Author's notes: PLEASE read these, they give the background to the story. Backstory: So Buffy and the Scoobs all like 'ooh, if the First Evil was upset about one Slayer coming back to life and upsetting the balance, thousands of Slayers with early activation should make it all better! ' Well, guess what? It doesn't. How shocking. Instead, all of the Scoobies besides Willow and Xander are killed, Buffy was turned into a vampire and killed, and the S.I.T-cum-S.es are either dead or in hiding, revealing themselves means certain death. Society is a wasteland, one of those apocalyptic type situations with chaos reigning, humans and demons alike ravaging the landscape at will. Everything is backed up, sanitation is bad because no one works at a job long enough to clean it, there are periodic water shortages in the cities that aren't overrun by chaos, etc...now please enjoy this fic.
The room is purple at night. Not really purple, just that grey colour that looks so much like purple but no one ever seems to notice. The've stayed here a week and she notices it; it suits her well. She is blessed with red hair, the room is mauve and Xander's welts are bedecked in garnet, ruby and wine. But there's no wine allowed here, it numbs the senses and makes him unable to enjoy the pain, and her to gauge just how much and how far she can take him. There's no mood alterations of any kind except the pain. It's light out, so the motif is fragmented.
Who could have thought it would end up like this. She - the mouse - the turd, who slunked along the halls of school, latching on to any friends who would accept her, no matter how stupid (Xander), how heartless (Xander) and how selfish (Buffy) they were. She, the cool, fearless independent avant-garde lesbian who has men crawling for her - now that she knows what they want, and how to make them think they can get it. There were always men, actually. Some of them would watch her, attractive and in their twenties or old and not-so-attractive in their fifties, their hands down their pants in discreet corners of the Bronze or busways where they knew she would never tell anyone about them raping her with their eyes. Popular boys casting furtive glances at her, just a little more secretive than the ones they cast at the "BuffBerzerker" ; she might be a ballbuster but she had fashion sense at least. For a while anyway. Not anymore.
No. These days, the Cinnamon Queen had come into her own. She knew her power lay in the Celtic heart and the sacred Asian bark - and she didn't hide, she embraced it. People crawled toward her, both men and women hoping to gain absolution for their sins, pretty butterflies to keep, cures for boredom. But she wasn't interested in anyone anymore except Xander.
He sniveled on the floor, snot running from his already pink nose. His hair ran in limp strands of shining liquid silk, far more attractive than any previous haircut or dry incarnation of the current one could be.
She thinks, "I'll have to be sure to make him sweat more."
His back is - a testament to beauty. Every orgasmic fantasy of a devout Catholic; a new religion, a new joy, and most importantly a new FAITH made in defiance out of the unforgiving harshness of natural existence.
She believes, she repeats in her head and heart, "I will make him whole again, and I will make him found. I will help him know love and I will in turn love him. Always have."
And she does love him. Always has. Once in a while, she laughs at the subversive irony that her hair is not just a simle cliche. She knows her soul is fire and rage and unrelenting love and hopeless desire for wholeness. She understands the souls behind the Catholic church; she can find the eternally sought love of Jesus. And it's in the blood.
The air slices and the brunette man whimpers, knowing before it happens that his back will become a violated crimson mess once again, preparing and uselessly scrunching up his face as if that could protect him from the impending pain. His skin bounces of it's own volition as the leather braid tickles his fuschia skin. Willow smiles, for she's playing with him and knows this scares him more than the next cut; he knows it's coming - but he doesn't know when. The whip gently glides over his skin and he hears his Goddess, Mother Mary sigh behind him, regroup.
"Bitch is creative", was his first thought when they began playing together.
And then when he's not expecting it, when he's expecting her to be sighing and stretching her agile flesh-padded skeleton above him, she brings the whip down. It cuts across the back and against the sidelong length of the other lashes.
He lets the disorienting burn claim him, beggar at the gate of his senses bading him a simple scratch or move to appease it's hunger. But he is forbidden to flinch.
