#infiernc

                 Fresh from the mayhem of the Bronze ( that had since been tempered, thanks to swift unscheduled slayage ), Buffy paces a few brisk steps across the concrete. There’s nothing left but a quiet lull of indistinct music that filters out into the dank back alley, to accompany this somewhat terse encounter. Her opponent had almost given as good as he got, but then again… he’s dust. She’s better. The scrapes and cuts and bruises were simply superficial.

Buffy offers a withering half-hearted stare, the arm that had been yanked and forced out of joint held gingerly at her side. Like a ghost, sure enough, he’s there. He’s always there, watching her. “ —Are you done with the running commentary? I’m fine. ”

          With a flick of the wrist his lighter is alive, cherrying his cigarette. Spike leers, leaned up against the brick wall of the alley. Even shrouded in smoke he makes the tongue he presses against his front teeth conspicuous, salacious. “Certain you don’t need a pop?”

His brows quirk - wipe the scum off his sentiment and she’ll find it’s an honest offer. It isn’t likely to be accepted easily, he understands. Stranded in the Mojave, he’d have to pull teeth to get the slayer to accept a glass of water from him. Even still, Spike pushes off the wall, the cigarette stuck in the crook of his mouth and his hand gesturing for her arm slung at her side.

                      “ —That’s just it… I turn my back, everyone dies. Or those girls will be picked off one by one… Either way… ” Buffy’s voice trails off, defeated, the end of that sentence dying on her tongue. And she tucks both arms around herself, turning her face morosely to the nearby window, bathed in moonlight.

The quiet dirge of distant wildlife sounds beyond the vacant home. There’s not much left in the way of a populace in Sunnydale, now that the dawning of the end times has begun. The once sun-drenched dystopia has been rendered a ghost town, save for the final resolute few. But their ragtag first front has dwindled in numbers; Potentials have already been lost, and the rest can’t possibly prepare themselves for what’s coming. They’re waiting for the inevitable. In the end, it all falls to Buffy.

Either way, they’re dead because of me.

“You’ve never turned your back. Far too dumb, I suspect,” the insult is distinctly admiring, typical. He watches her from his spot on the edge of a bed that belongs to neither of them. Everyone is gone now, there’s no illusion of government or enforcement anymore. Buffy truly is the law. It’s a heavy burden he can see weigh on her shoulders, awash in blue light from a waxing moon. 

                 The flesh between her knuckles sings with pain, but it hadn’t stopped her from landing a second merciless punch, knocking Spike hard onto the asphalt. There was no sleek Slayer finesse to it; It was brutal and ugly. Everything her power is rooted in; Darkness. Buffy glowers in revulsion at the leather-clad form at her feet. She feels another surge of ripe disgust. It curls down her spine, beneath her skin. He’s taken a worse wailing from her before. But it doesn’t mean she doesn’t make it hurt. “ Stop—. ” God, she sounds desperate, and shaken. Brimming with denial. “ You don’t—! You can’t feel anything. ”

              buffy knew, deep in her heart, that she couldn’t stay in this relationship with angel for long. she knew that but she didn’t want to believe it nor accept it. she’s found someone that she loves with every small part of her soul, someone that understood her and connected with her in ways she hadn’t connected with anyone before. she was young, she knew this, but a part of her didn’t care. she wanted to be like this every night with angel. cuddled up into his body, letting him engulf her completely as she slept warmly and soundly.

                            her hand had clenched his shirt at his chest, not tightly but not too loosely either, as she slumbered in his arms, dreaming of the impossibility that they could discover some sort of normalcy between them. she dreamed of a future that she could never reach with a vampire she’d always love.

she hadn’t completely woken up just yet but the sound of his voice had peered through her dreams and caused a smile to erupt on her lips. with half-lidded eyes and a sleepy grin, she responds.