FicWad

"It's no longer a warmth hidden in my veins: it's Venus entire and whole fastening on her prey." -- Jean Racine, Phedre

It was almost midnight and I was standing in the shadows in the alley behind the Bronze, waiting for Buffy. Call it skulking, if you want, but I prefer to think of it as working up my courage. If she'd known about it, Willow would probably have called it sad and pathetic.

Yeah, just engrave it on my tombstone: Alexander LaVelle Harris--Sad and Pathetic. Like you couldn't figure it out from the name alone. And my parents wonder why I prefer Xander.

I almost jumped when the door opened. I could hear the band inside and see her in the doorway; she was just a dark silhouette with a golden halo, but I'd recognize her anywhere. Then the heavy steel door clicked shut and there was only silence, Buffy, and moonlight.

This is the part where I was supposed to step out and talk to her, confess my feelings. Yeah, right. Instead, I skulked further into the shadows and watched her. In the moonlight she looked like an avenging angel--beautiful and kick-ass, like Ripley or Emma Peel.

She shoved her hands into her jacket pockets and headed toward the street. As far as I could tell, the alley was empty and the only sound was her footsteps. She must have noticed something, though, because she slowed down and then suddenly she was in Slayer mode. I've never been sure what she does, but there's a definite difference between Buffy the Student and Buffy the Slayer.

About fifteen feet away from me she stopped and looked around. Shit, she'd kill me for spying on her. I held my breath, hoping she'd sensed something else...but nothing too dangerous. I couldn't decide whether or not to be relieved when Angel stepped out of the shadows behind her. She spun on him, ready to kick butt. Then she saw who it was. It was like her whole body relaxed and she smiled up at him.

Bastard. Buffy never smiled at me like that. Well, almost never, and when she did, she didn't mean it.

"What's up?" The night was clear and Buffy's voice carried; from where I was standing, I could see every move, hear every word. Gee, and here I was without anything sharp to slash my wrists.

Angel stepped closer to her. "I just wanted to see you."

"Well, here I am, in living color." Buffy spread her arms and pirouetted for him. "What now?"

I say something corny, she laughs at me. He says something corny, she makes like Demi Moore for him. Women. I'll never understand them.

"You look tired," said Mr. Concern, like it wasn't his undead buddies who were responsible.

"That's the life of the Chosen One. Long hours, little reward, no recognition. It's a lousy career."

Not as lousy as being the Chosen One's sidekick.

Angel tipped her chin up with his index finger. "How long has it been since you've had a break from battling vampires, demons, and creatures from the pit of hell with the fate of the world hanging in the balance?" he asked.

She smiled and suddenly I wanted to hit something, preferably Angel.

"I don't remember," she said.

Of course not. That would've been last weekend, when I took her--and Willow--bowling. Okay, so maybe it wasn't the most exciting time, but that was the /point/, wasn't it?

Angel put one arm around her shoulders and they started walking away, their voices too muffled for me to hear any more. Probably a good thing.

I waited for them to turn onto Main Street and then I went back into the Bronze. The music was loud and getting lost in a crowd sounded like a pretty spiffy idea just then.

~ ~ ~

"He walked you home? How romantic," Willow sighed and closed her eyes briefly. "What then? I mean, did he stay and scrub your back in the tub, or..."

Buffy shook her head. "Complete gentleman. Walked me to the door, kissed me goodnight and left."

"Kissing," I said. "Why is there always so much kissing? Can't you just shake hands goodnight?" Willow elbowed me in the ribs. "Ow! What?" Okay, so I'm jealous. I've never denied that.

It was a typical night at the Bronze: loud music, a crowd of oblivious teenagers, and Buffy poking at her croissant.

"You know," she said, "it /was /nice to take a day off. Not to be 'The Chosen One' or 'The Slayer.' It's been way too long since I've been just plain old Buffy Summers."

"They say vacations are essential to your mental health when you work in a high-stress environment. And you're a Slayer; how much more high stress can you get? If you don't take a break once in a while, you're going to go crazy, even if you are the Chosen One," Willow said.

"Yeah, and how much good would a nutso Slayer be?" Willow kicked my shin under the table and I glared at her.

Buffy was too busy dissecting her food and staring off into space to notice. "Well," she said, "I guess this is the end of my vacation. It was great while it lasted. Look who just walked in."

She nodded towards the door, where Giles was standing, looking around, and flinching at the volume of the music.

"I'd better go see what he wants. Whatever it is, it can't be good. The Bronze isn't exactly Giles's idea of a kicky little night spot." She slid off the chair and headed for the door.

