~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Willow was talking about monkeys in her sleep. Don’t open the window or the monkeys will get in and where did the good monkey go and why are the monkeys eating me. She talked in her sleep a lot, but this was the first Spike had heard of the monkeys. Perhaps it was related to her experience with the primate in the driver’s seat.
He sat in the beanbag chair and watched her tossing and turning, having bizarre conversations with herself, and wished for all the remaining jealousy and frustration to drain away from him. She looked so sweet and sad in her sleep, and God, so fucking young. She was just a child, really. A child with a tremendous power, perhaps, but still far too young to have to face a situation like this. She‘d lost everything. Spike had lost everything too, but it wasn’t the first time, and he’d had a lot less to start with. He suspected the trauma ran much deeper for Willow. How could he be angry with her for taking what little comfort she had left in the world?
How could he be angry with Angel for giving it to her?
Well, okay, he could always be angry with Angel, but that was just part of the fundamental structure of the universe.
She woke with a sigh and a stretch and, thankfully, without reaching around for Angel. She turned onto her side and smiled when she saw him sitting there.
“Takin’ a break from driving duty?” she asked.
“Yeh,” he nodded. “’Fraid it was starting to make me a bit nutty.”
“Thanks again for the chocolates. Wish I hadn’t scarfed them all down so fast.”
“Want something else to eat? There’s plenty here.”
He shuffled through the bag of dried goods, trying not to think about the stupid chocolates and the fact that she’d fucked Angel within an hour of him giving them to her. Not angry. He was not angry anymore.
He handed her a box of crackers and she sat up and began eating heartily. She was looking better every minute- filling out again and starting to look like her old self. Except for her eyes. Her eyes were some of the most haunted he’d ever seen. And he’d seen thousands of sets of eyes flickering in terror at the moment of their death.
He sat in silence, morosely contemplating the gurgling blue fluid in the lava lamp perched on top of the mini-fridge. It seemed like some sort of cruel joke. The apocalypse had finally arrived, but there were still lava lamps. Buffy was dead, but Pop Tarts tasted exactly the same as before. Were there, somewhere on the planet, Barbie dolls and bell bottomed trousers and Yanni recordings? Was Carrot Top still alive? Why was everything so fucking stupid?
“Spike? You okay?”
Somehow his hand had ended up wrapped around the lamp. It was hot. He was about to break it.
“Yeah. Fine.”
He let go of the glass tube and wiped his palm on the leg of his ridiculous, ugly scrub pants.
“I hate these clothes,” she said. “Maybe we should stop and get supplies at like, The Gap next time.”
“Hate The Gap.” But there were probably a million of them left standing.
“Yeah. Me too. But wouldn’t you rather be wearing some wide leg jeans and a Henley tee or whatever?”
He smiled weakly. “S’pose so.”
“Oh,” she sighed, and ate some more crackers. Then she spun, suddenly, into a whirlpool of babble. “You’re upset. I knew you’d be upset. I said ‘He’ll be upset’, but Angel said ‘No he won’t’, but I knew you would and now I just feel like the stupidest person in the world which, since I’m the only person left in the world I guess that’s not saying much, but I feel really really stupid and horrible and…ew, trashy, and I-”
“Willow! Stop. For the love of God, stop talking.”
Her lips tightened into a thin line and she looked sadly at her lap.
“You’re not stupid or horrible or trashy. I’m not…” he paused and ran his fingers absently through his hair, then frowned at what he felt. He was growing a bloody afro. It was perfect really. He was turning into quite the clown lately.
He couldn’t tell her he wasn’t upset. He was upset, but he couldn’t tell her why because he barely understood it himself. He wasn’t in love with this girl. Barely even knew her, when you came right down to it. And Angel…Angel was Angel. There was nothing to be upset about.
“I’m fine,” he settled on. “You don’t have to feel bad, please.”
“Well, but…you felt left out. I knew you would.”
He stared blankly at her for a moment or two, letting her words sink in.
She was right. That was exactly how he’d felt. It was pathetic and absurd, but completely accurate. It wasn’t the kind of jealousy and sickening rage he’d felt watching Angelus shagging Dru senseless. It wasn’t the horrible humiliation he’d felt when Buffy fucked him and called him Angel- not by mistake but to remind him that he’d never be more than a vampire shaped dildo to her. It was something different. Something less painful, but equally annoying. It was exclusion. It was wanting to be a part of things, but knowing he just wasn’t.
“It-it’s really all right, Willow,” he said, eventually. “Don‘t even think of it. Things are bad enough without you having to worry about me bein’ a big baby.”
“But you’re not. I mean, it’s totally normal to feel like that. Anybody would feel like that. I knew this would happen. God, I’m such an idiot.”
