Rating: R – not a fluffy fic
Couple: Willow / Spike
Disclaimer: Joss owns all, of course (Joss = God). I own nothing. The characters are not mine, and so on and so forth Feedback: Please…….
Summary: Willow is at the mercy of the Scourge if she survives will she be sorry she did or is there a savior on the horizon?
Notes: Totally AU (set in the late 1800’s) Please don’t expect this to be historically correct - I’m too lazy for that kind of dedication. Also please be aware that aside from the way they look and their names, the characters are not necessarily true to the way we know them now.
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~Part: 1~ Welcome to Hell
Willow doesn’t expect that she will see much of rainbows anymore, so the shimmering array of oranges, blues, greens, reds, golds should bring a wistful smile to her wan face. But it doesn’t.
She is a prisoner in pretty clothes.
She stares with disinterest at the wealth of rich fabrics laid before her. He wants her to choose. What does it matter? She will wear what he wants regardless of these so-called ‘choices’ and ‘freedoms’. So she holds her tongue because she is tired and doesn’t wish to play this game with him any longer.
And just as she expected the choice is made for her – she will have something in every colour. Of course.
It is a far cry from a Sunday afternoon she once spent buying a modest gown of blue with money she had received from a dashing stranger; agonizing over the choice as if it might just be her only chance to ever purchase a gown of such beauty - as modest as it was.
He hands a book to her and she settles immediately at his feet as he sits by the roaring fire. She reads, knowing the reason he has her do this for hours at a time is because it is the only time she ever speaks.
Even now she flinches when he lays cold hands on her bare shoulders, still unable to endure his touch without thinking about the death he visited upon her family with those very same hands – because of her. Killer’s hands. So gentle. So cold.
However her voice remains flat and she doesn’t miss so much as a line in her reading. She continues on hoping he will soon grow tired and give her leave to return to her room where she will lie alone in a bed she needs a step to climb onto among silken sheets and downy pillows the likes of which she had never even known existed and she will stare at the ceiling and try not to wonder if it will finally all be over tomorrow, try not to think too much about how wrong it is for her to wish it so.
At dinner the next evening Angelus asks her if she is enjoying Paris. He rarely addresses her in such direct terms and has certainly never asked her a question that requires an answer. She hasn’t really been eating her meal for which she is grateful; the unexpectedness of his words to her would have had her choking on her food otherwise.
She places her heavy silver fork on the table with exaggerated care and swallows nervously, not lifting her eyes from the linen tablecloth. “Yes, Master Angelus.”
There is silence in the large dining room, ostentatious in it’s size for three occupants, two of which who do not ‘eat’ in the traditional sense. Dressing for ‘dinner’ and sitting down at the table to ‘dine’ with her captors is just another part of the mockery they make of living and she hates the way it makes her feel like her entire existence is merely some kind of macabre play. She wishes the curtain would fall and she prays there will be no encore when it does. She has seen what they are and she doesn’t want to share that existence with them for eternity.
The only sound is the fire hissing in the hearth and it is also the only illumination in the room. If he is waiting for her to elaborate then he will be waiting a hell of a long time, he has no idea what it costs her to utter those three words to him in the first place, but she thinks William does.
“And what exactly is it about Paris that you like so much, child?”
She squeezes her eyes shut tightly for a brief moment knowing that this is the confrontation that she has been awaiting for three long months. He knows she has no answer for this and with a sinking feeling she realizes she is a heartbeat away from losing the control she only barely has over her terror. It is a physical thing, her fear, it is large and oily black and it sits heavily in the pit of her stomach threatening every once in a while to rise up past her throat and force its way out of her mouth and when it does….she will be lost to the madness it will bring and she is not so broken yet that she wants to let go and find the empty solace of insanity.
Not yet.
“It…it’s been so c, cold since………” she swallows over the lump in her throat and blinks back the stinging tears which are threatening to fall purposefully avoiding finishing the sentence with ‘since you killed my family’ she continues on “And it’s so warm here. It’s warm.” She doesn’t say that only in the sunshine where she knows they can’t touch her does she ever feel safe – she doesn’t have to they both know this well enough.
