Angelus stared at the cowering minion blankly for several minutes. 

Buffy was gone. (Fear. Anger. Fear.) Where could she have gone? He searched the entire fucking palace. Nothing. He couldn’t feel her, couldn’t trace her. That strange and strangely comforting pulse that beat between them was no longer there. 

Empty. He felt empty and alone. Desperate to feel her again. To see her. To hold her even if they argued. Couldn’t lose Buffy. Will not lose Buffy. Needed Buffy. Like water, like air. Like blood. Still nothing. If she was still alive, he couldn’t find her. And the thought of her dead (never leave me, understood? I couldn’t stand it if you did.) terrified him to such an extent that he couldn’t even contemplate such an occurrence. 

What had she turned him into? 

(She was in his blood, warm and pulsing. Constant. Reminder of the only thing that really mattered in this world. This life. Her.)

Rage. 

Fucking pussy-whipped. The bitch had turned him into the pansy-assed soul. 

His thoughts were not comforting. Nor were they particular helpful. They didn’t make the pain of missing her diminish. They didn’t make him want her in front of him any less. (Needed her, she was life. His life.) 

Unaccustomed to such feelings, Angelus turned to the comfortable. Rage. 

“Send her in.” 

Hot, blinding rage coursed through him with pounding ferocity. A growl rumbled from his chest, and he snarled at the closed doors the minion had just scurried through. Sitting on his throne, purposely blocking out the one next to him, Angelus waited. 

She’d chosen her friends over him. 

She’d chosen those weaklings, those who couldn’t make a choice that helped rather than hindered her to save their lives. And now, it had cost him his lover. 

(Beloved. Love. (soul) Mate. Live without her? Impossible. Live second to her friends? Never. Accept them? Not in his world. (Why not? Why alienate her over something as insignificant as friends who will eventually die and wither away? Why lose her over finite problems?) And the voice sounded suspiciously like Angel’s, though he refused to accept that possibility. Either possibility.) 

Buffy blamed him for things he neither controlled nor cared for. She blamed him for what she knew was Willow’s choice. Willow’s blind choice. 

“My Lord Angelus,” the silky smooth voice said in appropriately sultry tones of reverence and wanting. Angelus looked up, but didn’t bother to correct the redhead’s faux pas over his title. (Rage. It blinded him. It ate at him. Fear. It twisted within him.) 

She was saying more, introducing herself, her cause. He heard none of it. Instead, he concentrated on what she really wanted. What her body told him that her words did not. Want. She wanted, him, success in her plan. 

Angelus didn’t care for Glorificus’ plan, whatever it was. Chances were, her plan interfered with his. That was unacceptable.
~~~~~~~~~~
He slipped through the landscape, hiding within a group of pilgrims, once, before splintering off to the only pub in town. On the west coast. The owner-bartender was more than informative when questioned about the occupants of the castle that spanned for miles in three directions. 

“She’s most benevolent,” Willie was saying now. “As beautiful as she is powerful.” 

He nodded, sipping his beer as he listened to Willie and a giant brown furball speak about the fallen slayer. The giant brown furball was relating something to a smaller version of himself with occasional injections from Willie about the veracity of the story. 

A love story between a vampire and a slayer. Disgusting. 

He was going to end their love story in an appropriately Shakespearean tragic way. With death.
~~~~~~~~~~
Blinded, Buffy ran down the hall, heels long gone, hair no longer coiffed in some ridiculous style only a vampire could appreciate. Free. She was free, could feel it beat through her with every thump of her heart. 

Empty. No longer did Angelus’ comforting presence sooth her, envelope her. Oh, but there, there he was, surrounding her as always. Angry. Furious. Fine. Be like that. 

Reaction. 

Slowing, Buffy breathed deeply and focused. She didn’t know where she was but that hardly mattered. With her run came clarity. With clarity came three very important epiphanies. 

