Backup, Chapter 7
Jul. 7th, 2006 01:45 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thatotherpervif I were less impatient, I would wait 5 minutes between updating my fics...but...nope.
Title: Backup: the Won’t Back Down sequel
Author: Mel (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
btvslover82)
Pairing: Spangel
Rating: NC-17 slash, some het elements but no more than PG-13
Summary: teen human AU sequel to WBD, the boys learn how to be men and face the world together. Um, some less pretty things are gonna happen here. I’m just sayin’.
Disclaimer: the characters belong to Joss and ME...alas, alack.
Feedback: please :)
Won’t Back Down and related ficlets are here
Previously:
As the weeks went by, Angel began to let his guard down in the mansion. It started feeling a whole lot more like home. Less like a big expensive behemoth. Just someplace warm and safe and comfortable where he could be himself and laugh and relax. More like a home than his home had ever been, by that standard. He stopped thinking about how he didn’t belong in a place like this all the time and started just feeling right. Like he and Spike owned this house, and were grown-ups with jobs who could do whatever they wanted.
And that is why, when he finally met Thomas Devlin II, the actual owner of that house, Angel O’Connor was watching Skinemax in his pajamas, surrounded by empty junkfood wrappers.
Chapter 7
Angel was, truthfully, fully engrossed in the soft porn on the big screen tv in the living room. It’s not that sex with Spike wasn’t more than enough, it was just…you know, window shopping. With no intent whatsoever to purchase.
It was Friday, and he’d had a really shitty day at the shop. His uncle wouldn’t stop harping on him about how he should go see his mother. How much she missed him. The thought of her, of him, the man she remained married to, turned Angel’s stomach. He wanted nothing to do with her but he felt guilty (she was his mother) and he finally told his uncle he was taking the weekend off, because he couldn’t take it any more of his family-guilting. As soon as he knocked off work, Angel had buried himself on the couch in bags of potato chips and twinkies, comforted himself with ESPN Classics. Spike was somewhere around the house, having left him to it. He reportedly had no interest in American football himself—he had compared it to rugby, and found it sorely lacking.
Eventually, as the hour grew late, Angel had wandered over to Cinemax. He rubbed at his aching belly. Shouldn’t have had those last pitiful slices of pizza. God knew how long they’d been in the fridge. The action on screen began to heat up, and his hand began to creep downward.
Suddenly he was startled by a clearing throat. His eyes flew from the screen and he saw an older man standing in the doorway with an amused smirk on his face. Oh god…Angel recognized that smirk. Oh god… Frantically he grabbed at the remote and hit the power button to make the theatrically staged moaning stop. The cable box clicked off and volume of the white snow on the tv was deafening. He muted it and switched on a lamp.
The man, Spike’s dad, was smiling at him tightly but not unkindly, his eyebrows lifted in request of an explanation. He was dressed for the office and Angel was sure the suit cost more than everything he’d ever owned in his entire life. Angel looked down and realized how he must look in a wifebeater and the blue cotton Power Puff bottoms Faith had bought him as a joke…which were currently tented by his…er, excitement. Blushing, he snatched a blanket off the back of the couch and covered his lap.
The man had blue eyes, a little smokier than Spike’s, with crows feet at the corners. They were kind eyes, which came as a surprise. They were the kind of eyes he hoped Spike would have some day, when they were older. His face, actually, was Spike’s face, but not as sharp and lean, filled out with age, but the bones were the same. High defined cheekbones and the same chin.
Spike looked just like his dad, and their family resemblance hurt deep in Angel’s chest. One more way in which he was a have-not.
The man took a few steps into the living room and set his bag down. “Aahh…should I know you? Are you a friend of William’s?” The accent was different, more cultured than Spike’s, and it threw Angel for a moment until he remembered that Spike affected the Cockney.
“Um…yeah, I….” Angel fumbled, afraid to reveal too much. “I’m a good friend of his.”
“I see, well it’s lovely to meet you….”
“Liam.”
“Lovely to meet you, Liam.” The man eyed the carnage of empty bags and wrappers with mild distaste, and Angel suddenly felt embarrassed of his binge. “Where is my boy, anyway?”
