First a response though.
Chelehel74 - Thanks for liking it!
I regret that is highly unlikely that there will ever be a "my side of last season." I have to enjoy writing it you know. There was going to be a sequel to the BC starting after "Family," but where would that go now?
Interesting speculation you have there about what is coming oh and believe me that there is more coming about the other players, but as you say this is the girls story - not anyone elses. This is a big enough story without my getting sidetracked any more than I have done- and I have been at times I will admit.
Your question about the timeline is interesting though. There is no timeline that I had to follow really. The only given was that they have to end happy and that Tara had to believe that she was a demon when she turned 20 - wherever that fell in the fic. The rest of it I have been able to make up. As it was all plotted out in advance (for a change as I am usually bad at that!) I am actually pretty happy with everything!!
As for the archiving... well there are the fic archives here on the kitten now, but I never gave a moments thought to anything or anywhere else. I write for the Kittens and I enjoy the feedback system that we have here so... I am not going anywhere!!
Thanks for the thoughts and the theories.
They are always fun.
Part 63 now Kittens... A VW/T moment.
Enjoy
Katharyn
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Title:
The Sidestep Chronicle – Capabilities (Part 63)
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: One of those Vamp-Willow & Tara moments.
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: Yet another step…
Thanks To: Kerry, who I am chatting to as I edit in the beta to prepare this for posting – though she thought she had my full attention! You’re like a rock. In a good way rather than being inanimate!
The Sidestep Chronicle
Capabilities
By
Katharyn Rosser
“I still can’t believe that they do that! That they pay… for that,” Tara said to the other ‘person’ as she unlocked the door to the apartment and they crossed the threshold. It disgusted Tara, the very thought of it here in her town. Anywhere. But worse… worse was the fact that she had devoted herself to trying to remove vampires from the face of the planet, yet there were humans who
paid them for the privilege of getting bitten. In a place like that. A sleazy dive if ever there was one.
Tara had known a lot of sleazy places, stayed in a few, but nothing was sleazier than a ‘suck club.’ They were everywhere. Every city of any size had one and for the most part she had, like graveyards, left them alone.
It wasn't that they were easy to deal with, it was that there were people being killed out there. She couldn’t waste time helping those that gave themselves over to the vampires.
In her travels across the country she had run across humans who cooperated with vampires to gain security or power or even eternal life… but to do it for the sheer rush of it? She could see that the experience might be sort of like a drug, it was just on that was usually fatal the first time that you ‘took it.’ But… to go back… to pay a vampire to fulfil its deepest and most basic need on you? That was sick. Just sick.
“They won’t do it again Kitty. You made them all go away,” Willow commented. “Forever and ever. No more sucking for them.” There was disdain in her voice for the ‘whores’ as the vampire had referred to them earlier. Tara knew it was really disdain for the vampires who chose not to make the kill. Willow could clearly understand why they might want to make such a bargain with humans, but she just could not understand why the vampires had kept to it and refused the delight of the kill over and over again.
The kill was still so important to Willow and that couldn’t
not bother her. Blood wasn’t the same, she had said, without the fear and the moment of death.
Talk of the blood always brought it home to Tara again. Willow was still Willow… just a little less intense than she had been before they had met. She still wasn’t a Willow, the Willow, of her dreams.
Would she ever even get to see that Willow again in her dreams?
Willow had followed her there, to the Suck Club which had always been low on the list of priorities compared to saving innocent lives. The innocence was absent from a place like that. People addicted to vampires were not innocents to Tara…
Was that what she was though?
Addicted to Willow? To a vampire? Without the biting. So very definitely without the biting. But…
She looked at Willow. The pale complexion; the cruel but beautiful eyes. She was with a vampire. She just… didn’t let Willow bite her. And Willow got something from her too. It just wasn’t blood. Was that still what this was between them though? A transaction? Play for love? Affection for desire?
Was that all that this was? All that they had?
Willow had not helped as Tara had once dared to hope that she might do. The Master had been different. He had been a threat to Willow herself. To everything that they had. Whatever that was. But the Suck Club wasn’t like that. She supposed that Willow
might have helped her if those vampires or their patrons had threatened either of their lives. She liked to think that at least. Willow could just as easily have taken the ‘customers’ and drained them dry instead. That was a possibility. Had been one that she had thought about when she found that Willow was there with her. But Willow hadn’t done that. She had not laughed, fed from those who would have welcomed it and then taken their bodies apart for fun.
