Fallen Angels

By Kristi

Old Enemies

@--Buffy--@

I am fighting waking up. I snuggle closer to Angel and breathe him in. The familiar clean scent makes me smile. I can think of no better way to wake up then this. I feel his cool lips on my shoulder, working their way across my collar bone to my neck. There is one better way, I think and open sleepy eyes.

“This isn’t a dream.” I smile sleepily looking up into his beautiful face.

“It is for me, it’s just a real one.” He says and I wonder how he can turn me to mush with just that velvet voice of his.

“You know, if the whole private investigator thing doesn’t work out, you could always work for those phone sex lines.” I muse while he is kissing my neck. I regret my words immediately because they cause him to stop what he is doing and look at me, that adorable confused expression on his face.

“To steal one of your expressions, ‘Splainy.”

I laugh at his attempt to copy my speech. “You have bedroom voice.” I run my finger down his throat and bring my hand to rest over his unbeating heart.

“Buffy, you come up with the oddest things.” He says to me.

“Oh, stop, you sound like Giles,” I slap my hand over my forehead, “And Oh God, the images. No mentioning father type figures in bed, ever again.”

Angel chuckles. “I’m sure he would be dismayed to learn he had been mentioned here also.”

“Eenh!” I make the noise in the back of my throat. “Stop it stop it stop it.”

He laughs and it’s a good sound. “Hmm, do that again.” I purr.

“Do what?” he asks.

“Laugh, I want to hear lots of you laughing in the future.” I pause for a moment. “Are vampires ticklish?” Angel looks perplexed at the question. “It’s not a hard question, Angel. The world’s future does not hang on the balance of your answer here.” I tease him.

“No, but mine could.” He gives me his lopsided grin and I feel my stomach flip flop.

I dive for his armpits and we wrestle on the bed for a little while, me trying to tickle him and he determined not to let me. Somehow he ends up on top of me, our legs entwined. I forget all about tickling him. He brushes hair back from my face. He touches me as if I were something priceless. I capture his wrist in my hand and kiss the round scar left there when Angelus hammered the spike into him.

“Was it worth it?” I ask

In answer, he kisses me. Angel has this way of kissing where he pours all of his emotion, all of his love, his pain, his remorse, into that one kiss. I don’t know how he does it, but I know when he pulls away there are tears in my eyes.

“I love you,” I whisper. I can’t help it. It’s an automatic response to a kiss like that.

He runs his finger down my nose and lets it rest on my lips as if to seal his kiss there. “Buffy, I love you.”

I surrender to the fact that we’re not getting out of bed today.

*

@--Angel--@

I don’t know what time it is. I don’t really care. Time is endless in this room. Buffy is curled into me sound asleep. She looks like one of Boticelli’s angels. I’m hungry and it occurs to me she will be when she wakes up. I grab a sheet and wrap it around my waist, sneaking out so I don’t wake her. I creep down the stairs, across the lobby and run straight into Cordy. Her hands fly up over her eyes.

“Oh God! I’m scarred for life. Haven’t you ever heard of putting on pants!” She shrieks.

I scuff my foot sheepishly across the stone floor. “Sorry, Cordy. I-uh-Buffy and I-Uhm-“

“It’s okay, Mr.-I-Just-Got-My-Soul-Anchored, really not needing details on what you and Buffy were doing. Again, I’d like to stress the importance of pants here.”

“Sorry, I just came down to make peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and grab some blood.” I hurry past her and into the kitchen.

I heat a large Krispy Kreme travel mug of blood in the microwave and make Buffy two crunchy peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. I shout out a “Coming Through!” warning to Cordy as I run through the lobby and up the stairs. I grin at the sight of Buffy, still sleeping soundly in our bed. She wakes when I sit down beside her.

“You left.” She says with a pout.

“I did, but I came back with food.” I hold up the plate with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on it as evidence.

“Oooo, yummy. You even cut off the crusts. Is the peanut butter crunchy?” She sounds like a little girl. She takes one of my offerings and lifts the edge of the bread up to check for herself.

“Extra,” I promise.

“You never forget the little things do you?” She asks me.

“What do you mean?”

“Like crunchy peanut butter instead of smooth.” She picks at her sandwich.

I shrug and sip on my mug. “I do, sometimes. Like I can’t remember what my father’s favorite meal was, or whether my little sister had brown eyes or green.” Generally a subject like this would be cause for melancholy and brooding. Buffy is sitting naked on my bed, and I can touch her anytime I want to without worrying about my soul. There is no room for melancholy or brooding today.

“Yeah, that was like two hundred and fifty years ago though. I think you get cut a little slack after a century or so.” She rolls her eyes at me and takes a bite of sandwich.

Buffy rarely comes right and tells me what’s bothering her. She winds her way around it with vague comments like that. I’ve gotten pretty good at decoding her. She still stumps me from time to time. “Buffy, I could never forget anything about you. It doesn’t matter how long I live, I will never forget the color of your eyes, the way you look when you smile, your voice, the way you smell and feel or that you like crunchy peanut butter instead of smooth.” I tell her honestly.

She bites her bottom lip and considers what I said. I can see her turning it over in her mind and it breaks my heart that she could ever think she would be forgotten when she was gone. She drops on all fours and arches like a great cat. She slinks over and kisses me lightly on the lips. She then sits down and snuggles back into me, wrapping my arm around her waist. “There, much better. You were much too far away, and have I mentioned, not touching me. Now finish eating, you’re going to need your strength if we’re staying in bed today.” She grins wickedly at me

Have I mentioned lately that I adore this woman?

