( continues...) purple and yellow and the organizational chart she hadn't updated since fourth grade and the great red highlighter debacle, her keys and cloth wallet. She even went without a bra today, not that she really needed it, just so her décolletage wouldn’t attract anything. Not that it ever attracted any attention.
She missed Tara.
It was only for the next few days. She would go back to her old, normal clothes. The ones from when she was not loved, unattractive and unnoticeable. Once the thought wasn’t so fresh, once she got it back under control, everything would be fine.
Control made everything fine. Really.
With that reassuring thought, she turned and walked towards the shop.
And that damn bell rang as she entered, warning everyone she was entering.
She so was going to fix that one day.
Hope you get a laugh out of this bit of silliness.
Buffy/DirtyJobs
Edited to fix linkage. I know there are some fans here, because I think I heard about it on this board.
Hee.
erikaj - you know on Moonlight they've got a character whose job is to clean up after vampire kills. (IJS)
Really?
"Good God, woman!"
(/Rowe)
Tara struggled to raise the axe again to block, wishing she knew any other way. Her arms trembled from all the blows absorbed and the few delivered. She had been doing this for an hour, barely keeping up. She had prepared, wearing her rarely-worn exercise clothes, a sport bra top and biker shorts, but her entire body was still soaked in sweat and yet she still felt flush. Her hair had been tied back beforehand but still wisps freed themselves and stuck to her forehead, distracting always when she needed to pay close attention to avoid losing an arm from the great sweeps of the sword. She needed to do this, she couldn’t let Buffy down. As she looked her opponent in the eye, she hoped she wouldn’t have to.
“Did I mention that Giles called?” Buffy remarked as the sword she wielded casually swept back towards Tara.
“No. What did he say?” Tara barely managed to swing the axe back around, blocking the sword badly with her axe’s shaft. It barely had any force to it, but Buffy dutifully allowed herself to be blocked and moved her sword back to the next attack in the drill pattern.
“He spent the first five minutes apologizing for not reaching me on my birthday until I told him that the house had been magically sealed off. Then I spent the next five minutes convincing him that I was positive that…” Buffy’s voice wandered off, as if deciding how often she could say the name.
“...a demon acquaintance of Anya was responsible.” Tara could see she had said the right thing by the thankful smile that stole across Buffy’s face. She wondered how she and everyone had missed how rare an event that had become. Everyone had been traveling in their own worlds so much that they had lost sight, even Tara herself.
She wondered if she should make a point of getting involved with Anya and Xander’s wedding plans. They seemed to have it well in hand, but that is what everyone still thought about Buffy.
Her distracted musings almost got her cut by another gentle sweep of Buffy’s sword, but her body responded to the pattern that Buffy had already drilled into her over the past hour and managed to block it. She felt a small thrill at successfully defending herself, a rarely felt sensation.
This had been Buffy’s idea, actually. Every since Buffy confessed her... relationship with Spike, Tara had been spending time with Buffy, separate from Dawn. But Tara wasn’t comfortable about stopping by the house and Buffy was uncomfortable about asking her to. She sensed that her presence at Buffy’s birthday party was the result of careful tiptoeing, whispered conversations and over-enthusiastic agreements.
So Buffy when had carefully and casually suggested working out with Tara, she gratefully took the excuse to meet Buffy regularly without having to worry about the awkwardness of stopping by the house.
Importantly, the only other alternative they discussed involved shopping. Tara knew that her dress style and fashion sense so outraged Buffy on a spiritual level that a trip to the mall would ultimately be far more terrifying for her than merely sparring in the Magic Shop’s workout room.
Willow was next to Dawn, half working on her assignments and trying to keep an eye on Dawn’s work, promising herself she would only butt in if Dawn got stuck. She was trying not to be too pushy Dawn. Willow hadn't realized just how much Dawn's image of her had been part of her and Tara's coupledom and the whole car crash had sort of evaporated the rest of Willow's individual coolness with Dawn. She could feel that she was getting some of her rope back from Dawn but knew it was still very short. Willow didn't know how to be without knowing what Dawn felt.
Anya was locking up the Magic Shop for the evening, she opened the door to the workout room in the back for a moment to flip on the newly installed alarm system, scowling at the blissfully unaware Dawn as she did so. In that moment the sound of steel on steel rang until the soundproofed (mostly) door swung shut. Willow started, immediately thinking of enforcing a layered magical defense so that can research can be done. A few moments of indecision as she forced back the instinctive invocation of a nearby hearth spirit to erect it as both the sprawled back Spike and Dawn looked at her. Their casualness reassured her that nothing really unexpected was happening. She was oddly disappointed, the sudden need for casting now buzzing under her eyelids.
"Buffy practicing with Xander?" Wonder if she should be hurt that no one had mentioned that Xander was here. Usually when Anya such speed in closing, with her already making a beeline out the door, that meant Anya was running late for her early evening quickie with Xander. Willow thought she was regaining enough trust for something as simple...
"Nope." Dawn looked from Spike's slightly smirking face to Willow's, rebelled against him and with a look of a parent deciding to gift a child a toy that they had been pestering about...
"Buffy is practicing with Tara...."
Willow didn't really hear anything after the name.
Tara, tara, TARA,
Tara
She knew she could repeat the name for hours (and had) but was still amazed it never sounded the same.
"Oh"
....
"That's nice"
Oh, she wasn't fooling anybody. Spike's stock smirk grew but he seemed to be waiting, refraining from distractions. Dawn waiting to see if Willow did anything, with a suspicious glare, as if already regretting the gift.
Still. Calm into stillness.
…hold and caress and cry until everything goes away and safe and loved and...
Dawn was testing her, in her eyes an audit in progress.
Tara was just on the other side of the door.
And far further away.
Physics theorem: Light travels between two points in the shortest amount of time, not distance.
Brightly, "I'm glad Buffy has someone to practice with." And with that she turned back to her book, trying to focus on the page but the page proving elusive, a daze of no focus, straining instead to hear what noises that escaped from the next room (none, why none? So now the soundproofing seems to work?) Spike's snort of disbelief was immediate but it took long seconds for Willow to hear Dawn turning the pages of her text.
Give it another moment, Willow fidgeted in her seat and settled back down, to get more comfy of course, but wow, the door to the back room now happens to be in sight. One has to make sacrifices (No sacrifices! No forfeitures!)
Did Tara like this shirt?
When was the last time I cut my hair? Tara loves to run her hand through my hair.
I'm not wearing a bra! Will that say available and waiting or hello, I’m a slut, just want anyone to feel, touch me.
I just want her to touch me.
Oh, casual talk! Umm, weather? No, too cliché. Buffy’s weapon's practice? That’ll be short, that’s a sharp piece of metal you have there! School, maybe, but no pushiness. Hacking the registrar to find out Tara’s schedule wasn't pushy, or stalkery, was it?
And for the first time in days, Willow stopped thinking about magic.
Well, for the next two minutes at least.
Well, I have an unusual advantage. I didn't touch (or even see) this for 5-6 years, so I am able to edit (and thus improve) this with almost an entirely impartial eye...
Thanks, I am going to post around one POV a day, until I catch up until I had previously written, probably then as I write new material drop back to once or twice a week.
