Eye of
the Storm
Author: Flurblewig
Pairing: Angel/Jenny
Rating/Warnings: R for language and sexual content
Timeline/Spoilers: BtVS S2 - Set following 'The Dark Age'
Length: 1,981 words
Written for: The Hetficathon
Disclaimer: They're not mine. I just like to take them out and play with
them sometimes.
A/N: Thanks to desoto_hia873 and killerweasel for the beta ::hugs::
Feedback: Yes please! Email me
In
school, she smiles and pretends she's fine. Most of the time, with most of
the people, she gets away with it. Sometimes though, she can't help but let
it slip. With him, even though he's the one she most wishes she could fool.
Could protect.
"I shouldn't have bothered you," he says, so quietly.
She looks away as he turns his back. She can't stand to see the hurt in his
eyes. She could - should - put it right, she knows; call out to him, pull
him back onto the room. Into her arms. Into her life. Rupert, wait. I'm
sorry. I didn't mean any of that. Come back.
She says nothing, and he leaves.
He's suffering with his own guilt, yes. She understands that. But she is,
too. You make me feel bad that I don't feel better. She wishes she
hadn't said it, would take it back if she could, but - it's still true. She
should be handing this, should be coping. But she isn't.
Rupert, Buffy, even Xander and Willow - they face these things all the
time. The reality of life here, the irrefutable fact of their own - she
can't think of the word she wants. Her brain is so scrambled these days;
she's frightened to poke around in it too deeply. Frightened of what she
might find still lurking there. Peril is the best she can come up
with. It's not right, but it's not too far off. They've seen demons, seen
death, and fought it. Found ways to defeat it. These - these children
have been living the way she was supposed to. She was supposed to be
prepared for this; all her life, she's known about the monsters. Other kids
had Little Red Riding Hood and Cinderella - she had Angelus. She was
supposed to be know the score, supposed to be ready.
But she wasn't. Still isn't. And she hasn't quite worked out how she's
going to deal with that.
*
At home, she pours out generous measures of expensive vodka and then tips
them down the sink. She wants peace, but not like that. She knows there's
no real peace to be found in a bottle. Oblivion maybe - and yes, that's
pretty attractive too, but she wants it on her own terms. She can't imagine
voluntarily handing over control of her mind to anything, ever again. Not
even alcohol.
Rupert calls her a lot, even though she's asked him not to. Sometimes she
answers it and lies, sometimes - more often - she simply lets it ring. She
sits in the dark with the television on, the sound turned down too low to
follow but high enough for her to know that it's there. That's what normal
people do, isn't it? Sit in their living rooms and watch television? Maybe
it's even what Buffy does.
She wishes she were more like Buffy.
*
In her dreams, she kills. An endless parade of violent deaths, all at her
hands. She possesses and rapes and murders, she rends flesh and terrorises
souls, inspires horror and loathing and a hideous, twisted kind of loyalty.
She hunts down Rupert, and Ethan Rayne, and she watches them fuck for her
pleasure. Then she laughs and gorges herself on their unresisting bodies.
And she loves every single bloodstained minute of it.
*
On the streets, she wanders through ever more unwholesome-looking
neighbourhoods. She takes no weapons with her and she understands that she
is risking death. In her more lucid moments she thinks courting it
would be a more appropriate phrase.
She hears screams often. Footfalls behind her, sometimes. But nothing
approaches her. No arm snakes out to grab her shoulder - or her bag, even.
No fang touches her neck.
She thinks at first that it's because they can smell the demon still on
her. That when they look at her they see Eyghon, and so back off, satisfied
that she is not a victim but a kindred spirit.
Eventually, she learns better.
*
In an alley somewhere near the docks, she confronts him.
"Come out. I want to talk to you."
Silence.
She sighs. "Angel. You're good, but you're not that good. I know you're
there."
There's hardly any sense of movement at all, just what seems simply a
shifting of shadows, but then he's there. Hands in pockets, head slightly
bowed. The body language of the caught-out is so familiar, so oddly
reassuring, that for a second she's tempted to give him detention. Maybe
lines. I must not save Miss Calendar from the monsters.
"Well?" she says, because it doesn't look like he's in any hurry
to break the silence.
He looks at her blankly, his face so perfectly still and expressionless.
He's good at that; it must be a skill that comes with death.
I will speak when Miss Calendar speaks to me.
"What are you doing, Angel?" The schoolmistress is creeping into
her voice, and she doesn't try to stop it. If he wants to act like a child,
she'll play her part.
"Walking."
"Walking. And I suppose it's just complete co-incidence that you
always go walking exactly the same time as I do. And in exactly the same
places."
"Yeah."
"Who sent you?"
More silence.
"It was Rupert, wasn't it? He sent you to spy on me."
Finally, a movement. A tiny shrug. "Not to spy. Just - look out for
you. See that nothing - happened. He's worried about you."
"Yeah, well, that makes two of us. I'm worried about me too, I just
think it's a shame that he couldn't have been so concerned for my safety
before he let that fucking demon take over my body, isn't it?"
