The Willow and Buffy Song
by Acepilot
An Interventionist God
[reviews]
"The Willow and Buffy Song"
Acepilot87
Disclaimers: Yes, Joss still owns them. But we all know that. Oh, he doesn't own "Into My Arms", which is by Nick Cave. It can be found on either "The Boatman's Call" or "The Very Best Of Nick Cave". If you're really determined to find it, then it's also on "Triple J's Hottest 100 Vol.5", but you people in the US probably wouldn't know what the hell that is.
Pairing: Buffy/Willow - a little more this time.
Rating: PG-13
Feedback: As ever, I want more, more, more. batoutofhell25@yahoo.com or acepilot87@hotmail.com for anything you don't want to say in public...
Distribution: Just let me know where it's going. Can also be found on "I Kind Of Love You"...
Setting/Spoilers: Set after "Fear, Itself", spoilers for that episode and some small S4 stuff in general. But I think it's safe to say that nearly everyone on this list has seen season 4 (If you haven't, then do so immediately. It's one of the best). I've altered the events of "Harsh Light Of Day" and "Fear, Itself" just a little to suit my purposes. So it's kinda AU - there was no Parker (thank god).
Authors Notes: Thanks for the feedback. None of my friends will read my stuff, so I never know if it's good or bad. It's very appreaciated.
All the music that appears in "The Willow and Buffy Song" is the stuff that I listen to. I have about 30 Cds, and my life consists of listening to Nick Cave, Meat Loaf and Queen while reading/writing fan fiction and playing Super Mario 64...at least it does lately.
Dedication: This one's for Ben - for being there. He's one of my best friends. (He'll be a lot better a friend if he ever returns my copy of Wave Race)
Chapter 2
An Interventionist God
Acepilot87
/I don't believe in an interventionist god
But I know darlin' that you do
And if I did I would kneel down and ask him
Not to intervene when it came to you
Not to touch a hair on your head
Leave you as you are
If he felt he had to direct you then direct you into my arms...\
It was dark.
Which was perfectly fine, as far as the Slayer was concerned.
Something about wandering around in the dark for the better chunk of her waking hours had made it so her brain operated better when it wasn't so...bright.
And she rather needed her brain to operate now, so she was sitting in the dark on a park bench at the north of the campus.
She wasn't happy about a variety of things. She wasn't happy about the fact that the students hear seemed to have such an easy access to the occult. She had talked Giles into researching how the frat boys had gotten the book from which they had copied the symbol that had caused all the problems last night. He got as far as the inside of the back cover, where a barcode and stamp sheet identified it as the property of the UC Sunnydale library.
It had certainly been the Halloween party from hell. Bewtween a tiny little fear demon who proved to be actually quite potent and the massive fight it had caused her to have with her friends, she hadn't enjoyed the party at all.
Most of all, she wasn't happy about the way she'd been treating Willow lately. Instead of being all best-friendy, she was avoiding the red-head at all costs. She ultimately wasn't surprised that Will had blown up at her in the Haunted House the way she had.
["Yeah, well so is your face!" Willow yelled back, her face nearly as fiery as her hair.
Buffy felt a deep stab of pain in her gut. "What?" She had meant it to come out pained, but she could only manage confused.
Willow glared darkly. "I'm not your sidekick!"
The red-head fled at that point, storming off, muttering something about finding her own way out. "Will, wait!" Buffy called after her, and was about to try and follow when she saw Oz do the same. She backed off. She had absolutely no desire to follow the werewolf to Willow.]
After they'd left Giles' later that night, Willow had barely spoken to her. She wasn't sure how much longer she could cope.
"Buffy?"
Buffy closed her eyes and sighed. She all sorts of didn't want to see this person now.
---
/And I don't believe in the existence of angels
But looking at you I wonder if that's true
And if I did I would summon them together
And ask them to watch over you...
Oh to each burn a candle for you
To make birhgt and clear your path
To walk like Christ in grace and love
And guide you into my arms...\
It was dark.
Which was perfectly fine, as far as the hacker was concerned.
She didn't need light. She just needed solitude.
Lucas Auditorium was meant to be named after some guy who was once the University's star musician, before he died nearly twenty years ago. Unsurprisingly, of horrific neck wounds and a lack of blood.
The keys felt solid and good under her fingers, allowing her hands to roam with all the freedom she liked. She hadn't done this in years, until about a month ago, after moving into the University. She had hated her dormmate with a passion, and, in an effort to escape, had taken to long walks. When she had first passed the Auditorium, she had payed it no mind, but then, as she rounded the back, she noted that the back door wasn't locked. And, as she discovered later, didn't lock. Unless magic was applied.
So, she had her own little stronghold, in which she could just be her, with no-one to look over her shoulder and no-one to tell her she was wrong. No-one to cast her out, no-one to run away, no-one to try and change her.
Just her.
And the piano.
She thought she'd just about forgotten how to play - as she once said to Buffy, she could play...just not in front of other people. And she hadn't played in years, but it was all coming back. So, this was now her little ritual for when she felt depressed, or angry, or virtually anything. She would quietly let herself into the auditorium, lock the door behind her, play for a while, and leave, returning to her problems, returning to her life.
A life that just didn't seem to get easy.
First, there was Oz. She hadn't noticed before - maybe she hadn't let herself - but he wasn't exactly acting like himself recently. Even more not-himself than usual. Sure, things in their relationship were the same as ever - on the surface. But he was looking at people. One person in particular - that being "Ooh, I'm in a band, I sing like an albatross, I know all about music" Veruca.
