"Return - A Demon's Day in Madness Kissed"

Author: Vatrixsta Cruden
Contact: trixieangelsomething@hotmail.com
Disclaimer: The unendingly awesome Melissa Etheridge twists a knife into our sides with this killer tune.

The sun is white with envy
Confusion on the ground
Breathing soft and holy
Temptation's only sound

"Ugh. He spent the entire first year he was in Los Angeles helping people. He only started getting really interesting after that Whore Whose Name Will Not Be Mentioned reappeared in his life." Buffy frowned. "Do you think that means she brings out the bad in him? Should I be worried that he'll never be able to tap into his inner dark side without her?

"And this! He seems to have a lot of zeal for helping poor, helpless damsels in distress. Angel told me he hadn't been with anyone but Darla, but really, how honest is he gonna be when he isn't even trying to participate in this relationship?

"Look at this one, here: Rebecca Lowell -- =THE= Rebecca Lowell, Ms. Raven herself -- enlisted his services as a bodyguard. I used to watch that show of hers, and honestly, I always thought she was kind of a dog. Now that I see this picture of her with Angel, I'm sure she's more of a skank. A skank-ho."

"When you use the word 'skank,' isn't that really the inner Buffy trying to deny some negative feeling she has toward herself?"

Buffy narrowed her eyes. "You know, I gave you eternal life, Doc. I've gotta say, being snotty with me -- not the Hallmark way to say thanks." She frowned. "Although, I guess there really isn't a greeting card for this sort of thing . . . oh, but you could go to the store and use one of those create-your-own card machines!"

"I don't like it out in public," the therapist said, "not unless I'm hunting."

"Good point. And something tells me that the local mall isn't the best place to -- hey, did you call me a skank?!" Buffy was suddenly fuming.

The doctor smiled patiently. "I think you called yourself a skank."

A pout appeared on Buffy's lips. "I did not. I called that Rebecca person a skank. I mean, check this out." Buffy began flipping through one of the many files Lindsey had liberated from Wolfram and Hart for her. "Right here, it says that she wasn't even being stalked! It was all some kind of elaborate set up her agent worked out because she was too old to get a decent part!" Buffy cackled. "I could so do her job."

"Granted, you'll never be too old," the therapist allowed, "yet neither would you ever be able to appear in public as an actress. Think of all the pitfalls, common daylight aside."

"Do you even listen to what I actually say?" Buffy asked, a hint of annoyance in her voice.

"I think the question is, do =you= actually listen to what you say?" the therapist asked sagely.

Buffy stared at the other vampire for a few moments. Then, she blinked, once. Then, she went back to Angel's file.

A few moments later, a phrase caught her eye. A beautiful phrase, the best phrase in the world, as far as Buffy was concerned.

" . . . subject appeared to have reverted to his previous form for one night. Cause of transformation was determined to be pharmacological and temporary in . . ." Buffy mumbled aloud.

"Do you wish for a transformation of some kind, Buffy?"

Calm as can be, Buffy reached over, snapped a leg off the chair the therapist was sitting in, and staked her through the heart with it before the other woman could hit the ground.

Once the dust had settled, Buffy sighed.

"I'm so not cut out to have minions."

The sign says do not enter
No trespassing allowed
With visions of redemption
I walk against the crowd

Dawn had come sooner than he'd hoped. Then again, it always did.

Angel stalked through the sewers, grateful for the hundredth time that he didn't have to breathe. "Of course, if I did breathe, I'd most likely be human and I wouldn't have to travel by way of sewers in fear of bursting into flame," he mumbled out loud.

"Great. Now I'm talking out loud. I'm losing my mind again."

Nevertheless, he traveled on.

He carried his broadsword clutched tightly in his right hand; the long, black coat he wore warming an imaginary chill. There had been a celebrity at Caritas, and in his honor, the Host had been forcing everyone to sing one of his songs when they took the stage. Until, that is, Angel had arrived. The Host had forbidden Angel to sing anything remotely connected to the man Angel didn't even recognize at one of the tables.

That was fine by Angel. He sang a quick, stilted rendition of 'Play that Funky Music White Boy,' shook off the Host's concerned "Angel pie, you're hangin' kinda crazy, kinda sexy, kinda suicidal -- haven't fired anyone lately, have you?" and demanded to know where he could find Buffy.

When he was pointed toward a warehouse on Crenshaw, he didn't spare another glance as he headed for the door. For some reason, the Host managed to stop him by saying his name a certain way. It had gotten under Angel's skin, physically made him turn around to regard the green demon.

