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Entry tags:
Holding Her Own - Willow/Angel(us) - (8/10) - FRAO/NC-17
Title: Holding Her Own (8/10)
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: 2099
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(s):![[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
Featuring artwork byrua1412 any spikesredqueen
“Spike!” Angelus growled, his eyes blazing with white-hot fury as he leapt back onto his feet and balled his fists, pronounced tension cording his muscles. Getting chucked into a wall like a rag doll hadn’t really dented his composure much, but it had completely changed the focus of his rage. Willow knew that she was no longer a blip on Angelus’s interest radar and the intense fear that had wrapped around her brain like a venomous viper eased slightly. However, she couldn’t make the pain and betrayal she felt that the monster who had nearly forced himself upon her wore Angel’s face disappear. She had always thought of Angel as a friend and now she just wasn’t so sure.
Spike, on the other hand, was not thrown off by Angelus’s reaction. Instead Spike stepped closer to the brunet and threw the first punch, grazing Angelus’s cheek with his knuckles. An instant grin of mad-man satisfaction spread over his face for successfully getting another one over on his grand-sire.
“Take that, you big ape,” Spike taunted, bouncing from side to side on the balls of his feet, his whole body vibrating with eagerness. This was clearly the fight he had been waiting to win his whole unlife.
“You’ll pay for that,” Angelus hissed, the sharp points of his fangs glinting under the artificial lighting as he charged towards Spike. Spike spread his arms wide, as if ready to embrace the other vampire in a brotherly hug. As Angelus’s shoulder rammed into his solar plexus, Spike grunted and reached over Angelus’s back to grab his side. Using Angelus’s momentum, Spike flipped Angelus onto the floor and the thud that followed as his spine made contact with the carpet was surprisingly deafening. Neither vampire bothered to get back up and a few moments later – when Angelus had reoriented himself - the tussle continued; increasing in intensity with every strike as their limbs tangled together in an intimately aggressive dance.
Willow flinched slightly at the sound of cracking bones. In comparison to Spike’s pyrotechnic attack on the female vampire in the cemetery the night before, the fight between Spike and Angelus was even more ruthless and radiated decades of loathing and hatred. As she watched – mesmerized for a few moments by the way their bodies moved so fluidly with violence – she couldn’t help but think of the ever-popular train wreck that had been used as a clichéd metaphor so many times before. It was nearly impossible to turn away. But she was going to have to if she wanted to free herself from the ropes that still bound her. She tugged at one as hard as she could just to see if she could break it, but the magic coursing through it prevented it from getting even the tiniest of frays.
Time to fight fire with fire.
“Reclusi,” Willow murmured, feeling an immediate heat blossom across her wrist and the smell of burning fibers made her long to plug her nose, even if doing so would actually bring her closer to the source of the problem. Despite the unpleasantness of the acrid stench, though, her flesh remained intact – pink and porcelain with no sign of discoloration or charring and the ropes were now ash.
“Gah!” Spike yelped rolling onto his side and waving his hand in front of his nose as his olfactory glands were assaulted by the noxious smell. Instead of cracking a joke at Angelus’s expense as one would expect that he would, he turned his head slightly towards Willow, letting her see the full extent of his grimace. “Don’t those spells come in rose scent or anything, Red?”
“Guess they were all out,” Willow replied weakly, scooting towards the edge of the mattress. As far as her freedom went, she still wasn’t out of the woods, but she had hope that it would go better this time than it had the last few times.
With Spike momentarily distracted and their limbs temporarily separated, Angelus threaded his hands into Spike’s hair and before Willow could shout: “Look Out” – the brunet slammed Spike’s face into the floor. Spike groaned, looking as helpless as a puppet on a string as Angelus repeated the action twice more.
It was awful to watch- awful to see the vampire who had come to her rescue be beaten so brutally. The fact that Spike tried to kill her three years ago seemed like a distant and forgivable memory. Right now, all she wanted was for Spike to be victorious.
