The Lights Go Down

by vechtkoe

Angel and Spike are sent out on a midnight boat trip, along with a small crew of quirky marine demons, to deal with a threat near an underwater hellmouth. They get a bit sidetracked though. NOTE: My first ever piece of fan-fiction. Dedicated to my wifey.

The Lights Go Down

Rating: NC-17 for some not too graphic sex and mostly British swearing.

Pairing: Spike/Angel

Other characters

Timeline: Just before A Hole In The World.

Notes: This is dedicated to my wife, who is known on as Hortense. She challenged me to write my first ever piece of fanfiction, conveniently about her favourite couple of the small screen. It turned out to be good fun and her reactions to the previews encouraged me to keep on taking it to the next level. I hope I've made her (and Spike) happy. And I don't think this is the last thing I wrote in this universe.

Lyrical credit: Chino Moreno of Team Sleep

Summary: Angel and Spike are sent out on a midnight boat trip, along with a small crew of quirky marine demons, to deal with a threat near an underwater hellmouth. They get a bit sidetracked though.

---

The lights go down.

The crowd hushes up.

A spotlight hits the stage.

This should be a familiar scene to most who frequent the Titty Twister, were it the beautiful Mexican goddess Santanico Pandemonium to step into the circle of light, and not William Pratt wearing only a small black thong and a thick albino python draped across his shoulders.

His pale skinny body somehow manages to undulate sensuously to the music played by the band.

Angel sits gaping in his chair, acutely aware that the dancing poet never takes his blue eyes off him as he lithely strides across various tables, a little closer every time.

The vacant-eyed python flickers its tongue briefly as it is carried all the way to Angel's table.

Angel is not afraid of snakes, so why does he feel the slightest of trembles coursing underneath his skin?

The fact that the only thing about Spike that is covered up is also the one thing that bulges is nothing if not perverse intentionality, Angel notes in a panicked attempt at grasping some kind of rationale out of the situation.

His inane musing pops like a soap bubble as, dead in front of him, a pale foot steps onto the lacquered surface, followed by the faithful spotlight, and suddenly all of that marble body is dancing just for him.

"Uh.." replies Angel.

"Shut up and drink." orders Spike as he picks up the bottle of whiskey off the table and starts pouring the liquid gold right down his leg.

Angel means to reply to this too, but gets Spike's foot shoved into his mouth and he reflectively gulps at the cascade of whiskey as it trickles down. Too much, too quick. Too much not to gag.

Angel wakes up in mid-gag, lukewarm metallic liquid in his mouth.

Not the first time he'd bitten his tongue while sleeping. Several centuries' worth of life experience has made him very quick to shake off the residual tendrils of the dream world, and it only takes him half a second to readjust to the reality of his bedroom.

The Spartan minimalist look of the room immediately soothes him, which is exactly why he had wanted it that way. He has enough demon in his head. No need for sensory indulgence and luxury to distract his resolve.

Angel swallows the mouthful of his tongue's blood and looks at the extremely simple alarm clock on the almost unnoticeable bedside table.

Still an hour before sunset. Angel sighs. He feels awake now. If he returns to bed, he will wake up an hour later looking and feeling like the shed skin of a Varrd burrower.

So maybe he'll just get a head start on the day. Get some of the team work out of the way on his own, so he can steal some extra brooding moments. He's pretty sure it's part of Wolfram & Hart's scheme to have him work with teams in order to torment or test him or something.

How many hands can hold on to the same pen and then write with it? Exactly.

He should write down that allegory.

After an almost non-existent shower, Angel gets dressed for work and skulks his way to his office.

It's mostly the nocturnal demonic staff members doing the rounds at this hour, so lots of nobodies he doesn't know float past him through the corridors of the W&H building.

He's startled as he feels the red tail of an attractive Pfrffywj demon brush the back of his thigh as it passes him by. Angel nervously glances back, but all he sees is the demon carelessly continuing down the hallway, so he makes peace with the possibility that it was accidental.

"Oomf!" both he and Gunn exclaim as Angel faces forward again just in time to frontally collide with him and the stack of papers that he's carrying. The paperwork spills on the floor in a way that doesn't make it look easy to reassemble. "Jeez, I'm sorry, Gunn."

"It's cool. I didn't see you either, man." says Gunn as both men start picking up the sheets from the floor.

Angel looks pained as he scrabbles them up, aware that he has no clue in what order they're supposed to go, so he just gets a good stack and hands it to Gunn.

"Most of this stuff is for today's op. The dredging. Remember?" Gunn says as he picks out a blurry printed-out photo of the ocean floor, strewn with what looks like large and long eggs.

"Yeah, uh, eggs." Angel flusters, trying to remember a keyword related to this operation besides 'eggs'.

Gunn reaches over to Angel and pats him firmly on top of his left shoulder in a masculine calming gesture. But before Angel correctly interprets this, he feels a wince of panic at the thought that he might have contracted dandruff.

"It's all in here." Gunn hands Angel a thin folder, pauses, then adds: "Well, all that we know is."

"Thanks." Angel stands up and flicks through the photos and a few text documents.

"Keep it. I gotta go." says Gunn as he marches off down the hall.

The short of it: a hellmouth on the bottom of the sea, some twenty miles off the Californian coast.

The photos had been taken by a pair of deep-sea diving tourists, whose stay had unfortunately become indefinite. The navy had searched the waters around their abandoned sailboat and came up with nothing.

But the couple's underwater camera had been directly linked to the on-board laptop, which was handed over to the police, where it was scanned by one of Wolfram & Hart's more attentive informants. He found the pictures and forwarded them.

The experts had been perplexed. No demon familiar to them could be found to match the eggs. All they knew was that they had been gurgled up by the hellmouth.

Angel takes the folder under his arm and continues his walk. Only then does he notice the neatly bi-folded piece of paper that had been stuck into the pocket of his jacket.

Puzzled, he unfolds it and reads it.

Even more puzzled, Angel calls "Gunn?" as he turns around. But Gunn is gone.

Cue boat trip.

By night.

Or night trip by boat, if you will.

Wolfram & Hart own several docks at the harbour, for covertness. And it is down these boards that Angel, Spike and a small crew powerwalk their way towards the designated vessel.

"You could've told me this was going to be a marine thing, you git." Spike mutters.

"Spike, your hair has been stuck in this shape since the eighties. It'll live." Angel scowls.

"Huh. The only reason you're not checking your guido cut every six minutes is that you're too much of a ponce to reflect in a mirror." Spike counters, trying to hit where it hurts but not really.

"I don't need a mirror.." Angel claims.

Griffin, one of the crew members: "I thought you were a vampire, boss?"

