ftp.xmission.com/2014.06.ftp.xmission.com.tar/ftp.xmission.com/pub/lists/buffyfic/archive/v02.n310

Internet Message Format | 1998-08-18 | 47KB

From: [e-mail] (buffyfic-digest)
To: [e-mail]
Subject: buffyfic-digest V2 #310
Reply-To: $SENDER
Sender: [e-mail]
Errors-To: [e-mail]
Precedence: bulk


buffyfic-digest       Wednesday, August 19 1998       Volume 02 : Number 310



In this issue:

       BUFFYFIC: Xander's Incredible Journey (5b/?)
       BUFFYFIC: Xander's Incredible Journey (5b/?)
       BUFFYFIC: Fwd: BBETA: All Out of Love 1/2

See the end of the digest for information on (un)subscribing to the buffyfic
or buffyfic-digest mailing lists and on how to retrieve back issues.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Wed, 19 Aug 1998 11:37:52 PDT
From: "Cutter Kinseeker" <[e-mail]>
Subject: BUFFYFIC: Xander's Incredible Journey (5b/?)

TITLE: "Xander's Incredible Journey"
AUTHOR: Cutter Kinseeker
E-MAIL: [e-mail]
FEEDBACK: Yes! Yes! Yes! Tell me what you think, but constructive
criticism only please. No "it sucks" type messages.
DISTRIBUTION: Ask me first.
RATING: Mostly PG-13 for language and adult themes. A couple of parts
will be R.
DESCRIPTION: In the aftermath of "Becoming," Xander sets out after Buffy
and winds up "becoming" in his own right.
DISCLAIMER: I don't own jack. Correction--jack's probably the only thing
I do own. The rest belongs to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, and the Frog
Network.
SPOILERS: Everything up to "Becoming".

S   S
P   P
O   A
I   C
L   E
E
R


Chapter Five
First Interlude

*...In which Giles is rebuked by his Superior, Willow faces her Fears,
Buffy runs from hers, Oz overcomes his Weakness, and two mysterious
Strangers appear...*


