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snoggedTitle: Holding Her Own (2/10)
Author: snogged
Disclaimer: Joss Whedon and Co. own the characters of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I don’t.
Pairing: Willow/Angelus, Willow/Tara, Willow/Angel (friendship)
Word Count: 1940
Overall Rating/Highlight for Warnings: FRAO/NC-17; **angst/dark themes, character death, drug use, crude language (including sexual swearing) violence, sex**
Setting: Set Post-Season 5 of BtVS/Season 2 of AtS.
Summary: Still struggling with Buffy's death, Willow gets an unexpected visitor that brings a whole new set of problems to Sunnydale.
Beta: the unmistakable![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
velvetwhip and angelskuuipo. All other mistakes are mine.
A/N: Several years ago, I started a WIP that never went further than the first chapter. This is my attempt to fix that. Enjoy!
A/N 2: This story is completed and chapters will be posted weekly.
Previous Chapters
Check out my shiny new header made by the marvelousspikesredqueen. :)
****
She should run.
She should run and scream and get the attention of the Buffybot, Spike, and anyone else who might be in the immediate vicinity. That was what a smart person would do if they were faced with one of most dangerous vampires in the history of the world.
Instead, she was standing with her back against the door, watching Angelus with cautious eyes, waiting to see what his next move was going to be. Considering how things usually went with Angelus, the options were pretty obvious. He was either going to leap over the bed and bury his fangs in her neck or he was going to launch into some eloquently cruel speech detailing his plans for chaos and destruction (and then he would leap over the bed and bury his fangs in her neck.)
Besides the whole impending death thing, there was also the problem of the body wrapped up in her sheets; the soft, silky sheets that she and Tara had spent so many comfy nights sleeping under. In her experience, the presence of a corpse implied that the cops needed to be called and cleaning crews had to be hired and questions would need to be answered. But before she dealt with any of that- that is, if she'd be left alive long enough to deal with that- she had her own questions that needed to be answered first
If Tara and Dawn weren't in the house, where were they? Were they okay? Were they hostages somewhere? Had Angelus done something to them? Had he tortured them? Had they met the same fate as the poor woman lying between her and Angelus?
She squeezed her eyes shut, feeling an increasingly painful ache grip her heart like a vise as the long line of queries commandeered her mind. She couldn’t stand the thought of losing Tara or Dawn. They had to be safe. They just had to be… She could never live with herself if they weren’t. On the night Buffy had been placed into the ground, each one of them had that they would protect each other, no matter what. Willow wasn't planning on being the one that screwed up the curve, despite being really adept at doing that.
Choosing to move on to the next pertinent question in her mind, Willow opened her eyes again and looked at Angelus. He still hadn’t moved. He was still watching her with a dark intensity, clearly waiting for her to launch into a seriously major freak-out.
How was it possible for Angel to find a moment of pure happiness when everyone else was still so miserable about Buffy’s death? Considering his history with her, there was no question in Willow’s mind that he should be the most broody and depressed of all of them.
Angelus pursed his lips, narrowing his eyes. “Come on, baby, aren’t you happy to see me? I mean, I gotta admit that I’m thrilled to see you, especially after you spread the cheerful news about the Slayer’s painful death. It’s about damn time someone did that bitch in. Wanna bet those worms are making good use of that filthy cu…”
“Stop!” Willow yelled, anger spicing her tone. She wasn’t the sixteen-year-old coward in the school hallway anymore and she sure as hell wasn’t going to listen to the disgusting things she knew he was about to say. She had graduated high school. She had helped defeat the Mayor. She had fought Adam. She had developed and fine-tuned her magical prowess. She gone head to head with a freaking God and she had lived. She had lived. As much as it hurt to remember that others had not been so lucky, she suddenly felt that it was a sentiment worth repeating: She. Had. Lived.
“And she finally grows a pair…” Angelus crowed, clapping his hands together in a disturbing display of amusement and pleasure. “Always knew you had a fire roaring inside you, witch. Always knew I’d be the one to watch you burn from the inside out.”
Willow wrinkled her nose in digust, quickly deciding she didn’t want to hear him explain that comment any further. Knowing Angelus, it probably ranked a 20 on the squick factor scale and involved the perverted types of things that would make her doppelganger cream her panties with excitement.
“You know I’m going to shove your soul back inside you so fast it gives you friction burn,” Willow threatened, placing her hands on her hips as she weakly attempted to turn his lecherous words against him while simultaneously trying to change the subject. Her genuine curiosity about how he lost it in the first place could wait until Angel was firmly reattached to the one thing that made him a decent man.
One thing was for sure, though, she needed to do it soon before he started killing more people or before he got bored of this tête-à-tête and drained her of her blood. A dead witch was a useless witch.
