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snoggedI'm very excited to bring you the next installment in this fic. I hope you enjoy it!
Title: Mission X (4/?)
Author: snogged
Disclaimer: Joss Whedon and Co. own the characters of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I don’t.
Pairing: Willow/Riley
Word Count: 1977
Overall Rating/Warnings: FRT-13/PG-13 (will be FRAO/NC-17 in later chapters); language, angst, drama, violence, het sex, sexual innuendo.
Setting: AU! Season 6. Parts of this story come from the established canon plot lines and others are my own desire to twist things my way.
Summary: When Riley comes back to Sunnydale, he stays for a reason that’s not Buffy.
Beta: the sweet Gabrielle and the quirky![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
angelskuuipo.
A/N: This is my second foray into a guilty pleasure pairing of mine, and I’m looking forward to exploring the possibilities as this story moves along.
Previous Chapters
In the week that followed Xander and Anya’s wedding, Willow discovered that she’d gained a shadow. Riley continuously found ways to be close to her wherever they were. It didn’t matter whether they were watching a movie with Dawn, chilling out at the Magic Box researching the latest demons, or just sitting on the porch steps watching the fireflies paint designs across the back lawn.
As far as shadows went, though, Riley wasn’t a bad one. She knew he’d never hover over her while she slept and he never followed her into the bathroom to watch her shower. Not that he would do something like that anyways, because he was Riley. Riley was a farm boy from Iowa who held doors open for women and served his country with stubborn pride. To the best of her knowledge, Riley had never been remotely interested in her in that sexual sort of way nor did he make a habit out of thinking about other women that way unless he was dating them and in that case, he’d be totally entitled.
Like Buffy.
Willow would bet that Riley had definitely thought about her best friend that way. Probably loads of times over the course of the relationship they shared and probably even after he’d left the country. That’s how most men tended to be once visions of Buffy started dancing in their heads. But now that Riley was back, he’d been extra true to his word about not being over Sam yet by demonstrating just how much he didn’t want Buffy in his life.
He mostly spoke in grunts to her when they passed by each other at the breakfast nook in the morning. He always chose to stay with Willow and research instead of going off to practice fighting techniques. Most importantly, and annoyingly for Buffy, he was avoiding having the talk about what their future might be and he was using Willow as a convenient shield to block Buffy from trying to start those conversations. If he had really been telling the truth about not wanting to get back together with Buffy then he was doing a really terrible job of letting Buffy know and Willow wasn’t going to stand for that kind of treatment of her friend.
The opportunity to confront Riley about this came one night when Dawn had obtained permission to attend a sleepover at Janice’s and Buffy had to take a double shift flipping burgers and fries at the Doublemeat Palace so that Sunnydale Power and Electric would have no choice but to be nice to a few struggling twenty-somethings instead of being mean doo-doo heads (as Dawn had so eloquently put it the one time Buffy had received a late notice.)
“You’re hiding something,” Willow announced as she walked into the living room wearing a firm resolve face. Riley was sprawled across the couch, sinking into the cushions that had lost some of their cushiness from old age and constant use. On the television screen, Willow could see the colored blur of several racing cars turning left as they zoomed past the camera man, but the sound of roaring engines had been faded by the ‘mute’ button.
Riley swallowed down the instinct to confess the details of his mission and apologize for not telling her earlier. There was no way he could assume that she knew what he was really in Sunnydale to do, so he figured she had to be talking about something else. So he wore a poker face and slid his legs off one of the cushions to allow her to sit down if she wanted. “And what would that be?” He’d spent enough time keeping secrets from the general populace that he’d gotten good at acting casual in these types of situations.
Willow squeezed her eyes shut as she plotted out her next move. She’d been half-hoping that he would have just come out with it as soon as he saw how much she meant business, but it didn’t come as much of a surprise that Riley could play hardball.
“Well…that scar! The one across your eye. You haven’t told anyone how you got that.”
Crap.
That hadn’t been what she’d wanted to ask at all, despite the fact that she was really curious about he’d gotten it. It looked pretty unpleasant and she imagined the story would not involve sunny walks in the park. On top of that, her slip of the tongue would not solve the Buffy problem she’d been planning to broach.
Riley chuckled a little, not really expecting her to go this route based on the resolute manner of her entrance. He didn’t mind answering her question though. As far as he was concerned, it wasn’t confidential information even though the men he worked for had the incident in a locked file marked ‘top secret.’ That was how the hostile cases were always classified and they’d been doing it that way since long before Area 51.
He touched the pad of his index finger to his forehead and traced over the line that would mark him for the rest of his life. “Right before I met Sam, I got a case that led me straight to a nest of Thak demons. If you know anything about Thaks, they don’t handle strangers holding semi-automatics too well. They also don’t much care for the smell of beef jerky, as poor Eddie found out when he got his leg torn to bits.”
