CHAPTER TWO
Darla nestled down in the soft cotton sheets on Lindsey's bed. They had devised a sharing system. She slept in his bed by day and he by night. There was a strong temptation to cross those lines and really share but both of them had resisted so far but she wasn't sure exactly why. The bedding smelled good; his soft, spicy scent mixed with the faint hint of his expensive cologne. Lindsey knew how to wear it well, lightly to tantalize rather than marinate in it like far too many men.
Darla knew Lindsey'd be home soon so she should get up. She had been awake for hours but she was moving on to the next part of Angel's wooing. Her slim fingers were under the silk of her panties. Any man would be able to smell her arousal. It should send a vampire over the moon. Darla considered herself an expert in the arts of love. She could pleasure herself as easily as others. Of course, she had a lot to work with, the memories of Angelus taking her any which way either of them wanted, the delicious smell of Lindsey rising off the sheets.
Darla stopped and wiggled out of the wet red silk, putting her panties inside her leather purse. She was just getting out of the shower when she heard Lindsey coming in. He looked rough, his hair tousled, his hand-painted tie crooked.
"Honey, I'm home." He managed a grin.
"Tough day at work, dear?" Darla shot back.
"You have no idea."
Darla went over to him, her nose wrinkling. "Smells like you were wrestling in a landfill."
He snorted. "Close enough. Ever hear of the Florida Skunk Ape?"
"No, and I'm sure I don't want to. Do I want to know what Wolfram and Hart wants with a Skunk Ape?"
He shook his head. "I need a shower."
"For once, you actually do." She gently propelled him that way. "Sorry, I didn't get around to making the bed."
"I don't care. All I want is a shower and to collapse," he said wearily, and Darla added mentally, 'and sniff the pillows.'
"That works out good because I needed to go out and get some things. I didn't want to be rude and run out as soon as you came through the door," Darla said. "But since you're exhausted, it's just as well."
"I can take you shopping, Darla. Just let me shower." He tried to look enthusiastic but failed.
"This is something I need to do alone," Darla said, giving him a meaningful look.
"But..." His head drooped. "Oh."
She knew he understood she wasn't so much as shopping as planning to go out and kill the shopkeeps and take what she wanted. It hurt him. She could see the guilt in his eyes for not stopping her, for allowing her to continue wrecking havoc, for loving her in spite of it. She was breaking his soul into little pieces. She should just let him go but for some reason she couldn't. She might want Angel more than anything, but she couldn't quite bring herself to cut Lindsey out of her life.
"I shouldn't be too long."
"You'll need to take a cab or walk. I cabbed it home. I wasn't getting into my truck smelling like this," Lindsey said, not looking at her.
"I wouldn't have taken it regardless. I wouldn't want anything to lead back to you," she replied, and his eyes were haunted and seeming shocked at her concern. Lindsey went into his room, closing the door behind him.
Darla headed out into the night, not exactly sure what she was going to do to duplicate Angelus' next gift to her, a decanter filled with blood and a music box from Germany. She remembered those gifts well. The music box had gold filigree and a tiny mechanical hummingbird, with real feathers. It moved its beak and wings to the music. Inside the box had been a lock of Angelus' hair. The mere smell of him had nearly melted her then and there.
Only men didn't go in for music boxes but she liked to think that she knew what Angelus liked. She found the first used and rare book store on her route and went in. That's what she liked about little old bookstores, they were usually empty. She picked out a book of poetry, Ranier Marie Rilke, ate the proprietor and headed for a liquor store.
She hadn't expected so many selections. She wondered what Lindsey would like. She planned on giving him the wine and refilling the bottle with blood for Angel. Darla trolled the aisles and hit on some stuff already set out for Christmas. It wasn't even Thanksgiving yet but it worked for her. She saw all sorts of cutesy gift packs. She came across some that held one bottle of wine and the holders were a variety of sports cars up on a incline which held the bottle. Did Angel like cars? She didn't know. Lindsey seemed to like them and most men were more or less interchangeable in the 'what turns them on outside of sex' department. She picked up one with a Shelby Cobra car parked over a bottle of Australian Shiraz. She didn't know if Lindsey liked that but she would find out.
