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snoggedTitle: Self-Destruct Button (15/16)
Author: snogged
Disclaimer: Joss Whedon and many other corporations own the characters of Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel the Series. I don’t.
Pairing: Willow/Spike
Word Count: 1474
Overall Rating/Warnings: FRAO/NC-17
Setting: Buffy – Post “Chosen”/Angel – set shortly after “Damage.”
Summary: Willow gets a party invitation from a certain warlock in Los Angeles.
Beta(s):![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
angelskuuipo, purplefeen, and velvetwhip. All other mistakes are mine.
PREVIOUS CHAPTERS HERE
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Fourteen hours later, they were still no closer to assembling a guest list. Harmony had left the room around hour four, insisting that she be excused from Research Hell to answer phone calls. Finally, on a sadder note, the 36-count pack of Twinkies had vanished into the stomachs of the crew members who could tolerate them (also known as Willow, Fred, Spike and Gunn since Wesley staunchly believed that yellow sponge cake couldn’t possibly be food and Angel was content with his otter blood.)
Willow sighed as she glanced down at page 123 of Bartlebe’s Anthologie on the Covenant of Trombli, hoping to see the rose and thorn symbol that had earlier vanished under Wesley’s unwavering eye. Unfortunately, there was nothing, which was unfortunate given the stir it had caused when Willow had selected the book from the disorganized stack that still cluttered Angel’s desk.
All it had taken was her mentioning the origin of the text and, without warning, a barrage of emotions had hit the room.
The reactions ranged from Fred’s murmurings about cows as she inhaled five Twinkies in under a minute to Angel’s brooding stare into the far corner of the room to Willow’s hitched breath as she realized that Angel and company had just come back from Pylea in time for her to tell them all that Buffy was dead.
But Buffy wasn’t dead anymore.
Instead, she was burning up the sheets with some girl named Satsu.
And Willow was trying to keep her mind off of former girlfriends she’d twisted the sheets with, but instead was coming up empty handed.
Stupid book. Way to NOT be a distraction.
“Super,” Willow grumbled, reluctantly snapping the book shut and setting it down on the floor beside her. Then she placed her elbows on her knees and rested her chin on the backs of her hands. Before her vision had a chance to focus on any of the worn spots on Angel’s plush carpeting, Spike slid into the open seat beside her and draped his arm across her back.
“Take it you mean that sarcastically,” Spike said softly.
“Of course, I do,” Willow replied, keenly aware of how thin her sweater suddenly felt and how his fingers were rubbing against a sensitive spot between her shoulder blades. “I really thought we’d have this figured out by now.”
To her surprise, the next words out of Spike’s mouth had nothing to do with the demons they had been trying to research.
“Way I figure it, Red, is that you found me quite dashing in those coat tails. I found you quite elegant in that dress. The attraction we had for each other all this time was set on fire by the heat of a fight and we tumbled into bed together. Ain’t no shame in that.”
Spike paused, but continued to rub her shoulders.
“What I find shameful is that your girlfriend came back to find you, but didn’t stay long enough to fight for you. As for my former flame, she’s off boinking a bloody Japanese girl so I’m betting she’s not too worried about what we’re doing.”
Spike was right. Buffy wasn’t worried about them at all. She’d even given them her blessing.
“The odds are good for us, love, and I’d honestly like to see where these mutual feelings of ours are headed.”
Willow turned her head slightly, catching his gaze and losing herself for a moment in the genuine honesty shining in his ice blue eyes. She was grateful that he was the one broaching this topic instead of her. It took a lot of the pressure off and it certainly helped loads that Spike had a way with words. Sure, sometimes those words were a bit crude, but she had to admit that the rest of it sounded good.
Really good.
Good enough to trigger her babbling instincts.
Not that it was hard to do that or anything. But the important thing was that she was totally word vomiting all over her mind instead of all over Spike and his tight black pants that were kinda-sorta showcasing his very nice bulge and...When did my eyes leave his face? Why am I looking at his….? Oh gosh. Eyes. Willow. His eyes are up there.
Willow’s head shot upwards and she would have suffered from a dizzy spell if it wasn’t for Spike’s steady hand on her back.
