Title: Catch Me If I Fall
Genre: Slash, Drama/Supernatural/Romance
Rating: T
Pairing(s): Angel/Noah, Mentioned Angel/Buffy
Warnings: Language, Violence, Mentions of Child Abuse, Vampire Behavior, Supernatural Powers and Dealings
Summary: Puck doesn't know what happened; and in truth, he doesn't need to know. Because whether he knows or he doesn't, right now he's in Angel's arms; and that is fine with him. Part 2 of the Oneshot Series: A Fae's Love of a Vampire.
A/N: I really love Angel and Puck, don't you? It's new and exciting; and it means I can make Noah a supernatural creature. Awesome! Here's a taste of the sexual chemistry between my two boys. We are also going to see the beginnings of Noah's power growing. Why does his eyes turn gold? We will find out as the series continues. And I just want to say, I have nothing againt Buffy the character. So if it feels like I'm bashing her, I'm not. Enjoy!
There was the sound of fists against flesh and feet scraping against old hardwood flooring echoing from the halls of a home in northern Scotland. Not an infrequent occurrence, but certainly not a welcome one either. A door burst open revealing the bloodied face of none other than Noah Puckerman. "Little fuckers," he growled and jumped back up quickly, grabbing the stake hidden in his gray hoodie.
He tried to run back inside, but was stopped at the same door by the vampire that had thrown him out. "Little boys should learn their place," it hissed, descending the small concrete steps.
"Sorry," he replied, getting into fighting stance. "Never been good with that."
The vamp growled and pounced, knocking Noah off of his feet again. They rolled, the teen trying to hold the creature at a distance to keep from letting it get near his neck, while simultaneously trying to get it in a position ripe for staking. Suddenly, it turned to dust while it was hovering above him, and he coughed as it filled his nose and mouth. "Yuck," he complained, sitting up.
A girly giggle came from his right and he rolled his eyes. It was one of the slayers. "Thanks, Serena," he mumbled.
"No problem," she grinned and threw the crossbow over her shoulder with a flourish.
He got up and headed for the house again, looking inside and seeing Angel dusting the remaining two concurrently. He sighed. That manpire has such grace…
"Are you alright?" He asked Noah after he took one last look to make sure he didn't miss any. He came forward to check him over, gently placing a roughened hand against his face.
The fae teen smiled shyly, unknowingly burrowing his cheek deeper into the large palm. "Yeah, I'm fine."
Angel looked dubious as he looked over to Serena who simply shrugged and reloaded her crossbow. "He got in a tussle with the big one, aye. Shot it and filled his gills with vamp soot," she said and locked the arrow in place. "Probably needs to see Freddikins," she giggled.
"I'm fine," Noah replied with mild irritation. "Nothing broken. I'm still alive – "
"Maybe, but if Serena hadn't been there," Angel pointed out and gave the young man a serious, but compassionate look. "You're not invincible, Noah."
"I'm not fragile either," he growled, pulling back. "And I don't need a girl protecting me."
"Hey!" the slayer said.
Angel crossed his arms. "What are you trying to prove?" he asked. "You're only armed with a stake – "
"And my powers," he said and held up a hand, revealing a glowing ball of energy.
"- that you don't know how to control," he snapped. "It's like you want to get hurt! This is the third time this week!"
Noah closed his open palm into a fist, silencing his light, and stood to his full height, "And what would you prefer for me to do? Huh? Sit back in my ivory tower at the castle and watch you gallivant through the country slaying the evil like a good little boy?" He pulled back further and crossed his arms as well. "If I didn't know better, I'd think you'd want me to be helpless." He sounded almost petulant.
"If I didn't know better, I'd think you didn't value your life!" Angel shouted.
Noah scoffed. "Don't preach to me about valuing life," he spit. "And just so you know, before you came along, I took care of myself just fine."
"That's why I had to save you from those Krev'lar demons, the night we first met!" the older man huffed.
