TITLE:  Everything

AUTHOR:  Yseult deBreton (yseultdb@yahoo.com)

RATING:  NC-17

SPOILERS/TIMELINE:  Vague spoilers through season 6 (BtVS) and season 3 (Angel).  Futurefic

SUMMARY: Six years after she graduates from high school, Buffy and Angel fashion a compromise of sorts.

AUTHOR’S NOTE:  For Chrislee.  Happy Mother’s Day. And no, it’s not PWP or CWC.  It’s your kind of story.

DATE OF COMPLETION:  11 May 2003
DISTRIBUTION:  Yseult's Passion (http://yseultspassion.com), list archives, Starkitty.  Everyone else, please ask first.

DISCLAIMER:  Blah, blah, blah, not mine, blah, blah, blah, etc.

FEEDBACK:  Please and thank you.  Send to yseultdb@yahoo.com

Angel’s hand lingered in the small hollow of her bare back. He could feel the warmth of her skin invade his fingers.  He traced the sharp outline of her vertebra with his lips and heard a drowsy sigh escape into the air.

“You’re not sleeping,” she accused softly as she stretched.

“Hard to sleep with a naked woman in my bed,” he teased.

Buffy rolled over and discovered her navel was now within reach of Angel’s mouth.  She watched as his tongue languidly swept the swirl of puckered skin.  “I could put clothes on,” she suggested as her body arched beneath his lips.

“You could,” Angel agreed as his tongue lapped along her ribcage.  “But then you’d just have to take them off again.”  He nipped at the fleshy underside of a breast.  “Or I could take them off.” His tongue spiraled close to her nipple.  “Again.”  The rose-tipped bud disappeared into his cool mouth

Buffy moaned as Angel’s teeth worried her nipple to the precipice of ecstasy.  There was a pause before his tongue flourished over the hard tip and she fell into the abyss.  When Buffy opened her eyes, she found herself staring into dark chocolate orbs that reflected her disarrayed state.

“No fair,” she said.  Her fingers painted his chiseled jaw.  “Anyway, it was your idea.”

Angel laughed.  “I’m not the one who decided to tackle the slime-spitting demon.”

Buffy gave him a pointed stare.  “If I’d seen a sign saying “Slime-spitting demon this way”, I wouldn’t have jumped on it.”  She propped herself up on her elbows.  “Besides, you could’ve said something.”

Angel raised an eyebrow.  “I did.”

She frowned.  “‘I don’t think you should do that,’ in no way translates to ‘it spits slime’.  Unless you’re Wesley.  Or possibly Giles.”

Angel’s face grew serious.  “You’re right.  It doesn’t.  And I’m sorry about that.”  His tongue curled around her finger as it passed over his lips.   “But, I’d do it again if it meant this.”  His fingers raked the hair from her neck.  He nuzzled her throat.

Buffy lay down again and revelled in the feel of his mouth on her skin.  “I can see it now… ‘Yes, Jerry, it’s true.  We were kept apart by unending apocalypses.  It took a Broadway show to bring us together.’”

Angel paused above her lips.  “Who’s Jerry?  And why are we telling him anything?”

Her body shook beneath his as the kiss stole her breath.  When they broke apart, she panted, “Jerry Springer.  Talk show guy.  Don’t you watch any TV?”

“I’d rather watch you,” growled Angel before he licked her from the tip of her chin to the sweet smelling apex of her legs. “Especially when I do this.”  His face disappeared amidst the tight curls that shielded her sex.

Two years ago, the last place Angel had expected to see Buffy was a departure lounge at LAX.  He watched her set aside the tabloid newspaper she’d been reading and anxiously scan the concourse.  He noted the graceful movement of her arm as she slyly palmed a stake.  Then he hid behind a pillar and wondered what his next move should be.

When he glanced around the pillar, she had disappeared.  The slight tapping on his shoulder nearly launched him into outer space.

Buffy tried to contain her laughter as she watched her ex-lover scramble for his ticket, luggage, and newspaper.  “Fancy meeting you here.  I thought you didn’t do planes.”

