Title: Always Mine
By TrinityLast
E-mail: trinitylast@wambtac.com
Disclaimer: If I owned them, I would not be living on tuna and Kavli.
Distribution: Thedge (my site), Forbidden Dreams, Starkitty. Otherwise, ask.
Rating: R for language and seriously bad mental images.
Spoilers: Uhm...Dracula? Bits of season five. They’re at the store already. ATS...they’re in the hotel. Anything up to there, I guess.
Feedback: YES! Yes. Yes, yes, yes.
Note: Uhm...kinda timeless. Doesn’t follow the timelines at all, really. I promised my beta Angel in leather pants, and I promised Angel and Jenn of TK that I’d do something with Angel going Angelus on Riley. :p Here they are.

[thoughts]

* * * * * * * *

"Ok, explain this to me again?"

Willow sighed and made a face at Buffy. "I cast the spell. You go on patrol and look for the vampire who *should* be having trouble keeping out of vamp face. You stake him, and when the jewel falls, you bring it back. This is not hard."

"Ok, and the jewel won’t dust, right? Because anything a vamp is wearing usually dusts with them."

"This won’t."

"Ok. Here I go."

"Buffy?"

"Hmm?"

"To go, would require you going."

Buffy looked down at herself, sitting at the table in the Magic box. "Oh. Right." She left.

**

"Buffy!"

The Slayer groaned. Just what she needed tonight. A clingy boyfriend distracting her.

Buffy pushed aside the nagging thought that she should be happy to see her boyfriend, and if she wasn’t, why was she with him? That wasn’t a thought she wanted to be thinking.

She snapped to attention when Riley stopped in front of her. "Hey."

"Hey."

They walked in silence for a few minutes.

"So, haven’t seen you much."

Buffy bit her lip. "I’ve, uh...been busy."

"Too busy for me? Buffy..." he moved to block her path but she sidestepped him. "Buffy!"

She didn’t stop walking. "I can’t do this right now, Riley. I’m working."

Riley watched her walk away from him, heading towards the cemetery. After a few minutes he jogged to catch up with her, and this time grabbed her arm, stopping her.

"What?! I’m working here."

"Buffy, we need to talk." Riley’s eyes narrowed as she took another step away and he grabbed her arm again, harder this time, shaking his head. "Buffy, things are changing. They’ve been changing since...well, for a while now. I really need to talk to you, and I think that if you cared about me, you’d take the time out to listen!"

Buffy pulled her arm from him again and moved to walk around him. "I’m sorry, but I really, really don’t have time for it. We can talk later when I get ba-"

"Damnit, Buffy!" He reached out and grabbed her again, hard enough to bruise, and slapped her hard across the face. Buffy just stared at him in shock, her hand over the quickly reddening cheek. Riley closed his eyes and let go of her, stepping back, but not far. "I’m sorry. But we need to talk. Now."

Buffy’s thoughts were going a mile a minute. She should kill him...or at least hit him back. She’s the Slayer. He’s just a guy.

[But then he’ll leave, won’t he? And you’ll be alone again.]

Buffy bit her lip and closed her eyes. "Ok. We’ll talk."

**

# # Three weeks later # #

"So, how’d you get the shiner?"

"Hmm?" Buffy looked up at Xander. "What?"

"The black eye. How’d you get it?"

"Oh." She reached up and absentmindedly touched the sore eye. "Uh...vamp. Last night. Really big guy. Wasn’t fun."

"Oh." Xander nodded for a second before scrunching up his face. "Wait..."

Buffy closed her eyes. [Please don’t say it. Just let it go...]

"Weren’t you with Riley last night? I thought you were gonna spend the evening with him?"

Buffy shrugged, trying to hide the wince the action caused. "I got restless. Decided to go out later on."

"Oh. Ok."

He watched her stand up and leave the Magic Box with a frown on his face. She was limping. And he knew for a fact that she’d never left Riley’s place last night for patrol, because a friend of his was with a crew working across the street from the guy’s house. She’d never left.

Not that Xander was spying on her. Buffy had just been acting strange the last few weeks, and he was worried. So he had a friend watching out for her. That was all. That wasn’t spying, it was...watching out for a friend. Nothing sneaky about it.

But if she didn’t leave Riley’s, and now she was all banged up...

"Oh. Oh, god..."

**

Xander stared at the door. He should go in. If anyone could fix this, it was the guy in that building.

Right there.

In front of him.

Not five feet ahead.

Three steps.

Xander took a deep breath and pushed open the front doors to the Hyperion Hotel.

**

Cordelia looked up hopefully when the doors opened, and then a worried frown appeared on her face. Gunn, however, simply came out and smiled at Xander.

"Hey. Angel investigations. Can we help you?"

Xander raised an eyebrow and then nodded slightly. "Yeah, ok. I guess." He looked the guy up and down and then shrugged. "See, I have this friend. She’s with a guy we all kinda pushed her at. Been with him a while. Except, I think he’s hitting her now." He turned to Cordy and gave her a pointed look. "Which is kinda scaring me, because she can kick his ass all the way to Hell. Did it once with a guy."

