|
|
Some people think that demons don't love, but we can. If they want proof of that, they can look at his childe, Drusilla, and the young man she sired. William the Bloody, he was called. Even before Dru sunk her fangs into him.
Usually it is the sire that turns away from it's childe, loses interest or finds someone new and innocent and beautiful. Or, as in Drusilla's case, the sire is completely fixated with her sire. That never happened with me and Angelus. I lost him, but not that way.
I still blame myself for it. I gave him the girl, I urged him to drain her, I killed the only man I've ever loved. Those bastards, those Romani bastards...they cursed him, gave him a soul and took him away from me. They took him out of the darkness, but they couldn't really bring him into the light, either.
After that, I looked for him. I cried every day, lying underneath the earth, wondering when my dark Angel would come back to me. I visited Drusilla and Spike, hoping and praying to the darkness that he would return to me. Eventually I returned to the Master and joined him at his right hand, resigned to the fact that maybe, maybe, my lover was dust.
You don't know how long I waited for someone like him to come along. I was only two hundred when I made him, but those two hundred years, spent either alone or in league with foolish, weak vampires, were so lonely.
I went to Ireland on a whim. The world was so empty for me then. Boring, really. An unenlightened place where I was constantly looked down on for my beauty, for my soft voice and youthful appearance. That made it much easier to hunt, of course, but America is really a horrible place to be if you can't have a meaningful conversation. I'm not as dumb as I seem, you know. I love conversation, crave it. It's blood to me. But no one then was willing to supply it.
And then I saw him. Vampires, over time, occasionally acquire obsessions. Without obsession, what is life? My obsession became him.
He was so beautiful. The first time I saw him, I was drawn to his beauty, as I suppose every woman was, and still is. I though that he had no value to the world, that he was just a drunken lout. He was, of course, but there was more to him than that. There was something inside of him that shone out, like he had a destiny to contend with. The nights became more than just my hunting grounds, they became my view into his world. I learned the taverns he frequented. I learned where he lived. I learned his secrets.
He was smart, too. Like me. Even in drunken incoherency he could still spout witticisms and insults. His silver tongue got him into more than a few fights, either by sword or by fist. And he always won, with brains or brawn.
The night I knew that I had to have him, had to feel his neck under my teeth, was just like any other night. I stood in the shadows, as always. I watched his friend pass out, drunken onto the street, and then I stepped out into the streetlight. I walked deep into the alley, knowing that his natural chivalry would force him to save me from any big, bad thing that lurked in the dark. He never saw it coming that I was that thing.
He gave in to me willingly, offered himself to me, begged to see my world. I showed him the darkness and he gave in to it, reveled in it. Like me.
After that, he became even more beautiful. He was so brutal. I can still remember him in the middle of a hunt, covered in blood like a sacrifice, turning to me and saying, "Come, Dar. Surely you want to be joinin' me now?"
He still spoke in his native brogue then. He did, all of the years I knew him. I miss that, the rich tone in his voice, the lilt. It's still beautiful, of course, but I miss the voice he once had.
We had the most amazing conversations. He could talk and talk and talk for the longest time, and only to me. He would tell me about everything that had ever happened to him, everything he wanted to happen to him.
I did my best to make sure that he saw the world. We changed some, of course, as we toured the globe. Well, they thought the earth was flat then, but you get the point. We changed. How could we not? They just didn't accept kimonos in France. He honed his skills, and we became the scourge of Europe. We were legend.
We drifted away from each other. Occasionally I would take a ship to America and enjoy my favorite cuisine: fresh young Patriot. I made a few more children, none who I loved as much as my Angelus. I drifted away from them too, or staked them before they could become too much bother. Ultimately they bored me, all of them.
Angelus toured too, and eventually settled in England for a long while. He had an obsession of his own there. Drusilla. If you haven't heard of her, don't worry. You will soon. Where Angel is, she is sure to follow. And her Spike will go anywhere his Princess dictates.
We came in and out of each other's lives. The last time I saw him was that earthquake in Budapest. We raged there. I love a natural disaster. They're always just so much fun.
I found this cute little thing there, a Gypsy. And just my luck, the stupid bitch is beloved by her kinsmen, a favorite. Someone on whom vengeance would be claimed. So I never saw him again.
I heard of him, now and then. Someone had sighted Angel living among humans, helping them. This was 1995, by the way. Almost a hundred years after I lost him, he comes back into the light. Figuratively speaking, of course.
