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Crap
Shoot Author: Margot
Le Faye SPOILERS: None. References to the Fray
comic book, but no real spoilers for that, either. Disclaimer: I don't own Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Angel or any
of the characters therefrom. No profit is being made from this work of
fanfic. No infringment intended *** She pulls hard on the cigarette, drawing the mentholated poison
deep into her lungs. The irony that something so deadly is one of the few
sources of comfort she has left does not escape her. But as are all comforts, this one is cold and ultimately
useless. She flips it to the pavement--or, the broken cement that used to be
a pavement--of the dank alley, and grinds it beneath her boot-heel. "End of what?" she asks, with more irritation than
interest. Her voice is husky, years of bad habits having turned what was once
little-girl breathiness into the sultriest of whisky voices. Another irony,
more annoying than the first: in her voice, men find promises she long ago
lost any interest in keeping. Persuading them of their mistake can be a tedious
business. The matter at hand and the male in front of her are another order
of business entirely. "Days," he repeats calmly. Though he looks as
youthful--and dresses as badly--as he did when she first met him that
terrible year after she turned seventeen, he was ancient a thousand years
before she was born, has seen too many world-ending catastrophes to be
anything but tranquil in the face of this one. His calm is only slightly
ruffled when she laughs at him. "Been there, done that," she says mockingly. "Sunnydale.
2003 Old Reckoning. Angel Deus Ex Machinaed, Spike burned, and
Willow sent my power into every potential slayer on the planet. That was the
End of Days, all right. No more Chosen One. Just an army of slightly more
powerful than average girls ready and willing to take on whatever happened
next." She sighs. "At least, in theory." "You did what you had to do," he says gently. "Would’ve been nice if your bosses had told me exactly how
it was going to go wrong," "Hey, kid, I’m only a messenger. I don’t choose the
message, I just deliver it." She cocks her head and gives him a
considering look. "It work both ways?" she asks. "’Cause I’ve got a
message for them--" He holds up his hands in a gesture meant to placate: "I’m
pretty sure they’ve already heard it." "But they’re gonna ignore it, as usual?" She shakes
her head. "Like I would expect anything else." "They don’t exactly ignore," he ventures. "More
like…time is different for them. And for you. Not like it was before. These
things have to play out, and it’s never easy." That gets a bitter laugh. "Never easy? Understatement, much?" "You had to stop the First Evil. You did. And, you put an
end to the calling and sacrifice of slayers." "Not for long," she points out. "Or has Maleka
Fray already been forgotten?" "Part of the plan. She wasn’t like you, not an innocent.
More like Faith: born fighting." "Is that supposed to make it all right? Because it
doesn’t." He offers her an apologetic shrug of his shoulders, because
that’s all he really has. He has never been more than a messenger, after all.
She drops her list of complaints. It’s an old, old refrain, and even she is
sick of the unending lament. He knows, she knows, and They know, that
whatever bad habits she indulges in--and the smoking and drinking are so far
down on the list, they’re not even counted--she’s going to soldier on,
anyway. He gives her the information she needs, she nods her understanding
and heads off into the night. On the way home, there’s the usual fracas. Some men can’t see a
woman walking alone after dark without figuring her for fair game, especially
in the neighborhoods she travels. They always mistake her for an easy mark.
She doesn’t even waste a good quip on them most nights, just beats the shit
out of them, in the half-hearted hope it’ll teach them some manners. Not that
manners are what they were when she was a girl. Still, she makes the effort.
It’s all she can do. She arrives at the building in which she has quarters, looking
none the worse for wear--she was worn to the bone long ago, yet still looks
little more than the child she can all-too-vividly remember being--and slaps
her palm on the print plate. Unlike the primitive models just being imagined
in her girlhood, this one has a DNA analyzing component that no one has
figured out how to outwit. Yet. The door shimmers out of existence--the
science has to do with molecular compression, which she has come to
understand at least in theory--long enough for her to enter. She feels it as soon as she crosses the threshold, the tingle
along her nerves that can only mean one thing: He’s tracked her down, again,
and he wants to play. It’s about damned time. Her lips curve in a predator’s smile, and she lets the stake
slide down the sleeve in which it has been concealed, to fall into her
waiting hand. Adrenaline pumps through her as she strides toward her
quarters, anticipating the workout she’s about to get. He doesn’t disappoint, not that he ever has. The door to her
living space has barely rematerialized behind her when he ploughs into her
from the side, bearing her down to the floor. He’s in game face, and she’s
fairly pissed that he seems to want to skip the preliminaries this time, and
go right for the jugular. She blocks him with her fist, pushes him off
forcefully enough to send him sailing across the room. He crashes into her
end table, breaking a lamp. He finds that hysterically funny--no one uses
lamps, anymore-- and is still laughing when she stalks over to him,
brandishing her stake. "Miss me, lover?" he grins as she brings it down,
aimed precisely for his heart. He moves so damned quickly that even she can
barely track him, and she snarls as she’s forced to circle, stake held at the
ready. "In your dreams," she growls. She’s still speaking
when he delivers a lightening-fast kick that sends her flying in her turn,
but she leaps back to her feet before his preternatural speed can get him
close enough to take advantage of her fall, and the fight is on again. They go at it hard and fast for the next half-hour. There isn’t
much talking, although when he rips her blouse off, she does curse a blue
streak. He giggles like a fool and promises her a new one. His response when
she tears his hand-sewn Italian silk shirt--even though it isn’t called Italy,
any more--into rags is all the reparation she needs. "Fucking whore!" he roars. "Do you know
who I had to kill for that shirt?" Probably some idiot holo-star the world will barely miss, and
she’s long since stopped weeping over the losses she cannot prevent. She
doesn’t bother responding, just kicks him in the solar plexus, hard enough to
knock him ass over teakettle. He smashes into her couch, which tilts over
with the force of his landing. He rolls off the back, and leaps over it to
get to her. He’s fucking gorgeous in flight, pure predatory danger, but she
doesn’t have time to admire the view. She dives to the side--or, that was the
plan, but he snags her heel on the way, and she crashes hard to the floor. Instantly, he is on her again, and she’s pinned, cursing another
blue streak as his knife makes quick work of her pants. He hasn’t gone for
the kill this time, and she is cursing because that’s what he expects when he
ruins her clothing. It’s a distraction, and a moment later, he howls in
outrage as she plants the stake firmly in his broad chest. "She scores!" she chortles, pushing him off her so she
can do a victory dance. "Yay team Slayer!" Her victory dance is rudely interrupted when he reaches out a
hand and grabs her ankle, pulling her down beside him. "No fair!"
