Title: Good Intention: Ground Rules
Author: Ash
E-Mail: aka_jay66@hotmail.com
Disclaimer: I don't own these characters, no matter how much I might want to, and someday I'll learn to accept that.
Feedback: Would be appreciated.
Summary: Set in the time when Angelus roamed free and Willow still babbled.
When Willow tries to help Buffy feel safe, she has the best of intentions. That should have been a warning sign right there.
Dedication: To Princess Incognito and Lady Dark Star, who are both far more creative than I am. Seriously. It's embarrassing. *g*
Part Twelve
Willow lowered her head to hide her eyes from Angelus.
"I'm yours," she said to the floor, and thought about killing him.
Willow was shaking, couldn't seem to help it, and there was a sick shamed feeling in her stomach. She wasn't supposed to have to admit that he had power over her; she knew that. She was supposed to tilt her head up proudly and say something clever and wait for Buffy to come in and save her.
But Buffy wasn't coming, and wouldn't kill Angelus even if she did, and Willow was afraid.
It was humiliating.
But now she was thinking, as she stared at the floor, that maybe this was worse than fear, because saying it out loud made it all seem so much more real, so much more permanent. Like something that could be forever.
Still, she thought, trying to cheer herself up, it could have been worse. There could have been other people here to hear me say that, like there was - memory flash of vampires watching her, in the dark, with Angelus' hands on her and her hands in his hair - yeah, she was going to stop thinking about that right now.
A pair of black shoes entered Willow's field of vision, and then a hand had hold of her chin, the feel of skin on skin an unpleasant shock, and he was forcing her head up, fingers grinding against her jawbone when she tried to pull away. Stubbornly, she lowered her eyelids as he raised her head and kept her eyes on the floor.
And of course, because nothing worked against him, this left her with her face held firmly in her hands and the feel of his eyes on her face somehow so much more frightening because she couldn't see him, her downcast eyes making her feel somehow vulnerable. Submissive, she thought.
Angelus' chuckle broke the muffled silence in the room. "Hardly," he said.
Damn, damn, *damn*, Willow though. The mumbling. She was still doing it. Unless...
"Hardly yours?" Willow said hopefully, darting a quick glance up at him. She got a brief impression of amusement sliding into anger before she looked away. He tightened his grip on her face, fingers digging painfully into her skin.
"It's a little late to be coy," Angelus said, and he sounded so friendly and he was *hurting her*.
Willow opened her mouth to speak and choked on a sudden gasp of pain, a small hurt sound that brought the smile back to Angelus' face.
"You know that you're mine, pretty girl," Angelus continued calmly. "Don't you."
Nod, nod, nod went Willow's head and she kept nodding, because Angelus' hands wouldn't let her stop. She could barely see his face, her world was blurring, and she didn't remember bringing her hands up but they were there, trying uselessly to pull his hands away.
"Mine," Angelus said, and Willow's head nodded emphatically. "And now every important vampire in Sunnydale knows it."
That was a different kind of pain, that memory a sharp twist in Willow's chest, and she tried to stop her head from nodding but couldn't.
Angelus stopped it for her, abruptly back in focus, abruptly closer as he dragged her forward until her chin was almost on his chest. "You *should* be thanking me," he said in a put-upon tone.
You *must* be kidding me, Willow thought.
Angelus released her face, one short second of freedom, not enough time to run, before his hand had resettled in her hair, twisting a handful of it to force her face to stay tilted up to his. It was an awkward angle, and Willow was going to have a major crick in her neck in a few minutes, but at least she could talk again. She could talk her way out of this.
"Are you kidding?" she said incredulously, unable to stop herself. "I should thank you? For what?"
Humiliating me, drinking my blood... Oh yeah, she thought. Thanks muchly. There's a reason that Hallmark doesn't make cards for this kind of thing, you know.
Angelus' mouth twitched.
Damn it, Willow thought.
"You know," Angelus said reflectively, "there's a fine line between innocence and stupidity. Which side of the line are you on, Willow?"
Willow narrowed her eyes. She didn't like where this was going.
"Let's think about this, shall we?" Angelus said, and his voice was as condescending as Cordelia on her best day. "Where did all those vampires out there come from, do you think?"
"I-" Willow said, and stopped.
