“No. Sodding. Way.”

Spike always knew he had crap luck, but he didn’t think he’d done anything to deserve this. The bottle could have landed on any number of girls that secretly wanted to get him in their knickers, but because someone up there hated his ever-loving guts, the bottle cap was pointing dead-on at Angel.

“No fucking way. I’m spinning again.”

Cordelia stopped his hand as he reached for the bottle. “No can do, blondie. There’s nothing in the rules about spinning again.”

Angel finally snapped out of his stupor, pulling his eyes from where he’d been staring dumbly at the bottle. Key word—dumbly. “Cordy—”

She simply crossed her arms and lifted a brow, and the ponce folded like a cheap card table. Useless.

“You must be joking! You can’t expect me to—” Spike searched the faces of his so-called friends, looking for backup. Buffy was covering a snicker with her hand. Willow clearly wasn’t coming to the rescue, but she had the good graces to look apologetic about it. Xander looked as though this were payback for all the shit Spike had ever talked in his entire life—and maybe it was. And all of the other kids not of the inner circle were sure as hell not going to challenge Cordelia Chase in her own domain.

When Spike tried to catch Angel’s eye for a little solidarity, the other boy avoided him. So much for staging a coup.

So Spike appealed to his one possible ally. “Come on, kitten, you know you don’t want to see me do this.”

Buffy was impervious to his pout. She wore that little smile that meant she was looking to stick it to him, instead of the other way around. “Actually, Spike, I think I’d really like to see you do this. It might help to erase the image of you plastered all over Harmony Kendell.”

…Right. He’d underestimated the vehemence with which he and Buffy were currently off-again. And why.

“You’ve all cracked it. I don’t have to do this.” Spike frowned at his target in disgust. Angel was currently studying the ceiling as though the conversation had nothing to do with him. “Look at him. It would be like kissing a monkey.”

Brown eyes suddenly snapped to his, wide with surprised anger. “Hey! I don’t kiss like a…. I’ve been told I have a..quality.”

Spike snorted. “By who, that slag Darla? She’s one step away from selling it on the corner. I heard she and Lindsey—”

Cordelia’s hand shot out to smack into Angel’s breastbone, stopping him from surging forward and throttling the piss out of Spike. Or trying. Spike waggled his tongue at Angel while the nancy boy sat and stewed.

“Children, please. Daddy likes the décor just as it is. You can piss all over each other later, thanks. As for you,” Cordelia said, turning to Spike smugly, “you don’t have to play by the rules. But if you don’t, you can go ahead and leave now.”

“Cordy,” Spike whined. “Come on, luv, don’t make me leave before your da gets back with the champagne.”

Her shrug said, too bad. Not my problem. “Sorry, pal. Cordelia Chase has spoken.”

“Cordelia Chase is a bleeding bitch,” Spike muttered, smiling only a little when she answered clearly, “Damn straight.”

“Fine.” He eyed Angel distastefully. “Let’s get this over with, then. No drooling.”

Angel scowled. “I don’t drool.”

“Beg to differ, mate. I seem to remember a hefty amount of slobber that one—”

“Spike! Quit stalling.”

Huffing out a sigh, Spike pulled himself onto all fours and crawled across the circle they’d formed in Cordy’s rec room, away from prying eyes. The heavy billiards table hid them partially from the door.

Christ, this was awkward as hell. Angel seemed as uncomfortable as he was. His eyes kept darting towards Spike and then away, as if the walls were very intriguing. Would have been nice to get a little help from the pillock so they could have avoided the whole thing but…oi, why hadn’t the git spoken up?

Cordelia cleared her throat, and then he found a spike heel being shoved against his arse to push him forward impatiently.

“Oi! Bitch. Hold your bloody horses.” He and Angel looked at each other. Something restless was crawling sickly in the pit of Spike’s stomach. “Right.”

