~Scritch~
The scraping on the
glass gives her a momentary shudder. When she was younger, Xander used to sleep
over. He loved to tell elaborate stories about handless asylum escapees and
alien abduction by strange creatures with bulbous heads. She'd tried not to
smile as he mimed shrivelled, misshapen extraterrestrials, but it was always
the acting out of the bloody stump that prompt an exasperated "Oh,
Xander."
And yet, she'd always
found herself sitting bolt upright at three a.m., when the wind started to blow
and the tree outside her bedroom would drag its spindlier branches across the
window. Every time, she'd huddled there in her sleeping bag next to Xander on
the floor, trying to decide if she should check it out just to be sure, or wake
him up. Rrriot grrl or chicken...rriot girl or chicken?
Somehow, he always
woke up before she could shake him. Like staring at him for long enough,
imagining pinching him could get his eyelids to open. Dark eyes blinking in the
moonlight and that smile just below the sleepy surface, "What is it
Will?"
"Um, I was
hungry. Are you hungry?" Hoping he didn't pick up the fear in her voice.
Nobody really believes in aliens do they? And asylum escapees hardly ever
climbed up to second story windows, right?
"Sure Will, I
could eat." He never did laugh at her, not out loud anyway.
~Scritch, scritch~
No Xander here
tonight, guess she'd better bite the bullet and take care of it herself. It's
no big deal; there's nothing there anyway. Reach one hand out and pull the
curtain, it's not that difficult. Four...three...two...one...oh my God.
"Angel? Oh my
God." She recognizes the face looking in. Can that branch really support
him, Xander stopped climbing up here years ago. She fumbles with the latch for
ten seconds, wondering why she's so jumpy tonight, then gives a heave and pulls
the window up.
"Hi."
That serious tone as he looks around worriedly, like he expects her parents to
be guarding the threshold of her room, guarding her virtue from what, a two
hundred year old vampire? Yeah, she can see Ira Rosenberg clutching a Star of
David and forcing Angel back down the tree and into the night. She bites her
lip to keep from laughing at that visual, but stops when her eyes go back to
him.
"Something's
funny?" He asks with the wrinkled eyebrows that always presages the half
smile, the one that brings the dimple to his right cheek, the one that always
makes her...
"No," she
admits, studying his face, waiting. Ah, there it is, and she vows never to tell
him what a dopey schoolgirl she is, obsessing over a facial tic. "Just
wondering what you'd look like with a Star of David burned into your
forehead."
That throws him,
because his eyes shift around the room suspiciously and he hesitates before
asking, "I know it's late, but would it be all right if I came in?"
Would that be okay?
Well, she could take a quick inventory of the pros and cons of that scenario.
Does, and decides that there is not one argument in her mind as to why he
shouldn't, so there's that insane smile again. She can feel it tugging at the
corners of her mouth.
Okay, don't be such
a complete idiot that you scare him away. He must have been under some strange
hypnosis spell for the last month, because guys like him were *not* attracted
to Willow Rosenberg. It just wasn't something that happened. Ernie Dosenphlatt
with the excessive nose hair and unbearable body odor, that was the kind of guy
she attracted. But no matter how many lame things she's said, or how many
objects she's tripped over, he still talks to her. Seems interested. But she puts that down to her over-active
imagination.
"Willow?"
Nods her head.
Retarded much? "Okay."
It's almost comical
to see him try to squeeze his entire frame through the small opening of her
window, but then his biceps flex, then his pecs, and she closes her eyes,
recalling that con tally again and adding: will make you into a drooling idiot.
He finally stands
up with a self-conscious stretch, as if he realizes how ridiculous he must have
looked. "Hi, I was talking with Giles about the Amulet of Azithrocon, and
we couldn't find anything in the books. I was wondering if you could look it up
on the computer?"
She spares a glance
at the clock on her nightstand. 12:30 a.m. This amulet is so important that she
needs to start researching it at 12:30 a.m., in her room. Right. She fights the
urge to do a silly, happy dance, because it must mean he wanted to see her, and
says instead, "Sure."
