Stupid Things
By Sweetprincipale
Completely AU. There are people who get inside you. That you love, that you get angry with, but they're still your person. The person who, no matter what they ask, and how much you say no, you will end up doing anything for them. Buffy and William have that kind of relationship as they grow up. Is there anything that can change it?
Author's Note: This story is told in a series of moments, sometimes minutes apart, sometimes months apart. Page breaks denote the shift in time.
Author's Second Note: Wow. The response to this has been amazing! Thank you for all the kind reviews, you inspired me to get my next update out super quickly.
Dedicated to Illusera, Tesslouise, Kitakana, Ava, Omslagspapper, Kamw30, AGriffinWriter, Rihannon, Jhiz, The Darkness Befalls, TieDyeJackson, Sirius120, jackiemack916, CavementFTW, and Ginar369.
Nothing of Buffy belongs to me, except my sincere admiration. However, this story is all mine.
Part II
The party was crashed, literally. Drusilla arrived in white gowned splendor and raven-haired madness, showed up with several of her "living dollies". The "children" she'd made through her shared blood all came smashing through the windows like a flock of demonic birds.
"Need a Slayer's blood to make the oceans boil and the skies rain blood. I'll give you a present, if you give me one." Drusilla sang in a little singsong voice as she looked around for the birthday girl.
"What's she on about?" William hissed to Buffy as they temporarily regrouped behind the bar.
"It's a talisman to awaken the Judge, a demon who was cut in pieces and separated during the Crusades. God comes to judge the wicked? Well the Judge comes to judge the good. You have to fill the talisman with the blood of a Slayer or a high shaman of a righteous tribe and slide it into the frame holding the body." Angel hissed back. "It's like the heart, it- it jumpstarts it."
Giles frowned. "How do you know so much about it?"
Angel winced. "I gave her the first piece as present, years ago."
Willow blinked, completely out of touch with all this madness. "What?"
Oz was more stoic. "Shamans are pretty hard to find these days. Plan?"
"Get out and run." Buffy pushed Oz and Willow away, towards the exit behind the bar. "Giles, make sure they get out okay."
"Let William do that, he has less experience and- Will!"
Will was already over the top, scrambling towards the ringleader.
The ringleader stopped. Beautiful, entrancing blue eyes widened.
"Who is this beautiful boy, Angelus?" Drusilla whispered, hands gliding from her body, reaching towards William as if magnetically drawn.
"Eighteen now." William grinned over his rapidly rising fear. "I think you meant man."
"Oh, long, long been a man, but always meant to stay a beautiful boy." Drusilla seemed to forget everything else.
"Uh. Boss?" One of her henchman piped up.
"Shh, mummy's working." Drusilla shushed her follower with a jerk of her pale hand.
"Leave him alone, Drusilla." Angel ordered, stepping up. "You want a fight, let's fight."
"I don't want to fight. I want my prezzies, my beautiful, beautiful prezzies." Drusilla looked past William towards Buffy, who was silently coming up behind one of the other vampires. "A bottle of her rubies, and all that gold." She gestured longingly to William.
"Guess what?" Buffy cut off the remark Angel was preparing to make. "We're not a piece of jewelry. You want rubies and gold?" She mowed through one vamp, onto the second, the rest turning towards her with snarls. "Go to Tiffany's like everyone else."
Things went from verbal stalking to full on rampage. William wasn't in the same class of fighting ability as Buffy and Angel, or even his uncle, he came to quickly see, but he had youth and stubbornness on his side. He disabled a few temporarily, and dispatched one permanently. "Buffy? Buffy?" He sat up from his tussle, ash and blood on his high set cheekbones, blurring his crystalline eyes. Buffy wasn't visible.
"He loves you. Not the way he loved me, but," Drusilla inhaled the scent of the woman she was scuffling with, "but you're so pure, my ruby. So good and so pure. He loves to defile pretty vessels."
"Crazy talk needs to stop." Buffy labored against her with a badly bruised, possibly dislocated shoulder, fighting to get away from the alcove Drusilla was dragging her deeper into.
"Unopened, you are, and so clean it stings. Stings him inside. Can't let him burn for anyone but me." Drusilla suddenly giggled. "That'd be cheating."
"Then let's just- call the- game- off!" Buffy heaved herself forward, ready to make a killing blow. Drusilla shrieked and Buffy swerved, not of her own volition.
"I'll do it." Angel appeared behind Buffy and pushed her firmly away.
Buffy hesitated, but then nodded, and turned her attention to the melee still going on in the club. "Giles, Will, get out."
"Not until you do." Both men said at once, and gave each other a grudging smile as they fought.
No one saw Angel's blow fall short, leaving the vampire in white impaled through the breastbone, bleeding in a ball. He slowly moved her by the window before he turned away, thinking that the sun would finish her in a matter of hours. "Sorry, Dru."
Drusilla sighed, blood leaking from her lips. "You've played much rougher before. Naughty wolf, don't play with your food."
He walked away, breathing hard though he had no need for air.
"See you soon." Drusilla moaned softly, and began working the stake from her chest, weeping and giggling softly in turns as she did so.
"Is she gone?" Buffy reached for Angel's arm, knowing what he'd just done must have caused him so much distress.
"Her minions will be back to see what happened. It's not safe to stay here. Let's go, we've got to get to her nest, we have to find the Judge and break it up, got to get you away from here." Angel declared authoritatively. Buffy nodded and let him wrap his brawny arm over her shoulders and lead her away, Giles limping as he followed after her.
William hung back for just a second. He thought he heard shuffling inside the battered building. The sound of sirens and the flash of red and blue lights sent him scurrying after his friend, and worrying how her seventeenth birthday could be salvaged.
"He gave me a ring." She wore it now, on shaking hands.
"Claddagh." William knew it. "Irish."
"He's Irish. Or was. Is." Buffy stumbled over the words. "It was- it wasn't like she said."
"Who? Your mum?" William didn't think they should be having this conversation, but he didn't think he would ever stop her talking, no matter what she was saying. He knew if he told her it made him feel all sorts of unspoken, confusing things, that she'd apologize and stop immediately. He didn't want that at all. He wanted to apologize to her, to apologize for ever leaving her alone with him that night. Look what happened.
"Drusilla, not Mom. If Mom finds out... God, William, I- I know I'm getting a bad reputation as a wild child or something, but- but I never... never before last night. I really thought it ought to be with someone you love and you plan to be with and... I think he did too."
"I'm sure he did." Will traced the ring. Loyalty, love, friendship.
Curiosity. "What'd she say?"
Her voice quaked as she retold it, abbreviated it. "That he loved pure things, good things- loved to ruin them. That I would sting him." Her face crumpled and she sobbed. "Sting him inside. Oh God, she was right."
