Part 65 below. Enjoy it Kittens... dare I say that you should remember what happens in this? Course I dare.
DMW - Believe me when I say that my knowledge of things Roman ends with the big epic films and you know how "true" they were. As such I doubt you will get an answer to the name thing out of me.
Re The Master and Kakistos I always looked on it as being a function of the demon that was involved. Simple devolution... I mean neither of them looked like the fully revealed Angelus demon either... Just changing rather than becoming something definite?
Who knows...
Your point about the Council and what Quentin wants very much mirrors my own views... but as readers unless I specifiy something in the text you can of course take whatever view suits you*S*
Thanks*S*
Now to Part 65...
Enjoy Kittens
--------------------
Title: The Sidestep Chronicle – Bars, Antlers & Dimes (Part 65)
Author: Katharyn Rosser
Feedback: Constructive criticism always welcome. katharynrosser@hotmail.com
Spoiler Warning: Pretty limited. The story occurs in an alternate universe though reference is made to events that occur in both realities.
Summary: Tara and Faith make plans.
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: Nope – more and more frequent I know but I am trying to get you there. You know, to where this line really means something.
Notes: The title of this part is an act of desperation, cos I couldn’t think of anything else. This is set a few weeks after the last part. Also we are about to get a whole load of parts in a very short chronological space of time. A load of them…
Thanks To: The girlfriends. Not just mine… but the ones of those people that I chat to and find myself brainstorming this stuff. My beta reader’s especially. Most of them will never see this… but its nice to think of them and the sacrifices they make for this fic and more widely the W/T obsession. I mean there might have been snuggling going on otherwise.
The Sidestep Chronicle
Bars, Antlers & Dimes
By
Katharyn Rosser
“Hey Tar,” Faith greeted her, plonking herself down on the stool beside her. It really was less a plonk and more of graceful arc – no matter how casual and ‘typical teen’ the Slayer might like to appear as she got closer to leaving those years. Faith thought it would make her old. Tara had to admit… she felt old. But not because she had turned twenty. Not just since her birthday.
And there was nothing much about Faith that was typical now was there? There might not have been even if she had not been called as the Slayer. The Slayer wasn’t who Faith was, it seemed obvious to Tara that the Slayer was Faith rather than the other way around.
Aside from the magic, her employment and the nature of her lover – and the problems that all of those caused for more than just her – Tara regarded herself as firmly typical… if no longer a teen. It was just those things that made her different.
Just those.
Faith on the other hand, like Willow, was something atypical in the world. And as with Willow she had felt a greater distance open up between them in the past couple of weeks.
Unlike with Willow though she was pretty sure that it wasn’t anything that she was doing. With Willow… there were the doubts. Still the doubts about the whole damn thing. Still the niggle in her mind of what might have been.
And thoughts of the contingencies. What they would have done to her Willow. What they still might do to her. She had to put those kinds of thing aside. They would never come to pass. She had left Wolfram and Hart behind now. Their project was dead wasn't it?
Just like Willow.
But Faith… The Slayer had been just a little more withdrawn, something she had never thought she would come to associate with Faith of all people. But Tara was pretty sure that it wasn't her that was causing that. Faith seemed a little… well a little less than she had always been. And she hadn’t wanted to talk about it either.
Even Jenny had commented on it. Just the other day when Tara had last seen the teacher, Jenny had asked her if she knew what might be wrong Faith. Tara had been about to ask her the same thing. Nothing had ever got Faith down since she had come to Sunnydale. Not her mission, her likely fate, no task nor even her injury that had seen her laid up, at hospital and at home, for weeks.
It was more than weird. It was disconcerting. One thing that Tara had always been able to rely on was Faiths attitude. It was like a universal constant.
And now this place the Slayer had chosen to meet her? Even more disconcerting… Why the heck were they here of all places?
A second later she asked. This had been Faith’s choice after all. “Why are we meeting here?” Tara wondered aloud, looking around at the clientele in Willy’s Place – who with the arrival of the Slayer were moving even further into the shadows than they had been when she had walked in, or leaving altogether. Still no vampires though. That she was sure of. The pendant was still… it had been for a couple of days now – though she hadn’t been through the whole town in that time. She was sure that there were some left – but she had not come into proximity to any of them, despite the usual hunting.
