DISCLAIMER: I don't own them.
TIMELINE: Follows "Heat and Dust" and "Cold Night Air." Sure, its been a while, but here it is.
SPOILERS: The two fics above, nothing else
SYNOPSIS: Riley gets his.
DISTRIBUTION: Anywhere you want it, just tell me.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Okay, I've had this for a while. Its still not proofread thoroughly, but I don't think its terribly off. Sorry this took so long, and sorry I haven't been around. Its been busy.
FEEDBACK: Go right ahead.
Rating: I'm going to say pg15, because its a bit dark. Merry Christmas!

He woke up suddenly, feeling the rope closing around his neck with terrifying force. Then it was gone. No rope. No monsters. Riley was alone, sheets wrapped tightly around him as if knotted. He ran his hand through his damp hair and struggled to draw a deep breath. The young man could still feel a tightness in his throat, and he massaged the imaginary ring gingerly.

Riley was dismayed to find a rough circle of skin around his neck, tender under his fingers, something like a rope burn. He reached out blindly for the switch on his bedside lamp. The little knob clicked and the room was glazed over in excruciatingly bright light.

He got out of bed and pulled off his t-shirt, exposing his clammy skin to the air. Riley shivered and glanced up at his ceiling fan as it spun lazily. The beaded pull-cord rattled incessantly, its usually unnoticeable movements oddly creepy to his sensitive ears. While everything in the room, with its blue walls, plaid bedding, and yellow furniture, was completely normal, he was strangely on edge.

Riley stumbled, still half asleep, towards his dresser. He lurched forward unsteadily and grabbed onto it for support. The backboard mirror rattled in its dusty frame, and he lifted a hand to steady it.

His own reflection worried him.

Riley Finn stared back at himself and wondered when he had last slept through the night. There were rings under his eyes and he was much paler than usual. His skin seemed translucent and for a moment he believed he could see his blood moving around his veins.

Gagging, Riley dropped his face into his hands and ordered himself to breathe. Something was inside him, running sharp teeth along his insides. He shuddered and counted and wished it would stop.

Riley feared.

He feared everything. Shadows and strangers, unfamiliar places, the phone. mostly the prickling feeling at the base of his skull that told him someone was coming behind him. The feeling that told him someone was coming to get him.

Slick shivers broke out through his body and he trembled. Every night he dreamt of things they would do to him. Riley woke with pain in his limbs, sometimes right over his heart, occasionally in his eyes, always where they had begun to cut or stab or- he gagged again- bite.

Once again he cursed himself for being an idiot. He had been an idiot to think killing Angel would solve anything. He had been an idiot to think he would have succeeded, that Buffy would have left him. He had been an idiot to think she would not be vengeful. The shivering continued, and he felt the familiar stinging and lifting of the hairs on his neck.

Riley spun around and looked for his assailant, hands groping the dresser for a weapon. He knocked all of his pictures and books from the surface before realizing that there was no one there. He sagged against the bureau as the momentary adrenaline rushed out of his blood.

He tried to count the number of times in the past months he had felt her, him, both of them, creeping up behind him. Every time he was sure it was over, he was dead. Each time he turned around he was alone. It was a sick game they were playing with him. They could just kill him, he reasoned, it wouldn't be hard. Anything but the waiting.

He turned back to the disarrayed dresser for another shirt and stifled a scream as he looked in the mirror.

A figure stood behind him in his reflection. It was swathed in black and seemed to bleed the very color from the room. The thing pulsed with energy, and its hum of power blocked out the rattling of the fan cord. Riley wheezed painfully, feeling the ring around his neck burn and ripple with sensation. He made his hands let go of the yellow painted surface, and he turned slowly around.

There was no one there.

Gasping, he turned back to the mirror. It still stood there, tall and hugely frightening in black and vibrating with potency.

He turned his back on the mirror, and found no one there.

But the figure remained in the mirror.

Riley stared at it with dull horror. The thing's clothing came more clearly into view. It wore a long black cloak that fell and pooled in a circle at the things feet, seemingly a cavern above which it hovered. A hood was drawn over its head and it drooped menacingly far over the face- if there was one. Its hands were hidden in the billowing sleeves of blackness.

The light around Riley began to dim.

He watched his own expression grow more and more horrified, more and more lost in the stretching darkness. It was almost as if there were no light in the room at all. He saw himself illuminated in the creature's own glow. It began to move, fluidly, lifting a hand out of the folds of dark cloth to point at him with one slim, pale finger.

"Who- who are you?" Riley whispered hoarsely, frozen to the floor. The figure came closer, swaying with rhythmic power.

"I," came its voice, deep and resonating, "I am your fear."

"What?" he rasped as he cringed.

"I am what you fear most." The second hand slithered from its sleeve, with long fingers wrapped around the handle of a blade. His knife. Riley could feel the coldness digging into his throat exactly where Buffy had pressed it. As it reached for him, the tip of the knife blurred the mirror and passed through, shattering his hope that the mirror would trap it, keep him safe.

Unexpectedly, the cloaked figure's free hand shot through the mirror and wrapped around Riley's throat. He eyes bulged out of his skull and he was yanked violently off his feet. The young man felt amazing, icy pain as he was pulled through the mirror. It was as if every molecule of glass was shredding his skin and making ribbons out of his organs. The pain was brief, though, and he found himself in the space within the mirror.

It was like nothing in the world existed. Wherever he was, it was only dim shadows and blurred boundaries, one huge figure swathed in black material, and two luminously pale, bony hands. The grip on his throat relaxed and he fell downward, never hitting anything but quickly losing momentum completely.

"Don't hurt me," he pleaded, finding his gaze trained on the glinting knife. Any bravado, any dignity that he had ever hoped to have in death was fast dissolving. Riley only wanted to escape the mirror- world with his life. Honorable death was overrated.

"You hurt yourself," the voice said wisely from within the folds of the hood. The knife, his knife, came closer and closer, until it hovered just above his heart.

"Wait!" he protested, attempting to scramble backwards and failing. "Show me- show me your face." The creature seemed to pulse as it considered his demand. The knife came closer, fast. "Please?!"

"Very well." The empty hand swept the heavy black hood back. Riley gasped and tried to run, unsuccessfully.

It was Buffy, but not completely. The face behind the hood was paler than the hands, silken marble skin that glowed so brightly he squinted. Dark, dark brown hair fell in waves that appeared to writhe and slither on their own accord. One eye was the clearest green, the other deep, smooth brown, both framed by gold lashes and open wide. Her mouth was deep red, a shocking contrast to her skin, and her full, lower lip was indented by jagged, feline fangs.

"Buffy?" he whispered, feeling cold terror swallow him. She shook her head and showed no emotion.

"I am your fear."

"What?!"

"I am what you fear the most. A reflection of your own deeds, the wrongs you have done others." Riley nodded in some understanding. "I am the balance."

"Please," he begged, "please don't." The figure reached for her hood and drew it back over her face. As the glowing white visage disappeared into its shadows, he recognized Angel's cool stare in the eyes before all was completely obscured. Riley continued to stare after the face, even as the knife was slid deliberately into his heart. He remained, lifeless and trapped, within the mirror.

Forever.

No one ever found Riley's body. His friends and family were beside themselves, never knowing what had happened to him. The only clue, and a poor one at that, was his bedroom mirror. A smeary handprint with unmatchable fingerprints marred the glass, and a thin trickle of Riley Finn's blood that stained the silver an unbelievably brilliant shade of red.

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