Pairing: W/S
Rating: NC-17
Dedication: To Jenni for her birthday, and Inell for not letting me forget this one.
Distribution: Bite Me, Please? Near Her Always and Soulmates. Anyone else, if you want it, just ask. I always say yes.
Disclaimer: The basic premise and characters belong to lots of people who aren’t me.
Spoilers: Set in between “Wrecked” and “Gone” (Buffy’s screwing Spike but hasn’t come to terms yet with being brought back to life and Willow’s quit magic)
Summary: Spike isn’t the only one Buffy’s using.
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~Part: 1~
The shining red numbers on the digital clock sitting on the bedside table read 9:32. In exactly sixteen seconds, they were going to read 9:33. Willow knew this because she had been counting the seconds. She had been counting the minutes, too, watching them tick slowly away. Her eyes stayed firmly focused on the clock. She would not allow them to stray away from it. It had been the sole object of her focus ever since 8:07. She had never had much luck with counting sheep but she kept hoping against hope that if she continued to stare at the clock and continued to count seconds, her mind would clear of all other thoughts and she’d be able to fall asleep. So far, it hadn’t worked. Her mind refused to clear and her body absolutely refused to fall asleep. It didn’t seem to matter how long she stared at the damn clock. It didn’t even matter that she was tired. Horribly, achingly, impossibly tired. Falling asleep wasn’t going to happen, because in addition to being tired, she was also antsy and wired and shaking with pain and nearly ready to crawl out of her own skin. Magic withdrawal would do that to you.
Willow let out a groan of mingled pain and frustration, glad that there was no one else in the house to hear her. Buffy was out patrolling, as usual. She no longer asked if anyone wanted to join her. She had been taking longer and longer on patrols, as well. Some nights, she didn’t come home at all. She’d show up in the morning, bruised and tired, saying that she had found somewhere to crash after a rough fight that hadn’t had a phone. Willow worried that she was pushing herself too hard, but didn’t dare say anything. Buffy wasn’t in a mood to listen to her lately.
Dawn had stormed out of the house shortly after Buffy left, saying that she was going to study over at Janice’s house. From the glare that she had given Willow before walking out the door, Willow understood that studying with Janice was an excuse not to be alone in the house with Willow. Ever since the accident, Dawn had refused to spend more than a few seconds alone in the same room as Willow. Dawn had said that she’d be back by eleven. That was usually when Buffy got in from patrol these days, if she got home at all. Until one of them got back, Willow had the house to herself.
The loneliness made the pain even worse. She had never liked being in a house alone; she had had far too much of that growing up with absentee parents. But it was even worse in comparison to what she had had, not so long ago. For months, she had shared this room, this bed, and this life with Tara. It all felt so empty now without her. Willow had always associated the Summers house with noise and activity. When Joyce had been alive, Buffy and Dawn were always loud and happy, running around the house yelling at each other and slamming doors. Even after Joyce died, Dawn and Buffy had spent lots of time at home. They spent most of the time arguing, but they were still together and interacting with each other. After Buffy died, Willow and Tara had moved in, bringing the Buffy-bot with them, and the house had become slayerette central. There had always been people around: talking, arguing, planning, researching, laughing, loving… Even at night when everyone went their separate ways, Willow would still slide into bed next to her lover. Tara would wrap her arms around Willow and Willow would know that she was safe and loved and that she’d never have to be alone again.
That was all over now. Tara had left. Willow was under no illusions that the break up was anything other than final. She had spoiled every second chance that Tara had given her, and the girl had finally had enough. She had taken most of her stuff with her when she left. Willow had packed up the few things that Tara had accidentally left behind, and comforted herself with them for a few days, thinking that eventually Tara would have to come by and pick them up, but days turned into weeks and it grew obvious that Tara would rather stay away than collect her things. By this point, the few things that she had left behind had been handled by Willow so much that they didn’t even smell like Tara anymore. There was little comfort to be found in them. The rest of the gang didn’t come around anymore, and Dawn and Buffy were home as little as possible. Willow convinced herself that they were just giving her space to recover. She even tried to convince herself that it was better this way. At least when she was alone, she didn’t have to worry about disturbing anyone when the pain made her start to scream.
It had been a little over a month since the last time she had done magic. Four weeks. Four weeks, three days, twenty-one hours and forty-seven minutes, in just a few more seconds. Willow could feel every single second that she went without; every single second where she refused to give in to her instinct, her need, her absolute craving to cast a spell, *any* spell, and release the magic that was building up inside her. She kept waiting for the feeling to go away. It didn’t. It soaked into every aspect of her life, poisoning it. She was never free from it, night or day. Even when she managed to fall asleep, she’d toss and turn, asleep but unable to get any rest. The only thing that made her strong enough to fight the cravings were the nightmares that she had in the few, rare moment when she was able to fall asleep. In them, she saw the terror in Dawn’s eyes during their joyride away from the demon. She saw the disgust in Buffy’s face when she realized what Willow had done. She saw the distrust in Xander and Anya’s faces whenever they saw her now, like they expected her to relapse any minute. And she remembered exactly how long it had been since she had seen any glimpse of her lover, with any expression. Tara had resolutely avoided her.
She had offered to leave: leave Buffy’s house, leave her friends alone, leave Sunnydale if they wanted her to, but everyone had talked her out of it. They gave a lot of reasons, saying that they needed her to help run things around the house, or to watch over Dawn, or to help with research and patrol. They said that withdrawal from anything was difficult and that she’d have an easier time of it with her friends around her. They reminded her that she didn’t really have anywhere to go; after all, there aren’t many treatment centers aimed at helping recovering witches. She’d do better to stay where she was, where at least the people around her understood what was going on, and knew how to help. While she didn’t doubt that those reasons were true, she guessed at the real reason that lay unspoken beneath everything they said to her, lately. They didn’t trust her. They thought that if she went out somewhere on her own, when they weren’t there to keep an eye on her and keep her under control, that she’d break into the dark magicks again. They were afraid of the damage that she would do, if left to her own devices.
There was a part of Willow, a small voice inside her head, that resented being treated not just as a child, but as an incompetent child. Her friends had known her for years and she was more than a little hurt that they were so convinced that she couldn’t be trusted. But the majority of her mind tried to block out that small voice. She deserved this, she told herself. She deserved not to have the people she cared about trust her anymore. Buffy and Xander had explained it to her. She had broken their trust with her actions. She would have to earn it back. If the process was slow and painful, then it was because it *had* to be slow and painful.
Willow understood this. Of course she understood. They were right. Of course they were right. She knew that her friends loved her. They didn’t *want* her to be hurting. But it was necessary. They were worried about her. They knew that giving up her magic was the right answer, for all of them. They wouldn’t push her to do anything that she couldn’t handle. They wouldn’t ask more of her than she was capable of giving. If they said that she could do this, that she could go cold turkey and eventually earn their forgiveness, then she could do it. She could handle it. They told her that she could.
