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1964
Angel walks into the first bar he can find, looking to down enough hard liquor that he doesn’t have to think about his nightmares. Today it was the nuns again. In London. The ones he held under the water, and laughed while they struggled against his hand.
It’s a little place, maybe a little raunchier than he’d thought—half naked women dancing on stage and the horny drunkards at the tables hollering up at them. But a bar’s a bar.
He sits down at the bar, orders a double whiskey.
Gets one good sip in before he spits out a whole mouthful.
Because is that—
No. No, it’s not. Except for how it is—?
Spike. Up on stage. His hair longer than Angel’s ever seen it.
Naked except for the guitar in front of him.
Singing Bob fucking Dylan?
Angel tries to look away, except for how he can’t , and Spike doesn’t even notice him because his eyes are closed, just leaning into the lyrics of this fucking song, all dreamy, and then Angel spots Dru in the front row, clapping and singing along with him, rapt.
And then he throws some money on the bar and gets the fuck out of there before either of them notice he’s here because no. Nope. No thank you. No.
1968
It’s nightfall, and Angel’s up on the podium for reasons he doesn’t fully understand.
The crowd of people in front of him, it’s pulsing, teeming. He can smell all of them. And he’s so hungry.
He’s got the taste back in him now—so many months draining fallen soldiers, the taste for it is so strong, gripping his tongue, and he’s thinking about how much he wants to just tear into this crowd. Gnash into them. Nothing left but the bone. And thinking that makes his stomach drop to the ground. His insides turn, thinking about what a useless fucking waste of space he is, and why is he even up here but the man behind him is pushing him towards the microphone, and Angel hears himself saying:
“The thing about the war in Vietnam is—”
And he’s talking some bullshit and thinking about how he’s hungry. About how he hates himself for being hungry. And there’s some dial tone around him, like the sound got cut. He doesn’t care. He just wants to go home, find a home, a nice dank sewer to curl up in, he just wants to be anywhere but here, around all these people .
There’s another sharp sound, like the sound got plugged back in, and he hears his voice boom out of the speakers: “That’s all I have to say about that.”
And the man behind him is clapping him on the shoulders like he doesn’t know it’s all bullshit, and saying, “That was so fucking beautiful, man.”
Angel wants to snap his neck, and then he wants someone to snap his own.
And then there’s a voice surging up from the crowd. “ Angelus?”
Angel blinks out into the crowd, and the bodies are parting, and someone is pushing through them and, is that—fucking—is that—?
“ Spike?” Angel calls out.
“Angelus!” Spike calls back, and he’s, fucking? Running into the water on the National Mall? And his hair is? A color that hair shouldn’t be?
And now Angel’s got no choice but to clamber off the dais and push through the crowd and he keeps blinking, like that’ll make the image clear away, like it’ll make any of this at all less strange, and he’s pretty sure he’s dreaming. He’s been sure he’s been dreaming for a while. Years, maybe. Maybe everything since they pulled the soul back into his body has been a dream. Maybe everything before that too. Maybe he was never supposed to exist.
And then he’s in the water too. Trudging through it and feeling fucking stupid and Spike’s got this huge dopey grin on, pupils wide and dark as the moon.
“Angelus!” Spike says again, clapping him on the back, pulling Angel into this tight hug. “How the hell have you been, you piece of shit?”
“Uh,” Angel says, “Can we get out of the pond now?”
Except all around them the crowd’s fucking cheering , and Spike’s all grinning from it even more, taking a bow, embracing Angel around the back like they’re long-lost brothers separated by war. Which Angel guesses they are. Just, he’s not sure which war you’d call it, the one that really did it, and his clothes are damp and sticking to his skin. And he’s not sure why the fuck he even got into this stupid pond. Except that it felt like he had no choice, because Spike was just plunging in. Plus, he’s so hungry. Angel gets stupid when he’s hungry.
Angel shakes his head, starts trudging out of the water and trying not to think about how everyone is goddamn looking at him right now, and behind him he hears Spike splashing around like he was trying to bow but fell over, and then more splashing, as Spike catches up to him.
