Disclaimer: I don't own anything, and I make no profit. No copyright infringement intended.
Rating: PG
Spoilers: None, amazingly.
Season: S4 BtVS
Started: Aug 6th '01 Completed: Aug 6th '01
Teaser: While out walking in the park, holding Riley's hand, Buffy compares him to Angel.
Notes: Spur-of-the-moment, fill-up-twenty-minutes, back-to-my-old-PWP-roots type story!

Coarse and big, that's what his hands are. They completely cover my small ones, and though both are rough with hard work, they have seen and done diversely different things. Riley's hands belong to a farm boy, brought up working from a young age. Mine were made harsh with sharpening stakes, crawling through sewers, and battling evil. His hands are pleasantly warm, making my hot hands burn even harder.

It doesn't feel right. My hands have always had an inner flame all to themselves, and the hands that hold them are supposed to cool that feverish fire, quench it just a little. Riley's hands don't do that.

They remind me of his, 'him' being that soul who loved me enough to leave me, and who resides close enough to help me if I need him. Angel's hands were big, with long fingers worn with time. I liked how they were always cold, and how when I felt so hot in the Californian summer, he would place them to my forehead and I'd chill instantly. It was a wonderful feeling.

Angel's hands could do so much to me. They could excite me beyond all thought, or calm me down in a desperate situation enough for me to think straight. Those hands could brush away all my fears with a single stroke to my cheek, or crush anything that dared harm me. Under another's control they had killed thousands in cold-blooded murder, but under his thought they healed and amended. They still do.

Angel's hands, to me, were special instruments that could do no harm to me. I remember, lying beside him in the mansion, his hand a comforting weight on my stomach. I took it in mine, and ran my small digits over it, remembering every line and crevice, feeling his rough skin against mine. He let it hang limply in my fingers, and I knew he was watching and enjoying my attention. I played with his claddagh ring, heart pointing ever faithfully inwards, twirling it about his finger. I remember kissing each fingertip, and then bending them all and placing a kiss to each knuckle, delighting in the firelight dancing over his pale skin, how it warmed under my touch. I remember, and I relish, those memories.

But Riley's hands don't warm under my touch, because they're already warm. They may be coarse, but they haven't seen and felt two and a half centuries worth of the world. They excite and calm me too, but not to the extent that Angel's did. They don't brush away my tears, because I rarely let him see them. Not the real tears, ones that are torn from my soul because of my despair. He wipes away tears that come at a sad part in a movie. His hands don't make a fist that comes flying my way, that I can block and counter in training, because he isn't strong enough to take it. Giles was never strong enough to take it, and only constant fighting with vampires in the graveyard, and Angel, allowed me to improve. And it feels so wrong having warm hands in mine, burning them further instead of cooling them.

I don't tell him, of course, because it would break his heart and those same hands would be used to wipe away his own tears. I've caused enough pain in my life, especially to the man whose hands I love, to do it to the man who loves me, even if I can't bring myself to reciprocate that affection. I only pray that, one day, I'll be walking in the park again, holding the hand that will always feel right to me.

Send feedback to Nicola

Back to the Fanfiction Archive