"Okay!" Serena broke in. "We needs to be getting back to headquarters. Buffy gets back tonight, and we don't want many questions on where've ya been, now do we?" she asked pointedly. "Specially since this one," she shoved Noah's shoulder lightly, "shouldn't be out involved in such things as slaying having not been fully and properly trained. If her madam knew, she'd have both'ar heads. Now get to it!"
Both Angel and Noah looked at each other briefly. Noah did his best to cover the pain he gets in his chest over hearing the matriarch slayer's name, but he knew some alarm went off in the manpire's head from the flash in his eyes. So he looked away to keep from letting the man study his soul.
The pain was intensified by the fact that Angel insisted on treating him like a child. Noah knew he didn't know everything, but he certainly wasn't weak and useless. He'd been told that he was his whole life by his mother; and when Angel had asked him to come to Scotland and learn how to fight and wield his newfound gifts, he told had told the teen that he was special. Sometimes he wonders if the vampire meant it.
Mostly though he knew it's because of the intense need to feel like the vampire was protecting everyone and that he was everyone's savior. And it was that reason that Noah loved the stupid bastard. No one had ever gone out of their way to protect him before; but it was also the reason he fought it tooth and nail. He didn't like feeling like a damsel in distress.
Angel stepped forward to lightly brush his cheek in the silence that had stretched between them causing the teen to close his eyes and fight the huge wave of emotions that flew through him. He stepped forward quickly to break any connection and swallowed, "Yes. We should go. Wouldn't want your precious Buffy to think you were doing something improper. Like associating with your Seer."
"That's not fair," the vampire frowned.
"And how's it not?" he asked and turned his back to begin walking out the door. "When she's not off traipsing across the seven continents, she's here demanding all of your time and focus. It's like she thinks you aren't allowed friends or any kind of existence outside of her."
Angel jogged to catch up with him, "That isn't how it is, okay? You don't understand. The last time I got close to my seer, we – well we – " Angel stops, and keeps stride with an increasingly agitated teen next to him doing their best to get away, "I fell for Cordelia. Okay?"
Noah laughed bitterly and cut Serena off as she tried to break them up by walking in between them. "Well we wouldn't want anyone thinking of you and me like that, now would we?"
"It's not – It just…it hurt Buffy, when she thought she lost me to Cordy. And – "
" – and absolutely everything you say, do, or feel," he counted off on his fingers, "has to be approved by her."
"Let's not be nasty, dearie," the slayer said chidingly. "She is your boss, ya'know."
They both ignored her as they approached the gates. Angel exhaled, "No. That is in no way how it is! I decide what I feel, and who I feel it for! I mean…I don't know what I mean." Angel shuffled on his feet and Noah looked at him angrily.
"And you feel it all for her," he said. "As you always have. Even though she treats you like a toy that she can take down whenever she feels like it and play with, and doesn't accept who you are."
Angel stepped into his personal space, "You know nothing of me and the Slayer, Fae."
"I know you're a fool!" he hissed and pushed back. "She will never love you, Angel! Not like you want her to. And everyone knows it, but you!"
Serena pushed them apart, "Stop it!" she yelled. "Stop it, both of yas!"
Angel looked as if he was going to say something, but she shoved his shoulder. Hard. "You Angel need ta grow up! This one 'ere's name's Noah Puckerman. Not Fae. And ya will not speak of his kind with distaste ever 'gain!"
The older man looked down in shame, and Noah squirmed where he stood. Truth be told, he didn't have a lot of feelings towards his faerie side. So he didn't even take the insult to heart. What hurt more was that the man he so deeply cares about would find any part of him disgusting, even if it is a part he didn't necessarily want himself.
"And you, boyo!" She whipped around to the introspective teen on the other side. "This moron over 'ere is concerned for yer wellbeing. Be grateful ya got someone who is, cuz from what I've 'eard, ya didn't before. So stop pushing him away, aye?"
But that was just the thing, wasn't it? He didn't want to push the vampire away. He wanted to pull him close, but that would never be an option so long as the other man was hung up on the Slayer.
Serena gave them both one last leveling glare and then continued toward the castle. She was done listening to the sexual tension that was lying under the bitter fighting that had been going. But one thing she knew for sure, when you have that much charged energy between two people, it eventually explodes. Hopefully, no one, including her madam Slayer, will get hurt.
