*****

The water drops crawl tiredly down the shop windows.

The rain is letting up to a sedate drizzle, and Spike wonders once again why they didn't just take the fucking car. Angel likes to do everything at a slower pace, but this is just ridiculous.

At least it means walking the L.A. streets and brushing against humans, catching old, familiar flavors dearly missed. There's very little that's new and exciting these days. Angel fights demons because it means escaping the overreaching shadows of the hotel. Spike follows Angel around because putting up with his Sire sounds better than being the Big Bad on his own.

2 a.m. on a weeknight.

On Hollywood Boulevard the hookers look bored and the pimps nervous.

A lanky brunette wraps herself around Spike's back and murmurs some anatomically extravagant suggestion in his ear. He can sniff blood between her legs, and the tip of his tongue darts out to moisten his lips.

You'd think that after decades of embarrassing the female population to death with stupid adverts on the telly about ultra-absorbing pads presented by absurdly manic women, they'd finally come up with tampons that don't leak.

Not that he minds. The hooker doesn't look like she minds either. She probably has clients lined up who wait like clockwork for that special time of the month. Star-lovers stalking the new moon to watch the sky in goddamn peace. Right now though, she just smells like a satin-clad vamp magnet.

Her fingers wind through his hair - still bleached, a change might be in order. After all, he dumped the leather coat ten years ago. Her tongue begs entry and he grants it, wedging his thigh between her legs. She grinds down on him. The aroma of blood gets stronger. Maybe she'll drip on his jeans. No time to hunt, but he wouldn't mind some kind of trophy to show off at Caritas.

Appetizer.

His fangs lengthen just enough to slice her tongue. She tries to pull away, startled by the pain, but his arm is firmly locked around her waist and his mouth muffles her screams.

Sweet elixir. Tinged with the new popular version of angel dust.

He barely takes a sip, but holds her tight as she involuntarily rubs against him, and dips two fingers between her thighs.

She howls. Her nails grip the back of his neck painfully, breaking the skin.

The passerbys keep on passing.

He grabs her hair and roughly bends her head back, leaning his face close to hers. The tinge of gold in the blue irises shuts her up. She whimpers around the blood escaping her lips.

"Sorry about that, luv," he purrs and smiles his killer smile. One slow rasp of his tongue across her mouth to clean her up.

He removes his invading fingers and licks them slowly with a feline grin.

"Tasty."

He is gone and at his Sire's side two hundred yards ahead before she has time to draw breath.

Angel hasn't slowed down. Even though he too smelled the hooker and must have known what the blonde was up to. Even though his Childe reeks of her blood now. She's not dead or dying, and that's about what it would take for Angel to interfere.

Warped work ethics.

Angel has kept up the patrolling and prancing about in cashmere coats.

//It's that whole Blotched Cow Syndrome scare of 2005. Came from bloody England - big shock there - and finally finished off the cattle. No decent leather to be found anywhere. Angel's still in mourning.//

Nights are spent maiming demons and sometimes assorted low-lives of the very human variety.

They just don't make Dark Avengers the way they used to.

Spike scavenges his pockets for his trusty pack of Marlboro. Some things don't change. His smokes still come in red packaging and dear Dr Martens has yet to go under. 'Course it's illegal to smoke on the streets of L.A., but it's not like Spike would give a shit even if a cop ever ventured downtown long enough to enforce the law.

He lights up a fag. Offers one to Angel.

The dark-haired vampire doesn't break his stride and borrows Spike's old Zippo. Drops it back in the blonde's coat pocket without a word or a glance.

Spike has grown accustomed to the quiet and the company of his own voice. He never minded talking to himself, so why would it be different now? Twenty years of silence haven't driven him away from his Sire. And it's not really that Angel never acknowledges his presence (it's kind of a prerequisite, at least when they fuck), or that he never talks anymore or asks Spike for his opinion about one thing or another - it's that when he talks, he isn't really saying anything.

