Fic: Buffy/Angel, When It Alteration Finds, R
Title: When It Alteration Finds
Pairing: Buffy/Angel
Rating: R
Disclaimer: Not for profit, I don’t own these guys. All characters and references to situations in the shows Angel and Buffy belong to Joss and the elites over at Fox.
Summary: Other people have the moment that’s meant to be, and it’s forever, and nothing can stop it or its consequences, but that’s not what fate meant for Buffy Summers. Or is it?
Notes: written for southernbangel’s Fluffathon. My assignment follows the fic. I hope this suffices. Also, this was beta'd by two lovely ladies: bubble_blunder and denied_heaven. They both caught a lot of mistakes, so if there's anything terribly off the mark, it is not their fault, but mine. Thank you so much ladies. Title stolen shamelessly from Shakespeare.
It happens to everyone else, but it never happens to her. She’s not that lucky. Not usually. Everyone else has that story where they’re shopping or eating or bending over to tie a shoe and someone calls their name. It’s a moment that’s meant to be, and it’s forever, and nothing can stop it or its consequences. That’s not what fate meant for Buffy Summers. Her life in the last four years has been planned so well that she can’t breathe without checking with Willow or Giles for fear of breaking some commitment she didn’t even know she had.
She trains Slayers, raises her sister, works out, stops evil, and researches, though that’s more like reading her eyelids, because even after nearly eleven years of being THE SLAYER, she still sucks at research. It’s a thing. She likes to think that Giles knows that and only makes her do it for old time’s sake. Sometimes, when he grins behind his dusty book and thinks she can’t see him, she knows that’s why he makes her do it. It only takes a few minutes of furtive glances back and forth before he catches her catching him, and then they both laugh. Afterward, it’s back to the grind, and the next ooglie booglie - she’s never letting Dawnie live that one down - is soundly defeated due to diligent research and a good swift kick in its ass by, well, everyone else that she leads now.
So no. This is not the kind of occurrence that she wants or has time for. It’s the kind of thing that interrupts the almost Swiss precision of her tick tock world and causes everything she’s juggling and keeping in order to collapse down around her.
She blinks once, shakes her head to clear it. But the person is still there. She steps up onto the sidewalk and there’s a snap as her boot heel breaks. Her heel hits the pavement hard, and she hisses in pain, and the very tall - taller than she remembered - person turns around and it’s no mistake. The moment is upon her, and for the first time since Sunnydale, the first time in her newly overly precise world, the unexpected happens to Buffy Summers.
The packages she’s carrying fall from her arm, and she whispers, “Angel?”
There’s no discernable reaction on the face in front of her. Not one that just anyone would notice. But she does. The tiniest twitch of his lower eyelid - one of the only tells Angel has ever had - conveys his surprise at seeing her. His mouth, so much more grim than she remembers it - and that has to be a feat in and of itself, because Angel was nothing if not dour - ticks into a half smile that’s gone so fast that had she blinked, she’d never have seen it. But she remembers. You don’t blink when you’re looking at Angel, because you’d miss three quarters of his communication. Reluctant lips part and she hears her name, “Buffy,” whispered.
He walks to where she is, and leans over to help her pick up her packages. His hands are tan. That’s the first thing she notices. It’s odd how that’s the first thing she notices and not the fact that it’s daylight and he’s standing in front of her in the ray of sunshine that’s beaming down on the street. Neat trick, that, she thought to herself.
It doesn’t surprise her, Angel in the daylight. A wave of déjà vu sweeps through her - bright sunlight and ocean and sky and Angel in the middle of it - and she stumbles, pitching forward, and but for his strong hand on her arm, she knows she’d have gone down face first into the stone of the sidewalk. But she’s still not surprised by seeing Angel in the sunlight. She should be. She’s never seen it before but in dreams, and all of those turned out bad. So why wasn’t she freaking out?
“You’re in the light.” It sounds stupid. She knows it, but he grins at her. Full smile on a face that’s older than the one she remembers. “You’re older.” And that scares her.
And then she remembers something else. She looks around, eyes searching the crowd, the shadows, everywhere. He was never far away from Angel after Sunnydale fell and he came back, and she knows Spike can’t be far away now. But Angel, as he’s always done, seems to know who she’s looking for, and shakes his head at her. The quick grin he’d let escape at seeing her is chased off his face by the frown that settles on his features.
