herself_nyc (herself_nyc) wrote in herself_nyc_fic, @ 2008-02-25 08:35:00 |
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Entry tags: | s/b fic, the proper slayer |
THE PROPER SLAYER (pt 21 of ?)
Feb 26, 2008: NOTE: I'm redacting chapters 20 and 21, and replacing them with new material. In order to keep things orderly, I'm doing a strike-through here and will link chapter 19 to the new chapter 20.
Previously
She'd barely seen his body that night, had been too shy to burrow under the covers. Thought of going down on him but never remotely got there.
She began to believe it herself, that she'd learned all her techniques out of magazines.
Angel smoothed her hair, and kissed her forehead, and went to sleep without saying anything more about it.
It was only when she got her period that Buffy realized the risk she'd been taking with Angel. The alarm and the relief came coupled together. She sat on the toilet in the truck-stop washroom, breathing through her mouth to avoid the heavy reek of disinfectant, staring at the little blossom of red in her panties, while everything in her head shifted around like a shaken kaleidoscope.
The rest of the afternoon passed in a fog. She got orders mixed up, she got yelled at. Her tips were down. She put the clumsiness down to hormonesshe had a hell of a cramp. But as the minutes jerked by towards the end of her shift, she could think about nothing except Angel. This wasn't so unusual, she'd been thinking of him nonstop since he'd come to her. But now she kept seeing him disappearing into Acathla's maw, crying out in protest, in pain. And she couldn't picture the reverse. How he'd gotten out again.
After she was through with work she bought steaks and condoms at the market. When she came in, Angel was lifting as usual. She'd never seen him skip a day. In the doorway, she watched him, his wide back to her. The little sitting room that had nowhere to sit smelled like his exertion. She didn't remember him ever smelling like that back in Sunnydale.
Spike didn't sweat, no matter what they did together.
Vampires just didn't.
"Is it weird?" she said.
Angel finished his reps, not acknowledging her until he'd put down the weight and grabbed his towel.
"Is what weird?"
"Being human again after all this time."
He took a long deep loud breath, as if to demonstrate. "It's wonderful." He hadn't turned to face her. He was wiping himself down. She walked in, came around in front of him. It was the first time she'd come home and not immediately jumped his bones, and she realized that she was trembling all over, her throat was tight.
"It is." She wanted to laugh, and say lightly, Hey, we have to be careful you don't get me pregnant, and go into his arms. But he was rubbing the towel into his armpits, not making a move towards her, and his funk put her off.
She said, "It's supposed to snow again tonight. I'm getting tired of it." She thought he'd ask her then what she was doing here, why she'd come. "I wish we could just go to Mexico. Mexico would be really good right now."
He looked at her then, and smiled.
"We could. Once I get things square with Cartwright, we could hit the road."
"Who's Cartwright?"
Angel shrugged. "A guy who owes me a little money. Would be nice to have it before we set off." He let the towel drop. "Want to grab a shower?
"What about ... what about your trust fund?" Saying the words made her feel like she'd just tipped over a cliff, like she was sliding down the incline towards the echoing bottom.
His face went through a number of changes, which made her think, as she watched him, of how inexpressive he usually was. Not like ... not like some other guys.
Angel said, "What are you talking about?
"You know. The Aurelian trust. Can't we tap that anymore? Or did they change your PIN number when you came back human?"
"How in God's name do you know about that?"
"I ... I looked it up, in Giles' library."
"You cracked a book?"
"Yes. What, do you think I'm stupid? Illiterate?" She almost believed it now, that she'd read up on the Aurelians. How dare he act surprised that she would do that?
"Of course not." He put a hand out and caressed her face. "Like you said, not a vampire anymore."
"Why does Cartwright owe you money?"
"Did a little work for him."
"What work?"
"What is this, Buffy?"
"This is ... a conversation."
"You don't miss me being a vampire, do you?"
This blindsided her. "No!"
"You sure?" He smiled that little teasing smile of his, that showed how charming he thought her, and how so much older and more knowing he was, compared to her. "Not that there's anything I can do about it."
"You'd better not!"
"You have to take me as I am." He spoke the words with just an echo of an Irish lilt.
"Haven't I always?"
He pulled her to him then. The heavy smell of his sweated body, his pulse, reassured her now. He squeezed her tight, and she was glad for his strength, his unostentatious certainty. He'd always been like this, it was all part of what she loved about him, what she loved him for. They were alike this way, weren't they, physical and stolid and not so much with the talking, but they'd always understood each other, hadn't they?
More or less.
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