Angel returned to the Hyperion after a fruitless search for Darla. He did manage to rid the city of three vampires and two demons he didn't even know the name of but they had chosen the wrong vampire to break bad with, as Gunn would say. Angel firmly reminded himself that he had no interest in anything Gunn or any of his friends had to say. If he thought about them, he might ask them back. Asking them back would mean giving up wallowing in self-pity, and he had begun to like his wallow.
Once again, there was a present waiting for him on his doorstep. He wondered what Darla had sent him this time. He knew he should just destroy it unopened but curiosity made him scoop it up and carry it inside. 'Curiosity killed the cat.' He shook the box and it rattled. It was heavier than he expected. 'Satisfaction brought it back.' Whatever was in the box, if it came from a human source, that person was already dead. He should try to figure out what Darla was up to. It might give him a clue as to where she was and he'd miss out on it if he threw away the box.
He took it to his room. If it hadn't been for Cordelia, he might have been content to live in the basement safe from the sun but she insisted he live like a person. After all, he had in his old apartment both here and in Sunnydale. He had chosen the original room he had lived in the first time he had checked into the Hyperion, and moved in a roomy bed and lots of books. It was his private place. His friends rarely entered here. It was free of their scents, their memories. He was spending more time in this room since they were gone, but he tried to deny that in his head. He started a fire in the old fireplace. He didn't really feel the cold. LA didn't get cold, not like his home had.
Angel shut his eyes as the fire slowly caught and remembered autumn in Ireland. It had been so beautiful, not like southern California. The air turned crisp. The leaves showed off like an artist's palettes before giving up and falling. He remembered playing in piles of leaves as a child with friends he couldn't even dredge up names for it had been so long. He didn't like autumn any more. It made him homesick. If he hadn't started the fire, he could have pretended it wasn't fall right now since Los Angeles gave few signs other than Christmas decorations going up before Thanksgiving rolled around.
Stripping off his battle-soiled clothing, Angel stretched out on his bed in his boxers. He opened the box, Darla's scent greeting him, and he lifted out the model sports car. He raised his eyebrows. Why in the world had she sent this to him? He'd be the first to admit he loved sports cars but how did she know? They weren't together for pretty much any of the twentieth century. He found a bag of blood tucked into a round cubbyhole the car sat on top of, a wine holder unless he missed his guess. He preferred the blood.
Angel opened the stop-cock at the end of the bag. There was no sense in not drinking it. It wasn't like he could return it to the hospital it had been stolen from. They'd consider it contaminated, and it wasn't cold any longer. He felt too lazy to go microwave it; instead he just sucked it from the tubing like a kid with a juice in a drink pouch. Angel didn't even really mind the chemical aftertaste - the blood, of course, had thinners in it to keep it from coagulating. "Ummmm," he sighed. 'AB, how did she remember that was his favorite?'
Vampires could tell the various blood types. Angel had always figured it was just like an oenophile telling one wine from another just by a hint of it passing his tongue. It wasn't until much more recently in his life that he learned that blood carried a variety of different antigens in it. It made transfusion a precise science, and it was probably why vampires could tell the difference between donors.
Angel ran a finger over the lines of the model car. What he wouldn't give for one of these? Oh, his Belvedere was great but it had nothing on a Cobra. Of course, a Cobra would be an egregious waste of money. How civilized had he become? Darla would just go and kill a Cobra owner and take the car. He wouldn't be surprised to find one parked at the curb with a big bow for him. He set the car on the night stand, knowing he should feel much guiltier about taking things from her. He should be trying harder to find and kill her. However, she was his mother, lover and long time companion. She had promised to show him the world and she had. He could have tried harder to kill her and Dru but it was like killing part of himself. He had done it once for Buffy but now it seemed much more painful to try.
