girlpire | Friday, Part 4a of 5

Title: Friday
Author: girlpire
Rating: NC17
Pairing: Angel/Spike (Spangel)
Disclaimer: This story is based on the "Angel" series, with which I am not affiliated in any way. Joss Whedon is my master, etc.
Distribution: Please no. kthnxbye. :)
Summary: It's Friday I'm in love.
Warnings: This part - graphic male/male smexing, and a little more of what I didn't warn for in the last part.
Author's Notes: This is part 4a of a story written for

spring_spangel. The first part is [here]. ~~No beta because I'm so terribly impatient.~~ I want to thank spankspike and frimfram for looking at the first scene for me! Part 4b will be posted immediately following this part. They're really the same chapter, but it was too long to fit in one post. And I literally just finished working on it, so I might be making some minor editorial changes tomorrow. Be advised: this chapter picks up immediately where the last one left off, so if you don't remember what happened... you might want to skim part three before checking this out.

*

Friday
Part Four-A

*

You're standing in the early morning light of your bedroom in a pair of black pajama pants with your arms around Spike, and neither one of you is saying anything. Your throat feels too tight to speak. Your jaw is clenched so hard it's almost painful, and you think for a moment that you're actually going to cry. But you don't.

At least you have Spike now, you tell yourself. At least you remember. That's something. You don't know how it's possible, but at least it's something. You hold his body tighter to yours, and his face fits against your neck, and you take a deep, steadying breath. And you don't cry.

At least Spike is here. At least you've got each other.

But what the hell are you going to do now?

You feel so tired.

“I don’t understand,” you say finally. Your voice isn’t loud, but it feels loud in the quiet of your room. “I don’t... understand why I remember.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Spike murmurs against your shoulder. “You remember. That’s enough.”

But it’s not, not really. You need to know. “Something must have been different,” you say. “Yesterday, in the meeting. What we did must have... somehow affected the spell, or...”

“It doesn’t matter, Angel,” Spike says again.

“But it does matter,” you tell him, and as soon as you say it, you feel a slight change in the way he’s carrying himself, as though he’s preparing for an argument, but you push ahead anyway because it's important. “I mean, this is a step in the right direction, isn’t it? The first step to figuring out how to—”

“No,” Spike interrupts. He sounds upset, but he doesn’t pull away from you. “It wasn't a bloody step, Angel; it was a... a failure on my part, and I won’t let it happen again.”

“A failure? What are you talking about?” you ask. When he doesn’t answer, you put your hands on his shoulders and step back gently, so you can see his face. He looks away. “Spike, what do you mean? What failure?”

He swallows, then says softly, “Wasn’t thinking, you know?” He's not meeting your eyes. “Just, I knew I had to get you out of there, quick. Didn’t think about the magicks... I just wanted to save you.” He glances up at you, and his eyes look very shiny, but he’s not crying anymore either. “I’m so sorry, Angel,” he whispers. “I didn’t know... what they could do. I didn’t... think.”

“It’s okay, Spike,” you tell him, not sure what he’s talking about. “I'm not stuck in the time loop anymore, and now we can figure out the rest together. You did save me.” You put a hand up to his cheek. “Thank you.”

He pulls your hand away. “I didn’t save you,” he says firmly. “I let that fucking bastard...” He stops and swallows again. “I couldn’t save you, Angel,” he says, voice tight. “This, remembering everything... this is just the bloody consolation prize.”

You still don't understand, so you sigh and rub a hand over your eyes. “I’m so tired of having to ask what’s going on,” you say quietly. “I didn't think I'd have to do that anymore."

Spike just looks at you, a confused expression on his face. Then he says, “You don’t remember, do you?”

“I remember everything,” you say.

He tilts his head slowly, like he’s just getting something. “But you don’t remember what happened yesterday. During the meeting.”

You think about it. “I remember... we were winning,” you say. “And then I looked for you, and... and then I was dreaming, and I woke up here again. You were calling my name.” You frown. “How did it end? Did you kill the ambassador?”

But as soon as you ask, you see a tiny flicker of something in Spike's eyes sort of shutting down, closing itself off from you. It’s a very small thing, but you notice, and it startles you. You'd never realized before how openly and honestly he always looked at you until now, when the honesty is being carefully hidden away. “Spike, what happened in the meeting?” you ask again, alarmed.

He shakes his head. “It’s... nothing. Not important,” he says. He suddenly puts his arms around you again and pulls you close. “Probably best that you don’t remember,” he adds softly.

And you know that he’s not going to tell you, and that worries you, that it was bad enough that he would think it’s better for you not to remember. And you immediately imagine all the worst scenarios, trying to think what could be so bad that he...

But then, suddenly, you know. It’s not hard to put together, really, when you think about it. It’s... simple. Logical, even. When it happened to Spike, he didn’t remember either, right? He still doesn’t know, as far as you can tell. So it... makes sense. That this is how you escaped the loop. Maybe that's the only way to do it – in order to put your consciousness outside of the repeating midnight spell, sometime before midnight you have to...

Oh, God. You feel like you might throw up.

"Don't think about it," Spike whispers. He's rubbing your back lightly with one cool hand, up and down in slow, soothing strokes against your skin, his other hand resting at the small of your back. "Don't try to remember, Angel. Just... be here. With me."

And that's all you want to do. You don't want to think about what it must have been like, crumbling into thousands of tiny dry particles, how it must have felt for everything you are to instantly burst apart. You don't want to think about Spike having to see that, your friends having to see it. How could you let it happen? How could you abandon them like that? How could you die?

Did you go to hell?