But reminding herself of her reasons for quitting magic didn’t take away the very real effects of withdrawal. The pain was pretty much constant. So was the heightened sensitivity. The slightest brush against her skin was painful. The slightest sound was impossibly loud, and her eyes had trouble handling a lot of light. She hadn’t gotten a good night’s sleep in longer than she cared to remember, but no matter how exhausted she got, she just couldn’t seem to rest.
She couldn’t seem to do much of anything anymore. The unused magic in her blood filled her with a desperate restlessness that made it difficult to sit still long enough to complete any task. That night, after trying to fill the hours with books she couldn’t bring herself to read, television shows she couldn’t bring herself to watch, and food that she prepared but couldn’t bring herself to eat, Willow had given up and gone to bed. She had been in bed since 8:07. Counting the seconds. Waiting for sleep that never came.
When the clock reached 9:35, Willow threw back the covers and got out of bed. It was pointless to lie there any longer. She wasn’t going to be able to fall asleep yet. She had all this restless energy that she needed to work off. She flipped on the lamp and dug around for clean clothes, mentally noting that she needed to do laundry soon. Finally she found clean pair of jeans and a t-shirt. Throwing them on, she grabbed her keys out of her purse and shoved them in her pocket. In the other pocket, she shoved a stake. She knew Buffy patrol routes. It shouldn’t be hard to find her. Willow figured she could track her down and join her. Maybe staking a few vampiress would wear her out to the point where she could finally sleep. Besides, if she was busy, it might help take her mind off of everything else.
It would be just like old times, she told herself, as she sat on the edge of the bed, tying on her shoes. She and Buffy would patrol, and talk, and move past all the awkwardness. They hadn’t had a good, long talk in… when she started thinking about it, Willow realized that she couldn’t remember the last time she and Buffy had had a good, long talk. A girly, gossipy, best-friendy kind of talk that didn’t involve demons or bills or Dawn or magic or Tara. Maybe afterwards, they could go to the Steak ‘n Shake and get some chocolate milkshakes, like they used to. They could even bring one back to the house, for Dawn. Dawn loved milkshakes.
Willow dug into her wallet to pull out some cash and sighed when she realized she didn’t have any. Banking was another thing she lacked the energy and perseverance to do lately. She pulled out the sleeve of her wallet that held her credit cards and shoved that into her pocket, as well. Somewhere in there was her check card, and she didn’t want to bother digging it out.
She checked her appearance in the mirror before exiting the room. She looked pale and tired, but that was nothing new. Her clothes did match, though, and every part of her body that was supposed to be covered was, in fact, covered. She had her keys, her credit cards, and her stake. She was prepared for a night out in Sunnydale. She left a note on the counter for Dawn in case the girl got back before her, grabbed her jacket, and headed out the door.
~Part: 2~
Willow had reached the cemetery when she picked up on a presence behind her. Most of the time, heightened senses were a pain in the neck, but they did have their advantages, especially during patrol. Discreetly, Willow slipped the stake out of her pocket and hid it under the hem of her jacket.
“Whoever you are, you might as well come out. I know that you’re there,” she said, hoping her voice sounded more confident than she felt.
“What are you doing here, witch?” a harsh voice replied, as a bleached blonde head came in to view, followed by a trail of cigarette smoke.
To say that Spike was surprised to see Willow in the cemetery was an understatement. To the best of his knowledge, the witch hadn’t patrolled since she’d given up magic. Spike eyed the girl critically. She looked like shit. She’d lost at least fifteen pounds in the past few weeks, maybe more. Her clothes had been baggy to start with, and now they practically hung off of her. Her skin was pale and pasty and there were huge bags under her eyes. Spike could smell the sweat on her skin, but she was visibly shivering. Withdrawal had, apparently, hit her hard. She looked like a stiff breeze could knock her over. Good. Spike was glad to see it. Glad that she was there, glad she was vulnerable and glad that she’d be simple to hurt. He needed to work out his frustrations and Willow would be both an easy and a satisfying target. He needed to hurt someone so he could stop thinking about how much he, himself, was hurting.
He had been fucking Buffy for weeks. He tried to think of it as making love, but even Spike wasn’t capable of fooling himself to that extent. He *wanted* to make love to her, wanted to hold her gently and kiss her softly and cherish her with every word and every touch. He loved her so much. He wanted to show her how tender he could be, how considerate, how loving. She wouldn’t let him. There was nothing loving about what he and Buffy did together. It was rough and hard and violent. Yes, there was a part of the demon that craved a rough fuck, especially with someone as strong and challenging as a slayer, but Spike knew that he was capable of giving so much more than she was willing to accept, and it broke his heart again and again that she wouldn’t allow anything gentle from him.
On the surface, Spike accepted it. He had no choice but to accept it. If hard fucking was the only way that Buffy would let him be with her, then he’d take it, and give her whatever she needed. It’s not like fucking her was a bad thing. Besides, he convinced himself that the fact that she came to him meant something. When she refused to talk to the rest of her friends, she talked to *him*. When she was lying to all the rest of them, she told the truth to *him*. *He* was the one who made her feel alive. Even though she wouldn’t let him make love to her, the fact that she turned to him for any brand of comfort had to mean that she wanted him in her life. She wasn’t ready to accept his love, and she certainly wasn’t ready to return it, but maybe, soon… maybe she’d realize that she came to him because he was the one who could make her happy. God, how he’d love to make her happy, if she would just let him.
But she wouldn’t let him. Not now, not yet. And the waiting was driving him crazy. It was worse than usual that night because he’d been expecting Buffy to come by and she hadn’t shown. He’d spent the past hour wandering around the cemetery looking for her, hoping to find her patrolling, but had had no luck. He felt pissed off and hurt and more vulnerable than he would like to admit, wandering after the slayer like some kind of whipped puppy so he could beg her to pay attention to him again. His sadistic side was thrilled to find a nice, Willow-shaped target out and about, just waiting for him to torment her. Buffy had threatened him with a particularly violent staking if he told any of her friends about their affair, but she had never made him promise that he wouldn’t make trouble for them, whenever he got the chance.
Willow flinched when she heard Spike’s voice, both at his harsh tone, and at the way he said the word ‘witch.’ He spat out the word like it was an insult. From him, it *was* an insult. Spike was another one who hadn’t forgiven her for what had happened to Dawn. Willow knew that he was very protective of the youngest Summers girl.
“I-I couldn’t sleep,” she stammered. “I thought I might be able to track down Buffy and join her on patrol.”
