A Brief Courtship [3/5]
Chapter Title: With a Poisoned Pen
Character/Pairing: Angelus/Willow
Rating: FRT for references to torture
Summary: Willow gets a new pen pal.
A/N: This is dedicated to my lovely and vigilant beta, Gabrielle. Without her, I'd seem like an illiterate idiot.
Timeline: BtVS S2, between Passion and Becoming pt2
Disclaimer: The characters herein are not mine. The only thing I really came up with was the story idea.
Oz had been missing for one week when the full moon rose. The three nights that he should have been spending locked in a cage under the watchful eyes of his friends were instead spent goodness only knows where. The Scoobies had spent those three nights, and many following them, searching for any suspicious deaths, both animal and human. Willow wasn’t sure if not finding any traces relieved her or made her worry all the more.
Two weeks after the last known sighting of him, and one week past his changing cycle, Willow walked into the school library, hoping to get an early start on researching their swim team fish problem. Carefully avoided in her mind was the fruitless search for Oz. Part of her almost wished that it were just a case of him skipping town. Unfortunately, given the particular town, that seemed the least likely scenario. Instead, when thoughts of his disappearance would surface, she focused instead on her secret research into re-ensouling a vampire.
That little project would be so much easier if she had help, but she couldn’t risk going to anyone else. Xander would complain that she should be thinking of ways to kill him, and Giles would be quietly discouraging. While she knew Buffy would be glad to help, it would just break Willow’s heart to have gotten her hopes up for nothing if they couldn’t find a solution.
Still musing on secret projects and fish monsters, Willow didn’t notice the envelope until she had sat down at the computer.
Cream colored and bearing her name in what was becoming an all too familiar scrawl, it seemed like a threat all in itself. Hands shaking, she opened the offending envelope, pulled out the folded parchment, and began to read.
It read like some sick and twisted version of a letter she would have gotten from her family. Full of morbid yet almost mundane anecdotes, it strangely fascinated her. When she started to read of Spike’s recovery, a strange sense of foreboding came over her. It wasn’t until the description of the ceremony used to heal Spike, though, that she truly understood the purpose of this letter.
There, in elegant handwriting, the fate of her boyfriend was spelled out for her. Fed a concoction of mystical herbs and strange liquids for the three days prior to his change, his blood was filled with power and magic. On the night of the full moon, while she had been staring with longing and worry at his empty cage, his blood was being drained to heal a broken vampire. It was made clear that the only reason he had originally been taken was because he was Willow’s boyfriend.
A crippling mixture of grief and guilt flooded Willow, leaving her stunned, even as part of her mind tried to deny that her boyfriend was gone. The sound of the library doors swinging open made her slowly turn her head. As Giles came toward her, his greeting faltered and a look of growing concern settled on his face.
“Willow, is something the matter?”
When she opened her mouth to tell him, nothing would come out. Reduced to inarticulate whimpers, she held out Angelus’ letter. Watching him read, it really began to sink in that she would never see Oz again. She could feel a scream begin to build inside her and work its way up her throat. The frantic thought raced through her mind that if she started to scream, she wouldn’t be able to stop. Her breathing became quick and shallow, her body began to shake, and tears started streaming down her face. Hand clamped over her mouth, she bent nearly double in her chair trying to stop herself from giving voice to her overwhelming grief.
She was barely aware of Giles kneeling down in front of her, wrapping her tightly in his arms. When Buffy and Xander came in and started desperately asking what was going on, it seemed to Willow that she was hearing them from a great distance. She couldn’t make herself move, let alone open her mouth to tell them about the vile letter she had received.
It was only after she found herself lying down in her own bed that she realized her friends had moved her. Looking toward the doors leading outside, she was shocked to find darkness beyond them. Part of her wanted just to walk out into that darkness, to see if she could find a way to join Oz tonight.
It wasn’t a sudden urge to live that kept her in the bed, however. It was the shock of seeing movement through the blinds that stilled her. When a gentle tapping came, she found herself rising off the bed, vaguely registering that she had been changed into her nightshirt, and crossing to the doors. Peeking through the blinds, she was shocked to see Drusilla on the other side.
She couldn’t say bravery, or even suicidal tendencies caused her to open the door. Honestly, she didn’t even stop to remember it was a dangerous vampire that waited across her threshold. Later, she would tell her friends that the moment was so surreal, she must have thought it was a weird dream. That illusion was shattered when Dru leaned toward her with a mischievous glint in her eye.
Finger to lips, the vampire made a shushing sound and, in a stage whisper, confided in Willow, “Daddy said I wasn’t to meet you until he brought you home.”
