With Or Without You, Part 1/?
Title: With Or Without You
Characters: In this part, Buffy, Willow, Giles, Xander, Angelus
Rating: I'm going with R because there is sex, even though it's not graphic
Warnings/Squicks: None, in this part
Summary: She looked dejected. I could have said something. I could have reached out to her but instead I just walked back to Giles' car saying something about needing to get him home. Really my mind was on the demons, wanting to beat something up, needing to take out the rage that had consumed me for the past three months. I didn't even looking back one last time. I never saw Willow again.
Disclaimer: They are not mine. Not yet. But they will be mine, once I've taken over the world. Bwah-ha-ha.
Prequel: From Sunrise To Sunset - don't need to read this to follow the story but it was written as the prequel to an earlier version of this story. NB: read the squicks for this one!
Story Index: With Or Without You
After Xander disappeared, I wouldn't let Willow or Giles go anywhere at night. Not alone. I wasn't losing another friend to Angelus. My Mom was harder to protect because she didn't know I was the Slayer so I pretended I was more wigged out than I was. Thing is, it wasn't pretense. I was wigged. Willow knew, and so did Giles, but they didn't understand. They thought they could protect themselves. They were wrong.
Three months after I'd failed Xander, we got a tip through Willy. Some new big bad was in town. Researching well into the evening, we dropped Willow off around 11.
“So”, she said after she'd unlocked the door, “wanna do that sleepover thing sometime soon?”
I knew she was worried about me but I just couldn't. “Sure, Willow.”
She looked dejected. I could have said something. I could have reached out to her but instead I just walked back to Giles' car saying something about needing to get him home. Really my mind was on the demons, wanting to beat something up, needing to take out the rage that had consumed me for the past three months. I didn't even looking back one last time.
I never saw Willow again.
* * *
Go away. Run. Invite Buffy in, I thought. None of that happened. Instead Willow stood just outside the door as a car drove off. When she'd closed the door behind her, I stepped out of the dark dining room.
“Xander,” she cried out. I thought she was going to run up and hug me but then that grew-up-on-the-Hellmouth sense kicked in.
“Not a vampire,” I told her. Well, that was true enough. Not your friend anymore either although I would be, if I could. She didn't believe me. Not entirely. Smart girl but, unfortunately, not smart enough, or not super-powered enough, or something. Willow pulled out a cross and walked slowly towards me. I waited patiently as I'd been instructed to. She wasn't the only smart one.
When she was close enough, I took the cross from her. Willow grabbed me into a hug. I hugged her back, allowing myself one last moment of innocent bliss while she quizzed me on where I'd been and why I hadn't called.
A flash of dark motion, that Willow didn't see, and then he was blocking the doorway. Who'd have thought I'd be so good at distraction? “I wouldn't let him,” he said, responding to one of her questions.
Turning, Willow saw Angelus. And then she did the thing that broke my heart. She stepped away from me. Always quick, my Willow.
At Angelus' nod, I tossed the cross into the living room, where it slid under the couch. “Nice shot,” he sneered. I hung my head.
Willow bolted for the back door but I didn't follow. Angelus had commanded me to set up a scene in the living room, a little present for Buffy he called it. I didn't need to follow to know what was happening. He'd set up another scene in the kitchen: Willow's parents having coffee at the table. Her footsteps stopped as she found them. She even shouted, telling them to get out, before she noticed the fang marks.
“If you relax, this won't hurt a bit,” I heard. I didn't need to see to know what happened after.
By the time I got to the kitchen, he was done. I looked down at the floor, not wanting to see what he'd done to her and not wanting her to see what he'd done to me. Too late, at least for part of that, but there was worse to come.
“Xander,” he commanded and I looked up. He'd done it. Angelus had left his mark, a hickey, on Willow's neck, right where a vampire would feed. I could still hear Angelus, I could always hear Angelus, but I didn't see anything other than his mark. It drew me in. Where my life had become ruled by guilt and despair, the mark was more than freedom from pain. The mark was bliss.
“Xander.” I looked up at Angelus, the only thing more powerful than the mark. “Your call. Should we leave Willow here, allowing my mark to fade away, or take her with us, like all the others?”
Willow struggled against him at that but Angelus just laughed and held her tighter to him. I could have told her not to bother. You can't defeat Angelus; he always gets what he wants in the end. Baring her neck, he asked again, “You call, Xander.”
I was what he'd made me. “Please, Master. I want... I need...”
As I stepped towards Willow, Angelus picked her up, commanding, “Not yet.”
I hung my head again as I followed them out to the garage. That was safest. I didn't see as much, I didn't see the bad things, mostly, when I was looking at the floor. I didn't need to be told to find the duct tape, which wasn't hard to do since Mr. Rosenberg kept his garage cleaner than my parent's kept their kitchen. I didn't look up until he'd slammed the trunk shut.
I couldn't do anything to act against what Angelus wanted but, once Willow was stowed away, I had more freedom. Not like anything I could say or do would warn her now. “Let her go,” I shouted.
Angelus smiled. Damn, he'd been expecting it. Still, this was Willow and I couldn't stand to leave her in his clutches. “Please, I'll do anything you want.”
He lifted my chin so I couldn't look anywhere but at him. “You'll already do anything I want.”
“Please.” Knowing it wouldn't do any good, I begged for Willow's life.
“Why Xander,” he mocked. “It was your choice. 'Please Master,' you said. 'I need her,' you said.”
“You know why I said that,” I shouted.
“I do.”
Then he pulled me to him. I bared my neck. As he kissed, nibbled, and bit at me, I moaned in pleasure and wrapped myself around him, needing more. “Now,” he whispered before giving me one last, fierce bite. I came against him, immediately embarrassed because Willow must have heard from inside the trunk, but it did what he had wanted.
“Should we leave Willow behind, give her her freedom, let her live?”
I knew what would happen to Willow when we brought her to LA. I knew she'd rather be killed. Hell, I'd rather have been killed than do that to her. I begged him to give her to me.
* * *