I Didn't Say I Was YOUR Friend: Part 7
by Azreel
See Part 1. The end of chapter 6 is here, by mistake. Sorry.
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Part Seven
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Buffy faced Laurent warily, stake in hand. The golden glow of his eyes had subsided somewhat, but he still had his fangs out, and all of his face was smeared with Spike's blood as if it was some weird war paint. Draining blood from a victim who put up a fight was very messy.
"You can relax, Slayer. It's me," the vampire said.
"Is that good or bad?" Buffy asked.
"I don't know anymore," Laurent said. "But at least I know I'm not going to kill you."
And to that Buffy had no answer. Laurent had helped her, it could even be said that he'd saved her life. But she could not forget the savagery, the primal fury that she'd seen in Laurent's attack against Spike.
Just then, Giles came from the living room. "Ambulance is coming," he announced. "Is, uh, everything taken care of?"
"All of the bad guys seem to be... out of the fight," Buffy said, still shaken.
"Those two were the only vampires that got invited to your house. You might want to do a banishing ritual, just to be sure, but I don't think they will trouble you again in your home," Laurent pointed out.
"And you?"
"I can only go where Angela is. Once she is out, I need an invitation like any other vampire."
"Oh. Angela," Buffy said , with a scornful glance towards the unconscious girl.
Laurent followed her stare, and Buffy turned to him in time to catch something in the vampire's eyes. Love, still? Or was he now reevaluating his relationship with the girl?
Buffy might have asked a few other things, but right then, to top off the situation, she heard her mother coming in through the front door, calling her. "Buffy? What the hell is going on here?"
"Oh, dear. Mom," the Slayer exclaimed.
-7-
"Will my mom be okay?" Buffy asked.
"She will not remember any of it, but she'll come around," Laurent explained. "She'll only remember fainting, and will chalk it off to shock."
"That sure is a handy power to have."
"It helps out sometimes," the vampire agreed. "What about your friends?"
"Willow and Cordy are mostly okay. They're visiting Xander right now. His wounds are superficial, and the doctors are confident. Probably will leave him a permanent scar, though. A bit deeper, and he might have lost his voice... or died."
"I'm sorry."
"What about...?" Buffy started, but couldn't bring herself to say the girl's name.
"It's touch and go for her right now. I drained her very deeply. Fortunately, Sunnydale doctors are knowledgeable in this type of wounds."
The Slayer nodded. They were now in the hall leading to Intensive Care, where Angela struggled for her life.
"Don't judge her too harshly, Buffy. She's just... not cut out for this. She though she had no other way out."
"I know the feeling," Buffy said, remembering how she'd felt when the prophecy had said that she was to die. And remembering Ford. You have a choice, she'd told him. You don't have a good one, but you do have a choice.
"It worked out for the best," Laurent pointed out.
"Well, my friends almost died tonight, as I almost did, and I had to watch my mother fall victim to a weird vampiric mind game, so I'm not much in the mood for celebration."
"I'm sorry. I just want you to... understand her, I suppose."
"I can understand her," Buffy nodded. "It's trusting her again that I cannot manage."
"That's okay," Laurent conceded. "After tonight, you'll probably won't see her ever again."
"And you?" Buffy said, her voice trembling.
"I don't think so, either."
"You remind me of Angel, a little. Before he became... what he is now. I fell in love with him. And maybe I'm warning you that I could fall in love with you."
Laurent said nothing.
"But, as much as Angel helped us on occasion, I can't remember him ever being so..."
"Harsh?" Laurent suggested. "Cold? Inhuman? Or just plain violent?"
"Hey, we all have a bad streak. I myself cannot remember the faces of all the vampires I've sent to their eternal rest. It's a violent world."
"It's a world of darkness," the vampire concluded. "But by that we more clearly see the light. I've learned something. No matter what darkness I find inside my soul, I'm still me. I'm still human, as human as the mortals themselves. The demon I have to fight is the demon that everyone has inside. Even saints. Have you ever seen 'The Temptation of St. Anthony'?"
Buffy frowned. "No. Was that a good movie?"
Laurent almost laughed at that. "Never mind. What I mean is, I have a soul. If Hell is what's waiting for me, it will be because I've earned it. If I can attain redemption, then I can do it no matter what my diet is."
"Which means you'll stop searching for the cure?"
"No. I'd still like to be free of this curse. To drink a cup of chocolate, to see the sunset... To belong, to be one of you, to grow old besides someone I love."
Buffy blushed, staring at the floor.
"Which I mean is that I've accepted what I am," Laurent continued. "Maybe I didn't deserve what happened to me, maybe I didn't ask for it. But, hey, who does?"
"I guess no one does," Buffy agreed unhappily.
"You're a very special girl, Buffy. And I don't think it all comes from being the Slayer. There are many, many trials still waiting for you."
"I know." This was not the time to remember that Angelus was still at large.
"Yet I think you'll pull through."
Another person came near them at that point. It was a girl, brown-haired, small-boned and delicate. She looked barely old enough to cross the street, but she carried herself with a poise and confidence that Buffy found almost supernatural. Her expression was cold and hard, like that of a statue. Buffy's supernatural awareness kicked in wildly in the presence of the girl.
The girl gave Buffy a cynical once-over and then spoke to Laurent. "So this is the famous Slayer."
