Title: I have come with a light
Disclaimer: not my characters; just for fun. Title from Mindy Smith's "Come to Jesus."
Warnings: spoilers for everything
Pairings: shades of Angel/Buffy and Angel/Cordelia. If you look at this in just the right way, also shades of Angel/Lindsey
Rating: PG
Wordcount: 375
Point of view: third

You killed me.

The words echo in his head, won't leave. For hours, days, months—years—they haven't left. Out of everyone he's killed, all the people who could haunt him—why'd it have to be him?

You're the proof, I suppose, that a man can't change. Not that you're a man.

After the fight, after he'd slayed the dragon and only three of them remained, they'd all gone their separate ways. Gone to ground, licked their wounds, mourned. Waited for something, the fallout of such a terrible battle.

And nothing happened. All the bodies had been hidden; the Senior Partners weren't ready to be revealed, and everything was brushed under the carpet.

It's all useless, you know. You think you make a difference, and you don't. How sad.

He can't escape the memories, no matter how deeply he burrows into fighting. He still can't give up on the quest, trying to buy his way into Heaven, into humanity.

It's not so great, being human. Trust me.

He goes about his life, always in the moonlight; he's back to square one, back to stealing blood from the butcher, back to who he was before the summoning to that hole-in-the-ground.

And the words echo, in that voice, that tone—silk and fire and sex—and he just can't escape.

You kill everyone you love, don't you? First her, that Slayer, and then Cordelia. And don't forget that son of yours, Connor? You didn't just kill him, you completely erased him. And me. Look what I am now, 'cause'a you.

He used to be the hero, didn't he? He can remember—he fought the darkness, he saved people, he did good.

You only ever fought for yourself. But guess what? Heaven isn't' something you can buy your way into. If it was, I'd be there, and I'm not.

He clings to the memories of the battles at night, when the scent of blood calls him, trying to seduce him back into the darkness. He clings to his beloved Slayer, to his seer, to those friends he had—and it's just not—

I'm not in Heaven. And guess what? You won't be, either.

I'm waiting for you, Angel.

I'm waiting.

And I've got eternity to make you pay.

—enough.