she complains, pissed again. He knows the rules as well as she does. She got
her stake into his heart before he got his fangs into her neck, so game over. "Look again, lover," he smirks. She does, and is even
more pissed. At herself. How the hell did she manage to miss his heart at
point-blank range? Almost before the thought can even register she’s moving
to rip the stake from his chest and reposition it properly, but he’s
anticipated her and the stake is tossed into a corner of the room where she’s
unlikely to get it. Especially since he’s got one arm wrapped around her like
a band of iron, and she’s going to have a hell of a time breaking his grip. "Getting sloppy in your old age, babe?" he smirks. She
dislodges his smug expression--and, more importantly, his grip on her--with a
head butt that should crack his jaw, but doesn’t. She’s away and across the
room, ripping open the drawer of her end table, for one of her spare stakes.
A long time ago, she’d have broken a leg off a chair and used that, but there
are barely enough trees left on the planet to keep everybody breathing, and
logging has been illegal for years. Most of her stakes are lawful, registered
antiques. A few are black market. Any one of them will do, right now. None of them comes within her grasp. He’s on her again, smashing
her face down into the floor before she can pull the latest version of Mr.
Pointy free, his hands locked about each wrist, keeping her from fighting
back. And then there’s the cool sharpness of his bite, making her
shudder as her blood begins to flow out of her veins and into his mouth. His
erection is grinding into her ass, and with a moan she spreads her thighs,
wriggling against him invitingly. It’s an invitation he never has passed up, and never will. He
doesn’t stop drawing from her veins as he transfers her right wrist to his
left hand, where it joins the other wrist. Not that she’s struggling, but he
is a total dom, and she is totally turned on by it. So, she doesn’t struggle when he reaches into his back pocket
and hauls out the cuffs. The alloy from which they are made may have changed,
but the style is pretty much what it was a thousand years ago. The classics
never go out of fashion. Soon, her wrists are cuffed to each other around the
leg of the end table, leaving his hands free to reach for his knife again.
Her undergarments go the way of her pants, and then the knife is gone, and
she hears the satisfying sound of his zipper being lowered. He’s not much for
modern clothing, his indulgence in genuine leather when cows are even rarer
than trees, typical of his hedonistic nature. She’s more concerned with his
hedonistic libido as he nudges her legs further apart with his knee while
slipping his hands under her rib cage and up to her full breasts. He’s
pinching her nipples, sucking on her vein, and grinding her into the floor so
hard that her clit rubs against the carpeting, and she knows she’ll have rug
burn on it in the morning. Which will give her a good excuse to demand that
he kiss it and make it better, so it’s not totally a bad thing. But, he still isn’t giving her what she wants, and she squirms
against him trying to get him to hurry up. Luckily, he’s as impatient as she
is, and a moment later the full, thick hardness she craves slides into her
sopping depths, and she keens as she goes into an instant orgasm. One thousand years, and she still comes the moment he’s inside
her. He has more self-control. He rides out her orgasm, waiting until
her shrieks and shudders have stopped and she’s gone limp before he withdraws
his fangs, and drops slow, nipping kisses on her back and shoulders. He stops
pinching her nipples, just holds them lightly between his fingers. He’s not
even pumping into her anymore, wanting her to be completely recovered from
her first, too-quick, peak so he can build it again, harder, more prolonged,
more deliciously painful, than the first one. But neither of them is really long on patience. Barely a minute
has passed before she’s wriggling back against him again, begging him to fuck
her. He makes her say the words, because he loves it when obscene language
comes out of that sweet, still innocent-looking mouth. She indulges him, a
husky murmur of profane images describing this most sacred union between
them. He rumbles into a purr, tightens his fingers on her stiff little
nipples, rolling and pinching the sweet bits of flesh, and begins to pump his
hips, sliding his thick shaft deeper into her slick channel. He loves it when she talks dirty. She tells him what she wants, and he eagerly does her bidding,
fucking her as hard as she can take it, which is harder than any female
vampire, demon, or demigoddess he has ever nailed. It’s not all a one way
show: she begins to undulate her internal muscles around him with a smooth,
sinuous rippling motion a snake would envy and he groans as he feels his own
climax approaching. She tosses her hair back, and offers her neck. "Bite me,
you bastard!" she hisses and as soon as he sinks his fangs home they
both explode into sweet bliss. They come for what feels like forever, bodies
locked together in climax. He loses count of how many orgasms he can feel
shudder through her, his own load being well and truly shot. Eventually, he
collapses down on top of her, driving her further into the floor. She isn’t
complaining, and they lie that way, contentedly, for a long time as he slowly
softens and slips from her body while his seed slips down her thighs.