Willow gasped, feeling a twinge in her heart as she thought of Eddie’s fate. Didn’t matter how many years one put in on the hellmouth, seeing the obituary section in the newspaper the next morning was always upsetting. Buffy and Giles had gotten pretty good at forgetting about the body counts, knowing how many lives they saved with every apocalypse, but Willow hadn’t gotten that tough yet.
Riley’s eyes softened and he reached out to touch her shoulder, confident that the skin-on-skin contact and the simultaneous smile would be reassuring. “He made it out alive, Willow. Number one rule of being a solider is to never leave a man behind, even if it means getting a razor sharp claw to the eye.”
“I’m glad you were there for him. You’re a good friend, Riley Finn. And a good man,” she paused, realizing the weight of her statement and its incongruence to her original issues. “…except that you’re still not telling me everything.”
“Do you need to know their shoe size or something?” Riley asked, dropping his hand from her shoulder, and feeling uncertain as to what piece of information she was looking for.
Willow shook her head, swallowing back a giggle and keeping her facial expression stern. This was serious business. Serious business she needed to know about. “I mean…Buffy.”
“I didn’t realize I was supposed to tell Buffy about my injury. If she wanted to know, she could have asked,” Riley replied, wondering what his ex-girlfriend had to do with his battle with the Thak demons.
“No,” Willow said, frowning. “I mean, I don’t think she could ask you if she wanted to, because you’ve been ignoring her every chance you get. It’s not a big deal if you still have feelings for her or if you don’t, but I refuse to let you use me to avoid dealing with her. You need to talk to her, Riley.”
Sighing deeply, Riley’s hand settled on top of Willow’s and the gesture elicited a look of confusion from her. As much as he didn’t really want to unsettle her further, he also needed to convince her that his reasons for spending time with her had nothing to do with his desire to not talk to Buffy. He wasn’t talking to Buffy because he didn’t want to make this mission any harder than it had to be. He didn’t want to take the chance that something could ultimately screw this whole thing up. He needed to focus every ounce of strength on Willow and in doing that these last few weeks, he’d been finding that there was a lot about Willow to like, a lot of Willow he wanted to get to know more about, and knowing that made this whole thing seem like less than a lie even if parts of his following declaration weren’t quite true yet.
“No, Willow. I need to talk to you. There’s something I haven’t been completely honest about and I think it’s time for you to know about it. I want you know that you’re not just a way to avoid Buffy. I want you to know that I’ve been spending so much time with you lately because I…” He locked eyes with her, finding that gentle innocence sparkling behind the green orbs that made it so easy to want to care about her. “I like you and I think we could be something together.”
Willow furrowed her eyebrows and gripped her leg tightly, marking little crescent-shapes into her thigh with her fingernails. Part of her wanted him to release his hold on her hand, wanted him to tell her this was all one big joke and that he was really practicing his speech for Buffy. And then there was this other part of her that pointed out how much it made sense for him to think this way considering how much the bonds of existing friendship had strengthened since he’d come back. The other thing her brain was pointing out was how Riley wouldn’t leave her like Tara did if she slipped back down the spiral again, that he would help pull her to safety in GI-Joe style.
Crap.
She hated that any part of her could even begin to think like that. She hadn’t given up on Tara when Tara’s sanity had been brutally sucked out of her by Glory. She hadn’t given up on Tara when Oz tried to take her back. She hadn’t given up on Tara when Tara had walked out on her in an act of tough love. She almost hated Riley for what he was doing to her right now, after everything he’d said about not wanting to hook up with some other girl now that Sam was in Nepal.
It wasn’t fair to make her feel this conflicted, wasn’t fair that he was putting her on the spot like this.
“Riley…I…”
“I know you want to be with Tara, Willow. I know how hard you’ve been working to show her how much you’ve done but you said so yourself, she doesn’t trust you and she won’t take you back.”
It hurt a little to hear him repeat almost verbatim the words that she’d said barely a week ago. It hurt a little to hear him cling to that part of her that wanted to be saved by love instead of needing to fight so hard for it.
But why did he have to do this to her right now? Why couldn’t he have just kept his feelings to himself so she wouldn’t feel so thrown for a loop?
“Please don’t be upset with me,” Riley said urgently, squeezing her hand and leaning his face towards hers. He hated that he was giving her this choice, but he hoped that he’d proven he was worth his salt by being there for her as she struggled to remain sober in the face of her addictions. “I just wanted you to know. I wanted you to know that you don’t have to give up little pieces of yourself if you decide to be with me.
With a sharp exhale, Willow made her choice, allowing her lips to move of their own accord before her brain had time to reconsider. The electrical sizzle that passed between them as she surrendered her dream of ever getting Tara back made her feel like maybe it would all be worth it in the end.
