Feel the fever
BY: Lady Raven
SUMMARY: When Buffy battles a succubus, it has an effect on her
relationship with
Angel that no one could anticipate.
DISCLAIMER: The Buffyverse and all its characters belong to Joss
Whedon, and I made
no monetary profit from writing this. 'Nuff said. I
wrote the first draft of this sometime
around 'Inca Mummy Girl', so 'Surprise/Innocence' never happened,
Xander and Cordy were never a couple, and Oz isn't around.
Enjoy anyway! WARNING: This is rated NC- 17, so if you're
underage, go away and come back once you turn 18.
Feel the fever
"Ready to go?"
Nathan nodded, not believing his luck. He'd never had trouble getting dates, but anything further was out of the question. Until now.
He'd been hanging out at The Bronze, nodding his head to the
music, when this girl had
approached him. For a second he thought it was his ex-girlfriend
Amber, but then he
realized it was just a resemblance, this girl was much sexier.
Just the way she walked...
When she'd invited him back to her place while they were on
the dance floor, he hadn't
been able to believe his ears. But then she'd pressed
against him, smiling knowingly
when she'd felt the reaction he hadn't been able to suppress. As
she took him by the hand
and led him out of the club, he hoped like hell that no one else
could see how she
affected him. Then they exited the club and as she kissed
him he stopped caring.
As she unlocked the door of her apartment, for a second Nathan
was astonished at how
empty it was. It was just for a second, though, because as
soon as the heavy door was
locked she was all over him, kissing and caressing and tearing.
Nathan saw the buttons from his shirt fly away as she tore his
shirt open, and gasped as
she ripped open his pants and slid her hand inside, rubbing her
hand against the front of
his briefs. He didn't lose any time unzipping and taking
off her dress, not even surprised
when he found she wasn't wearing anything under it.
She pulled him towards the bed, one hand holding the front of
his unbuttoned shirt, the
other still busy down the front of his jeans, encouraging his
erection to epic proportions-
at least for him.
She lay back and pulled him on top of her, shoving his underwear
and jeans around his
calves.
Nathan dazedly wondered if he shouldn't stop to put on a
condom, but then she pulled his
face down to hers.
She whispered "Feel the fever" and kissed him deep
and hard.
Nathan felt his desire turn into a wave of raw lust that left him
almost completely
mindless as he thrust into her.
He saw her eyes gleam red as he rammed in and out of her, but
wouldn't have registered a
bomb going off underneath the bed. He was completely lost
to anything but the need that
made the veins stand out in his neck and temples and his heart
beat as fast as if he was
sprinting full out for miles.
As he came with a shout, he could feel the juices spurting out
of him, leaving him
drained.
Then he was vaguely aware of something else draining out of
him, something that
shouldn't be.
He looked into his lover's face, and was horrified by what he
saw.
After less than an instant, his world went black
* * * * *
"Why did you call us here, Giles?" Angel asked.
"About this." Giles said, tossing a pile of photos on the table of his living room.
Xander leaned forward and picked them up, sorting through them.
He pulled one out,
frowned, and asked, "Isn't this one of the senior guys?"
He showed it to Cordelia, sitting
on the arm of the sofa next to him.
She studied it and nodded "Nathan Marshall. Nice guy, but kinda gropy."
"Gropy?" asked Giles.
"Free with his hands, if you get my meaning? He
might actually get somewhere, except
he's a really sloppy kisser."
"Is this personal experience?" Buffy asked teasingly.
"Not quite. Aphrodesia went out with him a couple
of months ago, gave us all a full
report."
"That fits in with the others." Willow told them.
"Others?" Xander asked.
Giles told them "Willow was doing a random search through
the morgue files when she
noticed a pattern forming. She asked me to get photos of
them all from the school files.
Over to you."
"After I noticed a funny pattern in some coroner's
reports, I did a search through the
police files. Over the past month, four young men have been
found dead. All of them
went to Sunnydale High, but that's not surprising considering
they're all aged between
seventeen and twenty-two. That's how old they were when
they died, but that's not how
old they looked. When they were autopsied, they all had
several things in common.
They had no marks of violence, and the coroner said they all had
the internal organs of
someone who'd been dead for a month. No" she said,
forestalling Buffy "it isn't
vampires, the blood was still there, no marks on the neck
whatsoever. Something's
grabbing these guys and draining the life out of them.
There's something else, too."
"What?" Cordelia asked.
"The coroner noted that all the bodies showed distinct
signs of recent sexual activity. I
mean, really recent. The coroner lists it as taking place
from ten minutes before death
to...well, as they were dying. All of them went missing
between 11:30 and 1:00 on a
Friday or Saturday night, last seen at The Bronze."
"Well, if this monster is after young guys, that's the
best place to get them. There isn't a
single person below the age of twenty-five in Sunnydale who
hasn't been there at least
once." Cordelia remarked. "Hell, it's the best
place to get them even if you aren't a
monster."
Giles interrupted with "Life drained from young men and
recent sexual activity? That
sounds very familiar." He grabbed a book titled 'An A-Z
of Creatures of the Night' and
flicked through it.
