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snoggedTitle: Holding Her Own (9/10)
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: 2030
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!
It had taken exactly one hour for Willow to have Angel’s withdrawal cycle down to a science. Every three-point-five minutes, an agonized howl would erupt from his throat, followed by the rattling of chains being tested to their limits. Then, either Xander or Spike would grumble loudly and threaten to put Angel (or in Xander’s words, Dead Boy) out of his misery. But neither one followed through, much to Willow’s relief.
It boggled her mind to think that she was the one most in favor of keeping Angel alive given the gauntlet he’d run her through over the past seventy-two hours. She had every reason to loathe him, and yet she couldn’t, at least not with the sharp intensity of his pain and suffering ringing in her ears. Her current state of compassion for Angel was also boosted by the fact that Tara was dressed and curled up beside her, sleeping off the effects of Rack’s parasitic magic.
Willow had been pleasantly surprised by how smoothly the reversal spell had gone, given that the first time she and Anya had done magic together, they had ended up bringing her skanky vampire doppelganger out of a twisted alternate dimension. To the best of Willow’s knowledge, no one in the mansion had reported seeing their twin yet and Tara seemed to be her normal, sweet self when her eyes had fluttered open and her lips had first parted to speak Willow’s name before she had promptly passed out cold again.
While Tara slept-amazingly unmoved by Angel’s screams- Willow rubbed her palm in soothing circles over her girlfriend’s back and shoulders. In part, it was to help Tara feel safe and relaxed, but it was also a reminder to Willow that the woman she loved wasn’t going anywhere.
Of course…that might not mean much anymore when Tara woke up and they had the talk about what had happened. As much as the thought of losing Tara terrified her, Willow knew from experience that trauma had a funny way of transforming people, making them see things differently. She also knew that they’d both suffered in such different ways that their puzzle pieces might have been so greatly reshaped that they’d never be able to fit together again, no matter how much duct tape and super glue they tried to use to fill in the gaps.
And then there’d been that pesky heterosexual fantasy that had seemed way more Angel’s style than Angelus’s. Even now, it wasn’t an easy task to admit to herself just how much that had triggered a heat in her core. If Tara knew about that, there was no telling how she’d react. There was no assurance that Willow wouldn’t have her gay membership card immediately revoked.
“Willow…,” Tara murmured, her arms and legs spreading and stretching as she started to regain consciousness.
Guess that talk is going to happen sooner than I thought…
Willow swallowed down the lump of fear in her throat and forced herself to smile. Now was not the time to start making up prophecies that she could wind up fulfilling with the wrong choice of words. “Good morning. Or you know, good afternoon. Not really sure as I haven’t been outside yet today and there aren’t a lot of windows seeing as this is a vampire hidey-hole and they don’t really do so well with sunlight.” She laughed lightly at her own babble, hoping to mask some of the awkwardness she felt.
A playful smile lit up Tara’s face as she resituated herself into a sitting position and met Willow’s eyes. “What if it’s evening?” she teased lightly, pointing out the time of day that Willow had missed. “How will I know to have a good one if you don’t tell me?”
“Any evening with you is a good one,” Willow replied softly. Even though her words weren’t meant to diminish the light atmosphere, they most certainly did.
“Sweetie?” Tara asked, reading into the longing and desperation lacing Willow’s tone. “What’s going on?”
“You were making spaghetti,” Willow said, aware that once she started to talk, she wasn’t going to be able to stop. She didn’t know when she would get another chance otherwise. There was no guarantee that they would even get through this chat before they were interrupted by someone looking for a distraction that was more exciting than watching paint dry or listening to Angel detox. “You were making spaghetti because you know it’s my favorite food, but then you….”
“Then I was abducted,” Tara said somberly. Normal couples found it cute and endearing whenever they finished each other’s sentences, but at the moment, it didn’t feel like either of those things.
“Right,” Willow said dully.
“I was mincing garlic when he came to the door and he had this woman with him and he…” Tara explained, stuttering as recalled her memories from before she entered a magically-induced stasis. “He wanted to know if he could use our phone to call a tow truck and I…I let them come in. I didn’t know who he was, didn’t know what he could do. Not until Dawnie….”