I looked at Willow, who nodded. We followed Buffy.

~ ~ ~

"What's up? The universe coming apart at the seams again?" I asked as we caught up with Buffy and Giles. I hoped it was nothing, but the chances of that were pretty small. Life over the Hellmouth was never dull.

"They found Cordelia wandering nude in the park, mumbling about leprechauns," Giles answered. "It doesn't quite seem like normal behavior for Cordelia."

Well, no, probably not. Of course, you wouldn't hear me complaining if cheerleaders going naked in the park caught on.

"How terrible," Willow said, and I could see that she was trying not to crack up.

I'd opened my mouth to say something really nasty about Cordelia's taste in men when suddenly I got the creepiest feeling, like the hairs on my neck were all standing on end. When I glanced over my shoulder I caught a flash of movement out of the corner of my eye. Someone was following us.

Not for long, if I had anything to say about it. We turned a corner and I ducked into a doorway. A couple of seconds later, I reached out and grabbed the figure as it passed. I ended up face-to-face with a snarling vampire, hanging onto two handfuls of black leather and on the verge of a heart attack.

On the plus side, I didn't piss myself, which was a pretty impressive accomplishment, considering.

Then the old self-preservation instinct kicked in and I let go of Angel's jacket, leaving my hands up in that age-old (and /very /useful) gesture that meant "I surrender."

"What do you think you're doing?" Angel growled, his face slowly morphing back into something more human.

"Hey, chill!" I retreated further into the doorway until my back was flat against the door and I could feel the cold of the glass and steel through my shirt, like some kind of exoskeletal backbone. Well, that's as good an excuse as any for mouthing off to a vampire, right? "I was just worried about what might be sneaking up on Buffy, that's all. Don't get your shorts in a wad." My voice was remarkably steady, under the circumstances.

"You don't need to worry about Buffy." The bastard sneered at me. "She can take care of herself. And if she can't, then I can take care of her."

Oh, kiss my ass, dead-boy. There's nothing like a patronizing vampire to piss me off. "And I'm supposed to be a good dog and run home with my tail between my legs?" My fingertips were tingling from the adrenaline rush--a feeling I was getting way too familiar with since I'd started hanging around with Buffy. "No way. Just because you're a vampire doesn't mean you automatically win. I lo...like her, too. And I have a lot more in common with her. Like not being an undead demon, for one thing." I jabbed my finger into Angel's chest to emphasize my point.

He smiled the most frightening smile I've ever seen, and said, "Brave words for such a fragile creature."

Then he stepped forward and I was trapped, a vampire in front of me and a locked door at my back. The whole world suddenly narrowed to him and me. I could feel his breath along my cheek, and see his nostrils twitch slightly, like he was smelling me. The only thing I could hear was the almost-deafening pounding of my pulse. Angel's eyes were dilated and he tilted his head a little, listening.

Listening to the pumping of my blood? Fuck. How the hell did I get myself into this? My big mouth was going to be the death of me, and it looked like sooner rather than later. Yeah, Angel had helped us in the past, but you can never trust a vampire. Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly, right?

But Angel didn't go for my jugular, he pulled back. He stared at me, and his eyes.... They looked like you'd expect the eyes of Death to look, bottomless and mesmerizing.

"You want her," a cool finger running along my jaw, "and I want her. Who do you think will win?"

Okay, so that's not too hard to guess; the odds were definitely not in my favor, despite the recent Dirty Dancing moment. I opened my mouth--either to deliver a wicked comeback or to stick my foot in it, I'm never sure which until the words actually come out--and realized that I couldn't think of anything to say. Complete blank.

A second later my lack of ready banter didn't matter anymore because Angel was kissing me. I mean really kissing me, and it was like one of those out-of-body things where it wasn't really me it was happening to, but this Xander-body that I was completely disconnected from. I knew that it stung where his fangs pressed into my bottom lip, and I tasted the coppery tang of my blood on his tongue, but none of it was real.

Then it was over and there was a foot of emptiness between us. Angel was looking suspiciously at me, like I was the one who'd kissed /him/.

"What the hell..." I started to say, but stopped when Angel pressed his finger to my lips.

"Watch your step," he warned, then turned on his heel and was gone into the night.

~ ~ ~

When I got to the library, Giles was already wrapped up in his books and Willow was sitting in front of the computer, her fingers flying on the keyboard.

"So, what's up with Cordelia? Did we figure it out yet?" I asked, trying desperately to sound casual.

"Where have you been?"

I spun around, my heart pounding. Buffy was standing behind me, looking concerned.

