DR2 - The Cross of Changes by Nick Midian, Book II, part 5 of 8

Written by Nick Midian

Content beta-reading and storyline suggestions by Duncan
English grammar, spelling, slang, Highlander continuity and general corrections
by Theo
French slang, content beta-reading and storyline suggestions by Mash
French slang by Alan


EMAIL: jcaballero@euskalnet.net

WEBSITE: http://www.angelfire.com/tv2/thedarkages

SPOILERS: For Buffy the Vampire Slayer: 3rd season, BUT no Xander/Willow kissing
and no Lover's Walk (welcome to the wonderful State of Denial, Land of
'Shippiness). Hmmm, I've messed with the third season's timeline to accommodate
it to my necessities. Let's just say that 'Band Candy' happened a lot later than
it did, around the first days of February, OK?
For Highlander: None really, the characters of the TV series and films are only
tangentially mentioned. You just need to know the basics of Highlander-style
immortality, BUT I've always thought that whole 'Immortals have no parents and
are found in a little basket' is a... um, the Spanish word for it is 'chorrada',
so let's just ignore it, OK?
KEYWORDS: Romance, Angst, Action-adventure, Violence, Alternate Universe,
Crossover.
RATING: PG-13 with some mild R parts for violence and sexual innuendo.
DISCLAIMER: This story has been written with no intention of profit, merely for
the pleasure of writing and sharing it.
The concept and characters of BTVS (Buffy, Angel, Cordelia, Xander, Willow, Oz,
Giles, Joyce, Spike, Drusilla, Snyder, Faith, Harmony, Lyle Gorch, Quentin
Travers and the rest) are intellectual and legal property of Joss Whedon, Warner
Brothers, Mutant Enemy, etc. Also, the concept of Highlander and the characters
mentioned here (Duncan MacLeod, Amanda Darieux, Richie Ryan, Joe Dawson and the
Society of Watchers) are the property of Panzer-Davis and Rysher Entertainment.
Michael Deveraux, Rachel Curran, Crystal Parker, Kyle White Owl, Robert
Coltrane, Elvis the Dog, Broderick Egoyan, Damon Frost, Mr. Smith, the World
Committee for Civil Defense and the rest are my own creation.
All the songs and lyrics here are used without permission, they are copyright of
their respective rights owners.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Please, understand that English is not my native language, so
any grammatical or spelling errors are my fault, not of any one of my wonderful
beta-readers. If you're thinking of sending any flames, please be kind with me.
I'm a grown man, but I still can cry like a child, believe me.
Additional Author's Note: The songs performed by Oz's band are 'Loli Jackson'
and 'Serenade' by Dover. It appears courtesy of Subterfuge records. All rights
reserved, yadda, yadda, yadda...
SUMMARY: After the events in 'Dark Reflection' a new threat menaces both the
Slayerettes and the Archangels as new and old enemies come to Sunnydale, merging
past and present. This time, it's something personal - ta-da-da-dam!!! (sorry,
but I just had to say that)

And now, on with the show. Fasten your seat belts ladies and gentlemen, because
it's going to be a long, hard and jumpy ride...

~~~~~~

The cast for Book II


Nicholas Brendon as Xander Harris
Charisma Carpenter as Cordelia Chase

Sarah Michelle Gellar as Buffy Summers
David Boreanaz as Angel
Alyson Hannigan as Willow Rosenberg
Seth Green as Daniel 'Oz' Osborne
Anthony Stewart Head as Rupert Giles
Kristine Sutherland as Joyce Summers

Matthew Perry as Michael Deveraux
Paula Trickey as Rachel Curran
James Marsters as Spike
Nikki Cox as Crystal Parker
David James Elliott as Kyle White Owl
Elvis the Dog as Himself

Eliza Dushku as Faith Adams
Donald Sutherland as The Old Chess Player, Broderick Egoyan
Sebastian Spence as Damon Frost
Avery Brooks as Mr. Smith

Mercedes MacNab as Harmony Kendall
Armin Shimerman as Principal Snyder
Amy Chance as Aphrodesia
Persia White as Aura

Alan Rickman as Conrad Swann
Wesley Snipes as Talon Pantera
Dennis Rodman as Rush Pantera
Tom Berenger as Colonel Cabbot Ashe
Michael Ironside as the Sergeant
Trevor Goddard as Backlash
Shaquille O'Neal as Beast
Jet Li as Bushido

with

Kevin Spacey as Robert Coltrane
Nicholas Lea as Jonah Whalls
and
Catherine Zeta-Jones as the Lady in Red

~~~~~~

CHAPTER SIX: Uncertain waters
Sunnydale, California. December 3, 2002. 5:34 p.m.

When I look back upon my life
It's always with a sense of shame
I've always been the one to blame
For everything I long to do
No matter when or where or who
Has one thing in common, too
It's a sin

Everything I've ever done
Everything I ever do
Every place I've ever been
Everywhere I'm going to
It's a sin

"It's a Sin", Pet Shop Boys


Holding the file tightly against her chest, asking herself for the one
thousandth time if she was doing the right thing, Buffy knocked on the door of
Angel's apartment.

"Come in!" the souled vampire's voice came from inside. "It's open!"

With a little frown of surprise, the blonde Slayer tested the handle of the door
and found, much to her own amazement, that it easily turned under the pressure
of her hand, opening without any noise.

She raised an eyebrow in wonder. "Aren't you afraid of thieves?" she asked out
loud, walking into the spartan apartment and taking a look around when at first
she wasn't able to find her boyfriend.

"Nope," his deep voice came from somewhere in the back, sounding a little odd,
as if it was forced, "I don't have anything worth stealing."

Buffy chuckled, genuinely amused. "You know? Sometimes you're really..." the
Slayer finally got into the bedroom only to find Angel hanging upside down from
a high metal bar, his arms crossed over his bare chest as he rocked slowly back
and front, "...weird. What the hell are you doing?"

"Abdominals," he said with a sheepish look. "You know, curiously enough being
dead doesn't stop you from having love handles. I have to exercise." With a
grunt, Angel folded up and, taking a good hold on the metallic bar with his
hands, unhooked the ankle-boots from it and regained his vertical position.

With an appreciative look, Buffy let her eyes wander over her beloved's naked
and sweaty torso and back for some moments, while the soul-filled vampire picked
a clean towel from the interior of his closet and used it to wipe himself clean.

When he turned around, he caught the expression on the Slayer's face and
couldn't help but smile smugly. "Do you see something you like?"

Buffy blushed noticeably and had to make a real effort to tear her eyes away
from the tall vampire's figure as she coughed softly. "Um, well, yeah, of
course..."

Angel took a step towards her. "What, Buffy? Cat got your tongue?"

Raising an eyebrow slightly and lifting her head so she could look straight into
his eyes, the Slayer let the corner of her mouth rise up in a sexy half-smile.
Then, without uttering a word, she took Angel by the back of his neck and
brought his mouth against hers, kissing him long, hard and deep.

"Does it look like I lost my tongue?" she asked him softly a too-short minute
later, when their mouths finally broke apart.

The souled vampire chuckled softly. "No, definitely not," he whispered, taking
her fully into his arms and returning the kiss with the same passion and
strength.

Sometimes it felt so damn good to play with fire...

"Well, um, wow," Buffy finally muttered, breaking away from him and extricating
herself from his embrace. "Although I can't complain about the service, this is
like not the reason why I came here."

Angel raised a surprise eyebrow, an expression that was quickly turned into a
frown of worry. "No? Is something wrong?"

"Well, it's Xander, um, he..."

"Xander? Is he alright?" Even Buffy was surprised when he heard the deep note of
heartfelt worry in the souled vampire's voice, when he asked about his younger
blood-brother's state.

She knew that, now that they had a lot of things in common, the two of them had
managed to erase much of the tension that had existed between them in the old
days and that they had developed a good friendship.

But still, she was in no way ready for the depth of feeling she felt coming from
her boyfriend, so clearly reflected in his dark eyes.

After all, it was still strange to her – she remembered a time when the mere
mention of Xander's name had provoked the immediate spark of jealousy to appear
in Angel's eyes.

"Y-yes, he's alright as far as I know," she blinked with surprise. "I didn't
know you were such good friends."

Angel shrugged as he searched for a clean shirt and threw it over his naked
shoulders, sending an strange look towards her. "We have some things in common
now."

"Yeah..." she muttered, looking at him through half-closed eyes. "Anyway, it's
not that I'm not worried about him, with the whole Faith thing and all, but
Giles has just, um, found some unsettling info."

The souled vampire looked at his girlfriend with a puzzled expression. "What do
you mean?"

Buffy offered the file to him. "Take a look at this, tell me what you think of
it."

With a small frown, Angel accept the offered item. After taking a seat on his
bed, he opened it, flipping through its pages.

"The Brotherhood of Ezrain," he said in a low tone when he reached the first
picture, a close-up of the brotherhood's golden symbol. "I thought they'd
disbanded in the late thirties."

"Apparently not," the Slayer whispered in the same low tone, sitting close by
him, "because they tried to summon this nasty demon last Sunday."

"Mmm," he mumbled. "And it looks like the guys stopped it," Angel observed,
racing through the rest of the pictures and shaking his head.

Buffy looked at him with surprise. "Is it that obvious?"

The souled vampire snorted, almost with amusement. "Are you kidding? Look at
this guy," he said, showing her the picture of a dead man with an unmistakable
vampire attack on his neck.

Angel continued, "I'd recognize those bite marks anywhere. Spike keeps applying
too much pressure with his lower jaw when he does this – the damn kid will never
learn."

This time, the expression on the Slayer's face was more astonished than
surprised, and it quickly began to turn into anger as she got up from the bed
and turned around to look at her boyfriend.

"What?" he asked with puzzlement, at seeing her face.

"I can't believe my ears, you don't seem at all worried or surprised about it,"
she told him, shaking her head in amazement. "They were human beings, for God's
sake!"

As she paced nervously back and front, Angel just looked at her with calm eyes.
"And?"

Buffy stopped dead in her tracks and looked down at the souled vampire, her
mouth slightly opened and her eyes wide with surprise. "And?" she repeated with
incredulity. "What is that 'and' supposed to mean?"

Angel sighed, leaving the file on the bed and looking back at her with what he
hoped would be a calming expression. "They're hunters of the supernatural,
Buffy. What did you think that meant?"

"Not this!!" she practically exploded. "They practically massacred those
people!! And they were human beings, Angel!! Killing human beings is a bad
thing, it's... it's..." she fought, struggling to find the words. "Well, it's
just something that you don't do!"

"Why?" he asked again, his tone steady and calm.

"Why? You ask me why? What's up with you today, Angel? It's suddenly
Monosyllable Day, and nobody told me?!?" The blonde Slayer seemed angry enough
to blow up, as she looked at the souled vampire with deep incredulity.

Letting his shoulders sink down and sighing again, Angel passed a tired hand
over the back of his neck. "Buffy..."