He cried with her, hands around her head, her head bowing onto his chest. "I'll find him."
"He's not Angel anymore."
"Then you won't mind if I-" he couldn't. No, he couldn't do that. "I'll stay here with you, Pet."
"Thank you." Buffy was silently worried that Angelus would find William soon enough.
It wasn't Angelus, but Drusilla that found the young man. "I thought you were supposed to be dead." William swallowed when she cornered him in the alleyway after his set.
"Daddy likes to cause pain, not to end it." She said as if that explained everything. "You're what he wants next."
William blinked in surprise. "Me?" He'd thought it would be Buffy for sure.
"To twist and twist and twist the knife. Pain, revenge, it's such a jolly time." Drusilla took a hopping skip towards him. "Says you want her... says he smelled you on her, on her bed, in her blood..."
William looked shocked, so shocked in fact that he didn't bother to finish discreetly pulling a stake from his jeans pocket. "We never."
This expression delighted Drusilla more that he could understand, as she suddenly flew over to him, tackled him. He struggled, but she was strong, like a willow whip, bending, but unbreaking. "Daddy didn't mean that. He takes those pieces for himself, the innocent pieces. You don't want that, you want the rest, and you'll have it, my lovely lamb." Her hands were tracing him, all over him, as her eyes glowed and mated with his. "She loves you too, and it'll break her heart in pieces, not just in two, when dear Angelus is through with you. The boy loves words, loves to roll them 'round, make them into pretty lines..." Drusilla seemed momentarily distracted by her own poetry, and seemed to know an unsettling amount about him. She danced across his lips with a blood red nail as she spoke.
Jealous of me. Wants to use me to hurt her. Not happening. "Why are you here? Doin' his dirty deeds for him?" William stalled, spitting her finger off his mouth.
"Oh no." A cool tongue lapped his throat, and then dipped into his mouth, kissing him until he wasn't sure if he was seeing stars or just the night sky overhead. "You're too pretty to destroy. Not simple like her. You want to know."
He gasped as fangs sank into his throat.
"You want to know what happens next, you wonder about what happens after." Drusilla's lips tasted his again, stained and sharing her drink. "Wonders about his mummy, and heaven, hell, graves, and demons. All the little lights shining in your head, your heart, so full of it all, William, and no one sees it. You wonder why. You wonder if you were meant to blaze, or be a candle under the bed." Yellow eyes hovered inches from his, and her fangs daintily rested on her smiling lips before she bowed her head to his throat again.
"Don't think I- want to find out- from you." William shoved her hard, and staked her weakly, before running blindly from her, knowing he hadn't killed her, had only brought himself a short reprieve.
She hadn't fought hard as she should, but she didn't care. She listened to his footsteps running from her with a satisfied smile. One day, they'll run back, and I'll catch the pretty rabbit...
"Should have ended it. Had me so bloody turned around-" William shook his head. He let Buffy put the tape across his throat and felt her fingers examining his wounded vein as it throbbed unsteadily. He could tell her. Make her angry, but he'd tell her.
"She said I wondered. Kissed me and bit me, and she said - all sorts of things about- me."
"She does that." Buffy soothed. "She has visions."
"I didn't kill her."
"I'd rather have you alive than her dead! You lost a lot of blood pretty fast. It was better to get away."
"I didn't kill her, 'cause- she's right, Luv. I wonder that stuff all the time. Feel like I'm waitin' to be me."
"You are you. You're my Will and I love you and you- you can't leave now." Buffy whispered brokenly.
Her lips were hot and salty, not cool and crimson.
Her kiss wasn't really for him. "Buffy, don't, Luv." She nodded. She understood. Her lips were mentally on another's. He wondered if she knew his were as well. "I won't leave." He swore.
He hauled her off the porch as Joyce's words rang in the air. "If you leave, never come back."
"She didn't mean it." Will braced her as they trotted from the house.
"She did." Buffy sounded hollow. Angelus had attacked Willow, stalked her mother and revealed their past relationship to her as brutally as he could. He tortured Giles, and then left a picture on her pillow that night.
A gruesome image she couldn't blink out. William, lying on a floor, so clearly not alive, so clearly beaten and lacerated, and probably other things she didn't want to think about. It was done in red ink, and she knew he was next.
"Don't come with me. You go help Willow and Oz with that spell."
"But-"
"Please!"
"Buffy, I can't just-"
"If you love me, you will listen to me." Buffy grabbed his arms and shook him. "You'll stay right next to her, right next to Giles, in the hospital. You can't let them get hurt!" You can't get hurt, either.
"How do you know he won't double back, come after Joyce?"
"He's done as much damage as he can do there." Buffy whispered. "Being dead to her is almost as bad as her being dead to me..."
He was dead. The vampire had to be. And the only thing left in the place was a burnt doll in an old lace dress. He didn't know if that meant Buffy died, or Buffy ran. She wasn't there to ask.
It was the worst seventy one hours of his life. The seventy second one was only slightly better.
"I'm alive. Let them know. Just- don't let them come after me. Don't you come after me."
Will gripped the phone. "Are you comin' back?"
A dead response, "No."
"Then can I come to you?" He pleaded, voice desperate.
She hesitated. "No... Thank you."
He got mad. "You can't do this to us. To me. Runnin' off. Buffy, you can't do this!"
"Then you don't have to forgive me." Buffy whispered mournfully, and hung up.
Summer in London again, with his days spent writing poetry next to his mother's grave, telling the stone long, complicated stories about life in Sunnydale, vampires of great beauty and madness, and Slayers who broke your heart in whole new ways.
Nineteen now, nineteen in the summer, and alone in London. Last three birthdays he'd had, spent alone or near death. His uncle wouldn't leave off searching, even though this summer he was supposed to have joined his nephew on a trip back to their home country. The young man who seemed hardened and looked so much older stopped staying with old friends, started staying out all night, developing a taste for whiskey, cigarettes, and convenient "borrowing" to get by.
He didn't know the girl's name. He was drunk, she was giggling and even more drunk. She was lithe and high busted, had long black hair, dead pale skin caused by gothic make up, not by exsanguination, and a scorpion tattoo on her ankle. That was all he remembered from his first time. That it was hard and pleasurable, that her lips didn't taste right, didn't feel right, and that bobbing scorpion tattoo, dancing next to his ear as he held her legs over his shoulders and plowed into her.
When he came, he pushed away from her, panting, and awkwardly helped her up, into a limp hug on the edge of the hostel bed.
"Who the hell's Buffy, then?" His conquest slurred.
That had been the name he growled low in his chest when he was inside her, when he was finishing in her.
William bit his tongue. He had pages and pages of her, poems on everything from the gait of her walk to the exact shade of her hair. "I don't know any bloody Buffy."
