Close to sunrise. The sky was already looking washed out, a bleached version of night ... too close, too ineffectual, a contrivance. And she hated that impending vibrancy with the oddly shaped non-shadows it created, as well as that simple recognition of flame, fire, dissolution into color. It was a seeping sort of burn, morning.

Casting a quick glance eastward, she began to thread her way through the knocked-about tombstones more quickly. Feet in grass, crunch, crunch, destruction in all its weedy aroma. Now was the time. Immediate, as ever.

It was almost funny, really, how predictably the remaining vampires of Sunnydale had tried to adapt to her schedule. She'd patrol, they'd come out after — delurking, or whatever. So, of course, she'd patrol later. And they'd wait longer. A silly cycle of chase and run, sweeping around the clock in some parody of a stop-motion short film. Soon she'd be back to the 7 PM shift again, full cycle. Stupid pricks.

Not that it wouldn't be a welcome relief to go back to the pre-sleep fighting, because this awakening before sunrise thing was starting to take its toll. She had a job, god dammit, albeit a crap one, and a kid sister and all the stuff that was not supposed to revolve around this. Plus, it was much harder to get out any relevant quips after a night of unfulfilling sleep, full of nightmares and boxes and hands that would hold and disappear. She rubbed her eyes again, attempting to overcome the feeling that they were constantly glued shut, catching her repeatedly in some state of suspension...

Sighing, she clutched her stake more tightly, curving her hand around it in calloused and accustomed ways. A touch of anger there, perhaps ... nothing better than refusing to call it desperation. Hell, what if they were already taking the early evening shifts? Less than an hour left before sunup, and tonight had shown little activity. Squirrel here, another squirrel there ... she could feel the muscles of her right arm aching, tight, twitching at the edge of some sort of scream.

It just wasn't fair.

She stopped and slammed the ball of her foot against the overgrown and broken façade of the Armitage crypt (oh so monumentally bizarre to know the names of the dead), probably cracking the not-quite leather of faded boots that yes, at the very least, were affordable. Yeah, that was it, results of definitive action, event provides consequence. The flaking white chips exploded into a miniature burst for I am the element of disorder in a system and at least fell in a satisfactory rain, and there was something else. Call to attention, yes ... harmonious. The corners of her lips twisted slightly.

She had no problems with announcing her presence, never had. But now ... well, now was that much more exhilarating. So few were left these days, and those that remained tended to be a bit more bright, banding together in small groups and attempting to run more often than not. Effective, and infuriating. Stick around a little longer, get just a little stronger...

She began to hum to herself a bit tunelessly. Wait a little longer, get a little stronger. Nope, not really a good melody for that jingle. Besides, it sounded like a deodorant commercial.

Four this time. Four ragged and yet intrigued individuals ... vamps, rather ... all too obviously interrupted from a drinking binge of the alcoholic variety, and making their way towards her. She smiled, concealing the stake behind her back. Too easy, really. Why was it always the debauched, debilitated ones who advanced so heedlessly? They could at least make a break for it and give up a good chase...

"Hey there," one said, crunching on a few branches as he stumbled forward, the crackle making her head ache worse than it already did. "Out for a walk? Looking for some fun?" He affected a grin. "What's your name?"

What do you want it to be?

She rolled her eyes, the trademark dismissal. He was heavy and damp looking, and his golden eyes looked somewhat dulled. Drunk, waning darkness, not bothered that he was playing pick-up while in game-face and she wasn't shrieking. The whole clearing reeked of gin and something tangy. Limes? Blood?

She said nothing, grinding her heels into the dirt for purchase, just waiting, stake readied behind her back. And a slight smirk travelled across his dirt-streaked face. "You're the slayer. Heard of you." Slight glance toward the others, who didn't really manage to look impressed, so much as unsure. One was approaching the bulky damp guy who had spoken to her, curious and not very coordinated at this point, either. One still held a large gin bottle, and the fourth was leaning up against the side of the crypt. Sick? Wary? Amused?

"Drink?" bottle-guy offered half-heartedly, nervousness encroaching into his tone. Ha. Cute. A world of no. What else would I want to pump you for? She hurled the stake at him reflexively, a javelin-like piercing that was a clean shot, leaving cascades of dust, prismatic, and the full glistening bottle falling softly into the dirt. Now if they'd just start dropping coins like that...

The two who were closest to her looked back at the fallen remains, realizing that perhaps they were just a bit in over their depth. "Umm, hey..." the damp one began, his mind evidently piecing together the slowed sequence of events.

