Do Vampires Dream Of Exsanguinated Sheep?
by Wirrrn
Pairing: Doyle/Angel
RATING: Buggered if I know; your rating system is different than ours way
down here Down Under. Um...NC-17? Angel/Doyle, Xander/Larry (Implied).
Horror, humour,cute men recreationally staining furniture.
SPOILERS: (ANGEL) "Hero", (BTVS) "Amends".
SUMMARY: Cordelia and Xander want to help the Big Brooding Bloke get over
Doyle's death. Some Thing has other ideas . . .
DISCLAIMER: All and sundry property of The Great and Powerful Joss and his
army of Winged Monkeys. I've just given the boys the keys to my guest house
whilst he's off getting a heart and brain.
NOTES: Mostly for Viridian5, Mulder/Krycek slasher extraordinaire. Buffy's
disparaging remarks about Xander taken with permission from Adalisa's
excellent X/A series "In Dreams." Read it! Play spot the cameoing movie
vampire for special bonus points . . .
FEEDBACK: Damn straight. WIRRRN@HOTMAIL.COM. Do not touch the
glass. Do not approach the glass. If he attempts to pass you anything, do not
accept it. Do you understand?
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
DO VAMPIRES DREAM OF EXSANGUINATED SHEEP?
by WIRRRN
"You're what happens when models marry,
you're the kind of Angel they'd produce;
pale creature more sad than savage,
Heaven knows you're fireproof;
-In an apartment with a dirty mirror,
You can still kiss your face Goodbye...."
-Paul McDermott, "HAPPINESS".
Part 1
Deep in that most frost-blasted region of the Antarctic continent
squats the huge, dormant bulk of the Sorsdal Glacier. Its surface
pitted with deep,treacherous cracks, several of which have flooded,
becoming great, secret lakes, darker than the abyss and as cold. In
an area screaming with knife-knuckled winds and the mineral groans of
ice marking time in bleak, crystalline silence, waits a body of
water that is...different. Barren of life, sixty degrees below
freezing,seen by less than a dozen mortal eyes. And there, in its
middle, mired and pregnant with frozen death for millennia, it
stands. Crudely human yet titanic in size, mouth jagged with fangs
and wide with frigid, cheated fury, frozen talons eternally carving
great furrows in the surrounding ice, as if the hands wish to escape
the massive pike piercing their owners chest.
Those who have seen it and remain with speech whisper of its great age, the
blood--not its own--stalactited to the hoar-blued snarl, the idiot rage in the
dead eyes cast forever to an ice-locked heaven. "Surely" they say "Surely
this is the most awesome and terrible of Nature's mysteries".They are wrong.
One is older.One is colder.One is First.
* * *
He made Doyle keep his leather jacket on.
When the little temptation imp in Angel's brain had begun beating
erotic morse on the inside of his skull within moments of his meeting
the Gaelic half-demon, he'd been actively shocked for the first time
in recent memory. A century of souled existence had ensured his only
bedfellows were guilt, pain and regret. That and the memory of what
his not-so-mild-mannered alter ego had done to those he'd professed
to love, had made the vampire stand-offish and remote-the crimson
organ in his chest may as well have been carved from the same bedrock
that birthed Acathala.
That he was still capable of lust, of interest, of feelings for another
person (real feelings, not the warped mutual parasitism of emotion he'd
shared during his time with the Slayer) had stunned him for the first time
in an age, and lent a lightness to his step that had been long-absent.
Angelus had had it, of course, but the things that brought a smile to his
demon's lips were not those he could dwell on without wanting to see the
sunrise.The gravitational pull of Doyle's eyes, his smile, his (Oh, God,
Sirens would kill to hear it) voice, were one thing; the brown
leather number, however, had trolled through the dark, secret waters of the
vampire's turbulent emotions and netted a bountiful harvest of bright,
silver-scaled desires the moment he first saw it hanging
off the younger man's pleasantly Celtic angles.
