by binky » Tue Sep 13, 2005 3:42 pm
Hey,
I hope it's not too late to add this. I decided to add a few vignettes to the ones I'd already written. This is based on the first one, which already had 2 of the requirements of the challenge, so I figured, what the heck, I'll expand it and submit it here (I plan to add the short version after the third one's drafted to the vignettes thread). The only two elements I didn't really take care of were the smut (kind of light here, but I'd argue for an "R" at least) and the Giles-code one, but I improvised. Since the show used spell casting as a metaphor for sex, I figured turnabout's fair play. Anyhoo, I hope that doesn't invalidate this story.
binky
***********************
Fanfic based on Joss Whedon's Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Buffy, Tara, Giles, and Willow are property of Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy. I am not making nor will I accept any money from this fiction. All hail Joss!
Title: Green Eyed Monster
Author: binky
Genre: behind the scenes
Rating: M/T - Mature/Teen, for moderate sexual content
Setting/background: after "Goodbye Iowa"
Spoilers: to "Goodbye Iowa"
Summary: Willow works through her feelings for Tara
Notes: Thoughts are in italics.
GREEN-EYED MONSTER
Willow stared hard into the gold-flecked khaki-green irises in the mirror on the second floor women’s showers of Stevenson Hall. They stared hard right back at her, as they always did. With her forefinger, she pulled her right lower lid down to study the liner of her eye socket. It was a lush, pinkish red. Pretty much normal. She frowned with worry, releasing her eyelid to continue to study her reflection. Should I tell Buffy?
Instantly, she vetoed that suggestion, though it was not immediately apparent to her why. Buffy’s the Slayer. My being possessed by something Hellmouthy would qualify as up her alley. Not that I want her to slay me or anything. Would kinda put the kibosh on the whole best-friend part of our relationship.
Of course, Buffy wasn’t a stake-first-ask-questions-later kind of Slayer, like Faith. Perhaps the only time Buffy had gotten itchy-trigger-finger syndrome with her sacred duty as the Chosen One was a few months ago when Kathy Newman, her first roommate, turned out to be… a demon. Maybe I should talk to Giles first. He did just go through that whole F’yarl thing himself. He could relate…
Aw, that’s silly. She only acted that way because Kathy was sucking her soul out, ‘cause she needed one, unlike me, who’s got one… Even if it’s taken a temporary leave of absence lately. Her eyebrows relaxed as her face fell into a sad frown, thinking about the look of pain and anger on Tara’s face when she’d left the other girl last night, after the hurtful things Willow had said.
That probably was the last time we’ll ever talk. The thought filled her with an intense sadness. I’m evil. I deserve to have my ass kicked by a Slayer.
As if on cue, the door of the community bath opened, and a robed, still sleepy-eyed Slayer walked in with her shower kit and toothbrush. Buffy yawned. “Hey Will.”
“Mornin’ Buff.” She doesn’t look too tough all jammy-clad with a bad case of morning hair, Willow thought, as Buffy pushed Snoopy’s nose to start up her toothbrush. Oh, who am I kidding? I can’t even last two seconds with her in a stare contest. Willow gathered her kit and headed for the door.
“Hey, you doing anything today?” Buffy asked, her mouth foamy with toothpaste.
It was Saturday. She and Tara had planned on visiting the campus art museum after having lunch together so that Tara could work on an assignment for her Art History class while Willow kept her company. Obviously, that wouldn’t be happening now with their fallout. “No. Was just gonna stay in and read ahead for my English class.”
“Well, I’m going driving today with Riley. You wanna come with?”
Normally, Willow would’ve gladly accepted the chance to spend more time with Buffy, even if it was with Riley. She knew he was a good person who would treat Buffy well, even if his personality was a little wooden. But Buffy driving? There are less heart-stopping ways of having the evil scared out of me. “Nah. Good luck though.”
“Okay… but why do I need good luck?”