"We're both vampires." Angel sighs.

"Then who does your hair?" Griffin asks, scratching the scales on his cheek.

Angel says tiredly: "Can we not talk about this?"

"You started about the hair." Spike cuts back in. "Which is the least of my worries, mate. I just don't care for second meetings with my lunch."

"Worry not. The sea is going to be still." gurgles Kelpy assuredly as the six approach the medium-sized nameless sailboat.

"My stomach isn't." Spike replies and demonstratively stands aside as the others cross the plank and board the ship.

"Yellowbelly." burps Kelpy as he passes him by.

"Heard that." says Spike as he enters the boat last.

The group gathers on the front deck. Angel faces them, his brow firm and determined.

"Thank you for coming, everybody. Tonight we're going to exterminate the nest of a potentially unknown demon breed." He nods to Kelpy, who is stroking his tentacle-beard. "Captain Kelpy knows the coordinates. We're sailing out there as fast as we can, so we should be back home well before dawn. Spike, Danny, Griffin and I are going down there to destroy the eggs."

Angel looks everyone in the eye. "Any questions?"

Griffin and Danny both raise a scaley hand. Angel nods.

"If we see any urchins, can we take them home?"

Angel pauses and frowns. "Er.. sure."

The two thin scaley humanoids bare their fangs appreciatively and step back.

Spike flicks open his lighter and puts the flame to the cigarette in the corner of his mouth, shielding it from the ocean wind.

"How long till we get there?" he asks as he flips the lid back onto the lighter.

"Captain?" Angel nods to Kelpy.

Kelpy gags for a second, spits out a green gob across the railing into the water, then speaks liquidly. "At maximum velocity, it should take us a mere forty-five minutes. Unfortunately, we will have to approach very carefully, lest we disturb the specimens."

"So?" prods Spike.

"The final ten miles will have to be covered with minimal engine power. I estimate our time of travel to be four hours."

"Is this guy serious?" sputters Spike, his eyes panickingly pleading with Angel.

Angel blinks as if a mosquito is flying in front of his face, then looks away at the horizon and announces: "Anyone experiencing nausea on our way is welcome to take two of these pills." He holds out a small ziplock bag with blue and white capsules in it. "Fred accidentally invented them last month. The company is in the process of adding hidden opiates and then marketing it to the public, but these are clean from the lab."

Spike steps forward, snatches the bag out of Angel's hand and stomps off down to the cabin.

The rest of the crew, all four of them semi-aquatic lifeforms, doesn't show any interest in the capsules.

"Alright. Weigh the anchor." says Angel, and the four of them disband and get to their respective naval occupations, leaving just him on the front deck.

Angel looks out over the ocean, then up at the night sky and the unusually large and yellow-white moon. A few seagulls call out from above.

Angel takes a deep breath of salty air that he doesn't need and heads down for the cabin, where Spike has already hung his black duster.

The interior of the cabin looks comfortable enough. Beige is not Angel's favourite colour for leather, but he's not fussed.

Then he notices an odd bit of furniture.

"Well, things just got almost close to the distant vicinity of acceptable!" Spike says perkily, propping himself up on his elbows while lying across the queen-size double bed.

"That's my old bed." says Angel.

"Never thought I'd say this. But good thinking." Spike replies, stretching his limbs like a cat, his black shirt pressing into his chest like clingfilm for a moment.

"No, it was supposed to have gone to charity. I don't know why it's here." Angel looks a bit hurt.

"Somebody at Wolfram's probably thought that was a stupid plan and changed your mind for you." speculates Spike triumphantly. "Just as well. What moron would swap this for that piece of rubbish medieval torture device that you have in your room now."

Angel shakes his head, then shrugs his shoulders, then his eyebrows.

The faint hum of the engine permeates the boat as it slowly starts moving away from the dock.

Angel sits down on the bedside and gets something out of his pocket. "You should read this."

He hands the note to Spike.

Spike reads it and frowns. "Who gave you this?"

"Gunn slipped it in my pocket this morning. I wanted to get back to him about it, but I guess he wants to keep this off the company radar."

"Hmm." Spike hands him the note back. "Well, if he's sure and you're sure…"

Angel gets up and crumples the paper in his hand, then realises with a little exasperation that there's no candle or fireplace nearby that he can use to burn the message, so he just stuffs the crumpled ball back into his pocket.

"So when do we do this?" asks Spike.

"Once we're out on the open sea. We don't talk about this to the rest of the crew."

"Fair enough."

Captain Kelpy has not lied. The sea is very still tonight. The movements of the boat are gentle.

Spike opens his eyes and sees the ceiling. He's pretty sure there wasn't a fan on the ceiling just a minute before.

Then why is it swirling?

"Angel."

"Yeah?"

"Are you absolutely positive you brought the clean version of those capsules?"

"Yeah. Why?" Angel turns to Spike and squints to look in his eyes.

"Feeling a bit Woodstock here."

The ceiling ripples before Spike's eyes and begins to slowly spiral in on itself in a mesmerising manner.

"How many did you take?"

"Fucked if I know." answers Spike dreamily.

Angel spots something under the bed and bends to pick it up. It is the empty zip-lock bag.

"You idiot! You were supposed to take two. I told you to take no more than two!"

"You always say that, dude." Spike mumbles.

"What?" Angel looks worried. He's never heard Spike willingly and unmockingly use American slang before. This overdose is having some unpredictable effects.

But Angel is going to need Spike awake and alert on this mission.

Spike rolls over a bunch of times on the bed. That should have made him fall right off the bed, but somehow he doesn't. Maybe he isn't rolling at all. It's probably just the waves, he thinks.

But a seagull imaginarily blares directly into his ear and he jumps with a startled shout. "What." Spike looks confused at the absence of actual seagull around him.

Then Angel is there, holding a glass of water in his face. "Drink this."

"No?" asks/answers Spike, feeling half euphoric, half nauseous.

"Come on, Spike.." Angel insists, grasping him by the arm. "You're poisoned. This is salt water. It will flush it out—" Spike smacks the glass out of his hand and it flies at the far cabin wall, beautiful arcs of water gushing everywhere until the glass slowly crashes apart.

"Sp—" Angel is pulled forward by the scruff of his shirt, and then furiously kissed on the mouth, Spike's raging drug-boner suddenly pressed inbetween them as Angel topples over onto him.

Over the decades, Angel has built up a pretty strong reflex of resistance against pleasure, but this defence mechanism has never enjoyed unanimous support from his body and being.

Result: awkward elation at Spike's kiss. Angel's arms go weak, but his legs fight to keep some level of balance. His eyes don't know whether to close or open.