The heady combination of affection and lust, plus a stronger emotion
that he was afraid to call by name, were quickly eating away at the
tower--made not of ivory but of the bleached bones of his countless
victims--in which Angel's emotive, inner self took his leave from the
world, shoulder's eternally braced against the flimsy door on the
other side of which Angelus capered and preened, peering through the
keyhole, asking to be let out. Doyle had ambled into his life,
somehow getting past his defenses, cheerfully ignoring
Angel's frequently dark looks and darker moods, and set about turning
the vampire's heart back to flesh again. Being with Doyle, laughing
with him, talking, hurting with him, had made rubble of Angel's
barriers, and Angel frequently just wanted to hug the younger man until they
became one animal, Angelus be damned.
It was awfully convenient therefore when he received a suspiciously
out of the blue (Cordy?) phonecall from Willow, who'd apparently
"just decided" to look into the whole "True Happiness" equation. She
discovered that the clause applied only to his FIRST love, not any
subsequent ones. As the likelihood of his ever being attracted to Buffy
Summers again without the aid of industrial magnets was about as
statistically likely as Giles being caught En Flagrente Delicto with
Drusilla's friend Miss Edith, he was, at long last, curse-free.
If he were still human, or even just Spike, he would have run naked down the
nearest main street, whooping and throwing somersaults. As it was, he
allowed himself a few minutes of angst-free silence and the smallest shadow
of a smile, before making his way to Doyle's bedroom.
Which of course, had led to Angel, naked as the day he was born and, pinned
to Doyle's bed in some of his favourite intimate places by the aforementioned
Demon, wearing only aforementioned leather jacket and a grin brighter and
warmer than the sun Angel could just barely remember. Gasping as he felt the
coiled electric eel of release tense and spring in the base of his belly, he
prayed Willow was as bookish as she looked.
* * *
Nearly an hour later, and Angel was trying for the fourth time to get
his brain to stop spinning in joyous, celebratory loops and tell him
to remember how his legs supported his body weight, so he could get
out of bed. Willow, it seemed, knew her stuff. His soul was still
contemplating weighty spiritual matters in his body-though said body
was somewhat worse for wear, due to the enthusiastic ministrations of
a certain demon that'd spent the greater part of the last three
quarters of an hour proving that messages weren't all he was good at
giving. Angel felt pleasantly punch-drunk for the first time since that
night two centuries ago, when entranced by Darla (in more than one sense of
the word, he'd long since suspected) he'd let her both open and close the
world to him ith the terrible rapture of her vectored kiss.
The vampire was not given to smiling, but now he had a reason. Though it
made his lips feel odd, the smile threatened to meet corners at
the back of his head, as he felt Doyle's face burrow against his shoulder.
Turning gently to look at him, he saw the young human/demon was sleeping
peacefully, his whippet-lean body pressed against the slightly larger
vampire along their entire length. He looked totally relaxed, totally
boneless, totally beautiful-languid, naked and pale, almost dimly
phosphorescent, like marble-Michelangelo's hottest wet dreams made flesh.
Doyle stirred, and fern green eyes locked with deep brown. Between their
eyes and their smiles, neither of them knew where to look.
Doyle winked "I guess Willow's earned her wings then, eh? or her
pointy hat and ruby slippers in this case..." He raised a mock-
contemplative eyebrow. "I mean- you ARE still souled right? Despite
having a moment of true happiness?" His grin brightened, something
Angel wouldn't have thought physically possible "...either that or
you didn't have a moment of true happiness, and I'm lousier in the
sack than I thought."
The last came out "dan oi taught". /God, if only we could bottle and sell
that voice, we'd be set for life.../
"That was your version of being lousy in the sack? Be sure to warn me
when you plan on being good then-thank St Vigeous for spontaneous healing..."
Doyle chuckled, then "So...this wasn't just a one-off to put a damper
on all the sparks we've got flyin'?"
"We throw sparks?"
"According to Cordelia, we're two loaded glances away from bein' a
catherine wheel...So you want to do this again?"
When next he could speak without the distraction of Angel's tongue in
his mouth, Doyle first took a huge gasp of air, in case the vampire
tried something like that again. He would fall head over thorns for
someone who'd forgotten the rather pressing needs of the oxygen-dependant.
