NEW FIC: Morning After

[afteriwake.livejournal.com]

Title: Morning After
Author/Artist: Ragna (afteriwake)
stagesoflove Theme: Five times of day (dawn)
Rating: PG
Author's Note: The fic where these two meet is going to be my crossbigbang fic entry, so it won't be up for a while. But just suffice to say that they don't always get along very well before this point.

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He knew he should feel disgusted or at least guilty for what he did last night, but he didn’t. He looked down at her sleeping and found instead that he was very glad it had happened. Sure, he was going to catch all kinds of hell from Danny over this, but since Bela Talbot got thrown into his life and he got presented with a world he never knew existed, this was the first thing that had felt right in a while.

“I don’t like being watched while I sleep, Detective,” a slightly sleepy voice said, breaking him out of his thoughts.

“Just trying to get my head straight, and I didn’t feel like staring out the window,” he said with a bemused grin. Even half asleep, Bela would try her best to get him to do what she wanted, not what he wanted.

“Please go stare out the window so I can go back to sleep,” she said, not even lifting her head up.

“Yes, ma’am,” he replied, getting out of bed and throwing on his jeans. Instead of going to the bedroom window he went into her kitchen. Last night had been the first time he’d spent more than a half hour in her apartment. He hadn’t expected to spend the night, he thought to himself as he looked out the window and saw the sun starting to rise. But his relationship with Bela had been very unexpected from the moment they’d been introduced. After all, having her nonchalantly carry on an argument with Danny after he dusted a vampire, he found out, was typical Bela. Only at the time it hadn’t seemed so typical at all.

She had made him coffee once when he’d come to pick her up for a meeting with Buffy and Danny, and he remembered vaguely where everything was: the coffee, the espresso machine, the cups. It only took him a few minutes before he got everything set up.

“Making yourself at home?”

He turned to see her standing in the hallway, wearing his shirt with her eyebrow raised and a smirk on her face. “Well, usually when I’m up at this time of day I have a cup of coffee in my hand.”

“Let me do it so you don’t break my machine,” she said. He set everything down and took two steps back as she came into the kitchen and began making the espresso. “Last night was not very typical of me.”

“Yeah, me either,” he said.

She turned to look at him. “I can’t believe I’m about to say this, but I apologize if I come off rude. It isn’t my intention.”

“I’m actually kinda used to rude from you,” he said with a grin.

“Well, I try my best not to be rude to the men I’m sleeping with that I actually like,” she said as she turned away from him and concentrated on the coffee.

“And how many of those have there been?” he asked, genuinely curious.

“Two,” she said. “Someone else and you.” He nodded slowly, not pushing for information on the someone else and accepting the admission at face value. But he didn’t need to push because she continued before he could reply. “It was a long time ago, when I was naïve and thought I needed to be rescued. I was wrong.”

“You rescued yourself, didn’t you?”

“Yes, I did,” she said. “After that I decided that I wouldn’t care about any man I slept with. And most men didn’t care, actually. It worked out fairly well for everyone involved.”

“And now?” he asked.

She turned to look at him. “It appears I have broken my own rule,” she said.

“I broke one of my own, if it helps you feel any better.”

“Never sleep with a criminal?” she asked with a slight smirk.

“Okay, make that two rules,” he said.

“Really?” she asked, surprised. “I would have thought that that was the main one you broke.”

“There have been one or two women who’ve flirted with me and with whom I’ve entertained thoughts about that ended up being criminals. If the team hadn’t figured out that they were guilty there’s no telling what might have happened.”

“So what rule did you break?” she asked.

“Never sleep with someone that doesn’t trust me.”

She narrowed her eyes. “I trust you, Don. If I didn’t trust you I never would have allowed you into my bed.”

“Then it appears I only broke one rule,” he said with a nod.

“There may be times I don’t trust your colleagues, but they aren’t you, and I trust you. Danny as well,” she said. “You two seem to be the most honest cops I’ve ever come across who understand what it is that I’ve dealt with in my long career of stealing magical artifacts.”

“A career from which you’ve retired,” he said, grinning slightly.

“Yes, I’ve retired,” she grumbled. “Thank goodness I was as good as I was, or else I’d have to get a normal job. I don’t think I could stand that.”

“Don’t knock a nine to five until you’ve had one. Then you can knock it all you want.”

She looked at him for a moment and then smiled. “Well, then I’ll keep my thoughts on gainful employment to myself.”

He took a step towards her and titled her chin up with one of his knuckles. “You can say whatever you want about it. I don’t mind.”

“Why don’t you mind?”

“Because when you do I learn a little more about you. You’re not such a mystery.”

She smiled slightly. “I may always be a mystery to you, Detective.”

“I don’t mind. I like solving mysteries,” he said, leaning in to kiss her. He dropped his hand when she wrapped her arms around his neck and deepened the kiss. Within moments, the coffee was forgotten and he was already leading her back into her bedroom. If all mornings went like this, he thought to himself, then he could get used to spending them with Bela.