She sits down on
her bed and grabs her laptop from the pile of homework it's sitting on. When
she notices the pile of clothes on her desk chair, she looks over at the
suspiciously empty spot next to her and then up at him. Chokes the words
through the sudden lump in her throat, "Want to sit down?" Geez,
she's only asking him to sit down, not jump her bones. Quit being such a
colossal dork.
What if he doesn't
want to sit down?
It's hard to tell
what he's thinking; he's got that poker face thing down. Smile, maybe he'll
think she was joking?
His eyes bounce
from her desk chair to the bed, shoulders hunch up and he nods, says quietly
//to himself?// "Okay...okay, I can."
"Azithrocon?"
She pulls up a screen and...whoah, *that's* not an amulet. How the hell did she
get into a German porn site? Back. Back. Back. Feel her cheeks go red and
remembers the time she passed out when they showed the menstruation film in
sixth grade. Oh please God, don't faint right on top of him. That would be so
embarrassing.
"Ah, maybe a
different spelling?" She suggests weakly, thankful that when she looks
over, he's politely looking everywhere but *at* the previously offensive
screen. A couple more tries and she has to admit, "Sorry, I'm getting
nothing here."
"It's
okay," he sighs. "There may be some other reference point we're not
thinking of, something else it can be tied into. Thanks for trying,
though."
And he's not
moving. No obvious scramble to leave with a wave and a 'you're a good kid
Willow' with a jocular punch in the arm, just him sitting six inches away from
her. She can see the conversation she'd have if her mother walked in right now.
No we weren't *doing* anything. Could she stand the look of surprise and
revulsion on his face at the suggestion? 'God no. She's a child, seventeen, and
I'm two hundred.' Okay, maybe he wouldn't say that, not out loud, but he'd be
thinking it, wouldn't he? She knows that she does, practically everyday.
You're a silly
child, and he's a crusading vampire with a soul. Not a lot of common ground
there, no shared cultural experience, no favorite foods or movies or cd's in
common.
Her turn offs:
blood drinking, lack of heartbeat, boyfriends who are older than her parents
and grandparents combined? His: klutzy redheaded geeks who've never really
kissed anyone and wouldn't know the first thing about being a sexy mystery if
it fell into their lap? How would they keep the romance alive if she put him
into a coma of boredom every time they were together? Nope, it's doomed, and
she'd better put it out of her head entirely, better that she stifle that
little fantasy before she completely made a fool of herself.
After all, she's
played the Xander cards pretty close to her chest all of these years, and at
least she hasn't screwed that up. He's still around; they're still friends, and
at least she can see him everyday. She only occasionally feels that little tug
in her heart when she sees him. In the winter, when the leaves turn orange, and
he jumps out at her from behind a tree, wrestles her into a big pile of leaves
until she's laughing so hard she feels like she's going to pee her pants.
That's better than nothing.
She was meant to be
an old maid, that must be it. Better practice that resolved, stoic face. And
start to like cats. She should probably have many cats...and wear a lot of
purple?
"Willow? Are
you there?" He's looking at her like she's a choking victim and he can't
remember how to do the Heimlich. And somehow, he's leaned closer to her in
concern, with a hand on her arm.
"Um, sorry, mental
road trip there. I'm back now. Sometimes it's hard to stop my brain." And
it's apparently hard to start too, when she realizes he's touching her.
He's done it
before; a hand to help her up after being knocked down by a particularly nasty
demon, or pushing her behind him when the fray gets a little too rough. Once,
he bent over her shoulder when she was pointing out a useful paragraph in the
library, and his chest brushed her shoulder. She'd had to stop, take an
internal breath and try and lower the squeaky pitch her voice attained when she
tried to pronounce the name of the demon she'd found. She'd noticed Xander had
tried to mimic the same pitch when he said it, as if she had discovered the
secret, true pronunciation. Nope, she'd just been trying to return from a
secret lusty place that recently was far more graphic than she remembered.
Ah, not far from
that place now, as he rubs his hand up and down her triceps, staring at her
with a half bemused expression.