Is he going to remember any of this? Angel ponders among the mess of emotions in his head. He feels like a toddler trapped in a closet filled with cookie jars.

Fuck it.

Angel kisses back.

And then Spike's head abruptly pops back down on the fluffy pillow, looking yet more delirious.

"This izzz ztupid." he mumbles as his eyes roll up and he passes out.

Angel remains propped up over Spike's body, looking stunned.

He feels a bit robbed. But that idea is overruled by a pang of guilt as he looks at the now almost child-like face and the silly slack-jawed position of the mouth.

He hesitantly reaches out to try and close the mouth a bit, because he wouldn't want Spike drooling on the pillow.

But Spike lets out a barely audible moan and turns his head away from Angel's hand.

Footsteps on wood approach the cabin entrance. Angel quickly but smoothly gets up, straightens out the top of his shirt and puts on the frown.

Barrett pops his scaly head into the room apologetically: "Oh hello. Am I interrupting a vampire thing?"

"No, no." Angel assures. "What's going on?"

"The captain informs you that we are approaching the perimeter."

"Right." Angel brushes a casual hand over his forehead, confirming that his hair isn't up to anything funny.

Barrett stands and blinks his horizontal eyelids for a moment.

"That's it?" Angel eventually asks.

"Yes. The vessel will be slowing down within the next five minutes."

"Good." Angel nods curtly and authoritatively, hoping that the gesture will make Barrett leave.

Barrett blinks, then nods back in an eerily accurate imitation and turns and walks up the stairs again.

Angel waits until all of the fish-man has disappeared from view, then turns back to the bed.

Up on the front deck, Barrett takes in the sea breeze through the gills on the sides of his neck and feels instantly refreshed. He nods to Griffin and Danny, who are passing the time with a staring contest, so they don't notice him.

Barrett shrugs inwardly and heads to the bridge.

Kelpy is standing at the control panel, his back towards Barrett.

"The vampires are performing mating rituals." reports Barrett.

The captain gargles and spits into a bucket on the floor. "I knew it since the moment I saw that he has the hands of a woman." He pulls a lever down and the ship's engines slow to a bare sputter. "Leave them be. If this is how they see fit to prepare themselves, then it is not our concern."

Barrett blinks for the second time in five minutes, which is why he never bothers with the staring contests that are popular among his species.

Angel catches himself still staring at Spike and blinks away. No point standing around.

He reaches into his pocket and gets his phone out. No signal. He sighs and puts the phone away.

Some advice from the lab would have come in handy right now. What if Spike doesn't wake up before they get to the diving site? Angel really doesn't feel like being a mile underwater without someone relatively human nearby.

Sure, Danny and Griffin will come down. But does he trust them? For all he knows, they're in league with Barrett. Angel inwardly curses Gunn for his lack of thoroughness. Then he curses mobile phones and technology in general.

Still almost three hours to go until the ship reaches its destination. Angel sits down into an uncomfortable chair and watches Spike. What if he doesn't wake up?

Spike dreams.

Or does he? Because he doesn't usually dream smells. And the stink of the old London is as clear as in any blurry reality.

"Look hoo's awake."

His 1880 eyes open. Drusilla is straddling him, naked and holding a burning match in one hand.

"You know there is always a light that never goes out, William." she lilts.

Spike feels calm, even though he isn't sure whether he is vampire or human right now. All he knows is that Drusilla and the flickering match feel like a warm and steady presence after the seagulls and swirling ceilings.

He suddenly realises he's inside her. And he's not sure whether she feels icily cold or burning hot on his cock, but the feeling overpowers him and makes him gasp. There is no panic in this dream. He lets it ride.

Drusilla sings

"My luck is changing

I feel a raising deep in your head

And I'll scream when my ship has come in"

as she slowly moves up and then down on his hardness. Her movements are like waves. Spike even feels his body being pulled up with her rising and sinking with her sinking.

"Don't you know any other shanties?" he inquires.

Drusilla smiles as tightly as she does his cock, then she bends forward to burn her eyes into his and kisses him with unimagined tenderness.

"You're going to be alright, William." she coos. "And I'll be here forever if you want me."

Spike's heart flushes and he realises that he has his hands, so he grasps Drusilla by the hips and begins meeting her dips with his thrusts. He sees her eyes like he would see the sky.

Meanwhile, not far from there, on the Pacific Ocean, Angel is flicking through the digital pages of an iPhone app called SpellBinder. There are various spells for waking someone from unnatural sleep. But Angel worries that Spike's type of sleep is by natural laws and that he would make things worse if he tried any magic. His frown deepens and he sighs.

Maybe he should start thinking of rewriting at least part of the scenario into a solo mission. He could easily take out Barrett on his own. Snap the fishbone that is his neck as if it were a dry twig.

But what would Danny and Griffin think about one of their own getting offed like that? Should Angel inform them first? They may well be more loyal to their friend and species-mate than to him, and they would tell and Barrett would slip overboard in the rare blink of an eye, probably never to be found again.

Angel sighs. He needs Spike to be the eyes in his back. He really, really needs Spike.

"Oooh.." sighs Drusilla as Spike pushes her against the wooden wall, his kiss more like a bite now. He feels alive and eternal and everything is really simple. All she needs is his to take. So clear in unclarity. The fangs are out and the entire world howls as they go through several layers of skin and the grandfather clock goes tick tock when the sharp tips finally reach a pulsing vein.

Drusilla's blood is hot and millions of galloping metallic hooves clatter through his brain. His body heaves upward and the ceiling becomes incredibly tiny and far away. Her voice says "All yours. So all yours." as minutes, hours, days, centuries race by.

"Excuse me." interrupts Angel.

Everything immediately is a room again.

Spike stares over his shoulder at the implausible intruder standing by the wooden coffee table on the fancy rug-covered floor.

"What the bloody.. Why are you here? I didn't dream you." Spike sputters furiously, tiny spatters of blood flying from his lips.

Drusilla pouts "We were just having a moment, Angel."

Angel ignores her. "This is a dream, Spike."

"A dream?" Spike grimaces. "In what pathetic kind of sex dream would I voluntarily be having this piss-poor excuse of a conversation? Get out!"

"Listen!" Angel hisses, stepping forward. "You overdosed on those sea sickness pills and fell asleep right in the middle of an operation. I need you back on the ship right now or this whole thing will go to hell."

Spike roars in exasperation. "Ahhhhhh! Do you have to fucking ruin everything?" He already feels his adrenaline being redirected, away from this room, away from Drusilla.

"No!" Spike fumes, gritting his teeth as he crosses over to Angel and takes his stupid coat into his fists. Angel looks surprised as Spike pulls him off-balance and slams him down onto the floor.

