The Adventures of Captain Peroxide and Deadboy
The Angel/Spike Zone of the BtVS Writer's Guild
Title: Codladh Buanan Bás (Death Is Lasting Sleep)
Author: Avarice
Rating: PG. I thing there might be one swear word. deal with it.
Pairing: read between the lines S/A slash.
Disclaimer: Vampires mentioned are not mine. Mr Joss I'm a stupidhead of course I know angel sired spike but I just wanna fuck with you all Whedon owns 'em. Very deserving of them? not right now he isn't.. (bitter much?)
Distribution: listy archives, or please, ask me
Feedback: would mean heaps! this is very different from anything I've written before
Notes: The title is Gaelic (thankyou donna and google.com) Quite possibly a teeny spoiler for Somnambulist. I'd like to publicly thank Darcy, Tahlya and
Jessica who kept me writing when I had no idea what I was doing... and Donna for the 'just fix up that word but otherwise don't touch it!' beta jobbie. I love you all! *mwah*
Codladh Buanan Bás
"My friend, the witch doctor, he told me what to do,"
The song floated on the breeze, over the sound of the gurgling stream. Angel walked towards it, bare feet not making so much as a sound on the grass.
"My friend, the witch doctor, he told me what to do,"
Angel spied the figure off in the distance, sitting Buddha-style on the other side of a stream of blood in the middle of the paddock. His bleached head was cocked towards the sun, one eye closed, squinting up at it.
"I know that you'll be mine, when I say this to you,"
"Do you always have to sing that?" Angel queried.
The blond scowled and gradually raised his voice with each successive word.
"Oh bay-be, ooh eeh ooh ahh ahh, ting, tang, walla walla bing bang.. Ooh eeh, ooh ahh ahh ting tang walla walla BING BANG."
Angel paused at the edge of the bank, watching the stream's sanguine contents flow steadily. He looked over at the seated figure. "Willi-" he stopped short at the glare he received and hastily corrected himself. "Spike... can I cross this yet?"
Spike shook his head emphatically. "Nope. Still bad. Way too bad."
"Who's to say? Are you the judge?"
The blond raised an eyebrow, a look of infinite wisdom gracing his sharp features.. "You know better than that."
"Then why is it still here?"
Spike waved his hands dismissively and went back to humming his song.
Angel stepped towards the stream, but as soon as his foot touched it, it was as if a motor had been turned on underneath. The blood made large waves and roared. The deafening noise pounded in Angel's ears. He tried to regain his footing, but a powerful undercurrent had developed, sucking him further in.
Red, red, red. It was all he could see, could feel, could taste. It became his world. It was already his world.
And the red swept him away.
Spike went back to squinting at the sun.
"Told you.." he scolded no one in particular.
+ + +
Cold, warm, cold, warm. Waves crashed over his head, filling his eyes, nose, ears, mouth. Flailing helplessly did nothing, so he let the current do with him what it would. Eventually, it deposited him cold and face-down in the middle of a ballroom. Angel got up steadily and made sure his hair was tied back and he looked presentable.
There would be Hell to pay if his velvet suit was damaged...
The room was utterly silent. Men and women danced to no music, moving gracefully and swaying, as if the perfect melody played somewhere in their heads. He scanned the room for someone he might know. Gradually, he became aware of a voice that steadily grew louder, emanating from a small clique who stood by the bar.
"And so I says to Mabel, I says-" The speaker stopped and bright blue eyes met his. They twinkled with youth and power and a young but old ancient wisdom and rebellion and submission oh gods it's good to be back so familiar so long ago....
"Angelus, so good of you to join us," Darla extended her hand gracefully.
"Finally..." the sable haired man murmured, and his equally dark-haired companion joined in quiet giggles.
"I thought you had places to be," Angel queried.
"No place to be but here right now," his sire smiled.
Angel nodded briefly, and leant back against the bar. Drusilla ran a hand up his arm tenderly, the feathers of her cuffs tickling the skin of his hand.
"They move gracefully, but their song is over all too soon," she commented, inclining her head towards the dancers, still twirling beautifully. Angel looked at her, and saw beautiful clarity behind stormy ocean eyes.
