Fanfic: I Never Told You (1/1)

[smokingmirror]

Title: I Never Told You
Author: Avarice
Rating: PG
Pairing: Angel(us)/Spike, Angel/Buffy
Spoilers: general s1 A:tS.
Summary: Angel writes a letter.
Word Count: 1831
Date First Posted: 2000
Date Revised - 11-05-2011
Beta: -
Awards: The Black Rose Award
Notes: Bit dramatic, but Angel always struck me as the type.
Feedback: always welcome, as is constructive criticism.

My dearest Will,

I never told you I loved you.

There were countless opportunities to do so. You were Embraced so that we could have forever. In you I saw (and still see) a quality, a durability of spirit that shone through your shady mortal existence -- even now it overcomes the demon that resides within you... that you are. It is infinite, and truly Immortal.

This is a quality I don't think I ever truly possessed. Even now, when for all intents and purposes I cannot die of old age, nor be ravaged by time in the way that those that live are, this timelessness is something I cannot lay claim to. I feel as though you should have come before me... this primal force of energy, of vibrancy, flows through your being, and although I feel aeons old, I see something ancient in your eyes that I cannot possibly duplicate.

Arrogance and pride were with me in my mortal days. They stayed the invasion of the demon -- who fathered your own -- and even now, are present. Who else but a prideful fool could believe it is entirely up to him to make up for the evils of this world?

This weakness has always been within me. It is the method by which the forces of darkness strike out at me, trying to inflict that killing blow -- that which will send me to my Final Death -- which undoubtedly should have been received years ago.

My spirit has always been weak.

The demon can only make up for so many faults the human host is already victim to... In you, the monster saw all the things you could be, and the man now sees a demon who is more human than he could ever hope to be himself.

Soul or no soul.

You will outlive all of us, simply through your will to survive.

You are forever.

I never told you I wanted you.

Not really.

It never became necessary to vocalise this -- you were always within easy reach. Taken for granted, that's what it was.

I remember, though. Every time your name was on the cusp of my lips... every time your face flitted through the dark caverns of my mind.. every time I rolled over in my bed, seeking out someone..

You were there. You were always there.

I came to expect this, and in so doing, lost what made your actions so special. The fact that you were not by my side out of some rigid sense of loyalty, or protocol, or ceremony (even though it sometimes played a part) but because you chose to be there. Never one to be broken, no matter what I put you through, it was because you decided to accompany me that it was so.

It was what made you different. It was that which delighted, impressed, infuriated and maddened me all at once. No matter what anyone says, I could not make you stay. But you did.

The demon was delighted and the man was sickened... or was it the other way around? I don't recall properly anymore.

It is wrong to speak of 'Him' though, when He is Me. There is no escaping that anymore. To attempt is to deny myself, which has proven successful in the past, but something I can do no more.

In some instances, though, these two diametrically opposed halves that inhabit the same space are able to feel passionate about the same thing.

When I think about you, the beast in me quietens... its relentless clamouring for release stops just long enough to be overcome with the seductive drug that is nostalgia and memory. Immersed in a warm pool of reminiscing that somehow smells of sandalwood and horses and sweet blood and the Old Country... He that is Me... We are truly one. United under the sickeningly sweet flag of Memory.

And that is the time I truly fear my soul will leave me again.

I never told you I needed you.

The gypsies, the Watchers, everyone has it wrong. It is not the soul's paramount happiness that triggers the loss of my conscious repentant self. It is not when my soul forgets that which binds me to these Powers That Be. It is none of those. It is something far more rare, and for that, more dangerous.

It is when, for one instant the beast and the man find something -- a single thread of common ground...

Wanting- no, craving companionship of someone who is both strong and weak in equal measures, who both hates and loves me, who both needs my protection and can look after themselves.

That was, and still is, my undoing.

Cradling a slight form to my body, I could pretend who it might have been, given a detour around Romania in the late Nineteenth Century. I could forget tanned skin where it should have been pale. Blond hair where it should have been dark. Breath where there should have been none. My humanity was experiencing the sensation I'd had previously, of being the centre of someone's world -- and the demon agreed. It remembered what it was like to be adored, to be needed for protection, and so help me it liked it.

