disclaimer in part 1
This part is rated NC-17 for B/A sexual content.
Swan Song
By Diane
-----
THE UNION OF SOULS


"No. No way," Buffy cried, leaping up from her seat nestled
against Angel's warm body. "Find another way..."

She stared at Wesley, hard and long, daring him to defy her.
Daring him to tell her that for the second time in as many
days, someone she loved had to die.

Wesley frowned. "There is no other way. It's prophesized
right here..." he replied, gesturing to the scroll.

That got her. That really got her. Anger bubbled up out of
her system and she exploded like a keg of C-4 on a trip
release. BAM! "Damn you and your scrolls," she screamed,
stalking up to her ex-watcher and grabbing him by the lapels
of his coat. The scroll fluttered to the floor. "I'm not
doing this again! Find another way now, or you'll regret
you ever came back!"

Wesley's eyes were wide with shock, face stricken, but he
said nothing.

There was a warm hand on her back, another gripping her
shoulder. "Buffy..." Angel's whisper was soft, commanding,
and soothing as it drifted across the warm flesh of her ears
and the back of her neck.

At the touch, she started to tremble. "I'm sorry," she
whispered towards Wesley as Angel guided her away.

The second Angel had ushered her upstairs and into her
bedroom, she started to sob. Tears came pouring down her
face like April rain, drenching her cheeks as he held her,
saying nothing. She burrowed into the warmth of his chest,
listened to the soothing beat of his heart.

"I can't do this again... I can't do this again... I just
started thinking I could and I can't. I can't, I can't, I
can't..." she moaned, clutching at his black cotton shirt as
if she expected him to blow away into dust at any moment.

His arms wrapped tighter around her, and he rocked her.
Back and forth. Back and forth. Silent and yet so
expressive, in his own, Angel way.

"Angel, you can't go... You can't go. We'll have to fight
the Mohras... They can't be infinite in numbers..."

"Buffy," Angel sighed, "You know that we can't do that. You
_know_ it. Even if their numbers aren't infinite, what are
you going to do the third time that portal opens and there
are a thousand of them. What are you going to do?"

She blinked, the feeling of dread welling up inside her.
Utter despair. < Tell me I need to kill my sister. > "Then
I'm going with you. Not Spike."

"Buffy, they'll need your help with the Mohra's. You're a
better fighter than Spike -- the only ones in the entire
group who can engage in combat to any deadly extent are
Gunn, Wesley, and Giles. Even Wesley's not a sure bet,
though. He's a crack shot, but in hand-to-hand he's
weaker."

"I don't care," she whispered, surprised that she was even
saying it. She did care. She more than cared. Leaving
Willow, Cordelia, Xander, Anya, and Fred to do all the heavy
fighting in her place simply wouldn't work. It wouldn't.

She started crying again.

"Hey," he whispered, kissing the top of her head with a soft
brush of his lips. "Hell spit me out once. Who's to say I
taste any better this time..."

She sobbed into his chest.

She couldn't do this again. She couldn't. She couldn't,
she couldn't, she couldn't. "There's gotta be another way,"
she protested weakly to his comforting embrace.

"Even if there was, Buffy, what are the odds we'd find it in
the next thirty minutes before we have to leave and stake
out the battle site?"

Always the voice of reason.

Damn him.

Damn him.

Damn him.

She shoved her fist part-way into her mouth and bit down
hard, a sob flowing from her lips like blood. She hadn't
meant it. She really hadn't...

He pulled her hand away from her mouth, gently, the touch
of silk, and she stared up at him. "Don't do that," he
said.

She whimpered. "Angel..."

She felt cold inside. Cold, and dead, and alone...

< Tell me I have to kill my sister... >

"I want to go. Instead of you..." she whispered.

"No."

"Please?"

"No, Buffy. You're barely twenty. I'm 247. 273 if you
count before I was turned."

"What's that got to do with anything? In human years,
you're twenty-six," she protested, but she knew it was a
terrible argument. "You're only twenty-six..."

