SUMMARY: Spike gets a new toy he wasn't expecting, and Willow finds out that life--and Gods--can sometimes throw humans for a loop.
TITLE: Order Now (18/?)
AUTHOR: sinecure
RATED: R
DISCLAIMER: Joss and ME own BtVS, I don't, and the way these past seasons are going, I'm glad I don't.
DEDICATED: To Claudia who's been mega busy recently, but always finds time to beta for me and read all the new scenage I send her way, little though that's been of late.
PART 18
Willow cautiously approached Spike's crypt, not sure what she was going to find inside. It was still daylight and birds were chirping in the warm afternoon sunlight. Tree branches swayed to and fro above her and the crypt, alternately shadowing and lighting her way.
Her fear level wasn't too high up there since Spike hadn't warned her about anything that might hurt her and she didn't think he wanted her hurt. In his own way, she was sure he did care about her, just like she cared about him. Only a little less strongly. He loved wholly and completely; she knew that from listening to him cry on her shoulder about Drusilla, but she also knew that until recently, he hadn't even noticed her, so how could he love her?
Maybe he'd decided that since he couldn't have Buffy, he'd try his chances with her. The best friend of the woman he loved. Or, maybe she just needed to shut her thought processes off and go inside the crypt she was staring at.
The door was open a little, looking... if not inviting, then at least a little beckoning. She stretched her arm out and lightly pushed on the heavy metal door. It creaked loudly, the hinges screeching in an ear-piercing way as it swung open. Her eyes couldn't quite penetrate the darkness that greeted her, making her nerves jangle with expectation. What was inside? What was so all-fire important to Spike?
Drusilla.
That was the only answer that came to mind. If she was in here, he wouldn't want her found, or hurt. Then again, it was pretty darn logical that he would've warned her if that was the case.
So, taking a deep breath, she stepped up on the threshold and paused, listening for signs of life. Or animation at least. Nothing jumped out at her, no screams met her ears, and not even one bug flew at her. Good signs all. Her other foot joined the first one and she was inside the doorway, pausing, once again waiting and listening.
But there was nothing there except the sarcophagus where she'd seen Spike doing... stuff with a woman she hadn't even seen and probably didn't know. That minute jealousy she'd felt at hearing the other woman talking to Spike flared up into a full-fledged jealousy, raging free inside her.
There'd better not be a woman in here.
Striding confidently into Spike's crypt, she carefully inspected the interior, noting the blood staining the floor, and the lighter lines of concrete, scrapes on the floor caused by something being dragged. Spinning around in confusion, she shrugged to herself, wondering what on earth Spike was so antsy about. There was nothing here. A chair, a sarcophagus, a few half-burned candles... a completely bare square spot under her feet.
Looked like something had been there until recently. Kneeling down, she slid her finger through the dust surrounding the spot, eyeing the chair. The brown and off-white stripes on the old thing went all the way down to the floor in a sort of dust ruffle thing, hiding the legs. It was square.
Resting her hands on her thighs, she pushed herself to her feet and grabbed hold of the chair. It was odd because... it still smelled like him. Like cigarettes and alcohol and something indefinable that was uniquely Spike. Normally she wasn't a big ole fan of the smelling thing, but at times like these, with pain and hurt involved, she seemed to always find it comforting. When Oz left her, she'd slept in one of his old t-shirts, surrounded by the smell that was only his.
When Xander was gone for the summer, driving across the country, she'd kept one of his old stuffed animals in her room, hugging it to her when she missed him.
Spike's smell was nice too. All him. There was a dark musky scent that made her skin tingle and her fingertips itch to touch him. Her lower lip slid between her teeth, wanting to taste Spike.
Pushing the chair to its former spot, wincing at the loud scraping sound as it moved across the stone floor, she stared at the trapdoor she'd exposed.
"Aha," she mumbled, not making a move to open it. "Could be evil things in there. Could be cute little fluffy bunnies too. Either or."
One foot slipped forward, the toe of her shoe playing with the handle. The small metallic clinking had her glancing around to make sure no one was near enough to hear. The need to know pounded through her, making her pulse race and her hands sweat. Something was down there and she sure as hell needed to know what it was. This was one of those times in life. Walk away or continue down the road.
She had no other choice but to continue down the road, even if it held the heartbreak she expected it to hold. Silly, maybe, but the only thoughts that were spinning in her mind, crashing wildly against her skull were thoughts of another woman being down there. There was no fear of evil things and bodies piled against the walls like cordwood. No, her entire thought process was stuck in 'he has a girlfriend' mode and no matter how she tried to derail it, her darn brain wouldn't listen.
It didn't care if he had killed or tortured. It didn't care if people were suffering because he'd left them to die down there... all it cared about was quickly getting over the pain, just ripping that Band-aid off with one pull rather than prolonging the torment with small jerks.
So she knelt by the door, wrapped her hand around the cold handle and yanked the door off.
More darkness. Oh yay. What was it with... well, duh. Fire-issues. She grabbed a candle from the wall, wrapping her fingers around the stick of creamy wax to pull it free of the sconce it was in and touched the tip of her finger to the wick.
She couldn't remember the Latin word for light so she just whispered it in English. A small flame crackled and flared to life, startling her. She yanked it away from her face and took a deep breath, choking on the acrid smoke. Waving her hand in front of her face to clear the smoke away, she headed toward the trapdoor.
"Here goes nothing," she muttered, holding the candle over the hole.
There was a wooden ladder leading down about six feet, and a dusty dirt floor. She stuck her head down inside, trying to get a look around, but all she could see was the floor and walls that used to be earth. Now they were carved earth with coffins sticking out of them. Neat.
Her hand wrapped around the top of the ladder before she was even aware that she'd made the decision to go downstairs. The cool wood in her palm helped to ground her, to keep her from freaking out about going into a dark hole with possible unknown bad things inside.
Like in her dream. Funny how that kept happening.
Holding the candle in one hand, she stepped down on the first rung of the ladder and slowly descended into... hell?
If there was a woman here, and she was involved with Spike, then yes, this would be her hell. Her shoes clunked on each rung as she stepped down, her hands, slicked with sweat, nearly dropped the candle, and herself as well. She kept a tight grip and took the last step down, standing firmly on the dirt floor as she turned to get her first good look around.
The light cast shadows on the walls, making everything waver eerily back and forth. The yellow light extended all the way to the far side of the cavern, illuminating large rocks with candles placed on them. There was a mattress against the far wall with a mess of blankets and sheets on it. To her right, in the small alcove beside the ladder, was an old wooden table with a cardboard box on it.
No one was there. No woman, no man, no demon. No dead bodies either. Immense relief poured through her and she let her breath out in a rush.
Spike's bed was tempting her closer, drawing her in with a promise of his scent. But so too was the box.
Casting a quick glance around, she decided box first, bed second. Maybe this small cardboard box was what was so important to Spike. Her mood was lighter than before since... well, she was sure there wasn't a woman hiding inside the box, but she was still cautious as she moved toward the table. The lone box sat atop it on the far side, pushed to the back, but not completely out of the way. The flaps were tucked inside or torn off; it was hard to tell in this light. But the box itself looked rather worn, like it'd seen better days back in the 80's.
Her footsteps were soundless, but kicked up little clouds of dust because she was shuffling her feet. She couldn't help it. Being in a strange place while expecting strange things to pop out at her at any moment didn't lend itself to big movements and a careless attitude. She was the careful one, always had been, always... well, there was nothing wrong with being careful. Otherwise you could get dead.
She set the candle down on the table, laying it so the lit end hung off the edge, and then moved around it to grab the box. It slid across the dusty gritty surface with a loud scrape, making more noise than she had since entering his crypt. She held herself still, half expecting a screeching female vampire to come crashing into her, throwing her to the ground to rip her throat out.
No body flung itself at her, so she stood on tiptoes to peer into the box. It looked to be filled with pictures and--she dropped back down on her heels with a frown--a wig?
Spike was a cross-dresser? That's what had him so wigged about her coming over here? Well that was just stupid. Spike didn't-- uh-uh. He was way too into the manly leather thing. Although, maybe sometimes he liked to sit back and relax in a nice black teddy and a woman's wig.
She burst out laughing, imagining Spike sitting upstairs in his chair, smoking and drinking, wearing nothing but lingerie, high heels and a wig, one leg draped casually over the chair arm. It was too funny. And a bit intimidating.
Yanking the box closer, she reached in and pulled out the wig, staring at the red strands that spilled over her arm like water. It was her hair. Only, in a wig-way.
Maybe Spike wasn't in love with her; maybe he wanted to *be* her.
"Gah!" she yelled, throwing the offensive wig onto the tabletop. This was too creepy.
She heard rustling cloth behind her, but put it down to being freaked out and refrained from jumping and spinning with a scream. Being an accomplished wiccan with a death to her name and a whole heck of a lot of slaying, she had no reason to be a 'fraidy cat. So she composed herself and turned, staring in shock as the woman previously buried under the blankets sat up and blinked at her.
The woman tilted her head to the side as she pushed free of the blankets. Her face was blank, her eyes staring straight ahead. One hand reached behind her and unplugged something from the wall with a strong yank.
Willow's breath left her in a rush and she was unable to draw anymore in for a few seconds. "Oh my God," she muttered, feeling nauseous. Her stomach flipped and flopped and rolled itself around.
Her eyes widened as the woman, still silent, not even seeming to see her, sat up straighter, dropping the sheets to her lap, revealing a length of wires planted in the hatch in her stomach. Tiny blinking lights, alternating between red and green and numerous other colors lit the small area. She pulled the plug free of her stomach and closed the flap, dropping the cords to the dusty floor, pushing them out of sight.
As soon as she was done, her eyes lit up and her face came to life, her mouth opening in a parody of a yawn, too wide and too breathless to be real. "Spike--" she began, then halted as she finally caught sight of Willow standing across the room. Her forehead wrinkled and her brows dipped into a frown, her eyes showing her confusion.
Willow was right there with her. She opened her mouth to say something, but came up empty, unable to do anything but stare at herself staring at herself. Her own frown was deep and confused and probably matched the robot's. Oh God. Covering her mouth with her hand, she sank to her knees, taking in deep breaths of air and swallowing desperately, trying to keep from upchucking on Spike's dirt floor.
The robot version of her pushed her small black shirt down over her stomach and stood up. Thankfully she was fully clothed. There was a pair of faded black jeans on her, and-- hey, those were her clothes! How'd Spike get her clothes?
Oh, he was so in trouble!
Using the table to haul herself to her feet, she shoved away the sickness rising in her and concentrated on the robot.
"Who are you and what have you done with Spike?" the robot asked. Her voice was identical to Willow's, and oddly enough, had the same inflections. Her red hair, longer than Willow's, swayed back and forth as she came to a stop in front of Willow. She crossed her arms over her chest and glared, looking mighty angry and threatening.
"I..." Willow whispered, disappointed with herself when all she could get out was a single syllable. She swallowed and licked her lips, trying again. "I'm Willow." She stopped, and couldn't help asking, "Are you and Spike-- do you-- the two of you, do you, um...?" She couldn't say it, couldn't get it past stiff lips that were holding back curses of the magickal variety and cussing of the language variety.
What right did Spike have to do anything with... her? In any form or fashion, without her knowledge. She stared in disgust at the robot version of her. Spike was a sick, sick man.
The robot smiled at the mention of Spike and nodded eagerly. "We 'um' quite a lot." Her smile faded when Willow didn't return hers. She continued to examine her, even circling around slowly, tilting her head this way and that. "I'm confused. There are two of me." Her voice turned perky, another small smile raising her lips. "We're pretty." Seconds later, the smile faded and her eyes narrowed suspiciously. She stopped in front of Willow and raised her hand, almost as if to touch Willow's hair, before drawing back suddenly. "Are you a robot or a demon?"
Well, okay, hello. She hadn't just unplugged herself from a wall, so who of the two was actually a robot? Duh. Of course, maybe she didn't know that. Her face had been pretty blank while she pulled the plug from the wall.
How creepy was that?
Too creepy. Creepy enough that Willow was going to inform her of what she was and then shut her off and go have a nice long chat with Spike. The nausea had passed, but there was a knot in her stomach now, sinking further and further as she stood there. Spike had been... doing God knew what with that-- thing all the while he was hanging around her, trying to seduce her. Why?
