Chapter 18: A Changing of the Guard
For the next several minutes, Buffy and Spike stared at the vision in front of them, trying to determine if it was real. The first coherent word Spike could form was a soft "No."
Angel lilted his head and an expression of mock concern passed over his features. "What is it William? Cat got your tongue?" He was speaking as if he was cooing to a child. Spike could not respond, his eyes intently alternating between the wound on Drusilla's neck to Angel's hand, which was sweeping across Dru's back in slow, lazy movements. Buffy was staring at the same thing and found it amazing that she was even standing. Her throat was a desert of confusion and panic but she somehow managed to utter:
"A-Angel?"
Sweeping his head grandly, he gazed at Buffy with a complacent smile. "Hi honey." His voice dripped with heavy and cloying mockery. Slowly withdrawing his arm from around Drusilla's waist, he tilted his head and approached her with a cocky leer. "What are you doing here?"
Buffy just stared at him. He sounded like he was asking a purely innocent question, like he was generally and vaguely interested to know. That wasn't like him. The Angel she knew wouldn't ask her "what are you doing here" in a bemused, pleasantly uninterested voice. The Angel she knew would ask her "what are you doing here" in a strangled voice, both dismayed and joyful to know that she was near him. The Angel she knew would be too conflicted and broody to ever give her the loopy grin he was presently administering. And the Angel she knew wouldn't ever have his arm wrapped around Drusilla. So it was established that this wasn't the Angel she knew. Why did that have such difficulty registering? "W-what . . . what are you doing here Angel? Y-you with . . . with Drusilla---"
"You look upset Buff, you okay?" Why was he speaking to her like he was her high school counselor? "Because I'm sensing that you're in pain. I-is this about last night? Because I was gonna call about that, really I was, it's just . . . I got tied up making some new . . . friends." His voice tapered off seductively as he turned back to Drusilla, who beamed in response.
"You son-of-a---" Spike started, his voice murderously sharp.
"Ah ah ah, Spike, no harsh words now, there are ladies present." His arm returned furtively to Dru's side.
Spike couldn't even conjure a proper response, so instead he turned to Drusilla, thinking that if he implored her long enough, this nightmare of a reality would disappear. "Drusilla . . . t-this is . . . it's not true, he didn't make you----"
"Daddy's opened a new world for me, Spikey, a brave new world . . . he's shown me the stars and they've all painted a picture for me and it's dancing, dancing in me head . . ." Drusilla waved one of her hands and her fingers threaded through the air gracefully as she swooped her head back and forth in all insanity.
Angel chuckled and looked back at Buffy and Spike in delight. He held Dru more tightly and possessively now. "Isn't she adorable?" he exclaimed. "My first fledgling! You would think in all my two hundred years, I would have thought of this sooner, but----"
"Get away from her," Spike growled.
Angel straightened and feigned intimidation. "Well gee Spike, you talked me right into it . . . but why we don't was ask the missus first?" He emphasized the word 'missus' by leaning his head down towards Dru and brushing his lips across her forehead. Buffy began to feel nauseous and desperately sick to the bottom of her stomach, the pain wrenching the tears from her eyes.
Spike clenched his teeth, ready to run screaming towards Angel with a battle cry and his stake raised. But instead, he found himself slowly reaching out his hand for Dru. He stared at her fiercely, his eyes intensely beseeching her. "Come on, Dru," he whispered, his hand outstretched.
Drusilla gazed at him haughtily in a face paler than china and backed away. "Don't wanna," she replied petulantly with a pout.
"Dru-----"
"It's a new world, William, Daddy's shown me the way."
"It is not!!" Spike screamed, whipping his hand down forcefully. "And he's not your fucking 'Daddy'!! You aren't what he made you, y-you can't be----"
"You're just jealous, my love," Drusilla crooned, spooning back into Angel's protective arms. "Daddy said you would be jealous. That you wouldn't accept the fact I'm a princess . . . that I can see the stars. And I can see them, William. I can see everything now . . . "
"You're a princess! You're a goddamn stargazing princess! You can be the damned Princess of Mesopotamia if you want to be, you just have to be it with me, and get away from him!!"