"This rainbow's end you're looking for, you plan to end the little girl's life when you find it, yes?" Those red eyes had grown so serious.

"Yes," Angel had answered tightly.

"Then I gotta say, going right now isn't your smartest move. Of course, that hunky, Neanderthal head of yours so rarely takes your smartest move."

"I've got no other choice. She's killing people I care about. Buffy wouldn't want it that way."

"I'm sure Buffy doesn't want to die," the Host had pointed out reasonably.

"That thing is not Buffy," Angel had practically growled.

"Keep telling yourself that, sweetie," the Host had said, a little too knowingly for Angel's comfort.

"Buffy is dead," Angel had maintained. "That monster is wearing her face. The demon is not her."

"Tell me, just so I can keep up, because prescient or not, I can get so confused -- are we talking about Buffy, or you?"

"I don't have time for this," Angel had snapped, then he'd turned and walked away without another word.

Angel jumped slightly in the sewer tunnel when he realized he was standing still, staring at a wall. He =really= didn't have time for this. Whatever the Host had been talking about, it could be brooded about later, after he'd finished this.

Finished her; finished the girl who'd once given his existence its only light.

"No," he said aloud. "It's not her. She's dead, she died five days, four hours, and . . . " he glanced at his watch, "forty-nine minutes ago."

It hadn't occurred to him at the time, but he'd actually felt her die. The feeling had been unlike his own death, unlike all the times he'd been run through with a sword, shot, beaten. Her death had happened so quickly, and he'd been so removed from her life, that he'd hardly felt it at all.

It was only later, after she'd made her first 'visit' to the hotel and he'd learned the truth that it had started making a horrible kind of sense.

They'd been in the bar. Wes, Cordy and Gunn had already had a few drinks and were starting to sway. At Wes' insistence, Angel had agreed to match them drink for drink. Being a vampire (not to mention an Irishman) Angel's constitution was a good sight stronger than theirs was. He'd been buzzed, relaxed, almost happy, or at least, as happy as it was safe for him to be.

A demon had gotten up on stage, one of the more peaceful species. He'd spent an inordinate amount of time choosing a song, Angel remembered that much. And then he'd started to sing. It was an older song, something from the seventies. Nineteen-seventies, Angel had automatically corrected himself. When you'd lived in four different centuries, you had to be specific.

When he'd started singing, Angel had realized the demon wasn't a he, but rather a she (an oversight that could easily be forgiven, given you couldn't really see =her= body beneath the layer of fur) -- a she who had an amazing voice. The song she'd chosen to sing was something by Carole King, called "Tapestry." The lyrics had swam around Angel, sinking into an invisible smoke that he inhaled along with table four's heavy cigars.

By song's end, tears had been rolling down his cheeks. It hadn't even occurred to him to think of Buffy. That's how far he'd pushed her  -- by necessity -- from his mind. Consciously able to forget her or not, his soul remembered, and it screamed when hers left this earth. It sobbed and raged and took the lyrics from a song that could have been written about Buffy into his heart and made him feel, however subconsciously, that the other half of him was gone.

The time of her death added up, of course. He'd managed to get that much out of Giles, feigning interest in exactly what had sired Buffy. Details didn't matter. The aching in his soul didn't really matter.

All that mattered was the end. And Angel was determined that the end wouldn't include another single drop of innocent blood being shed. He was prepared to take Buffy out, even if he had to die to do it.

After all, his blood hadn't been innocent in over two hundred years.

Buffy had just put the finishing touch on her crossbow when the door to the basement burst open.

He stood in the shadows, dressed in black, his broadsword glinting off the room lit by a few dozen candles. Buffy smiled at him in greeting, then frowned when she took a good look at the hard, unforgiving set to his face.

"Stress isn't good for you, love," she warned him reproachfully. "If it actually beat, I'd warn you about heart attacks. A man of your age should =really= be more in tune with the destructive things he does to his own body."

"Enough," Angel gritted out, moving toward her in the room.

"You're being awfully rude."

"I love you," he said softly. "I love the girl you were, I think I even love the demon you've become. I don't think there's a set of circumstances on this earth under which I wouldn't love you."

A brilliant smile lit Buffy's face. "See? I =knew= you'd come around--"

"But this has to end." Angel stared into her eyes and forced himself to remember Willow's tear-stained face; Xander's endless moping; the nightmares he'd had about the last moments of Dawn and Joyce's lives.

"Lover, you know better than anyone that this never ends," Buffy reminded him. "Not this existence, not this struggle, and definitely not us."

"That's where you're wrong," Angel corrected her. "This ends. Tonight. One way or another."