Spike leaned forward and then darted back. He wasn’t sure if he should—well he would just come at it like—ok, if Angel’s nose wasn’t so bloody huge, this would be a simpler matter. Angel finally tilted his head a bit and then Spike was coming in after three false starts and—why did he have to be the one tipping his face that way?

“I’m not gonna be the girl here, you stupid—”

“Oh for God’s sake,” Angel griped, and suddenly Spike was being hooked by the neck and dragged forward into the other boy. Neither of them moved for a second. Their mouths were pressed together and Spike could feel Angel’s breath brushing against his cheek where his nose was pressed, and he really expected to be let go so that they could break awkwardly apart, duty fulfilled. Any second now. Any moment—

And then Angel’s lips moved.

What did the bastard think he was—Spike tried to pull away, but the hand on the back of his neck held fast, and Spike didn’t want to look stupid struggling, so he was forced to stay still while surprisingly soft lips shifted against his. Shifted until they were trapping Spike’s bottom lip and sort of…sucking on it gently with the small scrape of teeth and oh my god, Spike couldn’t breath. His lungs had gone and collapsed.

People were talking. Spike thought he heard Cordelia say something about twenty dollars, but then something wet and slippery (God, Angel’s tongue) was slicking against the seam of his mouth and he forgot all about that. His lips parted in shock and Angel was licking the inside of his upper lip and sliding around to the corner, and Spike felt stupid and utterly useless. Pole-axed. His butt had dropped down onto his heels, and it was a lucky thing his head was held up on one end by Angel’s hand and at the other by Angel’s face, or he would have toppled nose-first into Angel’s…Oh god.

The tongue had ventured farther into his mouth while he wasn’t looking, breaching his teeth, and was currently making time with his own. Stroking against it playfully and trying to tease a response out of the muscle that lay thickly against the floor of Spike’s bottom jaw. His heart was pounding. He should pull away, but Angel’s fingers were massaging a little pattern through the hair at the nape of his neck.

When Spike began to tangle his tongue back, Angel gave his neck a little encouraging squeeze and Spike may have moaned. Just a little. No one probably noticed. Really weird, to be kissing someone who was directing your mouth what to do, and was a big enough bloke…er, person…to keep you from flipping the script. Every time Spike tried to take over the kiss, Angel pulled back or changed the pressure or distracted him with a thumb running lightly across the back of his ear, and holy hell, it was like he wasn’t even trying. It was strangely hot, and when Angel eased him away and their mouths were no longer touching, Spike felt oddly…empty.

He blinked dumbly into the brown eyes close to his. When he dropped his gaze down to Angel’s mouth, those lips were tipped up into a knowing little smile, only Spike was unsure quite what they knew, because he was fairly certain he’d forgotten everything he’d ever learned since infancy.

Angel’s fingers were still warm on the back of his neck, and Spike was still leaned forward uncomfortably towards him, thighs burning from the position. He couldn’t remember what he was supposed to be doing just now.

“You do realize that all this means is that you’ll have to pay the next time we go out,” Xander said somewhere to his left. “Not like my dad will be forking over more cash any time soon.”

Startled, Spike’s head swung around in time to see a bill being passed to a smirking Cordelia. And she was smirking right at him.

“Oh, trust me, this is sooo worth it. I told you.”

Oh Jesus! Spike scrambled back, falling on his butt, face hot as he realized that everyone was staring at him. And why. He tried to be nonchalant about crawling back to his spot but had a sneaking suspicion he failed miserably.

Spike cleared his throat. “Well. Thank God that’s done with.”

They all laughed like a bunch of bloody monkeys. Didn’t know why he was mates with the lot of them anyway. Traitors. Angel was the only one who wasn’t laughing. He was just looking at Spike with that poncy little smile….

“It looked like real torture, let me tell you. Oh, and Angel, you owe me too. I thought you two would never shut up and do what you so obviously wanted to.” Cordelia smiled at the circle like the man-eating shark she was. “Okay! Whose turn is it?”

When his eyes darted over to Angel, Spike was perversely pleased to see that the other boy was blushing.

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