And it just kept getting worse. The more she droned on about it, the more idiotic he felt. There wasn’t any music on, either, which meant Angel was probably listening. Getting a good laugh out of his embarrassment, no doubt.
“Look, I told you, it’s fine. Let’s just…can we talk about something else?”
“Oh, um…yeah,” she nodded. She looked relieved. “Yeah, let’s.”
Of course he was at a loss as to what else they might discuss. He certainly didn’t want to ramble around the topic of their apocalypse again. They’d beat the speculation and commiseration horse quite thoroughly to death already.
It occurred to him then that he’d never really asked Willow anything about her life before. He’d known her, of course, but he hadn’t been particularly interested in her. What could he ask her now that wouldn’t make her positively miserable?
“What would you do, if everything went back the way it was before, you know, in the world, what would be the first thing you’d do?” she asked, solving the problem for him.
Except that he didn’t have an answer to the question. Before this all happened he hadn’t had a clue what to do with himself and his soul except to try and keep this all from happening. And before the soul he’d always done exactly what he wanted, never mind the consequences. No regrets, no lost opportunities. That had been his motto. Until he fouled everything up.
“I’m not sure, honestly,” he told her. “Maybe get a cheeseburger?”
She smiled. “Yeah, a cheeseburger would be good.”
“What would you do?” he asked.
She chewed her lip thoughtfully for a moment, and then came out with, “I think I’d go to my parent’s house and clean out my old closet.” He thought she was probably joking. She had to be joking. Surely no one could be that concerned with neatness.
But it didn‘t look like she was joking, so he said, “That’s a really bizarre answer, Red.”
“I know it sounds boring. I’ve just been meaning to do it forever. There’s all this…stuff in there. Old pictures and homework from elementary school and toys and just, a bunch of junk, really. But I wanted to look through it sometime, cause it’s my junk and I thought it might be fun, you know?” She frowned and started worrying the blanket with her fingers, unraveling the wool. She looked ready to cry, suddenly. He wanted to say something comforting, but couldn’t think of a thing.
All he could think of was how much fun it would be to go through that closet with her.
“I’m being goofy,” she said. “Thinking about this stuff. I know there’s more important things at stake than the contents of my closet.”
“No, no. It is important. I’d like to do that, too, if we get out of this and things go back.”
“You have a closet too?” she asked.
“Oh, no, I don’t have anything like that. I meant…well, I’d like to look through your closet sometime.”
“You would?” She cocked her head to the side, curiously. “What for?”
“Sorry, is that creepy?” Wouldn’t be the first time he’d been accused of this sort of creepiness. Look up stalker in the dictionary and Spike figured there’d be a picture of his ridiculously large head.
“Well, no,” she said. “It’s just, wouldn’t that be a totally boring thing for a person who isn‘t me?”
“Not if the person was interested in getting to know you better, no.”
“Oh,” she smiled. “Neat.”
~~~~
“What were you like when you were human?”
The question hung between them in the flat silence of his non-reply, and he winced. She sat in the beanbag chair, watching him squirm on the floor, waiting for an answer.
They’d been talking for…hours? Days? He didn’t know how long, but they’d taken a nap and Angel had stopped to refill on gas twice since they’d gotten started. And in all that time she hadn’t asked him anything about himself. Which was fine, really. He’d wanted to get to know her, and now he felt he could honestly say that he did.
He knew that she’d never had a pet growing up because her mother thought it would cause psychological damage, and she’d lost her virginity because she thought she was going to die, and she’d begun questioning her religious faith when she was seven years old. He knew that she’d loved Tara more than anything in the world, but she missed Xander most of all. He knew that she’d been to New York City twice, to visit her Nana Rosenburg, and that she thought she might like to move there someday. He knew that she’d been jealous of Buffy a lot of the time, that her favorite food was Kentucky Fried Chicken, that she sometimes wondered if he was right and she was still here because she was a sinner- doomed to eternal damnation. He’d told her no to that last one, no he’d been wrong. Of that he was certain. She’d done some dreadful things, but he and Angel’d done much worse. There was a separate hell waiting for them, much more unpleasant than this one.
She’d been touchingly honest with him, talked more openly with him than anyone he could remember, and now she wanted to know something about him. The one bloody thing he didn’t want her to know.
“I was a thief,” he said. “A pickpocket and a ladies man and a con artist. I lived on the streets and once killed a man with my bare hands for a slice of bread.”
There was a very loud snort from the front seat- the first sign they’d gotten that Angel had been listening to them at all. Willow’s eyes got all wide and muppety and her jaw went slack.
“Really?” she asked, her voice full of wonder.
