Chapter Text
Second Best
by Lucinda
Willow sighed, feeling just a bit uneasy. She had the oddest feeling that there was something wrong, and the feeling had been there for a while now. She'd checked with Giles, and there weren't any ominous prophecies or expected arrivals of any particularly nasty demons.
If only Spike were here, he could make everything feel better. He'd been with her through everything last year with Glory, and somehow, after Tara had gone away, he'd slipped into her heart, becoming important to her, becoming her lover, her everything. He'd been the only reason she'd been able to keep functioning after Buffy had died, and he'd been the one to ask if there had been any way to bring her back. He'd helped her prepare her ritual, and had been there when they'd brought Buffy back, helping make sure nothing interfered.
But Spike had been used to patrolling by then, and hadn't wanted to give it up entirely. It was his outlet for his frustration, for his need for violence. She'd been trying to work out a way to remove the chip, and had found a spell that would allow her to teleport small objects. Unfortunately, her control with that spell was still rather bad, so she hadn't mentioned it, hadn't been willing to risk hurting him in her efforts.
He seemed to be taking more risks on his patrols lately though. He'd been coming home to her with bruises and cuts, his clothing torn and dirty. He was also seeming a bit unspecific about where they'd come from, dismissing them as just a side effect of the violence. He also seemed a bit more irritable lately, as if there was something preying on his mind, troubling him. He was restless in his sleep, and more fidgety in his waking hours.
Her uneasy feeling grew, until it was like something was twisting her stomach into sour knots and her nerves had become taut wires. She had to find out what was wrong... had to find some way to put an end to this feeling of dread.
If the something was dangerous, maybe she should have someone a bit more physically powerful with her. Someone like Spike, or maybe Buffy. Having decided on a course of action, Willow stood up, puling on a jacket, sliding a stake into one pocket, and left the apartment. Spike should be on patrol through the cemeteries tonight, looking for the stupid vampires and for the pack of ghouls that Giles suspected of being in the area.
Her search for one of them had brought her to one of the more secluded cemeteries, and her feeling of something wrong had only grown. It was as if the very air whispered to her, notrightnotrightnotright... She thought that maybe she could see how Drusilla had gone mad, why she thought the stars spoke to her.
There was a noise, something like a groan, from over that way. Willow felt two conflicting urges - one to run away, and the other to discover what was there. It had sounded almost like something in pain... She moved towards the noise, her feet barely making the faint shushing noise through the grass. She stepped past a scrap of dark fabric, and her uneasy feeling intensified, like tiny prickles all over her skin, under her scalp.
When she stepped around so that she could see the source of the sound, she immediately regretted it. Spike and Buffy... against the wall of the mausoleum. Their clothing had been almost torn from their bodies, and they... They were making... having... they were screwing each other's brains out.
She felt something inside of her shatter and fall into razor edged frozen slivers, slashing her insides into bloody raw pain. She couldn't move, couldn't breath as she stared in horror at the man who claimed to love her and the person who claimed to be her best friend.
There was no tenderness in their movements, just force and power and raw need. They were like animals, clawing and grabbing, blinded by their lust and passion. Spike and Buffy. Spike and Buffy. Moaning, gasping, making the raw noises of lust...
She really didn't know how she'd ended up back at her apartment, the one she shared with Spike. The one where he'd been lying to her. She could see it now, those bruises and cuts that he'd been so vague about hadn't been from fighting on patrol, they were from Buffy. From their... whatever that they were doing. The nasty, Xander would call it. The name was oddly fitting.
She couldn't stay here, not in the place where she'd tried to build a future. Not in this place where she'd believed that he could love her, could make her happy. There was no future here. Nothing but the shattered dreams of happily after and memories of deceitful joy.
Her vision was blurred by tears as she packed her things, making ruthless use of magic to force everything into her single suitcase. She didn't touch any of his clothing, didn't take a single item of the furniture that they'd picked out together. She was leaving it all behind.
She just left one little message for him - a single word written in three inch letters of dark bronze lipstick, and a spell on the mirror, causing it to replay That Scene. If he wanted to know why she'd left, all he had to do was look in the mirror.
Willow wouldn't accept being his consolation prize, the woman he came home to because the one he wanted wouldn't claim him. She would just take him in the cemetery. And Buffy had known that Willow and Spike were involved... everyone had known.
Had he always wanted Buffy? Had that been why he'd helped bring her back? Not for the comfort and safety of her and her friends, but so he could have another chance to get her into bed with him?
Not that they'd been in a bed...
Willow left the apartment, allowing the door to swing shut with a final click. She would not be back to that place. She would not go back to Spike. She'd offered him everything that she was, and it hadn't been enough, hadn't been what he'd wanted. She wouldn't be second place, wouldn't allow him to go from her arms to Buffy's. If he wanted Buffy, let her have him.
All she had to figure out now was how to remove him from the shattered remnants of her heart. Could she pick him out from between the jagged edges? Let him pour out like water, like dark red blood? Could she blow away the bits of emotion like dust?
She would find a way, somehow. After all, she was the smart one, the research girl and witch. If there was a way, she would find it. Because she definitely wouldn't be content to have whatever scraps of time he could spare from Buffy.
end Second Best.