The Prophet
by Rainne
Part Six
[reviews]
Mercedes and I spent the next couple of weeks house hunting. There was real estate available all over Sunnydale; apparently the town has an inexplicably high mortality rate and transfer rate. Go figure. For that reason, we had a large selection of places to choose from. I wasn't sure if I wanted to actually purchase a house, since I didn't know if we'd stay, but Mercedes was in love with Sunnydale and quickly building a circle of new friends that I was loath to part her from.
Other than house hunting, I had nothing to do and I was bored out of my mind. In Las Vegas there was always something to do. I would sometimes spend entire weeks stalking one victim. In Sunnydale there was nothing besides a trip to the butcher shop or the blood bank to occupy my time. I took to bumming around the business district, wandering in and out of shops and cafes for hours on end, people-watching. I dropped into the Magic Box on a daily basis when I knew Willow would be there and we'd often go for coffee or lunch, enjoying the sunlight and philosophizing about things. We slipped back into the routine of best-friendship easily, though I knew I was now sharing her friendship with Buffy. That didn't bother me in the least. What did bother me was that brief glimpse I'd had into Buffy's eyes, a glimpse I had deliberately chosen not to repeat. I could still see those things that I'd seen in her mind: the dreams, the emotions, all those things that were strongest on the surface. I wasn't sure if I could handle seeing them again.
On the second Friday after coming to Sunnydale, I got a call from the realtor who had found us a "charming" lease/purchase that she thought we'd just love. I met her at the house, which turned out to be on the same street as Willow and Buffy's home, just a few blocks down. It was wonderful and I told the realtor that, barring Mercedes' nixing the choice, I thought we had a winner. 1924 Revello Drive had three bedrooms and two baths upstairs, all with large windows and closets; the living room downstairs had beautiful built-in bookshelves; the kitchen was large and airy with gleaming chrome appliances; the back yard was large, sunny and tree-filled; and there was even a dusty attic. Plus, the fact that it was within walking distance of Dawn's house would be a big help.
From the house, I went for my daily wander downtown. I settled into a chair at a table in front of a small café with coffee and croissants, and I was just sitting, basking in the warm sunlight and thinking about becoming an artist just for grins, when a voice from behind me startled me out of my reverie. "How's it going, cutie?"
I jumped, nearly spilling my coffee. Willowlaugh bubbled up from behind me and I turned with a grin as she joined me, her own cup of coffee in her hand. "Hey, Will. You're out early."
"Hey yourself. Class got canceled. Instructor's sick. How's the French cuisine?" She indicated my croissants.
"It ain't beignets at the Café du Monde, but it'll do."
She leaned across the table. "Have you been to New Orleans?"
I nodded. "About two years ago. I wanted to see if I could find the real Louis and Lestat."
"Did you?"
I shrugged. "Not exactly. There was some evidence to indicate that they had existed... nothing solid, though. Someone's grandmother's friend knew the seamstress who had fitted the little girl's dresses but she'd been dead for twenty years, that sort of thing. All circumstantial. Locations mentioned in the books looked completely deserted. The only thing that told me I might be onto something was this one voodoo priestess who, believe it or not, sought me out on Royal Street one night. I was just wandering, and she came up behind me. She was the reason I finally left New Orleans."
"Really?" Willow looked fascinated. "What did she say?"
I shivered, remembering the look on the priestess's face as she'd spoken to me. "Told me I was asking too many questions. Advised me that the smartest thing I could do would be to stop asking them and leave New Orleans. 'This night, you are still safe,' she said, 'but when the sun goes down tomorrow you will not be. I advise you not to be here.' So I left." I shook my head. "When a voodoo priestess tells you that you're not safe in a city, you're best advised to find another city to be in. I caught a flight back to Vegas before noon the next day."
"I wonder why you weren't safe."
I grinned. "Willow. I thought you were brighter than that. I was getting too close. And I didn't even realize it. I still don't know today what I was onto. But I was onto something and I was told quick to get off of it."
Willow was silent for a while. Then, her face brightened. "Night Island!"
I blinked. "Huh?"
"Night Island," she repeated. "The one vampire in the book, Armand, owned Night Island in Miami. Go there."
