Angel fanfiction
Nov. 6th, 2005 06:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
selenakAnother ficlet originally written for ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
theatrical_muse. The challenge was "Losing Control". Darla/Angel, spoilers for the first two seasons and the season 3 opener.
"But if it is not love that keeps you at his side and him at yours, what else can it be?"
Elisabeth asked Darla as they tried out some French dresses and French seamen in Marsailles. Darla restrained from rolling her eyes. Travelling with James and Elisabeth had amused her and Angelus for a while. All that naiveté married to passable vampire greed had its charmes, and they were both good material to play mindgames with. But the amusement value began to pale.
"Control,"
she replied, and Elisabeth shook her head and declared that this was was fit for master and servant, not for lovers. She kept returning to this subject, even after the men had returned to report on the whereabouts of Daniel Holtz.
"I heard he trapped you both in a barn and you fled, leaving him to die," Elisabeth challenged. James, ever the gentleman, declared it couldn't be true. Angelus laughed.
"It's entirely true. She hit me with a shovel, wished me luck and rode off on our only horse."
"Life is full of surprises," Darla said, smiling at him.
"Ah, life is boring," he replied, and the returning smile in his eyes promised her some excellent sport once they had dealt with Holtz and the children. "You're full of surprises."
Which was true, but then, she had to be. It was a lesson she had learned long before she ever became a vampire. Never become predictable. Never let them know just what they can expect of you, and no matter what kind of makebelieve play you indulge in, never truly let them get the the upper hand.
Always remain in control.
***
Of course, if Angelus had never challenged her for control, they would never have left the Master's side once she had presented her darling boy there. Angelus could make her leave her sire, Angelus was the one who managed to shock even her when choosing to make her latest treat for him, the pious girl who had the sight, into a masterpiece of destruction and rebuilding instead of just another exquisitely served meal. Angelus was the one who managed to make her betray her better knowledge and every conviction by agreeing to take him back even with a soul that screamed out its wrongness to her.
Still, by and large, Darla won most of their power games. She did not start losing in a serious fashion until he staked her in the Bronze to prevent her from killing the little girl he had fallen in love with. Even that blow was somewhat soothed in retrospect by telling herself that at least he had not made her betray herself again. What happened while she was human, the fact that she refused to get sired when he finally offered, when he finally did what she had wanted him to do since the lawyers brought her back, that refusal born out of awareness of what siring her what do to him, it surely had to be blamed on the soul. She was sick, after all. Soul sick.
She hadn't lost control.
***
In all their years together, there was one thing Angelus had never been able to make her do, without or with his soul. Darla had never tried to kill him. She had abandoned him to a possible death early on, true, but she had never actively plotted his demise. When she drove him away with a stake after the gypsies cursed him, she did so because she could not bear to sense the wrongness of him. Her boy and not her boy, there and taken away. But when he called her bluff in China, she was unable to go through with it. Her knife did not cut clear through the bone. It fell uselessly to the side.
It took a second human life, a second death, a second resurrection and flames that engulfed her until she finally had reached a stage where she just wanted to end it. When she was waiting for him at the hotel, there was no more card to be played. She had given up any hope of getting him back. The half-hearted attempt at gaining power had failed as well. And if there was no more hope for anything, what was the point? She just wanted to finish it.
"What do you want, Darla? You want this?" he asked her, tossing down the ring of Blacknil that had become the latest pointless trophy, and when she reacted because she had to, he grabbed her arm and sent her reeling.
"Or maybe what you really want is this!"
He pushed her against the wall and brushed the hair from her face. She hadn't felt his hands since the night of her latest death.
"That may be - what you really want, isn't it?"
No, she thought, no, I'm done with that. But he kissed her, and for a moment, she found herself responding. Then she pushed him back.
"Don't play games with me."
Maybe that was the most absurd thing she ever told him. When had they ever stopped playing games?
Now. Now she couldn't do it anymore. She had no more surprises left, no more ways to reach him. I want it over and done with, she thought, even as he said:
"I'm not playing. I just wanna feel something besides the cold."
