View My
Guestbook DISCLAIMER: Joss owns them, along with a lot of other folks at FOX, various production companies and a network or two. Joss has publicly stated that BtVS was always intended as a show which would inspire fanfiction. Fanfiction he wanted, fanfiction he’s got. No infringement intended.
RATING: NC17
SPOILERS: Everything through the end of seasons 5/2.
______________________________________________________________________
Storming Heaven part 9
by
Margot Le Faye
Spike shoved the roses into Giles hand not half an hour later.
"Guess who’s in Sunnydale?" he growled, as he crossed the threshold of Giles’ apartment.
"Good lord, is that--?"
"Blood, yes. What the hell else would it be?" Spike demanded savagely.
"In Sunnydale? Any number of things," Giles said dryly, as he closed the door and followed Spike into the living room. Giles held the roses gingerly. The blood on them was disturbingly fresh, and he was loath to touch it, or let the blood touch anything else. Ultimately, he deposited the flowers carefully on a newspaper lying on the coffee table in the middle of the room, then sat and picked up the nightcap he’d been drinking. "Help yourself to some Scotch," he told Spike, "Or I’ve beer, and a few bags of blood, if you need them." The vampire was pacing, restless as a caged panther, visibly disturbed by what he’d found.
"Brought my own," Spike said, holding up on of his bottles of Johnny Walker Red. "Think I might need it," he added, taking a pull.
"I presume you found these on Buffy’s grave, and that you believe our missing friend left them there?" Giles asked.
"I know Angel left them there," Spike told him. "You think I wouldn’t be able to smell whose blood that is? Whether he’s your friend, my friend or anyone else’s . . . now, there’s the rub."
"Why would you think that Angel is no longer our friend?" Giles frowned. "We know he was devastated by what happened to Buffy. We know what he tried to do to get her back, and we know he failed. I thought you agreed with me that he’d most likely gone into isolation to mourn her, much the same way she did that summer she had to send him into hell."
"That’s what you lot believed," Spike countered. "I never said I went along with it, just said that I didn’t have any other ideas, what with him having gone missing after we all heard that god-awful cry of his. Cordy’s vision told us he was alive, and I sure as hell didn’t have any clue where he could be if he wasn’t at her grave. Because, that’s where he would have been, if he’d been in his right mind: mourning her."
"I’m fairly sure he is indeed mourning her," Giles said with a grimace of mingled pity and distaste toward the roses.
"Yeah, but that’s not all he’s doing," Spike said darkly, finally collapsing into the couch opposite Giles’ chair.
"What do you mean?"
"I can smell it on those roses. His pain, yeah, but that’s not all. I can smell anger, rage, purpose. . . and just a hint of dark magic."
"Dark magic?" Giles sat up in alarm. "You don’t think--"
"Why not? If what he tried the first time didn’t work."
"Dark magic can’t give him Buffy back," Giles said grimly. "Not in any way he could possibly want her returned to him. Surely he knows that."
"He knows it. Whether he’s too far around the bend to understand it is another question." Spike sighed. "Look, I don’t know how to explain this, but I don’t think that is what he’s up to. Not as such, anyway. The blood just doesn’t have the kind of, well, stench it gets when you muck about with those kinds of things."
"No cause for alarm, then," Giles said with almost palpable relief. The only think that could possibly be worse than having to deal with Buffy’s death would be to have her returned as some sort of zombie or otherwise incomplete simulacrum of what she had been before. It hurt enough to watch the Buffybot wearing her face, speaking in her voice, when it went out to patrol. Having Buffy back, yet not Buffy. . .that was a circle of Hell Giles devoutly hoped to avoid.
But if Spike reassured Giles on that point, he raised other concerns.
"I don’t know what Peaches has been up to since The Powers That Be sent him off with a flea in his ear," he said, "but watering Buffy’s grave with his tears hasn’t been at the top of his agenda. This was his first visit since she died. I’d have known if he’d popped round before, believe me. But, whatever he’s been up to, he’s here now. And, he’s up to something we aren’t going to like."
"Whatever it is, it can’t take precedence over what Cordy’s vision told us we had to do," Giles began.
"Oh, for hell’s sake, Rupert! We’ve each of us read that damned book she told us about cover to cover--you, me, the witches and the ex demon for good measure--and not one of us could find sod-all to show for it."
