“Why here?”

Connor peers at the cityscape beneath them. Even at this late hour, LA shimmers with red and white lights as cars speed and halt like clumsy fireflies.

Spike draws on his cigarette, his foot on the ledge as he surveys the night. The effect of the vampire’s billowing jacket and the shock of blond hair remind Connor of a vulture waiting to swoop, but Spike’s reply contradicts this sinister image.

“Feel safe up here.”  His voice low, as if he sat in a confessional rather than on the rooftop.

Safe? Surely a master vampire dished out fear, didn’t feel it.

Connor’s eyes follow his breath stretched like a sinuous ghost between them in the chill night. These little things, the everyday, rarely caught his attention – with a demon at his side, his own humanity stood large.

“You don’t breathe.” Connor says stupidly, and he can almost hear the vampire rolling his eyes. Spike hasn’t looked at him or touched him since they left the stoop, and Connor finds he misses the sense of peril that opening up to Spike inevitably brought with it. Connor leans over the street, pressing his feet against the low wall for balance.  He focuses on a point on the sidewalk many stories below, and with a lacing of adrenaline he becomes aware that he’s just a thought, a simple decision, away from jumping. All it would take was wanting to.  Humanity. Choice. He draws his arms around his waist. Didn’t expect this cold.

“I thought we were going to talk.”

“You want to talk about demon physiology, mate, you’re in the wrong place, with the wrong vamp. I don’t really think about this stuff. I breathe sometimes, mostly I don’t. Only thing I need is blood.”

“Pig’s blood.” Connor shakes his head.

“Don’t even need that. Vamps can go a long time without feeding.”

Book closed.

Connor swings his legs over the wall till he’s pivoted to face the vamp, who follows the movements, eyebrow cocked, over his shoulder until his attention returns to the street below and the clubbers spilling out on their way to cabs and parked cars.

“See those people, they don’t know. They have no idea the scum that walks the streets, the danger they’re in. This town, it’s like a… like a…”

A demon passing judgement on humans? This was fucked up – what did Spike care?

“You hate L.A.”

Spike smiles bitterly. “No.” He settles on the ledge, his back to the view. “Yeah, I’ve travelled, seen places. Find I prefer a small town. Sure, there’s bands here, good food and a whole fruit basket of people…” he grins up at Connor. “Best behaviour – no worries…”

Huh?  Why is Spike so concerned to appease him? Why does he even care what a human, anyone thinks? Connor recalls the numerous vamps he’s dusted. The rage he’s felt when he’s pulled them off a victim, eyes drawn to the spilt blood on their chins. Not one of them ever explained or doubted. They were who they were. They did what they did.

“You’re here because of me?” Connor doesn’t dare look at the vamp. “You said you were looking out for me. Do I need protection? Am I in some kind of danger? See, I can handle myself.” Connor dances onto the ledge and suppresses a grin. “Hey, I’m ok. I can handle myself.”

“I’ve seen you fight.”

No hint from the controlled tone – was Spike being sarcastic? Connor presses on, balancing on one foot, his boot hovering over the abyss, the sheer drop cranking up the adrenaline.

“Hey ‘Undead’ Guy,” Connor chew down his irritation,  “that’s what they call you in the books, isn’t it? Undead? This…this, it’s new to me; few months ago I was like everyone else. Then the ‘accident’ and when I left the hospital – well, now I’m like this.”

Connor’s worn boots frame the view below. He’s aware of Spike’s eyes on him as he half crouches then back flips until he lands behind the vampire, who, unimpressed, searches in his pocket for his cigs.

“You should join a circus mate.”

“Can you do that? Can vampires do the wire thing?” Connor can barely contain his energy now. Feels like so long since he worked out this rage, this hunger. He leaps to the gabled roof of the doorway, his long legs wide and sure on the tightrope width.

Laughter. “I leave that to the stunt men.”

“But you can. You could - if you wanted to?”