Hand.
No, Hands. As in plural.
When she’d first arrived at Wolfram and Hart (teleporting in and landing on her ass in Angel’s office), Spike had just gotten his hands sewn back on after having them chopped off by Little Miss Crazy Slayer.
Now, those hands wouldn’t stop touching her. Those hands hadn’t let go when Kennedy stared him down. Those hands had held her tighter. Those hands had been her reassurance. Those hands…No. Spike was more than the sum of his parts.
Spike was….
He was her kite string.
For half a second, it felt weird to call him that, but what had Harmony said to her when she first arrived?
Kennedy was just an anchor pretending to be a kite string.
Spike was the real deal and he deserved to know that.
“I’d…I’d like to think so too,” Willow replied softly. “I just hope…we didn’t go about it all wrong.”
“’Course we didn’t, pet.”
Before she could inhale, Spike’s hand left her back and moved to cup her chin before he brought his face closer to hers.
“We did it our way. May not have been the way of the storybooks, may not have been the way of the straight and narrow. But it brought us together and that’s what matters.”
Willow inhaled sharply as Spike’s lips descended on hers, effectively stealing her breath away.
The kiss was intense, but brief, ending when Angel loudly cleared his throat.
“I believe there’s still business to attend to,” Angel murmured, narrowing his eyes as he pinched the bridge of his nose. “Unless you’d rather find your way to the exit as well.”
“Of course I’d rather find the exit and ravish my girl before we all get our asses handed to us on a platter, but it’s far more fun to make you jealous,” Spike said matter-of-factly.
Fred peered over the edge of her thick, wide tome and flashed Willow a wink of approval along with a mouthed: “You go, girl.”
Willow smiled back, grateful for the approval and for the distraction from Angel’s steely gaze. There was a comeback a-brewing behind Angel’s dark eyes and Willow couldn’t escape the wiggy feeling that his response would also include fists and fangs.
But before the first punch could be thrown, Angel’s phone buzzed.
Angel pressed the flashing intercom button with a huff. “What is it, Harmony?”
“Just wanted to tell you that your party guests are here,” Harmony chirped.
“Excuse me?” Angel asked, gruffly.
Confusion quickly replaced tension in the room and it didn’t take long for everyone in the room to start looking at everyone else in the room for some sort of answers. But it was Spike’s face that had the answer Willow was looking for.
The fight had come to them.
Shit.
“Well, this old red dude in a wheelchair with all these wires sticking out of his skin just rolled into the lobby with a bunch of hot-looking boys in adult diapers…actually, that sounds gross. Like, ew. What kind of fashion statement are they trying to make?”
“Harmony…” Angel said sternly.
“I’m serious, bossy! I need to go wash my eyes out with soap and probably my brain.”
“Harmony…don’t hang--”
The phone’s dial tone echoed through the room before Angel could get the last word out, but it didn’t matter because Angel’s speed took him straight to the weapons cabinet. Flinging open the dark cherry doors, Angel proceeded to grab the handles of all the sharp objects he could with both hands. Spike, Wesley and Gunn all stepped forward to relieve Angel of the swords, leaving the new CEO of Wolfram and Hart with a menacing looking battle axe.
“I don’t know what’s coming, but I’m not taking any chances,” Angel replied. “I’m betting that Vail is here to finish what he started with Willow and I’m not going to let him.”
“But I thought…,” Willow started, distinctly recalling that Plan A had been to use her as bait in order to infiltrate the Circle of the Black Thorn, which would get them a lot farther than Plan B (research and Twinkies) had.
The terrible clomping sound of twenty dozen footsteps about thirteen feet away filled Willow’s ears and she silently cursed Harmony for failing to mention that the Kith’harn demons were also part of the entourage.
Angel’s eyes darkened as he raised the battle axe above his head. “He changed his plans. I changed mine.”
Chapter 16
Author: snogged
Disclaimer: Joss Whedon and many other corporations own the characters of Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel the Series. I don’t.
Pairing: Willow/Spike
Word Count: 1474
Overall Rating/Warnings: FRAO/NC-17
Setting: Buffy – Post “Chosen”/Angel – set shortly after “Damage.”