Whenever the phone rang late at night, he lunged for it out of habit. Seven times it happened in the month he'd been home from London, and six times it had been a request for the Oriental Palace, just two numbers switched from his.
The seventh time it was a dream. It had to be, because he'd had this dream so often, he now could replay it when he was awake, that was all.
"It's me."
"Buffy." William waited for the next part of the dream. The part where she said she was sorry and she never should have left and she wondered if he was still her friend.
"Can I borrow twenty bucks?"
He stood up. "Buffy!" The dream never had twenty bucks in it. This was real. "Buffy!"
"Shhhh! You'll wake Giles up and I'm not ready for that. Look, I just want to know if... you'd lend me twenty bucks, 'cause I'm gonna come home and I just kinda quit the lowest paying job ever."
"I'll come get you." He didn't even have to think about it, he was already pulling on his jeans.
"You have a car now?"
"Yep. Nineteenth birthday gift. Vintage, black. Beat up, but I like it." How are we doing this?
How are we doing this, talking like nothing happened? Buffy clutched the pay phone a little tighter. "I'm sorry I missed your birthday. I owe you one."
He wanted to make her grovel a bit. Make her feel the pain of what life without her had done to him. Somehow all that came out was, "All I want is to come get you, an' we're square, Slayer."
Her voice was choked with tears. "You want me back?"
"I never stopped wantin' you here in the first place, you stupid bitch!"
The choking sound turned to a sniff, a laugh, another sob. "It was stupid. You don't even know how much this summer has sucked."
"You're not really stupid. I ran, too. It's what you do sometimes. Think you'll find something." Even forgiveness comes easy when it's her.
"Or lose something." All the pain. All the memories. No, you don't lose them, you just miss the good ones more and more until it bursts and you put your last quarter in the phone.
"I'll come get you. Where are you?"
"Los Angeles. There's a coffee shop by the Greyhound Terminal off Rt. 10."
"Be there soon. Don't. Move."
"Movin' into the dorms."
"You're going here?" William was so smart, he could have gone anywhere, in two countries.
He shrugged. "It's free for uni employees to send their kids- or wards- for the first sixty credits. Might as well."
"What's your major?"
"English, of course. Minor in music."
"I like it."
"Your mum never misses one day out of kicking herself for what she said when she was angry. Never misses a day off tellin' Rupert about it, either."
"They talk now?"
"Everyone talks now, Buffy. Searching for you."
"You?"
"No." He confessed. "I went away, too. I knew you didn't want to be found."
"Like I said. Stupid."
"Like we said- we do that." He put his hand out across the seat and she took it.
"I like the hair." She reached out for the blonde peaks, half gelled and bleached.
"It's not usually like this, but when you go off to pick up your idiot best friend in the middle of the night, hair stylin' can wait." He was self-conscious of it over here, though he hadn't been in London. London was a different world, a world where he moved anonymously, on the outskirts. A few years gone, and even in his old neighborhood, he was like a ghost. People looked at him with vague recognition, then moved on without questioning.
"I think it makes you look older."
"I am older."
"You know what I mean."
She means I've gone hard. Seen too much. Well, I have. "Look at you."
Buffy crossed her arms protectively. She didn't look like she had a few months ago. No more beauty queen, no more tough girl, either. A shadowy figure who liked to go unnoticed, hoping soon she wouldn't notice herself either. But she'd failed. She felt like she had been failing a lot. "Yeah. I know."
"You look beautiful." He said gently. "You'd never know what kind of hell you went through."
So gently it wove it's way into all the empty spaces and made her cry. "I missed you every single day."
"Ditto."
"Do you think... I can stay in the dorms with you if my mom doesn't want me back?"
"Yes." He answered unhesitatingly. Who gave a fuck for the rules? This was them. "But she will. You'll see. Things are gonna go back to the way they were. Even better."
"He's back, but you can't tell anyone."
"Oh bloody hell, no. How is that even bloody possible?" Will demanded. "You told me you killed the-" The pain in her eyes muted him. And memory savaged him. Angel had been back, Angelus knocked back into obscurity, right before she sent him down with the portal. "Is it... it is him, or is it him?"
"It's Angel, not Angelus."
"Are you sure?"
Buffy recalled the naked, crying, clutching figure at her feet, the figure now in chains, with piteous eyes asking her why. Only he could inflict that much heartache. "Positive."
"You gotta tell Rupert."
"I don't have to!"
"Yes, you do! Hell doesn't just spit people back out, Buffy."
"How do you know, have you been there?" She demanded. She immediately wished she hadn't. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, you know I just meant that how could anyone know for sure what the immortal dimensions, heaven, hell, Neiman Marcus, are like? How could you know?"
"Neiman Marcus?" He arched a dark brow, now a stark contrast to his pale hair.
"Oh my God. The shoes, Will. It's where my credit card is going to go when it dies." They laughed, and for a second, the big stuff had vanished, and it was just them, laughing like they used to.
He knew she was changing the subject on purpose and he was okay with it. He had his own worried, in addition to hers. If Angel was back- would Drusilla appear as well?
"I can't sleep with him. Do you know how frustrating that is?"
"Yes." Will answered simply. "Hand me my new packet of picks."
"When did you start guitar?" She passed them to him.
"Summer."
"Oz?"
"Boy's a ruddy musical genius. He plays bass 'cause he likes it, but he can turn his hand to anything. If he'd gotten his shit together and come to finals, he'd be my bunk mate now, instead of Derek the wonder jerk."
"What's so bad about him? He's never here." Buffy spent her time between her house, Angel's place, William's dorm, and Giles' flat.
"He's trying to join some all drunken jock frat and spends every night being their houseboy. I don't even wanna know what that means." They shared a collective shudder.
Back to the topic at hand. "Don't have to be physical with that git."
"Don't call Angel a git."
"He is a git. He may have a soul, but he's annoyin' as hell."
"He's just sorry for how he acted and he thinks everyone hates him."
"I do. He's not as dumb as I thought." William nodded with momentary appreciation.
"But he's not responsible for what Angelus does! He apologized for what happened, but he can't change the past, so why -"
"Why do you think he hasn't apologized to me, then?" Will stopped tuning the black acoustic and rested it across his pillow. "I've seen him more than anyone else has, but he's never mentioned a word of 'Hey, sorry I tried to suck your town into hell', or 'Remember the time I chased you all through the warehouse district and told you you were gonna be 'Slayer Bait'? Sorry 'bout that.'" William did an unflattering impression of Angel lumbering along.
Buffy flushed in embarrassment and anger. "You don't make it easy."
"I don't have to! He broke six bones in my uncle's body. He has vision loss in his left eye, did you know that?" She blanched. She did not. "Yeah. He hit him right here, hard as he could." The angry college student gestured to the side of the left eye, heading towards the temple, "Partially detached a retina, but it's not bad enough for the docs to fix it, so he blunders along with a little bit of blur on the left. That happened this summer, too." The bitterness was evident.