"I'll just take that as a yes then. Cool--but you can do
all the work next time". Doyle carded Angel's hair affectionately "I
was surprised with you wanting on the bottom, what with you being Mr
undead steroid-chomping gym bunny n'all".
Angel playfully rolled his eyes "Oh sure--build a little muscle mass
and every weedy guy on the planet expects you to ravish them..."
"Hey! who're you callin' weedy?!"
"Well--you are the only BrackenDemon in the room..."
In the space of what would have been in humans a heart beat, Angel
was covered in a double armful of naked BrackenDemon, kissing him like
nobody's business. At last they fell back to the bedclothes, tangled
in them and each other, content for now to just hold and be held.
Doyle looked into Angel's eyes, and the smile, whilst not dimming,
changed-becoming somehow more. The hand that had been idly mapping the
topography of the vampire's face found the chin, stopped, cupped.
"I love you Angel...don't feel like you have t'say anything back,
but...oh, God I love you..."
Angel felt his heart literally flip in his chest like a startled
kitten, for a moment seriously expecting it to start beating again--
hadn't all the stolen blood in his body suddenly rushed there? But
no, the long-mute organ maintained its centuries of silence--just as
well, as it would've been shouted down by the joyous clamoring inhis head.
Despite Doyle's assurance, the emergency commitment escape hatch his
statement provided Angel, the vampire felt his mouth opening to
produce again the three words he'd only spoken twice before in his
long existence. Once, recently, to a Slayer, and again a century
before to a Slayer of Slayers. Despite how these affairs had ended-
being sucked through a stone demon into Hell, or dumped for a half-
mad ex-nun who talked to dolls-he still hadn't decided which was
worse- he felt the words form in his gut, bounce around his
diaphragm, float up through his now-strictly-ornamental-thank-you
lungs and into his mouth to be voiced.
At exactly the same moment Xander and Cordelia returned from their
shopping jaunt, bursting in through the downstairs entrance.
Angel and Doyle suddenly found themselves players in an impromptu
game of Nude Twister, as they simultaneously scrambled for their
clothes, leapt out of bed, tripped over each other, shot each other
affectionate (if hurried) glances and made a mad screaming dash forthe bathroom.
Meanwhile, Xander struggled to put down/drop Cordelia's latest double-
bagged contributions to the fiscal independence for years to come of
the nation's leading fashion houses. Cordelia herself, ears honed by
years of cheer-squads, picked up the faint flesh on flesh slap of
naked bodies colliding at speed. Glancing upstairs momentarily, she
smiled to herself, muttered an inaudible "about damn time" and filed
the information away in the alien planes of her mind, as always never-
still and whirling torrentially beneath the serene surface of her
perfect, made-up face.
* * *
Less than a week later, Doyle was dead.
As he had taken to doing, Angel had locked himself in Doyle's room,
and was busy beating himself up over the loss of his Messenger,
friend, and for all too brief a time, lover. Brooding wasn't as easy
for him now as it was in the old days, however. A lifetime devoted to being
as shallow as possible had rendered Cordelia sensitive to the
slightest fluctuations in the moods of others, and the whole reason
Xander was staying at Angel's apartment, at his behest, in the first
place was to get over the Graduation Day death of his own lover,
Larry. Despite his formidable brooding skills, his two friends were
starting to convince him that he wasn't responsible for Doyle's
courageous final act. The vampire took advantage of nights like
these, when Xan and Cordy were out, to reshoulder the blame.
Sitting down on the newly-laundered sheets of the bed, Angel's
preternatural senses could still pick up traces of his one and only
time with the young demon. A whiff of salt, a touch of musk, the
almond fragrance Doyle's pale, firm muscles tasted of; due, Angel
supposed, to his infernal clan's connection to Braken, that cyanide-
laden Celtic bramble. Visions of Doyle in his endearingly non-
threatening GameFace tugged at his mind as he rose from the bed.