Summary: Willow gets a party invitation from a certain warlock in Los Angeles.
Beta(s):
angelskuuipo, purplefeen, and velvetwhip. All other mistakes are mine.PREVIOUS CHAPTERS HERE
Banner by
rua1412Banner by
spikesredqueenFourteen hours later, they were still no closer to assembling a guest list. Harmony had left the room around hour four, insisting that she be excused from Research Hell to answer phone calls. Finally, on a sadder note, the 36-count pack of Twinkies had vanished into the stomachs of the crew members who could tolerate them (also known as Willow, Fred, Spike and Gunn since Wesley staunchly believed that yellow sponge cake couldn’t possibly be food and Angel was content with his otter blood.)
Willow sighed as she glanced down at page 123 of Bartlebe’s Anthologie on the Covenant of Trombli, hoping to see the rose and thorn symbol that had earlier vanished under Wesley’s unwavering eye. Unfortunately, there was nothing, which was unfortunate given the stir it had caused when Willow had selected the book from the disorganized stack that still cluttered Angel’s desk.
All it had taken was her mentioning the origin of the text and, without warning, a barrage of emotions had hit the room.
The reactions ranged from Fred’s murmurings about cows as she inhaled five Twinkies in under a minute to Angel’s brooding stare into the far corner of the room to Willow’s hitched breath as she realized that Angel and company had just come back from Pylea in time for her to tell them all that Buffy was dead.
But Buffy wasn’t dead anymore.
Instead, she was burning up the sheets with some girl named Satsu.
And Willow was trying to keep her mind off of former girlfriends she’d twisted the sheets with, but instead was coming up empty handed.
Stupid book. Way to NOT be a distraction.
“Super,” Willow grumbled, reluctantly snapping the book shut and setting it down on the floor beside her. Then she placed her elbows on her knees and rested her chin on the backs of her hands. Before her vision had a chance to focus on any of the worn spots on Angel’s plush carpeting, Spike slid into the open seat beside her and draped his arm across her back.
“Take it you mean that sarcastically,” Spike said softly.
“Of course, I do,” Willow replied, keenly aware of how thin her sweater suddenly felt and how his fingers were rubbing against a sensitive spot between her shoulder blades. “I really thought we’d have this figured out by now.”
To her surprise, the next words out of Spike’s mouth had nothing to do with the demons they had been trying to research.
“Way I figure it, Red, is that you found me quite dashing in those coat tails. I found you quite elegant in that dress. The attraction we had for each other all this time was set on fire by the heat of a fight and we tumbled into bed together. Ain’t no shame in that.”
Spike paused, but continued to rub her shoulders.
“What I find shameful is that your girlfriend came back to find you, but didn’t stay long enough to fight for you. As for my former flame, she’s off boinking a bloody Japanese girl so I’m betting she’s not too worried about what we’re doing.”
Spike was right. Buffy wasn’t worried about them at all. She’d even given them her blessing.
“The odds are good for us, love, and I’d honestly like to see where these mutual feelings of ours are headed.”
Willow turned her head slightly, catching his gaze and losing herself for a moment in the genuine honesty shining in his ice blue eyes. She was grateful that he was the one broaching this topic instead of her. It took a lot of the pressure off and it certainly helped loads that Spike had a way with words. Sure, sometimes those words were a bit crude, but she had to admit that the rest of it sounded good.
Really good.
Good enough to trigger her babbling instincts.
Not that it was hard to do that or anything. But the important thing was that she was totally word vomiting all over her mind instead of all over Spike and his tight black pants that were kinda-sorta showcasing his very nice bulge and...When did my eyes leave his face? Why am I looking at his….? Oh gosh. Eyes. Willow. His eyes are up there.
Willow’s head shot upwards and she would have suffered from a dizzy spell if it wasn’t for Spike’s steady hand on her back.
Hand.
No, Hands. As in plural.
When she’d first arrived at Wolfram and Hart (teleporting in and landing on her ass in Angel’s office), Spike had just gotten his hands sewn back on after having them chopped off by Little Miss Crazy Slayer.