When I shut reality out just long enough, my two diametrically opposed halves, which had never had anything in common, finally found the tie that binds them together. My weakness for affection. And it was enough.

Enough to be released.

My arrival was not what you hoped for. I was... maddened by the confinement. It wasn't enough to just return... the fact that you dared to survive and thrive without me when I had been close to death so many times without you...

It hurt more than I wanted to admit.

It didn't just hurt, it burned.

I should have healed you. I should have understood you. We all should have left together, become the family we once were.

I have been the vessel for so much guilt, and although what little ethics I have been the unwilling student of all these years has been ingrained in this corporeal form, I find myself unable to feel sorry for these thoughts of reunion -- even though they mean the death of hundreds, perhaps more, 'innocents'.

These thoughts return to plague my laughingly termed ‘restful hours’.

Not very human of me, I know. But at least when we were together, I knew the order of things. I knew what was expected and what was not. I knew the simple and beautiful clarity of existence. I knew what belonged.

You belong with me.

That, I have always known, whether avidly admitted or not. They are not my family as you are. If I am to them, they aren't to me. Not wholly. They are just people who don't wish me dead yet.

Oh, I would sacrifice my life for any one of them, but there is only one I would sacrifice my soul for. And regardless of what self-deprecating thoughts about it being someone else might flit through your mind, remember -- I already sacrificed my soul to her -- and it did not turn out for the best.

The beast will always be disgusted that I settled for a facsimile of the real thing. That the facile replacement was the trigger to release, even if the thought behind it was not of her. It is just its way, bitter and resentful to the end.

I will never apologise to you for her, just as I will never apologise to her for you.

Not that she would ever realise...

The monster was always a fairy tale; my true face just a pantomime mask I donned when needs be. A nightmarish caricature of myself that only existed in the musty volumes of old books, and not in reality. To her, they were never connected. There was a good angel and a fallen angel. The protector and white knight versus carnage and mayhem personified. And that was it. White. Black. White. Black.

No grey. Never grey.

My whole existence is grey.

And not her, nor any of her friends will ever fully comprehend that. It is never as simple as they'd wish it to be, as I'd wish it to be. They are too quick to issue labels. Good, evil, righteous, corrupt, worthy, depraved, noble, base. I disappoint their ordered universe and text book case-solving by not fitting into a category they can name.

Fortunately (or unfortunately, it is purely a matter of perspective) none of these mortals that have endeared themselves to my perpetual memory will cause me to sacrifice my penitent soul. Maybe it is a divine joke, or maybe it is a blessing that the one that I would do this for -- the one that I would give up so much for, the one that understands what I am willing to give up -- will never let me get close enough again to do it. Coincidence, don't you think?

In all my life, my two faces have only ever sought out one other.

And despite being a beast (as I made you to be, so can I hold that against you?), it is you who understands this duality the best. For it does not seem to matter. You have a spirit that was not killed, but amplified with this rather dubious gift of eternal life. Your essence fills my senses, even when you are so far away, and I cannot imagine a time when you were not around... nor can I imagine one without you.

I never told you I loved you.

But it can never change that I do.

Yours for Eternity

Angel

+ + + + +

He waits for a moment for the ink to dry on this last page of writing. Then, slowly and so carefully, he folds the stiff paper into three equal sections. Extracting a cream envelope from a drawer, with the same amount of care he inserts the pages into it and seals the back. Turning it over, he thoughtfully studies the blank front before, in that same, perfect script, he writes a name on the front.

William.

He studies this name for a moment, and too impatient for this ink to dry, he runs fingertips over it, as if testing its reality. The name smears under his hands, but only slightly, giving the envelope, and its contents, a seemingly less than perfect finish.

Satisfied with this, he opens his bottom desk drawer. He takes the envelope and, after looking longingly at it once more, places it on the top of a pile of similarly addressed envelopes, all cream, with thick, woven cream paper inside.

Shutting the drawer resolutely, he flicks the lamp off and leans back in his chair. The office is silent and not at all comfortable, but he stays there until the orange rays of dawn touch the blinds.

~finis