Love Flies On Broken Wings
May. 17th, 2009 10:48 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dragonyphoenixSeries: Leaping In The Dark
Pairing: Spike/Angel
Rating: I'm going to say NC-17 but might be PG-13.
Summary: “Enough of that,” he shouted back at the voice as he spun towards the wall, fist ready to shatter the plaster. He stopped himself just in time. This place was entirely Willow's and, even if it was her prison, it was a prison of her own making, with a little, no, make that a lot of help from him. Damaging it would be too much like hurting Willow and he couldn't bring himself to do that. Not again. Not after he'd been the one who'd turned her into that hollow creature. Knew six years ago I couldn't save her, he despaired. What'd I do, get dumber since then?
Disclaimer: They are not mine. Not yet. But they will be mine, once I've taken over the world. Bwah-ha-ha.
“When did I slip into hell?” Spike asked himself as he switched back, yet again, to tread down another flight of stairs. Could peer down to see how far I have left, he thought wearily. Not worth it though, is it? Too narrow for me to jump, even if I were down close enough to the ground.
Turning back on around himself and continuing down, he wondered how many times he'd started counting floors only to lose track and start over again in this eternal descent. Granted, he didn't spend an awful lot of time in office buildings but shouldn't there be something to differentiate the floors, a little number someplace on the walls? That's how he knew he was in hell. That and the sound of Willow's sobs, last heard as he'd left her penthouse behind him.
Hearing the whir of leathery wings, Spike let his gaze shift out of focus. That was the only way he could see them, the demons that hovered just at the edge of his mind. All ragged wings and sharp, pointy teeth, they were. “I know you don't exist,” he shouted to the empty stairwell. “Exist, exist, exist,” echoed back. They were figments, phantasms, echoes of a guilty conscience, and they truly didn't exist but that didn't make them any less real to Spike.
He knew why they were there. Waiting for me to let my guard down so they can tear my soul to shreds. Not that I have a soul.
Angel had a soul but they didn't seem to care about Angel. Of course, if there was any way in, past his shields, it was through Angel. Maybe Angel's one of them, he thought, one of the soul devourers in disguise, just waiting for his chance. Yeah, that thought speaks real well for our relationship.
Should have stayed with Willow. Let her keep me, use me. She would have abused me in ways that Angel never would but it would have been all physical. Blatant. With every look, word, and action, she'd have reminded me not to let her in. She'd never get close enough to eat the heart out of me. Not after I ate the heart out of her.
He did finally stop then, trying to break off that line of thought. Fruitless it was. Unproductive. Pulling a coin out of his black jeans, he dropped it down the gap between stretches of the stairway, fully expecting that it, like him, would never hit bottom. After a bit, Spike cupped a hand to his ear to focus the sound, grimacing at the idiocy of his move, and heard it hit, as if his action had caused the coin to find the ground.
“Well, bugger me. I'm not in hell after all.” As he started heading down the stairs again, a small voice in the back of Spike's head started in on elaborate theories of how demons had only made it sound like the coin had hit ground, just to give him false hope.
“Wouldn't be false hope, now would it? Given that being in hell would mean never having to see the look on Angel's face when he figures out I went looking for Willow. Won't have to be there when he leaves me.” The voice didn't reply; Spike was doing a good enough job of making himself miserable.
He kept going, switching back and forth between descending staircases again and again and again. For the thousandth time, he thought about marking the walls: chipping off a bit of paint, scratching his knife along as he went, anything to make a difference. That way, if he was endlessly going down the same staircase, at least he'd know it. Thought you were sure you weren't in hell, the voice commented.
“Not sure of anything, am I?” he replied.
You're sure that Willow doesn't love you, that she never loved you.
“Enough of that,” he shouted back at the voice as he spun towards the wall, fist ready to shatter the plaster. He stopped himself just in time. This place was entirely Willow's and, even if it was her prison, it was a prison of her own making, with a little, no, make that a lot of help from him. Damaging it would be too much like hurting Willow and he couldn't bring himself to do that. Not again. Not after he'd been the one who'd turned her into that hollow creature. Knew six years ago I couldn't save her, he despaired. What'd I do, get dumber since then?
He continued trudging down and had just about started to believe again that this was actually hell, that he'd never get off those interminable stairs, when they ended. Six steps ahead of him, if not salvation, at least a way out.
Even his demon sight couldn't handle the transition to darkness after that blindingly bright eternity he'd spent descending from Willow's high tower. He heard the door shut behind him, locking itself, but he'd known that path was closed to him even before he'd climbed up from the penthouse to the roof.
