BtVS Ficlet: Mementos And Memories
May. 12th, 2025 07:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
badly_knittedTitle: Mementos And Memories
Fandom: BtVS
Author:
badly_knittedCharacters: Buffy, Angel
Rating: PG
Setting: Far into the future.
Summary: Many years into the future, Buffy thinks about an old leather jacket and her first real love.
Word Count: 633
Written For:
evil_little_dog’s prompt ‘Buffyverse, Buffy Summers(/Angel), She misses his leather jacket (and him) some days,’ at ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
comment_fic.Disclaimer: I don’t own BTVS, or the characters.
The black leather jacket Angel gave to Buffy when she was sixteen, because it looked better on her than it did on him, is long gone. Being the Slayer is hell on a girl’s wardrobe, but despite that, she kept wearing it long after she should have thrown it out, just because of what it was and who it had once belonged to.
Eventually though, it had gotten too shabby, the leather cracked and flaking, too many places where it was held together with cunningly disguised duct tape, and even then it had lurked in the back of her closet, a memory of a love long gone, a childhood that was no more than a dim and distant memory.
Then she’d moved again, and she’d been about to pack the jacket along with her other things when she’d stopped, knowing it was time she let it go. She couldn’t bring herself to throw it in the dumpster with the rest of her trash though; it had seemed disrespectful, although of what she wasn’t sure. Angel? The past? Her memories? In the end, she’d simply left it there on its hanger in the closet for the landlord or the next tenant to deal with, closing the door and walking away, blinking back the tears as one more memento of her youth was discarded.
She still thinks of the jacket sometimes, when she reaches into her closet for a coat and just for a moment expects to feel the familiar texture of old leather. She misses it. She still has the cross Angel gave her, the claddagh ring, and the book of poetry, so it’s not as if she has nothing to remember her first lover by, but there was something more… intimate about the jacket, if only because Angel had worn it, had taken it off and wrapped it around her one evening because he’d thought she looked cold.
Sometimes it’s not the jacket she misses so much as Angel himself. How long has it been since the last time their paths crossed? Twenty years? Twenty-five? She knows he’s still out there, fighting the good fight. Every once in a while she hears word of him from one of the other Slayers roaming the world, hunting vampires and demons, and for an instant her heart skips a beat, the old feelings buried deep but still as strong as ever.
She wonders what it would be like to see him again in person. Would he still recognise her? Would it still hurt the way it used to? She thinks it would. No matter how much time has passed, no matter that she’s moved on to other lovers, what she felt for Angel is burned into her soul with dreams of what might have been if he hadn’t been a vampire, if loving her hadn’t cost him his soul.
Chances are, they wouldn’t have lasted. She’d been too young, too naïve, and he’d been a couple of centuries older. But what if they HAD lasted? What if he’d been made fully human again? Would they have married? Had children? Lived a normal life and grown old together?
It’s fine to wonder, but not practical. Buffy isn’t that girl anymore, she’s a mature woman older than her mom had been back then. It should be enough for her to know that Angel still lives, as much as any vampire can be said to be alive, and she is glad; she and the other Slayers can use all the help they can get in the never-ending fight against evil. Still, perhaps it’s better this way. Seeing each other again, even after so long, might be too much of a temptation. She might not be the cute teenager anymore, but Buffy likes to think she’s aging gracefully.
She does wish she still had the jacket though.
The End
Eventually though, it had gotten too shabby, the leather cracked and flaking, too many places where it was held together with cunningly disguised duct tape, and even then it had lurked in the back of her closet, a memory of a love long gone, a childhood that was no more than a dim and distant memory.
Then she’d moved again, and she’d been about to pack the jacket along with her other things when she’d stopped, knowing it was time she let it go. She couldn’t bring herself to throw it in the dumpster with the rest of her trash though; it had seemed disrespectful, although of what she wasn’t sure. Angel? The past? Her memories? In the end, she’d simply left it there on its hanger in the closet for the landlord or the next tenant to deal with, closing the door and walking away, blinking back the tears as one more memento of her youth was discarded.
She still thinks of the jacket sometimes, when she reaches into her closet for a coat and just for a moment expects to feel the familiar texture of old leather. She misses it. She still has the cross Angel gave her, the claddagh ring, and the book of poetry, so it’s not as if she has nothing to remember her first lover by, but there was something more… intimate about the jacket, if only because Angel had worn it, had taken it off and wrapped it around her one evening because he’d thought she looked cold.
Sometimes it’s not the jacket she misses so much as Angel himself. How long has it been since the last time their paths crossed? Twenty years? Twenty-five? She knows he’s still out there, fighting the good fight. Every once in a while she hears word of him from one of the other Slayers roaming the world, hunting vampires and demons, and for an instant her heart skips a beat, the old feelings buried deep but still as strong as ever.
She wonders what it would be like to see him again in person. Would he still recognise her? Would it still hurt the way it used to? She thinks it would. No matter how much time has passed, no matter that she’s moved on to other lovers, what she felt for Angel is burned into her soul with dreams of what might have been if he hadn’t been a vampire, if loving her hadn’t cost him his soul.
Chances are, they wouldn’t have lasted. She’d been too young, too naïve, and he’d been a couple of centuries older. But what if they HAD lasted? What if he’d been made fully human again? Would they have married? Had children? Lived a normal life and grown old together?
It’s fine to wonder, but not practical. Buffy isn’t that girl anymore, she’s a mature woman older than her mom had been back then. It should be enough for her to know that Angel still lives, as much as any vampire can be said to be alive, and she is glad; she and the other Slayers can use all the help they can get in the never-ending fight against evil. Still, perhaps it’s better this way. Seeing each other again, even after so long, might be too much of a temptation. She might not be the cute teenager anymore, but Buffy likes to think she’s aging gracefully.
She does wish she still had the jacket though.
The End
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