“I’m getting too long in the tooth to prance about like a tit.” Spike saunters towards him, and Connor shudders in anticipation, drinking in the detail of this dark god;  hands in his jeans pockets, framing his cock, the cigarette wedged between smirking lips full of promise and threat, “And I got old because I don’t do this shit.”

***

Hard to keep his hands to himself; this peacock, this demon-blooded human, so young, in the process of discovering himself and revelling in his powers – so in love with life and so in love with death -  intoxicating.

As he approaches, Spike can sense how aroused Connor still is, and the vamp takes a delight in at least appearing as if he might go either way so hesoso  so he moves through his best slow dance, the cobra walk never taking his eyes off his prey.

“You’ve killed a few of my kind, yet you know bugger all about us. You should learn your enemy.”

“I…” Is that embarrassment on the young man’s face? Spike throws his hands up as if to negate the cruelty of his comment, but his teeth are bared – they both know he’s in control here and it’s his favourite state, at least while clothed. He steps back to make room for Connor, who lands silently a foot away. Connor’s skin seems to sing to Spike as the human leans imperceptibly closer to peer at Spike.

The vampire loves watching the battle raging through this young, volatile mind – Connor’s whole face a question until he whispers, “Teach me?”

“Yes.” The growled reply has barely Spike’s mouth and Connor is in freefall, his lethal hands a noose around the vampire’s neck, dragging the amused mouth close to his own.

“So…you want to know about vamps: there’s feeding…” Spike nips Connor’s lip a little too roughly, “fighting…” strong fingers shove a gasping Connor hard against a doorway, “or is it killing you were interested in?” With a muted roar, Spike vamps out and sniffs Connor’s neck, working his face deep into the mantle of hair falling across the human’s throat. Connor presses his forehead into Spike’s temple, letting out a low moan as he cedes to the demon.

The heat from Connor’s breath fans the fire that’s building in Spike’s groin. He pulls away for a moment, amber eyes searching the boy’s face to see Connor in turn scouring his demon visage with wild eyes.

“Yes, yes…” Connor tosses his head back, closes his eyes in prayer, “teach me.”

“It’s in your blood.” Spike’s voice is muffled as he presses his mouth along the line of Connor’s jugular, “here.”

“And here.” He searches under Connor’s shirt till his knuckles can draw a circle over the human’s frantically beating heart.  A cool finger follows the hint of downy hair lower, lower skating across a firm belly until it wriggles into the boy’s waistband where he stills. He feels Connor tense, although his grip on Spike’s neck never wavers.

“…and here.”

Spike moves swiftly, wrapping relentless fingers around Connor’s over sensitive cock, which leaps to meet its assailant.

“God yes…more…” Unwilling to interrupt the delicious wave of heat that’s swirling through his thighs and cock, the vampire gives him more.

“We’re close, related you might say…” murmuring into the boy’s ear, an insistent tongue punctuating, underlining each phrase, “We search each other out, need to find our family. That’s why I’m still here.” He feels Connor’s leg wrapping around his thigh, pulling him closer.

“If I’m not a demon, how…?”

Spike’s mind struggles helplessly with the same question that Angel, Wesley, so many must have spent hours deliberating.

“I don’t know.”

A flash of residual fight. Darla’s eyes peer at Spike, Angelus’ hands loosen their hold for a second.

“You think you can do this to me? Jerk me along, not give any answers?”

Spike takes a breath as he presses hard into Connor, pinning him against the door with his legs braced and the boy’s arms crushed against his body while his left hand begins to pump.

“You’re an aberration. That much I know.” And he stops the human’s gasped protestations with a searching, practiced tongue, dimly aware of tears in the boy’s eyes

***

Lost, Connor bucks against Spike, his slender hips finally finding a rhythm. Both panting as their eyes lock, Connor thrills at hearing the hissing breaths the vampire draws with every forward movement from his willing victim – seems like the need to do this isn’t as one sided as at first appeared. Connor wrestles his arms free and grasps at Spike’s cock through his jeans, desperate to reciprocate this moment of chaos, but his mind is lost, the co-ordination, the control he had when he manipulated Stevo’s cock long gone.

