Disclaimer: No, they don’t belong to me, the belong to the genius, fucking SICK mind of Joss Whedon! Tell me, why the hell did he even BOTHER to build something as beautiful as B/A only to TAKE IT BEG AGAIN AND PRETEND IT NEVER MEANT ANYTHING IN THE FIRST PLACE?! It WASN’T just a crush! And everybody who saw S1-3 knows that!!! C’mon, was your first crush like THAT? And if you tell me that it was, please don’t... would make one very depressed about my own love-life...
Notes: This is a sequel to ‘Flinch’. I think I’ll make it maybe a series? What do you think? The lyrics are taken from ‘Clover’ by Clamp.
2 Note: Okay, I’m STILL German, so there WILL be HUGE mistakes!!!! Sorry for that!
Summary: Just like Flinch, only from Angel’s POV.
Feedback: yes *yes* YES *YES*! *orgasmicoutcry*
Dedication: To all my feedbackers to Flinch! You’re the best! Thank you so much!
Angel’s POV

//I want happiness
I seek happiness\\

I think about you so much these days. And every time I do it hurts anew. Remembering what I did to you so long ago, now.

What I said only to make you hurt as much as I was.

And every time I wish I could just turn back time and make it undone. I don’t want to hurt you. I never wanted to.

I perish the day I can see your smile again, but I dread the moment I do, because I know it won’t be for me. I destroyed everything we ever had. With three little words. ‘I love Cordelia’

It was sick, I know this now, but back then I believed it all. I gave you the fault for everything that had gone wrong in my life, all the time knowing that it wasn’t you. You weren’t even there when it happened.

But I guess that was the reason I was so mad at you. That I told you I hated you. That I BELIEVED I hated you.

Because you didn’t know deep within what was wrong with me. Because you didn’t bother finding out, saving me. You didn’t care.

//to cause your happiness
to be your happiness\\

And I know it’s selfish because I saw the tears and heard the sobs and broken words so filled with agony.

You were in pain.

And I didn’t even bother to TRY to comfort you.

//so take me,
someplace far away
to a true elsewhere
please take me there\\

I turned you away. So very harshly.

I once promised you that you could always count on my help, that I would come to you whatever the reason. But I see now that I lied. I didn’t even care that I hurt your feelings.

I want to turn back time.

//magic that lasts
never-ending kiss
revery without break
unperishable bliss\\

I’d been pretending to be someone else all that time, so I could fit the picture of the man my friends wanted to see. But somehow, I’d started pretending so hard, I couldn’t see the line between truth and lie anymore.

The constant lie I was living became my reality. I didn’t even notice it. I became that goofy dork, lusting after my best friend, playing hockey in the lobby, hurting the love of my live, lying to her.

But I needed to be this man, so that my son could lead a happy life. My own father had never been home, had never spoken to me out of the lines of education, money and such things. He didn’t care about me. I always thought he hated me. So I became a rebellious, stupid jerk, trying to get under any skirt available. And before I realised it he really did hate me. Because I threw away my life so carelessly.

I didn’t want that for Conner. I wanted him to know that I loved him. And I thought I had to play the role of the super-daddy who plays hockey, has a relationship and buys him stupid T-shirts with his name on it. Along with the ‘Daddy Dearest’ sweaters, not to forget.

But now Conner is gone, and I don’t know if I’ll ever see him again. And I just wish he’d at least once seen the real me.

//take me,
I want happiness.\\

And I realise now, that my father never hated me. Never. Because it doesn’t matter how hard you try, you can’t hate your own flesh and blood. Conner was a part of me. And I know it wouldn’t have mattered if he did anything wrong, if he did everything wrong, I would have loved Conner anyway. And I know I always will.

It’s strange, really, but you can’t explain the love you feel for a child. It’s powerful, unconditional and forever.

Kinda the way I love you, Buffy.

//birds sing
song of unknown tongue
though winged, they
still fail to reach the sky,\\

the moment I realised all that, I stopped wearing this stupid Hawaii shirts I’d began to like and broke it off with Cordy.

It was kinda like another epiphany. But a good one this time around.

I can’t believe I had been so blind to not be able to see the difference of the love I held for her, You and Conner.

Buffy is the love of my life. You always were.

Cordy is my best friend. And I love her just as much. She’s my sister.

Conner, he’s me, in a way.

And I want to turn back time.

//a place not to be treaded alone.\\

I don’t know what happened to you exactly when you came to me for help so long ago. But I was so jealous, you had Dawn, you still had your own flesh and blood with you and your friends didn’t turn away the moment you stopped pretending to be someone else. Trying to talk you into a love that wasn’t existent and were mad at you when you showed your emotions for a little too long. They were mad at you when you didn’t ‘snap out of it’ when your only son was gone.

And I wanted to find out. Immediately.

You can’t know the anger I felt for myself when I found out you’d killed your BEST FRIEND when you showed up on my doorstep. I know what Willow meant to you. God, Buffy I’m so sorry.

But why they all left you alone I’ll never understand. Why didn’t they see you were hurt so much more than them?

God, I want to turn back time.

//so take me
to a true Elsewhere.\\

I want to make it better. I want to comfort you. I want to see you smile again. I want to see you.

And I don’t know what made me go and see Dawn that day. She lived with her father, I realised with a start.

You are all alone!

I can’t understand what Dawn wanted to tell me. Didn’t she see the hurt in your eyes? The hurt I didn’t see either? Didn’t want to see?