Drusilla cocked her head and pursed her lips like a sorrowful child. "Poor Spikey, it's hard for him to lose his Black Orchid Princess. But it's the way it has to be, dearest . . . don't you see? You always called me your groupie, Spike, and you always got center stage while I waited in the wings . . . but now," she turned her head to a smiling Angel. "I've found a groupie of me own . . . and it's my turn for the spotlight."
Angel turned to him derisively. "I think she's trying to say she wants to see other people."
Spike hardened and unbridled fury flared out from him like a forest fire. "You bastard-----" he cried before launching onto Angel with full force. Struggling to rouse him with a powerful uppercut, Angel easily deflected it and kicked Spike's feet out from under him. Spike tried to spring back up on his feet, but Angel spied the stake that had tumbled out of Spike's pocket and grabbed it, while securing Spike where he was with his foot. Leaning down, he grabbed Spike up by the collar and smashed him against a tree, bearing the point of the stake down onto his chest. His game face rising, Angel snarled brutally in a sickeningly sinister smile, and Spike gasped with pain as he felt the point break through his shirt, and through his skin. Suddenly, Angel lurched backwards, thrown off Spike by Buffy, who grabbed the stake away from him and trapped him on the other side of the tree.
It had happened so quickly that Buffy didn't have a chance to look at Angel fully in the eyes as she raised her stake. And she shouldn't have paused to do so either, because on swift swoop of the arm and she could have been done with it. But no, she instead had to catch her breath and lilt her head up so that their eyes met. And despite a foreign yellow hardness that flickered there, Angel's eyes were still meltingly brown, a shade of chocolate that always made Buffy's stomach turn. Angel smirked at Buffy as she strangled a gasp and murmured. "You like it rough, baby? You sure weren't singing that song last night. It was more vanilla for you, wasn't it?" His breath was disgustingly cold on her neck.
Repulsed, she shoved herself off of him with speed. Such horrible things coming out of the same soft mouth she once worshipped. The vision of him was blurred and clouded by the line of tears filling the lower rim of her eyes, but Angel prodded on. "You were good though," he whispered huskily. "There's no denying that, kiddo. I didn't think you had all those tricks up your sleeve for such a young one. That slayer strength came in handy too . . ." He leaned his head back a mimicked a pleasure-filled gasp. "That was some night, Buffy. We'll have to do it again sometime."
Her breath was catching up to her and her knees inwardly shook. She felt Spike's eyes suddenly bore into her accusingly as he began to understand what was going on, but she didn't vary her glance from Angel. "Angel . . . A-Angel you don't mean it," she heard herself say, as if she was still talking to The Angel She Knew, not this present monster.
"Mean what? That you're such a demon in the sack? Don't be so modest, Buffy, you are. I've had my fair share of women, but you . . . screwing a slayer was more than I dreamt it would ever be . . . " He smiled indolently as Buffy tried to resist the impulse to give way to her quaking legs and faint completely away.
Spike stared at Buffy and Angel with suspicion, but turned his attentions quickly with Drusilla. Now that Buffy had Angel somewhat preoccupied, this gave Spike and Dru a chance to escape. Grabbing Dru by the arm, he began to drag her away. "Come on, Drusilla, while we still have the chance," he whispered urgently.
Drusilla resisted with force. "You never want me to shine, Spike. You never want me to glitter and soar. Daddy's showing me how, my place is with him-----"
"He's not your place, Dru!" Spike insisted ragingly. "You're place is with me and Munitz and the gang and----"
Drusilla cocked her head curiously. "Munitz?"
"Munitz! You're bloody brother Munitz! The only family you know!"
Drusilla leaned back into Angel. "I'm the only family she'll know now," Angel sneered softly.
"NO. You will never be family. Me and Munitz, we're Drusilla's family, and there's nothing you can do to change that----"
"Oh, but I think I already have." Angel stepped aside and dragged out a limp form from behind another tree. He flopped it carelessly at Spike and Buffy's feet, and Spike opened his eyes wide with horror as he leaned down to inspect it.
"Spike---" a broken voice croaked. Munitz stared up at Spike and breathed in raggedy pants. A trail of blood streaked down from his neck and his eyes flickered with the last sign of life. Plopping down onto his knees, Spike surveyed Munitz, stricken.
"Oh God, oh God---"
"Dru wanted to turn him, but I really thought it was appropriate this way, you know? I mean, it's a spectacular example of déjà vu for one thing, isn't it? I killed your mother all those years ago, I thought, what better than to kill your surrogate father figure in the same manner? It comes full circle then, don't you see?" Angel laughed darkly at no one in particular, only relishing in the sordid humor by himself.
