There is time to think now. In the silence. He has gone back to the Olde ways, to the cycle of nightwalk-daysleep. In daysleep there is not much dreaming. He prefers it that way, now.

Too many years on beds too soft, with people too soft around him, and he had almost forgotten..almost let himself forget. He knows, and the knowledge is powerful and bitter. It was the Forgetting that paved his way to Hell the first time. He will not return there on that same path. This time, if he goes, it will be in a shower of fire and metal, not in the arms of a schoolgirl.

No dreams, and no jelly-filled cakes and noone to whisper goodnight before closing his door. No dreams.

Too long, and he is out of practice. He has forgotten how to be..alone..inside his skin. Forgotten ((almost forgotten)) how much he hates the decor. Runs to the point of exhaustion, does chin-ups til his undead muscles remember how to cramp. Nothing changes. His body looks the same. It will ever look the same. And inside, he is still neither one, nor the other.

``Shadow,`` Drusilla said.

(((Shadow, Doyle said.)))

The memories still come. He cannot stop those. Shadow. Nothing real. Nothing tangible. Nothing of substance. Ironic that the undead cast no reflection, yet still create shadows.

(((An alleyway in Manhattan in the early 1960`s. Homeless men hovering around a steel canister, carefully caressing the fire leaping from within. Flames painting the filth and the grime with fragile beauty, rats the size of small dogs in the trash. He held up his hand to the wall, watched the casting of the firelight on brick make the image of his fist appear twice its size. The shadow there, the last remnant of himself. A reflection, for just one moment. ``Me. That`s me.`` he whispered. ``I`m here. I`m here.`` )))

Forty years later, and he has proven his existence with truer flames and battle scar, with errors in judgment and blind folly, with precious few moments of grace. Then one morning he awoke and saw Cordelia covering dark blue circles under her eyes with pancake makeup. Saw the three day stubble on Wesley`s cheeks. Saw the widening crease in Gunn`s brow. And he recognized it this time, and oh, faster than the last. Shadow. He had walked vicariously in the light again, and his shadow had come once more for its due.

Payment had come first in the form of demons` blood; incest and rape which he had been forced to witness.

Later in the form of human loss and human tears, harsh words and empty rooms. High heels clicking and doors slamming. An empty desk at the front of his hotel. An empty house.

So he shed his coat and his broadsword, and went to face Them with just his hands. He had made Them what they were with these hands. He could unmake.

//But Angelus, she`s...she`s insane. Aye! *Now* am I learnin`, Darla?//

//How did you *think* this would end?//

Little girl voices, little girl hands, women`s bodies, demons` blood. Adoration and hexes.

((``Daddy,`` she had whispered. A query, a plea, a jubilation finally, when he shut that wine cellar door. When he confessed his sin aloud. The most grievous sin. That he no longer cared. ``Daddy.`` ))

It`s not the soul, is it? No, no, it`s the heart, and once that is gone, there is no Caster who may retrieve it. It doesn`t float in some unnamed ether awaiting return to its host. It is rended and burst and trampled on by the palest of white horses...

(((``Daddy!`` she screamed as the flames licked her ghostly face, danced like bumblebees along her slim form, wrapped in the most flammable of velvet and silks. Peppermint kisses, she used to say. I give my Spike and Angel peppermint kisses. ``Daddy!`` But he did not turn around.)))

He knows they still walk, he knows they will be enraged. He has scarred Darla`s face, and that simply will not do. But there was fear in her voice...in his..//Sire`s// voice..

//That wasn`t Angel. That wasn`t Angelus. Who was that?//

And he had finally laughed. Christ, Darla, if *you* don`t know...Something inside ((deep inside)) whispered at the blasphemy of laughing while such deathless beauty burned. But he did not stop.

Later that night, he thought of sleeping on the floor. Of casting aside the silk pillows and warm coverlets, the final, dishonest trappings of all that had come before. Then he remembered that monks did that. Slept on wooden plats, to show their humility before god. Some of them even slept in coffins...

He laid down fully clothed on his bed, and he cried.

For the first time since she stopped coming to him with narcotic powder clenched in her small fists, he dreamed.

//thumpthump//

Of dim, flashing neon and gray sheets. Warm flesh and scalding tears. His clothes tore into the skin where the burns remained. Holy Water burns. They would take longer to heal than most injuries. But he didn`t mind.

Because under it all was the *sound*. The lull. The comfort. The beat. Laid his head against it, cradled there by the soft, human hands. Just listened. Felt it move through him, almost his..almost...

``You`ll never be alone, I promise..`` and he didn`t know whether the words were spoken for her, or for himself.

//I should have heard them, should have smelled them coming.//

Especially her. In times past he could discriminate her scent through the inferno of riots and the stink of death. But it had been too long, and he had become too weak, and he had..forgotten. And there is always a price for the forgetting.

Splintered wood and broken bone. Tasers on already burnt flesh and kicks to already cracked ribs. Helpless. Helpless, and that was the worst of it. The fists in his hair and the *watching*.

Framed by the doorway and the moon. She was still beautiful. How silly that he was surprised by that. She that is Unchanged. Weightless grace. Silent death.

Silent. No beat.

Focused, listened to Darla`s beat. Rabbit beat, faster, faster, run ...blood running, but feet were still. Listened as it sped, skipped, faltered.. thrumming stronger for one triumphant moment....He remembers. He remembers *that* moment...from both sides. The human heart refusing surrender /Iwillnotdie Iwillnotdie/.

Slow, wet sounds.

Silence.

Awoke to the scent of her, the scent of blood, the scent of death. Bound with wire around his wrists to the bedpost, silk scarf over his eyes.