"He did it to Giles. Giles forgave him."
"Then Rupert is better than I am. Your mum hasn't forgiven him."
Buffy rocked uneasily on the bed. "Mothers never like finding out you slept with a hunky older man."
" 'Specially when he's dead and psychotic."
"Ugh. You're impossible right now. You know that - that he wasn't the one who said those things, or did those things."
Will shrugged. "Yeah. Yeah, I do know that. If he'd say he was sorry, I might forgive him, I might not. But pretty damn hard to tell until he says it."
"Hey."
"Hey." They smiled awkwardly. "Patrol?"
"Slayage." Buffy smiled at her returned lover. "Then maybe we can meet Will at the campus coffee house? He's playing tonight."
"Oh. I- don't drink coffee."
"I know." Buffy hid the edge of frustration in her voice. "You listen to music though."
"Classical."
"It's William. He's my best friend and I want to go see him play."
"Then go see him play, Buffy." Angel laughed with a note of bewilderment in his voice. "I don't know what the big deal is."
Buffy's eyes narrowed. "The big deal is that it's my birthday next week. And I want to invite you both to my big 18th, okay? I'm not going to do that unless you're civil."
"I'm civil! I'm- I don't even talk to him that much, what could I say that's uncivil?"
"How about what you haven't said that's uncivil?" Buffy pointed out. "An apology?"
"I- I apologized for everything Angelus did."
"To Will?"
"Of course!"
"Then why does he say you didn't?"
"Because- I don't know, maybe he doesn't like that I'm back. He never liked me with you." Angel said sullenly.
Buffy's eyes threatened to pop right out of their sockets. "You just said my best friend lied to me, because he doesn't like you."
"Buffy, can't you see how crazy he is about you?"
"I know that. We both know that. We're really, really close, there are times when the close is- bordering on more than best friends, but there's never, ever been a time when he tried to get between us."
"You can think that all you want." Angel began to stroll off quickly, making her run to keep up with his longer strides.
"Even if he did what you said- you still need to apologize so we can move on." Buffy panted.
"Buffy! I don't have anything else to say to- him. If you moved past it, your friends can, too."
"That's different, that's not, that's- I... I think I'll patrol by myself." Buffy gave up the conversation.
Angel's eyebrows lowered, making his already menacing brow seem even more threatening. "The Mayor has goons everywhere. This isn't a time to go it alone."
"I took down Angelus without you. I took on LA without you. I took on everything before I met you, and while you were gone, without you." Buffy turned sharply and angrily. "But I never said I'd be alone."
"Where's tall, dark, and broody?"
"Fighting with me."
"Well that's a turn up for the books." Will packed the guitar and took a cup of coffee from her. "Guy forgives you for stabbing him in the literal heart and you forgive him for stabbing you in the figurative one- what've you got left to fight about?"
"You."
"Oh."
"He said you lied."
"About what?" Will's voice echoed over the freshly opened grave.
"Him apologizing."
"I don't lie! I don't lie to you, anyway. An' I never bloody see him without you right around, so when was he s'posed to have made this big apology? Wrote me a note on pretty stationary an' sent it to the wrong address did he?"
"You're not helping."
"I'm not feelin' too helpful. I'll still patrol with you." William tucked the stake back in his pocket and retrieved his cup from the top of a grave stone.
"Can you help me study for my make up exam?"
"What? You've been back for three months."
"Snyder is a poophead?"
"Ah. Got it. I miss the other guy. Even if he did give us detention about once a week." William sighed and took a sip between the bouts of fighting.
"At least he doesn't look a constipated dwarf."
Will laughed so hard coffee shot from his nose. "There goes lookin' cool." He gasped and blinked his watering eyes.
"I'm sorry." Buffy handed him a napkin she scrounged from her coat pocket and dabbed at his shirt while he wiped his face. "Also, in case you didn't know it, every girl in that place was sitting in a puddle of drool from looking at you and listening to you sing. I can't wait to see you at a poetry reading. There might be fainting."
"Stop, my ego hurts. Let's go."
"You know, I've never lied to you."
"I think we said that."
"Yeah, but I was thinkin' about it. It brasses me off when that big-headed-wannabe-martyr lies about me lyin'."
"I think the- um- not having sex thing- makes it worse." Buffy confessed. "He knows if we wanted to, you and I could- do things he can't, even though we want to."
"We want to what?" Will was lost in the tangle of her words. Wanting. Sex. Wanting sex, they could have it, them, together...
"He's freaking because this isn't working out." Buffy finally admitted in a frustrated rush.
William was silent, stunned.
"This isn't working out." Buffy repeated, eyes welling. "But... I love him."
William reached out and grabbed her shoulder, sliding near her as they walked the dark streets. "He loves you, too, Pet. If you love someone enough, you'll work it out. Don't matter if he's a git, you love him." That just made her cry more. "Bugger it, I can live without the apology. I'm not gonna be pally with him, though." More tears. "Buffy! Stop, for God's sake, I'm trying to make you stop."
"I know!" She hugged him impulsively. "Thank you."
"Welcome."
"I-"
"You owe me. I know. One day I'm gonna have some real big collection."
"He never lied to me. You did though." Buffy ended date night before it began.
Angel shook his head. "When?"
"The night at the Bronze. I asked if Drusilla was gone, and you said she was."
"I didn't! I said her fledges were-" Angel stopped, caught.
"You let me think she was dead, lying without the words, Angel. She popped back up, and she and Angelus put me through hell for weeks. You put me at risk, letting me think that I wouldn't have to look out for her."
"You think it's easy to kill someone you- you feel responsible for, knowing you made her that way?"
Buffy frowned. "I know it's hard to kill the only man you've ever loved. I still did it, even though it almost killed me. I know it's hard. You could have said, 'I tried, I couldn't.' Something. Instead, when she popped up a couple days later, with Angelus... "
It wasn't noble. It wasn't typical, it was petty, but he gave into it. "William didn't kill her either." Angel said. "Do you know he had the chance?"
"Yeah. I did. 'Cause he told me. He told me she got in his head. Said she messed with his mind, and she bit him, and she kissed him. He staked her, but not in the heart, and then he ran away, bleeding to death. He had to get back to me to tell me what was said- the part about how you planned to kill him to break my heart." Her eyes burned, but tears wouldn't come. "You'd already done that. Still nice of him to tell me, wasn't it?"
Angel stared. "He's dangerous." He finally muttered. "Buffy, don't trust him."
"Why? What could he do? Sleep with me, then lose his soul and his mind and attack all the people closest to me? Been there, done that."
