Chapter Text
The picture was gone, now. He’d shredded it, crushed it to nothing in his hands. His damn hands, that wouldn’t stop, couldn’t stop, shaking, not since they’d come back from Titan.
No. Don’t.
He couldn’t think about Titan, about him, anymore. It was destroying him.
It didn’t matter now though; he was going to die anyway.
She’d left, he realized. Sometime earlier, in all the hazy chaos that was his mind, she’d slipped out of his grasp.
That didn’t matter either. She didn’t have the answers he wanted. And now he was sure.
Vicious was going to die.
It was just a matter of time. He was waiting for it now, hunched against the rocks with his sword at his side.
Footsteps, outside the church. Quiet, but not enough. Vicious was sure that was intentional. That he wanted to be heard.
Closer now.
Three.
Two.
One.
He lifted his head. Spike was standing in front of him, gun drawn, eyes hard.
“I see you found me.”
Spike rolled his eyes. “You’re dramatic.”
Vicious nodded. “Maybe so. But it got you here.”
“Don’t know why I didn’t look here first, really. Losing my touch, I guess. But Faye tipped me off in the end.”
“She said she didn’t know where you were.”
Spike shrugged. “She didn’t. I just got back.”
“Planning to leave again?”
“Got to take care of this first, don’t I?”
Vicious sighed. He certainly did. He held Spike’s gaze for a moment, wondering if he should say it. If it would reveal too much, make him suspect. Didn’t matter now.
“Last night…I dreamt of the dragon. Of the ouroboros.”
Spike tilted his head, suddenly curious. “What did it tell you?”
The old story Mao had told them, so many years ago. Spike remembered it too. How it came to you in dreams, spoke wisdom into your life. How to repeat the past, or how to avoid it. The dragon was a symbol of strength, judgment, pride. To hear it speak was an honor few received. One he certainly never did. And never would.
“Nothing.”
“It didn't speak?” Spike smirked at that. He always did like to see Vicious unbalanced, refused something he desperately wanted.
Vicious exhaled. “It swallowed me.”
“Is that why you surfaced, finally? Time to repeat your past?”
So he didn’t suspect, not yet. That was good. It would make this easier.
Vicious only nodded, standing up slowly. Spike tensed, of course he did, because he wasn’t a fool. Vicious raised his sword, wondering if Spike noticed the way it trembled in his hands. His fucking useless hands. All of him was useless, now. He’d been eaten by the dragon, chewed up and dissolved into nothingness.
It was only right his body should follow.
“Time to end it,” he said. “No more repeats. This is it.”
Spike smirked, leveling his gun. “Fine with me.”
They paused, eyeing each other, letting the tension build. And then, in the same instant, they snapped. Spike’s gun sounded off, brilliantly loud, and Vicious’ sword swung, achingly quiet. They missed each other, but that was fine. This was just the practice round.
They crashed into one another, just like last time, grunting and growling and snarling like the beasts they were, until they pulled apart again. Their weapons had skittered across the floor, and Vicious didn’t hesitate to dive for Spike’s gun.
This is how it’s supposed to go.
Spike, in turn, took up his katana. They paused again, panting. Another moment of tension, stretching thin and brittle in the air.
“Alright,” Spike said, cocking his head with a smirk. “Give it back.”
Vicious just shook his head. “Not this time.”
Spike blinked, and then his face hardened. “If that’s how you want it.”
He hefted the katana, adjusting it in his grip. Vicious almost winced at the movement. He held it wrong. Like it was a bat, or a stick. But his sword was more elegant, more refined. It deserved better. Still, this was the only way. The only way he’d win. Spike’s gun in his hand, and his sword in Spike’s.
“Let’s finish this,” Spike said. “Again.”
They stared at each other for a long moment. And then they snapped again, running towards each other, weapons raised.
Vicious felt the blade, slipping right between his ribs, soft as a whisper and sharp as broken glass. It was cold. But he liked the cold. He liked this. This is what he’d wanted, ever since he woke up again.
He’d thought, for a little while, that he could move on. That he wouldn’t be consumed by the rage and the hate and the overwhelming fear. But then, the dreams came, and they went to Titan, and all he could think about was getting them to stop.
And this was the only way.
It had to be this way, had to be Spike. Spike called him dramatic, and he guessed that was true enough. Because this was his design, his plan since the beginning. And now, finally, finally, at the end, it came to pass.
