|
TITLE: God's Comic
AUTHOR: Nico
E-MAIL: stoprobbers@hotmail.comDISCLAIMER: Joss owns the show. I own the fic.
TIMELINE: Season 6, I guess that offscreen meeting
SPOILERS: You know she died? Good.
SYNOPSIS: A take on the offscreen meeting, and why Buffy and Angel never wanted to discuss it.
DISTRIBUTION: LoD, if anyone else wants it, send me a URL.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: The song, "God's Comic" is by Elvis Costello, and if you can, please listen to it as you read. It sets more tone than it does guide the story.
FEEDBACK: Send it, please. I love feedback.
RATING: PG
They had more in common now, than he ever thought they would. There were lists upon lists of things that she would never be able to understand; the cravings for blood, the memories of the demon's destruction, the thousands of murders on his hands. But from that lengthy list, and a thousand more he had conjured in his head, the reason he never thought she'd be able to share with him she suddenly.. could.
He could remember his life as a human more clearly than he let on. Talking to Cordy, to Wesley and Gunn, he'd made it out to be a lot less pleasent than his actual memories. That had helped them, let them understand at least briefly why he didn't like to dredge up the past over and over again. But it had been an outright lie, that misconception, and he felt guilty for it now even when he was thinking alone. The reason it hurt so much, were because the memories were so good. Sure, he was a 'whoring, drunken layabout' as his father had often called him, but he had also been a loving son and brother. He had been a good friend, and an excellent lover. And sure, he'd never really wanted to work hard, but what young man did? He'd been around now for 250 years, and men in their early twenties were just as lazy as they had been when he was a young man himself. He'd been.. He'd been a good man. He could admit that to himself now, allow himself that tiniest bit of relief, because he couldn't deny it any more. He'd caused his shared of heartbreak and horror as a human, but it had all been balanced with love.
He'd been a kid, but he wasn't a bad kid.
I wish you'd known me when I was alive
I was a funny fella
The crowd would hoot and holler for more
I wore a drunk's red nose for applause
Oh yes, I was comical priest
With a joke for the flock and a hand up your fleece
Drooling the drink and the lipstick and grease paint
Down the cardboard font of my dirty dog collar
Even now, it hurt to think of it. To think of his mother, and his little sister Katie, and his best friend Adam, and his semi-regular girlfriend, Sarah. To think of his other friends; William, and Andrew, and Andrew's sister Elizabeth and brother Declan. They had been a tightknit group, enjoying nights out at taverns and roaming the green hills that surrounded his town. The pain of their deaths, the guilt of their murders, and the bite of their loss gnawed at his heart, and he halfway wished for their companionship all over again. His unbeating heart clenched and clawed at itself, and he sometimes allowed a few tears to fall. He'd never thought she would be able to understand what he'd lost. What death had robbed him of.
Now I'm dead, now I'm dead, now I'm dead, now I'm dead
And I'm going up to meet my reward
I was scared, I was scared, I was scared, I was scared
He might have never heard God's Comic
She had stared at the inky black of the cool night sky, ignoring the small
grey clouds of smoke that drifted past her every once in a while. She was good at blocked out Spike these days, especially when the sky wasn't lit with moon or stars, and she just had peaceful inky blackness to stare into.
The first time it had happened, it was dark and cold and scary. She'd struggled, her mind and her soul, had fought the suck of the vacuum, but it had been too strong. It took Angel's reflexes and Xander's oxygen to pull her back, but she had felt it and had grabbed onto it like a life preserver tossed to a drowning man. She chuckled quietly as she realized how well that metaphor had fit her situation. But the second time.. The second time she was ready. She knew what she had to do, and she was ready for it. Past ready; eager, even. The whirlwind of pain her life had been since her junior year in high school had finally become simply too much for her. She hadn't the energy to fight her destiny any more, to argue with her ultimate end. She had accepted it, and as a reward she'd been freed.
It was so different than she'd thought it would be. So much more peaceful, so much more perfect. So much warmer, so much safer. She'd been happy. God, how many times could she say that in her lived life? How many times could she really say she felt safe? Maybe once, in Angel's arms on the night of her seventeenth birthday. The night before she'd given up the idea of happiness completely. She felt that happiness again, when she was greeted after her journey. The whispered greeting, the small talk, the absolution and forgivness. It had been perfect. Truly perfect.
So there he was on a water bed
Drinking a cola of a mystery brand
Reading an airport novellette
Listening to Andrew Lloyd Webber's 'Reqiuem'
He said before it had really begun
I prefer the one about my son
I've been wading through all of this unbelievable junk and
Wondering if I should have just given it all to the monkeys
Up there, in that inky blackness she had stared at with so much longing, she'd learned to live. How to live, to enjoy, to love, to trust. It'd all been there, it had been laid out for her to enjoy for the rest of eternity. And now.. Now she was back in her pain, in her torture, and just waiting for her chance to have it end all over again. Willow was wrong; she wasn't alive here. She was more dead than she'd ever been.
Now I'm dead, now I'm dead, now I'm dead, now I'm dead
And I'm going on to meet my reward
I was scared, I was scared, I was scared, I was scared
He might have never heard God's Comic
They only stared at each other now, looking at miracles and mistakes and everything in between. He wanted to touch her, to reassure himself that he wasn't having one of those horrible hallucinations again, but he couldn't seem to move. Judging by the look on her face, she was in much the same predicament.
She was afraid to reach out and touch him, but not for the reasons he had thought. She didn't want it to be real. She didn't want to feel the coolness of his skin, didn't want to feel the hardness of his muscles, didn't want it to be true that she was back because she didn't want to be god she didn't want to be. She'd dreamt this up there, that maybe it was him, maybe he was with her, but he hadn't been and she'd still be safe. She had wanted him there, up there, not down here where he could only hurt her. Up there, she only had love. He had only brought love.
So they just stared.
I'm gonna take a little trip
Down paradise's endless shores
They say that travel broadens the mind
'Till you can't get your head out of doors
Her name fell from her lips and it all crashed down on her at once. It was real. It was here and it was real and it hurt. She whispered his name once before falling into his arms, body wracked with soulshaking sobs.
He could only hold her as she poured out her story to him, her loss and her pain and her grief. He held her tight against his chest, reassuring himself that she was really here, despite her pleas for him to make it stop. His heart tore and bled at her unhappiness, at her desperation to be rid of him and the world. She told him about the love, about the peace, and how she was finally happy. She told him she felt safe. His heart ripped and bled for her a little more, and began to harden. Her tears wet his shirt and skin, but his heart slowly dried and shrunk and soldified into what felt like a stone lump in his chest. Pain coursed through his veins ((he wondered if it flowed with his blood, or it just felt like it)) as he listened to her beg him to let her go back.
Had he hurt her so much that she didn't even want to give living another chance?
Did she even love him anymore?
He felt tears of his own begin as he held her absently, staring off into the inky blackness of the sky.
I'm sitting here at the top of the world
I hang around in the longest night
Until each beast has gone to bed
And then I say god bless, and turn out the light
While you lie in the dark afraid to breathe
And you beg and you promise and you bargain and you plead
Sometimes you confuse me with Santa Claus
It's the big white beard I suppose
I'm going up to the pole where you folks die of cold
I might be gone for a while if you need me
When they parted two days later, they did not kiss. And when they drove home, they shed tears of longing and regret. But the tears never soaked into their skin, and the pain never bled out of their hearts.
Now you're dead, now you're dead, now you're dead, now you're dead
And you're all going up to meet your rewards
Are you scared, are you scared, are you scared, are you scared?
You might have never known God's Comic
|
