ethrosdemon & Lar ||| Buffy & Angel

Reconfiguration VIII
by Lar and ethrosdemon

EMAIL: naturallycalm@yahoo.com =and= HERE
Disclaimer: Neither Lar nor ethrosdemon own Xander, Angel or Spike, their souls, their demons, or their attitudes. Suing will only make us chuckle at you, and give us things to mock.
Rating: R
Spoilers: Epiphany, The Body
Dedication: To Aimee who issued the challenge. We've got you listed on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted. To Rabbit, our Spike-tutor, and to Sam for not suggesting we put Lindsey in the fic when she beta'd. (Although Lar wanted to anyway and ethrosdemon had to beat her with a shoe to make her stop.)

============================

Under him, Xander feels leather, instantly, he knows he's home, in that clarity of awareness dreams give you. The scent of evening primrose and jasmine mixed with blood and fear-spice blanket him; turning, he sees that the double doors to the garden are open. He stands and moves to walk that direction, but behind him, he feels the pull of presence, and finds himself back in the chair he just left. Spike is standing over him dressed in midnight blue pajamas, cigarette in one hand, book in the other.

"Forever is a long time, lad." From the open French doors, female voices drift in, snatches of songs, two lines of a riddle.

"Not like you know any better than me, you're not that old." Spike moves, draws his eye, and he's dressed in ubiquitous leather duster and jeans.

"Old enough to know what loneliness is. He'll never let you keep them." Spike points over Xander's shoulder, and when he follows the line of the finger, Tara's silhouette frames the right hand side of the door way.

"Don't listen to him, Xan. Smoke and double talk," she intones with a half-smile curving her lips.

He returns the grin, and he's standing again, this time in his bedroom, stripped to the waist. The door flies open, and Willow's head pops into the crack.

"Your Daddy is mad at me." Xander shoves aside the cool corpse in his bed, rolling it onto the floor and listening to Willow approach. Not turning, he responds "What did you do now?"

"Existed." A hand clamps over his mouth, huge and un-Willow; an arm around his waist draws his torso into a broad, male chest.

"When did I give you permission to leave my bed?" Terror overwhelms him, and he knows with complete finality, there's no escape. Until the hand on his face falls away, and the one about his waist turns him. Angel's face is lit with a wicked smirk, and Xander can see his arousal straining against the fabric of his pants. "I brought you something."

Angel indicates the bed, and Xander sees Cordelia bound, gagged and naked and thrills at the site.

The wild look in Cordelia's eyes, and his utter bliss that it's from fear of him chases Xander into wakefulness. He rolls over in bed and the clock on the bed-side table tells him that's it's just a bit after eleven. He can't remember the last time that hour found him asleep. Tries to block out the dream by thinking about Willow and Dawn on the doorstep at 9 that morning, bearing bags of blood in a cooler and a playstation. The day filled with those two plus Tara after her class, talking, videos games, and far more stress than he can deal with so far from any steadying rock. Kept feeling the confession of his time with Spike and what led to it in the back of his throat and had to stay on guard constantly to keep himself from falling at their feet and begging them to help him. When he wasn't listening to the thrum of the blood flooding out from their hearts to the extremities of their bodies. That thought brings the dream back up, and he rolls out of the bed and heads to the shower.

Slightly more relaxed and half-dressed, he's on the top stair when he hears a steady beating on he front door, runs down to answer it, hoping and dreading that it might be Buffy, finally. Swings the door open and isn't surprised to see Spike, doesn't bother to try and keep the irritation from his face as the other man looks him over from head to toe.

Spike grunts at him, waves his hand in exasperation. "You look sleep rumpled. What the hell are you doing sleeping at half twelve?"

Xander keeps one arm across the doorway, unnecessary block but making his point anyway. "You would be too if you were up all day."

"There's something wrong in the world when a vampire can't sleep in peace in the daytime." Spike shakes his head with real regret, sounds morally insulted, if such a thing were possible for him.

"Tell Wills and Dawn and Tara that." Xander catches himself falling into the banter, jerks back into the place he wants to be, distant and irritated, and showing it. "Why are you making small talk with me?"

