DISCLAIMER: Joss, Mutant Enemy... blah blah blah... theirs. Lyrics from "Always" by Saliva.  This is a dark, angsty fiction dealing with the fallout from the attempted rape in "Seeing Red."

William swears that it was the demon who made him do it. But I know the truth. It was him. Broken, pathetic mouse of a man. I know him better than I've known anyone in my entire existence. The demon wouldn't have stopped. Not until it killed her. She wouldn't have had the wits about her to say 'no.' Want, take, have. That's what it did.

The demon would have taken full credit for forcing himself on her. It would have taken her brutally and puffed out its chest in feral glee as the muffled screams fell from her bloodied lips. It would have pushed open her legs, breaking them if they refused to yield. It would have taken that last bit of humanity and choked them both with it.

Am I... your one and only desire...
Am I the reason you breathe...
Or am I the reason you cry...

William weeps for her. His tender heart betrays him and he fills bucket after bucket of worthless salt for something he'll never have. Love. He'll never have her love. He wanted to make her love him. He was positive that he could prove it to her, his love. The demon knew better. It taunted him. Teased him. It called him nancy-boy. Soft. Fed into his hate with barbs and reminders of how impotent a man he had been. Never loved. Never wanted.

But William was convinced that he could coax her love to the surface, just as he had done to me. Made me want to beat him down into submission. Made me want to drain the git all over again. Hearts and flowers are best left in the past. I often ask myself why, then, have I let them color my present?

Always... always... always... always... always... always...
I just can't live without you...

I remember the first time I saw her. I wanted her dead. Could taste the essence of her blood as the sweat radiated from her young body. And the demon became painfully hard for her... for the kill. It throbbed with every beat of her heart. And it salivated at her stammered words. William, however, found her contribution to the lost art of conversation to be adorably charming. Exquisitely endearing. He wouldn't stop prattling on, like some lovesick child, about her underlying sweetness, her confidence swathed in pure innocence.

I love you...
I hate you...
I can't get around you...

When I told her I loved her, it was the truth. I love her silent strength. And I love her warm, flushed body. But I know that I would also love her cold and dead. Like me. The demon loves the challenge she's always throwing its way. It loves the prospect that it may, one very good day, get to taste her blood. And I know that it would bathe in it, from head to toe, writhing in orgasmic euphoria as her life's elixir flowed copiously over its body.

I breathe you...
I taste you...
I can't live without you...

She died. She. Died. And I died, too. William keened and thrust himself forth. He strangled the demon. Ripped it to shreds. Who would have ever thought that my little David would nigh on some ninety some-odd years later become the man to slay Goliath? But he did. He swallowed it whole and forced it deep down into my belly. He raped me of my armor against emotion. He strangled the demon and twisted the sword that much deeper when he forced me to not only feel, but to take responsibility for what I had allowed the demon to do to me.

I fight the battle within every day... and every day, I position the stake at my centuries-dead heart. And it's William who stops me. It's William who pleads and cries and begs... just give us one more day. Steady on, mate... she'll one day return. It's William who makes me want to believe.

I just can't take anymore...
This life of solitude...

And just when I did, she returned from the grave. They brought her back. And, for just one second, the demon shook with laughter. The sound reverberated through my bones as the demon tried to gnaw through the ropes William had so carefully tied it in. William began to breathe again. And I took his place in the breath-holding department, afraid that one wrong move, wrong word or thought would send her away again.

I didn't do it. William finally snapped from the pressure. He finally succumbed to her ruthless words and repugnant touch on his skin. She took his tender heart and fisted it until it burst from the relentless pressure of her pain. He wanted to be the one to make her feel again. He wanted to be the one she loved. But it wasn't him. Never him. Never me. It was only the darkness she craved, the darkness we had hid under lock and key, terrified of what it would do should it ever rear its ugly head in her presence again.

I guess that I'm out the door...
And now i'm done with you...

Skin slicked with saline and hate, she'd push him away... tell him his love was vile and that he was a monster. Never a man. She twisted his words and his sweet emotion until not even I could deny it as being anything but Mephistophelean at the end. Her jabs became abysmal, coated in acid. The demon flouted him even more, poisoning what was left of his gentle soul. It filled him with venom for the girl he'd made me love.

I just wanted them to all shut up... William, the demon and the Slayer. I wanted to close my eyes and find some kind of peace. They wouldn't let me. I wanted her to make up her god-damned mind and just let me alone. But she wouldn't. Do something, he said. Go to her and make her love us, he demanded. No. Don't let her push us away, he insisted. No!

I feel... like you don't want me around...
I guess i'll pack all my things...
I guess i'll see you around...

I packed up my crypt and searched among the litter for some tipple. Just a little nip to take off the edge... to stifle the pain. The decision was made. I was going to do what I'd set out to do before letting my stupid heart lead me back to Sunnydale in the first place. Fucking love spell. Maybe I should have just blamed this all on Dru and been done with it.

I tossed my meager belongings into the DeSoto with every intention of leaving without a trace. Just one more time, he begged. Sod off, William! Just try one more time. And he made me want to. He made me want to beg and plead and try.

It's all... been bottled up until now...
as I walk out your door...
all I can hear is the sound...
Always... always... always... always... always... always...
I just can't live without you...

I went in to talk. Just to talk. She was injured. I could smell it, could see it. But there was something else, too. There was the whole incident of me sleeping with Demon Girl hanging over us. William was still nagging at me about that. I tried to apologize. I tried to explain. She bristled at everything I said. And I was okay with that. I was. I told her the truth... I wanted a spell to make these feelings stop. I didn't want to love her. I didn't want any of it. And I wanted to tell her I was leaving. She could have her pathetic excuse for a life. She could say and do all the things her little legion of Scoobies wanted her to say and do. She could be their golden girl.

And then he fought his way to the surface, stepping on my stones, jamming his feet down the demon's throat. He was going to be heard and she was going to hear him.

I love you...
I hate you...
I can't live without you...
I left my head around your heart...
Why would you tear my world apart...
Always... always... always... always...

Blood clouded his eyes. Tears meant nothing to him as he pulled at her dressing gown. No meant yes. Stop meant go. Hadn't it always been that way? Hadn't she come to him and called him vile, disgusting, dirty and pig? Hadn't she told him his touch made it okay to hate herself and to hate him? Hadn't she kicked and screamed and punched and run only to thrust herself at his virtue over and over again? Hadn't she raped him raw all the way down to his very core? She wanted him. He knew she did! No was never no. Not with the Slayer. Not with her.

I see... the blood all over your hands...
Does it make you feel... more like a man...
Was it all... just a part of your plan...
This pistol's shakin' in my hands...
And all I hear is the sound...

I hear my skin sizzle as I crucify myself. Smoke plumes off of my body as she stares in horror. It's no longer them and me. It's not the demon and the man battling within a shell that used to live and breathe. It's only me and the memories of who I was. And who I thought I could be.

She's piercing the air with terrified screams, pulling my body from the smoking wood over which it drapes. She is my Joseph, my Nicodemus and my Centurion Abenadar. She is the sacrificial lamb willing to swallow her pain so that she can make room for mine.

Not sure of all I've said to her in our time together tonight. Not sure of all I've done. But I feel her hands as they pull me from my self-immolation. All I want is to rest. Can we rest now, Buffy?

I love you...
I hate you...
I can't live without you...
Always...
Always...
Always...

Please... can we rest?