| |
Follow Me Down
by Josey
"Souleater. Goes by the name of Hashim."
Spike stares at the card - only just missed a puddle of beer, the git - and then raises
his head to glare at the messenger boy.
"Where?" he growls.
"Docks. Leastways, that's where he meets and greets," the kid says and then bends
closer. "Those guys can rip the timespace continuum apart with their bare hands,
they reckon. That's how they remove souls. Reach back through time and just..." he
makes a wrenching gesture with a clawed hand to demonstrate.
Spike blinks and not just from the waft of stinking breath that smothers his face. The
boy sits down, still rattling on about stuff Spike hardly understands and doesn't care
to. He's got other things on his mind. He's wondered, suspected, but - surely Angel
wouldn't do it. Not after everything... but the card lies there, a physical manifestation
of Spike's darkest fears.
"Ta, mate," he says finally, pocketing the scrap of cardboard and stands up to leave
without ceremony.
"Hey, you're him, aren't you," the kid says as Spike's features become visible in the
dirty yellow light of the empty bar. "You're that vamp from LA. I heard you were
dead."
Spike has him slammed up against the wall before he can blink. "You wanna try that
again?" he snarls. Just what he needs, some snivelling arsewipe bleating to the
demon masses.
The human whimpers and a distinct scent of piss fills the air.
"Oh, for fuck's sake!" Spike releases him, stepping back to avoid the growing puddle
on the floor.
The kid slumps to the ground, curling around himself and stinking of terror. And
Spike's hardly done more than flash a fang at the idiot. Back in the day he'd have
ripped the little blighter's head off, but that was then and this is now and that's all
water under the bridge. These days Spike doesn't do that. However tempting it is
when the food is cringing at his feet and babbling in terror.
Glaring down in disgust, he pokes the kid with the toe of his boot and says, "Just... I
dunno, just don't say anything, ok? `Cos, if you do, I'll...I'll come back and eat you.
Right?"
The snivelling makes it a bit hard to understand the answer, so Spike assumes he'll
keep it to himself and stalks out of the bar. Not like it'll make much difference if the
kid does blab anyway. If Angel's done what Spike thinks he has, then the world's
hanging on by its finger nails and well on its way to taking the fast track to hell
anyway.
There's an office in the docks behind a once locked door. Not so locked now. More
caved in and spread around the room along with everything else.
Spike hesitates before entering and tastes the air. The place is trashed but there's no
scent of blood, and that's a good thing, right? Angelus would have ripped the
souleater's head off, sure as eggs are eggs.
He enters cautiously and looks around for glowy portals straight off the set of Star
Trek but there's no sign of anything untoward. Just your run of the mill chaos
resulting from one fucked off vampire from the look of things. Furniture upturned and
papers strewn everywhere.
Poking through the scattered remnants of the business is a relief and a
disappointment all at once. That Angel has definitely been here, meaning that he's
managed to pick up his trail again, makes Spike want to howl at the fucking moon.
But there's this nagging feeling at the back of his mind - his own demon maybe -
suggesting that Angel has the right idea. `Cos it's gotta be easier facing eternity
soulless and riding the whirlwind than drowning in the memories of each and every
victim, and watching, helpless, as your friends get ripped from your hands by old age
and human frailty.
"Who seeketh the knowledge of the souleaters?"
Spike jumps at the sudden intonation and then curses loudly. "Where the hell did you
come from?" The creature is humanoid, but with eyes the colour of bile and skin like
the inside of a cheap Japanese car - Illyria - Spike doubts it's more than a passing
resemblance.
It pulls itself up to its full imposing height and starts up again. "From the pits of hell
and beyond. From before the ages-"
"Cut the mystical crap, Papa Smurf. `M a vampire, not a bloody schoolboy."
The creature glares at him, and then drops the attitude. With a heavy sigh, it rights a
chair and slumps down into it, unwinding the cloth from round its face.
"If you were looking for Angelus," it says, "you are too late. He has been and gone."
"Guessed as much," Spike answers, finding his own seat and wedging it against the
wall when a leg falls off it in transit. "Something about the general wreckage and
rubbish gives it away."
