BtVS Triple Drabble: Enduring
Title: Enduring
Fandom: BtVS
Author: badly_knitted
Characters: Angel, Buffy.
Rating: PG
Spoilers/Setting: Shortly after Beauty and the Beasts.
Summary: Angel is waiting at the mansion for Buffy.
Written For: Challenge 381: Amnesty 63 at fan_flashworks, using Challenge 346: Waiting.
Disclaimer: I don’t own BtVS, or the characters.
A/N: Triple drabble.
Angel paces restlessly back and forth across the mansion’s stone floor. Once upon a time he’d learned patience, but after uncounted aeons in the Hell dimensions he’s lost that particular skill. Now, waiting is torture.
He can’t go out, it’s not dark yet, and even if it were, leaving the mansion would be a bad idea. Better that no one should know he’s back, or no one but Buffy anyway.
Buffy… She found him, brought him back here, tended him, helped him remember who he was, who he IS. Without her he’d still be the way he was when she found him, nothing more than a crazed animal, a danger to himself and to others. This is better, he’s slowly recovering, but he knows it wouldn’t be wise for him to leave the safety the mansion provides, not even after dark.
So he waits, hunger gnawing at his belly, needing the blood Buffy brings him, and hoping she won’t forget, or be delayed. Being alone with only his thoughts and memories for company, tormenting him with guilt and shame, is almost unbearable and yet he bears it without complaint because of Buffy.
When she’s here, for a few brief minutes each day, her presence is a balm that soothes his soul. She doesn’t take away any of his self-hatred, doesn’t dim the feelings of guilt or make the memories fade into oblivion, and that’s okay because they’re a necessary penance he deserves to suffer through. But she helps him to be strong and to endure the suffering. She brings a breath of fresh air into the oppressive atmosphere of the place where she killed him to save the world. She gives him reason to hope because despite everything, she believes in him.
She will come. He just has to wait.
The End
Fandom: BtVS
Author: badly_knitted
Characters: Angel, Buffy.
Rating: PG
Spoilers/Setting: Shortly after Beauty and the Beasts.
Summary: Angel is waiting at the mansion for Buffy.
Written For: Challenge 381: Amnesty 63 at fan_flashworks, using Challenge 346: Waiting.
Disclaimer: I don’t own BtVS, or the characters.
A/N: Triple drabble.
Angel paces restlessly back and forth across the mansion’s stone floor. Once upon a time he’d learned patience, but after uncounted aeons in the Hell dimensions he’s lost that particular skill. Now, waiting is torture.
He can’t go out, it’s not dark yet, and even if it were, leaving the mansion would be a bad idea. Better that no one should know he’s back, or no one but Buffy anyway.
Buffy… She found him, brought him back here, tended him, helped him remember who he was, who he IS. Without her he’d still be the way he was when she found him, nothing more than a crazed animal, a danger to himself and to others. This is better, he’s slowly recovering, but he knows it wouldn’t be wise for him to leave the safety the mansion provides, not even after dark.
So he waits, hunger gnawing at his belly, needing the blood Buffy brings him, and hoping she won’t forget, or be delayed. Being alone with only his thoughts and memories for company, tormenting him with guilt and shame, is almost unbearable and yet he bears it without complaint because of Buffy.
When she’s here, for a few brief minutes each day, her presence is a balm that soothes his soul. She doesn’t take away any of his self-hatred, doesn’t dim the feelings of guilt or make the memories fade into oblivion, and that’s okay because they’re a necessary penance he deserves to suffer through. But she helps him to be strong and to endure the suffering. She brings a breath of fresh air into the oppressive atmosphere of the place where she killed him to save the world. She gives him reason to hope because despite everything, she believes in him.
She will come. He just has to wait.
The End