"Death is your art. You make it with your hands, day by day."

His words echoed in her head, gripping her heart with the mention of her ultimate goal and reward. Her ultimate peace. Death. No matter how alive she felt, she never felt complete without it. It was a part of her. Even more so now that her world was crumbling apart at her feet.

They'd taken Dawn from her.

One day she'd shown up at home after work and the house had been empty, her little sister's room emptied and a brief, formal note tacked to her door. Shortly afterwards they'd found Tara, dead in her apartment, a bullet through her head.

There was no escaping it. She was surrounded by death. it seeped into her skin, coated her hair and clothing and eyelashes like a fine sheen of ashes. She breathed it in. Lived in it's shadow. Chased it down throuw dark alleys and forbidden laisons. Buffy Summers had transformed herself into death.

And once more, Buffy Summers found herself ready to embrace it.

"Everyday you wake up and it's the same bloody question that haunts you: is today the day I die ... And a part of you wants it. Not only to stop the fear or uncertainty, but because a little bit of you loves it."

She was a shadow when she threw open the door to the crypt, her hungry hazel eyes resting on the sinewy chest of her savior. Her vampire. With sure steps she crossed the room, and with trembling hands lowered Spike's mouth to hers, transforming his coolness with her warmth.

His fingers threaded through her hair, a faded light, dusty and ashen in the glimmering darkness. There were no words between them. No pleas. No promises. No threats. Just simple understanding and acceptance.

She felt her clothing fall from her body like a skin, her flesh molding itself in his hands, flickering into spurts of defeated life. She was prepared to give him all she had.

"You're just putting off the inevitable ... The problem with the dancing is that we never stop."

They were skin and skin. Cold and warmth. Dead through and through as they parodied the rituals of creating life. The smell of blood was in the air as her nails scratched down his back, as his blunt teeth bit into her skin. They were silent in their love making, eyes meeting with an intensity that startled and emboldened them all at the same time.

They sought each other out with open mouthed kisses as he lost himself in her scent. They rocked together without realizing their synchrnoicity. Only the tendrils of pleasure burst through them, forcing hoarse cries from their throats. Forcing forbidden whispers. Forcing broken I love you's into the silent black night.

And when it was done, and she lay under him, he still tucked tightly insider her, she guided his mouth to her neck and uttered a single word.

"Drink."

"So you see, that's the secret. Not the punch she didn't throw or the kick she didn't land. She merely wanted it. Every Slayer has a death wish. Even you ... I just hope it was as good for you as it was for her."

She felt the tissues in his face shifting, the soft sound of flesh moving against flesh, the different inprints his demonic face made in crook of her shoulder. He hesitated, resting his face against her as her hands clung to his neck like the embrace of a lost child.

"Drink."

Her fingernails dug into his flesh and the crescent shapes yielded his blood to her thirsty fingers. His mouth sucked lightly on the area that joined her head to her neck, the pulsing point where her blood flowed delicately beneath her paper frail skin. Skin that would break so easily to his hard teeth.

She tensed as his cool tongue traced a path on her neck, and then, with one final kiss on the surve of her shoulder, he let his teeth sink into her flesh.

"The question isn't how they win, the question is how they lose."

Spike had never tasted anything like it before, as her naked body vibrated under her, her blood flowing gently into his mouth, soaking his face and staining the cold stone floor beneath them. He heard her murmur and gasp his name, snippets of memories and secrets, unlocking doors to him that she only could have when the knowledge of her death was imminent and undefiable to her.

A situation that she considered all to hard to procour.

Her felt her warmth fading from her. He grip lessened, her eyes darkened and the wieght of the blood soaked into her skin and hair, mixing with his own drops that stained her hands.

"But I want you to know I did save you -- not when it counted, of course, but after that. Every night after that ... Dozens of times, lots of different ways. Every night I save you."

And then everything was silent. She was stiff and cold in her arms as he withdrew from her, his feature shifting back into those of a tortured man. A poet. A demon. A lover. A murderer. He felt the salty tears move silently down his features, but they were fewer and colder than the last time she had exited this earth. He had never really got her back after that day she lept from the tower. Her death now was just a faint echo of that day so long ago.

How long ago? He couldn't tell, he'd lost count.

240. 330. 400.

It seemed like centuries ago.

With numb hands he wrapped her body in his duster, not bothering to remove the blood that stained her skin and hair. it was slightly fitting soemhoe. Poetic in a macabre sort of way.

And then, without looking back, Spike exited the crypt into the softly fading night.

"C'mon, I can feel it Slayer. You know you want to dance."
"Say it's true. Say I want to. It wouldn't be you. It would never be you Spike. You're beneath me."