Title: Pay It Forward
Author: iridescentZEN
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Rated: R Pairing: Willow/Angelus
varietypack100 Prompt: 100 - Writer's Choice: Travel
Warning: This fic went way darker than I originally intended. Unhappy beginning all the way to an unhappy end.
They spent some time in Los Angeles. Angelus had unfinished business to attend to when it came to the slaughter of everyone that had ever been kind to Angel in the last four years, and those who hadn't. It was quite the undertaking, but he managed to exact his revenge with an artistic flair that surpassed his wildest expectations. He was certain at least some of those "crime scenes" had even hardened detectives vomiting where they stood.
Angelus' final performance was with Sunnydale. A bloody, amazingly beautiful show with the main event not Buffy as one would imagine, but Willow. Buffy's death was a blessing in comparison. After all, she did give it up to the idiotic soul and set him free. The soul would have worn a chastity belt if he had known the ramifications of one moment of true happiness.
A quick death was all he offered the slayer as gratitude.
Willow bottled his evil like wine, and all that time he was fermenting. Just waiting for someone to pop the cork. All that time in his bottle thinking about sweet, kind, dark, guilty Willow. Pigtails and straight As, awkwardness that hid power so wicked it gave him a happy just thinking about it. It was no secret that he hated gypsies, hated witches, hated the wicked spells that rolled off their tongues that meant to trap and bind evil.
Angelus was very good at holding a grudge.
Willow paid for everyone.
Angelus kept the change.
After their little party of two Angelus vamped Willow, damning her soul. He needed a partner in crime. Now they traveled together, a pair of great white sharks circling their prey in the ocean.
If they ran out of food, they would eat each other.
It wasn't like the glory days with Darla or Dru. Willow was not manipulative like Darla or completely insane like Dru. That meant that he hadn't broken her before she died. That he hadn't done his job or really fulfilled his need for revenge.
The resentment lingered like a bad smell, and he did his very best to unleash it on her as much as possible but it wasn't fulfilling if she liked it.
Arkansas was hot and oppressive, but they enjoyed it there. They snacked on the well educated social elite and washed them down with hillbillies who drove old American trucks with confederate flags on their back windshields. From there they traveled north east to Pennsylvania; they spent some time in Philadelphia doing things that had nothing to do with brotherly love.
They stayed for a few weeks before moving on to Florida.
Florida was great for him, but Willow didn't like it. Miami teemed with young drunk idiots that resembled nothing more than tranquilized bears. There was too much sun, Willow said, and too many drunk girls in bikinis on the beach after dark. It was hard to enjoy the beach with all the meat walking around, making their stomachs clench and growl with hunger.
They had a flavor there. They tasted synthetic like south beach plastic that left an aftertaste of tattoo ink mixed with suntan lotion that lasted for days.
"Ooh, let's go to New Hampshire. I bet there are tons of tasty popsicles there," Willow's eyes sparkled with predatory intent. Angelus knew that she wasn't really as enthused about eating people as she pretended to be.
"We'll catch a flight tonight," he said without looking at her. Angelus touched the page of the hotel bible that he was reading, watching his finger smoke as he turned it. The holy scripture was like acid to the soft, cold pad of his fingertip. It burned his unique fingerprint right off his finger, only for it to spring back a moment later to do it again.
"This is a great book," he muttered, only taking his eyes from the good book when the young woman they had tied up in a corner in their room began to emit muffled screams from behind what was supposed to be industrial grade duct tape.
Nothing was quality made anymore.
"Did you ever read it?" Dark brown eyes found Willow' green eyes that were filled with an indifferent boredom that didn't suit her at all.
"I prefer true crime," she said. He hoped that she would start to twirl her hair like a dumb blonde. It had taken breaking Willow's fingers over and over again before she learned to stop that bad habit.
Breaking bones would liven things up.
Especially if they were hers.
"Hungry?" Angelus arched a brow, noticing the way her polished burgundy nails were tapping out an opening symphony on the dresser, the sound that meant the young woman's ultimate demise. Not that the human knew it.
Later Willow would lock herself in the bathroom and vomit most of her meal back up. Another thing she thought he didn't know about her. A vampire bulimic. Who would have thought?
"Not hungry." Willow sidled up to the woman. "Wanna play?" she asked, her tone and expression making him think oddly enough - fat kid, candy store. She was a good actress, his Willow.
It was abundantly clear that their toy did not want to play, her entire body quaked with terror. It was distracting.
"Ooh, baby. The way you shake for me makes me so hot," Willow said playfully, giving her best pout, which unfortunately was real. Looking at the girl reminded Willow of a different time, when it was her covered in blood, her magic dampened and impotent, and her body quaked with tension wondering what kind of cruelty would be inflicted on it next.
