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Until It Ends

Chapter Text

Until it Ends

 

"It hurts."

Angel didn't reply, but then, Willow didn't really expect him to say anything. He was never much for talking, at least not to her. Maybe with Buffy, but it was hard to think about her so-called best friend right now, even though she was all Willow could think about. Well, she and Xander were.

"I mean, I know he's had a crush on her since the day they met, and I know he's never going to see me that way, but she knows - she knows how I feel about him and she still...oh my gosh. Angel! I am so sorry. I didn't mean...I'm sure she didn't mean anything by it, I mean I know how she feels about you and this is probably all just some weird acting-out thing, but..."

"It hurts."

He smiled slightly as he spoke, but he wasn't mocking her. His expression was neither dismissive nor sarcastic. In fact, she wasn't quite sure what emotion was in his eyes, what feeling lay unexpressed by his taciturn mouth.

"Yeah."

Suddenly, she was as quiet as he was. The silence was awkward, but there was something in his mien that forestalled her from breaking it and it went on. It would go on until he allowed it to end.

She didn't realize at first, when his hand somehow wound up holding hers. By the time she noticed, she knew her hand had been in his for some time. Still, she didn't speak, her tongue tingling and heavy with the effort, unused as she was to shared silence, as afraid as she was to waste time not spent alone on the silence she knew too many days when she walked into her oft-empty house.

Then he began to walk and she was compelled to follow, his hand still holding fast to hers. The walking helped. She focused on each step, counting them in her head, a substitute for speech that was meager, but it served. She was unaware of where they were headed thanks to her diverted focus, but it didn't matter. A powerful demon was leading her by the hand and that served as quite fine protection in Sunnydale, at least if one kept clear of the cemeteries and other hot spots. Which they did.

After a while, Willow realized that they now stood in front of her house, its darkened windows and palpable emptiness as familiar to her as the warmth of lights and a home-cooked meal waiting would be to most of her classmates. She looked into Angel's face, her plea shining from her eyes. His own seemed to give permission and she spoke.

"How did you know where I live?"

He was quiet for another moment and she could almost see the scales as he weighed his words. She wondered why. How difficult a question was this to answer?

"I've followed you home before," He paused, his eyes once again hooded and his expression inscrutable. Just when Willow thought that was the end of it, he said, "To make sure you were safe."

She was more confused than ever. First, because she'd never realized that he'd followed her and it made her feel strangely afraid - knowing that someone could do that without her knowledge. Second, because she wondered why a basically innocent answer was one to which Angel had needed to give so much thought. For a moment she wondered if there was something he wasn't saying. But then again, with Angel, wasn't there always?

She was glad when the silence returned and she wished she hadn't broken it in the first place, though she was more perplexed by her own unease than anything else. She took comfort in the fact that, the next time they saw each other, he would be back on Buffy's arm where he should be and they'd both be acting as if tonight - none of it - had ever happened. Maybe that made her a doormat, but it was best, and somehow she could tell that Angel was like her that way - not wanting to do anything that might risk losing the ones - or one, in his case - that they loved. It wasn't worth it, especially since swallowing one's pride and keeping the peace always meant that things went right back to normal. Sometimes that was even a good thing.

She could almost see their next evening at the Bronze unfolding in her mind like a play. Buffy would be there with Angel, gazing adoringly at him as she always did, and maybe Xander would finally get the message and start looking elsewhere...maybe, just maybe, in the direction of the girl he'd known since kindergarten. Her vision buoyed her well-honed optimism and she was about to offer a few words of hope to Angel when she found she couldn't speak...because Angel was kissing her.

It was strange and awkward and she hadn't for one second seen it coming. It was addictive and thrilling in a way that was terrible and felt just like the sin she was pretty sure she didn't believe in. This was the moment where she was supposed to be pushing him away and protesting that Buffy was her very - best - friend and they should not be doing this, but somehow that wasn't happening.

Her arms were around him the same way his were around her and she was pretty sure that wasn't her mouth that her tongue was in. His eyes were open and looking at her and she knew he knew exactly who he was kissing. She wanted to close hers, to escape the same knowledge, but the growl she heard when she did so briefly made her open them right up again. She was here, right in front of her dark, quiet house. Angel was kissing her; she was kissing Angel.

It went on - just like the silence she'd not broken until he permitted it. It would be the same with this kiss. She wondered what would happen when it ended. She knew that she didn't really want to know. It went on.

The End.

Chapter Text

And So it Begins

 

"It hurts."

Willow's words were hardly necessary, but Angel found it somehow comforting that she spoke them, all the same. He was so alone that any sort of companionship, even mutual heartbreak, was almost grotesquely welcome. He offered nothing in reply, though, believing that anything he said would be presumptuous. Did she really want to share something personal, even a sense of betrayal, with a vampire?

She kept talking, however, and Angel was surprised at how easy it seemed to be for her to unburden herself to him, how unguarded and open she was. It was as if they were friends.