Chapter Five
Title: Mission X (4/?)
Author: snogged
Disclaimer: Joss Whedon and Co. own the characters of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I don’t.
Pairing: Willow/Riley
Word Count: 1977
Overall Rating/Warnings: FRT-13/PG-13 (will be FRAO/NC-17 in later chapters); language, angst, drama, violence, het sex, sexual innuendo.
Setting: AU! Season 6. Parts of this story come from the established canon plot lines and others are my own desire to twist things my way.
Summary: When Riley comes back to Sunnydale, he stays for a reason that’s not Buffy.
Beta: the sweet Gabrielle and the quirky
angelskuuipo.A/N: This is my second foray into a guilty pleasure pairing of mine, and I’m looking forward to exploring the possibilities as this story moves along.
Previous Chapters
In the week that followed Xander and Anya’s wedding, Willow discovered that she’d gained a shadow. Riley continuously found ways to be close to her wherever they were. It didn’t matter whether they were watching a movie with Dawn, chilling out at the Magic Box researching the latest demons, or just sitting on the porch steps watching the fireflies paint designs across the back lawn.
As far as shadows went, though, Riley wasn’t a bad one. She knew he’d never hover over her while she slept and he never followed her into the bathroom to watch her shower. Not that he would do something like that anyways, because he was Riley. Riley was a farm boy from Iowa who held doors open for women and served his country with stubborn pride. To the best of her knowledge, Riley had never been remotely interested in her in that sexual sort of way nor did he make a habit out of thinking about other women that way unless he was dating them and in that case, he’d be totally entitled.
Like Buffy.
Willow would bet that Riley had definitely thought about her best friend that way. Probably loads of times over the course of the relationship they shared and probably even after he’d left the country. That’s how most men tended to be once visions of Buffy started dancing in their heads. But now that Riley was back, he’d been extra true to his word about not being over Sam yet by demonstrating just how much he didn’t want Buffy in his life.
He mostly spoke in grunts to her when they passed by each other at the breakfast nook in the morning. He always chose to stay with Willow and research instead of going off to practice fighting techniques. Most importantly, and annoyingly for Buffy, he was avoiding having the talk about what their future might be and he was using Willow as a convenient shield to block Buffy from trying to start those conversations. If he had really been telling the truth about not wanting to get back together with Buffy then he was doing a really terrible job of letting Buffy know and Willow wasn’t going to stand for that kind of treatment of her friend.
The opportunity to confront Riley about this came one night when Dawn had obtained permission to attend a sleepover at Janice’s and Buffy had to take a double shift flipping burgers and fries at the Doublemeat Palace so that Sunnydale Power and Electric would have no choice but to be nice to a few struggling twenty-somethings instead of being mean doo-doo heads (as Dawn had so eloquently put it the one time Buffy had received a late notice.)
“You’re hiding something,” Willow announced as she walked into the living room wearing a firm resolve face. Riley was sprawled across the couch, sinking into the cushions that had lost some of their cushiness from old age and constant use. On the television screen, Willow could see the colored blur of several racing cars turning left as they zoomed past the camera man, but the sound of roaring engines had been faded by the ‘mute’ button.
Riley swallowed down the instinct to confess the details of his mission and apologize for not telling her earlier. There was no way he could assume that she knew what he was really in Sunnydale to do, so he figured she had to be talking about something else. So he wore a poker face and slid his legs off one of the cushions to allow her to sit down if she wanted. “And what would that be?” He’d spent enough time keeping secrets from the general populace that he’d gotten good at acting casual in these types of situations.
Willow squeezed her eyes shut as she plotted out her next move. She’d been half-hoping that he would have just come out with it as soon as he saw how much she meant business, but it didn’t come as much of a surprise that Riley could play hardball.
“Well…that scar! The one across your eye. You haven’t told anyone how you got that.”
Crap.
That hadn’t been what she’d wanted to ask at all, despite the fact that she was really curious about he’d gotten it. It looked pretty unpleasant and she imagined the story would not involve sunny walks in the park. On top of that, her slip of the tongue would not solve the Buffy problem she’d been planning to broach.
Riley chuckled a little, not really expecting her to go this route based on the resolute manner of her entrance. He didn’t mind answering her question though. As far as he was concerned, it wasn’t confidential information even though the men he worked for had the incident in a locked file marked ‘top secret.’ That was how the hostile cases were always classified and they’d been doing it that way since long before Area 51.
He touched the pad of his index finger to his forehead and traced over the line that would mark him for the rest of his life. “Right before I met Sam, I got a case that led me straight to a nest of Thak demons. If you know anything about Thaks, they don’t handle strangers holding semi-automatics too well. They also don’t much care for the smell of beef jerky, as poor Eddie found out when he got his leg torn to bits.”
