FIC: Fundamental Forces (Tara/Angel, R)
TITLE: Fundamental Forces
AUTHOR: Lamia Archer
RATING: R
PAIRING: Tara/Angel
WORD COUNT: 2,130
SUMMARY: Sometimes it’s not that opposites attract, but that like things repel.
SPOILERS: General knowledge required. Set sometime during BtVS S4, AtS S1.
AUTHOR’S NOTES: Written for remember_nomore for the first and last annual btvs/ats kinkathon
The first time she meets Angel, it is dark and crowded and she’s afraid from a recent too-close encounter with a monster of the week, so she doesn’t register that he’s a vampire. He comes down to help the Scooby Gang without interacting with Buffy, and Willow acts as his chipper liaison.
Tara doesn’t yet feel comfortable with Willow’s happy, normal friends and their happy, abnormal lives, so she definitely doesn’t feel comfortable with this strange man - and he is a man, in every sense of the word, all tall and foreboding and overtly masculine - who shows up out of nowhere, so she hangs to the back while he and Willow speak, and she hides her face when he turns a shadow of a smile her way.
***
He thrusts, and she swells. Her head rolls back into the pillows so far that she sees the backboard, not the ceiling. Her spine curls automatically, a pleased cat’s arch. Yes. Yes. Pet me. My body aches to purr.
***
Buffy finds out about Angel’s visit, because she always finds out, and she and Willow have a fight that’s all Buffy crying about how Angel’s a jerk, all Willow apologizing. All Tara hovering, frozen, just beyond the doorway of the room, uncertain whether to intervene or to find a small, dark space to curl into, to her hide herself.
Willow has not finished apologizing, even though Buffy isn’t mad at her, before Buffy shoulders past Tara on the way up the stairs to pack for LA.
***
Angel stills, suddenly, shy as Tara begins undressing him, her fingers clumsy as they grasp his buttons, as they weave through his belt loops. She is awkward because she’s nervous, not because she’s never done this before. She’s not a virgin; she’s just never been with a man before.
She can’t think of a reason for Angel to be nervous.
“You’re old,” she says as he draws back, turns his face away, his mouth parted but unspeaking. “I mean, n-not old old, but-”
He looks at her. “I know.”
“Then-”
“It’s been a long time,” he says, an exhalation, and then he lets himself fall against her, into her waiting hands. Her palm lies on his flat chest, over his heart.
***
Buffy comes back angry, and has no sooner violently thrown her bags into her room then she is out the door, out to make the town’s undead population very sorry things didn’t go smoothly with her ex.
Willow and Tara rent a movie and make popcorn for Dawn, and while the girl is watching Chris Kattan make a fool of himself in the living room, Willow takes Tara into the kitchen and explains the whole Angel story to her.
***
They should have had a plan. A map, destination Angel’s Bed. When there aren’t plans, things get all crazy and people, normally very nice and well-mannered people, end up breaking all sorts of things on Angel’s Basin.
Tara is half slung over the basin, mostly because there is no soundness anywhere below her waist and she lacks the strength to stand properly. Nothing is as Angel arranged it, and anything breakable is broken. The harsh spice smell of aftershave clogs the air, and glass glitters the countertop.
Angel’s cool mouth tickles the back of her neck, and then his big hands are cradling her ribcage, her breasts, her shoulders, lifting her up against him. His flat human teeth pinch down on her shoulder, and Tara moans, shudders. Her eyes open, and in the dim light she can see her shadowself in the mirror, eyes heavily-lidded, mouth parted, chest heaving.
A drop of blood appears on her shoulder, drips down to the delicate angle of her collarbone. Her pubic hair rustles, seemingly of its own accord.
She can’t smell Angel anymore because of the spilt aftershave, and he’s nowhere in the glass in front of her. She can still feel him, cool and hard against her back, but she looks back to check anyway. Briefly, just to check.
She doesn’t want this to be just magic.
***
The next time, Angel calls. Buffy is patient but by no means calm or relaxed as she takes the call.
She replaces the receiver with exaggerated care, but does not move once the action is completed. After a long moment, Willow, seated at the kitchen table having hot cocoa with Tara, asks, “Buffy? Is everything okay?”
Buffy turns to face them, plasters on a smile. “Angel’s having some trouble he’d like some help with. But, you know, I’m really busy, and anyway, it’s a witch thing. Maybe-”
“Of course I’ll go!” Willow says. “I’m happy to help-”
“Thanks. But I don’t want to put you in danger if-”
“Pfft, danger-schmanger. It’ll be fun! Plus, a learning experience, what with new magics to learn and try!”
Buffy’s smile is very small now, but mostly real. “Thanks, Will.”
“Sure thing.” Willow turns back to Tara, smiles coyly. “You know, I could always use a more experienced witch to help me . . .”
And that is how Tara is invited to Los Angeles, too.
***
That not-quite-smile surfaces on Angel’s pale, beautiful face. “You’ve never been with a man.”
It’s not a question, and Tara can feel the blush rise on her cheeks, fast and hot as a forest fire.
“It’s-it’s n-n-none of your-”
The almost smile fades, his face all apology now. In a frame shift he’s inches from her, his hands circling her delicate wrists.
He doesn’t quite make it to, “I’m sorry” before she takes his mouth.
***
Angel isn’t even there to welcome them when they arrive. Tara thinks that maybe he’s sleeping, vampire and all, but the sky has long darkened past blue; that shouldn’t be an issue.
He arrives hours later, with a sword and several fresh wounds. Cordelia tuts over him; she helps him out of his jacket, then his shirt, sits him down and bandages him. Tara blushes and tries not to look; it’s not like she sees shirtless guys often, although no one seems to mind the intimacy but her and Willow, who makes a dumb joke about it and then is immediately embarrassed.