Willow went on "Nathan was found early Sunday morning,
after going missing on
Saturday night, two days ago. He's number five, and also
the only one who was still alive
when found. He's been in hospital since then, slipping in
and out of consciousness. He
managed to give the police a statement," She held up a
manila folder "which is in here, so
my parents wouldn't see it. He remembers being picked up by
a girl, who took him to her
place. He can't give them a description any more detailed
than, quote 'hotter than a
volcano' unquote, but he gave them a very detailed description of
what she did to him."
"Yeah?" Xander asked, snatching it from her and opening it.
"Xander, that isn't the sort of thing you should read in
public-" Willow broke off as
Cordelia, Buffy and Angel watched in fascination as Xander's eyes
opened wide, he
gulped, and shifted in his seat before closing the folder and
putting it in his lap.
"Oh man."
"What's in that?" Angel asked.
"When Jesse and I were fourteen, he stole a copy of
Penthouse from his older brother and
we snuck off to read it. This" he said, putting the
folder on the table "is hotter than half
the stuff in Penthouse Forum."
"Yeah?" Buffy asked, fascinated.
"Now you know why I wanted to meet here, instead of the library." Willow told them.
"Found it!" announced Giles.
"So what are we dealing with?" Buffy asked.
"Given that it's young men who are being taken, and that
the latest victim identified a
female, we're dealing with a succubus. Just as well, given
the proportions of our team."
"Proportions?" asked Cordelia.
"Succubi-the name comes from either 'succumb' or as some
jokers suggest, 'succulent'-are
so exclusively focused on men that they don't notice women at
all, almost literally don't
see them. It's much the same for Incubi-the male of the
species-only the other way
around. They prefer victims in the last half of adolescence
or fairly soon after.
"Given that our team has four members in that age period
and three, including the Slayer,
are female, it gives us-well, not so much an advantage, but we're
not at a disadvantage. It
means that Buffy can approach the Succubus without her being
warned of her foe's
approach.
"Succubi and Incubi are the original nymphomaniacs.
They only need to feed about once
a week, but they take lovers every day. The more they need
to feed, the stronger their
powers are, so we should move quickly. Their powers include
close to superhuman
strength, and a hypnotic ability used for both catching their
prey and feeding. They also
have a low-level telepathic ability that tells them exactly what
their prey finds most
attractive, and can use it to make their prey see that image."
Willow told him "Nathan mentions in his statement that
the only thing he can remember
about her is that when they were-uh, you know-she said to him
'feel the fever' and then
his...umm, lust took him over. He said that he was blinded
to everything else."
"That's the hypnotic ability, to infect their chosen prey
with overpowering lust-like a
fever-so they don't notice anything strange. The lowest
grade is used in public, to make
sure the prey follows. The full power is turned on once
intercourse has begun, and is the
first stage in the feeding process. The succubus uses the
fever to convert the energy of
the victim's orgasm into their food, and once it has passed to
allow them to literally drain
the victim's life energy."
Cordelia said in amazement "I can't believe you got
through that description without even
stuttering."
"It's called professionalism, Cordelia." Giles told her, then ruined the effect by blushing.
The next night, the Slayerettes went stalking. They
expected to have to come back for
several nights, but they hit the jackpot first try, when she made
straight for Xander.
Xander managed to keep his head just enough to get her to agree
to come back to The
Bronze after closing.
"I can't believe we lucked out like this." Cordelia
commented as they started to scatter in
preparation.
"I can. It just makes me very nervous, that's all."
Buffy replied. "When things go this
well early, it usually means that something's going to go wrong
in a major way in the near
future."
"I don't suppose you could wait to trap her until after..."
Xander trailed off when he saw
Buffy's look. He added "I think I'll go stick my head in the
ice bucket" and wandered off.
Cordelia came over to where Buffy and Angel were inscribing
chalk marks on the floor. Angel had stripped off his black
velvet coat so that he wouldn't
get chalk dust all over it, and was just in his black jeans and
white T-shirt. He was
drawing the designs while Buffy gave him directions, occasionally
crouching to show
him. Cordelia asked "Did you get a good look at the
thing, by the way?"
Angel grinned and nodded. Buffy shook her head and asked "Why?"
"The way the succubus looked when she was making her move on Xander."
"What did she look like?" Buffy asked Angel.
"Not what, who. A bit like you, a bit like Neve
Campbell and a whole lot of Willow."
Angel told her, smiling.
"Of course, Xander didn't notice the resemblance to her." Buffy stated.
"Of course not, that would be logical." Cordelia
rolled her eyes and went off to find
Willow. After they were done, the Slayerettes gathered
around the chalk design on the
dance floor.
"Okay, what's the plan?" Xander asked.
Willow said "Once she gets in, you'll have to lure her
onto this chalk design. It'll trap her
for just a minute, but that should be long enough for Buffy and
Angel to grab her-they're
the only ones strong enough to hold her."
"Then you three get out of here, and I shove this"
and Buffy held up a siletto blade as
long as her forearm, "somewhere lethal. Giles gave it
a special treatment to make sure it
kills her."
"What do we do?" asked Cordelia.
"We get Xander out of here, quick as possible."
Willow told her.
"If she's given him the fever enough to give her limited
control over him, it's going to
take both of us to stop him from coming back here and letting her
drain him."
