BtVS songfic: Midnight
Title: Midnight
Author: SCWLC
Disclaimer: Don’t own nuthin’.
Distribution: Whoever wants it may have it so long as they have previous permission to take my stuff or tell me where it’s going.
Timeline: Sometime sort of post-S4
Summary: A songfic. Surprised? I didn’t think so. A mildly angsty B/A reunion/ Riley gets dumped sort of thing.
Notes: The song is “Midnight Angel” by Jimmy Rankin from his album “Song Dog”. I know this is something of a tired and out-of-date genre but I felt the need to reappear on the BA Fluff list to reassure people I’m not vanished into the aether.
Feedback: Comments? Questions? Complaints? Demands? scwlc@yahoo.ca
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//I took a walk in the midnight hour
By the dock and the church bell tower//
The path they followed meandered through a town filled with memories. All twelve graveyards held memories both bad and good, the good made bittersweet for the absence of one dark-haired vampire. The graveyards Buffy was used to. She played the role her friends liked to see as they walked past the rows and rows of tombstones. “So what do you say we stop for ice cream once we’re through?”
Riley blinked at her, unused to casual conversation while hunting demons. “Um . . . you do know the ice cream shop is closed?” he asked.
“Duh. I was thinking like a stop for some Ben and Jerry’s,” she told him rolling her eyes. “Like that one with the chocolate cows in it.” She grinned at him, timing her moves in her head. Tilt head now, smile just so, never let them know you want to run to LA to where *he* is.
He chuckled. “Right. The one with the cows. Got it,” he replied, amused. “Is this some sort of comment on my Midwestern origins?” he asked.
“No. I just like the one with the cows. They’re all chocolatey and stuff.” Bounce head, perky voice, step step, innuendo. “Unless you’d rather do something else with the ice cream,” sly smile.
There was a moment, then he grinned back at her, unaware of her mental choreography. “Well, I suppose if you’re thinking that we should maybe just get plain chocolate. It is supposed to be an aphrodisiac.”
She was saved from having to reply by a vampire bursting from the trees in front of them and running headlong toward the exit. They gave chase, Buffy pulling ahead as her instincts took over. She let that happen sometimes with Riley. It gave her a chance to get away for a while. He was just so normal and prosaic that she sometimes needed to let herself feel the predator under her skin. She didn’t with her friends because it bothered them, but if she was going to make it work with Riley he had to see what she really was sometimes.
They ran, the vampire fleeing in terror. Buffy had already surmised all he wanted was to escape with his unlife. The Slayer tailed him by mere feet, and a third, a human, pounded the cement of the sidewalk, panting with every stride and filling the night air with the sound of his heartbeat, gasping breaths and the heat he gave off merely by existing. She caught up to the vampire down by the docks and tackled him, plunging the stake in her hand through his back. He exploded into ashes beneath her, leaving her alone in a place that was filled with memories by association.
Dimly she heard the slap of Riley’s feet as he came up behind her and his concerned question of whether she was okay. She told him “Fine,” as she began to walk away from the pain. There she and Angel had said goodbye. There was where things had begun to fall apart. That moment by the docks when he gave her an Irish handfasting ring and told her he belonged to her as surely as her heart belonged to him. Faith had turned on that dock even as she saved Buffy’s life. That was the last place the two had shared a moment of understanding. It wasn’t the dock itself that held the worst of the memories, it merely held the associations. Last stop before heartbreak and grief.
Her blonde, human, normal boyfriend seemed to have caught on that there was something wrong. “Buffy? Buffy are you okay?” he demanded.
“Sure,” she forced a happy smile onto her lips, “It’s just kinda weird when you run into a vamp that doesn’t want to try to kill me.”
He wrapped an arm around her shoulders surrounding her in his warmth. It was suffocating and she searched quickly for an excuse to escape. “Riley, I just remembered that I have to drop by Father Baldwin’s for some holy water. I’ve got a free supply there and all.” She tugged him to the small church.