“I… Wesley…  Planes… ” Angel stammered.  He folded the newspaper haphazardly and stuck it into his carry-on bag.  “You couldn’t just say, ‘Hello’?” he queried.

She giggled at his discomfort.  “I’m not the one playing stalker.  What?  You think I don’t know when it’s you?  Please.”  Buffy retrieved his ticket from the ground.  “Hey.  You’re going to New York too.”

Angel guided her to two empty chairs and they sat down.  “Yeah. Cordy’s finally made it to Broadway.  She sent me tickets.”

Buffy looked at her former lover.  He hadn’t changed.  He was still the most handsome man she had ever seen.  Her heart flipflopped as she replayed his last words.  He had said “tickets”.  That implied he was going with someone.

“Wow,” she was momentarily speechless.  “That’s… that’s…. wow.  Cordelia on Broadway.  Who would’ve thought?”

“Yeah.  We were just as surprised.   Really.”  In the silence that followed, they both looked at each other and burst into laughter.

Angel drank in Buffy like a dying man.  Her hair was shorter than when he’d last seen her.  Her body was no longer anorexic-thin. Her face had lost its harsh haggard look.  Her skin had a healthy tan and her smile lit her hazel eyes.  Buffy looked like any California girl who enjoyed fun in the sun.  Only better.

The boarding announcement interrupted their conversation.  They quickly glanced at their tickets; they would be separated by eighteen rows.

Buffy boarded the plane before Angel.  Her eyes followed him as he walked down the narrow aisle, past his assigned seat, and stopped at her row.

“Excuse me,” he said to the passenger beside Buffy. “Do you mind trading seats?”

They spent the rest of the flight catching up on the past two years.

Before they separated at La Guardia airport, Angel gave Buffy a ticket to see a Broadway play.

Buffy had not brought anything suitable to wear to a Broadway play.  Or so she reasoned to Willow.  The redhead merely smiled and insinuated that, if she showed up as The Abominable Snowman, Angel wouldn’t care as long as he knew Buffy was there somewhere. 

“So, you’re saying I should wear the rattiest thing I own?”

“No, silly,” moaned Willow, “I’m saying that it won’t matter to Angel what you wear as long as you’re there.”

Buffy smiled dreamily.  “Yeah, I got that part.”

“So, you two were actually having a real conversation, huh?  Like normal people?”

Buffy took a stack of clothes out of her suitcase.  “Normal people?  Do we look like normal people, Will?”

“You know what I mean.”  Willow handed several hangers to Buffy.  “Don’t you want to see him, Buffy?”

The Slayer sat down heavily on the bed.  “I want to Will.  But…”

“But, what?”

“But nothing’s changed.  He’s still a vampire.  With a happiness clause.”  Buffy chewed her lower lip.  Many things had changed in the past nine years, and some things hadn’t changed at all.  She had stopped screaming at the unfairness of it a long time ago.

“So?”

“So?  So, we can never get past a certain place.”

Willow sat beside her best friend and threaded their hands together.  “So… don’t.”

“What?”

“Don’t.  Don’t go to that place.  Go to other places.”

“Will, you do remember why he left, don’t you?  So I could go out in the light, have children, make love?”  Even as Buffy said it, she could picture Angel in the sewers breaking her heart.

“You know for an all-powerful Slayer, you sure can be a dummy about some things. Angel loves you!  He never stopped.  He never will stop.  And you never stopped loving him.  Don’t even try to deny it.”  Willow rolled her eyes as she heard Buffy’s sigh.  “You know, Spike was right.   Which is a scary thought but okay.  You’re not friends.  The question is, are you willing to have him back in your life and not have the happy boinking part?”

“’The happy boinking part?’ Is that what they’re teaching you in grad school?”  Buffy hugged the redhead.  “I’ve missed you so much, Will.”

The shopping trip was a little more expensive than she’d planned.  Amazingly, Spike’s credit was still good.  It would take her a couple of months to pay him back, but Buffy looked drop-dead gorgeous.  Or, as Willow had corrected her, drop-deader gorgeous.

Buffy had splurged on a hair stylist.  Her hair was artfully arranged in ringlets that were pinned so that they grazed her neck and encircled her face.  Her dress was a fitted strapless white sheath.  It was topped with a crocheted shawl of soft white cotton.  The shawl was a gift from Willow.  (“I made it myself.”)

