((I think I've lost some blood.))

"Angel?" I choked out, leaning heavily against the wall. "Where the fuck are you?"

I clutched my hand to my wrist, trying to stop the bleeding. I should have gone home. To the library. Even to the fucking hospital, just anywhere but here. Really fucking smart idea, coming to a vampire lair with blood running in a tasty river down your sleeve.

"Fuck," I hissed, and then he was there.

"Have a little accident, did we, lover?" His smirk was infuriating.

"No," I shot back through gritted teeth, "I decided to look into the exciting world of masochism. Really opened my eyes." I winced and held my hand around my wrist a bit tighter. "So have you got a fucking tourniquet?"

"We don't really try to stop the flow of blood in this house, my love."

"Angel," I glared darkly. "If you don't get me something to stop the bleeding, I'm going to die. And you're going to have to go without a warm body in your bed at least until you've gotten rid of the corpse. So get me a tourniquet and save us both the bother."

Gently, his hand slid under my wrist and lifted it to his mouth. He took one long, luxurious lick of my arm, sending shivers jolting down my spine, almost making me forget my impending death from blood loss.

Rich timber eyes met mine, a warm mahogany glow that made my stomach feel all melt-y inside. My tummy rumbled, and I murmured, "Please, Angel."

"See, now," he said, and scooped me into his arms. "Aren't they the magic words?"

He carried me into his bedroom, and he must have fixed me up, because next thing I know, it's morning, the birds are singing, somewhere - behind the thick black curtains used to obscure the light - the sun is shining, and there's a neatly healed scar where only the night before, there was a gaping hole.

It was morning, and he was staring at me with those eyes.

((Eat my heart out when I wake upCan't remember how I got here,All I know is I don't care))

"Morning," I said casually. As if I wasn't expecting the onslaught he now thought he had the right to release upon me.

"So," he muttered, sitting on the bed beside me, a mass of knees and elbows and long, lean legs. "What the fuck happened to you last night?" He lifted a cigarette to his lips and takes a drag, releasing the rolling smoke slowly, angrily. "And who the fuck is it that I'm hunting for?"

"I don't remember."

"Bullshit."

"I'm serious, I don't. I got jumped from behind... I wasn't paying attention, I guess."

I remembered the flash of blonde hair and pale skin, purple-blue nails raking into my arm. I remembered the pain, and a giggle, and cursing myself for not being more careful.

I remembered seeing the mansion a few blocks away, and stumbling a blood-stained trail to my lover, my skin feeling too thick and my bones feeling too weak. I remembered being afraid.

I was totally unwilling to tell him that, though. Instead, I just sighed, and told him to eat me.

Predictably, he quite liked that idea. Not that I was complaining.

When I woke again, he was staring down at me with dark, troubled eyes. I remember those eyes, filled with love and joy and tenderness beyond anything I'd ever known before. Tenderness beyond hearts, and flowers, and long lazy days spent wrapped in one another's arms.

Those darling eyes were now filled with... something. Something harsher, darker than tenderness. Something balancing precariously the divide between love and obsession. Whatever it was, it was all for me.

"Hey," I said weakly as I struggled to sit up. "Check it out, I'm still alive."

He wasn't amused. "Just barely. If you'd pay some fucking attention to your surroundings, you wouldn't have been skewered."

I snorted, but don't reply, because the truth is, he was right. Not that I'd ever tell him that. He thinks he's my lord and master enough as it is.

"I have to go to school," I muttered and swing my legs out of the bed. A wave of dizziness coursed through me like ice-cold barbed wire and I faltered.

"You've lost a lot of blood," Angelus drawled. "You can barely stay awake through Calculus as it is, and you think you're going to school?"

"I am going to school," I repeated, and stood, shakily. "You don't like it, you can -- "

He grabbed me around the waist, lifted me up, and put me back on the bed. "Lover, I'm tired, kind of angry, and *much* stronger than you at the moment. Do you *really* want to test my patience?"

I tried really hard not to burst into tears. "B-But Giles, and Mom, Angel! Everyone will be wondering where I am." My lip quivered. "What if they come here looking for me?"

"Why would they come *here*, of all places? They don't even know I live here."

"They'll be worried about me," I insisted, reaching out a hand to curl it in his shirt, "Please, Angel. Angelus."

"Don't give me that 'Angelus' crap, as if you're my mom telling me off, Buffy. Using my full name isn't any more convincing."

I pouted. "You just want me here for a fuck." I caught sight of him rolling his eyes. "What? It's true!"

"Buffy." He sounded really tired. Probably not in a fucking mood, if such a thing is possible for Angelus. "Look, I just want you to not get killed. And then maybe you can tell me more about what the fuck happened to you, and more importantly, who in the hell is responsible."

"I told you already - "

"I know. But I'll find them."

And I could tell, from the determined gleam in his eye, the dangerous slide to his voice, that he meant it. And for some reason, that scared the shit out of me.