Familiar mouth on hers, and she felt something, something, and pushed him off again, laughing, because they were such a joke, the two of them, weren't they? Why had he been able to stake her for that teenager and not now?
"Why're you laughing?" he hissed, and knocked her through the room when she didn't answer. Falling through glass, and she could sense him following, standing over her. There was a sense of déja vu here, and it wasn’t with any of the many violent games they played with each other. Not with any of them. And yet, this had happened before to her. Just when? Where?
"Don't you feel the cold?" he asked.
"What are you doing?" she asked back, because she truly didn't know anymore.
"It doesn't matter," he returned, and it was his body again, pressing against her. "None of it matters."
Something tore inside of her, and she kissed him back. Even before they ended up in his bed, she knew that this time she had lost it for good, lost control, except that it didn't matter anymore. Nothing did. There wasn't any future left or any tomorrow, there was just now, and now was him, was the two of them.
Except that it wasn't. It took the aftermath for her to discover just what the entire thing had reminded her of. When he said "get dressed and get out", she knew.
In all their decades together, in every single encounter from the moment she had marked the Irish boy as her own, sex had always been about the two of them. It hadn't been about romance, or tenderness, or whatever children like James and Elisabeth or later Drusilla and her William were mooning about, but it had been about both of them. Not this time. This time, it had been about him needing someone to drown his miseries with, as surely as any of the men who had paid her for their pleasure had ever done. This time, it had been about him needing a whore.
And by surrendering control to him, she had become a whore, all over again.
theatrical_muse. The challenge was "Losing Control". Darla/Angel, spoilers for the first two seasons and the season 3 opener. "But if it is not love that keeps you at his side and him at yours, what else can it be?"
Elisabeth asked Darla as they tried out some French dresses and French seamen in Marsailles. Darla restrained from rolling her eyes. Travelling with James and Elisabeth had amused her and Angelus for a while. All that naiveté married to passable vampire greed had its charmes, and they were both good material to play mindgames with. But the amusement value began to pale.
"Control,"
she replied, and Elisabeth shook her head and declared that this was was fit for master and servant, not for lovers. She kept returning to this subject, even after the men had returned to report on the whereabouts of Daniel Holtz.
"I heard he trapped you both in a barn and you fled, leaving him to die," Elisabeth challenged. James, ever the gentleman, declared it couldn't be true. Angelus laughed.
"It's entirely true. She hit me with a shovel, wished me luck and rode off on our only horse."
"Life is full of surprises," Darla said, smiling at him.
"Ah, life is boring," he replied, and the returning smile in his eyes promised her some excellent sport once they had dealt with Holtz and the children. "You're full of surprises."
Which was true, but then, she had to be. It was a lesson she had learned long before she ever became a vampire. Never become predictable. Never let them know just what they can expect of you, and no matter what kind of makebelieve play you indulge in, never truly let them get the the upper hand.
Always remain in control.
***
Of course, if Angelus had never challenged her for control, they would never have left the Master's side once she had presented her darling boy there. Angelus could make her leave her sire, Angelus was the one who managed to shock even her when choosing to make her latest treat for him, the pious girl who had the sight, into a masterpiece of destruction and rebuilding instead of just another exquisitely served meal. Angelus was the one who managed to make her betray her better knowledge and every conviction by agreeing to take him back even with a soul that screamed out its wrongness to her.
Still, by and large, Darla won most of their power games. She did not start losing in a serious fashion until he staked her in the Bronze to prevent her from killing the little girl he had fallen in love with. Even that blow was somewhat soothed in retrospect by telling herself that at least he had not made her betray herself again. What happened while she was human, the fact that she refused to get sired when he finally offered, when he finally did what she had wanted him to do since the lawyers brought her back, that refusal born out of awareness of what siring her what do to him, it surely had to be blamed on the soul. She was sick, after all. Soul sick.
She hadn't lost control.
