Man of Many Hearts (B/A, D/A, G/W, NC-17)

[carlyinrome]

TITLE: Man of Many Hearts
RATING: NC-17
FANDOMS: BtVS/AtS (AU. In a big way.)
PAIRING: Buffy/Angel, Darla/Angel, Gunn/Wesley
SUMMARY: Hard ass homicide detective Angel Chase has just been assigned a new partner. But brand-new detective Buffy Summers is going to do more for Angel than watch his back . . .
DISCLAIMER: Joss & friends created Buffy; myhappyface created the copverse (read her outline here and her first chapter here); I just filled in some blanks.
AUTHOR’S NOTES: Millions upon millions of thanks to kita0610, my personal role model, for the beta. But mostly: super, super, happy birthday to Holly, the vampire with a soul to my snarky, Milano-shod Vision Girl. Baby, I love you like Rahm Emanual loves being a pimp.

(Prologue through Chapter Two)

Chapter Three: In Which Backup is Required, and Turnabout is Fairplay

It’s late when Buffy leaves, and Angel is still drunk. He pours himself into his plush leather armchair, and calls someone who loves him enough not to mind the late hour or his inebriated state.

“Working late?” Cordelia asks.

“Did I wake you?”

“No. I’m watching this little noire-fest on Bravo. You didn’t answer my question.”

“No, I’m not working. I let Gunn take me out and get me drunk.”

“I hope you didn’t also let Gunn take advantage of you.”

“Very funny. But I let—there’s a girl. I mean—it’s not like she took advantage. But there was . . . we kissed.”

Cordelia snorts. “Is that all? You’re all worked up about kissing? What are you, in the seventh grade?”

“It’s the first time—I haven’t . . . not since Darla . . .”

“That was two years ago, Angel. I mean, yes, she was your wife, and she died. And that’s terrible. But you didn’t die with her. It’s okay to, you know, go on living.” Cordelia endures a long silence before changing the subject. “What’s she like? Your new kissing friend.”

“Small, blonde, pretty. Brave, funny, and . . . it’s like you can see her heart.”

“Sounds like your type. What’s she do?”

“She’s a detective. Doyle’s replacement.”

Cordelia laughs. “Your partner? You’re such a cliché when it comes to the love department, brother. A hopeless romantic, or something.”

“And you’re—what? Still playing hard to get?”

“Nice segue. Very subtle. And yes; Doyle hasn’t gotten as far as he’d like.”

“I don’t—don’t talk to me about what base you guys are at—”

“He hasn’t left the bench. Does that make you feel better?”

Angel exhales. “It does, actually. Is that terrible? I want you to be happy, but—”

“But you’re still my brother. I get it.”

Angel’s eyes are drifting closed. “I should let you go.”

“Okay. But hey, Angel, do something for me.”

“Okay.”

“Don’t screw up this thing with your partner by guilting yourself out, ’kay? I mean, I know brooding’s your default state, but it is okay for you to be happy. Really.”

Angel smiles, despite himself. “I’ll do my best.”

***

Buffy is stepping out of the shower when her beeper goes off, requesting her presence in the morgue. She sighs.

“Just how I like to start my day.”

And then she realizes that she’ll be meeting her partner there, and blood rushes to her face. Butterflies flutter in her stomach; their tickling, powder soft wings sending shivers throughout her body. She skips through the remainder of her morning rituals, dancing to a secret song.

Angel is waiting for her in front of the morgue. He is unshaven and comfortably mussed, but he looks much more relaxed than he has the past couple of days. Buffy is unable to stop herself from bounding up to him.

“Hi,” she says, a grin overtaking her face.

Angel smiles, too. “Hi.”

He brushes her hand with his, and for a long moment they just regard each other silently, marinating in the joy of seeing each other, the excitement of new beginnings.

Fred pokes her head out the morgue’s twin doors. “Y’all comin’, or what?”

All the bodies are resting quietly in their little lockers, and Buffy is glad. Not like she’s squeamish or anything, but still. The less dead people in her life, the better. Fred walks to her desk, selects a file, and flips it open.

“Do you want the good news or the bad news first? Actually, I’m not sure which is good and which is bad; like most things, it’s a question of perspective, I guess—”

“We’ll take any news, Fred,” Angel says.

“Well,” Fred says. “I got Miss Kendall’s toxicology report back.”

“Murder, or overdose?” Buffy asks.

“Yes,” says Fred.

“Huh?”

“Given the levels of heroin in her blood, it’s definitely the drugs that caused her death.”

“And that’s murder how?” Buffy asks.

“The levels are too high for her to have dosed herself. Or, at least she didn’t do all of the dosing herself. There’s no way she could have injected herself with this much of the drug and retained consciousness.”

“So maybe she and Pratt are shooting up,” Angel says, “she passes out. He decides he’s tired of her, and shoots her up again.”

“But why?” Buffy asks. “I mean, there’re easier ways out of a relationship.”