I stared at her until she asked me what the funny expression on my face was about, then I had to laugh. "Will, think about it. They called in the voodoo to get me out of New Orleans. Do you think they'll kindly warn me out of Miami the same way, or will they just have a priest of SanterĚa turn me into a chicken?"
"Oh. Good point."
We wandered the streets of Sunnydale together until it was time to go pick up Mercedes and have a look at the new house prospect. I invited Willow to come with us, and she enthusiastically accepted. In the car, she rested her hand on the console, her fingers just brushing the denim of my jeans.
Dawn was waiting with Mercedes today, which was not unusual; but they wanted me to take them to the mall. "Sorry, kids," I said, shaking my head. "We've got a house to look at."
Mercedes groaned. "Another one?"
"I think you're going to like this one."
Dawn wanted to come, giving me the puppy-dog eyes that thirteen-year-olds seem to all be so good at, and I made her call Buffy on my cell phone to ask for permission. When she hung up, she had both permission and an invitation to dinner for Mercedes and myself. I was flattered and Mercedes excited. The girls immediately planned to make it a sleepover, since the next day was Saturday. I grinned at Willow as we listened to them chatter, because I remembered when she and I sounded just like them.
I had been right about the house. Mercedes' reaction to all the other houses we'd seen had been lukewarm at best, but this house she fell in love with as soon as she saw it. The little bookworm in her rhapsodized over the bookshelves in the living room; the part of her that was still a child immediately wanted to build a treehouse in the back yard; and the budding teenager was in ecstasy over the upstairs corner bedroom with window seat, white walls and blue carpeting. She and Dawn immediately began deciding how they would decorate: the poster of Eminem would go there and the poster of Blink-182 would go here.
Willow and I went back downstairs and sat on the rusty little wrought-iron bench on the back porch. She sat very close to me, and I could feel the heat of her body as we talked about silly little things like bird feeders and vegetable gardens. And then, so suddenly that I'm still not sure how it happened, I was kissing her. And she was kissing me back.
She leaned into me as our kiss deepened, her mouth hot and her hands clutching my arms tightly. I buried my hands in her flame-red hair and kissed her for all I was worth. I heard her make a tiny sound deep in her throat, and I released her lips, working my way down the line of her jaw to her throat, where the pulse beat. She whispered my name and I returned to her lips briefly, planting several tiny kisses on them before drawing her close to me to simply hold her tightly.
She clutched me as though she feared drowning, her face buried in the junction where my shoulder met my neck. She was crying.
"Why are you crying?" I whispered.
"Because I missed you so much. I didn't even realize how much I missed you. I love you, Dakota, I still love you, no matter what."
I rocked her gently as her crying slowed. "I know, sweetie," I told her, stroking her hair. "I know. I love you, too. That's why I came back."
---*---
Dinner that night was not the restrained, cold affair I had feared. Instead, the environment was warm and inviting. Buffy was obviously accustomed to entertaining vampires because, in addition to the delicious meal, there was also a mug of warm blood at my plate. This courtesy made me wonder about Spike, whom I had very conspicuously not seen since the opening sally of what was probably going to end up being a war for territory. Obviously William the Bloody was accustomed to being Head Vampire In Town and wasn't prepared to give up his position to what he probably saw as a young upstart from out of town, still wet behind the ears. I wasn't too concerned about what he did or didn't want.
Buffy's Watcher, Giles, had joined us for dinner. He was obviously fascinated by me and kept asking me questions. The one I'd been dreading came over dessert. "How did you know, Dakota? When you stalked your victims, as you told us before, and found the evildoers in the casinos, how did you know their life stories? I'm assuming they weren't bragging about them."
I snorted. "You'd be surprised. Some of them did. But others, no. Others I had to use my Gift on."
Willow eyed me across the table. "Your Gift?"
I sighed. "I should've told you this a long time ago, Will, but you know how insecure kids are. I was just sure you'd run screaming into the night and hate me forever." I shrugged. "There's this talent that I have. I've had it ever since I was a kid, and I think it might be tied to the whole day walking thing. But whether it is or not, it's there. It's kind of like being selectively psychic. If I make direct eye contact with someone, I know things about them."
