Their bedroom was supposed to be a haven.

The thought wouldn't leave Buffy alone as she stared at the big, imposing door before her. She could feel him beyond the barrier, feel his rage and his hurt; pictured him like a great, wounded animal, huddled in on himself, ready to strike out.

It should have been her job to comfort him; instead, she was the cause of his pain.

He doesn't know, she tried to tell herself. He's just worried because you left without telling him.

Except something deep down in Buffy's gut told her that that wasn't it at all.

He can't know, she insisted.

Her eyes shut tightly in shame. Yes, she would know. And he would be man enough to come to her afterwards.

Buffy's hand found the doorknob and she stepped through the archway before she could stop herself. The room was dark, oppressively so, and her nostrils scented blood and alcohol.

Angel sat in the corner, his profile to her, in the same chair she'd dragged out onto the balcony earlier. His left arm hung to the side of his chair, his hand clutching a tumbler half full of a thick, dark liquid. Buffy suspected some sort of bourbon and O-Pos cocktail. He must have known the second she entered the room -- would have, in fact, felt her in the hall -- but he gave no indication.

There was nothing but taut silence between them. His eyes were hidden from her in the shadows, and she wasn't sure if that relieved her or disturbed her. She'd always been able to read him by looking into his eyes, but right now, she wasn't sure she wanted to see what was there.

"Nothing happened," she said quietly, though her voice caught on a sob.

The sound of glass shattering made her jump, and he'd moved so fast she had to guess that he'd thrown his drink against the wall. He was standing now, his back to her, his hands shoved into his pockets.

"I'd say it was a little more than nothing," he replied softly. Dangerously . . .

"Angel," she began hesitantly.

"You've been gone for nearly two days," he said icily. "The first day, I was wondering if you were dead. I was half-crazed over what I'd said to you that made you run so far from me . . . And then Spike came back. Gave me quite an earful."

"And you believe =Spike=," she spat.

"Not normally," he agreed, then finally turned his face into the light, and oh, God, she'd been right, she didn't want to see his eyes right now. "But I could smell you on him. All over him."

"It isn't what you think," she whispered, and there were tears running down her cheeks now, and it only seemed to make him angrier.

Again, he moved too fast for her muddled brain to track him, and before she knew it, his hands were wrapped tightly around her upper arms, and he was shaking her harder than he ever had; harder than when he'd been soulless.

"What am I supposed to think, Buffy? Am I supposed to think that we had a fight, we said some hurtful things to one another, and instead of facing me, you went out and fucked Spike?"

"I'm sorry," she whispered, her sobs intensifying as she dug her nails into his chest. His grip only tightened, and she was glad for it. It hurt, but so long as he held onto her, there was hope. There was always hope with him, how had she forgotten that?

"How could you . . ." His voice was quiet again, that deathly, pained quiet he got sometimes when it would take strength he didn't have to yell. Her sobs intensified at being the cause of such quiet in him.

"I'm so sorry, I screwed up, I'm sorry, I love you so much," she whispered again and again between loud, hitching sobs. Somehow, her mouth found his and, though he was resistant, he began to kiss her back. Angry, violent kisses that she welcomed the way she'd always welcomed all of him.

A split second later, her back was pressed against the wall and he was ripping the clothes from her body. It was like he was possessed, only he was still her Angel, as his mouth moved over her throat, her collarbones, licking and sucking and biting at her flesh. Her underwear, he balled up and threw into the wastebasket.

"Those," he whispered roughly into her ear, "we burn later."

He fell to his knees before her, spread her legs apart and attacked her wet flesh with single-minded determination. He was vamped out, and his ridged forehead bumped against her as he sought out her pleasure with lips and tongue and fangs. The unrestrained violence vibrating beneath the surface of him set off a chain reaction inside her body, spoke to the demon that lived and howled inside her skin, and she came for him in the space of a heartbeat she didn't have.

With hurried desperation, his mouth made the journey back up her body, stopping along the way to suckle at her nipples in turn, pulling at them so hard, a scream caught in her throat and her hands gripped his hair with white-knuckled intensity. That seemed to make him angrier, and he grabbed her wrists; pinned them at her sides as he attacked her mouth again.