The thought scares you. You’re used to feeling used and manipulated, but this is the first time you've felt so vulnerable, knowing how easily those demons could destroy you, that they have the power to end you and bring you back as many times as they want. And you just want to be with Spike, wrap yourself up in him and take comfort, try not to think about everything else about this day and yesterday, and the day before, and the day before, and your dream, and everything. Now that you can remember these things, all you want to do is forget.

And you feel so lost, knowing what's happening but not knowing how to fix it, and your body doesn't know whether to cry or to punch something or hurt itself or just go to sleep and try to pretend none of this is real, and you need Spike right now to keep you grounded, which is a thing he's somehow always been good at. Very softly, you ask him, "Kiss me?"

And immediately he kisses your neck because his lips are already pressed against it, then your jaw, a tiny, light brush of his lips on your skin. When he kisses your mouth, you reach up to cup the back of his neck and slide your fingers through his hair, holding his lips to yours. His hair is thick and soft without the gel he normally uses. Spike didn't waste any time getting to you this morning, and something in your chest clenches hard at the thought that he came here not knowing if you'd even be alive or not. The old leather of his duster feels soft and cool against your body as he holds you, and you breathe in the scent of it, trying to drown out everything in your head that isn't Spike. You concentrate on him, carefully blocking out all thoughts of time loops and demons and dust.

“Been waiting for this,” Spike eventually pulls back to whisper. “The day you remember. Had all these things planned to say to you, but... can’t think of a single bloody one now. Figures.”

“You don’t have to say anything,” you tell him quietly. Because you already know. You feel the same way.

He looks at your eyes. The soft sunlight coming through your window makes his hair look very bright, and he gives you a tiny smile, although he still looks sad. “Alright,” he says softly. “I won’t say anything.” And very slowly, still looking at you, Spike lets his duster slip down his arms and off, onto the floor.

He puts a hand up to your cheek and kisses your lips once, then looks into your eyes again. He seems satisfied with something he sees there and pauses to pull his black t-shirt off over his head and drop it to the floor as well before kissing you again, laying his hands softly on your shoulders. You slide your arms around his waist, palms against his silky skin, and you’re kissing him back, but he takes the lead and you let him. And he’s good at it.

“This okay?” he pulls back again to ask, and you don’t speak but lean down and start kissing his neck. He sighs, tilts his head back, closes his eyes. Your hands are on his skin, firm and cool beneath your palms, and you’re thinking, yes. Yes, this is okay. You think it very hard. Yes.

And his hands are on you too, light against your back, sliding down. His fingertips edge just inside the waistband of your pajama pants, and you feel yourself hardening, breathing in the scent of him. Spike was turned late in the year, and he will always smell like autumn to you, faintly sweet and kind of earthy, but with a light smoky hint that could be leftover from his cigarettes or could just be his skin. Your fingers cup around him at the front of his jeans, and he looks down to watch your hand as you start to rub over him gently, up and down, coaxing his half-hard dick bigger beneath the denim. He bites his bottom lip.

And you already know, even before he starts to walk you backward slowly towards the bed, before you find yourself lying back on top of the covers, Spike above you straddling your hips, his mouth on your neck, you know that what you’re about to do is going to be different from anything you’ve ever done together. You almost don’t know what to do, how to respond to his hands on you, sliding over your body in a way that has nothing to do with hate or pain or power. You’ve never been with him like this. You’ve had sex with Spike before, but you’ve never loved him this way.

When his hand slips inside your pants to wrap around your stiffening cock, it’s a newer feeling than you imagined could ever come from such familiar fingers. His mouth is on your chest now, and you curl your fingers into his hair as he scrapes his teeth over one of your nipples, then soothes it quickly with his tongue. Your eyes fall closed, but you open them again right away when you see behind your eyelids the image of dust and purple blood scattered in an alley. Instead, you look down at the top of Spike’s head, and you try to concentrate on what he's doing to you, and you remind yourself that you're not going to cry.

Spike presses a kiss to your stomach, just above your belly button. "Don't think, Angel," he murmurs into your skin, as though he can read your mind.

Running a hand through his hair, you whisper, "Help me stop."

And so he does. With a firm grip on your dick and soft, teasing kisses all over, Spike starts saving you in the way that you need him to right now, his soft lips against your belly moving downward, his hands and mouth so convincingly solid. He tucks his fingertips in the waistband of your pants and eases them down, pausing to let you lift your hips so he can pull the black material completely off. And then his hand grips you tightly again and his mouth opens for you, wet and yielding and... God, that tongue... and in between tiny shivers of pleasure, you think of how complex, how intricate these bodies are, how different from piles of dust. You can't be doing this if you're dead; you can't be making these soft sounds in your throat and feeling these things Spike is doing to you.

“Spike,” you breathe, and your hips twitch up fractionally toward his mouth and then back down. “God, that feels so...” And he doesn’t respond but slowly takes you in deeper, his lips sealed around you, hands grasping your hips, head moving up and down in a steady, gentle bob. His mouth has never felt this deep before - or maybe you've just never noticed, and how can you have never noticed how deep Spike goes, how much of him there is inside? Your fingers card through his hair over and over as your cockhead rubs against the firm, wet walls of his throat. His tongue slides from one side to the other underneath you, and you breathe in sharply. If he keeps that up, you’re not going to last.

Just when you’re about to tell him that, he breaks the easy suction with a soft pop and then pulls back, curls his fingers around your slippery cock, and starts pumping it slowly. You exhale a long, ragged breath and just watch. His gaze flicks from your thick erection up to your eyes and then back down, watching the slick head disappear repeatedly into his fist. When he looks back up at your face again, he swallows and says, “Want you, Angel.”

