Spoilers: Mention of events in “Lover’s Walk”
Pairing: W/S; S/D (mention and back-story)
Summary: Spike is giving Willow the cold shoulder and Willow sets out to confront him and find out why.
A.N.: 1) The story picks up where "Fleurs de Mal" leaves off, but goes AU. Willow is not with Tara, Spike is not with Buffy, and the story provides an alternative background story for Drusilla’s and Spike’s relationship to the one in the show, (kind of a ‘what if’ twist), so pretty much ignore the Dru flashbacks in the show. 2) All the poetry in the story is written by Lord Byron. If you would like links to websites about Lord Byron’s poetry and biography, just e mail me privately. 3)All the historical and literary references in the story are true and accurate to the best of my knowledge. Please read the additional author’s notes at the end, after you’ve read the story. I don’t want to give certain things away before you read it.
Feedback: Oh, please! Do you even need to ask?! I’m addicted to that stuff, no feedback no writing. I’ll take praise as well as constructive criticism. Send to: aileene@sbcglobal.net
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~Part: 1~
//Good, or evil, life,
Powers, passions, all I see in other beings,
Have been to me as rain unto the sands,
Since that all-nameless hour. I have no dread,
And feel the curse to have no natural fear
Nor fluttering throb, that beats with hopes or wishes
Or lurking love of something on the earth.//
Willow walked briskly down the street that led to the graveyard, her resolve face on, her hair billowing in the wind, her arms wrapped tightly around her body as if to shield it from the crisp, night wind. Her clenched jaw trembled with the jar of each determined step. She was hurt and angry – maybe she was just hurt, but anger seemed like a less unpleasant alternative.
One week ... for one whole week after she had spent the evening with Spike – after he had read poetry to her, and told her she was beautiful, and made love to her – she had neither seen nor heard from him. Then, she had heard from her friends that he had moved out of Xander’s place and that it seemed he was purposely making himself more scarce than usual. No one seemed terribly concerned about his absence, since to them, Spike was little more than an annoyance to be endured in the name of altruism. But to Willow, he had become her world, and that world was empty and dark without him.
Then a second week had gone by before she ran into him one night, at Giles’ place. He had been there when she arrived, but before she could say a word to him, he had made a half-cocked excuse about why he had to leave and exited with nothing more than a curt nod and a casual "hello, Red" in her direction. It had felt as if all the air had been sucked out of the room the moment he departed. She had tried very hard to be calm, rational and logical about the situation – telling herself, at first, that maybe he was busy, later, that maybe he needed some time to come to terms with his emotions.
Thinking that perhaps he just needed some encouragement and reassurance from her, she had come up with a plan. Finding out Spike’s current whereabouts had required some effort, but she had finally managed to wriggle the information out of Buffy, without arousing the Slayer’s suspicions. She had gone to the bookstore and ordered a beautifully bound, rare, hard cover edition of "Lord Byron: The Complete Poetical Works," since Spike seemed fond of the poet. The extravagant purchase meant that she had to live on macaroni-and-cheese and forty-nine cents cheeseburgers for the rest of the month. After carefully wrapping the book in blue and silver gift-wrap paper, she had left it at the doorstep of Spike’s crypt, along with a curl of her hair bound with a velvet ribbon, and a passage from one of Byron’s poems written on a piece of paper. The note had read: "There was a time, I need not name, Since it will ne’er forgotten be, When all our feelings were the same As still my soul hath been to thee."
She had waited for another week after that, and still nothing!
After three weeks, she had been forced to face the devastating reality – that Spike had no interest in her and no intention of ever speaking to her again! She had resigned herself to that fact, but she still needed to see him one last time – she had to get some answers from him. The main thing she wanted to know was WHY! Not why he wasn’t interested in her – after all, she had never believed that he would be interested in someone like her, not until he had led her to believe otherwise – but why he had pretended that he was. She felt certain that part of her already knew the answer. Vampires were not that different from humans when it came to the basics, having been human before they were vampires, and Willow might have been gullible but she wasn’t completely naive. But another part of her, the masochistic part of her psyche, needed to hear him say it. She needed him to stand in front of her, look her straight in the eyes with those blue, calm pools of his, and tell her that he had just been horny and looking to get laid, and that he figured she was the only one naive enough to fall for his lines! She wanted him to tell her that she had just being convenient!
*Oh Goddess, help me!*
She made a right hand turn into the cemetery and strode down the narrow walkway that led to his crypt. After a few twists and turns, she stopped and looked at her surroundings. The particular section of the graveyard looked unfamiliar to her – she had taken a wrong turn somewhere. She backtracked to the entrance and tried to find her way again. The delay was making her nervous and chipping away at her resolve. She figured that with her luck, she would probably run into some creature that would make a meal out of her and leave her mangled remains lying on the ground, a last testament to the fact that Willow Rosenberg, for all her book-smarts, was an idiot!
By the time she found the right crypt, her heart was racing and her knees felt weak. Her nerves were so on edge that she jumped and jerked at the slightest noise. A sigh of relief escaped her lips when she confirmed that she was, indeed, in front of Spike’s crypt. She marched up to the door with confident steps and then hesitated, not certain if she should knock on the massive door or just walk in. Manners dictated that she should knock and wait for permission before entering someone’s dwelling, and self-preservation dictated that it was never a good idea to enter a vampire’s lair uninvited and unannounced. On the other hand, it felt incredibly odd to be knocking on the door of a burial crypt, not to mention that knocking would ruin the whole effect of her bursting through the door, demanding an explanation, NOW!
Manners and sense won out and she knocked tentatively. When there was no response after a few seconds, she knocked again, a bit louder. After a third unsuccessful attempt, she tried pushing the door and found it was open.
"Spike! Spike, are you in there?"
She heard her voice resonate from the walls of the crypt, followed by an eerie silence. She took a couple of tentative steps inside and stopped, calling Spike’s name again. The crypt was dark and damp. A few half burnt candles scattered around the place provided the only illumination. There was a smattering of mismatched and decrepit furniture in the room, but not much more. The place was dusty, cold and empty.