“Pratt doesn’t have what you’d call a great respect for human life,” Angel says.

“But why waste the drugs?”

“And he wasted a lot of drugs, too,” Fred says. “Angel, I’ve never seen a blood concentration like this. There was enough heroin in her blood to kill several people.”

***

“So what do we do now? We have weird autopsy results; we’re at a dead end on our only suspect—”

Angel smiles. “You should let me take you out to dinner tonight.”

Buffy blushes. “Well, yeah, that would be—I’d like that. But what about the case?”

“What do you think we should do?”

“Well,” Buffy says slowly. “Since Pratt is our only suspect, and his PO’s perp-blocking us . . . we should check out our victim?”

“Good plan. You wanna drive? I’m not at the top of my game.”

“A fifth of whisky’ll do that to you.”

***

Merrick never let her drive, and that was just a lame standard issue cruiser, anyway. Angel’s car is really hot, all chrome and highly-polished black leather. Usually she’s not into cars, but she has to admit that driving this makes her feel totally badass. She adjusts her sunglasses in the rearview mirror, and then glances over at her partner, lazing in the passenger’s seat.

“So, how did you become a cop?”

Angel stretches languorously. “You know, go to the academy, take the tests—”

“Hilarious. You know what I mean. How did you go from ne’er-do-well to protector and server?”

“Oh. That. My story’s not too different from yours. An officer looked after me, got me to sign up.”

Buffy rolls her eyes. “Gee, could you vague that up for me?”

Angel is quiet a long moment, his gaze fixed somewhere in the distance. Finally, he speaks.

“I used to be small for my age.”

Buffy raises her brow. “You? You weren’t always Mr. Tall, Dark, and Handsome?”

“I was small for my age. And quiet. I liked to read, and draw; nobody paid much attention to me. Then the summer between eighth and ninth grade, I gained six inches and eighty pounds. And people started to notice me.”

“Girls?”

“And gangs. I got big, and the Vampires got interested.”

“And you thought, ‘I need an extracurricular activity, and I hate the band uniforms?’”

Angel looks down at his hands, spins his wedding ring around his ring finger. “No, nothing so original as that. After my mother died, I didn’t have much parental supervision—”

“You were looking for a family, a place to belong, and the gang became that.”

Angel smiles sheepishly. “Cliché, right?”

“So you make some new friends, and together you commit crimes.”

“And at seventeen I got pinched for assault, disturbing the peace.”

“You got into a fight, and they took you to jail.”

“It was basically just a street cleaning measure, and since my record was clean, they weren’t going to keep me locked up. Except my father wouldn’t come pick me up. They didn’t have an adult to release me to, so they had to hold me.”

“Your dad wouldn’t get you out of jail?”

“Not surprising. His only interest in me was reminding me I was less than a man, and beating Bible verses into me. Still, jail pretty much sucks, especially for a kid.”

“So what happened?”

“Commander Giles—he was Lieutenant Giles back them—knew me. I was a friend of his daughter’s; we grew up together. He saw that I’d been locked up, and he sat me down and told me that I could be a fine young man if I applied myself to something worthwhile, a man who could take care of my sister, a family . . . or I could spend the rest of my life in places like this. And then he had me released into his custody.”

Buffy grins. “So you went to the academy. To be a good boy. That’s the most adorable thing I’ve ever heard.”

Angel frowns. “Why do I get the feeling you’re making fun of me?”

“I would never!” She narrows her eyes slyly at him. “You know, I happen to find good boys very sexy.”

***

Harmony Kendall’s apartment is small and filthy. Buffy and Angel pick through piles of dirty laundry, empty food wrappers, and messy cosmetics containers.

“Mountains of evidence, and not a single clue,” Buffy grouses.

“We’re not done yet,” Angel says, tossing aside a leopard-print bra and a small ceramic unicorn. “You want the kitchen or the bathroom?”

Buffy looks over the ruins of the living room, and imagines the wreck of the bathroom.

“I’ll take the kitchen,” she says.

Angel disappears down the hall. Buffy heads to the kitchen. Maybe there’ll be something decent to snack on.

Buffy swings open the fridge and freezes.

“Find anything?” Angel calls from the bathroom.

“Uh, yeah. Um, Angel . . . I need you here right now.”

She can’t seem to turn away from the sight, but she can tell Angel is running by the weight and speed of his footfalls thundering on the floor.

“Buffy, what’s wrong—oh my God.”

“Is that what I think it is?”

Angel takes a pen from his pocket and nudges one of the dozens of bags of dark red liquid hanging in Kendall’s refrigerator. His face is grim.

“Looks like blood to me,” he says. “Call for backup.”

***

The crime scene techs go over the apartment, and Buffy and Angel go back to the station.

“I just don’t understand why a girl like that would be doing with all that blood. I mean, she was about my age; I certainly don’t have a fridgeful of blood . . .”

