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BtVS: Change The Addiction (3/9) - Willow/Spike - Will Be FRAO/NC-17
It's the start of a new week, and that means a new chapter to share :) I hope you enjoy this one as much as I enjoyed writing it.
Title: Change the Addiction (3/9)
Author: snogged
Disclaimer: Joss Whedon and Co. own the characters of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I don’t.
Pairing: Willow/Spike
Word Count: 1935 Words
Rating/Warnings: will eventually be FRAO/NC-17. This part FRT-13/PG-13.
Setting: An alternate route from Season 6 - "Wrecked"
Summary: The best way to get over an addiction is to change it...
Beta:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
spikesredqueen and velvetwhip
A/N: Well over a year ago, I started writing the Addiction series based off a drabble I did for btvsats_love. I never got anywhere with it and so I wanted to try a rewrite to see if I could take myself deeper.
A/N 2: This is where the fic spins off from canon as there is no car crash.
Previous Chapters
The butter sizzles inside the frying pan, tiny oil bubbles popping around the three eggs as Willow moves the spatula around, watching as they transform from runny yolks to deliciously yellow, scrambled food product. Scrambled food product that in no way reminds of her the offer Spike made the night before. The offer that was about finding a new addiction and from the way he was looking at her last night, probably didn’t involve building model planes.
“Ooh!” Dawn says, excitement rising in her voice as she bounds into the kitchen and comes to a stop against Willow’s shoulder, eyes peering into the pan. “It’s egg day. And I was totally thinking that we could add cinnamon and cheese to the eggs because I’m sure it would give it that awesome sort of texture that will make us the envy of all the cooks at Le Cordon Bleu.”
Willow wrinkles her nose, wondering where Dawnie comes up with these sorts of ideas. Yesterday was the disastrous peanut butter and cheese quesadilla and the day before, Willow caught her throwing anchovies into her Macaroni and Cheese. “How ‘bout we just keep the eggs as is for now and we can whip up a special Dawnie batch after our tummies are full?”
“If you say so. But I bet you’re gonna wish you’d gone with my awesome recipe.”
Willow laughs lightly as Dawn’s long, chestnut hair bumps against her shoulder as the youngest Summers nods her head and eagerly walks over to the breakfast nook, plopping a squat on one of the stools. Willow scoops the eggs out of the pan and onto two plates, taking her own place at the breakfast counter and flashing Dawn a small smile.
It doesn’t take long before the scrape of metal forks on plastic fills the kitchen as the two girls fill up their stomachs. And it doesn’t take long for Dawn to breach the silence with a random question: “What would you do if you were an egg?”
Willow blinks, fork half-way to her mouth. It’s not that she isn’t grateful for a conversation that doesn’t involve her addiction to magic. But she still has to wonder where Dawn’s trying to go with this. “What do you mean if I were an egg?”
Dawn leans forward, resting her chin on top of her hands. “Well, I was thinking about it just this second and I think we’re kinda like eggs. I mean, we start out as one, if you want to think about literally. But we’re also like one whole person and we have these different parts inside of us. Of course, way more complicated than just the whites and yolks and it’s kinda hard to break us apart but there are people in our lives that try to scramble us. I remember when Buffy was dating Angel, she was all kinds of scrambled in the brain.”
“Dawn, Buffy wasn’t…it wasn’t like that with Angel. It was more complicated than scrambled eggs,” Willow replies, still not feeling certain that Dawn’s egg metaphor is the best approach to the way humans work.
Dawn rolls her eyes. “Yeah right. Buffy totally had all her parts mixed together when they split. And when Tara left you…you went all…you know, extra magicky.”
At the mention of Tara’s name, Willow squeezes her eyes shut and bites down on her lip…hard. The taste of copper hits her tongue and her eyes fly open again, just in time to see Dawn’s face soften. It makes her wonder how much Dawn knows. Makes her wonder if Dawn can see through her the way that Spike can. Makes her wonder if Spike really does have the right idea with this new addiction thing. Because maybe if he does, then conversations like this won’t make her feel so suddenly aware of what she’s become.
