Title: You Promised
Author: Samsom
Posted: Dec 06
Email
Rating: R-N-17
Category: Angst. WARNING: character death, eek!
Content: C/A, Angelus
Summary: Cordelia made a promise once.
Spoilers:
Disclaimer: The characters in the Angelverse were created by Joss Whedon & David Greenwalt. No infringement is intended, no profit is made.
Distribution: GT/ST/AO, anywhere else, let me know where.
Notes: This was written in the second person. It’s my first attempt at it so be warned. Any mistakes are mine since it’s unbeta’d and written when I should have been sleeping.
Thanks/Dedication:
Feedback: Always appreciated
You promised.
Once when there was hope, when the fight didn’t seem all that hard and the visions weren’t killing you yet.
One twilight up on the roof, the first honest talk you’d had since Doyle went and did his stupid, heroic stunt that left you grieving and cursed.
You promised, and you meant it.
But you didn’t know how much he’d mean to you. How could you, when all you’d ever done was make yourself number one?
His amazing smile that made you feel like you’d rip heaven apart to see it every day. The way he fought for every soul your visions brought to his attention, the insane things he’d do to save a life.
The way you thought he was the biggest dork ever after you found his Manilow collection.
The way you hurt for him whenever his past crept up and pulled him down into the abyss of his own guilt.
All of that and a thousand other things made it harder to hold onto the spirit of that promise, and you prayed to whoever was still listening that you’d never have to make that decision.
And then you wake up one night to find him standing at the foot of your bed.
He smiles in a way that leaves no doubt, and you hear someone begin to scream.
You realize it’s you.
His eyes close and you know he’s savoring the beginning of your pain, the anticipation of more.
He’ll torture you and kill you. He’ll torture and kill your friends. He’ll go back to Sunnydale and finish what he couldn’t do before. He’ll kill women and children and no doubt he’ll try and end the world. Again.
And others will die to stop him.
And then he’ll die.
So you stop screaming, and you ask him how it happened, and while he rolls his eyes and tells you how wasn’t important you sit up and let the covers slip down.
You know Angel wanted you, and you watch his attention narrow now, the demon responding the way the soul wouldn’t. You know the t-shirt you wear to bed is as tight as it needs to be for him to see what you want him to see.
You listen to him call you a tease and you watch him come closer.
His hands on your body are cold but they are his hands and his touch and if you close your eyes a little, look away a little, you can pretend.
He slides the blankets off slowly and covers you with his weight. You stifle a cry, never realizing until now just how much you wanted to feel him like this.
But never like this.
He purrs and tells you you’re going to be a good ride, and he pulls your yoga pants down and your shirt up, exposing you within the confines of your clothes, trying to draw out your shame.
You could have told him you had no shame to give, no fear.
He unfastens his pants and you feel his erection against your thigh, and it’s as cold as you are. He commands you to look at him and you do, but his face is a blur.
That’s when you realize you’re crying.
He smiles again, but this time there’s a hint of Angel in there, and for a moment you hope, against your own eyes you hope, and then the smile changes and you kill the feeling brutally, before it can shine in your face and give him one more thing to gloat over.
He asks you if this is everything you’d ever hoped it would be as he pulls your underwear off, his blunt nails leaving marks on your thighs, and waits for your answer as if it mattered, as if he genuinely wanted to know.
You say nothing, and he chuckles and bends down for a kiss.
You give it, opening your mouth and meeting his tongue.
He slips between your legs, spreading you wide beneath him.
He slides into you, sinks down to the root, and your body pulls him in, pulls a grunt from his mouth and he laughs with his eyes closed and his head half thrown back, saying that he hasn’t had a willing woman since Darla.
His hand tightens around your wrists, slowly, rubbing the bones together, and you cry against his lips. It’s what he wants, that little bit of pain to build on.
He says this is what he’ll do to Fred when he finds her, what he’ll do to Willow and Buffy and Dawn.
The more he talks, the harder he gets, the more he thrusts. He brings his head down and cuts himself off by devouring your mouth, drawing your tongue into his. He sucks on it, and then he bites, drawing blood.
You groan in pain, the persistent thrust of his hips heavy on your pelvic bone, hot copper exploding on your tongue.
He echoes the sound, drawing back and smiling down at you with your blood staining his lips. Ducks his head and smears the blood all over your breasts as he licks and bites the skin, leisurely thrusting.
He draws his hand down between your bodies and rubs your clit, saying you need to enjoy it more, but really he’s just trying to take something else from you, something Angel never had.
You try and shut his voice out. Imagine Angel’s hand stimulating your flesh, Angel’s body on you and in you. In your mind you see his smile, and the way he used to slide his eyes across yours, trying not to make it mean more than both of you could handle.
You feel yourself getting wetter, slicker, and a red ball of heat circles the base of your spine, building pressure. He looks into your eyes and watches it grow, and you want to shut him out of it, but you know he won’t allow that, and his eyes are the only thing that you have left of Angel, so you gaze back, and try to remember everything you lost.
You wish you could have told him you loved him.
The pressure pulses once, then explodes, and the orgasm washes over you, overriding everything for a few blissful seconds. You can’t help the surrender, Angel has been coaxing it from you for so long, and you can’t help the noise that escapes your lips, helpless and bare.
Through a tunnel you hear him come too, the thing you never shared with Angel, you share with his killer. He buries his face as he empties himself inside your body, his hips thrusting to the last spasm.
Your head is clear by the time he collapses onto you, his hand relaxing the grip on your wrists. Struggling for breath, you pull your hand away from his, palm up on the pillow.
You’re glad you’re the one to do it. You never wanted to, but you promised and its better this way, someone he knows, someone who loves him.
Not a council member who never recognized the difference his soul made.
Dennis floats the stake into your palm and you curl your fingers around the smooth wood, grasping it firmly.
You follow with your arm the trajectory you mapped in your mind and the stake slides through skin and muscle and bone with as much force as you can put behind it.
It’s enough.
His head comes up, and you see his ridges, his teeth.
The flaring shock in his eyes tell you everything. How he never expected this from you, that he never thought you had what it took.
It’s the odd expression of betrayal before his face is swallowed by dust that makes you turn your head to the side, and his ashes settle over you in a fine drift.
You lay there.
Minutes without Angel gather, and add up.
Five minutes.
Then ten.
Another thirty.
You hear cars pass, and a faint pink light peeks through your blinds.
People will wake, and have coffee, and get ready for work.
The day will come, and then night will fall, and then another day will happen.
The long years of your life stretch in front of you, without the center. You wonder what will hold you together, just a collection of limbs and nerve impulses now.
He asked you one night, high on a roof, during the first real talk you ever had.
You promised.
And you kept it.
You move finally, muscles cold and screaming.
The phone is in the living room, and you’ll have to call the others, to let them know.
But first, you’ll take a shower.
End