Disclaimer: All hail the mighty Whedon! Unfortunately, in his mightiness, he has left no crumbs for poor authoresses. –le sigh–
The battle was over; the fight was won. Corpses were scattered throughout the street. Slimy technicolor demon entrails and piles of poisonous ashes were all that remained of the hell army. One carcass stood out from the others. Scaly, skeletal, and smoking still, the great wyrm lay dead, its fire gone out, the light in its eyes extinguished. The lone figure of a man sat beside the dragon, his arms around his knees, waiting for the morning to come.
Somewhere inside, Angel knew he needed to move. There were messes to clean up, finances to arrange, and friends to bury. He swallowed hard, forcing the pain away. Gunn and Wesley – he couldn't just leave them there. He needed to give their bodies the peace and final honor they deserved. Besides, dawn was coming soon, and he ought to go find Spike and whatever remained of Illyria. But Angel couldn't get up. The vampire was tired, beyond thoughts or words, down deep in his ancient bones. He had nothing left, no hope or emotion, just exhaustion. Angel was finished, and now it was time to wait for the dawn.
A shadow emerged from the dark alleyway behind him. It crossed the street, moving silently as it wove through the mounds of the dead. The shadow approached Angel and sat beside him.
"Thought you'd survive," Spike said softly. He glanced at the other vampire. Angel's shirt was badly ripped, and blood was oozing slowly from several nasty cuts on his arms, face, and chest. There was a pool of dried blood on the ground beneath his right leg, but nothing that would have kept him from moving, if he'd wanted to. "You all right, Peaches?"
Angel turned a dead face on the younger vampire. Spike thought better of his impulse to put a hand on his grandsire's arm.
"Angel?" he asked uncertainly.
"Spike," Angel sighed, his voice full of weariness. "Shut up."
They sat there in silence for ten minutes before Spike ran out of self-control.
"We need to go," he hissed. "We have to take care of the others. Why are you still sitting here?"
"I'm waiting on the sun."
"What?"
Angel looked at him almost pleadingly. "Haven't you ever wanted to just let go? To watch one last sunrise?"
"No," Spike answered shortly and truthfully. "Look, Angel, if you've got a death wish, just tell me when, and I'll gladly plunge a stake into your heart. But this . . . this has to be the worst idea you've ever had, including the time when we" –
The older vampire cut him off, his tone icy and biting. "Enough, Spike. This is my decision, not yours. Either shut up or go away."
Spike shut up, but on the inside he was furious. He had half a mind to beat Angel unconscious and then drag him down into the sewers, but he had a feeling he'd broken a couple of ribs sometime during the night and that Angel could take him, injured as he was. Not that Spike loved the Poofter or anything, but he was sick of death, and Angel was all he had left of his past. Drusilla didn't count, not since she was off who-knew-where doing who-knew-who. He needed another plan. In an effort to distract the suicidal vampire, Spike asked the first question that popped into his head.
"What's your idea of a perfect world?"
"What?" It was Angel's turn to be confused.
"A perfect world. What would yours be like?"
Angel had to think about that for a minute. "Wesley would be alive," he said at last. "Wes and Gunn and Cordelia and Fred and Darla and Doyle and the Gypsy woman – well, both of them, actually."
"So everyone would be alive, and no one would have died." Spike shook his head. "Come on, mate. Be more original. What else?"
"Connor would love me." Angel's voice broke. "Cordy and I would have had a chance, a real chance, and I would have saved Faith."
"Saved Faith from what?" He couldn't stand Connor, and he didn't really remember Cordelia, but Spike knew Faith. She had a tendency to say things that were . . . unforgettable, to say the least.
"From the world, from heartache, from herself. I would have been there for her before she accidentally killed that man. I would have stopped her. I would have saved her."
"The way I heard it, you did save her, in the end. That's what matters, inn'it?"
His companion frowned. Angel really didn't feel like having a heart-to-heart with Spike. A stake-to-heart, maybe – his stake to Spike's heart, of course – but that was it. He turned the question back on Spike. "What would your perfect world be like?"
Spike leaned back on a pile of rubble, grinning. "I'd still be painting the world red with Dru. We'd never have come to blasted Sunnydale. We'd be on our merry way, wreaking havoc in Lithuania or India or one of those –ztan places. Somewhere far, far away from here. Or maybe I wouldn't. Maybe I'd have turned Red and shaken Sunyhell to its roots. Or Anya and I could have teamed up to work vengeance on those bloody Scoobies. We might have had a thing, you know? Somethin' more than a one-time, drunk, lonely thing."
"Red? Oh, you mean Willow. Who's Anya?"
"Ex- , then current, and now dead vengeance demon. Used to date that puffed-up wanker Xander. Hell of a woman." Spike smiled reminiscently. "Wish she'd survived. Had more life in her than that whole pack of Potentials." He sighed, then shook his head. "I might even have this stupid soul. One thing I do know. Wherever I was, there'd be plenty of booze, blood, and women."
The blond vampire pulled a silver flask from the inside of his black leather duster. Somehow, neither flask nor duster had gotten so much as a scratch during the battle. After taking a long, deep swig, he extended the flask to Angel.