A sad gaze darts around the room and a crinkled face takes on an expression of
deep mourning. "This is going to take forever to sort out," the creature says. "I don't
suppose you know of a good cleaning firm."
"Not from around here, so the answer's no. And I reckon you'd be Hashim, yeah?"
"I am he."
Pretentious, that's the word Spike's been looking for, and he hasn't got time for it.
"Look," he says, "I'm sorry the stroppy git gave your place the once over, but I'm not
here to play cleaning fairy. Just give me the crib notes and I'll be out of your hair."
"It didn't work, if that is what concerns you," Hashim answers. "The anchor to his soul
was beyond my power to dislodge."
Spike sifts his pockets for a cigarette and then remembers he still needs to pick some
up. "Not able to give the old man a happy?" he says, deciding to mock rather than
take this chap seriously. "Not much of a souleater, are you. Reckon even I coulda
taken a good stab at that."
"The curse is no longer in effect. Angelus' soul is now bound to him with ties stronger
than those the gypsies could conjure. And technically I am not a souleater. However
the title is useful in bringing work my way."
Spike doesn't hear anything past the mention of the curse. If that was gone, then had
Angel decided that life was worth living after all? Perhaps headed out for Rome and
Buffy? That would be something of a mixed blessing. No Angelus, but no Angel
either, and Spike doesn't fancy facing eternity alone with his ghosts any more than
Angel did.
"Don't suppose he said where he was heading?" A long shot, but worth it.
Hashim glances up from a handful of paperwork and frowns. "There was mention of
the sceptred isle, if I recall correctly. And possibly a witch."
Willow. The one person who knew Angel's soul better than he did.
"Thanks," Spike says and stands up. The chair slides to one side and falls apart. He
goes to leave and at the last minute gets hit by a stab of guilt. He stops and turns
back, waving a hand at the mess. "Um, good luck with the cleaning, yeah."
Without Wolfram and Hart's super powered private jets, getting to Europe is a risky
business. It takes Spike three days to track down someone who'll pack him up in a
coffin and send him over via freight. Not the most comfortable way to travel, but safe
from stray sunbeams.
He wakes up in Heathrow, lies still whilst he's x-rayed and waits till his senses tell
him it's night before breaking open the lid and doing a runner for the perimeter fence.
A car nicked from the long stay car park sees him into London and by dawn he's
outside what used to be the Watchers' HQ.
Course there isn't much left of it these days, but lacking ideas, Spike opts for
anywhere, even a blown up anywhere, being better than nothing. Hopping over the
barricade, he wends his way through the ruins looking for a place to hideout.
It's kinda sad, the mess. The building was old, one of London's finest, and to see it
this way, gutted like a stinking corpse, makes Spike yearn for the old days of cool
tiles floors and marble fireplaces, when a maid brought you tea and lunch at the club
was only three shillings.
There's a thrill of magic in the air - not surprising given the nature of the former
tenants - and it's enough to stop him from resting easily when he does find a room
that still has four walls and a ceiling. He amuses himself shifting rubble and
wondering why the place hasn't been levelled and rebuilt. Red tape, probably. With
the Council gone, there wouldn't be anyone left to give the all clear.
The spell hits him without warning, wrapping him up in vines of power that lift him off
his feet and slam him into the ceiling.
Fuck! He shoulda realised the place'd be booby-trapped. Stupid, stupid.
Wriggling doesn't make a blind bit of difference but he's like a wolf caught in a snare,
willing to chew off his own foot to get free. He braces his boots against the
waterlogged plaster, scrambling to get a grip, and manages to loose one arm and the
top part of his torso. Not a hell of a lot of help. It leaves him dangling head down with
his hand flopping wildly as the magic tries to claim him again.
The dance continues and over the next several hours Spike manages to free both his
legs and both his arms, unfortunately never at the same time, and he's starting to
understand how a fly feels in a spider's web. He's also covered in plaster dust and
probably looking like a skinny and very pissed off version of Casper.