Part Two: Willow
*...In which Willow faces her Fears...*

        It was out there, Willow knew, out there in the darkness,
waiting for her. In her fear-heightened state, she could hear the
creature's rustling movements. From time to time, she would catch a
glimpse of it, a dark shape discernible from the darkness around it only
by the fact of its motion. From time to time, she would even catch a
brief sound that she was sure was the creature's raspy breathing.
        Willow tried to slow her own breathing by telling herself that
it could hear her, but that only made her hitching breaths come faster
and shallower. She realized that she couldn't keep this up much longer;
another couple of minutes and she'd begin to hyperventilate. She briefly
considered calling for help, but then she remembered that she was alone
in the house. Her parents had gone off to some town meeting or another,
leaving their daughter at home alone only after her stringent
protestations that she would be perfectly fine had won them over.
        Now, however, she was beginning to regret her brash statements.
Her head had begun to throb painfully only a few minutes after the elder
Rosenbergs had departed and Willow opted to turn in early. She took half
of a painkiller tablet the doctors had given her--some sort of codeine
derivative, she thought--and promptly went under. When she woke up an
indeterminate time later, it was fully dark, no light at all coming
through her curtained windows, marking it as being well past nine PM.
        Laying in bed, lounging in the drowsy after-effects of the
sedative, that was when she first knew that she was not alone in her
room. At first, she had chalked up her feelings to drugged
paranoia--lord knows, she wasn't used to this sort of thing--but had
quickly come to realize that she wasn't just having an anxiety attack.
The thing in the room with her was *real*, it was out there, and it was
going to come for her eventually.
        Her opponent was real--as real as her fear for Buffy, as real as
her worry for Xander. But try as she might, Willow found that she could
not prevent her thoughts from wandering. Focusing on the threat to her
life was hard; her sleep- and medication-addled mind, normally so keen,
was floating. If she didn't stay focused, there was a significantly real
possibility that she could die. Despite all of the fear flowing through
her, she found herself thinking about Buffy and Xander, or counting
ceiling tiles, or watching the flickering shadows at her window, or
playing "Anywhere But Here" against herself.
        Finally, her thoughts cleared, almost as though someone had
flipped a switch. One moment, she had been confused and half-asleep; the
next, her terror was so sharp that she could cut leather with it, but at
least she was thinking straight. Why hadn't it attacked yet? Deciding
that it didn't matter, her left hand quietly crept under the mattress,
seeking out the stake she had kept there since the night Angel had
mailed her fish to her. Her right groped as softly as possible for the
lamp beside her bed, grasping its pull-chain firmly.
        In the interminably long moments before the light came on, she
considered her options. Simply springing out of bed at leaping at her
attacker didn't sound good, so she picked plan B: keep as much distance
between it and herself as possible. At last, the chain reached the end
of its pull, and the light came on, throwing the room into sharp
contrast, the sparse furniture casting eerie shadows on the wall
hangings.
        Nothing. She looked again, trying to discern if there was
anything she had missed. Still nothing. Had she been wrong? Were her
reactions those of a frightened, injured teenage girl, jumping at
shadows? She frowned; after all that she had been through, Willow could
not accept that she was so easily cowed, that all it took to shatter her
nerve was a strange noise and an odd shadow.
        Movement--to her right! Willow pivoted off the bed, her long
nightshirt tangling in the blankets and impairing her motion. By the
time she had gotten free of the sheets and stood up, there was nothing
there. Willow starting walking backwards, a terrible notion in her mind;
there had been something familiar about that shadow, something that she
couldn't quite place. And had it crawled under her bed?
        Willow continued toward the door at a steady pace, not wanting
to startle whatever it was with a sudden movement. After what seemed an
eternity of slow walking, Willow reached the door, her path into the
safety of the hallway. She paused, consumed suddenly by a morbid
curiosity to look on the face of her stalker.
        *No, darn it*, Willow thought to herself, struggling to conquer
her treacherous body, *this is like a scene from a second-rate horror
movie! I refuse to fall to the clichΘ that the "helpless, young girl"
has to explore the dark, scary room alone. I'm going to go downstairs,
call Oz, then call Giles, maybe even call my parents and the police, and
to Hell with doing this myself!* But despite being a liberated nineties
woman unwilling to succumb to the done-to-death routine of slasher
films, succumb she did, moving away from the door and crouching to look
under the bed.
        As she lifted the edge of the comforter which had been pulled
off in her struggles, Willow hefted the stake in her right hand, ready
to impale whatever Hell-spawned monster might be lurking under there.
Gradually, the space beneath her bed became visible, inspiring a burst
of self-conscious laughing when Willow saw that the most dangerous
creature under there were dust-bunnies. Relieved and somewhat chagrined,
Willow made to stand up.
        When her eyes came level with the bed's surface, the laugh died
in her throat with a sound akin to strangling. Willow began to turn
slightly red, both with renewed terror and increased blood pressure. Her
legs quaked, and she tumbled backwards away from the bed, skittering on
all fours like a crab running from lemon and hot butter. Once her back
was against the far wall, she put the stake between herself and the
creature on the bed, hoping to intimidate it, but knowing it was
useless. Her opponent would never be afraid of something as pitiful as a
wooden stake.
        Willow stared across the room at the motionless creature,
watching it watch her. She took note of its horrible features, so
familiar and so frightening; saw its hideous mandibles and multi-faceted
eyes; saw the fangs glistening with their poison; saw the black, red,
and yellow sheen of its body. Willow had seen this kind before, but
never one so grotesquely large, never this close, and not for a very
long time. Willow faced her nightmare, here in her very room, a place
that was supposed to be her sanctuary from the creatures of the night.
        In short, Willow was looking at a black widow spider as big as
her head.
        Her fear of all spiders had stemmed from this very breed. Bitten
in a city park as a child, Willow had nearly died from the widow's bite
before she received the antivenin that negated its poison. Though only
seven years old, she remembered the doctor's admonition not to get
bitten by one again--the antidote could only be given to a person once
in their life. In retrospect, she supposed that the doctor hadn't meant
to frighten her so badly with this warning, but it had led to years of
nightmares and any number of worries to her over-protective parents. And
until now, she had never laid eyes on another black widow.
        Until now, when she was seeing what had to be the largest black
widow in the world.
        To calm herself down, she began to recite number theories in her
mind, counting binary number clusters for her programming class. It
helped greatly, both in terms of slowing her breathing and in calming
her tremors. She stood slowly, so as not to disturb the widow, and began
to edge sideways toward the door again. Willow kept her eyes on the
spider the whole time, looking at it analytically, doing her best to
keep her emotions (namely, mind-numbing fear) out of the assessment.
Finally, Willow reached the door, and let herself out as easily as
possible.
        Once in the hall, Willow dropped the stake and made for the
stairs, wondering the whole time how it had entered her room, where it
came from, and how it had managed to grow to that size. In the end
tally, she supposed that it didn't matter, only getting rid of the thing
mattered now. Consumed in a red haze of anger, Willow went over her
options, calculating the risks. There was only one course of action
available to her, or at least only one that appealed to her.
        She made her way to the kitchen, reached under the sink, and
pulled out the object she had been looking for. Smiling a grim, deadly
smile, Willow returned to the door to her room. She pulled the tab on
the canister, pushed in the button on top of it, and covered her mouth
with her shirt as the first of the mist began to leak from the object.
She opened her door, chucked in the bug bomb as though it were a
grenade, and slammed the door shut again before the spider could escape.
Listening to the hissing sound of the bug bomb through the door, Willow
couldn't help wondering if she had perhaps gone a bit overboard, maybe
used a level of force that could be considered excessive.
        *Nah.*
        Willow fell asleep on the living room couch. When her parents
came home, they found her dozing there so contentedly that they didn't
have the heart to move her. The smile didn't leave Willow's face the
whole night.


END CHAPTER FIVE, PART TWO

______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 19 Aug 1998 11:39:37 PDT
From: "Cutter Kinseeker" <[e-mail]>
Subject: BUFFYFIC: Xander's Incredible Journey (5b/?)