*********************
As she dumped her laundry into the hamper, Willow reluctantly admitted the truth to herself. She couldn’t approach Buffy or Giles with her problem since doing so would mean revealing the circumstances surrounding her condition—that for the past month and a half, she had been casting spells, some very intense ones, often all night long, with Tara. If Buffy weren’t spending every free minute herself with Riley, maybe her roommate would’ve noticed the number of nights Willow’s bed went unused lately. The spells often left both witches exhausted with the amounts of energy they expended, powerless to do anything but crawl into Tara’s bed and fall into a deep slumber, their arms loose around each other, as their bodies re-charged.
But, their skills were growing. Their casting had steadily progressed from simple glamours to more complex elemental spells. Most recently, they had tweaked Willow’s Tinkerbell guiding light spell, which was now five times more reliable than it had been with Willow basically winging it herself. Before their falling out, the next logical step in their progression to becoming powerful witches would have been more demanding incantations for small supplications to minor deities.
Willow sighed as she pulled out her copy of Paradise Lost and settled into her bed. Of course, she could continue on her own, as she had been doing prior to the awful yet wonderful night locked in the Stevenson laundry room after Tara had sought her out to see if they could work a spell to break the silence brought over Sunnydale by the Gentlemen. But the scenario of continuing her magical education by herself filled Willow with an intense dread.
Yet for some reason, she still wasn’t ready to share Tara with the others. It was irrational, since it might actually be helpful for the two of them to practice spells with Giles’ supervision. But there seemed to be more to her reluctance to divulge her secret life with Tara. Now, however, she may have no other choice. I really need to talk to Giles if it’s as serious as us accidentally summoning something that’s possessed me. If it made me treat her the way I did last night, it can’t be a benevolent spirit. Maybe he can draw it out and then Buffy can get all Slayery on it, leaving me with the hard part—apologizing to Tara.
*********************
“I-I’m sorry, Willow. I… kind of have other plans for tonight?” Tara looked down. She was slightly jostled by a very tall student rushing past who mumbled an apology before he disappeared in the stream of students pouring out of the large lecture hall where Tara had just had her sociology class. Willow knew it was her only class for the day and had been waiting outside the hall to invite her to get some dinner and maybe try another conjuring spell with Tara’s doll’s eye crystal.
“Really?” Willow tried to keep her face neutral, her voice light, despite the hot pang that suddenly shot through her. “Why didn’t you tell me?” The question came out from her mouth before she could censor herself. There had been a little edge in her voice. “What’re ya doing?” She couldn’t seem to stop herself.
It startled her as much as it did Tara. “Um… I-It’s not a-anything special. I-I’d kind of committed to it a w-while ago, you know? Just after w-we met?” Tara looked away.
“Oh.” Another pang shot through her.
“I-It kind of i-involves a different kind of crowd? Um… I-I don’t know i-if you’d feel comfortable.”
Oh…? Oh. She bit her lip. “This doesn’t have anything to do with the other night at the Bronze, does it? ‘Cause I thought I explained about that, about Buffy and her friends… I apologized.” Her voice had become thick, and she felt flushed and nauseous.
“W-Willow, really. It’s not that.” Tara led them to the side, away from the entrance of the lecture hall. Tara put her bag down and started to go through it. She pulled out a pink colored paper and gave it to Willow.
It was a flyer. The university LGBTQ student alliance was sponsoring a women’s movie night, with a free double feature with two films titled Better than Chocolate—as if, Willow naively thought—and Deep Wells. “Oh.”
“I-it’s actually the second o-one I’m more i-interested in. M-my art history TA i-invited me—”
“You’re going as someone’s date?” Willow internally cringed at the accusatory tone in the question, but couldn’t stop herself from adding “With your TA? Isn’t that a bit unethical of her?”
Some of the students streaming past made rude noises and faces at them. Willow didn’t notice, but Tara had, and the blonde’s face was now bright pink. “No! N-not as her d-date. Sh-she wrote it a-and acts in it w-w-w-with…” Tara stopped herself, trembling. She hadn’t stuttered this badly since first arriving on campus. Willow was… glaring at her? Why would Willow be angry? “I-it’s my TA’s movie. She made i-it w-with her partner. She thought I-I’d like to see it, since she made i-it, and, you know, since I-I’m gay?”