After lighting a cigarette to give him time for his sight to adjust, Spike scanned the bleak wasteland. He was too close to see how the tower's giant form dwarfed the landscape but he didn't need to since he'd noticed that on the way in. Parking garages, with nothing to differentiate them one from the other, at least to Spike's eyes, surrounded the building. Presumably even in the light of day they hid the color and variety of cars parked within. Off to Spike's left, a tiny spot of vegetation, stunted by the steel and concrete surrounding it, whose bushes were cut into precise geometrical shapes that God had never meant, and man shouldn't have meant, for plants to take.
A figure stepped into view. Angel, waiting for him in the garden. Spike's cigarette slipped from his fingers as he stared at Angel for what seemed like an eternity.
“How'd he know?” Spike muttered. Of course he'd known. Angel always knew everything, at least when it came to Spike. He'd known, before Spike had himself, that he hadn't been looking for death when he'd mimicked Angelus' kills, but for love. He knew, even when Spike didn't, when Spike's blusterings meant he needed to be held or left alone, to be loved or brutally fucked to drive away the pain. Someday he'd know it was time to leave, that his loving Spike had been a mistake, and Spike would be alone again. Maybe Angel would leave him tonight. Maybe that's why he was here. To see with his own two eyes how his Childe had betrayed him before he left forever.
Feeling raw from his earlier encounter, he didn't even bother to put his usual swagger into his steps. As Spike approached, Angel glanced up to the top of the high tower before letting his gaze rest on Spike, who hung his head in response.
Angel took Spike into his arms and Spike allowed himself to be comforted. Angel hadn't needed to climb Willow's high tower, to try and rescue her from herself. More likely he'd known, beforehand, what the outcome would be. Why throw yourself against a brick wall? Didn't even make a dent... Spike broke down and sobbed in Angel's arms.
“How'd you know I'd be here?” Spike asked, stepping outside of Angel's shelter and putting his bluster back on as if donning a mask.
“Where else would you have gone?” Angel replied as if it were obvious.
“You knew it would be fruitless.” It wasn't a question.
“My Don Quixote,” Angel said, giving Spike a look that said, in his eyes, Spike was the most endearing creature on the planet.
“Could have warned me,” Spike said abruptly.
“You had to see for yourself,” Angel said with certainty.
“How'd you know when I'd come?”
Angel looked thoughtful for a moment before replying. “You get twitchy when you're worried about something but then calm down once you've made up your mind. You were calm today.”
“I'm not twitchy.”
“Of course not,” Angel smiled.
“So, you'd given up hope. That what you're saying?” Spike attacked.
Angel sighed. “We did everything we could to help Willow.” Looking abashed, he added, “Although I had hoped that seeing you might have...” He trailed off.
Spike, used to Angel's playing the confident Sire, was astounded. “You don't know everything then?”
Angel looked surprised at his question but answered, “No.”
All the anguish and rejection of that evening dropped away into a deep stillness and Spike said, with certainty, “But you do know me.”
“You're my soul.”
“Idiot,” Spike said affectionately, without his usual bluster. “You're the one who has a soul.”
“And he's standing right before me,” Angel said, repeating his previous sentiment.
Spike thought about making some semi-derogatory comment but his heart was too full. He ducked his head for a moment and, when he looked back up, was transfixed by the devotion in Angel's eyes. He stood there, open, before Angel, no longer waiting for a blow because he finally knew it would never come. “You're really not going to leave me.”
Angels' eyes widened with surprise. “You thought I'd leave you?”
“Well, figured one of us would, sooner or later, and we both know for a fact that I'd die first.”
Angel stepped to Spike. As they wrapped their arms around each other, Angel said, “Never. I'll never leave you.”
Spike looked up, needing a final confirmation. “Forever and a day, then. Till the seas dry to dust, the dust is carried away on the wind, and the heavens fill the seas again.”
“All that and more,” Angel whispered.
“That's OK then,” Spike agreed.
They'd held each other for an eternity when Spike felt the night start to shift into daylight. “Sun's about to rise,” Spike said, looking around before Angel's gaze caught his attention. “Time to get out of here?”
“Let's head home,” Angel replied.
“Come on then. Catch me if you can,” Spike said, dashing away. Angel caught up with him easily, just as Spike had known he would. Without conscious effort, barely aware they were doing it, they matched strides as they raced along the roadway that led away from the tower. Spike didn't even need to see Angel's almost imperceptible nod as they approached the fence. He took three more strides and they leaped. Together.
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Date: 2010-09-24 04:16 pm (UTC)I think I just prefer happy endings to angsty ones.
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Date: 2010-10-02 03:30 pm (UTC)And yeah, you're totally right about Spike acting more like he has a soul than he probably should. Although he'd do pretty much anything for love, being love's bitch and all.