The fact that he was still fully clothed was not lost on her, and she dared to slip her wrists from his grasp; brought her hands to the hem of his sweater; warily lifted her gaze to the blazing yellow of his eyes. There was no demand to stop in his expression, so she slipped the black pullover from his body and tossed it aside; moved her hands to his belt and rid him of it, his pants, and his boxers with superhuman speed.

His hands moved to her face, cupped her cheeks with a grip that might have scared her, once upon a time, when she'd been girlish and stupid. This possessiveness, this dangerous, wild intensity . . . this was what she'd wanted from him. This was what she'd longed for, part of what they'd fought about earlier, part of why she'd fled to that goddamn bar. This was everything she'd never thought he'd be able to give her, because he was too afraid -- too guilty -- to tap into it.

"You belong to me," he practically growled. Her hands covered his wrists, smoothed along his forearms, then moved back to his where they still rested over her cheeks.

"Yes," she whispered, closing her eyes as his mouth descended on hers.

He believed she'd given her body to someone else; was convinced that she'd let Spike crawl between her legs and fuck her the way he'd wanted to for years. Angel believed that with every fiber of his being, and he was still willing to claim her, to press these bruising, longed for kisses to her lips, to rake his fingers through her hair, and grip her hips with his palms so tight, she'd be marked by it if she were human.

"Mine," he growled into her ear as his hands lifted her off the ground, slid her back up the wall so they were even with one another now, so she could feel how hard he was against her hip.

"Yes," she moaned again, reaching between them for his cock, rubbing the tip with her thumb as she stroked him with slow, firm movements.

Batting her gentle caress away, he thrust inside her with no preliminaries, and his hands held hers, their arms stretched wide out to the side. The only thing pinning her to the wall was his hips, his huge, strong chest, and the force of his mouth on hers. She wrapped her legs high around his back until she could cross her ankles. In this position, with him holding her hands so tightly, she was helpless, and she loved it, loved the fact that she =could= love it, that even after everything she still felt safe with him.

Thrusting into her brutally, he began moving his mouth over her neck, her shoulders, licking and biting every inch of skin he could reach. Shallow wounds opened, tiny rivers of blood began to flow, and he licked those up, too, as he pounded her into the wall hard enough to crack the plaster.

Small, inarticulate little cries left her mouth as he varied the speed and angle of his hips against hers. Coherency had left the building the moment he'd moved inside her, and all she was left with now was the pounding, her head against the wall, his hips against hers, the way he wasn't pulling out of her at all now, he was staying so deep and just grinding his hips harder and faster than should have been humanly possible, but then he wasn't human and neither was she, thank God because if she were human, this wouldn't feel. So. Damn. Good.

Then, suddenly, it stopped. He had pulled out of her and she was crumpling to the floor and she was so unfulfilled, so needy, teetering on the edge, about to fall over . . .

. . . and then he was there again, pressed against her back, one arm slung around her chest to pull her to him roughly. Down on her knees, she spread her legs wide, arching against him, begging him with a series of animal keening noises.

"Shh," he soothed into her ear, crudely cupping her pelvis in his hand, tilting her to the angle he wanted. Finally, he was inside her again, where he belonged, and the new position had her spasming around him the moment she had him back.

His now blunt teeth clenched down on her shoulder as he began to thrust in a slow, punishing rhythm. One hand braced their weight on the floor, the other continued to cup her; not caressing, not tantalizing -- possessing.

Buffy's nails dug into the floor; ripped up some of the carpet. An almost constant wail escaped her throat, pitched perfectly against the deeply primal grunts he made around her flesh. His chest against her back created friction, and she moved closer, craved more, brought one of her hands down to rest on his against the floor. Their fingers twined together and his thrusts grew more frenzied, erratic but still brutal.

A loud, primal scream left her mouth as his fangs grew and -- almost effortlessly -- slipped into her neck. He drew deeply from her, growled and snarled as he fed and came and somehow managed to almost make her feel clean again as his cold seed filled her dead, clenching womb.

Once rational thought returned to her again, the sobbing started anew, and he released his hold on her long enough for her to turn around and wrap both arms around his shoulders, her legs around his waist as he knelt on the floor. And his beautiful arms wrapped around her body, and he cradled her against him as he nuzzled the mark on her throat, licked the wound closed and rocked her, God, after everything, he was still rocking her so gently.