Tara’s breath hitched in her throat and tears pricked the corners of her soft, doe-like eyes. Willow instantly grabbed Tara’s hand, squeezing it in support. Apparently, Willow wasn’t the only one feeling trepidation about how this discussion would unfold. “I’m not mad, Tara. We’re not all as blessed as Buffy was with the Spidey senses. Mistakes happen.”
Tara nodded and squeezed back. “He attacked Dawn first. Caught her before I cou…could do anything to stop him. He…he was choking her. Her lips were….”
Talking about what happened to her and Dawn was clearly hard as hell for Tara and Willow completely sympathized, considering how much she so didn’t want to elaborate on her own experiences at Angelus’s wickedly capable hands. “You don’t have to tell me every grisly detail if you don’t want too. It’s not like we’re in an interrogation room or anything. It’s just me and you. Mine are the only ears that need to hear this, okay?”
“Okay,” Tara replied.
“What about the woman he brought with him?” Willow asked. Angelus had already spoiled the ending of that book much like Dawn had spoiled the death of Cedric Diggory after she sped-read Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, but that didn’t make her question any less pertinent.
“She started screaming hysterically so he…he locked her in the closet. Did…did you find her? Was she okay? I thought he might have forgotten her when he took us since…since she barely made a peep after he did that.”
Willow’s face fell and Tara nodded solemnly.
“He put her in our room,” Willow said, elaborating even though she didn’t have to. “He killed her and he made me think it was you. He made me think you were…. God, Tara, I’ve never felt so crazy in my whole life. The other day I thought the only things I was truly scared of were frogs and spiders, but they’re not. They don’t even come close to the fear that you…that I would lose you.”
“I’m not immortal,” Tara said quietly, wrapping her arms around Willow in a tight embrace. “But I’m not going anywhere.”
Willow returned the hug with grateful fervor and kissed Tara’s cheek. It wasn’t a perfect ending, but it was something.
“Will?” Xander asked; his shaggy brown mop suddenly visible in the doorway.
A mischievous grin tugged at the corners of his lips upon catching his best friend in such an intimate act and Willow shot him a warning look as she let Tara go. She had known ever since she and Tara had gotten together that they would become an object of male fantasy, but this was neither the time nor the place for her best friend to start thinking with his penis. “What’s up?”
“Erm…Dead Boy wants to talk to you,” Xander replied.
“Is he okay?” Willow asked. For okay, see: back to being Angel again. Despite her compassionate intentions towards keeping Angel among the living, she hadn’t actually set foot in Angel’s room since he had started sweating the Ecstasy out of his bloodstream and his soul.
“He’s not in the best shape of his life, but when has he ever been? Pudgy is pretty much his middle name,” Xander joked, but the mocking comment died in the air when he caught Willow’s serious face. “He’s good. Not quite back to being a champion of the world, but he’s definitely back to feeling his conscience again. He’s been asking for you. But I’ll totally tell him to shove off if you want. After what he did to you, Tara, and Dawn, he’s not worth forgiving.”
Willow knew that Xander’s customary Angel-bashing was coming from a deeper place in his heart this time, and she appreciated his protectiveness, but she couldn’t help but think that it was time to face her personal demon head on. There were still so many questions she hadn’t gotten answers to and Angel was the only one in the world who could clear those up for her.
“There will be no need for telling anyone to shove off, Xander,” Willow replied. “I’ll go talk to him.”
“Do you want me to come with you?” Tara asked. “Be morally supportive and all that?”
“I think it would be better if you rested,” Willow replied quietly. She felt awful for cutting Tara out of this considering the major talk they’d just had, but she hoped Tara would understand.
Tara leaned forward and kissed her, her lips soft and sure as they moved against hers. Instead of fretting about how Xander would take this, Willow relaxed into the moment, enjoying the brief escape it offered her before she moved on to tackle her next big talk of the day.
“Good luck,” Tara whispered, placing a second kiss on the tip of Willow’s nose before pulling away and settling back into the mattress.