She realises she's crying, and that just pisses her off even more. She will
not break down. Not in front of the kids, not in front of Rupert, and
certainly not in front of this thing.
"Go away," she says. "Just - go away, Angel."
I will do as Miss Calendar tells me.
He doesn't.
*
In the end, she simply stops going out. It doesn't change things much; he's
still there, outside her door. Watching, waiting. Guarding, maybe.
She watches him from her window; watches him watching her until her
thoughts spin round in so many circles that it makes her too dizzy to think
about anything any more. And then she goes down to the door and issues an
invitation.
He hesitates, and at first she doesn't think that he'll accept - what
danger can she be in, inside her own apartment? She feels stupid for a
second, but then remembers that you never can be too sure. This is the
Hellmouth, after all.
He must come to the same conclusion, because after a while he inclines his
head slightly and follows her inside.
It doesn't actually feel as strange as she'd expected it would, to have him
there. She realises now that nothing here is sacred, nothing is inviolate.
Not her home, not her body, not her mind. Nothing. So why not have Angelus,
her sworn enemy since before she even knew what those words meant, standing
in her kitchen?
He watches her silently as she angrily brushes the tears away. She hasn't
cried this much since she was five years old. The trouble is, that's
exactly how she feels; like a child again - helpless, powerless and so
terribly afraid of the monsters under the bed.
Why did she come here? What did she think she could achieve? Who, even, is
she?
Then she looks at the vampire in front of her and she remembers. She is
Janna, and she is here to do her duty. Even if it does put her in danger.
Even if it kills her.
She stares at him, at this creature whose existence is the reason for her
own. So still, so beautiful. He doesn't look like a monster.
Of course he doesn't, says part of her. The Janna part; cold, hard
and formed out of the need for vengeance. That's why they named him
Angelus.
This is not Angelus, says another part. The Jenny part.
"Show me," she says.
"Show you what?"
"What you are. I need to see what you are."
Eventually, he gets it. Again that slight, almost imperceptible nod, and
his eyes don't waver from hers as they change from brown to yellow. It
leaves her feeling dizzy, as if she'd stood up too fast. She thinks maybe
she did a lot of things too fast.
"Is this what you wanted?" he asks.
She nods, because she doesn't entirely trust her voice. She approaches him
slowly, her eyes never leaving his. Cool, controlled eyes. Predator's eyes.
And still, so beautiful.
Angelus is a monster, a devil. No-one denies that, not Rupert, not Buffy,
not even this creature himself. What, then, is Angel?
He looks like he wants to back away from her, but he doesn't. "What do
you want from me?" he asks.
"I want - I want to see what it looks like," she says.
"Evil. You have it inside you. All the time, inside you. Part of you.
Even with the soul, it's still there. I want to see what it looks like.
What I looked like."
"Jenny -"
"Because it feels good, doesn't it? The power, the hate. I had Eyghon
inside me and I liked it. This demon, this evil, this filth, and I liked
it, I fucking liked it, and I -"
"Stop it," he says. "Stop it." He catches her hands,
which shocks her. She hadn't even realised they were moving. Who was she
trying to hurt, Angel or herself? She doesn't know.
She's breathing hard, almost panting, and it just serves to highlight the
fact that he's not. That stillness, that wonderful, wonderful peace.
Finally, she knows what she wants.
She bares her neck to him. "Do it," she says.
"What? Jenny, what -"
"Do it. Bite me. Finish it, Angel. Finish what you started. You like a
nice gypsy girl, don't you? You always -"
He slaps her, hard. Her head rocks back and her hand flies to her face. She
tastes blood in her mouth.
His nostrils flare, and then he's moving - moving with that incredible,
terrifying grace. His hands are on her body and his mouth is on hers before
she can draw another breath, and she wonders for a second if she's going to
black out. Wonders whether she'll wake up again, if she does.
His tongue is sliding against hers, and she feels a flare of pain along the
side where she's bitten it. She makes a small, involuntary noise, and he
pulls back.
"Is this what you want?" he asks her, taking her hand and
pressing it against the hard swelling in his jeans.
She closes her eyes against the force of his golden ones. This is what it
feels like, then, to stand in the eye of the storm. The wind is whipping
around her, ready to lift her and spiral her up. Sacrifice her to its
primal, bestial gods. It shrieks her name - all her names - and she wants
so much to just hold up her arms and let it carry her. But. But. There are
other names in the swirling air, and they are Rupert and Buffy.
She steps back. Out of the wind. "No," she says, and they both
know that she's lying.
The angles of his face slide and move, and then it's just Angel again.
"This is what you do," he says. "You fight. All the time.
Every day, you pick it up and you fight. It's tough and it's unfair and
it's fucking hard, but it's what you do."
She nods and tries to thank him, but he's already gone.
In the other room, the television is still chattering quietly to itself.
She switches it off, then picks up the phone and dials Rupert's number.
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