The nausea was back, keeping up a steady feeling of ickiness. Crossing her arms over her chest, she stepped back, away from the possible danger standing in front of her. "You're a robot," she said quietly, "not me." She felt sorry for the poor little mechanical thingamabobber. She obviously had no clue she was running on batteries and sucking down motor oil. And that Spike was using her.
The robot shook her head with a slightly bemused look, scoffing lightly. "I am flesh and blood, not a..." she paused, staring past Willow at the box on the table and the wig splayed out like a scalped trophy. Her eyes focused slowly on Willow, her head tilting to the side curiously. "Spike once asked me if someone had altered my programming... does he believe I'm a robot? Have you seduced him and convinced him you're the real Willow?" Her eyes dropped to her hand as she clenched it into a fist.
She looked so devastated that Willow altered her plan to immediately tell her what she was.
And to make things worse, she was about to comfort Spike's disgusting sex-toy. Stepping closer, she hesitantly patted the bot on her shoulder a few times. "No. I didn't seduce him." Ha. More like he'd seduced her, and how.
Robot-Willow nodded slowly, lowering her fist to her side and straightening her fingers out. "Good, because I love him. Is he alright?" Her bright eyes peered into Willow's, her lips turning up in a friendly smile. "Do you know where he is? I miss him."
"Uh, I think he's at the Magic Box." Tied to a chair and possibly being abused by Buffy. No sharing that though. If Willow-bot was anything like April then she was strong, deadly strong. "He's helping with, um, there's some..." she thought frantically, wondering if Bot-Girl knew the dynamics of their friendship with Spike. "Languages. Needing deciphered. Yeah," she said importantly, "could be all night. Big demon in town."
"Ah, with Guy-les," the bot said wisely, nodding her head with a wide smile, making Willow snort with laughter. "He's my mentor and father-figure." She stepped up beside Willow, peering at the box with interest. "Those are Spike's. He likes to look at them sometimes."
Willow frowned, pulling out handfuls of pictures. They all contained one single element, one thing that tied them all together, and if she hadn't been freaked before, she certainly was now. "They're me," she whispered, looking at picture after picture of her, Buffy, and Xander, and still others with just her. She was posing for the camera in one with her hand on her hip and her other hand behind her head, grinning at Xander, who was behind the camera.
"No, they're me," Robot-Willow corrected, taking one of the pictures from her.
Willow stared at her for a second before returning to her task. Another one of the pictures was of her and Buffy, arms wrapped around each other. The photo was folded in half, creased down the middle so that Buffy was no longer beside her.
Had it started out the other way around? Had he folded her back originally, not Buffy?
Something small and tingly climbed down her spine, forcing a shudder from her. She tossed the pictures onto the table and yanked the box closer, grabbing the rest of the contents.
Her pink and lilac sweater was there, along with one of her hair scrunchies. She dropped them to the floor, staring at them in revulsion. This was sick. No. No, this was so far beyond sick. Spike was seriously ill. Stalker-ish. Again. Buffy wasn't enough? Now he had to stalk her too?
The robot shifted toward her, setting the picture in her hands on the table. "He loves me. He likes to look at me." She frowned in confusion, her brow wrinkling in a way that Willow knew all-too-well, she'd done it enough times herself. "Does he look at you too?"
Willow closed her eyes, fighting back the urge to scream and hit things. The magick inside her was, thankfully, not enough to do more than light a candle these days, otherwise it was possible that Buffy would walk into a training room filled with nothing but smoke and ashes where Spike used to be. "Yes. Yes, he looks at me. He--" seeing the hurt that crossed the robot's face, she took a deep breath and kept herself from mentioning the time they'd been spending together. Namely, the night before last. "He's shocked that I look so much like you. Says it's uncanny."
The robot smiled again, relief shining through that sunny look of hers. "Oh. Good."
Swallowing thickly, Willow paced away, careful not to kick up too much dust with each step. At the edge of the mattress, she spun around and asked the question that'd been on her mind since seeing the robot. "How long have you and Spike been..." oh, for God's sake, she thought to herself, you're old enough to say the damn words, so just say them. "How long have the two of you been fu-- in love?"
That smile on the robot grew exponentially, making Willow wonder if it could just keep going higher and higher, splitting her face in two, baring wires and framing for everyone to see as her head dropped back on her neck, bobbing back and forth, or whether it would eventually have to stop creeping up the sides of her face.
"Three years, two months and fifty-five days," creepy robot girl answered. "I knew I loved him the night he came to my dorm room." She paused, tilting her head again, observing Willow solemnly. "Do you have my memories? Are you a robot?"
"Yes, I do. I remember being terrified that night. I thought he was going to kill me. Or worse." Worse being turned into a vampire to hurt Buffy and possibly even kill her. That, more than anything, made her fear vampires. She didn't want to turn on her best friends. Ever. Hence the freaking out over the Ben-thing.
"He would never kill us," the bot chided, striding past her to the bed. She bent down, picking up a book to show Willow. "He loves us. See? He gave me presents; magick books!" Her proud smile left a lot to be desired in Willow.
She glanced over at the familiar book, recognizing it as one of the ones she'd given him a few days before for his 'friend'. "He doesn't love us," she mumbled, focusing her eyes on something, anything, that wasn't a part of this twisted situation. Something that wouldn't make her think about how much it hurt her to know that she would never be able to be with him again. Never. This just wasn't something she could look past and forgive. "He's using you." Settling her eyes on the one thing that brought to bear all that hurt she was trying to avoid, she crossed her arms over her chest and waited.
Waited for the artificial being in front of her to deny that she was being used.
The robot's sunny smile slipped a little as she shook her head in denial. "My blonde god would never use me," she told Willow angrily, her frown deepening.
"Your blonde god," Willow snorted, bursting into bitter gales of laughter. "Bet he loves that name. Look, uh, Willow... Spike is evil." When the robot only continued to stare back at her blankly, she rolled her eyes and clarified. "He's a vampire. He kills people. In fact," she said quietly, reminded of how she'd come to be there in the first place, "he killed two girls a few nights ago."
"I know," the robot said solemnly. "I told him to only kill bad people, and he said he would."
"That was your idea?" Willow said angrily, dropping her arms with a sigh. "Killing bad people doesn't make it okay. It's still killing, no matter what light you put on it."
Willow-bot smiled and nodded, looking about as bright as a dim flashlight bulb dying in the night. "He loves me," she repeated.
Apparently that was her end-all be-all answer to everything. "Great. Love conquers all, right?" When the robot nodded enthusiastically, Willow exhaled in disgust. "No it doesn't. It makes it wrong and messy." Seeing the unwavering defense of Spike on the robot's face, she sighed and rolled her eyes. Deep inside of her, there was a question swimming around, waiting for her to ask it.
Waiting to be acknowledged.
She cleared her throat and damned herself for being so curious. For wanting to know, and even more, for opening her mouth and actually asking. "How did you two, you know, get together the first time?" Did it matter? she asked herself, was it going to change anything? No. But it might satisfy a little of her curiosity.
The robot smiled widely--was there any other kind with her?--and dropped down to the bed. "Spike likes me to tell him about that too. I mean, you know, when we made love the first time," she clarified, sounding like she was imitating Willow's way of talking. "I was afraid he was using me. That he was going to kill me afterwards. But he didn't." She glanced sideways at Willow, looking sad all of a sudden. "You don't have my memories."
Willow skirted around the robot and sat on the other edge of the mattress with a shake of her head, trying not to think of what that bed had seen and heard and felt. Tried not to wonder about it either. Her hand lowered to the mattress, her thumb rubbing the fabric softly. "I don't have... no, I don't." Consciously raising her hands from the mattress, she set them in her lap and focused her attention on the robot.
Her sad look was still there, lamenting the fact that Willow didn't know the touch and feel of Spike. The taste and the smell of him, the way he-- okay, Willow, enough, she chastised herself. Concentrate on the robot. The icky sex-bot beside her. Okay, that helped.
Suddenly, that sad look fled, replaced by a look of extreme excitement. "Oh!" the bot chirped, holding the book up triumphantly. "I could do a spell to make you remember. There's one in here."
"A spell?" Willow choked out, hiding her laughter behind a cough or two. "Uh, no, really that's okay." She turned and gestured to her, smiling in a friendly manner. "Why don't you just tell me?"
The robot's face fell and her hands dropped to her lap. "I know my magick is unreliable and sketchy at best, and that it always goes wonky, but..." she looked at the book in her lap and shrugged. "I've been reading a lot."
Willow sighed, staring at the book as well. She knew the spell the robot wanted to do, and she also knew it wasn't that difficult a spell. And, more importantly, she was pretty damn positive that a robot couldn't do spells. So would it really hurt her to let the poor... thing have a go at it? "Okay," she agreed. "But, if it doesn't work, not on account of your skills or anything," she rushed to assure the robot before her face could fall completely into depression, "then you can just tell me and I'd be okay with that."
The robot grinned and jumped up, shoving the book at Willow. "I have ingredients for spells here--" she stopped suddenly, biting her lip with a sideways look. "Don't tell Spike, okay? He doesn't know I leave here, and... he'll be mad. So, could you not?"
Willow frowned, curious to know why the robot was sounding more and more human. She nodded, staying silent as she watched the robot cross to the rock beside the bed and lift the candle carefully before setting it aside with a small smile. "Spike likes the smell. He says it reminds him of me," she told Willow, having the grace to look embarrassed as she hefted the rock over on its side and lifted out a bag of herbs.
"Oh, look," Willow mumbled, wrapping her arms around her knees, "we've got herbs and not even the funny kind that gives ya the munchies." Resting her chin in one hand, she watched the robot prepare the spell, not paying much attention to the particulars. She wasn't too concerned that it would work. "Is that larkspur?" she asked idly as the robot pulled a few small purple flowers from a stem and dropped them into a pile on a flat part of the rock.
"Uh-huh," she mumbled, dropping something yellow--a dandelion?--into the mix. Her attention was solely on the spell she was mixing, going from that to the book beside her. Willow was pretty sure her lips even moved as she traced her finger across the page, reading it closely. She picked up the candle and looked around for a match. "I can't light it."
Willow pushed herself to her feet and joined the robot by the rock. Touching her fingertip to the wick, she mumbled, "Light." The candle lit, the flame flaring up a small bit, nothing like the previous candle she'd lit upstairs, but enough to work.
The robot stared raptly at the flame, her eyes widening. "You did that without using Latin," she whispered, biting her lip. "You are a demon."
Willow shook her head and sat cross-legged on the floor by the book. "Nope, flesh and blood-- uh, human flesh and blood. I just know a lot about magick."
"Oh," the robot said, frowning as she tried to find her place on the page of the book. She once again traced her finger down to the middle and picked up where she'd left off. "If you're human, and I'm human... are we sisters?"
Willow grinned and shook her head with a laugh. "No. No, we're not sisters. Just... two people who happen to look a lot like each other. Like doppelgängers."
"Doppelgängers. I don't know that word." Her eyes slid away from Willow's, staring at the wall as she accessed her data banks. "A person exactly like another; a double. A wraith, especially of a person not yet dead. Also doubleganger."
"Nope," Willow muttered, watching her, "you're not a robot. Uh-uh. No way, no how." Rolling her eyes, she shifted into a more comfortable position and stretched her neck, trying to work out the kinks still remaining. Mostly her back was healed, with a few twinges and some bruising, but she still got sore when she didn't stretch or work the muscles.
The robot--Willow refused to think of her as Willow--sprinkled a few more flowers onto the small pile and used her thumb to crush them, though... not an easy task since they weren't dried. Basically, she had a robot version of her with fresh flowers attempting to work a spell to mess with her memories.
Second thoughts were parading through her, making her hands sweat and her fingers twitch. "Um, maybe we shouldn't do this," she began, biting her lip nervously.
The robot didn't appear to hear her. She lifted the candle and dripped some wax onto the flowers. They sizzled and popped, and the smell of burning leaves wafted throughout the cavern. "Commemini," the robot whispered, closing her eyes as she reached a hand out to touch Willow's forehead.
Willow felt a burning sensation on her skin and then deeper, penetrating into her skull and then her brain. She jerked back, out of the robot's reach, wondering if this was the Wickanninish, if she was being burned from the inside out. Shoving herself to her feet, she closed her eyes, swaying a little. The pain started to subside, then flared back up, blinding her with the pain and the heat and the-- she screamed, holding her hands to her temples as she dropped to her knees on the cold dirt floor.
