Close Your Eyes
Everything was dark, but of course that was how they liked it. Creeping in shadows, in the hidden corners, in the blindness of a blink. Both bold and cowardly, strangely merciful when hungry, horrifyingly cruel when desperate or when bored. They were legends and nightmares and yet River Song knew them very well.
Now, with a torch clutched in her hand, placing lighting sticks onto the ground wherever she could, or bright diodes and cameras on the wall as she picked forwards through the darkness, River no longer searched for all of these creatures. There was only one left. The only one she wanted. The one that would earn her pardon and her freedom, and satisfy the ever present thread of vengeance that could taint her heart.
She looked around her carefully, stooping to place down the lighting stick, glancing at it to make sure it was secured, then eyes darting up back into the darkness, her torch following her every movement. She swallowed when she heard something, broke her glance to look down a moment as he foot caught on the wiring of the light stick, then her eyes darted back up and her breath ripped in a gasp of shock as she found him. Frozen, inches away, face in a snarl, clawed hands clenched and ready was the weeping angel. The last one.
Her eyes widened, frozen and staring, and it took some time before her muscles felt like she should move again too – before her breathing returned. She took a few deep breaths and tried to keep her composure, but it was hard next to these jumpy bastards, she thought. She licked a tongue over her lips, something comforting about the waxy taste of her own lipstick, and waited for her heart to calm down its hammering. Her eyes itched already, but she wouldn't blink. Wouldn't look him in the eye.
"Angel Bob. We meet again." She said, happy with how calm her words came out, even if her nerves were twitchy as they suppressed the urge to run. She carefully withdrew a little to put more distance between them, and straightened up to her feet. "I know you can hear me. I know that you can answer. You are angel Bob, aren't you?"
The angel didn't move – frozen in stone. But the young voice it had stolen did reply after a pause.
"That is not my name."
"Oh? What's your name then, sweetie?" River asked, thinking the turn of conversation bizarre considering that the angel had been mere inches away from consuming her and dumping her through time. Or worse.
"We don't need them." Angel Bob commented. There was a long pause and the frozen expression, sculpted into permanency, didn't change. "You have come to kill me."
River stared back at him, tried not to blink. She was tempted to use Amy's tactics of winking, but didn't want to look ridiculous to the creature. She inhaled and then nodded.
"Yes. The Church has ordered your execution. I'm here to kill you or capture you."
"They sent you alone." Angel Bob commented.
"After the stunt I pulled, I'm expendable." River snorted.
She then heard a laugh. A genuine laugh. Cruel but warm, approving. River was caught a little off guard and took another few paces back from the living statue.
"Is that funny?" She asked, tilting her chin up.
"You were interesting, River Song." Angel Bob said, voice neutral, but that little glimmer of humor in it. River didn't trust his humor. It had proven to be sadistic before.
"I'm flattered. You're making me blush. Now. We need to get to business." She replied. "You…you need to co-operate or I'll blow your head off. I can get the right equipment down here, no problem."
"I can just kill you." He replied cooly.
"I have people to follow me. They know where you are." She gave a smug smile and reached out, boldly touching his face and then thrusting forward, embedding device into the stone, adhesive and hooks catching on to hold tight. "That, sweetie, is a tracking device. They can find you. And if you kill me you gain nothing. If you come with me, they may re-think their decision to execute you. You are, after all, increasingly rare. Alone, even."
"They won't reconsider." He replied in statement, voice tighter in apparent humiliation at her act, in low anger.
"Then go out with some dignity, rather than getting drilled and hammered into dust while you just sit there and take it." River said, barbs in her voice.
There was utter silence again that seemed to stretch on for years. River carried on looking at it, wishing that she could see anything else but the old frozen expression of feral ferocity that he had stopped at. She swallowed and the lights flickered and she couldn't' stop herself from breaking away from looking at him to give a panicked glance at them. She then gave a little cry of horror as she felt a hand on her face and looked back at angel Bob. She couldn't' breath again, feeling the hard stone on her cheek, the angel's body pressed close, it's face serene yet blank as ever – the eyes dead in their stone appearance. He had done this. She knew the angels could at times influence the lighting. If they focused enough. If they were powerful enough. This one was. This one was the leader – the champion of a starving race, he had been. But a predator, through and through. The stone face didn't move and she tried to wriggled her way out of its closeness, pulling her cheek away, wincing a little at the slight peel of skin from the smooth but porous texture of the stone hand.
"I shall come." Angel Bob eventually said. "On one condition, River Song."
River stared at him, taking a few deep breaths. "I thought I made it clear that you weren't in a position to make terms."
"I am the last of my kind here. I believe that you know what it is like, through second hand experience. What one feels at that moment. The Doctor told you. Tells you." Angel Bob replied. "Then to face death. We live too, River Song. We too experience life in its beauty."
River snorted. "You see beauty? You're killers, the lot of you."
"So are you."
River swallowed. That was too close to the bone. But she had to admit that she was captivated. The serene sculpture, the way it had reached out to her. She was half inclined to believe that it was being honest.
