(no subject)

[doyle]

Title: Wings Across the Cancelled Skies
Author: Doyle
Pairing: Angel/Illyria, sort of.
Rating: PG
Notes: Spoilers for Angel finale. This is for the Day After Tomorrow Challenge. Note that I haven't seen the movie and only have the trailer to go on as to plot, but still - apocalyptic weather, whoo! The title's from Archibald MacLeish's poem 'The End of the World'.

The radio's reception fizzled out in a last burst of static right after the word came through that half of Europe was underwater. Angel looked at Spike when the word 'Italy' crackled through the white noise, and Spike said nothing, didn't react, just stared stonily at the windows and the rain, and then he said, "Right. Anybody got any last minute heroics planned? 'Cause unless we're building an ark I'm going to get very drunk."

"Man with a plan," Gunn said, and the two of them went to find alcohol, Illyria glancing at Angel a moment before she followed at their heels.

They came back with Spike's coat slung between them, bottles clinking inside the bundle of leather.

"You should see the places downstairs," Gunn said. "Big, fancy apartments fulla stuff.
People that were running, they didn't take a thing. Didn't even stop to lock their doors." He looked down at their haul of scotch and vodka as if suddenly guilty at the theft. "Think they made it? Got to Mexico or wherever?"

"Maybe," Angel said absently, thinking of Connor. Nina.

Illyria said, "Unlikely. They were several hundred miles from the ocean, in a tall building with a solid base structure. Their fear led them to flee in small, fragile transport vessels. They might have lived a few hours longer had they stayed."

For a moment, there was just the sound of the rain against the floor-to-ceiling windows.

"Toast, then," Spike said. "To a few more hours."

***

"Yellow Submarine."

They took the shot and Gunn topped up their glasses, spilling some of the amber liquid on the rug. "The Rain. Missy Elliott."

"Wankers' music."

"Hey, you're the one said R.E.M."

But Gunn's song apparently met the rules that Angel had half-listened to, because they both drank.

Frowning thoughtfully, Spike tapped his glass on the carpet. "Tokyo Storm Warning."

"The World is But a Broken Toy."

"Don't know it."

"Everybody…" Gunn was sober enough to look sheepish. "Okay, everybody with everything Gilbert and Sullivan wrote stuck in their head knows that one."

"This is foolish," Illyria said.

Sometimes she made a lot of sense, but Spike shrugged and Gunn said, "Yeah. We know." To Spike, he said, "Your turn."

There was a gale blowing outside. The building shook with one especially strong blast.

Spike smirked. "King of the Rumbling Spires."

"You made that one up."

"Did not."

"Who sung it?"

"T-Rex."

"Never heard of the dude."

Spike climbed to his feet, knocking over one of the empty bottles. "I'm not lettin' you die without hearing decent music," he announced. "C'mon, Charlie-boy. Must be somebody in this place had some good CDs." He helped Gunn to stand, grabbing two of the bottles. "Tag along if you want, Blue. Angel…?"

He was partway turned to the window, and he shook his head at the invite. "I'm okay. You three go ahead."

Spike looked set to say something, and then he just nodded. "Come and find us if you want us."

"Yeah. Spike?" he said, when they were at the door. Spike glanced back, and a look passed between them. Angel didn't quite smile. "I Made it Through the Rain."

"Manilow," Spike said, rolling his eyes. It was almost affectionate. "Should be your musical soul I'm trying to save, not his."

And then they left him alone. The rain was too loud to hear the click of the door closing.

***

They'd survived the Senior Partners. He was starting to think they'd used up their combined lifetime's allocation of miracles: slaying the dragon. Gunn lasting longer than ten minutes, and then the whole way through the night, and then healing, even when they'd had to run and he insisted on checking himself out of hospital. Getting out of LA, outrunning the Partners' demons.

Angel had some very old contacts in Pittsburgh. The four of them had had to literally go underground, taking old demon trafficking routes, even sidestepping into other dimensions when the things on their trail got too close.

They came out on an empty city and a storm.

Far away in the distance, a bolt of lightning bisected the sky. He remembered long-ago thunderstorms in Galway, how his family's horses had panicked and kicked in the stables. He tried counting the space between the lightning and thunder, but the low rumble started to build before the brightness had died away.

A second flash, brighter, lit Illyria's lone reflection in the glass.

"Not really in the mood for company," he said. "Go hang out with Spike and Gunn."

"They are both intoxicated. Spike is playing with silver discs of noise, and Gunn has initiated a game wherein they name something that they have not done, and if the other person has, they ingest more of the poison."

Drinking themselves stupid. Going out with music and a friend. Put that way, it sounded a lot better than being alone in the dark.

He still didn't feel any great urge to join them.

"Your thoughts are with the boy."

"Connor's okay," he said. Connor had made it over the border with his parents and he was in Mexico now, and there was some kind of mystical bubble surrounding them that would keep the storm away. In Mexico, the sun was shining, and his son was still alive.

He had to keep thinking it, even if he couldn't make himself believe it.

Illyria joined him at the glass, looking down at the ground some thirty floors below them. Visibility wasn't the best. There was rain and lightning and thick, roiling black clouds. Most of the smaller buildings that he could see were already in ruins.

"The water is already past the first floor," she said. "I estimate that eventually a tsunami will sweep from the Atlantic Ocean, covering this building."

Boston. New York. On the other coast, Los Angeles, San Francisco. Maybe they were all underwater already. He pictured all the regional offices of Wolfram & Hart swept away by the tide and that was almost a consolation until he imagined the reverse: a devastated world, and Wolfram & Hart still standing.

Illyria said, "In Wesley's apartment, I watched television programmes about countries of the world."

"Documentaries." Second nature, now, to fill in for things she didn't know the names for.

She inclined her head. "Yes. National Geographic. They showed me pictures of the Gobi desert. It is a hot, harsh expanse of sand." She raised her hand to the window, the blue tint of her skin eerie in the light from the storm. "I remember it as it was before the continent broke into pieces. It was beautiful, and cold, and always white with snowfall."

Before the TV reception had died and Spike had found the radio, they'd watched the pictures on CNN. "Snowing," the reporter had stammered. "It's snowing in the Sahara."

"The Earth goes on," Illyria said, sounding as if she was talking to herself. "The planet has no thought for the parasites on its skin. The human infestation may die out, as they should have done aeons ago. Perhaps the demons and the half-breeds too. And somewhere life will endure, and begin again."

"This too shall pass," Angel said quietly.

"Not for them." She hesitated, the words clearly costing her: "For us. But it will pass."

Angel looked at her. "Us," he repeated. He wondered if she was scared of dying.

It wasn't until the tsunami she'd predicted filled the sky, coming at them faster than sound, that he felt her hand creep awkwardly into his, and he didn't have time to realize that was his answer.

Comments

[snidgemma.livejournal.com]

Gah, I keep reading your fic, loving it and then forgetting to comment. Loved this.