Amanda Sichter
He had never understood Angelus.
It was the casual nature of his cruelty that had always baffled Wesley. The gleeful sadism, the need to hurt before killing, the infliction of suffering. He had always wondered if Liam had been the kind of child who enjoyed tearing the wings off butterflies; whether some inherent streak of evil had only been brought out, made stronger, when he was turned.
Now he wondered what it would feel like if he leaned down and sank his teeth into the slim white column of Lilah's throat until he drew blood.
He wondered if it would feel like anything at all.
She arced beneath him, driving her hips into him, keening softly and he wondered momentarily if she could sense his thoughts, whether pain would excite her. He dropped his mouth to her breast, bit hard upon her nipple. He was rewarded with her gasped, 'Fuck!' and then her fingernails raked down his back, drove hard into his buttocks, forced him even deeper inside her.
There was physical sensation. He could feel the tightness of her wrapped around his hard cock, her wetness, the sting of her nail-marks on his back, the harsh pressure of her hands holding him tightly, the sudden hard butt of her cheekbone against his skull, the nip of her teeth on his ear. There was pleasure there, and pain, but it fell into the well inside him, the dark empty space where his feelings had once been anchored, given context, made real.
He knew the emptiness.
She lifted her legs, pale and perfect, wrapped them behind his back, her half-open fists beating against him and his father walked towards him, voice low, taunting, speaking the cruel words that pinned him in his place, told him in minute and excruciating detail exactly how small and insignificant and meaningless and useless he was. The door was shutting, locking, the turn of tumblers keeping him in the dark where he translated Hamlet into demonic languages to keep himself sane. The door opened to his father telling him that he wouldn't have to keep putting him there if he would just show some talent, live up to even one expectation. It was the empty spaces behind his father's eyes that had promised him that there would always be a next time.
He reached down between their bodies and slid his fingers over her clitoris and she hissed his name and Faith said his name, syllables without meaning, a noise made to fill the silence. She reached forward with glass already stained with blood and sliced again, not deeply, just enough to open the skin, to let him feel the soft welling of blood as his nerve endings screamed as he would not scream. His pain was in his eyes, and she drank it in, trying to feel it, and his pain fell away into the abyss inside her, seeking to touch her, but there was nothing there and she reached forward with the glass and tried again.
She shuddered beneath him, her eyes closed as she mouthed something that could have been "oh god oh god" except she was Lilah and did not believe and he saw Angelus walk out of the dark, Angel, who was not Angel any more, but a demon brought out by bliss, by Bliss. Angel/us who used his words as a scalpel, a battering ram, making it hurt until his fists took all the pain away. Angel, who was Angel, looking upon his battered face and offering him no comfort, giving comfort only to Faith who had beaten him and cut him and hurt him, because she was the one who needed something to fill the emptiness. Angel, who was not Angelus, knowing what he did and why, understanding his motives, reaching forward with the pillow and pressing it down on him, telling him he wanted him dead and dead and dead and the abyss had opened inside of him.
She relaxed her grip on him, slid back down against the pillow and smiled, reached down with her hand and slipped it beneath him, her fingernails a delicious friction against the back of his cock and Fred turned her back on him. He was wrong, she told him he was wrong and the prophecies were false and all that he done was for nothing and he wanted to explain, he was sure she understood, she had known why. But she wouldn't listen to the voice he didn't have because they had judged and found him wanting and she said don't come back, don't ever come back and the abyss gaped wider and his soul fell into the dark.
Her smile was triumphant and her other hand gripped tightly in his hair, pulled him closer for a kiss, a devouring kiss all teeth and sharp edges as his hips bucked harder against her and Lilah walked into his flat, all uninvited and called him Judas. Traitor, betrayer, he accepted the names, accepted the hell to which she consigned him, worth nothing more. She had showed him Justine and he had walked away, not caring, not enough of him left to care whether the bitch who nearly killed him lived or died. She had sat before him and he had looked into her empty eyes and gripped her pretty neck, wondering whether he would break it or kiss it and wondering if either choice would make him feel a thing.
He ground against her, a spasm through his hips driving him deep inside her, his body seeking release and he understood Angelus, understood all of them, why they were cruel, why they sought to inflict pain. He was empty now, his soul all curled away, lost in darkness, and if cruelty would fill up the emptiness, if pleasure would make itself real, then he seek them all the days of his life. That was what they had taught him and he had always learned his lessons well.
He was Wesley Wyndham-Pryce and he was battered child and inept Watcher and rogue demon-hunter and ex-employee and leader of a rebellion and head of Angel Investigations. He was loyal and stalwart and brave and he was a good man and over and over he was a good man said Cordy and Angel and Fred and Gunn and he was fucking Lilah Morgan.
She was beautiful. She laughed low and throaty as he gripped her hips and slammed himself into her.
She was evil. He ground himself hard against her alabaster thighs and mouthed things that might have been obscenities against the midnight fall of her hair.
He should love her for her beauty.
He should hate her for her soul.
His body spasmed, a hard thrust inside of her, an explosion behind his eyes and he spilled himself inside of her, long tremulations through his muscles as his body fell from the peak into release.
He didn't feel a thing.
End
Fiction