*Great! Not only do I not get to make my grand entrance, but now I’m supposed to sit around and wait like a ninny until Spike shows up or I get killed by a demon, whatever comes first!*
Willow’s face fell and with a sigh of defeat she started to turn around and walk toward the door, thinking that maybe, if she left right away, she could save what was left of her dignity.
As Willow turned around to leave, she saw something shiny on the floor, out of the corner of her eye. She walked up to the object and picked it up. It was the paper she had wrapped around the book she had left for Spike the week before – it was crumpled into a ball. The book was on top of a sepulcher in the middle of the room, next to a thick blanket. Willow figured there could be no harm in having a quick look around. Spike would probably never know that she had been there.
She opened the book and noticed that the lock of her hair that she had put inside was gone. She ran her fingers over the blanket and, on impulse, brought it to her face. Tears came to her eyes and suddenly she didn’t want to be there anymore – she wanted to run until she was out of breath and her legs no longer supported her, she wanted to scream, she wanted to hit something, but she knew all she was going to do was cry – that was all she ever did.
Dropping the blanket she whirled around and started to run for the door, but before she could take more than two steps, she collided with what felt like a solid, black wall. She bounced backward, landing on her butt on the hard ground.
"Ow!"
Her eyes looked at the pair of black boots planted on the floor in front of her, slightly apart, then traveled over the long, black jeans clad legs, a black t-shirt tightly stretched over a masculine chest, and locked on a pair of piercing blue eyes.
"Uh ... uh ... hi Spike! I was, looking for you."
She frowned when he didn’t answer, continuing to glare at her. Unexpectedly, his hand reached down and painfully griped her arm, hauling her to her feet.
"Hey! What’s with the violence?! I was just ... I just wanted to ..." Willow’s words died in her throat as she took a closer look at Spike. His face was impassive, his eyes were slightly glazed, and a half-filled bottle dangled from his hand as he swayed unsteadily from side to side. The smell of hard liquor assaulted Willow’s nostrils and the girl took a tentative step back.
~Part: 2~
//By thy cold breast and serpent smile,
By thy unfathom’d gulfs of guile,
By that most seeming virtuous eye,
By thy shut soul’s hypocrisy;
By the perfection of thine art,
Which passed for human thine own heart;
By thy delight in other’s pain,
And by the brotherhood of Cain,
I call upon thee! and compel
Thyself to be thy proper Hell!//
“You must be daft to come prancing through a graveyard, alone, at night, on the Hellmouth, looking for me."
He took a few steps toward Willow as he spoke. For each advancing step he took, she took a retreating one, her eyes glancing warily at the bottle in his hand.
"I was mad and not thinking straight. I just wanted to talk to you, but maybe ... maybe this isn’t ... a good time. We can talk some other time."
Willow tried to walk around him and head for the door, but he blocked her path with his body.
"Why?" he demanded.
Willow jumped back, almost falling in her haste to move away from him. Her hands were shaking and her mouth had gone suddenly dry. Memories of another encounter with a drunken Spike were flashing through her mind and she started to panic. She shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts.
"Why ... why, what?"
"Why some other time? I’m here, you’re here – if you have something to say to me, just bloody say it!"
He was starting to sound angry, and the last thing Willow wanted was to make Spike angry. She kept reminding herself that he had a chip in his brain now, that he couldn’t really hurt her, not physically, anyway. But for some reason the message was not quite making it to her brain – she kept expecting him to morph into his game face and pounce on her at any moment. Unable to get around him and unwilling to speak for fear of angering him any further, she saw no choice left but to retreat, to move as far away from him as she could. She started to slowly walk backwards, but he continued to advance towards her with smooth, predatory movements.
He suddenly tilted his head and looked at her curiously. "You’re afraid of me?"
Willow could only nod.
He chuckled, a soundless and mirthless gesture that conveyed more bitterness than amusement. "Bloody hell! At least somebody still is!"
"I ... I was ... traumatized," she pouted as she glanced at the bottle again.
Spike smiled. "Oh yeah! I remember now – those were the good ol’ days!" He tilted the bottle to his lips and took a swallow.
"I’m not gonna hurt you, pet. Couldn’t even if I wanted to – so, come on, lay it on me, let me have it!"
Willow frowned, still trembling despite his reassurances, and now utterly confused.
"Spike, what are you talking about?"
"Luv, you couldn’t come up with anything that I haven’t heard before." He moved away from her to lean against the sepulcher.
Willow took a deep breath, grateful for the space he was giving her.
"Here, let me help you out. You can start by calling me a bloody monster and pointing out how disgusting I am. Then, you can throw in a threat, something to the effect of how you’re gonna tell the slayer and she is going to turn me into dust – but you have to specify that I’m going to be dusted AFTER I no longer have the chip, because to do it while I have the chip in my brain wouldn’t be righteous. This is usually the part where the swearing and cursing begins, but I don’t think that’s your style, so we can move straight to the hurling of objects ... Come on, Willow, work with me here!"
In three long strides he was standing in front of her. His jaw was clenched, his eyes so dark they looked almost black. "Hit me!" he ordered.
"Uh ... what?"
"Hit me, it will make you feel better. Go on!"
Willow raised a hand and placed it gently on his chest. This was SO not what she had planned when she had decided to come looking for him. She could feel the tears starting to fill her eyes again. She hated crying in front of people, she knew it made her appear weak and foolish, she just didn’t know how to stop herself. "I just wanted to ask you why ... why you made me think you liked me, why you wouldn’t talk to me after ... after we ... you know," she whispered. She risked a look at his face and saw that his expression had not changed. Willow looked down and squeezed her eyes shut. *Oh Goddess, here it comes. I don’t think I want to hear this anymore. Why did I come here? Don’t cry, don’t cry.*
Willow’s eyes snapped open and she almost screamed when she felt his arms snake around her and his lips press against her neck, before she realized that he was just nuzzling her.
"I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry baby, I’m sorry ..." He repeated the phrase like a chant while he nuzzled and lightly kissed her neck. Moving his head around to her other side, he kissed and nuzzled her right cheek, never stopping the chant. "I would have never done it, you know," he whispered in her ear.