They’re up on the concrete banks of the pond now, and Spike’s pulling his jacket off and throwing it to the ground, tugging his shirt off too, to wring the water out, and Angel’s shirt is still wet and cold and clinging to him, but Angel’ll be damned if he just strips down in front of a crowd of people like this.
Spike twists the fabric until it’s as dry as it’s gonna get, and tugs it back over his head, all wrinkly and stretched-looking now, and throws the still-dripping short leather jacket over his arm.
Spike’s shirt looks like something someone printed at home, black and stained pale blotchy orange with a bleach spill and in thick letters says: Make Love, Not War . He’s got a little enamel pin stuck to the neck of the shirt that says: Hey, LBJ. How many kids did you kill today?
Angel says, “You’re aware you’ve killed countless children, right?”
Spike smiles fondly, remembering. “Heh, yeah. Good times. Why you bringing it up, you wanna go grab some dinner? I could go for something young.”
Angel squints at him. Points at Spike’s shirt. “Your pin.”
Spike looks down, seems to remember he’s wearing it. “Oh, yeah. Funny, innit?”
Angel’s still squinting at him. “Did you make your hair that color on purpose?”
Spike frowns, shoves him. “Well, no, but decided to keep it anyway. I think it suits me.”
“I think you look like a fucking idiot. But don’t let that sway you.”
They’re walking through the crowd now, and Angel’s hunger is still biting at the inside of his mouth. All these bodies. All their veins, going, going, going. And Angel knows Spike’ll want to feed soon, because Spike always wants to feed. And if he stays by his side, he’s gonna try and feed too. He knows it.
He takes a sidelong step to pull back from him, making his excuses, when Spike says:
“Speaking of looking like a fucking idiot?” and grabs at the lapel of Angel’s military uniform, yanks off one of the shiny buttons with his thumb. “Are you telling me you fought in the Vietnam War?”
Angel shrugs. “It just seemed like I owed it to the country.”
“You don’t have a country.”
Angel scratches at the cold wet fabric still clinging to his arms. “Look, man, I don’t know. I got a lot of weird guilt. I’m just trying out whatever helps.”
Spike’s giving him this curious look. “Right yeah whatever, soul shit. Boring. What I’m hung up on is just—how’d you not burn to a bloody crisp, mate?”
Because the same military agency that tracked him down in the 40s did it again, deployed him when they needed the real depraved shit done, under cover of darkness.
But if he mentions that he’s gonna have to bring up that whole fucking thing on the submarine and honestly? That seems like it would drag this whole conversation out, and he doesn’t wanna. Mostly, still, he just wants to go curl up in a sewer and be forgotten.
He says, “I was really careful.”
“Oh, you were careful , were you?”
“Here’s what I don’t get,” Angel says. “You’re an anti-war protestor?”
“That so surprising?”
“Well, you’re a mass murderer who didn’t even know how the government worked when you were alive, so. Yeah?”
Spike says, “Yeah, I’ll be honest with you, I got bugger all idea about what’s going on out here.”
“You don’t say.”
“But I’m shacked up with these real angry blokes, got all these, I dunno, convictions?”
“Imagine that.”
“Right? ‘S the strangest bloody thing. But anyway, I think they think that I know shit too? ‘Cause I know a lot about fighting, and now they think I’m … smart? Or something? Keep coming to me for advice about shit. And every time someone asks me a bloody question about this bloody war I’ve just been going, ‘ Yeah, so fucked up, there’s no words for it.’ And that seems to be working so far? But I dunno what I’m gonna do the day that anybody asks me a sodding followup question.”
“Can’t you just … leave?”
Spike says, “Well see, I would, but these fellas got the best drugs. I’m on several right now. You want something? I got pot, I got acid, I got—”
“I’m good,” Angel says. “You can save it all for Dru, I’m sure she’d like it.”
“Oh she’s not here. Some hippie commune in Berkeley made her their queen or something? ‘M gonna head back West, meet back up with her, once I’ve eaten these peace protestor blokes. She promised me she’d wait to eat the hippies until I got there, so, should be a good time, all told.”
Angel clears his throat. “How about you don’t eat them?”
