Definition of Insanity
Part Four
by Karen

Disclaimer: I do not own the characters, they belong to Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy and Fox.
Rating: M for adult themes and drugs.
Genres: Angst and eventually romance
Summary: Buffy used to have a needle problem- she couldn't stand them. Now she has a different sort of needle problem, one that could kill her if she's not careful. But she has been careful, at least she was until someone from her past showed up and shook her hold on reality.
Author's Notes: This story came about after I went to the doctors and had to have blood drawn.
Warnings: Contains situations not suitable for children. Reader disgression is advised.
Feedback: A must.

We drove downtown, parked the car on some side street, and set off on foot. I didn't have a destination in mind, but he seemed to. We ended up in a wide-open area, with carts and street vendors everywhere.

We spent the day going through the outdoor stalls and the shops that lined the area. I didn't realize that Angel was so into shopping. He kept dragging me from stall to stall to check out things that caught his eye. He insisted on buying almost a dozen things for me, but every time I tried to talk to him about buying something for him, he pulled me in the opposite direction to look at something else. He also stuffed me full of different fatty foods, pretzels and elephant ears and French fries, and so much else. So much that I felt like I was going to be sick after my strict diet of salad or nothing. But just when I thought I couldn't eat any more, he convinced me that I was hungry, and sat us down outside a pizza parlor.

By mid-afternoon, I was not only stuffed, but happy for the first time since I could remember since moving to the city. We had been bantering back and forth all day, and a couple times he had to put his hands on me, either to get me out of someone else's way, or to change direction; no matter his excuse, I shivered at each contact. I wish he didn't affect me so, but I can't help it.

And the best part, after the last time, when I was going to veer off to check out a shirt I thought he would look hot in, he put his arm around my waist and pulled me back beside him. But he didn't let me go. He left his arm draped around the small of my back, his hand snaked around the thin hip. When he touched me, he didn't touch me like I was diseased, or sick, he touched me like he always did, like he was in love with me.

As the sun set, we were ambling through a small side street, trying to find the car, when a figure melted from the shadows just ahead of us.

"Buffy," the demon said conversationally, "Where have you been? You were supposed to come pick up your…payment last night."

I had totally forgotten about the meeting, "I-I don't want it, Morty. Not now, not ever. And I'm not doing any more jobs for you, I'm clean." I told him, Angel silently giving me the courage just by his arm around my waist and his coat draped over my thin shoulders.

"What's this nonsense? Without me, you'd still be the vamp-whipped girl. I changed that, didn't I? Me and my drug, we helped you," he said. I guess he didn't recognize Angel, not yet anyway.

"I'm through," I repeated.

"You can't do this to me, Slayer, you're my best customer."

Before he could threaten me- I can take care of myself, by the way- Angel let go of me, stepping into light cast by one of the lamps nearby, "She said she was through, Morty. You'd best believe her and get out of here before she decides to sick the council on you," he said.

Morty's expression turned from one of anger to one of fear. "An-Angelus," he stuttered, "I didn't know you were around…So sorry…" he turned tail and ran. I couldn't help but smile; I didn't know that even now, after so long, Angelus was still a thing to be feared.

We stood there a moment, staring after him. Finally, he moved back to me, put his arm back around my waist, and led me towards where he thought the car was. But the banter was gone, the happiness was gone. And his arm was stiffer around me, almost like he did it just because he thought I wanted him to. I wanted to shoot up so bad.

When we finally reached the car, my hands were shaking, and my muscles were aching, even though we hadn't done anything that had physically exerted me. I tucked myself into the passenger side as he climbed into the driver's seat. I knew it was bad if I was letting him drive-I drove here. I had told myself it was because I knew the layout better, but it was because of my control freakiness, and we both knew it.

When we reached the house, I headed straight for my bed, where I curled up in a quivering ball. I couldn't keep lying to myself. My body was addicted to the drug, the symptoms weren't new to me, just compounded. In the past, I had muscle twitches if I went too long without shooting up, or muscle aches I thought were just because of a bad fight the night before. No, my body was addicted.

My mind was too, for a completely different reason. Because here, in my bed, alone, the images streamed through my mind, confusing me, making me crazy as I tried to focus on just one image. Yet, I didn't need to. I knew all the images by heart, they were from my life with Angel, or dreams since he left me. And now images of today were added to the mix, a touch, a smile, the sight of him in the sunlight, his thick hair curling slightly from the humidity. All moments that made my heart flop; now I wished for the prick of a needle to make them all go away.

Angel came in a bit later with a plate of food. He found me curled in the fetal position, rocking myself slightly. He set the plate on the bedside table, sitting on the edge of the bed, placing a hand on my side. I flinched.

"You need to eat something," he said quietly.

I shook my head, not trusting my voice. I was shivering again.