The next thing she felt was the ice-cold texture of the bathroom sink. He was filling the big claw foot tub with hot water and bubbles, stripping what was left of his clothes off, and that only made the tears worse, because he was going to make her clean again.

She didn't protest as he picked her up and sat down in the tub with her. Instead, she curled into his lap, wrapped herself around him as tightly as was physically possible, and hoped for the strength to tell him all the things he needed to hear.

will we burn in heaven
like we do down here
will the change come
while we're waiting
everyone is waiting

It burned through her like a fever.

There was a motel -- one of those places that rented rooms by the hour -- next to the bar. Spike had them checked in and through the doorway of room #7 before she'd been able to fully process that they weren't in the bar anymore.

His mouth on hers had been cool and possessive, craving her the same way it craved cigarettes and God, how she'd needed to feel that.

Spike's hands had always had minds of their own, but at the time, they'd seemed intent on blazing the newest trails in the fastest amount of time. One slid under her top to palm a breast, the other moved over the crotch of her pants, rubbing in a way that made her moan and cringe at the same time.

This was so wrong.

As he walked them over to the bed the words wouldn't leave her mind. As he inched her top off so he could lick at her breasts like the runt of the litter finally getting a teat, they got louder.

And when his hand slipped down the front of her pants, his fingers already busy seeking out her pleasure -- the volume of those words would have shattered glass.

Her denial was a powerful opponent, though. It did brave battle with her heart, the same heart that, at the very moment, had been slowly dying inside her chest. It did not beat, but it =lived= and this act was a betrayal of all it held dear.

Sure, this was wrong, but so was everything Angel denied her. When he turned human, that, too, would be wrong, and when he left her . . . surely this betrayal would somehow counteract that betrayal so that she would not be as badly hurt, as she knew for certain that she would be.

Then there were Spike's lips again, and he was whispering against her mouth, something that sounded like 'What's wrong, luv?' which was ridiculous, because she wanted this, she wanted it, she . . .

. . . was crying, silently, constantly crying and her body had ceased to be responsive to his. Instead, it was curling up on itself and the tears weren't silent anymore, they were great, racking sobs and =what= was =wrong= with her?

"I-- I can't," she gasped out between sobs.

The fever had broken.

There was sadness on his face, but it was resigned sadness. "I know," he murmured. "Can't blame a bloke for hoping, though. Thought maybe the temporary insanity would last a bit longer."

She let him hold her for a moment, then realized that even that felt like a betrayal. Launching herself off the bed, she hurriedly pulled her clothes together.

"Pet," he murmured, "sun'll be up soon. Just stay 'til it goes down again--"

"I can't stay here with you," she muttered. If she'd been human, she would have had to run into the bathroom to throw up. As it was, her insides felt as though they'd turned to dust.

"Angelus will be a lot more put out with you if you go and get yourself killed, deprivin' him of the joy of brooding over this latest bump in your tragic love story."

Her gaze was drawn to the bed, to Spike, his shirt ripped open, the first button on his jeans undone . . . God, what had she almost done? What had she =done=?

The 'fuck-it' attitude a bottle of bourbon had given her was fast fleeing. Nothing but the cold, hard truth remained and her heart took that moment to let itself be known -- I'm here! I'm alive! You're a selfish, stupid demon with a soul and you've just destroyed the one good thing in your whole un-life! He'll never forgive you for this and he'll leave you long before humanity takes him away!

Tearing her gaze from the bed, Buffy bolted out of the room.

and when we're done
soul searching
as we carried the weight
and died for the cause
is misery
made beautiful
right before our eyes

". . . and then I got a room in the same motel and waited out the sun."

They were both silent after her disclosure. The faucet of the tub dripped every few seconds and Buffy was sure the only reason she didn't lose her mind was the pressure of his legs against hers.

It was not a large tub, and he was definitely a large man. They sat facing each other, backs pressed against either end of the bathtub, legs folded together in the middle. Hers were draped over his, and her feet just barely reached his hip. It would have been a terribly romantic situation, were it not for the matter they were discussing.