“Fine lot of help you’d be,” Spike sneered. “Look at you. You can barely hold yourself up. I doubt you could go two rounds with Harmony.”
“Th-that’s not true,” Willow tried to defend herself.
“Isn’t it?” Spike replied. “Look at you,” he stated, the disgust clear in his voice. “Shaking head to toe. Nothing but a useless junkie. Do you realize what an easy target you are? You’re practically begging to get bit.” Spike stepped closer, getting in her face. “Is that it then, pet? Looking for a quick bite as the easy way out?”
“No! I’d never—”
“Dip into magicks you can’t handle and then decide you can’t deal and just give up? Dump Buffy and Dawn with the guilt because you can’t take the heat of cleaning up the mess that you made?”
“That isn’t it at all; I didn’t want to—”
“Didn’t want to what?” Spike prodded, feeling better than he had in days. She was practically in tears. It felt good to make someone hurt again. “Didn’t want to turn into a pathetic, sniveling mess? Didn’t want to become an embarrassment to your friends? What would your precious Tara think of you now?”
Willow could take the insults against herself. It hurt, but she was sure that it was no more than she deserved. After all, she agreed with the insults. But when Spike dragged Tara’s name into it, Willow’s self-control finally broke.
“How *dare* you!” she hissed, shoving him away from her. She didn’t have the strength to push him very hard, but the movement was so unexpected that it knocked Spike off he feet. He landed in a started tangle on the grass, but recovered quickly.
“What’re you going to do, *witch*, blast me with your magic?” he sneered.
“Don’t push me, Spike. That chip still sees witches as human, remember?”
“Only zaps me if I try to hurt you physically, pet. And why would I do something like that when hurting you emotionally is so… much… fun?” he asked, rising slowly and stepping toward her again.
“Self-defense?” she answered with a smirk, then drew back and punched him as hard as she could, right in the face. It was a good punch. Willow angled her hand properly, and used her entire arm and the weight of her body behind it. But best of all, it was completely unexpected. Once again, Willow knocked Spike right on to his ass.
As soon as Spike hit the ground, Willow was sorry she had done it. Yes, he had baited her, but that was not a justification for her actions. She had wanted to punch him, and not just because of what he had said. She had gone out that night looking for a fight, looking for someone to hit, looking for a way to work out her pain and frustration. She had used Spike as an easy target. She was disgusted with herself. As she had said, the chip would keep him from defending himself against her, physically. There was no excuse for hitting someone who couldn’t fight back.
Spike, on the ground, was thinking along very similar lines. He shouldn’t have attacked her like that. There was no excuse for hitting someone who couldn’t fight back. What kind of triumph was there in hurting someone who was already falling apart? He was the Big Bad. He had survived Angelus, killed two slayers, and burnt the Initiative to the ground. He picked strong opponents and ground them into dust. What the hell was he doing, trying to make a defenseless girl cry just because he was pissed off? He wasn’t supposed to pick at easy targets.
Willow knelt beside him, wanting to offer to help him, but nervous as to how he would react. She opened her mouth half a dozen times to say something, but closed it again each time, unable to come up with something to say. In the end, he saved her the trouble by speaking first.
“Nice punch,” he said.
“Thanks, I think,” she answered.
“I’ll have a shiner, tomorrow,” he continued, gesturing to the eye which was already swollen shut.
“Yeah, sorry about that.”
“Don’t be. I had it coming. Shouldn’t have baited you like that.”
“You didn’t say anything that wasn’t true. It’s just that…” Willow voice trailed off and she looked away.
“It’s just that what?” Spike pressed.
Willow looked back at him shyly, and shrugged. “It’s just that I thought it would be different with you, that’s all. I figured that you, of all people, would be the one who would understand.”
“Understand what?”
“You love Buffy very much, don’t you?”
“Yes,” he answered without hesitation. He didn’t understand why she was asking, but that was one question to which he knew the answer, without a shadow of doubt.
“It’s got to be hard for you. After all, you still have a demon inside you. You still have the temptation; that voice whispering in your ear, telling you to tear the world apart, set it on fire, unleash all the power you have inside you and see exactly how far you can go. You know that you’re strong and powerful. You know how good it feels to give in to the demon. You’ve done it before, and once you’ve tasted that kind of pleasure, you’ll never be able to forget it. But you don’t give in. The chip won’t let you, of course. But even if the chip stopped working tomorrow, you’d still fight the good fight, wouldn’t you? You’d still try to help Buffy and protect Dawn and even save the world if you have to because you love Buffy and she means that much to you. Am I right?”
“Yes.”
“And if it hurt? If it was physically painful not to give in to the cravings that are embedded down in to your bones? If you couldn’t sleep and couldn’t eat and could barely move? If every inch of your body was fighting the choice your mind and heart had made to the point where you expected at any moment to physically come apart at the seams, you would still fight against it, fight against *yourself* because you love her so much, wouldn’t you? You wouldn’t give in and you wouldn’t break down and you’d let your very nature destroy you before you’d give in to it, because you’d know that if you ever did give in, you’d lose her completely. Am I right?”
“Yes.”
“But she still doesn’t trust you, does she? She knows a thing or two about temptation herself. She knows how easy it is to give up, give out, give in and she keeps expecting you to cave under the pressure. You’d do anything in your power to prove to her that she can trust you, that she can depend on you, that you won’t ever let her down. So she sets up hoops and you jump right through them because nothing on earth matters more than having her accept you, at last. Am I right?”
“Yes,” Spike whispered.
“Yeah,” Willow replied, simply. “Me, too.”
“You love her that much?” Spike asked, softly.
“I love all of them that much,” Willow answered. “Tara, Buffy, Xander, Dawn. They mean more to me than anything in the world. And if this is what I have to do to earn back their trust, then I’ll do it, no matter how much it hurts.”
“Me, too,” Spike answered.
“I know,” Willow replied, softly. “See? I told you that you’d understand.”
“Will it work?” Spike asked, his voice sounding oddly childlike, soft and questioning. “Will she ever trust us?”
“I don’t know,” Willow sighed. “‘All human wisdom is summed up in these two words,’” she quoted.
Spike smiled slightly as he picked up on the reference and finished the quotation, “‘Wait and hope.’”
Willow stood and brushed the bits of grass and leaves off of her jeans. “I’m going to go find her.” She held out her hand to Spike. He took it, and she pulled him up to his feet. “Want to come?” she asked. Spike hesitated for a moment, then nodded. They walked through the cemetery, their hands still clasped where they had forgotten to release them.
