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snoggedTitle: Mission X (8/?)
Author: snogged
Disclaimer: Joss Whedon and Co. own the characters of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I don’t.
Pairing: Willow/Riley
Word Count: 1719
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 amazing Gabrielle and the awesome![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
angelskuuipo.
Previous Chapters
Rubbing the sleep from her eyes, Willow slowly trudged down the stairs. Unlike other mornings, however, she was not met with the smells of burnt toast or scrambled eggs with chili pepper (or any other bizarre combination of food that Dawn imagined would be a good idea). There was no scuffling or grunting to indicate that Dawn and Buffy were communicating with each other as they got ready for school and work. There was just…
She was about to start knocking on wood in an effort to ensure continued silence when her ears picked up the sound of the television set. As she neared the living room, she spotted a pair of white tube socks balancing on the arm rest of the sofa and those socks were attached to the body of a man who could kiss with the best of them and also had really cute bed hair.
“Morning,” Willow murmured blearily as she entered the room and collapsed on the cushy recliner.
A smile played at the corners of Riley’s lips as he watched her sit down and he immediately hit the mute button on the television, silencing the ESPN sports announcers in favor of giving her attention. “I think you got your times mixed up, sweetheart. It’s afternoon now.”
Embarrassment colored Willow’s cheeks as she looked at the clock. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d slept the day away though she was certain that Xander, a half-eaten bag of Sweet Tarts, and seven birthday candles had been involved.
“Don’t worry about it, Willow. World didn’t end last night. Buffy made sure of that,” Riley replied, offering his reassurances that sleeping in should not trigger guilt in anyone.
But the guilty feelings didn’t dissipate at the mention of her best friend’s name. In fact, her stomach twisted in fear as she asked the question she hadn’t found out the answer to the night before. “Did you… tell her about us yet?”
Riley ran his fingers through his hair, tousling it more than it already was. He would love to tell her that Buffy knew every detail and that she’d given them her blessing but he couldn’t. Not when Sam was still involved in this. “We didn’t get around to it.”
“But I thought you were…I mean, we talked about this, Riley. You said you were going to discuss it with her.” Flustered, Willow shifted in the chair, drawing her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around them. She knew what this meant. It meant that there was still a 99.9% chance that Buffy would start digging her grave, regardless of whether or not the Slayer believed in the sanctity of human life.
“I had every intention of telling her yesterday,” Riley said. “But then…bubble baths.”
“Bubble baths?” Willow asked, confused. Was he speaking in some sort of spy code? Because if he was, then she really wasn’t awake enough to understand him.
“Sam,” Riley answered quietly. “Whenever she had a tough assignment or a big decision to make, she always insisted on taking a bubble bath. She claimed it was the best solution for cleaning the mind and the body. And it apparently always gave her the best ideas for taking down demon nests.” He paused, wrinkles forming on his forehead. “What I’m trying to say is I need to tell Sam first before I tell Buffy about us and I’m thinking that Sam’s approach might give me the boost I need.”
“I’m not sure shriveling up like a prune will help either,” Willow replied, lowering her legs. As upset as she had been about him not telling Buffy like they had planned, she really couldn’t fault him for wanting to place Sam on the top priority list. And besides, his frustration wrinkles made him look extra cute. So cute in fact that it was hard to stay mad at him. She moved over to the couch, perching herself on the three inch space between his side and the edge of the cushion. Feeling his lips against hers had done her plenty of good, in spite of the complicated mixture of feelings that went with it. “But I know something that might help a little…”
Riley’s fingers brushed across her jaw line and Willow gasped with delight as she bowed her head and met his lips. They lingered there, savoring the taste of each other, and Riley imagined that she was trying to build up his confidence through the sheer force of connecting their bodies like this.
When they finally parted, Willow furrowed her brow, aware of what the next step needed to be. “Do you want me to be here when you call her?”
“If it’s not too much trouble,” Riley admitted. He couldn’t count on Sam to be keen on the idea, but he wanted Willow to be there. Needed her to be there. Because then there would be no avoiding the topic.
“Sure thing,” Willow replied, feigning enthusiasm to convince herself that she could do this for him in the same way he’d been there for her when Tara confronted them. “Just let me grab some OJ.”