Eventually, she stirs. "Get off," she grunts. "Gotta breathe." "No, you don’t," he points out reasonably, not really
wanting to move. "Whatever," she says and bucks up with just enough
force to make him roll over. He’s not too badly upset, smirking as he crosses
his arms beneath his head and makes himself comfortable. "Asshole,"
she complains, but whatever sting the words might have is nullified by the
fact that she leans over to plant a firm kiss on his mouth. "Key?" she demands, jangling her wrists. He pats his
pockets, but comes up empty. "Uh. . ." he looks sheepish. She rolls
her eyes and gives one swift pull, breaking the connecting link. He grins as
she gets up, walking naked into the food preparation area of her quarters,
giving him a fabulous view of the most beautiful derriere this side of a
paradise he has no expectation of ever entering. She hasn’t cleaned off his
seed, yet, which is still making its slow way down her thighs. His cock perks
up at the sight. "Hungry?" she asks, passing her hand in front of the
wall that camouflages the food dispenser. "A little peckish," he admits. She nods, touches the
appropriate sensors, and retrieves a salad for herself and two of the rare
bags of human blood she goes to immense trouble to keep on hand for him. This
stuff isn’t illegal in private possession. Just odd, and hard to come by. The
medical profession has been using synthetics for centuries, and even
diagnostic tests can now be performed while the blood is still in the body.
The only need for human blood is for research, or for feeding the vampires no
one really believes exists. But, the black market of this time is no different from the
black market of any other time: if someone wants to buy, someone can be found
who is perfectly willing to sell. Whether people believe in them or not,
vampires--or lurks, as they’re now called--represent a steady market of
interested buyers. She pours the blood into a large, deep mug, sets it inside of
the temperator--which has replaced the stove, the microwave, and the open
fire as the preferred method of cooking in this day and age--and presses the
setting. Almost instantly, the blood has been warmed to human body
temperature while the mug remains cool to the touch. She grabs her plate and
walks back to him, handing him the mug as she sinks gracefully to the floor
at his side. "So, what brings you into town?" she asks as she digs
her fork into her perfectly crisped California--it’s its own country,
now--salad with the ginger Tahitian dressing that is currently all the rage.
It’s a rage she admires, and speaks a command that will activate her personal
buzz-droid. The buzzer drops down from its storage compartment in the ceiling
and hovers anxiously around her head. She gives it the command for more
Tahitian dressing and it obediently flutters off to the food prep area to
retrieve some for her. "Got wind of another apocalypse and decided to come out to
play," he tells her as the buzzer returns with the requested comestible. "You gonna fight for the other team?" she asks
casually. He usually does. "You think I want those damned prophecies to come
true?" he demands. "Nope," she says, sending the buzzer off to find a
pack of cigarettes and her lighter. "No more than I do." "So, why are you fighting for the Powers?" he asks.
Not that he doesn’t already know the answer. But what the hell, baiting her
is half the fun. She’s not very bait-able, tonight. "I’m fighting for the Powers because it’s the right thing
to do," she says, directing the returning buzzer to drop its burden into
Angelus’ waiting hand before returning to storage. Angelus shakes two slender
tubes out of the pack, puts both of them in his mouth and lights them before
handing one to her. Even if he picked that gesture up from a black and white
movie of her grandmother’s time, she finds it sensual and intimate as she
accepts her cigarette, still damp from his mouth. Funny, the things that
survive, the things that don’t, she thinks as two clouds of blue smoke drift
up to her ceiling. In her youth, she believed a complete ban on tobacco was
only a matter of time, while the trees and woods and forests would go on
forever. Instead, trees are scarce and cigarettes are plentiful, though they
now come wrapped in a covering synthesized from plant leaves. Outlawing
tobacco turned out to be even less effective than outlawing alcohol. Coffee,
too, is still available. Starbucks remains as wildly popular on Earth as it
is in the demon dimensions where it originated. But only historians remember
what words like book and library mean. Buffy wonders,
briefly, what Giles would think of the fact that she is often nostalgic for
books. She laughs ruefully, and returns to the present conversation with her
eternal lover. "What I want doesn’t matter," she says as she sends
another blue cloud aloft. Her voice betrays no hint of resentment. She is
merely stating a truth she has long since come to terms with. "Never
has. But, given a choice between you being made human, and the rest of the
world being sucked into hell, I’ll take you human." He arches a brow at
her, and she grins. "At least for a few years. I can always find a lurk
to turn you, once the novelty wears off." She doesn’t mention the
restoration of his soul. That has been a non-issue for a very long time. He isn’t unduly disturbed by this plan. In fact, he’s counting
on it, if his own team fumbles. And they probably will fumble. One thousand
years, and his girl has pulled it out of a hat every damned time. He mainly
fights on the losing side as a matter of principle. He’d actually be pretty
ticked off if his own team won. The world as it is suits him just fine. Plenty of darkness.
Plenty of victims, willing or otherwise, and his own darling slayer around to
keep eternity interesting. And, eternity is exactly what they have. Three things of major importance to Buffy and Angel happened in
the opening decades of the twenty-first century. First, Angel did one good
deed too many, and was forced into true immortality, unlike the
quasi-immortality he had enjoyed for nearly three centuries. He became immune
to stakes, beheading, burning, and any other method traditionally used to
destroy a vampire. He still couldn’t go out into the sunlight: it would still
incinerate his flesh, it just wouldn’t kill him. And, as he had occasion to
discover, the resultant period of regeneration was excruciatingly painful,
beggaring even the torment he had endured in hell. Angel had been depressed as
hell, because he couldn’t even hope that he would Shan-shu, become human, and
lose the immortality. Spike’s reappearance within this mortal coil was found
to have fulfilled that particular prophecy, much to everyone’s disgust,
including Spike’s. Angel had gone on a three-month bender that had only ended
when Buffy tracked him down in the bar he’d taken over in Tiajuana, and
kicked his ass back to L.A. The second momentous thing that happened, about fifteen years
after Buffy had gone mano á mano with Glory, was that she had been
mortally wounded . . .and had recovered. The gang did research, and realized
that Buffy’s continued youthful appearance was owed to more than good genes.
