A/N: Hello! This is the eighth installment of the Interaction series. It's from the POV of a well-established OC, and the relationships in this story are built on about 20+ years of history, so do I recommend reading the others in the series first?
Well, yes, but do what you want, I s'pose. The most helpful story to understanding this one would be The Art of Vampire Interaction, which is fairly short, so you could just read that if you want a primer.
For you who are following the Interaction series, no, the seventh story is not currently posted. You didn't miss it, I skipped over it (but am currently in the process of writing it!) for a very good reason, and that reason is that my co-author got impatient. See, this series crosses over with my other series (a Doctor Who crossover called Blood and Time), and the most recently finished story in that is Pull to Open, which takes place simultaneously with this story. So they have to be posted together, and my Blood and Time co-author didn't want to wait for me to finish Interaction story #7, so here we are.
The things that happen six years earlier in Story #7 do not affect the plot of this story. Story 7 deals with important life events for William and Angel, but they're not brought up here.
And no, you don't have to read Pull to Open to understand this story, even though they happen at the same time (unless you want Angel's POV on what's happening here). If you do want to read Pull to Open, then you can find it under the pen name Constant Babble.
An important note on the content: There's a fair amount of sex in this story (especially relative to all my other stories), but none of it is very graphic. For shippers who are concerned about just who the sex is between… If you don't want (soon-to-be-obvious) spoilers, skip ahead to the actual story. Right now. There are no further important notes to read before beginning. You're done.
Right, okay, minor spoilers ahead, because I respect the need to make an informed ship decision when fic-ing. The relationship is between Angel and Judith, and it really is sexual, not romantic. I don't ship Angel with any one particular person (anymore), and that perhaps shows in this series. I used to ship A/C pretty devoutly, though, so I do remember and respect that concern and complete turn-off when a ship is just wrong (except Phoenix Burning, which is an amazing Bangel story that I loved even back in my hardcore A/C days, and everyone should read it). If it helps, this story was an experiment with a ship that I didn't especially sail, but ended up loving. I hope you'll give it a try and let me know what you think.
On Death and Sex
The first word that Judith Cole ever learned was death, and another word could not have been more prescient.
Her understanding of the word began when she found a dead bird while playing outside a funeral home during the viewing for her great-grandfather. It soured with the guilt that came from the fire that killed her best friend in college, and matured with the heart attack that took her father and the undetected brain tumor that took her mother-in-law (with whom she'd had a relationship more meaningful than with her own mother). It had come to briefly include insanity when she thought she'd lost her son.
By the time her great-aunt passed away when Judith was in her early 40s, death had come to mean something synonymous with inevitability, but with a flavor of courage and survivability.
For herself, of course. For herself, death had become something that she could survive and an opportunity to show her courage-when she felt like she had it.
Which she seemed to be feeling less and less lately. Judith had thought that it would get easier, but when her older brother was killed in a car accident when Judith was 55, her courage felt about as solid and empowering as the steam that she watched rise from her coffee for an hour after she got the news. She even reheated it over and over when it got too cool just to watch the steam rise again; her own version of lighting a candle to help his soul out of whatever purgatory that she didn't believe in.
He had been four years older than her. There was another brother, even older, and none of them had ever been particularly close. The funeral was held in Limerick, where they'd grown up and their mother still lived. Judith sat on one side of their mother while her brother sat on the other as the family priest conducted the service. Only the three of them remained out of an original five-and Judith wondered in a fog of fresh grief if early death was a curse put upon her for some past life's sin. Judith was statistically somewhere around the halfway point in her life, but she couldn't help but think that maybe, if it was a curse (figuratively, though she knew now that the distinction was important), early death was her own lot, as well.
The first word that Judith learned was death, but that did not mean that she understood it.
A few nights after she returned from the funeral, when the aftermath of a once-every-century kind of ice storm had loosened its hold on the city, and now-stir-crazy venturers could finally leave their homes, she found herself at the Dragon's Crown, hoping to find the person who would either be most uplifting or most depressing to discuss age, eternity, and mortality with: a 475-year-old vampire.
The Dragon's Crown was their favorite establishment in which to sit and talk. Sometimes they went early enough for Judith to have dinner, and sometimes they were there late enough for the demon patrons to begin arriving. Tonight, it was closer to the latter.
Marty brought them their usuals and threw in a leftover slice of chocolate cake for Judith that the dinner crowd had not eaten. He walked away with a pleased bounce in his step at her grateful smile and gentle touch on his forearm.
Their topics of conversation flowed with the usual things for a while: how her trip went; how William and his wife Keiko were settling into their new house and if there might be baby news soon (it had been several years since the wedding, but a new, larger house seemed like a good omen); and how dreadful all the ice was except that it was perfect weather for reading all day. Judith had finished the cake and was just starting on her second drink by the time she asked,
"Do you remember what your first word was?"
