Oncoming Train

“Riley!” Willow exclaimed, running around the counter to hug the tall blond. The utensils barely clattered to the plate in time and he briefly returned the hug, resigned to the regular glomping after months of abuse. Spike was rooting in the fridge, but the armed brunette followed the witch, a gleam in her eyes that made Riley nervous. Willow was talking, hands skittering across his back. “Do you feel okay? Is everything still attached the way it should be, not that it wouldn’t be. No craving for pink marshmallows?”

“Hi, I’m Cordelia Chase.” Bemused, trying to disentangle himself from Willow’s arms and her rambling monologue, Riley stretched out a hand to catch the brunette’s. Long manicured nails dug lightly into his skin and he looked down to see they were painted with little flowers on them. “Riley Finn.” There was a gentle strobe of bluish white light when his palm cupped hers. Riley stared in shock at their joined hands, but the light didn’t reappear.

“Did you just-“ But she was still staring enrapt at his face. Her mouth was moving, but her words blended into Willow’s, who was still latched on. Starting to feel nauseous again and a bit claustrophobic, he desperately cast about for help.

Angel had wandered over to the fridge to put away the casserole remains and to bicker with his childe, who had his face buried in a bag of blood. Though his back was to the counter, the older vampire turned to meet Riley’s eyes. Taking in the developing tug of war, Angel quickly interceded, pulling the harried blond free.

“Cordy, did you give up on Xander and Gunn?” Shoving Riley behind him, the vampire propped himself against the counter, striving to appear casual. The question succeeded, renewing the slim brunette’s ire. Riley realized she was the cause of the banging and screaming earlier.

“No, the rats! Those were very expensive feminine products. Argh! They can’t hide in the basement forever!”

“They probably didn’t know what they were playing with, ‘Delia.” Willow tried to be helpful, but her mouth tugging grin belied the effort.

Half-tucked behind Angel’s larger frame, Riley leaned forward to whisper in the vampire’s ear, keeping a wary eye on the bat swinging cheerleader. “Do I want to know?”

“No.” Angel gave Cordelia a look Riley couldn’t see, but her mouth snapped shut on another tirade against the evils of men. Feeling a light tap on his shoulder, the ex-Marine twisted around to smile at finding Spike perched on the counter and poking his fork at his dinner.

“Oi there, pet, you sure you want to be eating this?”

“Can’t be worse than Xander’s.”

The slim blond wrinkled his nose. “Not much of an encouragement there, luv. You feeling up to snuff?”

“I’m great. Is everyone here?”

Assessing blue eyes studied him for a long minute before they returned to studying the swirl of noodle and chicken on the plate. “Yeah.” He fumbled in his pocket, then pulled out a familiar looking taser. “Decided it’d be safer if we had everyone in one place. Least till we know what’s what.”

Riley didn’t need to ask where the taser had come from. He felt Angel’s weight shift behind him and realized Willow and Cordelia had stopped talking. That hand found his back again, comfortable right above the waistline of his jeans. “Riley?”

“It’s Initiative standard issue.” His tone was clipped and he couldn’t help it. If Angel hadn’t been there, he would have woken in an Initiative cell instead of a silk covered bed. How could he have gotten so fucking careless?

“Does this mean the Initiative is back?” Willow quietly asked, fear evident in her voice.

His reaction to reassure was instinctual. “They could have just been a retrieval team, Willow.”

“So, if we just hide you, they’ll go away?”

No, they’ll just leave a surveillance team here to watch for me until I slip up again. But he couldn’t say it, because then he’d have to tell her he had to leave. He stared into Spike’s knowing eyes and kept his mouth shut as the vampire said, “Sure, Red. Sounds like a sound plan.” And it hurt, knowing this was it, that he was going to disappear soon and the Scooby Gang couldn’t hold Sunnydale without him. He could see it, himself leaving, followed shortly by Spike making a clean escape with Xander and Dawn. Willow would hold out the longest, but Tara would convince her to flee as well. The Hellmouth was going to fall.

The hand against his tee-shirt burned coldly through into his bones. “It’s a start, but don’t worry, Willow.” Angel spoke almost directly into his ear, air stirring around its curve and into its hollows. Riley fought down a tickled shudder. “Wesley is contacting The Powers That Be on what to do about the Hellmouth. I’m not leaving until things are back to normal. Or as normal as things get.”

Did Spike look relieved to have his Sire back in charge? Blue eyes flicked from hazel to the brown just over his left shoulder. “And if the Initiative is back for good?”

“Than we shall convince them this isn’t a good town to move to, Will.” It was stupid and arrogant, but Riley believed him as strongly as Spike did. He had to. Yeah, he’d have to leave regardless, but maybe it would just be him, and he told himself he planned on running soon anyway.

