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Best Souvenir
Chapter Six
“You’re joking, right?” Buffy asked. “You’re saying you’re the worthy one? Out of like, all the vampires on the planet?”
Angel put the book aside and scrubbed his hand over his face. He had nothing to do with Acathla. He didn’t want the world swallowed into Hell. It had nothing to do with him—and yet . . . A wave of darkness was roiling in him, surging through his chest. It was proud, powerful, and came as if its name had been called. He shuddered, and tried to push the wave back down. “I don’t think so,” he said at last, his voice strained. It couldn’t be.
“Well, good,” she said irritably, trying to hide her relief. “But that doesn’t explain why the Immortal is so hot for your bod.”
Restlessly, Angel stood up and took several steps away from her. If he was the one worthy to remove Acathla’s sword . . . he could destroy humanity. Life would take its last, shuddering breath, and be gone from this world. It would be . . .
Sweet.
Angel struggled with the force of the exhilaration humming through him, at the same time remembering how good it felt to sink his teeth into human flesh, to break the ripe barriers of a firm, feminine neck, to feel her life force pour down his throat—thick, warm, still pumping. How it felt to gorge, to have so much that it smeared his face, making him feel sticky, hedonistic, alive. Angel put his hands on the sides of his head and closed his eyes. “What makes you think the Immortal wants me?” he asked wearily.
“I’ve been working on him for about eight or nine months,” Buffy said, oblivious to Angel’s sudden discomfort. She walked over to pick up her stake, and something in Angel howled, demanding self-defense. Instead, he remained passive, watching her, and she went on. “When summer started it was due time for the world and life as we know it to be threatened again. The theft of Acathla from the Watcher’s Council had the Immortal’s signature all over it . . . but the world didn’t end. It should have, because I’ve gotten no where near close to finding out where he’s keeping—”
Angel was trying to focus on her words, trying to be reasonable. Trying to figure out why bloodlust was suddenly singing through his heart and fangs, trying to figure out what it meant. “What makes you think the world should end just because it’s summer?” he demanded, more harshly than he meant to.
“I don’t know,” Buffy went on, shrugging. “That’s just the way these things work. You fight some evil force all year, and then right around graduation time everything goes out of wack. Welcome to Buffy’s world.” She shrugged again, looking at him curiously. His hands were on his head, cradling it, as if it hurt.
“So I finally got information out of one of the Immortal’s stooges about why he hadn’t done something with Acathla,” she went on, tilting her head to peer up at him. “And the Immortal’s friends? Not fun to catch. Turns out the Immortal needs this vampire named Angelus, and he was sending Curly, Moe, Larry and co. to Manhattan to go and fetch him.” She paused. “So here I am.” She examined her stake, as if idly. “Gonna tell me now why you’re freaking out?”
Angel grit his teeth, resisting the sudden, insatiable urge to turn around and rip her voice box out. The next thing he would do would be to push her up against the wall and fuck her blind. Then he would give a little nip to her jugular, and maybe fuck her again. Then he would turn her. Then he would find Acathla. Maybe decapitate the Immortal on the way. Then he would destroy the world. Chaos would rain. Darkness would be eternal. It’d make him feel so alive.
But where was his sense of style? Buffy deserved so much more. She should live to see the world swallowed into Hell, and she deserved to be stark raving mad by the time he did it. He wondered where her family lived.
Angel hissed and forcibly removed his hands from his head. “I’m the one who has to pull out Acathla’s sword,” he said, his voice low and dangerous.
Her hand tightened on the stake. “You just said—”
“I don’t know!” he shouted, and then went shudderingly silent. He did not speak for the length of several breaths. When he did, his voice sounded like velvet over steel. “I believe I'm the one. So much that if I wanted to try it, I would, without a second thought to whether I was or not.”
“Okay, one minute you’re not worthy and the next minute you think you are?” Buffy asked testily. She did not seem at all perturbed by the violence in his voice or stance. In fact, she seemed more exasperated than anything else. “Explain to me how this swift mind-changing works, because I am so not getting it.”