One was that the stone floor hurt like hell on her bare feet. She’d have to find those sneakers. No more running in heels – she couldn’t imagine what her toes would look like in another ten years. Which didn’t matter if she killed Angelus first. And didn’t exactly count but did help calm her. 

She was reacting to Angelus. To his manipulation. To his plan. Had been from the first. 

She wasn’t entirely sure she cared what Willow did with her life. It was her life, after all. 

She was also at least partly in the wrong, and she couldn’t even begin to believe how that grated. 

Spinning on her bare and bloody heel, Buffy sprinted back to the familiar. Not exactly ready to face him yet, she needed someone she could talk to. Not Willow, her parents, nor her watcher. Cordelia came to mind. 

“Cordelia?” she muttered. 

Talk about desperate times. 

Drusilla. 

“My fucked up world has finally fallen off its rocker,” she sighed. Talk about desperate. 

A minute later, she entered Drusilla’s rooms. With no one else to talk to, Dru was the only choice. Buffy needed another’s opinion, even the vampiress who insisted on worshipping her in the most maddening of ways. “Spike.” Buffy blinked at the naked blonde standing in the center of the room and scowled. “Figures.” 

“Slayer,” he nodded. And quickly leapt for the pajama pants that lay on the floor, tugging them on as fast as he could. Just what he needed, Angelus castrating him for being barged in on. 

“Dru,” Buffy said, looking around the room for the vampiress. “I need to talk to you,” she continued when she spotted the taller woman gliding out from behind a dressing screen. She was resplendent in a deep green grown, complete with interesting frills along the neckline. 

“My darling star,” she sighed, quickly crossing the room. “You’ve left daddy in a terrible tizzy.” 

“Yes, yes, it's always about him, isn’t it.” Buffy waved an impatient hand. “I need…” 

What? To talk to her? The crazy vampiress who insisted on treating her like some star? Or the crazy vampiress who thought she was daddy’s special toy? This was a bad idea. 

“Angelus,” she began, not really sure how to put into words what she was feeling. Or why she was suddenly feeling this when an hour ago she’d been resigned to her fate. “Bad idea, this is just a bad idea.” Buffy shook her head and turned to leave, but stopped after only one step. 

(We are one and We can overcome, the slayer/demon whispered. We are strong, we can avenge.) 

“Come on in, Slayer, ah,” Spike hesitated, “Goddess. If Angelus saw you like this, he’d have my head. And since I just got out of that forsaken cell, I don’t fancy seeing it again.” 

“Spike,” Buffy sighed as Dru bustled around her, fussing. Great. Now she’d never say what she had to say. Not that she knew what that was. “Why do you even care?” she asked tiredly. 

“Because Dru does. And,” he added slowly, “because you need it.” 

And with that grudgingly admitted line, he marched into the bathroom and grabbed a towel, wetting it under the faucet. Buffy blinked but said nothing. Her life was strange. 

“Now,” he said when he returned. Sitting her down on an ornately carved and plush chair, he knelt before her, gently cleaning the soles of her feet. “Tell me all about what troubles you.” 

Buffy looked from Spike’s bowed head to Drusilla, still hovering like a worried mother. It was weird and unexpectedly comforting. She was getting used to this world, God help her. 

“Oz turned Willow into a werewolf.” 

“Yes,” Spike nodded, looking up expectantly. 

“You knew.” He nodded again. Buffy paused for a moment, feet forgotten. In a rush of breath, she exploded. “He did this on purpose! He knew what would happen and did it just to turn her!” 

Spike looked up at her, waiting through the tirade. It was impressive, he’d give her that. But so typical. The problem with many of Angelus’ obsessions was that they continued to let him manipulate them. He’d figure the slayer for different. Seemed he figured wrong. 

Feet cleaned, wounds already beginning to heel, Spike sat on his haunches and waited the stream of words out. (Laughter echoed from the slayer/demon, harsh yet somehow free. He is you, it ricocheted around her mind. He is only you and all he does is for you. But only if you are worthy.) 