"I.. I can hear a bit of it.." Angel heard strains of music, but it sounded so far away, as if the band were in another room. The dark haired vampire was perplexed. "I can't hear it properly.. why can't I hear it properly?"
"Foolish boy," Darla chided. "Their music is not for you. We are above it, we dance to the sounds of chaos and death."
"I.. I used to hear it..."
"Forget it, Angelus. That was a long time ago." Angel looked at William, into a face that had yellow demon's eyes where there should have been cerulean blue. He smirked in amusement at Angel's confusion. "What, these little things?" he asked, pointing to his unnatural eyes in an otherwise human face. "Don't mind them, it's just the Olde One. He likes to make his presence felt every once in a while. Here, want to see yours?"
William grabbed Angel's elbow and led him to a wall lined with mirrors. Soft but strong hands forced his head to look directly into the gilt-framed mirror. "I don't see anything," he sighed to William's reflection.
"Nonsense," Darla purred. Angel looked at his three companion's images in the mirror and in frustration at the black void he presented. In the background, the humans danced on to their silent music.
William glanced at Drusilla and fetched a handkerchief out of his pocket, handing it to her. "You're bleeding again, pet," he commented softly. With his help, the dark haired vampiress tried to stem the flow from her nose.
"But my Spike," she murmured, voice muffled by the kerchief, "you need it yourself.." she gestured to his pristine white shirt, which was becoming plastered to his body in places. Red fluid bloomed in straight lines across his back and shoulders.
William didn't look surprised or pained by it. He shrugged. "Baggage, Dru. It's all baggage."
"Then what do you call this, boy?" Darla looked slightly annoyed, with a long stemmed thorned rose embedded in her chest. William chuckled.
"Unfortunate? Painful? Funny as all Hell?" The blond did not seem at all impressed with any of these answers. Angel gripped the end.
"Does it hurt?"
"Only when you push it further in, Angelus,"
"I'll try not to then."
Darla's voice sighed. Angel closed his eyes. When he opened them again, Darla and Dru were gone. ((Too late)) his sire's throaty whisper sounded in his head. ((Too late))
William still stood, blood soaked shirt sticking to his lean torso. "Me? I'm fine, thanks for asking."
"I didn't ask."
He shrugged and looked slightly bored. "Whatever. Look, are you going to see yourself any time soon?"
Angel turned back to the mirror and studied it. After a long moment silent, he spoke. "Look, I don't see anything but blood and pain and death and suffering."
William grinned enigmatically. "And you said you couldn't see it..." His voice trailed off, as if he expected something. "Well?" he asked somewhat impatiently.
"Well what?" Angel replied, not taking his eyes away from the mirror.
"Good god, Angelus, are you finished fucking staring at yourself? Places to go, things to do."
Angel raised his eyebrow. "I always thought you said 'places to go, people to kill',"
The vampire shrugged again and picked at his incisors with the stem of a rose. "I say a lot of things. What, you just started listening *now*? Where have you been?
"Hell mostly."
"Ahhh.." William nodded in understanding. "Essex."
"Possibly. I was never that good with geography."
"Do you even have any idea where you are now?"
Kaleidoscopic colors flashed before his eyes. The world span and turned in on itself like a merry-go-round gone mad. Perceptions changed and the ballroom was suddenly far, too far away. Faint strains of music traveled on the breeze.
The paddock was just how he remembered it, blood stream happily gurgled off in the distance. Dusk made the sky glow a warm pinkish-orange. The northern
star was clearly visible in the sky. Over in the distance, he could see the outline of... civilization? A city? Perhaps. Maybe it was just the rooftops of suburbia. Sometimes it looked like a village. It was hard to pinpoint, as it shifted occasionally.
"Well, do you?" The bleach blond prompted from his seat on the grass.
Angel sat down opposite him and looked around. "I'm not sure. It looks familiar... but some how.. not..."
