All the feedback kept me writing, Thanks kittens!
Chapter 3: Mortal Kombat, Mortal Enemies.
The two old friends walked leisurely toward the theatre, kicking rocks and laughing at inside jokes that made no sense to passersby, all the while keeping a vigilant eye for anything that might go bump; although Buffy and Faith were supposed to be patrolling right about this time of the night.
“You think Oz might like Tara? I mean, obviously he will as friends, she’s so kind and really funny in this way that no one else in the world is funny. Not in a mean sarcastic way like you or I are to each other, just this way that’s sorta, almost odd a-and captivating and really only works on her, l-like it’s singularly hers. But she’s so beautiful too—and her beauty is also singularly hers! Like how her eyes do that swirling thing, no, no one else I’ve ever met has eyes that just…
deepen, like that. I can’t imagine him not finding her attractive, y’know?”
He shrugged at her, walking backwards in front of her, “S’what if he did? Not like he stands a chance, what with his being the happy owner of a--”
“Look Xand, turn around,” she pointed at the pink and green neon of Sunnydale Theatre, “I babbled us all the way there.”
He laughed, “You’re the little babble engine that could.”
They dashed to cross the street and were almost run over by an SUV with a pro-life bumper sticker on its back that was flitting through the road, “How ironic that would’ve been,” Willow told him as they approached Oz who had been waiting for them right in front of the theatre, leaning on the long brick wall of the edifice.
“Hey Oz!” She hugged him, “Are we late? There were some unavoidable last minute changes that just couldn’t be avoided. Our friend Tara’s going to be coming in what should be any minute now. Keep an eye out for a blue-eyed blonde, not regular blue, but a very unique sort of a blue, a-and pouty lips, pouty like--”
“Uh!” Xander saved her, “There she is! Look Will, you can stop talking now, put down the shovel, step outta the hole.”
The three turned to a red Suzuki motorcycle that had pulled up to the curb. The man driving had an athletic frame and that’s all they could tell about him physically. Tara was taking off her helmet, letting her long hair flow like honey-colored wheat swaying in the wind. She hugged the man goodbye with a comfortable fierceness.
“So is that, like, her cool older boyfriend or something?” Willow’s tone was low, holding none of the usual sweetness.
Xander resolved this would be a long night and he should have stayed at home and ordered pizza, maybe popped in
Apocalypse Now on the old VCR. But he was here, and there was no denying it, “Will, she’s a lesbian.”
“So?”
“So? So,
lesbian! They uh, usually don’t date men, regardless of age or level of cool.”
“Oh,” Willow’s smile felt sheepish on her face. “Oh!” She turned to Oz, “She’s gay by the way.”
The stoic boy nodded, “Think I got it, thanks.”
The three watched as the blonde girl walked toward them with a bashful smile. To Willow, she looked like a dream under the stars. “Hey Tara! Did you have any trouble finding the place?”
Tara smiled at the cute girl; her energy flowed from her aura in a rainbow mosaic. It almost blinded Tara,
I wonder if she’s ever practiced, “H-Hi Willow, Hey Xander. Um, no, n-no trouble.”
“Excellent! Well, you’re perfectly on time,” she smiled at Tara smiling back at her until Oz’s “
ahem” brought her back to the current time, place and context, “Oh! Ah, Tara this is Oz, my um, boyfriend.”
As if it were anything other than an inevitable truth that this lovely girl would be taken, outwardly Tara managed a smile and a “Hello” that was just friendly enough to sound normal.
The boy’s only response was a nod;
does he even know how lucky he is? Tara wondered.
“So,” Xander spoke, feeling awkward, “Shouldn’t we uh, go make a line or something?”
The brown-haired boy, being the only one who cared, picked out the movie. It was a gory film about vampires, “If Buffy were here she’d faint at the inaccuracies,” Willow whispered at him in the dark, he was a seat away from her, sat next to Oz.
“Oh, let me enjoy the pointless violence, Will…look it’s a hot girl showering! She’s totally gonna die.”
“That does it, I need chocolate,” she let go of Oz’s hand and turned to her right, “Do you uh, want to join me Tara?”
“Yes, please.” The girl was not one for gory flicks with no discernable plot.
“Be right back!” She whispered at the boys’ direction, leaping from her chair and grabbing Tara by the wrist.
