Hey
vmplrsaAr - don't worry I knew what you meant and you might not be far wrong... but I just hate using the term "love triangle" as it can give the wrong impression. Anyway... Thanks.
Part 47 below. This is sort of a "nice" one before we get into the things that are coming. Fairly short though.
Katharyn
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Title:
The Sidestep Chronicle – Now, Always & Eternity (Part 47)
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: What is their future?
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
Notes: One of those necessary parts of the story that looks insignificant. Hey maybe it is anyway…
Thanks To: The readers who have stuck by this all the way. L.
The Sidestep Chronicle
Now, Always & Eternity
By
Katharyn Rosser
Tara lay beside her vampire… goddess, resting her cheek on Willow’s cool shoulder. But she was warmer than she had been. Tara’s touch had fired, heated, Willow. If Tara had ever in her life been intimate with another person that coolness might have seemed weirder. But she was sort of glad that she hadn’t been. It made what they had, as a vampire and a vampire hunter… normal.
No. Not normal. Easier. That was definitely it. Easier. She had nobody with whom to compare Willow to and so she could accept her. Warts and all.
Not that Willow had any warts. Tara had looked at all of her… closely.
She absently twirled her finger around on Willow’s pale belly, which reflected the moonlight that shone brightly through the uncovered window. It came down right over them and created shadows. Just liked the sun would. They would have to close the curtains before they fell asleep. The sun did not rise through that window, but they had been known to sleep in late enough that… But that meant they would have to move and neither wanted to.
It had been a hard night. She had fought a big battle. She had won. They had won. She had reported to the Mayor and she had come home in the small hours… to Willow. Who else?
Her baby was a creature of contrasts. Looking now at the contrast between the light tones of the flesh, dead but somehow alive yet so… so… sensitive and the dark, shadow filled area that she sent her finger meandering towards.
The contrast between the delicate frame and the inhuman strength that lay within it. The seeming innocence of nudity and the bloodlust that was just thinly veiled inside Willow.
The contrast between the woman Tara loved and the vampire that was the killer she despised. Both of them could be brutal, even if sometimes in less obvious ways. Both actions, the killing and the loving, were a source of pleasure to Willow herself. They were both Willow… both
this Willow… What would that other Willow have been like?
The best of her without the worst…?
Different certainly.
And then there was the contrast between the heat of their passion and the cold realisation that one day something would have to give between them. One day. But not today. Not tonight. Not now. Tara snuggled a little closer into Willow, letting her fingers wander on.
There was the contrast between what there was now and the promises that they made to each other. Promises that were not just borne of passion but of desire. Of love. The contrast between always and eternity.
She finally had to admit it… she was in love. She really was. She always had been because her feelings about Willow had never really changed from day one. Since the dreams had come to her. She had loved Willow. But maybe not
this Willow. Every Willow. Every Willow that ever there had been. It was… it was as if she had no choice. As if the world had moved to bring them to each other.
Because there was certainly no reason behind it. This wasn’t even Willow. Not really. It was… a demon.
But so what difference did that make? She was a demon too.
It did matter. She loved Willow, what there was here of Willow anyway. And she had no time… so much to do. Then she would be gone. Maybe she would still be here – in some form – like Willow.
Would her Willow be able to feel the same about her… after?
Perhaps… the way she was thinking right now she couldn’t doubt that the world would shift again. And she would still, despite being a demon herself, be able to love Willow… or at least what passed for love among demons. Passion, affection, desire.
Would those be enough ? Better than nothing. Better than being alone. Anything ws better than that.
Anything?
As if on cue Willow murmured to her… “For ever and ever Kitten. Mine for eternity.” Her ministrations, her teasing hands, must have woken the vampire.
Wonderful as it all had been and reluctant as Tara was to spoil this time... She knew that she had to say something in response to that vow. She couldn’t let it pass. She turned herself, moving still closer to Willow until the vampire also turned on her side and they were tightly pressed against each other. Complementary flesh against flesh. Tara did it because she wanted to reassure the vampire, mollify her, before she said what she had to. And because she wanted to anyway. Then she pressed a finger to Willow’s lips. ‘Shhh’ it seemed to say. At least to her it did.
Willow just nipped at the finger, drawing blood but no yelp from Tara. Once she would have feared the effect of exposing her blood to a vampire, even one that was so sated in every sense. But she knew now that she could always trust Willow. In almost everything. What they had was so far beyond obsession and so deeply into whatever passed, to a vampire, for love that there was no question of her getting truly bitten…
Not anymore.
