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TITLE: What A Fool
AUTHOR: Nico
E-MAIL: stoprobbers@hotmail.com
DISCLAIMER: If I owned it, do you think we'd have this A/C B/S bullshit?
TIMELINE: Season 4, BtVS, but it departs from the canon a little bit.
SPOILERS: Spoilers for B/A and B/R ala Season 4. But, like I said, it's a little different from canon.
SYNOPSIS: The first five times we slept together, she called out "Angel!" in bed.
DISTRIBUTION: Land of Denial, obviously. Anyone else, just email me.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: This is a Riley POV piece, but it's NOT B/R. It takes place in the context of B/R but... just read it. And I'm *NOT* bashing Ri in this fic... I kinda feel sorry for him right now.
FEEDBACK: I take Feedback out to dinner and put out on the first date.
RATING: PG-13 for sexual innuendo. Sorta
The first five times we slept together, she called out "Angel!" in bed. That was before I knew what it meant, who it was, or even that it was a who in the first place. Back then, I took it as a compliment. Maybe some sort of commentary on my sexual prowess. Not to say I was god or anything, but I sure as hell wasn't a virgin. And how was I supposed to know any better?
The first five times she called out "Angel!", and wouldn't stay the night. She would wake up after an hour or so in a cold sweat, gasping and crying, and she wouldn't let me hold her. She would just mumble something about Willow and rush out of there like the fate of the world depended on it. Which, with her, was always a reasonable possibility.
The sixth time we slept together, she didn't say anything. She never said anything, until she closed her eyes, and then she would just babble senselessly. If I ever responded, she would stop. I would spend a lot of time pretending not to notice. Afterward, I would pull her onto my chest, and she would always stretch out too far, like she was reaching around a body bigger than my own. When her hands encountered sheets, she would startle, sitting up briefly before readjusting herself to cradle me instead of the ghost her mind seemed to reach for. I just thought she was odd, and I liked that about her.
She used to take cold baths, laying in barely lukewarm water, but never shivering. I used to wonder all the time why she never shivered in te cold liquid, but I never asked. I'm glad I didn't. Sometimes i would come in, and I would ask her why she took cold baths. She would tell me she was seeing how much she could warm up the water with her own body heat, and I would tell her that she coldn't ever make it warm; you can't make cold things warm with just your body heat. She would smile this secret smile at me and tell me that I'd be surprised. I don't really think surprised covers it.
She wouldn't let me patrol with her in certain cemetaries, and never once let me kiss her in a graveyard. One night I went to her house and climbed up to her window, trying to surprise her, to do something romantic. She was sitting on her bed inside, playing with a silver cross and wearing a ring I'd never seen before. I saw her kiss the cross, and then the ring. When she saw me, she turned white as a sheet and screamed at me to never, ever go to her window again. When I explained, she told me that she wasn't feeling well and she wanted me to go. She didn't come back to school for a week.
She would sneak phone calls alte at night and try to hide them from me. I pretended I never heard her crying and pleading to whoever it was to come home. The first and only time we made love - on her birthday - she moaned out "Angel" again, and didn't say my name until the next morning. She never said my name during sex.
Tonight, I pretended not to notice she called out Angel's name again. I pretended that it didn't shatter my heart, now that I know it's the name of a 250 year old vampire who left her to live in Los Angeles. She doesn't know I know, doesn't know how I found out, doesn't know that she can't hid from me anymore. Doesn't know that I know why she's never said she loves me. Doesn't know that I know she doesn't. And what a fool I've been for loving her. What a fool I've been.
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