The souled bastard was never the life of the party, but for the last couple of decades he's toned it down to three basic modes - indifferent, horny and angry. That last one is reserved for demon fighting. Horniness is devoted to Spike on a good day. Indifference pretty much defines all the moments in between.

Spike and Angel share eighty-three rooms at the Hyperion.

Lots of space to misplace each other in.

Spike is always the one who does the seeking. But then it makes sense. Animals are the most social. Humans are social too.

Angel's neither, or so it seems.

It's like living with a tall-dark-and handsome-shaped void.

But there's flesh.

There are grunts in the dark, sweat, fangs in his neck, sometimes even his name on parted lips - and yes, yes, that's what matters most of all, someone who remembers his name.

There are memories.

There's always been memories. He's clung to some, discarded many others. Entrenched in time, have beens, intervals, eras, cycles. Seasons. Lots of names - William the Bloody, Will, Spike. Lots of befores and afters - Turning, Curse, Sunnydale, Apocalypse.

Only Angel is timeless.

Hatred and the meaning of souls seem like petty obstacles when you're the only ones left.

Vampires need lairs. And packs. Sires don't hurt either. Good fucks, preferably at regular intervals. The hunt and the kill. Spike doesn't have to worry about ordering minions around, and Angel doesn't seem very interested in lording over him. Spike has the endless stash of whiskey and Angel the basement. Spike hunts between Hollywood and Fairfax, Angel north of Montebello, and never the twain shall meet. It's a pretty good arrangement.

And when Spike smells human blood on his Sire's clothes, tastes it on the tip of his fangs, he keeps his wise mouth shut.

And when they shag in a dozen different rooms, it's always dark so Spike doesn't have to look into Angel's hollow eyes and Angel doesn't have to be faced with the fact that he's fucking anybody at all.

Spike breathes. The air is sluggish, smells like exhaust and tastes like grease. //Anti-Pollution Act my arse.// Still he keeps up the pretense. Clinging to the thin veneer of mortality placates the humans and makes the kill easier. Angel can't be bothered anymore, and when they fuck, there's eerie silence tumbling from one side of the bed.

Angel hasn't breathed since the Slayer died - except maybe to smoke and speak.

The Apocalypse came and went, Angel's pulse didn't miraculously start to beat - probably because there wasn't a heart left to make the blood flow.

Flash of blond curls on the sidewalk. The girl brushes passed them at reckless speed, shiny rollers glinting in the artificial light of the lampposts.

Angel doesn't look up. Spike grinds his teeth.

The last time Angel saw Buffy, there were tiny pieces of bone and chunks of brain matter caught in the golden mane. Blood pooled around her, painting the ground dark and the vampire crimson. There wasn't enough consciousness left for a last goodbye. Just wide, startled hazel eyes and limbs sprawled at unnatural angles.

Angel was sitting, holding the mangled hand of the Slayer, dead eyes roaming, a bit confused, from the desecrated corpse of the Watcher, the entwined, rigid bodies of the witches, the wreckage of broken bones and torn flesh - unidentifiable remains of Wesley Wyndham-Price and Cordelia Chase.

Those were the ones he could see without having to move.

So Angel lay down, cheek resting against Buffy's thigh, relishing the last of her warmth, and stared at the night sky. Waited for the gaping wound in his stomach to finish the job, for stolen blood to go back to the Earth, leaving only the tiny pinprick of final death behind.

A few yards away, Spike was staggering to his feet relatively unscathed.

He waited for the ground to stand still and cast a look over the battlefield.

Found himself alone.

//sole survivor//

And felt the urge to cackle insanely.

Saw his Sire invite death with a smile and strolled over to the dying vampire. Dragged Angel away from the Slayer, ripped his wrist open with his own fangs and pushed the wound against Angel's mouth.

