WHO. buffy and angel WHAT. after escaping being released from the hospital, buffy goes to visit angel. WHEN. a day or two after the buffy/dawn thread. WHERE. angel's place. STATUS. complete ( done over aim )
Buffy: Released wasn't exactly the right word. That would have implied that the doctors had advised her to leave or at least had been okay with it. Even when they noticed the rate at which the wound was mending itself, they'd asked her to stay for further observations. Potential complications, they'd said. Buffy knew she'd be fine in another week or so. That's why she had taken it upon herself to take out the IV herself, change into the clothes Dawn had left for her, and made her way out of the damned hospital. No brave glances were given to the windows as she walked by, not wanting to see how terrible she really looked. Like shit was probably an accurate assumption. Despite having slept plenty, thanks to the numerous painkillers they'd pumped through her veins, Buffy looked like she hadn't slept in weeks. The dark circles beneath her eyes had started to resemble bruises. Cars, street lamps, laughing people -- Buffy passed them all, her eyes remaining straight in front of her. It didn't take long to reach Angel's apartment and to be honest, she didn't know why she had gone there. She knew what he would want to know. He'd ask her why she did it, why she made the deal and that was a question she didn't feel like she needed to answer. Angel would have done the same for her. The last few days had been a blur to Buffy. There had been moments of consciousness and clarity and other times where she hadn't been able to tell if she were awake or dreaming. Sometimes, she'd thought she saw Angel at her bedside, a silent phantom that watched over her. He wasn't there constantly, but she was almost sure that it hadn't always been a figure of her imagination. Then again, it wouldn't have completely surprised her. Buffy shivered, the short sleeve shirt that Dawn had brought not exactly the best thing for the cold weather that Cleveland offered. The chill that ran down her back brought on sharp, clear flashes of a particular dream she'd had in the hospital that had left her cold when she'd woken up. After gathering enough courage, she balled her hand into a fist and knocked on the heavy mahogany of the apartment door.
Angel: Angel never thought of himself as a knight in shining armor, but at some point he'd been deemed a Champion. Most waking days he didn't feel much like one, not like he was being reminded while re-bandaging some suppurating wound after an especially nasty challenge of physically saving humanity. Repetition, repetition. Like riding in an elevator for only one floor. There was a road Angel vaguely remembered trying to trod - one that he wasn't anywhere near anymore. He wanted to smash something - shatter it into pieces that would fall at his feet, like the chains of belonging that he himself had helped forge. Worst of all, he wanted to hurt - anyone within reach, maybe even himself. It was a familiar, if long-buried, impulse. He wanted to cut - with a word, with a blade, and watch the life come bleeding out as his own had. He might have done it too, if several centuries years hadn't taught him that as good as it felt at the time, ultimately it didn't help. Angel tried to live his life outside of his own shadow, but sometimes it was necessary to take refuge in its concealing darkness. He couldn't run from it, however much he sometimes wanted to; couldn't destroy it and that was worse, not because he couldn't, but because he didn't want to. And that was why he surrounded himself, by design and by accident, with people who knew what was important and what things meant. Cordy, Wes, Gunn: they were all good at telling him what something meant. They could fit events together, make them part of some larger structure. Making meaning out of the random was exactly what Cordelia's visions were about. Just like Wesley's research and Gunn's code of honor, the visions were fitted into something bigger. Interpreting them was at the core of what they did and why they kept doing it. That, more than anything else, was why they'd been his friends. Angel had depended on their faith, their need to fit things together, more than he could, or would, admit. Most of the time, he didn't know why he did what he did. Not now, not after that rain-laden alley, not after watching them die, one by one. Definitely not after Buffy died, then came back with her eyes full of dirt. These days, when he didn't know what to do, he looked down at his palms - oversized hands, useless for anything but killing - and asked himself if Gunn, Wes, and Cordy would approve. He'd not been out of the shower more than ten minutes when he heard the knock at the door. Cordelia was out - but she had her own key. He wasn't exactly prepared for who was on the other side when he shrugged lazily into his sweater. "Buffy." The glumness on his features might have deepened a tad, but one more layer of gloom atop the geologic strata of ill-humor already etched there told you nothing. Sometimes, it was more of an effort to get his face to actually show any expression, and reading those carved granite features was as difficult as deciphering a sphinx, not to mention twice as dangerous. He stepped aside, the interior shadows painting calligraphy strokes over his parchment pale skin. "I didn't know you were getting out today." I would've been there.
Buffy: If she thought hard and long enough, she could almost remember a time when things were relatively simple. No, not simple. Things had never actually been simple. But there had been times where she was happy, a time where she could go all day and smile the entire time. Coming to Cleveland had been a terrible idea. Slayers, her girls, had been dying left and right, though. There'd been no way she could just stay in Rome and not do anything. It was easy to daydream about what might have been if she had, though. If she'd stayed in Rome and had let the Immortal keep the scales over her eyes, she might have stayed happy. At the back of her mind, there'd always been that nagging voice. The one that told her things hadn't been right. Now, a little love spell didn't seem like such a big deal. A deep intake of staggering air was taken when the door opened. Why had she come again? Because I needed to. She didn't know why, but that was just how it was. He was like a magnet. There wasn't always a clear reason for needing to be with him. It just happened. Stepping inside the apartment, blissfully warm compared to the biting chill outside, Buffy closed the door behind her. "The doctors didn't know, either." She could imagine their faces when they would eventually walk in to check on her, only to find an empty bed. "I just couldn't stay there, ya' know? Hospitals give me the wiggins. Besides, I'm healing." Granted, a generous dose of painkillers would have been nice right about then, but it was nothing Buffy couldn't handle. She'd taken worse. "How are you?" It seemed almost too stupid of a question to ask. The tightness in his face and the grim set of thin lips told her everything she needed to know. He was hurting. Weren't they all? "You look .." He looked tired and depressed, haggard somewhere there on the long list. Despite it all, Angel was still the most beautiful thing she'd ever seen. Would ever see, probably. Green eyes scanned the room, noting the throws on the couch that hadn't been there before. She might have asked about them if she had just cared. Home decor wasn't exactly on her list of priorities. Shifting uncomfortably, Buffy crossed her arms in an almost protective manner. She shivered again, despite the fact that she was standing not ten feet away from the fire that burned in the large fireplace. "I'm going to be honest with you, Angel." A beat, as she tried to gather and sort the thoughts that ran rampant through her whirring mind. "I don't know why I came here. I just needed to see you."
