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Title: Five Ways to Kiss the One You Love: A Valentine
Author: seraphcelene
Email: seraphcelene[at]yahoo.com
Spoilers: Angel, Innocence, Becoming (Part II), I Will Remember You, Not Fade Away
Rating: G
Archiving: House of Leaves. Everyone else please ask.
Notes: It's not quite a fic, just a valentine, if I must be honest, dedicated with much affection to fandom. Summary from Wendy Cope's Valentine. One line hijacked from Alice Hoffman’s Practical Magic.
Feedback: and Constructive Criticism. Is like air and highly addictive. In other words, yes please!
Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel the Series and all related characters belong to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, UPN, WB, et al. I’m just taking them out for a little exercise.
Summary: My heart has made its mind up and I'm afraid it's you.
When your lover is a vampire you learn to watch for fangs. Blood is all well and good, but when you are sixteen it is easy to lose control of the moment. Indeed, it is expected and a little blood can become a lot of blood very quickly.
When you are sixteen and a Slayer, however, well ... then you are expected to at least pretend to know what you are about or not to go in for that sort of thing at all. Of course, at the very least, you are expected to stay out of the arms of the enemy altogether.
Unless of course you are engaged in combat and he has you by the jugular in which case it is quite appropriate for you to:
a) Elbow him in the guts, spin, and stake him
b) Flip him over your shoulder, drop to one knee, and stake him
c) Die
Circumstances will always dictate the correct answer.
Agility is a skill Slayers are known for. You could say they broke the mold with Buffy Summers because she was as nimble of tongue as of feet and not just in the quick-witted, clever repartee kind of way, but also in the way that makes parents and Watchers nervous. She was pretty enough and popular enough that she had managed to kiss many teenage boys, mostly JV football players and once the senior class president when she was only a freshman. He cornered her in an empty classroom after Leadership and kissed her between the teacher's desk and the blackboard. It should be noted that Buffy did not try very hard to get away, evasion not yet being foremost in her mind or high on her list of priorities which included things like getting a French Tip manicure and a date for the Spring Fling.
Teenage love isn't easy. It is especially difficult when you are the Slayer and you lose all your friends and all your debutante points for being covered in blood stains and grass stains and being followed by unsavory and questionable characters. Other teenagers, especially teenage girls, are not very forgiving and given the opportunity they will blame you for every possible misfortune that has befallen you regardless of whether it is really your fault or not!
Burning down the gym won't earn you brownie points either.
Luckily, Buffy Summers moved to Sunnydale for a fresh start, or so her mother continually reassured her, and it just so happened that she met her One True Love.
*
The very first time that Buffy kissed Angel she wasn't sure what to expect. It was dark and watching Angel in the moonlight made her heart pound. He was ever so much taller than Buffy, and she braced herself against his shoulders. When he pulled her close she gave up her balance to touch his face.
The kiss when it came was easy but more of a kiss than she had ever shared with any other boy in her entire life. It was the usual business of hands and tongues and lips, only it was as if someone had lit a candle way down deep inside of her. After that everything else would dim in comparison.
For a moment Angel was the sweetest thing Buffy had ever tasted. He was the flavor of smoke, shadows and all the stories she'd ever read about happily ever after.
Of course the vampire thing wasn't exactly ideal, but he had a soul and that, Buffy decided, would be plenty.
Buffy's first lesson, then, was this: kissing a vampire is a thing of delicacy, a dance around teeth and tongue. To love a vampire is a thing of half-light and moonlight and the weight of his arm around her shoulders. Angel held her carefully that first year, as if she were a porcelain vase or redemption. He held her as if she really were made up of all the best things the world had to offer.
*
When she was a little older there were other lessons to learn. For example, the thrill of Angel's mouth against her throat and his hand curled around her breast. Buffy came to love pressing her lips hard against his. She loved to feel the threat hidden within.
With Angel's hands on her damp body, his legs pinning her to the bed, Buffy was less concerned with the care required to kiss a man with pointy teeth. When he nicked her, she pressed her mouth deeper into the kiss.
Being a Slayer, however, means more than his hands on her body and sweeter seventeen. It means endings despite True Love and the comfort of his hand in hers, because the world is made up of many things and unfortunately most things do not sum out to forever.
When Buffy kissed Angel later that year she learned more than she ever wanted to know about the way things sometimes work in the world and the prices one must pay for just about everything.
What she learned as she kissed him was this:
a) Do not take your lover for granted
b) Never forget the greater good
c) Do not imagine, not even for a moment, that you are guaranteed a Happy Ever After
Saturated with tears, heartbreak and regret Buffy named the unforgettable flavor of that last kiss Bittersweet. Nothing would ever compare to it
*
As a Slayer, however, one should never say never.
The kiss Buffy does not recall at the end of the day she does not remember was, perhaps, more tragic than the kiss that sent her lover to Hell.
*
A few years and a lifetime later, Angel held Buffy for a day and a night. She lay in his arms, cuddled into the space that seemed hollowed into his chest especially for her, and slept as if the Apocalypse were nothing more than a bedtime story told to frighten young children. She slept as if she had never known the grace of completeness and salvation. She slept as if true happiness had never been stolen away.
Angel held Buffy as if she would fly apart should he ever let go.
For one whole day and one whole night the kisses they shared tasted of homecoming and equilibrium regained.
It did not last. It could not last because the very best things never do.
*
Surviving the End of Days is, perhaps, deserving of a celebratory kiss if one must kiss at all. If pats on the back and handshakes will not do, or perhaps a hug around the neck, then kisses may be appropriate. If the battle fought in L.A. does not end the world as has been predicted, perhaps, Angel will find Buffy lazing the afternoon away on the terrace of the apartment she shares with Andrew and Dawn. Perhaps she will be waiting for him, soaking up the Italian sun and dreaming of that first moonlit kiss in front of her bedroom window. Perhaps she is also thinking of the other kisses they have shared.
The sound of Angel's step on the marble won't really be all that surprising. She can feel him in her bones, after all.
*
Buffy opens her eyes and smiles. Angel comes to the stretch of her fingertips, takes hold of her hand and kneels at her feet.
"Hi," Buffy whispers.
"Hey."
Her lips quiver the slightest bit and she presses them tightly together.
"Don't," he brushes away a tear that has escaped to her cheek.
"I knew you'd come."
Buffy leans her face into the cup of his palm and slides her fingers up over his jaw.
"Always," Angel says. "I'll always find you."
He leans up just as she leans forward. They meet in the middle. Angel pulls her close. Buffy gives up her balance for the feel of his hair in her hands.
This, then, is the final lesson: faith. After the end of days and beyond the end of the world, there is the hope that they will be together when there are no more dragons to slay and no more demons to fight. And if a Slayer must fall in love with a vampire, if she really must sleep with the enemy, than one must suppose that this is the best available outcome.
end.