“I’ll just wait outside,” he said. She shrugged, smiled at him, and trotted up the steps. He was so predictable it was almost scary. He felt uncomfortable in there, good little United Church boy that he was. Buffy felt a little bad leaving him behind like that, but she just wasn’t comfortable with his arm around her the way Angel used to hold her.
He greeted her as she approached the altar. “Buffy! Good to see you!” he said with a smile.
She returned it, “Father Baldwin, I was wondering if you could give me some holy water. I’m running a little low of late.” He nodded and vanished into the back, leaving her with her memories of the place. She’d been there since her first time in its walls, but it always seemed to hold a faintly charred smell, and they’d never gotten around to replacing the pipe organ she’d destroyed. Buffy slowly made her way to the altar and stared at the spot over which Angel’s lifeblood had been drained to revive Drusilla’s flagging energies. The pain and helplessness tore at her for a moment as the remembrances threatened to overwhelm her.
Then the priest returned, she thanked him for the water and hurried out to see Riley. He was calmly waiting for her, none of the discomfort or concern for her that was present the few times she went with Angel.
//I felt the night bust open wide
Midnight Angel by my side//
Looking into Riley’s eyes as she trotted down the steps pretending to be the cheerful girl he thought she was, Buffy realised that Angel was always with her whether she wished it or not. Her hopes of escaping the grasp his memory had upon her shattered and she was left with a lifetime of darkness filled with his memory.
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//Passed young lovers on the street
Holding hands and shuffling feet//
It was one in the morning and Angel paced down the streets of LA, his duster billowing behind him. All around him swirled the whirlwind of humanity that filled the nightclubs at that hour. He watched as couples walked by him, some holding hands, others more intimately involved with each other. Each pair reminded him painfully of love lost. One young woman’s soft giggle calling to mind the way Buffy had laughed at something he said, a flash of blonde hair over a slender figure reminding him of her and every embrace shared before him held the memories stolen kisses and a beautiful young slayer.
He strolled past those lovers and went on his way to find trouble. It was easier to hunt something that would fight than it was to remember. The struggle and the pain would distract him from the agony his memories evoked and allowed him to sleep some days. Those were the days when he was so tired that he merely collapsed into bed at the end of the night and let his exhaustion overtake him. He could sink into dreams not filled with sweet kisses and heartbreaking words of love and devotion.
They were indeed heartbreaking. It had taken him so long to finally tell her that he loved her when those words slipped so easily off her tongue and when he finally had it had merely been a prelude to horror. Those words were also half-truths he had never dared reveal to her. He had told her she was his light in the darkness that was his lot in life. It was true, but she was also his angel of night. She came to him into the night where he belonged and made it less of a torment. She turned the darkness into a haven for them both by her mere presence. He had never wanted that for her and dared not tell her.
He didn’t know whether he feared her being insulted by it or if he was afraid she would be happy to hear that he found her presence in the darkness one of rightness.
//Makes one wonders where love goes
Midnight Angel only knows//
He wandered through the lamplit city streets thinking of his slayer and how she was once the centre of his world. He snorted, drawing the attention of the few passers-by who were not deeply absorbed in a romantic pursuit. She was still the centre of his world, just less physically so. Instead of filling his nights by watching her, stalking her, chatting with her, kissing her, all the dozens of things he once did when she was his, he now spent his nights thinking of doing those things. By day he slept and dreamt of her. Now, more than ever since he was deprived of her presence. His love for her was now a blaze of obsession just beneath his breastbone. If he were to see her again those feelings of longing and desperation might transform back into the bone-deep joy and connection they used to be. But for now they simply made him writhe in agony. The distance from her kept him from calling those feelings love.
//Midnight Angel meet me down
By the water’s edge in a harbour town//
Standing by the docks a hundred memories floated by. Heated kisses, promises of forever and a hundred dreams that had to be ignored. Lovers clinging together, hoping against hope that they would not be pulled apart by duty and destiny while making pledges of eternity that would never be forgotten. A fallen angel to lead the way through the darkness, and a golden angel to take them into the light.