***
Willow stepped into the other bedroom where Angel was and gasped. He was still restrained to the bed, almost every inch of his body covered by thick, metal fetters. Scattered around the bed and the floor were several broken fragments of chain, which made Willow think that Angel hadn’t been quite so cocooned when his recovery had first started. Plus, every scrap of fabric that was in a five-foot radius of Angel had been soaked through from the buckets of sweat pouring off of Angel like rainfall. She nodded to Spike who had sunk so low in the wooden chair that had been brought in for him that she was a bit surprised he hadn’t fallen out yet.
“I suspect you want to be left alone?” Spike inquired, reaching into his pocket, pulling out a crumpled pack of cigarettes and tapping the carton against his thigh.
“Yes, please,” Willow said, flashing him a grateful smile. Spike had really come through her these last few days and as soon as they got home, she was going to whip up at least twenty batches of her chocolate chip cookies to pay him back for what he’d done.
“Those chains will hold him tight if he tries anything,” Spike replied, getting to his feet and making his way towards the door. “’Course him being all broody again will probably keep him just as docile.”
“Go away, Spike,” Angel said, gritting his teeth.
“Wanker,” Spike hissed back, heading towards the door. Before he left, however, he threw a hard look at Angel and said: “Better not harm a hair on this girl’s head or you’re going to be feeling a lot more than a few broken ribs, mate.”
Once Spike was gone, Willow gingerly sat down in the chair he had vacated and crossed her arms protectively over her chest. Being back here, in this room, certainly did nothing to make her feel the warm fuzzies and she also didn’t feel like being the first one to start talking, no matter how much she had to say.
“Willow,” Angel began, his voice dry and scratchy from all the screaming and snarling. “We need to talk.”
“Okay, let's talk,” Willow replied.
Then they, once again, drifted into silence.
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: 2030
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!
It had taken exactly one hour for Willow to have Angel’s withdrawal cycle down to a science. Every three-point-five minutes, an agonized howl would erupt from his throat, followed by the rattling of chains being tested to their limits. Then, either Xander or Spike would grumble loudly and threaten to put Angel (or in Xander’s words, Dead Boy) out of his misery. But neither one followed through, much to Willow’s relief.
It boggled her mind to think that she was the one most in favor of keeping Angel alive given the gauntlet he’d run her through over the past seventy-two hours. She had every reason to loathe him, and yet she couldn’t, at least not with the sharp intensity of his pain and suffering ringing in her ears. Her current state of compassion for Angel was also boosted by the fact that Tara was dressed and curled up beside her, sleeping off the effects of Rack’s parasitic magic.
Willow had been pleasantly surprised by how smoothly the reversal spell had gone, given that the first time she and Anya had done magic together, they had ended up bringing her skanky vampire doppelganger out of a twisted alternate dimension. To the best of Willow’s knowledge, no one in the mansion had reported seeing their twin yet and Tara seemed to be her normal, sweet self when her eyes had fluttered open and her lips had first parted to speak Willow’s name before she had promptly passed out cold again.
While Tara slept-amazingly unmoved by Angel’s screams- Willow rubbed her palm in soothing circles over her girlfriend’s back and shoulders. In part, it was to help Tara feel safe and relaxed, but it was also a reminder to Willow that the woman she loved wasn’t going anywhere.
Of course…that might not mean much anymore when Tara woke up and they had the talk about what had happened. As much as the thought of losing Tara terrified her, Willow knew from experience that trauma had a funny way of transforming people, making them see things differently. She also knew that they’d both suffered in such different ways that their puzzle pieces might have been so greatly reshaped that they’d never be able to fit together again, no matter how much duct tape and super glue they tried to use to fill in the gaps.
And then there’d been that pesky heterosexual fantasy that had seemed way more Angel’s style than Angelus’s. Even now, it wasn’t an easy task to admit to herself just how much that had triggered a heat in her core. If Tara knew about that, there was no telling how she’d react. There was no assurance that Willow wouldn’t have her gay membership card immediately revoked.
“Willow…,” Tara murmured, her arms and legs spreading and stretching as she started to regain consciousness.
