"Infection - Hey You"

Author: Vatrixsta Cruden
Contact: trixieangelsomething@hotmail.com
Disclaimer: Song credits this time 'round go to Pink Floyd.

Hey you, out there in the cold
Getting lonely, getting old
Can you feel me?
Hey you, standing in the aisles
With itchy feet and fading smiles
Can you feel me?
Hey you, don't help them to bury the light
Don't give in without a fight.

It was laughably easy to track her down. Assuming anything about this situation made Angel feel like laughing. Which it didn't.

Buffy liked the ocean. She liked to hear the waves crash against the shore, she loved the smell of salt air, and once, she'd told him the beach reminded her of her life. Wild and unpredictable, capable of giving you the greatest ride of your life one minute, and pounding you harshly into the ground the next.

The demon Buffy was now wouldn't be able to shake her wants and desires, her hopes and dreams. That was a lesson Darla had taught him barely a day out of his grave. The same love will infect our hearts, she'd whispered to him as he stood in the destruction of his family's kitchen.

His demon hadn't been capable of love for the first hundred and forty years of its existence. Angel himself had never known it, aside from the love he'd felt for his sister and his parents. It hadn't been until Angel had loved Buffy with all his dead heart that he'd given the demon something new to feel. After Angel lost his soul, Angelus had been unprepared to deal with his new set of baggage.

He'd quite literally been prepared to suck the world into hell to end his obsession with the small blonde girl whose sacred duty it was to kill him.

It was then unsurprising that Buffy would have come to Los Angeles in search of what her human self had thought of as her true love. Naturally, the demon would perceive that love differently, but no less vehemently. If anything, her desire to be with him would be intensified, as she no longer feared his curse breaking; he'd be willing to bet she would welcome it.

"It's about time you got here. I was beginning to think that sign on the door that says 'Angel =Investigations=' was just for show."

She stood by the shore, moonlight shining down on her already pale skin. It saddened him that Buffy's ever present, healthy tan had been obliterated so quickly. Then again, her pale skin looked like fine porcelain, infinitely fragile.

He shook the imagery off. This business of thinking of her as anything but a demon to be killed had to stop.

Acutely aware of just how easily she could probably kill him, he moved toward her slowly, stopping once he'd reached her side, a few feet still separating them. He took in her appearance, and caught his metaphorical breath. Her dress was pale blue, a tasteful print that clung and curved around her body. It was virtually see-through, and he could clearly see her breasts, rosy nipples poking angrily against the silky material, her hips, the small patch of blonde hair just above legs that seemed to stretch on into infinity.

He really had to stop wanting her this badly. Though given how successful he'd been at that particular endeavor in the past, he sincerely doubted he'd have much luck now. His body was chemically inclined to lust after hers. Soul or no, pulse or no, she was his mate, and his bones ached the longer he stood beside her. The demon inside him howled for him to take her, right here in the sand, to rip into her flesh with his fangs, because she'd welcome it, would claw at him for more...

"Thinking naughty thoughts, lover?" she inquired in a baby soft voice.

His gaze snapped to hers, and he probably would have blushed had he been physically able. Man and demon were meeting inside of him, in perfect agreement for the first time in over two hundred years. She was his, and he had to take her.

"What do you want from me?" His voice was hoarse, and he tried to inject more authority and less longing into it. "Why did you come here?"

"I came to L.A. to pay a visit on Daddy," she began, mistaking his question, purposely, he was sure. "Turns out I had a lot of unchecked rage issues brought on by the abandonment of a father figure." A tiny frown marred her perfect brow. "At least, that's what the therapist I met told me. I was understandably disappointed with her diagnosis and, well..."

"Had her for dinner?" Angel suggested, the part of his mind still functioning rationally deciding that listening to Buffy speak so casually of murdering her family was more traumatic than re-living the time he'd killed his. And still, he wanted to touch the skin so tempting beneath that flimsy dress. She wore no underwear, it would be so easy to slide it over her hips, to press her to the sand and--

"You look tense," she commented, seemingly concerned for him. "You always look so tense. You really need to learn to relax more. Here, let me show you." She moved fast, knelt at his feet. If it had been an attack, he'd most likely be dust, because his limbs felt sluggish. His mind hadn't yet processed that his Buffy was =dead=, not when she was right here in front of him, sounding so much like herself.

"What are you--?"

His shoes and socks were removed and tossed aside. Again, she stood before him, and he noticed that she was barefoot as well, wiggling her toes against the sand.

"It feels great," she confided. "It's a little known fact that wet sand heals all that ails you."

"Buffy," he murmured, because that sounded exactly like something she'd say. He reached a hand out toward her, and she grasped it, squeezing tightly.

Then, she began to laugh. But not Buffy's laugh, rich and deep, sending ripples of delight up and down his spine. This laugh was a cold, evil thing. Buffy stood on her toes and brought her mouth to his ear.

"Gotcha," she whispered, a moment before she shoved at his chest, then turned and ran down the beach.

