As always, ladies and gentlemen! Thanks for reading! I hope you're all enjoying so far and I hope you'll like this one.
I've gotten one or two PMs about pairings and ships in this fanfic. I like to keep things as ambiguous as possible. So I'll let you guys make your own decisions on who's going to end up with who and what pairings are/aren't being ship-teased.
Just going to let you know too, the rating will go up in future chapters.
I'll be putting in a warning at the start of any chapter containing explicit scenes, just to allow you to skip over them if you'd like as I don't want to offend anyone. :)
I respect everyone's rights/preferences as a reader so no worries, if you'd like to skip over the "hotter and heavier" chapters, it will be possible to do so without the story ceasing to make sense.
Anyway!
Onward!
"River, I know where you're taking this," the Doctor snapped, walking around the TARDIS console and throwing his hands back over his head. "And we're not taking it there. We're not going there. I don't like it there. There is a bad place!"
River rolled her eyes, following the Time Lord with the red notebook in hand and her high heels clicking at every step upon the TARDIS' glass flight deck.
Her husband was hundreds of years older than her, (even if neither of them quite looked like it), though River knew that the Doctor could still behave like an infant when he was having difficulty accepting something.
"All of the external signs are there, sweetie. You can deny all of this, as much as you'd like but if we take a moment to accept that this could be the case then we can definitely better predict the Archangel's behaviour…"
The Doctor pulled on snooker-ball topped lever, frowning as the TARDIS made no reaction beneath his fingertips. "What part of "we're not going there" is too complex for you? I'm telling you, it's not possible."
He grunted, fidgeting with the lever again and again. "And now to top it all off, my time machine has suddenly decided to turn on me too…"
"My love, if you're looking for the gravitational stabiliser…" River sighed, coming to stand by his side, calmly taking a hold of the second snooker-ball lever. "It's this one."
She gave it a firm pull downward and watched with a triumphant smile as the TARDIS glowed and hummed around them. "And I think she'd like to remind you that she's not your time machine…you're her Time Lord…"
She gave a soft chortle, folding her arm as the TARDIS' inner sanctum suddenly gave a brief flash of blue light. "I didn't think I'd ever be prepared to share him either, my dear."
The Doctor frowned, glancing from River to the console. "And once again, it appears I've been double-teamed…" He toggled around with the first lever, his frown slowly morphing into a tight-lipped pout. "And I can't believe it's the yellow lever and not the red lever. It should always be the red lever. The red lever is cool…the yellow lever is just…yellow…"
The Time Lady laughed outright and gently pushed the Doctor aside. "Here, let me fix it…" She reached out and deftly unscrewed both snooker balls before swapping them. Her smile slowly faded and she sighed slightly. "Sweetie…I know you don't want to consider the possibility at hand…"
She reached forward to lightly thumb the edge of the notebook. "When I was working with the clerics, they had field notes that were compiled on this kind of behaviour. It's common to a lot of predatory races across this galaxy and beyond."
"River, there's no point in entertaining this because that's not what's going on."
"He's isolating her from other members of her species…"
"He's kidnapped her. He's holding her against her will."
"If what you've written down here is true, he's essentially brought her gifts."
"He's tried to bribe her, blackmail her, manipulate her…"
"He's neglecting the usual routines and rituals of hunting and gathering just to make sure that she doesn't leave him."
"It's not like tha-…"
"It's far from normal for him to have kept her for this long with no purpose. Slavery is one consideration but like I said, his behaviours are following a pattern."
"There's no way-…"
"And this pattern is synonymous with the rituals involved in…"
"Don't say it."
"Courtship."
The Doctor's face grew serious, a long exhale running through his body. "River, I'm telling you. That Angel is not courting that poor girl. What he's doing is using her as a plaything until he gets bored with her and when he does eventually get bored with her…"
"And what if he doesn't "get bored with her?"" River insisted. "It's gone this long already, hasn't it?"
"Alright then! I'll entertain it!" the Doctor threw his hands into the air, wringing them. "The Weeping Angel has fallen madly in love with the human girl and he wants the two of them to live happily ever after! Do you hear how that sounds? It's insane! It's impossible!"
The Stormcage Inmate frowned deeply, placing one hand on her hip; icy in the wake of her husband's fire.
"First of all, the term is Weeping Archangel and I'm not saying that he's fallen in love with her." River ran her finger along the coiling spine of the red notebook. "Michael is a deviant among his own species, implying that he would probably have difficulties interacting in a sexual manner…" (the Doctor blushed) "…with females…" River raised an eyebrow. "…or preferentially, males of his own species…so he may be enacting courtship rituals with Cassidy to make up for that fact. He might not even be aware that he's doing it! The point is that if that's the case, his movements may be easier to predict."