"Don't 'Buffy' me, Angel! You know as well as I do that killing people is not
the right way to do things! It's not how we do things, and I'll be damned if I-"

"Could you just shut up for a second and listen to me?" he harshly cut off her
angry tirade, making her speechless as she looked at him with growing
astonishment.

Blinking repeatedly, as if she was still trying to assimilate the souled
vampire's words, the Slayer slowly sat down on a chair in front of him, her
hazel eyes never leaving his dark brown ones.

Angel sighed, shaking his head. "Buffy, I love you, you know that – but even I
know that you have trouble seeing things from a point of view that's not your
own."

"Are you calling me dumb?" she asked, unable to hide her offense.

"No," he told her with a smile, reaching out to take her hand in his, "I'm
calling you stubborn, which is usually a good thing in your line of work;
because it's what makes you keep going, even when sometimes it seems that it's
against all sense or logic. It's part of what makes you so special, Buffy. But
sometimes, it also works against you."

"And you think this is one of those occasions?" Buffy asked meekly.

Angel smiled once again, and nodded. "I know that for you this is a surprising
and horrible discovery, and that you'd like to think that things don't have to
be like this, but... sometimes, things are not the way we want them to be. Have
you talked about this with Xander or Michael?"

The Slayer shook her head softly, looking away. Angel asked softly as well, "And
why didn't you wait till you've done that, to begin freaking about it?"

"Thirty-seven human beings, Angel," Buffy stated, a little more harshly that
what she intended. "They killed 37 human beings. What can they say to justify
such carnage?"

The souled vampire shrugged, shaking his head. "You won't know until you talk to
them."

The Slayer got up from her chair, taking her hand away from her lover's grasp
and softly shaking her head as she sighed. "I don't get it, Angel. If they
thought it was so dangerous that they had to use deadly force, why they didn't
tell us anything? Why didn't they ask for help?"

Angel snorted, looking at her almost with surprise. "Are you joking? Do you
really think that Xander would put you or any of us in danger if he could avoid
it? I may not know very many things about him, Buffy – but I do know that he has
his priorities very clear, and that his first goal is to protect those he loves.
Of which, I may add, you are very highly ranked on the list."

"Well, if he's such a good friend, then why he doesn't share those kind of
things with us? Why does he insist on keeping so many things secret?"

This time, Angel was genuinely amused because, for a second, he wasn't able to
tell if she was talking about Xander or himself. "Because of that same reason,
Buffy. He wants to protect you, and he may think that you're not ready to accept
some truths about him."

"Haven't we had this conversation before?" she asked him with a small frown.

The souled vampire just chuckled, nodding softly. "Yeah, I'm familiar with some
of the lines. Hey," he told her, getting up from the bed and walking closer to
her, "we don't have to talk about this right now. Why don't you spend the night
here, and tomorrow I'll go with you to the warehouse and we'll talk with them.
What do you say?"

Allowing Angel to take her into his strong arms, Buffy let herself relax for the
first time in the last few hours. "Mmm, sounds pretty good, but I have to
patrol. Just a light one."

"I'll go with you," he whispered, kissing her on the golden crown of her head.

"But not right now, OK?" she whispered back, taking his hand and leading the
souled vampire back to the bed. He let her lie on it and then followed her
example, cuddling with the blonde Slayer with her back to his chest. "I just
don't want to think too much right now."

Angel smiled, enveloping her into his protecting arms and caressing her hair
soothingly. Neither of them uttered a single word during the next few minutes
and, after a while, the souled vampire finally felt the young woman that was his
love relaxing into his embrace and slowly drifting off into a light nap.

He allowed himself to relax too, and follow her into the realms of slumber.

~~~~~~

The steel roller-door of the warehouse rolled up with a sound of well-oiled
machinery, and Xander drove the blue Monte Carlo inside the building.

Or at least, that was what he tried to do, because, after having only advanced a
couple of meters, he had to slam on the brakes not to run over what looked like
enough pieces of machinery to build a locomotive.

"What the hell is this?" he asked, while he got out of the car. He had taken off
the jacket of his suit and his tie was hanging loose from his neck, the top
button of his shirt popped open.

Kyle emerged from what looked like the remains of an old VW Beetle, and glared
at him with his bright blue eyes. "This is what happens when you ask for the
impossible, dude!"

The young vampire walked around the remains of the vintage German car, looking
at them with a grimace. "This is Cordy's car?" he asked with incredulity.

The tall Texan shook his head, while he wiped his greasy hands on a dirty towel.
"No, that," he said pointing at the almost discarded body of the car, "is
Cordy's car, this is just stuff that belongs in a junkyard. Listen, Xander, I
like your girlfriend a lot, but I can't work miracles."

Frowning, Xander threw his jacket over his shoulder and sighed. "I thought you
were just going to take a look at it."

Kyle grimaced, scratching the back of his neck. "Weeell... yeah, and I found
that it was going to need some, ah, repairs."

"Such as?"

"Well, uh, a new engine wouldn't do it any harm, new suspension, a little body
work, transmission..."

The two men looked at each other in silence for a few seconds, and then Xander
rolled his eyes tiredly. "I'll talk to her," he sighed, beginning to walk
towards the lifter. "You just clean this up and," he turned around and threw the
keys of the Monte Carlo to him, "park Spike's car, will you?"

Catching the keys in mid-air, Kyle snorted unamusedly. "What? Am I the parking
valet now?"

Flashing a big grin, Xander winked an eye to him. "I'm sure you'd be charming in
one of those red and black little uniforms, Kyle," he told him as he pushed the
button.

Grunting and shaking his head, Kyle just went to do as he was told; wondering,
not for the first time, what he had been thinking about under that damn bridge
two years ago.

While the elevator took Xander to the second floor, the young vampire relaxed
against the shaking wall for a moment and passed a hand over his tired features.
Faith, the organization... it seemed like too much in way too short a time.

=But,= he told himself sarcastically, =at least there's not much else that could
go wrong.=

The elevator stopped with a shake and he pushed up the wooden door, shrugging
away the always-uncomfortable feeling of the buzz produced by the proximity of
another Immortal.

"Spike!! I'm gonna kill you!!" Rachel's usually soft voice resounded through the
wall, with the force of a cannon-shot.

"OK," Xander grunted to himself, "I spoke too soon."

Sighing, the young vampire walked into the second floor, only to see how the
bleached-hair vampire jumping over one of the couches of the rest area.

He was trying to elude a very pissed-off, very wet and very little-dressed
brunette Immortal who was chasing him at the same time that she precariously
tried to cover her nakedness with the only aid of a too-short towel.

"If I catch you, I swear that I'm going to make myself a garter belt with your
intestines!!" she shouted at Spike, her damp mahogany mane of hair swinging
wildly around her face when she threw a heavy glass ashtray at him.

The bleached-hair vampire ducked and the shiny missile flew over his
peroxide-blonde head, colliding against a wall and exploding into tiny sharp
pieces.

"Oy! I've already said I'm sorry!" he protested. "What else do ya want?"

"Seeing you impaled to the wall would be a good start!" she hissed to him
menacingly, searching for a new object to throw at him.

"Hey! Hey!" Xander called them, letting out a long and sharp whistle. "Calm
down, the both of you, will you?"

"Xander!" Spike exclaimed with relief, quickly running to him and using the
vampiric Immortal as a make-shift barrier between the wild brunette and himself.
"Help me out 'ere, mate – this crazy chick wants to kill me!"

"Getting killed is nothing compared to what I'm going to do when I get my hands
on you, you little piece of shit!" Rachel threatened him, struggling to hold the
towel in place over her more-than-generous physique.

"What the hell have you done this time, Spike?" Xander asked his friend over his
shoulder.

The bleached-hair vampire shrugged innocently. "Nothin'."

"I caught this pervert peeking at me while I was taking a shower!" she
exclaimed, picking up the heavy lighter that had been the partner of the
now-deceased ashtray and throwing it at them. "If you think that hiding behind
Xander is gonna protect you, you are so wrong, jerk!!"

This time, both vampires had to duck to avoid the flying object from breaking
open their skulls.

"I was looking for Michael!" Spike shouted, diving for the protection that was
offered by the heavy couches. "He's got a phone call!"

"And you thought you'd find him with me in the shower?" the Immortal asked with
incredulity.

The bleached-hair vampire shrugged. "Well, that's where he spends 'alf his time
now, since the two of you finally decided to play doctor!"

Xander nodded softly at this. "Y'know, Rach, he actually has a point... never
mind, it's none of my business," he corrected himself after he noticed Rachel's
killer stare directed at him. "Anyway, you should calm down before you do
something irreparable."

"Irreparable sounds good," she growled.

"And what's all the fuss about, anyway?" Spike tried to defend himself. "It's
not as if I've never seen ya naked before!"

This time, both the brunette Immortal and the other vampire turned to look at
him with wide-open eyes. "What?" the two friends squeaked at the same time.

"Well, uh," Spike mumbled, feeling that he had made a faux pas once again,
"there was that time in Toronto with that mucus-like corrosive thing, don't ya
remember? That thing ate all o' ya clothes, and I 'ad to give ya me duster."

He smiled at Xander, with an evil leer. "I got more 'n an eyeful that time, if
ya know what I mean, mate."

"God!" Rachel shouted, launching herself forward. "You told me you weren't
looking!! You are so dead!!!"

Xander managed to grab her by the waist in the last moment before she tore
Spike's eyeballs out, and the brunette Immortal struggled in her friend's grasp,
trying to free herself from it.

"Rachel!" he exclaimed. "Calm down before you hurt yourself!" She sank her elbow
into his stomach, and the young vampire grunted in pain. "Or me!!"

"I just want to kill him!" she protested. "Please, just let me kill him!"

"Er, Rach?" Spike called her attention from a couple of meters away.

"What!?!"

He offered a weak smile to her. "Your towel... it, uh, it's slippin' down, luv."

"Aarrgh!!" Rachel Curran screamed, redoubling her efforts to get away from
Xander and managing to grasps the lapels of Spike's shirt, bringing him close
enough to her to knee the British vampire squarely in the crotch.

"Urngh!!" he groaned, practically falling onto her.

That was, of course, when the two present Immortals felt the buzz of a coming
comrade hitting both of them. They turned around to see, carrying a couple of
brown bags fill of groceries in his arms, Michael getting out of the elevator.

And, also of course, there was a moment of uncomfortable silence as the French
Immortal found his almost-naked girlfriend sandwiched between the two handsome
vampires, the dark-haired one hugging her from behind while the bleached-hair
one leaned his head on her shoulder as he moaned.

Michael coolly raised a light-brown eyebrow. "Is there something you would like
to tell me, mes amis?"

Rachel and Xander exchanged a short look over her shoulder. "Mmm, this is not
what it looks like?" she asked with a hopeful and nervous smile.

"Oh man," Spike moaned, "my balls!"

