Thanks Cicca for clearing that up*S* ANd yes I suspect it was a hell of a top.
Part 35 Kittens...
Katharyn
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Title:
The Sidestep Chronicle – More Worries (Part 35)
Author: Katharyn Rosser
Feedback: Constructive criticism always welcome.
katharynrosser@hotmail.comSpoiler Warning: Pretty limited. The story occurs in an alternate universe though reference is made to events that occur in both realities.
Summary: Tara isn’t the only person who has cause to worry at night.
Disclaimer: I still don’t own any of the copyrights or anything else associated with BTVS. All rights lie with the production company, writers etc, etc. I am making zilch from this series of stories.
Rating: 15
Couples: VW/T, J/G
Notes: Thought this might be nice… well some of it. Have you noticed the general goodness around this fic recently? Mmmmn. Wonder why…
Thanks To: You know who you all are… do I have to keep saying it and saying it and saying it?
The Sidestep Chronicle
More Worries
By
Katharyn Rosser
Late night showers before bedtime… such a luxury. One that Tara would never have dreamt of had she remained at home. There they had bathed in the morning - then maybe, if there was something special going on, after dinner. Having a shower just for the heck of it… that was something that would have remained a distant dream at home. But at least they had all been alive. What was a shower next to that?
They were gone though… And if she had remained out there on the streets, fighting the good fight on her own then she wouldn’t have had these little luxuries that she now enjoyed either.
It was hard not to get seduced by them. By things…
Had it ever really been the good fight though? Had her motives ever been really as pure as she had thought them to be? Had
she ever been pure, with this demon inside of her could she ever claim that title? Had it, perhaps, been working through her all the time… Whispering?
Did it really matter?
She was killing vampires. They were evil and she was good.
No. She
had been killing vampires. Now what was she doing? That was really what was troubling her. It had been clear, before Sunnydale, that she was doing good. She had doubted her motives, she had doubted her methods, but never the good of it all.
What had Willow done to her… that she would now question her entire life?
Now she was working for what could, just, loosely be described as a man who was way more evil than ninety-nine out of every hundred vampires. Helping him achieve his goals, just so that she could get her shot at the Master.
She had been seduced more by that chance than anything else. Except perhaps…
He valued her. The Mayor valued her. She felt valued… that was kind of seductive too.
That was not all though. This place in which she lived. The comfort. The kitchen. The well stocked refrigerator and cupboards. The TV with the cable cartoon channels. The regular pay, the city credit card that seemed to have no restrictions. The clothes. The spell ingredients. The soft chairs. The curtains and the view. The bed…
She had been seduced by it all and the worst thing was that she knew it. For years she had made herself do without. Without comforts, without being valued, without friends… All so that she could keep herself on course to Sunnydale – even if she hadn’t always known that time that Sunnydale was where she needed to be.
And now that she was here? She had given in to all of that… oh and one more tiny little piece of seduction.
She rubbed herself with the shower gel, working up lather and desperately trying to rub away the stench of her impurities. Wishing she had a harsh scrubbing brush to dig out the things which tainted her. They got right up her nose, whisping up into her brain. Tendrils of badness rising from her as she was corrupted by those with whom she associated.
And she knew it.
At least when she had been out there in the wider world, she thought, she was doing this just for herself. She was doing something that could broadly be described as
good, even if it was just for herself and her own inner peace. Now… she worked in the name of a whole town but did the bidding of another evil.
Was that why she had left her home and endured all that she had? To serve a bad man?
Surely the vampires were the reason she had left home…
Had justice at some point become revenge? She’d feared it for a long time… still telling herself it was justice that she served. But sometimes, the other word sprung to mind instead. Was revenge so bad? Revenge could still be good couldn’t it?
No. To use the magic for revenge… that would lead her along paths she could never, ever tread. It had to be justice. Maybe Lilah was right.. maybe justice was just revenge by another name. Lilah… a new friend who was no better than any of the others in her life.
