Angels would fall

Spoilers: everything up to and including some various stuff from the 4th season

Disclaimer: Joss and his cronies own willow and Xander. Edgar Allen Poe is an amazing and incredible inspiration who one can only hope is finally at peace with his love. Melissa Etheridge is a goddess who owns her own rocking self.

Rating: Pg-13

I know what everybody thinks. They think that I'm just this oblivious jerk who never knew or wanted to know what was right in front of his face. I knew. I knew Willow loved me. I knew I loved her. But more importantly, I knew that I could never let on that I knew. I could never freely admit my love for her in anything more than the friendly-type capacity. If I loved her freely and out in the open then something, somewhere, somehow would ruin it. Kinda like Poe and his Annabelle Lee: "The angels not half so happy in heaven went envying her and me." But here, late at night, when I'm alone in the dark, these nagging voices start in. They tell me that she's tired of me hanging around, that I'll never get to hold her and love her. To try to drown out the sound of my own self-doubts I turn on the radio. Sometimes the music only serves to play an orchestra for my inner monologue.

~ The rope that's wrapped around me is cutting through my skin

And the doubts that have surrounded me

Are finding their way in

I keep it close to me

Like a holy man prays

In my desperate hour

It's better that way ~

I cling to one thing, the fateful night with the the demons and the zombies. She told me that she loved me. And I fucked Faith not twenty minutes later. I didn't want to. I didn't really enjoy it, but I did it. I did it for Willow, as bizarre as that sounds. I was afraid that her love for me would be twisted against her. That might sound paranoid, but I'm all too aware of how unsmooth the course of true love runs on the Hellmouth. So I hurt my Willow because I love her so much. She was devastated by it, but we eventually reinstated our tenuous friendship. And I was aloud to be around her once more.

~ So I'll come by and see you again

I'll be such a very good friend

Have mercy on my soul

I will never let you

Where my mind has been

Angels never came down

There's no one here they want to hang around

But if they knew

If they knew you at all

Then one by one

Angels would fall ~

It got to be too much to be around her near the end of high school, so I did the unforgivable. I left. She was moving forward in her relationship with Oz at a breakneck speed, and the memory of the fluke was just a roadblock. It hurt like hell knowing that Oz was the one putting the smile on her face, the spring in her step, and the sparkle back in her eyes. Oz was doing the same things with Willow that I did in my dreams but knew I'd never be able to do. I left so I could be with my memories and dreams of her in peace. I drove up to the Rockies, thinking that maybe I could talk to the angels myself and change their minds. They wouldn't listen. I did everything could to try to get her out of my soul once and for all. And it worked. Until I saw her again.

~ I've crept into your temple

I have slept upon your pew

I've dreamed of the divinity

Inside and out of you

I want it more than truth

I can taste it on my breath

I would give my life for just a little death ~

I came home to Sunnydale to find that everything had changed and yet stayed exactly the same. Everyone except me was matriculating at UC Sunnydale. Yeah, I felt a little, well, a lot, left out of everything. But I got a job, moved into my basement, and continued to fight the good fight. Oz left after only a few weeks of school, and guess who was left to pick up the pieces? I didn't mind, cause it gave me plenty of opportunities to be with Wills again, even if it was in the 'just friends' capacity.

~ So I'll come by and see you again

I'll be just a very good friend

I will not look upon your face

I will not touch upon your grace

Your ecclesiastic skin ~

It's hard though. We both have our own significant others and it's a tossup as to which one of us has the weirdest girlfriend. She's got a painfully shy Wicca, and I've got an ex-vengeance demon. I'm not happy, but I'm not unhappy either. I'm just at this weird state of...drifting right now, for a lack of a better way to put it. We each have our own lives, but yet we're also connected on a level that makes Tara and Anya a might uncomfortable. When Wills awakens in the middle of the night from the same nightmare she's had since the age of five, I'm the one that she calls to sing her back to sleep, not the woman sleeping next to her. And when I got the chickenpox last spring, Willow nursed me back to health, cause she was the only one who could make me feel better. I still hope that one day she and I will be together, but I doubt it. I'm as content as I can be with what I have. I'm careful, and I have her as my friend during my waking hours, and when I sleep I have her whole and totally. And this arrangement works, for now.

~ I'll come by and see you again

I'll have to be a very good friend

If I whisper they will know

I'll just turn around and go

You will never know my sin ~

The End