I Want You, Babe, But Not Quite Like That…

Connor looked at them as if they’d lost their minds, and laughed. Angelus, well, he was quiet as always, but Buffy…she seemed overly excited about this. “You want to see every other world where you’re together?”

“Yes,” Buffy nodded, already packing for their next trip. They normally packed the bare essentials – they could always buy or steal anything they needed – but sometimes the worlds weren’t quite up to their standards, and certain items needed to be brought with.

“Why?” And now, when he saw how serious she was, he was curious. “Does it matter? You’re together here, who cares what else there is?”

“Exactly,” Angelus said, smoothly rising from the chair he’d been lounging in. “And yet,” he nodded towards Buffy.

“Right,” Connor nodded, understanding. He got it – in this, as with everything else – what Buffy wanted, Buffy got. He’d find it unbearably sappy, and torment Angelus with it for weeks on end…if he wasn’t willing to give her everything, too. Like father like son, Connor supposed, and wondered what it was about this one person that had the both of them acting like lovesick fools.

Maybe it was the way Buffy made them feel, the way she treated them not like outsiders, not like monsters, but like equals, like beings capable of making informed conscious decisions on things greater than where, when, and who their next meal was going to be.

He looked at his sire critically, checking for weakness or anything else harmful to her.

It hadn’t been that long since they’d rescued her from the Senior Partners, or not that long in vampire terms. Months had passed, and Buffy seemed healthy once more, but that didn’t stop Connor from worrying. And, he was pleased – but not surprised – to note, it didn’t stop Angelus from worrying, either. Connor could count on one hand the times Angelus had let Buffy out of his sight for more than an hour.

Three of those times she’d been shopping with Willow, Saffir, Drusilla, and Anya, and Anya had sworn to turn anyone who dared to look at her wrong into a toad. She’d done it eight times, and Connor wondered if she just liked doing so, but hadn’t asked. He didn’t want to be number nine.

