Chapter One. AU fic, where Spike left town instead of going to the Scoobies for help in "Pangs." Buffy's dead, Angel's in Tibet, and Spike has finally found someone who makes him feel alive again- and Wesley's found someone to keep him safe and sane when he needs it most.

Life was a darker thing without blood.

Oh, he kept himself fed, but bottled animal blood had no life, no fire at all. It made the world fade around him. Sometimes he lost the ability to see in colors for a while, and it felt more and more as if the world had truly faded to gray when the chip had been forced into his brain.

He could have stayed in Sunnydale. He knew he could have made it there, even if the place had seen some of his most outstanding failures. And then one day he'd caught himself actually considering going to the Slayer and her little friends for help, and he understood how truly pathetic he'd gotten.

So he'd left. After taking stock of his situation, he'd packed up his meager belongings (the few that Harmony hadn't been able to find to burn), bought several days worth of blood, and gotten the hell out of Dodge. He'd headed to Brazil with the vague hope of finding Dru, but soon realized the hopelessness of that and drifted a little. The lush heat of South America revived him for a little while, but it soon faded away, and so after a year or so he headed north again, looking for the vivid night life that large American cities had to offer.

So here he was, back in California yet again. At least he'd landed in LA this time, instead of that godforsaken Hellmouth that was so cursed for him, but that was a small consolation, considering that his track record in Angel's city wasn't particularly great either.

He was only here because he was desperate, anyway. New York had been fun for a bit, but it was filled with dirty poverty that had only sped up the growing grayness inside him. He had hopes for LA- they had just as much dirt and poverty, but they covered it up with glitter and flash. Not high hopes, though. There wasn't enough glitter in the world to really raise his hopes.

Alcohol and the finest drugs that money could buy, and some that couldn't be bought, hadn't worked. Nights spent in clubs where bodies pressed in from all sides and the music made your heart throb in time, if it actually beat of course, hadn't worked. The only time he really felt alive- so to speak- was when he was balls-deep in some pretty-faced girl or boy.

Hence LA. The man seated across from him wasn't particularly pretty-faced at all, though. Not to say he wasn't attractive- he was- but "pretty" wasn't the word that came to mind as Spike watched him stare meditatively into his beer. The lines of his face were clean and smooth and elegant, but the elegance was marred by the harsh stubble shadowing his jaw and the exhaustion lurking in his eyes.

He was gorgeous, Spike decided, but not with the bright American prettiness that always made him think of cheerleaders and backyard cookouts. He looked... mature. Not old, just old enough to have learned that the world wasn't pretty, and experienced enough not to blush and stammer when someone came onto him.

"You've been staring for ten minutes," the man said, without looking up from his beer. "Ever since you sat down, in fact. Are you going to give me your name, at least?"

"Will," he said, faintly surprised at himself even as the name left his lips. Couldn't hurt to be cautious, but there were a million and one other names he could have chosen besides that one.

"Wesley," the man said, his accent upper-class British though his voice sounded tired, and looked up from the mug in his hands for the first time. His eyes were a soft gray-blue, and Spike rejoiced in being able to see the color, and the rich dark brown of his sweater, and the red highlights that the low lighting picked out in his hair. Rejoiced to have found someone so captivating that the colors were all coming back to him, in a glorious rush, just from watching this man, and listening to him say a few words. How much better would he be if they actually shagged?

"And now we know each other's names," Wesley said into the following silence, while Spike tried not to let his eyes be drawn by the bright flash of the brilliant purple tube-top that the blonde at the next table was wearing. His voice snapped the vampire back to the man in front of him, and he blinked once as he tried to catch up. "You came over here for a reason, Will. Go ahead and ask."

Deciding that he didn't mind the name "Will" when Wesley said it, though it would have been his own damned fault if it had bothered him, Spike said, "Well, it's like this. I saw you over here, the lights shining on you, and you looked all alone-"

"I said to go ahead and ask, not feed me insincere bullshit," Wesley interrupted. "If you're going to try to give me a line, I'm not interested."

