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DISCLAIMER: Nope. Not that you'd believe me if I said otherwise...
SUMMARY: S2, before 'Passion'. Five consecutive nights. Five nights Buffy has to
meet him. Five nights Angelus has to look for her. Five nights until passion consumes
them.
RATING: PG-13. (Forgive me B/Aus'shippers for I have sinned. But I CANNOT write
B/Aus sex with my mum in the house!)
WORDCOUNT: 2857
THANKYOU: to Chrislee, for the beta.
IMPROV #73: belief,
desire, mercy, courage
TORN
by Leni
Night One
Of course he purposely sought this.
There were millions of ways to avoid the Slayer, even in such a small town, and yet
Angelus could find no better distraction than to follow the deadly girl.
Deadly girl, indeed, he thought as she fought with the big Luith. Twice as large and just
as strong, the demon had no chance when Buffy managed to corner him into one of the narrow
alleys. Angelus chuckled. He had taught her that. If your enemy is too big, give him
little room. The smaller opponent always had the advantage when the bigger was hampered in
its movements.
Angelus decided to call it a night and go feed. He had watched his girl for hours,
something he hadn't been able to do in a long time. In the last days Drusilla had always
insisted to come with him. But tonight, in one of her mood swings, Drusilla had decided to
take care of Spike herself.
Angelus contemplated his options, it was past midnight and he still hadn't taken any
blood, too busy following the Slayer across the town. He had already heard the last growl
from the Luith and watched as it fell soundly against the floor. Right now Buffy had to be
considering how to hide the big body. She'd probably decide to just leave it there and
pray that nobody entered the filthy alley until it was disfigured enough to pass as some
'wild animal'. Once upon a time, Angelus remembered, she'd have asked him for help to drag
the lump to some crypt. But now that was not an option, and not even a Slayer could haul
such a big corpse without attracting some attention.
She wouldn't be in a good mood, Angelus reckoned; Buffy always hated leaving things
unfinished. If she came out of that alley and found him spying on her, she would surely be
angry enough to retaliate against him. Or maybe angry enough to play his game. Was it
worth the risk?
Angelus smirked.
Of course. Wasn't that the whole point?
Night Two
"Are you ignoring me?" came his voice from behind her.
Buffy's back stiffened instantly.
Last night, after somehow managing to throw the huge Luith into a dumpster and concealing
it as much as she could, she'd left the alley only to find Angelus calmly smoking. He'd
obviously been there for a while, the butts of several cigarettes lay at his feet. Maybe
he'd witnessed her entire fight with the demon. Damn bastard. Couldn't he leave her in
peace for one night? Why didn't he just follow her and hide in the shadows like he usually
did? She'd been so furious that she'd felt the need to go and slap his smug face. Ah, to
see that conceited smile vanish would have been a delicious treat. But then common sense
had won. What would she win by provoking him except for another fight? With a sigh,
Buffy had turned around and left him standing there, not even looking back to make sure
Angelus wouldn't attack.
She sighed now, too; it seemed he wouldn't let the matter rest. "I'm trying,"
she replied carefully.
"Maybe you should try harder," he hissed, throwing his cigarette forwards, not
caring where it fell.
Buffy watched the bright orange tip pass by her in a graceful arch before disappearing in
the grass. She felt like admonishing him and then she felt like an idiot for wanting to
tell Angelus about the hazards of tossing lit cigarettes. "Yes, I think I
should." She heard his steps coming closer and forced herself not to react. "Why
don't you let me be, Angel?" she whispered. "Why don't you just... leave
Sunnydale. Or something. Please."
He chuckled as he recognised the plead in her voice. What did she think? That he'd do as
she asked just because she said please? Angelus would be more than happy to shatter this
belief. "No." He advanced closer, enjoying how her back tensed, how her head
raised in a sharp movement trying not to turn to follow his actions. "Don't you see
it, Buffy? I don't want to be anywhere but here. Anywhere but with you."
His eyes watched hungrily as she gulped, the movement drawing her attention to her bare
neck.
"This town doesn't matter. Buffy, Buffy, do you think I want the Hellmouth? What is a
portal to Hell for someone who can bring Hell to Earth with his own hands? Tell me,
sweetheart, do you really think I want to end up like old Nest, obsessed with prophecies
and star alignments? I don't want this boring town any more than it wants me. I was the
Scourge of Europe, Buffy, of Europe, why do you think I still am here?"
Buffy shook her head. But she knew the answer. Deep inside she knew that the only thing
keeping Angel in Sunnydale
"You."
Her eyes closed in furious helplessness. How many times had she prayed to hear that Angel
needed her? Why did she have to hear the words from the lips, with the voice of a man who
looked like her Angel, but wasn't?
