Painting the Sun

Warning: Very strange ideas, my own variant style, lots of foul language, disturbing ideas, violence of a particular sort. Set in the past. And Angelus warning. Beware Angelus!

Inspiration: This improv story owes much of its origin to Meg Bernstein's picture 'Will'. (www.angelartworks.com) Has to be seen to be believed - a simple 'beautiful' will not suffice here. The lady is an artist.

Dedication: To Meg for making that gorgeous picture. This one is for you, and I can only hope it is worthy.

Summary: Umpteenth take on the ancient theme - how do Spike and Angel get together? But I promise you've not read this one before. And if you have, tell me who's my soul mate!

Dawn light streaked the horizon, faint traceries of red and purple etching their way slowly across the sky. The watcher swallowed, remembering.

"Michele." The tone was light, even teasing, as he caressed his lover with his eyes, running his gaze possessively over the contours of that slender figure.

He took the boy twice, once against the wall, the second time leaning precariously against the wrought iron railing that bounded the balcony.

He could feel the boy flinch slightly, but hold himself steady and proud, unwilling to let his weakness show. It pleased him, this evidence of his training, so he rewarded his charge with a kiss.

"I want to see the prints branded on your thighs," whispered the man, tightening his grip around the boy. "Imprinted. Branded. I want to taste each swelling wound with my lips and suckle at the veins with my teeth. Would you like that, Michele? Would you? Hmm?"

"Padrone," sighed the boy and Angelus laughed. Laughing, ran his hands over the curve of hip and waist, and in front to cup the limp penis for a second.

Angelus smiled and drew back, allowing his lover blessed freedom to move. Michele made no move to leave, however. After two months, he'd learned his lesson.

The vampire cocked his head and gazed at him slyly. "Ah Michele..." he said, and traced the boy's features with a finger. "Tell me bright one, tell me why I keep you?"

"Ah." The voice grew quieter, the tone remote. The padrone dropped his hands to his side and sighed softly, then looked up again.

Angelus smiled sadly. "You know who I am, don't you? Michele? Little artist, little angel, do you know who your padrone is?"

"Your padrone." The vampire's words grew harsher, tripping into the unfamiliar English that lacked the fluidity and grace of true language. "I patronize you. I own you. You paint, don't you, Michele? With your so sensitive fingers..."

"Mm," he sighed. "You do paint, Michele. Angelic Michele. Angelus and St. Michele. Such a pretty conceit, to have an archangel serve a demon."

The vampire's eyes were shadowed, his smile turning harsher, more desperate as he pulled the younger man into a bruising embrace. "You haven't painted in a long time, lad. Don't you know what I want from you?" he asked, kissing the breath from the soft lips under his, so the boy had no means to answer even if he knew what to say. But he gave him the answer anyway.

"I want you to serve me, Michele," whispered the vampire, hungry hands roaming over the body, pulling it into his in a frantic attempt to assuage the hunger. "I want you to paint for me. Let it be all for me. Give me this. Give me more than this...paint me the sun," he hissed, carrying the boy into the safety and cool of the dark inner rooms, "I want you to capture it for me, all the life, all the passion. Your work must show me the sun, or -"

Which might explain why three years later found Angelus an ocean away from Italy, mingling with the hoi polloi and shabby genteel of Half Moon street, treating actors, artists and duke's mistresses with the same amount of interest.

Two letters arrived by the morning post both apparently from Darla. Overcome by maternal concern, no doubt.

"I hear some calamity has overtaken you. Your foolish child thinks you will walk into the sun... the day a child of mine does that is the day I offer myself to the Master. I think I might just have to wring Penn's neck after all. Still, if you'd rather, I could be persuaded to visit England..."

He laughed at that. Not in his lifetime. Oh he - enjoyed his dam, most definitely. But he doubted she'd leave the comforts of Italy to join him in this smoke filled nation.

Appropriately enough, the second letter was from Penn. On Darla's insipid scented stationary (lilac?) and closed with her seal. (Vanilla? The bitch had no taste, mingling scents that way.) Angelus shook his head, mildly amused, wondering if Darla had let the boy expend his energy before writing a missive she knew would anger her son. Then again he'd never known his dam to be so considerate.

He glanced through the missive, by turns annoying, pleading, caring; demanding... the boy was getting whiny in his old age.

"How could you leave me to clean up all your messes... the authorities nearly had me up on charges... in Milan now. Are you well? No word from you... I think of you everyday... Return quickly... I long for you..."