Initially Willow had told herself that she didn't like Veruca, before deciding that that decision wasn't fair. Not in the slightest.
No, she didn't dislike Veruca. She hated Veruca, with a fiery passion. A passion she didn't even know she had.
Secondly, there was Buffy.
Which was perhaps her more significant problem. Her best friend - in theory, at any rate - was avoiding her. Which had prompted Willow, after their massive blow up in the Haunted House, to start avoiding Buffy. It was very confusing.
She didn't know what had caused Buffy's strange behaviour in the first place, but it did seem to spring up at any mention of Oz's name, or Oz being in the room at all...which all seemed to point to Oz being the reason.
The events in the Haunted House had made her really wonder, though, if Buffy was just avoiding her in general, and Oz just provided an excuse...
["Yeah, well so is your face!" Willow yelled, pained that Buffy would ever say something like that about her.
Buffy seemed to brush off the poor insult entirely, not responding with pain or anger, but merely a confused "What?"
Willow felt the blood rising to her cheeks. How could Buffy be this flippant about such a serious matter? "I'm not your sidekick!" 'No, I'm a Wiccan, and I can hold my own. I don't need to be the slayer's sidekick to fight evil!' She turned to leave.
Will fought the urge to turn and see if Buffy would follow after her, to resolve the fight, and her heart gave a flutter when Buffy yelled "Will, wait!"
But when she felt a hand on her shoulder, and she turned around, she was slightly dissappointed not to see her best friend, but just her boyfriend instead.]
Buffy hadn't even tried to settle the quarell. She had just gone off to find her own way. The subsequent events - the destruction of Gachnar, the choc-fest at Giles' - had not given her an oppurtunity to confront the Slayer about the fight. And since then, Willow had been staying at Oz's taking pains to return to the dorm only when Buffy wasn't there.
Thus, the air between them remained rife with tension.
Finally, she brushed the thoughts aside, realising that her life was intruding on her escape.
She returned her hands to the keys.
---
"Hi, Riley." Buffy responded, not looking at the TA. 'Go away. Go away. Go away.'
She wasn't blessed with the gift of telepathy. At least not anymore. Riley came over to sit next to her.
"What are you doing out here this late at night?" Riley sounded concerned.
"Thinking." Buffy said.
"About what?" Riley asked.
'Did it ever occur to you that it could be private?' "Nothing."
"You looked pretty entranced for it to be nothing." Riley responded.
'This guy doesn't take a hint.' "Look, Riley - " she rose to turn and face him, and stopped short.
His shirt and pants were khaki.
They were casual - but definitely khaki. And those boots looked tough enough to demolish houses with. Somewhat similar to those guys in army costumes on Halloween night...
" - What are you doing out here this late at night?" She finished, not quite as she'd planned.
"Nothing." Riley said, with a grin on his face. "Just taking a walk."
'You are the most completely unconvincing liar on the planet'. Buffy grinned back. "Oh."
Riley had a look on his face that suggested he would suddenly love to be absoulutely anywhere else. "If you want to talk about it..."
Buffy considered playing with him. If she said she didn't, then he'd probably run off in a relieved manner. Of course, if she said she did, he would be too polite to beg her off.
While she could thoroughly use the fun offered by making the neuronic TA sweat, she decided that she also couldn't bare to be around him much longer. "I know where to find you." Buffy finished for him. "But now, I'd better be going."
Riley nodded. "Yeah, okay. See you around." He said, getting up and walking very swiftly in the opposite direction.
"Not if I can avoid it." Buffy muttered under her breath.
As she watched Riley walk off, something dawned on her.
In the last month, she had failed to respond to Riley's flirting. She could lay that off on him being a complete idiot, but the she realised that she'd failed to respond to any guy flirting with her.
Why?
She'd been thinking of Willow.
'Shut up! Shut up!' she yelled at the tiny voice inside her head. What had Wlash called it? The Id. The want, the pleasure principle. It wanted, desperately, for her to continue that line of thought. It wanted her to go down that path.
A path she shouldn't go down.
But it was too late. Suddenly, all the pieces of the puzzle quietly clicked into place. Her sudden despise of Oz and all he stood for, the fight in the Haunted House, her ignorance of Riley, Parker and just about every other male that crossed her path...
And her all consuming, never ending, thoughts of Willow.
'No, no, no...' This couldn't be happening. It just couldn't!
'Deny it all you like...' the Id whispered to her. 'It won't change.'
She took a deep breath. 'Alright, so I like Willow. That doesn't change anything. She's with Oz, I'm on my own, and that's how it works.'
There was a chuckle from her other voice, but at least it didn't respond.
Buffy had an overwhelming desire to go kill something, if only to get her mind off Willow for ten minutes, so she set out in search of vampires.
/But I believe in love
And I know that you do too...
And I believe in some kind of path
That we can walk down, me and you\
Willow became simply so absorbed in what she was doing, playing music and resisting the urge to scream in frustration, that she forgot about the spell she had cast on the door. It wasn't permanent.
She didn't notice as the door creaked open.
/So just keep your candles burning
Make your journey bright and pure
That you'll keep returning always and evermore...\
As the vampire about to creep in to Lucas Auditorium collapsed into dust, Buffy paused.
Was that music?
/Into my arms, oh lord
Into my arms
Into my arms, oh lord
Into my arms...\
AN: Officialy the lamest ending I've ever written...