“Um…I’m…not sure.” Spike’s dad lifted a less-than-amused eyebrow at that and Angel laughed nervously. “You see, I sort of…your son asked me to…move in here, so I sort of…uh, live here now.” Angel cringed. Fuck. This was it, he was about to get kicked out. He could go live with Faith, he supposed…Jesus, he didn’t want to.
“Do you now?” the voice was a little steely and definitely unimpressed.
“Yeah, well see, it was actually really generous of him because my dad sort of kicked me out….” Great, that was a way to win him over, tell him even your own parents don’t want you.
Angel heard a familiar snort and looked up to see Spike standing in the doorway. “Yeah, if by kicked you out, you mean he caught us snogging and screamed slurs loud enough to bring the whole neighborhood outside, as he beat you to a bloody pulp. So badly, I might add, that it took you six weeks to heal up proper.” Angel felt his stomach do a series of flip-flops, overcome by the junk food and the vivid memory and the very current fear of the multi-millionaire who was now looking at him like he was an insect under a microscope.
Spike turned toward the man in question. “Hello, Thomas, I see you’ve met our houseguest, Liam.”
Tom looked back and forth between his son and the boy on the couch. There was a lot more to this story than he was getting at the moment, he was sure of it. He hadn’t missed the fury beneath Will’s explanation, and now that he knew where to look, he could see faint yellow after-bruises around the eye and on one of the boy’s cheeks. Liam. A dark-haired boy who was looking anywhere but directly at him and grimacing with more discomfort than could be explained by his probable indigestion.
Thomas sighed. He hadn’t been expecting to confront this type of situation at 2am after a very long week, but from the way the boy had blushed at being caught watching porn, it was a politer problem than William had ever brought home before.
His son was glaring at him defiantly as though he expected Tom to turn the abused boy out in the middle of the night. “Well, I wish my son had told me that you would be living with us a while, but the house is certainly big enough. Stay as long as you need.” He felt Will relax to his left, but Liam had not lost his stunned, kicked-puppy look. Though, Thomas supposed that’s exactly what he was.
“William, might I have a word in the kitchen?” He walked out of the room and heard his son murmur something to his friend before following him. “Sit,” Thomas ordered, pointing at the kitchen table.
Will threw himself into a chair, slouching like the petulant child he so often was, and Tom just leaned against the island counter, studying him. Underneath the stubbornness, he saw the jitter of nerves on the young face. And something else there too. A softness as his eyes darted nervously towards the swinging kitchen door. Tom didn’t know when it had happened, but it was quite obvious that his son had fallen in love. The idea warmed something in him, but he didn’t let it show because it wouldn’t be welcome. William had made that clear, these last years.
“That boy in there…you’re involved.”
“Yeah, what of it?”
“And it’s serious.”
“Could be.” So defensive at nothing. Thomas took a deep breath and tried not to roll his eyes.
“And you love him.”
William broke eye contact and fidgeted his feet. “If you want to get all poncy about it, then yeah.” Tom couldn’t stop his laughter at the answer. Granite for a skull, this boy. Like father, like son. “Oi, it’s not funny!”
He smiled wryly at his son. “It rarely is.” He turned serious. “I’m not sure it’s a good idea for you two to be living together for the long run, given the circumstances.”
“Oh come off it, Mother Superior, you and I both know I’m hardly a monk.”
“This is true, but that’s not why. Emotions can get complicated by this type of living arrangement, and you’re so young…” They shared a long, challenging look and Tom acknowledged silently that perhaps age was a poor argument these days. His boy was older than his years might tell.
“Dad, he has nowhere else to go,” his son said, leaning forward, his voice surprisingly pleading. “You didn’t see what he…” Will looked towards the living room, staring as though struggling with a decision. Agitated, he turned back with those baby blues, the ones the doctor had warned Tom not to get attached to in the delivery room the first time he’d held him, noisy as all hell, trying to set a precedent. Said they’d change, but they never did, even when everything else had. Corporate ladders on one hand, drug hospitalizations on the other.
Tom was tired.
But Will had stubborn little lines between his eyebrows. “The man that raised Liam beat him nearly unconscious in front of me, but not before he broke his heart by telling him he’s not Liam’s real father. Dad, he has nowhere else to go. Please don’t kick him out.”
