Author's Name: Soo W
Disclaimer: These characters belong to WB/Joss/Fox etc etc, but certainly not to me. I'm only writing this for fun and therapy. And because there are NEVER, ever, enough flashbacks.
Pairing: Liam/Anna
Spoilers: Based loosely on events in Becoming and The Prodigal
Short Summary: The newly risen Angel and Darla have run amok in Liam's village. As they try to hide the evidence, Angel is obsessed by memories of a recent event in his human life.
Rating: [R]
Comments: This is a follow-up to Pen Pictures, but I don't think you need to have read that to read this, so don't worry. It's based on the premise that Liam was having an affair with Anna, the servant who appears in flashbacks in AtS, before he was turned.
I haven't finished my story.
Not that I think Darla is very keen to hear it; every time I mention Anna's name her mouth twists, as if hearing it annoyed her somewhat. But I seem to be under a compulsion to talk, to rid myself of this image that's washed up on the shores of my new life, flotsam and jetsam from the old.
And I find I like her reaction. The possibility of her jealousy secretly amuses me.
Anna pleaded for an adjournment. "I beg you, Liam, it's too..."
Before she could say "dangerous", I ducked back under the table and pushed her skirts up beyond her knees. Her legs clamped shut, but I could see enough to know she was wearing no undergarments at all, as I'd requested. My impulse was to do it, before she became shy again and disappeared back into a labyrinth of linen. I never knew whether she wore so much because she was cold, or my Mother insisted on it, or as protection against me. Maybe she just enjoyed the long minutes of fumbling as we stood, concealed somewhere in the house or garden, and my hands fought for access to her skin.
But not that day. With the merest touch, her thighs parted for me and I slid my shaking fingers into her warmth.
She made a rapturous noise, neither a groan nor a sigh; nothing so calculated, but a series of short, exhaled breaths that seemed to be beyond her control. I took my hand away and grabbed her dress at the point where it flared below her waist. I pulled, drawing her towards me, so that she perched on the very edge of the chair. Then I pushed the skirts back further, so that her thighs were revealed for my inspection for the first time. They were very pale pink, almost white, covered in tiny colourless hairs. They looked cold, but I had caressed them many times without being allowed to look, and I knew the skin would be wonderfully warm and soft. I kissed the inside of her knee, the first in a trail of kisses leading me to her.
As the gap between her legs narrowed, I placed a hand on the inside of each knee and spread her further apart. She gasped when my breath fell on her, short and hot, and I felt her hands in my hair as she abandoned the berries at last and used her fingers to guide me, pulling me closer.
"Oh Liam, please, please..."
I tucked my arms inside her clothing, down the outside of her thighs to cup her rear and moved in to take her most sensitive skin in my mouth.
The door swung open.
I was past caring what happened; I had pleaded, cajoled and planned this for too many days to be denied now. I reasoned that the table would hide me, and she must make the best of it for herself. Then darkness descended and I felt soft fabric closing around my ears. She had flung her skirts forward over my head and curled in a ball as I was, they almost covered me. I froze for a moment, as my Mother came and went among the pots and pans. Then, when Anna did not push me away and no commotion broke out, I continued, running my tongue along the length of her sweet, tender flesh, pressing, circling and flicking.
What she did above I neither knew nor cared, so engrossed was I in the taste and scent of her. Finally, as I pushed my face completely into her wetness and plunged my tongue inside her as far as I could, I felt her jerk in my arms. Her hands came down to my head again, this time to still me as she pressed her trembling thighs gently together. I could sense her whole body tensing, with no possibility of release.
Simultaneously, the door clattered again, and she relaxed. I gave each thigh one last kiss, and tugged her skirts over my head. I slipped her boots on again and relaced them, as she sat back in the chair and took deep gulps of air into her lungs.
As I emerged from under the table, she gave the bubbling pots a solemn look and said "God preserve us."
It took me several seconds to realise it was a joke. I remember thinking: I loved her more than I'd ever loved any human being before. I even remember the feeling itself - like a heart-warming but heady panic - and idly wonder if it would resurrect if I saw her again. I reached for her hand but she waved me away, saying there'd been quite enough foolishness for one day, and besides, I should go and do something about my hair.
"You look like a tramp!"
I couldn't bear to leave it like that, so I stayed on my knees and ordered her about. I archly reminded her that she was a servant in the house, after all, nominally at my beck and call. I said, "Do it for me." I knelt in front of her chair and waited, refusing to move away until she smoothed my hair. She untied the ribbon at the back, and, using her fingers as a rudimentary comb, straightened my locks and pushed them away from my face. I managed to slip my hands around her waist, but she refused to be tender again, yanking the ribbon tight with no more feeling than if she'd been tying a bunch of herbs for the pot, and declaring the job finished. Declining to be drawn into any more of my games. And then, at the last moment, when I was about to leave her be, she drew my face up to hers for a kiss.
"Sweet Anna. You're so beautiful."
"If you say so, Sir."
A typically ambivalent reply. I hoped for her, but I feared too; not that we would be discovered, (I hardly cared about that), but that she really saw me as no more than a boy. Someone she humoured out of necessity, but could not rely on, or worse, a bully she had no power to refuse. I was afraid that she couldn't love me.
And I never did find out, one way, or the other.
"You look like a tramp!" Darla is shaking her head at me and regarding me with a look that might almost be mistaken for affection. I can't tell if I've been talking out loud, or just dreaming about the past. I submit to her cold hands, which shake the grave-dust from my hair.
"Which one was she?"
"Your pardon? I don't understand."
She indicates the mounds of earth. "Your 'sweet Anna'. Which one?"
"She's not here. She left the village yesterday. Or was it the day before?"
She stares at me. "She's alive?"
I nod. "Yes, I suppose she is."
"Then, my love, why all this talk of never? Learn from your Father's death. Where there is life, anything is possible. Anything."
For the first time, it occurs to me that I may have underestimated Darla. She weaves among the freshly dug graves and I follow. Without a backward glance, we leave Liam's village forever. As we pass the milestone, I sense liberation, and the feeling that our adventure is about to begin.