"What's wrong?" the robot asked anxiously, trying to pry Willow's hands free. "Oh no, I did it wrong, didn't I?" She dropped her hands as Willow opened her eyes and looked at her. Stepping back, the robot's lip began to tremble, her eyes filling with... something liquid-y. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "I should've known better." She stomped her foot, angry at herself. "I can never do magick right!"
Willow took a deep breath, followed by another, getting a handle on the pain, or trying to, but it wasn't cooperating. It burned a path in her mind, lighting fires along the way until her whole body felt like mush with a white hot heat fueling it, smelting her into a pile of goo.
Her eyes drifted shut as she slipped into unconsciousness and fell to the floor.
________________________________________________________________
Willow woke up with a headache the size of Canada. Something soft was underneath her. And it smelled good too, like Spike. Her eyes opened slowly, carefully moving so as not to irritate her grumpy head. Wherever she was, there was apparently a mirror across from her because-- no. That was a robot.
Willow-bot.
She stifled a giggle, wincing when her head sent up warning signals to cut out the funny business. Rolling onto her other side, she snuggled into the blankets, inhaling Spike's scent and the smell of burning flowers. Candle wax was in there too, along with vanilla. Smoothing her hand on the pillow beneath her head, she sighed and held herself still, not wanting to move. Not wanting to face reality just yet.
An image of Spike standing across a dark warehouse, pacing back and forth, muttering to himself angrily, came to her, startling her with its clarity and unfamiliarity. She kept her eyes closed, trying to remember when that had happened. He stopped suddenly, his eyes landing on her, his lips quirking up slowly, sexily.
He paced toward her, his movements slow and stalker-ish, leading him unerringly toward her. Her heart was beating frantically, her eyes widening as he approached, licking his lips slowly.
"Don't eat me," she whispered, feeling her lips move and hearing her voice speak, but not having any idea how she'd done that, since she hadn't intended to say anything. At least not anything as loaded as that.
"Oh," he grinned, sliding a hand down his chest absently, "I'll do that and more if you want."
Willow snapped her eyes open, but the images didn't go away. She was remembering, from the spell. Remembering things that hadn't happened, but were engraving themselves into her mind, making them her memories. As soon as she saw and heard and smelled something, it was a part of her. It was *her* memory.
"P-- please," she sobbed, cringing away from Spike as he stopped in front of her, caressing her with his gaze. Feeding a sensual need in her with his own want and desire. "I don't want to die." She dipped her head down, unable to drop her eyes as easily. They stayed fixed on the monster in front of her.
His eyes softened the smallest bit as he watched her cower from him. One hand lifted to cup her cheek, his thumb caressing her skin tenderly. "Love, I don't want to kill you." He leaned forward, pressing his lips to her forehead, and she somehow knew, as she sat there on the wooden crate with Spike touching her and sliding his lips down to her cheek, that this wasn't the first time he'd kissed her.
He'd done so just minutes earlier after she tried to run from him, barreling out the door with a speed she hadn't known she possessed. He caught her around the waist, his muscular arms halting her steps as quickly as a dog's leash. She screamed, kicking at him and trying to scratch him, anything to get away. He carried her back inside the warehouse and slammed the single door shut, cementing her off from the rest of the world.
And possibly life.
Willow moaned on the mattress on Spike's dirt floor, rolling over restlessly as more images came to mind.
Spike kissing her firmly as she tried her best to make herself invisible to his gaze, that hard, penetrating gaze that locked her in place. His lips pressed against hers, and she wasn't sure who was more startled. Her, or him.
He yanked back, staring at her as if she'd done something to him, then swept her into his arms, carrying her over to the wooden crate and setting her on top of it.
Muttering and pacing followed, and curses aimed at Drusilla and Angelus. She was sure she heard him call Angelus the great big poofy one, but she couldn't be sure. She felt a little like she could relate to him, what with Xander and Cordelia flaunting their repulsive relationship in front of her and everyone else at the Bronze. She ended up muttering to herself as well, and he stalked over to her, joining in, letting her know he'd seen them all lovey-dovey together, and that he understood how she felt.
"Isn't it awful," he'd asked her, sitting beside her on the crate, "that the one person you're most devoted to is the one who ends up ripping your heart out?"
She'd nodded a little hesitantly, then more enthusiastically as their rants got louder.
Suddenly, from out of the blue, she noticed that Spike's hand was on her thigh, rubbing her absently. He probably didn't even know he was doing it, but when she clammed up, he looked at her, frowning when he noticed where his hand was. They both stared at it as he went still. And then he slid it to her knee, squeezing lightly, his eyes on hers, judging her reaction to him.
Her reaction was mixed, equal parts desire and fear. So when he leaned toward her, turning her head with the fingers of his other hand and pressed his lips to hers, she'd inhaled slowly, fearfully, and waited. She wasn't sure what she wanted more, him to stop, or to continue, but when his lips moved over hers more fully, his tongue darting out to taste her, she knew she didn't want it to stop. Not for anything.
Willow, in Spike's cavern, gasped aloud as the two of them kissed frantically, using their hands to touch and caress, to slip inside clothing and unhook things. The mattress underneath her was too soft, nothing like the stone floor she'd had her first sexual experience on. It didn't smell anything like the duster beneath her that night. But the feelings inside of her, the desire and need, the growing anticipation of each of Spike's touches, and the taste of his kiss... all of that was there, awakening in her as if she was beneath him right now.
As if his hands were under her shirt, holding her hips still as he thrust into her with no care for her virginity. A strangled cry left her lips as she remembered the pain, felt it all over again.
Everything suddenly sped up and there was pain on the top of her left breast, like knives piercing her flesh, tearing her skin as she bled into Spike's mouth. The pain was almost too much, her desire was flagging and she was starting to realize what she was doing. And who she was doing it with.
He must've felt her stiffen, because he went still as well, moving only his lips and tongue on the wound, sucking her blood from her body. She was getting drowsy, feeling languid as he finally lifted his mouth from her, raising his head to look at her. He was human, there wasn't one bump or ridge showing, not one yellow eye piercing her with its feral-ness. His lips had trace amounts of blood on them, and it grossed her out, but his body was warm on top of hers, his hands, callused and rough, trailed along her arms, down her thighs, touching her in all the right places to get her aroused again.
She closed her eyes against the sight of his bloody lips, holding back her disgust when he licked them and kissed her. The disgust quickly fell by the wayside when there was no taste of blood on his lips.
A flash, and she was lying on his duster, watching him sleep. She took it all in, felt it all, every inch of Spike was explored while he slept, though he was unaware of her touches. She watched him sleep, ran her thumb over his lips before kissing him lightly, thanking him for helping her. He was drunk, passed out beside her. After she'd shoved him off of her that is.
Willow opened her eyes, thinking the memories over, but suddenly time sped up and she was in another warehouse with Spike, who was drunk again. There was a bed, and broken bottles being threatened to be shoved into her brain, but no tenderness, no remembrance on his part. Fear for herself was once again on the menu, and pain and death were sure to be the appetizers.
Spike surprised her, though, by leaving Xander at the school and taking only her. That was different. She had the full memory of Spike taking both her and Xander with him that night. But she also now had this newer memory. Just her and Spike and a big bed that she couldn't seem to stop staring at.
When he saw her gaze slide to the bed once again, he smirked her way, lifting an eyebrow at her. "You seem preoccupied with that bed, love." He leaned against the side of it, crossing his feet at the ankle and his arms over his chest, pretending to be thinking hard about something. He gasped dramatically, holding a hand to his mouth as his eyes lit up. "Oh, did you want to get down and naughty with the demon, pet?"
She shook her head frantically, denying the truth, denying the desire she felt for him just from seeing him again after so long. Even his voice was effecting her, making her shiver the tiniest bit, just enough for him to notice. She opened her mouth to tell him to go to hell, to get his jollies elsewhere, but that's not what came out. Not surprising, since it wasn't her actually in the memory.
She shrank back against the bench she was seated on, ducking her head as he moved up behind her. A familiar tingle went through her when he lifted her face with his fingers, forcing her to look at him. There wasn't any softening of his features this time, just a cold, detached appraisal of her face and body as he stood looking down at her.
"I-- I'll do the spell," she promised, shaking free of his grip on her chin, pulling back out of his reach. Her eyes lifted to his, and the Willow in Spike's crypt wanted to cheer for the bravery the other Willow was displaying in the face of such terror. "But I need..." she looked around surreptitiously, searching for an excuse to get him out of there, any excuse.
His hand touched her hair, stroking down the strands softly. He was close behind her, so close she could feel him, but he wasn't touching any part of her except her hair. He was too close for her comfort, caressing her hair with slow, methodical strokes. As quick as a wink, he was sitting beside her, leaning in to sniff her neck. When he pulled back, his eyes fastened on her chest as it rose and fell with her frantic breathing. "What do you need, pet?" The words, so simple, were filled with innuendo, and she knew he was aware of it. His hand, still on her hair, threaded into the strands, gently pulling her closer.
Now there was tenderness. He closed his eyes and inhaled again, sliding his hand to the back of her head, moving her toward him slowly, inexorably toward his kiss. She wanted it, needed it more than water, more than breath. Spike was all she was at that moment, the smell of alcohol and leather, cigarettes and man. Everything in that moment in time was drawing her toward Spike, and she was powerless to stop it, even had she wanted to.
Gasping out as his lips touched hers, she opened her mouth, welcoming his lips and tongue on hers, inviting him to touch her more, doing all but begging him to. His hands threaded more tightly into her hair, holding her head still as he kissed her. It was hard and punishing and she didn't mind a bit. In fact, she preferred it this way; it gave her an excuse. She was being forcefully seduced, and in that way she wasn't cheating on Oz, not like she was with Xander.
Hussy, her mind whispered to her.
Willow lifted her hands to her head, pressing them to her eyes, willing the pain of the memories to recede, to go away and leave her alone to die in peace. The robot beside her was softly smoothing the hair back from her forehead, but it wasn't helping. Nothing was helping except the pleasure from Spike's touch and his sighs against her cheek.
They were on fast forward again, quickly standing up and pressing into each other, trying to crawl inside each other's skin. Hands pulled and tugged at clothing, shedding more this time than before, and soon, she was standing naked by the bed while he finished undressing and stood up, looking at her. She could tell by the small smile on his lips that he liked what he saw, and the Willow going through the memories felt pride flow through her.
She knew she had a nice body. And knew she looked good back then as well. At the time, she hadn't a clue, but now, when she knew more and had seen more naked bodies... she knew what looked good. And both Oz and Tara had whispered beautiful things about her body. Even Spike had--
Her mind shoved thoughts of the Spike from now away, preferring to concentrate on the Spike of then. The one oblivious to the pain and hardship ahead for both of them. He took the two steps separating them and stood still, not touching her yet, just looking his fill. Caressing her body with his eyes again, just like before, and she wondered if he remembered. He hadn't mentioned it, or referred to it, nor was there a spark of recognition in his eyes. By all accounts, he was unaware that he'd slept with her once before.
She wasn't as shy as she used to be, nor was the girl in front of Spike, so she was happy when her hand raised and touched his chest. Her other hand joined the first, her nails scraping against the flesh of his pecs, which were hard and muscle-filled. His eyes followed her hands as they slid down to his stomach, and then rested on his hips, not daring to go any further.
His lips twitched in amusement when she bit her lip and swallowed, looking away as awkwardness overcame her. Just as her hands dropped from his hips, he settled his own hands over hers and moved them around behind his back. Depositing them there, he moved closer and raised his hands to her face, threading his fingers in her hair. She closed her eyes as his lips descended to hers, drawing her breath into his mouth.
Fast forward again, and they were on the bed. Spike was lying on his side, running one hand down her stomach, caressing her softly. The look on his face took her breath away. There was reverence in his eyes, and in the smile he couldn't seem to hide. And then she was beneath him, holding his hips tightly as he moved inside her. Willow felt the girl in the memory closing in on her orgasm, and was unprepared to feel it crash into her, full-force. She gasped loudly, throwing her head back as pleasure swarmed through her, washing over her skin and curling her insides into a sated mass of goo. Happy goo that wanted to rest, but the memories wouldn't let her.
She was off again on another one, this time in her dorm room. It was familiar and comforting. She knew this memory, knew what was going to happen. At least in the beginning. As soon as he was in the door, he closed it and turned around, sliding the lock home before facing her eagerly.