And you’re watching him say this; you’re watching his eyes, the mix of emotions there that he's never been good at hiding from you, the hope, the hesitancy that isn’t quite strong enough to conquer his desire. And you’re thinking, God, you want him, too. Never more than now. But you don't want him in the way that you've wanted him in the past, the way that only meant you wanted to fuck him in the ass and make him really feel it, make him hurt and think of you for days afterward... And maybe that's what's so different about this time. You don’t want to hurt him – you don’t even feel like you deserve him, not really, not after everything. Would you have done for Spike what he’s done for you all these Fridays? If you felt like you had nothing left, would you have gone to him and let yourself love him the way he’s done with you, just for the sake of loving, not for getting anything back?

But even though neither one of you can know what you would have done in his place, Spike wants you right now as though you had already done the same thing he did. He wants you as though, in this strange new relationship, the two of you were equals. And that’s what’s different.

You sit up on the bed and put a hand to his cheek, bring his face close to yours so you can kiss those pink lips. “Want you,” you echo softly, and as you kiss him, you feel him reach down, unbuttoning his jeans. He breaks the kiss to stand up and push the jeans off his hips, and you reach across to the drawer in the nightstand, rummage for a moment before closing your fingers around a small tube you keep there while he finishes undressing. And then he’s on the bed with you again, and you’re rolling him over onto his back, kissing his mouth and his cheek and his neck and his chin and his mouth again, and he’s giving you this almost desperate look like he can’t get enough of you but he still doesn’t quite believe this is happening. And the look doubles when, rather than slicking your own cock with the lubricant, you squeeze some into your palm and then wrap your hand around his instead, spreading the cool gel up and down and over the tip.

Spike’s lips part in a soft, breathy groan near your ear, and you nuzzle against his neck, murmur, “Alright?” and feel his slight nod. Equals, you think. You can see the word in your head, as clearly as if it had been carved into your skin. Two champions, two vampires with souls, two men with the memories of countless Fridays no one else knows, and at the end of the week, two identical piles of dust. Equals, in every way. This is what makes it different - not just what you're about to do with your bodies, but the knowledge you'll have while you do it, the feelings that have nothing to do with the way things used to be. It feels... right.

Your slick hand continues to work up and down tightly around him until he’s panting softly, his hips coming off the bed in tiny thrusts. You slide your thumb across the firm pink head, squeezing lightly, and he suddenly goes completely still and grabs your wrist, stops you from moving. “Wait,” he breathes urgently, and you think for a second that he’s going to come, but a moment later he just sighs and lets go of you, gives you a relieved smile. God, he’s beautiful like this, spread out naked on your bed. How could you have never loved him before?

You kiss Spike again, and after a long moment, he puts a hand on your shoulder, squeezes. “Lie back,” he says against your lips. And for the briefest of moments, a shiver of uncertainty passes through you, but when you pull away he’s looking at you with nothing but love, and you trust him – you trust Spike – and that makes it very easy to roll onto your back on top of your sheets and kiss him again when he rises over you, his lean body fitting between your thighs like he was meant to be there. “Just relax,” he says softly in your ear. Then, almost more to himself than to you, he adds, “Christ, I hope this lasts more than a minute.”

That gets a small huff of a laugh from you, but then he's rubbing his fingertips over your asshole and you bite your bottom lip, swallow, try consciously to unclench everything. You need this. You need Spike. And it's not even a thing you have to convince yourself of; it's a thing that you know somewhere deep, a thing that you trust. You need him like blood, and he is blood, and that's all there is. You need him to show you that you're both still here in the world, that you're together, that there's a reason to hope... and for a moment you're scared that this won't be enough to really make you believe, but you desperately want it to be.

And a slim finger slides slowly inside you, and you let yourself exhale deeply, concentrate on Spike's solidness above you and in you. He's not looking at what he's doing with his hand; his face is pressed to the side of your neck, but he knows his way around, and what he's doing feels different, new, a little strange, but good. The finger pulls out with a slight burn and then goes in again, twisting, rubbing inside you. It makes your dick even harder, if that's possible, pressed against Spike's belly. "Do it," you whisper to him. "Now - please."

Spike shifts a little, takes his finger out of you and kisses your collarbone again once, and then you can feel his cock, hard and slick, nudging against you. "Ready?" he murmurs, and your fingers tighten on his biceps as you tell him firmly, "Yes."

Then you feel pressure, but nothing happens at first. So you brace your feet on the bed and you're pressing back, and that's when you feel the sudden stretch that takes away your next breath and causes Spike to make a soft, sharp sound against your chest. And then very slowly, Spike pushes all the way into you in one long, unbroken stroke until his hips are flush against your skin and you're both breathing hard, and it's such a tight fit that you think maybe you could have used a bit more preparation, but that's okay because even though it hurts, it still feels like it ought to; it feels right.

"Bloody hell," Spike breathes, "Bloody fucking hell, Angel..."

"Good?" you pant, and he mumbles something incoherent into your chest, which you take as a yes. "Don't stop," you tell him, sliding your hands down to grip his ass. "Spike, fuck me."

He inhales deeply and then just nods, as though remembering what's supposed to be happening here, and he shifts a little, bracing his elbows on the bed by your sides. And when he pulls out and pushes back in, you curse, and your fingernails dig into his skin. His abdomen rubs over your cock on the next thrust, and inside you feel like your body is suddenly waking up, like you’re starting to itch all over, and his dick moving forward reaches every little itch and scratches over it perfectly, but moving out just inflames the tiny itches again. You find yourself shifting your hips up to meet his with each stroke so that you don't have to wait, and you're watching his face but he's got his eyes shut like he's concentrating, and this - feeling him inside your body, hearing his breath so close to your ear - this is the moment that you finally, really let yourself believe that you're here. And when you close your eyes, the dust from your dream isn't there, and you see only Spike, naked in the morning light of your bedroom, and you're so relieved and you feel so alive that when you open your eyes again you can actually feel yourself smiling.

