Closer

By Purplefeen

Help Me

Help me - Tear down my reason
Help me - It's your sex I can smell
Help me - You make me perfect
Help me become somebody else

He sits atop a gravestone and watches her go.

She's in a circle, protecting Xander where he fell when the Zanthatraltic demon bit him. That's not how its pronounced, but its as close as he could get in English.

The bite's not fatal, but Willow doesn't know that yet. She closed upon the whelp like a mother hen and starting shooting green orbs of … something or other, he's not sure what. But it's working. With every hit, the stupid thing gets smaller and its too dumb to run. Any minute now and the Slayer'll be able to kick its ass by stomping on it.

But with every hit, she's getting weaker. Demon girl was smart enough to see it and moved up behind his girl, letting Willow drain her energy. He'd have done it, but he really doesn't give a shit about the moron. He knows Willow does, and Demon Girl does and the Slayer prob'ly does. Let them donate their energy. He's gonna need his to take care of Red when she's done with her little vendetta.

He definitely made a right move with this one.

*flashback*

She didn't come the next day. Or the next. By the fourth day, he'd given up.

He knew what he should be doing. He should be out there going after her, not waiting for her to come to him. He'd always been impatient. Angelus had taught him to sit tight, not let the prey know they were being stalked. The blood was so much sweeter if they walked into the trap than if they'd been forced there.

But she wasn't his prey and all Angelus' bullshit meant nothing in the life he had now. She was a fragile human girl that he'd played. He hadn't meant to; didn't even realise he'd been playing really. But she'd said what she'd said and he'd fallen back on a century of instinct.

Want. Take. Have.

So why hadn't he taken her?

Why hadn't he stalked her like Angelus had taught him to? Led her slowly but surely into his clutches? Why hadn't he used Darla's training to seduce her and use her?

He thought about what he'd said, later, after she left.

He'd made so many mistakes. The object was to give them everything they didn't know they wanted. Take what you had learned about them and turn it upside down. Use their desires and their insecurities to make them think that they had all the power. That all of this was the inevitable conclusion of their inherent sex appeal; that there was no other choice - they had to give in because the desires he told them he felt were of their own making. They'd been too sexy to resist.

But he hadn't done that with Willow. He'd surrounded himself in her and his training had been forgotten. He'd looked at her, smelled her, felt her presence and… let himself go. Let himself admit his own heart, not take hers.

He'd broken the cardinal rule.

Never believe your own line.

He looked up at the cobwebs lining the ceiling and followed the path of a spider as it advanced on a ladybug caught in its web.

Set a trap. Go in for the kill. Death goes on.

He was awake because he'd been waking every day at this time since she'd been here the first time, only six days ago.

Seems like a month since I've seen her.

He stood and pulled on his jeans, then went to the fridge and pulled out lunch. Before he had a chance to sink his teeth into it, she was there.

She held out a bag of blood. He took it, disappointed. He'd been hoping…

Didn't matter what he'd been hoping.

'M a vampire, she's an innocent. An innocent I can't turn.

"What's the watcher need now?" he asked, throwing the bag of blood into the fridge along with the one he'd been going to drink.

"Don't know," She replied, walking over to the big "X". "He told Xander but Xander forgot by the time I met up with him. Seven thirty, though, I guess." Her hands fingered the chains.

He tilted his head, concentrating, trying to get into hers. "So where's Xander then?"

"Don't know," she said absently.

"He busy?" Spike asked, determined to find out why it was her standing in his crypt.

"Don't know," she answered. She unbuckled one of the cuffs.

He held his breath and didn't move.

"Spike," she finally said, turning toward him, "Why haven't you gotten rid of this?"

He shrugged, "Didn't think about it. Didn't really notice it much 'til- Maybe I'll sell it, could get a few quid for it, I s'pose."

"If you… got your bite back - would you use this on your victims?"

He shrugged again, he'd never spent this much time contemplating Harmony's toys; even when Harmony was here playing with them.

"Prob'ly not. Don't know that I'm all that into that scene." He put his hands in his front pockets, determined not to give himself away. He'd shown her too much already. "Why?"

She shrugged, identical to his. She turned back to the cross, "Just wondering."

She slipped her wrist into the cuff and tried to buckle it using her other hand.

"Red, what are you doin'?"

"Buckle this for me, please," she said instead.

He hesitated, but finally walked over and fastened her into the leather cuff. "You want the other-" he started to ask.

"No," she said, but after a pause, as if she'd considered it.

Seeing her there, the sweet little witch buckled into a soddin' bondage cross was too much. He told himself it was just his curiosity that got the better of him. His dick knew it was a lie. So did he.

"Red, please tell me what the fuck it is you think you're doin' here because you're startin' to scare me."

She turned toward him, eyes wide. Tears brimmed. Her fingers raced to undo the buckle but she couldn't manage it, so he did it for her. She didn't run, but she did walk exceedingly fast toward the exit.

"Red, please!" he asked desperately.

She stopped, turned. He hadn't moved from his spot near the cross. When she stopped, he sat, too tired to play any more games.

She sat too.

They sat staring at each other.

The sun slowly set, and there they sat. Neither one able to speak, but neither one able to leave.

"You confused me the other day," she finally said when a hawk screeching startled her. A light from the world outside came through the stained glass window, bathing the room in a purple glow.

He tilted his head again, wanting to give her time to go on without scaring her off by saying something stupid.

"When you…" she didn't know how to say it.

"Talked to you," he finished for her.

She blushed. "You made me…" and hesitated, looking at him. Waited.

"Cum," he said, no expression on his face.

"That, yes! Thank you," she said, breathing a sigh of relief. She got quiet again, then, "What were you trying to do?"

