Where There's Smoke
"You don't understand," Angel began.
"I think I do," Buffy answered, fingering her stake.
"I'm sorry-"
She cut him off. "Surprisingly, I'm not."
She plunged the stake into his heart, and smiled at the shocked look on his face as he crumbled into dust.
**
She sat up in bed with a hastily stifled shriek, clutching at her neck as she struggled for breath. Any dream of Angel dying was sure to terrify her, but she had- she had been the one to-
What was wrong with her? How could her mind think up such a thing? She was shaking with fear and self loathing, because such a dream had no right to surface in her subconscious.
She fell back on her pillow, huddling into her blankets, and tried to take slower breaths. It didn't work, unfortunately. The vision of her beautiful ex-lover crumbling into filth was burned into the back of her eyelids, and she stayed awake until sunlight poured into her windows, sunlight as deadly as she.
**
That night, Buffy eyed her bed like it was yet another demon, as if she were afraid it would bite.
She donned her pajamas as she would burial vestments, an unnatural solemnity manifesting itself in her deliberate motions. When she climbed under the covers, she was actually trembling with apprehension.
**
Angel smiled at her as she jumped into his arms, attacking his mouth with her own. He moaned as she pressed up against him, guiding him toward her predetermined destination.
He was, like always, oblivious to his surroundings as long as she was in his arms. She had always loved knowing that no matter what, he would always be this for her- completely biddable.
And then he began screaming as she forced him into the sunlight. A tendril of satisfaction snaked through her mind, and she clapped her hands as his pale skin burst into flames.
**
Willow shook her awake, her eyes troubled at the distress Buffy was suffering that caused her body to go rigid with screaming. The exultation of Buffy's dream persona was proportional to her own terror, and it took her a good fifteen minutes to recognize her presence in reality.
She couldn't answer Willow's concerned inquiries. Her normally clever eyes were wide open and completely ringed in white. She wanted neither reality, because Angel's death would destroy her, but a life poisoned by treacherous dreams would achieve the same effect eventually.
This was her Achilles heel. She could not survive this, this invasion of her psyche, this usurpation of her deepest desires. And an invasion it had to be, because she could not allow herself to believe that she wanted these images to ever come true.
**
"I miss you," she said in a small voice.
"I miss you, too," he admitted, still incapable of denying that she was his weakness. He turned away, trying to maintain any semblance of composure, when he heard the grating of metal on metal behind him.
"What are you-" his sentence was cut off with his head, and Buffy twirled the axe in her hands with a giggle.
"Quite an arsenal you have here, Angel." Dropping the weapon in the rapidly settling dust, she walked out.
**
Angel walked into his apartment to find every available surface covered by softly flickering candles.
"Buffy?"
"In here," her voice called out from the bedroom.
He followed the sound, and his eyes drank her in as she sat on his bed, the candlelight bathing her with the same fiery light that was always to be found in her eyes.
He walked over to her, and she dragged him down by the lapels of his coat. He locked his hands together behind her back, and so complete was their entanglement, that when she grabbed one of the candles and set his shirt on fire, he couldn't react quickly enough.
As the flames spread from his clothing to his skin, Buffy stretched contentedly on the bed. When the torch that had been Angel finally died out, so did he, and Buffy fell asleep with a smile on her lips.
**
"Let me wash your hair," she pleaded, making puppy eyes up at him.
He acquiesced with a smile, and a short time later, her strong fingers were massaging shampoo into his scalp.
"Time to rinse," she sang, lifting a large pitcher of water.
The water was lukewarm, but steam rose as she poured it over his dark head. The soap rinsed away along with his flesh, and his pain filled cries swirled away as the holy liquid dissolved his throat. His head essentially gone, he was transformed into a powdery residue on the porcelain of his tub.
Buffy walked to the sink and washed her hands, a smile hovering around her lips.
**
Buffy was going mad. She never went to bed anymore, but she would fall asleep in uncomfortable chairs and wake up crying out.
There was an ugly suspicion growing in her mind, a suspicion that she had no charity left in her, a suspicion that she was as monstrous as any of the creatures she had killed over the years. It seemed that every blink of her eyelids conjured up a new and more horrible death for the man she was still trying not to love.
She didn't go to classes anymore, and she barely even recognized Riley's name. It never became an issue, however, because she was cloistered at Giles' house until a solution could be found. Her frantic screams tended to last indefinitely, and it was impossible for her to remain in her dorm. She refused a guest bed, and she ate nothing. She had great difficulty remembering which of her friends went with which name, and she called Willow 'Xander' on a regular basis. Her hands would twitch with nervousness and fatigue as she sat staring into space for hours on end.
She was horrific.
Her friends were trying to research her affliction, hoping to find a demon to fight, but she seemed to know their search was in vain. It was her. She had made some sort of misstep, some grave error without realizing it at the time.
It was almost like the time she had experienced continual telepathy, but the only voice she could hear was Angel's, and he never spoke. He just screamed.
Their world had always been made out of love and death. What if love was removed from the equation?
**
Angel touched her shoulder lightly, but she flinched away, her movements jerky. She looked up into his eyes and stopped breathing, encountering a fear she was completely unaccustomed to.
"Get out," she hissed, squeezing her eyes shut, not wanting to watch him die again. It would be her, her fault...
"Buffy-"
She fell off the couch, scrambling away, not trusting herself. She was capable of anything. She was more brutal than even Angelus.
"You'll die if you stay. Don't you know that I'm a killer? I keep on killing you, you keep on dying, and you always scream before you shimmer into dust. Go away. Go, and live. Don't die, please!"
"I won't."
"I burned you, I melted you, I set you on fire-"
"You always did. From the first time I saw you."
She looked up at him, her glazed eyes becoming clearer. He was with her. And he looked alive. But his appearances were deceiving-
"Love is death, Buffy." He took her tiny hand and engulfed it with his own, and she felt fire. "But resurrection follows hard upon."
A flicker of hope flashed in her eyes, though despair damped it at once.
"Have I ever failed to return to you? Have you ever killed me enough to keep me away?" he asked softly.
The breach in her sanity was large, but she thought she might...just...
Sleep.
And dream of life.