Angel tried to focus on the sound of her voice. There was something bright in it, something so sparkling that it could have been annoying had it not been pouring from a deeper radiance within her. Her voice matched her—small, but vibrant with quality. Even through the aggravation in her tone, it reached out to him, calming him, caressing the ridges of his forehead and soothing the yellow away from his eyes. The hunger for blood was still there, but the lusts of his soul were stronger. He wanted to overcome the demon for her, to be strong so he could be there for her and help her. He wanted to hope again.
At last, his shoulders slumped. When he turned around, his eyes were soft and brown and warm. “I don’t want it,” he said at last, his voice begging her to understand. “I don’t want to be worthy of anything to do with Acathla or Hell or apocalypse. I didn’t want to believe it.” He shook his head and heaved another sigh. “I . . . I wasn’t listening to all of myself when I answered you the first time. I do believe it—I just wish I couldn’t.”
Buffy’s posture eased up a little. Her eyes softened, and he looked away. He didn’t think he could bear the sympathy in her eyes. “Believe it or not,” she said gently, “I know what you mean.” She edged a step closer. Unable to bear her closeness—not when the demon was still clawing inside him, demanding, with equal desperation and longing, that he take the Slayer and destroy the world—Angel jerked away.
Stung, Buffy retreated, and a painful silence followed. When she spoke, her voice was harsh. “So, what are you, anyway?” she asked. “A schizoid?”
“What?”
“You said you ‘weren’t listening to all of yourself.’ You mean like multiple personalities?”
He looked at her for a moment, and finally said, “Kind of.” Then he turned away. The wave of bloodlust—the demonic insistence that he was worthy of Acathla—had died down, but it was still there, chanting through his stolen blood. It was never very far away. Taking the towel off from around his neck, he went back to the bathroom, unfolding the other T-shirt she had gotten him. It said "Bada Bing!" in bold letters across the front, with something like a subtitle reading "Little Italy, NYC" under it.
Buffy followed him into the bathroom, clutching the stake tightly, though her movements held hesitation. “But you don’t want to wake up Acathla,” she said tentatively, as if seeking confirmation.
He paused in the process of putting the shirt on, his eyes drawn to her by the catch in her voice. He had told her he was the one who could awaken Acathla and swallow the world into Hell. It was her duty—her very purpose in life—to slay him this instant without a second thought. But when he looked into her eyes he did not see death. What he saw was confusion, frustration, and not a little bit of pleading. His heart wanted to burst with the realization of what she was feeling: she knew she should slay him now, but she didn’t want to.
“Believe it or not,” she had said, “I know what you mean.” His eyes closed at the memory of her words. She knew what it was to be at war with herself, to know her destiny and all that she was capable of and wish that it was less, different, more innocent. He had not allowed her that sympathy, that moment of connection to him, yet still she reached out. By the apathy of whatever powers were out there—she was trying to save him.
“I don’t want to send the world to Hell,” he told her gently, and finished putting on his T-shirt.
“Why not?” she demanded, her voice unnecessarily loud. “Yesterday you wanted me to stake you. You said you didn’t care about anyone, so I doubt this is a ‘love for the human race’ type of thing—or demon race, whatever. You don’t even have a toothbrush, or that hairspray you like. Why not send the world to Hell?”
“Maybe if I’d found out about it yesterday, I’d’ve done it,” he said. “At least,” Angel admitted, “I know I wouldn’t have cared. But now—”
“Yeah, now. You said. Things are different now. What you didn’t say is why.”
Angel looked uncomfortably around him, trying not to meet her eyes. The answer was simple. She needed his help.
She was the first, the only, to ever turn to him, to ever make him feel as though he could actually be worth something to anybody. He had tried helping people, on multiple occasions. But the world did not want his help, and he knew he was only being indulgent and self-pitying by imagining that anything he had done could be redeemed. And then entered Buffy—the Slayer, of all things. She should have been his worst enemy, but because of what she should have been, she was the enemy of his enemies and so she was his ally. Together, they could kill them. Kill them all. They could stop the Immortal and destroy Acathla, and though doing these things could never redeem him, they might at last bring peace.