"I wouldn't bother," a familiar voice comes from below him. "It's strong enough to
hold... whatever you are. And I do know what you are, even though I can't remember
right now. So if you're thinking of causing any monkey business, you can keep right
on thinking, `cos that's powerful magic you're dealing with there."
Only one person babbles like that. "Willow?" Spike says, twisting round so as to see
his captor.
"You know me?" she says and comes into view. She looks older. Faded. More so
than Spike expected from the five years since he'd seen her. Human youth is so
tenuous, so fleeting.
"Yeah, reckon you do," he says. "Since we lived cheek to cheek for months at the
Slayer's house."
"Spike!" The squeak would have given her away even if the face and babble hadn't.
"The one and the same. So how's about you let me down and we spend a happy
minute or so exchanging notes."
"But you're dead," she answers. "Twice. Not that I saw you, but Buffy said, and then
Andrew said you were back. But he didn't tell Buffy, cos he said that you said he
shouldn't. And there was that nasty sucking power vacuum in LA and you and Angel
vanished and we all thought that... "
She isn't making a move towards letting him down and Spike sighs, resigned to the
interrogation before he's allowed to go free.
At last she stops for a breath and he leaps in quickly. "Yeah, yeah. Burnt up, came
back a ghost. Got kicked out of LA and went to ground for a bit. But now I'm back, so
do us a favour, love, and let up on the mojo. `M starting to feel like a bloody blue
bottle up here."
"Oh, sorry."
The magic lets go with as much warning as when it snatched him up. One second
he's on the ceiling and the next the air's shoved out of his lungs when he lands belly
up on the rubble.
"Thanks tons," Spike manages to gasp and staggers to his feet. A shower sounds
real good about now, but that's not gonna happen `cos he really needs to find Angel
and fast. "So," he says as he scrapes dried plaster from his face, "you've not seen
Angel stuck to a ceiling anywhere, have you?"
It turns out she hasn't, but she does have a flat with a shower half a mile away. Spike
follows along like an abandoned puppy, and finds himself an hour later dressed in an
old terry towelling bathrobe and sipping tea in Willow's living room. While his clothes
do the Hotpoint dance, they chat happily, exchanging gossip and news. Four years in
Angel's increasingly monosyllabic company has left Spike with a surplus of words he
didn't know he had and he throws them at Willow.
She asks about Fred, reminiscing about how they had so much in common and how
Fred would have been a much better bet than Kennedy, who apparently didn't last
out the next apocalypse. Spike tells her briefly about Illyria, making it as painless as
possible and hinting at benign possession rather than the annihilation of Fred's body
and soul. Then he explains how their new ally had met her end dragging him and
Angel out of the chaos next to the Hyperion and buying them enough time to escape.
Spike doesn't think she understands, but that's okay; you really had to have been
there.
Finally the conversation gets around to Captain Forehead and Willow says, "How
long has he been missing?"
"Six months, give or take," Spike answers. "Woke up one evening and he was gone.
Bastard never even left a note."
He sips his drink and doesn't tell her how it felt, reaching out for the comfort of
another body and finding Angel's side of the bed empty. He'd known there were
problems but had somehow missed the extent of them.
"I could do a location spell," she suggests and immediately starts fussing around for
the ingredients. This is nothing new to either of them. Willow at her mojoing best and
Spike hanging on for the ride. Reminds him of the old days and he gets nostalgic
until he remembers the rest of the shit that went along with Scoobydom. That he
doesn't miss.
The spell turns up nothing locally, and Willow extends her search across the country.
It takes a while - she has to recharge before each casting - so, when his clothes are
dry, Spike slips out to buy some fags and blood.
When he gets back, there's a telltale burn on the road atlas and Willow's looking
confused.
"He's in the Cotswolds. Why would he be in the Cotswolds? Glastonbury would make
sense, or Avebury, but the Cotswolds, not so much. I mean, it's pretty and
everything, but there's nothing there except dry stone walls and tourists, so why
would he go there?"
"There is something there, pet," Spike says with a sinking sense of dread. "A hole in
the world. Jam packed with nasties that make the likes of Glory look like a walk in the
bloody park."