Flutter of eyelashes, sarcastic parody of the starry eyed beau, "Can't you tell I'm tryin' to romance you? All the flower stalls were closed. You gonna invite me in?"

"You really are as stupid as you look." Snort of laughter to punctuate that remark, and Xander makes a move to close the door. Spike puts a hand up, waves Xander outside.

"Come on then, let's go."

Head shaking as he replies with a determined, and he hopes forceful, protest. "I'm not going anywhere with you."

Spike heaves a sigh, shoulders moving with the effort, and explains himself with exaggerated patience. "Why do you have to be such a pain in my ass? You know you're coming, I know you're coming, just get your bleedin' coat and come on!"

"Where do you want me to go?"

That earns him a grin, tip of pink tongue visible between his parted teeth. "For a little nosh and then an après dinner fuck, what else?"

Stubbornly Xander shakes his head again. "No, no way. I'm not feeding from people anymore. Giles gave me some blood bags, I already ate." But he doesn't shut the door.

"Who are you trying to convince? Me or you? Just come with me, and we'll see how strong your resolve is to walk the thorny path." Lights a cigarette as he waits, sees the expressions that flick across Xander's face in rapid progression, resolve falling into weakness and hunger. Sees him shake himself like a dog shedding water as he tries to rid himself of the desire to feed on hot living blood, something that Spike has never lost despite the months of forced denial. Something no vampire ever loses, not even Angel, although he would never own up to it. Not even to himself and certainly not to his pretty pet here.

"Just leave me alone." Growl in Xander's voice, rumble of the frustration that Spike has finally managed to stoke into some kind of flame for him to feed. The boy's temper has not improved by the demon within, and it's the easiest manipulation in the world.

"You don't seem to be comprehending the blackmailing portion of the program. You stay in, refuse to feed so I can't feed, then your number's up. Quit stalling, I'm famished." Drags heavily on the cigarette, exhales and tosses it to the step, grinds his boot on it and sends up an arc of orange sparks before it gutters out.

Xander watches him for a minute, then turns away, reaches for his jacket. Shrugs into it as he walks out the door. "I fucking hate you." Clicks the lock into place and follows Spike down the sidewalk.

They're at the street when Spike turns to him. "Try not to kill 'em this time, the brooding puts me right off my shagging."

===========

Xander lets his mind wander as he trudges along, one or two steps behind Spike as they walk in what appears to be a fairly straight line to their destination. He snaps back to himself when he recognizes the dorm where Buffy and Wills lived last year. "Spike, we appear to be on campus."

"Your intelligence is staggering. Too bad they don't let demons in as guest lecturers." Pace unhurried and unchanging as they cross lawns, brush by students ambling around the campus late at night.

Xander's head whips back and forth, absurdly sure that Buffy will turn a corner any minute and take a major wig over seeing him with Spike. "Why are we here? People I know live here."

Spike looks back over his shoulder. "Don't worry, where we're going, none of your little friends would be caught dead." Again with the grin, an expression Xander is growing to loathe more every single time he sees it.

"Since when did you become the pun master?"

"Must be proximity to you." Spike stops abruptly, and Xander walks right into him, too busy watching everywhere for a familiar face to spy him. Half hoping one of them does come by to drag him off and spare him the wreckage that looms ahead.

"This is the tri-Delt house." Unspoken question - what the fuck are we doing here?

"Yeah, it is, istn't it? They seem to be having a little shindig." That's an understatement if he's ever made one; the music loud enough to make the panes of glass shudder to the heavy bass beat, the spray of debris all over the lawn, empty plastic cups that are synonymous with keggers strewn in a fallout pattern away from the house. There's someone heaving in the bushes at the side of the steps, and to Xander's increasingly acute hearing it's as loud as if it was amplified. He feels his own stomach clench in sympathy, swallows it down and wonders how that sound can make his want to vomit, but the thought of going over there, ripping the guy's throat out and sparing him the process of dry heaves and a hangover makes his head swim with giddy hunger.