"I keep thinking I should be doing something." Xander complained.
"You are Xander, you're the bait." Buffy reminded him.
"Oh yeah, I forgot."
The plan went off just right. The succubus was lured by
Xander's voice onto the design,
which flared with a white light when she stepped onto it.
As Buffy and Angel rushed to
pin her down full length on the floor, Willow grabbed Xander and
she and Cordelia
hustled Xander out. Cordelia had the presence of mind to
flip the lights on as they
locked the back door.
That's when things started to go wrong.
The Succubus, desperation making her thrash about wildly,
clamped one hand on Angel's
bare forearm.
"Buffy, hurry!" Angel yelled, struggling to hold her.
Buffy pulled out the siletto, but then the Succubus managed to
snake her other hand
down to where Buffy was sitting on her legs, and clamped onto the
calf of her leg below
her short skirt. In one last desperate move, she whispered
"Feel the fever" and gave it to
them. She could feel the fever take hold of them with an
almost audible 'click' and she
knew that the fact they were lovers already-in spirit if not body-was
what enabled the
fever to take them for each other, not her.
Angel and Buffy looked at each other as the Succubus stopped
struggling, and as their
gazes locked, the expression in their eyes changed.
Buffy shifted, feeling the liquid heat between her legs, and
felt her womb clench with
desire. Angel sensed her heartbeat speed up and he could
smell her lust, not able to
restrain his own. In the back of his mind alarm bells were
clanging, but Angel didn't
really hear, blind and deaf to anything but Buffy.
The siletto clattered to the floor as they launched themselves
at each other, holding each
other as tight as they could as they kissed with desperate hunger.
Buffy was only brought
out of the haze in her mind as the Succubus squirmed out from
beneath them.
"She's getting away." Buffy gasped.
Angel drew away from her with a snarl, and they staggered to
their feet and raced after
the Succubus as she ran toward the front door. She managed
to slam it shut just as Buffy
reached it, her arms giving at the impact as she ran full tilt
into the door. Angel couldn't
stop himself running into her, and at the contact of their
bodies, the fever took hold of
them again.
Angel pulled Buffy around to face him, and slammed her back
against the door. With a
small gasp, Buffy wound her arms around his neck and kissed him
as passionately as she
could. Angel ran his hands down her body, caressing, and
pulled her skirt up around her
hips, then reached between her legs and ripped away the crotch of
her underwear,
savagely pleased that the cotton was already sopping wet with her
need.
At the feel of his hand at the molten core of her, Buffy
bucked against his hand, wanting
him inside her badly. She lifted one leg and hooked it
around his hips, then dug her
fingers into his shoulders so she could raise herself up. Angel
crouched a little to take
advantage of the gap she'd given him, then pressed his body
against hers as he rose,
pushing Buffy's body up along the door as she wrapped her legs
around his waist,
gripping tightly as she shamelessly rubbed herself against him
and whispered her love
and her need for him.
Angel felt his ribs grate from Buffy's grip, but didn't care as he rasped "Not here"
"There" Buffy told him breathlessly, indicating the pool table just a few feet behind him.
As he crawled on the pool table and laid Buffy down beneath
him, Angel couldn't stop
himself from pistoning his hips against hers compulsively.
Buffy couldn't stop herself
from pressing back. She distantly heard Angel mutter something in
what must have been
Irish, but not understanding it she ignored it, ignored
everything but the longing that set
her blood on fire.
Angel had an erection so big and hard it hurt, and he knew
that the only thing that would
turn the pain to pleasure would be sinking into Buffy's body, to
feel her close around him
as they plunged together wildly. Angel tried to push
himself off her long enough to undo
his jeans, but couldn't stop himself, and Buffy couldn't unwrap
her legs from around him.
He felt Buffy's nails bite into his back again, but the scent of
her arousal grew stronger,
and he stopped caring-if he ever had.
Something was screaming inside his head. No, it wasn't
something, it was someone. It
was the part of him that wasn't lost to the hunger inside him for
her body and her blood,
the part that loved her enough to try to live without her, though
that battle had been lost
long ago. But the spirit of self-sacrifice that had been
born in his soul, of fighting the
demon, fighting his love for her, blazed up in his heart taming
the hunger.
Angel ripped Buffy's legs from around his waist, rolled off
her body, and practically fell
onto the floor. He could sense her reaching for him, and
that and the smell of her desire
almost undid him, but he stopped his senses as much as he could
and slammed his fists
into the wall again and again until the hunger abated. Then
he grabbed his jacket from
next to the door and ran out of The Bronze as fast as he could,
before he jumped back
onto the table and made love to her until neither of them could
stand.
* * * * *
Angel shoved the library doors so hard, one of them almost came
off the hinges.
"Giles!"
At the unearthly scream echoed around the library, Giles
shuddered at the fury in that
sound. He quickly picked up a discarded stake of Buffy's,
and held it by his side as Angel
strode up to him, grabbed him by the jacket lapels, and slammed
him against the wall.
Giles brought up the stake, but Angel didn't even notice it as he
started speaking in a low,
snarling tone that gave Giles goosebumps.
"I don't suppose that you noticed a deficiency in the information you gave us?"
"No, no I didn't. I take it there was one?"
