SERIES: Only When I Sleep 10
DISCLAIMER: Not mine, and I kind of don't even want them anymore (well, alright. I do want Angel).
TIMELINE: After 'Into The Woods' and 'Reunion'.
SPOILERS: 'Into the Woods' and 'Reunion'.
SYNOPSIS: Buffy and Angel dream of each other.
DISTRIBUTION: If you have others, go for this one, if you don't, ask and I'll say yes.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: This was supposed to be the 'whoo-hoo, he's gone!' fic, but now it turns out it's going to be angst. Again. I haven't seen 'Into The Woods', but from the synopsis, I don't like it; I think having Buffy run after Riley like that is an insult to the character, or at least who the character used to be, and this is my attempt to rationalise.
FEEDBACK: Please do. Especially if I've completely misinterpreted things < g >.
RATING: PG

How am I supposed to dream when I can't even sleep? When I lie awake in a cold bed, replaying over and over the last couple of days. Riley. Riley above me, Riley telling me he was leaving unless I gave him a reason to stay.

Riley looking up from the vampire girl's fangs in his arms, and me realising that I recognised his expression only from when we were in bed.

And Angel was mixed up in there too. Angel above me, Angel telling me he was leaving despite me wanting him to stay.

Looking up from a scene of devastation for my eyes to meet his, and for them to stay locked on his back as he walked away from me.

I'm not sure I like that those images are so closely intertwined.

* * * * *

I don't remember closing my eyes; but I suppose I must have because Something took over and I opened them again on a flat, barren plane of hard grey rock. I looked around in confusion, and there was nothing and no-one on the horizon.

In fact, there was no horizon. Just space. Blackness, lit by tiny points that couldn't be the source of the harsh, relentless glare that forced me to cover my eyes and squint while I turned this way and that, searching.

If I could have Riley meet me here, in my dream, supplanting Angel, would I?

I guess I'll never know, because it's Angel I share my subconscious with, as surely as I share the heart and soul I so easily claimed were Riley's.

It was Angel silhouetted against that bright light, crossing the distance between us smoothly and rather more quickly than I would have liked. I didn't know how to react to him anymore. There's always been a very simple physical desire between us that would remain even if we hated each other; the curse restrained it in the real world, and the ghost of Riley intruded on it here as much as the ghost of Angel encroached on Riley and I there. In the dreamscape where we repeatedly found ourselves, I wasn't sure if the former was an issue, and the latter no longer was.

Not that it mattered, because he looked to be in a really bad mood.

"Hi," I said tentatively, wondering what I should tell him about Riley's rapid departure. I was pretty sure he'd care. Just maybe not for the details.

"You must be in about as good a humour as I am," he said uninterestedly, presumeably about our surroundings.

"What? Sure, fine, whatever," I said, slightly confused as he dropped down into a crouch on the impenetrable surface, produced a knife, and began to scratch away.

I knew he had some obsessive-compulsive tendencies, but this was just strange and worrying.

I knelt next to him and gently covered his hand with mine. He jerked it off.

"Hey," I said, reaching for him again, "hey... what's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong," he said evenly, getting up and putting the ornate knife away.

I looked down at where he'd been scratching. Underneath the drab grey he had revealed a jewel-coloured pool which shifted continuously as I watched, entranced.

"What's that?" I asked him, balancing on my hands and knees to peer into the gap.

"Means one of us has something to look forward to," he said, his tone mocking, but carrying an undercurrent of the familiar self-disgust. "Probably you," he went on, "mine's sure to be a uniform black."

"What the hell are you talking about?" I said, rising and facing him. Our eyes met. His held none of the warmth I expected, was accustomed to seeing for me in his gaze. They were emotionless. If the eyes are the windows to the soul, Angel's had pretty much shut up shop.

But then I guess they can't be, because once I knew what I was looking for I could always recognise Angelus in an instant simply from his malevolent stare; his emotions were even clearer in his eyes than Angel's are.

This emptiness was almost more disturbing.

"The subconscious," he said in an exaggerated whisper, leaning close, "it's all around."

"We're standing on one of our subconscious'?" I said, wrinkling my nose.

"Of course not," he said, laughing, "don't be so literal."

Okay. What?!

"What's with you?" I said suspiciously, twisting to follow him as he prowled around me in restless circles.

"Off day. Several days, in fact," he said, fastening his eyes on my neck one second and the floor the next.

