samsom | very short ficlet

Title: Persephone Lies Dying
Author: Samsom
Pairing: Cordelia/Angelus
Summary: Cordelia is haunted. Set in the summer between BtVS s2 and s3. AU.
Rating: R for disturbing imagery. I hope.
Disclaimer: Not mine. Fox, ME, and Whedon own the characters. I make no profit from this.
Genre: Horror
Notes: Fourth, I think, in the Persephone fics. My imagination. Let me show you it.

~~

In her dreams, the grave dirt wraps her up like Mother’s arms and Angel smiles.

His shoulders block the sky above them, and she can't see the stars or the moon.

She can only smell the earth.

Nothing will keep him from her, he says. Not the slayer or the boy, nor the hospitals with their pills and locked doors and bed restraints.

Not even Hell.

It doesn’t matter to him that her skin is dry and her lips are cracked. Her hair is limp and she smells like sickness and death.

Her ribs are like a ladder, and he counts the rungs with loving fingers, smiling gently down into her pale and waning face.

She tries to smile back, the display of rotted and yellow teeth at odds with the blankness of her features.

Madness wears her as its face and he says she’s never been more beautiful.

mo chroi, he whispers.

In the morning they find her in a heap under the open window. Her lips are stained red and her wrists are bruised.

But her smile is as radiant as the sun.

~~end~~