~~
A minute later the two stood in front of the theatre’s concession stand, a gaping employee trying to keep up with Willow’s order, “Oh and a Milky Way bar—you guys give boxes right?—and some of those chocolate-covered peanuts, some junior mints and some M & M’s.” She turned to Tara, “Get whatever you want Tara, I’m paying.”
“Well watching you eat all that might give us
both diabetes so I’ll um, just have a Sprite.”
“Ha yeah,” Willow looked down shyly, “I guess I ordered enough for us to share, huh?” She promptly paid the man and her and Tara started on their way back.
“So be honest, Willow,” The girl turned smoothly to face her, her hair framing the side of her face like a timeless painting, “Are you a chocoholic?”
The redhead’s shoulders slumped, and she looked down into the shoddy cardboard box she was given to hold enough food to feed every homeless man in Sunnydale for the night,
in my defense though, there aren’t many homeless men in Sunnydale, largely due to the massive vampire population. She nodded dejectedly, “I suppose I should own up to it huh? I have a problem. I-It all started when I was just three hundred and sixty four days old. My nana baked me a double chocolate cake--with chocolate fudge
icing-- for my first birthday…I, well; I buried my face in it. And it would only get worse from there; I was unknowingly on a long downwards spiral into unknown chocolate-y depths from which I would never ever escape.”
“Mmn. That sounds fun and delicious.” Tara laughed.
“Vh1 is doing a
Behind the Chocolate about me.”
Willow wondered at the giddiness that bounced within her chest at the girl’s melodious laugh. She laughed like a song, and Willow’s heart couldn’t help but dance, in its own awkward, dorky way.
On their way back to the boys the girls were stopped short at the small arcade within the cinema. A jittery, blonde young man had called the redhead over, “Hey, Will! Challenge you to a game of MK!”
The redhead looked nervously over, “Uh, we’re going someplace Andrew!”
“W-what’s MK?” Tara could feel the agitation in Willow’s energy.
“Oh, it’s just this stupid arcade game that I’m incredibly good at.” She felt her cheeks get hot and turned away from Tara.
“Well if you’re good at it, do you w-want to play?” The blonde placed a shy hand on the girl’s taut shoulder.
Are you always this tense, Willow? Don’t you ever relax?
Willow shook her head, “Nah, c’mon, you don’t feel like sitting in on a circle of geeks cheering and fighting about whether Kirk or Picard was the better Captain, trust me. “
“No, I mean it” the girl told her, “I wanna see you play.”
“Um, o-okay,” Willow acquiesced, and the hand on her shoulder tightened slightly before flying away, it burned and tingled a path down to the tips of her fingers,
almost like magic.
And so the detour was taken advantage of.
Willow defeated Andrew a stultifying eight times. She felt a call to seriously whoop butt now that she knew Tara was watching.
“Woo! Flawless victory, bitch!” She hoped however, that Tara didn’t value sportsmanship.
“All right, relax. It’s just a game.” Andrew and his fellow geeks decided to disperse, no longer eager to challenge the redhead who seemed utterly invincible tonight. Her fingers danced wildly on the buttons, and her eyes flashed with a fiery glint as she concentrated, only looking away to steal glances at Tara. The girl’s eyes never left her, and her body was doing very strange things with that information.
“Did you
see her?” Andrew later asked Jonathan as they watched two young boys take DDR very seriously. “She was totally epic tonight.”
Popping an M & M into her mouth Willow asked, “So were you terribly bored?”
“No, not at all, you were very exciting to watch. Your little guy c-could throw fireballs at his enemies and everything.
Very cool.” Tara placed her drink on the arcade game’s console, which the girls had turned into a makeshift table for their snacks.
Willow smirked, “Well, I’ve held my own against some pretty evil creatures.”
“I can see that,” Tara smiled as she accepted half of one of Willow’s candy bars. “Oh, you can have some of my drink if you want.”
“Well I was getting kinda thirsty,” Willow smiled wryly as she grabbed the medium sized cup,
the tip of the straw’s all pink from her lipstick. She closed her lips around it and damn if that wasn’t the best tasting Sprite and melted ice she’d ever drank in her life. “Mmn.”
“I bet you wouldn’t have stopped eating chocolate though,” Tara told her with a teasing smile.
“Oh, I’d have died of dehydration first,”
there’s that wonderful laugh again, “So uh, we still have some quarters left. You wanna play a game?”
