Willow put the small fuzzy animal on the pillow facing Spike. In a moment, she would let her alarm go off to wake the sleeping vampire. She was still in her flannel nightgown. He had carried her upstairs last night and she had fallen asleep with this arms around her. The only thing that clouded her feeling of contentment was thinking of Angel. Guilt over enjoying herself with Spike.
Spike was falling in love with her. Angel was falling in love with her. She was falling for both of them. Her feelings were impossibly entangled, she wished there were someway she could sort them out. She had never intended her little bet with Spike to escalate into a full-blown vampire love triangle.
Willow’s alarm went off, noisy and shrill. Spike’s eyes snapped open and he turned his head. He let out a blood curdling scream and jumped out of bed, but he fell to the floor because his ankle was twisted in the sheets. “Bloody Hell!” He spotted Willow. “Run for your life, Red! I bet he brought his green buddies with him.”
When, he couldn’t get away, he shifted into demon face and growled at the fluffy troublemaker. He looked closer at the fuzzy character. “It’s Gizmo.” He picked it up. “Oh, he’s not real.” His voice held equal parts relief and disappointment. Spike noticed Willow’s barely concealed grin. “Tryin’ to scare me, pet?”
“No. Yes. Only a little. Xander gave him to me after we saw the movie. I slept with the little guy for months afterwards, he’s been in my closet shelf ever since. I couldn’t bear to throw him away. . .I just. . .wanted you to have him.” She smiled at him impishly as he struggled to his feet. “I do appreciate your heroic effort to save me from my stuffed animal. Were you going to bite him?”
He crossed his arms. “That’s not funny, pet. I was half asleep, having a nightmare about those nasty green blokes. Then, I wake up to find that bloody thing on the pillow next to me.” He wouldn’t look at her. “And I thought the way I woke up yesterday was frightening. ” He tried to look upset with her, but he was absurdly pleased that she was gifting him with a treasured childhood toy.
“Tell me, Spike, how can you be afraid of a gremlin. . .when you’ve k-killed people and caused so much trouble?” She shuddered a little, it was hard for her to see him as the ferocious vampire he once was with the gentle Spike she’d gotten to know.
“Well, I was the one causing all of it, wasn’t I?” He said, defensively. Then he seemed to shake a little. “Besides, they’re so green, and scaly and . . . little.” He held his hand at knee level.
“You’re scared of small things?”
“You wouldn’t ask me that if you heard the stories Angelus told me about the little people in Ireland. Vicious. Besides, what would you be scared of if you were immortal?” He pointed out. “Little things that slip past your notice. Creepy crawlies that you don’t see until it’s too late.”
“Angelus used to tell you stories?” She sat Indian-style on the end of the bed.
“Oh, that’s the one thing that catches your interest? Him? You want to know more about my bleedin’ sire?” He pouted as he sat down on the floor to look up at her.
“No. I want to know about what kind of stories you heard.” She replied diplomatically.
“Are you handling me, luv?”
“Are you still stalling?”
He paused a moment to think about which stories to tell her about. The fairies? The banshee? The brownies? The leprechauns? “He told us stories that would chill you to the bone.” Spike looked around. Willow had duct-taped heavy blankets to the curtains for him, and the lighting was soft now, even at ten in the morning of a sunny California day. Willow gathered herself closer and leaned forward intently, as he began to speak. “Brownies are troublesome little folk . . .”
Willow watched as he spun tale after tale. He shifted his head and shoulders with the motion of the characters and even managed to effect a version of the brogue she had heard Angel using the other night. She was surprised to learn that he was a very talented story-teller. “I don’t think he could have told them any better. You’re really good at that.” She looked at him intently. “I can’t believe he really sat around telling you stories.”
“We were his children, Red. Besides, he probably took some sadistic pleasure in frightening the monsters that frighten people.” He gave a half smile. “Sometimes, like when he was telling us stories, he wasn’t so unbearable.”
