They should have been doing anything else. Planning for tonight’s rescue mission, researching to learn all they could about their enemy, even actually training as they were supposed to be. But kissing and groping, fumbling on top of gym mats--that was all so much better.
Buffy didn’t want to stop and wasn’t about to force this issue… Mmm… Not so long as Angel kept doing that fantastic thing to her ear. She’s missed the feel of him, not to mention the taste and smell of him, in ways she hadn’t known existed. How was it possible they’d gone this long without each other? How had they withstood years of separation, without communication, without physical contact? As Angel’s lips slowly made their way over his mark once again she fumbled for an answer, any answer, until it was just easier to succumb.
Her jogging bra top made it impossible for him not to know exactly how her body had changed over the years. The stretchy fabric molded itself to her skin, much like his hands were currently doing, and he noted that she’d lost weight in the past years. More than he would have cared for, actually. Women with curves, flesh to them, were much more sexy than these stick-like waifs in Cordelia’s fashion magazines.
Filling his hands with her small breasts, flattened by the restrictive material, his fingers worked under the fabric until it gave way and freed her. Feeling like a teenager again he fought against the tightening in his pants when her breasts sprang free, her nipples hard and ready for his touch. Long fingers caressed them in alternating brushes of gentle and rough, arousing her further until her head fell to the side, her mouth slack and open, her eyes closed in ecstasy.
“You’re beautiful,” he whispered against her skin, raising goose bumps where his cool breath touched. “So beautiful. Perfect…” His mouth closed over one of her dark peach nipples and she mewled, her hands thrusting themselves into his hair and pulling him down to her roughly. His teeth scraped over the pebbled flesh, his tongue bathed her until he pulled away to give the same treatment to the other. Burying himself between her breasts he let his tongue trail its way around the small globes, nipping ever so gently now and then until Buffy was grinding herself against him.
“Angel…oh, God…” She was barely able to form those simple words, her mind was almost a complete blank and his tongue continued to work over and around her breasts while his hands worked one, then the other, to peaks of insane pleasure.
Did he do this to you? Could he make you sound this way? React this way? Angel wondered almost angrily. Have any of them ever been able to touch you, really touch you…get to the heart of you, not just the Slayer, but to you?
He hadn’t realized he’d stopped and was staring at her as the thoughts plundered through his head until Buffy’s eyes opened slowly. “What?” she whispered lazily. “Angel?”
His brown eyes penetrated hers and worry flickered across her face until he moved up and kissed her. “I love you,” he said forcefully.
She nodded, unsure. “I love you, too. Angel…are you okay?”
“I want you, Buffy,” he told her honestly. “I want you now. Right here.”
Arousal surged through her and she felt it dampening, seeping practically, between her legs. She knew he could smell her, and while that embarrassed her, it also urged her on when she saw his eyes practically dilate with the knowledge of it. “I want you, too, Angel. More than anything. But we…”
“We can’t. I know,” he bit out. “But I want you to know…that I want to.”
She almost smirked and shifted a bit, her hip pressing against his very apparent reaction. “I’d picked up on that somewhere along the line.”
“We should be in my bed,” he lamented, easing his weight back down on top of her, enjoying her warmth. “We should be surrounded by candles and music, not wrestling around on top of dusty gym mats.”
“We used to wrestle around on top of dirty graves,” she murmured happily. “I’d call this a step up.”
“You deserve better than this. You deserve to be pampered.”
“Pampering’s overrated,” she sighed, reaching up to kiss him again.
He complied, allowing her tongue to invade his mouth briefly before moving back. “Buffy, are you sure about this?”
She looked at him quizzically. “About what? This?”
“Us.”
Her mouth turned down slightly, a cross between an annoyed frown and a pout. “I’m sure, Angel.”
“We didn’t give each other much time to think about it,” he pointed out. “We haven’t even discussed how we’re going to make this work, much less if it’s real.”
“You don’t think it’s real?” she asked incredulously.
“No… It’s not that. It’s just…”
Buffy moved to sit up and Angel fell onto his hip, still cradling her in his arms. “What?”
She was beginning to get seriously annoyed and he back-pedaled quickly. “I love you, Buffy. I just want what’s right for you.”
Closing her eyes for a second she reminded herself that Angel was sincere. He really did want only the best for her. But never would he put himself in that category. When she opened her eyes again, she smiled at him simply. “Angel… Look at me. Really look. I’m not a swooning schoolgirl anymore. I’ve grown up. I make my own decisions now, I don’t have parents or Watcher’s telling me how to do things anymore. It’s just me. Do I look unsure to you? Do you doubt that I love you, or that I want, more than anything in this world, to be with you and make a life with you? Whatever that might mean?”