"Yes. You did," a third voice added. "You just don’t want to believe what you found."
Spike and Giles exchanged a chagrined look, then turned toward Dawn, who had managed to come half way down the stairs without either of them noticing. She was wearing a pair of Yummy Sushi pajamas, and as she came closer, Spike realized they had to be Buffy’s. He could smell just the faintest hint of the Slayer’s unique, delectable scent with which the pajamas were still imbued. It gave him a pang to see Dawn in Buffy’s things, but he understood her need to seek comfort by wrapping herself in clothes which still smelled faintly of her sister. Sense memory had a powerful effect on the human psyche--and the vampiric psyche, if it came to that--as Dawn, the bulk of whose memories were entirely made up, was keenly aware.
"Shouldn’t you be in bed, pet?" he remonstrated half-heartedly.
"I heard you come in. I knew it had to be trouble," she said with a shrug.
"Well, we don’t actually know it’s trouble--" he started to say, but she rolled her eyes, taking a seat beside him on the couch.
"It’s Sunnydale, Spike," she reminded him. "It’s always trouble. Not to mention, that whole end of the world thing Willow told you about."
"How the devil did you find out about that?" Giles demanded as, with a muttered "Bloody Hell." Spike took another slug from his bottle. The Gang had tried very hard to shield Dawn, too young to help with more than the research, and too emotionally fragile to be burdened with the weight of saving the world, from the danger they were going to have to confront once more. Seemingly, she was neither too young nor too fragile to figure things out on her own.
"Anya tried so hard to keep the secret, that she kept slipping up and saying things that were a dead give away," Dawn explained. "And while you guys had me researching some pretty general stuff, it wasn’t too hard to sneak a look at what the rest of you were reading, and coming to some pretty obvious conclusions."
"What else have you been getting into?" Giles asked, with the sinking feeling that he already knew. Nor was he wrong.
"The Gate of Darkness," she told him. "The book in Cordy’s vision, the one that all of you read. I waited until I knew you were asleep one night, and I snuck down here to get a look at it."
"Good lord,"
"Don’t know why you’re so surprised," Spike told him. "Nothing more inquisitive on the face of the earth than a teenaged girl. Especially one who thinks people are hiding things from her. Which we were."
"For her own protection, I might add," Giles replied. Setting down his nightcap, he leaned forward in his chair. "Dawn, I shan’t tell you that I’m disappointed that you went behind my back to read that book." Dawn met his gaze, her expression mutinous. Giles sighed and tried again. "The Gate of Darkness is powerful, dangerous, and not something with which to trifle. Nevertheless, you’ve read it, and you seem to have formed an opinion about it. So, what is it you think that we found, but don’t want to believe?" Dawn continued to regard him in silence for a moment, as if weighing his response to what she was about to say. Finally, she nodded, and when she spoke, her tone was firm.
"You want to know what I think? Okay. You aren’t going to like it, but I don’t care." Dawn straightened her back and lifted her chin stubbornly. "You’re supposed to be doing what Angel is trying to do: getting Buffy back." Her voice reverberated with the passion of her belief, causing Giles and Spike to again exchange speaking looks. As the vampire sought solace in another pull of the bottle, Giles took off his glasses and began to polish them, considering his words carefully before he spoke.
"I know how much you miss your sister. You have to believe that all of us miss her, and I think it is safe to say that each of us would give anything for her to be returned to us the way she was. But as you overheard me tell Spike, there are no spells or rituals that could bring Buffy back as anything like what she had been. We could restore her flesh, perhaps, but her soul, everything that makes her who she is, the young woman we all loved--still love--there’s nothing I know of that could restore that. And there’s nothing in the book that remotely suggests a way to do so."
"Giles, the whole book is about ways to do that!" Dawn exclaimed. "The only thing in it is a bunch of hymns and rituals for asking favors from the gods. But, the thing is, they’re all one kind of god: the gods of death and destruction."
"You propose that we ask one of the gods of death to return Buffy to the land of the living?" Giles said gently.
"Of course!"
"And you think that the fact that the book is dedicated to, as you say, gods of death and destruction, means that the only reason we were given the book was to restore Buffy, yes?"
