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Ch. 2: Dreams
Sometimes Spike has this dream. That he is in the middle of a blood sea and hair is raining down on him. A monsoon of single, delicate strands of red, brown, black, but mostly blond hair together wrap around him and pull him underneath the crimson surface. He can't see what's underneath when he's pulled down—can't see at all, in fact—but he knows what's there. Who is there. He knows and he can't breathe. The stench and metallic taste of blood makes him sick. It's all absurd because he doesn't need to breathe and blood is what he lives off of for Christ's sake, but that's just how the dream works.
He woke up screaming the first day. Still does. Or so he's told. He can't quite remember, what with being scared stiff at the moment. He does, however, remember Angel dashing into the room, alarm written all over his face. He remembers the strong arms that wrapped around him and the soothing purr that resounded through his mind until he fell asleep. The hushed words, meaningless but comforting.
The same dream occurred the next day. And the next and the next and the next.
Around the fifth day, Angel decided to sleep with him and has done so ever since. The dream still comes sometimes, but not as frequently and he wakes up sooner now. This doesn't make him shake any less violently afterwards.
Angel, too, has his share of bad dreams. Spike doesn't know what they're about since he's never asked—has known better than to ask—but Angel never screams like Spike. In fact, Spike only knows of these dreams because Angel is right beside him and he can hear the heavy, ragged breathing, feel the bed quiver as Angel tosses and turns. But there are no screams, no moans, no whimpers. Angel is as silent in his fantasy land as he is in the real world.
Spike knows it has to do with the few hundred or so years Angel spent in the fiery pits. He knows because he asked once. The question was meant to be rhetorical; he hadn't been looking for an answer, but after a very long time, when Spike had pretty much forgotten about asking anything at all, he heard Angel's quiet, barely audible reply:
"They never liked it. Not like she did."
"She" in this case refers to another blond, the one in Angel's life long before the other was even born. The one that started it all, really, in Spike's opinion. Of course, he's glad, in a way. If it weren't for her, he'd be six feet under the earth right now. Six feet under and untroubled and free from ghosts and blissfully ignorant...
Maybe he's not so glad.
The arm around him tightens, drawing him closer to the large body underneath.
Spike always makes sure he is on top of Angel. He has learned that if they're side by side, Angel, in the unconscious throes of sleep, will often roll over on top of him.
Illyria has nightmares, too, though she insists she does not have any such thing playing inside her head. To her, nightmares "were objects that trembled before her", nothing more. She is clearly lying when she says so, but Spike doesn't call her on it. Even a god needs illusions sometimes. Just because Spike cannot weave his own doesn't mean he goes around shattering the ones others have created.
That's not to say that the temptation to do so—the "if-I-can't-have-it-neither-can-you" syndrome—isn't constantly there.
TBC