Buffy shrugged. "Fine. But you'd better remember you brought this on yourself, Buster."

She moved supernaturally fast and, before Angel had determined what she was doing, fired the crossbow straight at his chest.

Conscience quiet pleading
In the corner of my eye
But seeing is believing
All consequences fly

"I feel so weird," Willow confessed quietly.

Xander looked up from the book he'd been not reading. "In what way?"

"Being here," Willow explained, gesturing with her hands, "and expecting Angel to protect us."

"Weird for me, yes, but those reasons are old and tired -- why weird for you?"

"Because . . . the only time I've ever been this scared is when Angelus was threatening to leave our not so alive bodies for Buffy to find. He was a part of us, Xander, whether you wanted to admit it or not. Angel was right there in the thick of things, standing by Buffy, risking himself for her and all of us. And then he just . . . "

"Went away," Xander agreed quietly. "Gotta admit, Angelus is probably the scariest thing I've ever faced, too. That is, if you don't count Cordelia on a bitchy rampage."

Willow laughed, and Xander put an arm around her shoulders. Her laugh turned into a tiny sob, and he held on tighter, feeling his own chest tighten.

"I miss her," Willow whispered brokenly. "She was a part of me too, and now she's just gone. I thought it was bad when Oz left, but at least I knew he was out there somewhere, living. Tara's just gone, and she was all alone when it happened because they wouldn't let me see her . . ."

"I know." Xander glanced at Willow, then toward the ground. "Anya was alone, too. Those were her worst fears. Being alone, and dying. I was supposed to keep her safe. I was supposed to spend my life with her.

"You probably would have," Willow agreed.

"No," Xander corrected, scratching the back of his head nervously, "I was =going= to. Anya wanted to celebrate her birthday on the day she and I met. She said that was the day her life began. I was going to ask her to marry me, I was going to . . ."

Willow bit her lip and gripped Xander's hand tightly as his eyes filled with tears.

"Anya became a different person when she was with you," Willow confided quietly. "She and I never got along, that's no secret . . . but I was really starting to like her these past few weeks. At least, I liked what she did to you."

"What did she do? I mean, I know what she did, but I want to know what you saw."

"She made you Xander again."

"You lost me."

"It happened after Buffy and Angel got really close. Your heart was broken because Buffy didn't love you back, but you tried to hide it. And suddenly, you weren't quite Xander anymore. I can't explain it. It started to get better, after you and Cordelia got together. I =hated= that relationship, but once you stopped hiding it, she was good for you, and Xander started coming back again." Willow stared intently at her hands, twisting them together in her lap. "It's my fault you went away again."

"Our fault," Xander corrected her, referring to their 'indiscretion' with one another that had hurt Cordy and Oz so badly.

"Either way, Xander was gone again. He was hiding in his basement, hoping his parents wouldn't come home that night, or that if they did, they'd drink so much that they passed out before they remembered he was there." Willow pressed a hand against Xander's cheek. "I didn't realize you were Xander, only better, until that stupid troll got released."

"Xander, only better? Is that like, new and improved?"

"Sort of." Willow pursed her lips, searching for the right words. "Anya let you become a man without making you lose the little boy who used to kick people who were mean to me in the shins."

"I'll always kick anybody who's mean to you in the shins," Xander agreed, his voice clogged with emotion. It meant more to him than he could express that Willow had understood why he'd loved Anya so much. And it was really nice that he didn't have to say it was nice; that she'd understand like only someone who'd known you his or her whole life could.

"Me, too," Willow promised. "Only, you know, I'll just use magic."

Xander pressed a quick, friendly kiss to the tip of Willow's nose.

"I love you best, Witchy Poo."

"Me too, Xander."

Shocked in silent trances
Our eyes search just to know
What makes flesh and body hunger
For another burning soul

"Breakfast," Giles announced as he exited the kitchen.

"Breakfast!" Cordelia echoed. "The sun has been up for over an hour now."

"I'm sure Angel is fine," Wesley tried to soothe, though he shared her concerns.

"He's got sense enough to come in from the daylight," Gunn added.

"Yeah, nothing can kill Dead Boy. He survived a round trip from hell, remember?" Xander looked helpless as a few glares were sent his way. "What?! I was =trying=!"

"Try harder," Willow whispered loudly.

"I hate to interrupt, but I've got a problem, and I need to talk to Angel, like yesterday."

Every head in the room snapped around to stare at the new presence in the room.

"Faith," Giles murmured, shocked, to say the least, at this unexpected arrival.

"That's right, the bitch is back," Faith said glibly. "Talk later. Angel now."

