Rating: PG
Summary: Angel is back in Drusilla's bed, but has fallen in love with Willow. Angel POV. Companion piece to Knew Too Late, which can be found here:
http://magical-worlds.us/gabrielle/viewstory.php?sid=87
Feedback: PLEASE!
Distribution: Soulmates, UCSL, wacky witch, WLS, NHA, Bite Me.Please, my site, all the usual suspects. Anyone else, please ask first.
Disclaimer: I own nothing. It all belongs to Joss and a bunch of other people who are not now and have never been me.
Author's Notes: This is for aaronlisa, whose challenge inspired the first fic. Happy Birthday, honey! I hope you enjoy this!
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He could hear her crying.
It was the same every night. Just as it had been the very first night. Willow was sobbing herself into a fitful slumber as he stood outside her bedroom door.
Angel had hoped it would be different by now. She had been with them for a month. A month of travel, of lavish gifts, and of treating his Willow like royalty. A month of tears, of pleas, and of her rejection of Angel's love and even his friendship. And it never changed.
From the first night after he had told her that they would be remaining with Drusilla 'til now, Willow had remained obdurate. She didn't want him, didn't want to be his, didn't want to be here. He had assured her that he would never try to seduce her or take her by force. After all, thanks to the curse, he could never have her completely, knowing with certainty that taking her to his bed would cost him his soul. But she still shrank from the slightest touch of his hand on her shoulder, refused to allow him to hold her or comfort her, hated his mere presence in her room.hated him.
At least he had Drusilla to console him, he thought to himself. Drusilla, whose body and the pleasure it could give him were responsible for this whole twisted mess that his life had become. Who had kidnapped Willow in a desperate scheme to get her Daddy back. Who he took in every imaginable way each day, glorying in the freedom to lose himself in passionate coupling without losing his soul. And without whom he wouldn't have Willow at all.
Angel knew, without doubt, that if they were still in Sunnydale, he would still be trapped in the clutches of Buffy's smothering obsession. Watching Willow with Oz or Xander. And stifling the love he now knew he had long felt for the shy redhead so effectively that he would still be unaware that it existed within him.
But it did. And it burned. Burned like the fires of Hell from which he had only recently escaped. And as much as it hurt to have her here, so filled with pain and hatred for him, it would hurt so much more not to have her at all. There was an ecstasy in this longing for what he might never have that far outshone anything he had experienced with Buffy. It wasn't happiness, but it was exquisite anguish that shone in its purity and intensity in a way that he had never known before. And it grew with each passing day until its horrible beauty almost overwhelmed him. Despite the fact that its object refused to return, or even accept, his love for her. Despite the fact that his love wouldn't even let him hold her while she cried herself to sleep.
He stood outside Willow's door, waiting 'til her hiccuping sobs quieted into the even breathing that denoted slumber. Then he turned and went back to his room. Drusilla would be waiting for him there. Ready to warm him with her cold flesh. He would take comfort in her willing, eager body. Drown out the sound of Willow's tears with the shrieks and moans of his childe's ecstasy. And while Willow wouldn't love him tomorrow, maybe, in time.
The End.