But no worse. The lawyer was back in L.A… paranoia about the state of her cases overwhelming her again. Lilah liked to feel invaluable.
And feeling valued… everyone needed that. If she didn’t value yourself and her own contribution then maybe it was only right that someone else did.
But to be seduced by material possessions. She felt like shutting the hot water off in disgust. The warmth was an affront to the dignity that was trying to well up within her. As it slid over her body it enveloped her. Coated her, ran from her flesh but didn’t wash away the stench at all. The badness was ingrained now. She had accepted it into her life and she had to accept the taint that went with it.
She could just try to keep it to a minimum. So many different bads… and could she still be one good?
She saw the pale shadow outside the cubicle and almost laughed at the irony - deliberately turning her back on the figure out there in the bathroom. Giving it every opportunity to do what it must. To sink its fangs into her neck and drain her dry. To smash one of the Mayor’s trinkets into her skull and cave it in. Maybe the vase that he filled with fresh flowers every time he visited her. To drive one of Tara’s own hand-whittled stakes into her back. Turning her back, it was a mark of trust… proof of it… but given her chosen subject, was her show of trust really more than an invitation to end her life?
No.
Was that what she really wanted? No… she wanted to live.
But it might be the only way to end her spiralling descent into the darkness. And if that took her to the dark magic… then the world would be a much worse place…
She couldn’t allow that. The seduction had to stop there. The whispers she had to ignore.
I’ve been seduced more than once and to devastating effect every time.But even with those thoughts in her mind she couldn’t keep Willow in the abstract. Willow had long since ceased to be
it.The cubicle door opened and none of the things she had feared, or perhaps hoped for, happened. There was no bite, there was no blow or stabbing pain. There was a hand touching her shoulder, moving the long soaking hair to rest it over the front of her shoulders instead of where it had hung down her back. The door closed again, that gesture with the hair more important than the water escaping into the bathroom. The cool hand roamed over her back and lower as she moved forward allowing the vampire to join her under the stream of hot water itself.
Tara looked down and around her feet, by the drain there was a tendril of pink liquid, thicker redder. Someone had died. The evidence of it was swirling around her toes… touching her and tainting her even more than before.
The taint was not just dark… sometimes it was blood red.
But she didn’t want to care or look… now it had gone anyway. Like it was never there. She always wanted to ignore the evidence.
But she just never could. She had seen it… she always saw it.
“You’re all wet,” Willow said to her.
Tara didn’t reply as those hands roamed more freely over her… the other pressed up against her back. And under the hot water, being warmed by it, the other was not so cold. The water was warm. She was warm. Willow was warm. It was so easy to forget that her Willow was really some evil thing. All it takes is warm hands… The real Willow, the human Willow… she would have had warm hands too.
Is that all it takes to keep seducing me?“You’re all wet,” Willow said again and this time not referring to the water.
Oh and that…
Their flesh became as hot as their passion, as hot as the pendant that burnt Tara’s throat. A pain that she bore until Willow removed its source, hanging the pendant over the tap because she couldn’t ever let herself forget what Willow really was. It was always Willow that removed the pain for her.
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Well this was just wonderful wasn't it? Faith had not been out there alone that often and she was two hours overdue checking in already. Giles had sent her out on a simple sweep through different parts of town that first week. A couple of cemeteries, the town centre each night – which continued to be quieter than it had once been. Just to familiarise Faith with the terrain. He had accompanied her for the first few nights patrolling and then left her to find her own bearings. It wouldn’t do to try and impose his own preferences and style upon her. She was the one who had to carry the load… he could only help prepare her – then support her to the best of his abilities.
But she was late reporting…
If she was dead then, quite aside from the tragedy, it would no doubt go down as some sort of record. She might have come across some terrible evil. She might be fighting for her life at this very moment – and he wasn’t there. However, after doing this more than once, sitting in his apartment waiting for her to return, he had to assume that she was, in fact, elsewhere. Each night she had come in later and later. The excuse each morning had been the same, that she was establishing a knowledge of the vampires’ feeding grounds. Except she had explained it in a simpler manner. Often involving the use of ‘Take a pill G.’