That wasn't a nice, reassuring, thought at all. Willow hadn’t done something that Tara would never have wanted her to do… whoopee. Would Willow really have done that if she had not been there? Her heart said no. Her head said definitely maybe.
It brought
that question back to her mind. The fear of what Willow would do to others led inevitably to what Willow was and what she was capable of feeling for her Kitty. What did Willow feel? What did Willow feel for her? Could Willow feel and if she could, well could she
love? Was she capable of that emotion without having a soul? Willow must have noticed that the expression on her face had altered. It often did when she was thinking like that.
“You’re getting sad again,” the vampire told her, adept at reading her moods even if not overly showing sensitivity to that change. “You always do when you talk about vampires.”
“You know why,” Tara told her. But she decided to spell it out anyway. “It’s not the vampires this time. It’s the people. They have allowed them selves to become snacks… trading money and blood for security.” And there was some security. The scars that were left, unmistakably vampiric in origin were a badge. The humans liked to think of them as marks of allegiance, showing that they belonged to another vampire – so that a killer such as Willow would not take them, fearing reprisal from that other. Tara knew it was a false hope. That the truth of the matter was that a vampire like Willow, Willow herself, would slaughter such a person in second. The only reason that she might choose not to feed was because she considered such a ‘human’ unclean. Tainted by that first one.
Second hand goods. Spoilt.
And whilst it was true that most of them would not bother with a kill where they didn’t want to drink… at least not in Sunnydale where they had always been able to feed with impunity until recently… vampires like Willow would just kill.
There was always another victim.
And they became a vampire’s plaything… rather than their dinner.
Just like me.The difference is that Willow loves, well feels… there is something between us. Wasn't there?
There was something permanent. Ageless and timeless. Something worthwhile and lasting. But was there really? They talked of forever and eternity before, during and after their play and though they meant different things she had to wonder if Willow could really make that promise and really mean to keep it.
“They are nothing… the human cattle, the vampire whores. They are nothing compared to you and I,” Willow told her. “We are the predators Kitty. And we are playmates. Both of us.”
Playmates. Not lovers? Not even that? Even the word lovers did not mean that they were in ‘love.’ Just because it used the same letters. But playmates?
Mate… Sex.
Play.
“My Kitty is all sad,” Willow concluded, as Tara curled her feet underneath herself and the sat on the couch, cross-legged. The vampire moved to stand behind the piece of furniture, teasing Tara’s hair as she sometimes liked to do… long strokes followed by little tiny tugs or gentle scratches to the skull that were more a reminder of what she could do – had done to others – than gestures of affection. At least now they were.
“No.” Tara tried to deny the sadness but Willow wasn't having any of it. Tara found her head slowly pushed back by a pair of fingers on her forehead until she was looking up into Willow’s seemingly upside down face.
“Liar,” the vampire said, reminding Tara of what they had always had between them. Honesty at least. They didn’t lie… at least not for longer than a game might take.
Willow didn’t seem offended though maybe she was even pleased by it. But the vampire was holding her head back, she had not moved her fingers off. Willow wasn’t hurting her but she was, perhaps, showing that she could snap her Kitty’s neck so easily. Willow was waiting for her to react. She knew that, knew that Willow loved the reaction. So Tara didn’t give it to her. Two could play the little games like that. “Let go.”
Her head was released and the offending hand went back to stroking the long blonde hair. Willow’s own red hair fell forward to cover Tara’s face as she lowered her lips to Tara’s and landed a kiss there. Not a nip. No thrusting of tongue to explore the Kitty’s mouth. Just a simple little kiss. And another on her forehead… how long had she waited for something like that? A gesture of affection rather than desire. So long and they still came so infrequently. They would play and play… but the simple things like that were… still so rare.
If she had ever wondered then that sort of thing showed that Willow… really hadn’t changed in many ways. Most.
But when Willow did do something like that, then Tara could almost believe. And there it was in her head again. Maybe Willow could... do that.
But could she tell me even if it was true? Would she?