Angel looked mildly surprised and he thought for only a second before shaking his head. "No. Probably something boring and ordinary like 'Ma' or 'Da' or 'tavern wench.'"
Judith laughed. "That was a common first word for your time, was it?"
Angel nodded solemnly. "They don't tell you stuff like that in history class."
Judith hmm-ed through a sip of her gin and tonic, feeling more relaxed than she had in about a week. "Well, I've always thought that the world would be in a finer state if history was better taught in schools."
Angel grinned. "And I've always said that tavern wenches were the solution to world peace. So there you go. We agree, for once." He paused. "Why? What was your first word?"
Judith sobered, the tension creeping back into her shoulders like wrapping up in a security blanket. "Death."
The word hung between them, thick with connotations for both. That was, of course, why Judith had brought it up.
After a long, weighted moment, Angel leaned forward across the table. "You're not coping that well about your brother, are you?"
Judith laughed a little. "I guess not," she admitted. "Which is strange, don't you think?"
Angel frowned, confused. "No… He was your brother."
"Not the grief part, the coping part. They're not the same thing, you know."
"Aren't they?"
"Certainly not," she replied, though she wasn't actually so certain. She continued anyway, since sometimes pretending made things so. "Grief is an emotion." She paused briefly. "Coping is processing that emotion."
Yes, that sounded right. Bring it back to definitions: nice and simple. She nodded decisively.
Angel's expression wasn't quite so convinced, though. "Except that sometimes the grief is too big to cope, or the coping methods aren't strong enough to handle the grief. The end result is the same," Angel said, and then sipped the whiskey in his glass. "So which is it?"
Both. Neither? Judith wasn't sure. She'd coped with worse grief before with Evie in college-much worse because of the mountain of guilt that came with it. Her best friend's death hadn't been Judith's fault directly, but she and Evie had been in the abandoned house because of Judith's reckless urge, and the fire had started from their combined reckless exploring. Judith's coping methods were trial-by-fire-tested-strong. Almost literally, in that case.
No, what she was feeling now was not worse, and her coping methods were fine. She shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe it's something else entirely."
"Like?"
Judith shook her head, fiddling with the lime wedge on the rim of her gin and tonic. She noticed a vein on the back of her hand was beginning to protrude more than she remembered, and the skin was starting to look weathered. She gave a small smile as she began to realize what it might be, ironic because it was the very thing she thought she'd been handling so well.
"Maybe...it's getting older," she said slowly.
"Oh, come on," Angel said dismissively, "you're not that old. Not for these days, especially."
"I know," Judith said just as dismissively. "I don't actually mind aging; it's a rite of passage that not everyone is fortunate enough to experience...and I actually like the silver hairs. It's not the aging part...it's the getting-closer-to-death part. People around me die young. It could be my turn soon." She looked up to catch his eye and, hopefully, his reaction. But courage failed her again and she looked away before she could decide what he might be thinking.
"It's silly, I know," she added quickly. She could hear the advice from here: Live in the moment. Don't worry about things you can't change. Be happy to be alive today.
"It's not silly," Angel said.
It was responses like that that Judith loved about Angel: so simple, and yet the way he said it connoted centuries of experience and wisdom. More often than not, when he said something, it wasn't something that he simply thought to be true in theory: he knew it to be true because it had happened to him.
Not that Judith always thought he was right about his conclusions, but she was still willing to give them more weight than most.
"Maybe you're right," she said, conciliatory since she didn't really have any of her own evidence to add that wasn't vague and unsettled feelings somewhere in the region of her gut. She gave him a small smile. "I think I'm just having a moment."
"It's understandable," Angel replied. Silence fell for a long while and Judith tried to think of another topic to bring up, since death had apparently failed with the man who had died at least twice.
"I'm not really sure what to say," Angel admitted before she found that other topic, shifting uncomfortably. "I don't really have this problem."
"No," she agreed. "Of course you don't; you don't get older. You don't need to say anything, I'm just talking." Silence fell again and they both looked at their drinks.
After a moment, Judith frowned. "But...don't you?" She looked up. "Not physically, but you must be getting more mature with age; wiser. You may have the body of a 20-something, but in every other respect, you're four hundred and seventy-five. You must have Getting Older moments, too."
It took Angel a moment to respond. "Maybe," he said finally. "In different ways. Getting older for me doesn't mean death."
"Except that you have died," Judith pointed out. "And probably will again, someday. Certainly will, actually, since I doubt you'll survive the end of the universe."
"Yeah…" Angel agreed slowly. "I don't know, maybe that's why I don't have those kind of moments: I have died, so I know what's coming. It's not the unknown for me."