"I'm sorry," she whispered again. "I didn't want him, I never wanted anyone but you, I was just so . . ."

"Hurt?" he offered, and she sensed . . . compassion? in his voice.

"Lost," she whispered. "Hollow. I was empty and for a few seconds, he made me feel . . ." She bit her lip and shrugged. "Not empty. And then, when I realized . . ." The same moment of horror she'd felt with Spike consumed her again and her eyes welled up with tears. "Angel, I'm =so= sorry."

He looked at her for a moment -- stared straight into her soul with those piercing, dark knight eyes of his -- then leaned forward, grasped her face between his hands, and kissed her. Softly, sensuously, pulling at her lips with his, caressing her lightly with his tongue. She could not help but sigh into his mouth, crying again, because he tasted of so many things -- love, acceptance, desire -- but above all, forgiveness.

His forehead pressed to hers, he broke the kiss, his hands trailing down to rest on her shoulders.

"How can you forgive this?" she whispered brokenly.

"I love you," he answered, his voice raspy. "I need you. I understand you."

That was it, then. He understood her and it was all that mattered -- it was everything. He knew the way her mind worked, had watched, first hand on many occasions, the self-destructive path she sometimes went down when she was hurt, scared and confused. It was not forgotten. Things were not magically okay between them.

But she was forgiven.

"Do you still trust me?" she asked meekly.

"Trust has nothing to do with it," he insisted quietly, pulling back from her. "The trust that I have in you is unbreakable." They resumed their original positions, backs against the tub.

"How can you say that?" she countered. "What I did--"

"Was very human," he interrupted softly. "Which, in many ways, is exactly what you are."

She raised an eyebrow. "Isn't that distinction what got us into this mess to begin with?"

His mouth quirked at her, and she watched him settle into the tub further. She longed to curl up in his arms, but knew it wasn't the time. They would talk now, real talk, not just the surface explorations or heated arguments they'd had recently. The truly honest things they'd spoken to one another had been done so in the face of anger and frustration. Now, those truths would be spoken and explored out of love and a desire to understand, to grow from and with each other.

It was big and scary and she was so grateful he would be with her for it all.

"I wasn't really okay with it," she said quietly after a moment. "Not as okay as I pretended to be. It--"

"You can say rape, Buffy," he interjected softly, though she could see it pained him to do so. "I hear it in my head every time you talk around it, so you might as well say it out loud."

"But you didn't," she said heatedly. "I wouldn't let--"

"You tried not to," he disagreed quietly. "You tried so hard, and if I didn't already love you more than anything, I'd love you more for it. But, Buffy . . . it got to you. It cut you deep. And hiding that from me -- from yourself -- isn't going to fix what I broke inside of you."

"You're right," she said after a moment. "But not in the way that you think." Off his expression, she elaborated, "There is something broken inside of me. And it did happen because of . . ."

He did not interject again, and she was glad for it. It made it easier to continue.

"It hurt," she confessed softly, "it hurt me like nothing else ever has." His expression hardened and she watched the pain fill his eyes to the brim. Reaching out a hand, she gripped his fingers where they had tightened on the edge of the tub. "But at the same time," she continued, "there was this part of me . . . that liked it. That wanted more. That part of me is still there, Angel. You know it is, because it's inside of you, too. And it's why I'm so confused and I'm sick of being confused. I want to figure it all out. I want to learn everything about me, and about you, and about us. I want us to do everything, to try everything together. I want to know you, and I want you to know me, like no one else ever has. Like no one else ever could."

"I like to think I already do," he answered with a gentle, so fleeting, if-you-blinked-you-missed-it smile.

She returned the smile with a blinding one of her own. "You do," she confirmed. "And I do." A tender feeling welled up in her for him. "But I'm greedy, and I want more."

"More," he murmured, tempting her to elaborate.

"I want to indulge every craving I've had for you since I was sixteen," she declared bravely. "I want to take every bit of pain we've ever felt because of each other, intentional or not, and associate it with something else, something good. That's what . . . it's like that's what we did tonight."

He looked down. "I was angry and I shouldn't have--"

"Yes you should have!" she burst out, slapping the water with her palm. It splattered over them both. "You should have," she said again, quieter. "What happened out there . . . that was everything I begged you for earlier."