As the seconds passed with no word of denial, Angelus knew that she was aware of the
truth, too. "Yes, that's right. Do you really want me gone? You want your mother's
safety and your friends' peace of mind?" His voice lowered to a slow whisper, each
word etching itself in her brain. "You know my price."
This time the tears fell. Buffy felt them running across her cheeks, her eyes burning with
the attempt to stop them, to pull them back.
There was obvious delight in his next sentence. "Yes, you do know it." He
stretched his arm until his fingers could touch her back. In a delicate movement, he
caressed the nape of her neck. "Come with me," he murmured temptingly as he let
his thumb trace her back from one shoulderblade to the other. "I love you. I try not
to bu-"
Buffy bit her lip and broke into a mad run. She needed to escape him and his words. She
needed to forget how truthful Angel sounded when he invited her into his world, how he
seemed to still feel something for her. But it was impossible, wasn't it? Soulless
vampires didn't feel, didn't love, didn't make her feel like the only girl in the world
with a few well chosen words.
But that didn't stop the wind from repeating 'come with me' as her body tried to escape
from the insanity he represented. And it didn't stop the mad race of desire through her
veins.
Night Three
"I know you're here."
A chuckle came from behind the crypt to her right. But he still hadn't shown himself.
Buffy breathed deeply. This was crazy. She was crazy. Did she actually have the courage to
do what she'd come to do? "I want you to leave. And never come back."
An amused laugh came next. "Come on, Slayer. You surely don't believe I'll go without
a good fight."
"I won't fight you."
He finally stepped out from the shadows. His hand was playing with a lighter as he
approached her, the tiny flame illuminating his features and distorting them so that she
couldn't tell which face he was wearing. Angelus stepped quietly, very slowly as to not to
scare her. He stopped barely half a meter in front of her, satisfied when Buffy gave a
small start at his proximity. "Does this mean what I think it does?" he asked.
Buffy nodded. "You leave. And I will go with you."
His eyebrows lifted. Not even in his wildest dreams had Angelus dared to dream of such a
prompt acquiescence on Buffy's part. "Why?" he couldn't help but ask. He watched
many expressions shift across her face. Surprise. Doubt. Fear. And finally determination.
"Because I want to," was her decisive reply.
Angel's smirk lost its dangerous edge, and for a moment Buffy was reminded of her
boyfriend. Why couldn't he be the one smiling at her now?
"Don't cry," he warned.
She didn't move as his hands reached for her face, but after feeling his fingertips
carefully stroking her cheeks, Buffy couldn't help but move into them.
With a content smile, Angelus watched her shift into his caress. The corners of his lips
lifted even more when Buffy didn't deny him the pleasure of letting his hands move over
her neck. Her eyes were closed, and Angelus remembered the first time he had ever kissed
her. She'd been so innocent and yet wanting to learn more about love and life. More about
him. They'd scared each other that night but now, Angelus swore, with all their secrets in
the open, it'd be different. Completely.
"Do you understand what this implies?"
Buffy started when she felt his lips on her forehead. Her eyes opened to find his
determined stare boring into her. She hadn't noticed how closer he had moved. In what
seemed a single second, they were only millimetres apart, with Angel's arms tight around
her.
"Do you?" he asked again.
She looked into his eyes. Before she'd been able to read them but now... Now the old words
had been erased and there where new ones that she'd only begun to recognise.
"Yes," she whispered, so quietly that he wouldn't have heard it if he hadn't
been so close. Buffy caressed his face in the same way he'd touched hers. It was unfair,
she knew, that she had to be in the arms of a demon because there was no other option. Not
for her dear ones, she had to protect them at any cost. Xander would say that she only had
to kill him, but that was no option either, because she could never do it. She couldn't.
This was never what she'd desired, Buffy had never dreamt her life would meet so many
obstacles. She was only seventeen. She was not supposed to promise her life to an evil
vampire. It didn't matter if they had loved each other months ago. She was not supposed to
know that he'd turn her, and that the only promise she -maybe- would extract from him was
to do it when they were far away from Sunnydale, where she could never harm her family.
With her death another Slayer would raise. One who actually could do the Slayer's work.
"Tomorrow," she whispered against his lips. "Tomorrow we leave."
Angelus closed the gap between their lips impatiently. He had never liked to wait for what
was his.
And Buffy was.
His and only his.
Night Four
Her mother was on a weeklong business trip. Again.
Buffy carried the heavy suitcase downstairs. She had packed everything she considered
essential, even after Angel had warned last night that in her new life those things would
only be a joke to herself. Buffy had shrugged, appalled when the motion only caused the
sheet to fall from her shoulders, and tried to tell him to at least wait before
maintaining such an opinion. Tried. Because Angel had never let her even begin the
sentence.
The doorbell rang.
Angel already. He always was early to their dates. Buffy looked around, at the house she'd
called home for months. She peeked into the kitchen to make sure that her goodbye note was
still in place, grabbed the suitcase and went open the door.