Turns instead to Spike, pokes him in the chest with his finger. "How the hell did you know they were having a party?"

The blonde scoffs at him. "Like I'm gonna give up my sources, come on."

The smell of alcohol and vomit war for dominance when Xander walks through the door of the sorority house. No invite necessary, common room, and doubtless one would have been easy enough to come by anyway if they'd needed it. Half the people who're still on their feet are drunk and the other half are way past that point of delineation. There are several people passed out on the stairs, limbs rubbery and mouths slack.

"Jello shot?" Perky little sorority girl, right at their elbows, perfect hostess in the carnage of the party, tight, pink sweater still immaculate, hair in two braids with glittery pompoms at the ends. Spike smiles at her, takes the tray out of her hands, and Xander watches in amazement as she blushes at his attention and lets him have it. She toddles off to grab more and help spread the alcoholic joy.

"Everclear, brill invention, dontcha think?" Spike heads over to the steps, balances the tray on the railing, hands Xander a shot. He looks down at the jiggly green mass, watches Spike toss his back and take another.

Xander shrugs. "Always room for jello." The little plastic cups become empty in an alarmingly short span of time, and Spike lets the tray drop. No one even notices the clanging sound, and if they do, they couldn't be bothered to turn and look. Alcohol still goes straight to Xander's head, and he can feel himself loosening up.

"What do you think of that bird over there?" Spike indicates a girl Xander recognizes as Sarah, Veronica's friend from last night and shakes his head.

"Not that one."

"Why the hell not? Looks all innocent and tasty." Blue eyes intent on him, and Xander shrugs.

"I know her name."

"I can see your point. How about that one then?" Slim finger points to a girl with long, thick, blue-black hair, and when she turns Xander can see the tilt to her eyes, porcelain skin, high wide cheekbones. Picks her heartbeat out of the crowd like an old habit and listens to it skip along, hears the rush of blood through her veins. Imagines she'll taste so sweet when he bites down and lets her life wash down his throat...

"Can't we give it a few? Stop pushing me."

"Wanna get good and liquored up, eh? Fine, I'll just mix. Don't try to scamper off on your lonesome." Fixing him with a warning look, Spike turns and melts into the crowd. Xander watches him go, sees the way the girls turn to follow him with their eyes, knows he revels in this attention from the humans he considers a walking buffet even though he's out of cash and can't sample the treats.

Husky voice in his ear, "Nice pants," a light touch on his waist, and Xander turns to see who just managed to invade his solitude in a record breaking fifteen seconds. Not the lovely girl he'd been considering for dinner just moments ago, instead a tall blonde with the brightest green eyes he's ever seen. She's definitely got a Cordelia vibe about her, despite the hand that rests on his stomach, the ice-princess mystique that comes naturally to people as beautiful as she is. He looks down at her hand and back to her face.

"Let me guess," he says. "You're the ambassador from Planet of the Blondes and you come in peace?" Keeps his voice cool, and tells himself that no matter how tempting it is to take her, he can't. Instinct for survival says this one is being watched all the time, eyes on her wherever she goes, and whoever she leaves with will be noted. Not of the good, not at all, and he needs to make her go away. Dark whispers float into his mind at the thought of all that fine flesh laid out for him, and Xander can almost taste her in his mouth when she gives him a wicked slow smile. //why deny yourself? you can kill anyone who tries to stop you, this one is perfect//

"You want to take me upstairs and see how I come?" Licks her lips, and staggers slightly, total give away for the degree of intoxication she's working with. Makes it so much harder to walk away. //no pain, she won't even realize it's not a hickey, grab her fast, Spike won't see you if you're quick// But he doesn't listen to the voice, it's getting more and more difficult to hold it at bay, but his desire to survive the night is stronger than the writhing presence inside his head.

"Not that it's not the best offer I've had in the last, oh, twenty years, but I think I'm gonna pass this time."