Angelus crumpled the paper into a ball and threw it carelessly into a corner before leaning back into the armchair and closing his eyes.

He chuckled softly at the irony, of Penn, poor ugly Penn sending the most beautiful humans to his sire's bed in the vain hope that one of them might satisfy him enough to make him stay... ah Penn. Who never did understand that there could be more hungers than lust.

And thoughts of Penn lead to his last choice, the painter, the poet, il bambino Michele , who came close, so close, but like all the others in the end... he let himself drift off into blankness, remembering the child.

"Ecco, bambino," he'd smiled, loving the sound of his name on that tongue. An-je-loos... it sounded decadent and sultry, just like the boy lying on his bed, naked except for the string of pearls he was running through his fingers. "Let me..."

Michele gazed at him through long eyelashes, smiling slyly as Angelus took the pearls from him and began looping them around his neck.

"Look up, bello," urged Angelus, wrapping the pearls into a high collar that set off the magnificence of that slender neck. "Look at your self and tell me, is it not pretty?"

"Si, padrone," said the boy huskily, "Ah!" as a fringe of hair was caught in strong fingers and tugged unmercifully.

"Moon madness," said Angelus, leaning over to kiss those lips and taste lovingly, licking salt tears off bronze skin for the last bittersweet time. "Moon shine and dark nights. Your beauty burns brighter than a thousand stars."

Michele's eyes snapped open, then wider and wider, bulging with terror as Angelus asphyxiated him with his very last gift.

"Padre..." was his last gasp and Angelus absorbed it with a kiss, sucking dry air and retching blood into his hungry heart.

"Tell Penn I'll visit him again. In a century or two. And return his boy toy to him in precisely this condition." He'd smiled coldly, thinking on the expression his son would bear on seeing this lover. "Give him this from me."

The note he'd handed the valet was in his own hand, plain and unscented except for the already diminishing taint of Michele's essence. He'd had the lad seal it with a kiss.

Sighing, he sank back and tried to get to sleep again. It was hard... with the yearning so strong and the memory of failure still harsh in his mind.

He'd been in England nearly two months now, and he hadn't yet found him. The man who he dreamed would show him the sun.

"I just... half a century in the darkness. Aren't you tired? Aren't you bored?" And that was Liam. The whining, but strangely familiar man who drove him all across the globe in search of...

They didn't of course. But the vampire slept while his demons wrangled, and in his dreams he was at peace. In his dreams he could see the sun.

It was an insufferably crowded party, given by some trumped up demimondaine taking her rightful place among the fringe of society. He'd attended out of boredom, but also because he knew that such salons were where the person he sought might well make an appearance.

"No!" exclaimed the other. "I'd heard of this..., but... you must be joking! He actually uses - instead of paints?"

"Yes!" nodded the woman vigorously. "He does. He really does." She lowered her voice. "My Lord contributed to a painting,"

"You know!" using fingers to indicate a region no delicate lady would admit to knowing existed, "Contributed, and well... my Lord swears it does all it is supposed to."

"Hmm," drawled her companion. "I wonder if you could introduce me to him. The artist, I mean," he clarified hastily.

She shrugged. "I don't know. He charged my Lord a fortune for his... portrait, but he takes no contracts. They met by chance you see... apparently he walks at the West India docks every morning to choose a victim."

"And you hear right," sighed the woman soulfully. "Such a pity, yet," she grinned, "At least we may benefit from the result."

Angelus had heard enough. Setting the glass down carefully, he walked out of the house without even making his bow to his hostess.

A ship had come in or was preparing to leave and there was much commotion towards the east end. He avoided the area and waited near some packing crates for his meal to come to him.

The urchin came to him, grinning half-heartedly at the outstretched hand promising coin. He'd done it before, he'd do it again, and in one sense Angelus was doing him a kindness by not accepting the lad on his knees, merely killing him cleanly and immediately.

In one sense yes... but truthfully, there was no sympathy in this deed. Thoughts of moral consideration didn't disturb Angelus. It was merely that he was baiting a trap. A very specific trap, for a certain person.

He carried the boy further into the alley and arranged the limbs gently. Let the watcher see that he was not a monster. Merely stalking for a hunger larger than humanity itself. Let the watcher see and understand what was here. That he was a patron of true art, who understood what the artist was trying to achieve.

At last, an hour before dawn, he had to accept that tonight was not the night. But at least he'd been given the name. The address. The time would come soon.

