Fanfic: One Last Goodbye (REM Series 11/12)

[smokingmirror]

Title: One Last Goodbye
Series: REM 11/12
Author: Avarice
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Angel/Spike
Spoilers: general BtVS s4/A:tS s1
Summary: Angel tracks down his childe one last time.
Word Count: 3870
Date First Posted: 2001
Date Revised - 15-05-2011
Beta: Kita
Awards: -
Notes: A bit sappy in places, but I liked their arguing. I also tried to play with the concept of the sire/childe blood transfer sharing more than power; it allowed them to share memories. Since this whole series has been based on memory, it seemed appropriate.
Feedback: always welcome, as is constructive criticism.


 

 

 

Spike blew another smoke ring and looked out towards the water. He lay under a natural rocky outcrop on a lonely stretch of beach in Northern California.

It wasn't his final destination -- not that he really had one -- but it was quiet and secluded and peaceful for the time being. Not to mention a welcome change from the scenery of the past four day’s traveling.

The blond vampire had spent his days alternating between driving, sleeping and drinking. It had slowed his progress down significantly, but for one of the first times in his life, he had absolutely no agenda.

No agenda, no destination, no rules, no plan, no ties, and definitely no sire.

It wasn't at all what he'd expected it to be like, though. There was no great weight lifted from his shoulders, no black cloud of doubt cleared from his mind.

Spike just felt... numb. Like being anaesthetised, only worse. It felt like he'd had his insides removed with a knife. The wound was cauterized, sealed, so all that remained was a big, hollow void.

How poetic. The blond snorted and blew a smoke ring into the air. With eyes half-closed, he breathed in the clear, crisp air of the coming night. There was only twenty minutes or so left until the glow of the sun totally melted down over the horizon.

Something obscured his vision. Spike couldn't tell properly what it was, but it was big enough to seem quite dark through his half-closed eyelids. He opened them slowly, and resisted the urge to snap them shut again, knowing that the action wouldn't make the dark-haired vampire disappear.

Observation had always been a gift, and Spike noticed a number of things first off, all the while looking like he wasn't noticing them. Angel's face was rough with stubble. Hair messed, eyes sunken. His stance was more bent and hunched than usual -- nothing like Angelus' cocky gait, or Angel's firm stoicism. Clothes were rumpled and untidy, and an off-white cloth wrapped his right hand, upon which flecks of blood were visible.

He must have stood there for a few minutes before ducking his head under the rock ledge and stepping forward. Spike's entire body tensed as Angel bent down and sat next to him on the sand, a foot or so away.

The blond waited for the vampire formerly known as his sire to open his big mouth. After all, that's the only thing he ever did these days, wasn't it? All talk, no action. But... Angel just sat.

And this was how the first minute passed.

And the second.

And the third.

By the fourth, Spike was mad.

By the ninth, he was furious.

By the fifteenth, he was so upset, his hands were visibly shaking with emotion.

When minute sixteen rolled around, he couldn't take it anymore.

"Aren't you going to say anything?" he blurted out harshly, shooting a confused and angry glare at Angel.

"What is there to say?" the dark-haired vampire replied, not looking away from the sea, shrugging his large shoulders.

"Fine, why are you here then?" the blond ground out through tightly clenched teeth. Angel laughed, and it was possibly the saddest sound he had ever heard.

"Truthfully? I have no fucking idea. I just-" he stopped as he met Spike's eyes. He dropped his head and looked back out to the ocean. "I just needed more time."

"Time with me?" Spike asked incredulously. He snorted when Angel nodded. "Oh, this is priceless... Over a century fucking about in my life not enough for you? Don't you think you've had enough time already? Don't you think that if it could work, it would have?"

His remarks stung, but Angel was too emotionally numb to feel them. There was hollowness inside him. He wondered if Spike knew what that was like. The dark-haired vampire watched waves crash onto the sandy shore for a few more moments, before answering, his voice soft and broken.