Angel: The fire reflected in dark, languorously watchful eyes. Shadows cast over to the wall in fevered flickers and sharp leaps, exaggerating, as though mocking the conflagration from which it was born. Angel closed and opened his eyes and shook away the remainder of his meditative state, oblivious to the cascading downpour of emotion as it fell over him in sheets. Afraid to turn around, he didn't focus on any one particular thing while holding his non-breath and trying to come up with a good reason he didn't need. These conversations with Buffy were always piecemeal, patchwork missing several key rags. He wanted her now, more than he had a second ago, wanted her endlessly, and the certainty of fantasy arrested Angel then. Froze him right there, thickening with guilt, bilious guilt that seeped down his throat and up from his gut, strangling him as it met up with a longing horror to rip and draw and mold. Horrible longing for control, for that deliberate, intense artistry. He had given all that up. He'd thought it was gone for good. Not thought, not if he was honest - not if he was pretending he wasn't a precocious sociopath under a less violent veneer. He'd hoped it was gone but here he was, foolish and stupid. A drunk treating himself to just one taste. Sin fostered sin, venial, craven, carnal. It didn't help that the hallmark of his soul had been re-adhered to his body by Evil because of a deal he had no dominion over. Sick with disgust, gravid with guilt, Angel could not move. He'd been in this position for too long, his own emotional sinew and doubt buried behind myopic eyes, beneath careful layers of ebony. "I'm fine," he mumbled through numb lips. "In fact, I don't need you checking in on me or going out of your way assuming you know what's best." With both thumbs resting on the shores of his sunken eyes, fingerpads - still to be calloused - roamed gingerly about Angel's face, avoiding the recently-acquired cut marring his high forehead. Blind, except to his thoughts, he plodded a course through the room. Senses that had fared his hibernation in tact had become even more acute. He didn't know if he could handle another definitive break-up with Buffy, his beloved. Her restrained resentment of the reasons behind his abandonment had been difficult to forget about. Much of what he wanted to explain to her - his obligation to her safety - kept him from mentioning. All of the purpose he managed to find since moving to Cleveland seemed to leave along with Buffy, stealing away in her wake. "I wouldn't want you to hurt yourself."
Buffy: Faintly, like a figure softened by a sheet of fog, Buffy could remember a time where she thought they were forever. That's how naive she had been. It hadn't mattered to Buffy that Angel was the very thing she was supposed to kill. For all she cared, her destiny could have kissed her ass. Years and heartbreaks later, Buffy realized that nothing was forever. Forever was a novelty concept, only real on the pages of romanticized books. She never really was a big reader, anyway. Flames ate away at the logs in the fireplace, the occasional pop and hiss making itself known. For a while, that was all there was. Eyes focused back on Angel when he said he was fine, not expecting any other answer. That was always the answer, after all. The safe response that everyone seemed to be turning to these days. Something like pain touched her face for a fleeting moment before she forced her expression back to one of neutrality. "I didn't come to check in on you. You're a big boy, you can take care of yourself." Then why had she come? Buffy was still figuring that one out. With tired eyes, she watched Angel move through the living room, wondering if he actually had a destination in mind or if he just couldn't stand still. "I'm still trying to decide why I came by, honestly." It wasn't meant as a blow. It wasn't meant to be anything, for that matter. It was just the truth. "I was kind of hoping that we could skip this thing we do. You know - the awkward silences and retorts." Defensively, though there was really nothing to defend herself against, Buffy folded her arms across her chest. "I know it's our usual thing, but I don't want to do that tonight." No, now that there was an actual expiration date on her life span, Buffy didn't feel like going through the motions anymore. Every second felt like the tick of a clock hand. Did she regret making the deal? Not for a second. She never would. Not only had it brought Angel back, but in the long run, it had saved lives. How many would Angelus have murdered along the way? "Have you .. have you heard from Justice?" There would always be a barrier between Angel and Buffy in the shape of the crazed former Slayer. Buffy had just come to accept that. Justice would always be an ever present figure on Buffy's mind. Buffy had long since gotten over any anger she'd first held toward Justice and Angel's relationship. It hadn't been easy. She wasn't exactly the forgiving type. Still, it had become obvious pretty fucking quickly that there were more important things than who was in love with who. Now, Buffy just wanted to make sure no one else was hurt by Justice's hand. And now that they knew that it was going to take more than a knife to the heart to kill Justice, Buffy worried more than ever.
