The True Nature of Hell
by Cosmicfish
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It's dark where I am. Cold, lifeless, sterile. I can see, I can hear, but I can't feel anything. No touch or smell or sense of anything around me, no warmth or fire or thrill or fear.

I'm separated, distanced, like someone watching life on a video feed, only to realize one day that the life they are watching is their own, and that they can never get back to it. That they are trapped somewhere inside or outside of existence; the exact place doesn't matter, nothing matters here. Nothing but the pain, the loneliness, the Hell I have condemned myself to for eternity.

But let's say, just for fun and all, that you could make Hell worse than it already is. I'm not talkin' 'bout bringin' in some more bonfires or a few more clouds of wasps and boils, I'm talking' 'bout somethin' as simple as a dream. A thought, a memory, of what things could have been, of how things could have been different, of how things are now and how you wish you could be there again, livin' in life.

I've never been one for broodin' 'bout the past, used to avoid those that did so for a matter o' fact. The past is the past, and its hopeless to think o' changin' it, useless. You've got to live in the present y'know, live for the moment. Carpe fucking noctem.

But when you're like I am, imprisoned forever with no hope of parole, the present becomes painful like a stake through the heart, and all you've got is the 'has been'.

It's better that way, when you can block out what's on the monitors and remember what shampoo used to smell like, what hot cocoa felt like on the tongue. Where you could taste and smell as well as see the ocean and its black tipped waves of silver, where you could feel the touch of the people around you, where you could not only feel emotions, but you could express them! Paint in them and draw and write and compose and sing in your feelings! How I long for those times!

If I had corneas and lenses and eyelids in my control, I might cry, remembering what I once had. But I don't, and I miss even that, the burning of tears in your eyes and the sweet trail of wetness they make going down your face! I can tell when he cries, when the monitors go out of focus, but I can't feel it anymore.

Humans dream of Hell. They make up stories of fires and pain and damnation and torment; but that's all they are, stories. Dreams of what may be. You can't tell what Hell is 'til you've been there, can't comprehend the perfection that it is.

Hell is nothing. Hell is looking at the person you love, seeing your emotion reflected in their eyes and knowin' it's not for you. Hell is watching her moan and writhe and buck beneath you, but not being able to feel her skin or smell her hair. Hell is watching Heaven, seeing how glorious it is, and knowing that you are as close to it as you will ever get. Hell is seeing Her.

She is the reason I'm here.

She is the reason I'll never get out.

~~*~<*>~*~~

I think I'm goin' insane. It's very possible, I think. I'd like to see someone else try bein' trapped like this and keepin' their mind.

I don't fight Him anymore. I used to, I used to panic and flail and mentally claw at Him, tryin' to get Him to lose his grip, to release me from his numbing control ... But not anymore. I think I've accepted this ... I think I've come to understand my sentence, to take it as the way thing have to be. Sometimes the past seems a dream, and I can only wonder if this is all that's ever been.

I tried again last night, I think. Time blurs here, and I can never keep track of the nights, not like I could when it was me walkin' in them ...

I wasn't fighting Him! No, I've given up on that. It's just ... she was lying there, I knew. I can sense her, you see. That's one thing that hasn't changed. She ... thickens me somehow, makes me fuller, more content, whenever she's around. And I can feel that, even now, even here, when she's asleep in his bed and his eyes are closed and I have no way of seein' her, much less smellin' or touchin' her.

I felt her, and I was overcome, and I just had to dive.

That's what it feels like, like when you're swimming in cold ocean waters, the light of the moon shining silver on your naked skin, and you close your eyes and dive so that your hands can touch the sandy ocean bottom. Where everything is muted and smooth and pressured, and even though it feels like a part of you belongs there, you know that you are the stranger. A strange, awkward being amidst liquid shadows ...

I didn't want full control, I wasn't about to try for that. I only wanted, for just a split-second, to be able to feel. To know the cool texture of the sheets around me and the warmth of the body next to me, to get that tingling sensation at the ends of my extremities I used to get whenever my Slayer was near ...