It sounded reasonable. That was what most oh-my-god-someday-I'm-going-to-die moments tended to be about: fear of the unknown. "So in what ways do you have your Getting Older moments?"
Angel shrugged. "The things you'd expect. Prices keep rising. I can't keep up with pop culture. Technology keeps changing."
"Mm." That wasn't exactly what she meant. Not external changes. "And you're a different person than you used to be." And then, knowing that Angel needed a bit of a lighter mood to ease him into the more personal subjects, she added, "No more visits to tavern wenches, for instance." She smiled and Angel raised an eyebrow.
"How would you know? Taverns don't have wenches anymore-maybe it's the taverns that have changed, not me." He smiled, too. He did not continue, and though Judith debated with herself briefly, she decided not to pursue it. She was grappling with her own internal shifts; she didn't have the energy to pry about Angel's.
Judith picked up her glass in both hands and rested her elbows on the table as she took a small sip. "How's Cordelia?"
"Good," Angel replied. "She was in town a few weeks ago."
Judith smiled again. "Good. I'm glad you get to see her regularly."
"Yeah," Angel agreed softly. His eyes had a far away glimmer, but he didn't elaborate.
Judith had been friends with Angel long enough that under other circumstances, she might have asked what the glimmer meant. But again: with her own vulnerability so close to the surface, she didn't feel like prying into his. She finished off the little bit that was left in her glass instead.
"Another one?" Angel asked as she set it aside.
"No, thank you." Two was plenty.
"I can walk you home if you want," Angel offered.
Judith nodded toward his glass of whiskey. "Finish that first. I'm not ready just yet."
Angel took another sip in a way that made Judith feel like she'd just told William to finish his milk. It didn't help her Getting Older Moment.
"Not regularly enough," Angel said so quietly, he may have been talking to his drink.
Judith tilted an ear toward him. "Sorry?"
"Cordy." Angel looked up at Judith briefly and then at his glass again, which was suspended in front of his face between two fingers. "It had been almost two years since the last time."
That surprised Judith. When William had first been on the path of Powers That Be Champion, Cordelia had stopped in at least once or twice a year to see how they were all adjusting. Gradually, her visits had decreased, and Judith had mostly stopped hearing about her arrivals to town after William had chosen not to a Champion for the Powers, but she'd assumed that was because William was the missing link, not that the visits were less frequent.
"That's a long time to wait."
Angel nodded.
"You...do...wait?" There was something both classically and tragically romantic about the idea, if it was true.
"Yeah," Angel said shortly, seeming unwilling to elaborate. He took a quick sip of his drink and then, after a moment of consideration, finished the last of it in one swallow. "Let's go," he said.
It was his turn to pay for the drinks, so Angel caught Marty's attention and gestured that he should add Judith's bill to his running tab as Judith reached for her black wool coat, beret, mittens, and scarf. Sometimes, Judith felt like she wore an entire extra wardrobe in the winter; especially around Angel because he had only worn his leather coat, which he brought regardless of season or weather.
It was bitter cold outside and the salt was battling to melt the ice that was re-freezing in the night air. Judith's breath looked like clouds of smoke in front of her.
The city was almost eerily quiet; no one seemed willing to brave the biting cold this late into the evening. The air between herself and Angel was cool and silent, also, and Judith wondered if she'd said something wrong. She stole a sideways glance at him.
Angel's shoulders were tense and hunched forward - more so than usual - but his expression was more pensive than angry. Judith's foot slid on a small patch of ice and she caught herself, and resolved immediately to pay more attention to where she put her feet.
They settled into a more cautious rhythm of walking, and finally, after they'd crossed Atalia Bridge, Angel broke the silence. "I'm not supposed to be waiting for her." The breath that he used to speak could also be seen, but in wisps instead of clouds. "It's just...turning out that way. I guess it's all been one long Getting Older Moment."
Judith tilted her head a bit, angling toward him just enough to show her interest, but still able to watch for ice. "Waiting?"
Angel shook his head, but then he hesitated, adjusting his shoulders with what seemed to be embarrassment. "Not...waiting…" He fidgeted again and cleared his throat, looking over at her as if trying to appraise her current receptibility to whatever it was he had to say in as short a glance as possible.
Angel gave a short, resigned sigh. "Sex," he admitted.
Judith's eyebrow arched slightly. "How?"
"It's…" he shrugged. "I see it differently now."
Judith stepped around a small patch of ice again before repeating, "How?"
"Wellllll…" Angel pushed his fists further into his pockets, even though they already seemed to be jammed in as hard as they could be. They stopped briefly at an intersection that warned them not to walk, but a quick check showed a completely desolate street, so they stepped out into the road anyway.
