"Blame it on Rio"

Author: Ducks
Email: ducksfanfic@yahoo.com
Website: http://ducksfanfic.denialbubble.com
Livejournal: http://theantijoss.livejournal.com
Disclaimer: Not mine, no profit, don't sue.
Rating: PG-13 for nudity, implied sexuality and bad language
Pairing: B/A
Timeline: A year or two in the future?
Summary: There's something about Carnaval...
Distribution: Anyone who'd like it, please feel free. Just let me know. Tablesex & Somefairytale's Love's Like Suicide is welcome to it, as are any of my usual archivers.
Dedication: For somefairytale and the fastest, bestest betas on the internet: The Artist Formerly Known as Vatrixsta, nikitangel, cputrbug, and Shirley Ujest, my OG beta. *G*
A/N: Written for the LJ Buffy Ficathon. CWC. Title unabashedly stolen from a terrible 80's flick starring Demi Moore and Michael Caine.

"Blame it On Rio"
by Ducks

~

The rain falls heavy and thick like a blanket of sorrow from the Heavens, casting the sunrise world in a bleak, leaden grey. Angel watches the storm sweep over the city and wonders how something that looks so depressing could be so ultimately cleansing; so liberating and powerful.

Or maybe that's just the way he’s been feeling since that night almost a week ago when he first saw her in the square, dancing in the rainforest downpour wearing nothing but a bikini bottom, a sarong, a deep tropical tan and a new tattoo of a staked heart behind her right shoulder. Her lithe arms were thrown wide to the sky in celebration, smile broad and far brighter than the stars he couldn’t see for the city lights. The little braids in her hair flew like celebrants around their pagan goddess, weighed down by shells she’d tell him later a native girl braided into it for her on the beach that morning.

He usually took a very dim view of dancing. It was an activity he had come to accept as a mortal habit, the need to have some officially sanctioned, logically patterned excuse to be uninhibited; permission to break the every day rules of decorum. They were dancing so they didn’t have to think about dying. They rejoiced like they’d defeated The Reaper once and for all, and now they stood with him among the immortals. They’d do this again and again over the brief span of their existence, a new victory 8 or 12 or 36 times a year, and then they'd still die kicking and screaming like it’s a great surprise and an even greater injustice.

But not then. Not her. Her dance was sensual; pure joy in motion. She literally and completely took his unnecessary breath away. He chose to ignore the fact that she was all but nude in front of 30,000 strangers while he – the man (demon, whatever) who loved her -- was forbidden any kind of indulgence in that particular sensual pleasure. He couldn’t seem to draw his eyes away. She had felt his approach – whether by plain old Slayer instinct (if there was such a thing) or that transcendent, inexplicable bond that once and still connected them; he didn’t know and didn’t care. She stopped spinning as her eyes sought and found him, their mossy green transformed to crystalline emerald by the deep bronze of her sun-kissed skin. Droplets of rain lingered on her cheeks… diamond tears of happiness. He noted a tiny bit of salt on the curve of her mouth, and wondered: sweat, ocean, or margarita? Two of the little shells at the ends of her braids clinked together as they fell on her bare shoulder.

She smiled at him and he was lost, like the first time all over again.

(("Angel?"))

Then she’d said his name, and he was found. Like the first time all over again.

His fingers brush over the lettering on the plane ticket as if its secrets are printed in Braille on its face and all the things she can’t or won’t tell him might suddenly be revealed by his touch.

Although he’d tried it with her body, and that hadn’t worked either.

(("I’ve loved being here with you. This week, it’s been… Angel, it’s the happiest I’ve been in as long as I can remember. I never want it to end."))

And yet… here he sits, holding the ending. She won’t even let him fly her home in the firm jet.

He can’t help but appreciate the twisted poetry of it. A few lifetimes ago, he was weak and cowardly, and ended up a vicious killer because of it. A hundred and fifty years later, he met a girl made of sunshine and laughter, and strove to become a hero, inspired by her strength and bravery.

But in the end, he had left her alone because he remained weak and cowardly at his core -- a barely-reformed monster built on a rotten foundation.

(("It’s not the demon in me that needs killing, Buffy. It’s the man."))