We’re here because, Faith thought, I don’t want to be alone with you and end up thinking that this might be a good time to do the deed. To stick this ‘sacred’ knife I have at my back into your chest and twist it around… getting some more blood on the grip. On my hands… Faith didn’t want a badly chosen word to provoke even a moment of that inside her. This way she could still, truthfully, claim not to have had an opportunity. If the Council ever asked. They had already pressed Giles for a status report. He had deflected them and she was going to give Tara the chance she deserved. A chance to prove them all wrong. “It’s the only place, even in this town, that I can get a real drink before three a.m.,” she told Tara.
Tara her friend whom she had been asked to kill.
Ordered to kill by no less an authority as the Head of the Watcher’s Council of Great Britain. Quentin ‘I hand out death sentences and turn people into murderers over tiffin’ Travers.
Pfff that.
She was only contemplating it at all because Giles had told her to do it too. That was his opinion and his best judgement. He thought that there was cause and from certain angles Faith could see what he meant. But his opinion meant much, much more to her than any orders. And it hurt that much more too. Because Tara had often said how much she respected him… and she liked Jenny. If it wasn't for Willow, who was the whole problem, Faith might have guessed that Tara had a crush on the teacher.
It was just a friend thing.
There was nothing there. Faith almost wished there was. It would have hinted that she could have got Tara away from that vampire bitch. That wasn't looking very likely though – no matter how she had probed Tara in the last week or so she had never got anything she could use against the vampire.
Though a big pointy stick might do.
Besides Faith liked Jenny too and there was definitely no crushing going on with her.
Jenny… she had been avoiding getting into any conversations with her Watcher’s fiancée since this had all been made known to her. How was she supposed to face the teacher? After killing a woman who was a friend to both of them? On G’s orders.
The man Jenny was to marry. Wanted to spend her life with.
Before killing Tara was hard enough. She knew that Jenny could persuade Giles not to do this. To stop it. She only had to ask. But it wouldn’t be for the right reasons. She had to trust her Watcher or else what was the point?
But this wasn’t war… Faith knew that it would be pretty much murder. And he would be as guilty as she was.
Apart from the not actually doing it himself thing.
But she was damned if she was going to lie to Jenny either… so she had just avoided the issue by avoiding the teacher as much as possible. By avoiding all of them. In a small town though, let alone in a small apartment, she knew that Jenny was worried about her. Tara was too.
Which made it no easier.
The emptying of the place freed up Willy from his other customers and that, of course, gave him the chance to come over to them. “You know you girls are killing me here?” he told them, he leaned across the bar to speak in a hushed voice. “Did you, you know, get bored with your vampire?” he asked Tara, looking with obviously admiring eyes at Faith. Clearly it was a hint of another scam.
Probably involving cameras and a discrete operator. Many of them did. Never give up. That seemed to be Willy’s motto.
“She’s not my type Willy,” Faith answered him, knowing that Tara would be too embarrassed to even speak. Willow was a delicate topic that Faith had, since finding out just what the relationship was going to cost Tara, both avoided and tested. It was a strange balance to try to strike. But it was going to cost Tara her life. Before there had been good natured questions about ‘boinking the undead’ that had served to mask her discomfort with the idea. Now… better just not to mention it at all.
Except she had to. She had been trying to find out of Tara could possibly be drawn away from Willow. If there was a tiny crack that she could work on.
It wasn't that the crack wasn't there, Faith was pretty sure that Tara was not totally ‘happy’ as such. It was more that she could not see what it was that she might be able to use to accomplish that goal of splitting them – painlessly. Even if Tara wasn’t deliriously happy, she was still in love.
Sick as that might be.
That ‘love’ was going to get Tara killed. One way or another.
One way would be if Faith had to shove the knife into her chest. It made her feel sick even to think about it and the only way to get over that feeling was to beat on someone. But there was only Willy around that would do. Best man for the job and all that. “Now, Willy, before I ram my fist down your throat and pull out your tonsils, a drink barman,” and she gave him the sweetest smile she could muster.
That smile was entirely false. She didn’t feel like smiling. She felt like begging Tara to get rid of the vampire before it was too late. Better yet she felt like telling Tara to stay her and going and doing it herself. She had thought about it. She really had. Willow, as one of the few vampires left in Sunnydale, was not exactly difficult to find, not for a Slayer.
She could have killed her. Turned her to dust, pleaded ignorance when Tara panicked and she knew that her friend would have panicked if anything had happened to the vampire. Faith could see the link between them even if she had never seen them together since that night at the Bronze. Willow filled Tara.
But Willow wasn’t right for her. More than anything else Willow was what had brought Tara so close to being killed.
And Faith knew that her friend didn’t even realise it.