"I don't know... maybe... maybe not... who can say? I just knew that I needed to see you again, if only to spend a few minutes sitting with you on a beach. So maybe I would have one more memory of you to carry in here before you leave me." He tapped bandaged fingers over his heart.

"You can't even begin to contemplate getting over yourself, can you? Why does everything have to be about you? I made the decision, I'm leaving, and you track me down to tell me it's for you?" Spike's voice rose angrily over the sound of the ocean. Angel's eye's widened.

"No I- that's not what I meant..."

"You don't say what you mean very often do you? No wonder you can't keep anyone with you..."

Angel blanched visibly, face tight and pinched. Low blow, yes, but it wasn't as though he didn't deserve it. He deserved everything he got from Spike.

"I guess I've had that one coming for a while..." Angel unclenched his jaw and gave a pathetic smile. "And you're right. If I was any good at keeping anyone with me, I wouldn't constantly find myself in these situations. You'd think I'd be used to it now... but the honest to motherfucking god truth is you never get used to being alone. Those who do, are crazy.

"You think you're lonely, Spike? You don't know what it is until you've wandered the world for a hundred years in limbo -- neither one thing or the other -- wanting to end your own existence but finding you're too much of a coward.

"I got used to telling people lies and half-truths about what I was thinking or feeling. Made me believe I was doing the right thing. That they, and ultimately I would be better off for it. No connection, no hurt." He shrugged again. "Sometimes you just don't know how wrong you are until it blows up in your face."

"Yeah? Well... serves you right," Spike answered caustically. "I'm a demon, Angelus, the demon you made me to be. And doing stuff that mortals find horrific just comes with the bleedin' territory. But never once have I ever lied about my feelings for you or about you, or kept them from you." He fixed Angel with a piercing stare. "I may not like the truth, but I've never hidden from it."

Angel pursed his lips together and nodded regretfully in agreement. William had always worn his heart on his sleeve -- in any incarnation. Silence except for the crashing of the waves descended again. The sun was only a glimmer behind the horizon now, and pink sky was rapidly darkening to blue.

Spike toyed with his bourbon bottle. He was feeling so many things at once -- anger, longing, resentment, bitterness, sadness -- that he couldn't decide on anything to say or do. It was obvious Angel wasn't exactly in his usual preach-slash-lecture, although he wouldn't rule it out. That made the situation almost bearable.

But the silence...

"Cordelia had a vision," Angel murmured out of the blue. Spike raised his eyebrow.

"And you're here? Aren't you out supposed to be saving whatever pathetic loser it was about?"

"Maybe I'm already trying," Angel replied, giving Spike a self-deprecating half-smile. He swallowed nervously, unsure of what the blond's reaction might be. "It was about me."

The bark of laughter Spike emitted startled Angel momentarily. "You?!" he exclaimed. "You're the pathetic loser? There is a god."

"Powers. The Powers That Be." Spike waved his hand dismissively at the correction, still chuckling morbidly. Angel continued, doing his best to ignore the blond's mocking laughter. "They were the ones who told me where you were... I wouldn't have found you otherwise."

Spike tapered off his laughing, his face becoming serious. "Now why would these Powers of Goody-Good care what the fuck happens to a vampire like me?"

"I don't know," Angel spoke after a moment, "But I believe they care because I do."

"Don't flatter yourself -- or me -- by pretending you do, Angelus, I--"

Angel's eyes narrowed. He knew he'd never admitted it to anyone else but himself in the past, but the constant reminder of this particular failing was too much.

"Give me a break!" Angel shot back, "I am so tired of everyone else telling me what I'm feeling! When I don't care I get told I should, and when I do, I get told I don't. Well, I actually do care, Will, and my life would be so much simpler if I didn't. I know I've fucked up in the past 200 years or so, I know I've done it a lot. But there were times I proved my feelings, right?"