"This is my party." Spike growls, making Angel's coat disappear on a whim, then grinning down at him as he pins him down. "And you'll cry if I want to."

Back on the ship, Griffin peeks into the cabin.

Spike is lying on the bed. Angel is slumped in the chair. Both of them twitching in an unquiet sleep.

"What are they doing?" Danny whispers from behind him.

"They sleep like humans do." Griffin grumbles with disappointment. "Maybe it's because the ceiling is too flat for their foot claws to find support."

"Oh." Danny replies. "Can you at least see their wings?"

Before Griffin can answer, both he and Danny are startled when the sleeping twosome simultaneously let out a deep groan and flutter their eyelids slightly.

"I think.." Griffin whispers ".. I think this is still a mating ritual."

"You're in my head now, mate."

Beyond the barrier of sleep, Spike is sitting naked on top of the still partially clothed Angel, calmly menacing him.

"Dunno how you got here, but you might as well get comfortable."

At Spike's command, Angel's shirt is shredded clean off in a few loud rips by unseen claws.

Angel looks helpless, frustrated and displeased.

His top half does, at least. A different point of view has begun to stir from below.

"Sometimes.." Spike grins "I like how predictable you are."

Angel is completely overpowered in this dream dimension, where Spike makes the rules. He knows he should be stronger than this. He knows he shouldn't be pinned down so easily. And it's surely Spike's dream mastery that is making him want to want this.

The idea of a mission is starting to become irrelevant. This place – this happening – this is everything. Spike's hands of burning coal on the exposed skin of his chest, eager to get branded. Nails tracing so deeply along his abdomen. And then his belt unbuckling, not by magic but by hands. What mission?

Through the great window in the western wall of the room, warm rays of sunshine are cast over the wooden floor, only inches away from the two men.

"You and I have never done this in broad daylight, you know." Spike says conspiratorially. "Makes sense. We're both big fans of not being on fire."

At the mention of burning, Angel's face betrays a twinge of panic.

"But here…" Spike takes Angel's wrist. "Now…" He slowly pulls Angel's balled fist into the sunlight. "We're free."

Angel only gets a few seconds to marvel at how the sun doesn't burn him, at how the golden light directly shines through his pores into his skin and gets carried through his veins through his entire body. Then a shadow blocks it out.

"Excuse me?"

Both of them look up at the second Angel standing over them.

Spike sits up, still on top of the first Angel, and appraises the newcomer. "Well, my subconscious is clearly in a partying mood." he grins.

"What are you doing?" second Angel asks, looking bemused and sounding embarrassed. "Wait, don't answer that. Just stop the show and come with me."

"Show's just begun, you Mary Poppins!" Spike cackles and whims the second Angel to lose his coat and shirt too.

Except it doesn't happen.

"What.." Now it's Spike's turn to look puzzled.

"You're dreaming, Spike. This is not London." the second Angel tries to break it gently, not wanting to turn Spike's dream into a nightmare. "This is not the sun. And that.. wait a minute, who is this guy?"

The first Angel notices he's been gawping stupidly since his double entered the room, but quickly snaps his mouth shut, and then sputters "I broke in here to get him out of here. You stay the hell away from us." Then he turns his face towards Spike questioningly, but Spike doesn't look like he knows what's going on.

"Look." second Angel says, "This is starting to freak me out a little bit. Spike, please get off… 'me' and wake up. I need you on the ship. We're both in the cabin right now. We're both asleep and vulnerable. Barrett or anyone else might be tying weights to our ankles as we speak, and getting ready to sink us to the bottom of – "

"Yeah, yeah, I got that part." Spike breaks in. "Boring. Why don't you two make each other happy for a bit?"

In a flash, the first Angel is standing naked in front of second Angel, peering into his double's eyes and sensuously slipping a hand over his hip.

"Whoa." second Angel backs away. "I think you should back off for a minute... uh, man. You're not even real."

First Angel takes a step forward and puts his hand back. "Does this feel unreal to you?"

Second Angel bats the hand away and starts to become annoyed. "I'm warning you. I don't have time for masturbation incest. I just came for Spike."

"Well..." first Angel husks, "You can have us both."

Spike has manifested himself a carton of popcorn and watches the bizarreness unfold with interest and great giddiness. Why had he never indulged his nappy time headspace theatre with this brilliant scenario before? Better than Passions, hands down!

"Listen, friend." second Angel spits, "You're a fantasy. And if anything happens to the guy that is conjuring you up as we speak, then that's a one-way ticket to oblivion for you. If you know what's good for you and for the delusional mind that sprouted you, you get out of my way now."

First Angel looks a little worried, but doesn't appear to be convinced. He reaches out to embrace his counterpart, who reacts with an angered grunt and a hard two-handed push that sends him – somewhat anticlimactically – crashing into the fluffy pillows on the comfy settee.

Spike is loving it. "Dru! Get back over here! You've got to see this epic battle of the ninnies!"

The two Angels are now circling each other like a pair of enraged French bulldogs, while occasionally throwing a cushion or a tea cosy at the other.

"You're not even worth fighting, you idiot! You are a figment! A thought!"

"Give in to what we both know we need, you imbecile!"

"Get your non-existent hands off me, you gimp!"

"That's not what your cock says, is it?"

Second Angel's eyes open wide and he looks down to inspect his own crotch, then gets suckerpunched on the side of his head by first Angel.

Holding a hand to his temple while staggering back, second Angel moans "Spike! Make him stop."

But Spike is too busy lighting a well-deserved smoke with the flames on his burning fist. So second Angel pretends to be stunned a bit longer than he really is, waits for the other to come one step closer, then grabs him by the hair with a viper-like reflex and cracks his face right into the coffee table, which gets smashed by the impact.

"Not the hair." first Angel snivels as he rolls onto his back, not sure whether to touch his nose or the top of his head.

Second Angel takes the opportunity to talk sense into Spike again: "We're both wasting time here, Spike. Don't make me stake this goon. It would feel really weird anyway, so don't make me do it. Come back to the boat before it's too late."

Then the first Angel smashes a teapot over the back of second Angel's head and takes over the talking: "I appreciate that you're in charge of your own head, Spike. But can you make this moron go away now? I'll stay here and play if you want, ok? After that, we can get back to the ship."

A glint of worry sticks in Spike's thoughts, like an annoying splinter. Even if these two Angels are his own imaginary playthings, they probably have a point. Then again, maybe nothing's wrong and their words come from his own guilty conscience that came as a package deal with the soul. Which would be a bit shit, suggesting that work and play are getting harder to separate for him.

Fact is, one of these two refuses to be directly controlled by his dreaming. What's with that?

