Swinging his head around, Angel found Cordelia staring at him impatiently.

"What?"

"I need chips.  Off of the top rack in the pantry.  I can't reach them."

"And this is my problem, why?" he grouched, not wanting to uncurl himself from Buffy with whom he was snuggled in one of Cordy's huge armchairs well away from the center of the party.

"Because you owe me, Bud.  You sleep over here all the time and I haven't started charging you rent yet."

Angel let out a bark of laughter that brought a smile to Cordelia's face.

He did owe the former cheerleader, although not for rent, it wasn't like he'd moved in.  She had been his staunchest supporter from the first moment he joined the White Hats.  She'd helped him when all the others had been terrified of him, including the little warm bundle now sitting
in his arms.  The least he could do was play human stepladder for her.

"Okay, Cordy, just give me a second," he said, gently urging Buffy off of his lap.

The Slayer whined.  She didn't want him to leave, no matter if he was just going into the next room.  She hated large gatherings, parties in particular and Cordy's had just started getting going.  With Oz and Larry apparently planning to arrive fashionably late, Angel getting chips, and Queen C playing hostess she was left on her own.

"Buffy, right?"

The Slayer looked up at a young man about her age.  He'd been at the coffee shop last week when Cordelia had forced her out, but for the life of her, she couldn't remember his name.  She smiled meekly at him, hoping he'd go away.

"I'm Scott.  We met at the Espresso Pump last week."

"Oh yeah," Buffy said.  "I knew you looked familiar but I couldn't remember your name."

"Not a problem," Scott said.  "You probably meet new people all the time.  Has to be hard keeping track of everyone."

"You have no idea," Buffy said wryly.

"So you and Cordy are roommates, right?"

"Yep."

"Must be nice," he said, motioning to their opulent surroundings.  "I couldn't imagine being able to afford living here."

"Me either," Buffy said laughing as Scott crooked and eyebrow at her. "Cordy lets me stay here free of charge," she explained.

"Sounds good.  If you guys ever need a third roommate, let me know."

"I'll keep ya posted," Buffy said playfully.  "But we're not planning on any vacancies."

When Angel returned Buffy and Scott were still talking.  Much to her shock, Angel wasn't irritated to find her talking to another guy.  He seemed to be genuinely happy that she'd made another friend.  Apparently Scott wasn't a serious threat in his book.  He shook Scott's hand, introducing himself as Buffy's boyfriend and the three of them talked for a while.

The conversation came to an end when Oz and the rest of the Dingoes showed up.  Assisted by Buffy and Angel they hauled all of their equipment into Cordy's oversized living room and set up.  Buffy was curious.  Oz always seemed to be heading off to band practice of a gig somewhere but she had yet to see them play.  The lead singer, Devon, wasn't at all what Buffy had expected.  After Cordy's admission that she used to date him, she was expecting someone out of a Tommy Hilfiger ad. Devon seemed more like Mountain Dew or Doritos, but he was likable nonetheless.

Just before their set began, Oz wandered over to Buffy.

"You seen Larry?" he asked her quietly.

"No," Buffy replied, suddenly concerned.

"He was supposed to meet me at the apartment to help us load, but he never showed up."

"That's not like Larry at all," Buffy said.  "Do you think something happened to him?"

"Don't know.  I don't want to overreact.  It just seems odd."

"Maybe he'll show in a little bit.  If he doesn't I'll do a sweep to look for him."

Oz nodded, then turned to go to the makeshift stage.  Angel knew there'd been a conversation, but he'd been unable to hear anything over the din of the crowd.

"Something wrong?" he asked.

"Larry's missing."

"Do we know for sure?" he asked, trying to calm her, he could tell she was getting upset.

"He was supposed to meet Oz and he never showed up."

"Let's not get excited.  We don't know for sure that anything is wrong."

As Dingoes took the stage, Buffy tried to concentrate, but found herself unable to.  This is what Evelyn Crossgate tried to warn her about. Human connections made her weak.  Three months ago she would have been able to look at this situation objectively.  Now, she was worried sick
that something had happened to one of her friends.  She hated it.

A gentle squeeze from Angel jolted her from her thoughts.  She looked up at him and he nodded to the door.  Turning her head, she watched as Larry walked in the door, seemingly fine.  Buffy breathed a huge sigh of relief, heading towards Larry, Angel following close behind.

"Are you okay?" she asked the former jock.

