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As Moonlight Unto Sunlight
Disclaimer: Characters from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel: the Series are property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, Kuzui Enterprises, Sandollar Television, the WB, and UPN.
Part II
For the first time in nearly a century, the destroying Angel once again walked a fearful earth without the encumbrance of a soul. The resulting depredations should have been written in serried volumes of blood … but a disparate set of factors combined to reduce the immediate impact.
First was the re-alliance with Drusilla and Spike. A natural choice, almost automatic with all the survivors of the original hellish “family” now in Sunnydale, it nonetheless provided distractions. The wheelchair-bound Spike to be taunted, mocked, and made to burn in his own impotence (boy had always had to be kept in his place, and the current situation was simply too convenient to ignore). Drusilla to be seduced all over again: little effort needed there, but enjoyable in its own right, and it never hurt to re-emphasize just where the power and desire had always resided, and now did again. Taking over, directing, disciplining and shaping the hodgepodge of minions Spike and Drusilla had accumulated, scatter-shot, in their disorganized Sunnydale campaign.
Mostly, though, there was the matter of determining how to proceed against the Slayer and her human helpers.
As things now stood, that had to be evaluated as two separate issues, and then the facets integrated into a solution that would satisfy every imperative. The Slayer was one facet: for all Angel’s dismissive contempt of the pride Spike took in having killed two Slayers (a helpless victim bled and died just as gratifyingly as a “worthy opponent”, and screamed so much more entertainingly), there would be no bearing the whelp if he racked up yet another, so this one had to be Angel’s. The second facet …
Even now, it was almost intolerable to think about. The human who had won the remorseful monster’s heart. Tearful confidences, whining confessions of past sins, moonbeam dreams of shared bliss and the revolting memory of all that yearning hope. Angel had loved a human — loved! — and that kind of thing couldn’t simply be shrugged off. No, the object of that puling devotion had to pay, to suffer, to have every vestige of life and happiness torn away in pain and terror, and die at last cursing the hateful day that had seen the filthy connection begin.
Only in that way could the last vestiges of the Vampire With a Soul be finally, suitably obliterated.
So, time taken, and a slow, delicate, self-serving approach to what should have been a direct, brutal task. There was plenty of pleasure to be had in the process, to be sure. The periodic butchery of the former lover’s classmates, “messages” to the Slayer. The killing and posing of the gypsy computer teacher, which had served fourfold purposes (long-overdue payback to the Kalderash; pre-emptive strike to prevent the re-imposition of the hated soul; further demoralization of the Slayer; and, not to be minimized, the delicious recognition of just how much it had hurt the Watcher). Even — oh, yes — Spike’s frustration at how protracted this vengeance was proving to be.
The long-term consequences, however, turned out to be something else again. Who could have predicted betrayal from one of the inner circle, teaming with the Slayer against Angel? Who would have expected the forsaken lover to show such depths of ingenuity, determination, refusal to surrender? Who could have known that a neophyte with no apparent mystical capability might succeed in recreating the Kalderash ensoulment process?
Yet that was what happened. Treachery from within, a surprise attack at the critical moment, and Drusilla and Spike abruptly departing Sunnydale (one unconscious, the other gleefully knocking down highway signs with the DeSoto every few miles) while Angel and the Slayer fought the climactic battle alone. The retrieved soul crashing like a thunderbolt back into the unwilling vessel from whom it had been stripped. Acathla opening a vortex to Hell, and the Slayer’s sword sealing that passage in a strike that hurled the now-innocent vampire into an eternity of torture …
… and, months later, Angel being ejected, naked and whimpering and rather more than half-insane, back into the empty mansion in Sunnydale. To be found almost immediately by a stunned Slayer, and kept and protected until healing could take its course …
… which action, of course, bore consequences of its own.