"But it wasn't . . . it wasn't right," he insisted. "I hurt you--"

"You didn't," she said flatly. Then she thought for a moment. Her hand drifted to the rapidly healing mark on her neck. "Do you mean this?"

He gave her a 'duh' look.

"Angel, this doesn't hurt." She drifted toward him in the tub, climbed on top of him, her arms going around his shoulders, her legs straddling his hips. "You had to have . . . I mean, with Darla, didn't you--"

"Yes," he said quickly.

"Did that hurt?"

"Yes," he answered again, then sighed, looking uncomfortable. "But not . . . in a bad way."

Smiling a little, she leaned down and laved her tongue roughly across the tendon that ran along the side of his neck. Her face shifted and she let him feel the change against his shoulder.

"Is it . . ." She bit her lip. "Can I?"

He nodded his head once, sharply, the hand not gripping the tub clutching her hip.

Her fangs sank into his flesh and she began to sip from him, grunting at the taste, at the deeply intimate connection she felt between them. A moan left his mouth and his hand trailed up her back to tangle in her hair, pushing her mouth against him, begging for more . . .

Buffy changed the angle of her penetration so that the side of her neck was vulnerable for him. With one hand, she urged his head into place, and a second later, his fangs were once again buried beneath her flesh, completing the circuit between them.

Electric. Euphoric. Ecstatic. Erotic. And that was just one vowel -- how many other words were there to describe how beyond description that moment between them was? Buffy certainly couldn't be bothered to come up with any more. Her entire being was focused on the visceral, sensual thrill coursing through her at possessing and being possessed.

Dracula had offered her a taste what seemed like decades ago. The few drops of his life she'd taken had brought her close to something that had frightened her, so much so that the fear had broken Dracula's thrall. Pulling back from her own darkness had become like second nature to Buffy. Keeping the Slayer separate from the Girl. Self-righteousness kept the lines from getting too muddied, and if there was anything Buffy didn't need, it was muddy lines.

Paw prints covered her entire life now; tiny, damaging paw prints that eclipsed her comfortable view of the world in dirt so thick she had trouble seeing sometimes.

But this . . . this was clarity. Perfection. Ebb and flow, yin and yang, the completion of a puzzle she couldn't remember piecing together.

For an instant, Buffy understood everything. Glimpses of everything she had ever shared with Angel, their true natures, everything they would yet be together -- it consumed her, beckoned her forward into new realms of pleasure and pain, belonging and home, understanding and acceptance. There was no doubt here, only the certainty that this act, this feeling, was right.

Surely this wasn't how it was between all vampires. It didn't seem right that such evil creatures could know such grace . . .

It was passion in its purest form and in an instant, Buffy realized that this very thing was what had driven them to fight earlier -- what had simply driven them toward and away from each other from the moment they met.

This was what she had been longing for, this unholy communion, this beautiful obscenity. For an instant in her drunken delusion, she'd thought, if Angel wouldn't give it to her, that maybe Spike could. It was ridiculous, of course, because Spike could never give her this -- evolved though he was, without a soul, Buffy knew he was only capable of skimming beauty's surface.

Passion wore a thousand ugly faces -- betrayal, sorrow, rage, insecurity, fear. Those five she was all too familiar with, having worn each of their masks over the past two days. But now, as she drew Angel into her and let herself flow into him, she remembered passion's other faces -- joy, ecstasy, desire, awe, and above all, love. All were facets of human need; all were intrinsic to life.

And all were capable of bringing about such bittersweet consequences.

The ultimate act of give and take flowed between them until something that wasn't an orgasm, but definitely packed quite a punch, coursed through them both and they broke apart, panting for unneeded breath. It took Buffy a moment to focus, but when she did, she found Angel staring at her, his confusion and wonder palpable.

"Wow," she whispered, awed.

"Wow," he agreed.

Unnecessary panting filled the room as they stared at one another.

"Was it . . . I mean, is it always like--"

"Never," he said quickly. He opened his mouth to say something else, then shook his head as though he had no words, instead simply whispering "Never," again.

