Rapture in Loss (Darla/Angel) PG-13
Title: Rapture in Loss
Author: lillianmorgan
Setting: Pre-Welcome to the Hellmouth, Season 1 BtVS
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Darla/Angel
Disclaimer: I don’t own Joss’ or ME’s toys.
A/N: Written for the 2nd Challenge, the Mystery Challenge, at good__evil.
Thanks go very much to yourlibrarian for the ever-helpful beta.
Rapture in Loss
The summons, when it arrived, was not entirely unexpected. Nor was the means of delivery. A poor, malnourished vampire tramping across sea and land to find her and to impart to her what was expected of her, her duty. She had to put the thing out of its misery, snapping its neck as easily and as cleanly as one might a winter branch from a tree. But at the time she told herself this act of revenge meant that she wouldn’t submit to him easily, even if he was her Sire.
The journey back to the country of her birth was shorter than expected, but perhaps that was the dread settling over her, the weariness of Fate descending and expectation that now followed her. No longer a free agent, but instead allowing herself to be governed by the rules of obligation. The town that held the Master in chains, surrounding the mouth of Hell, was titled with the most absurd name of Sunnydale, as if the town’s founders wished to wipe all knowledge of the things that really dwelled there. As if to suggest that all was beating hearts and roses and sun, sweetest sunshine, that she had not felt upon her fingers for more than three centuries. Nor would she ever need to.
Luke was already sitting at the right hand of the Master, in metaphorical terms of course. It would be rather a distressing thing to be submerged under the earth in such a bleak, cavernous hole in the ground, though, it was the kind of thing that the Master did seem to prefer. Losing all the trappings of human regalia seemed to eschew him of human desire as well.
As it was, Luke was already in place directing the minions when Darla entered the tomb. He barely seemed to notice her, even if she were dressed in one of the finest Gucci suits. In the natural order of things and the world of hierarchy in which they all moved and maintained their position, she should not let this pass given that Luke was a good deal younger than her. But nature had never played an easy hand in her line, and wasn’t she so often reminded of it.
The less than rapturous welcome left her with not much to do but to investigate the state of play for herself and bide her time until the Master’s return. When that day came, in all its magnificent glory, then she would be able to fight back again. As it stood now, she would let Luke think he was the vampire in control of everything. Honeyed smiles and well-placed caresses had been the stable diet upon which she firmed her power, and she was well-versed in how to please. It was easy to take his mind off what he should be thinking, in stolen moments between preparations for the Master’s rebirth, in fact rather too easy and she wondered at that. If she had been a lesser vampire, she might have feared but, instead, she chose to disappear for a few hours. Wipe all memory of her ministrations, leave him wondering how and when and why.
The trip to the surface was uneventful to begin with. The mouth of Hell opened at the entrance to the High School library and she realised that potential victims and supplicants would come from the student population. Young, tender and willing to please. It made her smile. How bothersome it might be if the Hellmouth began at the door to an Old Folks home.
However, it also made her thankful for her youthful looks. And it made her realise she would have to blend in, as she so often had before. Just like in China when she revelled in the beautiful silks of the cheong sams and had worn them with such delight.
Even if events there had ended in tragedy.
It is strange the way the brain works, for as she wandered slowly down tree-lined avenues, one late night in a Californian Fall she happened upon the chief instigator of that tragedy.
He was standing outside a house, and he was much less dishevelled than when their paths had last crossed. He was dressed all in black, including an overcoat which seemed to encase him like a shroud, and his hair was neat and slicked back. He looked like any other youth she might encounter, walking the streets late at night, wending his way home after a college party. Only, in this town, he never would be that.
She slowed down to a creeping walk to try and mask her advance. The smell of her would not be carried so intensely to him if it meandered there. She watched him as he hid behind a hedge, peering inside a nondescript house.
She was almost upon him when he jerked upwards and turned around. She quickened her pace and leapt at him.
“Darla!” He lunged away from her but she held fast, held tight, held on so that she never let him go even though he left her in waking dream and reality.
“What are you doing?” She waved her free hand toward the house. “Is this your next victim? Or possible paramour? It’s hard for me to keep up with the ways of ensouled vampires when I so rarely come upon them.”
His eyes slit to thin lines of black and she could taste his energy and his hate. But that was good, and it made her brighten within, for the feelings of love bordered so closely to hate that there might always be …
“What’s this?” In their grappling, her fingers had run across something sharp and wooden in one of the pockets of his coat. She grasped onto it and yanked out a stake.
“Angelus!” she cried. “Now you carry the means to kill your own kind?”
“It’s not like we’ve never killed vampires before.” His voice was petulant and sulky, like a boy caught with his hand in the toffee jar. It would be so easy to believe that that was all he ever was.
“But now you seek it out? You are ready and armed?” She threw the stake to the ground and whirled upon him. “Why? Why do you do this? Why do you haunt me so?” She slammed fist after fist into his chest, rained down blows that he could so easily bat away. Instead, he absorbed and accepted them, like a penitence.
