Rating: NC-17
Summary: Recent wild times at the Magic Box have lasting and equally wild repercussions.
Additional Pairing: Spike/Tara
Author Notes: Dedicated to Lovesbitca and Diva Stardust.
Story Notes: Takes place S6 between "Gone" and "Doublemeat Palace."
Disclaimer: Joss said to write fanfic!

---
Aftermath
Gwynnega
---

1. Monday night

Spike knew he should leave it alone, but he loved her too much not to try and help. So here he was, early one evening, breaking into the Magic Box. With any luck, Rupert hadn't taken all the most important books on magic when he fled for the mother country.

He wanted to figure out why he could hit Buffy. Oh, he told her it was because she was less than human - but that was just his wish, so she'd be his. Maybe he could find out what the answer really was, and it would set both their minds at rest. God knows she needed some peace, and he could do with some as well. Not bloody likely, however. Last time he'd seen her, he hadn't seen her - that invisible shag they'd had, and clueless Xander barging in. He couldn't stand this invisible affair they were having, and he began to take out his frustration on the lock he was jimmying. But just when the door opened -

"Spike?"

He turned. It was Willow's ex, she of the sweet soft eyes - only they looked neither sweet nor soft just now. If velvet could look pissed off, then her eyes were pissed off velvet. "Evening, Tara," he said, trying to sound casual.

"You're breaking into the Magic Box?"

"Just needed a few things." Like peace of mind. Like love. Bloody fucking likely. Story of my life. "You know, some burba weed. I like to mix it with the blood, make it hot and spicy."

"Yuck."

"And by the way," he said, "what are you doing round these parts? Looking for a glimpse of your former?"

Tara's face fell, and Spike regretted his words. She was a kind soul, had never mistreated him like the others. "I..." she stammered.

"It's all right. No need to explain."

She sighed. "Do you have any idea how Willow's doing? The last time I saw her, she'd been doing heavy-duty magicks with Amy the former rat. I'm wondering if maybe they're..."

Spike pulled out his cigarettes and lighter - the lighter he'd fished out of the Slayer's pocket a few days back. "You're wondering if Willow and Amy have picked up where the two of you left off?" He leaned against the wall and lit a cigarette.

Tara lowered her eyes, shamefaced. "It's really not any of my business," she said. When she looked up again, she was fighting back tears.

"Listen, you shouldn't waste your time mooning over that one. There are some just aren't worthy of one's devotion."

"Don't tell me Willow isn't worthy!" she said with a fire Spike had never seen before - except that night at the Magic Box when she broke it off with Willow. Just before she stormed out, and he'd had his little orgy with Rupert and the witch. "Or are we talking about Buffy now?" she added.

"Neither of them's worthy, in my estimation." Invisible sex, invisible relationship - not that the Slayer would ever use that word. He blew out a mouthful of smoke.

"I still love Willow," Tara said. "I'm just so worried about her..."

"Will you stop? The things that one does - she's insane. Got the Niblet in a car wreck. Lucky they weren't both killed."

"I know. Dawn called and told me about it. She said Willow's off the magicks now - but she sounded skeptical."

It made him furious that either of them should have to be run ragged by love. They both deserved better. "Magic's only the half of it, Tara. Bitch was shagging her brains out the minute you left her." And the minute the words left his mouth, he wished he could shove them back in again, but it was too late.

Truly he was a monster, to have produced that look of horror on her face. "You're lying," she whispered.

"Yes, that's right, I'm lying. Evil creature like me, that's the sort of thing I like to do - breaking and entering, as you just observed, and stealing. And lying. I'm always lying."

"Spike," she managed to say, "tell me what you know."

"Shouldn't have said it. Sorry, really I am."

"Just tell me," she wailed. "Is it Amy? It must be Amy..."

She looked like she was going to fall down and start weeping on the pavement. "No, it's not Amy - well, not so far as I know. I'll tell you what happened. But come inside, sit down."

Tara let herself be led into the Magic Box. Spike turned on the light, and they sat together at the table.

"It was the night you broke it off with her. When we'd gotten our memories back. You told her it was over, and you left. You all left besides me and Giles and Red." God, he couldn't tell her the rest.

She waited, watching him. Then her eyes widened. "You're not saying that she and..."

Which would upset her worse, he wondered - he and Willow, or Willow and Rupert? Perhaps he could pass it off as one or the other, rather than both.