And I got close, so incredibly close, so close that I thought I almost smelled her before He woke up. And then I felt His will encase me and push me into the back of the subconscious, and I wanted to scream with the frustration of it. Doesn't He understand that I'm going off my bird? Much more of this Hell and I'll be crazier than Dru ...

Why can't He give me just a few seconds? Just a few, wonderful seconds of sensation. Hell, I'd be glad for Him to let me come to the surface under torture. Pain would feel so beautiful after this. I can see myself crying and laughing at how bloody wonderful it would be to twist and hurt and scream.

Anything is better than this. Anything is better than watching her turn and look at Him with all of the love in her sea green eyes, of having to hear her comfort Him and tell Him how much He means to her, that the nightmares from the past cannot be altered. That the murders He sees himself committing were the work of another, the work of a monster, and that He must remember that He has changed. That He is a man now, that He is different now. That He must be because she loves Him, and she would never love something evil.

Bitch! Doesn't she see that I'm here too! I know she does, that's why she does it! Taunts me even as I hover here, inert and lonely and dying inside myself, telling me over and over again that I could never be good enough for the likes of her. Bloody bint! Doesn't she get that I'm here because of her! I got the fucking soul because of her! Because I wanted to be good enough for her! Stupid lying chit with her lying emerald eyes that mock me in my prison! Damn her sweet lips and her pretty face!

I did this for you, Slayer! I did this for you, you crazy, awful, heinous whore! I did this so you could be fuckin' happy! Damn, you Buffy! Damn you and your tight, hot cunt and your mortal blood and your Slayer strength! I want you suffering the way I am suffering! I want you bleeding and broken and dead! Bloody hell, Slayer! I WANT YOU SCREAMING! I WANT YOU DEAD!

I WANT YOU ...

~~*~<*>~*~~

I didn't mean what I said before. I don't really want her dead. Hell, she's been dead, and that had almost broken me before. I love her, I love her so fuckin' much ....

~~*~<*>~*~~

I've started fighting Him again. I know I can't win, but I fight anyway. Because it's something to do. Because it takes my mind off ... things.

And it torments Him to have a thing like me lurkin' beneath His otherwise perfect soul, screaming to be let out. I like making Him tremble and hate himself like that. I like making Him wish He hadn't died in that bleedin' alley, I like remindin' Him that he is a monster. A monster like me ...

~~*~<*>~*~~

He wants to be human again. He's starting to realize that in His dead body He cannot give her many of the things that she claims not to want. Children 2.5, a picket fence, a day in the bloody sun ...

She says that it doesn't matter, that she loves Him and that with her being a Slayer, she can't live the normal life anymore than he can. She says she loves Him ...

He doesn't believe her. Oh, he believes she loves Him, just not that his vampirism doesn't matter. I know that it doesn't. I know the truth in her eyes, but he cannot see what lies obvious in those swirling orbs of green and blue and hazel.

Funny, that. She loves Him, but I still know her better than anyone else.

He's walking down a street with the Slayer while they're having this conversation, and as he passes a slim teenager I flood Him with a need for blood. If I had vocal cords, I would have laughed out loud at the way He shivered.

~~*~<*>~*~~

I've been here for months now, I think. He is staring at a blind over a window, wishing to God he could still feel the light of the sun bathing His skin.

I wish to Hell I could still feel it burn ...

~~*~<*>~*~~

Dawn doesn't like Him as much as she liked me. He doesn't let her stay up, He doesn't make cocoa and talk to her like I did. He doesn't love her like I do. To Him, Dawn is the sister of the woman he loves, and He feels affection for her but not the same affinity I had possessed with the former Key.

She says she hates Him, that she wishes He hadn't gotten a soul.

He doesn't explain to her that He didn't get a soul, that He is the soul itself. He doesn't tell her that He is William back from the ether, that He is not the demon that once loved her. He doesn't tell her about me, floating here and watching everything. He doesn't tell her how a soulless monster condemned himself out of love for her and her sis'.

I hate Him too, and I wish I hadn't gotten the soul.

I wish I hadn't hurt Buffy, too.

~~*~<*>~*~~

I don't know how long I've been here. I'm starting to forget things. Smells, touches. Even the taste of blood. I fight sometimes, but I'm weak. I want eyes to cry.

