Best Souvenir, chapter 15
Title: Best Souvenir
Rating: PG for now
Warnings: None for now
Pairings: just B/A for now
Summary: Whistler never existed. Buffy and Angel meet after the End of Days is over. Future fic, alternate reality.
A/N: Much thanks to a2zmom, as always, for finding out was wrong with that one part!
Previous chapters can be found here.
Chapter 15
They didn’t say anything the rest of the way to the hostel, or while walking up the three flights of stairs. Angel followed her docilely, his hand keeping pressure above his hip, growing paler by increments as they traveled. At last, they were at the door to her room. She jiggled the key in the lock and opened the door, striding through and going straight to the bathroom. “Take off your shirt,” she told him, when he had entered the room and shut the door behind him.
Obediently, his hands went to his collar, unfastening the line of buttons down the front. “Why?” he asked, as he pulled his arms out.
Buffy came out of the bathroom, holding her first-aid kit and a glass of water. She put them on the table and pointed to the chair. “Sit,” she commanded, and knelt beside him on the floor when he had settled himself on the edge of the chair. “I’m going to bandage that up,” she explained, nodding towards the bloody mess on his side. She dipped a washcloth into the water and began to clean the area surrounding the cut.
He looked down at her small, nimble hands working over his skin. Her head was bent over him, a tendril escaping from her hair to brush his thigh. “I don’t need bandaging,” he said, voice strained. “I heal quickly.”
“So do I,” Buffy said tersely. “Doesn’t mean it won’t get infected.”
He was silent for a moment, watching her tensely, trying not to let his eyes drift closed under the feel of her touching him. “Vampires don’t get infected.”
“Actually, Slayers don’t either,” she replied, setting the wash cloth aside. She took the top off the hydrogen peroxide and poured a liberal amount onto some gauze. “It’s just what my mom used to say.”
“Your mom?” he repeated, as she dabbed at the open cut with the gauze. She didn’t say anything. He watched her for a moment, then: “That stings.”
“You’ll deal,” she said, as if indifferent, but her hands grew yet gentler as she pressed a new piece of gauze over the wound, and her fingers caressed him as she applied the tape. When she was done, she rested her hand on the bandage for a moment. “Okay?”
“Yes,” he replied.
His hand covered hers for a brief instant, and then she was jerking away. “Why are you doing this?” she asked, anger and frustration trying to cover how lost her voice sounded. “What do you want?”
He knew what she meant, even though she didn’t spell it out, even though he had already answered these questions. He knew she hadn’t believed him before when he had said he wanted to help her; he wouldn’t have believed him either. “It was true. I want to help you,” he said.
“You don’t want that. You’re a vampire. And I’m a Slayer. Don’t you get that? I want to kill you. I was born to; it’s in my blood. Killing. It’s what I am.”
He did get that. He had felt her itching for it with Ubel, and even with those humans in the alley. It had taken more strength for her to pull her punches and tend to the man he’d wounded than it would have taken for her to kill all four of those men. She was the Slayer, and she brought death. Part of her wanted to.
“But it’s not all you are,” he said quietly.
She turned away from him, and he could read her troubled expression very easily. There was a girl in there who had wanted to be a normal person-as he had at one time. And this-all of this: being Chosen, being damned, being cursed-these were things that had just happened to them. They didn’t get to choose. And while a part of her knew she couldn’t be a normal girl any more, she was more than this calling, than this death march. There was another part that still believed in love and happiness and the good things in life she fought for and never got to have. And that made him want her all the more.
Because he did want her. He wanted her so much he wasn’t sure he’d known before what wanting something really was. He watched, soulless, as the multitudes loved and lost and wanted wanted wanted, and he’d been endlessly amused by the pointlessness of their meager, clueless lives. Even with a soul, he’d watched and wondered, confused by people who thought there might be a point to all this, by people who had goals in life, by people who had hope.
