Princess," said Doyle. "I just now figured out you could see me. What was the point, before that?"

*****

Dennis was snickering at him, and Doyle decided to divert some of the blame.

"Dennis knew!" As Cordy whirled to face her lover, who had backed into a corner, legal pad in front of his face, and was shouting really nasty things at Doyle, the Irish ghost ducked behind his own lover with a laugh.

"You knew, and you didn't tell me? You are *so* in trouble, buster!"

Doyle looked at Wesley, who was visibly torn between enjoying the Cordy's-fists-versus-the-Legal-Pad-of-Doom fight, and staring back at Doyle.

"C'mon, let's get out of here and let them work up to some really good make-up sex," Doyle whispered, and Cordelia turned back to him.

"I heard that, buddy. I'm not through with you yet!" She dived for the space where he stood, and Wesley pulled his arm back, leaving Cordy blinking. "Where *is* he?"

Doyle laughed, careful not to touch his lover, lest Cordy see him again. He was getting the hang of this. Nobody but other ghosts could see Dennis, but Dennis could touch everything. Nobody alive and not psychic and not Wes could see or hear Doyle, except when Wesley was touching him. Doyle couldn't touch anything but people and other ghosts... oh, and beer, lovely, glorious beer. Caroline couldn't bloody touch *anything* and she still managed to be about the happiest person he'd ever met. The rules were... there were no rules.

So with this crazy circle around Doyle, Angel walking the perimeter unless they drew him in, and damn it to hell, they would, somehow... How could he not be sure he'd hit Heaven after all?

"Wes, c'mon. We'll sort it all out in the morning." He beckoned his lover out the door, leaving Cordelia to snipe at her own for a while, Dennis scratching frantically at the legal pad, trying to explain himself.

On the street below, Wesley slouched against his motorcycle. "This really is insane, you know." Doyle leaned on him, reaching up to touch the early morning stubble growing on his jaw. Insane, yeah. Maybe. Heaven on Earth, for sure, thanks Father C. "You love me? Really?" Wes asked, leaning his head down to kiss Doyle's hair.

"Yeah. Guess I do. You got a problem with that, English?"

"No," answered Wesley, pulling him close, drawing Doyle's hand to his chest. Tapping it against the bone until Doyle got the message, and ghosted his fingers, slipping them inside, filling them both with that strange unearthly tingle. "You're in my heart, you see."

Finis