Now, when all the rest has fallen away and they can finally be together…

Shouldn’t the loneliness that has marked his life since he left Sunnydale be enough punishment for the sin of loving her? Her return to her solitary, nomadic life and her home base in Rome – alone – was simply redundant, and the week they’d spent together the most cruel, unusual addition to the punishment he can think of.

After a curse that turns you into a bloodthirsty monster if you experience true happiness, of course, but he tries not to think about that anymore.

(("It has nothing to do with you. It’s my stuff. I still don’t know if there’s enough Me for there to be an Us yet, you know?"))

Psychobabble aside, he does know – intellectually. In his logical mind, of course he not only understands – he respects and honors. But his heart and soul are less sophisticated, domesticated beasts; they remember far too clearly a time not so long ago, when there had been no "Him" without "Her". He misses that simplicity of purpose so much sometimes, and part of him wishes he could begrudge Buffy her refusal of it. Those delicate parts of him most decidedly do *not* understand or accept. They are desperate. Clinging. Clutching. More than willing to do anything to keep her with him.

She told him she wasn’t ready to stop yet. He asked her why their being together meant she had to stop anything.

(("Let’s just… see what happens, okay? You're immortal. Don't be in such a rush."))

He agreed without further argument, naturally. What else could he do? Deny her the right to grow into her own as every human being should be allowed to? Remind her that she was *not* immortal, and there might well come a day when he no longer was? They wouldn't have forever then…

She snorts softly in her sleep, her body wound up in expensive linen sheets in the vast four-poster behind him. Murmurs something about turtles and waffle cones, and he is forced to smile in spite of his melancholy.

At least they’ve had this brief while together, even if they never have more. The rains of time will wash this pain away like it has all the rest, and only faded pictures will remain. Those, he's learned to live with.

So he tells himself, but… has a near eternity healed even the smallest of his ancient wounds? Has he forgotten a detail: a color, a sensation, a sound from any of the devastations, the agony caused and suffered?

Why should the latest in the endless losses of her be any different?

~

He is still watching the rain when she gets out of the shower. He has found he can track where she is in her ablutions by the scents: body wash, shampoo, lotion, baby powder, deodorant, fabric softener and perfume... He's never had the privilege of sharing the day-to-day minutiae with her until now. He never knew what brand of hair spray she used ((Pantene)) or whether she shaved her legs in the shower or the sink, or waxed instead.

More small, simple gifts denied them for so long, and now that he's had a taste, he finds himself wondering if he can stay sane without more. Without all of her.

"Anything exciting out there?"

He turns to find her smiling, toweling her hair as she steps out of the bathroom of the Caesar Park VIP suite where they’d ended up spending the week together, luxuriating in the lush surroundings afforded by his status as CEO of Wolfram & Hart: Los Angeles.

As far as he's concerned, they could have spent a week in a cardboard box on Sunset Boulevard, and it would still rank among the most amazing experiences of his life.

"Not as exciting as what’s in here."

She rolls her eyes affectionately. "God, you're such a mushball."

He rises and leans down to steal a kiss from her warm, moist, toothpaste-minty lips. Pulls away, gives into the compulsion to caress her cheek and let himself drown in the soft grey-green her eyes become in the room's dim light.

"Don’t go."

He doesn’t mean to say it. Doesn’t even want to. Certainly never explicitly decides to. He knows full well she feels she must, and it’s unfair to use emotional blackmail on her like this. He doesn't mean to plead like the pathetic shell he'll return to being when she's gone, like Cinderella's pumpkin coach at some cosmic midnight.

Apparently, his speech center is unconcerned with pride, propriety, or proper respect for one’s lover.

She leans into his hand, closes her eyes, and sighs. He knows he should be ashamed, because her wistful gesture and the longing sound sends a bolt of hope and joy shooting through him.

Maybe she’ll change her mind. Maybe they can head back to the States together once his case is finished, since Dawn is getting her own apartment at school in the fall. Buffy can move into the penthouse with him, and maybe it will feel like a home at last instead of an over-decorated crypt or museum full of ghosts. Maybe…

"It’s okay," he finally capitulates, rather than expressing any of his rioting thoughts. "You don’t have to – you don't have to say anything. I know you have to go."

