Darkling I Listen
by Zenia
Pairing: Doyle/Angel
Sequel to "Many A Mused Rhyme"
Disclaimer: Not mine, never will be.
Feedback: Chocolate covered Doyles to everyone who does.
Warning: Okay, it's Valentine's Day and I'm single. If you're looking for happy mushy stuff, you're barking up the wrong tree.
It hurt. Angel had been none to gentle, he had bit his shoulder and had pulled out a bit too quickly for his tastes. Now he was leaving. And that hurt more than the physical pain. He should have expected it. Angel had said, in a rather flippant way, that he didn't love him. He had kept his soul, even after fucking him. Of course, Angel had his now too.
Ah Doyle, you're an idiot. You screwed that up pretty damn well, didn't you?
Of course, it was his fault. He had fallen in love with Angel, he had said yes when what he should have done was kicked the damned vampire out of his bed, out of his life.
Never so easy, never so difficult.
But he had needed Angel so badly because these days the past kept rushing up to meet him, kept knocking him on his ass. Dreams of Harriet, and teaching, and maybe a child of his own, swirling like a specter in his mind. Just add Angel to his list of dirty little secrets now, the ones that kept tearing him up inside.
Angel was just like him, not human, and he hated it just as much as Doyle hated it. And that's what made their consummation that much bittersweet. They loved in each other the one thing they loathed in themselves. Or else, he did. Who knew what Angel loved or hated.
He loved Buffy. But he wasn't with Buffy now.
He's with me, he thought. Is, was. It amounted to nothing really, nothing at all, because Angel couldn't stand to look at him afterward. Not that he was looking for a cuddle, for sweet nothings to be whispered in his ear. He was a guy, and guys didn't care about that stuff.
But maybe if Angel had just held him a little, stroked his hair, and promised him tomorrow, he might feel less brittle. That wasn't much really, in the grand scheme of things, life being as tenuous as it was. He supposed that sort of thing betrayed affection.
And Angel had apologized in his own unique way, stuttering out the words in a very unvampire-like fashion. He had heard more in what Angel couldn't bring himself to say than anything he had.
I love you. It was on the tip of Angel's tongue, on the tip of his own. And he had almost said it but the pleasure had been too sharp. Easier, maybe, to be skinned alive than to be exposed by those three little words.
Maybe Angel would come tomorrow, or the next day, or the next day after, and maybe he would take him again, slowly first with his fingers and then with his cock. And how screwed up did that make him for hoping Angel would, despite the pain that would come afterward. How much of himself would he lose in the desperation? Didn't matter really, if he was willing or not, because when Angel came to him, eyes hungry, mouth even hungrier, he couldn't say no.
He loved Angel and it didn't matter if Angel didn't love him back. He would endure, like he endured everything else. So what if he shattered, it had happened before and he had been able to put the pieces back together. Oh sure maybe he wasn't as clear now, or as pretty, but then no one went through life without having their soul kicked in once or twice. And it was always given back, regardless of the pieces.
And besides, maybe someday he'd be able to say it. And maybe, maybe Angel would be able to say it back.
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