When Willow’s resurrection spell had been interrupted all those years before,
it had the effect not simply of recalling Buffy back to life, but of making
her incapable of dying. Willow was devastated, and it was Buffy’s turn to go
on a three-month bender. Angel didn’t rescue her. Because, the moment he heard that the
love of his life was afflicted with the same immortality that beset him, the
minute he realized that he would never have to bury her again, would never
have to live in a world that did not contain her, the third momentous thing
happened. Angel had a single instant of pure and perfect happiness. The
moorings on his soul were immediately loosed, and it drifted off into the
ether, leaving Angelus fully in control once more. His first action upon
realizing his new and improved status was to locate a sorcerer powerful
enough to cast a spell that would make him invulnerable to the gypsy curse so
that no one would ever be able to use it to restore his soul, again. His
second action was to track Buffy down to the same bar he had gone to, and
kidnap her. It didn’t work out exactly the way he planned. True, he killed
her the way he had always dreamed of doing; during a marathon bout of sex in
the middle of the most amazing orgasms either of them had ever had. Her rich,
spicy-sweet blood pouring down his throat, so much better than the blood of
any other Slayer, would have brought him off all on its own. But drinking her
down while encased in her lush, damp heat, listening to her breathy moans as
each slow pull of her blood into his mouth set off another of her climaxes,
feeling her silken walls clamp around his cock in, literally, a
death-grip…the reality had been better than his wildest fantasies had
prepared him for. He drained her dry and fed her his own blood, collapsing on
her cold, unmoving body to dream sweet dreams of a world consumed in blood
and fire and ruled over by himself and his mate. But when she woke up, she
was as human as ever, soul in residence and no hint of a demon to be found.
She laughed at him, and asked him what part of her not being able to die he
hadn’t understood? He got pissed off, and tried it again, forgoing the sex in
favor of the element of surprise. Same results. Only, this time she
was pissed off at him for being what she called jackass stubborn.
And, he suspected, for forgoing the sex, though why that would bother her
when she climaxed just as hard from his bite as he had from her blood was a
mystery he never quite solved. They argued, then fucked like bunnies, and
Angelus was becoming resigned to the fact that he’d just have to keep her
chained to his bed for the rest of their existence, when she escaped. Her friends urged her to capture him, and, since he could no
longer be killed, at least imprison him, to keep him from the depredations he
would surely wreak against a (more or less) innocent and unknowing world. She
tried it. Her luck at keeping him in chains was about as good as his was with
her. They wasted the next hundred years in a constant battle for the
upper hand. Meanwhile, certain truths were borne in upon Angelus. Authentic
immortality--rather the pseudo-immortality that could be ended by a well
placed stake--had changed the very nature of the vampiric creature that he
was. For one thing, he no longer had the appetites he had in his youth. He
rarely experienced real hunger, and while he wasn’t, and never would be,
above killing for kicks, he no longer had to kill for survival. Even killing
for kicks wore thin after a while, and while he remained a formidable
opponent, and a dangerous predator when roused, he just wasn’t roused to it
all that often. For another, he appeared to be immune to the grotesque
changes that beset the very oldest of vampires. He never would have to worry
about getting a bat-nose like the Master’s, after all. Meanwhile, other truths were borne in upon Buffy. In a very few
years, no one who met them believed that it was Dawn who was the younger
sister rather than Buffy. That was the first sign of what was to come.
Everyone around Buffy lived out a normal human life-span with the normal
human connections--marriage, children, grandchildren, eventual old age and,
in most cases, a peaceful death from natural causes. Except for Spike, whose
death in a motorcycle accident left his great-grandchildren annoyed that the
state of California hadn’t rescinded his license when he’d officially hit the
century mark twelve years before. But Buffy remained unchanging, a spectator
to the normal lives she had earned for her friends, but was forever denied,
herself. After she’d been torn from heaven and clawed her way out of her
grave, she thought she’d lost any illusions she’d had about ultimate justice,
about good triumphing over evil, about those who constantly made sacrifices
for the greater good ever receiving their just rewards. But as her unending
youth increasingly isolated her from everyone she had ever loved--everyone
who was aging, becoming more frail, more forgetful, while she remained
unchanged--those illusions she had not realized she’d retained were brutally
stripped from her. What Buffy learned, slowly and painfully over a long
stretch of years, was that it was all a crap shoot. As Angelus mockingly
informed her, even Angel had finally realized that there was no grand plan or
ultimate design that would make sense of the universe. There was just this: a
few billion mortals slogging away on the mudball Earth, making the best of
things, unaware of the armies of Light and Dark that, once in a while,
gathered the strength to come together in cataclysmic battle. Who would win
was always the biggest crap shoot of all, and by any historical measure that
could be applied, Buffy had enjoyed a winner’s streak that just had to be due
to end, soon. As time went on, Buffy also learned that she couldn’t save
everyone, and that no matter how many vampires she killed, or how many demons
she destroyed, there would always be more. The hosts of hell were plentiful
and they were prolific and even she couldn’t hope to wipe them all out.
Angelus, who wasn’t actively killing and torturing the way he had in his youth,
began to seem the lesser of a whole lot of other evils. Angelus’ motivations
regarding the Slayer were a lot more basic: she was the hottest piece of ass
he’d ever had, and he knew damned well he’d never find anything like her ever
again. He refused to even consider that the deep and abiding love Angel had
felt for her had anything at all to do with his own opinions about her sexual
skills. The Slayer was a nuisance, but in time he’d tame her, he was sure. After the first century or so, the battles between them became
more a matter of form than of determination. As the world around them changed
at an ever-accelerating rate, they were the only constants in each other’s
lives, the only familiar touch-point. Truce was declared. They even tried to live together, which
worked out nicely for a few decades, until someone tried to end the world,
and they ended up on opposite sides of the battle. Buffy was, in Angelus’
opinion, overly sensitive about the whole thing, refusing to continue to live
with him just because he’d single-handedly decimated half her army. When she
walked away, he didn’t try to stop her, just boasted that she’d be back. She was, but it took another hundred years and another battle.