Angel: It looked like stupid and trite was a wise choice after all, because Buffy grimaced a little, and with an abrupt sense of perforated reality Angel could see the woman behind the wall of affected indifference, someone he used to know wearing the costume of a stranger. It made his heart stutter and the ambivalence twine in his gut with less equivocal and disturbing feelings - simple anger, among others. God, Buffy looked . . sorry. Sorry and no longer listless, and that made his chest lurch worse than anything else had, because if she felt sorry for him then his transgressions were indeed grave enough to number him amongst the damned. Angel seriously didn't know if he could, didn't know if he could make it another half-hour without falling over from sheer exhaustion, but he'd also known he couldn't do another night of it. Seeing things he wasn't supposed to see, things he never wanted to know. The whole fucked up situation and where exactly it had all gone wrong, walls stripped away to leave them all exposed to him, every sound and pixel clinically precise even in the pitch black. There was no way to imagine this was an accident or a mistake. This was anything but careless. This whole thing pissed him off - the idea that hindsight could tell you anything meaningful at all. Angel didn't turn to face the blonde until she mentioned Justice. Buffy had a way of doing that, saying something in a low, controlled voice that stopped Angel in his tracks and made him reassess the way that he viewed any question at all. As if she could wave her hand and change the axis of the Earth, slide it this way and that until he was forced to refocus, to seek a different frame of reference, and realize that from his new vantage point the entire universe looked a different shade of ambiguous. Silence answered that. Unbearably self-conscious, the vampire studied his hands, feeling his face grow harder by the second. His lips were pressed tightly together as if to keep something inside, something that wanted to make itself known. He could stay still and silent until she was gray and senile. That thought, though, was the last thing he needed. Regret and guilt were familiar; letting them happen when it came to Buffy was habitual; seeking them out was impossible. "You came here to talk about Justice, is that it?" Confusion tightened the skin around his eyes, dragged down the corners of his mouth. One more shadow, a line of dark between his lips, and it matched the narrow spangle of pondwater dark browns. His self-possession was usually so thorough that Angel couldn't help but want to test how far it would stretch. He didn't want to snap the calm that he contained, but bend it, see what it would do under pressure and attention. Maybe he'd been looking for something to happen. He'd never been any good - didn't expect to improve, either - at expecting the normal. Didn't even know what mundane meant. "What do you want from me, Buffy?"
Buffy: Angel didn't move. He didn't speak or even look at her. That made her want to scream and grab his shoulders, to shake him until his head whipped back and forth and he was forced to look at her. None of that came to pass. Instead, she stood still, the vampire holding all of her attention without doing a damn thing. He had ways of doing that. Being completely fascinating without lifting a single finger. That much she'd known the very first time she'd laid eyes on him in the alley way behind the Bronze. She'd told Giles that very night that Angel had been annoying. Truth was, she hadn't wanted him to walk away. Without knowing his story, even without knowing he was a vampire, Buffy had seen something in Angel's eyes that had made her want to know more. There were centuries' worth of wisdom in those dark eyes and she was still captivated by them. Finally, he looked at her. It wasn't a pleasant look, though. Thin lips were drawn into a hard line, his eyes harder than she remembered them being just seconds ago. Mouth opened to defend herself when he asked if she came about Justice, her head shaking side to side. "No, I -- That's not why I came, Angel." Suddenly, she was wondering if this was a good idea. A withering glance to the door was given, remaining there a few seconds too long as if trying to decide the quickest route to the door. She didn't look at him again until he spoke once more, this question even more disconcerting than the last. "What do I want from you?" Like opening a fresh wound, Buffy cringed, the disbelief written on every square inch of her features. "I don't want anything from you, Angel." That was a blatant lie. She wanted anything and everything from him. More than she could ever take, more than she had the right to take. "Why does it have to be this way? We go back and forth constantly to the point where I don't know where the hell we stand. One day, I feel like I understand you. The next, it's like I've never spoken to you in my life." A solitary step was taken in his direction before she made herself still. "Look, Angel. I know you're pissed off at me for what I did. But you would have done the same thing if it were me down there." Desperation overtook disbelief and it was almost like she was begging him to understand. Maybe she was. "I didn't want you to find out that way. Not from her. I was going to tell you." Was she? Buffy had juggled with that decision. Would telling Angel about the deal she'd made have done any good? Well, it didn't matter now. "I just didn't know how." Before repeating herself, another careful step was taken, her arms falling to her sides in a sign of surrender. "You would have done it for me."
Angel: Angel didn't have to pay too much attention to notice her pale, and there was something in her eyes that said he had hit the mark, or close enough, the heaviness in his stomach sinking deeper. He swallowed hard. All the confusion of the past few hours - the last several months - welled up, impossible to contain. Remembering a grief like lead in his stomach, a fist clenched around his heart, so hard he'd thought it would never let go, like salt in wounds he couldn't even name. Caught halfway between fury and bitter speechlessness. "I was supposed to be down there!" He made himself stop, get a grip on the sudden sea of emotion he could feel stretching away beneath him, spreading un-blessedly beyond his sphere of influence. "You know that better than anyone," he whispered, pleading for insight into what she was experiencing. She was the only person left in his life that he felt so close to and, through her silence, he imagined that she was leaving him, too. He could almost touch the immense sadness that gripped her - empathy with an emotion that he knew all too well, himself. Angel didn't let himself think of the others, except as names in a liturgy, chips of mirror on a string, what they were for him. The ones left behind - all of them, all the way from Doyle through to Connor. At the end of the day, he didn't expect anything to be left. Felt disappointed that there was, in fact, another day to come. Countless ones after that. "How many times do I have to fuck up for you to realize that I don't belong here - that we don't belong with each other." There was a tactile vividness to the episode, unlike anything he had ever experienced before. The memories were unbearable to be subjected to, but he couldn't bring himself to fight against the recall. She was the essence of everything warm - a comfort he had rarely known in over two centuries of either of his existences. He had, through the years since regaining his soul, learned to surround himself with items that emanated no warmth - avoiding those things that reminded him of the discrepancy his immortality created between the living world and his own. Everything was smooth, cool to the initial touch. His belongings reflected his state of being. Warmth was life. Buffy was warmth, neither his to possess. Angel's petitioning demeanor succumbed to abject distress. Pain sowed a rut between his expressive brows. "God, Buffy--" he mourned, his chest caving in underneath its black sweater. "You're going to hate me. You're going to hate me more than you can possibly imagine."
