by Katharyn » Sun Aug 18, 2013 8:51 pm
Title: Tara and Willow – Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda – Chapter One Hundred and Twelve
Author: Katharyn Rosser
Feedback: Absolutely, yes please. That’s why I write for this place, to engage in the discussion about the story.
Spoiler warning: Not sure why I am bothering, really, but Season 4 and Season 5 of BTVS.
Distribution: This story was written for Pens. Pens is its home. No archiving off Different Coloured Pens and the Kitten Board please. No conversion to eBook or other formats please. Enjoy it here.
Summary: Set between ‘Listening to Fear’ and ‘Into the Woods’
Disclaimer: I don’t own any of the copyrights or anything else associated with BTVS. All rights lie with the production company, writers etc. I am making no money from this series of stories however all original characters and situations remain my property. As this is a missing scenes and alternate reality fiction lots of scenes are new versions of those seen in the show, as such dialogue and situations are taken from the show. I’m sure you can tell which. All credit for those aspects goes to the original writers.
Rating: Occasional, tasteful, adult situations and contextual bad language. However by and large equivalent to the show.
Couples: Tara and Willow forever, that’s all I’m bothered about.
Text convention: Use of italics denotes either special emphasis if used for a single or a few words in a sentence OR first person thoughts if used for a whole sentence.
Notes: Okay, so a little note on the canon timeline here. The closing scene of ‘Listening to Fear’ is directly before the opening scene of ‘Into the Woods’ (just the length of the surgery between them.) However, as far as I can tell, there is the gap of a day or more between the MAIN events of Listening to Fear and its final scene where Joyce goes into surgery. It’s into that gap which we’re jumping now. I want a little free time for the girls, for other things in their life and I’m going to touch on that a little here. From there though, we’re straight into what’s left of events in ‘Into the Woods’. Without Riley and Spike, the canon ‘Into the Woods’ has very little left to it as an ‘episode’ in its own right. Some stuff from there we’ll cover, but effectively we’re calling this the conclusion of ‘Listening to Fear’
Music: Not really listening to music right now. I’ve been catching up on the Jillian Michaels podcasts, but I can’t really listen while I write, I get distracted and start typing what I’m listening to… random words
“What’s another word for ‘hidden’?” Tara asked.
“Asked the girl who thought she was a demon and didn’t tell me.”
“Another word for ‘hidden’,” she pressed, ignoring the teasing. She’d just about gotten herself to the point that she could be teased about it, and that was all about how she reacted. Guilty, sure, but mortified to be reminded about it? No.
Not anymore.
Just teased.
“How about obfuscated?”
“That’s a good one. Professor Park loves the big words.”
“Are you sure? Most people… well, don’t,” Willow observed.
Willow was a big advocate of big words. Big all over, except… not so big in some ways. But when it came to words, she thought she had something to say and that was fine. She could use her words.
“I’ve read her book,” Tara said. “She loves big words. She uses them all the time.”
She knew that Willow was trying to be patient with her. They’d made an agreement and now she wasn’t living up to her side of it. Yes, she hated to be a disappointment but… This paper wasn’t going to finish itself now was it?
Bright and early start, they’d both been writing in their room before seven a.m. and then off to the library, staying away from each other as soon as it opened because – you know – being around Willow Rosenberg was almost as distracting as her girlfriend found being around a Maclay.
A few classes during the day, but it’d been work, work and more work. Catching up. Getting ahead in some things if they could. Doing the best they could to make sure that everything that was sucking up their time didn’t suck away their futures as well. It wasn’t ideal, but the amount she’d gotten done without interruptions said it was very, very necessary.
However the deal had been that the rest of the day would belong to them once it hit four o’clock. That had been half an hour ago. Telling Willow that they’d had their anniversary meal last night and expecting credit for it in the face of that kind of agreement probably wouldn’t be a good idea.
But she’d just had to get this… done.
“Okay,” Tara said.
“Okay?”
“I’m done,” she said. The last read through had seen her change a few things about her paper, but she was happy with it. Happy enough, anyway.