TITLE: "Xander's Incredible Journey"
AUTHOR: Cutter Kinseeker
E-MAIL: [e-mail]
FEEDBACK: Yes! Yes! Yes! Tell me what you think, but constructive
criticism only please. No "it sucks" type messages.
DISTRIBUTION: Ask me first.
RATING: Mostly PG-13 for language and adult themes. A couple of parts
will be R.
DESCRIPTION: In the aftermath of "Becoming," Xander sets out after Buffy
and winds up "becoming" in his own right.
DISCLAIMER: I don't own jack. Correction--jack's probably the only thing
I do own. The rest belongs to Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, and the Frog
Network.
SPOILERS: Everything up to "Becoming".

S   S
P   P
O   A
I   C
L   E
E
R


Chapter Five
First Interlude

*...In which Giles is rebuked by his Superior, Willow faces her Fears,
Buffy runs from hers, Oz overcomes his Weakness, and two mysterious
Strangers appear...*


Part Two: Willow
*...In which Willow faces her Fears...*

        It was out there, Willow knew, out there in the darkness,
waiting for her. In her fear-heightened state, she could hear the
creature's rustling movements. From time to time, she would catch a
glimpse of it, a dark shape discernible from the darkness around it only
by the fact of its motion. From time to time, she would even catch a
brief sound that she was sure was the creature's raspy breathing.
        Willow tried to slow her own breathing by telling herself that
it could hear her, but that only made her hitching breaths come faster
and shallower. She realized that she couldn't keep this up much longer;
another couple of minutes and she'd begin to hyperventilate. She briefly
considered calling for help, but then she remembered that she was alone
in the house. Her parents had gone off to some town meeting or another,
leaving their daughter at home alone only after her stringent
protestations that she would be perfectly fine had won them over.
        Now, however, she was beginning to regret her brash statements.
Her head had begun to throb painfully only a few minutes after the elder
Rosenbergs had departed and Willow opted to turn in early. She took half
of a painkiller tablet the doctors had given her--some sort of codeine
derivative, she thought--and promptly went under. When she woke up an
indeterminate time later, it was fully dark, no light at all coming
through her curtained windows, marking it as being well past nine PM.
        Laying in bed, lounging in the drowsy after-effects of the
sedative, that was when she first knew that she was not alone in her
room. At first, she had chalked up her feelings to drugged
paranoia--lord knows, she wasn't used to this sort of thing--but had
quickly come to realize that she wasn't just having an anxiety attack.
The thing in the room with her was *real*, it was out there, and it was
going to come for her eventually.
        Her opponent was real--as real as her fear for Buffy, as real as
her worry for Xander. But try as she might, Willow found that she could
not prevent her thoughts from wandering. Focusing on the threat to her
life was hard; her sleep- and medication-addled mind, normally so keen,
was floating. If she didn't stay focused, there was a significantly real
possibility that she could die. Despite all of the fear flowing through
her, she found herself thinking about Buffy and Xander, or counting
ceiling tiles, or watching the flickering shadows at her window, or
playing "Anywhere But Here" against herself.
        Finally, her thoughts cleared, almost as though someone had
flipped a switch. One moment, she had been confused and half-asleep; the
next, her terror was so sharp that she could cut leather with it, but at
least she was thinking straight. Why hadn't it attacked yet? Deciding
that it didn't matter, her left hand quietly crept under the mattress,
seeking out the stake she had kept there since the night Angel had
mailed her fish to her. Her right groped as softly as possible for the
lamp beside her bed, grasping its pull-chain firmly.
        In the interminably long moments before the light came on, she
considered her options. Simply springing out of bed at leaping at her
attacker didn't sound good, so she picked plan B: keep as much distance
between it and herself as possible. At last, the chain reached the end
of its pull, and the light came on, throwing the room into sharp
contrast, the sparse furniture casting eerie shadows on the wall
hangings.
        Nothing. She looked again, trying to discern if there was
anything she had missed. Still nothing. Had she been wrong? Were her
reactions those of a frightened, injured teenage girl, jumping at
shadows? She frowned; after all that she had been through, Willow could
not accept that she was so easily cowed, that all it took to shatter her
nerve was a strange noise and an odd shadow.
        Movement--to her right! Willow pivoted off the bed, her long
nightshirt tangling in the blankets and impairing her motion. By the
time she had gotten free of the sheets and stood up, there was nothing
there. Willow starting walking backwards, a terrible notion in her mind;
there had been something familiar about that shadow, something that she
couldn't quite place. And had it crawled under her bed?
        Willow continued toward the door at a steady pace, not wanting
to startle whatever it was with a sudden movement. After what seemed an
eternity of slow walking, Willow reached the door, her path into the
safety of the hallway. She paused, consumed suddenly by a morbid
curiosity to look on the face of her stalker.
        *No, darn it*, Willow thought to herself, struggling to conquer
her treacherous body, *this is like a scene from a second-rate horror
movie! I refuse to fall to the clichΘ that the "helpless, young girl"
has to explore the dark, scary room alone. I'm going to go downstairs,
call Oz, then call Giles, maybe even call my parents and the police, and
to Hell with doing this myself!* But despite being a liberated nineties
woman unwilling to succumb to the done-to-death routine of slasher
films, succumb she did, moving away from the door and crouching to look
under the bed.
        As she lifted the edge of the comforter which had been pulled
off in her struggles, Willow hefted the stake in her right hand, ready
to impale whatever Hell-spawned monster might be lurking under there.
Gradually, the space beneath her bed became visible, inspiring a burst
of self-conscious laughing when Willow saw that the most dangerous
creature under there were dust-bunnies. Relieved and somewhat chagrined,
Willow made to stand up.
        When her eyes came level with the bed's surface, the laugh died
in her throat with a sound akin to strangling. Willow began to turn
slightly red, both with renewed terror and increased blood pressure. Her
legs quaked, and she tumbled backwards away from the bed, skittering on
all fours like a crab running from lemon and hot butter. Once her back
was against the far wall, she put the stake between herself and the
creature on the bed, hoping to intimidate it, but knowing it was
useless. Her opponent would never be afraid of something as pitiful as a
wooden stake.
        Willow stared across the room at the motionless creature,
watching it watch her. She took note of its horrible features, so
familiar and so frightening; saw its hideous mandibles and multi-faceted
eyes; saw the fangs glistening with their poison; saw the black, red,
and yellow sheen of its body. Willow had seen this kind before, but
never one so grotesquely large, never this close, and not for a very
long time. Willow faced her nightmare, here in her very room, a place
that was supposed to be her sanctuary from the creatures of the night.
        In short, Willow was looking at a black widow spider as big as
her head.
        Her fear of all spiders had stemmed from this very breed. Bitten
in a city park as a child, Willow had nearly died from the widow's bite
before she received the antivenin that negated its poison. Though only
seven years old, she remembered the doctor's admonition not to get
bitten by one again--the antidote could only be given to a person once
in their life. In retrospect, she supposed that the doctor hadn't meant
to frighten her so badly with this warning, but it had led to years of
nightmares and any number of worries to her over-protective parents. And
until now, she had never laid eyes on another black widow.
        Until now, when she was seeing what had to be the largest black
widow in the world.
        To calm herself down, she began to recite number theories in her
mind, counting binary number clusters for her programming class. It
helped greatly, both in terms of slowing her breathing and in calming
her tremors. She stood slowly, so as not to disturb the widow, and began
to edge sideways toward the door again. Willow kept her eyes on the
spider the whole time, looking at it analytically, doing her best to
keep her emotions (namely, mind-numbing fear) out of the assessment.
Finally, Willow reached the door, and let herself out as easily as
possible.
        Once in the hall, Willow dropped the stake and made for the
stairs, wondering the whole time how it had entered her room, where it
came from, and how it had managed to grow to that size. In the end
tally, she supposed that it didn't matter, only getting rid of the thing
mattered now. Consumed in a red haze of anger, Willow went over her
options, calculating the risks. There was only one course of action
available to her, or at least only one that appealed to her.
        She made her way to the kitchen, reached under the sink, and
pulled out the object she had been looking for. Smiling a grim, deadly
smile, Willow returned to the door to her room. She pulled the tab on
the canister, pushed in the button on top of it, and covered her mouth
with her shirt as the first of the mist began to leak from the object.
She opened her door, chucked in the bug bomb as though it were a
grenade, and slammed the door shut again before the spider could escape.
Listening to the hissing sound of the bug bomb through the door, Willow
couldn't help wondering if she had perhaps gone a bit overboard, maybe
used a level of force that could be considered excessive.
        *Nah.*
        Willow fell asleep on the living room couch. When her parents
came home, they found her dozing there so contentedly that they didn't
have the heart to move her. The smile didn't leave Willow's face the
whole night.