Spike sneers, “‘ How about you don’t eat them ,’ you have any idea how bloody stupid you sound right now?”
Angel swallows hard. “Well, Spike, it’s been great seeing you, but—well, that’s an overstatement. But this sure has been, uh … seeing you. So.”
He doesn’t wait for Spike to say anything, just breaks off, vanishes into the crowd, tries to plug his nose from the scent of the bodies, the blood, and his shirt is still so cold and clammy and clinging to him, and the second he can he pulls his jacket off, yanks his button-down open. And then, thank God, he spots an open manhole, and goes to make a beeline for it, when a voice behind him says.
“Oi, Grandda, you putting on a show just for me?”
“Shut up, Spike!” Angel says, and ducks down into the sewers.
1970
Angel boards a bus in San Francisco, and groans.
“Grandsire!” comes a giddy voice from the back of the bus.
Spike’s sprawled out over the long, last seat, looking high out of his mind. Hair still radioactive bleach white, another leather jacket, all studded up, and these homemade-looking necklaces ringing his neck, all twine wrapped around shiny rocks. He reeks of pot, and the leather bag he’s carrying with him has a huge, obvious bong half sticking out the top. “You want a hit?” Spike says.
“I’m alright,” Angel says. “The fuck are you doing here?”
“Oh, Dru and me are playing this game where we try to pick up victims on public transit? Whoever kills the most people gets to decide who we kill for dinner.”
“Charming.”
“Innit? You gotta keep things fresh, as a couple. Y’know, I think that’s why you and Darla didn’t last? So one-note.”
Angel grits his teeth. “That’s not why.”
“Don’t be stupid, I know that’s not why. ‘S ‘cause you wouldn’t eat that baby like a fucking ponce.”
“Yeah,” Angel says. “I’m … poncey that way.”
“Anyhow, what’re you doing here?”
Angel says nothing.
“What?”
“I’m … headed to the airport.”
“Why?”
“I’m uh. Going to China.
“ Why?”
Angel says nothing.
“Oh, would you spit it the fuck out?” Spike says. “You’re wasting precious minutes of my unlife here.”
“I’m. Uh. Okay. I think I might’ve become an international ping pong champion now?”
Spike coughs. “ HOW?”
“I really don’t know. Sometimes things just happen to me.”
1977
Angel’s running.
He killed that man. In the diner, he killed him, and now he’s dead. And Angel knows he didn’t really kill him. Except he didn’t try very hard to save him, did he? Maybe it’s because he knew. If he didn’t call 911 fast enough, that the man would die, and Angel could drink him.
Angel wishes he could think about anything else, but how that man’s blood tasted, but he fucking can’t . He’s been eating nothing but rats since, but he can’t shake the taste. The taste. Nothing like the fucking taste.
So he’s running. Maybe that’ll solve it.
Every night he wakes up and he just runs. His shoes have worn down to nothing, essentially, the soles thin and the bottoms of his feet stinging, and that’s what he deserves, isn’t it? Isn’t it what he fucking deserves? No, he deserves less than that, nothing, worse than nothing.
He’s running, out somewhere on the east coast, he hasn’t been paying attention to where, the where doesn’t matter, just that he has something to do. It’s been months of this. And he’s gonna keep doing it until it works.
It’s near morning though, and he needs a place to hide from the sun. He spots an abandoned rest stop up ahead. Which is perfect. He can break the glass, curl up inside, eat the vermin.
There’s just one old junker in the lot. He doesn’t look too closely at it. But as he jogs past it, the door swings open, clocks him in the gut, and he falls to the floor.
“Angelus!” says Spike.
Angel groans. “How are you always goddamn around? ”
Spike shrugs. “Oi, not so loud. Dru’s sleeping.”
Angel peers into the car—it’s black with the windows painted all haphazard and the floor littered with paperbacks and liquor bottles. Dru’s curled up in the back seat, this pristine lace blanket wrapped tight around her. Mumbling something in her sleep about oil and pomegranates and innards.
“Are you following me or something?” Angel says. He’s still on the ground, his stomach still aching to hell where Spike’s car door nailed him.