At least not for the purposes of feeding, or even play. Which was the whole problem. Willow might not even realise it but… she kept talking about... bigger things and there was not much that was bigger than eternity. “You have to stop talking about that, you know… eternity” she told Willow quietly, hugging the vampire that she loved, pressing her naked body against Willow’s, a hand exploring the flank and her fingers still at the vampire’s mouth. Tara wondered how she felt to the vampire. Wondered what the vampire could actually feel.
Was it the same? Willow certainly seemed to like it whatever the answer was. And as Tara stroked and teased, Willow looped an arm around her. A possessive embrace.
Tara wasn’t looking at Willow’s face. In fact anywhere but, though her finger still lingered there, licked by Willow, sucked gently… just a taste. Not feeding. But Tara didn’t have to think that there might be confusion there, didn’t have to worry about it…. There was no fear within her of Willow’s nature overcoming her. The sucking stopped… tongue flicking at the tiny wound teasing out any still flowing blood. Willow would know better than she would. Alert to the scent, the taste and the feel of the blood.
“You have to,” Tara told her again a minute later, laying the hand that had been stroking Willow’s flank on naked stomach instead. Wondering, insanely, just where it was that a vampire “processed” the blood that they acquired. Was the essence of Willow’s latest victim under her hand, mingling now with a little of her own blood? Not a good thing to be thinking about. Willow had still not replied. “You just have to. For me.”
Tara sort of expected Willow to tell her ‘anything for you,’ as she usually did on the rare occasion that she had asked for anything from the vampire. But instead Willow simply asked “Why?”
“I won’t let you make me… like you are,” Tara told her firmly, but softening it by continuing to stroke Willow’s skin. This was how she had to treat Willow. Whenever she stood up to her she always felt that she had to soften the resistance. Cushion it. Otherwise… the demon might show itself again. She hated to see it. She hated to be reminded in that fashion of what she was doing. She wasn’t afraid of Willow, or even the demon. She was afraid of finding out how deep what the vampire seemed to feel really went. “Eternal” she completed.
“You’re afraid.” The idea seemed to excite Willow, the reaction in her body was undeniable. “Tell me what you are afraid of?” Willow demanded. “The vampire? The demon? The bloodlust? Is it the killing? You wouldn’t even care anymore,” she told Tara, sounding as if she was trying to reassure her. Persuade her perhaps.
All of the above, Tara thought, especially the ‘not caring.’ She had fought against becoming numb out there, in the world beyond Sunnydale, for so long, so feared it, that it was worse, in her mind, than killing to drink blood. Not caring was the door to the darkness.
“Me?” Willow asked her. “Do you fear me Kitten?”
Tara turned her head, looking into Willow’s face, denial on her lips and in her heart. But not in her mind. She could never shake the last, tiniest, doubt that Willow might really try for eternity. That she might actually do that to her. Maybe she would even do it out of love. Willow smiled slightly, perhaps guessing what it was she was feeling. Perhaps liking that fear more than a little. Maybe it restored some of the vampire’s pride.
It was certainly restoring her desire. Tara’s wandering hands were finding evidence of that all over her body.
“You couldn’t stop me Kitten… you know that. If I wanted to bite you… I could. And I have wanted to,” Willow revealed. “When you are asleep. When you aren’t watching me. When I am… down there.” Willow touched the indicated spot but on Tara rather than herself and a shiver ran through the witch, her own desire re-awakening despite the subject. It was Willow. Desire was a given. “I could bite you and then when I offered you the tiniest drop of my blood...” Tara could see the excitement in Willow’s eyes and it wasn’t just sexual. “When I offered it to you you’d be unable to resist. You would try and suck me dry. And then… when you were faced with death… you would
want to turn Kitten. Right then you’d want to join me in eternity. Together. I could do it… every time I see you I could do it.”
“But you don’t,” Tara said simply. That was the important thing. Willow had told you that she could have. That she had wanted to… but she hadn’t. That was the key.
Willow shook her head, then explained. “It wouldn’t be
you that I was playing with for eternity Kitten. It wouldn’t be as much fun. It would just be someone who remembered being you. The desires, fears and feelings that drive you… wouldn’t be the same. They wouldn’t be yours,” Willow told her. “And you might not be mine… if you were different.”
“No it wouldn’t. And n-no, I wouldn’t,” again the simplest denial emerged from Tara’s lips before she carried on, “As a human I would hate you for it… doing that to me. And I think that even as a vampire I would remember that I should hate you for it. I can’t let myself hate you. So I can’t let you do that to me.”
“Me neither… hate you I mean. Even though we should hate each other,” it was just the truth that the demon revealed. And they knew it.