Guess that talk is going to happen sooner than I thought…
Willow swallowed down the lump of fear in her throat and forced herself to smile. Now was not the time to start making up prophecies that she could wind up fulfilling with the wrong choice of words. “Good morning. Or you know, good afternoon. Not really sure as I haven’t been outside yet today and there aren’t a lot of windows seeing as this is a vampire hidey-hole and they don’t really do so well with sunlight.” She laughed lightly at her own babble, hoping to mask some of the awkwardness she felt.
A playful smile lit up Tara’s face as she resituated herself into a sitting position and met Willow’s eyes. “What if it’s evening?” she teased lightly, pointing out the time of day that Willow had missed. “How will I know to have a good one if you don’t tell me?”
“Any evening with you is a good one,” Willow replied softly. Even though her words weren’t meant to diminish the light atmosphere, they most certainly did.
“Sweetie?” Tara asked, reading into the longing and desperation lacing Willow’s tone. “What’s going on?”
“You were making spaghetti,” Willow said, aware that once she started to talk, she wasn’t going to be able to stop. She didn’t know when she would get another chance otherwise. There was no guarantee that they would even get through this chat before they were interrupted by someone looking for a distraction that was more exciting than watching paint dry or listening to Angel detox. “You were making spaghetti because you know it’s my favorite food, but then you….”
“Then I was abducted,” Tara said somberly. Normal couples found it cute and endearing whenever they finished each other’s sentences, but at the moment, it didn’t feel like either of those things.
“Right,” Willow said dully.
“I was mincing garlic when he came to the door and he had this woman with him and he…” Tara explained, stuttering as recalled her memories from before she entered a magically-induced stasis. “He wanted to know if he could use our phone to call a tow truck and I…I let them come in. I didn’t know who he was, didn’t know what he could do. Not until Dawnie….”
Tara’s breath hitched in her throat and tears pricked the corners of her soft, doe-like eyes. Willow instantly grabbed Tara’s hand, squeezing it in support. Apparently, Willow wasn’t the only one feeling trepidation about how this discussion would unfold. “I’m not mad, Tara. We’re not all as blessed as Buffy was with the Spidey senses. Mistakes happen.”
Tara nodded and squeezed back. “He attacked Dawn first. Caught her before I cou…could do anything to stop him. He…he was choking her. Her lips were….”
Talking about what happened to her and Dawn was clearly hard as hell for Tara and Willow completely sympathized, considering how much she so didn’t want to elaborate on her own experiences at Angelus’s wickedly capable hands. “You don’t have to tell me every grisly detail if you don’t want too. It’s not like we’re in an interrogation room or anything. It’s just me and you. Mine are the only ears that need to hear this, okay?”
“Okay,” Tara replied.
“What about the woman he brought with him?” Willow asked. Angelus had already spoiled the ending of that book much like Dawn had spoiled the death of Cedric Diggory after she sped-read Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, but that didn’t make her question any less pertinent.
“She started screaming hysterically so he…he locked her in the closet. Did…did you find her? Was she okay? I thought he might have forgotten her when he took us since…since she barely made a peep after he did that.”
Willow’s face fell and Tara nodded solemnly.
“He put her in our room,” Willow said, elaborating even though she didn’t have to. “He killed her and he made me think it was you. He made me think you were…. God, Tara, I’ve never felt so crazy in my whole life. The other day I thought the only things I was truly scared of were frogs and spiders, but they’re not. They don’t even come close to the fear that you…that I would lose you.”
“I’m not immortal,” Tara said quietly, wrapping her arms around Willow in a tight embrace. “But I’m not going anywhere.”
Willow returned the hug with grateful fervor and kissed Tara’s cheek. It wasn’t a perfect ending, but it was something.
“Will?” Xander asked; his shaggy brown mop suddenly visible in the doorway.
A mischievous grin tugged at the corners of his lips upon catching his best friend in such an intimate act and Willow shot him a warning look as she let Tara go. She had known ever since she and Tara had gotten together that they would become an object of male fantasy, but this was neither the time nor the place for her best friend to start thinking with his penis. “What’s up?”
“Erm…Dead Boy wants to talk to you,” Xander replied.
