SIUIL
A RUIN (GO, MY LOVE)
Chapter 9
by Yseult deBreton
The stake flew through
the air towards Angel’s heart. Despite her battered psyche, Buffy
was still The Slayer. Even at the distance of 30 feet her aim was accurate.
Fortunately, Slayer blood flowed through the vampire’s body and sharpened
his reflexes. The stake embedded itself in the wall behind him.
Buffy yelled in frustration and gathered up the bedsheet. Can I make
it to the door before he climbs over the bed?
The answer was a resounding no. Angel tackled her to the floor and pinned
her with the weight of his body. She wriggled beneath him in an unconscious
imitation of Faith. Her legs were tangled in the sheet; her hands beat
uselessly on his back.
“Stop squirming,” a chilling voice commanded in her ear. Buffy
froze. Oh God. Ohgodohgodohgod. He was nuzzling her throat,
breathing her scent, licking at the wound he had made. His hands swept
down her body. “I’m not Angelus,” he whispered in her ear
before he sucked an earlobe into his mouth. “I’m not Angelus,”
he repeated. “But I want you as much as he ever did.” His mouth
moved to hers and devoured it completely in a rough passion-tinged kiss that
left her lips bloody.
“Get off of me.” Buffy punched him in the jaw with enough force
to make his ears ring. She drew back to hit him again. He caught
her wrist in a vice-like grip and squeezed until she cried out in pain.
“Buffy, please. Don’t. Fight. Me. You’ll
lose.” Angel released her arm and rolled off her. He stood
and walked to the dresser where he found some clothes for her. “Get
dressed,” he ordered with his back to her. “Get dressed before
I take you on the floor like Angelus wants.” He slammed the door
behind him as his howl of frustrated desire shook the floorboards.
Buffy hesitantly
made her way to the kitchen and walked into a surreal tableau. An obviously
dead Wesley was propped in a chair. A half werewolf/half human Oz was
nonchalantly drinking what smelled like really bad strong coffee. A vampire
in gameface was growling and pouring milk into a bowl of her favourite cereal.
The whole scene was just a little “off”.
She took it all in for a long minute before she spoke. “Okay.
Now this is more than the usual freakiness that passes for life in Sunnydale.
What gives?”
Angel set her bowl on the table and rummaged in the drawer for a spoon.
Oz poured a cup of coffee for Buffy, another for himself, and one for Angel
“Whoa. Stop. Coffee makes him jittery.” Oz gave
Buffy a classic Oz look.
“I don’t think ‘jittery’ is my problem today, Buffy,”
Angel said before downing the vile contents of his cup. “I’m
thinking it might be ‘psycho’.” He leered at her through
his fangs.
“Or possibly ‘dead’,” added Oz. “More coffee?”
The four of them sat around the table staring at their hands, the utensils,
anything but each other. A dead ex-Watcher, an undead vampire, a werewolf,
a Slayer. Except for the slurping of coffee or cereal, there was an eerie
silence.
Angel battled his body for control of the demon. He didn’t speak
again until his facial ridges had disappeared and his fangs had retracted.
Then he broke the tension. “The Hellmouth is opening. Oz and
I can feel its pull. That’s why he’s half werewolf and I’m—“
“Doing your best Angelus impression?” queried Buffy somewhat snidely.
She flinched when his hand covered hers.
“I’m sorry about earlier, Buffy. I’m trying to keep
him reined in as much as I can. But the more the Hellmouth opens, the
more the demon wants out.” Angel rose from his chair and squatted
at her feet so he could hold her hands in his. She looked deep into his
eyes searching for the monster housed in his body. Angel’s eyes flickered
quickly from brown to yellow to brown again. If she had blinked, she would
have missed it.
“So last night was what exactly?” Her voice quivered as she asked
this terrible question. She did not want to have this conversation with
him; she needed his reassurance that her sex life was not destined to be a universal
joke. Angel smoothed a strand of her hair behind one ear and allowed his
fingers to follow the contour of her jaw. The world was reduced to him
and her. The Mayor, the Hellmouth, even Oz were forgotten.
“Last night was me, Angel, worshipping you, Buffy, as a man loves a woman.”
He lifted her chin and gave her a deep kiss. When he broke it off, he
saw the tears pooling in her eyes. It really is Angel and not a dream.
She shook her head to clear the tears. “And this morning?” she
demanded.
This morning. Angel sighed. How do I explain that this
morning she looked so desirable that I wanted her even without Angelus or the
Hellmouth goading me? His lover was still a very inexperienced teenager.
She had no concept of the power of her sexuality.
“This morning was still about a man and a woman.” Her face scrunched
up as she processed this sentence and couldn’t. “Hunh?”
Angel smiled at her ignorance and tried to phrase his explanation without offending
her.
“You looked sexy. He’s a sexy undead guy. He just kind
of went with it.” This very Xander-like statement came from Oz in
a bored monotone. Angel and Buffy turned to him with their mouths gaping.
“I’m thinking I should probably stop drinking the coffee,” Oz
noted to himself.
They were in the
great room surrounded by books. In one of these tomes Wesley had found
a spell that required a Slayer. Buffy had remembered that tidbit of information
while Oz had been washing the dishes. They had decamped back to the great
room to search for “a big ugly green book” with a damaged cover.
Once again, the books had been divided into three orderly stacks. This
time the piles were “not big green books”, “big green books”,
and “not the big green book we need”.
“Hey,” said Oz looking up from the book he was browsing. “I
think that coffee’s paying off. Didn’t Willow do a binding spell
the last time the Hellmouth opened?”
“Yeah, she did,” said Buffy. “It’s probably in one of these
books here somewhere.” She gestured at the floor. “Aren’t
we looking for a binding spell?”
“Nah,” said Oz. “We’re looking for the sealing spell.
The binding spell will keep the Hellmouth beasties from eating you while you
seal the Hellmouth.” He smiled triumphantly. “And I know
just where that book is.” The book was in Willow’s house
in Willow’s room under Willow’s bed where it landed when we…
The smile was replaced with a stoic look.
Buffy moved quietly to Oz’s side. “You don’t have to get
it,” she said softly. “I can go.”
Oz thought about that. Going to Willow’s house last night had been
tough. Buffy was her best friend, but he just didn’t want anyone
else touching Willow’s things. He wiped a sleeve across his face.
“I’m good to go.” He looked at his fur-covered hands.
“Not like anyone’s going to be around to notice me.”
He grabbed his jacket and then stopped. “Angel, can I talk to you
for a minute?” Buffy and Angel exchanged puzzled glances. After
a couple of minutes of furtive whispering and a gentlemanly handshake, Oz left.
“What was that all about?” asked Buffy. She had rolled up the sleeves
of Angel’s shirt to reveal toned arms with an ugly bruise on one wrist.
She lay on her stomach on the floor idly flipping pages while she waited for
Angel to join her.
Angel grinned wickedly. “I’ll never tell,” he said and
scooped her off the floor.
“Hey, we’ve got an end of the world thingy happening here. We
do not have time to fool around.” She giggled as she said this and
tried to make her face look stern. “Angel, put me down.”
“No,” he replied and suddenly released his hold on her. She
landed on the couch where she was swiftly covered by a cold vampire.
“You’re warm,” he teased as he unbuttoned her shirt and danced
his fingers across her breasts and belly. “I could get used to the
taste of a Slayer.”
Somewhere in that sentence Angelus had come out to play.
