"I met a girl, she was a frog princess, and yes, I do regret it now..." 

* 

Sometimes I think being cursed with an overripe sense of smell is the worst of punishment of all. How cruel is it to offer the scent of perfection without ever letting you close enough to touch? 

I must be someone's idea of a killer joke. 

But then I'm in favor of irony. And perfection - oh I've touched that a few times. Never owned it, but I *have* touched it's outer shell. 

And you could lose yourself in its fleeting beauty. 

Watching Wesley, doped up to some kind of bliss, his face more relaxed than I've seen it, Gunn holding onto him like a lifeline - I wanted in. I'm not sure how close I was to opening the door and just letting them know I was around - some steps are too wide for even me to make. But I wanted them to know that even that without light some things cast a long shadow. I'm not saying I'm sorry, or that I regret...and how foolish is that? Because I always regret everything. 

It hangs heavy, it burns me, but I hold onto it because it's the only thing I can still feel. Close my eyes and look into my memory and all that's there hurts, but at least I can feel it. Being numb cuts too deep. 

So I turned to walk away as she saw me. As she slated me - getting in there before I escaped into the black. And even whilst I felt the venom in her words, the hurt behind it was all too visible and we both knew she was saying it whilst she could - before I left them unprotected again. I don't belong in the land of the living, but when the dead don't want you either, there's nowhere left to be. 

Watch Darla; watch her heart stop and the last of what she might have been ends entirely. Watch your childe making the mother, making everything change in a way you might once have approved. Dear one claimed by dearest one - all mist and terror in the night. And I remember pounding into one, tearing at the other as I began this cycle, all loin and lust on one cold night in a distant past. 

I still burn for convents, tearing at virginal flesh with a practiced ease, closing my eyes as they cry for a God who's yet to help them. Bearing cream to the night, watching as I carve death on each body: the personal touch. There was no execution by a faceless mob; in the moment I loved every one. And when her last breath left, when her heart ceased to beat, she saw the pleasure her death brought the beast. 

How could you not love that? 

How can you love me after that? 

They ask, more times than I can remember, often enough to make bite down hard as I hear the question again. They ask who am I - don't I want to be redeemed? Don't I want to be human and pay for my sins? Don't I want to earn the right to breathe? 

Yes, yes, yes - it will never happen. 

They ask the wrong questions, ask of me things I can't tell them. And when I chose my path, choosing new rules in this stupid, timeless war, they wanted me to change. Wesley seeking a route to my redemption; always ready to offer me a compromise. I see the offer in his eyes, in the way he walks and if I needed to take, he would say nothing, but offer me the broad expanse of his back. And until another offered a warm grin and a warm body, saved him, he would come to me still, soft smile and a memory of one I used to know. 

Drooling idiot, yes. Brave knight, yes. 

I watch Gunn take on the role I've so recently vacated, protecting the innocent and those who just claim to be. He risks his life for them, risks childhood friendships for one white man whose smile of ownership is there for the aware to see. And if I close my eyes I can see brown on white, smooth skin covering supple muscle. Bending and smiling and groaning in my property. On me and under me - they both could have, would have been mine. All I had to do was ask. 

All I'd have to do is beg, but ownership papers have already passed me by. Signed and sealed with my words, my lack of words - they've found someone else to do. And the first fucking thing I'd do if I took the third one, if I found my warmth *there*, is gag her. Tie her hands up, tie everything that could flail and break my concentration and just lose myself in creamy skin, tasting Sunnydale sweat and sweetheart. Feel her tense, try and force me out, pitiful face under eyes that don't get enough sleep. But it's not a place I really want to think about - not her arms, not her body, not her - she doesn't offer me anything but added misery that way. 

And I dream of her every night my soul is empty. Little hands, little body - neck so narrow I could snap it without doing much more than clicking my fingers. Remembering how fragile she seemed in my arms, quivering with need and naivety. How it felt to be the monster inside her, building up pressure until she squirmed beneath me, too big, too unthinkable for her to comprehend. How she knew to lie and make that round O face, clenching her feet behind my calves as I brought her near. Near but not close enough - she backed away before she got there, watching me, waiting for the strangled grunt of a male satisfied. 