Willow’s voice hadn’t lowered to match Tara’s. “And how did the subject of your sexuality come up with your TA?” The hallway had thinned with the majority of the students exiting. It unfortunately made her voice reverberate more loudly, just as Tara’s sociology professor exited the hall with two students questioning points on the day’s lecture. They looked up at the two witches, overhearing Willow’s harsh words.
Tara, so flustered her face was now red, could only smile weakly at the stodgy looking man as he passed, a look of concern on his bearded face. Tara waited for them to pass before turning back to the fuming redhead. “W-Willow, w-we are not having this conversation. I-I d-don’t know w-what’s gotten i-into you or w-why you’re acting this way, but get over i-it. D-Don’t talk to me until you do.” She picked up her bag and turned, her long skirt twirling, and stormed off, leaving Willow, every muscle in her face still clenched in an ugly scowl, watching after Tara’s hastily disappearing back.
*********************
If only I’d left it at that. Begged temporary insanity. At least until I figured out what was wrong with me…
She was fairly certain it was some kind of minor possession she was experiencing, due to one of the spells they’d done that had gone wonky. Willow was famous for those, after all. Probably when we were experimenting with the Tinkerbell spell last week. The spell was a revised version of a supplication, and so involved invoking beings from a spiritual plane in order to call the guiding light. Opening a portal in that manner may have allowed one of the malevolent spirits to slip into their realm. It would naturally have been attracted to the summoner of the spell—Willow. It was about that time that she started feeling different, almost hyper-aware of Tara’s presence, super-sensitive to the other witch’s proximity, the heat radiated by her body and the smell of her shampoo and soap over her natural scent, as they sat on the single bed under the Christmas string lights in Tara’s room. It was like being in the after-glow of an intense spell, but constantly. That was when Willow started to become snippy around the other girl. God, I’m a monster. Tara had been nothing but an absolute sweetheart to Willow since they started hanging out six weeks ago. She listened to Willow dominate every conversation with stories of her life with her friends, hanging onto every word, no matter how nonsensical or inconsequential. She had offered Willow her grandmother’s doll’s eye crystal, and had been crestfallen when Willow had refused her generosity. She had graciously forgiven Willow for blowing her off to be with Xander and Buffy at the Bronze the other night, only to have the sheepish redhead show up at her door later that evening when her original plans fell through. I’m such a monster.
Willow looked down at the book in her hand and lay it on her bedside table with a sigh. She closed her eyes, but it wasn’t enough. She covered her head with her pillow. Paradise Lost, indeed. If only she’d forced herself to take stock, evaluate the situation reasonably, clinically…
But no. Whatever hellspawn had taken up residence in her had not allowed her any peace on the matter…
By the time she’d resolved to apologize to Tara, explain her theory about her possession and ask her friend’s help in finding some way to expel the spirit, it was already late in the evening. Willow still had the movie flyer, had been clutching it in her angry fist when Tara had left her, so she knew where to go. She pulled on her jacket and headed for the student union auditorium.
*********************
Willow arrived just after the second feature had begun. It was too late to find Tara in the dimmed auditorium. She was forced into a seat in the last row instead. She scanned the room as the film began, looking for the back of Tara’s blonde head in the rows in front of her. Soon, however, her attention was wrested by the low moans coming from the hall’s speaker system to the image flickering on the screen at the front of the hall of a sparkly pink thong being slowly pulled off hips by a pair of darker complexioned feminine hands. The 4:3 frame was already dominated by the hips, but the camera zoomed even further in as the pink lycra inched off the milky plane of skin, revealing a butterfly tattoo flitting just next to a dark patch of short, tight curls of hair. The camera continued advancing, in full macro mode, as its angle was brought slowly downward just as the hands re-entered the frame from either bottom corner of the screen. Willow’s eyes widened and her breath hitched. For the next 45 minutes, she was pinned helplessly to her seat, though occasionally managing an uncomfortable squirm.
