Author: Blackbirch
Title: Times moves on without us
Rating: PG-13 ish
Fandom: Angel & Buffy series
Summary: Buffy reaches LA, too late for the fight but not too late to find what’s left behind
Wordcount: 2109 words
Pairing: Spike/Angel(us), Spike/Buffy/Angel in theory
Archive: No.
Disclaimer: All characters are copyright of their originators. No infringement intended, no profit made.
Feedback: Yes please. Any kind (good or bad) you can give me.
Story Notes:
Unbeta’d, written between paperwork at work. Happens right after ‘NFA’, only in my ‘verse Buffy found them right afterwards. Buffy POV mostly.
Originally posted 2004-11-26
It was later that night, when blood had stopped pouring out of wounds and dead flesh had started knit itself together. Magic that weren’t for Gunn. His blood had only stopped pooling on the floor because it no longer held any life. Nothing to pump it out anymore.
She didn’t know him, never cared about those Angel worked with. It was a lifetime away. So much had changed. One Hellmouth down wasn’t the victory they had hoped for. Too many paid.
And with one door to hell closed, they just gathered around the existing ones… turning up the deathtoll in Cleveland. Faith and her principal worked hard, but he was after all only human. Suddenly Faith had once again come close to loose him. Not something she coped with very well, so she’d gotten help. There were lots of other girls who wanted a chance to prove themselves, unfortunately quite a few proved to be not ready.
More numbers added. More graves to dig. Only this time Buffy wasn’t alone. There were many hands that helped put the Slayers to rest. Made her once again wonder how she’d ever been so young… felt so far away now. Too far even with the vacation time off slaying to heal, to rest, get her feet back on the ground.
As usual the ground changed beneath her and her world was turned upside down. Once again she was the fly caught in a web, with a big bad spider waiting.
But this time she may be tangled in the web, but she wasn’t the prey it had set it sights for. The ripple effects of what was going on in L.A had reached all over. She once again felt the pull of Slayer duty and were asked to come home.
Home that was where her friends were. Cleveland. Even Willow had come back. They needed her strength. They needed Buffy’s experience. Surviving that many apocalypses paired with dying from a few others, she had advantages no one else would ever have. Now they all hoped hers would help them survive the coming years that seemed harder than before.
But she couldn’t come home just yet. She needed to make a stop first. Andrew had told her. Spike was back… with Angel. Not with like that.. or at least she couldn’t believe it. Andrew did though. Couldn’t stop going on about darkness and light, and something else too geeky for her to understand. Xander would have understood. But he was off in Cleveland, still eyeless and she had been kinda avoid-y. Her mistake would be forever be imprinted on his face. Not a reminder she needed, denial was to be her friend a little while longer.
When she finally had made her way through a Los Angeles in chaos she realised she was too late. The whole building was gone. How the hell would she find them now?
Not hell. Bad choice of words. Visual idea not needed.
She panicked right then and there. Cause they couldn’t be dead. She’d feel that. Right? Love like that couldn’t just vanish into dust without.. something.
Their watchdog found her. The blue woman, watchdog was what Spike called her. Her name was Ill.. something.
She looked like that. Ill. Not so much blue as greyish. Spike had whispered to her in that broken, tired voice that they weren’t the only ones who had lost people. Blue no longer had Wesley.
Wesley. She felt a small pang of sadness. Another person she’d known that no longer existed. Another death on her list of memories.
When she’d first entered the cellar she was schocked by the reek of blood, and choking on the despair that was visible in the small room.
Gunn died while she stood there and stared silently. There were no words for this. No ones she knew. Words don’t help, nothing you say can soothe loss like this. A friend.. no, Angel’s family lying on a filthy cellarfloor slowly dying in pain. There would be no quiet passing, no fading into darkness. Not with a gut wound. That makes you take your pain over to the other side. No respite. Just the quiver of limbs as they try to cry out pain it can no longer voice.
When the moans had quieted, when there no longer was laboured breathing whispering in the room she started her first tentative steps towards Angel.
But the second she came too close to him an dthe body in his arms he raised his vampiric face and snarled at her. All animal, no recognition in the golden eyes. She reached for the stake by instinct, but Spike was there.
Always there when things got difficult. He grabbed her tense arm and pulled her away to the opposite corner of the room, her eyes never leaving the twisted face of her first lover - her first demon.
“Leave’im be Slayer.”
So it’s back to Slayer now. Not Buffy anymore. She sqashed the voice inside.
“I wasn’t going to do anything Spike.”
He raised his eyebrow, created strange patters in the dried blood on his face. “No?”
She sighed deeply and slumped against the wall, looking down. “No.” Made patterns on the dust on the floor with her boot, suddenly she fault so out of place. What could she ever do here? She was bought out of her reverie, not brooding, by a rough hand gently tilting up her chin. “Let him grieve. Then you need to take care of him.”
There was a such intensity in his eyes, and a question. A question she wasn’t sure she knew how to respond to. “I..I, Spike I can’t.”
Suddenly the broken figure in front of her had a quick glimpse of the old Spike, the one with the loud gestures and the sneer on his face. “Stop being such a girl Slayer. He needs comfort. He needs… dammit Buffy, he loves you. This isn’t a relationship thing. Save your issues for another day. You need to remind him that you’re still here. Alive, warm. Make him forget.”
