Dragon's Phoenix

Title: With My Thoughts Wandering In the Dark
Fandom: BtVS
Summary: The demon is taking control of Angel
Rating: R, Mature, Adult
Warning: Non-con.
Concrit: Please, in comments
Disclaimer: They aren't mine, not yet, but they will be... once I've taken over the world! Bwah-ha-ha
Note: Look for ShakenSilence to post a similar story, written from the same first draft, but that diverges right about the time Buffy shows up in my story.
Word Count: 2,225 which looks like I was writing to a specific number of words, but I really wasn’t.

Nominated at the Willowy Goodness Awards


Buffy had come straight out and told him she had a new boyfriend. She hadn't tried to sugarcoat it at all, not that he would have wanted her to, but after he'd literally gone to hell for her some consideration for his feelings wouldn't have been out of line. He'd suffered excruciating torment for centuries and she couldn't even mourn him for four lousy months?

He'd tried to make her think he didn't care but wasn't certain he'd succeeded. It didn't matter. She didn't care. If she didn't want to see his pain, he could walk past her with a knife stabbed through his heart and she'd pretend not to notice.

He'd fled the mansion when the tension and the solitude became too unbearable. Thinking he was wandering aimlessly – anyplace where she wasn't was good – he found himself outside of Willow's home. Leaning against a tree as if he needed its support, he stared up at the moon through the branches but his gaze kept falling toward Willow's bedroom. Even through the translucent curtains he could see her clearly. Her pajamas were covered in teddy bears. She looked like a kid.

There was only one heartbeat coming from the house. Her parents were off someplace, as they so often seemed to be, leaving her alone: unprotected. The scene before him shifted and for a moment he seemed to be standing on a cobblestone street, in a much chillier climate with the rain drizzling down. There'd been a girl in that house too, younger even than Willow. Her guardians hadn't been able to save her; they hadn't even been able to save themselves, not from Angelus. They, at least, had died quickly. Willow, no not Willow, the girl, he'd never known her name, but ah she'd had a lovely snatch and a cunt as tight as the thin line between an Abbess' lips.

He wondered if the hair on Willow's cooney would be as red as hair on her head. It would almost have to be. Surely such an innocent little thing... When he shook his thoughts away, Angel found he'd taken three steps toward Willow's bedroom. He stumbled backward until he fell against the tree. “No,” he told himself. “I have no reason to hurt Willow.”

He heard the demon whispering in his mind. “And what was your reason for hurting the lass so many years ago? Do you even recall what you did to her?” Of course he did. He'd pleasured himself on her the whole night long, only stopping when the dawn threatened, finishing off in her sweet mouth, half-choking her as he'd rammed his cock down her throat. He'd tossed her at the bed, like so much trash, and she'd fallen at a diagonal, her legs dangling of one side and an arm off the other. She'd still been alive, not that it had mattered: he hadn't been there for her. When she'd turned her head toward the bed, come and spit and blood had poured out of her mouth.

He hadn't been there for the girl. There had been a vampire hunter, one who'd been making himself a bit of a pest. Angelus had devoured everything the man had loved, starting with the girl, chipping away at his world piece by piece, before killing the man himself. And Buffy, Buffy loved Willow.

“No,” he shouted. Willow looked up from her desk but then, with a shake of her head, turned her attention back to her studies. “I don't want to hurt Buffy.”

“Don't you?” the demon whispered again. “She was supposed to be your beloved, your redemption, your soul. Do you think she even waited a week before opening her legs to the first strapping cock that wandered by?”

“She thought I was dead,” he said through a clenched jaw.

The demon merely chuckled in reply.

The girl, her house, it had been so easy to get invited in. He'd already been invited into Willow's house. He'd been in her bedroom, more than once, but he didn't want to be there now.

She'd be hot, around him. Humans always were.

His fingers clenched into the bark of the tree. “I can't get in, even if I did want to. The spell. When I was you, she made sure we couldn't get in.”

“Aye, that's true. She'd have to invite us in then.” Angel found himself knocking on the glass door, on the door keeping him out of her bedroom.

Willow flinched when she saw him. “Oh,” she said, glancing between Angel and an empty fish tank. “I heard you were back. I mean, Buffy said, um, that it was you-you and not evil-you, and...” She trailed off before adding an overly cheerful, “So, did you want something?”

He searched for something to say. “To apologize. I wanted to apologize.” He tried to remember what she'd expect him to be sorry for and recalled that she'd glanced at the fish tank. “Your fish,” he added. He was almost certain he hadn't done anything more direct to her. No, that wasn't true, he'd grabbed her at the school. He didn't want to remind her of that. “I didn't mean to... Your fish... I mean, he meant... but I never would have...” She smelled of baby powder. It was an innocent scent. He could barely believe he hadn't taken her then, at the school. Spike had been right. What had Angelus been waiting for?

“Oh.” She stood there, frozen by the door, apparently expecting more. Anything else would be too much, would frighten her off. “Okay then,” she added. “Um, I have studying to get back to.”

“Of course.” It wasn't working. He fell to his knees and she rushed forward but stayed out of reach. “Sorry,” he added, grimacing as if in pain. “Centuries in hell.” The words upset her. That he could use. “If I hadn't had a soul, they wouldn't have tortured me, but as it was...”

That was enough. She was helping him up, inviting him in, pulling him over the threshold. She sat him down on her bed. “Can I get you something? Water maybe?”

He stared at her, not speaking.

She fidgeted before him, shifting from side to side, obviously unsettled by his silence. “I'll just go get that water.”

Angel beat her to the door. “Buffy doesn't love me,” he said mournfully. “She has someone else.”