We jumped from lips to loins without passing a stage in between. And yet I still wanted to see her growl beneath me, thighs squeezing as I took her to her first shared orgasm. I thought I could do that, pressing close, thrusting just...*there*. She didn't want the monster then, wanted to pretend that her thighs were spread for the man she loved. But the beast took her just as equally, just as fervently and when she breathed that she loved me, we both shone in a dark room. 

And I slumped forward, spent, covering her face, suffocating her as I relished in the moment. Tiny hands on my back, clawing me away, trying to fight the panic now that she'd given it up to the vampire. And I could feel her tense as she saw my face, unable to reign it back in as I came with the thunder outside, thunder inside rumbling all the way under her belly. And she said she loved me, again, trembling fingers pushing my hair away from a sweat slicked forehead, already squeezing me away, already trying to rid her body of the demon she'd let inside. 

I wanted to believe, felt her smile, felt her roll out from under me, resting on my chest the way she'd seen in the movies. Saw her shift before I slept, moving away to be alone. And lying in my bed, still hard and ready to go once more, I couldn't remember if I'd ever had innocence given - and if I'd ever really want it again. But this was her - the one who mattered, who made me matter and whose hair I dreamt of stroking before I gouged out her throat. And she'd offered me everything, demanded I take and if she couldn't handle the whole, I was still grateful for this moment when she'd seen the best and worst of me. 

And she'd stayed. 

Darla could never do that. 

Fickle thing, echoing in my ears with love and death and roses, promising me moonlight kisses and weekends of destruction. She tore screams from me, made my head pound with her traitorous body and a smile that grown men would die for. That they have died from. There isn't a single inch of flesh she's not familiar with, from the roots of my hair, to the tips of my fingers, and all that pleasurable skin that never hangs in her presence. She could fuck a man to death and he'd die grinning. 

So in all those weeks when she rode my dreams, making me see what I wanted, feeling what I so fucking need, she couldn't work out why her boy wasn't back. One moment of perfect happiness and all her whoring hadn't given me that, paying out my vice with a willing hand. Because it's not when I come, night after night with some blond thing in the forefront of my mind - doesn't happen in the shower when I can just rinse it all away. I don't blow the roof down for a good piece of ass - not even when it's Darla's. Or hers. Or his. 

I have walls with great acoustics, beds with springs that won't poke you in the ass - I have all these rooms - and they're all empty. I can't fill a single one. When I lie down, it still feels that little bit emptier. And when I close my eyes, I long for dreams to come, any dream - any thing to come and just pour something into all these wasted hours. 

So when I hear the door opening, it's not a sword, or a stake, or fangs bared at the intrusion - right now I just want something to do. Alert, open eyes, no dreaming, no Darla, no slayer come a calling. Just a pent up mass of aggression with eyes that see below every surface and bones that call beyond the grave. And if anything, he looks more in need than me. And I don't think I've ever seen that. I don't think I want to see that. 

But I can see his anger beneath the surface - it bleeds love, like nothing else I know. And that at least I can comprehend - love over centuries burns a hole where your heart should be, tearing at muscle and pounding strength before letting it crumble to ash. Even when I told Darla I didn't love her, that I'd never loved her, that I wasn't capable, I knew it wasn't the demon that stopped me, knew it was the man. Because I've seen vampires love, been witness to the cruelty and passion that isn't just biting to win approval. 

Stood in the doorway and watched him cover her completely, bodies clinging together as he whispered eternity in her ear. Watched her cry out as he took time over her wraith-like frame. Howled at him, tried to make fun of the poet's heart. Beat him, fucked him - tried to understand why he could feel something I can't. Bit down into his throat as he laughed at me, screaming into the darkness as I tried to take it away. 

I can smell them both on him now - Dru's insanity wrapped round his torso, blood recently harvested on his lips. And she's there too, slayer bound with less innocence than I ever saw in her. Her virtues tinged with blackness and rubbed over this beast. No fear here, death was never on the cards for this errant childe and a onetime paramour - but overpowering: waves of disgust and loathing. 

She's got the better of him.

