Work Text:
Sunshine
by Myst
greeneyeddevilmyst@hotmail.com
Send away for a priceless gift
One not subtle, one not on the list
Heavy black boots hit the sidewalk at a loping pace. The swish of leather flapping in the cool night breeze as he's carried on thoughts, and a decision. A quiet revelation.
Send away for a perfect world
One not simply, so absurd
The fire still touches him while he sleeps. Only awake is he free of it. In consciousness he can push it away, only so much pain can be endured at one time. A wry laugh barks at that. His face screwed up into a jagged smile, "yeah take a number..get in line." He chokes. And for what? For the love of a meaningless little girl? Certainly what the stupid bint believed. Arrogance. Well then for what? Eternal hell? The hope of heaven? The goddamned prayer that he'd just be free? If only. Fucking if only. No, his eyes trace the lines of the city, just a for instance, stone and brick, sticks and mortar. Surrounding people who were just as cold, just as indifferent as the buildings they lived in. Nothing moved, nothing spoke to him. A graveyard would have been more friendly. He'd done it for this hard cold place. This place where hate was eternal, somewhere it seemed he would never be free of. Oh the bloody hell, he thought, crossing the street into yet another pool of artifical light, the thudding of boot steps heralding his way.
In these times of doing what you're told
You keep these feelings, no one knows
No... not the whole world...just..well...maybe not even the world. Maybe.. He sighs, the moon shining down his only companion, that bright shining face the only one left in this long lonely night. All the other faces he'd ever known. In life and death, how many were there? Hundreds? A thousand or more? Could it have been for all those? No...of course not. Blind stupid heroics are never really about the whole, about all those faces. It's about just one...one in all the world. To save him, meant he saved the world. Fucking by product nothing more. His steps move on, echoing where the streets and alleys were truly empty. Carrying with them an end to a saga over a hundred years in the making.
The start of it all, a poor crying boy in a dark alley with a girl. A dark haired beauty too mad to do the task she set her heart on...'daddy'. helped his little princess. Helped....take his heart and all he would ever be in a dark and final embrace. In every night there after he took that boy, toyed with him and made himself a fine monster, a companion, and in the end a lover. "A love." He whispered to his lonely witness.
What ever happened to the young man's heart
Swallowed by pain, as he slowly fell apart
A brutal love wrapped in bruises and laughter. Rolled in blood and kisses that went on for time completely immortal. Only one, it's always one. One to save all of creations, and the shining stars above, and one to put they're fire out. To make them seem dull, and lifeless. A wood smoke scented little girl, no more than a slip of a thing, ended all of that. Ended him. Just took him this long to realize it. A long slow death..dying and not even knowing it.. Who needs hell?
And I'm staring down the barrel of a 45,
Swimming through the ashes of another life
No real reason to accept the way things have changed
Staring down the barrel of a 45
Wandering. He took what he knew. The only thing he knew. The mad princess, she held the faintest traces of what they both had lost. Dark hair, and something in her blood, her essence, that shushed his pain. Anesthetic for a demons heart. "Better `n whiskey she was, my Dru." He mused with a rueful smile. This time he didn't even have that cold comfort. More than that, he wasn't even sure it would matter.
He had drowned in that life, thrashing in the waters of it pulling at any string that was offered. The monster ruled boiled and raged for it's maker. And only in a taste from her bosom could he lie down and be quiet a while. The peace was never whole, and it never lasted. It was a shadow, a feeble ghost of the fire he sought.
Send a message to the unborn child
Keep your eyes open for a while
In a box high up on the shelf, left for you, no one else
There's a piece of a puzzle known as life
Wrapped in guilt, sealed up tight
It was in those eyes. The first ones he saw when he was reborne. Whiskey deep touched with gold flecks. The fire lay behind them in his first rebirth. The fire he had sought for the next century. A joy at having a new childe, a demons knowing lust.
Glaring from confusion and fear in his dubious second chance, it was those same eyes marred with guilt, shame and disgust that he met...and that's all he was. All he would ever be. The fire was gone. Long gone and cold...
What ever happened to the young man's heart
Swallowed by pain, as he slowly fell apart
Narrow shoulders back, head held high, a shimmer of bright white hair and black leather stalking in from the cold. Stepping through the door of a little club. Amateur night posted in simple marker by the door.
And I'm staring down the barrel of a 45,
Swimming through the ashes of another life
No real reason to accept the way things have changed
Staring down the barrel of a 45
Dark eyes narrow, as they watch from alleyways and shadows. A figure of singular black fixation. Watching. Waiting. There was something there. Something he'd missed. Something he'd forgotten.
Everyone's pointing their fingers
Always condemning me
And nobody knows what I believe
I believe
From the stage the song rang out, pain coloring every word. His voice shaping them into the portrait of a life at it's end. Strangely melodic. A voice of pure velvet edged razors. Lulling the willing audience, they invited a little more, asking that open sorrow to slice into them.. Let it wash blindly over them in morbid fascination. The veneer of catharsis abounding over them all. No blood spilled for the masses, his wounds still ran deep, and tonight would be just as fatal. Tears welled, but were held unshed, crystal blue vivid eyes blurred.