But there was more to Buffy than killing vampires and saving the world, and it was that something more that inspired the strangest hope of all. There was Buffy kicking him in the alley and then hesitating because he was weaker than she, because it was not in her nature to hurt anyone when he was down. There was Buffy as she had been this morning when she awakened him with her scent, Buffy turned on and crying in the shower, her tears and her arousal revealing secrets he suspected she would have preferred to keep hidden. He could feel her goodness, her warmth and her compassion and her tenderness shining through, making the walls she’d built about herself fragile and vulnerable.
She made him want to keep that heart of hers safe—to warm it with his own. Somewhere between when she kicked him in the alley and now, a light had begun to shine within him, as though at the end of a deep dark tunnel. The light was golden, and looked like her.
How could he even begin to explain?
“You . . .” he started.
“Look,” she interrupted impatiently. “One hot shower never changed anyone’s life. I know for a fact that vampires like to destroy the world. It’s a thing they do.”
“Not all vampires,” Angel said. At her annoyed expression, he looked defensive. “Most of them just like to talk big. Most of them have no vision.”
Buffy scowled. “And let me guess. You just happen to be one of these vision-less vampires.”
He pursed his lips and looked away. “No.”
“Then remind me again how come you don’t want Hell to swallow the world?”
“You said I could help you.” His voice was very low.
Glowering, she crossed her arms over her chest. “Oh great,” she murmured sarcastically. “Don’t tell me you want to become a Slayerette. Who died and gave you a soul?”
His head jerked up as if it was on a string, but after meeting her eyes for one, burning instant, he looked away again. She didn’t know about his soul; he was certain now. He was pretty sure the gypsy curse wasn’t on record anywhere, but there was no way to be positive. Now it was clear that she thought he was harmless completely because of this chip thing she’d mentioned. What exactly a chip was, he wasn’t sure. It must have something to do with computers. Then again, maybe instilling vampires with souls had become common; maybe it was done with a chip.
From the few things Buffy had said, if Darla’s soul really had been restored, the Slayer hadn’t cared. Buffy had spoken of Darla with carelessness and indifference—just another vampire, just another pile of dust in the Slayer’s wake. That was part of the reason why he had not told Buffy that he actually did possess a soul. He feared that if he told her, it would make no difference in how she thought of him. He was a vampire; a soul didn’t make him human or worth her consideration. He still had all the lusts and desires of a demon—as the sudden need to get at Acathla and destroy the world had more than proved earlier. Looking at her now, it was obvious to Angel that even if Buffy was only being sarcastic when she mentioned him having a soul, him actually having one wouldn’t change her mind about him. She treated the subject sneeringly, cavalierly, as if nothing could redeem him.
She was, of course, right.
But even if she had thought differently, he didn’t want to use his curse as protection. He could not use it to escape any punishment owed him; what he had now was not an excuse for all the terror he’d brought human beings in his past. Most of all, if it did change her perception of him, he knew he wouldn’t be able to stand having her look past the vampire into the human soul he possessed, only to see that it was lacking. He had not been a decent human being, before his turning. Since regaining his soul, he hadn’t brought the world an ounce of light or beauty. His soul had turned out to be a complete cipher, filled only with guilt for his past. He didn’t want her to see the truth of him, the real and honest truth, and see that he was worse than a nobody, that he was just as expendable and disgusting as any demon falling under her wrath.
“Even if you’re not working with the Immortal,” she said, breaking into his thoughts, “you said yourself he was all seductive or whatever.” She edged toward him, her tone accusatory, suspicious. “Who’s to say that if he offers you a toothbrush and some shirts with collars you won’t rush over to join him?”
“I wouldn’t do that.”
“Maybe. But maybe he could make you do it. He could just capture you and force you to remove the sword. Then what?”