Grabbed him by the balls as she once did me, grabbed me and shook, enchanting me with the promise of humanity. Grabbed him and laughed, taunting the soulless, claiming he can't love, can't do it at all. Screamed at him that he hasn't got the capacity for it, because if she had to believe that, if he made her believe in the depths of a vampire's devotion...how all her walls would crumble. Spike howling his heart into the night, the bleeding and cracked muscle that cannot beat torn apart by a wanton child. Watching her scream, tainted knowledge that humanity is not genetic, but learned. 

And unlearned 

Spike now, all strut and arrogance still, fingers trembling round the doorframe as he glares at me. No ridges visible - no need. Clothes wet and clinging: every shape and angle for my inspection, for my approval whether he likes it or not. Because this is my territory, and if he enters now, claws his hands inside - he's mine for the taking. I want to clean out the heart of Browning's aborted child, pick it apart and find the beat that makes him different. 

But it's all azure eyes now, coldness I haven't got and passion I can't claim to manage. He's standing on a knife's edge between love and hate, eager to tip one way or another, ready to use me as the deciding point. He comes closer, boots trapping on the spider's web with deliberate intent. And I'm so ready for this now. 

He sniffs the air before hurling his coat onto the floor, muscles clenched under his skin, rippling movement as he prowls to the bed. I could move now, take him out or just take him, but it's different to be courted by a sheep in wolf's clothing. So I lay back, watch his approach and unclench fingers, ignoring the nail marks in my palms. There is time for that kind of acknowledgement later. And then maybe, it will be a different nail. 

Length upon length, stretched out as the cat he is above my sheets, eyes still locked and fingers seeking access to his own body. The T-shirt is ripped away, tearing seams and decades old wear in one move. Slim body, well defined, shoulders far narrower than my own, creeping upwards. Knees locked either side of my thighs, pinning the un-pinnable as he draws the strip of leather from his waist and tosses it carelessly to the floor. And I cannot help the smile that edges in - I'm being seduced, finally, by the one creature I've never truly understood. 

And love might finally be mine for the knowing. 
 
 

* 

"...But how was I to know that just one kiss would turn my frog into a cow?" 
 
 

"And now I'm rid of her I must confess to thinking now what might have been..." 

* 
 
 

I scare tigers into early graves. 

I have moved cities with my bite. Clawed and conquered to a family's mocking defeat. I am more than just a pretty sketch of a screaming skull, I'm a fucking animal and no silly little bitch can change that, not for one sodding minute. Women have wept for me, Dru has screamed her lunacy into the night for me, biting and clawing at my back and sounding almost coherent. 

All for me. 

All because of me. 

And someone is going to damn well pay for making me forget that. 

That she didn't love me, that she didn't believe there was something between us - how could I have been so damn blind? I love well. I have always loved well, cleaning areas between Her and me, cleaning everything out of the way and claiming it with a big swooping gone-with-the-wind passion. And I've believed in every moment, sitting, standing, feeding, fucking - all of it mine. 

All of me - hers. 

They bring you low and hard and fast and they do it before you have a chance to take one single breath and stand back. Sweep you away and tell you it's romantic, that 'you're sweet, Will, but not for me'. Not even that, just howling to midnight that you don't belong together, when my heart aches with such pain that it would be easier to rip it out and feed it to her than put up with this. This, this ache of ages, clawing in my head and begging for just one moment of clarity. 

You can't love a slayer. You can't love anyone. 

Stop doing it. 

I can remember sonnets on harsh paper, ink staining my fingers, creeping into calluses on an unworked hand. I remember the turn of a pen as it scratched across the canvas, etching out desire and uncertainty when I wasn't a god. The steady flop of hair across my brow, bent in concentration and willingness to tear this out and have it somewhere I could deal with it, show it her or burn it. Showed it her, she burned me. And under ancient fastenings, I dreamt with willing fingers of taking her into myself, showing her the world through my naïve eyes. And lust, constant companion and enemy, released as she said my name, and gave me what I wanted. 

I've had chosen women in my arms, heard them cry for another, broke and bit and begged for their attention. I've heard them fuck, driving deep into other men's arms, bringing bruises on their chosen, screaming pain and glory for love. Dimpled knees spread as someone else tries to take her to that place, tries to make her stop faking something she scarcely seems able to understand. I have heard him moan, beating her whimper as he gets there first. And I know something he does not - she gets her rocks off on death and terror and succumbing to the beast. 