~Part: 3~
Comparing notes, Willow and Spike realized that they had covered most of the cemetery already. Buffy obviously wasn’t there. They agreed that the Bronze was the next logical place to check. Even though it was well known that the slayer and her friends frequently used the club as a hang-out, fledgling vampires still couldn’t resist the allure of the place with its dim lighting, shadowy corners, and deliciously oblivious teen-age girls. Not even the threat of the slayer could fully scare them away. In the years before, the Scoobies used to go the Bronze as a sort of group party on the weekends. They’d scout out potential vamps in between drinks and dancing and make it a fun night out, combined with patrol.
Since Buffy’s return, Willow knew that the slayer had gotten into the habit of stopping in at the Bronze some time in the middle of her regular patrol. She’d have a few drinks, maybe dance a little, and then go out to make another round of the cemeteries. She always gave that as her explanation when she came home smelling of sweat and alcohol and cigarettes. Willow knew that Buffy had been drinking more heavily since her return, but Buffy didn’t bring it up, so neither did Willow. Willow told herself that Buffy was trying to protect her by not talking about it; shielding her from information that she thought Willow wouldn’t be able to handle. Willow also told herself that she appreciated it, that she was glad that her friends were looking out for her and taking care of her. She told these things to herself often enough to at least pretend to believe them.
Willow and Spike walked through the quiet streets in silence. They had already said everything to each other that they felt they needed to say. The quiet was comforting somehow, and they both seemed to enjoy the knowledge that they didn’t have to say anything; that they could relax and enjoy their own thoughts without being questioned or watched with suspicion. Besides, Willow was rather enjoying the cool, steady firmness of Spike’s hand clasping her own. It seemed to take some of the edge of the bone-shaking magical itch pounding through her blood. With Spike there to protect her, Willow allowed herself to at least partially relax. She didn’t dare speak for fear that it would shatter the moment.
The silence lasted until they were about a block from the Bronze, when Spike stopped suddenly and smiled. Willow knew instantly what that smile meant. Spike reserved that particular sweet, brilliant, blissful smile for only one purpose. Her suspicions were confirmed when Spike spoke.
“She’s here,” he said, in a tone of such awe and adoration that it made something twist inside Willow’s heart. It wasn’t jealousy, exactly, it was just a sort of wistful envy. Buffy treated Spike like dirt, constantly rejecting his love and abusing him in every way possible, and he rewarded her with such love and devotion. Willow found herself wondering, not for the first time, what it would be like to be loved like that. Her soft, melancholy sigh went unnoticed as Spike concentrated solely on the tantalizingly close smell of his beloved.
Spike’s demon senses made it easy for him to trace the unmistakable scent of slayer on the air. She was sweaty and aroused, and the scent made his grin grow even wider. If she was already turned on, then she would want him. Spike grew uneasy whenever a few days went by without the slayer knocking at his door. He knew that she felt a degree of desire for him, but he also knew that her desire for him bothered her, and that she felt degraded by the pleasure she found in his arms. Even at the height of their passion when he was buried inside her, the desire and need on her face battled with her own disgust at the position she was in. He lived in fear that the day would come when she would be strong enough again not to need him anymore. For the time being, she only used him for sex, and if she decided that she didn’t need the sex anymore, then she’d have no further need for Spike. Cold dread washed through him whenever he thought that he might not have the chance to convince her that she could need him for something more: for love, for eternity, the way that he needed her.
But he wouldn’t have to worry about that tonight, if the powerful scent of Buffy’s arousal was any indication. She was hot and turned on already. They wouldn’t have to play that silly game where she pretended that she was disgusted by the thought of being with him. They’d be able to move straight on to the part where he was touching her and tasting her and making her scream his name. The scent grew stronger the closer they got, and Spike’s mood improved exponentially. Her arousal was almost overpowering as they approached the alleyway. He could hear sounds of a scuffle and figured Buffy was toying with a vamp. A good fight always managed to turn her on. The nameless tension that filled Spike in all the time spent between rendezvous with Buffy began to ease.
Spike dropped Willow’s hand and raised a finger to his lips. He wanted a moment to watch his beautiful goddess in action before he drew her attention. Besides, if she was engaged in a heavy fight, seeing Spike and Willow standing to the side would only distract her. Nodding in agreement, Willow silently approached the alleyway with Spike, slipping noiselessly into the shadows to see the slayer.
The sight that confronted them froze them both in place. Buffy was in the alley, alright, and she was definitely involved in some strenuous physical activity. But she wasn’t fighting a demon or a vamp. She wasn’t fighting at all. In fact, if her moans of “Yes” and “More” and “Harder” were any indication, then she was giving full approval and assistance to the man who had her pinned against the back wall of the Bronze with his pants down around his ankles, and Buffy’s legs wrapped around his waist. Willow and Spike couldn’t see his face, he had his back to them, but they had a clear and unobstructed view of Buffy. Her eyes were shut but the expression on her face was one of unabridged ecstasy.
“Fuck, yes,” the man groaned as he sped up his pace. “Been wanting this for weeks,” he growled out, his voice gravelly with lust. “All those night when you’d spend hours on the dance floor, setting those boys up to fight over you, watching you go home with a different one each time, knowing that sooner or later you’d come around to me.” Buffy’s moans grew louder. “You little whore,” the man whispered, his voice so soft that Willow barely caught it, “I told you on that first night that you could have me when you begged for it. Now aren’t you glad that you did?” Buffy screamed as she came, shuddering in the man’s arms. He grunted his own release, collapsing against her for a moment as her legs dropped back to the ground before pulling himself away and yanking up his pants.
Buffy’s hand reached out to stop him as she dropped to her knees, taking his flaccid, dripping penis inside her mouth. The man let out a gasp as he fell back against the wall to hold himself up. Willow saw his face at last. He appeared to be somewhere in his late thirties, unquestionably human. Even the look of twisted pleasure on his face couldn’t hide the fact that his face held unattractive, harsh, somewhat cruel features. He didn’t look familiar. Buffy remained on her knees in front of him, crawling over eagerly to adjust to his new position against the wall as she continued sucking him enthusiastically.
“Damn,” the man hissed as his hands reached down to grope her. Her shirt was already pushed up from their earlier activities, and the red marks of new bruises were clearly visible on her naked breasts as he roughly kneaded them in his hands. “Such a wicked, horny, trashy little slut,” he purred as her hand drifted up from his balls to the crack of his ass, the tip of her finger circling his opening slowly. “Such a very bad girl. Just can’t get enough of this, can you? You came to the right place, baby. Guess this really is your lucky night.”
Buffy slowly pulled her mouth off his cock and started working him with her hand while she swiped at his balls with her tongue. “Don’t you like it like this, Fred?” Buffy asked, her voice low and coy as she pulled one of his balls between her teeth, sucking it for a moment and then releasing it. “Don’t you want it hard and fast and over and over again? I can go all night,” she said, shoving her finger into his ass and smiling with satisfaction at his answering groan. “I’m a lonely girl, Fred. I’m lonely and horny and here, right now, and so are you. What else matters? I can give you what you need, what both of us need.”