~~*~<*>~*~~

Things keep goin' black on me. Sometimes for what has to be only a few seconds, sometimes for what I fear may be weeks. Sometimes I see things instead.

I'm scared, but I'm also grateful. Because at least being unconscious or hallucinating means not seeing the way she rode Him like she did last night ( or was that the night before last? or a night that passed a week ago?), her long neck arched back as her breasts bobbed lush and golden in front of Him, her eyes dark with need and dripping with love as she made Him growl and scream her name with her lips and her hands and her wet center.

I know you're 'posed to compare the girl to peaches, but the Slayer's not soft and fuzzy-like. She's not some gentle sweet thing any owe mate can just pick off a branch, she's not delicate and sugary and fine.

She reminds me of an orange. I still remember my first orange, from when I was a boy. Oranges were a special treat in Victorian London ...

I remember watching my mother peel off the thick, hard skin, I remember feeling it in my hands and wondering at that stiff, leathery texture. I remember the taste that exploded across my tongue when I first sank my teeth into a soft, rounded lobe. Acidic and tangy and so sweet it left you craving just a little bit more. It had made me think of summer, of sunlight and warm, exotic places where I thought precious, special things like oranges might grow. It made me dream of things better ...

Yes, the Slayer's an orange. I only wish I had been the one to peel her, I only wish I could taste her now ...

~~*~<*>~*~~

I'm tired. I don't know where I am. I don't know who I am. But I know I'm tired. Deep-down tired. Tired in places I didn't know tired could go. Tired so deep in my mind I think I've become lethargy itself. It's not so bad. There are worse sins than sloth. I know because I've committed most of them already.

Dawn apologized. She said she loves Him. She said she know it's hard. She said she wants Him to be happy. She said she loves Him ...

I don't think there's anyone left who loves me. I don't think there ever was anyone at all.

I hate, too. I hate so bad it fills me. It rushes through me and makes me burned crimson. I hate everything. I hate everyone. I hate color. I hate black. I hate white. I hate people. I hate demons. I hate kittens. I hate me. I hate Him. I plain hate.

I want to die. I'm losing my mind. I'm going insane. Forget flying over, I've smacked right into the nest. I can barely remember the words to think in anymore. I want to die.

I'm already dead.

I remember Angelus. He was different after. After he came back. After his soul. After his soul left. I hadn't understood. I do now. Too well.

~~*~<*>~*~~

I wish.

I wish I could.

I wish I could die.

Again.

I wish.

I wish I could.

I wish I could die.

Again.

I wish I could.

I wish I could die.

Again.

I wish ...

~~*~<*>~*~~

He's walking. In the cemetery. Patrol. He sees a demon, it's black.

No, the demon's not black. It's robes are. Deep black. As absent as color as I am from life. Cold. Dead.

He sees a demon, it's black.

The demon's eyes aren't. They aren't black. I don't remember color names. Blue or red, I can't tell. Numb. I'm too numb. Black.

The demon's black. No. It's robes are black. It speaks.

He's walking. Patrol. He sees ...

It speaks. Words I can hear. But I don't know them. Is he really speaking? What are words? I no longer understand ...

Yaa ruuh idhhabii!

The demon's eyes are not black. It speaks. The words mean something. I don't know what. The demon is absent.

Yaa Nafs idhhabii!

No, the demon is not absent. Color is. Its robes are black. The demon's eyes are not. Its words mean something.

Utrukii Ayyaah wa-'trukiih ...

Patrol. He's walking. The demon speaks. I don't know what. I'm too numb. Blue or red. Black. Absent. I'm absent. Not black. The demon is black. No, its robes are. Its eyes are not.

... MaHruuman wa-najisan!

Black. The words mean something ...

Liquid. Moonlight. Soft. Shadow. Cold. Diving. No, not diving. Suck. Pull. Push. Tomb. Liquid. Not diving. Not diving ...

Drowning.

~~*~<*>~*~~

I wake up. I'm slow and heavy. I hurt.

I hurt.

I laugh.

~~*~<*>~*~~

I wake up again, and I feel better than I have in a long while. I'm tired, spent, but I feel whole again.