She thought she knew all his faces. An easy assumption, as there really weren’t that many. Just each one had its different ticks, and she’s pretty sure she knew most of them, but this face she doesn’t recognize. “Angel?”
“Spike’s not here.”
He turns to glare into the sunlight, and she’s struck by how absolutely beautiful he is in the light. Another flash of déjà vu makes her dizzy and this time she tastes mint and chocolate chip cookie dough and feels the press of satin on her skin. She shakes her head clearing the confusion, sniffs and asks, “Where is he?”
Angel glances back down into her face, his dark eyes fixated on hers. “I don’t know.” He hands over her packages and starts to step away from her, ready to leave, but she’s having none of that. She wants some things clarified. Angel isn’t a vampire anymore. Spike isn’t around. Things are not normal. She grabs his arm and says, “Why are you here?”
He inhales deeply, and again that quick, barely-there smile cuts across his face, and she thinks for a moment he’s just going to leave, but he says, “I was looking for you. Came once before, but you were…busy.”
She scoffed out a laugh. “I don’t doubt it. Willow and Giles and everyone else keep me pretty busy. I think I need to tell them about themselves.” She shrugs and wraps a hand around his arm again. “Come on. You look a little lost, and that’s not like you. Come back to my place, and tell me what’s going on. What new and ugly thing’s ass am I going to enjoy kicking?”
She starts walking, dragging him along with her, and listens as his steps fall into synch with hers. It’s slow, their pace, and she takes several opportunities to glance up at him. He’s looking at everything but her. His features aren’t grim, just sort of numb, but he doesn’t ever smile again. Not even when the baker’s wife comes running out in her apron shaking a rolling pin at her husband who’s yelling at her from inside the shop. If anything, Angel’s face goes sharp, like he’s just been stabbed in the heart. His eyes are fixated on the woman, and Buffy looks at her closely.
She’s tall, or at least taller than Buffy but that’s not hard, and her long dark hair is flying around a face that’s animated in anger. Her sharp eyebrows lifted into her hairline, and her perfect teeth are bared in a snarl. Mahogany eyes are flashing beneath long black eyelashes, and large breasts are heaving with every indrawn breath.
Buffy’s stricken with how similar the woman looks to Cordelia, and she understands.
She knew, years ago, that her and Angel’s time was either long over or would be a long time in coming. She also knew that he’d fallen in love with Cordelia. That it was a different kind of love than what he’d felt for her. But Cordelia had grown into someone beautiful and worth every ounce of affection Angel could give her, and Buffy didn’t begrudge him his feelings for the other woman. She’d fallen hard in love a couple of times since Angel as well.
She stops and steps in front of Angel and lays a palm over his cheek. “Angel.”
He glances down at her, and she sees how much he really did care for Cordelia in the way his eyes glitter with unshed emotion. She’s seen him cry before, and she doesn’t like what it does to his face. She’d always thought his name so appropriate, a perfect description of what he seemed to be. When he cried, he became the epitome of the fallen angel.
She wipes her thumbs across his eyes, sweeping away the moisture there. “We’re almost there. Then you can tell me,” she pauses, watching his eyes close, “where Spike and Cordelia are.”
It shocks her, and it really shouldn’t, when his arms fold around her waist, and he leans down, resting his forehead against hers. “They…they’re…”
She slides her fingers into his hair and shushes him. This is familiar and she’s missed it, though she hasn’t known it. “It’s okay.” Taking a deep breath, she leans away from him and takes his hand again, leading him the rest of the way to her home.
She drops the bags and boxes she’s been carrying to the floor as she steps inside. She turns to invite Angel in, and before the words are out of her mouth, he steps into the room. Her mouth closes with a click of teeth. “Gonna have to get used to that, I think,” she says with a laugh then moves into the kitchen. “Something to drink? I have, um,” she checks the refrigerator, “water, juice and some freakish thing Dawn’s taken to drinking.”
“Water’s fine,” he replies sitting down on the sofa.
She takes two bottles out and settles on the sofa next to him. “So,” she says, waiting.
He twists the cap off the bottle and swallows almost half of the water before looking at her again. His face is flushed, and there are chill bumps on his arms. “God,” he groans. “I’d forgotten how damn good cold water could be.”