"What you've heard is wrong," she said in a decisive monotone. It was, of course, it always was. They didn't know her, they knew a title, or a rumor, or a sickness. So very wrong, just like everything. Imperfect fit, square peg in round hole, wrong and abhorrent and a sick perversion of goodness, truth, and the American way. Wrong, cold, warm, nothing, entirety, completion, yes, oh please...

And with her cold statement, the damp one (don't think about what made him damp, it hadn't rained in a month) and his compadre took off quickly, barreling westward, darting into the incipient shadows of the pre-sunrise. She sighed and pulled another stake from the waistband of her skirt, slapping it against her thigh, just watching the pair disappear and suddenly feeling quite exhausted. Her eyes flickered back to the remaining one, who was silently picking up the discarded bottle and lifting it to his lips, before leaning back once again on the crypt wall. Too drunk to be afraid, perhaps. Or too cocky, or too damn tired and resigned. She knew the feeling.

She continued to drum the point of her stake against her leg, frustrated to the point where it might leave a bit of a red welt in the mor... ermm, evening. The vamp still rested there, expelling a breath and then running a hand through floppy, brownish bangs before looking over at her. Long seconds, minutes even, before he spoke, and still no real movement. Game on pause.

"Almost sunrise,' he muttered casually, taking another swig from the rather large bottle. He studied it for a moment, then glanced back up at her, looking as if he were about to offer her some before remembering what had happened after the last offer. "What do you say we call this off ... you know, wait 'til tomorrow, maybe?" He folded his arms in front of him, the neck of the bottle dangling from his fingertips. No, definitely cocky, this one. "I'll meet you here, you can take me out," he grinned, knowing he was buying very little time and flaunting his demise in her face simultaneously.

Golden, flashing eyes. Demon eyes, full of all that nothing behind some odd tricks of the light, topaz-faceted and obscure. No motivations, and a world of depravities to impart to them. He had unruly hair, too, like he was behaving, full of desperation and flippancy. Fucking bastard.

"No, I think it's best to just finish this now," she returned in the same method of monotone-delivery as before. That voice was often useful, she remembered it from when Willow went off the edge. "Much as I might enjoy watching you suck the jelly out of a filled doughnut on our delightful rendezvous." Problem was, he was starting to make her angry, not unaffected, with his nonchalance and semi-drunken bravado. This was supposed to be all about control, about gaining that edge with sarcasm and confidence, and this little bastard was calling her on it. Enough. She advanced, a quick, feinted strike forward, and he responded to the motion by flinching and then aiming a quick, defensive kick to her midsection. Too easy. She caught the leg in one hand and twisted him off-balance, sending him heavily to the ground and the gin bottle rolling off through the soft dirt.

Quickly, she dropped to her knees on top of him, grasping his arms and twisting them at a painful angle against his sides. "What are you doing here?" she asked. Her voice sounded thick and distant, and why was she asking anyway? Like she cared. No reason would make it up. His eyelids flickered down, and his floppy brown hair obscured his face as a slight moan of discomfort fell out of him.

"Lying underneath you, apparently," he grunted, his words strained but not submissive enough. She wished she had gotten to him before the gin did, he might have made for a good fight. He struggled, and she ground his wrists into the dirt.

Flashing white, electric, catching the moonlight, twice-removed reflection. Slick, sweaty communication with more questions, and still more. Questions to answers. So good, so fucking good. Primitive, needy, wanton, wanted ... blue eyes, yes, passion-laden, falling shut, there was always falling. Come for me, love ... who said it first? and oh god yes, still more, all the exploding, being set ablaze ... cold cold cold fire it freezes me...

"You're really fucking sick, you know?"

The taut voice snapped at her, backhanded her and stung. When had her eyes closed? "Shut up," she whispered, releasing one of the vampire's wrists and whipping the stake forward. She ground the point against his chest, holding it there as she allowed the grip on his other arm to lessen. He stiffened.

"Yeah, you are," he continued. "You're just going to sit there, holding me down, waiting for the sun to come up and fry me? Just do it, already, sadistic bitch..."

How long had she been waiting? She drove the tip of the stake in deeper, piercing flesh, taking time. She was inches away from feeling the thin stream of blood, pooling and curling. Not sadism, masochism. Something, please, anything, because it was too long this time, too long to wait ... the last night, the last few minutes before sunrise, time running out and slow and rich and coppery. She could smell it, all tangy and metallic and linked like worn iron pipes. It's all about the blood...