"What are your feelings, Angelus?" Spike asked.

"Will, you were my perfect boy... my lover and friend and student. Words seem paltry to try and describe it."

"Try," The blond looked at Angel, his voice tainted with longing, but Angel was too far into his own thoughts to notice.

"From the moment you were turned, you were my first priority. I kept you by my side day and night because you were a fledgling, and then because I was training you... at least, that was what I allowed Darla and the minions believe... the truth was you were anything I had ever desired wrapped in one being, and you were mine," Angel laughed softly. "You can't begin to imagine how good that made me feel... and I knew it. I knew what I felt for you, and what you felt for me. And I was afraid.

"I didn't know what telling you would do to my standing with Darla, with the vampire community... I had so much to lose. I never realised not telling you would raise the stakes from losing my position and my sire -- to losing you.

"I loved you, William," Angel murmured, using Spike's full name for emphasis, "and who am I now if I'm not still loving you? I certainly don't make a habit of trashing my office, burning antique books, lighters, and the flesh right off my hand for just anybody..." Angel unwrapped the simple dressing on his right hand, revealing his red raw and blistered skin.

Angel finally turned to his childe. The blond's head hung down, chin touching his chest. The older vampire didn't know what he was doing. Probably trying to block out the sound of his sire's useless babble. Calling on the last of his courage, Angel spoke once more.

"If there was ever any doubt in your mind over what I feel for you, I am sorry. Will, I loved you then, I love you now, and the odds are strong I will love you still tomorrow," Angel looked away, eyes misting over, "though it's probably a little too late..."

Was it? The blond bit down on his lip hard. How many times had he been in this exact situation? How many times had he left his sire, with the intention of never coming back, only to be found and promised that whatever had happened would never happen again?

Too many.

Spike knew the routine. Angelus tooled for forgiveness, Spike he gave it, and then Spike went straight back to being an emotional fucking doormat.

The bad times had been horrible, but to their credit, the good times with his sire had been mind-blowing. He had learnt and experienced so much... sometimes it hadn't mattered that Angelus had never verbally reciprocated his feelings, just as long as he was still there in the morning...

The big question was, was this time any different? Actually, The situation was almost exactly the same. The blond inwardly ached over the possibilities. Maybe he was being fucked over again. If that was the case, he knew in his heart he certainly wouldn't survive the experience. There was only so much anyone -- even a demon -- could take.

He knew it would be easy to say no, but... there was something in the dark-haired vampire's voice, in his words, in his eyes, in the bloody air... it spoke of change. Maybe the Higher Muckety-Mucks really did want to help them out. After all, who didn't deserve a bit of closure after two hundred years of angst?

Spike missed everything about his sire. His voice, his vanity, the way the corners of his eyes crinkled when he found something amusing.

The way Angel always made him feel safe and loved, even if he never said so.

Which, coincidentally, was what he'd just said now.

Was it worth one last try?

"It's never too late," Spike replied hoarsely, decision made. He lifted his head. Tears ran unheeded down his cheeks, full of emotion and relief and bitterness over lost time.

"It's not?" Angel asked, feeling moisture build up in his eyes.

Spike smiled shakily, looking strangely happy as tears streaked his face. "I've waited my entire existence for this, I'm not about to bloody well reject it now."

Angel surreptitiously moved closer, his knee making contact with Spike's thigh, as the blond swallowed and continued. "I thought cutting all ties to you would make everything okay... y'know... because I was doing it this time, not you," he sniffed and wiped his face on the arm of his duster, "but it's the equivalent of cutting off an arm, or gouging out an eye... It hurts in a way that I can't ignore.

"Yeah, the physical ties were gone, but everything in here," he touched his chest, "was... is... still crying out for you. And if there's one thing I do well, it's listen to my feelings. No matter what position they might put me in." The last comment was a subtle jibe at Angel's reasoning, and he knew it.