Then she knocked him to the ground in an alley and changed everything. Existence was worthwhile, because of her. He believed the world could be a better place, because of her. He could never atone, but maybe he could help-because of her.
At last, Angel stirred where he sat in his chair. “Knopf said there was more than one Slayer,” he said, affecting indifference. “What did he mean?”
She turned back to him, the truth of who and what she was written all over her face. “Just that. There are dozens, now.” Then she added dully, “Didn’t you know?”
“No.” What she had said before, about being the “original” Slayer, began to make sense. He didn’t ask how or why there were more now. “You’ve been doing this for a long time,” he said at last. He could tell, even if she hadn’t told him. “If there are others now, why are you still doing it?”
“Because I have to.” She said it firmly, believing her words, but there was something vulnerable in her expression that made him stand up and take several steps toward her.
“No,” he countered, “you don’t. Part of the what a Slayer is is being the one, the only. The Chosen.” He stopped. “It’s not all your responsibility any more.”
“It’s . . .” She began, and trailed off. “You wouldn’t understand.”
He took a step closer, and reached for her. “I could try.”
Sudden, unexpected tears pricked her eyes. She jerked away from him, muttering, “I need to take a shower.” Then she walked into the bathroom, and shut him out.
She stood in front of the sink, her hands on either side of the it, gripping so tightly that her knuckles were white. She didn’t know whether she wanted to scream or cry. He was right; he could try to understand. He had a soul. He did understand; he looked right down into her and saw it all, saw everything.
Buffy looked up at herself in the mirror. It was ridiculous to think that just from the way he looked at her he could read her, knew her through and through. And yet, with him, she suddenly remembered a side to herself she’d thought she’d lost, something that had fallen away some time between dreaming of a battle with the First Slayer and taking a nose dive into Glory’s portal. Ever since she was Chosen, she’d been at war with herself; there’d been two sides to her, the Slayer and the woman. But in that one defining moment, she’d become one person. And then she’d died. And then she’d been reborn, but that hadn’t changed the fact that she’d accepted who she was. She was the Slayer. She’d been born-and reborn-to fight. She would die doing it. Three times. Maybe more.
After the other Slayers had been activated, after the First was defeated, she’d felt so free. She could go anywhere, do anything-but there had been no question that she would do it as a Slayer. “There’s a Hellmouth in Cleveland,” Giles had said. “We’ll have to find the other Slayers,” Dawn had said. “We are not the only Chosen any more,” Kendra had announced, clapping a hand on her shoulder. “What are we going to do next?” But her question had meant-as it always did, with Kendra-what are we going to go kill next?
And she’d been excited. She’d wanted to find the other Slayers and teach them and not be alone any more. She’d even thought about making a life for herself, about taking some time off because now there were other Slayers to pick up the slack. But she hadn’t thought about her old dreams-the one where she was normal and had a normal boyfriend and did normal things. She hadn’t needed to, because those dreams had died. She’d accepted who she was and she’d begun to enjoy it. And yet, here with Angel, it felt as though something were missing from her life, something vastly important, as big as the holes that had been there when she’d wanted that normal life so desperately and hadn’t been able to live it. He made her think and feel in ways she hadn’t for a long time-in ways she didn’t want to face.
He had a soul. He was just like Xander, or Willow-except that Willow had a soul and she had killed people, too. She’d gradually been consumed by black magic; it hadn’t been all her that wanted to end the world, but she had let the process begin. Angel was different; he hadn’t asked for it. He was as innocent as Tara, or Giles, or Anya-except that Anya wasn’t innocent either, was she, because she’d killed a whole roomful of boys while barely blinking an eye. How was it that everyone she knew turned evil at some point or other?
She wanted purity. She wanted her mother’s arms. She wanted . . . Dawn, to hold her little sister and to cradle her, because they were family and loved each other and would never betray-Except that Dawn had betrayed her too, hadn’t she?
