Liam doesn’t hold well with magic. Once he fucked the local witch girl--the one every village has, who makes the love potions, and delivers the babies, and gets rid of the accidental unborn. When, later, he dismissed her, she cursed him. He didn’t believe in curses--still doesn’t--but for two weeks after that he couldn’t sustain an erection. It was hell.

So when he’s told there’s magic been laid on him, that’s changed him, he’s not a bit happy about it. And when he’s told they all have to eat some kind of magic paste to make it go away, he’s not one bit happy about that, either.

He lingers about, waiting for the others to go first. If they drop dead or turn green and purple, or their cocks fall off, he’ll make a run for it. He’s pretty sure he can make it past all the shiny demons outside, especially now he knows he’s a vampire.

He’s not sure what to think about that, but he’s pretty sure he likes it. The easy strength, the sense of power. He misses his heartbeat, though. In retrospect, he wonders why he didn’t miss it right away.

The little ponce, the Englishman, seems to be hovering, as well, as if he, too, might be wary of the magic. He takes a few steps backward, watching the green devil give the potion to the slave, then suddenly stops. Mostly because he’s backed right into Liam’s chest.

“Get away from me, you English pig.” Liam’s voice still sounds strange to his own ears--the right timbre, the same phrasing, but no brogue. He can’t imagine what kind of magic would bother to take away his accent.

The Englishman--Wesley--jumps and takes a step away. “Oh, terribly sorry.” He looks Liam up and down, a little distastefully, then gathers himself and peers down his nose. “Are you going to bite me now?”

“Bet you’d like that, wouldn’t you?” Liam smirks at him. “Little poof.”

“I most certainly am not.” Wesley pulls himself up straighter, which just makes him look that much less masculine.

“Sorry, but I’m not seeing how anyone could get to be called--what was it?--Head Boy, without there’s been a bit of buggering.”

He can tell from the look in Wesley’s eyes that he’s hit right on the truth, square, and a bit too hard for Wesley’s comfort.

“Ah,” Liam says wisely. “I see you’ve been the buggered more than once. Am I right?”

Wesley regards him in haughty silence. Voices rise from the other part of the room; the big Negro man is arguing with the demon about the magic paste. Something about not being fooled by the Man even if the Man has horns. Liam is at a loss as to who the Man might be. Obviously, though, he’s not the only one with reservations about the spell.

Liam sidles closer to Wesley. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of. I mean, the priests’ll tell you it’ll send you straight to hell, but so will drinking and swearing and fornicating with women, so what’s the difference, eh?” He reaches toward Wesley’s hair as if to stroke it, then draws back. He can sense the timid fragility beneath Wesley’s bravado, and it amuses him. This one could be easily broken.

Wesley eyes him speculatively, though, eyes narrowing. “You’ve done that before.”

Liam snatches his hand away. “What? No, I haven’t.”

“Of course you have.” The shouting in the other room has grown louder. Liam wonders if someone is going to have to tie the Negro up to get him to take the potion. Wes looks back over his shoulder with an expression of mild disdain, then steps closer to Liam, maneuvering him farther away from the others. “I’ve read all about you, you know.”

Liam is taken aback, but he hides it in bravado. “Sure you have. I’m famous, right? Evil vampire of great renown…”

He’s grasping, but Wes latches onto this with enthusiasm. “Oh, yes, very much so. You started out life as Liam, son of a silk merchant in Galway. Then when you were Turned--that is to say, when you became a vampire--you changed your name to Angelus. Or perhaps your Sire gave you that name. It’s not at all clear in the histories. Perhaps you could clarify that point?”

Wes looks at him eagerly. Liam just lifts an eyebrow. “I’ve no bloody idea what you’re talking about.”

Wes frowns. “Really? Oh, of course. The spell’s set you back to before that, to when you were human.”

“So…you know things about me, about the vampire me, that I don’t remember m’self?” It’s exceedingly odd, but then what about this hasn’t been?

“Oh, yes, of course. You’re one of the more famous vampires. Angelus. Scourge of Europe. Brutal and vicious, merciless--" He breaks off and finally has the sense to look a little nervous.

Liam smiles. “Am I, now? That’s interesting.”

Wes clears his throat. “Yes. And then you came to America, stopped feeding, and no one knows what happened to you after that.”

This is puzzling. “I see.” Liam’s not sure what to make of that. “Well, let’s stay with the powerful, vicious me, then. I like the sound of that.”

“Ah, but we’ve lost my original point, which was to do with the buggering.”

“Oh.” Liam sorts back through the threads of the conversation until he fits all the pieces back together. “Right. Because you don’t get to be Head Boy without there’s a bit o’ buggering.”

“No!” Wes is indignant. “That wasn’t my point at all.”

“Then what was?”