"What else could it be?" she demanded. Her eyes pleaded with him to agree, her hope so fragile, yet so palpable. Giles hated to be the one to have to destroy that hope, but if he let her cling to it, she might do something even more foolish than her attempt to resurrect her mother.
"It could simply be a way to stop the end of the world," he said quietly. "Tara and I think that we may have been given the book to study the ceremonies to appease gods such as Set, or Holer, or Kali Mâ, so that if they are raised in order to consume the world, we’ll be prepared to stop them."
"But the end of the world is supposed to be connected to Buffy’s death," Dawn protested. "She wasn’t supposed to be the one who died." Spike looked at her sharply at that, hearing her unspoken thought: maybe if Dawn had died, instead of Buffy, nothing would be threatening the world.
"Whatever you’re thinking, stop," he told her gruffly. "Buffy wouldn’t have survived if you’d been done for, anyway. Chances are we’d all be right where we are, right now, except without you around to help with the research."
"Spike is right," Giles said. "The connection between Buffy’s death and the end of the world isn’t one for which you are responsible. In fact, it might have been just as bad if you had died in her place."
"What do you mean?" Dawn asked miserably, not sure she would believe him, but grateful for anything that might help ease the burden of guilt she carried for her sister’s death.
"We’ve considered why The Powers That Be directed us to this particular book, when none of the gods mentioned in it have been active for years. Centuries for the most part, millennia in others. Kali Mâ, is still worshipped, of course, but the Watchers have no record of her direct influence in the affairs of the world for over a hundred years."
"So?"
"We think they’ve been sleeping, pet," Spike told her. "Well, dormant, at any rate. Got bored with this dimension and turned their attention elsewhere. Until something happened to remind them about us."
"Something. . . .the portals," she said, making the connection. "And Buffy’ blood."
"Which would have been your blood, and had precisely the same effect," Giles said.
"Except that Buffy would have been here to fight it, whatever it is, and maybe Angel would have helped her," Dawn said.
"I think not," Giles replied. "Buffy told me, before . . .that if you died she was quitting. She’d lost too much, you see. She couldn’t have handled losing you, as well. Buffy wouldn’t have been able to face whatever it is we’re going to face. As to Angel, well, he may yet be of help. If he’s recovered enough from his grief to face seeing Buffy’s grave, he may be here when we need him." Spike shot Giles a sardonic look from behind Dawn’s back, telling him what he thought of that idea. Giles ignored him, concentrating on the forlorn teenaged girl before him.
"You’re not even going to consider what I said, are you?" she accused Giles. The older man sighed, and put his glasses back on.
"I can’t help but consider it, Dawn. I’d give anything I posses, my very life, to make it so."
"But you don’t believe it?"
"No. I don’t."
She had nothing to say to that.
"Why don’t you pop back into bed and get some rest, Nibblet?" Spike suggested. "It’s late. We can talk about this some more tomorrow night." She turned and gave him a considering look, as if wondering if he were just humoring her, or if he really would talk to her about things. She was betting on the latter. Spike wasn’t big on humoring people, not even her.
"’Kay," she said. "Good night, then."
The watched her go up stairs, and waited until they heard the door to her room close again before they resumed their conversation, in low tones.
Dawn leaned against the door of her room, but she could hear nothing. When even pulling it open a crack didn’t get her anywhere, she gave up in frustration and went back to her bed. But not to sleep. It wasn’t really all that late, not even midnight, and under the circumstances . . .Dawn reached for the phone by her bed, and punched in Willow’s number.
A half-hour later, Willow frowned down at the phone as she hung it up. Dawn had repeated everything she’d overheard between Giles and Spike, and then went on to recount her own conversation with them. She’d found Willow a sympathetic listener when she’d wanted to resurrect her mother. She got that that was wrong, but, wasn’t this time different? She’d wanted her mother back for her own sake, but didn’t they need Buffy to save the world? And, spells could go wrong, because that was man interfering with the natural order of life and death, messing with powers that were better left alone. But, wasn’t this something else altogether? An invocation to a god or goddess who already had power over life and death?
