From: WasabiOni  <WasabiOni@n...>
Date: Sat Sep 9, 2000 8:07am
Subject: The Luxury of Choice (Part 6b of Promises and Lies) J/A NC-17


TITLE: The Luxury of Choice(part 6 of Promises and Lies)

AUTHOR: Oni

EMAIL: WasabiOni@n...

DISTRIBUTION: List Archives, JOYFFA, and my site at   www.angelfire.com/id2/WasabiOni. Anyone else please ask.

FEEDBACK: Want it. Need it. Got to have it. The more detailed the better.

DISCLAIMER: Same old story: they're not mine, I'm not getting paid. Suing me will gain you no points with your infernal master.

SPOILERS: Vague, through the end of season 4 Buffy and season 1 Angel, but nothing major.

SUMMARY: Giles finds out about Joyce and Angel.

RATING: NC-17 for language, sex, blood.

ii.

It was nearly sundown and the hotel bar was nearly empty.   Other than a probable hooker resting her feet at the bar and a couple of business travelers grabbing a drink before running to catch their flights Angel had the place to himself.   He shifted uneasily in the booth, glancing for the nth time at the door.   His contact was late, and he was tired of sitting here, nursing a glass of white wine.   Every time a jet rumbled overhead he thought of dragons and couldn't help flinching.   This entire trip had been something of a comedy of missed connections and petty frustrations that had stretched out his absence from Joyce from one day to nearly a week.   He became uneasier with every day, every hour, every minute that he was away from her.   He'd called her every night.   But speaking to her was only a partial cure for what ailed him.   He wanted her in his arms; he wanted to be inside her, he wanted her teeth in his neck...

He checked his watch.   5:15.   He sighed and picked up his drink...and froze as the powerful intimation swept through him that something was terribly wrong.   Joyce, he thought.   He'd swum too long in the seas of prophecy and premonition to ignore it.   He fumbled out his cell and called her.   Panic started inching coldly down his spine as the phone rang, again and again.   Imagining all the things that could have happened.   He tried her other number, got the machine.

She was so young, a baby, nearly helpless; he should never have left her alone.   There was a reason the world was not overrun by vampires.   Fledglings were incredibly fragile.   It didn't really take a Slayer to kill them, anyone with a sharp stick and reasonable aim could do it.   Very few of them made it even a year into their theoretically eternal lives.   Even in a town without a Slayer, he thought as he rose to his feet.  

He used the phone to call a taxi to meet him in the underground parking structure.   He called Cordelia from the terminal and told her he was sorry, but he had to go home.   She didn't ask any questions, and his tone kept her from complaining, much, about him letting her down.  

He caught the 5:45 flight to Sunnydale, staring out into the night, willing the damned metal bird to fly faster.   Trying not to think about Joyce, out in the night.   Innocently enjoying the moonlight.   Meeting the Slayer.   Not even knowing enough to run.   Julie knew about him, but she didn't know about Joyce, had never met her.   She would see her as only another of the monsters she'd been called to kill, and do her duty.   He growled, completely unaware of his seatmate sitting stiffly terrified beside him.   It was a long 45 minutes for both of them.

He called again as soon as they landed.   The unanswered rings seemed to mock him.   He drove through the darkened streets in a near panic.   Joyce.   Wishing there was someone to pray to, some God he still believed in, that he could bargain with for her life.   He couldn't lose her; she was all he had left.

He stepped into his home and knew that someone had been there.   One person, a man, not the Slayer.   Then the penny dropped.   The scent was familiar...it brought the guilty memory of blood in his mouth, of trembling flesh cringing under his hands, screaming...   "Giles," he whispered.

"Joyce?"   He called.   There was no answer.   He rushed upstairs to their bedroom.   The room was empty, undisturbed by any sign of a struggle.   But Giles' fear and anger hung in the air along with traces of Joyce's fear.

No, Angel begged the cruel Powers.   Please no.  

His face shifted instinctively, demon eyes and demon senses better suited to find the trail, to track the faint hint of Joyce, of Giles, out of the room, down the hallway, and back down the stairs.   Where, to his infinite relief, they separated.   Giles' trail leading out the door again, while Joyce's led deeper into the house.   Beginning to hope, he tracks it through the kitchen and down the enclosed walkway to the pool.  

The shades have been drawn back from the glass to reveal the night sky, the crescent moon a ghostly flicker on the dark water.   The tension in Angel evaporates as he sees a pale shape moving back and forth along the length of the pool.   Joyce.   Unharmed, here, safe.   Angel squats by the robe and towel she’s left folded there, giddy with relief and watches her slice through the water, pale and graceful as a shark.

He'd never used the pool himself, but he'd had it fixed it up when she saw it and told him how much she enjoyed swimming laps.   She swam every day now.   It helped her concentrate, she said, helped her focus.  