"Direct eye contact?" Buffy asked. I saw her eyes flash and knew she was thinking of what I said to her in front of the Espresso Pump about her dreams.
"Yeah. You know, walk up to somebody and look them dead in the eye. I hate it. It's so noisy." I grimaced. "But sometimes it's useful. One can use it, for example, to intrigue someone so that they don't kill you at the first opportunity, but instead wait for a chance to figure out how you knew what you knew. Then you have the chance to dazzle them with your brilliant wit and sparkling personality, and perhaps they decide not to kill you, after all, but instead to invite you over for a lovely dinner." I finished with a winning smile and an innocent blink-blink-blink, which made her laugh.
"Very perceptive," she conceded. "Especially after you showed up here and I thought you'd snatched Dawn." She shook her head at me.
Dawn and Mercedes closed themselves into Dawn's room after dinner, listening to loud music, and Willow and I retreated to her room to talk. We were sitting on her bed, me leaning against the headboard and her with her head in my lap, when she asked me if I'd ever read her mind. "No," I told her emphatically.
"But you've looked in my eyes plenty of times."
I smiled, touching her gently on her cheekbones just below her eyes, on the bridge of her nose, and on her eyebrows. "There. That's where I look. Because you're my friend, Willow, and I don't do that to my friends. It wouldn't be right."
She nodded. "I know you wouldn't." And then she sat up, straddling my legs and getting very close to my face. "But I want you to."
I blinked. Se was wearing her Resolve Face and I knew what that meant, but I had to be sure. "Are you sure, Willow? I mean, I can't pick and choose what I'll see. You might not want me to -"
"I'm sure," she interrupted.
So I looked. And I saw her heart. All the love she held for me, the pain she'd felt when I disappeared and she thought it was her fault, the deep, intense desire to be with me again — I saw it all. I also saw some things that broke my heart with loving her — and I laid my hand on her cheek. "Oh, Will. I do love you. Are you sure?"
She nodded.
"Even though -?"
"Shh." She laid a finger over my lips. "That route is closed to me."
I wasn't sure. I wavered between choices as I stared through her eyes and into her soul. Everything she was, everything that was Willow, was laid bare before me, and I wanted to weep. And as she slid her hand behind my neck to pull me down into a kiss, I got my answer from an unlikely source. One of the girls down the hall turned the volume up, and my decision was made for me by a man's voice which thudded through the walls.
Look
If you had one shot
One opportunity
To seize everything you ever wanted
In one moment
Would you capture it
Or let it slip?
And I knew. Willow. She might not be totally mine — in fact would never be totally mine — but she was everything I'd ever wanted. I let her pull me down into the kiss and we were naked before the second refrain, exploring places and sensations we had learned once before, years ago.
Her mouth was hot on mine as we kissed, tasting deeply of one another. We left each other breathless with wanting and needing and, before long, my hands were relearning their favorite paths down her neck, across her shoulders and chest, and down her sides to her hips. I held her hips and slid a knee between her thighs, bringing it up to rest gently against the thatch of cinnamon curls where her legs met.
She moaned my name when my lips captured her breast, her back arching to meet me. I held her hips tightly, rocking against her rhythmically with my knee. I hissed when she raked her nails down my back and, in retaliation, I slid my hand down over her hip and belly to replace my leg.
She was hot and exquisitely, silkily wet. I teased her with my fingertips, sliding them around and tickling her opening until she was panting and gasping with desire, then slid two fingers deeply inside her. She froze and so did I as her body struggled to deal with the sensations caused by my intrusion. She was whimpering, biting down on her lower lip, and I nuzzled her cheek with my own. "Give it to me, Willow," I whispered into her ear, and she relaxed slightly into me.
I thrust with my hand then, taking her mouth with mine at the same moment, and she screamed into my mouth as she came. Her nails dug into my shoulder blades and, surprised, I bit her lip hard enough to draw blood. I couldn't resist the spicy taste of her as she came again in my arms, and I held her tight, kissing her and making love to her, as the music throbbed though the walls in time to the rhythm of her heart.
You gotta lose yourself in the music, the moment
You own it
You better never let it go.
You only get one shot,
Do not miss your chance to blow
'Cause opportunity comes once in a lifetime.