All I can do is ask.Tara returned her head to upright and looked out of the window, allowing Willow to continue stroking her hair. Just the simple things… but even that was made complicated by what they were.
Who they were.
By what had happened in their lives. And their deaths.
She could see her own reflection… her hair moving as if tied to an invisible string. Willow was not there with her. “D-do… Can y-you l-l-love?” The view was something she had always avoided in the same way that all but one mirror had been removed from the apartment.
Willow not being there was a terrible thing not to see.
The question was something that she had avoided even more than the reflection – or lack of it. It was… everything that they had perhaps, the hope Tara felt. And if that was taken away. If everything was taken away from her then she was back to having nothing.
Maybe she had never had anything. Anything real. Maybe what she felt was like Willow in a mirror… no reflection. Nothing there.
She watched the hair of the mirror Tara fall straight. It was like watching someone else entirely when Willow could not be seen with her. She still felt that Willow was holding it, stroking it. But she could see that she wasn't there at all. And inside… inside Willow was always there. The Willow that she wanted was always there.
Maybe that had never been this Willow. But maybe it was…
The silence was long. It went on an on. It was relentless.
“Why do you ask me that Kitty?” Willow finally answered her question with another and Tara felt rather than saw cool hands on her cheeks, tracing her jaw.
Never answer a question with a question Tara. It wasn’t me Daddy. It was
her. Get off my case.
“B-b-because I c-can’t not know anymore. P-please just tell me if you can. Not if you do… if you can.” It wasn't a statement of her feelings. It wasn't a request to know if this demon loved her. It was for information only. To know if there was a chance. If there had ever been a chance.
Or if she had been deluding herself this whole time. Letting people die for a delusion. Would it be better if they hadn’t?
“That isn’t what you want to know Kitty, Willow knows…”
Tara stayed quiet, neither confirming or denying Willow’s obvious suspicions.
“You want to know if I love you Kitty,” Tara’s continued silence must have been answer enough. Willow came around the couch and sat on the arm facing Tara, interposing herself between the witch and the reflection that was so alone in the window. So that Tara was forced to look at what Willow there was with her. Rather than the lack of her. “I don’t know Kitty.”
“Oh… okay.” Tara looked down at her knees, crossed her arms across her chest as if protecting herself from the hurt to come. If Willow didn’t know then the answer must be obvious. But at least… at least it wasn’t a flat no.
“I don’t remember loving. I have nothing to compare this thing that I do feel to. When I was alive… I had a crush I think. Maybe two… But I never had chance to really love as you humans do.”
You humans? That was brutal to Tara.
Willow watched Tara regard her knees intently, something inside wanting to grasp that chin and spin the neck to an unnatural angle and end the conversation that way. It wasn’t a nice conversation. But that desire was something that she ignored as she had other ones. “Then my soul was gone. She was gone – that other Willow. And when I came back… I wasn’t her anymore. I was me. Maybe someone needs a soul to love. But I don’t know.”
That was what Tara had feared, that Willow
couldn’t love. Being unable to love was much worse than not loving. If that was true then there was nothing she could do. If Willow could love, but didn’t, then they had a chance. Tara could try to live with being a plaything if there was a chance of love in their future. But without love it was just affection and sex. Maybe not even the former on Willow’s part.
And she was willing to accept it? There were other things… more important things than her feelings. Things that had been put aside for too long.
“I know-” Willow hesitated as if the words coming to her mouth were like bile rising from her stomach that had to be swallowed back. “I know that I don’t like it when you are not there.” Even that much… better to be staked than to admit that to the Kitty. Where was her power when the Kitty knew that there was something more to it than simply playtime? Just the power to drain her dry… or snap her bones one at a time. That sort of power wasn't what she wanted. That sort of power was flat and boring now – at least with Tara. How long could a vampire go around threatening life and limb before no one believed it? Better just to kill than that. But the power she had held over the Kitty. That was real… thrall. Thrall that was a wonderful word rolling around her mind. “Thrall.” It even sounded good coming off her tongue. But who was in whose thrall?
“Thrall?” Tara asked her.
Willow ignored that stupid question… couldn’t Tara tell that she was just verbalizing her own thoughts.
Hello! I do it often enough. Pay attention you little witch… “Sorry,” she said and realised what she had actually said. Sorry?! And meant it. For saying ‘thrall?’ For how she treated her witch? For being unable to love her? She didn’t regret any of it. Not a damn thing.