He coughed, felt the blood coating the inside of his mouth come spilling out over his lips. Spike was up against him, breathing hard. Vicious was too, but not for the same reasons. Spike pulled out the sword with a wet snicking sound, and Vicious couldn’t stop the groan that escaped him.
Spike stood back, and Vicious collapsed to one knee, hand dropping to anchor himself. He felt a dull crack, somewhere deep in his wrist, but it was nothing compared to the cold spreading out steadily from his heart. His other hand went slack, and Spike’s gun, unaimed, unfired, unused, went clattering to the ground.
He glanced up, breath wheezing out of his chest. Spike was gaping at him, face pale, his two-tone eyes wide. Vicious remembered the day he got that eye. The bloody accident. The operation that came after. The subtle change in him, after it was done. Quieter, more reflective. More violent. More like Vicious.
“Why didn’t- why didn’t you shoot?”
Vicious didn’t answer. He was too busy dying.
His hand gave out and he fell, slamming against the stone. He barely felt it. He barely felt anything.
“Vicious. Why didn’t you shoot?”
“Had to be this way,” he said. His voice still worked, apparently. So he was dying, but he wasn’t dead. Not yet. But soon. “Had to be you.”
Spike shook his head. “Fuck you. It didn’t have to. You just wanted it that way. You’re a selfish bastard, you know that? You’ve tormented me for so fucking long. Just for it to come to this.”
Vicious forced his gaze to Spike’s, uncurling his legs and lying flat. Spike seemed so tall now, towering above him. The victor. Just like he planned.
“I told you it would. You didn’t listen.”
Spike let the katana drop from his hand; it clattered to the ground as he bent to retrieve his gun. Vicious half expected him to shoot then and there, but he just checked the magazine and shoved it back in his holster.
“Because I thought we could move on. I thought we could stop repeating the past, V.”
Ah. V. He’s still holding on. When all we should do is let go. Beasts like us, we don’t last for long.
He was so close now, the stone beneath him wet with his blood. He lifted a hand to find it soaked in red. Not that it surprised him. This was the way these things went, after all. It was strange, to be on the other side of it now, after so many years where he was the one to wield the sword.
Spike was still looking at him, with a face that would inscrutable to almost anyone but Vicious. There was relief there, he could see. He’d soon be gone, and Spike would be free. For the first time in a long time. Vicious would be free too. Don’t they say death is the final escape?
And there wasn’t an inch of regret. Vicious was glad for that. Spike shouldn’t have, never had, regrets. What happens, happens. His favorite saying. Vicious had always thought he was an idiot for thinking that way, for letting life toss him around like he was nothing.
But he was the one still standing, and Vicious, full of hate and ambition and much too much regret, was the one bleeding out on the ground. It was fate, of course, something left over from the first time they’d tried this. After that, everything was just borrowed time. It had run out now, finally, blessedly, and he could be done. Vicious felt it, slipping away faster and faster, as he raced towards the end. That was fine.
He’d never been a patient man anyway.
He coughed again, deep and wet, the blood spurting out. So much red. It was strange to see. So much color, for someone like him, living in shades of grey.
Red. It made him think of Julia, for the briefest moment. She was gone, and he would be too. Only Spike would be left. He’d have to keep on, without them. But Spike would be fine. He was before, and he would be again. Whatever happens, happens.
Julia. What had separated them in the first place, what they’d fought about in this church, so long ago, along with everything else. And now they had fought again, or, at least, Spike had. Vicious, killed with his own weapon. Spike as his second, helping him die.
There was just one thing, only one, that felt off. That swam at the back of his mind, waiting to be recognized, to be brought to light. What was different, this time. The one other thing he wanted Spike to do, that he hadn’t.
And then he remembered.
“Should’ve…should’ve shot me too,” he rasped.
Spike quirked an eyebrow. Vicious’ eyes bounced around the church, trying to convey what his rapidly failing words could not. “Full circle…” he whispered. “…ouroboros.”
His hand scrabbled for his katana; he wanted it with him, at the very end. His truest companion, his most precious. He felt the hilt and tugged on it, pulling the sword to rest against his chest. Now he was ready. Ready to let go, once and for all.
The ground was even colder now, but he barely felt it. Everything was numb, his lips, his hands, his legs. Only his eyes, it seemed, were holding on, and he trained them on Spike.
The same blood runs through both of us.
His oldest enemy, his oldest friend, his destroyer—his savior.
The blood of a beast who wanders…
Spike raised his hand in a gesture he’d seen many times before. Vicious smiled, his first true smile in years, and closed his eyes.
I’ve bled all that kind of blood away.
“Bang.”