it's been good, so far.

Thanks, I appreciate it!

Spacey on pain meds. Can't sleep. Someone please point me to appropriate fanfic for this state (i.e. with lots of appeal at a really shallow level, not too dark). Supernatural, Reaper, Pushing Daisies, Firefly, Angel, Buffy, Batman, Dr. Who, Torchwood, Smallville.

back, though I may not have something for tomorrow...

---------------

Which Tara had no problem in catching, already alerted by Spike's name.

Buffy needed time to stop and think about what they had talked about, otherwise in thirty minutes she won't be thinking at all and soon after that she would not want to think about anything other than her own self-loathing.

Plus Tara had discovered how fun and easy it was to tease Spike at Buffy’s birthday party.

“I don’t know Spike, I hear that you can beat on things pretty well all by yourself.” Tara tried to casually retort as she came up to the door behind Buffy. “One man show and prefer it that way.”

...and the rest of her banter was forgotten when she saw Willow there...

...Tara flinched...

Forgotten, she forgot, was she forced to forget?!?

A quick glance at her wrist showed it still blank, still clear, still free.

Spike took her distraction to forge ahead “Either way, we need to start patrolling the sewers now if we are going to be ready later tonight, Buffy...”

And Tara felt rather than saw Buffy’s shoulders droop and she couldn’t let it happen, not now, not when Buffy had a chance to...

“You can’t Spike, Buffy is taking Dawn home.”

“What?

“I am?”

“Cool! Can we stop at the Expresso Pump?”

…don’t look at Willow…

“I thought that was Red’s job?”

…this is the right, no only, thing to do for Buffy…

“I need to ask Willow about a few things.”

With that, Tara turned away from the door, whispering to Buffy as she went, to just think about what they had spoken of. She could feel Dawn’s excitement, Buffy thankfulness, Spike’s frustration over not being able to follow due to the daylight and having to find Buffy later. And Willow’s...

I can remember for five minutes. Just five minutes. That’s all it will take. I can protect myself from her magic.

Just not from her.

Sorry for the delay folks, but I came back from the New York ComicCon feeling pretty uninspired. I posted an entry that I had ready to go, and have been staring at the computer ever since. But I am going to get something out today...

take your time, CaBil. I don't mind waiting for the good stuff.

Tara wants me!

Okay. Cool and casual-like. What could she want to talk about? Her classes or maybe computer related?

Maybe she just even wants to talk!

From there maybe we can get close, snuggle, smooch...

NO!

One step. One step, just get through a conversation without her flinching. Want her to trust me, to forget about…

Ergh! Rule one, avoid using (even thinking) the word forget!

I don't like this shirt at all. Something not as billowy and more flattering and just a wiggle of the nose (tee-hee) and I’ll...

Argh! She’ll be able to tell (she could always tell) and she’ll change her mind and I’ll never get another chance and magic is bad and is the source of all of my troubles and if I’m good then things will be fine and people, Tara will love me and forgive me and make things better and I should get over there before she changes her mind and she’ll never want to see me again and I will have to go back to the house and sleep alone and try not to cry because it doesn’t do me any good and it doesn’t even make me feel better anymore because all I feel is drained and I don’t want to feel like that anymore I want to feel again, feel dammit, because I can only feel with her and I...

…OMG…

Willow knew she should have noticed earlier, but Tara was behind Buffy and she was panicking and not thinking and sometimes she forgets to pay attention while nervous but she should have noticed this way earlier, before she got to the door and closed it behind her (even though everyone else was leaving) and noticed what Tara was wearing. Or just how little she was wearing.

Tara was so... damn... hot.

She had forgotten just how hot Tara was. Not forgot, not really, she knew, but hadn’t felt it for a while but Tara’s workout clothes hid none of her curves. Curves that were almost always hidden. Tara didn’t show so much of her drives…

The sly look she had on her face when Willow would go into the bedroom, signaling that Tara was undressed and that as soon as she got in range her mouth was to be seized by Tara’s lips. The self-satisfied smile Tara would have later, looking at her, her full breasts settling slightly, as they lay naked on top of the covers, both already covered with a sheen of sweat. Willow would be just resting, looking at Tara at wonder until Tara would walk her fingers over to her, and begin a ballet on Willow’s breasts, dancing across them, until Willow would be driven to forget how tired they were and just kiss, exploring each other mouths, faces, necks, sometimes wetly and sometime with soft puffs of air, trying to surprise each other where their fingers would land in their explorations, with Tara just arching ever so slightly when Willow’s fingers traced down to her lower spine, sampling the sweat that was collected there.

That was the same physically worn out but still filled with nervous energy Tara that Willow was seeing at the moment, except they weren’t panting this time with urges that would take days to satisfy.

Though Willow knew she was more that willing to try, given the slightest word.

Sorry for the delay, but the third to last paragraph wasn't working for me. Still isn't really, but I have re-written it a dozen times two weeks and I have to admit I have lost perspective on it by now. There is a clear patch storywise ahead, hopefully I can get this train back on the rails...

Tara was fussing with things on the workout table, organizing them needlessly to give her self time to prepare as Willow entered the room and needlessly closed the door behind her, since everyone was leaving or had already left.

