You know how I left you on bad place cliffhangers the last few parts? Not so this time... Good place. no hanging
Enjoy.
Katharyn
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Title:
Tara and Willow – Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda – Chapter One HundredAuthor: 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: Before we show the final scene of Family, the party and the dance, Tara and Willow find some alone time.
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: So this is just pure indulgence really. Of course, we do have to cover the party at the end of Family. And that will happen… but I need to make a full part out of this. So… I guess I’m just gonna have to put more Tara and Willow togetherness up there. It’s a tough job… but someone has to do it.
And in one section of this… I was trying to see if I could write a whole scene without the need for any coherent words. So… the girls just moan. (That’s like a trailer, ‘come read the part where the girls moan’.) Hope it all works…
REDRAFT NOTE: So at the point of redraft I come across a section in this chapter where Willow promises to (finally) take Tara to meet her parents. Nice gesture, Wills. But at this point it was totally too late and also they stayed at the Rosenberg house over summer which would be kind of sneaky if Tara hadn’t even met them and send entirely the wrong message!
So… No, that will have to go. But by coincidence it is this weekend I have been writing the bonus ‘Meet the Rosenberg’ part that you’ve likely already had posted. So I’ve replaced one thing with another (months ago from your perspective – this is like time travel!) and if this part now lacks a ‘heart’ it definitely gains some coherence with the rest of the story. As well as an unexplored revelation for Tara.
And yes, the moans.
Oh – and this wasn’t originally part 100 – that came next and I made a big deal of that in my notes, how perfect it was an all. Guess not, since I added about 10 bonus parts so far anyway… I’m not going to make a big deal of it this time!
Before 101 is posted, we’ll look at what Faith is doing at the same time as this (less sexy!) in a bonus part I am just writing. That may delay the next post a couple of days, but if it does you will get the bonus & 101.
Musical notes: The music at least for the scene reference above was the music from ‘Inception’ by Hans Zimmer. By pure fluke – yeah right – I was writing myself to ‘conclusions’ at the point the music went the same way… Oh, and I know many of us of the Sapphic persuasion have a thing for Ellen Page (too young for me to comment!) but, seriously, just how hot is Marion Cottillard?
“Oh, hey,” Willow said as their friend Annie came into the kitchen.
“Hey yourself, Willow,” the other girl was yawning and obviously not totally with it yet. She was very much a night person. “What’s this now? Oh, wait, let me guess. You’re trying to make Tara a birthday breakfast?”
“What do you mean ‘trying’?” Willow asked, looking at what she’s assembled on the tray.
“No – nothing, damn, all I meant was – the kitchen’s not really up to much, is it?”
That
was certainly true, it wasn’t intended for culinary creativity. More… functional student fare when the refectory wasn’t open. Beans. Pasta. A microwaved potato, perhaps.
Not that the residents challenged those limits very often.
On the other hand, breakfast was more doable than, say, dinner. “I’m just doing my best with what I have.”
“Well, it looks like you’re doing good.” Annie told her, yawing again and peering at her through still sleepy eyes.
“What do you mean?”
“Oh, well, I knew Tara when she first got her. Remember? You don’t need me to tell you, but I will. You’re making her happy, Willow.”
Of course, she’d known that. But she wasn’t so far removed from her nerdy-academic-overachiever roots that she didn’t like to be recognised for it anymore. Other people knowing and acknowledging it, that was the icing on the cake.
Or an additional prize – since Tara herself was the main one.
“Besides, it takes a good girlfriend to do all this. You know she’s not going to eat even half of it?”
“I figured… I’d have some,” Willow said. She’d been pretty sure that Tara would ask her to anyway and she’d really not left much for herself except cereal if Tara did decide to scoff the lot. Not very likely but… it was her birthday and if she wanted to devour everything she had to offer… well, there were some other things she had to offer beyond food.
Eating… and all.
“Rose too?”
“We like roses,” she said.
“Seems to me its more like you like destroying them,” Annie countered. “They always seem to be plucked by the time I see them.”
“Oh, that’s just the… umm… heat,” Willow said, not really wanting a reputation as a rose destroyer, but they’d not quite admitted the way the world really was – and the existence of magic – to Annie.
“Heat, huh?”
“Umm… yeah.”
“Strawberries? You’re big fans of those too?”
“Yeah – I mean, actually I haven’t given them to – we haven’t had them before. Together, I mean. Obviously we’ve both had them but – not at the same time. Together - ”
“And couldn’t you find any fresh cream?”