She lifts a brow at him, and swallows some of her own. She waits.
He sets the bottle down on the table in front of them and leans back into the soft cushions of the sofa. “You know about the fight, right?”
“You mean the big messy fight you picked with some of the evilest heavy hitters on this plane?”
“Yeah.”
“Then yup. Heard of it.” She takes another short swallow of water.
Angel looks down at the floor between his knees, his hands running up and down his thighs. He takes a deep breath. “Cordelia showed me…everything. What I was doing. Why I’d been selected to do it. What I had to do to stop it all. It was the last thing she showed me before…before she died.”
His head falls forward, and Buffy runs her fingers - cool and damp from the condensation on her water bottle - over his head. “I didn’t know Cordelia was gone. No one told me.”
“She kissed me. And that’s what made me see. It’s how she got the visions and how she gave them to me, and it was…” he looks up at Buffy, stricken. “I’m sorry.”
“Angel. It’s okay. I had mine too, remember?” she says, trying to make him understand, without mentioning names. She thinks he does when he glances at her from the corner of his eye, his lips quirked again into a quick smile, and his eyes light with a hint of mockery.
She swats him on the back of his head. “You know what I’m trying to say.”
He laughs outright, and the sound travels down her spine, raising goosebumps. It’s genuine and in fun, and she’s never heard it. The only laughter she ever heard from him came from Angelus, and this is so different from that as to be completely foreign. She cherishes the sound.
Angel wipes his face, the laugher trailing off. “I did love her, Buffy. She was so different and she grew so much and was so beautiful and strong and I let her go. Let something use her.”
Buffy chuckles, a light sound that’s barely loud enough to be heard.
“It’s not funny,” he says.
She reigns in her amusement, but continues to grin at him. “Angel. If you think, for even a tiny little second, that you had any control over Cordelia Chase, then you really are dumber than Xander and Spike both say you are.”
When he stares back at the floor, Buffy lays her hand on his head again. “Seriously? The Cordelia I remember wouldn’t let anyone control her choices. Ever. Whatever consequences came of her decisions, you have to know that she made her choices, knowing anything could happen.”
Angel looks up at her, and she closes her eyes at the light of hope in his. She feels his need for absolution like a punch in the gut, so familiar to her own feelings years ago. So many wrong decisions she’d made coming back to haunt her with the longing in his eyes. She smiles, sadness taking the sharp edges off her expression.
“I learned a lot about her in those days when everyone’s waking thoughts were echoing in my brain. Cordelia did and said exactly what she thought. Didn’t matter if it was right or not in the long run, if she thought it was the thing to do at the time, you better believe that she was going to do it. It’s how she was. Her nature. You should know how hard it is to fight your nature.”
Angel laughs out a breath. “You know, she tried to tell me that. I didn’t believe her.”
Buffy frowns at him. “But you believe me.”
He reaches out and lays a hand on her thigh. “Always did.”
She lays her hand over his, curls her fingers around his, and holds his hand. “And Spike?”
He tries to pull his hand out of her grasp, but she closes her fist, hears bones crunching. He hisses. “Damn.”
“Tell me.”
He swallows and settles again.
“After Cordy…died…I started the thing in motion. I made changes in our policy. The gang didn’t like it. Started pulling away from me. I couldn’t let it stop me, I knew what had to be done. Then Illyria happened and we lost Fred. And I thought Wes could handle it, but he couldn’t and we all just…split. Until I told them. And they all agreed to do it. They all agreed to fight.”
“Including Spike.”
“He volunteered first.”
Buffy rolls her eyes. “Always did. He was funny that way.”
Angel smiles. “Spike with a soul wasn’t so different from Spike without one. Pain in my ass, still.”
Buffy laughs. “Totally. I know. He used to love picking on Xander, just to see him get all riled. But honestly, I think that went both ways.”
Their eyes meet, and they share a grin over the antics of their friends.
Then Buffy blinks and says, “Finish,” and Angel leans into her, head resting on her shoulder.
