Lighthouse
By Sabrina & E. Marshall
http://border-princess.net/btvs/lighthouse/index.htm
Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire
Slayer is not me. Or I mean, I don't own her or any of her friends or enemies,
those all belong to Joss Whedon, that monster guy, and 20th Century Fox. I'm
just borrowing them for a little entertainment. Jeff Tweedy and the other Wilco
band members also do not belong to me. I assume, hope anyway, that they belong
to themselves and would enjoy a romp in the Buffy-verse. Again, I'm just
playing a bit to entertain myself and hopefully anyone else who enjoys Buffy.
Archive/Distribution: Please link to
this site.
Timeline: Fits in
probably sometime early second season. Angel's still got his soul, everyone is
still in high school. Specifically between Reptile Boy & Halloween.
‘Your pillow wept
And covered your eyes
You finally slept
While the sun caught fire
You’ve changed.’
-“A Shot in
the Arm”
‘Um, guys,’ Ken
had finally managed to wriggle out of the final scrap of Jeff’s clothing.
‘Guys... I’m really tired.’ he mumbled, dropping the little stretched-out
sweatshirt to the floor.
A tinge of blue
was seeping in through the cracks between the blinds. It was morning. At last.
‘Hey,’ Jeff
mumbled, the comforter pulled up to his chin, ‘Is the moon gone?’
Jay was zoning out in
his really uncomfortable chair, a nearly burnt out cigarette smoldering between
his fingers. He reached over and peered behind the blinds. ‘Yeah, Jeff. The
moon is gone. That bastard won’t be back for another twelve hours, at least.’
‘OK...’ said
Jeff, ‘Good... we can all go to sleep now.’
‘Thank God...’
Jay muttered.
John, who had
been sitting cross-legged on the other bed, half asleep, staggered to his feet.
Somehow, he was still smiling. He arranged the rumpled, twisted blankets on the
sagging bed. ‘You heard him. The moon is gone. The you-know-whats are in their
coffins. OK Ken, bring him over.’
Before Jay had
a chance to protest, Ken had scooped him up in his arms, and dumped him on the
bed.
‘Ow, watch it,’
Jay muttered, ‘I think I’ve sustained a significant injury...’
Ken then
tumbled into the other side of the bed.
‘What the hell?
I’m not sleeping by you...’ Jay was trailing off, ‘Damn blanket hog... damn
drummer... probably haven’t stopped wetting the bed...’
Jay Bennett was
snoring loudly. Approximately two seconds later, Ken was also snoring fit to
wake the dead.
John sighed
with relief, quietly taking one pillow and one blanket from Jeff’s fortress.
‘Jeff, you doing alright?’
Jeff didn’t
answer. He was finally sleeping. He looked very peaceful. And he was not
snoring.
John grinned
and plopped down on the floor, between the two beds.
‘Goodnight,
ya’ll,’ he whispered.
He was soon
fast asleep.
'Spike was
turned shortly before I was cursed,' Angel spoke softly. 'We were all in the
same gang, you could say: him, I, a few others. After I was cursed, I tried to
stay for a while, until I just couldn't. I couldn't live with the killing...'
'And then?'
Angel raised
his eyebrows, 'I don't remember specifically. I wandered a lot. I didn't have
much purpose. I didn't belong to the world of the night anymore, but I couldn't
live in the light.'
'Of course,'
Buffy murmured.
Angel was
seated on her windowsill, looking out the open window and off into the sky:
into the very beginning of dawn. Buffy pushed a strand of hair behind her ear
and examined her socks: grey ones with little pink pigs.
Angel watched
her, his mind spinning. There was so much she couldn't know about him. So much
that he knew she couldn't handle, and shouldn't have to. And he wanted to
protect her from that, keep her from learning the darker secrets of his past,
keep her safely on the side of the light. He ached to take her in his arms and
let her breathe life into him again—if only for a moment.
'Angel?'
He lifted his
eyes to her face and waited.
'The night can
be beautiful too.'
He felt a pang
of guilt even as a wave of joy rushed through his body---joy that she wanted
him to feel at ease, and, more than that, joy that she found the night
beautiful. And yet guilt that he should make the night beautiful to her when
she should be aware of its dangers: its deceptions: its seduction.
Seduction.
'No, Buffy,' he
shook his head. 'There's nothing beautiful about darkness.'
'When I was
little, four or five, and I would get scared of the dark, my mom would come
into my room and take me to my window, and point up at all of the stars. And
she'd tell me that there was an angel watching me, keeping me safe. And that
everywhere there was a star, there was an angel watching somebody. And one of
those stars was mine.'
She looked up
at him. 'And I'd go to sleep, and in the morning when I woke up, the stars were
gone.'
She looked
straight into his eyes. 'You can't see stars in the daylight, Angel. And the
stars are beautiful.'
Angel
swallowed. He looked out the window, and was silent for a moment.
'It's almost
sunrise. I need to go.'
Buffy nodded.
'I'll see you
tomorrow night then?'
'Coffee, at the
Bronze,' Buffy smiled.
Angel stood and
looked down at her. She hadn't moved. She sat Indian style on her bed, and she
looked up at him.
'Good night,
Buffy.'
'Good night,
Angel.'
He climbed out
of the window and down the roof. At the edge of the roof, he stepped over a
small space of empty air, and into the branches of a large oak tree.
Buffy jumped to
her feet and moved to the window. She could see Venus shining beyond the
branches of the tree, but the other stars were disappearing into the dawn’s
periwinkle light. Angel was already out of sight. She sighed and shut her
window, latching the frame, and turning back to her bed.
It would be daylight soon---it was already morning---and she would go to school, and see her friends, and train with Giles, and have dinner with her Mother in a whirling blaze of the side of her life that was light and normality.
And when sunset
fell, she would walk through the dark, engulfed in the night, but protected by
her star: cold and full of light.
‘I love you.’
She whispered.
Back to Lighthouse
Back to Fan Fiction by Sabrina