“Huh?”
“A can of whipped cream… not what you usually serve with strawberries, not on a romantic breakfast tray anyway.” Annie was grinning, having reached her own conclusions.
“Needs must…” Willow said weakly. Okay, so… the thought might have occurred to her. And if it occurred to Tara too then she was ready. If it didn’t then… Well, she could always squirt it in her mouth.
“You could just put some in a bowl – I’ll do it for you if you like - ”
“No. No… it’s fine.”
“Looking to keep that nozzle available, huh?”
Willow looked at her the other girl, Annie was – despite her sleepiness – all too obviously enjoying herself. And it was kind of infectious. “I just thought…”
“I better let you get back to her, sounds like you two need to finish up
breakfast before all the hot water gets used, I guess. I mean, I guess you might be needing showers…”
Willow picked up the tray. “You know, I probably shouldn’t dignify that with an answer.”
“No, you probably shouldn’t.”
“But if I was going to,” she added from the doorway. “Then I’d probably say that we
could just stay in bed until the water was all heated up again.” In fact that almost sounded like a plan.
“Enjoy!” Annie called after her. “And tell Tara happy birthday from me. I’ll come round.”
“She’ll like that. But
later though, right?” Willow checked.
“Much later late enough?”
“Much later should be perfect.” And they’d see Annie tonight, of course. Because there was no way – after all this – that the party wasn’t going ahead. What Tara had been afraid of, her reason for not wanting a fuss made? Gone.
Party. On.
Once she’d made her way back down to their room, getting inside was an interesting exercise in trying to balance the fully laden tray while also trying to manipulate the handle. Eventually though it opened from the other side. Tara.
“Thanks and - What are you doing?” she asked as Miss Kitty snaked around her ankles and threatened to trip her up.
“Umm… I was just getting - ” Tara started.
“No. No. There is no getting out of bed. I’m sorry, birthday girl, but I’m going to be firm about that.”
“You put a tray together?” Tara asked. “Aww. That’s so sweet.”
“I put a tray together,” she confirmed since she was holding it. No pulling the wool over Tara’s eyes. “Like it?”
“It looks lovely.” Tara’s eyes had drifted to the – out of place – can of whipped cream.
“Well, you don’t get anything, not one berry, unless you get back in that bed, Missy. We’re going to do this birthday of yours my way.”
“That really – I think it might be better if you just let me…”
“Tara…”
“Sweetie,” Tara said. “It might be my birthday but I really – I have to
go.”
“Oh. Ohh. Well… be quick. Okay?”
“You won’t even know I’m gone.”
“There’s a bladder emergencies exception,” she called after Tara, regretting it as laughter emerged from somewhere outside the room.
Sometimes, even when you wanted to be firm, you had to bend the rules.
----------------
“Started without me?” Tara asked as she returned.
“It’s your special breakfast. You’ll only be twenty once. Okay, that’s not true. You’ll be twenty every day until your not twenty anymore but you’ll be exactly twenty once. If we’re like, rounding to days. If we start looking at hours and minutes – seconds even – then… Damnit, Tara. You said you’d stop me.”
“You’re too cute when you babble,” she said. And since Willow had shown the way, she just got
onto the bed, rather than back under the covers, the tray perched between them, resting on a pillow. “Strawberries, eggs, pancakes and syrup.”
“
Real maple syrup.”
“Is there any other kind?”
“You like that, right?” Willow asked.
She paused, pressed her thumb against her wrist.
“What are you doing?”
“Seeing if I still had a pulse. Of course I like maple syrup. What sort of monster doesn’t like maple syrup?”
“My Mom,” Willow revealed.
“Oh… Are you serious? Really?” Tara said. “I guess that makes a kind of sense…” Then she realised what she’d said.
And Willow had said, but she’d said it most obviously.
“You think my Mom’s a monster?”
“Umm. No?”
Thing was, she was getting used to Sheila… And no, compared to real monsters she wasn’t a monster at all. She was just a Mom and in some ways a stereotypical one. But…
“Sometimes I wonder,” Willow said. “I mean, when she pulled out those baby photos…”
“They were cute!” Tara said. “You were cute.”
“And I still am.”
“Yes, you are. But in… all new ways. Did you relaly think the pictures were so bad?”
“Yes.”
“I don’t think that makes her a monster though,” Tara decided. It was very thin evidence. And somehow, things had switched around. Now Willow was the one putting that position? How had that happened?