"He isn't here," Cordelia answered stiffly. "Why, you wanted to try and shoot him with your handy crossbow again? Or maybe you just wanted to beat me up and torture Wesley for a few hours. You know, for old time's sake."

"Cordelia," Wesley said in a warning voice, approaching Faith with caution.

Faith's gaze slipped to her former watcher's, her arms automatically curling around themselves. The action was that of a frightened child, and Wesley read something in Faith's eyes that gave him the confidence to close some of the distance between them.

"Angel has told us that he visits you," Wesley said softly.

"Yeah," Faith agreed. "Not for a little while, but then he wasn't really visiting anybody. Not that you all were being too supportive," she added bitterly.

Wesley winced. "Yes, well--"

"It's cool," Faith hurried to assure Wesley. "I'm sorry, I shouldn't have . . ." She shut her eyes tightly. "Please, Wesley, I need to talk to him. I need him to tell me none of this is real."

"None of what?" Giles asked, walking forward until he stood beside Wesley. He wasn't reading any of the hostility he always had in the past from Faith. The instinctual fear he'd always felt in her presence was oddly absent.

"Dreams," Faith said simply. "Fucked up shit I don't want to remember, let alone find out is real. So you need to tell me if they're symbolic, or prophetic, or what, so that I can do something to stop them."

"Excuse me," Xander interrupted, raising a hand. "No offense, I know I'm more snack-finder than task-master, but isn't Dangerous Homicidal Slayer supposed to be in prison?"

"Which one," Cordelia muttered under her breath. "Sorry," she added at the looks she received from Willow and Xander.

"I got paroled," Faith said defensively. "Angel got that cop, Lockley, to talk to the board for me. She came to see me. Said Angel took responsibility for me."

"He informed Cordelia and I that you might be joining us soon," Wesley assured her.

"He didn't tell me," Gunn spoke up, sounding offended. "Why didn't he tell me?"

"Maybe because Faith never tried to gut you?" Cordelia snapped.

"Enough," Wesley ordered sharply. He rarely raised his voice, and the authoritative tone got through to everyone. He turned his attention back to Faith, and his entire face softened. "What dreams?" he asked in a calm, even tone.

"B," Faith said quietly, "with fangs, ripping my throat out, ripping her mom's throat out, 'lil sis . . . and Angel . . ."

"What about Angel?" Cordelia asked, moving to stand at Wesley's right side.

Faith looked nervous. "He was black and white.

"Black and white and about a billion shades of gray."

With fever I persist
The rages of your kiss
My reckless heart in fist
And I cannot resist

Angel caught the arrow she'd fired at him easily.

"Nice tr--" his words were cut off as she quickly fired a second arrow which =did= make contact with his flesh; the flesh of his right shoulder. "Shot," he amended, wincing.

"Don't worry," she told him softly, "you'll feel all better in a few minutes."

Buffy was right next to him now, and with a flick of her wrist, she ripped the arrow from his shoulder. Grunting at the pain, Angel tried to tighten his grip on the sword, only to find he could barely hold onto it at all. It clattered to the floor, and he reached out with his hand for something to brace his weight on. The table sufficed, and he glanced at Buffy, feeling dread well up inside him.

"What did you do to me?" he muttered, well aware he was slurring his words. Buffy was moving in and out of focus, too. He wished she'd quit doing that. It was giving him a headache.

Then, miraculously, the pain in his head started to fade. Buffy was still blurry, but she was staying that way. Everything was soft. Her palm was pressed against his cheek, and he did not fight the urge to turn into her touch. Why had he been resisting in the first place? There was nothing in heaven or on earth as pure and beautiful as Buffy's touch.

Her lips, her mouth, wet and open, pressed against his, filled his senses to bursting. He let go of his hold on the table and placed his hands on Buffy's hips, letting her bear his weight. Her fingers ran through his hair, scratched lightly at his scalp, woke nerve endings that had been slumbering for what seemed like eons.

"That's right," she crooned as she moved her mouth along his cheek, to his ear. "Good boy."

He was suspended in pure bliss. Tiny hands slipped beneath his shirt, slid along his skin, massaged it with long, easy strokes. Buffy kneaded the muscles along his chest, his abdomen, before slipping around his back, making small circular patterns along his spine. Next, she went to work on a tight knot across his shoulders.

"My poor baby," she whispered, "carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders."

Somehow, his shirt had come unbuttoned, and she was placing soft, whispering little kisses up and down his chest. Her hair was wound around his hands, and he bent his head, inhaling her deeply. How he missed that smell every moment of his worthless existence . . .

