Disclaimer: Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy own all the characters contained within. I hold no claim on them.
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Set during Buffy versus Dracula and then goes seriously AU after that! Buffy is missing and Spike is the only one who has noticed. Where is Buffy and why is Spike the only one who is worried? Will the peroxide vampire be able to find her before it's too late? What has happened to the Scoobies and will they save Xander before he really becomes Dracula's butt monkey?

Chapter 31  

Hugs to Mega/Peta for her betaing magic!  

Italics-thoughts

Some dialogue lifted and fiddled from Reprise and fiddled to fit the chapter.

"Buffy?" Angel's quiet whisper woke the lightly sleeping vampiress.

"Angel?" Buffy slipped out of her Mom's bed, carefully moving so as not to wake either of her family and utterly unaware that both her mother and sister were feigning sleep. Waiting for Angel to make an appearance.  

"What do you want?" she hissed as she pulled on her mother's ratty dressing gown and tiptoed to the suite door. She inhaled deeply and savoured her mother's comforting scents that were so embedded in
the terry-towelling robe.

Angel loomed in the doorway, a dark cloud of broodiness hovering around him as usual. He drank in her dishevelled look like a man parched. She slipped out of the door and shut it firmly behind her.

"You have ‘what's up?’ face." Buffy cautiously sniffed him, checking to see if he'd managed to get the smell off. A wave of relief flooded her. He had.  It was just plain ol' Angel smell now. Not yummy and oaky, with a hint of smoke and danger-- that was Spike's smell. Buffy glanced longingly over to where she could sense her sire in his room. The emotional connection between them seemed muffled, as if he had consciously blocked her off.

Buffy had been glad her mom had been there, once Spike had puked on Angel. She was still weirded out by that.  Vampires didn't puke according to Spike, but he had.  Maybe it was because he ate human food all the time and drank waaay too much whiskey. She could still smell it seeping out of every pore
of his lickable body; in the glint in his eye and the slight sway of his body as he stood being cosseted in the kitchen --sure signs that he was off his head.

Buffy remembered standing there gaping at her injured sire, wanting to help him but unsure of his reaction if she touched him again. Instead, her mom and Anya had helped.  Her mom had pushed Angel off to shower and sent Dawn for a first aid kit. Buffy had been frozen to the spot, staring at Spike.  She had felt Anya move past her to cluck over the still bleeding bite marks on his side. She had waited for one of them to pay some attention to her, the one he'd rejected, but they hadn't and she started to feel uncomfortable. Maybe she was acting up.  Maybe there was something to what Anya had tried to say in the car. She should try and talk with Spike, but it was hard, and he was ignoring her after his comment about Angel touchage.

She’d started to feel very childish and wondered if maybe she was in the wrong. Backing out of the kitchen, her mouth open as she tried to say something, but had failed. Instead she had spun around and run off, missing the look of despair on Spike's face at her exit. She hadn't any idea that he had started after her but had been stopped by Anya and Joyce's firm looks.

"Buffy, you okay?" Angel's solemn tone didn't do anything to elevate her mood. Every inch of her body silently screamed in desperation for her sire, but he was not responding.  Instead she had Angel towering over her and wanting to talk. 'And that always went so well'.  Buffy suppressed the not so joyful memory of being dumped in a sewer by the so-called love of her life. He was hardly that.  She realised with time and maturity that Angel had been her first love, the tender youthful love-- one that never really survives except in your memory. Rose tinted glasses in hindsight were always making it look and feel so much better.

Buffy felt her stomach clench with guilt, another layer added to the ones she'd already cultivated over the last day. All those years she'd held Angel up as the 'One' and she'd never even looked elsewhere for love. Riley, never had a chance. Buffy would've blushed if she could.  She was a female Parker.  Well kinda-- a monogamous Parker. Using Riley over and over-- to get off, have a 'normal' boyfriend/trophy to keep her friends and family happy and never really giving him her heart.

Then Spike.

Poor Spike.  All that time before she'd been turned he'd been there, fighting and helping, bitching about being chipped, but never doing anything really evil. Like getting a load of minions to do his dirty work. Instead he'd turned to his mortal enemy and asked for help. Which was big. Something had been intrinsically different about him from the get go.  She had been able to read between the lines when Angel had mentioned Spike, usually with derision. Spike had loved from day one as a vamp. Okay, so he'd loved Dru the Wonder Skank, but still he was different from any other vampire out there. He had a poet's heart and loved, not wisely but loved well all those years with Drusilla. But that had changed. Buffy remembered what he'd said one night in the cabin about the first time he'd seen her dancing in the Bronze, how he'd been mesmerised by her at first sight. He had grudgingly admitted that maybe, just maybe it had been love at first sight. Not that he would've let himself admit it at the time; there had been Dru then.

