Stuck: Waking Up
by Andy
Angel woke up with a severe sense of disorientation. Then he registered a severe sense of pain, a severe sense of exhaustion and a severe sense of wrongness that caused him to groan and try to move.
This was a mistake, as pain shot through his arms and his head felt about to spit open. He could taste blood, but then, he usually could. And he’d been having his fill recently, what with Drogan and then Hamilton…
At the thought of Hamilton, the man’s solemn face and pristinely pressed suit floating in front of his mind, an onrush of memory occurred and he fell back, giving up the vain hope of moving any further than a couple of inches.
They were all dead. They had to be. No one could have survived that onslaught, the army of hellbeasts set upon them by the Senior Partners after they had destroyed the Black Thorn. Survival… was impossible.
And yet, here he was. Lying on concrete, alive. Or as alive as he could usually claim to be. He opened his eyes, eyelids heavy with dried blood. It was coming up on dawn, but he was lying in the shade, early rays of sunlight just starting to touch the roofs of the buildings surrounding him. The familiar buildings. Wincing, the puncture wounds in his arms oozing much needed fluids, he turned his head to the right.
What he saw was an office building that no longer existed. Oh, he thought. Not good.
-
It was possible that he’d drunk a lot the night before. The fact that he didn’t seem to remember where he was, what had happened and why he didn’t seem to have any legs supported this theory.
It was dark. Really, dark. And wet. Grassy. Almost comfortable.
As it had hit Angel, the memory of what had happened to him hit him like a bulldozer, making his stomach turn so far over he was sure that all traces of alcohol had to have been removed from his system.
Because now he remembered that he’d been drinking all day. “Bloody hell,” he rasps, wiggling the fingers on one hand. “Someone get the number of that hellbeast?” He could move his hand, that was a good sign, although it seemed to be sticky with something.
Not much use wondering about that now, he reasoned. It was blood, though hopefully it wasn’t all his. It bubbled on his lips too, and his hair was thick with it – he could feel it dripping down his skull into his eyes. It had been a good nine and a half minutes, and they’d made them memorable, like Gunn had said. That didn’t explain how or why he was still alive and functional. Or at least, partially functional.
“Um, Spike? Something run you over?”
The voice forced him to open his eyes. “Bugger,” he breathed, though it’s a good thing he didn’t need his lungs anymore since he was sure that somewhere back there, something had run one through. “Am I in Africa?”
-
Gunn woke to the sound of voices, and a cool hand on his forehead. He remembers what happened immediately, mainly because the huge slash on his stomach is hurting way too much for him to speculate. He groaned, his body feeling useless, like cooked noodles left in water for too long.
“He’s awake, man,” said the person who’s holding his head in their lap. It was pretty comfortable. “Someone get Alonna.”
Alonna… “George?” he coughed.
“Yeah, brother, it’s me man.”
“No,” he tried to say, “you’re dead.”
“What the hell happened?” yelled a new voice from far away. He recognised the voice but it was difficult to put a name to it. “I have no idea, man!” the dead voice of George yelled. “It’s Gunn, he’s all cut up!”
“No way,” said the other voice. Rondell, Gunn remembered. He hadn’t seen him for over two years. But then, he hadn’t seen George for longer. George was dead. And Rondell had lost the mission.
“No way it’s him,” said Rondell. “He’s back at the crib with Alonna, patching up some of the guys got hurt last night.” Gunn tried to open his eyes and failed miserably.
“He ain’t anymore,” growled George. “Let’s get some help up here, man.”
Gunn felt someone come up to him, kneel, and put a hand to his torn shoulder. A voice gasped and the hand retreated, no doubt covered in blood. “I’ll call an ambulance,” said Rondell.
“What? No way – the police’ll be onto us man, no way we can risk that now.”
A pause. “It’s Gunn,” said Rondell.
“Yeah,” said George. “Well go! Go, if you’re goin’! I dunno if he can hang on that much longer…”
Footsteps retreating. Pain.
“Hey, man,” says George’s voice, George’s impossible voice.
