Howl

On the night's last sweep of the city, you save Angel's life. He's looking the wrong way, so caught up in the three scaly demons in front of him he doesn't see the one coming at him from the back.

You cut off its head with one sweep of the axe. The blood spatters on your face, your shoes. You don't flinch at much, these days. His own fight finished, Angel stares at you over the bodies and for that second you're sixteen years old and you're sure he's going to kiss you.

"Getting late," he says.

"Early, really." The sun's not an issue, not since it stopped rising.

"We should…" he says, and you say, "yeah. We should."

The hotel is the only building for miles that has a roof and four good walls. Nina found it for the four of you, and Nina's standing in the doorway of the room she shares with Angel, and Nina doesn't even pretend to look at you as they go inside.

Alone in the bedroom next door, you pull the rough army blanket around yourself and try not to listen through the walls.

**

With Spike here, it was okay. You had your guy and Angel had his girl - the girl who was with him the day the world ended, the girl who remembers Wolfram & Hart and Connor and the pieces of Angel that you weren't around to see - and you could pretend you didn't feel your heart squeeze when you saw them together. You promised Spike you weren't jealous and you made yourself smile when you said it, and you put away all those thoughts about he was mine first.

Spike's gone east, looking for survivors. He and Angel and you drew straws - broken matches, really - knowing the others would have to stay behind. Guard the Hellmouth. Try to keep things from getting worse. He's been gone a month, because it was a wolf-moon the night he left (you) and it could be another eight weeks before he gets back (if he comes back).

Full moon with no convenient library cages means you're stuck in the hotel for a night. You wander through the empty rooms, kicking up dust that doesn't make you cough so much, now that you're used to it. You throw yourself onto your bed and think about Angel and try to think about Spike instead. You go to Angel's (Angel-and-Nina's) bedroom door three times before you decide to knock. He opens it before you can.

"Buffy, we can't," he says.

"Can't what? I didn't say anything."

Childish, maybe, but from the look on his face, he knows he's trapped. He takes one step towards you. One and a half.

Drifting up through the broken windows, Nina's howl is lost and lonely.

**

The moon goes down; technically, this black, starless sky is what passes for day.

"Whatever I ate last night, it was nasty," Nina complains, pulling food from the shelves. Your kitchen is an old manager's office. There's no electricity, no gas, and outdoor fires attract demons. Doesn't matter. Most of the canned food can be eaten cold.

Angel and Spike don't use this room. It makes you think of the girl's bathroom at high school, off limits to the male species. For a moment you miss the Bronze so much you could cry.

Nina gathers up soup, tinned fruit. Something that lost the label long ago. She says, "You smell like him. It's all over you." She grabs the can-opener and says, "I'll eat upstairs."

You don't see either of them for the rest of the day. You hear them fighting, or having sex, or both together. When you hear her leave and watch the wolf pad away down the dark street, you go to his room.

It's the second time you've slept with him in forty-eight hours. This time, it finally occurs to you that you're not his perfect happiness any more.

**

"You don't - love her, do you?"

"Do you love Spike?"

"…it's different." Because you're willing to believe that you can love two people but not that he can. Because you don't want to believe he could love someone else the way he loves you.

He turns away. Over his shoulder you can make out the outline of the bookshelf. The day after you all got here Nina found a library in one of the streets where she was scavenging for food. She brought Angel a book by some French guy. She was so excited, talking so fast you couldn't keep up, and it made Angel smile and Spike put a hand on your back just to remind you he was still there.

"It's late," you say awkwardly, wondering how easy it's going to be to find all of your clothes.

"Buffy," he says, hand on your wrist for just a second before he lets you go, "I love you. You know that."

"I know," you say, because you do, because there's nothing else.

**

Maybe it's some kind of slayer sense that wakes you up. Maybe it's just the movement when someone sits next to you on your bed.

"Nina." It must be day, she's human again. The candles are out and you squint against the darkness. "Are you… okay?" You're remembering Veruca. Thinking that Nina might be just a girl when she's not wolf-shaped but there are some pretty sharp things down in the weapons chest.

"God, you're covered in him." She laughs, running her hands over the blanket. "I can see it. It's like this for a couple of hours after I change. Seeing, smelling, it's all the same thing."

Slowly, carefully, you sit up. "Nina, I'm sorry."

"I don't know how this works with, with touch, or taste," and she's lifting your arm and there's not enough time to think that she's going to bite you before her tongue touches your wrist. "You do. You taste like Angel. Wow."

She finds your mouth in the dark, no fumbling or missed aim; you'd kill for that kind of night vision. She tastes like copper, smoke from the fires outside; it's enough like Angel that you don't pull away.

The floors in this place creak. You hear Angel coming long before he opens the door. Your hand's already stretched out to him, and there's enough light to see Nina's feral smile.

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