Author's Note: I don't know where this came from. Call it an attack of the plot bunnies. Or something. Maybe I'm just weird.
Cerulean Blue
(An Angel Fic)
Angel thinks he should call him Master, but he knows that's wrong. Cerulean Blue is not his master. Cerulean Blue is beneath him. How he knows this Angel is not certain. Angel should know only what Cerulean Blue tells him.
Angel wonders how he remembers cerulean blue. That isn't his caretaker's name. Spike, yes, that is what he prefers to be called. The name is as meaningless to Angel as his own.
He thinks the color blue is important. It's the color of Spike's eyes. Those eyes mean nothing to him. He thinks they should, thinks they did, but even he can't say for sure. He asks Spike if they are important. Spike tells him that the color of his eyes don't matter. Angel thinks they did. He asks what color his own eyes are. Spike tells him they're brown, like chocolate, or mud. Angel's not quite sure he knows what chocolate is anymore, but he knows what mud is. Mud is dark and dirty. Does he have dirty eyes? Spike tells him he doesn't, but Angel thinks he's lying.
He asks about the names. Names belong to people. People have faces. People have eyes. Are eyes important? Angel thinks they are. The strange Buffy-girl has green eyes. Wesley had blue ones. Bluer than Spike's? Angel wonders. Were they clearer than Cerulean Blue's? Did they flicker with every emotion like his? Did they tell a story?
And what of Buffy-girl's? Her eyes are green. Green like what? Angel wonders. Green like the emeralds or the half-forgotten sea? He can't remember and Spike can't explain color no matter how hard he tries.
Most of the people Angel knew had brown eyes. Dark and dirty. Murky and depthless. Soulful. Soulless. Angel should know the color brown. He doesn't any more than he knows the names. Who was Darla? Was she important? Spike tells him she had blonde hair and brown eyes. Is that important? Should it be? Why should he care about a blonde with brown eyes anymore than he should a blonde with green ones? Does the green make her special? Does the blue mean more than the brown? Are they different? Are they the same?
Cerulean Blue can't tell him and Angel hasn't asked. Should he? Does Cerulean Blue know what the color means? How can he when Angel doesn't even know? Angel doesn't know anything anymore. He thinks he did. He thinks he was someone once. He doesn't remember who. A monster, a man, what's the difference between the two?
Did he have friends? Cerulean Blue told him he had friends. He loved and was loved in return. But what is love? Angel doesn't remember. What was he before the hovel? What was the world and who was Cerulean Blue before the end? Angel knows that Spike is not his master. He feels it. Feels it in the blood that courses through Cerulean's veins. Deep down that's all he knows.
The blood remains when the faces disappear.
Spike's eyes glow when there is nothing but darkness. They glow cerulean blue.
Angel wonders why he's still here. There is chaos outside. Darkness. Pain. That's where Cerulean Blue goes when he is not with Angel. He disappears and comes back with warm bodies. Dinner, Angel knows. Food. He thinks nothing of sinking his teeth into the soft flesh. In truth, it is only through these bodies that Angel knows any kind of peace.
Sometimes Spike shares a meal with him. Other times he doesn't, but watches Angel feed with a mixture of fascination and horrified curiosity. Angel sees his longing and he wonders why Cerulean Blue doesn't latch his teeth into the body's neck and drink. Blood is life - or so Angel has been told. Blood will heal him. It will heal them both.
Spike never says a word when he disposes of the corpses. Angel finds that he is becoming more and more quiet as the nights wear on. He rarely speaks anymore, knowing that touch succeeds where words fail. Oftentimes when Angel is in the grip of a horrible nightmare it is Spike who awakens him. He strokes his shaking limbs and holds him when he trembles. Angel smells the blood and knows that he is safe.
Sometimes Cerulean Blue trembles as well. When that happens Angel tries to comfort him, but his actions usually make Spike more upset. He starts to get angry and shouts, "You're not Angel! You don't get to do that!" Then he pulls his knees to his chin and he looks very small.
Angel feels badly that he has made his caretaker unhappy. Tears equal red eyes. Red eyes mean no more cerulean blue. Angel tries to apologize, but Spike only gets angrier.
"Angel wouldn't have said that!" he shouts, nearly hysterical.
And Angel feels badly that he is not Angel. He wants to be, he thinks. But he can't remember how. He can't remember anything.
"Do you remember Buffy? Darla? Dru? Fred?" Names, too many names.
AngelusAngelLiamSpikeWilliamDarlaDrusillaWesleyFredCordeliaBuffyBuffyBUFFY.
He remembers nothing.
"C'mon, mate, you must remember something! Remember Buffy, eh? You were in love with her. Remember that?" Desperate, Spike goes through the names. Angel remembers only what he is told.
"I called you Peaches once, remember? I was drunk and - you know who I am, right?"
Of course Angel knows. He's Cerulean Blue.
"How 'bout Sire? Do you know what a Sire is? Do you remember? You're my Sire."
Cerulean Blue is very close to him now. His hands are on Angel's shoulders, shaking him.
"Why can't you remember?"
Angel's head is beginning to hurt from the shaking. He wishes Spike would stop.
"You don't get to run away! You started this, you damn poofer, and you'd better bloody well finish it!" His voice drops. "I can't do this on my own, Angel. You have to come back. Just for a little while... please. Tell me what to do. Tell me what to do!"
Cerulean Blue's eyes go still redder and Angel wonders if he's going to cry.
Spike releases his hold on Angel, realizing that he is only scaring him. "I'm sorry," Cerulean Blue whispers. "I didn't mean to. I - "
And then, without another word, he goes out and comes back with a body he proceeds to lay in Angel's arms. A peace offering. Angel drinks. The body disappears.