“You’re letting him lead you,” he said the moment Buffy stopped. He didn’t want her starting again, who knew how long they’d be here? “You know what he wants, how he works, and still you’re letting him set the rules. You do hold some power in this relationship, Slayer, because of his need for you.”

The wording sounded familiar to Buffy, but she already knew that. Knew it, accepted it. Had somehow nearly let it go in the midst of everything. 

“He is the rules,” she grumbled. (We will not serve, We will lead. We will hunt. We will be.) 

Whatever she’d been about to say died on her tongue. We. Will. Not. Lead. She’d forgotten… 

(Free will extends to all living creatures, human, demon, vampire, witch. Free Will is that which makes us. A vampire is soulless, and yet can choose not to do harm. A human has a soul, and yet can choose to do evil. Free Will.) 

In that moment, Buffy changed. She had been all along, there was no denying that. Changing to this world, for this world. Now, it was different. The Slayer’s words, from so long ago when the dreams first began, reminded her. 

Now she consciously made the change. She wanted it. Welcomed it. 

She’d vowed to change once before, Buffy recalled. Vowed to stop hiding behind her friends and family, being the victim. Had that happened? Yes. In a way. Not all the way, not totally, not completely. Now was different.

“Why?” she didn’t realize she’d uttered the word aloud. “Why now?” 

“Slayer?” Spike questioned, still kneeling before her. 

“What’s different now?” 

“You are,” he said. He hadn’t any real idea what in this hell she was talking about, but some things crossed dimensions. And species. “You’re different. To coin a phrase, You're mad as hell and aren’t going to take it any more.” 

Her eyes, silver and green, locked with his. In that moment, Spike felt all the power she had, could have, had ever had. It smacked through him with the force of a hurricane, wild and controlled, strong and focused. 

It was the most bewitchingly beautiful thing he’d ever witnessed. 

“You want Angelus, yes?” Buffy nodded, slowly as if in a trance. Her eyes told him differently. “You’re carrying around all these powers, yes?” His fingers waggled at her, wrist twisting this way and that. Again, Buffy nodded. “You’re not stupid, slayer. You’re strong, not just physically, but mentally.” 

She continued to stare at him, but Spike knew he had her full attention. Drusilla sat silently beside her, stroking Buffy’s tangled hair, watching the two of them with those dark, knowing eyes. (She was the Slayer. Descended from a girl who hadn’t a choice. Who took that helplessness thrust upon her and made it hers. The First Slayer didn’t let them control her, didn’t let them use her for their own ends.) 

“If you weren’t,” Spike was saying, “then Angelus wouldn’t care what happened to you. He wouldn’t care if you lived or died, if those losers in the dungeons did. You’re strong and you know it.” 

Standing, he offered her a hand. Unhurriedly, she accepted, rising on nearly heeled feet. Before his astonished eyes, her hair smoothed out, detangling. The mascara that pooled beneath her eyes disappeared, and Spike could only wonder where it’d gone. Her dress was no longer wrinkled, her shoes once more strapped to her feet. 

He was right. Spike, yes, but Angelus, too. Not entirely, but he had strong points that couldn’t be ignored. She wasn’t going to apologize, never that. Simply acknowledge that yes, Willow and Oz knew the consequences and still weren’t as careful as they could’ve been. 

“If you don’t act the part,” he said, still holding her hand. The heat seared through him. “If you don’t believe it, no one else will either. And you’ll be nothing more than a memory. But you’re not, haven’t been. You just need to remember that.” 

Buffy nodded. The eyes, still a silvery-green, weren’t haunted and wild, lost in a sea of power. They commanded, ruled, dominated. In that moment, Spike, too, changed. He worshipped her not because he was told to, because he needed to in order to live and not in the dungeons. 

He worshipped her because she commanded it. And he willingly obeyed. 

