A/N #1: By now you all know what "strange" means. "Road" is defined as: a long surfaced route broad enough for vehicles to be driven on and a route or way that heads toward some predictable outcome.
A/N # 2: You will obviously sense a recurring theme in this one. All I can say is I don't know what the heck I was thinking. The little ditty Spike made up did crack me up six ways from Tuesday the first time he sang it for me though. Apologies to all for any grammatical errors or just plain wrongness. Feedback is always appreciated. Disclaimer: Not mine. Never gonna be mine. Not making a profit here either.
Down A Strange Road
Angel is a wanker. Angel has always been a wanker. Angel will continue to be a wanker until he dusts.
What the hell? So Spike had a sodding nightmare, not the first time, was it? Not like Angel himself didn't have nightmares. Not that Angel actually slept, as such. How long could a person go without getting more than a few minutes of sleep at a time? That had to play silly buggers with your thinking. Not that Angel thought, as such.
Spike had made the mistake of telling Angel that Angelus had made an appearance yesterday in his dreams. Didn't want the prat to think he was screaming like a sodding girl for no reason. The poof had gone all quiet and then proposed the most idiotic theory Spike had ever heard; and that was saying something as he had spent quite a lot of time locked up in a basement apartment with Harris.
Why the hell would a wizard be trying to get to them in their dreams? The poof had lost it. Gone completely sack of hammers. Insanity is often the logic of an accurate mind overtaxed- Oliver Wendell Holmes. Not that Angel had an accurate mind to begin with. Photographic? Very possibly. He certainly managed to remember every single stupid, embarrassing thing Spike had ever done or said. But accurate? No.
One, if a wizard were powerful enough to contact them in their dreams, he would be powerful enough to find them and collect on the price on their heads. They were still alive, or undead as the case may be, and there were no signs of demons lurking about, so that was out. Two, if this mythical wizard knew what the sodding hell he was doing, it wouldn't have been Angelus who'd tortured him. In this case, one and two made naught.
The nightmare was obviously all a product of Spike's fevered imagination. He wished he didn't have such a good one. He could feel those hot pokers. And of course there would be hot pokers. The soul was still kicking him, wasn't it? Stick your Grandsire with hot pokers just the once and see if it doesn't come back to bite you on the arse as soon as you get a soul. Spike wasn't even the one doing the sticking and he still felt guilty about it. Well, mildly guilty anyway. Damned soul. Not that he would give it up for all the tea in China. China. Well, there he'd gone and thought about another thing to try not to feel guilty for, hadn't he? Maybe he would ask Angel exactly how long the soul would be screaming at him every time he turned around and if the dreams ever got better. Once Angel was making sense, of course. Although, that could be a long time coming.
Well, if he had to have nightmares, at least they had broken the damn fever. He hadn't liked having to rely on the poof, wasn't proper. Spike was a big, bad vampire. Granted he did have a soul, but he was still a vampire and not some wilting nancy boy who couldn't look after himself. He wasn't like the poof. Scared of a bleeding wizard.
Damn it. Now he had that stupid movie song in his head. Should've never agreed to watch it. What kind of vampire gets bullied into watching the Wizard of Oz, five times mind you, by a little slip of a girl? A completely whipped vampire, that's who.
This could work, though. Just change the words up a little and…
Angel can be such a poofter, that's why he's called the Great Poof. You'll find he is the poofiest poof if ever a poof there was. If ever, oh ever, a poof there was, Angel, he is surely one because, because, because, because, because, becaaaause. Because of the poncy things he does. Dah, dah, dah, dah, dah… dah, DAH!
"Spike, stop singing." Nope, if Spike suffers, everybody suffers.
"Not singing, am I? 'm humming. Not like you're really sleeping over there so don't even start, mate." Could Captain Forehead be a bigger pain in the arse? Probably not even if he tried.
"You're distracting me. I'm trying to figure out how-"
"How the sodding great wizard could have masterminded this nefarious plot against us?" Had to show the poof he was okay, didn't he? What was more Spike-like than driving Angel crazy? Not a bleeding thing.
"Trying to figure out how you would even know a word as big as 'nefarious.' It has four whole syllables in it. You didn't hurt yourself, did you? I think we still have some aspirin left." Oh, and Spike was just brilliant for wanting his Angel back instead of 'mostly catatonic guy', wasn't he? Wait. His Angel? Stupid, sodding, nancy boy, poof. And right then he wasn't sure just which one of them he was talking about.
"I know a lot of things. You just never bothered to find out." There, take that. That was really very sad, wasn't it? Surely he could do better than that. Good gods, he hadn't lost his touch, had he? Maybe he wasn't feeling as well as he'd thought he was.
Ohhhhh, Angel can be such a poofter, that's why he's called the Great Poof. You'll find he is the poofiest poof if ever a poof there was. If ever, oh ever, a poof there was, Angel, he is surely one because, because, because, because, because, becaaaause. Because of the poncy things he does. Dah, dah, dah, dah, dah… dah, DAH!
No. On second thought, he was actually feeling pretty damn good. Better than he had been anyway. He could stand up without feeling like he was about to fall over. That was a definite improvement. No more hanging on to the wanker's arm like some geriatric relative.
"Spike, stop humming." He looks so tired, doesn't he? Well, there wasn't much Spike could do about that except… sing him to sleep? He really did have the perfect song.
"I could sing it instead." It would be a damn shame not to share. Besides, maybe the idiot would get the melody stuck in his head and it would leave Spike the hell alone.
"God, that's all I need, you singing. Will you please shut up?" Like he was really just waiting on Spike to stop before he drifted off into dreamland. Angel might be lying down next to him on this poor excuse for a bed, but he wasn't going to go to sleep. Did Angel really think Spike didn't know what was going on here?
