__Old Acquaintance__
By Dutchbuffy



Spike came knocking on Wesley's door to pick him up for their daily lunch. Spike was in a silly, ebullient mood, and on their way down taught Wesley to skate on the super-smooth Wolfram & Hart floors. His mood was infectious, and Wesley slid after him whooping with glee. He hadn't felt this giddy and young since prep school. When he bumped into Spike, who'd reached the end of the slippery patch, he pulled Spike toward himself by his belt and kissed him thoroughly. He completely lost himself in the feel of Spike's tongue and mouth, tasting faintly of coffee and a lot of Spike.

They heard footsteps approaching and looked up. Before Wesley could register who it was, he felt Spike's body stiffen and his breath catch. Angel?

“Get him the fuck out of here, Wes. I don’t want to see his ugly face, and certainly not when you’re all over it.”

Angel’s bulk towered behind Spike, making him seem small and slight, a little blond boy against the dark mass of clothes and glowering planes of his face.

Wesley’s face burned but he stiffened his spine and kept his voice low. “Angel, I thought you might consider using Spike. We need someone with a knowledge of the demon world.”

Angel thrust his head down like a bull about to storm towards the red flag. “We don’t need Spike. We’ll never need Spike.”

The red flag in question stepped up to the bull and started waving. “Aw, mate, this after all we’ve been to each other? Maybe you’re better used to my arse hole than my face, since you used to spend so much time in there?”

Angel’s fist swung before any anger could register on his heavy, still face. A sickening crunch echoed through the corridor and Wesley fancied it traveled through the whole open hall space and into each office. He wasn’t in time to catch Spike, who crumpled to the floor without a sound. He knelt beside him, not knowing where to touch him. Spike’s whole face was red and glistened like freshly ground mince. Angel had hit him as hard as if he were still a vampire to be disciplined.

“Angel, why…”

Wesley hated the reasonableness of his voice, the submission in it. Why couldn’t he stand up to Angel? He took Spike’s limp wrist in his hand and felt the pulse with only minimal relief. Thank God, Spike couldn’t be killed that easily, human or not. He bent over Spike's head, gently stroked a stray curl away from the broken skin of his forehead and kissed his left temple, the only spot Wesley could see that wasn’t bloody or puffed up.

Angel, a looming presence felt above and behind him, made a small sound of surprise. Wesley looked up and caught a wide uneasy smile on his face.

“Angel?” a woman’s voice said hesitantly.

He hadn't seen her in a long time, but it was definitely the Slayer, Buffy Summers, who was standing there, white as a ghost under her tan.

“Buffy!” Angel said, and his massive body did a little scuffle so it blocked out Wesley and Spike. “You’re here.”

“I thought I’d look you up,” Buffy said, her voice full of conflicting emotions.

Wesley wished he could pull the plug out of this courting dance right now. It was like an insult to Spike to ignore what had just happened. He tried.

“Buffy,” he said, “Long time no see. Did you know Spike has come back to life?”

“What?”

Buffy tripped around Angel on her silly heels, and stopped a few yards away from him and the supine body on the floor.

“You mean… is that Spike?”

He couldn’t gauge the emotion on her face. Wariness? Disgust?

“Yeah, this is Spike. He’s human, and Angel just hit him so hard he’s unconscious. Could be brain damage.”

So very passive-aggressive. Why couldn’t he say it straight in Angel’s face, or even hit him, like a man? Didn’t matter that it wouldn’t hurt him, the point was the doing.

Spike stirred and tried to sit up. He looked dreadful. His face was swollen up and puffy and his eyes were a glitter of angry blue behind thick pads of red flesh. Wesley carefully helped him sit up and supported the trembling upper body.

“Careful, love, gently does it,” Wesley said.

“Buffy?” Spike asked.

Wesley wished he hadn’t heard Spike say that. There was so much yearning in that one word it was downright embarrassing. It told him everything he had so much wanted to know about Spike's mysterious sojourn in Sunnydale. Right. Spike and Buffy. The Slayer and another vampire.