“We have to be together on this,” she’d said. Then added on, so confidently that Buffy had thought it was a joke, at first: “So you can’t be a part of it. . . . I love you . . . But this is my house, too.”
Buffy hadn’t understood it at the time. She still didn’t understand it. Why Xander, who everyone thought saw so much, had seen so little. Why Willow, who’d always been so close to her, had turned away. Why Giles, who’d left to wean her away from him, had said she wasn’t good enough to lead them. Why Riley had left because she somehow hadn’t fulfilled him, why her father had left her mother, why her mother had died.
Loving people hurt.
Buffy lifted her head to look in the mirror again and hated what she saw. She looked like a lovesick teenager-like a girl mourning her first love. Except she’d never had a first love, had she, because she’d been too much of a freak in high school, because Riley said she’d never loved him, because the guys after that had just been to take away the pain, and the guys after those guys she’d turned down because she’d become so afraid of using them. She looked weak, like someone who pitied herself, like someone who still hated herself even after she’d learned to live again after dying.
There were no tears streaking her face, but her mascara had begun to run. There was blood-not hers-smeared on her shoulder somehow, and the way the black leather dress pushed her breasts up and put them on display made her feel dirty, like a whore. She bent over, jerking at the straps of one her shoe, tearing at it when it didn’t come undone, flinging the shoe away when it did. Balancing on one heel, she stumbled, righted herself, then jerked the other one off with a clatter. She stretched behind her to pull down the zipper of the dress, and couldn’t reach it. Then her clawing, questing fingers found the little metal tag, yanked, and succeeded in somehow tangling her hair in the zipper-and then she couldn’t reach again.
At last, she let a tear drop. She hated this dress; she hated all dresses like this; she hated how Ubel had looked at her; she hated how Angel had touched her and how she had liked it; she hated how hurt she was; how confusing everything was; she hated being alone; she hated-the knocking on the door.
Angel didn’t wait for her to answer. The door opened and he came inside. She was standing with her back to him, a hand on her back still reaching for the zipper.
He must have come in because the struggle with the shoes had made a lot of noise. Buffy blinked back her tears without turning to face him. She didn’t want him to see. Swallowing heavily, she said steadily, in explanation, “I can’t reach.” Despite her effort to speak blandly, the words sounded plaintive, even to her ears.
Then his hands were at the zipper on her back, gently tugging the hair that had gotten caught there. She dropped her hands by her sides and docilely bent her head. When he got her hair loose, he gathered the rest of it and gently placed it over her shoulder, so that her back was clear. Then he returned to the zipper and pulled it down-down so slowly-down so that the only sound either of them heard was the teeth separating, opening like a black maw, like rotten lips of skin peeling back to reveal a narrow strip of new, fresh skin, untouched and golden. He pulled the zip all the way down to the very end, the lowest dip of her lower back. Then he let go, and stepped back a little. He hadn’t once touched her skin.
She turned her head. Not to look at him, just to feel him there, behind her, through the curtain of her yellow hair. For a moment he remained very still; then he stepped over and pulled the shower curtain almost closed. He turned the dials on the wall so that a hearty spray started inside the shower. Then he leaned over to the sink and grabbed a fresh towel from her stash on the counter. Silently, he handed her the towel.
She took it, lifting her head to meet his gaze. Her eyes only made it to his mouth. She turned, and looked at the shower-wondering if, when he did not leave, he thought he was going to help her undress the rest of the way, too. Then she felt his knuckles touch the nape of her neck, and she thought she might let him. Instead, she felt the back of his hand slide down her back, between her shoulder blades, the movement slow, gentle. His touch felt so unexpectedly-good. Not painfully arousing, as she might have supposed, just . . . cool, soothing. His fingers rested for a moment at the dimple just above the cleft of her buttocks, and then his hand was gone. “I’ll be just outside the door,” he told her softly.
She heard what he said underneath those words, too, without even having to try.
If you need me, I’ll be here. Waiting.