Angel did the only thing he could think to do; the thing he'd always done.

He followed her.

Hey you, standing in the road
always doing what you're told,
Can you help me?
Hey you, out there beyond the wall,
Breaking bottles in the hall,
Can you help me?
Hey you, don't tell me there's no hope at all
Together we stand, divided we fall.

"It sort of feels like you died too, doesn't it?"

Xander looked at Cordelia, surprised that she'd spoken. They'd been sitting on the floor of his room quietly for the last half-hour. It was nice, being with her like this. Back when they'd been dating, they couldn't have gone ten minutes without an argument, or a vicious make-out session -- sometimes both at the same time. This sitting quietly with an old friend thing was new to them.

"Yeah," he said, focusing on her question. "That's exactly how it feels."

"I lost someone," she began hesitantly. "I'm not even going to compare it to how you must feel with Anya, but he -- Doyle -- was very special to me."

"Were you..."

She smiled. "No. Though not for his lack of trying."

"You always were irresistible, Cordy."

"We might have been something, though," she continued. "In fact, I'm pretty sure we would have been. I mourned that for a long time. Angel was mourning the death of his friend, and so was I, but I was also mourning the death of a chance at something that would never come again."

"Love always comes again," Xander said before he could stop himself. He frowned. "Anya said that once. At the time, she was being flippant about how men always moved on to the next barmaid."

"But it's true," Cordelia agreed. "When we ended, I was heartbroken."

"Right," Xander said, his disbelief evident. "Cause Queen C was all torn up about finally being given a legitimate excuse to ditch the King of Cretins."

"I was in love with you, Xander," Cordelia said flatly. "It killed me to find you with Willow."

"You loved me," he repeated quietly.

"Of course I did, dorkus!" She smacked his arm. "God! How could you not know that?"

"Maybe because you were always saying how I was beneath you and how you could do better than me by trolling for guys at the docks?"

Cordelia grimaced. "Yeah, okay, so not my finest hour."

"Hours," Xander corrected.

"Whatever," Cordelia said, dismissing him with a wave of her hand. She grew serious. "I'm sorry. For how I was in high school. For how I was as your girlfriend."

"Yeah, well, me too." A bittersweet smile tilted Xander's lips upward. "I used to think you and I were how it was supposed to be. Passionate and angry, lots of sudden clinches in broom closets."

"How could you possibly think =that=?"

"Well, you know how my parents are. Ma and Pa Walton they're not. I guess I always thought love and rage went hand in hand."

"Xander," she murmured quietly, sympathetically.

"Anya showed me how different it could be," he said softly. "She made me a man, Cordy, in every way. I was so proud to be with her, even when she was embarrassing me by saying the most inappropriate thing possible." A laugh caught around a sob in his throat. "I really do feel like I'm dead."

Cordelia wrapped an arm around his shoulder, tugging gently until his forehead rested against the side of her neck.

"That's okay," she whispered against the top of his head, pressing an almost motherly kiss there, "we'll resurrect you in the morning."

But it was only fantasy.
The wall was too high,
As you can see.
No matter how he tried,
He could not break free.
And the worms ate into his brain.

"Her name was Glory," Giles said at last, "and she was a God."

They'd been talking for over an hour. They'd abandoned tea when Giles had began his tale of Dracula, and switched to brandy when Wesley informed Giles of Darla's reappearance to the land of the un-living.

Giles had already explained about Dawn, a girl whom Wesley had no memory of. He wondered if Angel and Cordelia knew of her. Buffy's sister had been some sort of key, pure energy with the power to open some demon dimension. Unfortunately, Buffy's turn to darkness had resulted in Dawn's death, and, Giles had learned before he set out for Los Angeles, Glory's as well.

"Apparently, a few demons at Willy's bar witnessed it. Her minion informed her of the key's destruction -- while in human form, Dawn was as vulnerable as any other mortal -- and she quite literally self-destructed. My pet theory is that when all hope of returning to her home was gone, the thought of going on was too much."

"Remarkable," Wesley commented.

"What I find remarkable is this scroll you've discovered," Giles insisted, slurring his words slightly. They'd gone through half a bottle already. "A vampire destined to save the world and reap a hero's reward -- it's unheard of."

"It =was= unheard of," Wesley corrected, puffing up a bit. "But then Angel is rather famous for breaking vampire conventions, wouldn't you say?"

"Hmm," Giles hummed noncommittally, sitting back in his chair. "Buffy would have been overjoyed to learn he might become human one day."

"Would she have," Wesley mused dubiously.

"Of course," Giles snapped. "She loved Angel. More than any of us realized until it was much too late."

"Her treatment of him would suggest otherwise," Wesley declared hotly. "Honestly, the way she spoke to him the last time she was here--"

"She was angry," Giles defended. "Angry and hurt over Faith."

"Did she even tell you what happened?"

"Not in so many words," Giles admitted grudgingly. "But things... things were tense at the time. The look on her face was explanation enough."