"So what do you want?"
"To live. For a few more moments. With you." Angel Bob replied, voice still neutral but careful and clear. "You are of interest. You are different from the others."
"I'm different to a lot of people." River replied with a note of pride.
"Then afford me dignity and one last experience." Angel Bob replied. "Trust me."
River gave a snort of derision at that, and her eyes flicked up defiantly, meeting his. She suddenly felt like she was caught there, looking into those blank pupil-less stone eyes. "w…why should I trust you?" she asked, stumbling over herself. Those eyes. She felt her control unraveling a little.
"You made your advantages very clear." Angel bob replied. "I have little else. No advantages to consuming you. No advantages to killing you. Nothing to live for but a moment."
River's lips twitched. She tried to look away, but knew he was already there. She could feel the mental connection. It quivered tenuously then built like a great pressure in her mind, pressing against her temples, making her groan a little in pain. But then, just like that, it withdrew, and Angel Bob released his influence on her. She gasped in relief and her eyelids fluttered. When she opened them he hadn't moved, but his position had changed – wings neatly folded, head tilted slightly and a small smile on his lips – subtle and self satisfied, the slightest sneer of pride. She had never seen a weeping angel smile.
"You….you had me. Then you let me go." River gasped, still shaken. "You could have….you could have possessed me."
"I would have. But escape is futile, is it not?" Angel Bob replied. That expression unmoving. "I have nothing but now. The future is pointless."
"So you're suicidal." River muttered. His magnetism lingered, however, and she found that she couldn't stay cold. Or angry. Or even professional.
"I am at peace. I have struggled too long. And I want you to trust me." Angel Bob replied.
River stared back at him for a long time and there was silence again. Part of her was captivated and curious and strangely drawn to this impossible creature. "So you just want to feel alive again, is that it?"
"Yes." Angel Bob replied. "Now close your eyes, River Song."
River hesitated, meeting its eyes again, unable to help herself. Her mind was screaming at her to stop and reconsider, to be sensible for god's sake, but she found herself inhaling deeply, and found herself closing her eyes.
She flinched when she felt his hand on her and it took all her effort to keep her eyes squeezed shut. But it wasn't the snap of her spine or the pain of death that greeted her. His touch was soft and oddly cool, almost spectral – organic and alive. It was smooth and cold like some aquatic creature, light like it drifted in air, a slight tingle of energy at the touch, the slightest heat only at the fingertips and a line of what she supposed must be the veins under the 'skin' or whatever it was he had. She took shallow breaths but Angel Bob didn't hurt her. He had said he wouldn't.
"You are a huntress." He said, still using Bob's voice, but River shivered as she felt the hand moves, long fingers stroking through her hair. "And a queen of time." The other hand moved around to her waist, supporting her and River snapped open her eyes, her bravery faltering. She let out a shaky breath as she was met with his face, close to hers and peaceful, the arms now hard and freezing around her, the grip still there.
"Please." Angel Bob said. The word seemed to alien in that creature's mouth that River couldn't help but relent to it and she closed her eyes again. Once again the spectral flesh around her was soft, and it tightened in grip a little, and then guided her down onto her back on the floor. She heard a leathery drift of feathers that weren't feathers, puling along the floor, then the soft waft of air as they flapped one and shifted. She flinched slightly as she felt a warm heat at her neck, then a slick of wetness and the prickling drag of fangs as he kissed her. She found that she had forgotten how to breathe again.
"You want me…" She observed, feeling stupid for stating the obvious, shifting a little in feeling his weight over her. But she didn't feel quite trapped, didn't think that he intended to trap her.
"I want contact. It's so lonely, frozen in the dark and blind. To not see my own people. One becomes solitary. One drops all friendship and love. I fought only for their survival, and I lost. Yet I had hardly even experienced my own species." Angel Bob said, his stolen voice quieter and more thoughtful.
"You murdered thousands."
"We fed. How many creatures do you murder in order to feed?"
The fangs at her neck were more pronounced and River tightened her jaw to suppress an exclamation. She shifted her legs, and forced herself to keep her eyes shut. "g-Good point I suppose." She said with a snort of defiant humor, trying to salve her bravery in it. But she had to admit that she was excited. Her nerves buzzed with the thrill of this. She had always adored the unknown. Sometimes one just had to jump into the void and see what presented itself.
She moved and brought an arm up, experimentally trying to find his back, feeling the cool skin. She was surprised to find the folds of his clothing were as leathery as his wings, and seemed to be simply a different form of flesh – all complete and part of his body. That the stone revealed angelic feathers and elegant drapes of silk were simply illusions – probably evolutionary developments as they tried to fit in to hide from their prey. She finally settled on a spot under his wings at his waist and his body shifted in response. An unearthly moan, that sounded like the wind through some ancient cave, came from him, and River felt herself shiver. She smiled.
"If you want me, then have me, angel." She said, her voice lowered and seductive, leaning into what she thought was his ear. She moved one hand and let it drift to her army jumpsuit, blindly clasping a zip and pulling down slowly.
-the end-