I feel.

I'm still in the cemetery. He was here last night. There was a demon.

I laugh again. The sound seems strange coming from my throat and hitting my ears. I forgot that you can feel your voice when you speak. I had forgot that you move your tongue when you form sounds. I like being reminded.

My laugh is big and open. Wide. It rolls from me like a wave from the ocean. Looming and rough with bits of sand and shell swirling in foam. My voice sounds like it has forgotten laughter. He never laughed. I have not been able to.

I can't stop. It is too much.

I clutch grass and dirt beneath my fingers. Dry and crumbly in my hands. I feel the night air brush me with its silk. I feel the rough material of my jeans and the cotton of my shirt close to my skin. I had forgotten the touch of clothes. I laugh at myself for forgetting.

Tears course down my face. Cool like satin, wet like rain. I like rain. I wish it would rain now so I could feel that too. I taste my tears and they are salt. Salt like blood. I want blood again. What is blood? Why do I need it?

Whoever heard of a vampire who couldn't remember blood?

I taste the dirt too. Grainy and muddy in wet clods. I spit it out because it tastes sickening. I like that about the dirt. I realize I had almost forgotten what it is to taste. I laugh some more. My laughs are like sobs. Is this hysterical?

The sun rises. I watch it happen. I know I should go, I remember that the sun hurts. It's just that I want to feel pain like that again. I want to feel everything again.

A touch of sun reaches my hand, and I stretch my fingers out in wonder. I sob. It's so beautiful, this pain! Look at my skin! Look at it crack and blister! Look at those beautiful wisps of smoke as they turn to licks of flame. And this wonderful, gorgeous, glorious pain! ...

I remember vaguely that I am combustible. I don't want to go to Hell again, so I creep into a mausoleum. There's a cement sepulchral, and I beat my burning hand against it long after the flames have died. It hurts pretty. Drusilla used to say stuff like that. I never understood. I do now. I hurt very pretty.

My burned hand leaves a trail of red against the gray cement. I smell it. Black, vampiric, blood. I taste it, putting my hand to my mouth. It is dead blood, but it is good blood. Powerful blood. It is pretty to spill.

I want to spill more.

~~*~<*>~*~~

I wake up in a dimly lit room, feeling a whole lot more like myself. Bloody hell! Pain is racing through my blood and my bones. What had I done to myself?

I pull off the covers of the bed, blinking when I realize I'm in Buffy's room. I've never been invited in here before, not when it was really me, and now I breathe the air in deep, savoring the way her musky pheromones permeate everything.

I look down at my unclothed self. My legs are covered in large bruises and long, leathery cuts from a knife I had found in a tomb crisscross across my thighs and ankles. The marks of burning cigarette butts cover my torso and chest, one small circle right smack in the middle of my bloody nipple. There are bandages on my side, and when I remove them, I can see small stabs and punctures from the various sharp objects I had found. My hand is wrapped as well, but I leave it as it is, sensing it is not yet healed enough for that. The only thing unmarred is my cock and its attachments, and I am grateful that I had retained enough sanity to spare those precious pieces of cold flesh.

Buffy walks in then, and I can only stare at her, my raw senses becoming completely overwhelmed by the numerous sensations she invokes within me. Anger, lust, frustration, longing, and love. I love her so bloody much ...

I say her name but it comes out too quiet for her to hear. I am awed by the way I can smell her scent of citrus and sunlight, the way I can feel her heat even from her. Golden and magnificent and as precious as existence itself. I am frozen now, not knowing what to do. I want to grab her and hold her and cry into her hair, but that is something she will never let me do.

She let Him.

I see tears in her eyes when she runs a few steps towards me, and I have to bite my lip to keep from crying out when she envelops me in a fierce hug. Pain and Buffy and Buffy-smell and Buffy-warmth ...

"You idiot!" she cries, "I was so afraid when you didn't meet me last night! What the hell did you do? Who did you piss off?" She glowers at me, her eyes darkened to a deep sage. "Who did this to you?"

I only stare at her, loving the feel of her warmth against my tortured skin, unable to say what I am feeling. Unable to say what I should. I missed her warmth before, I had missed it so very, very much ...