Angel peered into the box, thinking it felt heavier than that model alone. He withdrew a book, closed rather unevenly with a ribbon. A smile, quite unbidden, tugged at his lips. Darla remembered he loved poetry. He tried to keep that hidden, at least once Spike had joined the family. His smile widened wickedly at the memories of he and Darla shredding Spike and his poetry. Dru had thrown such fits over the abuse her boy had taken. Angel knew he should feel guilty about that too but it had been so much damn fun making the younger vampire weep. It hadn't taken him and Darla long to kill that creative part of Spike that created bad poetry. Afterwards, Angel felt bad about it because it had brought Dru joy, and despite the fact he'd deny it if asked, Angel had liked Spike's poetry. Still Spike had gone from poet to bad ass quickly. Dru might have sired the little vampire but it had been Angelus who had raised him. There were times he was very proud of his grandson. He was a right wicked beast and if pushed to the wall, Angel had to admit there were times he feared his own creation. He had done too good a job.
Angel looked at the book title. He liked Rilke well enough; he preferred Donne but he didn't expect Darla to remember that. He pulled the ribbon off, taking a long drink from the blood bag. Opening the book, Angel found himself staring at red panties. He knew he shouldn't touch them. He should just take the book to the fireplace and dump the underwear into the flames. Instead he set the blood bag back in the wine holder and picked the panties up. The silk was soft under his calloused fingers.
Even before he knew what he was doing, he had the panties pressed to his nose. He breathed in deep. Darla had been so aroused while wearing these. He remembered that musky scent. Even now he could taste her salt on his tongue, making his mouth water. He shifted his hips, feeling the pressure building in his nether regions. Eyes closed, he flicked his tongue over the silk.
Why didn't he just give in to her? It would be so much easier. Become the monster again and all the pain would go away. No more disappointed friends, no more hauntings by a tiny blonde girl, her huge eyes brimming with tears as he leaves her behind, no more trying to good only to have it thrown in his face. Giving in would be so easy but he was never a man to do things the easy way. Oh, how easy it was to lie to himself. Liam had always done things the easy way so why should Angel be any different. Because I chose to change.
Still, there was something to be said for walking in shadows. A pair of panties wouldn't undo him but there was no reason he couldn't enjoy them. Angel took another deep breath in, the scent of his long-time lover imprinting on him. He flipped the book open and read the first one he found. As if by fate, the book opened to the poem, Autumn. 'And tonight the heavy earth is falling away from all other stars in the loneliness.'
Angel wrinkled his nose. He didn't want to think about loneliness. It only served to remind him he was lying on his back doing things he shouldn't, like wanking off with the panties a killer had sent him, knowing this would be their exact effect. If he hoped that thought would kill the fire in him, he was disappointed. Angel flipped through the book to one of his favorite poems, Love Song.
'How can I keep my soul in me, so that
it doesn't touch your soul? How can I raise
it high enough, past you, to other things?
I would like to shelter it, among remote
lost objects, in some dark and silent place
that doesn't resonate when your depths resound.
Yet everything that touches us, me and you,
takes us together like a violin's bow,
which draws one voice out of two separate strings.
Upon what instrument are we two spanned?
And what musician holds us in his hand?
Oh sweetest song.'
He hadn't read these lines to Darla but he had read her Byron and Shelley before screwing like wild animals, usually in the midst of the chaos they had created. He had read Rilke to Buffy. He ran the silk up and down himself faster, Buffy's face joining Darla's in his mind's eye. His love might hate him for that but he couldn't help it. Liam had liked twosomes when he could get it. Angelus had nearly demanded them at all times. He'd never want Buffy and Darla in the same room, let alone in the same bed but as a fantasy he wasn't turning it down.
Angel slowed again, rolling over long enough to fish one of those naked pictures of Darla out of bed stand. Buffy's picture was on it in a silver frame. He flipped it down so she wasn't looking at him. Staring at Darla in the water fall, Angel finished himself off.
Disgusted with himself, he wiped up with Darla's panties and got up. He stripped off his boxers and threw both sets of underwear into the flames. As an acrid stench filled the room, he left it, going into the bathroom. The water couldn't get hot enough to scald away his shame.