Without Him


TITLE: Without Him
AUTHOR: Fyre
EMAIL: Fyredansa@hotmail.com
SUMMARY: Buffy reflects on Riley's betrayal
FEEDBACK: Gimme, gimme, gimme! Please?
DISTRIBUTION: Just here at the mo...but anyone can have it :-) Just ask nicely ;-)
SPOILERS: Seasons 4/5 of Buffy (even though I haven't seen them, I read too many spoilers.)
COUPLE: Buffy/Riley implied
RATING: PG-16, maybe a tad higher
DISCLAIMER: Tisn't mine! *sob*
CLASSIFICATION: Possibly my first real angst fic...I don't know.
NOTES: I was ill with a cold/flu virus thing and felt like poop, so I wrote something about someone feeling like poop. Good way of thinking, no? Another of the Improv fics - fury, ease, silent, glimmer - Written : 26.12.2000
DEDICATED: To my brother, for being a contagious little smurf and making me ill.
_________________________________________

Flicking through her journal from the previous year, Buffy exhaled a slow sigh, fighting back the tears of fury and betrayal that inevitably rose, hugging Mr Gordo to her chest with a muffled sob, as she skimmed over the text.

Things had changed so much since then, but she still couldn't forget what she had seen, heard and felt. It was all there, like a video awaiting painful playback, in every gloriously agonising detail.

She even remembered that his room had smelled strangely like lavender, just faintly, but strong enough for her to smell it.

Now, lavender meant only one thing to her: betrayal.

His betrayal.

Burying her face in Mr Gordo, the Slayer muffled a cry, wondering if she would ever trust anyone again, love anyone.

Riley had been her first 'real' boyfriend and she had thought - that after Angel - she would never be hurt again...not including the Parker-mistake. That, after she had commited herself and grown to trust and love someone, they would never do an 'Angelus' on her.

But that was just what he had done, although he had supposedly had a soul, even thought it didn't seem possible, his casual indifference as they grew apart, the way he blamed everything on her in the way Angelus had - "You made me the man I am today!" - and the way it hurt like hell making him more of a monster than Angelus ever had been.

Sinking her teeth into her lower lip, she forced herself to read the writing.

‘Met a TA today. Riley Finn. Almost killed him with books. Made the lamest chat up line ever. Why do all cute guys do that to me? Willow seemed to be oblivious to the cuteness! How is it possible!’

She remembered that meeting so well - "I forgot all my manners in the concussion. I'm Riley Finn." - all charm and manners and niceness, but now...

Right up until his betrayal had been revealed, she had felt she could trust him with her very life, even after she found out he hadn't told her about being a member of the Initiative, even after all the incidents with Adam.

Recalling the nights that the Gentlemen had come to town, she remembered al too vividly the moment when she had found out who he was, whirling around with her crossbow raised, only to meet the barrel of his electric blaster gun thing that looked like it had been snatched straight out of a sci-fi film.

That was the first time he had saved her life.

The first time of far too many times. It wasn't right for a man to save her life so many times, only to betray her.

Gnawing on her lip, she rubbed her neck. He had such a trustworthy face, but - like so many people with trustworthy faces - he was a complete and utter liar.

She recalled how Willow had felt when Oz had cheated on her with that Verruca-ho. How she had almost cursed her, before Oz had come in and torn her pretty little furry throat out. How she had done that spell which had ended up with her - Buffy - getting engaged to Spike.

Spike.

Now there was another little twist in her freaky little tale. First, a souled vampire lost his soul for her. Then a soulless vampire was implanted and found his soul for her and she had refused it, in spite of everything he had done and said.

Pulling her knees up against her chest, she hugged Mr Gordo tightly, blinking repeatedly until the tears that threatened to spill over had halted. She could till go to Spike and make him take the pain away, let him care for her, but only because of everything - her mother, Dawn...Riley.

Stinging tears rose again, a painful glimmer that brimmed from her red-rimmed eyes and trickling slowly down her gaunt, pale, salt-stained cheeks. Dripping on her taut, white knuckles, the salty raindrops chilled on her trembling hands.

Riley and her mother had been getting on so well too. And now, she had to tell her mother what had happened, when she was ill, weak, exhausted.

She knew that the strong woman that she knew her mother was wouldn't just sit back and let her daughter be hurt in such a cruel and twisted way, but she was too weak and frail to do anything about it now and that made it all the worse.

Joyce Summers would rather kill Riley than let him hurt Buffy, but now, it was too late. She even had befriended a soulless demon and shared a hot cocoa and maternal advice with him, before he had been turned into a harmless puppy.

Not many women would have the nerve to do that.

Flopping onto her side, her knees still pulled up against her chest, the bottle-blonde slayer inhaled a deep, trembling breath, her mind wandering to her other former boyfriend, Angel.

If anything, she had loved him more than she would ever love Riley and she had sent him to Hell, to save the World, but she didn't even that excuse to batter Riley into a bloody, messy pulp. If she had been able to say it was saving the World, that's what she would have done.

But she couldn't.

There would be no excuse. She would become another Faith...no. Faith had changed. She had seen that for herself, when she had secretly visited her former ally in the prison she now lived in.

Faith had told her that killing humans would tear her apart. It was like a stain, a dark, sinister stain that nothing could remove. All it did was spread, getting darker and darker, although nothing seemed to possibly be able to get darker after the realisation that Riley needed vampires to fulfil him.

That hurt more than anything else. That he couldn't tell her, that he had to go to the very thing they had both fought for so long, only to pay them to drink from him to give him a happy. It made her feel sick.

That she hadn't noticed. That she hadn't asked where he'd been. That she hadn't been able to satisfy him enough.

If he didn't care enough for her, then why should she bother, she wondered. Why did she still care so much? Why did she still wish he would walk in the door and tell her it was all a huge mistake and that it was someone else pretending to be him?

It would never happen and she would have to face it.

It had been him. Only him.

Slowly sitting up, she placed Mister Gordo back on her pillow, rubbing her face wearily, exhaling a trembling breath. Tracing her cool fingertips across her eyes, she forced herself to smile, knowing that - in spite of everything - she was better off without him.

Glancing at the clock, she sighed. It was time to go to the hospital, to meet up for her mother's next check-up.

With the utmost effort, she got to her feet and made her way across the room, grabbing her jacket from the wardrobe.

Bending from the waist, she mechanically grasped the hand-grip of Mister Pointy, jerking it out of the corpse on the floor with a familiar ease, the blood dripping silently on the khaki-coloured shirt, as she smiled coldly.

"You had been bitten." She remarked chillingly, stooping to wipe the stake on her boyfriend's dark trousers. "You might have been turned. It was my sacred duty, Riley."

With a casual motion, she tucked the splinter of smooth wood away in her clothing and walked towards the door, Riley's blank, dead eyes staring emptily after her in the silent darkness.


Back to the Character Index
Back to the Titles Index