Hi Kittens - My muse woke up after spending yesterday travelling the other side of the globe. She did want me to thank those Kittens she visited and that she had a very good time. Anyway, the update is here and it concludes Chapter 5.
Special thanks to The Inward Sea, Tulipp, and tiredsoul. You’ll know why when you get there.
Rating: perhaps an R at the very beginning
No special health warnings in effect, but have ice water handy just in case.
Angst level - Um, a 5?
Romance level...you tell me.
And oh yes, there is also a bit of a cliffhanger.
****
Willow had never suspected that simple hand holding could be so erotic, but then again this was soooo not simple. Tara’s hand held hers, slowly making love to it – rubbing her thumb over hers, tickling and scraping her palm with her fingernails. Sliding her fingers back and forth, from fully interlocked to just gripping her fingertips.
It made her ache.
There really was no other word to describe what she was feeling. Her body was intensely aware of Tara’s presence. She wanted the girl walking beside her, wanted her with a passion that had formed a lump in her throat. It felt as if she had been hollowed out.
Emptied.
Readied for Tara.
For Tara to kiss her. To take her lips and her tongue. To brush Tara-lips over her cheeks and eyelids. To lick that ticklish spot behind her left ear before slowly tracking down her neck.
For Tara to touch her with those beautiful strong hands. To caress her, fingertips barely touching her, stroking her sides as they kissed. To run her nails up and down her back, biting into her flesh in a harder caress. To rub her nipples with her thumbs as Tara-tongue curled and danced in her mouth.
For Tara to open her, fingers stiff as they glided through her wetness. Pushing slowly within. Locking within her, then curling in an intimate caress.
Filling her.
She stumbled and two pairs of hands caught her elbows, keeping her from crashing to the sidewalk.
“You okay, Will?”
Buffy’s voice barely registered. She gazed into the heavy-lidded eyes of her lover. Tara smiled slightly.
Willow clutched desperately at her sanity as Tara slowly licked her lips, and jerked her attention away from her lover. “I … I’m fine, Buffy.”
“You don’t look it. Your face is all flushed and you’re breathing funny. Maybe you’re coming down with something.” Her best friend pressed the back of a hand to her forehead. “Huh. No temperature. Maybe you’ve just been overdoing it.”
“M-Maybe it’s just too m-much caffeine,” Tara offered.
Sooo beautiful, Willow thought, her attention once again captured by her lover. The lighter strands of Tara’s hair shone in the light from the lamps along the campus walk and she wanted to wind her fingers in it and ….
“I think an early night is in order, Willow.” Buffy’s voice brooked no dispute.
She glanced back at her friend. “Buffy, I had like three mochas! There is no way I’m going to be able to sleep immediately.”
“Th-They do have a lot of caffeine and sugar. I know I’m going to be up l-late.” Tara smiled and shifted her grip back to her hand. With a gentle squeeze she pulled the three of them back into motion. “I have a lot of r-reading to catch up on.”
“Still, you’re gonna try, Will.” Buffy shot Tara a look as she stretched her legs to catch up with them.
“M-Maybe she can read something boring,” her lover suggested.
“Well, not any physics or calculus, ‘cause she gets all excited over those, almost as much as she does over programming. I watched that in high school, and well, it would be like giving her a fourth mocha.” Buffy considered possibilities.
Willow looked between her two companions as they planned the rest of her evening. For the most part, it amused her. But studying had little interest for her, not with her hand being held again by her lover who continued her conversation with Buffy. Tuning out the words, she reflected that what interested her was curling up with the blonde, nuzzling her behind the ear, feeling her fingers sliding ….
“…lit.”
“What?” Willow came to a screeching halt mentally and physically. Staring at Tara totally aghast and hoping against hope that she had missed something and not heard what she thought she had. Not that that was really a possibility of course.
“Um, y-your lit class. I said that I thought that might be sufficiently b-boring, given the comments you’ve been making.” Tara’s eyes twinkled, knowing that she had been paying no attention.
“Oh, right. Lit. Blech. As if I were really interested in poetry. Survey courses just suck.” She started walking again, pulling the two girls with her.
“Well, that’s it then, Will. You read poetry tonight until you’re sleepy.”
Suddenly, Tara gasped, “Oh!” and gave Willow an astounded look, apparently having just successfully replayed her comments in her head and realized what word Willow had heard instead of “lit”. The astonished look quickly shifted to one of utter amusement, and she was very obviously biting her tongue. “P-Poor W-Willow,” she sniggered.
Willow shot her a dirty look.
“Well, I didn’t think it was funny.” Buffy looked confused.
“Yes, poor me, doomed to poetry,” Willow covered for the two of them and gave Tara’s hand a squeeze.