Hello! Evil killer vampire here.“W-What for?” Tara asked her.
“That I can’t tell you what you want to hear.” She was not going to lie to the Kitty. There was no need to. Willow never had lied to her. Humans lied. Vampires didn’t
need to. A lie was only as good as the length of time that the listener continued to exist. Tara had never put her in a position where she had been forced to lie. People… human people… lied either to protect or to hurt. And Willow knew that she could hurt her Kitty just as much telling her the truth. Because the Kitty wanted everything that Willow herself should not have cared about. The only thing she wanted was… “How would I know if I love you without even that memory Kitty? I’m not what I was. I’m better now. Can I really know what
love is? If I said ‘yes’ would it be the same as what you feel for me?”
That was the question. And Willow knew that it was asserting her nature. What she was.
“I-I d-don’t know.” And Tara really didn’t know the answer to that. But she did know exactly what Willow meant. It was a question about the vampire that she had asked a thousand times. Asked herself. And she did know what was in her own mind. She was sure of that too.
“You think you love me don’t you?” Willow asked her. The answer didn’t require a question.
Tara didn’t hesitate. Her voice did not fail her, which was good. “Yes, I do love you.” That was the terrible, terrible thing. And it was not the complete truth. Nor was it a lie though. She did love Willow… but maybe not
this Willow. More the idea of Willow. Another Willow perhaps.
A Willow that might have been.
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“No you don’t Kitty because you can’t let yourself.” Willow hand’s was a blur as it sped towards Tara’s face, about to deliver a crushing blow. Stopped short, fist touching Tara’s cheek, but not connecting. “I could kill you. Part of me wants to.”
“But you don’t do it.” Willow was right, she had been holding back from it. Always holding back – something. For her own safety? Perhaps just for her sanity.
If not her conscience.
“No I don’t. I should. But I don’t.” Willow stretched her fingers out and laid them on Tara’s cheek, touching her soft earlobe. “And you’re grateful for it Kitty.”
Of course she was grateful for not being… oh. Tara understood what Willow meant. “No!” That was not all that it was for her. Gratitude for life – was that what Willow thought? Was it true that Willow didn’t believe that her Kitty loved her at all? Or couldn’t believe it… so she thought that what Tara felt was just gratitude? For her life… Never just that.
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“You get to play the dirty little games Kitty and you get to live too. Most people that played with me… didn’t. You’re grateful for that. That is all it is… that and some nasty lust and maybe some affection.” Better if that was all it was. Willow slipped her hand into Tara’s hair and used it to turn her head around, the tightening grip coaxing her around to look at the vampire. Tara didn’t resist; she never did. Willow might have hurt her… but she never had to. Willow might have even wanted, in some part of her, just beneath the surface to hurt her Kitty. But she never had to - to make her point.
Sometimes Willow wished that there would be a bit more resistance. Not even to hurt the Kitty but just so that they could play the power game. So that her Kitty might take charge. Which was always fun when it happened. Being the tough bitch was all very well… but sometimes she wanted to be the other one, get out of herself. But now there was no resistance at all. Now the Kitty was rubbing her cheek against the arm that snaked into her hair and Willow couldn’t help releasing her grip.
I don’t, the vampire realised,
even find any joy in hurting her. It’s no fun. None at all. Tara would accept whatever she did, revelled in it sometimes. It had been interesting, in the past, trying to find the blonde witch’s limits. But that was no longer the attraction. It hadn’t been for a long, long time now. She knew how far she could push Tara, to the point at which pleasure was threatened by pain. And she had
no desire to go there. Because the Kitty had no desire to go there. Knowing where that point was took away the desire to get there. There was not even any fun in telling Tara about the gratitude theory – calculated as it was to hurt just a little. To make Tara a little less sure.
She desired other things.
But no other people. Not really. With every kill a part of her screamed inside to play with her food. To enjoy it, to stoke the fear and enjoy the taste. But that was the hunger alone and Willow was not driven just by the hunger. She had never found anything more interesting or more fun in this dark world than Tara, whose soft earlobe she stroked even as the realisation dawned.