Buffy: His raised voice was a sudden rip in the pall of heavy silence that had taken over the room. It caught Buffy off guard, made her flinch away like he'd hit her. Instead of retreating like she wanted to, she stood her ground, eyes trained solely on his own. Already, she could feel the threads that held her together fray and unravel at an alarming rate. Violently, Buffy shook her head, moving closer to him until they were only a few precious feet apart. "No, you weren't! Justice put you there. You weren't supposed to go anywhere. It was a spell." Both of their voices were desperate, longing for the other one to just accept their reasoning. The only problem in that logic was that they were both as bull-headed and stubborn as the other one, both unmoving as stone. When his voice dropped, hers did the same. "I know you've messed up. Everyone does." She felt like she was pleading someone off of a precarious ledge. They'd done this before. "You think I don't know that? That we don't belong together? We've never belonged together. Ever since I've known you, someone has been there to tell me that it was wrong, that we should hate each other." There was a break, her voice cutting off in a short sound of pained agony. The feet between them was reduced to nothing as Buffy closed the gap, her face upturned to search his own. "God, Buffy--You're going to hate me." Familiar warmth pricked at her eyes, but she ignored it, blinking it away as best as she could. "You're wrong. So wrong, Angel. I couldn't hate you. I've tried more times than I can count." A beat passed between them, her hands itching to reach out and touch him if only to reassure herself that he was actually real, that her sacrifice had been for something. Delicately, like she might frighten him if her movements were too erratic, Buffy rested her palm on his chest. "Tell me why you think I could hate you. I made the deal, not you." There was nothing she could do to stop her voice from trembling now. "I couldn't leave you there. I tried to find another way, I did. We looked through every single book we could find. We tried every spell. You think I want to go to hell? It's not exactly my idea of a fun time. But you're here. So, I figure it was worth it."
Angel: He considered the reasons why he had refrained in the past from initiating personal relationships since regaining his soul. There were too many variables to consider not the least of which was how - or if - to reveal himself. And, then, there was his immortality to consider. He tried not to dwell on the fact that, while his mortal counterparts would age, he would not. The euphoria gave way to a leaden feeling, weighted down by the inescapable reality that eventually he would watch the people around him die. Again. Angel's intangible restraint drew tight around him, squeezing away what little solace he had found within the peaceful flat, making him feel colder than he could ever remember being. As he shivered he tried to regain his composure. Sometimes what he felt for Buffy, the love and the need to the point of abject worship - it was just too much. He welcomed any excuse to think on her, to tease apart every small gesture and lack thereof, to focus on words half-spoken and the look in her eyes inked by infernal memory. His conscious mind refused to finish the fantasy, and Angel was left with only beginnings, and this need that smacked of yearning, twisting in his chest and stomach. The images there were stolen, manipulated, and utterly needful and Angel dug the heels of his palms into his eyes and opened his mouth to make a sound that was not quite a word. More a half regretted sigh. "I can't do it again." Deliberate impudence sharpened Angel's usual, blunt delivery. He couldn't - more importantly, he wouldn't - live through her dying again. He didn't remember ever consciously letting her go the last time, but he must have. Maybe time passed and took most of the obsession and passion with it, like erosion, like wind through trees. Pieces moving away, disappearing, impossible to track. He must have, must have resigned himself to something, because she was back now and he welcomed it. If he hadn't let go, he wouldn't feel like this, like something different and new for all the familiar trappings, like she had returned. Even if, maybe because, she'd be going again. Declaring a moratorium on that line of thought, Angel took her by the arms tightly, eyes glittering like sun-struck ice and he refused - he absolutely refused to let her see any tears. The intensity now ramped up exponentially, all the altitude changes of his emotions threatened to give him vertigo. "I can't believe you're being this selfish. Who do you think they care about more? You or me?" The crown of her skull still fit his cheek, still nestled against his face like they'd been carved together, and he stayed like that as long she let him, breathing in the new-old scent of graves and death, girl and light. "Why are you here?"
Buffy: She didn't struggle when Angel seized her arms, didn't even tense or blink. "Selfish? Is that what you think I am? I did this for you, Angel. I don't want to die. A year and a half is a pretty fucking short expiration date. But there's no way I could leave down there. Instead of being angry and calling me selfish, why don't you -- I don't know .. thank me?" Why did she argue? It wouldn't do any good. It never did. In all of their ( many ) arguments, Buffy could never remember a time there was a victor. They'd just hit a wall, both knowing that neither of them would come out better for it and back down. Even back in Sunnydale, when Buffy had tried to reason Angel off of a hill that would be facing sunlight, it wasn't her words that had kept him from being turned to ashes. It was the snow that had blanketed Sunnydale in a matter of minutes. That morning was as clear in her memory as if it had happened moments ago. In her frantic, desperate state, she hadn't even registered the snow. In fact, her first thought had been ashes. Buffy had told herself that ashes were falling from the sky. It would have made more sense than snow, that was for sure. That was only proof that Angel wasn't supposed to die. Not then. Not now. And certainly not because of Justice. The name alone made Buffy sick -- made her want to vomit until the bitter taste was gone. Instead, she gave a relenting sigh, letting her eyes close behind a veil of dark lashes. Was was she here? That seemed to the be popular question of the evening. Angel wanted to know. Buffy wanted to know. Had she known the answer, she would have given one. Buffy had started to realize that the older you got, the less answers you have. Gone were the days where she thought she knew everything. Thought, of course, being the key word. "Look," She pulled away from him just enough so that she could bring both of her hands up to rest her palms on his chest. "I take it back. I don't want you to thank me. But I don't want to sit here and argue, either. That's all we've done for the last five months." He'd pull, she'd pull and eventually, they'd wear themselves down just to start all over again. "I'm tired of fighting you. I don't know when we got to the point where we couldn't just talk to each other without resorting to yelling or name calling." A long silence passed between them, heavy with 'what ifs' and unspoken words. Finally, it was Buffy that broke the silence. "I want you to tell me what it's like, Angel. I want to hear it from you. What is hell like? And don't sugarcoat it for me. I'm a big girl, I can handle it." Hell, she was almost sure, couldn't be any worse than what it was like here. Half the time, she felt like she was already in hell. Maybe she was.