Angel smiles wryly. “Good to know. And I’m sure it wasn’t hers; Kendall’s principle joys in life seem to have been drugs and parties. But it’s very likely she was holding it for somebody.”

“Like her boyfriend?”

“That’s what I’m thinking.”

They head to the CSI labs to wait for results from the Kendall girl’s apartment, but Angel’s brooding intensity soon gets to Knox, the head technician, and he asks them to leave.

They head to the morgue. Fred is waiting for them.

“Oh, Angel,” she says. “This is bad.”

“Tell me about it.”

“With statistics and numbers and stuff,” Buffy adds.

“Well,” Fred says. “The blood you guys found—well, there’s a lot of it, enough to be from several people. And it’s weird—remember how I told you that Harmony Kendall’s tox results were so weird, that I’d never seen such a high concentration of heroin in the blood? Well, these are all the same!”

Angel frowns. “They’re all full of heroin?”

“Every one.”

“Any idea who they came from?” Buffy asks.

“No,” Fred says. “The lab’s running DNA, but it could take a while. But I’d say you’re looking for several more victims.”

***

With a new kink in their case, dinner was definitely out. Buffy and Angel, and the case file for every overdose death within the last year, crowd into their office.

Around ten PM, they get hungry, and Angel goes out for takeout. He returns with a brown paper bag full of Chinese food. He clears his desk of paperwork, and sets up their dinner. As a flourish at the end, he lights a tiny tea light candle and sits it in the center of the desk.

Buffy laughs and pulls up a chair. “Very romantic. Thank you.”

“It’s not really what I had in mind,” Angel says. “Sorry.”

Buffy shrugs, and slides her chopsticks from their paper envelope. “It’s okay. Really. I’d rather be solving crime than eating at some hoity-toity restaurant, anyway.”

Angel smiles. “I know. That’s one of the things I like about you.”

Buffy digs into the mu shu pork. “I’m a cheap date?”

Angel meets her eyes. “You have a sense of duty, and honor. I find that very attractive.”

Buffy lowers her eyes to study her dinner, hoping the demure expression will help hide her blush. Ruminating over her pork, she thinks about changing the subject, but then decides to live dangerously.

“What else to you find attractive about me?” she asks.

Angel smiles.

***

They work into the early hours of the morning. Angel, coming off bad sleep and a hangover, is wiped. He asks Buffy to drive him home.

“I could really get used to driving this car,” she says as she slides behind the wheel. “Are you sure you didn’t just want an excuse to get me back in your apartment?”

“It’s a definite possibility.”

She is just going to drop him off, but then Angel asks her inside. She is just going to stay for a few minutes, but then Angel takes her jacket and hangs it up in the closet, and then he pours her a drink.

Buffy slips off her shoes and curls up on the couch. Her sock feet are pressed against Angel’s thighs. It’s strangely intimate in its comfort and familiarity.

There is a simplicity and quality evident in everything in Angel’s apartment, old rich woods and supple dark leathers. His wine glasses are large, the crystal heavy; the fruity, rich scent envelopes Buffy. Angel isn’t drinking.

“Are you trying to get me drunk so you can have your way with me?” Buffy asks.

“I figured turnabout’s fair play.”

Buffy has only had a few sips of wine, but suddenly her brain feels alcohol-addled useless. “But, I-I didn’t—”

“I’m only teasing. I wanted you.”

And then Angel leans forward. Buffy is expecting a kiss, but he just takes her wine glass from her and sets it on the coffee table. But when he turns back to her, his hands fall onto her, his lips.

“Oh,” Buffy says. “We’re making out now. Okay.”

Angel nips at her neck.

“Do you feel I’m taking advantage?” he murmurs.

Even if she hadn’t been thinking about this near-constantly since they kissed, that throaty velvet purr would have convinced her to do anything.

“Oh, no, please,” she says. “Where’s the bedroom?”

“Down the hall, first door on the right.”

Angel stands to show her, but slowly, by inches, unwilling to stop kissing her, stop touching her. Buffy follows him up, inches along with him.

She takes off his jacket, and then his guns, her hands running slowly over the broad plane of his shoulders as she loosens and then removes the shoulder holsters. He holds himself differently, disrobed and unarmed, more open, as if he were ready to deliver himself into her waiting hands. And he does. She unbuttons his shirt, and he lets her, and she slips it from his shoulders and then he falls into the soft embrace of her small hands, and his mouth falls to hers.

“You promised we’d go slow,” he whispers.

She leads him to the bedroom.

“I remember,” she says. “Don’t worry.”

Angel unlaces the ribbons binding Buffy’s top to her, but waits for her to remove it. He allows her to push him down to the bed. She follows him, and the mattress sinks and groans quietly as it accepts their weight.

Angel, half-lying, supports himself on his elbows. Buffy straddles him at the waist, her hands on his broad shoulders. He moves restlessly beneath her.

“I want to touch you,” he says.