All she has to do is ask. 

That's the key, that's the thing I should be flinging my torso onto sharpened wood for - I am waiting for her. On my knees and begging for a woman whose blood should be coating my throat. Is this mechanical? Have I been coerced into adoration of my enemy as easily as they tore my fangs from my body? Is this the final hunting call of purity, come to wreak its terrible revenge on one of the lost? 

I am the beast, I am terrible and she will and should and *has* to fear me. It's not a question, or a begging letter of one of the missing - I am more powerful than anything she's seen before and her refusal is more than just a matter of course, it's sealed her fate. Mine was etched in stone long before she fluttered pretentious eyelashes at me - clawed marks on Drusilla's back, deep enough to stand there still. 

And my precious sweetling - once and always the core of my being. Stolen from sanity and given to the poet, she chose me, chooses me still, until I willingly gave her up to the slayer. I begged her death as proof of love, offered the wolf to the lamb and caressed its warm coat as I did it. And in the widest eyes, love lingers still. For one moment, the greatest of my achievements was still willing to be mine, willing me to take the bait and walk away from what I've become. 

And I couldn't do it. Wouldn't do it. 

Wandered back here in search of her, to ask once and for all why me. What does she see, what memories in that addled brain made her take the poet and free his anger? And if she freed that, why couldn't she take this, my weakness and exchange it? To love is all cruelty and teeth - beating hearts traded for punctured whims. And I have had enough. 

Walked into his bedroom and waited for the insults, waited for the fight to come and tear us both finally apart. Wanted to pry into his head and ask just how she felt. Just how does the inside of a slayer creep up and caress you, taking your brain and bending it down. Is warm champagne on offer? Can she really take you like *that*? Is her body really the shelter she pretends it is? 

And in his eyes I can see those answers - all chilled out without the faintest understanding of why he aches. Brown trying for harsh - managing willful and untamed. Managing to express the loneliness of a century within a second, eyes hooded against the warmth, tangled sheets begging it back. I could bring the battle on, demand all of this, but he doesn't move. Doesn't even open his mouth to bring down yet another reason why he is master and I've played catch-up as life's fatty candles have melted down, pooling wax instead of blood. 

He would welcome death now; open his arms and say, 'at last, something new'. He begs approval from mortals and whimpers when they don't get it. And whilst I'd like to break him, tear it all apart and see him scream my name as he becomes dust, here at last is something I haven't seen in eternity. 

He would welcome me in. 

So my hand slips from the frame, reaching for a coat I claimed as a trophy, tearing it away and offering him a little freedom. And though he doesn't move, it's all a welcome - naked body shifting almost imperceptibly beneath crisp sheets, begging for a little attention. Begging for a lot of attention. Shirt comes away, ripped at the seams and onto the floor, air hitting my skin like a wave, heated rooms trying to make up for our inadequacies. For what is any kind of life without warmth? 

And on his bed, clinging thighs around his own, I pull away my belt, tempted to lay marks across a chest that wants to breathe. But he would take it all, would fall on his knees and accept punishment from anyone who would give it. And I'm not paid to take him into sackcloth. So he gets my flesh rather than the stripping of his own. Making love to a statue, I bend into him, press against his chest and watch as clouded eyes flicker, smirk threatening and itching to kiss. 

All lips and hands, kissing him and biting at his taste, feeling him move and just open that mouth a little, tongue already flickering and ready to go. We've never kissed, he and I, never spoken of affection or promise, all mashing together of skin and bones, one beating, one winning, neither the same. But this, a close concoction of desire and repentance, is almost chaste. Soft and tender, his mouth free of fangs and touching moist surfaces, kissing with hesitation. He closes his eyes, as always and I watch as his skin stretches, caressing like an innocent and jaw welcoming my mouth. 