He had expected no thanks and didn't get any. Not when he pulled Angel to safety as the sun threatened to rise. Not when they stood by the giant funeral pyre and watched the flames consume flesh until ashes and bones remained. Not when he followed Angel back to L.A., not when he moved into the Hyperion, and not when Angel pinned him to the wall that first night then proceeded to fuck him into the floor with cold determination.

//last men fucking//

Humans say that the first instinct after being reminded of their mortality is to embrace and create life.

Angel's instinct had been to remind himself that he was dead and deserved to stay that way.

Spike's had been to insure that he wouldn't be left behind.

Angel pauses long enough to crush the stub of his cigarette.

Spike holds in a sigh.

Most of the time, being with Angel feels very much like being left behind.

There's a short queue at the entrance of Caritas, but the crowd parts to let the vampires through. Spike tries to ignore the fact that the patrons are more scared of his Sire than they are of him.

When Angel walks, he looks a little like the wrath of God clad in dark and expensive textures. When he stands still, he looks like Cerberus crouching at the Gates.

The bar's crowded. Some purple demon is torturing Frank Sinatra on stage. Lots of really old blokes in here, lots of really old songs. To think that Sid Vicious is now considered a classic.

Spike's gaze seeks out the handful of humans scattered around the place. The Host maintains a strict no blood-games policy, but the vampire has other appetites. He hungers for lovers who thrash under him, moan and pant, lovers who bloody make a *sound* and give half a fuck about the fact that he's shagging them.

Angel stalks to the bar.

Spike follows.

Angel leans against the hardwood of the bar and watches Spike. Watches him sip beer, watches him scan the crowd, watches him breathe. Watches him fit in. Knows what he's looking for, doesn't bother to comment or to assist. Spike will find it on his own, he always does.

Usually tall and brunette, gender doesn't seem to matter. Made the mistake of bringing a blond home... once.

It's the game and it's familiar. The new way to gauge continuance. Angel doesn't keep track of the days or the months, but he knows it's mid-week when Spike starts to get edgy for company in the bed. He never asks what Spike gets out of the arrangement, doesn't really care. Angel gets a sack of warm blood and bone, and the chance to inhale something other than dust. Sometimes, it feels just good enough that he keeps his fangs sheathed in the dark, and plays the part. Most times, it feels just good enough that he has to let the fangs out. The scent of seasons and rain, fast food and sunshine piss him off, and Spike is left to pick up the pieces. Oh, he doesn't kill them. No one dies in the Hyperion. A lot of folks probably need years of therapy after a late night visit though. Angel occasionally wonders what the fuck they would tell a shrink anyway. So many things have changed in twenty years, but the simple truths of human stupidity and mortal egotism endure. No one believes in monsters anymore than they did Before.

Before. That's how it is filed in Angel's brain. Before. And Now.

Before was Cordelia's hair products in his bathroom and Wesley's hairs in his sink. Before was leather and battle axes, point, purpose and pride. Now is knowing that Apocalypse is all relative.

Spike is stalking a tall brunette at the end of the bar. Gray hairs at the temples, and that's different. Inside, though, they're all the same.

He's seen their insides, and so he knows this much is true. Oz was a werewolf, Anya some sort of ancient demon, Buffy and Faith the Slayers.. but their blood all ran the same color of red into the Earth, and they all stank like death in the end.

((...Now is memories of Giles' fingers futily reaching across the chasm of scalded dirt and flesh to find Buffy's hand. Angel remembers breaking those fingers once. But that was Before.))

Spike is talking to the man; making grand gestures with his hands, wearing his most charming angelic face, and Angel is relieved. All that chatter; maybe Spike will be purged of it before they make their way back to the hotel. In the last twenty years the only important thing the blond has ever said to him was "duck".