She kisses me, first as shallow wet little caresses against my face, and then in a ferocious torrent of tongue and lips in and against my mouth.

I know I should stop this. I know this isn't for me. I know she means this all for Him. She never kissed me like this, hard but gentle. She never moved her hands down my body to bring pleasure and not to hurt. She never let me touch her soft like this in return. Her eyes and her mouth never spoke of love for me ...

They did for Him.

And suddenly I hate her. I hate her so much it burns like a wildfire in my gut, spreadin' and spreadin' through the running lava of my veins, consumin' the rest of me and leavin' me burnt and black. How dare she love my soul? How dare she kiss Him and love Him and cry over Him! I couldn't even get her to admit I was capable of love! Is that too much to bloody ask!? Is that too fuckin; much!?

Damn her! Damn Him! She loved the soul with my monster's face and I hate her for it! Couldn't she see me!? Couldn't she feel me lying behind those guilt-filled eyes when she fucked him!? Stupid, bloody bint!!!

I know that she did. She had to 'ave! How could she not! Awful wench! She loved him just to hurt me! She loved him because of me! Because I was floatin' in him and she knew every word she spoke I heard and 'cuz puttin' me through Hell hadn't been enough for her! No, she had to put me in Hell. She had to curse me and kill my mind! She wanted me a bleedin', quiverin' pile of mush in me own head! She wanted me broken and crushed and crazier than Dru!

Well fuck that! Fuck her! Fuck her and bleed her dry! I'll kill her in my arms! The wretch! The hellish, cold, animalistic monster! The BITCH, the stupid, fuckin' BITCH ...

I rip into her ...

~~*~<*>~*~~

I'm walking. There is carpet under my feet. They are bare, and the carpet feels soft underneath my skin. It almost hurts it's so soft.

I've been here before. I know this place, but I cannot name it. What is in a name?

I think this a hall. I remember halls. I don't remember walking through them, though. How strange.

I'm busy thinking about strange, so I don't see the stairs. I stumble. The carpet is soft but there is hard underneath. Hard like bleached bones. I touch my hair. It used to be bleached like bones. I think it's brown now. Brown like wood gone curly. Is that gel?

I'm walking. There is tile under my feet. It's cold and I don't like it. I never used to feel cold. I was cold. But I never felt it. Now I can't turn the cold off. The cold is a part of me. Deep as BLOOD.

There is blood here. I smell it inside. It's inside the big box. I cock my head. I look at the box. What is in a box?

Blood is in the box.

I see things. I don't know if they're real.

I'm too busy thinking about real to notice her. I notice her noise. It is hard. Sharp like needles. High like acid. I clamp my hands over my ears. I can feel my hands over my ears. The sound is bad. I don't like the sound.

It is her sound. Do I like her?

It is Dawn.

I like Dawn.

"Sp-William! What are you doing!"

I'm walking. Can't she see I'm walking? No, I'm not walking. I'm standing still. Am I standing still?

Yes, still like rock, like star. Steadfast stone. "I'm standing." I say.

Her eyes are covered. Her hands are over. Over her eyes. Her hands are covering her eyes.

I cock my head and stare. I snap backwards. Dawn hates me! She doesn't want to see me! I disgust her ...

... Shells on the beach. Am I a shell? No. I'm not a shell. I'm not anything. Not even echoes. Not even sound or salt. I'm nothing ... I'm dead ...

Dead. Nothing.

I fall to the floor like a good nothing should. I wrap. I wrap my arms around me. My knees. They are under my chest. I float, unfeeling. I'm nothing. She can't see me anymore. She's blind to me. Because I'm not here. Because I'm dead.

Because I'm Nothing.

"Buffy!" she shrieks and I hold like glue. But there's nothing to hold. I'm dissolved. I look down. I'm gone. When I look down I see myself gone. Gone like nothing. I never existed.

I'm dead.

My world is black.

~~*~<*>~*~~

I show her where I am. I don't know why she's here, but I show her. I float here, and I make her float with me.

"Do you see?" I ask her.

She doesn't respond, so I know I must show her more.