Turned out she didn’t need a shooting star to make that wish come true as by some stroke of luck, Spike managed to get his elbow maneuvered in a way that allowed him to thrust the hard jutting bone into the hollow of Angelus’s throat. Angelus made a strangled yelp and released his hold on Spike’s hair. Spike used this moment of reprieve to wipe off the blood staining his right cheek with the back of his hand. Then, fueled by a renewed desire to pummel the snot out of his grand-sire, Spike twisted his body around and grabbed hold of the sides of Angelus’s head, promptly delivering the same treatment that Angelus had just wreaked upon him.
“Sodding. Git,” Spike said, each word punctuated by the sharp staccato beat of Angelus’s forehead rapping against the floor. “I ought to send you back to hell where you belong.”
Spike’s threat triggered a startling memory that nearly blindsided Willow. Once upon a time, she had been the one to send Angel to hell. She had been the one to curse him to an eternity of torture and damnation. It didn’t make a lick of difference that Buffy had been the one to plunge the sword into his stomach. It was still her fault. She had been the one to give him his soul back.
She was going to do it again, but this time she hoped it would be what it took to save him. She needed to reveal Angelus’s secret to Spike and she needed him to believe that backing down from this fight was the right thing for them to do, even if Spike had seen what Angelus had been trying to do to her with his own eyes.
"Spike,” Willow said quietly. It was nowhere near the commanding tone she usually used with him, but she hoped it would be enough to compel him to listen to her. “He’s been drugged. The Angelus you’re seeing is completely artificial.”
"Bollocks, Red. He's demon through and through. I can smell it." Spike said contemptuously, narrowing his eyes as he wrenched Angelus’s head off the floor and forced the brunet to lock eyes with him. But when he spoke again, there was a world of vulnerability in his voice.
"Did'ja throw a sodding fucking festival when she died? Did'ja even shed a bloody tear? Fucking coward."
Angelus chuckled, picking up on the change in Spike’s tone before Willow did. “Wormed her way into your foolish heart, did she, Willy? Did she promise you wedding bells or did she just fuck you in the ass and leave you bleeding on the streets just the way you like it?”
The corners of Spike’s mouth twitched as his grasp on Angelus’s head tightened. It was a hair pull worthy of a chick fight, but it demonstrated Spike’s restraint not to go for broke in this situation.
It was no secret that Spike had feelings for Buffy. For the past year or so, he hadn’t been remotely subtle about his crush on her and the creation of the Buffybot was probably the most unflattering evidence of that. Considering those circumstances, it wasn’t easy to believe his crush was something other than stalker-ish, but there was a sincerity in his anger towards Angelus that Willow could understand completely. Buffy was just one of those ladies you couldn’t help but love and defend.
Before another round of violence could take place, the stocky but still well-built frame of someone else she couldn’t help but love appeared in the doorway.
“Looks like you could use this.” Xander said, stepping into the room and throwing a decent length of chain in Spike’s direction.
Standing behind him was Anya wearing a pasted-on expression of annoyance. Willow wondered if that was because she appeared to have drywall bits in her curls, but she opted not to ask in order to avoid whatever tirade was brewing behind Anya’s eyes. Trailing behind Anya was Dawn who was struggling to hold a familiar body in her arms. Giles brought up the rear, beads of sweat dotting his brow as if he had just run a marathon.
“Hey guys,” Willow said, hopping off of the bed as Spike got to his feet, lifted Angelus off the ground, and threw him onto the mattress like a sack of potatoes. Before Angelus could struggle or fight back, Spike wrapped the length of chain around the posts of the bed and then around Angelus’s neck. If looks could kill, Angelus would have slaughtered them all by now.
“Any more where that came from, whelp?” Spike asked, looking over at Xander.
“Don’t call me that,” Xander said. With his arms crossed over his chest he came off sounding pouty instead of fierce. “But to answer your question: there are tons. But they don’t weigh a ton so no worries on the helping-me-out front. Be right back.” He turned on his heel and slipped passed the row of Scoobies behind him so he could head back down the long corridor to find his needed treasure.
Give it to Xander to lighten the mood a little with his own gripes.
Dawn was next, lurching forward as her forehead creased with lines of exertion from holding onto Tara’s unconscious form. Nothing had changed about her appearance since Willow had rescued her from the pit, but that didn’t stop the flood of relief from filling Willow’s senses. Tara was finally safe.