Willow had tried to be sympathetic this time, as well, but like Giles, she couldn’t let Dawn cling to a hope that would almost certainly prove false. Willow ended by reassuring Dawn that she’d consider what was said, but also telling her that she thought Giles was probably right about what they were supposed to do with the book. She hung up, promising they’d speak more about it later, after extracting a promise from Dawn in return, that she’d try to get some sleep.
In fact, it was Willow who needed help sleeping, after the conversation. Because while she knew, rationally, that Giles was right, the possibility that Dawn was on to something nagged at her.
And yet, it made no sense. There were dozens of gods referred to in the book. It was one thing to learn the rituals to appease all of them. That was a lot of work, but it could be done. But, how did you go about figuring which of the many, many gods of death listed in the book was the one they were supposed to petition on behalf of Buffy? Were they to go to Pluto of the Romans, or Hades of the Greeks? Hel of the Norse, or Anubis of the Egyptians? The Hindu Yama? The Nigerian Iku? Vodoun’s Baron Samedi? How was it possible to tell?
It wasn’t, of course, and after much restless tossing and turning, Willow once again returned to the conclusion that Giles was probably right, and fell into a troubled sleep.
Which was precisely what Buffy had been waiting for.
************************************
Her bargain with The Powers That Be concluded, Buffy first went to find Angel. Realizing he was hovering above her own grave, she became distraught. His pain seemed greater than ever, and she was horrified to realize he was attempting to connect with her own dead body, calling upon the pull of blood that had always existed between them, a pull that was strengthened when she forced him to drink from her two years before.
Buffy dared not come too close to him. He was trying so hard to reach her, he could not fail to sense her if she approached any further. She watched helplessly as he bled onto the roses, wishing she could do something, anything, to assuage his grief. Was this how he felt when she wept in his arms as the final seconds ticked away on their lost day? Worse, had he felt this helpless in the face of her own obvious grief, pain and anger moments later, as she stood, telling him they needed to forget, not realizing she had already forgotten? Would even the respite she had forced the Powers to grant them be enough to heal the wounds each bore, to fortify them against the trials of the future? She would have to hope that they were. Meanwhile, she watched her lover grieve, heard his whispered promise, felt his determination.
Yes, it will be soon, my love, she thought tenderly, praying it would be soon enough.
When he left her grave, she went out of time once more. She needed to get to Willow, but it would be hours before the witch was lost to dreams. Meanwhile, Buffy didn’t have patience for Angel’s two-hour drive back to L.A. She used the loop of time given to her to return as he once more slipped beneath the covers for sleep, and waited until he was safely sunk in dreams to come to him once more.
He dreamt that she came to him, not naked, but in a gown of white silk. Buffy drifted toward him slowly, and sat upon the bed, picking up his hand, which still bore the marks of the roses. The wounds had not closed, because he would not let them, stretching the skin to keep drops of blood ever present on his skin. He needed the reassurance and clarity these tiny pains provided: but now she bathed the blood away with her tears and pressed healing kisses to his torn flesh.
"Buffy, don’t," he groaned, trying to sit up and take her in his arms. She shook her head in denial, and pushed against his chest, forcing him to lay back down. He didn’t know whether to be horrified or exultant when her little tongue came out to cleanse the wounds further. How could he fail to be grateful for any connection between them that she tried to further? How could he fail to be distraught when she contaminated her purity with his unworthy blood? As if she’d caught the thought from his mind, her eyes flashed to his, stormy gray with outrage. Deliberately, she held onto his hand, holding his gaze with her own, as she once more lapped at his blood.
"Don’t," he choked. "I’m not worth--"
She dropped his hand and slapped him across the face. He gasped at the force of it. She was still a little bit stronger than he was. When he recovered enough to look at her, he found she was weeping. He wanted to tell her he wasn’t worth her tears, either, but another flash of outrage sparking in her eyes told him what she would think of that. He said nothing, wisely, but opened his arms for her, and she dove into them, sobbing against the haven of his chest.
Angel wrapped her in his embrace, trying to soothe her.
"I’ll get you back, my love. I swear it. Just a little longer. Another week, that’s all. The Feast of Hecate. You understand what I’m doing? Why I have to wait?"
She lifted her head from his chest and nodded down at him solemnly. And before he could ask if she approved of what he was doing, if she understood him, forgave him, she closed his mouth with sweet kisses, and made him forget the need for words.