She stares at him, agape for a second, before collecting herself and asking the exact
same question Spike is asking himself. "But why would Angel go there, if he still has
his soul?"
Soul or no soul, Spike isn't about to give up. He's been tracking the bastard for too
long to turn his back and walk away. And if he blames himself for Angel's
depression? Well, he's not admitting it. Not even to himself at the height of noon
when he's tucked up in the witch's bed surrounded by cushions more colourful that
New Year's in Time Square.
Willow wants to contact the Council - Giles and Andrew - or Buffy, but Spike digs his
heels in. If the daft git has managed to misplace his soul somewhere between Boston
and the Cotswolds then Spike doesn't want anyone else to know. It's gonna be bad
enough having to do it himself, plunging a stake into the solid wall of muscle he's
spent the last four years clawing at with desperate fingers. God knows, it would kill
Buffy to have to do it again.
They fight about it - hurling resentments that have been saved up for years - and
finally agree that Spike is right, for now at least. Willow lends him her car and
reserves the right to call a war council if he's not back in three days. That's fair. If
he's not back by then, the chances are he's not coming back and Spike doesn't want
to dwell on that
The M4 is gridlocked, so Spike takes to the back roads, balancing the map across his
lap as he throws the little Punto around winding corners and along narrow lanes that
laughingly claim to be main.
Three hours later and he dumps the car - parks it carefully in case Willow decides
he'd look better with whiskers and a tail - and heads off on foot. The wood is just how
it was the last time he was there, and when he sees the door - Christmas land -
there's a long moment when he cannot move. Memory roots him to the spot as
solidly as any tree. Fighting the warriors, trying to save Fred, Illyria rising from her
liquefied remains, Drogan, Wesley, Gunn. Too many gone. Irreplaceable.
His entrance is less grand, and quieter, this time. Without Drogan to badger, Spike
can hear the hush in the caves; the sort of quiet you get just before kick off, like the
world is holding its breath. Roots have grown down through the maze of passages,
but he doesn't have to search out the way because someone - Angel, Spike can
smell him - has ripped a way through leaving a trail even a blind wombat could
follow.
All too soon he's on the bridge and staring down into the Deeper Well. `A burial
ground, a resting place of all the remaining old ones,' Wesley's voice says, conjuring
up scents and feelings Spike thought buried after this long time.
It was nine months out of a life that's lasted nigh on a hundred and thirty years, and
yet in that short span of time, Spike had a place, of sorts. People he could call
friends, have a drink with and a bitch to, and that was a first in this life or the last. As
always, his thoughts bring him full circle back to Angel and the reason for being here
in the first place; rescuing the prat from himself or staking the insane bastard who'll
be poncing around in Angel's stead.
With a banshee wail, that doesn't ever make it out of his mouth, Spike launches
himself off the bridge and, Tarzan-like, starts his journey to the centre of the earth.
The texture of rotting wood is strangely reminiscent of flesh tearing under his fingers
and the smell is enough to make him gag if he takes an inadvertent breath. He leaps
from coffin to coffin, spiralling downward until the torches on the bridge recede into
the distance and the darkness swallows him. Without that man made light, Spike
expects to be blind - even a vampire requires some light to see by - but he isn't. The
roots glow, a cool and sickly green, just bright enough to allow him to make the next
jump and scramble.
At first he thinks the sounds are echoes of his own progress being thrown back at
him by some acoustic trick. But when he stops for a breather, lighting a cigarette and
pointedly not looking around him, they continue. The slither of leather over skin -
snakes, he thinks with a shudder - and a chitinous rustle that brings to mind giant
cockroaches. It shouldn't be a surprise. After all, there are creatures who can make
their home anywhere and a graveyard is a good source of protein.
Leap, land, scramble, and prepare for the next. Leap, land, scramble. The routine
continues, numbing his brain by rote. Leap, land, scramble.
He slips once, and clutches at something - anything - to break his fall. Though he's
unsure if he will fall forever. Can you fall through the world? Surely gravity will stop
pulling him down eventually. But then he's thinking rationally, and there's nothing
rational, nothing scientific, about this place. It's probably older than gravity.
