That being said, here I present this totally cliché fic which will raise many groans -and not of the good kind- and cause many eye-rolls,
Disclaimer: I don't own Willow and Tara -if I did I don't think I'd use my hands for writing- or the whole Buffy universe. Pretty please big bad law guys don't sue me.
Rating: Angst warning. Much angst. But I promise yummy goodness later on. R to be on the safe side.
Summary: Along with some old faces, Willow and Tara have always been best friends. One of them though breaks the ultimate best friend taboo.
AN: Thoughts in italic. Flashbacks in bold.
PROMISE
It had been something akin to a gut reaction. She’d never meant to feel this way. She swore she’d never feel this way. And yet it had been almost a natural progression that came to her as easily as breathing. She swore she’d never let her go. But she had. She thought she could do anything for her, that she’d always put her first, and yet when push came to shove she had shoved her out of the way. She had been selfish –self preserving?- and chose herself over her best friend. Because where love is concerned all is fair, or so they said. Had it been worth it? Losing her best friend for love, wasn’t that so damn cliché?
They had grown up together, their fathers meeting at the hospital when Tara had her one-month check-up as Sheila Rosenberg held the newborn Willow in her arms. It had been purely casual, both Steven Maclay and Ira Rosenberg getting a craving for coffee at the same time.
Truly a wonderful coincidence, Steven recognizing the shiny and teary happiness in the other man’s eyes, having experienced it himself not thirty days earlier –still experiencing it.
They started chatting and had been overjoyed at discovering they lived merely two blocks apart.
Their babies had been inseparable all throughout infanthood and childhood, learning to crawl, walk and talk together, always together. And together they braved the teasing of junior-high, being called names and being picked on, for they knew not many people could understand the deep bond they shared.
Together they also made new friends: two goofy boys named Xander and Jesse and his twin, a dark, intimidating broad –there wasn’t any other suitable term to describe her. Faith was both ultra femme in her early development and sensuality and tomboy in her wits and confidence.
The five youngsters formed a tight group and whoever tried to bring harm to any of them was in for a world of pain. The years went by, and all together entered boldly the scary, crazy and messy world of adolescence. That’s when the problems started. Each of them was very protective of the others bordering on possessive. Xander made the foolish –but so very common among teens- mistake of misinterpreting that love that, however strong, was purely platonic, and believing it real romantic interest.
He fell for Faith. Hard.
She was always playful with him, flirting and teasing him all the time. When confronted with her reject Xander did the only thing he thought he could do: he cut himself off from all of his friends and fell in with a bad crowd. After four months of pleading from all the girls and Jesse, after trying so hard to make them go away, even to the point of making them hurt deliberately, Xander recognized the love between those pleas for what it was: the kind of love you don’t –can’t throw away, that you just get as it comes because it’s too good to pass up. The fact that his current group wanted to eat a live pig for a ‘satanist’ ritual probably helped too. And so, after four long months of hell -for all of them- he crawled back to his friends who promptly welcomed him back, then whacked him in the head for leaving them.
Willow and Tara were particularly affected by that situation, and swore to never do what Xander did; they’d never spent much time without the other and didn’t –or wouldn’t- know what to do without their best friend. They promised to never cut themselves off from the others and, if that happened, that the other wouldn’t let go. They’d stick together.
But life got in the way of that promise under the disguise of love. As in, the forbidden kind. The one that starts out as an unexpected –and unwanted – flutter in the stomach and continues as heart-wrenching guilt.
Yes, Tara perfectly knew that what she was feeling had the potential to tear her best friend away from her, and with good reason. She couldn’t believe her own actions, she couldn’t believe she went that far, and yet she had.
And again I ask myself, was it worth it? Knowing that she might had ruined the most beautiful thing she’d had in her life for something so…ethereal as love…
Is it even love? We’re young, it’s not like we’re going to get married tomorrow. We weren’t even together, and I pushed her away all the same. If only….
If only she had known how Willow felt. How she herself truly felt, so that she could do the right thing.
Of course now it’s too late for this. You’ve done it Maclay, nothing you can do to reverse that. She knows how I feel, and the look in her eyes told me what I needed to know.
God, her eyes.
The eyes she had stared into so many times, the eyes that sought comfort in hers when in pain, the eyes she sought comfort into….so much inside them.
The blonde had seen plenty going on behind those green gems: thought processes when solving a problem, she’d seen them twinkling with amusement, she’d seen them shadowed by fear or pain or doubt -or something else as of late-, but never she had seen so much sorrow, so much…disgust in them. Never.
Willow was kind, she didn’t hate, probably didn’t have the physical capacity to hate, but that night…
When Tara had uttered those words –God her eyes!- she felt like the redhead’s eyes just might shatter with the amount of things she was feeling and couldn’t say out loud.
Would you have been able to say it? If you really hate me now, would you actually say it? Or would you let me burn slowly in the fire I myself fed with my guilt?
The blonde knew that she wouldn’t get the chance to find that out thanks to her own actions. She just hoped she would get the chance to explain and, eventually, beg forgiveness.
Forgiveness…I haven't exactly committed a crime, did I? I couldn’t help it, and…what? I deliberately chose to tell her. I did, because I have nothing to be ashamed of, nothing to be afraid of….except losing her. God, I lost her, didn’t I? She can’t be mad at me forever though. Aren’t –weren’t we the best of friends? Either she gets over it or I do, not much in the way of choices. No, what hurts the most is breaking that promise, knowing I couldn’t possibly live without her by my side and yet letting her go.
Tara was curled up on her bed thinking. She didn’t understand her actions more that she did her feelings. What was she thinking when she told Willow? Was she hoping that her best friend would beg her not to act on her feelings, that she would forbid her to do so? Or maybe that she would give her the go ahead?
For the life of her Tara didn’t know what she was thinking when she told Willow that she, her best friend in the whole world, had broken the ultimate best friend taboo.
Tara had fallen for the same guy Willow had.
