// But None I Think Do There Embrace
Disclaimer: The characters of Buffy: The Vampire Slayer and Angel are not mine and belong to Warner Brothers, Twentieth Century Fox, Mutant Enemy. They are used without permission. No copyright infringement is intended.
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Feedback is incredibly welcome.
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Set during "Forever." Angel/Buffy, PG.
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Once upon a grave, when the night is too warm for peace and too cool for pain, she comes to him this little space. He forgets, when she's away, how light her bones are, as if they were empty of marrow. The year has hollowed her, and he was there for none of it.
Pretend, she says to him with her bones and the trembling of her breath.
He's obliging. There are always stories to pretend they could live. He tells her about Tam Lin, and the selkies' skins, and Thomas the Rhymer who always spoke true.
Pretend, she says into the curve of his arm.
He holds her closer, as though he could anchor her bones to the world. He only succeeds in warming himself by her heartbeat, the hearth that wakes his hunger.
Pretend, she says, unsleeping. It is not a night for any kind of rest.
He knows the stories she means. Pretend that I still wear your ring. Pretend that your demon skin is locked away, never to be found. Pretend that my mother is still--
They've always lived between the lies. Why should that have changed?
He knows the stories he can't tell her. About fire and the teind to hell. About the tides of her blood in his dead heart, fever beyond fire. And about her mother's blood, all the heat of summer, of Summers.
Don't pretend, he says to her, because if he can't warm her with his words, the least he can do is arm her with the moments by which to withstand the years.
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