“You’re really done? You’re not just saying that? I don’t want you to fail a class and drop out of school just to make me happy because you should know by now that I find academic achievement very sexy.”
“I know and - I’m really done.”
Willow crossed the room to her from where Miss Kitty had been paying attention to her and now looked disgruntled to be abandoned. Tara held her girlfriend off for a second, pointing to where their other roommate was posturing at them both.
Yeah, just try getting my attention next time. You better have nip.
And possibly, that flick of her tail added ‘bitches’ at the end. Miss Kitty was growing up with a potty mouth.
“She’s not impressed,” Tara said as the cat slunk off in disgust.
“She’ll get over it. But you – you’ve not let me kiss you all day.”
“Not true, you kissed me this morning.”
“Since then.”
“You kissed me when we met for lunch.”
“But not kissing you.”
“Oh… that kind of kissing. You almost did at lunch – nnn - ”
Willow just grabbed her and pulled her into the kind of kiss that she wanted. One that said ‘I’m here and I’m not going anywhere and even though I’m not going to ravage you right now, I’m definitely going to get around to it. Oh yes, there will be ravaging.’ Yes, Willow-kisses were that expressive once she’d learned how to read them – though a lot of very enjoyable trial and error had been involved in that process.
“That kind of kiss,” Willow said.
“Happy now?” Tara asked.
“Happier, yes. More happy than I was. So… what you want to do now?”
“You don’t have a plan?” One that doesn’t involve immediate ravaging?
“You mean a plan like going to Big Boy, one step up from Doublemeat Palace?”
“Hey!” Tara objected. “You enjoyed your burger, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“And you enjoyed what I’d actually planned, didn’t you?”
Willow nodded. “I did like the big pineapple.”
“So… a good time was had by all. Apart from… you know…”
Willow’s next question took long enough, while they were sat together, that Miss Kitty forgot about her snit and started wrapping around their legs, expecting attention. “Do you… we just found out that aliens are real. That’s something lots of people have been dreaming about proving for decades. Shouldn’t it feel… bigger than it does?”
“To be honest,” Tara said. “I didn’t give it much thought.” Extending her leg she gave Miss Kitty a ramp to get up to her knee where she’d decided she wanted to be. It was Willow who’d abandoned her after all. Maybe nip wouldn’t be required to mend these fences.
“Maybe if you’d seen the meteor?”
“Maybe. Just looked like a demon to me. Like you said, if you summon it, it’s a demon. But hey, no shop talk. We agreed to that too.”
“It wasn’t shop talk, it was talk about aliens,” Willow said.
“And if you want to talk about Doctor Spock, I’m all ears. But not this. We just decided it was a demon even if it was an alien.”
“Okay, first, sweetie, if we were talking about Doctor Spock that’d be a whole other conversation. Second, I know what you mean, but can you even keep up a conversation about Mister Spock?”
“He has pointy ears,” Tara shrugged, exhausting her knowledge in that one statement.
“Good talking to you. I’d get more out of Miss Kitty.”
“Except she’s pissed at you and now she loves me the most,” Tara said, dancing the tips of her fingers above Miss Kitty’s eye line. Guaranteed to drive her wild until she could actually fall over backwards trying to get up there to them…
“Everyone loves you the most,” Willow said. “But I love you the mostest of all.”
“Guess I picked the right girl then,” Tara told her.
“Yup. I’m the top pussy in this dorm.”
Tara sat back, looked at her girl. “You’re what?”
“Well…”
“I heard what you said,” Tara said, forestalling the repetition. “But why would you say that?”
“Miss Kitty. She’s a kitty-cat and - ”
“Yes, I know about that too,” she said. She wasn’t averse to some puns and playing on words. Of course not. But… ‘Top Pussy?’ “Get to where it’s about you.” Honestly, she wasn’t bothered by it, but she’d let Willow doubt it, wonder and explain herself. Fun could present itself in the most unexpected of places. Babbly fun.