Then he left and shut the door behind him.
Rating: PG for now
Warnings: None for now
Pairings: just B/A for now
Summary: Whistler never existed. Buffy and Angel meet after the End of Days is over. Future fic, alternate reality.
A/N: Much thanks to a2zmom, as always, for finding out was wrong with that one part!
Previous chapters can be found here.
Chapter 15
They didn’t say anything the rest of the way to the hostel, or while walking up the three flights of stairs. Angel followed her docilely, his hand keeping pressure above his hip, growing paler by increments as they traveled. At last, they were at the door to her room. She jiggled the key in the lock and opened the door, striding through and going straight to the bathroom. “Take off your shirt,” she told him, when he had entered the room and shut the door behind him.
Obediently, his hands went to his collar, unfastening the line of buttons down the front. “Why?” he asked, as he pulled his arms out.
Buffy came out of the bathroom, holding her first-aid kit and a glass of water. She put them on the table and pointed to the chair. “Sit,” she commanded, and knelt beside him on the floor when he had settled himself on the edge of the chair. “I’m going to bandage that up,” she explained, nodding towards the bloody mess on his side. She dipped a washcloth into the water and began to clean the area surrounding the cut.
He looked down at her small, nimble hands working over his skin. Her head was bent over him, a tendril escaping from her hair to brush his thigh. “I don’t need bandaging,” he said, voice strained. “I heal quickly.”
“So do I,” Buffy said tersely. “Doesn’t mean it won’t get infected.”
He was silent for a moment, watching her tensely, trying not to let his eyes drift closed under the feel of her touching him. “Vampires don’t get infected.”
“Actually, Slayers don’t either,” she replied, setting the wash cloth aside. She took the top off the hydrogen peroxide and poured a liberal amount onto some gauze. “It’s just what my mom used to say.”
“Your mom?” he repeated, as she dabbed at the open cut with the gauze. She didn’t say anything. He watched her for a moment, then: “That stings.”
“You’ll deal,” she said, as if indifferent, but her hands grew yet gentler as she pressed a new piece of gauze over the wound, and her fingers caressed him as she applied the tape. When she was done, she rested her hand on the bandage for a moment. “Okay?”
“Yes,” he replied.
His hand covered hers for a brief instant, and then she was jerking away. “Why are you doing this?” she asked, anger and frustration trying to cover how lost her voice sounded. “What do you want?”
He knew what she meant, even though she didn’t spell it out, even though he had already answered these questions. He knew she hadn’t believed him before when he had said he wanted to help her; he wouldn’t have believed him either. “It was true. I want to help you,” he said.
“You don’t want that. You’re a vampire. And I’m a Slayer. Don’t you get that? I want to kill you. I was born to; it’s in my blood. Killing. It’s what I am.”
He did get that. He had felt her itching for it with Ubel, and even with those humans in the alley. It had taken more strength for her to pull her punches and tend to the man he’d wounded than it would have taken for her to kill all four of those men. She was the Slayer, and she brought death. Part of her wanted to.
“But it’s not all you are,” he said quietly.
She turned away from him, and he could read her troubled expression very easily. There was a girl in there who had wanted to be a normal person-as he had at one time. And this-all of this: being Chosen, being damned, being cursed-these were things that had just happened to them. They didn’t get to choose. And while a part of her knew she couldn’t be a normal girl any more, she was more than this calling, than this death march. There was another part that still believed in love and happiness and the good things in life she fought for and never got to have. And that made him want her all the more.
Because he did want her. He wanted her so much he wasn’t sure he’d known before what wanting something really was. He watched, soulless, as the multitudes loved and lost and wanted wanted wanted, and he’d been endlessly amused by the pointlessness of their meager, clueless lives. Even with a soul, he’d watched and wondered, confused by people who thought there might be a point to all this, by people who had goals in life, by people who had hope.