She had held his admission gleefully to her heart. Spike had kinda loved her from the first moment he'd clapped eyes on her. Buffy sighed.  She had screwed up somehow with the claimage and he was hurting.

She had no idea what she'd done wrong; maybe they should've talked it out before doing it?

"Buffy, I think you and I need to have a long talk." Angel crossed his arms over his chest and stared down at the small vampiress in front of him. Wondering what the hell she was thinking, why was her lower lip sticking out.

"But what about Spike?" She looked over at the still closed door; Buffy could sense his presence on the other side of the panel of wood. He was probably pressed up against the door listening.

"I spoke with him and we decided that I should be the one to talk with you." Angel gestured for Buffy to accompany him.

Buffy frowned up at Angel and then with a resigned sigh trotted after him. Both vampires missing the growl that emanated from Spike's bedroom and the muffled kick to the door, followed by a yelp.

~~~~~~~~~~

"Not nice, Miss Edith. The family are altogether and we're not invited for crumpets and High Tea," Drucilla positioned her doll to face the wall and turned to face her newest Childe. "Grandmummy, there's a gathering and we've been left in the cold, alone. It's not fair. I want to touch the gold and make her bleed." 

Darla stared at the vampire who had turned her with a mixture of affection and disgust. She was sick of having to baby-sit the head case, and Darla was beginning to suspect that Dru wasn't as crazy as she made out. Darla was positive it was a way to keep the attention focused on her, and also made it
easier to not have any responsibilities for looking after herself.   Dru was lazy, manipulative and cruel-- a true childe of Angelus in all her aspects. It had been a long while since the two Aurelian females had spent much time with each other and Darla had suspicions. "Dru honey, why don't you go hunting, a good kill before dawn might put a smile on your face. There must be a few kiddie runaways around here for you to play with?"

"Dawn's green light, oh it calls, the air splitting and naughty delicious worlds tickling at the edges of ours. Such a pretty picture they make."  The slender brunette swayed on her feet and raised her hands into the air, her fingers picking at imaginary pixies around her head.

"Yeah Dru, that's it." Darla sighed and stared at her watch fixedly. She hadn't been near Angel for a couple of days and was getting bored. She liked messing with his mind.  The idiots at the law firm may think that they were in charge, but that was not the way she saw it. Once the visitors from hell
left she could set about screwing her darling boy's soul loose and then they would paint the town red.  

That bratty kid was too observant, she'd nearly caught her a few times and even she could see that there was no killing of the Summers women, not after what her boy had done last time she'd tried. Darla was oblivious to the fact that not only had her cover been blown. But that no matter how many times she seduced Angel his soul wasn't going anywhere. She wasn't Buffy and there was no pure happiness achieved in her bed for Angel, not now nor in the past.  
Oblivious to the sigh of boredom, Drusilla turned to her prettiest dolly and pulled her to her feet. "Come on my sweets, let us go and dance with the living for a little while. My sweet Dianthus will come to me soon, I know it in my heart.  He's only distracted, isn't he?" She turned her bright blue eyes towards Darla, seeking reassurance.

"Sure honey, whatever." Darla tossed the magazine over her shoulder and hooked one of Dru's hands through her arm. "Come on, lets get some dinner." She had learned over the years that distracting Drusilla with a hunt was the easiest way to shut her up.

She wasn't ruling out a sneak past the hotel, either. 

~~~~~~~~

"Where are they?" Glory demanded from her fragrantly scented bubble bath. Around her were several minions of the brown robed variety who where rushing around primping and preening the goddess.

"Oh stupendously stunning one, I don't know." Jinx wrung his scabby hands in distress at letting down his goddess. "Do you want to disembowel me now or after your bath?" He quivered at the exciting thought that maybe his darling goddess's hands might touch him soon. "Shall I go get a knife?" he asked hopefully.

