Title: All The Reasons I Should, Are The Same Reasons Why I Can’t
…Stay Away From You.
Author: Zo
WWW: http://www.warriorsandlovers.com
Email: zoso37ba@gmail.com
Posted: July 18, 2006
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Not mine!
Distribution: If you already archive my stories then feel free, otherwise please ask J
Timeline: BTVS – Season One - The Witch
Pairing: Angel’s POV
Summary: This is being written in response to the First Drabble Challenge at Post Meridiem.
Requirements: 3rd Challenge: Takes place during The Witch.
“Where was Angel during all the drama that occurred with Buffy, Amy, and Giles, etc.?”
There are no stipulations with this challenge. He can be wherever you want, doing whatever you want – within plausible BtVSverse reason.
I’d always wondered that myself, so here is my take on where and what Angel was doing, or rather…thinking.
Feedback: I am a drabble virgin so I don’t know if there are any special requirements, but I’ve always thought of them as a character’s thoughts and feelings during a particular place or time. Which is what this drabble is.
Feedback is always welcomed, especially constructive critiquing and whether or not my idea of a drabble is totally wrong J
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He couldn’t stop thinking about her. It had been two weeks since he first met her in the darkened alley outside of The Bronze, and within those two weeks time moved eerily slowly for him. It wasn’t that time normally moved quickly, because it didn’t. But for some reason these last two weeks were torture.
He guessed it was because every time he went out, he stalked her. Of course she didn’t know it. She had no idea that he lurked behind every bush and in every darkened shadow, following her as she went patrolling. Watching with hungry eyes as she killed his kind, a fact that should probably bother him. She was his natural enemy and yet the feelings that she evoked within him were not fear or hatred, they were impious and…dangerous. Strong and so undeniably real, that he felt blessed by the hand of God to watch her, yet at the same time he felt damned.
He knew from the moment that Whistler showed her to him, that she was special. There was just something about her, something that screamed to him…like she belonged to him. It was as if his destiny was entwined with hers. It was the most powerful feeling he had ever experienced and…it scared the hell out of him, for more reasons than he wanted to admit.
For one thing, it brought him outside…during the day; something that he never would have done before meeting her. Before he would hide until the sun went down, and then only venture outside when his blood rations ran low. But his need to see her, his need to soak in her essence was too strong.
It was the reason he found himself now hovering in a darkened doorway of the school’s gymnasium, a goofy smile on his face as he watched her jump around in an outfit that was innocent enough yet evoked naughty thoughts in his degenerate mind. His eyes crinkled unhappily as they scanned the bleachers and the boys that watched her just as hungrily as he did. He growled low and deep in his throat not liking that one bit.
His eyes closed and he took a deep unneeded breath…reason number two; he barely knew her, had barely spoken to her, and yet the possessiveness that he felt was overwhelming. He had never been a possessive man before. When he was human, he had jumped from one bed to another, not caring if the stranger at the other end of the bar jumped in after him. Even his demon had never been possessive, except when it came to feeding. To them, women were a dime a dozen. Women were only receptacles, either willing or not, for their passions and nothing else. But he knew that She was not that simple. He knew that if he had to watch her kiss another man or even see the slightest glimpse of her hand in another’s, it would kill him, or more to the point, he would kill someone else – happily. Which made him uncomfortable considering he had lived the last hundred years or so trying desperately not to kill anyone. Yet this one slip of a girl made all that disappear. There was no doubt in his mind that he would do anything for her, whether she wanted him to or not.
His only reprieve was that he knew he wasn’t alone in his plight. The demon, felt it too…the connection, the pull to claim her as theirs. It was, oddly enough, something that they were in agreement with…a first for them.
His eyes turned back to her just as she jumped up in the air and performed a split. The demon chuckled, “umm…flexible”, and Angel could only nod his agreement, swallowing hard as he did.