Angel would win. For the first time, Angel would win.
She knew already that he would win, and she felt her heart
breaking. Shattering apart. Tumbling down through the
gaps in her insides.

She started to shiver.

"Buffy, I don't want to die, I really don't. But I'm ready.
I've been ready for a long time," Angel whispered.

She bit her lip as she turned and stroked his cheek, feeling
the pain in her chest even more. Growing, biting, clutching
at her heart.

"It may not have been real, but I still remember everything.
I'm ready, Buffy. Don't make this harder." His voice
cracked at the end. Cracked, and broke. She knew, then,
that he was lying. He wasn't ready at all.

"Noble bastard," she cried, a sob hitching in her throat as
she collapsed into him again.

Then she felt it.

He started to tremble.

A small drop of wetness fell onto the back of her neck,
searing as it slid down with the slope of her spine. She
reached up and brushed his cheek, her hand coming back damp,
sparkling in the dim light.

"Angel," she whimpered, running her hands up under his
shirt. Silk. Warm, and heaving. Weak against her. Warm.
Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Beating against
her ear like the drumming of a tympani. That sound was her
heaven. "Please..."

"We can't," Angel moaned, sighing into her hair. "Not
now..."

Collapse. Collapsing into her. Tumbling down. Thump-
thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Blinking, she peered at
him, almost melting under his ragged, crushing gaze.
"Angel?"

"What."

She clutched at his shoulders, denting her nails into his
skin roughly. "Shut up."

And then she fell into him, capturing his lips in a
desperate, frantic display of lust. She sucked at his lower
lip, his upper... Plunged her tongue into his inviting
mouth...

He moaned against her, a soft whimper that was standing on
the razor line between pleasure and pain. Threatening to
tumble into either one with the slightest jostle.
Teetering. Tottering... He couldn't have refused her even
if he'd wanted to.

She grabbed him and plunged into pleasure, toppling onto the
bed with him in tow. "Buffy..." he whispered as she
grappled with his shirt, lifting it up over his head.

His chest was an array of heaving, sculpted muscles.
More so, even, than she remembered it. She ran her nails up
along the curves of his rippling abdominals, up to his
chest... Back down, circling around his navel, and then
trailing lower.

Sweat.

Heat.

Soap. Inhaling. He smelled like Ivory soap...

His crushing grip pulled her to him as if he were trying to
pull her into himself, into his skin, make her a part of
him. "Buffy..." Lips. His lips were all across the back
of her neck, her ears, face...

His voice was strangled, riddled with desire as his large
hands slid under her shirt. Unclasped her bra. Free. And
then her shirt was off, her lacy bra slipping uselessly from
her shoulders and breasts. Without so much as a glance, he
grabbed it and flung it to the side.

Teeth, lips, trailing down her front. She shivered as he
made a circle around her left areola, gasping. "Touch
me..." she pleaded as she arched into him, her teeth
threatening to start chattering as he moved lower, and
lower.

Devastating warmth blanketed her body.

God, he was so warm. So warm and so gorgeous. So hers...

Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Thump-thump.

Same, steady beat, except faster now. Racing some race that
couldn't be won...

His confined erection ground up against her and she clutched
frantically at his shoulders. His hair. Anything that
would keep her afloat as the world began tumbling down
around her in mindless abandon.

She fumbled with his belt, the buckle echoing with the
sounds of their frenzied breathing. He writhed on top of
her, and his pants slid down. Followed by his black silk
boxers. Thud. He kicked them away from his feet and they
fell limply to the floor.

His length brushed against her stomach and she reached down
for it, running her fingers along the underside, cupped him.
Kissing her, Angel let a muffled whine tumble into her mouth
as he bucked in her grasp.

The world seemed to blur. Primal desperation.

Her panties were gone...

Fire, across her skin. His lips screamed down her flesh.

Hands.

Nipping. Sucking. Teasing.

Dizzy.