She looks up at him, and those beautiful eyes are misty with regret. If there is one thing he would give anything to change for her… it would be to lighten the load of her young life’s many burdens, and erase the way they’ve made her beautiful eyes so sad.

Her voice is soft and laced with tears she never sheds as she takes the palm from her cheek and brushes it with her lips, not breaking their locked gazes for a moment.

"I wish I could stay. I want to go home with you, more than I ever…" she shakes her head and steps away from him just as emotionally as physically. "I can’t. I have to go back to London and make sure Shareen gets settled."

She leaves it at that for a long time, but he can hear the lack of punctuation. He waits in silence for her to finish what she is trying to find the strength to say.

"If I stayed another day… I’d probably never want to leave this room again. Even after everything, I’d throw it all away to be with you. But we still have too many responsibilities to do that right now. We can’t just decide to take time out for –"

"For what?" He interrupts, "Us? Life? Happiness? Come on, Buffy!" The sorrow and dread shatter him at last; demolish the flimsy wall he’d erected around his heart after their first liquor-sweet kiss.

Just in case.

(("God, Angel, I’m so glad to see you. I think I might have wished you here." "I’m glad to see you too. And I suspect that’s the… what is that, sangria? It’s the sangria talking." "I haven’t had that much!" "Buffy? You’re dancing half naked in the street. You’re either drunk or tripping on one of those designer drugs that make you think you love everybody." "No way! I’m high on life, baby! And possibly a little sunstroke. Dance with me!"))

"Don’t we give enough to the world already? Don’t we deserve *something* good for ourselves after everything we’ve done? Damn it!"

He spins away from her; rages to the UV-safe window (only the best for Mr. Angel) and resumes his earlier vigil over the dreary day. Jesus watches him sternly from atop Morro Do Corcovado, annoyed, Buffy’d told him last night, that everyone is walking all over his feet and pooping on his head all the time.

It's always something with them, isn't it? Duty or curses or identity crises or the end of the world.

But he suspects that this parting comes from none of those usual things, no matter what Buffy insists to his face.

It boils down to the simplest of concepts: she doesn’t trust him. She’s denied it a million times in the past seven days, but he knows, deep in his bones, that it’s true. And why should she? What reason has he ever given her to depend on him? Turning into a monster and killing her friends? Forcing her to send him to Hell? Dumping her in a sewer a week before her Senior Prom? Nearly drinking her dry? Leaving her without a word of goodbye -- not once, but a dozen times over the years? Taking a job with the root of all evil? Or the latest: keeping the news of Spike’s resurrection from her.

(("The worst part is, you KNEW! YOU KNEW how his death affected me, and you STILL didn’t tell me! Either of you! If I hadn’t overheard your conversation, would you ever have told me at all?"))

Whether her excuses or his paranoia are the cause, the result is the same:

She’s leaving him.

She hasn’t moved or made a sound since his little outburst, but he can’t seem to find the will to do anything – push the matter, comfort her, anything except stand there and prepare to give her up… again. He briefly recalls the demon Dinza declaring that she wouldn't keep him because he had so much more to lose…

How prophetic that was turning out to be. Every time he thinks he has nothing left, he learns in the hardest possible way that it's not even close to true.

So he watches the rain, arms folded defensively over his chest, feeling like the dimension’s biggest ass, but powerless to do anything about it.

He always has been when it comes to her, which is why all this leaving happens in the first place.

"Angel…" she rests a tiny hand on his bare arm, brushes the skin. It takes all his strength not to let her see the way that simple touch moves him; not to fall to his knees and beg her to stay; to throw her down on the bed, rip off that robe, and make love to her until she cries for mercy… again.

Hell, it takes all he’s got just to suppress the shiver.

He’s got his pride and not much else now, so he only stiffens. She lets the hand drop, moves around and sits on the table beside him, her hands folded in her lap as she gazes upward patiently, waiting for him to acknowledge her.

He scowls and refuses to do any more than that.

"Please don’t do this. It’s our last day together -- can’t we just enjoy it the way we have the rest of this week?"