The rest of the story spills from him, and Buffy’s heart falls, a heavy sadness weighing it down for all of them. The story of Wes and Fred hurts, and she aches for the love they never got to explore. Hearing about Gunn - whom she’d never really met but would have liked for his fierceness and commitment to right - leaves her feeling sad more for Angel, watching one of his friends choose the wrong path and try so hard to atone for it. Illyria’s story evokes a kind of sympathy she thought she’d long abandoned. Because what must it be like to be everything to everyone only to return to a completely different earth and be nothing? Buffy thinks she might know a little bit about that, and feels a distant kinship with the fallen godking. Finally for Spike, who again gave his life for a cause he didn’t have to fight for.
Somehow, she and Angel end up stretched over the sofa, his legs draped over the arm. She lays down, resting her head on his chest, trailing her fingers along the warm skin under his shirt. She can’t remember when she’d slid his shirt free of his pants or when she’d snaked her arm underneath it. But she knows she likes the warmth of his skin.
He feels solid and warm and alive beneath her. There’s a steady thud beneath her cheek, and she smiles into the silk of his shirt. She had loved him dearly in her younger days, but there had always been something missing. Listening to his heartbeat in his chest, she figures the missing element had been the rhythmic thud she hears now.
His hands are heavy on her back, his breath a whisper against her hair.
She lifts her head to glance up at him and he’s looking down at her. His eyes are sad and the need to kiss him flares bright and white hot through her. She lowers her lips to his, and it’s more than she remembers, better, fuller, more real. There’s less magic and all consuming heat, but more solidity. He’s there and warm and real in a way he never could be before - trapped as he was, outside of time but walking through it.
His hands frame her face and he whispers her name against her lips, asks if she’s sure she still wants him. She says with utter honesty that she never stopped.
Then he lifts her shirt up and over her shoulders, and her skin is chilled by the damp night air, but warmed by his fingers as they find each dip and valley of her ribs. His lips are everywhere on her face, soft and random, and they’re everything she’s missed since he walked away from her that smoky night outside the ruins of a burned out school.
More tugs of clothes and fingers on her skin, and her pants come off, as do his. They explore each other, rediscovering old territory, and the feeling of déjà vu she’d forgotten about sweeps through her again. She remembers feeling him warm and solid inside her, beneath her, over her. Then he slides into her and it feels like the best moment ever.
She catches her breath and feels the insanity of tears slipping from her eyes, and knows she’s being sappy and stupid and wishes she’d just grow up already. She looks down to tell him that, and gasps, because his face is wet, too, and there’s more moisture welling up in his eyes, and she knows how much he’s missed her and this. It’s the first time they’ve ever really been totally in synch. She traces her thumb on the fringe of his lashes, and when it come away wet, she lifts it to her mouth and licks it clean.
She knows, without a doubt, that nothing bad is ever going to come of this because he’s done his share of fighting and losing, and the Powers That Be have decided to find someone new to be their champion.
The moment of clarity makes her realize that she no longer has to be the hero either, that there are others to take up the mantle. She inhales sharply when the moment proves exquisite and kisses him.
“God, I didn’t even know it, but I missed you,” she says, lips damp from their tears.
He rocks his hips, moving inside her to bring the exquisiteness to fruition, and as she shudders her release over him, he wraps his arms around her, sheltering her. He kisses her hair, her ear, her cheek, then lifts her face to speak to her. “I’ve been looking for you since it all happened. Two years, I’ve been looking for you, wanting to see you. But I’d given up. Just before you broke your shoe, I’d given up.”
“Then I guess it’s a good thing I turned that corner,” she says, kissing him. Then she lays her head down on his chest, cherishing the feel of his fingers through her hair, the thud of his heartbeat beneath her cheek and the whisper of his breath against her scalp.
She never lets anyone plan every moment of her life anymore. She still researches, still raises her little sister, still trains other slayers. When she comes home, she loves like nobody’s watching and she’ll never get hurt. And Angel tells his story of the moment they met again. And she smiles. It never happens to her. Never - she’s really not that lucky. But it happened to Angel, and Buffy’s never been so glad to be someone else’s moment. Someone else’s story.
Assignment:
Name or LJ name: Jess
Email: the_j_word@hotmail.com
Pairing and/or character requested: Buffy/Angel
Up to three things you would like included in your story: post-Chosen & post-NFA, Cordelia, a tiny bit of angst cos it's not BA without that
Up to three things you would not like in the story: slash, Buffy/Spike, Riley
Rating preference: anything goes
Jess, I hope this fits your request and that you liked it. Thanks for the prompt and thanks to southernbangel for hosting the Fluffathon. You rock.