It was Willow.
"Willow?" she squeaked.
"Yes, Willow," the redhead chuckled. "Can I come in?" Willow watched
as Buffy paled and her eyes darted wildly across the room. Willow slapped her forehead.
"Oh, of course. I'm sorry. So sorry. I shouldn't have said that." She stepped
into the house. "See?"
Buffy blinked.
"I'm sorry for scaring you. Should know better than being polite on the doorstep of
all things," the redhead continued without noticing Buffy's incomprehension.
The Slayer finally found words to say. "What are you doing here?"
Willow shrugged. "Devon called for last-minute practice. So I'm dateless tonight and
I thought--- hey, where are you going?"
Buffy looked down and saw the suitcase hanging from her hand. "I'm-" She could
tell Willow that she was meeting her mother. She could say that she was spending a few
days in L.A. for her father's birthday. Hell, she could say that she was taking some
clothes to the library because she was sick of wearing the same clothes before and after
training. Buffy could tell her friend that Giles didn't want anyone to come today because
they were experimenting with new weapons. Really dangerous weapons.
Buffy could have said many things, dozens of lies made their way to her brain in that
instant. But, as she saw Willow's eyes looking trustingly at her, the Slayer realised that
she couldn't abandon her friends.
It was a single second. One of those turning points in everyone's life which changes the
future for everyone.
"I'm taking some old clothes to the basement."
Willow beamed. "Oh, that's good. Because I thought you were going on a trip or
something. And, well, not that you don't have better things to do but..." She flushed
slightly. "I wanted to spend some time with my best friend."
Closing her eyes so the tears wouldn't escape, Buffy opened the basement door, forgetting
completely to pay attention to the redhead's words as every loud step downwards reminded
her of Angel's as he carried her up those other stairs to his room.
Outside, Angelus watched the scene from the window. Willow had beat him to the Summers'
household by only seconds. She'd never noticed him, of course, as she was too busy looking
for danger to feel his presence right behind her.
He saw as Buffy opened the door for him and her shock when she found her friend instead.
He gritted his teeth as he heard the conversation, an intense fury growing with each of
Buffy's words.
He fisted his hands so tightly that his nails drew blood from his palms.
Finally Angelus saw her disappearing into the basement.
With one last snarl of rage, he left Buffy's house.
She'd pay for disappointing him.
Everybody would.
Night Five
Buffy tried to concentrate on the conversation as she danced with Xander.
He was talking about Cordelia, something about her parents. But if he asked, Buffy would
never be able to say if he'd really met them or if the horror tales were only in his
imagination.
She knew Angel was there. She could feel his cold fury in her bones. The weight of her
betrayal was deep in her heart. But, how could she abandon her friends when they counted
on her? How could she leave them to Spike and Dru's mercy knowing that they had none,
especially when Drusilla found out about her Sire's absence.
Cordelia and Willow were chatting amiably at their table. Buffy looked at them with
something akin to sympathy. They were not only her friends, they were part of her burden
and her duty, too. No matter how much she ached to go to Angel, to be in his arms again
and forget the world in his kisses, she couldn't. She mustn't.
Because Buffy was not only Buffy, she was the Slayer. And Slayers cannot leave their
posts. Not even if their human bodies and blood were screaming and begging for freedom.
Finally the dance ended. Half an hour later she had delivered her friends safely home. She
went into her house, surprised at finding her mother already there. Joyce kissed and
hugged her and vowed she'd missed her 'little girl.' Buffy smiled tremulously and raced to
her room under the pretext that so much fluff was choking her.
She changed into her pyjamas and felt her skin tingling, calling for his fingers to calm
it down. Finally crawling under her covers, Buffy cried herself to sleep.
Her Slayer's instincts never felt Angelus enter her room. Too attuned to his presence, her
body kept quietly dozing as he drew what he'd never have again.
His hands moved madly over the paper, drawing her body as he remembered it on his bed, his
red sheets doing a poor job at covering her. Then Angelus drew the scene in front of his
eyes, Buffy in her tiny bed, Mr. Gordo at one side guarding her sleep. He only left when
dawn threatened to imprison him in her house. But not before a last drawing was done. The
pencil moved madly to put the finishing touches on his work. A picture of them, not
kissing, not touching, not even speaking. Just looking at each other, exactly how he
imagined they must have looked like when Buffy told him she'd leave with him.
He stared at the last picture, a longing note creeping into his eyes before he forced it
away. Then he ripped the paper. Slowly. Deliberately. Wanting to shred every bit of lost
hope along with the drawing.
Making sure that the envelope with the picture of Buffy in her own bed was plainly
visible, he opened the window again and let the little scraps of torn paper fly away.
With a last look at his Slayer, Angelus left.
The End
17/10/03
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