Angelus' smile was an unpleasant shock. "Good girl," he said softly, "A- for effort. All the vampires that were in here were out there before I got here. All for you, darling. All wanting to take you, *waiting* to take you. Doesn't that make you feel special?"
Willow wanted to die. They had been out there, watching her? She was trying to remember what she'd been doing. Had they seen her looking at Xander? At Oz? Had they - oh no, had they seen her trying to dance?
And none of that mattered, because they wouldn't have cared about any of that, they would have killed her without even bothering to ask if she hand any kind of spell on her and yes, the laugh would have been on them, but she wouldn't really have been in any position to enjoy it.
Stupid. He was right. She was stupid.
" If I hadn't come to find you, to protect you, Willow, you would have died," Angelus continued remorselessly. His voice gentled, and he added, "Isn't it better to be mine?"
Stupid, Willow thought. How could she - what had she been - stupid, oh, what was wrong with her? She only dimly realized that she was trembling.
She could see what almost had happened, every grisly way she could have died, almost feel the pain at throat and wrists and hear herself begging, and when arms enfolded her she let them pull her close and she buried her face in his shirt.
"It's all right now," Angelus said from somewhere above her, and Willow was holding on to him now, her arms wrapping around his back as she pushed her face hard against his chest, mumbling incoherent angry words into the cloth.
Stupid, she thought savagely. And she couldn't even tell anyone, couldn't ask Buffy for forgiveness, couldn't ask Xander to give her his extra cookie at lunch tomorrow, she was all alone.
"It's all *right*!" Angelus repeated, sounding slightly confused and irritated by her reaction. "They know who you belong to now. They'll leave you alone."
Willow reluctantly pulled her head back and looked up at him. He was the one causing all her problems, she reminded herself. Therefore, he's really not the one to be crying on. Not unless he was wearing a silk shirt, of course, because then it would be water-stained and hah, that would show him. Wait -
"Is that why you did it?" Willow said hesitantly, "You know, all of... that?" She waved her hands in a nebulous gesture meant to symbolize everything that had happened in the room.
Angelus looked down at her, and his mouth twisted. "Yes," he said.
Thank God, Willow thought, and felt like smiling for the first time in hours. Because she could live with the biting, but the rest... yikes.
"But..." Angelus said slowly.
'But'? Willow thought. No but! That was a good answer!
"That isn't to say it won't happen again," Angelus finished smoothly, and Willow suddenly realized that his hands on her back, which had been comforting, had begun a slow stroking motion. Up. Down. Up.
Yipes!
Willow pushed hard against Angelus' chest and managed to lever herself all of two inches away from him, which would have been more encouraging if the smirk on Angelus' face hadn't made it clear that he was letting her to do it.
"But... blood!" Willow said hopefully.
She couldn't believe that she was trying to talk him into biting her. Again. Oh, this was a banner day for Willow's self-esteem.
"Yes," Angelus said, the word low and disturbing. His fingers lingered over the pulsing vein in her neck. "Your blood makes you mine." The cool weight of his fingers was on her face now, leaving a trail of ice where they traced over the bone. "But the rest of you belongs to me too. Which means that..." His smile was pure devilment. "I can do whatever I want with it."
There didn't seem to be anything to be said to that. The only things that Willow could think of to say were either:
Hey! I don't belong to you! And I'm not an it! - Which is pretty much suicide, she thought.
Or:
But... why would you want me? - Which sounds like I'm begging for compliments.
So she didn't say anything.
In retrospect, that wasn't the best move either.
She had about a second to regret it, and then Angelus pulled her close and her mind went blank. Angelus' lips were cool, soft, and frighteningly gentle when he brushed them against her eyelids, her cheeks, so gentle that she wanted to cry because it was all a lie and reality was sharp and painful.
But then his mouth was on hers, still gentle, soft and coaxing as his tongue traced the closed frightened line of her lips, and it was so hard to remember that it wasn't real when there was something bright and complicated twisting itself up in her stomach and she opened her mouth under his and felt rather than heard the satisfied hum he made, and forgot it entirely when his hands slid around to her hips and pulled them hard against him.