“You think I got nothing better to do then follow you? Me? You do know I killed a fucking Slayer, right?”
Angel rolls his eyes. “Yes, Spike, we get it . You killed a Slayer. You’re such a special boy who killed a Slayer one time and then wouldn’t stop talking about it for the next eighty fucking years. I mean, I’ve done impressive stuff too! I was a shrimp millionaire there for a minute, but you don’t see me flapping my mouth about it to everyone.”
“Oi!” Spike says, and stands, kicks Angel in the gut with the thick toe of his boot. “First off, how many Slayers have you killed, grandsire? So don’t talk shit when you can’t even do it yourself.”
Spike kicks him again, grinning as his boot makes contact.
“Second of all? Killed another one. Three fucking weeks ago.”
Angel groans, clutching at his midsection, and pulls himself to standing, aching all the while. “Oh.”
“Bet you feel foolish now, eh?”
Angel looks down at the ground. “A little.”
Spike says, “Shrimp millionaire?”
“Long story.”
“You still have the money? ‘Cause if so I got a couple hundred favors I’d like to ask for.”
Angel shakes his head. “Bank seized it. Kinda hard to hold onto funds when you don’t legally exist, so.”
“And since then you’ve been up to what, exactly?” Spike asks, leaning back against the car and lighting up a cigarette.
“Uh. Well,” Angel says. “Drank this guy’s blood after he died of a gunshot wound and been feeling so fucked up about it that I’ve just been … running? For a few ... months? To see if that helps?”
Spike lets out a pitying little laugh. “Aw. Wow. Alright. You’ve really let yourself go, huh?”
There’s a stirring sound from inside the car, and Dru’s voice purrs out, “Is that Daddy? Is that the Angel beast come home? Oh, can we play with him, Spike? Can we make him hurt?”
“Right. Well. Good to see you both!” Angel says.
And then takes off fucking running again.
1992
“Angelus?”
It’s the dead of night, and Angel’s sitting in the gutter, and he’s almost full, really, he thinks so this time, because the rats have been out in full force, swarming around him, maybe because they think he’s the real kind of corpse. They think he’s something to eat.
He’s not sure they’re entirely wrong.
He looks up, and there’s Spike.
Hair still all fucked up and pale, wearing this long black leather coat, a beaten-up flannel under it, jeans ripped and covered in a thousand patches. But kinda? Intentional-looking?
“Spike?”
“Jesus fucking Christ, would you look at the state of yourself? The fuck happened?”
Angel blinks at him. “Well. Uh. There was that guy? Whose blood I drank? And that kinda uh, sent me down a spiral? So I’ve just been. Uh. Yeah, mostly it’s been just this. Rats.”
“Rats,” Spike says.
“They’re not so bad when you get used to the taste,” Angel says.
“The saddest part about that is I think you really believe that,” Spike says. “Also, the fuck? Bloke you drank, wasn’t that, what, ten years ago?”
“Fifteen years, three months, eleven days,” Angel supplies.
“Right,” Spike says.
“But uh, anyway!” Angel says, standing, trying to wipe the gutter grime off his hands on his overcoat, but they just come away grimier. “Enough about me. How’s things with you?”
Spike gives him a look. “Well. Just killed a guy. Tasted great. Actually great, not lying-about-it great.”
Angel’s stomach gurgles. “I don’t care.”
“Convincing,” Spike says, lighting up a smoke. “But, beyond that, doing well. I sort’ve ended up in a band? Not fully sure how, but I think we might have a record label now? Grunge is really taking off, so.”
“You—what?”
Spike shrugs. “I sing.”
“What?”
“I mean, ‘s nothing compared to the music Dru was up to in the ‘80s. Goth buggers really took a shine to her, they did. She was in a couple magazine spreads, actually.”
Angel blinks, like that’ll clear the image of Spike away, make whatever weird hunger dream this is vanish into the abyss.
But no. Spike’s still there.
Angel says, “Uh.”
Spike claps him on the shoulder, and then grimaces at the dirt his hand comes away with. He wipes his palm off on the leg of his jeans. “Well. Glad to see you’re thriving, mate.”