"It's different," Angel continued. "You know?"
"Without any context for your sex life-tavern wenches aside-I'm afraid I don't." Over the years, Angel and Judith had discussed many personal things and experienced some personal things together… But their respective sex lives (or Judith's almost complete lack of one) rarely came up; not out of shyness or propriety, but simply because other topics had come up instead.
Angel sighed again, his shoulders sinking a bit. "It's like… You know when you're a kid and you want candy, you don't care what kind of candy it is so long as there's some kind of sugar in it, and you think, 'Man, when I grow up, I'm going to eat candy all day'-but then you do grow up and you don't really want candy anymore unless it's the really good kind?"
Judith's eyebrows shot up. That might have been the longest sentence she'd ever heard Angel speak.
"I mean," Angel quickly clarified, "I never actually went through that because we didn't have a lot of candy when I was a kid, but I hear it's a thing."
"It is," Judith assured him. "And I get the metaphor. I think." She adjusted her scarf a bit around her chin, suddenly glad that it was so cold and dark and empty as they walked-it made the conversation easier to have if they could speak to the void in front of them. "But just to be clear, in this case, the good kind of sex is…?"
"With someone I love," Angel replied. He gave a thoughtful little shrug. "Someone I know, actually… I'm working my way up."
Judith gave a little smile that she wasn't sure he could see. She remembered that transition, though for her it had happened sometime in her mid-20s. Her smile twisted into something a little teasing that seeped out into her tone. "You're 475 and you're just figuring this out?"
"No," Angel said quickly. He dipped his head to the side. "Kind of. It's not like there have been that many, you know."
"I don't, actually. I don't think we've ever listed how many partners you've had, to say nothing of the ones you've known beforehand or loved. But I thought Buffy…?" Judith hesitated, suddenly unsure of the story, now. She knew Angel had been in love with her, and that sex with her had caused him to lose his soul, and she'd thought it was quite a long time ago now… But Angel's account of the story had been perfunctory at best, and now she was questioning even those basic facts.
"Sure, of course," Angel said. "I loved her. But it was just the once, you know?"
Judith hadn't known, but she might have guessed on account of the curse (though she thought he had found a way to anchor it around the same time…?).
Angel continued, "But that was kind of it until- I mean there was Darla, obviously. Except not really because I couldn't...until I could… Because of the soul, you know?" he asked again.
Of course, Judith didn't know, again. She frowned, trying to follow. She knew that Darla was the mother of Angel's son, and of course was Angel's sire, with whom he'd lived for...was it 150 years? Thereabouts. The way Angel talked about her and given their history, Judith was sure he did love her, but that it was also more complicated than that.
"But then she died. And then Cordy. Now. Now Cordy." Apparently, Angel's run-on sentence earlier had drained him of the ability to put together complete sentences now. "And that's pretty much it. Love-wise."
Judith nodded slowly, her mind trying to fill in the gaps. "So you're saying that you're finding that it's worth the wait. That not just any sex will do."
"Wellll," Angel said again. "Not as a rule, but...yeah."
Judith smiled as they stopped at the next intersection and waited for an empty tram to roll by. "I'm glad you've found that out."
It had been a long time since she'd had that herself. There had been a few people since the divorce, whom she'd gone on some dates with when William was at his father's. They were people she might have loved-but found that she didn't afterward. She had always hoped to find what she'd had with Sam again, but the hope dwindled with her age, just as the years seemed to pile on more baggage to the available men around her. Very few of them seemed to be gathering wisdom, and instead were gathering motorcycles and red cars…
"In my first year of college," Judith found herself saying as they stepped into the road, "there was a scandal when everyone found out that an older female professor was having an affair with a sophomore male; we were all appalled. But now… I think I understand why she would do it."
"Why?" Angel asked.
Judith drew in a deep, cold breath. "Because she wasn't supposed to be desirable anymore. In our culture, cougarism is a kink. Deviant. Fantastically scandalous and outside the norm. But...that's not true."
Angel frowned in confusion. "Which part?"
Judith thought for a moment. "The desire. Not just a desire for younger men, of course, but for...anyone." She chanced a full glance at him, away from the icy sidewalk. His expression reminded her of the city: cool and blank on the surface, but busy with thought in the warmer interior. She turned back to the sidewalk in time to skirt another patch of ice and she added, "It doesn't end with childbearing years, though society likes to pretend it does."
Angel shifted his shoulders again and stepped over some ice that was on his side. After a long moment-which soon found Judith fidgeting, too, adjusting and readjusting her sky blue scarf over her mouth-Angel asked, "Do-?" He hesitated. "Do you...often…?"
"No," she replied, saving Angel from finishing the sentence. She gave him a quick glance of solidarity. "It's better with someone I love. Or at least know."