“She’s still under that stupid wizard’s spell,” Dawn informed her, gently placing the woman onto the floor to avoid making her share a bed with the most evil guy in town. As Dawn continued her story, Willow realized that Rack hadn’t managed to slip out of sight before her friends showed up to save the day: “Giles tried to chase him down, but Giles suffered from old man syndrome and the creep disappeared into thin air. You know if Buffy had let me learn anything about magic I bet I would have fixed her by now, but….” Dawn’s voice transformed from bratty to solemn and then trailed off into silence.
“It’s okay.” Willow replied soothingly. “I’ll get her right as rain in no time.”
Dawn nodded, though her pacification didn’t last long when she caught the sneer crinkling Angelus’s lips. “I hate you! I hate you with the power of a thousand suns. I don’t care if Angel’s sitting around in there somewhere. You’re nothing but a big, fat bully!”
Spike snorted and Willow cast him a warning look.
Just then, Xander came back carrying a bundle of thick chains. He dropped them unceremoniously onto Angelus’s feet and couldn’t contain his grin when Angelus growled low in his throat.
“Consider yourself lucky that Cordy called before we got here, dead boy. Or else you’d be dust by now,” Xander explained.
A flash of confusion crossed Willow’s face. If they had known about what was going on with Angelus, then why had Spike…? Then it clicked. Spike had never been good at waiting to hear all the details. He had always been a “shoot now, ask questions later” type of guy.
Giles cleared his throat, drawing everyone’s immediate attention to him. “I believe it would be in our best interest to claim this place as headquarters. At least until we can be sure that Angelus has been properly de-toxed. Until that time, Xander, please assist Spike in securing Angelus. Anya, help Willow in whatever she needs to reverse the spell.”
“What about me?” Dawn asked, irritated that she hadn’t been given anything to do. “I’m not chopped liver, you know. I’m helpful.”
Giles sighed, knowing he had the power to unleash a hurricane of teenage hormones and bracing himself accordingly. “You can help me find us all something to eat. I’m sure Willow and the rest are starving.”
Dawn looked extremely unhappy about her assignment, but since no one else was grumbling about their duties, she kept her mouth shut and started to do what she was told. It didn’t long before Angelus interrupted them with an agonizing roar.
The drug was already starting to leave his system.
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: 2099
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(s):
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
Featuring artwork by
rua1412 any spikesredqueen“Spike!” Angelus growled, his eyes blazing with white-hot fury as he leapt back onto his feet and balled his fists, pronounced tension cording his muscles. Getting chucked into a wall like a rag doll hadn’t really dented his composure much, but it had completely changed the focus of his rage. Willow knew that she was no longer a blip on Angelus’s interest radar and the intense fear that had wrapped around her brain like a venomous viper eased slightly. However, she couldn’t make the pain and betrayal she felt that the monster who had nearly forced himself upon her wore Angel’s face disappear. She had always thought of Angel as a friend and now she just wasn’t so sure.
Spike, on the other hand, was not thrown off by Angelus’s reaction. Instead Spike stepped closer to the brunet and threw the first punch, grazing Angelus’s cheek with his knuckles. An instant grin of mad-man satisfaction spread over his face for successfully getting another one over on his grand-sire.
“Take that, you big ape,” Spike taunted, bouncing from side to side on the balls of his feet, his whole body vibrating with eagerness. This was clearly the fight he had been waiting to win his whole unlife.
“You’ll pay for that,” Angelus hissed, the sharp points of his fangs glinting under the artificial lighting as he charged towards Spike. Spike spread his arms wide, as if ready to embrace the other vampire in a brotherly hug. As Angelus’s shoulder rammed into his solar plexus, Spike grunted and reached over Angelus’s back to grab his side. Using Angelus’s momentum, Spike flipped Angelus onto the floor and the thud that followed as his spine made contact with the carpet was surprisingly deafening. Neither vampire bothered to get back up and a few moments later – when Angelus had reoriented himself - the tussle continued; increasing in intensity with every strike as their limbs tangled together in an intimately aggressive dance.