Willow was shocked by his actions and unsure as to how she should react. "Done what?"
"Cut your pretty face with that bottle. I would have never done that to you." That said, he dropped to his knees in front of her and pressed his face against the front of her shirt, over her stomach. "Can you forgive me? Could you ever forgive me? Please, say you forgive me."
"Uh ... yeah, sure."
His grip tightened around her legs. "Say it. I’ll do anything to make it up to you, just say you forgive me. I need to hear you say it."
Willow placed her hand on his head, feeling increasingly uncomfortable with the situation. "Yes, Spike. I forgive you." She frowned. "But, Spike ... uh ... this is getting ... uh ... weird now. I think, I think I liked it better when you were standing up and being all stalk-y, and prowl-y , and arrrgh, and stuff ... Uh ... can we go back to that now?"
He tightened his grip around her legs some more and shook his head, his nose tickling her belly. She would have laughed had the situation not been so strange. His grip around her legs was so tight that Willow had to lean forward to keep her balance. The movement pressed her body against his face.
"No, never. I’ll never scare you again. I swear."
His hands clenched around the fabric of her jeans and he began to pull her downward. Willow knew that if she didn’t fall down to her knees, she was going to be wearing her pants around her ankles.
*What is it with me and drunk vampires?* she wondered as she knelt down, face to face with Spike.
When he leaned forward and tried to kiss her, she pulled her head back. "You still haven’t answered my question, Spike," she reminded him.
Spike placed the palm of his hand against her cheek and sighed. His eyes were soft and his hands gentle as he caressed her cheek. He glanced toward the sarcophagus where the book she had given him still sat. "Did you read any of the poems in that book?" he asked.
She nodded her head, taken aback by the sudden change in the topic of conversation. *Is he trying to avoid my question?*
He looked intently at her face as his hand traveled along its contours. His voice was barely a whisper.
“And on that cheek, and o’er that brow,
So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,
The smiles that win, the tints that glow,
But tell of days in goodness spent,
A mind at peace with all below,
A heart whose love is innocent!”
A faint smile curved her lips. "I read that one, it’s my favorite."
Spike moved back to look at her face, but he did not return her smile, instead he said, "I knew it would be, because that’s you Willow. You’re too innocent to even begin to understand, so trust me instead – you don’t want me, I’ll destroy you in the end."
"Spike, I don’t understand ... are you saying that if you didn’t have the chip, you would kill me? Why?! The other night ... we ... we ... well, you know." She looked down at the ground avoiding his eyes, then suddenly looked up to add, "And that drawing you gave me! You drew a picture of me, and wrote a poem below it ... and signed it William! Why would you do that if you just wanted to kill me?"
"I didn’t say that I was going to kill you, I said that I would destroy you. Pet, there are some things in this world worst than death, and I am one of them. I’m a monster, luv."
Willow shook her head frantically, denying the truth of his words. "No you are not ... you can’t be. You like poetry, and you can be kind ... ok, not very often, but you still can ... when you want to be ... and you loved Drusilla for a century! I saw how you were when she left you. What kind of monster can love like that?"
Willow knew almost instantly that she had said something wrong. His body tensed and he grasped her forearms in an almost painful grip. "Don’t talk about her! I want her gone from my mind, from my skin, I want to forget!" His words were angry and his cruel grip was bruising the girl’s delicate flesh.
Willow tried not to react, attempting to remain calm and rational for both of them. She knew that if his grip became any tighter, his chip would go off and he would have to release her. Her voice was small and tentative. "Spike, please tell me what’s wrong. I don’t understand – whatever it is, I’ll forgive you, it will be ok. But, I can’t help you if you don’t tell me what’s wrong!"
Her soothing voice seemed to do the trick and he let go of her arms, hugging her close instead. “I’m so lost, Pet, so lost," he mumbled against her skin.
She could understand why he would feel lost. Everything he knew, everything he was had been taken from him. First Dru, then his ability to hunt and defend himself, and with that his pride. Still, she didn’t know what to say or how to make things better for him.
"I’m sorry," she whispered, but wasn’t certain if he even heard her.
"Luv, I know I’m damned, in this world and beyond, but you make me forget that. The way you look at me, the things you say – for the time I’m with you, I forget what I really am, and I need that – I need to forget. Let me lose myself in you for a while and then I will tell you the truth. Afterwards, you can look at me with disgust, and curse me, and then I’ll be thrice-damned. But please, for a little while, help me to forget."
Willow put her arms around him and let her tears fall on his shoulder. She didn’t know what this terrible secret for which he so vehemently felt he deserved her scorn was, and she didn’t know what the future held for the two of them. All she knew was that she loved him and could deny him nothing. If it was to forget that he needed, then she would do whatever she had to do to give that to him.
~Part: 3~
// I plunged amidst mankind – Forgetfulness
I sought in all, save where ‘tis to be found,
And that I have to learn – my sciences,
My long pursued and superhuman art,
Is mortal here; I dwell in my despair –
And live – and live for ever.//
He held her close to him, too close – his eyes were shut and his unnecessary breathing ragged. She allowed him to hold her like that until her body began to shake and a low whimper escaped her throat. Her words were muffled by his chest. "U-hm ... Spike? Human here ... need to breathe!"
He pulled back slightly, allowing Willow to take a deep breath before his mouth captured hers in a breath-stealing kiss. She tried to kiss him back gently, her small hands caressing his forearms through the leather of his duster – but it seemed that gentleness was not what he wanted. He broke the kiss and brusquely removed his duster, laying it down behind her. Willow watched, spellbound, as he pulled his shirt over his head, discarding it on the floor, and unzipped his pants.
The muscles in his face were tense and his gaze was piercing, his eyes almost physically pinning her to the spot where she knelt. A mixture of excitement and apprehension caused a shiver to run down Willow’s spine. As if on cue, Spike reached forward and pulled Willow’s shirt over her head, not bothering to unfasten her bra before ripping it off her body.
