Sense Memory 
~Scent~ 

The problem with living in a crypt is, well, it smells like a crypt.  Stagnant air and the acrid dust of buried dead.  He burns candles constantly to drive away the scent and toyed briefly- *very* briefly- with the idea of aerosol fresheners or potpourri.  But he won't burn incense.  It reminds him too much of Dru.  Sometimes after killing the inhabitants, she liked to set a house on fire and throw merry handfuls of frankincense and myrrh upon the flames. 

So he lights another cigarette and tries to ignore the smell, all the while cursing preternaturally sensitive nostrils.  A nose that catches everything: danger, sex, the aromas of demons and humans.  He never wanted that, those mortal aromas, the bite of salt and dust.  Better to leave it alone.  But no, he's got the smells of hot chocolate and couch cushions and musty basements to remember them by, he's got the bleedin' Scooby Gang stuck up his nostrils.  Bloody hell. 

He never wanted this. 

Some of them have simple scents- mildew and laundry detergent, mothballs and steaming cups of Earl Grey.  Some are more complex.  The little witch, for instance, smelled like an ancient wisdom trapped in a child's body: motherwort, wolfsbane, and caramel popcorn, mixed in with the subtle yet distinctive scent of her new lover.  As for her last lover... werewolf.  Blood and fur.  That overwhelmed everything else, even the witch's scent and the unmistakable hint of cannabis.  Because sometimes *what* you are is more powerful than *who* you are. 

She always smelled like a Slayer to him; he's killed a few and he knows their scents: metal weaponry, clean sweat, and graveyard soil.  Inhuman blood spattered on her clothing, adrenaline and sometimes- less so with her than with the others- the lightest stench of fear. 

But she is human as well, more human than any of her predecessors that he has known.  California girl.  Salt oceans and campfires, oranges and just the slightest hint of vanilla.  Her own subtle smells, buried under the weight of duty and attachment.  Because sometimes *whose* you are is the most powerful thing of all. 

She used to smell of him. 

They say vampires have no scent, and such is true; no scent of their own, at least.  Animated corpses, they bear neither the scents of death nor of life.  But they acquire smells- some only of the sewers they inhabit or the graves from which they rose, but smells nonetheless.  If he closes his eyes are breathes deeply, drawing air into his dead lungs, he can still remember the sweetest scent of all: his lover's, or she who he thinks of as his lover even after all these months.  Remembers her in her subtle scents.  Dead roses and night-blooming jasmine.  Feathers.  Dusty spellbooks- cloves- burning candlewax.  Velvet and lace, many decades old.  Shattered porcelain dust and the smell of his own blood beneath her fingernails.  The smell of centuries. 

His new lover- bubblegum and bedsheets, the sickening smell of menthol.  And his own scents, familiar to him now- leather and nicotine, whiskey, peroxide.  And blood, always blood.  Human or immortal, that hasn't changed. 

The scents of the undead rarely do.  When they finally met again, Sire and Childe, in the silent hallways of the high school, little had changed about that.  Hairgel where there once had been cigars; stale blood exchanged for fresh.  But underneath that:  leather, cinnamon, Irish whiskey.  And sex.  Can't forget that. 

But, over that, a sickly-sweet coating: oranges and vanilla. 

"You think you can fool me?" 

And when he finally met her, close enough to fight, he knew. 

"It won't hurt a bit." 

"No, Spike.  It's gonna hurt a lot." 

Oh, and it did.  It hurt.  It screamed inside of him like holy water coursing through his veins.  She smelled of him.  How dare she?  This human, this Slayer, this- *child*?  She smelled of his Sire. 

But God, dear God, when he bent his fangs to her throat, when he fought her in darkness or in sunshine, when he clutched her passionately, his hatred of her befuddled by a spell, he could still smell it.  Angel's scent, clinging to her like a ghost. 

But it's gone. 

It lingered even last winter and through the spring.  Leather and cinnamon and the unmistakable scent of his Sire, hanging onto her skin with a few last desperate breaths.  But now, as she comes to him with fists full of rage and blood money, he realizes that it's gone.  She smells of the Other now, of open fields and Coca-Cola, freshly cut grass and cotton t-shirts and daylight.  Oh, and underneath that- the other, hateful scent that the boy still bears even after the long summer.  The scent of sterile scalpels and psychopharmacological drugs and crisp white lab coats.  The scent of pain.  He hates the soldier for these things, but he hates her more for tolerating them.  It would be so much easier if she was as cruel and careless as her lover, if she reveled in the antiseptic horror of it all.  That is evil of a sort: not an evil that he understands, but an evil nonetheless.  But she doesn't, and he *knows* she doesn't.  The horror and sympathy in her eyes as he stood across the Watcher's threshold and explained his predicament.  She pities him, and while that isn't pleasant, at least it's something.  She hated and feared the Initiative almost as much as he, and she hates and fears her lover still for what he knows and what he did, and it doesn't change a damned thing.  And this is why it infuriates him to no end, this new smell that hangs on her like a parasite.  She was his Sire's lover.  In spite of everything, in spite of anger and fear and jealousy, he respected that.  He can't respect her for being the soldier's whore.  He isn't sure why she tolerates the boy and all his military, boring, X-Files-esque psychological baggage.  Security, perhaps?  Apathy?  Because she sure as hell doesn't do it out of love.  He's seen her in love before, and he knows what it smells like. 

Oh, and he wants her to smell that way again.  Of Angel.  Of the one that won't either one of them go.  He's sure that his Sire's scent still lingers on him somewhere, even after all this time.  Dru's presence wouldn't have driven it away, because she belonged to him as well.  Because sometimes *whose* you are is the most powerful thing of all and maybe if he took the slayer here, on this stone slab in this cold, dank, smelly crypt, he could imprint her with that scent again and they could both belong to Angel one.  last.  time. 

But he doesn't think about those kind of things.  That way madness lies. 

So he lets her come to him with anger and fear in her eyes and money in her hands, lets her beg for her soldier's life.  He lets her come because he can remember a time when he could close his eyes, inhale, and it was almost as if Angel was there in the room.  Lets her come because in spite of gibes and insults about his current condition, she needs him and his vampiric strength to save her little mortal toy soldier's ass. 

"Is the enormous hall monitor sick?" he asks, an innocent expression on his face.  "Tell me, is he gonna die?" 

She strikes him, once, and glares at him in rage.  "He's not the only person who can die." 

**Oh, but he is.  You and I, Slayer... we are the warriors, we are the eternal, we are those who stubbornly refuse to go gently into that good night...**  He knows it is true and, in spite of herself, so does she.  She wasn't cut out for this sort of work.  Not the slaying, but the opposite.  Loving humans.  Because humans get hurt, and humans die, and she isn't even allowed to stop fighting long enough to weep over their bones.  She's known it since the day she took her first immortal lover.  No one else gets it done for her.  She's not strong enough to love the weak. 

And that's why, underneath the hatred, he can smell her desire. 

~Finis