“Thank you,” she whispered, “Spike.” 

He watched her leave, walking purposefully towards the doors and whatever confrontation she was about to have with Angelus. Her heels, four inches if anything, clicked on the stone floor. Rule, rule, rule. Slayer, goddess. Goddess. 

“You’re welcome,” he murmured, “my Goddess.”
~~~~~~~~~~
He was a little concerned at the ease with which he entered the castle. Then again, it was huge. Months of travel, hardships he couldn’t have imagined a year ago, and all he had to do was walk into the castle? He didn’t buy it. 

Nothing was that easy. 

Half a lifetime later, he realized the truth in that. Miles of palace, and he had no idea the layout of the damn place. At least he enjoyed a challenge.
~~~~~~~~~~
Angelus wasn’t listening to her! Which was impossible, for she was Glorificus, Goddess of Hell, Ruler of Worlds. She was beautiful and smart and powerful. 

Men cowered at her feet, entire worlds worshipped her! 

Angelus ignored her. 

It was disconcerting. Maddening. She wanted his help…she needed his help. Was desperate to go home, to see her world again, to feel the power that came from her adoring minions. Fuck it. Her words weren’t swaying him, so she’d use her body. Whatever worked. 

He was a god…she was a goddess…what wasn’t to love? 

“Angelus,” Glory whispered, moving closer to his throne. His eyes, a deep, deep brown, locked with hers. It was the first time she had his full attention. “You seem distracted, tense. Let me help you,” she smiled, slow, sultry, an extra sway to her walk. “Let me help you relax.” 

Now this was interesting, Angelus thought. Expected but interesting. He couldn’t feel Buffy, no matter what he tried, or how he longed to feel her presence beside him, inside him. Glorificus knelt before him, hands playing over the buttery leather of his pants, nails dragging over him. 

There. 

Smirking, Angelus felt Buffy pump through him, strong and determined. Glorificus’ fingers undid the snaps to his pants and pulled out his stiffening cock. He felt her smile as her lips closed around him. Suddenly alive, Angelus looked down at the so-called goddess, lips around him, nails scrapping his balls. 

Buffy was heading his way. 

Buffy was actually stopped dead in the hallway. 

Donato found her there, relief moving through the giant demon in waves of pure pleasure. It’d taken him hours to find her after she’d bolted out of the throne room, knocking him and three others out of her way. Angelus said nothing, but Donato didn’t need to be told what happened to guards who didn’t guard and subsequently lost their charge amidst the winding halls and rooms. 

Her neck pulsated with need, the Mark Angelus left hot and tender. 

Confused, she looked around, as if searching for something along the walls. But no, it was as clear as if he’d been next to her. Angelus was aroused. Pissed to be sure, but still aroused. Not in that I’m-getting-off-on-pain-kind of-way, either. Blinking, she took a step, then another. 

Furious and indignant. He wasn’t with her, had no right to be aroused. Who the hell was he aroused with? Lilah? The human bitch was so dead. Buffy wondered if these nifty new powers of hers included keeping someone alive long enough to torture them for a hundred years. 

She didn’t run. Stalking back to the room she knew Angelus occupied, Buffy felt her anger swell. Amused, he was amused now. The bitch was dead. Fuck bringing her back. She was dead. 

Slamming into the room, thick wood doors crashing against the wall, Buffy looked through narrowed eyes at the scene before her. It wasn’t Lilah, though that hardly mattered. Angelus watched her over the redhead’s head, eyes, attention, focus on her. Disinterested in the entire thing, the bastard. 

He was hers to fuck, no one else’s. 

Angelus’ eyes held hers, watched her for those long seconds, waiting. He came just then, as if she were the catalyst. The bitch kneeling before him swallowed as rapidly as she could, humming as she did so. She was so dead.

(We understand, we accept, we revel in this. We are yours, but you, my dark lover, are ours. No others, and we shall kill any who dare take you from us.) 