“Well, I’m the one who loves you mostest of all and so I thought, yeah, I’m top dog, but that didn’t sound very flattering because you know, dog and that leads to bitch and I’m not a bitch – at least I try not to be a bitch, I know you’d tell me if I was being bitchy – but if I’m not a dog and there was Miss Kitty I though cat. But then that was top cat and that was a TV show and not one that I really liked, so… umm… Pussy.”
“You seriously mean me to believe,” Tara said slowly, “that you weren’t telling me you were the best pussy in town?” She couldn’t help it, she started to break, a grin spreading over her face.
“You! I’m sorry, I was wrong, I’m going to use the word ‘bitch’ now. You bitch. You had me worried I was – damn… I’m so easy.”
“It’s true,” Tara said. “I find you very easy…”
“If Miss Kitty wasn’t in your lap…” Willow half growled.
“You have to make it worth my while if you want me to tick her off…”
“Tsssshhht,” Willow said, flicking her finger as if throwing something.
Miss Kitty wasn’t falling for the subterfuge, but she got the idea. Living in a confined space with frisky lesbians? There wasn’t much that their kitty hadn’t seen and gotten out of the way of at one time another. This time she batted both of them with her tail, flicking this way and that.
“So I’ll be the bad guy again,” Willow said as Miss Kitty jumped down and went looking for somewhere calmer to nap. At the same moment, Willow swung one leg over, straddling her as she sat in the chair.
“Guy?”
“Bad girl…” Willow said, a sparkle in her eyes.
“This isn’t what we’re supposed to be doing,” Tara said, but Willow was already pulling her own top off, incidentally proving that she was certainly no guy – like any further proof was needed of that.
“That’s why I’m bad,” Willow said, reaching back and then shrugging so that nothing was in the way of what Tara might want to kiss and was in range of her lips. She held back from that though… just for now. It was so, so tempting though.
So very tempting.
“We’re supposed to be going out, doing something… maybe catching a movie?”
“The movies will still be there when we’re done,” Willow said. At the same time, Willow took her hands and pulled them onto herself. Tara didn’t object or take them away when they were released either, she just stroked Willow’s flanks, enjoying the soft skin. She did that... and knew that Willow totally got the attraction.
“Oh, so this is just a quickie?” Tara asked.
“A quickie you can take your time over,” Willow confirmed. “If you like…”
Brushing her thumbs over the sides of Willow’s breasts, she was pleased to see a flicker pass over her lover’s face. Yes, Willow loved to be so delicately touched that it was like a tactile whisper. She liked to be teased. To a point… though once you reached that point she certainly didn’t want to be teased any more.
Then the dirtiest words would start to come out of her mouth. Well, dirty anyway.
“Why don’t you just tell me how you want it?” Tara asked, letting her voice drop a little. She was getting into the idea, definitely getting into the idea. It was very rare that Willow couldn’t tempt her. The loving enthusiasm, the lust filled tenderness… they were very attractive qualities.
No wonder Willow had been keen for her to finish….
“Well, you don’t need to take your time,” Willow promised her. “Not if you don’t want to.”
And in those seven words, Tara found her own desire. They didn’t ever really have the fixed ‘roles’, they found their mood and they went with it and that was great… This was where Willow was right now and she could sooo easily go there because look at the motivation.
The pressure on Willow increased as she caressed her more firmly. They weren’t going for the long haul. They were going to make the movie, whatever that was. Right now, as she sucked on the flesh of Willow’s other breast and pulled her girl’s ass tighter against her, she couldn’t even seem to care.
There was only one thing she knew for certain – aside from their love – as they came out of the chair and tumbled onto the bed, displacing Miss Kitty. Again. One thing she knew Willow was going to say. Not a request, more of an instruction, really.
They were getting naked enough… they were all over each other, and she was just waiting for the words. Knowing they’d come. She’d been shocked the first time Willow had uttered them, but not any longer…
Unable to be ashamed of them, how they made her feel or what they made her want to do.
She was half out of her clothes, with her face pressed firmly against Willow’s naked body, her lips… yes, her lips. It was then that the words came out and she couldn’t do anything except what Willow said, what she demanded and what she pleaded for.