"I mean, I know he's had a crush on her since the day they met, and I know he's never going to see me that way, but she knows - she knows how I feel about him and she still...oh my gosh. Angel! I am so sorry. I didn't mean...I'm sure she didn't mean anything by it, I mean I know how she feels about you and this is probably all just some weird acting-out thing, but..."

"It hurts." He spoke. He felt compelled to, to let her know he was listening to her, that he cared about her feelings and that he shared them. It seemed to him that he wasn't the only one who'd been hurt, who felt lonely and lost. He smiled slightly at the thought, though he wasn't quite sure why.

She was looking at him intently, her brow creased slightly in that adorable way it always did when she was thinking. Would it frighten her to know that he'd observed her well enough to be aware of all her expressions and what they meant?

"Yeah." She was silent now, uncertain of what to say because she couldn't tell what he was thinking. There was something disquieting about the fact that he was finding a sort of pleasure in having the power to affect her so strongly.

The silence went on, but no matter how uncomfortable she became, she didn't say a word. The sense of control and dominance that gave him...that was something he didn't want to ponder too intently.

As she became lost in her own unease, he found himself reaching for her hand, taking it in his. Her hand was soft, uncalloused by stakes or hardened by fighting; he could feel the agility in her fingers, the agility that was an extension of a mind even more adept and clever. She made no move to withdraw, unconscious of the fact that her hand was being held at all. He reveled in the moment and allowed himself to enjoy the contact while it lasted, letting her warmth seep into his skin.

He began to walk, her hand remaining in his grip, though now she was certainly aware of their contact, as she was staring, seemingly transfixed, at the way his fingers fit around her own. She allowed him to lead her down the darkened streets of Sunnydale. It was both exhilarating and troubling that she remained lost in some world of her own, trusting him to keep her safe from all the creatures he could feel in the shadows who longed to prey on the oblivious girl. Did she realize what it meant to give herself over so completely to the care and protection of a demon? Or what it would mean, he amended, if he didn't have a soul so thoroughly pledged to humanity.

They kept walking, her silence a struggle he could feel in the weight of the bones in each slim finger as he kept hold of her hand. But she held her tongue, obedient despite the fact that it must almost have been physically painful for her. There were images that obedience brought to life in his mind, images of things he had no right to think of an innocent girl.

He found his way to Willow's house with ease, and it was obvious she was shocked to realize that he had not had to ask her for directions. Her eyes begged for permission to speak. He granted it with his own, wanting desperately to believe that it wasn't arousal her submission was stirring within him.

"How did you know where I live?"

What should he say to that? "I've followed you home before." He paused for a moment. There was a reason, but how to put it into the right words, the words that would not give rise to more questions, questions he did not want to have to answer. "To make sure you were safe."

He had told the truth, after a fashion, though that wasn't all of it. Oh how he wished it was. If only keeping her safe was an end unto itself, instead of having a motivation he'd not dared to look at too closely, or at all.

She seemed to sense that there was something left unsaid. Damn her for her bright mind and her intuitive nature.

Surprisingly (or maybe he only wished it were surprising), she said nothing, despite her visible curiosity. Once more, she obeyed his unspoken wishes and held herself in check, leaving him to drown in the implications of what he could no longer pretend he didn't feel.

What exactly was he feeling, though? It was easier to acknowledge that something was there than it was to understand just what that something was. He loved Buffy. He knew that. What lay between them was everything he remembered about love from the days before he knew that humanity was something that could be ripped out of the body, leaving a soulless mockery of the man it comprised. Not that he'd been in love in his human days, of course, but he knew what it was like, he knew that he loved Buffy, and he knew that what he felt for Willow was nothing like what he felt for her best friend.

It wasn't lust either, though, certainly not like any lust he'd known as man or demon. It wasn't base or crude; this was something complicated...something frighteningly like what he'd felt for Drusilla. But it couldn't be that. That obsession had been borne of his demon, the demon held hostage by the soul, the demon he no longer was.

Willow was still there, beside him, her hand still in his, her pale skin glowing softly in the moonlight, and she was about to speak. When she did, they would part and he would be alone, alone with his thoughts, and without her.

He had to stop thinking and he had to stop her from going inside. So he did the only thing he could do to quiet his mind and keep her with him: he kissed her.

As soon as his lips met hers, he was lost - lost in the taste and the smell of her, lost in the silk-satin feel of her skin, lost in the way she clung to him, as eager for him as he was for her. She was innocence and temptation, redemption and damnation, she was a fire that was going to consume him and leave nothing for the fight he was pledged to and the world he was sworn to save.

He didn't stop kissing her. Instead, he held her closer, exploring her warm mouth with his tongue and nibbling at her lower lip with the tips of the fangs he couldn't prevent from dropping down. He wondered if she could feel the ridges of his true face as she kissed him back. If she did, she didn't seem to care. The thought that she might accept him, desire him - vampire and all - aroused him further and he tried not to think about what this might mean.

There was one thing he knew, however. This would not be the last time he held her in his arms.

He let her breathe for a moment and kissed her again. She made no move to stop him. The kiss went on.

The End.