cozzybob (cozzybob) wrote in cozzybabbles, @ 2008-06-07 22:43:00 |
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Entry tags: | angel, buffy the vampire slayer, spangel, spike |
[BTVS/ATS] Escape
Escape
Pairing: Spike/Angel, mention of Connor
Warning: Five years post NFA. Implied Armageddon. Everybody's dead. Sort of experimental. (Also, some blood, lots of angst, crazy!Angel.) Un-beta'd.
Note: For caelieth's gorgeous OTP munip “escape” found here at Darker Spike. The beginning probably isn't what you're expecting, sweetums, but the scene in the munip is found at the end. ^^
Summary: Post-NFA. Angel counts his demons. He forgets to count Spike, until it's too late.
Five years.
Five years, four months, three days, two hours, one minute, sixteen--no, seventeen--no, no, eighteen seconds since the world died. Angel taps his watch, the LED light flickers. Twenty seconds. Twenty-one.
Twenty-two.
“Angel,” Spike says, because he hasn't called Angel anything but Angel for three years and two months now. One day.
Thirty seconds.
“Angel,” he says again, and touches the older vampire's arm. The touch is dead, like the rest of them. Like the world.
No graves.
Thirty-five seconds.
No headstones.
Thirty-six seconds.
A hand covers the watch. Angel looks up, growls.
Not even a pit of bodies.
Spike backs away, nervous. “Stop,” he says.
Another growl.
Forty seconds.
“Angel--”
“I have to count them, Spike. Five years, four months, three days, two hours, one minute, forty-nine--no, fifty seconds. Fifty-one. He'd be... he'd be, what? Twenty one, now? Twenty-two? I can't remember. Fifty-five seconds.”
The skeletal, dead hand, back on the watch. Covering it.
Spike's eyes are wet glass. “Stop,” he says again, quietly.
“Sixty seconds. Two minutes, Spike.”
Spike looks away, releases the watch.
Angel glances down.
“Five seconds.”
**
“It's his birthday today,” Angel says, then glances down. “Forty-two seconds.”
“I know.”
“I can't remember how old he was, Spike.”
“I know, Angel.”
“Three minutes. Three seconds.”
“Yeah. Gotcha.”
“It was that hell dimension. Quor--something. Holtz. Wesley. Did I ever tell you about that? Can't remember. Twenty seconds. Do you think they gave Conner the same birthday when they rewrote his new memories? Twenty-three seconds.”
“I don't know. And yeah, you bloody told me. You tell me every fucking year, Angel.”
Despite the words, Spike isn't angry. He's slouching. He's muttering. He's sleep-walking. Angel gives him a glance, and frowns. He glances down at the watch, and frowns deeper. “Four minutes.”
“Three seconds?”
“Yeah, how'd you know?”
Angel looks at Spike, honestly curious. Spike looks back, and there is nothing but a deep, hateful pity in his eyes. “Fuckin' psychic,” he says.
“Cool. We could use that. Seven seconds, now.”
Could use that.
“Eight seconds.”
Spike grunts.
Angel pauses. Frowns. “Ten seconds.”
**
He can't remember when he started counting.
Seven minutes, thirty seconds.
It might've been when he realized on Connor's twentieth birthday--nineteenth?--on Connor's birthday that--fifty seconds--It might've been when he realized on Connor's birthday that Connor would never age, like his father. Fifty-five. Because Connor was dead. Fifty-six. Like his father.
Fifty-seven.
Except, Connor wasn't a vampire.
Fifty-eight.
Connor was dead.
Fifty-nine.
“Angel?”
Eight minutes...
“One second, Spike.”
Two seconds.
**
Not that Angel doesn't mourn the others, of course he does. Buffy, Faith, Wesley, Gunn. Even Illyria. Fred, Cordelia, Darla. Even Drusilla. Even Doyle. He hadn't ever found Dru. His baby girl. Even Darla.
Even Darla.
Maybe even Lindsey.
Darla. Connor.
Nine--nine minutes, four seconds.
There's nothing left.
No graves, no headstones, no nothing. No bodies. Just dust and rats.
Dust, rats, and demons.
Dust.
Hell gods.
Rats.
Fifty seconds.
Fire.
“Angel, I'm sick of this. I'm leaving.”
“Ten minutes, Spike.”
“Fuck the time! No more! Give me that watch!”
Spike tries to take it away. Angel punches him. Hard.
Spike falls, and he doesn't get up.
Spike is weak. He takes care of Angel, always Angel. Spike feeds Angel, and Angel can never remember to feed him back. Angel has a hard time remembering anything but the time. But the time.
But the time, which is eleven minutes, two seconds.
Spike crawls to his feet. He wobbles, he points a waggling finger. “I'm going. Fuck you. I'm going, and I'm not coming back. Dust, for all I care. Count yourself back to hell. Fuck you.”
Spike marches away. Well, he stumbles away. He crawls. He slouches.
Spike slouches.
“Fuck you,” he says again. Spike's voice is wet. Wet and salty and hurt. It smells good. It smells like William.
Angel counts the steps he takes. Sixty. Sixty one.
Sixty two.
Spike fades over the horizon.