He had to admit though that she was resourceful, very definitely strong, in training he could hardly keep up with her at all, and very, very fast. However she also seemed somewhat… fidgety. Ask her to beat up a vampire and she would happily oblige. Ask her to sit still and learn the names of various types of anti-vampire wards and she was practically digging a hole in the floor to escape. He had stayed deliberately light on the intellectual areas that should be required of the Slayer, quickly recognising her preferences, but there were limits.
There were also limits here in his home.
Both he and Jenny had to work tomorrow. Whilst Faith could relax in bed until whatever hour she desired,
they had to be in work and it was hardly fair to keep awakening them. At least if Faith could be bothered to check in and let him know that she was all right then he could have retired to join Jenny in bed. As it was he was bound to wake her up if Faith didn’t. She had gone to bed before he even got back from the earlier parts of the patrol. So he had decided that it might actually be better now to stay up and await Faith’s return rather than disturb her. Jenny always had difficulty getting back to sleep once awoken. Given that, she would be best served by remaining undisturbed for as long as possible, before he did awake her.
After all whose fault would that be? Faith’s? Oh no. It would be his. When it came to sleep then the woman he loved was quite, quite, unreasonable. And when it came to Faith, he was quickly realising that there was a coalition of women building against his masculinity in this apartment. Jenny loved having her here and everything that the Slayer did that he thought inconsiderate was merely ‘settling in.’ Everything else Faith did was his fault.
He was supposed to be in charge.
But he was glad that the two got along. It was all a support mechanism for the Slayer. For all of them.
He rested his head on the desk and thought about what he would say to his new Slayer to control her wilder tendencies. If he could… perhaps it would be better just to adapt himself – he already believed that he had little real chance of changing Faith.
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Giles awoke with a start and looked at the clock on the wall. A little past four A.M. And here, at last, was Faith. He could hear her laughing. By god she didn’t actually think that he was going to allow her to bring… company… into his apartment? At this time? She certainly didn’t need anyone to walk her home. Nor could he quite picture her being sufficiently coy and innocent to lure some boy into accompanying her. More brash and headstrong with short, direct words. Faith was very… to the point. He had no reason to doubt that she would be any different in her romantic life.
Maybe a friend would be a good thing… something like a normal life. Except…
Quite apart from anything else, the sort of people… other than Slayers… who were out at this hour were not usually the most desirable types. And the sort of places that those people went… It took a certain sort of person to stay out after dark in Sunnydale and he was beginning to see that Faith would have been one of them even if she hadn’t been the Slayer.
A key slid into the lock and twisted as Faith’s distinctive laugh rang out. Couldn’t she be quiet? She was going to wake-
Jenny.
Jenny was stood in the doorway with the key, not Faith.
Jenny was not in their bed. He had been tiptoeing around the place for her sake since he had got back and she wasn't even here… and more to the point she was out after dark. Without telling him… she could have been… anything could have happened. They were always very careful to tell each other where they were going. When they should be back. It was what had to be done in Sunnydale to be safe.
She knew that.
She flashed him a huge, half-drunken smile and fell into his arms. “Rupert honey…” And if the smile had not been evidence enough of her drinking then her breath certainly was.
“Jenny? What… what were you doing…” Someone else stepped in through the doorway, closing it behind her. “Faith.” He understood now. It was one thing for the Slayer to go gallivanting after patrol, it was quite another to take Jenny with her. He stared at her and was pleased to see that she actually withered under it, broke the look and threw herself onto the sofa. A casual retreat. He shifted his grip on Jenny then picked her up and started to carry her upstairs. “Faith, wait here.” His tone should leave her in no doubt what was to follow.
He had not yet had to have ‘the talk’ with Faith…but the time had most definitely come. Faith was the Slayer, she could handle herself… Jenny was the woman he loved and out there she was vulnerable.