"I'll say there was." Angel snarled, his face
rippling and his eyes turning gold. Giles
knew that meant that the demon was being held back by the
thinnest of threads, and he
pressed the stake in a little harder.
"See Giles, when you told us that the succubus infected
her prey with a feverish lust so
she could drain them completely, you forgot to mention that she
could give it to someone
she wasn't screwing. You forgot to mention that she could
pass it through bare skin to
skin contact, and the lust wouldn't necessarily be for her,
either."
Giles stared at him in horror and asked, "Are you saying..."
"I'm saying that she infected Buffy and me with the
fever, and it wasn't for her. She
managed to escape while we were...busy."
Angel let Giles go, his face smooth again though his eyes were
still gold. Giles put down
the stake and straightened his jacket, saying "By busy, you
mean-what?"
"Specific details?" Angel asked sarcastically.
"Details, yes, specific, no."
"Well then, let's see, first we grappled at each other
while kneeling on the floor as the
succubus squirmed out from underneath us. We managed to
break apart as she made for
the door, but she slammed it behind her. When Buffy hit the
door, the fever rose again
and I slammed her against it. Buffy wrapped her legs around
my waist and nearly
cracked a couple of ribs while I pushed my body against hers so
hard she slid up the door.
Then we more or less fell onto the pool table, and stayed there
for about 20 seconds until
I managed to get control of myself."
At this, Angel showed Giles the scratches on his hands from
when he'd slammed his fists
against the wall. To be scratches by now, they must have
been deep enough to leave
bloody marks on the surface.
"I think at one point I put my fists right into the wall."
Angel put his hands over his face,
and dragged them down. When he opened his eyes, they were
brown again.
"God, Giles, the fever sweeps you with such...raw hunger.
I haven't felt anything even
close to it since the Torment."
"The what?"
"The Torment. It's what vampires call the time
between becoming a vampire and
drinking your first blood. It's so overpowering that every
vampire kills savagely the first
time they feed from a human. I never thought there was any
hunger in the world to equal
it until now. I've seen vampires go insane from starvation-it
was the Master's worst
punishment-but I don't think it was anything compared to this."
Angel gave Giles a crooked half-smile that really wasn't one,
and told him "If I'd had
even five years less experience controlling the demon inside me,
I wouldn't be here right
now."
"Where would you be?" asked Giles, needing to know
even though he didn't really want
to.
"I'd be at The Bronze, pounding Buffy into that pool
table so hard she'd be leaving dents
in the top. I couldn't even look at her as I ran out of there."
"You're sure that both of you were infected?"
Angel gave Giles a crooked half-smile that definitely was one,
and slid off his jacket and
turned around. Giles let out a slow breath as he fingered
the long rents in the back of
Angel's T-shirt, the edges crusted with blood.
"Buffy did that with her nails alone in less than a
minute. Good thing I took off my jacket
before the fight with the succubus, or I would have had to come
here like this. You'll
have to think of a way to get Buffy out of gym tomorrow, too.
I think her back's going to
be bruised where I slammed her against the door, and I know,
Slayer healing abilities or
not, that she's going to have bruises the exact shape of my
fingers all over her butt. I
don't think anyone should see those, do you?"
Giles thought about how fast news like that would reach
Principal Snyder-he hadn't
worked in a high school this long without learning something
about rumor mills-and
shuddered. "No, they shouldn't. I'll commandeer
Buffy to help me during her gym class
tomorrow, the bruises should heal by tomorrow night."
* * * * *
When Buffy walked into the library the next day, Giles came to
meet her.
"What's the sitch Giles? How come you shanghaied me
out of gym to help you-not that
I'm not grateful."
Giles gestured towards the office with his head, and Buffy followed him in. "Sit down."
"No, thanks." Buffy said.
"The bruises are that extensive?"
Buffy blushed and asked, "How did you find out about those?"
Giles pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and told
her "Angel came here from
The Bronze last night-"
"I know, why?"
"I was researching some way of restoring Nathan to full health. He was very upset."
"How upset?"
"I held a stake against his chest hard enough to break
the skin, and he didn't even notice."
Giles continued "I'm sorry Buffy, I was in such a hurry for
you to kill the creature before
she became any stronger that I missed something. I have to
ask you, are you and Angel
lovers?"
Buffy grimaced and told him "Actually, hard as it may be
for you to believe, I'm still a
virgin-no thanks to that succubus." She continued grimly
"I'm going to get her for this. I
want to make love with Angel-more than I'll ever tell anyone
except him-but I want it to
be because it's the right time for us, not because some thing is
trying to escape me."
"Well, that fits in with what I've managed to discover
since last night. We knew that the
succubus needs bare skin-to-skin contact to give the fever, but
there's only one book that
mentions a succubus giving the fever for someone else, to someone
else. The succubus
must be truly desperate, and the two people she gives it to have
to be lovers-"
"But I just told you-"
"Buffy, in magic the intent can be the same as the deed.
You and Angel may not be
lovers physically, but obviously you're close enough to it in
your hearts that it didn't
matter. It also means we have another chance to trap her."
* * *
* *
"So why is that?" Xander asked after school.
"The fever takes a great deal of the succubus' energy.