Buffy scoots back. Angel follows her, and they are both sitting on their knees, face to face. With a move defter than Buffy herself could manage, Angel pulls the pins from her hair, and it falls around her face and throat in gentle waves. Angel runs his fingers through the tendrils, his palm cupping her face, her neck.

“You’re beautiful,” he says.

The only light is the streetlights filtered through Angel’s bedroom window, little blinking electronic eyes. Angel’s skin is moon pale in the weak light, his eyes infinitely dark. Shadows make the angles of his muscles, the features of his face marble solid, marble sure, an exactness and beauty wrought by blade against stone.

“You too,” Buffy says.

He kisses her. He tastes sweet and wild and old, dark chocolate and red wine in dusty casks. Buffy rests her hands on his breastbone and feels his heart beating into her hands like water thrust from a pump. She wants to crawl inside him, to invite him inside her. She lets her hands travel his body’s country, both experiencing and memorizing the topography. The basin of his stomach, the hills of his hips. Buffy unbuckles Angel’s belt, unbuttons his pants. The gentle valley from hips to the swell of his buttocks. She pulls at the material and Angel shifts beneath her, helping, and in a moment he is naked beneath her touch.

With nimble magician’s hands, Angel releases the catch on her bra and unzips her skirt, and Buffy is in her panties before she realizes it. Angel’s body is beneath hers, but his hands are on her hips and he is guiding her in the slow, rhythmic movement of a carousel horse upon its gears, and he is in charge. Her engorged sex, protected only by a breath of silk, slides against Angel’s erection. Here is all sensation, and this moment could be forever, an eternity of delicious torture, an eternity of desire and anticipation.

Buffy studies Angel’s face, flushed and earnest. She wraps her arms around his neck, and kisses him, long and slow. Angel’s hands are still on her hips, but this time she guides her own movements: up and against him, pleasure thrilling like little earthquakes from her cunt all through her body.

Buffy slides back, adjusts her weight from her knees to her butt. She pulls Angel after her, pulls him to his hands and knees. He crawls toward her, dark panther eyes drinking her in.

“I want you,” she says. “Here.”

Buffy threads her fingers through Angel’s hair, cradles the back of his skull in her palm. She drives him to the center of her, pressing his mouth against the only scrap of clothing she has left. Buffy swoons over the enormity of sensation; in her waking life, she never has feelings so huge and immediate. Buffy feels herself blooming, opening and unfurling as Angel stokes the fire of her enormous feeling.

Buffy’s eyes drift close, her hands cleaving to Angel’s broad shoulders; in the morning, she will find blood bruise tracks of her nails on his back and ask him where they came from. Just when she is sure there is no ceiling higher than this, no more sensation possible, something fragile within her gives, and all the sensation building to an impossible apex releases, floods her body. Her every muscle feels relaxed, weak.

Time slows. Seconds pass, days. Angel, tasting raw and musky, moves up her body, kisses her, then moves back down, his face against her throat, her breasts. His hands between her legs, removing her panties, and Buffy shifts to allow him berth, and Angel enters her, slowly, gently. Angel moves inside her, rekindling her flame. Her hands reach for him, draw him close against her. Angel bows against her, her name a sacrament on his lips.


Chapter Four: In Which Angel is Helpless, and Standard Operating Procedure is Followed

In the real world, the world detached from this night world where people work nine to five and never find refrigerators full of blood at work, it’s been morning for several hours. Golden sunlight runs in through the window, casting everything in precious metals.

Buffy sleeps, her long even breaths the cadence of the tides rolling. Her golden hair splashes over the pillow; a tiny fist is curled up beside her baby fat cheek.

Angel watches her sleep. It’s strange, to find such joy and still have it tempered by pain. This should be a resurrection, an awakening. Easter Sunday, but in the back of his mind he is wondering what he would have done if he met this woman while his wife was still alive, and he is glad he doesn’t have to make that choice, that he doesn’t have to be that man, but being glad for this means being glad that Darla’s dead, if even for a second, and that is terrible.

Still. There is joy awakening for the first time in a long time. Resurrection, a new lease on life.

Time doesn’t heal all wounds, but it teaches you how to live with your infirmities.

Buffy smells like fresh daisies and mimosas. Angel lays his hand on Buffy’s hip, lays his head on her pillow. He closes his eyes, drifts to sleep, and dreams of spring.

***

This is never a place he wants to be. But some things require sacrifice, and sacrifice is a talent he has mastered.

Angel knocks softly on Commander Giles’ door. The older man looks up at him over his glasses. For a brief moment, his face is impassive; then he motions Angel in.

“I trust this is not an involved visit, Sergeant, as I have yet to receive any paperwork on a case you might like to discuss.”

Suddenly, Angel is fourteen again, hands and knees bloodied from falling off the trellis, trying to climb up to Darla’s window. The next thing he knew, Darla’s father literally had him by the scruff of his neck, and was dragging him into the house, a litany of near-curses dripping from his lips about children these days and a lack of decorum.

“It’s more of a personnel issue, sir.”