Your hands slide up Spike's smooth back and then down again, just feeling him there, solid above you, and he arches into the touch like a cat. You do it again, let your fingernails lightly mark him, and his whole body shudders briefly but he doesn't miss a stroke, fucking you smooth and strong and measured, like there's nothing in the world more important than doing this right, and you're meeting him thrust for thrust like the two of you are just different parts of the same machine, slick and tight and fitting together as though you were built for exactly this purpose.

"Fuck, Spike..." you whisper, and he lifts his head, looks up at you through yellow eyes. You think your eyes might be going from brown to yellow and back again, and he reaches for you, grabs the back of your head and pulls you up to his lips for a hard, wet kiss. And the whole time he's still moving in you, stretching, filling, scratching your itches, and rubbing over something that makes you gasp into his mouth, and his belly goes over your cock again and again, hard, smearing clear drops of precum between your skin and his. And it's never been this way before, not just with Spike but with anyone; you've never been touched in all these places at once, and it feels so good, and it doesn't feel like it's going to end, and it's almost too much, and is this the way it will always be, every time, with Spike, from now on?

"Angel... fuck, so fucking tight, Christ..." he's saying into your lips, and he eventually turns his head away, squeezing his eyes shut tight and clenching his jaw to maintain control, but his hips never stop pumping, and you don't stop fucking him back and touching him all over with your hands, scratching his back and squeezing his ass. And you can't reach his lips anymore but you kiss his neck, and his breathing is harsh near your ear. And some more words slip out in gasps with his breath too, different words, words you think he might not even realize he's saying, but you take them in and some of them you give back, whisper haltingly in his ear between quiet curses, and the bed rocks with the weight of your bodies moving together.

And it's building up; you can feel yourself already tightening throughout your body, the pressure in your balls and thighs and belly, the little jolts of pleasure shooting through your cock as Spike fucks your ass. If he stopped moving, if he paused right now, you could probably still hold on, control yourself and make this last longer. And, God, you want him to; you want him to stop for just a moment, allow you some time to pull yourself back in so this can go on forever, for weeks and weeks of Fridays. But he doesn't stop. He's pounding into you fast and hard and without mercy, and he's rubbing your cock over and over with his stomach and there's no way you can get away from it, so you tell him, your fingernails digging into his back, "Spike, shit, I'm... so fucking close, fuck..."

And he mumbles something that sounds like, "Thank fucking Christ," and his thrusts become a little faster, wilder, less controlled. And that's what does it for you, pushes you over the edge. You come with a sharp gasp, your whole body clenching hard, cock spurting between your belly and Spike's as he continues to rub over it, smearing the wetness between you. And just a moment later, before you've even stopped coming, Spike's hips freeze on the instroke, his cock buried inside you, and you can feel his orgasm pulsing through him as his breath comes in harsh pants through his mouth, and it's such a feeling of completeness that you're almost awed by it.

And then Spike's kissing you again, and while he kisses you he makes two or three more slow, squishy thrusts that send tiny aftershock shudders through you both. And you kiss him back, your whole body feeling a little sensitive and kind of sore, but so very satisfied. Your fingers and the soles of your feet are tingling, and all the things that you've been wanting to say are welling up again in your mind, but you find again that you can't say anything. And then he goes still between your thighs.

Without moving from his spot on top of you and inside you, Spike kisses the corner of your mouth, then the edge of your jaw, then your neck, and breathes very softly into your ear, "Love you, Angel." And then he lays his head on your shoulder and settles his full weight against you as though he doesn't ever plan on getting up again.

You kiss the top of his head. One of your hands finds his hand on the bed beside you and you entwine your fingers, give him a little squeeze. "I know," you murmur. And besides being sticky and sore and sated, you’re suddenly very sleepy, so you let his hand go and you wrap your arms around his back and you close your eyes, and you think about how lucky you are.

“But,” he says quietly, “you don’t love me.”

You open your eyes again, a little startled, not sure you heard him right. “What would make you think that?” you ask.

“You didn’t say it.”

“Maybe I was working up to it.”

You feel a small almost-grin against your skin. “Poof.”

That makes you smile. Softly, you tell him, “Love you too, Spike.”

He sighs, shifts more comfortably in your arms, and closes his eyes. “Yeah,” he whispers. “I know.”

And then your eyes fall closed again against the light coming through your window, and you’ve still got your arms around Spike and your body is still pleasantly tingly, and there’s a kind of warmth to your blood right now that you can’t really define... but in spite of all this, your mind is already starting to drift to things you don’t want to think about yet. And you just want to lie here under Spike; you want to feel the solid weight of him on your chest and not think of anything else for a while. You just want to pretend everything is okay.

But you don’t have time for pretending today. People are already beginning to arrive in the building below you, early birds trying to get a jumpstart on their last working day of the week. Right now, on any normal Friday, you’d be in the shower, also getting ready for work. You should be doing that now. You need to talk to Wesley, set up a meeting, fill your friends in on what’s going on. You need to get up; you need to prepare for this afternoon.

Five minutes.

You can spare five minutes, right? You’ll allow yourself five more minutes to lie here with Spike, and then you’ll get up, face the day, be some kind of hero if you can figure out how.

But for now, you tighten your arms around Spike’s body, and you just hold on.

*

An hour later, you’re still lying in bed holding Spike. He may have dozed off for a few minutes at first, but he’s been awake for a while now, although neither of you has said anything or moved. It feels like once you do, you can never get this moment with him back, and you don’t want it to end because you know that when it does you’ll have to go downstairs, and it will be Friday down there.