And she didn’t exactly return under he own steam. True, they met from time to
time during the intervening century, and reconciled almost immediately, but
she was adamant about wanting her own space. It was frustrating, and he was
forced to resort to stronger measures. Thus, when an opportunity presented
itself, Angelus knocked her out while she was busy saving the world again--careful
to wait until the world had actually been saved, and her guard was down just
the tiniest bit--then carted her off to his current residence--a deserted
15th century palazzo on the Mediterranean. Once she got over her mad, they
settled in more comfortably than the first time around. Buffy resigned
herself to the fact that Angelus would never allow his love for her to
dictate his actions regarding the whole conflict between good and evil thing
they were both caught up in. He wasn’t Spike, he reminded her. She didn’t
want him to be, she’d snapped. Despite a penchant for bickering, they managed
together pretty well for the better part of the next century. She was not amused by his scheme for importing Kalarian slave
girls from one of the less civilized dimensions and selling them on what was
becoming an intergalactic market, at that point in time. She freed the girls,
costing him a small fortune, and left him, again. Though not for long. So it has gone for the rest of the millennium. They live
together until Angelus crosses some line, violates some ethic Buffy barely
realizes she’s retained, and she leaves. They run into each other and
reconcile for a night or a week or a decade, but she won’t immediately move
in with him. Eventually, though, he wears down her resistance, and the whole
cycle starts all over again. There are worse ways to spend eternity, she supposes. Early on,
she thought that one of the better ways would have been if it were Angel
beside her, rather than Angelus. But if her life has taught her one thing, it
is to be careful what you wish for. She discovered, painfully, that the
question of Angel’s soul was resolved for good and all. Too, as the centuries
wore on, she was honest enough to admit to herself that even if she could
somehow restore Angelus to the Angel she had fallen in love with all those
long years ago, there was no chance that they could possibly pick up where
they’d left off. The woman she has become--hard and bright as the most
carefully polished diamond, all sentiment and softness leached away--would
not be an easy and comfortable fit for him, anymore. She and Angelus are another matter. Time has worn away the
jagged edges between them, making them a very comfortable fit, indeed. Well, except for his insistence on siding with the guys trying
to end the world, each and every time. She gets that it is a matter of
principle. She even gets the principle. For that matter, given all that they
have endured, all that has been done to them in the name of preserving the
balance of power between Good and Evil, she isn’t entirely unsympathetic to
said principle. She simply has other, more important principles to fight for. But not, if Whistler is to be believed, for at least another two
weeks. Smiling, Buffy puts aside her now empty plate and removes the
drained mug from Angelus’ hands. "Still feeling peckish?" she murmurs. He cocks a brow. "Why Miss Summers," he purrs, "whatever did you
have in mind?" With a smirk every bit as wickedly seductive as his own,
she moves over him to straddle his hips, tosses her hair back and shows him. Like they always do when they first reconcile, they spend the
next few days in bed. As ever, he drains her dry the first night, while she
sucks on his bleeding wrist. Although he claims he only does it because it
makes their orgasms so incredibly intense and though she long ago let him
persuade her that the resultant pleasure is worth the headache she invariably
has when she wakes up, she suspects part of him secretly hopes that if he
does it often enough, eventually he’ll succeed in turning her. She is equally
certain that if he ever did succeed, he’d be utterly horrified. There’s less
than no danger of it ever happening, anyway, and she does not begrudge him
his secret Vampire Buffy fantasy any more than he begrudges her the secret
Angel Restored fantasy she can’t quite let go of. She finds his ability to
cling to such dreams strangely endearing, so lets him have his way. The fact
that he’s right about the orgasms doesn’t hurt, either. And, once in while,
they role play… This time, though, it isn’t only her head that ‘s throbbing, but
her clit. The rug burn is as bad as she thought it would be. She pouts and
demands he kiss it and make it better. He has some interesting ideas on the
subject. One involves the soothing properties of ice. He uses small chips of
it with the sensitivity of an artist and the skill of a surgeon. She comes
non-stop for five solid minutes before he listens to her pleas and lets her
rest. He’s rock hard and aching, but she’s too tired to move, so he simply
stretches out beside her and lazily strokes a hand along his shaft,
whispering erotic things in her ear. Slayer recuperative powers make the
headache fade to a level she can ignore, and restore her energy in a matter
of minutes. After a particularly vulgar utterance, Angelus finds himself
thrown on his back, his hand knocked away from his cock so that his eager
lover’s hot mouth can glom onto it. He loses no time in pulling her legs over
his head, burying his face in her dripping pussy. He takes a moment to stare
at her erect clit, peeking out from her nest of curls. The poor little thing
is red and abraded, and he runs his tongue over it soothingly in apology.
Buffy gives a muffled shriek as his cool tongue slides over the burning
nubbin, sucking him further down her throat and caressing his balls. Light
explodes behind his closed eyes and only the skill imparted by thirteen
centuries of sexual experience allows him to deny his own orgasm. He’s
enjoying this too much to let things end too quickly. But just because he needs to hold off, doesn’t mean he has to
make Buffy wait. He plays one of his favorite games, trying to see how many
times he can make her come before she goes unconscious from sheer bliss. The
combination of Slayer stamina and vampiric endurance is a fortunate one.
