Sacrifice

by Spurglie

Disclaimer: all characters belong to Joss. No money is being made, yadda yadda.
Pairing: Buffy/Angel
Setting: vaguely season three. Slight spoilers up to Becoming.
Author's notes: my one and only attempt at B/A fic. Here's to eternal love and moving on. *coughcordyandspikecough*
Rating: PG-13 for occasional language

Website: http://www.geocities.com/spurglie/

~~~

There he is. Just your regular, run-of-the-mill, tortured hero, standing in the rain. The always perfectly messed hair turned even darker and shiny by the water. His body moves casually, only us seasoned fighter types would be able to tell the predator that he truly is.

Just as I almost reach him, he turns and sees me. Damn, he’s good. Not many vamps would be able to tell when I’m sneaking up on them. He’s so good, he even knows it’s me, and turns to me with a smile, not a growl at a possible threat.

‘Hey Angel,’ I say with a half smile, half pout. ‘I was trying to sneak up on you.’

‘Hi Buffy,’ he says, putting his arm around my shoulders and pulling me towards him to gently kiss my temple.

Arm? Kiss? Angel contact? Yipes.

When did he start with the physical contact again?

‘I thought you were taking the night off,’ he says.

Mentally shaking myself out of the blissful Angeldaze I was happily wallowing in, I manage to reply, hoping I sound somewhat normal. ‘I was, but the Bronze was seriously not happening, so I thought I’d do a walk-by on a couple of cemeteries on my way home.’

I only just manage to stop my arms from slipping around his waist. After all this time, I still want to be as close to him as possible. Can’t happen. Truth be told, it’s actually the mud that stops me. He has patches of it all over him. He must just love that; I know what a clean freak he is.

‘Ewww, great. Yet another perfectly good outfit ruined. Does mud wash out?' I ask. 'I’m getting good with blood and dust stains, but mud is a mystery to me. Maybe I can just leave this one to Mom.’

‘Sorry.’ He shrugs. God, I love those shoulders. ‘I got a little physical with a couple of vamps.’

I shrug too. Just another designer label sacrifice to the Gods of Slayage.

‘So. What’s the scene tonight?’

I look up at him, waiting for an answer, but he’s distracted. Peering off over my head into the night. He’s in... well, in Slayer mode. And looking so damn good with the rain running down his face.

‘Angel? Helllooooo...’

‘Huh?' I get just a glimpse of beautiful brown eyes then he's searching the darkness behind me again. Just the slightest pout of those wicked lips when he realises he was spacing out. 'Yeah, fighting, I guess I got tripped up.’

‘I can see that. You okay?’

‘Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine.’

What the hell is he looking for? Maybe one got away and he doesn’t want to admit it, or maybe there’s more coming and I just can’t sense them yet. And maybe, just maybe, Giles is right and I should work more on honing my special magic Slayer senses.

‘Are there more coming?’

‘No, nothing.’

C’mon Angel, you son of a bitch. I’m standing here in the pouring rain because everyone was having fun in the Bronze except me, because you weren’t there. I wanted to see you. How about some attention here!

And he finally looks back down at me.

Oh god.

The smile.

He’s giving me that teeny, tiny smile of his. I hate it when he does that. Just the slightest hint of a curl upwards at the corners of his mouth; a flash of white teeth. I think it’s the eyes, really. The way he looks right into me. I feel naked when he does that. I can see his love for me.

Not fair.

My mouth goes dry and I can’t think of anything to say. Not that that used to matter, not when we could just attack one another. Um, figuratively speaking. You know, with the smoochy attacks? Before we actually started to attack one another. With the whole curse breakage thing? Yeah, that.

Someone decides that now is a good time to start clenching and unclenching their fist around my heart. I hope my mascara isn’t running.

~~~

Her mascara is running.

She’s so beautiful, it doesn’t matter. Gnngh. Stop it. Stop mooning over her like a lovesick schoolboy. Snap out of it. I should talk to her. Say something. Tell her about what happened tonight. About that demon I fought, that looked like a little girl, and how she doesn’t smell right.

Oh great, that’ll sound so clever.

'Buffy, there was a little girl who pushed me into the mud, and she doesn’t smell right.'

Maybe I’ll just tell Giles later.

So beautiful. My Buffy. I shouldn’t do it, but I put my hands up to her face and run my thumbs over her cheeks to wipe some of the mascara away. She doesn’t need to wear make up. Reminds me so much of how her mascara ran that night. Our night.

I wipe away most of it, but then I look right into her eyes. Oh shit, I definitely shouldn’t be touching her like this. I could hear her heartbeat speed up the second I did. But I can’t take my hands away now. I’m just staring like an idiot at her. She’ll pull away any second now.

One of us always does.

~~~

* Sigh *

He’s put his hands on my face. I love it when he does that. His hands are so cool.

Temperature wise that is. I mean they're 'great' cool as well, but mainly I meant the 'cold' type of cool.

The rest of him is just as cool. The only time he felt warm to me was when I had warmed him. All of him.

Oh god.

Why is life so unfair? I’ll never be able to do that again.

Why is he looking at me like that? He looks concerned. I can’t pull away, not this time. He’ll have to do it. He’s the older and wiser vampire. So colour me weak willed.

All I want is a kiss.

‘Buffy?’

Definite concern face. He thinks something’s wrong.

‘Nothing,’ I tell him, smiling weakly. ‘I... I just miss you.’

‘But I’m right here.’

‘I know. But I miss you... all the time.’

‘Buffy...’

Not fair. Not fair! Doesn’t he know what it does to me when he says my name like that? That throaty little groan thing he does and it sounds like he’s stumbling over saying my name because of what it means to him. Of how much I mean to him.

Oh god, I’m practically panting, this is so embarrassing. I’m going to kiss him. I don’t care. I HAVE to. We can stop after one kiss. We haven’t let it get this far since the last time we got caught together in the rain. That’s not going to happen again, but oh god, I have to kiss him.