“Well, she did try to burn me at the stake,” Willow reminded her. “But in her defence, that was because she thought
I was the monster and she was kind of… under the influence at the time.”
“I thought – I thought she thought you were a witch.”
“Yeah…”
“And you are.”
“Yeah…”
“And she doesn’t like maple syrup…”
“Would now be – No, have a strawberry.”
Tara let Willow pop one into her mouth, but then got back to the point. “Would now be… a good time for, umm – I don’t know – something else? I mean, apart from how your Mom is or isn’t a monster? I mean, she’s always been nice to me.”
Willow nodded. “Annie says happy birthday, she’s coming around later. But I got her to agree to ‘much later’…”
“Oh, that’s sweet. But it’s not what you were going to say.” She hadn’t spent this much time with Willow to be taken in by a thinly veiled deception. All of this, starting with breakfast had been planned. And Willow wouldn’t have stopped there. Somewhere there was a list.
Possibly a spreadsheet.
“Okay… Look, I sort of had everything planned out,” Willow said. “Breakfast. Maybe a little fooling around.”
“
After breakfast?”
“Did you want to fool around before?” Willow froze with a strawberry just between her lips. They both understood why eating too much wouldn’t be a good thing and she
was already kind of hungry, lots had happened since they’d last eaten.
“You brought whipped cream… in a can.”
“Just thought, maybe, you’d like some. With your strawberries.”
“Oh. You got the very best of everything here and then… a can of whipped cream?”
“It’s not cheap! This is the expensive brand!”
“It’s for fooling around, isn’t it?” she asked. Willow had made a joke about it a few weeks ago and… now she realised that’d been a test. She’d not objected and so… here it was. Yes, this would be on a list somewhere too.
“It doesn’t
have to be.”
“You really did think of everything… So is there more?” Tara wondered.
“Cream?”
“No…”
“Things to fool around with?”
“No.”
“You think I arranged a party, don’t you – after I explicitly promised you that I wouldn’t.”
“I always take you at your word, love,” Tara said. “Always. But you said there was something else…”
“I never said that.”
“You didn’t have to.” Tara pushed at the strawberry, popping it into Willow’s mouth, letting her girl kiss the fingertip and then took one for herself. “Tell me…”
“I… Are you sure you want to know? Before breakfast? Before fooling around?”
“Oh, hard as it is to resist, I can promise you there’ll be no fooling around until you tell me,” Tara informed her.
“What happened to all that gratitude you were on about last night?” Willow wondered.
“Well, we can have breakfast before you tell me. That’s what my gratitude gets you.” Tara’s smile was, she hoped, just as playful as she felt. This was… it felt like verbal foreplay. They were teasing, they were fooling around already. With the words, with the food. Willow sucking briefly on her finger. The tingle as their skin touched and connected.
Because her gratitude – after what she’d done and almost done – knew no boundaries. Not for this girl of hers.
“Oh… okay… I was – I kind of… well, I arranged lunch too.”
“After all this? Willow, are you trying to turn me into a big girl?” Tara asked, a fork-full of pancake passing between her lips. It really was good syrup.
“Big, small, doesn’t - ”
“Willow? Lunch.”
“With my folks. I – I arranged it all before, well before what happened. I’d totally understand if you didn’t want to deal with that now…”
“Why? You know I like spending time with the people who gave me… you,” she said.
“I just thought… maybe you weren’t up for the whole Family thing, at least not right now. I mean… I’d understand if you weren’t but my Dad – Mom too – but my Dad, he’s kind of… he’s still in welcome to the family mode. I’ve been asking him not to put that kind of pressure on and I know he can be - but… They missed you, while they were away. They – he thinks he neglected getting to know you over summer and I think he’s grateful that we didn’t trash the place and kept Faith under control and didn’t let her… well, do anything. Much. And – he thinks your wonderful which you are and – and - ”
“Are you serious?” she asked.
“I know – it’s a lot to deal with after what happened - ”
“No, are you serious about me minding?” Tara asked.
“You
don’t mind then?”
A kiss to confirm that conclusion. She didn’t mind at all. “This… this is a wonderful present.”
“Oh no,” Willow said. “That isn’t your present. Not at all… Just something they wanted to do – he wanted to do. I mean… They like you, Tara. Maybe my Dad more than my Mom but she – she doesn’t really like anyone all that much but you more than anyone and – But you, I can totally see why they’d like you too.”