"So what do you want? You won't listen to me, I've said I'm sorry, I'll even say I'm sorry to him. You're right, I never really said it to him, spelled out." He shrugged huffily. "Thought it was obvious, but if he wants me to say it..."
"That's all I want. I want you. I want you, and I want Will to be okay. You two don't have to like it each other."
"You spend a lot of time together. I think sometimes, that... it might have been better if I never came back. You deserve a normal life, a normal man."
"Shhh." Buffy kissed him hard and urgently. "Don't talk like that. Don't ever say things like that."
"But, Buffy-" he had to stop kissing her, kissing her made him want to do so much more, take comfort in her body as well as her love and forgiveness, and possessively claim her so another didn't.
"I can't do normal. I don't want normal anymore. I'm the Slayer."
"I think I'm losing my Slayer powers, and your uncle is being no help. None." Buffy stormed into his room. "Get out, Derek."
"But I-" The seldom seen jock moved from his bed.
"Out!" Will and Buffy screamed as one, and the rarely present Derek retreated hastily.
"What are you saying?"
"Arm wrestle me." Buffy held out her hand.
"No. I have a gig this weekend, I want use of my fingers." Will protectively pulled them back.
"Trust me, you'll still have them." Buffy shook her palm impatiently until he slipped his into it and they both pushed with all their might. She squeaked in pain and fell to the side before five seconds had passed.
William's eyes widened, concern mapped across his face. "Bloody hell, Luv, what-"
"I don't know! I asked Angel and Giles and even Willow, 'cause she's all spell book central lately, and nothing."
"Could you be ill? Is there Slayer Flu?"
"Maybe." She whimpered and lay across his bed. "I'm going to miss my own party."
"We'll throw it for you in hospital if we have to." William kissed her forehead. "You don't have a fever. You pukin' or anything?"
"No. Just feel all weak and wobbly. I was training with Giles today and I couldn't even hit the target. Not any spot on the target. As in the target was here," Buffy gestured weakly to the right, "and all my arrows went here." She flailed to the left. "My coordination sucks."
"Your coordination is pretty top notch, init?"
"Not to brag, but yes. Actually, literally best in the world."
"You take a few days off to rest. I'll do your runs for you. Angel can help, big wanker owes you some."
"Don't call him a wanker." She said pettishly, then confusion crossed her face. "What exactly is that?"
He grinned wickedly, bent over, and whispered it into her ear. She slapped him- or tried to. "That's pretty pathetic, Buff." He looked at her sympathetically as she missed him from close range.
"You're one too." Buffy flushed. "If it means you- do that thing I'm not repeating."
He blushed back. "Yeah, but, I do it in style." Thinking of you. Sometimes Drusilla. Sometimes the chick with the scorpion tattoo. No. Always you, in some part or other. His groin jumped a little with a shot of blood raging down to it. "Guess you're doin' the same things, if not the same methods. Now that you an' he... Or is he good enough to see to you?"
Buffy paled and the color rose right back up. "William." She sounded hurt and a little wigged.
He was too. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Buffy. I- I don't know what made me act like such a jerk, and I'm really sorry, Luv."
Buffy twitched. "He can't. It- it's too close to the edge. Once you start, you don't want to stop."
"That's right. I know you two would do anything to stop Angelus poppin' back up, an' I didn't mean it like that. Forgive me for bein' stupid?"
"Of course. It's in the contract."
"What contract?"
"The one right here." Her hand slowly dragged his to rest on her heart. And breast. Her mouth dried out. His seemed too wet, as he swallowed hard.
"Got it, Luv. Never gonna break it."
"Hey."
"Hello, Will, what brings you 'round?" His uncle looked exhausted, but managed to put an inch of effort in his voice.
"Buffy."
"Oh, yes?" The voice lost its perk.
"She's in my bed-"
"Oh, William!" Giles bolted upright. "Don't tell me these things, I- I try not to -rhm- visualize the moments that-"
"She's in my bed and she can barely see to put one foot in front of the other!" William pushed on loudly. "She's weak, too, but she didn't have a fever."
"She has been working very hard. The Mayor-"
"No, no, listen, Bertie, this isn't like that." William slipped into using his childhood name for his uncle, and Giles immediately softened. "I- I never thought to ask, and I don't think she would, but... she couldn't get some demon virus from sleepin' with Angel, could she? Something real slow moving? It's been about a year, but I know Slayers can fight off most stuff."
Giles coughed. "Humans and vampires have had sexual relations, not usually consensual, mind you, for centuries. Of the people who lived, no one has developed flu like symptoms a year later. At least, not to my knowledge."
"I can't figure it out. She's been sick before, but she could always whip me at anything. Today she couldn't even push my hand down."
Rupert's eyebrows rose slowly. "What were you doing to my girl that requires pushing your hand away?"
In spite of his concern, William smiled. "That's the first time you ever called her your girl, y'know that?"
"Well." He coughed. "I- we- have been closer lately. I realized I- I rather missed her while she was in LA."
Missed her like hell. He could tell when his uncle cried, knew the signs, because he was one of the few souls privy to seeing him breakdown after his sister's death. He'd seen the same symptoms after Buffy left, and that was only the few weeks between her disappearance and the time he left for London. Who knew what the rest of summer had been like?
"She asked me to arm wrestle her, innocent, I swear. But then- she actually fell over and she made this little sound- like it really hurt her, like she was surprised." William looked agonized. "She can't patrol like this. I'll take half the streets she covers, can you get broody boy to do the rest? Maybe you could go over and sit with her? Make her tea? Be solid?" He quirked a grin, for when was the Watcher ever anything else?
"I'll do that." Giles rose from his chair and paced a few times around it before going to get into a clean shirt. "...too much? Damn the..."
"What?" William called up the loft stairs. "Too much what?" There was an answering clatter. His eyes narrowed.
"Nothing. Just wondering if she's been doing too much."
The house was old and decrepit, unfit for human habitation. Unfortunately, the only thing they wanted to inhabit it was no longer human.
"You have to give her medication on the hour to keep her calm. She's much stronger than she looks. And don't be fooled by anything she says or does. If she gets her hands free, you'll be done for, you and Blair, both." A graying man, imperious in his words, inconspicuous in tweed, gave orders before he left.
"Will you be back in time to watch the battle, Sir?"
"No, and you should avoid it as well. Before nightfall tomorrow, turn the creature's cage to the sun, loosen the restraints from the outside, and leave. When Ms. Summers arrives tomorrow, she'll be escorted in and the doors and windows barred from the outside until the next dawn. We can all retire to my rooms at the hotel to wait. Their kitchen does a passable steak." With such mundane parting words, Travers stepped into his car and headed off to see Rupert Giles.
"Open up, demon."
"Nnn-mm." The vampire made a sound of refusal.