“I didn’t mean it as a bad thing, Willow. You just…you were sad, and scrambled, and your pieces weren’t working as a whole anymore,” Dawn stammers, feeling terrible for mentioning the “T” word at the breakfast table. “So you did some extra magick to heal the pain. I mean, it’s not like you were doing it to hurt anybody. You were trying to heal.” Dawn pauses, searching Willow’s eyes for the sparkle of forgiveness so she can stop feeling like she’s just digging herself a deeper hole.
Willow shifts uncomfortably on the stool, thinking about the night before when she went to the Bronze with Amy. She’d been having fun; messing around with spells she’d been practicing, proving that she wasn’t just a… rank, arrogant amateur. And sure, she’d sealed that one guy’s mouth shut and turned another into a goat but once the magick wore off, they were both fine. She’d made sure of that. Because she’s was still on the good side, the Scooby side, the not-dark side.
But Spike had called her dark. Called her out on her desire to taste the thrill of being bad. So how is she to know where she fits on the spectrum? How could she tell Dawn that she’s right, that Willow had been scrambled when Tara left? That she still feels scrambled? That maybe she needs someone to show her direction? Even if that someone is Spike.
“Dawnie, how ‘bout you go get ready for school, okay?” Willow asks quietly, hoping her segue is enough to get Dawn out of the kitchen and to put a stop to the prying questions.
Dawn nods, sighing deeply as she sticks her plate in the sink and walks towards the stairs, slowly vanishing from Willow’s sight. But as Dawn disappears, the back door bursts open and the smell of smoking skin hits her nostrils, followed by the flash of peroxide blond hair hiding underneath brown burlap.
“Top of the morning, Red,” Spike says, unceremoniously dropping his sack to the kitchen floor and slowly closing the gap between them as if he’s a predator stalking its prey. “You’ve been thinking about what I said last night? You know I can help you change.”
“I’m not…going to have sex with you, Spike,” Willow replies, a modicum of insecurity in her voice.
Spike chuckles, reaching out to rest his hand on her shoulder and feeling the immediate shivering response. He knows these protests are inevitable but he never would have picked Willow for the girl to read into the naughty edge in his voice the night before. He can’t even remember a time when Willow has said the word ‘sex’ in any public conversation. She has always struck him as the giggly, secretive type who enters the bedroom on the pretense that she’s looking for a demon text or something. “Let me guess, because you’re all pink and proud, now?”
“Well, I am gay now…” Today, those words feel more like a security blanket than the truth because her legs are feeling trembly from the way Spike is looking at her, even from the way Spike is touching her. And what’s worse is that she knows he can probably smell it on her, or see it in her face, or something. Stupid vampire powers.
Spike’s fingers trail down her arm, memorizing the curve and tone of her muscles. They’re different than Buffy’s. They’re softer, smoother, lighter. They don’t feel like they’ve been weighted down by the world, or like they’ve killed enough monsters to fill fifty cemeteries. “I do really think I could help you kick this nasty habit of yours without causing any extra messes. You just have to trust me.”
“I can’t say you make it easy to trust you. I would run out of fingers and toes if I tried to count how many times you just show up here without an invitation. Or how many times you’ve tried to kill us. And you’ve tried to kill me at least three times now and one of those times, you had the chip in your head so you couldn’t actually kill me but still…point is…what makes you think that I’ll trust you enough to help me? Heck, what if I don’t even need help and I’m really doing just fine on my own?” She stops herself, feeling like the babble has taken on a life all its own and not the kind of life she wants to keep sharing with Spike.
Spike’s hand encircles her wrist and he pulls her arm up so that her fingers brush against her chin. “Red, you’re not fine. Girls who are fine don’t go to demons like Rack. They don’t get off on injecting the dark side into their blood stream. And they don’t pretend they don’t want to try something when the offer gets made. This isn’t something you can instantly fix yourself, and it’s not something the high and mighty Buffy is gonna fix for you either.”