Normally that's no problem,
because she gains more energy as she feeds, and if the prey
escapes for some reason or
other, the fever eventually wears off, and the power bleeds back
to her gradually.
Correct, Xander?"
Xander looked slightly sheepish and agreed "Yeah, it's
all gone now. Gave me some
really wild dreams last night though."
"Luckily for us though, it won't work that way now."
"Ready Giles" Willow sang out.
"What's she been doing back there, anyway?" Cordelia asked.
Willow laid the library phone on the table, but it had several
weird attachments on it.
"Setting up a conference call."
"Hi guys" Angel's voice came floating out of the speaker attachment.
"What are you doing there, Angel? Why didn't we
just wait another couple of hours until
dark?" Cordelia asked.
"I think I know" Xander said, looking at Buffy with
dawning comprehension. "The fever
hasn't worn off for you two, has it?"
"No" Buffy and Angel said in unison.
"My sympathies. I spent all last night and half
this morning feeling like I was about to
crawl out of my skin-it drove me nuts, and I only had a small
dose. Not to mention
certain other types of physical discomfort."
"The fever didn't kick in the first time until we looked
in each other's eyes. Giles thinks
that if we don't see each other or have any physical contact, we
can handle it-for a little
while." Buffy told Xander, Willow and Cordelia.
"There's a side effect that might be useful" Angel broke in.
"You feel it too?" Buffy asked.
"Feel what?" Giles asked.
"Besides the obvious?" Buffy and Angel asked simultaneously.
"Yes, besides that."
"I'm...aware of Angel's presence, no matter where he is.
You're in the mausoleum with
the entrance to the underground tunnels, on your mobile phone,
right? You're sitting on
top of the crypt."
"Right. It's obvious you're in the library, but
you're pacing between the stairs and the
table. You're wearing your knee boots, with the blue dress
that your mom gave you for
Christmas and my leather jacket."
"Uh-huh. You're wearing the same outfit you were
wearing last night, only" Buffy
frowned "a different shirt. You've been hurt too, how
did that happen?"
"Doesn't matter. The point of all this being that
Buffy and I know where the other is,
always, as long as we have the fever. That should help
since we have to touch the
succubus, right?"
"Right" Giles said. "She needs to touch
you both to drain the fever from you, to get her
power back. That will get you close enough to kill her."
"Why do we have to wait for that to happen? Can't
Buffy just load that big knitting
needle on her crossbow and shoot her?" Cordelia asked.
"No, because if the succubus dies before she can drain
the fever, Buffy and Angel will
have it for the rest of their lives."
The response from Angel and Buffy was simultaneous and instant.
"Oh God, no."
"How can we be sure that she'll be willing to risk
everything to get that power back?"
Willow asked.
"The reason that the fever hasn't bled off Buffy and
Angel is that the fever...sticks, if you
will, to supernatural creatures. Being a vampire certainly
qualifies, evidently being the
Slayer does too, which certainly solves that argument."
"What argument?" Cordelia broke in.
"There's a centuries-old debate among Watchers about
whether the force that enables a
Slayer to fight supernatural creatures, makes her a supernatural
creature herself.
Obviously it does, or the fever would have bled off from Buffy by
now."
"I wish. This isn't very comfortable."
Night fell as the group worked out their plan, then they broke
up to put things in place.
Buffy paced back and forth restlessly the whole time, the others
becoming unnerved at
the amount of times she and Angel spoke in unison.
As they packed up, Buffy looked longingly at the phone.
Willow saw the look and
started to take the attachments off. Giles saw her and told
Buffy "The two of you could
probably use some time alone, take the phone into my office.
Just remember that you
only have half an hour before Snyder leaves and locks the last
door."
"Thanks" Buffy tossed over her shoulder as she
grabbed the phone and headed to the
office. When she put the phone on the desk, she brought the
receiver to her ear and
smiled.
"How are you doing?" Angel asked. Just the
sound of his voice made her run her hands
along her thighs as she sat, making her skirt ride up.
"Not so great. I'm gonna go insane if this doesn't
stop soon. All day, I've been
remembering last night and I'd get turned on all over again.
By lunchtime, my underwear
was so wet I had to lock myself in the girls' bathroom and wash
it out in the sink. I need
you so badly, Angel" Buffy pleaded, squirming in her seat,
her womb clenching with
want as he murmured back to her. She'd never spoken this bluntly
about sex before-
especially with Angel-but the fever took away her inhibitions,
made her shameless.
"It's just as bad for me, it's just easier to bear from
all my decades of fighting the demon
inside me. We have to finish this tonight, Buffy, or I
won't be able to stop myself from
finding you tonight." Angel told her, his voice husky with
desire.
Buffy closed her eyes, her breath coming harder as she thought
about what would
happen. "I wish you were here right now. I feel
so empty. There's a hollow place inside
my body, and I want to feel you in it."
Angel closed his eyes in the mausoleum, feeling his almost
nonexistent heart rate speed
up. "I want to be there with you so much. I can't stop
myself from imagining the two of
us in that chair you're sitting in now, behind Giles' desk.
Me sitting in it, with you
straddling me-"
"I can feel you inside me, and you're big and hard and
stroking every place that needs you
so badly" Buffy continued as she slid her hand between her
thighs and eased a finger
under the elastic of her bikini underpants.
