Nobody Loves You

By iridescentZEN

Disclaimer: Characters are not mine

Note: Title is from Track 11 on beautifulgarbage

Nobody Loves You, she thinks to herself. No one ever loves you. Not really. If they did they wouldn't spend so much time away, wouldn't leave you alone to drown in your own misery. Leave you with an emptiness so profound that you don't feel real.

If they love you, they wouldn't have annoyed expressions and irritated sighs to offer you when you tell them how miserable you feel. If they love you they wouldn't make you feel worse about being honest, you wouldn't feel bad for letting words escape from the part of your brain that told you it was a bad idea. When tears that you thought you couldn't possibly produce anymore start flowing down your face and you're a bottomless hole of despair, hidden like a booby trap on your twin bed beneath a pile of waded up tissues.

If they love you they would understand that you need him. Need him like the air you breathe and the water you drink to replenish your system. That there's a raw ache in your heart and he's the only antiseptic that can help heal the wound.

If they love you.

Only nobody loves you.

You don't even love yourself.

Willow's only vaguely aware of nearly being hit by a car last week. The hazy fog of shock and emotional pain made her crawl into herself, an inner cocoon of numbness. When she hatched she was more splotchy than beautiful. An ugly, bitter thing that she didn't recognize when she looked in the mirror. A moth not a butterfly.

Oz didn't love her. If he did, he wouldn't have subjected her to this. This agony of life without him. This walking nothingness that has her questioning everything she is. Was it because Veruca was prettier than her? Was it because she was in a band and cool? Because she had charisma that Willow couldn't hope to possess?

Was it the cute clothes? Did Oz get sick of cute? Did he want her to just grow up?

All he had to do was tell her. She would have changed, adapted.

Instead she lays on her bed, listening to depressing music to suit her mood. Willow's not sure what to do anymore. Her friends can't be bothered. She can't call up Xander like she used to, because he's with Anya and there's tension there. Magic hell dimension leather wearing punching in the face tension. Xander lips tension. Willow would like to be able to turn the pep back on. Be the brainy scoobie cheerleader that they all want her to be, but she finds it hard to muster a smile.

The Earth is stupid and there's so much pain. She wants it all to stop. None of it will matter anyway. In the end everyone ends up in the ground, all that's left is an epitaph on a headstone. The only thing that survives of you, the only thing that proves you ever existed is a rock.

A knock at the door barely registers. "Come in," she invites.

It's Spike. Buffy's mortal enemy Spike. Spike with the bottle and the almost having and the post traumatic stress he caused. There's nightmare Spike with the stench of cigarettes and vodka, with having and killing and Xander blood, where the broken bottle gets some action with her face.

Except he's real now, and she can't wake up.

There is no way to take back her careless words.

Panic is rising like fog, danger all around her and she's cornered. She feels like a spider that has been caught crawling on the ceiling when the light's turned on, paralyzed with fear until it's too late. It runs, but the shoe always comes down on it anyway.

She makes a run for it, but he's faster than her and he pushes her with little effort into her nightstand.

Deer in headlights. Here comes the car, full speed ahead.

Spike is saying something, and God, he's much more scary sober and ... not crying. There's something about a choice but she's not paying attention. Too caught up with whether or not she should look him in the eye or avert her gaze. With trying to figure a way out of this. Screaming. That could work.

"I'll - I'll scream," she threatens with a trembling voice.

Spike smiles. "Bonus!"

There is no point to fighting him. He's much stronger than her. He's a vampire. The magic that has saved her before is failing her now, her focus is wonky and she's petrified. She fights anyway. Can't let him kill her. Can't be easy. Can't be dead for Buffy.

There's awkward flailing, her fists completely ineffectual against his chest and he straddling her, a small grin that might have looked just as evil even if he wasn't wearing his game face. Her own music muting the sound of her struggles, of her cries, and she's pinned to her bed and it's just wrong.

Wrong.

There are people outside her door. They are all around her. The entire building humming with life, and yet she's all alone.

Buffy's not here. She's not going to be Willow's hero in a fashionable wardrobe with a silly pun, sparkling eyes and perfect hair. She's not here and it's her enemy. Willow's just playing second banana for the last time.

Fangs are in her neck, much more painful and deep than Harmony's. The struggling stops as her body jerks against her will in his arms. His hands find the small of her back and he holds her upright and grinds against her, still siphoning her essence, one mouthful at a time.

Willow can only feel the cold of his tongue and nothing else. It's trailing over her collarbone and up her neck to the twin gouges he's made catching hot, sticky beads of her blood. There's a far off sound and she thinks it's the sound of her crying, but she can't be sure. Can't be positive because the music is so loud and dying is so silent.

A framed picture of herself and Oz at the beach catches her gaze. Happy. Sunlight. Warmth.

Every cup of coffee bought.

Every test taken.

Every word spoken.

Every near death experience.

Every single thing she did up until now brought her here, made their paths meet.

Spike's shoved her back down on the bed. She's a rat paralyzed in a snake's mouth, being devoured. It's almost over now, she thinks. It'll be okay. It has to be okay.

Her eyes move back to the picture of her and Oz, and she tries to remember happier times. Trying to think of Xander, Buffy and Giles. What a terrible thing that Buffy will come home to tonight. Her best friend covered in blood and so very still. And why is she thinking poor Buffy when she's the one who's getting killed?

Willow thinks he's inside her now, but she can't be sure. She can't feel much beyond the agony of the torn skin on her neck, the low burn in her stomach. What difference does it make anyway? He's taking everything she has to offer and it's done.

Maybe she wanted this. Maybe it was a subconscious urge, and that's why she invited him in.

Nobody loves you, Willow, she thinks.

"Nobody loves you," she says in a whisper, not entirely sure why she even tells him what she's learned in this life. Nobody loves you when you're gone, because they probably didn't while you were here.

Even this won't matter, she knows it. Her death will mean nothing like thousands of others who are dying today and tomorrow and the next day and the next. It will mean nothing because it is never ending.

It never really means something until it's you.

"You'll love me," he says, slicing his wrist with his fingernail and bringing it to her lips, "Forever."