“So,” he changed the subject. “Where are you off to now?”

~~~~~~~~~~

“This wasn’t what I expected,” Buffy admitted, as she and Angelus strolled through the Roman ruins three days later. The moon was high and full, a fat ball of glowing white in the Italian sky. A soft breeze circled the area, cooling the heated night, and making the scene that much more romantic.

No human walked these ruins, however, and Buffy wondered at that. Why? It was the perfect setting, and yet she and Angelus had the area all to themselves. Just as well, she didn’t want their time interrupted by overly curious humans who were better as food than anything else. Besides, Angelus still worried over her eating habits, and he’d probably force one on her.

“What were you expecting?” he laughed. “Another world like the last one? Where we could walk in the sunlight, and watch our other selves fuck?”

Laughing, she twirled in front of him, launching herself into his arms, and kissing him. “I don’t know, maybe. Not sure.” She kissed him again, growling as his face shifted, and his fangs nicked her lower lip; his tongue, deliciously cool, lapped at the drop of blood.

“That was fun,” she whispered as he backed them up, still kissing her. Her back contacted with a stone wall, as hard and cool as her lover before her. “Now…” her breath hitched, and Angelus loved that he could still do that to her even when neither needed to breathe. “Now I just want to know what other places hold our other selves. I want to know what we’re doing, who we know, if we own the world.” She sobered, looked him in his brown eyes, “Or if you never came back to me.”

“I’d always find you, lover,” he smirked, but his hands were gentle as they combed her hair off her face, his eyes serious and promising. “And I don’t know why it matters. I have you, and I’m never letting you go. It doesn’t matter where else we are or aren’t together,” he said again, as he’d repeated since they first discovered their other selves in a world filled with sunlight. Since then, months ago, Buffy had badgered Willow to find a place where the two of them were together.

It was hit or miss, and very often they didn’t find their other selves, but that didn’t stop Buffy from trying. She chalked it up to a part of her human romantic desire; she wanted to know what she and her lover were doing in all those other worlds they’d found with the help of Dawn and her ever-so-helpful blood.

“Yes, but I loved seeing you in the sunlight.”

“You’re beautiful wherever you are,” he laughed, working her long flowing dress over her legs and hips. He wanted to think of something more; to shower her in poetry, and with words of love and affection, but they were interrupted before he had the chance to do more than admire her lean body and alabaster skin.

“So you’ve found me again,” another Buffy shrugged, catching the attention of her vampiric counterpart. “Congratulations, Angel.”

“And I’ll keep finding you, beloved” he promised with a low growl, “Until you come to your senses.”

“I’m perfectly capable of making up my own mind,” she shot back, oblivious to the couple watching her – half naked and completely aroused – from the shadows. “And my senses, as you call them, are just fine.”

Angelus shifted then, sitting against part of the collapsed Coliseum wall, settling Buffy on his lap. Freeing his erection from its leather confines, he entered her from behind, reveling in her gasp of delighted shock, mouth tasting the skin of her back and shoulders as they listened. “Be quiet, my love,” he all but mouthed in her ear, too low for even the arguing couple to hear them.

“Don’t say a word, darling, don’t even breathe,” with that, he lifted her up before slamming her back on his cock, smirking against the back of her neck as she bit down on her fist to keep from shouting.

“It just wouldn’t do to have them find us, lover,” Angelus continued as the other Buffy accused Angel of leaving her, accused him of whoring himself out. And Angel shot back that she had no idea what she was talking about, and that when she kept running the way she was, it solved nothing.

“At least he’s finally learned,” Angelus chuckled, slowly moving Buffy over his erection, lips following her spine as she balanced herself on his knees.

“Abandonment issues,” Buffy hissed out, and he wondered if she were talking of herself, or of the other her.

“Damnit, Angel!” The other Buffy shouted, and punched him. “That’s not what I meant!”

“Oh, is Angelus telling you what to say again, lover?” he taunted. “So much for knowing your own mind.”

Another punch, not entirely unexpected, and Angelus brought Buffy back down, long nimble fingers trailing over her stomach and hips.

“At least he never left me.”

“No, but you had to do a spell to keep him inside you.”

Oh, that wasn’t going over well, Buffy thought, cocking her head to the side – it had the dual purpose of allowing Angelus access to her neck, and to hear another exchange of blows.

“God, baby,” Angel whispered, and Buffy knew he held his own lover in his arms, soothing the angry – and most likely miserable – woman. “I didn’t mean that, I’m sorry. I’m just worried for you.”

“I can take care of myself,” came the mumbled reply, and Buffy knew her other self was crying, or trying not to.

“I know you can, but I still worry. I don’t want anything to happen to you, baby. It kills me that something could, and I wouldn’t be there.”

“You can’t always save me,” she whispered, and it held infinite sadness, and something else, as if she wasn’t totally there, but listening to something else.

“No,” Angel admitted after a long moment’s silence. “But I can catch you afterwards.”

“Angel-”

“Shh, baby,” he said, and kissed her gently, still holding her with infinite tenderness.

Buffy forced Angelus to still for a moment, forced her own attention off her lover and onto the other them. What had Angel meant that the other Buffy had to do a spell to keep Angelus with her? That didn’t make any sense.

“Are they both vampires?” Buffy asked her lover, leaning her head on his shoulder.

“No,” but he knew she already knew that. “She’s something more. Not sure what, but she glows like…well,” he admitted, puzzled, “Like a thousand slayers.”

Buffy said nothing to that, merely placed her hands over Angelus’, and moved over him once more. Their coupling met the other them, frantic, loving, needy. Buffy remained silent even as her other self exploded with a shout of need, Angel’s name falling from her lips in a chant of passionate explosion.

~*~

“Angel,” she whispered moments later, fangs elongating once more for another taste of her lover. She’d drank from him when they’d made love, so automatic now that she never thought twice about it when they were together. But she needed him again, needed to feel him inside her, needed to feel his blood slide down her throat, lending her strength and love.

“Drink, my love,” he whispered, cradling her head in his large hands, and slipping into her moist heat at the same time.

“I love you,” he whispered as he showed her once again, taking her on the tourist trampled ground near the ruins of Ancient Rome, his own need for her manifesting, and he bit her, nursing from the mark he’d made years ago.

“I know,” she said, slipping her fangs out of his neck, licking the few drops of blood that pooled there.

He held her close then, the silence blanketing the evening. Not too far away, Buffy came in a silent explosion around her lover, shuddering as feelings too fantastic to name coursed through her. Angelus sank his fangs into her neck, reopening the Mark there that showed the world – any world – who she belonged to.

“Love you,” she murmured as he turned her in his arms, kissing her softly.

“And I you,” he nodded, listening once more to the couple just now rousing themselves from the ground.

“I didn’t mean it,” Angel repeated, caressing Buffy’s face with his fingertips, “About Angelus. I know why you did it, love. I know why you trapped him inside you. I don’t like it,” on a variety of levels he wasn’t about to go into now – if ever. “But I understand why.”

Silence stretched out for long moments before Buffy nodded, “I know.” She smiled, “He knows why, too.”

Angel said nothing to that, but swept her into his arms, and carried her to the hotel room he’d booked in yet another city. He wasn’t sure she’d be with him in the morning, but he was going to try once again. He’d never stop trying.

