Red Skies at Morning
by TheBear
Chapter 3
[reviews]
Part 3
========== BtVS ==========
"Oh God!" Willow repeated, her voice thin and strangled as panic welled up inside her. Buffy's body was quivering in her hands, and the slayer had her face buried in her pillow, her scream dying off into a moan.
Willow jerked back from Buffy as though she had been burned. She notice that her hand was completely coated in Buffy's sticky juices, and her eyes widened in horror at the thought- "I molested Buffy!" A part of her wanted nothing more than to take those fingers into her mouth, and savor the slayer's passion. She felt even guiltier at the inappropriate desire that her traitorous body was feeling.
In her haste to distance herself physically, as well as mentally from her actions, she ended up falling off the bed. Leaping to her feet she backed a few steps from the bed, crying, "Oh God, Buffy! I'm so sorry, I didn't mean..."
Abruptly she spun around and raced to the bathroom, locking herself in and collapsing with her back against the wall farthest from the door, her eyes shimmering with the tears that poured down her face as she sobbed. Over and over she wailed, "Oh God, No! Please, God, No!" Willow just knew that everything was ruined now; she had just molested her best friend- her best girl-friend. Her best, boys-only, completely straight girl-friend. With whom, she was secretly, and madly, in love. Her best friend who- she had no doubt- would never speak to her again.
Willow just sat there, sobbing, her mind lost in a world of misery where she was hated and reviled by the only people who had ever given her any friendship whatsoever.
========== BtVS ==========
Buffy was filled with self-hatred for what she had just done. What she had allowed to happen. She could hear Willow wailing and sobbing, and knew she should go to her- console her and tell her everything was ok. She knew she should do that, but she couldn't.
She hurriedly got dressed and then bolted- the sound of Willow's misery pounding against her mind like a jackhammer, chipping away at her sanity.
She sprinted all the way to the Restfield Cemetery, looking for a vamp to lash out at. Seeing a couple disappear around the corner of one of the mausoleums, she took off after them.
She rounded the corner at full speed, leaping into the air with a flying kick that shattered the spine of the vamp she struck- not dusting it, but rendering it immobile for at least several minutes. The other vamp barely had time to put on its game face before she laid into him.
No quips, no commentary, no chitchat- Buffy just proceeded to beat the vamp down. Watching from a distance, one might almost have compared it to a cat playing with a mouse. Buffy would smack him down and beat on him for a few seconds before picking him up and throwing him fifteen or twenty feet away. Then she would run and pounce on him, kicking and beating some more.
She ignored the stake in her jacket- she was beyond conscious thought at this point. Finally she must have done something to either destroy the heart, or separate the head, because he exploded in to a pile of ash as she was pounding on him.
She realized that she was screaming as she stood there, and wondered how long she had been doing that. When she stopped, she noticed that her throat was quite raw, so it must have been a while.
At least now she could begin to think again, "Not that that's a good thing," she mumbled, walking over to the other vampire, who was just beginning to stir. She had burned out enough of her rage that she didn't feel compelled to wail on this one. She just kneeled down and took out her stake, jabbing it with quick efficiency into his back and watching as he blew into dust.
She noticed the sky beginning to lighten and began the long walk home.
========== BtVS ==========
Buffy had tried to put her thoughts in order by the time she got home, but all she had managed to accomplish was distilling them down to three salient points:
a). Willow was in love with Buffy- Love as in; I want to have sex with you- not just friendship love.
b). Buffy loved Willow as her best friend in the entire world. To the point that losing Willow would probably destroy her.
c). Buffy had been having confused feelings for Willow lately. Like needing to touch her more, and really enjoying the 'waking up in her arms' thing. Not to mention checking her out while she was naked and really liking what she saw, and not being able to get the sight and sound of Willow masturbating out of her head- and maybe not wanting to. These three points were the focus for a range of confused thoughts.
Did Willow want to be Buffy's girlfriend, or did she just think of her for sex? And how weird was that thought? Just like wondering if a boy was interested in her as a potential relationship, or a potential screw.
Buffy realized that she was thinking of having a relationship with Willow. A girlfriend relationship. A lesbian... "But... I'm not gay!" she thought incredulously. "I like boys! I see a cute boy and I'm like, 'Ooo, baby!'" Buffy's mind was whirling as she tried to get a grip on things. She hadn't panicked at all until she actually used the word lesbian.
She tried to go through some scenarios in her head, "Ok, kissing..." she tried to imagine a girl so she could picture herself with them. "Cordelia! She's what most people would describe as a beauty, even if she can be such a bitch..." Buffy pictured herself closing in on Cordelia's lips, pressing her own against... "Ewww!" she thought, actually shaking in disgust."
"Ok, now Willow." She pictured herself with the redhead yesterday morning, waking up and smelling her hair; seeing the sweet, sleepy look on her face as she slid up along Buffy's body to say good morning. Willow's not-fully-awake little girl voice as she said it; the look of that pouty little lower lip. Buffy imagined herself leaning in to take that lip between her own- kissing her sweet smile... Buffy shivered as warmth poured through her body, and sweat broke out on her forehead.
Buffy's thoughts wandered back to a couple of hours ago, as she woke up to the feel of Willow's hands on her body, caressing her breasts, sliding along her tummy down to her center. Oh God! It had felt so good! She had been so wet, wetter than she had been for Angel.