She felt him wrap his arms around her and gather her in, the blows ebbing from her hands until her head rested at the base of his neck and her fingers grasped onto locks of his hair. His voice was soft and plaintive, and it lulled her. “I … it’s not easy. I’m an aberration. Unnatural. Unwanted.”
“No,” she whispered back. “I imagine it’s not.” She felt his lips ghost softly, softly across the top of her hair, and slowly but surely find her temples then her cheeks then plunge down to her lips and then, quite simply, she was being devoured. Kisses jabbed and prodded and smoothed over each other until she felt him reach for the zipper to her dress. He heaved her against a tree and pressed hard upon her.
“You’re not ready yet, Angelus,” she whispered, amidst the rain of kisses. He recoiled back from her and looked at her. “You should not presume ….” He pulled away and she felt the tear inside, the loss begin once again to eat at her. She scrambled for the only words she could access that might soothe, that might draw her back to the way things should be. “That’s why, if you come back with me, you can rejoin the Master. To stand at his right hand, as things were always meant to be. As they were fated, my darling boy, that night in Galway when I first saw you and gave you your salvation.”
He moved so swiftly through her speech, through the words she sought with such diligence to find and persuade him, that she could barely countenance it. He was there once more upon her, this time with the stake encased in his hand and arcing down upon her chest.
She burst into a gale of shrieking laughter. “Yes! Go on, Angelus. Stake me through the heart and all your problems will be solved with that foul blow.” His arm faltered then, and slowed until the movement of the stake petered out to lightly skim her dress. “You don’t have the balls to do it, Angelus. You never had and you never will. That’s why you’re such a coward.”
“Don’t tempt me into doing it right here, Darla,” he forced out, his eyes locked into the place where her heart would beat if she were human. “I’ll do it, so help me …”
“But God won’t help you, dear boy. You’re forsaken. Didn’t you get the memo?”
He jumped away from her and turned his back. “I don’t go by that name anymore, Darla.” He dropped the stake and it clattered to the ground.
“What do I call you then, if I can’t call you the name you gave yourself?”
She watched as he ran away from her, so swift and sudden, that soon she was left standing bereft on the street. The lights in the house into which he had been peering flicked off and she was suddenly cast in darkness.
Alone once more with only her wits to guide her. She turned, glanced briefly at the house on Revello Drive, then made her way back to the High School. To wait upon the Master.
Finis
Many thanks to selene2 for the banner.
Author: lillianmorgan
Setting: Pre-Welcome to the Hellmouth, Season 1 BtVS
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Darla/Angel
Disclaimer: I don’t own Joss’ or ME’s toys.
A/N: Written for the 2nd Challenge, the Mystery Challenge, at good__evil.
Thanks go very much to yourlibrarian for the ever-helpful beta.
Rapture in Loss
The summons, when it arrived, was not entirely unexpected. Nor was the means of delivery. A poor, malnourished vampire tramping across sea and land to find her and to impart to her what was expected of her, her duty. She had to put the thing out of its misery, snapping its neck as easily and as cleanly as one might a winter branch from a tree. But at the time she told herself this act of revenge meant that she wouldn’t submit to him easily, even if he was her Sire.
The journey back to the country of her birth was shorter than expected, but perhaps that was the dread settling over her, the weariness of Fate descending and expectation that now followed her. No longer a free agent, but instead allowing herself to be governed by the rules of obligation. The town that held the Master in chains, surrounding the mouth of Hell, was titled with the most absurd name of Sunnydale, as if the town’s founders wished to wipe all knowledge of the things that really dwelled there. As if to suggest that all was beating hearts and roses and sun, sweetest sunshine, that she had not felt upon her fingers for more than three centuries. Nor would she ever need to.
Luke was already sitting at the right hand of the Master, in metaphorical terms of course. It would be rather a distressing thing to be submerged under the earth in such a bleak, cavernous hole in the ground, though, it was the kind of thing that the Master did seem to prefer. Losing all the trappings of human regalia seemed to eschew him of human desire as well.
As it was, Luke was already in place directing the minions when Darla entered the tomb. He barely seemed to notice her, even if she were dressed in one of the finest Gucci suits. In the natural order of things and the world of hierarchy in which they all moved and maintained their position, she should not let this pass given that Luke was a good deal younger than her. But nature had never played an easy hand in her line, and wasn’t she so often reminded of it.
The less than rapturous welcome left her with not much to do but to investigate the state of play for herself and bide her time until the Master’s return. When that day came, in all its magnificent glory, then she would be able to fight back again. As it stood now, she would let Luke think he was the vampire in control of everything. Honeyed smiles and well-placed caresses had been the stable diet upon which she firmed her power, and she was well-versed in how to please. It was easy to take his mind off what he should be thinking, in stolen moments between preparations for the Master’s rebirth, in fact rather too easy and she wondered at that. If she had been a lesser vampire, she might have feared but, instead, she chose to disappear for a few hours. Wipe all memory of her ministrations, leave him wondering how and when and why.