“Oh, um, yeah. Scott Hope. She's been seeing... but I guess you wouldn't be too happy about that.”

“She betrayed me.” He kept his face expressionless as he watched Willow trying to assess the situation. “She has to pay.” Ah, there was the fear.

She stepped away. “But you were dead, or I mean not dead-dead, but... you weren't coming back.” Her voice trailed down to nothing.

He grabbed her and pulled her to him. “Do you think that's fair? For centuries I screamed, I bled, I wished I could die, and she was here, happy, living her life.”

Willow's jaw moved but no words came out.

He made his face look earnest, as if he really wanted her to understand what he was saying. “I love Buffy. I can't hurt Buffy. You, on the other hand...” His hand wrapped around the top button of her pajamas. The fragile fabric gave way. By the time Willow knew what had happened, his hand was pushing the fabric open and grabbing for a second button. “I don't love you at all.”

Willow shouted for help. Grinning, he grabbed the fabric and ripped down. Buttons clattered against the floor. “Scream all you want,” he said as she paused for breath. “No one can hear you, other of me that is, and I don't mind at all.” He wrapped one arm around her, holding her tightly to him and cupping a naked breast as he laid the pajama top out on the bed. When he started pulling down the pants, she wriggled so hard that he had to hit her a few times until she was dazed enough to let him. He spread the pajama bottoms and underwear out on the bed, below the top, as if creating an image of a person. “That's you,” he whispered in her ear. “Your innocence, all tattered and torn.”

He threw her onto the bed, on top of the pajamas, and climbed above her, trapping her legs with his. When she punched at him, Angel laughed. The Slayer obviously hadn't trained her friends to fight. He leaned down, spreading himself over her, and brought his lips down on hers. With a squeal, she tried to push him off. He shoved his tongue into her mouth, and she bit him. Pulling back until he towered over her again, Angel shook his head as if disappointed. “There's no call to be mean.”

He lowered his head to her breast and took a nipple in his mouth. The nub hardened beneath his flickering tongue. When Willow tried to push him off, he looked up, caught her eyes, and drew one finger in an arc around her breast, spiraling inward, cutting into the skin. Her eyes grew wide and he chuckled as he lapped up the welling blood. He grabbed her hands into one of his own, to get them out of his way, and continued cutting, dragging one sharp fingernail across her torso, trailing thin lines, barely more than paper-cuts, just enough to bleed. When her torso was crisscrossed with lines, he looked at her apologetically. “I'm sorry, Willow. That was thoughtless of me. It's a warm night, and once you start sweating, those cuts are going to sting like the devil.”

He trailed a finger down her torso and brushed his thumb back and forth lightly, three times, over her clit, before shoving three fingers into her cunt. “God, please no. Please stop.”

Something in him froze at that but another part smiled Angelus' cold, cruel smirk as he pulled his cock out and rocked it back and forth against her belly.

“Please no. I'm not... I've never...”

“Shhh, baby,” he heard his voice say. “I know you're a virgin. That's what makes this so fun, all that innocence exploding in agony beneath me.”

Angel took his rage and threw it at the demon that shared his body, but the monster merely gobbled it up, drawing strength from Angel's torment. “It's not me you're angry at,” the demon whispered in his mind. “It's Buffy you want to hurt and this will. You're weak. You've let her tear away your strength.”

As if the demon's words had conjured her, the glass doors flew open and Buffy stepped into the room, stake at the ready. “Get off her.”

Angel leaped off the bed. “I'm not... It isn't... I wouldn't...” he stuttered as he shoved his cock back into his pants.

Willow stood and rocked unsteadily on her feet. Angel watched, frozen, as Buffy took in the cuts on Willow's skin. “Get behind me.”

Willow ran past her and cringed against the wall. “I thought it was Angel. You said he was Angel.”

Buffy's gaze never left Angel. Her face was cold and hard but her voice gentle as she said. “I thought he was Angel too. I'm so sorry Willow.”

“No wait.” Angel reached out an arm to stop her. “I am...” Angelus. They think I'm Angelus. If Buffy thinks he did this, then she could still love me. He put on Angelus' half-smirk as if it were a mask. “Did you really think your little spell could restore his soul?” he taunted. The words were like a stab in his gut. He'd hurt Willow enough already. There was no need. He could have found something different to say.

“I killed you once, Angelus.” He could feel Buffy's fury. It had a purity and a focus, like a blowtorch aimed straight for him. He kept his eyes on her so the last thing he saw would be her face. “I can kill you again.” He felt himself falling to pieces, dissolving into dust.

A breeze whispered across his face. He had a face. As Angel wondered what kind of hell he'd find himself in, once he did open his eyes that is, he noticed his fingers were digging into bark. His eyes flew open. It was night and he could see the moon shining through the branches.

He didn't want to look, but he had to know. Willow was sitting at her desk, studying. She still had on her teddy bear pajamas. They were pristine, as they'd been before he'd shredded them.

“You can't even fall into a fantasy without letting your guilt ruin it,” the demon whispered.

“Oh thank God.” Angel fell to his knees, his hands pressed together, palm to palm, raised before his lips.

“Buffy still has Hope,” the demon added. “She's left you with nothing. Nothing unless...” Angel found himself watching Willow. “It would be easy. She'd let you in. You've seen how to work her. How long has it been since we've tasted such innocence?”

As he cock tightened, Angel felt guilt rolling into his soul like a cloud rolling in over a stormy sea. “No,” he said, breaking away from the tree. As Angel ran into the night, the demon's laughter drove itself through his mind, battering against his soul like waves crashing against the shore.