Well. His son hadn’t asked him for a single thing he could think of in years. Demanded, yes. Stolen, definitely. Not asked and certainly not begged. Tom scrubbed a hand over his face.
“Fine, he can stay. But I’m going to get to know the boy this weekend. And if I’m going to allow this, we’re going to have to make it legal. I’m not getting arrested for…corrupting a minor or harboring a fugitive or what have you. Would his parents sign over custody?”
“In a heartbeat,” Will said quickly. God, how sad. With all the grief William had caused him, he’d never have wished him gone. He’d wanted to throttle the little bastard a few times, shake some sense in him more often than that, and lock him away almost constantly, but never give him away. Even though he had no bloody clue how to relate, most days.
“Good. I’ll have the papers drawn up. Now it’s late, and I, for one, am going to bed.”
Will nodded. No thanks, but definite gratitude shining on his face. Tom was sure he’d be over that soon enough.
As soon as Tom stepped foot in the living room, the boy, Liam, jumped to his feet and eagerly grabbed at his hand, pumping it up and down in that enthusiastically American way. He was amused with the boy despite himself. “Sir, thank you so much for letting me live here. You won’t regret it. I buy my share of groceries already, but I can start paying you rent if you want. I work as a mechanic for my uncle, and I’m good for it—“
“I’m sure you are, but it’s really not necessary.” Tom extracted his hand. “Good night, Liam. And Will? Don’t be up too late, or if you are, keep it down.”
~*~*~*~
“I can’t believe…he was just so okay with it, you know? Okay with me living here and okay with us being together…. He didn’t even say anything about us sharing a room.”
“Yeah, the man’s a saint.” Spike was growing impatient with the litany of praise for his father. Spike was already naked in bed, as should Liam be, with thoughts of the old man far, far from his mind. Angel was healing well, and penetration of one sort or another should be returning to their lives any day now. Spike had been hoping today was the day, as a matter of fact. It had been too bloody long.
Angel pulled a face at Spike’s grumbling. “You don’t understand, he…he walked in on me watching porn.” The last was hissed in a whisper, as if someone was around to be offended.
Spike burst into laughter, imagining his buttoned-up father walking in on Angel…. “Having a wank, were you?”
“No, but if he had come in a few minutes later…. God, it was already mortifying enough.”
Amused, Spike watched Angel move around the room. “Speaking of carnal sin, why are you still dressed and standing? ‘S time for us to get back to shagging.”
Angel looked at him, eyes comically wide. “Spike, we can’t.”
“Sure we can. You lay on your back, and I’ll climb on top, and then I’ll…”
“Your dad is home!”
Spike rolled his eyes, completely miffed, and his tone showed it. “Yeah, and he knows we shag, and the house is so bleedin’ big there’s no way he’d hear us even if he tried. What’s your bloody problem?”
Angel slipped under the covers, still clothed prudishly in those sodding girl pj’s. “He’s being so generous, I just don’t feel comfortable.” He ran a hand over his aching belly. “Besides, I don’t feel so good. I had the rest of that pizza…”
“Serves you right, ya bloody idjit, that shite’s been in there nearly three weeks. Surprised it was still edible.”
“That’s the thing, I don’t think it was.” Angel winced and continued to massage his stomach.
Spike was quiet for a few moments and Angel thought he might have fallen asleep, but then he rolled over on his side and started tracing a finger along Angel’s upper thigh. Spike was doing that thing with his feet that he did sometimes, when he was horny. “Bet I could make you forget all about your indigestion. You can just lie back and I’ll….”
“Spike, I mean it. Not tonight.”
Angel almost wanted to laugh as the other boy threw himself down on the bed with a huff and stared at the ceiling, pouting. After a moment, he rolled away and scoffed, “Fine.” Back tense and fist pounding at the pillow.
In the tense silence that followed, Angel’s belly gurgling painfully. He could tell Spike was still awake by the set of his shoulders, and he heard Spike mumble something into his pillow.
“What’s that?”
The blond turned his head a little towards him. “I said, there’s Pepto Bismol in the medicine cabinet. Ponce.”
“Oh. Thanks.” But Angel was talking to the unyielding wall that was Spike’s back, so he slipped out of bed and plodded off to the bathroom to find the medicine.
there's more!