Okay . . .so it was a new experience for them both. That thought made Buffy inexplicably happy. The idea of Angel having felt what they'd just shared with anyone else -- especially Drusilla or Darla -- made her ill. And angry. Homicidal, even.

"Do you think . . ." Her voice was timid, but there was nothing to be done about it. Buffy felt humbled. "I mean, was it different because of . . . what we are?"

"Our souls," he murmured thoughtfully, still looking dazed. "That's . . . and the fact that we love each other." He looked at her for a moment. "Vampires don't love each other," he clarified dully.

"Right," she agreed softly, though she wasn't entirely sure she believed that anymore. Oh, she hadn't loved him the way she did now, as a soulless fiend -- but she =had= loved him. Desperately. Darkly. Obsessively. Selfishly.

"Are you . . .I mean, did that--"

"Fine. I'm fine. Are you--"

"Great. Actually, I'm . . . I . . . I don't really know what to--"

"Say. I know. It's . . . " She licked her lips nervously. "How 'bout we change the subject?"

"That'd be good," he said gratefully.

"Okay. So -- human one day. Yay you." She tried to smile, but felt too much like crying. If she stopped concentrating on the religious experience they'd just shared, all the reasons for the tension between them came crashing down around her again.

"Buffy," he began tiredly, but she cut him off.

"You're going to be human," she said firmly. "And I should be happy for you."

"But you're not," he stated, though not unkindly.

Her face crumpled, and she murmured hoarsely, "No. I'm not."

"I can't . . . I wish I could . . . I don't know how to change--"

"Don't," she said quickly. "You're going to be human. You deserve to be human. You deserve to find some nice, human woman and have a bunch of human kids who'll love you because you'll be the best dad. And even if you don't leave me, you're still going to die someday and I'd hate myself forever if I wasted your life . . ." She laughed, the sound treading on the hysteric side, even to her own ears. "I get that now. Finally. Why you left before."

Leaning forward, he took her hand and gripped it tightly in his own, silently urging her to look him in the eye. He brought her knuckles to his mouth and pressed a reverent kiss to them.

"We don't . . . we have no idea when it's supposed to happen," Angel said gruffly. "Wesley translated the scroll six ways to Sunday and we couldn't find a timeframe. It could be . . . it might be decades. Centuries. I don't even . . . I'm not even sure that I believe it anymore. It's not something I think about."

She tried to smile for him. "It was . . . when I found out what I was, it was . . . I didn't want to be a vampire. I =don't= want to be a vampire. But . . . it made it bearable, knowing that at least we'd be together now. It was a given. There's no one else for me, there never was before, and there sure as hell isn't now." She winced at how that sounded. As though she were only with him because her choices had been taken away. In a way, that was true. If it hadn't been for her turning, she would still be in Sunnydale, maybe with Riley, maybe with someone new.

But she wouldn't feel like this.

"I know you're not happy," Angel said quietly. "And I'm so sorry--"

"Angel," she interrupted, squeezing his hand, "I =am= happy. As happy as I can be with everything that keeps getting dumped on top of us. You make me happy."

"From where I'm sitting, all I seem to do is make you cry," he confessed sadly. "What happened earlier, the way I handled it, walking out--"

"Was what you needed to do," she said flatly. "I should have understood that. Instead, I let my own insecurity, and the weird feelings I've been having lately whack my common sense over the fence."

"We just seem to keep hurting each other," he said softly.

"That's true," she agreed, nodding her head. "You make me hurt. You make me bleed in places that aren't supposed to. You always have."

"You're not cheering me up," he noted wryly.

"You also . . .everything me," she said, her voice taking on a breathy tone she didn't normally use. "I'm . . .pulse or no, Angel, I'm =alive= when I'm with you. Every minute is like the greatest ride of my life, even when I'm terrified of losing you, the way I am now."

"You're not going to lose me," he said firmly. "Whatever happens . . . we're in this, you and me."

"Even after what I did? How can you . . . you say it's not about forgiveness, but--"

"Not buts," he insisted. "This isn't about forgiveness. I forgave you for shoving a sword through my heart and sending me to Hell. I forgave it the second I understood why. I could forgive you anything." He looked down at the water for a moment. "It's not about forgiveness," he repeated again, "it's about me learning to live with it."

