Titled: Death of the Penny
Author: Meghan

email: meghanreviews@hotmail.com

Disclaimer: I want them, someone get them for me? I need to tie them
up...
Distribution: hosts, site, yahoos...

Summary: death...

Rating: NC-17
Pairing: BA

There was an empty feeling, just resting there underneath, near the
surface. The light had dimmed everywhere and his eyes refused to
focus. Not seeing anything, he saw it all. He saw her struggle, and
felt her helplessness, he could taste her tears, and hear her
heartbeat fade, the smell of her skin tingled his senses… but it was
dark and cold and dead.

It was like the floor had dropped underneath him and he was free
falling, choking on breath he did not need. He had sensed her death,
and now was confronted with that bitter truth. She had died, and he
hadn't been here to protect her.

Distant eyes watched Xander scramble to her lifeless body, face down
in the water. He was dressed to pick her up for the party at the
Bronze, and she looked… she looked… she looked… dead. Tears were
prickling the back of his eyelids, as he saw her face revealed to him
lax in silent slumber.

He was detached. But his heart knew what had happened. Death of the
penny. His heart was three sizes too large for his chest as it slowly
withered to dust… the world was hollow and dull. The sunlight he'd
come to depend on had set, leaving him with the darkness of night.
Alone. Without her.

She'd promised him to stay inside the house until he picked her up.
Promised not to go looking for trouble. Promised. Promised. But they
were only words… her skin was turning pale, the flush color leaving
her cheeks.

He couldn't look on anymore, despite Xander's attempts to bring her
back. She'd died! You imbecile! Dead! Gone!  Forever. He was still
alive when she was cold in final death.

He was cold, and wet. He didn't know how he got to where he was, but
he was sitting in the water, pulling her away from Xander. He cradled
her in his arms, gently. She was so fragile. So small. So perfect.

Her makeup was still there on her skin, done artfully in soft
pastels. Although she'd done something to her eyes to make them stand
out, and her lips were bare but for clear gloss. She looked peaceful.

Sobs wracked his body as he hunched himself protectively over her,
away from prying eyes. Rocking, his body shook in agony and
heartbreak. His fingers traced her neck where the Master had bitten
her, as he gently murmured to her in a softly spoken Irish accent the
words of his people.

Someone was trying to pull her away from him, and he fought
desperately to hold onto her. His eyes flashed amber and hostile as
he snapped his head up to gaze at the boy before him. Even his demon
felt the pain of her death as it pressed upon them.

But she couldn't be dead. She just couldn't.

She was his slayer. His beloved.

Fate hadn't killed her. It hadn't! It wouldn't.

Not when he was just learning to be good.

"Angel man let her go, if she drowned we still have a chance."

He didn't hear the words, but he felt them tremble through his body,
and he reluctantly released his beloved into the hands of one of her
dearest friends. He couldn't find the strength in himself to
function. He had no reason to care about the world anymore. There was
nothing good left in it when she was not here to be a part of it with
him. 

Hope did not exist anymore. How could he change without her there to
push him to be better. To become more, and to prove them all wrong.
Through her he had obtained the unobtainable. He had been given love,
and he had been able to give love.

Now, it had vanished with the cooling of her skin. Vanished without
him ever having a chance to tell her what she meant to him. In its
place, something tangible hardened, something to defy all that he had
known since knowing her.

There wasn't self loathing, or regret, or misery. There was pure
blinding hatred. The Master was going to die for his crimes here
tonight. He stood out of the water, and left them both there in the
dimly light throne room before heading out into the night.

He would not rest until that bastard was hung from his toes and
tortured for an eternity of hell. His eyes cleared but for the new
red haze rimming the edges as he stormed out of the sewers and up
above. His mind calculated and formed his plan, but his body was
ready for action. His soul wasn't a help here because it was still
grieving, his heart demanded blood. Her killer's blood.

It would be done tonight. No waiting, no artistic plan of
assassination, this wasn't a surreal murder. It was a vengeance gig.
Whether avenging or revenging he didn't know or care. Could be both,
but the night wasn't over yet. He might have the answer with the
Master's blood sliding down his throat, or when his hand's tightened
in his chest's cavity in a death grip on his heart.

