Title: I Love You Dead Boy part 12 - Betrayal

Author: Belynda

Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer

Pairing: That would be telling.<g>

Rating: PG-13

Archive: Dead Boy and Xander, Angst Archive. Anyone else, ASK first.

Series: I Love You Dead Boy

Part: 12

I Love You Dead Boy part 12 - Betrayal
by Belynda

Pain.

Unbearable pain.

A pain much worse than a broken bone.

A pain that out did the cruelest insult from a parent.

A pain that reached inside your chest and squeezed your wildly beating heart, and kept on squeezing until you were ready to pass out from the pain.

But there was no relief. It just went on and on and on. Over and over again. Hitting you harder than any baseball bat ever could.

On and on it went.

STOP IT!

You just wanted it to stop. To go. Be done with. To vanish.

But life wasn't that nice. Just when you thought it couldn't get worse. When you thought the bearer of pain was turning away, leaving you to your misery and heartache, it whipped back around and BANG! It hit you back in the face with a new assault.

Again and again.

No more. Please...

The blunt knife of pain, slicing and slicing at your heart, renting a new tear to go along with all the others. Leaving you unable to cope. To heal. To go on.

Please... stop...

The world was spinning. Around and around and around. Making you dizzy. Sweat pouring off you in waves of pain and fear.

Fear that it wouldn't stop. Would never stop. To be your companion for life. Never letting you smile. To sleep the sleep of the loved. To be able to look in the mirror in the morning, and realise that today something *good* was going to happen.

No. You would always remember this moment.

Standing here. In the Bronze. Surrounded by people who were talking and laughing, and for the lucky few, loving. But never being more alone in your whole life. Standing in a pool of pain. Being betrayed with every word. Every look. Every touch.

No...

And not being betrayed by one person.... vampire... thing. Beloved. But by two. With each other. Unaware of the pain that bombarded their friend. Lover. Nuisance.

Who stood up on the landing above them. Watching. Seeing. Unbelieving.

Unbelieving that this was how it was to end. Not by his choice. Never by his choice. But by the choice of the only two people he had ever felt loved by.

And it wasn't just one of them. No. It was both of them. But that wasn't the worst thing. On, no. When Xander Harris was betrayed, it was done with both barrels a blazing.

It was the fact that they were betraying him with each other.

Pain...

He had known. He had always known that they had had a history together. As friends. Killers. Lovers. He had thought that was in the past. Were it *belonged*. But no. Life was never that easy. For it seemed that Spike, and Angelus, were lovers once again.

There they were. Below him. Unaware that he stood there watching. That he stood in the Bronze at all. Watching them with his newly returned eye sight. Eye sight he now damned. And also blessed.

How long had this been going on? This...this... *thing* between the two men he had loved. *Had* loved? Who was he kidding? Although his heart was being torn apart with every kiss, every caress of those undead hands on each other, he still loved them both.

And what kind of person did that make him? A doormat? Desperate? So unloved that he would take the smallest offering? *He* didn't want to be like that... this... whatever. He didn't. But his wants and needs were controlling him. Pushing him to watch. To learn.

To learn to live the pain? The betrayal? The uncertainly of not knowing when his lovers would say enough? Enough of Xander, the teenager with the deadend future, in a deadend town. Wasn't he worth more? Wasn't he? Was he?

Maybe not. He was still the teenager with the deadend future, in a deadend town. What did he have going for him besides the love of two vampires? One that had looked after him while he recovered from his parents *love*. The other who had... Well.... The other who had been in this dreams almost every night in the form of his true love.

Angel. My love...

That was the worst pain of all. Not the fact that Spike and Angelus, were diving for each others tonsils in one of the dark corner of the Bronze. But knowing that Angel wasn't coming back.

Angelus liked being here. Tormenting everyone he could. Buffy, Spike, and Xander.

Tormenting Xander, by being in the form of his lover. Knowing that Angel wasn't coming back. Not as long as Angelus had something to say about it. And he did. He had told Xander, repeatedly, that Angel wasn't coming back.

Maybe this was proof. After all, Angel had never betrayed him. Would never have betrayed him...

Oh. Yeah. He had.

With *her*.

But that wasn't the same. It wasn't.

Hang on... They were leaving.

Should he follow them?

Maybe not, but his feet were already taking him after them. It may have been the dumbest thing he had ever tried, but he needed to know what was going to happen between them. Where they were going. He could guess that where ever they went, it had a bed some place close by.

Soon even they were arriving at Spike's place. Xander, following far enough behind them that he hadn't been spotted, stopped.

The fact seared through him, shocking him where he stood, that Spike was taking Angelus to the bed they had shared. Had slept in. Had talked, argued, laughed. Made love in.

PAIN!

How could he? Was there going to be no end to his pain? Was he going to be forever doomed to be alone? Unloved? Unwanted?

Wrapped up in his pain, he crept inside what had once been his home. He had to know. Had to see for himself. Maybe, after he had seen all he could bear, he would be able to come to a decision. About whether to going on with his pitiful life, or find a way, any way, to live in this cruel world.

But first he had to see...


To be continued.

Evil laughter echoes in the dark room as Belynda hunches over the keyboard. "Tomorrow, my pretties. Tomorrow. He he he..."