"Do you want me to put the cross in your box again?" Violent shaking and rattling was the answer.
"Think she means no." Hobson laughed.
Blair, younger and more inexperienced in this profession, felt a protest rising from his lips. "You'll hurt her and she won't be able to fight the Slayer."
"Nonsense. You're wet, Blair, vampires heal damn quick, what makes 'em so hard to kill, and the Slayer won't be putting up much of a fight anyway. Her Watcher will have been drugging her for days to get her nice an' soft."
"How can you talk like that?" Blair sounded horrified. The creature in the box was so small, and so lovely, and the Slayer as well, so young and such a beautiful girl. "They may kill each other, both die."
"That's the idea, you nonce. Here, she won't take it. Hand me the holy water, will you?"
"I protest. I- something is wrong with the medication supplied." Giles laid out the antique administration set before Travers, his boss. "I've no idea how old it is to begin with."
"Not past its shelf life. Let me think- I suppose it was fourteen years ago we last had a girl make it to eighteen..." Travers sipped his tea placidly.
"Fourteen years is a long time for things to ferment. I followed the prescribed dosage, but it's been far too strong. She's not just powerless, she's- she's helpless. She's easily exhausted, weak, her coordination isn't just normal, it's impaired! She can't take the test."
The teacup was set down with precise disapproval. "You are unable to make that call. That is the Council's decision. You may regard me as the Council."
"Then I implore the Council to listen to reason. If you send her in there now, against Kralik, she will die. You will lose the best slayer you have ever had."
"You feel so strongly about her survival? About her abilities?" Travers asked.
Giles hesitated. This sounded innocuous enough, yet every word was a double-edged sword with this man.
"I do." He finally said.
"I see."
"What are you doing here?" William let his uncle in, almost knocked backwards as he pushed past him into the dorm room.
"Where's Buffy?" Giles' head whipped around the small space frantically.
"At home! I dropped her off hours ago, what's the matter?"
"I've been a bloody fool."
William's eyes slitted and he grabbed the Watcher's arm. "Do you know something about what's making her sick an' you didn't tell her? Didn't tell me?"
"Yes, and you can shout at me later, the main thing now-" A fist to the jaw cut off his words.
William, seething, watched his uncle stagger back a step, and was immediately torn between remorse and fury. He blended both, apologizing sullenly while pulling him towards the door. "Sorry, I just- how could you do that? I thought the Watcher was supposed to look after her, help her?"
"For one day, the Watcher is supposed to simply watch, and see if his training and her skills are enough." Giles whispered, quickening his pace.
"You don't have to fight. Simply do not go. They can't make you, and they can't fire you."
Buffy laughed bitterly. "I wish they would." Her gaze shifted from ceiling to contrite, worried Watcher. "Can they fire you? If I don't go?"
"That doesn't matter." Giles replied staunchly. "I wouldn't mind if they did right now, to be honest." He forced a single chuckle. "Quite fed up with Travers and his insistence on barbaric, archaic customs."
Will looked at Buffy and saw she knew that his uncle was fronting. He loved the job, and he was good at it. "If she stops getting those meds, will she get better by tomorrow?"
"No. Well, yes, somewhat, but not strong enough to kill this Kralik."
"What's a Kralik?"
"A deranged serial killer turned vampire."
"Three levels of nasty." William muttered.
"Exactly. You'll feel better, but you won't be ready." He didn't say that this was how Travers said it should be. That the girls weren't supposed to be merely robbed of their slayer capabilities, they were to be weakened completely, weak for mere humans as well. He couldn't believe it, he wouldn't be part of it, not any longer. "Listen to me, Buffy. I want you to stay in this house, no matter what happens. You need to. Do you understand?"
"But-"
"I will handle Travers, you just promise me that you'll stay here."
She reluctantly agreed.
Giles sighed in relief. "Very good. I'm going to go speak to your mother, tell her that you're very ill from some- slayer virus, and you need to remain indoors tomorrow."
"Oh, wait, my party is-"
"We can come here." Will said quickly.
"Mom isn't very happy on the Angel front." Buffy admitted.
"Then we can postpone it." Giles said firmly. "This takes priority." He left the two teens alone in her room.
"Are you gonna listen to him?" William finally asked quietly.
Buffy hesitated. "I want to."
"But?"
"What if that guy gets out? Am I supposed to let him munch on people?"
"Can't Angel handle it?" He asked, wishing so hard that it hurt, that he could be the one to offer to handle it. But I can't be. Weak. Always the weak one, the sensitive boy, the poet, the musician. The brains without much brawn. I'm fast, getting stronger, and I'm getting better at fighting, better at everything. But when she really needs someone, it's that bloody vampire who takes her place.
Who takes her place. The words trickled ominously into his brain and stayed there, until she wiped it out with her next sentence.
"Angel could kill the baddie, but what if it's like they send another one and another one until I face it?"
"You'll be better by that time, though." Will protested.
"I'll stay in- unless something crazy unexpected happens, okay?"
He had to be content with that.
"Pretty man, pretty man, nice man, will you come here?" The voice chanted like a nursery rhyme, a sinister one, coming from a full body box with only a tiny window for her face.
Blair hesitated. Hobson was asleep. They weren't supposed to approach her without the other watching. She was slippery. And strong. Hadn't she been Kralik's replacement since she killed him herself? "You're not due for your dose yet."
"Don't want pills, want to play."
He was silent. Don't talk to her, or engage her. This one is dangerous. Dangerous in a pretty, innocent package. He couldn't believe her history, her the black bride of that Angelus...
"You think it's odd." Drusilla's voice coaxed. "That they took such a wilted flower as me and put me in the nasty iron vase." She made a sudden lunge forward, and the crate rocked. He smothered a gasp and swallowed hard as she laughed. "You can't even see me, can you? And you want to. You wonder what's on the other side of the door."
He did. He hadn't been on the team to capture her, and she'd been in the box for the entire time he'd seen her, with just that tiny five by five space, to reveal a flawless, youthful face, dark blue eyes, high arched brows, an impish mouth that closed sensuously around the spoon, with a tongue that daintily licked up drops of her feedings.
"You could take a peek. I won't tell the mean man." Drusilla's voice hardened on the last word. The other one burnt her and teased her. She would make him pay. She'd kill him and let the pretty one eat him all up. Such a good mummy.
"I can't open the door. Orders."
"You can't open the door because they think I'll get away- slip!" Her talon-like nails scratched silently and repetitively, had done for three days straight, working away, until one wrist was only bound by a leather thread. "But I promise- for you, pretty man, I'll stay right in my box, the whole time." She would. She'd reach out with her free hand, and grab him tight, pull him in until he was all hers.
Her words were winding in his head. Sensible things seemed less sensible, and she was sweet reason. "No." He remembered he was supposed to say no.
