Watching
I watch him.
I watch as he strides up and down the halls of Wolfram and Hart.
I watch as he runs off into the night to save some tortured soul with his black leather fluttering around him like some dime store novel hero.
I watch as he makes comfortable use of the perks that used to be mine. Of the life that used to be mine.
I watch as he grows wearier with each passing day, this champion burden so much more than just a burden. It's a golden ring. A sugarplum dream. A prize promised but never delivered. And I watch as he recognizes it may never be delivered. For now he has competition.
I suppose, in respect for the truth, I shouldn't say that 'I' watch him. I don't. I have him watched. I have every moment of his unlife documented with all-seeing eyes and then brought back for perusal at my discretion.
Eve.
She's with him even when he isn't aware of it. Watching. Recording his every move for me. And she does it so well. She pulls just enough truth from the web of lies woven around her that Angel remains confused. Confused but willing to keep her near. Ridiculous notion of keeping your enemies close by, or some such crap. Or perhaps it's because she claims to come as a mouthpiece of the senior partners. Who knows?
Because his reasoning, whatever it may be, is working for me and so she stays. To watch. To report on his daily comings and goings. On whom he speaks with. On which cases he decides to keep. On whom he chooses to kill.
I have to chuckle. Eve takes such meticulous notes on every little thing he does. But she has no clue what I glean from her reports. I hear that he reneged on a client contract and killed the client. She says it's bad business. She says that the clientele represented by Wolfram and Hart are getting nervous.
I say let them get nervous. Let them quake with fear. Because he's back. In that glorious moment when a head is ripped off, when a sword is thrust through a heart...Angel is back. The righteous champion, the demon with a soul. Not the shell that Cordelia left behind. Not the man that gave up on his own redemption.
She says he's alone when at all possible. He doesn't walk the halls unless he has to. He doesn't socialize, even with his friends. She says it's not healthy for his company standing if none of the employees ever see him.
I say bullshit. His dark and mysterious act has worked for 200 years. Why change now? Besides, when he's alone in his office, when there are no distractions from the daily grind, I imagine he thinks about his past. Perhaps about me. I know that he's all I've thought about when I'm alone, in the dark, brooding like the vampire who took my fucking soul.
Or did I give it to him? Offer it up on a silver platter surrounded by decorative parsley and orange slices? I don't know. All I do know is that he has it. And he won't give it up. To be fair, he doesn't know he has it. Last time he saw me, we exchanged barely cordial words and I drove out of town...running from him. I wasn't running from Wolfram and Hart. Not really.
I was running from what he made me feel. From the life I knew I could never have with him. Because he didn't...and never will...trust me. Why should he? I've spent the entirety of our time together trying to kill him. Or was that trying to make him mine? Hmmm. Six of one, half a dozen of the other, I suppose.
So, when Eve comes 'home', I sit up and take notice. She might drop a crumb today that will let me know if he still thinks of me. But so far, she hasn't. Thus, I make do with what I can get. Visions of Angel, masterful and wicked race through my thoughts as she prattles on about the policies he's breaking and the bad business practices he's flouting.
Now, take note, I'm thankful that Eve is there. Her ever-watchful eyes have my appreciation. But the rest of her has my hatred. I wanted to slip my hands around her pretty little throat and begin the job that Gunn would later try to finish when she told me of Halloween night.
She'd touched him. She'd had him. She'd marked him. She'd fucked him. She will never know how close she came that night to death. Or how close I was to insanity.
She slinked through the door, telling of the highlights of the night, stripping for 'my benefit' and heading for the bathroom. I stopped her. I had to. The great seduction followed and for the first time in our 'relationship', I went down on her.
For her pleasure? I think not. I could still taste him in her. I wanted to gag as her flavor mixed with his, but I held back. When she'd finished thrashing on the bedcover, gasping my name, I flipped her over. I slammed her face into the pillows, disguised her identity, and I fucked her. I fucked Angel, vicariously through her. And I'd never come harder in my life.
I barely managed to bite back his name. I moaned as my imagination took me miles away to a cushy office, dark and lonely, and a brooding vampire no doubt remembering fucking this same hole. For one moment, we were focused on exactly the same thing and I could almost feel him closing around my cock.
She looked a bit hurt as I shoved her off of the bed and to the shower, but I wanted time to process. All right, I wanted time to dwell in the misery that sent my soul to Angel's hands but kept his body one slutty bitch away from me.
Soon, Angel. Soon you'll know me again. And perhaps the only touch I'll receive from you will be a knife in my gut. Who knows? At this stage, maybe it's worth it. Maybe it's all I'll ever have from you. If it is, I'll still treasure it. For my life, like my soul and my body, belongs to you.