"Direct," Spike said. "I like it. Wanna shag?"

"Sure," Wes said, and went to pay for his beer.

Things had been going fine, Spike thought in disgust, until they actually started undressing.

They'd walked the short distance to the hotel where he was staying in silence, walking a reasonable distance apart and not touching. And when they'd gotten to his door Spike had unlocked and opened it with one hand while he'd fisted the other in the front of Wesley's t-shirt and pulled him over the threshold and into a kiss.

They'd kissed for a few minutes, while Spike kicked the door shut and maneuvered them over to the bed. And then he'd pushed Wesley down onto his back and had kneeled over his body, knees sinking into the plush softness of the comforter as he'd peeled Wesley's shirt up. The other man had raised his arms accommodatingly, so he could throw the shirt to the side, his own shirt following in short order.

And then Wesley had pulled something out of his pocket, and before Spike could think, "But you don't need a condom," Wesley had slapped the cross against his chest.

Spike cursed and dove off the bed, rolling when he hit the floor and coming up to his knees with his game face on.

Wesley propped himself up on one elbow to study him objectively for a moment before he muttered, "What is it with me and vampires?" and went off the other side of the bed to look for his shirt.

"Do you do this to all your dates?" Spike wanted to know. "Or am I just special?"

Wesley shrugged philosophically and picked up his shirt from the floor, where it was huddled next to the closet door, looking very much like a small brown animal. "Usually I take them back to my flat," he explained, his voice muffled briefly as he pulled the shirt over his head. "So the test is usually the threshold. Of course, the fact that your skin is exactly room temperature was a bit of a giveaway."

Spike stared at him for a moment. Wesley looked rumpled and somehow sexier than before, and Spike made and abrupt decision that he would probably regret later.

He let his features slide back to human and stood slowly, hid hands up in an attempt to show he meant no harm. "My name isn't really Will," he said. "It's Spike."

"Not really reassuring to know that I'm stuck in a hotel room with a particularly vicious killer," Wesley said. "Rather the opposite, in fact."

"You know who I am?" Spike asked, surprise jolting him temporarily out of his intent to reassure Wesley that he was safe enough to sleep with.

"I am- I used to be a Watcher," Wesley told him, and Spike heard the swift change of tense but decided not to comment on it. "You're rather infamous. Two slayers and all."

"That was before the Initiative commandoes put a chip in my head," Spike started, ready to give the whole, "can't hunt, can't feed, can't hurt," speech that had become smooth and practiced after a year and a half of use.

But Wesley's expression brightened a little before he got the chance, and he said, "That's right, she told me."

"She?" Spike said, totally mystified, and Wesley told him, "A friend of mine, she hears things from Sunnydale, sometimes."

Silence filled the room after that, heavy and somewhat oppressive, until Spike sighed, held out one hand, palm up, and asked a question.

"Still wanna shag?"

"Why not," Wesley said, and took his shirt back off.

The lobby of the Hyperion looked particularly huge and empty to Wesley when he got there the next morning, and he was grateful for Cordelia's presence when she showed up a few minutes later.

It took exactly seven minutes and twenty-three seconds for the gratefulness to wear off and the irritation to set in- he timed it. She started by complaining that someone had messed with her filing because she couldn't find someone's file- when she found it on her desk, where she'd left it the night before, he wisely said nothing. Then she moved on to bitching about Angel leaving them in the lurch for the second time.

He actually agreed with her on that one, but was still tired of hearing it because she'd been saying it every chance she got for the last four days. She'd been understanding for the first week after he left, but that had worn off with her first vision, when they'd barely made it out alive.

Wesley didn't get truly irritated, however, until she started in on him. He didn't know how she knew- as far as he could tell it was some sort of built-in radar- but she knew he'd had sex the night before. Thank God and all the Powers that she didn't know who he'd had sex with, but she definitely knew that the event had occurred. And once she'd gotten that meaty bone between her jaws, she absolutely refused to let go.

