Chapter Ten

Total Desolation

When I awoke I could hear muttered voices from the other side of the room. Opening my eyes, careful not to let them know I was awake, I saw a woman sitting on a chair opposite of my bed, with Angel leaning against the wall.

"You look tired." The woman said quietly. She was dressed in a tight leather skirt with matching black boots that reached up past her knees, leaving only a couple inches of bare skin between skirt and boot.

"It's been a long week." Angel answered hoarsely.

Standing up she adjusted her red silk top. The shirt... if you could call it that, barley covered her breasts. All it was was a small bandana tied off at the back, leaving very little to the imagination. Walking over to him she pressed her body up against his suggestively.

"Poor baby." She said caressing his face. Their images played across the wall from the fire burning in the hearth. "Anything I can do to make it better?"

Angel brushed a piece of her brunette hair out of her eyes, starring into them deeply. From the moment I had laid eyes on him I could tell so many things about him right away. It was all in his eyes. They were the most expressive thing on his face. They were distant when he was sad, light in shade when he was happy, and my favorite was when they were dark with untamed lust. But now... now his eyes held nothing. They were blank and bottomless, scaring me more then I want to admit.

Suddenly he leaned forward, attacking the woman's lips with vigor causing her to moan out with pent up desire. She slid her hands up and under his shirt roaming the smooth planes of his chest then slowly began to unbutton it, revealing a smooth expanse of creamy flesh. To Angel, this all seemed to be going to slow for him. With his vampire speed he ripped her shirt off, ravaging her mouth while he proceeded to roam the rest of her body.

Letting the material fall from her, the woman quickly jumped up, wrapping her legs around his torso, not once breaking the kiss. Angel moved down to her neck making her groan wantonly as he nipped and laved at the delicate skin there.

I felt as if I was going to throw up. I knew that Angel had needs of his own to fulfill and everything, but that didn't mean it wasn't going to hurt. That it wasn't going to cause every bit of my heart to ache in unbeknownst agony. The way the two of them were groping around like teenagers was disgusting. Every time his hand came up to her breasts my stomach rolled in revulsion. I tried to shut my eyes and will them to go away but the groaning just kept getting louder and louder. And when I heard the sound of a zipper being undone I thought my heart would stop.

But nothing came.

Peeling my eyes open I saw the woman looking at Angel, my Angel, in confusing as he suddenly stopped kissing her, her hand hovering in-between the two of them. "What's wrong?" She asked as she began to once again rub up against him.

Pushing her away he zipped up his jeans. "We can't."

"Excuse me?" She stood up, not seeming to mind the fact that she was seemingly topless at the moment. "What do you mean we can't?"

"I mean just that. We can't." He started to button back up his shirt with shaky hands.

"It's because of her isn't it?" As she gestured towards my direction I couldn't help but smile. Jealous much?

"It has nothing to do with her."

"Then why are we stopping?"

"Things are... there complicated right now. The vamps have doubled and..."

"And not one of those things has ever stopped you from fucking me into the wall." She said bitterly.

"I'm sorry."

"What the hell is wrong with you? God, who cares if she wakes up! She's nobody, you said that yourself!" I had to bite my lip to keep myself from intervening. "You just can't stand the fact that she just might be your precious Buffy!"

Angel winced as he heard my name come out of another woman's lips. "Don't."

"If only she could know what you've done." She continued despite his warning. "How every night you come and see me, taking out every last drop of your anger on my body. How you sit alone in this room brooding day in and day out over your past crimes. How your forced to live in the shadows in fear of Leon finding out where you are and then going after your son." She smiled wickedly. "Or how about how your son hates you with every fiber of his being, especially after that incident."

"Shut up." He said quietly, his fist clenching and unclenching in a desperate attempt to control himself.

"What, can't handle the truth?" She asked innocently as she advanced towards him, swaying her hips back and fourth. "Can't stand the fact that your own flesh and blood saw you rape a woman right on the street corner? Or the fact that Leon's reduced you to this? A vicious murdering animal?" The firelight was beginning to make her look crazed. "Well guess what baby, it's all true. You're nothing more then an animal now, and you'll never be anything else. Just because the ghost of your past lover has suddenly shown up doesn't mean that anything's different."

"Leave her out of this."

"Why? It is the reason why I'm not getting the satisfaction I need right now isn't it? Why we're not on the rug right now fucking like the demons we are?" He didn't look at her. "That's what I thought. When you decided to stop playing the tortured soul act, give me a call."

"I'm not doing this anymore. It's over."

She laughed mercilessly. "I give it three days before you come crawling back to me." She picked up her top and walked out the door.

I watched as Angel closed his eyes and slid down the wall, his head in his hands. With shaky fingers he ran a hand through his hair, making it more mused then it already was. He couldn't seem to get a hold of himself. His eyes were clenched shut bringing out the creases on his brow, and all I wanted, more then anything in the world, was to go to him. To comfort him.

Violently he hit the wall causing his hand to bleed, and even then he didn't stop. Specks of red hit the carpeting, flinging out towards the wall. After he had exausted his anger he cradled his hand in his lap and sighed a deep weary sigh. A sigh of loss, of confusion, but most of all, of total desperation.

For a long while he did that, sitting on the cold hard ground, just starring off into the distance. And I watched. I used to yell at Giles for being nothing more then just that, a watcher. But now I knew what it felt like. To be on the outside, looking in on all that pain and grief was almost unbearable.

Getting up Angel went over to the sink and washed away the now drying blood. With his head hung low he walked to the door, not even bothering with his coat.

"Where are you going?" I broke the silence first, not caring about anything but him at the moment.

He turned and looked at me and suddenly I knew. He had stopped all those minutes ago because I was awake. This whole time he knew that I was watching and he didn't want to show me that side of him. Whether I was his Buffy or not, he didn't want me to see the weakness inside of him.

"I'm crawling back to her." He said with no feeling what so ever. Tears welled in my eyes at the thought of him going to her. Taking the warmth that she offered him. "Go back to bed Buffy."

Shutting the door quietly he left. Tears cascaded down my cheeks as I heard him heavily descend the up the stairs, back into the arms of the horror. But all that was on my mind was one thing.

"He called me Buffy."