“Um, w-we’re here.” Tara stopped at the next intersection of the walk and released her hand, nodding towards the main doors of her dorm just a short distance away.
“Are you sure you’ll be safe? We could walk you the rest of the way.” Willow angled for another few minutes of Tara-time, not wanting the day to end.
“C’mon, Will. Let her go study. It’s still early. She’ll be perfectly safe.”
“Bye, Tare.” Willow wanted to wrap her arms around her lover, to hug her. Standing still and calm beside Buffy was as hard as facing her first vampire.
“’Night, Tara.”
Tara nodded at the Slayer. “Good night, Buffy.” Then she turned her attention and smile to her, adding, “Sleep well, Willow,” before turning down the walk.
She stood for a moment watching her lover walk towards her dorm.
“Well, c’mon then.” Buffy gave her hand a tug. “Let’s go.”
She bit her lip and allowed Buffy to pull her away.
****
Tara finished drying off the plates from the picnic and placed them back on their shelf. She’d had so much fun today with Willow and the food and the lovemaking, and tonight with Willow’s friends. And teasing Willow – that was always fun.
She laughed aloud, alone in her room. Clit lit. Now that would be reading Willow wouldn’t mind. Nor would she. Mmmm, yum. She shook her head to herself and spoke aloud. “Silly girl.”
Cleanup finished, she changed out of her pants and sweater into her nightgown and pulled on her woolly mocs.
Study. Yes. Right. She could do that. With all the caffeine and sugar in her system, she doubted that she’d be able to sleep until well after midnight.
She snagged her bio text and curled up on her bed.
Willow.
She ran her fingers over her bedding and inhaled. Her scent and Willow’s perfumed the sheets; their wetness had stained them. Her eyes slid closed to savor the memories. Such a good day.
And she was not going to be able to study … anything … surrounded by the tangible remnants of why it had been so good. Nor was she inclined to change her sheets. Sleeping surrounded by the day’s memories had too great an appeal.
She stood up and carried the biology book to her desk. Pulling out her chair, she stopped in mid-motion. Instead of sitting, she walked to the bookcase on the other side of the room and after a short search she found the book she wanted. Old, binding tattered, she’d picked it up at a used book shop when she’d moved to Sunnydale last fall. There had been a newer edition on the shelf, but when she had picked this one up, it had fallen open to a particular page. And she’d been enchanted.
She thought Willow would be, too. Pressing the buttons on the phone, she let the book open where it always did and smiled in anticipation.
*****
Willow yawned, not sleepily, but more from the sense of utter boredom reading Dante gave her. She’d thought hell would have been more interesting. The phone rang. For a moment Willow considered ignoring it and just letting the machine do its thing. But if she answered it, she wouldn’t be sitting here reading poetry. And that was a good.
She managed to grab the cordless right before the machine kicked off its message.
“Tara.” She felt a grin spread across her face. “No, she’s not here. She decided to take a quick sweep around the campus. Too much caffeine to just come back here and crash or study – although she didn’t have any problems expecting me to do it, did she?” She paused. “Uh, Dante. And he doesn’t know anything about hell, or hellmouths.” She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Sure. Go ahead. If you’re reading it to me, I’m sure I’ll like it. I love listening to you, and uh … okay, I’m shutting up now.” She turned and leaned back against Buffy’s dresser, concentrating on the words. Listening intently to her lover, she was unaware of the soft smile that tugged up her lips. “Tara, those were beautiful. And you say they’re just fragments? That is sooo not fair. But you have a book of them? Can we read them together sometime? ’Cause you know, I think if we did that then I might actually learn to like poetry.” Her smile sharpened. “That was sooo mean, you teasing me like that. Well, yeah, I knew it was payback for what I did to you over here. But, really, I enjoyed both, I mean, what you did, and what I did. Okay, one more, then I may as well study, since I can’t be with you.” She listened again.
Softly she said, “Goodnight, Tare,” and slowly she put the phone down. She glanced at the book on her desk and walked past it to her own dresser. Her eyes focused inwardly, her hands located the doll’s eye crystal on their own; picking it up, she sank slowly down onto her bed.
Her fingers caressed the rough-smooth surfaces as she memorized the poems Tara had read to her. She ran the few lines through her mind until she was certain that she’d never forget them. Lying back on the bed, the crystal held in her hands, she whispered, “I love you, too.”
****
Tara set down the phone and smiled at the book. She’d really only intended to read the one to Willow, just to continue the teasing she’d begun on the way back from the Espresso Pump. But she hadn’t been able to resist adding her own two favorites. They were so apropos. She hadn’t planned it – it had just happened. Her falling for Willow had been exactly like a whirlwind, and her love for the fire-haired woman had grown into a veritable blaze.