“Oh now. Fuck me, Tara Maclay.”
-------------------------------
Physiology probably had a lot to do with it, but Willow considered that it was enough that she was just in a happy place.
Things were good for them tonight. There were no big emergencies, they had some time together. Other people were keeping Joyce and Buffy company, they’d seen a funny movie – but that wasn’t what was making her giggly now – and she’d been deliciously and totally effed by the hottest woman around.
And that was what was making her giggly.
Everyone else always knew when she and Tara had been together, that way, because she couldn’t help just being the happiest girl she could be. Love was always there. Love and orgasms? That came and went. They said she glowed and Tara hadn’t exactly disputed it..
Running down the street, laughing until they were out of breath and Tara nearly fell off the sidewalk, yeah… that came from being together. She’d never felt any need to do that before.
“Ohhh!” Tara said, “Willow, come on, I have to rest.”
“You’re the one who goes running!”
“Hey, just remember that I’m the one whose done all the – ahem – work tonight.”
“You know I’ll pay you back,” Willow said.
“I’m already looking forwards to it…”
And there it was. Yes, Tara had been… somewhat more energetic in – or on – the bed. That was definitely true. But it wasn’t like she’d just been lying there. No, she’d been a full and active participant in her own… umm, outside the bedroom she didn’t even like to think the word. Not out of context. But hey… this was in context. She’d been an active participant in her own fucking. There.
Which made it sound like she’d been all by herself.
Not at all…
“Is that really why you’re tired?”
“No,” Tara said. “Silly… I mean, the old gluts have… No, it’s more… I shouldn’t run in heels.”
“I like you in them, sometimes…” Willow said.
“Really?”
“Sometimes when… well, sometimes I like you to feel a little taller… You know. When…” She grinned. Tara could put two and two together. She’d done so many times. They’d worked each other out after all.
“Really?”
“That or jeans. You know, those tighter ones you have…”
“Really?” Tara asked again.
“You didn’t know?” Willow was surprised by that, she thought she was an open book.
“Well, I guess it probably makes some sense,” Tara said. “Some sense, but… after?”
“I’m a complicated woman,” Willow promised. Yes, for whatever reason, she took more of a thrill out of Tara being dressed certain ways after they’d had good, good, good, sex then she did before. Taking her out, staying in, didn’t really matter. Oh, pre-sex Tara might definitely raise the hotness stakes, but… after? She thought it was something about how Tara moved then. Definitely different. Almost… swaggery? Yum. “I think it’s that I like to think about it, you know?”
“I know that much,” Tara said. “You had this big silly grin for hours.”
“If weren’t doing so often I might have it for days, and it’d just get bigger and sillier.”
Tara laughed.
“Well,” Willow continued. “When I think about it and you and… mmm.”
“See, there you go again.”
“Sorry… Well, if you’ve been – more assertive,” she said delicately rather than spelling it out, “then I just get off on you taking me out. And… being a little taller, though – I have to say – those boots work for me too.”
“I know about you and the boots,” Tara said.
“As for the jeans,” Willow said. “How can I not love that ass?”
Once again she was being delicate out here in the wider world, but what she’d asked of Tara earlier had definitely given her renewed appreciation of her girls butt and the work it had put in for her… All about the gluts, baby. She’d proven it by digging her fingers in a little too hard… but hey, she was a good girlfriend and kept her nails trimmed.
“But didn’t you tell me that you love me in heels when you want me to be more femme-y?” Tara asked.
“I thought I covered that with ‘I’m complicated’?”
“And the jeans… you said you liked my legs…”
“Complicated…”
“Now my ass?”
“Complicated.
“And heels and boots?”
“Complicated.”
“And the leather jacket?”
“Still complicated.”
“My blue dress?”
“Complicated.”
“Tank top?”
“Complicated. And let me remind you you’ve still not teamed up the boots, jacket and tank. You did promise you would.”
“No, I didn’t promise.”
“But I’m a complicated girl,” Willow said plaintively.
