(b u f f y pov)
You didn't know that it was possible to do this. To scream so loudly it hurts but still not be heard. Your throat is tearing and your voice is getting hoarse and you fear that your lungs are bleeding and still.
Not one person hears you.
Dead silence.
That's all there is.
It didn't used to be this way.
You used to be happy. It wasn't fairytale bliss or ecstasy or anything, but you were, at the very least, content.
And now you're not.
Now everything is spiraling out of control and you're shrieking and no one hears you.
You don't know why.
You don't know if it's because you aren't making any noise, or if it's because they aren't listening.
You think it's the latter.
Because if you weren't making any noise as you screamed night after night, why would you wake up with a sore throat and scratchy cheeks?
That's how you've woken up for the past weeks, dried tear stains on your face and throat almost too ripped up to speak. Your hands clenched so tight that there are four crimson, bloody crescent moons pressed into your palms; they are deep and painful looking wounds but you don't feel the sting. There are bruises on you and your muscles are strained from seeking out one too many fights the night before, pushing yourself past exhaustion because that's the only chance you are going to get to even attempt sleep.
And no one sees.
You get up and you shower and you eat breakfast and you start your day. Dawn and Willow smile at you, pride in Willow's eyes and relief in Dawn's.
You try not to cringe and grin back at them, wondering how it is possible that they don't see, that they don't know that the grin is fake and brittle and about to join the rest of you, shattered on the floor like your soul and your heart and your mind.
Two nights ago, Spike and you knocked down a house. You came home bruised and limping the next morning, and still, nobody noticed. Oh, Buffy, fight another Big Bad? They ask and you laugh and tell them oh yeah, no match for the Buffster and ignore how the words taste bitter as they come out and leave behind a nasty acidic taste in your mouth.
They laugh too and go about their days, Xander driving Dawn to school before heading off to work and Willow doing god knows what with Amy and magic.
You know that you should do something, say something, as you notice the power seeping into Willow's skin and leaving behind strings of addiction. You should speak up, try and make her stop, find a way to end her downward spiral before it can fully begin, before the strings turn into chains and she has no chance to break free.
But you can't bring myself to.
Thoughts of raw throats and torn down buildings and bloody palms still the words in your throat, stopping them before they can be said.
Spike comes at dusk, looking at you with questions and lust swirling in his too blue eyes and you say something about how you can't patrol together because Willow is busy and someone needs to stay with Dawn. You tell him to stay before he can offer to patrol and quickly slide out of the house, another brittle smile pulling your lips upwards when you realize no one has noticed all the changes.
Tonight, there are a lot of things different.
Normally, you go out in clothes that you don't really mind ruining and there are a bunch of weapons in a duffle bag slung over your shoulder.
Tonight, there is nothing more in the bag but your favorite articles of clothing and some money that you had stored away when your mom got sick, for emergencies.
You're wearing the plain silver cross you got when you were sixteen, the one that you got from him.
You found his leather jacket in the back of your closet, where you had stored it after his days as Angelus, when you didn't want to remember him and how the whole relationship began. When you couldn't think of how wonderful it was, when you could only think of the bad. It remained there because first you couldn't be tempted and then he was leaving town and you once again didn't want to be reminded. And then you didn't wear it out of respect for Riley and then for fear of a hell god ripping it to shreds. Then you couldn't really wear it because you were six feet under for four months.
But now you're wearing it again.
And you're wearing my favorite pair of jeans, the ones that fit perfect and the ones that you would never risk on patrol, not even now after dying and being brought back and losing all touch with the world.
A girl's gotta have some priorities after all.
Black, and completely insensible, heels tie daintily around your ankles and a black v-neck finish off the ensemble.
The v-neck used to be skin tight and flattering, but now it hangs on your frame loosely because you still haven't gained back any of the weight that you lost while wasting away in the ground. Food tastes bad now, at least the kind that Willow and the others keep trying to shove down your throat. It tastes like ashes and dirt and death and every time they put a plate down in front of you, you have to work to hold back the gag.
Hah, look, you found the ultimate diet.
Get buried. Lose 20 pounds. Guaranteed.
You shake your head and continue striding down the street, rolling your eyes at the sheer morbid quality of your thoughts.
And then you grin.
No more than a small smile, but at least it's a true one.
Then it grows and grows until it's spread across your entire face and delighted laughter is spilling from your lips.
Already you feel better, more like yourself pre-death, and you haven't even gotten out of Sunnyhell yet.
