Fic: La Mariee (Buffy/Angel, Adult) (Part 2 of 2)
First part of fic, with title and pairing information here: La Mariee, Part 1
*
The next afternoon she wakes up wrapped in Angel’s arms. She shivers, unused to his body temperature. It’s been four years, maybe five, since the last time she saw him.
He’s still asleep, his face smooth and peaceful and looking so much better already. Buffy lingers in bed with him for several more minutes, unwilling to leave his side for even the moment it will take her to pull on a sweater. Finally, when her stomach rumbles and the goose bumps on her arms can no longer be ignored, she gently untangles her body from Angel’s. She decides to hit the kitchen first, ignoring the oatmeal for a triple dose of fresh fruit. Last night’s blood donation doesn’t seem to have had any lasting effects but Buffy knows she’ll need the extra vitamins to replenish her over the next several days. Angel will need more blood.
A quick call to Washington reveals that there haven’t been any new arrivals and Buffy smiles as she says goodbye. Now there is no reason to leave her apartment for the day. Her smile grows even wider.
Angel is awake when she reenters the bedroom. He sees her smile and his lips twitch back up at the corner. Buffy goes to her dresser and pulls out one of the lightweight sweaters she keeps for him. As she slips it on over her tank, Angel watches her, his face taking on a look of hunger as he sweeps his gaze up her small muscular body. Her reaction is instantaneous, a rush of blood to fill her breasts and her sex with a dull, aching throb.
She slips back down on the sleeping pallet, lifting the blankets and molding her body against Angel’s side. He immediately slides a hand under her and pulls her to lie on top of him. Buffy hums at the feel of his body under hers, at the weight of his large hands on her hips.
“Well good morning to you too,” she murmurs against his lips. Angel’s mouth opens under hers and she kisses him, slowly and deeply until she’s forced to pull away to catch her breath. His hands lightly knead her hips and she’s already feeling heavy and liquid with want. Her lips meet his again with more urgency this time, urgency he seems happy to return. Buffy undulates her hips against his, searching for friction, and Angel groans, shifts his hands to cup her ass and pulls her roughly against him. She can feel the beginnings of an erection and she shifts her body until Angel’s growing cock is situated between her thighs. With the urging of his hands, she rocks against him, wishing there were fewer layers of clothes between them but not yet wanting to stop long enough to shed anything.
After a few minutes, Angel lets out a frustrated groan as he pulls away from Buffy’s mouth. She’s breathing hard, feeling a little dazed, but she knows what’s wrong.
“I’m sorry. I’m going to need more blood before I. . .”
Buffy cuts off his apology with another kiss, more chaste this time because fuck her body is already a livewire and she doesn’t need to torture herself any more. She shouldn’t have let herself get this out of control in the first place. She knew he was too starved, that he’d need more time, more blood, to recover. Now she’s dripping wet and she’s got a normally virile four-hundred-year vampire underneath her who can’t get it up through no fault of his own.
The absurdity of the situation strikes her. Buffy tries to choke back her laugh but it’s too fast, too unexpected and she can’t hold it in. Angel’s eyebrows rise over his dark, frustrated eyes.
“Are you laughing at me Buffy?”
Buffy shakes her head frantically from side to side, even as more laughter pours out of her throat. She’s mortified, but she can’t seem to stop it.
His eyes narrow and she swears she sees the corner of his mouth twitch just a bit before the expression is gone. Then his hands are moving with purpose, one slipping under the back of her pajama bottoms and into her panties, the other moving under her clothes to rest against the bare skin of her back. Buffy shivers again, this time less from the sudden coolness of his touch and more from the heat that has reared back to life, setting her nerve endings singing. She is the one starving, needing his touch.
The laughter comes to an abrupt halt, interrupted as it is by the low moan that forces it aside. His long fingers cup her from behind, slide through her wetness from top to bottom once, twice, before pushing inside. Angel starts with two fingers, not messing around, moving them slowly inside her as his other hand settles on the small of her back and presses her pelvis down into his. The angle puts just enough pressure on her clit and Buffy closes her eyes, throws back her head and rides Angel’s fingers to an almost embarrassingly quick climax.
Buffy collapses against Angel’s chest, her breath coming in harsh puffs. When she opens her eyes and angles her gaze up to his face, she sees him smirking down at her.
“Who’s laughing at who, now,” she asks, but her voice is reedy and her limbs are liquid and they are both still fully clothed so she can’t work up any indignation because if the tables were turned, she’d be smirking too.
Instead she drops her face into Angel’s neck and smiles against his skin.
*
The next time her eyes open it’s dark outside. It occurs to her that this is the first day in years that she has missed watching the sun set on the beach.
She feels Angel’s lips brush against her forehead and she can’t bring herself to care.
“Are we going to spend all day in bed, or do you have somewhere you have to be?” His voice is quiet, content and Buffy thinks she knows just how he feels.
She angles back and stretches, taking a moment to look him over. The shadows under his eyes are lighter and he looks much better. Another few days of good rest and slayer blood and he’ll be as good as new. She settles back down next to him and winds a hand under his shirt to play along the muscles of his stomach.
“I should probably take a trip out to the Sanctuary. I like to make my presence known during a full moon.”
“Do you get hunters?”
“Not yet. It’s probably only a matter of time though. Too much temptation with all of them captive in one space like that.”
Angel grunts in agreement and Buffy lets herself relax and enjoy the feeling of his hand sweeping up and down her back for a few more minutes.
Eventually she gets up to shower. When Angel takes his turn, Buffy sterilizes a knife and fills another glass for him so that when he steps out of the bathroom with wet hair and a towel wrapped around his waist, it’s waiting for him.
She swallows back another wave of lust, feeling like a teenager again. Angel glares at her hand and the glass it holds as she reaches it out for him.
“You shouldn’t weaken yourself before going out like that, Buffy. I could have waited.” His jaw clenches with irritation.
Buffy shrugs. “I’m fine. It’s done now, so take it before it gets cold.”
Angel mutters something under his breath but he takes the glass and tips the contents down his throat. Buffy watches his face, noticing that it doesn’t shift this time. It means his hunger is lessening, his control growing. A look of unmistakable pleasure passes over his features but when he catches her looking he turns away and finishes quickly.
She takes the empty glass to the kitchen and rinses it out. When she comes back out, Angel is dressed and putting on his shoes. Buffy frowns.
“What are you doing?”
He looks up at her, irritated. “I’m going with you. You’ve given me too much in the last 24 hours and I’m feeling stronger than I should. Which means you must be feeling weaker than you should.”
Buffy frowns and huffs, equally irritated. “You need to rest. Go lay back down.”
Angel just looks at her, his face stony and blank with his stubbornness. Buffy knows that look well. She narrows her eyes and shakes her head at him, but gives up the fight, knowing it is one she will not win.
The tension between them fades as they get closer to the Sanctuary. By the time they get there, their voices are weaving together in quiet conversation. Buffy updates him on the situation at the Sanctuary and he listens, asking a question here and there and offering a suggestion when she asks for it. She can tell by the set of his jaw that the captivity of the werewolves bothers him, but his level of upset doesn’t seem to match hers. Buffy supposes that to him, the plight of the lycanthropes is tolerable if not ideal. After all, he lives his life in a world where it is the humans who are held captive, taken as pets, and farmed as food for the demons. At least the werewolves are no one’s pet.
She avoids the administration building with its adjacent parking lot and parks on a dirt road that surrounds the enclosure. Buffy watches Angel carefully as he gets out of the car. He looks strong and only a little tired. She relaxes a little, gesturing for him to follow her.
They spend the next several hours checking the perimeter of the werewolf enclosure. Buffy can hear the howls of the hunting wolves inside. There doesn’t seem to be any evidence of anyone breaking into the Sanctuary and eventually they turn to circle back to her car.
The wind picks up, the warm breeze blowing Buffy’s hair across her face. She shakes her head, annoyed and wishing she’d pulled it back before they left the apartment. Angel grabs her elbow and pulls her to a stop in front of him. With his free hand he reaches up and brushes her hair back, gently fingering the strands before releasing them.
“I haven’t seen your hair this long in a very long time, probably not since the first time I ever saw you sitting on those steps,” he says quietly. He hesitates for a moment and when he continues his eyes look far away. “It reminds me of the way that Dawn used to wear her hair. Long and straight and shiny. Like Fred’s used to be, before Illyria.”
Buffy’s heart twists with an old, stale kind of pain. “I don’t remember,” she whispers, looking away.
Angel doesn’t say anything, just pulls her against him. The guilt is strong now, stronger than the pain, and she feels the urge to make a confession against his chest.
“I don’t remember what she looked like. I don’t remember what any of them looked like. I mean, I can tell you the color of their hair, their eyes, but I can’t picture the way those little pieces of description fit together into Dawn, or Giles, or any of them. They’re just pieces. No wholes that are greater than the sum of their parts.”
“Your pictures. . .”
“Gone. Hurricane, can’t remember which one.” There have been too many and it was a long time ago.
He holds her, anchors her to the moment and they stand under the full moon and listen to the howling of the werewolves and feel the warm tropical breeze on their skin.
