A double heart for my single one Ch 6&7
Title: A Double Heart for my Single One
Summary: Alt season 3. Angel comes back considerably more traumatized than in cannon. Angry that Angel is back and feeling Buffy is to blame Spike picks up on the mind games where Angelus left off. Can a young Buffy deal with so much pain, or will she eventually take the out that is offered to her?
Pairing: Buffy/Angel. Some Oz/Willow and Spike/Drusilla. I’m going to pretend Xander and Cordilia never happened.
Rating: T-PG-13.
She had been so gentle with him, and she had cleaned him, wiped the grime off his body and soothed his raw skin. He was in such shock at her generosity and so absorbed in the simple pleasure of not being in pain that it took him several minutes to realize what she was now doing, and when he did panic speared through him. He jerked away from her exploring hands so quickly that he tore open several of the healing wounds on his back. The pain made white spots dance before his eyes. He tried to move away, but the covering he had, and he couldn’t quite remember how he’d gotten it, had tangled around his knees. After a few scrambled tries to pull it up he opted to curl into a ball in order to cover his most sensitive parts. He knew they both caused him pain and caused others pain and in that shameful knowledge he wrapped his arms around his head and whimpered. Why wouldn’t it end?
Then she was touching him again and though he tried to escape, and then to lash out, she held him firm. It as at that moment that Angel realized that she was stronger than him. Of course she was, everyone was, especially them. He shuddered at the thought that she might be one of them. But she had her face. He was so confused, and there was a spot inside of him that felt raw and decaying, it had been there for so long, but it eased some when she was around. Still, he curled up there, unmoving, his face to the floor, as she bared him to her gaze and he didn’t see the tears that spilled down her face or the way she flinched and trembled whenever he did. He was back where he had been for so long, trying to steel himself for another round of torture.
Buffy picked up the washcloth and began to wipe Angel’s skin clean, but from his actions he thought she was about to rip his skin off. She choked back a sob and continued her work. She had to get this done. She was the slayer. She saved the world. She could get him cleaned up. She sniffled and continued, studiously avoiding his more…private parts, and trying to deal with the rest. Wipe off the hell stuff, cleanse the wound, put antibiotic cream on it, bandage, and repeat. Ad nauseum.
She was touching him. He didn’t want to be touched. Angel shuddered, wishing he knew how to express this sickness he felt inside of him. But then she had the right to do what she wanted. She had been kind, and no one was ever kind to him. She had the right to exact payment, and in Hell there was no payment other than flesh, so he held still and made himself pliable, hoping it would be oven soon. Hoping she would act like her again, and hoping the kindness hadn’t ended. He would give her whatever she wanted if she continued to be kind.
Angel purred and keened the entire time, and she could definitely see the benefit in cats purring because she wanted to just gather him up in her arms and make his pain go away, but she also thought she’d never be able to hear that sound again without her heart breaking. Still, that wasn’t the hard part. None of it was, not until she began to clean around the back of his left leg. Angel cried out and arched off the floor, and Buffy scuttled back for a moment, entirely confused. But his movement had made the gash she had touched easier to see and when she bent down to look at it her blood seemed to turn cold. It went from the top of his thigh almost to the bottom of it and she could see fat, tendons and muscled bared. In addition something glittered from the deepest part of the wound. Someone had shoved something in there. Did he had things shoved in his other wounds? She hadn’t known to look.
Very gently she reached out to touch it but at the first contact he cried out again. Buffy shivered and bit back a cry of her own. She had to get that thing out. Carefully she crawled around Angel until she was facing him. She lifted his head from his arms and moved his face so that they were looking at one another. He was too pliant for her liking but she put that thought in the back of her mind. Instead she focused on getting that glazed look to leave his eyes. When she finally believed he was looking at her she spoke:
“Angel…you have something in that…gash on your leg. I have to get it out…” Buffy sniffled as her voice failed her and it took several moments for her to regain it. “I-it’s going to hurt…a lot. I’m so so sorry.”
At that she gently let go of Angel’s face and moved back around. Taking a deep breath she rested one hand on his hip to steady him, and hold onto him for what would inevitably be an intensely painful experience. Lacking the subtlety that comes with age she took one more deep breath, and with Slayer quickness, reached in and grabbed a hold of it. Angel howled and nearly thrashed free but she held on tight, her fingers digging into his pale flesh in an attempt to get him to hold still. “Just a little more,” she murmured and gripped the thing tighter. It seemed to be a metal rod of sorts. No wonder he’d collapsed so many times on the way to the mansion. And now Buffy marveled at his ability to move at all; he had attacked her and fought Pete, all with this thing in his leg. Buffy swallowed her gag reflex. Ok, on three. One, two, and she wrenched the rod free with the sucking tearing sound of deep flesh and blood.
