I'm using you.
I'm using you.
I'm using you.
I'm using you.
I'm—use—
Why, every time, are those words, from her mouth, the ones that feel so good it hurts, the ones that hook into him so sharply that for a moment he forgets life, which is to say he forgets death, which is to say he forgets everything?
She meant it. She meant, It's meaningless. She meant, I don't love you. She meant, I'm only with you because of the unfathomable pain that's my every day. I'm with you because you are the only thing that hurts more.
She'd been trying to make him feel worthless, but he had never felt more vital to this doomed planet than the moment Buffy told him that he was her escape. He was her alternate universe, her life away from life, her animal body, divorced from her mind, and what else would he want to be?
He meant it too, when he said, "I always want you." What separates a human from a vampire is not evil, everyone knows that, it's words like forever and always and eternity. Humans throw these words around because they know they'll never be tested; no matter what they invent or discover or insist, they're all going to die. But when a vampire makes a vow, that vow is as alive as blood. A vampire's vow has its own appetite. A vampire's vow is a grip that will never go slack.
He would always want her. If he didn't die from it, he would die with it, and if, as promised – or threatened depending on his mood – he never died, then his desire for her would course on, going dark only when the sun did, billions of years from now.