"Really you are the most perfectly adorable sycophant, aren't you, Jinxy baby," Glory cooed as one of her bathers scrubbed between her toes with a tiny sable brush. "No disembowelling for you tonight." She preened at the sigh of disappointment that oozed from her follower. "Now where are they? Ideas, suggestions, wacky theories; I want those two vamps here and chained to the ceiling so I can peel them like an apple.  They are the ones, I know it. They know where my Key is and I am getting tired of waiting. I want to go home and I want this dimension destroyed."

"Well, I am waiting to hear from Pustule.  He is trying to get close to the apartment the vampires are using as a lair.  He's the only one who has enough magicks to try and get through the barriers the witches put up." Jinx scuttled over and handed Glory a champagne flute filled with her favourite cocktail. He used the opportunity to peek into the tub and see if he could adore her naked form. Just a glimpse of her perfectly formed breasts would fuel his fantasies for weeks.

"And? Where is he?" Glory snapped as she held out one hand for it to be cleaned.

As if on cue, there was a timid scratching on the door to her suite.

"Get in here," Glory ordered as she sat up and finally gave Jinx the eyeful he had craved. "You wash my back."

"Oh, thank you my fragrant one." Jinx scurried around and pushed the other fawning followers aside and with a rapturous drooling expression on his face, began to wash Glory's back.

"You." Glory snapped her fingers at the newcomer. "Well? Did you get close enough to find my Key?"

"Nu...no…umm…so…sorry,"  Pustule stammered, unused to having his darling goddess directly addressing him. He flopped to his knees and pressed his forehead to the tiled floor.

"Hope you don't stutter when you spellcast. Could lead to something nasty happening to you." Glory glared at the cringing bundle of unwashed robes. "Hey, then again, it might be an improvement on the original.." She sipped from her mimosa and sighed happily as Jinx rubbed between her shoulder blades,
"So, did you see anything?"

"Va…mm…pires  gone, two mortals in their lair, sleeping. The witch, the new one…and the old man, watches everything," he stammered, keeping his eyes firmly shut and his arms splayed out in front of him in the supplicant position.

Glory's eyes snapped open. "New one? How new?" she demanded.