~~~~~~

A few moments later, Michael had thrown a struggling (and after a few seconds,
giggling) Rachel over his shoulder to carry her to her bedroom. Spike had gone
to the kitchen, to grab a good pack of ice to place on the most sensitive part
of his body.

So Xander finally walked to his own bedroom and let himself fall face first on
his bed, hiding a groan of exhaustion inside his pillow.

It was at that very moment, that his cell phone began its chirping and annoying
sound inside the interior pocket of his jacket. With a new groan, the young
vampire rolled over in his bed, gazing at the ceiling as he took it out.

"No rest for the damned," he muttered, bringing the phone to his ear. "Home of
Xander, the stressed one. If you want to kick my fallen butt, please pick a
number and wait your turn at the end of the line."

Cordelia's soft giggles came from the other end of the line, and the young
vampire couldn't help but smile at hearing her, feeling almost immediately more
calm and at peace.

"Hey, stressed one," she greeted him, "how you doing?"

"Mmm," he moaned, stretching out like a big fat cat, "just a couple of domestic
problems, you know, with the kids and all that. I miss you."

"So do I," she softly told him. "What are you wearing?"

Xander burst out in good-natured laughter, lifting his arm to lean his head on
it. "What am I wearing? Let's see... nothing but a silky and deep-violet
g-string..." he told her seductively.

"Mmm," Cordelia moaned softly, "that sounds promising. Anything else?"

Xander's grin was so wide, that he thought it was impossible that his girlfriend
didn't notice it through the telephone line. "Well, only my socks, although one
of them has this huge hole in it and my toe is sticking out like a, uh, well,
like a thumb. And the poor fella is getting cold."

"God," Cordelia grunted in pain, making him smile even more widely, "now I won't
be able to get that image out of my mind for the rest of the day. Way to break
the mood, Xander."

The young vampire chuckled softly at the phone and, after a few seconds, he
heard his girlfriend joining him with amusement. "Well, Cordy, what can I do for
you?"

"You know, Xander, if you'd have kept up with the game, now I'd be the one who
would be asking that question."

"Another scratch on my list of 'well done' things for today," he lamented.

"Something's going wrong?" she asked with worry.

"Nah," he said, shaking his head with a sigh, "it's just that I have all these
things running around inside my mind and I don't seem to be able to stop them. I
need to relax a little, or I'm gonna go crazy. Do you have any suggestions?"

"Truth is, I have," she told him, and Xander was almost able to conjure the
image of her beautiful smile inside his mind. "Angel's just called to tell me
that Buffy and him are going to call it a night early after a quick patrol and,
as Wills is going to have a wolf-night with Oz, I thought you could ask Michael
and Rachel and the four of us could do something together. Nothing too fancy,
you know, go to the movies, a dinner and then some Bronzing."

"You mean like a double date?" Xander arched his brow, considering it. "It
sounds almost... normal."

"That's what I was thinking, something to clear your mind."

The young vampire smiled. "Do I pick you up at Giles' store? In about an hour?"

"I'll be waiting," she promised him, her tone turning softer and more intimate.

Xander turned around, hugging his pillow as if it was her body and finding it a
very poor substitute for her soft and warm skin. "How much?"

Her response was almost a caress in his innermost core. "Anxiously."

"Make it forty-five minutes," he told her. "And, Cordy?"

"Yeah?"

"I love you," he said sincerely.

He was almost able to feel her smile through the line. "I know. And I love you
too, airhead."

Smiling like an idiot, Xander finally disconnected the phone and sighed, lying
spread-eagle on his back and looking at the ceiling. Sometimes, in moments like
this, he was almost able to remember how it was to feel human again.

~~~~~~

Damon opened the heavy blinds of the window of his room just enough to peek
outside and the last rays of the dying evening sun hit him squarely in his black
eyes, blinding the young man for a second and making him look aside.

He'd spent the last few hours submerged in a strange kind of haze, either making
love to Faith with an abandoned frenzy, or half-sleeping beside her.

So, it could be said that he was far from feeling well-rested; but the most
curious part about the whole thing was that it hadn't been the fact of sharing
his bed, for most of the evening with a semi-psychotic vampire, that had kept
him from having a good rest.

Far from it, he knew more things about Faith now than what she realized; and he
knew positively that, if it came down to it, he would be able to dust the former
Slayer.

No, it wasn't her that kept him too wired up to sleep. It was him. It was that
consuming fire burning inside his belly. It was the sensation of having
something alive inside his stomach, something that was angry and trying to came
out, ripping his flesh and muscles to show its ugly face in the hash light of
day.

He was going to kill the person he had loved the most in his whole life, and
that was an idea that made him want to laugh and cry at the same time.

Hate, envy, love, joy, pain, sadness, fear... Damon Frost had to swallow the
thick knot that had formed in his throat and, when he looked down at his own
hands, he found much to his own surprise that they were trembling.

Whether from excitement or fear, he couldn't tell.

=Why am I doing this?= he asked himself. =I could turn around right now and just
leave. I could forget all about what's going on, and get on with my own life as
if nothing had happened.=

But something had happened. He was here. He was ready. He had to do it. There
was no turning back. He owed it to himself.

And to Michael Deveraux.

He had to show it to him. He had to make him understand. He had to make him
accept the truth.

He was the best. Period.

"What are you doing?" Faith's husky voice asked him from the bed.

"I'm looking outside," he told her matter-of-factly.

The vampiress passed a hand through the wild loose strands of her brunette mane.
"Anything interesting?"

Damon shook his head. "Nothing," he whispered softly, seriously doubting she was
really interested in the answer. "The sun is setting."

"Good," she practically purred, stretching sensuously like a big cat under the
sheets of the bed. "I'm getting tired of looking at these four walls."

The young hit man looked at her over his shoulder, frowning slightly. For a
moment he considered telling her to stay in the house until Egoyan explained to
them how exactly he wanted things done, but then he felt his own impulses
getting the better of him.

"Where do you plan to go?" Damon asked her, as he circled around the bed and
recovered his discarded shirt from the floor.

Faith got up from the bed and, naked as the day she was born, imitated him and
grabbed her clothes. "I don't really think it's any of your business."

As he buttoned his shirt, Damon looked at her with the corner of his mouth
slightly risen in an edged half-smile. "Aren't we a little touchy?"

Slipping inside her tight dress, looking too much like a snake recovering her
discarded skin, a snake with wonderful curves, the former Slayer sent him an
irritated look. "Like I said, none of your business."

"I was just thinking that you could use some company," he observed with a
nonchalant shrug as he finished getting dressed, sitting down on the bed and
slipping his socks and shoes on.

Faith looked at him with incredulity. "And what led you to believe that,
toyboy?"

Damon let out a dry laugh, and shook his head. "Y'see sweetheart, I guess you
don't realize it – but last night, when you had your little encounter with
your... childe and the little blonde, you were incredibly lucky. Now you don't
have the element of surprise anymore, and they will be waiting for you."

"Uhh," she whispered, mocking a shiver, "see how scared I am."

"You should be," he told her harshly, his tone turning hard and rough. "You
don't have any idea of who you're facing."

This time, the former Slayer looked at him with more attention. At first she had
believed that, when saying 'they', he had been talking about the Slayer and her
little gang – but now, hearing his suddenly severe tone and seeing the serious
sparkle in his black eyes, she thought otherwise. "And you do?"

The young hit man laughed good-naturedly. "Yeah, you could say I know one or two
things about them."

Shaking his head with amusement, he took a black synthetic holster from the back
of a chair and hung it from his shoulders, carefully adjusting it over them and
clasping it to his belt, carefully securing his twin guns into it afterwards.
"Why don't we go for a walk and I show you?"

Crossing her arms over her chest, Faith tilted her head to one side and looked
at him. "Are you asking me out, toyboy?"

Damon just let the crooked smile return to his lips and, shaking his head,
walked slowly to her and placed his hands on the wall, one on each side of her
head, leaning so close to her that, when he spoke, his breath caressed her lips.
"Don't fool yourself, baby. I'm not a toy, not anybody's and especially not
yours. And I don't like to play."

Her lips extended into a thin and sexy smile and Faith closed the space between
their mouths, slowly and sensuously tracing Damon's lips with the cold and wet
point of her tongue and then fully capturing him in a long and deep kiss.

"Keep going with this attitude," she softly whispered to him when they finally
broke apart, "and I may even begin to like you."

The young hit man chuckled shaking his head. "One thing I have to admit about
you, baby," he told her after taking his cashmere coat and guiding her to the
door, "you're really something."

Faith looked at him sideways, and raised a dark brown eyebrow. "You have no
idea, toyboy. No idea."

~~~~~~

"Come on, come on!" Rachel called Michael while she put on her leather jacket.
"It's getting late!"

"Hey!" the French Immortal protested while he struggled with the zipper of his
jeans. "It wasn't me who wanted to take a second shower."

Brushing her hair one last time and checking its appearance and shine, the
brunette sent her lover an annoyed look through the mirror. "No, but it was you
who had the bright idea of jumping inside it with me."

Michael smiled sweetly and, walking close to her and surrounding her waist from
behind, placed a soft and loving kiss on the nape of Rachel's neck. "Am I
hearing any complaints, ma chèrie?" he asked with that devilish smile of his,
nuzzling the silky skin of her neck with his nose and reveling in the natural
perfume of her body.

Turning around in his embrace, Rachel couldn't help but return his smile when
she leaned her forehead against his and hugged him back.

"I'm a weak woman, Michael," she finally said, her sensuous mouth parting into a
warm smile, "you can't blame me for failing to resist if you begin doing...
interesting things to my body."

"Oh, really?" he whispered softly, letting his hands move under her plain
jacket, caressing her through the white silk blouse she was wearing. "What kind
of things?"

Raising a knowing eyebrow, the brunette Immortal shook her head. "These kind of
things."

She kissed him on the lips, lightly. "The same ones that..." he was the one who
kissed her this time, a little more strong and deeply, "...if we don't stop
them..."

She took him fully into her arms, one hand exploring the planes and ridges of
his back under his jersey and the other letting her fingers lose themselves
between the short strands of his light brown hair.

"...will make us..." they kissed again and, this time, the kiss grew so hot and
passionate that for a moment they forgot even the need to breathe, "...arrive
late," she finished, panting lightly.

With his dark blue eyes lost in her chocolate-brown ones, Michael shook his head
in confusion. "Arrive? Where?"

Rachel closed her eyes for a brief moment, making an effort to remember. "I
don't know, I've forgotten."

Michael shrugged, frowning deeply. "And who cares?"

After looking at each other for a silent second, the two lovers crushed their
mouths together fiercely, their lips fighting a silent battle as their tongues
caressed and explored the warm and wet heavens of their mutual oral cavities.

Rachel tightened her embrace on him and Michael pressed her against
the wall, rejoicing in the contact of her voluptuous body against his. A mere
second more and both Immortals felt that their knees weren't strong enough to
hold their bodies up anymore.