"This is counter-productive," Wesley declared, pouring himself yet another glass of brandy. "And I've no doubt that we'd never be discussing it were we not so fantastically schnockered."

"Indeed," Giles agreed, also pouring more dark brown liquid into his own cup. "Though I admit, I look forward to a drunken oblivion."

"I never feel rested after passing out," Wesley commented idly.

"So long as I'm unable to dream, I shall be content," Giles declared. "I admit, I'm quite afraid of what I'll see the next time I dream."

"And so you should be," Wesley agreed, not without sympathy. "And so, perhaps, should we all."

Hey you, out there on your own
Sitting naked by the phone
Would you touch me?
Hey you, with you ear against the wall
Waiting for someone to call out
Would you touch me?

It only took him a minute to catch her. When he did, she was still laughing. Instead of stilling, she continued to move, wrapping her arms and legs around his until they fell to the ground, rolling in the sand and surf. Luckily, neither needed to breathe, so the few minutes they spent being pounded beneath a wave did no long-term damage.

Once they'd regained their footing, they squared off with one another again, each measuring exactly how far the other was willing to go. Buffy took long, lingering eyefuls of him, water dripping down his neck into the collar of his now-clingy dark blue shirt. Water dripped off her, as well, and the dress he'd thought see-through before was literally transparent when wet.

"You can't kill me," she pronounced finally, inching toward him with silky, assured steps. "You can't kill me anymore than I could kill you."

"You did kill me," he reminded her.

"Only because I didn't want the world sucked into hell," she countered. Her gaze found his, and her eyes were so familiar, so achingly =Buffy=, that he nearly wept. "Not caring about the world so much right now."

For some reason, his hands were gripping her upper arms tightly. When he'd first taken hold of her, it had been with the intent to push her away, because he didn't know if he could control himself with her so close. Now, with her face so near his throat, her mouth making tiny little brush strokes against his skin, he found his resolve weakening. Weak. He'd told her once that he'd never been anything but. Every time he saw her, he proved it.

He'd been weak with Darla, too. Despite all the hell he'd survived -- both literal and figurative -- she'd managed to wear him down. He could say she'd blackmailed him all he wanted. They both knew the truth: he'd sought to lose himself in her only to remember...

...it wasn't sex that caused him to lose his soul. It was Buffy: her light, her radiance, and an essence that was simply and uniquely hers. Once upon a time, she'd given him peace, made him feel like a human being for a single, perfect moment, and his soul had soared so high in her embrace, he'd actually lost it.

"Are you still pissed off about that?"

Angel was snapped back into the present. "About what?"

"That whole me sending you to hell thing," she said in a "duh" voice. "Because I really am sorry."

"I was never angry with you for that," he told her honestly.

"Right," she said slowly. "I sent you to hell for an eternity, and it didn't make you even a little bit cranky. Come on, you can tell me. That's the real reason you left me, isn't it? You couldn't get past the whole eternity of suffering thing."

"You did the right thing," he said tightly. "I've never blamed you for it. I certainly didn't leave because of it."

"Liar," she whispered against his face. How the hell had she gotten so close again? Why didn't he push her away? "Oh, my love, we have so many issues to work through."

"Like you being evil," he pointed out nastily.

She made a tsking sound. "That is totally unfair. You went evil way before me. Did I ever hold that against you? Did I try to throw it in your face?"

"As a matter of fact," he began, losing all semblance of rational thought in this conversation, "I can recall several occasions where you--"

"Oh no, you do not get to throw all the times I tried to stake you in my face," she stated firmly. "It was my job. And besides, =you= are the one who turned all Ambivalent Cold Guy the morning after."

"I was soulless," he cried.

"So am I!" she shot back. "And look, here I am, trying to work things out between us. God, Angel, aren't you willing to put just a little effort into this?"

And there it was. This had officially become the most surreal conversation he'd ever participated in.

"I don't want you," he said clearly, though hysterical laughter started bubbling up in his head at the boldface lie.

The low, throaty chuckle, though, that came from her. Long fingernails scraped down his chest against the material of his shirt until she reached his belt. Three teasing strokes had him hard as a rock, and her palm pressed against his fly.

"Nice try, my love," she murmured, pressing a soft kiss to his chin. "But I know better. You've always wanted me. You want me just as much as I wanted you, evil or not."

"You never wanted me when I was like that," he denied vehemently. "When you were human, you hated me without a soul."

Her smile turned cruel. "Keep telling yourself that," she whispered, releasing him. She took a few short steps away from him. "But we both know the truth. I ached for you every single minute we were apart. I hated the evil that controlled you, but I still loved you. And I certainly still wanted you." She shrugged carelessly. "And now, I really don't care if you're souled or not. I'll take you any way I can get you."

"I won't," he said quietly.

"We'll see," she giggled softly, slowly disappearing into the night.

This time, he did not follow her.

Hey you, would you help me to carry the stone?
Open your heart, I'm coming home

The End

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