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“No” Tara said again firmly, not appreciating Willow’s words. “I l-love you.” It
was that simple and it was also that complicated. Tara was absolutely sure of those feelings now – at least for the concept of Willow. The Willow that, sometimes shone through when she came to her in this apartment. Just not the Willow who was out there hunting in Sunnydale. The Willow who could just
be with her. The Willow who enjoyed
her. Instead of playing or killing. Instead of the sex. Much as Willow might try hurt her, she never could. Not deep down. The vampire felt something for her. Enough to stop the bloodlust from taking over when she was with her Kitty.
In that moment Tara accepted the truth of just what Willow was. She accepted what they were. What they had. And with all that she accepted what Willow would never, really, be. Knowing that - there was still no way in her heart that she could not love Willow. But not… Another Willow, of whom this Willow was but a pale reflection. The vampire had… desires that Tara could do without, but that she yearned to fulfil. It was still, sort of, Willow. But only sort of. It was easy to think that there was a Willow, the memory inside the demon of who she had once been. Her former self. Feeding the personality that seemed to be the demon itself. Occasionally the Willow part might hurt her. But occasionally the vampire part might feel affection too…
It was never going to be… and it already was.
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The witch had said the “L” word. Again. But this time it was different. The Kitty should just have been prey. At best Tara should just have been a plaything and yet she could say that word…? To a vampire. To a demon. Willow had tried so hard to avoid that expression… to avoid being confronted with it. More recently their relationship – they had a relationship? – had been filled with attempts to avoid that declaration and having to deal with it whilst not driving the Kitty away. And now she, the Kitty, had said it anyway.
Something had changed. The Kitty had been different since the Master had been destroyed. Of course she had. That was when she had grown from being the Kitten. Perhaps it had been a little later though… maybe a little after that.
Had the Kitty changed in L.A.? When she had thought that she was leaving to become a demon?
Perhaps.
‘Love.’ Willow could not deny the power of the statement. It was good to know that the Kitty needed her; was reliant upon her ‘affections’ and desires. It was good to know that the Kitty would stay around… for that was what love meant. The desire to remain… hers.
But, Willow wondered, [/i]can I ever give myself in response? Should I? And why would I? Why the hell am I even thinking about this. I need to kill.[/i]
It didn’t matter that much to Willow. The Kitty was hers and that thing she didn’t like – being without the Kitty – was a more distant prospect with the word said. The rest was all the Kitty’s problem. Feelings were the Kitty’s problem… but she, Tara, was looking at her. Waiting. Willow had already played nice… she had already told the Kitty that she couldn’t, truthfully, say the same words. Even if she was capable of it. But the Kitty’s eyes were locked on hers – impossible to avoid even if she could have resisted that challenge. “You are all the pleasures that I will ever want or need Kitty.”
Tara tried not to react, but Willow knew that Tara was aware that the superior vampiric senses would detect the way she drew breath, the flush in her skin. The flicker of her eyes. Willow couldn’t miss it. She couldn’t miss the immediate thrill and a half-second later the desperate disappointment that Tara suppressed. The Kitty so obviously wanted more than that. Tara was screaming out to every sense but her hearing ‘stop short of returning my love if you must but please…’
Willow could see it. It burned brightly in the Kitty. Need.
Good.
“I know” Willow continued wondering why she was even bothering. Just easier this way “That you are mine. You said it before. But I’m yours too. Even if I can’t love you, if you asked… I would be yours.” Willow meant that in every sense. Every sense. “And you are my always… I want you with me always. Eternal.” It really was easier that way. Again it was the truth… but it was not the whole truth. What the Kitty meant to her was pleasure. Many different kinds of pleasure.
The Willow within knew, in theory, that was not love.
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Tara recoiled from one possible meaning of that statement… though the other filled her with something approaching joy. Willow belonged to her. They were each other’s always. But… eternal? They had had the discussion about that word before. Willow was far too precise to have failed to remember that. It had been used deliberately. And where was the love? No love?
Willow did not believe that she could love.
The vampire continued, “I can’t say what you want me to Kitten, but the rest of it… what I could say. Can you even tell the difference? Why did you have to ask if you could?”
The difference was just a word.
And the word meant everything.
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at: 7/21/02 3:25:41 pm
at: 7/21/02 9:42:57 pm