Willow was perplexed. She had never heard Spike speak about Angel or Angelus in this way before. She knew from Giles’ texts that there was certain bond between a vampire and their maker. But, somehow she had never connected that to Spike and Angel. Of course, reflecting on what she knew of Drusilla, Spike’s true sire, she supposed that she wasn’t quite capable of playing the mentor role for him. And Angelus appeared to be the “Alpha” vampire, so to speak, who else would he look to? She motioned for him to sit next to her on the bed. “What was he like the rest of the time?”
“Don’t ask me that, pet.” He looked at her with haunted eyes and gripped her hand. “You don’t need nightmares, too.”
“You can trust me, Spike.” She shifted so they could face each other. “I have met Angelus. I know what he was like with humans. I always tried to imagine what he was like with other demons.”
Spike closed his eyes to call up the past, again. “Sometimes, he was a real charming bloke. He’d tell us stories, lead hunts, even bring home dinner. Other times, he . . .didn’t.”
She remained silent, encouraging him with her eyes to continue. “Darla was never the one who got hurt. He bended to her every whim. And when she upset him, he had only one place to get his frustrations out.” Spike tilted his head to the side. “He wasn’t like most demons. He didn’t blow up all at once. When he got mad, he got real quiet. And you knew it was coming. You could feel the tension. I would sit downstairs, silence all around me. And then you would hear it. The screaming.
“I forced myself to listen. If she couldn’t escape it, neither could I. He was older, stronger. Meaner. And if I challenged him, got in his face, he would make it that much worse for her. I would sit, listening to her screaming, and I promised myself. . .someday. . . I would be stronger. I would find a way to prove I was his equal. Then I could stop him from hurting her.”
“When he finished, I would go to her. Tried to bring her presents to erase the new images in her mind.” He shook his head. “She would just gaze back at me. So empty. Empty because she couldn’t appease the anger Darla caused. Couldn’t be what he needed. She used to tell me that she would never be enough. That it was her fault.
“But what really got to me in the end, was when she started to like it. Because those were the only times that he paid attention to her. That was right before the bloody bastard went off and got himself a soul. And now, instead of paying for what he did, there he sits like a bleeding knight in shining armor. Wanting people to feel sorry for him.” Spike bit his lip. He wasn’t sure if he should have told her this, could she handle these twisted memories?
Willow wondered if she would have been better off not knowing what he had just told her. But, knowing what she did, there was one last thing she had to ask. “Did he ever hurt you like that?”
“Not like that. We fought of course, he busted me up a few times. But nothing like what he did to her. He didn’t have to.” Spike met her eyes for the first time. “After I gave up trying to please him, all he had to do was hurt Dru. That was worse than anything else he could have done.”
“When Angel lost his soul. . .why did you let him back in your life?”
“Could you turn your father away?”
********
Willow sat on her front doorstep. Angel would be arriving soon. She held the doll Spike had given her. Willow had named the doll, Red, which had pleased Spike. Her mind was still swirling with the images Spike had put into her mind. She wasn’t all that sure that she could face Angel tonight. Sometimes, she had bad dreams about Angelus. Spike’s memories would only add to her nocturnal nightmares. The worst one was when he held her by the throat in the hallway of her highschool. She usually woke up screaming, hands clutching the phantom fang marks in her neck, trying desperately to stem the flow of her lifeblood.
Spike stood behind her, his hands smoothing her hair. He had been overly cheerful today, trying to distract her. . . until the sun had set. Then, he had followed her around. Silent. Watching her prepare for her evening with Angel, but making no comment. She knew that he wanted her to stay with him. She also knew that she couldn’t stay here tonight. Willow needed to talk to Angel, to gain his perspective. Maybe that would provide the missing piece to the puzzle. Help her make some sort of livable solution to her predicament.
Angel pulled into the driveway of Willow’s home. In the darkness, he saw a shadowed female figure, sitting on the steps. Clutching a doll. Over her, stood Spike, illuminated by the faint glow of the porch light. He stroked the woman’s hair. Angel’s hands gripped the steering wheel, resisting the urge to turn the car around and go back home. He steeled himself as he switched off the ignition. This confrontation was inevitable. He slowly walked towards the stoop, pulling the sunglasses from his eyes. “Drusilla.” Willow. They clattered to the ground, both lens cracking.