You try to calculate how long it’s been since you had a day off, but all the repetitions sort of blur together in your mind, and you realize you have no way of really knowing how much time has passed. Spike could probably tell you, but you don’t want to ask him.

You turn your head to look at the clock. You really should get up.

In a quiet voice, Spike finally says, “Don’t go in today.”

You turn your head again to look down at him. “I have to,” you say.

“You wouldn’t miss anything,” he tells you. “Already know everything that happens, don't you?”

You think about your meeting. You think about dying. When the Ri’ipkis killed you, did it happen quickly, or did they torture you first? Were you staked, beheaded, set on fire? Or do they have some kind of vampire-dusting power that you didn’t know about before? This is another thing you don’t want to ask Spike.

“Today will be different,” you say. “We’ll make it different.”

“Staying here would be different.”

You kiss the top of his head, then murmur, “I have to take a shower.”

Slowly, you begin extricating yourself from beneath him. Your skin sticks to his with dried semen, and you peel away from each other with twin grimaces.

“Want company?” he asks, frowning down at a dry, flaking spot on his stomach.

“Spike, you know if we showered together, I’d never get to work today.”

He gives you a half-smile. “Part of my evil plan.”

“I won’t take long.”

You step into the shower alone and make the water as hot as you can stand it. You’re sore in places that you expected to be sore in, but you’re also sore in a few places you didn’t expect. It feels good, though. Being sore like this.

And then you start to cry.

You hadn’t realized how long you’d been holding it in until it all suddenly starts pouring out. It's almost startling how fast the tears come. And it makes you angry; it doesn’t make sense to be crying so soon after making love, after lying in bed for another hour just being together. It’s stupid; you should be happy. You’ve gotten your memories back, and you’ve got Spike waiting for you in the next room, and you should be so happy right now. But you put your hands up to your face, and you bow your head, and you cry silently while the hot water runs down your body.

You never had a chance to mourn him properly. He was gone, and then a few minutes later everything started over, and you didn’t even know until the next afternoon what had happened. And at first you thought it was just a dream, but then you remembered again, and again, and then... you had other things, and your friends were all sitting there looking at you... and it just never... This is the first time you’ve had the chance.

And even though you know he’s waiting for you in your bedroom, even though you know he’s perfectly alright, and even though you know that if he hadn’t died that night then you never would have had all those hockey games and movies and beaches together and you never would have fallen in love... even knowing all this, the thing that kills you is that you could have saved him, and you didn’t. And you can still see that alley so clearly, the largish, snarling demon putting its hoof in Spike’s dust, and purple blood all over your hands. And you will never be rid of that image, not for the rest of your life. Every time you look at him, every time he smiles at you, you’ll think about how you let him down. You didn’t save him and that’s part of you now, forever.

So you cry. You let yourself do it now, because you know you won’t let yourself do it later. No one but you saw Spike die, and no one will you see you mourning him, and when you step out of this shower today, it will be as though nothing had ever happened. And you'll live with that.

When your body stops shaking, you turn your face up to the shower spray and let it rinse away your tears. You stand completely still under the steamy water until your muscles are all relaxed, and then, very slowly, you begin washing yourself.

Spike is looking inside your closet when you finally come out. "I was just wondering," he says, "'Will he go with the black today..." he gestures toward all the dark clothes, "...or the black?'"

You manage a half-smile. "Today I'm wearing pink. Bright pink. And yellow."

"Do you even have that?"

You regard your closet. "I'll wear blue."

"I kept thinking... the whole time, I thought... 'The thing Angel would hate the most - wearing the same bloody suit every day.'"

A small huff of a laugh. "I’m guessing that wouldn't bother you."

"Would if I didn't have the choice," he says. Then he adds after a moment, "S'pose I'll go in with you. You'll want to call a meeting. I should probably be there."

"That would be good. Thanks."

He nods and turns toward the bathroom, then stops. "You're gonna ask me, aren't you?" he says, looking back. "What happened yesterday. You'll want me to tell everyone."

Your eyes meet his. He doesn’t know you already know. "Yes," you tell him.

He nods again, then silently heads toward the shower.

*

The ride down in the elevator is awkward at first. You're doing that thing again where you have things you want to say to Spike but you can't make yourself say them. But then he slips his hand into yours like it's the most natural thing in the world, and that makes you feel a little better.

"I don't want to do this," you tell him quietly.

He squeezes your hand. "I know, pet," he says.

"I... don't think I could make myself go if you weren't with me." You wonder if he gets how difficult it is for you to say this out loud. You think he probably does. He’s known you for a long time.

"It's surreal, at first,” he tells you. “Everyone wearing the same thing, saying the same thing, making the same little gestures with their hands. You find yourself waiting for someone to cough, or to blink, or to tap their sodding fingernails on a desktop. But you get used to it. I reckon I stopped noticing anything new after the first two months or so."

"It must have been so frustrating," you say. "I thought I would go crazy, and I only had to know about it for a few hours every day."

"Well," he says, "I found myself a reason to keep going, didn't I?" He gives your hand another little squeeze.

You pull his hand up and kiss the back of it. "I think... that might be why I love you."

He feigns surprise. "Not just my looks, then?"

"God, I must have been so boring. Saying the same things over and over every day."

"You've always been boring, luv. I've just built up a tolerance." He smiles. "Anyway, you were no worse than anyone else."

"And that's why you love me. Because I'm no worse than anyone else."

"No, Peaches. With you, it's definitely the looks." He grins at you as the elevator doors open.