"Why am I not surprised?" Angel muttered, but he took the flask anyway and drained it dry. "Bourbon?"
"I needed it." Spike tried to get one last drink out of the flask and found it empty. "I hate you, Peaches. You know that?" He didn't wait for a response but moved on to his next question. "So, in your perfect world, would you be with Buffy?"
Angel didn't reply for a long moment. He stared at the horizon. Its dark charcoal was slowly turning to a pearly dove gray. Finally he spoke. "I don't know. Five years ago – even a year ago – I would have said yes, but now? I just don't know." He looked at Spike suspiciously. "Why? Would you be with her in your ideal world?"
Spike shrugged awkwardly. "Buffy complicates things. Besides, why should I limit myself to one woman?"
His grandsire raised his eyebrows.
"As if you could possibly pick one. Who would it be, Peaches? Just one girl for all of eternity. Who would you choose? Buffy or Darla? Cordelia or Faith? Nina or Fred or that sultry actress who wanted you to turn her? Wesley told me the stories. Face it, mate. We're of the line of Aurelius. You and me, we can't pick."
"So what are you saying? In our perfect world, we should just open up a harem?" Angel almost smiled.
Whewf. Spike's plan was working. He had Angel good and distracted, so distracted, in fact, that he was using the word "we". There was rarely a "we." Maybe five times, in the last hundred and fifty years. This was encouraging. Perhaps Spike could convince Angel to come inside after all.
"That is an excellent idea. We could move to Transylvania and buy that castle across the valley from Crapula. We'd show him – and that blasted Immortal. Take our girls, will they? No more. We'd have Buffy and Dru and Willow and Anya and Darla and Cordelia and Faith and Fred and everyone else we've ever wanted. Share and share alike. But if you so much as think about touching Dru, I'll drench you in oil and set you on fire."
The older vampire laughed.
"I mean it, Angel," Spike warned dangerously. "You come anywhere near her, and I'll rip you into a thousand tiny pieces and make fireworks out of you. That understood?"
"Spike, isn't this a hypothetical perfect world?"
"Well, yeah, but that's not the point, is it?"
No matter how many centuries passed, Angel would never understand the way Spike's brain worked. Then again, he wasn't sure he really wanted to. A tinge of golden light appeared on the horizon, dispelling the night, lancing it through with shots of palest pink. Tension flooded the vampire's body. He sat straighter and placed his palms flat on the ground, wincing a little as his cuts came into contact with rough gravel and started to bleed again. It wouldn't be long now.
Spike instantly noticed the change. He glanced at the sky, gauging the time left till sunrise with an expertise born of long practice. They had five minutes before the smoldering started.
"C'mon, Peaches, let's go in. I really don't feel up to worshipping the sun god today."
Angel just looked at him but didn't answer. Spike swore violently.
"D-mn it, Angel!" I didn't want to have to do this, but you leave me no choice." The blond vampire whipped a shiny black cell phone out of his pocket.
"What are you going to do?" Angel laughed. The determined look on Spike's face was just funny. "Text me to death?"
"No," Spike said tightly. I'm going to call a certain Slayer."
"Buffy's moved on." His voice was stiff and sad. Spike rolled his eyes. Here came the depression and blubbering. "She won't care what happens to me."
"Wrong Slayer." He held up the phone, thumb poised on the call button. "I was thinking of a somewhat darker girl, doe eyes, holier than thou glower, kinda big on keeping you alive."
"Don't you dare call Faith," the older vampire snarled.
Spike smirked. "Why not? Afraid she'll curse you a blue streak, then burst into tears when that doesn't work?"
"You wouldn't." Angel's eyes glinted menacingly.
Raising one scarred eyebrow, Spike hit the call button. Angel dived for the phone, but Spike jumped out of the way. "Not so fast, Peaches. Wouldn't want to deprive Faith of her chance to say goodbye."
Panting out of habit, eyes full of hatred, Angel glared at the other vamp. They listened to the dial tone. It sounded once, twice, then someone picked up.
"Hello?" Faith clearly hadn't gone to bed yet. "Spike? I am not going to ask Giles to decipher more ancient Egyptian kitten poker texts for you. How's Angel? Spike? . . . Spike? . . . Stupid pocket-dialing vampire." She hung up.
Spike turned back to Angel, one eyebrow still raised in a silent question.
"All right," Angel said wearily, getting to his feet. "You win, William."
"If you really want to die, I'd be thrilled to put you out of my misery." Spike returned the phone to his duster, moving quickly. Dawn was too close for comfort. "But not just now. Let me get right annoyed with you before we start. Should take all of about thirty seconds. Then I can stake you all proper like."
"You first." Angel pulled the remnants of his shirt into some semblance of order. Limping badly, he headed for the closest sewer entrance. Spike came up beside him and slipped a shoulder under his arm. The two vampires hobbled and hurried to the blood-encrusted manhole. Together, they lifted the cover and disappeared into the darkness.
Fin.
A/N: Review and make AiH smile?