Chapter Text
It always started the same way.
The soft drum of rain on glass. The muffled sounds of Los Angeles outside while, inside, it was only them, in a tangle of sheets and whispered promises. The kind she’d learned not to trust when the sun came up.
In the dream, he was warm. So painfully warm it made her want to weep. His mouth found the secret places along her throat that always undid her. His hands skated over her ribs, splayed wide on her hips, grounding her to a world without monsters, curses or an unchangeable destiny.
He kissed her like he was starving. She held onto him as if he could disappear in any moment. They moved together in that all-consuming way that made the harsh reality of their lives vanish. Just for a heartbeat.
I’m yours, he whispered into her mouth, the taste of her still on his lips. Forever.
She moaned his name, soft but wrecked, and the dream abruptly shattered around her.
Buffy jerked upright in her narrow dorm bed, breath ragged, sweat cooling fast against her face. For a second she didn’t know where she was, reaching blindly beside her for him. Her hand landed on a cold and empty pillow instead.
Silence. The slow, even sound of Willow’s breathing from the other side of the room. A car passing outside. The faint tick of a clock. All so normal it felt like mockery.
Her chest hurt. Not the kind of hurt that went away when she pressed her palm over her sternum, though she tried anyway with still-trembling fingers.
She stayed like that for what felt like eternity, heart thudding loud and traitorous, brain replaying the feel of him, the weight of him, the stupid impossible hope of him.
She squeezed her eyes shut until stars danced behind her lids, willing herself to transport to the alternate reality where the Angel from her dreams exists.
It never worked.
With a frustrated groan, Buffy dragged both hands down her face, shoved her hair back from her forehead, and glared at the ceiling like it owed her an apology for the inevitable heartbreak it dumped on her every time she closed her eyes.
“Fabulous. Another private screening of ‘What Buffy Can’t Have.’ Five stars, would not recommend.”
The bitterness in her voice dripped like poison.
She swung her legs over the edge of the bed. Everything in her wanted to curl back up and chase the dream back down and find him again, but she wasn’t sixteen anymore. She was twenty with a Hellmouth to worry about and no more time to waste on wishful thinking.
“It’s just a dream,” she said to the floor, to herself, to no one. “Didn’t happen. Doesn’t matter. I’m fine.” The ache beneath her ribs called her a liar. But lying to herself had always been easier than facing how much she still wanted it to be real.
She stood, forced her shoulders back and made herself breathe like she wasn’t cracking apart at the seams. There was a world to protect and vampires to stake. And if she couldn’t have Angel? Well, she still had that.
She always had that.