“I don't think he could make me withdraw the sword.”
“There with the modesty again. You don’t seem to understand. The Immortal is big and strong. You’re a bum without hair gel. He could so kick your ass.”
Angel paused. “Maybe. But that’s not what I meant. I think it probably involves performing rituals. Maybe an incantation, death of an innocent person, that sort of thing. He could never force me to join in.”
“Because of the chip,” Buffy said slowly. Angel scowled and looked away. Buffy took a step into the bathroom, her small body threatening and aggressive in its stance. She had already decided what she was going to do with him, but all her reason was telling her she should be staking him right this instant. He should be realizing this, realizing there was no other way. He should be cowering in fear, begging her not to hurt him. He should be helping to convince her—with his fear and certainty that she was going to dust him—that dusting him was the right thing to do. Instead, he was making it harder. The look in his eyes was so . . . human.
“You don’t know for sure what it takes to wake up Acathla,” she pressed, edging forward. “And the Immortal seems to think it requires you, that he could get you to do it.” She changed her grip on her stake, holding it now like the weapon it was. “You see my point,” she murmured.
Angel looked away passively. “You’re saying it would be better if you just staked me and had it done with,” he said in a toneless voice.
“Last night you asked me to do it,” she badgered, hoping to break him out of his cool façade of nonchalance. She took another step closer. “Would you be sorry, now?”
He met her eyes once again. “Yes,” he said.
With a movement so fast he could not have stopped her, even at full strength, she closed the space between them, and placed the stake at his heart. For a moment, the world was suspended, her position taut against him, her stake trained on him. He was utterly still, not even pretending to breathe. His skin was cool but his eyes were somehow warm, filled with sympathy as he looked down at her. It was all she could do to grip the stake and not do something completely rash. He was the key to Acathla. He was the demon she had been sent to subdue. He was a vampire and she was the Slayer.
It was all she could do not to reach out and touch him.
Suddenly, she laughed harshly. “Bet you’re really resenting that chip now, huh?” she rasped.
It was Angel who reached out to touch her. He wondered if she was going to stake him. He wondered if he cared, with her this close. He wanted to wrap himself around her—slim, trembling, golden girl—and never let her go. Instead, he reached out a hand, as he had in a dark alley just hours before, and touched her hair.
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A/N: Thanks once again to a2zmom. She rocks my socks!
Disclaimer: Lines lifted from . . . lemme see . . . BtVS S1.1 “Welcome to the Hellmouth,” S3.something “Helpless,” and S2.22 “Becoming.”
Go to: Chapter 7
no subject
This bit --> She knew what it was to be at war with herself, to know her destiny and all that she was capable of and wish that it was less, different, more innocent. He had not allowed her that sympathy, that moment of connection to him, yet still she reached out. By the apathy of whatever powers were out there—she was trying to save him. <-- stuck with me the most. It's lovely and full of emotion.
And this bit --> “There with the modesty again. You don’t seem to understand. The Immortal is big and strong. You’re a bum without hair gel. He could so kick your ass.” <-- cracked me up the most. :D
I'm also really impressed with your handling of Angel's darker impulses. It's a good thing when descriptions of his thoughts freak me out because of their extreme-crazy-evil-Angelus nature, but then I can still be pulled back into loving him because he's Angel. And the whole part with him knowing he wouldn't be any more worthy in her eyes for having a soul goes along with my musings last time, but the fact that she's not killed him yet even though at this point his being alive is more of a liability than an asset gives me hope.
And that very last bit was pretty.
no subject
I know what you mean. I always go back to a quote from lovely old Anne of Green Gables, something like: "I wouldn't like a man who was wicked. I'd like it if he could be wicked, and wouldn't, for me." I personally think Angelus is just the darkest part of Angel--the demon only personifies it. It'd be like having your every dark thought realized and thrust up in front of your face. Since I think most people don't ever face their very darkest impulses, Angel's life must suck. Just a little ;o)
I'm glad you liked the chapter. *Does a little writer dance*