And then, just when they were beginning to slide down the wall and to the floor,
somebody began to pound on the door.

"Hey!" Xander's muffled voice came from outside. "It's late! What are you guys
doing in there? Re-inventing the wheel?"

Groaning, Michael hid his face in the crook of Rachel's neck and felt her sigh
of disappointment caressing the soft hairs at the back of his own. "We're
coming!" he exclaimed after a short moment that they both used to regain their
composure.

Then, he turned around to his lover and friend with a little pout on his lips.
"Couldn't we just say that we're sick?"

Extricating herself from his arms, Rachel shook her head. "Come on, Michael, you
know this is not about us. Xander needs the company of his friends right now,
probably more than ever."

The French Immortal sighed once more, rolled his eyes, and took his long woolen
coat from the interior of his closet. "Je comprends, Raquel, it's just that I
don't know of what point this can be to help. Going out on a double date? It
seems so..." He shook his head.

"So what? Normal?" At Michael's nod and sheepish expression, Rachel couldn't
help but to laugh out loud. "For God's sake, Michael, I thought you were the one
who always wanted to have a normal life!"

For a moment, when she turned around to check her make-up and general appearance
in the mirror, Michael looked at her back through half-closed eyes and sad eyes.

"Maybe once," he told her softly, "long ago."

Smiling softly, the brunette woman turned around and took his hands into hers,
squeezing them lovingly. "Come on, my love, just relax a little and try to go
with the flow. Who knows? You may even enjoy it."

Finally smiling again, the French Immortal raised an incredulous eyebrow. "I
doubt it. I'm like two hundred years too old to go clubbing with a couple of
hormonal near-teenagers."

Yanking at his hand, practically dragging her indolent lover to the door, Rachel
smiled at him crookedly. "I have a proposition for you. If you're nice, you
relax and try to have some fun tonight, I..."

This time, the raising of Michael's eyebrows was clearly of interest. "You
what?"

She tilted her head to one side and sent him a wicked look. "I'll be nice to
you, I'll help you to relax and I'll make sure that you have fun afterwards."

Michael's mouth parted into a wide, and almost idiotic grin. Then, it was him
who began to drag her to the door and opened it wide, practically colliding with
Xander, who was waiting for them outside the room.

"Come on, mon frère!" he exclaimed animatedly, taking the young vampire's hand
in his free one and practically dragging the two of them away. "The night is
young, and we're going to paint this town red!"

With a frown, Xander looked at Rachel. "What's up with him now?"

Smiling softly, the brunette Immortal just shook her head.

In a couple of minutes, the three friends were on the first level and, while
Xander rode on his black Yamaha, Michael searched for the keys to his car inside
the pockets of his coat.

"What are you doing?" Rachel asked him.

He frowned at her. "What does it look like I'm doing? I'm going to get the car."

"Uh-uh," she shook her head, "not tonight."

The French Immortal arched his eyebrow in confusion. "And how do you intend we
get there, ma chèrie? Walk?"

With a crooked and wicked smile, Rachel walked to her red Suzuki RF600R and
straddled it, turning the key and starting the compact but potent engine of the
bike. "Tonight, I'm driving."

Michael blinked in surprise and exchanged a quick look with Xander, who just
chuckled and shrugged. "Don't look at me, Michael. Your girlfriend, your call."

"Come on, loverboy," Rachel challenged him, revving up the bike, "do you have
what it takes to ride with me?"

Letting the corners of his lips rise up in a crooked and daring smile, Michael
got on the bike behind his lover and hugged her around the waist, his hands
trailing along her thighs, covered by skin-tight jeans, and his body pressed
against hers. "Lead the way, oh mighty Amazon."

Before she could answer him, the three friends were suddenly distracted by the
sound of the elevator coming down and, after that, by the image of a limping
Spike, who got out of it and walked slowly and awkwardly to his blue car.

"Are you alright, Spike?" Rachel asked him with a sarcastic smile. "Are you in
any kind of pain?"

Looking at her with hostility, the bleached-hair vampire growled at her through
the corner of his mouth. "I'm not talkin' to you no more," he spat at her,
opening the door of his car and carefully getting into it with a grimace of pain
when he sat down.

"And you," he told Michael, "damn it, mate, I can't believe you let 'er touch
you with them hands o' hers."

"What can I say?" the French Immortal shrugged. "I love to play with fire."

Sending the trio one last annoyed look, the bleached-hair vampire closed the
door a little forcefully and started the engine. "Let's get outta 'ere, 'fore I
change my mind and rip all o' ya to bloody pieces," he growled.

Without saying anything, Xander shook his head with an amused smile and lowered
the windshield of his black helmet, revving up the muscular engine of his bike
and being closely imitated by his friends until the whole warehouse seemed to be
trembling with the combined roar of the machines.

In front of them, after the young vampire had activated the remote control, the
steel roller-door furled up and the three vehicles were launched forward into
the dying light of the evening.

~~~~~~

Damon and Faith were about to leave the mansion when they were stopped by Mr.
Smith, who, as usual, seemed to materialize from the shadows that filled each
corner of the Gothic building.

"Mr. Egoyan would like to have a word with you," he told Damon while making an
unmistakable gesture for the man to accompany him. When, after sighing with
boredom, the sandy-haired man did so and Faith followed him, the tall black man
made her stop. "In private."

The former Slayer raised an eyebrow, with deep incredulity and sarcasm. "What,
it's a 'boys only' thing or something?"

"Or something," Mr. Smith told her, with his harsh tone and severe look.

"Why don't you go and get my car ready?" Damon suggested her, offering the keys
to the vampiress before she had the chance to jump on Smith and rip his throat
open. "It's the silver Aston Martin."

Faith looked at the offered keys doubtfully before finally accepting them and,
when he had done so, she placed their cold surface against her always promising
cleavage and looked at Damon with a childish pout on her sensual lips. "Can't I
drive it?"

Damon shrugged, looking at her over his shoulder at he began to follow Smith's
already retreating broad back. "Sure, if you promise to be a good girl."

The former Slayer smiled at him sweetly, swaying a little with her hands hidden
behind her back.

"I'm always good," she said with a childish voice. At Damon's doubtful look, her
smile grew wider. "Well, most of the time..."

=OK, let's admit it,= the young hit man told himself a few minutes later, when
he finally followed Smith's trail back into the library. =You like her. If she
wasn't a psychotic, homicidal, obsessed vampire, you'd even consider seeing her
again after all this is over.=

"Are you a happy man, Mr. Frost?" Broderick Egoyan, who was showing his back to
him and looking at the eternally burning fireplace from his wheelchair, asked
the younger man without turning around.

Noticing a hard and almost hostile tone in the old man's voice that hadn't been
there before, Damon looked at him more carefully as he slowly licked his own
lips with a thoughtful expression.

"I can't complain," he simply told him, not really knowing what the crippled
man's game right was then.

Egoyan turned his wheelchair around and looked at him, with his head tilted to
one side as if he was really checking him out for the first time. Suddenly,
Damon felt as if something dead was crawling up his backbone and had to make an
effort not to shudder.

"I've heard that you and Miss Faith have... grown fonder of each other, in the
last few hours."

Was it jealousy that he had just heard? The young hit man wasn't sure, but he
couldn't help but let a smug grin of superiority appear on his lips for a brief
moment. "You could say we've gotten to know each other, in a closer kind of
way."

Egoyan looked at him with an strange expression, one eye slightly more closed
that the other, with a grimace of repugnance on his thin lips. "Well, it's
certainly nice that you two are getting along so well. I just hope you don't
allow it to interfere with the job you have to do."

This time, Damon's expression was a sincerely offended one. "I'm a
professional."

Smiling now that he had attained a direct hit, Egoyan looked at him sideways. "I
don't doubt your professionalism, Damon," he told him, putting a sarcastic
emphasis on the younger man's name. "The truth is, I'm counting on it for you to
help me."

Looking at him with his black eyes half-closed in an expression of measurement,
Damon tilted his head to one side. "Explain yourself."

The old man smiled like a hawk and rolled away to the chess-board, which was
still in its prevalent place, with all its pieces carefully placed on their
respective squares. "I don't believe you fully understand the significance of
Miss Faith to my plans, but I can't blame you for that. After all, I still
haven't properly explained them to you."

"And," he added, cutting off Damon's response, "that time will arrive soon,
don't worry about it. Getting back to our dear Miss Faith, I need her; she's one
of my most important pieces, but even I have to admit that she's also the most
unstable one. I need somebody, I need you to be her Black Knight," he told him
with a slight shake of his head towards the chess board.

"Do you want me to be her bodyguard?" he asked, not wanting to consider the
irony of the fact that he had indeed been guarding her body, for the last
several hours.

"Yes, Mr. Frost," the crippled old man told him with that cold and vulture-like
smile that was so his, "protect her, but I also need you to keep her from doing
anything that could backfire against us. Control her. Stop her if necessary. I
think that you're already in an enviable position to do so."

Damon raised an eyebrow. "Anything else?"

"Well, now that you mention it..." Damon just sighed, sinking his hands in the
deep pockets of his coat. "As you're going out, you could do me a little favor."

The young hit man offered him a tight and obviously faked smile. "I aim to
please."

"Of all my guests, you're probably the one who has the best knowledge of what
we're going to face. You know them extremely well, if I'm not wrong."

Damon shifted from foot to foot, uncomfortably looking away from Egoyan's
figure. "Yeah, you could say so."

The old man smiled complacently at seeing his younger opponent's evident lack of
comfort, and shook his head weakly. If his lungs had still had the strength to
do so, he would have laughed out loud.

"As you know them so well, you probably already know that their strength is not
based on their respective abilities or capacities, but on how they manage to
combine them into something that is bigger and stronger than the mere sum of
their parts."

"Yeah, I know that," Damon practically whispered to himself. "I know that very
well."

"If we want to have success in our little project, we'll have to undermine that
strength," Egoyan said, his attention once more captivated by the chess board.
"We have to weaken them. They're like a chain, so to speak, and I guess you
already know that a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, don't you?"

At Damon's silent nod, Egoyan insisted, "Do you know who I'm referring to?"

Lifting an eyebrow, Damon chose a figure from the board and threw it to the old
man's lap. "That one."

"Exactly," Egoyan said without bothering to look at the white figure lying in
his lap. "Mr. Smith will give you the address where you can find this... person
tonight."

"And what am I supposed to do once I'm there?" he inquired absent-mindedly,
while he examined the little piece of paper that the tall black man had passed
to him without uttering a word.

Egoyan shrugged. "Nothing especially explosive, just look at how things are and
begin to sow the first seeds of discord. And don't forget," he added with an
afterthought when Damon had already turned around to go, "don't let your
personal feelings interfere with your job."

Very slowly, Damon turned his head to look at the older man over his shoulder.
"I've already told you," he said, taking out his sunglasses from the interior of
his coat and, after putting them on, looking at Egoyan over their dark rim, "I'm
a professional."

Then, he just pushed the glassed up his nose with the point of his finger until
they completely hid his eyes, turned around and went away without looking back.