Making to leave the room, his feet tangled in an unseen something on
the floor (a stuffed cobra, rigged to rise from a wicker basket if a
wind instrument played within four feet that Doyle had pilfered from
an Ethiopian jackal-woman) and Angel indulged in a most un-
vampirelike tumble to the floor, rolling partially under the bed, his
head pillowed by one of Doyle's signature jackets, the dusty folds
tickling his nostrils.
Angel flashed back to a week before when he'd buried his face in the bovine
tang, before moving on to the much more interesting fragrance of the
jacket's sweat-dappled inhabitor.
He remembered with a strange mix of pride and anguish, too, the last
time he'd smelt the leather-on the sleeve of Doyle's jacket as the
young demon, eyes full of love and regret, had punched him over a
railing, out of harm's way, and gave his life for him. Angel--the
vampire he loved.
Angel had known that of course, had seen the brute adoration pouring from
his friend's face as he swung the blow. Besides, the demon had told him
outright, after the only time they'd . . .
And Angel hadn't replied. Had been interrupted.
He'd meant to tell Doyle then, before sacrificing himself, but
Doyle's punch had interrupted him then.
And he'd died without knowing that Angel loved him too.
Xan and Cordy were driving him half-mad telling him that Doyle had
known, that Angel's words weren't necessary, and he knew they were
right, really, but still-
The vampire hissed in irritation as his stomach cramped, his body
interrupting his reverie to tell him it had just about worked its way
through yesterday's allotment of purloined blood, and it was time to
top up the tank. He was tempted to ignore it, deep as he was in self-
loathing mode, but the memory of the bright, paralytic agonies of dry
veins and arteries brought him reluctantly to his feet and the
direction of the kitchen.
Grabbing one of the translucent plastic containers lining the fridge like
strange leeches, he broke the seal and brought it to his mouth, placing his
forehead against the fridge's cool white metal and closing his eyes as he
waited for the coppery warmth to percolate through his tissues.
With a gentle smile, he remembered when he first began taking the
blood meal straight from the packaging, after Doyle had marched into
his office wielding a rust-stained coffee mug and a (suspiciously
affectionate) look of disgust, and declared he preferred his morning
coffees "minus the scabs". Suppressing a smirk, he'd apologized, and
the answering smile on Doyle's face had him just barely resisting the
urge to vault his desk and take the demon on his office floor.
"God, Doyle..." the vampire's voice clogged with pain. If only his
friend were here now...he'd drink out of a cup made from Acathala's
nose-hairs if it would bring Doyle back . . .
Four things happened, immediately.
-Everything in the fridge instantly spoiled-the blood curdled,
Cordelia's yoghurts bloomed thick with fungal fruiting bodies,
Xander's chocolate bars whitened with blisters;
-Miles away, in Sunnydale, Riley was tossed out of bed hard on his
naked butt by the thrashings of his girlfriend, one Buffy Summers,
her arm and hand muscles firing randomly, a dog that dreamed again
it ran with wolves;
-The doors and windows in Cordelia's and Xander's rooms slammed shut
with an awful, juddering THWAAM that cracked the surrounding walls.
Cordelia was still out gallivanting, but Xander immediately leapt
up, yelling his immortal friend's name as he tried the door, jammed
in its lintel, surface covered with blackened, rotting lichens;
-Immediately behind Angel, Doyle said "Haven't you lived on enough
Hellmouths to know better than throwing wishes around like rice at awedding?"
* * *
For an eternity of instants, Angel just gaped, his beautiful face and
muscular frame a Renaissance statue dressed up by some prank-minded
sculptor. Then, in the time it would have taken a mortal to
breathe once, he was across the room, Doyle in his arms.
"Doyle...I...I..how did- Oh, God..."
From the edge of his vision, Angel saw the younger man's face crease
with a lightning strike of distaste before going smooth, whether from
Angel's embrace or the naming of the deity, he didn't know, but
either way, the vampire was suddenly...troubled. Something deep
beneath the ocean of his conscious mind, something slick and cold from
the reptilian folds of his baser brain, was trying frantically to
swim to the surface, a warning on its lips. However, the feeling of his
miraculously returned friend's body under his thirsty hands
reduced the clamouring to a low hum.His body...