Pairing: Buffy/Angel
Rating: R
Disclaimer: Not for profit, I don’t own these guys. All characters and references to situations in the shows Angel and Buffy belong to Joss and the elites over at Fox.
Summary: Other people have the moment that’s meant to be, and it’s forever, and nothing can stop it or its consequences, but that’s not what fate meant for Buffy Summers. Or is it?
Notes: written for southernbangel’s Fluffathon. My assignment follows the fic. I hope this suffices. Also, this was beta'd by two lovely ladies: bubble_blunder and denied_heaven. They both caught a lot of mistakes, so if there's anything terribly off the mark, it is not their fault, but mine. Thank you so much ladies. Title stolen shamelessly from Shakespeare.
It happens to everyone else, but it never happens to her. She’s not that lucky. Not usually. Everyone else has that story where they’re shopping or eating or bending over to tie a shoe and someone calls their name. It’s a moment that’s meant to be, and it’s forever, and nothing can stop it or its consequences. That’s not what fate meant for Buffy Summers. Her life in the last four years has been planned so well that she can’t breathe without checking with Willow or Giles for fear of breaking some commitment she didn’t even know she had.
She trains Slayers, raises her sister, works out, stops evil, and researches, though that’s more like reading her eyelids, because even after nearly eleven years of being THE SLAYER, she still sucks at research. It’s a thing. She likes to think that Giles knows that and only makes her do it for old time’s sake. Sometimes, when he grins behind his dusty book and thinks she can’t see him, she knows that’s why he makes her do it. It only takes a few minutes of furtive glances back and forth before he catches her catching him, and then they both laugh. Afterward, it’s back to the grind, and the next ooglie booglie - she’s never letting Dawnie live that one down - is soundly defeated due to diligent research and a good swift kick in its ass by, well, everyone else that she leads now.
So no. This is not the kind of occurrence that she wants or has time for. It’s the kind of thing that interrupts the almost Swiss precision of her tick tock world and causes everything she’s juggling and keeping in order to collapse down around her.
She blinks once, shakes her head to clear it. But the person is still there. She steps up onto the sidewalk and there’s a snap as her boot heel breaks. Her heel hits the pavement hard, and she hisses in pain, and the very tall - taller than she remembered - person turns around and it’s no mistake. The moment is upon her, and for the first time since Sunnydale, the first time in her newly overly precise world, the unexpected happens to Buffy Summers.
The packages she’s carrying fall from her arm, and she whispers, “Angel?”
There’s no discernable reaction on the face in front of her. Not one that just anyone would notice. But she does. The tiniest twitch of his lower eyelid - one of the only tells Angel has ever had - conveys his surprise at seeing her. His mouth, so much more grim than she remembers it - and that has to be a feat in and of itself, because Angel was nothing if not dour - ticks into a half smile that’s gone so fast that had she blinked, she’d never have seen it. But she remembers. You don’t blink when you’re looking at Angel, because you’d miss three quarters of his communication. Reluctant lips part and she hears her name, “Buffy,” whispered.
He walks to where she is, and leans over to help her pick up her packages. His hands are tan. That’s the first thing she notices. It’s odd how that’s the first thing she notices and not the fact that it’s daylight and he’s standing in front of her in the ray of sunshine that’s beaming down on the street. Neat trick, that, she thought to herself.
It doesn’t surprise her, Angel in the daylight. A wave of déjà vu sweeps through her - bright sunlight and ocean and sky and Angel in the middle of it - and she stumbles, pitching forward, and but for his strong hand on her arm, she knows she’d have gone down face first into the stone of the sidewalk. But she’s still not surprised by seeing Angel in the sunlight. She should be. She’s never seen it before but in dreams, and all of those turned out bad. So why wasn’t she freaking out?
“You’re in the light.” It sounds stupid. She knows it, but he grins at her. Full smile on a face that’s older than the one she remembers. “You’re older.” And that scares her.
And then she remembers something else. She looks around, eyes searching the crowd, the shadows, everywhere. He was never far away from Angel after Sunnydale fell and he came back, and she knows Spike can’t be far away now. But Angel, as he’s always done, seems to know who she’s looking for, and shakes his head at her. The quick grin he’d let escape at seeing her is chased off his face by the frown that settles on his features.