Title: Backup: the Won’t Back Down sequel
Author: Mel (
btvslover82)Pairing: Spangel
Rating: NC-17 slash, some het elements but no more than PG-13
Summary: teen human AU sequel to WBD, the boys learn how to be men and face the world together. Um, some less pretty things are gonna happen here. I’m just sayin’.
Disclaimer: the characters belong to Joss and ME...alas, alack.
Feedback: please :)
Won’t Back Down and related ficlets are here
Previously:
As the weeks went by, Angel began to let his guard down in the mansion. It started feeling a whole lot more like home. Less like a big expensive behemoth. Just someplace warm and safe and comfortable where he could be himself and laugh and relax. More like a home than his home had ever been, by that standard. He stopped thinking about how he didn’t belong in a place like this all the time and started just feeling right. Like he and Spike owned this house, and were grown-ups with jobs who could do whatever they wanted.
And that is why, when he finally met Thomas Devlin II, the actual owner of that house, Angel O’Connor was watching Skinemax in his pajamas, surrounded by empty junkfood wrappers.
Chapter 7
Angel was, truthfully, fully engrossed in the soft porn on the big screen tv in the living room. It’s not that sex with Spike wasn’t more than enough, it was just…you know, window shopping. With no intent whatsoever to purchase.
It was Friday, and he’d had a really shitty day at the shop. His uncle wouldn’t stop harping on him about how he should go see his mother. How much she missed him. The thought of her, of him, the man she remained married to, turned Angel’s stomach. He wanted nothing to do with her but he felt guilty (she was his mother) and he finally told his uncle he was taking the weekend off, because he couldn’t take it any more of his family-guilting. As soon as he knocked off work, Angel had buried himself on the couch in bags of potato chips and twinkies, comforted himself with ESPN Classics. Spike was somewhere around the house, having left him to it. He reportedly had no interest in American football himself—he had compared it to rugby, and found it sorely lacking.
Eventually, as the hour grew late, Angel had wandered over to Cinemax. He rubbed at his aching belly. Shouldn’t have had those last pitiful slices of pizza. God knew how long they’d been in the fridge. The action on screen began to heat up, and his hand began to creep downward.
Suddenly he was startled by a clearing throat. His eyes flew from the screen and he saw an older man standing in the doorway with an amused smirk on his face. Oh god…Angel recognized that smirk. Oh god… Frantically he grabbed at the remote and hit the power button to make the theatrically staged moaning stop. The cable box clicked off and volume of the white snow on the tv was deafening. He muted it and switched on a lamp.
The man, Spike’s dad, was smiling at him tightly but not unkindly, his eyebrows lifted in request of an explanation. He was dressed for the office and Angel was sure the suit cost more than everything he’d ever owned in his entire life. Angel looked down and realized how he must look in a wifebeater and the blue cotton Power Puff bottoms Faith had bought him as a joke…which were currently tented by his…er, excitement. Blushing, he snatched a blanket off the back of the couch and covered his lap.
The man had blue eyes, a little smokier than Spike’s, with crows feet at the corners. They were kind eyes, which came as a surprise. They were the kind of eyes he hoped Spike would have some day, when they were older. His face, actually, was Spike’s face, but not as sharp and lean, filled out with age, but the bones were the same. High defined cheekbones and the same chin.
Spike looked just like his dad, and their family resemblance hurt deep in Angel’s chest. One more way in which he was a have-not.
The man took a few steps into the living room and set his bag down. “Aahh…should I know you? Are you a friend of William’s?” The accent was different, more cultured than Spike’s, and it threw Angel for a moment until he remembered that Spike affected the Cockney.
“Um…yeah, I….” Angel fumbled, afraid to reveal too much. “I’m a good friend of his.”
“I see, well it’s lovely to meet you….”
“Liam.”
“Lovely to meet you, Liam.” The man eyed the carnage of empty bags and wrappers with mild distaste, and Angel suddenly felt embarrassed of his binge. “Where is my boy, anyway?”