"Don't do that!" I yelled. "Don't sneak up on me. I am not the one in need of slaying, all right?"

Buffy's eyes opened wider. "Way to wig out, Xander," she said. "We were only starting to worry that you'd be the next one to turn up streaking in the park, that's all."

Okay, so maybe it was a little bit of an overreaction, but considering my night so far, I had a right to be a little touchy. Not, of course, that I was going to tell her anything about what'd happened with Angel and me. Hell, I wasn't even sure what exactly had happened.

"Is it still considered streaking if it's done slowly?" Willow asked, looking up from her monitor. "Because Cordelia wasn't exactly running. More like wandering aimlessly."

"Will--" Buffy started.

"Shutting up." Willow turned back to the computer.

Giles looked up at me from his book. "All we've been able to determine is that Cordelia was surprised by a short, elf-like being wearing green. She's a bit sketchy on what happened after that, particularly the issue of where her, um, clothing went."

"So what do we know about little green guys?" I asked, trying to focus on the relative normality of Sunnydale's supernatural phenomena.

"Little guys wearing green," Willow corrected.

"All right, so what do we know about little guys wearing green, then? Sounds like a leprechaun to me. Or maybe a lecher-chaun," I said. No one seemed particularly impressed by the joke. Tough room.

"I don't think that Cordelia would find that amusing, Xander." Giles looked disapprovingly over the rim of his glasses, something he can do better than anyone else I've ever met. Must be a special British gene.

Willow glanced up from her monitor. "Well, I may have something. I'm not sure if it means anything, but I found some Irish folktales about leprechauns in the /Encyclopedia Mythica/. It says here that sometimes leprechauns have wild feasts, get really drunk, and ride around on dogs or sheep."

"That is so not my idea of a party," Buffy said, wrinkling her nose.

"Let me get this straight." I grinned, an image forming in my mind. "You're saying that a drunken leprechaun convinced Cordy to strip? A drunken leprechaun partial to dogs and sheep?" I couldn't help laughing, despite Giles's disapproving glare.

"Only...when they're having these wild parties, the leprechauns are called cluricauns. I'm not sure why there's a different name for a drunken leprechaun." Willow looked quizzically at the screen.

"It doesn't matter," Buffy said. "What's important is what we're going to do about it."

This was the moment when I was supposed to produce a brilliant plan and everyone would look at me in awe. Instead, I stood there and stared at my shoes and wondered what my confrontation with Angel meant, and whether he would tell Buffy about it.

If he did, I was really, really dead.

"Well, if you capture a leprechaun, they have to lead you to their pot of gold. Maybe you could trade him back his gold for a promise to stay away from Sunnydale," Willow pitched in.

Buffy jumped down from her seat on the huge library table. "Sounds like a plan. I guess I'm off to catch a leprechaun, then. Any tips?" She looked expectantly at Giles.

~ ~ ~

Lying in bed, I was watching the shadows and moonlight play across the smooth whiteness of the bedroom wall. The presence behind me was comforting and I arched a little, pressing back into Angel's waiting arms, feeling the coolness of his skin against my own heated flesh. The vampire's breath on my neck sent a chill coursing through me, the shiver not unpleasant as it arrowed right to my groin where I could feel my cock lengthening and growing heavy.

I sat straight up in bed. My heart was pounding and my lungs felt like I was trying to breathe under water. I looked around, expecting to see Angel sitting at the foot of my bed and watching me. The room was empty.

I fell back against the pillow and stared at the ceiling. Slow breaths, stop panicking...if I concentrated, I knew could do something about the pounding of my heart. What was much more difficult was dealing with the hard-on that came with the dream. I kicked the blankets down to the foot of the bed.

Dammit, what had Angel done to me? Even for an eighteen-year-old male with the accompanying sex drive, having fantasies about a 240-year-old male vampire was just...well, wrong. My fantasies should have breasts/, and preferably wear really short cheerleading uniforms or even lingerie. They should /not be bigger and more butch than me, and they definitely shouldn't have fangs or hair on their chests.

Did Angel have hair on his chest?

Oh, god, I didn't really just think that, did I? I shivered and closed my eyes, bringing up my latest fantasy: Buffy and the Sunnydale High cheerleading squad all sans panties at cheerleading practice. But my mind wouldn't stay focused and the fantasy was quickly replaced by other images and sensations: hypnotic brown eyes, the smell of leather, and the feel of sharp canines against my bottom lip.

This was Hell. I couldn't see the fire or smell the brimstone so I hadn't been sure at first, but now I knew. This was Hell.