As Willow prepared her pseudo-breakfast, Riley got off the couch, headed down to the basement, and retrieved his laptop from its trusty make-shift desk. It would be a lot easier to get a hold of Sam using the government technologies installed on his computer and it was also more secure and more reliable than a phone line. He headed back up to the living room and Willow was waiting, eyeing his PC with lustful eagerness. It might sound clichéd to call her a kid in a candy store but he’d never seen someone bounce so much at the prospect of sneaking a peek at government property.
“Wanna help me set it up?” Riley asked, knowing that she’d snatch the dangling carrot with little protest. Computers had been one of her lifelines as she continued her struggle to avoid magic and he was well aware that she could put the hackers in the CIA, FBI, and NSA to shame with her abilities.
“Of course,” Willow said, grinning, as Riley set it down on the coffee table in front of her. It booted up without a single snag, making her suspect that Bill Gates saved his best computers for the government and shipped his most defective ones out to the stores for consumer purchase. She had to resist the temptation to be nosy as she scanned over the file names on the desktop. Riley made it easy on her and grabbed the mouse, clicking on the small icon of an animated airplane holding a cell phone- a governmental attempt at humor. He selected Sam’s name from the list that popped up and inhaled sharply as he waited for it to connect.
“You nervous?” Willow asked, placing her hand on top of his and interlacing their fingers. Tara used to do that for her whenever they were preparing to face down a demon horde and she remembered how it bonded them, how it bolstered their spirits.
Riley nodded a little, but was almost ashamed to admit it openly. He’d been taught from tyke-hood on that men don’t reveal their fears no matter how fucking scary something might get. Thankfully, he didn’t need to expound on the subject as Sam’s pixilated face appeared in the window.
Sam pursed her lips and something about her expression made Willow believe that she was not expecting to receive any sort of contact. “What’s up, Ri?”
“I wanted to talk you,” Riley replied.
“That’s pretty obvious, soldier. But it doesn’t answer my question,” Sam said, narrowing her eyes. She was obviously not in the mood to play ring-around-the-topic.
Caught off guard by her directness, Riley looked off to the side of the monitor and murmured: “I’ve gotten really close to Willow since I’ve been here and I wanted you to know about it.”
Sam was silent as she processed the information and to Willow, it didn’t make sense. She was Riley’s wife. She was supposed to freak out and throw things and call him a dirty traitorous bastard. Instead, she looked completely blank, completely emotionless, like it didn’t matter one iota.
“Riley,” Sam started, seemingly uncertain about something. “Before you go any further, I think there’s something you need to know first.”
Riley blinked, perplexed that this confrontation wasn’t going quite the way he had expected and he focused his attention back on the screen. “What’s that?”
“We’re not married,” Sam admitted.
Willow’s eyes widened and her jaw dropped. “What do you mean you’re not married? I saw the ring. It sparkles! It sparkles more than Anya’s diamond sparkles and Anya won’t shut up about how much her diamond sparkles.”
Sam laughed a little at Willow’s babble, but quickly returned to her explanation. “It was a necessity, Riley, for the last few missions we went on. I was given strict orders not to say a word to you. Not to tell you how much it killed me to see you in the tux, grinning from ear to ear, knowing that I couldn’t tell you it was all a fraud. I know this isn’t going to make a lot of sense considering the stuff we’ve gone through together but the order came directly from the General and I never was the rule breaker. That was your job.”
Riley’s heart ached with the pain of Sam’s confession. It had all seemed so real with her and hearing that it was all just some government-sanctioned farce pissed him off to no end. But it would do him no good to express that anger now. He gritted his teeth, holding back the barbs he wanted to send flying off in her direction. “Good to know.”
He pressed down on the close key, not waiting for her to say more, not waiting for whatever apology she might want to offer. He wasn’t interested. But what he was interested in was Willow. In truth, he was faking part of the relationship he was working to build with her and as far as his heart was concerned, that was going to stop right now.
Willow needed to know.
She needed to know everything.
And he didn’t give a flying fuck what General Huth would say about it either.
Chapter 9
Author: snogged
Disclaimer: Joss Whedon and Co. own the characters of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I don’t.