"There isn't anything to predict. He'll kill her if we don't get her away from him one way or another." The Doctor walked over to the dial-pad, tapping the co-ordinates for London's Natural History Museum. "And forgive me if I remain a little bit sceptical that the Angel's feelings for Cassidy Albright don't go much beyond him wanting to sadistically play with her thoughts and emotions until he breaks her or worse…"
"Worse, sweetie?"
"…she breaks herself…"
River watched the Eleventh incarnation of her husband stare down at the keypad, his expression more tristful then she ever wanted to see it. She knew that his thoughts were as turbulent as her own and could understand why this mission was more painful as it was paramount to him, moreso than most other missions that he had attempted to take on before.
True, the surviving Angel from Winter Quay had taken her parents but she had long ago, better come to terms with that fact. The Doctor, very evidently, had not.
For a moment, she considered letting the issue lie flat but something prompted her to keep speaking.
He didn't know it, of course, but it had been a while for her since they had spoken…and even when he was close to spitting flames, River Song loved a good debate with her husband. There were few things as exhilarating as hearing the Doctor defend his point of view with the kind of fervour he usually brought to everything.
There was also something that River was suddenly feeling terribly curious about.
"Do you really think it would be so impossible? For a Weeping Angel to love a human being and for a human being to love an Angel in return?"
The Doctor looked up, his eyes tired and stormy. "Yes. As a matter of fact, I do."
"We know so little about them as a species, as it is…"
"We know that they are a race of beings who take complete and utter delight in tearing apart the lives of others. As I've said, it's impossible."
"Ah but you're the man who practically negates the impossible. You're the man who's seen impossible things happen for real. You've seen time unravel at its seams and reform again…you've seen the universe run out entirely…you've seen a Sontaran commander become a nurse…" River leaned forward on the console, her posture almost challenging. "You've seen a Silurian warrior fall in love with a human match girl…"
"Don't make any kind of comparison there. You can't. Silurians are a complex, empathetic, highly-intelligent species…totally on par with humans…"
"Couldn't the Lonely Assassins be that too?"
"No, River. You, better than anyone, should know that the Weeping Angels are a race of psychopaths. As such, they care about nothing but their own needs and are incapable of caring about other beings…"
"There's a very obvious flaw in your theory, sweetie."
Before the Doctor could query what exactly this flaw was, the door of the TARDIS opened and Edmund Potter poked his head in.
"Uh…sorry to interrupt," the archaeologist stammered, immediately sensing the intensity in the room. "But, Cassidy just replied to the e-mail. She said that she'll be able to come into the museum tomorrow…she'll be in for about nine or nine thirty…so Operation Scooby-Doo the Angel is essentially go!"
River smiled. "Thank you, Edmund. I'll get on to getting the equipment to the museum. Did you manage to get a hold of one of those boxes that I asked you about earlier?"
"Yeah," he nodded, grinning. "Perfect height and everything. With any luck, this'll go off without a hitch."
"Nice work, Ed," the Doctor nodded to him. "We'd better get going then…make sure everything is set up…ready to go…and we need a better operation name too…"
As they filtered out of the TARDIS, River hung back for a moment, giving one last flick through the red notebook and reading a few select sentences of the Doctor's summary of Cassidy's testimonies. "Hmm…"
Her hand wandered over to the console and with little hesitation, she brought the safety-locked image of Michael up on to screen.
"It would be odd to say the least…not to mention the incredible danger involved with regards the feelings of your own species towards such a thing…but why haven't you tired of her yet? Sharp logic and well… nature tells me "no"…but my mind can't help but wonder…what if?"
She smiled faintly, turning off the screen and sighing as she looked down to the console, noticing that the Doctor had left one of his bowties hanging on the acceleration switches. Professor River Song ran a finger along the soft creases of the red material, a rare affection and tenderness guiding her every action.
"And the fatal flaw with your argument, sweetie, is that I'm a psychopath…and I love you with my whole being…and I would have found the idea of a near-omnipotent being with powers allowing him to reign over time itself falling for an ordinary human girl rather ridiculous…"
River tucked the red notepad into her handbag, starting to walk towards the door of the TARDIS.
"…if I hadn't seen it happen in reality, for myself."
Unplugging the hair-dryer from the bathroom wall, Cassidy's shoulders started to tense again as she realised the weight of the bartering that she was about to engage the Weeping Archangel in.
It was sick.
It was detestable.
It was degrading.
It was dangerous considering what little information she had about the whole situation.
But she had no other choice.
Weighing up her options, Cassidy needed to return to the museum as soon as possible. If she couldn't return to the Museum for work soon, questions would be asked and actions would be taken.