If only she could remember where she’d put the Orb of Thesulah that she’d ordered off of eBay…
Angelus chuckled softly and Willow barely had time to blink before he leapt over the bed and planted himself mere centimeters from her face.
Stupid vampire speed…
As much as she appreciated it whenever Spike went from 0 to 60 in an effort to take down one of the many enemies they faced in the graveyards, she often thought it would be much better if vampires were sluggish and slow like they were in the old zombie movies she and Xander used to watch every Halloween before they learned that their nightmares were real.
Angelus’s hands cupped her chin and tucked a few stray hairs behind her ear. It was clearly meant to be a mockery of romantic expression, but the chill of his hands made bile rise in her throat. When he exhaled an unnecessary breath into her face, she could smell Irish whiskey and the coppery tang of blood and death.
“Not before I kill you,” Angelus growled, his fangs descending from his gum line as hard ridges creased his forehead.
Although they had deviated from option A and option B, Willow was pretty sure the end result of option C would be exactly the same as the others, considering how easy it would be for him to break her neck right now. Unfortunately, the way his body was pressed so tightly against hers meant that she was restricted as well and couldn’t get in a good kick or a punch if she wanted too. To make matters worse, his close presence felt so overwhelming and so suffocating that her brain couldn’t even think of a spell to cast. This was not the way she wanted it to go, not the way she imagined it would end.
But she refused to let him see her fear or her helplessness by forcing her features to slide into a poker face. Buffy would want it that way. Buffy wouldn’t want her to kowtow to Angelus’s death threat. Buffy would have wanted her to be strong, to be brave.
As she closed her eyes and waited for what she knew was inevitable, she wondered if she would see Buffy as the light at the end of her tunnel…or maybe Jesse would be standing there. Her breath hitched in her throat as the memory of her old friend washed over her. Losing Jesse was the first time she’d ever come face to face with death. Sure, there had been fish who’d found their graves in shoeboxes and toilet bowls, but Jesse was the first time she'd ever had to cope with real loss - to know that someone she loved was gone and never coming back.
Reminding herself that Angelus was still in the room and still hovering over her, she opened her eyes and saw his nostrils flare. He leaned in closer, unexpectedly brushing his lips against hers. Willow flinched in surprise. This was so not the reaction she’d been expecting. Kissing her had never been part of any of the options.
“I have to say that you taste so much like your girlfriend,” Angelus mused, very aware of the buttons he was pushing and clearly enjoying the hell out of it. “So sweet and tantalizing…”
“No…”
It couldn’t be true. He couldn’t have found Tara. This was just his ploy to get under her skin. This is just his twisted, messed-up way of getting her to break down and beg for his mercy. Angel would never use tactics like this. Angel would never try to hurt her like this…so why on Earth did it come so easily to his evil counterpart?
“Oh yes,” Angelus whispered, his lips barely grazing her cheekbone. “She begged for mercy, promised that she’d do anything if only I would spare her…”
“No…” Willow repeated, nausea coiling in her stomach.
Usually, this was when she would implode, berating herself for not being able to save Tara, for not running and getting help the moment he appeared in her bedroom. This was also the point where she would normally revert back to the scared young girl she once was and she would give Angelus the reaction he so desperately craved. Instead, a lightning surge of magic and power released itself into her veins, flooding her nerves and senses, filling her with something that seemed so much more than her small body could handle.
Angelus stiffened, clearly sensing a change in the air as he retracted his fangs and pulled back from her slightly. “Witch…”
“That’s my name, don’t wear it out,” Willow replied, using a phrase that Xander had been begging her to let die since the start of the 21st century. Taking a large breath, Willow focused her attention on the energy coursing through her and she channeled it into a tight ball that sparkled and flashed between them. It reminded her of the plasma sphere that she’d spent hours trying to figure out during her fifth grade science class.
On her exhale, the magic lunged forward, plunging through Angelus’s heart before exiting through the other side and disappearing out the window. The sheer force of Willow’s magic ball sent Angelus stumbling backwards. Snarling, Angelus dove out the window in surrender. But she knew this was not the last time she’d see him. As far as she was concerned, he had done something to Tara and that meant she was going to find him. She was going to find him and if necessary, she was going to destroy him.
Buffy’s love for Angel be damned…
The blaring sounds of the smoke alarm interrupted her thoughts and her eyes flicked from the window and her fantasies of vengeance to the bed where the elephant in the room still lay.
The thought of having to call the police for something like made her run-in with Angelus pale in comparison. She was far too jittery to be useful to the cops anyway.
The thought occurred to her that she could just try and hide the body herself and avoid law enforcement entirely, but she had no idea where to start or even how to move a body without arousing suspicion. She did know someone who could help her though, someone who could get here in a flash, someone who had taken care of dead bodies loads of times.
Picking up the phone on the night stand, she dialed the number she hoped he would be at and when he answered, she breathed a sigh of relief.