The silence fell for good and neither of them spoke until they reached Judith's building several minutes later. Angel didn't always walk her home, but it had become something of a habit recently when there had been several times in a row that he'd needed to go meet someone at the nightclub Decade in Uptown anyway, and Judith's flat was on the way. It had made the partings seamless and natural when he had somewhere else to be.
Actually, she told herself, what made the partings seamless and natural was that they hadn't just been talking about something deeply personal. They slowed to a stop by her front steps, both staring at them as if someone had etched a script for what to say next.
Well, hope you work out your issues. Goodnight!
Since Judith was the better one with words, she turned to face him, trusting that something decent would come out. But Angel surprised her by speaking first.
"Do you-?"
Judith waited. Angel rubbed the back of his head uncomfortably.
"Do I what?"
Angel shook his head and shoved his hand in his pocket like he was about to brush the whole thing off. "I was just going to ask if...you…"
Judith crossed her arms over herself tightly, partly from the cold and partly from the growing nervousness. She wasn't sure what she was supposed to be nervous about, but Angel certainly was. There was a look in his eyes that she hadn't seen before. A vulnerability, and a fear around it. In the more than fifteen years that they'd been friends, Judith could have counted on one hand the number of times he'd truly opened himself up to her, but there had always been a sense of trust between them; that he knew she would handle his vulnerability carefully and safely.
That was gone, and it made her stomach drop.
"Angel…?"
Angel took a deep breath and tore his eyes away from the skyscrapers behind her to look at her. "We could have that. Just once."
Judith frowned. "Have…?" It was dawning on her what he meant, but she didn't like to jump to conclusions.
"That thing," Angel said unhelpfully. "Where we know each other-like each other... Right?"
"Quite…" Judith said slowly.
"Quite." Angel agreed. "Sooo…"
"Angel," Judith interrupted. "Are you suggesting that we…" Ah. Now she knew why it was so hard to say.
There was a very long, pregnant moment until Angel finally said, "Yeah."
"Oh," Judith found herself saying. Her mind went blank and she had no idea what else to say. She couldn't feel her body, and she was pretty sure it wasn't because of the cold. She felt like her mind temporarily left to go analyze the situation and had forgotten to take her consciousness with it.
She was left with feelings, which were a historically dangerous thing for her to be left with. She bit her lip and tried to rationalize. She didn't feel romantically toward Angel, and she was pretty certain that he didn't feel that way about her, either. Not that romance was necessary, of course. It was called making love, but it wasn't specific about which kind. She felt a great deal of like for him-it was a respect and friendship sort of love...
Just once, he'd said. Because it was better with someone you knew.
"I mean, if you don't want to…" Angel said quickly, probably because she'd let too much time pass. He started to back away.
"No," Judith said just as quickly. "That's not- I'm just surprised." She forced herself to meet his eye. "Just once?"
"Just once," Angel nodded.
Judith's mind began to return, reconnecting to her body in distinct clicks. She shivered involuntarily when she realized how cold she was. Angel must have noticed because he opened his mouth to say something, but she cut him off.
"Yes."
Angel looked nearly as surprised as she felt. "Yes?" he repeated.
Judith nodded. "Yes. But if we don't get inside soon, I might just freeze to death."
"Oh, right," Angel agreed, like he'd forgotten it was winter.
She led the way up the stone steps and once inside, they took the stairs instead of the lift. It seemed to Judith to be the best way to start to thaw, and it would avoid standing around and waiting for the lift. If this was happening, Judith didn't want any extra room for an awkward beforehand. There was little to be done if the during and after were unbearably awkward, but with the tool of distraction, the before was in their control.
At least in theory.
When they shut Judith's front door, there was a pause where she wondered what the next step was, and the expression on Angel's face mirrored something similar. All the rules seemed to be different. Did the mood need to be set? Should they settle in slowly, get comfortable, have a glass of wine and lower the lights (which had turned on automatically to full intimidating brightness when they'd walked in)…? Or just go ahead and start? And if they were going to just start, should the winter outer layers come off before starting, or was it actually good to have a few extra things for the other person to take off so they could get used to the idea that the rest would soon follow? That boundaries were about to be crossed?
Judith's heart began to pound a little harder and her mind, fully returned, demanded to know what the hell she'd been thinking when she'd said Yes.
And then, gently yet still before she had time to react, Angel turned her toward him and kissed her. His lips were cold, and so were his fingers at the base of her skull just above her scarf and below her hat. His breath smelled like scotch whiskey. Something inside Judith swooped upward and her heart began to pound a little harder, but in a slightly less fearful way, and she put a mittened hand on the front of his shoulder.
It's only the unknown, she reminded herself. And isn't the point of this that it isn't actually unknown?
