Title: Pictures of You
Author: Willa
Rating: NC-17
Summary: A ficlet. Sometimes when he can't sleep, Angel grabs a pencil.
They're just scribbles, really. Doodles. Rough sketches on rough paper, done in pencils that scratch soothingly across the surface. He only does them late at night, when he can't sleep... or when he's already been asleep, and dreamed, and can no longer rest.
Pictures from his past: Buffy, smiling in the sunlight. Darla, as she had been when she turned him - all curls and billowing skirts - and as she was when she turned back, a shivering wreck (that, he draws after nightmares).
He sketches Gunn as he's seen him in courtrooms and sparring rooms. Wesley with a pistol in either hand or hunched over a book, studying intently. Fred, with her sweet smile. Sometimes as she was after Pylea, sometimes as she is now, with a fleet of scientists under her.
Once, for the hell of it, he drew Harmony. On paper he had to admit she was pretty enough. Still a flake, though, and he entertained himself with a doodle of her with eyes crossed in gameface.
He draws Lorne, gentle face full of pain.
Sometimes he draws Lindsey. He doesn't know why. With his guitar, at Caritas. In the courtroom, sleek as an otter. Driving away in that rattletrap truck. He just has a... feeling, about Lindsey. Like they're not finished yet, even if he hasn't seen the man in years.
And when he truly can't rest, he draws Spike. Or William. William, as he used to be, with golden curls tumbling over his forehead and that doe-like, half-terrified look in his eyes as Angelus sought to teach him yet another lesson. That look which hardened into defiance and belligerence over so short a time. He draws him as he imagines he might have been after Romania; he draws him with Drusilla, swirling in a mad dance under the stars; he draws him alone. He sketches the brash, arrogant thing that he is now, all black leather duster and braggadocio; he sketches the meek poet.
And sometimes, very rarely but when the need is just too strong, he makes sure all his doors are locked and the cameras off; he unzips his trousers or loosens his pajama bottoms, and he lies in bed, slowly rubbing himself against it as he draws William the way he remembers him. When he was learning how to be taken - how to give his body up to Angelus' demands. From shy and huddled, hands covering himself, to blatant and wanton, sprawled out fit to tempt a blind man towards lust.
Once, he draws Spike as he is now, but in that pose. Standing against a wall, cock so swollen-full that it lies flat against his belly. One hand thoughtfully stroking it, as his blue eyes stare out of the picture. Challenging him. You know you want it, that picture says. So what're you gonna do about it?
Angel stares at that picture for a long time, hand moving to his own cock. He gets lost, somehow, in the haze as he looks and imagines, until to his own surprise he's shaking, spasming, coming over the rough drawing.
For the longest of moments, he can't look away from his own mess. Then slowly, slowly, he crumples the paper in one hand and carries it through to the bathroom. Flushes it down the toilet.
There,he tells himself. Gone.
And then, as he is coming out with hands washed and clean, he hears a soft rapping at his door. Common sense tells him to ignore it. Yet for some reason, he opens without even looking, and he's not very surprised to see Spike there, hands in his pockets.
They look at each other silently, not saying a word. The burdens that they bear along and share together are written on their faces in a language that only they know.
This time, when Spike enters Angel's bedroom, it's not through trickery or force.
It's by invitation only.