*

@--Buffy--@

I think we stayed in bed for 48 hours straight. We had so many years of not being able to touch to make up for. Get your mind out of the gutter, it wasn’t just sex. Although, that was part of it, I mean have you seen him? It was the little touches, like laying next him, running my fingers over his face without being afraid that when we touch we won’t be able to stop.

It’s very gratifying to touch Angel. I guess part of it is that he went without human contact for so long, but I like to think part of it is just my touch. When I touch him he closes his eyes and this slight, content smile comes over his face and he arches into the touch like a beautiful cat. It hurts me too, to know that my beloved, my soul mate has been so starved for human contact for so long. I know it’s something I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to make up for him. Some part of me knows that not only am I making up for lost time, but I’m also making up for time when I’m gone, and he’s still here.

I shake off my serious thoughts. I’m in bed with a man I love more then life, more then heaven. I’ve got much more interesting things to think about.

*

We were asleep when the knock on the door came. Angel stood and wrapped the sheet around his waist. He answered the door, just opening it a crack. It was Gunn. I can just imagine Wesley, Cordy, Fred and Gunn downstairs, drawing straws to see who had to come up here and interrupt us. I’ll bet Gunn got fed up with it and decided to do it himself.

“Guys, sorry to interrupt, but Cordy had a vision and I think you’re both gonna want to hear this one.” Gunn says.

“We’ll be right there.” Angel says.

We both throw on clean clothes, stepping over his tux and my prom dress that are still lying on the floor. We are downstairs inside of five minutes.

“So, what’s the dire?” I ask, curling up on the funky round couch in front of the front desk.

“I had a vision. It was confusing, almost like I was only seeing part of the picture. But it was Acathla and for some reason, Dawn. I don’t know what she had to do with Acathla, but she was definitely in my vision.” Cordy said.

“We’ve got to call Giles, and Willow and Xander. They have to get Dawn out of Sunnydale.”

“I agree. Xander can bring Dawn here. Gunn, Fred, Cordy, you three can stay with Dawn and Xander; make sure things are calm on the home front. Buffy, Wesley and I will go to Sunnydale. We’ll see what we can find there.” Angel took control of the situation. My brain was still trying to process that Dawn was in trouble and someone else might be trying to raise Acathla.

*

Angel’s GTX cruised along the highway through the darkness. The top was down and my hair blew. I had the music turned up loud and a Sunnydale rock station poured out of it. My faulty logic said if the music was loud enough I wouldn’t be able to think about things like Acathla, sending my lover to hell or someone wanting to hurt my little sister. For once, Angel didn’t argue with me about the loud music.

When we finally got to Sunnydale, and had that trip ever taken that long, Dawn and Xander were waiting with their bags packed. Dawn had wanted to stay until I arrived. I understood.

We sat on the couch. I hugged her and pulled her long hair off her shoulders. “I won’t let anything happen to you, you know that, Dawnie.” I promised her.

She sniffed and nodded. “I know. I just didn’t want to leave in the middle of the school year like this.”

“I know, but right now the further from Sunnydale you are, the better. Xander will take good care of you. You and Gunn can play video games and I bet Fred can help with the physics paper you have due. It won’t be long, Dawnie. We’ll take care of things here and then you can come back.”

Xander walked in the room. “Car’s all packed. You ready to go visit the Big City, Dawnster?”

“Yeah, can we go shopping?” Dawn asks, resuming her normal 16 year old life.

“In the daytime,” I say. I walk over to hug Xander. I whisper so that Dawn will not hear me. “Take care of her for me, Xan.”

“I will. Take care of my Willow.” He whispers back.

“Sure thing.” I promise as I release him. We walk out to the car with them and then wave until the taillights disappear into the darkness.

“Where to now, Will?” I turn to the red headed witch.

“Giles’ place. He’s already started research.” Willow says.

*

It feels like my early college days, before everyone splintered and things started going crazy. We sit scattered around Giles’ living room. There are books open all over the place.

“I thought Acathla was buried under 6 feet of dirt and concrete.” I say.

“He is. We even consecrated the ground. Willow put an alarm spell on it as soon as you called. If anyone touches the dirt near Acathla, she’ll know about it.” Giles say.

I hate this. I hate having to relive one of the most horrible years of my life. I hate remembering Angelus and most of all I hate remembering that I sent Angel to hell. I don’t have any choice, someone has decided to pull a ‘This is Your Life, Buffy Summers’ on me.

“Angel, who else knew about raising Acathla?” I turn to him and I can see the apology in his eyes before he begins to speak.

“Drusilla and Spike. You dusted everyone else there.” He says.

“Okay, so Dru might be trying to pull this off.” I reason.

“She’d need someone to help her. Dru’s mind is not stable enough to concentrate on what she’d need to do for that long. If Dru is in on it, Spike is too.” Angel says.

I shake my head. “I can’t believe Spike would hurt Dawn. He used to be very protective of her. Besides, even when Angelus was trying to suck the world into hell, he didn’t like the idea. He said he liked the world the way it was, with people walking around like happy meals on legs. Ok so not the best argument for him not hurting Dawn, but this long before he met Dawn.”

“I agree with Buffy on this one.” Giles said. “He may still be a cold blooded killer, but I don’t think he’d hurt Dawn. He was fiercely protective of her after Buffy-I mean before she ran away.”

“Okay, but does anyone know where Spike is? He might be able to give us a lead on Drusilla.” Angel says.

“No. After Buffy left, he stuck around for a bit and then disappeared. We haven’t heard from him since.” Willow said.

“Buffy, anyone with the proper information and the intelligence to look about, could find out about the ritual of Acathla.” Wesley says.

“Wes is right. And the way Drusilla rambles, she could have told anyone.” Angel points out.

I sigh. “Great. We’re back to square one then. Have I mentioned how much I hate square one?”

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