The Tin

Dedication: With this story, thank you Nariya and Regala for checking
up with me, and for Copper- I love you just for you too. And to all
the nice B/A friendly babblers at the Babble Board, BA or BUST! And
as always- to all of the B/A and Sarah and David shippers out there!
I hope this makes you all happy. WE MUST KEEP THE FAITH!

Distribution: Wow? You actually want this? Well email me and I'll
give it you on a silver platter.

Background: At first I thought I pulled a Noxon, although Copper says
in order to truly pull a Noxon you'd have to totally re-write the
characters so they can be the little actors in my sock puppet theater-
so I guess I pulled a somethingism Oh well. This is a quickie
while I'm still writing other things.

Takes place after both the Angel Season Three TOMORROW finale and the
evening after the big battle in Buffy Season Six's TWO TO GO and GRAVE

THE TIN

Strange thoughts go through your mind when you're in a bolted metal
box drifting through the bottom of the ocean.

I wasn't thinking about escape.

I wasn't thinking about my son with a killer.

I was thinking about Christine.

Christine who's long dead now.

Christine who I killed.

She was one of the first- in Galway A few houses down from where I
lived. One of many sisters, all of which died by my hands. I hadn't
touched their father. But I took my greatest pleasure in his torture.
The pain I had caused wasn't physical- it was forever.

They never called her Christine. Instead, she was "Tin". A useful-
but otherwise worthless piece of junk metal. Fit for scraps. And the
thing is- you keep telling someone they're worthless, no matter how
strong that person is a part of them, whether you see it or not
crumbles.

Chirstine did her best. She did her duty- never spoke an ill-word and
did what her father told her. I hadn't thought about her that much
when I was human. As a young stupid boy- I thought she was fat and
unattractive, her own father had said so. Repeatedly. Quiet loudly in
front of anyone and everyone. For as long as she was alive.

I never heard her ever speak out until the night I killed her, the
moonlight shinning clearly on her pale dead features and to the
horrible anguish of her father. She had run out of the house because
she `couldn't live like this anymore'. Even as a soulless demon, I
knew cruelty when I saw it. I didn't care. But I could recognize it.
Easily. And believe me- there is nothing worse than a man who is
cruel by nature and hides behind the face of good intentions. And he
had enough `good intentions' to practically kill the poor girl.

But in my twisted sense of pleasure- did it for him. Right then,
right there. He knew who I was. He knew what I was. And that just
made the truth all the more hard for him to bear.

I took such disgusting pleasure from telling him Christine's thin
pretty sister was the one with the "pissing evile"- and was probably
going to die soon anyway. Christine herself was as healthy as an ox,
her blood not sweet- but strong and held the promise of many, many
years before I sucked them all away into my mouth. Gone.

The look of horrific truth on his face was more than enough to feed
my own cruelty, and I let him spend all of his natural life realizing
it- tormented by it. Haunted by it.

Now I am the one that's haunted.

Not just at their deaths, but by their mistakes. Their mistakes are
now my own sins now.

Look at what `good intention' for my child brought me- a watery grave.

In the dark.

Alone.

I'm sorry Stephen I did this to you.

I'm sorry that I killed so many, I killed Christine and never learned
from what she had given up her life to show me.

I'm sorry I treated you like you were tin- like a piece of metal that
can easily be fashioned into whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted.

I'm sorry I used you- thinking about just me, my needs For thinking
that your love and my desperate clinging to a stupid woman were
interchangeable- for never REALLY realizing how you're special and
different.

I'm sorry that I could never understand you for what you really were-
a child, who tried to love his father But was aching just too much-
too much for me to see it.

I'm sorry for not seeing you- and your pain. For causing you pain.

I'm sorry I didn't love you because you were just you.

And most of all- I'm sorry that you never got to meet the one person
who's done just that- who has loved me because I was just me. I'm
sorry I let Buffy go from my life.

She was just Buffy- beautiful Buffy because she was just herself. She
transcends all labels and categories I could ever think up for
anyone. She was

She was the only person I've ever TRULY loved unselfishly- because I
never once thought about the things she could do for me or thought of
her in any specific way except completely amazing.

I love you Buffy. Always means always- and I love you.

*********

Suddenly my eyes were open. It was still dark outside, and as I lay
there in my bed- I tried to take it all in. There was a lot to take
in.

I really didn't want to have to think. Did too much of that earlier
tonight.

But I had to. I needed to. I wanted to.

Because it was Angel.

And he's in trouble.

I think.

No- I know.

I need to wake up Giles- and the rest of the gang. We'd need to get a
boat- or a ocean-y spell or SOMETHING.

I could feel the despair as I dreamed him, smell the stale slightly
salty air of a heavy tin casket that was floating somewhere deep in
the Pacific Ocean. Don't ask me the details. Or the how's, why's,
when's or where'sRealistically the whole Angel's in a water-coffin
thing came out of nowhere- but I feel that's where he is and I know
that's where I need to be. Now.

He didn't mean to send a this psychic distress signal, but he just
wanted- in any way for me to know Angel loves me- in the deepest
most complete sense of the word. Somehow, he has painfully realized
that he's failed someone very close to him- and couldn't love that
way.

He loves me. Just for me.

And I love him- always means always and I love him.

And I will find him.

THE END