The woman turned to face Buffy, eyes smug and darkened with her own want. Idly playing with one hardened nipple through the nearly transparent top she wore, she took a step forward. 

“This is the little slayer I’ve heard so much about,” she laughed, her singsong voice grating on Buffy’s already over-stimulated nerves. In an instant, Buffy knew how the dead woman before her thought this was going to play out. She’d kill Buffy, fuck Angelus, and get whatever it was she wanted. That wasn’t how it worked in Buffy’s world. 

“A little on the short side, I’d say,” she tilted her head to the side, claw-like nails pinching her nipple. She moaned deep in her throat. Rage colored Buffy’s vision. “I can’t imagine how a human child could possible satisfy a god.” 

The woman turned back to Angelus, ready to mount him and ride herself to her own orgasm, when Buffy snapped out of her shock and anger. She ignored her betrayal just long enough to punch her hand through the back of the other woman’s chest. 

“Never turn your back on a slayer,” she growled. 

Silver light enveloped the two women; Buffy’s eyes were the same blindingly striking color. Buffy ripped the heart out in one smooth move. With a high-pitched scream, the woman fell to the floor, silver light still surrounding her.
~~~~~~~~~~
Thousand of miles away, Dawn screamed her final death knell. Silver and gold light shot from her fingertips, her eyes, her mouth. Tara and Doyle surrounded her, trying to reach her, to help her, all to no avail. Faith watched with a breaking heart. 

She knew what happened. Wasn’t sure how, but knew. Buffy had killed Dawn’s sole reason for being on this planet. But not her sole purpose. She was more than the sum of her parts, potential unfilled. 

Faith cried for that, for her. For Buffy. For herself. 

This was only the beginning.
~~~~~~~~~~
“Did you think it was a joke? Did you think I didn’t mean everything? You’re shortsighted and jealous; it’s only about you, isn’t it. Well guess what, lover. You’re wrong” 

Dropping the heart contemptuously in front of Angelus, Buffy turned and walked away. The blood on her hands melted into nothingness the further she strode from the corpse. Angelus roared something, but she kept walking. Abreast of her guards once more, she again threw out her hands, backing them across the room. Casually walking away, she never looked back. 

Donato and Guius growled in frustration but were helpless to follow her. This annoying habit of their goddess’ needed to be broken. Soon. 

With every step she took out of the room, Angelus’ suddenly renewed sense of her disappeared. 

‘A fight, Angelus,’ she snarled, and knew he heard her. ‘Not even our first one, and you screw someone else. What the fuck? We fight all the damn time.’ 

The mark still pulsed on her neck. His rage flowed through her, but once again, she wasn’t ready to face him. She needed a moment or ten to calm down. To come to terms. To think. The door that occasionally opened between them slammed closed and bolted shut. 

Realization. 

Furious, with Buffy, with himself, Angelus roared, shaking the room. Temper overriding sense, he ripped apart everything from the stone walls to the floors. He wouldn’t search for her again. She’d come back to him before, she’d do so again. He was sure of it. He was terrified she wouldn’t. Terrified this was the last time. (Couldn’t lose Buffy. Can’t live without Buffy. Need (love) (must have) Buffy.)
~~~~~~~~~~
The walk to the dungeon wasn’t as long as she remembered, but then Buffy didn’t really pay attention to it. She was there to make sure Angelus hadn’t taken his anger out on those he’d promised to protect. Once the doors opened, she realized her second reason for coming here. 

To see them minus the hypocrisy of the standards they held her to, yet buckled under their first test. Those that were left, anyway. Mental note: Check on Cordelia. 

What they became. How they responded to the adversity without her there guaranteed to win the day. She watched them silently, envisioned Xander there, ignore Penn. 

“Some,” she said slowly, “it makes rise to the occasion. Others it brings out the worst.” 

Whirling on her heel, she raced back to Drusilla’s room. Xander. Spike was still there, standing on the balcony, comforting Drusilla. “Some humans,” she echoed his words, “don’t require a demon. It’s there already just better hidden.” 

The couple watched her from the terrace, silent as she slipped into the darkened room Dru kept Xander in. Looking down at the boy, chained and bloodied, Buffy realized. (Strong. Powerful. Slayer. Motherearth. Goddess.) She loved them, flaws and all. She’d continue to protect them, but couldn’t and wouldn’t let them be her conscience any longer. She was a better judge of that than they.
~~~~~~~~~~
Striding purposefully down the hall, he ignored everything except the once more open void where Buffy should’ve been. Angelus didn’t like that feeling of emptiness. Nor the fact that he could feel it at all. 