Giles frowns. “You’re a smart young man, Sergeant, and a capable detective. But this is not a dating service, and I cannot constantly restaff my department because you and your new partner aren’t getting along.”

Inside, Darla’s father carefully examined him for broken bones, then cleaned and bandaged his scrapes. Then the old man took off his belt and gave Angel a whipping he can still feel, deep in his thighs, when the weather gets cold.

“Actually, sir, we are getting along. So well, in fact, that I felt it my duty to inform you.”

Angel was no stranger to discipline; his father beat him all the time, often with pleasure and without reason. The checking to see if he was okay thing was new, though. The only person who’d ever done that before was his sister, Cordelia, and their love was so great that his well-being was her well-being, so it was in part egotistical.

But no adult had ever shown that kind of regard for him, before.

Giles regards him silently for a long moment. Slowly, purposefully, he removes his glasses. He takes a handkerchief from his pocket and begins to polish the lenses.

“It’s not like you to come looking for my blessing, Angel,” he says softly.

Standing at the head of the church, watching Darla’s father lead her down the aisle. Maybe the most frightened he’d ever been, like there was a legitimate possibility that Giles would take his only child’s hand and run for the hills, never to return.

But Giles had set Darla’s hand in Angel’s, and he had given his blessing, and he had called him son.

“Just SOP, sir.”

Giles replaces his glasses, and looks at Angel for a long time.

“I hope it’s more than workplace flirting,” Giles said. “For your sake; she’ll be your partner long after the thrill of those little skirts wears off.”

Angel doesn’t owe him much, or maybe he owes him everything.

“It is,” he says. “Much more.”

***

Agendaless patrol can be so boring. Angel sits way back in the passenger’s seat, dark sunglasses obscuring his eyes.

Buffy frowns at him. “Are you sleeping?”

“Not if you keep talking at me,” Angel murmurs. Buffy is pretty sure his eyes are closed behind his glasses.

“Maybe you should look into some caffeine,” she says.

“Maybe you shouldn’t keep me up all hours of the night.”

Buffy grins. She rests her hand on Angel’s knee.

“This is the first time I’ve ever heard you complain about me keeping you . . . up,” she says, her hand sliding northerly.

Angel moans.

“Oh, please let there be a murder soon.”

Buffy’s brow raises. “You want me to stop?”

“I don’t want to get fired. I have a mortgage.”

Buffy rubs the heel of her palm over Angel’s fly. “You could just ask me to stop, you know.”

Angel’s neck arches, his head bearing into the headrest.

“No, I can’t,” he says. “I’m powerless against you. I’ll have to depend on outside interference.”

On cue, the radio crackles to life. “Car seven-Juliet, what’s your twenty?”

Buffy picks up the transmitter. “We’re at the intersection of Boredom and Sexual Frustration.”

“Ten-nine, seven-Juliet?”

Buffy rolls her eyes. “Never mind. What’s up?”

“Ten-nineteen, seven-Juliet. Fred’s looking for you.”

“Copy, dispatch. We are ten-nineteen.” Buffy replaces the transmitter and shoots a long look at Angel. He straightens in his seat, and removes his sunglasses, looking sheepish.

“Buckle up, partner,” she says. “We’re back to our regularly scheduled programming.”

***

Fred is waiting for them again, anxiously munching on popcorn. She hands Angel a thick packet of stapled papers.

“Your DNA results are in from the blood in Kendall’s apartment,” she says. “This is bad, Angel. They’re all OD’s that’ve come through here. I don’t know how I missed it.”

Angel looks up from the papers. “Were they missing all their blood when they were in there? Cuz I think I would remember a case like that.”

“No!” Fred says. “I’ve looked through my notes, and they were all just routine OD’s. I did a cursory exam on each of them, and every time I just declared it an accidental death and released the body to the family.”

“Did you run toxicology on any of them?” Buffy asks.

“No,” Fred says. “We only do that if we suspect foul play, or to determine cause of death.”

“So . . . what?” Angel asks. “Their blood had to be removed at the funeral home?”

“Or here,” Fred says. “Sometime after I was done examining the bodies.”

“So somebody snuck into the morgue,” Buffy says, “stole a bunch of blood, and made it out without raising any suspicions? In the middle of the police station? Does that seem farfetched to anyone else?”

“Far more likely,” Angel says, “that it was someone we work with. Working both sides.”

Buffy frowns. “Now there are dirty cops? Great.”

***

Buffy and Angel are spending some more quality time with their OD files when they receive a visitor. Angel doesn’t even look up to say, “I am too busy right now to play dress up with you, Kate.”

Kate puts her hands on her hips. “As much as I enjoy watching you pick up men, Angel, I’m actually here to do a favor for you.”

Angel spins his chair to face Kate. “Oh yeah?”

Kate sits at the edge of Angel’s desk, glancing over the piles of paperwork. “So, I heard you guys found some weird blood.”

“Heroin-y,” Buffy says.

