AN: This is another fic loosely based in my post Season 7 universe, which isn't taking AtS into consideration as I've not watched all of it yet. However, I'm sort of playing with these two characters so it's intentionally vague, in regards to both timeline and backstory.

five ordinary moments in an abnormal situation

i. phone call

Every few days, Willow calls, at exactly the time when the sun dips below the horizon for good. "You know, to make sure you…don't need me to mail you something! Something you can't get…wherever it is you are."

Angelus sits on the couch and watches in amusement as Buffy answers Willow's questions with things like, "no, not yet," and "hasn't tried once," and "probably not, no, but I'll keep an eye out." He wiggles his fingers at her and opens his mouth, mimicking biting.

She throws a couch pillow at him. He throws it back, almost knocking the phone out of her hand.

"Buff, I used all your stakes for kindling," he calls out, laughing. "Hope you didn't need them!"

"What was that?" Willow asks immediately, sounding suspicious. "Something about stakes?"

"We're having steak for dinner. I mean, I am," she says quickly, wanting to get off the phone and feeling guilty because she feels that way. She still loves Willow as much as she ever has, but Willow just doesn't understand.

Buffy sometimes wants to ask Willow if she remembers the lure of evil, remembers how very seductive it could be. Especially when it is smiling at you from across the room, eyes vacant and wanting and hot all at once, and it wants nothing more to devour you in whatever way it can.

"Gotta go, Will," Buffy says quietly, when she's had enough.
As always, right before she hangs up, Willow murmurs softly, "Be careful."

But I don't want to.

ii. shopping

Buffy does all the shopping because she's the only one that eats anything. That and putting Angelus around a lot of people is never a good idea. Though sometimes the crowds are so annoying, she almost wishes he was there. Then she feels badly for wishing that, since it's her job to save people like them from creatures like Angelus.

Sometimes he leaves her a list of things he needs, because even the undead require things like soap and shampoo. She expects his handwriting to look like a serial killer's, but it doesn't. It looks like Angel's handwriting; slanted and neat, letters formed with Catholic-school perfection.

One day she notices that it's the third time in a month he's put "toothbrush" on the list. She finally asks him about it, because it's somewhat puzzling. "Do you have a toothbrush fetish I don't know about?"

"Buff, I'm going to show you something, and I'd appreciate it if you didn't go right for the stake, yeah?"

She crosses her arms and waits, unable to give him that reassurance, which he very well
knows. His face changes and he bares his teeth at her. She feels a tickle of unease run her spine as he does it—this entire situation is precarious and she has no idea, really, how it's going to end. "Yes, scary vampire face. Slayer, hello. Seen it."

He closes his mouth, face reverting back to human. "Well then, Miss Vampire Expert, surely you realize that it's hard to clean very pointy teeth without ruining a toothbrush?"
She stares at him for two seconds without blinking, then shrugs. "Never thought of it that way."

"Obviously."

When she's at the store, she considers buying him a toothbrush with a cartoon character on it. She resists, but the image of him leaning over the sink, brushing his fangs with a Spongebob Squarepants toothbrush, makes her laugh.

She doesn't think he'd find it as funny, though.

iii. dinner

He sometimes has dinner with her, though all he does is drink wine. She wonders if he likes it, or if he just does it to be doing something. When she has steak, she eats it rare and watches the way his eyes linger on the blood.

"Do you do that on purpose?" he asks, leaning back, his eyes half-lidded as he watches her.

"Mmm," she says, smiling at him dangerously. "Maybe."

"Provoking me, are you?" He has the coldest smile she's ever seen. It reminds her of ice melting over a statue's face.

She takes a bite of steak, conscious of his attention as she does so, and shrugs an answer.

"Such a dangerous little game we're playing," Angelus murmurs, pleased. "Makes a vampire feel good to have a Slayer taunting him with blood, and then fuck him senseless afterwards."

"Senseless?" She gives him a cool smile. "I'm flattered."

He shrugs. "I tell the truth. You're a helluva lay, Buff. I still may try and kill you, though, when you start boring me. So best keep your head in the game."

She swallows her bite of filet, and grins at him. She tilts the knife in her hand so it hits the light, and watches as his eyes stray to the point. "Yeah. You too."

Angelus toasts her with his wine glass. She thinks about that girl that told the stories to the murderous sultan—was it a thousand? A thousand and one? Buffy wonders how many tales she has left, what number she's on. She sort of doesn't want to know.

iv. cleaning

They're doing the dishes in companionable silence, and she catches him watching her. It's disconcerting the way he can stare at her, so still and quiet, so completely unmoved by her presence in his life.

"Hello, you're creeping me out here," she tells him, taking the dish he hands her and drying it. He cuts his gaze down at her.

"That's why you're here, babe. Because I scare you." He moves quickly and pins her against the counter. "Isn't that right?"

"Don't know," she says, sliding her hands up his chest and putting her arms around his neck. She presses her body to his, the danger and the wrongness if it making her shiver. "Don't I scare you?"

He smiles against her neck, a soft slide of cold flesh against her own. "Mmm. Sometimes. You want to fight, Slayer?" His hands move up her arms, slowly, goosebumps rising in his wake. "We could spar. See which one of us wins."
The thought excites him, she can tell. "Rather do something else," she says, sliding her fingers up into his hair. "Then we both win."

"All right," he says, pulling her up so she's straddling his waist. "It's all the same to me."

She drops the dishtowel on the floor.

v. sleeping

He wakes her up muttering something unintelligible, jerking upright and shaking the bed in agitation.

She sits up and stares at him, running a hand through her tangled hair. "What?"

He's angry, she can tell by the tense set of his shoulders and the way he's glaring down at her in the darkness, and for a moment she feels real fear at being in bed with him. "Did you—did you have a nightmare?" The idea makes her wonder. What do demons fear in the darkness?

"Yes," he almost hisses, lying back down and turning his back to her. "I dreamed I woke up and I had a soul again."

She stares up at the darkened ceiling. "Sometimes I dream that, too."

"Do you? Is it a nightmare?" His voice is cruel.

"Yes," she says, turning on her side and curling up tighter. She's not lying. He can never be Angel again. Angel would never forgive her for being here with him.
Sometimes she doesn't think she can forgive herself.

It's a long time before she falls back to sleep. She can't tell if he's asleep next to her, because he doesn't breathe. There are a lot of things wrong with sleeping with the dead.