She thought she knew all his faces. An easy assumption, as there really weren’t that many. Just each one had its different ticks, and she’s pretty sure she knew most of them, but this face she doesn’t recognize. “Angel?”
“Spike’s not here.”
He turns to glare into the sunlight, and she’s struck by how absolutely beautiful he is in the light. Another flash of déjà vu makes her dizzy and this time she tastes mint and chocolate chip cookie dough and feels the press of satin on her skin. She shakes her head clearing the confusion, sniffs and asks, “Where is he?”
Angel glances back down into her face, his dark eyes fixated on hers. “I don’t know.” He hands over her packages and starts to step away from her, ready to leave, but she’s having none of that. She wants some things clarified. Angel isn’t a vampire anymore. Spike isn’t around. Things are not normal. She grabs his arm and says, “Why are you here?”
He inhales deeply, and again that quick, barely-there smile cuts across his face, and she thinks for a moment he’s just going to leave, but he says, “I was looking for you. Came once before, but you were…busy.”
She scoffed out a laugh. “I don’t doubt it. Willow and Giles and everyone else keep me pretty busy. I think I need to tell them about themselves.” She shrugs and wraps a hand around his arm again. “Come on. You look a little lost, and that’s not like you. Come back to my place, and tell me what’s going on. What new and ugly thing’s ass am I going to enjoy kicking?”
She starts walking, dragging him along with her, and listens as his steps fall into synch with hers. It’s slow, their pace, and she takes several opportunities to glance up at him. He’s looking at everything but her. His features aren’t grim, just sort of numb, but he doesn’t ever smile again. Not even when the baker’s wife comes running out in her apron shaking a rolling pin at her husband who’s yelling at her from inside the shop. If anything, Angel’s face goes sharp, like he’s just been stabbed in the heart. His eyes are fixated on the woman, and Buffy looks at her closely.
She’s tall, or at least taller than Buffy but that’s not hard, and her long dark hair is flying around a face that’s animated in anger. Her sharp eyebrows lifted into her hairline, and her perfect teeth are bared in a snarl. Mahogany eyes are flashing beneath long black eyelashes, and large breasts are heaving with every indrawn breath.
Buffy’s stricken with how similar the woman looks to Cordelia, and she understands.
She knew, years ago, that her and Angel’s time was either long over or would be a long time in coming. She also knew that he’d fallen in love with Cordelia. That it was a different kind of love than what he’d felt for her. But Cordelia had grown into someone beautiful and worth every ounce of affection Angel could give her, and Buffy didn’t begrudge him his feelings for the other woman. She’d fallen hard in love a couple of times since Angel as well.
She stops and steps in front of Angel and lays a palm over his cheek. “Angel.”
He glances down at her, and she sees how much he really did care for Cordelia in the way his eyes glitter with unshed emotion. She’s seen him cry before, and she doesn’t like what it does to his face. She’d always thought his name so appropriate, a perfect description of what he seemed to be. When he cried, he became the epitome of the fallen angel.
She wipes her thumbs across his eyes, sweeping away the moisture there. “We’re almost there. Then you can tell me,” she pauses, watching his eyes close, “where Spike and Cordelia are.”
It shocks her, and it really shouldn’t, when his arms fold around her waist, and he leans down, resting his forehead against hers. “They…they’re…”
She slides her fingers into his hair and shushes him. This is familiar and she’s missed it, though she hasn’t known it. “It’s okay.” Taking a deep breath, she leans away from him and takes his hand again, leading him the rest of the way to her home.
She drops the bags and boxes she’s been carrying to the floor as she steps inside. She turns to invite Angel in, and before the words are out of her mouth, he steps into the room. Her mouth closes with a click of teeth. “Gonna have to get used to that, I think,” she says with a laugh then moves into the kitchen. “Something to drink? I have, um,” she checks the refrigerator, “water, juice and some freakish thing Dawn’s taken to drinking.”
“Water’s fine,” he replies sitting down on the sofa.
She takes two bottles out and settles on the sofa next to him. “So,” she says, waiting.
He twists the cap off the bottle and swallows almost half of the water before looking at her again. His face is flushed, and there are chill bumps on his arms. “God,” he groans. “I’d forgotten how damn good cold water could be.”
She lifts a brow at him, and swallows some of her own. She waits.