“No,” Tara shook her head. “You’re really not.”
“I’m not?”
“You think you are and maybe you make things complicated in your own head, but let’s work this back…”
“Okay, I’m game. Show me I’m really very simple.”
“You like me in the jeans?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Why do I like you in jeans now?”
“No, why jeans period?”
“They make you look… they make you look like I want you to look. Whatever that is.” That was the truth.
“Why?”
“Denim looks good on a girl from Montana?”
“Try again,” Tara suggested. “That’s not really the root cause.”
“Oh… is that what we’re doing?”
“Yup, root cause analysis.”
Just keep asking ‘why’ until you boil a problem back to its beginning, so you could untie the knots. She was the one who’d told Tara about it after a class and they’d deconstructed a few things since then including Miss Kitty, a history paper and why vampires loved the Hellmouth so much. This was a first though. “I think you look good in denim.”
“Why?”
“I think you look good.”
“Why?”
“You look good.”
“Why?”
“Because you’re hot?” Willow tried, getting stuck.
“No, silly…” Tara said. “It’s all because you’re so into me.”
Willow grinned, pulled her close and kissed her girl deeply. “You’re right, one hundred percent. Though… for bonus points, I could point out that as much as I’m into you, you were the one who was into me earlier…”
“Can’t argue with that.”
---------------------
“Wow. When was the last time we just sat and watched TV?” Willow asked.
“Umm, we had it on last night…” she recalled.
“No, not when we came in late. I mean… just watched it? Sat down, intentionally, to watch it? Actually wanted to see a show?”
“Hmm, don’t know.”
“Well, I’ll tell you. It’s been a while.”
And she definitely hadn’t been as comfortable as she was right now. Usually if they were comfortable it was a by-product of being tired. Knowing that they might just fall asleep but… not now.
It’d been a good day, good to do something different. Something normal. School work, papers, reading. Making love with a beautiful woman who said naughty words at just the most provocative moments. Enjoying a movie. Walking, talking. Sitting and watching TV.
A full day, but definitely a good day.
Not that she resented any other day, they chose the life they lived – at least as much as anyone could. But… sometimes ‘normal’ was still the best good.
“I was thinking,” Willow said, stroking her hair while she lay in her girlfriend’s lap.
“Willow-mind, always turning over.”
“I was thinking,” Willow said once again. “You think we did things back to front? I mean… most people have a date and then come home and…”
“I guess,” Tara said. “But I never really got why anyone would only get together at night.”
“I guess because most people have to work during the day… but I think plenty get intimate in the morning too.”
“I suppose… we have it kind of easy right now,” Tara said. Maybe, once they’d graduated, they’d look back on these days and say ‘wow, we had it easy.’
“If you call researching and fighting demons – and let’s not forget aliens – looking after other people’s kids and Moms ‘easy.’”
“Maybe not,” Tara said. “But I can’t seem to regret it.”
“Me neither,” Willow replied. “How’d I get a girl who not only understood but joined in?”
“Obviously you attract people who aren’t very smart,” Tara grinned, even though Willow couldn’t see it.
“Obviously.”
She slapped Willow’s calf since it was the nearest, most accessible part. “Hey.”
“Obviously you’re attracted to women who won’t contradict you,” Tara said. “These things are too cute.” Meerkats on the TV. What could you say?
“Have you seen Miss Kitty?”
“No, where is she?”
“Look,” Willow said.
Tara sat up, looking down at the way that Miss Kitty was watching the screen. She’d never been bothered about nature programs before, they deliberately showed them to her hoping for something cute to happen. Big cats and wolves never bothered her. She’d hissed a little at a snake, but only for a moment. She seemed to know what a TV was, that they weren’t real. But meerkats? Oh wow…
Miss Kitty was… fascinated.
Her whole head was darting from side to side, following the antics of the creatures on screen as they hunted bugs and reptiles and just ran around. “They’re not cats, are they?” Willow asked.
“I don’t know,” Tara replied. “We probably should’ve listened harder to the details.”