God, how they’d danced the night of the sambodromo… stinking drunk on Margaritas, singing "Copacabana" at the top of their lungs, stumbling to the beach to make love in the sand. Afterward, he’d tried to explain to her what sunrise smelled like. On Tuesday evening, they’d sat at the foot of the Morro and contemplated Jesus 90 feet above until the torrential rain drove them back to the gondola.

A billion small moments shared that already made up one of the most cherished times of his very long life. A small taste of normalcy. A reminder of what there had been – still is – between them. What a magnificent woman she’d become.

How much he still loves and admires her. How desperately it turned out he wants the things they can have together now.

"Why do we have to plan out the whole future out right this minute?" she concludes, her tone taking a frustrated edge. "Can’t we just… let this settle for a while?"

He takes a deep breath, expels it on a sigh. "I don’t know. I’m not sure I want to settle anymore. I’ve spent 100 years settling."

"That's not fair. Why are you being so selfish about this?"

That catches his attention at last, snapping it to her as it does the same to his temper.

"Selfish? Why, because I’m angry that we finally get the chance to build some kind of relationship, and you want to throw it away because you're not done *finding yourself*?" He stops, sinks into a chair, struggling for a moment to collect himself before he continues. "I’m so damned tired, Buffy. There are more and more nights when I’m just not sure what I’m doing anymore. But being here with you… It’s the first time I remember feeling really free in a long time. Maybe ever. I’m sick of paying for the past. And I’m sick of fighting for the future. I haven’t felt that since we’ve been here together. I would have guessed you felt the same."

He may be angry with her, but he can still tell her anything. He, at least, trusts her.

He’d had a fantasy in that first few moments when he’d seen her rejoicing in the street… of scooping her up in his completely unseasonable wool coat and carting her off to his hotel, chastising her for acting like a wanton in a strange country all the way.

She laughed when he’d told her about it later.

(("Even your fantasies are melodramatic! If you ever tried that on me, I’d kick your ass right back to L.A."))

He's never told her about the other kinds of dreams he has in which she's the star. He doesn’t scoop her up now, either. The mood is too dismal to allow for horseplay, and those other dreams are too dark for him to even acknowledge explicitly to himself.

"You complained that I never tell you what’s going on with me. That was why you were so upset about Wolfram & Hart – you thought my explanations were just something I fabricated to placate you. But what I told you was true, Buffy. It might not have been all of the truth, but it was still the truth."

Her posture straightened – the first step in her fight-or-flight response. "And now?"

"Now… I’m willing to give you everything. Whatever the consequences. I only wish you could afford me the same courtesy."

"What are you talking about?"

He takes her hand and draws her down to sit beside him on the bed. "Please don’t leave here without me. I need you. I know you’re still growing… you still want to explore. You probably will for the rest of your life. But I want to be there with you. I want to walk that road with you, Buffy. Please come home with me."

She winces, which he is forced to take as a bad sign. "Don’t…"

"Don't what? I’m being honest with you. I thought that’s what you wanted."

"It is! But…" She sighs and sags against him, letting her head drop onto his shoulder. "Look, I’m… scared, okay?"

He manages not to smile at the small victory, puts his arm around her shoulders and pulls her into the shelter of his body. He only wishes he were warm for her… which he knows she would object to. She isn't fond of the idea of Shanshu either.

(("There has to be a catch! It can’t be that easy. Save the world – poof! – you’re human? No way. I don’t like it." "It’s not going to be easy, Buffy. I’ll have a lot of adjusting to do after 250 years. I’ll need a job… credentials… possibly back surgery." "Hmph. And you’re buying that *whole* bridge, are you? I love you the way you are. You don’t need to be human to be wonderful."))

"I know. I am too," he confesses, just in case it wasn’t clear to her already from his behavior. Which he doubts, because it seems she had the audacity to pick up Spike’s knack for reading people somewhere along the way, and she’s always known him better than he knew himself at any rate.

"I’m afraid if we… if I let this go any further…" she swallows stiffly, stares down at his hand wrapped around hers, and he can read her thoughts as well as she has his of late as she trails off.

