Fic: Last Known Address, Part One

[girlpire]

Title: Last Known Address (Part One)
Author: girlpire
Rating: FRM
Pairing: Primarily Angel/Spike
Disclaimer: This story is based on the "Angel" and "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" series, with which I am not affiliated in any way. Joss Whedon is my master, etc.
Distribution: Please do not archive this story anywhere.
Summary: He doesn't think about what it means that two weeks after his last friend died, he headed off to find the old bastard. Maybe it doesn't mean anything. Just something to do.
Warnings: Angst. It's pretty bleak. I intend to warn for sex later.
Author's Notes: This story is set about seventy years post-NFA, but disregards both the AtS and BtVS comics - meaning that the whole Rome thing in TGiQ is canon. Because that is how I occasionally roll.
Author's Notes 2: This was written for spring_spangel 2008 and is dedicated to shapinglight on the anniversary of her birth! Happy birthday, Deb!



*

Last Known Address
Part One

*

The night flight from Bangkok to Pakxe only takes an hour. Spike sits in the small plane with four other men and a woman who won't look at him, and none of them smile. Out of the tiny round window, he can see Southeast Asia spread beneath them like a dark stain, and it occurs to him suddenly that it's been exactly six months to the day since the funeral of Dawn Summers Giordano. Eventually, Spike thinks, he's going to stop looking for Angel.

He's traveling light. One duffle, mostly full of translation dictionaries from different countries and one or two souvenirs. Things he just didn't throw away. There's also a toothbrush and some clothes, but not many. The rest of his belongings are locked in a storage facility in Rome, but he hasn't decided yet if he'll go back to them. Dawn left him a fifth of her entire estate. He could go anywhere. Maybe start over. He doesn't think about what it means that two weeks after his last friend died, he headed off to find the old bastard. Maybe it doesn't mean anything. Just something to do.

In Laos, he pays fifty American dollars for a ride across the border in the back of an old Jeep, the kind that still runs on gasoline. He would have flown directly into Cambodia if he could have, but flights have been cut off since the fighting started again. The bridge over the Mekong River is supposed to be closed, but they drive over it anyway, the Jeep maneuvering fast and reckless around the bomb damage. There are lights in the water. Spike starts to ask what they are, but he doesn't speak Khmer. The driver mentions them anyway, points out to the river and says something unintelligible. Spike nods.

He spends two humid days at a tiny hotel in Stung Treng before heading out through the Kampong Thom Province on a rusty bicycle. His map is outdated by about thirty years, but the roads that haven't been blown away are still the same. He and the bike spend one day underneath a thatched roof at the outskirts of a bombed-out village on the way to Lake Tonle Sap. Another day he spends under an impromptu shelter made from tree branches and t-shirts. He sweats a lot. It's very hot, and there's no wind. Even at night, it's hot.

The third night on his bike, Spike hears two explosions and some screaming. He doesn't stop pedaling. He can't think why Angel would ever choose to come to a place like this, but after almost seven decades of Italy, he'd probably think that about most places.

He's hungry. The village markets don't sell blood, and he thinks that ought to have occurred to him before he came. It's been so long since that sort of thing was a problem.

It's monsoon season. The Tonle Sap floodplain extends watery fingers through what feels like the entire countryside, through rice fields and ditches and through Spike's clothes and skin. His hunger makes him feel empty, but the humidity keeps him waterlogged and heavy. His bicycle handlebars are slippery under his hands. Stupid git, he thinks. Why did you have to go so bloody far away? But he keeps pedaling, hot condensation running down his forehead into his eyes, his duffle nestled in a basket just behind the seat.

When he gets to the edge of the next village near sunrise, he ducks into a tin roof shed and stays there until late afternoon. No locks. No one notices. He studies his map, realizes he's in the village he was aiming for. This is Angel's last known address. When Spike can stick his hand out of the shed and only feels the pins and needles of sunlight filtered through heavy clouds, he rides his bike to the open market. He doesn't speak Khmer, but he asks the vendors, "Parlez-vous francais?" Asks everyone, all the brightly-wrapped women with their metal baskets of fish and wooden cashew buckets. "Parlez-vous francais? Someone here has got to speak bloody French; I read it on the internet."

Finally, he digs through his bag, pulls out a wrinkled, yellowed photograph of Angel. The photo is seventy years old, but it's not like that will matter. He shows it to an old woman. "Angel," he says. She frowns back at him. He shows the picture to someone else. "Angel. Do you recognize-- Vous connaissez Angel? No? Anyone?" He walks through the whole market, showing the photograph around. "Vous connaissez Angel? Please."

But no one does.