Faith had watched the vampire hunt once. She had watched the vampire kill and she had done nothing about it… and she knew then, watching Willow drain her chosen victim, what was making Tara sad. She had felt it then too.
It was letting Willow exist. The guilt that Faith had felt just for that one death. How much guilt was Tara carrying around because of all that she had not prevented?
She could have killed Willow. Wanted to. Better that thing died than Tara - any day of the damned week. But Tara loved her vampire. It would have crushed her… and if Giles was afraid of Tara slipping into darkness… might that have done it? If that had been the Watcher’s considered opinion of how close Tara was to being consumed by magic then might losing Willow have pushed her there?
Probably not. But maybe. Faith really had no idea how that stuff worked, she preferred a piece of wood in her hand, but she knew Tara. Willow’s destruction would crush Tara. Maybe it would also set her free. Maybe one day Tara would be able to see the reasoning… even thank her. But till then her friend would hate her, and she would hate herself for that. The decision of the Council was not even based on Willow.
Not wholly.
It was a whole combination of things – of which the vampire was certainly not the least. But killing the vamp would change nothing. If it was really that simple, Faith thought that G would have suggested it. This way… if she was forced to do that to Tara then Willow would be easy enough to track down and to kill later. After. After Tara… But she would not do it, if things even went that way, until Tara was in the ground.
Until Tara couldn’t be hurt by it.
Tara loved Willow. She knew that. She would let that count for something. And if Willow left town… then Faith knew that she would not follow her. For Tara. It might be the only thing she could do for the woman sat next to her – if this one more chance she was giving her here went belly up.
If things went bad.
“Sure, no need for threats Slayer,” Willy held up his hands as in mock surrender to her words but he had a measuring glint in his eyes – as if he had been watching her thought processes somehow.
His eyes even flicked to Tara again and not in a lascivious way. Faith wasn’t sure exactly what lascivious meant but it sounded about right and had something to do with lust. For one thing or another. He shouldn’t be looking at Tara like that.
“What’ll you have?” he asked them.
“Soda,” Tara told him.
Faith rolled her eyes. Same old Tara. “Beer,” she requested and waited to speak again until he had served them. After she had taken a sip of the cold beverage. Willy hadn’t gone away, he was resting on the bar, smiling at them both. One after the other. Attentive even. Waiting for some small talk he could join into. Faith looked at him and raised her eyebrows, the threat pretty plain.
“What?” he asked, offended at the implication.
“Get lost Willy. Go clean glasses or something,” Faith told him. She didn’t need an audience for this. Not at all. She needed to get this out right – without giving anything else away to Tara.
“Hey, do you see a mark on those glasses of yours?” he looked for himself. “Don’t answer that. Okay, okay I’m going.” He picked up a rag that was hardly clean and went down to the other end of the bar where a chaos demon was still sat, angling his antlers so that the slime didn’t drip in his Bloody-Mary. At least not too often. Chaos demons… big name for such a little bad. She might have to ask Giles what the hell they actually did.
“What’s so urgent then?” Tara asked her. Faith had called her and she had sounded… funny again. Like something was on her mind. More than before. More than that unknown whatever it was that was bugging her already. The thing that she wouldn’t let neither Tara nor Jenny near.
Tara was afraid that it was something bad for Faith – who wasn't big on sharing her problems, let alone her feelings. Even if the Slayer had opened up a lot more as she had been in Sunnydale longer, she seemed to have pulled back from that now. Tara didn’t want Faith to be upset but she had to respect her space too.
“I found a nest,” Faith told her trying to keep anything but the information out of her voice. “Nothing like the Master’s place but they have a lot of vampires living there… and storage…” Faith finished. Storage that your Willow might have taken advantage of already, when I saw her there. But do you know that Tara?
“Storage like the Bronze?” Tara asked her. The Bronze had always been the local vampire fast food joint. Turn up, get a snack. Or bring your own. Since they had closed the place down even the vampires hadn’t proved dumb enough to go back there. But there was always a need for a place like that. There must have been. There had been one in every reasonably sized town that Tara had passed through in her years since her family had been killed. She and Faith had come to the conclusion that a new one would spring up soon enough – that those that remained might try and mimic The Master’s kingdom. In order to attract more and more vampires, to bolster the power, they needed to be able to keep humans. Alive and available for all to dine on.
Twenty-four-seven service.