With a start, Angel realised the lanky Irishman was cold. Not only
that, he FELT wrong. Disguising the move as one of passion, he
attempted to resettle Doyle deeper into the embrace; despite all the
arcane strength in his limbs, Doyle wouldn't budge. The slight man's
mass was enormous, as though he weighed many tonnes.
Angel looked up. Doyle's eyes were on his, a smile on his face. No-
the corners of the mouth were turned up, but this wasn't a smile-it was too
knowing, too mocking, revealed too many strong square teeth
for comfort. It was the leer of a man with an unexpected Ace in his hand,
gleefully anticipating the moment when he'd play it.
Angel ended the hug, stepped back.Doyle's eyes tracked him.
Two and a half centuries a monster, Angel suddenly remembered what it was to
be a small child at night.
Lured out by the scent of sour carrion wafting from the fridge, a
skin beetle left the warm darkness of its unseen ceiling bolt-
hole, unfettered intricate wings, and flew downward in a slow,
buzzing spiral. Doyle's eyes, still running Angel through, left him
and alighted on the dusky grey insect; and it suddenly lay on its
back on the floor, six legs frantically cleaving the air as if to
ward death away from the mysterious, resilient little engine of
insect life that even now wound to a stop, with a sound like burning
cellophane. Doyle chuckled.
Angel felt pain in his buttocks, and realised he'd backed against the
counter behind him to the point of being wedged there. "Oh, fuck..."
Abruptly, he felt an indignant rage power its way through his body,
boiling away his fear and teasing his facial muscles into the sharp,
angular juttings of his GameFace. Snarling, he kicked a nearby chair
into match sticks, retrieved the sharpest piece he could find and
charged forward, ramming the makeshift stake at speed into the
startled creature's thorax.
"You picked the wrong form to copy, motherfucker..." His eyes flashing.
"Doyle" looked up at the fuming vampire, then down at the two or so
feet of rough oak protruding from his chest, an expression of
bafflement on its face. An expression the vampire quickly copied
himself when his opponent showed no sign of crumbling to ashes,
screaming, bleeding, or any other indication that it was in any state
remotely approaching the explosive demise Angel had been expecting.
Abruptly, the stake began to hitch up and down, bobbing in time with
the creature's susurrus, barking laughter.
"Doyle" whooped and cackled a while longer, then calmed. "Oh I See,"
It said, firing off another magazine of chortles. "You think I'm a
skin-walker. How....Quaint"...
The Doyle-Thing didn't move, didn't so much as glance in his
direction, but suddenly Angel flew backwards with tremendous force, a
baseball hit for a home run by a huge, invisible god. He connected
with the far wall then went straight through it, landing in a corner
of Doyle's room amidst a shower of plaster, wallpaper, long-mummified
moth and earwig husks, and a very disgruntled Black Widow that waved its
pedipalps in threat display before retreating under a dresser.
Blinking paint-chips from his eyes, Angel began to stand--and
screamed. The blow had not just broken his pelvis but had crushed
it completely; even though he could feel it already repairing itself, the
extensive injury would take at least a minute to heal.
As the Doyle-Thing ducked its head and entered the room through the
hole, still gravely beaming, he saw he didn't have that kind of time.
"What the fuck are you?" He coughed, spitting plaster.
Part 2
"You don't remember?" The thing cocked its head. "That hurts Angelus--
ooops, it's Angel now, right?" It chuckled, still apparently in no
hurry to remove the stake from its chest. It stroked the jagged wood
contemplatively for a moment.
"Still, I suppose that's understandable. The last time we met, I had
n a different outfit. I was wearing this."
For a moment, Jenny Calendar--technopagan, gypsy, dead woman; victor
and victim--stood before him, eyes glittering awfully. Then Doyle was
back, tipping the vampire a mischievous wink in a ghastly echo of his
old self. "I like to keep up with the latest fashions..."
Angel's pelvis shifted back into place with a click, even as his
stomach squeezed into a clammy, panicked ball.