~~~~~~

Kyle shifted uncomfortably in his seat by the kitchen table, unsuccessfully
trying to find a more comfortable position, and cleared his throat with a soft
cough, looking intently at his companion's eyes.

"I, uh, I..."

=The hands,= he thought, looking at them flat on the surface of the table. The
hands were a problem, and he didn't know what to do with them.

If he tried to hide them under the table, it was as if somebody had cut his
lower arms off. If he put one over the other, they began to sweat and made him
feel sticky and even more nervous than what he already was.

And, if he entwined his fingers, he couldn't help but begin twiddling his thumbs
and then he just looked plainly idiotic.

In the end, he decided to leave them as they were and, taking a long and deep
breath, centered his attention back in the expectant eyes of his interlocutor.

"Well, I, uh, I... listen, I don't know if you've noticed it but, from my modest
point of view, we have a certain, something, uh... chemistry, but without the,
well, the psychic part, it's less a... science," he said, tilting his head
slightly to one side and half-closing his eyes.

"So, um, I was thinking that you and I... the two of us, I mean, we could go out
and do something, you know... together. Well, what do you think?" He grunted,
and softly banged his forehead against the table. "Apart from me being a
complete idiot, of course."

On the other side of the kitchen table, sitting straight up on a chair, Elvis
turned his furry head around to one side and the other and, rolling his big
brown eyes, whined as if in pain. He looked too much like a dog that wanted to
be any other place but there.

"Come on, boy," Kyle pleaded to him with a begging face, "help me out on this,
will you?"

With a growl of almost exasperation, the large German shepherd looked at him
with an expression on his face that seemed to say, 'What do you want from me,
buddy? I'm just a dog.'

"I want to ask her out," Kyle told him, "but I've been playing the horny clown
for so long with her now, that she never takes me seriously. Come on, Elvis,
help me on this and I... I..."

The dog looked at him expectantly, raising an eyebrow. "I'll arrange a date for
you with that collie we saw in the park the other day, OK? You know, the Lassie
look-alike?"

Elvis barked out loud and jumped off of the chair, running away from the kitchen
and leaving a surprised Kyle behind him.

"Maybe it was the poodle that he liked," he muttered to himself, with a risen
raven-black eyebrow.

The large German shepherd trotted happily across the warehouse, a doggie smile
on his face and his fat and wet pink tongue hanging out of the corner of his
powerful jaws.

After pushing gently the slightly open door of Crystal's bedroom with one of his
front paws, he went inside, letting out a loud bark as a warning of his
presence.

The room of the red-haired witch was as spartanly decorated as the ones of the
rest of the Archangels, with just the most functional furniture. And, as the
only concession to her tastes, some plants and flowers that gave a few notes of
color and life here and there.

Sitting cross-legged on her bed and with an ancient-looking book in her hands,
Crystal raised her jade-green eyes with surprise when she heard the dog entering
into her room and jump onto the bed.

"Hey," she greeted him with a soft smile, petting his furry head when he sat in
front of her, the bed rocking slightly under his weight, "what are you doing
here, big boy?"

Groaning blissfully at the beautiful woman's ministrations, Elvis forgot for a
second what his mission was, and just whined and licked her fingers when she
scratched him right where he liked.

But, he was a good soldier: even while Cris was a fine female specimen, she
couldn't be compared in his mind's eye with that collie's elegant lines and
shiny fur.

Barking sharply, Elvis shook his head and took a grasp on the lower part of the
witch's white robe with his sharp teeth, yanking softly at it with a growl and
making her get up from the bed.

"Elvis!" she exclaimed in surprise and mild amusement. "What are you doing?"

Amazed at the dog's strange behavior, Cris let him guide her out of her room and
all the way across the warehouse to the kitchen.

Raising a perfect red eyebrow and letting the corner of her generous mouth
twitch up in a hardly-seen smile, the red-haired witch was presented to a more
than desirable view.

Kyle's tight jeans-clad behind, in all its hard glory, as the tall Texan
rummaged in search of something with his head practically embedded into the huge
fridge.

Contrary to what was believed by some people, Crystal Parker was a hot-blooded
woman, with womanly impulses and necessities under her cold and usually
impassive façade.

Some people thought she was past such things, living almost on a spiritual
level; and the truth was that after so much time being alone, even she was
beginning to think that way.

But she was tired of being alone.

Sometimes it felt to her that she was still chained to that wall, where Xander
had found her two years ago. Sometimes, lying on her empty bed, she thought that
she was still being held prisoner and that her life was nothing more than a
twisted fantasy, built to protect her from a reality too horrible to live in.

The truth was that she was scared and, in order to protect herself from being
hurt, she had carefully built a thick and resistant armor around herself, an
armor that protected her from being harmed but that, at the same time, kept her
cold and lonely.

She wanted to break that armor, she wanted the light of the sun to filter
through the cracks and warm her soul. And, something that surprised even
herself, she wanted Kyle White Owl to be that sun. He was one of her very few
weaknesses.

OK, so he was sometimes obnoxious, rude, unpleasantly smartassed and, other
times, he seemed to have the mental maturity and sexual drive of a high school
teenager; but he was also brave, valiant, gentle, funny and a real friend.

Not to mention that, as Rachel had pointed out once, he had an ass that could be
used to crack open walnuts.

Making a hard effort to hide the wide grin that image provoked in her mind,
Crystal finally managed to pat the German Shepherd away, who just padded away to
jump smoothly onto a chair, and leaned close to Kyle with her hands crossed
behind her. "Are you looking for something in particular?"

Startled by the sudden apparition of the red-haired witch, the tall Texan jumped
a little and banged the back of his head on the frame of the fridge's door, his
yelp of surprise turning into a grunt of pain. "What the-? Cris! Don't do that,
ever!"

Fighting not to giggle, Crystal took a short step back to allow the raven-haired
tall man to get his head out of the fridge. He carefully patted the pained area
on the top of it with the palm of his hand, putting on an expression on his
handsome face that seemed to say 'ouch!'.

After that first moment, a deep and uncomfortable silence fell between them, as
both friends searched for something innocuous to say while wriggling on their
feet.

Looking down from the vantage point that his superior height offered him, Kyle
found himself suddenly trapped in her wide and deep jade-green eyes and, like
many times before, felt that breathing was suddenly a difficult matter around
her.

"Well, uh," she said, noticing, not for the first time, that his bright blue
eyes seemed to sparkle with living, pulsating energy. And that the aura that
only she and the few people like her were able to perceive was radiating with
the shining green and brown tones of a healer and a warrior. "Do you want
something from me?"

Kyle arched his dark brow in surprise. "Me?" he practically squeaked. "Why?"

"Well, your little friend over there," she said, pointing at a tail-wagging and
smiling Elvis, "seemed quite eager to bring me here to you. I don't know why,
but I just had the impression that you had sent him."

Sending a weird look towards the German shepherd, the tall Texan grabbed a cold
bottle of beer from the interior of the fridge and shook his head. "Smart move,
dumbass," he growled to the dog between clenched teeth. Elvis just barked at
him.

"Aren't you going to offer me one of those?" she asked him, pointing at the
bottle in his hand.

Kyle just looked at her, as if she had suddenly grown a tentacle in the middle
of her face. "You? A beer? You?"

Sighing, the red-haired witch took a bottle of Spike's Guinness herself and,
after opening it, took a short and delicate sip from it. "I'm Irish, Kyle; I was
weaned off mother's milk with a pint."

"Why is it then I haven't seen you drinking one before?" he asked with a small
frown.

She offered him a small and almost wicked smile, that shook him to the core as
she looked at him daringly from under her long eyelashes. "Usually, it's not a
bright idea to mix alcohol and magic. You know... stuff happens."

"Stuff?"

She smiled at him again. "Stuff."

Raising an eyebrow with wonder, the tall Texan shook his head in amazement and,
after softly closing the fridge's door, led the redhead out of the kitchen and
to the rest area, where the two of them took a comfortable seat on one of the
couches.

Silently, Elvis jumped off of his chair and followed them, with his body
practically glued to the floor.

"So, what?" Cris asked him, turning around on the couch to look straight at him,
as she leaned her head on her hand. "Are you going to tell me, or what?"

Licking his lips and trying not to sound as nervous as he felt, Kyle took a
greedy sip from his bottle and closed his eyes, gulping down the cold beer and
breathing deeply.

"Well, I, uh, I... listen, I don't know if you've noticed it but..." he bit his
lower lip before continuing that way. "No, not that... um, if I... let's say,
just for the sake of discussion, that I would like to go out with you, how would
you react if I asked you?"

The red-haired witch looked at him intently, through half-closed eyes.
"Hypothetically speaking?"

Kyle nodded eagerly. "Hypothetically."

"Mmm, well," she said, swinging her long and curly red mane over her shoulder in
a way that offered him a good view of her smooth and milky white neck, "before
answering that question, I would have to know what would be the terms of the...
meeting."

He shrugged innocently. "Two friends going out to have some fun together,
nothing strictly planned and no serious attachments or compromises at the end of
it."

"You mean dinner, a movie and no sex."

The tall Texan nodded sheepishly. "Basically, something like that." Then, he
couldn't help but give her one of his usual wide and wicked grins. "Although the
last part is open to negotiation."

Usually, Cris would have just slapped him on the back of the head and gone out.
But this time, maybe because the lack of practice of drinking had lowered her
tolerance and the half-bottle of beer she had consumed made her felt a little
tipsy and daring, or maybe because she was plain tired of playing cat and mouse,
she just looked at him with great intensity. And, smiling almost perversely, she
waited for him to take a new sip from his bottle.

"I would like to negotiate that part," she said, right when his Adam's apple
began to move up and down in a swallowing motion.

Kyle was about to choke on the beer and coughed loud and strong, his face
turning red as a tomato as the red-haired witch dissolved into helpless giggles
beside him. When he finally managed to give his breathing process some
resemblance of normalcy, he looked at her in astonishment.

"You little..." he exclaimed, grabbing a cushion and hitting her with it. "And
you're the sixty-year-old, mature and centered witch?"

"Stop it!" she exclaimed between uncontrolled laughs as he kept hitting her
playfully and holding her stomach. "I'm going to pee!"

The tall Texan just stopped dead, and looked at her with wide-open eyes. "OK,
baby, that's it," he said, chuckling and taking the half-drunk bottle from her
hands, "no more beer for you tonight."

"Oooh," she protested with a pout, "spoilsport."

"Well, what do you say?" he finally asked after a short moment of silence, as he
leaned back on the couch, holding the cushion against his chest as a make-shift
protection.

"Say?" she asked with a little difficulty, suddenly discovering how interesting
were the points of her toes sticking out of her open sandals. "About what?"

