RATING: PG-13, I guess.
DISCLAIMER: Joss et. al, own all the characters here.
NOTES: This is my first fanfic, inspired by two things-was Passion for the first time Angelus had come to Buffy at night, before she 'changed the locks'? Also, I love the Buffy/Angelus banter, and I NEVER get enought of it. The title is from W. Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream".
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Crouched in a tree high above her window, he waited silently, posed cat-like and feral. Not that he needed this time to work up a bloodlust that was already raging within his veins. A connoisseur of moments like these, he savored the delay as it built his anticipation into a coiled tension of frightening intensity.
She entered the room again, dressed for bed. Though not the way he wanted her to be.
He inhaled the scent of her body that curled faintly and unmistakably through the warm air. It made him think of...things. That he wanted to do. Had done. With her.
But not so gently this time.
The demon inside roared immediately, and he almost unbalanced, caught in the sudden flaring urgency. Remembering, re-living....And feeling.
Soft whispers of skin on skin. Touches, yes, I touched her, so gently, as though she were glass, would shatter into a thousand pieces at the slightest touch. He grinned, purely self-appeciative.
Well, she did.
He growled almost immediately, shaking his head, trying to clear it of the self disgust as he remembered holding himself in check, unwilling to surrender to the dark forces that whispered, oh, so seductively, to take her, master her, completely possess her.
Faugh! I should have gone back.
After his disgustingly pathetic lap-dog self had finally been defeated by the demon, he had remained in the streets, feeding on the street-wallkers, one after another, gorging to the point nausea, still unsatisfied.
I should have gone back and taken her then. Woken her from her sleep, invaded her, shattered her complacency...Stupid Slayer. I could have walked into her girlish bed any time these past two nights and done the same. But this way, oh yes, its so much more fun!
Holding on to the branch above him, trying to remain motionless so that he wouldn't alert her to his presence, he watched her moving about, putting things away, touching her stuffed animals, all the thousand details of her bedtime rituals. At one point she opened a vanity case and took out something, which she held clasped in her hand, staring at it for a long time. With the faintest of sights, audible only to preternatural hearing, she put it back in her case, then took it out and slipped it on her finger again.
A ring.
His ring? Oh, he so hoped it was. It would make tonight's little encounter even more enjoyable.
Especially if I mention that I've come straight from Dru.
Carefully, lightly, he swung to a tree nearer her bedroom window, not near enough to alert her Slayer sense, but close enough for him to get a better view.
She wore his ring on her finger, a half-smile touching her lips. Then a grimace fled across her face and her hands clenched so tightly that the upper edge of the crest cut into her palm. A gash, no more, but his senses were fully alert to her blood. To all of her, the scent of the hair, the curve of the face, the way she sat in ridiculous fluffy bunny slippers, seductive yet, even in a Winnin-the-Pooh nightshirt.
Unable to wait any longer, and delighting in the coming encounter he swung down to the ledge outside her window.
"Hello, lover." His voice the softest whisper of a caress. She didn't look up at first, thinking it was the night breeze echoing the memories of her lover.
"You should be more careful, Buff," he continued seductively. "You drew blood there." His face hardened as lips pulled back to reveal gleaming incisors. "And it's no fun you hurting, if I'm not the one who did it."
Her breath caught as she saw the moonlight shine on his indolent form, lying on her window ledge, head propped up on his elbow. He was white marble, poised, cool and hard. Still perfection.
Still damnation.
Shock and the events of the day galvanized her into action. "Damn you!" and without thinking she drew a stake ready to throw it at him through the window and end it here, now. In the split second it took her to do that, however, Angelus had a revolver drawn, cocked and ready to use, pointing at her skull.
"Check?" he suggested blandly.
Barely registering his words she threw it at him anyway. Catching it in one hand, Angelus laughed and tossed the gun in through the window. It landed at her feet.
"Try the silver bullets next time, precious." He instructed. "I was going to do a little dancing with werewolves but...looks like you'll need it more than I do."
Tamping down her anger, and trying to keep her voice steady, she said "At least Oz is a beast only three nights a month."
"And I'm not? Buffy, you wound me, deeply." He crouched on all fours, still towering over her. "Let me in and we'll replay Call of the Wild." He considered. "First we'll mate and than I'll kill."
"I have a much better idea. Why don't you shove that stake up your animal instinct instead."
"Ooh, language, Buffy. You kiss your mother with that mouth?" He grinned lasciviously. "Why not kiss me instead?"
He ducked his head to avoid a paperweight that shattered on a convienient tree. "Acting a bit immature aren't we?"