“Um…I’m…not sure.” Spike’s dad lifted a less-than-amused eyebrow at that and Angel laughed nervously. “You see, I sort of…your son asked me to…move in here, so I sort of…uh, live here now.” Angel cringed. Fuck. This was it, he was about to get kicked out. He could go live with Faith, he supposed…Jesus, he didn’t want to.
“Do you now?” the voice was a little steely and definitely unimpressed.
“Yeah, well see, it was actually really generous of him because my dad sort of kicked me out….” Great, that was a way to win him over, tell him even your own parents don’t want you.
Angel heard a familiar snort and looked up to see Spike standing in the doorway. “Yeah, if by kicked you out, you mean he caught us snogging and screamed slurs loud enough to bring the whole neighborhood outside, as he beat you to a bloody pulp. So badly, I might add, that it took you six weeks to heal up proper.” Angel felt his stomach do a series of flip-flops, overcome by the junk food and the vivid memory and the very current fear of the multi-millionaire who was now looking at him like he was an insect under a microscope.
Spike turned toward the man in question. “Hello, Thomas, I see you’ve met our houseguest, Liam.”
Tom looked back and forth between his son and the boy on the couch. There was a lot more to this story than he was getting at the moment, he was sure of it. He hadn’t missed the fury beneath Will’s explanation, and now that he knew where to look, he could see faint yellow after-bruises around the eye and on one of the boy’s cheeks. Liam. A dark-haired boy who was looking anywhere but directly at him and grimacing with more discomfort than could be explained by his probable indigestion.
Thomas sighed. He hadn’t been expecting to confront this type of situation at 2am after a very long week, but from the way the boy had blushed at being caught watching porn, it was a politer problem than William had ever brought home before.
His son was glaring at him defiantly as though he expected Tom to turn the abused boy out in the middle of the night. “Well, I wish my son had told me that you would be living with us a while, but the house is certainly big enough. Stay as long as you need.” He felt Will relax to his left, but Liam had not lost his stunned, kicked-puppy look. Though, Thomas supposed that’s exactly what he was.
“William, might I have a word in the kitchen?” He walked out of the room and heard his son murmur something to his friend before following him. “Sit,” Thomas ordered, pointing at the kitchen table.
Will threw himself into a chair, slouching like the petulant child he so often was, and Tom just leaned against the island counter, studying him. Underneath the stubbornness, he saw the jitter of nerves on the young face. And something else there too. A softness as his eyes darted nervously towards the swinging kitchen door. Tom didn’t know when it had happened, but it was quite obvious that his son had fallen in love. The idea warmed something in him, but he didn’t let it show because it wouldn’t be welcome. William had made that clear, these last years.
“That boy in there…you’re involved.”
“Yeah, what of it?”
“And it’s serious.”
“Could be.” So defensive at nothing. Thomas took a deep breath and tried not to roll his eyes.
“And you love him.”
William broke eye contact and fidgeted his feet. “If you want to get all poncy about it, then yeah.” Tom couldn’t stop his laughter at the answer. Granite for a skull, this boy. Like father, like son. “Oi, it’s not funny!”
He smiled wryly at his son. “It rarely is.” He turned serious. “I’m not sure it’s a good idea for you two to be living together for the long run, given the circumstances.”
“Oh come off it, Mother Superior, you and I both know I’m hardly a monk.”
“This is true, but that’s not why. Emotions can get complicated by this type of living arrangement, and you’re so young…” They shared a long, challenging look and Tom acknowledged silently that perhaps age was a poor argument these days. His boy was older than his years might tell.
“Dad, he has nowhere else to go,” his son said, leaning forward, his voice surprisingly pleading. “You didn’t see what he…” Will looked towards the living room, staring as though struggling with a decision. Agitated, he turned back with those baby blues, the ones the doctor had warned Tom not to get attached to in the delivery room the first time he’d held him, noisy as all hell, trying to set a precedent. Said they’d change, but they never did, even when everything else had. Corporate ladders on one hand, drug hospitalizations on the other.
Tom was tired.
But Will had stubborn little lines between his eyebrows. “The man that raised Liam beat him nearly unconscious in front of me, but not before he broke his heart by telling him he’s not Liam’s real father. Dad, he has nowhere else to go. Please don’t kick him out.”
Well. His son hadn’t asked him for a single thing he could think of in years. Demanded, yes. Stolen, definitely. Not asked and certainly not begged. Tom scrubbed a hand over his face.