He raised a raven-dark eyebrow. "Going out. With me."

"Do I have your word that you'll be a gentleman?"

Kyle arched his brow and rolled his eyes, as if he was thinking about it. "Well,
um, yeah, what the heck, you have it."

Smiling, the red-haired witch jumped off the couch, shaking her arms like wings
in an effort to keep her equilibrium on her suddenly unsteady feet. "Sure. I
would love to go out with you."

Looking on in amazement as she walked away to the bedrooms, he shook his head.
In front of him, Elvis jumped to the coffee table and looked at him expectantly.


"Well, buddy," Kyle said, looking down at the two bottles of beer in his hands
and, after a moment of consideration, taking a sip from Cris' one, "now I only
have to work up the guts to really ask her out."

If he had been able to do so, the large German Shepherd would have rolled his
brown eyes and told him off. As he couldn't, he just whined as he leaned his
head between his front paws – but, curiously enough, it sounded exactly as if he
had said 'you're a moron'.

Propping his feet on the table as he crossed his legs, Kyle just relaxed,
leaning his head backwards and closing his eyes with a blissful smile.

"Top o' the world, ma," he whispered. "Top o' the world!"

~~~~~~

"How is he?" Cordelia asked her red-haired friend, pointing slightly to the
werewolf inside the cage with a soft shake of her brunette head. The hairy
creature looked back at her and growled softly, not exactly in a menacing way
but not in an amicable one, either.

Sitting on the floor Indian-style, Willow shrugged helplessly. "Full of hair,"
she stated deadpan before turning her head to look at her standing-up friend and
smiling a little more brightly. "But at least I haven't had to drug him this
time. That has to be a good sign, don't you think so?"

Cordelia shrugged with an indeterminate expression. "What's up with us and
infra-human creatures, anyway?" she asked with a chuckle. "Why can't we have
nice, normal boyfriends?"

Giggling, Willow shook her head. "It has to be love, I guess."

"Yeah, either that or we should have our heads examined." The werewolf suddenly
growled and barked at her. "Hey!" Cordelia protested, jumping back a little with
the surprise. "Be quiet, will you?! Or I'll have to give you the flea-bath of
your life!"

Willow looked at her sideways, as he jumped up to her feet. "Don't tell him
that, or he'll get excited."

"And how do you know that?" the brunette asked with interest.

Blushing a little, Willow avoided her eyes. "Well, uh, I... what are you doing?"
she asked, pointing at the box her friend was carrying in her hands and
blatantly trying to change the subject.

Shaking her head with amusement, Cordelia led Willow to the front part of the
store and placed the box on the counter. "It's a new shipment of ewww-things
that I still haven't had time to open and catalogue, but now," she said taking a
short look at her wristwatch, "it's like they'll have to wait until tomorrow.
Xander will pick me up soon. That's if that ditz-brain hasn't forgotten, of
course."

Willow chuckled softly, shaking her head. At least, it was comforting to see
that some things never changed. "I can do it for you, if you like," she offered.

"You sure?" Cordelia asked hopefully. "I mean, you don't have to do it if you
don't want to."

The redhead shrugged with a small smile. "Why not? I'll recruit Spike's help,
it'll give us something to do tonight."

"Spike, huh?" the brunette said, sending a curious look towards her. "I see..."

"What is that supposed to mean?" Willow asked, noticing the tone in Cordelia's
words.

The brunette shook her head, without being able to hide an amused smile.
"Nothing, just that it seems that you and Spike are doing a lot of things
together lately."

"Well, there's nothing strange about it," she explained with a small shrug,
"we're friends."

Cordelia looked at her with incredulity. "Yeah, and the fact that he is like,
y'know, drop-dead gorgeous has nothing to do with it, huh?"

"Who? Spike?" Willow snorted, making an strange gesture with her lips, as if she
didn't know what she was talking about. "I so don't know what you're talking
about."

"Hey! There's nothing bad about it!" the brunette calmed her down, patting her
hand. "I mean, there's nothing bad about looking through the window of the
butcher's shop, as long as you don't enter it and buy the salami."

"Buy? What do you...?" Willow shook her head in confusion for a few moments,
before getting her metaphor. Then she blushed furiously, her face turning the
same color of her hair. "Oh! Oh! I mean, oh! I-I, I mean, I have a boyfriend,
Cordy!"

The brunette nodded in agreement. "Yeah, and Spike has a nice hard booty under
those tight black jeans he wears all the time."

"I hadn't noticed," she softly muttered from behind her hands, which she was
using to cover her reddened and burning cheeks and ears, feeling too much like a
big fat liar. After all, she had noticed. "I'm in love with Oz."

Cordelia laughed good-naturedly, hugging her ashamed friend. "I know that,
Wills, I'm just teasing you!"

The redhead sent her a murderous look, and the taller young woman shook her head
with amusement. "Listen, it's normal to feel attracted to others, it's just
human nature. And Spike... well, look at him, he's dark, dangerous and
absolutely gorgeous. What woman wouldn't look at him and think 'Hey, I would
love to do him a favor'?"

"But I don't want to!" Willow protested with little conviction. "Be attracted, I
mean. He's my friend, as weird as it sounds, and Oz and me... we're in love,
we've fought long and hard for our relationship... I-I just can't be attracted
to Spike."

This time, Cordelia looked at her with more seriousness. "Willow, I don't know
if this is really my business, but you and Oz are my friends, and I guess that
so is Spike, so I'm going to give you my advice: don't try to ignore those
feelings, don't suppress them."

She continued, "Try to sort them out, because if you just bury them deep inside
they're going to do nothing more than to put down roots. And you know what they
say, there's nothing sweeter than the taste of forbidden fruit. Above all, don't
obsess about it, Wills. It's not so big a deal."

The red-haired young woman just sighed, leaning her head on the counter. "Why
can't things be easier?"

"That's one of the great mysteries of life, along with the formula for
Coca-Cola," Cordelia said, rubbing her friend's back in soothing circles. That
was when the large window of the store, and practically the rest of it, began to
tremble with the roar of an approaching group of powerful engines. "Look, the
guys are here."

A few seconds later, the front door opened and Xander and Spike came into the
store, the younger vampire making a bee-line to his girlfriend and giving her a
bear hug that raised her from the floor.

"Xander!" she exclaimed, giggling helplessly when the young vampire spun her
around wildly. "You're going to ruin my clothes."

"Oh, please!" Spike grunted, holding his gut as if in pain when they kissed long
and lovingly. "Me diabetes 'n all."

"Jealous much?" Xander asked him after depositing Cordelia on the floor.

The bleached-hair vampire made a face at him and surrounded Willow's shoulders
with his arm, bringing her close to him. Surprised and not expecting the
movement, the redhead stumbled with her own feet and ended with her face buried
in Spike's chest.

=He smells clean and animalistic at the same time,= she thought. And he also had
a nice set of muscles on his abdomen and waist, she noticed, when she took a
hold on him for support.

"Jealous? Me?" he exclaimed with incredulity, "Ah! But I got me own li'l sock
puppet o' love, don't I, Red?"

She then felt ashamed of herself, at the images suddenly running through her
mind. =Bad, bad Willow,= she thought, wishing she could kick her own butt,
=don't think naughty things about Spike!=

"Well, uh, I-I, sure, you, I," she chuckled nervously, fighting to free herself
from the vampire's hug. "W-what are your plans for tonight?"

The two brunettes exchanged a knowing look, and both of them smiled at Willow's
lack of comfort. "Nothing fancy," Xander told her, "dinner and a movie, and then
some dancing at the Bronze."

"No Slayage?" the redhead asked with surprise.

The young vampire shrugged. "I'm hoping to have a light night for a change," he
wished, "and I hope not to be jinxing it by saying that. C'mon Cordy, Michael
and Rachel are waiting outside. You got your helmet?"

The brunette nodded and took the black and red decorated helmet that Xander had
given her as a gift from under the counter. Holding it under one arm, she
surrounded the young vampire's waist with the other. "Do you know where
everything is?" she asked Willow as an afterthought, when they were already
walking out. "The keys and such?"

Willow nodded, and offered her a small smile. "Yeah, don't worry about it, I
know how to close up and work the alarm, I've done it before. Just go out and
try to have some fun, OK?"

"Well, uh, just don't you let Spike break anything or Giles will take it out of
my pay," she added while Xander practically dragged her outside.

"Hey!" the bleached-hair vampire protested with a frown.

"Have a good night!" Xander told them, finally succeeding in getting his
girlfriend out of the store.

"Same here!" Spike shouted back. "And take care, mate. Be careful, if ya know
what I mean."

Xander nodded sharply at him and gave him a crooked half-smile. "Don't I
always?"

"Don't yank at my tongue..."

With a final smile, the young vampire surrounded Cordelia's shoulders with his
arm and the two of them got out for a night of light fun, finally leaving Spike
and Willow alone.

Almost immediately, they looked at each other, a curious cloud formed by a
mixture of expectancy, dread and joy floating between them. "Well, what now?"
the redhead asked.

The bleached-hair vampire shrugged. "I guess a game of strip-poker's completely
out of the question?"

Willow sighed, rolled her eyes and finally smiled. "Come on," she told him,
pushing his leather-covered back into the back room. "I swear I don't know what
I'm going to do with you, Spike."

He arched his brow with a leery smile. "Well, strip-poker could give ya some
ideas."

"Spike?"

"Yeah, luv?"

"Shut up."

~~~~~~

Flying over the asphalt a couple of hours later, it seemed that the electric
lamps that illuminated the dark streets of Sunnydale were nothing more than
bright flashes of light, as they passed beside them.

That, mixed with the almost animal roar of the engines and the howl of the wind
against their bodies, conjured a scenario of primal impulses that was making the
adrenaline pump into their veins like a pure and exhilarating drug. The speed,
the wind, the sensation of freedom... it was like riding on a bolt of lightning.

Sitting behind Xander, with her arms holding her tight against her lover's back,
Cordelia felt like shouting with joy. The first time she had ridden with Xander
on his bike, she had thought that it was like sharing a horse with the Devil, so
fast and daringly did the young vampire drive his Yamaha.

But as she had gotten accustomed to it she had discovered with surprise that,
more than tolerating it, she was even enjoying the feeling of the wind in her
face (her helmet didn't have a windshield), the adrenaline in her veins, the
fast pace of her heart inside her chest and the blur of the asphalt passing
below the front wheel of the bike. It was almost as good as sex.

Well, almost.

Leaning her head on Xander's broad back and tightening her grasp around his
torso, Cordelia looked at Michael and Rachel, who were riding on their own bike
just a couple of feet at their right and behind them.

If Xander was a good biker, Rachel wasn't far behind him and, as Cordelia looked
at her, the brunette Immortal accelerated her Suzuki and the fast-looking bike
quickly gained speed until it reached their own position.