Her beloved was too lost, too hopeless. How was she going to bear it? How would he bear it when her nightly visits ceased, as they must, after this night? Would he understand what had happened? Would he find some way to blame himself? She dreaded what he might do if such proved to be the case.
They were so close. He didn’t know how close they were to getting, if not everything they wanted, then, at least, enough to enable them to go on. She had to make sure he understood, that he did not sink into greater despair, but kept to his purpose.
Even though she would have to kill both of them, a final time, before she allowed that purpose to be fulfilled.
She couldn’t explain, but she could tell him without words that she did not blame him, could never blame him, that she loved him and longed for him as he loved and longed for her. She had no words; but she had, within his dream, her body with which to worship him, as he had once worshipped her.
Buffy brushed her lover’s lips with tiny kisses, pressed more to his cheeks and the closed lids of his eyes, she dropped kisses along the length of his neck, the width of his broad shoulders, peppered them across his chest and his tight stomach. She kissed his hipbones, and down the length of his legs, and when he groaned and reached to tangle his hands in the mass of her hair, she kissed his hands and wrists, the bend of his elbow, the muscles of his arms. She returned to his mouth, lingering sweetly, and then moved away, kneeling above him. He let go of her hair, and looked up at her in yearning adoration. She smiled tremulously, then moved down the bed, until she could lay at length between his spread legs, her head pillowed on his powerful thigh.
His manhood rose before her in stiff salute, and she reached languidly to enfold it in her hand, enjoying the velvet soft feel of his skin stretched tight over the steel hardness of his flesh. He groaned at her slightest touch, and she smiled, pleased that this had not changed between them, would never change between them. Buffy indulged herself for as long as she dared, relishing having him between her hands, delighting in the response she could force from him. When he was writhing beneath her, begging for her to go harder, faster, she pressed kisses to this part of him, and made him beg anew.
She opened her mouth over his hardness, taking his manhood between her lips, lapping at the head with her eager tongue, nipping gently with her little teeth, making him moan her name. She took her time, needing this to be slow, thorough, fulfilling: a memory to remind him of his goals. She fluttered her tongue along the underside of his glans, making his hips jerk against the bed, then stabbed it lightly into the tiny opening at the top, cleaning away the fluids she was beginning to call forth there. Her hands gently stroked the length below her mouth, and fondled his heavy sac.
If he could be assured that his eternity would be spent in this bed, with this woman Angel would gladly die here, in her arms. Part of him hoped that it was her aim: she would spare them both the torment of waiting until his own plans could bear fruit, and kill him with the ecstasy only she could ever bring him. As rapture built for him, heralding his impending release, he buried his hands in her hair and roared her name.
She drank down his cool seed, savoring the taste of him, already resentful of the time that must pass until she could have this again. If she had time to spare for regrets, she would indulge her anger that they had never really had this in the flesh. Their one true night together had been the barest span of hours, with Angel so intent upon and devoted to her own pleasure, he had not introduced her to this form of lovemaking. That had waited until the day they had shared, which had been snatched from them. She remembered that day now, but living, had only recalled what had happened between herself and another lover, who had not been Angel. Something else for which to weep if she had the luxury of infinite time. She didn’t. So she pushed aside the anger and pain, and allowed herself only to think of, only to feel, the precious time she shared with her one true love and everything they did together in their bed. Her mouth was eager upon him, avid for the last drop of his emission. She licked away the slightest trace.
When he was spent beneath her, soft and small in her mouth, she let him go, and sat up with a smile. Kneeling above him once more, Buffy lifted the hem of her silk gown, and pulled it over her head, discarding it on the floor. He watched her with slumberous eyes, the half-smile she loved curving his lips. When she was naked for him, he lifted his hands to mold the curve of her hips, and trace upwards, fondling her high, firm breasts. She flung back her head and closed her eyes, leaning into his delicate touch, her nipples pebbling to hard, demanding little points that begged for his further attention. He drew on them, toying with them until she squirmed against his thighs. He chuckled, aroused for her anew, and slid his hands down to her hips once more, lifting her. They shifted, so that rather than kneeling between his spread thighs, she straddled him, holding him between hers. His grip on her hips tightened, but he made no move to lead her, accepting whatever pace she chose to set. Buffy reached to guide him to her damp cleft, and sank down on him with a sigh.