Her face gets so kissable when she’s waiting for me to answer something, “S-sure. I’m n-not very good at these things though.”
“Oh, it’s okay. Look we’ll play against the computer and I’ll coach you, okay?” She put her remaining two quarters into the slot and hit start, then she pulled Tara in front of her, looking over the girl’s shoulder at the screen. “Okay, time to pick your ‘little guy’ or ‘little girl.’”
Tara inhaled slowly at the proximity of the other girl;
does she feel how close she’s getting? “W-why don’t you pick?”Her hand was limp on the joystick, and she had no clue what the buttons were for.
“Okay, I like Scorpion so we’ll play as him,” Willow covered the other girl’s hand with her own, “I’ll um, show you how to do it...y’know, since you don’t know.”
Tara was wearing an oversized, off-the-shoulder top, and her right shoulder was completely exposed. Willow rested her chin on it as they played. “See pressing these two buttons together and pulling the stick down will…ha! Woo, y’see that?”
“Uh, huh,” Tara could feel Willow’s breath swirl in her ear. She was paying absolutely no attention to the game; it was but a blurred series of colors and sounds.
Her hand is so soft on mine.
“So the person that brought you was a
guy right?” She didn’t really know why she was asking.
Tara smirked wryly, leaning back into Willow’s embrace slightly; she had given up the pretense of participation in the game, “No Will…it was a
lesbian…6 feet 3 inches and two-hundred and twenty pounds.”
The girl’s hair tickled her nose as she giggled in her embrace;
she smells like a flower garden right after it rains, the thought made her flush, “Ha, yeah, I mean obviously he wouldn’t be your boyfriend. Not that you couldn’t get a boyfriend! I-I mean you probably get hit on
all the time, a girl like you. But you’re gay so--”
“He’s my uncle Will; I’m staying with him,” she smiled, “Props on being able to babble and kick virtual behind at the same time, by the way.”
“Thank you, thank you,” Her thumb drew figure eights across Tara’s petal-soft hand; the game was over.
“So
our date went great, how did you two’s go?”
“O-Oz!” The girls pulled apart with the haste of the guilty, “We uh, we lost track of time. Andrew! Andrew called us over and then before I knew it I was trapped in mortal combat. But it’s okay…my mortality beat his.”
“Well, great.”
She nodded, turning to Tara, “This happens all the time, he uh, he’s not mad trust me. I’m a total spaz. Right baby?”
“She has tendencies.”
Xander turned to him, “So Oz...care to burn off some of that radiant energy of yours on the dance floor?”
Tara couldn’t help but giggle at the quip;
he is my mortal enemy after all.
“So ladies? The Bronze? Buff and Faith should be there too.”
~~
They drove there in Oz’s van, the ride filled with the sounds of static-y college radio and Xander’s excited retelling of the movie, “So then the guy comes out with a chainsaw, right? And this girl was sleeping, on her bed, right? And the bed has these immaculate white sheets, right? And--”
“We’re here!” Willow yelped, “Thank God and all the others!”
They filed out into the parking lot, walking past all the young kids milling about in small groups smoking or talking, or sucking each others’ faces. “I hope there’s a table available, seems like a big crowd today,” Willow frowned.
“Yeah, you can really notice the impact Faith’s had on the live body count,” Xander told her.
“W-What?”
“Um! You know? Faith? As in, there was a lot of violence in town but then people really started to get in touch with their spiritual side, and all. Which…had an impact.” She glared at Xander discreetly as they stepped through the door.
“Oh,” Tara mumbled,
something’s really wrong here, “Um, t-there’s your friend.”
Buffy and Faith were sat arm in arm at a table in the back, talking with their faces closer than they should be for how slow and low tonight’s band was playing.
Willow contemplated the scene with wide eyes, “They seem chummy tonight.”
“Hey my heroines!” Xander called at them, pulling out a chair for Tara at the table. They all sat and exchanged nods and hello’s.
Faith turned to the newcomer, “So who’s this then?”
“Her name’s Tara,” Willow spoke up, feeling her belly twist at the open leer the dark slayer shot at her new friend.
“And how did Tara happen to mix herself up with the gang of us little scoundrels?”
“I saved her from Larry’s big brother…equally gross, less gay.” Willow really wanted to keep the amount of contact Faith had with Tara to a bare minimum.