She’s been climaxing for half an hour before he senses that her energy is
flagging. He slows down his pace, lightens the pressure, keeping just enough
stimulus to hold her interest without bringing her to yet another orgasm and
lets go of his control on his own pleasure. He allows himself to concentrate
on the feel of her tongue laving him, teeth scraping at him exactly the way
he likes. Her tongue and her hands are marvelously talented, and as she
fondles his heavy sacs, he can feel them tighten, feel his rigid flesh
gathering itself to release his load. He slides a finger deep inside her as
his tongue lashes her abused clit with renewed energy, feeling her reach that
final peak just as his own release bursts free. She drinks him down even as
he laps up her copious juices, holding her hips firmly in place. Eventually,
he softens and slips from her mouth, but he is unrelenting in his attentions
to her swollen sex, and he does not release her until she collapses,
unconscious, sprawled over him. He lifts her up and tucks her back into the bed by his side, her
head comfortably pillowed on his shoulder, his body spooned around hers, a
blanket ensuring that she is not chilled. He is always solicitous of her
comfort, a fact which clashes with his status as a master vampire and Dark
Champion, and which ought to bother him far more than it does. Angelus tells
himself that the reason he doesn’t just push her aside and walk away once his
own needs are met is because it would piss her off when she wakes up. She’ll
be more amenable if he treats her gently, more receptive to whatever little
games he wants to play. Force has its charms, and Unwilling Buffy is a true
delight, chained in his bed. Willing Buffy, however, is even more receptive,
inventive, and accommodating and that is, he reassures himself, the only
thing that motivates him to show her any consideration at all. He’s been telling himself that lie for so long, he is convinced
of its veracity and is able to fall into an untroubled sleep, dreaming of the
fun to be had when his lover wakes up, fully recovered. The reunion sex doesn’t exactly pall--it never has, it never
will--but eventually they do get around to expanding their activities to
include other interests, or duties as the case may be. Over the next few
days, though Angelus continues to stay at Buffy’s place, he makes the
contacts he needs to be invited into the big battle on the side opposing
Buffy. Everyone knows that they are romantically involved. Everyone also
knows that they will not pull any punches: neither will betray his or her own
side, and neither will hesitate to incapacitate the other. Whatever they are
outside of the battlefield, on it they are dedicated, consummate, and
frighteningly adept adversaries. Angelus is, quite simply, the only Force of
Darkness capable of even slowing this Slayer down, so his welcome into the
ranks of Warriors for Darkness is assured. Not that he is surprised, of course. That’s how it has gone for
nearly a thousand years. What does surprise him, this time, is just how well his own team
is organized, how vast their resources . . .and how utterly unconcerned Buffy
seems to be. She isn’t even trying to gather an army, or research ways of
stopping the forces arrayed against her. As far as Angelus can see, her
preparations for the upcoming Apocalypse consist mainly of giving herself a
manicure and treating herself to a full-body massage at one of the
inter-dimensional spas that have become so popular. "You do know what you’re up against this time?" he
growls one night. "First Evil," she says, not raising her gaze from the
nail she is buffing. "Army of Turok Han. Again," she sniffs
disdainfully, the been there, done that obvious in her voice.
"Horde of Zombies," she continues with a yawn. "Brotherhood of
Hr’losian Sorcerers. Remaining assassins of the Order of Taraka. Herd of
rabid werewolves and forvalaka and a partridge in a pear tree. Oh. And the
former Scourge of Europe, now known as the Dark Lord of the Cold Hells. And
his army. You are bringing the Ice Warriors, aren’t you?" "Of course I’m bringing the Ice Warriors," he says
angrily. "What the fuck is the point of being the Dark Lord of the Cold
Hells if I don’t have my Glacial Army at my back? "You may want to put them in front of you," she advises.
"Just a thought." "Buffy," he growls warningly. "I don’t think
you’re taking this seriously." It is an oddly disturbing thought. She’s
certainly pulled off the big save every single time before this, but it has
also always cost her monumental effort. Have her constant victories finally
gone to her head, making her think herself invincible? That way lay disaster.
If his girl doesn’t watch herself, he thinks, she might end up imprisoned in
a hell dimension at the mercy of her demon master while the world burns and
every mortal being on it endures an eternity of torture. Of course, he’ll be the demon master at whose mercy Buffy will
find herself, and he could give a fuck about the world, so the scenario does
have an up side….With a shrug, Angelus leaves her to the plans she isn’t
making. As the inevitable portents unfold, Buffy maintains her
nonchalance. The sky rains fire, the sun weeps blood, the earth groans and
the seas boil. Which, in these days of impervious building materials and
instantaneous transportation from one end of the planet to the other, doesn’t
cause much inconvenience and no more than a mild report in the news that the
scientific community is working on the problem, and things should be back to
normal in time for rush hour. Buffy mainly seems interested in ordering a few
hundred gallons of cookie dough fudge mint chip ice cream from a company that
specializes in recreating historical recipes. But, on the appointed day, the Hordes of Darkness gather at the
foredoomed and fated battlefield, and enact the rituals that will sink the
crimson sun beneath the coal black waves of the boiled sea, and usher in the
Reign of Eternal Night. They are rather miffed that the Slayer hasn’t shown. Surely she should have amassed an army of Warriors of Light?
Surely bloody battle must be enjoined? Surely she isn’t just going to give up
without a fight? It is Angelus who realizes that, in fact she is going to do
exactly that. And that she is going to win, anyway. It isn’t the sound that alerts him, but the scent: a mix of
vanilla and Essence of Buffy that was imprinted on his senses a millennium
before. He snaps his gaze upward, frowning at the point of red light, high
above him, and quickly descending…and then he realizes what his glorious
bitch is up to and collapses on the ground laughing like a loon, realizing
that the sorcerers are useless and the rest of them are toast. After all, none of the Hordes of Darkness are impervious to
fire, but everyone knows that magic is no damned good against dragons. Of course, everyone also knows that no one can ride a dragon,
but no one seems to have told that to Buffy, or to the dragon she is clearly
riding, in a beautiful arc destined to collide with the heart of the Army of
Darkness. Angelus calculates that he has about ten seconds to impact, springs
to his feet and races to put his Glacial Army between himself and the mobile
inferno about to devour the gathered legions. He dives beneath the
overhanging cliff just as the first gout of flame incinerates the
hysterically chanting sorcerers. Nope, magic is no damned good at all against dragons. The Hordes of Darkness break ranks and scatter across the face
of the earth. Or try to. The dragon has an amazing wingspan and the ability
to flit from one end of the horizon to the other with no more than a few
desultory aerodynamic flaps. Of course, the methodical way it goes about
circling ever inward from the outermost perimeter, forcing the hordes into a
tighter and tighter knot, increasingly easy to send up in flames, is likely
owed to the gentle guidance it is receiving from the goddess on its back.
