This piece has been in the works since last summer, but I have been working on a lot of other long, ridiculous AUs and have been reluctant to post anything that's a work in progress since Blindness gave me so much trouble. I have the next few parts already written, so I hope that as I keep writing, I'll keep updating and your feedback will encourage me, and keep me on track with this story. My hope is that I will have this finished within the next few months, and that I'll do a better job posting and completing the longer-length pieces I have kicking around on my laptop.

All apologies for the formatting. I cannot manage indentations here and I feel that FFnet always foils my efforts to make things look readable.

A warning: this story does go places where my earlier pieces have not, and since this is never-been-cursed Angelus, I feel that to gloss entirely over his distasteful characteristics would be impossible. The next long story I am planning on finishing and posting will be an all-human AU, so rest assured it will be more palatable to the sensitive.

Angelus inhaled deeply. The pretty tree-lined street that led to the townhouse he, Darla, Drusilla, and William had just procured was far cleaner than the rest of London, but he could still smell the tang of sweat, fear, arousal, and death that perfumed even the better class of neighborhoods. The house they'd taken residence in was a pristine brick and white plaster affair, with lovely wide windows that were being fitted with heavy drapes. They weren't sure quite how long they planned to stay in London, since he and Darla were prone to acting on a whim and might at some point need to leave in a hurry after slaughtering the neighbors, but he was keen to take advantage of all that London had to offer, particularly after spending so much time in Russia.

A bevy of well-dressed girls glanced sideways at him as he sauntered down the street and he gave them a wolfish smile as he continued toward the park, his destination for the evening. With all the arrangements to make the house suitable, there wasn't much time for prolonged entertainments tonight, but he was damned if he would pass his first night in the city without killing some hapless local.

There was something about London that he found very satisfying. It was one of the great capitals of the world, and like all of the great cities, there was splendor, luxury, and decadence on offer. London teemed with the rich and the powerful, as well as the pitiful and oppressed. Angelus enjoyed that dichotomy, the starving servant girls and their plump, pretentious masters, the splendor of the great houses and theatres, and the seedy squalor of the opium dens. London contained nearly everything a discerning man- or monster – could want and Angelus intended to enjoy its charms for a time.

After toying with a frightened couple who had snuck away to the park, their chosen local for some amorous activities, he made his kill and returned home satisfied. He had killed the woman first, her arousal still spicing her blood, and her lover had but up a better struggle – he hesitated to call it a fight – than usual. He whistled as he walked into the house. The door was unlocked.

William, his hair in a foppish disarray grinned at him, in a good mood with his grandsire for once. He was smoking on the stairs, shirt half undone when he raised a hand in careless greeting.

"Happy to be back in London, then?" Angelus grinned. Will merely shrugged in response, his half-smile not leaving his face. Angelus' next question didn't wipe it away but it certainly dimmed it.

"Dru upstairs?" he queried, smiling pleasantly. Will's only response was a nod, a mild act of defiance that earned him a cuff on the head as Angelus went to visit his masterpiece. Appropriately, Drusilla had claimed the nursery as her own, and he and Darla were hardly going to disagree with that, ensconced as they were in the plushy suites meant for the Lord and Lady of the house.

Once Darla would have chosen her room first, without question, would have even chosen if he roomed with her or was banished to another. But ever since Holtz, ever since she had left him to die, the cowardly bitch, he had claimed an upper hand in their relationship. The days when he was her boy were over. They were equals now, and he was every day amassing more power. She had begun to look at him in fear, and he relished the thought of having her in the position she had once had him as a newly turned fledge: utterly at his mercy. With his face malevolent at the happy thought, he opened Dru's door and greeted his creation with enough menace that any sane person would have recoiled.

"Hello Drusilla."

Her wide eyes opened further as she looked up at him from the floor, her dolls scattered around her. She greeted him with a joyful smile, his predatory looks no object to her maddened happiness.

"Daddy," she said, "look."

He took in the dead child that appeared to be sleeping alongside her collection of dolls. She was a pretty thing, with dark curly hair. He wondered if she reminded Drusilla of her sisters.

"Come here," he commanded roughly, growing excited by the sweet memory. She made to rise but he interrupted her.