As you get to the bus station, your momentary euphoria begins to fade and by the time you slide on to the bus, your skin is hot and your head is pounding. You rest your head against the cool window and glare at the man who tries to sit next to you. He relocates and you close your eyes, wishing the trip were over with already.
The driver stops the bus and announces that the journey is over, that they have officially reached LA. You jump off the bus, sling the duffle bag over your shoulder, and begin walking. You wander for a while, finally stopping to ask someone if you were even headed in the right direction. The stranger points you on my way and you flash a smile at him, hoping it doesn't look as insincere as it feels.
You get to the hotel and open the door; the brief thought that maybe you should have knocked passing through your mind quickly.
"Hello?" you call out, your voice quiet and unassuming and so unlike you that you can't stop yourself from cringing.
"Hey? Who're you?" a tall black man you don't know is the first one to respond, looking at you warily, with curiosity shining in his eyes.
"Buffy? Is that you?" Wesley, at least you think it's Wesley, even though he looks a little different now, asks. He is clearly shocked and a bitter grimace sweeps across your face before you can stop it.
"What? They call and tell you I'm dead but not that I'm alive? Well. That was a lovely mishap on their parts." And you have discovered yet another reason to be angry with them. They didn't tell him you were alive. Maybe if they had… maybe then he would have come and saved you and you wouldn't feel like this. You wouldn't be screaming and maybe, just maybe, he could've helped you remember how to breathe.
How to live.
"You're alive?" he splutters, taking two steps towards you and reaching out a hand, stopping an inch away from your arm.
You take one step forward and move your arm up so that it presses against his arm. "That's what they keep saying." You murmur, unsure if saying yes, here I am, alive and kicking would be a lie.
"But how?" he asks again, his hand now gripping your forearm and eyes still wide with shock. The black man and a petite brunette are standing behind him, confusion clear in their expressions. A green-skinned demon comes down the stairs, Cordelia on his arm, and you blink for a second in shock at the boy walking behind them.
He's a teenager, no older than Dawn, but his eyes are old and heavy and he looks so familiar that your breath catches in your throat for a second. There is no denying his resemblance to Angel. You wonder about it for a moment before Wesley's grip on your arm tightens and you're reminded that he's still waiting for an answer.
"Oh. Well. Willow and Tara and Xander and Anya brought me back. They thought I was in hell so they found some ritual and then brought me back to life. One dark magic spell and then poof. Here's Buffy." Your voice is bitter, resentful, and you can almost see Wesley dissecting all your words.
The trio is almost down the staircase now and your wondering what will happen when Cordelia finally notices you. Your eyes turn to the teen and you scan his body quickly, sensing power and strength behind his lanky frame.
"Thought you were in hell?" Wesley questions, his grasp once again tightening as he looks at you with sorrow in his eyes. You almost smile. Good old Wes, always asking the right questions, even if it took him a while to get there.
"Yeah. Thought." You whisper, finally meeting his gaze. As soon as he glimpses whatever it is that's visible in your eyes, he pulls you in for a gentle hug.
"Well. Why don't I introduce you to every body?" he asks and without waiting for an answer he pulls you over to the group of people standing in the lobby.
Cordelia's eyes widen when she sees you, and your name leaves her lips in a shocked gasp.
"Hey, Queen C. How you been?" you ask, meeting her shocked gaze steadily.
"You know, for a dead girl, you don't look half bad." She grins as she says it and the familiarity runs through your veins like fire, soothing away some of the hurt that had built up since you were ripped away from heaven.
"Not too bad yourself. And you know me, never could stay dead." You quip back, grinning quickly at her.
Wesley pulls on your hand to get your attention and begins to point out people, "that's Gunn and Fred, Lorne, who is a good demon that you do not need to slay, and Connor."
You laugh outright at the not slaying the green guy part and smirk. "Alright, Wes. I'll restrain myself from killing Jolly Green over here," you turn your attention to Gunn and Fred, a quick nice to meet you slipping from your lips before your gaze once again locks on the boy.
Connor.
That's Irish, and things are beginning to make something that resembles sense.
"Hey, Connor. You look suspiciously like my ex." Wesley and Cordelia simultaneously flinch and you smirk lightly. "Who're you?" you questions, stepping away from Wesley and towards him. He takes a step away from Cordelia, and respect shimmers in your eyes for a second.
He's making a statement that he won't back down.
It does nothing but reinforce your suspicions.
"I'm Darla and Angel's kid. Who're you?" his voice is almost as resentful as yours and you wonder why for a second before deciding that you didn't really know him well enough to ask.