As always, the first moment of their joining overwhelmed them, so long denied, so deeply wished for. If they had a thousand millennia to spend in each other’s arms, they would never take the simple fact of being together for granted, not after all they had endured, the price they had paid, to be reunited. So, as always, the moment of stillness fled before the fire roused in their veins, the passion which grief and separation and loss could not erode, but only strengthen.
This was another pleasure she had never shared with him in life, save on their one forgotten day. She would discover it with him here, now, but only so she could prepare herself for the reality of it, later. Buffy closed her eyes, committing to memory the feel of him inside her: so deep, so strong, touching the mouth of her womb, filling her, stretching her, making her whole even as the sheer size of him threatened to tear her apart. It was not a final death to which she would have objected.
But much as she wanted to die for him, she wanted to live for him, more. And to do that, she must ensure that he did not succumb to his despair, that he had the courage to endure until she found her way back to him. For that to happen, she must bind him to her more completely than ever.
Remember this, she willed him as she began to rise and fall on him in a rhythm her blood taught her. Remember how I love you, how I feel to you, how it is to lie sheathed within me. Remember that I will never let you go. . .
"I love you," Angel told her as if responding to her unspoken thoughts. "I have always loved you. I will always love you. Death couldn’t change it: not my death in hell, not your death, now. And I won’t let it keep us apart." He surged up, embracing her, so that she was pulled tight against his chest, still straddling his thighs. Their mouths were avid upon each other, as they shared devouring kisses and she moved hungrily upon his body. Angel let her keep control, though the urge to twist and pull her under him, to pound into her body and to keep her trapped beneath him forever, the willing prisoner of his desire, all but overwhelmed him. Eventually, she pushed him away once more, and he fell back against the pillows watching her take her pleasure with him.
She was the most gloriously beautiful creature he had ever seen, and watching her features flush with rapture as she continued to ride him was the most amazing privilege he could imagine. Her breasts were full and taut as her crises approached, her skin delicately tinted pink. He reached forward to where their bodies were joined, and sought out the slick pearl of flesh to be found in her nest of curls. She cried out at his touch, her eyes opening to lock her gaze with his. He smiled, and danced his fingers nimbly over her flesh, watching her expressive face as it reflected every nuance of her desire.
He was inside her, deeper than he’d ever been before, rubbing against sensitive tissues that had never before been touched. She was rushing toward the apex of bliss when she felt the light brush of his fingers, and her eyes flew open to meet his.
She wanted to die again, in that moment, die,
just . . .
like . . .
this.
His forever.
Buffy cried out, exploding into ecstasy, filled with him. Angel watched her in awe, transfixed by her beauty, and the feel of her climaxing on his hard manhood. He waited until he felt the last sweet contractions of her release ease up, and did what he’d wanted to do, pulling her into his arms and rolling her beneath him.
She smiled up at him lazily, raising her knees to clasp his hips, arching her back to accept his strong, steady thrusts inside her body. This time, the kisses between them were lingering and sweet, and the climb to paradise slow and leisured. But when they reached the peak, it was together, united in rapture as in all else.
As had become his habit, Angel drifted into deeper slumber upon her breast, and as was hers, she was loath to release him, this time more than ever. She comforted herself with the knowledge that next time they met, it would not be in dreams alone.
Despite what she knew, and despite what had been promised, Buffy wanted to weep when she felt his body slip free of hers once more. She hated the necessity of leaving him, and yet, if she did not visit Willow’s dreams, she might never return to Angel again. Reluctantly, she slid out of their bed a final time, and pulled on her silk gown. She looked at the peaceful face of her sleeping lover, and felt moved to tears once more. She closed her eyes, and called up the vision of the fire.
Please, she implored him. He frowned but nodded his assent. Relieved, Buffy bent over Angel. The geas removed from her, she was free to speak, though only a few words.
"Never forget, my love," she whispered into the ear of her sleeping mate. "I love you, my Angel." And with a final kiss, she was gone.
_____________________________________________________________________
Still not the end.
FEMFIC PART 8 PART 10 FEEDBACK
Sign My
Guestbook View My
Guestbook
Visit our Bulletin Board or join our Update List