He knew where Tidel was going, he would go to the hellmouth and would
call forth his demons. That wasn't going to happen. The Master rested
beneath the library, and beneath him lay hell. Hell was going to rise
and meet a fury and its master's death. Call it what you will, he was
going to win.

Glancing up to the roof of the school, he saw Tidel walk into the
florescent light that illuminated from below. He distantly heard
shrieks, but ignored them in place of his targeted prey. The grinning
bastard would see the harsher side of hell tonight.

Climbing the stairs slowly, he lengthened the enjoyment, by heralding
time's passing slowness. Each moment to come would be savored and
relished in sadistic glee. The night air danced upon his cooled skin
with wicked fire, as the song of the crickets accompanied him to the
roof.

"Good evening Tidel."

The Master turned and smiled largely, "Angelus my favorite childe, I
thought you wouldn't come here to rejoice with me in my newly found
freedom."

"Oh, I would have come no matter what. You'd think I would miss
this?" He smiled a bit, a darkness creeping into his soul, turning
the smile into something sinister.

"Never crossed my mind. Come let's bleed those mortals below. They
think they will win, but they don't realize that they've already
lost. Sentimental creatures. Couldn't harm a fly."

"But that's the difference between them and us. We are vicious and
cruel, and take delight in our kills."

"Too true, Master Angelus, although a few have wicked souls that also
delight in the blood of an enemy."

"I do have a sense of blood craving as of late."

The Master turned away from the spyglass and gave him his best smile
of parenting joy.

"You surprise me. For years your soul has controlled you, letting
humanity take over. Been trying to break you of that for a long
while. Good to have you discarding that nonsense."

"I agree."

His posture changed, and his face curled around into a bright shiny
set of fangs as he sauntered up to the Master. Laying a hand on his
shoulder, he leaned in to hiss beside his ear.

"A life is such a sacred thing, well not mortals, that the taking of
it requires a certain intimacy. Don't you agree Tidel?"

"Must you insist on calling me by my human name? I have long outgrown
it."

"Yes, but it is more intimate than Master. I plan to kill you through
the ways that you have loved my growth in. You nurtured me when and
where my parents couldn't, but like all parents you hated that I did
not need you anymore. I didn't need you then, and I don't need you
now."

"Angelus, you can not kill me. You are not that powerful."

"I don't need strength Tidel," he whispered, his hand reaching out to
dig into the Master's flesh, "I just need hatred."

He kept his hand on the Master's shoulder, looking straight into his
beloved's killer's eyes and he knew no remorse, for the first time he
knew pure hatred with his soul and he craved the death of this
vampire more then anything he ever craved before.

The warm flesh parted under the digging of his hand, blood rushed up
to meet his delving fingers, encasing them in blood. There was no
trace of smile on his features, there was nothing in his eyes but the
blinding hatred that engulfed him. Finally after crushing the ribcage
his fingers touched the cold dead object that was Tidel's heart and
he squeezed.

"You can not kill me, my son. Your hands could never squeeze that
hard, and your heart isn't in it."

"My heart's dead."

He delved the other hand into the ripped chest, and crushed the
unbeating thing inside. When it burst, the Master's eyes flew open in
disbelief, as his cold heart's blood ran down the fingers of his
grand childe. 

Tidel's rumbling husky laugh echoed into the night as his body fell
down to his feet.

Pulling the heart slowly out of the broken chest, he saw the damage
it had taken. The heart had been strong, but  his hatred was
stronger. Tossing the heart away, across the roof, he leaned in to
watch the acknowledgment burn in those eyes.

"You saw her final moments here on earth. Tell me about them and I
will make it swift and as painless as possible for you, because you
will know pain. The pain that courses through me because of her
demise."

"Son."

"No Tidel, I am not your son."

Baring fangs, he leaned over the exposed neck of his hatred and began
to slowly gorge himself on the power within his blood. The power
belonging to a master, and the Master of his line. With his death, he
would become the vampire king, and he will terrorize the rest into
submission and starvation. They would mourn his slayer's death and it
will be something the books will remember.

He didn't drain Tidel completely, he left him with enough left inside
so that he didn't turn to dust. No sense in letting him dry out
before killing. It would have made it quick instead of harder. He
blew a breath of air onto his deteriorating foe. Then he smiled
nastily.