She was making noises again, small desperate noises that sounded like they must have been coming from someone else, and they blended into the sound of his voice when he spoke softly, encouragingly, against her skin and told her what a good girl she was, how well she was doing, such a good girl, and Willow felt drugged and distant when he silenced himself again on her mouth and she closed her eyes and forgot who she was.
Angelus drew away first and dropped his hands and stepped away. And left Willow standing alone and suddenly bereft.
Willow looked at him with dazed eyes, feeling forgetfulness drop away like a shroud and remembering that this was wrong, all of it, completely wrong, and she took in the unruffled calm of his expression and the faintly amused smile on his face as he watched her struggle back to memory. At that moment, her emotions were uncomplicated: hate.
Hate for him knowing just how to get to her, for making her not fight him, for making her feel things that made her ill to think of now, with him looking at her like that, Angelus, darkness and pain and evil and calm, unstirred by an experience that had shattered her, was still shattering her.
One more second of that awful calm watching and she still couldn't speak, and Angelus took her by the arm and pulled her to the door and opened it.
"Tomorrow, Willow. Be home," he said, his fingers dropping away from her arm. "Now go find your friends and let them know that you're fine."
Is that what I am, Willow thought numbly. Fine?
She stepped out and the door closed behind her, melting invisibly back into the wall of the Bronze. Willow turned to walk away and nearly bumped into Buffy.
"Willow!" Buffy said with an uncomplicated smile. "There you are! Where'd you go? Are you okay?"
"I'm fine," Willow said softly, and wondered when it became so easy to lie.
____
End Part Twelve
Tell me what you think?
Sorry for the long delay there. I was distracted by other shiny objects like Harry Potter fic and drawing and illness and, yeah, as excuses go, these aren't good ones. *hangs head*
Still, fic! That's never a bad thing, eh? And it's another Angelus-heavy part, which is always fun for me to write and hopefully fun for you guys to read. (If not, well, there's not much I can do. I doubt he'd let me write him out of the fic at this point.)
Argh. Must run. Sleepy. As always, comments make me bounce. *g* All reviews from the last chapter, which did indeed make me bounce tremendously and also make a high-pitched happy noise, will be replied to tomorrow.
Ash
xanadu-dreams.com
www.livejournal.com/users/ashjay
Author: Ash
E-Mail: aka_jay66@hotmail.com
Disclaimer: I don't own these characters, no matter how much I might want to, and someday I'll learn to accept that.
Feedback: Would be appreciated.
Summary: Set in the time when Angelus roamed free and Willow still babbled.
When Willow tries to help Buffy feel safe, she has the best of intentions. That should have been a warning sign right there.
Dedication: To Princess Incognito and Lady Dark Star, who are both far more creative than I am. Seriously. It's embarrassing. *g*
Part Twelve
Willow lowered her head to hide her eyes from Angelus.
"I'm yours," she said to the floor, and thought about killing him.
Willow was shaking, couldn't seem to help it, and there was a sick shamed feeling in her stomach. She wasn't supposed to have to admit that he had power over her; she knew that. She was supposed to tilt her head up proudly and say something clever and wait for Buffy to come in and save her.
But Buffy wasn't coming, and wouldn't kill Angelus even if she did, and Willow was afraid.
It was humiliating.
But now she was thinking, as she stared at the floor, that maybe this was worse than fear, because saying it out loud made it all seem so much more real, so much more permanent. Like something that could be forever.
Still, she thought, trying to cheer herself up, it could have been worse. There could have been other people here to hear me say that, like there was - memory flash of vampires watching her, in the dark, with Angelus' hands on her and her hands in his hair - yeah, she was going to stop thinking about that right now.
A pair of black shoes entered Willow's field of vision, and then a hand had hold of her chin, the feel of skin on skin an unpleasant shock, and he was forcing her head up, fingers grinding against her jawbone when she tried to pull away. Stubbornly, she lowered her eyelids as he raised her head and kept her eyes on the floor.
And of course, because nothing worked against him, this left her with her face held firmly in her hands and the feel of his eyes on her face somehow so much more frightening because she couldn't see him, her downcast eyes making her feel somehow vulnerable. Submissive, she thought.
Angelus' chuckle broke the muffled silence in the room. "Hardly," he said.
Damn, damn, *damn*, Willow though. The mumbling. She was still doing it. Unless...