*
Two days pass. Buffy spends most of it at Angel’s side as he recovers, talking quietly when he’s awake and watching him sleep when he isn’t. She wonders how long the trip took this time, how many weeks or months it has been since he’d last fed well. He takes one more glass of her blood and then refuses more, says it’s working and he just needs to rest as it repairs him. Buffy agrees, a voice in the back of her head insisting that he take it directly from the vein the next time anyway, and she feels a stab of guilt for being so selfish and needy when he isn’t well.
The next day there’s a new ship in port and a call from the Council checking in on her progress on the smuggled magical items. Buffy grumbles as she tears herself away from Angel’s side to do her job. Usually she’s grateful for any small distraction from the otherwise monotonous cadence of her life but usually she’s alone and just trying to fill her days and nights. For the first time since Angel’s last visit, Buffy wishes she got vacation and sick days.
She seeks out the priestess of the coven first, waiting until the closing bell rings at 2:30 to go inside the school where she teaches. Buffy knows she could wait and meet the woman at her home, but she’s counting on the fear that a public encounter with the Slayer will provide to scare her straight.
The children she passes look at her with a mixture of excitement and fear. She’s a celebrity of sorts on the Island, a protector and a warrior but also immortal. Different. Buffy suspects that she is boogeyman to some of these children, the scary thing that will come get them if they dare to misbehave. Most people, when they know who she is, give her wide berth. During the mostly peaceful times her presence on the Island is tolerated, but not precisely welcome by the humans.
When all hell breaks loose, sometimes literally, they usually change their tune.
The priestess, Erica Lands, is cleaning up her classroom when Buffy slips inside. When Ms. Lands looks up and sees Buffy watching her, she gasps and drops the eraser on the floor. The eraser sends a puff of chalk into the air and Buffy watches the white particles dance with the dust in a stream of sunlight from the window for a moment before looking back at the witch.
“Someone’s been a little naughty.”
The woman’s face drains and for a second Buffy thinks she might faint. She doesn’t feel any pity for her. If it were anyone else who’d followed this lead, then this woman and the rest of her coven would be burning on the beach later tonight.
Buffy flinches as the memory of that smell floods her senses. Willow.
“What . . . what do you want? I haven’t done anything,” Ms. Lands pleads, backing away from Buffy with her hands raised to ward her off.
Buffy sighs, annoyed, and raises an eyebrow.
“I think we both know that isn’t exactly true.”
Ms. Lands starts crying and Buffy’s even more sure that this woman’s coven is harmless, if stupid. There’s no way this witch is a danger to the Island.
Buffy walks forward and the woman flinches away. “Calm down and listen carefully,” Buffy orders. “You and your friends did a very stupid thing and unless you want to die you will do exactly as I say.”
She spends the next several minutes scaring the witch into never, ever, ever again hitting the black market for banned magical items. When she’s sure Ms. Lands understands, she makes plans with her to pick up the smuggled goods later that night.
The rest of the afternoon goes by quickly. A search of the most recent shipment comes up clean and she gets finished just in time to meet a still terrified Erica Lands who practically shoves the box of paraphernalia at her. Buffy stows it under a blanket in her car. She’ll deal with it later. She heads to the beach, not because she wants to but because she’s already skipped three nights and she doesn’t want anyone to question her sudden change in routine.
The sun hasn’t sunk all the way beyond the horizon when she leaves. She can’t wait any longer to get back to Angel.
The apartment is quiet when she lets herself in. The lamp that sits on the end table next to her sofa is on, sending a soft wash of light through the room. Buffy sets the box down near the door, toes off her shoes, and is headed toward the bedroom to see if Angel is still sleeping when he appears in the threshold. He’s dressed in pants and a white undershirt, his feet and his muscular shoulders bared to her appreciative gaze. His hair is wet from a recent shower and his bicep stands out under his skin, rolling and contracting as he rubs a towel through his hair.
Angel looks good, well rested, the purple shadows gone and the vein proclaiming his starvation no longer visible on his face. Buffy feels her body respond and the way Angel’s eyes smolder when they find hers tells her that he’s noticed her reaction.
He drops the towel and stalks toward her. Buffy stays still, fighting against her instincts to fight or flee from the dangerous vampire coming at her. Her heart races as she holds his predatory gaze. In this moment she has a renewed understanding of how this life, this hell on earth, has changed him too. He’s not an animal, no more than she is at least, but there is a part of him that is more primal, less careful, and it makes her body ache with want.
Buffy sucks in a harsh breath when Angel stops just in front of her. His eyes never leave hers; a small smile plays on his lips.
“I guess you’re feeling better.” It comes out so low and breathy that she barely recognizes it as her own voice.
“Yes, I do. Do you feel like laughing now, Buffy?”
She smirks and shakes her head, not trusting her voice after that last weak performance. He takes a step forward and she takes a step back. Her back brushes against the wall. His body presses against her, trapping her.
Buffy sighs, her eyes closing as Angel leans down and runs his lips lightly down her jaw, her neck, over her exposed shoulders. She feels his chest expand as he breathes in, deeply, and the movement against her blood swollen breasts makes her weak in the knees.
Angel sighs and moves back to her ear. “You smell like sunshine and sex. You smell like heaven. Mine.” His words are punctuated by kisses down her cheek and with the last one he captures her mouth. His hands grab hers and Angel twines their fingers together before pressing them above her head.
It’s been so long since she has been able to surrender some of her power, some of her control, and for a brief second Buffy doesn’t know if she can do it. She resists the urge to struggle against Angel, to turn the tables and press him against the wall, make his body beg. He senses her hesitation and instead of backing off he moves one large thigh between her legs and presses it firmly against her.
The sensation of his hard thigh rubbing against her pushes every impulse for escape out of Buffy’s head. A new urge takes place of the old, the need to escape, to dominate, replaced by the need to melt into his hard demanding body. She feels her legs crumble a little beneath her, the action putting her center in more direct contact with his thigh. Buffy rocks against him as he continues to kiss her. She can feel her wetness soaking into his pant leg and when he groans and kisses her more fiercely, she knows he can feel it too.
Suddenly his hands are gone from hers and he’s backing away, just enough to grab the sundress she’s wearing and pull it over her head. Buffy’s fingers hit the hem of the undershirt that hides Angel’s chest from her touch and she fights the urge to rip it away, knowing that she might have a hard time replacing it. By the time she’s maneuvered it up and over his head, his fingers have made quick work of her bra, leaving their chests bare to one another.
Angel looks down at her, eyes so dark and filled with heat, and Buffy’s nipples tighten under his gaze. He makes a guttural noise that sounds like her name and in one quick motion, picks her up by the waist and latches his mouth over her breast. His blunt teeth press into the soft flesh, biting down just short of pain, and his lips suck at the hard tip. Buffy moans, lifts her legs and wraps them tightly around his waist, and his hands shift to her ass as he carries her into the bedroom.
They shed the rest of their clothes and sink to the mattress. Their movements are rough and urgent, his body so hard over hers. When he thrusts inside her, she calls out his name, revels in the mixed pleasure and pain as he stretches and reclaims her. It is years of pent up desire and longing and they don’t try to control it.
Buffy feels the pressure building, the incredible pleasure striving to peak. She feels the angle of Angel’s hips change, and she whimpers in protest. He covers her mouth with his and thrusts into her once, twice, three times before the hard planes of his back tense under her fingers. The feeling of him coming inside her, the sound of her name a low groan against her mouth, triggers her need and with a quick, rough twist of her hips she begins to follow him into the abyss.
She’s still riding through the clench and release of her orgasm when he pulls out and before she can even think to miss him he’s between her thighs, knuckle deep inside her. Angel licks at the wetness on her thigh, a tender stroke that is followed by the sharp prick of fangs. As he takes a deep pull from her the pleasure that had been ebbing away comes back at full force and she feels her second climax come on top of the first. Her back arches and her body strains against his mouth, his fingers, as he takes a few long, slow swallows.
Angel continues to stroke her gently long after he’s pulled his mouth away from her inner thigh. Buffy looks down her body with heavy, hooded eyes and watches him place reverent kisses over his bite marks. Eventually the movement of his fingers against her is too much and, sensing her discomfort, Angel pulls away and moves back next to her. She snuggles up to his side and places a breathless kiss over his heart.
Buffy dozes off for a bit. She wakes up when she feels Angel moving, opens her eyes to see him pulling on his pants and leaving the bedroom. He comes back several minutes later with a glass of orange juice and a plate of scrambled eggs. He settles back in next to her, letting her lean up against his chest as she eats. The silence between them is easy, natural. She remembers that she used to think that she had to talk non-stop when they were together, to make up for all of the time they spent apart. That seems forever ago.
“Thank you for not making me beg,” Buffy says after she’s finished the eggs.
He smirks. “I thought you like it when I make you beg.”
She rolls her eyes at his attempt to avoid this topic of conversation. “You know what I mean.”
There’s a long moment of silence and then he sighs. She can feel the air leave his chest as she sinks back further against him.
“I’ve already taken more than I should. More than I need.”
“It feels good. I want it.” Buffy feels him tense behind her as the words leave her mouth. His hands leave her as he leans back and pushes them through his hair.
“I want it too, and that’s what scares me. Damn it Buffy. I don’t want to accidentally kill you just because it feels good.”
This argument is old, worn. She can’t remember a time when blood wasn’t an issue between them. It’s stupid, and pointless. There are no other choices on the Island, even if she wanted there to be.
There’s silence again, but it’s not as comfortable as before.