END CHAPTER FIVE, PART TWO

______________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 19 Aug 1998 14:22:34 -0500 (CDT)
From: [e-mail]
Subject: BUFFYFIC: Fwd: BBETA: All Out of Love 1/2

TITLE:  All Out Of Love 1/2
FEEDBACK:  I would be thankful.
DISTRIBUTION STATEMENT:  Ask and you shall receive.
AUTHOR:  Alex Queirolo
E-MAIL ADDY:  [e-mail]
SITE: http://www.angelfire.com/co/alexfic/index.html
SPOILER WARNING:  Um. None.
RATING:  PG-13. Language and violence.
CONTENT:  Some swearing. Some fighting. Some angsting.
SUMMARY:  The continution of the Becoming Saga..even though Angel's
broken through Buffy's defenses, the Slayer is still falling apart.

THE BECOMING SAGA

             ALL OUT OF LOVE

              By: Alex Queirolo



AUTHOR'S NOTES: This little ditty takes place after Becoming Part 2.
It's a story about the future of B/A after her return. It comes after
the story "Against All Odds". Slowly, some of the details that were so
vague before are becoming known..

STORY NOTES: This is is the second part of what is "planned" to be a
four part series. Three stories plus an epilogue. However, you never
know, if I get disgruntled enough, I could just drop the series and
let the stories I have stand on their own. I'm whacky like that. ;-)

DEDICATION: To my sister who helped me decide where I was going with
this and then kicked me(and boy did that
hurt) until I wrote it. And to Erana because you just bloody rock.