“That you--Angelus--had a cadre, a family if you will, a group of vampires you surrounded yourself with. And you Turned other vampires, and kept them in your immediate family. And they weren’t all women.”

Liam shrugs. “And your point is?”

“That sexual relations among vampire families is not at all uncommon, and it’s certain that you enjoyed the favors of all the vampires in your cadre.”

“Not just the girls?” He knows he should find the thought appalling, but instead it’s just there, a flat fact. He senses it’s probably true, even though he can’t remember.

“Not at all.”

And now Wes is standing there in front of him, all prim and proper and insufferably smug, and Liam’s vampire self surges inside him. He can actually feel it, as it heaves up into his consciousness. It’s a strange sensation, and for a moment he’s certain he’ll lose control, let it take him over completely. Something holds it in check, though. He’s not sure what.

Not completely in check, though. He looks at smug, priggish Wes and smirks. “I’m likely quite good at it then, eh?” And, before Wes can move or protest, Liam grabs him by the back of the neck and kisses him.

It’s not too bad, he thinks. He particularly likes the way Wes mmphs against his mouth, and struggles to get away. He’s like a girl, one of those who says no but doesn’t mean it, who whimpers and tells you to stop while her hand’s down your trousers.

Suddenly Liam realizes Wes’ hand is down his trousers, and he’s stopped struggling. He draws back. Wes looks up at him, his blue eyes gone dark gray. He clears his throat.

“We’ve done this before,” he murmurs.

Liam studies his face. The little prat’s hand is curled around his cock, just resting there, and Liam has to admit he rather likes the way it feels. “Have we, now?” he mumbles back.

“Yes, I do believe we have.” Wes doesn’t seem terribly discomfited by the revelation. Liam isn’t, either, if he manages to be truthful with himself. He strokes the back of a finger up Wes’ neck.

“Perhaps I’ve put you up against a wall and had my evil vampire way with you, then?”

Wes swallows audibly, his eyes closing at Liam’s touch. “Perhaps…perhaps you have.”

“Perhaps you’re wanting me to do it again?” Wes’ skin is impossibly warm against his. It must be a side-effect of his own vampiric state. He still feels strangely cold inside, but his hand against Wesley’s neck is warm.

Wes just stares at him a moment. Liam knows that look. It’s the look a reluctant woman gets just before that moment of surrender, when she finally gives in to her lust. But Wes isn’t a woman, and Liam has a feeling there’s more to him than the weak, wavering prat. He remembers--but then he doesn’t.

Wes’ lips part softly, leaving Liam to stare at them. Slowly he says, in that soft English accent, “Perhaps…perhaps I am.”

Liam leans close to him, their lips almost touching. “English pig,” he says.

“Oh, God,” says Wes.

They’ve backed almost into the bathroom already: Liam grabs Wes’ arm and shoves him into the small room, closing the door behind him. It’s an indoor outhouse--he worked out that much earlier, when he’d been upstairs with the delectable Chase girl. Normally he wouldn’t tumble anyone in an outhouse, but this place is clean and shiny, and there’s no objectionable smell.

“Look,” he says, “Look at yourself.”

Wes does as he’s told, while Liam follows suit, taking in his features in the mirror. He’s haggard and needy, his eyes dark with lust. Liam stands behind him, but the place where his face should be is blank. Liam reaches around him and unbuckles his belt, letting his trousers fall around his ankles. “Is this what you want?” he asks, his voice silky smooth, butting his hips up against Wesley’s ass, his hard cock prodding.

Wesley’s lashes lower. They are thick and dark, obscuring his sapphire eyes. Liam runs his hands down his bare flanks, cupping the hip bones.

“And what would my father say to this,” he mumbles, smiling as he kisses Wes’ shoulders. “The height of debauchery, you think?”

The languid expression on Wes’ face goes suddenly dark, hard. He opens his eyes and looks at the mirror almost as if he can see Liam’s reflection there. “My father--" He stops.

“What about him?” He strokes the lean buttocks, shaping his hand to the firm, round muscle.

“Nothing.” But Liam can feel the tension in the young Watcher’s body, and he suspects what might have put it there.

“My father condemns in me most harshly those sins he commits himself. Is it so with yours?”

“Yes.” Wes’ voice is clipped.

Liam looks in the mirror. Ironic, he thinks, that the Watcher can’t watch. He unbuckles his own belt. The undergarment beneath is tighter than he’s used to, and unfamiliar, but it’s easy enough to shuck it to the floor. He presses against Wesley, his cock against the small of the Watcher’s back. The warmth arouses him.

He of course lied to Wes when he said he’s never done this before. He buggered the neighbors’ stable boy once, because the boy had wanted it, and Liam had wondered what it was like. The boy had been pale and freckled, redheaded, and he’d sucked Liam’s cock before Liam had fucked him. A nice bit of perversion, he’d thought at the time. Just something else to add to the long list of things that would send him to hell.

