Long Hard Road out of Hell

Title: Long Hard Road Out of Hell
Author: claudia6913
Rating: R
Pairing: W/A
Summary: Buffy is dead, Willow is dead, and what will Angel do now? This is a response to Gabrielle’s ‘Willow/Angel Challenge’ on NHA Forums.
Distribution: Vampyre Haven, NHA, SoG, TSFA, and anywhere else I post. All others just ask and you shall receive.
Disclaimer: I unfortunately do not own the characters. Those are owned by Joss and Co. I seek no profit from the use of anything here.
Warning: This fic is now extremely graphic in nature. Please be warned.
Feedback: Of course! ghoztstarz@yahoo.com
Author’s Notes: The title was takeom tom the song ‘Long Hard Road out of Hell’ by Marilyn Manson from the ‘Spawn’ soundtrack.

A/N: I just have to say thank you to Gabrielle, my beta, my muse kicker, my friend. Without her none of this would be possible. If you see her or if you know her…give her thanks for this fic! =)

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Chapter 10

Two figures creep through the dusty, daylit mansion. They are searching for their friends, who haven’t made it home yet. Armed with stakes, crosses, and swords theke tke their way through old rooms long abandoned by their occupants. Nothing escapes these two, so intent are they on finding their friends.

Noticing a stairwell leading down, the older of the two motions that they should head down and investigate. By the light of a small flashlight, they pick their way quietly downstairs. Looking in behind the door on the left, they notice nothing hidden in the small room. The right door opens quietly as they move in. Searching with the light, they see that part of the wall juts out just a bit. It’s nothing like old brickwork, but more like a hidden doorway. Nodding to each other, they turn off the light and pull on the door.

Quietly it opens, revealing a large room illuminated only by a fading candle. They stop dead in their tracks at the scene laid out before them. A young blonde female hangs nude and limp on a cross, dry blood caked over every inch of her body save for her arms. They hear a creaking noise off to their right and they quickly turn, ready to fight. What they see brings gasps of pain and surprise from the both of them. A dark vampire lays half clothed on a bed, cradling a slight redhead.

The younger man runs towards the bed, stake in hand, and yells, “What have you done?!”

Angel hears the scream and turns wide eyed to see Xander running at him with a stake, and Giles right behind him. Standing up, he opens his mouth to say something, anything to get the boy to stop, but it is useless. This is too sudden. Quickly he blocks the stake aimed for his heart, twisting the arm and making Xander drop the stake in pain.

“Angelus,” Giles says in astonishment.

“No!” Angel yells turning yellow eyes to Giles.

“What have you done?” Xander asks again, straining against Angel.

“You, how could you?” Angel asks, turning to him. “You let her kill me, send me to hell! You didn’t tell her Willow had done the spell. You sentenced me to hell with a soul!”

Angel’s mind is a whirlwind of emotions, his focus moving from events in hell, to Buffy’s death, to his apology to Willow, and now to these two confronting him. He knows he’s no longer in hell, but he can’t help the rage that boils up inside of him. He remembers what Buffy told him. Xander hadn’t done as he was told; instead, he’d sealed Angel’s fate and told Buffy to ‘kick his ass’.

Giles stood there thunderstruck by the revelations. He knew Xander hadn’t liked Angel, but to send him to hell with a soul was more then the Watcher thought Xander capable of.

“Angel,” Giles says, trying to soothe the obviously out of control vampire. “Now look, I’m sure…I’m sure he didn’t mean it like that.”

“Yes I did!” Xander yells, balling up his free fist. He takes a swing at Angel who blocks it. Angel throws a punch of his own, landing it on Xander’s jaw. The boy spins from the impact and lands on the floor in a heap of tangled limps, his head turned at an odd angle. Angel just stands there looking down on the mangled body with disgust and a bit of surprise. He didn’t know he hit him that hard. It all happened so fast.

“What have you done?” Giles asks, using the same words Xander had said only moments ago. He falls to his knees at the boys limp body, crying for him. Rage courses through him, causing him to stand up and pull the sword he has sheathed at his back.

“I…I,” stammers Angel. He doesn’t know what to say.

Standing up, Giles slices upward with the sword, trying to cut at Angel. But Angel sees the movement and backs away. With a roar of anger Giles charges at Angel. Dodging the sword, Angel uses Giles’ momentum to send him sailing into the table in the middle of the room. Giles hits his head on the corner, falling to the floor with a gash on his head.

Angel walks over to stand above the unconscious man. Blood pours from the wound on his head, running in dark red rivulets to the floor and pooling. Without a backwards glance, Angel moves to the bed to check on Willow. He is sure that the noise would have enedened her. But he finds her still and cold where he has left her. She has been dead for some time. Shaking his head in disbelief, Angel steps away from the bed.

“No,” Angel says to the silence. “No, not Willow. Oh God please not Willow.”

In an eerie echo of Giles, Angel drops to his knees in grief, crying over Willow’s body. There is nothing left for him now. No one left to apologize to, no one left to hold and cry away his sins with, no one left to understand him.

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Angel walks solemnly up the stairs from the basement. Blood is drying on his hands, on his chest, in his hair. Step by step he walks, the afternoon quickly fading to evening as he climbs. The air is thick with death, even in the vast living room of the mansion. The entiruse use reeks of it, of Buffy’s death, of Willow’s death, of Giles’ and Xander’s deaths. All of them, dead and gone forever.