“Well,” Kate says, “anytime we seize drugs, we do a basic chemical workup on a sample, and make a record of it. That’s how we tracked that fentanyl-laced heroin that was killing junkies a few months ago.”

“So good to know that Vice does more than embarrass Angel,” Buffy says.

“Well, that really is the highlight,” Kate says dryly.

Angel’s eyes roll heavenward. “We were solving crime for a moment, weren’t we?”

“When Gunn told me about your weird blood, I went back over our records. We’ve had several samples of H within the past couple months, including one from a shipment we intercepted from a Vampire dealer, come up as containing red blood cells.”

“Street heroin?” Angel asks. “In powder form?”

“Yes and yes,” Kate says.

“Thanks, Kate. That was very helpful.”

“Now you owe me,” she says on her way out the door. “I expect to be paid in the form of you wearing hot pants and going by the name Lance.”

Buffy regards her partner. “So . . . the Vampires shoot up their victims with ridiculous amounts of heroin, funnel their heroin-blood through the morgue, have their mole guy collect it before it leaves the station . . . and then turn it back into regular heroin? Why?”

“They probably do most of their sales and transport with it in blood form.”

“Again: why?”

“Anything to avoid getting busted for trafficking, I guess. Blood doesn’t look like heroin; it doesn’t smell like heroin; and if the drug dogs alert on it, the K9 unit will just think it’s a false positive.”

“I guess,” Buffy says. She wrinkles her nose. “I mean, I get it, I guess, but I don’t get bad guys. It’s so much work; why don’t they just get real jobs? Also: it just sounds icky.”

Angel smiles. “That’s why you’re on this side of the thin blue line.”

“Angel, look at this.” She points to a thin line of text at the bottom of one of the autopsy reports. “The same CSI tech signed off on all of these cases.”

Angel comes to read over her shoulder. “Knox. And here I was hoping the bad guy was Lilah Morgan. Is he the only common thread?”

“Except for Fred.”

“But she’s the county’s only ME. There’s dozens of CSI techs; what’re the odds that Knox is assigned to every one of these cases?”

“And you trust her. Fred.”

“I do.”

She studies his face. “And Knox?”

“Not as far as I can throw him.”

***

Knox is sweating, sticky. It’s kind of gross, but he’s always had difficulty controlling his body in times of high emotions. Plus it’s hot in this factory; Knox doesn’t understand why criminals can’t spring for air conditioning for their abandoned factory hideouts.

“Boss, we’ve got a problem.”

Pratt studies his fingernails. Time for another coat of nail polish. Damn black shows chips so easily. “Is it that you’ve called me here in the middle of my workday? Because that’s my problem, right now.”

“No, no, that’s—well, it couldn’t be avoided. I tried to fudge the DNA reports on those donors, but the ME, that damn Detective Chase, they’ve been too close—”

Pratt raises an eyebrow. “Oh, yes, our dear Detective Chase, protector of the innocent, rescuer of kittens . . .” He sighs and stabs a cigarette between his lips, flicks his lighter. “How much does he know?”

“Too much. He and his new partner-slash-girlfriend have been all over—”

“Old Angelus is back in the saddle, eh? What’s she look like? Small, blonde, bitchy? What about her tits? Nice pair on her? Say what you will about his taste; Angel could always be depended on to find a nice pair of breasts.”

Knox goggles. “What—Detective Summers? Her breasts? Who cares?! They’re days from finding us out—! Are—are you going to do something, or—I can’t go to jail, I’m a cop—”

Pratt narrows an ugly look at the little scientist. “You’re not a cop; you’re a sneaky little lab rat. And yes, princess, I’m going to do something about this little problem of ours.”

Viper fast, Pratt pulls a switchblade from his pocket, shoots out the blade, and drives it into Knox’s stomach. The CSI tech blubbers, coughing wetly and then falling to the ground.

Pratt cleans the knife on his jeans, and then shoves it back into his pocket. He takes a long drag on his cigarette.

“Problem solved.”


Chapter Five: In Which Things are Lost, and Begin

Buffy returns to the office not a happy crime solving puppy.

“Guess what? Knox skedaddled a couple hours ago, and no one knows where he went. I tried his home phone, his cell phone; nothing.”

Angel holds up a piece of paper. “I figured he might be less than forthcoming, so I got a warrant to dump his phone.”

Buffy comes in for a closer look. “Who’s he been calling, I wonder?”

“A landline in a factory that’s been abandoned for the past eighteen months.”

“And yet they have a phone.”

“And electricity. A lot of it. Fridgefuls of blood amounts of electricity.”

“And what’s the name on all these utilities accounts?”

Angel smiles. “Harmony Kendall.”

“Sounds like a fun place to visit. I’ll drive.”

***

The factory looks abandoned. They check the perimeter for open doors, and find none.

Buffy pouts. “Well, this is anticlimactic. Unless you got a warrant to search here, too?”