He finally let me go at five, and I stumbled home feeling empty and tired and angry at the world. I got home expecting the Spanish Inquisition from my mother, but she wasn't there. A message on the answering machine told me she'd been at the gallery all night, stocktaking.

Just fucking wonderful. Thanks mom.

I went upstairs and curled up in my bed. Alone. I'd nearly died. Here, away from Angelus, that finally hit me. Tears started rolling down my cheeks. Coward's rain.

Death. Morte. Kicking the bucket. Selling the bleeding farm.

Fuck.

I didn't see Angelus for a few days after that. It surprised me, because I expected him to be hovering over me like a Rottweiler. Barking at my every visitor and scaring away unwelcome intruders.

He didn't, though. He just didn't bother. Maybe he didn't care.

That bothered me much more than I'd like to admit. At some point in this weirdass affair, I started thinking of him as my boyfriend, a little. I got used to him treating me a certain way, and when he stopped... chaos. Misery.

Why the fuck had he just abandoned me all of a sudden? Sure, he's *evil*, and he's an *asshole*, but he'd always been there when I needed him, before.

I nearly died.

I couldn't seem to reconcile myself to that idea. I 'nearly died' every day. I lived with death. I fought with death. I fucked death.

But this time... this time it was so close I could taste it. This time it nearly swallowed me whole.

I nearly died. I touched death. Not dead like approaching the bright light at the end of the tunnel, or dead like waiting to be reborn, but dead. That final nothingness. That tranquilised numbness of the beyond.

Dead. I nearly died.

When I woke up on Thursday night, he was there. Sitting on my bed. Black sweater. Black pants. Eyes the black of absolution.

"Where have you been?" I asked, trying not to sound so plaintive. Trying not to sound as though I missed him.

He shrugged. "Been busy."

My mind flashed in terror back to that first morning after he lost his soul. The mocking. The indifference.

Things had changed between us since then, but you wouldn't know it from the way he was acting now.

"What?" I asked hoarsely. "What the fuck is going on?"

"Nothing." That same detached shrug. He didn't even look like he wanted to fuck me. For a moment, I was terrified that he had come to kill me.

Just snap my neck and slip away in the night.

"Angel?"

He looked away. "I have to go. I'll - "

He was going to say he'd see me later, I was sure, but he stopped himself.

"You're acting weirder than usual," I said, and grabbed his arm as he tried to get up. "And for you, that's saying something. You haven't even *tried* to seduce me."

His eyes grew cloudy as he looked at me. "Do you want me to seduce you?"

I giggled and tugged on his arm, trying to loosen him up a little. "Of course, Mrs. Robinson."

He pursed his lips, frowning at me. "I'm very busy, Buffy."

I tugged him harder, right on top of me. "You can't even make time in your schedule for little old me? I'm offended. If you're not careful, I'll stop fucking you altogether."

As he leaned in to kiss me, I heard his voice. "Little slayer, you wouldn't dare."

He's right. I probably wouldn't. But I didn't have to tell him that.

When I showed up at the mansion a few days later, I discovered the source of his weirdness: six feet of pale porcelain skin and bloodstained lips. White-blonde elegance, stalking across his bedroom in one of his shirts and nothing else.

"Darling," she purred to him, joining him on the bed. She kissed him, and I felt myself shake. She climbed over him, wrapped herself around him, and I thought my heart was going to explode in my chest.

As he moved with her, he must have seen me or smelt me or *felt* me, because he looked up, suddenly. Met my eyes and flinched a little, but didn't look away, and didn't stop screwing her.

I'd known he was fucking other women. I'd just never been confronted with the brutal reality of it before. I'd never had to see them or watch them or hear them, never had to hear someone else's voice whispering his name. Some other woman calling him darling.

It was starting to make a sickening kind of sense in my mind. The truth thudded in my ears as I took one last look and left the mansion.

He didn't want me anymore.

I nearly died.

He didn't want me anymore.

I really had to kill something.

He came looking for me in the cemetery that night, as I was finishing off what felt like my fiftieth dusting of the night. All highly unsatisfying, because the vampire I really wanted to kill had long blonde hair and was making herself a brothel in my. lover's. bed.

As the poor defenceless vampire I was venting my rage on exploded into dust and bone, I turned around and saw him, a few feet away, smoking a cigarette and looking at me calmly.

We stared at each other for a few minutes before I spoke. "So she's why, huh? She's why you've been acting so weird." I laughed bitterly and shook my head. "She's why you're 'busy'."

"What do you expect from me?" He cocked his head to the side. "Fidelity? Everlasting loyalty? That's not what we're about, Buffy."

I felt every muscle in my body tightening. "I didn't expect that. I kinda hoped you wanted me more than the others, though. I'm a fool, huh? I mean, how many years of experience has she got on me? Fifty? A hundred and fifty?" I put my hands on my hips and sneered at him. "Little innocent Buffy is a mercy fuck, right? Deflower the virgin and move on."