Angel: He definitely wasn't used to having company. He could fight demon swarms in graveyards, graceful and strong, fierce and swift, but alone in his apartment with Buffy he was stiff, barely able to make eye contact. The flickering firelight cast a yellowish tint on her usual creamy pallor, brightening her forced affability. Buffy had always been a study of mood swings - angry, unforgiving, playful, sincere - but never unguarded, never so transparent. Wearing short sleeves and repression, a curiosity-satisfying treasure threatened to tumble at Angel's feet, yet he feared freeing those secrets, unprepared to be their trustee. Breaking off his fixation with the roundness of her face, the exotic slant of her strangely-green eyes, the natural pink of her cupid's-bow mouth, Angel's gaze followed the fall of her hair. Twin fading scars reproached him from under wheaten-blonde shafts. Melancholy triggered his lips. Within the span of one moment, all of his supernatural fortitude had been vanquished. He fought the urge to crumble in the throes of a disagreeable fugue. So internalized, he'd been deaf to his surroundings. Alternating between breathing in her scent and hardly breathing, Angel searched her face for some evidence that she was fibbing, trying to protect him from a cruel truth or anything that would freeze his connection to her. He'd never lost his inclination to flee from her binding tie and she'd always made sure to never give him a reason. "I can't thank you for throwing your life away - not when I've lived over three of them." For a moment, he tried and was pleasantly unsurprised that he could dredge up a memory of her that wasn't entwined with bitterness. He heard the thump of his beating heart, felt the silky strands of blonde hair wrapped around his fingers. Irritated, he waited for the reminiscence to subside. One missing day was nothing compared to over three hundred and sixty-five of them. As if a spell had been cast, her question crept into Angel's consciousness. It unlocked memories, deepened feelings. The out of control replay of recent months crushed his mind, incendiary friction, surrounded on all sides by the crimes he'd committed and the exhilaration he'd felt. Before his life had devolved into one of self-imposed solitary confinement, of remastering self-pity. "You think I want you down there? Do you think I could stand it?" When he spoke, it was from someplace fragile and his voice was whispery, as if he was feeling his way out of the dark, trying to put into words something he hadn't before. He might have planned to bring down Los Angeles, to die somewhere with the rest of them in its broken streets and flooded freeways, but he'd never planned for this. He hadn't expected to make it this far - that much was obvious when he ran a hand through his hair and turned toward the fireplace. Thumb and index finger pocketed by the inner corners of his eyes, Angel pinched the bridge of his nose; he held on, pursed his closed eyes once, twice and inhaled deeply. His lungs relaxed more fully with each moment of the ultra-long exhale. It was a version of taking a ten-minute nap and had become the method of his existence as of late. "Nothing even compares. It's like - it's like rape."
Buffy: If she fought hard enough, Buffy could stir up memories of the two of them, back when they were perfectly content to just be. Late nights in the graveyard, her hands clumsy but sincere and his lips as soft and captivating as his voice. They were supposed to be patrolling, and all they could ever do was act like love-sick teenagers. Then again, that's exactly what she'd been. Looking back at those times made something ache inside, something that reminded her just how human, despite all of her strengths, she really was. And God, was she ever. Tragically and heartbreakingly human. Buffy wasn't like Angel. She couldn't store all of her emotions in some neat little box hidden somewhere behind the statuesque expressions and the dark eyes. She had the burden of carrying her heart on her sleeve for all the world to see when all she really wanted to do was shove it back in her chest where it fucking belonged. Somehow, she knew that even if she did eventually master keeping her emotions at bay, all Angel would have to do was look at her to know exactly what she was feeling. He, unfortunately, knew her like the pages of a well-thumbed book. Now that she thought about it, Buffy had to wonder why he loved her. How could anyone love her when she hated herself with such a passion? Buffy hated the person she'd become. She wasn't always like this, she was sure. When had she become so cynical and angry? It wasn't the kind of anger that just showed its head and left, either. It was the kind of anger that made you hate the world, made you hate the people that you loved. At one point in time, she remembered thinking she was a hero. A hero. God, she'd built herself a soapbox so high that when she finally fell face-first into the mud below, there was no hope of ever climbing back up. So, she'd stay in the mud. "You think I want you down there? Do you think I could stand it?" Funny. He'd asked her the very same words before. It felt like a lifetime ago, but she could remember it plainly. Buffy had found out the Master was going to kill her, and she'd handled it like any other sixteen year old girl would have. "You think I want anything to happen to you? You think I could stand it?" That might have been the only time she'd ever actually hated Angel. There he was, talking to her like he knew what it would be like to die. "You're never gonna die!" But he had. By her hand, no less. "Angel," But she was caught. The words refused to budge and when he turned from her, she could only watch. He looked so worn down, like he'd seen two centuries too many. "Nothing even compares. It's like - it's like rape." And there it was. She almost wished he hadn't of answered her. At the same time, it wasn't enough. She needed to know more. "What did they - what did they to do?" What she was really asking was something along the lines of 'What will they do to me?'