*
The next night, the streets surrounding her apartment are filled with people celebrating Island Day. It’s the one night a year when people stay out well after dark, drunk and giddy as they celebrate the tenuous safety they’ve established. Buffy and Angel take the opportunity to get out into the fresh air.
The market stalls are still open and she leaves Angel to browse for a moment while she tries to explain to one of her nosier neighbors who her “friend” is. Buffy tells the woman that his name is Liam and he’s visiting from the other side of the island. It’s several minutes before she’s able to break away from her neighbor. Her eyes search the market until she sees Angel’s tall, broad figure bartering at a stall. Even from the distance she can see the eyes of the man widen as Angel hands over a few real coins to pay for his purchases. Buffy feels a stab of unease. Real money is rare in this part of the city. She pushes away the fear, knowing that it’s irrational. No one could possibly guess that a vampire from the mainlands is in their midst, much less one who is so clearly attached to the Slayer.
The rumors of her tendency to become romantically involved with the enemy are long dead, along with most of the people who knew them to be true.
Buffy smiles up at Angel when he joins her again. They continue weaving through the celebrating masses. Angel seems relaxed, happy to be out of the apartment and stretching his legs. Buffy shoots him frequent glances, unable to look away for too long.
Up ahead she sees a small chapel, just a tiny hanging sign with a cross setting it apart from the old storefronts it’s sandwiched between. There is a steady stream of people coming in and out, participating in the remembrance portion of the holiday. She wonders how many of these people have lost someone personally and how many celebrate in vicarious support. Buffy knows that not one of them has lost as many people to the wars as she has. She knows that not one of them carries her shame.
A wave of guilt washes over her. It’s been too long since she has stepped inside a chapel and paid honor to the memory of the fallen. Buffy pauses, her hand coming to rest on Angel’s forearm. He looks down at her, his face unreadable, and then he reaches into the bag that holds his market purchases and pulls out a candle and a small book of matches.
“How did you know?”
He shrugs. “I just wanted to be prepared.”
Buffy almost laughs. Angel is hardly the boy scout type. Instead, she gives him a quick hug then takes the candle and matches. He nods at her as she gives him a lingering look over her shoulder, supporting her even though he can’t chance entering the chapel with all of the crosses that are sure to decorate the interior.
She steps inside the chapel. It’s shabby and a little dirty, the large brass cross that gleams at the altar the only thing that seems to be well taken care of. The light is low, all the better to highlight the dozens of lit candles in front of the cross. Buffy’s shoes sound too loud as she walks down the aisle. The paranoid thought that everyone is watching her flickers in her mind, but a quick glance around assures her that no one is paying her any attention. When she gets to the front, she pauses, suddenly unsure of why she’s doing this.
The only sounds are the quiet prayers, the sobs, of the people that fill the chapel. The loss and the sorrow are so thick that she feels like she could choke on it. None of it is her own.
So many dead. So much of it her fault. Buffy knows this, feels the guilt and the shame of it, but not the sorrow. Not the despair. She remembers that she felt it in the past, but she’s unsure how many years have gone by without it. It’s so distant, like all of it happened to someone else.
It was a mistake to come here. Buffy turns around, thrusts the unlit candle and the matches at a waiting mourner and walks briskly back out into the warm night air. She sees Angel standing against a light post across the street, waiting patiently for her. He cocks his head at her, his face set in wordless question at her quick exit. She winds her way back to his side.
“Are you ok?”
Buffy nods and smiles, trying for reassuring. “Yep. Thanks for waiting.”
Thankfully he lets it go.
They head back to her apartment. A few teenagers set off some illegal fireworks and the crowd gets uneasy. By the time they get back, the streets have begun to empty. They sit on the front steps of her building and keep an eye on the mostly drunken crowd that remains. It isn’t long before the night is quiet and empty once again.
“There’s a slayer at the Miami Farm. Hard to tell when she came into her power- they’re understandably keeping it quiet, but I’d guess within the last year or so.” Angel’s voice is hushed even though there’s no one around to hear.
Buffy’s heart pounds a little harder. She hasn’t heard about a new slayer in a while. There are a few others besides her, stationed on the larger islands, but the days when she was the queen of slayerdom are gone. Still, the thought of a slayer on the mainlands makes her stomach knot.
“Can you get her out. . . Cuba, maybe?”
“I’m working on it, but I don’t know. Getting a human out is tricky . . . she can’t exactly travel the way I do.” He doesn’t mention how jealously guarded the humans are, how they are a precious resource that are almost completely protected from escape. Island-dwelling humans have mostly given up on ever successfully rescuing those born and bred on the mainland. It’s easier to pretend they don’t exist.
Buffy sighs, rubs her arms against a sudden chill that runs through her. “They’ll find her. Kill her. “She thinks about how long Angel’s been traveling, how long he’s been visiting. “Maybe they already have.”
“Maybe.”
She looks at his face, sees the traces of pain and guilt that he almost always carries with him. She knows that he remembers things that she doesn’t. He still feels sorrow.
Buffy takes a deep breath and looks down at her hands, clasped in her lap. She tries to make her voice even, emotionless.
“If she’s still hidden when you get back you should take her. Angelus is powerful enough to demand a donor.”
Angel’s angry hiss has her fighting not to flinch. “Do you know what they call permanent donors? Pets. You want me to take a pet? A slayer as my pet. What the hell are you thinking, Buffy?”
She’s thinking he’s stubborn, too noble for his own good but she doesn’t say it. Buffy understands his need to resist the rituals of the demon world he lives in. He’s managed to stay alive for decades, delicately balancing who he is while pretending to be Angelus for everyone around him. He takes on the burden because it allows him to work from the inside, protect the free humans while pretending to hate them as much as any other demon. But she also sees how tired, how starved he is every time he steals away to come to her and she knows there are ways to make his life easier without becoming the monster he’s always afraid he’ll turn into.
“A pet? No! She could be your partner. Someone powerful to help you. It could be win-win for both of you. You keep her safe, out of the hands of the monsters, and she can keep you strong.” Buffy swallows, tightening her hands into fists. “Slayer blood,” she finishes in a whisper.
“No.” His tone is final. Absolute.
“What? Why? Don’t be stupid, Angel.” Buffy isn’t a masochist. She doesn’t enjoy the thought of him taking blood from someone else on a regular basis, much less another slayer. But she has become very practical. She’s had no other choice.
He stares at her, studies her face and her body language. His posture is stiff and his jaw is clenched. Buffy can see how angry he is.
“Don’t try to push me away, Buffy. You think I don’t know what you’re doing? You are my partner. No sixteen year-old human could ever take your place.”
Buffy stands up, shaking her head. She has no idea what he’s talking about. She’s not doing anything but trying to make his life easier, better.
“Fine. Forget it then.”
*
Angel hangs the painting in her bedroom, across from her bed. Buffy finds herself drawn to it, unable to stop studying it.
She lies with her head on Angel’s shoulder, her hair spread across his chest and her pillow. Her mind drifts as she looks at the woman in the painting, floating in the dark night sky, the adoring man cradling her in his arms. It looks like love.
“You like it,” he states, his voice rumbling low in her ear.
Buffy smiles. “Yes.” She turns to look at him. “Chagall, right?”
Angel’s face twists in surprise. “Right.”
She narrows her eyes at him and smacks his chest. “Why so surprised? Like I couldn’t pick up some culture sometime in the past century or so.”
He rubs his chest and smiles. “It’s just the Buffy I used to know wouldn’t have bothered to know something like that.”
Buffy’s face falls, a sudden tightness twisting in her chest. Angel is just teasing, she knows that, but he’s right. She wouldn’t have bothered with art history, or world history, or literature, or any of the other things that she has gradually begun to fill her brain with. She would have been more concerned with her family, her friends, and her mission. But she doesn’t have Angel’s photographic memory and she’s lost so much of the detail of her early life. Buffy has spent a lot of time trying to replace her failed autobiographical memory with facts, knowledge that can be easily relearned and replaced when it begins to fade away.
Her hand wraps around Angel’s and she begins tracing the Celtic tattoo that circles around his left ring finger with her thumb.
“Do you ever wonder . . . if all of the things that made you who you were disappeared, would you still exist?”
Angel tilts his head and furrows his eyebrows in confusion, so she huffs out a breath and tries again.
“I was born and I had a mother and father and sister and friends, and a purpose. And now all of those things are gone, not just gone but missing, faded into nothing.” She hesitates for a long moment, and then her voice drops to a whisper. “Sometimes I think Buffy Summers doesn’t exist anymore. Sometimes I look in the mirror and I can’t see Buffy at all.”
“Buffy,” Angel murmurs, halting and worried. Suddenly he is moving, hovering over her, his big hand tracing her face with such gentle affection. “I see you.”
For that moment, at least, she knows she exists. For that moment she can see herself reflected in his warm brown eyes.
*
Buffy receives a report that one of the inner-islanders has been showing off a demon artifact, meant for conjuring, at dinner parties. She leaves Angel and makes the trip to investigate. There have been a few reports like this over the years and most of the time they’ve been false. For some reason the rich people in the middle of the island like to buy bad local art and try to pass it off as something dangerous. The extra gates and guards surrounding them provide them an illusion of invincibility.