She smiled and winked an eye to them while Michael, behind her, seemed to be
about to puke. His face was a poem, ghastly white and with his dark blue eyes
about to pop out of their sockets.

'Help,' he wordlessly mouthed towards her, making the young brunette laugh.

=Men, they're all the same,= she thought. Having a powerful machine between
their legs was good, as long as they were the ones in control – but, if you took
that away from them, they were reduced to a trembling blob of jelly.

"Hey, Xandman!" Rachel called the young vampire over the howl of the wind and
the roar of the engines. "How do you feel about a little sprint to the Bronze?"

"Sprint?" Michael squeaked with a panicked face. "You mean as in faster than
this?"

Xander looked at Cordelia over his shoulder for a brief moment and from behind
his wide-open windshield. "What do you say, Cor? Are you up to a little speed
and unnecessary risk?"

The brunette flashed a bright smile to him. "Let's kick their old butts!"

"Catch us!" Xander shouted to Rachel, turning back to her and accelerating. "If
you can!"

The huge four-cylinder engine of Xander's black Yamaha roared like an unleashed
beast, and they were practically launched forward inside a cloud of smoke and
burnt rubber, quickly leaving the two Immortals behind them.

"Damn cheaters!" Rachel exclaimed, speeding on their trail as she leaned forward
over the bike's tiny windshield in a more aerodynamic posture.

"Rachel, uh, mon amour," Michael moaned behind her, "do you really think is a
wise thing to dooooo??!!!"

His question turned in to a scream of pure panic when, taking advantage of the
long and quite empty avenue in front of them, the brunette reached the 120 mph
mark and passed the younger couple like a lightning bolt. "Oh, mon dieu!!"

The French Immortal looked over her shoulder and found that Xander had the front
wheel of his muscular Vmax 1200 practically inches away from their rear one, as
he used them as a shield against the wind resistance.

Although the young vampire's Yamaha was more powerful and had a higher top
speed, it was way heavier and less agile than Rachel's light RF600R. And, when
the avenue ended and the curves finally came, they found themselves at quite the
same level.

Michael's panic grew exponentially as did their cruising speed and, every time
he saw the hard asphalt coming dangerously close to their heads with each curve
they took, he let out a girly yelp of fear.

=It's stupid,= he thought – he had been riding on motorbikes for decades, and
had done quite crazy things himself. But, somehow, riding in the back seat added
a new perspective to the whole matter.

Finally, and mercifully for Michael's mental health, they reached the last long
street before arriving at the Bronze almost at the same time. And, taking
advantage of the superior power of his engine, Xander gave a last squeeze to the
gas gear and passed by Rachel's Suzuki, arriving at the parking of the club with
a couple of meters ahead his Immortal friends.

"Look!" he exclaimed with a playful tone, looking at them over his shoulder
after taking out his helmet. "The mighty snails."

"Go to Hell, Xander," Rachel growled at him with a murderous look, while she
parked beside them and killed the engine. "Wait until I get that new Triumph we
saw last week, and then we'll see who's the fastest around here."

"When that time comes," Michael said, hurrying in dismounting from the bike and
smoothing his tousled light-brown hair after taking off his helmet, "I think
I'll take a polite step away, and let you compete to see who is the craziest
around here."

"Oh, come on, Michael," Cordelia told him with a twisted and challenging smile,
"Don't tell me you prefer that transatlantic you call a car, to the
adrenaline-kicking feeling of riding with the wind in your hair and the..."

She noticed the stares of her three friends directed at her, and blinked in
confusion. "What?"

"Please, excuse her," Xander told the Immortal couple, "she's been watching too
much TV lately. Ouch!" he exclaimed when she slapped his shoulder. "Well, what
do you say? Do we finish the night with a little dancing?"

"Sure," Michael said as the two couples walked to the entrance of the Bronze.
"Now, here we have something in which I can kick your asses. I'm the lord of the
dance!"

"I gotta warn you that I don't think they play minuets here," Cordelia observed,
leaning on her boyfriend's shoulder in much the same way Rachel was doing with
hers. "You know, dance and music have experienced some minor changes since the
17th century."

The French Immortal mocked her with exaggerated surprise. "You don't say! You
know, Cordy, for being the one who chose tonight's movie, you shouldn't be so
smartassed."

"I liked it," Xander went to his girlfriend's defense, gaining a smile of
gratitude from her. "It wasn't so bad."

Michael arched his brow dramatically, and showed a smile full of deep sarcasm.
"Oh, you did? What a surprise, mon ami!"

"Come on, Xander," Rachel told him with a mischievous grin, "we were sitting
beside you and we didn't need to pay much attention to hear the 'mmms' and the
'aahs', and neither did the rest of the theatre. I mean, I'm not against
smoochies, but there was a point where I was thinking in telling the two of you
to get a room."

"As if you behaved any better," Cordelia protested. "'Oh, Michael,'" she
mimicked the brunette Immortal, "'that's it, right there, ooooh. You're the
best, baby.'" Both women burst out in laughter, and their two boyfriends shared
a look of resignation.

"Anyway," the aforementioned French Immortal continued after the laughter had
finally subdued, "although all of us managed to have a good time in the cinema,
you have to admit that it wasn't thanks to the movie they were playing."

He snorted. "I mean, 'I Keep On Knowing What You Did Last Summer'? What kind of
title is that? And the argument? The man with the hook recruits the help of his
second-grade cousin to cast revenge upon Jennifer Love Hewitt and Freddie
Prinze, Jr.? Puh-leaze, even I could have come up with a better story!"

"I will admit that Kevin Williamson is quickly running out of ideas," Cordelia
agreed, "but Freddie was cute."

Throwing her a playful look, Xander growled at that, making her giggle. "I just
can't stand that guy since I saw 'She's All That'." The young vampire shivered,
making a face. "There's something about that movie that just gives me the
wiggins."

As the four friends kept laughing and joking amongst themselves, they finally
entered the club and were received by the loud blast of the music coming out of
the speakers and the unmistakable smell of human sweat and teenage hormones
almost like a physical slap in their faces.

"At least it's warmer in here," Rachel observed as they made their way between
the gathered crowd of teenagers.

"Mon dieu," Michael muttered, watching at the swaying bodies on the dance floor
and at all of the young faces, "I feel like I'm three centuries older than all
of these people."

"You are three centuries older than all of these people," Xander told him, with
a soft slap on his friend's shoulder. Michael just looked at him with hostility
and, after a few moments, they exchanged an amused smile.

They wasted no time in getting a table and, feeling almost overwhelmed by the
drastic change of temperature from the cold December night outside to the way
warmer interior of the Bronze, they took off their coats.

Xander called the attention of Chuck, the waiter, and ordered a round of soft
drinks for all of them. That night, even when there wasn't a live band on the
stage, the DJ seemed to be in a kind of frenzy, so loud and hard was the music
playing.

"You look good," Cordelia told Michael, taking a long look at his attire,
composed by a v-necked light blue sweater and dark Levi's. "And it's nice to see
you out of a suit for a change."

"Well, you know, ma chèrie," he told her with his most charming smile, "it's not
the clothes, but the person inside that counts."

"Ahem!" Xander coughed with a risen eyebrow, "before you begin to think of
hitting on my girlfriend," he said, getting up from his chair and taking
Cordelia's hand, "I think I'll have a dance with her."

"That sounds like a good idea," Rachel agreed, imitating her vampire friend and,
grabbing her own boyfriend's hand, yanking at it until she succeeded in making
him get up from his seat.

"Come on, Michael, don't make me beg," she pouted at him.

Sighing, the French Immortal rolled his dark blue eyes and finally and
half-heartedly allowed her to drag him to the dance floor.

"Look at all these people," he whispered at her when they finally began to move
to the rhythm of the loud music, "they're all so... young."

"You know that age is in the heart," she whispered back to him, her hips moving
rhythmically to the quick beat. Even when she wasn't wearing any especially sexy
clothes, both her jeans and blouse were tight enough to show her splendid
figure, and more than one hormonal teenager's face turned to look at her with a
mouth-watering expression.

With a smile, Michael moved closer to her and laid his hands possessively on her
waist, moving along with her. "You're breaking more than one heart tonight, ma
chèrie."

The brunette leaned her arms on his shoulders and, as the Frenchman's mouth came
closer to hers, she let her lips extent into a wide and precious smile. "And
what about yours, Jean-Michel?"

Michael closed his lips on hers in a deep and soul-sealing kiss that grew hotter
and more passionate until both of them had to stop it before they completely
lost control of their actions. "You know that mon coeur belongs only to you, mon
amour. It's yours to break it if you want."

Leaning even closer to him, getting lost in his impossibly bottomless dark blue
eyes, Rachel shook her head softly. "It's mine to protect, love. I would never
harm you – you know that, don't you?"

Michael nodded softly and the two of them remained in the middle of the dance
floor, lost in each others eyes as they moved softly, oblivious to the rest of
jumping and swaying youngsters around them.

"Look at them," Cordelia whispered at Xander's ear with a bright smile. "Aren't
they sweet?"

Xander smiled, feeling his troubled heart lightened at seeing his friends'
happiness. "They deserve it, they've gone through a lot of troubles and danger
together. Being happy and in love is the least the Powers-That-Be could do for
them."

"And what about you?" she softly asked, looking at his brown eyes as they moved
softly, not very differently from what their friends were doing just a couple of
meters away. "Don't you deserve a little happiness of your own?"

The young vampire shrugged with a small smile, that was more of sadness than
joy. "I'm happy."

"Liar." She shook her head slowly, before leaning her forehead against his
colder one. "You're here with me, and yet your mind is like a thousand miles
away. You can't fool me, Xander Harris," she cut him off before he could
protest, "you've been like that all night. During dinner, and even when we were
making out in the cinema."

"You know me too well," he chuckled, avoiding her stare. "I'm sorry."

"Hey," she softly called him, cupping his chin and making him look straight into
her eyes, "look at me. You don't have anything to feel sorry about, Xander. I
know that these are like way hard times for you. I just want you to know, that
you don't have to hide your feelings. Not from me, at least."

"I know that," he said, managing a small smile just for her. "I just don't want
to bring you down here with me. It a lonely place, Cordy, dark and cold. I don't
want you to be there."

"But I want to be. Wherever you go, wherever you are, I want to go and be with
you."

At Xander's stubborn shake of his head, Cordelia just sighed with
resignation. "We don't have to talk about this right now, if you don't
want. I just want you to know that you're not alone, Xander. While you
have me, you won't ever be alone. Never."

This time, when the young vampire smiled, his face really lit up with the warmth
of the love he felt for the woman in his arms. "I love you, but I just don't
want to think too much about anything right now, Cordy. Can we just dance a
little?"

Cordelia smiled understandingly. "That's OK," she whispered, getting closer to
him. So much in fact that their bodies practically merged together. Then, slow
and tenderly, she kissed him on his lips. "And I love you."