“Spike? It’s Willow. I need your help.”
Author: snogged
Disclaimer: Joss Whedon and Co. own the characters of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I don’t.
Pairing: Willow/Angelus, Willow/Tara, Willow/Angel (friendship)
Word Count: 1940
Overall Rating/Highlight for Warnings: FRAO/NC-17; **angst/dark themes, character death, drug use, crude language (including sexual swearing) violence, sex**
Setting: Set Post-Season 5 of BtVS/Season 2 of AtS.
Summary: Still struggling with Buffy's death, Willow gets an unexpected visitor that brings a whole new set of problems to Sunnydale.
Beta: the unmistakable
velvetwhip and angelskuuipo. All other mistakes are mine.A/N: Several years ago, I started a WIP that never went further than the first chapter. This is my attempt to fix that. Enjoy!
A/N 2: This story is completed and chapters will be posted weekly.
Previous Chapters
Check out my shiny new header made by the marvelous
spikesredqueen. :)****
She should run.
She should run and scream and get the attention of the Buffybot, Spike, and anyone else who might be in the immediate vicinity. That was what a smart person would do if they were faced with one of most dangerous vampires in the history of the world.
Instead, she was standing with her back against the door, watching Angelus with cautious eyes, waiting to see what his next move was going to be. Considering how things usually went with Angelus, the options were pretty obvious. He was either going to leap over the bed and bury his fangs in her neck or he was going to launch into some eloquently cruel speech detailing his plans for chaos and destruction (and then he would leap over the bed and bury his fangs in her neck.)
Besides the whole impending death thing, there was also the problem of the body wrapped up in her sheets; the soft, silky sheets that she and Tara had spent so many comfy nights sleeping under. In her experience, the presence of a corpse implied that the cops needed to be called and cleaning crews had to be hired and questions would need to be answered. But before she dealt with any of that- that is, if she'd be left alive long enough to deal with that- she had her own questions that needed to be answered first
If Tara and Dawn weren't in the house, where were they? Were they okay? Were they hostages somewhere? Had Angelus done something to them? Had he tortured them? Had they met the same fate as the poor woman lying between her and Angelus?
She squeezed her eyes shut, feeling an increasingly painful ache grip her heart like a vise as the long line of queries commandeered her mind. She couldn’t stand the thought of losing Tara or Dawn. They had to be safe. They just had to be… She could never live with herself if they weren’t. On the night Buffy had been placed into the ground, each one of them had that they would protect each other, no matter what. Willow wasn't planning on being the one that screwed up the curve, despite being really adept at doing that.
Choosing to move on to the next pertinent question in her mind, Willow opened her eyes again and looked at Angelus. He still hadn’t moved. He was still watching her with a dark intensity, clearly waiting for her to launch into a seriously major freak-out.
How was it possible for Angel to find a moment of pure happiness when everyone else was still so miserable about Buffy’s death? Considering his history with her, there was no question in Willow’s mind that he should be the most broody and depressed of all of them.
Angelus pursed his lips, narrowing his eyes. “Come on, baby, aren’t you happy to see me? I mean, I gotta admit that I’m thrilled to see you, especially after you spread the cheerful news about the Slayer’s painful death. It’s about damn time someone did that bitch in. Wanna bet those worms are making good use of that filthy cu…”
“Stop!” Willow yelled, anger spicing her tone. She wasn’t the sixteen-year-old coward in the school hallway anymore and she sure as hell wasn’t going to listen to the disgusting things she knew he was about to say. She had graduated high school. She had helped defeat the Mayor. She had fought Adam. She had developed and fine-tuned her magical prowess. She gone head to head with a freaking God and she had lived. She had lived. As much as it hurt to remember that others had not been so lucky, she suddenly felt that it was a sentiment worth repeating: She. Had. Lived.
“And she finally grows a pair…” Angelus crowed, clapping his hands together in a disturbing display of amusement and pleasure. “Always knew you had a fire roaring inside you, witch. Always knew I’d be the one to watch you burn from the inside out.”
Willow wrinkled her nose in digust, quickly deciding she didn’t want to hear him explain that comment any further. Knowing Angelus, it probably ranked a 20 on the squick factor scale and involved the perverted types of things that would make her doppelganger cream her panties with excitement.
“You know I’m going to shove your soul back inside you so fast it gives you friction burn,” Willow threatened, placing her hands on her hips as she weakly attempted to turn his lecherous words against him while simultaneously trying to change the subject. Her genuine curiosity about how he lost it in the first place could wait until Angel was firmly reattached to the one thing that made him a decent man.
One thing was for sure, though, she needed to do it soon before he started killing more people or before he got bored of this tête-à-tête and drained her of her blood. A dead witch was a useless witch.
If only she could remember where she’d put the Orb of Thesulah that she’d ordered off of eBay…
Angelus chuckled softly and Willow barely had time to blink before he leapt over the bed and planted himself mere centimeters from her face.