"Will," Angel half-laughed, half-sobbed, bringing his uninjured hand up to wipe at the stream of tears flowing down his childe's cheek. Spike's hand came up to hold Angel's to his face.

"I've needed you so much, Angel. I think maybe I've only realised how much now."

"Funny," Angel ran his fingers down the carved cheekbone, "I've always known how much I needed you." a

The light touch of fingers became a hand cupping Spike's cheek. The blond shut his eyes as his sire's hand cradled his face. It was an intimate gesture he hadn't felt since...

 

(("Angelus," Spike asked, voice cracking slightly. "What the bleeding hell is wrong with you? This obsession with the Slayer bitch... you're not... it's not like you."

"Jealous?" the dark-haired vampire asked, reaching down to the wheelchair's height, taking the blond's head in his hands. "Green is such a great colour on you."))

 

Spike's eyes snapped open. That was certainly a memory he could have lived without dredging up. Angel's touch wavered.

"Is there..." his throat closed up, "is there something wrong?"

"You talk too much," Spike replied gruffly, before pressing insistent lips to his sire's.

The feeling was startling. To Angel, the blond tasted of long-forgotten Sunnydale. Of crypts and dust, and fighting.

Of blood... so much blood...

He had never kissed the bleached blond punk in front of him. The last time had been over a hundred years ago, before he'd ever known the power of a gypsy curse. The lips he kissed were cool and familiar... at the same time more forceful than he remembered.

Spike's hands seemed to be everywhere and nowhere at once: dancing fingertips down strong neck muscles, squeezing biceps through leather, tracing the seam of his pants. Angel jolted. He wasn't used to being the passive partner -- a century with a soul certainly hadn't dimmed that thought in his mind.

By the same token, the William he had known was never one to take command, not when it came down to this.

Always the perceptive one, Spike squeezed Angel's arm, newly divested of its jacket. "Things change," he murmured, biting on the older vampire's bottom lip, "go with it."

He did.

Spike got the familiar knot of desire in his belly when Angel responded to the blond's teeth tugging on his ear. The whimper of desire and frustration was as familiar to him as his own voice. There were some things you just couldn't forget. The younger vampire ran his lips down over his sire's throat, aware of the hypersensitivity of the region, and elicited a choked off snarl. One hand tried in vain to remove his shirt, jacket long gone.

Lifting his shirt off his head, Spike moved forward -- seating himself in his sire's lap -- and joined their mouths together once again. He tasted the saltiness of their combined tears, but not just from today, from lifetimes ago. Sometimes they were his tears combined with the dark-haired vampire's, sometimes it was the sorrow of a small, blond girl he had left behind, or tears shed for a young Irish half-demon...

Too many thoughts. The blond's hands made short work of Angel's shirt, and soon cold skin was blessedly pressed against cold skin. Spike moaned in triumph when he touched the large curves of his sire's chest. It had always been the safest haven he had ever known... wrapping his arms around Angel's large form, he none too gently pushed the older vampire back and down onto his discarded clothes.

Nimble fingers removed two pairs of footwear and began on the clasp of the dark-haired man's pants. It was almost amusing to see the look of simultaneous desire, love, fear, confusion and outrage in those mahogany eyes.

Perfect combination, really.

Angel lifted his hips up off the sand, assisting the removal of his trousers. Spike began on his, but was stopped by two large hands coming to rest on his. The older vampire sat up and -- not without difficulty -- fumbled with the clasp of his jeans. It took a few moments with the burnt hand, but he eventually got it.

With all physical barriers gone -- and mental ones crumbling by the moment -- Angel gently changed places with his childe, laying him down on the sand. He may have been nervous and unsure as all hell, but he still knew how these things were supposed to work.

Spike looked up at his sire, blue eyes blazing like the centre of a flame. The dark-haired vampire ran his injured hand down the blond's lean musculature, the comforting coolness of his skin chilling the throbbing fire that still ate at the appendage. He took Spike's erection in his other hand, stroking the velvety skin. Spike ground his teeth together, and even entertained the submissive gesture of parting his legs and bending knees in preparation, but never lowered his searing gaze from his sire's.

