It wasn't something he could control, the feeling bubbled from beneath his ribcage with a sickening potency that left him with something akin to heartburn as the words sat on his tongue feeling fat and heavy. He tried to swallow them back, he was not used to having to censor himself. Again, he attempted to swallow, his throat was tight and dry, and his gaze held a note of panic that the other man in the room could only raise an eyebrow to.
He blinked now.
Blink and swallow. Try to be natural.
Don't let him see.
He took a breath- even the small air seeming too much for his throat and mouth to bear, it seemed to push and force itself against his teeth and tumult inside him like sickness.
Blink. Swallow. Breathe. Unneeded. Suspicious.
He saw already, it was useless. No matter, the truth would spill forth eventually, like hot wax from a sputtering candle. It would spread and destroy, and it would dry, a hard shell easy to shatter. He would be shattered.
"I'm in love with you"
The sentence was simple enough yet it burnt. He felt scorch marks brazened across his tongue and stretching right across the room between them. He felt empty now, and the silence then seemed deafening against that statement.
His eyes were cold now, his body cold.
.
Angel looked up, there was no real surprise in his eyes, though his expression held some shock. Of course Spike loved him, they were bound by blood to love kin.
That was not what Spike had confessed. It would have been meaningless. This was different.
.
"No"
Angel's voice was colder than he felt.
Spike looked up then, ice eyes, hot tongue.
He said nothing, he did not need to. Angel had already said enough.
He turned, no glance back, eyes still like ice, swallowing against the cold in his throat.
He would go then, to be quenched by the fire of the day.