DISCLAIMER"characters are not mine, they belong to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, the W. B, UPN and FOX, blablabla. I'm only having a little fun with them. This story belongs to me, and which I have no commercial purpose".
Author's babbling:Please, english is my second or third language, so don't be too hard with me. Still without a beta so ALL mistake are mine!I swear I'm trying my best.
Summary: This fic is focused on the episode "Why we fight", or rather, on what could have happened after the last scene.
Angel sighs looking a little around. The sunlight that enters through the windows makes shine the broken glass that's covering his office's floor.
He closes his eyes for a second, and can see Lawson's eyes, pleading, begging for answers. A mission, something, anything that would give to his death some sense, that would justify his tragedy.
Beside him, Spike removes unable to stay still for more than a minute. He wanders through the mess, making crunch small pieces of glass under the soles of his boots.
Angel opens his eyes and silently watches his Childe. He's then suddenly struck by the thought that the blond is the only thing he has left. Actually, it's the only one of his vampire family, all of his old life that still stands. The vampire feels something inside him removed, a strange tightness in his chest; Angel does not know how to feel about that.
A part of him does not understand how they came to that situation, after a hundred years feeling the irresistible urge to stake Spike. But in the bottom of his dead heart, the vampire knows it could not have been another way. The younger vampire had been right when he snapped to Angelus that he could not kill him, down in the mines of Yorkshire.
Angel smiles a little as he remembered the moment; when he comes back from his daydream, it's to discover the penetrating blue gaze of his Childe fixed on him. The sun just is a reddish glow on the horizon, and the light that filters into the room seems to lick the pearly face of sharp cheekbones, like flames of a dying fire.
"He knew what he risked coming here." The blonde says the words quietly, still motionless in the middle of the room. "He came exactly for this Angel. So stop brooding."
Angel shakes his head, slightly annoyed. Of all his Childes, Lawson was the only created after the soul and yet his conversion was the only devoid of emotion. If he was bitten was by pure practicality, because Angel needed someone who could run the damn submarine. A kid, Lawson had been just a kid, a good one with a strong sense of duty, a kind-hearted young man converted under the edge of his fangs into a mere instrument, a tool.
"You do not understand, you cannot understand it." Angel snorts somewhat desperate, Lawson's face stuck in his brain. "Try for a moment to put yourself in his place. Imagine how he must feel. All those years, all alone, looking for answers to questions he did not even understand."
Spike stares at him for a few seconds in silence, completely still. Angel is sure that the vampire has even stopped breathing. An amber glow illuminates the blonde's blue eyes, but a moment later it vanishes.
"Oh yeah, you're right. How insensitive of me, of course I could never understand how he must have felt, the poor devil." Sarcasm is evident in his voice, mixed perhaps with a note of bitterness, hitting Angel in the middle of the chest. A blaze of shame and guilt tries to swallow him. Of course Spike can understand the tortured Lawson. In a way, all his Childes could; all were abandoned by him, all carried in their blood and hearts the same wound.
The vampire closes his eyes again, his mind full of images, of memories. A spiral of faces, all beautiful and terrible. Angelus fights deep into the abyss of his heart, while one by one the faces of his Childes slide behind his closed eyelids, as if the current of a river of dark and thick water like varnish, bring them slowly.
"All this time, waiting, looking for me." He mumbles a bit absent, gradually emerging to the surface of his turbulent thoughts.
"That is the sailor's fault." Spike snorts a few steps to his left, bringing him back to the present abruptly, somehow anchoring Angel to reality.
"What do you mean?" The vampire asks confused.
"I mean that it's not your fault that Lawson has been expecting you all this time, but his." The blonde turns a little away from him, staring at the horizon, that now is a pale shade of blue. "He wasted his time waiting for you. I told him not to."
Angel felt a painful pang in his heart at that. He covers the short distance that separates him from his Childe quickly, forcing Spike to face him clinging to his shoulders. The leather of his coat is warm under his fingertips, and as soft as his own marble skin.
"You ... you told him?" Angel's head is spinning, the room suddenly seems to have lost the horizontal. The only thing that allows him to remain standing is Spike's shoulders under his clenched hands.
"He wanted ... when we landed, he wanted to know ... stuff." The blond vampire answers between long pauses, without meeting his eyes, as if he regretted saying too much.
"William."
Something dark and dense stretches within him when he pronounces that name. Angel can taste the power, the fire hidden in the serious tone, can hear the order implicit in that one word. Spike also can feel it too, but to the chagrin of Angel, all he gets is a raised eyebrow and an incredulous look. Spike frees himself gently from his hold, turning his attention back to the window.