"I can almost taste your pulse in my mouth, it's so loud,
and I can feel you around me, hot
and wet and gripping me tightly, and I'm getting even harder in
reaction-"
"I'm rocking back and forth harder and harder, until the
chair legs threaten to give way-"
Buffy cried out as she felt the pleasure sweep over her, and
could hear Angel's snarl,
oddly muffled. Breathlessly, she told him "If I knew
this would happen, I would have
called you at lunch before the girls bathroom."
"It won't help for long" Angel told her. "You should see my wrists."
"Oh my God, I hurt you last night, didn't I?"
"I'm healed, don't worry. How are the bruises?"
"Almost healed. What's wrong with your wrists?"
"Oh yeah, I never gave you the vampire section of sex education, did I?"
"No, is there something I should know?" Buffy asked, still tingling.
"I didn't want to scare you, but I have to tell you
sooner or later. You know that most of a
vampire's internal organs don't work anymore. Well, that
includes the parts that produce
sperm, so we can't have children. It also means that we
can't orgasm the same way as
human males."
"So, how do you?"
"Blood."
"Mine?"
"It's better, but mine works too. That's what I've
been doing all day, when it got too much
to bear-I don't have any distractions like school in here.
My wrists look like a ten-year
junkie's, I've bitten them so many times."
Buffy remembered something she'd meant to ask him about and
mentioned "When we
were on the pool table last night, you said something, I think it
was Irish-"
"Gaelic."
"It was something to do with lions..."
"Liomsa. It means 'mine'. I thought I'd
gotten over the possessive-guy thing, but
obviously the fever brings things out in you that you try to
suppress."
"I guess it's time to go" Buffy told him, looking at the clock. "I'll see you soon."
"One way or another, you can count on it." and Buffy
shivered at the promise in his
voice.
* * * * *
As the four of them walked down the corridor, Cordelia asked
"Giles, would it be so bad
if they just...well, you know."
"The point of the fever is that those who feel it fall
into an almost mindless state. I don't
think Buffy or Angel wants the physical part of their
relationship to start because they
can't think straight. Besides" Giles continued "if
we just shut them up together while they
have the fever, we probably won't see them for days. We
need to kill the succubus now,
while Nathan can still be restored to health by her death.
Not to mention Buffy and
Angel would both be too exhausted to do much good, given the
violence of their
passion."
"Violent? Buffy and Angel are always gentle with each other" Willow pointed out.
Giles pulled something out of his pocket and gave it to Willow.
"What's this?"
"One of Buffy's nails. She broke it last night."
"I don't remember her breaking her nails while we were
getting ready." Cordelia
commented.
"She didn't." Giles said. "I used
tweezers to pull that out of Angel's skin last night. Buffy
clawed at his back so hard, if he was human he would have needed
medical attention."
Willow looked at the pale pink fragment in her hand, sobered.
An hour later the Slayerettes scattered over The Bronze,
keeping a lookout for the
Succubus. She didn't have enough power left to change the
perception of her form, so
they knew what they were looking for.
Angel leaned against the wall and closed his eyes. The
fever was pulling at him again,
and he could feel Buffy out in Cordelia's car. They'd
agreed that the Succubus would
recognize him more readily than Buffy, given her peculiar blind
spot for women, so
Buffy sat outside with Xander-the other prime target-so they
wouldn't run into each other.
Angel didn't care what happened anymore, he just wanted this
to stop. Whoever thought
that adolescent hormones were tough had absolutely no idea.
Even now, he couldn't stop
himself from looking at the pool table, and remembering the way
Buffy had gasped with
delight and pressed her hips against his when she'd felt his full
weight settle upon her...
"Looking for me?"
Angel whirled around, snarling when he saw the Succubus.
"Damn right I am. I want
this to stop."
"Well, I'll need you and your little girlfriend together-"
"Done. Just tell me where and when."
"The back alley. Now. I'll be waiting for you." She smiled as she turned away.
Angel followed her, knowing that Buffy already had the message
through the bond the
fever gave them. < I hope that the connection doesn't go
away when she drains the fever
> Angel thought absently. < It's kind of handy, and I
don't have to miss her anymore
when we're not together >
Out in the car, Buffy's eyes snapped open, and she sat bolt
upright. "Time to go" she told
Xander.
"Where?" he asked.
"Back alley. Now. She's waiting." Buffy strode
off the alley, almost running in her
eagerness.
"Buffy, you do remember the plan, right?" Xander watched her go, worried.
Buffy stepped into the alley, breathing hard and fast in
anticipation. She couldn't be sure
what the anticipation was for, the end of the fever, killing the
Succubus, or seeing Angel.
Just thinking about him made her skin tingle and her womb tense,
and even in the first
heady days of her crush on him that later turned to love, she had
never had that reaction.
The fever made her aware of her body in a way that she never
had been before. As the
Slayer, she knew that her body moved differently. Warily,
ready for any attack and to
attack in return, as befitted a hunter of other hunters.
She knew her body still did, but
now there was a new sway to her hips as she walked, and she was
conscious of every
piece of clothing rubbing against her skin in different ways.
