"Angel?"

(lover? Lover? Where did you run off to, been missing for days on end and the tears never seem to end)

"Angel's out at the moment, princess, just leave your message at the beep. *beep* time to die in such colorful and wonderful ways little Claire-bear. Better run and run oh-so fast."

(before the big bad wolf devours you over and over again, oh, he will, just you wait)

-

It's a even a more fun game (and you all, each one I've know and you've never wanted to know me back, know how much I love all my little games) then the days on end with the one that I stripped bare right down to her electric core, right until she ran out of juice.

(but dying over and over again from the same thing, burnt to a nice black crisp, gets old fast. Now killing someone in new and interesting ways does not. It just grows even funnier)

"Ready to break yet? Just stay the words, little girl (which she's only on the inside, on the outside she's all women and all mine) and it will be all over."

"Never."

With that, eyes full of defiance and rage, it begins over again, the fun for me (which never ends and I'm afraid might last for forever and ever) and the pain for her, and again, and again and again.

"Good little Claire, good girl."

-

Every single moment (of every single freaking day) he's, the one that truly loves her (her who is bending and breaking in his very own hands), screams out to 'end this' but when have I ever listened to myself?

Let alone the soulful (and pansy, oh god the pansy) side of me, who was stupid enough to let me lose on both the world and his loved ones.

('you brought this on yourself, Angel, every last bit of it. Just watch as she breaks until she can't break anymore. Then the rest of them will be up next, in a neat little line.')

They all try and save her (all means his friends, Buffy not being one of them but of course, and all of her big damn heroes) and she gets to watch them all fall, one by one, until they stopped coming, stopped trying and she was left all alone. But then again she has me, me and me alone.

"Ready to say it? Claire, ready to fold and let me win our little game, which has been all fun for me each and every moment of it."

Even before those lips (once bruised and split now prefect once again) opened up I knew what was going come trembling out of them and my ears (waiting with greed filling them up) were all but ready to hear them.

"I love you, I love you, I LOVE YOU! Are you happy now, Angelus?"

"More then you'll ever know, Claire-bear."