"Oh Glorficus, I shall discover this information for you, never fear," Jinx babbled as he deliberately dropped the soap and with a happy moan and an all over quiver reached down to search for it in the tub. His questing fingers brushing against her backside. "Ahh.."

~~~~~~~~~

"Come on in." Angel gestured for Buffy to enter his rooms.

She hesitated on the threshold; there was a stink of something in here that made her stomach curdle. "I…um…can we go somewhere else?" She took a step back from the smell of Angel getting a happy. She may be newly turned, but even she knew the scent of sex. There was no way she was going to his room, the place where he eww…with the hand and the lotion…ick. Buffy shuddered and scooted down the hallway.

"Buffy," Angel sighed in exasperation. Mistakenly thinking she was avoiding talking to him, he lost control of his patience and growled.

Buffy's nose wrinkled, as she skipped backwards. "Not gonna work, Mr Growly pants.  If you wanna talk then we do it somewhere else. I can smell waaay to much in there, and yucksville!"

"What, you can smell Darla?" Angel blinked in surprise. She hadn't been turned when she met Darla and shouldn't have been able to recognise the scent of her fellow Aurelian.

"What? No, I smelled…you know." Buffy made gestures with her hand.

Angel's eyes widened as understanding blossomed. "Oh, right…Buffy! There are some things you really need to learn about vampire etiquette and that is one of them-- amongst others."

Buffy ignored him, her mind still stuck on his previous comment. "Darla? But she's dead.  You killed her. You did, didn't you?" she asked suspiciously, wondering if maybe she'd been played that night in the Bronze.

"Yes I did, Buffy.  And yes, she was dead.  Some law firm brought her back; she got ill and asked me to vamp her."

"You did it, right? You turned that hobag! Man, that is all kinds of weird, you Siring your Sire. I bet Freud would've loved that," Buffy babbled nervously. Were they sure that Angel had a soul still?

"What? No I didn't, Dru turned her. I think," Angel answered irritably. "And yes, I do have my soul," he answered her unasked question without pause, the irritation beginning to increase.

"You think? And Dru is hanging around here, near Mom and Dawnie?" Buffy snapped. She'd sent her family here to be safe-- not to be Dru-food. "Are you sure you have a soul?"

"Your family are safe, I swear. No Dru or Darla on my watch…anymore… and yes, I am sure I have a soul." Angel tried to placate her; he refrained from adding that if he had been soulless then her silly questions would've been all the trigger that Angelus needed to rip out her heart. 

"Right." Buffy's mind was a whirl trying to plot her next course of action. "So what did you want to discuss, oh Wise One?  Vampiric lore to impart to the fledgling, I guess?" Buffy's eyes were serious as she watched Angel do his cat on a hot tin roof impersonation. She had already decided that there was
no way mom and Dawn were staying at Angel's, not if Dru and Darla were around. They might be family now, but Buffy knew that they would destroy her mortal family the first chance they got. And there was no way that was happening on her watch. The only way she would leave her mom and Dawn here was if there were two piles of shebitch dust at her feet..

"Here." Angel opened his office door; while they had been talking he had guided them to his office. "Sit down."

Buffy perched on the edge of one chair facing the desk and watched as Angel sat in his leather desk chair with a groan. She stopped breathing; the scent of Cordy's strong perfume was grossing her out.

"Buffy, we need to talk." Angel clasped his hands together and leant forward with an earnest look on his face. "You do realise that under all the leather and bleach, Spike is essentially a romantic with very Victorian ideals."

“Oh,” Buffy mentally curled in on herself in utter humiliation that she was having the ‘talk’ with Angel of all people. She doesn’t understand yet though, does she? She frowned at Angel, wondering why he was the one, seeing that he hated Spike with a fiery vengeance. Yet here he was mediating. “I don’t get why you’re doing this?” slipped out before she could stop herself.  

Angel stared at his fingernails and tried not to sigh too deeply.  He had not been able to say no to Joyce, Dawn and Anya – and here he was. Playing cupid and trying to fix everything up for Spike to steal away his true love. He hunched his shoulders and fiddled with a hangnail. “You’re family.”  The broody vampire opted for Anya’s suggestion for a reason and deftly avoided the whole Joyce and the motherly blackmail bit.  

“But you bit him,” Buffy whispered. “FYI, that was sooo lame,” she added.  

“Well…yeah…but—” Angel tried to hide his humiliation, resorting to gnawing on his grandchilde’s side was high on the embarrassment scale.  He was very glad Wes and the others had missed the entire incident. “Look, the reason Spike freaked about the claim—” His manly restraint stopped him from sobbing ‘why?’ at Buffy and blurted out the rest of his speech. “He rejected the claim because he was worried that it wasn’t for love and was instead to make yourself feel better after seeing Dracula. He was also worried that maybe you don’t love him for himself, but love him only because he is your sire.” Angel closed his eyes.  He’d said it all and now he wanted to go out and kill a lot of demons, get drunk and then lose himself.  

Buffy’s eyes widened.  She sat there listening to what she guessed was the longest speech Angel had ever made to her. And probably the most significant one in her life. Buffy was glad she was a vamp, otherwise she would be bright red and hyperventilating on the spot. She dropped her head, letting her hair cover her face and her restless fingers toyed with the ties of her mom’s robe.  

“Buffy? Did you hear me?” Angel frowned and leant forward, trying to attract her attention.  

She nodded her head and tried to make herself as tiny as possible, curling her legs up under her. Under the cover of her blonde tresses she glanced at the door, calculating the distance, wondering if she could leap out of the room in one stride. She wanted to go to Spike and hold him.  She also wanted to run out of the hotel and avoid seeing anyone ever again. “I didn’t realise I’d messed up until it was too late and then, well…”  

“You did an impersonation of a hedgehog?” Angel asked gently with s small smile on his lips.  

“Huh?” Buffy frowned in confusion.  

“Curled up into a prickly ball and attacked if anyone tried to get too close?” Angel teased.  

Buffy looked up, her hazel eyes flecked with violet. “Yeah, something like that.  Man, the way I freaked at everyone…and then running to mom—” she trailed off and fiddled with her nails.  

Angel jumped slightly in surprise.  He’d thought she’d come to see him. “Your mom, right.” He sighed again.  

“Yeah, she makes everything feel better.  You know what mom’s are like,” she explained with a rueful smile.  

Angel stopped himself from answering.  His mother was a distant memory to him now, and the only thing he remembered was the sensation of his fangs sliding into her neck. “Look, we need to talk about vampiric traits and practises. I guess Spike hasn’t had time, what with the problems in Sunnydale?”  

Buffy’s eyes flickered to the door again and she then braced herself and turned to smile at Angel.  

“Buffy, did you hear me?” Angel stared at the glazed expression on her face with resignation. ‘This was not gonna be fun…’

~~~~~~~~

Spike pressed his ear against the door and strained to hear what was being said.  It was driving him nuts being patient. It made his teeth ache. But all of them had been insistent that Buffy had to understand her mistake and he wasn't allowed to cave. Joyce had hemmed and hawed over the sex angle, liking to imagine that her daughter was still a virgin despite everything.