Unfortunately, this time the artifact is real and the rich guy bragging about it doesn’t think he should have to give it up. Buffy gets tazered and then sucker punched by a big goon serving as bodyguard before she gets pissed and knocks a few heads together. She calls in the police and when they get there to serve as witnesses, she crumbles the ugly statue under the heel of her boot while the guy seethes. The rest of the afternoon is spent scouring his house, looking for more contraband.
She’s tired and cranky when she gets back home. A glance at the rearview mirror reveals the shadow of a bruise still on her jaw. The cut from the bodyguard’s ring that had accompanied it is closed over by now, mostly healed, but there’s still a pink line of new skin that shows where it was hours before.
Buffy opens her apartment door and gasps at the sights and sounds that greet her. Soft music plays from the speakers of her small sound system, a compilation of ancient rhythm and blues that she’s pretty sure predates even her own existence. There are candles everywhere, filling the living room with low, flickering light. There’s a hint of the scent of wax from the candles under a much stronger smell of roasted meat that makes Buffy’s mouth water. And there is Angel.
He carefully sets down the book he was reading when she opened the door and stands. A soft smile graces his mouth. Instantly Buffy relaxes, leaves her crappy day behind her, and smiles back at Angel.
“This is . . . wow.”
Angel pulls her into his arms. His kiss is soft but passionate, a slow press of cool lips, a gentle tangle of tongues. Buffy’s body is singing when he pulls away to look down at her.
“Happy Anniversary, Buffy.”
Buffy’s breath catches in her throat as her hands tighten around him. She’s been so busy, so wrapped up in finally seeing him again, that she’d forgotten what today is. Before she can apologize, Angel is rubbing his thumb gently over her bruise.
“Bad day at the office?”
She snorts and shakes her head. “Who cares about that?” She pulls slightly away and lets her gaze sweep the apartment. “This is amazing, Angel.”
He ushers her to the small dining table that he’s brought in from her balcony. When she’s seated with a small glass of wine, he disappears into the kitchen and comes back with a plate loaded with food. There is a side of roasted chayote and breadfruit, but the mouthwatering smell that she noticed from the moment she stepped inside is coming from the roasted breast of chicken in the middle of the plate.
“Fresh chicken? This must have cost you an arm and a leg.”
Angel smiles, not bothering to answer her, and sits down to keep her company while she eats. Buffy takes a bite of the chicken, groaning softly at the taste as it hits her tongue. She rarely gets fresh meat, instead surviving on the reconstituted version that comes with her yearly staple rations. This is heaven in her mouth.
After she finishes her dinner, Angel pulls her over to the sofa and holds her as she discusses her day. It feels so normal, so right, to be curled against his side as she recounts the day’s events. Angel asks a few questions, raises his eyebrow when he hears her describe the summoning statue and tells her it’s a good thing she destroyed it before that particular demon could be conjured onto the island.
Eventually Angel pulls away and stands up. Buffy’s lips moue into a pout.
“Come back,” she pleads and Angel laughs in response.
“I will. Just let me get something from the bedroom.”
Buffy waits, impatient, for his return. When he comes back out he is holding a rectangular box that is wider and longer than it is deep. There is a silk ribbon tied artfully around it and Buffy’s eyes widen.
“God, Angel, I didn’t get you anything. . .”
He sets the box down on the sofa next to her and slides into the empty space, pulling her back against him. His lips touch her ear.
“You’re all I want. Make love to me later and we’ll call it even.”
She shivers, the sensation of his mouth on her ear combining with the smooth suggestion of his words to make her body come alive with anticipation. Buffy turns to him, shifts to crawl into his lap, but he laughs against her lips.
“Open your gift first. Then I’ll open mine. I promise.”
She sends him a wicked smile as she settles back down next to him. Buffy feels happy, the light weightless kind of contentment that makes her playful and bright. The kind of happy she only feels with Angel.
The box is fairly light. She takes her time untying the bow, fingers the rare silk and enjoys the feeling against her skin. Buffy figures he must have brought this with him, stuffed in a pocket. Silk is so hard to find, at least on the islands in this part of the world.
When she’s finished playing with the ribbon she opens the top of the box. Buffy gasps at the contents, feels her throat and her chest and her stomach tighten in a mixture of joy and a pain that is, for once, fresh. It feels amazing, and she welcomes it.
Her fingers drift into the box, stopping just short of touching the delicate paper inside. Instead, she traces the lines of charcoal with her eyes, lingering on the way Angel has made Dawn’s hair seem to shine, the wide beauty of her smile.
“Angel,” she chokes, and then her throat closes before she can tell him how beautiful, how precious, how priceless his gift is.
He watches her as she carefully sifts through the contents of the box, pausing for long minutes to study each of the drawings of her friends and family that rest inside. Giles, looking up from a book, his eyes so incredibly wise and kind. Oz, playing a guitar, his hair spiky and his body relaxed. A drawing of her, surrounded by Xander and Willow, sparks a memory she thought long dead. She knows this is a reproduction of one of her old photographs. So is the next one, a drawing of Dawn and Buffy reclining on a bed with their mom.
A sob tears out of Buffy’s chest, a sound so harsh that she thinks it must have been building inside her for ages. The feeling of tears on her cheeks is foreign but she has enough presence of mind to swipe at them before any can drop onto the precious drawings.
She crawls into Angel’s lap, but it isn’t about sex this time. His arms surround her, hold her as she cries. It feels awful and amazing at the same time. She can’t tear her eyes away from her gift. He’s given her back her memories, given her back her family, given her back a piece of herself that she thought was gone forever. Buffy remembers who she was, who she is.
“Thank you, thank you so much,” she gasps when her sobs have calmed enough to give her breath to speak.
“You’re welcome, Buffy,” Angel replies in a soft voice. He kisses the crown of her head. “There’s one more, when you’re ready.”
Her fingers tremble as she reaches in the box and reveals the final drawing. In it she is standing in a simple silk dress in a night garden blooming with evening primrose. Angel is in a dark suit beside her, looking down at her with unmistakable love.
Buffy smiles. This she remembers, even if it was decades ago.
“Happy Anniversary, Angel.”
Her eyes meet his and he’s looking at her with the same expression as in the drawing.
“I love you forever, Buffy.”
Something inside her balks at the word forever, even now. She may remember who she is, but that just reinforces how unnatural it is for her to still be alive. Buffy remembers the days when she hoped to live long enough to die peacefully in her bed, old and wrinkled and surrounded by fat grandchildren. That hope is dead now; the only death she has to look forward to one that is filled with violence and pain. But she’s meant to die, she knows. Someday. Not even the promise of Angel’s undying love is enough to make her want to stay on this earth forever.
Buffy traces a finger over his brow, his strong jaw, his smooth lips. Angel is her rock, the greatest love of her very very long life. She doesn’t want to promise him forever, but she can promise him all of her heart for as long as she lives and maybe beyond.
“I love you always, Angel.”
*
Buffy lies on top of his chest, sweating, as she tries to catch her breath. All of the blood she has given him these past weeks has made him strong, insatiable.
She’s not complaining.
Angel’s hand traces a lazy pattern eight on her lower back. “I have to leave soon.”
She feels her heart clench.
“I know.”
“I wish. . .”
Buffy props her chin up on his chest and covers his lips with her fingers. She knows what he’s going to say and she doesn’t think she can hear it and be strong enough to let him go.
“Me too.”
*
Another sunset. Another day gone in a march of endless days.
She sits with her chin resting on her knees and watches the ship on the horizon as it moves further and further away. The ocean is deep and wide, stretching as far as her eyes can see and beyond. The waves carry away her heart, but she doesn’t cry.
Buffy doesn’t want to live forever. Still, she hopes she’ll live to see him again.
-End
Author’s Note: This fic takes place far in the future, in an alternate universe setting post-NFA. In my mind for this story, the actions of Not Fade Away start a long series of skirmishes between demons and humans that eventually culminate in a full-scale war. Demons come out of the closet, so to speak, and wage war on the humans. Buffy and her slayers fight hard for a long time, but they lose. Most of the people Buffy loved died during the wars but Buffy remains alive, never aging as a result of the spell Willow did to pull her back to life in Bargaining.
The remaining humans fled to the islands of the world, and have been able to hold off demon attacks on most of them through carefully controlling the airspace and strictly guarding the perimeter from attacks coming from the oceans. A few islands that are too large (definitely Australia, Greenland, Great Britain) to defend were lost but the rest have become sanctuaries, and prisons, for the humans that survived. I envisioned the islands as being a mishmash of old and new- some technology that’s advanced, but so isolated that they also have to recycle and reuse old things, like Buffy’s car which looks old and antique on the outside but has new technology that keeps it running on the inside. The humans live on island paradises, but they aren’t on extended vacation- they can’t even enjoy the beaches, which all exist outside the gates and walls of the defense system. They live in a very restricted manner, under police law, governed by a council (not to be confused with the Watcher’s Council, which is long defunct in this story as there are no more watchers).
Inspiration for this story included Mark Chagall’s “La Mariée” (The Bride), which provided the title for this story and the image of the painting that Angel brings her. Buffy is, of course, the bride celebrating her anniversary with her husband. While writing I listened to a lot of Otis Redding, most notably “That’s How Strong My Love Is” and “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long”.
This was written for my dearest friend Lee, aka Southernbangel, who loves Buffy and Angel as much as I do and who also has a bite kink. That was all for you, sweet pea. Well, maybe a little for me.