Midnight, the witching hour, skin and hair turned silver and white under the moon’s pale glow, that was their time. Alabaster and ebony, their natures forming a perfect balance and match.
//I’ll bring the lock you bring the key
Midnight Angel comfort me//
Staring up at the moon as it glowed above, knowing that it shone on the other, perhaps reflecting their love the way the pale satellite reflects the sun. The knowledge that had comforted lovers the world over that somewhere their other half was seeing the same moon in the same sky reached out to them both.
//Up above the seabirds fly
Shimmering white in a wintry sky
How I love to watch them soar
Don’t seem to dream much anymore//
On the beach she stood and wrapped her arms around herself and let her thoughts drift like the wisps of cloud floating overhead. Buffy waited. Waited as she had done so often since that dream in LA where Angel had told her that he would find his way back to her. Standing on a dreamscape beach like the one she was now on he had crept up behind her, his presence a comforting strength at her back. It was one of the good dreams. One of the ones she clung to, prayed would be true some day, that dream carried her through days filled with the harshness of the sun and the happiness of her friends.
When her mask began to crack she made her way to the beach and waited. Riley came pounding up to her through the surf, his harsh breathing, pumping arms and the way he displaced the air around him alerting her long before his shout, “Hey Buffy!”
A smile affixed to her face that felt as false as the emotions she was supposed to feel for him Buffy turned and shouted back, “Riley! What are you doing here?”
Pulled against the warm, solid, masculine chest, Buffy prayed for some of that comforting security he represented to come through. It didn’t. Her comfort could only be found in cool, preternaturally strong arms that smelled of leather, spice and the faintest hint of blood. Riley just smelled like sweat and Old Spice. But she pressed herself to him, breathed in deeply as she had done since Giles had let out that Buffy had a heightened sense of smell, and let him kiss her. When they pulled apart Riley gave Buffy a confused look. “What were you doing with your tongue just now?” he asked.
A spurt of anxiety nearly surfaced from behind the mask before it was allowed to dissipate. She had let the dream too close to the surface again. Her tongue had sought the fangs a vampire would have, looked to caress them as she always did to remind him that she loved all of him. Not just that but because when she ran her tongue up one elongated canine and down the other it made him shiver with pleasure. But the was Angel. Riley had no fangs and generally found her tongue on his front teeth like that to be a slightly odd experience. She forced a coy look onto her face and said, “Exploring.”
He accepted that and pulled her to him again. As he moved away from her mouth Buffy mused on how he had discovered that nipping at the scar from Angel’s bite aroused her like nothing else. He had been trying to show her how beautiful he thought she was when he had zoned in on the scar. Incorrectly assuming by her reactions to his touching there and her friends’ reactions to all inquiries about it that it was something she was ashamed of he had focussed all his attention on it to show how it made her more beautiful to him. “A survivor” he’d called her.
Her thoughts were bouncing around her head, unconnected, simply existing from moment to moment. Much as she did.
//Midnight Angel meet me down
By the water’s edge in a harbour town//
Angel found himself by the waterfront again. He was always on the pier. He stood there, waiting for her to walk past him sparkling in the sun the way she had on the day that only he remembered. She never came of course, but he still waited. She’d once made him watch some cartoon about gargoyles that came to life at night. The show had been ridiculous, but one phrase had stuck in his mind. “My angel of the night.” Buffy was that to him. She belonged in the day and he knew that more than ever after seeing her in the sun, but she belonged to the night as well.
The Slayer stalked through the night, parting the darkness before her, slipping through the openings silently and allowing the darkness to close behind her again with barely a ripple. He loved to watch her in her element as a predator. It spoke to him in so many ways. The vampire frowned as he remembered how frightening she had seemed battling the Mohra demon. Flinching slightly at the entirely human reaction he’d had at her violence that was so akin to his own. Sometimes he wondered if perhaps his reaction had been too human. Another reason to return to being a vampire.