And I know you don’t hate her for it. You still love her and you always will.

Because in a way, she’s your daughter. And you can’t hate what’s part of you.

//wet feathers
locked fingers
melting flesh,
fusing minds.\\

And, oh, how I miss you, Buffy.

I want to touch you. Feel you. Love you. And I know I probably never will be able to again. And although I understand our love is unconditional, like the love to your child, but that doesn’t mean you’re not hurt.

That doesn’t mean you’ll ever be able to forgive me. You may love me, but you certainly don’t trust me anymore. How could you when I broke the biggest promise a lover can give?

I promised you forever.

//take me,
I want happiness.\\

And I just want to hold your hand. I want you to be happy. I want to be happy.

So how long do I need to get the strength to apologise to you?

I don’t know. And so I spent the last years brooding about you. And Cordelia, Gunn and Fred keep worrying about me. They shouldn’t. I’m normal again.

At least Fred doesn’t ramble about me and Cordy being soulmates anymore.

She doesn’t know what a soulmate is, she never felt that complete. She doesn’t know you.

//Not your past,
but your present is what I seek,\\

And I desperately try not to follow you to Sunnydale, begging you on my knees to take me back.

I know you wouldn’t forgive me.

I want to help you, save you like you saved me all those years ago. Because you’re as lonely as I had been, then.

I want to get to know you all over again.

I want to fall in love with your smile all over again.

//carefully winding back its fragile thread\\

You could call me desperate, but I don’t care. So what? There’s a stuffed bear lying in my bed. With tiny button-eyes and all in all really adorable. But he’s the only thing I have left of Conner.

He sits right next to Mr. Gordo.

I know I should give him back to you, but I can’t.

He is all I have left of you.

//please take me there\\

I took him when you .... were gone. After I visited your grave and couldn’t seem to understand how it was fair that you, a person so pure, should be allowed to suffer like you did before you...

You should have come to me for help. But then again, I probably would have turned you down then, either.

But when I set down Mr. Gordo on your tombstone, and wanted to leave him there, I turned around again and took him with me. Every other feeling I had kept with me towards you, I left at your grave.

Only to get it back when I saw clearly again. Which wasn’t for a longer time.

I’d started believing I didn’t love you anymore. I didn’t even care about you anymore.

I couldn’t have been more wrong.

And I don’t know why I didn’t saw that sooner, because I kept Mr. Gordo like a king would his crown. I didn’t even give it to Conner when he wanted it.

//I want happiness
I seek happiness\\
to cause your happiness,
to be your happiness.
take me
to a true Elsewhere.
deliver me,\\

I don’t know when exactly I headed off to Sunnydale, but Cordelia was soon to follow me.

So together we walk through the streets we’d long tried to forget, but remembered all that well. I tried her home at first, only to realise that it wasn’t her home anymore. There lived a nice and kind family now. Two boys, maybe three and six, and a happily married couple.

And I wonder if that could have been us, in another life.

But I want it for us either way.

We tried the Bronze afterwards. It also has changes. The decor’s much more mature and modern, not the romantic gothic I remember. It’s nice. But you’re not here either.

I don’t know how long I searched for you in a the crowds of Sunnydale’s ‘downtown’ that is much larger than it was when I was here the last time. Everything is bigger and suddenly there are so many more people living on this small California town build on the mouth of hell.

You’re nowhere to find. Not in the mansion, not in the mall, not in the Cinema or Espresso Pump. Not even on Campus.

//a bird in a gilded cage,
a bird bereft of flight
a bird that cannot cry,
a bird all by itself.\\

You don’t go to College anymore. And I want to know why because you have such a beautiful mind and are so intelligent it’s sometimes scary. You don’t seem like it on the first look.

They didn’t even have you at their computer anymore.

I’m not even able to find you in a small town like this.

//so take me
I want happiness.
happy just to be with you
happy just to see you smile.\\

Cordelia’s whining on a constant basis and we take a short walk to that Fast Food Restaurant where everything smells like puke, but Cordy obviously likes it, so we stay. And I nearly am sorry for the poor guy at the counter who’s serving Cordy. She’s giving him the lecture about how she – a big meanie actress- has had a long day and that he couldn’t even listen right from what she said.

She’d said the wrong thing and he only served her what she told him, too, but I won’t tell her. No need for hurricane Cordelia right now.

//so take me
to a true Elsewhere.
please, take me
to happiness.\\

And when I turn my head towards the small gasp I imagine to hear right next to me but I ignore it, instead I follow Cordy to the table and sit down silently.

And I’m so blind because I didn’t notice your blonde head disappearing through the back-door.

//my first thought
and my last wish,
a promised land where fairies wait
with room just enough for two.\\

And I hope it’s not to late when I suddenly get it and rush through that door you disappeared through and am so sad, because you have to work in this whole for a living and the look on your face was so full of anguish.

You can do better than this, Buffy.

You can be happy if you want to.

And I almost forgot how fast you are because I run and run and can’t seem to catch up with you.

Why, oh, why do you run away from me? Why are you so scared of me?

//so deliver me, help me
to forget the tribulations of day
and to stay in this dream of night,
where I can be thinking of you forever\\

And I only see the shock in your eyes when I find you in the Restfield cemetery, breathing my name the same way you always did, the small word rolling off your tongue so naturally.

And god, I’m so glad when you don’t pull away when I close my lips on yours.

//take me
to my bliss.\\

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