It was like a gynecological exam. Except without the gynecologist. And two patients. Doing self-exams—on each other. Deep Wells' credits ended and the hall lights were brought back on. So that’s how two women… uh, get together. Very, uh, educational...
Her silent review was cut short as the rows emptied of gently laughing or chatting audience members, parting to clear her path of vision to the front of the hall and Tara, in the front row, still seated, chatting with a soft, lopsided smile on her face to a pretty, dark-haired girl, who was grinning back at her cheekily, her dark red lipstick still managing to shine luridly in the dim light as she pushed her long hair behind her ear. Willow’s demon instantly rose, furious at the sight of Tara’s uneven smile. I thought you were going alone. She covered the distance in ten seconds, weaving past the exiting audience in a flustered haze of pain, anger, and though she didn't fully recognize it for what it was, arousal.
“Tara.”
Tara turned in surprise at the familiar voice. “Willow?”
The brunette’s left eyebrow raised at Tara. “Willow?” Tara nodded, and her companion gave her a knowing look before turning her appraising glance at the little firecracker of a redhead standing before them. She’d be cute, if she didn’t have that horrible fake grin on her face.
“Who’s your friend?” I thought you were coming alone.
“W-Willow… this is Sandra. M-my art history TA? She’s taking her MFA in a-art-making…”
“This,” Willow said, “is Deep Well?”
“Well, one of them,” Sandra said. “I know it was kinda hard to tell, we didn’t really get too many shots of my face in, but that's my fault. I told my cameraman to focus on my good side.” She extended her hand.
Willow didn’t take it.
“Ooookay.”
“Willow!” Tara chastised, shocked.
“S’okay, Tara. I gotta go. Dani and the others are waiting for me.” She gestured to the end of the row of seats and a group of four men and women, in their mid to late twenties, who were lingering, obviously waiting on Sandra. One of them, an Asian woman with short, spiky hair that Willow recognized as the other deep well in Sandra’s film, was watching them intently. “Nice meeting you, Willow. Tara, I’ll see you in class. We can talk then if you want.” Sandra stood to leave. Before she did, she leaned into Tara to whisper in her ear, “You know, for a little straight gal, she really gets all large with the butch.”
Tara blushed hotly. She waited for Sandra to rejoin her friends before turning back to Willow. Before she could begin, Willow did.
“So this is what you wanted to do tonight, huh? It’s nice to see your scholarship entitles you to free porn screenings every other Friday.”
Tara gasped. She looked up at the exit, Sandra and Dani were not looking at them as they passed through the door, though their companions were, so quite obviously Willow’s voice had carried. Sandra and Dani were very pointedly not looking at them. That did it. “Willow,” Tara managed to get out as tears started to form in her eyes. “I never want to see you again.” Tara got up, jostled Willow to the side as the redhead blocked the aisle, and ran for the exit opposite the one used by Sandra and her friends, leaving Willow alone for the second time that day.
*********************
“Wanna be bad?”
Willow was holding hands with a demon. She eyed it warily, and it leered lewdly back at her.
The demon was her size, petite framed with small breasts, encased in a tight black leather corset, a narrow face with full cheeks, a dimpled nose, shoulder length crimson hair, and large green eyes, though they were hooded in a sneer that matched the smirk that played on its thin, blood red lips.
Willow’s eyes were drawn to its lips, so much so that like the camera in Deep Wells, she saw herself zooming in on those smirking, pouting lips unerringly. The demon pulled her in by their still clasped hands so that their lips were pressed together, gently at first, but then the kiss became more insistent, hungrier and more demanding. The demon opened its mouth, forcing Willow’s lips apart, too, and a wet tongue slipped past her teeth into her mouth.
