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Giles drove them from the rapidly burning church back to Angel’s apartment, just managing to miss the screaming fire trucks and police cruisers before they were seen. Not that Buffy stopped to care too much. Giles was murmuring words of comfort, Buffy could just barely hear them over the roar of his older than God car. The car jerked as they went over a bump, and Angel groaned next to Buffy in the back seat,
“Giles!”
“I’m sorry! We’re almost there,” Giles appeared to force a smile on his face as he looked at Buffy in the rearview mirror, “thank god, I say. The blood dripping on my upholstery from a wound I can’t see is rather unsettling,”
Buffy glared, but glanced into the mirror and allowed a snort of gallows humour, “Wow. That is eerie.” Angel’s injured palm was resting on the seat, blood oozing steadily, but of course you couldn’t see the reflection of Angel’s hand, so there was just a growing pool of red marring the surface. Angel rolled his head towards hers, pain in his eyes, but he forced a smile on his face anyway,
“Hey… sorry about the blood…”
“Shhh, it’s okay, Giles doesn’t mind,” Buffy looked up to see Giles wince, but ignored him again, focusing back on Angel, “we’re almost back at your apartment, rest ,”
“Do you need help bringing him down, or…?”
Buffy looked up, saw they had arrived, and shook her head at Giles’s question, “I can handle it, get home and get some sleep. Thanks for your help,”
“What about you?” Giles voice was all the more gentle now that he turned off the engine and everything around them was quiet, “You have had quite the day,”
Buffy just stared down at her boyfriend, her heart still pounding at how scared she’d been seeing him in so much pain… so close to death…
“I’ll be okay. Mom’s out of town still. I can stay with him.”
“Buffy, that’s not-”
“Kendra is with Willow. Take care of her, she saved my butt today. See you in the morning.” With that, Buffy got out of the car, gently hauling Angel with her, her hands careful on his too cool skin as she got him out of the night and into his haven-like apartment.
***
Buffy laid Angel on his bed as carefully as she could, her eyes lingering on the burns that lay scarlet across his chest as she silently bandaged his hand, her lips pursing in fury,
“I really hope Spike is dead. I hope that fire burned, ” Buffy turned away and went to Angel’s fridge, not expecting any kind of answer from him, but she stilled as he groaned out a reply,
“Not Spike. Dru- Drusilla did that,” Angel’s voice was a pained whisper, “It’s vengeance. I think it’s… I deserved it.”
Angel’s kitchen was barely that at all, there was no food, no bowls or plates, not even a coffee pot. Of course that made sense - Angel didn’t eat - and it certainly helped Buffy find the mug that she was looking for, that she used to pour Angel’s blood into and shove into his pristine microwave,
“Thirty seconds okay?”
“Buffy, I-”
All too soon the microwave dinged, and Buffy was quickly pulling it back out and using his singular spoon to stir it, trying to ignore how it smelled,
“Here, can you sit up?” Buffy didn’t wait for an answer, just helped pull him into something more closely resembling sitting, “Though, it’s not like I have to worry about you choking on this, I suppose,”
“Yeah. Lucky.” Angel took the mug, his fingers trembling as he held the warmth to him, “I’m sorry, Buffy… I didn’t want you to…”
“You don’t need to apologise to me. Ever , okay?” Buffy met his eyes, dark, they were always so dark… “I don't know what I would’ve done if-”
“You would’ve gone on, and I would be grateful for that.”
Angel held her gaze, Buffy could see her reflection in his eyes. For a moment she saw herself as he did, and she had to look away. Buffy wished that he would be able to see his reflection in her eyes as well. Angel didn’t see himself as he should. After tonight that would be even harder.
“Yeah well, I’m glad we don’t have to walk that road. You’re too important,” Buffy kissed Angel’s knuckles quickly, “now eat,”
Angel looked down at the blood, and then back up at her, “I- I don’t want you to-”
“I already told you, remember? I don’t even notice,” Angel shifted again, groaned in pain once more, and Buffy kissed him, quick and chaste before she could stop herself, “okay, stop it. Is it okay if I uhhh…” she felt heat flood her cheeks, “can I use your shower? I’ll steal a shirt or something, but I reek,”
Angel’s smile was barely visible, but Buffy felt it regardless, “Sure. You smell amazing though.”
