aaronlisa (aaronlisa) wrote in fadeddreaming, @ 2009-02-21 16:27:00 |
|
|||
Current mood: | okay |
Current music: | fleetwood mac - dreams |
[buffy] escorting her home
Title: Escorting Her Home
Author: aaronlisa
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Pairing/Characters: Willow Rosenberg/Angel, mentions of Giles, Xander and Buffy
Rating: FR13
Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer belongs to Joss Whedon and company. “The Power of Love” belongs to Frankie Goes to Hollywood.
Prompts: Written for rua1412 who requested the pairing and the song. Also written for the 2008-9 round of LJ's winter_of_angel.
Notes: Set in between Seasons One & Two, very AU.
Summary: He found himself full of longing every time they reached her doorstop.
Word Count: 818
I’ll protect you from the hooded claw
Keep the vampires from your door
It had started out innocently with Angel escorting Willow home after she had spent a long night in the library researching or trying to compile a database on the computer of all of Giles’ books and scrolls. By the time that Willow was willing to call it a night, no matter how reluctant she was to return to her empty home, Giles and Xander would already have made their way to their homes and their beds.
Throughout the first month of summer when Buffy was in Los Angeles spending time with her father, forgetting about her friends and pretending that she wasn’t the Slayer, Angel never found the words to ask Willow why she never wanted to go home. He desperately wanted to know, but he never felt as if he was close enough to the shy red-headed girl whom he escorted home every night. All they ever talked about was Buffy, vampires, monsters and her research work. Yet he found himself full of longing every time they reached her doorstop and he watched her enter her house.
Feels like fire
I’m so in love with you
Dreams are like angels
They keep bad at bay – bad at bay
Love is the light
Scaring the darkness away – yeah
He would often stand outside of her house, hidden in the shadows in case she would look out of the window, and he would allow himself to dream. Angel would dream of what ifs: what if Willow was the Slayer, what if he wasn’t a vampire, what if there was no Hellmouth, what if…
Before long, he would find himself filled with shame as he fled the quiet street her house was on for his apartment as dawn started to paint the sky in shades of pinks, golds and reds. Angel knew that he was falling for Willow in a way that he had never fallen for anyone else and he tried his best to remain aloof from her. Every morning when he was in his apartment, he vowed that he wouldn’t be the one to walk her home from the library, that he would insist that Giles drove her home. Yet when night fell and he made his way to the library and he saw Willow sitting in front of her computer, with her hair tied up and a look of concentration on his face, his resolve would fade away.
By the time the second month of summer had rolled around, Angel found himself becoming more and more jealous of Xander. The boy could casually touch Willow and no one thought anything of it. Every time, Xander was in the library, Angel wanted to rip the boy into pieces. His jealousy and anger almost prevented him from noticing that Willow would often recoil from Xander’s careless and meaningless caresses. It wasn’t anything obvious but instead of leaning into his touch like she once would have, she would pull back ever so slightly. Those infinitely small movements filled Angel with hope.
Purge the soul
Make love your goal
They were walking the familiar path to her house once more. In a few days, Buffy would be back and school would start up again. Things would be different and Angel knew that he would no longer have this time with Willow, yet he was still uncertain of her feelings. He knew that he loved her but he wasn’t sure if she felt anything but indifference towards him. They never really spoke of anything personal when he escorted her home, although he had learned that she hated going home to an empty house because her parents were in Europe on some sabbatical or other. He had also learned that she was debating about going to Oxford so that she could become a Watcher when she graduated.
Yet the one thing that he most wanted to know, he was still in the dark about. Did she feel for him as he felt for her? Did the looks she gave him every now and then when they were in the library and on their walks meaning anything at all?
When they stopped in front of her house, Angel could no longer wait for some sign that she felt more for him. He stopped her with a gentle hand on her arm and she turned to face him, her green eyes wide as she stared up at him.
They stood like that for a few moments until Willow stood up on her tiptoes and placed a chaste kiss on his lips. He growled as he pulled her closer to him and deepened the kiss. She sighed as her arms wrapped around him and she leaned into him.
When they pulled apart, Angel could see the love in her eyes. And at that moment it was answer enough to all of his questions.
**END**