![whattingawhat: ([Shipper] Buffy/Danny sexy)](https://v2.dreamwidth.org/6228013/1327028 "whattingawhat: [Shipper] Buffy/Danny sexy")
Danny Ocean: Does he make you laugh?
Tess Ocean: He doesn't make me cry.
So here’s the deal. I’m well aware of the fact that I’m kind of messed up in the whole love department. And that’s not really entirely my fault or really at all but I’m not shoving it off on Angel because if you know all the circumstances you can’t really blame him. [locked from Danny] Seriously, vampire with a soul? 150 years of being the thing in nightmares and then Boom…soul and you care about what you did for those 150 years and then you spend the next 100 years torturing yourself mentally and emotionally for it. You’re not gonna have the best concept of love either. And so much of it with the whole Angelus stuff and…stuff is so not his fault.[/unlocked] I was sixteen though and I fell in love with him so completely. It totally warped the way I think about love. I remember standing in a graveyard staring up at him in tears and he was telling me that this isn’t a fairytale. I don’t wake up when his kisses me. And I told him ‘no, when you kiss me I want to die’. What the hell is that? Seriously? I mean…maybe it doesn’t entirely make sense but it sure as hell set the mood for the next two years of our relationship and the way I think about love even today. And let’s be honest, all the relationships I had after that didn’t exactly refute the whole concept of love equals pain that I learned with Angel. I mean if you’re in love, it’s supposed to hurt and if it doesn’t it’s probably not real love. Or you know…so I thought…think. The deal is I don’t know anymore. I figure if love hurts so bad why is everyone going around falling into it? And if it’s not supposed to hurt, why do they call it falling? The most painful thing I ever did in my entire life was fall. So falling equals pain. Most people won’t argue that with you, even if they aren’t me. Falling in love equals pain…makes sense, right? It’s logical...I mean if you’re Buffy it’s logical.
But I’ve been thinking (and that’s the point of therapy, yeah?) maybe I’ve got it all wrong. Maybe love is things like teaching someone how to cook but not letting them anywhere near the fire or taking nine flights of stairs when there’s one perfectly good elevator. Maybe it’s not asking questions and accepting on faith things that you don’t know and following that line of thought, maybe love doesn’t have to hurt and it doesn’t have to be painful and maybe, just maybe love doesn’t have to make you cry. There will never be anyone like Angel ever again and I think maybe that’s a good thing. I had happy times with him. I really did. These totally giddy, flying so high I couldn’t see the ground, pure ecstatic moments but they always, always, always came with pain so bad I thought it would scoop me out, leave me hollow and kill me. I couldn’t breathe sometimes things with Angel hurt so bad. I’ve drowned once and I know how it feels to die from not breathing. The thing is I don’t know if I love Danny or not. I think we’re still kinda new for that and I think I should probably figure out what love is before I even begin thinking I might be in love with anyone ever again. I mean…does it always equal pain? Previous experience says yes. Does it always mean sacrifice? Ditto to that. Does it always mean that the feeling might not go away but the person does? And yup yet again. It’s all so mixed up with death and pain and sacrifice that I don’t know how to unravel it to figure out exactly what love is all by itself. I know what unromantic love is. I mean…Dawn…[locked from Danny] I died for her (and again with the sacrifice, death and pain) and I’d do it all over again without a second thought. I’ve got the whole what love means thing down and then again…maybe I’m wrong there. Maybe that’s just one facet of love to an extreme. See? Screwed up, right? [/unlocked] I’ve got all these ideas about love and I’m not sure any of them are right. So yeah…I don’t know if I love Danny or not yet. I know I like him. A lot. I know he makes laugh . Nothing with Danny hurts. There’s no history, no past, no sacrifice. There’s no accusation or blame or guilt. There’s no pain, no can’t, shouldn’t, wouldn’t or wish we coulds. We don’t have boundaries and sure we don’t know everything about the other one either, but a lot of what I learned about Angel I read in a book. And I figure, we’ve got time. The world isn’t going to end because of Danny and me And if that changes I swear to God I will storm Heaven and no one will be happy. It’s just me and him and whatever comes next. Most importantly of all, Danny doesn’t make me cry. That’s new for me and I’m kind of liking it.
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