“Instead of going ‘awwwww’. Maybe she thinks they’re really big mice?”
“Do you think she knows what a mouse is?” Tara asked. “She’s only young and she’s been a house kitty all her life…”
“A kitty knows…”
“You think?”
“A kitty knows…” Willow repeated, this time a little more forcefully. “But, I don’t think they’re mice. She doesn’t want to hunt them, she wants to be them.”
“Awww,” Tara said.
“Now I feel all guilty that we keep her in. She could be out there, hunting…”
“Bringing us little gifts.”
“Being amongst her own kind.”
“Keeping people awake fighting with the vice chancellors cats…”
“Seeing the world.”
“Killing anything that moved,” Tara said. See, this was what she knew about cats from long experience of the semi-feral ones that had kept the rats down back home. There it was. They kept the rats down. Rats. Farm rats weren’t much smaller than cats and they were vicious in their own right. And the cats kept them down. What did that tell you?
Well, maybe that Miss Kitty was a killer in a cute, furry coat. She just didn’t get the opportunity to indulge her homicidal passions and so, to them, retained her cuteness.
“Aw, be nice. She’s beautiful.”
“She is, and I love her,” Tara confirmed. “But she’s a cat. Look, if Miss Kitty was allowed to go out and was a person, she’d be…” She hunted for the correct comparison. “She’d be Faith.”
“Ouch… way to puncture the cuteness.”
“Faith’s cute in a scary, black leather, slightly unstable way.”
“You think Faith’s ‘cute’?” Willow asked.
She could actually hear the quotes.
“Not cute like that and – no, not actually ‘cute’. But… she is kind of feline and the more I think about it - ”
“Tara,” Willow interrupted. “I’m your girlfriend. I love you. But I swear that if you manage to come up with a pussy joke – about Faith – then… we’re going to have words.”
Actually no, she hadn’t been going there at all. “I can honestly say that, until right now when you put it in my head, I had never, ever associated Faith and pussy. Of any kind…” Except, you know, when Faith was finding some for herself.
“Okay… so now I’m embarrassed and a bad girlfriend,” Willow said, “I should never have doubted you, not even for a second.”
“No, you shouldn’t.”
“Please continue…”
“Thank you, baby. I was saying, Faith’s a cat. No question about it.”
“How about Buffy then?” Willow wondered. “She’s just as deadly, though she doesn’t have that ‘looks like a hot serial killer’ thing going on for her.”
“Say what now?” Tara asked, mimicking someone off TV. “I say Faith’s ‘cute’ and you think I’m about to discuss her…” Somehow, saying it in that context, just felt wrong. “But then you call her ‘hot’?”
“Hot serial killer. I think that negates the hotness.”
“No, it really doesn’t.”
“I won’t deny that, in a skanky way, Faith is easy on the eye…” Willow said, though it might’ve been marginally easier to pull teeth than getting her to admit it only a few months ago. Hope’s good influence.
Or perhaps that of the monks.
“So you might even say… cute?” Tara challenged.
“No,” Willow insisted. “Easy on the eye is as far as I’m going to go, but to answer my own question – I think Buffy’s a meerkat.”
“How do you figure?” Tara wondered, taking her girlfriend’s hand when Willow seemed done with her hair. She’d settled back in now, unable to see Miss Kitty – who apparently was Faith – but able to see the TV meerkats – which were all apparently Buffy.
“Still cute in a different way, still a dangerous hunter and works well in groups.”
Tara let the ‘Buffy as cute’ thing slide right by her, there wasn’t any percentage in challenging that assertion when everyone knew what Willow and Buffy friendship was. Yeah, you could admit your friend was cute. Just as long as she wasn’t Faith. But Willow had always been very good about her choice of friends. Possibly Annie had helped the average, since Faith and Ethan were a whole other kettle of fish.
“So we’re all meerkats too? Being as we are like, in her group?”
“They call it a gang,” Willow said. “I heard that, a minute ago. You know, on the TV.”
“You know, my Dad always worried I’d end up in a gang if I came to California,” Tara revealed.