I heard about that soul thing from him. We met there in Sunnydale by accident. I had been out walking, on a whim. Maybe on a premonition.
It was a dark alley again. He had been following me this time. I turned around, and there he was, standing there in the shadows.
His hair was short again. What a waste.
I ran to him at first. I grabbed him in my arms and held him, almost crying in relief when he hugged me back. Then he pushed me away from him gently.
When I asked him what was wrong, he said nothing. I asked him why he had disappeared, and why he had come back now.
He told me about the curse calmly, and in even tones, like none of it mattered to him. I knew him too well for that to work, of course, but I guess he figured it was worth a try.
He still loves me. I can tell. And I still love him.
I can't stand him like this! Outcast, hunted?soulful. He hurts, the pain of all our years together wreaking havoc tear him apart. I feel his pain like it was my own. He is my blood, my childe. He is mine.
Some would dispute that, of course. I knew the first time I saw that blonde girl that she would become one of Angel's obsessions. She was so pure, so innocent. So secretly powerful. She was a lot like me. Angelus always had a thing for blondes.
Years after I left him, whenever I came back to him, I followed him into the shadows, every time. I watched him feed. Blondes were his favorite. Always had been. He said that their purity coursed through him, made him want. He was so beautiful then?
But now she has him. When Angelus falls in love, it is forever. It's also a fairly rare thing: Angelus was so dark, so evil that love was an uncommon thing in him. The only woman he ever loved was me. His sire. His blood. As infatuated as he ever was with some innocent, it was always me that he hungered for, me whose name he cried out in passion. Me whose teeth he offered himself up to.
Until she came. Buffy. The Slayer. A vapid child who wouldn't live to see eighteen.
I destroyed things and people after I saw them together, saw him throw a cross her way, saw him infatuated with this idiotic little piece of fluff. What the hell sort of name is Buffy, anyway? He savored it on his tongue, the way he had always savored mine. "Buffy." "Darla."
Attraction is meaningless. It doesn't last. That's why, eventually, I was happy with this turn of events. Who would Angel destroy, but the one he was obsessed with? It was a cycle with him. It was his way.
I thought that he would kill her for me. I hoped that he would renounce his soul and come back to me, back to the Master, back to the fold.
Of course, I didn't take his own purity into consideration, his guilt. He was a useless drunk in life, yes, but would he make the same mistake if he had that life back? Of course not. He's too smart for that. He drank because he was bored, but now he had brooding to fill the long hours. Boy, he got good at that quickly. One hundred years is a long time to hone any skill, and Angel was always a quick learner. He learned evisceration in a second.
So, he chose her. The Slayer. The worst part of it is that he knew that she was the Slayer when he fell in love with her. I'm sure that he stalked her. He probably found her before she even hit Sunnydale. I mean, how did he know so much about her if he only discovered her the first night she came here? Why did he buy her that cross? How did he know she was the Slayer?
Mostly I think this because I know him. He's not the type to fall in love at first sight. He stalked her. He learned about her. He learned her secrets. He's so much like me that I know what he's going to do before he does it.
Not all the time, of course. He tried to stake me. I certainly didn't see that coming.
I tried to kill the bitch Slayer, and he tried to kill me. He chose her, his obsession, over me, his past. His soul won over his demon.
I never thought that would ever happen. Angelus is so strong. I guess Angel is just stronger.
That makes me want him even more. Not many have triumphed over Angelus, the demon I once knew, and lived to tell the tale. Angel, the soul part of him, did. And it was Angel that I originally fell in love with, the living, soulful Irishman. The drunken waste that I turned into a monster.
This strength is so?fun. And I thought that Angel would be boring, always brooding. But he still has that darkness inside of him. Angel's darkness, which is completely separate from the demon's. I'd love to bring that out of him. It seems that I have a new obsession.
But as much as I dream of this, I have to have a plan. Maybe I can make this happen. Maybe not. Either way, at least I'll have a new playmate.
You remind me of him. You have so much darkness inside of you. You're smart, witty. Like him. Like me.
Killing one of the Slayer's friends is genius. Everyone goes after her, but they don't see what I see. She'd die for you. You're?what did they call your other friend? Bait.
She comes for you, you kill her, Angelus comes back to me. I told you I was smart. I want him back, and you're a bonus. But it's more than that. You're my new obsession. I followed you. I learned your secrets. I saw your darkness.
So, what do you say, Willow? Wanna be bad?
THE END