The girl shrugs amiably, leans forward and kisses him anyway, slippery, pointed tongue poking between his lips before she turns and walks away, surprisingly graceful as she weaves among the people around her as well as the ones she has to step over on the floor. He loses her in the currents of the crowd, and when he turns back he can feel Spike watching him. Scans the room and finds those blue eyes right away, trained on him while Spike chats with a girl who is twirling her hair and hanging on every word he says, oblivious to the lack of eye contact she getting. Message to Xander loud and clear -- you find one or I will.

The girl with the black hair swings into his line of sight again, and he's struck with the singular knowledge that this is definitely the one. She reminds him with a ping of his first feeding, evokes a bizarre feeling of nostalgia, and he figures what the hell. Her clothes are leaning towards the black and gothic, and that's come to be strangely reassuring to him. Remembers the goth boy who *asked* him to feed, and thinks maybe she'll be one of those, and wouldn't that make the whole thing that much easier? //too easy, more fun when they struggle//

He's by her side in a flash, and she warms right up to him, takes in his wardrobe and relaxes into surface familiarity. It marks him as part of her range of comfort, leather and lycra and pale pale skin. Small talk about the noise, the people, the drinking. Steps in closer and she doesn't mind him getting right up close to her face. He leans in to admire her earrings, long strands of sterling that almost touch her shoulders; she turns her head, brushes her lips across the corner of his mouth. Lets him lead her outside, and Xander never looks back as they exit the oppressive arena of the party and wander towards the heavy shadows that blanket the area between the lecture hall and one of the dorms.

He can smell the alcohol on her, sweating it out under the clothes heavy for this time of year. Figures her about eighteen, a freshman, and plastered to be at a sorority trying to meet people she'll hate. She turns when they reach the full shadows between the buildings, slides the fingers of one hand under the bottom of his shirt.

"My name's..." he cuts her off with a hand over her mouth, shoves her up against the brick-work of the wall as she laughs under his fingers.

"No names. You're just pretty girl in an alley, ok?" Feels her nod, and smells her arousal increase exponentially. Draws his hand away from her face and down he side of her neck.

"Whoa, your hands are cold. Bad circulation or something, hot guy in an alley." Fingers already working at the button on his fly, tiny and delicate, red nails with black at the tips.

"You'll warm 'em up for me, won't you?" Licks along the throbbing vein on her neck and shoves both hands into the back of her pants, her wiggling forward into his mouth and away from the chill of his palms.

"God yes." Pants open, trying to maneuver him into a better position to get her own pants off, and Xander can't wait another second, teeth elongate and slash through her throat far more brutally than he intended. She gasps in pain, brings her hands up to shove him away. No reason here, only the blood and the need.

"I thought they were lying..." he hears her murmur through the bloodlust and passion of the copper tang spurting into his mouth. Feels her struggling subside, her heartbeat beginning to stutter, but doesn't have any inclination to withdraw. Wants this, all of it, the lust in her blood turned sweeter with terror, the ultimate power and those last few drops that're the purest and most fulfilling. The subsiding of the craving, the power of a god, all of that is his in these few seconds with this bundle of flesh in his arms and under his teeth.

"Let her go." Words barely registering, and this close to the girl's death throws, he didn't feel Spike until he was close enough to not even have to raise his voice. Doesn't stop, doesn't give a flying fuck what Spike wants, just two or three more heartbeats, and it will be over.

"I said, let her fucking GO!" A blow to the back of his head causes his grip on the girl to slip, his teeth fall from warm flesh, and she drops to the ground. Her heart still beating, straining, but working, and he feels more bereft than he can ever remember. His most precious desire stolen from his grasp. He hears the creak of leather as Spike raises his arm to strike another blow, and he spins to catch the arm in mid-swing.

"Don't you ever hit me again, William." Sees the reaction that name evokes and takes a visceral pleasure in knowing he caused it.

Cheekbones in stark relief as Spike sucks on the inside of his mouth before gritting out his reply in a voice that's half growl despite his efforts to control it. "You are pushing your luck far harder than you have any concept of."

Xander lets Spike jerk his arm free, reaches down and refastens his pants. "Since when did you become Robin, out searching the night for victims in need?"