"Giles would never do a thing like that," she mumbled to herself. "Would he? I mean...they'd always been close, until lately. I saw the way she looked at him at the airport, when he was leaving, before we brought Buffy back, but I thought..."

"Please, don't torture yourself," Spike said. "I shouldn't have told you. They were out of their heads. She was in such a state over you leaving her."

"So it's my fault she slept with Giles?"

"Of course not." He was beginning to get the picture that she thought this had been some big emotional betrayal. Perhaps it had been. He remembered how he'd left those two, cuddled together on the floor, Willow crying and begging him to stay, he holding her as if he'd been holding her for years, as if that was his job.

Better that Tara should think it was meaningless sex. "It wasn't just Rupert. It was me, too. Me and Willow. Even me and Giles, a bit."

He saw her sorrow shift, then - into anger. "So you're saying that while I was packing my things and feeling horrible and guilty about leaving, she was fucking her brains out here. Here, where we're sitting right now."

Where we're sitting right now is where I watched them fuck on the floor, before I joined in, Spike silently corrected - but all he did was nod slightly.

"And then she came home and acted miserable and broken-hearted, when she'd really been..." Tara shook her head violently. Then she fixed Spike with a look he'd never seen her wear before - steely, cold. "Tell me what happened."

"You don't want to know! And there's nothing to tell. They were fighting, about the magicks. Then it just...turned. These things happen sometimes." Like me and the Slayer, he reflected. Crashing around in that abandoned house until we crashed fucking through the floor. Yep, these things happened.

"Who started it?" she asked.

"I guess Rupert did. He kissed her."

"Where? Where did it happen?"

"God, you don't need to put yourself through all this. It was against the wall, over there. He sort of cornered her."

Tara rose and slowly, deliberately made her way across the room. "Show me."

Something in her voice made his stomach tighten. He got up and followed her.

"Here?" she asked.

"No - here." He pointed.

Tara stood with her back to the wall. "Then what happened?"

He could smell the anger coming off her - it was rich and musky. It wasn't just anger. Slowly he approached her. "He kissed her. Then she kissed him back."

"Show me," she said.

"You mean...?"

She raised her chin slightly, so there could be no mistaking her intent. Well, then. He leaned in and kissed her pretty mouth.

And what was it about the damn Magic Box these days? Had someone enchanted it with an aphrodisiac spell? Here he was, kissing an avowed lesbian for the second time in less than a month. She tasted sweet and clean, like fresh water. She put her arms around his neck. Somehow she seemed to know that's what Willow had done with Giles. Her little tongue snaked into his mouth.

He broke away. "What's all this?" he asked gently. "Payback for your ex?"

"Just show me what happened after that."

He remembered what had happened after that. The memory of it, and Tara's scent of rage and arousal, and her breasts pressing against him - all made him hard.

He felt as if he was cheating on Buffy, and that was ridiculous. He and Buffy were just "having fun," according to her. He could do what he liked. He wasn't sure if acting out this strange game with Tara was what he liked, but he supposed he owed it to her for letting the cat out of the bag in the first place.

"What happened next," he said, "was this." He began to thrust against her. She let out a keening moan, half pleasure, half grief. "And then this..." He put his hand between her legs and rubbed her roughly up and down. Her eyes were closed, and she moaned again. Was she picturing her former lover with Rupert?

"Hey," he said, "open your eyes."

She did. Her eyes were molten with desire - desire for him or for revenge, or, likely, both.

"And here's what happened next," he said. He unzipped his jeans and lifted her long skirt. He pushed her panties to one side and pushed inside her. She gasped. God, she was so hot inside, so tight. "Oh, sweet Tara," he said, fucking her slowly. She held onto him. "Is this the first time you've ever done this?"

"Yes," she whispered fervently.

"Feels good, doesn't it?" He grabbed at her breasts, so big and soft. He thrust in deeper with a grunt.

"Really good," she said. "And this is what they did?"

"Actually they moved to the floor. After he finished, I fucked her. Then he did her again. Some other bits happened, too, but that's the gist. But he was so much taller than her, they couldn't do it properly standing up, like we can." He shoved in deep, slowly withdrew part-way, and slammed it in again. "We can do it better than they could," he crooned.

"Better?" she asked, as if that were something she hadn't thought of.

"Much better." He reached between her legs and rubbed her lightly.

"Much...better..." she panted. She gazed at him, her large eyes so warm, not like the Slayer. Much better if he could've loved someone like Tara, he thought.