"Speak for yourself. I'm personally fine with my level of development, though," she surveyed him coolly "your brain seems a bit stunted for someone who's had two centuries to grow in."
"Touchy, touchy, Buffy. Is that any way to treat your master?"
"My what?!" Outrage kept her motionless, which was lucky, thought Angelus, as he marked the inconspicious bottle of holy water near her hand. He decided to shift his position, so that the bottle would be obscured by her new line of sight.
"I'm disappointed, lover. The ring, remember? It means you belong to me."
"I DO NOT!" she exploded before remembering her sleeping parent. "Pathetic, much? You're trying to twist what Angel gave me, what we had-"
"News for you, love. The ring marks you as someone who is claimed. And I distinctly remember doing some claiming-don't you? With this-stunted body-, I might add." His voice turned low and husky. "Though you didn't have any complaints then."
Her breathing was harsh and shallow. He could almost read her thoughts. Don't give in. Don't show any emotion.
Nice try, but it wasn't working.
Smirking, he added the coup de grace. "Of course, if you don't want the ring, I know Dru would love to have it. In fact, in a way, she's earned it more than you have."
She moved to pull the shutters down, goaded beyond endurance, tormented with memories of a night where she had been cherished by the same body that now stood there mocking everything Angel had been to her.
But as she raised her hand to the catch, two treacherous fingers slipped out of the window and into Angelus' waiting caress.
"Buff..." his whisper trailed off into silence as he gazed at the hand captured within his palm. A hand with a scarcely healed scar near a claddagh ring that had been given in..
Ugh! That bloody pushover Angel and his damned bloody feelings.
A harsher voice recalled him to present reality. And reality was two fingers trembling lightly in his palm, as preternaturally solemn, his head bent over them and captured them in his mouth.
Softly at first, he sucked on them, teasing the web between the fingers, nipping gently at the tips. The ring, loosened by his ministrations moved up and down, following the path of his tongue, creating its own sensual torture. Then, unable to stop, he bit down on the digits, releasing a trickle of heady, Slayer blood, that tightened his throat with desire.
Buffy cried in pain, wrenching her fingers away, even as he attempted to increase the flow and quench his thirst. She glared at him, partial game face, eyes glowing orange, slowly growling as he swayed in another effort to maintain balance. His face shifted back to normalcy and he smiled falsely.
"Better than pig-swill, love. But then, anything is better than the filthy stuff that bloody wanker forced me to live on."
"Get. Out. Of. Here." She bit the words off with an intensity that cheered him, leaving him in no doubt of the feelings he had evoked in her again.
I told you, mate. To kill this one, you've got to love her. She defeats herself.
He shook his head slightly, negating her words. "No way, lover. You know you don't want me to go."
"Yes, I do-"
"Why are you trembling? Are you afraid of me?" he cut her off with swift intensity, all the manic cheerfulness disappearing.
"Hopeful, much? I'm the Slayer, you're the slayee. Predator-prey relationship."
"If I'm the slayee, why haven't you killed me yet?"
"I'm-" biding my time, she wanted to say.
I'm biding my time. I'm waiting fo the time I can look at you and not see love. For the time when I can stop hoping for my Angel to come back. I've loved you for so long, Angel. I kissed your game-face and didn't even notice, because it was a part of you. You tried to shelter me from your inhumanity, you would have given your life for me. And I did this to you. Oh, love, come back to me. I can't kill you, not here, not now.
"What are you doing here?" she decided to settle for neutral ground, hoping to banish the stinging hehind her eyes. "What do you want?"
"I told you before." He said, smiling disturbingly. "I want you. My possession. Possessed by me. Crying for me, begging for mercy. I want to take you till you die from it, from the hurt and the longing and the wanting. I want my face to be the last thing you see before you die, my laughter to follow you as you sink into wherever it is good slayers go after they die."
"And if you're very, very good, love, I'll turn you into a demon too, so I can have the fun of staking you as you arise."
She was shivering. Fear? Lust? Anger? Hmmmm, maybe I won't stake her that soon. Let her live-unlive, I mean. It might be fun to break her like Drusilla but her voice showed nothing but flat loathing.
"Leave."
Oops, she found the holy water. Well, all good things must come to an end.
"Does that mean no good night kiss, love?"
He jumped down before the first drop hit him. Chuckling, he disappeared into the darkness.
Really must find an adequate way to express my regards for her. Valentine's Day is coming up soon after all.
~End.
SUMMARY: B/A(us), after Phases, before Bewitched..