I remembered what he'd told me last time I dreamt with him; about Darla and her re-introduction to vamphood at Drusilla's hands. A part of me wailed 'but what about *me*?', but I ignored it; some part of me was morbidly eager to exchange recounting my own, raw pain for soothing his, but most of me just murmured insistently that I should have remembered this.

I went directly to him, grabbing for his arms. He tried to shy away, but it's true, what he once told me - I'm stronger than him, and he couldn't pull out of my determined grip.

I shifted one hand up to his face, cupping his cheek, turning his face to me. "Did Darla..." I began gently.

He pulled away again, and, surprised, I couldn't stop him, but he didn't go far.

Just far enough so I couldn't touch him.

"She rose on schedule, despite my best efforts," he told me. I caught a brief flicker of emotion; regret, shame, sadness, before his gaze shuttered again.

I followed gradually as he inched away from me, trying to radiate peace, as if he were a hurt animal hissing and spitting and likely to bite.

"Your best efforts?" I said, pitching my voice low.

"Tried to stake her before she rose... tried to stop her committing a massacre with Dru... ended up aiding and abetting."

My breath caught in my throat, "You didn't..."

"What?"

"Kill."

"I locked a dozen people in a windowless room with two vampiresses I knew to be hungry, skilled and probably unstable," he said matter-of-factly, looking straight at me. "Is that killing?"

My breath was just gone. Screw their stability; I was worried about his. What happened to saving souls?

I sank to the floor, half-expecting to feel him catch me and half-glad when he didn't.

"Guess the demon is a little closer than I thought," he said from behind me, and I whipped around, feeling that comment a little closer to Angelus' home than I liked.

"Or I'm just darker," he said very close, and when I turned around he was there, kneeling uncomfortably close.

"Or more depressed," I threw back, not giving him an inch.

His eyes darkened and he sat down, careful not to touch me.

"What else did you do?" I persisted.

"Fired Cordy, Wes and Gunn," he muttered reluctantly, not meeting my eyes, like a naughty schoolboy.

Which is weird enough all by itself, because all the time I've known Angel he's hardly ever been anything else but determinedly adult, completely controlled.

"Why?" I demanded.

He shrugged.

"Why?" I said, more loudly.

"I don't want then getting hurt!" he cried, "And if they stayed... Dru and Darla are coming for me. I don't want them in the way."

"And if they choose to be in the way?" I asked.

"Tough," he said stubbornly.

"It's their right," I countered.

"Then it's mine to make sure they don't have to be," he said, straightening up, meeting my eyes again.

From the tone, I thought he'd be mad, but when our eyes met his showed vulnerability the most. Fear. Loneliness. All the stuff that tugs at my heart, however unwilling.

I crawled over to him. He watched, but he didn't try and move away; and when I reached out my hand cautiously and grazed his with my fingertips, he slowly uncurled his clenched fist and let me take his hand in mine.

"I kind of don't get the point anymore," he said softly.

"Tell me about it," I said.

I tried very hard not to whine, but I guess he heard the plaintive note in my voice, because he asked me what was wrong.

Now, obviously Angel has a lot to deal with right now. I'd love to say I was trying to take his mind off it all by spilling; but truthfully, I was desperate to have his comfort, feel the love he'd always poured out so unstintingly, even though I knew it might get uncomfortable for him.

"Well, my mom is almost certainly going to be okay," I said, "but I split up with Riley." I stared resolutely at our hands. "Well, he split up with me. We kind of split up with each other."

I heard an explosion behind me and twisted around to see a display of bright colours fading like fireworks in the emptiness there.

"Sorry," Angel said, his earlier rancour apparently forgotten.

Vampiric mood swings. This is great. As if he weren't unpredictable enough.

"Tactful," I said, pulling my hand from his.

"You knew I didn't like him," he said softly, "but I am sorry, Buffy. You..." he exhaled hard. "I know you loved him."

"Funny," I said, not meaning it, "because he left 'cause he was convinced I didn't."

Angel shifted beside me.

"He actually left? Physically left?"

"Yeah," I said, not needing to say who that had reminded me of.

"And did you?"

"Did I what?" I said.

"Love him," Angel clarified.

"I don't know," I said, heaving a sigh.

"Really," Angel said, and I could hear the faint return of anger in his voice. "Only you seemed pretty sure when you told me you did."

I bit my lip and didn't answer. Well, I had no answer.

"Ironic, really," he commented, "that the only time you admitted to loving him was to me." He laughed bitterly.