“You know it girlfriend.” Faith watched Tara’s face carefully. But there was nothing but a professional concern there and Tara had no reason to hide anything from her. She hadn’t given Tara that reason yet. She, like Jenny, was concerned but not suspicious. “Halsted Street, half way up the hill,” Faith added. Still nothing, Tara just nodded. “Lots of visiting vamps. Could get tricky so I thought I’d call you up.” Still no reaction. Perhaps Tara didn’t know that her girlfriend went there as well. Faith had followed her there herself. “I thought we’d hit it tomorrow just after sun-down, before they get out and about… and before too many visitors arrive. Rescue the guys and gals in distress and save the day. You know – good guy stuff. John Wayne. The cavalry riding over the hill.”
Still nothing. Tara didn’t know about Willow and that place.
Either that or she was a better actor than Faith had ever given her credit for. No. There wasn’t a false bone in Tara’s body.
“Sounds like a plan,” Tara agreed, slightly distracted, wondering if Willow knew anything about the nest. There were very few vampires out there now – still fewer who knew of Willow’s role in destroying the Master. Her vampire lover was a power amongst those who remained or at least they seemed to look up to her – but Willow had not attempted to gather and lead them.
Tara thought that Willow might be bored by it. That had to be it… other vampires craved power. Domination. Willow would find the administration of a kingdom tiresome. It would fall apart as she neglected that. She wasn’t the Master.
Actually, with the towns people as cautious as ever but without the resources of the Master and his Order to sustain even the rump of the vampire population that remained she had to wonder if Willow herself was going there for food? No… Willow detested the idea of food that she had not hunted for herself. Without the fear where was the pleasure? Still, it might be an idea to try and keep Willow in tomorrow night whilst she and Faith razed the evil from the nest. “I’m not looking forward to anything like the Bronze,” she told the other woman. The Bronze, where her staed quest had come to an end – what was she still doing here? That place was the scene of their victory. And the place where Faith had almost died.
They had succeeded. She had waited until Faith was healed, taking over all of the patrols for that period. And yet here she still was. Not just in Sunnydale, but still working for the Mayor. Something was going to have to give soon though. There were too many things pulling at her conscience now. Too many.
It was all making her tired.
Altogether too many things.
“No girlfriend, that was definitely too extreme. Besides I just got fixed up.”
“Ahh, did someone say… ‘girlfriend?’” Willy asked, receiving a glare in return from both of them. “Okaay…” he went back to his glasses and continued smearing them as he chatted to the Chaos Demon.
“Is it a date then?” Faith asked Tara. If this went down well then maybe that would show Giles that Tara was still worth keeping around… Maybe I’ll get a chance to stake that Willow and finish all of this at the root of the trouble. Go for the cause and not the symptoms. If Willow went after her then she would have a reason – even Tara would see that the vampire had to be put down. That would make it easier on her.
Wouldn’t it?
Faith sort of knew that would not solve anything in isolation… it wasn’t even an option as a total solution.
But staking Willow had its attractions in its own right – outside of anything else that was going on.
“Sh-sure, you wanna take a swing through town. See what we can see?” Tara offered, they had not patrolled to much together recently. If they were going to carry out a raid tomorrow it would do them good to get back into synch.
Faith’s look just said ‘always.’ She drained her beer, left a couple of dollars on the counter and waited for Tara to finish her soda. As they stood she linked arms with the blonde woman, accompanying her out, looking back at the barman. “Bye Willy!” she called and winked. It was just to tease him. And why not?
The front, the holding of the arm… it was all a show to get Willy all excited at the cash possibilities. This was all that she wanted. Her friend. The scabbard of the knife pressing into her back told her that she probably could not have this.
Not unless this went just right. The danger… there had to be enough danger for Tara to be of undeniable help. That was why they were going. She had to show Giles that Tara was needed. And with the time that bought them she could work on getting Tara out of everything that she was into.
Bad shit.
Willy watched them leave and the commercial and sexual possibilities were running through his mind. Actually he wasn't too sure which of them was more exciting. These young girls were going to be the death of him. “You hear that?” he asked Bert.
The Chaos Demon just looked at him blankly. Far too much grain alcohol for that one to have heard anything. Which meant, Willy realised, that he had an exclusive and there were certain, very nasty, individuals were very interested in the movements of that pair. “Never mind,” Willy told him wiping some slime from the bar and bringing some of the remaining lacquer off with it.
Commerce got the better of him; he picked up the phone and, as the saying went, dropped a dime on them.
*************
Just what are they bad for, anyway?
at: 7/28/02 12:26:28 am
great update. though i can't comprehend how Faith can think that VW would let Tara get killed, the reasoning she does doesn't seem reasonable