Angel smiles, and presents the warrant. Buffy presses an exuberant kiss to his lips.

“I knew I liked you.”

Angel breaks open a door with his shoulder. He pulls his gun from the holster, and holds the door open for Buffy.

“After you.”

The factory is dark, the air hot and sticky. Buffy removes her gun from the holster, and walks slowly through the hallway, staying close to the wall. They come to the first room, a small office. Buffy flattens herself against the doorjamb. She and her gun peer inside. She nods for Angel to go left, and then goes right herself.

On her way to the desk, Buffy trips over something. She puts a hand over her mouth to stifle her scream when she realizes it’s a dead body.

“I found Knox,” she says.

Angel hurries to her. He crouches to get a better look at the body, feels for a pulse.

“Shit,” he says.

“Is he dead?” Buffy asks. “Cuz he looks really dead.”

“He’s dead,” Angel says, standing. He checks his gun, glances down at Buffy’s. “Be careful.”

“You know me,” Buffy says, but she can hear her voice shaking.

Angel’s gaze is serious. “I mean it.”

***

They split up to cover more ground. Angel wants a Code Four before they radio in Knox. Blah blah blah SOP. Buffy’s glad she’s the junior officer; it’s much easier to skirt rules and regs that way.

Empty hallway, empty hallway, empty hallway. Who designed this building; MC Escher? Then she rounds a corner and there’s something new: a splash of artificial light, the hum of machines. Buffy radios quietly for Angel and approaches the last door on the right, where the light and hum emanate from, gun drawn.

There are long banks of machines Buffy cannot guess the purpose of, until she sees the hanging bags of blood; they must be involved in that heroin-to-blood alchemy. There is a man in the middle of the room, slapping bags of blood into coolers.

Buffy recognizes the blonde hair, prominent cheekbones, and snake-hypnotic stare from his jacket. She enters the room and squares her aim in the center of Pratt’s chest.

“Police,” she says. “Freeze.”

Pratt smiles, runs his eyes over her.

“You’re cuter than Darla,” he says. “Fresher. Old lady was a little cold, but you know our boy. He likes a firm hand.”

Buffy swallows dryly. “William Pratt, you are under arrest. Put your hands on your head, and—and I’ll come and . . . arrest you.”

“Handcuffs,” Pratt says. “That could be fun. Kinky; I like that.”

“I’ll shoot you,” Buffy says.

“By all means.”

Pratt takes step towards her. Buffy keeps her aim on the center of his chest, but feels her hands shaking. She’s never killed anyone before. The amount of pressure necessary to pull the trigger feels enormous.

“I will,” she says. “Stay back. Freeze.”

Pratt is only feet away.

“Freeze.”

Pratt lunges at her. Buffy’s finger is on the trigger but all she can think of is Harmony Kendall’s paper-pale body laid out on the slab in the morgue, of Knox sticky and cold in the pool of his own blood, of Merrick and the poppies. The gun goes clattering to the ground, and Pratt’s hands are around her wrist, around her throat.

A commanding, familiar voice breaks through Buffy’s terror.

“Freeze.”

Buffy can feel Pratt’s laugh rumbling in his chest before she can actually hear it. Buffy’s head swims in terror, spins like a dervish as Pratt wheels them around to face Angel. Angel’s hands are steady on his gun, and his gaze is steady on Pratt.

“Angelus,” Pratt says. “Long time, no see. Why is it every time we meet, I’m killing the pretty blonde you’re boning?”

Angel takes steps toward them. “Let her go, Spike.”

There’s a whistle, the air tearing, and Buffy sees a flash of silver out of the corner of her eye. Then cold, pressure, pain—a blade pressing to her throat.

“I don’t think so, old man,” Pratt says. “Put the gun down, or I’ll gut another of your girls.”

Angel stops advancing toward them, but does not lower his weapon. He looks at Pratt, then at Buffy.

“I’m a good shot, Spike,” he says, softly. “Let her go.”

Pratt presses the blade further into Buffy’s flesh. A bead of blood wells up on the silver edge. Angel’s jaw trembles. Slowly, keeping his eyes on Buffy, he crouches, places his gun on the ground. With the side of his foot, he kicks it away; it skitters a few feet and then stops, out of reach.

“Let her go,” he says, straightening.

Buffy half expects Pratt to kill her right then and there, but instead the blade is withdrawn and he shoves her violently to the ground. She hits the concrete hard and her world blinks, shuddering black and red. By the time she’s regained her bearings, Pratt and Angel are tangling together in a hand-to-hand fight. Buffy tries to rise, to help her partner, but the world throbs again and she falls back to the floor. She hears men’s voices shouting wordlessly; the thick, dull noises of flesh on flesh contact. Buffy takes a deep breath, collects all the strength left to her, and pushes her injured body off the concrete, to her hands and knees, to her feet.