Sooner or later, Cassidy would have to attempt to return to normality even if her plans to escape from Michael were still partly in conception and seemingly impossible to accomplish.
"And sooner is probably better than later," Cassidy murmured, running her fingers through her whitish blonde hair, smoothing it out to its full length.
Trembling down to her very fingertips, she took the pink faux-crystal bottle from the cabinet beside the sink and surveyed herself in the mirror as she dabbed raspberry scented oil on her neck and behind her ears.
It wasn't long before the cruel voices began again as her eyes traced the bare, flushing curves and contours of her face.
"Slut. You're not just a helpless victim anymore. If you do this, Cassidy, you are nothing but a vindictive slut."
"I need to get back to work," she insisted, placing the bottle aside and adjusting her bath-robe. "I need familiarity. For my own sanity. At least until I'm free of Michael. If I'm successful here and I can get him to give me more time away from him, maybe that will aid me in figuring out some way of solving this problem…"
"So Michael will let you do a bit of tinkering around at the Museum for a few hours of every day and in return, you'll take your clothes off for him? Sell yourself like a common whore?"
"Well what do you suggest I do?" Cassidy asked, swallowing back as she adjusted the collar of the robe. "Fight him? Because that's gone so fucking well in the past, hasn't it?"
She ran a finger a long one of her barely faded scars, wincing slightly. "I know. He plans on having me either way. It's inevitable…"
"Walking into the jaws of death rather than waiting for death to come for you is hardly a more sensible option…"
"But this isn't death."
"But will you be able to live with yourself after that murderous monster has taken from you what he intends to?"
"Would he really be taking it, if I was giving it on my own terms?! It's a survival tactic. Besides, I'd rather make him think that I was doing it on my own terms rather than…"
"So now you actually want to lie with the psychopathic alien?"
"I want freedom," Cassidy spat through gritted teeth, staring at her own reflection with a mixture of disgust and determination. "I want control." She gave a dry, cynical laugh. "Plenty of women have slept with men to get what they wanted, throughout history. Eva Perón, Madame du Pompadour, Katherine Howard…"
"That's right, Cassidy. Good girl. Sacrifice whatever dignity you have left. Join the legion of harlots. See how it feels afterwards."
"I HAVE to try!" she told herself, her knuckles whitening as they gripped the edges of the sink. "Even if it means hating myself, even briefly, I can't stay inactive for any longer. I won't stay inactive for any longer. I can't just stand by and passively take orders while my life outside of here crumbles until the day he decides to kill me or worse…I need to use whatever weapon or advantage I have against him…and in this case, if it's making him think that I want…that I want…" Cassidy found herself having to swallow a very big lump in her throat. "That I want him…so be it." She looked back to her slightly blurry reflection. "I…I have to try."
Wiping her slightly dampened lips with the corner of the towel, Cassidy tried to settle her thoughts on to her reluctant task at hand.
She was going to have to bring up the issue of her going back to work with Michael.
Essentially, she was going to have to beg his permission to allow her to leave the house.
In the months that she'd spent living with/under the Weeping Archangel, Cassidy had very quickly learned that the best time to ask him for something was when he was in a pleasant mood.
Michael was usually in the best of his moods when she was being a "good, little human slave" and nothing seemed to please him more than when she showed acceptance of this forced role.
"So I've got to submit to him…" Cassidy told herself, taking up a hairbrush and attempting adjust her fringe. "I've got to show him courtesy…inflate his ego…do what he wants as if I want to actually do it…" She grimaced. "…flirt with him."
This didn't sit well in Cassidy's stomach for more reasons than one.
She had never been a master when it came to the art of seduction, in fact she had always been quite hopeless at flirting with human men- never mind, alien men.
"And now I'm trying to bloody seduce a Weeping Archangel," Cassidy all but whined, taking note of the fact that her facial skin was ritually preparing itself for another puberty-esque outbreak.
Throughout Secondary School and University, Cassidy had never been the type of girl with enough pluck, pride or prettiness to talk to boys. She'd usually hang around and watch as her friends did all the "pulling," happy to act as a mute and meek wingwoman on nights out.
Even if a member of the opposite sex approached her to ask for her number, Cassidy would usually dissolve into a flushing, blushing, nervous wreck and end up frightening the potential suitor away by either stuttering him into submission or spouting random historical facts that killed the conversation dead.
"This is a really great club, isn't it? London City is really terrific isn't it? It's fascinating too. Did you know that the inhabitants of medieval London produced about fifty tons of human excrement every day? And they just dumped it all in the streets because of the lack of plumbing! Crazy, right?"
Cringing at such memories, Cassidy tried to concentrate on her appearance.
She decided not to bother with make-up as Michael appeared to have enough of a fascination with her skin without the need of the stuff. Turning her attention to her hair, she started to play with the ends of it, experimentally raising it up and letting it drop.