DISCLAIMER: The characters of Buffy, Angel and the Scooby Gang belong
to Joss "Da Man" Whedon and his
AMAZING staff of writers. It also belongs to the WB, FOX, Mutant Enemy
and SandDollar and I'm sure there are a few other sorted characters
with their hands in the pie.

Also, the title comes from a Air Supply song. The song quoted
throughout this piece is "Can't We Try" by Dan Hill.



And long live the best romance on the show(you listening Joss?) B/A.



      "I see your face cloud over like a little girls
            and your eyes have lost their shine
    you whisper something softly I'm not meant to hear
              Baby, tell me what's on your mind"



She stood facing the bartender, her hands flat on the polished wood of
the bar. She could feel him behind her, hovering,
uncertain of what to say to her. Ever since their reunion of sorts,
she'd been so mercurial and he'd been accutely aware of
upsetting her.

She whispered something. Whether to him or the barkeep, her words were
simple. "I can't take this." She dipped her head down and away from
him. He stepped a foot forward and touched her shoulder, turning him
to her. "Please," she whispered before dropping her head to his chest.

"It's okay," Angel said softly, wrapping his arms around her. He
nodded to the barkeep who was wearing a look of concern and then
gently moved her away from the bar and towards the dance floor of the
Bronze. It wasn't his intention to dance but the table they all
usually sat at was at the other side.

"Home." She begged, half-way across the floor. "I don't..just take me
home." He could feel how lax her body was becoming in his grasp. Not
neccesarily relaxed so much as weak. The dreams again, no doubt.
They'd always plagued her; the Slayer was prone to nightmares. These
were worse. More personal. He had little doubt that something had
happened to her during her three month absense in the summer after her
junior year of high school. Unfortunately, his lover refused to talk
and he didn't want to push her anymore than he already had.

"Okay," he said. He led her over towards the door."I'll go grab your
jacket. You stay here." Angel said softly, reluctantly pulling her
arms away from his torso. He lifted her hand and kissed it and then
leaned forward and did the same to her lips. "I'll be right back."

She nodded and sank into a chair next to the door. She watched him
move across the floor towards the table where her best friends were
playing a rowdy game of poker. How little they knew. They walked on
egg-shells around her, afraid of breaking the little Slayer. How could
she possibly explain to them that she had been broken and rebuilt so
many times that she was beginning to wonder if all the pieces still
existed.



        "I don't care what people say about
        the two of us from different worlds
        I love you so much that it hurts inside"



"Hey Dead Boy, what's up?" Xander asked idly as Angel approached. To
his credit, he was doing his best to keep the open anomosity out of
his voice. Angel shot him an annoyed look and then reached for Buffy's
leather jacket. The one he'd given her.

"She's tired. I'm going to take her home." Angel replied, glancing
over Willow's shoulder at her cards. He frowned. "Fold."

She glared up at him and then reached into her pile of M&M's and took
out two red ones. "I see your one and raise you another." Angel
shrugged. Xander frowned, looked at Cordelia who was wearing a big
wolf of a grin and then sighed and tossed his cards. Willow giggled
and dropped hers down.

"Son of a..you had nothing!" Xander cried. He looked at Angel. "She
had nothing."

"I see that. Goodnight guys." He took the jacket and started back
towards Buffy, stopping half-way when he noticed that she had dropped
her head into her hands. The guilt was almost immediate.

They'd met in an alley a little over a year ago and from there
everything had exploded. They both knew that they should have enjoyed
that "last" kiss in the Bronze together and then walked away forever.
Their worlds were never supposed to mesh. He was a vampire, his demon
self vicious and brutal. She was the Slayer, a small insecure child
tangled up in a web of death and
pain that she could neither understand nor escape. And yet they were
both tied to each other. Forever. No matter how much it hurt.

And hurt it did. Everytime he held her while she cried or watched her
take out her anger and pain on her enemies, it tore at him. He wanted
so badly to just wrap her up in his arms and take her away from all of
it. Promise her the happy endings she more than deserved. But he could
never do that. And he could never offer her false hope. Because that
might hurt worse.

"Buffy?" He said quietly so as not to startle her. He heard a quiet
sniffle as she raised her blonde head to look at him through tired
eyes. Seventeen year old eyes that had seen more death and pain then
most people see in a lifetime. Blue eyes that were now wet with
unleashed tears.

"I'm okay." She said weakly, hoping that she could convince him even
if she couldn't convince herself. "Home. I'm in need of my home."

Angel nooded and wrapped a strong arm around her, supporting most of
her weight as he led the exhausted Slayer home. He only wished he
could do more.



                  "Are you listening?
                Please listen to me girl.."



He watched from outside the window as her mother fussed over her,
needing to make sure her little girl was alright. She was having as
much trouble as the others realizing that Buffy wasn't who she had
once been and maybe, just maybe, that small child of before no longer
existed.

He'd broken through. Hurt her with words. Brought her to her knees and
made her admit that she needed him as badly as he did her. Now was
harder. Her walls were still up, even if they now had windows. She
would let him in but if he pushed too hard, she'd close off beneath a
sheet of tears. And perhaps she even knew that he wasn't willing to
push much harder.