*Oooh, that was my new one too. Note to self: when hanging out with Spike, don’t wear clothes that you want to preserve!*
The coldness of the crypt caused Willow’s nipples to become erect almost instantly, and when Spike pulled her close to his body to kiss her again, she gasped at the sensation of her sensitive breasts rubbing against his bare chest. Pulling her closer, he ran his hands down her back to cup her buttocks and ground her hips against his as his mouth viciously plundered hers.
Her body tensed and she leaned forward, wrapping her arms around him and encouraging the contact. Only when she was gasping for air and her body slumped against his, her knees weak, did he pull his lips away. His arms were still wrapped around her hips, supporting her weight and holding her close.
She gasped a few times before she was able to speak. "We really need to work on this ‘you remembering I need to breathe’ issue!"
A mischievous grin twisted his lips. "You may need to breathe, luv, but I don’t," he said, wiggling his eyebrows as his hands traveled around her waist and up her rib cage, cupping her breasts and pushing them upward as he sank his face into them.
Willow giggled when his cool tongue laved the flesh of her breasts. She tangled her hand into the hair at his nape and he started to lick harder, sucking the flesh into his mouth. A moan escaped Willow’s lips as her legs weakened and her stomach fluttered. He continued to roughly lick, bite, suck and squeeze her breasts and nipples until the skin was so sensitive that the sensations were almost painful. Willow’s loud gasps filled the air and resonated from the walls of the crypt while he demonstrated to her that he, in fact, did not need to breathe. She almost protested when he lifted his head from her breasts.
"Stand up," he whispered.
*Oh my, how does he expect me to stand up, my legs feel like jell-o!*
Spike offered her his hand for support and Willow pushed herself to her feet. Something inside her, that little part of her mind that remained coherent, told her that this was wrong. She had come here to demand answers, an explanation that she had not yet received. He had made no promises about a future together, instead, he had made cryptic remarks about her loathing him afterwards – something she doubted could ever happen. But still, her senses told her that something about this was not right. From the moment Spike had walked into the crypt, it had all seemed surreal somehow.
Spike’s hands unzipping her jeans and pulling them slowly down from her hips startled Willow out of her thoughts. She felt uncertain, should she stop him, should she let him, how would he react if she tried to stop him, did she even want to try? And then her pants were around her ankles and Spike was lifting each one of her feet as he pulled the garment away. He repeated the process with her panties and Willow pondered, but said nothing. When he kissed the juncture of her tights and teasingly slipped his tongue between her legs, Willow forgot that she had ever considered asking him to stop.
She instinctively tried to open her legs to allow him better access, but his hands were on either side of her outer thighs, pressing them together. He slipped down to the floor, his hands also sliding down but never leaving her legs, and he began to kiss her feet.
*Ok, now we’re back to weirdness!*
Willow felt strangely exposed as she glanced around, even though there was no one in the room to see her except for Spike – she was standing naked in the middle of a burial crypt, a vampire prostrate at her feet. She felt that there was something vaguely enticing and erotic about the idea, but it also felt wrong somehow. *Is he licking the top of my feet?!* "Spike? Please don’t do that ... it’s just that ... I don’t know ... please don’t," she whispered tentatively.
He looked up at her, a sad and wounded expression on his face. For some reason she couldn’t comprehend, she felt like apologizing to him and telling him to please continue. And she would have, if he had not pushed her legs apart and buried his face between her thighs. As she felt his tongue travel the length of her slit back forth, she thought that there definitely had to be something evil about what he was doing to her.
He looked up at her, a knowing smile on his lips. "You like that better, Pet?"
She nodded. "Uh-huh."
His mouth reached for her again, joined by his fingers. No longer able to support herself, Willow leaned forward and placed her hands on his shoulders. As wave after wave of pleasure assaulted her body, she heard loud panting and gasping echoing through the crypt. It was only after she had calmed down and Spike had laid her limp body on the floor, on top of his duster, that she realized that the noises had been coming from her throat.
"Goddess Spike, what did you do to me?!"
Spike was laying next to her and Willow noticed that although he still wore his pants, the zipper was open and his erection was jutting out from between the flaps of his pants. She blushed furiously, which she thought was kind of senseless after what he had just done to her, and quickly looked away, choosing to look at his face instead. He smiled at her and slowly licked one of his fingers. "Did you like that, luv?"
Willow’s breath caught in her throat. "Oh, yessss!" she hissed, and then giggle at her own enthusiasm.
She thought that Spike looked more relaxed, and in a definitely better mood. He had also sobered up considerably, no longer slurring his words or acting incoherently. His expression grew pensive as he stared at her face. He slowly brought the finger that had been in his mouth only a moment before to Willow’s lips. She reflexively opened her mouth and he slipped the finger inside.
"Suck it," he whispered, raising himself to a sitting position next to her.
Willow did as he asked and was rewarded by the feel of his other hand, again caressing the folds between her legs. As her ardor increased, Willow sucked on the finger a little bit faster, and she noticed that Spike increased the pace of his caresses. Experimentally, she slowed the pace of her suction and Spike immediately imitated her rhythm with his other hand, smiling at her to indicate that she had caught on to his game. He added another finger to her mouth and inserted two fingers of his other hand inside of her.
They continued for a while, Willow’s suction on Spike’s fingers becoming more frantic, until her teeth were scraping his skin and she was moaning and writhing. She whimpered when he removed his hands in order to take off his pants and boots. He swiftly lied down, flipping Willow on top of him and positioning her so that she was straddling him.
"Lift up a little, luv," he instructed her, guiding her hips with one hand and positioning himself at her entrance with the other.
He hissed and bit his lip as she slowly lowered herself onto him with a moan. Willow panicked a little when he raised his hands above his head, crossing them at the wrist. Without his guidance, she wasn’t sure what he wanted her to do.
"Just move baby – do whatever feels good to you."
Willow moved slowly, experimenting with the sensations that her movements were producing in her body. She moved up and down, and back and forth, settling for a slow rhythm of upward strokes and downward trusts, with a little back and forth grinding at the end of the downward movement. She searched Spike’s face for reassurance that she was doing it right.
"Yeah, baby!"