* * *
The confrontation in the library was over, the awful litany of accusation ended for now, but Buffy felt like a beaten gong, body still quivering from the blows (words, only words, but never had any fists struck so hard) directed against her. They had it all wrong, they didn’t understand … except they weren’t wrong, not entirely, and separating out her misdeeds from their misunderstandings was a task beyond the capabilities of her tired brain.
For weeks she had been juggling three lives: school and friends and family; then the necessary activities of the Slayer; and finally the harrowing, unrewarding, maddeningly slow process of nursing Angel back to health and stability. Each of those lives seemed to have something that had to be kept hidden, and the pressure had built until she had been ready to scream for relief.
This wasn’t relief. The biggest secret was out, finally (Angel alive, Angel back, the vampire being cared for by the Slayer), but in a way that had only made everything worse. She had been trying so hard to be responsible, to be understanding, to come to terms with things that were all but impossible to reconcile. Now she was being blamed for all her efforts.
She hadn’t forgotten that she wasn’t the only one carrying wounds, but she had let herself lose sight of just how deep those wounds ran in the others, and how devastating it would be to have the stitches all ripped out without warning.
Cordelia had been the easiest to bear. “Something for memory lane here: last time around, Angel barely laid a hand on the high-and-mighty Slayer … because, hey, your vampire squeeze was way more interested in coming after US.” Petty, biting, direct, but lacking the knifelike thrust to the heart.
Worse was Willow. “Nobody’s here to blame you, Buffy.” (Meaning they all blamed her.) “I feel that when it comes to Angel, you can’t see straight.” (As if any of them could!) The very earnestness of the attempts to forestall censure made it clear just how completely Willow believed Buffy’s actions needed defense.
Giles … oh, God, Giles. The last awful blow, delivered after all the others had left: “I won’t remind you that the fate of the world often lies with the Slayer. What would be the point? Nor shall I remind you that you’ve jeopardized the lives of all that you hold dear by harboring a known murderer. But sadly, I must remind you that Angel tortured me … for hours … for pleasure. You should have told me that this, this creature was alive. You didn’t. You have no respect for me, or the job I perform.” Words driven into her like remorseless blows on a chisel.
But worst, worst beyond description, was Xander. Not just what he said: “Hope not. Because I think you’re harboring a vicious killer.” “I don’t need an excuse. I think lots of dead people actually constitutes a reason.” Not even the pitiless harshness in his voice, or the hate in his eyes, because she knew they weren’t directed at her. No, what made it so indescribably horrible was the understanding of what lay underneath it all.
She knew. Knew, from a careless comment long after the fact, that Willow had tried to send word through Xander that she was about to make another attempt at restoring Angel’s soul. Knew exactly why Xander had delivered an entirely different message: “She says … she says you know what you have to do. It’s all up to you now.” Knew why he could never forgive, why only Angel’s death would ever be enough to satisfy him.
The price of that deception had been so high. A summer spent in anonymous limbo, cut off from all contact, lost in pain and self-loathing and the aching need to forget. A belated return that only triggered a tag-team chorus of recrimination, quickly regretted but never forgotten. The slow, halting recovery from a flurry of wounds, everyone in their entire group, that imperfect healing buttressed by the unspoken mandate to never speak of the one who had caused it all.
Angel. Always, always, always, it went back to Angel …
Buffy came to an abrupt halt. She had been walking, almost blindly (on her way home, though she hadn’t consciously realized it), while the maelstrom of her thoughts whirled through her. Now, ahead of her, Xander stood blocking the sidewalk. Eyes still hard, mouth still tight, and when he spoke there was no attempt to throttle the savagery in his voice. “You knew. Knew what this would mean to us. Knew what it would mean to me.”
She nodded, eyes suddenly flooding with the tears she had successfully quelled till now. “Yes,” she whispered.
“Why?” He grabbed her by the shoulders, and even though she could have broken him like a handful of dried spaghetti, she was helpless now. “Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t you tell me?!!”
Because I know what you did, she couldn’t say. Because you lied, and made me kill Angel — at least that’s what we both thought it would be — and I just wasn’t ready to face what that said about you.