Willow flinched slightly at the sound of cracking bones. In comparison to Spike’s pyrotechnic attack on the female vampire in the cemetery the night before, the fight between Spike and Angelus was even more ruthless and radiated decades of loathing and hatred. As she watched – mesmerized for a few moments by the way their bodies moved so fluidly with violence – she couldn’t help but think of the ever-popular train wreck that had been used as a clichéd metaphor so many times before. It was nearly impossible to turn away. But she was going to have to if she wanted to free herself from the ropes that still bound her. She tugged at one as hard as she could just to see if she could break it, but the magic coursing through it prevented it from getting even the tiniest of frays.
Time to fight fire with fire.
“Reclusi,” Willow murmured, feeling an immediate heat blossom across her wrist and the smell of burning fibers made her long to plug her nose, even if doing so would actually bring her closer to the source of the problem. Despite the unpleasantness of the acrid stench, though, her flesh remained intact – pink and porcelain with no sign of discoloration or charring and the ropes were now ash.
“Gah!” Spike yelped rolling onto his side and waving his hand in front of his nose as his olfactory glands were assaulted by the noxious smell. Instead of cracking a joke at Angelus’s expense as one would expect that he would, he turned his head slightly towards Willow, letting her see the full extent of his grimace. “Don’t those spells come in rose scent or anything, Red?”
“Guess they were all out,” Willow replied weakly, scooting towards the edge of the mattress. As far as her freedom went, she still wasn’t out of the woods, but she had hope that it would go better this time than it had the last few times.
With Spike momentarily distracted and their limbs temporarily separated, Angelus threaded his hands into Spike’s hair and before Willow could shout: “Look Out” – the brunet slammed Spike’s face into the floor. Spike groaned, looking as helpless as a puppet on a string as Angelus repeated the action twice more.
It was awful to watch- awful to see the vampire who had come to her rescue be beaten so brutally. The fact that Spike tried to kill her three years ago seemed like a distant and forgivable memory. Right now, all she wanted was for Spike to be victorious.
Turned out she didn’t need a shooting star to make that wish come true as by some stroke of luck, Spike managed to get his elbow maneuvered in a way that allowed him to thrust the hard jutting bone into the hollow of Angelus’s throat. Angelus made a strangled yelp and released his hold on Spike’s hair. Spike used this moment of reprieve to wipe off the blood staining his right cheek with the back of his hand. Then, fueled by a renewed desire to pummel the snot out of his grand-sire, Spike twisted his body around and grabbed hold of the sides of Angelus’s head, promptly delivering the same treatment that Angelus had just wreaked upon him.
“Sodding. Git,” Spike said, each word punctuated by the sharp staccato beat of Angelus’s forehead rapping against the floor. “I ought to send you back to hell where you belong.”
Spike’s threat triggered a startling memory that nearly blindsided Willow. Once upon a time, she had been the one to send Angel to hell. She had been the one to curse him to an eternity of torture and damnation. It didn’t make a lick of difference that Buffy had been the one to plunge the sword into his stomach. It was still her fault. She had been the one to give him his soul back.
She was going to do it again, but this time she hoped it would be what it took to save him. She needed to reveal Angelus’s secret to Spike and she needed him to believe that backing down from this fight was the right thing for them to do, even if Spike had seen what Angelus had been trying to do to her with his own eyes.
"Spike,” Willow said quietly. It was nowhere near the commanding tone she usually used with him, but she hoped it would be enough to compel him to listen to her. “He’s been drugged. The Angelus you’re seeing is completely artificial.”
"Bollocks, Red. He's demon through and through. I can smell it." Spike said contemptuously, narrowing his eyes as he wrenched Angelus’s head off the floor and forced the brunet to lock eyes with him. But when he spoke again, there was a world of vulnerability in his voice.
"Did'ja throw a sodding fucking festival when she died? Did'ja even shed a bloody tear? Fucking coward."
Angelus chuckled, picking up on the change in Spike’s tone before Willow did. “Wormed her way into your foolish heart, did she, Willy? Did she promise you wedding bells or did she just fuck you in the ass and leave you bleeding on the streets just the way you like it?”
The corners of Spike’s mouth twitched as his grasp on Angelus’s head tightened. It was a hair pull worthy of a chick fight, but it demonstrated Spike’s restraint not to go for broke in this situation.
