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Angel watched Buffy play with her newly acquired Japanese pocket monster instead of reading the book he was holding in his hands. She was as happy as any child and it was hard to believe she was the same broken woman he had met less than an hour ago.

Feeling his eyes and not embarrassed in the least, she turned to face him. “You might as well stop pretending, you know you want to play with me.”

“What?” He asked unable to believe that she could take his thoughts from completely innocent to barely legal in nothing but a few short seconds. She had this magnetic sexual pull and no matter how hard he tired to deny it, he wanted her. He was just about to take her up on her offer, when she held up the toy she had gotten from her second meal.

“You can be this one and help my little guy destroy Frytopia.” She said gesturing to the miniature city she had erected out of empty fry cartons and burger boxes, completely unaware of the other erection she had created in his slacks. When he had said sex was off the menu, she had taken him at his word but since he had started to read while she ate, she figured that they might as well do something else. He was paying for her company after all she rationalized, making the little figure she held do a little dance. “Come on, it’s fun and the little chicken nugget people can’t run very fast…cuz they don’t have any legs.”

Enchanted by her enthusiasm, he sat down his book and walked over to sit beside her. He took the little figure she handed him and watched as she demonstrated the artistry of monsters leveling a major metropolitan city. She did it with an attention to detail that would make any filmmaker proud, he thought with a smile. After the monster she held had gobbled up all the poor citizens, he was surprised by how much of her meal remained. When she had ordered two, he thought she was starving but now it seemed that she had chosen to feed it to her monster instead. “I can‘t believe that I thought that place was a restaurant, because now I can plainly see it is nothing but a toy store.”

While she rebuilt the ruined city for his turn, she smiled softly to herself. “When I was little my mom used to bring one of these home every once in a while. Usually she ate all the food but not even a junkie can find a use for the toy surprise inside. We didn’t celebrate the holidays or my birthday so these were all I had to play with. I have about a hundred of these back at my motel room.”

He opened his mouth to say he was sorry but she shoved a badly bent and very cold fry inside his mouth to stop him.

“Your turn and since you’re a vampire, I expect to see some major carnage out of your new little friend.” She said the words easily but her eyes had lost some of their warmth. She could take a lot of things even physical pain with a smile but she wouldn’t allow anyone to feel sorry for her. She never had, so why let someone else.

Letting it go for now, Angel began his rampage, quickly getting into the spirit of the game. For more than an hour they happily tore down the city only to rebuild it and start all over again. He was having so much fun in fact that he started to worry about his curse but then he began to notice something. They had started out playing as allies but every so often she would attack him without warning. After the tenth time it happened, he sat down his toy and looked up into her face. “Do you know why you keep attacking me?”

“Because it’s fun and my poor little Kikzo has lost himself in the bloodlust?”

“Do you remember when I asked you if you knew what you were?”

“Sure it didn’t happen all that long ago,” She said with a roll of her eyes anxious to get back to the game. Not because she wanted to play but she had a feeling that she wouldn’t like what he was trying to say.

“You keep attacking me because you’re a vampire slayer, it‘s instinctual. You were chosen by the Powers that Be and given the strength and the speed needed to fight against the vampires and other dark forces in this world.” Angel told her softly, knowing that it must be hard for her to hear.

“I’m a whore Angel, not some mystical whatzit chosen to fight for a higher purpose.”

“Your powers came to you about two years ago right. You started having nightmares about things you didn’t understand and then you noticed the other changes. I know this because I know another girl like you. There was only suppose to be one slayer but she drowned and when she was revived another one was called because she had technically died, even if it was only for a moment. Then next girl, Kendra died and you were called. For some reason the Watchers Council that has guided the slayers since the beginning didn‘t know that you were a potential slayer and everyone just assumed that another hadn‘t been called because there was only one again.”

“There isn’t anyone else like me Angel. I’m a one of a kind and if you’d let me show you what I can do, you would understand that.” She said running her hand up his leg suggestively.

“I can’t Buffy, not because I don’t want you but because my soul comes with a curse. If I experience a single moment of true happiness, then my soul is ripped away and I become a cold blooded killer again. A monster that plays the same kind of game we have been, only for real.” Hoping that by opening up to her, she would open up as well he told her about why he had left Sunnydale and about his relationship with Faith.

“You are such an idiot Angel,” Buffy said laying her hand against his face to take some of the sting out of her words. “Take it from me, it wasn’t the sex that triggered your curse, it was they way you two felt about each other. I’ve seen girls nearly beaten to death by their pimps but they always go back because they love them. Love can be something soft and sweet if each person feels the same way or it can be used to cause pain when it isn’t returned in equal measure. You couldn’t find your moment of real happiness with me because I am not capable of returning the feeling. You gotta know happiness and love to share it and those words aren’t really a part of my vocabulary. I bet you could even sleep with her again and not lose yourself, because you know the pain now…it’s a part of you.”

“The way you talk it sounds like you understand love and happiness pretty well for someone who says they can’t feel it.”

“I know pain Angel and misery, if anything is my gift, it’s those two things.” She pulled her hand away and got to her feet. “I also know men and you didn’t walk away because you loved her too much to stay, you walked away because you loved the pain more. Like I said it’s a part of you now and you have to feed it just like any other hunger. Someday you’re going to find you a woman that sates all your needs and that time you won’t be able to walk away. But trust me Angel, that girl is never going to be me. I can give you a few nights of empty passion but nothing more, because I don‘t have anything else to give.”

She let him take that in for a few moments, waiting to see if he would take her up on her offer. When he didn’t she let it go and went to the bathroom to take a shower.

Angel watched her go with her words buzzing through his mind like a nest of angry bees. Could she have been right, he wondered searching his mind for the truth. He had been human and curse free with everything he had thought he had wanted, but just like she had said he had given it all back to return to his life of pain. He had loved Faith, she was as innocent as Buffy was tainted but after he had decided to leave Faith the second time, he never once considered going back to her. Yet twice in the same night he had battled against his feeling for Buffy, barely winning each time. If he had loved Faith as deeply as he had believed, then no other woman let alone a stranger should be able to call to him so quickly. For more than a hundred years he had abstained without temptation yet now he was constantly wishing for a taste of the forbidden fruit that was Buffy.

Spike had told him about Faith taking a lover and how that it had turned out badly. But even now, with as clouded as his mind was, he didn’t feel the slightest bit betrayed or even angry that she had tried to replace him in her heart. Somewhere along the way he had let her go, without acrimony yet he had still wrapped himself in the bitterness of her absence. It hadn’t been his soul torturing him, it had been his own will to wallow in the darkness inside himself. As much as he wanted to deny that it couldn’t be true, he couldn’t.

Buffy had looked unflinchingly inside his twisted psyche and in moments uncovered the real truth about his nature. She had been able to do so, because she had done the same for herself long ago. As impossible as it was, he had finally met someone more tortured than himself and that thought alone was enough to strangle any desire he had for her in his heart. He had enough emotional pain to deal with and he couldn’t bear to take anymore by beginning a relationship that was well and truly doomed before it had even begun. He would still do everything he needed to help her, if for nothing more than the revelation she had given to him tonight, but he knew they would only be friends and nothing more. He might want her, he still had needs after all but his heart knew that he would never love her. And strangely enough, it wasn’t that hard to give her up either.





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