"You know, this century has been the worst of luck for you. First I
get a soul, and leave you stuck with Darla, I pity you that one. Then
after having such a wayward childe on your hand, you come to the
hellmouth and get trapped underneath. Tsk. Tsk. You should be more
careful, and now after all your years of waiting, you are being taken
out, on the night of your rise to reign."

"It looks," Tidel snickered, "it looks like I should have killed you
instead of feeling sympathy for you."

He nodded, placing his hands on the Master's shoulders, and said very
sincerely in a condescending voice, "Yeah, and maybe this wouldn't be
happening if you stayed in your tidy hole."

"So are you going to let the sun cook me to a tender roasting or am I
in for a more prolonged death."

"You killed my mate."

"It was prophesied you ninny."

"All I ask is for you to tell me what happened. Every detail about
her last moments, and I will let the sun have you instead of me."

"I am to die anyways young master, time is meaningless in point of
that fact."

Angered, amber eyes glowed in fury, as he yanked Tidel from the
littered roof into the wall. Taking a punch he smashed the nose in,
red blood dribbling down into that permanently stained mouth.
Reaching down his hand picked up an object, pointed enough to do
damage.

Running the rusted nail down his cheek, he scrapped away dead skin,
but not under enough to draw blood. Contemplating his next move, the
nail detoured up to the eyes. If he was to die by light, why let him
see that rise of day? Take away that comfort and let him have only
the darkness to fear. The sun was near to rising.

"I hear a few of your minions had this trick done to them. I'm sure
you won't mind will you?"

A howl of pain erupted from his victim, and he left his crumbled form
there to meet the sun. Daybreak was only minutes away. He wouldn't go
anywhere, and with his death the hellmouth would close until its next
prophecy left its gaping jaws open.

Sharp steps lead him down the stairs and into the sewers, he tramped
across the underground network of safe passageway, and felt the sun
rise up overhead. There will be light. And there was light, until it
was stolen away. Hidden from him in death. Something he never thought
he'd fear. Despite her strength though, she was soft and fragile,
malleable and breakable.

He sank inside the door frame to his apartment, his form crumpled
with its source of hate removed. Nothing held the shadows at bay, nor
the sorrow.  It wasn't a soul that was his curse, but his heart. His
heart fell irreversibly in love…

Time had been against him all along.

The ache inside him knew no bounds, as it grew and magnified. There
were no words to describe the void trapping himself in his own
thoughts. She had been the slayer, and she had done her duty dying a
warrior's death.

She was a hero, but the fucking world didn't care.

They didn't care about a sixteen year old girl who just wanted to
live her life and be happy. The world didn't fucking care if she
lived, there was always another one for them. Just one more to send
to the front line of the hidden warfare. The world turned its back on
her cries, and he hadn't been there to hold her one last time. Hadn't
been able to give her peace in parting.

She'd been alone. Just like the lore of the slayer says.

Now he was alone, and the light feared him much like the darkness.

He opened bleary eyes, red rimmed from crying tears of heartache. The
salty drops gathered on his lips, trembling from his violent heart
beats. His soul pulsed through him, leaving him fearful for the
coming of some great unknown that way only too well known.

Standing up on shaking legs, he stumbled into his bedroom and slipped
under the sheets to sleep away this nightmare. Wrapping the blankets
around him he settled more into the warmth that came from them.
Stretching slightly, his foot hit warm flesh.

With a yell he turned over, half way sitting up and yanked down the
covers on the other side of the bed. A little blonde form slept in a
fetal position, her breath rising and falling softly. Crazed, he
wiggled her gently with one hand, daring to hope.

"Mmm… Angel?"

"Oh God, Buffy!"

He grabbed her to him, rocking them both upon the bed, weeping anew
into her shoulder.

"How? How?"

"I drowned, Xander revived me after three minutes of trying. We
couldn't find you anywhere. The hellmouth opened and we waged war
with this tentacle thing until all of a sudden at just before
daybreak it shrieked and slipped back under the broken wooden floor
of the library. Where were you Angel? I was so worried."

He laughed, his throat raw, making the sound scratchy and rough.
Pulling her more firmly against him, he kissed her savagely. Ravaging
her mouth with his kisses, plundering deep, never letting up for air.
Breaking away from her sweet precious lips, he kissed them softly
before nuzzling her jaw line.