The words were there, but they wouldn’t leave her lips. She looked to him, stricken, lost, and the only answer possible for her was, “I couldn’t.” Again, too faintly to be heard but only read in the shape of her lips: I couldn’t.
* * *
Trust. It may take a long time to be earned, or (justified or not) granted quickly. Once lost, however, its recovery is a halting, convoluted process, with frequent reverses and substantial likelihood of failure along the way. Unsouled, Angel had killed and tortured and lightheartedly tried to end the world … and, not worse but perhaps more difficult to forgive, had taken love and twisted it into a weapon, laughing with unfeigned pleasure at the sight of the pain resulting.
A wronged lover might be able to get past having precious memories perverted by a smiling demon. Said lover’s friends and confidants? different matter entirely. And if you introduced yet another person into the dynamic …
Particularly if the newcomer was another Slayer.
Faith, of course, her potential activated by the death of Kendra, coming to Sunnydale for reasons never entirely made clear, and first meeting Angel under decidedly unfavorable circumstances: Giles struck down, the duplicitous Gwendolyn Post — her true nature not yet revealed — pointing an accusing finger at the nearest likely target, Faith launching herself at the reborn vampire whose bloody reputation she had heard detailed in depth. (And it didn’t help that Buffy’s intervention had led to physical combat between the two Slayers; with Faith both envious of Buffy and hungry for her approval, the conflict would inevitably have felt like rejection.) Though not party to the original set of grudges, the dark Slayer had issues of her own, enough to spark an entirely independent source of distrust and disaffinity with a creature she had no particular cause to regard favorably in the first place.
No, for any number of reasons, Angel and Faith were never likely to be close.
That did not, however, mean they had nothing in common.
* * *
She came awake with a silent baring of teeth and an instinctive lunge to escape, the motion immediately thwarted by the chain that shackled her to a bracket in the wall of the mansion. It wouldn’t hold her if she was determined — metal would give, would crack and eventually break under the sustained assault a Slayer could bring to bear — but it would slow her enough to give her captor time to react.
Speaking of which. Faith looked to where Angel sat by the fireplace, toying with the baseball bat that had rendered her unconscious. “You’d’a never taken me without that,” she said defiantly.
Angel’s response was a shrug and a glance toward the bat. “That’s why I used it.” Another shrug. “Sorry about the chains. It’s not that I don’t trust you, but … well, I don’t trust you.”
Faith laughed. While finding herself in captivity wasn’t a new experience (unwelcome, yes, but she had some experience there), disapproval was an old and familiar friend. “Finally decided to tie me up, huh? Always knew your history would come with its share’a kinks.”
She’d been trying to get a rise out of the vampire (make ’em uncomfortable, even angry, you could use that), but Angel wasn’t biting. “Been there, done that. Right now, I’ve got other things on my mind.”
Faith’s natural attack response wouldn’t help right now; she reined it in, aware of just how defenseless she was here. “Look,” she wheedled, “the thing with Xander, I know what that looked like, okay? But we were just playing.”
No smile on that pale face. “And he forgot the safety word?” Angel’s tone was even, revealing nothing. Then, rising and walking toward her: “Is that it?”
Now nothing could override her innate defiance. “Safety words are for wusses,” Faith said with open scorn.
Angel knelt in front of her, those depthless obsidian eyes revealing nothing. “You’re not big on trust games, are you, Faith?”
The intrusion into her space, the physical challenge, was overt and deliberate. That didn’t mean it had no effect. Faith felt a stab of desire, instantly quenched by the determination to be ruled by nothing outside her own will. “You gonna try and shrink me now?” she snarled. “Is that it?”
“No,” Angel said, soft and controlled. “I just want to talk to you.”
Which probably would have worked a lot better without the bat to the face as an intro. Or maybe not. “That’s what they all say,” Faith shot back. “Then it’s just, ‘Lemme stay the night. I won’t try anything, I promise.’ ”
Those unreadable eyes regarded Faith with no sign of actual curiosity. “Do you really see that as being an issue between us?”