When Angel saw her, his jaw fell to the ground.  He spent several frantic seconds trying to make it work before it co-operated.  The next few hours passed in a blur for both of them.  At the end of the evening, Angel invited Buffy for a late dinner.  When he asked her to join him for a nightcap in his suite, she didn’t refuse.

The elevator ride to the hotel room was incredibly slow and the epitome of awkward.  They both looked everywhere except at each other.  On the twelfth floor, several people entered the elevator car.  Buffy backed up as the noisy group crowded in.  Angel’s hands on her waist pulled her closer to his chest.  As she watched the floor numbers flash by, his cool lips softly nuzzled the back of her neck.  Buffy rolled her head to one side and whimperd his name when his tongue tasted the shell of her ear.

The boisterous party exited on the twenty-seventh floor.   One of Angel’s hands reached out and pushed the emergency stop button.  The other spun Buffy around so that she faced him.  For endless minutes, he lost himself in her eyes.  Then he bent his head and lightly brushed her lips with his tongue.  Buffy’s shawl fell from her shoulders as her hands traveled over his broad chest and shoulders.  She wove her fingers in his thick dark hair and parted her lips.  Her body quivered in anticipation as he sealed his lips over hers.

The presence of a bed in the hotel room did not shock them back into reality.  When Buffy checked her appearance in the bathroom, she was amazed at the flush of her skin.  She unpinned her hair and tried to brush out the hair spray and gel.  In exasperation, she stepped out of her heeled shoes and glared in the mirror. What she needed to do was wash her hair.

She spied Angel’s bathrobe hanging by the shower.  When she opened the glass doors, she saw his shampoo and conditioner in the corner rack.  She turned the shower on, stripped, and stepped in.

Several minutes later, she emerged from the bathroom with a towel wrapped around her hair. Her arms were crossed in front of her as she tried to hold up her dress.

Angel stood before the floor to ceiling windows, mesmerized by the lights of the Big Apple, and unsuccessfully ignoring thoughts of a naked Buffy in his bathroom.  She joined him at the window.

“Can you do me up?” she asked quietly and turned her back to him.

Angel’s fingers brushed her heated skin as he gathered the zippered edges of the dress.  “Buffy, I —”  Angel could swear he had no control over his hands.  They briefly cupped her waist then moved slowly over the bodice of her dress and rested on the swell of her breasts.  The towel tumbled from Buffy’s hair as she leaned against Angel’s chest.  She arched her neck and pulled his head down.  This kiss was heady and needy.  As it deepened, Buffy’s dress fell from her body, and Angel’s hands overflowed with her full breasts.

Several intense minutes later, they were naked on the bed.  Buffy vaguely remembered pulling Angel’s shirt off his body and chasing his pants to the floor.  If it had been anyone else, she would have been embarrassed by her wanton behaviour.  But this was Angel, and with Angel, everything was different.

Her hands roamed eagerly over his form.  Buffy had only explored him like this once before.  She had stored that memory as deep in her heart as she could bury it.  If she had known they would only have that one chance of completeness, she would have taken more time to memorize his features.  Buffy willed herself to slow down.

Angel immediately noticed the change of pace.  He captured her face in his hands and pressed a kiss to her forehead.  “Hey.  You okay?”

Buffy gulped and tried to wish away the tears that streamed down her face.  “I just want… I want to remember everything.  I want to do everything.”

He gently kissed the tears away. “Then why are you crying?”

“I’m afraid this is a dream.  I’m gonna wake up and you won’t be here.”

“It’s not a dream, Buffy.  I’m here.  With you.”  Angel pulled her to his chest and covered them with the bedsheet.  “I’m not going anywhere.  Not until Thursday.”

She sniffled.  “What happens on Thursday?”  Her fingers splayed his chest as she relaxed against him.

“On Thursday, if I don’t get on the plane, Angel Investigations is out around $1000.  I don’t think the airline will accept ‘staying with the woman I love’ as a refund request.”