"I was hurt," I said quietly.

"So was I," he snapped.

"So was he," I said, jumping up and facing him. "I just found out that the past couple of weeks he's been going out and letting vampires bite him for kicks. You know why?"

He rose slowly, looming over me.

"Do I care?" he hissed.

"Because he wanted to know what power you had over me. What power Dracula had over me," I spat back.

"Maybe we just speak to a part of you he can't touch," Angel said, dismissing it.

I closed my eyes, seeing the truth in that. Riley was sweet. He was nice. He was a good, normal guy, at least until he made himself a vampire snack bar.

He wasn't enough for me.

I felt Angel move closer, sensed his power wash over me and smelled his scent up close.

"Open your eyes. Look at me."

He tilted my chin up with gentle fingers at odds with his harsh tone. I looked at him, into the familiar brown depths of his eyes, and I wanted him.

"Did you love him?" he said calmly.

I didn't answer, feeling the beginnings of a slow burn at his sudden domineering approach.

Not that he's not built for it... off-topic. But in any case, I'm the Slayer. I'm not built to take it.

I tried to back away, but he followed, implacable. "Answer me."

"I don't know," I bit out.

"How can you not know?" he cried in frustration, betraying his own anger.

"Because you're my only experience there and I never had to wonder with you!" I exploded. It seemed to blindside him; well, it was kind of a surprise to me. I hadn't meant to admit that. Not here, and not now.

"From the second time I saw you," I continued more quietly, "it was just something I lived with."

"Thank you for making it seem like such fun," he said with hostility, but I could tell his heart wasn't in it - at my words, his eyes had gone liquid chocolate and from the unconscious flexing of his fingers against his pants, I could tell he ached to touch me.

"But it doesn't matter, does it?" I said, desperate to simply grab him, but needing to have this out - and if it couldn't be with Riley, Angel would just have to do. "Because you're gone and even eighteen months later you're stopping me moving on."

He stilled and stared at me with wide eyes.

"You're blaming me for him leaving?"

He sounded confused, little-boy-lost. I breathed out in frustration. As long as we were having an argument, he deserved at least for me to not project onto him. "I blame you for *you* leaving."

He was silent for a moment. "You know why I did that."

"Yeah. I know why. I understand why. God, I even agree with why," I snapped, "but it doesn't make me feel better at this juncture, okay? Because all I can see is that a guy tells you he loves you and then he leaves."

"It won't always..." he tried.

"I don't care about 'always'," I said tiredly. "I'm hurting now, thank you."

He made a move towards me, but I evaded him.

"You did love him," he said with a desolate certainty.

"Does it matter?" I wailed. "He's gone."

I didn't have to say 'I loved you and you're gone', because we both heard it clearly anyway.

But it wasn't a case of 'I loved you'. It was a case of 'I love you'. And because of that, I owed him the truth.

"I didn't love him,' I said quietly, stepping closer to Angel. He started to speak, but I held up a hand to stop him and went on, "but I could have. There's not a lot of things in my life that have potential, Angel. Riley and I did. I should have grabbed it."

"Then why didn't you?" he said softly, swallowing hard.

"You," I said, looking up into his face.

"Don't blame me for this, Buffy. I'm staying away from you, remember?" he said, getting stirred up again.

"Except for here," I said to myself.

He caught it anyway. "I'm not in control of that."

"Then who is?" I said, annoyed.

"Ultimately? I don't know. But I do know that any time you want to leave, you can," he told me, backing away again and crossing his arms defensively.

"But any time I want to stop, I can't," I said.

"Do you want to stop?" he asked me, and the hurt Angel was back again.

I thought about it. He'd been comfort, at first - a release I couldn't take in the real world. But now it seemed like he was just one more person to deal with, another set of problems to worry about. "I don't know."

"I need you," he said softly, almost in supplication, and I saw the breaking spirit he was suddenly too afraid to leave open in the world.

"I need you," I replied. "But I really need you out there."

He came to me, wrapped a tentative arm around my shoulders, and I let him pillow my head on his chest, knowing we hadn't resolved anything; both of us wanting the presence of the other but lacking the energy for any more emotional talks.

We stayed together in an uneasy silence for the rest of the night.

I have promised holiday fluff for this series, and it will appear; but it will probably be New Year's rather than Christmas fluff, because I'm a little pushed for time. Happy holidays!

Go to the next story Christmas Dreaming

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