Buffy sat down on her bed, diary in hand. She uselessly stretched her shoulders and rubbed her neck, failing miserably to sooth her aching muscles. Balancing the book in her lap, she bit off her pen's cap while letting out a long, relieving sigh and began to jot.
Dear Diary,
Today was a total bust! That's why I took the night off to get some rest. Every class I had today got me in trouble. I kept zoning and I guess the teachers all tattled 'cause Snyder wanted to chat. Even Giles got ticked in his own calm British way when I spaced during training. I tried to cover, but I think he noticed something was up when he mentioned Angel giving him help. I was zapped right back to the real world. How am I supposed to do anything right with Angel on the brain? Why a vampire? I mean couldn't I at least get the hots for someone with a pulse!?
Okay, so he has a pulse. Wait, does he? Whatever, you know what I mean. I just can't believe how much I want to be with him and how much I can't. Life's just too ironic. No guy I've ever known has made me feel this way before. I'm so scared not to be with him.
Buffy glared down at the words she had just written. As a panicked look struck her features she slapped the pages of the journal together and recapped her pen. As the expression gradually began to fade, she exhaled hard and stood, leaving wrinkles in her once flawless bedspread. She placed her diary on her dresser despairingly and turned out the light. As she climbed into her warm bed, she gave a long weary stare at the shimmering cross on her desk. She closed her eyes and attempted to sleep, both welcoming and dreading the dreams of him she knew were to come.
...
With one swift, silent movement Angel was outside her open window. His shadow's form fell across her skin as he entered where he had been invited just months before. Her deceivingly small figure lay resting illuminated by the moonlight, her head gently positioned on her lace pillow.
He had come to inquire about why she had not been on patrol. He had wondered if something was wrong, if she was hurt. To find her asleep so early was not expected and without wanting it to be, it was for comfort him to know she was obviously just in need of some rest, to know she was safe. His continuous attempts to cease his emotional attachment to her were failing miserably. The more effort he put forth, the more fruitless his efforts seemed to become. Plagued by the confusion of by his emotions, he found himself absent-mindedly sitting on the edge of her bed lost in thought, her heartbeat filling the silence of the room.
"Angel."
His contemplation was abruptly interrupted when his name escaped her lips in a soothing whisper as she slumbered. He allowed himself a small grin at the knowledge that he was in her thoughts, but soon the aching pains in his heart returned and he was forced to face reality and their fates. The small smile gracing her face wrenched his heart.
What am I doing?
He closed his eyes and turned away suddenly hyperaware of his cold, pale skin.
She's the Slayer and she's sixteen. You're disgusting.
As he felt the beginnings of tears misting his eyes, he became aware of a small, warm hand being delicately placed on his knee. He turned toward Buffy only to see her own tear tinged eyes gazing back. He stroked her cheek once more, "I'm sorry. I… I just thought something might have happened. You weren't on the hunt." His voice was so quiet. "I'll go."
"Stay." Her quivering voice pleaded with him, but he was already gone. She pulled her knees to her chest and began to shake. She wept calmly not quite understanding the intense pain that was consuming her body.
Unknown to her, he had heard her request. In his head he knew he should leave, but pathetically, to his heart, she was the only thing that mattered. He knew he had caused her pain and his body would not let him run. He sat on her roof resting against the same wall as she did, praying she knew he was near and that she might somehow take comfort in that. Listening to the muffled hitch of her breath, a single tear fell down his white, dead flesh.
This can't be happening.
...
When Buffy woke, her body was sore and her eyes struggled to focus. She could still feel his touch residing beneath her dried tears and it was almost reluctantly that she washed her face before dressing in an old pair of jeans and her favorite tank top. Her skin begged for his touch so she slid on his coat despite the warm weather. The leather was rich with his sent and she found it nearly intoxicating to breath in. Tugging his jacket tightly around her body, she resolved to loose herself in the day only to feel her pocket concealed stake jab into her side. Placing the cross he had given her around her neck, she clasped the charm in her hand. With empty eyes and a racing mind she walked silently downstairs and straight out the door. Buffy vaguely heard her mother suggesting something about food, but didn't respond. She was already in another world, one of so many that plagued her life.
...
When a vampire grabbed her from behind, Buffy awoke abruptly from her intense trance. She flung the vampire over her head, plunging her stake into its heart as it slammed into the ground. She casually dusted her hands as the realization that the sun had set soaked in. The thought that Angel's day had begun creep hesitantly into her thoughts.
Soon she felt another hand on her shoulder and without a second thought she rammed her elbow back. The sound of cracking ribs rung in her ears and the vampire fell to the ground at the unexpected force of the blow. Buffy spun around to face her opponent, "Angel," she crashed to her knees in disbelief. "Oh God," she saw the blood pouring slowly in a small stream from his body, "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry... I thought..."
"I know. It's okay."
She allowed her fingers to follow the contours of his chest and he winced in pain. The bone had pierced his skin. Her eyes grew wide and still in horror. "I'm sorry," was all that escaped her winded body. She tried to fight them but the tears began to well up in her eyes.
"I'll be fine." He put his hand to her face and ran his thumb across her cheekbone.
Catching himself, his hand slipped away and his eyes fell to watch her fingertips sweep over the blades of moist grass before she hesitantly began to turn away. " I better go."
His eyes lifted. "Right." As he attempted to move himself, he flinched.
Still crouched, she turned back. His bleeding seemed somehow worse although logically impossible. "You should lay down," her hand hovered over the wound, "but here isn't the best place. Your place, it isn't far?"
Hesitantly he answered, "No."