Should she put it up?
Female Angels had their hair up in some kind of Grecian up-do.
The human girl eyed the bobby-pins and elastics on her bathroom locker and quickly decided that she'd rather not undergo another failed attempt at doing something intricate with her hair.
Finally settling on adding a small spritz of perfume to her neck, Cassidy gave her reflection a bemused look accompanied by a shrug.
"At least he's not with me for my looks, anyway."
Taking a breath, she placed her hand on the handle of the bathroom door and pushed it open, walking out into her room.
She expected to feel his hands on her shoulders, waist or neck or to at least experience the sudden darkness of a blindfold slipping over her eyes before she so much as reached the bed.
But she neither felt nor experienced anything out of the ordinary at all.
Cassidy turned on the spot, looking around the entire room in the dim, amber lamplight and realising that Michael was nowhere to be seen.
With an odd mixture of relief and confusion, she wandered over to the bedroom door and hesitantly looked out into blackened hallway.
"M-Michael?" she called out. "…Michael? Are you there?"
Receiving no response, she retreated back into the bedroom.
Maybe he was out hunting already?
Feeling strangely dejected, Cassidy pulled her bathrobe up around herself and walked back over to the bed. She sat down on to the soft, plush duvet- briefly enjoying the feeling of the blankets against her legs.
Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed her old hardback copy of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets beneath a stack of old payslips on the bedside table. Within seconds, it was sitting in her lap and Cassidy was already deeply immersed in the exploits of Dobby the house-elf in the Dursley household.
It surprised her for a moment that she had almost forgotten how much of an escape a good novel could be.
Her peace, however, was short-lived.
"What do you want, human?"
Michael was standing at the foot of her bed.
Cassidy looked up with a start, quickly shoving the book aside and wondering if the Weeping Archangel's sudden appearances would ever stop provoking fright in her.
"You're…you're usually here when I come out of the shower and…" Cassidy pressed her lips together to relieve them of their dryness. "…and…I just thought it was…strange…"
"I was preparing to hunt," Michael informed her, unknowingly confirming her earlier assumptions. "I wished to sate my hunger as you were taking longer in your washing rituals than you usually do…but then I heard you calling to me…so I returned."
"Oh, well," Cassidy coughed, sitting up a little on the bed and focusing her eyes on his chest. Now was, perhaps, a bad time to notice how defined and pronounced his perfectly chiselled muscles looked beneath the low light of the bedside lamp. Perhaps.
"I…don't want to interrupt your hunting but…I'm about to go to sleep and I was wondering if you wanted to…to uhm…"
They didn't really have a name for their glorified petting and chatting sessions and it was only then that Cassidy realised that very fact.
Acting on sudden inspiration, she reached over and took a discarded blindfold from the bedside cabinet.
She held it out to Michael, noticing at the extension of her arm that her hand was quivering ever so slightly. Cassidy forced herself to smile lightly.
"…if you want to…"
For a moment, Michael could have been easily have been mistaken for an ordinary stone statue for he was both entirely silent and completely still.
Even when Cassidy blinked deliberately, once or twice.
"Very well," his stolen voice suddenly pervaded the hovering silence, causing the human girl's shoulders to jerk violently. "Place the cover over your eyes and we'll begin immediately…"
Hesitantly, Cassidy slowly lifted her hands and tied the blindfold around her eyes, making her first voluntary surrender of the evening to the Lonely Assassin.
She felt the sag of the mattress springs behind her and suddenly Michael's hands came to rest on her shoulders, beginning their usual ritualistic petting.
Slowly, the Angel's cold and smooth touch grazed her neck, his fingertips running along her flushed cheeks before coming to drift through her hair.
Cassidy forced herself to move, leaning into each caress and lifting a hand to return the stroking with a few gentle ministrations of her own.
It wasn't long before her fingers met with the surprisingly soft plumage of his wings, her hands sifting lightly against the familiar rows of feathers.
At first, his wings would press further into her touch before jerking away suddenly- like a toddler teasing a kitten with a plaything or as though he was dealing with a terrible bout of indecision- but soon Michael seemed content to let his mighty wings linger in her care.
Cassidy soon took notice of the fact that Michael's feathers were, in fact, rather unlike any other kind of ordinary feather that she'd felt before, (granted the majority of her experience consisted largely of pigeon's feathers she had collected from her back garden as a child and those of Pavarotti, Nancy's old pet budgie). The fine quills of the feathers were much thicker than that of an ordinary bird and while they still felt quite soft to the touch, they weren't half as pliable.
She could only fleetingly guess that this was an evolutionary adjustment to compensate for any harsher environments that the Angels might encounter.
