Author: eena_angel2001
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I don't own anyone.
Pairing: Willow/Jeff Hardy
Summary: Response to Candle's challenge
Original Challenge:
Okay, another challenge from Candle. This one is a little different though. I am going to see Our Lady Peace in October in Atlantic City and one of my favorite songs off of Gravity is Made of Steel. The first time I heard it I thought of Shane Helms/Hurricane. It could also work really well for Buffy or Spike. My challenge is to use the
song in a fic. I would prefer Shane Helms/Willow but please just use the song. Here are the lyrics.
OUR LADY PEACE LYRICS
~*~*~
"Made Of Steel"
She couldn't take this anymore. She was such a loser, a complete failure. She couldn't do anything right, she couldn't make anything right. And in the end, she felt like she deserved this.She didn't deserve love, she should never strive for it. But that all changed with him. Just once look in those beautiful emerald eyes of his and she was lost to love once more.And she was well aware of how love enjoyed to jerk her around.
~I can be anything that you want me to be
A punching bag, a piece of string, oh
That reminds you not to think~
She wasn't good enough for him. She knew that much herself. And that's why she kept her feelings all to herself. She would never let him know that she loved him. That every night she went to bed with his face on her mind. That every morning she cried for the desolation she felt, for not having him there with her when she awoke.
No, he never knew any of that. And she wasn't about to tell. Let him think what he wanted of her. She had in fact sold her soul in so many more ways than ever before. She was a bad girl, a slut, a whore, a cheater. She was a black hole of the human condition. She sucked whatever she could in and it never got out the same again.
~I found the note down in your car
And its not your fault it gets this hard
Gets this hard~
It had started with Jericho. She didn't know why she latched onto him from the start, but she did. And lord knows how she managed to put up with him during all those months. But then again, she was looking for penance, and having to put up with that man was penance.
Having him touch her was like punishment. She still had nightmares about those nights with him. He was cold, harsh, and brutal. And she had just laid back and taken what he had to give. It didn't matter how much he hurt her in those nights, she never complained. She just took it and in the morning looked for ways to hide the hurt
from his love making.
On retrospect, she probably should have stopped him. He really was hurting her all those nights in his bed. And maybe if she had stopped it then she could have controlled him. But she started too late to tell him that, and Jericho fell through her grasps. But don't worry, she had ample revenge on him. After all, who do you
think sicced Edge on him?
That's right, it was all her doing that thing with Edge. True, she didn't even approach Edge until after Jericho assaulted him while he was bowing out of the King Of The Ring. But she had watched from the back, and she had known how easy it would be to use him.She didn't approach him so much as she let him find her. She had
slipped out of Jericho's room after a particularly brutal session of love making, limping down to where she knew he would be. Eventually, he stumbled upon poor little Willow, all wounded and scared. You know Cordelia Chase always thought she was a great actress. Maybe she was, but that night Willow put her to shame.
Edge didn't know what hit him. All of a sudden he was caught up in her circle of pain and regret, with the cutest desire to help her through it. He was a real gentleman Edge was, she wished she had hooked up with him from the start.It took very little to make him devoted to her. She had cried, tried to hide and shy away from him that night. But he had gently picked her up and carried her to his room. He swore Jericho would never lay another hand on her, swore it on his life. And she had smiled and
thanked him. Really thanked him. Edge claimed never to have had such great sex in all his life. She had taken the compliment modestly. She had learned much in her time away from Sunnydale, foremost being how to be the perfect whore.
But it was different with Edge than it was with Jericho. He was nice, sweet, and attentive. He was like Tara had been, so gentle in the bed it made her weep. But she wasn't in love with him, though he most assuredly was in love with her. Willow figured that maybe given time, she could have loved him back. It wouldn't have been very difficult. He was so devoted to her, protecting and avenging her against Jericho. With time, it would have been impossible for her not to love him back.
But she never got the chance. Why? Two words.