He shrugged. "You could call it that."

"Fuck you, Angelus. You don't want me anymore? Fine. Whatever. I'll find someone else to screw. There's plenty of panting puppy dogs around, we both know that. But don't just ignore me. Don't pretend I don't exist so you can fuck one of your whores."

He flinched as I talked about seeking my pleasure elsewhere. The fucking bastard had the gall to be jealous, to be *possessive*, after I'd just watched him in bed with some other bitch.

I exhaled, feeling tired and sad and lonely as I gazed at him. "So who is she?"

"Aurora. My childe."

"Just thought she'd drop in on Daddy on her college vacation?" My tone was biting and angry. "Let me tell you, you and your spawn are just about fit for Jerry Springer."

"Buffy, you're overreacting."

I can't believe he had to guts to say that to me - stake in hand, heaving breath and all.

"*Overreacting*?" I shrieked.

"You're being a child," he shot back. "This is the way my world works, Buffy. You know that."

"No. I don't. All I know is that a man who used to want me *all the time* suddenly isn't interested, and it's all because of HER!"

I felt tears in my eyes and I forced them back.

He approached me, pulled me against him. "What is it that gives you the impression I don't want you anymore, lover?"

"I don't see you for days, and when I do, I have to *drag* you into my bed, and then you disappear *again* and when I finally get up the guts to go see *you*, there's another woman in your bed. I wonder how I came to such an obscure conclusion!"

He looked at me lazily. "Aurora only showed up today, Buffy. I've been looking for the fucker that tore open your arm."

Oh.

I started to shake again. "And ... what? That's supposed to make it okay that when I close my eyes, all I can see is you? You and her and you and her. I can't make it stop."

He ran an irritable hand through his hair. "This is the way it is. Accept it or don't accept it. But don't torture yourself with it. She's a good fuck. She's a good fight. But she's no different to the other vampires."

I think maybe that's about as close as he good get to telling me he liked me better.

"Does she fight as well as me?" I asked, clutching at his shoulders. So pathetic, I know. "Does she?"

He smirked at me, arching his eyebrow. "She's not as... imaginative... as you. Not nearly so much fun."

"Yeah, but when it comes down to it, that's all you think I am, right? Fun." I kissed him hard, a violent, punishing kiss. Tongues. Teeth. Blood. We were animals, struggling for dominance. "You're underestimating me, Angelus."

"Am I?"

I reeled back and punched him full across the mouth.

"Yeah. I'd say so." I looked at him, glaring at me with blood dripping out the corner of his mouth. "I think you need an attitude adjustment, *babe*."

"As opposed to anger management, like you?"

"Don't push me, Angel."

With that I turned and walked away. I think that was maybe the last thing he'd expected me to do. I'd never been capable of it before.

I didn't get very far. He grabbed my arm and I was spinning around, allowing him to pull me against him. Our lips met, and my heart lurched, Angel, Angel, Angel. I wanted him to be mine, all mine, as he hadn't been in so long.

((I love you. I try not to, but I can't stop.))

Oh, god, Angel. Angelus. I didn't know how to differentiate them, sometimes. The lines blurred and shifted in the sand. Angelus would be sweet and almost loving one moment, and then calling me a bitch and a whore and fucking anyone but me the next.

Fucking her. Aurora. As if that's her real name, anyway, and I know she's technically got an excuse because of that whole reborn-as-a-creature-of-the-night thing, but who does she think she is? A Disney princess?

It made me furious that he thought he could just look in my eyes as he fucked her and then come to me at his convenience. It made me furious that he forgot who I am - what I am - and expected me just to take it. Sit there and whimper and drool and follow him like he was my master and I was his dog. Little shih tzu, yapping at his heels.

God. Angelus. I wanted him to be mine almost as much as I needed to be his. Mine alone, not mine and Aurora's and Spike's and Drusilla's. Buffy's. I wanted him to remember that I was as much his master as his slave.

But I wasn't strong enough to go all or nothing, so I just melted into the violence of his kiss, and allowed myself the thought that here, now, he was captivated by me. Here, now, he knew my power.

Even if it wouldn't last. Even if I was so angry and so hurt I thought it would kill me.

I pulled myself away and looked into his eyes. Rich whiskey eyes, the soul melted all away. Eyes that flashed gold as he looked at me.

"Fuck whoever you want, Angelus." I pushed him away from me with Slayer-sized-force. He fell to the ground with an undignified thump. "But you're not fucking me tonight."

We looked at each other for a moment. For the first time, he wasn't a shade of Angel. He was just a demon with an incredibly pretty face. It was all the strength I needed to get away. To run like hell.

Even as I did, I knew... I hadn't won. Whatever the little battle we'd just fought had been, it wasn't over. Just temporarily delayed. His defeat of me... my complete and total destruction...

It was still coming. And I was helpless to stop it.

The End