“Fine, he can stay. But I’m going to get to know the boy this weekend. And if I’m going to allow this, we’re going to have to make it legal. I’m not getting arrested for…corrupting a minor or harboring a fugitive or what have you. Would his parents sign over custody?”
“In a heartbeat,” Will said quickly. God, how sad. With all the grief William had caused him, he’d never have wished him gone. He’d wanted to throttle the little bastard a few times, shake some sense in him more often than that, and lock him away almost constantly, but never give him away. Even though he had no bloody clue how to relate, most days.
“Good. I’ll have the papers drawn up. Now it’s late, and I, for one, am going to bed.”
Will nodded. No thanks, but definite gratitude shining on his face. Tom was sure he’d be over that soon enough.
As soon as Tom stepped foot in the living room, the boy, Liam, jumped to his feet and eagerly grabbed at his hand, pumping it up and down in that enthusiastically American way. He was amused with the boy despite himself. “Sir, thank you so much for letting me live here. You won’t regret it. I buy my share of groceries already, but I can start paying you rent if you want. I work as a mechanic for my uncle, and I’m good for it—“
“I’m sure you are, but it’s really not necessary.” Tom extracted his hand. “Good night, Liam. And Will? Don’t be up too late, or if you are, keep it down.”
~*~*~*~
“I can’t believe…he was just so okay with it, you know? Okay with me living here and okay with us being together…. He didn’t even say anything about us sharing a room.”
“Yeah, the man’s a saint.” Spike was growing impatient with the litany of praise for his father. Spike was already naked in bed, as should Liam be, with thoughts of the old man far, far from his mind. Angel was healing well, and penetration of one sort or another should be returning to their lives any day now. Spike had been hoping today was the day, as a matter of fact. It had been too bloody long.
Angel pulled a face at Spike’s grumbling. “You don’t understand, he…he walked in on me watching porn.” The last was hissed in a whisper, as if someone was around to be offended.
Spike burst into laughter, imagining his buttoned-up father walking in on Angel…. “Having a wank, were you?”
“No, but if he had come in a few minutes later…. God, it was already mortifying enough.”
Amused, Spike watched Angel move around the room. “Speaking of carnal sin, why are you still dressed and standing? ‘S time for us to get back to shagging.”
Angel looked at him, eyes comically wide. “Spike, we can’t.”
“Sure we can. You lay on your back, and I’ll climb on top, and then I’ll…”
“Your dad is home!”
Spike rolled his eyes, completely miffed, and his tone showed it. “Yeah, and he knows we shag, and the house is so bleedin’ big there’s no way he’d hear us even if he tried. What’s your bloody problem?”
Angel slipped under the covers, still clothed prudishly in those sodding girl pj’s. “He’s being so generous, I just don’t feel comfortable.” He ran a hand over his aching belly. “Besides, I don’t feel so good. I had the rest of that pizza…”
“Serves you right, ya bloody idjit, that shite’s been in there nearly three weeks. Surprised it was still edible.”
“That’s the thing, I don’t think it was.” Angel winced and continued to massage his stomach.
Spike was quiet for a few moments and Angel thought he might have fallen asleep, but then he rolled over on his side and started tracing a finger along Angel’s upper thigh. Spike was doing that thing with his feet that he did sometimes, when he was horny. “Bet I could make you forget all about your indigestion. You can just lie back and I’ll….”
“Spike, I mean it. Not tonight.”
Angel almost wanted to laugh as the other boy threw himself down on the bed with a huff and stared at the ceiling, pouting. After a moment, he rolled away and scoffed, “Fine.” Back tense and fist pounding at the pillow.
In the tense silence that followed, Angel’s belly gurgling painfully. He could tell Spike was still awake by the set of his shoulders, and he heard Spike mumble something into his pillow.
“What’s that?”
The blond turned his head a little towards him. “I said, there’s Pepto Bismol in the medicine cabinet. Ponce.”
“Oh. Thanks.” But Angel was talking to the unyielding wall that was Spike’s back, so he slipped out of bed and plodded off to the bathroom to find the medicine.
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Date: 2006-07-09 07:20 pm (UTC)