"And you are?" Buffy replied, with more than a touch of acid in her tone.
"The famous witch," she replied icily. "Did you call me, Laurent?"
"I did," the vampire answered. "Come this way."
The nurse at the door of ICU gave the pair a glance, and then let them pass, not daring to say anything. She looked at Buffy, and shook her head sadly.
* * *
"You have abused her badly," the witch said.
"That is not news to me," Laurent retorted. "Can you help her?"
"I can. The question remains... why should I?"
"You know I make good on my debts, Melissa."
The witch said nothing.
"There's more. I want you to stay here until she is on her feet, take care of her, and find a place for her somewhere. She'll need your protection, probably... or maybe that of the Circle."
"I'm no longer the leader of the Circle," Melissa replied.
"That's because you are so far above their level that there is no comparison. But they'll still do what you tell them to."
"That means you're leaving her, then."
"I am. We are not..." The vampire stopped, unsure about how to say this, and then started over. "The current situation is harmful for both of us."
"And your enemies? Won't they go after her?"
"That's why I cannot just leave her alone. She needs a protector. But she also needs a chance at a normal life, and that's what I cannot give her."
"After this, you'll owe me, leech. Big time."
Laurent did not react to the insulting sobriquet. He merely nodded and said, "whatever."
The witch smiled, and placed her hands upon the bossom of the unconscious girl. She drew in breath, and Laurent felt the air grow colder and moister. There was no other sign that something out of the ordinary was happening, besides the fact that Angela's heartbeat became steadier and stronger, as attested by the cardiac monitor by her side.
"She'll live," Melissa announced mildly.
Laurent nodded, and breathed a sigh of relief. On the bed, Angela's eyelids fluttered and she moaned softly. "Laurent?" she said.
"Shh," the vampire said in response. "Sleep. I will be here when you wake."
Still dreaming, Angela smiled and took the vampire's hand, placing it against her wounded breast. Laurent slowly took it back, crossing the girl's hands over her breats.
"Be quiet," the witch said in Laurent's voice. "Sleep." The vampire nodded at her, and then rose to go.
"Remember, leech" Melissa whispered urgently, as he went out the door. "Whatever."
* * *
Drusilla was coherent again, which didn't mean she sounded less crazy. After Spike's death (which Angel didn't doubt had happened), she'd spent a whole day in a kind of fit, screaming hiss name again and again. Then she had calmed down, but had kept on rambling crazily, even by normal Drusilla standards (which would have been enough to have most mortals committed to an assylum).
"Dru, baby, you can't be serious," Angelus tried to reason with her. "Even if that Laurent administered the final blow, it was still the fault of the Slayer. You have to see that."
"No. He killed my Spikey. He killed my Spike, and he will die for that," Drusilla said firmly.
"Oh, yeah? And how do you plan to find him? I hear he's left town."
"He killed Spike," Drusilla said simply. "I can find him."
They were arguing besides Spike's car, the black one with all the windows painted over. A vampire's travelling car. Dru had the keys on her hand, and seemed determined to go cruising into the night.
"I can't let you do this," Angelus warned. "The Slayer is the real enemy. How am I supposed to fight her with the dolts I have working for me now?"
"You'll manage. And I'll be back," Dru answered, blowing him a kiss over the roof, with the driver side door already open. "I'll just take care of this business, and then we'll take care of the Slayer together."
"You're not making any sense, Dru. You don't even know how to drive. I cannot let you do this."
"Oh, no?" the female vampire said, a smile audible in her voice. "And how do you propose to stop me?"
That gave Angelus pause. In an all-out fight, he had no doubt he could take Drusilla. But she was powerful enough to deflect all of his attempts, _short_ of an all-out fight, and he was not ready to go fifteen rounds with his precious baby. Dru knew that, too.
"Dru, don't go," he pleaded. He was starting to feel rage against her building in his heart. No woman would have him pleading again. _No_ one.
Drusilla smiled, got inside the car, and started it. Despite Angelus' doubts about her driving skills, she managed to get out the driveway quite easily.
"I'll be back!" Drusilla called out as she sped by. Angelus balled his hands into fists. He was a demon! He was big, bad Angelus, Death incarnate. And yet a pretty girl still had the power to reduce him to ineffectiveness.
"Damn her," he muttered under her breath. "I hope she dies out there."
He watched the speeding car until it was no longer in sight, and then came back inside the house. One of his lesser vampires came towards him, maybe to give a trivial report, or to ask a silly question. Really, he was surrounded by idiots.
He grabbed the vampire by the throat, and twisted viciously, severing the head.
"Now, this makes me feel better," he said as the body of his minion crumbled to dust.
* * *
Somewhere, maybe far from that, a traveller kept on his road, alone now. Sometimes he flew, at others maybe he drove, or he might have simply walked, a penitent demon blending in with his mother night. She embraced him, as no one else did. The darkness within his heart allowed no one near. He had a curse upon him, the curse of loneliness. The danger of that curse was that, with nothing and no one to hold you back, every step became a road. And the road led ever onward.
There's no time for us
There's no place for us
What is this thing
That fills our dreams
Yet slips away from us
Who wants to live forever
Who wants to live forever
...Who cares to love forever
Oh, and love must die.
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