“Shut up.”
Buffy wanted to stay with Angel, hold him to her and make sure he lived through the night. The need to keep him close and never let him out of her sight again was a clawing pain in her gut, seeing him so badly hurt made her feel more than a little crazy, but he was fine.
Just.
Besides, if she wanted Angel to get back to full strength as quickly as possible, then he needed to feed, and he clearly didn’t want to do that in front of her, so shower it was. The water pressure sucked, and Angel just used plain, non scented soap. Buffy held herself under the spray for as long as possible, tried to tell herself that the salt she tasted on her lips wasn’t tears. It was just dirt, just grime. Angel was still here. With her.
Angel’s sweatpants needed to be rolled up several times, and his t-shirt looked like a tent on her, but that was fine. What mattered was that his mug was empty and he was asleep when she walked back out, and sat gingerly on the seat nearby, tucking her feet under her. Buffy’s heart still pounded.
Vampires looked dead when they slept. No breathing meant no soothing chest rising and falling visuals to keep her calm…
“Buffy?” She jerked, and Angel opened his eyes, “My bed smells like you, are you-?”
“Oh yeah, I uhhh… kind of slept there. Earlier, I mean. Feels like a long time ago. Thinking about it, there’s probably a pillow with a hole in it, and uh…” Buffy actually looked around the space again, “oh. Kendra killed your coffee table. With my back.”
Angel frowned, “The assassin found you?”
Buffy shook her head, quickly explained everything with Kendra the Vampire Slayer, and then pointed back to the mattress when Angel tried to sit up again, “I’m fine, I just owe you some bedding. You need to rest ,” Buffy's eyes lingered on the angry red streaks across his torso, ground her teeth, but she wouldn’t ask-
“It was Holy Water,” Angel’s voice was soft, “I told you what I did to Drusilla… this was just revenge for her family,”
“She tortured you?”
“I taught her the art… back then,” a light chuckle, “I guess it’s justice of a poetic kind,”
Buffy’s heart clenched, her jaw hurt from how hard she gritted her teeth, but she didn’t respond with anything except to tell Angel once more to rest, “I need to head home by mid morning, that’s when mom will be home, so you need to be stronger by then. I can be back by nightfall,”
Angel nodded slowly, then he shifted over on the mattress, “Would you rest with me? I… You need to rest as well,”
She hesitated, just for a moment, but that was it. Those moments to think about what came next were becoming shorter and shorter in her mind. It should scare her, Buffy knew that. Angel had just confessed to being tortured by his victim from over a century before. A victim Buffy had just (hopefully) killed. She had only had to ask Angel once for him to tell her the truth, and it never seemed to be too much for her.
It should scare Buffy that what she felt didn’t scare her.
Buffy padded over on silent feet, perching next to Angel on the edge of the bed, “Just a few hours, okay?”
“Thank you,”
Buffy lay down to face him, the bed was a single so there was almost no space between them. Once again Buffy saw her reflection in his eyes, she reached up to run her fingers through his hair…
“What the- Angel!”
Her necklace - a small cross that she preferred to wear when fighting over the more dramatic and heavy one Angel had gifted her - had fallen out of the t-shirt and lay across Angel’s bicep, slowly burning him.
Angel plucked it off quickly at her cry, his eyes on the small burn, and then his fingers went to a spot high on his chest, near his throat…
“I never told you about that, did I?” Angel rubbed the spot, a smile on his face that was completely at odds with the pain Buffy assumed he must be in, “In The Bronze. When we kissed, we were saying goodbye, you were wearing the cross…”
“I burned you?!”
“I welcomed it, Buffy,” Angel, pressed his fingers to her lips, then they drifted over her cheekbone to tuck an escaped strand of still wet hair behind her ear, “the burn, it was a reminder that I shouldn’t-”
“Stop,” Buffy mimicked his gesture, pressing her palm over his mouth, her reflection angry, tired, scared, desperate, “you should. You’re it, Angel, and you don’t deserve the burns anymore, okay?” Buffy lifted herself off the mattress, and slowly turned the necklace around, the cross now at her back, and she lay back down,
“You don’t need to burn. You need to lo- live.”
That other word would come soon. When it was right. Buffy closed her eyes.
They just needed to rest now.