Sunlight
She smiles. It's like blood on the tongue. You haven't killed in years. BA. Dark-fic
Angel's musings on age, blood, fire, and the nature of vampires. Another drabble. Written on my iPod and posted from it to. Be impressed. Three down. Twenty-one to go. Reviews equal high self esteem.
The genius that is Joss Whedon owes this not me.
Sitting in the backseat of a dirty old car with blacked out windows he falls. Head over heels, stupidly, deeply, Romeo and Juliet, star crossed style for a girl in sunlight.
Really star crossed when he learns she'll be the next Slayer. A promise to a balance demon later (because she's a promise, and redemption, and absolution, and savior rolled into one and he hasn't been a catholic for two hundred and forty odd years but he's found faith) and he's been dropped on the outskirts of Sunnydale, CA.
He's waiting.
He's old. Old enough that if he didn't have a soul the blood would be beginning to bore him. Old enough to have forgotten the sound of his heartbeat, the need to breathe, the warmth of the sun on his face, his sister's face on christmas, his mother's gentle hands. Human things- he's forgotten them.
Darla was a twisted bitch but she gave him eternity. It took a hundred years just for that to sink in.
He's not her friend. Doesn't want to be her friend (wants to be so much more) because she smells like the sunlight and fire, rain and healthy living growing things. He could drown in her eyes and is scorched just by observing and he's mixing his metaphors and comparisons but damnit. She. Is. Everything.
And him? He's a monster. Beauty and the Beast, except Beauty's been washed in the night, darkness sinking into her limbs because she to is a predator. Far less denfenseless then a girl whose father sold her to keeps himself safe. (Newer versions of that tale say it was willing sacrifice.)
It takes everything he has not to attack her, on her first day on the mouth of hell. That close she smells... edible.
Darla was a classicist, bury a body and dig out the demon later. In those days if someone wore the face of a dead friend you looked the other way, locked your doors at night and prayed. They ravaged his hometown until the villagers took to burning the homes of the dead.
Darla was afraid. Funny really, that woman wasn't afraid of anything. Except fire.
The first night after he dug himself out, there was a bonfire waiting in the woods, a woman in a cloak. The light painted shadows on her face and she warned him not to get too close, for he would burn. He laughed and took in the heat of the fire like it was the sun.
Arrogance is what she saw in him when she made her choice.
He was never afraid.
He's watching her every moment he can from the shade of buildings and trees. At school he watches her associations, friends and the antagonistic relationship with her new watcher and enemies, not that any child is really a threat to her. The library has sewer access and he wonders at her foolishness at blocking it.
Untouchable or merely unafraid. Spike said slayers craved death and the thought makes him run cold. She's sunlight and a heartbeat and the idea of her being still and cold frightens him more then he will admit.
The last time he killed it was a girl nearly fifty years ago. Young and strung out and itching for a fix. Beautiful if she had cared to make herself so. She tasted of salt and ashes. He couldn't even bring himself to finish his meal so she bled out in an alley while he moved on.
She invites him into her house, to bandage his wounds and he prevents himself from laughing at the irony. If she knew. She invites him to stay and he pretends to sleep on the floor while he listens to her heartbeat and the sound of blood through her veins.
The next day they kiss and he thinks she might burn him alive, but it's like the bonfire Darla built and helpless he leans into her. She tastes of sunlight, looks like she was made for the sun, and smells like living things.
He lost control just for an instant, and fangs and golden eyes appear. She throws him out horrified.
Seventy years after the gypsies cursed him he tried to kill himself. He spent the day in the shadows of a park waiting for the least crowded moment. He watched and it blinded him. Buffy is a lot like that sun.
He watches her at night in the cemeteries, at the bronze. He catalogs her every move, studying weaknesses and openings. He pretends he has no idea why he does it.
She's bleeding. From her shoulder and she staggers to him before her watcher, before any of her little friends. He holds his breath and bandages her but she likes having someone tell her it's only a scratch so he takes a breath to form the words and freezes. Her blood is on his hands, smelling like sunlight and rain, living things. The scent overpowers him.
It's easy enough lying her back on the pillows so he can get better access to the blood. She's weak, disoriented from blood loss and she trusts him. He cleans it off of her with his tongue, savoring every drop. That was going to be it, the blood already flowing from her wound but she tastes better then she smells and it's so easy to sink his fangs into her neck and drink. She doesn't even protest.
He wasn't aware of her heart stilling. No. That a lie. He's aware of it only for the inconvenience it brings to him. He has to work that much harder to get new blood.
When he comes back to himself, sated, her heart has stopped. He panics feeding her his blood.
Then he carries out the vigil all makers mark. She looks tiny on his bed surrounded by blood stains and the apartment smells of sunlight, and rain, living things. She is cold as ice to the touch.
He hasn't killed in years.
I've got Angel references and Buffy references and some major sleep deprivation going on as I write this. If you loved it, hated it, whatever please review and let me know.