"Miss me, baby?" His words were followed by a sexy chuckle as he waited for her to run into his arms and commence to sexing him up. Whatever.
Good for her! She stayed right where she was, crossing her arms over her chest with an unimpressed look. "Was I supposed to?"
His smile slipped a little, but didn't disappear completely. "I missed you," he confided, shrugging out of his duster. He dropped it to the chair at her desk and sat on the edge of the bed, rubbing the back of his neck tiredly. "Dru never..." he sighed, sitting up straighter, shrugging off his melancholy mood. "Well. Doesn't matter, does it?"
Willow watched him warily, not quite sure if he remembered this time. Two encounters, two sexual experiences. She winced inwardly, remembering the awkwardness she'd felt around Oz. He'd sensed something different about her, and her hemming and hawing hadn't helped matters, especially since he'd broken up with her for a while senior year for believing she was cheating on him.
Lies. Lies, all lies. She'd saturated the gang with lie after lie, heaping more on top of the pile of crap she'd already thrown at them. Her... whatever it was with Spike just wasn't something she felt she could tell them about.
Oz had smelled someone on her that night, but since he'd never met Spike, he didn't know his scent and didn't make the connection.
Now Spike was back, wanting to... what? Sleep with her a third time just so he could forget about it again? Not likely.
Willow smiled in satisfaction when his eyes dropped to his hands, which were fidgeting in his lap.
"I thought there was..." he paused, frowning at her before abruptly standing up. "There's something between us, love. We did shag, didn't we? Last year?" His brows dipped down in uncertainty, his eyes leaving hers to land on the floor for a brief second. As quick as that, the smirk and swagger were back. Spike never was one for wasting a chance at macho bravado. "Quite right we did. Well and proper too." His smile widened, his self-confidence firmly back in place.
"It was a mistake," she told him, standing up to face him, to look him straight in the eye. "A mistake that won't be happening again."
He grabbed her hips, hauling her to him forcefully enough to take her breath from her. She immediately tried to free herself, but his hands were on her, touching and caressing, slipping under her blouse, holding her still for his kiss.
"Is that right?" he whispered against her lips. "Well, let's make another." He opened his mouth on hers hungrily, his lips devouring hers as she fought to stay firm in her resolve.
But it was no use. Just his voice alone got to her. Never mind his touch and his kiss.
She sighed, melting into him, closing her eyes on his smile of satisfaction. Her chest rose against his, her hands landing firmly on his waist. It was like she couldn't resist him.
Did she even want to? Uh, yes! Hello. No being used this time. She was made of much tougher stuff than that.
Willow tried to raise her hands to shove him away, but her younger self was apparently not made of tougher stuff than that. Crap. He continued to seduce her, working his charming way back into her heart and as he laid her down, pressing his body over hers, fitting perfectly into her embrace, while they were still fully clothed-- that's when she felt it. That's when she knew.
She was in love with Spike. Her heartbeat sped up, her breathing growing more erratic, and she pulled back to stare at him. Kept him from kissing her again, from dismissing this moment as anything other than a major revelation. She looked into his eyes, feeling every inch of his body on top of hers, feeling his exhalation on her cheek as he released a pent-up breath that he didn't even need.
Because of her. He was breathing because of her, and she just about burst with pride at having affected him so much.
She raised her hand to his cheek, memorizing this moment, trying to etch it in her mind, and the Willow in Spike's crypt was sure she'd done a damn good job on that front because she was feeling everything right along with them. Her hand felt the smooth skin of his cheek, felt his jaw clench when he swallowed in uncertainty, not sure why she was suddenly staring at him so intensely. She could smell his leather duster, and Buffy's perfume, but it was the overwhelming scent of Spike that surrounded her, drowning her. Small sounds out in the hall, distant and familiar, reached her ears, and the taste of him still graced her lips.
Licking them nervously, she took in a deep, steadying breath and opened her mouth to tell him that she loved him, but that's when Riley and his jerk-friends decided to close the building off. She looked frantically toward the door, hoping they didn't know Spike was here, that they wouldn't find him. She wanted to help Spike get away, but she could see the suspicion in his eyes as he pushed off of her.
He darted a look toward the door as well, then bored his eyes into hers as she stood up and moved quickly toward it.
"You have to g--" she started to warn him, but he cut her off, grabbing her arm and shoving her back on the bed.
"Keep your bloody mouth shut," he ground out, stalking toward the door, grabbing his duster on the way. "Don't you go screaming to let them know I'm here. Got that?" His eyes were so fierce and furious-looking. So hard and cold.
He thought she was going to give him away? She was trying to save him!
Before she had a chance to tell him the truth, the lights went out and he was out the door. Stupid jerk hadn't even stuck around long enough to let her explain. Her fear for him warred with the anger, and the fear easily won out. She was terrified.
Fast forward. He hadn't pushed her out the door in front of him, hadn't used her as a human shield; he jumped through the doorway, straight into her old memories. Nothing changed from that part on.
Willow, still on Spike's bed with a robot version of her ineffectually tending to her aches and pains, once again opened her eyes, hoping that was it, that the memories were over. What else could there be? But they weren't.
She was in Giles' apartment, standing in front of the bathroom door, working up her nerve to go inside and face Spike. There was a mug of blood in one hand and a straw in the other. She bit her lip and dropped the straw into the mug. Turning the handle, she pushed the door open with her shoulder.
Spike was watching in disinterest, not even batting an eye when she went inside and shut the door behind her. Although, when she turned to lock the door, his eyes widened minutely.
"'Bout time," he was griping, staring straight ahead as she neared him. "If you're trying to starve me, you're bloody well doing a good job." His left foot kicked at the edge of the tub, his whole body moving around a little, shifting as he tried to get more comfortable.
Willow knew how he felt: the younger version of little Miss Robot-Her wanted to shift and squirm too, but didn't because she thought it might look a little odd on her, being as she was standing up, and not chained. There was an air of awkwardness between them, and she was feeling extremely nervous.
She suspected he was too, or at least irritated. She knew he'd ignored her completely since showing up on Giles' doorstep the day before.
And then her feet were moving, taking her closer to him, and the anxiousness she felt was real as she imagined the conversation ahead. Poor Willow-bot had a hard job ahead of her. Telling Spike how she felt had to be nerve-wracking. But she knew it had to happen; it had happened. Just, not to her, to the other Willow.
She was getting confused about what was right, and what was wrong. What had happened, and what hadn't happened. Something said flitted through her mind and she wondered if it was something she'd heard or just attained as a new memory. Two Willows, and neither one actually there. Memories that weren't real, but were there nonetheless.
She wondered as she knelt beside the tub, playing her thumb along the rim of the mug, she wondered if telling Spike was going to help, or hinder. They ended up together, that much was obvious from the bot's side of things. But, again, it wasn't real.
She knew that the bot version of her thought it would help, that it would go a long way toward patching things up between her and Spike, but the reaction she'd get from him worried Willow. She felt the biting fear that he'd laugh at her, or be annoyed, maybe even smirk proudly and brush her off as an amusing pastime. She felt like her life was either about to end, or begin. All with a few words aimed at Spike.
Her eyes dropped to him, and she was surprised to find him watching her. Ah, not as impartial as he'd like Willow to think.
As she continued to stare at him, he turned the curiosity into an annoyed eye roll, then dropped his gaze to the mug of warm pig's blood.
"Swill," he muttered, keeping his eyes trained on it.
"I know," she agreed, tracing her thumb around the rim of the mug. Her thumb slipped from not paying attention and dipped into the sticky red liquid. She raised it to her mouth, sucking it off absently.
Willow groaned at the memory, gagging on the acrid taste of the pig's blood. "Ew," she mumbled, staring at the dirt ceiling above her.
The other Willow made a face and shuddered but pretended like it hadn't happened.
She stopped tracing her thumb along the rim of the yellow mug and swallowed a few times. "It's all we could get... and you're, you know, sort of not here to live high off the hog."
His eyes, once irritated, were now filled with something she liked seeing on him: desire. Because of blood? Ew. But then
he lost the desire and sneered at her.
"Did you practice that?" he said derisively, holding his shackled hands out for the mug. "Just give it here and go. I don't feel like company."
Willow rolled over onto her side as the robot continued to stroke her hair gently, whispering words of comfort to her. Spike was hurt, physically and emotionally. Because of her. He thought she'd wanted to give him up to the Initiative that night, and he didn't want to let her know how much it mattered to him.
But she could see it, in his hands fisted in his lap, and his angry glare.
Back on the mattress, Willow sighed and allowed the other Willow's feelings to flow through her, to encompass her. She wanted to reach out and touch him, to reassure him that she hadn't meant to hurt him. But she was still stuck inside robo-Willow's mind.
So she held the cup up, as if she had any choice, and started to put the straw near his lips.
And then she was moving quickly. She pulled the straw out of the cup and threw it in the trash by the sink as she talked, apologizing to him, telling him that she hadn't intended to give him up. She admitted to having feelings for him and ducked her head as she told him exactly how strong those feelings were.
Willow shifted on the bed, shaking her head as the dizzying images fast forwarded. She was really getting nauseous from all the sudden shifts in sight and sound. Spike was gritting out words, angry words aimed at her, and she thought she might be giving as good as she got, felt like she was. The words whispered through her mind, too fast to grab for the moment, but there for later when she wanted to remember them.
And then she was kissing him, making the first move for once. He was startled by her actions, and she knew he was chastising Willow for feeling pity for him. More angry words followed, the images zipping by so quickly now that she couldn't get a fix on any one thing. Still in the bathroom, but no longer was she on the floor beside him.
She was lying on top of Spike, kissing him hungrily, listening to his grunts of pleasure mixing with her sighs and moans. Slowing down again, the scene came to almost a complete stop then returned to normal speed. She was naked from the waist down, sitting on Spike, who was fully dressed still, but unzipped. His pants were undone, his belt buckle cutting into her thigh as she moved up and down on him.
Willow moaned on the mattress, feeling that spectacular pleasure soar through her, spiraling in all directions throughout her body. Spike's feet were beneath him, giving him leverage to arch into her, thrusting his hips up hard enough to make her gasp. His hands, still shackled, clunked loudly against the tub as he grabbed her thighs, his nails digging into her flesh.
Willow saw her hands on the edge of the white porcelain tub and focused on them as he slid in and out of her. She felt her fingers tightening on the cold tub as her body tightened on Spike. She was trying desperately to hold herself together long enough to give Spike pleasure, to show him that she loved him with her actions if not her words, to imprint her fingers on the surface of the tub.
"Come for me, baby," Spike ground out, thrusting deep inside her, holding himself there as he moved back a little, stimulating her clit. She did as he asked, exploding into a million pieces as he continued to move, thrusting harder and deeper than before, digging his fingers into her flesh.
She moaned as her body and her brain both came crashing down. Spike caught her, holding her as best he could with his shackled hands, kissing her as she shook, still shuddering against him.
"I love you," she told him, gazing into his eyes as she spoke. His body reacted to the words, his arms tightening around her, dragging the chains down her arms and scraping her thighs, but she didn't care. His body shuddered inside hers, his mouth capturing hers for a bruising kiss that answered her words.
At least she thought it did. She chose to believe so.
Willow closed her eyes and lay still, waiting for more memories to crash into her. They did, at an alarming rate, too fast to see, too quick to hear, but sealed in her mind as being real. As they continued to crash against her tired brain, her headache grew and her body aches intensified. When the pain became too much and she was beginning to pray for a coma, the memories and images slowed down, then came to a screeching halt.
She was lying half on top of Spike, half on his sarcophagus, drifting off to sleep as he caressed her hair. They were both naked, both sated. She closed her eyes, sighing as she let herself give in to the pull of sleep, but before she could completely let go, Spike kissed her shoulder softly.
"I love you." The words were as soft as the kiss, whispered against her sweat-slicked skin. The words were gentle, but the tone... oh, the tone was so sincere that she felt her heart tighten in her chest.
The other Willow, the one watching and listening, the one feeling and touching... she drew in a hitching breath and curled up on her side.
A soothing hand caressed her cheek, cool to the touch, but not the one person's hand she wanted touching her.
Spike should be here now, not tied up in the training room. He should be holding her as she hurt, soothing her aches and pains. Curing what ailed her.