Cordelia’s eyes widened. "Are you kidding me?"

Xander shook his head. "No. I mean, bad. She showed up with a shiner yesterday like you wouldn’t believe. And he never has a scratch on him. I think she’s letting him." Sighing, he shook his head and shrugged again. "Anyway, I need to talk to Dead Boy about defending his Mate, because there’s no way I’d ever be able to take Riley in a fight...I mean, he’s still kinda high on the drugs he was taking last year, and it’s not like I could aim to kill."

Cordelia nodded and went running up the stairs after Angel. Gunn just stared at the kid in front of him.

"Ok...what?"

Xander shook his head. "Never mind." He sat down to wait.

**

Cordelia didn’t bother knocking on the door. Not for this. She burst into the room, interrupting Angel’s Tai Chi.

"Cordy, I’ve asked you a dozen times..."

"Xander’s downstairs."

Angel froze. Xander Harris. Here. By choice. That could *not* be good. "What happened?"

"Riley’s beating Buffy."

**

Xander leapt to his feet when he heard the door slamming. Not five minutes later Angel came down, throwing a shirt on as he moved.

Game-face to the fore.

Gunn backed up a few steps and his eyes widened. "Jesus, man! What the hell?"

"I’m going to kill him. I’m going to rip his rib cage out through his mouth. I’m going to break every. Single. Bone. In his body. One by one, slowly. Twice." He managed to push his demon down as he finished buttoning his shirt up. He caught the cell phone Cordelia tossed him and grabbed a duffel bag from his office, which was pre-packed, in case of exactly this kind of emergency.

Well, not this. He could never, in his wildest dreams, have predicted this. The bag was packed in case Buffy needed him and he had to leave in a hurry.

This counted.

He slammed the front door open, and stood, waiting for Xander, who was right behind him. The younger man looked him over and raised an eyebrow at the leather pants and dark red silk shirt. "Goin’ Angelus on me?"

Angel growled. "No. On him."

After a second, Xander nodded. "I can live with that." Together they left, heading for Angel’s car. Xander had taken the bus.

**

They didn’t speak the entire trip. Instead, Xander simply watched, fascinated, as Angel seemed to have some kind of argument with himself. He kept rippling in and out of game face, his growls getting louder at times and quieter at times, sometimes stopping altogether just to start up again a minute later.

When they got to the ‘Welcome To Sunnydale’ sign, Angel stopped the car.

"Does Giles know?"

Xander shook his head.

"Willow?"

"No. No one else knows, I don’t think. I only know because I was...ok, I was worried, so I kinda had a guy watching Riley’s apartment the other night. And she never left. But yesterday morning, she said she’d gotten the black eye on patrol. When she never left his place."

Angel growled loudly, then clenched the steering wheel and closed his eyes. "I’m going to kill him." It wasn’t a threat. It was a promise.

Xander stared for a minute before nodding. "It’d probably be better if you didn’t get caught."

"I can manage that."

"Good." Xander got out of the car and slammed the door. He caught the vampire’s eye and smiled grimly. "Make it hurt." His smile widened. "Make him scream."

Angel grinned back as ridges and fangs appeared. "Harris, you’ll hear him in your apartment."

**

Giles jumped visibly as Riley burst into the Magic Box. "Is she here?"

The watcher frowned. "I assume you mean Buffy?" At the ex-soldiers nod, Giles shook his head. "She went on patrol. There’s a rather nasty demon on the loose and..." He faded off as Riley turned on his heel and slammed out again. "Well, that was rude."

**

"Buffy! Get your ass over here, now!"

Buffy bit her lip and closed her eyes, but stopped walking. "Riley, I’m supposed to be looking for a..."

"You’re *supposed* to be at my apartment when I tell you to." He made it to her side in three strides and stood in front of her. "I had an evening planned. You ruined it."

The blond stared at the ground. "Giles called and sent me on patrol. I’m sorry."

Riley took a deep breath and for a minute, Buffy tensed, expecting him to hit her again, but he didn’t. Instead he nodded. "Fine. You’ll be at my place after." Not even waiting for her to acknowledge him, the commando turned and walked away. Buffy let out the breath she didn’t know she’d been holding and headed for a different path.

From behind a few trees, Angel followed Riley.

**

An hour and a half later, Angel was sitting in front of a fire in the mansion, waiting rather impatiently for the boy to wake up.

Finally, he threw a book, hitting the blonde’s chest. "Wake up already! This is pathetic."

Riley jumped a bit and shook his head to clear it. He blinked for a few minute, then finally looked up. Seeing Angel, he rolled his eyes. "What are you doing here?" He started to walk over to the vampire, and then looked down, realizing he was chained to the wall.

Turning his gaze back to the dark man in the corner, the commando started to sneer. "So. This is the way you go about things, huh? Gotta chain me up to get her back?"

