TITLE: Stupid Joey
1/1 – 100% Angst, Plot, and Context-Free Mush
AUTHOR: Ducks – Still and always The Anti-Joss; Born Again Angel Ho.
DISCLAIMER: *snort* Yeah. Right. ‘Cause the last few
seasons of BtVS and season 3 of Angel would *ever* come out of my pen.
RATING: PG-13
PAIRING: B/A (Duh.)
TIMELINE: Sometime post-‘Chosen’. Only, let’s just pretend the
whole Cookie thing didn’t happen.
SPOILERS: None, except for the series finale of "Dawson’s
Creek"
SUMMARY: Do we need a summary for plotless mush? Okay... how
about -- I did this to my TV with popcorn once. *G*
DISTRIBUTION: My site: ducksfanfic.denialbubble.com. Others may
distribute freely, as long as these comments are kept intact.
FEEDBACK: Infrequently answered, but *always* appreciated. *G*
DEDICATION: To DB/SMG. Seeing them together again made all the
politics, the lame storylines, the ridiculous mis-charactarizations, the
fandom wars, and pretty much everything else, moot. Thank you, as
always, to my ever-faithful fans, who have stuck around even when I was
gone. And most of all, to the Beta Queens: Karen, Cris, and
V. I love you, guys. *SMOOCH*
NOTES: Okay, just for the record, I don’t watch Dawson’s Creek.
I don’t care who Joey picked – Pacey,
Dawson, or the cashier at the Quickie Mart (Heh. Wouldn't that
be Apoo?). I know bare basics and backstory... that’s IT. So
please, all you freaky DC shippers? Save the flame-mail.
Since Vatrixsta verbally
beat me until I bled (actually, she bled, because there were daggers
through hearts, gasping and sobbing... it was a whole big thing. *G*),
I'll put this extra disclaimer in bold. Please pay careful
attention: I. Don't. Actually. WATCH. Dawson's. Creek. I. Don't.
Actually. HAVE. An. Opinion. On. This. Matter. Thank
you. ;)
Also, my writing skills have gotten WAY rusty. Bear with while I
work the crap out. And for all of you
who have asked, yeah, I’m working on ‘Something Old:Book 5.’ I
started it from scratch... again.
Stupid Joey 1/1
By Ducks
~
The sound of Buffy’s keening hit Angel like a truck before he even
mounted the steps of her house. That hopeless, moaning wail he hadn’t
heard in forever – and hoped never to hear again – sliced his heart
into a billion bloody pieces even as that ostensibly dead organ clenched
in terror.
Something was wrong. Horribly wrong.
He didn’t bother fumbling with the keys. Instead, he kicked the
door in and bolted inside.
She was curled up in a shivering ball on the couch, her face buried in her
hands. The living room was trashed... like there’d been some kind
of fight, albeit a pretty bizarre one involving several dozen boxes of
tissues and a large bowl of buttered popcorn.
Angel scoured the room
carefully for signs of what could have done this, but found nothing.
No blood, no other signs that anything had broken in and attacked
her. Only the mess, and a large smear of butter grease streaking the
darkened TV screen.
He quickly moved to sit beside Buffy on the couch, automatically shoving
aside the small mountain of crumpled Kleenex and taking her limp form into
his arms. Holding her... rocking her when she was upset... when had
it become so natural again? As natural as his habit of
breathing. Only more so, because he didn’t *need* to breathe.
On the other hand... touching her, feeling her warm skin, her strong
heartbeat, those he needed.
"Hey. Shhh," he murmured as she curled just as naturally
into him, clutching his shoulders and burying her face in his sweater with
a choked sob. "Shhh, honey. What’s wrong? Are you
hurt?"
"Y-yes!" she
hiccupped. "It...it was *awful*! Terrible! I can’t stand
it!"
Angel gently pulled her away, brushing the stream of tears from her
flushed cheeks with his fingertips as
he gazed into her red-rimmed eyes.
"Talk to me," he urged, "Tell me what happened."
Buffy sniffled, her face screwed up tight in some unimaginable pain for a
moment, before she
finally managed to meet his gaze straight on.
"Pacey," the Slayer murmured miserably, then wailed, "SHE
PICKED PAAAACEEEYYYY!"
Angel started and stared in confusion. "Huh? I don’t..."
She yanked out of his embrace, waving the tatters of her latest tissue at
the television. "That stupid Joey! She chose PACEY!
STUPID PACEY! She could have been with Dawson, but NO! She picked
PACEY! It’s just... WRONG!"
Her lover continued to stare blankly at her. "Buffy... I don’t
know what you’re talking about. Who’s Joey? And... what’s
a Pacey?"