Unconsciousness was beckoning and she heeded it, not seeing any other release for the pain and the influx of memories.
TITLE: Order Now (18/?)
AUTHOR: sinecure
RATED: R
DISCLAIMER: Joss and ME own BtVS, I don't, and the way these past seasons are going, I'm glad I don't.
DEDICATED: To Claudia who's been mega busy recently, but always finds time to beta for me and read all the new scenage I send her way, little though that's been of late.
PART 18
Willow cautiously approached Spike's crypt, not sure what she was going to find inside. It was still daylight and birds were chirping in the warm afternoon sunlight. Tree branches swayed to and fro above her and the crypt, alternately shadowing and lighting her way.
Her fear level wasn't too high up there since Spike hadn't warned her about anything that might hurt her and she didn't think he wanted her hurt. In his own way, she was sure he did care about her, just like she cared about him. Only a little less strongly. He loved wholly and completely; she knew that from listening to him cry on her shoulder about Drusilla, but she also knew that until recently, he hadn't even noticed her, so how could he love her?
Maybe he'd decided that since he couldn't have Buffy, he'd try his chances with her. The best friend of the woman he loved. Or, maybe she just needed to shut her thought processes off and go inside the crypt she was staring at.
The door was open a little, looking... if not inviting, then at least a little beckoning. She stretched her arm out and lightly pushed on the heavy metal door. It creaked loudly, the hinges screeching in an ear-piercing way as it swung open. Her eyes couldn't quite penetrate the darkness that greeted her, making her nerves jangle with expectation. What was inside? What was so all-fire important to Spike?
Drusilla.
That was the only answer that came to mind. If she was in here, he wouldn't want her found, or hurt. Then again, it was pretty darn logical that he would've warned her if that was the case.
So, taking a deep breath, she stepped up on the threshold and paused, listening for signs of life. Or animation at least. Nothing jumped out at her, no screams met her ears, and not even one bug flew at her. Good signs all. Her other foot joined the first one and she was inside the doorway, pausing, once again waiting and listening.
But there was nothing there except the sarcophagus where she'd seen Spike doing... stuff with a woman she hadn't even seen and probably didn't know. That minute jealousy she'd felt at hearing the other woman talking to Spike flared up into a full-fledged jealousy, raging free inside her.
There'd better not be a woman in here.
Striding confidently into Spike's crypt, she carefully inspected the interior, noting the blood staining the floor, and the lighter lines of concrete, scrapes on the floor caused by something being dragged. Spinning around in confusion, she shrugged to herself, wondering what on earth Spike was so antsy about. There was nothing here. A chair, a sarcophagus, a few half-burned candles... a completely bare square spot under her feet.
Looked like something had been there until recently. Kneeling down, she slid her finger through the dust surrounding the spot, eyeing the chair. The brown and off-white stripes on the old thing went all the way down to the floor in a sort of dust ruffle thing, hiding the legs. It was square.
Resting her hands on her thighs, she pushed herself to her feet and grabbed hold of the chair. It was odd because... it still smelled like him. Like cigarettes and alcohol and something indefinable that was uniquely Spike. Normally she wasn't a big ole fan of the smelling thing, but at times like these, with pain and hurt involved, she seemed to always find it comforting. When Oz left her, she'd slept in one of his old t-shirts, surrounded by the smell that was only his.
When Xander was gone for the summer, driving across the country, she'd kept one of his old stuffed animals in her room, hugging it to her when she missed him.
Spike's smell was nice too. All him. There was a dark musky scent that made her skin tingle and her fingertips itch to touch him. Her lower lip slid between her teeth, wanting to taste Spike.
Pushing the chair to its former spot, wincing at the loud scraping sound as it moved across the stone floor, she stared at the trapdoor she'd exposed.
"Aha," she mumbled, not making a move to open it. "Could be evil things in there. Could be cute little fluffy bunnies too. Either or."
One foot slipped forward, the toe of her shoe playing with the handle. The small metallic clinking had her glancing around to make sure no one was near enough to hear. The need to know pounded through her, making her pulse race and her hands sweat. Something was down there and she sure as hell needed to know what it was. This was one of those times in life. Walk away or continue down the road.
She had no other choice but to continue down the road, even if it held the heartbreak she expected it to hold. Silly, maybe, but the only thoughts that were spinning in her mind, crashing wildly against her skull were thoughts of another woman being down there. There was no fear of evil things and bodies piled against the walls like cordwood. No, her entire thought process was stuck in 'he has a girlfriend' mode and no matter how she tried to derail it, her darn brain wouldn't listen.
It didn't care if he had killed or tortured. It didn't care if people were suffering because he'd left them to die down there... all it cared about was quickly getting over the pain, just ripping that Band-aid off with one pull rather than prolonging the torment with small jerks.
So she knelt by the door, wrapped her hand around the cold handle and yanked the door off.
More darkness. Oh yay. What was it with... well, duh. Fire-issues. She grabbed a candle from the wall, wrapping her fingers around the stick of creamy wax to pull it free of the sconce it was in and touched the tip of her finger to the wick.
She couldn't remember the Latin word for light so she just whispered it in English. A small flame crackled and flared to life, startling her. She yanked it away from her face and took a deep breath, choking on the acrid smoke. Waving her hand in front of her face to clear the smoke away, she headed toward the trapdoor.
"Here goes nothing," she muttered, holding the candle over the hole.
There was a wooden ladder leading down about six feet, and a dusty dirt floor. She stuck her head down inside, trying to get a look around, but all she could see was the floor and walls that used to be earth. Now they were carved earth with coffins sticking out of them. Neat.
Her hand wrapped around the top of the ladder before she was even aware that she'd made the decision to go downstairs. The cool wood in her palm helped to ground her, to keep her from freaking out about going into a dark hole with possible unknown bad things inside.
Like in her dream. Funny how that kept happening.
Holding the candle in one hand, she stepped down on the first rung of the ladder and slowly descended into... hell?
If there was a woman here, and she was involved with Spike, then yes, this would be her hell. Her shoes clunked on each rung as she stepped down, her hands, slicked with sweat, nearly dropped the candle, and herself as well. She kept a tight grip and took the last step down, standing firmly on the dirt floor as she turned to get her first good look around.
The light cast shadows on the walls, making everything waver eerily back and forth. The yellow light extended all the way to the far side of the cavern, illuminating large rocks with candles placed on them. There was a mattress against the far wall with a mess of blankets and sheets on it. To her right, in the small alcove beside the ladder, was an old wooden table with a cardboard box on it.
No one was there. No woman, no man, no demon. No dead bodies either. Immense relief poured through her and she let her breath out in a rush.
Spike's bed was tempting her closer, drawing her in with a promise of his scent. But so too was the box.
Casting a quick glance around, she decided box first, bed second. Maybe this small cardboard box was what was so important to Spike. Her mood was lighter than before since... well, she was sure there wasn't a woman hiding inside the box, but she was still cautious as she moved toward the table. The lone box sat atop it on the far side, pushed to the back, but not completely out of the way. The flaps were tucked inside or torn off; it was hard to tell in this light. But the box itself looked rather worn, like it'd seen better days back in the 80's.
Her footsteps were soundless, but kicked up little clouds of dust because she was shuffling her feet. She couldn't help it. Being in a strange place while expecting strange things to pop out at her at any moment didn't lend itself to big movements and a careless attitude. She was the careful one, always had been, always... well, there was nothing wrong with being careful. Otherwise you could get dead.
She set the candle down on the table, laying it so the lit end hung off the edge, and then moved around it to grab the box. It slid across the dusty gritty surface with a loud scrape, making more noise than she had since entering his crypt. She held herself still, half expecting a screeching female vampire to come crashing into her, throwing her to the ground to rip her throat out.
No body flung itself at her, so she stood on tiptoes to peer into the box. It looked to be filled with pictures and--she dropped back down on her heels with a frown--a wig?
Spike was a cross-dresser? That's what had him so wigged about her coming over here? Well that was just stupid. Spike didn't-- uh-uh. He was way too into the manly leather thing. Although, maybe sometimes he liked to sit back and relax in a nice black teddy and a woman's wig.
She burst out laughing, imagining Spike sitting upstairs in his chair, smoking and drinking, wearing nothing but lingerie, high heels and a wig, one leg draped casually over the chair arm. It was too funny. And a bit intimidating.
Yanking the box closer, she reached in and pulled out the wig, staring at the red strands that spilled over her arm like water. It was her hair. Only, in a wig-way.
Maybe Spike wasn't in love with her; maybe he wanted to *be* her.
"Gah!" she yelled, throwing the offensive wig onto the tabletop. This was too creepy.
She heard rustling cloth behind her, but put it down to being freaked out and refrained from jumping and spinning with a scream. Being an accomplished wiccan with a death to her name and a whole heck of a lot of slaying, she had no reason to be a 'fraidy cat. So she composed herself and turned, staring in shock as the woman previously buried under the blankets sat up and blinked at her.
The woman tilted her head to the side as she pushed free of the blankets. Her face was blank, her eyes staring straight ahead. One hand reached behind her and unplugged something from the wall with a strong yank.
Willow's breath left her in a rush and she was unable to draw anymore in for a few seconds. "Oh my God," she muttered, feeling nauseous. Her stomach flipped and flopped and rolled itself around.
Her eyes widened as the woman, still silent, not even seeming to see her, sat up straighter, dropping the sheets to her lap, revealing a length of wires planted in the hatch in her stomach. Tiny blinking lights, alternating between red and green and numerous other colors lit the small area. She pulled the plug free of her stomach and closed the flap, dropping the cords to the dusty floor, pushing them out of sight.
As soon as she was done, her eyes lit up and her face came to life, her mouth opening in a parody of a yawn, too wide and too breathless to be real. "Spike--" she began, then halted as she finally caught sight of Willow standing across the room. Her forehead wrinkled and her brows dipped into a frown, her eyes showing her confusion.
Willow was right there with her. She opened her mouth to say something, but came up empty, unable to do anything but stare at herself staring at herself. Her own frown was deep and confused and probably matched the robot's. Oh God. Covering her mouth with her hand, she sank to her knees, taking in deep breaths of air and swallowing desperately, trying to keep from upchucking on Spike's dirt floor.
The robot version of her pushed her small black shirt down over her stomach and stood up. Thankfully she was fully clothed. There was a pair of faded black jeans on her, and-- hey, those were her clothes! How'd Spike get her clothes?
Oh, he was so in trouble!
Using the table to haul herself to her feet, she shoved away the sickness rising in her and concentrated on the robot.
"Who are you and what have you done with Spike?" the robot asked. Her voice was identical to Willow's, and oddly enough, had the same inflections. Her red hair, longer than Willow's, swayed back and forth as she came to a stop in front of Willow. She crossed her arms over her chest and glared, looking mighty angry and threatening.
"I..." Willow whispered, disappointed with herself when all she could get out was a single syllable. She swallowed and licked her lips, trying again. "I'm Willow." She stopped, and couldn't help asking, "Are you and Spike-- do you-- the two of you, do you, um...?" She couldn't say it, couldn't get it past stiff lips that were holding back curses of the magickal variety and cussing of the language variety.
What right did Spike have to do anything with... her? In any form or fashion, without her knowledge. She stared in disgust at the robot version of her. Spike was a sick, sick man.
The robot smiled at the mention of Spike and nodded eagerly. "We 'um' quite a lot." Her smile faded when Willow didn't return hers. She continued to examine her, even circling around slowly, tilting her head this way and that. "I'm confused. There are two of me." Her voice turned perky, another small smile raising her lips. "We're pretty." Seconds later, the smile faded and her eyes narrowed suspiciously. She stopped in front of Willow and raised her hand, almost as if to touch Willow's hair, before drawing back suddenly. "Are you a robot or a demon?"
Well, okay, hello. She hadn't just unplugged herself from a wall, so who of the two was actually a robot? Duh. Of course, maybe she didn't know that. Her face had been pretty blank while she pulled the plug from the wall.
How creepy was that?
Too creepy. Creepy enough that Willow was going to inform her of what she was and then shut her off and go have a nice long chat with Spike. The nausea had passed, but there was a knot in her stomach now, sinking further and further as she stood there. Spike had been... doing God knew what with that-- thing all the while he was hanging around her, trying to seduce her. Why?