"You...You're The First--"
"The original and best, the bane of all things," Doyle agreed, whilst behind
his eyes, an ancient thing danced madly. Then it was on him.
Leaping astride Angel, The First slashed at him with a deadly, casual
grace and economy of motion which the vampire had only experienced twice in
his long existence. Once, as Angelus, on a trip to the Mid-West with the
Gorch brothers, he'd made the mistake of trying to feed from a Mountain Lion
caught in a trap- the starving, terrified creature had all but torn him in
two; again a few weeks back when he'd narrowly avoided going ashes after a
large black man, smelling strangely, of both human AND vampire, had wailed
into him whilst repeatedly screaming at him to "tell me where Frost is."
The First sprouted razored black spines from Doyle's fingertips, and
reduced Angel's jacket and shirt to tattered rags in the time it took
the larger man to register alarm, deliberately leaving the flesh unscathed.
For now. "I must say," It paused, studying Angel's sick expression with genuine
interest, "this form has engendered a much more vivid reaction in you
than I had expected; well worth the trouble of recorporating all
those pesky, scattered molecules...and to think I was going to come
dressed like this--"
Buffy Summers straddled him, beaming, her fingers tapered to ebony thorns.
Angel bucked upwards, trying to dislodge the thing, but its weight
was colossal. "Jesus Christ!"
The First/Doyle was back immediately, flinching and scowling
irritably at Angel's words. "Insolent little boy," it grunted,
backhanding him with enough force to break his jaw. Leaning back,
it waited for the vampire's injury to heal itself before continuing.
What was the point of taunting if the victim couldn't reply? It
reached for him again, but Angel caught it by the wrists. "Why? Why now?"
The First/Doyle cocked its head, then chuckled. Perversely, its
laughter was beatific, musical--a carillion song rung out by seraphim.
"I couldn't convince you to go sunbathing last time we met," it
sneered, "and then THIS little half-breed mongrel," It beat its own
chest "sacrifices himself to save you! You were the one who was
supposed to be vaporized, and you even fucked that up, for God's sake!"
The creature hissed as it forgot itself in its passion, the name
burning its lips and setting its tongue afire with a quiet 'whuff'. Covering
is faux pas with a feigned cough, The First discreetly snuffed the flame
and continued.
"Since you consistently failed to get the point and just die already,
I was obliged to show up and spell it out for you in person." It
looked down at Doyle's body. "More or less".
The creature raked at Angel, the beautiful hands that had cupped his cheek a
scant week before now seeking to lay it open.
Angel tucked his head between his shoulders, the claws parting the
air with a shrike-sounding keen near his brow. "The Powers That Be
will just send another warrior in my place," he said. "And they'll be pissed
as..." The First froze, incredulous. Seizing advantage, Angel punched it in the
chest, the still-present stake finally tearing free of Doyle's
body and falling to the floor, accompanied by several soft, wet, grey
objects. Mewling, The First reached for the resultant cavity--and Angel
punched it in the throat, hearing cartilage crunch beneath his fist.
As the thing fell off him, Angel got to his feet, and ran for his
life from the room.
He was out the front door and halfway down the street when he heard
the splintering screams of the door being wrenched from its hinges
behind him. A moment later, it sailed past his shoulder, not simply
in pieces, but actively burning. Dontlookdontlookdontlookdontlookdont--
Doyle's body smashed into him, seizing the vampire by the scruff of
the neck one handed and swinging him around in the air where he hung
from its grasp like an errant kitten. It dangled him in front of
it's beautiful, terrible face, and crowed at him, Doyle's smile
corrupt and soured.
"The Powers? Stupid child-- I AM one of the powers," It screeched,
vastly amused. It flung him away from itself, a full-street length,
then strolled nonchalantly after him.
"Did you expect all of us to be Sweetness and Light, boy? Are you
truly that naive?" It addressed the parked car where Angel now lay
across the crumpled windshield, a dazed and bloody hood ornament.