“Spike!” Buffy said in a bright, brittle voice. “You’re alive. You’re human. That’s great. Nice to meet you again.”

She held out a hand to Spike. Wesley could feel every wince and grate of bone as Spike under his own steam laboriously wrestled further upright and held out a shaky hand for Buffy to grasp. She didn’t move forward one inch and Spike almost fell when he finally made to his knees. Buffy gave it a quick shake and stepped even further back. Poor Spike. Her movements and the tone of her voice said it all.

He looked at Spike’s face, but it was too swollen and stiff to give anything away. Not that he needed confirmation of what Spike was feeling now.

“Come on, love,” he said and tenderly lifted the slight body to a standing position. Spike gripped his upper arm hard; his chest heaved. Wesley turned their bodies to face away from Buffy and Angel, who both looked on with the avidity of people watching a car wreck, eyes big and rapacious.

He had time enough for bitter thoughts on his way to the car. The luck of Wesley. Either they are dead by the time you find out it's love, or their true love returns from Rome. Just great.

Spike wanted to be taken home, not to a hospital. He wouldn’t stop talking in the car, even though Wesley was sure every movement of Spike’s split lips must hurt him. Angel’s fist was big enough to hit and destroy almost his whole face.

“Did you see her face? Did you get It, Wesley? She hates me. She didn’t want to know that I was alive, even. She didn’t want to touch me. Isn’t that a laugh? Isn’t that the biggest sodding laugh ever? The woman I got a soul for, the woman I died for, and she touches me like I’m a leper.”

Wesley was silent. There was nothing he could say that would help. Spike didn’t seem to be thinking of his feelings at all, which was another not very nice revelation.

The hysterical broken voice went on and on. “She hates me. She hates me. Did you see the look on her face? Her face.”

Spike started crying and Wesley gripped the wheel harder. His arms ached with the muscle strain of not touching Spike while he drove.

When they got home, Spike tottered straight to their bed and Wesley lowered him inch by inch onto it.

“Booze, Wes. Now,” Spike said and closed his eyes.

“Spike, I don’t think it’s a very good idea to drink now.”

Spike sighed with a pitiful quaver and turned his face to Wesley. His eyes were completely swollen shut now. ”Wes. If you love me. Booze now. Or pills. Something to stop the pain.”

Wesley didn’t know which pain he meant, but it didn’t really matter anyway. Booze or pills would dull the pains of both heart and body. He might as well drink along to soothe the giant throbbing bruise in his own chest. Spike went on with his litany of Buffy. Her prowess with the stake, her slippery cunt, the twenty orgasms she could have in a row, the gold flecks in her hazel eyes, her hair, ad infinitum ad nauseam. Wesley gritted his teeth and drank along.

“Wesley. Wesley.”

Wesley opened one aching eye and stared at the monstrous black and red oozing apparition in front of him. Spike. He looked worse than before. What time was it? They’d been drinking for hours. Had he slept?

Spike slapped his face lightly. “Wesley. Fuck me. Fuck me now.”

Fuzzily he reached out and found the feverish flesh of Spike’s shoulders under his palms. “What? Now? Aren’t you feeling a little too…”

“Wesley. I need you to fuck me. Hard. Now. Make it hurt.”

Wesley snapped awake with a twinge of lust and guilt at the last few words. Spike sat crouched over him, naked, his cock red and swollen against his own stomach. He worried frenziedly at Wesley’s fly, but his hands were uncoordinated and without strength.

“Why?” Wesley said. “You love Buffy Summers. Why would I fuck you?”

Spike tilted his head. Wesley had to supply the sly look from memory, because Spike’s face in this state couldn’t provide any expression. “Because I deserve to be punished? Because you want to hurt me?”

His cock finally sprang free and Wesley gasped when Spike grabbed it roughly at the base and jerked it once. Yes. Spike did deserve to be punished, for making Wesley suffer. He wanted to kiss him but couldn’t bring himself to touch the ruined mouth. He buried his face in Spike’s creamy neck and bit hard.