Spike is at a loss. He's come too far to hit a dead end now, tracked Angel through two continents, dozens of empty apartments and hotel rooms. And now here he is, wandering around a poverty-stricken, war-addled third world country with a bicycle that's falling apart and a photograph of somebody no one knows. And the kind of blood-hunger he hasn't felt in a lifetime.

Unsure of what to do, he decides to keep going in the same direction. Maybe the people in the next town over will recognize the picture of Angel.

He arrives at a tiny village, even smaller than the last one, in the middle of the night. This is as far as he can go, he realizes, the closest village there is to the flooded lake - not counting the floating ones. He has this feeling that Angel wouldn't like the floating villages, wouldn't feel comfortable without solid ground beneath his feet. He stops here, props his bike in another empty little shed, and goes to sleep in a pile of damp, sweet-smelling hay. He wakes around noon the next day with a little dark-haired girl peeking in at him, her eyes wide and curious.

"Hey," he says, but as soon as he speaks, she runs away.

That evening, he goes out to find the village market. But there isn't a market. The place is too small, only a handful of old shacks, some of them with thatched roofs. They must go to the neighboring village to do their shopping; it isn't all that far. Some of the little houses look like they've been set on fire. There's a Christian mission and a Buddhist temple, and the ruins of another small building that has obviously been bombed, but for the most part it's just small dwellings and rice fields, and far off to one side there's a big group of fat trees that look like they could have been part of a thick forest at one time. The heat is sweltering even though the sun's gone down, and the whole place is saturated with lake water. Everything smells like fish. There's a donkey standing in the dirt road looking at him.

A donkey.

Spike looks at the donkey. It turns away and twitches its ears, then looks back at him. He stares at it until he feels saliva start to pool in his mouth, and he swallows. He can hear its heartbeat. "Hello," he says softly to the donkey. It takes a tiny step and snorts, tail swishing. Is he that hungry? He thinks about it. "Where'd you come from, then?"

The donkey doesn't answer him. It just looks at him with large, mournful eyes, and Spike decides that yes, he is that hungry. There's no one around. He slowly lowers his bike to the ground and lets go of it, takes a step toward the animal. "Good donkey," he says. He puts out his hand. He can nip a couple of pints without anyone noticing. The donkey snorts when he touches its neck, but it doesn't run from him. "Good girl," says Spike. "I'm not gonna hurt you. Much."

He doesn't have a knife or anything, so he'll have to use his teeth. He feels around the donkey's neck for its pulse, and when he finds it, he finds a tiny wound healing there already. On closer look, he discovers that it was made with some sort of blade, and there's another just below it. The other side also has several neat little scars right over the animal's jugular. Someone has obviously been taking its blood.

Spike feels himself smile for the first time in a long while. "Well, look what we have here," he says to the donkey. "Vous connaissez Angel?"

The animal doesn't flinch when Spike pushes out his teeth. Its fur tastes like sweat, but its blood is thick and rich. Spike gulps it down, feeling the empty spaces in his body stretch around the first nourishment he's had in days. He drinks until the donkey tries to back away and stumbles a little over its own hooves. When he releases it, he looks up, still in his demon face, and the little girl from earlier is standing there in the road staring at him. She's wearing muddy pink shoes.

Spike carefully morphs back into his human aspect, keeping calm eyes on the girl. "Okay," he says slowly. "You didn't see that." She tilts her head to one side, considering him. She doesn't appear to be frightened. "Listen, you wouldn't happen to know a bloke named Angel, would you?" he tries. The girl just stares at him. He figures she must be six, maybe seven years old. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out the photograph, but when he takes a step toward her to show it to her, she turns and runs away. Spike sighs and puts the picture back in his pocket. Probably for the best. The girl should be inside anyway, after dark in a place like this. Someone ought to be looking after her.

It's strange, he thinks, that no one else is about. At all. He knows he heard some voices earlier in the day, but the place looks deserted now, and it's still just early evening. The donkey is wandering away from him. He picks up his bike and wheels it slowly down the middle of the damp dirt road, listening very hard for signs of human life.

There. In that house, heartbeats. That one too. The people are at home, just not out. Probably too afraid to come out, what with the war and all. His bicycle gears creak as he turns down a muddy path, sweating, scenting the hot air. Mostly he just smells water. Fish, donkey dung, the faint, peppery odor of human life. But then--

It's just a trace, so he can't be sure. He keeps walking, speeds up a little. He inhales deeply to try and catch the scent again. There! That's it! He hops onto the bike and starts pedaling, following the dirt path further away from the other small shacks. When he gets far enough, he picks up an actual trail. It's recent, two or three days old at the most. Bloody hell. He's here. He's still here!