She helped him up as he clenched his teeth and the rib readjusted in his body. He wavered briefly, but as their strides continued, his balance quickly returned and yet her firm yet, gentle grasp never left his arm.
...
When they reached his apartment she was surprised to find it above ground. He noticed her puzzled look. "Only one window, it's covered." The look didn't leave her face, not because he had not answered her unspoken question, but because he had.
"You better go," he reminded.
"Right, go," she repeated dejectedly and began to turn away. "I…I'm going."
"Did you want to come in?" He could not believe he just said that. The words had left him before he had a chance to think.
Idiot.
As she looked at him, her eyes told of her confusion. "Sure," managed to come out under her breath.
She entered through the steel doorway and began to roam the room allowing her nails to skim the surface of various items: the glass that surrounded an ivory statue, several dozen spines of his hundreds of books.
He finally broke the unnerving quiet, "Do you...want some thing to drink?".
She inhaled sharply at the unexpected sound of his voice. "Water would be nice."
She followed him into his kitchen where he opened a cabinet that held no more and no less than one tall clear glass. Suddenly she felt the illogical guilt of dirtying his only glass, as if it could not be cleaned for later use, as if she was depriving him of receiving his own drink.
We could share, she thought.
Before she could protest, he removed the glass from the shelf and filled it quickly at the sink. As he passed it to her, they both flinched as their fingers made contact.
She sipped her water and again there was no noise. "I'll be right back," he stated and made a swift departure from her presence.
She let out all the breath she could trying to slow her pounding heart. She put her glass down and leaned against the counter, forcing herself to relieve the tension in her limbs. "I think I'm going to faint."
Once he had left the room his eyes closed, but he kept walking. One thought raced through his sub-conscience.
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
He went to his wardrobe and pulled out a clean shirt. The one he was wearing was torn and stained with blood. He removed it by fluidly pulling it over his head and tossing it in the corner of the room. Suddenly he felt her warm touch on his bare back. It trailed down his shoulder blade and rested on his side when he faced her. Their eyes met for a moment and then parted. She brought a wet rag to the still healing, jagged tear of his rib cage.
"You should really clean your wounds despite... I mean, you don't want to get scars," she cautioned, her voice trembling.
"I can't... scar."
"Oh." She let her arm drop to her side, the stained cloth grasped tightly in her hand.
Their eyes locked and unknowingly their bodies grew closer. Their lips touched and they shared an achingly sweet kiss. With languid and torturously slow movements, they feverishly devoured each other's mouths with their own. As Buffy's muscles relaxed her hand released and the bloodied rag dropped to the floor. Her hands crawled up his body to grasp at his neck and shoulders silently begging him closer. His arms found their way around her waist and back, drawing her near. She begged to God he would never let go.
But he did.
She could not bear to open her eyes. She could not face him knowing what he was going to say.
"Buffy..."
"Please, don't." Her voice was still shaking. "I'll just… leave. Kay." She started for the door.
He stared off to the side, fist clenched in an attempt to maintain resolve. "You live and I exist. We can not deny that."
She turned and looked him straight in the eyes. "At least I accept it." Another chilling calm arrived in the room.
He placed his hand over his unbeating heart. "This won't change."
"I don't care."
He looked at her pained and elated and exasperated all at once. "It's not the only reason."
"I know."
"You're sixteen."
"I don't feel sixteen."
"In the ways that pertain to this conversation, you are. You're sixteen," he repeated devoutly, almost as a plea to himself. "You're so young."
"Aren't you?"
He struggled with how to answer her, how to deny her. He didn't want to lie.
In relationships, in sex, he was ancient, archaic even. But in love, he was an infant, possibly stumbling more blindly than she was.
"Has it ever been broken?" she questioned and he knew she meant his heart.
"Not like this."
"Mine either."
"You're making this hard."
"I think it just is."
"You're supposed to be horrified. You're supposed to hate me."
"Back atchya," she murmured, her melancholy lilt slicing into him.
A beat passed before he admitted, "I don't know what to say."
"Just be honest." The plea was for him to own up to his own desires but it backfired on her.
"You only have so much time, you should spend it better."
Absolute dread radiated through her chest causing her breath to sear her lungs. No one ever mentioned her prognosis for a drastically short life span. It was an unwritten rule. She even locked those thoughts away in her own mind. Ghosts of them only escaped during moments of truly debilitating self-loathing and pity.
"Shouldn't I get to be happy then, in what lit-," her voice caught, "little time I do have. I wanna feel this." She pressed her balled fist beneath her breastbone. "I wanna know what this is. Can't you give me that?"
"I won't make you happy."
She looked up at him with eyes wide open. Fearless. "Yes you will."
His jaw clenched and he swallowed painfully hard as something turned over inside him. "I don't… I don't want to care… like this. I wish I hated you."
Tears were now freely streaming down Buffy's face and he could not bear look at her anymore. Silence was upon them once again and although it seemed to drone on intolerably, it only lasted a few moments before he uttered his surrender barely above a whisper. "But I'm more scared of being without you."
Before he had a chance to look up and gage her reaction, she had already crossed the room and launched herself against his bare chest and into his arms. Her arms snaked around his neck while her feet dangled weightlessly by his shins. As he clutched at her back, pressing her to him, he felt the soft, upward curl of her lips pressing against his neck. She whispered, "I'm scared too."
Drawing her legs up around his waist, she pulled back to look at him, to study the face that she had just won the right to call her own. Looking at him, she looked so happy he wanted to cry.
And then she kissed him - wildly, unabashedly. And he returned it.
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Thanks, Thaif