Disclaimer: Everything BtVS and AtS is owned by Joss, ME, and all them over there. Everything Anita Blake is owned by Laurell K. Hamilton

Tequila Sundown

Bourbon, scotch, vodka, rum, tequila�Willow had learned to distinguish the unique scent of each spirit. Learned through night after night as Spike's captive. Night after night when he would return, always drunk, always irrational. Some nights he was almost kind. Others, he was belligerent, hostile, violent. Willow had learned which drinks caused which moods, and how to steel herself for the bad times when he had drunk the wrong kind of alcohol. Especially
when he had drunk tequila.

It had started at the school. She and Xander had been attempting a spell to cure their sudden attraction to each other. Their stolen kisses were wrong and they both knew it. She loved Oz and he loved Cordelia. But still they kept on with the kisses, touches, glances. And they couldn't stop. So Willow had decided that they should try magic. They met in the chemistry lab after school. That's when it all went horribly wrong.

Spike kidnapped the pair and dragged them to his old lair at the factory. He was drunk and raving and told Willow that she was going to do a spell to win his Drusilla back for him. Told her he would shove a bottle through her face, straight into her brain, if she didn't get his dark goddess back for him. And then suddenly he was pouring his heart out to her, crying on her shoulder as she awkwardly tried to console him. All the while, Xander lay unconscious on the bed next to them. As Willow wondered what to do next, she felt the blinding pain of Spike's fangs entering her neck, the last thing she did before losing consciousness was scream that she would do the spell and get Drusilla to love him again if he would let her live.

When Willow awoke much later, very thirsty and with a blinding headache, she had no idea where she was. At some point, Spike had brought her to a small, dark, sparsely furnished room. She had no idea where they were or where Xander was. He wasn't there with them. She asked Spike what he had done to Xander. She never made that mistake again. The beating that followed ensured her silence on that, or nearly any subject, from then on.

Funny about that. She had always been known for her mile-a-minute chatter. `Willow-babble' Xander had called it. Now she spoke so infrequently that the sound of her own voice surprised her. She spoke aloud once when Spike had gone out and had looked around suddenly in search of the visitor to their room. Only then did she realize that the voice was her own. She hadn't said a word since then.

It didn't matter, Spike did all the talking for both of them. When he returned each night, he was always blind-drunk, usually blood- stained, and always spouting off about something. He asked and answered his own questions. Willow had learned that that was best. The only time she had gone against what she had learned that first night was when she had once answered what she had thought was an entirely innocuous question. She couldn't remember what the question was now. But she remembered the black eye, the split lip, and the bruised, perhaps broken, ribs that had resulted. So she let him do the talking for the both of them now. Willow was nothing if not a quick study, and she was an avid student of this subject�'How To Survive As Spike's Captive'.

He hadn't raped her, not yet anyway. One night, when she had smelled tequila, he had started to unbutton his jeans. Mumbling about `taking what was his'. But he had passed out when they were only half-undone and fallen forward onto the bed, snoring deeply. Willow briefly wondered how a creature who didn't breathe could snore, then she
curled up in a tight ball and fell into a fitful slumber herself. She preferred to sleep when he was there, if she could, Her solitude was a time she preferred not to waste by sleeping. Sometimes, it couldn't be helped. He would stay awake for hours ranting and raving and then insist on sleeping with his arms around her. Willow couldn't sleep when he was touching her. So she would wait until he woke up, showered, dressed and left to do whatever he did out�wherever. Then she would sleep, hopefully waking before he returned so she could enjoy at least a bit of peace before the nightmare began anew.

Most nights, or days, she had lost track of time long ago, he would pass out cold on one side of the bed and she could sleep on the other in peace. She had to sleep on the bed though. He had told her that and she had never been foolish enough to challenge him on that rule. And most nights they were both so still that they never touched. Willow liked it much better that way. Once she had awakened to Spike stroking her face with his cold hand and had to fight the urge to scream. But he soon fell back to sleep. And it had never happened again. At least not yet. Willow wasn't foolish, she knew she was living on borrowed time. Sooner or later, the rules would change. And things would be worse than ever.

One rule of her own was to never think about Sunnydale. She never thought anymore about Xander, or Buffy, or Giles, or her parents. Doing so only brought pain. And her life was painful enough. So she'd replay movies she liked, scene by scene, in her head. Or remember each line of her favorite books. Or replay her favorite songs from memory. She didn't know whether she would ever hear another song, read another book, or see another movie again, so she stretched out the replay of each one, wanting to make sure that she didn't exhaust her memories and get sick of what little fodder for enjoyment she had. It might be threadbare, but this was the fabric of her life, and she was determined that it would clothe her as best it could.

As she reached the end of a page of Anne Of Green Gables, a book she had loved years ago, she heard the turn of a key in the lock and strained to smell what Spike was drunk on tonight. She hoped he had brought back food for her. He often forgot to do so. And it had been at least two days, maybe more, since she had eaten. But the smell pouring off of him dashed her hopes. Tequila. Tonight would be a very bad night.


The End

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