In fact, Spike reflects as he's hauled up by something that could only be a skeletal
arm, he wouldn't be at all surprised if the planet itself had formed around this charnel
house. Layers of rock accreting around the Old Ones and turning this chafing piece
of grit into the malevolent pearl it is today. After all, if Illyria bestrode dimensions and
galaxies, why should the others be any different?
It's not a comforting thought, so Spike shoves it aside and concentrates on not falling
again. There'd been something deeply disturbing about the skin on that helping hand,
the one that had caught and held him tight until he broke the fingers loose. It had
been warm and alive, and that meant... No, he isn't going to think about it.
Back to jumping between the coffins. Repetition becoming rhythm, and rhythm,
poetry.
I miss you, Angel,
You stupid prat.
But you've all the sense,
Of a bleeding cat.
On `cat', Spike lands on grass rather than wood, and looks up to find he's no longer
in the well. A meadow stretches out on all sides, sun drenched - though there's a
distinct lack of burning up - and off in the distance a couple of kids play chase. The
boy, older by several years, swings his little sister up into the air and she shrieks,
"Flying. Like an angel, Liam."
And Spike recognises the young man. He never thought to see Angel in sunlight. At
least not unless it involved holding dimensions or necrotinted glass. Though perhaps
it's the smile on Angel's face that makes all the difference. It's carefree, in a way that
Spike has never seen before. The smile of a young man on the cusp of adult life.
He takes a step towards them and immediately teeters on the edge of a coffin, his
arms pin-wheeling to prevent him pitching face first down the chasm. The meadow is
gone and he's back in the obscene glow of the well.
Okay, that's... odd, even for this place.
Curious, Spike steps back and is in the meadow once again. Forwards, the well.
Back, the meadow. He tries it a few times and on each occasion the siblings are back
where they started, playing chase around the hedgerow. It's like a haunting, or a time
loop, like the one Buffy told him about with the mummy hand. Except it isn't real
people trapped inside this loop. It's echoes of real people. Memories.
Shaking off the strangeness, Spike continues to descend, more cautiously now. If the
meadow isn't a one off, he doesn't want to find himself doing a headlong flight to
Australia because he's tripped over memory-Angel's big feet.
The journey continues for hours. He's left the bridge miles behind and everything, up
and down, looks identical; shadows of coffins poking out of root covered walls. It's
disorientating. At times he isn't sure if he's travelling in the right direction.
How far is the earth all the way through? For several minutes, Spike amuses himself
with trying to work out the diameter of the earth from the circumference. He's pretty
sure it has something to do with pi, but that's the limit of his memory.
Leap, land, scramble, and this time he's in a room. Cozy and firelit, and curled on the
couch in front of the flames are Angelus and Darla. She's reading to him, something
in French, and he's drawing her. There's a sense of contentment, like a big cat lazing
in the sun after a particularly satisfying feed.
Spike remembers this. Not from personal experience, but he remembers Angelus
telling him about how Darla used to read while he drew her and how those times
were treasured moments of quiet in the whirlwind. It had seemed wrong at the time -
Angelus was the centre of the whirlwind after all - but now Spike thinks he's
beginning to understand.
Three more encounters - Lolita-Buffy sucking a lollipop on the steps of a school,
Angel holding a baby, and a night from not so long ago that makes Spike want to
scream as he had then - and Spike's now sure he understands.
He stops again and perches, cross legged, on the end of a coffin to think about it. Lit
cigarette in one hand and an old photo of Angel clutched in the other, he ponders the
meaning of these flashes of reality. They're happy memories and, if Spike's grasped
the wot of it, then Angel's shedding them as he moves deeper into the well. The
question is, are they being given up willingly or taken from him?
He's so busy thinking that he misses the tendrils of throbbing darkness slithering
down the walls, completely fails to notice the way their pulsating tips search him out.