The nausea was back, keeping up a steady feeling of ickiness. Crossing her arms over her chest, she stepped back, away from the possible danger standing in front of her. "You're a robot," she said quietly, "not me." She felt sorry for the poor little mechanical thingamabobber. She obviously had no clue she was running on batteries and sucking down motor oil. And that Spike was using her.
The robot shook her head with a slightly bemused look, scoffing lightly. "I am flesh and blood, not a..." she paused, staring past Willow at the box on the table and the wig splayed out like a scalped trophy. Her eyes focused slowly on Willow, her head tilting to the side curiously. "Spike once asked me if someone had altered my programming... does he believe I'm a robot? Have you seduced him and convinced him you're the real Willow?" Her eyes dropped to her hand as she clenched it into a fist.
She looked so devastated that Willow altered her plan to immediately tell her what she was.
And to make things worse, she was about to comfort Spike's disgusting sex-toy. Stepping closer, she hesitantly patted the bot on her shoulder a few times. "No. I didn't seduce him." Ha. More like he'd seduced her, and how.
Robot-Willow nodded slowly, lowering her fist to her side and straightening her fingers out. "Good, because I love him. Is he alright?" Her bright eyes peered into Willow's, her lips turning up in a friendly smile. "Do you know where he is? I miss him."
"Uh, I think he's at the Magic Box." Tied to a chair and possibly being abused by Buffy. No sharing that though. If Willow-bot was anything like April then she was strong, deadly strong. "He's helping with, um, there's some..." she thought frantically, wondering if Bot-Girl knew the dynamics of their friendship with Spike. "Languages. Needing deciphered. Yeah," she said importantly, "could be all night. Big demon in town."
"Ah, with Guy-les," the bot said wisely, nodding her head with a wide smile, making Willow snort with laughter. "He's my mentor and father-figure." She stepped up beside Willow, peering at the box with interest. "Those are Spike's. He likes to look at them sometimes."
Willow frowned, pulling out handfuls of pictures. They all contained one single element, one thing that tied them all together, and if she hadn't been freaked before, she certainly was now. "They're me," she whispered, looking at picture after picture of her, Buffy, and Xander, and still others with just her. She was posing for the camera in one with her hand on her hip and her other hand behind her head, grinning at Xander, who was behind the camera.
"No, they're me," Robot-Willow corrected, taking one of the pictures from her.
Willow stared at her for a second before returning to her task. Another one of the pictures was of her and Buffy, arms wrapped around each other. The photo was folded in half, creased down the middle so that Buffy was no longer beside her.
Had it started out the other way around? Had he folded her back originally, not Buffy?
Something small and tingly climbed down her spine, forcing a shudder from her. She tossed the pictures onto the table and yanked the box closer, grabbing the rest of the contents.
Her pink and lilac sweater was there, along with one of her hair scrunchies. She dropped them to the floor, staring at them in revulsion. This was sick. No. No, this was so far beyond sick. Spike was seriously ill. Stalker-ish. Again. Buffy wasn't enough? Now he had to stalk her too?
The robot shifted toward her, setting the picture in her hands on the table. "He loves me. He likes to look at me." She frowned in confusion, her brow wrinkling in a way that Willow knew all-too-well, she'd done it enough times herself. "Does he look at you too?"
Willow closed her eyes, fighting back the urge to scream and hit things. The magick inside her was, thankfully, not enough to do more than light a candle these days, otherwise it was possible that Buffy would walk into a training room filled with nothing but smoke and ashes where Spike used to be. "Yes. Yes, he looks at me. He--" seeing the hurt that crossed the robot's face, she took a deep breath and kept herself from mentioning the time they'd been spending together. Namely, the night before last. "He's shocked that I look so much like you. Says it's uncanny."
The robot smiled again, relief shining through that sunny look of hers. "Oh. Good."
Swallowing thickly, Willow paced away, careful not to kick up too much dust with each step. At the edge of the mattress, she spun around and asked the question that'd been on her mind since seeing the robot. "How long have you and Spike been..." oh, for God's sake, she thought to herself, you're old enough to say the damn words, so just say them. "How long have the two of you been fu-- in love?"
That smile on the robot grew exponentially, making Willow wonder if it could just keep going higher and higher, splitting her face in two, baring wires and framing for everyone to see as her head dropped back on her neck, bobbing back and forth, or whether it would eventually have to stop creeping up the sides of her face.
"Three years, two months and fifty-five days," creepy robot girl answered. "I knew I loved him the night he came to my dorm room." She paused, tilting her head again, observing Willow solemnly. "Do you have my memories? Are you a robot?"
"Yes, I do. I remember being terrified that night. I thought he was going to kill me. Or worse." Worse being turned into a vampire to hurt Buffy and possibly even kill her. That, more than anything, made her fear vampires. She didn't want to turn on her best friends. Ever. Hence the freaking out over the Ben-thing.
"He would never kill us," the bot chided, striding past her to the bed. She bent down, picking up a book to show Willow. "He loves us. See? He gave me presents; magick books!" Her proud smile left a lot to be desired in Willow.
She glanced over at the familiar book, recognizing it as one of the ones she'd given him a few days before for his 'friend'. "He doesn't love us," she mumbled, focusing her eyes on something, anything, that wasn't a part of this twisted situation. Something that wouldn't make her think about how much it hurt her to know that she would never be able to be with him again. Never. This just wasn't something she could look past and forgive. "He's using you." Settling her eyes on the one thing that brought to bear all that hurt she was trying to avoid, she crossed her arms over her chest and waited.
Waited for the artificial being in front of her to deny that she was being used.
The robot's sunny smile slipped a little as she shook her head in denial. "My blonde god would never use me," she told Willow angrily, her frown deepening.
"Your blonde god," Willow snorted, bursting into bitter gales of laughter. "Bet he loves that name. Look, uh, Willow... Spike is evil." When the robot only continued to stare back at her blankly, she rolled her eyes and clarified. "He's a vampire. He kills people. In fact," she said quietly, reminded of how she'd come to be there in the first place, "he killed two girls a few nights ago."
"I know," the robot said solemnly. "I told him to only kill bad people, and he said he would."
"That was your idea?" Willow said angrily, dropping her arms with a sigh. "Killing bad people doesn't make it okay. It's still killing, no matter what light you put on it."
Willow-bot smiled and nodded, looking about as bright as a dim flashlight bulb dying in the night. "He loves me," she repeated.
Apparently that was her end-all be-all answer to everything. "Great. Love conquers all, right?" When the robot nodded enthusiastically, Willow exhaled in disgust. "No it doesn't. It makes it wrong and messy." Seeing the unwavering defense of Spike on the robot's face, she sighed and rolled her eyes. Deep inside of her, there was a question swimming around, waiting for her to ask it.
Waiting to be acknowledged.
She cleared her throat and damned herself for being so curious. For wanting to know, and even more, for opening her mouth and actually asking. "How did you two, you know, get together the first time?" Did it matter? she asked herself, was it going to change anything? No. But it might satisfy a little of her curiosity.
The robot smiled widely--was there any other kind with her?--and dropped down to the bed. "Spike likes me to tell him about that too. I mean, you know, when we made love the first time," she clarified, sounding like she was imitating Willow's way of talking. "I was afraid he was using me. That he was going to kill me afterwards. But he didn't." She glanced sideways at Willow, looking sad all of a sudden. "You don't have my memories."
Willow skirted around the robot and sat on the other edge of the mattress with a shake of her head, trying not to think of what that bed had seen and heard and felt. Tried not to wonder about it either. Her hand lowered to the mattress, her thumb rubbing the fabric softly. "I don't have... no, I don't." Consciously raising her hands from the mattress, she set them in her lap and focused her attention on the robot.
Her sad look was still there, lamenting the fact that Willow didn't know the touch and feel of Spike. The taste and the smell of him, the way he-- okay, Willow, enough, she chastised herself. Concentrate on the robot. The icky sex-bot beside her. Okay, that helped.
Suddenly, that sad look fled, replaced by a look of extreme excitement. "Oh!" the bot chirped, holding the book up triumphantly. "I could do a spell to make you remember. There's one in here."
"A spell?" Willow choked out, hiding her laughter behind a cough or two. "Uh, no, really that's okay." She turned and gestured to her, smiling in a friendly manner. "Why don't you just tell me?"
The robot's face fell and her hands dropped to her lap. "I know my magick is unreliable and sketchy at best, and that it always goes wonky, but..." she looked at the book in her lap and shrugged. "I've been reading a lot."
Willow sighed, staring at the book as well. She knew the spell the robot wanted to do, and she also knew it wasn't that difficult a spell. And, more importantly, she was pretty damn positive that a robot couldn't do spells. So would it really hurt her to let the poor... thing have a go at it? "Okay," she agreed. "But, if it doesn't work, not on account of your skills or anything," she rushed to assure the robot before her face could fall completely into depression, "then you can just tell me and I'd be okay with that."
The robot grinned and jumped up, shoving the book at Willow. "I have ingredients for spells here--" she stopped suddenly, biting her lip with a sideways look. "Don't tell Spike, okay? He doesn't know I leave here, and... he'll be mad. So, could you not?"
Willow frowned, curious to know why the robot was sounding more and more human. She nodded, staying silent as she watched the robot cross to the rock beside the bed and lift the candle carefully before setting it aside with a small smile. "Spike likes the smell. He says it reminds him of me," she told Willow, having the grace to look embarrassed as she hefted the rock over on its side and lifted out a bag of herbs.
"Oh, look," Willow mumbled, wrapping her arms around her knees, "we've got herbs and not even the funny kind that gives ya the munchies." Resting her chin in one hand, she watched the robot prepare the spell, not paying much attention to the particulars. She wasn't too concerned that it would work. "Is that larkspur?" she asked idly as the robot pulled a few small purple flowers from a stem and dropped them into a pile on a flat part of the rock.
"Uh-huh," she mumbled, dropping something yellow--a dandelion?--into the mix. Her attention was solely on the spell she was mixing, going from that to the book beside her. Willow was pretty sure her lips even moved as she traced her finger across the page, reading it closely. She picked up the candle and looked around for a match. "I can't light it."
Willow pushed herself to her feet and joined the robot by the rock. Touching her fingertip to the wick, she mumbled, "Light." The candle lit, the flame flaring up a small bit, nothing like the previous candle she'd lit upstairs, but enough to work.
The robot stared raptly at the flame, her eyes widening. "You did that without using Latin," she whispered, biting her lip. "You are a demon."
Willow shook her head and sat cross-legged on the floor by the book. "Nope, flesh and blood-- uh, human flesh and blood. I just know a lot about magick."
"Oh," the robot said, frowning as she tried to find her place on the page of the book. She once again traced her finger down to the middle and picked up where she'd left off. "If you're human, and I'm human... are we sisters?"
Willow grinned and shook her head with a laugh. "No. No, we're not sisters. Just... two people who happen to look a lot like each other. Like doppelgängers."
"Doppelgängers. I don't know that word." Her eyes slid away from Willow's, staring at the wall as she accessed her data banks. "A person exactly like another; a double. A wraith, especially of a person not yet dead. Also doubleganger."
"Nope," Willow muttered, watching her, "you're not a robot. Uh-uh. No way, no how." Rolling her eyes, she shifted into a more comfortable position and stretched her neck, trying to work out the kinks still remaining. Mostly her back was healed, with a few twinges and some bruising, but she still got sore when she didn't stretch or work the muscles.
The robot--Willow refused to think of her as Willow--sprinkled a few more flowers onto the small pile and used her thumb to crush them, though... not an easy task since they weren't dried. Basically, she had a robot version of her with fresh flowers attempting to work a spell to mess with her memories.
Second thoughts were parading through her, making her hands sweat and her fingers twitch. "Um, maybe we shouldn't do this," she began, biting her lip nervously.
The robot didn't appear to hear her. She lifted the candle and dripped some wax onto the flowers. They sizzled and popped, and the smell of burning leaves wafted throughout the cavern. "Commemini," the robot whispered, closing her eyes as she reached a hand out to touch Willow's forehead.
Willow felt a burning sensation on her skin and then deeper, penetrating into her skull and then her brain. She jerked back, out of the robot's reach, wondering if this was the Wickanninish, if she was being burned from the inside out. Shoving herself to her feet, she closed her eyes, swaying a little. The pain started to subside, then flared back up, blinding her with the pain and the heat and the-- she screamed, holding her hands to her temples as she dropped to her knees on the cold dirt floor.