(("...not one word about it, boy," Fangs covered with the first human blood he'd spilt this way in two hundred years. Angel a menacing temple-gargoyle, the body crumpled at his feet. "Who, me? Not gonna say a thing, soul-boy." Spike lit up a cigarette, and in the orange cast, recognized the dead man. Local muscle, nasty reputation. "She's dead. She died to save the world, and scum like this is still walking." Angel buttoned his coat. "Actually, he ain't walking anymore. And that ain't why you killed him." "Fuck you, Spike. What do you know about it?" "I know you didn't kill him 'cause he was scum. I know you didn't kill him to martyr the Slayer. You wanna kill humans again, Peaches, be my fucking guest. But please, no more Christian soundin' bullshit about someone dyin' to save the planet and you just bein' a minion o' god, all right? I'm not that bloody stupid." ))

Yea, Spike's a fucking poet all right.

The human seems impressed. Back rigid, hasn't moved since Spike sat down beside him.

Everyone in this bar is either a demon, or living on society's fringes. With the exception of shorn, shocking yellow locks, Spike's appearance cannot be dated. Clothing in jeweled colors and dark tones, all classic material and simple lines. To the occupants of Caritas, Spike is no more threatening than the bartender.

Angel's manner of dress is similar. His hair is short, there's a few days' stubble on his chin and upper lip.

No one ever approaches Angel.

Third glass of O negative, and he is bored. If he has to listen to one more goddamn classic mangled by something with four eyelids and no teeth he's going to smash the Karaoke machine. Small blessing, the Host hasn't said word one to him in fifteen years. Stopped trying to "save" him that long ago. Stopped looking in his direction soon thereafter.

It's too fucking loud in here and he just wants to go home, go to bed, and... whatever. Another glisten of relief when Spike grabs the man by the elbow, and leads him toward his Sire.

Then Angel sees the face.

He just assumed... ((Dawn was killed instantly when Glory threw her into the brick wall. Her neck ruptured neatly in two, and Angel heard the sickening c-run-ch... over the wail of Buffy, and the shout of Giles to get back... get back...

Godsend that Joyce had already died. Didn't have to see the wreckage left. Didn't have to hear them calling out for her.

The rest of them not nearly as lucky. Tara and Willow burned alive, Oz gutted like... and Buffy... with her fucking superhero powers that kept her alive while her brain leaked out her ears into the dirt and all over Angel's hands. No heartbeats, he hadn't heard any heartbeats in what remained of the ruined warehouse... And surely, afterward, watching the flames shoot into the night sky... He could see them for miles, miles while Spike drove south to LA, with him still screaming and cursing until Spike hit him hard enough to... ))

But he'd never actually seen the boy, dead, had he?

He'd just assumed. No one could have survived that holocaust.

Looks into dark eyes ringed by blue circles underneath.

"Angel," and the voice is familiar, but much too deep, richer somehow. Not right.

Swallows, and sees Spike watching him. Watching so closely, while he swallows again. Breathes in. "Xander. Xander Harris."

There's a dirty table in front of them, more blood, and beer. Spike still peering at him around it all, straddling the chair beside him. Angel wraps his fist hard around the glass and keeps his voice steady. "Is anyone--anyone else-"

"No."

Angel just nods.

"So, Deadboy, how come you're *not*?"

The growl in his chest rumbles before Spike cuts in. "We might ask you the same question, eh? We got that whole immortal thing goin' for us. How the fuck you get out of the Dale in one piece?"

The aging man with Xander's eyes shrugs carelessly, lifts his shirt sleeves. "I didn't."

Angel's gaze traces line after line of scars across wrists and forearms. White and silver webbing that tattoos shoulders, chest, and now, he can see it, across the neck. "I broke just about every bone in my body. Punctured both lungs. Had some non-essential organs removed. Irrevocably damaged my windpipe. Major head trauma. Spent eight months in a coma, a year in a Rehab Hospital and two more after that in Physical Therapy. You'd be surprised to learn how damn talented the therapists around the Hellmouth are. Must be all that practice."

Talented maybe, but no gods. The fingers of the man's left hand remain curled slightly, the left side of his face doesn't quite match the right. His spine is straight, even when he leans forward. And the prominent scar that cuts his right brow in half resembles Spike's.