His response shoved the knife in her gut a little bit further, but Buffy had to admit it almost felt good. She deserved to hurt after what she'd almost done. Besides, hadn't she been irrationally hurt and angry after that fiasco with Faith? =Both= fiascoes with Faith? What she'd just put Angel through was far more grievous than what he'd inadvertently forced her to live through all those years ago.

"Do you . . ." She licked her suddenly dry lips, her voice emerging about as small as she felt. "Do you want me to sleep in a different room? For a little while, at least?"

"No." The denial came vehemently and firmly, which soothed her fears in the smallest degree. However, his posture was withdrawn, and though they were pressed against one another in the tub, she felt as though he were a million miles away.

"As much as this hurts," he continued quietly, "it would be worse not having you close."

Close at hand, Buffy thought, but never farther apart.

will mercy be revealed
or blind us where we stand

"Hey, Red."

Spike glanced up from where he sat, slumped, against the back of the red couch in the Hyperion's lobby. He clutched a bottle of tequila in one hand; the other hung limply at his side.

He'd been trying to work up the will to drag his rotting carcass up the stairs to his room for the past hour and a half. Spike had fled the safety of his relatively comfortable bed when he'd heard the sound of preternatural screwing reverberating through the walls. Visions he'd just as soon ignore had been dancing through his head, and he'd determined that the only cure-all was as much alcohol as he could lay his hands on.

The idiot, Pryce, kept the good strong stuff hidden away in his desk. That pathetic excuse for a lock had given way with little effort on Spike's part, and for the better part of the night, he'd been stewing in his own sad, miserable existence.

He couldn't even get the girl he loved to fuck him when she was drunk out of her mind, and pissed at her beau to boot. He couldn't kill anything that would give a decent reaction to being killed, and the best time he'd had lately was the angry shag he'd shared with the =other= Slayer.

To top it all off, the other girl he loved looked one word away from putting a hex on him, or something equally unpleasant. If only she were angry enough to stake him, he thought, his mind fuzzy, then her face could be the last thing he saw, and his torment would finally end . . .

"What did you do to Buffy?!"

'Course, he would prefer death to come quickly and as painlessly as possible, not accompanied by a snarling voice demanding a confession of all his sins . . .

"Nothin' she didn't like," he slurred, taking another sip. Always called it Dutch courage, but Spike personally thought the Brits he'd grown up around used it a lot more for that purpose. The Dutch just liked being drunk off their arses.

Willow stared at Spike -- or, he thought drunkenly, stared right =through= him -- then stood and moved away. With her back to him, he wasn't so distracted by her eyes that he missed the other details. Her heartbeat had increased, and she smelled like her rage, and . . . her sorrow?

"Get out," she said, her voice quavering.

"Nothin' happened," Spike said softly. "Nothing important, anyway. Nothing that big, hulking bastard she's so in love with won't be able to get over--"

"Get out," she repeated, her voice stronger. Her pain was stronger, too. Was it possible that he'd hurt her? That she might miss him, even a little bit? They'd talked, almost become friends before she started boffing the idiot.

Of course. He'd betrayed her trust -- all of their trusts. By taking advantage of Buffy at her weakest with the intent to hurt Angel, he'd once again stuck a knife squarely in their backs. Now, of course, instead of shrugging it off, Willow was all hurt and destroyed, demanding that he run away and never darken their door again.

Humans were funny that way.

He only wished he could be sorry for it. Sometimes, he even wished the chip would do more than it did -- he wished it would make him care that he didn't care beyond how much he wanted everything that he couldn't have.

It had almost been like family here, for awhile. Almost like he belonged somewhere. Which was ridiculous, because he didn't belong anywhere -- he was a lone wolf. He went where he pleased, and did as he liked. But, still . . .

"I didn't mean to hurt her," he tried feebly.

"Get out," Willow said again, and this time, she turned toward him, her eyes sparking with righteous fury.

"I'm already gone," he mumbled, standing and stumbling up the stairs.

No need to pack much. Just needed to grab his lighter. Maybe that picture, the one where Buffy and Willow were smiling . . .

"God, kill me now," he mumbled.

will we burn in heaven
like we do down here
will the change come
while we're waiting
everyone is waiting

The End

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