"What's wrong?" the robot asked anxiously, trying to pry Willow's hands free. "Oh no, I did it wrong, didn't I?" She dropped her hands as Willow opened her eyes and looked at her. Stepping back, the robot's lip began to tremble, her eyes filling with... something liquid-y. "I'm sorry," she whispered. "I should've known better." She stomped her foot, angry at herself. "I can never do magick right!"
Willow took a deep breath, followed by another, getting a handle on the pain, or trying to, but it wasn't cooperating. It burned a path in her mind, lighting fires along the way until her whole body felt like mush with a white hot heat fueling it, smelting her into a pile of goo.
Her eyes drifted shut as she slipped into unconsciousness and fell to the floor.
________________________________________________________________
Willow woke up with a headache the size of Canada. Something soft was underneath her. And it smelled good too, like Spike. Her eyes opened slowly, carefully moving so as not to irritate her grumpy head. Wherever she was, there was apparently a mirror across from her because-- no. That was a robot.
Willow-bot.
She stifled a giggle, wincing when her head sent up warning signals to cut out the funny business. Rolling onto her other side, she snuggled into the blankets, inhaling Spike's scent and the smell of burning flowers. Candle wax was in there too, along with vanilla. Smoothing her hand on the pillow beneath her head, she sighed and held herself still, not wanting to move. Not wanting to face reality just yet.
An image of Spike standing across a dark warehouse, pacing back and forth, muttering to himself angrily, came to her, startling her with its clarity and unfamiliarity. She kept her eyes closed, trying to remember when that had happened. He stopped suddenly, his eyes landing on her, his lips quirking up slowly, sexily.
He paced toward her, his movements slow and stalker-ish, leading him unerringly toward her. Her heart was beating frantically, her eyes widening as he approached, licking his lips slowly.
"Don't eat me," she whispered, feeling her lips move and hearing her voice speak, but not having any idea how she'd done that, since she hadn't intended to say anything. At least not anything as loaded as that.
"Oh," he grinned, sliding a hand down his chest absently, "I'll do that and more if you want."
Willow snapped her eyes open, but the images didn't go away. She was remembering, from the spell. Remembering things that hadn't happened, but were engraving themselves into her mind, making them her memories. As soon as she saw and heard and smelled something, it was a part of her. It was *her* memory.
"P-- please," she sobbed, cringing away from Spike as he stopped in front of her, caressing her with his gaze. Feeding a sensual need in her with his own want and desire. "I don't want to die." She dipped her head down, unable to drop her eyes as easily. They stayed fixed on the monster in front of her.
His eyes softened the smallest bit as he watched her cower from him. One hand lifted to cup her cheek, his thumb caressing her skin tenderly. "Love, I don't want to kill you." He leaned forward, pressing his lips to her forehead, and she somehow knew, as she sat there on the wooden crate with Spike touching her and sliding his lips down to her cheek, that this wasn't the first time he'd kissed her.
He'd done so just minutes earlier after she tried to run from him, barreling out the door with a speed she hadn't known she possessed. He caught her around the waist, his muscular arms halting her steps as quickly as a dog's leash. She screamed, kicking at him and trying to scratch him, anything to get away. He carried her back inside the warehouse and slammed the single door shut, cementing her off from the rest of the world.
And possibly life.
Willow moaned on the mattress on Spike's dirt floor, rolling over restlessly as more images came to mind.
Spike kissing her firmly as she tried her best to make herself invisible to his gaze, that hard, penetrating gaze that locked her in place. His lips pressed against hers, and she wasn't sure who was more startled. Her, or him.
He yanked back, staring at her as if she'd done something to him, then swept her into his arms, carrying her over to the wooden crate and setting her on top of it.
Muttering and pacing followed, and curses aimed at Drusilla and Angelus. She was sure she heard him call Angelus the great big poofy one, but she couldn't be sure. She felt a little like she could relate to him, what with Xander and Cordelia flaunting their repulsive relationship in front of her and everyone else at the Bronze. She ended up muttering to herself as well, and he stalked over to her, joining in, letting her know he'd seen them all lovey-dovey together, and that he understood how she felt.
"Isn't it awful," he'd asked her, sitting beside her on the crate, "that the one person you're most devoted to is the one who ends up ripping your heart out?"
She'd nodded a little hesitantly, then more enthusiastically as their rants got louder.
Suddenly, from out of the blue, she noticed that Spike's hand was on her thigh, rubbing her absently. He probably didn't even know he was doing it, but when she clammed up, he looked at her, frowning when he noticed where his hand was. They both stared at it as he went still. And then he slid it to her knee, squeezing lightly, his eyes on hers, judging her reaction to him.
Her reaction was mixed, equal parts desire and fear. So when he leaned toward her, turning her head with the fingers of his other hand and pressed his lips to hers, she'd inhaled slowly, fearfully, and waited. She wasn't sure what she wanted more, him to stop, or to continue, but when his lips moved over hers more fully, his tongue darting out to taste her, she knew she didn't want it to stop. Not for anything.
Willow, in Spike's cavern, gasped aloud as the two of them kissed frantically, using their hands to touch and caress, to slip inside clothing and unhook things. The mattress underneath her was too soft, nothing like the stone floor she'd had her first sexual experience on. It didn't smell anything like the duster beneath her that night. But the feelings inside of her, the desire and need, the growing anticipation of each of Spike's touches, and the taste of his kiss... all of that was there, awakening in her as if she was beneath him right now.
As if his hands were under her shirt, holding her hips still as he thrust into her with no care for her virginity. A strangled cry left her lips as she remembered the pain, felt it all over again.
Everything suddenly sped up and there was pain on the top of her left breast, like knives piercing her flesh, tearing her skin as she bled into Spike's mouth. The pain was almost too much, her desire was flagging and she was starting to realize what she was doing. And who she was doing it with.
He must've felt her stiffen, because he went still as well, moving only his lips and tongue on the wound, sucking her blood from her body. She was getting drowsy, feeling languid as he finally lifted his mouth from her, raising his head to look at her. He was human, there wasn't one bump or ridge showing, not one yellow eye piercing her with its feral-ness. His lips had trace amounts of blood on them, and it grossed her out, but his body was warm on top of hers, his hands, callused and rough, trailed along her arms, down her thighs, touching her in all the right places to get her aroused again.
She closed her eyes against the sight of his bloody lips, holding back her disgust when he licked them and kissed her. The disgust quickly fell by the wayside when there was no taste of blood on his lips.
A flash, and she was lying on his duster, watching him sleep. She took it all in, felt it all, every inch of Spike was explored while he slept, though he was unaware of her touches. She watched him sleep, ran her thumb over his lips before kissing him lightly, thanking him for helping her. He was drunk, passed out beside her. After she'd shoved him off of her that is.
Willow opened her eyes, thinking the memories over, but suddenly time sped up and she was in another warehouse with Spike, who was drunk again. There was a bed, and broken bottles being threatened to be shoved into her brain, but no tenderness, no remembrance on his part. Fear for herself was once again on the menu, and pain and death were sure to be the appetizers.
Spike surprised her, though, by leaving Xander at the school and taking only her. That was different. She had the full memory of Spike taking both her and Xander with him that night. But she also now had this newer memory. Just her and Spike and a big bed that she couldn't seem to stop staring at.
When he saw her gaze slide to the bed once again, he smirked her way, lifting an eyebrow at her. "You seem preoccupied with that bed, love." He leaned against the side of it, crossing his feet at the ankle and his arms over his chest, pretending to be thinking hard about something. He gasped dramatically, holding a hand to his mouth as his eyes lit up. "Oh, did you want to get down and naughty with the demon, pet?"
She shook her head frantically, denying the truth, denying the desire she felt for him just from seeing him again after so long. Even his voice was effecting her, making her shiver the tiniest bit, just enough for him to notice. She opened her mouth to tell him to go to hell, to get his jollies elsewhere, but that's not what came out. Not surprising, since it wasn't her actually in the memory.
She shrank back against the bench she was seated on, ducking her head as he moved up behind her. A familiar tingle went through her when he lifted her face with his fingers, forcing her to look at him. There wasn't any softening of his features this time, just a cold, detached appraisal of her face and body as he stood looking down at her.
"I-- I'll do the spell," she promised, shaking free of his grip on her chin, pulling back out of his reach. Her eyes lifted to his, and the Willow in Spike's crypt wanted to cheer for the bravery the other Willow was displaying in the face of such terror. "But I need..." she looked around surreptitiously, searching for an excuse to get him out of there, any excuse.
His hand touched her hair, stroking down the strands softly. He was close behind her, so close she could feel him, but he wasn't touching any part of her except her hair. He was too close for her comfort, caressing her hair with slow, methodical strokes. As quick as a wink, he was sitting beside her, leaning in to sniff her neck. When he pulled back, his eyes fastened on her chest as it rose and fell with her frantic breathing. "What do you need, pet?" The words, so simple, were filled with innuendo, and she knew he was aware of it. His hand, still on her hair, threaded into the strands, gently pulling her closer.
Now there was tenderness. He closed his eyes and inhaled again, sliding his hand to the back of her head, moving her toward him slowly, inexorably toward his kiss. She wanted it, needed it more than water, more than breath. Spike was all she was at that moment, the smell of alcohol and leather, cigarettes and man. Everything in that moment in time was drawing her toward Spike, and she was powerless to stop it, even had she wanted to.
Gasping out as his lips touched hers, she opened her mouth, welcoming his lips and tongue on hers, inviting him to touch her more, doing all but begging him to. His hands threaded more tightly into her hair, holding her head still as he kissed her. It was hard and punishing and she didn't mind a bit. In fact, she preferred it this way; it gave her an excuse. She was being forcefully seduced, and in that way she wasn't cheating on Oz, not like she was with Xander.
Hussy, her mind whispered to her.
Willow lifted her hands to her head, pressing them to her eyes, willing the pain of the memories to recede, to go away and leave her alone to die in peace. The robot beside her was softly smoothing the hair back from her forehead, but it wasn't helping. Nothing was helping except the pleasure from Spike's touch and his sighs against her cheek.
They were on fast forward again, quickly standing up and pressing into each other, trying to crawl inside each other's skin. Hands pulled and tugged at clothing, shedding more this time than before, and soon, she was standing naked by the bed while he finished undressing and stood up, looking at her. She could tell by the small smile on his lips that he liked what he saw, and the Willow going through the memories felt pride flow through her.
She knew she had a nice body. And knew she looked good back then as well. At the time, she hadn't a clue, but now, when she knew more and had seen more naked bodies... she knew what looked good. And both Oz and Tara had whispered beautiful things about her body. Even Spike had--
Her mind shoved thoughts of the Spike from now away, preferring to concentrate on the Spike of then. The one oblivious to the pain and hardship ahead for both of them. He took the two steps separating them and stood still, not touching her yet, just looking his fill. Caressing her body with his eyes again, just like before, and she wondered if he remembered. He hadn't mentioned it, or referred to it, nor was there a spark of recognition in his eyes. By all accounts, he was unaware that he'd slept with her once before.
She wasn't as shy as she used to be, nor was the girl in front of Spike, so she was happy when her hand raised and touched his chest. Her other hand joined the first, her nails scraping against the flesh of his pecs, which were hard and muscle-filled. His eyes followed her hands as they slid down to his stomach, and then rested on his hips, not daring to go any further.
His lips twitched in amusement when she bit her lip and swallowed, looking away as awkwardness overcame her. Just as her hands dropped from his hips, he settled his own hands over hers and moved them around behind his back. Depositing them there, he moved closer and raised his hands to her face, threading his fingers in her hair. She closed her eyes as his lips descended to hers, drawing her breath into his mouth.
Fast forward again, and they were on the bed. Spike was lying on his side, running one hand down her stomach, caressing her softly. The look on his face took her breath away. There was reverence in his eyes, and in the smile he couldn't seem to hide. And then she was beneath him, holding his hips tightly as he moved inside her. Willow felt the girl in the memory closing in on her orgasm, and was unprepared to feel it crash into her, full-force. She gasped loudly, throwing her head back as pleasure swarmed through her, washing over her skin and curling her insides into a sated mass of goo. Happy goo that wanted to rest, but the memories wouldn't let her.
She was off again on another one, this time in her dorm room. It was familiar and comforting. She knew this memory, knew what was going to happen. At least in the beginning. As soon as he was in the door, he closed it and turned around, sliding the lock home before facing her eagerly.