“They’re… Your Mom isn’t going to ask me to start having babies again is she? Right?”
The subtle pressure wasn’t always so subtle, but pretty much Sheila had agreed to the fact that both of them needed to finish up college before that’d be an issue and…
Oh my God… babies…“What?” Willow asked, probably seeing the change in her expression.
“I just… thought of something.”
“What?”
“It’s not for now,” she said. “Really.”
“Come on, what is it? You can’t just leave it like that – you know how I am. I can’t help but pick at it.”
Shaking her head, she mused on the fact that she’d pretty much ruled out children, her own children, in the future because of not wanting the ‘curse’ to extend to another generation. That and the practicalities of being a lesbian and… not knowing if she even
wanted children.
But there was no curse… One of those reasons had gone away. One day – if they wanted it – there was no reason why not. Not anymore.
Which would make it purely a matter of choice.
“Ask me another time,” Tara said.
Maybe like five years. Perhaps ten.“You
really don’t mind lunch with the old folks?”
“I like your parents,” she confirmed. “And I’m not… sensitive.”
“We’ll see about that, but you
really want to fool around before breakfast?”
“I really want to fool around before breakfast,” she confirmed.
“The things I do for love…” Willow said, lifting up the tray and setting it aside. “But if my tummy rumbles, then I expect to be fed.”
-----------------
Turned out that the cream hadn’t come into it… It was right there but… she couldn’t seem to regret the fact the lid hadn’t come off.
It’d gone unsquirted.
Nope, no regrets. Willow shook in the aftermath of an orgasm. It wasn’t the first, though if she was going to emerge from this bed sane – faculties intact - and not too full for lunch, it might have to be the last. Otherwise they wouldn’t even have time for breakfast.
“Nnnnn,” she sighed as Tara kissed all around the parts of her that she’d just been tantalising. Not another. Not right away… she couldn’t deal with that again.
Could she?
“Mmm?”
“Mmmm.”
She’d had this kind of vision of Tara’s birthday morning as a time where she’d delight in well… giving. Things hadn’t worked out that way. From the very first, Tara had been all about the giving…
Who was she to say that her girl shouldn’t get what she wanted to on her birthday? And Tara wanted her.
Tara should get to do what she wanted on her birthday. And Tara had done her.
Tara wanted her shaking and writhing, it seemed.
But she wanted me.“Mmmmm,” she sighed again as her lover, her girl, her
Tara came up alongside her, still stroking, still teasing. Still loving. She raised her eyebrows, a question and nodded downwards. A clear sign of what she wondered whether Tara was ready for yet.
The briefest shake of her head. “Mnnn-huh.”
Tara had loved her and LOVED her and
LOVED her… By hand. By mouth. By some of the things in their secret stash in the bedside drawer… Tara had loved her. It was easy to imagine that on the most simplistic level, Tara was trying to make up for something. To promise her that everything was okay. That she wasn’t going anywhere. Making up for what had happened, for everything that she hadn’t explained or talked about through simple fear.
No. That wasn’t it. That was too simplistic. Too much like a debt that was owed.
Not them at all. They were beyond ‘trading’ even if she did have that orgasm tracking sheet… But that wasn’t about trading and debt either. It was about ‘Oh My God, look at all the pleasure I’ve given her.’
So, no. It hadn’t been the simplistic thing. Not at all.
It was amazing – and would seem very unlikely - but she’d actually figured it out while the very tip of Tara’s tongue had been driving her to a delicious distraction. Just – it was one of those things you might read about but never quite believe in (especially when you were on the tip of Tara’s tongue)
It had been a moment of… clarity.
The moment had been there and she hadn’t even known what it meant because – basically – it was the last possible moment before that self-same tongue had dropped her off the cliff and into the ocean of pleasure that was… too flowery a metaphor even for the most delicious orgasm.
But she’d remembered it afterwards, when the rumbles and the ripples and the shaking had faded. Clarity had shown her what Tara hadn’t been able to say, perhaps because she didn’t even know herself.
Not consciously.
This, all of this, was Tara showing her that it didn’t matter. That she knew, somewhere deep inside, that she
didn’t have anything to make up for. Because Tara Maclay was one of the most generous people she’d ever met. In conversation, in life – say to charity – emotionally so giving and in bed… yes. If her Tara had thought that there was a single thing to ‘make up for’ then Willow knew very well that she’d have been given free reign to do whatever she wanted…
Not that she wanted anything other than what she’d got.