Abruptly, Buffy moved away from him, and he automatically reached out to her, trying to draw her back into his embrace. His hands found nothing but air, and she giggled as he stumbled, once again seeking out the table to keep him upright.

"I have a surprise for you," she confided softly, and moved to the back of the warehouse. There, she pulled back a curtain to reveal a young man, naked, bleeding a little, and chained to the wall.

Angel's confused brain tried to process what she was showing him, but it all barely registered. "Buffy," he began, confused.

"You probably don't recognize him, given that the two of you were never properly introduced," Buffy interrupted. "Angel, I'd like you to meet Parker. Parker, this is the man who's going to rip out your heart and feed it to me."

Her voice had been so casual that it took Angel a moment to connect her words with her tone. The boy -- Parker -- was gagged, but his eyes widened, and inarticulate cries and grunts of horror escaped his mouth nonetheless.

"You know I won't hurt him," Angel said with far more bravado than he felt at the moment.

"Won't you," Buffy murmured noncommittally. "Not even when I tell you what he did to me? Although if you didn't really care what Faith had done to me, why would you care if some boy came on to me, fucked me, then dumped me?"

Rage, pure and blinding consumed Angel for a moment. Obviously, this boy had been a lover of Buffy's when she'd been human. Unfortunately for him, he'd apparently made the fatal mistake of hurting her. Human Buffy hadn't used her strength to punish him; Vampire Buffy, on the other hand . . .

"Maybe you care after all," Buffy murmured as she studied his face carefully. "Maybe for all your 'Up with Humanity' talk, soul or no, you'd like nothing better than to tap dance on this idiot kid's spleen."

"I won't hurt him," Angel repeated again.

"But you =want= to," Buffy insisted, moving closer to him again. "Isn't that what you told me, once upon a time? That you could walk like a man, but that you weren't?" Both her hands moved to cup his face between them. "I don't want a man. I want a demon. I want you."

Without giving him a chance to reply, she spun on her heel and paced toward Parker. "Which is why I made a quick run to the all-night drugstore before I picked up Parker," she concluded.

An itching, burning sensation began to spread through Angel's stomach. The fog that had been surrounding him began to lift, and he felt the old, familiar panic begin to set in.

"No," he whispered, an automatic denial springing forth from between numb lips.

"Your file was wicked informative," Buffy told him. "Although I got a slightly more potent variety of the Happy Pills that bitch gave you. It seemed too good to be true, finding out Parker transferred to CSUN after that incident with the beer on campus. I had to celebrate it with you, and I figured you'd be a lot more accommodating sans soul."

"You don't know what you've done," Angel muttered. "He won't . . . I won't . . ."

"You're worried about me," Buffy replied, touched. "Don't be. After careful consideration, I decided not to pull a Faith. I prefer to see exactly what I'll be dealing with before I bring Inner Demon Boy out to play full time."

Out to play, Angel thought, hysteria building up like a bubble in the pit of his stomach. A single pinprick, and he would pop, everything that made him a man dissolving, leaving only the demon that wore his skin.

Horror was the most predominant emotion, but lurking beneath the surface somewhere was a feeling that shamed him. Perverse excitement warred with relief. His demon would meet Buffy's demon with no facades or good intentions; nothing but blood and death and raw, unguarded desire.

"I had to go into the Valley to get him, Angel," Buffy said pointedly after he'd been silent for too long. "The. Valley." She shuddered. "I didn't even stop to snack." Her gaze traveled to the two puncture marks on Parker's upper arm. "At least, not much."

The scent of blood was heavy in the room. Parker wasn't hurt badly, but Buffy had made him bleed. A lot. Most likely to tantalize Angel's senses. Objective achieved, he thought, his skin beginning to tighten and ache, a silent scream beginning from the depths of his soul as it started.

This was his worst nightmare. The demon was hungry, starved, really, for the kill, for warm, human blood. Angel denied it, denied himself on a daily basis, and it took its toll. Usually, he was able to keep the bloodlust at bay. Just the thought of being free, of the curse being lifted, however temporarily, had the demon howling with barely suppressed desire.

How he hoped no harm came to Cordy, or Wes, or Gunn, or any of the others. He was terrified his first instinct would be to harm them. He only hoped Angelus would be too intent on getting to know Buffy's demon to pay much mind to the people Angel loved. He prayed to a God who'd abandoned him to keep his family safe.

And then, with a sudden shift, Angel stopped caring about everything.

Except, of course, for the lovely morsel the woman who'd brought him back had been kind enough to provide.

A demon's day in madness kissed
I swear I never had it like this
Forbidden yet I cannot resist

The End

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