Hard finger jabbing into Xander's chest, punctuation to each syllable. "I told you not to kill her."

"And I give a FUCK what you say? This was my kill." Steps on up to the shorter man, lets the height advantage work for a minute until he sees that it makes not the smallest shred of difference to Spike. Realizes that Spike has spent a good deal of his unlife being on the shorter side of the staring game and has come away from it with no discernable dent in his ego or his attitude.

"And one that might have gotten us both dusted. I'm not willing to go silently into that fuckin' final good night for you or anyone else." Mental flash of the wrath of his GrandSire for tarnishing his shiny boy, favored childe led astray by the wayward and unwanted member of the family. Thinks of how quickly he'd become dust in the hands of an wrathful, righteous Angel, blown away from the one thing he thinks he wants most of all, wind taking him further from the already remote possibility of possessing the Slayer. All his do-gooding and staying on the safe side of the street shot to shit because Xander's demon is in fuller control than any of his friends have any awareness of. And that's not gonna happen.

Xander's words startle him with their ferocity. "She's food, Spike. You're so fucking soft now you're saving humans. Look what you're reduced to, sniffing after Buffy's crotch."

Spike's fist connects with Xander's jaw in the same split second it dawns on him what Spike just saved him from, his guilt and his longing to complete the task warring as he falls into loose battle stance and takes a roundhouse kick at Spike's head. Swift deflection, and he's rewarded with the manic gleam in Spike's eye he remembers all too well from years back. Lets his self-hatred and awareness that is was Spike, who has no soul to drive the killing urges out, who just saved the life of a nameless human, fuel the fight.

Kick, block, punch, jab, and no matter how much skill and how many years Spike has on Xander, the younger vampire is still freshly fed and suckled from the vein of one of the most powerful members of their race. It takes ten minutes for Xander to have Spike pinned against the wall with his arm wrenched behind his back.

"Looks like I can take you after all, old man." The rage is still trying to claim him, but the physical struggle has brought focus, and the pain of his own actions is the dominant emotion as he hears Spike's laughter, husky and everything sultry about sex.

"Maybe I let you win." Shoves his hips back to gain firmer contact with Xander's. And that action brings on the other facet of his betrayal of Angel. The feeding wasn't enough, his fall had to come at the hands of walking sex.

"I doubt it. This is between you and me, right, William?" Fingers popping open Spike's fly, pulling his arm up higher in his back with the other, words whispered directly into his ear. Lust high, both of the them sparking their scents into the night, probably sending fledges scattering in a half a mile radius.

"You think you have power over my mind using that name? You're more like him than you know. It's between us, not like I want anyone to know anymore than you do."

"I have power over you, and I'm about to show you how much."

**

Willow hurries past the ear shattering music and drunken students in their mid-week debauch.

"They must have ten brain cells between the whole slobbering group of them." She mutters to herself as she passes to the other side of the walkway to avoid the hulking frat boys and their beer funnel.

Normally, she wouldn't be caught out alone at this time of night, well, that's a lie, she's out alone at this time of night all the time, but she knows it's a bad idea, and at least that's something. She's on her way to the chem. lab to "procure" //Steal! Shut up, Anya, you can't even be quiet when you're gone to Uzbekistan, and this is for a good cause, and damn, I'm stealing again.// ingredients for a spell that Giles would not necessarily approve of, and for which she's missing key non-hellmouthy components. Tara stayed back at the dorm, because it is the first night of her period, and she was deep in meditation, didn't even notice Willow slip out the door.

"Hey, Red, come hit it." The beer bong boys are signaling to her. She waves, and quickens her pace, decides maybe a shortcut is in order. Two buildings down and one over, she knows is if she turns down this path through the buildings she'll...see two vamps fighting over a body.