Larry gave her a confused look.  "I'm fine.  Why?  Did something happen?"

Behind her, Buffy felt Angel tense, but she didn't have time to pay attention to him.  "You were supposed to meet Oz," she said.

Larry smacked his forehead.  "Shit.  I forgot.  My grandmother asked me to take her to the store and we got sidetracked.  I'm totally sorry if I had you guys worried."

Buffy smiled.  "Don't worry about it, it's just that in this town you never know."

"Well, I'm sorry anyway," he said, moving forward to give Buffy a hug.

The Slayer accepted it, hugging him back easily.  She felt, rather than heard Angel growl behind her.  As Larry moved into the living room to watch the band, she turned on Angel glaring at him.

"What the hell is wrong with you?  Over possessive much?"

Angel didn't answer, grabbing her upper arm and pulling her out of the living room and up the stairs towards her bedroom.  Buffy hurried to keep up with him, trying not to stumble as she attempted to figure out what was wrong.  When they reached her room, he quickly shoved her
inside, closing and locking the door behind them.

Before she could say anything, Angel was running his hands all over her body as if searching for something.  Apparently not finding anything he let out a frustrated growl, pulling her against his chest.  He bent his head, smelling her deeply and then proceeded to sniff most of her body.
Buffy was stunned into stillness.  Angel had overreacted about Riley, but this was just nuts.

Grabbing him by the ears, she pulled his face even with hers.  "What. Are. You. Doing?" she bit out slowly.

Angel shook off her hold, growling in frustration again as he sat down at her desk, staring at the floor.  How was he going to tell her this? It would hurt her deeply, especially now when she was finally starting to come out of her shell and trust people.

He raised his gaze to her.  "That wasn't Larry."

Buffy's brow furrowed.  "Are you totally mental?" she snapped.  "That *was* Larry."

"Trust me, Buffy.  That wasn't him.  The Larry you know is gone."

Buffy was speechless, still confused, and beginning to get very upset. Something had happened to Larry?  "That *was* him, Angel," she said, her voice thick with fear.  "He wasn't a vampire.  I would have felt it."

"He's not a vampire.  It's worse than that."

"What is he?" she said, her voice a near whisper.

"A human minion."

"A what?"

"He's been claimed by a vampire, bitten, blood exchanged.  He's not a vampire, but he's bound to his Mistress.  He will do her bidding without question.  He cannot be trusted."

"Mistress?  You know who did this to him?  Tell me," she pled, her voice taking on an tinge of hysteria.

Angel stared at his shoes again.  This wasn't going to be easy.  For all her hard edges, Buffy was still so innocent.  She'd viewed vampires as something to be exterminated.  For her it was a neat clinical process. She'd probably never given a moment's thought to the intricacies of
vampiric society.

He hated this, hated that he was one of these creatures.  He hated that he knew about Larry's condition because he'd done it to hundreds of humans himself.  Made willing, mindless slaves out of undeserving creatures.  He'd viewed them as toys, as surely as Larry's Mistress viewed him as one.

Raising his sad eyes to the Slayer, he answered simply, "Willow."

"Willow?  The red headed vampire from the Master's party?"

"Yes."

"How do you know?"

"I can just ... feel that Larry is a minion.  I can't explain it.  As for knowing it's Willow, her scent is all over him."

"Scent?  How do you know her scent?"

"She held me captive, tortured me for three years, Buffy.  I would know her scent anywhere."

Buffy stood stock still.  It was too much to take.  Larry was gone, but not gone.  And Angel ... she'd never thought about the time he spent as the Master's pet.  She knew about it, well, some of it anyway, but she intentionally didn't think about it.  She'd seen him the night they brought him back from the mansion, she saw the scars, his pathetic physical condition.  He'd looked so different the next time she saw him that it was easy to forget there had ever been anything wrong with him.

Buffy tore her thoughts back to Larry.  Surely they could reverse it somehow.

"Can the bond be broken?" she asked, hoping for once fate would cut her some slack.

Angel's expression was answer enough.  "No."

"But there has to be," she said desperately.  "What if we kill Willow?"

"He'll go insane, Buffy.  Minion bonds aren't made to be undone. They're permanent."

"No," Buffy sobbed, sinking to her knees on the floor.

Angel slid to the floor beside her, enfolding her in his embrace.  She was so fragile.  She needed to be held, soothed, reassured, unfortunately there wasn't any time.