Her right hand met reached the outer rim of one of Michael's wings and she felt the powerful muscle that the feathers extended from. One of the Angel's own hands travelled down from her hair, skimming down over her shoulders until it reached the small of her back. Pressing down against the lower part of her spine and forcing her to arch her back, Cassidy was soon coerced into leaning her head against his upper collar and with no vision to activate his quantum lock, she could feel his bare chest against her cheek.
As always she noticed that eerily, the Angel had no heartbeat but she became faintly aware of a strange kind of soft growling emitting from, (what she could only assume was), his lower throat.
It was almost like the purring of a cat, she couldn't help but muse.
Cassidy internally scolded herself; she couldn't afford to let her mind wander as she usually did.
She moved closer to him, her bare legs curling up on to the bed as her body sought refuge beneath his.
"You're oddly eager this evening," Michael observed, his voice slightly tinged with those odd purr-like growls.
Cassidy forced herself to shrug in a casual way, swallowing. "Maybe I've realised it's futile to deny that I…I enjoy….enjoy this…"
"Enjoy our contact?" the Weeping Archangel responded with a chuckle, adopting a rather teasing tone. "Oh dear, it would appear my little Cassidy has shed her shyness…not feeling quite so virginal anymore?"
Cassidy's face started to burn but ignoring the heat in her cheeks, she attempted to speak again. "How…how did you know that…that I was…am a…" She sighed. "A virgin?"
It was bad enough to be patronised about her lack of sexual experience by her colleagues, she didn't need Michael to do that kind of tormenting either.
The Archangel laughed a deep, throaty laugh, his hands briefly leaving her body only to return to her shoulders. "Your shyness, of course, little human. Your terrible shyness…" One of his talon-tipped fingers came to hook beneath her chin, lifting her face to tilt upward. "But not simply your shyness regarding the bare forms of others…or bodily contact in general…I couldn't help but notice as I observed you all those days ago at your beloved museum…" His fingers drifted along the sides of her face. "I watched you so carefully and listened to every word of your every interaction…and you had no idea at all, what I was truly capable of…" Cassidy could almost hear the smirk on his face. "I very quickly took stock of the fact that you have an aversion to physical contact from other humans…you are so very, very, very bashful…but your greatest shyness is towards your own body."
One of his claws lightly hooked against her lower lip, tugging it playfully before letting it go. "A lack of self-exploration is quite evident in you…"
Cassidy could tell by his patronising laugh that the Archangel still thought that he had the upper-hand. If she was going to ask something of him, she had to both inject his ego but level the playing field.
Clearing her dry throat and licking her lips slightly to moisten them, she spoke.
"You're right…maybe I am shy about my body…and if it's a problem…" She swallowed again, tensing her shoulders to prevent them from shaking. "…maybe you should teach me not to be?"
Cassidy let out an involuntary cry when Michael's hands suddenly caught a hold of her ribs, lifting her up slightly and pulling her forward- closer to him.
"Aren't you very brave all of a sudden?"
The human woman didn't flinch.
"Perhaps I'm just accepting the inevitable," she told him, blind and uncertain but speaking as smoothly as she could physically manage. "And what if…what if I think there's something thrilling…about this?"
Cassidy couldn't ignore, much to her chagrin, the faintest hint of a question in her own voice.
Michael suddenly caught a hold of her hair, ripping back at the flaxen rope and forcing her head back further.
She groaned in pain and he laughed. "You're getting so daring, little mouse. Almost too daring. It makes me wonder about your ulterior motives."
Check.
He had her in check.
Acting on impulse, Cassidy leaned up and kissed the Archangel's lips.
It was only a soft, slight brush but it was very, very deliberate.
Refusing to pull her face away from his, the human girl made her request.
"I want…I want to make an agreement with you…a covenant of sorts…"
Michael was silent for a few tension-laden minutes and then he replied.
"What do you want from me, human?"
She could feel face right above hers, hovering slightly.
Curious and…beckoning?
Cassidy pressed her lips against Michael's once more.
Just as before, he did not return the kiss but he didn't pull away either.
If anything- unless Cassidy's other four senses were mistaken- he moved closer to her.
"I need to return to work. To the Museum. They sent me a message earlier. They want me to come back tomorrow."
"Absolutely not."
"I told you before, I need to go back."
"And I've told you before. You will remain here."
"I need to start earning money again…"
"No, you do not. First of all, I've already made it clear that I am willing to provide whatever it is you need, in return for your obedience. Secondly, your materialism is a human vice that is better left unindulged. Thirdly, did you or did you not quite recently acquire a large sum of your "money" from your dead mother?"
"Alright, what about normality? If I don't start returning to work again, the people at the Museum will think there's something wrong and they'll send someone around to check on me…"
"Simply tell them that you do not wish to return."
