Playing With Fire: Part 3
by Lady Jayd
Disclaimer ... "Buffy The Vampire Slayer" does not belong to me, but to Joss Whedon, Warner, Fox and others. This is non profit making fan fiction.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Part Three

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


There was a mirror set into the bedroom alcove wall - large and hard to miss from the bed. Buffy lay for a while, getting her bearings, and wondering why Angel would wish to torment himself with such a reminder of his lost humanity. Turning her head, Buffy found Angel lying beside the bed, just the way he had that night when he had sheltered at her house. Fast asleep with his eyes twitching in evidence of his dreams. Bad dreams.

"No rest for the wicked," she whispered, sorrowfully. She wondered what he felt. Shame, fear and loneliness all haunted his sweet brown eyes, never entirely absent while he was awake. What horrors tormented him now, in sleep?

Buffy raised herself up carefully, expecting to be sore, aching and weary. She found that she was none of those things. Everything felt so different. Her fears seemed larger. And her desires more important. Once again, Buffy gazed at Angel, enjoying her body's grasping twinge of longing. He was too beautiful, too delicious to ignore. If only he was in command of his vampire instincts.

If only. The most pointless statement, Giles insisted, ranking it along with "I wish". He was right to dismiss the impractical, Buffy supposed. But even Giles had never entirely dismissed her relationship with Angel. Giles would never dismiss her hopes.

"Angel?" It would be foolish to shock him awake; vampires were acutely aware of the world around them and reacted with base instinct. Her soft call was enough to stir him and remind him of her presence.

Angel smiled up at her, sounding a little sleepy, and showing no sign of the nightmares that he had just left behind.

"Good morning," he said, rising in one smooth movement and tossing his borrowed pillow onto the bed beside her. "How are you?"

"I - I don't know," Buffy confessed, hardly realizing that she was reaching for him with her arms until Angel joined her on the bed, sitting close and hugging her. "Thanks for taking care of me."

Closing her eyes, Buffy nuzzled against his throat - kissed his Adam's apple, and then his jaw. Angel tensed up as if she had just whipped out a cherry-stake.

"Your mother will be worried," he said, cautiously. He didn't push her away though. Buffy raised her head and offered her lips to his. Her hands slipped up beneath his shirt, rubbing at his cool, smooth skin.

"I was supposed to stay with Willow last night," she answered distantly. None of that mattered any more; the daily troubles of her life had paled into insignificance beside her new outlook, and beside her wanting for Angel. Buffy kissed him, hard, longing for the passion they had begun to share - but he turned his head aside with a moan.

"Then Willow will be worried," Angel countered unconvincingly. His fingers were digging into her back and she could sense that his body was responding in spite of him. She only had to push him a little further - to make him trust himself.

"Angel everything's different now," Buffy told him, hearing herself and barely recognizing the person who spoke. "I'm different. I have to know that - "

"That I still love you?" Angel set her away from him deliberately, holding her at arm's length so that he could see her fully. "That you're still who I dream about being with - that the sight of you, even the smell of you is enough to drive me insane?"

He gave her a gentle shake, his eyes penetrating into hers for a never-ending second, and then slid off the bed and walked away to the other side of his apartment - as far as daylight would permit him to go. Through the oriental screens, Buffy saw him run his hands over his face, distressed.

Buffy's eyes had already misted up when she heard his grated, emotional words - seeing him struggling for self control she knew that it had been wrong of her to torment him with an offer which, if he truly loved her, he must refuse.

Poor Angel who was always so selfless in his love for her; how could she have been so selfish in return?

"Angel I'm sorry," she said, following him, cornering him but not trapping him. He looked at her, haunted. "I am sorry. If this is hard for me then it must be so much more painful for you. I didn't mean to make it any worse."

He hung his head, still bitterly ashamed of what he was. Couldn't he see that by his actions, his choices, he had earned the love she felt?

"If only -" he began, whispering, and then stopped, chuckling and shaking his head a little. Angel had no more patience with that than Giles, it seemed. "Damned fool thing to say," he muttered under his breath. "We both know what we want -" he said, looking her in the eye again, extending his arms toward her and offering only comfort. Buffy accepted his offer. "And what we can't have." Slowly, she nodded, accepting his decision and - in the oddest way - grateful for it.

Very gently, as his arms held her near and kept her safe, Angel kissed the top of her head and began to rock her slowly to silent music.


This story archived at: The Slayer\'s Fanfic Archive
The Slayer\\\\\\\\'s FanFic Archive - http://www.slayerfanfic.com/viewstory.php?sid=2041