*
The next afternoon she wakes up wrapped in Angel’s arms. She shivers, unused to his body temperature. It’s been four years, maybe five, since the last time she saw him.
He’s still asleep, his face smooth and peaceful and looking so much better already. Buffy lingers in bed with him for several more minutes, unwilling to leave his side for even the moment it will take her to pull on a sweater. Finally, when her stomach rumbles and the goose bumps on her arms can no longer be ignored, she gently untangles her body from Angel’s. She decides to hit the kitchen first, ignoring the oatmeal for a triple dose of fresh fruit. Last night’s blood donation doesn’t seem to have had any lasting effects but Buffy knows she’ll need the extra vitamins to replenish her over the next several days. Angel will need more blood.
A quick call to Washington reveals that there haven’t been any new arrivals and Buffy smiles as she says goodbye. Now there is no reason to leave her apartment for the day. Her smile grows even wider.
Angel is awake when she reenters the bedroom. He sees her smile and his lips twitch back up at the corner. Buffy goes to her dresser and pulls out one of the lightweight sweaters she keeps for him. As she slips it on over her tank, Angel watches her, his face taking on a look of hunger as he sweeps his gaze up her small muscular body. Her reaction is instantaneous, a rush of blood to fill her breasts and her sex with a dull, aching throb.
She slips back down on the sleeping pallet, lifting the blankets and molding her body against Angel’s side. He immediately slides a hand under her and pulls her to lie on top of him. Buffy hums at the feel of his body under hers, at the weight of his large hands on her hips.
“Well good morning to you too,” she murmurs against his lips. Angel’s mouth opens under hers and she kisses him, slowly and deeply until she’s forced to pull away to catch her breath. His hands lightly knead her hips and she’s already feeling heavy and liquid with want. Her lips meet his again with more urgency this time, urgency he seems happy to return. Buffy undulates her hips against his, searching for friction, and Angel groans, shifts his hands to cup her ass and pulls her roughly against him. She can feel the beginnings of an erection and she shifts her body until Angel’s growing cock is situated between her thighs. With the urging of his hands, she rocks against him, wishing there were fewer layers of clothes between them but not yet wanting to stop long enough to shed anything.
After a few minutes, Angel lets out a frustrated groan as he pulls away from Buffy’s mouth. She’s breathing hard, feeling a little dazed, but she knows what’s wrong.
“I’m sorry. I’m going to need more blood before I. . .”
Buffy cuts off his apology with another kiss, more chaste this time because fuck her body is already a livewire and she doesn’t need to torture herself any more. She shouldn’t have let herself get this out of control in the first place. She knew he was too starved, that he’d need more time, more blood, to recover. Now she’s dripping wet and she’s got a normally virile four-hundred-year vampire underneath her who can’t get it up through no fault of his own.
The absurdity of the situation strikes her. Buffy tries to choke back her laugh but it’s too fast, too unexpected and she can’t hold it in. Angel’s eyebrows rise over his dark, frustrated eyes.
“Are you laughing at me Buffy?”
Buffy shakes her head frantically from side to side, even as more laughter pours out of her throat. She’s mortified, but she can’t seem to stop it.
His eyes narrow and she swears she sees the corner of his mouth twitch just a bit before the expression is gone. Then his hands are moving with purpose, one slipping under the back of her pajama bottoms and into her panties, the other moving under her clothes to rest against the bare skin of her back. Buffy shivers again, this time less from the sudden coolness of his touch and more from the heat that has reared back to life, setting her nerve endings singing. She is the one starving, needing his touch.
The laughter comes to an abrupt halt, interrupted as it is by the low moan that forces it aside. His long fingers cup her from behind, slide through her wetness from top to bottom once, twice, before pushing inside. Angel starts with two fingers, not messing around, moving them slowly inside her as his other hand settles on the small of her back and presses her pelvis down into his. The angle puts just enough pressure on her clit and Buffy closes her eyes, throws back her head and rides Angel’s fingers to an almost embarrassingly quick climax.
Buffy collapses against Angel’s chest, her breath coming in harsh puffs. When she opens her eyes and angles her gaze up to his face, she sees him smirking down at her.
“Who’s laughing at who, now,” she asks, but her voice is reedy and her limbs are liquid and they are both still fully clothed so she can’t work up any indignation because if the tables were turned, she’d be smirking too.
Instead she drops her face into Angel’s neck and smiles against his skin.
*
The next time her eyes open it’s dark outside. It occurs to her that this is the first day in years that she has missed watching the sun set on the beach.
She feels Angel’s lips brush against her forehead and she can’t bring herself to care.
“Are we going to spend all day in bed, or do you have somewhere you have to be?” His voice is quiet, content and Buffy thinks she knows just how he feels.
She angles back and stretches, taking a moment to look him over. The shadows under his eyes are lighter and he looks much better. Another few days of good rest and slayer blood and he’ll be as good as new. She settles back down next to him and winds a hand under his shirt to play along the muscles of his stomach.
“I should probably take a trip out to the Sanctuary. I like to make my presence known during a full moon.”
“Do you get hunters?”
“Not yet. It’s probably only a matter of time though. Too much temptation with all of them captive in one space like that.”
Angel grunts in agreement and Buffy lets herself relax and enjoy the feeling of his hand sweeping up and down her back for a few more minutes.
Eventually she gets up to shower. When Angel takes his turn, Buffy sterilizes a knife and fills another glass for him so that when he steps out of the bathroom with wet hair and a towel wrapped around his waist, it’s waiting for him.
She swallows back another wave of lust, feeling like a teenager again. Angel glares at her hand and the glass it holds as she reaches it out for him.
“You shouldn’t weaken yourself before going out like that, Buffy. I could have waited.” His jaw clenches with irritation.
Buffy shrugs. “I’m fine. It’s done now, so take it before it gets cold.”
Angel mutters something under his breath but he takes the glass and tips the contents down his throat. Buffy watches his face, noticing that it doesn’t shift this time. It means his hunger is lessening, his control growing. A look of unmistakable pleasure passes over his features but when he catches her looking he turns away and finishes quickly.
She takes the empty glass to the kitchen and rinses it out. When she comes back out, Angel is dressed and putting on his shoes. Buffy frowns.
“What are you doing?”
He looks up at her, irritated. “I’m going with you. You’ve given me too much in the last 24 hours and I’m feeling stronger than I should. Which means you must be feeling weaker than you should.”
Buffy frowns and huffs, equally irritated. “You need to rest. Go lay back down.”
Angel just looks at her, his face stony and blank with his stubbornness. Buffy knows that look well. She narrows her eyes and shakes her head at him, but gives up the fight, knowing it is one she will not win.
The tension between them fades as they get closer to the Sanctuary. By the time they get there, their voices are weaving together in quiet conversation. Buffy updates him on the situation at the Sanctuary and he listens, asking a question here and there and offering a suggestion when she asks for it. She can tell by the set of his jaw that the captivity of the werewolves bothers him, but his level of upset doesn’t seem to match hers. Buffy supposes that to him, the plight of the lycanthropes is tolerable if not ideal. After all, he lives his life in a world where it is the humans who are held captive, taken as pets, and farmed as food for the demons. At least the werewolves are no one’s pet.
She avoids the administration building with its adjacent parking lot and parks on a dirt road that surrounds the enclosure. Buffy watches Angel carefully as he gets out of the car. He looks strong and only a little tired. She relaxes a little, gesturing for him to follow her.
They spend the next several hours checking the perimeter of the werewolf enclosure. Buffy can hear the howls of the hunting wolves inside. There doesn’t seem to be any evidence of anyone breaking into the Sanctuary and eventually they turn to circle back to her car.
The wind picks up, the warm breeze blowing Buffy’s hair across her face. She shakes her head, annoyed and wishing she’d pulled it back before they left the apartment. Angel grabs her elbow and pulls her to a stop in front of him. With his free hand he reaches up and brushes her hair back, gently fingering the strands before releasing them.
“I haven’t seen your hair this long in a very long time, probably not since the first time I ever saw you sitting on those steps,” he says quietly. He hesitates for a moment and when he continues his eyes look far away. “It reminds me of the way that Dawn used to wear her hair. Long and straight and shiny. Like Fred’s used to be, before Illyria.”
Buffy’s heart twists with an old, stale kind of pain. “I don’t remember,” she whispers, looking away.
Angel doesn’t say anything, just pulls her against him. The guilt is strong now, stronger than the pain, and she feels the urge to make a confession against his chest.
“I don’t remember what she looked like. I don’t remember what any of them looked like. I mean, I can tell you the color of their hair, their eyes, but I can’t picture the way those little pieces of description fit together into Dawn, or Giles, or any of them. They’re just pieces. No wholes that are greater than the sum of their parts.”
“Your pictures. . .”
“Gone. Hurricane, can’t remember which one.” There have been too many and it was a long time ago.
He holds her, anchors her to the moment and they stand under the full moon and listen to the howling of the werewolves and feel the warm tropical breeze on their skin.
*
Two days pass. Buffy spends most of it at Angel’s side as he recovers, talking quietly when he’s awake and watching him sleep when he isn’t. She wonders how long the trip took this time, how many weeks or months it has been since he’d last fed well. He takes one more glass of her blood and then refuses more, says it’s working and he just needs to rest as it repairs him. Buffy agrees, a voice in the back of her head insisting that he take it directly from the vein the next time anyway, and she feels a stab of guilt for being so selfish and needy when he isn’t well.