You both drop hands automatically before stepping out, and your own small grin quickly vanishes. You glance over at him apologetically, and he gives you a small nod of understanding as you head over to Harmony's desk to pick up your messages.

"There you are!" Harmony says accusingly when she sees you. She puts down her nail file. "I've been trying to call you like, all morning."

You frown. "No you haven't."

"Well, Wesley told me to. He left you this." She hands you a manila folder with a post-it note on top - the Ri'ipki etiquette notes. You stare down at Wesley's three-letter signature on the post-it. Without even opening the folder, you know you could recite the notes word for word. Spike was right; it's surreal.

And there's your morning blood sitting on the corner of Harmony's desk, right where it always is, cooling slowly in your #1 Boss mug. You take it silently and look at it.

"So I was wondering," Harmony says. And you already know she's going to ask you if she can leave work early for some kind of sale, but before she can finish reciting her lines, Spike interrupts her.

"Hey Harm, heard the good news about Saks today?" he asks. You glance up at him in surprise. He's just looking at her, as though this were a completely normal conversation.

"Oh my God, I was just going to mention that," she says. "Can you believe D&G intimates are 10% off? That like, never happens!"

"You know, you should really knock off work an hour early," he says. "Make sure you get there in time and all. Be a shame to miss it, a sale like that."

"I was totally just about to ask if I could!"

He turns to you with a smile. "Well, what d'you say, mate? You wouldn't deny our Harm the chance to waste loads of cash on frilly pink underthings, would you?"

"I..." You're staring at Spike, the urge to laugh warring with sudden relief that you don’t have to finish acting out your part of the scene. "She can waste her money on whatever she wants," you say.

He's grinning. "That's settled, then," he says, turning back toward her. “Off you go at three o’clock. But don’t spend it all on pink, yeah?” Then he leans forward confidentially and adds in a lowered voice, "Buy something black, too."

And winks.

When the two of you get to your office, you only spare a moment to set the notes and mug on your desk before pulling Spike into a kiss. "How do you do that?" you ask him, your hands still resting on his hips. “How do you make it seem like everything’s... okay? Like it’s just a normal day?”

“Well,” he responds seriously, “the truth is... there’s a man here I’m trying to impress.”

“Oh... I see.” You lean back against your desk and cross your arms. “Anyone I know?”

“Nah, you wouldn't. He doesn’t get out much. No social life at all, the poor bastard.”

You narrow your eyes at him. “Tall guy, brown hair? Quiet, mysterious, impeccably dressed, and kinda... classically handsome?”

“Bit more like a troll in a suit, really. You know, extremely violent and with beady eyes, a huge forehead... but he is tall, yeah.”

“Okay, I don’t think we’re talking about the same guy.”

Spike takes a step toward you and nudges a knee between your thighs. “But,” he leans forward to murmur, “he’s a bloody fantastic shag.”

That earns Spike another slow kiss before you pull away and look down at his mouth. "You know," you say quietly, "Ever since I started working here, I've wanted to fuck someone over this desk."

Spike drops a hand to your lap. "Subtle," he says.

You cover his hand with yours and draw it away slowly. "Too bad we don't have time."

"Cocktease."

"We need to talk to Wesley. And Fred and Gunn and Lorne."

Spike concedes with a sigh. He takes a step back from you, dropping your hand. "Go on, then. Ring them. Let's get this over with."

"You don't sound very optimistic."

"Just thinking about how much good these meetings have done in the past."

"It's different now."

He doesn't look at you. "Course it is," he says.

"Because I remember too."

"Right."

"So the meeting will be... different."

"Yeah."

"Spike?" You reach for his hand again. "Before we call everyone... there's something we need to talk about."

*

It's strange, telling someone that he's died. You've done it before, several times; you've even had to explain it to Spike before. But that was over a century ago, back when you thought things like that were funny.

You don't tell him which demon it was. He doesn't ask, either. You don't tell him you could have stopped it. You don't tell him that his head was twisted free from his body with a wet popping sound, or that the demon stepped in his dust. He doesn't need to know that. These are the things you do tell him: an alley, a monster, a fight to the death. That's all. And that it happened on the Original Friday, and you know because... you saw it.

You want to tell him other things too, like how beautiful he looked while he was fighting, and that it was a noble death, a champion's death, even though there was nothing all that spectacular about it. You want to tell him that it wasn't his fault. But what good would it do? And anyway you can't say any of these things to him yet. It’s too soon. It still feels like it happened last night.

The two of you are sitting on the couch in your office holding hands, and it seems like you ought to be talking about something else. Your last hockey game, or what you had for breakfast yesterday, or going away together for the weekend. Something.

His hand gets tighter in yours. Otherwise, he doesn't really react. He's not looking at you.

When you've finished talking, there is a long silence. You watch Spike thinking, wait for him to say something. You can tell he’s coming to the same conclusion you did earlier, that death is a way out of the loop. And then he finally asks, in a very calm voice, if you've worked out yet what happened in yesterday's meeting. And you tell him that you have.

There's another long silence. Your hand hurts. You're squeezing each other very hard.

"Maybe this is hell," Spike says, not looking up.

"It would make sense," you agree. "But I don't think it is."

"Why not?"

"Because we still have each other."

He laughs, but it doesn't sound right. "Not too long ago, I would have thought hell was being stuck somewhere with you."

"It seems like a long time ago to me."

"Yeah. I didn't really mean that."

Another pause.

“So, how did I...” you start. But then he looks up at you, and you don’t finish. “It’s not important,” you finally tell him. You don’t really want to know anyway. Probably.

"We’ve killed demons today," Spike says. "Some of them, we killed every day for weeks. Surely they don’t remember everything?”