Whilst they were facing the truth Tara chose to admit, “I hate what you do… to others.” Willow knew that already though. “But I hate myself more for not being able to stop you… or even ask you to stop.”
“You hate loving me then?” Willow asked simply, no judgement in her voice. It was as if it was only important to Willow that her Kitten loved her, not the feeling behind that. About that.
“No.”
They lay there for a while, each thinking about what the other had said and the formation of new desires faded whilst they basked in just being there with each other. There had been a time, Tara remembered, when Willow’s lusts were so prevalent she had doubted that she could survive them. But now… now Willow had changed. Calmed a little. And Tara’s own desires had been inflamed. Tara wanted things, from Willow, that she had never even dreamed of before her. She was prepared, sometimes, to ask… and sometimes she thought that she could just take what she wanted, if Willow would let her. She was never certain whether the vampire would let her… or even if she really wanted her to.
“I just want always,” Tara said. That was all she admitted. That was what she definitely did want. She just wasn’t sure whether she could really have it. Willow knew the extent of it. She had to.
“Stop using that word,” Willow told her but there was no real force behind the command, what there was counteracted by the hand that was gently cupping her breast.
“Always?”
“Yes that.” Willow obviously didn’t like it at all.
“Why?” Tara asked intrigued. She knew why she couldn’t face ‘eternity,’ but what possible problem could Willow have with ‘always’?
“It means that you will change. You’ll age,” Willow replied.
“But it will still be me. ‘Always’ would still be me,” Tara told her. “You said that you wanted it to be me… that was why you wouldn’t… you know.” Could the vampire really be that shallow, bothered about the youth and looks of the person she was sharing a bed, if not a life, with? But of course she
could. Willow was a vampire… pretty shallow creatures as a rule. Tara knew that Willow had depths though. Depths of cruelty. Depths of depravity. Depths of passion. Depths of… affection.
“It would, wouldn’t it? Be you. Until you died.” Willow paused, looked troubled as if searching for the right words, before finally, “I don’t want you to die Kitten. Ever.”
Coming from the often-cruel Willow it was an almost childish plea for reassurance in the face of the inevitable. But that was Willow’s point. That it didn’t have to be inevitable – if they could face that. Work around the problems… But it wasn’t a problem that Tara
wanted to work around. And didn’t have to. She wasn’t going to get old. She wasn’t going to die like that.
She would get just one year older. As she was now… less than a year. Much, much less. But Willow’s plea; by the goddess it touched something inside her. Something so much deeper than the vampire had ever reached before. But this was still a demon. These were demon desires… wants.
“I want to keep playing with you. You’re the
only thing I want to play with now,” Willow told her.
Tara took in the words and knew what Willow meant. Really meant. The vampire wasn’t going to be able to say all that she should… but it was almost enough. Tara knew.
“I’m not going to,” Tara kissed her, actually thankful that she needed to provide Willow with this reassurance. That Willow had the ability to have such fears. It proved to her that the vampire was still capable of… and that perversely made it easier to consider… No. She couldn’t consider that. Wouldn’t. She would never allow Willow to turn her.
Never.
After all there would be no need. Tara was resigned to becoming a demon all by herself.
“You will – one day.” It was almost an accusation from Willow, as if Tara would choose death, when she was old, just to spite her.
It wouldn’t be for spite though. It would just be nature. She thought about that for a second. Living her life with Willow in it. Never changing, beautiful, Willow.
She couldn’t see that at all. Somehow she knew that it was not going to happen like that. Not at all.
Her fate was sealed. Even if she couldn’t tell Willow that. But she couldn’t lie to her either. “But not yet, we have ‘always’ to get through first,” Tara told her. Always was a long, long time. Or it might have been. There was an always before she was changed too and after that? Who knew? Was it a vampire thing to have this eternal perspective…? When so few of them survived? Besides there was one other event that was going to get in the way and no one knew but Tara. Even she didn’t know how that was going to turn out… ‘always’ might mean nothing after her birthday.
“We’ve got now and always,” Willow said.
“Lots and lots of nows,” Tara confirmed. An infinite number of nows. “One big always.” Think positive. There would perhaps be something left once her heritage had shown itself. Something that could feel for Willow… if Willow could feel for her then there had to be.
But was that something she should hope for?
“That’s what I want. I want you to give me lots and lots of nows.” Willow’s hands were fervent once more on Tara’s body. “Now after now… after now… after now.”
How could Tara refuse her given how she felt… and how Willow was touching her. “There… yes. Now.”
“Play now.”
They would sleep again later. When they had closed the curtains.
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You hear that baby? I am going nowhere.
at: 6/2/02 4:18:06 pm