Spike races on his bicycle towards the small dwelling at the far end of the path. There's another donkey standing near it, and it looks up as he comes closer. He hops off the bike and jogs the last few feet.

Fucking Angel! Spike can hardly believe he's actually found the great poof after so long. Bastard's gonna be shocked as hell when he finds Spike standing at his front door in the middle of sodding Cambodia, the last place on earth where anyone in their right mind would want to go. Ha! He can't wait to see Angel's reaction.

He drops the bike down to the ground and leaps to the front door of the tiny wooden house, grinning. Oh, this is Angel's place alright. Definitely smells of him. He'd know it anywhere. Never thought he'd be so excited to smell the old sod again. He knocks rapidly on the wooden door. "Hey, Peaches!" he calls. "Guess who's here!" He waits a moment. "Aren't you gonna invite an old friend in for a drink?" He waits again.

Shouldn't take that long to answer the door. The place has only got two rooms. "Angel?" Spike calls out. "You in there?" Nothing. So he tries the door.

No locks. It opens. Good thing he doesn't need an invite.

The place is empty. Spike goes inside, looks around for a moment, then goes back out. He picks up his bike and wheels it in through the door. He shuts the door behind him, leans the bike against the wall, and sits down on a narrow padded bench that is probably supposed to resemble a couch.

He's come a long way. The poof will be back before sunrise. He'll wait.

*

Angel doesn't come back before sunrise. Spike watches the dawn through a small, strategically placed window and wonders where he is. He knows Angel hasn't moved again. His scent here is still very recent, his meager belongings still inside the tiny house. Besides the padded bench, there's a large woven rug on the concrete floor, a wooden table with four chairs sitting on top of it. One of the chairs is plastic. There are some cabinets built against the wall, a bookshelf with books on it, and a corkboard. The corkboard has cartoonish drawings pinned to it with crayon scribbles all over them and some childlike crayon drawings with each figure labeled in what must be the Khmer language. There aren't any appliances, as there isn't any electricity.

In the corner of the other little room, at about shoulder-height, there's a wooden rod extending diagonally from one wall to the other, about three feet long. There are clothes hanging there. Not much, but a few t-shirts and some old jeans, couple tank tops. All light colors. Spike tries to imagine how Angel must look in those clothes. He can't really see it. There is a small bed, and Spike goes to it, lies down on top of the cover, his head on Angel's pillow. It smells of him. It smells of his hair.

Spike falls asleep in Angel's bed for a few hours. In late afternoon, he gets up and goes to the window in the main room, looks out. There's an old woman standing near the house, and that surprises him. He ducks down so she won't glance up and see him through the window, but she's not looking his way. She's singing something in Khmer, pouring fresh water into a low trough. Three donkeys walk up and stick their noses in it. She pats them on the head.

When it gets dark, Spike slips out of the house, checks out the shed, the grill pit in the back, the water pump, the donkey troughs. Looks like the donkeys get their food and water from here, but they're not fenced in, and there's no stable. Each donkey has several tiny scars along its veins. Spike wonders why they come back.

He sees the little girl in the pink shoes again. She stares at him for a while, and he stares back at her. When he lifts his hand in a little wave, she runs away. No one else comes out after dark.

Around 4:30 in the morning, Spike takes off all his clothes and washes the sweat from his body at the water pump. The water comes out warm. He starts sweating again almost immediately, doesn't bother to put on a shirt. There is absolutely no wind.

Angel doesn't return that night either. Spike watches the sunrise through the window and wonders if he ought to go looking for him. But he's got to come back at some point, right? This is his home, however shitty it is. Spike lies down on Angel's bed for a few hours, but he's too hot to sleep. Around noon, he starts going through Angel's cabinets.

A few dishes, but not many. A sharp knife, most likely the one he uses on the donkeys. Some soap, a few tins of food - odd, that - and a towel. A stack of blank sheets of paper and some pencils, a box of crayons, which have been worn to nubs. An empty, flattened backpack.

He wanders over to the bookshelf and reads the titles. Classics, mostly, with a heavy dose of philosophy thrown in. Pretty much what he would have expected. One shelf is full of demonology and spellbooks, which he also would have expected Angel to have, although probably not on display in an unlocked house. On the other hand, it's not like the people here would be able to read them. Probably.

He doesn't expect to find a shelf of children's books written in squiggly Khmer characters, but then Angel did always have eclectic tastes. He picks one up, flips through it to look at the pictures. Something about a blue dog. He puts it back down.

He's been here for two nights and two days, starting to get hungry again. The third night he goes for a walk, counts five donkeys and wonders if they all belong to Angel. He also sees a lone brown chicken scratching around near someone's house. He walks around to the other side of the house, expecting to find more chickens, but there aren't any. Just the one.