Willow smiled at his encouragement.
"Harder Red, ride me hard!"
As she sped up her thrusts, she saw him grimace as if he was in pain, and she immediately slowed down.
"Don’t stop, please! Please don’t stop, harder!" His voice commanded her, but his body was unnaturally rigid and still.
Willow realized that he was giving her complete control, it was up to her whether or not to answer his pleas, and under the circumstances, she found the rush of power exhilarating. She leaned forward, looking for leverage, and her hands settled on his extended arms. The faster she moved, the more pressure she exerted on his arms, and she decided to loosen the grip on his arms a little for fear of hurting him.
His almost desperate cry stopped her. "No! Please, hold me down."
Willow’s eyes grew wide when she realized what he was asking her to do. Part of her thought that what they were doing was VERY naughty, and possibly evil – but another part of her enjoyed being the one in control and with the power for once, even if it was just pretend. Besides, just thinking about watching him writhe and plead beneath her body made her stomach tighten and her lower parts tingle.
She closed her eyes and leaned forward, putting all her weight on his arms and thrusting frantically on top of him. With her face so close to his, she could hear his ragged moaning and babbling. Some of the words he was saying made her blush, others made her wonder what he meant when he said he wanted to do certain things to her. *Goddess, he must just be talking, people don’t actually do THOSE things! Do they?!* And then she was lost in sensation, spiraling downward until all she could hear was their combined screams of release. She was barely aware of his arms suddenly jerking loose and his hands tightening around her hips to guide her in a few final, brutal thrusts, before she collapsed on top of his chest.
After a few minutes, Willow lifted her head and looked at him, a shy smile on her face. He smiled briefly, pushing her sweaty hair away from her face, and then his expression grew serious and painfully pensive.
*Oh, oh. What now?!*
~Part: 4~
//She had the same lone thoughts and wanderings,
The quest of hidden knowledge, and a mind
To comprehend the universe: nor these
Alone, but with them gentler powers than mine,
Pity, and smiles, and tears – which I had not;
And tenderness – but that I had for her;
Humility – and that I never had.
Her faults were mine – her virtues were her own –
I loved her, and destroy’d her!//
Spike sat up, settling Willow on his lap. He wrapped his arms tightly around her and nuzzled her neck for a few moments before gently pushing her off him and standing up. He walked to the other end of the room and returned a few minutes later with a clean towel. Willow took the towel he offered and looked at him questioningly. He pointed at the far wall of the crypt.
"You can get water there and get cleaned up," he said, pointing at a water hose he had slipped in through a small hole in the crypt’s wall.
Willow wondered if he had misunderstood the question in her eyes or if he wasn’t yet ready to talk to her about what was bothering him. She quickly cleaned herself off, shivering at the cold temperature of the water, and donned her garments, minus the bra that lied torn and useless on the floor.
When she turned around, she noticed that Spike had not dressed. He seemed perfectly at ease with wandering around the crypt naked, casually digging through the pockets of his pants for a cigarette. Not sure what to do or say next, Willow sat on a worn but comfortable chair, crossing her legs under her and waiting for Spike to give her some signal that he still remembered her presence.
In the few minutes that passed next, Willow discovered that a taciturn and pensive Spike could be as intimidating as a raging Spike. He had finally pulled on his pants, and lit a cigarette – then had begun to pace, deep in thought, his movements brusque and agitated.
He unexpectedly stopped and turned to look at her. "Do you want to know why I’ve been avoiding you, why this thing between us cannot continue?"
Willow nodded numbly.
He pointed at the book sitting on the sepulcher. "I once had a copy of Hours of Idleness, an original one. Drusilla gave it to me. Byron was her hero, ya’ know. Even though the bloody bastard died years before she was even born, she idolized him – and because she loved his work, so did I."
Willow frowned. *Ok, that wasn’t too terrible a secret, and what on earth does that have to do with me?!* she thought. Although, the tremor in his voice and the way his hand shook as he pointed, told her that there was more to it than that, a lot more. She had not even known that vampires could shake.
He began to pace again as he spoke. "Before Angelus came into her life, before ... everything that happened, she used to sit in her garden and read his poems for hours."
Willow raised a hand, a leftover reflex from her high school years. "How do you know that, if you didn’t know Drusilla before she was a vampire?"
Spike stopped and groaned. "Ya’ see, Pet, that’s where you’re wrong. I knew Drusilla long before Angelus, knew her quite well in fact."
Willow’s eyes grew wide with surprise – she was certain that none of the other Scoobies knew that, not even Giles or Buffy.
Spike continued talking and pacing. "When I was a young bloke, about fifteen years old, my father took me to meet her. We visited her house quite often after that – of course, always when her mother wasn’t there, the bitch would have had a stroke if she knew that a bastard like me had set foot in her house." Willow frowned. "I thought that you ... William, that is ... but of course, you’re William ... but I mean, before you were turn ... you know what I mean ... that William was a nice guy."
"I was, Pet, but a bastard non-the-less, in the true sense of the word."
Willow mouthed a silent "Oh" to indicate that she understood his meaning. She had to remind herself that Spike was talking about events that had happened over a hundred years earlier, and that the word bastard had a different connotation today than it did back then.
"Anyway, we used to spend hours together, reading poetry, talking, walking in the gardens. She wasn’t crazy then, but she was no angel either. For all her Victorian demureness, Dru had a bit a wild streak in her. She knew it, and her mother knew it, and it tormented them both, but neither seemed able to do anything to prevent Dru from acting on her baser instincts. Of course, what was considered wild in those days was nothing by today’s standards. She was just ...a little rebellious."
Willow moved a little bit forward on her chair, engrossed by what Spike was telling her. *Giles is going to freak when I tell him all this,* Willow thought. *But then of course, I would have to tell him how I found out.* She grimaced at that thought. With a start, she realized that Spike was still talking. He had stopped pacing and was now leaning against a wall, his head back, his eyes seemingly examining the ceiling.
"She was beautiful, and smart too – mind sharp as a whip. She also had this thirst for knowledge, this zest for life ... to know, to feel, to experience everything – and then there was her damnable obsession with Lord Byron. You remind me a lot of her back then, Red, without the obsession."