Willow gasped, feeling a twinge in her heart as she thought of Eddie’s fate. Didn’t matter how many years one put in on the hellmouth, seeing the obituary section in the newspaper the next morning was always upsetting. Buffy and Giles had gotten pretty good at forgetting about the body counts, knowing how many lives they saved with every apocalypse, but Willow hadn’t gotten that tough yet.
Riley’s eyes softened and he reached out to touch her shoulder, confident that the skin-on-skin contact and the simultaneous smile would be reassuring. “He made it out alive, Willow. Number one rule of being a solider is to never leave a man behind, even if it means getting a razor sharp claw to the eye.”
“I’m glad you were there for him. You’re a good friend, Riley Finn. And a good man,” she paused, realizing the weight of her statement and its incongruence to her original issues. “…except that you’re still not telling me everything.”
“Do you need to know their shoe size or something?” Riley asked, dropping his hand from her shoulder, and feeling uncertain as to what piece of information she was looking for.
Willow shook her head, swallowing back a giggle and keeping her facial expression stern. This was serious business. Serious business she needed to know about. “I mean…Buffy.”
“I didn’t realize I was supposed to tell Buffy about my injury. If she wanted to know, she could have asked,” Riley replied, wondering what his ex-girlfriend had to do with his battle with the Thak demons.
“No,” Willow said, frowning. “I mean, I don’t think she could ask you if she wanted to, because you’ve been ignoring her every chance you get. It’s not a big deal if you still have feelings for her or if you don’t, but I refuse to let you use me to avoid dealing with her. You need to talk to her, Riley.”
Sighing deeply, Riley’s hand settled on top of Willow’s and the gesture elicited a look of confusion from her. As much as he didn’t really want to unsettle her further, he also needed to convince her that his reasons for spending time with her had nothing to do with his desire to not talk to Buffy. He wasn’t talking to Buffy because he didn’t want to make this mission any harder than it had to be. He didn’t want to take the chance that something could ultimately screw this whole thing up. He needed to focus every ounce of strength on Willow and in doing that these last few weeks, he’d been finding that there was a lot about Willow to like, a lot of Willow he wanted to get to know more about, and knowing that made this whole thing seem like less than a lie even if parts of his following declaration weren’t quite true yet.
“No, Willow. I need to talk to you. There’s something I haven’t been completely honest about and I think it’s time for you to know about it. I want you know that you’re not just a way to avoid Buffy. I want you to know that I’ve been spending so much time with you lately because I…” He locked eyes with her, finding that gentle innocence sparkling behind the green orbs that made it so easy to want to care about her. “I like you and I think we could be something together.”
Willow furrowed her eyebrows and gripped her leg tightly, marking little crescent-shapes into her thigh with her fingernails. Part of her wanted him to release his hold on her hand, wanted him to tell her this was all one big joke and that he was really practicing his speech for Buffy. And then there was this other part of her that pointed out how much it made sense for him to think this way considering how much the bonds of existing friendship had strengthened since he’d come back. The other thing her brain was pointing out was how Riley wouldn’t leave her like Tara did if she slipped back down the spiral again, that he would help pull her to safety in GI-Joe style.
Crap.
She hated that any part of her could even begin to think like that. She hadn’t given up on Tara when Tara’s sanity had been brutally sucked out of her by Glory. She hadn’t given up on Tara when Oz tried to take her back. She hadn’t given up on Tara when Tara had walked out on her in an act of tough love. She almost hated Riley for what he was doing to her right now, after everything he’d said about not wanting to hook up with some other girl now that Sam was in Nepal.
It wasn’t fair to make her feel this conflicted, wasn’t fair that he was putting her on the spot like this.
“Riley…I…”
“I know you want to be with Tara, Willow. I know how hard you’ve been working to show her how much you’ve done but you said so yourself, she doesn’t trust you and she won’t take you back.”
It hurt a little to hear him repeat almost verbatim the words that she’d said barely a week ago. It hurt a little to hear him cling to that part of her that wanted to be saved by love instead of needing to fight so hard for it.
But why did he have to do this to her right now? Why couldn’t he have just kept his feelings to himself so she wouldn’t feel so thrown for a loop?
“Please don’t be upset with me,” Riley said urgently, squeezing her hand and leaning his face towards hers. He hated that he was giving her this choice, but he hoped that he’d proven he was worth his salt by being there for her as she struggled to remain sober in the face of her addictions. “I just wanted you to know. I wanted you to know that you don’t have to give up little pieces of yourself if you decide to be with me.
With a sharp exhale, Willow made her choice, allowing her lips to move of their own accord before her brain had time to reconsider. The electrical sizzle that passed between them as she surrendered her dream of ever getting Tara back made her feel like maybe it would all be worth it in the end.
Chapter Five
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on 2010-02-24 12:13 am (UTC)