Xander just smiled again and, without uttering any more words, they kept on
dancing slowly at the rhythm of their own feelings.

~~~~~~

"Is this your idea of a nice date?" Faith growled at the sandy-haired young man.
Grasping the metallic banister with her two hands so strongly that it seemed
about to snap, the former Slayer leaned on it intensely.

Her brown eyes were nailed like daggers on the young couple dancing in the
ground floor level of the club, so close together that they seemed to be about
to become one single being. "You have a goddamn twisted sense of humor."

"I go walking down there
I go searching down there
There's nothing left from you and me

I go walking down there
I go searching down there
But nobody there remembers me"

If anyone could have seen her face clearly in the dim semidarkness that filled
the second floor of the Bronze, they would have probably turned around and run
away as fast as their legs could carry them.

That was because Faith's face was twisted in a grimace of rage and hate that
made her beauty vanish as if it had never existed, as the demon inside her
growled and moved around. Its claws ripped at the soul encased in her body,
making it bleed and cry.

Her Xander. With the Bitch.

She wanted to go down there. She wanted to rip open the woman's chest and tear
her beating heart out. She had to do it, had to break the spell the Bitch had
cast over her loved one. Free him from her claws, show him what was the true
nature of things.

Killing her. Loving him. It was all the same thing.

His blood. Her blood. One. The same.

She would destroy the Bitch and claim the dark one as her own. It was not only
her duty as his sire, but her joy as his soon-to-be unholy bride.

"It doesn't matter now to me
Since I lost my baby
Nothing means that much to me
Without my baby anyway"

Damon leaned close to her from behind, his larger hands covering hers on the
metallic banister as his arms surrounded her and his chest leaned on her back.
He felt the stiffness of her stance, only betrayed by the slight trembling of
her hands, and understood that the brunette vampiress was barely controlling her
rage.

=Good, it'll make things easier in the long run,= he thought.

"They look happy, don't you think?" he whispered in her ear, leaning his chin on
her bare shoulder as he nuzzled her dark mane of hair with his nose. He trapped
a cold earlobe with his teeth and bit it gently, as he lavished it with the
point of his tongue.

When Faith growled at his contact, she surprised herself on finding that it was
a mix of rage and excitement.

She felt hate towards almost every living being inside this building, that was
true; but, although she would never admit it, it was no less certain that she
envied them almost with the same intensity.

"Oh-oh! Oh-oh!
Look at all you lucky people,
Think about the things you do!
Look at all you happy people,
I wish I could be like you!
Oh-oh! Oh-oh! Oh-oh!"

"I'm just not in the mood for that," she told Damon simply, when he felt the
young man grinding his pelvis against the soft curve of her perfect behind.

The young hit man just chuckled with real amusement, getting even closer to her,
if such thing was possible. When he spoke, he did it softly and close to her
ear. "One of these days, someone will have to explain me what it is that all you
women see in Xander. I've always thought he was nothing more than a loser."

The former Slayer looked at him over her shoulder, with her eyes wide open with
surprise. "You know him?"

"I go walking down there
I go searching down there
There's nothing left from you and me

It doesn't matter now to me
Since I lost my baby
Nothing means that much to me
Without my baby anyway"

Damon smiled back at her and showed her his left hand, which had his index and
ring fingers crossed. "There was a time, not so long ago, that we were as close
as this," he told her with an edged smile. "It's the lost puppy act, isn't it?
You girls all fall for that humbug."

"You don't know him," she said almost maniacally, centering her eyes again on
the figure of her childe. "It's the way he knows, it's the way he understands.
He's special."

The sandy-haired young man chuckled again, shaking his head again before leaning
his chin on Faith's shoulder. "I think it's you who doesn't really know him,
sweetheart."

"And you do?" she asked with deep sarcasm.

"Yeah, I do. Look at him," he said with a mesmerizing low tone, pointing at him
with a soft nod, "how do you think he feels right now, dancing with that girl
who isn't you?"

Faith growled and tried to extricate herself from Damon's enveloping arms but
found, much to her own surprise, that the young man was way stronger than what
he looked.

"Easy, woman," he harshly commanded the former Slayer, grabbing her by the
forearms and keeping her back against his chest. "Do you think he's having a
lousy time? Or that he's thinking on how much he loves being with that sexy girl
over there?"

"Oh-oh! Oh-oh!
Look at all you lucky people,
Look at all the things you do!
Look at all you happy people,
I wish I could be like you!"

Faith's growl turned into a moan of heartfelt pain, she was unable to take her
eyes away from the image of Xander and Cordelia dancing together. She couldn't
help but witness their shared joy, and the happiness that just being together
seemed to bring to the both of them.

The brunette young woman whispered something into the young dark-haired man and
he laughed out loud, his whole expression brightening with joy. Then he took her
into his strong arms and, lifting her from the floor, made her spin around.

Cordelia's giggles and high-pitched squeals of joy could be heard even over
Chris Isaak's loud voice.

"He loves her," the vampiress whispered, blood-red tears rolling down her
cheeks. "He's not even thinking about me. He loves her."

Behind her, Damon's mouth extended into a large and extremely satisfied evil
smile.

"Look at all your smiling faces,
Think about the things you've done!
Look at all you happy people,
And I've lost my only one!
Oh-oh! Oh-oh! Oh-o-oh..."

"He doesn't deserve you," he whispered in her ear. "I know him. I've seen him in
action, Faith, and I know what kind of things he can do. Whatever you think he
feels, whatever way you think he is, it's just an illusion."

As the music died and the lights around them seemed to weaken, surrounding them
in a halo of darkness, Damon made her turn around gently. Cupping her cheeks in
his warm hands and wiping her tears with his thumbs, he locked his amazing black
eyes with her brown ones.

"He's a liar, Faith, and a very good one. I know him, he can deceive even his
closest friends, show them a completely different face than his real one. You
don't know him, that girl over there doesn't know him; nobody really knows what
or who he really is."

Faith shook her head stubbornly. "You're lying to me," she mumbled raggedly,
turning her back on him again.

Damon raised an eyebrow and surrounded her thin waist with his arms, interlacing
his fingers over her flat belly. "And what would I gain by doing that?"

"I don't know," she said, shaking her head, "but he's mine. It's that... that
bitch," she spat with a tone full of venom. "She's the one who's taking him away
from me. She's the one who's poisoning his mind."

Damon sighed, rolling his eyes. =Vampires, they're all the same,= the man
thought. =Once a thought enters their brains, it's impossible to get it out.=

"And what are you going to do about it?" he asked.

"I'm going to kill her," she whispered, her tone the one of maniac certainty.
"Once she's dead, he'll be free to be with me."

"And if that doesn't work?"

Faith's grasp on the banister was so strong, that the metal began to fold
between her hands. "If he isn't mine, he won't be anybody's."

Damon just smiled at hearing this and, leaning closer to her, planted a big kiss
on her cheek. "That's my girl."

"Let's do it now!" the former Slayer growled, looking at her companion with
feverish eyes.

Damon blinked repeatedly, caught with his guard down. "Now? You mean as in right
this instant?"

Faith nodded with a big smile and, when she began to walk away, the sandy-haired
man had to reach out for her. Grabbing her by the shoulder, he stopped her from
going any further. "I don't think that's a good idea."

"Don't you ever try to stop me!" she growled at him, her eyes red-gold and her
fangs showing under her upper lip.

"Hey! Hey!" he smiled, raising his hands in surrender. "Take it easy, baby! I
just don't want you to make any faux pas here. If you go down there right now,
you are dead meat, Faith." He shook his head and smiled with sarcasm. "Well, you
know what I mean."

The former Slayer looked at him, through half-closed eyes. "Do you think I can't
take that bitch down?"

"Sure you could. In a second. And I know that he couldn't stop you, because the
childe-sire link would leave him as frozen as an ice-cube the moment he saw
you," he told her with a smile.

"Then, what's stopping me from walking down there and eating her damn heart?"

Shaking his head, Damon surrounded her shoulder with his arm and brought her
back to the banister. "You have to be more careful, young grasshopper; what do
you see?"

"I see them," she growled with loathing. "And a bunch of hysterical kids."

"And what about that couple over there?" he asked, pointing at Michael and
Rachel. "The older one."

"What about them?" she shrugged with disinterest. "He's quite handsome, but they
don't seem special to me."

The young hit man barely suppressed a dry laugh. "Well, they certainly are,
baby. You see, that precious brunette would shred you to pieces before you even
knew what was happening."

Tilting his head to one side, Damon took a few seconds to admire Rachel's
perfect and shapely behind as she moved at the rhythm of the music. As always,
it was a view to be enjoyed.

"And what about him?" Faith asked, more interested now. "He looks quite...
tasty."

Damon let a half-smile cross his lips for a moment and then leaned on the
banister, just beside the former Slayer, and looked at Michael Deveraux with
appreciative eyes.

"Him? Well... you'd see him coming, but that's just because he's way too much of
a gentleman to hit a woman without having properly introduced himself first. But
after that..." Damon shook his head, "...you'd only feel pain."

Noticing the tone of sincere admiration in the young man's voice, Faith looked
at him sideways. "You seem to like him."

"Like him?" he let out a dry laugh and then, for a moment so short that Faith
doubted it had even existed, his face lost his charming crooked expression,
becoming so bitter and resentful that made her stomach turn around with
surprise.

"He's the person that I loved the most in my whole life." He sighed, almost
painfully, and a bitter smile came to his lips.

"It's curious," the hit man whispered.

"What?" an intrigued Faith asked him.

Damon shrugged. "I hadn't thought about it before, but it's quite ironic.
Everything I am is what he made me, and each decision that's led me to this
point was taken because of him, and now... now I'm going to kill him. It's...
well, it's ironic."

The two of them remained in silence for a few moments, submerged in their own
thoughts, until Faith finally broke it. "So, we're not going to kill them."

Without looking straight at her, the young hit man shook his head. "Not the
place, not the time."

"But I want to kill them," she protested with a childish pout. "Life is so
unfair."

This time, Damon's laughter was real and sincere. "Come on, baby," she told her,
surrounding her shoulder with his arm, "let's go take a walk. You still have to
do me a favor."

Faith moaned in disgust. "Can I have a quick snack at least?"

Damon shrugged absent-mindedly, and he looked at her like a father consenting a
little fancy to his daughter. "Sure, but only one, OK?"

The former Slayer jumped softly on the spot, clapping her hands with joy and
kissed him sweetly on the cheek. "Thanks, you're so great, Damon."

The aforementioned young man rolled his eyes as she rounded his waist, and they
walked together to the nearest exit too much like a normal couple. "What would
you prefer?"

"Something exotic." Faith scanned the crowd until she spotted a young Oriental
boy. No more than sixteen years old, he was incredibly handsome, with piercing
dark eyes and black raven hair.

With a mouth-watering smile, the former Slayer began to practically drag her
companion towards him. "I think it's going to be Chinese tonight."

~~~~~~

To be continued...