“Your Dad worried about a lot of things,” Willow pointed out.
“True.”
“How about Xander then?”
“Labrador, loyal and silly,” Tara said.” “Anya?”
“Hyena…”
“That’s not very nice.”
“No one said they had to be nice animals,” Willow said.
“I kind of like Anya…”
“You’re safe. You’ve never wanted anything she had. So… she likes you. Me, I’m a rival, one slip away from whisking Xander away from her. Not really though.”
“I knew the ‘not really’ part,” Tara said. “So… really? Hyena?”
“Maybe a scorpion. You know, like the one that stings the frog in the middle of the river? Just because that’s what her nature is?”
Tara winced, that seemed to be going a bit far but it was Willow’s choice.
“Giles?” Willow prompted.
“An owl.”
“No one’s going to argue with that one,” Willow agreed.
“Ethan…” Now that might be a challenge. In many ways he was like Giles. The intellect, the Englishness.
Willow thought for a minute. “Well, if Giles is an owl and Ethan’s another kind of bird… A crow.”
“I really thought you were going to say vulture or something.”
“Crows pick over carrion too, but they’re really smart and they’ll murder things – that’s why they call it a murder of crows, I bet. Also, they like shiny. You’d have to like shiny to wear shirts like that.”
Tara smiled, once again, she couldn’t fault the logic. “Who’s left?”
“Eddie…”
“I don’t know, some sort of big, soft puppy,” she said. “Or one of those therapeutic dogs?”
“You think Buffy needs therapy?”
“I think Buffy needs someone and thank goodness she’s got him…”
“Point,” Willow agreed.
“You really think Anya’s a hyena?” she asked, worried about that one. It was the one thing stopping her from being able to tell anyone what they’d thought of. Apart from that it was kind of a cute conversation. The sort of thing you could talk about. But… hyena? Let alone scorpion.
“She likes to laugh,” Willow said. “Or at least to scoff. Usually at other people’s misfortune. And she’s like a dog – or a hyena – with a bone. She’s not letting go of Xander. She’d rip anyone’s head off who tried it. Sounds like a hyena to me.”
Tara didn’t want to agree, but there was a certain logic to it. “Hyena’s are kind of ugly though.”
“So… clearly you don’t think she is?”
She slapped Willow’s foot this time. That was kind of a cheap shot. It was Anya, after all. “I’m not getting into that again.”
“Oh, so now you refuse to talk about it. I’m getting all suspicious about you two.”
“Well, she’s another good looking woman,” Tara said. If Willow wanted to play, then she’d play. Here, in private, all her words worked just fine. A little playful, verbal jousting might even be fun.
“Ohh. I see.”
“And she’s got that whole… centuries of life – or demon existence – going on,” she continued. “Lots of experience.”
“I see… I’m just in my second decade, I get that might not be as attractive…”
“Is it really likely than in all that time she didn’t pick up a few tips? Get a little bit curious and try coming over to the light side of the force?” Star Wars references always worked well on Willow. She was a natural born geek.
“I guess,” Willow said. “I mean, yeah… even if… she might have more experience than me.”
“I’m sorry, baby…” Tara said. “I… I only stay with you because she’s with Xander and I want her to be happy. Until she leaves him… I’m all yours.”
“Consolation prize,” Willow said. “I’m just pleased to be in second place. It was an honour just to take part.”
“That’s the spirit,” Tara said, giggling.
“You know we have to tell her this,” Willow announced.
“No.”
“There’s no way we can’t… Talking about her supposed curiosity and experiences? I mean, we already know about the Dracu-babes. Now that you - ”
“We.”
“That you think she’s a good looking woman?” Willow said. “Oh yes. This will be fun.”
“You can’t do that…”
“Watch me,” Willow said. “It’ll serve you right for saying all those things.”
Unable to reach any other part of her, Tara lifted up her girl’s foot and kissed the tip of her big toe.
“You’re not going to get around me that way.”
“You know, we should… get you a toe ring. I think it’d look cute,” Tara said.