Another page was turned by Angelus' burning flesh when he realized that he must be as bored as Willow. He threw the bible at the woman whose name was something pitifully mundane. Jane or Jen or Sarah. Who cared anyway? When he ate her the only thing she would be was dead.
Dead Jane or dead Jen or dead Sarah.
It was ridiculously easy to lure willing victims to their motel room. They seduced this particular human with dark glances across an overcrowded dance floor. Vampire noses were sensitive to the saline of breast implants, their eyes were eagle-like and could spot porcelain veneers from a mile away. All these stupid girls were so intent on being what others were, idiot sheep taking fat out of their asses and injecting it in their lips. And that made them sexy? It all equaled bad flavor to a vampire.
Hell, even a liposuction took some of the taste.
This girl though ... she smelled natural. If he closed his eyes he could picture her in a corset, a pretty pink hoop skirt, her hair done up in curls. Sometimes he really missed the 1800s.
There were sweet smiles from Willow, seductive touches, whispered lies that spoke of promised pleasure. Angelus moved in then, not joining the rhythmic bodies that poured sweat and ground against him drunkenly, stalking his target with all the accuracy of a missile.
Two hours later and nearly dead Jen must be thinking that the threesome she planned on engaging in tonight had gone terribly wrong.
Really, Angelus hoped that Willow killed her soon.
There was only so much sobbing a vampire could take.
"No time for match-play, slut. Pay it forward," he demanded, his lips moving into a smirk. Little Jenny probably thought he was talking to her, when in fact he was speaking to Willow.
That tapping of fingernails against the cheap pine nightstand stopped dead, leaving the room in total silence as she turned angry eyes on him. There was still a lot of residual Willow in the demon. Not a bit of soul, but still the nerd was still in there. It was fun to torment her with words and pet names as he had when she was still alive, still bleeding living blood and crying delicious, fat salty tears. When he tortured her during a three month stay of execution in which he exorcized his need for retaliation on her. Until he was satisfied enough to end that stage and move on to the next one.
When he thought he accomplished his goal in breaking her.
So very wrong.
"I thought we talked about that, Angelus," she snapped, a newly opened butterfly knife in her hand. It glinted dangerously in lamplight. She took it from a skinhead on the beach last night when she was done tearing out his throat. In a blink of an eye it flew through the air to land in Angelus' shoulder with a solid thump, which did nothing to alleviate the pain that his verbal daggers inflicted inside of her.
Standing up to remove the knife, Angelus flipped it back closed with a small sigh. A stab wound amounted to the pain of a pinprick after a few decades pass. Addressing their victim, he said, "She was you once. All living, and breathing, and vulnerable. Doing all of those nasty things that you humans do." So was he, but he wasn't about to mention it. "Show whats-her-name your scars, whats-her-name's dead best friend," he demanded.
Angelus bent down so that he was eye to eye with the still crying bitch all tied up on the floor. It appeared like he was telling her a secret, "She had three months of me. Three months of atrocities that we've only skimmed the top of tonight. Trust me, when the time comes for your death - you'll be thankful, because we," he smiled genuinely at the thought, "can drag this sort of fun out for as long as we want. We only have forever."
"Willow," Angelus turned his head so that he was staring directly in her eyes, "I told you to show her." His attention went back to the hostage, "I'm sorry," he said, his tone and expression full of woeful insincere apology, "see, we vampires tend to keep the scars we got from wounds received pre-death." The girl's dark brown eyes followed his fingertip as he trailed it across two puncture marks on his neck that were white with age, but still visible. "Kill bite."
"Ah, Darla. Manipulative whore." With fondness, he added, "I miss her."
Willow was shaking with anger. It was time to show him who was boss ... eventually, because without warning, Angelus' fingers threaded through Willow's hair, red-gold locks twisted around between his knuckles, and she let out a cry of surprise that held more pain than pleasure. With his other hand, he jerked her up and around his body so that she landed with her back to the girl, her knees aching from being body slammed on the floor. Angelus grabbed the neck of her black v-neck t-shirt and ripped it from her body.
It landed carelessly on the floor.
Like she had when he killed her.
Willow could still remember as she lay dying that she had never seen that much blood before.
All the games had lost their appeal. The hunger for blood was always present, but it never sat right in her gut. It always moved around, faking circulation through limbs that should be rotting, giving a rosy blush to a face that was a lie.
Willow couldn't see the girl's reaction, but she heard it in the increased erratic beating of her heart. In the timing of sucked in gasps that made a sucking noise around loosened duct tape. Tears welled up in Willow's eyes against her will. She was evil, and she should be acting like it. Not ashamed of the dozens of scars that made up the healed over flesh of her back.