Character/Pairing: Angelus/Willow
Rating: FRT for references to torture
Summary: Willow gets a new pen pal.
A/N: This is dedicated to my lovely and vigilant beta, Gabrielle. Without her, I'd seem like an illiterate idiot.
Timeline: BtVS S2, between Passion and Becoming pt2
Disclaimer: The characters herein are not mine. The only thing I really came up with was the story idea.
Oz had been missing for one week when the full moon rose. The three nights that he should have been spending locked in a cage under the watchful eyes of his friends were instead spent goodness only knows where. The Scoobies had spent those three nights, and many following them, searching for any suspicious deaths, both animal and human. Willow wasn’t sure if not finding any traces relieved her or made her worry all the more.
Two weeks after the last known sighting of him, and one week past his changing cycle, Willow walked into the school library, hoping to get an early start on researching their swim team fish problem. Carefully avoided in her mind was the fruitless search for Oz. Part of her almost wished that it were just a case of him skipping town. Unfortunately, given the particular town, that seemed the least likely scenario. Instead, when thoughts of his disappearance would surface, she focused instead on her secret research into re-ensouling a vampire.
That little project would be so much easier if she had help, but she couldn’t risk going to anyone else. Xander would complain that she should be thinking of ways to kill him, and Giles would be quietly discouraging. While she knew Buffy would be glad to help, it would just break Willow’s heart to have gotten her hopes up for nothing if they couldn’t find a solution.
Still musing on secret projects and fish monsters, Willow didn’t notice the envelope until she had sat down at the computer.
Cream colored and bearing her name in what was becoming an all too familiar scrawl, it seemed like a threat all in itself. Hands shaking, she opened the offending envelope, pulled out the folded parchment, and began to read.
It read like some sick and twisted version of a letter she would have gotten from her family. Full of morbid yet almost mundane anecdotes, it strangely fascinated her. When she started to read of Spike’s recovery, a strange sense of foreboding came over her. It wasn’t until the description of the ceremony used to heal Spike, though, that she truly understood the purpose of this letter.
There, in elegant handwriting, the fate of her boyfriend was spelled out for her. Fed a concoction of mystical herbs and strange liquids for the three days prior to his change, his blood was filled with power and magic. On the night of the full moon, while she had been staring with longing and worry at his empty cage, his blood was being drained to heal a broken vampire. It was made clear that the only reason he had originally been taken was because he was Willow’s boyfriend.
A crippling mixture of grief and guilt flooded Willow, leaving her stunned, even as part of her mind tried to deny that her boyfriend was gone. The sound of the library doors swinging open made her slowly turn her head. As Giles came toward her, his greeting faltered and a look of growing concern settled on his face.
“Willow, is something the matter?”
When she opened her mouth to tell him, nothing would come out. Reduced to inarticulate whimpers, she held out Angelus’ letter. Watching him read, it really began to sink in that she would never see Oz again. She could feel a scream begin to build inside her and work its way up her throat. The frantic thought raced through her mind that if she started to scream, she wouldn’t be able to stop. Her breathing became quick and shallow, her body began to shake, and tears started streaming down her face. Hand clamped over her mouth, she bent nearly double in her chair trying to stop herself from giving voice to her overwhelming grief.
She was barely aware of Giles kneeling down in front of her, wrapping her tightly in his arms. When Buffy and Xander came in and started desperately asking what was going on, it seemed to Willow that she was hearing them from a great distance. She couldn’t make herself move, let alone open her mouth to tell them about the vile letter she had received.
It was only after she found herself lying down in her own bed that she realized her friends had moved her. Looking toward the doors leading outside, she was shocked to find darkness beyond them. Part of her wanted just to walk out into that darkness, to see if she could find a way to join Oz tonight.
It wasn’t a sudden urge to live that kept her in the bed, however. It was the shock of seeing movement through the blinds that stilled her. When a gentle tapping came, she found herself rising off the bed, vaguely registering that she had been changed into her nightshirt, and crossing to the doors. Peeking through the blinds, she was shocked to see Drusilla on the other side.
She couldn’t say bravery, or even suicidal tendencies caused her to open the door. Honestly, she didn’t even stop to remember it was a dangerous vampire that waited across her threshold. Later, she would tell her friends that the moment was so surreal, she must have thought it was a weird dream. That illusion was shattered when Dru leaned toward her with a mischievous glint in her eye.
Finger to lips, the vampire made a shushing sound and, in a stage whisper, confided in Willow, “Daddy said I wasn’t to meet you until he brought you home.”