Alone for Eternity
by
Disclaimer: Ain't mine. Contact Joss Whedon for ownership papers. LOL
Summary: Angel ponders his past relationships, and wonders what will become of him and them.
Rating: PG
China, 1900
Angelus didn't even know why he was there. What he was doing, feeding on human flesh again, was wrong. Even if the only people he allowed himself to kill were the evil of the human population, it was still wrong.
He wasn't pure evil anymore, and it was getting harder and harder to keep up the pretense of not caring, as he and Darla stalked the night, occasionally accompanied by Spike and Dru. The killing was hard, it was making his soul ache, and eat away at him, but he couldn't fight the stronger pull.
The undeniable urge to stay with Darla.
Maybe it was because she was his sire. Maybe that had forged the bond of iron. Maybe they just had fun together, and that was all he was seeking once again. Maybe the power of this dreadful soul was simply making him yearn for the old days, and Darla was the most tangible connection to those days.
But if he'd wanted connection to the old days, he could have gone to Dru. True, Spike was an obstacle, but that was easily enough overcome. And she would have been a whole lot easier to appease, and it still would have gotten him his old days of death and destruction back.
But that wasn't what he wanted. What he wanted was a certain 300-year-old, blonde demon.
He spit curses under his breath, annoyed with himself for being so dependant on one person. Or vampire, as the case might be. He was a creature of the night, solitary by nature. And if solitary hadn't been for him, he could have simply created more to be his kind.
But that wasn't what he wanted. He wanted Darla.
Kicking at the nearest flaming building, Angelus let out a string of curses that would make the devil proud. He grabbed the nearest person, a stumbling vagrant, and bit into him, deep, not even bothering with the terrifying seduction vampires were so famous for. He sipped his blood hungrily, but let the man go when he was still conscious. No one was attracted to the screams, they were so plentiful in the blazing town.
Enough was enough. Killing was just getting harder and harder for him. He would feed, but he would not kill. He couldn't do it anymore.
This damn soul!
When he had returned to find Darla with a proposition, what made him so ashamed of those moments was the fact that he had actually considered it. He'd considered draining an infant, homeless and hopeless, and because he knew Darla, probably an orphan, too. It made him sick to think of it.
But that damnable pull! He couldn't fight it. Darla was his existence. He'd never been without her. Maybe vampires were without a soul, couldn't feel real, soul-deep love, but that didn't mean he couldn't feel something.
Problem was, he didn't know what it was that he felt for Darla.
With Spike and Dru, it was easier. Spike was a pain in the ass. But a tolerable one. And he'd been Dru's choice, so Angelus respected that. Not to say that he really enjoyed the time he spent with the cocky young, English demon.
Dru, who was often childlike in her innocence, was the most truly, hideously evil creature Angelus had ever laid eyes upon. She had no sense of reason, was without any sense of right and wrong at all. Darla and Angelus, they were selfish creatures, thinking only of themselves and perhaps each other, but they could still figure out what was evil and what was not, if they wished. Drusilla had no such ability.
But that hadn't mattered. Until now. Now, as though through new eyes, Angelus saw Drusilla as the monster that she'd always been. She was a regal figure, slim and dark-haired, with an odd fondness for white, the color of purity. Red, her other favorite color, was obvious. It was the color of blood.
But Darla... Darla was a mystery. She was older than any of them, sired by the Master himself, on her deathbed. She'd made Angelus promises of wealth and riches when she'd lured him into a back alley, and she had delivered. What the young, human Angelus hadn't known, was that he would have to turn into an uncaring monster to accomplish that goal.
Angelus had never understood the blond demon, but she was seductive, vixen-like, and with an intuition sharper than even his. And he'd been feared for many years, been the scourge of Europe all through the nineteenth century.
Darla could have easily claimed credit for their many misadventures, but she didn't want to, happy to allow Angelus to set the public figure, directing his movements only when it suited her purpose, subtly, and behind the scenes. Instead, she allowed him to be young and boisterous, and settled quite comfortably into the background.
And remained a mystery for all time.
2001, Los Angeles, USA
And now she was here. Sitting before him, begging him to curse her, damn her to a life of eternal evil. How, he wondered, could she feel the weight of her soul pressing upon her, and ignore it? She sought to remove it, he simply sought to learn to live with it. But then, he hadn't had much of choice, now had he? Desolate that he was, it would have been hard-pressed for him to get a moment of true happiness to lift the curse of the soul.
He wouldn't do it, he knew that. She was human, getting a chance that he would have given anything for. He smiled a little, bitterly, at that thought, realizing that he wouldn't, he in fact hadn't, not when the anything had been Buffy's life. But he would have wished for nothing else, had there been a cake with candles for his birthday the last few years.
Darla, Buffy, Kate. The three women who had touched his heart over the years. Drusilla, he'd had feelings for, but not the romantic kind. More of the 'You're here, I'm here, you're a good screw, let's do it' type feelings. And later, the 'Make Spike jealous' feelings.
Darla... she'd flown with him the longest. From the day he was changed, to that fateful day in 1900. About a hundred and twenty-five years, he decided. And in all that time, she hadn't loved him for one minute. But now, she was standing before him, with a soul, and telling him she needed him. It awoke something within him that had not stirred since he'd confronted her in Sunnydale.
They were different. But they still loved. And now, they truly could. Angel wasn't sure which was scarier, being able to be in love with the dark woman from his past, or the pain of her betrayal, which was sure to come, as soon as he told her he wouldn't turn her.
Buffy... Buffy had been his soulmate. Of that, he was sure. He could love another, but no one would fit his heart so perfectly. Things had been so perfect for that one short year, and then they had spiraled out of control. After that, they were never really right again. But the feelings remained.
He wasn't deluded. There was no future for him and the Slayer. But the feelings, emotions didn't just vanish like that. In fact, he didn't think they would vanish. But he had learned to live with them, to bottle them up and cork the bottle, so that they didn't give him a fresh view of Hell every day.
Kate... he probably had the most potential with that relationship. Funny, the detective who hated him and his guts and was afraid of his vampire side, and she would probably be the only one of these three women with whom he could have a fighting chance.
But one thing still stood in his way.
His soul, and its damnable curse.
He could never, would never be truly happy again. Because the pleasure to him wouldn't be worth the horrors Angelus would unleash upon the world, if Angel let him escape.
He was trapped, but women weren't the answer. Darla wasn't, as much as he was still drawn to her. Buffy certainly wasn't, and Kate would never have him, even if it was possible.
Which left him where? He wondered. In the same place as always, he decided. Alone, for eternity.