Comments | todoright: ✟ the lover that you hold is no more than a ghost;

todoright

✟ the lover that you hold is no more than a ghost;

May 17, 2010 19:37

BUFFY ANNE SUMMERS
BELOVED SISTER
DEVOTED FRIEND
SHE SAVED THE WORLD. A LOT.

When Angel first saw it there in the caves, his first thought was that it must be wrong. It had to be wrong - perhaps another example of the Island's terrible sense of humor. But the more he thought about it, the more he knew that denial wasn't going to change anything. ( Read more... )

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chose May 18 2010, 00:20:47 UTC

It was difficult to tell where things had gone wrong. Angel's arrival or Spike's? Angel kissing her or her kissing Angel? Spike's rant or her slip up? Her mind told her to circle E for all of the above. The past few weeks had been nothing short of insanity, but as bad as things could get, Buffy never would have believed that Angel would take up the silence treatment with her had he not just passed her by without so much as a glance.

Maybe she should be sympathetic - Angel couldn't understand her and Spike any more than she could understand, say, him and Darla - but the sight of Angel's back turned to her did nothing to quell her anger.

"Nice to see you to," she spat from her seat under a large palm tree. So much for a quiet afternoon of nothing but sand, wind, and a stack of fashion magazines.

chose May 25 2010, 19:52:39 UTC

Staying in touch is dangerous ground for them - it's best when they don't try to keep up with one another, when so much time is spent apart that one can almost forget the other exists (almost, though it never even nears that stage.) Doing so literally, though, that opens up an entirely separate and much more hazardous can of worms. Hands are just the start, and that small touch has the power to lead to bigger things. Things they can't afford right now.

"Maybe I should..." Buffy trails off, unsure of what it is she should do. Walk away? Run? None of the above coincide with what she wants to do, but what she wants is out of the question. That's the problem; always has been, always will be. Want versus need, right versus wrong.

todoright May 25 2010, 23:17:46 UTC

He marvels at how much smaller her hand is compared to his, even after all this time. Even though Buffy was no longer a girl anymore, but a woman in her own right. It still looks like the same hand that he used to walk home after a night of patrol, placidly through cemeteries. Occasionally pausing their travels for a kiss.

"...Go." Angel supplies, and he's beginning to feel like a man possessed by spirits that were not his own, like he and Buffy had so many years ago. Replaying the same scene of their lives, over and over again, to no avail. It's even more frustrating given that part of him doesn't want the pantomime to end, because that would mean the end of what little he already has.

It's this part of him, the less noble part, that he struggles against now.

"I should go."

chose May 26 2010, 01:04:46 UTC

"Yeah," agrees Buffy, with nothing left to do but nod slowly. A noble effort, but the softness of her voice betrays any attempt to conceal the truth, which screams that her sentiments are anything but in agreement. "We should both... do that," she says, but attempt number two is hardly no more successful than the first.

Hands. They're still holding hands, and Buffy knows what she has to do.

Let go.

The afternoon is full of failed attempts and futile efforts, and that doesn't seem to be changing any time soon. Her brain is doing a sucky job of communicating with the rest of her body, but that might be for the best, considering how her body is screaming at the moment. Don't listen, don't listen. Let go.

The most Buffy manages is a loud exhale; a frustrated sigh.

todoright May 26 2010, 01:19:46 UTC

In the end, he lets go first. He has to. Hasn't it always been that way? They both talked about letting go, but Buffy was the one who had always hoped, always wished and dreamed beyond all evidence to the contrary. If this was going to work, he had to leave.

Cupping his larger hand over hers, Angel moves to slowly pry their grips apart - gently, but determinedly. Or so he hopes.

chose May 27 2010, 01:04:12 UTC

Lost in thought and confusion, it takes Buffy a moment to realize that Angel is making the first move to separate. Again. She draws her hand back the moment that becomes apparent, quickly, so fast that it's almost a reflex, as if she just touched a hot surface and had to jump back. As if it just came to her attention that she's voluntarily put herself in this position yet again; a position for Angel to be the one who breaks it off, the one who leaves.

"Right, well, I really should... go somewhere. Some place that's else, and not here." By now, Buffy has forgotten completely how this conversation started, and her memory of whatever she had planned on doing before this is beyond clouded. The worst part of this all is the fact that Angel can't leave, even if he wants to. It was hard enough when he stuck around Sunnydale for weeks after breaking up with her, but this is a new kind of torment altogether. This has no end.

todoright May 27 2010, 13:13:47 UTC

"You won't see me again, I can promise you that much, even if I can't leave this place. I won't come again unless you need help." There was nothing Buffy could say to change his mind about that last part. Now that they were in the same place, Angel would be watching over her, he just wasn't going to let her see him. Perhaps it was best for the both of them that he carry the bulk of this burden. Angel had been alive long enough to realize that dreams really don't come true, and while he's sure Buffy has matured by leaps and bounds, Angel would always volunteer to take the bulk of the pain if it meant sparing her just a little bit.

chose May 30 2010, 23:08:21 UTC

"You didn't come in the first place, not willingly," Buffy replied. Her voice was harder, more insistent, betraying despite all efforts not to the fear she felt. It seemed that no matter how much they went back and forth on this, Buffy only managed to dig herself into a deeper hole. In trying to convince Angel that he could live as a human, that she could help him do so, he had somehow decided that it would be best if they were kept apart indefinitely. The only silver lining to this cloud was that there weren't any sewers on the island.