The other women had begun to fire questions at him, after Buffy had run out of the kitchen-- run away from him.

Again.

Eventually Joyce had clapped her hands to stop Dawn and Anya's excited babble and had given him a look that reminded him of the time he had first slapped eyes on her. Spike had checked her environs for the presence of an axe and then looked back up at her compassionate eyes. She'd uttered his favourite words, hot chocolate. It was like magic-- all of them had sat down and shut up, waiting for the chocolaty treat. All the while Anya kept a firm grip on his arm, stopping him from following after Buffy. Eventually, they had managed to get him to not be the one to go after her. Instead, Joyce and Anya had intimidated Angel into it. Dawn had shown Spike to a room and told him to sleep off the alcohol and to let her mom fix it.

And now he was wondering what the hell he was on. Peaches put in a good word for him. Never imagined it in his entire unlife. Spike could feel the knife being slammed into his back over and over by the git who sired his Dru. He really did wonder about his own sanity, trusting everything to Angelus? 

"You know that I will have to injure you if you try to leave?"

Spike's shoulders slumped and he paused mid-pace. He turned to face his not so silent observer. "Promise not to gnaw at my side like a sissy fighter?" He pouted for good measure.

"Don't be such a baby," Anya admonished. She carried on painting her toenails, ignoring the imploring look Spike tossed her way. She was on the balcony perched on a lounger, having personally appointed herself Spike watcher for the night. "Yeah, what was all that about? Angel using you for a chew toy. I would've thought that he would be a little more manly than that." 

"I think he broke. Glad I puked on him, though." Spike smirked at the memory. "Wish I'd had a camera; that's one for the Aurelian annuls." He looked over at the door and mentally calculated how quickly he could get out there and find Buffy.

"Don't even bother, you know that Joyce is probably on the other side waiting with an axe." Anya dabbed a bit of polish on her little toenail.

Spike turned to her with big eyes and tried to look as innocent as he could. "This isn't gonna work, you know," he whined, mentally wincing at the sound.

"I trust Joyce. She knows her daughter better than any of us." Anya held up her hand to forestall his moan. "Yes, she does.  Even if you know Buffy in the biblical sense, a mother knows the workings of their child's mind. They have to in order to outwit them, so continue pacing and kicking inanimate objects with your bare feet. I imagine the pain distracts you slightly? Or does it turn you on?" Anya frowned in thought and blew on her shiny freshly painted toenails

"Your brain works in a very different way, Demon Girl." Spike stared down at his big toe and watched as it began to swell. "I like it."

"Thank you!" Anya chirped. She capped the polish bottle and gave it a good shake. "Now come and sit down so I can paint yours. I think this pale pink will compliment your colouring far better than that icky black stuff you use."

********

"Huh?"

Angel glanced up at Buffy and wondered why she was frowning at him. "Buffy, you do realise that you hurt his feelings?"

"I know.  I just don't get."

Angel sighed. He wanted to run screaming from the room, but the memory of Joyce's stern eyes kept him there. "Look, you have to read this."  He chickened out and reached behind him for a worn tome that Wes had left in the office. "Here, read this. I'll sit here and wait; if you have any questions, just ask." If he could've he would've been blushing.

Buffy stared down at the thin leather bound book resting in her unresisting hands. Her fingers traced the worn gilded lettering. 'A Brief Summary of the Mating Practises of the Vampyre By I. Bytes.' 

Angel reached into his desk and pulled out some paperwork and busied himself with the accounts, mentally hearing Cordy berating him for being a baby and not talking.

"Oh, thanks." Buffy stared at the book, wondering if she looked that sad and desperate. Instead, she opened it and began to read.

*********

"If he's making a move on her, I will kill him," Spike muttered as he discretely cleaned off the polish and then sat on his shaking hands to keep them away from Anya. He had no idea why he'd agreed to Joyce's plan, but as the minutes ticked past the more worried he became. Anya had confiscated the
battered pack of cigarettes he'd found in his duster with a disapproving tut and then continued to file his nails. So he didn't have the nicotine fix to calm him.  Instead, his nerve endings were strung tight by the sound of her emery board rasping back and forth. .