He sets the bottle down on the table in front of them and leans back into the soft cushions of the sofa. “You know about the fight, right?”
“You mean the big messy fight you picked with some of the evilest heavy hitters on this plane?”
“Yeah.”
“Then yup. Heard of it.” She takes another short swallow of water.
Angel looks down at the floor between his knees, his hands running up and down his thighs. He takes a deep breath. “Cordelia showed me…everything. What I was doing. Why I’d been selected to do it. What I had to do to stop it all. It was the last thing she showed me before…before she died.”
His head falls forward, and Buffy runs her fingers - cool and damp from the condensation on her water bottle - over his head. “I didn’t know Cordelia was gone. No one told me.”
“She kissed me. And that’s what made me see. It’s how she got the visions and how she gave them to me, and it was…” he looks up at Buffy, stricken. “I’m sorry.”
“Angel. It’s okay. I had mine too, remember?” she says, trying to make him understand, without mentioning names. She thinks he does when he glances at her from the corner of his eye, his lips quirked again into a quick smile, and his eyes light with a hint of mockery.
She swats him on the back of his head. “You know what I’m trying to say.”
He laughs outright, and the sound travels down her spine, raising goosebumps. It’s genuine and in fun, and she’s never heard it. The only laughter she ever heard from him came from Angelus, and this is so different from that as to be completely foreign. She cherishes the sound.
Angel wipes his face, the laugher trailing off. “I did love her, Buffy. She was so different and she grew so much and was so beautiful and strong and I let her go. Let something use her.”
Buffy chuckles, a light sound that’s barely loud enough to be heard.
“It’s not funny,” he says.
She reigns in her amusement, but continues to grin at him. “Angel. If you think, for even a tiny little second, that you had any control over Cordelia Chase, then you really are dumber than Xander and Spike both say you are.”
When he stares back at the floor, Buffy lays her hand on his head again. “Seriously? The Cordelia I remember wouldn’t let anyone control her choices. Ever. Whatever consequences came of her decisions, you have to know that she made her choices, knowing anything could happen.”
Angel looks up at her, and she closes her eyes at the light of hope in his. She feels his need for absolution like a punch in the gut, so familiar to her own feelings years ago. So many wrong decisions she’d made coming back to haunt her with the longing in his eyes. She smiles, sadness taking the sharp edges off her expression.
“I learned a lot about her in those days when everyone’s waking thoughts were echoing in my brain. Cordelia did and said exactly what she thought. Didn’t matter if it was right or not in the long run, if she thought it was the thing to do at the time, you better believe that she was going to do it. It’s how she was. Her nature. You should know how hard it is to fight your nature.”
Angel laughs out a breath. “You know, she tried to tell me that. I didn’t believe her.”
Buffy frowns at him. “But you believe me.”
He reaches out and lays a hand on her thigh. “Always did.”
She lays her hand over his, curls her fingers around his, and holds his hand. “And Spike?”
He tries to pull his hand out of her grasp, but she closes her fist, hears bones crunching. He hisses. “Damn.”
“Tell me.”
He swallows and settles again.
“After Cordy…died…I started the thing in motion. I made changes in our policy. The gang didn’t like it. Started pulling away from me. I couldn’t let it stop me, I knew what had to be done. Then Illyria happened and we lost Fred. And I thought Wes could handle it, but he couldn’t and we all just…split. Until I told them. And they all agreed to do it. They all agreed to fight.”
“Including Spike.”
“He volunteered first.”
Buffy rolls her eyes. “Always did. He was funny that way.”
Angel smiles. “Spike with a soul wasn’t so different from Spike without one. Pain in my ass, still.”
Buffy laughs. “Totally. I know. He used to love picking on Xander, just to see him get all riled. But honestly, I think that went both ways.”
Their eyes meet, and they share a grin over the antics of their friends.
Then Buffy blinks and says, “Finish,” and Angel leans into her, head resting on her shoulder.
The rest of the story spills from him, and Buffy’s heart falls, a heavy sadness weighing it down for all of them. The story of Wes and Fred hurts, and she aches for the love they never got to explore. Hearing about Gunn - whom she’d never really met but would have liked for his fierceness and commitment to right - leaves her feeling sad more for Angel, watching one of his friends choose the wrong path and try so hard to atone for it. Illyria’s story evokes a kind of sympathy she thought she’d long abandoned. Because what must it be like to be everything to everyone only to return to a completely different earth and be nothing? Buffy thinks she might know a little bit about that, and feels a distant kinship with the fallen godking. Finally for Spike, who again gave his life for a cause he didn’t have to fight for.
