I

In a corner of a darkened room, Angelus’s boy crouches, shaking and silent.

He’s learned that muttering and weeping only bring more pain.

He does not mutter, except when he sleeps.

He does not weep, except when he dreams.

This dry silence, is no guarantee that pain won’t happen. There is no such guarantee. Even when he’s being ignored, he has no doubt that Angelus is quite aware of him.

He’s always cold, these days.

Not enough blood to chase away the eternal gooseflesh that covers his body. Angelus has seen to that.

He only wishes he could stop shaking. . . .

II

Angelus’s boy is always cold.

He wonders if this is finally the end.

He’s been dying for a long time--since the day he was born, maybe. Life is a dream he never remembers upon waking, except to wonder why his face is covered in tears.

Sometimes, he is there.

On some nights, Angelus forgoes the hunt to watch his boy mutter and dream. Sometimes he punishes his boy for the muttering, but most times, he does not.

Most times . . . he merely watches, neither frowning nor smiling. His angel’s face hides a demon with the arbitrary nature of a God.

III

“Let me go!”

It’s a new voice--human; warm with breath and blood and fear.

New, but familiar and--

“Xander!”

--relieved.

The girl Angelus shoves into the room is relieved to see him. Happy, even.

Angelus’s boy remembers happy less clearly than he remembers his dreams.

She flings herself into his arms, holding him so tight her warmth soaks into him, chases away goosebumps, stirring something in him. . . .

Something buried and long-ignored.

“Fucking bastards!” She sobs, her tears scalding his neck.

“Shouldn’t swear, Dawnie . . . it’ll be okay,” he promises in a rusty, under-used voice. She only cries harder.

IV

“. . . and we thought he’d killed you! We didn’t think--” she glances away. “We didn’t think you two . . . being all groiny would equal a moment of perfect happiness.”

After forever of hearing only Angelus’s voice, and the whispered obedience of the fledges, her voice is high, and vaguely alarming.

“God, what does he want with us--?”

“It’ll be okay,” he croons. Her voice, her face, her hair--short and dirty, when it should be long and shining, like in his dreams--makes the empty places in him ache.

In his dreams, she smells like floral shampoo and licorice . . . not like food.

V

The girl sleeps soundly; doesn’t even stir. He can almost see the color of her dreams.

“Today?” Angelus asks, gentle fingers brushing away tears and lingering over ashen cheek and pale, bitten lips.

. . . pastel pink for her past. . . .

His boy shakes his head, whispers no . . . please, even as he leans into the touch he’s learned to dread with a strange sort of longing.

. . . cadmium yellow for her present. . . .

Even as he longs for the slow, steady pulse at his side.

. . . arterial red, for a future bright with pain.

His boy’s shivers turn to panting; Angelus’s smile widens.

“Soon,” he murmurs.

VI

In this dream
he hungers
and thirsts
and fears

Drink

a voice whispers
the voice
he does

buries his face in warmth
that punctures like a balloon

he
clutches at
grinds into
tastes something
more satisfying than air
and far tighter

he is

so low

high
and warm
and fearless
and horny
and hungry still

the something in his arms
moans
squishes
eventually gives

his dream
his choice

has been made at last

he opens his mouth
to roar at the sky
triumphantly

only

a small, broken bird flies out
and up
and away

he
is relieved to see it go
can’t understand why he ever tried to keep it.

VII

“It’s a hard lesson you’ve learned, but one you’ll never forget.”

A murmured word to the minion who waits just out of sight and the mangled corpse is quickly removed.

“You can’t win against me. You’ll never win,” Angelus says softly, licking his boy’s bloody lips. “Do you understand, now?”

Transfixed by biting kisses down his throat--all over his chest and stomach--he nods, too dazed to do anything else.

“What do you say, childe?”

Sharp fangs teasing the tip of his cock makes Angelus’s boy squirm and gasp. “. . . t-thank you, Sire. . . .”

“My sweet boy.”

Angelus’s mouth engulfs him.