Angel: Angel felt as if he was losing his mind and he was terrified. He felt cold blood in his fists, dripping into the lining of the pockets of his pleated pants. Nails that dug into his palms to keep his hands still, to not reach out and touch because there was nothing there. The months Angel had spent under the ocean with salt and brine in his lungs, in his veins. Currents moving silt around his motionless body, and his eyes were open the entire time but Angel didn't see the fish that swam past him in the dark. He saw green eyes - it was day after day of Buffy in the sunshine. Hell wasn't much different. Not for him. With a twinge of guilt hastily shoved to the back of his mind, he turned back toward her, paper pale features chased by shadow. "It doesn't even matter," and it came out in dark, would-be gasps as he fought for breath against the rising tide of shadow in his own heart. Angel felt the tide of panic recede, felt the breath come again, the nausea pass. Something tight and dark began to unknot within him. All of Angel's senses were so sharp these days, scalpel-edged sight and smell and taste. His ears pounded, noise resonating in a confused din, some small remnant of caution keeping the volume turned down. All blades, clanking and grinding, and he leaned forward, closer to Buffy. Prayer, cartography, absorption: he had no idea what he was seeking, only that he had evil inside him and needed quiet. Needed what comfort Buffy could bring. "Buffy, when I . . Look, there's only one place I'm going to end up after all this." Part of Angel stayed in hell. Part of him always stayed. Part of him stopped fighting for his sanity and gave in, gave up. "If I can convince them to take me back in exchange for you, I'll do it in a heartbeat." God, what Buffy was willing to give up for him was . . he didn't have words for it. There were many things in the world which were beautiful. Art and music and a fine performance of La Sylphide were certainly high on his list. But higher - much higher - was the beauty of a downfall. Angel blamed it on Catholicism - on his upbringing. Raise a child with stories of Lucifer and the sight of lots of crucifixes and you're bound to fuck up the mind somehow. He started to get an appreciation for the horror, for the contrast. For the mouth-watering decadence of seeing bad on top of good. Martyrs, bloodied and dying; the agonies of Christ. And the fall of the highest angel. Buffy wasn't just tasting it all for the first time. She was finding out what it was like to embrace darkness while still holding on to the light. And that, Angel knew personally, was the greatest beauty of them all. It was also the most wonderful torture.
Buffy: She might have been naive, but she wasn't naive enough to believe that Angel had a chance of ending up in heaven after all of this. No, he had a guaranteed spot in hell. And no deal that she could make would save him from that. It didn't matter that Buffy didn't think he deserved hell. She wasn't the one that would decide in the end. Hell, she still wasn't sure how she'd ended up in heaven before. Religion had never been a priority in the Summers home. Joyce had taken them to Christmas mass and the occasional Easter mass, but that was as far as it went. Buffy, even as a small child, would leave the church questioning every single thing that the priest had said. If God was there, he'd forgotten about Buffy a long time ago. And when her mom died, she'd stopped believing in the man upstairs all together. So, you could imagine her surprise when she'd leapt off the tower, only to end up in heaven. Or somewhere like it. And it wasn't fair. It wasn't fair that Angel had worked so hard for so long at atoning for what Angelus had done when there was no real chance at anything resembling atonement. Angel was a champion, for God's sake. And he had a reserved seat in the VIP section in hell. How was that fair? "If I can convince them to take me back in exchange for you, I'll do it in a heartbeat." Buffy wanted to laugh. Even more than that, she wanted to cry. "It's too late, Angel. He -- the demon -- told me that if we tried to find a way out of it, I die on the spot. So just .. don't. Okay?" She might have said that they should enjoy the time they did have left, but the words stuck in her throat, blocked by some invisible force. "I know .. I know that you think I acted irrationally, that it's something I just threw myself into. You're wrong." Whatever distance was between them, Buffy closed with a few careful steps, like she were afraid he'd up and bolt. "I fought everyday to get you back. I looked through every book, every spell .. Willow must have tried the restoration spell a dozen times. And each time, I'd let myself think that you'd just show up. But you never did. It was just him." There was no need to say Angelus' name, because they both knew who she was talking about. It was the same monster that had a recurring spot in her nightmares as of late. "This was a last resort. If I hadn't of tried, I would've had to live knowing that I could have gotten you out." Vision became blurry, signaling the tears that just begged to make the journey down her flushed cheeks. "And I don't think I can handle you being angry at me for it, Angel." Finally, a rogue tear made the brave journey, leaving a silvery track in its wake. "I love you." She felt something rip inside, something that she'd been clinging to so desperately for so long. Inwardly, she even heard the rip, though she doubted that there was any kind of external sign of the agony. "Just don't .. just don't be angry."