"I've spent my life wanting to be an archaeologist and training to be one. They'd all know saying something like that would be weird for me and they'd get suspicious. We'd…" Cassidy tried to make her voice as silky as possible. "We'd never be alone together again…we'd be suffering the constant threat of interruption."
Michael growled, causing her to shudder beneath his grip but she could sense a waver in his voice. "And just what- as part of our covenant- would you be willing to offer me in return?"
"Anything you want," Cassidy told him, breathlessly, having rehearsed these words in her mind.
The Archangel laughed, loudly and cruelly, before dropping his voice to a bare, chilling whisper. "I could already make you do whatever I wanted without much effort…"
"But without any effort at all?" Cassidy persisted with desperation that she was ashamed of. "I'm offering to do whatever you want, willingly."
"Willingly?!" the Archangel was still laughing, a terrible, ear-grating shriek leaking from his windpipe to accompany his mocking, pseudo-human guffaw. "What kind of fool do you think I am? Do you honestly expect me to believe that you could just change your feelings towards something so fleetingly? You? My impossibly obstinate Cassidy?"
She gritted her teeth: she did not like it when he referred to her as his possession.
Increased desperation made her tenacious.
"I'm a convincing actress. Haven't I proved that to you before?"
Referencing that night in Summer Bank was partially suicidal but Cassidy's nerves stayed strong.
She leaned up to kiss him for a third time, noticing that at this point, his face had definitely gotten closer to hers.
Her scheme was working.
"Do you really think that your acting skills are that impressive?"
His voice had become dangerously low.
"I know that they're that impressive," Cassidy challenged, acutely aware that she was treading a very dangerous line.
"How witty you've become…"
"That's not the first time I've been told that I'm witty."
"Oh? And has anyone ever told you that wit is merely educated insolence?"
Cassidy took a sharp inhale.
"And has anyone ever told you that insolence is what a fool calls wit that they envy?"
There was a thin, unsettling silence for a moment and Michael's hands remained stationary, on her sides.
Unmoving.
Unwavering.
Cassidy predicted the feeling of claws against her arms or teeth suddenly clamping down on to her exposed flesh. However, she completely and totally forgot about the Angel's capacity for surprising her and his next actions truly drowned her in shock.
The Lonely Assassin seized her by the neck and suddenly crushed his mouth to hers in a rough, ungainly but very deep kiss.
Memories of Summer Bank suddenly invaded Cassidy's mind, causing her to become doll-like in his arms. Her eyes snapped wide open behind the blindfold at the feeling of Michael's lips meshing against hers, his tongue tracing the outline of her lips and his teeth occasionally grazing her soft mouth.
As before, it was evident that the act of kissing itself was not one that he was familiar with but that single fact did not stop him from seeking to all but devour his stolen human's lips with avarice and without mercy.
Cassidy squealed meekly at the feeling of being lifted again, this time being forcibly pushed on to her back. Michael's mouth did not leave hers for a second, still hungrily pressing against his human "slave's" as his gargantuan body served as the perfect means of keeping her entrapped against the mattress of the bed.
Her heart racing with a fear of the unknown but an adrenaline-laced burning in her stomach, Cassidy coaxed herself to meet his actions- her arms slowly moving to wrap around his broad shoulders and her lips starting to return his starved ferocity.
Michael separated their clashing mouths, leaving Cassidy breathing heavily beneath him.
She could feel his eyes travelling across her face and downward and suddenly the Archangel broke into cold, thunderous laughter.
"So this is Cassidy when she is…willing? I have to say, little slave, I am sorely unconvinced."
Cassidy's eyes narrowed and squeezed shut beneath the blindfold.
With a taut jaw, her cheeks aflush and her entire body tingling, she brought her hands clumsily to the back of Michael's built neck and tried to push him down to meet her lips once more. "You took me by surprise…then again, you Angels don't exactly like to play fair…"
With both bravery and daring that she frightened herself with, Cassidy reignited the kiss, this time parting her lips slightly to allow her own tongue to gloss against Michael's as it darted between her own mouth and his.
His initial reaction to this gesture appeared to be of disgust but mere seconds later, the Archangel was willingly participating in this passion-guided battle.
His roughness and his brutality sent frequent spikes of excitement through Cassidy's chest and determined not to allow him the full-control that he so desperately desired, she trailed her hands down his back, stroking and tracing each line of defined muscle as she went.
Guilty as ever, she had to admit that there was all too thrilling about having this kind of intimate contact with such a powerful, predatory being. Their tryst was quickly turning into a kind of contest, one trying to best the other in terms of leaving the other breathless.
At times, her lungs would burn and her head would become dizzy from a lack of oxygen but not once did she try to pull away.
