Steps Ascending
He loved the snow at night.
The wide expanse of glittering white, the utter silent of the deserted nocturne pounding in his ears, a sight so still and quiet that it almost hurt to be a part of it. The sky, so dark it managed to glow, moonlight a pale ambience of peace, illuminating his vampiric skin to an almost ghostly white. The heavy cold, weighing upon his shoulders in such a way that it felt like the entire world was collapsing in on him, intensely divine in the simple fact that it wasn't entirely impossible for the feat to occur.
It had once, in the form of a sword ripping his insides apart and replacing them with concentrated hell, wielded by the supposed love of his life.
It was different now.
As a child, he would play in drifts of snow for hours, oblivious to the biting chill in his small fingers as he made snowballs and threw them at the neighboring boys, as they made snow forts and wrestled, laughing as powdered clouds swirled up around them. He would lie down in a patch of undisturbed white and move his arms and legs, making a snow angel that would later inevitably be trampled upon by booted feet.
It held a bitter sort of irony to his constant reminisces, after Darla had given him the name Angelus centuries before, and even more so after he had shortened his name to Angel after being souled.
He closed his eyes as he stood, booted feet planted firmly in a mound of powdered fluff, the cold wind whipping around him having no affect, the wisps of breath that trailed from his lips out of nothing more than habit and torture, an act of living whilst dead. He smiled to himself at the thought, and was nearly overcome with the urge to laugh hysterically.
"Don't leave me."
A voice, quiet and warm behind him shattered the silence surrounding him, and he was nearly startled out of his reverie, but his heightened senses prevented him from virtually ever being disturbed, startled, and prevented him from ever really having the exhilarating sense of fear overtaking him and his adrenal glands. It was a sick, intoxicating and addictive sort of idealism, the part of his mind that would always belong to Angelus coming out and jumping upon the idea of fear and pain, versus the masochistic repenting part of himself loving to be subjected to every possible form of torture imaginable.
He was two people, a coin, heads and tails and desperately wanting to be flipped in the air simply to see which side he would land on for a particular occasion.
"Spike." He murmured softly, in response to the voice behind him, knowing that the other souled vampire would begin to worry if he received no verbal confirmation of his attachment to reality.
"I knew I'd find you here," Spike moved, slowly, feet crunching the snow surrounding them, the sound echoing through the dead trees, the dead everything surrounding them, as headstones mounded in snow littered the landscape in front of them, a nearby mausoleum the only substantial solid, concrete form. The wind blew again, harshly, forcefully blowing a cloud of snow from the roof. His shoulder brushed against Angel's and he stopped, glancing at the larger vampire before focusing ahead of them, staring into the whiteness of nothing.
"I'm always here." A double entendre, fully intended, and they stood in silence for a moment.
"I felt you get out of bed," Spike began gently, his voice seeping vulnerability, a trait he'd reverted back to after being ensouled. He exhaled heavily, continuing, "I waited as long as I could butŠ I didn't want you to be alone." He finished, somewhat lamely, and lowered his head, closing his eyes.
"I'm not alone." The cryptic implication was not lost on Spike, and he nearly winced.
"I meant in the present." Spike murmured softly, and Angel glanced at him for the first time since his arrival, pulling his gaze away from the icy flowered mound in front of him. A foggy trail of breath left Spike's lips and he watched it dissipate into the darkness, his full lips inhaling and exhaling again. The blond felt his gaze and looked up, meeting deep brown contemplative eyes, and held them for a moment, his own blue eyes reflecting endless compassion.
A century together after ensoulment leads to a wealth of mutual understanding.
"I'm not alone." Angel repeated himself, this time with quiet sincerity, and Spike smiled sadly, breaking his gaze and looking down in front of them.
"It still freaks me out," He murmured after another moment of silence, and Angel followed his gaze to the gravestone in front of them.
"Snow on the Hellmouth?" He whispered, as he pulled his free hand from the pocket of his leather trench coat and crouched down, wiping the ice and snow from the lettering in front of him. He glanced down at the single red rose in his other hand, ice crystals formed on the already dying flower, and he placed it gently into the snow next to the marble.
"Every year for nearly forty years. It's never different."
"It's like mourning." Spike replied, watching his counterpart trace the letters on the headstone, spelling out the name Buffy Summers with his fingertips.
"It is." Angel's voice was nearly lost in another gust of wind, blowing snow over the rose and the lettering he had just cleared. He smiled softly, the wind taking on a howling pitch as if to match the howling in his heart. He dropped to his knees and rolled over next to her headstone and rested on his back, staring up at the pitch black above him before extending his arms and slowly, almost mechanically moving them back and forth, creating a large snow angel next to the gave of the woman who had his heart in life and death, in love and in hell.
He wasn't alone in this dedication, this literal endless love affair with a ghost.
Spike's hand appeared in his field of vision, offering him a hand up. He accepted, and allowed the smaller man to pull him to his feet. He stepped out of his angelic imprint and squeezed Spike's hand tighter when the other vampire attempted to let go. Spike returned the gesture, and Angel was struck with the suffocating beauty of the fact that life did nothing but kill everything around them.
"I'm not alone," Angel murmured a reiteration again, as he looked down at his past, present, and future. He felt Spike's arm ease around his waist and allowed the other vampire to lead him into crushing blackness.
Nothing managed to survive their touch except each other. But it was enough.