"I thought I had lost you."

"You didn't Angel, I'm right here."

"You're so stupid. Why did you not wait for me to come pick you up
for the dance? Why?"

His expression was raw and hurt and so incredibly sorrowful, she felt
her heart break under those brown solemn eyes. Leaning in she pressed
her lips to his, her hands trailing up from the twisted sheets around
his neck. Opening her mouth for him, she slowly devoured him in an
array of love and warmth.

"I couldn't fall asleep, Angel. Stay awake with me?"

"Buffy… love…"

Taking her lips in his again, he began to make love to her. Cool lips
lingered along the path from her cheek to her neck, where he spent
many moments nibbling and exploring. Her sweet sighs of rapture
floated in his ears, as he raised a palm to her breast, cupping her
through the silk pyjamas.

His lips trailed to where his dexterous fingers pulled firmly on her
nipples. Suckling her small breast, he rumbled his delight over her
hardened flesh. Looking up from his perch his saucy smile made her
laugh, and with a grin he pulled off her top.

She sprawled out there on his sheets exposed before him; her naked
breasts feeling first the touch of morning air and then the touch of
worshipping fingers filled with love. Bending down to the curve of
her neckline, he licked a wet trail of desperate passion over her
skin.

He left no inch of her upper torso without a kiss. Drifting from her
collar bone, he worked his way down her arm to the curve of her
elbow, where he spent many moments drinking in that unique taste. His
large palm held her smaller one in a light grip as he brought each
finger to his mouth, where he drew them in one by one. Then leaving
them wet afterwards feeling the morning kiss them as he had.

During his lovemaking to her, he never took his eyes off of hers if
he could help it. Her head thrashed on the pillows as his mouth
followed his hands learning the curves and supple rise and falls of
valleys and hollows of her body for the first time. He licked vines
of lust around her bellybutton and nuzzled her stomach.

Her heartbeat thundered in his ears. Roaring with life and love.

He felt her hands clench in his hair for a moment, before running up
and down his spine. Occasionally she gripped his shoulders and cried
out when he hit a sensitive spot just right. She was breathing
heavily, when he took off her bottoms and then her chaste white
underwear.

A groan escaped his lips, as leaned to captured her mouth once again
with his own, tasting an elixir he never thought he'd sip again. He
drank her down greedily before giving her a look that promised only
good things yet to come.

A light trail of kisses, equaling barely there tingles on her skin,
he kissed the hollow of her collarbone, over the tips of her breasts,
down her slightly rounded stomach, to the apex of her thighs, where
nestled between curls lay her source of desire.

Her erotic smell danced through his senses as he whispered
tenderly, "You're so beautiful beloved."

Then slowly, he spread her legs apart and breathed her in deeply. Her
back arched, lifting her hips up towards him in a silent plea for
release. His hands curled around her thighs, as he began to
administer potent kisses to her neather lips, smearing both hers and
his with her juices.

Darting his tongue in, he mimicked what he wanted to do with her,
bringing his hands around her bottom lifting her up to his awaiting
lips. His attentions reached every crevice he could locate and more,
and when her wanton cries became whimpers, he pulled her clitoris
into his mouth and bit down gently, leaving her thrashing in his grip.

"Angel please…"

Hearing his name fall from her lips, he clamped down firmly, suckling
harder and faster. As her walls began to flutter around his darting
tongue, he slipped two fingers carefully inside and moved them as
close to her womb as he could. Their movement was in sink with his
suckling and within moments, the torture was over as she undulated
one last time before falling limp in his awaiting arms.

She was still breathing heavily, but her eyes were beginning to
flutter. Smiling down at her, he cradled his beloved more comfortably
into his arms, and laid down on the bed with her. He wrapped them up
between the sheets, her nude form spooned to his clothed one, his
rampant desire caressing her back as he pulled her closer, settling a
kiss to her lips and a few more to her nose and eyelids.

"Please don't be a dream."

She sighed content in his arms, and as she drifted off to sleep, a
tear cooled as it ran from his eye to his ear, and dried upon the
pillow.

"I love you Elizabeth Anne."

His only answer was her gentle breaths as she slept on unaware and
the silence of life enclosed them.