Willow lifted her foot higher, looking at it herself. Wiggling it. “You’re right, it would. But you’re not getting around me with that either.”
“Okay, okay… let’s try this. We should have a conversation about you and Buffy?”
“Me and Buffy – What the frilly heck?”
“Willow, Willow, Willow… You forget baby, I know what you do with your roommates.”
“Oh… that.”
“And you… you were young-er. You were impressed by her and obviously looking for something boys couldn’t give you…”
“You’re lucky you snatched me away from her really, I thought there’d be a giant catfight. But one with a Slayer…”
“I’d have gotten my ass kicked,” Tara said, “But it would’ve been worth it for you.”
“Awwww. The very sweetest things.”
“Meerkats?”
“You, doofus. What you say. Come here…” Willow asked. Tara shifted, moved herself up so she was much more level with her girl. “You’d have fought Buffy for me?”
“Part of your charm was that I didn’t have to…” she admitted.
“Really? You came after me because I was single? Or because I’d never been with a girl?”
“I didn’t know you’d not been with a girl,” Tara said. “I didn’t know you’d never even questioned it. All I knew was that at least one girl in the world thought you were the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen. That was the only other girl I was thinking about.”
“And that was you right?”
“Umm, yeah. And I didn’t ‘come after you.’ You came after me,” Tara said.
“Did not! Alright, I did… but you came around to see me that night, remember? Just because I’d had nothing and no one else on my mind but you after we met - except for big scary, grinny bad guys – doesn’t mean that I'd just spread my legs and said ‘please, come on in.’”
“Willow!”
“Alright, maybe that was a little… crass, as Giles would say.”
“Ya think?”
“Just a little. But…” An even wider grin spread all over Willow’s face. “Can you imagine if we’d made a homerun? Right there in the laundry room that night?”
“Do you think we would?” Tara asked.
“I absolutely could’ve,” Willow told her. “You… Maybe I’d have wondered if it was that primal instinct, when danger threatens… No, you’re a girl, that wouldn’t have been it. Oh, yeah, you were there, I was there, just looking at you sent shivers through me – good shivers – and yeah, that danger thing was working as well. Didn’t you want to be with me?”
Tara considered, it didn’t take long. The whole thing was etched in her memory.
“I’d have been… I’d have been afraid of hurting your ankle,” she said.
“You’re such a nurturer. But that’s not what I asked…”
“Okay, I’d been thinking about you. That way… since we met. Yes. But the laundry room wasn’t my dream venue.”
“Tell me, what did you hope for – you know, the thing that would never happen but felt like it should…”
“Nothing complicated. Coming round to your room, Buffy would be out. We sit on your bed. You can’t help kissing me. You tell me that ‘yes, I think I can love you’ and then… you did.”
“You have simple tastes,” Willow teased.
“I have to, you’re my taste.”
“Beautiful bitch.”
“Lovely… something beginning with L?”
“Lesbian?”
“Lovely lesbian,” Tara agreed. “funny how that came to mind.”
“Don’t suppose I could… tempt you into re-enacting that scene?” Willow asked.
“The thing that didn’t happen?” she checked.
“You know I always want to make your dreams come true.” Willow kissed her, probably just to emphasise the point.
“It’s an old dream,” Tara explained. Not that she was unwilling but…
“All your dreams…”
Willow’s hand was sliding up her side, under her top. She wasn’t about to take no for an answer, it seemed, but that was okay because there was no way she could say ‘no’. “Just one thing…”
“Hmm?”
“How’s your ankle?” she asked.
“Oh, just fine… I’m fully fit and flexible.”
“Now see that’s something I never thought you’d say that night…”
“Only because I back then I really didn’t know the value of flexibility,” Willow breathed and started to kiss her.
**********************
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If I wanted a little pussy, I've got my own to play with.
Chance in *Chance*
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, and the whole conversation at the end was interesting, trough i see Anya as a feline too, perhaps the American McGees Alice Chesire Cat in actitude, but cuter. Jeje, i love meerkats.
Wouldn’t be the first time fantasy affected reality so it’s plausible.