If Spike had seen them then something about the way the darkness exudes
awareness would have alerted him to the danger and sent him dashing off to a
further, safer seat. But he doesn't see them. He sits, smoking his way through his
packet of fags, thumb rubbing restlessly over the photograph of the lover he's found
far too recently, and the rest of world can go hang while he takes his precious time
out.
At their first touch, the picture and cigarette tumble from his nerveless fingers and fall
together into the rank depths because Spike's no longer there.
He's home. With mother. And she's teaching him to read. His heart soars with
pleasure as he discovers words for the first time
He's reciting his Greek lesson for father and watching pride suffuse the old man's
face.
He's making love to Drusilla.
To Buffy as the house falls around them.
Drinking with Charlie-boy.
Loving Angel and being loved in reply.
And when the darkness withdraws, glutted and replete, Spike feels simply cold.
After what seems like forever he continues down. It's the same rhythm - leap, land,
scramble - but it's lost any meaning. Why is he here again? Trying to help the one
creature who has never given a damn about him. There must be a reason but Spike
is buggered if he can remember what it is.
A mantle of depression settles around him as he travels. Everything seems pointless.
He's never been happy, never been loved, never been looked upon in friendship or
kindness. Several times, he considers giving up; turning his face to the wall and
letting the future drift away.
But he doesn't. It's not in his nature to give up. Fists and fangs, and fuck all hope,
that's what gets the blood pumping in Spike's world. And there's a part of him,
carefully cultivated over the years, that finds motivation in the strangest places. With
no kind words left to recall, Spike conjures up memories of insults and punishments
to sustain him.
So leap, land, scramble. Leap, land, scramble. And, is it him, or is there a sound
above the slithering insects that have become part of the scenery. Spike pauses,
poised above the abyss, his coat stirring in the slight breeze that carries a charnel
stench up from the depths, and listens.
Then he leaps. Faster now. His movements verging on frenzied as he scrabblejumps
from ledge to ledge, corkscrewing his way around the well towards the frighteningly
unfamiliar source of noise. Several times he teeters on the edge of a fatal fall, but
hands hold him firm, pulling him back from disaster. The same warm skeletal hands
as before. Only now he does not try to break free gently. He simply lashes out,
shattering bones, leaving skin shredded and tendons dangling. Because the voice he
hears is Angel and the sound, a lament.
"How ya doing, mate," Spike asks, kneeling down and giving Angel the visual once
over.
He's is a mess; emaciated and, Spike notes, probably hasn't had a sniff at a wash
cloth since he left. Strings of hair, lank and filled with dirt and leaves, cling to his face,
a face contorted with despair. He's sitting on a mud ledge, staring up into the
darkness, his mouth open, sometimes soundless, sometimes spinning half formed
words of mourning. One hand rests on his thigh, the other is clawed into the lid of a
coffin, gripping something Spike can't identify.
Angel doesn't answer. In fact there is neither acknowledgement nor recognition, and
for some reason this cuts Spike to the quick. He shouldn't be surprised. Their
relationship has always been difficult, a twisted mimicry of familial love and lust with
added depths of hatred, resentment and ever present jealousy. And yet Angel's
reaction hurts.
There's good here though. At least he's found Angel, not Angelus. Whatever else the
old man's been up to, he hasn't succeeded in getting rid of his soul.
Spike slumps down next to him, back to the wall, legs drawn up, and follows Angel's
line of sight, frowning as he seeks to make out exactly what has captured his
grandsire's attention.
Nothing is clear. The darkness above is as profound as that beneath, as though
they're sewn into a giant bag and the entirety of their world is this small space, ill-lit
by root-light.
"Not exactly what I'd call riveting," Spike says, as much to hear a voice as to begin a
conversation. "Kind of on the boring side actually. And while we're just sat chatting,
you do realise I've gotta get you back up there somehow."
That's a less than pleasant thought. The journey down has been hard, but it's a
Sunday jaunt by comparison.
"You're gonna have to get off your fat ass and give me hand - or both legs to be
more accurate - cos I'm not lugging your enormous brooding self back up on my
lonesome. There's a limit to even my generosity."
As he speaks, Spike reaches out to pat Angel's leg - showing he's kidding - and, as
they touch, he suddenly sees with different eyes.