Buffy giggled into his chest.  “They don’t make exceptions for that?”  She closed her eyes and drew circles on his abdomen.  “Angel?”

“Mmmm?”

“Promise me that we’ll make this work? Happiness clause and everything?”

Angel kissed her hair.  Could they make it work?  They had done a lot of talking tonight, given up a lot of secrets.  He hadn’t liked everything he heard, but he was sure that was mutual.  He also hadn’t expected this side of their relationship to come roaring out of hibernation.  Angel wanted to believe that he had self-control when it came to Buffy.  The brutal truth was he had no more control now than when he’d first met her.  They had agreed to go slowly. Yet four hours later, here they were.  Naked.  In bed.  And he still had a happiness clause. And everything.

When Angel awoke, the first thing he realized was there was no warm body curled next to him.  The second thing he noticed was the patch of sunlight streaming through the open balcony door.  He closed his eyes again and picked Buffy’s voice out of the debris of the New York City street noise.  She was on the telephone.

“I have kind of emergency.  I may need to buy some more clothes.”   It sounded as if Buffy was speaking to Willow.  He rose from the bed and pulled a pair of cotton drawstring pants from a drawer.

“They’re at Willow’s.”  No, it wasn’t her best friend.  Who did that leave?  Dawn?

“I’m not at Willow’s.”  Buffy sounded defensive.  Couldn’t be Dawn.  That only left…

“It’s probably better if I don’t answer that.”  Spike!  Angel sat heavily on the bed.  Buffy hadn’t been with Spike for three years, but he was very much a part of her life.  It rankled.  There was no other word to describe how Angel felt.

Peals of laughter echoed in the enclosed balcony.  “Cross my heart.”

Angel heard more giggles.  “Literally?  What I wore last night.  Which reminds me.  Don’t have a heart attack when you see the bill.”

“Very funny.  He’s just as dead as you.  Oh, and Dawnie says you owe her a phone call.”

“I’ll probably be at Willow’s.  I’ll call again in a couple of days.  Bye.”

Buffy’s body was silhouetted in the doorway as she waited for her eyes to readjust to the darkness of the bedroom.   Spike had given his blessing to the reconciliation.  She hadn’t asked for it, but until he said the words, she hadn’t guessed how much she needed to hear them.  They were no longer lovers, but Buffy couldn’t imagine her life without him.  He was the perfect brutally honest friend and she loved him.

“Spike says, ‘hi’,” she offered.  Angel nodded his head and continued to stare at his feet.  “Angel?”  Buffy tilted his chin so she could see his eyes.  His face was unreadable.  “What’s wrong?”

Angel struggled with his emotions.  All kinds of things were suddenly wrong.  Where to begin?  “Buffy, maybe we shouldn’t do this.”

She knelt on the floor between his thighs.  One hand rested on his cheek.  “Angel, are you getting cold feet?  And I don’t mean literally.  I thought we went through this yesterday and last night.”  She peered into his face.  “I’m fine with this.  Really.”

Angel rose abruptly and she fell backwards.  “I’m not.”  He strode away from her and searched the closet for a shirt.  He had pulled a black cotton t-shirt from the hanger when he felt her arms encircle his waist and her warm cheek press against his bare back.

“Tell me what’s wrong,” she whispered.

Angel glared into the closet.  “I’m still a vampire.  I still can’t take you into the sunlight.  I … we still can’t make love.”

Her tongue tasted his skin.  “That was all true last night, too.  What changed?”  Her hands worked the knots in his shoulders.

The metal hanger bent in Angel’s hand.  “You should be able to make love to whomever you want, whenever you want, Buffy.  If you stay with me—” Buffy hands snaked past the waistband of his pants.  He shuddered as her hands pushed through the coarse hair of his groin and found their target.  Angel groaned and felt his clothing pool at his ankles.  Her mouth nipped and sucked the firm skin and muscles of his buttocks, thighs, and calves.  When her tongue licked the tip of his cock, his hands suddenly tangled in her hair.

“You’re not helping,” he rasped.

“I’m proving a point,” she said before she smoothly swallowed him.