"I'm sorry," they say in unison, once she's gone.
They look up at each other and look away again. Refusing to vocalize the air that thickens when they do. Instead they just nod, as if silently saying to forget it and move on. They were still men after all, no matter how many feels are bottled inside.
Clearing his throat, the vampire began quietly, "What I was trying to say is, Cordy died because she let herself get involved in the actual battles, when it wasn't her fight. And she loved me in spite of the things it put her through, and went out of her way to stand by my side. Even as just my best friend. My – my very best friend." He was silent for a moment.
Noah looked him over and quietly said, "Have you ever thought that you making it only your fight is incredibly selfish? Especially since she was your best friend and loved you. I mean, the definition of love is letting someone in. So if you loved her too, you would have willingly shared that part of your life."
The older manpire bit his lip in thought. "She said something similar, a year or so after we started Angel Investigations; and I – " he paused, " – Well, I didn't listen." He gave the teen a sad look. "Not a day goes by that I don't think about her. Miss her. Wish to everything that she'd come back so I can talk to her again. She was always smarter than me. Always knew what to do. And I – " he stopped and his tears, " – I'm lost without her. I always will be."
Noah cautiously stepped forward and put a hand delicately on the other man's cheeks, turning his face towards him. "I know you feel alone," he stared into the deep brown eyes that were filled with such pain and have seen so many horrors. Too many, much he himself, but on a further level than he could ever imagine. "I know when Cordy and Wesley died, a hole was left inside in your heart." He looked down and placed his other hand gently but firmly on the taller man's heart.
"My heart," Angel replies just as softly, looking down at where the smaller hand was placed and then back up into the soft umber eyes that were radiating a gold around the edges, like nothing he'd ever seen before. It was different from how his own face looks when he goes into his full game face. "It's been dead almost three hundred years."
Noah's eyes became more gold as he caressed Angel's face, drawing the vampire closer. "I know what the feels like," he whispered, pulling the bigger man's face closer. "You don't have to be dead inside anymore, mo chroí."
Angel gasped at the use of his native tongue, feeling his eyelids become heavy as their lips grazed together. A mock kiss full of the promise of what was to come.
Puck doesn't know what happened; and in truth, he doesn't need to know. Because whether he knows or he doesn't, right now he's in Angel's arms; and that is fine with him. So fine he leaned forward and rubbed his cheek against the cooler cheek, reveling in the contrast and how it made his stomach flutter. "Let it go, and come to me," he whispered pleadingly. "I want you as you are. You'd never need to pretend to be something you can't with me."
Angel grabbed the back of his head and stared at Noah's glowing eyes. The teen was breathing heavily, and Angel felt as if he could feel the blood pulsing through the veins as if it were happening to him. They came closer, warm breath across cool lips and falling eyelids.
"Angel!" Buffy's voice called from beyond the gate.
The two broke apart immediately. Noah looking over Angel's shoulder at the woman's beautiful form; it was like knife being driven into his heart from all directions. He actually doubled over from the pain, and when Angel reached out to help him and hit his hands away. Looking up and giving him full view of his eyes that held betrayal and hurt. Angel visibly drew back.
"Angel," the Slayer called, coming closer.
The man looked to her, not feeling the same flood of agonizing relief and love he once felt whence seeing his precious Slayer. Instead he just felt agony, because he was so confused. How could a teenaged fae boy he saved from certain death at the hands of Krev'lars inspire such a want and a need to be near him. To hold him. To kiss him until all he has left is the same need.
As the woman came closer, Puck drew back more.
"Is he okay?" Buffy asked innocently, coming to stand three feet away.
Standing to his full height and sucking in all his tears and sorrow, Noah pushed past the vampire and the Slayer. Moving as quickly as he could to the gate and closing it with a solid clunk.
The vampire made his choice, just as he's always made it.
And if Noah had made the mistake of thinking that he'd catch him when he fell for the charm smile, and kind but haunted eyes; well, he now knows he's the foolish one.