“Vampire got you…” Gunn whispered.
“What? No! I’m fine, man, you just gotta hold on. Hold on, Gunn!”
Gunn didn’t want to hold on. Angel… Spike… Wesley, oh god, Wesley… they were all dead. What was he supposed to do now? How was he still alive? Why was he here, this strange world were dead people were suddenly alive and telling him to live? Was this heaven? Did he deserve heaven, after everything he’d done? After Fred?
“Hold on for Alonna,” said a voice from really far away. “Come on, man. Alonna’ll kill me if we lose you. Hold on for Alonna, man.”
Gunn held on.
-
A car drew up outside the building. Angel could only watch it as it drove clumsily into a parking space. It was his car. Not one of the company cars, HIS car. The car he’d driven for four years, the car that had helped him save hundreds of innocents. Suddenly he couldn’t remember what had happened to that car.
But he wasn’t that awkward a driver, surely?
He wasn’t, but the driver was. The door opened and a young woman slid out of it, long dark hair hanging in static curls around her head to her waist, as if she hadn’t had time to brush it that morning.
It was Cordelia. His heart almost started to beat at the sight of her. He didn’t think, ‘but she’s dead!’ because the building he was lying in front of had blown up four years ago, and he was pretty sure that whatever reality he was in, it wasn’t the same as the one he had left. Instead, he tried to call her name.
What came out was ‘Ehh…eee…a…’
She heard him, however. She looked around, distracted. “Someone say something?” she asked the empty street. Her eyes fell on him.
“Oh my God! Oh my God, Angel!”
Sounds about right, Angel thought. Cordelia ran to him, getting blood on her light pink top almost immediately. “What the hell happened?” she exclaimed. He couldn’t answer. He was pretty sure there was a thick hole in his throat, matching the ones in his arms where he’d been pinned. Damn dragons. Damn them to hell.
Cordelia fumbled with her handbag, swearing quite a lot as she searched for something. Her hand finally emerged with a mobile phone, and she punched in a number as quickly as possible. She held it to her ear and waited, biting her lip. “It’s ok,” she whispered to him. “It’s gonna be ok. Vampire’s heal extra-fast, right? You’ll totally get over this.”
Suddenly she blinked with the recognition of someone whose phone companion has just answered. “Doyle,” she said, “it’s me. Get down here, NOW.”
-
A confused if not concerned face loomed above him. Spike’s worst fears were suddenly realised all in one go.
“No,” said the apparition of doom. “Not Africa. I’ll let you know if I see any elephants though, or whatever.”
“Xander?”
“Yes?”
“Where the hell am I?”
The boy’s face came into focus properly and Spike realised two things, first, that he really was a boy, barely seventeen and wearing the ridiculous hair cut of several years previous. Secondly, he clutched a stake in his right hand, and it was poised right above Spike’s chest.
“Wotcha got there mate?” rasped Spike in his best dangerous voice. This was difficult when his nose seemed to be clogged with blood and he couldn’t feel half of his limbs. It came out more… pathetically terrified.
“Well,” Xander explained. “It’s a wooden stick, you see. It’s sharpened at this end here, see, pointy. And the way it works is that when you move an inch I ram it into your chest and you go poof.”
Spike felt that his braincells had already been seriously fried by this conversation already, and didn’t answer.
“How did you get away from Giles’?” Xander asked.
“I – what?”
“From Giles’ place. Last I heard, William the Bloody was chained up in a bathtub.”
Bollocks, Spike thought. “How far?” he asked.
“Half a block. It’s the park just down the street – lucky for you I was going to drop off some herbs and stuff for Willow.”
Lucky, my arse. “I don’t think I can walk,” he said. “But if you get me there, I’ll come quietly.” He was met with a blank look. “I won’t bite.”
“Right, cos of your whole Matrix experience?”
“Er... yeah, whatever.”
At a time like this, a bloke needs all the sarcasm he can get. But Spike, tragically, seemed to have run out.