Angel: He wanted to say he was sorry, again. For everything. So many apologies, from all quarters; that was all there was here, sorry and regret, dismissing her own apology, replacing it with his own - and he couldn't help but pull even closer. His body understood long before his mind could grasp what he was seeing. Even as he pulled Buffy against his chest, holding her back from the veil’s settling whisper, his fingertips prickled, stung and were numb. Loss had never been a subtle creature, and it announced its presence with typical cruelty, ripping away the means by which he'd assured himself of Buffy these long, dark, months. Were it not for her, Angel might've drifted into nothingness, settled into ash, content and cold. But Buffy had no respect for solitude and silence; she coaxed and wheedled, bribed and demanded until Angel gave in. Hell, he shouldn't have a soul, shouldn't be a vampire. He should've been in some anonymous grave in Galway, the stone blanked out by almost three centuries of rain and wind, half a world away and unknown to her. Never named 'Angel' in the first place. He should've been reaching the end of his ration of miracles: soul, snow, son. Now this. When she professed her love for him he tried not to inwardly wince. That got him; he felt her stiffen and - not pull away, exactly, because he remained perfectly still, but it was like his skin set, like plaster, and his eyes shut down, a spill of bitterness that consented to tremble with the years that lapped at their edifice. Angel frowned, his whole expression falling. More than that: collapsing. Felt the uncertainty of it all in the palm of his hand, in the strands of hair that slid between his fingers; sleepy and fractious, disconcerted. He brushed aside the tear that slid down her cheek with the back of a knuckle. "You don't deserve this." He remembered why he'd left her the first time. That day was long past and she was here now, arms around Angel again, and that was all that should matter to him. Not that he thought she was just the innocent caught in the crossfire. I've been thinking - about our future. And the more I do, the more I feel like us, you and me being together, is unfair to you. That's what it came down to, Angel thought. To have gone through the experience of being placed above and far beyond human was one thing - and indeed, his perception was always filled to bursting, his capacity for sensation increased a thousandfold. He would be mad if it hadn't. Probably was, anyway. Certain comforts just weren't there anymore, but Buffy was. He was choking on everything he wanted to say, every unasked question and frantic thought, a limitless rush of how could this have happened? They always ended up like this. It didn't matter where they started from, sex or fighting or desperately chaste making out, it was always this. His lids hooded his eyes and his mouth tightened, the tendon on his jaw leaping out. "You're one of only two good things I've ever known," he finally whispered, bewilderment a tempering force against grief that would claw him thought from thought. "In your eyes, I'm - better. Much better than I actually am." Angel wanted to wince, his whole expression falling in on itself, like marble cracking apart. "God, it's not enough time, Buffy."
Buffy: Sometimes, a lot of the time, Buffy almost wished she'd never met Angel. How many heartaches and sleepless nights filled with damp pillows and too-sweet dreams would have been avoided? She wouldn't have had to feel the ache of being the one left behind three times. Only two. She'd always blamed Angel for that, on some level. For Riley leaving, for her dependence on Spike. Hearts were stubborn things, and when Angel had left, she'd not once been able to give away her heart completely. Riley had known it, so he'd left. Spike had known it long before she did, and he'd used it against her. And it all went back to Angel. If she'd never met him, if he'd never brought that velvet voice and dark, wise eyes into her life she'd be happier. At least, that's what she told herself for all of a few seconds before taking it all back and thanking whatever fucked up destiny had brought them together in the first place. Fate was one cruel bitch, Buffy had learned to realize. It brought them together only to tear them apart each and every time. Their history wasn't all dark, of course. She could remember a time when, in her eyes, he'd been the only point of light in a never-ending tunnel of darkness. Willow and Xander, they were amazing and she loved them, but Angel had been the one to really understand her. Back then, she reminded herself. Understanding whatever Buffy had become now, even for Angel, was not something she figured to be an easy task. He thought she was better than what she really was. Angel hadn't watched her change into a shadow of herself when she'd been brought back to life. Not a day went by that Buffy wasn't thankful for Angel being gone, then. Because if he was there, she didn't think he could have loved her. She sure as hell hadn't been the same girl that he'd fallen in love with. An entire year passed and all she could do was picture herself crawling back into that grave. It got better. For the most part. Some days, more frequent the last couple of months, she still found herself day dreaming of digging her own grave. On the flipside, Buffy wasn't ready to die. No one ever really was. "You don't deserve this." Tongue tacky and dry, the blonde struggled with the right words. Everything sounded wrong in her head. Finally, she gave up on trying to speak and just watched him. That face, the well-loved face that she could trace from memory, looked so sad that Buffy wanted to break down and weep. More than anything, she wanted to see him smile. Like he might fracture in her hand, her fingers lifted to the hand that had just brushed her tear away, pressing his cool knuckle to her lips. When he spoke of how she saw him, the smile that she forced to her lips looked just that: forced. "Yeah, well, I could say the same to you." His next words made something click. The hesitation was written across her features, making her brows stitch. Talk about de'ja vu. Buffy could remember saying those words to him, but she couldn't place the where or the why or even the when. Just the words. Finally, she shook herself from her cessation and looked back up at him. "Angel, I'm not even supposed to be alive. I died years ago. Technically, it's more than enough time."
Angel: Angel had the distinct - and unpleasant - feeling that he was losing this round. Buffy was still so much herself, if not as careful and - earnest was a weak word, but it was the closest Angel could come to describing his usual sense of the woman. Constant, and convinced that the world didn't know that. Even if neither of them were in the best shape. People could be broken in two ways, he knew. One was quick, and sharp. Pressure applied to just the right point at just the right time and snap. They were broken into parts like kindling. The other was slower. Longer. And you didn't break so much as bend. Pressure was applied, but it was a different kind, and it was the kind you didn't even realize was there until the curve had become a part of you - had you clutching onto evil while you still had a soul. "I can't tell you it's all right," he said, the same flat tone he'd used since she got here. Polite, but flat, like he wasn't entirely sure how to talk to her. His communication was all in shifts of the gaze, changes in posture, pale and spectral, the smallest gesture - a shrug, a knock of the shoulders. What it all came down to was the fact that Angel had never been very good at any of this, not when he was human, not when he wasn't, not after the soul; a millstone, or an albatross. Something heavy and choking and pulling him places he'd rather not have been. One more pathetic obligation he'd found himself ensnared in. He knew this tirade by heart, could recite it verbatim. Before he said anything else, Angel turned away, shrugging out of their embrace. It always came back to sight or a facsimile thereof: I loved you the first time I saw you, he told her once. I saw your heart. And his non-heartbeat felt like it hammered now. "I can't look anywhere else," he said and felt the garden move like water behind her. "I'm so mad at you but I can't look away." So much history between them, habits and familiarity, and he felt right when he was next to her, when he was inside. And he wanted something from her, but damned if he was going to say what. He wanted her to kill him, wanted her to save him, he probably didn't even know what he wanted from her. Wanted to play the asshole so she'd be safe. But guilt was only the first step, and he'd spent so much time wrapped in it tight as arms, as a straitjacket. You feel guilty so you count off rosary-beads, you confess, you try and make it better. Angel didn't think he could even enter a church anymore; expiation was very far away. "You shouldn't have come."
