A/N: And the first in the 'make me a better writer' stories begins.
He's dead, but it doesn't feel like it. Death is cold, and peaceful, and an end. This feels like knives, red-hot liquid fire burning through his veins. He isn't supposed to feel like this. His heart is withered, an old muscle lying still in his chest. No one hears it. But it squeezes him powerfully, iron bands circling his throat, cutting off an air supply he hasn't needed in a century.
He's cried. Unashamedly, tears of anger, and rage, and futility, he can do nothing, and he will beat his hands to blood against that finality. His face crumples, into forlorn lines, like a little boy. The Watcher, and the whelp watch, silently holding in their own sorrows. They cannot break down, for fear they will not be able to pick up the shattered pieces, and fit them back together.
He has forgotten all sense of that. Madness is inviting, isn't he already supposed to be insane? It is with abandonment he sobbed, sinking to the ground as the world rejoiced, safe once more, safe, and still hidden from the majority of its people.
There are memories to be thought of, each as precious as a jewel that glows in dusky twilight, all the more special as they are so rare. He takes them out in the stony silence, and examines them. He has no illusions, she didn't- she wasn't- His affections weren't returned, he settles on, finally, his poet's soul hovering in the ether somewhere close by. His wounded pride can take 'affection'. But in his memories, the turn of her head, the curve of her neck, blonde strands glinting in the sunlight, her lips in a twist of disgust- they are so close to her. Even remembered pain is a pleasure.
Spike sits motionless in the room, a marble statue bathed in moonlight, unlikely carven angel watching over the sleeping girl. Dawn's cuts are not healed yet; he can smell the metallic tang of blood on the air around her, jarring with the sweet smell of vanilla, the perfume often purloined from an older sister's dresser, and the faint, delicate scent of Dawn herself. The long silky hair is tangled across the pillow, snarled as she has tossed and turned before settling into deep, restless sleep.
The curtains flutter in the light breeze, Dawn left the window open earlier, wanting to see the night sky, the stars, a child's memory of heaven being 'up there', comforting at the same time as feeling flimsy.
The stuffed animals scattered across the floor usually are tucked around the bed. One hand is curled around an elderly stuffed pig, the salt on his back barely dry. She lay with her back to him as she cried, tears leaking from her eyes as she waited for sleep, numb, and cold, and so lonely. He took her sister, for patrols, for concerns, and now she wants her back, desperately, but can't ask.
His throat closes as he swallows, her pulse throbbing in his ears. It is good, with Dawn's living, it drowns out the words, the soft words, a goodbye he didn't see until too late. He would have died for her, and he made a mess of it. His body lay in a cemetery one hundred years ago, and the wet earth would welcome him back gladly, greedily. He did not want her to be embraced by her Calling, leaving him here. The girl-woman in the bed closes her eyes, and prays over and over that this is a nightmare she cannot wake up from.
He runs toward the tower, climbing, meets the knife, passes it, Doc falls, she is safe- It has been twenty two hours, sixteen minutes and fifty four seconds since her death. His mind mocks him with images, phrases, but he seeks an answer. Why is he in torment? Why is he feeling? Why does his passion burn him so deeply, searing, and numbing?
Is this hell?
A/N: Constructive criticism please.
He's dead, but it doesn't feel like it. Death is cold, and peaceful, and an end. This feels like knives, red-hot liquid fire burning through his veins. He isn't supposed to feel like this. His heart is withered, an old muscle lying still in his chest. No one hears it. But it squeezes him powerfully, iron bands circling his throat, cutting off an air supply he hasn't needed in a century.
He's cried. Unashamedly, tears of anger, and rage, and futility, he can do nothing, and he will beat his hands to blood against that finality. His face crumples, into forlorn lines, like a little boy. The Watcher, and the whelp watch, silently holding in their own sorrows. They cannot break down, for fear they will not be able to pick up the shattered pieces, and fit them back together.
He has forgotten all sense of that. Madness is inviting, isn't he already supposed to be insane? It is with abandonment he sobbed, sinking to the ground as the world rejoiced, safe once more, safe, and still hidden from the majority of its people.
There are memories to be thought of, each as precious as a jewel that glows in dusky twilight, all the more special as they are so rare. He takes them out in the stony silence, and examines them. He has no illusions, she didn't- she wasn't- His affections weren't returned, he settles on, finally, his poet's soul hovering in the ether somewhere close by. His wounded pride can take 'affection'. But in his memories, the turn of her head, the curve of her neck, blonde strands glinting in the sunlight, her lips in a twist of disgust- they are so close to her. Even remembered pain is a pleasure.
Spike sits motionless in the room, a marble statue bathed in moonlight, unlikely carven angel watching over the sleeping girl. Dawn's cuts are not healed yet; he can smell the metallic tang of blood on the air around her, jarring with the sweet smell of vanilla, the perfume often purloined from an older sister's dresser, and the faint, delicate scent of Dawn herself. The long silky hair is tangled across the pillow, snarled as she has tossed and turned before settling into deep, restless sleep.
The curtains flutter in the light breeze, Dawn left the window open earlier, wanting to see the night sky, the stars, a child's memory of heaven being 'up there', comforting at the same time as feeling flimsy.
The stuffed animals scattered across the floor usually are tucked around the bed. One hand is curled around an elderly stuffed pig, the salt on his back barely dry. She lay with her back to him as she cried, tears leaking from her eyes as she waited for sleep, numb, and cold, and so lonely. He took her sister, for patrols, for concerns, and now she wants her back, desperately, but can't ask.
His throat closes as he swallows, her pulse throbbing in his ears. It is good, with Dawn's living, it drowns out the words, the soft words, a goodbye he didn't see until too late. He would have died for her, and he made a mess of it. His body lay in a cemetery one hundred years ago, and the wet earth would welcome him back gladly, greedily. He did not want her to be embraced by her Calling, leaving him here. The girl-woman in the bed closes her eyes, and prays over and over that this is a nightmare she cannot wake up from.
He runs toward the tower, climbing, meets the knife, passes it, Doc falls, she is safe- It has been twenty two hours, sixteen minutes and fifty four seconds since her death. His mind mocks him with images, phrases, but he seeks an answer. Why is he in torment? Why is he feeling? Why does his passion burn him so deeply, searing, and numbing?
Is this hell?
A/N: Constructive criticism please.