***
In all their years together, there was one thing Angelus had never been able to make her do, without or with his soul. Darla had never tried to kill him. She had abandoned him to a possible death early on, true, but she had never actively plotted his demise. When she drove him away with a stake after the gypsies cursed him, she did so because she could not bear to sense the wrongness of him. Her boy and not her boy, there and taken away. But when he called her bluff in China, she was unable to go through with it. Her knife did not cut clear through the bone. It fell uselessly to the side.
It took a second human life, a second death, a second resurrection and flames that engulfed her until she finally had reached a stage where she just wanted to end it. When she was waiting for him at the hotel, there was no more card to be played. She had given up any hope of getting him back. The half-hearted attempt at gaining power had failed as well. And if there was no more hope for anything, what was the point? She just wanted to finish it.
"What do you want, Darla? You want this?" he asked her, tossing down the ring of Blacknil that had become the latest pointless trophy, and when she reacted because she had to, he grabbed her arm and sent her reeling.
"Or maybe what you really want is this!"
He pushed her against the wall and brushed the hair from her face. She hadn't felt his hands since the night of her latest death.
"That may be - what you really want, isn't it?"
No, she thought, no, I'm done with that. But he kissed her, and for a moment, she found herself responding. Then she pushed him back.
"Don't play games with me."
Maybe that was the most absurd thing she ever told him. When had they ever stopped playing games?
Now. Now she couldn't do it anymore. She had no more surprises left, no more ways to reach him. I want it over and done with, she thought, even as he said:
"I'm not playing. I just wanna feel something besides the cold."
Familiar mouth on hers, and she felt something, something, and pushed him off again, laughing, because they were such a joke, the two of them, weren't they? Why had he been able to stake her for that teenager and not now?
"Why're you laughing?" he hissed, and knocked her through the room when she didn't answer. Falling through glass, and she could sense him following, standing over her. There was a sense of déja vu here, and it wasn’t with any of the many violent games they played with each other. Not with any of them. And yet, this had happened before to her. Just when? Where?
"Don't you feel the cold?" he asked.
"What are you doing?" she asked back, because she truly didn't know anymore.
"It doesn't matter," he returned, and it was his body again, pressing against her. "None of it matters."
Something tore inside of her, and she kissed him back. Even before they ended up in his bed, she knew that this time she had lost it for good, lost control, except that it didn't matter anymore. Nothing did. There wasn't any future left or any tomorrow, there was just now, and now was him, was the two of them.
Except that it wasn't. It took the aftermath for her to discover just what the entire thing had reminded her of. When he said "get dressed and get out", she knew.
In all their decades together, in every single encounter from the moment she had marked the Irish boy as her own, sex had always been about the two of them. It hadn't been about romance, or tenderness, or whatever children like James and Elisabeth or later Drusilla and her William were mooning about, but it had been about both of them. Not this time. This time, it had been about him needing someone to drown his miseries with, as surely as any of the men who had paid her for their pleasure had ever done. This time, it had been about him needing a whore.
And by surrendering control to him, she had become a whore, all over again.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2005-11-06 08:04 pm (UTC)I finally got a chance to go through Wesley's f-list and saw this there, and then here this morning.
Really, really well done and I think it captures not only the essential of Darla and Angelus' relationship, but also why that scene felt so wrong when contrasted with them.
no subject
Date: 2005-11-06 08:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-06 08:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-06 10:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-07 05:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-06 11:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-07 04:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-07 10:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-08 04:50 am (UTC)I tried to be a little more objectively here, though.*g*
no subject
Date: 2005-11-08 01:56 pm (UTC)The last line really moved me. Poor Darla.
I already found Angel cruel in this scene, but you add another dimension to it.
Thank you for writing this.
Sorry that I'm not more eloquently.
Greetings, Py.
no subject
Date: 2005-11-13 01:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-01-07 10:06 am (UTC)The recurring theme of control is great! Like you, I believe being in control is extremely important to Darla.
Your story shows clearly that Angel can be a lot darker than Darla who after all never went through with her threats of killing him.
no subject
Date: 2006-01-07 10:57 am (UTC)