Indirectly or not, Willow and Oz were responsible for this. For raining on his parade, destroying his carefully laid plans, interfering. Being stupid enough. He’d had higher hopes for Oz. For Willow, he’d hoped to corrupt her power enough to turn her his way. Both of which were still possible. Neither of which mattered just now. 

Buffy. 

“Daddy,” Dru said, suddenly standing before him. Angelus didn’t even care he hadn’t felt her coming and didn’t know why she was there. “She’s coming back.” 

Angelus looked at her, but Drusilla merely smiled and danced back down the hallway. For a moment, he waited. Kill Oz and Willow. Buffy. Buffy. There she was, walking slowly towards him now. Head high, grace and power. 

His. 

Stopping before him, Buffy waited. She didn’t touch, didn’t speak, didn’t even open herself up enough for him to read anything in her. Instead, she took a long look at what she wanted and needed just to live. What she wanted and needed from Angelus. Angel warned her they, friends, family, would change. She’d have to embrace what she really wanted deep down beneath the bullshit and guilt. To endure. To make a difference. She knew that. 

(“You have to be prepared, beloved,” Angel whispered. “He wants you to the exclusion of all others, but that won’t stop him from taking other lovers. It’s the only power he has to fight what you feel for me. Your continued denial of him…to force you to admit what you feel for him is no less than what you feel for me. He knows that if he takes other lovers, he’ll play several cards, and you won’t deal well with that…he knows this and is willing to give you some leeway. Angelus wants you to go to him willingly. He won’t wait forever, Buffy.”) 

Thought she’d come to terms. With the world, her place in it. Angelus and his place in her life, her place in his. Her feeling for the demon, the soul. But now she had to be honest. She hadn’t stopped resisting, hadn’t stopped running emotionally. Angelus knew it as well, hence the whore-boinkage, hence the taking of other lovers the moment Buffy rejected what he was. 

Blaming him for her friends’ faults. Making him the keeper of their souls and morals just as they made Buffy responsible for theirs.

A means to an end, nothing more. He’d even warned her he was no Angel. He wouldn’t accept her friends, adhere to their flawed moral sensor, be their whipping boy. Didn’t mean he took no responsibility for anyone or thing but himself and her. 

Take responsibility. No, he didn’t, did he. 

“That’s fine,” Buffy said as if he were privy to her thoughts. He wasn’t, she’d made sure of that. (Strong, powerful, slayer.) “You don’t take responsibility for them. They’re old enough and mature enough to take the consequences of their own actions. As are you. With each action, Angelus, there is a reaction. It’s a constant in the universe, no matter what you change. We fought. That’s what we do, we fight. Having a fight does not allow you to fuck others.” 

She took a step closer to him, eyes red, blue, silver, green. Strong and refined, a True Goddess, and he almost bowed before her. Wanted to. Needed to. She was his. This magnificent creature was his. 

“Are you truly my equal?” she asked. “Are you really willing to trust me enough to allow me to be with you as if I was with Angel without you thinking I’m using you? Or is mindless rutting all you want? Do you want just me? All of me? Heart, body, and soul? I have it to give, but I have to know I’m getting all in return. All of you given to me in return.” 