"Not like that," he spoke, his voice low and rough. She looked at him with limpid eyes and slowly crawled to his side. As he grabbed her head and jerked her hair back, he smiled coldly at her, meeting excited eyes. Drusilla was a sadist's dream, and the best part was that both William and Darla would be jealous, and William particularly hurt.

As Drusilla's mouth encircled him, he tilted his head back and smiled. Oh, but it was good to be back.

The next few months were a blur of pleasure for Angelus. He took advantage of all that London had to offer, and threw himself into the delights of all manners of societies. With his status in the vampire world currently unchallenged in the city, and the money that he and Darla ensured they would never be without, there was nothing his dead heart desired that he couldn't have.

There were exotic parties and beautiful high society girls that were taken with the mysterious, but obviously wealthy newcomer at their supposedly exclusive soirees. Darla in particular viewed guards as a challenge, and Angelus, though he had nothing to prove with regards to social class, unlike the former prostitute, always found the forbidden most enticing. He and Will spent a number of nights making havoc in Whitechapel or lost in the daze of second-hand opium from the blood of addicts. Though he was careful that he should neither appear too eager or too disinterested, he spent many a night with Darla enjoying her unmatched skills. They attended the theatre, the opera, seedy boxing matches, cock fights, brothels, and circuses.

Still, after five months in London, Angelus was feeling restless. Night had fallen and he was standing at his window, wondering what he would do that evening when he heard a laugh. Light and airy, the sound gave him pause and he turned to see who produced the sound. To his delight, it was a pretty girl. London was full of them, but Angelus considered himself something of a connoisseur and under his critical gaze the girl appeared more than adequate.

Her hair was in a neat style, adorned with curls and a lavender bow, which matched her day dress. It was simply cut, but the quality of the material was clear even from a distance. He wondered if her waist was naturally that small without the confines of a corset. Though she was facing away from him, he glimpsed her profile as she entered the house across from his, and appreciated the high, delicate, cheekbones and the small, pretty nose. Her mouth looked exquisite. He watched her as she was greeted by their neighbor, Sir Rupert Giles, who was rumored to have connections with both the Watcher's Council and some of the more discreet purveyors of magic supplies, an unusual combination by anyone's standards. The home had some powerful wards protecting it, unlike the rest of the block, and he had decided early on that they were not going to tangle with the man if he gave them no cause to, at least until they were ready to leave.

Still, it didn't mean he couldn't watch the house, and its newest, loveliest visitor.

Buffy's guardian Rupert was a hard man to know. One minute he was seemingly stuffy and flustered, the next, knowledgeable and intimidating.

She had been pleasantly scandalized to find that the rumors about her mother's mysterious friend were true. His housekeeper, a woman with gypsy blood who went by Jenny, turned out to be his lover. His library, though filled with some of the dullest books on topics that hardly merited much thought, let alone such lengthy tomes in her humble opinion, also contained scandalous novels she would never have been able to read in front of her parents. To Buffy's delight, there were also a number of books ostensibly about magicks of all things. Buffy had taken to paging eagerly through them when she thought she would be undisturbed.

Rupert Giles also had an extensive collection of medieval weaponry that she enjoyed looking at and had very liberal attitudes on women's rights, or at least a hearty disinterest in her day to day activities; she wasn't sure which. All in all, this made Giles, as she had taken to calling him with some affection, the ideal guardian for her.

Elizabeth, or Buffy, as she had been called from a small age, had been recently orphaned after her parents were mysteriously killed by what appeared to be wild animals. They had been in London for diplomacy reasons, as well as for wedding of Wesley Wyndam-Pryce to Miss Winifred Burkle, and the shock at their deaths had rippled through society. Buffy has only been spared because she had faked an illness in order to avoid the absolute tediousness that her mother's friend, Lady Pamela, always heralded. It was stupid, but she had never been sick a day in her life, deceptively hearty despite her slight frame, and she could admit it was both heartbreaking and endearing to see her mother worried for her health. The last thing she had said to her parents was that she hoped they had a good time. There were worse final words of course, and she was glad they hadn't been fighting before her parents had died, yet she felt incredibly guilt that their last interaction was based on deception.