Both Angels are stood looking at him expectantly.

Spike lounges naked on the lushest armchair in the room, looking back at the both of them.

"You." he says, pointing his cigarette at the second Angel, "How do you suppose you'd get out of my abode?"

"I used a spell to get myself in." says second Angel. "Came in through the backdoor of the house. It'll get us out of here too."

"This is a trap, Spike!" first Angel protests. "That door goes nowhere. If you go through it, you'll end up as vapour. Your mind will be gone."

"Uh-huh." Spike takes a drag. "And how would you get us out, number one?"

"Through the front door. No need to sneak around back alleys here." first Angel gestures disdainfully towards the back of the house. "That there is the coward's way in, and the coward's way out."

"Yeah." Spike gets up. "And I'm no coward."

Before the sentence finishes, Spike is suddenly stood right behind the first Angel, and punches a burning fist right through his chest, as if it had gone through wallpaper. The first Angel's eyes pop wide open as his body crumbles into gold particles.

Spike looks down at the pile of Angel dust, then opens his fist and lets the remaining few gold bits fall to the floor.

"Got bored of hearing myself talk." Spike turns to the remaining Angel, who tries not to look terrified. "Since I can't make you not be boring, and this tea and these crumpets are just here for show, why don't you lead the way?"

Angel looks doubtful at the pile of gold dust, then at Spike. "You know I really am me and not just a puppet, right? I don't know what would happen if you tried that on me, but – "

Spike sighs of exasperation and walks past Angel towards the back of the house. Angel apologetically follows.

"Well, here we are. Remind me to never get you a key to my place." Spike grumbles as he reaches for the doorknob.

He turns it, but nothing happens. The door doesn't budge in the slightest.

Angel frowns and tries the doorknob for himself. No luck. He pushes against the door with all his might. Still nothing.

Spike gives it his best kick, but it's like kicking a particularly strong undownkickable concrete wall.

"That's some solid carpenting." Spike says. "Wait. Don't tell me I dusted the wrong you after all."

"Rrrraaaaaa!" Angel punches the door as hard as he can, but only gets scraped knuckles for his efforts. He turns away from the door and leans his back against it and sighs. "SpellBinder specifically stated that we have to go out the way that I came in. It didn't say what we were supposed to do if the door turned out to be budgy."

He looks up at Spike. "Can't you just wake up?"

"I dunno. I feel pretty awake." Spike shrugs his naked shoulders.

"Try."

"I'm trying. I think I'm trying." Spike looks focussed and takes a couple of deep breaths. "Should I close my eyes?"

Angel groans. "This is pointless." Then his frown deepens for a moment. "Wait. There was something... among the footnotes under the spell description." With renewed hope, Angel reaches into his pocket. Instead of his iPhone, he pulls out a nice antique candlestick telephone which apparently somehow fit in his coat. The wire keeps coming out of Angel's pocket for a few feet, then ends in a clean cut.

"Great." Angel growls as he drops the old device to the floor with a loud clunk.

"Yeah, history is old-fashioned like that." Spike quips. "Can't you remember what it said in the notes?"

Angel turns his eyes to the heavens with a martyred expression on his forehead. "I didn't look at them for very long. Didn't think I'd need the small print for a simple search-and-retrieve mission."

"I don't get 'retrieved', you knob." Spike scoffs. "That would be like the damsel in distress saving the dragon."

"Yeah. Well." Angel sighs.

The two fall silent, thinking and pacing.

"Maybe we should try another door after all? There's another one that leads round back." Angel proposes.

Spike shrugs and they walk over to the other door.

The pair stand in front of it for a melodramatic beat. Then Spike grasps the doorknob.
"Here goes."

The door swings open with great ease and with a cute squeak.

Massive, enormous, astronomical blackness is all they see through it.

Angel leans forward in fascination, but is abruptly pushed back by Spike's hand on his chest. "Don't make me go retrieving you."

Spike shuts the door behind them and they head back to the other one.

There they lean against different walls and resume their quiet thinking.

A minute passes. Who knows how long in the waking world.

Spike suddenly squints. Specifically, his eyes narrow at Angel.

"You…" he says, raising an accusatory finger. "You didn't forget."

"Huh?" Angel is startled.

In the next blink of his eyes, Spike is right in his face. "What did the notes say?" he demands in a staccato manner.

Angel's lips part for two seconds, then close again.

"Well?"

Angel starts lifting his arms, then drops them in frustration and quickly says: "This might mean that the dream is unresolved or something."

"Unresolved?" Spike contests. "Whatever happened to waking up in the middle of a dream?"

"This isn't a normal dream." Angel looks about the place, his eyes briefly caught by a portrait on the wall. The woman in it looks familiar.

"So," Spike starts. "We've got to finish it."

Roughly at that moment, captain Kelpy gets a first ping on his deep-sea sonar.

"Yeah. So." Angel looks at Spike. "How are you going to finish it?"

"I said 'we'."

Kelpy's tentacle-encircled face leans over the machinery, and a device behind him loudly starts spewing out graphs on paper. He turns around and studies the peaks. Then he drops the ribbon of paper and staggers out to the front deck.

Danny, Griffin and Barrett are playing a game of Operation, which Barrett had specifically brought along for the trip. He had hoped that his extremely steady hand would have given him an extra advantage in combination with the waves of the ocean, but the sea is so still that it's turning out to be an evenly matched game after all.

With great care and wielding a pair of electrified tweezers, he is extracting the small white plastic heart-shape out of the cardboard patient's chest when the captain stomps onto the deck and Barrett flinches, causing the game to make a short but alarming buzzing sound.

"Aw nuts!" he exclaims in frustration.

"Be silent." Kelpy gurgles.

The three crew members raise their big black eyes up to the captain and they know.

Angel is backed up against the wall, Spike well and truly in front of him.

Spike's hand – still burning – takes the hand of Angel and pins it up against the wall. They exchange a look. And now Angel's hand ignites too.

With two, three rips, Angel's shirt is torn off by invisible hands, leaving no barrier between their chests. Spike blinks before he understands. He did that. He willed it. He curls the slightest hint of a smile at the realisation that the game has changed. Then his mouth lunges at Angel's and they clash and kiss.

Angel's mission was to search for Spike. And now he feels he is retrieving something far more. The simple nick of Spike's teeth on his bottom lip crushes every so-called importance that might lie outside this square meter into oblivion. It just sinks away, while he can almost feel his heart rising in his chest.

A rare moment of true gratitude comes to Angel as he realises so many perfectly matched people don't get the lucky hand of living in this world at the same time. Being born 50 years apart can already be enough to keep two soulmates separated forever.

