That One Time

�I've seen this before with many rulers. Your leader has been corrupted,� Illyria said.

�Hey, hang on. In the first place, Angel's not my leader. In the second, what the bloody hell do you mean corrupted?� Spike countered.

�It always begins the same. A ruler turns a blind eye to the dealings of battles from which he cannot gain and a deaf ear to the counsel of those closest to him. As his strength increases, so does the separation between he and his followers.�

�You're wrong about Angel. Not that I don't think the sod could end up being a megalomaniacal bastard. It's just that if he did... I'd know it. I'd feel it,� he insisted.

�You'll have proof soon enough. A corrupted ruler on such a path sees treachery and betrayal all around him. He cannot suffer intimates and will eventually turn against them.�

�Guess I don't have to worry about that, 'cause Angel and me have never been intimate. Except that one...�  He stopped, remembering.

�That one time, yeah, I�ll never forget it.  �Course, it just happened not two years ago.  I�d just got my soul back and I was mad as a hatter down in that basement at the new high school.  How I picked that particular hangout, I�m glad I don�t remember.  But there I was, talking to the walls and cutting my own chest to bits.  Then he came along. 

�Don�t even know how he knew I was down there.  Nobody else�d bothered to tell him, I�m sure of that much.  But there he was in all his dark and ugly glory.  Never thought he had it in him to offer intimacy to anyone. Shows what I know. 

�Oh, I�m not talking about shagging, mind you.  Angelus could shag Darla and Dru for a day and a half each and still have some left over for yours truly.  �Course, wasn�t always leftovers for me.  Got the main course a time or two myself.

  �When Angelus was horny, he didn�t care about the flavor.  Boy, girl, it was all the same to him as long as there was a tight, moist hole somewhere on it.  He had a special preference for my mouth.  He�d put it to Darla over and over if he wanted pussy, but when the bastard wanted a blow job, he�d find me.  Said I had a tongue like velvet.  Do you believe that tripe?

  �I remember this one time he found me in bed with Darla.  Just happened the once, but I wanted to get him back for all the times he went at Dru just to get to me.  I wanted him to find us together.  Darla was hot to play along.  I think she looked forward to what he would do to me, and it was the first time I�d had the balls to go near her since my turning.  She was always up for a change of pace, it didn�t take much to get her in bed. 

�So there we were, getting real hot and heavy, and Angelus blows down the door.  He must�ve heard us from up the street the way we were carrying on.  He dragged me off of her by the hair and threw me on the floor.  He fixed her with one of those real scary, squinty-eyed glares and said, �I�ll deal with you later.�  I never did find out what how he dealt with her.  I was too busy being unconscious. 

"It was a beauty of a thrashing he gave me.  Did it with his bare hands too; no toy whip was good enough to use for revenge that personal.  He just kept on hitting me until I couldn't stand up anymore.  Then he started kicking.  I didn't fight back, just let him get it all out.  Trust me, you don't want to fight back when Angelus starts throwing punches.  Just makes him madder.

"I had cuts all over from this ring he wore.  Big ugly thing with some kinda Irish symbols on it.  He�d never say what it meant.  All it meant that night was that I was gonna bleed quite a lot.  You�d be surprised how quick the blood can pile up from a lot of small wounds.  Pretty soon I was covered with it.  Then the game changed.  All that blood, all that anger, he couldn�t keep even the little bit of control he usually had over the demon.  He was on me, on the floor, fucking me, feeding from me.  Not the blood that was running down my back, no that blood was already spilled and not good enough for him.  Had to be fresh from the vein, nothing but the best for ol� Angelus.  Back then we didn�t really know if you could kill a vampire by drinking too much of his blood, but it seemed like he was going to find out.  I woke up four days later, so I guess not.

�That sure as hell wasn�t intimacy.  Might�ve been the roughest shag I�ve ever been given, but intimate?  Not even close.  That was all about power.  It usually was.  That or Angelus just bein bored.

�You�d never know it was the same guy that done what he did in that basement.  And the guy in the basement doesn�t look much like our boy back at the office, but there you have it.  The many faces of Liam.  That was his human name you know?

�He didn�t say much when he came down there to find me.  He looked at me, looked at my chest where my shirt was torn open and just said my name.  That was all it took really.  I knew him.  Didn�t know who I was half the time, but I knew him all right.  Not a word you forget.  Sire.  More power in that word than the rest of the human language.  Not that his grand appearance made me sane, mind you.  But it cleared my head for the moment.

�He knew I had the soul.  Don�t know how he knew that any more than I know how he knew I was in the basement, but he knew.  Maybe he felt it when they put it in me.  I was a bit too distracted to have felt him.  But more than that, he knew what I felt.  How it was to suddenly have a conscience that had been missing for over 100 years.  Years when you did whatever you wanted to whoever you wanted and got away with it scott free.  He even knew about chasing rats.  Dirty business that.  Vampires might be fast for people, but we�re not nearly as agile as your average basement rat.

�Of course, he wasn�t there to make me a better rat hunter, or even to introduce me to the joys of the butcher shop.  Hell knows I made that acquaintance well enough when I had the chip in my head.  No, he was there, as usual, for some greater purpose.  He had come to heal his childe.  Willingly.  No tying him up like when we needed him to help Dru.  He wanted to heal me.  Oh, not the stupid scratches on my chest, those were healing even while he stood there looking at me.  No, he was there for my mind.  That�s what really needed healing.

�I just stood there, staring at him, not knowing what to make of this sudden clarity in the fog that I lived in.  He knew what to do.  That jackass always knows everything.  He pulled off his shirt and took me in his arms like we were on the cover of some bloody romance novel.  He even kissed me� and I�ll kill anyone you tell that to.  No deep probing tongues or anything, but soft, and on the lips like he was afraid to hurt me.  Then he took my head in his hands and pressed my face to his neck.  I could smell the blood.  I wanted it.  Don�t remember wanting anything more, before or since, and it�s not just because I was hungry.

�I couldn�t just take his blood like he was my victim.  He knew that too.  �Drink childe,� he said.  �Childe of my blood, childe of my heart, drink and be whole.�  He stroked my hair and tipped his head aside so his whole neck was exposed to me.  It�s not the kind of invitation you get every day.  I accepted.  I drank, just a few mouthfuls at first and tried to pull away, but he held me to him and I drank some more.  I didn�t stop until he loosened his grip on my head and let me go.

�He kissed me again.  This time, just a flash of his tongue out to catch a bit of blood off my lip.  Then he turned away to put on his shirt.  When he looked at me again, I still knew who he was, but then I knew who I was too.  If I didn�t know better I�d say he looked embarrassed.   But then, he wasn�t embarrassed when we caught him on top of Eve, so why should he be for giving me a little kiss?  Or maybe it was that he saw me when I was weak.  I was weak and it wasn�t because he was trying to make me that way.  Maybe he was embarrassed because he remembered that he used to be the only thing that could weaken me.

�He left then.  Not another word, he just went up the stairs and� came back here I guess.  His job was done.  He�d helped the hopeless.  Except I know it wasn�t any sense of doing the right thing for humanity that sent him to help me.  He just did it for me.  That was the one time we were intimate, just that once.�

End