He wanted to talk to her. About anything. About everything. Like they
used to. About the way the sun burned her skin, about how her teachers
pissed her off, about the nightmares that kept her awake at night.
Anything more than just the demons that walked around at night in need
of an ash tray for a home.

But they never did. She kept him at arms' length, talking to him,
pretending to let him in. But he knew better. And he knew that she
wasn't hearing him either when he swore that he wouldn't ever let her
go.

Closing his eyes, he turned away from the window, leaving his lover in
the care of her mother. And yet he still didn't go far. He found a
dark spot on her roof and watched her from there, waiting for the
dreams to come and prepared to be there to help if she'd let him.



          "Can't we try just a little bit harder
           Can't we give just a little bit more
           Can't we try to understand that
             it's love we're fighting for?"



He had almost dozed off. That was dangerous in Sunnydale. He could
have woken up anywhere. Shaking the sleep from his tired body he
glanced toward Buffy's now darkened room. No noise came from the room,
but that wasn't neccesarily good. Creeping along the roof, he angled
himself toward her window. Of course that's when everything decided to
go topsy-turvy.

One moment he had been outside the next he was flat on his back inside
his lovers' bedroom with a very angry and potentially deadly Slayer
ready to turn him into dust. She raised the stake higher forcing the
need to think fast. He jerked his hips knocking her back in to the
wall. Moving quickly he grabbed her wrist forcing her to release the
stake. It dropped harmlessly to the
ground."Buffy!" Angel roared yanking her against him. He was vaguely
aware of the sounds coming from her stereo and it occured to him that
they were probably ensuring that Joyce Summers didn't hear the
struggle from her bedroom down the hall.

She struggled against his chest, her fingernails scratching down his
chest as she tried to pry herself loose. The more she struggled, the
harder he squeezed, grimacing against the pain she was causing. His
skin still hadn't completely recovered from first being numb and then
hyper-sensitive.

"Buffy, wake up." Angel hissed into her ear. He tried to shake her a
bit, hoping to bring her to her senses but stopped almost immediately
when he felt her nail pierce the skin of his forearm. Frustrated, he
pulled back and hit her across the face, leaving a large red point of
impact. Immediately he cursed himself when he saw her cringe away,
eyes now open and alert. Damn damn
damn. She'd come back to her senses right before he'd hit her.

He glanced down at his arm and saw a stream of blood dripping down it.
It hurt. It hurt like hell. He grimaced and then turned his attention
to his lover. "Buffy, are you okay?"

She blinked, "What are you doing here?"

He smiled shyly, hoping to get equal reaction. "I was just checking up
on you. I was worried."

"I'm fine. I..I just had a dream. It wasn't so bad."

"You were sleep-walking..and attacking. That's new."

"Sorry." She replied sheepishly. She rubbed her cheek absently. "Why
did you hit me?"

"You tried to stake me. By the way, assuming that I am the only
vampire allowed admittance to your room, why are you sleeping with a
stake?"

She gave him a funny half-smile. One that was somewhat amused but more
pained. "You never know what can happen."

He felt his body go cold. Angelus. Angel. They were still linked in
her mind. It explained the tension he could sometimes still feel when
he held her. "I thought...I thought we talked about that."

"We did." She looked down at her hands. "I trust you.."

"No you don't. Don't lie to me."

Fury sparked in her eyes. She took a step towards him, the stake
somehow back in her hand. He blinked wondering how the hell she'd
gotten it but didn't have long to contemplate it before she'd shoved
it up against his chest. "You'd be wise not to call me a liar."

"So is this how it's gonna be? You're gonna keep picking fights?"

"Me?" Buffy cried, inadvertingly pushing the stake harder against him.
He winced as it cut into his flesh.

He growled and shoved her away. "Go ahead, Slayer, play your games."
His face morphed into his vampiric visage and he growled, anger
yellowing his eyes. If he'd been thinking clearly, he would have seen
the fear flash in her eyes and known that he had better back down. But
dammit she pushed so hard. Growling once more, he leapt from the
window and disappeared into the night. She watched him, a single tear
trickling down her cheek.



        "Can't we try just a little more passion
         Can't we try just a little less pride
             I love you so much baby
            that it tears me up inside"



He paced angry circles into the carpet of his apartment. God, she
pissed him off so much. And only she could. She knew exactly where to
push and just how much force it would take. Just like he knew how to
infuriate her. And how to break her.

Idly he wondered if she was still hurt that he had done that to her.
Reminded her of what she had done. Reminded them both of what they had
been through.

Another thing they had yet to really talk to each other about. They
knew the facts. They had made love and it had changed him into
Angelus. Only that wasn't exactly true. Angelus was part of Angel but
not the whole. What their lovemaking had done was bring his evil self
front and center. And it had banished his soul to a place where all it
could do was watch.

Angelus had tried to break her. But what he had never realized, never
grasped in his lunacy was that the only thing that could destroy the
little Slayer was the love that had so driven her. Which meant that
only he could hurt her. He. Angel.