“Voice of experience,” Faith shot back. “You tellin’ me the thought never crossed your twisty little mind?”
Faith had developed some expertise with hitting where it hurt, but this sally had no effect. “You want to go the long way around, here?” Angel asked, impersonally as if addressing a talking gerbil. “I can do that.” Then, standing without hurry: “I’m not getting any older. You can’t say the same for yourself.”
Then her captor left, walking out of the atrium. Faith didn’t know how long, or for what purpose — talking about her with B, or even Xander? — but she used the opportunity to attack the chain. Stouter than it had originally looked, maybe this was one of the bunch B had used to restrain Angel while waiting for sanity to come creeping back, it would take more than an hour of focused and knowledgeable effort to weaken it to the breaking point. Faith gave it her all, there was no telling how long the vampire would be gone, and fighting was better than waiting helpless.
She wouldn’t really have killed Xander. She wouldn’t have.
Not on purpose.
She wasn’t even aware of Angel’s return, at first, so total was her onslaught on the fettering chain and her own unwelcome memories. Then she felt it, that flickering itch of Slayer awareness, and looked up to see that the vampire was back, installed again at the vantage point at the fireplace, regarding her with that insufferable air of emotionless assessment. “I know what’s going on with you,” Angel observed conversationally.
Faith’s lips twisted in automatic derision. “Join the club. Everybody’s got a theory.”
“Right.” Angel stood, moved forward to face her. “But, trust me on this, I know what it’s like to take a life. To feel a future, a world of possibilities, snuffed out by your hand. I know the power in it, the exhilaration.” A pause, a breath. (Punctuation only, vampires didn’t need air to function.) “It was … heady. Invigorating. Like a drug.”
“Yeah?” Faith sneered. “Sounds like you need some help. Like maybe a professional.”
The response was a dismissive flick of one hand. “A professional couldn’t have helped me.” Angel sat on the coffee table a few feet from where Faith was shackled. “The appetite I’m talking about? it stopped when I got my soul back. My human heart.” A moment’s pause, a sidelong look. “You already have that, though. But still the appetite. I think you can see why we’re concerned here.”
Faith’s laugh was derisive, mocking. “Is that really the reason you’ve got me locked up for bondage fun? Or is it something else?” She leaned forward, all her physical vulnerability not enough to keep her from launching the challenge. “Me and Xander. That’s really what’s getting to you, isn’t it? He was with me. He moved on. And you just can’t deal with that.”
Angel’s expression went blank, remote. Then, quietly and with absolute steadiness: “You’re here because you killed someone. By accident, I understand that, but you followed it by saying flat-out that you felt no regret, no remorse. Then I caught you straddling Xander with your hands around his throat.” A sigh. “The first part, I could deal with; the second, yes, I have a problem there.” Then Angel leaned toward Faith, mirroring the dark Slayer’s earlier motion, and the expression on that face was amused and knowing and infuriatingly dismissive. “Besides,” Angel added softly, “do you really believe you gave Xander what he gave me? that moment of perfect happiness?” The righteous moralizing had been replaced by something else, and Angel’s total assurance was too smugly self-satisfied to be anything but genuine. “If you think that, you don’t know him at all. Or me. Or yourself.”
And then, before Faith could begin to formulate a reply, the goddamn Watchers broke in, Wussley Wyndham-Pryce at the forefront brandishing a cross, and in moments Angel was snared in net and ropes and beaten down with crowbars and dismissed as immaterial (Christ, couldn’t anyone just fucking kill vampires anymore?), and Faith was immobilized in even heavier chains and borne away for what these jerkweeds thought was judgment.
Didn’t matter, not really. It just meant the reckoning would come later, after Faith had been given the time to work up some really sweet retribution.
’Cause when it came to sex, she had skills, mad skills, and nobody — but nobody — was gonna diss her on that.
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