“It’s Frank,” the man corrected, but he didn’t seem upset over the error. “Fred was my friend that you met inside, remember?” Buffy nodded her agreement, but seemed uninterested as she returned her mouth to his cock and resumed her enthusiastic sucking. Her hand that had been fisting around his cock dropped between her spread legs, clearly visible where her skirt was hiked up around her waist and her underwear was conspicuously missing. Frank watched her with obvious approval as her fingers disappeared inside her cunt. First one finger, then two, then three. He groaned as she used all four, thrusting and twisting them inside herself as she wiggled against her hand and rubbed against him.
“You know,” Frank said, pinching her nipple harshly, “Fred’s got a nice place not too far from here. Big bed. Some pretty decent weed in the bedside table and a bottle of vodka in the freezer. We could go there. He’ll like you, baby. I can tell. He’ll like you real well, just like this. And we could both spend some time… getting to know you better, any way you want. You want to be fucked, don’t you, baby?” Frank continued, his voice lowered to a raspy growl. “We’ll fuck you so hard, you’ll be feeling it for weeks. We’ll fuck you till you won’t remember what it’s like not to have our cocks inside you, till you can’t walk, till you can barely move. Isn’t that what you want, baby?”
Buffy lifted her head from his cock, licking it wickedly as she smiled at him “Sounds nice,” she purred. “Very nice. Let’s go find him.” She started to rise to her feet, pushing down her skirt and smoothing her top over her breasts, but stopped when he shoved her back to the ground.
“Oh no, baby,” Frank growled. “We’re not going anywhere until you finish what you started.” He gripped her head, roughly forcing his cock back into her mouth and moaning with approval as she eagerly accepted all that he gave her, letting him slide all the way into her throat. It wasn’t long before he came. Buffy rose to her feet with a cat-that-ate-the-canary grin as Frank slid an arm around her, placing his hand firmly on her ass as he led her back inside.
Willow was frozen in place as she watched, unable to process the things that she had seen. She didn’t snap out of her daze until she heard the sounds of violent retching beside her, and looking over to see Spike on his knees, weeping bitterly and silently as his stomach heaved repeatedly. The sight of him broke through Willow’s consciousness, and reality intruded once again.
Anyone walking by would have been surprised at the sight. It wasn’t often that you walked past an alleyway and saw a couple in it who looked so utterly broken. The bleached blond in the leather jacket didn’t look like the type to cry, ever, over anything, but he was sobbing violently and audibly now, tears that seemed almost red, somehow, if such a thing were possible. The redhead who held him seemed just as much of an anomaly. She looked ill: frighteningly underweight, pale, and shaking slightly as if holding herself upright was more of a challenge than she could master. And yet she held the dangerous looking blond wrapped tightly in her arms, obviously holding both of them up as he wept against her shoulder. He clung to her like she was the only stable thing still remaining in the world, and she held on to him just as hard. It would certainly have made an odd picture to anyone who saw them, walking past. But no one did walk past, and Spike cried himself out in Willow’s arms, undisturbed.
~Part: 4~
The vomiting, thankfully, didn’t last long. Vampires aren’t really designed to throw up. Although they have the body of a human, the organs are dead. Since their stomachs are non-operational, vomiting due to illness or food poisoning is not a possibility. Vampires throw up when they’re hung over, when they’ve taken a violent injury to the stomach, or when they’re repulsed so utterly and completely by something they see or hear or feel that their body seizes up, forcing everything extraneous out. After half an hour, Spike had vomited up everything he’d consumed for the past day and a half. He continued with dry heaves for a while after that, but there was simply nothing left to come up. The only thing he wanted to purge from his body; the images he had seen of his love in the alley; could not be so easily displaced.
It took Spike over an hour to run out of tears. He wept in what seemed like an endless stream, whimpering and writhing against the sobs as if the act of crying in itself was physically painful. Maybe it was. Every muscle in his body was tense and his face was twisted in a death mask of agony. It was painful to look at, painful to listen to, and painful to feel as his sobs racked his body, nearly knocking Willow over with their force. Willow held him the entire time, murmuring soothing nonsense and concentrating on him so that she could block out the horrible images of what she had seen in the alley. As horrible as it was to watch him cry, they both dreaded the moment when the tears ended and the hysterics had passed, and they finally had to come to terms with all that they had so accidentally witnessed.
When the tears finally passed, Spike lay oddly still in Willow’s arms. For a moment, she wondered if he had passed out, but when she levered his head up from her shoulder, she saw that his eyes were wide open, though curiously blank. He was in his demon face. Willow was, at first, taken aback by the sight of amber eyes and exposed fangs, but the total lack of clarity in his eyes showed her that he was no threat to her safety. Spike was no danger, at that moment, to anyone but himself.
A chill ran up Willow’s spine as she realized that she was in an alley in prime vamp attack zone without the safety of her powers or even the strength to run away if she was attacked, and that her only companion was a catatonic vamp who would be more of a hindrance than a help in a fight.
“Spike, we need to get out of here,” she whispered, urgently. Spike looked at her with blank, uncomprehending eyes. For a moment, she was afraid that he was completely lost and that she would have to leave him there, but when she pulled them both up and tugged on his hand, he followed her obediently. Willow wracked her brain, trying to figure out the nearest safe place where they could duck away and pull themselves together.
First Methodist Church of Sunnydale was not exactly the grandest of Sunnydale’s houses of God. Its small, though fervent, congregation was composed of low-income families who couldn’t afford an expensive building. As a result, it was not much more than a shack. There were two large room; one that served as a sanctuary and one that was used as a meeting room; plus a kitchen and a bathroom. Instead of pews, they had folding chairs. There was no security guard or alarm system. They didn’t even bother to lock the door. There was no reason for anyone to break into the building; there was nothing to steal. The entire congregation showed up on Sundays and Wednesdays to pray together. A woman in the congregation who worked during the week as a maid came in every Saturday to clean the building top to bottom. Other than that, it was usually deserted. And it was only a block away from the Bronze.
Willow managed to drag Spike into the building without incident. She heard Spike hiss as they entered, and was quietly pleased to have gotten a reaction out of him. *Any* reaction was better than the total blankness he was showing. Of course, it was easy to determine the source of his discomfort. Since they couldn’t afford amenities like stained glass, the Methodists had focused their decoration on crucifixes. Crosses were carved into the very walls, and a six foot tall crucifix stood behind the altar. Willow knew it would be uncomfortable for Spike to be around them; it was one of the reasons that she had chosen the church as their safe haven. She was hoping that that very discomfort might shake him from the daze that he had entered. She simply wasn’t strong enough to take care of herself and Spike when he was in such a helpless state. If hurting him was the way to snap him out of it, then that was what she would do. Besides, if, even in his blanked-out state, Spike still reacted to the crosses, then no vampire in his right mind would go anywhere near the church. That meant that they had some time and some distance before they had to go out and face the world again.