Faces were peering out of windows all over the street, shadows
watched from bolt holes in doors. Angel knew better than to think
they would help. Besides, it seemed The First was having none of it. One
by one, it glanced at the voyeurs, and they collapsed to their
respective patches of ground, twitching randomly as muscles sought out
a connection with brains that were no longer living. It shrieked its
amusement to the stars, and continued walking toward Angel.
"When you play chess, boy, someone has to be black, or there can be no game..."
Angel pulled a section of fender from his thigh, and fell/got off the
car. Too slow, he thought desperately , too slow.
"Why do you think I had 'The Master'" --here The First sneered briefly,
making air-quotes-- "send that vainglorious tart Darla to you that
night? You had such wonderful potential for calamity in you; leaving
you mired in the stale bog of mortality would have been unthinkable.
For a hundred years you were the Black Knight to my King..."
Doyle's face was stretching and twitching crazily, as The First's
alien passions struggled to express themselves on a human template.
"But then you came along, Angel. Fucking a human is awkward enough,
but a Slayer? Unforgivable. And LIVING with these creatures." It waved a hand
vaguely back towards the apartment, shaking its head.
"Do you think you can just pretend Angelus never existed and start playing
for the White? Did you think for a moment I would allow it? No-- and you're
not on the white side either, my friend--you've just gone a rather
unconvincing shade of grey, that's all-- a grey pawn-- and it's time you
left the board!"
Shaking with rage, The First/Doyle leapt thirty feet and landed on
the fleeing vampire, wrapping its legs around his hips for purchase
as it tore at him randomly.
As the maddened thing's attack threatened to spill him to the ground,
where he would no doubt be juliened in seconds, Angel was horrified
as the flesh of Doyle's face HEAVED. Huge tusks the size of femurs
burst from Doyle's lower jaw, ripping through the surface of the
upper lip and gleaming in the night air as they angled towards the
vampire's face. They were porcine, yellowed and terrible.
And they were made of wood.
Angel screamed his agony as The First lowered its Doyle-head and
gored him, the gigantic wooden teeth tearing into his abdomen as
though it were tissue paper, that lovely face twisted with more fury
than Angel had ever seen, even in Hell. The tusks found purchase in
the muscle, catching on the flesh of the chest, and beginning to dig,
Angel's vampiric healing powers struggling to knit the chastised
flesh, but powerless against the wood. He felt Doyle's corrupted lips
push past his rib cage, snuffle at his heart...Then stop.
He opened his eyes. The First peered right into them, only
millimetres from his face. Cold glee and blazing triumph warred on
its stolen face.
"Now you die, vampire," It whispered, a perverse echo of Doyle's voice
in afterglow. "First you, then the boy back there--Xander, isn't it?"
It chortled. "I was in his mind, you know, when he was possessed by
the Bhoudha-- the hyena people. I saw what he dreams of. And of who.
Oh, yessssssss..... I saw the crimson most corners of his secret
heart . . .what a joy it will be to rob him of it".
Doyle's eyes gleamed with the same dark humour Angel had seen in
Buffy's whenever she mocked Xander herself ("How can you like him?
He's a useless jerk who was always ready to stake you?!") It crowed in
delight as the vampire's own eyes blazed their anger.
"Such a waste, dear Angelus...such a dreadful, dreadful waste, my poor child..."
The vampire's facial muscles tugged like foraging ants under his
skin. They itched to morph. "I'm no child of yours," he hissed.
Clucking sounds of disapproval came from The First's throat.
"I was your father more than that rough, mortal slug who spat you
from his cock." It leered. "As Angelus, you were my champion, my
standard bearer, my pride...can the same be said of your bloodfather?"
Angel bristled. "Fuck you!"
"From what I hear of your early life, THAT was daddy's job too..."
Angel's GameFace boiled forth and set over his beatific shell, eyes
molten, spit flying as his jaw snapped and foamed, roaring his rage.
Vastly amused, The First soaked up the fury, then brought the tusks
forward again, parallel to Angel's flaccid heart.
"Goodbye, Angelus..." It breathed through his lover's lips.
Angel's eyes bored past those of his dead friend's, fixing his gaze
with the rotted horror that capered behind the much-loved face.