"I'm a long story," you laugh bitterly, your hands automatically beginning to rub against each other, fingers somehow still feeling sore from crawling out of your grave, even though you know they healed long ago.
"Give me the short version." He demands, taking another step towards you. You take a step forward as well and the same respect that glimmered in your eyes gleams in his for a second.
"Okay. I'm the slayer. I used to date your dad. I killed your dad. I died a few months ago, again, and was brought back to life. Apparently, my friends neglected to tell anyone here." You spit friends from your mouth as if it were a curse word and you can see Cordelia raise an eyebrow. Wesley must have mouthed something to her because all of a sudden she's looking at you, horrorstruck.
You pay no attention to the byplay, all of your focus on the boy standing in front of you. The two of you take a simultaneous step forward, then another, then one more, and then you begin circling each other.
He's sizing you up as if you were prey and you're looking back at him the same way. The two of you are walking wary circles around each other and you have no clue how this confrontation is going to play out. Wesley disappears up the stairs and Cordelia begins to whisper frantically to Gunn, Fred, and Lorne.
"Slayer?" he asks, his gaze never wavering from yours.
"Slayer. Comma, the. Look it up." You state, laughing slightly as his brow furrows.
"What does that mean?" he questions, cocking his head to the side and you're once again reminded of a predator, feeling as if you're being hunted by a hawk.
"It means I kill the big bads. All by my lonesome." The predator in you immediately rises to the occasion and you forget about the bruises causing your body to ache and the tiredness that has seeped all the way through your bones.
"Then why were you with Angelus?" he spits out, his previously wrinkled brow smoothing into a harsh glare.
"I was with Angel. There's a huge difference. Angel loved me, fought by me, and helped me save the world a couple times. Angelus tried to end the world, stalked me, and killed one of our team members. He also killed my best friend's fish. They aren't the same. Don't make the mistake of thinking that they are." The words slips from your mouth uncensored, and you aren't even really thinking about them as you're saying them.
You're more focused on something else now.
Connor stops moving when you do and you take a step back from the circle the two of you had managed to create, too focused on the warm feeling in the pit of your stomach to do much of anything else.
You finally feel whole again.
You glance towards the staircase, where Angel is standing in shock.
"Buffy?" your name escapes his lips in a harsh whisper, pain and desperation thickly coating the two syllables.
"Angel," you sigh, smiling as you start towards the stairs.
He's at the bottom of them before you can blink and then his arms are wrapped around you and he's nuzzling his scar on your neck. You twine yourself around him, one hand sliding into his hair and an arm wrapping around his shoulders even as your legs slip around his waist and lock tightly into place.
"Buffy." He murmurs your name into the skin on your neck like a prayer.
"Angel," you laugh, tightening yourself around him and squeezing as a smile brightens your face and your eyes slip closed.
You tuck your head underneath his chin and he walks over to the sofa, face still pressed in your hair. He sits down and you shift as you listen to the rest of his team finding seats around you. You end up curled into his side, your feet pressed against Wesley's leg where he sat on your other side. He grinned at you and rested a hand on your calf, still looking more than slightly surprised.
You're surprised yourself when Connor settles himself on the floor in front of you, leaning his head back onto your knee defiantly when Cordelia glares at him.
"So… guess I should apologize. I figured since they told you when I died, they would tell you when I lived. Apparently not. What else can they fuck with in my life?" you started, trying to break the awkward silence. You can feel Angel's surprise at you cursing, but to be honest, you have to admit to spending way too much time with Spike lately.
Well, before you knocked down a damn building and started avoiding him.
"It's not your fault. I just can't understand… how? What? Why?" Wesley stammered, still not really grasping what happened.
"I think that answer would be good for me as well." Angel rumbles and you smile at the vibrations you can feel in his chest. You sigh and relax completely into him. You begin sliding a hand through Connor's hair, just to have something else to concentrate on.
"The first slayer was all primal and cryptic and kept telling me that 'death is my gift' and so I'm all confused until the battle with Glory, freaking annoying Hell God, when she tries to end the world by opening the portal. I realized Summers' blood will close it, jumped in, died, got buried. Willow and the others decided I was in a hell dimension and needed to be rescued. Hurray for dark magic and the return of Buffy. And then I spend the next few months with everything royally sucking. Willow's getting addicted to magic, Spike can hurt me despite his military issue chip, Xander's busy with Anya, Tara broke up with Willow and moved out, three nerds are trying to ruin my life, and Giles left for England. Caught up now?" you say everything quickly and emotionlessly, hoping that if you remain detached enough it won't hurt you as badly.