Buffy shot him a glare. "Hello! Dawson’s Creek?"
"Is that... somewhere near here?" he guessed, hoping these weren’t
friends of hers or something that he was supposed to remember. He
wracked his brain for any memory of the names or places she mentioned, but
came up with nothing.
Damn.
She gave an exasperated sigh. "You’ve known me for how long,
Angel?"
That answer at least, he knew without a second thought. "Six
years... with a few interruptions. "
"And what, since practically the first day we met, come monsters or
apocalypses... apocalypti?... do I always, *always* do on
Wednesday night?"
Ah. Right. Angel relaxed and tried not to smile as he finally
figured it out. Disguising his chuckle at
the notion that his warrior princess was this crushed over a television
soap opera with a cough, he replied, "Watch Dawson’s Creek?"
"Right." Buffy got up and began to pace back and forth
across the living room. "Tonight I finally got
to watch the last episode, and Joey *finally* chose. But did she
choose the person who knew her and loved her longer and better than anyone
else?"
He sat back on the couch, watching her trek. "I’m guessing
not."
"NO! She chose that
Johnny-come-lately-totally-put-her-through-hell-idiot-loser PACEY.
GOD!"
"And... that’s bad... why? I mean... let’s just set aside
the fact that we’re talking about a TV
show, here. The heart wants what the heart wants," Angel said,
trying desperately to be empathetic about all this. Buffy took her
television very seriously.
The Slayer froze in her tracks and laid an even darker look on him.
"Don’t quote that disgusting child
molester to me, Angel."
"Sorry. But in sentiment, at least, he’s right. We can’t
always choose who we fall in love with."
"That is SO not the point!" she barked, and plopped back
down beside him on the couch. Her voice softened as she went
on. "I mean... everybody always says ‘first love never
lasts’; ‘your soul-mate isn’t
necessarily the one you spend your life with’; and ‘you can’t
really know what love is at 16’, blah blah
blah."
Further realization finally dawned on him, and he chuckled softly as he
put his arm around his beloved
once more, tucking her tightly to his side and resting his cheek on her
head. "And you think ‘they’ are
wrong."
"Of course I do," she leaned back to gaze up into his dark
eyes. "Don’t you?"
"Do you need to ask?" he whispered with a gentle smile. "I
think the answer should be apparent by now."
She finally smiled in response to his. "I just... it hit me,
watching that... I’ve never loved anyone but you. Not really, not
in all these years. I can’t imagine spending my life with anyone
else. I can’t even imagine *wanting* to imagine it. I
mean... what if I had ended up with Riley... or Spike?"
Angel’s smile vanished, morphing instantly into his more characteristic
glower. "That’s not funny."
"It wasn’t meant to be. I always thought Joey and Dawson
would end up together, you know? It just made *sense*. And...
in that last scene, when they panned in on her and Pacey... it was like
watching me and Spike watching your television show. It was a
total slap in the face. I mean..." She looked into his
eyes again. "It's like they were telling me the way I feel is
wrong. I know, it’s stupid."
He just looked at her in silence for a moment, love lighting his
features. "It’s not stupid. Weird, maybe, but not
stupid. And... you have the strangest thought processes of anyone I’ve
ever met."
"Is that an insult?" Buffy pouted.
"Not at all. Listen... who cares what some fictional character
did? You’re a real person. *We’re* real people. And
in spite of everything we’ve been through, together and apart... we are
together now. You did choose me." He leaned closer until
their noses touched. "We chose each other."
She sighed happily and slid her arms up around his neck. "Yeah,
we did," she murmured, and closed the last inch separating their
lips.
It was one of those kisses she daydreamed about, starting soft and gentle,
a sweet, tender caress that
lit a spark that quickly bloomed into a firestorm. It lasted only a
moment, but spoke an eternity’s worth
of emotion. Love: past, present... and always. When they
parted again, both were breathless.
"I can’t believe you equated me with a television character named
*Dawson*," Angel complained, "Hey. Is
he the one with the really tall head?"
Buffy laughed and pushed him flat on his back, straddling his hips.
"Forget it. Joey’s an idiot. I’ll keep my first and
only love, thank you very much."
"I agree." Angel pulled her closer. "But
seriously... my forehead isn’t that big, is it?"
She softly kissed his brow. "Your forehead is just
perfect." She repeated the kiss. "It’s my very
favorite forehead." Another kiss. "It’s the first
forehead I ever loved, and it’s the only forehead for me, ever.
And the hair? That just goes without saying."
He grinned, satisfied, and pulled her into his arms.
"Good. Hey... what's wrong with my hair?"
~Fini~
