"You cut your hair," Riley whispered to her, his hallucination. Buffy crouched over him, beautiful and golden. He remembers watching her lips move although he couldn’t seem to understand what she was saying.

Ugh. The image that presents is just so insanely surreal and yet simple. I think that's what I loved about this most -the way you presented simple events (past and present) intertwined with really fucked up shit. And I like fucked up shit, so there's that.

I'm a sucker for repitition, of hearkening to past events and their meaning/relation/parallelism to the present and diyzam did this hit my literary kink right there.

Riley doesn’t want to be seen this way, but there’s something about giving up the thrill, the mesmerizing way his heart beats in his veins, the desperate pull of his blood and the heady sensation of Orpheus in his veins that keeps him coming back.

Right there, that's Riley, right there. That passage keeps reminding me of Riley coming off the Government Meds in season four, his attempt to stay clean vs. his desire to be perfect again. That, contrasted w/ the ever strong Buffy leads to weird twists and turns in his character *again* wonderfully brought to light in this.

Oh? And did I mention that it's also hot? 'Cause yeah. Totally.