Willow’s mind was still frantically working to process what she had seen. If Spike hadn’t been there with her, she might have been able to convince herself that it was a hallucination. Even now, she didn’t want to believe. She wracked her brain to think of some plausible excuse. Maybe Buffy was possessed. After all, just because the man she had been with had *looked* human, that didn’t mean that he wasn’t actually a demon who was controlling her actions. For that matter, even if the man was human, that didn’t mean that Buffy hadn’t been in his control. Slimy, human bastards exist everywhere, even in Sunnydale, and date rape drugs were not as difficult to get as everyone would like to believe.
But even as she tried frantically to find a way to justify Buffy’s behavior, she knew that she wasn’t even successfully fooling herself. She couldn’t close her eyes to the truth. Buffy had been acting of her own free will. Ever since Willow had stopped using her magic, it had built up in her, affecting every one of her senses. The most potent side effect was that her vision was permanently tinted with aura perceptions. If Buffy had been under any kind of spell or demonic possession, or even if she was under the influence of a mind or personality-altering drug, it would have been visible in her aura. But while Willow had certainly sensed copious amounts of alcohol, she could tell that Buffy, with her slayer metabolism, was completely in control of herself and her actions.
It was like an idol had been smashed. Willow had long since abandoned the Jewish faith she had been raised to follow, and she had never held her parents in any kind of reverence or awe. The only thing she had that could be called faith anymore was her belief in her friends. Her trust that her friends cared for her and would protect her had made her willing to do anything and everything in her power to fulfill their expectations. Ever since she was a sophomore in high school, she had allowed herself to be led and directed by Buffy. It was one of the principles of her existence that Buffy knew best.
When Buffy had lectured her about her magic overdosing, and told her that she had to quit, Willow had believed Buffy when Buffy told her that it was for the best. She had not questioned Buffy’s assertion that her addiction was a weakness, and that she was supposed to be stronger than that. She had accepted the disgust in Buffy’s eyes over her behavior, knowing that Buffy was right to bring her to task for her actions.
But now, for the first time, it started to occur to Willow that perhaps Buffy was not looking out for the best interests of the group. Perhaps she was only looking out for herself. The sight of Buffy whoring herself out to a stranger was troubling enough in and of itself. Buffy had despised Willow for her supposed ‘weakness’ in placing her cravings and desires ahead of her safety and the safety of her friends, and Willow was struck by Buffy’s hypocrisy. But that wasn’t the worst of it. Fragments of the man’s conversation came back to her. “Wanting this for weeks,” “hours on the dance floor,” “go home with a different one each time.” What truly disgusted Willow was not that Buffy had had sex with a stranger when she was supposed to be patrolling, but that it was, apparently, something she had been doing for weeks.
With sickening clarity, all the pieces started falling into place. Willow suddenly remembered all the times that Buffy had stayed out all night, claiming that she had had run across trouble on patrol. All the times she had walked in, unsteady on her feet, smelling like alcohol and sweat. All the times Xander or Spike or even Willow herself looked for Buffy on patrol but couldn’t find her. She remembered the bruises she had seen when she accidentally walked in on Buffy fresh out of the shower, bruises in places that wouldn’t get bruised during a fight.
Willow felt her stomach lurch as even more of the situation came clear and she remembered all the times that Buffy had guilt-tripped Willow into taking over the chores, saying that her slayer duties took up too much of her time to do the laundry or the grocery shopping. It suddenly occurred to her to notice the way that Buffy assumed that Willow would always be home to make sure that Dawn was doing her homework and eating regularly. Willow had spent so much time assuming that Buffy was doing what was best for everyone that it came as a painful physical shock to suddenly realize that Buffy was just using the people around her to do whatever she pleased. She had spent years blindly trusting in Buffy, thinking that whatever Buffy told her to do must be in the best interests of the group. She had been wrong.
For a moment, the thought crossed her mind to wonder if the rest of her friends had realized what was happening. After all, if Buffy was losing her focus as a slayer and concentrating only on satisfying herself, someone else would have caught on to that, wouldn’t they? But no, Willow realized, they wouldn’t have noticed. They wouldn’t have given it a second thought. Tara, ever since her break-up with Willow, had been concentrating on disassociating herself from the group as much as possible. Anya and Xander were so wrapped up in their wedding plans that they paid very little attention to anything else. Dawn was wrapped up in her teenage angst, busy trying to find someone to blame for the fact that her life was a mess, and Spike had been too blindly in love with Buffy to admit that she was doing anything wrong.
And besides, Willow had been there to pick up the slack. She had been the one to make sure that the house was kept properly and meals were prepared and laundry was washed and bills were paid. She kept up appearances, and as long as there was nothing visibly wrong, the gang wouldn’t bother to notice. They simply assumed that Buffy was the one taking care of things. They didn’t stop by the way they used to, or call just to see how things were going. The group that had once been so powerfully united had splintered apart without anyone noticing. Now, it was mostly everyone for himself. As long as nothing was obviously out of place, no one would interfere. And if Buffy was using Willow and manipulating her into keeping up the correct façade, then the gang couldn’t be bothered to care.
Willow was startled out of her pain by an odd, sizzling sound that she couldn’t identify. She looked over to see Spike standing in front of the giant cross that stood behind the altar. He had laid his hand on it, and the hissing sound was coming from the searing of his flesh, but he didn’t react, didn’t respond, didn’t even show anything on his face but the same blank bewilderment. Willow rushed over immediately and snatched his hand off the cross, pulling him away from it, but he did not thank her. He merely turned that blank look on her, as if he was waiting for something to happen that would make everything make sense. After a few moments of dead silence, Spike turned away and headed to the window. He stood facing it, silent and unmoving.
Willow was torn between anger and pity. On the one hand, she hated that she was the one being forced to deal with this. Just once, Buffy should have to clean up her own damn mess instead of leaving it for someone else to take care of it. Willow barely had the energy to hold herself together. She’d been through a hellish couple of weeks and was surviving off of sheer willpower, and an unbreakable determination not to disappoint her friends. What she had seen had sent several of her illusions crashing to the ground, and she wanted time to sit in a corner and figure things out for herself. Having to deal with a catatonic vamp who had covered her clothes with vomit and blood tears was angst that she did not need.