"Hardly yours?" Willow said hopefully, darting a quick glance up at him. She got a brief impression of amusement sliding into anger before she looked away. He tightened his grip on her face, fingers digging painfully into her skin.
"It's a little late to be coy," Angelus said, and he sounded so friendly and he was *hurting her*.
Willow opened her mouth to speak and choked on a sudden gasp of pain, a small hurt sound that brought the smile back to Angelus' face.
"You know that you're mine, pretty girl," Angelus continued calmly. "Don't you."
Nod, nod, nod went Willow's head and she kept nodding, because Angelus' hands wouldn't let her stop. She could barely see his face, her world was blurring, and she didn't remember bringing her hands up but they were there, trying uselessly to pull his hands away.
"Mine," Angelus said, and Willow's head nodded emphatically. "And now every important vampire in Sunnydale knows it."
That was a different kind of pain, that memory a sharp twist in Willow's chest, and she tried to stop her head from nodding but couldn't.
Angelus stopped it for her, abruptly back in focus, abruptly closer as he dragged her forward until her chin was almost on his chest. "You *should* be thanking me," he said in a put-upon tone.
You *must* be kidding me, Willow thought.
Angelus released her face, one short second of freedom, not enough time to run, before his hand had resettled in her hair, twisting a handful of it to force her face to stay tilted up to his. It was an awkward angle, and Willow was going to have a major crick in her neck in a few minutes, but at least she could talk again. She could talk her way out of this.
"Are you kidding?" she said incredulously, unable to stop herself. "I should thank you? For what?"
Humiliating me, drinking my blood... Oh yeah, she thought. Thanks muchly. There's a reason that Hallmark doesn't make cards for this kind of thing, you know.
Angelus' mouth twitched.
Damn it, Willow thought.
"You know," Angelus said reflectively, "there's a fine line between innocence and stupidity. Which side of the line are you on, Willow?"
Willow narrowed her eyes. She didn't like where this was going.
"Let's think about this, shall we?" Angelus said, and his voice was as condescending as Cordelia on her best day. "Where did all those vampires out there come from, do you think?"
"I-" Willow said, and stopped.
Angelus' smile was an unpleasant shock. "Good girl," he said softly, "A- for effort. All the vampires that were in here were out there before I got here. All for you, darling. All wanting to take you, *waiting* to take you. Doesn't that make you feel special?"
Willow wanted to die. They had been out there, watching her? She was trying to remember what she'd been doing. Had they seen her looking at Xander? At Oz? Had they - oh no, had they seen her trying to dance?
And none of that mattered, because they wouldn't have cared about any of that, they would have killed her without even bothering to ask if she hand any kind of spell on her and yes, the laugh would have been on them, but she wouldn't really have been in any position to enjoy it.
Stupid. He was right. She was stupid.
" If I hadn't come to find you, to protect you, Willow, you would have died," Angelus continued remorselessly. His voice gentled, and he added, "Isn't it better to be mine?"
Stupid, Willow thought. How could she - what had she been - stupid, oh, what was wrong with her? She only dimly realized that she was trembling.
She could see what almost had happened, every grisly way she could have died, almost feel the pain at throat and wrists and hear herself begging, and when arms enfolded her she let them pull her close and she buried her face in his shirt.
"It's all right now," Angelus said from somewhere above her, and Willow was holding on to him now, her arms wrapping around his back as she pushed her face hard against his chest, mumbling incoherent angry words into the cloth.
Stupid, she thought savagely. And she couldn't even tell anyone, couldn't ask Buffy for forgiveness, couldn't ask Xander to give her his extra cookie at lunch tomorrow, she was all alone.
"It's all *right*!" Angelus repeated, sounding slightly confused and irritated by her reaction. "They know who you belong to now. They'll leave you alone."
Willow reluctantly pulled her head back and looked up at him. He was the one causing all her problems, she reminded herself. Therefore, he's really not the one to be crying on. Not unless he was wearing a silk shirt, of course, because then it would be water-stained and hah, that would show him. Wait -
"Is that why you did it?" Willow said hesitantly, "You know, all of... that?" She waved her hands in a nebulous gesture meant to symbolize everything that had happened in the room.
Angelus looked down at her, and his mouth twisted. "Yes," he said.
