Disclaimer: Not mine. I'm tired of coming up with catchy ways to say so. Oh, and the lyrics quoted are from "Me and a Gun" by Tori Amos. (Which I highly recommend. Absolutely beautiful, haunting song.)
A/N: This part set during Graduation Day Part 2. Incidentally, this is probably my favorite fic in this series. It's my take on what Buffy was thinking during the bite scene. (Well, either this or 'coherent thought? what coherent thought?' But that doesn't make much of a fic.)
Note: I'm not totally sure on the rating of this section, it may have moved into 'M' territory.
Part 10: Agony and Ecstasy
Now you're sleeping peaceful
I lie awake and pray
That you'll be strong tomorrow
And we'll see another day…
Hold on, hold on to yourself
For this is gonna hurt like hell
- Sarah McLachlan, "Hold On"
How cliché, was her first thought, because the only way to describe it was agony and ecstasy. As his fangs sunk into her flesh, she expected and braced for the pain, but the pleasure took her by surprise, and that was what threatened to undo her. Which, come to think of it, was a pretty good metaphor for their relationship in general, at least in recent times – and which probably said something about why they kept getting themselves into so much trouble. And wow was her mind going all sorts of odd places.
On the other hand, maybe that was a good thing, because at least it distracted her from the unexpected and overwhelming eroticism of the moment.
So she focused on the bizarreness of her thought processes, and a snatch of lyrics from some song she'd heard on the radio one time floated into her head. "You can laugh, it's kind of funny/ Things you think at times like this/ Like 'I haven't seen Barbados, so I must get out of this'." Maybe strange thoughts weren't so strange in life-or-death situations. She tried to recall what she'd thought before she died two years ago, but came up blank. She suspected she'd been too scared to think at all. And concluded that it didn't matter, did then compare to now. Now, when what was supposed to be so wring felt so right, so good.
And the whole distraction technique was turning out to be an utter failure. How could it be otherwise, when she'd fallen fully under him, and unbidden her mouth opened in a silent scream, and there was a wild throbbing between her legs, so strong it was impossible to ignore – and she was fairly sure good Slayers, normal Slayers, didn't get off on vampire bites, but then she'd burned the "good Slayer's don't" list at least two years ago because none of that ever mattered to her when Angel was involved. Normal Slayers also didn't turn against the Council, forget about the impending Apocalypse, and offer their lives to save a vampire. (She wondered about the Slayer whose sacrifice, recorded in Giles's books, had taught them how to cure the Killer of the Dead. Was her story anything like mine?) And this time she doubted she was just being a typical "young girl in love" (as she had heard her actions described many times before) either, for she doubted a normal girl would give everything to save a guy who was leaving her and shattered her heart into a million jagged pieces (and here she was falling into cliché again, but that was the best description she could think of for how she felt).
Maybe she was just a double anomaly. Because she would gladly do it all again in an instant.
In fact, though even now she doubted it would actually come to that, she would almost prefer to die like this. Maybe she had a bit of a deathwish. But that might well be inevitable when one dealt death every night. Certainly there was a sense of peace in the prospect of not having to go save the world yet again. She'd already given him everything else she had, why not her life? She valued his life far above her own, and screw the consequences or the opinions of others. To go out in this pleasure, this closeness greater than they'd been able to have in over a year (possibly greater than that, even, and if only he could be buried inside her it would be perfect)….
There went her capacity for coherent thought again, gone in a pulse of pleasure so overwhelming that she spasmed violently, crushing a metal vase in one hand and shattering a wooden table with a kick of a leg. Caught up in her release, she didn't even notice how weak and lightheaded she'd become from loss of blood before she lost consciousness altogether.