Warning: This fic deals with rape, its aftermath, and some issues involving sex and power dynamics that some readers may find disturbing. Readers are cautioned accordingly
Pairing: Willow/Angel
Summary: Willow and Angel's relationship changes.
Feedback: PLEASE!
Distribution: If you already have my work, you may have this. If you do not, just ask.
Disclaimer: I own nothing. It all belongs to Joss and a bunch of other people who are not now and have never been me.
Author's Notes: This part is dedicated to Tonya, Kat, Em North, Elisabeth, Feen, Missy, Emmy, Aaronlisa, Doris, Shannon, Kitty, Laura, LadyRedX, Heather, Lirion, Nix, midnight, Phreak, Angel Jade, Gray, and Claudia_yvr
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The world was full of spiders. Willow could see that now.
Of course it was too late. It had always been too late. For her, the world was nothing but a maze of webs in which she was continually becoming entrapped. And no matter how many times she escaped, there was always another web, another spider..
Her friendship with Angel had evolved. Evolved into something that terrified her in its inscrutability and its enigma. In its danger and its siren song. And in its frightening capacity to entrap.
She didn't know how it had changed, or why, but suddenly, it had. One night as they sat, deep in a conversation from which, as usual, Angel learned much of her and Willow emerged feeling more and more vulnerable, Angel had leaned in and kissed her. He was gentle in his actions, but there was an undercurrent Willow couldn't place and couldn't escape. He had asked her to let him make it better, as if she had a choice. And Willow had said yes, as if she could have said no.
Willow hadn't known what to expect, but she surely didn't expect what had happened next. Angel had slowly disrobed her, laid her in front of the fireplace, and performed oral sex on her. And she had cum, hard and fast and forever. Her orgasm stunned her with its power and its brutal force. She hadn't expected it. Or what it had made her feel. It had given her that momentary feeling of being clean that she had sought in Xander's kiss and was the first real, pure feeling of <i>anything</i> but numbness and self-hate and emptiness that she'd had since Spike's assault.
She hadn't thought about Angel's curse and the "happiness clause" until afterwards. But Angel still had his soul. And Willow was sure that going down on her wouldn't give him soul-taking ecstasy, anyway. She didn't want to think about anything but what talking to Angel, what being with Angel, and especially what letting Angel touch her, did for her. What he did for her that night was so utterly unlike anything that had happened to her in the factory that she felt almost like a virgin again; an odd feeling to get from a sexual act, but one which Willow gloried in, logic be damned, curse be damned, the world be damned.
So their encounters continued. And Willow didn't ask herself why Angel seemed as eager for them as she was, perhaps even more so. She didn't ask what it was he was getting from their relationship. And she didn't think about what her friends would say if they knew, especially Buffy.
And no one seemed to even be aware that she was friends with Angel, let alone that there was more than that between them. An eternity of a month or two ago, Willow would have been hurt that her friends paid so little attention to her and cared so little about how she spent her time away from research and listening to their problems. But now, she was grateful for their selfishness and utter lack of interest in her life apart from them. It meant that she could avoid feeling guilty and thus avoid thinking about the ramifications of her 'friendship' with the dark-haired vampire who had somehow become the center of Willow's world. The vampire who knew her better by far than she knew herself. The vampire who gave her acceptance and an escape from her pain in exchange for..? Willow decided not to think about that. There was nothing she could do about anything; she knew that now. It was best not to think about what was to come. The world was full of spiders. And it was best for a fly to forget.
The End