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Real Me by CG again
 
Chapter 20
 
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Warnings: Most of you will not like this chapter. At all. And I don’t blame you. I don’t usually put the warnings at the beginning of the chapter, but for this one, I’m going to, because you should really be warned in advance. Firstly, Vamp!Buffy. Also, a LOT of Buffy/other in this chapter. I tried to be discreet about it, but it’s impossible in most places. :( Oh, and character deaths. Bunches and bunches. (But somehow, I don’t think that anyone’s complaining about some of them. :D) No character deaths of main characters in the fic, though. I promise that it gets much better next chapter!


Real Me banner
--

The first thing I knew was an all-encompassing thirst.

Blood.

Blood.

I needed…

Then, a wrist pressed to my mouth and an order from a voice I knew. “Drink.”

And something primal welled up within me, moving swiftly through the hazy levels of confusion that wrapped around my mind. A vision of life, death, dominion…

Sire.

I sank my fangs into his arm and drank greedily, sucking the life-giving liquid out of him and into me. I had never tasted blood before, but instinctively, I knew that this blood, Sire’s blood, was special. Just a little more…

My Sire backhanded me, and I went flying across the room, slamming against the wall and falling to the ground. “A Sire’s blood is a gift,” he warned in a low voice. “You will respect it.”

Could I speak yet? I thought that I had once been able to… “Yes, Sire.” I bowed my head in shame.

He crossed the room to stand before me, and with one finger, raised my chin so he could face me. “You will obey me.”

“Yes, Sire.”

“You will serve me.”

“Yes, Sire.”

His eyes gleamed with triumph at his easy mastery over me. “Good. I’ve got a little present for you.”

A moan from across the room drew my attention, and I marveled that I hadn’t noticed that overpowering scent before.

Blood. But not just any blood! Every single one of my vampire senses was telling me that this blood was special. It was tastier, stronger, more satisfying… And yet, there was also a fear that overtook me at the scent. I struggled to name it…

“Slayer,” my Sire informed me. “You’re sensing Slayer blood. Isn’t it a treat? I’ve saved her just for your first meal.”

At his permission, I crept across the room to the chained girl. She looked down at me in trepidation.

“I know you’re in there, Buffy.” But her words smacked of desperation. “Please, Buffy! Don’t kill me! We’ll get out of here, come on, Buffy! Buffy!”

Buffy? Was that my name?

And then, deep within my mind, I felt the stirrings of consciousness. Memories. Recent memories. Ones I’d forgotten since my rebirth.

Buffy.

“Move along, Buffy. Find some nice one-night stand and leave us alone.”

“Hey! It’s the Buffster!”

“Big Sis! Big Sis! Buffy! Wake up!”

“I tell ya, Buff. This was a real wakeup call.”

“Buffy. Oh, my Buffy…”

Buffy. That was my name. And now, I remembered almost everything.

This girl in front of me… “Kennedy.”

Her eyes lit up through the blood caked over her face. “Yes! It’s me, remember? The other Slayer? I’m Dawn’s friend. Let’s go home, to Dawn. She’ll help us out.” Her voice reeked of insincerity, but that didn’t matter to me. I’d already decided what I wanted.

“You’re annoying,” I told her, and sank my fangs into her neck.

It was ecstasy! Her blood was so rich, so pure… The best thing I’d ever tasted. Beside me, my Sire, whom I now remembered as Angelus, latched onto the other side of her neck and drank with me, syncing his gulps to match mine, taking blood at the same rate, with me…

When the body was drained, I pulled away with a gasp. The blood was doing something to me, making me hypersensitive to everything around me, and arousing all sorts of sensations in my body…

Beside me, Angelus was also feeling the aftereffects of the Slayer blood. He turned to me, his eyes flashing with a hunger that had nothing to do with bloodlust, and bowled me over onto the ground. I welcomed the combined pain ad pleasure that followed.

A flash of memory stopped me short. A smooth, pale chest, hair so blond that it was white, laughing blue eyes… Love.

This wasn’t like that love, so deep and consuming. This was Sire love, and it couldn’t be erased or fought.

Not even by my memories of love for a different vampire.

--

“This part is easy,” I scoffed, following my Sire to the Bronze the next night. “I used to do this all the time. You dance, attract, then kill. Easy.”