The world is made anew. Blazing with colours that defy mortal perception. Degrees of
darkness, textures of immortality. And the well is alive with movement.
Shades erupt from every coffin, spilling out into the chasm and writhing in dances
that bend the mind. They are beyond vast. The earth cannot contain them and she
doesn't even try. Their limbs encompass the Milky Way, their eyes glint with the light
of dying spiral galaxies.
Yet, at the same time, each is constrained, anchored to its place of rest and unable to
exert its will upon the physical realm. Talons reach for and pass through matter,
maws open and gnash impotently as neighbours contend for space.
There had been hints in Illyria's words - I walked worlds of smoke and half-truths -
but nothing to prepare him for this. They are more than any mind can comprehend,
except, perhaps their own, and Spike sits, slack jawed and staring, as reality unknits
around him.
It takes him the longest time to fathom the perspective of it, but eventually he sees
what's actually there. And there's a whole lot more than just old gods throwing a
hissy fit.
Around the well figures crouch in every crevice, lining the walls with living gargoyles
and in the chasms between float bubbles of true colour. Spheres of memory,
thousand upon thousand of them, like those he walked through, spinning in hapless
circles and riding storms of power.
Most of it is happening too far away for Spike to observe closely, but just below them
there are ledges he can reach without breaking contact with Angel. He slithers
forward and leans over the edge, straining his eyes to pick out tell tale details.
The creatures below are a motley bunch. Fangs, horns and spiny protrusions testify
to their demonic nature. Everything from vampires to some right obscure breeds
Spike's only ever seen in books. But they have one thing in common. They're
skeletal. Nothing but skin over bone - was it hands like these that stopped his fatal
fall?
As he's watching, a shadow talon sweeps past. Claws grasp and one creature jerks
to life, shooting upright, its face rictus, limbs twitching, puppets controlled by invisible
strings, and Spike watches as the creature starts the dance macabre.
It's terrifying. And awe inspiring at the same time.
But even infinity loses its charm after a while and when one memory flies past and
rebounds off the wall above his head, Spike sniggers. Einstein woulda taken one look
at this lot and burst into tears.
He crawls back to Angel and nudges him in the ribs. "S'alright, I guess, but Becks
can curve a ball better than that."
There's still no response and this is starting to get bloody annoying. It's like being
stuck in that scene from The Matrix and Spike reckons that makes him Neo - `nother
one that nicked the look, tosser - being as how he's the only one functioning on all
four cylinders in the fucking place.
And Neo being the hero means that Spike needs to get his own heroic arse in gear if
he doesn't wanna get left looking like wanker by Keanu.
"Up and at `em," he says, leaping to his feet. He grabs Angel's hand and Angel
comes with him to the extent of his arm. After that, he moves no further, stuck to the
coffin or whatever it is he's hanging on to.
Grumbling to himself, Spike wraps his fingers around Angel's to pry them loose. They
lift, one at a time, revealing a gem embedded in the coffin lid and leaving behind
traces of skin on its faceted surface.
"Always knew you were a tightwad but this is ridiculous," Spike says and then swears
broadly when he realises that Angel's hand is still stuck. It's like the mojo that put him
on the ceiling, and Spike would take even money on something nasty happening if he
tries any harder.
It's a quandry and Spike doesn't know how to fix it - thinking's never been his strong
suit - so he pushes Angel back down and sits beside him to work through the
problem.
He's gotta get through to Angel somehow, and he can't resist having a quick needle.
"I reckon we cut yer hand off. Not like it won't fix with a bit of TLC."
Still nothing. The daft sod's sitting there blissed out and staring at the big - and not
so big - uglies. And the memories. Guess they're hypnotising after a bit; glitter balls
in an undead disco.
One slams into them and between one second and the next, Spike's not in the well
anymore. He's back where he thought he'd never be again. In Angel's arms, in their
bed, and how could he have forgotten this?
Moonlight streams through the window painting them in shades of midnight. Angel's
skin glows pale blue as he sleeps, his face relaxed for the first time in so long. And
when Spike moves, there's an ache in his body, the kind that comes from fucking all
day.