"But I'm so lonely." The voice changed to a pitiful tone, a lark with a broken wing couldn't sing more sadly. "My daddy's missing, and I'm all alone. Can't reach my golden boy, but he's ever so close. Both of them, so close..." Drusilla's tone was pained to the utmost, a heart of stone would have cracked from her distress.
He walked closer. "I- don't know where they are, miss."
She almost smiled. Calling her "miss", instead of demon or creature or vampire. He saw her as a person. She turned her profile towards the frame of the window, bowed her head and assumed her mourning swan position, tears on thick black lashes, single drops cascading down marble cheeks. Eyes fluttered once, and her mouth curved into a smile in the shadows where he couldn't see it as she heard him slowly lifting the latches.
"I went. That wasn't Zachary Kralik. This guy was English, much younger, much shorter. And new." Angel grunted as he gave his report in the Watcher's flat, shades drawn, blocking the early light.
"It wasn't Kralik? Travers never corrected me. Why wouldn't he inform me of her opponent? He didn't know my objections initially." Giles frowned.
Angel hesitated. "Maybe he knew you'd object if it was someone Buffy had run ins with before. Making it personal."
"Well- the only two vampires Buffy has ever dealt with but not finished are you-"
"Angelus." Angel corrected stiffly.
"And Drusilla" Giles froze. "Oh no. Not her?"
"I know her scent. It's her." Angel raked his hands across his already carefully raked hair. "I haven't talked to her since- Acathla." He coughed. "She's probably pretty mad about that. Buffy ruining her plans and-"
"Killing her sire, lover, and father figure after she just got him back? Yes. Livid. If she hadn't been injured in the battle prior, and Buffy hadn't run off for months, I imagine Drusilla's primary objective would have been to take her revenge on her."
"You'd think." Angel said worriedly. "You never know though."
"Didn't you know I was in town? You didn't come to visit me, so I came to see you."
William dropped the book he was holding as a voice crept through the shadows, into his ear. Dreaming. Must be dreaming. He looked across the room. The other bed was vacant. His door was shut. Fell asleep writing a poem for her birthday. Woke up dreaming of the other one, because- well- because they were connected somehow, in dreams and poems.
"I can't come in and see you unless you ask me nicely." The voice tittered.
"Bloody hell." He shot up in bed, heart thundering. Not a dream.
"Funny rules about hotels and halls... allowed in the lobby, but not the rooms, isn't that a silly rule, my sweet William?"
He staggered up and opened the door, standing well back. Too early for any other college student to be up, barely six. But once they were up- oh God, she'd have dozens of people, walking in the halls, out of the sanctity of their rooms, a buffet of young lives to end. "Leave. Leave now."
"Soon. Soon, the sunshine is coming and I think we'd be more cozy in the dark, Sweet William."
"Don't call me that."
"But you are my sweetness. So bright inside your bud, and you come in different colors, lily white, blood red. You're meant to stick your head through the snow, but stay out of the light."
Entranced, entrapped, lost, he had one clear thought. She's involved somehow. She didn't come back to town just to make up metaphors outside my door. "You here for the Slayer?"
"For you, first. She's quick, and you're worth so much more to me. She's a dolly to break, and I want to play with you." The suggestion in her tone was evident.
"Well, you can get lost." William suddenly snarled, waking up from her words and their thrall. "I'm not your bleedin' toy, and the only sort of play you're gonna get from me is a game of 'Ashes, Ashes, All Fall Down'." He flipped a stake from his coat pocket as he grabbed it off the back of his desk chair.
Drusilla hissed and backed up, a sudden showing of cat-like temper inside her Victorian facade. "Fine. You don't want to play, I'll take the other one. The old, soft ewe. Always bleating for her lost lamb. I remember what Angelus did to my mummy. I never tried it for myself..." She slunk back slowly, then blurred the air, a wisp of white cloud tearing down the hall, down the emergency exit to a dark stairwell as the door alarms began to peal.
He threw on a shirt, jeans, stuffed his feet into boots, and tore after her. No time to warn Buffy, and Joyce would be home, where Buffy was, and he wasn't about to let her get there. Just have to cut her off, before she gets anywhere near Joyce or Buffy.
"Will's not answering his phone." Buffy hung up after leaving a third message.
"He's probably at class." Angel sat on the edge of her bed, ostensibly keeping her company, in actuality keeping her there. "He's a college student after all." The vampire said uncomfortably. William the college student, William the human, William who wasn't carrying a demon inside of him, William the best friend, the normal one.
She nodded at his words, but then she looked at the calendar. "No, he's not. It's a Tuesday. He doesn't have classes this early."
Angel frowned. Her knowledge of his schedule seemed too intimate, and though he felt like he couldn't be the man Buffy should have for her future, he didn't know if he wanted William to have her either. He never liked the English... He never considered that Buffy wasn't really his to give, either.
"I have a bad feeling." Buffy whispered to herself. It was daylight. Angel couldn't go over and check on him, not easily anyway, and Giles was out dealing with the Council. Mom was at work, safe enough in her sunny shop, she thought. "Can you take me over there?"
"Huh? No, Buffy, stay here. William's fine." Angel answered quickly.
"But that Kralik guy- why the jumpy?"
"I'm not jumpy!" Angel twitched suddenly.
"When I said Kralik you- you did it again! Did you know him in the old days?"
"Uh- no, not really. Heard of him, but uh- no." Angel hadn't told her. Giles, when sending him over to protect and guard the weakened Slayer, had told him to brief her about the new developments. Yet somehow protective instincts had been misplaced, and he went for the blanket approach of, "Don't worry about a thing, I'm here now." Which meant he had told her nothing about going over there and facing a recently turned human, finding no signs of Kralik, just Drusilla.
"You said he wasn't there last night, just someone left to guard the place, right?"
"That's right." And technically true.
"So he's loose, or he was under wraps until I show up." Buffy sank back on her pillows. Angel didn't answer.
There wasn't a way he could tell an untruth without it being a lie this time. "Buffy, the Council ended up using another vamp. I'll find her tonight. She can't come in here unless you invite her, so there's no reason to worry."
"There is so! Why didn't Giles tell me it was someone else?
"I um- I was going to tell you when I saw you today, but we got busy. Giles didn't know either. Until I told him. It doesn't matter, we didn't want to worry you."
She weakly pushed herself up, muscles aching like she was in the depths of some plague. "I'm sorry. Are you telling me all morning you 'forgot' to tell me who I'm supposed to be meeting some big, fateful coming of age battle?"
"Drusilla is my responsibility and I- where are you going? Buffy! You need to rest." Angel tried to lead her back to bed as she suddenly threw her feet over the edge and began to rise.
"Drusilla? Drusilla the nut job who has thrall and likes to torture people, and make herself new 'toys'? That Drusilla is the deranged master vampire I'm supposed to take down?"