It was over a foot long and Buffy stared at it in horror also as she saw the amount of blood staining her hand. Angel! Her head snapped up to see that he had passed out and was now lying limp on the stone floor. From his leg blood puddle. Throwing the hated object aside Buffy grabbed up the sanitizer, needle and thread, and bandages and set to work. Perhaps it was better that he’d passed out. She shook her head. Scratch that, it was much better that he’d passed out.
Buffy took careful time sewing up the leg, and on a second thought turned to some of the other deeper injuries and sewed them up as well. It couldn’t hurt him any more and would probably help them heal faster. Then she moved around and gingerly wiped off his…ahem, yes, those. She wiped the grime and blood, tried to do her best to bandage it, though she felt ill at the thought of what might have caused any injury to his…parts. Better that he was unconscious, she wouldn’t have been able to do it if he’d been watching her.
It also gave her the opportunity to search out a bed, and there was one, though it had no blankets and no sheet. She made a mental note to get a blanket for him later. She lifted him in her arms, still far too easy, he was Angel, his bones like iron rods. When he was at his full strength he was like a jungle cat, all hard heavy muscle and thick bone. Even as the Slayer she should have been struggling to carry him.
After she set him down she took a moment just to watch him. Nearly every inch of him was bandaged, and his hair was still greasy. He wasn’t really clean, but he was better, and more comfortable. She almost smiled as she watched him. He was so beautiful, and in his sleep the look of anguish had faded just a bit. Big tears dripped down her face as she thought of her Angel, and wondered if he would ever come back to her, because whoever this was, he definitely wasn’t the guy she had known before. He was preferable over Angelus, but only slightly. And yet she loved this broken man too. She sighed, wiping angrily at her tears. She had no right to cry. She hadn’t been the one in Hell.
Quietly she walked over to the cooler with the blood and took a few bags out, then she sat down beside his sleeping form and rested one hand on the only spot on his chest that seemed uninjured. Angel woke with a start but she held him down, talking soothingly.
“Hey Angel. It’s just me. Buffy. You’re ok now. I brought you some blood.”
Angel frowned and looked at her. At least this time he didn’t seem to think she was the enemy, and he seemed a little more…there. “Buffy.” He whispered, and tears spilled down his face. She nodded and looked away, unable to handle more emotions.
“Yeah,” she choked and brought up the first bag of blood. Angel sniffed the air and looked from her to the bag, from her to the bag, several times before it seemed to dawn on him that the blood was for him.
“Hey, I don’t drink the stuff,” Buffy said, and Angel snatched it from her, drinking it down in seconds before dropping the empty bag beside him on the bed. By the fifth bag his head was beginning to nod and his eyes drooped. It was obvious he needed sleep, real sleep, not the pass out from the pain kind, and his full stomach was definitely pushing him in that direction. On impulse Buffy leaned down and pressed a soft kiss to his sunken cheek. He stared at her with wide eyes.
“I have to go,” she said, “but I’ll be back. I promise.”
When Buffy opened the door to the house, worn and weary, her mother was standing at the foot of the stairs.
“Where have you been, young lady?”
Shocked, Buffy opened her mouth, “…Giles-”
“Is on his way over. I called him as soon as I saw you coming up the walk. Buffy, he’s been worried sick.”
At the revelation Buffy felt her stomach drop out. Busted. It was then that she noticed a very guilty looking Willow standing near the couch. Buffy’s eyes narrowed.
“I see the interrogation went well.”
“Buffy!” Joyce reprimanded. “You have no right to get mad at your friend. She only wants what’s best for you.”
Tired beyond tired, frustrated, and frightened Buffy rolled her eyes and turned her glare to her mother. “Want, want, want. Well, sometimes we don’t get what we want, do we, Mom?”
Joyce’s mouth fell open and her eyes flashed. To anyone watching it was easy to see where Buffy got her temper. Joyce’s teeth snapped together with an audible click and she glared back just as defiantly at her daughter. “I went through hell this summer,” she hissed, and Buffy nearly laughed at the irony of her words, “and I will not go through it again. You sit down on that couch and do not move until Mr. Giles gets here. This is not a suggestion. Is that clear?”
“Crystal,” Buffy replied as she stomped over to the couch and threw herself down beside Willow.
Willow fidgeted with her long red hair. “Um…Buffy?”
