herself_nyc (herself_nyc) wrote in herself_nyc_fic, @ 2008-02-27 09:38:00 |
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Entry tags: | s/b fic, the proper slayer |
THE PROPER SLAYER (pt 21 of ?)
Buffy's run away from home and from her guilt-wracked love affair with a soulless Spike. When she tries to leave the past behind in a small Canadian town, her life takes a strange turn.
Previously
The man, dressed in grey sweats a couple of sizes too small, was folded onto the bunk, arms curled around him against the deep moist chill of the cells. He was asleep, but as she looked at him, he began to stir.
"That your boyfriend, Miss?"
Buffy stared. The light was bad, but of course she would know him anywhere. Anywhere.
She couldn't get enough air to answer. Her chest was hollow, empty.
He lifted his head then, and looked at her. "Buffy? How did you find me?"
By the time she promised the police that he'd be no more trouble, that she'd get him seen by a doctor for sure if they'd release him to her care, the short winter day had gone dark. Buffy wanted to get out of there. Officials made her nervouswhat if they asked her for ID? She wasn't even Canadian. She hauled the heavy street door open with relief. "Let's go."
When the freezing wind hit his face, Angel shrank back into the dingy vestibule. "Where's your car?"
"I don't have a car. We have to walk. My room's not far. We'll get you some warmer clothes tomorrow. I didn't think vampires felt the cold, anyway."
She ducked out into it, curled down into the coat she'd borrowed from one of the cooks during her shift. He followed on her heels. She heard him groan as the full force of the wind hit him. He lurched along just behind her in the ill-fitting shoes they'd given him in the station. She glanced down and saw he had no socks on. "Almost there."
He stamped his feet hard on the mat by time they reached her door. She fumbled the key out of her little bag, dropped it, had to take off her glove to pick it up. He was shivering hard as they crowded into her room, which had never been tinier than with him in it, as if he'd bust out the ceiling were he to raise his head, the walls if he shrugged his shoulders. Pulling the quilt off the cot, Buffy threw it around him.
He grabbed her hand. Pulled her in against him. She hadn't touched him yet, not in front of the policemen, not in her confusion.
"I can't believe you're here," Angel said. His voice rumbled through her. "I don't even know where this is."
Incredulity dopplered through her mind. She wanted to pull away, but his big arms were folded around her. Her feet and hands throbbed with returning warmth. It was hard to breathe, she felt suspended, as if this reunion existed somehow outside of ordinary time.
She'd killed him. He couldn't be here again if she'd killed him.
Then a dull thumping reached her, where her ear was pressed to his chest, through the stuff of his sweatshirt. At first she couldn't think what it was.
He was eating with two hands, while she stared. Four double cheeseburgers weren't going to be enough. Angel chewed grinning, his eyes fixed on her like she was going to be the next morsel. He was dressed now, after a whirlwind trip to the Wal-Mart on the edge of town, like a real Vermilion Chuter, in Carhartt jeans, workboots, layers of thermals and flannel shirts and hoodies. Now they were in a back booth at the truck-stop, which she'd opted for over the diner where she worked. She wasn't ready yet to show him there. Didn't want to explain him to anyone she knew, while she couldn't yet explain him to herself.
"Angelhow?"
He took a long swallow of hot coffee. "I don't know. I don't know how I got here." He put down his burger, reached for her hand. His was warm now, and she could feel the pulse beating in the curve of his thumb.
Which, to put it mildly, freaked her out.
"Where did you come from?"
Angel frowned then. His grip on her loosened. "You know. You know where you sent me."
Wishing she'd never started this, Buffy nodded. Sometimes it seemed like she knew nothing elseshe only had to close her eyes to see Acathla's widening maw. To feel again what it was like to thrust that knife into Angel's gut.
"I had no choice."
"I know." He squeezed her hand again, then let it go. "We don't have to talk about it. Maybe it's worth it, for this." He thumped his chest.
"I can't believe you're alive." She'd said this already about ten times. The words had been beating a tattoo in her head for the last couple of hours. "It's wonderful. This is wonderful."
"What about you? What are you doing here?" He resumed eating. She could imagine him never stopping. Her own burger and fries were cooling nearly untouched in front of her.
"It's a long story."
"So?"
"No, really. It's ... complicated."
"You came here to find me? You knew somehow."
She wasn't sure why, but she nodded.
"So now youwecan go back to Sunnydale."
"No. We don't go back to Sunnydale." It came to her then, a jarring of hope. Together they could do anything. Go anywhere. Angel was back, a real human man. They could have the life she used to daydream about. Find somewhere that felt right, build something together. She could forget about the mistakes she'd made. This was what she'd been aiming for last night, when she got rid of those things of the past. A fresh clean start.
He frowned. "What do you mean? Aren't you ... aren't you supposed to be in school? Where's your mother?"
"All of that is finished. Don't worry about that."
He sat back then against the banquette, focusing fully on her, the food set aside. He gave her a thorough visual going over, so intense that she began to blush. She thought he was going to cross-examine her, press her. Maybe rat her out. This had happened before, after all.
With Spike.
Angel said, "Do you still want me, Buffy?"
Her heart started fluttering. Her vision dimmed, he swam before her. She struggled to take a breath.
"Angel ...."
"I don't even have to ask, do I?"
He began to smile.
He wasn't Spike.
She found herself smiling back.
Then Angel began to laugh, and after her initial shockhad she ever seen him like this? So animated, so ... alive?she fell to giggling as well.
She worked one more shift at the diner, because it was payday. She'd had no sleep at all, but it didn't matter; she floated through it. Her tips were never better. At quitting time she went out the back, and there was Angel waiting for her in an idling Chevy with North Dakota license plates and a rusted undercarriage.
They kissed until the windows were thoroughly fogged. She wiped them down with her gloves as Angel put the car in drive. They left Vermilion Chutes, heading south.