Pairing: Willow/Riley
Word Count: 1719
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 amazing Gabrielle and the awesome
angelskuuipo.Previous Chapters
Rubbing the sleep from her eyes, Willow slowly trudged down the stairs. Unlike other mornings, however, she was not met with the smells of burnt toast or scrambled eggs with chili pepper (or any other bizarre combination of food that Dawn imagined would be a good idea). There was no scuffling or grunting to indicate that Dawn and Buffy were communicating with each other as they got ready for school and work. There was just…
She was about to start knocking on wood in an effort to ensure continued silence when her ears picked up the sound of the television set. As she neared the living room, she spotted a pair of white tube socks balancing on the arm rest of the sofa and those socks were attached to the body of a man who could kiss with the best of them and also had really cute bed hair.
“Morning,” Willow murmured blearily as she entered the room and collapsed on the cushy recliner.
A smile played at the corners of Riley’s lips as he watched her sit down and he immediately hit the mute button on the television, silencing the ESPN sports announcers in favor of giving her attention. “I think you got your times mixed up, sweetheart. It’s afternoon now.”
Embarrassment colored Willow’s cheeks as she looked at the clock. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d slept the day away though she was certain that Xander, a half-eaten bag of Sweet Tarts, and seven birthday candles had been involved.
“Don’t worry about it, Willow. World didn’t end last night. Buffy made sure of that,” Riley replied, offering his reassurances that sleeping in should not trigger guilt in anyone.
But the guilty feelings didn’t dissipate at the mention of her best friend’s name. In fact, her stomach twisted in fear as she asked the question she hadn’t found out the answer to the night before. “Did you… tell her about us yet?”
Riley ran his fingers through his hair, tousling it more than it already was. He would love to tell her that Buffy knew every detail and that she’d given them her blessing but he couldn’t. Not when Sam was still involved in this. “We didn’t get around to it.”
“But I thought you were…I mean, we talked about this, Riley. You said you were going to discuss it with her.” Flustered, Willow shifted in the chair, drawing her knees up to her chest and wrapping her arms around them. She knew what this meant. It meant that there was still a 99.9% chance that Buffy would start digging her grave, regardless of whether or not the Slayer believed in the sanctity of human life.
“I had every intention of telling her yesterday,” Riley said. “But then…bubble baths.”
“Bubble baths?” Willow asked, confused. Was he speaking in some sort of spy code? Because if he was, then she really wasn’t awake enough to understand him.
“Sam,” Riley answered quietly. “Whenever she had a tough assignment or a big decision to make, she always insisted on taking a bubble bath. She claimed it was the best solution for cleaning the mind and the body. And it apparently always gave her the best ideas for taking down demon nests.” He paused, wrinkles forming on his forehead. “What I’m trying to say is I need to tell Sam first before I tell Buffy about us and I’m thinking that Sam’s approach might give me the boost I need.”
“I’m not sure shriveling up like a prune will help either,” Willow replied, lowering her legs. As upset as she had been about him not telling Buffy like they had planned, she really couldn’t fault him for wanting to place Sam on the top priority list. And besides, his frustration wrinkles made him look extra cute. So cute in fact that it was hard to stay mad at him. She moved over to the couch, perching herself on the three inch space between his side and the edge of the cushion. Feeling his lips against hers had done her plenty of good, in spite of the complicated mixture of feelings that went with it. “But I know something that might help a little…”
Riley’s fingers brushed across her jaw line and Willow gasped with delight as she bowed her head and met his lips. They lingered there, savoring the taste of each other, and Riley imagined that she was trying to build up his confidence through the sheer force of connecting their bodies like this.
When they finally parted, Willow furrowed her brow, aware of what the next step needed to be. “Do you want me to be here when you call her?”
“If it’s not too much trouble,” Riley admitted. He couldn’t count on Sam to be keen on the idea, but he wanted Willow to be there. Needed her to be there. Because then there would be no avoiding the topic.
“Sure thing,” Willow replied, feigning enthusiasm to convince herself that she could do this for him in the same way he’d been there for her when Tara confronted them. “Just let me grab some OJ.”
As Willow prepared her pseudo-breakfast, Riley got off the couch, headed down to the basement, and retrieved his laptop from its trusty make-shift desk. It would be a lot easier to get a hold of Sam using the government technologies installed on his computer and it was also more secure and more reliable than a phone line. He headed back up to the living room and Willow was waiting, eyeing his PC with lustful eagerness. It might sound clichéd to call her a kid in a candy store but he’d never seen someone bounce so much at the prospect of sneaking a peek at government property.
“Wanna help me set it up?” Riley asked, knowing that she’d snatch the dangling carrot with little protest. Computers had been one of her lifelines as she continued her struggle to avoid magic and he was well aware that she could put the hackers in the CIA, FBI, and NSA to shame with her abilities.