Reason number three…he wanted her. They wanted her. More than he, or his demon, had ever wanted anything before. And it wasn’t because she was the most beautiful woman in the world. Truth be told, he had been with dozens of women that were more exotic in looks, more sinisterly beautiful then Buffy. Women who’s eyes held nothing but decadent pleasure in them, and women, who with just a whisper, could turn a man’s body into a pliable mass of flesh. But Buffy’s eyes didn’t have that self-assurance in them; they were young, hopeful, and innocent. Oh she tried to come off like she was a hip young woman of the world with no fears in her heart. But when they had stood close in the crypt he could read her uncertainty, he could see the underlying passions behind her green orbs as she looked back at him, and he could smell the fear those passions created inside of her. She wanted him too and, thankfully, it scared her as much as it did him.
The sounds of sneakers squeaking across the polished gym floor brought his attention back to her. She walked over to the redhead and the boy that he saw her with the other night at The Bronze. Willow and Xander, he believed their names were. Buffy had only been in Sunnydale for two weeks and already she had close friends. She was a part of something, a group of people that she trusted and liked, people that trusted and liked her. He had never been a part of something like that. Even when he was human, he never appreciated his family. And now…now it was too late.
He watched as they laughed with each other and walked out of the gym, he quietly closed the door and made his way through the basement and toward the library, assuming that they were heading there.
Reason number four…she was very much alive, and he was very much dead. Something that he was pretty sure she would take exception too. Although, when they first met she didn’t seem to realize what he was. Strange, considering that he knew Slayers had those special vampire senses that told them when a vampire was near. And yet, the three occasions that they had stood an arms length away from each other, she never took notice. Or at least he didn’t sense that she did. While his demon was confident that it was their good looks and charm that kept her spellbound, Angel wasn’t. No, he just put it down to inexperience and nothing else.
It made him wonder though, what her reaction would be. What would her thoughts be, to find out that someone she was attracted to was in fact the very thing she was trained to kill. He figured it wouldn’t be good. She would probably feel used and lied to, maybe even dirty. The most likely case scenario, she would stake him. Which maybe wouldn’t be such a bad idea because then he would be put out of his misery. Then he wouldn’t have to deal with all these unwanted and troublesome emotions; emotions that could only lead to bad things, very bad things.
Reason number five, even if there was a slight chance that she wouldn’t care that he was a vampire, there was no way in hell that things would ever work between them. She was light and he was the dark. She was everything that was good and pure in this world, and he was everything that was black and tainted. They were natural enemies. Polar opposites. Demon and Slayer. Not to mention the fact that he discovered from the get go how much her blood called out to him. It was a siren’s song, one of promised peace and power. It was the sweetest most alluring temptation that had ever awakened his vampiric needs, and if he was really honest with himself, the one reason that terrified him the most.
He could easily imagine letting go and tasting her. How it would feel to hold her in his arms as he partook from the sweetest nectar on the face of the planet. And he just knew that was what it would taste like. He knew it would be empowering and he knew that there was no way he would be able to stop. In the end, he would end up destroying the very thing that he loved most about her…her humanity.
He never made it to the library his dismal thoughts automatically carrying him down the sewers and away from her. He had to stay away from her. It was wrong. It was suicide. It was masochistic torture that he couldn’t stop himself from thinking about, and that just made him mad.
How stupid could he be? How could he have feelings for her? How could he possibly put himself in a position to get hurt? And that had to be the outcome of these uncontrollable emotions; there was no other conclusion, at least in his mind.
If he ever revealed his true feelings and nature to her, there could only be one ending…death, either physically or emotionally.
No things would be better if he just stayed away. Never talked to her again. Oh he would still follow her, and most likely if the situation called for it, he would find a way to help her. But he had to resist the urge to be with her. He had to resist the urge to talk to her. And most importantly, he had to resist the urge to lose himself in her.
Nearing his apartment his hand gripped the doorknob, as his forehead fell forward against the wood door. His eyes closed, misery seeped into his tainted lonely soul.
All the reasons why he should were the same reasons why he couldn’t stay away. And God help him –he didn’t want to. It was just a matter of time before their destinies crashed. Just a matter of time before his heart, and hers, was broken. And for some reason, while that thought held no comfort for him, deep down inside, he knew that it was just how it was supposed to be.