“No,” he sighed. “No, not at all.”
She giggled and sipped at the orange soda she’d grabbed from the last 7-11 they’d stopped at.
“S’pose you wanted the truth, eh?”
She nodded vigorously so he dove into it as best he could.
“I was an absolute ninny. A sheltered dandy with no testicles who dithered around all day bashing the bishop and writing appalling prose about dreadful women who wouldn’t even talk to me. I died a virgin and a coward and a complete and utter loser.”
She giggled again and shook her head. “Stop making up stories, silly.”
He didn’t know whether to laugh, cry, or make up another story.
“No, that one’s true,” Angel piped in.
“Oh, wank off, will you?” Spike growled. “Least I wasn’t a worthless, dim-witted drunk.”
“No, you saved that for later.”
“Did someone invite you to this conversation?” Spike asked irritably. “Because it certainly wasn’t me.”
“Guys,” Willow interrupted. “Let’s not make with the fighty, okay?”
“I’m not fighty!” Angel insisted. “I was just kidding around. He’s too sensitive.”
Spike sighed and drank the rest of his own orange soda, wishing it was whiskey.
Then Willow leaned down and whispered to him, “I’m kinda glad you were a geek, too,” and kissed him lightly on the cheek.
~~~
“D’you ever think about using magic again? Trying to make this right?”
Willow was driving now, clutching the wheel tightly and chewing her lip, looking like she feared the road might open at any moment and give way to another hellmouth. Angel was sleeping in the back, finally, and Spike sat in the passenger seat, his feet on the dashboard, and drank from the flask they’d found in the glove box which had indeed turned out to contain cheap, dreadful vodka.
“Only every five minutes or so,” Willow answered, with a sideways glance. “I know some spells that…well there might be ways, but I can’t. I mean…I don’t think it…please don’t ask me to…”
“Oh, no. No, I’m not asking you to do anything. It would only make things worse, in the long run. We’d pay for it in some unimaginably horrible way, I’ve no doubt.”
She let out a relieved breath. “Good. That’s good. I mean…not good, but…well, if we run out of gas and we can’t find anything I could probably keep the van going for awhile. I don’t think that would bring horrible vengeance upon us, do you?”
“No,” he smiled. “I think the magic karma gods would let us have that one for free.”
He tried to pass her the flask, but she shook her head.
“Don’t wanna be a drunk driver,” she said, and he had to chuckle at her relentless adherence to the rules. It popped up whenever they stopped at a convenience store- she always grabbed a basket and tried to make like a regular shopper instead of the looter that she was.
“Don’t think a sip is gonna make you drunk, love. Unless you’re the lightest lightweight in history. ‘Sides, we’re sorta on our own now, aren’t we? Seems like we oughtta be able to make our own rules.”
Her face scrunched up in thought, and he stared randomly at her ears. They got red a lot, he‘d noticed. Especially when she was confused or irritated. They were red now and he wondered what was going on inside her pretty head.
“I guess you’re right,” she finally said. “I still don’t want any vodka cause, ick, but you’re right about the rules thing. It’s like we’re um…pilgrims or something. Pioneers. We’ve got our own little society here. The society of the van.”
It sounded silly, but he supposed it was true. The society of the van, with self-anointed king Angel snoring in back, and princess Willow clicking her delicate fingers on the steering wheel. And who was he, then? Wasn’t that always the question.
“Maybe, um…we could…um…” she was stammering, wriggling around in her seat, and he caught a whiff of sudden fear coming off her.
“Hmm?”
“Maybe we could be…together…sometime. All of us. Or, um, just you and me. Or…something. Maybe.”
The red was spreading rapidly, covering her neck and her cheeks, and if his heart could still beat he was certain it would be pounding out a concerto right now.
She was propositioning him. In her shy, peculiar, Willowy way, she was asking him if he wanted to sleep with her. Or with her and Angel both.
He didn’t know what to say. Didn’t know what he wanted at all. He was somewhat surprised, and unhappily so, to discover that the thought of sleeping with a woman again- the actual, tangible possibility of it- absolutely terrified him.
And after what he’d done, he hardly deserved the privilege.
God, no wonder she’d chosen Angel first. He was entirely worthless as a man.
“I think that would be nice,” he finally told her, because it would. It would be very nice. “This isn’t pity, is it?”
“Pity? Why would I pity you?”
“I dunno,” he shrugged. “Cause I’m sorta pitiful right now?”
“No.” She looked over at him and shook her head vehemently. “No, you’re not pitiful. You’re brave and smart and funny and interesting and…actually pretty cute. And I really like you.”
“I really like you too, Willow,” he said, and took another quick drink from the flask. “Maybe someday.”
Maybe.