True Pain is Guilt

Buffy slowly crept toward the doors of the movie theater, Xander close behind. He had been the one who had noticed that the movie theater wasn’t running. A quick call showed that someone had bought all of the tickets for a special event. Yet, there were no cars or people outside.

She glanced over to Faith. She was at the other door. Giles was back at the ticket counter. They had found Miss Calendar. She was alive, but otherwise in really bad shape.

If she hadn’t already been ready to kill Angelus, this would have definitely put her over the edge.

She could hear something from within the theater. Grunts, it sounded like pain. Willow? She didn’t want to think about that. One way or another, this ended now.

She gave a nod to Faith and they both kicked in their doors and rushed in.

She saw Angelus. He was sitting alone in the theater. No other vampires. Buffy didn’t care. She was going to end this now. She rushed him, her stake held high.

It was actually Xander who stopped her, “Wait,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper as he grabbed her arm. “Look at him, something is wrong.”

She looked, expecting some kind of trap. He was tied to the chair and he was…crying.

He looked up at her, “Buffy?”

“Hey, check out the video,” Faith said as she glanced at the screen. “This theater got XXX rated.”

Buffy looked up at the screen and gasped in horror. It was her and Faith. Her and Cordelia. But, most of all, her and Xander. Hanging out, being with each other, and a lot of sex. He must have had someone filming them. But there were also scenes from places vampires couldn’t get. Scenes from when they had an orgy at Cordelia’s house. Fuck, was there a security system there? And scenes from inside Sunnydale High.

She was going to kill Snyder.

It wasn’t just the sex though. It was her comments. How much better Xander was. How Angel could never hope to measure up to him. That Xander would be the only man for her.

Not Angelus. Her insults had been directed at the vampire without a soul, but the comments were about her time when he was Angel.

She collapsed into one of the chairs. Angel, the man she loved, was back. Angelus had brought his own soul back. All to **** her and his own soul.

“Will,” Xander said as he saw his friend stagger out onto the stage.

Buffy couldn’t even get up out of the chair.

“So, what are we doing?” Faith asked as she twirled the stake in her hand.

“Kill me,” Angel begged as an image of Buffy screaming about how much better Xander’s dick was played on screen.

“Let him go,” Buffy whispered as she ran a hand down her face.