Title: The Bitterness of One Who’s Left Alone
Author: Cyberwulf
Rating: 15s (R) – thanks for the advice , Jewls13 ! – for bad language and violence
Disclaimer: Characters belong to Joss Whedon .
Spoilers: References to ‘Becoming’, and the fic is set in Season Three, shortly after ‘Revelations’.
Summary: Giles’ thoughts on Angel’s return from Hell .
Feedback: Feed the Wulf! cyberwulf_1andonly@yahoo.co.uk
“ Disarm you with a smile
Leave you like they left me here
To wither in denial
The bitterness of one who’s left alone”
- Smashing Pumpkins , Disarm
So he’s back. Back from Hell. Back from an eternity of pain and suffering and torment.
He’s back, but I’m still there.
She’s happier now that he’s returned. Well that’s all right then. Nothing else matters, as long as SHE’S happy. Never mind what happened to me. It was, what, at least four months ago? God, that long? I should have gotten over it by now.
I’m amazed at how fast the others accepted him. All one big gang again. I stand back and watch them, and wonder, what’s wrong with this picture? What I went through – what happened to Jenny – does all that mean nothing to them?
He. Tortured. Me.
All they saw was the cut on my forehead, and two broken fingers. She didn’t even see that. Because she’d jumped on the first bus out of town. They couldn’t see the other marks he left on me, buried under my clothes.
(He rubbed broken glass in my hair.)
When I take a shower I avoid catching my reflection in the mirror. I don’t want to see the scars.
(The diagonal slashes where he carved his initial into my side. The gouge marks on my arms. The nick just above my penis from when he threatened to cut it off.)
I still dream about it.
(He threw scalding water across my back. There’s a lot of scar tissue there still.)
Sometimes I want to grab Buffy, shake her, and scream. Ask her if she realises what happened, what I suffered because of her raging hormones. Demand to know why she couldn’t have kept her fucking legs together.
(Stupid, dozy, fucking little slut -)
STOP.
I feel guilty afterwards, for thinking those things. I tell myself that’s Ripper talking. But it isn’t Ripper. Ripper was never that cruel. It’s something else. Something inside that frightens me.
(He took down my trousers and beat me across the buttocks with a poker. I nearly lost it when I saw him coming at me with it. I thought he was going to –
If I sit on a wooden bench I can feel my heart beating along the lines he made.)
No one knows I feel this way. No one knows that inside I’m being torn to pieces. They don’t ask, and I don’t tell them.
(Wouldn’t want to upset the happy couple -)
STOP.
I’m cracking up. Get a grip, Rupert.
I keep having these crazy, insane thoughts. I want to make him suffer. I want to hammer on his mouth with my fists until my knuckles are covered in his blood. I want to slam my heel into his ribs until they break one by one. I want to kick him in the head till it swells up to twice its size and he goes into convulsions from massive brain damage. I want to do everything he did to me, and worse.
(He set fire to the sleeve of my jacket. With me in it, of course. I was so far gone by then that I just stared at the flames. When it didn’t have the desired effect he put it out.
And ripped out a fingernail instead.)
I want to carve MY name into his back with an ice pick. I want to flay the skin off his arms. I want to pull out each one of his teeth. I want to pull out his insides and set fire to them. I want to make him drink holy water and watch him burn from the inside out.
I can’t live like this. I can’t. I’ll go mad. But inside most of me is screaming that he has to pay. That sorry isn’t good enough. That eternal regret isn’t good enough. That he has to SUFFER. I clench and unclench my fists – the desire to hurt and destroy is very strong.
But somewhere in the midst of this firestorm of anger and pain there’s a small voice that keeps whispering, “ It wasn’t Angel. It was Angelus, the demon. They’re different people. Buffy didn’t know what would happen. They didn’t know. It’s not their fault.”
And I cling to that tiny shred of sanity, that last scrap of rational thought, and I don’t think I can ever forgive him but I’m trying. I’m trying. Because I’m looking into the abyss and it’s starting to look back at me. I don’t want to be so consumed by the monster that I become the monster. I refuse to be like him.
I wake again to the sight of Jenny’s murdered body, to the sound of Angelus’ mocking laughter, to the smell of blood, the taste of vomit, the shooting pain in my fingers. When the paralysis of fright wears off, I stumble into the bathroom and lock the door. There, alone, where no one can see, I slump to the ground, and sob.
-^)--)~