The next day there’s a new ship in port and a call from the Council checking in on her progress on the smuggled magical items. Buffy grumbles as she tears herself away from Angel’s side to do her job. Usually she’s grateful for any small distraction from the otherwise monotonous cadence of her life but usually she’s alone and just trying to fill her days and nights. For the first time since Angel’s last visit, Buffy wishes she got vacation and sick days.
She seeks out the priestess of the coven first, waiting until the closing bell rings at 2:30 to go inside the school where she teaches. Buffy knows she could wait and meet the woman at her home, but she’s counting on the fear that a public encounter with the Slayer will provide to scare her straight.
The children she passes look at her with a mixture of excitement and fear. She’s a celebrity of sorts on the Island, a protector and a warrior but also immortal. Different. Buffy suspects that she is boogeyman to some of these children, the scary thing that will come get them if they dare to misbehave. Most people, when they know who she is, give her wide berth. During the mostly peaceful times her presence on the Island is tolerated, but not precisely welcome by the humans.
When all hell breaks loose, sometimes literally, they usually change their tune.
The priestess, Erica Lands, is cleaning up her classroom when Buffy slips inside. When Ms. Lands looks up and sees Buffy watching her, she gasps and drops the eraser on the floor. The eraser sends a puff of chalk into the air and Buffy watches the white particles dance with the dust in a stream of sunlight from the window for a moment before looking back at the witch.
“Someone’s been a little naughty.”
The woman’s face drains and for a second Buffy thinks she might faint. She doesn’t feel any pity for her. If it were anyone else who’d followed this lead, then this woman and the rest of her coven would be burning on the beach later tonight.
Buffy flinches as the memory of that smell floods her senses. Willow.
“What . . . what do you want? I haven’t done anything,” Ms. Lands pleads, backing away from Buffy with her hands raised to ward her off.
Buffy sighs, annoyed, and raises an eyebrow.
“I think we both know that isn’t exactly true.”
Ms. Lands starts crying and Buffy’s even more sure that this woman’s coven is harmless, if stupid. There’s no way this witch is a danger to the Island.
Buffy walks forward and the woman flinches away. “Calm down and listen carefully,” Buffy orders. “You and your friends did a very stupid thing and unless you want to die you will do exactly as I say.”
She spends the next several minutes scaring the witch into never, ever, ever again hitting the black market for banned magical items. When she’s sure Ms. Lands understands, she makes plans with her to pick up the smuggled goods later that night.
The rest of the afternoon goes by quickly. A search of the most recent shipment comes up clean and she gets finished just in time to meet a still terrified Erica Lands who practically shoves the box of paraphernalia at her. Buffy stows it under a blanket in her car. She’ll deal with it later. She heads to the beach, not because she wants to but because she’s already skipped three nights and she doesn’t want anyone to question her sudden change in routine.
The sun hasn’t sunk all the way beyond the horizon when she leaves. She can’t wait any longer to get back to Angel.
The apartment is quiet when she lets herself in. The lamp that sits on the end table next to her sofa is on, sending a soft wash of light through the room. Buffy sets the box down near the door, toes off her shoes, and is headed toward the bedroom to see if Angel is still sleeping when he appears in the threshold. He’s dressed in pants and a white undershirt, his feet and his muscular shoulders bared to her appreciative gaze. His hair is wet from a recent shower and his bicep stands out under his skin, rolling and contracting as he rubs a towel through his hair.
Angel looks good, well rested, the purple shadows gone and the vein proclaiming his starvation no longer visible on his face. Buffy feels her body respond and the way Angel’s eyes smolder when they find hers tells her that he’s noticed her reaction.
He drops the towel and stalks toward her. Buffy stays still, fighting against her instincts to fight or flee from the dangerous vampire coming at her. Her heart races as she holds his predatory gaze. In this moment she has a renewed understanding of how this life, this hell on earth, has changed him too. He’s not an animal, no more than she is at least, but there is a part of him that is more primal, less careful, and it makes her body ache with want.
Buffy sucks in a harsh breath when Angel stops just in front of her. His eyes never leave hers; a small smile plays on his lips.
“I guess you’re feeling better.” It comes out so low and breathy that she barely recognizes it as her own voice.
“Yes, I do. Do you feel like laughing now, Buffy?”
She smirks and shakes her head, not trusting her voice after that last weak performance. He takes a step forward and she takes a step back. Her back brushes against the wall. His body presses against her, trapping her.
Buffy sighs, her eyes closing as Angel leans down and runs his lips lightly down her jaw, her neck, over her exposed shoulders. She feels his chest expand as he breathes in, deeply, and the movement against her blood swollen breasts makes her weak in the knees.
Angel sighs and moves back to her ear. “You smell like sunshine and sex. You smell like heaven. Mine.” His words are punctuated by kisses down her cheek and with the last one he captures her mouth. His hands grab hers and Angel twines their fingers together before pressing them above her head.
It’s been so long since she has been able to surrender some of her power, some of her control, and for a brief second Buffy doesn’t know if she can do it. She resists the urge to struggle against Angel, to turn the tables and press him against the wall, make his body beg. He senses her hesitation and instead of backing off he moves one large thigh between her legs and presses it firmly against her.
The sensation of his hard thigh rubbing against her pushes every impulse for escape out of Buffy’s head. A new urge takes place of the old, the need to escape, to dominate, replaced by the need to melt into his hard demanding body. She feels her legs crumble a little beneath her, the action putting her center in more direct contact with his thigh. Buffy rocks against him as he continues to kiss her. She can feel her wetness soaking into his pant leg and when he groans and kisses her more fiercely, she knows he can feel it too.
Suddenly his hands are gone from hers and he’s backing away, just enough to grab the sundress she’s wearing and pull it over her head. Buffy’s fingers hit the hem of the undershirt that hides Angel’s chest from her touch and she fights the urge to rip it away, knowing that she might have a hard time replacing it. By the time she’s maneuvered it up and over his head, his fingers have made quick work of her bra, leaving their chests bare to one another.
Angel looks down at her, eyes so dark and filled with heat, and Buffy’s nipples tighten under his gaze. He makes a guttural noise that sounds like her name and in one quick motion, picks her up by the waist and latches his mouth over her breast. His blunt teeth press into the soft flesh, biting down just short of pain, and his lips suck at the hard tip. Buffy moans, lifts her legs and wraps them tightly around his waist, and his hands shift to her ass as he carries her into the bedroom.
They shed the rest of their clothes and sink to the mattress. Their movements are rough and urgent, his body so hard over hers. When he thrusts inside her, she calls out his name, revels in the mixed pleasure and pain as he stretches and reclaims her. It is years of pent up desire and longing and they don’t try to control it.
Buffy feels the pressure building, the incredible pleasure striving to peak. She feels the angle of Angel’s hips change, and she whimpers in protest. He covers her mouth with his and thrusts into her once, twice, three times before the hard planes of his back tense under her fingers. The feeling of him coming inside her, the sound of her name a low groan against her mouth, triggers her need and with a quick, rough twist of her hips she begins to follow him into the abyss.
She’s still riding through the clench and release of her orgasm when he pulls out and before she can even think to miss him he’s between her thighs, knuckle deep inside her. Angel licks at the wetness on her thigh, a tender stroke that is followed by the sharp prick of fangs. As he takes a deep pull from her the pleasure that had been ebbing away comes back at full force and she feels her second climax come on top of the first. Her back arches and her body strains against his mouth, his fingers, as he takes a few long, slow swallows.
Angel continues to stroke her gently long after he’s pulled his mouth away from her inner thigh. Buffy looks down her body with heavy, hooded eyes and watches him place reverent kisses over his bite marks. Eventually the movement of his fingers against her is too much and, sensing her discomfort, Angel pulls away and moves back next to her. She snuggles up to his side and places a breathless kiss over his heart.
Buffy dozes off for a bit. She wakes up when she feels Angel moving, opens her eyes to see him pulling on his pants and leaving the bedroom. He comes back several minutes later with a glass of orange juice and a plate of scrambled eggs. He settles back in next to her, letting her lean up against his chest as she eats. The silence between them is easy, natural. She remembers that she used to think that she had to talk non-stop when they were together, to make up for all of the time they spent apart. That seems forever ago.
“Thank you for not making me beg,” Buffy says after she’s finished the eggs.
He smirks. “I thought you like it when I make you beg.”
She rolls her eyes at his attempt to avoid this topic of conversation. “You know what I mean.”
There’s a long moment of silence and then he sighs. She can feel the air leave his chest as she sinks back further against him.
“I’ve already taken more than I should. More than I need.”
“It feels good. I want it.” Buffy feels him tense behind her as the words leave her mouth. His hands leave her as he leans back and pushes them through his hair.
“I want it too, and that’s what scares me. Damn it Buffy. I don’t want to accidentally kill you just because it feels good.”
This argument is old, worn. She can’t remember a time when blood wasn’t an issue between them. It’s stupid, and pointless. There are no other choices on the Island, even if she wanted there to be.
There’s silence again, but it’s not as comfortable as before.
