Prompt 170 - Restless Chapter 4

[guardian-erin.livejournal.com]

Title: Restless Chapter 4
Author: Guardian Erin
Rating: R
Fandom: Angel
Disclaimer: I do not own
Summary: Angel continues the good fight, though the world fades around him.



There's no real way of telling how much time passes in this place. Weeks can drag on or disappear in the blink of an eye. Sometimes I suspect that the latter happens literally – there is so much power tearing through LA now that everything is imbalanced.

We fall into a routine. Spike makes a wonderful companion, except that he's too quiet, and when I want to touch him, he disappears. He hates it. I can feel his pain. I have to make sure he knows he's real. He's here. He's with me.

Started to mention him out loud a few times. The stares from the casual demon is too much. Even worse when they start saying things, and then Spike gets upset. You're real, Spike. Real. They don't understand, but they can't tell any lies when I break their jaws, snap their necks, whatever. He's happy then, and encouraging. I stop mentioning him, because he's mine, he's beautiful, and I don't want anyone else looking at him.

It's quiet. It's so quiet that sometimes I feel like I'm trapped at the bottom of the ocean again, breathing water, with nothing else but my insanity to keep me company. Spike is better company than those cruel nightmares. He keeps the swarming darkness at bay, when nothing else seems to calm the ferocious undertow. I've learned that he's easiest to talk to without saying anything at all. He knows when I need some sympathetic look, or when I need a stream of meaningless chatter to ease my mind.

Figures that the first thing to go in an apocalypse is the satellite TV. Wonder if it's something to do with that sky? Downright hellish if you ask me, all red and glowing. When's the last time the sun set, anyway? Least it don't burn any, but it sets me on edge, it does. You feel that, too? Like I want to go in all directions at once, but I'm stuck together here. With you. Worse fate than hell, that is. But he says it all with a smile, and if he isn't convinced that he wasn't serious, he'll climb over me later to nip at my neck and make me know that he's sorry about it.

Nothing changes. That's what is so perfect about him. Perfect. Always. Then I remember he tried to become human. Tried to leave me. I get angry at him, but he always wins that fight. Don't know why I keep forgetting it was my goal all along to be human. Never thought about how I was abandoning him. He forgives me. Pathetic sod, he says, but it's soft. We could have both lost. Both lost each other forever, but now that can never happen.

Sometimes we make love. Hot, passionate, the way I remember, but softer, almost torturous but so good. Seeing him so pleased, so vivid and lively again does things to me. Just touching him does things to me. Then I wake up, colder. So much colder. He vanishes. I regret not making love to him every second when he was still alive. I regret letting those moments slip by, and taking him for granted instead of ever properly undressing him and exploring every inch. I don't know how that would look now, and I will never know. But alive and dead are such meaningless words for vampires. I just know he was a part of me, and that part still lives on, still aches for the loss of him, even when he's right there with me.

I think about Buffy sometimes. Wonder if she's still out there fighting the good fight. I wonder if one day I woke up with a heartbeat whether or not we could have that happily ever after. Then I remember where I am, and how many of my loved ones are already dead because of me. I can't leave, not after I've damned the entire city to die. I have to see this through to the end. The only resemblance of relief here is knowing that they're all waiting for me on the other side.

Spike keeps me on edge, keeps me guided. Just a pointed look from him, and I know that something is wrong. There's something that we have to deal with, usually in a particularly gorey way. Always have to keep up appearances in this place. There's no room for weakness, no room for distraction. Kill or be killed is the way of the world, and the only way I'm going out of it is on both feet, fighting until I can't anymore.

Didn't expect to end up on my knees so fast when the time came. Colors exploding in my sight, head throbbing in sharp pain. I'm not supposed to go down to just any overly muscular demon, but I know the kind of forces that truly run the world, and they would all be watching this scene with intense satisfaction. A champion on his knees, bleeding… oh, look at that… cold, red, running off into the dirty streets. I thought I'd earn my redemption before I died. Snuffed out, as Spike would say, but he's quiet, remorseful before the demon attacks again, a fist the size of my head slamming into my gut, almost literally. I'm torn open, barely clutching onto what's inside. I need that stuff.

I can't see for five seconds, and then the world comes back to me in a daze. It's just playing with me now, enjoying itself in brutality before it finishes me off. My body is in agony, worn down from too many sleepless nights, too many days of silence and solitude, too much unbearable suffering in this place. There's a part of me that wants it to be over with right here. It's the part of me that surrendered to Wolfram and Hart's offer. I want to be the hero again, be the kind of man who would never give up no matter the cost, but I'm just so tired.

Spike looks like he absolves me, and I want to die then more than ever. I'm ashamed of myself, how easily I let this happen, and how much I actually want it, but he is so calm that I just close my eyes and wait for the end. I can feel Spike's hand on me, so light, nothing more than a ghostly breeze against my skin.

The pain dims and slips away. I walk through the valley of the shadow of death. The world turns black.