Angel doesn't come back before sunrise.

*

Spike figures he probably had reasons for deciding to look for Angel. Boredom, maybe. Curiosity. Utter lack of anything better to do. Maybe he just wanted to see if he could find him, his last living relative. But it's not as though he's actually got anything to say to him. Hell, they don't even really know each other that well. They spent a grand total of nine months around each other after they both had souls, parted ways nearly seventy years ago and have only seen each other once since then. Now, standing here in Angel's home, looking at Angel's things, Spike feels foolish for coming this far, for sticking around when Angel's not even here. He'd thought he would just show up, surprise him, maybe reminisce for a day or so as though they'd been friends. But hanging around here for days, waiting for him to come back from God knows where... It's starting to feel desperate.

Spike goes through the cabinets again. He's looking for a clue, some sort of hint at where Angel could have gone. Just staying in this place and waiting is going to drive him mad before too long. He pushes the cans of food around to see behind them, and that's when he notices for the first time a small metal latch in the back wall.

The latch squeaks when he lifts it, and a tiny door swings open, toward him, revealing a small hidden compartment. There's money inside. American. A passport, updated driver's licenses from several different countries, any kind of papers Angel could possibly need in order to travel, as well as a bank card. Spike lets out a slow breath. It's a relief to have proof that Angel was planning to come back here, that he hadn't just decided to abandon his other belongings, but at the same time it's a little troublesome. Where could he possibly have gone without any of these things?

And there are photos. A stack of them in a little plastic bag. Spike sits down crosslegged on the rug and starts flipping through them carefully. He recognizes some of the people: Dawn and Buffy, their children, their grandchildren. There's one picture of Xander in his fifties, standing next to Spike, holding a beer. Some of the older pictures have Percy and Charlie and Fred. One has Cordelia holding a baby. And there's a whole stack of photos of people he doesn't know. He looks through them anyway, wonders who they are, why Angel would keep their likenesses locked away as though they were precious. He supposes there's a possibility that he'll never have the chance to ask, and it suddenly makes him very sad that there's so much about Angel that he doesn't know.

There's no reason that that should make him sad. He and Angel weren't friends; of course he wouldn't know everything about him. But there's still an inexplicable sense of loss.

Spike stacks the photos neatly and places them back in the compartment in their protective bag. The only other thing in there is a small, handheld audio recorder, the old fashioned kind that still uses little tapes, along with a stack of tapes and batteries. Spike pulls out the recorder and presses the play button. There's just static. He stops it and opens the tape deck, pulls the tiny tape out to look at it. The label says Cambodia and has a beginning date. One of the other tapes is labeled Cambodia with a beginning and ending date as well, but the rest are blank. Spike puts in the Cambodia tape with both dates and presses play. Nothing happens at first, but after a moment, a voice that is strikingly familiar comes through the tiny speaker.

"Testing," it says.

*

Two years earlier:

Angel drove across the border from Thailand on an aqua-powered black motorcycle with an orange flame design on either side of it. He won it off a Bo-tong demon in Bangkok during a poker game, and left as soon as he had it under him. He'd cheated at the game, but he needed a vehicle and the Bo-tong was too drunk to notice.

He didn't have any particular reason for going to Cambodia, just like he didn't have any particular reason for going to Thailand - or Japan, or the Philippines, or Russia, or any of the other places he'd been since his son's death. Whenever he got tired of being somewhere, he just went somewhere else. That's all. And Cambodia had been in his way when he'd picked a direction and started driving.

His first couple of days, he stayed in Siem Reap City, because that's where he was when the sun started coming up. He checked into one of the few hotels that was still open and spent the hot daylight hours thinking and not managing to sleep at all. At night, he explored the hollowed-out city, buildings of shattered glass and boarded up doorways. It had been a long time since he'd been in a country that was at war with itself. The downtown area which had once been a popular tourist spot now reminded him of broken teeth, row after jagged grey row.

A couple of touristy spots were still open, though. The night market never closed. One or two dance theaters. He visited these places and watched the Cambodian people try to go on living with these gaping holes all around them, pretending nothing was wrong but never once cracking a smile. There was a solemnity to the whole city that felt both disturbing and familiar to him.

At the night market, on a whim, Angel bought a small tape recorder and a stack of small tapes and batteries to go with it. It was an old fashioned device, which appealed to him. These handheld recorders had been around for a hundred years. He figured he could use it as a kind of journal. Record a little history, maybe get a kick out of it next century. If it even worked.

Back in his room, he tried it out. One word. "Testing." He stopped the recorder and rewound the tape, played it back. His own voice repeated the word back to him. He huffed. Pressed the record button again.