I show her the cave in Africa. I show her Lurkey. I show her my rabid confusion from when it first happened. I show her my fear and my desperate thrashing like a beast drowning. I show her my dreams and visions. I show her how angry I got ...

She leaves me.

I continue to float.

~~*~<*>~*~~

I'm feeling more coherent when she comes again. I'm still floating, but this is a healing bath that surrounds me, and I know that I'm getting better. My sanity is returning ...

I ask her why she comes to me here. She says she wants to help me, and that makes me laugh, great strong brays that come from the very bottom of me. "Silly bint," I say affectionately, "There's nothing you can do. All I need is some time."

~~*~<*>~*~~

Dawn comes again, asking when am I coming back.

I tell her that I'll be back after I die.

She tells me I'm already dead.

She tells me she misses me. She tells me she loves me.

It's not death, but it's enough.

I come home.

~~*~<*>~*~~

I wake up, blinking heavily as my vision slowly returns to me. Vertigo clutches at my stomach as I sit up in Buffy's bed, and sorrow eats at my heart as I think I must've killed her ...

"Spike?" I whip my head around, and I stare at her with rounded eyes as she steps through the doorframe like a golden angel from Heaven itself. I mouth her name, but I can barely speak. My voice is closed to me, cut off. I can't say what I want to.

I barely recognize the sound my throat makes. "My soul ..."

She shakes her head slowly, "I know." I see the pain in her eyes and I fall back into the pillows, my eyes closed.

"How long?" I whisper, my voice heavy and hoarse with emotion and remembered pain.

"Three months." she says. A laden pause -"How long was it for you ..." her voice sounds tortured, stricken, "where you were?"

"Longer." I answer, gratefully succumbing to blackness once more.

I haven't gone back ... I will never go back.

I'm merely tired, and I need to sleep.

~~*~<*>~*~~

When I wake up again, Dawn is by the bed, tears shining white in her crystal eyes. "Spike!" she cries, and she collapses against my chest. I stroke her hair softly, loving the feel of her silk strands beneath my fingers. She's sobbing against me, soaking my T-shirt right through, but I couldn't be happier.

This ... this ... this is peace.

I'm at peace.

~~*~<*>~*~~

Every night it feels like I'm seeing the world brand new for the first time. Every moment I discover something new that I had forgotten. Everything is so beautiful to me, and I know that I have been fundamentally changed.

My isolation ... my sensory deprivation ... they have altered something deep within me.

I'm not the cocky, swaggering vampire I was before. I still love to fight, but that just feels beautiful to me. It's the same as anything else, now. I don't know if the novelty of feeling will ever wear from me. I don't know if I'll ever go back to taking simple things, my own senses for granted. I almost hope I don't.

I moved back into my crypt, fixed up the place once more. I'm in love with life again. Before, that had been drained out of me somehow, lost to me. Like the Slayer had squeezed it right out of me along with my semen. I had wanted to die ... God! I had longed to die! All I had wanted was for that awful, terrible pain to remove its talons from my dead heart ...

And then I was reminded that pain is not so bad. That pain can even be enjoyed. That there are things far, far worse ...

At first, when I enter my crypt and hear a human heartbeat, I think that Dawn must be here. Dawn. A smile comes to my face as I think of my 'Bit. I know that while I had been out she had gone into my head, that she had seen everything I had gone through. Granted, the X-rated pics of the Slayer were probably not good for her but still ...

She understands. Dawn understands and in doing so she has helped me more than she'll ever know, more than I'll ever be able to tell her. It's been a real long time since someone has bothered to understand me ...

I jump down the manhole, not bothering to use the steps, and that's when I see her. Buffy, my Slayer, my love.

She stands up suddenly, lookin' guilty when she sees me. I only stare at her as she looks down, her short blonde hair coming forward to partly conceal her eyes from me. She scuffs one shoe against the cement floor, and when she raises her head again, I am surprised to tears glistening in her eyes.

"Spike?" she whispers, and her hazel eyes flash black as she takes in the face of the man she loves. Yes, Slayer, I wear his face, and I am sorry. Sorrier than you know that it has to be this way.

And then she tells me that she is sorry, that she didn't know ...