So Angel, his lips and tongue too occupied, shuts his eyes tight as a way of saying thank you.

Spike's fire sometimes feels like a lonely thing to keep burning. He and Angelus did monstrous things for those two decades. He will never forget that. But he also remembers the joy that came with those horrible things. He never carried the flame alone then.

Spike remembers it. And now, with his sire's chest crushed to his, he feels the joy detach itself from the past horrors, and burn itself into this very moment instead. Happy to never forget. That it always was love.

They dream a whole afternoon and evening and night within the dream. Righteously and greedily, they bite, fight and look, so many times again, always like they've just started, but always different and always better.

One moment, with Spike on top, Angel well up inside him down there, is particularly better. Angel's girth does all sorts of good things as Spike's nails find themselves digging into his sire's shoulder and chest.

The next moment, equally better, Spike is doing Angel from the side, the both of them lying on the settee. He makes a shard of broken porcelain slowly cut a neat red line diagonally across Angel's chest, and Angel gasps. Spike eagerly and impulsively tries to lean over to lap up the spilling blood, but that just sends the both of them crashing awkwardly to the hard wooden floor, where they laugh like drunk. They stay on the floor and Spike gets his blood after all.

Kelpy, Griffin, Danny and Barrett are standing at the cabin entrance, anxiously waiting for the two vampires to wake up. They keep looking like they're about to jolt awake, with all the moaning and the occasional drooling, but they just can't seem to definitively snap out of it.

A strange little patch has grown on the crotch of the vampire in the chair. This does not look good. The captain shakes his head. The crew follow his example.

"Wow." Angel breathes, enjoying some of the last tremors as he rolls over to sprawl on the broken pieces of furniture.

"You and me both, mate." Spike chips in, puffing on a bent, almost broken cigarette.

"I can't even remember everything we just did." Angel chuckles. "I mean, is there much else?" He then pauses, thinks, and rolls his head sideways to look at Spike. "Did you ever see that movie From Dusk Till Dawn?"

Spike frowns. "I gave up watching movies about vampires after that Nosferatu remake. The franchise just bled out around that time."

"How did you know there's vampires in it?" Angel counters.

"I didn't. Just watched it for that Mexican bint." Spike shrugs.

"Hmm." Angel does a pensive semi-nod.

Spike tokes on his cig, then blows purple and red smoke from his mouth. "Nice pensive semi-nod there, Angel. You know George Clooney doesn't actually read his fanmail?"

Angel continues looking pensive. Spike sits up a bit and looks a little concerned. "Is that a brooding I see twinkling in your eye? Didn't take long, that."

Then Angel sighs deeply. "I won't be able to remember any of this."

"What makes you say that?" Spike asks.

"It's the spell. It's how it works. I get in, I influence your dream, then I get back out and everything I said and did here is left behind in your head." Angel hunches forward, hiding his mouth behind his folded hands.

Spike takes a second to ponder this. "But I'll remember."

"Yeah."

"Well, then nothing's lost." Spike lays a hand on Angel's shoulder, the burning touch soothing him. "My head's not going anywhere."

Angel wipes his eye. "When we wake up, don't tell me."

"Why the bloody hell not?"

"Later. You must tell me later." Angel says with determination and resignment. "There's just too much going on."

"Something I should know?" Spike puts out his cigarette and starts gathering his clothes.

"No, no. Just… office stuff. Lots of little things that amount to… stress." Angel starts looking for the shreds of his own clothing. "Just trust me on this one, Spike. Tell me later."

Spike, pulling on a Buzzcocks t-shirt, has his back turned to him now.

Calmly, Spike says "A man comes into a psychiatrist's office, dressed in plastic wrap." He turns around to face Angel. "Doc says to him: 'I can clearly see you're nuts.'"

Angel looks up at Spike and is about to frown, but then just smiles a little.

Spike swings his duster around his shoulders. "Let's go, Liam. I will tell you all the dirty little secrets you didn't know you wanted to hear. Later."

Angel stands up, suddenly noticing he's already dressed, exactly the way he was when he came in.

Danny is waving an open jar of pickles under the nose of sleeping Angel, while he and the rest of the crew look closely at any signs of a reaction.

"Maybe…" Griffin hesitates. "Maybe we should insert one of the pickles directly into one of his face holes."

Danny looks awkwardly over his shoulder, because his species don't have heads that turn easily, and says "I'm not doing that. It might kill him."

"GAH!" Angel wakes with a wide-eyed start, causing Danny to leap back and spill brine over Angel's trousers.

"What?" Angel looks down at the brine stains, then at Danny, then at the jar, then at the brine stains on his trousers again.

Captain Kelpy steps forward and warbles: "Our apologies, vampire. We urgently needed you awake."

Barrett chips in: "And this was the closest thing to garlic that we could find on board."

"Garlic?" Angel asks open-mouthed. "Am I still dreaming? Spike?" He looks over to see Spike sitting up in bed, rubbing his eyes.

"Yeah, don't worry. Your magic trick worked." Spike says, sounding a bit hungover. "We're back up." He then turns to Barrett. "Garlic?"

Barrett looks apologetic. "We figured that if it repels your kind, it might also serve to wake you up. We had already tried touching you with poles." Griffin and Danny nod to confirm this.

"Poles?" Angel touches his chest.

Kelpy then sticks his tentacled and salty-smelling face up close and gurgles "Please listen, Angel. We have arrived at our destination. The eggs are waiting below us."

Angel winces at the calamari-esque scent. "That's… great. We'll get changed now."

"Noooo!" Kelpy spatters. "You can't. We can't."

Spike asks "And why wouldn't that be?"

The captain turns to him. "Because the mother is here."

"Your mum… won't let you?" Spike frowns, still sleepy.

"Iä! Iä! Zharta has arrived to protect her spawn!" Kelpy gurgles dramatically and he stumbles up the staircase towards the deck. The three marine demons hurry after him, whispering excitedly.

Spike looks at Angel, but Angel is still inspecting his trousers. "Do brine stains come off easily? This one in the middle looks pretty bad." he fusses.

Spike rolls his eyes and walks over to the coatrack to get his duster. "You're going to get wet anyway, you prat. Now come upstairs with us, so we can finish this business. Glory and new trousers await you upon our return."

Angel nods, still a little dazed, then he peeks up the stairs to check if the crew is out of earshot. "Wait, Spike. How do we go about dealing with Barrett? They may be distracted by this Zharta creature. We could make it look like an accident."

"Staging a boating accident? Have you been looking at my Passions tapes?" Spike snorts, but Angel is already lost in tactical thought.

"What if we… nudge Barrett overboard and feed him to the mother?" he proposes.