The stab wounds were scarred over, but the reason for each and every one of them still haunted her like a song she knew the words to but couldn't remember its name.
Friends.
Family.
Everyone.
Dead.
More dead than she was.
Jealous.
When she fed there was no joy. No jolt of pleasure like there had been at first.
It figured that she couldn't even be a normal vampire. Too much of Willow remained, and now she was stuck in purgatory, not evil but sooo not a whitehat.
Willow remembered Tara, and the love her soul felt for the young witch, and how devastated it was when her lover's warm blood sprayed across her face, that it ran away and hid.
Willow never really found it again.
The dark magic had altered her, constantly swimming through her veins, and it wouldn't let the soul back in, wouldn't let love back in. It stayed in the shell, weak but slowly gaining strength, rising in her like hot tar. She felt it in a powerful throbbing through her entire body when Angelus laughed deeply and heartily, because no one's pain was more amusing than hers. He pushed her roughly against the girl. "You're free to play."
"Don't feel like it now," Willow huffed, her eyes momentarily meeting their hostage's. She didn't like that expression of pity in her brown eyes. Shouldn't the stupid girl be feeling badly for herself? If Willow was tied up and about to die she wouldn't waste tears on an already dead girl.
Hissing at the hostage who immediately shrank back at the sight, Willow reached for her shirt, only to have it ripped from her hands by Angelus.
"I like you better without it." That was the only explanation that Willow would get from him. "Play now."
"Don't wanna," she whined petulantly. When it came to ruining the mood Angelus was King. "Buzzkill."
The grip of his hands encircling her upper arms was bruising when he made her stand and face him eye to eye. "You play with her," he growled, showing his true face, "Or I'll play with you."
"Her name is Jane. She goes to Tampa High. She's on the honor roll and has already been accepted at Duke,( Willow smiled sweetly at him even if she felt sick inside.
When did Willow come back? When did she break free and become real? Become ... in charge?
It was obvious that her words threw Angelus for a loop. "What did you two do while I went to get ice? Have a lovely slap and tickle sip and share each other's life story? Disgusting."
Willow said nothing, staring at him coldly while waiting for him to make a move. This time she was prepared.
"And that all means what exactly?" Angelus asked with a roll of his eyes.
It meant that while he spent his nights painting the town red with blood, she spent her time studying up on the dark arts. Never as dark and available to her as they were now. Never as powerful as it was now in tune with her demon now stuck in the background.
Willow's eyes darkened to the stroke of midnight, and Angelus stiffened, the knife he was ready to flip open freezing in his hand before dropping with a heavy clink on the floor.
"It means I win," Willow told him, her voice distorted with dark magic. It meant that Willow won. The residual Willow that lurked within had spread through the demon like cancer, taking over one cell at a time. No soul, but she was tired of all the high maintenance drama that went along with being evil.
Angelus stared at Willow, confused when she started untying Jane.
"I hate witches," Angelus said, his attempts at breaking free and escaping about as likely as a bean escaping from the inside of a maraca.
"When this wears off ..." Willow cut him off, stifling his words with her magic.
(- Shh! I'm busy,( Willow warned. It was kind of funny to watch him try to squirm when he was frozen in place. Willow gave him a fang-filled grin as she rifled through the closet to find herself another shirt. While she pulled it over her head the smile didn't disappear.
"What are you going to do, anyway?" she asked, ushering the girl out of the door. "You'll be a pile of dust. Housekeeping's going to have a heck of a time vacuuming you up."
Angelus' was filled with live wire rage; the current ran from him to her in high-voltage tingles. His eyes bugged with alarm when she uttered a single word.
"Claud-ette."
The drab brown curtains opened on their own, flooding the room with the orange halogen glow of street lights, and would stay that way until tomorrow night. Just long enough for Angelus to say hello to the sun. To feel it burn before he caught fire. Before he flaked and crumbled like a cookie.
This was the last place they would travel together.
The last place where she was his.
Room 201 at The Ocean Breeze motel was now going to be the final resting place for the demon inside her. It was all about Willow from now on, and she would figure out the rest later.
Jane was already out the door and halfway to a helpful hand, bloody and traumatized but alive, when Willow put the motel's bible in Angel's clenched, stiff hands. Her fingers ran over his. Some of her fingers were crooked, having been broken and not set. They healed that way. It was a metaphor for her body. It was broken, but it was still hers, even if it was crooked. She tightened her hands over his. It was his fingers that did that to her, his hands. Such beautiful hands.
An artist's hands.
"You were always so fond of this." Willow patted him on the shoulder endearingly. "I'll leave it with you. I think you're going to need it."
END.