Willow was surprised at his statement. She was having a hard enough time reconciling the image of the woman he was describing with the mad vampire that everyone else described. To think that she had once bore any resemblance to herself, was beyond what she wanted to imagine. Willow realized that Spike was staring at her. She waited for him to continue.
"Of course, being love’s bitch and all, I had to fall in love with her. I didn’t tell anyone about it, not even her – but she knew. She was older than me and not half as naive. One day, when we were walking alone in the garden, she kissed me. I was horrified, but she said it was ok. She said that I was going to be her Lord Byron." Spike chuckled dryly.
"What did you say, what did you do?" Willow asked excitedly – for her, it was like watching one of those historical dramatic sagas she enjoyed so much.
"I ran from the house and hid in my room for a week until my father came to get me and told me we were going to visit her house again. I couldn’t say no – William could never say no to anyone." His tone had grown bitter and he walked across the room to retrieve another cigarette from his pack. Spike took a long drag from his cigarette before he continued the story. "We had sex that afternoon, in the garden, and everyday I visited after that for almost a year, in just about every room of that house."
A half smile twisted his lips and Willow wondered if he was enjoying the memories.
"And then she said we had to end it. Just like that." He began to pace again. "I nearly went mad with grief. I couldn’t tell anyone, she refused to see me, told my father not to bring me back to her house under threat that she would tell her mother. To make matters worst, a servant must have seen us together, because people had started talking. I was terrified that my mum would find out."
Spike looked at the ground and Willow frowned when he didn’t continue.
"What happened then?"
Spike did not raise his eyes from the ground. "Then her family started dying mysteriously, one by one, and the potential scandal was quickly forgotten. Angelus killed everyone in her family, including my father, and then Dru disappeared. I never saw her again until the night she turned me." Spike raised his eyes to meet Willow’s, his gaze poignant.
Willow frowned and mulled for a minute over what he had said. "You mean, your father and Drusilla were related? But, that would mean ... that you and Drusilla were related. Were you cousins? It’s ok, you know, if you were cousins ... because I read that in those times, cousins used to get married ... all the time ... as a matter of fact, didn’t Lord Byron once courted one of his cousins?"
His gaze didn’t waver but Willow could see the muscles in his jaw visibly clench. "She was Augusta to my Byron," he spat out.
"Huh?" Willow knew, by his tone, that his statement was supposed to mean something to her, something important – she just had to figure out what. "Who is Augusta?"
~Part: 5~
// ... there is no power in holy men,
Nor charm in prayer, nor purifying form
Of penitence, nor outward look, nor fast,
Nor agony, nor, greater than all these,
The innate tortures of that deep despair
Which is remorse without the fear of hell
But all in all sufficient to itself
Would make a hell of heaven, –//
"Augusta was Byron’s sister, the same sister that he had an affair with and who later dumped him." His tone was deceivingly flat, like he was casually commenting on the weather.
Willow felt her heart plunge and her knees shake. She opened and closed her mouth several times before she could find her words. "Spike, are you saying that Drusilla was your sister?! Your sister-sister, like related by blood sister?"
Spike looked uncomfortable and suddenly tired. He leaned back against the wall and slid down until he was sitting on the ground, his head bowed, the cigarette tightly clutched between his fingers. "She was my half-sister. My mum was her father’s mistress – her father and my father were the same man."
Willow jumped from the chair, deciding that now was her turn to pace. She nervously wrung her hands while she paced and talked, trying to assimilate the information and sort out her feeling.
"Ok ... so you had an affair ... with ... with ... your sister. A hundred and some years long affair ... with your sister. Lord Byron also had an affair with his sister ... but not for a hundred years ... and Drusilla was infatuated with Lord Byron ... so she talked you into recreating Lord Byron’s and his sister’s affair ... with her. Ok ... incest ... creepy, definitely icky, but not unheard of, obviously. You were young, both of you ... and people were a lot more innocent then ... what, with no t.v. and sex education and stuff ... you probably didn’t ... didn’t consider the consequences of your ... your actions, you know." Willow was starting to hyperventilate and the thought occurred to her that she wasn’t handling the situation very well.
Spike’s voice made her jump, as if she had momentarily forgotten that he was in the room.
"You don’t understand, Red. It wasn’t Dru’s innocence that drew Angelus to her ... it was her sin. He could sense the magnitude of her – our sin. He didn’t have to know what she had done, or with whom. Evil begets evil – a demon can sense a person’s sins as easily as he can sense another’s innocence. I was partly responsible for what happened to Dru and her family, and my father. If I had only refused to go to her house that day, if I had been more firm in refusing her advances ... bloody Angelus would have blown straight through town and neither would have known that the other one existed. I destroyed her with my actions, as sure as Angelus did."
Willow’s mind was reeling and she was having difficulty pulling air into her lungs. She decided to sit back down on the chair before she passed out and split her head open on the concrete floor. "You can’t know that, Spike. You can’t hold yourself responsible for Angelus’ actions, and who knows why Angelus did what he did ..." She paused, as another thought entered her mind. "Is that ... is that ... why you let her ... you know ... turn you. Because ... you felt guilty about what had happened ... to her?"
Spike pulled another cigarette out of his pack and lit it. "That was part of it."
When he didn’t elaborate, Willow questioned him. "And the other part?"
He looked at her, his eyes narrowed and hard, through a cloud of smoke. "I still wanted her. What she offered was another life in a world where conventional rules do not apply. A life where she could be mine, forever. I still wanted her – and I was willing to do anything to have her – anything. Or at least – I thought I did, for a while. But when I realized ... Bloody hell, I don’t know what the fuck I was thinking! But, I couldn’t leave her ... I had to take care of her. She had her purgatory and I deserved mine. So I stayed."
Willow sat looking at the ground. Spike sat on the floor, leaning against the wall, his eyes shut tight. Neither spoke for a long while, each lost in their own thoughts.
Until Willow broke the silence. "Spike?"
"Uh-huh?"