"And now you're going to come, aren't you?" he whispered, and kissed her open mouth, kissed his way down to the thin skin of her neck where the blood beat. But he didn't want to bite her the way he'd wanted to bite Willow. He only wanted to fuck the pain out of her, rub her until the hurt dissolved...there! She cried out, and her cunt contracted around him, so good, her hands clutching at him as her pussy clutched him.

"Spike..." she whispered, and he plunged deeper into her wet center.

"So sweet, so good," he said between clenched teeth, and with one tremendous thrust, he let go inside her.

After he withdrew, she adjusted her skirt. She was breathing heavily, but she looked oddly serene. "Thank you, Spike."

He zipped up. "For what? For getting to shag a beautiful woman? For telling you things I had no business telling you?"

She put her hand on his shoulder, so lightly. She wore a Mona Lisa smile. "Goodnight." She walked out of the Magic Box without a backward glance, and closed the door behind her.

Somehow Spike didn't feel like doing research anymore - not tonight. He sat and had a smoke. It had been good, no question. Why was it he couldn't fall in love with someone like Tara? Why did he have to bash his head against the wall, waiting for Buffy to behave like her, open and sweet?

On the other hand, Tara might appear soft and yielding, and yet that woman had backbone. Tonight she'd told him what to do every step of the way.

He wondered what the Slayer was doing tonight. Well, slaying, obviously. But he wasn't going to go crawling off to her, not just now. He left the Magic Box and locked the door. He still felt oddly guilty for sleeping with another woman. But clearly that was just his own stupidity.

***

2. Tuesday morning

Willow waited until both of them had gone - Dawn to school, Buffy to look for a job. Then she sat on the edge of her bed and dialed the number.

"Hello?" His voice sent a jolt through her. She hadn't spoken to him since he'd left town.

"Giles, hi. It's me."

"Hello, Willow." His voice was gentle but maybe a little guarded. "How are you? Is everything all right?"

In other words, have you screwed up again? Erased memories, raised the dead? She couldn't bear to tell him about the car crash, Dawnie's fractured arm. "I'm...well, I'm okay. I kinda hit rock bottom, and now I'm off the magicks. Just for a few days so far, but it's a start. I hope."

"I see." That was all. Not - that's wonderful, Willow, good for you. Was he still angry with her? She'd thought the anger had been transmuted that strange night when they'd done...what they'd done.

She babbled into his silence. "Okay, I did slip once. It was just a little thing, to speed up a computer search when I was trying to help Buffy become uninvisible."

"Invisible? Is she all right?"

"Yep, she's fine, all visible again, and I did it without the magicks - except for that tiny slip. The point is, I wanted to say how sorry I am for that spell that caused the amnesia, and for everything. For the things I said to you. You were right, Giles. I have a problem. But I'm trying to make it right."

"I'm glad to hear it. Although I'm not sure quitting the magic altogether is the safest option."

"Safest?" God, was there no pleasing him? "I thought it's what you wanted."

"Willow, the power is part of you now. In my opinion, you need to train, to learn to control it, so it doesn't take you over."

Just the thought of letting the magic back into her life made her feel exhausted. "I don't know. Maybe someday. But I got so out of control. I don't think I could do just one spell. I'd go off the wagon. I need to stop, at least for awhile."

His voice softened a little. "I understand."

"But Giles...there was something else I wanted to talk to you about."

"Go on."

He sounded so reserved. She didn't know if she dared ask what she really wanted to know. Okay, one, two, three, speak: "I was wondering if you ever thought about...about what we did, before you left."

There was a long silence. "Of course I think about it, Willow. How could I not?"

She noticed she was clutching the phone, and that her hand was slippery with sweat. She switched hands and wiped the clammy one on her skirt. "We went a little crazy, didn't we? The stuff we did...with Spike..."

"He hasn't made trouble for you, has he? Held it over you in any way?"

She liked that he was still protective of her. He couldn't hate her too much if he still cared what happened to her. "No, nothing like that. We both act like nothing happened. Not that he's around much, these days."

"Good. I'm glad."

"But aside from Spike...the things we did, together...are you sorry for what we did?"

"Are you?" he asked.

She forced herself to say the words. "It's just that...well, I think about you. And I miss you sometimes. I'd miss you anyway, of course, but now it's different. And that gives me something else to feel guilty about."

"Because of Tara, you mean?"

"I hope she'll take me back someday. But I really wish you were here. Even though it would make things complicated." She held her breath, waiting for him to respond, to tell her she was crazy for feeling this way. She felt pretty crazy most of the time nowadays.