“But I…”
Willow can feel the tears sting her eyes and she struggles to get her hand free so she can brush them away, but Spike doesn’t let go. Instead, he leans forward, swiping his tongue over her cheek, deftly removing the salty wetness of her frustration and sadness.
“We can do this, Red. More importantly, you can do this because I know; deep down, that you want this. Because the magick doesn’t heal you. That’s the kind of addiction that’s only going hurt and keep on hurting until you're buried so deep under it that you suffocate. But with this new addiction, it’s gonna make all that stop. Gonna heal you and make you come alive in ways you’ve never even imagined. All you gotta do is say yes.”
Spike’s eyes lock onto hers and she can almost feel him sink beneath her skin. Can feel the intimacy, the primal-ness in the way he wants to save her. It’s more than anyone has ever done for her. Everyone else seems content to just walk away.
It’s the pitter-patter of Dawn’s footsteps as she bounds down the stairs that interrupts Willow’s answer. Spike lets go of Willow’s arm as Dawn swoops towards him, snagging a hug and smiling up at him with cheeky brightness.
“Mornings are always best with Spike,” Dawn states, shifting her shoulder to readjust the heavy messenger bag.
Spike tousles her hair and grins back. Willow can’t help but notice the change in him. It’s almost fatherly. If vampires could, you know, be dads. As far as she knows, paternity tests have really never been an issue for the undead. “Have fun today, Niblet. Stay out of trouble.”
Dawn narrows her eyes but the smile stays in place as her arms curl around Willow, her lips brushing against Willow’s ear as she whispers: “I solemnly swear that there will be no more crazy egg metaphors at the dinner table.”
Willow nods, feeling Dawn release her and watching as the brunette practically bounces her way out the front door and down to the end of the street where a bright yellow school bus is waiting.
Once the silence returns, Willow pivots, gulping as she turns her attention back to Spike. All she has to do is say one little word but it feels like the biggest weight she’s ever had to carry because she knows exactly what it means to say it. The minutes tick by as she counts her breath…inhale, exhale…inhale, exhale…inhale, exhale…inhale, exhale… and he just watches her, waiting with the patience of a saint, as she considers the word that will turn her problem over to a power greater than herself.
“My answer is yes.”
Chapter 4
Title: Change the Addiction (3/9)
Author: snogged
Disclaimer: Joss Whedon and Co. own the characters of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I don’t.
Pairing: Willow/Spike
Word Count: 1935 Words
Rating/Warnings: will eventually be FRAO/NC-17. This part FRT-13/PG-13.
Setting: An alternate route from Season 6 - "Wrecked"
Summary: The best way to get over an addiction is to change it...
Beta:
spikesredqueen and velvetwhipA/N: Well over a year ago, I started writing the Addiction series based off a drabble I did for btvsats_love. I never got anywhere with it and so I wanted to try a rewrite to see if I could take myself deeper.
A/N 2: This is where the fic spins off from canon as there is no car crash.
Previous Chapters
The butter sizzles inside the frying pan, tiny oil bubbles popping around the three eggs as Willow moves the spatula around, watching as they transform from runny yolks to deliciously yellow, scrambled food product. Scrambled food product that in no way reminds of her the offer Spike made the night before. The offer that was about finding a new addiction and from the way he was looking at her last night, probably didn’t involve building model planes.
“Ooh!” Dawn says, excitement rising in her voice as she bounds into the kitchen and comes to a stop against Willow’s shoulder, eyes peering into the pan. “It’s egg day. And I was totally thinking that we could add cinnamon and cheese to the eggs because I’m sure it would give it that awesome sort of texture that will make us the envy of all the cooks at Le Cordon Bleu.”
Willow wrinkles her nose, wondering where Dawnie comes up with these sorts of ideas. Yesterday was the disastrous peanut butter and cheese quesadilla and the day before, Willow caught her throwing anchovies into her Macaroni and Cheese. “How ‘bout we just keep the eggs as is for now and we can whip up a special Dawnie batch after our tummies are full?”
“If you say so. But I bet you’re gonna wish you’d gone with my awesome recipe.”