That's nothing new. They've been fucking for years. Ever since that night when they
fought over Illyria and Spike finally called Angel out for being a tosser. Earned him
the reaming of his life, that did, but he doesn't regret a second of it. Last night was
different though. They had a connection.
Next to him, eyes flicker open and Angel smiles up at him.
"You came," he says.
"Several times if I remember it right," Spike answers with a leer. And then frowns.
"Hang on. You're you. Now you, not then you."
Angel sits up, flexing into a stretch that makes Spike's blood rush south. "There
wasn't much point in staying," he says cryptically. "And this seemed like a good place
to spend eternity."
Frowning, Spike drags his attention back to the words - not gonna sink fangs into
those tasty thighs. Talk first, fuck later - and says, "Why leave in the first place? Or
more to the point, why not leave? Yeah, it's a bit of trek but it's doable, then you're
back out in the sunshine and having a right good time. Gotta be better than being
stuck in here with all those beasties outside."
"I am one of those `beasties', Spike," Angel replies. "Look."
He opens his hand, and pulsing in the centre of his palm is a gem, the same gem that
holds him bound to the coffin in the deeper well.
Spike reaches out, but Angel snatches his hand away and folds his fingers over the
stone. "It's not too late for you," he says sadly. "Leave while you still can, while you
still have your soul."
"S'that what this is?" Spike retorts, glaring around their little bubble of existence.
"Memories equal soul now, do they? Coulda fooled me, mate. I fought for mine, and
bloody well nearly ended up dust. And I remembered just as well before and after,
thanks very much, so don't try telling me that it's no more than memories."
Angel stares down at his hands, one finger tracing the edge of the gem. "Then what
is it, Spike? If everything that makes you, you, is gone, what's left?"
That was food for thought and Spike leans back against the bed and listens to the
silence of the room. Finally he turns his head to look at Angel and says, "This what
you came for, then? Couldn't lose it one way, so you reckoned to lose it another."
He's still angry, but the fact that Angel has chosen this time and place as his haven
has taken the gloss off it. It's difficult to stay pissed off at someone who wants to
spend eternity with your memory.
"Honestly? I had no idea what I was doing," Angel answers. His expression is kinda
sheepish, boyish, and Spike grins at him. This is more Liam than Angel or Angelus.
More like the boy playing with his sister in the meadow. And he wonders...
"Do you - do you remember anything else?" he says. "Like Buffy or the watcher,
maybe?"
Angel's confused frown answers the question. He doesn't. There's nothing left in
Angel's memories except this. Them. Together. Loving and being loved. There's
worse things, Spike decides. "So," he says, reaching out and taking Angel's hand.
"How does this trick work? Touch the gem and I end up here?"
Their gazes meet and understanding flows between them. Without breaking eye
contact, Spike leans into a kiss, and his fingertips brush over the brilliant gem.
And back in the deeper well, the Old Gods tweak mystical strings and their newest
puppets begin to dance.
****
Story written for the Angel/Spike 'I Will Not Fade Away' Ficathon in the LiveJournal
community loving_angel_69 and based on these lyrics.
In the Name of the Father by U2
Come to me
Come lie
beside me
Oh don't deny me
Your love
Make sense of me
Walk through my doorway
Don't hide in the hallway
Oh love...step
over
I'll follow you down
I'll follow you down
In the name
of whiskey
In the name of song
You didn't look back
You didn't
belong
In the name of reason
In the name of hope
In the name
of religion
In the name of dope
In the name of freedom
You
drifted away
To see the sun shining
On someone else's day
In
the name of United and the BBC
In the name of Georgie Best and LSD
In the name of a father
And his wife the spirit
You said you did not
They said you did it
In the name of justice
In the name of fun
In the name of the father
In the name of the son
Call to me
No one is listening
I'm waiting to hear from you love
Stay with
me
It's cold in the ground
But there's peace in the sound
Of the white
and the black
Spilling over
I'll follow you down
I'll follow you
down
I'll follow you down
|
|
|