Somehow, she and Angel end up stretched over the sofa, his legs draped over the arm. She lays down, resting her head on his chest, trailing her fingers along the warm skin under his shirt. She can’t remember when she’d slid his shirt free of his pants or when she’d snaked her arm underneath it. But she knows she likes the warmth of his skin.
He feels solid and warm and alive beneath her. There’s a steady thud beneath her cheek, and she smiles into the silk of his shirt. She had loved him dearly in her younger days, but there had always been something missing. Listening to his heartbeat in his chest, she figures the missing element had been the rhythmic thud she hears now.
His hands are heavy on her back, his breath a whisper against her hair.
She lifts her head to glance up at him and he’s looking down at her. His eyes are sad and the need to kiss him flares bright and white hot through her. She lowers her lips to his, and it’s more than she remembers, better, fuller, more real. There’s less magic and all consuming heat, but more solidity. He’s there and warm and real in a way he never could be before - trapped as he was, outside of time but walking through it.
His hands frame her face and he whispers her name against her lips, asks if she’s sure she still wants him. She says with utter honesty that she never stopped.
Then he lifts her shirt up and over her shoulders, and her skin is chilled by the damp night air, but warmed by his fingers as they find each dip and valley of her ribs. His lips are everywhere on her face, soft and random, and they’re everything she’s missed since he walked away from her that smoky night outside the ruins of a burned out school.
More tugs of clothes and fingers on her skin, and her pants come off, as do his. They explore each other, rediscovering old territory, and the feeling of déjà vu she’d forgotten about sweeps through her again. She remembers feeling him warm and solid inside her, beneath her, over her. Then he slides into her and it feels like the best moment ever.
She catches her breath and feels the insanity of tears slipping from her eyes, and knows she’s being sappy and stupid and wishes she’d just grow up already. She looks down to tell him that, and gasps, because his face is wet, too, and there’s more moisture welling up in his eyes, and she knows how much he’s missed her and this. It’s the first time they’ve ever really been totally in synch. She traces her thumb on the fringe of his lashes, and when it come away wet, she lifts it to her mouth and licks it clean.
She knows, without a doubt, that nothing bad is ever going to come of this because he’s done his share of fighting and losing, and the Powers That Be have decided to find someone new to be their champion.
The moment of clarity makes her realize that she no longer has to be the hero either, that there are others to take up the mantle. She inhales sharply when the moment proves exquisite and kisses him.
“God, I didn’t even know it, but I missed you,” she says, lips damp from their tears.
He rocks his hips, moving inside her to bring the exquisiteness to fruition, and as she shudders her release over him, he wraps his arms around her, sheltering her. He kisses her hair, her ear, her cheek, then lifts her face to speak to her. “I’ve been looking for you since it all happened. Two years, I’ve been looking for you, wanting to see you. But I’d given up. Just before you broke your shoe, I’d given up.”
“Then I guess it’s a good thing I turned that corner,” she says, kissing him. Then she lays her head down on his chest, cherishing the feel of his fingers through her hair, the thud of his heartbeat beneath her cheek and the whisper of his breath against her scalp.
She never lets anyone plan every moment of her life anymore. She still researches, still raises her little sister, still trains other slayers. When she comes home, she loves like nobody’s watching and she’ll never get hurt. And Angel tells his story of the moment they met again. And she smiles. It never happens to her. Never - she’s really not that lucky. But it happened to Angel, and Buffy’s never been so glad to be someone else’s moment. Someone else’s story.
Assignment:
Name or LJ name: Jess
Email: the_j_word@hotmail.com
Pairing and/or character requested: Buffy/Angel
Up to three things you would like included in your story: post-Chosen & post-NFA, Cordelia, a tiny bit of angst cos it's not BA without that
Up to three things you would not like in the story: slash, Buffy/Spike, Riley
Rating preference: anything goes
Jess, I hope this fits your request and that you liked it. Thanks for the prompt and thanks to southernbangel for hosting the Fluffathon. You rock.