Buffy took his face in one of her hands and searched his eyes without a bit of doubt in her own. “I don’t care if making a life with you means that all we get is right now because tonight we’re going to die. I don’t care if it means I get one week with you because next Friday one of us is going to get taken out. I don’t care if it means that five years, or twenty-five, or fifty-five years from now… I don’t care.”
“You don’t now, but--”
“I’m talking now,” she told him softly, but sternly. “I don’t care, Angel. I’m tired of being lonely, even when I’m with someone. I’m tired of them not understand me, of not knowing what I want or need. I haven’t had that since you. You knew, better than I did, what I needed. It’s why you left. But things have changed, Angel. I’m in control now, in charge of my life. And now I want you back.”
“I’ve known you for almost seven years,” she continued bravely. “Three of them I spent with you, three without. I want this year to start over for us. Back to the beginning. We’ve learned from our mistakes, I hope… But look where all that separation has gotten us. We’ve both made bad decisions, bad choices. Neither of us is particularly happy. I remember being happy. I had it once. I want that again. I want it with you.”
Her eyes held nothing but confidence and he closed his suddenly, leaning in to kiss her once more. “I want to give that to you, Buffy. More than anything. You deserve it.”
“We both do,” she corrected. “Whatever we’ve gone through, I’ve had enough of it. We do nothing but think of saving the world and helping people and now it’s our turn. We’re going to help ourselves be happy.”
“Do you really think we can?”
She nodded. “Angel… That whole time when I was with you… It was a roller-coaster ride. You were all I could see most of the time. So when you left, I was lost. It took me years to figure out who I really am. Not the Slayer, Buffy. I didn’t have a clue who Buffy was back then, but I do now. And in the process of finding her, I tried to move on and I couldn’t. I couldn’t because I wouldn’t do that again, I wouldn’t give myself completely to someone. I was afraid.”
“Afraid of what?”
“Afraid of getting hurt again… Afraid that he…” There was no use in not saying his name, “…Riley, would leave me. And despite all that, he left. I guarded my heart against him, and never let him have all of me so I wouldn’t get my heart broken. And that wasn’t fair. To him, or to me.”
Angel wasn’t so sure about that, but wisely let it go. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” she shrugged. “It’s a lesson everyone has to learn, how to balance. It took me until now to learn that.”
They were silent for a moment and Angel swallowed before asking, hating himself. “And…Spike?”
Her eyes moved down, avoiding his. “Spike wasn’t about me giving myself at all. Spike was about me protecting myself.”
“By putting yourself in the most dangerous situation?”
She hesitated a moment. “Only physically. He never, not once, got inside here.” Her hand took his and moved it up to her chest, her beating heart pumping against his skin. “I never let him have that. It wasn’t even a possibility. I used him, in the worst kind of way.”
“He tricked you.”
“No,” she shook her head. “He didn’t. I won’t say his intentions were the purest, but in a way, I knew what I was doing. By being…by being with Spike I kept my heart safe. There was no danger of getting hurt because I didn’t feel for him.” Not much, anyway, she thought, and decided against sharing that. “It was never love. I needed someone and he was there. Simple as that.”
Images of himself pushing Darla around his suite flashed in Angel’s mind and while the need to yell and rage at Spike’s violation of Buffy surged through him, he kept quiet. “I understand,” he said eventually. “I don’t like it, I will never like it, but I understand.”
“That’s all I’m asking,” she whispered with a nod. “I never did it to hurt you, Angel. Honestly, I didn’t think of you. I couldn’t. It was too difficult. And it wasn’t close to being the same. You’re… You love me. That’s the difference.”
He was quiet for a long time until Buffy managed to drag her eyes up to his. “I’ve had love where I’ve given myself completely and gotten hurt. And I’ve had love where I’ve held back and still gotten hurt. And I’ve had love without any love at all.” She kissed him tentatively. “I’d rather have what you and I had, even for the briefest moment, than anything else in the world.” Holding her breath, she whispered, “If you’ll let us try.”
Angel’s heart clenched, he was sure of it, and love filled his eyes. This wonderful creature would never know, she couldn’t possibly. She would never be able to understand what having her on this earth meant to him. She could never know how each day he lived for her, that each fight was a fight meant to keep her safe, that each thing he did was only for her. It was because of her that he kept going, kept an inkling of hope that someday he would receive his reward. And if he didn’t, at least that they would each die with the knowledge that they were here on this earth, meant for one another.