But on the other hand, she felt a very real pity. As much as she had looked up to Buffy, she had never loved her the way the vampire did. Willow’s illusions had been shattered, but Spike’s heart had been broken, and he was hurting more than she had thought possible. She wished she didn’t have to snap him out of it. She wished she could leave him in his peaceful state of shock where he didn’t have to think and didn’t have to worry and didn’t have to deal with the mess their lives had become. But that wasn’t an option. When you live on the Hellmouth, you can’t let your guard down for a second. In a town of predators, you have to be very careful to never resemble prey. They couldn’t stay holed up in the church forever. Eventually, they were going to have to face the rest of the world, and Willow needed Spike to be thinking clearly when that happened.
So… where to begin? How do you comfort your vampiric former-enemy/current-ally whose heart has been broken by the sluttish actions of your ex-best friend? She walked over to where he stood, facing a window with his back to her, and searched for the perfect thing to say. Nothing came to mind. Deciding that touch might get through to him, she reached out for his hand. To her surprise, he jerked away. He turned rapidly to face her and she let out a gasp, instinctively backing away when she realized he was in his demon face. His eyes, clear again and full of pain, were filled with more angry tears, and focused on her.
“Am I flesh?” he hissed, his voice distorted through his fangs. “Am I flesh to you?” He looked away from her as the tears spilled silently over his cheeks. Willow flinched at the bitterness in his voice, at his pain over the evidence that Buffy would rather sleep with a human monster than him. His hands clawed at his skin, as if he were searching for the imperfection in his flesh that made it so repulsive to the woman that he adored. His claws easily tore through the thin material of his t-shirt and raised bloody scratches on his chest. He looked at them in surprise, dipping a finger in the blood and raising it up in front of his face. The blood looked black in the moonlight.
When he spoke again, he seemed distracted, as if he had forgotten she was there. “My flesh. Nothing else. Not a spark.” He snorted. “Oh, fine. Flesh then. Solid through. Get it hard; service the girl. But the girl doesn't want to be serviced. Not by me. Because there's no spark.” Spike turned and slammed his fist into the wall. The walls were thin and cheaply constructed, and his fist went straight through in a shower of splinters, disappearing almost up to his elbow.
“Spike, have you completely lost your mind?” Willow squealed.
Spike raised his eyes back to her, as if surprised that she was still there. His face morphed back to its human features. “Well, yes,” he answered, his voice surprisingly calm for someone standing in place and holding a discussion with his fist through a wall. “Where've you been all night?”
“Spike, I-I don’t understand. What’s going on?” Spike didn’t answer. Instead, he returned his focus to the wall and in a sharp, sudden movement, pulled his arm back through. He cocked his head as he looked at it, seemingly bewildered by the rivulets of blood running from the series of scrapes.
“I tried to find it, of course,” he stated.
“Find what?” Willow asked, desperately. She had no idea what Spike was talking about. All of his talk of flesh and sparks and servicing the girl didn’t make any sense.
“The spark. The missing... the piece that fit. That would make me fit. Because I didn’t have enough of... Even when she was with me, she didn't want...” His eyes remained focused on his arms, but Willow could see the shiny dots of tears falling from his face onto the bloody mess of his arm. “So weak,” he whispered. “Did she make me weak? Thinking of her, holding myself, and spilling useless buckets of salt over her, even when I held her, because she… left. Always left.”
Willow gasped. He almost made it sound like… but no, that wasn’t possible. Was it? Willow knew that Buffy didn’t consider Spike worthy enough to love, but she hadn’t… she couldn’t have… Buffy couldn’t possibly have been sleeping with Spike and using him, as well, could she?
Spike moved away, heading back toward the altar. “I wanted to give her what she deserved. For her. To be hers. To be the kind of man who would— to be a kind of man.”
He stepped back up to the crucifix, until he was standing only a foot away from it, staring at it. “She shall look on him with forgiveness, and everybody will forgive and love. He will be loved,” he whispered. “So everything's okay, right?” He let out a soft sigh and then embraced the crucifix, resting one arm over each side of the cross bar, and resting his head in the corner of the vertex. His body started sizzling and smoke rose from where he connected with the cross.
“Can—can we rest now? Willow...can we rest?”
~Part: 5~
Without thinking, Willow rushed over to the cross and yanked Spike away from it. Unprepared for her action, he fell heavily against her, driving them both onto the floor. As soon as they hit the ground, Spike pulled away from her, curling up in a ball with his arms covering his face. He was angry with Willow for pulling him away: he had hoped that the cross would destroy him once and for all, putting him out of his misery and taking away all the pain. She had no right to stop him, no right to pull him away from the death that he had chosen. But he didn’t have the energy to yell at her for her rescue, or to run back over to the cross and try again. Instead, he just curled up in a ball and waited for death to come.
He was so wrapped up in his pain that it took him a few minutes to realize that a soft hand was gently running through his hair while a soft voice spoke to him in tones that held more gentleness and understanding than he had heard directed at him in far longer than he could remember.
“What did she do to you, Spike? What on earth did she do to you?”
He let out a dry, aching bark of a laugh that was as painful as a sob. “It was what she *didn’t* do that was the problem, pet.”
Willow, relieved that he was finally responding coherently, scooted closer, shifting his head onto her lap. “What didn’t she do?” she asked softly, continuing to comb her fingers gently through his hair.
“She didn’t love me.” Willow continued her gentle caresses, waiting for him to continue. “I-I love her so much, I was willing to do anything for her. I watched over Nibblet for her, and I guarded the Hellmouth, and I was there for her, *always* there for her, when she needed to talk, or needed to scream, or needed to fight, or needed…”
“Needed you to sleep with her?” Willow suggested tentatively when his voice trailed off.
“Only slept the first time. Even slayers need some rest after eight orgasms in a row.” Spike smirked, or tried to. “Wore her out, I did. She slept; I didn’t sleep. Just lay there for hours, holding her, watching her, thinking that everything would be different after that, and that she’d not be looking down on me again. Made all the demons go away from her head for a bit. Thought she’d like that. Fool that I was, I thought she’d finally accepted me, finally accepted my love. I… I didn’t expect her to love me, but I thought she’d finally let me love her.”
“Needed to feel, she’d say. Since she came back, most things left her numb but me nailing her against a wall… that made her feel. Not sleep. I’m not good enough to sleep with,” Spike replied, his voice bitter. “We’d fuck. If I tried to touch her gently, she’d leave. If I told her I loved her, she’d leave. If I didn’t make it rough enough, she’d leave and not come back until I tracked her down and shoved her against a wall and... and when she was finished… she’d leave. Not sleep. Never sleep. I wasn’t good enough to sleep with. Never good enough.” His voice broke slightly as he spoke.
“Shhhh,” Willow whispered, keeping up the soothing caresses as he nestled his head more firmly in her lap. “It’s alright.”