Eric Bischoff.
~Hold your head high
Don't look down
I'm by your side
Won't back down
You wanted a hero tonight~
Willow never did figure out how Eric knew so much about her life. She could only assume that Jericho had snooped through her things occasionally, and then readily supplied Bischoff with the details after he jumped to RAW. Willow didn't know for sure, but what did it matter? In the end, Bischoff had her.
He made her jump ship to RAW, to leave Edge just hanging. And worse, he made her break his heart before she left. Willow hadn't wanted to do it, but it was either that or have to deal with her past coming to catch her. And Willow feared that most of all.
So she did the only real thing she could think of doing. She slept with Brock Lesnar, got caught, and ran to RAW. It had hurt to see Edge's face when he saw what she had done. Hurt even more because Eric demanded that it be public. He wanted everyone to think she was a whore, a slut, a no good ho. Because that way, she would have only him.
But it had hurt her to have see herself doing those things with Brock Lesnar. The evidence of what she had become just thrown in her face. And with Edge standing there next to her, watching it all. He didn't even yell at her. He just got this defeated look on his face and left the arena without saying a word. He never returned any of
her phone calls, not even to this day.
She felt bad about that.
~Well I'm not made of steel
I'm not made of steel
But your secrets safe with me~
So she went to RAW, with nothing to gain and nothing much to lose. But she refused to go back to Jericho. Eric had agreed, much to Y2J's chagrin, and promptly assigned her to his new pet project, Triple H. He was the worst of them all.
Hunter just expected her to sleep with him right away. She hadn't really protested much, after all, she knew what Eric had brought her to RAW for. She was the overpaid prostitute he would flit between his favourite lackeys. She knew this and came anyway. And you know what? All those things Stephanie had said in spite after her divorce, you know, all those things about Hunter's little guys? Well, she was telling the truth. Willow was very disappointed with her new client.
But she stayed on. It was the same thing that had been with Jericho. HHH treated her badly and she took it. Because she deserved it. She never deserved the kind of sweet treatment Edge had given her. She had stolen it, used it up for a time, but now it was back to the penance and punishment. And being with Hunter was punishment. Willow never felt so miserable in all her life.
Until she saw him.
~I can be anything that you want me to be
A holy cross, some sympathy, oh
That reminds you not to bleed~
She didn't know much about him. She had heard a few things here and there, about the high flyers. She had dismissed them because she figured they would never be the headliners that she needed to survive in this business. She would be too able to control them, to make them do whatever she said. They were all too young to know how to shield themselves from the likes of her. And Willow didn't particulary want to ruin them. She wasn't here for the love of the business, the love of the sport. She was here because it was an easy access to the pain and humiliation that she deserved. And she planned on getting it.
Until she saw him.
Jeff Hardy. There were no real words to describe how she felt when she saw him. Yes, there was that feeling of lust deep inside of her, but that wasn't it. She felt something for him just on sight, and that had never happened before. Not since Tara, not since she had fled from Sunnydale and the hell she had created there. It wasn't
right, it wasn't supposed to happen.But it did.
~I found the note down in your car
And you climbed up here to fall apart
Fall apart~
She ignored him the best she could, but she couldn't make the feelings inside her go away. And to make it worse, he watched her. She could see him watching her as she made her way on the hallways. Not with contempt or disapproval, but just plain watching. And then the watching turned into something a bit more. She saw sympathy and warmth in his eyes. Like he knew she carried a deep pain down in the centre of her being. Like he knew everything she had been through in
these last years. And it was like he wanted to help her.
She tried to push him away. She tried to use Hunter to push him away. She draped herself over the Game, letting everyone know who she was doing and who she was staying with. But that didn't bother him. So she did something even worse than anything else she had done before.
She slept with Matt. And Jeff walked in on it.