Another hand pushed into his side, moving him back to his vacated stool. “Right now, we need to find out what’s in Cordy’s vision and avert that disaster. Since Riley is going to be stuck here for the time being, he can help Tara and Dawn do research. After he finishes dinner. Spike, I want you, Gunn, Willow, and the robot to go on patrol. Cordelia, I need you and Xander to go down to the dungeon and compile a list of everything we have. Make sure everything works. Spike, give Riley his fork back. I need to make some calls, then I’m going to make sure the grounds are secure. Questions?”

***

As far as boring days went, Riley found this one to be fairly frustrating. He’d shaken off whatever the Initiative has given him almost completely within the first hour of waking up, only the occasional sensory zone out dogging his full recovery. The mental side trips were a new experience, making him wonder again just what exactly he’d been injected with. Images, faces familiar and unrecognized, flickered through his vision, blinding him to the world around him. Many of the scenes were horrific, some erotic, while others seemed to speak of nothing at all. Bizarre hallucinations that would enrapt him for minutes at a time, entrancing in their short bursts of intensity, like his imagination was on acid. Maybe it was.

After the third time Dawn caught him staring off into space, she’d ordered him to his room to rest. She was protectively sweet, so he went without telling her he wasn’t tired. He couldn’t concentrate on written words when his head was channel surfing. A rough sketch resembled Spike in its pale leanness and images of Spike turning Xander, Xander beheading Spike, Xander stirring Wheatibix into a mug of blood as he carded his grayed hair flashed through his head with painful realism. Nearly everyone he looked at, thought about, mutated, so he left his book open to the last page he’d actually read, embarrassingly close to the front, and wandered away. Ghosting through room after room, he moved on autopilot, marking exits and mesmerizing the layout as one fancy after another swept through his head.

It was night out, an ideal time for a vampire to trim the bushes he supposed, stopping his meandering to watch Angel zealously wield a pair of hedge clippers. He’d only checked on them in the library once, bringing cookies and milk quaintly enough, but had made an obvious effort to not look in Riley’s direction. Dawn had teasingly asked him if Cordelia had told him to bring the snacks and he’d nodded, a furrow creasing his high forehead as he belatedly realized he’d been had by his fellow detective. Endearing, but it reminded Riley that vampires only kept their victims’ memories, not of what it was to be human. But Angel had his soul, didn’t he? Could the interest he’d picked up on be genuine?

He’d been a Marine; it wasn’t the first time a guy had shown an interest, but said guy being a vampire was new. It was also the first time he’d felt something in return, though he wasn’t sure what it was. Whether it was the licensed psychologist in him, or the ever-practical farm boy, he was reluctant to ascribe such grandiose and frivolous words as ‘crush’, ‘lust’, or ‘love’ to what either of them was experiencing. They barely knew each other well enough to warrant their animosity. Though that too was notably absent.

Actually, Angel being a vampire didn’t bother him as much as he supposed it should. The healthiest couple he knew was Xander and Spike, and the only soul Spike had to control his demon was Xander’s. But his two roommates had known each other for months before they’d moved to the next level. He doubted Angel knew what he’d majored in at college. Or what his military rank was. Or his favorite color. Favorite soda pop. Movie. Anything. Reluctantly, he admitted to himself that the vampire probably didn’t care about any of those things. The guy was horny and he was the only available fuck. He shied from thinking about how his connection to Buffy factored into the equation.

Then Angel caught sight of him slumped just inside the doorway, and the vampire’s eyes flashed gold as a goofy grin split his face. “Riley!” he exclaimed, as excited a six year old, and Riley felt his stomach flop. There it was again, that weird conjuring in his chest, and he had to look away to steady his breath. How could he look adorable and dangerously seductive at the same time? If he had just been domineering, Riley could have easily rebuffed him, but the dominating possessiveness was coupled with a disarming sweetness the ex-commando had a hard time resisting.

A cold touch caressed his cheek and he turned back to Angel standing right in front of him, a pale yellow rose in his other hand. “Like roses?” he asked, twirling the flower past his nose.

Riley felt his lips twitch, and he couldn’t say if they went up or down. “Not really.”

The larger man stepped forward, the hand settling firmly on Riley’s hip stopping his retreat. The seducer was eclipsing the sweet puppy dog. “Then what is your favorite flower?”

Was this how they started? With Buffy it had been physical attraction that had sparked their brief affair, but he’d never felt permanency when she touched him, just fleeting attention, affection. “Does it matter?”

The grip tightened; not painful, just a squeeze of muscle and bone with a thin layer of cotton stretching between. “Well, if I’m going to rip out the rose bushes, I’ll need to know what to replace them with, won’t I?”

Riley clutched the doorframe, eyes focusing over Angel’s shoulder, at the endangered bushes. The possessiveness, it shamefully pleased him. He wanted it, that secure feeling of belonging, of someone placing him first. It was ingrained into him, what he missed most about the Initiative. And in a week Angel would be back in Los Angeles and he would be trying to slip out of the country, but no one had ever offered to decimate a garden for him before. “Daises. I like daises.”

A rumbled purr of appeasement and cool fingertips traced his cheekbone. “Favorite color?”


TBC.