They knew each other. That was the opposite of unknown. She knew that he liked scotch, for instance, and it wouldn't have surprised her that he tasted like it even if she hadn't known that he'd just been drinking it. She knew his hands and the way he touched the things he held in them, so the way his fingers moved against the back of her neck felt oddly familiar-not because they had ever been there before, but because she could have guessed that's what they would have felt like.
And yet… At the same time, his lips on hers suddenly opened up an entirely new realm of unknown that she had utterly failed to take into consideration.
The king of this unknown realm being that he was a vampire. A creature from Hell. Not even human.
Oh god.
They broke apart and he backed away a bit, giving her room to catch her breath. His fingers slid out from behind her head. Judith took a second to let go of the He's a Vampire realization. Judith usually liked to deal with things as they came up, but this was one time that she didn't actually think it would help. Angel had gotten them over the first hurdle; she wasn't going to be the one to backslide.
Judith gave a short laugh, pushing those last thoughts out of the way, and said, "Thank you for that."
Angel smiled almost apologetically and rubbed at the back of his own head. "It was starting to get awkward."
"Yes, it was."
"I might have just made that worse."
Judith smiled. A vampire biologically, but human emotionally. He was just as unsure as she was. Somehow, that made it better; at least she wasn't alone in this. "You didn't," she assured him.
He gave her a little nod and both of them hesitated again. Then Angel reached out and carefully took the hat off her head. He hung it on one of the coat tree branches. Then he ran his fingers along her scalp, smoothing her hair in a way that made Judith's entire head tingle, down to the breath filling her lungs with a pleasant prickling. Suddenly warming up, she loosened her scarf with clumsy mittened hands and pulled it off, hanging it by the hat.
Angel took her hands in his as she raised them to take the mittens off and he paused, holding them between his own. "My hands are going to be too cold for this," he said with a grimace.
"So are mine," Judith replied, grimacing a little herself. It had been so cold out, she'd almost felt like she hadn't been wearing gloves. "I could fill some mugs with hot water," she offered.
Angel paused, seemingly thinking about it. It was an unromantic notion, Judith had to admit.
"Hold on," Angel said, and took off her mittens, balancing them on top of the scarf and hat. He took both her hands in his own again and Judith had to suppress a reaction. They were freezing. "Sorry," Angel said, but then adjusted his stance and posture, closed his eyes, and began breathing deeply.
In just a few seconds, his hands began to tingle with warmth. It was an odd feeling: she could still feel the cold underneath, even as his skin began to approach hot. No, it wasn't even his skin; it was the energy around his skin, and she could feel it flowing around her hands, too. After a moment, though, the heat started to penetrate more deeply. The skin of both their hands felt warm, and then the blood underneath, and finally, Judith's hands felt warmed down to her bones.
Angel let go and opened his eyes.
Judith looked up at him. "Magic?" she asked.
Angel shrugged with something like an apology. "Tai chi."
"Oh," Judith looked at her hands again. She hadn't realized tai chi could do that. It was better than mugs of hot water, though. She smiled at him, and then turned away to take off her shoes. Angel followed suit, and soon the shoes sat dripping melting ice into the tray she kept by the door. Now there was only one barrier left: their coats.
Judith hesitated only briefly before beginning to work at the large buttons on her coat, feeling a little less apprehensive now that the first few steps had gone well. Soon, their coats were hanging on neighboring rungs on the coat tree, and they looked at each other again.
After more than fifteen years of friendship, Angel was as familiar to her as her home. If she never saw him again after this moment, in another fifteen years she would still be able to hear the timbre and cadence of his voice, read the subtler expressions of his face, see his hunched silhouette and glint of his eyes in a dark Dragon's Crown booth. But now, in a new context, he looked different. Like a mirror image; especially strange with someone who literally didn't even have a mirror image. She tried to wrap-
"Don't think too hard about it," Angel interrupted her thoughts.
Judith stared at him in surprise, and then let out a laugh. She nodded. "Apt call."
Angel's mouth twitched in a smile and then he stepped forward again, sliding his fingers behind her head, and kissed her, more gently this time.
Judith took Angel's advice and let the thoughts go as they came, focusing instead on the sensations: the smooth cotton of his shirt under her fingers as she ran them up to his shoulders, his soft yet slightly dry lips on hers (warmer, now), his other hand on her lower back…
Judith deepened the kiss, allowing their lips to fit together in a way that let taste slip into the picture. The scotch was still predominant and Judith enjoyed it. Angel pulled her closer so their bodies were flush against each other and Judith had to rearrange her arms to fit around him instead of between them.