“And can she speak for herself at all?”
Tara piped up before Willow could, “H-h-hi. I’m T-Tara.” She gave the leather-clad brunette a small wave,
there’s a lot of dark in that aura…but there’s a light burning there too. She’s very afraid.
“T-Tara huh? Why the s-s-stutter T-Tara? Do I scare you?” The brunette quirked a cocky brow.
Willow almost stood up in anger, “Look Faith--”
“No, I’m n-not scared of you.” Her light blue eyes shone with a soft defiance, an almost amused calm.
“Oh yeah?” Faith looked her up and down, catching glimpses of her true strength, “Want to dance?”
“Tara!” The redhead turned to her urgently, “You don’t have to, okay? That’s just Faith…and she’s crazy, y’know?”
Tara smiled enigmatically at her beautiful new friend, then stood and followed Faith as she sauntered to the center of the floor.
“Oh. My. God.” Buffy spoke, her face a queer mix of shock and interest.
“That’s the hottest thing I’ve ever seen,” Xander wiped some unsightly drool off the corner of his lip.
“Yeah, too bad you stand a snowball’s chance in the fiery pits of hell with either of them.” Willow watched the two girls sway back and forth to the slow song, sulking in her seat. She hadn’t felt so alone in a long time, and she had no idea why.
Thoroughly confused now.
“Well someone’s a cranky kitten tonight.” Xander shot her an oblique stare.
“Shut up!” she crossed her arms at her small chest, “Why would she even want to dance with her, anyway? What’s so great about
Faith?”
“Everything!” Xander told her, and she thought she saw Buffy nod.
“What kind of lesbian would want to be with a girl like that? I mean she’s just a beautiful, dark rebel in a leather jacket…”
“Um, the
all of them kind!?” Again, the brown-haired boy enthused.
Willow turned to Oz, “
You wouldn’t date Faith would you?”
The werewolf shrugged, “In what context?”
“Oz!”
“Kidding.”
~~
Faith held the girl by her small, curvy waist. She thought Tara would be a shy dancer, but the girl had some sinuous moves, and a good body for dancing. She sang along to the song and it was a really sweet voice. If Faith were the introspective type she’d notice that this was the type of sister she had always asked her mother for. “So I’m guessing you gotta crush on Red huh?”
If the blonde was taken aback her eyes didn’t show it, and her blushing cheeks could be excused as an effect of the exertion of her slow, winding movements. “Yes, I do.”
“Ah, geeks get all the girls,” she shrugged, “So, I’m guessing you’re not scared of me no more too?”
Tara squeezed her shoulders,
this is a kindred spirit I think, this is someone very much like me and so different. “I was never afraid of you Faith. If I were, I’d be intelligent enough to realize that it was only because I didn’t understand you. Because you haven’t done anything at all for me to be afraid of you, and I have no reason to prejudge your intentions. And besides, I’ve lived through worse abuse than someone teasing my s-s-stutter.”
“Ha! I respect you, T!”
~~
“Oh, great, they’re
laughing! That’s how it starts,” she kept her eyes on the two on the dance floor, “You guys really think Tara’s gonna end up like-liking her?”
“What’d be so bad about that?” Oz asked her.
“Well, just look at Faith! She’s not at all right for Tara. You can tell just by looking at them, I, I mean just look at them over there, laughing and dancing together…totally not compatible! And
besides, Tara dating Faith would be like a beautiful delicate flower dating a killer freaking bee!”
“Beautiful?” Xander asked her.
“Delicate?” Buffy asked her.
“
Flower?” Oz asked her, a new suspicion showing fearfully behind his eyes. A sad glimmer that Willow, watching Tara dance, had missed.
Sensing the awkwardness in the air Xander got up. “I’ll go get us some drinks. What do you guys want? Cokes?”
Buffy got up off her chair quickly to join him, “Oh me too!”
As they waited for the bartender to come back with their drinks Buffy turned to Xander, “So how do you think that whole drama’s going to unfold?”
“Oh thank God!” Xander turned to her with wide eyes, “You can see it too!”
Buffy shrugged easily, “As if I would ever be so shallow that I wouldn’t notice my own best friend turning all homo.”
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Loved the Tara thoughts about Wil and the Buffster...
<--I write like this.