"I don’t understand. Are you saying you spent a hundred years with Dru as a form of penance for some mistake you made in your youth, and that might or might not have had anything to do with what happened to Dru afterwards? That’s insane! And what does that have to do with me and the way you’ve been treating me?"
Spike’s expression was that of a man who had seen too much and was tired of his own existence. Willow had never seen him look so defeated, not when Dru left him, not when he had to go to his enemies for help after he got the chip implanted. His fire was gone ... there was none of the usual maniacal ranting and plotting that had sustained him the other times. Until then, Willow had thought that Spike was truly indestructible. Since the day he had kidnapped her to do a love spell for him, she had built him up in her mind as these wild and raging fire that nothing could ever stop from burning. To see him so casually give up – give up on her – them – scared her more than anything a future with Spike might hold.
"Pet, if we continue seeing each other, only God knows what kind of shit it can bring your way. I may have already destroyed your life and not even know it yet. But, I know the longer we continue ... There’s no way that this can end in anything good. Unless ... you want me to turn you ..."
Spike seemed to consider the idea for a moment and Willow cringed. *Ok, so that wild fire is not completely out – why am I not feeling better?!*
He shook his head, apparently dismissing the thought. "That would mean turning your back on everything and everyone you know, and I think that alone would finish you. You would no longer be who you are ... just a grotesque caricature of what you are now. In my case, that was an improvement – William was a bloody wanker – but I don’t think it would be the same for you. That luv, is why I didn’t want to see you again, because I knew that if I saw you, I would want you again ... not that I ever stopped," he concluded with a rueful laugh.
Willow felt like crying, again. He was telling her he didn’t want her anymore, because he might end up hurting her – but he was hurting her right now! Still, he had not said that he didn’t want her, only that it was better for her not to want him. She knew she had to try to make him change his mind. What he was asking of her, to walk out and go on like nothing had ever happened between them, was an impossibility for her, and she had to make him see that.
"Spike, what you’ve told me ... everything you told me ... was, well ... a lot, you know. But, I think I can be ok with it ... Not ok like I think it’s ok ... because it’s not ok to have sex with your sister. It’s creepy ... and I’m now truly thankful that ... that I don’t have ... a brother ... because the visuals ... ewww ... don’t want to go there, you know. But, I’m ok as in ... I know what happened ... but, it doesn’t have anything to do with us ... with what we have together ... it’s just another part of your past ... part of a very ... very long list of creepy things ... from your past. I mean ... I know you’re a demon ... and I know that before you had your chip, you killed people ... for food, and fun ... sometimes. I also know how you felt about Dru, that you would do anything to keep her by your side ... the only new thing you told me is that Dru was your sister. And ... you know ... when you think about it ... having, you know, with your sister ... kind of pales in comparison with ... you know, the slaughter of thousands of people and the whole being a demon thing. And I already knew those other things ... when I fell in love with you."
Willow was prepared for him to argue with her, she knew how stubborn Spike could be when he got an idea in his head, regardless of how ill-conceived the idea was. What she wasn’t prepared for was the outburst that followed.
He jumped to his feet looking at her like he wanted to hit her – instead, he turned around and slammed his fist brutally into the wall, causing little flecks of blood to splatter from his knuckles and Willow to almost fall in her haste to jump to her feet.
"Bloody hell, Red, you haven’t listened to a fucking word I said! For someone who is as smart as they say you are, you sure can be pig-headed sometimes! You don’t fucking love me, no one can ... fucking ... love ... me! I’m nothing but pain, blood and destruction. Even Dru, as fucking crazy as she was, knew that – and if you can’t see it, then it’s all the worst for you. Now, get out!"
Willow was shaking and the tears were running freely down her face. She was hurt, and scared – and for the first time had to wonder if she really wanted to continue this discussion, or anything else, with Spike. Without a word, Willow turned on her heel and walked toward the door – she had to get out before she started sobbing and made a pathetic fool of herself.
Stepping out into the night, she closed the door quietly behind her, half-fearing, half-hoping, that Spike would follow her, that he would try to stop her, but he didn’t.
~Part: 6~
// The mind which is immortal makes itself
Requital for its good or evil thoughts,
Is its own origin of ill and end,
And its own place and time; its innate sense,
When stripp’d of this mortality, derives
No colour from the fleeting things without,
But is absorb’d in sufferance or in joy,
Born from the knowledge of its own desert.//
Spike watched the girl turn around and walk toward the exit on trembling legs. Closing his eyes, he waited for the ominous slam of the door to announce her departure, but there was only a soft, barely audible click. He opened his eyes, knowing she was gone and yet half expecting to see her there. He shook his head. That’s how Willow was, soft even in her anger - more like the chilling frost of winter than the splitting force of a summer storm, but not less lethal.
The girl gone, he felt free to unleash his anger and self-loathing. T he first casualty was the chair where Willow had sat only minutes before – he tore at it with his nails before picking it up and slamming it back down on the floor, finishing it off with a swift kick that sent the piece of furniture flying across the room to slam against the opposite wall. After that, everything in the crypt was fair game. He ranted and raved, picking up item after item and finding a momentary satisfaction in the crashing sound each made as they found their demise at his hands. The whole time, he tried to pinpoint in his mind the exact moment when he had gone soft. Had it been that night in the factory, when he had sat next to Willow and poured his heart out to her, or had it been one of the many nights after, which he had spent thinking about her soft hair and her bright eyes and bemoaning the missed opportunity to make her his? Maybe it was just the chip in his head that was messing with his synaptic impulses, turning him into a saintly vampire who went around saving lost, little girls from themselves. Whatever it was, it left the rancid taste of self-disgust in his mouth. His conclusion was that altruism was highly overrated – but like most things in his life, what was done was done, and best left alone.
His eyes finally settled on the book sitting atop his sarcophagus. With an angry roar he grabbed the book and swung around, hurling it against the crypt’s door. Through the haze of his rage, he saw her standing there, but it was an instant too late – the book was already in mid-flight, heading through the air like a projectile, toward Willow. So engrossed had he been in his mission of destruction that he had not heard her come back. The anger died in his chest as it was replaced by concern for the girl. “Willow, look out!"