//Not two vamps. Xander.// Willow feels similar to the night she found out that Angelus had been sneaking into her house when she thought she was safe and tucked away from the evil that lurked in the hearts of demons. Not scared, utterly enfeebled. Spike must have attacked Xander, but now he's pinned against the wall. She doesn't want Spike to have gone back to his old ways, it disrupts her life even more than it has been already, and she can't imagine life with one more gone wrongy type deal. First impulse, to call out to Xander to let him know she's there, and she has a stake in her purse and a thermos of holy water to boot, cross in her back pocket, and the ball of light spell on her lips. Afraid it might give Spike the advantage. So, she holds herself as still as she can, and slides to the left where the shadow of the building covers her pea green pants and purple shirt. When she's fully settled to wait the fight out, she gets a clear view of the girl on the ground. Doesn't recognize her, but the bite on her neck is more than familiar. Confusion swiftly giving over to dread. One of them had bitten her. Mind like a steal trap, perhaps rusty on a couple teeth, but she knows that if Spike's chip were out that someone she knows would be dead, at least one, maybe everyone she knows, and that conclusion brings her to the worst possible thing in the universe. Xander bit that girl.

She doesn't feel the tears rolling down her face, her focus is on the sharp, stabbing pain in her chest, and at first she's scared she's having a full-fledged heart attack at 20. She recognizes it after a second as her heart falling apart, the proverbial one, not the fleshy one. Still not scared of him, even if he did hurt some anonymous girl at a party, she is still Willow, and he's still Xander. She shifts her body and prepares to run over there and rescue Spike, something she doesn't even have to check herself anymore before thinking. Two steps forward, thermos uncapped, her position has altered enough to see the two men in full profile //oh oh oh that's not fighting// tunes back into the night and turns her ears on. Realizes the sounds she took as struggling grunts and moans are of a different variety altogether. Embarrassed beyond belief, enraged, frightened, and hurt the worse since Veruca, Willow caps her thermos and walks to the nearest emergency call box to get an ambulance for the girl on the ground.

**

Guilty and heartsore on too many levels to name, Xander unlocks the deadbolt on the Rosenburg's front door and crosses the threshold. Before he even relatches the door, he hears the heartbeat. Willow smell fills the air, and he knows it's too vivid to be residual. Rushes into the living room to find Willow ensconced in an armchair, her feet folded under her, eyes swollen and bloodshot, studiously attempts to ignore the big honkin' crucifix on her lap.

Throws himself to his knees in front of her, takes her hands and holds them in his, away from the cross. "What's wrong Wills? Did something happen to Tara?"

She tugs them away, one hand fluttering over the pewter and pushing it to the chair, away from him but still within her grasp. She looks at him, tears welling up and spilling over. "Why didn't you tell me? Why did you lie, or not lie, just not say anything? Did you think I didn't love you enough to understand?" Shuddering breath in when she says this last bit, and it hurts him to see her and know he was the one who did it, guilt over so many things that he can't even be sure of which thing she's found out about.

"What are you talking about?" Makes himself not reach out for her hands again even though he really wants to, wants to be touching her. Settles instead for letting one fingertip brush her knee, immense relief when she doesn't flinch away from him.

"You could have stayed with Giles, so there was someone around to look out for you. Even, you could have slept on the floor of my room, anything, if you would have just told us, or not even us, me." Swipes her hand over her face, smearing tears and the remains of her mascara, pushing her hair back from her face. It's wet at the temples and sticks to the skin.

He hangs his head, swallows down his own tears, tries to get a hold on the urge to just tell her everything, all of it, and beg her for forgiveness. Somehow there's a insane thought that if Willow knows it all and grants the blessing of understanding that everyone else will fall in line, see it through her eyes. "Oh Jesus, Wills, which thing are you talking about?"

"Which? I don't care about the gay thing! But that hurts too, I mean, of all people, you couldn't just hint at it?" Sniffles again, looks down at her hands in her lap, gathers her thoughts. "Or hanging out with Spike, because really, no hate for him, but sneaking around? Behind my back? How could you? It's the other part."

Understanding dawns, and with it horror. He sits back on his heels. "You saw me tonight."

"Boy howdy. How many people have you killed? Do you kill them and let Spike drink what's left? Are you..." Tears again and Xander watches her pull herself back together. "You know, a couple?"