The human hitches his breath, knows he can hold on, needs to touch, needs to be closer still, and Spike obligingly pulls his own cock free, the hue of preternatural skin momentarily distracting an awe struck Connor before their hips slam close again.  His attention moves to Spike’s burning gaze as the vampire deftly wraps his hand around the combined girth of his own and the human’s cock. Connor is startled by the coolness and again struggles to maintain control as Spike rotates his thumb through pre-come. Was it him, was he the one drooling with want or was it the vampire; did it matter? As the pre-come mingles, it’s as if their minds and bodies are joined, dragged by the same purpose, and this was as close to heaven as he’d ever been, matched only by the feel of killing, the beauty of tearing the head of a demon, of following his instincts when he let himself go along with the ride without thought or question. When he knew who he was.

***

Spike’s taken aback by the lust he feels for this young man yet somehow manages to reign in an impulse to lift those long legs over his shoulders, to cover his cock in unearthly blood and take the human hard. He knows he can’t, knows he’d hurt the boy – has to hold back. Although the human’s strong, heals quick - he still scarred. He’d felt a scar on Connor’s chest earlier; that must have been some wound to leave any trace on this ‘slayer’ or whatever he was – they had yet to invent a name for this son of vampires, this proof that Good could come out of Evil.

But what could he teach the boy – yes, he never seemed to be far away from his own origins – yes, he had a soul but all this brought Spike was confusion. The soul held him back, taunted him. It didn’t give him a purpose; more human than vampire in that sense he seemed doomed to an endless unlife of searching and shattered dreams so what the fuck could he teach anyone?

Connor’s moaning jerks his mind back to the here and now, back to the purpose crushed against him now – yes, that was it. Let the boy lose himself for surely this was too much weight for such a young mind? Yes, Spike could help him find who he was even if that was just to discover he was one of them, bonded by blood. Spike rolls their cocks together, transfixed by the sight of Connor on the edge, still fighting him, fighting the inevitable loss – liked to fight – liked to maintain control – needed to decide to let go. Spike got that – reminded him of how it used to be with Xander.

“You’ve stopped talking.” He managed to smirk, smothering Connor’s mouth with his. Connor grunts incoherently. His eyes are open, but Spike wonders if he can see anything at all, beautiful little bastard; fuck the soul - if he could just have the smallest taste…

*** 

Spike’s teeth graze against Connor’s throat, and in his effort to pull away the boy manages to thrust his cock further into Spike’s grip, trapped on all sides, held down, fighting for air as the vampire gnaws gently at his sweat soaked neck, his hair wrapped around his eyes, his legs pinned down, his feeble protestations ignored because they are just words and the vampire can surely sense this, can feel the want radiating from Connor’s groin, his heart, his veins, begging to be taken, begging to be held and to be taken in, begging for this.

“Yes or no?” Spike loosens his hold on their cocks, unlocks his clamp on Connor’s slender neck, and as Connor searches those fuck-me, fuck-off eyes, penetrating him with their intensity, he spies something within their Atlantic depths, something he recognises but can’t hold, the something which makes this vampire different from the others. Fuck – what was it…? And as he strains to form a tangible idea of what this might be, as he almost…almost…finds the word, Connor discovers a physical composure to finish what they have started and steady hands lace through Spike’s shaking fingers, wrap around their cocks taking over, finishing what Spike started.

“Yes, yes…” and Connor moans loud and long as his come mingles with Spike’s as they still and allow the surge of ecstasy to enshroud their slight frames. They quiver one against the other, lips and tongues grasping as Spike drinks in the human’s breath, inflating his lungs as the pair waken and shimmer with almost painful release.

They stay like this, twisted together, oblivious to where they are, unable to speak for some time.

***

Spike reluctantly pulls his mouth away so he can look at his strange relation. Connor shakes his head breaks into the first smile the vampire had seen grace the young man’s features – a smile that lit up his face, a smile that reminded Spike with painful barbed notes of his Grandsire.

“We shouldn’t have done that.” Spike finally manages to croak.

To Be Continued...