Cerulean Blue closes his eyes. He is only resting. Angel knows Cerulean Blue tries not to sleep anymore. He can't. If he does he wakes up screaming. Only Angel sleeps and, curiously, his hell is silent.
xxxxx
Absentmindedly, Spike runs his fingers through his hair. It's getting long, he thinks. Plucking out a strand he realizes his hair is no longer blonde. He'll never be a blonde again.
Odd how the little things upset him.
Spike doesn't know how many months have passed since the alley. He doesn't know how he survived or why Angel's still broken. All he knows is that the world's ending and he'd best snatch a piece of it before it disappears completely.
Los Angeles is in ruins. The population is decimated and the survivors are living in the rubble. They hide most of the time. They don't want the demons to eat them. The demons eat them anyway. Spike knows that humans are slow and stupid. Most know nothing about survival or of the things that go bump in the night. They're learning, but not nearly fast enough. They can't defend themselves. Spike knows they're easy targets and simple kills. They're satisfying meals.
It had been so easy, so natural, to slip back into the role of vampire. At first he resisted. The soul curses him with a conscience and gives him guilt. In the end that doesn't matter. It's their survival or his. Spike wins every time.
Besides, he reasons, Angel needs the blood. Yes, Angel. It always comes back to him, doesn't it? Angel this and Angel that. When Spike was first turned he had worshipped Angel. He wanted to be like his powerful Sire. Wanted to become him, even. Wanted to surpass his greatness.
When Spike had found out about Angel's soul, he had be disgusted. His once proud Sire had become the Slayer's lap dog. It made him want to heave, than Spike became Buffy's bitch and he could no longer hate Angel for it.
Spike remembered so clearly being resurrected at Wolfram & Hart. Seeing Angel. Hating Angel. Wanting to become him all over again. And for a year they danced. And Spike tried to do what he had failed to do when they were evil: top the great Angelus. If he couldn't be more evil than his Sire than he'd damned well be the better hero. That had failed miserably.
And now what is Spike? Even he can't say. It's been months since he'd pulled Angel from the wreckage, his body intact, but his mind long gone. To this day, Spike doesn't know if his brain is damaged because something heavy hit him on the head or because the Senior Partners worked some kind of magic mojo as revenge for the Circle's demise. Maybe it's both. Maybe it's neither. Spike can't be sure. The only thing he knows is that blood will heal him.
Spike needs to believe that if he brings Angel enough blood he'll one day soon look upon him with something other than vague, blind affection. Spike needs his Sire, not a puppy.
Spike needs the man who taught him what true living was like. He needs the man who showed him pain and pleasure beyond anything his countless books had ever told him in life. He needs the man who showed him the world.
Spike hates Angel, but at the same time he can't leave him. It's always been like that. Disgust turns into attraction and attraction turns into the deepest loathing. They could hurt each other, beat and torture each other until the end of time, yet the need would only end when the blood stopped screaming. Their connection could only be severed by the Final Death.
Spike thinks he's going crazy. He can't do this on his own. He can't be alone. Angel needs to come back.
They're both feeding again, though only Spike knows it's wrong. Angel's beyond caring at this point. It is perhaps this fact that scares him more than anything else. Angelus had always taken death far too seriously. Each body was a canvas and each drop of blood an unholy paint. Death is a vampire's art. Angel knew this better than anyone. To see him now sink his teeth into a young thing's neck without ceremony or pretense chills Spike in a way nothing ever has before.
And Spike thinks, that's not Angel. Angel wouldn't do that. Angelus would make a show of it. Angel would feel remorse. Angel doesn't feel guilty anymore. Spike doubts he feels much of anything these days.
If Angel recovers - when he recovers, Spike corrects, when - he'll no doubt return to his brooding ways. Spike can see him now sitting in a corner whining about how he started the Apocalypse and killed people blah, blah, blah.
What are they supposed to do? There's nothing left. No world to protect or reward to collect, there's nothing; just the inherent desire to keep existing no matter what the cost.
Spike wonders if he's cheating death by refusing to die. He wonders if it's possible to damn his soul anymore than it already is. He wonders why he doesn't care.
The blood tastes sweet on his tongue, like nectar and the finest ambrosia mixed with something decidedly alcoholic. How he'd missed it; yearned for the warmth of a human being all the years he spent drinking microwaved animal blood. Damn chip. Damn soul. Neither is an issue for him anymore.
Not like that stops the ghosts from haunting him like they should haunt Angel.
Spike does it for Angel, or so he tells himself. Angel is the priority. Once Angel gets better than they'll both get off the human blood and find a less morally bankrupt food source.
Maybe. Not like they can buy blood anymore. They need to take what they can get.
Spike wishes Angel could remember him, remember anything. Places, people, Barry Manilow, Spike doesn't much care anymore. He's tried to jog Angel's memory. He's talked about Buffy, and Fred, and Wesley, and Gunn. He's talked about Vipers, and ballets, and charcoal sketches, and the ridiculous color his Sire is now obsessed with.
These things mean nothing to Angel. He's a blank sheet that Spike tries desperately to fill up. Spike doesn't think he's doing a very good job.
This is wrong, all wrong. Spike shouldn't be taking care of Angel, Angel should be taking care of Spike. A Childe should never rule his Sire. A slave cannot rule his master. Spike isn't a leader. He never was and he never will be. He can't take care of anyone, not even himself. Especially not himself.
If Buffy could see him now - if Angel could - they'd be so disappointed. Spike's failed them.
And that hurts him more than his damnation ever could.