"Damn," Angel growled, removing his shirt and gazing down at the
bright red marks her fingers had grooved into his chest. He traced a
finger past one and winced.

There were times when all he wanted to do was throw her down and kiss
her but there was also other times when beating the hell out of her
appealed greatly. Anything to get through to her. To make her see that
the only thing that could save them both was what they already had.

But it all came down to pride. And fear. She was the Slayer. One girl
in all the world who was damned to destroy the forces of evil and
eventually die doing so. And he was her vampire lover. He shook his
head. It seemed that after all this time, things really
didn't change. The vampire thing did keep coming up.



     "I hear you on the telephone to God knows who
             Spilling out your heart for free
           Ever wanted someone you can talk to
             Girl that someone should be me"



"It's so hard Will. Evertime he's near I can't help but think of
Angelus and that somehow this is all a trick.. And God forgive me
sometimes I don't care." Buffy whispered into the phone. It was an
evening later and she had yet to muster the will to move out into the
night to hunt. So instead she sat on her window seat scouring the
streets below.

"Oh Buffy," Willow said sympathetically. "Have you heard from him
since last night?"

"No." It was so simple. So direct. Willow shiverered a bit at the ice
in her friends' tone. Perhaps because it bothered her that Buffy could
feel so much hurt for someone she loved so much or perhaps because she
realized that beneath it all, Buffy still cherished him with
frightening intensity.

"Maybe he just needs time so he doesn't go.. well you know..grrr...on
you again."

Buffy laughed at Willow's image of Angel turning into a vampire.
"Maybe. Sometimes I miss him so much and then there are times..when..I
don't know.."

"You just want to kick his cute vampire butt? " Willow said giggling
and was relieved to hear more laughter from her friend. It was
astonishly rare as of late.

"Yeah, except sometimes I really want to hurt him." Buffy sighed
wondering why she could tell Willow but not her lover of her feelings
towards him.

As if reading her thoughts, Willow said softly, "Talk to him Buffy. He
might feel the same way."

"You're probably right, Will. Thanks. I'm gonna get some sleep now.
It's been a long day. "Buffy said tiredly.

"Night." Willow replied. "Sleep well."

As Buffy put the phone on it's cradle and turned off her light she
missed the dark shadow in the corner of her room. It moved as if to
leave and then settled into a corner, not willing to leave quite yet.



           "So many times I've tried to tell you
                   You just turn away"



"You should be at home sleeping." Angel said softly, approaching from
behind, his boots making very little noise against the ground as he
walked.

She turned towards him, the bruises of the previous nights' fight with
Issac's boys still apparent on her face. She gave him a wary smile.
"My mom was getting a little over-protective. I think she thinks I'm
about ready to kill over."

He knew that she was trying to make light of it but he wasn't even
slightly amused. "You got hit pretty hard."

"I won," she said simply, a trace of annoyance slipping into her voice.

"Thanks to me," he challenged. He took a step forward but remained an
arms'length away.

"You're crazy. I had it under control until you decided to pull youir
Mr. Protector Guy routine. You know all the vampires must be laughing
their asses off at me. Slayer who needs help from her boyfriend.
Great. Does wonders for the rep. Thanks."

"Your rep is what you're worried about?" Angel shot back. "I would
think you might care more about your hide. Afterall, you left yourself
wide open several times. You were lucky I was there or else your mom
wouldn't be worried about you, she'd be identifying you."

"You're an asshole." She said, jumping to her feet. She reached down
and grabbed a rootbeer bottle off of the ground. "I don't need this.
If you have problems with my ability to do my job, take it up with
Giles. I'm sure you guys can all gang up on me and decide that I'm
just basically a fuck-up."

"Buffy.."

"No, that's what this is all about, isn't it? You don't think you can
trust me in battle anymore. You think I'm the weak link. Afterall, I
let Ms. Calendar die and I let Jude and Ms. Carpenter die.."

"Who?"

She swallowed hard, her words washing over her. "Just more people that
have died becuse of me." She looked away from him. "So maybe you're
right but you know what, deal with it. I'm doing the best I can."

"It has nothing to do with that. You're a damn good fighter. There's
no doubt about that," Angel replied evenly, his mind working to
explain why she had suddenly clammed up over the two names she'd said.

"Then what is it? Oh wait, have you decided that I still suck in bed?"

He hissed. Nevermind that the comment had come out of nowhere and
without preamble. It was a figurative stake straight to the heart. The
one set of words that Angelus had uttered to the Slayer that Angel
would do anything to make go away. "Don't be like this."

She smiled at him sweetly and stepped up and into his face, "Sorry
'bout that lover." She backed away from him, her eyes hard blue blocks
of ice. "Live and learn huh?"

He clenched his hands hard, once again overhwhelmed by the urge to
throttle her. Closing his eyes, he fought for control. When he opened
them again, she was gone.



                 "How did I know?"



Angel was still seething the next day. Damn her. He had tried to work
out his anger. He looked down at the broken punching bag that was now
filled with holes. Cripes, this was going to cost money.

"Kill another one, kid?" One of the older guys that trained the young
boxers asked as he rounded the corner towards the shower.