I thought about baseball and trigonometry and giant praying mantises that wanted to mate with me and then eat me. No dice; I still had the boner that would not die.

Time for extreme measures. I rolled over and pulled the Playboy from between the mattress and box spring. December 1990, Sherilyn Fenn. Dad had never even missed it--or at least he never said anything about missing it.

It opened automatically to the first page of the spread and I propped it up on my knees. I was already on the edge and working my way to the point of no return when, from nowhere, Angel's words echoed in my head. /Brave words for such a fragile creature/, he'd said, but with that 2AM kind of clarity, I suddenly realized that what he'd meant was /I want to fuck you/.

And then I was so far past the point of no return that I couldn't see anything but blackness and stars.

~ ~ ~

Judging from the look on Buffy's face, I guessed that last night's cluricaun hunt hadn't gone well, but I asked anyway.

"Zip. Zilch. Nada. No little men in green, no pot of gold. There was an old guy in a raincoat who offered me twenty dollars to put my hand in his pocket." Buffy wrinkled her nose.

"Eeeewwww." Willow looked slightly ill. If only she knew just how many dirty old men--240-year-old men--there were in Sunnydale....

"Yeah, not exactly what I was looking for, either. I'm going out again tonight."

"Will Angel be there?" I heard the words and recognized the voice as my own, but I still couldn't believe I'd said that--at least not out loud.

"Do I look like his personal secretary?" Buffy rolled her eyes. "You two want to keep me company tonight?"

"Sure," I said, opting for the safer, class-clown territory. "I can always use an extra twenty bucks."

"Xander, eeeewwww."

~ ~ ~

I shivered, more nervous than cold. What the hell was I thinking? Coming out with Buffy and Willow tonight had been stupid. Doing it because I hoped to see Angel was so far beyond stupid that there wasn't even a word for it.

I had to do something to take my mind off of Angel. "So, how long have we been out here?"

"Five minutes longer than the last time you asked, Xander. Why, is there somewhere you'd rather be?" Buffy looked pointedly at me.

I remembered--in vivid detail--last night's dream, and I could feel myself blushing. I shoved my hands deeper into the pockets of my jeans and hunched my shoulders. If I didn't think of something else--and fast--my face wouldn't be all that was getting hot.

"So, how's my favorite slayer tonight? Hard at work, protecting Sunnydale from the forces of evil?"

Why did people always feel it was necessary to sneak up behind me and start talking? I looked around quickly, but I don't think that Buffy and Willow noticed my reaction to Angel's appearance.

"Your favorite slayer, huh?" Buffy asked, smiling up at Angel.

"His only slayer," I mumbled and Willow jabbed her elbow into my ribs. Well, that was a new sensation. "Enough, already," I whispered furiously. "I'm black and blue. Any more and I'll look like one of the uglies that Buffy's supposed to slay!"

Buffy looked up. "Did someone mention slayage?"

"No, it was nothing. Private stuff, you know, between Xander and me. Not, of course, that there is anything between me and Xander, not in the 'between' kind of sense--"

"It's okay, Will, I think they get it," I interrupted her babbling. I'm beginning to understand, I think, what's behind her on-again/off-again speech impediment.

"Yeah," Buffy agreed. "Willow and Xander conversation, Buffy and Angel conversation. I get it."

Just so long as there wasn't any Angel and Xander conversation, life would be fine.

"So what are you three up to tonight?" Angel asked, glancing first at Buffy and then at Willow before finally looking at me.

Brown eyes boring straight into my soul. I couldn't breathe.

By the time I could focus again, Buffy was explaining the cluricaun/Cordelia incident. "So," she concluded, "if you see any little men dressed in green--"

"Who may or may not be riding sheep or dogs," Willow interrupted.

"--who may or may not be riding sheep or dogs, be sure to let us know."

The corners of Angel's mouth quirked up--not quite a smile, but almost. "I'll keep my eyes open for this vile fiend from the pit of hell," he said.

Well, yeah, when you put it that way, it really did sound ridiculous. Willow and Buffy were grinning, and I had almost managed a smile.

Then he put his arm around her shoulders.

I never used to get jealous. Envious, maybe, but not jealous. Not until the vampire/slayer lovefest started. I don't even know if they realize they're doing it, all the looks and touches that say they're together and it's "special."

I couldn't stand to watch any more, so I turned and headed across the park in the opposite direction. Let them think I was hunting the cluricaun. Let them think whatever they wanted, I just wanted to get away.