And God help her,
at this moment, she thinks she's fallen completely in love with him.
**
Angel thinks he
must be crazy to be here, giving into the impulse again. He'd vowed not to put
his hands on her again; surely she was going to become suspicious if he was
groping her all the time? Wouldn't someone notice that he never touched anyone
else? He never helped Xander through a door first, or fought the urge to wipe
dirt off of Giles' nose. Hell no, that insanity was reserved all for Willow, as
was his flimsy excuse for being in her room right now.
It was late, but
she hadn't been in bed yet. She was still wearing the same clothes she had been
earlier today. Her hair pulled back in an elastic band, but one strand clings
to her cheek, red against flushed cheeks, and, as always, he's mesmerized by
her incredible eyes, the way her lashes dip against pale skin when she blinks.
For the thousandth time, his eyes are drawn to the sharp point of her chin,
which makes it impossible to ignore her mouth. It was just starting to break
into a self-conscious smile...
He reaches out with
his left hand and cups her chin, tips her face upwards and kisses her. Oh, he
knows it's wrong, is petrified that she'll freak out and do a banishing ritual
the second she kicks him out. It was a bad idea that spawned a bad choice that
would only lead to... badness, but once he feels the heat of her lips and the
aura of warm life that crackles out from every inch of her, he knows he's lost.
Her eyes are wide
with shock at first, but they slide closed, and he wonders if she's trying to
pretend this isn't happening. She's probably too polite to slap him.
Intellectually, he
knows he should pull away, but instinctively, he draws her closer, parts her
lips and probes his tongue inside of her. Just this once, there is only the two
of them; no one else exists beyond this room, nothing but the passion that he
at least feels for her.
She's so young, so
inexperienced, but something about her sucked him in, helplessly and
completely. There was some undeniable spark of life that can't be ignored,
something pure and life affirming about this redheaded child that he'd never
had, even when he'd *been* human and it makes him ache to see it exist so
freely in her, knowing that he has no right to want to claim even one ounce of
it for himself.
Angel comes to his
senses and is assailed by guilt, embarrassment and something he doesn't
recognize immediately...fear. Fear that this impulse is going to cost him his
place in her life, their friendship.
He takes his hands
from her, leans back and is too embarrassed to look her in the eye, wanting to
escape before she has the chance to say something to sever their relationship
and banish him to lurker mode, sentence him to stolen glimpses and pacing
across the street, wondering what she is dreaming about.
"I'm so sorry.
I shouldn't... have done that." He groans inwardly as he becomes a
tongue-tied idiot. "I swear it'll never happen again."
**
Several minutes
pass before Willow finally clears the haze in her head that Angel's kiss had
caused. He paces around her room, after jumping off the bed, and an endless
stream of words had poured forth from him: I'm sorry, I don't know what I was
thinking, it won't happen again.
And what was she
supposed to think of that? That it was an accident, a mistake? Hello
self-esteem, wave as she flushes you down the toilet. He didn't really want to
kiss her, why would he?
She wishes he
hadn't done it, because now she knows how wonderful and exciting it is to be
kissed by him, and now how is she supposed to sit next to him. If Giles ever
divides her into his group during patrols, how is she going to walk behind him
without feeling like her heart is going to break?
"Please say
this won't ruin our friendship."
Oh God. Not the
'let's just be friend's speech'? Sigh. She tries to keep a neutral face.
"Hey, no sweat. Pfftt, I know you'd never want to kiss me." Ah, brave
little smile that hides the tears of a sad, sad clown.
His face shifts
from pained to shocked. Pacing ended, he moves back towards her. "It's not
that I didn't want to...that I don't want to...right now." She can't stop the berserk grin that splits
her face, and she hopes he's not lying to cover, because she might have to leap
out the window if so.
"Really?"
He's already
reaching out to her again, pulling her close, encouraged when she seems to
actively seek his embrace. "I don't want to mess anything up," he
confesses, folding her against his chest and kissing the top of her head.
"Hmnn, nope.
Me either," she mumbles against his shirt.
************************