He turned amused eyes to me. “You used to do this all the time?”

I shrugged. “A few times, anyway. For vampires, not humans, I mean. With Sp-“

Angelus’s growl stopped me in my tracks. “You don’t say that name. I own you now, understood?” He raked one hand down my bare arm, drawing blood.

I growled at the pain, welcoming it. Angelus mashed his lips to mine, splitting his lip on my fang and letting me suck at it for a moment. For some reason, even when I was coherent, which was almost all of the time now as compared to last night, the bloodlust was overwhelming no matter how much I ate.

“It’s because you’re a fledgling,” my Sire had told me. “You may be the Childe of a Master, which makes you more advanced than the typical vampire minion, and the Slayer’s blood helped, but you’re still young and inexperienced.”

Well, now was the time to get experienced.

I inhaled sharply as we approached. “All that blood!” It was intoxicating.

Angelus slapped me across the face with his full power, and my game face receded. “Learn to control that. No one’s going to come to you if you look like that!”

“Yes, Sire,” I said humbly.

We stepped into the Bronze, and it took everything I had not to vamp out again. The sweat, and heat, and arousal that permeated the air… And above all, the blood. Hot, viscous blood, running through the veins of the people around me, ripe for the taking…

Without realizing it, I switched to game face. Luckily, we were still in the darkness of the entrance, so no one saw.

Angelus did, though, and I turned back hastily, before he could hit me again. In truth, I was more worried about his disapproval than the pain. My Sire’s anger meant more than anything.

He chose to ignore my gaffe. “Look around, Buffy. Do you see anyone you recognize? Anyone you want to…take care of?” Normally, he’d told me, he’d send me first to my house. But the Slayer had seen me die, albeit not sired, and she would take care of me before I could slaughter my family. And truthfully (though I kept it from Angelus), I wasn’t really interested in killing them. I didn’t really hold any grudges against my mother or Dawn, and it made no difference to me if they lived or died. The feelings I had once had for my friends and family…they were all gone, and though I could remember having them, I didn’t actually feel them anymore. Not really. Not like Angelus described his joy at killing his household after his siring. Was there something wrong with me? Or was this indifference normal?

I squinted around. One boy, talking up a girl nearby, did look vaguely familiar. “I know him, I think. His name’s…Parker?”

Yes. Parker Abrams, who’d wooed me, slept with me, and then cast me aside like I didn’t matter. There I could still summon up some of the anger and hatred. It had been strong in life, and was magnified in this second life of mine.

I glided over to him, enjoying the way his jaw dropped when he saw me. “Whoa. Buffy Summers? Nice getup. You look…wow.”

I smiled seductively, motioning toward the leathery outfit languorously. “Do you like it?”

He bobbed his head up and down, his eyes fixed on my body.

“What’s so interesting?” I purred. “It’s not like you’ve never seen it before.” I leaned over so my lips were tickling his ear. “Or won’t see it again.”

I slid away from him, toward the door to the back alley, my hand outstretched in invitation. He followed, stumbling behind my easy grace.

As soon as we reached the alley, I shoved him up against the wall, laughing at his surprise at my unusual strength. “Parker…” I whispered, nipping and tugging at his neck with blunt teeth.

There was a sharp intake of breath. “Y-Yeah?”

I lifted my head so he could see my game face. “You’re an ass.” Then I swooped down on his neck, biting and sucking with abandon. I threw his drained body into a Dumpster and turned to face my Sire, whom I could sense in the shadows. “What a rush!”

He smiled indulgently and crooked his finger at me. I jumped at him, wrapping my legs around his waist and covering his lips with my own.

I might have been dead, but I’d never felt more alive.

--

Killing people I knew was fun, I realized later, licking my lips as I stood. Professor Ritelli hadn’t been half as tasty as Parker or any of my younger targets, but he was equally, if not more satisfying. I hadn’t quite forgiven him for the D he’d given me on the essay I’d been forced to write in Spike’s absence.

Don’t think about Spike, I reminded myself for what must have been the tenth time that night. The memories I had of him warmed me, made me feel something beyond the bloodlust and vengeance I’d been enjoying all night. Most of all, I remembered being saved, all the time, by my vampire lover. Now, finally, we could be equals. We could be together as vampires were, like my Sire and I…

No.