And the part that sucked--really, really sucked on an epic scale--is that I wasn't sure, now, who I was jealous /of/.

I was so focused on putting one foot in front of the other while trying, unsuccessfully, not to think about the whole Angel/Buffy problem, that I almost jumped out of my skin when the little yappy dog let loose. I looked up from the ground and was face-to-face (or, more accurately, knees-to-face) with the cluricaun.

He was a little guy, bigger than a G.I. Joe figure but smaller than a midget, and he was riding a terrier like it was a horse. The label on the bottle in his left hand said "Bushmill," and may have had something to do with how tightly he clung to the dog's collar with his right hand.

I couldn't believe my eyes. He was wearing a kelly-green pinstriped suit and a matching green fedora was balanced on top of curly brown hair that looked like it had been combed with a weed-whacker. Even his eyes were green. With a face that looked like it had seen one too many bar fights, he didn't match my mental picture of a leprechaun. Actually, he looked a lot like a Mafia boss. A Mafia boss with really bad fashion sense.

"Um, guys," I yelled, nervous about turning my back on the cluricaun. "Guys! I hate to interrupt your little coffee klatch, but this is a little green man alert!"

There were footsteps behind me, and I desperately hoped that it was Buffy and company. The last thing I needed right then was to have some other nasty sneak up on me. Of course, with my luck that was exactly what would happen.

"So you're the little guy who posed such a threat to Cordelia's virtue."

Angel.

My heart started beating again. If it had to be a vampire behind me, at least it was a friendly one. Admittedly, Angel was maybe a little too friendly.... Or not friendly enough? Sometimes I think my subconscious has a lot to answer for.

I shook my head. Now was not the time for self-analysis. Now was the time to catch a cluricaun. Later, I could make myself miserable thinking about this weird obsession with Angel that I seemed to have.

"Keep your eyes on him," Willow said from behind me. "He can disappear if he can make us look away."

"Now why would I wan' do that?" the cluricaun asked. His speech was slightly accented and slurred. He squinted and peered unsteadily at Willow. "'s a lovely jumper, that. Cashmere?"

Willow looked confused, then looked down at herself. "My sweater? Yeah, it's cashmere--"

From behind me, Buffy interrupted. "Don't try to trick us. We've got you, you micro-pervert." She moved slowly into my peripheral vision, gradually circling around behind the cluricaun. "Where's your gold?"

As Angel and Willow moved around to where I could see them, I caught on to the plan. Surround the little freak and make him give us the pot of gold. I could get behind that, though it'd be more fun if we didn't have to give it back in order to get him to leave Sunnydale.

"What gold?" the cluricaun asked, his gaze having--in a wobbly kind of way--followed Willow as she moved.

"Your pot of gold. The one you have to give us because we caught you. We did catch you, you know. Fair and square," Willow said.

The cluricaun shook his head and looked sad. "No gold. Spent it all on lovely frocks. 'cept they're not lovely on me. They're all too big on me." He took a long drink from his bottle and shook his head again.

I couldn't believe my ears. He was the leprechaun equivalent of RuPaul! "So, you didn't want Cordy's /body/, you just wanted her /clothes/?" I knew I was grinning like a fool. I could get a lot of mileage out of this one.

"Pretty frocks...." the cluricaun mumbled, taking another swig of his whiskey.

"Well, there goes Plan A. How about Plan B--improvise." Buffy looked at each of us in turn. "All right, anyone have any brilliant ideas?"

Sure, I'm a font of brilliant ideas. When I'm not possessed by irrational obsessions.

Angel, of course, had a brilliant idea. He stepped between Willow and the cluricaun, and spoke to the would-be faerie drag queen. "Why don't you get a dress from whoever made your suit?"

Well, duh. Even without a functional brain, I should've been able to come up with that one.

But the cluricaun shook his head miserably. "Don' have frocks. No girl leprechauns, no leprechaun frocks...."

"No female leprechauns?" The thought boggled my mind. "Then how do you--" Willow's elbow hit a particularly tender spot and I shut up. I was beginning to feel like one of Pavlov's dogs.

"If I get you some dresses that fit, then will you leave Sunnydale?" Buffy asked. We all stared at her in surprise. "What? It's shopping/, guys. I am, like, an /expert at shopping."

The cluricaun looked up slowly. "Pretty frocks?" he asked. "Blue ones and pink ones and yellow ones?" Buffy nodded. "No green ones. Not green. Sick of green." I didn't blame him.

"Meet me back here tomorrow night and I'll have six dresses for you. Then you'll leave town, agreed?"