"Okay, well, looks like it works. Sounds kind of funny, though. Different. It's been a long time since I've heard my voice on tape."

He paused for a moment, not really sure what he wanted to say. Then he started again, carrying the recorder with him to the window to glance out at the deserted street.

"Right now I'm in my hotel room in Siem Reap City, Cambodia. Been here for a couple days. It's changed a lot since the last time I passed through. The old French Quarter's been blown to bits, and most of the restaurants and hotels have closed down since the airport stopped running. I used to joke about wanting to visit a tourist attraction when there weren't any tourists there, but... The city feels dead. All the people are scared. No one smiles." He stepped away from the window and went to the bed, sat down.

"I went to see an Aspara dance last night. There were only seven of us in the audience. Used to be, they'd only perform Aspara for the royal court, but now... you pay a couple dollars to see something beautiful inside the only building that doesn't have a hole in the roof.

"This country's a wreck. I probably won't stay very long. I've been thinking about heading down to Australia."

He paused again, looking down at the recorder.

"At least the night market's still running. That's where I got this thing. Too bad they don't sell blood there."

*

Spike presses the stop button and the little gears stuck through the tape abruptly halt in mid-spin. He stares at the device. Angel's diary?

He shouldn't listen to it.

He stacks the tapes and batteries with the little recorder back inside the hidden compartment and closes it. Then he arranges the things in the cabinet so that the compartment is obscured again, just how it was before he found it. He closes the cabinet and stands, walks away.

Diaries are private.

It's early afternoon, and the heat from outside is seeping in through the pores of the tiny house. Spike isn't wearing a shirt. He goes to look out the window and sees the little girl with pink shoes playing outside. She's turning cartwheels in the dirt path, her hands and feet brown with dried mud. The same old woman from before is heading towards the house carrying two buckets, singing something in Khmer. Spike supposes that she's coming to feed the donkeys.

He sits down at the little table and waits. He hears the old woman approaching, hears her stop singing and start talking in a low voice. He can't tell if she's talking to the animals or to the little girl. After a few minutes, she walks away, and Spike goes to the window and looks out again. He watches the old woman and the girl walking back down the path to the tiny village.

Then he gets up, goes to the cabinet, and gets the handheld recorder out of the hidden compartment again. He takes it to Angel's bed, stretches out on top of the cover, and presses play.

*

Angel didn't go to Australia. He'd planned to; he just... never got around to it. Something about this country called to him, as though it wanted him to stay. It felt familiar. Almost comfortable. He looked at the faces of the people whose lives were being constantly disrupted by war, and he saw in them something he would probably have seen in his own face if he had been able to look into a mirror. The people didn't smile and he didn't smile either. He felt like he hadn't smiled in a long time.

He spent two weeks getting hungry in a small village near Lake Tonle Sap. During the day, he camped in a partial-house that had been abandoned after a neighborhood was bombed, and when he went out at night, an old homeless man came and slept there instead. Sometimes, Angel could hear explosions from far away.

One night he finally decided to bite a donkey he saw wandering around the deserted marketplace. (Only the big cities had night markets; the village markets usually closed around dusk.) He didn't kill the donkey. It was a sturdy little animal. Later he found out who owned it and ended up trading his souped-up aquabike for that donkey, another donkey, and a tiny wooden shelter on some land near an even smaller village on the floodplain. So he and his two donkeys moved in. He called it a semi-permanent arrangement. He never really meant to stay, after all.

He named the donkeys Grey and Spot. Because Grey was, and Spot had one. He only drank from them when he couldn't stand the hunger for another minute, and even then he didn't take much. When he wasn't eating, he just let them wander around the village. He didn't have any other use for them, and anyway, they came when he whistled.

He'd been unpacking the last of his things in the little house when he came across the tape recorder again. It had only been a few weeks, but he'd already forgotten about it. Too busy thinking about other things. Or, more accurately, trying not to think about anything. He considered selling it maybe, or trading it for something. But eventually he just sat down at his little table and put the recorder on the rough wooden surface in front of him, pressed the record button. As though he had anything worthwhile to say.

"I traded my bike for a two room house without electricity, plumbing, or a lock on the door," he said out loud. "Guess that means I'm sticking around. Got two donkeys out of the deal, too, but I'm thinking the other guy really got a bargain.

"Good thing he spoke French. I'll probably need to learn Khmer at some point, if I stay very long. I don't even know how to say hello. Not that there are many people around to say hello to.

"This is one of the smallest villages I've ever seen. It doesn't have a market. I don't even think it has a name. A couple hundred people, maybe. Almost all of them work in the rice fields, but some of them grow other stuff too. Celery. Things like that.