"Miss me, baby?" His words were followed by a sexy chuckle as he waited for her to run into his arms and commence to sexing him up. Whatever.
Good for her! She stayed right where she was, crossing her arms over her chest with an unimpressed look. "Was I supposed to?"
His smile slipped a little, but didn't disappear completely. "I missed you," he confided, shrugging out of his duster. He dropped it to the chair at her desk and sat on the edge of the bed, rubbing the back of his neck tiredly. "Dru never..." he sighed, sitting up straighter, shrugging off his melancholy mood. "Well. Doesn't matter, does it?"
Willow watched him warily, not quite sure if he remembered this time. Two encounters, two sexual experiences. She winced inwardly, remembering the awkwardness she'd felt around Oz. He'd sensed something different about her, and her hemming and hawing hadn't helped matters, especially since he'd broken up with her for a while senior year for believing she was cheating on him.
Lies. Lies, all lies. She'd saturated the gang with lie after lie, heaping more on top of the pile of crap she'd already thrown at them. Her... whatever it was with Spike just wasn't something she felt she could tell them about.
Oz had smelled someone on her that night, but since he'd never met Spike, he didn't know his scent and didn't make the connection.
Now Spike was back, wanting to... what? Sleep with her a third time just so he could forget about it again? Not likely.
Willow smiled in satisfaction when his eyes dropped to his hands, which were fidgeting in his lap.
"I thought there was..." he paused, frowning at her before abruptly standing up. "There's something between us, love. We did shag, didn't we? Last year?" His brows dipped down in uncertainty, his eyes leaving hers to land on the floor for a brief second. As quick as that, the smirk and swagger were back. Spike never was one for wasting a chance at macho bravado. "Quite right we did. Well and proper too." His smile widened, his self-confidence firmly back in place.
"It was a mistake," she told him, standing up to face him, to look him straight in the eye. "A mistake that won't be happening again."
He grabbed her hips, hauling her to him forcefully enough to take her breath from her. She immediately tried to free herself, but his hands were on her, touching and caressing, slipping under her blouse, holding her still for his kiss.
"Is that right?" he whispered against her lips. "Well, let's make another." He opened his mouth on hers hungrily, his lips devouring hers as she fought to stay firm in her resolve.
But it was no use. Just his voice alone got to her. Never mind his touch and his kiss.
She sighed, melting into him, closing her eyes on his smile of satisfaction. Her chest rose against his, her hands landing firmly on his waist. It was like she couldn't resist him.
Did she even want to? Uh, yes! Hello. No being used this time. She was made of much tougher stuff than that.
Willow tried to raise her hands to shove him away, but her younger self was apparently not made of tougher stuff than that. Crap. He continued to seduce her, working his charming way back into her heart and as he laid her down, pressing his body over hers, fitting perfectly into her embrace, while they were still fully clothed-- that's when she felt it. That's when she knew.
She was in love with Spike. Her heartbeat sped up, her breathing growing more erratic, and she pulled back to stare at him. Kept him from kissing her again, from dismissing this moment as anything other than a major revelation. She looked into his eyes, feeling every inch of his body on top of hers, feeling his exhalation on her cheek as he released a pent-up breath that he didn't even need.
Because of her. He was breathing because of her, and she just about burst with pride at having affected him so much.
She raised her hand to his cheek, memorizing this moment, trying to etch it in her mind, and the Willow in Spike's crypt was sure she'd done a damn good job on that front because she was feeling everything right along with them. Her hand felt the smooth skin of his cheek, felt his jaw clench when he swallowed in uncertainty, not sure why she was suddenly staring at him so intensely. She could smell his leather duster, and Buffy's perfume, but it was the overwhelming scent of Spike that surrounded her, drowning her. Small sounds out in the hall, distant and familiar, reached her ears, and the taste of him still graced her lips.
Licking them nervously, she took in a deep, steadying breath and opened her mouth to tell him that she loved him, but that's when Riley and his jerk-friends decided to close the building off. She looked frantically toward the door, hoping they didn't know Spike was here, that they wouldn't find him. She wanted to help Spike get away, but she could see the suspicion in his eyes as he pushed off of her.
He darted a look toward the door as well, then bored his eyes into hers as she stood up and moved quickly toward it.
"You have to g--" she started to warn him, but he cut her off, grabbing her arm and shoving her back on the bed.
"Keep your bloody mouth shut," he ground out, stalking toward the door, grabbing his duster on the way. "Don't you go screaming to let them know I'm here. Got that?" His eyes were so fierce and furious-looking. So hard and cold.
He thought she was going to give him away? She was trying to save him!
Before she had a chance to tell him the truth, the lights went out and he was out the door. Stupid jerk hadn't even stuck around long enough to let her explain. Her fear for him warred with the anger, and the fear easily won out. She was terrified.
Fast forward. He hadn't pushed her out the door in front of him, hadn't used her as a human shield; he jumped through the doorway, straight into her old memories. Nothing changed from that part on.
Willow, still on Spike's bed with a robot version of her ineffectually tending to her aches and pains, once again opened her eyes, hoping that was it, that the memories were over. What else could there be? But they weren't.
She was in Giles' apartment, standing in front of the bathroom door, working up her nerve to go inside and face Spike. There was a mug of blood in one hand and a straw in the other. She bit her lip and dropped the straw into the mug. Turning the handle, she pushed the door open with her shoulder.
Spike was watching in disinterest, not even batting an eye when she went inside and shut the door behind her. Although, when she turned to lock the door, his eyes widened minutely.
"'Bout time," he was griping, staring straight ahead as she neared him. "If you're trying to starve me, you're bloody well doing a good job." His left foot kicked at the edge of the tub, his whole body moving around a little, shifting as he tried to get more comfortable.
Willow knew how he felt: the younger version of little Miss Robot-Her wanted to shift and squirm too, but didn't because she thought it might look a little odd on her, being as she was standing up, and not chained. There was an air of awkwardness between them, and she was feeling extremely nervous.
She suspected he was too, or at least irritated. She knew he'd ignored her completely since showing up on Giles' doorstep the day before.
And then her feet were moving, taking her closer to him, and the anxiousness she felt was real as she imagined the conversation ahead. Poor Willow-bot had a hard job ahead of her. Telling Spike how she felt had to be nerve-wracking. But she knew it had to happen; it had happened. Just, not to her, to the other Willow.
She was getting confused about what was right, and what was wrong. What had happened, and what hadn't happened. Something said flitted through her mind and she wondered if it was something she'd heard or just attained as a new memory. Two Willows, and neither one actually there. Memories that weren't real, but were there nonetheless.
She wondered as she knelt beside the tub, playing her thumb along the rim of the mug, she wondered if telling Spike was going to help, or hinder. They ended up together, that much was obvious from the bot's side of things. But, again, it wasn't real.
She knew that the bot version of her thought it would help, that it would go a long way toward patching things up between her and Spike, but the reaction she'd get from him worried Willow. She felt the biting fear that he'd laugh at her, or be annoyed, maybe even smirk proudly and brush her off as an amusing pastime. She felt like her life was either about to end, or begin. All with a few words aimed at Spike.
Her eyes dropped to him, and she was surprised to find him watching her. Ah, not as impartial as he'd like Willow to think.
As she continued to stare at him, he turned the curiosity into an annoyed eye roll, then dropped his gaze to the mug of warm pig's blood.
"Swill," he muttered, keeping his eyes trained on it.
"I know," she agreed, tracing her thumb around the rim of the mug. Her thumb slipped from not paying attention and dipped into the sticky red liquid. She raised it to her mouth, sucking it off absently.
Willow groaned at the memory, gagging on the acrid taste of the pig's blood. "Ew," she mumbled, staring at the dirt ceiling above her.
The other Willow made a face and shuddered but pretended like it hadn't happened.
She stopped tracing her thumb along the rim of the yellow mug and swallowed a few times. "It's all we could get... and you're, you know, sort of not here to live high off the hog."
His eyes, once irritated, were now filled with something she liked seeing on him: desire. Because of blood? Ew. But then
he lost the desire and sneered at her.
"Did you practice that?" he said derisively, holding his shackled hands out for the mug. "Just give it here and go. I don't feel like company."
Willow rolled over onto her side as the robot continued to stroke her hair gently, whispering words of comfort to her. Spike was hurt, physically and emotionally. Because of her. He thought she'd wanted to give him up to the Initiative that night, and he didn't want to let her know how much it mattered to him.
But she could see it, in his hands fisted in his lap, and his angry glare.
Back on the mattress, Willow sighed and allowed the other Willow's feelings to flow through her, to encompass her. She wanted to reach out and touch him, to reassure him that she hadn't meant to hurt him. But she was still stuck inside robo-Willow's mind.
So she held the cup up, as if she had any choice, and started to put the straw near his lips.
And then she was moving quickly. She pulled the straw out of the cup and threw it in the trash by the sink as she talked, apologizing to him, telling him that she hadn't intended to give him up. She admitted to having feelings for him and ducked her head as she told him exactly how strong those feelings were.
Willow shifted on the bed, shaking her head as the dizzying images fast forwarded. She was really getting nauseous from all the sudden shifts in sight and sound. Spike was gritting out words, angry words aimed at her, and she thought she might be giving as good as she got, felt like she was. The words whispered through her mind, too fast to grab for the moment, but there for later when she wanted to remember them.
And then she was kissing him, making the first move for once. He was startled by her actions, and she knew he was chastising Willow for feeling pity for him. More angry words followed, the images zipping by so quickly now that she couldn't get a fix on any one thing. Still in the bathroom, but no longer was she on the floor beside him.
She was lying on top of Spike, kissing him hungrily, listening to his grunts of pleasure mixing with her sighs and moans. Slowing down again, the scene came to almost a complete stop then returned to normal speed. She was naked from the waist down, sitting on Spike, who was fully dressed still, but unzipped. His pants were undone, his belt buckle cutting into her thigh as she moved up and down on him.
Willow moaned on the mattress, feeling that spectacular pleasure soar through her, spiraling in all directions throughout her body. Spike's feet were beneath him, giving him leverage to arch into her, thrusting his hips up hard enough to make her gasp. His hands, still shackled, clunked loudly against the tub as he grabbed her thighs, his nails digging into her flesh.
Willow saw her hands on the edge of the white porcelain tub and focused on them as he slid in and out of her. She felt her fingers tightening on the cold tub as her body tightened on Spike. She was trying desperately to hold herself together long enough to give Spike pleasure, to show him that she loved him with her actions if not her words, to imprint her fingers on the surface of the tub.
"Come for me, baby," Spike ground out, thrusting deep inside her, holding himself there as he moved back a little, stimulating her clit. She did as he asked, exploding into a million pieces as he continued to move, thrusting harder and deeper than before, digging his fingers into her flesh.
She moaned as her body and her brain both came crashing down. Spike caught her, holding her as best he could with his shackled hands, kissing her as she shook, still shuddering against him.
"I love you," she told him, gazing into his eyes as she spoke. His body reacted to the words, his arms tightening around her, dragging the chains down her arms and scraping her thighs, but she didn't care. His body shuddered inside hers, his mouth capturing hers for a bruising kiss that answered her words.
At least she thought it did. She chose to believe so.
Willow closed her eyes and lay still, waiting for more memories to crash into her. They did, at an alarming rate, too fast to see, too quick to hear, but sealed in her mind as being real. As they continued to crash against her tired brain, her headache grew and her body aches intensified. When the pain became too much and she was beginning to pray for a coma, the memories and images slowed down, then came to a screeching halt.
She was lying half on top of Spike, half on his sarcophagus, drifting off to sleep as he caressed her hair. They were both naked, both sated. She closed her eyes, sighing as she let herself give in to the pull of sleep, but before she could completely let go, Spike kissed her shoulder softly.
"I love you." The words were as soft as the kiss, whispered against her sweat-slicked skin. The words were gentle, but the tone... oh, the tone was so sincere that she felt her heart tighten in her chest.
The other Willow, the one watching and listening, the one feeling and touching... she drew in a hitching breath and curled up on her side.
A soothing hand caressed her cheek, cool to the touch, but not the one person's hand she wanted touching her.
Spike should be here now, not tied up in the training room. He should be holding her as she hurt, soothing her aches and pains. Curing what ailed her.
Unconsciousness was beckoning and she heeded it, not seeing any other release for the pain and the influx of memories.