Title: Benefits

Fandom: Btvs

Summary: Btvs S2 Pre S/I. Fluffy patrol moment. Written for 15 minute ficlets. The word was juvenile.

 

 

Most of the time he forgot she was so young. She carried the weight of the world on her shoulders with amazing grace, most of the time.

 

Right now was not one of those times.

 

            “It’s not fair, Angel,” she lamented as she sulked through the cemetery. He was sure her whining was scaring off all the demons in Sunnydale. If he had half a brain he’d be all the way to somewhere the slayer wasn’t right now.

 

            “Buffy, you’re sixteen. She’s your mother. She has a right to expect things from you,” Angel spoke up against his better judgment. He did, however, hold his tongue on telling her that in his day it would have been the leather strap to his hindquarters instead of a lecture on the value and importance of school.

 

            “Excuse me? You’re taking –her- side? You’re my boyfriend. You’re supposed to come down on the side of all things Buffy,” the blonde ranted.

 

            “I’m not taking sides. I’m trying to make you see that she has a point.”

 

            A look of undisguised murder was sent his way. “Yes. She has a point. And I have a point in failing history! I’m the slayer. While everyone else was busy studying for the mid term that I flunked, I was busy saving the world and making sure there was still a school for them to take the mid term in. That’s my point!”

 

He tucked his hands in his pockets and kept his distance. He hadn’t managed to live to be 241 old by pissing off slayers and staying within staking distance. “You’re mom doesn’t know any of those things, Buffy. She just sees a normal sixteen year old girl with no real reason for flunking…history? You’re flunking history?”

 

            “Yes. Go ahead and say it. What a moron I am for flunking something like history. I mean it’s not as if I’m flunking the real brain bender things like Chemistry or physics…okay so I am almost flunking chemistry. Held on by the skin of Willow’s teeth,” Buffy continued to rant and kicked at a headstone. She cursed under her breath and hopped on one foot.

 

Angel scooped her up in his arms and gently set her on the grass. He slipped her boot off, grinning at the pink socks scattered with monkeys that she wore. His fingers worked magic as he rubbed her toes, then the arch of her foot, the heel and back down to her toes.

 

            “You’re not a moron, Buffy. You’ve just got a lot of things on your mind. I may have a solution.”

 

            “Spill. I’m solution impaired as far as actually passing history goes,” she prompted him.

 

Angel gave her a lopsided grin, the one that made her heart flip flop. “Willow teaches you chemistry because she’s good at it. You need a history teacher that’s good at history.”

 

            “Okay…I honestly don’t think Snyder is gonna be hiring anyone that’s all history rah rah just for me,” Buffy hedged not getting what Angel was saying.

 

Angel chuckled, that grin spreading across his face. “Buffy, I’ve lived the better part of this history you’re studying. I’d be willing to help you with it if you like.”

 

Her first real smile of the night raced across Buffy’s face. She reached out and grabbed Angel’s arm, tugging him close enough that he could feel her breath on his face. She bit her bottom lip and looked up at him from underneath her lashes.

 

            “This history tutoring wouldn’t come with special Buffy only benefits…would it?” Her voice sounded breathy in the stillness of the cemetery.

 

Angel grinned again, leaning into her and capturing her lips with his, teasing her with a kiss before pulling away. “Oh, I think I could come up with some Buffy only benefits.”