Now, those hands wouldn’t stop touching her. Those hands hadn’t let go when Kennedy stared him down. Those hands had held her tighter. Those hands had been her reassurance. Those hands…No. Spike was more than the sum of his parts.
Spike was….
He was her kite string.
For half a second, it felt weird to call him that, but what had Harmony said to her when she first arrived?
Kennedy was just an anchor pretending to be a kite string.
Spike was the real deal and he deserved to know that.
“I’d…I’d like to think so too,” Willow replied softly. “I just hope…we didn’t go about it all wrong.”
“’Course we didn’t, pet.”
Before she could inhale, Spike’s hand left her back and moved to cup her chin before he brought his face closer to hers.
“We did it our way. May not have been the way of the storybooks, may not have been the way of the straight and narrow. But it brought us together and that’s what matters.”
Willow inhaled sharply as Spike’s lips descended on hers, effectively stealing her breath away.
The kiss was intense, but brief, ending when Angel loudly cleared his throat.
“I believe there’s still business to attend to,” Angel murmured, narrowing his eyes as he pinched the bridge of his nose. “Unless you’d rather find your way to the exit as well.”
“Of course I’d rather find the exit and ravish my girl before we all get our asses handed to us on a platter, but it’s far more fun to make you jealous,” Spike said matter-of-factly.
Fred peered over the edge of her thick, wide tome and flashed Willow a wink of approval along with a mouthed: “You go, girl.”
Willow smiled back, grateful for the approval and for the distraction from Angel’s steely gaze. There was a comeback a-brewing behind Angel’s dark eyes and Willow couldn’t escape the wiggy feeling that his response would also include fists and fangs.
But before the first punch could be thrown, Angel’s phone buzzed.
Angel pressed the flashing intercom button with a huff. “What is it, Harmony?”
“Just wanted to tell you that your party guests are here,” Harmony chirped.
“Excuse me?” Angel asked, gruffly.
Confusion quickly replaced tension in the room and it didn’t take long for everyone in the room to start looking at everyone else in the room for some sort of answers. But it was Spike’s face that had the answer Willow was looking for.
The fight had come to them.
Shit.
“Well, this old red dude in a wheelchair with all these wires sticking out of his skin just rolled into the lobby with a bunch of hot-looking boys in adult diapers…actually, that sounds gross. Like, ew. What kind of fashion statement are they trying to make?”
“Harmony…” Angel said sternly.
“I’m serious, bossy! I need to go wash my eyes out with soap and probably my brain.”
“Harmony…don’t hang--”
The phone’s dial tone echoed through the room before Angel could get the last word out, but it didn’t matter because Angel’s speed took him straight to the weapons cabinet. Flinging open the dark cherry doors, Angel proceeded to grab the handles of all the sharp objects he could with both hands. Spike, Wesley and Gunn all stepped forward to relieve Angel of the swords, leaving the new CEO of Wolfram and Hart with a menacing looking battle axe.
“I don’t know what’s coming, but I’m not taking any chances,” Angel replied. “I’m betting that Vail is here to finish what he started with Willow and I’m not going to let him.”
“But I thought…,” Willow started, distinctly recalling that Plan A had been to use her as bait in order to infiltrate the Circle of the Black Thorn, which would get them a lot farther than Plan B (research and Twinkies) had.
The terrible clomping sound of twenty dozen footsteps about thirteen feet away filled Willow’s ears and she silently cursed Harmony for failing to mention that the Kith’harn demons were also part of the entourage.
Angel’s eyes darkened as he raised the battle axe above his head. “He changed his plans. I changed mine.”
Chapter 16
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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on 2011-08-03 02:03 pm (UTC)Gabrielle
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on 2011-08-03 05:19 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2011-08-03 03:52 pm (UTC)I love soooo much Angel in this chapter! Go you!
I wonder who is jealous about...
Great job, sunshine!
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on 2011-08-03 05:19 pm (UTC)Thanks!
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on 2011-08-06 02:00 am (UTC)no subject
on 2013-06-02 05:40 pm (UTC)Loving the tension at the end of the chapter. Great way to end it (especially as I don't have to wait for an update!
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on 2013-06-02 06:59 pm (UTC)