"Make it look like he fell? Or went insane with adoration and leapt over the railing?" Spike adds.

All of a sudden, the boat gets a very distinct push by something that must clearly be very big. Angel and Spike are both thrown off balance, crashing to the hard cabin floor.

"Ow, bollocks!" Spike grunts, putting a hand to the back of his head.

Angel groans, but then quickly crawls back up and extends his hand to Spike. Spike takes it and is helped back to his feet.

"Come on." Angel leads the way to the front deck.

Up there, they find Kelpy on his knees, facing the water and gargling some sort of prayer. The rest of the crew are clinging to the railing, taking pictures of something with their phones. Angel and Spike rush across the deck to see what they are seeing.

Floating just underneath the ocean surface, a titanic orange starfish has attached one suckered arm to the hull of the boat. The thing must be at least twice the size of the vessel. And remarkably, it has a huge pulsating eye exactly in its centre, staring upward, but trying to roll itself in the direction of the people standing on the deck.

Also notable: the large mouths on each of the five arms. They are lined with square, but powerful teeth that gnash angrily at the intruders.

"Holy crap." Angel says.

"Sod this for a game of fish bait. This is madness." Spike shakes his head.

"This… is… ZHARTA!" captain Kelpy roars behind them, in religious ecstacy.

"Can we throw him in too?" Spike whispers.

"Come." Angel says.

The two tear themselves away from the spectacle and from the crew members in order to discuss their plan.

"Oh crud, my phone is out of disk space." Griffin moans.

"I am sure those 79 pictures will be enough to convince your folks." Danny says, grinning his long thin fangs bare.

Griffin still looks disappointed. "My dad always says the pictures in those novelty magazines are fraudulent. And photoshopped."

Barrett just looks down in awe and giggles. "This is not boring!"

A few feet back, Angel and Spike are whispering to each other.

"How sure was Gunn about this, Angel? The captain looks like more of a fundy than Barrett does. The guy's just being a tourist."

"Gunn knows what he's doing, Spike. If we don't stop Barrett now, he will take the next opportunity to sabotage the boat and dive down to steal those eggs."

Spike scratches his finely shaped chin. "What would he do with them?"

"I don't know. Hide them somewhere we can't find them, so they can hatch safely. And then no beach along the west coast will be safe." Angel turns to glare at the three excitedly chattering marine demons, who are starting to separate from each other in order to take pictures of the rest of Zharta's impressive bulk. "Why don't you distract the other two? I'll take out Barrett."

"This is my favourite maw!" shouts Danny with great excitement, clicking away at one of the creature's mouths with his mobile. "And the captain will be pleased to know that it is on the arm that is holding our vessel!"

"Take some pictures of this end too, so you can forward them to me!" Griffin shouts over to him.

"Very well." says Danny, just when his phone starts beeping back at him. "Uh, wait. I'm full too."

"Erase some of the pictures of the vampires!" Griffin insists.

"No way, Griffin! You erase those bar mitzvah shots that you've kept on your phone since '96."

Griffin spits on the deck in anger. Then he gets an idea.

He shuffles over to captain Kelpy, who is still lost in unintelligible prayer, and kneels beside him. After a few seconds of pretending to join him in worship, Griffin stealthily fishes a clunky-looking phone out of the captain's coat pocket. Then he quietly gets up again and skips back to the railing with a happy, terrifying grin.

"He'll have you keelhauled, you crazy monkfish." Danny warns him.

"I'll slip it back to him later. He's way too busy getting his religious freak on anyway." Griffin mumbles, turning the unusual phone over and over in his hands, not quite understanding this brand.

Spike casually leans over the railing inbetween them. "That's a satellite phone, mate. Doesn't look like it's got a camera on it."

"Oh. Crud." Griffin sighs with defeat.

"Sorry." Spike throws him a sympathetic look, then turns to Danny. "So… to the cap, this is some sort of god, I take it?"

"Oh yes." says Danny. "Zharta is one of only fifteen of these beings. Most of them don't even live on this planet. Besides her, there's just Fhogpka in the Arctic and Zhikotaj in the Pacific."

"Yeah?" Spike says, quickly peeking around to see where Angel is.

"Yeah. Our people do not see her as a goddess. She's just an endangered species. And she is hugely important of course."

"Is that so?" Spike replies absentmindedly, still trying to catch a glimpse of Angel or Barrett.

Danny's gills flap open and shut for a second. "Why else are we here?" he asks, a bit surprised.

"To… er… search and retrieve." Spike answers. "Obviously?"

Danny turns to him, his black eyes somehow darkening by a shade. "Retrieve? Retrieve what?"

Spike stares out over the ocean for a few seconds.

"Give me that." He snatches the satphone out of Griffin's hand.

Meanwhile, on the back of the ship, Barrett lifts the covering off a lifeboat and reaches inside it with his scaley hand. He pulls out a large satchel and turns around to suddenly find Angel right in front of him.

"Going for a solo egg hunt, Barrett?" Angel asks, purposefully blocking the demon's path to the water.

Barrett's mouth opens impossibly wide within less than a second, rows of long thin fangs exposed, and makes a savage lunge forward. Angel is taken by surprise. But not by that much surprise. He grasps Barrett by both wrists and keeps the snapping mouth well at bay. Barrett decides to go for plan B and knees Angel square in the balls. "Ee!" Angel squeaks and his grip weakens just enough for Barrett's wrists to slip free.

With amazing quickness and grace, the marine demon picks up the satchel, takes a run and leaps overboard.

"Idiot." Angel curses himself, still wincing but already gazing around the deck for a suitable weight. He spots something that might work. "Idiot." he curses again.

Barrett feels instantly at home in the all-encompassing embrace of Mother Ocean. On the surface, everything is coarse and far too loud. Below the waves, he feels like he can breathe freely, letting the water rush in through his gills, cleansing him.

He resists the temptation to make extravagant dolphin leaps and instead focuses on diving straight down. The sunlight fades behind him, the darkness of the ocean taking him in.

Until, when he approaches an unusually shaped reef, it gets brighter again. It's Zharta's nest. The turquoise glow of the eggs beckons him.

Barrett is not a religious person, but even he feels a thrill of great significance as he approaches them. The six large, oblong eggs are a mesmerising sight to behold.

Through an effort of will, he snaps out of this brief reverie. He opens the satchel and reaches for the closest egg.

Something huge and heavy slams into his back. Barrett tries to turn his head to see what it is, but a familiar fist that misses his temple by a millimeter already confirms his suspicions.

Angel lets the ship's spare anchor slip from his grasp, so he can fight Barrett with both hands.