``Dru.`` Put as much authority as he could into his cracking voice, wishing for nothing more than an instinctual response from her. But she could differentiate. She knew.

//Not Daddy.//

``In the Once Upon A Time, the King was the Land,`` she told him. �

``Dru, I--,`` Harsh slap to his face with those long claws unsheathed, and he was silent.

``The King and the land were one. And whatever happened to the King, happened to his land,`` she continued, running her cold hands over his bare chest, still reddened and tender from the Holy Water. She punctuated each sentence with another rake of claws over the sore and aching flesh. He willed himself not to flinch.

``When the King was content, the water was plentiful, and the crops grew to the stars. The people were fat and happy.`` She was tugging at the waistband of his trousers now, and his wrists felt the unrelenting bite of the barbs as he struggled for freedom.

``But when the King was naughty.....,`` Pants around his ankles and her soft thighs straddled his waist. She leaned forward upon him, strong, sure hands closed around his throat, and squeezed. ``When the King was naughty, the people and the land suffered....``

Her mouth found his, and he remembered.... Kisses with the lash. Kisses with the belt. Kisses with his lips. Until at last, she could no longer set them apart. Suffering and desire, and she had long ago forgotten the difference.

No. She had *learned* there was no difference.

``They hurt, and so they cried unto the Heavens. They asked for salvation, but none came. There was plague, and misery and death. For years, and years uncounted, there was nothing but sadness and grief.`` �

She whispered against his face, his neck, her words dancing over his skin while her fangs pierced random patterns. His flesh had not healed from the earlier wounds, and he would scar now.

He thought maybe that was fitting.

Breath against his belly. ``And then the Wizard conjured a plan...a plan to restore the health of the King, and the bounty of the Land.`` She licked in long, slow strokes along his abdomen until he trembled beneath her. Her fingers dug into his sides, a silent warning of her strength and his weakness.

His surrender.

``The King was brought to a giant cauldron, where a white mare was bound. And the wise Wizard told him, `My King, I have come upon a method to heal you, and by so doing, heal us all.` ``

She was silent for a moment, but he could feel her breath against his thighs. Tiny fingers closed around his cock. He jumped, groaned, was still.

``Do you know what the plan was, Daddy? Do you?`` The once term of affection laced with derision, the question wholly rhetorical.

He knew. Of course he knew.

``This was the most perfect mare in all the Land, priceless in beauty and breeding, worth the dowry of countless maidens. The King was to mate with the mare, Daddy. To rut with it, and to claim it, to own it. In front of all the town`s people, so they would see that he was once more the King, and that he could do as he pleased.``

He groaned again as her fist slid easily over his length, down and up to the cadence of her sing-song voice and his nonexistent heart beat. To the tempo of his sighs and whimpers. To the primal rhythm of some archaic and long dead rite.

``Dru, don`t- please-,`` fangs in his thigh and he arched off the mattress. Of course. To her, //to them all// begging is commensurate to foreplay.

She drank until he was weeping, but she never loosened her hold on him. And he was arching against her, into the caress and the small scrap of pleasure it offered, because he too had long forgotten the difference.

And when her mouth closed around him, he could see them, the palest of horses running beneath the silver light of the Winter Moon.

(((The Cauldron sits atop a pile of wood, and the townsfolk have gathered, young and old and in between, in silent witness. The King has done his Duty, and the Chosen Horse awaits, in the Cauldron large enough for them both to enter. She is bucking wildly and keening, until the King slits her throat. Then her blood runs free, over the rim of the copper bowl, into the Earth, over the Land.

The first bite is for the King, and her raw flesh is bitter and sweet. It is all and it is nothing. )))

He came in her mouth with a strangled cry, and she bent once more to kiss him, so he could commit the taste to memory. Essence of Nothing. Memories and dreams and archetypes that no longer walk.

Shadow.

And later, much later, when the sun is in the middle of the sky, and he has been bled and torn and there is no more salt to give, he heard it.

A steady beat, a familiar //thump thump//.. and the scent of warrior and dust and junk food.

``Shit, Angel, Angel man, you alive?``

Shredded wrists loosed from their bonds, cover thrown over his waist, and dark, troubled eyes that would not meet his.

``Gunn...`` he managed, blinking swollen lids in the harsh light.

``Yea, yea. Come on, we gotta get you out of here and patched up.``

``WAIT.`` Both startled at the harsh tone. Frozen for the moment on the blood soaked bed.

``What? What is it?``

``I--I have to know which one I am. I have to know.``

Gunn stared at him not quite patiently, threw one of Angel`s arms around his broad shoulder, hefted him off the bed. ``Ok, well, we`ll figure that out in the car.``

``NO! No, *now*, godamn it now!`` And Gunn didn`t flinch at the growl, just kept on walking toward the door with Angel slung around him and the woolen blanket over them both to shield him from the rays of the sun. Until Angel used what strength was left to grab the splintered doorframe, and turned to face the man half carrying him from the stinking room. His eyes were yellow but shining, and for the first time, Gunn realized he was seeing the vampire cry.

``Ok, Ok, man. What? What do you need to know?``

Angel held himself steady with fist around the large man`s lapel, looked into his eyes....no innocence there, but kindness, kindness and understanding, and maybe, something akin to affection.

``Gunn,`` he whispered.

``Yea. Angel, yea.``

``Am I the King or the horse?``

And Gunn had no idea what the correct answer was, so he did the only thing he could think of doing. He held Angel tighter around his waist, listened without flinching to the sickening crunch of shattered bone inside his chest every time he shifted, and whispered, ``It`s Ok, man. It`s Ok. I`m not gonna let you fall.``

*****