The trip to the surface was uneventful to begin with. The mouth of Hell opened at the entrance to the High School library and she realised that potential victims and supplicants would come from the student population. Young, tender and willing to please. It made her smile. How bothersome it might be if the Hellmouth began at the door to an Old Folks home.
However, it also made her thankful for her youthful looks. And it made her realise she would have to blend in, as she so often had before. Just like in China when she revelled in the beautiful silks of the cheong sams and had worn them with such delight.
Even if events there had ended in tragedy.
It is strange the way the brain works, for as she wandered slowly down tree-lined avenues, one late night in a Californian Fall she happened upon the chief instigator of that tragedy.
He was standing outside a house, and he was much less dishevelled than when their paths had last crossed. He was dressed all in black, including an overcoat which seemed to encase him like a shroud, and his hair was neat and slicked back. He looked like any other youth she might encounter, walking the streets late at night, wending his way home after a college party. Only, in this town, he never would be that.
She slowed down to a creeping walk to try and mask her advance. The smell of her would not be carried so intensely to him if it meandered there. She watched him as he hid behind a hedge, peering inside a nondescript house.
She was almost upon him when he jerked upwards and turned around. She quickened her pace and leapt at him.
“Darla!” He lunged away from her but she held fast, held tight, held on so that she never let him go even though he left her in waking dream and reality.
“What are you doing?” She waved her free hand toward the house. “Is this your next victim? Or possible paramour? It’s hard for me to keep up with the ways of ensouled vampires when I so rarely come upon them.”
His eyes slit to thin lines of black and she could taste his energy and his hate. But that was good, and it made her brighten within, for the feelings of love bordered so closely to hate that there might always be …
“What’s this?” In their grappling, her fingers had run across something sharp and wooden in one of the pockets of his coat. She grasped onto it and yanked out a stake.
“Angelus!” she cried. “Now you carry the means to kill your own kind?”
“It’s not like we’ve never killed vampires before.” His voice was petulant and sulky, like a boy caught with his hand in the toffee jar. It would be so easy to believe that that was all he ever was.
“But now you seek it out? You are ready and armed?” She threw the stake to the ground and whirled upon him. “Why? Why do you do this? Why do you haunt me so?” She slammed fist after fist into his chest, rained down blows that he could so easily bat away. Instead, he absorbed and accepted them, like a penitence.
She felt him wrap his arms around her and gather her in, the blows ebbing from her hands until her head rested at the base of his neck and her fingers grasped onto locks of his hair. His voice was soft and plaintive, and it lulled her. “I … it’s not easy. I’m an aberration. Unnatural. Unwanted.”
“No,” she whispered back. “I imagine it’s not.” She felt his lips ghost softly, softly across the top of her hair, and slowly but surely find her temples then her cheeks then plunge down to her lips and then, quite simply, she was being devoured. Kisses jabbed and prodded and smoothed over each other until she felt him reach for the zipper to her dress. He heaved her against a tree and pressed hard upon her.
“You’re not ready yet, Angelus,” she whispered, amidst the rain of kisses. He recoiled back from her and looked at her. “You should not presume ….” He pulled away and she felt the tear inside, the loss begin once again to eat at her. She scrambled for the only words she could access that might soothe, that might draw her back to the way things should be. “That’s why, if you come back with me, you can rejoin the Master. To stand at his right hand, as things were always meant to be. As they were fated, my darling boy, that night in Galway when I first saw you and gave you your salvation.”
He moved so swiftly through her speech, through the words she sought with such diligence to find and persuade him, that she could barely countenance it. He was there once more upon her, this time with the stake encased in his hand and arcing down upon her chest.
She burst into a gale of shrieking laughter. “Yes! Go on, Angelus. Stake me through the heart and all your problems will be solved with that foul blow.” His arm faltered then, and slowed until the movement of the stake petered out to lightly skim her dress. “You don’t have the balls to do it, Angelus. You never had and you never will. That’s why you’re such a coward.”
“Don’t tempt me into doing it right here, Darla,” he forced out, his eyes locked into the place where her heart would beat if she were human. “I’ll do it, so help me …”
“But God won’t help you, dear boy. You’re forsaken. Didn’t you get the memo?”
He jumped away from her and turned his back. “I don’t go by that name anymore, Darla.” He dropped the stake and it clattered to the ground.
“What do I call you then, if I can’t call you the name you gave yourself?”
She watched as he ran away from her, so swift and sudden, that soon she was left standing bereft on the street. The lights in the house into which he had been peering flicked off and she was suddenly cast in darkness.
Alone once more with only her wits to guide her. She turned, glanced briefly at the house on Revello Drive, then made her way back to the High School. To wait upon the Master.
Finis
Many thanks to selene2 for the banner.