"Buffy we have to find Larry.  In this state, he can do irreparable harm to the other White Hats."

Buffy nodded against his chest as her crying stopped.  Tamping down her emotions she rose to her feet.  Time to go to work.

Buffy and Angel, along with Oz managed to subdue Larry without interrupting Cordelia's party.  The cage that the werewolf used on the nights he shifted was more than sufficient to hold the former football star until they figured out what to do with him.  Giles had been able to locate a masking spell that would conceal Larry's whereabouts from Willow, giving them more time to search for a way out of the bond.

Both the Watcher and Angel were pessimistic about Larry's prognosis. Neither of them had heard of any instance of a minion bond being reversed, but they'd vowed to try and find one if only for Buffy's benefit.

For her part, Buffy was doing better.  The fact that she hadn't had to put her friend down served to lift her spirits.  She didn't know what she would have done if he'd been an outright vampire.  Even now, she knew that if it came down to Larry's death, that either Giles or Angel would take care of matters.

"And to think I just thought I was going to have to worry about you going after Riley," Buffy said to Angel as they laid in her bed waiting for dawn to lull them both to sleep.

"Something like this puts things in perspective, doesn't it," Angel said wryly.

"Sure does."

"Giles and I will start looking for some sort of reversal spell tonight, Buffy," Angel said, gently running his fingers through the long golden tresses spilling over his chest.

"Thank you."

"Larry would do the same for us," he said.

"Angel ..."

"Yeah?"

"What was it like?"

"What?"

"Willow, the Master, what they did to you."

Angel was silent for a long time, simply holding Buffy close, breathing in her scent.  "I deserved it," he finally said.

"What?"

"All of the horrible things the did to me.  I deserved them all."

"Angel, how can you say that?" Buffy gasped, raising her head to look at him although she could barely make him out in the dim light.

Angel swallowed hard.  They'd never discussed this.  He knew that she knew.  He knew Giles had briefed her on his past before he ever allowed his Slayer contact with the vampire.  But knowing something happened and hearing it from the source were two different things.

"They didn't do anything to me that I hadn't done to dozens, probably hundreds of humans myself.  All for fun.  The difference is that I lived through it, lived for them to torture me another day.  The humans I tortured didn't.  They all died while I laughed with joy."

"But that wasn't you," Buffy said.  "Giles told me.  That was the demon.  You didn't have anything to do with it."

"Didn't I?" Angel asked.  "I remember all of it.  I'm being punished for all of the things the demon did.  How are they not my sins?  They were committed by my hand."

"Angel," Buffy pled, gently running her hand over his cheek.

"No," he said, pulling out of her embrace, sitting up against the headboard.  "Willow and the Master tortured me.  They beat me with whips and chains, burned me with fire and holy water.  They starved me, raped me, kept me chained like a rabid animal for years and even that cannot
make up for what I've done in my past."

Buffy flinched at his candor.  She'd read accounts of Angelus' rampages through half the known world, but hadn't really thought about the fact that Angel held all of his memories.  She was at a loss for what to do when ragged sobs tore from her lover's chest.  All of the time they'd spent together he'd always been the one taking care of her.  She'd never thought about the fact that maybe he needed to be taken care of too.  He always seemed so strong.

Buffy rose to kneel next to him and this time he didn't fight her as she pulled him into her embrace.  She held him, speaking nonsense words of love to him as he quieted.

"I love you, Angel," she said when he'd calmed.  "It wasn't your fault."

Angel pulled her closer, shamed by the joy he felt at hearing her say those words, especially after what he'd just told her.  She deserved so much better than him, but he'd be damned if he would ever let her go.

"I love you," he whispered against her lips, just before he caught them in a searing kiss.

Buffy gasped.  She was unprepared for his rapid change in moods, but was doing her best to keep up.  Not that it took a lot of work.  Angel easily brought forth the lust in her tiny body.  They sank back down on the bed, laying on the sides facing each other as their tongues dueled and hands roamed.

As he moved to crouch over her body, kneeling between her legs, she spread her thighs wider, causing her nightshirt to ride up exposing her expensive underwear, complements of a Cordelia sponsored shopping trip.  He kept his weight braced on his elbows as he brought their lower bodies into contact, grinding his erection into the juncture between her thighs.  Bending his neck, his lips played along the shell of her ear.

"I want to taste you again," he whispered in a near growl.

