Title: Usually
Rated: PG
Summary: Takes place Btvs s2 somewhere between Innocence and Becoming. B/Aus of a sort. "If the world is going to hell in a bucket, I want to be holding the handle." -Anthony Croyden-Hayes in Club Paradise.



Usually he liked the world the way it was. Pretty girls in pretty dresses walking around like free buffets, easily taken with a little bit of charm and a compliment, add in an Irish brogue and they tumbled like children’s building blocks. There were also things like whiskey and nuns, things to be enjoyed and things not generally found in Hell. Yes, usually he liked the world exactly the way it was.

That was before her. Before she got under his skin and in his blood like a disease, a very painful, slow and ultimately fatal disease. Yes he knew that eventually this game would end with one of them fallen. He intended it to be her but he would miss the game none the less. He’d stalked her, killed her friends, sent her morbid presents and very nearly killed her, not to mention the brushes with death he’d experienced at her very capable hands. Usually those were things guaranteed to either get a woman out of his system or drive him to kill her once and for all. Usually was not a word that seemed to apply to her.

The idea to send the world to Hell hadn’t occurred to him per say. The whole idea had been to get her out of his mind and out of his blood for good. It’d merely evolved into sending the world to Hell. He’d thought about other ways to do it, even tried several. Obvious things like killing her hadn’t proved so simple. Not because he wasn’t able; she was a slayer sure but she was still just human and incredibly fragile, so very mortal. The problem was the game…he enjoyed it and though she’d die before she admitted it, she did too.

He had been so very close to the kill so many times, yet unwilling to make that final move, willing to toy with her until she’d pushed him into a checkmate. She’d taunted him with the kill, dangling it in his face like a carrot before a horse by leaving her bedroom window open while he still had an open invitation to her house. He’d crept in one night and perched on her window sill, listening to the thrum of her heart and the soft swoosh of her breath. He’d returned the next night to sketch her. The night after that he hadn’t had an excuse and that was when the idea to get rid of her had first become concrete in his mind, the first time that he hadn’t cared about continuing the game.

The idea had taken many different forms, each without success. Drusilla had been the one to tell him about Acathla and the idea to send the world to Hell had been born. Drusilla had clapped her hands and declared what a fun party it would be. He’d turned on his heel and growled.

Usually he agreed. An apocalypse always made a good party, even better then most rebellions. Usually wasn’t a word that seemed to apply.