Willow laughs lightly as Dawn’s long, chestnut hair bumps against her shoulder as the youngest Summers nods her head and eagerly walks over to the breakfast nook, plopping a squat on one of the stools. Willow scoops the eggs out of the pan and onto two plates, taking her own place at the breakfast counter and flashing Dawn a small smile.
It doesn’t take long before the scrape of metal forks on plastic fills the kitchen as the two girls fill up their stomachs. And it doesn’t take long for Dawn to breach the silence with a random question: “What would you do if you were an egg?”
Willow blinks, fork half-way to her mouth. It’s not that she isn’t grateful for a conversation that doesn’t involve her addiction to magic. But she still has to wonder where Dawn’s trying to go with this. “What do you mean if I were an egg?”
Dawn leans forward, resting her chin on top of her hands. “Well, I was thinking about it just this second and I think we’re kinda like eggs. I mean, we start out as one, if you want to think about literally. But we’re also like one whole person and we have these different parts inside of us. Of course, way more complicated than just the whites and yolks and it’s kinda hard to break us apart but there are people in our lives that try to scramble us. I remember when Buffy was dating Angel, she was all kinds of scrambled in the brain.”
“Dawn, Buffy wasn’t…it wasn’t like that with Angel. It was more complicated than scrambled eggs,” Willow replies, still not feeling certain that Dawn’s egg metaphor is the best approach to the way humans work.
Dawn rolls her eyes. “Yeah right. Buffy totally had all her parts mixed together when they split. And when Tara left you…you went all…you know, extra magicky.”
At the mention of Tara’s name, Willow squeezes her eyes shut and bites down on her lip…hard. The taste of copper hits her tongue and her eyes fly open again, just in time to see Dawn’s face soften. It makes her wonder how much Dawn knows. Makes her wonder if Dawn can see through her the way that Spike can. Makes her wonder if Spike really does have the right idea with this new addiction thing. Because maybe if he does, then conversations like this won’t make her feel so suddenly aware of what she’s become.
“I didn’t mean it as a bad thing, Willow. You just…you were sad, and scrambled, and your pieces weren’t working as a whole anymore,” Dawn stammers, feeling terrible for mentioning the “T” word at the breakfast table. “So you did some extra magick to heal the pain. I mean, it’s not like you were doing it to hurt anybody. You were trying to heal.” Dawn pauses, searching Willow’s eyes for the sparkle of forgiveness so she can stop feeling like she’s just digging herself a deeper hole.
Willow shifts uncomfortably on the stool, thinking about the night before when she went to the Bronze with Amy. She’d been having fun; messing around with spells she’d been practicing, proving that she wasn’t just a… rank, arrogant amateur. And sure, she’d sealed that one guy’s mouth shut and turned another into a goat but once the magick wore off, they were both fine. She’d made sure of that. Because she’s was still on the good side, the Scooby side, the not-dark side.
But Spike had called her dark. Called her out on her desire to taste the thrill of being bad. So how is she to know where she fits on the spectrum? How could she tell Dawn that she’s right, that Willow had been scrambled when Tara left? That she still feels scrambled? That maybe she needs someone to show her direction? Even if that someone is Spike.
“Dawnie, how ‘bout you go get ready for school, okay?” Willow asks quietly, hoping her segue is enough to get Dawn out of the kitchen and to put a stop to the prying questions.
Dawn nods, sighing deeply as she sticks her plate in the sink and walks towards the stairs, slowly vanishing from Willow’s sight. But as Dawn disappears, the back door bursts open and the smell of smoking skin hits her nostrils, followed by the flash of peroxide blond hair hiding underneath brown burlap.
“Top of the morning, Red,” Spike says, unceremoniously dropping his sack to the kitchen floor and slowly closing the gap between them as if he’s a predator stalking its prey. “You’ve been thinking about what I said last night? You know I can help you change.”
“I’m not…going to have sex with you, Spike,” Willow replies, a modicum of insecurity in her voice.