An amused chuckle is his response and she hopes that this signals her escape for another evening.
“You look tired, Pet. Retire for the evening and get some rest.” William says quietly already taking her elbow in his firm, dead grip and drawing her to her feet.
The evening has taken its toll on her and the mixture of stress, exhaustion and lack of nutrition has caught up with her. She stumbles clumsily for a brief moment and finds herself instinctively clutching at William’s coat to steady herself before awareness returns and she stumbles again, this time away from him as quickly as she possibly can, spinning blindly on her heel and dashing from the room desperate to be away from them.
Lying alone in the bed she faces another long and sleepless night particularly since her close encounter with William earlier in the evening had brought memories of the night in his carriage enclosed in his deadly embrace crashing back over her. Unwelcome. Inescapable.
She has gone to extraordinary lengths to avoid his touch since her ill-fated attempt to flee to Scotland and he has allowed her this meager defence. So far. He can afford to be patient she supposes with a bitter curl of her lip, he will after all, live forever.
Unlike her.
That brings a whole new raft of unwelcome thoughts to keep the others company. Living in wait of the killing blow is almost more horrible than the blow itself.
But he has yet to so much as raise his voice to her let alone murder her.
Eventually she drifts into an uneasy sleep filled with monsters, gentle hands, cold breath, hard fangs and soft voices – unaware of the vampire that stands by her bedside soothing her thrashing with a cool hand on her fevered brow before slipping away just as the gray fingers of the false dawn creep across the horizon.
~Part: 2~ The end justifies the means?
Thierry had taken many jobs in his checkered career. None as strange or as well remunerated as this one. He was not, much to his Mother’s probable dismay, a man of letters or a physician. He was a soldier of fortune and his skills rested firmly in the taking of life more so than the granting or healing of it as she had no doubt hoped the case would be.
That didn’t mean that there weren’t things about this latest arrangement that didn’t bother him, because there were. A whole lot of them actually, not the least of which were the men he was working for.
Originally he had been absurdly pleased about the offer of employment from this diabolical duo – The Scourge of Europe – his own reputation, by mere association would soar.
But they weren’t exactly men. He didn’t quite know what they were, but human didn’t factor into his considerations on the matter. Still he was a remarkably adaptive individual (in fact this was one of the characteristics that Angelus had been so pleased about) and he could deal with that disturbing piece of information – especially with the money he was being paid.
It was the second month of his time with the Scourge as he had come to refer to them, when he had realized that for the first time in his life money was not necessarily ‘the end that justified the means’.
Angelus and William might not be human but she most certainly was and therein his problem lay.
Against his will, Thierry found his eyes settle once again on her bent head as she sat silently reading on the garden seat bathed in the gentle morning light with her auburn locks shimmering dramatically and framing her pale face in a flaming halo to which nothing could compare, except perhaps for her brilliant green eyes.
She was not the most beautiful woman he had ever seen, she had not the exotic beauty of many Parisian maidens with their dark silken locks and red pouty lips, nor did she possess the golden skin and voluptuous curves found in most of the beauteous German women – but the flash of red and green against the pale creaminess of her very English skin made a dramatic contrast to her subdued and gentle nature. She was, he thought, infinitely intriguing. And so terribly sad, alone, and frightened. He saw it in the defeated curve of her small shoulders, and the luminous shimmer of her eyes. He saw it as she started nervously at the slightest noise as if she had cause to fear everything despite the fact she was never without the presence of himself or one of his two employers.
He was no stranger to fear, it was his business after all and often he prided himself on his ability to instill it in others. But it looked somehow wrong on her young face and it broke the heart he had forgotten he even possessed to see her like that.
One smile from Angelus and she stiffened, one loving endearment from William and she paled. He was gladdened that he had never seemed to elicit these kinds of responses from the girl even on the rare occasions he spoke to her or was required to take her arm when guiding her in doors for the day.
Thierry was finding it hard to go to sleep at night knowing she was locked away somewhere with only monsters for company.