"Yes, yes, agreed!" The cluricaun loosed his grip on the terrier's collar and leaned down to speak in its ear. "Y'hear that, Billy-boy? I'm going to get pretty frocks!" He kicked his heels into the dog's sides and the pair started off, but the illusion of dignity was short-lived as he started to slide sideways off the trotting terrier.

~ ~ ~

Buffy and Willow had gone to see a movie, but I'd begged off. I wanted time to think. So here I was, walking at night through the park and looking, depending on your point of view, like a mugger or a light snack.

What the hell was happening between Angel and me, and what was I going to do about it? For that matter, was it really between us, or had I just gone insane by myself?

No, there was the kiss. Angel had kissed /me/.

That didn't help. Even if I wasn't alone in this madness, if Angel wasn't been manipulating me for some strange vamp reason, I was still having major sexual fantasies about a 240-year-old male vampire who happened to be the boyfriend of the girl I loved. Jerry Springer, here we come....

I had to do something about it, though. I'd had a never-ending hard-on since Angel had showed up to our cluricaun stakeout, and the resulting long-term blood depravation to my brain wasn't going to get me any closer to graduating. If I had to be obsessive about a vampire, why couldn't it have been Catherine Deneuve?

~ ~ ~

I don't remember making a conscious decision to go, or even how I got there, but suddenly I was standing at Angel's door, fist raised to knock. What the hell was I doing? There had to be another way to deal with this...obsession...or whatever it was. As I was convincing myself of the stupidity of my actions and getting ready to slink quietly home, the door was yanked open and I found myself face-to-face with Angel.

"How'ya doin', dead-boy." The words came out of their own volition. Obviously, I'd gone insane and just hadn't realized it until now.

"What do you want? Came for breakfast?" Angel asked. He was barefoot and his shirttail wasn't tucked into his jeans--and I didn't even want to think about why I was noticing things like that.

This time I couldn't hear the blood pounding in my ears--probably because it was all rushing in the opposite direction. I stepped into the doorway, my body as close to Angel's as was possible without us actually touching. "You gonna invite me in?" Insane. Definitely.

Angel seemed faintly surprised, but he stepped back and allowed me into the room. "Is there something the matter with Buffy?" he demanded, shutting the door.

The click sounded ominously loud in the otherwise-quiet room.

"Aside from her unfathomable attraction to you, no." I heard the words come out of my mouth and gave up on the idea of leaving Angel's alive. Apparently I had a death wish. If only I'd realized it before, I could've thrown myself off a building or in front of a bus. It would have been less humiliating, if nothing else.

"So why are you here, then?" Angel asked, looking me up and down in a way that made me feel like a side of meat.

Or a nice steak dinner/. I stared at the floor and wondered for the umpteenth time /why I'd thought this was a good idea.

How could I answer Angel? Because I can't stop thinking about you... or /Because I've jacked off so many times in the past two days that it's a wonder I'm not blind.../?

Looking up, I realized he was still watching me. Well, he probably didn't get many meals that delivered themselves to his door.

What the hell. I stepped forward and put my hands against the door on either side of Angel's head. That familiar buzz of adrenaline surged through me, and all I could feel was my cock and my heart, throbbing/beating in rhythm.

I was going to die.

Instead, it was a repeat of two nights ago--the mind-blowing kiss, the sting of fangs, the coppery tang of blood. Except this time I had initiated it.

An eternity later, I pulled back enough to breathe and maybe let some of the blood move back towards my brain.

"Playing with fire, aren't you?" Angel whispered against my lips.

A tiny part of my mind--that part that was functioning independently of my libido--was terrified, but horny kicks terrified's butt. I pushed against Angel, knowing that he could feel how hard I was. He pushed back.

Suddenly, and without any sense of having moved, I was the one with my back to the door, and Angel was holding me there. His fingers pressed into my arms and I was pretty sure the resulting bruises would show his fingerprints. The eyes that stared at me were feral and yellow, with the pupils dilated. Angel--the vampire--snarled at me.

Between the weight of Angel's body pinning me to the door and my own pounding heart and impending hyperventilation, I was getting lightheaded and dizzy. I closed my eyes and hoped Buffy would slay me quickly when the time came.

But the fangs never sank into my neck; instead, my arms were released and a hand pressed roughly against my cock through my jeans. Christ, if I hadn't been so completely terrified, I would've come on the spot. I opened my eyes and found myself staring at a very human-looking Angel. His eyes--their normal brown, now--were still dilated, but this time it was arousal instead of bloodlust.