Spike chuckles, reaching out to rest his hand on her shoulder and feeling the immediate shivering response. He knows these protests are inevitable but he never would have picked Willow for the girl to read into the naughty edge in his voice the night before. He can’t even remember a time when Willow has said the word ‘sex’ in any public conversation. She has always struck him as the giggly, secretive type who enters the bedroom on the pretense that she’s looking for a demon text or something. “Let me guess, because you’re all pink and proud, now?”
“Well, I am gay now…” Today, those words feel more like a security blanket than the truth because her legs are feeling trembly from the way Spike is looking at her, even from the way Spike is touching her. And what’s worse is that she knows he can probably smell it on her, or see it in her face, or something. Stupid vampire powers.
Spike’s fingers trail down her arm, memorizing the curve and tone of her muscles. They’re different than Buffy’s. They’re softer, smoother, lighter. They don’t feel like they’ve been weighted down by the world, or like they’ve killed enough monsters to fill fifty cemeteries. “I do really think I could help you kick this nasty habit of yours without causing any extra messes. You just have to trust me.”
“I can’t say you make it easy to trust you. I would run out of fingers and toes if I tried to count how many times you just show up here without an invitation. Or how many times you’ve tried to kill us. And you’ve tried to kill me at least three times now and one of those times, you had the chip in your head so you couldn’t actually kill me but still…point is…what makes you think that I’ll trust you enough to help me? Heck, what if I don’t even need help and I’m really doing just fine on my own?” She stops herself, feeling like the babble has taken on a life all its own and not the kind of life she wants to keep sharing with Spike.
Spike’s hand encircles her wrist and he pulls her arm up so that her fingers brush against her chin. “Red, you’re not fine. Girls who are fine don’t go to demons like Rack. They don’t get off on injecting the dark side into their blood stream. And they don’t pretend they don’t want to try something when the offer gets made. This isn’t something you can instantly fix yourself, and it’s not something the high and mighty Buffy is gonna fix for you either.”
“But I…”
Willow can feel the tears sting her eyes and she struggles to get her hand free so she can brush them away, but Spike doesn’t let go. Instead, he leans forward, swiping his tongue over her cheek, deftly removing the salty wetness of her frustration and sadness.
“We can do this, Red. More importantly, you can do this because I know; deep down, that you want this. Because the magick doesn’t heal you. That’s the kind of addiction that’s only going hurt and keep on hurting until you're buried so deep under it that you suffocate. But with this new addiction, it’s gonna make all that stop. Gonna heal you and make you come alive in ways you’ve never even imagined. All you gotta do is say yes.”
Spike’s eyes lock onto hers and she can almost feel him sink beneath her skin. Can feel the intimacy, the primal-ness in the way he wants to save her. It’s more than anyone has ever done for her. Everyone else seems content to just walk away.
It’s the pitter-patter of Dawn’s footsteps as she bounds down the stairs that interrupts Willow’s answer. Spike lets go of Willow’s arm as Dawn swoops towards him, snagging a hug and smiling up at him with cheeky brightness.
“Mornings are always best with Spike,” Dawn states, shifting her shoulder to readjust the heavy messenger bag.
Spike tousles her hair and grins back. Willow can’t help but notice the change in him. It’s almost fatherly. If vampires could, you know, be dads. As far as she knows, paternity tests have really never been an issue for the undead. “Have fun today, Niblet. Stay out of trouble.”
Dawn narrows her eyes but the smile stays in place as her arms curl around Willow, her lips brushing against Willow’s ear as she whispers: “I solemnly swear that there will be no more crazy egg metaphors at the dinner table.”
Willow nods, feeling Dawn release her and watching as the brunette practically bounces her way out the front door and down to the end of the street where a bright yellow school bus is waiting.
Once the silence returns, Willow pivots, gulping as she turns her attention back to Spike. All she has to do is say one little word but it feels like the biggest weight she’s ever had to carry because she knows exactly what it means to say it. The minutes tick by as she counts her breath…inhale, exhale…inhale, exhale…inhale, exhale…inhale, exhale… and he just watches her, waiting with the patience of a saint, as she considers the word that will turn her problem over to a power greater than herself.
“My answer is yes.”
Chapter 4