"Yeah," Angel said with a sheepish smile. He reached into the locker
and grabbed for a towel. A quick shower and then out into the night to
try to work everything out with his bull-headed lover. Try being the
operative word.

He had just stepped out into the warm night when he felt a presense
behind him. Instinctively he knew that it was a friendly one. He felt
a moment of hope at the thought that it might be Buffy coming to
apoligize. He glanced behind him and instantly felt that hope
dissipate. "Will," he said softly, trying not to let her see the
disappointment.

"Angel we need to talk." Willow said as she approached. She was angry.
He had seen her like this before and didn't like it. She was a
tigeress when she got pissed.

He sighed. "What's up, Will?" He knew she was here about Buffy.

"You guys have got to stop this." Willow said pacing in front of him.
"You need to stop being so mean and well Buffy needs..well I'm not
here to say what she needs. You need to be good."

Angel felt like a child who had disappointed his mother. He hung his
dark head."I'm sorry."

Willow stopped pacing and went to him. "I know it's hard but dammit
Angel, she needs your love and support.. not your anger."

He nodded again, unable to defend his actions.

Willow smiled at him. "Well good because I mean..you guys belong
together. And if you're both gonna be too stupid to realize that..well
then..I'll just have to take matters into my own hands. Bye ya." She
flashed him a wide grin and then disappeared back towards the Bronze a
couple blocks away.

He stared after her for a moment, and then against his will he felt
anger rise. Damn her for sending Willow. Willow was like a sister and
he could never say no to her. Ugh. He frowned. Well he'd already
destroyed the bag at the gym and there was still so much tension to
release. A smile flirted across his face as he thought about hunting
down a bad guy and kicking some ass.



            "My life is changing so fast now
               Leaves me lonely and afraid"



"Hey Will," Buffy said softly, looking up as her friend took a seat
next to her. Willow put a mug of coffee down next to the Slayer and a
cup of juice in front of herself. "So, how are you feeling?"

"I'm alright," Buffy replied, taking two packets of sugar from the
holder and shaking them. Willow's eyebrow rose as her friend continued
to shake them.

"Um, Buffy, that's not Angel."

The Slayer blinked. "What?" Then she chuckled nervously. "Wow, you
sure don't mesh words do you?"

"I used to but someone taught me that life is too short anyways. Here
and now, that's all we got." Willow said, taking the sugar packets
from Buffy and putting the contents into the coffee.

"Sometimes the here and now blows." Buffy replied, eyes lost in the
darkness of the liquid. The colour reminded her of Angels' eyes. So
full of mystery.

"Or is too painful. But you've got to face it. And him. Here take
these." Willow handed Buffy two more packets of sugar.

Buffy lifted an eyebrow. "Why? Are you trying to get me wired?"

"Nope. Put them on the table."

"Okay." Buffy did as she was told.

"Now talk to them as if they're Angel."

"There are two of them?"

"Okay, give me one back."

Buffy handed one back. Willow opened it and poured into Buffy's mug.

"You just put Angel in my coffee."

"That wasn't Angel. Angel is in the one in front of you." Willow
replied easily, as if it all made perfect sense. The Slayer rose an
eyebrow and then stared down at the one left on the table.

"This is silly. I can't talk to sugar."

"Yes, you can."

She sighed and frowned. "Okay. Okay." She chewed her lip thoughtfully
for a moment and then said softly. "Angel, I love you so much but I
don't know what's happening with us or if it's even worth it." She
looked up at Willow who nodded and urged her on. "We've been through
so much and I'm so...I don't know..but it's like sometimes all I want
to do is kiss you and be in your arms and everything is okay."

"And other times?" Willow asked softly, glad that she had decided that
Xander shouldn't come to impersonate the voice of Angel.

"Other times I want to shake you," Buffy said simply, picking up the
packet of sugar. " And I want to hurt you. As much as I can so that
maybe you know what I'm feeling."

"Buffy.."

"Sometimes I'd like to just punch and kick you until you bleed.."

"Buffy..um..stop..."

"And I want to hear you beg me to stop. And then I want to keep going."

"Buffy, Angel is dead."

She blinked. "Huh? What?" She looked up at Willow and then followed
her gaze downwards. Lying beneath her fingers was small tangle of
white paper and white grains. Sugar. Oh boy. Buffy smiled at up her
friend uneasly, "Oops."



                   TO BE CONTINUED...

------------------------------

End of buffyfic-digest V2 #310
******************************

To subscribe to buffyfic or buffyfic-digest, send the command

    subscribe buffyfic-digest

    or

    subscribe buffy

to [e-mail].  You will need to go through a
confirmation process, and the listowners have to manually
approve your subscription request, so it may take some time.

To unsubscribe, send email to [e-mail] with

     unsubscribe buffyfic-digest

     or

     unsubscribe buffyfic

in the body.

Back issues of this digest can be found at:

    ftp://ftp.xmission.com/pub/lists/buffyfic/archive/

Dalton Spence has also provided an index of the buffyfic archive at:

    http://www.hwcn.org/~ag775/BUFFYFIC.HTM

For help, contact Jill Kirby ([e-mail]) or sah ([e-mail])