"Shut up," she said again, her voice coming out in the same strangled, harsh tones as those of the vampire she had lying immobilized beneath her. Her eyes fell shut again (always falling) just briefly, as she rested her left hand upon his chest, next to the point of the stake. "There's nothing here." Words sounded so confusing, so translucent. "Nothing here..." She trailed her fingers down his chest, her nails catching against the fabric of his shirt. Nothing but cotton and dead flesh. Such life, and I was once like you...

"I can almost remember it sometimes, y'know. How it feels. You're all around me, and everything's just ... different." His fingers grow warmer every second that he lets them rest against her skin.

Her hand dropped lower, manipulating the fly of the vampire's jeans. Another twist of the stake, the beginning of another protest silenced. Such soft, wavy brown hair. He was really almost pretty, all snippy and drunk and full of pent up hostility. His cock was hard already, she could feel it pressing against her hand, furious and cool. Fucking sick, indeed, all the violence. And yet they always seemed to want to plunge into it, penetrating with teeth and dicks and exuberance. Tearing, moaning, exhilarated ... yes, please, yes...

It was almost ... kind.

"That's it, love, move just like that, so bloody good," he murmurs, her skirt creeping up the sides of her thighs with every thrust forward. God, even with clothing between them he feels so damn amazing it makes her breath catch. Just that anticipation, knowing what he feels like sliding in and out of her, is enough to make her cry out in saddened longing...

Her skirt was bunched up around her waist now, and her hand insinuated itself between them, brushing the crotch of her panties to the side such that she could force the coolness up against her, directly. Damp, warm against frost, soft against hard, such betrayal. Her eyes shot up to meet those of the demon pinned beneath her. All that flickering gold, and the confusion there made her want to burst into a bout of hysterical laughter.

"Not a word," she said seriously, her lips and teeth biting off the venomous sounds as her hand clutched his shaft vigorously and she began to stroke him in time with the gyration of her hips. What was there to see in those eyes? Facets of color, fall leaves, nothing? The gold was brilliant now, yet still so distant. Sparkling acceptance, and the fear, always the fear. His tangled hair rained across his forehead, making unkempt lines upon white flesh. And lighter, still lighter, look to the east, bleached out by the sun.

Her right hand remained fixed, grip on the stake unyielding, unrelenting. Make it stop ... She shot him a warning glance as she guided him inside her, dropping her hips down to fuse them together. That wonderful, distant sense of cold, and then of warming cold, and then of nothing and sensation. She felt him bite off a sound, and kept her dangerous eyes on his and her dangerous stake-filled hand against his chest. "I said, not a word." Her voice came out more gently this time, but still seemed to her to be filled with cruelty, just restrained for now. Wasn't that what this all was, anyway?

He nodded, a meek and resigned gesture, and her free hand drifted to his forehead, pressing down there with almost gentle commiseration, brushing the strands of soft brown hair aside.

"Close your eyes, Buffy." His hand rests on her cheek for what seems the briefest second, and then trails down her throat. "It doesn't have to be so cold, love." She obeys, shutting her eyes tight and gripping his fingers in hers.

Cold, so cold. Such relief and yet all the whimpering sadness. Shouldn't feel like this, so penetrating and relieving. Shouldn't feel like ... well, anything she needs at all. And yet still, all that fulfillment, all that burning finally, completely satiated, just having him there, as deep as possible. So deep, so much, please, yes, please. Farther inside, such that there's nothing else. I know what you want me to say, and that's what I can't say. Can't ever, won't ever. You are...

"Slayer," he whispered, and his hand reached up to encircle her wrist. Light, gentle, not at all demanding. His fingers flickered across her pulse point, and her eyes fell open again. Golden, feral gaze, not human, yet touching her like this. Intimacy, so different, like sea amber. "Oh, Slayer, you feel..."

"Yeah, Slayer, love, you feel ... you're everything. Everything, everything, yes, please, yes..."

And she shouted, high pitched, muscles convulsing, body caught in a tormented internal earthquake. Clenching, so full of release, love, torment, and she slammed the stake down. Dust trailed along her forearm, rose up into her hair. Dust in her nostrils, sticky, warm, falling into patterns in the sunrise. Dust inside her, exploding, sickly stuff, falling and never stopping, streaming out of her in rivers, oh god, oh god, oh god...

"I hate you," she screamed, her voice harsh and tearing apart the cords of her throat. "I hate you," the words came again, and she hurtled the stake forward, straight into the sunrise, watching it arc and disappear. "Hate you hate you hate you." Words like broken glass, or something cut by it.

Ragged, sobbing, she fell, collapsing into a ball in the raining ashes as the sun rose on the one-hundred and forty-ninth morning since Spike had left her.

- To Be Continued ... -