From the safety of the overhang, Angelus admires the view. When it is all over, the dragon circles to a graceful landing on
the scorched earth. The First Evil, incorporeal and helpless as ever, leaves
in a snit. Angelus slogs his way through the bog left behind by the now
completely melted Ice Warriors to where Buffy is dismounting. "How the fuck did you get that thing to let you on its
back?" he asks admiringly. "Her back," Buffy corrects, busily scratching the
dragon carefully behind her massive, dangerously scaled ears. The scales,
Angelus can see, are a blood-red organic metal. They’re probably sharp as a
sword to the touch, and explain why no one can ride a dragon . . .unless
they’ve equipped themselves with a thick leather saddle and sturdy leather
boots, as well as leather pants. Angelus grins. Bonus points for finding a
combat outfit that looks as hot as that one. Buffy ignores his increasingly
lascivious glances, continuing to answer his earlier question. "And that
was easy. She never tasted cookie dough fudge mint chip ice cream,
before." At his blank look, she pats his hand comfortingly. "It’s a
girl thing," she explains. Angelus nods. "So, we done here?" he asks, already bored. "Not quite," a new voice says genially. Angelus growls. Buffy rolls her eyes. Not such a new voice,
really. "What now, Whistler?" "You won," he says simply. "Uh-huh," Buffy says. "As usual." "Not really," he smiles. "Usually, you stop the
current threat, but more are waiting just behind it. This time--" "Do not," she begins furiously, "Do not dare
tell me that it will be different this time." Beside her, the
dragon lifts her head warily and scents the air, disturbed by Buffy’s anger.
"It is always supposed to be different, this time. And it never
is. Even when we threw every demon in the world out of this dimension,
slammed the door shut and threw away the key, the lurks returned in a few
hundred years--" "And Maleka Frey stopped them," Whistler says.
"And, when the next resurgence comes, someone will stop that, too. But
not you." "Why not her?" Angelus demands. "She’s immortal.
We both are." "Not for long," Whistler says. They never see the
balls of light coming. They do feel them, though. Heat and light and power slam into
each of them, through their respective chests, and fire scorches through
their veins. The dragon launches herself skyward with a growl of distress,
disappearing into the dimension Buffy borrowed her from. Buffy screams.
Angelus roars, more in fear for her than in pain for himself, though he is in
a degree of pain that beggars even the experience of being revived from the
fire. It lasts only a moment, one excruciating, attenuated moment of
exquisite agony. When it is over, Angelus finds Buffy lying limp and unmoving
at his feet. He roars again, but it does not come out the way it should, not
the full throated, leopard-like growl of a master vampire. His roar is the
wholly human, wholly anguished cry of a man in love who has seen injury done
to his mate. Wholly human. Angelus realizes, in fury, that his face is not shifting, his
fangs not descending, no matter how hard he tries to call forth his demonic
visage. With a snarl, Angelus scoops up Buffy and holds her close to his
annoyingly beating heart. "What have you done to her?" he demands. "Same thing I did to you," Whistler says with
something akin to cheerfulness. "Congratulations. You’ve both shan-shued. Angelus is about to ask how the hell a girl who can’t die was
supposed to die until she lived, but Buffy chooses that moment to announce
her return to this mortal plane by drawing a deep breath, and choking on it.
Angelus pats her back, soothing her as the paroxysms of coughing sweep over
her. "Easy, baby," "Whistler?" she gasps. "He still here?" "He was just leaving," Angelus says, looking daggers
at the little demon. The look isn’t noticeably less intimidating than it has
been for the past thirteen hundred years, resident demon or no. Whistler
notices. "Ah. Angel?" he begins uneasily. "Isn’t this what
you always wanted? Your reward? Aren’t you happy?" Angelus lets loose a string of curses in Gaelic that would make
a demon blush. Whistler does, but then grows deathly pale. This time, it is
Buffy who is laughing. Whistler doesn’t recognize the sound, at first. She’s
too rusty at it, hasn’t had anything to laugh about in a number of lifetimes.
Eventually, Angelus helps her to stand. "You don’t get it, do you?" she asks Whistler, and he
could swear that the look she gives him is a pitying one. "They didn’t
tell you. Or maybe They just weren’t paying attention." "I’m betting on the latter," Angelus mutters. "Paying attention to what?" Whistler asks. "You thought making Angelus human would make him Angel
again, didn’t you? Restore his soul, his mission, his memories?" Buffy
presses. "If he’s human, the demon is gone," Whistler states. "Oh, yeah. The demon is gone. But, that doesn’t mean much.
The demon hasn’t been in charge for a long, long time." "Happened about two or three hundred years after Buffy
found out she wasn’t mortal anymore," Angelus picks up the tale, still
inspecting his mate for any signs of damage. "I got in the way of
something, pissed off a coven of witches. Not wiccans. Witches. None of that
‘return three fold good for good’ crap. Just a craving for power and the
ability to use it. I had protected myself against having the gypsy curse
performed on me, but they weren’t using that. Had some other mojo they cooked
up, tailor made. They knew about my precautions. And, they figured out how to
get around them." "Angel’s soul was restored then," Buffy said,
extricating herself from her mate’s inspection. She was fine. "And, made
permanent. The witches figured it was about the most torment they could give
him. They were right, too. You should have seen him those first ten years. He
was a real basket case. I’m talkin’ howling-at-the-moon-chain-up-in-the-basement
raving lunacy." "Good thing we had that dungeon," Angelus agrees. "I guess," she says with a grimace. These are not her
favorite memories. "You’re saying that all these years . . .that’s been Angel
running around on the dark side?" Whistler can’t believe what he is
hearing. "Just how often do you think he could stand it?" she
asks bitterly. "His soul isn’t a yo-yo. How many times did it have to be
pushed back into his abandoned body, with a fresh load of slaughter to
remember, before he cracked? Before the soul and the demon merged, so that
there’s no real distinction between them anymore?" "But, he was one of our strongest. . ." Whistler
begins, and stops at the looks they’re giving him. His mind whirls as he
tries to process it all, that for nearly a thousand years, one of the
Champions of Light had been fighting for the Forces of Darkness. And, he
tries to process what it must have been like for Angel, consciousness
restored to the horror show, one too many times. "I’m so sorry," he
whispers, painfully aware of the inadequacy of that response. "Yeah, everybody’s sorry," Buffy says, rolling her
eyes. "But at least it’s over, this time," Whistler offers
her hopefully. "You can have what you’ve both always wanted: a normal
human life, a family, growing old together, dying in each other’s arms." Buffy and Angelus exchange a look of pure disgust. "You think that’s what we want?" she demands.