It was no secret that Spike had feelings for Buffy. For the past year or so, he hadn’t been remotely subtle about his crush on her and the creation of the Buffybot was probably the most unflattering evidence of that. Considering those circumstances, it wasn’t easy to believe his crush was something other than stalker-ish, but there was a sincerity in his anger towards Angelus that Willow could understand completely. Buffy was just one of those ladies you couldn’t help but love and defend.
Before another round of violence could take place, the stocky but still well-built frame of someone else she couldn’t help but love appeared in the doorway.
“Looks like you could use this.” Xander said, stepping into the room and throwing a decent length of chain in Spike’s direction.
Standing behind him was Anya wearing a pasted-on expression of annoyance. Willow wondered if that was because she appeared to have drywall bits in her curls, but she opted not to ask in order to avoid whatever tirade was brewing behind Anya’s eyes. Trailing behind Anya was Dawn who was struggling to hold a familiar body in her arms. Giles brought up the rear, beads of sweat dotting his brow as if he had just run a marathon.
“Hey guys,” Willow said, hopping off of the bed as Spike got to his feet, lifted Angelus off the ground, and threw him onto the mattress like a sack of potatoes. Before Angelus could struggle or fight back, Spike wrapped the length of chain around the posts of the bed and then around Angelus’s neck. If looks could kill, Angelus would have slaughtered them all by now.
“Any more where that came from, whelp?” Spike asked, looking over at Xander.
“Don’t call me that,” Xander said. With his arms crossed over his chest he came off sounding pouty instead of fierce. “But to answer your question: there are tons. But they don’t weigh a ton so no worries on the helping-me-out front. Be right back.” He turned on his heel and slipped passed the row of Scoobies behind him so he could head back down the long corridor to find his needed treasure.
Give it to Xander to lighten the mood a little with his own gripes.
Dawn was next, lurching forward as her forehead creased with lines of exertion from holding onto Tara’s unconscious form. Nothing had changed about her appearance since Willow had rescued her from the pit, but that didn’t stop the flood of relief from filling Willow’s senses. Tara was finally safe.
“She’s still under that stupid wizard’s spell,” Dawn informed her, gently placing the woman onto the floor to avoid making her share a bed with the most evil guy in town. As Dawn continued her story, Willow realized that Rack hadn’t managed to slip out of sight before her friends showed up to save the day: “Giles tried to chase him down, but Giles suffered from old man syndrome and the creep disappeared into thin air. You know if Buffy had let me learn anything about magic I bet I would have fixed her by now, but….” Dawn’s voice transformed from bratty to solemn and then trailed off into silence.
“It’s okay.” Willow replied soothingly. “I’ll get her right as rain in no time.”
Dawn nodded, though her pacification didn’t last long when she caught the sneer crinkling Angelus’s lips. “I hate you! I hate you with the power of a thousand suns. I don’t care if Angel’s sitting around in there somewhere. You’re nothing but a big, fat bully!”
Spike snorted and Willow cast him a warning look.
Just then, Xander came back carrying a bundle of thick chains. He dropped them unceremoniously onto Angelus’s feet and couldn’t contain his grin when Angelus growled low in his throat.
“Consider yourself lucky that Cordy called before we got here, dead boy. Or else you’d be dust by now,” Xander explained.
A flash of confusion crossed Willow’s face. If they had known about what was going on with Angelus, then why had Spike…? Then it clicked. Spike had never been good at waiting to hear all the details. He had always been a “shoot now, ask questions later” type of guy.
Giles cleared his throat, drawing everyone’s immediate attention to him. “I believe it would be in our best interest to claim this place as headquarters. At least until we can be sure that Angelus has been properly de-toxed. Until that time, Xander, please assist Spike in securing Angelus. Anya, help Willow in whatever she needs to reverse the spell.”
“What about me?” Dawn asked, irritated that she hadn’t been given anything to do. “I’m not chopped liver, you know. I’m helpful.”
Giles sighed, knowing he had the power to unleash a hurricane of teenage hormones and bracing himself accordingly. “You can help me find us all something to eat. I’m sure Willow and the rest are starving.”
Dawn looked extremely unhappy about her assignment, but since no one else was grumbling about their duties, she kept her mouth shut and started to do what she was told. It didn’t long before Angelus interrupted them with an agonizing roar.
The drug was already starting to leave his system.