The death of such prominent persons, particularly prominent visitors, had driven the metropolitan police into a tizzy, with parties dispatched to hunt down the wolves the police supposed had been the cause of her parents' deaths. Many young men of Buffy's acquaintance had formed their own search parties. Giles, for his part, had darkly pronounced the efforts futile, which they eventually proved to be. At the time, she had been startled to be staying with the old friend of her mother's, particularly since she had never mentioned him, but from what she could gather the two had been involved at one point, and she supposed it was natural that he would want to see Joyce's daughter looked after. Strangely, she was not bothered by the thought of her mother's potential infidelity. Her father had betrayed her mother on a number of occasions, and Buffy thought that turnabout was fair play in such a situation.

She was fortunate that her parents' solicitor was prompt in sending a clerk to carry out their will, and even more fortunate that in the meantime, she had a variety of friends of her own, and acquaintanced of her late parents who were quick to see she was taken care of. She had met Willow Rosenburg only recently, but the shy, bookish girl had quickly earned Buffy's affection and loyalty, though she was not the sort of girl Buffy had previously been close with. The truth was, most of her friends from home, though more charming and socially adept than Willow, were not true friends. She had only received a few letters of empty condolences from the girls she had sworn with blood to be like sisters forever (pricked fingers and a silver needle swam in her mind, and the darkened walls of their dormitory walls). Her finishing school had been fun, but she had to admit that she had accomplished and contributed little.

The death of her parents had changed Buffy. Previously, she had been content with her life. She was young, and beautiful, and wealthy. Her parents were neglectful but indulgent, she had plenty of friends, and everything to look forward to. Now though, as the burden of grief was beginning to lessen, she felt that she ought to be doing something. What, she wasn't yet sure. For now, she was content to explore the boundaries of this strange new life she was leading. Yet she felt instinctively that she would no longer be content to marry some bland handsome stranger and become a perfect society wife.

Willow was, despite her shyness, an excellent companion to have, in light of Buffy's newfound curiosity. Her friend was incredibly intelligent, and was trying to convince her conservative parents to send her to university. Buffy only knew one girl who had gone, a quiet girl from school with radical parents, but she thought Willow should get her way, if only because she felt that the pompous gentlemen who attempted to lord their superior education over their female companions deserved to be shown up by her brilliant friend. The Rosenburgs were in a tricky position though, given that they were Jewish. It was undoubtedly easier to be so in England than in certain parts of the continent, but she found London society far less tolerant than the New England and California circles she had moved in, however briefly, before she had found herself in Britain. The lack of titles made society far more accepting to the new rich, whose parents might have been servants and miners. In England, the newly wealthy were grudgingly admitted to certain circles, but despite the fact that some of the Dukes were practically penniless, no one ever let those who could not trace their ancestry back to William the Conqueror forget their supposed social inferiority. Buffy found the whole thing rather tiresome, but she sympathized with her friend's worries about her marriage prospects, despite her almost obscene wealth.

The two girls became fast friends, often accompanied by Willow's friend Alexander LaVelle Harris, the young heir to a title of little import, whose parents' unsuitability often drove him to abandon them at the family's country estate for the entire season. The two had grown up together, and before Xander, as he preferred to be called, had lost his father, a military officer, in the war in Afghanistan, the later Mr. Harris had been good friends with Mr. Rosenburg. Unfortunately, his mother had made an unhappy remarriage and both she and his stepfather spent most of their time in various states of intoxication, from what Buffy had heard. Still, Mr. Rosenburg, busy though he was, still welcomed the young man into his household, and Willow and Xander lived much like siblings in the house. Of course, that wasn't exactly how Willow saw it…

Brushing those thoughts away, Buffy turned her face to the windows of the library. Most townhouses did not possess such splendid collections, but Giles would never be parted from his beloved books, and spent very little time at his estate in the north from what he had told her. She glanced at the clock. Evening was approaching and though he was conducting some business in the city, Giles had promised to return in time to take supper with her. She glanced down at the book she was reading, and snorted softly. A year ago, she would have never been caught with a book in hand of her own volition. Still, she had to entertain herself somehow, and as she was in mourning, her options outside of her residence were limited.