Her finger found the fragment about desire again and she read it aloud to herself: “Desire shakes me once again, here is that melting of my limbs. It is a creeping thing and bittersweet. I can do nothing to resist.”
She closed the book reluctantly, and carefully placed it back in the bookcase before crossing back to her desk.
Goddess, that poem was so true … and so much more romantic than talking about puddles. That was fun, but certainly not romantic. But Sappho, she thought, had understood perfectly about puddles.
****
The short, cowled figure stepped within the symbols sketched on the floor and looked around one last time. All the preparations were complete. Sighing, he lifted his small hands to the hood and pushed it back, shrugging it off his shoulders and onto the floor. He hated pain. And there would be pain when the Powers bestowed their mark.
He hated pain, but sometimes you just had to do what you had to do.
Naked, he began to chant; as he finished, a wind began to rise. It tore the last words from his mouth. “So mote it be.”
Now he just had to wait. Wait for the pain, and then the blessing, and then for the world to change.
****
Buffy raced up the stairs to the top floor in Stevenson and then jogged down to her own floor. She smiled a little ironically. The vampire she’d staked had helped dissipate the caffeine high, but Faith had been right. Slaying did make her hungry, in an interested-in-more-than-food sort of way.
Riley.
He would have been able to take the edge off in a much more pleasurable way than running up and down stairs in every building she passed did. She missed him. She really did.
And not just for the physical aspects, although that was what she wanted right now.
She turned the key in the lock and pushed open the door. Quietly, she entered the mostly darkened room. Willow was a body-shaped lump beneath her bedcovers. That was a surprise. She’d really expected her best friend to still be jazzed on caffeine and sugar. She must have been tired. Really, really tired. Overdoing it. Buffy paused thoughfully. Tara seemed like a nice girl, but they really didn’t know much about her. Other than that she was a witch, really quiet, and not only liked Willow, but even seemed to get along with Anya. And that last part was, at the very least, peculiar. Not necessarily bad, but … weird.
She finished pulling on her pjs and turned out the light. It was nice to see Willow finally smiling again. Maybe she could fix her up with one of the nicer Initiative guys. Graham, for example. Now he was a hottie.
She rolled over and faced away from Willow. A hottie, but not as hot as Riley.
Riley was just so … normal. So not a bad boy. He gave her hope. Hope of escaping her fate.
And she loved him for it.
But was that enough to forgive him? Besides, he was just sooo tall. Maybe she should consider dating someone more her own height ….
*****
Willow could hear Buffy slowly winding down in the bed nearby. She listened until the Slayer’s breathing evened out into sleep. Her hands began to gently stroke the crystal again.
What a day. But she felt so much clearer now.
She looked through the gloom at the wall with the Dingoes poster. She wasn’t certain why she had left that up after Oz had sent for his stuff. But looking at it didn’t cause her searing pain anymore. In fact, she just felt curious. Why had she decided to date Oz in the first place? It was all a blur. Was it just to try and make Jonathan jealous? Yeah, right – as if he would even notice. She really just didn’t remember. But dating the second coolest guy in her class had been great while it lasted.
She had Tara now. She closed her eyes and held the crystal to her chest beneath her spotted pajama top. It was cool against her, but her body heat soon warmed it.
The last poem Tara had read whispered through her mind. “You came, and you did well to come: I needed you. You have made love blaze up in my breast – bless you! Bless you as often as the hours have been endless to me while you were gone.”
Somehow Tara had taken her pain away and healed the wound. Tara. She loved her with an intensity that burned.
She whispered aloud the words of the other fragment into the darkness as the wind rose beyond the windows: “The moon has set, and the Pleiades; it is midnight, and time passes, and I sleep alone.”
She slipped the crystal beneath her pillow, cradling it with one hand, and drifted off to sleep.
*****
An errant gust of wind rattled the window; in darkness lit only by fairy lights, a sleeping Tara nuzzled her face into sheets that smelled of her love for a red-haired witch.
With a whisper little more than a sigh, she spoke one word.
“Willow.”
Smiling, she sank back down into a deeper sleep.
*****
As the witching hour concluded, a foul and reeking darkness rose up within the diagram. It coated the supplicant like tar. He began to scream as the bargain was completed.
Edited by: Triscuit7 at: 9/29/02 6:02:05 pm
thanks for the update! 
by xita » Wed Sep 25, 2002 12:49 am 
Can hardly wait for the next update. 
) 
I love this fic...and I can't wait for another update.
and ME thought of it or not. That Anya is so much more sophisticated culturally than the one that reappears in S4; my hypothesis is that said powers when lost, left some residue that she’s now building on. It would explain a lot. Not that ME is overly into continuity or anything. Bleh. Thanks again for reading.