~Part: 3~ Courting
Under any other circumstances Willow would have been overjoyed at finding herself in a private box at the Royal Theatre. Of course she was familiar with the Bard, had read his works extensively she was an educated woman after all, but not a moneyed one.
To be settled here in the best seats in the house wearing the very latest in Paris fashions and more jewellery than she had ever seen in one place at one time was indeed the stuff of dreams. Unfortunately her company for the evening made it the stuff of nightmares.
His cold hand brushed hers as he handed her a pair of theatre binoculars to better view the performance and despite having spent the last hour in the closest of quarters with him since her ‘incarceration’ the contact caused her to jump nervously in her seat.
Swinging her eyes briefly to his face she was dismayed to note the way his mouth tightened angrily at her response and she made a mental note to avoid doing it again if she possibly could. As luck would have it, she was immediately presented with the opportunity to put her latest resolve into practice as he moved his chair very deliberately closer to hers. Even through her numerous petticoats and silken skirts the firmness and ‘cold’ of his thigh as it pressed unnecessarily against hers was easily discernable. Reflecting once again on his angry expression a moment ago she fought the instinct to shrink away from him.
Suddenly the lights went down and an expectant hush hung over the audience as a lone figure walked to the center of the stage to deliver the first line of Shakespears ‘The Tempest’ in French.
William was very familiar with the theatre although not overly fond of it. Angelus, the boorish bastard that he was, had dragged this unwilling childe along to numerous plays and recitals in an attempt, as he put it, to “instill some culture in the cretin” he believed William to be. Angelus always said that the very finest food could only really be found among the highest social echelons – at least in this country – and any Childe of his would be schooled in the ways of mixing with that crowd. The hunting was a much more worthy challenge among the rich, he said. In short, Angelus was a snob who cared more for games than eating, in William’s opinion. William had often wondered what kind of demon would make work for himself when the pickings in the slums of White Chapel where hundreds slept on the streets were so good?
Casting his eyes over the beauty seated next to him he decided that for the first time since his turning he might finally understand what his Sire had been trying to tell him all these long years. When he tasted her she would take him as close to heaven as his kind could ever hope to go and he knew that he would not find her equal in the slums where the women were spoiled at far too young an age by poverty and moral corruption. Not that he had anything against moral corruption.
He shifted subtly in his seat, tightening as he envisaged how she would taste and how she would look spread across his sheets. Bleeding. Willing.
Ahh but there was still quite a way to go before he could expect her compliance. Or, maybe not so far to go. He amended as her small gloved hand suddenly clutched at his arm as the action on the stage reached a crescendo. She leaned forward a little in her seat, just enough to afford him a tantalizing glimpse of her décolletage her pretty mouth slightly parted and her eyes wide with wonder. Oh yes, this had been a very good idea indeed he decided with a slow smile.
It wasn’t until the curtain fell that Willow realized she was practically molded to the vampire next to her in a most improper manner and even as she flicked a startled look up into his face he pre empted her retreat by taking her firmly by the elbow and helping her to her feet making sure to stand so close as to force her to lean against him as they rose.
It was all William could do to keep from sliding into game face as she pressed against him from hip to chest, effectively trapped between her chair and his body. He allowed himself an endless moment to bury his face in her upswept hair inhaling deeply. He deliberately slide her wrap from her shoulders exposing them to his gaze before taking one arm from around her waist and running his fingers along her bare collarbone resting them against the frantic pulse in her throat growling lowly as he was assailed by the overwhelming sweet scent of her fear and the vibration of the blood pumping through the veins that were in such plain view.
She actually slumped against him in relief when he finally replaced her wrap with icy fingers and took a small step back. His preternatural speed was once again her savior as he caught her easily and steadied her as her legs buckled. “Easy, pet.” He purred softly glad for the privacy of the box he had brought her to. “You’re tired. Away home with you.”
As usual she didn’t respond but took the arm he offered without protest and allowed herself to be steered out of the theatre through the milling crowd and into a waiting carriage.
For three blissful hours he had set her free by providing her the escapism of the theatre and despite knowing he was directly responsible for her imprisonment in the first instance she couldn’t help the flash of gratification that overcame her in that moment.
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