"You can't right now. In a few days you'll be better and then you'll face her." Angel worried about that moment.
"She has a thing for Will." Buffy ducked under his arm as she wasn't strong enough to push him off.
"She had a thing for you, too!"
"That was so she could put together the Judge-in-a-box. I don't know why she has a sick fascination with Will, but she does, and she's here in town, he's not answering his phone. I don't care if you think I'm leaping to conclusions, I don't care if you think it's stupid to go over there like this, but I'm going." She pulled on a sweater as she spoke and moved to her weapons chest by the foot of her frilly white bed.
"Buffy, this isn't smart, even if Will is in trouble, he wouldn't want you to put yourself at risk too." Angel knelt with her and stilled her hands in his own. "He cares about you. I care about you. I love you."
They didn't say it often enough these days, and hearing him mention it warmed her heart, momentarily mended the rifts between them. Buffy let their lips meet and melt together for a moment, then pulled back regretfully. "C'mon, help me get ready."
"You're still going? Buffy, let me go." He looked towards the window, and then steeled himself. If it was light out, then Dru was in the dark, and he would be, too. "I'll find her, I can track her." Angel tried to press her into a sitting position, but instead she turned and grabbed a handful of stakes and a crossbow.
"Good, you do that. What's that building you said you went to?"
"The old Sunnydale Arms, it's an old boarding house."
"I know it. I'll go straight there." She decided as she slung the weapons haphazardly in a bag and heaved it onto her shoulder. "When did these get so heavy?" Buffy staggered under the weight.
"Going straight there to fight a vampire when you can't even lift a stake?" Angel demanded incredulously.
"Well, if I'm going to fight her, I don't have energy to track her, go walking around half the city, too. So I can do one or the other, not both. I figure she'll be taking tunnels, right? At least until dark?" Buffy adjusted the bag and pushed her hair back into a limp ponytail.
"You're not making sense." Even though she was. Good strategy- if you were in any kind of fighting shape. "Look, what's going to happen if I do track her-"
"Flush them towards me if you can." Buffy seemed to tune out all his protests.
"You are going to get yourself killed." Angel shouted at this point, grabbed her back and shook her shoulders lightly. "Are you listening to anything I'm telling you? Are you thinking at all?"
Buffy disengaged herself and backed away, hurt in her eyes. "I'm thinking about William being held hostage by some lunatic who wants to eat him!"
Angel winced.
Buffy's voice softened. "If it was you, you know I'd go."
"Even like this? Even if someone else said they could handle it for you?"
She shook her head slowly. "You don't get it. There are some people you can't- can't hand over to someone else. Even if you should. Even if it'd be smarter, or safer. You just can't let them go."
Angel followed her down the stairs, severely tempted to use force to restrain her. What else could he say? No arguments worked. Everything that should work seemed to make no impact in her cloudy mind.
No. One thing reaches her.
William.
"What exactly do you want with me?" He trailed her through shadows and street corners, into the underbelly of sewers where her dress caught the edges of water and made him a trail of wet sweeping marks to follow.
His questions and calls were usually met with giggles. This was all some merry chase to her, a game, or maybe a ritual, cat and mouse, perhaps. Only, he was losing track of the positions of predator and prey. Why was he trying to catch her, when she'd come to catch him?
"I'm done runnin'!" He finally bellowed. "You come to me an' you settle this, you're the one who started it!" He gripped the stake in his hand.
Footsteps stopped ahead. A whisper of a rustle, and something slammed into him in the dark, knocking him back against dark walls. He struggled to sit her up, keeping her teeth from his neck.
"Don't be cross, Sweet William." She purred and pouted. "I didn't think it hurt you the last time." Her hands freed themselves from his grip, and one cool finger touched the scar that wouldn't fade. "I think you liked it. You like the snip snap, the little bit of pain in your pleasure. I felt you press against me, flower between the pages of a book." Her other hand found his and led it down between her thighs, up into the hollow space where her dress bunched around his fist. "Pressed between, you long for that. Aren't you between, life and death, and dark and light? Lost lamb. I know what it's like, you see." She gently kissed his earlobe and rocked against his fingers as he pulled away.
"You wanna bite me, bite me, but don't dress it up."
Now the voice shook, carefully controlled madness mixed with rejection. "Don't tell lies to me. I see inside your pretty mind. And oh-" the voice lilted, enraptured, "it is pretty. Ever so beautiful." Now she was looking at the cement culvert overhead, but speaking to the heavens. "He's glowing. But is it sunshine you want, or do you like the stars?"
He swallowed. There were stars in her eyes. Big, blue stars, and they weren't- they weren't cold like other vampiric eyes he'd seen in his two odd years of battling alongside Buffy. She was special. And maybe she was partially right. How he pressed to her, the last time, how he had followed her this time, maybe it meant something.
"You're the stars, aren't you?" William asked. Drusilla nodded eagerly. "I'm not the sun. I'm not stars, either." The stake shifted from coat to hand silently- but he'd never realized silent is relative to the listener. Drusilla smacked his wrist sharply and the stake fell beside him.
"You have to choose." Drusilla grinned. "No taking the easy way out." She snapped the words off as his weapon rolled just out of reach.
"Who said it was easy?" His hands tangled with hers, but they weren't pulling away this time. They reached up, stroked her raven hair, and pallid skin. She was cold and dark, the ocean at night, waiting for him to swim in dangerous waters.
"So lonesome. I need light. His fire's gone all out, you see." Drusilla half crawled into his lap.
"Angel?"
"Shh. Angel killed my Angelus. Lord and Master. Oh, such a wicked, wicked master." She shivered deliciously, eyes shuttered in pleasure. When they opened, they were curiously fixed on his. "You're quite wicked yourself."
He swallowed. "Depends on your definition of wicked, princess."
She whispered in his ear, dark deeds he'd dreamed of, dark thoughts that came to him unbidden, of blood and lust, death and pain, all mixed together in poetic confusion. "You're not truly wicked. Oh, you could be wicked, fully wicked. You've talents in there, my William, untold talents. You've been hurt so much, and you'll be terrible in your vengeance." Drusilla whispered gleefully. He began to protest, and she shushed him, finger gently on his lips. "Not now. You're simply longing for what you want, any way you can have it. And since you don't know what you want, that's going to be the fun part..." her finger caressed down his chin, as her lips came out, "...finding out."
She's wrong. William let himself be kissed, he kissed back, and this time when she started opening to him, he didn't pull away.
I know what I want. I want Buffy. I want this to be Buffy. All of this. Her fangs sank into his neck, much less violently then he'd imagined, as his body sank into hers.
His eyes closed, and mouth opened, gasping out, "Buffy..."
To be continued...