Buffy turned to glare at her friend, tried not to break into tears at the thought of being kept from Angel. “Will. Now is a very. Bad. Time.” With a startled gasp Willow nodded and turned to face the wall. Buffy just crossed her arms and sunk further into the cushions. She shouldn’t have come home at all.
It wasn’t twenty minutes later when Giles burst through the door.
“Buffy!” It was hard to tell whether he was more shocked or angry. “You’ve been gone for nearly two days! I thought-”
“I’m fine.”
Joyce stepped up behind Buffy’s Watcher. “Where were you Buffy?”
“Bronzing?”
Her mother blanched. “For two days?!”
Giles crossed his arms and gave his best angry Watcher stare. “You weren’t there, I checked. Where were you?”
Buffy shrugged. She was so going to smash things when she got free of this. “I went camping.”
“Buffy!”
Buffy stood but did not look at her mother or watcher.
“Buffy, where were you?” Giles again.
Buffy’s head snapped up. “It doesn’t matter. I’m not there now.”
Giles sighed and motioned for her to stay. “Your mother and I are going to talk, don’t go anywhere.” He and Joyce walked back to the kitchen where furtive whispering could be heard. Buffy clenched and unclenched her fists.
“This is ridiculous!” she hissed.
Willow looked up, surprised. “Buffy, you were gone. They thought you were gone again.”
Buffy looked over at Willow and some of her anger deflated. She knew they were worried, but something more important was happening.
“W-where were you anyway?” Buffy only raised an eyebrow at her friend’s question.
“Ok, ok,” Willow said, raising her hands a little, “you don’t need to tell me.”
Buffy nodded, then rested her head in her hands and waited.
When Giles and Joyce walked back out into the living room their stoical faces said it all. They’d come up with her punishment, and they were at a consensus.
“Buffy, Mr. Giles and I have made a decision.” She looked to Giles, who nodded and took off his glasses to clean them furiously.
“Yes, well. You will go to school, and report to me. After school you will study in the library. You will check in with either your mother or me every three hours…And, you will be patrolling with Faith.”
Buffy’s eyes widened. “What? This is so unfair!”
Giles continued to clean his glasses and avoided looking at the girl he was beginning to think of as a daughter. “No, what you did to us, your actions, were unfair. This is simply consequences.”
Oh, Buffy knew consequences. She was living consequences in more ways then they could dream. Beginning to loose hold on her composure Buffy screamed and stomped up to her room where her door slamming was probably heard three houses down. Inside her room she grabbed a hold of the foot of her bed and gripped it, trying to get a hold of her breathing and the overwhelming sense of hopelessness that was starting to consume her. When she finally calmed she was surprised to see that the foot of her bed had splintered under her hands. Wordlessly, and with eyes growing rapidly dull from exhaustion and pain Buffy crawled up onto her bed, pulled Mr. Gordo to her, and slept.
In a warehouse need the docks the vampire Drusilla was seated on a luxurious bed, but she hardly noticed. Spike had placed her there when she began flailing on the ground and screaming.
“Can’t have my princess bumpin’ her head now can we?” he murmured as her set her somewhere where she could cause herself less harm. Now she writhed and shrieked, grabbing at her head and coming away with fists full of hair.
“Noooo! Stop! She burns!”
In a chair sat Spike who was bent over, rubbing at the tension in his neck until he noticed several lackeys standing in the door way. With a snarl he lept to his feet and hurled his chair at them. It hit one of them squarely in the chest, knocking him to the ground, and sent the others scattering.
“What the fuck do you idiots not understand about leave us alone!” he bellowed after them. Then he stomped over to Dru’s chest of dolls and knocked it over for good measure. He hated the damned things anyway. Gave him the willies they did. Loosing his steam as quickly as he’d gained it he sighed and looked over at Dru. “You don’t stop all this soon and you’ll drive me as starkers as you are.” At that Drusilla uttered the one word that could make Spike’s dead blood run cold.
“Daddy! Daddy, the sun! The light! Don’t touch it! No, don’t leave me! Oh, the fishes are screaming, the air is boiling! Mrs. Edith!” Dru slumped against the bed, gasping as the last of her vision left her. “She’s ruined you,” she sobbed. “She’s ruined you!”
Spike walked out of the warehouse and leaned against the wall where he tried to light a cigarette several times before roaring and throwing his lighter. The muscles in his neck and arms bulged as he tried and failed to contain his rage and he dropped to his knees and pounded at the ground until the cement was broken and his indignation was at least temporarily sated. When he spoke it was little more then a growl.
“Bugger.”