“And.  The.  Point.  Would.  Be.   What?” Angel choked on his words as Buffy’s mouth rhythmically moved up and down his shaft until he exploded in her throat.  She continued to massage him with her tongue for a few minutes before she sat back on her heels.

“Your soul still here?”  The vampire opened his eyes and stretched his cramped fingers.  Her hair was a bird’s nest.  The burgundy shirt (the one he wore last night) was unbuttoned to reveal her unblemished skin.  She had a wicked smile on her face.

“Yes, my soul is still here,” he affirmed.

“So what’s the problem?”

Angel honestly couldn’t remember.  He sank to his knees before her.  “Promise me that we’ll make this work? Happiness clause and everything?” He echoed her words from last night.

“I promise, Angel.  But we need to talk about it eventually.”

He pulled her onto his lap and buried his face in her hair.  “I know.  And we will.  Just…”

“Just what?”

“Just tell me you love me,” he whispered.  “Forever.”

When Buffy had explained the compromise to Spike, he had immediately dubbed it MOS, short for Mutual Orgasm Society.  She had argued vehemently that it was more than just sex.  Spike had stared at her and said, “Uh huh.  Right, pet.  Who gets to stake him when you finally get to the shagging part?”

“There is NO SHAGGING!” she shouted.  “Why do you assume that Angel and I only want to have sex?  There’s way more to our relationship than sex.”

“Slayer, you and Angel are all about sex.  Or have you forgotten that?”  Spike was icing a cake for Clem’s birthday party.  He smacked Buffy’s hand as she tried to steal some of the buttercreme frosting from the bowl.  “You're worse than Faith!  'Cept I can’t throw you out since you live here.”

“Spike, where did you learn to decorate cakes?  And why?”

The bleached vampire sighed heavily and said, “Dru liked sugary cakes.  I’d bring home a baker to make them but she’d always eat him.  And then she’d cry ‘cause she had no cake.  So I learned.”  He rolled his shoulders and inserted a fine tip into the icing bag.  He piped Clem’s name onto the cake.  “There.  How’s it look?”

Buffy leaned over his shoulder.  “It looks very professional.  Now can I lick the bowl?”

Spike rolled his eyes and gave her the bowl.  He took the icing tools to the sink and began to wash them.  “You sure you want to have this thing with Angel?”

Buffy licked her fingers.  “‘This thing with Angel’ happens whether or not we want it to.  It’s only ever been him, Spike.  I just want to be with him.  And if this is the only way, then I’ll take it.”

The vampire wet a paper towel and wiped the icing from the corners of her mouth.  “And if one day you wake up with Angelus?”

“You’ll stake him?” she asked brightly as the tears glazed her eyes.

“God, woman, is there any vampire not wrapped around your little finger?”

“Will you?” Buffy asked softly.  “I don’t think I could.  And resouling him might not be an option.”

“What does he say to this?”  Spike was pretty sure he knew the answer.

“He’d rather it was you than me,” she answered.

Spike wrapped his arms around her and kissed her forehead.  “All right, pet.  I’ll do it.  But only ‘cause you asked me.”

If Buffy had known the demon spit slime, she would have pummeled it first and then jumped on it.  Instead she did the reverse.  By the time Angel decapitated it, she was literally covered from head to toe in a foul-smelling yellow mucous.  He had made her a sit on a blanket and not touch anything in his car while he drove them to his place.  She’d been ready to pummel him when Angel made her wait outside while he laid a trail of towels to protect the flooring.  Buffy immediately forgave him when he wiped the gunk away from her mouth and gave her a deep kiss.  He had gathered her in his arms and taken her into the bathroom where he peeled off her clothes and dumped them in a trash bag.

Buffy had spent twenty minutes under a hot shower.  Angel had joined her for the last seven minutes.  When they were done, he led her to the bed and lovingly applied lotion to her body.  She was asleep within ten minutes.

He had called Sunnydale and told Spike where she was.  The vampires had learned to tolerate each other’s presence in her life.  Neither particularly enjoyed it, but Buffy had told them to live with it.

Angel had learned to live with a lot in 250-plus years.  It still amazed him that she was satisfied with their lives.  But, here they were, two years later and still together.  Happiness clause and everything. 

End