Angel is terse with Willow even when Cordelia rebukes him.
“Have they made any progress?”
“No,” Willow says, “but we haven’t really gotten very much information-”
“Let Wesley fill you in.” He takes his shirt from Cordelia, but doesn’t put it on. “I’ll be downstairs.”
“Try to get up on the right side of the bed tomorrow, Mr. Grumpypants,” Cordelia says as he heads to the elevator, still shirtless. But she’s smiling.
***
Angel’s hands, his hands are so big; they swallow her wrists, her throat, all her vulnerable thin parts. Tara thinks of tiny hands, tiny hands with thin fingers and chipped nail polish, lotion-soft hands with tiny rings and delicate wrists. Angel’s hands are big, and they’re heavy, and hard, and they’re rough from handling a sword, a stake, from working and fighting and taking care of him. And now they take care of her, and Tara bucks and writhes against his hand cradling the most delicate part of her, and Tara bucks and writhes against his fingers inside of her, taking her all the way home.
***
Tara isn’t used to multihour demon-study sessions, and she gets restless by the fourth hour. Willow and Wesley are still really into it, and Cordelia is still mostly helping, but Tara can’t sit still. Can’t concentrate; the words blur before her eyes.
She asks Cordelia for a snack.
“There’s a kitchen downstairs.”
The elevator’s a little spooky, all foreign and old, but the ride is smoother than she thought. The downstairs is very dark; Angel must still be in bed.
She can’t find a light switch, but she is able to find the kitchen anyway through the ghostly pale glow of the refrigerator through the dim. She walks toward it: beacon.
It isn’t until she’s steps away from the table that she realizes Angel’s sitting there, alone in the dark. Tara freezes, fear running cold through her veins.
“May I help you?”
“I-I’m s-so sorry; I d-didn’t know-”
“The light’s on the wall to your left.”
For a moment Tara remains unmoving, unsure. But then she figures he can see in the dark just fine; the only thing turning the light on will do is help her. So she fumbles against the wall for a moment until she finds the switch; the room is suddenly illuminated, and some of her panic leaves her. Angel looks tired, old. His coat is off and he’s wearing a wife beater, which makes him look vulnerable and very broad. There’s a bandage around his arm that has nearly bled through; a dark spot lurks just under the surface.
“What did you want?” His voice is very soft, and he isn’t really looking at her. Tara calms some more, even braves a step toward him.
“Cordelia said-a snack-”
Angel frowns ever so slightly. “I don’t have a lot in the way of snacks.”
“Oh. Oh, o-okay, I’ll-I’ll just-”
He raises his dark eyes to her. Tara freezes in his gaze.
Finally, he says, “There’s some popcorn in the cabinet up there.” He motions vaguely, a small movement of his hand and not his injured arm. “The-the kind that goes in the microwave? I’d never seen that before.”
Tara smiles crookedly. “It’s a brave new world out there.”
***
She’s afraid of him inside of her, but she wants it too, wants it with a passion that she can feel trying to pull her inside out. It wants out - it wants it in - so bad that it might undo her.
Angel asks her is she sure. Tell him she wants him.
Tara is too drunk with need to form words. Only one floats to the top of her consciousness; it leaves her hot mouth breathy but insistent.
“Now.”
***
Tara stands awkwardly in front of the microwave until her popcorn is done. Angel doesn’t say anything, and she doesn’t dare break the silence. The microwave beeps and she seizes the steaming bag by a corner. She starts to leave, to go back upstairs where she knows where she stands with people, but before she leaves the room Angel nudges the chair across from his out. Just a little. A few inches.
Tara sets her bag on the table and nervously sits.
***
Willow is upstairs, and Angel’s in love with Buffy. Big lose-your-soul love. Always. And Tara isn’t a cheater. She’s never been a cheater. Except that one spelling test in second grade, but she felt so bad she confessed and then she never, ever did anything like that ever again-
But it doesn’t feel like cheating, and it’s not because Angel’s a man. It’s because Angel’s Angel, and because this is like gravity. A powerful force. Inevitable.
Knocking a lot of shit over.
Their trail to the bedroom is littered with debris: fallen objets d’art, tangled rugs, clothing. And then they’re falling, falling to the bed, and colliding. Colliding against each other, again and again.
Gravity.
***
Tara pulls the mouth of the bag open; steam pours out like ghosts escaping. The air is scented salty, warm.
She eats in silence for a while. The popcorn almost melts in her mouth, and it makes her fingers slick with butter. Angel doesn’t talk, and he isn’t really watching her, either. Sometimes he just looks, but she feels okay with his gaze; he’s neither judging nor hunting her.
“You’re still hurt,” Tara says after half the popcorn, her eyes falling to Angel’s bandaged arm. “I’m sorry we haven’t been able to-”
“It’s okay,” Angel says, and his arm twitches back some, pulls back closer to his body.
Tara has said the wrong thing. She frowns, tries another tack.
“Do you still love her? Buffy?”
Angel’s face crumples with pain, and a shock of panic runs through Tara. She’s said the wrong thing again. She starts to get up, to leave Angel alone with his heartache, but he answers before she can negotiate the table.
“Always.”
“I-I’m sorry, I didn’t mean-”
“It’s okay,” Angel says, but his eyes are on the table.
Tara sits still for a long time, unsure of what to do. What the least painful course of action would be.
Finally, she leans across the table and lays her hand over Angel’s. His hands are big, much bigger than hers, and her pinkie curls around his ring finger, fits into the space between his ring finger and his pinkie. Just in this moment, it’s the perfect size, in just the right place. It fits perfectly.