"Awakening - Colorblind"

Author: Vatrixsta Cruden
Contact: trixieangelsomething@hotmail.com
Disclaimer: Credit for the lyrics goes to the Counting Crows.
Notes: This is a companion piece to "Beginning -- Bitter Chill" -- these two stories sort of launch a big honkin' story which is called "Bittersweet Legacy" -- each story in the series will come with its own separate title, kinda like chapters. Stalking and kind words make me write faster. *g* This section will, however, stand on its own. (But it still ends evilly *g*)

I am covered in skin
no one gets to come in
pull me out from inside
I am folded, and unfolded,
and unfolding I am
colorblind

It was weird being dead.

Granted, Buffy had been dead once before already, but she hadn't retained any memory of that. Mostly, it had been a dark void, one that terrified her, one she never wanted to return to.

Except for all the parts of her that did.

Spike had once told her that slayers were just a little bit in love with death; the idea of an end, of no more fighting, no more thankless existence. People died around Buffy every day, and she wasn't allowed to mourn them properly, because she was too busy wondering what she'd done wrong, why she hadn't been able to protect them.

What Spike never took into account was just how deep Buffy's fear of nothingness ran. Everyone she'd ever loved, with the exception of her mother, had left her in some way or another. Angel had done it for her own good. Her father had done it for his. Riley had done it because he'd had an inferiority complex. Her friends stayed, her real family always stood and fought by her side, but in the end, wasn't she just damning them to the same life she would lead, until she died?

So when Buffy found herself losing to a vampire who'd been turned sometime in the sixties, if his bell-bottoms were any indication, she didn't fight quite as hard as she should have. When his fangs sunk into her throat, and she felt her life begin to leave her body, she found she couldn't quite let go. Fear got the best of her, and she reached for his wrist, ripping through the skin with blunt teeth, using the last of her strength to feed from her soon-to-be-sire.

It hadn't been like it was with Angel, intense pain and pleasure warring for dominance with every pull of his mouth. Nor had it been like it was with Dracula, an odd desire to comply with whatever he wished, the pain barely penetrating her enthralled brain. It hadn't even been like it was with the Master. He had inspired terror in her, a cold, blind panic that this was it, she would die at the hands of this bat-faced wonder, just as it had been written for thousands of years before she was born.

This final time Buffy Summers died... it had been like nothing. There was pain, but it was incidental. Soon, it would be over. No more fear, no more wondering, no more guilt over all the souls she hadn't been able to save. Never again would she have to put herself on the line for an ungrateful world.

Everything was taken away from Buffy. Sooner or later, it all got lost. Angel's desertion had been the most significant, but Riley's, so soon after nearly losing her mother, had been the killing blow. His departure had been the death of hope: hope for a normal life, hope for a love of her own, and hope for a strong man who would never leave because her life was too much to handle.

Her last conscious thought had been for the safety of the people she loved. Mostly, she'd wanted them to understand why she hadn't been able to go on. She'd known Angel would. He'd always understood her so well, and she'd hoped he'd understand this final decision.

However, before she could let go, instinct had taken over, and all that had brought her to this point, awakening, blinking up at the starry night, with what once used to be a peaceful, loving hippie at her side.

"Woah, man, I've never met a slayer before. And you're like... wow. Do you want something to eat? I bet there's a groundskeeper or something wandering around."

Buffy blinked a few times, doing a mental check of her senses. Automatically, she started breathing, then stopped, a tiny smile spreading across her face as she realized she didn't have to. Angel always breathed, she remembered, always kept up the illusion of being human. Why bother, when it was so cool to be this still? A vampire would never stand a chance against a slayer who could be this still.

Her nose wrinkled up. What was she thinking? No way was she going to bother hunting vampires now.

"Hey, dude, it isn't cool to ignore your sire."

Buffy glanced toward her "sire."

"How embarrassing," she mumbled aloud.

Well, maybe one for the road...

Moving faster than she had when she'd been alive, Buffy snagged her abandoned stake from the ground, and turned the vampire who'd made her to dust. With a careless shrug of her shoulders, she stood and began walking out of the mausoleum he must have dragged her into. Half its roof was gone, but it had still been a safe place to rest until she'd risen.

Wonder how long I've been dead? she thought. Giles must be freaked if it's been over a day.

"Buffy!"

"No way," she said under her metaphorical breath. "This is just too good."

"Buffy, are you okay?"

"Riley, what are you doing here?" she asked, a smile coming to her lips.

"I got back last night. Everyone's worried about you. You didn't come back from patrol last night."

"I know," she said gravely. "You look good enough to eat," she added.

Riley blinked at her. "Are you okay?"

"You had fun with those vampire whores, didn't you, Riley?"

"What? Buffy..."

"They needed you," she said sympathetically, moving toward him. She wrapped her arms around his neck. "I need you now, Riley." Something in her eyes must have convinced him, because she sensed his body yielding to hers. "Will you do something for me?"

"Anything, Buffy," he said quietly. "But you look... are you sure you're all right?"

Buffy lunged for Riley's throat, her face already shifting. He never had a chance to fight her off, her grip was too strong, the speed at which she sucked him dry too swift. His body hit the ground with a thud, and she swished her tongue around her mouth, making sure she had no bits of Riley between her teeth.

"Never better," she answered Riley's corpse belatedly, a wiggle to her hips as she walked from the cemetery.

It was great being dead.

Coffee black and egg white
pull me out from inside
I am ready
I am ready
I am ready
I am . . . fine
I am . . . fine

The End

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