"You think that, after a thousand years of this crap, we’re just gonna
go off in the sunset, buy a house with a picket fence--gees, do they even
have houses with picket fences, anymore?--and live some kind of normal life?
You think we’d even know how?" "It’s your reward," he says helplessly. Buffy snorts. "No, it isn’t," she says. "It’s just the reward
They feel like giving me, the one that suits Their purposes. But guess what?
It sure as hell doesn’t suit mine." She smiles unpleasantly. "You
might want to step back, right about now," she warns him. "Hey! Just the messenger!" but he is backpedaling.
Luckily he does it quickly enough. She’s already begun chanting, and in a few
minutes something that should not be possible happens. He can see the light
tracing along their veins, back through the path it took on its way in. A
moment later, two balls of light explode from their chests and hurtle toward
him. He instinctively puts up his hands and a moment later two orbs are
returned to him, exactly as they were when he cast them at the Champions who
were supposed to be rewarded with their hearts’ desires. "How the hell did you do that?" Angelus asks,
impressed. She arches her brow at him. "In one thousand years, you think I wouldn’t learn a little
magic?" she shakes her head in disbelief. "Well, that seems more than just a little
magic," he points out reasonably. She shrugs. "I did my
homework," is the only explanation she gives. "What have you done?" Whistler asks, shocked.
"You can’t have…you haven’t…how could you--" "Throw Their gift back in Their faces?" Buffy asks. "I
told you: I did my homework. And, I crafted the spell I needed to undo what
They had you do." "So, you two, you’re immortal again? Slayer and
vampire?" "Looks like," Angelus says smugly around a mouthful of
fangs as he slides effortlessly back into game face. "Almost," Buffy corrects him. "Because I’m pretty
sure if They were gonna make me human again, I wouldn’t have been a Slayer
anymore, right, Whistler?" "There’s no need for any Slayers," he affirms.
"Won’t be for another thousand years." "Is that right? Well, then, I’m not a Slayer. I’m done.
Finished. Retired, resigned, released, however you want to think of it." "You can’t just walk away from what you are." "Yeah, and I can’t refuse a gift from The Powers That Be,
but I just did." He looks shocked but more, he looks saddened, and she
understands that his sorrow is for her. It softens her, briefly. "It’s not so bad, Whistler. All we really want is to be
left alone. Angelus doesn’t need to feed that often. He’s not going to cause
the kind of havoc they need to raise a Slayer to stop." "Well, I don’t know about that," her mate begins. "Not for another thousand years, anyway," she glares
at him pointedly. He shrugs. It’s only time, after all, something they have
in unending quantities, it would seem. "That isn’t what I’m worried about, kid," Whistler
says. "Immortality . . .it sounds great, but have you thought about it?
Really thought about it? Even a thousand years, that’s nothing. This old
earth is going to be around for a couple of million years, Buffy. Are you
prepared for that? And, even if you are, are you prepared for what comes
after? Entropy? The eventual death of the entire universe? All matter
collapsing in on itself until the cold stars and dead planets are blown to
dust? What happens to you two, then? Immortal, and spinning endlessly in a
vacuum, with no light, no heat, nothing at all?" She smiles gently, touched by his concern. "You think I learned how to do a spell I couldn’t undo, if
I need to?" she asks. He stares at her, at the two of them, and realizes that, no, she
won’t leave herself without an out. Someday, the two of them will be human.
They most likely won’t raise a family, but simply live out a normal span,
before going on to whatever heaven or hell is destined to have them. Somehow,
despite Angelus’ fearsome reputation and the horror he has wrought on a
million hapless innocents, Whistler doesn’t think that it is hell in which
they will take their final rest. Perhaps neither heaven nor hell. Maybe
they’ve earned their own place, their own peace, maybe their suffering in
this lifetime has paid for whatever sins they’ve needed to pay for. He
doesn’t know. He can only hope. If anyone deserves that bit of peace, she
surely does, and he knows there can be no peace for her without the demon who
even now holds her close in a protective embrace. He nods, accepting what
they’ve told him. "I see," he tells them. "I’ll let Them
know." "Suit yourself," she tells him, unconcerned. He nods
again, and walks away, leaving them to find their own way off the
battlefield, as they have found their own way out of the plans and traps and
enticements of a thousand gods and demons and Powers, before. "That went well," Angelus says, pleased. "Pretty well," she agrees. "Although he did chase
off Mrs. Gordo, and I’m pretty pissed about that." "Mrs. Gordo?" Angelus asked. "The dragon," Buffy explains. She looks at him
speculatively. "You wanna go for a ride? ‘Cause, I do know where to find
her…." He grins, and takes her hand, letting her lead the way to the
cave where she knows how to activate a gateway between worlds. And, someplace that is not a dimension, but is simply else They
decide that matters turned out as well as could be expected. One never knows
about Champions, after all. Some break under the pressure, some die at the
first true challenge, some grow disheartened and a few, a very few, endure. It is a crap shoot. But Buffy, at least, seems to have finally
lucked out with the dice. The End
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