It was convenient, but still odd, to not have to breathe, and to know that she could do this for hours.   Swimming back and forth, like a goldfish on crank.   Trying to obliterate the loss and pain of the past hour in the mindless rhythm.   She felt Angel's arrival, the weight of his gaze pressing on her even through the sheltering water.   She completed two more laps, and then surfaced, shooting out of the water, splashing him deliberately.   She took hold of his proffered arm and let him pull her up into the air.   He wraps his arms around her, careless of his leather and she found herself clinging to him, feeling that undeniable shock of pleasure, the connection between childe and maker that isn't love, but something deeper.

He kissed her desperately long and deep; his embrace would have cracked ribs if she were still alive.   She responds guiltily.   Under the joy, she can taste the fear still clinging underneath.   She'd heard the phone ringing, she regrets frightening him now.   But busy fighting the urge to go after Giles, to find him.   To make him look into her eyes and say her name like it still belonged to her.  

She trembles in his arms, cool and wet; her skin is slightly wrinkled, reeking of chlorine.   She's been in the water a long time.   She pressed herself closer to him, cold lips trembling against his cheek, and he notices how pale she is.
He realizes that she's hungry.   He smiles, unbuttons open his shirt, and offers her his throat.

No hesitation.   Her face remains human, but suddenly sharp teeth slice through his skin into the vein, he gasps, not in pain, as she growls and begins to drink.

And it’s so good, filling her mouth like brandy cooled in snow, chilling and warming her as it flows down her throat.   It’s like honey, like sugary fire, satisfying, perfect.   She’s tried to think of something it compares to, but nothing even comes close.   It’s better than chocolate, better than sex, better than any drug she’d ever tried in the ‘70’s.   So much better than the half-dead stuff, warm courtesy of the microwave.   Angel’s sweet, thick blood is the elixir of life.   Every time she drinks she feels reborn, remade.   It’s more than enough to keep her tied to him, and she’s sure he knows it.   But right now, she doesn’t care.   All that matters is the blood.

And she wonders for a moment what it tastes like fresh, alive.

Angel groans at the exquisite agony of her teeth opening him up, the relentless suction as she pulls him into herself.   He runs his hands down her naked back, tracing the delicate architecture of her spine, feeling each swallow through his fingertips.   Her shudders of pleasure merging with his as she drinks and drinks.   The demon screams in outrage as Angel allows her to drain him, retreating in disgust to the back of his brain.   Angelus seldom, if ever, fed his offspring after he sired them.   Unwilling to trade his strength for anything, even this ecstasy.   More fool him.

She can't grow warm, not from him, but he feels her revival, a prickle of energy where skin meets skin.   When she pulls away at last, he's a little bit dizzy, but he still has to resist the urge to press her back, to beg her to drink more.   He would feed her forever if he could.

She remains nestled against him, and that is not like her.   He finds the towel, one-handed and wraps it around her shoulders.

"Joyce?" he says softly.   "What happened?"   She sighs, and presses her head to his chest.  

"Something went wrong with the call forwarding.   Buffy’s been calling me since Monday - Riley's mother died - she'd been sick for awhile, but still... anyway she was worried when she couldn't reach me."   Angel swore softly.   "Giles went to the house, then came here to ask for your help.   He found me instead."   She felt the shock of the news strike him.

"He didn't hurt you?" he asked, stroking her head gently.   He didn’t mean her body.

"No," she reassured him.   "We… talked."

"Talked?" Angel questioned.   Joyce hid her face in his chest, remembering.  

***

Rupert had finally decided to let her out of the closet, watching her stone-faced as she sat down on the edge of the bed, knees together, hands folded neatly in her lap.   He remained on his feet, alert.   It seemed to make him more comfortable to have the advantage of height.   He wouldn't look her in the eye.   But at least he hadn't run, pulled a stake or a cross on her, or called in the new Slayer.   But she'd seen stone statues with more expression.   Even his eyes seemed dead.

"Tell me what happened," he said finally.   So she told him.   It took awhile.   As she explained she felt the day fading outside, the burden of daylight had been lifted entirely by the time she had finished carefully and reluctantly explaining about Jamaica and its consequences.   She watched Rupert pacing, too angry to stand still.   This wasn't a new thing, she realized watching the slow emergence of emotion to his face, from horror to sorrow to rage.   He'd hated Angel for a long time.   All those years they'd fought side-by-side, she'd been aware that there wasn’t much warmth between them, but she'd never had a clue about how much he loathed Angel.

All the time they were talking, she couldn't stop thinking of how soothing the familiar sound of his heartbeat was.   How tempting the smell of human blood was, Rupert's blood.   She wanted to touch him, to hold his hand, to let him know it was all right.   To feel his breath, warm in her mouth, his hands cradling her breasts...   She pulled her mind away from forbidden thoughts.   Dragged herself back to the here and now.   To Angel, cradling her gently in his arms, his blood sweet in her mouth.

"He knows everything then," Angel said.

"Yes.   I think I convinced him not to tell Buffy," Joyce told Angel.   She felt the tiny flinch at her daughter’s name.

"I need to go see him," Angel said.

She looked at him doubtfully, she understood his reasons, but... "I really don't think that's a good idea."

"I have to be sure," he said, brushing a strand of wet hair back from her forehead.

"He hates you," she warned him.

"Yeah.   I know."

Continued in part c