Glancing down at the tome on demons of all things, she looked around guiltily. Giles hadn't said anything about not reading certain books or anything, and she had no reason to feel like she shouldn't be exploring the strange parts of his library, but lately she had felt like she was being watched, and had become even more secretive about her reading habits. Though the library wasn't the only place she felt like someone's gaze was on her. In fact, thinking about it, she realized she often felt that way at night.

"You've been following her," Darla accused him, stepping into his room as he gazed out his window into the room across the street.

"Who?" Angelus asked, as innocent as he had ever sounded. The girl had remembered to close her curtains as her maid helped her dress for the evening, which fortunately, was not a common occurrence. He was enjoying the little glimpses their proximity afforded him.

"The girl," Darla responded. Angelus rolled his eyes. She sounded petulant, and in a woman her age, he thought with a cruel smile, that just wasn't attractive.

"You'll have to be more specific darling," he responded, still not turning to look at her, "there are a lot of girls in this town and I have followed any number of them." It was true. There was only one, however, that was attending a party in two nights time at the house of Roderick Chase, his wife Mary, and their lovely daughter Cordelia. Only one who he had stalked for more than a few days.

Darla's jealousy always irritated him. They were hardly faithful to the other- vampires rarely were. They both took other lovers as they wished, or victims as the case often was. And Angelus often stalked his chosen victims for weeks, even longer if the fancy stuck him. But Darla had been a little fearful of him for the past few decades. Not just of his power, which had so recently eclipsed hers, but that he might tire of her and move on. She had created him, molded, him, and he had been her chosen companion and obsession for the better part of a century and a half. But she could no longer even pretend to control him, hence, her worry about his new obsession. It had only been a month, he thought, with a roll of his eyes.

One month and he already knew quite a bit about Buffy Summers. Not the name he would have chosen for this beauty but he had to confess there was a certain charm to it. Altogether, she was a charming creature. Gracious, kind, and witty from what he had seen. He wondered what she would be like tied to his bed, if she would lose all that upper-class composure. He felt himself growing hard at the thought.

Darla touched his shoulder to try to turn him to face her, but he was in no mood for one of her fits, and turned the opposite way instead, catching her arms and twisting them behind her.

"Jealous?" he mocked, shoving her face-down onto the bed. As he held her arms with one hand he pushed up her skirts with another, taking a moment to eye her dress with distaste. The current women's styles allowed for a great deal of frippery that he found rather tasteless. Compared to Buffy's elegantly cut day gowns, Darla's dress appeared a bit insipid. Inwardly he shrugged. He was past the point of caring if Darla looked her very best.

"She's a pretty thing," he murmured in her ear, "young, innocent, pure." Like you never were, the unspoken barb went.

"I didn't think you would want another Drusilla," Darla responded, sounding bored. Angelus froze above her, tilted his head back and laughed. Oh, but she was utterly transparent. He often wondered what it was like to be so revered and feared, as Darla was, or like her sire was, all the while being unable to disguise one's true emotions. Pathetic.

He ground his erection into the cradle of her hips.

"I don't" he replied, amused. "I hadn't even thought of turning her," he continued, which was true. Angelus rarely sired other vampires who were to be anything but minions. They invariably turned out to be disappointments.

"Still," he said harshly, grinding against Darla, "she's a pretty thing. Maybe even pretty enough to keep me entertained for …or a century or so." He let that sink in as he undid his trousers.

He imagined it as he screwed her into the mattress, growing excited at the thought. Buffy appeared to be a spirited girl from what he could see, even though she was grieving. At the very least, she would be fun to bring to heel. Fledglings had to be shown who was dominant, broken in like horses. William had been particularly fun in that respect, but Angelus preferred women and he imagined a newly turned Buffy could prove even more delightful. With those happy images in his mind, he finished with a roar and sent Darla tumbling over the edge too.

After unceremoniously kicking her out of his room, he began to redress. All of this watching was delightful, it was true, but he thought it high time he meet the girl that had drawn his attention. There was only so much one could learn from a distance, after all.

And he wanted to see up close if her eyes were hazel or green, the delicate flush of her cheeks, the color of the veins beneath the skin on her breasts and wrists, and what the light in her eyes would look like as it dimmed. With a smile on his face, he turned once more to face her window. She was still hidden behind her curtains, safe from his gaze. Soon, he thought.

Feedback would be greatly appreciated, especially at this early stage.