"I...am not...Angelus!" He screamed, and did the only thing he could
to protect himself from imminent, final death. Angel quickly touched
his forehead, chest, and left and right shoulders.He crossed himself.
Angel hissed like hot fat on a griddle as his skin blistered in a
cruciform pattern, and again as he was dropped to the pavement. He
gasped in both pain and relief as the cleaved flesh of his chest
healed closed, sealing safe again his hostaged heart.
The effect on the First, however, was more dramatic.
As it dropped him, unable to believe what the vampire had done, it
flung itself frantically backwards, squealing, but was unable to
avoid contact with the briefly consecrated right angles scribed on
the skin. It shrieked in a high pitched ululation that killed every
dog on the block, their rent ears gushing blood.Then it caught fire.
Leaping from Doyle's body in a great, dark mass, the boiling,
whiplike mucous of its tendrils frantically beat at the flames
licking its strange folds. Squid ink flesh seethed and roiled, mouths
opening at random along the length to chatter their fury.
Doyle's body, a puppet with cut strings, fell forward. Angel caught his dead
friend and lowered him to the ground, holding him tightly.
Above the lovers, The First succeeded in dousing the last of the
sanctified flames that worried at it. Black as death, vast and
terrible, insect, bat, octopus, spider, snake, human, centipede,
smoke--all blended in a nightmare centrifuge to birth this titanic
abomination that towered and gibbered and raged.
"NOT YET," It rasped, Its voice all despair encapsulated, Its timbre
awesome, bursting every window in Los Angeles, a city of angels cut by
broken, shattered shards."NOT YET MY SON, AND NEVER WITHOUT YOU..."
Angel cradled Doyle's body, soothing the cold flesh with his own cold
lips as the voice plastered his hair to his scalp with Its thunder.
"THE MASTER? A CHILD...THE HELLMOUTH? A DISOBEDIENT
PUPPY...ACATHALA? AN AGENT OF MERCY...ALL THESE THINGS
ARE THE VERY DELIGHTS OF CREATION BEFORE ME, DEAR
ANGELUS...DEAR ANGEL...AHH, AND AM I NOT UNTO AN ANGEL
NOW, MY CHILD? YOUR VERY OWN SERAPH, THE PATRON OF
DESOLATE, RELENTLESS, CRAWLING NIGHTMARE..."
Angel felt Doyle's body shift. Looking down, he saw The First was
still barely connected to his friend's corpse by a thin umbilicus of shadow.
The First drew closer. Fogbound squid-whips reached for the kneeling vampire.
"AND NOW..." Teeth that would dwarf Leviathan shone darkly. "NOW WE
MUST AWAY, YOU AND I...AND UNTIL THE END OF ALL THINGS
SHALL I SHOW YOU MY DARK FAVOURS; MY CHILD, MY SEED, MY OWN SWEET LOVE..."
It swooped, cackling.LOVELovelove.
Angel grabbed Doyle's dead face, looked him in empty eyes.
"Doyle," he said, "I love you too." He kissed his beloved friend on the
mouth, still looking into the eyes.The eyes that were no longer empty.
The lips that were no longer cold.
The hand moved in his, squeezed reassuringly. Turned. Grabbed the shadow
cord that bound it to The First.And.Pulled.WHAT?"
With a scream of sheer, air-scalding rage, The First broke apart into
shadows and smoke that fled, gibbering; cracks in the ground, under rocks,
between tree roots, under leaves-anywhere dark, that led back to whatever
nested deep beneath the earth. The scream peeled and echoed for long minutes
after The Thing had gone home. It rang in the streets.
It rang in the dreams of Buffy, stirring in her boyfriend's arms.
It rang in the ears of a bleached-blond male vampire, who toasted its
departure by throwing another porcelain doll on a fire in the grate.
It rang through Xander, finally freed from the prison of his room, as
he ran down the street to help his friend.
And it rang around Angel and Doyle, kneeling together in the street,
in each other's arms, kissing whole-heartedly, tears of undiluted joy
pouring down their faces.But they ignored it. As those in love will do.
-The End.
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