"Make you cum," he said, smiling.

She blushed even harder.

He didn't know what to say that would placate her, so he lied, sort of. Told the truth, sort of.

"I was trying to make you think, Red. You seemed interested in the cross, but I didn't think you'd want to hear what it was designed for; you're so innocent, too innocent. Then I thought maybe you needed to understand."

He paused and looked at her and she seemed so childlike right then.

"Red, I don't… I don't know what to say here. How to say this. I wanted to explain why some people can get off on pain, on bondage. You stood there, you didn't move," he was talking faster now, the words coming out as soon as he thought them. "You could have, I wasn't touching you - wasn't forcing you. You could have walked away but you didn't want to, did you?"

He was saying this as if it was something he had thought about, considered. But he hadn't, not at all, not until right now, right as he was saying it.

"You wanted to be held there, not being able to get away, letting me do whatever I wanted to you; letting me force my way inside your head, inside your body. I wanted you to see things in a way outside the safe little brain you've lived in. I wanted you to see… I wanted you to see…"

She angrily stood and walked over to him, sat down on the cold concrete floor in front of him. "What did you want me to see, Spike? I'd really, really like to know."

"Me," he said, hanging his head.

She didn't know what to say; she hadn't expected that.

He hadn't either apparently.

She thought about him - really thought about everything she knew about him. There wasn't much.

"Why?" she finally asked.

He looked a little shocked. Why did she think?

Why did she think?

He stood and started pacing, this was insane. He was insane, letting himself even consider…

"Do you want us to be friends, Spike?" she asked, getting even more angry at his unwillingness to answer her. "Do you want us to be… something else?" she stood now too, suddenly just as restless. "Do you want to date me, Spike, is that what you want? Do you want a girlfriend or a toy or a fuck buddy or a… what? What do you want? You're a killer, Spike, a serial killer at that! You've tried to kill me, my friends, my whole town! You drink blood and insult my friends and assemble demons that destroy humanity and you're the God Damned Scourge of Europe, Spike! Please tell me, is that what you wanted me to see?"

She had stopped pacing, now was just screaming and panting.

In the silence following her outburst, all he could hear was her heart beat and her breathing.

"That's not who I am, Red," he told her quietly. "That's who they made me to be."

For some strange and cosmic reason, she understood exactly what he meant.

Maybe it wasn't so strange; not entirely cosmic. Aren't we all the product of our upbringing? Don't we change and adapt because of our situations? She hadn't wanted to be uber-responsibity girl who had to raise herself. But her life forced her to accept that role. She hadn't wanted to spend night after night chasing down the things people's nightmares are made of, but she'd begun doing just that when she found out the truth about what went bump in the night in Sunnydale. She'd never believed in magick until Ms. Calendar's notes told her that it was real.

So accepting that Spike had started as something other than what he was now hadn't been too terribly hard. Especially to someone who'd been in Angelus' clutches.

"Then who are you?" she asked.

He was at a loss. "I don't know," he said, insecure for the first time in a hundred plus years.

She ran her hands through her hair, trying to think.

"Tell me what I'm supposed to do here, Spike, because I really don't know."

Spike slumped to the floor and held his head in his hands. "I don't know, either, Red. Just… just go. Go home, forget you came here today. Forget everything that's happened between you and I this last week."

She walked around in circles for a few minutes before walking over to the frig and pulling out a bag of blood and two bottles of beer. She would have preferred a Pepsi, but when in Rome…

She walked back over to Spike and handed him the blood. She sat back down on the floor and tried to open the beer but when she couldn't open it, she held it out to him and he opened it for her, then handed it back. She sat the other beer on the floor in front of him.

After he had emptied the bag, she held out her hand as if to shake his. He obliged her.

"Hi. I'm Willow Rosenberg and I'm a nineteen year old human girl with good grades and magickal powers. I'm friends with the Slayer and my best friend since childhood is in love with an eleven-hundred year old ex vengeance demon. My parents have forgotten I exist and frankly, I prefer it that way. My father-figure used to be called 'Ripper' and I once restored a vampire's soul."

She took another sip of her beer. She looked right into his eyes.

"Who are you, William?"

*end flashback*

"Hey, Spike," she says softly, because it hurts too much to talk louder.

"Hey, Red," he whispers and kisses her temple.

"Where are we?" she asks, too drained to even raise her head and look around.

"Watcher's apartment, they wouldn't let me take you home. You gave us all a right fright - don't do that again," he tells her, but there's no malice in his voice.

"Xander?" she asks.

"Boy's fine," he explains, still whispering. "Bite wasn't toxic or fatal. Passed out more from fright than anythin' else."

Willow smiles, "That's our Xan."

She cuddles into Spike for a few more minutes until Giles knocks on the door.

"C'min, Giles," Spike calls as quietly as he can.

"Oh, Willow, good, you're awake. I brought you some juice," he says, handing her a glass of orange juice. "Have to keep up your Vitamin C."

She smiles and drinks it down, the cold liquid cooling her dry throat.

"Where is everybody?"

"Oh, they're ah," Spike growls and Giles lowers his voice. "They're all downstairs. Asleep. They didn't want to go home until they knew that you were… but you are, so that's that."

Willow looks around for the first time and sees that she and Spike are in Giles' bed.

"Oh, Giles, I'm sorry - here," she says, sitting up but getting dizzy, trying to give him back the use of his bed.

"Oh, no, Willow, it's fine, really. Stay, please, you need your rest."

"Nah" she tells him. "I can rest at home." She holds up her arms and Spike picks her up in his.

"Home, William. But circle once around the park first."

Help me - Tear down my reason
Help me - It's your sex I can smell
Help me - You make me perfect
Help me become somebody else

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