Buffy: Of course he couldn't tell her that it was all right. Nothing was right. Absofuckinglutely nothing. She didn't know what she wanted him to tell her. Hell, maybe she did want Angel to tell her that everything was fine. It would have been a nice lie, anyway. At this point, Buffy would settle for believing in a lie. She'd always been good at self deception, after all. Lying to herself came naturally. "I know it's not. Nothing's right, anymore." A pause, a breath, and Buffy was right back to fighting for the words that didn't want to budge from her chest. "I really fucking hate Cleveland." Seemingly out of place, the words held more meaning than they should have. Everything had gone to hell in Buffy's life when she'd moved here. Funny, since she'd just wanted to do the right thing, to help people. "I guess the road to hell really is paved with good intent." Instead of nearly laughing, Buffy didn't try to hold back the terse, bitter laugh. It seemed funny enough to her, anyway. Before she had the chance to stop him, to pull him closer and ask him not to pull away. He always pulled away. "I'm so mad at you but I can't look away." That's all it took to make her feel like she was caving in on herself. She'd fought so hard for so long to get him back, and now it felt like he was farther away from her than ever before. It didn't matter that she could physically touch him, could reach out and hold him if he let her -- she felt miles away. And she had no idea if it would ever get better. That, without a doubt, was the worst part in all of this. Robotic, Buffy only nodded when he said she shouldn't have come. "Yeah, I'm starting to realize that, too." So, it was back to this. Back to the withering glances and the carefully thought about words. "Just promise me something, okay?" Sighing, Buffy ran her hands down the sides of hips, like she might have been trying to rub something off of her hands. It was a nervous habit she'd never been able to quite drop along the way. "Promise me you won't stay mad at me forever, okay?" Forever, of course, being a year and half in this case.
Angel: He suddenly felt his age. He tried to recall his activities since arriving and everything seemed as if he had done it months ago, years even. It felt to him as if time was in stasis, that he had been standing here for days instead of just a few minutes - that he had aged another century in the week since his resurrection. And he'd been thinking. Thinking about her, obviously. Thinking about how much they'd both changed. Thinking the past wasn't a country either of them should be living in anymore, considering their collective crimes. Angel tried to fight the dizzy, euphoric feeling that was causing him to feel this way but it was useless. His concentration dissolved when he realized his indiscretion. He had been careless - another sign of fatigue. Looking back, he empathized with the weariness dark-shadowing her green-hazel eyes. The corners of his lips torquing sympathetically, he almost said her name, almost said something that might have been consolatory. In the end, though, he chose to remain silent. Gradually, the physical pull of desire became just another facet of his antipathy. An impartial observer of the scene in his apartment that night might have missed these subtleties that Angel saw and felt. What he had not known, had hidden even from himself, was that his real reason for leaving was because he could not face the thought of living without Buffy. So with twisted logic he had run away, rather than stay and enjoy whatever time they had together. It more than deja vu. And having made the break, it seemed like he was too much of a coward to go back. That was the cusp of it, of course. His feelings. Deep within himself he had shuddered to think of living without her, of returning to that state of solitary confinement before Sunnydale, all his fire extinguished by the depth of his grief, until all that was left were the embers of vengeance. And a longing for death. Palms strumming the front of his thighs strung tight with tension, Angel watched her. He was so still, so disciplined in his motionlessness. "Take care of yourself."
Buffy: This wasn't her life, she was sure. Not the one she was supposed to have, anyway. Had Merrick not found her sitting on the front steps of her school, an oblivious expression on the fifteen year old's face and a cherry lollipop in hand, she might have had a pretty great life. One where she didn't have to know what went bump in the night. By now, who knows what she would have been doing. A doctor, or maybe even an ice skater. She always had been obsessed with Dorothy Hamil. But Buffy knew the truth. That life wasn't for her. Besides, she wouldn't have ever met her friends, she wouldn't have Dawn, and she wouldn't trade any of them for the world. Didn't mean she couldn't fantasize about it, every now and then. I can't believe this is happening. Such seemed to be her motto, as of late. Neither of them said anything for a long time. Both of them just watched. When he did speak, Buffy wished he'd hadn't. "Take care of yourself." Face fell for a single moment before she took a deep breath, composing herself and doing her best to make her face like stone. Like Angel. But Buffy wasn't like Angel. She'd never been good at stuffing her emotions down inside and when she did, she did it for too long, to the point where it became her natural defense. And Buffy hated herself when she did that. But now, that's exactly what she did. The anger, the betrayal, she pushed all of it down and hid it behind a tensing jaw and a purse of her lips. Why, she wanted to ask, do we have to do this? But she never did. Instead, Buffy took another, steadying breath. Right then, it was the only thing that was keeping her from collapsing or from saying something she'd regret. So she didn't speak at all. Buffy looked at him a moment longer, as if waiting for him to say something else, something that would make her stay. He didn't. Fingers curled into fists so tight that she could feel the skin of her palms give under the pressure. When Buffy turned from him, she felt like she couldn't breathe. Buffy didn't think twice about slamming the door behind her.