She saw the gleam of the Succubus' pale yellow dress in the
dark, and moved swiftly
towards it, only stopping when she felt the Succubus'
outstretched hand against her chest.
Angel came out of the gloom behind her, and when Buffy saw him,
she felt her skin
prickle.
"Take off the shirt."
"What?" Buffy tore her gaze from Angel to look at the Succubus.
"I need skin-to-skin contact, remember? Besides,
this way I can make sure that you don't
have that blade somewhere, the boots too." She turned
to Angel, and told him in a sultry
voice "You need to take off the coat and shirt too."
Angel didn't even notice her tone as he slipped off his
jacket, hanging it on a protruding
pipe from the fire escape that ran down the wall from the second
floor of The Bronze.
He kept his eyes locked on Buffy's face as he unbuttoned his
shirt. They flickered when a
lock of hair fell from the Chinese-style upsweep hairdo to lay
against her cheek. When
Angel's shirt came off too, Buffy licked her lips and her
breathing quickened.
"The shirt?" the Succubus prompted.
Buffy unzipped her boots, took them off and shook them upside
down one at a time, then
put them on again. She kept her gaze locked on Angel's as
she undid her sleeveless
mandarin-collared top at the front and slid it off, hanging it
over Angel's shirt. As the
fever increased, the bond between them strengthened and she could
feel how sexy he
found the sight of her in her bra and the short skirt.
Buffy ran her hands along the sides of her skirt, raising
first one side then another to the
hem of her bikini underwear, so the Succubus could see that she
didn't have any kind of
thigh sheath. She could feel the liquid heat start inside
her, and she knew that Angel
could smell it as his pupils dilated. They started towards
each other intently, and they
both snarled with frustration as the Succubus stopped them with a
hand on Buffy's chest
and Angel's abdomen. Buffy stumbled as she felt the fever
drain away, grateful for the
absence of it, yet missing it too.
"Sayonara, people. The aftereffects of having the fever
for so long-unfulfilled, too-should
keep you busy for a while."
As she smoothly moved from between them, Buffy took the two
steps needed to bring her
into Angel's arms. As she felt his bare skin against hers,
she gasped with pleasure.
Angel, lost in Buffy's kiss, opened his eyes enough to see the
Succubus watching them,
smirking. With the bond the fever gave them still strong,
Angel and Buffy knew exactly
what to do.
They moved forward two steps as one, still kissing.
Buffy threw her head back to give
Angel access to her throat and her hands flew to her hair as they
pivoted. As he kissed
the side of her throat, he could feel her hair tumbling down
around his hand at the base of
her neck, then drawing back upward as Buffy lifted her head.
The Succubus stopped smirking as Buffy thrust her arm forward
over Angel's shoulder
and shoved the siletto-cut down to the two palm-length ornaments
that held her hair in
place-into her eye. As the Succubus screamed, Angel whirled
around as Buffy spun in
his arms, so she was facing the Succubus directly when she thrust
the other into her heart.
As the Succubus dissolved, Angel felt a fierce rush of
bloodlust as he watched her blood
stream down her face. He knew that Buffy felt it, as he had
felt the rush of triumph when
she had killed the Succubus. The bond the fever brought
them was fading, but they both
treasured the connection that made them feel like one as they
stood there in the alley,
relishing the feel of their skin against each other as their
enemy turned into a puddle of
bloody goo.
* * * * *
"So, it's all gone?" Xander asked quietly two nights
later at the Bronze.
"Yeah, no more waking up in the middle of the night from
the middle of an X-rated
dream, wondering why he isn't there beside me. I haven't
seen him since that night-I
think he's trying to give me time to get over any embarrassment.
There isn't any though.
The fever was her creation, but the feelings were mine. I
just wish we hadn't lost the
connection the fever gave us. I liked being able to feel
where he was. Giles said that he
thought there might be some permanent aftereffects, but I haven't
seen any."
Xander looked at her, wondering how to pull her out of this
mood.
"Did Willow tell you? Nathan's coming out of the
hospital tomorrow."
"Yeah" Buffy replied. "Great, huh?"
When Willow and Cordelia returned with the drinks, they stood
talking for a while, when
Buffy felt...something. As a new song started, she told her
friends "I'm going to dance, if
I don't see you again tonight, don't worry." Leaving behind
their puzzled expressions, she
made her way down the stairs. She stood at the edge of the
dance floor, and as the
dancers shifted and parted, she looked across the dance floor
straight into Angel's eyes.
Cordelia was still talking with Willow about Buffy's
disappearance, when Xander looked
onto the dance floor on a hunch.
"Look" he said quietly.
As the Slayerettes looked over the dance floor, they had no
trouble pinpointing Buffy and
Angel. As the music played, sensual as silk, pounding like
a heartbeat, Buffy and Angel
moved in patterns around the dance floor, circling each other,
moving in time to the
elemental rhythm, in perfect synchronization.
They came together in the center, Angel holding his hand out
to Buffy. She reached out
and entwined her fingers in his, then spun into his arm, coming
to rest with his chest
against her back and their joined arms around her. Angel
spun her out again, both pairs
of hands joining now, pulling her back to him as their hands
reached towards the ceiling.
