TITLE: The Power of Persuasion

AUTHOR: Salem EMAIL: Salem_Angelus@hotmail.com FEEDBACK: * nods * ARCHIVE/DISTRIBUTION: This site or ask (

SUMMARY: When Buffy finds Angel on top of the hill in Sunnydale waiting for the sun; she tries to talk him out of it. Angel's POV. CONTENT/WARNINGS: My first POV fic. Short. Sweet. And very much a spoiler. Severely b/a! SPOILERS: "Amends" RATING: 15 (PG-14 for the American readers) it's what you would see on the show. Disclaimer: Yeah, yeah.I get it. I don't own them. *sniff*[pic] I kept having the dreams. Like they were haunting me. Trying to make me become what I was. What's just below my skin. Who am I kidding? No one. I am not a man. I never was. When I was alive I wasn't worth anything. Now I am equally useless.

"Angel.?"

I can hear her calling me. My name. The way it rolls of her tongue like the soft sighs of our lovemaking. That will never happen again. Look what happened last time. I can't kill her again. Not physically watch her tremble and call my name in her sleep. Not from behind the demon. Not ever. I can't take it anymore. The voices, they beckon me to her. Tell me to kill her. I couldn't. Wouldn't ever. But the demon would. And that part of me wants to. It is better for her, for everyone if I'm gone.

"Angel."

The question stops as she sees me. I want to stand and be strong. She wouldn't understand. The rooftops of Sunnydale seem so peaceful at Christmas. Peace I will never find.

"Angel, please. I need for you to get inside. Th-there's only a few minutes left" Her face frantically searches for a reason, anything from me. I can't even give her a reason, how will I give her a real future.

"I know. I can smell the sunrise long before it come" I don't look at her. Just stare into the horizon. I can feel her face, horrified at my word, burning into my back.

She pleads with me to go inside. Why can't she understand, this is what I want. She tries to persuade me but I don't believe her. She wasn't there.

"I can't do it again Buffy. I can't become a killer"

"Then fight it" Her pleas are getting weaker. I can't fight it. It will keep on coming until I give in to it. She pleads again. Pleads for me to get inside. I try and tell her how much I love her, that I can't give in to its needs, that I'd rather die than hurt her again.

"What does it matter?" she asked, frustrated and at the same time so scared. I spin around to face her.

"Because I wanted to!" She looks shocked. Tears begin to fill my eyes, burning. "Because I want you so badly! I want to take comfort in you and I know it'll cost me my soul, and a part of me doesn't care"

She looks so lost. I love her with all my unbeating heart and what I have done in my past has come back to haunt me and is taking it out on her. She tells me its some dark forces messing with my head, but I know they are right. I find her irritable and it hurts to be near her and not be, but I know that all my efforts have been for nothing. We can never be together in anyway and I would rather die than be without her. Becoming the demon would hurt her and everything about me that she loves, but to become the demon by the fault of a lusting man, that would kill her.

"It's not the demon that needs killing Buffy. It's the man" She cannot help me. No power on this rotten earth can save me. Man cannot be saved they are all doomed. I was just doomed when I became a man hybrid.

"Just go" I tell her. I can feel the sunlight begin to heat my dead blood. It will be quick but painful. She grabs my arm, trying to drag me inside. In my rage I throw her to the ground, immediately regretting it. I reach for her body, to repent but she rejects me out of fear. I grab her by the arms roughly, hurting her to make her see.

"Am I a thing worth saving, huh?" I shake her, tears falling down her rosy cheeks. "Am I a righteous man? The world wants me gone" I stare into her eyes, her heart clearly broken by my words.

"What about me?" she says. What does she mean? I am doing this because of her. "I love you so much.and I tried to make you go away.I killed you and it didn't help" How can she still love me, knowing a part of me wants her dead. Knowing a part of me wants to watch her die as her blood flows down my throat.

She shoves me off and I stay on the damp grass, listening to her words. "And I hate it! I hate that it's so hard...and that you can hurt me so much" Her voice breaks a little with her sobbing. Harshly she recovers. "I know everything that you did, because you did it to me. Oh, God! I wish that I wished you dead" she whispers next words but I hear them. Maybe she wants me to. "I don't. I can't"

I crawl to my feet, standing in front of her. As my eyes fill with yet more tears I plead to her. "Buffy, please, just this once.let me be strong"

She sighs heavily as she throws everything she has into her last attempts to stop me from taking myself away from her. She uses slaying as an example, saying we can do it together, as a team. Her and me. Always. I know shes right. We are meant to be forever. That's the whole point isn't it?

She continues her scornful words and I know that she scars more than anything. Where is the sun? I should have been up by now. She stops mid sentence and looks up into the sky. I follow her gaze and we return to each other. Her eyes to mine, my soul to hers. It's snowing, and I know I'm staying.

END (R&R please)