"I haven't actually met any of them yet. I don't think they like to be outside after it gets dark. Probably smart, considering the war. Sometimes I can hear the shooting, but I can't tell how far away it is. Could be miles. I have pretty good hearing."

There was a short pause after that, and then Angel reached over and stopped the tape. He sat there for a long moment, just looking at it sitting there on the table. Finally, he reached out and pressed record again.

"I don't... I don't know why I'm here, in this country," he said. "I don't know why I feel like I should stay. I think maybe I'm just... tired. Tired of caring about things that only end up leaving you in the end. And everything leaves. You wait long enough, and the whole world slips away. Starting with the things you love the most.

"It's happening here, too. War, poverty, famine... every day these people lose a little bit more. But I've got nothing left to lose. Already lost it all. So the rest of the world can go ahead and slip away from me; I'm not holding onto it anymore anyway."

Angel reached for the stop button again but paused, his hand hovering over the tape recorder. Quietly, he added, "This is a pretty good place for not caring about anything."

Then he let his hand drop, stopping the recorder with an audible click.

*

Spike stops the tape.

He rolls onto his back on the bed in the hot room, the recorder cupped loosely in his hand, and he thinks about Dawn. It's been over half a year since she died. Feels like a lot longer. And then, just a couple of weeks later, he started looking for Angel.

Half a year. Following the trail through all those countries, all those empty places, in just six months. Somehow it seems like he's been searching for Angel for much longer than that. But now that the trail's at an end, he doesn't have anywhere else to go. No one to go back to.

Dawn was so pretty, lying there. Almost ninety years old, her long white hair done up in a bun, and her fat Italian great-grandkiddies playing tag around the cemetery in their little suits and dresses. She'd made the arrangements beforehand - wanted the funeral at night, so Spike could be there. He stood by the casket in a black suit while the little old ladies came up to clasp his hand, tell him in apologetic Italian, "I'm so sorry, dear. Your grandmother was a wonderful lady."

The world slips away. Angel's quiet confession of loss is something Spike thinks he won't forget for a very long time. He wonders who it is that Angel grieves for.

Spike turns his head to the side on the pillow and breathes in a slow, deep breath. Underneath his own scent and Angel's, there's the faintest trace of tears in the down.

His stomach growls. It's still early afternoon, and he's sweating a little, damp hot skin sticking to the covers. He's not used to sweating so much.

After a while, he presses the play button again.

*

Continued [here].

Back to [Table of Contents]

*

Comments

[spangel-kat.livejournal.com]

Oh wow. Totally intrigued. I love post-NFA stories, and this one looks like it will be very involved. I'm very interested in knowing what Angel has been doing and what Spike has been doing. Very interesting how their lives seem to have been so different the past decades after the fight.

Can't wait for more!

[girlpire.livejournal.com]

oh, i'm so glad you're interested! yes, the story is very involved... i just hope it doesn't end up being as long as "friday" was. i got kind of overwhelmed with that one. i'm hoping to just be whelmed with this one. :)

[darkspace99.livejournal.com]

Oh, so sad but so very intriguing at the same time. I hope Spike finds Angel soon!

[girlpire.livejournal.com]

so do i! the less i have to write, the better. ;)

thanks for the comment.

[lilithbint.livejournal.com]

wonderful start,
very evocative scenes and I am fascinated already.
Love the slow reveal of their different lives after NFA and how so much was similar in their losses.

[girlpire.livejournal.com]

thank you! it looks like you're picking up exactly what i was going for. i'm so glad. :D

[darklingdawns.livejournal.com]

This is such a wonderful start. I love how you've set the scene, really taken us there with them, and how it's spinning out so leisurely. Really looking forward to the next part!

[girlpire.livejournal.com]

thanks so much! leisurely is a good word. :)

[treadingthedark.livejournal.com]

Dawn was so pretty, lying there. Almost ninety years old, her long white hair done up in a bun, and her fat Italian great-grandkiddies playing tag around the cemetery in their little suits and dresses. She'd made the arrangements beforehand - wanted the funeral at night, so Spike could be there. He stood by the casket in a black suit while the little old ladies came up to clasp his hand, tell him in apologetic Italian, "I'm so sorry, dear. Your grandmother was a wonderful lady."
Heartbreaking. But beautiful too. It makes me happy that they were always close. I also liked the part about the picture with 50 year old Xander having a beer with Spike.

This is a really interesting story. Eagerly awaiting more.

[girlpire.livejournal.com]

thanks! i think spike's relationship with dawn is probably the closest thing he would ever have to a parent/child relationship, so i chose it to sort of mirror angel's thing with connor. i'm glad you're interested in more. :)

[trepkos.livejournal.com]

Looking forward to reading this later - it looks intriguing!