She cried out as he entered her, a tiny whimper that broke
the desperate, heaving silence. Warm, inviting. He slid in
and out of her, caressing her from the inside out with the
silk touch of his uncircumcised length. Her hands felt his
muscles ripple as he undulated on top of her.

Falling, falling, falling, she was falling... "Catch me..."

He savaged her with his roaming hands, licked her soul clean
with his kisses. "Buffy, Buffy, Buffy..." he grunted, his
tone getting more and more and more and more...

He clung to her, clung desperately.

He was falling, too.

Falling into her.

Her arms snaked around his thin waist and yanked him down
roughly. Into her. "Please, Angel..."

He became a slave to his own desire, switching from smooth,
altering speeds, to a desperate, steady pistoning. Sweat
sheen, across his glistening skin. Whimpering into him,
she begged again, felt the clench of her abdominal muscles,
tightening in anticipation.

The silence exploded around them in coupled release. He
spilled into her, jerking and lost in passionate oblivion.
She clawed frantically at him as everything unclenched at
once, sending her into the throes of dizzying abandon.
Clawed desperately.

The last time. The last time.

This was the last time.

He was sucking in air like he was drowning in it as he
collapsed on top of her, and they lay there, panting,
silent. He rolled off of her body when he had regained
enough of his senses, but his arms stayed wrapped around
her. Possessive. Tight.

"God, I love you, Angel..." she whispered into his heaving
chest, his heat still flowing across his skin. She stared
at him in the gleaming light. Naked. A god. His eyes
drank her in and she crumbled there.

"I love you," he responded, his voice heavy and laden with
angst.

The last time.

"Please, let me go instead," she whispered, one last try at
the impossible.

"No."

That snapped him out of the peaceful, resigned mood.

He stood, releasing her. She felt crushed in the sudden
lack of his warm touch, and in the silence. His soft, even
breaths rent the air, but nothing else. Nothing but the
distant mumbles of the crowd downstairs.

"Angel..."

The muscles of his naked body rippled in the moonlight as
he bent down to collect his clothes. On went the boxers,
the pants. The rumpled shirt. "We need to go back
downstairs. They'll need to start preparing soon."

"But..."

He was already walking down the stairs. Anger flashed
through her again. Bitter, cold, anger. She realized then,
though, that perhaps he had been pushed too far, too soon.

Too soon.

He had just barely become used to the idea of being human,
and now he had to become used to the idea that he was going
back to Hell voluntarily. And then she had just made an
even bigger mess of things. So many complications... She
bounded off after him, wiping the tears away from her face
as she threw her clothes back on.

Wesley was distributing weapons.

"Remember," Giles said, "You kill the Mohras by smashing the
jewels on their forehead. We will engage them while Angel
and Spike enter the Hell portal. All of them must be
destroyed, but not before the portal closes."

"So," Spike asked, "What are we supposed to do, just keep
walking until we find a big bleedin' statue? Seems like a
bad plan... And what's the deal with Abaddon, anyway?"

"Abaddon?" Buffy whispered.

Giles turned to her. "Abaddon, the Destroyer. Lord of the
Abyss. The prophecy says that the soul must commit to the
arms of Abaddon for refuge."

Buffy swallowed and turned to Angel.

He was back with the mask, not revealing any particular
emotion. Dawn sat next to him and lay her head on his
shoulder. He glanced down at her and gave her a weak smile.
But that was all. His eyes were cold, no angst clawing out
from his eyes like crows feet. Nothing.

He was preparing himself.

He didn't even meet her worried gaze, even as she felt the,
now, phantom heat, racing across her skin again. Heaving...
Sighing. Powerful.

Desperation.

< Touch me... >

"All right," Wesley commanded softly. "We should probably
head for the site where Glory was defeated now..."

Buffy broke herself from her daze, shaking her head a
little.

Angel stood, along with the rest of the crew except Fred and
Dawn. He donned his long, black leather coat, and collected
his claymore.

He was the first out the door.

continue