He'd laugh if it wasn't all so damn horrible. And even in his instinctive outburst, he finds himself going with self preservation, lying to her." I didn't kill anyone! And I fucking HATE Spike. It was his idea to go to that party, and he made me drink from those people so he could feed from me."

Her brow wrinkles and her voice shimmies up an octave. "People? Where were the others? I only saw one girl." Her heart starts to race, and he hears it speeding up, thrumming like the wings of a tiny bird, her face suffused with the extra blood, her scent spiced with anger and fear. The anger he expects, even welcomes in a way because he knows he deserved it, but the fear cuts through him.

"Not tonight. Willow, please. I can't control it. And I've been having these horrible dreams that are fucking up my mind." He forces himself to stop concentrating on the blue vein that's throbbing in her neck, the way her hair brushes it with every movement of her head, the way he aches to just lean over and bite down, slow and careful, spare her the pain while her blood fills him.

"Please? You think you didn't have a chance to tell me? I wasn't there for you? Xander, I love you more than anyone else in the world, even Tara, and you lied to me when I was willing to do anything to help you. Eating people is bad and evil, and Spike doesn't even do it anymore."

That pisses him off, to be compared to Spike, the fact that she has no true comprehension of what she's talking about, and he jumps to her feet. Sees her flinch from the blur of his movement and he whirls so he doesn't have to watch the disappointment on her face. "He has a fucking CHIP. You think he wouldn't be out there killing three, four people a night if he didn't??"

Turns again, stalks over to the chair and slams his hands down on the arms, trapping her in it, watching her press herself back into the cushions. He leans in, so close he can feel her panting shallow breath on his cheek. "You have no goddamned idea how hard it is! Imagine everyone in the world was made of chocolate, but you weren't allowed to eat them, you had to survive on bagged carob. Could you do it?"

She swallows hard, her eyes flickering from his, settling on his mouth, his ear, the door behind him as she stammers out, "Angel has for a hundred years, except that one little bit...and welll..."

Lets out a flinty chuckle at her words, a dark sound, and he sees her shiver. "Yes, St Angel. He's just fucking perfect, it's he? You don't know him, Willow. You think he doesn't want to rip your throat out? You're deluding yourself!"

"You... you want to rip my throat out?" Her heart trip hammers into a blazingly erratic rhythm and then skips a beat and something inside of him stretches and uncurls itself.

"No, I was talking about Angel...I would never hurt you, never, Willow, I love you." His voice is so quiet that she can barely hear him, and even to her ears it sounds like he's trying to convince himself as hard as he is her.

"Why am I having a hard time believing you? You might love me, but you're not the same person, and you're right, I was deluding myself, because I didn't want to see you for who you are now. But now I do, and you can't change it." Glimmer of temper back in her eyes, and she puts her hands on his shoulders and shoves. Is surprised that he actually moves, that he lets her do it.

He stumbles back a step, looks down at her with eyes that glitter gold behind the sable shadows. "I can change it."

"Xander...Are you threatening me?" Her hand clenches around the crucifix that's still pressed against her thigh, but she doesn't raise it. Yet.

"No, I'm...oh fuck." His head snaps up, eyes clear and bright for the first time tonight. He fixes her with a look that speaks volumes of the agony he's in, and in a blurring whirl of motion he turns and runs from the room. She hears the crack of wood when he hits the door, barrels through it without bothering to use the doorknob, and by the time she scrambles up and gets there, he's gone.

She goes to the phone and dials with hands that shake, listens to the answering machine pick up on the other end. Gathers her strength, forces her voice into something closer to normalcy than she would have believed possible under the circumstances.

"Um, Angel? This is Willow. It's kinda late, you might be asleep. When you get this message though, could you call me at xxxxxxx? It's my parent's house. It's about Xander. Oh maybe leaving a message was a bad idea, I don't know who checks this machine...um, Cordelia, hi and Wesley too. I'm not panicking, I just drank a bunch of coffee, would you tell Angel to call me as soon as he can? Um, ok, bye."

=end =

Part IX



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