“Why’d you let them?” Liam asks softly. He reaches around to unbutton Wesley’s shirt, eases it off his shoulders, kisses him there. “Did you like it?”

Wes swallows convulsively. “I deserved it. Not quite smart enough to advance on my own, so I let them.”

“Seems to me you know quite a lot.”

“Yes, well, I was top of my class in academics.” There’s the prissy little prig again. “But there were other things.”

The smell of Wesley’s skin makes Liam’s strangely cool body feel suddenly warm. “Your father’s made you feel small,” he says. “Made you think you have to let yourself be humiliated, made you think you don’t deserve what you’ve rightly earned.”

Wes says nothing, and Liam knows from the silence that he’s hit the mark. He reaches around Wes to palm his cock, the erect shaft velvety in his hand. He eases the foreskin up, then back down, and Wes gasps.

“I want nothing from you,” Liam says. “I’ll give you nothing. Just my cock up your arse and your come on my hand. Is that enough?”

“Yes,” Wes chokes out.

“You want it, then? Even with nothing to gain?”

“Yes.”

Liam flicks his thumb over the head of Wesley’s cock. “No punishment, no reward. Just a fuck. You like that?”

“I…I think I do, yes.”

Liam reaches in, finds Wes’ opening and fingers the taut muscle. Wes’ breathing speeds up as his hips tilt back toward the contact. He reaches forward, grabbing an oddly-shaped dispenser from the sink. “Here.”

“What’s this?”

“It’s liquid soap. It’ll…ease the way.”

Liam nods. He supposes liquid soap is another of the strange new things in this place. It’s slick, viscous in his hand. He covers his fingers with it and resumes his exploration of Wesley’s arse. Within a few moments, he has three fingers inside, and Wes is shuddering against the sink.

“It’s not because you deserve it,” Liam tells him. He’s not sure when he decided not to taunt the Watcher with his need. Probably when he discerned the young man’s father was as much a hypocrite as his own. “It’s because you like it, am I right?”

“Yes.” Wesley’s hands clutch the sink.

“And should you be ashamed of that?” He turns his fingers inside the tight, hot passage, thrusts them deep inside, then slides them out again.

“Yes. Yes, I should.”

“No, you shouldn’t.” Liam butts his cock up against the soap-slippery hole and begins to ease inside. “There are all forms of debauchery. Some are just more pleasurable than others.”

He tips his hips and Wes opens to him, and his cock slides in. It feels good, all that tight heat, and he lets out a throaty gasp of his own.

“If you’re going to hell, anyway,” he says, and slides out, and pushes back in, “might as well enjoy the ride.”

Wes doesn’t seem to have much coherent to say at this point, so Liam just clasps his hips and gives him a good fucking. He looks up into the mirror, at Wes’ contorted features, and the blankness beyond where his own face should be.

Suddenly he’s completely, totally sure he’s done this before. Not in general, but specifically. Committed this act, with this man. Maybe even in a bathroom in front of a mirror that didn’t reflect what he remembers as a handsome face.

The sensation is disconcerting. He reaches around Wesley’s slim hips and palms his cock again, working the foreskin gently, then more firmly. His hips pulse as he thrusts into Wes, and he feels a little tremor begin in the other man. He recognizes the sign; Wes is about to come.

So is Liam. He angles his body so that his cock spears deep into Wesley’s tight channel, at the same time shifting Wes’ erection over the sink. They orgasm almost simultaneously, Liam into Wes, Wes in a creamy white arc into the pale yellow sink.

They are still for a moment, locked together, then Liam runs his thumb over the head of Wesley’s cock, and Wes shivers.

“Wes--" Liam begins, but is interrupted.

“Wesley! Angel-cakes! Where are you? It’s your turn.”

It’s the green demon, calling from the hotel lobby, and apparently it’s time for them to go receive the potion. Liam draws back, sliding out of Wes. He leaves his hands on Wes’ hips for a moment, then relinquishes that contact, as well. Wes clears his throat and pulls his trousers up. He retrieves a paper towel and cleans himself. Liam dresses, as well, watching Wesley’s efficient but somehow furtive actions with interest.

Hesitantly, Wes finally looks at Liam and pokes a finger against the bridge of his own nose as if pushing at something that isn’t there. “Well,” he says, “I suppose there’s nothing really to say. We should go.”

He adjusts his disheveled shirt and leaves the bathroom. Liam takes one last look at the blank mirror and follows him.

***

Later, Wes seems unable to look Angel in the eye. Angel isn’t sure what he would say, anyway. “I’m sorry,” wouldn’t be right, or enough. Nor would “Thank you.” So he takes what perhaps is the coward’s way out, and follows Cordelia, and lets her rip his heart out.