That hadn’t occurred to you. “I’m not sure how it works. Maybe it only works if you have a soul. Maybe it only works if you’re a vampire with a soul.”

“Lucky for us.”

“That might not be it. We’ll have to ask Wes.” Spike just nods. He’s still squeezing your hand very tightly, and you squeeze back just as hard. The pressure is reassuring, for both of you. “Spike, are you... I know this is hard to process,” you tell him. “Will you be alright? We can take some time, if you want. You know, before meeting with everyone.” You’ve only got until two o’clock before your meeting with the Ri’ipkis begins, though. Which gives you just over four hours to come up with a plan.

Very slowly, Spike relaxes his grip on your hand and lets go. His voice sounds carefully controlled as he finally responds, “I’m always alright, luv. Let's do this now.”

*

"We're running out of time, Wes." You're pacing back and forth through the conference room, your friends and Spike all sitting at the table amid piles of old books and the remains of lunch. The second hand on your watch seems to be ticking louder than usual.

"Angel, we're doing the best we can under the circumstances," he assures you, voice edgy. To Spike, he says, "And you're sure you've tried the Bendhishilli?"

"That's the black stuff that smells like a fyarl's arse?"

"Er-"

"Yes, he's tried that. I remember," you cut in. And to Spike, "I still don't know if I forgive you for that one."

Fred makes a second check mark beside Bendhishilli on her list. "That's all of them," she says. "There aren't any more relevant counterspells in this dimension."

"Don't tell me that," you say. "There's got to be something."

"There are ten thousand somethings," Spike points out. "Trouble is, they don't work."

"Did you seriously dance naked around a bonfire in the lobby?" Gunn asks.

"A magic bonfire, yeah."

"Man, I am so glad I don't remember that."

"Speak for yourself," mutters Lorne.

“Gunn, a little more translating and a little less picturing Spike naked, please?” you say. He nods and looks back down at the contract in front of him. It took a while, but you’ve managed to duplicate the one the Ri’ipkis have been trying to get you to sign – thank you, photographic memory – and a little of it is actually in English, but honestly, you don’t understand what it means. You're hoping that if Gunn can decipher it - both the language and the demonic legalese - there'll be some kind of clue hidden there that will help you gain the upper hand.

"What I don't understand," says Wesley, "is how a species like the Ri'ipkis managed to get hold of such powerful magicks. I knew they possessed low-level telepathic capabilities, but nothing nearly as advanced as what you've described, Angel. To manipulate the very fabric of time would take... well, it would take much stronger magic than anything we've ever encountered before."

Fred nods. “Just storing up the amount of energy needed to fold a single day in on itself could take hundreds of years. And even then, you’d need a giganimous place to keep all the energy without letting it escape, not to mention a humongaloid transmitter, and... just using it once would probably explode the entire West Coast. Angel, the technology for time manipulation hasn’t even been invented yet.”

“So what you’re saying is...”

“If it were even possible, which it isn’t, then it couldn’t be the Ri’ipkis, which it is,” sighs Wesley. “I’m sorry, Angel, but... there’s simply no way we can have this all figured out by—” he glances at his watch. “Good Lord, is it already half past one?”

“Shit.” You sit down at the table beside Spike. “Half an hour. I can’t even concentrate.”

Spike reaches over and squeezes your thigh under the table.

“Not helping,” you murmur.

“Cancel the meeting,” he murmurs back.

“Spike, you can’t be seri... oh. The Ri’ipki meeting. I should cancel the meeting with the Ri’ipkis!” You stand up again.

“Can you do that?” asks Fred. “I mean, will they let you do that? Won’t they just... come and kill us anyway?”

“They’re not going to kill us,” you say. “They need us alive, or else they would have killed us that first day and not bothered with the... giganimous... humonga... zoid... do we have to use pretend words?”

“Angel, the meeting...?” Spike prompts.

“Right, I’ll cancel it now,” you say. Then, to Fred, “We’ve cancelled before. They never seem to mind.”

“They might this time,” says Wesley. “If they know – and we have to assume they do – that you’ve got your memories back, they may have changed their plan of attack. Now that you’re free of their spell, the Ri’ipkis can no longer wait you out; they have to act.”

“...Or somehow mojo you back under the spell,” adds Lorne. “Don’t be surprised if you find yourself doing the Timewarp again, Angel. And can I just say: not nearly as much fun without a corset.”

“We’ll try cancelling,” you say. “If it doesn’t work, we’ll just... throw everything we have at them and hope they don’t make it out alive. Alright?”

“What about us?” says Gunn. “What if we don’t make it out alive?”

You look at Spike. He’s looking back at you.

“Then we’ll just hope the day starts over again.”

*

“I can’t believe you didn’t tell me they cancelled!” you growl at Harmony. “Why didn’t you tell me as soon as they called?”

“You were in a meeting!” she responds defensively. “And it was really long!”

“Harmony, this thing with the Ri’ipkis – it’s important! You’re supposed to give me important messages right away!”

“They didn’t leave a message! They just rescheduled!”

You stop glaring at her for a moment. “Wait. They rescheduled?”

She’s pouting. “Yeah. They said, ‘Same time tomorrow.’ I didn’t know you worked on Saturdays. I’m not supposed to be coming in on Saturdays, am I? Because I so haven’t been.”

“No,” you tell her grimly. “And tomorrow’s not Saturday.”

When you tell Wesley, Fred, Gunn, Lorne, and Spike what the Ri’ipkis said, everyone seems relieved – except Wesley. He looks concerned, and after a moment says, “Angel, may I have a word in private?”

"Sure, Wes." You gesture for him to follow you into your office, and he pulls both doors closed behind himself.