It's a futile hope.
Things still hurt the same, spoken in monotone or not.
Wesley's grasp on your leg tightened to bruising halfway through your speech and he had yet to let go. Angel's arms felt like steel bars wrapped around your torso and Connor had moved to grip your hand with the same ironclad strength.
You hadn't felt this comfortable since you came back to life.
Cordy's looking at you with apologies she doesn't need to make written all over her face and the three that you barely know have expressions ranging from sympathy to horror.
"You were in a hell dimension?" the brunette girl, Fred, asks quietly, her Southern accent barely covering the shake in her voice.
You looked at her curiously for a second, wondering what would prompt such a personal reaction, before shaking your head against Angel's chest.
"Oh," she breathes out in understanding, horror warring with sympathy in her eyes.
"Where were you?" Gunn questions, and you scowl slightly at the grimace that covers all the others faces.
He was the only one that had yet to figure it out.
You murmur heaven into a black shirt and tighten your hand around Connor's, sliding the other one up to grasp Angel's forearm and pressing your feet harder against Wesley.
You had never been that close with Wesley, but he was a reminder of how it used to be, of what the Watchers were meant for before the Council used and abused them. He was a reminder of how it had been with Faith, before things went bad, of that strong sense of sister that you hadn't experienced since, not even with Dawn and all your fake, monk-induced memories. So you put aside all the anger you once held for him and lean on him, relying on some of his newfound strength in order to properly get through everything.
Gunn is frowning apologetically when you look back up and a reassuring smile flashes across your face as you mouth it's alright.
You freeze for a second when you realize the smile was real and you meant the words.
Then you relax again, letting the three men surrounding you comfort you. You know this is strange, that you're sitting there feeling safe and protected by a vampire who left you even though you loved him, a teenager boy that you didn't know anything about, and a man that you used to resent with ever fiber of your body.
But the truth is, you haven't felt better since you dug out of your own grave.
So you don't question it. You just begin to run your hand through Connor's hair again and begin to fiddle with the silver ring on Angel's left ring finger. You grin at Wesley and wait for his answering smile before turning to the rest.
"So, may I request sanctuary from those who ripped me out of heaven and have since lost control of their lives?" you don't mean to speak of your friends so harshly, but the words slip out before you can stop them. Logically, you know they didn't mean to rip you out of the first place you've ever felt peace, but right now you're miserable and hurting and they're the ones that caused it and then ignored the sound of you screaming.
"Of course," slips from multiple mouths while every one else nods and smiles at you. You smile back and turn to Cordy with laughter bubbling up your throat, the delicious warmth of it soothing the raw pain from weeks of unheard screams.
"So, you wanna go shopping tomorrow?"
You make plans to shop with Cordy and Fred, and afterwards you talk to Gunn and Connor about sparring. Then you smile at Wesley and tease him about the motorcycle Cordy just let slip he owns, grinning at the light flush on his cheeks. You smile at Lorne and giggle at his pet names, all while relaxing into Angel's arms.
You begin to drift off to sleep, the sounds of warmth and laughter and teasing from the group around you resulting in the perfect lullaby. You feel Angel scoop you up and snuggle into his body closer as he begins to make his way up the stairs, calling a good night out to everyone as he went.
You wake up in the morning with a cool arm wrapped around your waist and a smile on your lips.
Your throat doesn't hurt and there aren't tears on your face or red crescents on your palms and for the first time in what seems like forever, you didn't dream of punching your way out of a coffin.
So maybe you were dragged out of heaven and you pain went unnoticed for weeks and nothing was ever going to be the same again. Maybe you came back different, not wrong, and maybe your friends should have just left you in the ground.
But more importantly, maybe, just maybe, you could find peace, here in this place with these people that you were just beginning to know and reconnect with.
You could leave torn down buildings and magic-addicted witches and mystical keys turned human and abandoning father figures behind.
The arm around your waist tightens and laughter, you think Cordelia's, drifts up the stairs and the smile you woke up with broadens.
Maybe you could find what you had been missing here.
Peace.
Okay, so, my first Buffy fanfic. I honestly haven't seen all that many Angel episodes, so I'm really sorry if the timeline of the characters are off. I tried to stick with the ones that I knew from Buffy, but Connor intrigued me. At the moment, I have no plans to continue this but I could if I get enough feedback. Please let me know your thoughts! As I said, my first Buffy fic. Kinda nervous. :/
Thank you for reading! :D