“Is he okay?” Willow asked. For okay, see: back to being Angel again. Despite her compassionate intentions towards keeping Angel among the living, she hadn’t actually set foot in Angel’s room since he had started sweating the Ecstasy out of his bloodstream and his soul.
“He’s not in the best shape of his life, but when has he ever been? Pudgy is pretty much his middle name,” Xander joked, but the mocking comment died in the air when he caught Willow’s serious face. “He’s good. Not quite back to being a champion of the world, but he’s definitely back to feeling his conscience again. He’s been asking for you. But I’ll totally tell him to shove off if you want. After what he did to you, Tara, and Dawn, he’s not worth forgiving.”
Willow knew that Xander’s customary Angel-bashing was coming from a deeper place in his heart this time, and she appreciated his protectiveness, but she couldn’t help but think that it was time to face her personal demon head on. There were still so many questions she hadn’t gotten answers to and Angel was the only one in the world who could clear those up for her.
“There will be no need for telling anyone to shove off, Xander,” Willow replied. “I’ll go talk to him.”
“Do you want me to come with you?” Tara asked. “Be morally supportive and all that?”
“I think it would be better if you rested,” Willow replied quietly. She felt awful for cutting Tara out of this considering the major talk they’d just had, but she hoped Tara would understand.
Tara leaned forward and kissed her, her lips soft and sure as they moved against hers. Instead of fretting about how Xander would take this, Willow relaxed into the moment, enjoying the brief escape it offered her before she moved on to tackle her next big talk of the day.
“Good luck,” Tara whispered, placing a second kiss on the tip of Willow’s nose before pulling away and settling back into the mattress.
***
Willow stepped into the other bedroom where Angel was and gasped. He was still restrained to the bed, almost every inch of his body covered by thick, metal fetters. Scattered around the bed and the floor were several broken fragments of chain, which made Willow think that Angel hadn’t been quite so cocooned when his recovery had first started. Plus, every scrap of fabric that was in a five-foot radius of Angel had been soaked through from the buckets of sweat pouring off of Angel like rainfall. She nodded to Spike who had sunk so low in the wooden chair that had been brought in for him that she was a bit surprised he hadn’t fallen out yet.
“I suspect you want to be left alone?” Spike inquired, reaching into his pocket, pulling out a crumpled pack of cigarettes and tapping the carton against his thigh.
“Yes, please,” Willow said, flashing him a grateful smile. Spike had really come through her these last few days and as soon as they got home, she was going to whip up at least twenty batches of her chocolate chip cookies to pay him back for what he’d done.
“Those chains will hold him tight if he tries anything,” Spike replied, getting to his feet and making his way towards the door. “’Course him being all broody again will probably keep him just as docile.”
“Go away, Spike,” Angel said, gritting his teeth.
“Wanker,” Spike hissed back, heading towards the door. Before he left, however, he threw a hard look at Angel and said: “Better not harm a hair on this girl’s head or you’re going to be feeling a lot more than a few broken ribs, mate.”
Once Spike was gone, Willow gingerly sat down in the chair he had vacated and crossed her arms protectively over her chest. Being back here, in this room, certainly did nothing to make her feel the warm fuzzies and she also didn’t feel like being the first one to start talking, no matter how much she had to say.
“Willow,” Angel began, his voice dry and scratchy from all the screaming and snarling. “We need to talk.”
“Okay, let's talk,” Willow replied.
Then they, once again, drifted into silence.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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on 2010-12-13 05:08 pm (UTC)Gabrielle
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on 2010-12-13 10:27 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2010-12-13 06:19 pm (UTC)RYL
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on 2010-12-13 10:27 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2010-12-13 10:53 pm (UTC)Loved this chapter and looking forward to read about Willow and Angel chat!!!
Brava!
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on 2010-12-14 02:27 am (UTC)Great chapter. I loved the Willow/Tara reunion. It was very sweet. Ah... Tara... *smiles sweetly*
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on 2010-12-14 05:49 am (UTC)no subject
on 2010-12-14 12:23 pm (UTC)*hugs*
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on 2010-12-15 12:16 am (UTC)*giggle*