It was funny to see the betrayal in his eyes at that, like they had been seeing each other or something else foolish. And then he had stomped out of the room and didn't come back. It caused trouble between the brothers, but she never imagined how far it would get. Jeff was furious with his older brother. Matt had thought Jeff would
be angry about him cheating on Lita, boy was he ever off. And Jeff pushed his brother away.
And then Matt turned on him.
She found Jeff later that exact night, drinking away his sorrows. She should have just left him there. Left him to his drinking and his pain. But it hurt her so much to see him so alone. She went to him without thinking, without consideration. And she tried to make it better.
She should have never slept with him that night. But he had needed her, and it had been so long since anyone needed her. It was no excuse for what she did, but that's why it happened.And that just made things even worse.
~Hold your head high
Don't look down
I'm by your side
Won't back down
You wanted a hero tonight~
He demanded that she leave Hunter the next morning. She refused, knowing the consequences of doing something Eric didn't like. He had become so angry and so hurt. He yelled at her, berating her for whoring herself out to the likes of them. Yelled at her for being so spineless that she couldn't leave him. Yelled at her for staying
with him.
And it hurt like she had never known before.
~Well I'm not made of steel
I'm not made of steel
But your secrets safe with me~
She broke down, told him everything. And he held her while she cried. He wanted to help her, to save her from her own hell. But she wouldn't let him. This was her penance, her unhappiness for all time was her punishment. Couldn't he see that? This was what needed to be. It was what she needed to do in order to stay sane. The pain and humiliation were the only emotions she had left to feel in this world.
But he corrected her. She didn't just have that. She had him.
She had love.
~No...
Your secrets safe with me~
She never did figure what he did, but it had worked. Apparently he called in some favour that Linda McMahon owed him. All of Eric's information on her was handed back and he left the redhead alone. She was free of Hunter, free of all of them. She was free to be with Jeff.
But could she make herself stay with him?
~They knock you down
I'll pick you up...
They laugh at you
I'll shut them up~
He was too good for her. She knew it, though he denied it. And though she tried time and time again to push him away, it wouldn't work. She would flirt shamelessly with other men in his presence, but he wouldn't do a thing. He would just grab her by the arm, take her someplace secluded and proceed to show her how much he loved her. And after those interactions, she could not make herself leave him.
But she still didn't think she deserved him.
~But I'm not made of steel
But I'm not made of steel
But I'm not made of steel
But your secrets safe with me
Yeah
Your secrets safe with me
But yeah~
He had to keep a close eye on her, just to make sure she wouldn't do anything stupid to push him away, like sleep with another guy. She had done it before, but he wouldn't let her do it again. She pointed out that having to watch your girlfriend 24/7 probably meant that they weren't meant to be together. He just laughed and responded with a grin.
"If we weren't meant to be together, then why the hell would I put up with all this?"
She honestly didn't know the answer to that. He should have just left her. She was bad news, a slut, a whore, a murderer. Poison to everything she touched. And she held to that, reminding him of that every day.
Even the day he slipped that ring on her finger.
They were married quickly, in a small ceremony in North Carolina. Her friends had come down, astounding her with their acceptance and understanding. They wanted her to marry Jeff, they said he was good for her. But she didn't deserve him, she told them as much. But it was Xander who answered that firmly with:
"More like he doesn't deserve you. Have you seen the hair on that boy?"
She couldn't believe that she had let it happen. She should have stopped it, should have left him at the altar. But she couldn't do it, nothing could make her leave him. And after a while, she stopped trying to make him leave her. It took a long time mind you, but finally she just stopped everything and just felt.
And then she knew she was happy.
Jeff had saved her, though she didn't particularly want to let him. He was her hero, even when she would run from him. He stayed by her through everything, suffering through his hurt as a result of her actions. And he never once wavered in his resolve.
He was her hero. And she loved him for it.
~Hold your head high
Don't look down
I'm by your side
Won't back down
You wanted a hero tonight~
~*~The End~*~