Then she knocked him to the ground in an alley and changed everything. Existence was worthwhile, because of her. He believed the world could be a better place, because of her. He could never atone, but maybe he could help-because of her.
At last, Angel stirred where he sat in his chair. “Knopf said there was more than one Slayer,” he said, affecting indifference. “What did he mean?”
She turned back to him, the truth of who and what she was written all over her face. “Just that. There are dozens, now.” Then she added dully, “Didn’t you know?”
“No.” What she had said before, about being the “original” Slayer, began to make sense. He didn’t ask how or why there were more now. “You’ve been doing this for a long time,” he said at last. He could tell, even if she hadn’t told him. “If there are others now, why are you still doing it?”
“Because I have to.” She said it firmly, believing her words, but there was something vulnerable in her expression that made him stand up and take several steps toward her.
“No,” he countered, “you don’t. Part of the what a Slayer is is being the one, the only. The Chosen.” He stopped. “It’s not all your responsibility any more.”
“It’s . . .” She began, and trailed off. “You wouldn’t understand.”
He took a step closer, and reached for her. “I could try.”
Sudden, unexpected tears pricked her eyes. She jerked away from him, muttering, “I need to take a shower.” Then she walked into the bathroom, and shut him out.
She stood in front of the sink, her hands on either side of the it, gripping so tightly that her knuckles were white. She didn’t know whether she wanted to scream or cry. He was right; he could try to understand. He had a soul. He did understand; he looked right down into her and saw it all, saw everything.
Buffy looked up at herself in the mirror. It was ridiculous to think that just from the way he looked at her he could read her, knew her through and through. And yet, with him, she suddenly remembered a side to herself she’d thought she’d lost, something that had fallen away some time between dreaming of a battle with the First Slayer and taking a nose dive into Glory’s portal. Ever since she was Chosen, she’d been at war with herself; there’d been two sides to her, the Slayer and the woman. But in that one defining moment, she’d become one person. And then she’d died. And then she’d been reborn, but that hadn’t changed the fact that she’d accepted who she was. She was the Slayer. She’d been born-and reborn-to fight. She would die doing it. Three times. Maybe more.
After the other Slayers had been activated, after the First was defeated, she’d felt so free. She could go anywhere, do anything-but there had been no question that she would do it as a Slayer. “There’s a Hellmouth in Cleveland,” Giles had said. “We’ll have to find the other Slayers,” Dawn had said. “We are not the only Chosen any more,” Kendra had announced, clapping a hand on her shoulder. “What are we going to do next?” But her question had meant-as it always did, with Kendra-what are we going to go kill next?
And she’d been excited. She’d wanted to find the other Slayers and teach them and not be alone any more. She’d even thought about making a life for herself, about taking some time off because now there were other Slayers to pick up the slack. But she hadn’t thought about her old dreams-the one where she was normal and had a normal boyfriend and did normal things. She hadn’t needed to, because those dreams had died. She’d accepted who she was and she’d begun to enjoy it. And yet, here with Angel, it felt as though something were missing from her life, something vastly important, as big as the holes that had been there when she’d wanted that normal life so desperately and hadn’t been able to live it. He made her think and feel in ways she hadn’t for a long time-in ways she didn’t want to face.
He had a soul. He was just like Xander, or Willow-except that Willow had a soul and she had killed people, too. She’d gradually been consumed by black magic; it hadn’t been all her that wanted to end the world, but she had let the process begin. Angel was different; he hadn’t asked for it. He was as innocent as Tara, or Giles, or Anya-except that Anya wasn’t innocent either, was she, because she’d killed a whole roomful of boys while barely blinking an eye. How was it that everyone she knew turned evil at some point or other?
She wanted purity. She wanted her mother’s arms. She wanted . . . Dawn, to hold her little sister and to cradle her, because they were family and loved each other and would never betray-Except that Dawn had betrayed her too, hadn’t she?