With his own desire threatening to overcome him, and wanting to keep some semblance of control, Angel's demonic countenance surfaced long enough for him to shallowly bite into his own wrist. He used the blood to coat his manhood, before licking the wound until the flow of ichor stopped.

Already impatient, the scent of sireblood drove Spike to distraction. He flared his nostrils and gurgled deep in his throat.

"Will?" Angel questioned, positioning his hips.

"Sire," Spike answered, his voice gravelly, "Now."

With a thrust, Angelus and William were one again.

Angel took it slowly, but even slowly, the time it had taken to get to this place had done most of the work for them. With slow, even thrusts and a hand around his childe's erection, the dark-haired vampire felt his face change. They were together again emotionally, and physically, but one tie still remained broken.

When pleasure reached its peak a few moments later, Angel plunged his fangs into the waiting neck of the blond.

((The man cowered in fear. He looked up at his attacker, praying for mercy, the police, a miracle, something.

Cold blue eyes told him he would get none.

White fangs cut like razors into the soft flesh of his throat. His lifeblood did little more than stain his white shirt red. But before he did indeed let go of consciousness (and subsequently, living) he heard two cryptic words from Death.

"For Angelus."))

The memory sent Angel's mind reeling. Then there was another... and another... and another. Scene upon scene of Spike hunting, during the time of his ensoulment. A hundred years of pain and death and suffering...

All in his name.

The emotions were as real as if he had performed those acts himself. Tears began to fall, and Angel wept for the curse, and his childe's rage, and the innocents that suffered for him, even as Spike's teeth punctured the flesh of his throat.

The blood of his sire coated his tongue, and Spike writhed in pleasure. He allowed himself to be swept away by the current of electricity that was purely his sire.

(("You're pathetic, you know? Not worth the bloody effort."))

An image of himself flashed through his mind. He spoke with a hatred he had rarely felt in his voice. Angel was bruised and bleeding on the ground. It was a specific situation that he had never been a part of...

(("But, I guess I'll make the exception.."))

... in this reality.

((And Angel screamed.))

Spike's head buzzed with the scream. It ripped right through him as if it had happened right next to his ear. Being tormented by those he still cared about... it tore Angel apart inside. And he remembered something...

((Angel gave a futile tug on the manacles. Spike chuckled, amused. The dark-haired vampire shot him a glare, but Spike didn't care. He wanted the Gem, and no one would get in his way. He cast a look at his sire's prone body.

No one.

"So, are you going to do it?" he asked abruptly.

"Naw, not worth the bloody effort," Spike shrugged offhandedly.

And it was as if the words knifed through him. The blond viciously suppressed the fear and concern of his own when utter terror rippled across Angel's face. It didn't matter who, no one got in his way.

No one.))

Spike cried out in anguish into Angel's neck, only to feel a large hand come and stroke his hair back. The dark-haired vampire, still deep inside him -- physically and emotionally -- rocked back and forth. He covered the younger vampire's body with his own, blanketing it in a comforting way.

Angel murmured platitudes and attempted to reign his own thoughts, as well as soothe his childe. The cycle of renewal they had experienced was not without consequences; it seemed they had both shared memories of their lives without one another.

Retracting his fangs from Spike's neck, Angel allowed his human mask to descend. He licked at the excess blood and drew away to make eye contact with his childe. The blond's eyes were wide and yellow still. Angel stroked the side of his face until yellow dissolved in a pool of blue, and ridges melted away.

Somehow, they were both thinking the same thing.

Angel brushed his lips across Spike's.

"I still love you."

Spike's face gave way to a weak, relieved smile.

"Always, sire," he replied simply.

And for the moment, they were both content with that.

 

~finis

on to Always Means Forever