"So, what're you doin' in LA?" Spike asks him.

Another shrug and Xander buttons up his shirt. "Seems as good a place as any. Spent some time just about everywhere else already. Disability checks find me, doesn't really matter where I go. Did two years on an Indian reservation somewhere in the Dakotas. Two in the state prison just before that..."

Spike laughs, a hard, amused little sound. "What the fuck for?"

"Arson. Burned down what was left of Sunnydale."

"What was left? What *was* left?" Spike asks with the smallest of grins. White foam coats his upper lip, and he licks it away. Flash of metal in the half-light, the small gold ball in the center of Spike's tongue.

"Not much. A couple of government buildings. Guess that pissed 'em off."

"I see."

"So," Xander leans toward the vampires, and Angel smells years of alcohol on his breath, and the faint scent of dis-ease on his skin. "What are you two still doing in L.A.?"

Angel leans back, lifts one shoulder slightly and blinks. Watches as Spike moves imperceptibly closer to the man. Watches Xander unconsciously shift a pace or two back. And Before and Now collide with enough force that Angel can almost hear the suck of air displaced.

((Merle told Angel just last week that another Slayer was called. He thinks that makes the sixth, since. Bands play on. All relative.))

The chair underneath him is suddenly too hard.

More banter, more beer. A lot more beer. Some whiskey. Shards of conversation carved in sharp relief around Angel's stillness, against the smooth backdrop of bar noise, female singers and laughter. Every once in a while Spike laughs, and his eyes are almost alive.

Xander's aren't.

There's a faint scent to the man, almost like a sickness. It's bitter and lingering... Angel is reminded of the poison Faith shot him with decades back. How the odor alone made him want to vomit...

((Faith had searched for Angel's gaze over the chaos, but he was too far away. So she dove gracefully between Glory and Buffy, and the goddess grabbed her by the throat with one hand... By the time Angel made it to her side, Glory had gone through both Slayers.))

Sometimes, he can see Faith's eyes. They are never alive.

Spike's voice with all the edges rounded off; quarry mode, Angel recognizes it. Xander's voice raw and harsh; damaged vocal chords, a full bottle of whiskey, and the festering anger Angel can smell oozing from every shiny scar. Molotov cocktail; righteous indictment and survivor guilt. And the vampire wants to laugh... //Guess what Xander, in my fantasies, it ain't ever you that's still living either...//

"Xander, I have something for you."

Sees the start on Xander's face, realizes it's not what he said, but that he said anything at all. Realizes two hours have passed.

"Okay..."

"You have to come back to the Hyperion. It's there."

Xander makes a show of checking his watch. "No, can't do it, Deadboy. Maybe some other never."

"It's from Cordelia."

Spike ducks his head and grins.

*****

Xander only realized he was drunk when he nearly fell on Spike leaving the bar. Only gave the keys over to Angel when he realized that drunk still came with nauseous. He hasn't gotten this drunk in too many years to recall. Not because he doesn't drink, actually. Mainly because he does. A lot. As a result, getting well and truly pissed requires hard discipline and more money than he usually has in both pockets.

Every once in a while, he swears it off. Typically when he's heaving his guts up, although out his own car window is a new experience. When he's sober, he can tell real from dream. Problem is, that's not always a kind differentiation.

Willow calls him every morning. She used to cry and tell him she was sorry. She doesn't cry now. Now she tells him all about her daughter, and how she thinks she's going to be Pre-Med. About the latest artsy-fartsy award Tara won. Asks him if he's going to make it to the Labor Day picnic this year, cause she *misses* him, you know? She really misses him. And he tells her that he misses her too, and promises her that he'll try. But he knows work will keep him away again; this is the boom season for contracting, and... well, it's not like they don't have next year. There's always next year. Then Anya is hollering at him to get off the phone, it's time to go... time to go.