“Not alright,” he protested, his voice muffled as his face pressed against her leg. “I thought… I thought I mattered to her. I thought that even if she didn’t want my love, at least she *appreciated* it. I thought she came to me because I love her and she knew I’d take care of her, and give her whatever she needed. I thought she was starting to accept me.” His voice grew hard. “Seeing her spreading herself like a whore in a back alley to anyone who’ll give her a hard fuck cleared that right up for me.” Spike pulled away from Willow, sitting up. Sadness was fading away as anger started to kick in.
“Do you know what she’d say to me after I fucked her?” Spike hissed. Willow shook her head. “She’d say that it made her feel disgusting. She’d say that she’d never come back to me again; that she was ashamed of herself for wanting me at all. She’d burst into my crypt, literally pouncing on me, ripping my clothes off and then an hour later, she’d be telling me that I’m beneath her, that I repulse her.”
“Spike—” Willow tried to interject, but he didn’t even notice she was speaking. He jumped to his feet and started pacing as the anger took hold.
“Did you see how he treated her? That bastard! That smug, arrogant bastard. Did you hear what he said? Talking to her like she should be *grateful* to him for allowing her to get screwed. He pimped her out to his friend, he used her, he treated her like she was some cheap piece of nothing, and she let him! Hell, she *enjoyed* it!”
Spike growled and his eyes flashed amber, though his features stayed human. “I used to beg,” he snarled. “Angelus could never make me beg. The *Master* could never make me beg, but I’d crawl on my knees after that sadistic bitch of a slayer, pleading with her to let me love her. And she still said that I was a demon, that I was soulless, that I was unworthy. Even when I was inside her, making her scream, giving her everything she needed, she’d still be disgusted that she got that pleasure from *me*.” Spike’s burning eyes focused on Willow again. “Did you see the way she looked at him tonight? He was shoving his cock down her throat and calling her a whore, and she…” Spike grimaced, and nearly spat out the words, “she liked that better.”
Spike crossed over to one of the folding chairs and kicked it halfway across the room. It banged into the wall with a satisfying crash that seemed to take all of the fight out of Spike. He collapsed on another chair, putting his elbows on his knees and balancing his forehead on his hands. “God, I feel like such a fool.”
Willow crawled over the chair where he had seated himself and knelt in front of him. “It’s alright, Spike,” she said softly, reaching out to him and laying a tentative hand on his shoulder, trying to calm him down.
“Is it?” he asked, looking up to stare her directly in the eye. There were only inches of space between the two of them and his harsh whisper seemed to pierce straight through her. “Is it alright? Is it alright that I’m her whore and you’re her slave? Is it alright that she’d been using both of us, and not giving a damn about anyone but herself? Is it alright that she treats us like dirt and makes us jump through her hoops when she has *no intention of forgiving us*? Is *that* alright?”
Willow jumped as if she had been hit with an electrical shock. Spike was right. There had been a time, years before, when Buffy had considered Willow to be an equal, and Spike to be a worthy adversary. Willow’s first thought was to blame herself for the change in Buffy’s attitude, thinking that the changes stemmed from pulling the slayer out of heaven and bringing her back to life against her will. But the more she thought about it, the more she realized that that wasn’t true. The Buffy that Willow had known and treasured had been slowly disappearing for a while.
Maybe it had something to do with Joyce dying, and Buffy feeling like she had to take over as the one in charge. Maybe it had come from the spell the monks had performed when they created Dawn, making Buffy feel like the well-being of this girl who was created out of her was more important than the well-being of her friends, and even of the world as a whole. Or maybe the roots of selfishness that had always been part of the slayer had simply grown through these experiences, training and teaching her that she was somehow entitled to more than everyone else, and that this meant that she could use others for her own satisfaction. Whatever the cause might have been, the result was unmistakably a hard, cold woman who believed that her birthright as slayer meant that no one’s problems or concerns mattered but her own.
Spike was the ultimate example of Buffy’s careless unconcern for others. He had stayed for years in a town that he hated because he loved her. His love for Buffy had caused him to pick a fight with a goddess, and offer a group of humans his protection, and put his unlife on the line more times than Willow could count. Even after Buffy had died, Spike had stayed in Sunnydale, keeping his word to keep an eye on Dawn and help the rest of the Scoobies, who barely tolerated his presence no matter how much he helped. He showed his devotion to her with every thought and every action, not expecting any acknowledgment. And when Buffy came back and started using Spike for sex and pleasure whenever she wanted, she still continued to treat him like some kind of thing who was beneath her concern.
“She’s making us pay for what we did, isn’t she? And she’s going to keep making us pay, over and over again, using us like something lower than a servant while going on and on about how generous she is, to even allow us to walk through fire for her.” Spike lowered himself to his knees until he was crouched directly in front of her, whispering in her ear. “It’ll never end. If we stay here like this, she’ll keep using us until there’s nothing of us left. She’s never going to stop making both of us pay.”
Abruptly, he stood. “Could I be cleansed by fire, do you think?” He walked slowly toward the cross again. “If I burned down to ashes, will it burn the pain away?”
“Spike, no!” Willow yelled, grabbing his arm. She hung on to it with all her strength, determined to stop him from hurting himself again.
“What other choice is there?” he asked, quietly. “No matter what I do, she’ll never love me. I gave up *everything* I had to love her and now I have nothing left! If I’m never going to win her love in return, then what else is there left for me to do?”
“Let go,” she whispered, speaking as much to herself as she was to him. “There’s nothing left for you in this town anymore. There’s nothing left for either of us. I think it’s time that we both just… let go. And…”
“And?”
Her eyes snapped up to his. “And go,” she answered firmly. “Let’s go.”
Grabbing his hand, she pulled him out of the building, heading for the lot where she knew he stashed his Desoto.
“Red? Red, wait! Where are we going?”
“We’re going to your car,” Willow explained as she continued dragging him along. “And when we get to it, we’re going to get in, get on the highway, and get the hell out of this town, for good.”
“Just like that?” Spike asked, his voice sounding slightly awed.
“Yes, Spike,” Willow’s voice softened as she squeezed his hand gently. “Just exactly like that. There’s no reason for either of us to stay any longer. There’s nothing I want to take with me, and no goodbyes that need to be said. We’ll just get in the car and go. As simple as that.”
Nodding in agreement, Spike picked up the pace. Within minutes, they were settled in the Desoto.
“Low on fuel,” Spike noted, glancing over at the gasoline gage.
“We can stop somewhere on the road,” Willow replied. “Right now, we just need to get out of here.”
“So where is it we’re going then, pet?”
“I don’t care,” Willow answered honestly. “I just want to get gone.”
“Gone it is then,” Spike replied with a smirk, looking almost like the old Spike. Willow smiled back, trying to look like the old Willow. She caught his hand in hers again and squeezed it gently as they roared out onto the highway.
Neither one looked back.
THE END