Taking her face in his hands he held her eyes with his. “I will never let you go,” he vowed gruffly. “I will never let you out of my sight, never let you out of my reach. You are mine.”
“And you’re mine,” she nodded, and spoke the last words to be uttered between them for a long, long time.
*~*~*
The sun set, as it tends to do in the evening, and the group gathered in the lobby once more for last minute instructions and pep-talks.
Buffy and Angel had reappeared, slightly disheveled, a little while before and had meandered up the stairs together, hands linked, eyes on each other. Cordelia had noticed and said nothing. Dawn had noticed Cordelia noticing, and had smiled smugly. Go sis.
Wandering to her, Dawn played casually with the sword she knew Cordelia had chosen for tonight’s battle. “So… You know how to sword fight, huh?”
Cordy’s eyes moved from the staircase to Dawn. “Yeah,” she mumbled absently.
“Angel taught you.”
“Yeah,” she nodded.
“Handy skill.”
Cordy glanced at her quizzically. “I guess, in this line of work.”
Dawn smiled. “You watch his back, he watches yours.”
“That’s what friends do.”
“Yeah…friends. That’s what friends do.”
Cordelia quirked an eyebrow. “Are you okay?”
“Why wouldn’t I be okay?” Man stealer.
“You’re acting weird.”
Dawn shrugged. “I just think it’s nice of Angel to take his time out to help you learn how to handle a sword. He never had to teach Buffy that stuff. She already knew.”
“Well, I guess that’s what happens when you’re the Chosen One,” Cordelia told her testily, arms crossing one over the other. “Little Slayer package comes complete with combat styles and battle techniques.”
“I’m sure he always appreciated it,” Dawn continued, circling the table they were standing next to until she was opposite the visionary. “You know, not having to worry about her like some…regular human.” She looked at Cordelia pointedly.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing,” Dawn said innocently. “Just an observation.”
“You seem to be observing a lot lately, when it comes to me.”
“Someone has to keep an eye on things.”
“What things?”
“People…half-demons…you know. Regular stuff.”
Cordelia shook her head. “Is this some kind of new teenage code I’m not up on?”
Dawn’s eyes rolled and she leaned on the table with as much menace as she could muster. “Let’s just put it this way, okay? I know.”
“You know what?”
“I know about you.”
Cordy’s eyes closed and she pressed a hand to her temple. “Okay… Great. Fantastic. You know.”
“The rules about boyfriend stealing haven’t changed since your day,” Dawn continued. “You might just do well enough to remember that.”
The elder girl’s eyes narrowed. “What the hell are you talking about?” she asked as Connor approached Dawn from behind and lay a hand on her shoulder. Cordelia’s eyes widened. “Oh…wait. Dawn…” She smiled. “Dawn, I would never try to steal your boyfriend,” she assured the girl. Especially when it’s Connor…well, well, well, she grinned.
Dawn looked confused for a split second, then realized what Cordelia was thinking. “Not me!” she cried, throwing Connor’s hand of her shoulder. “First of all, like you could, even if he was my boyfriend.” Cordelia let it go and just smiled knowingly. “Second, don’t try to tell me you’re above boyfriend stealing. Hel-lo? Care to explain to me about Angel?”
Cordelia’s smile froze and she glanced from Dawn to Connor and back again. “Wh-what?”
Dawn’s entire body sagged in frustration and annoyance. “Oh please. You used to be better at playing dumb. I know about you and Angel, Cordelia. Guess you haven’t changed that much since high school, huh?”
“Dawn…no. Wait,” Cordelia stammered.
“For what?” the teenager huffed loudly. “Are you going to tell me Connor’s a liar? That there wasn’t something brewing between you and Angel until Buffy got here?”
Connor stepped between them, placing a hand on both their shoulders. “Okay, hang on a second.”
“’Cause from how I hear it,” Dawn cried, pushing herself against Connor’s extended arm as if to lunge at Cordelia, “you two were making eyes at each other until about three days ago.”
“Connor, what did you tell her?” Cordelia gasped, eyes wide.
He shrugged. “Nothing…I mean…I didn’t know it was a big deal…”
“Oh Jesus,” Cordelia moaned. “Dawn, wait, please. At least…be quiet,” she begged, glancing at the others in the lobby, most of whom were now hanging on every word of this conversation. “There’s something you need to understand.”
“I think I got it,” Dawn snapped. “You and Angel were all cuddly and he picked Buffy over you.” Glancing up at the stairs she cocked an eyebrow. “Did I get it right, Angel?”
Cordelia blanched and looked over her shoulder to find Buffy and Angel standing on the stairs, their faces ashen.