~~~

Rivulets of water ran down Angel’s face and he licked it from his lips, tasting so many different things in the night rain. He knew exactly what they were doing and exactly why they shouldn’t be doing it. He could see Buffy was thinking precisely the same thing, but yet here they were. Facing one another. Staring silently, daring the other to break away, but neither moving.

Small hands clenched into fists on the front of his shirt and with it he felt his resolve slip, almost hearing an unvocalised growl of excitement. He stared intently at her lips, as somehow his thumb was travelling across them, until they parted as he reached their edge. His gaze travelled up her face until their eyes met and their lips hovered only an inch apart.

He could feel her warm breath in his mouth, coming in quick deep breaths. He swallowed nervously.

Angel... kiss me...

...kiss me Buffy

I love...

...love you

~then I did the simplest thing in the world. I leaned forward, and we kissed. And the world cracked open~

Their lips met tentatively at first, and there was that painfully familiar bolt of electricity. So sweet. How had they survived without this caress?

No time had passed since they had last been together like this. They had been in love and together with no pain to separate them. The world had not come between them, and they did not belong to it. They belonged only to themselves, and to each other. Always.

They leant into the kiss and their arms encircled each other, Buffy’s finding their way beneath his wet shirt. He kissed her hard and desperately, trying to fit months of unspoken passion and love into a few moments. They clung to each other, sure that at any second the other would pull away.

Buffy found herself being spun around and pushed up against cold stone. She moaned into his mouth as the breath was driven out of her. He used the stone object to press against, touching as much of her body with his as he could, trying to soak up all of her warmth. She could feel his excitement, and melted against him, even as she knew it had to end.

He held her face in his hands ...so soft... with his thumbs caressing her cheeks, tilting her back gently to give him better access to all of her. She wound her arms around his body under the shirt, and he shuddered, feeling the pools of warmth on his skin. Moving his hands down her body to her hips, he pulled her closer still, then slid his hands upwards, across the soft skin of her lower back.

He tried to take in every detail of her body in his arms, but knew that he would never be able to remember the way he wanted to. That somehow she would seem different in his dreams. She would never be real.

They kissed deeply, their passion for one another growing. Angel began to feel lost in her and all around him was bliss. He had missed her so much, being so close to her for all this time, and yet not allowed the simple comfort of being able to reach out and touch her.

But something was wrong.

The evil inside him was laughing. Encouraging him. Telling him to go ahead, to take what he wanted so badly, for no matter what happened, there was nothing for Angel here but pain. The demon fought its way to the surface, roaring with laughter, until it was enough to drag Angel away from the pleasure in his arms.

Panicked, he reacted without thought. Using her shoulders as leverage, he pushed against her and separated them.

Stumbling back a few paces backwards, he stood and looked up at her, both of them panting for breath, staring at each other.

Angel’s hands remained splayed out in mid air, as if keeping a barrier between them.

The only sound was the gasping for breath and the rain, now slowing to a light drizzle, and still dripping from the trees. Buffy tilted her head back, laid it on the stone behind her and took her eyes from his, unconsciously trying to sever the irresistible pull between them, still trying to find her breath.

Her unconscious action caused her to stretch her neck out to Angel, and he could not help but gaze at the sight so inviting to him, and to his already aroused senses. When she looked back at him, he raised his line of sight to her eyes.

But too late. She had caught him.

Her face was shadowed by some dark emotion, although Angel could have sworn that a there was still desire in her eyes.

But in a second she masked her features, and rose automatically to her feet.

Taking one unsteady step forwards, and another, she reached him and absently bumped her cheek to his and pecked the air beside his ear.

‘’Night, Angel,’ she said with a distant look on her face.

He screwed his eyes shut and dropped his arms completely to his sides as she walked away from him.

‘Goodnight Buffy,’ he said quietly to the sound of receding footsteps.

She felt tears beginning to silently fall, blurring her vision and hurting her throat.

Angel stretched out one hand and leant against the large granite gravestone they had been ‘using’ and brought the other hand to his face.

Shit. Shit. Shit. Shit. For so many reasons. Just shit.

~~~

Angel walked slowly, his feet finding their own way home. His mind was surprisingly calm. He replayed what had just happened. Remembered the sensation of her moaning into his mouth. He knew how he had wanted to mark her as his own again and to hell with everything else. He still did.

The look in her eyes when she caught him staring at her neck. He knew that he would remember that moment in all its awful clarity long after her scent left him.

All that registered was a dull ache inside of him, unfocused and unnamed. It was an ache born of a long, long life of pain and guilt and sadness and suffering, where the only light he had known was the thing he couldn’t have.

He tried to make himself not think of her. He wanted her to be an inanimate thing in his mind. It made him heavy and empty. He couldn’t bear to think of her now. He didn’t think he could deal with it.

He found himself at the door to his apartment, and he took out his single key to unlock it.

It stuck. Just like it always did.

He growled and yanked at the key, only to have it snap off in the lock.

With a yell of frustration, he kicked the door and heard a splintering sound as it wrenched from its hinges before landing six feet away inside his apartment.

He leant his forehead on the smooth wood of the doorframe, and sighed.

(...just another sacrifice to the Gods of Slayage...)

(... just another one...)

~end

~~~

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