The latest victim, a chit of a girl, was cradled in his arms as he drank from her, taking in the disease-rotted blood and purifying it through his consumption. All of them had been young, all loiterers around the dock, therefore of no intrinsic value to any being. Except himself, and he was not human.

A smile ripped across his face and he fought the urge to throw his head up in savage laughter. Ferocity would scare the man away. He had to seduce him, play the lover, the quiet, clean gentleman.

Arching his back slightly, he bent to his task, but this time sipping slowly, lovingly, letting the watcher see the emotion coursing through his frame.

Reassured, he took the last mouthful, swallowed, and then lifted his head gently. Taking the child's hand to his lips, he kissed it, then set the corpse down.

The watcher was a young boy, barely a man, with fine blonde hair and delicate features that he longed to savour. Tall, well proportioned - but that was not what made the vampire shudder.

"No," he shook his head, trying to think. "No..." Except for the pallor of the features and the head of golden hair, this man was Michele, was Jean, was Penn, was Paul, was all the men he'd ever taken and loved and hurt to distraction because they couldn't show him -

Affecting an assurance he did not feel, he smiled at the man and nodded regally. "I'm called Angelus. And you?"

The young man inhaled, and smiled tremulously before speaking. "Angel of Death. You can call me what you please."

"Anything," affirmed the golden man, dropping to his knees. "Anything you wish." And he waited for the word.

Angelus found it, and gave it to him, his word, his sun-word, the one name he'd never yet taken or tried to mould.

The walk back to William's rooms was hasty and filled with surreptitious touches, brushing of fingers and the uneasy bumping of hips. Angelus had to bite his lips and take the comfort of his own blood more than once.

But finally they were out of the nameless street and walking into a deserted house that smelled of stale dinners and too much sex... William shrugged a little self consciously as he led the way up narrow stairs and into cramped quarters.

The rooms were full of dust and sweat, but above all, they were full of - of William, of his artistry and the works of his hand.

William smiled, and for the first time Angelus noted that the boy was indeed a young man, despite the false sense of innocence his features projected. "The blood of a whore and the seed of her customer. I came across her in an alley - she was half dead already. I couldn't take more... its only a rough sketch."

"Is canvas." William's brows drew together. "It is always canvas." He smiled a little. "Sometimes I use cloth. From their clothes. Cotton for preference. It soaks up the blood."

He looked over the other side of the room and watched in fascination as silver moonlight reflected off the mirror, showing the image of a kneeling Adonis performing fellatio on apparently empty air.

"My turn," whispered the man, when the vampire would have clutched the mortal to him. Slightly frustrated, but willing to learn, the vampire lay back as William disrobed.

Naked, he looked younger, more vulnerable. Cold air gave humans chills and goose pimples were remarkably unattractive.

William noticed Angelus' gaze and posed for a second, letting the moonlight glint off planes of muscle and the occasional remnant of childhood.

Angelus smiled, half-entranced. "Come here," he whispered, and this time William did, came willingly into his arms, moving onto him and on top of him, kissing him deeply as they lay full length entwined.

"Yes..." Angelus let the smile drip off from William's lips onto his own. He began to rock them both gently, cradling William in the curve of his hips. "I'm a creature of the night. I live in the dark. Now I find I miss the sun. Just to know... just to feel again... can you? Can you paint me the sun?"

Angelus sighed. "Because. Because you know what it is to hunt for life and capture it. You take it within you and release it through your medium, through the paints you use." He held the lad's gaze and willed him to be truthful. "Blood. Sweat. Tears. Seed. You take them all. They're the only paints you use. The true paints you use. You're a fashion to some, but to me you're an artist. So I'm asking you. Can you? Will you? Paint the sun for me?"

William's eyes closed, and Angelus could feel the boy's struggle. Considerately he stopped moving, wanting the boy to be able to think without distractions.

When William spoke, his eyes were closed. "I shall try." And then opening his eyes, and meeting Angelus' gaze, he lifted one hand to the vampire's brow and lightly traced the contours of the forehead. "I shall try my best and you will tell me what you see. And if it works -"

William nodded and kissed him softly with love and need. "Reward. That you love me, Angel of Death," pointing to his neck, "That is all I yearn for now. Can you? Will you? Do you accept my condition?

William took his time learning the contours of Angelus' face. The fingers roamed everywhere, questing between the downy hairs of eyebrows, the arch of nose and the slight cleft in his upper lip. Touching, tracing till Angelus felt lines of pure silver arch out from the rogue digits, setting each cell and pore into vibration.