*
The next night, the streets surrounding her apartment are filled with people celebrating Island Day. It’s the one night a year when people stay out well after dark, drunk and giddy as they celebrate the tenuous safety they’ve established. Buffy and Angel take the opportunity to get out into the fresh air.
The market stalls are still open and she leaves Angel to browse for a moment while she tries to explain to one of her nosier neighbors who her “friend” is. Buffy tells the woman that his name is Liam and he’s visiting from the other side of the island. It’s several minutes before she’s able to break away from her neighbor. Her eyes search the market until she sees Angel’s tall, broad figure bartering at a stall. Even from the distance she can see the eyes of the man widen as Angel hands over a few real coins to pay for his purchases. Buffy feels a stab of unease. Real money is rare in this part of the city. She pushes away the fear, knowing that it’s irrational. No one could possibly guess that a vampire from the mainlands is in their midst, much less one who is so clearly attached to the Slayer.
The rumors of her tendency to become romantically involved with the enemy are long dead, along with most of the people who knew them to be true.
Buffy smiles up at Angel when he joins her again. They continue weaving through the celebrating masses. Angel seems relaxed, happy to be out of the apartment and stretching his legs. Buffy shoots him frequent glances, unable to look away for too long.
Up ahead she sees a small chapel, just a tiny hanging sign with a cross setting it apart from the old storefronts it’s sandwiched between. There is a steady stream of people coming in and out, participating in the remembrance portion of the holiday. She wonders how many of these people have lost someone personally and how many celebrate in vicarious support. Buffy knows that not one of them has lost as many people to the wars as she has. She knows that not one of them carries her shame.
A wave of guilt washes over her. It’s been too long since she has stepped inside a chapel and paid honor to the memory of the fallen. Buffy pauses, her hand coming to rest on Angel’s forearm. He looks down at her, his face unreadable, and then he reaches into the bag that holds his market purchases and pulls out a candle and a small book of matches.
“How did you know?”
He shrugs. “I just wanted to be prepared.”
Buffy almost laughs. Angel is hardly the boy scout type. Instead, she gives him a quick hug then takes the candle and matches. He nods at her as she gives him a lingering look over her shoulder, supporting her even though he can’t chance entering the chapel with all of the crosses that are sure to decorate the interior.
She steps inside the chapel. It’s shabby and a little dirty, the large brass cross that gleams at the altar the only thing that seems to be well taken care of. The light is low, all the better to highlight the dozens of lit candles in front of the cross. Buffy’s shoes sound too loud as she walks down the aisle. The paranoid thought that everyone is watching her flickers in her mind, but a quick glance around assures her that no one is paying her any attention. When she gets to the front, she pauses, suddenly unsure of why she’s doing this.
The only sounds are the quiet prayers, the sobs, of the people that fill the chapel. The loss and the sorrow are so thick that she feels like she could choke on it. None of it is her own.
So many dead. So much of it her fault. Buffy knows this, feels the guilt and the shame of it, but not the sorrow. Not the despair. She remembers that she felt it in the past, but she’s unsure how many years have gone by without it. It’s so distant, like all of it happened to someone else.
It was a mistake to come here. Buffy turns around, thrusts the unlit candle and the matches at a waiting mourner and walks briskly back out into the warm night air. She sees Angel standing against a light post across the street, waiting patiently for her. He cocks his head at her, his face set in wordless question at her quick exit. She winds her way back to his side.
“Are you ok?”
Buffy nods and smiles, trying for reassuring. “Yep. Thanks for waiting.”
Thankfully he lets it go.
They head back to her apartment. A few teenagers set off some illegal fireworks and the crowd gets uneasy. By the time they get back, the streets have begun to empty. They sit on the front steps of her building and keep an eye on the mostly drunken crowd that remains. It isn’t long before the night is quiet and empty once again.
“There’s a slayer at the Miami Farm. Hard to tell when she came into her power- they’re understandably keeping it quiet, but I’d guess within the last year or so.” Angel’s voice is hushed even though there’s no one around to hear.
Buffy’s heart pounds a little harder. She hasn’t heard about a new slayer in a while. There are a few others besides her, stationed on the larger islands, but the days when she was the queen of slayerdom are gone. Still, the thought of a slayer on the mainlands makes her stomach knot.
“Can you get her out. . . Cuba, maybe?”
“I’m working on it, but I don’t know. Getting a human out is tricky . . . she can’t exactly travel the way I do.” He doesn’t mention how jealously guarded the humans are, how they are a precious resource that are almost completely protected from escape. Island-dwelling humans have mostly given up on ever successfully rescuing those born and bred on the mainland. It’s easier to pretend they don’t exist.
Buffy sighs, rubs her arms against a sudden chill that runs through her. “They’ll find her. Kill her. “She thinks about how long Angel’s been traveling, how long he’s been visiting. “Maybe they already have.”
“Maybe.”
She looks at his face, sees the traces of pain and guilt that he almost always carries with him. She knows that he remembers things that she doesn’t. He still feels sorrow.
Buffy takes a deep breath and looks down at her hands, clasped in her lap. She tries to make her voice even, emotionless.
“If she’s still hidden when you get back you should take her. Angelus is powerful enough to demand a donor.”
Angel’s angry hiss has her fighting not to flinch. “Do you know what they call permanent donors? Pets. You want me to take a pet? A slayer as my pet. What the hell are you thinking, Buffy?”
She’s thinking he’s stubborn, too noble for his own good but she doesn’t say it. Buffy understands his need to resist the rituals of the demon world he lives in. He’s managed to stay alive for decades, delicately balancing who he is while pretending to be Angelus for everyone around him. He takes on the burden because it allows him to work from the inside, protect the free humans while pretending to hate them as much as any other demon. But she also sees how tired, how starved he is every time he steals away to come to her and she knows there are ways to make his life easier without becoming the monster he’s always afraid he’ll turn into.
“A pet? No! She could be your partner. Someone powerful to help you. It could be win-win for both of you. You keep her safe, out of the hands of the monsters, and she can keep you strong.” Buffy swallows, tightening her hands into fists. “Slayer blood,” she finishes in a whisper.
“No.” His tone is final. Absolute.
“What? Why? Don’t be stupid, Angel.” Buffy isn’t a masochist. She doesn’t enjoy the thought of him taking blood from someone else on a regular basis, much less another slayer. But she has become very practical. She’s had no other choice.
He stares at her, studies her face and her body language. His posture is stiff and his jaw is clenched. Buffy can see how angry he is.
“Don’t try to push me away, Buffy. You think I don’t know what you’re doing? You are my partner. No sixteen year-old human could ever take your place.”
Buffy stands up, shaking her head. She has no idea what he’s talking about. She’s not doing anything but trying to make his life easier, better.
“Fine. Forget it then.”
*
Angel hangs the painting in her bedroom, across from her bed. Buffy finds herself drawn to it, unable to stop studying it.
She lies with her head on Angel’s shoulder, her hair spread across his chest and her pillow. Her mind drifts as she looks at the woman in the painting, floating in the dark night sky, the adoring man cradling her in his arms. It looks like love.
“You like it,” he states, his voice rumbling low in her ear.
Buffy smiles. “Yes.” She turns to look at him. “Chagall, right?”
Angel’s face twists in surprise. “Right.”
She narrows her eyes at him and smacks his chest. “Why so surprised? Like I couldn’t pick up some culture sometime in the past century or so.”
He rubs his chest and smiles. “It’s just the Buffy I used to know wouldn’t have bothered to know something like that.”
Buffy’s face falls, a sudden tightness twisting in her chest. Angel is just teasing, she knows that, but he’s right. She wouldn’t have bothered with art history, or world history, or literature, or any of the other things that she has gradually begun to fill her brain with. She would have been more concerned with her family, her friends, and her mission. But she doesn’t have Angel’s photographic memory and she’s lost so much of the detail of her early life. Buffy has spent a lot of time trying to replace her failed autobiographical memory with facts, knowledge that can be easily relearned and replaced when it begins to fade away.
Her hand wraps around Angel’s and she begins tracing the Celtic tattoo that circles around his left ring finger with her thumb.
“Do you ever wonder . . . if all of the things that made you who you were disappeared, would you still exist?”
Angel tilts his head and furrows his eyebrows in confusion, so she huffs out a breath and tries again.
“I was born and I had a mother and father and sister and friends, and a purpose. And now all of those things are gone, not just gone but missing, faded into nothing.” She hesitates for a long moment, and then her voice drops to a whisper. “Sometimes I think Buffy Summers doesn’t exist anymore. Sometimes I look in the mirror and I can’t see Buffy at all.”
“Buffy,” Angel murmurs, halting and worried. Suddenly he is moving, hovering over her, his big hand tracing her face with such gentle affection. “I see you.”
For that moment, at least, she knows she exists. For that moment she can see herself reflected in his warm brown eyes.
*
Buffy receives a report that one of the inner-islanders has been showing off a demon artifact, meant for conjuring, at dinner parties. She leaves Angel and makes the trip to investigate. There have been a few reports like this over the years and most of the time they’ve been false. For some reason the rich people in the middle of the island like to buy bad local art and try to pass it off as something dangerous. The extra gates and guards surrounding them provide them an illusion of invincibility.