I heard a moan and was embarrassed to realize that it had come from me. I bit my lower lip to try to keep quiet, to not embarrass myself any more than I already had, but the more Angel touched me, the harder it was--in more ways than one. Thinking desperately about the least appealing things I could come up with, I fumbled with the button of Angel's jeans.

Before I could get them unfastened, he shoved my hands away and grabbed the front of my shirt. With one good tug, buttons went flying across the room and bounced off walls and furniture with half a dozen rapid pop-thunks.

Angel's fingers were cool and I lost myself a little in the sensations as he pushed the ruined shirt off my shoulders. I reached for him, not sure whether I wanted to push him away or pull him closer. But my arms were tangled in his shirt and the cuffs were still buttoned. I was trapped. Then it didn't matter anymore, as Angel leaned forward, staring at my throat. I held my breath and time seemed to stretch almost to a standstill.

Was sex with a vampire just one long waiting game, with death the inevitable outcome? Jesus Christ.../sex/ with a vampire. What the hell was I thinking?

Angel's lips touched my neck in a butterfly-light kiss. The kiss turned to gentle nipping. I tensed, waiting for him to feed on me, but his mouth moved down and across my chest from one nipple to the other. Finally, I started to relax again.

The sharp sting above my left nipple made me yelp, even though I'd promised myself I'd keep my mouth shut. I was still trapped in my half-shed shirt and Angel's fingers dug into my ribs when I tried to move.

"Don't be such a baby," Angel murmured, the ghost of a smile on his lips. "That was nothing."

I looked down. Twin trails of red trickled down the left side of my chest. Time seemed to slow again and I looked back up into Angel's face, watching as--his gaze never leaving my face--he slowly moved to lick first one and then the other rivulet of blood. I'd never realized just how erotic licking could be. Then his hand moved down to rub my cock and I lost what little control I'd had, and came in my jeans.

The hum was deafening and the room was getting dark. So was this just the result of a mind-blowing orgasm, or was I dying? Angel hadn't taken that much blood, had he? I closed my eyes. My knees trembled and then gave way. As I slid to the floor, the roar in my ears began to fade.

I took a deep breath. Well, I was still alive and that was something. My arms were still caught up in my sleeves and the back of my head was resting against something hard--probably the door. I was sitting on my heels, knees apart and with a sticky wetness in my jeans. Rule Number One: Don't come in your pants--it makes you look like a horny teenaged boy with no self-control. Even if you are a horny teenaged boy with no self-control, image is everything.

The whir of a zipper and the rustle of fabric caught my attention and I opened my eyes. About a foot in front of me, Angel was stepping ungracefully out of his jeans and kicking them to the side. Rule Number Two: Always undress in the dark when you have an audience--no one can make taking their pants off look erotic.

But once the pants were off.... You'd think that a guy would look silly, standing there with his cock sticking out from underneath his shirt, but there was just something about the way he stood that was sensual. Hot, even. Forget Spanish fly, rhinoceros horn, oysters, and all those other things that people think are aphrodisiacs. Angel wearing nothing but a shirt was right at the top of my list.

"You're, um...." I dragged my eyes away from his cock and looked up to his face. You're going to want to stick that somewhere, aren't you? But I couldn't say it, just in case Angel hadn't thought of it, because I knew that there was no way I could win a real, all-out fight against him.

"Not Jewish?" Angel finished the sentence, raising an eyebrow. Well, yeah, I had noticed that, too.

I shook my head. "Too far away," I corrected. It was true, even if it hadn't been what I was going to say originally. I wanted Angel closer. Much closer. It was my turn to run the show.

I shrugged the shirt back up onto my shoulders and reached up to him, like I was asking for his help to stand. As soon as he took my hand, though, I braced myself and pulled as hard as I could. He stumbled towards me, landing on his knees. I shoved him to the floor and straddled his hips, pinning his wrists down with my hands. After all, vampires didn't have to worry about carpet burn, right?

Now, I'm not an idiot. I knew he could snap my neck like a twig, but I was counting on the fact that he was a guy and, like most guys, he'd want to get his rocks off before he killed me.

Apparently I was right (or just lucky) because--aside from a few seconds of glowing-yellow-demon-eyes at first--he didn't do anything that screamed "imminent death."

What he did do was lick his lips and thrust up against me, and I could feel my brain cells dying from lack of blood. So I kissed him, while I could still think about what I was doing. I don't know why I would want to impress Angel--it was a completely and totally irrational reaction--but I did.