I had to stop. Angelus owned me now. Regardless of how I felt about his Childe’s Childe.

“Anyone else you want?” Angelus asked from where he was dropping Ritelli’s TA unceremoniously.

“You?” I suggested, beaming at the smirk that spread on his face. Nothing made me happier than pleasing my Sire.

“So much better than the crazy nun!” he said wonderingly, shaking his head.

“Huh?”

He ignored me. “We can head back to the mansion,” he suggested. “Unless if you want to do that redheaded friend of yours?” He gestured vaguely in the direction of my dorm.

Willow. I remembered her. And it gave me a better idea. “I do want to try one more person,” I decided.

We ran with speed and agility, crossing town in minutes before we reached the Harrises’ house. Xander. I was pretty sure that I preferred drinking males to drinking females, and who better to try than my only real male friend? I remembered Riley with regret. He was gone by now, in Belize. He would have been fun to eat. Xander wasn’t waking the same excitement for the kill as Parker and Professor Ritelli had, though. I wondered why.

He opened the basement door, squinting out into the darkness. “Who’s there?”

I moved into the light, watching with amusement as he gaped at me. “Buffy?”

“Hey, Xan.” Now that I moved closer, I could see that he was a wreck. He stank of clothing not washed in days, his face had a scraggly beard growing on it, and his eyes looked hollow and empty. Although the last were lighting up as we spoke.

“But Will…Dawn…they said that you were…”

“Dead?” I supplied, smiling. “Just a misunderstanding.” I shivered, wrapping my arms around myself. “It’s really cold.”

“Oh!” Xander’s eyes widened. “Sorry! Come on in, you can tell me all about it!”

I turned to grin in triumph at my Sire, standing in the shadows. “Glad to.”

He shut the door behind us, pulling me to sit on his bed next to him. “Jeez, you’re freezing, Buffy! How long have you been outside?”

I shrugged. “A while.” I ran my fingers down his bare arm, watching as goosebumps erupted where I touched. “Did you miss me when you thought I was dead?”

“God, Buffy, how can you even ask that?” His eyes shone with indignation. “I know that you don’t like to think about it, but…I love you, Buffy. When I thought that you were gone…”

I crushed my lips to his, molding my mouth to his surprised one. At first, he was still, frozen in shock, then he reacted eagerly, pulling me closer.

I stripped off his rank clothes, impaling myself upon him in moments and riding him to oblivion. And the moment he came, I sank my teeth into his throat and drank up his blood, delighting in the sweet taste of it.

When I finally stood over the corpse, I waited for the feeling of triumph I’d felt before. But it never came. Don’t get me wrong- I wasn’t grieving or mourning. But I wasn’t exulting.

“Why didn’t it make me happy?” I asked Angelus as we disposed of the body. It wouldn’t do any good for his family or friends to realize that I was on the loose yet.

He shrugged. “Did you hate him?”

I shook my head. “I don’t think so. He was stupid, sometimes, and made me feel uncomfortable, but I was never really angry with him. It was just what Xander did.”

“There you go.” He bent over and licked some blood from my mouth. “We vampires feed off of our strong emotions. Hate, anger, disgust… Without those, a kill’s just a kill.” He smirked. “But don’t worry. There are ways to make it interesting. The thrill of the chase, the challenge of a good torture… Most vampires have a preference. My specialty, for example, is breaking my victims down.”

“Like you did to me,” I remembered. I couldn’t summon up anger for that, though, not at my Sire.

“Yes,” he agreed.

I frowned. “I think I like the chase more.” The idea of torture didn’t really excite me, not unless if it were someone I hated.

A dark look crossed his face, and I realized that he wasn’t pleased with that. I sought to change the subject. “Was it okay that I had sex with him?” I asked tentatively.

Angelus nodded. “He’s just a human. You can do whatever you want to humans.”

“But not other vampires?” I wanted confirmation.

“You’re MINE!” he growled, pouncing upon me.

Right. I got it. No Spike.
I remembered the other vampire wistfully. God, I miss Spike.

But then my Sire was biting me and I could focus on nothing else.

I was home.

Never mind that home felt oddly empty without a sarcastic British bloodsucker at my side.
 
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