The one thing that kept her going was knowing when she got to Angelus, he’d take care of her. He’d give her blood, help her heal. Surely he’d put his campaign to take over Los Angeles on the back burner when he saw how badly she needed him now.
She let out a sigh of relief as she came through the front door, and collapsed into a heap. The minions standing guard started shouting, and she drifted in and out of consciousness as a flurry of activity went on around her.
She opened her eyes at the sound of Angelus’s voice, and she tried to pull herself up off the floor, moaning at the pain. He stormed over to her, grabbing her up by her arm and to her feet. “Where have you been?” he snapped.
Buffy winced, his grip making the burns on her arms hurt worse. “There…there was a man. Some sort of demon hunter. He…he was looking for you, and he found me. He tried…he tried to make me tell him where you were.”
“Did you tell him?” Angelus demanded, shaking her.
Buffy cried out from the pain. “No, of course not! Let me go, please. You’re…you’re hurting me.”
“Do you think I care about that right now, you stupid bitch?” Angelus asked, his face hard with anger. Then, he let her go suddenly, and Buffy slumped back to the ground. “Although really, I don’t even want to touch you. You look disgusting.”
“Angelus?” Buffy asked, her voice full of confusion and hurt. “Why…why are you saying these things?”
“Why am I saying these things? Because you deserve what happened to you, you worthless slut. I told you not to leave, and you did. Not only that, but you ran off with a minion. I had to stake him and every other minion that saw you leave and didn’t do anything! Now I’m going to have to go get more minions, and that’s just going to set back my timetable.”
“I don’t care about your timetable!” Buffy screamed, finding herself at her breaking point. “I just wanted you to pay attention to me!”
“You spoiled little fucking brat,” Angelus snarled. “You know, sometimes, I don’t even know why I bothered to keep you around as long as I did. You aren’t that good in bed.”
His words taking her by complete surprise, Buffy reared back. “What?”
“It’s time I do what I should’ve done a long time ago. All you’ve ever done is nag me, whine at me. You’re so needy, Buffy. Just a demanding little child who doesn’t even have a good enough cunt to make it all worth it.”
Buffy felt herself slipping into shock, unable to believe this was actually happening. He was supposed to love her, want to take care of her. He’d told her that’s why he’d turned her, because he wanted to keep her with him. Because he knew the moment he saw her that she was someone special, someone meant for him.
Their love was supposed to last forever…
“Angelus, please, help me,” Buffy begged, unable to stop herself from crying again. “I’m sorry. I…I didn’t mean to cause all this trouble. I made a mistake, and I’m sorry, but I love you…”
Angelus sneered down at her. “God, would you listen to yourself? You’re pathetic. Weak. A miserable excuse for a vampire.” He shook his head. “It makes me sick just to look at you.”
Buffy cringed, his words cutting into her. He was right… She felt pathetic and weak. She’d allowed a human to overpower and torture her, and she couldn’t stop herself from sobbing like a child. “I’m sorry,” she said, her words barely louder than a whisper.
“Yeah, you know what? I don’t care if you’re sorry. I don’t care about you at all, bitch.”
Shaking, Buffy managed to pull herself up, grabbing Angelus’s hand in a desperate attempt to make this stop. She couldn’t take this. After all she’d been through today, she couldn’t lose him, too… “Please. I’ll make it up to you. Just don’t… Please don’t tell me you don’t love me anymore. Please…”
“I don’t love you,” he replied coldly. “Fuck, Buffy, I’m a vampire, not some simpering fool. Sure, you were fun for a while, but come on. Did you really think you’d keep me satisfied forever? Especially since you never seemed to get past the irritating little mallrat stage you were in when I found you. I mean, geez, Buff, if I have to sit through another John Hughes movie, I may have to throw myself on a stake.”
“I…I can try to be better,” Buffy pleaded with him weakly. “I will be better.”
“Sorry, baby, I’ve already got better,” Angelus replied with a smirk. He pushed her off of him, sending her toppling to the floor. “Would someone please take the garbage out? I’ve got a real woman to attend to.”
It was then that Buffy noticed the unfamiliar scent on him, and she wondered how she hadn’t to begin with, the cloying, overpowering odor of another female on her sire suddenly all she could smell at all. She screamed Angelus’s name as he walked away, but he didn’t turn around, didn’t acknowledge he’d heard her at all. Two of the minions approached her, grabbing her off the floor by both arms, and Buffy screamed louder, struggling as they dragged her from the building.
Unceremoniously, they tossed her outside and locked the door behind them.
Buffy panted as she lay in the grass, a feeling of hopelessness washing over her. She wanted to wake up, wanted this all to be nothing more than a bad dream. Never had she imagined Angelus would do what he’d just did. She knew they’d had rough patches over the years, even times when they’d temporarily gone their separate ways, but she’d always known in her heart that he loved her.