"Buffy, please. You need to keep your health up. I know this hurts, but I need you to eat for me."

"How do you know?" I asked, my voice quivering. "How do you know what it's like?"

He sighed, "Back at the turn of the century, 17th century," he amended, knowing I needed clarification, "We spent some time in China. I-I found opium patrons easy picking…Easiest when they're high, they just lay there, babbling incoherently. And the smell is easy to track…I spent a lot of time in opium dens…" he wasn't looking at me, and I knew he wasn't proud of what he had done, and that gave me heart. Even when he had been forgiven, he still felt bad, "We toured China for a few months, but then we decided to head back to Europe, hoping the mobs had died down in the five months we were gone. On the ship back, I went through withdrawal, similar to what you're going through. It wasn't nearly as bad, and it only lasted a few hours, but I stayed away from drug addicts for a few years after that."

He looked down at me, smoothing some hair off my cheek; I shivered at the touch, knowing it would go into the streaming video that was my life without drugs, "You got to keep going on. Please, eat, for me."

I looked up at him, saw the caring in his eyes, and struggled to sit up. Everything hurt. I was addicted, addicted bad. He helped me into a sitting position before he placed the plate in my lap. I took the fork, but my hands were shaking so badly I couldn't cut the steak he had cooked or make the potatoes stay on my fork long enough to make it to my mouth. I made a small noise in my throat in frustration, so close to tears it scared me.

Gently he took the fork and knife from me, cut up the meat into smaller bites, and started feeding me as if I were a baby. I couldn't keep the tears in then, and they streamed down my face as he put bite after bite into my mouth. Once the plate was empty, he took it from my lap and put it back on the bedside table, before taking me into his arms, just as he had the night before. He didn't have to ask what was wrong. "I know," he murmured, "I know." Yet again he lay me down in my bed and allowed me to cry.

I woke the next morning with his arms still around me. I inhaled the sweet scent of him, before I slowly crawled out of his embrace. I didn't want to, I wanted to stay there forever, safe and warm in his arms, where his nearness made all but the worst symptoms of withdrawal seem irrelevant.

I was in the shower when I heard his voice, "Do you mind if I use the bathroom?" he asked.

Behind the semi sheer shower curtain, I wrapped my arms around my chest, biting my lip hard. For a fleeting second I didn't want him to just use the bathroom, but I wanted him to come join me in the shower. Generally, I'm pretty dense, but it didn't take a blind man to see I was still in love with him.

"S-Sure!" I called, hoping he didn't catch my stutter, hoping the nervousness I felt couldn't be heard in my voice. I stood there self-consciously as he went to the bathroom, I could see his wide shoulders through the curtain. I was waiting until he was done before I moved, not wanting to bring attention to myself, but instead of leaving, he turned to the sink, grabbing his can of shaving cream. I saw him shake it and felt myself shiver.

Slowly I moved from behind the opaque outer curtain and back into the spray of the shower. I could see his back was to me, so slowly, I began to finish my washing, though more than anything I wanted his hands to be the ones running down my body. I was so self-conscious, I had never really noticed how much my body had changed, how different I was, how…unfeminine.

After that I was done with my shower real fast. I didn't want to give Angel the chance to join me, in the off chance that he still felt anything at all; I didn't want him to see what I had become. The only problem-he was still in the bathroom. After a moment of thought, I turned off the water, and reached out to quickly grab the closest towel. I retreated back into the shower, wrapping it firmly around myself, before I pulled back the shower curtain.

As I walked away I felt his eyes on me, and I shuddered, if he knew what I had become, he'd loath me.

The withdrawal was the worst it had ever been that day. We stayed around the house, cleaning and stuff. I wore a huge oversized sweatshirt, and even though it was a hot day, I kept it on. The thing came down to my knees, and I thought it would make me happier, but it just made me look even more sexless. I had lost my femininity; I had lost myself.

I sunk into depression, but if Angel noticed, he didn't give any indication. He kept shoveling food into me by the ton- or at least it seemed that way after my months of eating just one meal a day. He told me that generally symptoms of withdrawal went away after seven days. On day four, he cajoled me into going for a run, teasing that all the rich food would make me fat if I wasn't careful. But if that gave me some curves again, if it made me look like a woman, I would do it, because maybe he'd love me again.

That night we watched a movie, and I fell asleep on the couch, using Angel's shoulder as a pillow. The next morning, I woke up lying down, in his arms, and without thinking I wiggled slightly to get more comfortable and fell off the edge of the couch. The day kinda followed that. The symptoms weren't as bad as they had been the day before, but my muscles still ached and my hands were shaky. Worse, we were running out of things to do during the day, and there really wasn't much on TV. Finally, Angel took me to the nearest library, of all places, and I got a library card, and we got out some movies, and Angel got out some of those really old books he likes.