Unfortunately, this time the artifact is real and the rich guy bragging about it doesn’t think he should have to give it up. Buffy gets tazered and then sucker punched by a big goon serving as bodyguard before she gets pissed and knocks a few heads together. She calls in the police and when they get there to serve as witnesses, she crumbles the ugly statue under the heel of her boot while the guy seethes. The rest of the afternoon is spent scouring his house, looking for more contraband.
She’s tired and cranky when she gets back home. A glance at the rearview mirror reveals the shadow of a bruise still on her jaw. The cut from the bodyguard’s ring that had accompanied it is closed over by now, mostly healed, but there’s still a pink line of new skin that shows where it was hours before.
Buffy opens her apartment door and gasps at the sights and sounds that greet her. Soft music plays from the speakers of her small sound system, a compilation of ancient rhythm and blues that she’s pretty sure predates even her own existence. There are candles everywhere, filling the living room with low, flickering light. There’s a hint of the scent of wax from the candles under a much stronger smell of roasted meat that makes Buffy’s mouth water. And there is Angel.
He carefully sets down the book he was reading when she opened the door and stands. A soft smile graces his mouth. Instantly Buffy relaxes, leaves her crappy day behind her, and smiles back at Angel.
“This is . . . wow.”
Angel pulls her into his arms. His kiss is soft but passionate, a slow press of cool lips, a gentle tangle of tongues. Buffy’s body is singing when he pulls away to look down at her.
“Happy Anniversary, Buffy.”
Buffy’s breath catches in her throat as her hands tighten around him. She’s been so busy, so wrapped up in finally seeing him again, that she’d forgotten what today is. Before she can apologize, Angel is rubbing his thumb gently over her bruise.
“Bad day at the office?”
She snorts and shakes her head. “Who cares about that?” She pulls slightly away and lets her gaze sweep the apartment. “This is amazing, Angel.”
He ushers her to the small dining table that he’s brought in from her balcony. When she’s seated with a small glass of wine, he disappears into the kitchen and comes back with a plate loaded with food. There is a side of roasted chayote and breadfruit, but the mouthwatering smell that she noticed from the moment she stepped inside is coming from the roasted breast of chicken in the middle of the plate.
“Fresh chicken? This must have cost you an arm and a leg.”
Angel smiles, not bothering to answer her, and sits down to keep her company while she eats. Buffy takes a bite of the chicken, groaning softly at the taste as it hits her tongue. She rarely gets fresh meat, instead surviving on the reconstituted version that comes with her yearly staple rations. This is heaven in her mouth.
After she finishes her dinner, Angel pulls her over to the sofa and holds her as she discusses her day. It feels so normal, so right, to be curled against his side as she recounts the day’s events. Angel asks a few questions, raises his eyebrow when he hears her describe the summoning statue and tells her it’s a good thing she destroyed it before that particular demon could be conjured onto the island.
Eventually Angel pulls away and stands up. Buffy’s lips moue into a pout.
“Come back,” she pleads and Angel laughs in response.
“I will. Just let me get something from the bedroom.”
Buffy waits, impatient, for his return. When he comes back out he is holding a rectangular box that is wider and longer than it is deep. There is a silk ribbon tied artfully around it and Buffy’s eyes widen.
“God, Angel, I didn’t get you anything. . .”
He sets the box down on the sofa next to her and slides into the empty space, pulling her back against him. His lips touch her ear.
“You’re all I want. Make love to me later and we’ll call it even.”
She shivers, the sensation of his mouth on her ear combining with the smooth suggestion of his words to make her body come alive with anticipation. Buffy turns to him, shifts to crawl into his lap, but he laughs against her lips.
“Open your gift first. Then I’ll open mine. I promise.”
She sends him a wicked smile as she settles back down next to him. Buffy feels happy, the light weightless kind of contentment that makes her playful and bright. The kind of happy she only feels with Angel.
The box is fairly light. She takes her time untying the bow, fingers the rare silk and enjoys the feeling against her skin. Buffy figures he must have brought this with him, stuffed in a pocket. Silk is so hard to find, at least on the islands in this part of the world.
When she’s finished playing with the ribbon she opens the top of the box. Buffy gasps at the contents, feels her throat and her chest and her stomach tighten in a mixture of joy and a pain that is, for once, fresh. It feels amazing, and she welcomes it.
Her fingers drift into the box, stopping just short of touching the delicate paper inside. Instead, she traces the lines of charcoal with her eyes, lingering on the way Angel has made Dawn’s hair seem to shine, the wide beauty of her smile.
“Angel,” she chokes, and then her throat closes before she can tell him how beautiful, how precious, how priceless his gift is.
He watches her as she carefully sifts through the contents of the box, pausing for long minutes to study each of the drawings of her friends and family that rest inside. Giles, looking up from a book, his eyes so incredibly wise and kind. Oz, playing a guitar, his hair spiky and his body relaxed. A drawing of her, surrounded by Xander and Willow, sparks a memory she thought long dead. She knows this is a reproduction of one of her old photographs. So is the next one, a drawing of Dawn and Buffy reclining on a bed with their mom.
A sob tears out of Buffy’s chest, a sound so harsh that she thinks it must have been building inside her for ages. The feeling of tears on her cheeks is foreign but she has enough presence of mind to swipe at them before any can drop onto the precious drawings.
She crawls into Angel’s lap, but it isn’t about sex this time. His arms surround her, hold her as she cries. It feels awful and amazing at the same time. She can’t tear her eyes away from her gift. He’s given her back her memories, given her back her family, given her back a piece of herself that she thought was gone forever. Buffy remembers who she was, who she is.
“Thank you, thank you so much,” she gasps when her sobs have calmed enough to give her breath to speak.
“You’re welcome, Buffy,” Angel replies in a soft voice. He kisses the crown of her head. “There’s one more, when you’re ready.”
Her fingers tremble as she reaches in the box and reveals the final drawing. In it she is standing in a simple silk dress in a night garden blooming with evening primrose. Angel is in a dark suit beside her, looking down at her with unmistakable love.
Buffy smiles. This she remembers, even if it was decades ago.
“Happy Anniversary, Angel.”
Her eyes meet his and he’s looking at her with the same expression as in the drawing.
“I love you forever, Buffy.”
Something inside her balks at the word forever, even now. She may remember who she is, but that just reinforces how unnatural it is for her to still be alive. Buffy remembers the days when she hoped to live long enough to die peacefully in her bed, old and wrinkled and surrounded by fat grandchildren. That hope is dead now; the only death she has to look forward to one that is filled with violence and pain. But she’s meant to die, she knows. Someday. Not even the promise of Angel’s undying love is enough to make her want to stay on this earth forever.
Buffy traces a finger over his brow, his strong jaw, his smooth lips. Angel is her rock, the greatest love of her very very long life. She doesn’t want to promise him forever, but she can promise him all of her heart for as long as she lives and maybe beyond.
“I love you always, Angel.”
*
Buffy lies on top of his chest, sweating, as she tries to catch her breath. All of the blood she has given him these past weeks has made him strong, insatiable.
She’s not complaining.
Angel’s hand traces a lazy pattern eight on her lower back. “I have to leave soon.”
She feels her heart clench.
“I know.”
“I wish. . .”
Buffy props her chin up on his chest and covers his lips with her fingers. She knows what he’s going to say and she doesn’t think she can hear it and be strong enough to let him go.
“Me too.”
*
Another sunset. Another day gone in a march of endless days.
She sits with her chin resting on her knees and watches the ship on the horizon as it moves further and further away. The ocean is deep and wide, stretching as far as her eyes can see and beyond. The waves carry away her heart, but she doesn’t cry.
Buffy doesn’t want to live forever. Still, she hopes she’ll live to see him again.
-End
Author’s Note: This fic takes place far in the future, in an alternate universe setting post-NFA. In my mind for this story, the actions of Not Fade Away start a long series of skirmishes between demons and humans that eventually culminate in a full-scale war. Demons come out of the closet, so to speak, and wage war on the humans. Buffy and her slayers fight hard for a long time, but they lose. Most of the people Buffy loved died during the wars but Buffy remains alive, never aging as a result of the spell Willow did to pull her back to life in Bargaining.
The remaining humans fled to the islands of the world, and have been able to hold off demon attacks on most of them through carefully controlling the airspace and strictly guarding the perimeter from attacks coming from the oceans. A few islands that are too large (definitely Australia, Greenland, Great Britain) to defend were lost but the rest have become sanctuaries, and prisons, for the humans that survived. I envisioned the islands as being a mishmash of old and new- some technology that’s advanced, but so isolated that they also have to recycle and reuse old things, like Buffy’s car which looks old and antique on the outside but has new technology that keeps it running on the inside. The humans live on island paradises, but they aren’t on extended vacation- they can’t even enjoy the beaches, which all exist outside the gates and walls of the defense system. They live in a very restricted manner, under police law, governed by a council (not to be confused with the Watcher’s Council, which is long defunct in this story as there are no more watchers).
Inspiration for this story included Mark Chagall’s “La Mariée” (The Bride), which provided the title for this story and the image of the painting that Angel brings her. Buffy is, of course, the bride celebrating her anniversary with her husband. While writing I listened to a lot of Otis Redding, most notably “That’s How Strong My Love Is” and “I’ve Been Loving You Too Long”.
This was written for my dearest friend Lee, aka Southernbangel, who loves Buffy and Angel as much as I do and who also has a bite kink. That was all for you, sweet pea. Well, maybe a little for me.