Willow smiles, knowing that he's so far beyond the limits of construction and Anya and anything but the basic squalor of his parents' legacy of violence. He has to be here. He doesn't know why, but he crawls to it even as he desires to stop it - to take the whip from her hand, see the smug smile fade from her pretty face as he rises and takes possession of his Goddess. He could drive inside of her for hours - he knows this, for they've fucked hours at a time during ceremonies honouring her Gods which he gladly embraced in exchange for such rapture. But this time, he could be the one in charge. Could push her back against the nearest roach-free and yellowed wall, pull up the satin ruffle skirt she wore when her good clothes were being cleaned at a wash or in a house full of rotting dead people. They could witness as he forces her to succumb to him, forces her to swear submission to him and the path of his nearest ancestors. His parents. She would cry, her mind would tear a bit. But she'd get over it, maybe give him the some of the devotion she holds only to fuel the burning fires of the Gods. He'd like that.
A perverse smile manages to spread over his mouth, and he instinctively keeps himself from wincing as his split lip cracks it's newly healed membrane. He's thinking about fucking her, giving her what she could never ask for. And what Buffy would never take. He'd like to fuck Buffy too - let's be honest, to rape her. To rape her and watch her cry as he has fun with the bitch who shat on him in little ladylike timeslots over his formative years. But not like Willow.
Willow wouldn't be an act of hate or juvenile narcissistic rage. He doesn't know what it would be yet, but he knows he would make her cum, whether she wanted to or not. He would face the First fearlessly to give her pleasure. And then he would own her, finally. He can't believe how stupid he has been over the years. He doesn't regret Anya. Maybe in another world he could have had them both. But there were women's rights these days and what he was imagining with renewed lust is still technically illegal.
The next blow slices from his neck to the crack of his asshole, the one Xander is exposing by holding himself open for her in a humiliating and devoutly submissive pose. And he remembers why he does this; it's not just for him, but to please her. To make it up to her. And because it's the only thing left to do. They're both so empty and they know there isn't anything but a 200 ft drop behind this cliff and they're just not ready to go there yet and they're both grateful the other feels the same way. He loves her and she loves him and it still feels good and then there's Jesus and all that.
He cries out, he can't help it. He tries to contract his anus in a pointless effort to relieve the pain. He knows she'll get pissed but it just hurts too much. He's sorry he can't be tougher for her. But what Willow does next surprises him more than the searing pain slicing from the spot where Buffy bit him last year to the crack of his tender anus where Willow fucked him last week. The oft unforgiving Goddess slides to her knees beside him. She doesn't say anything, just pulls his head from the floor, supporting the weight of his upper body because he's not yet allowed to pull his hands away from this aquiescent position he's been in for an hour. She strokes his beautiful soaked hair, getting the wetness on her black chiffon top. The contact makes them both shiver in the bizarrely air conditioned wasteland of bargain-basement interior decor.
Xander whimpers, and though Willow, for some uknown reason, wants to cry also - she doesn't. If she's going to beat him, she has to at least stay strong for him. Xander has broken protocol, but it's ok. She can punish him for it later, and if she doesn't - they'll be dead by then. And the odd thing is that their sessions ARE beautiful. And it's a beauty that never would have been known if the world hadn't gone to shit. Willow supposed you had to look on the bright side when tragedy struck -
..."and then she said, 'kind of like how even used mercedes still have leather seats' "...
Buffy's living voice floated back to her from the past.
The Cinnamon Goddess checks the sky, it will be dark soon, and it's good that they have a place to stay. But it honestly doesn't matter, it's not as if they'll be safe. The change in lighting signals nothing more than the change in demons. The worst are their own kind, who are not bound to any heavenly codes and walk free to rape and kill and do whatever, whenever. Willow pulls Xander closer and starts to rock with him, and as she does so she caresses his beautiful hair.