“Of course,” Willow said, grinning, as Riley set it down on the coffee table in front of her. It booted up without a single snag, making her suspect that Bill Gates saved his best computers for the government and shipped his most defective ones out to the stores for consumer purchase. She had to resist the temptation to be nosy as she scanned over the file names on the desktop. Riley made it easy on her and grabbed the mouse, clicking on the small icon of an animated airplane holding a cell phone- a governmental attempt at humor. He selected Sam’s name from the list that popped up and inhaled sharply as he waited for it to connect.
“You nervous?” Willow asked, placing her hand on top of his and interlacing their fingers. Tara used to do that for her whenever they were preparing to face down a demon horde and she remembered how it bonded them, how it bolstered their spirits.
Riley nodded a little, but was almost ashamed to admit it openly. He’d been taught from tyke-hood on that men don’t reveal their fears no matter how fucking scary something might get. Thankfully, he didn’t need to expound on the subject as Sam’s pixilated face appeared in the window.
Sam pursed her lips and something about her expression made Willow believe that she was not expecting to receive any sort of contact. “What’s up, Ri?”
“I wanted to talk you,” Riley replied.
“That’s pretty obvious, soldier. But it doesn’t answer my question,” Sam said, narrowing her eyes. She was obviously not in the mood to play ring-around-the-topic.
Caught off guard by her directness, Riley looked off to the side of the monitor and murmured: “I’ve gotten really close to Willow since I’ve been here and I wanted you to know about it.”
Sam was silent as she processed the information and to Willow, it didn’t make sense. She was Riley’s wife. She was supposed to freak out and throw things and call him a dirty traitorous bastard. Instead, she looked completely blank, completely emotionless, like it didn’t matter one iota.
“Riley,” Sam started, seemingly uncertain about something. “Before you go any further, I think there’s something you need to know first.”
Riley blinked, perplexed that this confrontation wasn’t going quite the way he had expected and he focused his attention back on the screen. “What’s that?”
“We’re not married,” Sam admitted.
Willow’s eyes widened and her jaw dropped. “What do you mean you’re not married? I saw the ring. It sparkles! It sparkles more than Anya’s diamond sparkles and Anya won’t shut up about how much her diamond sparkles.”
Sam laughed a little at Willow’s babble, but quickly returned to her explanation. “It was a necessity, Riley, for the last few missions we went on. I was given strict orders not to say a word to you. Not to tell you how much it killed me to see you in the tux, grinning from ear to ear, knowing that I couldn’t tell you it was all a fraud. I know this isn’t going to make a lot of sense considering the stuff we’ve gone through together but the order came directly from the General and I never was the rule breaker. That was your job.”
Riley’s heart ached with the pain of Sam’s confession. It had all seemed so real with her and hearing that it was all just some government-sanctioned farce pissed him off to no end. But it would do him no good to express that anger now. He gritted his teeth, holding back the barbs he wanted to send flying off in her direction. “Good to know.”
He pressed down on the close key, not waiting for her to say more, not waiting for whatever apology she might want to offer. He wasn’t interested. But what he was interested in was Willow. In truth, he was faking part of the relationship he was working to build with her and as far as his heart was concerned, that was going to stop right now.
Willow needed to know.
She needed to know everything.
And he didn’t give a flying fuck what General Huth would say about it either.
Chapter 9
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
on 2010-03-25 07:22 pm (UTC)Gabrielle
no subject
on 2010-03-25 11:53 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2010-03-25 09:00 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2010-03-25 11:54 pm (UTC)I'm so glad you enjoyed it!
no subject
on 2010-03-25 09:44 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2010-03-25 11:54 pm (UTC)*hugs*
no subject
on 2010-03-26 12:13 am (UTC)no subject
on 2010-03-26 02:35 am (UTC)He's really a smart boy beneath the fatigues.
no subject
on 2010-03-26 12:18 am (UTC)no subject
on 2010-03-26 02:35 am (UTC)no subject
on 2010-03-26 06:07 am (UTC)Ohhh! Riley just got burnt :( I hope everything works out well... And aw, Willow's so cute :)
no subject
on 2010-03-26 12:26 pm (UTC)*hugs*
no subject
on 2010-03-26 06:33 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2010-03-27 03:54 am (UTC)