I also wanted to shred his shirt like he'd shredded mine, but it occurred to me that maybe it wouldn't actually work if I tried it. Would that be pathetic, or what? The puny little human tugging on the vampire's shirt, trying to look macho.... I decided, instead, on your garden-variety unbuttoning, which meant I had to let go of Angel's wrists.

If I survived this night, I could go for a career as a lion tamer, or something equally dangerous; I was developing nerves of steel and balls the size of Buicks. I released my hold on his wrists and turned to the shirt buttons, focusing on my fine motor skills and on continuing to breathe. I couldn't bring myself to meet his eyes, so I don't know if he was watching me, or what.

His arms didn't move, so I kept working the buttons until his shirt was lying open, leaving him nearly naked. His chest was smooth and cool to the touch, but he responded to fingernails and other touches the same way I'd expect any guy to react.

After a few minutes of experimentation, I'd moved low enough that the next logical spot to caress would be his cock. And that was a new kind of terror.

I mean, it's not like I'd never seen one before, or hadn't touched one. Hell, I own one; Angel's was just an earlier model. But...somehow it's not the same. Was there some invisible line that, once I did something that crossed it, would label me as gay? Did it even matter? Honestly, the bigger issue should be that Angel was a bloodsucking undead demon, not that he had a Y chromosome, right?

But I was still terrified.

God knows how long I'd been frozen and staring, but I'm willing to bet that it was pretty obvious what the hold-up was. And I'm sure the deer-caught-in-headlights look was a pretty big clue, too.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. If I had the cojones to walk into a vampire's lair and pin him to the floor, than I had to have the cojones to jack him off, right? Right.

Like the rest of him, Angel's cock was cold. It was like touching a statue--one that had come to life but wasn't really /alive/, if that makes sense. He was as hard as marble, that's for sure, and almost as sleek and smooth.

It took a minute, but I started to get the hang of it. It was kind of like masturbating, only backwards. Then a cool hand covered mine and he was guiding me, teaching me what he liked. Angel 101: The Hand-Job.

He moaned and I looked up from what I was doing to focus on his face. His expression was somewhere between agony and ecstasy, the perfect outward representation of how it feels when the orgasm is creeping up on you. Looking at his face put me back in the same boat as when we started, with an iron bar in my jeans.

I heard once that some people believe you're allotted a certain number of orgasms in your life, and that you can use them up. It sounded like superstitious bullshit to me, at the time.

Then Angel shot his load, only he didn't. He came dry. I don't know how long I stared, at his cock and at my hand, but it was long enough for him so prop himself up on his elbows and look at me.

I don't remember standing or opening the door. I was just walking towards home in the dark, my shirt pulled closed across my chest and my body shivering, even though I wasn't really particularly cold.

~ ~ ~

"I hear Giles has convinced Miss Calendar to go out with him again," Willow sounded positive, as always.

"Well, he's already introduced her to Dracula and /Bride of Frankenstein/. What girl could turn down the chance to be involved in more cheesy horror movies come to life?" The glib words came easily. Maybe too easily.

"Xander, be fair! The vampires and the reanimated corpses aren't his fault. And I think Giles is sort of cute, in a Walter Mitty kind of way." Willow turned to Buffy. "What do you think? Would you go out with Giles?"

"I think if Giles asked me out, it'd make him cute in a Humbert Humbert kinda way." She shook her head and continued, "Sorry, Will, but I'm a one-vampire woman."

"So forty-something would be perverse, but two-hundred forty-something is Ozzie and Harriet?" I dodged Willow's elbow and glared at her.

None of us said anything. I kicked at the grass with the toe of my sneaker. I didn't want to think about Angel, I didn't want to think about Buffy and Angel, and I definitely didn't want to think about me and Angel. Last night had been.... Well, I don't know what it had been, but it wasn't happening again. Probably.

There was a snuffling noise and I looked up to see the cluricaun and terrier approaching. The small man was almost sober this time, and the bottle of whiskey was nowhere to be seen.

"D'you have my frocks?" he demanded.

Buffy held a duffel bag out to him. "Two formal, two semi-formal, two casual, and no green."

The cluricaun snatched the bag away from her and clutched it to his chest. With a nod that might have been a 'thank you,' he turned the terrier and headed away at a quick trot.

As the pair disappeared from sight, Buffy looked at Willow and me. "Well, that was easy. Surreal, but easy. So, who wants to go to the Bronze?"

fait accompli

A/N: Thanks to Miriam Heddy for her fanastic beta and to April Valentine for originally publishing it in her zine. And a special thanks to Vikki for talking me through writer's block; the story would have languished on my hard drive forever if not for her.