velvetwhip (velvetwhip) wrote in red_magic, @ 2007-07-05 19:10:00 |
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Entry tags: | fic, velvetwhip, willow/angel |
Fic: Know Thyself (Part Eleven of The Secret) Willow/Angel FRAO/NC-17
Thanks to an obliging muse and lilbreck, my cherished beta, I am at last able to post another chapter of The Secret. I do hope you enjoy it.
Gabrielle
Title: Know Thyself (Part Eleven of The Secret)
Previous Chapters Can Be Found Here:
http://gabrielle.magical-worlds.us/view
Author: Gabrielle
Rating: FRM/R (this chapter, the fic as a whole is rated FRAO/NC-17)
Pairing: Willow/Angel
Summary: Willow is confronted with the reality of her relationship with Angel.
Feedback: Please. I would love to know if anyone is still reading this story.
Distribution: If you have permission to archive the previous chapters of this fic, you may have this. Otherwise, please ask first.
Disclaimer: I own nothing. It all belongs to Joss and a bunch of other people who are not now and have never been me.
Author's Notes: I have two people to thank here today. The first is lilbreck whose patience and support can never be repaid. The second is Feen. Her enthusiasm and love for this story gave me what I needed to plunge back into the writing of it and I can't possibly thank her enough. Also, I would like to dedicate this story to Em North and all the readers who have ever given me feedback on it. I love you guys!
Know Thyself
The ever-burning fire in the fireplace at Angel’s mansion was surprisingly welcome. Willow wasn’t sure she’d ever been this cold, at least not in this way. Her blood felt as if it had turned somehow to ice and she shivered as she stood before the hearth, gazing into the flames as if she hoped they could pierce her skin and warm the frozen places inside.
All she could feel was Angel’s anger.
It should have been comforting, she knew, for him to care so much, but it wasn’t. Somewhere deep within her, in an odd, inscrutable way that she couldn’t really touch, there was both fear and fury. She didn’t want him to care so deeply. That wasn’t the way things were supposed to be between them. He had no right to obligate and chain her with the depths of his concern, of his feelings for her.
Then there was Giles, who knew, who knew everything, or at least close enough to everything for it not to matter what the differences were between reality and his perception of it. Now her very last shred of hope was lost, that small, sad hope she’d still carried close to her heart, the hope that someday she would wake up and be able to reclaim the life she taken such pains to keep waiting for her. It was gone now, and forever, and for always, as dead as she wished she was.
And still, for all that she knew there were these emotions roiling away inside her, she felt cold and numb. The quiet was welcome, it allowed her a hiding place, but it couldn’t last. Which one of them would be the first to speak? She was determined that it wouldn’t be her, yet she feared what he would say - she wished that neither of them might say a word. But sooner or later, one of them must. That was the way of things: there were never unbroken silences.
Arms wrapped around her, the oppression of him seeped through her skin.
“I’m so sorry, Willow. I should have known Spike would do something like this. I can’t believe Giles said those things to you. If only I’d gotten there sooner.”
She knew the strain of the anger as he struggled to contain it, felt it in the almost-vise of his hands as they moved to her shoulders, a massage that was more imprisoning than relaxing. This ire was hers by rights, not his. She felt cheated out of something precious, not, she realized, an unfamiliar feeling anymore. Was the drive to take within vampires somehow so all-encompassing that there was nothing they wouldn’t drain from her?
“I won’t let him hurt you anymore, Willow. As soon as this business with the Mayor is done, we’ll leave, go wherever we want. Until then, don’t even bother with school or the library. It won’t matter once we’re gone anyway.”
He turned her to face him and she knew what was coming: she welcomed it. At last, something familiar, routine, something she understood, this was what she needed now. Angel’s words were terrifying, sticky, stilling her wings and robbing her of breath. The familiarity of his tongue between her thighs would at least give her a few moments peace and recompense for what she was losing.
But something was wrong. The short, sweet, almost perfunctory kiss she was accustomed to became a harsh, demanding one that didn’t end. Angel’s lips weren’t leaving hers for the move to her neck that preceded her disrobing. His hands weren’t moving over her breasts. She did not lay spread before him, his mouth moving down to its final destination. She was still standing, still clothed, his mouth still on hers, his tongue exploring, claiming; his hands were on her back, arms tightening around her, pulling her into an embrace closer than any they had ever shared. She had the hysterical sensation of being a mixed metaphor actualized: a fly tumbling from a frying pan into searing, consuming flames. And then she felt it - it - something she hadn’t felt in all the times they’d been together, as ludicrous as that now seemed - it was the evidence of his desire, hard and thick and alarming against her.
Now it was real, it was sex, and it was so horribly, obscenely wrong. A tidal wave of guilt and self-loathing crashed over her and the totality of every moment of feeling somehow clean she had once known was washed away in an instant, leaving her covered in filth and degradation and shame.
Whore
Tramp
Slut
Dirty
With all the strength she could muster, she pushed him away, his surprise aiding her in gaining her freedom, and, for the second time in as many days, she fled from Angel's house. No explanation, not a word to mark the moment, she simply ran. Sunlight, the only friend she had left, welcomed her into its safety. Angel called after her but she didn’t pay attention to what he said, she couldn’t have understood his words if she’d wanted to at any rate. She felt nauseous and it was all she could do to keep from being sick as she stopped for a brief moment to catch her breath before resuming her mad dash for home, focusing only on each stride as her lungs burned and her legs ached.
It wasn’t long at all before she was lying across her bed, panting and hot and sobbing. How had this happened? How had she gone from a good girl, a girl to whom the rules were sacred, to this creature of anomie - Angel’s concubine? Was this all that destiny held for her: a lifetime of being taken by one demon or another? Did she have something dark and evil inside her, something that called out to the demonic and the inhuman and told them she was theirs? Was her only refuge in selecting the best owner she could and serving him?
No. No! She’d always believed that her life was her own, she’d never been so irrational as to put stock in the idea of an inexorable fate. Maybe on the Hellmouth she had no control, but there was another world out there, a real, normal world where the rules made sense and she could chart the course of her life the way everyone else did. She wiped her eyes and forced her tears and whimpers back. Now was not the time to indulge in self-pity. There were hours - precious hours - to go before sunset. Time belonged to the day for a long while yet and sunlight, she knew, was her dearest ally. There was much to do: bags to be packed, calls to be made, and a bus to catch. She knew people who would be more than happy to hire her, diploma or no, ridiculous demands regarding privacy and identity gladly met. What the girl she had once been had seen as so undesirable, leaving Sunnydale and venturing out on her own, was now her dream come true. Time for her first lesson in how to live in the real world, time to make that dream a reality.
Tbc...