Angel shook his head, but didn’t bother getting up, instead casually crossed his legs out in front of him and leaned back. "Didn’t come home to get her back, though I’m hoping it’ll be a side-effect. Came home to torture you to death. At least, that was the plan. With the message I left for Giles this morning...or should I say, Ripper, I’m thinking I may have to share that pleasure."

The blonde sighed and leaned against the wall. "This is ridiculous. You don’t get to just stroll back into her life like this. She won’t like it."

The vampire glared. "She’ll like it better than you beating her."

Riley’s head snapped up, and he met the vampire’s gaze for a minute before his eyes closed. "Look...it wasn’t like that...I mean..." He sighed. "After Dracula, I finally got it, you know? She wants the violence. I just...I’m giving it to her. I can’t lose her...and I finally figured it out. I mean...how many times does she have to let herself get bitten before I notice? She wants the pain."

Angel’s eyes darkened. "Dracula *bit* her? MY MATE?" Growling loudly he stood and started pacing, muttering under his growls as he went. "Son of a bitch. Asshole never gave a shit about anyone’s claims, did he? Probably put her under a thrall, and..." Stopping and taking a calming breath, Angel came over and stood in front of the boy.

"She doesn’t want the pain. And being bitten...the way I bit her, is not painful, anyway." He took another breath and stepped back. "But I won’t kill you." He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I won’t kill you. But you will have to pay for what you did to her."

Turning, he grabbed his duster and headed for the door. "But not before Dracula does."

**

Giles closed his apartment door behind him, sighed and glared at the pile of mail on his desk.

He hit the play button on the machine on his way to the liquor cabinet, listening with half an ear.

*BEEP*

"Giles, it’s Angel. I’m at the mansion, and I have Riley here. I was debating whether to tell you, but I figured that if someone was beating your Slayer, you’d have a right to know. So, I wanted to let you know that he was, and he’s here. I’ll be waiting."

*BEEP*

The glass fell and smashed into several pieces, scotch getting everywhere, and Giles was halfway through his weapons chest when the next message clicked on.

*BEEP*

"Why the HELL didn’t you call me! Dracula BIT my MATE! I’m leaving Riley at the mansion and going after the Gypsy-smoke-screen asshole. Have fun."

*BEEP*

A very large smile spread on Giles’ face.

**

Still in Sunnydale, Angel stood on the spot Dracula’s castle had been and rolled his eyes.

"I can feel you! I know you’re still here, so stop with the gypsy tricks!"

Very slowly, the castle shimmered into view, and Dracula strolled out, grinning like a Cheshire cat. "Angelus. I’d be flattered, if I wasn’t aware of why you’re mad. You left the girl." His eyes darkened. "She’s mine now. And of course, that means I’m still here. Have to stick around...protect my property."

Angel growled. "She’s no one’s property."

"Ahh, but she is. That scar of hers...it’s mine."

**

Buffy knocked tentatively on Riley’s door. After a few minutes of no answer, she knocked harder. Still no answer.

Biting her lip, she moved over and looked in the window. Empty...looking. Which didn’t mean a lot in Sunnydale. Buffy sighed. She could risk the beating she might get by breaking the lock and going in, or risk the one she might get by not and sitting outside, waiting.

Or, she could just go home now....

Sighing, she sat down on the ground outside the door and leaned against it. It was the safest option, really.

**

Angel stalked through town, tracking her scent. He couldn’t kill Dracula until she was his again. It would hurt her...he growled. The asshole had claimed her. They were bonded. There was no way Angel was going to let his Mate be hurt because some misty bastard tethered her to his well being.

Angel sighed to himself, still tracking her. If she didn’t let him set a new claim over Dracula’s...what then?

**

Ripper, not Giles, walked calmly into the mansion and raised an eyebrow at Riley. "Hello."

Riley took one look at the watcher and his eyes widened. The Scoobies had always talked about ‘Ripper’. He’d never seen him before.

Swallowing hard, Riley was starting to wonder if he really *would* make it out of here alive.

**

Angel found her outside what smelled like Riley’s apartment.

On the ground. Waiting obediently. Like a damn dog.

It took a full ten minutes of him standing across the street, watching, before he remembered why he wasn’t killing Riley at that precise moment.

When he’d finally gotten himself under control, and was no longer in danger of ripping the telephone pole out of the ground, he crossed the street and approached her slowly, testing something.

Buffy’s head snapped up, and she started looking around. The feeling that’d been at the back of her head, and she’d assumed was just wishful thinking, was getting stronger. He was here. She could feel it.

Angel smiled. It hadn’t been the claim. They really were soul mates.

Good to know.

Coming over, he crouched in front of her and ran one finger over the bruise on her cheek, then around the black eye.

Buffy just blinked at him for a minute, then dissolved into tears. Without a second’s though, he gathered her close and started stroking her back, mumbling soothing nonsense, shifting them so he sat with his back to the door, her on his lap.

She just kept crying.

**

Five miles away, Dracula screamed as he felt his claim on the Slayer break. Then he screamed again as the spell Angel’d left kicked in, turning him slowly to dust.

Riley’s screams echoed much, much longer. And, as promised...Xander heard them in his apartment.

END

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