20 Minutes with Angelus Challenge.
Gains and Losses.
By Rose Williams.
Rating: PG (it's not a 'nice' fic.)
Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer and all associated 'stuff' belong to Joss Whedon and all associated people (and organizations). His Dark Materials and all associated 'stuff' belong to Phillip Pullman and all associated people (and organizations).
Author's Notes: I have had a couple of requests for sequels/ chapters for my other 20 minute fic. It's very flattering. I won't do that until I've written the other Challenges, everyone will get one and I don't want to use up their space.
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He had known that she had to have been telling the truth. But he hadn't understood. He knew that there were many things wrong with Drusilla – he'd been the cause of most of them – but somehow she didn't lie. She certainly seemed upset over what had happened.
But he had been pleased because Darla had been pleased. It seemed they would be causing more eternal torment than he had thought.
It was good to be back to that. Soullessness had a lot going for it. Freedom; unrestrained strength, power and desire. There was a delicious irony in the fact that it was unrestrained desire that had got him back.
He could take delight in the schemes he had wrought. Never again would his father tell him he a disappointment; never again would his mother look at him with those tears in her eyes; never again would a woman say no. Or if she didn't it would mean nothing more than sport. He was Angelus again.
Drusilla, once she'd calmed down and killed something, had thought that she had lost more than her soul. She talked about it, but she wouldn't tell them what it was. They, apparently, hadn't been able to see it.
This time he felt it. There was a strange feeling of something missing, something more than a human conscience. Maybe it was just the guilt that he had gotten used to.
He rolled out of bed and padded out into the shaded garden. It was almost dusk. The Judge had been destroyed. He smiled faintly. It was a nifty trick they had used, he admitted. It was quality he admired in his 'beloved'. But there was going to be another chance to take the world, and all of them with it, into hell.
A faint breeze stirred, rustling the leaves. There was a faint humming coming from inside. He smiled. Dru was awake, and Spike was not. He wondered how riled he could get Spike today.
When Dru came out into the garden he rose and politely offered his hand. She took it and his kissed her knuckles.
"Miss Edith doesn't trust you," she said. She sounded curious.
Angelus listened.
"She should like you," Dru said, petulant again.
Angelus sighed. It was difficult at the best of times reading his greatest work of art. Darla had been better at it; she claimed female intuition. He missed her.
"Grandmum stole from you," Drusilla told him. "But the Slayer gave it back. Nasty gypsy woman knew that she would leave again. She'll come back."
"Buffy?" he asked.
He snarled at how quickly he had thought of her. He was going to have work extra hard to break her. He wanted to a real fight this time – more than Drusilla had given him.
Drusilla hadn't answered his question. She was overcome by something. She had covered both her eyes with one hand and her heart with the other.
"Can't you feel that she's not there. I won't look at it, I won't see what isn't there. She'd never leave Spike."
"Who?" Angelus demanded.
Spike had been an irritant since he'd be sired. But he'd been tolerated because Drusilla had been so pleased with what she had done to him. And Drusilla was useful.
"She's going to come back," she said.
Angelus stood, deciding to be confidant.
If she was going to come back he was going to be there. He would crush the Slayer, take from her what mattered most. It seemed she'd done the same to him.
Drusilla seemed to recover. Angelus grinned, but he still didn't understand.