Spike groaned. “Yeah. Like that, mate.”

Wesley jerked his head away. Mate. Like Angel. He’d been reduced to mate again. Any time now, Spike would start calling him Watcher or Pryce again. Great. Now he was really in the mood to hurt someone, and Spike seemed to be very available for that kind of thing. He pushed him face down in the pillows, not caring if he hurt the oozing face or not.

Spike twisted his arse in the air, creamy buttocks begging Wesley to inflict some damage on them. Wesley struck hard, and realized that he’d never make much of an impression with his bare hands. It left a pink mark that quickly faded. He didn’t have enough practice at stuff like this.

“You can do better than that, love,” Spike croaked. “Harder. I’m nothing. I’m an evil nothing and you have to make me feel it. Anything but…”

He sobbed in the pillows and Wesley would far rather hold him in his arms then have sex with him, although his hard-on violently disagreed with this.

“Come on then,” Spike’s voice ragged on. “Fuck me if you can’t hit me. Make me bleed.”

Wesley spit in his hands and slathered his aching cock with it. He pushed it against Spike’s ass. His hands gripped the creamy velvet to get more leverage and he knew he’d rather caress them than abuse them. The mark from his slap earlier had already faded and it was a shame to mar such beautiful skin. Why did he have to do this again? Hadn't they gone through this a few months ago? He hesitated, letting his hands roam indecisively over the smooth hillocks under his palms. Spike moaned and arched into his hands. See? Spike liked this too.

“Come on, Pryce,” he growled. “Fuck me already. I know you’re up there drooling from your fucking prick so get a move on. I could die of boredom down here.”

Wesley allowed the quick flash of anger he felt to grow unchecked. He needed a bit of help to become harsh and brutal like Spike wanted. He spit in his fingers again, put it in Spike’s arsehole, thinking to stretch him first.

Spike pounded the pillow with his fist. “Nooo, you tosser. Just put it in there and hurt me. This isn’t doing it for me.”

“Shut up, Spike,” Wesley said, searching for a way to do this and not hate himself.

Spike sighed luxuriously, “That’s it, Wezzer, that’s it. I should shut up, shouldn’t I, evil, low thing like me, deserves nothing better than to be fucked face down into the dirt. Hey! Don’t I?”

He could have laughed at the odd combination of impatience and self-hatred if it hadn’t been so fucking sad. He decided he might as well do it. He slowly drew his belt from its loops, letting Spike hear the innocent tinkle it made against the teeth of his zipper.

“Oh yeah, love,” Spike sobbed, “like that. But hurry up, you’re killing me.”

“That’s the point, isn’t it,” Wesley said between clenched teeth.

He rolled the end of the belt around his hand like he’d seen his father do and snapped it experimentally. Spike growled into the pillow. Wesley hefted his hand high and struck. The first time there wasn’t even any blood, but he got the hang of rather quickly and knew to make the buckle come down just so.

His own harsh rhythmic panting sounded like a counterbeat against the slap of the leather and Spike’s muffled groans. He couldn’t bear the throbbing in his cock a moment longer and thrust in, no longer caring about things like lube or stretching. The muscled ring of Spike’s arsehole popped and Wesley gasped as he shot in further.

He went on until he couldn’t hold on any longer and shot, listening in distaste at the ecstatic growling going on. He rested his aching forehead on Spike’s heated back, seeing the purpling bruises he’d made on Spike’s forearms from a strange sideways perspective.

“So was that what you wanted, Spike? Happy now?”

Wesley withdrew his sore cock from Spike and turned him over. His own arms trembled and hardly functioned from the strain. Spike’s head lolled back bonelessly and for a heart-stopping moment Wesley thought he’d killed him. He felt nothing at all that one moment, and only after checking Spike’s pulse could he draw breath in relief. He’d been the one doing that bestial shouting just a moment ago.

Wesley managed to reach the bathroom in time and hung over the rim of the toilet, trying to vomit out all his recent actions and thoughts, but nothing came up. He must already have digested them, they were inside him now, part of him forever.

* * *