// Merricat, Said Constance
Disclaimer: The characters of Buffy: The Vampire Slayer and Angel are not mine and belong to Warner Brothers, Twentieth Century Fox, Mutant Enemy. They are used without permission. No copyright infringement is intended.
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Feedback is incredibly welcome.
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Set during S2, with general surrealness. R. Written for the Shriftathon. With apologies to Lewis Carroll and Shirley Jackson. Thanks to Melymbrosia for the encouraging and helpful beta.
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She didn't speak through the dainty black silk wound over her mouth and around her head, but the question was clear enough: sugar or milk?
Angel sat with his hands over his knees, willing his spine straight although he felt oversized and awkward at the table; in the room, even. The lace doilies and origami blossoms, the scrollwork on the table's tapered legs, put him in mind of all things ephemeral. He inhaled the fragrance of roses and formaldehyde. He made himself look at the gilt-rimmed teacup, thorn-stemmed roses of porcelain twining into a handle. Angel tapped the tea-cup. The liquid within quivered. For a second he thought it would slosh into the saucer.
The liquid was heavier and darker than the teas he knew. Angel hesitated. But he remembered drawing-room manners. "Just sugar, please." White crystals, unbearable sweetness.
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Fingers tracing the paths of silent arteries from ankle to knee to thigh. The stain of her skin past the interstices of lace. He has memorized this smoky, feral woman-shape, daughter lover victim. His fingers know the way upward, teasing, toward the juncture that bleeds to their dark whims and not the moon's call.
No need to look there. He knows where the pain lies: in the eyes of that wheelchair-bound vampire, in the rigid jaw. Watching him. Watching them.
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Angel saw the other end of the table as through the wrong end of a telescope, though right-side-up instead of upside-down. Something ought to be upside-down, he thought. Something was awry.
The frog sat to Angel's right, opaque and unblinking. A guardian frog. Angel respected that. "I'm sorry," Angel said. "I didn't catch your name."
The frog indicated that names were unnecessary. Names only let you hide from pieces of yourself. And did he want some biscuits to accompany the tea? Fresh-caught, fresh-baked, sealed in a paper envelope.
"I'll have one," Angel said, because politeness was the sole constant in this strange place. He took out the biscuit and held it for a second: carp-shaped, an eye of jelly staring blindly back at him. It was crisp to the bite, except, of course, for that sweet red morsel of jelly.
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Come here, he bids her, and she comes, sweet, witchy, trusting child that she is. Red hair tangles in his hands like any other hair, but the color pleases him: bright, coppery, rich in its own way.
Her fear leaves its texture in his mouth, a crunch of sudden panic. She is the crux, caught between him and the black-eyed gypsy, him and the dark-haired boy who has so much to learn about bravery. Caught.
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The walls of the room had curved inward, meeting in a dome above them, as though they resided in a fishbowl. Angel tilted his head back, studying the ceiling's glassy dome, stricken by a sense of familiarity. He had been a guest in this place. There was something he had forgotten--
Mr. Gordo sat across from Angel. He blinked wisely with his small bright button eyes. She startled you once, didn't she, and you came to me, said the pig. I've been with her a long time, you know.
Angel glanced downward, at the tablecloth, unable to bear that bright regard. "I know. I know that. We're not the first in each other's lives." Who was she, he wondered, what had he forgotten to bring--
Mr. Gordo apologized for the absence of a napkin. Would he like one now? In case of spillage. Things could get messy in spite of your plans. Or because of them.
Angel accepted the napkin. Its starchy whiteness hurt his eyes unaccountably. He tapped the teacup again, unable to resist. Terrible manners.
Liquid spilled out of the teacup this time, and splattered in irregular red shapes upon the napkin.
It's poisoned, you know, Mr. Gordo told Angel, oblivious to Miss Edith's reproving glare, or the frog's flickering tongue.
"I know," Angel said. The light gleamed sword-bright around the teacup's rim. Golden, like her hair. He closed his eyes, and drank.
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