The words were unsaid but she heard them anyway. Like I did for you. The tone hurt and her defences and anger arched inside her. It was quickly subdued by the softness suddenly there in his eyes. He grabbed her face and turned it towards the shattered Angel, who was reverently caressing the dead body. “You think he can ever be happy again?”
God, how she wanted to. To be there for him and help him past this night. But she didn’t know how. Closed off - Buffy be thy name. Giving comfort had never been one of her strengths. She’d never gotten the chance to work on it. And this past year as leader.. din’t do much for the comfort muscle. She’d been put aside, estranged from the others. Mostly her own doing, but it was inevitable.
“You don’t understand Spike. I don’t know how to.” She knew there were tears in her eyes but she ignored them. Ignored that she was once again weak in front of him.
“If you’re not going to give him this, make this effort then just leave.”
That hurt. It sounded like she had chosen to be useless in this. She wasn’t mean, she was just … lost.
He saw it. Saw how much that hurt, cause he crumpled a bit. “Didn’t mean it like that. Just… .” He made a gesture to stay put, so she did and watched in silence as he limped over to Angel.
Slowly, wearily like he was cornering a wounded animal. Which he was she realised. Angel had lost his entire family tonight, Spike was the only one left. But all his humans were gone, his steady ground to always fall back on. Friends that had worked hard to keep him upright in this world that threatened to twist his deeds into evil every day.
“Angel?” “Sire?”
It seemed that bending his head in submissiveness and reverting to calling him Sire, Spike finally had made the connection and brought Angel back from whatever mental pit he’d been in. Brown bled back in his eyes and the ridges dropped as he seemed to wake up out of a nightmare.
Only it was still there, in front of him. Plain to see.
Buffy never wanted to see that look on his face, it was even worse than his chock at her sword spearing him. Such pain, it stripped his face naked and raw and she drew back into a little huddle on the floor as her first tears of this horrid evening fell.
Through the shimmer of tears she silently watched as Spike crooned and gently managed to get Angel to move away from the body. Only to crumple into a little heap, wracked with heavy sobs. Shaking as Spike grabbed hold of him tightly and she could see he was whispering words. Trying to sooth, calm and ease the torture of being the reason everyone died around him.
She knew that guilt Angel carried, it was the same as hers.
She kept quiet, held vigil as the shaking turned into grasping, holding on tight. Spike would have fingershaped bruises tomorrow. Not for the first time. But his skin soaked them up, and they never stayed long. No matter how hard you tried to make them last.
But he didn’t seem to mind. No, not all. Those blue eyes closed, his head thrown back and the sounds he made - definitely not in pain.
Spike suddenly seemed small as he arched under Angel’s touch. Small in the way you wanted to hold him close, keep him… make him yours.
Which is exactly what Angel did. “Mine.” His voice rough as she could see his fangs slicing Spike’s lip. Blood was dripping down his chin, and Angel was chasing it with a wet tongue. Caressing, licking, nipping, making Spike writhe and whimper beneath him before he sunk into him. Ripped into his neck like there was no tomorrow, just the here and now. The pain, the pleasure mixed together. Brought over by Spike’s words. “Yours Angel. Always yours.”
She was speachless. Not becuase she didn’t want to interfere, but becuase how their image together made her feel. Ownership, like Angel was messing with what was hers, which was wrong in so many ways. She’d never accepted Spike’s gift until too late. He’d never been hers. She had been his, but never making it mutual. Never allowing them to be more than just an obsession by him.
Then there was this jelaousy, like Angel was betraying something between them. She cringed as she remembered her cookie-speech.
Last and most prominent was the feeling of being left out, that and being turned on by the whole thing. That is the thing that scared her. It was too much. Spike only did what he was so good at, taking care of people. Making them feel something beyond that grey sorrow, and she could’ve been the one to give that to Angel. But she had chickened out, the usual way she did. Emotions makes Buffy run.
Sometimes she hated her brain for doing these perky short versions of her life and emotions.
She gripped herself tighter as she refused herself to move. Not going anywhere near the sexy vampires. No. Cause that would be entering threesome-land. Definitely not on Buffy’s map. Wrong, and so … wrong was thwe word her brain kept coming back to. Maybe this whole ‘Buffy came back wrong’ wasn’t deductable only by Spike’s chip, and her using Spike.
She shook her head and closed her eyes, hard enough to make her head hurt. Trying to make her rambling go away. When she squinted her eyes open she saw that Spike was watching her. He was laying down on the floor, holding onto Angel who seemed to have finally passed out.
When he made a small move with his hand, she threw caution aside and got up and walked over to them as quiet as possible. When he motioned for her to nestle in between them she only hesistated for a few seconds before she burrowed into Ange’s side. Sharing as much warmth as she could. The concrete floor beneath the blanket was rough enough for her to be bruised in the morning, but the comfort in the small space was all she needed for now. With a tight hold on Angel’s arm across her body and Spike’s legs tangled with hers she felt in place. Right now they needed her, and somehow she’d deal with tomorrow. Somehow.
Her eyes never left Spike’s, until sleep claimed her.
Recent Comments