Sensing this change went deeper than her words, Angelus strode toward her. Eyes glittering red and blue and gold, fangs lengthened in relief, anger, fear. That fear shook deep, deep inside himself where he could barely acknowledge. She’d come back to him. (Don’t leave me, don’t ever leave me.) 

“Don’t ever hide yourself from me again,” he growled, fingers curling around her shoulders. “Ever. Or there won’t be enough of your little pack of wimps left to fit on the head of a pin.” 

Buffy ignored that. “Do you want all of me?” she repeated, meeting his eyes, matching his power. “Can Angelus, Lord of the World, place his heart in my safe keeping? If I make you my everything, can you make me yours?” she paused, and he waited. Waited for the last part unsaid. “Something in me,” she slowly admitted, “will die if I’m yours and only yours, but you’re not mine...completely mine.” 

“Mine,” Angelus repeated, bringing her closer. “All of you, even your soul, is mine.” He paused, watched her. Jumped in and admitted what he’d been afraid to from the first. “And I’m yours, Buffy. All of me.” 

She moved then, wrapping her arms around his neck, drawing him close as she kissed him. And when they moved to their rooms, still clinging to each other, Buffy took control. It wasn’t the Slayer who chained Angelus and fucked him until they both screamed from the blinding pleasure of it. It was the Woman who was equal in their lovemaking. 

Buffy was completely open to him, mind, body, soul. Angelus could see what she saw, feel what she felt. Angel was within her, a tiny corner of her that would never leave, no matter what he, Angelus, did. Hidden, secret, forbidden even to him. When he entered her, however, all he saw within Buffy was himself. 

It wasn’t ego, but reality. She wanted him. She was his. She loved him. Angelus. And it was beautiful. 

Later, as she lay propped up on his chest, stroking his jaw, Buffy watched him watch her. He did so in that unsettling, intense way he had. Strangely enough, she didn’t mind. It was comforting. Familiar. Hers. 

“Don’t leave me now, Buffy,” he whispered, fingers combing through her hair. “I’m not sure what I would do without you.” 

She placed her fingers lightly across his lips, and smiled. “I wont ever leave you…not ever.” 

With that promise, (I don’t want you to see me like this. Oh, I didn’t even notice.) like the one where she told Angel she loved all of him firmed his resolve. 

“I’m holding you to that, lover.” 

Firmed his resolve into making her as immortal as he, and thus with him…always. 

Sadly, Angelus’ tantrum alerted Lilah and Lindsey to what they had to do to control Angelus. The problem was in the planning.
~~~~~~~~~~
Angelus couldn’t decide on a proper tribute. 

No longer satisfied with paper as the canvas, he wanted to mark Buffy’s body as well. Something obvious was exactly his way, with Buffy at least, but seemed somehow wrong in this instance. 

He dismissed the dragon, a pair of wings, and a phoenix. Talk about obvious. Then again, she had risen above those tying her down, holding her back, even him. In the end, she’d met his expectations and triumphed. Exceeded in every way imaginable. 

And he was possessive. 

A griffin it was then. 

Imagining the way he wanted it to look, Angelus quickly drew the female version of his own tattoo along Buffy’s back, wings rampant and wide, soaring across her skin. Hmm, a halo? Snickering at the irony, he added that along the top of her spine. Halo for innocence, for an angel, and in direct contrast to the grasping claws reaching along either side of her spine. 

Now then, ‘B’ for Buffy? Their joint initials? Nope, Angelus decided as Buffy slept on, exhausted from the day. ‘A’ for Angelus. 

One more way to make his point. She was his. 

With slightly more thought, the sketched image became a tattoo, easier and faster than anything he’d had to sit through. Less painful, too, and for a vamp who adored pain, that was saying something. 

No doubt, she’d be livid when she discovered it, but that was too bad. He’d be more than willing to make it up to her, however she wanted, Angelus reasoned with a lusty smirk, but it wasn’t coming off.

Ever.

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