Willow closed her eyes to shield herself from the coyly teasing gaze of demon-Willow. Hiding allowed her to accept the gentle invasion of the monster’s tongue in her mouth. Hiding made it okay to suck on the thick muscle probing her, so that she gave it up only hesitantly when it began to withdraw. It left her breathless so that when the sweet wet invader at last completely retreated, she was panting hotly into its mouth, her eyes still closed, breathing for the both of them.
“I guess you do,” said the demon.
She opened her eyes, still lightly panting. The eyes had turned blue, intense cerulean rings that bore into hers, looking straight into Willow for the most private place within her. She gave it up willingly, happily, even. “No… Not bad… never bad…” Her gaze lowered, raking across the Roman nose, the lips, full and swollen with their rough kisses, parted and also panting, the pale skin of her throat, the hollow of her collarbone, to the swell of cleavage framed by the flaps of the open peasant blouse Willow had just undone. Beads of perspiration had collected there and Willow, as she had never done before, though she had been curious, dipped down and pressed her parted lips, teeth and tongue against the salty milky expanse of breast. Their hands were still clasped and Willow raised them to either side of Tara's head, pinning them down, pushing Tara back until they were leaning against the wall in the corridor outside her lecture hall. Her honey-haired witch arched upward at the teasing feel of Willow's mouth on her skin.
Willow came upon the hem of a bra cup and caught it in her teeth. She tugged it down until a sliver of areola became visible. “Mmmm… good. Yes, very good,” Tara breathed. Willow released their hands, allowing Tara to curl the fingers of one hand in Willow’s auburn locks, the other to grasp the smaller girl at the hip. She pulled Willow firmly into her by the hair, as her other hand sneaked between them. “Very, very good.”
“The best,” Willow murmured into Tara’s breast as her freed hands found Tara’s ass and squeezed. Tara whimpered. Willow could feel the heart strongly beating beneath the flesh she was kissing and licking. Her hands began hitching the long skirt up as Tara lifted her right leg to wrap it around Willow’s left thigh. Tara was magically without underwear under her skirt and in the shadows of the small space between them Willow thought she could see the briefest glimmer of moisture on Tara’s inner thigh. “No demons here.”
“Good heavens, Willow! Have you been… casting spells with this young woman without supervision? You know you oughtn’t be practicing magic when your mind has been so unfocused! The results could be catastrophic! Do you recall the Spike and Buffy snogging? And the blindness? You surely haven’t forgotten about the blindness?”
Giles was gesturing at his eyes to emphasize his point, but it was lost on Willow. She refused to raise her head from Tara’s breast, unwilling to risk the possibility doing so would make the beautiful woman writhing above her stop stroking her hair or squeezing Willow’s hips between her creamy thighs as she fumbled one-handed between them with the fly of Willow’s jeans. “Go away, Giles!” Tara laughed as the growled words rumbled through her breast.
Professor Giles along with his coterie of apprentices, Buffy Summers, Xander Harris, and Anya Jenkins, hurried away from the inappropriateness of the two rutting, spell-worn witches trying to swallow each other whole in the hallway outside his Summoning and Supplication 101 lecture hall. He kept his eyes focused in front of him, Buffy, her eyes down, unlike Xander and Anya, who craned their necks to watch even as they disappeared down the corridor…
*********************
“What’s with the pale purple nipples? Did you forget your red pencil?”
Willow hesitantly sat next to Tara on the bench facing the painting. She left a good two feet between herself and the other girl.
Tara kept her eyes on the sketchpad on her lap, the point of her lavendar pencil suspended above the tip of the breast she had been sketching, copying from the Delacroix oil hanging on the wall before them as part of her art history class assignment.
The silence became awkward. Willow shifted her weight, leaned an inch closer to Tara. “I kind of like ‘em… Kind of like, Elizabeth Taylor’s eyes. Unusual. Or, uh, unique.”
More silence. “I, uh, emailed Sandra, and apologized. Her… girlfriend? She wasn’t in the university directory, so I guess she’s not a grad student here. I wrote her a note, too, and just attached it to the email I sent Sandra.” Willow paused, licking her lips. It had taken her fifteen precious minutes to find Sandra’s email address from the university directory, type the apology and send it after she’d woken from her impromptu nap/wet dream. But she had felt it had been absolutely necessary to do so before throwing on street clothes and practically running the half mile to the museum to find Tara.