"Humph, as if she'd betray you." Anya leaned back on the lounger and stared up at the smog filled night sky. "Don't you miss the clean air, and the clarity in which you could see the constellations back in the day?"

Giving in to her, Spike looked up at the sky and nodded. "Yeah."

"Spike, it'll be okay. Joyce has a sound plan." Anya reached over and patted him on the shoulder.

"Yeah, she does, but Peaches is the one I'm worried about.  S'not normal for me to be relying on the likes of him to sort out m'love life.  He's the one that usually wrecks it."

"And can you think of anything better to torment him with than this?" Anya smiled pertly.

Spike's jaw dropped at the truly wicked machinations of Joyce. "Christ, she's a canny one, isn't she?"

"Took you long enough to realise it, Spike.  She never really forgave him for breaking Buffy's heart the way he did. Must say, Joyce would make an excellent vengeance demon." Anya giggled.

"Yeah," Spike nodded, then lay back on the lounger and tucked his hands behind his head.

"And if it all goes to plan, Angel will have put Buffy onto the right track and you and she can unlive happily every after.  He'll be depressed because it will have been his actions that reunited you, and we can go home. Well, once we get rid of Glory and save the day."

Spike smirked.  He made a mental note to buy Joyce a really nice pressie for her subtle manoeuvrings. "Thought she would've been a bit more civil to granddad after the blinding torment and whatnot to save her?"

"Yes, but she is a mother first and foremost, so is very protective of Buffy and Dawn," Anya supplied.

Spike smiled and shivered happily at the thought of Angel in knots trying to explain about sex and vampires-- 'as if he's had much practice recently.'

********

Buffy turned the book sideways and frowned at the very detailed engraving. She tried to ignore the shuffling of papers on the desk, not wanting to look up at Angel and see the morose expression on his face.

"Well, any questions?"

Buffy closed the book with a sigh. Unable to resist teasing her Great-Grande sire, she put on her best blonde expression and pointed to a picture.  "Where did he put his?"

Angel sighed.  He seemed to be doing that a lot more since Spike and the others had arrived to invade his sanctuary. "Buffy."  His voice held a warning note.

She smiled impishly. "Sorry."

"Look, I really don't want to be the one to—"

"Yeah, I know Angel.  How come you're here with the books and the talking?" Buffy interrupted before he said ‘sex talk’, 'cause there was no way that this wasn't embarrassing.'  

"Joyce felt it was better coming from me rather than anyone else.  That girl Anya volunteered, but I think Joyce was concerned about what she would say." Angel risked a look at the pale beauty curled up on the chair before him. "She is kind of frank, isn't she?"

Buffy smiled gently. "Yeah, but we love her for it."

Angel cleared his throat nervously. "So look, about what happened with Spike.  Do you have any questions, or did the book help?" He gestured to the slender volume Buffy was clutching to her chest.

"It helped.  You're not enjoying this anymore that I am, are you?" Buffy sighed.

Angel shook his head. "It hurts," he explained.

"I know, Angel.  But you realise that we were destined to fail, even before it started." Buffy's candid admission surprised her, but it also lifted a huge weight off her conscience

Angel stared at her in surprise at her maturity. "I…uh."   

Something inside him broke.  The ache that had started the day he left Buffy suddenly mushroomed at her mature realisation that their relationship had been doomed from the moment they'd met in that alley behind the Bronze. The pain that radiated out from his heart made him blanche.  His fingers dug into the wood of the desk as he gripped it, trying to anchor himself as the waves of agony buffeted him. He inhaled sharply as a feeling of utter hopelessness shot through his big form. It was over. The Buffy and Angel angstorama-- as Cordy called it-- was really over.  Here he was, acting as a vampiric Dr Ruth for Buffy and fixing her up with Spike of all people. He wanted to rip out his soul with his bare hands, anything to spare him the pain of that realisation.

"Angel?" Her voice still held that breathy quality when she said his name.

"Sorry.  Um…so—" He stared down at his white knuckles and felt his nails break as they dug into the wood.

Buffy leaned over, inadvertently giving him a birds eye view of forbidden territory.  He gasped. "Look, you need to go to him…now…please.  Just go and talk, now you've read that I think you know why, right?"