[girlpire.livejournal.com]

thanks! i hope you like it when you get the chance to read. :)

[girlpire.livejournal.com]

thanks, ash!

afraid that there will be a few chapters when Angel and Spike don't interact at all

i'm afraid of this as well... i promise to try and keep it interesting, though. i've already cut out a subplot from angel's storyline to make the flashovers shorter, which i'm hoping will help.

It's almost like a ghost story somehow, if that makes sense.

it does. and it is! i hadn't thought of it that way before, but you're right - there's a definite absent!presence of angel throughout spike's side of the story, as though he's being haunted. thank you for putting it that way. :D

[http://users.livejournal.com/woman_of_/]

Works beautifully, Spike catching up with what has been going on with Angel via a tape-recorder. Such hunger, not just of blood, but company. They are both so alone now.

[girlpire.livejournal.com]

thank you! you're exactly right - both very alone.

[sueworld2003.livejournal.com]

Oh fantastic! What a wonderfully imaginative idea to tell a tale, via Angels 'dairy'. Just love the idea as much as I love your telling of it.

Looking forward to the rest of this.

[billysgirl5.livejournal.com]

Oh, I love your icon!

[billysgirl5.livejournal.com]

This sounds so interesting. I'm looking forward to see how it turns out.

[girlpire.livejournal.com]

thanks! i hope you enjoy the rest as it gets posted. :)

[spikesfool.livejournal.com]

Haunting start.

[girlpire.livejournal.com]

thank you! haunting is just the sort of feeling i was after. :D

also, your icon trips me out every time i see it. hehe

[angelstoy.livejournal.com]

Hooked already!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Damn, am I in love with your writing, you're absolutely amazing!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Totally can't wait for more!!!!!!!!!

[girlpire.livejournal.com]

aw, stop it, you're making me blush. :D

thanks babe.

[hello-spikey.livejournal.com]

meep!
Beautiful! So haunting and lost and full of loss and...

*sniffles*

I don't know why but I love the detail that Angel's only picture of Spike is one with a 50-something Xander in it. With a beer.

Beautiful details. Love everything. Really, really worried where Angel has gotten himself off to! I hope the little girl with the pink shoes and the little old lady can help Spike... if he can learn to communicate with them. Get the feeling Angel's been spending a lot of time with the little girl - what with the children's books and crayon drawings.

Nurturing Angel!!

So sweet.

Gosh this is beautiful. I can't gush enough. I see all the details and I love it.

*hugs*

[girlpire.livejournal.com]

oh, i'm so glad you like it! i was really going for the haunting/full of loss thing, but i was afraid it came across as kind of boring. you have reassured me. :)

i want to respond in more detail to what you've mentioned here, but i'm scared i'd give something away! i'm just glad you like it, and your observations will be addressed soon. *is cryptic*

[girlpire.livejournal.com]

thanks! it was initially going to be a written diary, but i wanted to write angel's speaking voice (which i figured would be different from his writing voice), and i thought that hearing angel actually talk in an empty house would have a more haunting quality than reading his journal. if that makes sense.

i hope you will like the next few parts!

[adso-von-melk.livejournal.com]

This looks so wonderful! I'm in love with your stories! I just hope you update this soon! makes puppy eyes!*

[girlpire.livejournal.com]

thanks! and don't worry, i'm definitely going to finish it. :)

[ex-dark-ami.livejournal.com]

aww poor donkeys :(

Love that Spike had a close relationship with Dawn. Interesting beginning, looking forward to more.

[girlpire.livejournal.com]

aww poor donkeys

*sheds tear for donkeys* but they are sturdy animals. they can take a little blood letting every now and then. :)

i'm glad you enjoyed it.

[fanfictionaddic.livejournal.com]

This was a really lovely beginning.

[girlpire.livejournal.com]

thank you. :D

[kitmarlowescot2.livejournal.com]

Oh this fic is quite lovely. And so accurate for both Spike and Angel. Good job girlpire, I am loving this as much as Friday. You know their is a vampire series out their by P.N. Elrod, where her vampires do survive off of cattle, and horses just like you described. Her main one deals with a vampire detective in the 1930's.
You know this is only the second Buffy fic I know about that deals with Vietman or Cambodia. The first being one by hersel_nyc but that was Spuffy, and Spike was the one be found.
Here he is the seeker.

[girlpire.livejournal.com]

i'm glad you like it! i've never heard of elrod; i might have to check that out. it's funny that there's another vampire detective story - as if angel, moonlight, and forever knight weren't enough.

i think jans_intentions once wrote an au human spangel story set in vietnam. i haven't read it, but i heard it was pretty good... the name had something to do with rocks, but i can't remember it now.