Barrett makes use of the underwater advantage and this time he manages to sink his fangs into Angel's shoulder. Angel shouts bubbles and slams a fist into the demon's softer stomach area. This seems to slightly loosen Barrett's bite, which allows Angel to tug himself free, taking a few fangs with him. Barrett's aerodynamic arm shoots out and his fist catches the vampire right on the nose. He then backs off and forms a cross with his two index fingers at Angel, who is not impressed and pushes the weaker demon's body down onto the rocky reef.

Holding Barrett down with one hand, he drags the anchor closer with the other, laying the heavy metal bar across the struggling demon's throat. Angel pushes down.

Until a hand grasps him by the shoulder. Angel is startled and takes his weight off the anchor, turning around to face this new opponent.

It's Spike, his pale face coloured an intense shade of blue under the glow of the eggs. "Splrlk?" Angel bubbles questioningly.

Spike looks him intently in the eyes and repeatedly waves his hands outward in an abortive manner.

"Whrrt?" Angel bubbles out confusedly.

Spike takes his hand and starts pulling him up, away from the reef. Angel's instincts want to finish the fight, but he lets it go. Together, they start swimming upward.

Angel looks down for a moment to see Barrett having crawled back up and gathering the eggs into his satchel.

A little while later, two vampire heads with ruined hair break the ocean surface, spitting out a good amount of water.

"Spike!" Angel sputters. "What –"

"We were set up, for a change." Spike says, snorting water out of his nostrils and swimming towards the boat's ladder. "I used old Kelp's satphone to make a call because I got suspicious."

"What? I… Who did you call?"

"Gunn never slipped you any note."

Angel looks dumbfounded, but doesn't dare sound outraged anymore. "What are you talking about?" His memory is racing back through the earlier moments in the corridors of Wolfram & Hart.

"Well, mate, either that wasn't Gunn, which you should have smelled on him, or somebody else popped it in your jacket." Spike says, climbing up the rungs, Angel still treading water behind him.

"Somebody else?" Angel looks stupefied, then enlightened, then both things at the same time.

The Pfrffywj demon.

The red tail that brushed against him when it passed him by.

Pfrffywj demons can see twenty-three seconds into the future, so it could have foreseen his collission with Gunn, using that as a cover for the note that it planted in his pocket.

It feels a bit like a grasp at straw, but doesn't that happen to be exactly one of the traits of a typical Wolfram & Hart ploy?

"Are you coming up or should I start throwing you breadcrumbs?" Spike calls down from the deck.

Angel snaps out of his detectivey brooding and he grabs the ladder and starts climbing.

On deck, Danny and Griffin look at them questioningly.

"Where did you go? Where's Barrett?" asks Griffin.

Kelpy gurglingly interrupts: "He was chosen. Behold."

The captain points to Zharta, who has let go of the ship and is slowly floating away. By her side, a much smaller humanoid figure is swimming along, clasping a satchel in one hand.

Angel still looks lost.

"They sent us after the good guys, you berk." Spike explains. "Mother Starfish and her friends are like protectors of the oceans. Without them, all sorts of nasties would bubble up and take over the coasts. A bit like Baywatch."

Angel nods slowly. "So what about Barrett? He…?"

"You were right about him, mate. He is taking the eggs to a new place. A bit more off the map, so mum can incubate them in peace and quiet and with a nice cup of tea."

Along with Griffin, Danny and captain Kelpy, they watch Zharta and Barrett swim to safer pastures until they escape from the dim light of the moon.

"Alright." Angel sighs. "I guess that means we're done here... protecting the world from ourselves."

Spike looks amused. "Drinks all round, I take it?"

"I'll have blood!" Danny shouts. Angel and Spike both stare. Danny uncomfortably: "Hey, I just wanted to indulge your culture. If you're having something else, I'm fine with that too."

Captain Kelpy defuses the situation by handing out some beers. Griffin slips the satphone back into the captain's pocket as he is handed his bottle.

The now five-man crew toast to Barrett and they talk for a while, browsing through phone pictures of Zharta and – accidentally – a drooling Angel.

"So who offed those tourists then?" Spike ponders.

"My bet is that Wolfram & Hart decided to leak some blood into the waters in order to attract the sharks." Angel suggests, not really drinking his beer. "The sharks being us."

Griffin and Danny like this for some reason and smile at Angel.

Kelpy is the first to excuse himself. "We have two hours until dawn rises, gentlemen. I shall be off to get our vessel on her way. Expect us to reach the docks within the hour." He burps horribly and heads upstairs to the control room.

"I think we'll call it a booze-up as well." Spike says, standing up. "I've seen enough starfish pictures for one night."

Angel raises an eyebrow at him, but then goes with it. "Yeah, I think we will call it. Wouldn't want to… catch a few early rays. Besides, these clothes aren't going to dry themselves."

"Our board game fell and broke when Zharta rocked our boat. Can we use some urchins for game?" Griffin asks.

"Knock yourselves out." Angel says, getting up and following Spike to the cabin.

"Alright!" Danny and Griffin take some sea urchins out of a bucket and begin taking turns launching them at each other's foreheads as the vampires retire.

Spike is the first downstairs and he leans against the cabin wall as Angel descends.

"Got to hand it to Fred. Not feeling the least bit queasy." says Spike.

"With the amount you took, you shouldn't be feeling queasy for another year." Angel bites. "And while you were in La La Land, I was already trying to prep myself for a solo dive to one of my least favourite places under the surface." Angel sits down in the uncomfortable chair. "Three months in a sealed box saw to that, in case you'd forgotten."

Spike bites his lip and looks to the floor. "I didn't forget."

Angel looks at him and feels himself feeling sorry for Spike, for some reason he doesn't get, and he quietly says "It's alright."

The two fall silent for a couple of seconds.

Spike hesitates. "You had a really good time at my place tonight."

Angel blinks and looks amazingly vulnerable of a sudden.

His friend is reaching in his pocket for his pack of cigarettes, but the contents are obviously soaked and useless. "Sod that then." he mutters, then smirks. "More than it is."

"Your place?" Angel asks.

Spike clunks the pack of cigs in the bin. "Yeah, well, my brain. It's a fun place to visit, you know. Should come more often."

Angel doesn't know whether he should feel easy about this line of talk. Did he do something wrong while he was in Spike's dream reality? Another reason why he was reluctant to do the spell was that Spike had had enough unwelcome visitors up there already. So many wires to trip.

"Liam."

Angel throws a look into Spike's eyes. Thinks he sees something.

"Thank you." says William, "And you're welcome."

A few seconds pass. Confusion slowly disappears from Angel's face. A smile of acceptance finds its way to his lips.

"It was… fun?"

Spike strips his wet shirt off with a half-cocked grin.

"Believe it."