Her fingertips reached a particularly tender-feeling spot just above where his wings were connected to his back and as she touched this area, she could hear the pleasured-growling from before starting to erupt at the back of Michael's throat.
"You are a fast learner," he teased her, hissing into her ear as she applied pressure to this evidently sensitive stretch of skin.
Cassidy swallowed, her reply instantly morphing into a gasp of muted ecstasy when the Archangel's tongue was suddenly running along her neck.
"Y-You're not bad, yourself…" she managed to stammer between deep inhales.
She could feel Michael's lips curve into a smirk against the skin of her throat and he gifted her with a light nip before pulling back slightly.
"Now, about you being less shy about your own body…"
Cassidy felt her body turn rigid with uncontrollable panic as Michael's hands suddenly started to roam over her. One eventually settled on her hip, keeping her torso tight against the bed whilst the other came to rest over her collar-bone, slowly trailing downwards.
Dangerously nearing the seam of her bath-robe.
The boundary between her very clothed and very bare flesh.
Automatically, one of her own hands shot up to catch him by the wrist, stopping his progress.
Michael only tutted, sighing in a bemused way. "Just as I thought. The human is…as humans do tend to phrase it…all talk and no go…"
Annoyance suddenly gnawed at Cassidy's temples and overcome by a sudden sense of one-up-man-ship, her hand on his wrist began to guide him down lower- encouraging him, rather than stopping him.
Bile was starting to form in her stomach again, but Cassidy had already accepted that if she wanted to put the Angel in his place and to get what she wanted, she would have to start playing his game and winning at it too.
Her skin- much warmer than his- tingled as his hand glanced across each inch of exposed flesh, goosebumps springing to the surface in the wake of his touch.
Cassidy's heart raced as he held his fingertips slipped beneath the robe- fighting every fibre of her being that was telling her to recoil, to refuse, to run…
But the Archangel did not move any further than this.
His hand merely lingered just above the line of her chest for a moment before he retracted it, shaking himself free of her grip and swiftly sitting up.
"The beat of your aortic pump is still too faint and your breathing is worryingly restricted...we will not…" The Archangel paused for a second or two. "…continue this…until you've recovered completely."
Seemingly content with that evening's games and entertainments, Michael pushed Cassidy to stay on her back before his weight left the mattress. For a second of insanity, the human woman felt an ache of loss in her stomach- instantly followed by a bolt of triumph when the Angel spoke again.
"You may return to your workplace tomorrow at morning's light…but you will follow these commands. You will have no undesirable communication with any other human once inside and once inside, you will not leave the premises until you are ready to come back here with me. I will keep surveillance on you from outside the building and as soon as you exit, I will take you home. Do not doubt that you will be under my constant watch and should you try anything to arouse my suspicion, there will be consequences…do you understand?"
One of his hands suddenly seized her face, his fingers clutching inward on her cheeks, forcing the soft inner part of her mouth to graze against her clenched teeth.
Cassidy nodded frantically, trying to pull away until he eventually released her. "Mmmph…yes…yes, I understand…"
"There's a good girl," he commended in hushed tones, his voice becoming fainter as he moved away from her. "I have no further need of you this evening. You may sleep now…"
Cassidy heard the door of her bedroom creak, the hinges whining and then click shut. She undid the blindfold and sure enough, the Archangel was gone.
Her first feeling was one of great accomplishment; she had successfully convinced Michael into letting her go back to the Museum. This was definite progress.
However as she undid the tie of her bath-gown and replaced it with the huge, saggy t-shirt that she usually wore in bed, Cassidy could feel her something inside her start to decay.
It wasn't fear or anger or disgust towards Michael.
It was fear, anger and disgust towards herself.
Cassidy raked her fingers back through her long hair, her face still hot and her mouth feeling slightly swollen.
"That should have felt harder," she told herself, laying back against the pillows. "It should have been harder for me to touch him like that…"
She pulled the blankets up around her neck and squeezed her eyes shut, trying to ignore an all-too-familiar mental debate that had started to form.
Tiredness soon stole over her and Cassidy, within minutes, was deep in slumber.
For the first time in quite a while, she found herself dreaming about being in an underground cave again. This time, she was sitting near some kind of river or water-source.
She could hear a loud dripping and gushing noise against the rocks near to her, but the cave was still mostly stippled in darkness apart from a few select areas where natural light had managed to seep through cracks in the rock.
The strange thing about this dream was that Michael was with her.
Unlike before, he wasn't threatening her or trying to attack her or laughing maliciously at her misfortune.
He was just beside her, in the dark.
She couldn't see him or hear him but she knew he was there.
Suddenly the Weeping Archangel took both of her hands and held them in his, gently guiding her to move closer to him.