He doesn't cry. He hasn't cried for Willow in almost 19 years. Hasn't cried for anyone.

And it occurs to him suddenly that maybe this is all part of that Living Willow dream. Maybe the vinyl under his cheek and the blue-gray smoke swirling around his eyes and the whoosh of air past his sweaty face is all his subconscious tainted by beer and expensive Irish hooch. Just part of the dream. The clipped accented speech and the silence which is its only reply. The buzz in his belly that comes from being so near to vampires which he hasn't felt in twenty years. Hellmouth education. One learns where to go to avoid the undead. They didn't seem to like Montana, so he hung out there for almost five.

Now he's in a car with two of them, and it occurs that he never trusted either one when he was younger, stronger, sober-er. And that he doesn't carry stakes in his pockets anymore. And that he doesn't much care.

The Hyperion is a huge, pretentious monstrosity. Which is kind of how he always thought of Angel. The thought makes him smirk, which makes him nauseous again. He promptly throws up on the front steps of the hotel. Spike holds the heavy wooden doors open for him, and Angel just keeps on walking.

He stumbles inside, wiping a corner of his mouth on his sleeve. The lobby is shuddered, it's haunting crypts all over again, patrolling cemeteries, the exhilaration of the hunt - although he often felt like the prey, even being the one with the stake. This time around there won't be any surprise attacks from the bushes, because the quarry is right there in front of him. Not hiding.

Presenting him with a white envelope held in a steady hand.

Xander almost steps back, liquid ice painting his insides, but he is compelled... compelled... and he accepts the envelope. Takes it gently from ngel's fingers.

It's like signing a pact with the Devil.

You can't see the harm yet, but that's because you're too near-sighted //and drunk// to make out the fine print at the bottom.

He blinks slowly, until the three missives in his hands resolve into one. The pads of his fingers travel the mounds and crevices of thick white paper. They tell him of black curls, small closets, big dark eyes and the widest smile he's ever known. Alcohol dulls shock and fear.

He flips the letter around, can't bear to stare at his name sprawled in loopy curves over the front. The seal is intact. He expected it to be. He's the first to think the worst of Angel, yet he isn't surprised to find the envelope pristine white. Angel has kept it safe - the rarest of relics - even though he must have believed neither sender nor sendee would ever reclaim it.

Angel loved her too.

The starch blade of understanding slices something inside his gut.

He doesn't like to think of the way he was always, in one fashion or another, tied to this vampire, this goddamn fucking leech, because that's what love and friendship do - they bind you to other people, their friends, and the friends of their friends.

Sometimes, they tie you to your enemy.

Cordelia called Angel a friend.

She says so in the letter; the paper shakes so bad, the words float like psychedelic butterflies.

She talks about growing up, about forgiveness, about clinging to the beautiful memories, not the ugly ones. She calls him a doof a couple of times. Goes off on little tangents about life in the office and how Angel doesn't pay her enough... all the while she knows how the letter will end. Because there's only one reason she's writing this, and all the jokes in the world won't soften the blow.

She doesn't really talk about goodbyes. He pictures her shrug and a little smile. It's just the way the cookie crumbles, the show must go on, etc. Cordy always loved to mix her clichés. He looks for dry, tear-shaped indentations in the paper, but he doesn't find any. There's only small drops of ink. She borrowed Angel's old-fashioned letterhead and fountain pen, because she wants to go out in style, but ink is leaking all over her very expensive manicure. Damn thing must be broken, it can't possibly be because she has no clue how to hold the pen.

She says Xander always held a special place in her heart, and as she writes this, he still does. So chances are he was still in there somewhere when her heart stopped beating.

It hurts to look away from the letter. To not crumble the envelope in his fist.

It hurts to cry for the first time in 19 years. Ancient water through rusted pipes.

He presses letter and envelop to his heart, and imagines that he can smell her perfume. Something ridiculously expensive and French ((she would make fun of him when he tried to read the label with a broken accent... the language of looooove...))

*****