We spent the next few days watching movies and reading out loud. I decided to pick up a few books by an author I had heard a lot about but had never had time to read. God, were the books hilarious! I kept interrupting Angel's reading to read him a section. One of the evenings, when the cravings were incredibly awful, Angel curled up with me on my bed and read aloud to me. I'm not totally sure what he read was in English, but it sounded pretty damn nice to me.

By day six, my cravings were pretty much gone, and I wasn't having muscle spasms so much, and when I did, they weren't all that bad. It was then that I was faced with another problem. Now that the drug was out of my system- for good, I hoped, because I could not go through this again- Angel would be leaving soon, and his presence was worse than the drugs. It was infused in my bones, and when he left, I would be going through a totally different type of withdrawal. This one, I thought, was probably going to leave me babbling incoherently in the nearest padded room, or maybe just a corner would suffice. Living with him for the past week, though it started out rough, had shown me a way to get to heaven again, and I knew when he left, I would wake up in hell.

So I did the only thing I could do. I pushed him away.

Usually, we either fell asleep on the couch after watching a movie, or fell asleep in my bed after reading out loud. It's funny how it only took us a week to fall into a routine. He has the nicest voice, and it just lulls me, until the world is perfect, because all there is is him. On the sixth day after my fatal high, we watched a movie, but I forced myself to stay awake, and when it was over, I left him sleeping on the couch, slipping into my own room. The dreams I had that night weren't the pleasant ones I had been having in his arms, but when I woke up crying, I put my pillow over my head so he wouldn't hear me. I didn't fall asleep after that, afraid I might call out to him, because I knew he would come.

I made sure to get up long before he would, and I showered and started breakfast. I was even cooking, and I had to be self-sufficient. My heart had already started to hurt, even though he had yet to leave.

That day he put my doors back on, he wouldn't let me help despite I was ten times stronger than he was now. He looked so sexy, shirtless, with sweat trickling down his chest and back. His skin was warm, healthy, no longer cold and pale, and I wanted him all the more. While he was being all muscley, masculine, I cleaned up, putting the books we had been reading and the movies we had been watching back in their place. But I left out the book we had started two nights before, a collection of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's short stories.

"You can stay as long as you want," I told him during dinner, "At least to finish Doyle's collection. I don't think I'd have the chance to finish if you didn't force me," I softened it with a smile. I needed him to stay longer. Ripping himself out of my life now would put me back where I started before the drugs. Even if I slowly weaned myself from him, it still might. I looked at him expectantly, hoping against hope he'd stay a little longer.

He seemed to mull it over for a few seconds, before he nodded, "Okay." Maybe he understood what his leaving would do to me, maybe not.

"I have to go back to work tomorrow," I told him, "I know Will gave me another week, but…You can come with, or you could stay here, whatever you prefer."

"I'd like to see more of the Council," he told me. He didn't argue about me going back to work or anything, and that surprised me.

I nodded silently, "I won't be able to stay with you all day," I warned, "I have tons of meetings to make up, plus all of this week's. I'm in charge of the training and patrolling of all the slayers in the city. Plus I do phone or email correspondence with all of the slayers around the world." He looked impressed, and I smiled.

The next day went smoothly, if a bit hectic. Fifteen minutes after getting there, Angel had disappeared. Work was work, and there was nothing new about it. The week's vacation I took didn't harm me in any way, if anything, it helped. For once I had something to talk about with some of the slayers that were either more book inclined or movie inclined. I was even able to recommend something to some of them. It felt really good.

Instead of eating at my desk, I ate in the cafeteria. The food wasn't as bad as I expected, and it was good seeing Willow and Xander again, it was good spending time with them, without having to be doing research or testing slayers or whatnot. At first it was a bit awkward, but then we fell into our old routine, and things were nice. I had really missed talking to them, making them laugh and smile.

As I was getting up to go, Xander stopped me with a hand on my arm, "There's a new club that opened downtown. What do you think?" he asked.

"Uh, I think I could show up for a couple hours," I said, knowing it wasn't the exact answer he was looking for, but it still made his face light up, "I haven't done any patrolling for the past week, so I need to get back in the swing of things," I said, giving him a playful smile, "Uh, is it okay if I bring Angel? We're not together," I hastened to add, "but he's staying at my place until he can find somewhere else," I told them.

"Oz and I will be there after dinner, around eight," Willow said, barely containing a smile.

"I was thinking of bringing someone," Xander said slowly, "I'd really like to know your guys' opinion of her."

I sat back down, feeling like we were in high school, "That's great Xander! I'm sure we'll like her," I told him, putting a hand on his lower arm supportively. It shocked me that even after so long, I still knew Xander enough to know he was uncomfortable. "So, we'll meet you there around eight?" I asked, standing again.

"Yeah," my friends said as one.