Tara still hadn’t looked at her. But she hasn’t told me to go to hell, so I’m doing okay so far. She decided to push her luck, and reached for Tara’s free hand.
Tara quickly pulled her hand away, upsetting the colored pencils between them on the bench. They scattered over the white tiled floor. Willow quickly got down on her knees to retrieve them, Tara remaining seated on the bench.
Willow carefully placed the pencils back on the bench but frowned as she did so. “Sorry.” She winced. “The red one broke.”
“That wasn’t you. It broke earlier.” Tara finally looked at her, and gestured to her sketchpad and the lavendar-nippled Lady Liberty.
Willow swallowed. “Well, there are a few other things that I really do need to apologize for, so while I’m down here, in proper groveling position…” She settled herself fully on her knees before Tara. “I’ve been such a jerk the past few days, Tara. I’m sorry. For being the biggest jerk in the city of Jerkville. Heck, I am the Mayor Jerk of said metropolis.” Still here, not with the running and saying she never wants to see me again. Okay, easy now. “I’ve been acting like a jealous fool when you have every right to have friends of your own and a life of your own.” She cleared her throat, swallowing the pang of envy down before it could stop her. “In fact, you deserve it. And a girlfriend who’s beautiful, and kind, and sweet, and generous, like you.” Not like me. “Someone who will totally fawn over you and fall all over themselves to treat you the way you deserve, like the sexy goddess you are…” Did I say that last part out loud?
“Huh?”
“My point is,” Willow continued hurriedly, “I’ve been a horrible, horrible friend this week. And I’ve been aware of it, but it was like I couldn’t stop myself. It was so bad, I even thought I was possessed by some kind of evil demon succubus or something…”
“S-succubus? Th-That’s a lust demon.”
Again, Willow bulled her way forward. “Or something. But of course that wasn’t it. It wasn’t any evil mojo… other than me. It was all me, with the rudeness and the insane jealousy and the jerkhood…”
“Why would you be jealous?”
“Huh?”
“You said you were jealous. Of what?”
Willow leaned back, flustered at the inopportunity of her friend's super-sensitive ears. Cute ears that stick out a little, ears I would very much like to nibble… Okay. Focus, Rosenberg. She sighed. What did she have to lose? She’d pretty much blown everything last night and lost all that had made her happy since Oz had left. Every ache that had healed since he'd betrayed and left her—even some that had gotten better than before—had done so because of the slightly frowning, still seething, but possibly (hopefully) calming girl in front of her. Here was an opportunity to perhaps get it back, or, if she were brave enough, maybe even more. “I’m jealous of anything and anyone who takes you away from me, Tara. I've, uh, realized that I’m kinda gay, and I, uh, think I want to be kinda gay with you.”
“Oh,” Tara said, still frowning. She did have a steel trap mind but had always been more of an instinctual, rather than logical, thinker. It took a moment for Willow's admission to register. “Oh!” She was still frowning, however.
“Take your time with it,” Willow whispered. She climbed to her feet. “I'd even be happy with just being friends again.” She sat back down on the bench.
Tara’s frown deepened at that. “Really?”
Willow paused. “No. Not really. But believe me, I’m an old pro at being rejected and dealing. I’ll live if you say no.” She held out her hand to Tara. “Okay?”
Tara took it. “It is. For now.”
END
Last edited by
binky on Wed Sep 14, 2005 5:26 am, edited 1 time in total.
When you find the good kind of magic, when you find your true partner in casting it, don't let her go into the Nether Realm alone... Interludes.
The rise of the greatest Seeyo in the history of Humanity in the Cosmic. The Coven.
I doodle too. GRAPHICS
The scene with Dawn at the end is so funny. And the smut is very hot - let me add to the praise and amazement that this was your first time writing smut.