"I explained to him just the basics." The vampire continues while Angel looks at him strangely amazed. He had never stopped to think about the possibility that Spike had taken the young sailor under his care. "Although only the most essential, you know; vampires, blood, no sun, stay away from sharp wooden objects ... the minimum necessary to survive. Though he impressed me. I always imagined that he would have survived two days at most. "
Angel looks at his Childe's profile who suddenly looks very tired, a bitter grin on his lips reflects a century old tiredness.
Slowly he takes a few steps back until they are shoulder to shoulder, quietly, pretending to be absorbed in the urban landscape before them. After an eternity Angel gathers the courage to resume the conversation.
"Why? Why did you help him?"
"I do not know." Spike shrugs. "I was there, you know? We spent the day together hiding in an abandoned shack, and he kept asking questions. Damn kid, was unable to close his mouth. And after all, he was your Childe. That made him a little mine too, right? Besides, that he was another of your mistakes did not mean he didn't deserve an opportunity. "
Spike's words bring back the twinge of anxiety; a far cry from the past, haunting his conscience in a wave remote, painful, like a rope that vibrate inside the flesh and the memory.
"Besides, I thought that if you finally discovered that I had helped him, it would piss you off." The light and evil laugh makes Angel chuckle. Angel turns to face Spike's, and sees that the blond is smiling too; his look is a blue flash in the dimmed room.
"And then you told him he shouldn't wait for me." It sounds more like a question, the slight touch of humor suddenly vanishing.
"I told him that you were not going to come back. That he meant nothing to you, that he shouldn't waste his time looking for you, or waiting for you. I warned him not dreaming of a happy reunion." The vampire turns a little toward him, chin slightly raised in challenge, a fierce twinkle in his eyes. "I told him that you were a bastard and that you were not worth it."
Spike is so close to him that Angel can smell the addictive fragrance of his body, almost taste the sweetness of his skin. Something sad and bitter starts dripping from his soul when his Childe turns away from him. The blond is so angry that Angel is able to feel the tension in his own body, the throb in his temples. Almost instinctively the vampire prepares for a fight, but a minute later Spike seems to deflate before his eyes and once again silence falls over them, like a curse.
The blond vampire suddenly seems very sad and Angel feels dizzy, hit by a bitter pang in his heart. So much love, so much fear, so much pain disguised as anger, as hatred. That hole in the armor of his Childe, had been there all the time? It was a result of his new soul, or was there from the beginning? It was like sticking a finger into a freshly opened wound, throbbing and painful, despite all those years.
"Spike ... it's okay." It's a poor choice of words but respond well to his sudden need to fill the gap that separates them.
"I know what you're thinking Angelus." Spike steps back toward him, moving with his predatory gait. "Hypocrite, right? I guess sometimes it's easier to give advice than to follow them yourself"
And there it is again. That hurt look, the sad reproach twin to Dru's and Penn's, the same question like the stake driven into Lawson's chest.
Angel accused the hit and takes a small step back, startled. A million times he had repeated himself, during all those years, that he had done the right thing. That leaving them behind had been the right decision. A million times, a million times a million. And yet, every time Spike looks at him with those eyes, a voice in his head screams at him with the force of the first day that he was wrong.
Angel doesn't know what that is reflected in his face, but it is enough to soften the eyes of his Childe, and makes his lips to curl into a shy smile.
"But don't torture yourself now." Soft, like treading on thin ice, Spike walks up next to him "You did what you had. You gave him the answers he sought. Everything is alright now." "Alright." Angel's voice keeps some hysterical laughter. "Lawson is just a pile of ashes on the carpet, and you say that it's ok, that everything is alright."
They are so close that Angel can swear that Spike's eyelashes are small, tiny twisted silk threads.
"I think you have long forgotten what it feels like when you're someone's else Childe. Some things can only be understood from this side of the mirror." Gently, the vampire trapped Angel's face in his hands. "It's over and it's ok. Trust me, just this once."
Again the gentle smile, the nod, the light exploding inside his eyes. Spike takes a step back from him and makes a move to leave, but Angel stops him.
Later the vampire would blame the regrets, the fading memory of Lawson before his eyes. But right now Angel thinks of nothing, just let himself get carried away by his needs and grabs Spike's arm tightly, before the blonde could leave him alone.
He pulls his arm, enjoying the feel when your body hits his Childe's. He embraces the smaller vampire, burying his chin on the soft blond hair. He takes a breath and enjoy the scent of Spike, filling his lungs with sweetly spicy air, feeling the pleasure to have him back against his body, docile and cuddly, as he used to be.
Unsure he seeks Spike's lips and finds them tender and wet under his, like a pink and sweet fruit.
Angel closes his eyes suddenly dizzy, feeling very tired and at the same time in peace, as if he had returned from a long journey. Like after years of walking, he had reached his destination. As if he finally was back at home, safe.