Black Birch

Author: Blackbirch
Title: Green and purple skies
Rating: PG-13 ish
Fandom: Angel & Buffy series
Summary: Very non smut, a bit of schmoop..or maybe not. Mostly silly. — Angel’s tired of christmas songs, Spike serves Angel weird Nordic cooking.
Wordcount: 1283 words
Pairing: Spike/Angel(us)
Archive: No. I repeat - no.
Disclaimer: All characters are copyright of their originators. No infringement intended, no profit made.
Feedback: Yes please. Any kind (good or bad) you can give me.
Story Notes:
Originally posted 2004-12-17

Angel felt like Christmas was haunting him. Not the ghost of Christmas past, not his own ghostly memories of a bloody past, but Christmas. The big c Christmas with the music everywhere, the glitter, the angels, the freakishly large Disney figures all over the place. Everyone humming ‘lalala all be jolly’. At work. At Wolfram and Hart. If anything was scary it was seeing all these people suddenly smile, giggle and sing. He shuddered as he watched the countdown on the elevator - soon he’d be home in blessed silence. Christmas season was evil. And not the amusing kind of evil either.

When he opened his door he had to take a few steps back and check it was the right apartment. Which it of course was - his was the only one on this floor. It didn’t look like his apartment. It definitely didn’t sound like his home, there was sound, song… Christmas songs. And a voice singing along.

“Spike!”

“Yes, sire?”

There must be magic involved. There had to be. Or dimension swap of some kind. Cause Spike was polite, servile even… and wore glitter? around his head. And offered him something in a tiny cup. He couldn’t help himself, pure instinct made him stagger back a few steps.

“Would you like some mulled wine Sire?”

“Okay, what is this?” Angel gestured exasperatedly, this was annoying and frightening. “Where’s Spike?” He narrowed his eyes and stared at the person in front of him. “What have you done with m… Spike?”

The vampire in front of him could only keep his face innocent for so long before he burst out in laughter. “You should have seen your face.” he gasped out.

“You just decided that torture at work wasn’t enough? Wanted to prolong the agony of the season?” Angel was tired, and well.. cranky. And what was better than to take it out on someone else, so he grabbed Spike and shoved him against the wall.

The grin on his progeny was wicked and very amused. He loved taunting Angel - this was no news, and yet he did exactly as Spike wanted every time. He was so damn easy. Not this time. He sighed and let him go. “I’m in no mood for your games Spike. Kill the music and leave me alone.”

“Ahh, feeling all pouty this evening are we?”

“Spike.” Strange how much growling you could fit into a word that doesn’t even have the letter ‘r’ in it.

“Fine, fine.” He raised his hands in mockery of an apology.

“‘Was just bored. So I thought why not liven things up a bit. … I made dinner.”

Angel almost stumbled on his way to his comfiest chair. “Dinner?” he asked incredulously. “You made dinner?” He turned and stared at Spike. “You do remember we’re vampires right? We don’t eat dinner.”

“Just cause you refuse to enjoy anything with a little taste.” he huffed. Spike seemed actually offended. Okay, he could go with ignorance here and continue to the chair and his whisky. But then he’d never get any rest. Offended Spike meant whiny Spike, and really, Angel was too tired to do anything about that tonight.

“Okay.. show me.”

He could see that Spike tried to keep the pout, but he was never any good at keeping expressions from blooming all over his features. There was that little tug in the corner of his mouth that meant he was trying hard not to smile.

When they stepped into the kitchen Angel had to admit, it did smell good. Copperish and sweet. “Here try this.” He was offered one of those little cups again. “What was this again?”

“Mulled wine. I mixed it with some blood. What d’you think?”

He just nodded, the taste was sweet with the dryness that comes with wine. It was okay, he’d admit that much.

“Where did you get the idea to all of this?” Angel continued sipping on the warm wine as Spike started putting soup bowls on the kitchen table. It actually felt nice, that heat in his stomach.

“Yesterday. When we talked about the years you left me and Dru.”

When you abandoned us and Darla soon did the same, as we were yours, never hers. Angel heard the words unsaid. Wasn’t a period in his life that he liked to think about.. not much in his life was for that matter, but this stung a bit more than the rest. He hadn’t thought that Darla would just dump them because he wasn’t there. But she was right. They were his creations and he’d never even thought about them or what would happen with them - too lost in his own misery.

Spike didn’t seem to want to stay in that part of memory town either as he quickly moved on telling about the trips he and Dru had done. “Well, see we’d been on a trip to Russia.. reliving old memories and all that rot, but we took another route home. Over Scandinavia before we went by boat back to England. And those countries were quite … amusing.” His face transformed into a smile that made made memories of once being proud of the evil his Childe was possible of stirring inside.

“Did you know that they have several months up there when they never see the sun, at all?”

“You’re joking?”

“Nope. Really missed something there Angel. See, it’s like this - it’s not pitch black. Kinda like daylight. Except we can be out as normal people. Dru really enjoyed that, the way her darkness set off against the glittering snow. Always beautiful my dark angel, but there she shined. Loved seeing her in the light like that.” There was something wistful about him as he spoke. He missed his sire, or was it old times when things were so much easier?, Angel wondered.

“The sun never rises above the horizon, but it’s reflecting against the atmosphere or something and that’s how the light stays. And for some reason that’s harmless to us. And then they have this bloody spooky coloured lights all over the sky. It spoke to her she said, I hated it. Not right when the sky turns green and purple.”

“Green and purple?” Spike seemed ready to explain more but Angel couldn’t really care. He was curious to why he had never heard of such a vamp paradise before.

“Because it’s a death-trap in summertime, love. See in summer, the bloody sun never sets. ’s called midnight sun.”

They shuddered simultaneously.

“Okay… but why the food?” Angel wanted to change subject. Nights without darkness reminded him of hell, burning over and over again.

“They celebrated Christmas with slaughter there. They fatten up the animals and then they kill off most of them and feast… for days.”

“Huh.”

“Yup. And they eat this soup they called black soup… it’s blood mixed with wine, brandy and spices.”

So that was what had smelled so good. Okay, maybe he’d try a taste of this.

…

It had been really good, maybe it was the spices in the blood, maybe it was all the alcohol but he felt sated and warm and … sleepy actually.

It was so easy to just go along with Spike as he led him to the bedroom, gently undressed him and then helped him into the bed. He didn’t realise he’d fallen asleep almost instantly until he woke up as a cool body wrapped around him, whispering “Merry Christmas” in his ear. He turned and enveloped the smaller body into his, tucked his nose into that soft little dip in Spike’s neck and pressed a soft kiss on a naked shoulder. And whispered “thank you”.