He kissed her this way, touched her innocence as she gave willingly. So I pull back, waiting for him to realize just who and what he's touching now. But his smile is still there - lost in thought and wonder as he tastes forever. And I hunger to feel cold skin under my tongue, hunger to see him cry out the way she should. He watches willingly as I slip down his body, pulling at sheets and finding the pooled damp cotton at his hips, skin supple and soft under my mouth. His fingers seeking purchase in my hair as I bend to lick at his inner thigh, tasting anger and need on his skin. 

Angel whimpers in the warmth, length stiffened by my cheek, aching for touch and release. I could make him beg, but he is already, giving in to my whims without a single thought of tomorrow. Has it got this bad for him, that he'd take the stolen warmth of his own kind before waiting for a dawn that won't kill him? As his hips push up, moisture pressed into my hairline, I don't think he cares any longer. 

I'll make him care - make him feel something besides want. 

And swallowing him whole, I take the passion once fed to an innocent and bend it to my will, tasting and feeding on his desire. He pushes, cramps and gasps as I lick, mouth closed over a willing length, skin sliding up and down as he crunches his fists into the sheets, into my hair. I growl on his cock, eating and draining more than just salty gathering of years untouched by another. He is so easy to take and taste, easy to touch in the moonlight, willing to be claimed and loved. To a point, I'll give him it all. 

And as I swallow hard, taking all he can give me, I swear I can feel his despair within my head. He so wants to be a part of something, to feel anything other than his own icy perfection. If I could feel pity, if I was something other than the beast, I would weep for him now. But the demon rages and I swallow his seed quickly before emotion can really creep in. Fingers pushing and guiding, hands clasped as he reaches for me and offers me fools gold. 

I could cling to this long, muscular form all night, taking this entire offering, teaching this far too old child what it means to make love. For one who has fucked as long and as often as he has, you'd expect some generosity to creep in, but he struggles to see beyond himself, and this select giving of skin is both unusual and exotic. Touch his back, feel the rippling muscle beneath it, the line of a tattoo along his shoulder blade and the curve of his ass, rounded and firmed and open to my will. 

He groans again, murmuring it not to me, but to the pillow as my hands seeks perfection and entrance, rounded globes willing to part under my ministrations. I could tame the panther, could take him into heaven and make him beg for more. Sweat slicked and lush, he arches his back as I thrust, pressing against me, needing to be owned. Has anyone other than Darla felt this? Has the slayer touched him tenderly and known he was hers for then, forever and that the time was finite, despite his promise? Hips flush to the backs of his thighs and I growl again, warm finally, warm within his coolness and willing to take him with me. 

I slip my hands below, caressing, growl shifted to purr as I coax his largeness into life. Watch the edge, watch him whimper in a way only a big man can, putty in the hands of those he cannot truly own. And the longing to be taken, to have him curled round me strikes again, willing that he could offer me more than a fleeting caress in the bed of the enemy. He could be everything, could provide that which they don't and just offer it to me with a hidden smile and fathomless eyes. 

I could love another. 

I snarl against his spine and thrust harshly into him, fangs willing to come forth and bite the beast. But he shudders in ecstasy, clenching and unclenching, the power he's capable of driving me to distraction. I come in shuddering gasps, clinging to him for the first, (for the last) time, binding together in a seemingly unbreakable embrace. And for the moment there is nothing but the panting of the animal in sheets, civilization broken by the unbidden. 

He shifts a little, trying to escape and turn and hold me. Fingers reaching for his lover of the moment, a gentle smile across a too handsome face. Large hands, supportive and willing - a part of him I always remember, that not even years could diminish in my mind. I could sink down now and have this, take his embrace and be here in the morning. I could stop his loneliness and assuage my own. 

I could offer him my heart. 

I reach for my clothes, pulling them on quickly, facing the door. He stirs once more behind me before the bedsprings give and I know he's lying back against the mattress. Cock still matted with his fluids - one more memory to pile up and look back on whenever the booze hits and the stake comes that edge nearer. I stand, flick the collar down and walk out the door, fingers finally stopping their anger-bound trembling, the past left unwarily behind. And I don't look back until I hit Sunnydale, staring through the door of the crypt, briefly wondering if he would follow me. 

And then it's gone and I lean back and sleep. Heart empty for the night. 

Still beating with the beast. 

* 

"...and I can visualize my frog princess beneath a shiny guillotine." 

~finis~