Thank God, Willow thought, and felt like smiling for the first time in hours. Because she could live with the biting, but the rest... yikes.
"But..." Angelus said slowly.
'But'? Willow thought. No but! That was a good answer!
"That isn't to say it won't happen again," Angelus finished smoothly, and Willow suddenly realized that his hands on her back, which had been comforting, had begun a slow stroking motion. Up. Down. Up.
Yipes!
Willow pushed hard against Angelus' chest and managed to lever herself all of two inches away from him, which would have been more encouraging if the smirk on Angelus' face hadn't made it clear that he was letting her to do it.
"But... blood!" Willow said hopefully.
She couldn't believe that she was trying to talk him into biting her. Again. Oh, this was a banner day for Willow's self-esteem.
"Yes," Angelus said, the word low and disturbing. His fingers lingered over the pulsing vein in her neck. "Your blood makes you mine." The cool weight of his fingers was on her face now, leaving a trail of ice where they traced over the bone. "But the rest of you belongs to me too. Which means that..." His smile was pure devilment. "I can do whatever I want with it."
There didn't seem to be anything to be said to that. The only things that Willow could think of to say were either:
Hey! I don't belong to you! And I'm not an it! - Which is pretty much suicide, she thought.
Or:
But... why would you want me? - Which sounds like I'm begging for compliments.
So she didn't say anything.
In retrospect, that wasn't the best move either.
She had about a second to regret it, and then Angelus pulled her close and her mind went blank. Angelus' lips were cool, soft, and frighteningly gentle when he brushed them against her eyelids, her cheeks, so gentle that she wanted to cry because it was all a lie and reality was sharp and painful.
But then his mouth was on hers, still gentle, soft and coaxing as his tongue traced the closed frightened line of her lips, and it was so hard to remember that it wasn't real when there was something bright and complicated twisting itself up in her stomach and she opened her mouth under his and felt rather than heard the satisfied hum he made, and forgot it entirely when his hands slid around to her hips and pulled them hard against him.
She was making noises again, small desperate noises that sounded like they must have been coming from someone else, and they blended into the sound of his voice when he spoke softly, encouragingly, against her skin and told her what a good girl she was, how well she was doing, such a good girl, and Willow felt drugged and distant when he silenced himself again on her mouth and she closed her eyes and forgot who she was.
Angelus drew away first and dropped his hands and stepped away. And left Willow standing alone and suddenly bereft.
Willow looked at him with dazed eyes, feeling forgetfulness drop away like a shroud and remembering that this was wrong, all of it, completely wrong, and she took in the unruffled calm of his expression and the faintly amused smile on his face as he watched her struggle back to memory. At that moment, her emotions were uncomplicated: hate.
Hate for him knowing just how to get to her, for making her not fight him, for making her feel things that made her ill to think of now, with him looking at her like that, Angelus, darkness and pain and evil and calm, unstirred by an experience that had shattered her, was still shattering her.
One more second of that awful calm watching and she still couldn't speak, and Angelus took her by the arm and pulled her to the door and opened it.
"Tomorrow, Willow. Be home," he said, his fingers dropping away from her arm. "Now go find your friends and let them know that you're fine."
Is that what I am, Willow thought numbly. Fine?
She stepped out and the door closed behind her, melting invisibly back into the wall of the Bronze. Willow turned to walk away and nearly bumped into Buffy.
"Willow!" Buffy said with an uncomplicated smile. "There you are! Where'd you go? Are you okay?"
"I'm fine," Willow said softly, and wondered when it became so easy to lie.
____
End Part Twelve
Tell me what you think?
Sorry for the long delay there. I was distracted by other shiny objects like Harry Potter fic and drawing and illness and, yeah, as excuses go, these aren't good ones. *hangs head*
Still, fic! That's never a bad thing, eh? And it's another Angelus-heavy part, which is always fun for me to write and hopefully fun for you guys to read. (If not, well, there's not much I can do. I doubt he'd let me write him out of the fic at this point.)
Argh. Must run. Sleepy. As always, comments make me bounce. *g* All reviews from the last chapter, which did indeed make me bounce tremendously and also make a high-pitched happy noise, will be replied to tomorrow.
Ash
xanadu-dreams.com
www.livejournal.com/users/ashjay