~~~~~~~~~~

Buffy softly laughed as the couple disappeared into the night, Angel carrying his Buffy tightly against him, lips not leaving hers. And the other Buffy wrapped completely around him, though her harsh words of earlier belied her actions. She needed him, apparently, despite the power coming off her in streams of white and golden light.

“I admit,” Buffy smiled, returning her attention back to her own Angelus, lifting her head from his shoulder, “That there isn’t a time when I don’t want you in me.” She kissed him gently, “But literally within me wouldn’t be my first choice, baby. I’m glad you decided to leave.”

Angelus scowled at her, a deep rumbling in his chest. “Watching how Angel managed to botch up our lives, lover, it’s a wonder she didn’t just stake him. I much prefer this reality. Our reality.” He kissed her to prove his point.

She stroked his chest, laying her head against where his heart should beat. She didn’t miss the sound, didn’t much care whether it was there or not, but couldn’t help but always find that place to lay against him.

“Are you hungry?” Angelus asked, knowing the answer. But he wasn’t going to let her become so addicted to him again that she died. While Buffy would always need his blood – and Angelus wasn’t about to worry over something he basked in – he didn’t want her so weak, so needy, that she almost died on him.

“No,” she yawned, moving her head a bit to kiss his neck. “I’m good.”

He nodded, already planning on finding her someone anyway. “The sun’s only a few hours off, baby,” he whispered, “Let’s get back to the villa.”

“We can stay for a little while, can’t we?” She asked as Angelus set her on the ground, smoothing down her rumpled dress. “See if he gets her back.”

“No.” He looked around distastefully, fed up and angered with what they had just seen, and, Buffy later realized when they followed this Buffy and Angel to more than a dozen locals, as always where Angel was concerned, not real reasonable.

“Please?” She murmured, looking up at him with wide eyes, and reaching down to stroke him through his pants. “Just a little while? I want to know what happens next.”

Distracted, he looked down at her, eyes softening, but his expression remained coldly angry. Not towards her, but the situation. The demon trapped in Buffy, and the stupid soul chasing her…why? Angelus suddenly wondered. Why was the soul chasing her? Couldn’t give her up, even after she obviously continued to run from him?

“I think you’ve up long enough for today, muirneach. We can always come back. Besides,” he smirked, lifting her hand to his mouth for a tender kiss, “I don’t think I want you exposed to the environment around here.” He wasn’t referring to the temperate Italian weather. “It can’t be healthy for you.”

The top button on his pants slid open, and Buffy kissed his chest. “Please...” she whispered, “Just a little while, baby. I want to know more about how the demon is inside her, and how the soul survived without…him.”

“Buffy I-” she lowered the zipper, and he stopped his protest.

“You know I won’t rest easy until I know,” he told him, nails scraping along his erection, causing Angelus to forget what his protests were. Her hand slid into his pants, cupping his penis and gently manipulating him to full hardness.

“Ahh, fuck, baby,” he groaned, already knowing that he’d give into her and allow her whatever she wanted. Pulling her to him, hiking her up once more, he entered her swiftly and easily, purring at the perfect fit.

Buffy just smiled, “Love you,” she told him as he pounded into her. She knew she’d get her way, she always did.

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