“We have to be together on this,” she’d said. Then added on, so confidently that Buffy had thought it was a joke, at first: “So you can’t be a part of it. . . . I love you . . . But this is my house, too.”
Buffy hadn’t understood it at the time. She still didn’t understand it. Why Xander, who everyone thought saw so much, had seen so little. Why Willow, who’d always been so close to her, had turned away. Why Giles, who’d left to wean her away from him, had said she wasn’t good enough to lead them. Why Riley had left because she somehow hadn’t fulfilled him, why her father had left her mother, why her mother had died.
Loving people hurt.
Buffy lifted her head to look in the mirror again and hated what she saw. She looked like a lovesick teenager-like a girl mourning her first love. Except she’d never had a first love, had she, because she’d been too much of a freak in high school, because Riley said she’d never loved him, because the guys after that had just been to take away the pain, and the guys after those guys she’d turned down because she’d become so afraid of using them. She looked weak, like someone who pitied herself, like someone who still hated herself even after she’d learned to live again after dying.
There were no tears streaking her face, but her mascara had begun to run. There was blood-not hers-smeared on her shoulder somehow, and the way the black leather dress pushed her breasts up and put them on display made her feel dirty, like a whore. She bent over, jerking at the straps of one her shoe, tearing at it when it didn’t come undone, flinging the shoe away when it did. Balancing on one heel, she stumbled, righted herself, then jerked the other one off with a clatter. She stretched behind her to pull down the zipper of the dress, and couldn’t reach it. Then her clawing, questing fingers found the little metal tag, yanked, and succeeded in somehow tangling her hair in the zipper-and then she couldn’t reach again.
At last, she let a tear drop. She hated this dress; she hated all dresses like this; she hated how Ubel had looked at her; she hated how Angel had touched her and how she had liked it; she hated how hurt she was; how confusing everything was; she hated being alone; she hated-the knocking on the door.
Angel didn’t wait for her to answer. The door opened and he came inside. She was standing with her back to him, a hand on her back still reaching for the zipper.
He must have come in because the struggle with the shoes had made a lot of noise. Buffy blinked back her tears without turning to face him. She didn’t want him to see. Swallowing heavily, she said steadily, in explanation, “I can’t reach.” Despite her effort to speak blandly, the words sounded plaintive, even to her ears.
Then his hands were at the zipper on her back, gently tugging the hair that had gotten caught there. She dropped her hands by her sides and docilely bent her head. When he got her hair loose, he gathered the rest of it and gently placed it over her shoulder, so that her back was clear. Then he returned to the zipper and pulled it down-down so slowly-down so that the only sound either of them heard was the teeth separating, opening like a black maw, like rotten lips of skin peeling back to reveal a narrow strip of new, fresh skin, untouched and golden. He pulled the zip all the way down to the very end, the lowest dip of her lower back. Then he let go, and stepped back a little. He hadn’t once touched her skin.
She turned her head. Not to look at him, just to feel him there, behind her, through the curtain of her yellow hair. For a moment he remained very still; then he stepped over and pulled the shower curtain almost closed. He turned the dials on the wall so that a hearty spray started inside the shower. Then he leaned over to the sink and grabbed a fresh towel from her stash on the counter. Silently, he handed her the towel.
She took it, lifting her head to meet his gaze. Her eyes only made it to his mouth. She turned, and looked at the shower-wondering if, when he did not leave, he thought he was going to help her undress the rest of the way, too. Then she felt his knuckles touch the nape of her neck, and she thought she might let him. Instead, she felt the back of his hand slide down her back, between her shoulder blades, the movement slow, gentle. His touch felt so unexpectedly-good. Not painfully arousing, as she might have supposed, just . . . cool, soothing. His fingers rested for a moment at the dimple just above the cleft of her buttocks, and then his hand was gone. “I’ll be just outside the door,” he told her softly.
She heard what he said underneath those words, too, without even having to try.
If you need me, I’ll be here. Waiting.
Then he left and shut the door behind him.