They broke apart just long enough for Judith to catch another breath before Angel closed in again, a little harder now that the gates were open. She pressed the fingers of one hand against the back of his head, encouraging the intensity, to which he responded by sliding the hand at her back under the hem of her shirt.
With another upward swoop of her stomach, Judith suddenly realized why she had said yes: because he had asked. He had asked and risked rejection because he wanted it enough-because he'd wanted her enough, for whatever reason. The reason wasn't romantic attraction, Judith was sure, but it was definitely some sort of desire for her, because Judith hadn't felt it since… Well, the last time she'd felt it was the last time she thought that she and her ex-husband still had a chance.
And if the way Angel was kissing her-his fingers now tangled in her hair and her bottom lip starting to tingle-didn't indicate his desire for her, then he was just intimidatingly good at kissing.
Which was, Judith realized as they started slowly backing further into her flat, entirely possible with the amount of experience he'd had.
She quickly decided that that was one of those thoughts she should let go of.
She broke their contact again to breathe, and Angel moved along her jawline toward her earlobe, brushing her hair out of his way as he went. With her eyes open again, she realized how bright the room was, and she used voice command to turn out the lights, trusting Angel to be able to see where they were going as they continued farther into the flat.
It turned out to be misplaced trust.
With Angel too busy at her ear to watch where they were going, she backed painfully into an end table by the entrance to the hall, knocking over a few candlesticks that clattered loudly to the floor as they both yelled in shock and shattered the moment with the noise.
Stumbling to regain their balance still tangled up in each other, Judith let out a laugh, and Angel echoed it as he groped for the wall for support.
"I'm sorry!" Judith said, still laughing. "I thought turning out the lights would make it better."
"Yeah, well," Angel chuckled, "I thought using my brilliant powers of intuition to navigate would make it sexier."
"It would have..." Judith allowed.
"Oh well," Angel shrugged. His smile slid away. "You okay?"
Judith nodded, although her sacral area still throbbed where it had hit the edge of the table. "Fine." She would be, anyway.
Angel nodded, too. They paused, letting the moment settle again. When Angel began to lean in, Judith quickly interrupted,
"Maybe we should just...go ahead in there."
"Oh," Angel said, straightening up again. "Yeah. Good idea."
He backed up and tripped over one of the fallen candleholders. He swore, his hand flying out to catch himself against the opposite wall. Judith tried to suppress the laughter again and Angel pointed a finger at her as she passed him, leading the way toward her bedroom. "You know, it's a lot harder to make the sweeping-things-off-the-table thing work than it looks like in the movies."
"Especially when it's not intentional," Judith agreed. She turned in the doorway to her bedroom to smile at him.
It helped, actually. The sharp dose of reality helped sew the Angel she knew together with the Angel she was discovering. The vulnerability helped, too, even more so than if he'd manage to suavely smooth the whole thing over. Vulnerability was one of the sexiest things Judith could think of; especially in someone who worked so hard not to show it.
Judith held out her hand. Angel took it, and Judith pulled him closer, for the first time thoroughly sure that she wanted this. She kissed him this time, and she could feel him relax against her as the moment returned. His tenderness, the strength in his grace, and just a hint of urgency enhanced her own growing sense of need. Sure that nothing was in their way this time, they backed slowly toward the bed and stopped just as they reached the edge.
The edge was exactly what it felt like.
She teetered on the border of decision, where all the next steps-from touch to clothes to position-crossed into lands that were not only uncharted with each other, they were practically in different dimensions.
Angel let go of her waist to begin undoing the lower buttons of his own shirt, and Judith was grateful to him for taking that first next step entirely at his own expense. Not-Judith thought as she helped with the top buttons and then pushed the shirt off his shoulders-that it's that much of a risk, with a chest like his… Toned, firm, smooth except for a fine line of dark hair running down his center and wisping like clouds across the top. He had a brand just above his heart: something that looked kind of like a sun.
They took off Judith's shirt next, and her skin tightened in the cool air and with the sense of exposure. Judith was used to exposing her inner self to Angel: between his inclination to listen instead of talk and his unwillingness to judge past actions and inner natures because of his own, she had often found herself admitting things that she hadn't admitted to anyone else. He was safe. Nonjudgmental. Quiet.
He was like her dark bedroom now, where they were exploring each other's bare skin like secrets whispered under a blanket. He was isolated, shielding, and she felt hidden with him from the outside city that knew nothing about Angel, nothing about her, and nothing about their relationship. Not even her closest friends knew about Angel, and that meant that right now, she could be anyone she wanted. For the last fifteen years, he had been the dark room she could whisper her secrets into.
The metaphor did not translate to clothing, but Judith found that it was more exciting because of it. Judith's greatest weakness was her passion, and that was why she kept it under such strict control. She could drown easily in the depths of her emotion, and the way she kept herself afloat was by building boats of rules and values and beliefs: mental structures that were strong enough to keep her safe, but flexible enough to survive the occasional storm.