He groaned and tried to tempt William into a kiss, but instead the man drew back slightly, as if to say, shall I continue? Will you hold still?

Slowly, looking at Angelus all the while, William traced the vampire's lips a final time, then brought the fingertip to his own mouth, kissing it lightly.

The man felt the shift and smiled mysteriously. Opening his lips ever so little, he inserted a little, then more, till finally he was suckling his own finger, letting Angelus know that he could taste him, the vampire, skin on skin, sweat on sweat, his body on his even by proxy. And when William removed the finger from his mouth to place it on Angelus' lips, the vampire was already arching towards it, dying, needing to feel it inside him, caressing and stroking the innermost cavern of his mouth, even as William had taken him inside.

Warm, soft... salt and the whispery roughness of hardened skin... Angelus concentrated on heaven and the sensation of the finger touching him, lightly on the teeth, learning the inner contours of his mouth even as the man knew his features by heart.

Is that how you do it with everyone? asked Angelus' eyes, and William only smiled and fucked the vampire's mouth with his finger.

An artist's fingertips are peculiarly sensitive. You can take them into your mouth, and suckle long and slowly, and that will drive the man insane. Or you can lie on your side and shudder into a sweaty pillow as his hands cover butterfly circles up your back, on your arms and pattern intricate circles on the curve of your hip.

And when William had taken him to shuddering orgasm, and after a rest, again and a third time, Angelus raised himself on one elbow and looked at the man with all the sadness in his eyes.

A palette. A palette knife. A shard of glass. A bowl of water. And a rough scrap of cloth that William tore from his own shirt.

"Blood clots quickly," he instructed, all the while dipping his palette knife into the wound, digging a little deeper each time, not allowing the wound to heal. "See," holding the tip of the knife to show him, before smoothing the redness onto the cloth stretched out on the ground.

William stroked his canvas a little, then drew back with a sigh. "Too fast," he muttered, and made to thin it with some water.

Angelus laughed, and kept on laughing even as his artist returned to his work, a picture of wounded dignity.

He could scent dawn approaching. An hour away, at most. He looked swiftly around the room and realized with approval that it could shelter him if he chose to stay.

"Is it finished?" he asked William, by now unwilling to even look over the artist's shoulder, merely contributing his blood as and when it was required.

He saw his own face done in blood and red, on cotton cloth ripped from a stranger's clothes, and he saw his face for the first time in decades, alive and whole and above all beautiful ...

It might have been a minute, it might have been a century, but all Angelus could do was sit still and look at it.

William looked at him with mingled pride and hope. Angelus reached out and grabbed him, embracing him with all the heart hunger and love he felt.

"You know what it is." William's smile was beatific. "I've waited for you all my life. Don't let me wait any longer."

The vampire licked his lips, so thirsty and dry, suppressing a groan as the man arched his neck back and upwards, revealing the vulnerability that lies in each human frame.

"Just do it." William's tone was harsh, but the smile was tender. "Love me. Take me. Just don't make me wait any longer for you."

Then drawing back, with one swift move he grasped the fragile mortal neck and snapped it between his hands.

Two weeks later, when he came across a dirty blonde guttersnipe from the East End, he didn't ask any questions before turning him.

The fledgling snarled, but Angelus paid no attention, merely cuffed him hard to get his attention. The first blow, it would be the first of many.

"Your name is William," repeated the vampire, a cold smile touching his lips. "Answer me. What is your name?"

"William," growled the young vampire, eyes turning gold with hate and fear. Angelus looked into those eyes and exulted.

He leaned down and gave the boy a kiss, a gentle kiss, that would be the first of many. When he leaned back, the boy was looking at him with confusion and the beginnings of some familiar emotion.

Using his thumb to trace the boy's lips, Angelus whispered softly to him, "Your name is William, my beautiful lad, and I am going to teach you how to paint the sun."

Though Angelus refers to them all as 'boy' they're actually in their twenties. I swear. I'll accuse the vampire of anything but pedophilia . Remember how he calls Riley 'boy'? Yea.

William, the other William was inspired by a book called 'The Golden Key', in which painters used the saliva, semen, urine etc of persons to create magic paintings that could influence the subject's behavior. William doesn't quite do that, but like Angelus says, he feeds on life, vicariously, using human fluids to paint pictures that he can experience other people from. Ask me more about William. I just might tell you.