a s l e e p i n p e r f e c t i o n
by bulletproof (bulletproof_android@yahoo.com)
characters owned by joss whedon. song by augie march.
buffy's p.o.v.
//Sailing by your love's lonely light
I might be still inside
You were a girl, now you're a wife to know
These memories steal you from your long, peaceful night
Asleep in perfection
Asleep in perfection
A soul's misdirection
Directed at you//
I dream of him still. Of lazy limbs and warm nights and the days that filled in between. I dream of him to the point where I can't sleep. Not for fear that he'll be there, no, that's a certainty, but for fear that I won't be awake when he comes.
So when the phone finally did call shrill to the night air, I was quick to answer.
The silence is deafening. It crackles and burns as always between us, even over the crystal clear phone line that connects us tenuously together.
I know he's near and don't bother with such cumbersome pleasantries as where and why he's here as he likewise does not ask where and why I'm up at this hour. I know he can see me. It tingles in my spine.
The silence is deafening and I'm afraid to violate it with a breath, but when I finally do, he joins me, coming as a gut-wrenched sob, a hopeless cry, and I am stricken.
"Come in." I whisper and it's not a question, nor an order, but simply what is going to happen.
He is at my window in a second and he hugs the sill with taut, tired fingers.
He dares not look at me with anything but a little boy's eyes, timid and shy and questioning, always questioning, no matter how much he knows of me, whether he can break into my life again.
So I answer with an open hand, always open for him, at least when I am truthful and honest with myself.
He takes it for the cue it is and sits on my still-rumpled sheets, awakened from slumber of him to await his return.
We sit in perfect silence, perfect stillness, though I still feel his tremors through my bed. I look in his eyes as he would let me, as they flit between mine and the stitches that keep his great coat together.
And we could sit here for an eternity, if not for the demons we have to fight and the dawn we have to face, but he knows he's here for a reason.
Finally he reaches for me with fingers of trembling cold and cradles the face that yearns for his touch. But nothing more.
Again we are frozen. Statuettes in mid-motion and it seems to pain him to make the next move… but he does and they are the most natural in the world, as if he were gravitating towards me.
And then I am where I belong, in the seams of his embrace, his arms which hold me up and keep *me* together, but it's not about me tonight and I try hard to remember that.
I feel him collapse into me, into us, nuzzling his nose deep into my nape. His forehead is damp and his head is raging.
It scares me to think what evil could have him so close to the end of his tether.
"Buffy," he breathes, and my heart trips over the sigh, "it hurts, I-"
"Ssh" I murmur and quieten him with gentle kisses over his crumpled brow.
"I know." I don't. But I'll know for him.
And it's enough because he is silenced and nothing more passes between us. There is no need for questioning here, for I know better than to call this weakness, even just a moment of. I know better than to call him lost lamb or dear boy. He is my wounded warrior, come back to repair that dent in his armour, so he may go on fighting when he leaves my side.
As I know he shall and must.
But I think not of such sorrows now, and give him my all.
For that's all I could ever give my Angel. My all.
And so we lie, asleep in perfection, safe in comfort and home at least for the duration of the night.
END
do the feedback