"We ran into each other," Buffy went on, "and we'll keep running into each other. Chances are, the more we try to stay away from each other, the more frequently we'll happen upon each other. The island's like that; it has this way of never letting you avoid anything, no matter how much you try. You can't promise me that because it's not in your control, and... and even if it was, it's not a promise I'd want you to keep."

todoright May 31 2010, 00:57:57 UTC

"Buffy, if it makes you uncomfortable...it's something I can control." perhaps he won't be able to help seeing her around the island, but he's pretty sure that he can help meeting her again. Angel's always been good at hiding, shadows and sewers or not.

He's pacing. He can't help it, but he is. "Do you want us to be together?"

chose May 31 2010, 20:18:13 UTC

There it is - the million dollar question. And Buffy is going to cheat, she knows it. But like Angel, it's not something she has any control over. This is beyond her own uncertainty, beyond all the petty rationalizations her brain can cook up, it's even beyond the opinions of others, most of which have always been firmly planted in opposition to her and Angel pursuing a relationship.

As much as she should know by now how Angel feels about her, Buffy has always had doubts. She had them when they first dated after seeing him with Drusilla that one night, and then they increased in spades when Angelus dedicated himself to her destruction. Even when they were at their happiest, Buffy remembers how jealous she felt that he and Faith were such kindred spirits, and how much she feared that losing her power meant losing all that made her interesting to him. She has lost that power again, here on the island, and remembering the fact does little to help.

So Buffy goes for the cop-out question. "Don't you?"

todoright May 31 2010, 21:20:43 UTC

Like he knew she would. For all of Buffy's boldness and bravado, there were some topics on which she was shaky about. Vulnerable. The Slayer can't be all about the kill and the power. She has to be more than that - she has to be a person too, and that's how Buffy has survived this long. If Angel could hear her thoughts (and if given the chance he wouldn't turn it down), he'd reassure her that it wasn't the slayer that he'd fallen in love with, all those years ago on the steps of Hemery High.

But if she wants to be evasive, he can be, too. Angel has patience where Buffy has none. "You didn't answer my question."

chose May 31 2010, 21:35:18 UTC

The instant roll of her eyes at Angel's non-answer is directed more at herself than it is at him. She should have known it wouldn't be that easy; nothing between them ever is. But she's not ready to pour so much of herself out on the line, not when she feels further from Angel and his thoughts than ever before. She needs some reassurance.

"I didn't mean to."

todoright May 31 2010, 21:49:07 UTC

"Years ago, when I first met you, I made a promise to myself that I would always try to keep your heart from getting bruised or torn. But things changed and time passed and I was forced to realize that your heart was yours to give to anyone you pleased. I didn't like it, but it was the truth. Not recognizing that wasn't fair to you or me." Angel paused, his answer so typically cryptic and evasive that he almost expected Buffy to give him another eye roll. But cryptic or not, this was the way he expressed himself sometimes - in this almost poetic, maudlin way. His words are born from someone who was alive before instant messaging, in the time of long, flowery letters and declarations of love and of tragic plays.

"Spike. Do you love him?"

It's not fair that he's asking all the questions, but he needs to know.

chose May 31 2010, 22:03:45 UTC

"Oh, great," Buffy remarks with a hard laugh. "More impossible questions."

She's annoyed, yes, but it's not with Angel. Not just with Angel. The truth she has had to live with for some time now is that Riley left because of her; because she was closed off. She didn't love him, never really had, and he had known it all along. After Angel, Buffy hadn't allowed herself to love any man that way again. She understands now that it was equal parts being the Slayer - the killing and the violence made emotion close to inaccessible, to the point the she was constantly afraid of becoming a robot, a heartless killing machine - and having had her heart broken before ( ... )

todoright June 1 2010, 00:06:27 UTC

A part of Angel - the childish part of him, remembers Spike's smug look that day on the beach and wants to return with one of his own at this new truth, but this isn't the time, and his vendetta against his perpetual pain in his ass can come later. Because although Buffy's admitted that she doesn't love Spike, that doesn't mean anything for him.

And he doesn't know what he will do even if it did mean something for him. His wants are different than his needs and...above all else, Angel doesn't like being at the mercy of something - or someone else.

Buffy had been enough.

"A lot of time has passed. For you, even more than it has for me." It's his way of asking the other question - the one about him.

chose June 1 2010, 01:50:26 UTC

"I know that. I wish I didn't know that, I wish I could forget or - or just undo the past four years." It isn't just about Angel, that last part, the sentiment isn't exactly false. As exhausted as Buffy gets just thinking about all that she and her friends have gone through these past few years, she would go back and re-do them if she could. She'd get her mother into treatment sooner and do a better job of keeping Dawn safe. Pay more attention to Riley; make him feel wanted. Stop Willow before she got out of control with the magicks, keep Xander from making the idiotic mistake of leaving Anya at the altar, and even warn Tara not to stand so close to that window ( ... )

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