//I’ll bring the lock you bring the key
Midnight Angel comfort me//
Turning on his heel Angel strode off towards his car. He had to see her tonight. Vaulting into the convertible he spun off into the darkness, hoping her love would break him out of the aimless state he was in.
//I took a walk in the midnight hour
By the dock and the church bell tower//
Ever since the sun had set Buffy had been feeling twitchy and she was having a harder time than usual keeping her mask intact. There was an itch under her skin and she caught herself stalking the night more than once. Riley had caught her the most recent time and had looked at her with the wide, frightened eyes her old boyfriend back at Hemery had when she’d accidentally nearly killed him.
She knew something was coming to make her act this way and she’d even told Riley this. He’d then easily accepted her behaviour as a simple aberration caused by the nearness of some supernatural creature. That was true enough as such things went, but what Riley could never fathom was that the proximity was simply forcing her to lose the veneer of civilisation she normally wore and allow her darker side loose. She went silent and began to follow the tiny trail of psychic breadcrumbs that would lead her to her prey.
//I felt the night bust open wide
Midnight Angel by my side//
“Angel.”
“Buffy.”
//Midnight Angel meet me down
By the water’s edge in a harbour town
I’ll bring the lock you bring the key
Midnight Angel comfort me//
He turned and she spotted the quirk of the lips that was, for him, a smile of welcome. Resisted the urge to throw herself into his arms because it might distract them from the . . . Because Riley was watching. He was still watching when a cadre of vampires burst from behind the crates lying around the warehouses and attacked them. Watched as they fought with teamwork that took him years to learn and had had to train for nightly in the army special ops. As they worked with no words between them, knowing precisely where the other was at all times, they traded quips, jokes and a barely contained ferality that scared the bejeezus out of Riley.
When they were finished they simply stood there and Riley didn’t dare move. He knew watching them was wrong, but he was too terrified of the animal viciousness and sensuality he had just seen, and was terrified of bringing it down on his own head if he moved too suddenly. He had seen Buffy fight before and he had fought vampires before, even fought this particular vampire before. But he had never seen anything like what had happened when the two of them came together.
//Midnight Angel meet me down
By the water’s edge in a harbour town//
“Buffy,” Angel said again. He took in the slight glow the reflected moonlight on the water gave to her skin and how the damp air made her light blouse cling to her ever so slightly. He could smell the way her blood was stirring from his presence, the warring needs of Slayer and woman heightening the effect. “How are you?”
She smiled slightly. “I’m okay Angel,” she replied. Her eyes flicked down slightly then up and Angel felt his lips drift upward ever so slightly in acknowledgement of her perusal in response to his own. He wondered if he looked as appealing to her as she did to him. “What are you doing here?”
//I’ll bring the lock you bring the key
Midnight Angel comfort me//
“I had to see you,” he told her. Buffy watched as the ripples of reflected light moved across his face making his dark eyes seem like black pits and waited for them to pull her in. His dark clothes seemed to be a taunt for her to peel them off to reveal the ivory skin hidden underneath. “I know I said I wouldn’t bother you but I missed you.” The words hung in the air between them, tormenting them both with his brutal honesty. Buffy took in a breath and let it out slowly to give herself time. She could hear Riley by the warehouse wall, holding his breath as he waited for her response.
Driven by something, Angel’s nearness, a sense of perverse pleasure at screwing up Willow’s plans, revenge on Riley for being too human, she didn’t know. She spoke.
“So did I.”
//I’ll bring the lock you bring the key//
There were layers there that she knew he was aware of. Layers Riley could never comprehend but that Angel understood instantly. He pulled her to him and slowly lowered his lips to hers. They both heard the soldier depart, but they let him go taking the moment and the night for themselves.
//Midnight Angel//
Fin
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