Twelve minutes.
**
Angel is crouched in the ruins of a library. There aren't any books. They've been pillaged, burned.
Five years, four months, three days, three hours. Two minutes. One second.
Angel wonders where Spike is. He can't remember where the boy took off to, but he knows he'll come back. Spike always comes back. Spike is the thorn in Angel's side, and Angel can never remember to be rid of him. Not that he wants to be rid of him. He's used to Spike. Spike takes care of him. Spike takes care of Angel.
Spike is a good man. Vampire. Whatever.
Annoying, but good. He's said once that Spike is a hero, said it to Sleeping Beauty before she vanished into heaven. Angel can't remember her name. He doesn't know if this is important, because he can't remember that either. He frowns again.
Sometimes, Angel wants to be more like Spike, because Spike doesn't forget anything. But then Angel remembers that he hates Spike. And so he counts.
**
Thirty-seconds.
There's a noise.
Thirty-two seconds.
Angel inspects. “Spike?”
Thirty-three seconds.
Growling. Not Spike. Something big, spiny, and ugly. Angel balls his fists and growls back.
Thirty-five seconds.
“Hey, you. Thirty-six seconds. Have you seen Spike?”
The thing--he used to know what it was called, but he doesn't remember now, and it's not important--The thing growls at him, crouching low on it's hind legs, preparing to pounce.
There's a soft groan behind it.
Spike.
On the floor.
Bleeding.
“Spike!”
Forty--fifty--fuck, he's forgot the time. Angel glances down. “Three minutes,” he mutters.
Four seconds.
The thing takes advantage of Angel's distraction and leaps on him, all teeth and hungry, wet saliva. It's like a dog, or a cat, but it's got scales and spines and fiery red eyes. Like a hell hound. Something. He can't remember.
Something.
Twenty seconds? No, twenty-five. Twenty-six.
Angel can hear Spike breathing. Choking.
Bleeding.
Angel panics. He forgets that Spike is dead, that Spike won't die if he can't breathe. A rush of fury overtakes him, and he tosses the scaly cat-dog thing off of him like it's a puppy. Or a kitten. Angel stands, growls, bares his fangs, thick, corded muscles flexing underneath his torn shirt. Angel rips the shirt off, and growls louder, like an animal. Like a vampire.
Spike.
He can't remember the time, and he's pissed.
Spike breathes.
The hell hound is pissed too. Its fangs are huge, its upper lip quivering in a mean snarl.
Angel's fangs are bigger.
Breathing.
Angel rips the dog's head off. It bounces along the floor like a bowling ball—Angel remembers, Fred had loved bowling—and the black-red blood sprays everywhere. It misses Angel and Spike. But it coats the brick walls. It smells bad.
Spike breathes.
Angel glances down.
Four minutes? Five? Six? He can't remember. He can't remember the time. The tiny-digital screen is cracked, black ink running across the numbers. Busted.
Spike. Breathes.
“A-Angel--”
Angel goes to him. He kneels and takes Spike into his arms. He licks the blood away.
Spike giggles with a touch of madness, and he asks, “Angel, w-what's the t-time?”
Angel looks down at the watch. It's crushed. He takes it off, and tosses it away in disgust. Shrugs.
“I don't know,” Angel says.
Spike's head wobbles up and down, like he can't decide if he wants to fall unconscious or not. Spike's bleeding. His upper arm is cut with deep, five-inch gashes. There's a lot of blood.
Spike is choking on the blood. Spike can't breathe.
Angel sets Spike down on the ground and laps all the blood away with his tongue. The shirt gets in the way. He rips it off.
There's purring.
“F-Five years,” Spike says, choking and coughing and bleeding and dying only not. “Five years, four months, th-thr--three d-d--”
Angel growls again, and silences him with a deep kiss. Spike moans.
“Shut up,” Angel says. He doesn't care about the time. “I don't fucking care about the time.”
“But--”
Another kiss. Deeper. Hungry. Spike tastes good. Better than time. Better than memory. Better than anything. Better than death.
Angel forgets Connor for two minutes, three seconds.
Four seconds.
Then, “Shut up, Spike.”
Five seconds.
Spike can't hold up his head anymore. He collapses into the ground, boneless, pliable. The cuts slowly close with Angel's saliva. Angel cradles Spike into his arms, and mutters. “I don't care about the time. I don't. I don't, Spike.”
“That's--Th-that's n-nice...”
“I care about you.”
Spike grunts, barely nods.
He can't remember the time.
Fading.
“You're all I have left, Spike.”
The softest of sighs.
Spike stops breathing.
For a moment, Angel forgets he doesn't have to.
Spike
One.
stops
Two.
breathing.
Three.
“Five years. Hundred thirty... five years. Never told you. Never told you, Spike. Sorry...”
Angel lifts Spike into his arms. He cradles the other vampire to his chest, and Angel stares upward, eyes wide, terrified. Spike doesn't breathe. Angel forgets.
“I'm so sorry.”
Angel can't remember the time, and Spike is limp in his arms.
“I'm so... so sorry...”
He doesn't breathe.
Five years.
Angel doesn't cry.
Five years.
Four months.
Three days.
--Fini