Buffy shivered at the sound, involuntarily lifting her hips into his as lust surged through her body.  She wrapped her legs around his hips as she used her hands to guide his lips to hers.  She sucked his bottom lip into her mouth, biting gently as he moaned.

Pulling back for breath, she said, "We don't have to wait.  You can ... you know."

Angel would have found her response cute if he wasn't so aroused.  He rocked against her roughly, needing the friction.  He wanted her so badly he was ready to weep with it.  But this wasn't the time.  He didn't want their first time to be tainted with the horrors of his past.  He knew that at this point that penetration would merely be a formality.  They were lovers in every sense of the word regardless of whether he'd spilled his seed in her body or not.  But for some reason the formality did matter to him.

"I know.  But not yet.  I just want to taste you."

"Okay," she moaned, nearly mindless as she surged against him again.

Angel bit down on his lower lip, trying to gain enough control to keep from taking her up on her offer.  When he had himself under control, he pushed himself down her body, settling his forearms on either side of her hips.

He bent forward, nuzzling his face against her now damp panties, enjoying her distinctive aroma.  She whimpered with need, pushing her hips into his face as her hands twisted in the sheets.  He gently licked her through the thin material until the absolute need for skin on skin contact was too much for both of them.  Raising up on his knees, he pulled the panties down her legs and threw them to the floor.

His head was firmly nestled between her thighs before she even registered the loss.  He slowly licked the length of the slit between her nether lips, savoring the dew dripping from her.  Using his thumbs, he parted her lips reveling in her lush wetness, baring her completely to his ministrations.  He licked her languidly, trying not to rush.  He gently sucked her outer lips clean of her moisture and then pressed farther inside.

He avoided her throbbing clit, instead concentrating on stabbing his tongue inside her heated channel.  He rumbled in pleasure as Buffy wrapped her thighs tightly around his head.  He didn't need to breathe, it wasn't a problem.  He finally took pity on her, nursing her tender bud, sending her careening into orgasm.  He continued to suckle at her, causing a series of intense little peaks that left her nearly exhausted.

As her body relaxed and her thighs fell back onto the mattress, he moved slowly back up her body, stopping to suckle at her breasts on the way. When their faces were once again even, Buffy kissed him deeply, loving the taste of herself on his lips.  In a burst of energy, she flipped them, reversing their positions as he now lay back on the bed with her crouched over him.

He laid still, his body aching with need as she slowly licked her moisture from his face.  It was almost more than he could handle.  She was so innately erotic and she had no idea.  Moving down his body, she pulled down his cotton pants before he had time to react.

"My turn," she said evilly as her hot little mouth engulfed the tip of his cock.

Angel's eyes shot open, his upper body coming off of the bed at the sensation.  He hadn't been expecting this.  He wasn't prepared.  She was stroking him with the long rough strokes he'd shown her earlier in the shower, but this time it was coupled with her scalding mouth over the
head, her tongue gently laving the glans.  When she reached her other hand down to gently cup his sac, it was too much.

With a very loud howl, Angel spilled his seed in her mouth.  Continuing to stroke him until the spurts subsided, Buffy swallowed his emission greedily. When he'd calmed, she sat back, kneeling between his legs as she licked her lips.

Under any other circumstances, the sight of her licking his cum off of her lips would have been more than enough to get him hard again, but right now he was too embarrassed.  He was a vampire with centuries of carnal experience and he hadn't managed to last any longer than a
teenage boy.

The sun was up now, and though the windows were covered, the room was still much lighter than it had been when they'd gone to bed.  She could clearly see his expression and was a bit perplexed by it.

"Is something wrong?" she asked.

"Not really," he said, "but I should have had more control than that."

"Huh?"

Angel smiled.  Maybe having an inexperienced lover was a good thing.  He laughed, pulling her against his chest and folding his arms around her.

"I should have been able to last for hours," he explained.  "But you're just too damn hot.  I can't control myself around you."

Buffy giggled, amazed and thrilled at his revelation.  She'd spent most of her life feeling like a freak, an ugly duckling.  The idea that she could inspire such sexual responses in this magnificent creature was almost beyond her comprehension.

Cupping her face, he kissed her gently, deeply.  "I love you, Buffy Summers," he said quietly.

"I love you too, my guardian Angel," she said smiling.

Completely exhausted from the emotional turmoil of the previous evening and the wonderful sex, they fell asleep in each others' arms.

The End