Stupid vampire speed…
As much as she appreciated it whenever Spike went from 0 to 60 in an effort to take down one of the many enemies they faced in the graveyards, she often thought it would be much better if vampires were sluggish and slow like they were in the old zombie movies she and Xander used to watch every Halloween before they learned that their nightmares were real.
Angelus’s hands cupped her chin and tucked a few stray hairs behind her ear. It was clearly meant to be a mockery of romantic expression, but the chill of his hands made bile rise in her throat. When he exhaled an unnecessary breath into her face, she could smell Irish whiskey and the coppery tang of blood and death.
“Not before I kill you,” Angelus growled, his fangs descending from his gum line as hard ridges creased his forehead.
Although they had deviated from option A and option B, Willow was pretty sure the end result of option C would be exactly the same as the others, considering how easy it would be for him to break her neck right now. Unfortunately, the way his body was pressed so tightly against hers meant that she was restricted as well and couldn’t get in a good kick or a punch if she wanted too. To make matters worse, his close presence felt so overwhelming and so suffocating that her brain couldn’t even think of a spell to cast. This was not the way she wanted it to go, not the way she imagined it would end.
But she refused to let him see her fear or her helplessness by forcing her features to slide into a poker face. Buffy would want it that way. Buffy wouldn’t want her to kowtow to Angelus’s death threat. Buffy would have wanted her to be strong, to be brave.
As she closed her eyes and waited for what she knew was inevitable, she wondered if she would see Buffy as the light at the end of her tunnel…or maybe Jesse would be standing there. Her breath hitched in her throat as the memory of her old friend washed over her. Losing Jesse was the first time she’d ever come face to face with death. Sure, there had been fish who’d found their graves in shoeboxes and toilet bowls, but Jesse was the first time she'd ever had to cope with real loss - to know that someone she loved was gone and never coming back.
Reminding herself that Angelus was still in the room and still hovering over her, she opened her eyes and saw his nostrils flare. He leaned in closer, unexpectedly brushing his lips against hers. Willow flinched in surprise. This was so not the reaction she’d been expecting. Kissing her had never been part of any of the options.
“I have to say that you taste so much like your girlfriend,” Angelus mused, very aware of the buttons he was pushing and clearly enjoying the hell out of it. “So sweet and tantalizing…”
“No…”
It couldn’t be true. He couldn’t have found Tara. This was just his ploy to get under her skin. This is just his twisted, messed-up way of getting her to break down and beg for his mercy. Angel would never use tactics like this. Angel would never try to hurt her like this…so why on Earth did it come so easily to his evil counterpart?
“Oh yes,” Angelus whispered, his lips barely grazing her cheekbone. “She begged for mercy, promised that she’d do anything if only I would spare her…”
“No…” Willow repeated, nausea coiling in her stomach.
Usually, this was when she would implode, berating herself for not being able to save Tara, for not running and getting help the moment he appeared in her bedroom. This was also the point where she would normally revert back to the scared young girl she once was and she would give Angelus the reaction he so desperately craved. Instead, a lightning surge of magic and power released itself into her veins, flooding her nerves and senses, filling her with something that seemed so much more than her small body could handle.
Angelus stiffened, clearly sensing a change in the air as he retracted his fangs and pulled back from her slightly. “Witch…”
“That’s my name, don’t wear it out,” Willow replied, using a phrase that Xander had been begging her to let die since the start of the 21st century. Taking a large breath, Willow focused her attention on the energy coursing through her and she channeled it into a tight ball that sparkled and flashed between them. It reminded her of the plasma sphere that she’d spent hours trying to figure out during her fifth grade science class.
On her exhale, the magic lunged forward, plunging through Angelus’s heart before exiting through the other side and disappearing out the window. The sheer force of Willow’s magic ball sent Angelus stumbling backwards. Snarling, Angelus dove out the window in surrender. But she knew this was not the last time she’d see him. As far as she was concerned, he had done something to Tara and that meant she was going to find him. She was going to find him and if necessary, she was going to destroy him.
Buffy’s love for Angel be damned…
The blaring sounds of the smoke alarm interrupted her thoughts and her eyes flicked from the window and her fantasies of vengeance to the bed where the elephant in the room still lay.
The thought of having to call the police for something like made her run-in with Angelus pale in comparison. She was far too jittery to be useful to the cops anyway.
The thought occurred to her that she could just try and hide the body herself and avoid law enforcement entirely, but she had no idea where to start or even how to move a body without arousing suspicion. She did know someone who could help her though, someone who could get here in a flash, someone who had taken care of dead bodies loads of times.
Picking up the phone on the night stand, she dialed the number she hoped he would be at and when he answered, she breathed a sigh of relief.
“Spike? It’s Willow. I need your help.”