At the same time he yelled, he saw Willow angrily wave her hand in front of her face, as if taking a swipe at something that wasn’t there, and whisper a word he couldn’t understand. The book violently changed trajectory and bounced harmlessly off the wall, several feet away from the girl. Spike’s eyes shifted warily between the girl and the book. Obviously, she had used some type of magic to deviate the book before it hit her.
He carefully studied her face and her stance. Her jaw was clenched, her lips pursed tightly, her legs were spread shoulder width apart, and her eyes were shooting daggers through him. Spike took an involuntary step back from the obviously angry witch. "Sorry about that, Wil’, I didn’t realize you had come back."
Willow’s face was serious. "I wasn’t going to come back, you know. I was almost to the gate of the cemetery, and that’s when I realized what you had done."
Spike had recovered from his surprise at seeing her, but he was still wary of her intentions. He had never seen her use her magic to defend herself. He knew that she was a witch, sort of, and that she could cast simple spells, but he had never thought that her skills could be any threat to him, until then. "What is it you think I did, Pet?"
"What everyone else does, tell me what I should and should not feel, and what I should or shouldn’t do. I hate that! I don’t care if you believe me or not, but I do know I love you and you can’t change that ... no matter how many times you say it isn’t true. And you know what else I realized?"
Spike shook his head, but before he could say anything, she continued. "That you sure did a lot of explaining and hoop-jumping before you told me to get out, and that’s not you, Spike." She pointed an accusatory finger at him. "When you want someone to leave you alone, you just tell them to ‘sod off,’ but you didn’t ... just tell me to ‘sod off.’ And you know why I think you didn’t?"
Spike was about to tell her he had no idea what she thought when she silenced him with a stern glare. He wondered why she kept asking him questions, if she wasn’t going to let him answer them.
"Because you didn’t want me to leave at all! You ... you like me ... I know you do. But you’re feeling sorry for yourself – you’re punishing yourself and you don’t even realize it! No conscience my ... my ... booty! Well, if you want to spend your un-life in some sort of self-deprecating "I’m not worthy" trip, that’s your problem, but I’ve done nothing that I have to atone for, so leave me out of it!" She continued to point her finger at him. "You don’t know what’s gonna happen in the future anymore than I do, you could very well bring about my doom ... or you could never speak to me again and next week I could be crossing the street and get killed by a speeding car, you don’t know ... I don’t know. But ... but ... that doesn’t mean I’m going to stop crossing the street because of the off chance that I might get killed! So ... so ... yeah!"
Spike watched the girl fidget uncomfortably under his gaze. Her expression softened and her eyes shifted about nervously, finally settling on her shoes. Her indignation spent, she was probably feeling vulnerable and foolish then. His first instinct was to strike while she was down, with some cutting remark that would put her in her place. But he decided to cut her some slack just that once, realizing that he must have really made her mad for her to stand up to him, and that she had probably spent all her reservoir of courage just walking back to his crypt and giving him a piece of her mind. Then he saw her turn around and start to walk away and he realized that she was going to leave. He swiftly moved around her and blocked her path. "Not so fast little girl!" he sneered. "You had your bloody chance, you didn’t take it." He walked towards her, running the tip of his tongue over his lower lip, his eyes traveling over her body.
Willow’s eyes shot up to his face and her forehead wrinkled in confusion. "Spike, what ... what are doing?"
"I’m doing what I think you want me to do.” He stopped in front on her and leaned over to whisper in her ear. "You got me all horny, marching in here like that and putting me in my place – you do realize not a lot of people have the guts to do what you just did – none that are still alive, anyway."
Willow smiled, beaming. "Really? You think I’m brave?"
"Uh-huh, and now I’m gonna shag you into next week."
His head swoop down to kiss her lips, but the kiss was gentle, contradicting the intensity of his words. Willow responded by wrapping her arms around him and kissing him back. Spike broke the kiss for a moment to look into her eyes.
"You should have stayed away, luv." he whispered. It wasn’t a threat, just a thought, and for once in his un-life, he hoped he was wrong.
Willow smiled sweetly at him. "I guess we’ll find out." Then her face grew serious and she frowned. "You’re not going to ask me to wear men clothes and call me ‘brother,’ are you"?
Spike held her away from him, startled. "Wha... what?
Understanding dawned on him when he saw her half-smile and a glint of mischief in her eyes. Apparently, his love was more familiar with Lord Byron’s scandalously deviant behaviors than he had first suspected. He threw his head back and laughed.
"Hell no!" Then he seemed to reconsider, raising an eyebrow and tilting his head. "Unless, it will get you wet for me."
Willow shook her head. "Nah, if we put our brilliant minds together, I’m sure we can come up with something better."
Spike groaned in her ear. "I’m thinking of something better, right now."
~ The End ~
Additional Author’s Notes: Before the hate mail about incest begins, I think I need to explain a few things about the back-story of Dru and Spike. The original idea for the incestuous relationship between Dru and Spike came to me from, oddly enough, James Marsters! I read somewhere, in an early interview about the Spike character, that one of the original inspirations for it was Caligula. James made a comment along the lines of, (and I’m paraphrasing here), "Caligula was a Roman emperor who had an incestuous relationship with his sister Drusilla, so who knows about the back history of these two." Well, that just stuck in my mind!
The plot is not entirely original either, but rather an adaptation. The passages of poetry at the beginning of each part are from a dramatic poem written by Lord Byron titled "Manfred." "Manfred" is the story of a man who is guilt ridden by his tragic love affair with his own sister. He sets out to find forgiveness, forgetfulness, or anything that will bring him some solace. He searches both the material and ethereal worlds, but is unable to find it, (that’s because he didn’t meet Willow, although he does talk to a witch!) Hehe Manfred is the epitome of the Byronic Hero, and I’ve always seen Spike as a Byronic hero, rather than just a villain.
And I think we all already know about Lord Byron and his sister Augusta (yes, Lord Byron was very, very naughty!). So you see, it all makes senseless-sense, somehow – at least to me! Hehe