[flake-sake.livejournal.com]

Wow, wow, very strong start. I love it that Spike is able to track Angel down because of their similarities. That they both went on the road, when they lost a loved one and that Spike is pretty much in the same emotional state now that Angel was in when he started recording. When the hunger became to big, Spike even bit the donkey, just like Angel did.

As always I adore your eye for detail! It's amazing. That the first thing on this tapes is Angel saying "testing". That is so cute and so very Angel.

Another one of my favorite scenes was in the beginning, when Spike smells Angel stronger and stronger and is already picturing them reuniting. You built up the excitement brilliantly in this. And then Spike comes to the house and there's no Angel. Painful, but in a very very good way.

I can't wait to read on and learn more about what happened to them in the past.

[girlpire.livejournal.com]

Spike is pretty much in the same emotional state now that Angel was in when he started recording.

exactly! i'm really glad you're seeing the parellels here. that makes me happy, heh. although i think as the story moves along there will be fewer.

aw, when spike got all excited and then was let down, i felt really bad. but i'm glad you thought the pain was good. :) it's like they said in doctor who: sad is happy for deep people.

[thatotherperv.livejournal.com]

eljay ate my feedback :(

[girlpire.livejournal.com]

you made me a comment, but lj eated it?

[of-too-minds.livejournal.com]

Wow, I'm enthralled by this. I'm right there with Spike, so curious to know what's happened to Angel. Sad that they ended up so estranged. I'm interested in uncovering how their lives developed post-NFA.

Looking forward to more.

[girlpire.livejournal.com]

thank you! i'm very glad it's caught your interest. :)

[a2zmom.livejournal.com]

I already love this. The descriptions are wonderful and so is the sense of loss that permeates this. That's the real curse of being a vampire - losing everyone you love.

[girlpire.livejournal.com]

thank you! i've always wondered how our boys would deal with the aging and death of their loved ones while they stayed the same. i've seen lots of fics where the other characters become bitter about it - or else are told that they will be bitter when they're old but their vampire lovers are still young and beautiful - but i've never seen it explored from the other side before.

[ares132006.livejournal.com]

I am hooked, too. I love your attention to detail. I always look forward to your stories. This one looks to be amazing. I can't wait for the next chapter. Plus, I love that the donkeys are providing sustenance for Angel, and now Spike, without having to lose their lives. I'm a sucker for animal rights. Heee...

One thing I ask, though. The heat thing. I though vampires' body temp. were room temp. Angel doesn't feel the cold or the heat. He wears a coat in the middle of an LA summer. Or is it the humidity that is giving Spike a hard time? Just wondering.

[girlpire.livejournal.com]

i'm so glad you liked it! i kind of feel bad for the donkeys, but i figure they can take it. they are sturdy, after all, and even humans donate blood every now and then without suffering ill effects. :)

the heat thing... the easy answer to that is that i wanted my vampires to sweat so i wrote them sweating. because that's what i wanted. heh.

other than that, you're right about their body temperatures being room temperature, but if they're in a room that's 100 degrees F, then wouldn't their body temperatures also be 100 degrees? that's pretty hot - certainly hot enough to sweat, especially if you're used to being around 72 degrees. if my body temperature were suddenly 30 degrees higher than i was used to, i'm sure i'd sweat quite a bit. (and then i'd die... but that's beside the point.) and i'm figuring LA isn't quite as hot as cambodia. technically i suppose spike could wear his coat in cambodia and it wouldn't make him any hotter - likewise, taking off his shirt wouldn't make him any cooler - because he'd be neither containing nor releasing body heat, but i had him take his shirt off because the sweat was making it stick to him and that's uncomfy. :) the humidity is pretty bad too, but it's the combination of both humidity and heat that makes spike pretty miserable.

[elisi]

Finally here.

And you have no cause for worry - this is gorgeous and intriguing and I love it already!

[girlpire.livejournal.com]

oh, i'm so glad! i was worried it would be kind of boring... i think it should get more interesting as the story progresses, though.

[acacia5.livejournal.com]

I am totally hooked already. I loved the way you paced this. We really feel Spike's loneliness, and the fact that he really has nowhere else he needs to be, no reason to rush off onto more important things. I also think that the use of the tape recorder was an inspired way to let both Spike and the reader know what has been going on with Angel, both in his day to day life, and emotionally. I am very curious about the little girl and why she is the only one in the village who is not afraid to venture out after dark.

Can't wait for your next post.

[girlpire.livejournal.com]

thank you! i'm very glad you like the tape recorder and the girl. both will play significant roles in this fic as the story progresses, which i'm sure you can tell already. :) i'm working on the next part right now.