"Yeah." Buffy stood and then smiled, unaware of the morass of despair that Angel was mired in. Her mind and body were totally focussed on Spike. She trotted around and brushed lips against his rigid cheek. "Thank you for this."

Angel watched her leave.

Watched her go to Spike.

Watched her leave him behind in the shadows. Alone.

It was his fault she was going.  He gritted his teeth, stopping himself from calling out to her, calling her back to him. She wasn't his girl anymore.  Not now, not since that day when he'd thrown it all away and asked for the clocks to be turned back.

Buffy didn't love him anymore.

She was leaving him behind and going to Spike.

All the while mentally railing at the unfairness of it all. He was the one setting her onto the path. The self same path he'd stepped off, one that would lead to eternal consummation of her love for Spike. Not him.

'God it hurts.' 

Angel crumpled forward on his desk and sobbed. It hurt too much; he needed to make it stop. There was a faint click and he froze.  

"What do you want, Darla?” he growled.  

“Man, that wasn’t a barrel of laughs, you playing at being the head Poobah to the newest fledge of the family.” Darla leant in the doorway, her body backlit and her lips curled into what she considered a fetching smile. “Though I will have to stake Spike for having the poor taste to turn that skanky little slayer,” she added maliciously.  

“Leave her out of your mind games,” Angel growled.                        

Darla raised a perfectly plucked brow. “Oh, so my darling boy finally realised he wasn’t dreaming?” She giggled and ran her hands over her hips. “Have to say, it was getting boring doing all the work.”  

Angel stood and stared at the blonde woman who had for centuries been his reason for existence. He was tired of fighting, tired of being who he was.  He wanted to be free – wanted to rest.  

“What do you want, honey?” Darla sensed a shift in her boy.  After all their years together she could read him like a book, even with that disgusting soul.  

Angel stared at her, his face inscrutable. Then he moved around his desk so fast that Darla gasped in surprise. He grabbed her arm and pushed her, sending Darla stumbling into the wall. “I asked, what did you want? To gloat about my misery?” he demanded angrily. Darla stared up at him.  She licked her  bloodied lips and then grinned.

"Or, maybe what you really want is this?” He pushed her against the wall and gently brushed her hair back from her face.” Leaning in he kissed her softly, his tongue tracing the familiar lines of her mouth. “That maybe what you really want?” He kissed her again, in an instant deciding it would be easier without his soul and deciding to lose it in her.  

Darla froze under his tender ministration and then pushed him away. “Don’t play games with me,” she cried out, wiping her lips with the back of her shaking hand.  

"I'm not playing.  I just wanna feel something besides the cold." He lifted her unresisting body and laid her on his desk, one hand pushing away the papers and lamp which landed on the floor with a clatter. He had sent Buffy to Spike.  The thought circled in his head and was the only thing on his mind as he leant into kiss Darla again. 

Darla reached up for her angelic boy, her legs dropping loosely, cradling his hips against her throbbing centre. Content at last, in a few short minutes her boy would be back and they could paint the town red. She silently thanked Dru for sending her to Daddy.  Somehow the loon had known that this was the perfect time to strike, the ideal time to get Angelus back into the game.  

Angel pushed her back onto the desk and lowered himself on top of her with a grunt, leaning down he licked at her open mouth. Darla reached between their torsos and ripped his shirt open.  With a sigh she bent her head, her sharp teeth biting at a brown nub. Angel threw his head back and hissed through his teeth. Darla began to laugh in delight, realising that finally she was getting her way and this time without magic or any powders the lawyers had given her.  

Angel pulled back angrily. "Why're you laughing?"  

Darla continued to giggle.  Not answering him, she licked her way up his chest and then nipped at his throat in the same place that she had bitten him that first time in the alley behind the pub.  

Angel ground his teeth, incensed that she was laughing at him. Straightening he pulled away from her clutches and hit her, sending her crashing to the floor.  He loomed over her as Darla rolled over and looked up at him.  Her fingers pressed to her lower lip, trying to stem the blood. She recognised the look in his eyes and kept quiet.  

"Don't you feel the cold?" Angel knelt down and grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her hard.

"What're you doing?" Darla whispered, fear tainting her high-pitched voice. 

"It doesn't matter.” Angel stroked the side of her face. “None of it matters anymore.  She’s gone to him,” he kissed her again and Darla responded eagerly, each tearing the other’s clothes off.  

Both vampires with the same goal in mind – to get rid of a soul.

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