Standing at the threshold of the mansion, Angel looks out over the small fountain and the brick patio, watching the leaves jump and dance in the wind. The light fades to twilight, castdeepdeep dark shadows on the patio and stairway leading up and out. With a tentative step, Angel walks out of the mansion and up the stairs. With every step he realizes that he wasn’t limited to the mansion, an that his world extends beyond the confines of the stone house.

The world spreads out before Angel as he comes to the top of the stairs. City lights, music, laughter all make their way to his senses. It’s not the screams of hell that he was expecting. It’s Sunnydale. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he has clung to the belief that he was in hell. But that possibility has shattered into so many pieces, along with his heart.

This realization drops him to his knees like a punch to the gut. It forces a scream from deep within him. He cries out in wordless sorrow for what he has done, for the dead in the basement, and for the dead he’s left throughout the centuries.

He hasn’t been in hell, not since the day he’d been dropped onto the cold, stone floor. None of them were demons come for his torture, none of them deserved to die at his hands for wrongs they hadn’t committed. He is the one that deserves to die; he is the one that has committed wrongs that can never be made right, not now.

Aimlessly, Angel roams the semi-deserted streets of Sunnydale in search of his death. He is still clutching the stake that Xander had dropped earlier, wanting to plunge it in his breast himself, but he can’t. He can’t even now. He is weak and needs someone worthy to kill him, dust him.

A familiar smell makes its way through the haze Angel walks through, the smell of leather, cigarettes, and blood. His blood, the blood of the Order of Aurelius.

“Spike,” Angel whispers. He follows the unmistakable scent through Sunnydale, searching for the one that could plunge the stake in and end it all. End Angel’s suffering anuly uly send him to the hell he so richly deserves.

A lighter flares in a darkened alleyway and illuminates a profile Angel knows well. The sharp edges of a cheekbone, that glint of bright blue eyes and the platinum blonde hair, all show Angel a face he hasn’t seen since Spike and Drusilla left him that one fateful night. Steeling himself, Angel walks up to Spike and hands him the stake wordlessly.

“What’s all this then?” Spike asks dumbfounded. He looks between the stake and Angel’s haunted eyes.

“Do it,” Angel says, putting his arms behind him and exposing the vulnerable spot on his chest. He closes his eyes and waits for Spike to finish him off. When nothing happens he opens his eyes.

Spike can’t believe what he is hearing. Angel is asking him to dust him, handing him a stake and everything. He’s torn between wanting to get rid of the soul having Angel, and not wanting to kill the vampire who still wears the face of his grand-sire.

“Do it!” Angel yells, grabbing hold of Spike’s jacket lapels and shaking him.

“Do it yourself!” Spike yells, pushing Angel back away from him.

“I can’t,” he says sorrowfully. “I can’t.”

“Why the bloody hell not?” Spike asks surprised. “And why would you want to do it in the first place? Are you that big of a Pouf that you can’t handle being bested by the Slayer? Still moping because she got the best of you, eh?”

“No, you don’t understand. I…I…,” Angel stammers, not able to voice the atrocities that lie dead in the basement of the Crawford Street mansion. He blinks furiously at tears that threaten to fall, as if he hasn’t cried enough, as if he will never be able to cry enough.

Spike looks at Angel with a critical eye and sniffs the air, sniffs at Angel. “What the bloody hell have you done?” Spike asks his voice low and soft, almost awed. He can smell sex and the blood of the Slayer…and of Willow.

“I thought…but it wasn’t real, or it was too real. I can’t, Spike. Please, just, please do it,” Angel says. His head hurts, his heart hurts, and worst of all…his soul hurts. It aches for them all, for Willow and Buffy who were too young, and for Giles and Xander in all their foolhardy bravery, and even for Spike and Drusilla who were tortured at the hands of Angelus. There’s not enough water in the world to wash their blood off his hands. There’s no hole deep enough to store him away from everything, to keep his filthy hands off of it all.

“Look,” Angel says, stepping towards Spike. He grabs the hand with the stake and places it over his heart. “Just. Do. It.”

Spike stands there motionless and he almost feels sorry for Angel, that he has been reduced to this. He remembers the glory days of Angelus, when he would never be reduced to begging for someone to end his unlife.

Impatient, Angel grabs at Spike’s lapels and shakes him, daring him to do it. Telling Spike he doesn’t have the guts to do what he had so often threatened. Angel tells him this is finally his chance to do away with him.

“Please!” he roars into the night, giving Spike one last shake.

The plunge is accidental, but it doesn’t miss its mark. Angel’s eyes and mouth widen in surprise as he feels the stake stab expertly through his chest and into his un-beating heart. The dissolving of his being starts slowly, and he can feel each cell of his body start to dry up and whither into so much dust. He looks down at Spike and mouths the words ‘Thank you’ before the last vestiges of his body blow away into the night.

Spike stands there shocked and unmoving. The stake still held firmly in his hand. He watches silently as particles of what was once Angel float away carried by the wind. Tears fall, running down his cheek and mixing with the dust on his face, leaving dirty streaks in their wake. He drops the stake and it clatters loudly in the silence of the night, bouncing on the pavement. Slowly, Spike turns and walks away into the night.

~End~