AN: I love Buffy and yet this is my first fic on the fandom. The Angel/Buffy romance (and the overall tone) might be darker than it was on the show. Please let me know your thoughts.
…
It's ironic that a man called Angel should live with a monster in the back of his head. At first, she thought – wanted to think – there was actually a clear-cut difference. It was better not to see the shadow in the good, gentle-souled man she'd fallen in love with. Just two indistinguishable opposites, having nothing to do with each other. The human and the vampire. The man and the monster.
"We can't." His soft voice is firm, his breathing ragged.
His breath is still hot from their kiss. Her mouth is close enough that she can taste it, the heat of his desire, the primitive fire that boils in his veins.
Buffy Summer knows, now, has learned the hard way, that things simply aren't as simple as this. Her hand traces the lines of his face, cold, immortal. Vampires are like statues – never meant to feel, to love, to want like he wants her.
She knows he's afraid, if they go too far, if she allows him too much happiness, he'll lose control. Probably, he can feel Angelus right now, the hungry animal in his cage, wanting to be set loose, to build her a temple made from the flesh and blood of human sacrifices. Angel and Angelus aren't really two but one. And the demon in him loves her, just like the man, but it's a cruel and selfish love, burning obsession.
A sigh parts Angel's lips. Harshly – as if clawing at what remains of his willpower – he tears away from her and walks to the other end of the room. Outside, it's all rain and thunder and the night looks like utter, undiluted blackness.
She wasn't supposed to come here. She tries not to, when she can help it, but the weather caught her by surprise, all hell breaking loose and ruining her routine late-night patrol. Angel's crypt was just there and she thought she'd take shelter – they would just talk, nothing dangerous. Nothing that would risk releasing Angelus onto Sunnydale once more.
Buffy clenches her jaw. It isn't right, that their love can have such huge – apocalyptical – consequences.
"Why?" He says.
His back is turned to her, the lines of his muscles contracted beneath the fabric of his shirt. His hands are gripped around the edge of a marble table he seems to want to rip from the floor.
She remembers all that happened the year before, when she thought letting those hands on her would mean no trouble – how could it, when they were in love, so in love they couldn't keep away from each other, even if it sometimes felt as if it was painful for him to bear her presence?
No one said falling for a vampire was simple.
Still, Buffy tastes the bitterness of bile and buried sorrows when she reflects on her lost innocence.
"Why do you come here," he speaks, still turned to the wall, "why torment me like this?"
"Torment you?" She hears the resent in her own voice. Steps forwards, until he could touch her if he turned around. "I didn't ask for this, Angel. You came into my life. You didn't say who you were, what you were, even when –" She swallows.
He cranes his neck slightly. The smooth line of his cheekbone and a dark eye stand out from the shadows. "When you fell for me?"
Despite her, she breaks the distance between them, then her palm reaches for his neck, urging him to turn and face her. "You don't have to live like this," she says. "Like – like a recluse, driving yourself insane." A choked laughter breaks from her throat. "There was a time we could be seen together. Where we could go outside, when the world –"
"I killed people, Buffy."
"Angelus." She corrects, sounds puerile to her own ears. "Angelus killed them."
He says nothing but his jaw is clenched tight. She knows better, knows Angel was somewhere inside all the while, just like Angelus is there right now.
"People will understand."
"No."
"Then why do you stay here?"
Anger makes her voice shake. He deserves her anger. Being here, in Sunnydale, her little secret, reviving the embers of a passion that took hold of her two years ago and never died out.
I killed him and still it didn't die. And if that didn't make her fall out of love with him, what will?
"You want me to go?"
He steps back and faces her fully. Buffy's hand falls back to her side.
"No." Her mouth is full of shame as she speaks the word. "I killed you." A tremor runs through her lips. "It's only fair you should haunt me. I'd sooner have you haunt me than your being gone. Do you know how pointless it's become, going to school, patrolling, everyday life – when there's a grave in me, a bottomless pit that opened up with your absence that nothing can fill?"
The suffering in his silent eyes make her step surer, as she laces a hand around his back.
"Maybe you're right," she says. "Maybe the world won't understand. Maybe we're putting everything at risk."
"Buffy –"
"But let's not care about that tonight. Let's just pretend we're back to the beginning. That we don't know for sure there's no future. That there's still a way this can work out."
For a moment, he stands silent with hesitation, unresponsive to her touch. She watches him carefully enough she can see the surrender in his eyes, as he caves in. Only because he knows she'll kill him if she has to.
"It can't last," he says, although he's beaten, although they both know tonight, love has triumphed. "This. You and me. Angelus… he becomes stronger when I'm with you."
"I know." Still she presses herself against him and rests her head against his un-beating heart, relaxes into his embrace. "I'm not afraid of you."
And she isn't.
Though the monster might grow stronger at her approach, she awakens the man inside of him, too.
…
End Notes: please share your thoughts. I was thinking I'd add Spike in later chapters so I'd be interested in knowing if you think he could add to the plot.