"I miss you too, Willow," he said, and relief suffused her body. "I miss the lot of you," he added, and the relief evaporated, and she felt doubly crazy. "But - yes, I think about what we did. I try to make sense of it." He paused. "It's as if, once I touched you, I couldn't make myself stop."

Uh oh. She started to breathe faster. "I didn't want you to stop."

"It was as if I absolutely had to get inside you."

"I needed you, too." Adrenaline surged through her. Her heart was pounding. Then she allowed herself to step off the cliff. "Giles, I need you."

He gave a harsh laugh. "I'm hard already, Willow." His voice grew terse, urgent. "Are you wet for me? That night, you were so wet. You felt so good..."

She slipped her hand under her skirt. When had she become sopping wet? "I'm so wet, Giles. If you were here..."

"I'd be inside you." She heard a zipper being pulled down. "God, I want to fuck you right now."

"Giles, what are we doing?" She rubbed herself fast and hard.

"Fucking," he said, as if that were the logical answer. "We're fucking. Are you on your bed?"

"Yes..." She closed her eyes and leaned back against the pillows. "And you're here, with me. You're on top of me."

"I'm putting it in, Willow - just the tip. Do you want the rest of it?"

She remembered how it felt when he pushed inside her for the first time. She sighed rapturously. "Yes, give it to me..."

"I'm pushing all the way inside you..."

"I love how you feel inside me..."

He groaned. "I love how you feel, surrounding me...No one has ever made me so hard."

"God, you're huge. You go so deep...fuck...fuck me..." She touched herself frantically. She heard his hand making wet noises on his cock. She pictured him stroking himself, and remembered how he'd felt in her hand, hard and silky and wet.

"Look what you're making me do, Willow...I can't stop..."

"Don't ever stop..." It was so good, her hand, his ragged voice, the sounds his hand made on his cock. She wanted it to go on forever, but she was too excited. "Giles, you're making me come..."

"Yes, come for me...I'm coming..."

Afterwards, she heard him trying to catch his breath.

"Giles...oh god, Giles."

"Willow..." He sighed. "I certainly wasn't expecting that."

"Me neither." Everything felt unreal. "What are we gonna do?"

"I suppose we should try to forget."

"Minus any forgetting spells? I don't know if I can. I don't even know if I want to." In the wake of her orgasm, she felt such longing for his body on hers, she didn't think she could stand to be apart from him for another minute. "It's just...I didn't know it could be like this, between us. When did I get to be such a sex maniac?" He chuckled softly. "Giles, it was never like this for me, with anyone. I'd never even had phone sex before."

"Come to think of it, neither had I."

"Really? In your advanced years?" Silence on the other end. "You know that was a joke, right?"

"Very funny." Still, he sounded amused. God, how could she yearn for him like this? She was only supposed to feel that way about Tara.

"I feel so lonely. I feel lonely for you, Giles."

"For me, or for Tara?"

"Well, for Tara, no question. But also for you. I almost wish..."

They were both silent.

"Here's a thought," he said. "There's a coven here, in Devon. They're truly remarkable women. If you ever did decide you wanted to train, to learn to use your powers wisely..." His voice trailed off.

"Are you inviting me?" A vision of her in England, with Giles - really with Giles - came to her. Was he really offering her all that?

"Yes, I suppose I am."

She didn't know what to say. She wanted Tara back, and she didn't think she was strong enough to confront the magicks, not now. But the idea of her and Giles, in England, and studying with the coven... "It's tempting," she said. "You're...tempting."

He laughed softly. "I understand that you're not ready to leave Sunnydale."

"Maybe someday."

"The offer stands," he said.

"Thanks. For offering." For loving me, she thought. For making me feel wanted. But she couldn't say that. That would be to admit there was anyone besides Tara who could fill her heart. "So tell me about you," she said. "I promise not to start touching myself inappropriately." He chuckled again. "Tell me what you did today."

They talked awhile about his new, and, it seemed, rather lonely life over there. It had been raining a lot, he said. Somehow that sounded nice to her. They talked about how Buffy was coping. When they hung up, Willow was still lying back against the pillows, and she still felt him on her, his body. She could still hear his voice. Maybe it was just solace, not love - just sex, not love. She wanted Tara. She wanted to give up the magic and win back Tara.

Yet she kept imagining what it would be like to live in England, with Giles and the coven. She would never admit it, but part of her hoped it would happen someday.

---
The End
Email author
Back