Angel has Pratt’s knife hand by the wrist. Pratt writhes in his grasp, then, like a battering ram, headbutts Angel. Angel reels back, releasing Pratt; Pratt slices wildly with the knife. Angel, unsteady on his feet, takes a week stab to his shoulder and then uses Pratt’s own momentum to divest him of the weapon. It goes flying off into nowhere. Buffy comes at Pratt from behind, grabbing at his neck, but he throws her off. Angel yells for her, and as she’s coming to her feet Pratt deals him a blow to the head that throws him off kilter, and he falls to his knees. Before she can reach him, Pratt is hitting him again, a sharp kick to the temple, and Angel crumples to the cement floor, his body falling like a sack of flour.

“Angel!”

Pratt tsks as he sidles toward her.

“The man needs to get his priorities in order,” Pratt says. “Always rescuing the damsel in distress, ignoring the dragon coming to eat him.”

Pratt grabs her by the arm, pulls her into a position unsteady on her feet. Her eyes fall on Angel, his body still and prone on the concrete floor.

“I hate to disappoint, blondie,” Buffy says, “but I’m not really the damseling type.”

Her gun is gone, but she still has her taser. Buffy works the weapon out of its holster and into her hand, works her hand into position, the head of her taser nestled into the soft belly beneath Pratt’s ribcage. He has her arm, but she kicks against him with all her might, and pushes her thumb down on the trigger. The stun gun crackles to life, its electrodes boring into Pratt’s stomach. Buffy’s kick put some distance between them, but is not enough to separate them; she feels the electricity pulse painfully through her body.

Pratt screams and jerks away from her, his back arching painfully. His limbs jerk, his hands flailing over his stomach, clawing at the electrodes.

His hands are off her. With all the strength left to her, Buffy rolls away from Pratt, away from the electric shock of the taser. She closes her eyes, and breathes deep. Her head vibrates—from Pratt’s pushing her to the ground, from the electricity. The throb of her pulse overwhelms her, the ebb and flow of the tide rising all around her; the world outside is as removed from her as the sky from the deep of the ocean.

She just needs a moment to catch her breath, is all.

Somewhere, far away, Pratt stops screaming. She hears a familiar sound, deadly sound: the cocking of a nine millimeter.

“Not funny, bitch,” Pratt says, his voice ragged, shaken by the electricity.

Buffy opens her eyes to the unblinking eye of the barrel of her own gun. There are char marks, two little fang punctures in the belly of Pratt’s shirt, where the electrodes aren’t anymore.

Backup is not coming. Buffy tries to remember where Angel’s gun is, and cannot.

“Let’s see if you’ve heard this one before,” Pratt says, and aims.

There’s a thunderclap crack of a gun going off. Buffy flinches.

She opens her eyes slowly when no pain comes.

Pratt frowns. Between the little electrode fang marks, a slow red pool is blossoming.

“Nice shot, love,” he says vaguely. Smoke whispers out from his mouth, frosting on the air like warm breath in bitter winter cold.

Pratt drops the gun, and then drops to his knees. His eyes, egg white pale, roll back, and he falls to the factory’s cement floor, stone dead.

Buffy looks up. She comes shakily to her feet, and steps toward Angel, shakily on his.

She holds out her hand.

“Give me your gun,” she says softly.

Angel looks down at Pratt, and then back to Buffy. “Are you okay?”

She nods. “I’m fine. Nothing a few days without getting beaten up and electrocuted won’t fix.”

“He was going to kill you.”

“He was,” Buffy says, nodding. Her eyes steady on his. “Let me have your gun, Angel.”

“I’m okay,” Angel says. He is still in position, his legs spread shoulder-width apart, both hands out steadying his weapon. The blood on his temple is still wet. “I can handle it.”

Buffy continues walking toward him.

“It’s okay, sweetheart,” Buffy says. “Do you know you’re crying?”

Angel falters, his hands shaking a bit. The gun shaking.

“Who?” he asks vaguely. “When?”

“You,” Buffy says. She is breaths from him. “Right now.”

Angel lowers his weapon. With his left hand, he feels up for the moisture on his face.

“Oh,” he says. He swallows thickly. “Maybe—maybe you can take it, for a little while.”

He does not raise his weapon, but stands limp, compliant, as Buffy gently removes the gun from his hand. She removes the cartridge, puts the safety on, and holsters the weapon.

“I killed him,” Angel says, numbly, his eyes on the unmoving body formerly known as William Pratt.

“You did,” Buffy says.

“I killed the man who killed my wife.”

“You did,” Buffy says. “To save your partner. You did the right thing.” Angel doesn’t say anything. Buffy chances the sliver of a smile. “You’re going to have a ton of paperwork to do.”

Angel looks up at her suddenly, like he’s just noticed her presence.

“Yeah,” he says. “But at least I won’t have to break in a new partner.”

“You did the right thing,” Buffy says.

“Funny how the right thing doesn’t feel like it, sometimes.”

“That thin line, Sergeant,” Buffy says. “Morality’s tricky.”

She takes Angel’s hand.

“Let’s go home.”