Once Jenny was in bed he came back to find Faith laid out on the sofa watching cartoons.
Faith was not at all drunk though. That was one mercy. Whilst he was prepared to concede that she had no doubt been drinking – despite being underage – it would take a lot to affect the constitution of a Slayer. If that Wyndham-Pratt’s report had been at all accurate Faith had probably been drinking for quite some time. He got the impression that she had drunk the younger Watcher under the table without feeling the effects. At least Jenny had been out there with the Slayer, a sober Slayer, accompanying her.
“But she shouldn’t have been out at all! Not at night,” he ended up shouting at Faith after their argument had run for over five minutes. Bugger the noise, Jenny was well out of it crashed out in bed. In the morning loud voices would hurt her… right now she was oblivious.
“And why not Giles?” Faith asked him.
“You more than most know what’s out there. It’s not safe.”
“‘I thought that was why I was here G... To make thing safe.” Her logic was sound enough. That was indeed why she was here. But things were not safe yet. “In fact” she added, “would it ever be safe? If every vampire turned into a cuddly bunny tonight, would that be safe enough for her? Could you ever be sure that there wasn’t something else out there? Something from the Hellmouth? Just some guy looking to get money for crack? Would it ever be safe?”
“You think I am being
over-protective?” Was that even possible in Sunnydale? He couldn’t believe that she would actually try and argue that. With him. She had been here less than a month and although she’d already destroyed a lot vampires, could she really pretend it was safe? Even with her? Try and tell him that it was okay?
She looked as if she was about to argue… but then her face softened and she came over to him. “No. I guess not. It is dangerous… but I was with her every step of the way. I even went to the bathroom with her. She was never alone Giles.
Never. And she had fun… at night… in Sunnydale.”
“So?”
“So… that is what everyone here should be able to do. You ever think that she might like to go out and party?” Faith asked him.
“Certainly not I-“
“You’re a nice guy and as she tells it you’re a demon in the sack….”
“Oh…” A demon…
Faith just smirked and then carried on. “But she is still a wild young woman Giles – even if it looks like you do want to wrap her in tweed. Well younger than you anyway. You know that and being here in this town has kept her cooped up in here, with you every night.
Every night. When was the last time you two went out?”
“Well… Demon?” It was a valid question in any other town but Sunnydale. But he wasn't getting past demon any time soon.
Faith just guessed at the answer. Between the danger, their jobs and Giles’s role as a Watcher what chance did they really have? “Not your fault G. But now I’m here and she’s been nice to me when she didn’t have to. So if I can’t give her a little fun in return then I’m not doing my job am I? You know ‘making things better.’”
Faith’s logic was absolutely irrefutable and… he couldn’t smell anything on her breath at all. Not even a breath mint. She had been looking out for Jenny, just as she said. Every step of the way. “You could have told me though.” It was the argument of the defeated.
“You check your messages? We, like, called three or four times,” she explained as he went to the machine.
Which, of course, was flashing its little heart out. “Oh…well. Yes.” He still wasn’t particularly happy, but then there were
things in Sunnydale other than vampires that could have come into their home and hurt Jenny. Home wasn’t as safe as it was cracked up to be. “Sorry… she said demon?”
“Girls do talk G. She didn’t mean it in the literal sense. At least I’m pretty sure she meant you were good at the old horizontal woodwork.” She looked at him with a sort of
who’d have thought face that was becoming way to common.
“Pardon?”
“You know… screwing.”
“Yes, well thank you for clearing that up.” Time for bed.
*************
You hear that baby? I am going nowhere.
by Sassette » Thu May 09, 2002 8:48 pm 
Thanks Katharyn.
at: 5/10/02 11:12:18 pm
and to the resolution of the whole VW/W thing. it's so fascinating to read about VW because tara's pov is pretty much ours. or at least it's mine. wha't going on, why is this happening, how wil this end? i cant wait for more.