Tara wasn't sure she should be glad for the privacy or worried about being alone. She was sure that Willow wouldn't physically harm her, but that had always been the least of Tara’s worries.

The first one would be talking about something, anything for five minutes that wouldn’t touch any hot button issues. Like virtually their entire relationship. Or give either one of them any unrealistic hopes. Especially herself.

Unrealistic hopes fulfilled were what started everything in the first place.

But the first time they were fulfilled had been so... good. Willow biting her lip as she leaned in to kiss her, Tara holding very still not wanting to scare Willow off at the last moment and still in denial that it could be really happening. The tentative yet real brush of lips had startled them both, and for a moment they almost fell to giggling out of surprise. The slow way Willow caressed her, trying to discover if she was doing it properly, as if there was a proper way, only realizing later that the slowness had an energy of it’s own.

With the realization that this was real, what they were doing was real, Willow suddenly charged forward, becoming frantic, kissing and kicking off shoes and shimming down skirts and falling down on top of the bed covers and Tara going right along. She told herself she didn’t want to scare Willow off and Tara didn’t have that much more experience than Willow anyway, but the truth was Tara wanted to feel wanted, to have someone frantic over her, to be consumed by another person’s identity. There would be no more Tara who was a burden to her family, who was doomed to become a demon, whom no one she knew really wanted. There would be just the Tara who was with Willow and nothing else.

She knew even at the time it was stupid and an emotional trap and all that and more, but still...

After a few minutes of play, the underwear was finally shed and they had gotten down to the serious business of exploring each other’s bodies. That first time, when Willow first slid her finger into her and began a trial and error study to determine just what made Tara react strongest, Tara didn’t want to care about anything else. She had found that someone that wanted her.

Tara still wanted that Willow. Burned for her in a passion that she had denied herself in all things but this, a passion that probably blinded her till it was too late to just how far Willow had gone astray.

What’s worse, she knew Willow was burning for her also. Tara normally tuned out auras, out of learning too much information about someone too quickly, which is why she had been fooled by the aura-less Buffy-bot. Even as she was looking intently for the merest sign of Willow gathering energies, Tara couldn’t help but see the reds pulsing and flailing about from Willow’s head and heart. Tara knew with a certainty merely by looking at Willow that she wanted to make things right, to undo everything she had done, and could feel Willow’s aura struggling, without her conscious knowledge, to reach out to Tara’s. Those same feelings and desires resonated with hers and were spreading through them both in the hope of...

“Buffy said you paid my share of the house phone bill. I owe you how much?”

This is what she was building herself up for? To be asked about a phone bill? That’s not fair!

wait

Any chance to talk to Tara is not wasted.

Can't expect everything to be fine with one talk. She ignored the inner voice that whined and suggested slyly that was not necessarily true.

And with one talk going well there is hope that there will be a second one. after the second talk, then everything would be fine.

"It wasn't much. Around ten dollars or so." Probably was closer to thirty but it didn't matter, anything to keep the conservation going. Who knows when they would talk again?

But as soon as she finished talking she knew she had made a mistake by the way Tara's face hardened. Tara had been careful about money, managing her hodge podge of grants, student loans and the small inheritance from her mother. She insisted on paying her fair share, despite knowing that Willow's education trust fund, the one that her parent's started dutifully when she was born like all financial management books suggest, was intended to pay for a private university and was more than ample for UC Sunnydale with spending money left over. Willow accepted Tara's more frugal ways, and anyway, since Tara liked to cook to save money and Willow liked eating Tara's… food, so it worked out.

Except like now.

"Are you sure?" Tara's voice was perfectly neutral. Not something one would normally take to be a bad sign, but when Tara’s voice was neutral, she was actively trying to give you a fair chance.

Good that Tara still wants to give me a fair chance. Not good, Tara feels she has to.

"I think so," hedge hedge "I just paid it, I didn't really break it down." Oh, idea! Brilliant mad idea! "You know I am not very good with the bills." True. "That's why I’d let you handle it." better you than Anya, don't want to invest my money short calling the next apocalypse. "Maybe you can show me how you broke it down.." neutral place, not datey "...in the student lounge sometime?" no time pressure, no pressure at all.

“I’m not sure when I’ll have the time.” damn it! “I’ll just give you the ten now, and we’ll work out the rest later?” yippee, later is not never!

Cool, casual “Sure, whenever is fine with you.” Hey, no babble, see, I can be mature and all and I want to kiss her and suckle the sweat from the hollow of her back because it is always so yummy and...

Mature. Which is me.

Tara turned around to root around in her bag for her wallet letting Willow appreciate Tara’s form. The biker shorts that defined her ass, the ample curves that cushioned Willow so often, that small of Tara’s back that was still slick with sweat, that was always tense after they were ‘strenuous’, and that Willow would rub and scratch and Tara then would stretch and almost purr...

She wasn’t sure when she actually did it. All Willow knew is that she was suddenly scratching the real rather than the remembered Tara’s back in the right spot. She didn’t remember choosing to do so, or even moving her hand. It was an unconscious decision, one born out of long habit, helped along by wanting to be close to Tara so much.

For a moment, it seemed like a good idea, as Tara relaxed into it.

Then it all went very, very wrong.