"I think you can see how this is a problem," he says.

You can. You'd sort of hoped no one else would notice, but leave it to Wesley to pick up exactly what you were thinking. "Yeah," you say. "The Ri'ipkis don't care about what we do today, which means..."

"They're expecting you to have forgotten everything again by tomorrow."

You sigh heavily. You hadn't wanted to believe the implication. "So how do you think they'll do it?" you ask. "Come after me sometime tonight and recast the forgetting spell?"

Wesley looks toward the ceiling speculatively. "Perhaps..." he starts. Then he shakes his head. "I'm by no means familiar with the magicks these demons are using," he tells you, "but I have a theory, Angel, that you may not be entirely free of the spell after all."

"What do you mean? I can remember everything, just like Spike."

"Yes, but unlike Spike, you have previously been a victim of the memory loss that's affected everyone else. Spike has never been affected. And according to what you told us, Spike's... death... occurred on the Original Friday, before everything started over, did it not?"

"Yeah, it did."

"So when the spell began at midnight on that night, he was already gone. But on each subsequent repetition of the day, an echo of the spell happens again. Spike is immune because the original magicks never touched him, but you and I - and everyone else - have been dosed repeatedly and thus lose all memory of each day we live through."

"I... think I see where you're going with this."

He gives you a humorless smile. "I thought you might."

"You're saying that... I managed to avoid last night's dose of magicks because I was dead, so I kept my memories..."

"Yes."

"...but the Ri'ipkis don't care because tonight there will be another echo of the spell at midnight..."

"Yes."

"...and there's no way for me to avoid getting dosed again."

"Well..."

"And tomorrow, I won't even remember having this conversation. Fuck!" You walk over to your couch and fling yourself down on it.

"Angel," Wesley says hesitantly. "There is a way to avoid the spell."

"Not without dy... oh. God." You shut your eyes. "Fuck. Fuck."

"You've done it before."

"Fuck."

"Quite."

These are your choices. Everything gone again... this morning with Spike, the progress you and your friends have made - however little there is. Waking up tomorrow morning hating a person you love and not having any idea that something's wrong... Versus dusting again, risking hell, risking the chance that the day won't repeat again, that the Ri'ipkis may give up on their plan and just leave you for dead. What kind of decision is that for someone to have to make?

"Don't tell Spike," you say quietly.

"Angel, he'll have to know sooner or-"

"It's my decision."

"Of course it is. I'm not disputing that, but-"

"Wesley. It's my decision."

He sighs. “Yes, Angel. You are, as they say, the boss.” After a brief pause, he adds, “There’s... something else I’d like to discuss with you.”

*

When Wesley leaves to return to the conference room, Spike passes him on the way in – as though he’d been standing at the door waiting his turn to speak with you. He gives Wesley a second look before shutting the door behind him. “Percy alright?” he asks. “He looks... off.”

You pass a hand over your eyes. “Yeah, he’s... fine.”

Spike looks at you skeptically.

“You need something?” you ask. “Want a drink?” You take a deep breath and stand up from the couch, turn your back to Spike as you head toward the bar.

“Just came to see if I should be jealous. Your watcher was in here a while.”

“What? No, it’s... we were just... discussing. Plans and stuff. You know.”

He walks up behind you and puts his arms around your waist, leans against your back. Your hands are shaking as you pour two drinks. Spike watches over your shoulder. “Tell me what’s wrong,” he says softly near your ear.

“It’s nothing. I’m just... you know, anxious. Ready for this to be over with.” You pick up a glass and quickly swallow the drink in one go. Then, what the hell, you do the same with the other.

When you set the second glass back down, Spike turns you around gently so he can look at your face. “Hey,” he says. “We’ll get through this. I mean hell, Angel, we’ve both died, and it hasn’t stopped us yet.” He gives you a little smile. “So don’t worry. We’ll just do our thing, like we’ve always done, and everything will be alright.”

“You sound pretty sure of yourself.”

He huffs. “You’re forgetting, this is already the best day I’ve had in a long time. Not much could spoil it.”

“I think you just jinxed us by saying that.”

“I think we should shag on your desk.”

The unexpectedness of this comment makes you laugh. “Is that why you came in here?”

“Actually, I came to see how you were holding up.”

“And to fuck on the desk.”

Spike grins. “And to fuck on the desk,” he admits. “Can hardly think of anything else.” He reaches in his pocket and pulls out a tube of lubricant, holds it up with a raise of his eyebrow. “So. Want my arse or not?”

You roll your eyes, but take the lube anyway. “And they say romance is dead.”

Spike just smiles and leans up for a kiss, and you slide your arms around him. As you meet his mouth with yours, you can’t help thinking about what Wesley said. Tomorrow, will you remember this? You can’t bear the thought of forgetting it, of leaving Spike alone again.

When he pulls back, he whispers, “Oh love, oh fire... once he drew with one long kiss my whole soul through my lips, as sunlight drinketh dew.”

You kiss him softly once more before replying, “And don’t you forget it.” Then you tug his hand gently, drawing him in the direction of the desk.

"I take it that was romantic enough?" he asks.

"Quoting Tennyson? No." You stop beside the desk and turn, push him a little until he sits down on the top, beside your nameplate. "Lucky for you, I'm easy."

He watches your hands as you reach for the button on his jeans. Before you can get it undone, though, he suddenly takes one of your hands and brings it up to his lips, presses a kiss against your palm. You pause, just looking at him, his face cupped in your hand. He's so very beautiful. Could you let yourself forget how much you love him? Would you die to remember?

"Yeah," Spike murmurs, looking up at you with very blue eyes. "Lucky me."

*

The second half of this chapter is [here].

*