Spike might play at being the careless ner-do-well sometimes, most times really, but he had been an educated man before he was turned. A surprising number of things stay with you even after you become a soulless, blood-sucking fiend: intelligence, or lack thereof; love of books, if you're so inclined; certain turns of phrases; likes and dislikes; the ability to feel, to love, to hurt; values. Values. Coming from a formerly indiscriminant killer, there was a laugh. He did have his own personal code, though; things he'd never do. That list was a lot longer now than it had been.
Angel tended to forget or, not forget, overlook what William had been before he became Spike. Not all Angel's fault. Spike had actively tried to bury William. Some things though, especially considering what he was and the company he invariably kept, don't stay buried.
William had been a romantic in the classical sense of the word. He would've loved this whole thing. Two Heroes, capital H, setting Evil, capital E, back on its haunches and seriously delaying the scheduled Apocalypse, capital A, now traveling through a strange land with all the minions of hell -or one of the hells anyway- following after while they just tried to find their way home. A completely screwed up version of the fuckin' Odyssey or, maybe, the Wizard of Oz. And if some part of Spike agreed with the long dead ghost of himself, well… he had obviously gone right off the edge, hadn't he? Next thing you know he'll be spouting bloody bad poetry at the sodding poof. That was enough of a visual to completely put him off his sleep.
"Spike?" Angel had that tone in his voice again. Spike wondered if he even knew he was doing it.
"What, poof?" Whatever it was he probably didn't want to talk about it. Not if Angel was speaking softly to him like that.
"Why did you do it? And don't call me that." Sodding hell. What did the ponce think he was playing at now? They didn't have deep philosophical discussions or talk about their bleeding feelings. Not right out like that. That's not how the game was played and Angel knew it.
"Don't know what you mean, Peaches." No way in hell were they going to have this discussion. The time for that kind of thing was long past.
"Yes, you do. Why did you agree to do it?" The prat sounded honestly confused and hopelessly earnest. "Why were you in the alley? Why did you sa-"
"I just like to kill things. 'm always up for a spot of violence. You know that." Bloody sorry excuse, that was. If Peaches bought it, he wasn't as smart as Spike always denied that he was.
"I don't buy that. Well, I do buy that, but that's not a good enough reason to almost get yourself killed for someone you… dislike." When exactly had Angel started speaking to him in that tone of voice? After the nightmare? When he was sick and dying? Did it go farther back and Spike just hadn't noticed it?
"I don't dislike you, not exactly. Didn't do it for you, though, poof. Did it for me." And that was the gods' honest truth; even if it was only half of it. "Not exactly a good man, and maybe I never will be, but I'm trying, just like the man said."
"What? What man?" It ought to be physically impossible to scrunch your forehead up like that. Wonder how exactly the ponce did it.
"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." Come on, Peaches, this was how the game was played. Not that other thing Angel was trying to do, but this. Come on now.
"Oh, okay. I understand." He really was thick, wasn't he?
"You really are thick, aren't you? All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." If he were any more obvious this wouldn't work at all. Maybe he was just fooling himself after all, maybe Angel had forgotten. It was so long ago, wasn't it? Long ago and far away from where they were now. No reason he should remember. No reason to go back there anyway, no reason at all.
"What? Oh. Ummm… Edmund Burke." Yeah. Now they were getting somewhere. Just carry it through to the end now and maybe Angel would be able to sleep. "I think- uhhh… Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul."
"Oh, please. Oscar Wilde. And no more sodding soul quotes." That was too easy and the gods knew they never had done easy very well. "The soul should always stand ajar, ready to welcome the ecstatic experience."
"Please yourself. Emily Dickinson. You'll have to try harder than that, Spike." Poof didn't look so haggard now did he? Bit of a sparkle still left deep down in those brown eyes. Not that Spike was looking deeply into those eyes, mind you. Start that and the next thing you know they'd be giving each other looks, as in 'looks.' "Experience: that most brutal of teachers. But you learn, my God do you learn."
"Alright, hold on a minute…" Damn. He knew this. Where did he know this from? Aha! "C. S. Lewis. When did you start reading him? Thought you went for the high-brow gloom and doom."
"He was Irish. Besides, I liked The Screwtape Letters." It was a damn shame that vampires couldn't blush. It really was. "Go ahead. Dazzle me with your brilliance, and I'm not talking hair color products."
"You're one to talk about hair care, Peaches. Don't know how you're living with the complete lack of hair gel." This was how it went. This was how the game was played. "Try this then: learning is like a great house that requires a great charge to keep it in repair."
"Still too easy. Samuel Butler. There's no place like home." What the hell was that? Angel knew the rules. Hell, Angel had invented the rules. And what exactly did that tone of voice mean?
"That's from the Wizard of Oz. It's what Dorothy had to say to go home. What was the guy's name? Oh yeah, L. Frank Baum. I win, Peaches. You broke the rules." Why the hell was Angel looking at him like that? It was sodding strange and more than a little creepy.
"No, I didn't." Well, that was an Angelus smile if Spike had ever seen one. One of the good ones, one of the shivery ones. "I didn't break them, just changed them a smidge. The game's still the same as it ever was; the rules are just a little different."
Well, whatda ya know? Alright then. Maybe not forever, they both knew the pitfalls of thinking in terms of forever. Maybe just until he got his strength back and could go his own way. Spike could work with these new rules.
Sometimes change was good; necessary for survival, for hoping, for pretending that your heart hadn't been shattered too many times to ever put back together. Spike could play the game. He could pretend.
"Alright then." For now. For a little while.
oooo