And in her dream, Cassidy found nothing wrong with this.
In fact, she found his presence elating and warmth-inspiring and happily, she nestled closer to him in the dark.
All of a sudden, it wasn't Michael sitting beside her anymore.
It was Louisa.
Her face emerged from the darkness, hollows cast by shadow and tears in her eyes.
"He killed me, Cassy. He KILLED me…how could you?!"
"No, no…it's not like that!" Cassidy insisted, half-screaming as she watched her friend's face start to wither and rot before her very eyes- starting to look more sickened, more emaciated, more dead.
"How could you do this, Cassidy?"
"I swear, Louisa, it's not like that at all…"
"You betrayed me."
"No…no I didn't! I swear! Please don't say that!"
"How could you ever feel that way for him?"
"I DON'T! I promise, I don't!"
"I hate you…I hate you, Cassidy Albright…you don't even care that I'm dead, do you?"
"LOUISA-!"
Cassidy awoke with a start, sitting bolt upright only for her forehead to smack against solid stone. She groaned as the throbbing started to spread across her head and pressed her hand to the new bruise.
"Nng…"
"What is it, human?"
"Mmmph, what?" Cassidy moaned groggily, rubbing her eyes and feeling much to her own disdain that a thin layer of moisture clung to her eyelashes. When her vision finally settled, she could see that Michael was leaning over her. The lamplight in the room had been long extinguished but his towering form was evenly lit by the first, pale blue rays of early morning. "What are you doing here, Michael?"
"I was beginning my hunt in this area and I heard you screaming in your sleep. So I returned to investigate. I had to restrain you at one point, to prevent you from falling from this bed. You were becoming quite heated in your panic…"
Cassidy put her hand on her chest, feeling her own sporadic heartbeat and glanced up at Michael- her eyes meeting his for a split second before she reverted her line of sight to his chest. "It's alright. You can go back to hunting. I'll be fine…"
"I will hunt tomorrow evening. I will remain with you here until you fall asleep once more," he told her and upon her next blink, he was sitting upon the bed beside her. His stone weight caused the mattress to sink in, causing Cassidy, in turn, to find herself automatically pulled towards him.
"If you don't hunt," Cassidy insisted, steadying herself between the sheets and fighting to keep her eyes open. "Those cracks that you're gaining won't heal as quickly. You won't recover."
"And if I don't stay with you to ensure that you sleep, nor will you," Michael all-but-snapped in return. "Do not think I don't recognise this strange sadness that has come into your face and this sudden discomfort that has come over you. The last time you wore this expression, you spoke of ending your own life and as I have made it perfectly clear, I do not intend to have you die without my consent…"
Cassidy was suddenly quivering where she lay and not just because she had left the heating off downstairs.
She felt herself grow close to tears but she resisted, only beseeching him in a feeble voice. "Just go…I'll be fine…"
She squeezed her eyes shut to prevent tears escaping them.
"Certainly not," Michael asserted stubbornly, his hand suddenly touching her face, cupping it and running his thumb along her cheek. "I will remain with you until you fall asleep once more…"
Cassidy tried to speak again but the Weeping Archangel cut across her. "You need to sleep. You require strength for your endeavours tomorrow and you are of no use to me or to yourself when you are weakened…now hush and sleep…"
The human woman sighed, her head hurting too much to continue this debate.
She curled up, silent, allowing Michael to delicately touch her face.
Her words became slightly slurred as sleep started to beckon her once more.
"…Weeping Angels don't sleep. You told me that before, right?"
"Indeed…we have no need of sleep…"
"…how lovely for all of you…" She yawned faintly. "You don't have to deal with nightmares…"
"A nightmare…is an unpleasant sleep vision or a…dream….is it not? A thing of fiction and the imagination?"
"It is…mm…but that doesn't stop them from being any less awful to have…"
"And what was your nightmare about, Cassidy?"
"…Louisa."
"Ah, guilt. Guilt is what taints your mind , you need not feel any guilt regarding her death. She died by my hand, Cassidy, not yours."
His touches became slower, still continuing in his rhythmic stroking of the side of her face and his voice dropped to what was almost a whisper. "Now, sleep…if your nightmares continue to torment you…I will wake you…"
Cassidy was barely listening to him at this point- her body was just too tired- but she automatically mumbled something in response to what he had just said.
Something that might have been "thank you."
Then again, it might not have been.
Michael studied his stolen human's face in the pale light, watching as she surrendered herself to slumber once more.
A slow smirk grew across his face and his eyes narrowed.
"You've tested my limits, this evening, Cassidy. Don't think that I'm not going to test yours in return…"
Hope you've enjoyed! :D
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Keep calm and stay Whovian!