"No, oh God, Munitz, oh God." The poor boy was practically hyperventilating.
"God's not with him now, luv," Drusilla chirped coquettishly. "God's not with us at all . . . and that's where all the fun is."
Munitz was still gasping for air, reaching up to Spike to utter a few last words, and Spike desperately jutted his face near his mouth to catch anything he might whisper. But by the time he reached his ear to Munitz's mouth, he felt nothing, not even cold air, strike his skin. Gazing down at his best friend in all the world, he found Munitz staring back up with him in a blank, void gaze. Feeling the part of his neck left unbloodied, he found no pulse. He was dead.
Like Drusilla, this was something Spike was not about to gracefully accept. He just shook his head maniacally as his back hunched up and down despairingly. Clenching his teeth, he again felt blinding anger pulse through his veins, and he tried to clumsily get off his feet to attack Angel once more. Angel sniggered. "You don't ever quit, do you William?"
Buffy jumped up and solidly blocked Spike from getting nearer to Angel. "I know I don't," she quipped in a hard voice before she advanced onto him, stake raised high. With a cry, she jumped up and kicked him mid-torso, forcing him back. He recovered swiftly and smacked her across the face hard with his fist. Blocking more of her punches, his features turned again, displaying his true nature in this twisted game of violence. He delivered a powerful head butt that sent her reeling backwards, and Angel soon tried to force himself on top of her. But quick as lightening, Buffy rolled, which sent Angel sprawling onto his back in the grass. Soon he found himself trapped under Buffy's iron grip as she straddled him and pointed the stake down onto his chest. Just as she was about to ram the piece of wood into his unbeating heart, Angel's features shifted once more so that he was shining in boyish youthfulness. And she hesitated.
"Do it," he urged, snarlingly . "End it, right here, right now, Buffy. You started it, you end it. Dust your one true love and be done with it." Horrified, Buffy slowly lifted the stake, as if the words had numbed her. "You started it." What the hell did that mean? Because if that meant . . . the trigger . . . no. No, that couldn't happen, that couldn't be it---
Buffy was still frantically going over these words in her mind as Angel sneered. "You can't do it, can you? You can't kill me. You still think that I'm your weepy, blubbering, sniveling Angel, a noble knight shouldering the heavy burden of humanity. Well news flash, doll: Your boyfriend is dead. And there's been a changing of the guard. Expect new and better things." With that, he reached up and kissed her brutally, piercing her lips with his fangs, drawing blood. Buffy tried to squirm out of the hateful kiss, but Angel had already threw her to the side, smacked her hard across the face and ran into the night's darkness grasping Dru's hand. Still by Munitz's side, Spike dazedly looked up from his friend's corpse and stared at Buffy, who sat silent and stricken on the grass. She stared at the stake in front of her, and the rumpled grass where Angel had lay just a minute ago. It looked like rumpled sheets. Like the sheets from last night . . .
She was so intent on staring at the grass in front of her that she didn't notice Spike screaming. "You let him go!! You let him go, you bitch!! You had him twice and you let the bastard go!! D-Do you know what you've done?!!" His voice became increasingly strangled, so Buffy gazed back at him, breathing hard through tears. Spike had picked up his friend's limp body and began to stalk through the grass. "You've killed me, Blondie. You let him take everything and everyone that I loved. You've killed me." Broken and ambling, he began stumbling away, still carrying the body as it flopped around in his arms. Buffy stared at his retreating figure and realized, at that moment, that the prophecy had been fulfilled. And she was the cause of it.
AN: I wrote this late night on Sunday, because I really did want to update, it's been awhile. Unfortunately, I've been taking cold medicine, so I must say, I wasn't fully conscious when writing this. There are probably mistakes, and I think it's a little overwrought (I wanted to add more parts to it, but was too tired) but I'll just upload it and edit it later if I catch some huge mistakes or the chapter just needs massive overhaul in general. Also, I'm compelled to plug my other currently in-progress fic, "Baby, You Don't Even Know". Not as angsty and dramatic as this one, some of you might actually enjoy it. Not just another "Buffy's Pregnant" fic, I swear. Check it out if you can!