But – probably when she hadn’t pushed any sort of agenda - Tara had changed the message. It wasn’t about reassurance. It was about
want. It was about
need. Tara wanted to love her. She needed to be loved. Tara wanted to take her. She needed to be taken. The simplicity of lovers and the complexity of love all in one womanly package.
Once upon a time – just for a little while after too much reading and not enough doing - it’d worried her, that there was no clear ‘top’ and no obvious ‘bottom’ in their relationship. No matter what certain people had suggested about them.
Reading was misleading though; there was no manual for the heart, nor for the bed.
Well, okay, there
was a manual for the bed and it was kind of embarrassing to ask for in a bookstore, but there was no manual for
them in bed. They were who they were and… Tara was the woman who loved her. Took and gave in statistically almost equal measure.
There was that spreadsheet for the bed.
And it didn’t just apply to the bed…
“Mmmm,” Willow sighed as her girl lay against her, looking up at her and asking for a kiss. Tara’s lips were moist and soft and the tip of her tongue was just as tantalising meeting hers. She felt such a high… like just kissing would take her there again. Which, of course, wasn’t
quite possible. But almost…
Her fingertips found Tara’s and they pressed together with one hand, dancing against each other turning, twisting and pressing trying to elude the other. Trying to stay together. Testing. She wouldn’t lose; Tara knew very well how nimble her fingers could be. Years of piano had found practical purpose…
Her other hand she wrapped gently in Tara’s beautiful hair, not letting her go anywhere easily and she moaned into the kiss. “Mmnnnn.”
No. It wasn’t her. The vibrations had come from the wrong place. That was Tara’s moan. Tara’s moan. The kiss… it was growing. It was… teasing, tantalising… that tongue – her tongue, Tara’s tongue…
“Ohhh,” Willow exclaimed as she felt the spark.
Tara’s eyes were closed, but her girl was well aware of it. She couldn’t not be. Through their fingertips… there was a connection, a magical connection. It was always there, at a low level, when they touched. And even at the most intense moments it was – usually – no more significant than brushing the back of your hand across a static charged balloon.
Not this time though… Tara was
doing something.
And then
she was… doing something. What she was doing was letting it happen. Because… Yes.
Magic… Love… More than once they’d tried spells that had… well, left them absolutely charged…
Now they were already charged, already together and already needing/sated… Except could Tara be sated yet? Yes… because, for her birthday,
this was what Tara wanted more than anything else in the world. To be given free reign and this charge, this spark was part of that.
“Ohh!” she cried as the power abruptly surged. But Tara’s hand was in her hand too. Pulling her back… Pulling her back. Keeping the kiss. The connection through their fingers and palms, more powerful than usual was only completed – like a circuit – when their lips were together. Was that it? They were building a circuit…
Tara’s tongue explored her mouth freely, then offered to allow her to do the same… Willow followed that lead, revelling in the circle of power that was running through them. And she realised that it wasn’t
just the lingering effects of what had already been given to her by the girl she loved.
The power… No, it wasn’t power. It was heat. Warm,
wet heat. Building, pooling… flowing through her. Their hands, their lips, flowing to her breasts, deliciously full and swollen… Her belly, that place inside, down between her legs… to the tip of her…
“Nnnnnhhh.”
Who was moaning? Who was crying out? Was it her? Was it Tara? The kiss… the kiss was driving it all. She just knew it. Tara’s tongue flickered over hers, stroked, rubbed and teased it. And… somehow, some amazing way, the sensation flowed through her. Just as if Tara had been licking at her nipples, her breasts, swirling around her belly button, crawling delicious up the insides of her thighs, under her arms, up those other lips from… to… It was like Tara’s tongue, even though it was firmly in her mouth, was doing its finest work on her clit… A spot which actually was untouched right now… But on fire all the same… Like the rest of her.
And she knew it was the same for Tara. The very same. Their moans, their cries were wordless, pure emotion and pure pleasure. If she changed how their tongues connected she could elicit that little cry that Tara made when she was so, so close… and she felt like it herself. She felt it and she wanted it and she had it and she was giving it to Tara and…
They were together. They were almost one being. One flow of love and sensuality.
And when it hit her, it blew every orgasm she’d had in the last hour away… This wasn’t even just whole body. It was both of them. Tara’s pleasure pooled between her thighs and her orgasm rippled through her lover…
So when they cried out…
It was together and no words were involved.
**********************
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