And I'm staring down the barrel of a 45,
Swimming through the ashes of another life
No real reason to accept the way things have changed
Staring down the barrel of a 45
Those same dark eyes glare from the darkest shadows. In these places there always seem to be a few dark corners and places no one seems to look. It's where things like him belong he had always thought. Tonight he was mournfully glad to have it. Glad to have it's support as he watched a heart laid open. A heart he had longed to hold. One he had once held, and lost. Another life.... Another lifetime ago and more.
The song ended, and so did the spell of utter despair. The crowd roared and cheered, a wry smile crossing defiant cold lips. He swiped his eyes as if blocking the spot light and took a graceful stride off stage. Making his way out of the club and into the street, he took that breath. The one that was supposed to wipe it all away. He'd done the sing song, got it all out. Now go. Just go, he tells that knot of certainty that sat in his belly. He'd felt it before. How could he go through this life and not had that knot before? This time, it wouldn't go. He knew somewhere...it wouldn't.
"Why don't you just leave? Nobody wants you here....least of all me?" Those words smacked him again, like fresh cuts on his newly won soul. The demon so scarred and worn, he almost reveled just in the contact. It was enough. It was done. Love's bitch had, had enough. And admitting it and going on just didn't hold the same sway. Nothing held any light. Nothing was enough for him to hold on to anymore.
Swimming through the ashes of another life.... No more...not again. Life after life and all he wanted, he knew now he'd absolutely never have. He'd asked night after night what it was all about.. Why he could save the world, win a soul, save a slayer and her goofy bunch of half wits again and again, tend to a mad woman and not have the one thing that really ever matter? Not even have a hope of it?
Hope. Something he'd kept for so long, he was starting to feel like Pandora's sodding box. Let loose all the little demons and held that pitiful little thing inside, just a thread really. But one that had kept him together for time out of mind.
What ever happened to the young man's heart swallowed by pain, as he slowly fell apart. Piece by piece he unraveled. The last stitch of the binding his heart. It was the only thing.... Ahh bugger it all... Tears streaming, he wandered just like he did years ago, and very shortly before dawn, he found the shore. The sea seemed to call to him. It's waves and salt filled air sang. His song paled compared to the sorrows of the deep blue. She seemed as vast and endless as his pain. This was the place. She would swallow him up as ashes and take him to a place where nothing mattered. He could give that pain to her, let her carry it for him. A sardonic smile over more tears. Anything had to better than here. "Well infernos seem to be a thing with me." He muses, his voice rusty and tear choked carrying out over the waves. Waiting...all he had to do now was wait. "Been doing it my entire existence...Wot's a little longer...?"
The rumble of the waves, the smell of the sea, and the cover of the remaining darkness, coupled in a black union with his sorrow, hiding that pair of dark eyes, and the strong hand that soundlessly reached out and pulled him into a shadowed embrace.
Send away for a priceless gift One not subtle, one not on the list
"Stay. Please stay with me." Simple words. Spoken in a voice so familiar even in his sleep he heard it. His face buried in an expanse of lean muscle, and quiet strength. A place he had dreamed of, longed for. The place of his death, and rebirth. His heaven, his tortured hell.
Bright shining blue eyes, stared up into the darkness searching in wells of golden flecked whiskey. The eyes that had heralded every rebirth, every time he had been dragged back into this world. There they were again... This time, there was no lusting fire, no abominable demon hunger. This time shame and guilt was no where to be seen. This time there was something...deeper...something he believed lost, something he had let go of to be here now. Hope let out of the box, taking anything he had the will to live for with it.
Including what he saw now. Love. A true deep love. The eyes are the windows of the soul...the are also the mirrors by which we measure ourselves and all others. Looking there now...there was something he'd never guessed that's what he would ever see.
His voice won't come, his breath gone out onto the waves. He can't open his eyes, and he can't move. Too afraid..it's just the sun. The warm burn in the center of his chest, that's where it starts. Arms like vices curl around him tighter locking him into irrefutable safety.
The was the key...he had to ask. Had to know, even if it fell away and he was nothing but ash, he had to. Lifting his head from those cherished folds he looks once more into those eyes. "Why? " It was all he could manage, and all he really wanted to know.
"Tell me you don't know Will. Look at me and tell me." Soft lilting words, the waves crashed they're song raising with the surge that filled him. A choked cry breaking they're symphony. He did know. He could see it as plainly as he could the looming pinks and grays of the imminent dawn. "Say it...you better damn well say it." Nothing in his words demanding, and neither was it desperate. Nothing less would keep him here, nothing less would stop him seeing the dawn for the first time in over a century.
"I love you Spike. Stay. Please...stay."
Epilogue
Days later....and under silk black sheets....
"You know yer a bastard right?" Spike announces definitively crossing his arms as he watches Angel cross the room with his
breakfast in bed, as ordered.
"Hmm? And why would that be this time?" Angel asks unperturbed.
"Just had to let me sing first didn't you?" Angel smiles handing him his mug.
"I love you Spike. Now shut up ...and kiss me."
Sometimes the soul sings, and hope is lost....Then there are times when it falls on the ears of an Angel. Then sings my soul...
end