Tonight he proved he didn’t. She was in her darkest hour, and he’d turned her away. He’d called her garbage…
She’d withstood torture to protect him, and he’d called her garbage.
Her heart hadn’t beaten in over two decades, but that didn’t make it incapable of breaking. He’d dismissed her in her darkest hour and gone to someone else. The thought of her sire in bed with another woman now, after he’d turned her away… She couldn’t take it. She’d accepted early on that she’d never be the only woman in his bed, but she’d never thought she’d be thrown from it completely. She’d simply believed him when he’d told her vampires didn’t believe in monogamy and that she shouldn’t take things personally – even when he often flew into a rage if he caught her with someone else.
For twenty-five years, her existence had centered on Angelus. Even in the brief times they’d spent apart, she’d still known in her heart they’d end up together again. He’d been the one constant in her life, her source of strength that had kept her together in the difficult beginning, right after her turning, when suddenly everything she’d known and loved in her life was gone.
He was her world, her life, her everything – and he’d thrown her out like garbage.
Every piece of her hurt, inside and out. She wanted to stay right where she was and just wait for the sun. Burning up couldn’t possibly hurt more than continuing on like this…
But she couldn’t do that. Angelus had called her weak, but Buffy knew she wasn’t. She wouldn’t have gotten even this far if she wasn’t strong, if she wasn’t a survivor.
She wiped roughly at her tears, cursing herself for shedding them at all. Angelus may think she was pathetic and worthless, but she’d show him otherwise. She’d make him see how strong she could be.
She’d make him regret what he’d done to her.
Her features set in grim determination, Buffy pulled herself back to her feet.
Spike didn’t remember ever feeling this frustrated before. He was so close to finally reaching Angelus, and yet he felt farther away than he’d ever been before. Almost everyone he talked to had heard of Angelus, yet apparently no one had actually seen him since he’d come to Los Angeles. It appeared that he’d been staying behind the scenes, planning something big while his minions took care of most of the dirty work.
Which meant Spike’s best chance of finding the vampire was most likely getting a minion to talk – and at the moment, the thought of what that might entail made bile rise to his throat.
He knew he should’ve killed her. He’d just signed the death warrants of countless people by letting a vampire go. It didn’t matter that she had such an innocent-looking face. Beneath the surface was nothing more than a killer, a demon.
Yet somehow, a flicker of the compassionate man he’d once been had found its way back to the surface, and he’d been unable to do what he’d done hundreds of times in the decades since his wife’s death – rid the world of a vampire.
And now, his heart didn’t feel in the hunt at all. He was in the same town as Drusilla’s killer, and he knew that meant he should be more active than ever in his search, yet all he wanted to do was sleep. He was so tired…
Spike stood outside of a dive bar he’d heard was frequented by some of Angelus’s minions, a lit cigarette dangling from his mouth. He knew what he needed to do. He needed to go in there, shake the place down, and find what he wanted to know.
Instead, however, he found himself stubbing his cigarette out beneath his boot, turning around, and heading back to his current apartment. He’d get some rest, start fresh tomorrow, and hopefully be back to his normal self, the events of the past couple days no longer weighing so heavily on his mind.
That illusion shattered when he walked into the apartment and found Buffy seated on his couch.
He blinked, wondering for a moment if she was even really there. “I thought… I thought you would’ve gone. That’s why I left you,” Spike said. “You… I was letting you go.”
“I know,” Buffy replied evenly. “And I did leave. Then I came back.”
“You came back?” Her declaration made absolutely no sense to Spike. After what he’d done to her, he would’ve thought for certain that she would’ve run away as soon as he left – and stayed gone. Unless perhaps she’d come back for revenge…
Only she wasn’t moving towards him and she looked like she was in no shape to attack him. She looked as bad as she had when he’d left her – possibly even worse. She was dirty, as if she’d been crawling on the ground, and he’d never seen someone look so exhausted in his life. If she was there to kill him, she was at a serious disadvantage.
And he knew she couldn’t have someone with her, at least not inside. Spike purposely chose to rent apartments when he traveled and not stay in hotel rooms for that very reason – vampires would need an invitation to get inside.
So she was sitting on his couch, alone, after coming back to a place where she’d been brutally tortured over the course of two days. There was only one question for him to ask.
“Why?”
She met his eyes, and Spike saw something dark that hadn’t been there before in them now. “Because I’ve changed my mind.”
Spike’s brow furrowed. “Changed your mind?” he asked, still not able to comprehend what had brought her back there.
For a moment, her face changed, her features flickering between human and demon.
“I’m going to help you kill Angelus.”
Thank you for all the feedback for the last chapter. It definitely kept the muse well fed. ;)