-
Gunn knew that the massive gash on his stomach could almost be classified as a hole. Vampires should not be allowed knives, this was extremely unfair when they also had teeth as sharp as razors and he only had a couple of wooden sticks extending from his wrists. He could feel them there, still against his skin.
When people started pushing and pulling him, lifting him around and shouting, he wondered whether what George had said was true. Alonna, still alive? How was it possible? How was it possible for George to be there? Alonna was dust and they’d burned George on a pyre years ago.
His wonderings caused him to forget about how much blood he was losing until someone shouted, “he’s my friend, man, let me go with him!” And Rondell was by his side. A mask was fitted over his nose and mouth – when he breathed it made rasping noises. A siren blared.
He concentrated on the sound. A real sound. He tried not to hear the echoing of the dragon’s screech or the roaring of the demons, though they echoed still in his ears.
-
Angel was frantically trying to communicate to Cordelia with eye power alone – since those seemed to be the only parts of his body that weren’t injured – his current problem. Quite apart from looking as though he’d been dropped off a cliff onto jagged rocks several times and then fed through a meat grinder, he was about to be crispy fried by the sunrise that was slowly creeping towards his right hand.
She seemed to notice it by herself. “Geez, Angel,” she scolded. “You picked a really bad time to get torn to shreds. I’ve got to get you inside.”
You think? Angel wanted to say.
“It’ll probably hurt,” said Cordelia, shoving her bag aside and grabbing him under the arms, or what was left of them. It did hurt. A lot.
“For someone who doesn’t eat solids, you’re pretty heavy,” she remarked, huffing as she tried to get him up the steps. Good thing there weren’t many of them. Once inside the office (and it was a blessing they hadn’t seen any other residents of other offices on the way) she ran around closing the blinds. As soon as she had finished, someone else ran in.
It was Doyle. Angel remembered everything and everyone he’d ever seen or done, it was part of what was so terrible about his life in general, but there’s nothing like seeing someone alive again, after their death. Angel knew this from heavy experience.
Doyle looked down at him, eyes wide. “Oh,” he groaned. “I so need a drink right now.”
-
Travelling the streets of Sunnydale, half-conscious and half-draped over the shoulder of Xander Harris, was not how Spike had intended to spend his evening. He had intended to die, and if he had been human he definitely would have – there were several holes in his chest that went through to the other side and he seemed to be bleeding from absolutely everywhere.
It was Sunnydale, which in itself was a distinct impossibility, since Sunnydale no longer existed, but that’s where he was. And he was only half a street from Giles’ flat, because it came into view before long, which was good because making any kind of movement at all seemed to make all his wounds light on fire at once.
As they neared the door, Willow ran up to them, wearing a red jumper with a big smily cat on the front. She looked even freakishly younger than Xander did, eyes wide with shock at the sight of Spike.
“What happened to him?” she asked.
“No idea,” Xander puffed. “Open the door, Wil?”
“Oh – right!” She scrambled to wrench the door open and went inside.
Still clumsy, Spike thought. Probably not gay yet.
-
“What happened?”
“I dunno, man, we just found him!”
“Come on sonny, you gotta tell me the truth – did you get in a fight?”
“Are you serious – look at him, something’s ripped him up!”
“Listen kid, it’s really important we know what happened.”
“I keep tellin’ ya, I don’t know!”
“Ok, calm down. Does he have parents in the area?”
“No.”
“Anyone you can call when we get to the hospital?”
“No.”
No one. No one left.
“Sir, we’re losing him!”
“Do something!”
“We’re doing all we can, kid, just stay back out of the way, all right?”
“Is he gonna be ok?”
“These wounds are too deep, Jim, we need to go faster.”
“Dan, put your foot on it!”
“Nearly there sir!”
“Stay awake, kid, can you hear me? You, talk to him, don’t let him slip into it.”
“Gunn! Come on man, you can’t leave me now! The gang needs you, Alonna needs you.”
Alonna’s dead…
“Just keep going man, keep going for us. You gotta keep fighting, like you always do.”
Fight the good fight. Help the helpless. That’s what we do. Let’s go to work.
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