She’s afraid he’ll break her heart again.

He tucks a fingertip under her chin and urges her gaze upward.

"I can’t promise I’ll never hurt you, Buffy. But I can promise never to stand in the way of who you want to be, and to do my best to respect and love whoever that is. I can promise to treat you like an adult instead of a child. I can promise not to lie to you, or keep things from you anymore – for your own good or not. Just give me a chance. Let me remind you that you *can* trust me."

He waits… forever, it seems, and watches a million debates rage in her mind… ten years of self-preservation and ongoing battles between common sense and the deepest wishes of her heart passing in a split second. She resents the pain he’s caused her. She fears and hates his employers. She has no faith in their past, no hope for their future. Just because they spent a pleasant week together doesn’t wipe all that away.

"It’s not that I don’t trust you," she insists softly. He snorts in derision before he can stop himself, and she pulls away to insist, "It’s not."

"Really?" His ire returns in a hot rush, so many of the things they’ve avoided talking about in the interest of this escape from their real lives blazing straight to his tongue as the proverbial elephant in the room finally explodes in a gory mess. "Then why did you send Andrew to retrieve Dana? *Andrew*! And why did you tell that little weasel that we weren't on the same side anymore? Why didn't you tell me about Dawn and Glory? Why didn't you tell me how you were feeling when you came back from..."

His mouth snaps shut with an audible click as he realizes just how many and deep their old resentments lay.

"When I came back from the dead?" she finishes for him. "What was I supposed to say, Angel? You were so happy I was there. How could I tell you *I didn't want to come back*? That being in your arms again almost made how I was feeling *worse* because I knew it couldn't last? As for Dana... I won't apologize for taking her. You know how I feel about Wolfram & Hart. There was no way I could let her fall into the Senior Partners' hands – whether you were involved or not. Look – why am I the only one being punished for questionable decisions here? Hell -- *you're* the one who took that job in the first place! *You're* the one who kept telling me to go off and have a "normal life" – which, by the way, *I can't have!* *You're* the one who constantly hides things. Who *left* me! Why is all the crap falling on me? And just for the record? I *never* told Andrew anything *remotely* like that. I was in Hong Kong at the time! He isn't exactly my best friend, you know!"

He can't look at her anymore, and he's not certain if it's because she's right, or because once this box is thrown open all the way, their issues will make Pandora's apocalyptic indiscretion look like a minor traffic violation.

If he looks into her eyes now, he's done.

"You'd rather fuck Spike than talk to me," he snarls.

Her posture goes stone rigid. "What? What did you just say?"

He gets up and paces away from her. Begins rummaging through the dresser for something to wear. The hot rage boiling inside him is terrifying, but he indulges it anyway. "You heard me."

Her glare pierces him right between the shoulder blades. He chooses a black silk shirt. Red shorts. Black slacks. Charcoal socks. Colors of death and mourning. Passion and night.

"You have got to be kidding. Why would you think *any* of this has *anything* to do with Spike? I didn't know he wasn't *dead* until *three days ago*! Have you lost your mind?"

"Probably," he mumbles to the socks. He wonders why he didn't choose burgundy. Or why he never just... goes barefoot.

"What is this, Angel?" He feels her approach long before her arms wind around his waist; her head resting against his tense back. He glances up, and he can see her face in the mirror. Her visage is agonized and peaceful at the same time as she tells him, "I'm sorry. I'm not trying to hurt you."

"I know," he whispers. "We never mean to, and yet somehow... we always do."

"I didn't know you were that angry about Spike. You seemed so... cavalier about it when I told you."

With a deep sigh, he closes his eyes, takes her hands where they fold against his stomach, and leans into her. "I wasn't anything remotely resembling cavalier. I just didn't think it was the time to throw a tantrum over something that was really none of my business."

He watches her slightly mashed smile through where his torso should be in his non-existent reflection. It's less creepy than he imagined it would be. In fact... it's sort of arousing. Like some magick allowing him to see into the guarded fortress of her thoughts. There had been a time when he was the one closed, full of secrets, and she was open like a flower blooming in the sun, almost eager to share herself with the world.

