Red Velvet: Caught Between Two Worlds
Title: Red Velvet, Chapter Twelve: Caught between Two Worlds
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Author: creyr
Pairing: Spike/Xander
Rating: NC-17 overall, PG this part
Word count: 1,026
Summary: One day, William takes a short cut through the forest . . . and his life is never going to be the same.
Feedback: Oh, yes, please!
Warnings: Highlight: Bestiality, torture, mutilation, object rape; none
Betas: ribby and tested_tempted
Notes: Biliography.

Previous Chapters






William was sore for days after that encounter, his movements stiff. Master Bels and Mistress Yonary both inquired as to his injury, but he mumbled something evasive about helping Liam take down a tree and pulling it wrong. They left him alone about it, although he thought he saw some protest in Yonary’s eyes. He avoided her . . . whether she could truly see him or her female senses told her that there was more to his tale, he did not want to face her probing questions.

He had known that he loved Xander before that night, but after it, something seemed to shift inside him. It was no longer some light-hearted affair that he could escape when sneaking into the woods lost its allure. He was bound to Xander, bound to a man who was also a wolf. The idea should frighten him, but strangely enough, it excited him, to know that he belonged utterly to someone else, that Xander had such power over him, power that William gave away freely in exchange for his love. A worthy bargain by any measure that William knew.

Xander’s presence seemed to live inside him, a barely heard call that turned his head to the wilderness when his mind should be on other things, ordinary things. But he could not bring himself back down from the heights which he flew when he was with his lover.

His work began to suffer, steel spoiling by a fire that was too hot too soon, designs botched from a careless turn with the carving awl. Master Bels hid neither his displeasure nor his disappointment. Unfortunately, William paid no heed to that good man’s admonitions. It wasn’t until William mishandled a crucible of molten bronze, which spilled, splashing his arm, that William listened to his master.

Master Bels placed him on a stool while he fetched the burn ointment and bandages. Master Bels cleared his throat nervously several times and William wondered where the ire was and why he was being so quiet.

“The first time one finds the joy of the body with a willing girl is a special time in one’s life. An excitement that is never quite as intoxicating later in life.”

William had been expecting a lecture about his clumsiness, but he was in no way prepared for those words. Icy fear gripped his heart, but Master Bels gave no indication that he knew that William’s lover was anyone other than the usual light girl.

“Be that as it may, William, one cannot neglect one’s responsibilities or one’s very safety in the name of such lusts.”

William nodded, the point was fair.

“The church does not condone such relations outside the scope of lawful marriage but I do not pretend that men have the nature of angels. I will not task you for it, only beg you do concentrate on your tasks at hand.”

“I thank you for your care and concern for me, despite the difficulties I’ve caused you.”

Master Bels smiled wryly. “Shocking as it may seem, I do remember what it is to be young and full of life. William . . . you are extraordinarily talented and will not be a prentice long. If she is worthy, make an offer for her and settle the matter. If she is not, then this storm will pass soon enough. Do you see that you weather it whole.”

Will was grateful for the words, kindly meant as they were, but they served only to show him that his life could never be the one he had hoped. That he could never introduce his love to his friends and family. Never mind that he did not know exactly what kind of creature Xander was; if word ever reached the priests that he had lain with another male, he would not survive it.

He stayed away from the woods then, applying himself to his tasks and to his life in the town. The steel spoke to him again, poetry in fire and liquid silver. Master Bels received a commission from a lord in far away York, a bride gift for a son who was to be sent away to France to make his bed. His master was excited about it and charged William with the design for the sheath. Will used and scraped many sheets of vellum before he settled on a design that seemed fair to him.

He traced leaves and branches, interlacing, turning back on themselves, weaving back and forth and around until the design was thick with lines that captured the eye, turning it about. He added small forest creatures, ones he’d seen and ones he’d imagined when Xander’s kin walked the dark forest. One branch thickened and twisted, turning itself into horns crowning a face barely seen in the outline of the tree limbs. He imagined the lines chased with gold and lapis. A worthy gift for the lord’s son.

But Master Bels paled slightly when he looked on William’s work. His voice was gentle. “Lovely work, my boy, but surely you see that I cannot possibly use this? Change it.”

William shook with fear, knowing that he had betrayed his secret life with the strokes of his charcoal. But Master Bels was not denouncing him to the church, merely asking him to alter it to be acceptable.

Here was the essential problem that he faced . . . his heart belonged in the forest but his life was in the town. He put the vellum away after he carefully took Cernunnos’s image out of it and all the other creatures. It was still a work of beauty, but it lacked some essential thing and his eye would always see it.

He thought that he was doomed for the same thing . . . that his life would always be less than he desired. Was that not the way of it though, no matter whether a man lived in a castle or a hovel? He tried to stop his dreams of love making under the open sky. He tried to find a girl with enough sweetness to warm his heart, but he did not succeed for no passion could compare to what Xander had given him.

Next: Vows