Buffy has not come to me once since I had woken up that first time in her room. Had not said a single word to me, and now that she's here, now that she's sayin' she didn't mean to ... I-I don't know what to do.

"Dawn told me." she whispers, and her voice is haunted, deadened. It should be, I think. After all, she is grieving for the love she has lost, and I've been there. I know how that goes. "I--I didn't think ... I didn't know ..." she pauses, pressing her lips in her struggle to say whatever it is she feels she must.

"She ... she told me that you thought I knew. That I was trying to punish you ..." she takes a step forward, and I can see the sadness in her. The remorse and the melancholy that permeate her every not-wrong molecule, that form her every expression and control her every movement. "I didn't." she murmurs, "I thought he was you ..."

My eyes widen at that, and she must have noticed because it's then that she throws back her head and begins to laugh. "I was so stupid!" she half-screams, collapsing onto the bed as her laughter turns to shaking sobs. "I knew how it was with Angel but I told myself that this was different, that he was just you with soul sprinkled on top ..."

I walk to her cautiously, sitting down on the edge of the bed and reaching out to grip her fingers with mine. "Did you want it to be me?" I ask quietly.

She shakes her head. "I-I don't know. I guess I wanted everything."

I guess she did. I guess she wanted me, the BigBad, the fighter, the vampire, only with Jiminy intact. Problem is, you can't have the demon and the soul. It's a bit of a 'one or the other' type o' deal.

But of course, she had loved him.

"And you know what makes me feel so sick about all of this?" Buffy sighs, her shoulders hunching down towards her chest like she's collapsing in on herself. Like she was crumbling into dust right in front of me.

She turns her head then, looking me straight in the eye. "I would ask you to do it all over again. Even knowing what you went through, even knowing that you would be stuck behind him, watching me and hating me and going crazy, I would want you to do it again." Her voice breaks, and something in me rips right along with it. "I loved him ..."

She moves to get up, but I grab her arm tightly, stilling her. "Buffy ..." I choke out as tears burn my eyes. I mean, I knew it. I knew she wanted him back ... but to hear it coming from her lips ... well, it hurts. It hurts like the sun and Holy water and stakings and Buffy. It's just about the most painful thing I've ever experienced ...

No, it's not. It's not even close ...

"All I ever wanted was to die for you." I amend myself when she raises an eyebrow. "I mean, besides you loving me back all I wanted was to prove that I did, that I could love you. Something big and fantastic, go out with a bang you know? Sacrifice myself for the woman who wouldn't believe that I loved her ..."

I shudder softly, remembering the time I had spent trapped behind William's soul ...

"And now?" she whispers.

"If it was about pain, I would do it." I tell her. "If I had to send myself through fiery torment for the rest of eternity, I would do it. But to ... to be trapped like I was ... seeing, hearing, but not able to ... not able to feel ..."

I close my eyes, bowing my head as a single tear makes a course down my cheek. "I can't, Buffy. I-I can't go through that again. I was going insane, luv. I was losing my mind. Much more and I'd have ..."

She squeezes my hand briefly, tightly as she moves to get up. I meet her eyes, and she gives me a small smile as the remnants of her tears glisten on her face, making her seem angelic or ethereal. Beautiful Sunkist.

"No," she says softly, "I don't suppose you can."

She walks out, and I stretch out on the bed, staring at the cold, gray ceiling. I know with those words she had forgiven me, that she had given me everything she had left of her to give.

Before, I would have lost everything along with her but now ...

Now I have the cool hair breezing across my skin, the soft rustle of the sheets beneath me. I have the musty smell of my crypt and the hum of my refrigerator upstairs. I have the scents of human and car and California pollution wafting through the air. I have my vampiric senses pickin' up on the prey moving outside, of the other demons who share with me this Hellmouth ...

I don't smile, but I feel like I could. A sleepy feeling is working its way through me and I know I am content, happy even. The world is my oyster, as Shakespeare would say, and I am going to feel every moment that takes place on my stage. I'm never going to lose sight of what makes unlife worth unliving again ...

I close my eyes, and I feel.

I feel everything.

Except for her ...

The End
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