Why hadn't he noticed when she started becoming more and more like him, and less and less like the happy womanchild that had once been the only light in his dark world?

"I love you," she murmurs. "I don't love Spike. Not like... It's not the same. There's never been a competition between you. I didn't throw you over for him, or choose him over you, or compare him to you or whatever you're thinking."

"Before last week, I was doing pretty well not thinking about it at all."

"Is that the real reason why you didn't tell me he was back? Because you were jealous?"

He's asked himself that same question a million times. He still isn't entirely sure he has the real answer, but he gives her same one he always does, because at least he can be certain it's *part* of the truth. "I didn't tell you because he asked me not to."

That earns a long silence, during which her countenance goes completely, eerily blank. It's the first time he's presented that fact so baldly, and he can see how it wounds her. And that wounds him on so many levels, he can barely track them all.

"He had reasons for asking," he explains, "At least partly noble ones, as much as it shocks and pains me to admit it."

She nods automatically, absently, as if she's already banished the emotional hit and manages to regain her focus. "I'm sure. But it just goes to prove my point. After all these years, after all we've been through together, you would keep something like that from me. You chose *Spike's* *pride* over me. And what about Connor? One day I woke up and I had all these memories that you had a *son*, along with total confusion about it because I swear those memories weren't there the day before. And when Cordy died? Fred? Why didn't you ever tell me any of that stuff?"

He gently turns in her arms. "Because you have your own life, Buffy. Your own family to worry about. I thought you made it clear that night in Sunnydale that as long as you had Spike on your team..."

"Whoa." She pulls away enough to look up into his eyes. "Whoawhoa WHOA! That is not what I said!"

"I know what you said. And I know what I smelled."

"Then you were mis... smelling me. Again – Spike? Completely irrelevant to the situation. That was about you and me. Nobody else. I couldn't handle the idea that you would be in danger too. Someone had to survive..." She snuggles back into his chest. "Someone I trusted. Who'd remember everything. I know you would. And you do."

After a moment's hesitation, he accepts her gesture, wrapping his arms around her and holding her as tightly as he can, even as her gentle reassurance wraps around him and fills places that had begun to feel empty again with her warmth.

At least he never has to fear crushing her.

"There's a lot of baggage between us, I know," he reassures her, "But I don't think it's too much to carry, if we help each other."

"Angel, you know bad metaphors make me twitchy."

"That's from years of living on the Hellmouth and having to guard the literal meaning of your words all the time."

She laughs, but quickly sobers again. "I see your point, though. Maybe we can't talk through everything... especially all at once. But I do think there's something between us worth... exploring. We just can't pretend it hasn't been ten years and go tearing in to pick up where we left off. I need you to be patient with me. Please. I'm not the same anymore."

"Neither am I."

"No. We've totally switched places." She chuckles again, but the sound is slightly bitter this time. "You know, poetic irony is right down there with bad metaphors on my list of least favorite things."

They stand there for a long time, silently enfolded in one another's arms, before he speaks again.

"I never want you to feel limited. In any way. You're right -- I *don't* need everything from you right now. It's just hard for me to believe... this isn't some twisted hallucination or nightmare or something. If I let you board that plane tomorrow, I'll wake up and none of this would have happened. It would still be five years ago, when we weren't speaking at all. As painful punishments go, it's fairly creative. If you'll recall, that's usually the way my luck goes."

"Maybe you're the one who needs to trust *me* for once. Just because I don't want to run off and buy a house with a fence and a dog or whatever, doesn't mean that I'm not going to miss you, or think about you, or call you every night, or want to see you in like, a day after I leave. I'm just saying... proceed with caution. I do want to give us a chance. Just... in small doses. For now."

It's a compromise; one just a few minutes ago he didn't think he was willing to make. But the more she speaks, the more he realizes:

They may not be solving anything yet, but they've talked more – and more openly -- in the past few hours than in all the years they've known each other put together. Maybe by switching places, they're finally learning to understand one another.

That, he chooses to take as a good sign.

"You can have all the doses that you like," he promises her, brushing a soft kiss to her forehead. "But right now? Let's go back to bed and enjoy the day."

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