As Angel held her hands between his, Buffy turned away from
him. Then her arms
slowly lowered as his hands ran down her arms to lingeringly make
their way down the
sides of her body to her hips, where her hands covered his as
they slowly bent their knees
and dipped, their bodies moving in sensual counterpoint.
Angel's hands ran across her
body as she slowly turned, her arms going round his neck.
"I've danced enough for tonight. How about you?" Buffy asked.
"Where did you want to go?"
"Your place."
Buffy hung up the leather jacket that Angel had given her on
the back of the door and
turned around. She gasped as the room gradually came to
life, as Angel lit more and
more of the candles on the candelabra at the foot of the bed.
"Nice candles." The huge wrought-iron candelabra at
the foot blazed, sending soft light
all over the bed. More candles were on the bed-head, and on
the table next to it.
"Like it?" Angel asked as he came to her and drew her into his arms.
"It's very romantic." Buffy said, touched.
"Good, that's what I was aiming for." Angel's eyes
were both serious and loving as he
touched her cheek and added, "We're only going to have one
first time, Buffy. I wanted
to do it with style."
"You knew, back in the alley as our connection faded,
that I would ask you for this, didn't
you? Why didn't you want to see me until now?"
"I wanted you to be sure that it was you who asked me to
make love to you, not the
fever."
"It was always me talking Angel, the fever just let me come out and say it."
Buffy stepped out of his embrace and bent to take off her
shoes, womb clenching once
more as she felt the now-familiar heat start inside her.
Angel watched her and copied, his
irises turning gold at the edges as he smelled her arousal.
Buffy smiled and reached back to unzip her dress, when Angel
stopped her. He gazed
into her eyes, smiling slightly, as he unzipped her dress himself.
Buffy waited for him to
slide it off, but instead he took off his jacket, swept her up
into his arms, and carried her
to the bed, laying her down on it gently. As Buffy looked
into his face, she thought that
she'd never seen so much love in his eyes.
Angel slowly started to strip her naked, smiling as he told
her "Did I mention that there's
no one around to hear us, no matter how loud we are?"
and Buffy blushed a little. Angel
kept taking her clothes off, kissing each new piece of skin he
exposed until she was
trembling with desire and she eagerly pulled off Angel's T-shirt,
pushing him onto his
back so she could reach his jeans. Angel moved his hips to
let the denim slide down,
aroused by the way Buffy almost ripped his boxer shorts off,
gazing at his body hungrily.
He drank in the sight of her nakedness, reaching out to bring
her body against his, turned
on even more as she arched against him. Buffy and Angel
kissed passionately as they felt
the bond between them snap back into existence, connecting them
in a way that let them
know exactly what the other felt and what they wanted.
While Angel sometimes had to show her what to do, there was no
hesitation in her
response. Buffy told him with every murmur of delight,
every gasp of pleasure that she
wanted this as much as he did, and Angel gloried in every sound
she made, straining his
control to the utmost.
Angel ran his hands over her body, caressing and fondling, and
he brought her to orgasm
twice before he entered her, once with his hands and once with
his lips and tongue. When
she felt Angel's tongue licking at the center of her, Buffy
almost tore the sheets trying to
hold herself still, but couldn't stop herself from screaming as
she came. Any self-
consciousness had long since melted away, leaving only the hollow
place inside that
wanted his body locked with hers.
Angel felt each of Buffy's orgasms rip through him as if they
were his own, and couldn't
keep control any more. He whispered "I wanted to make
this longer a grha, but if I wait
any longer I'll go insane" and he gently nudged her legs
apart so he could mount her.
"What took you so long?" Buffy asked breathlessly,
lifting her hips to meet him as he
slowly slid inside her. Angel had prepared her for him so
thoroughly, she only felt an
instant of pain. Angel watched as the expression in her
eyes changed from anticipation
and desire to awe, as she adjusted to the feeling of his body
inside hers. Then to bone-
melting pleasure that made him even more aroused in reaction as
she instinctively raised
her knees to bring him deeper inside her body.
When she felt his need build up to almost overwhelming levels
through their bond, Buffy
pulled Angel's face against her throat. She felt his tiny
head shake of denial, and
murmured "I know you can use your blood, I want you to use
mine. I can't take much
more of this-now, Angel!"
She felt a tiny sting as Angel's fangs entered her carotid
artery, felt the intense
satisfaction her blood gave him and reveled in it as the climax
took them both in a body-
sweeping rush of pleasure. Lying there afterwards, still
joined together in body and
mind, Buffy asked, "What was that you said before? More
Gaelic?"
"Yeah, I thought that since I used it during the fever, I should use it now."
"What does a grha mean?"
Angel chuckled softly and corrected her pronunciation, then
added, "It means love. My
love."
"Me too" Buffy laughed and told Angel "I guess
Giles was right when he said there might
be permanent aftereffects."
"I can't say I'm sorry-"
"I hope not!"
"But I won't tell Giles about this if you don't mind" Angel said.
"A Slayer is supposed to tell her Watcher just about
everything, you know. You're gonna
have to persuade me that I shouldn't." Buffy teased, moving
under him.
"Just how could I do that?" Angel asked, feeling his body start to harden again.
"I'm sure you'll think of something" Buffy told him
as she led his lips to hers.
FINIS