The sensation of her bare stomach against Angel's made it feel like it was raining, and she wanted more. Heat flashed over her chest and wrapped warm tendrils sensuously around her neck.
She reached down and worked at undoing the front of his trousers. She could feel him smile against her neck.
"You're a switch, aren't you?"
Already, he was putting things together about her. One little moment of initiative wasn't enough for anyone to tell one way or the other. He was combing through what he knew, the things she'd confided, the way she interacted with the world, and piecing together a picture of her more private aspects. Her heart jolted, like a physical connection of electricity to match the emotional connection of intimacy.
"So are you," she replied, hooking her thumb in the loosened waistband. Angel confided a lot less to her, verbally, but it was an obvious conclusion to make. She pushed at his trousers at the same time as he pushed her onto the bed and they slid smoothly over the curve of his hips.
"Apt call," he echoed, and stopped whatever lovely thing he'd been doing to her neck to pull his trousers the rest of the way off. Judith didn't look out of habit, but she wouldn't have had much chance, anyway. She arched into him as he returned and slid a hand under her back and along her spine to the hook of her bra.
"Ouch," she said as the corner of his fingernail nicked her back.
"Sorry," he said softly. "At least these are easier to manage than corsets…"
She laughed lightly. "You know, I've always wanted to try one on."
Angel raised an eyebrow; it was so much more alluring now than it ever had been before. "Is that so?" He leaned in and kissed her jawbone near her ear and then whispered, "I'll get one for you."
Judith smiled at the thought, though she knew he never would. This was just one night, after all.
Perhaps it was because it was just one night that there seemed to be an unspoken agreement to make it last as long as they could. There was urgency to continue, but not to finish, a need to explore, but not to take. Not immediately, anyway. They switched a few times, listened to the sounds the other made, watched expressions, learned new things about the other's sensitivities.
He brought her to climax twice: once gently, with his hands and then later...well...not so gently. They lay tangled in each other and the sheets for a long while afterward, catching their breath (which Judith spent some time wondering about, since Angel didn't need to breathe, but she eventually decided that maybe it was necessary for circulation and maybe, sometime, she would ask).
Judith's muscles were already a bit sore and her right arm was pinned under Angel at a slightly uncomfortable angle and just starting to feel the first sharp pricks of sleep. But were it not for the slight imperfections, she could not have realized just how satisfied and comfortable she otherwise felt, and for such a realization she would not have changed a thing.
Eventually, Angel spoke, his voice slightly muffled in the crook of her neck. "You smell like…snow…mangoes…and a little like turmeric."
Judith smiled. "Do I? I've always wondered."
"Those are the closest words I can come up with." He took a deep breath. "And now you smell a little like me, too."
"What do you smell like?"
Angel took a moment to answer. "Smoke," he finally said.
"What kind of smoke?"
"No kind. Just…murky, dark, dangerous."
An unexpected thrill jolted in Judith's stomach, but she tried to let it go; that was not a healthy attraction.
Judith tilted her head toward his so that she could smell the skin of his sweaty brow. "And you also smell like earth," she said, leaning back. "But not surface earth: bedrock and earth beneath the topsoil."
"Six feet under?" Angel asked, and she could feel him give a slight grin.
"Something like that. See? Humans can do it, too."
"I'm impressed," Angel said.
"So will I smell like you forever now?" she asked. Once, a long time ago near the beginning of their friendship, Angel had explained the concept of virginity as vampires could sense it. He'd said that after a union, people leave traces of themselves in others; that that was what was meant by "purity."
"Just a little, if someone took the time to notice."
Someone, she assumed, meaning another vampire.
"Hm," Judith sighed.
"Is that a bad thing?"
"No. Just interesting."
They were quiet for a few more moments. After a while, Judith said, "Thank you. I didn't know how much I needed that."
Angel tilted up to look at her. Their faces were so close. Judith studied his eyes in the way that she always wanted to, but never felt entirely comfortable. Staring through the windows to the soul is, after all, a supreme act of trust. Though they often made eye contact when talking, actually studying a person's eyes was quite different. He let her look without blinking.
"Me too," he finally said. Then suddenly, he sat up, freeing her arm, and she thought that he was going to leave. But instead, he began untangling the winter blankets from around their legs until he could pull it over both of them. He draped his arm across her abdomen as he lay back down and settled his face in the crook of her neck again. They didn't say anything after that, and eventually, they fell asleep.
When she woke in the morning, Angel was gone, though he'd left a note on her nightstand. Where the date should have gone, he had written "Sunrise," and the body of the note simply said,
Thank you.