"Cordelia," he said, his voice overly patient, "Why must you obsess over my sex life? My sex life," he emphasized. "Not yours. Thus not your business."

"I don't have one," she pointed out with her usual twisted pragmatism. "You do, so I'm interested in yours. I have to get my vicarious thrills from someone."

"Cordelia," he said again. "Go to a bar. Let some good-looking man buy you a drink. Charm him. Dazzle him, even. It's what people do in this city."

"Is that what you did?" she asked curiously. "And by the way- not doing that again. No more demon pregnancies for me."

"I bought my own drink, and he said, 'Wanna shag?' and I said yes and went to his hotel room to have sex."

"He?" Cordelia's face twisted into an amusing mixture of fascination and horror. "You're gay now? Why did you never see fit to share this newsflash?"

"I've always swung both ways, as it were," he said bemusedly. "It's not exactly new information."

"Well, it is to me," Cordelia snapped. "Damn it, Wes, you don't just spring something like that on a girl."

"Next time," Wesley told her rather smugly, "keep your beak out of my sex life."

One hand flew protectively up to her nose, so her outraged shriek of "Beak?!" was somewhat muffled. Wesley nevertheless decided that discretion was the better part of valor, and beat a strategic retreat.

Spike felt stupid, sitting at the bar and hoping Wesley might show up. Just because he was here last night doesn't mean he'll come again, you stupid sod, he sneered at himself, but since they hadn't exactly traded phone numbers that morning, he didn't have any way to find him again, short of stalking around the city, showing a picture of him- which he didn't have- to any passersby.

His number was not in the phonebook. Spike had checked.

He was on the verge of giving up when he saw Wesley at the door, wearing a sort of blue-gray sweater-thing and a pair of blue jeans with scuffed brown boots. He looked clean-shaven today, and not a jot less sexy for the loss of the stubble. The sight of him cheered Spike up almost immediately.

It was only a second before Wesley spotted him- Spike knew he stood out in this cozy neighborhood pub like a sore thumb- and Spike saw his eyes widen, then crinkle up at the corners in a smile as the ex-Watcher started making his way through the crowded floor of the pub.

"I didn't think I'd find you here tonight," Wesley said, sounding a little breathless. "This doesn't seem to be the sort of place you'd go with any sort of regularity."

"Nice, quiet evenings aren't really my style," Spike conceded with a shrug, "but I couldn't think of a single, sodding place 'sides this one to look for you."

"Oh," Wesley said, and flushed a little with pleasure. "Well. I'm rather unused to someone wanting a phone number."

"I had a good time last night, pet," Spike said carefully, watching as Wesley dug through his pockets for something. "You seemed to be havin' a good time too. I figured you might be interested in-"

He stopped when Wesley pulled out a pen and a business card. "So it won't happen tomorrow," Wesley explained, scribbling something on the back. "I'm writing down my home number, but I can be reached at the business number on the front." He handed the card to Spike. "I'd prefer if you identified yourself as Will rather than Spike if you do happen to call at the Hyperion."

Spike didn't answer. He was staring at the card, barely able to believe what he was seeing, and getting the sick feeling in his gut that Fate was fucking with him again. "Bloody hell," he whispered hoarsely. "You work for Angel."

"Well, technically he works for me, though it's irrelevant at the moment as he's out of the country. It's hard to believe you honestly didn't know. There's a bit of a dearth of living ex-Watchers in California, you know."

"I've spent most of the last two years in South America," Spike said tightly. "Not really up on Sunnydale gossip."

"Oh." The confused frown remained on Wesley's face. "I'm sorry you found out like this, then. If I'd known I would have told you sooner."

"When, exactly? Before or after we shagged each other senseless?" He shook his head with a bitter laugh. "Just as well you didn't. If I'd known you were one of Angel's, I never would have touched you."

He stood up abruptly, knocking his chair back, and stalked out the door. Wesley buried his head in his hands, wondering why he ever fucking bothered. He left a few minutes later, and never noticed that the business card with his phone number on it had left the bar in the pocket of Spike's jeans.