Spike sighed and rolled his eyes in a cheerfully condescending manner. He used the stone winged lion as a backrest and pointed to the paddock. "This is Joseph Reardon's cow paddock on the outskirts of Galway. The sky hails from London. And those happy looking woods over there," Spike gestured to a dark grove of trees off in the distance "courtesy of Rumania. There are other places, but why waste time with little details."
The winged lion licked its paw, its stone tongue making soft scraping noises against equally hard skin. Spike stroked its ears affectionately.
"Is he that important?" Angel inclined his head towards the beast.
"No, not really," The blond almost cooed. "But I like to let him think so. If he believes he's in control, it's much easier to handle him."
"And is that handling him?" The dark haired vampire pointed to deep gouges the size of claws decorating Spike's forearms. He looked down, seemingly noticing them for the first time. The younger man took a bloodstained handkerchief out of his pocket and wrapped it around his arms as best he could.
"Just surface scratches. No great trauma."
"But they look fairly bad. Here, let me-"
"They're. Just. Scratches." Spike hissed, pulling his injured arm away. "I mean really, Angel, haven't you done quite enough?"
"I don't know..." he plucked at the grass. "it's a bit of a blur."
"Well, nevermind then," Spike's bad mood seemed to evaporate. He spent the next few minutes tying and retying the handkerchief, humming his song all the while. Occasionally Angel caught a word or two.
"......mm....mm....ooh ahh ahh mmmmmm walla walla bing bang.... mmm mmm... walla walla BING BANG..."
"Satisfied?" The dark haired vampire asked when he'd finished.
"No. But then, I always was notoriously hard to please." he chuckled. Both vampires lapsed into silence, Spike humming annoyingly and automatically running long fingers over the lion's mane. The stone animal apparently liked this irritating noise. It ignored Angel, purring under the attention.
The sun dipped over the horizon, yet it was not entirely gone. Some illumination remained, bathing them in a gentle light. A breeze picked up, carrying little particles of ash with it. They danced and twirled in the air, taken away by a cool westerly. Spike looked up at the floating ash and clicked his tongue in disapproval.
"That is so bloody rude! He never calls, he never writes... sometimes I don't even remember why you sired Penn. Ungrateful, if y'ask me."
"He was... disappointing."
"A stroke of the brush doesn't guarantee art, y'know."
"Wilde?"
"Babylon 5, mate."
Angel shook his head and observed the particles in the air. "He has places to be.." he said after a moment.
"And I don't? I don't have better things to do with my time than babysit your arse?"
"Why don't you just leave then?"
"Can't." Spike sighed regretfully. "The current's too strong." He pointed to the crimson stream.
"Ahh..." Angel nodded. "The current pulls me in many different directions."
"Yeah, but you're a toff." The blond stated, as if it made all the difference.
"Spike," Angel asked softly, almost hesitantly. "Why is here your place to be?"
The younger man looked up at him through dark lashes. "The current leads me here. I can't ignore it." Spike shifted uncomfortably. "Besides, the company, while lacking basic elements like knackers and personality, isn't the *worst* it could be..." he winked cheekily. The lion harumphed and got up, knocking Spike over. "Oi!" the blond hollered.
The lion seemed vaguely amused and cocked its stone head to the side, before facing the changing buildings, which for now seemed to have settled on a major city skyline. It began to walk towards it, but not before turning back and looking at Angel expectantly. Spike waved at his sire dismissively.
"I believe that's your cue, Peaches. Subtlety isn't its strong point."
Angel nodded and took a step towards the great stone beast. It started its journey but the dark haired vampire stopped and turned back to Spike.
"Will you be here when the sun comes up?"
"Be waiting for you." The blond replied softly, before clearing his throat and lying down with hands crossed behind his head. "Now shoo. I gotta finish counting the stars in Orion's belt."
Angel smiled and began walking away. "I'll give you a hint -- there's three of them."
"Bastard! Ruin a whole night's work, whydoncha..." Spike scolded. "Ah well, I guess I'll just have to go back to singing..."
"I'm leaving, I'm leaving," Angel replied. He walked towards the city with his silent companion, as his childe's song floated through the night air on the breeze.
"...ooh eeh, ooh ahh ahh ting tang walla walla BING BANG.."
~fin