With Angel, it had been awkward- what with it being her first time and all. It had been nice, but awkward. It must have been a long time for Angel, because he came pretty quickly. He was a gentleman, however, and took the time to finish her off with his fingers. Then they had cuddled and went to sleep. It had been nice... Nice... Nice, but not great. She'd had better orgasms from her own fingers. Maybe- if he hadn't lost his soul- he could have done better with more practice.
Willow, though, had given her a really good orgasm. One of the best she'd ever had- and she had been asleep! Maybe it was just the shock and the guilt and the whole 'Taboo' thing, but Willow had seriously rocked her world.
Of course, then she had wigged out and Buffy hadn't helped matters by taking off on her. She should have stayed and talked. Of course, her own head had been pretty messed up at that point. She might have done more damage than good.
She got back to her house and realized she had just enough time to sneak in, lose these bloody clothes and hit the shower, hopefully before her mom woke up. God, there was a talk she wasn't looking forward to.
"Jeez, I sound like I made up my mind already," she thought. Apparently she had some idea of what she wanted, at least. "I just wish it was that simple," she thought as she climbed up to her window.
========== BtVS ==========
Xander sat in second period, thinking about stuff. It kept him from accidentally paying any attention to that pesky math junk the teacher was droning on about. "Who cares about stupid Pythagorean theorems anyway?!" he asked himself.
Xander wasn't the buffoon everyone thought him to be. He acted that way, because that was how he dealt with his issues. Joke-guy doesn't have to let everything get to him, doesn't have to be angry all the time. Usually when he was too tired or upset to be joke-guy is when anger-guy made his appearance. Like last night. He knew he was being harsh with Buffy when he started in on the whole Angel/Angelus thing, but Dammit! Buffy and Angel were the two people who brought anger-guy out in him more than anything or anyone else- except maybe his parents.
Buffy because he loved her, and Angel because he hated him.
He loved Buffy, and hated to see her suffer. Angel made Buffy suffer. Even before he was Angelus, Buffy spent more time wallowing in pity and self-loathing over Angel than because of anything else in her life. Plus there was the whole, 'Angel as a rival for Buffy's affections,' which did help Xander hate him even more.
Not as much as Buffy and Willow accused him of, but still. It was there.
Mostly, he hated Angel because he was a vampire. Xander hated all vampires. Souled or not, he wanted to see every one of them reduced to ashes- sooner rather than later please.
Even though he was with Cordelia, and what a thrill ride of adventure that was, he would always have desire in his heart for Buffy. He had, finally, accepted the fact that those affections would never be returned- with or without Angel. He didn't like it, but he accepted it. Nevertheless he still loved her as a friend, even when he was pissed off at her.
He recognized the irony of it; 'it' being his unrequited love for Buffy. Despite what she and Willow thought, he knew that Willow had feelings for him, just like his feelings for Buffy. Willow loved him, he loved Buffy, Buffy loved Angel. "Now, if Angel would just start obsessing over Willow, we could have the makings of an emmy-winning sitcom on our hands!" he thought. "Or, at least, we could all go on Springer!
So, he knew Willow loved him, but he was too much of a coward to confront her about it. He was bitterly ashamed by that sometimes. He had felt like dirt when Willow had caught him kissing Cordelia the first time. They still weren't entirely past that, he knew.
It was just, well, he just didn't have desire for her- there was no passion there. He recognized that she could be a beautiful girl; her getup on Halloween- once she had dumped that stupid ghost costume- had been hot! No, it wasn't a lack of attractiveness on her part, and he did love her so- as a friend and sister. He had almost made a stupid mistake on the night Buffy got back from he summer in LA. He had almost kissed her. He knew it was what she wanted, and he hurt to see her sad, even if he was the cause. It would have been a mistake, though. It would have been a lie, and it would have ruined their friendship, which he cherished more than anything- even more than Buffy.
Willow was his salvation in this crappy town, and from his crappy parents. She had saved his life a million times before Buffy had ever showed up. He loved Buffy with his whole heart, but he loved Willow with his whole soul. Too bad his fear kept him from telling her the truth. He was afraid he would hurt her so bad that it would ruin their friendship.
After the Cordelia thing, and the Oz thing- "Whatever happened to that guy anyway?" Xander wondered, sidetracked for a moment. Anyway, after the love spell nightmare it seemed that Willow was 'over' him. Still, it would probably have been better if he'd just 'fessed up in the first place- all that other stuff came close to making her disown him anyway. But now things between him and Willow seemed to be back on track. Mostly.
All that thinking brought him back to the original subject- he wasn't as clueless as they liked to think. He noticed Willow looking at Buffy the same way she used to look at him. With that moon-eyed stare. His heart had been wounded at the thought of poor Willow, longing after the slayer. "First off, Hello! Been there, done that. Known that pain *intimately*. Pretty, it ain't," he thought. Slayer rejection was a country-music kind of pain; horrifying and debilitating, except with less twangy, yodelly bits, and almost no steel-guitar.
Yesterday, though he noticed something. That blush Buffy had had when he mentioned a camera after their 'sleepover with weapons thing.' And last night- that horrible night- Willow had called him late to tell him Buffy had saved Giles, and was staying the night with her. "Twice in two nights Buffy and Willow had sought comfort in each other's arms. For the whole night.
Something was going on. Willow was definitely crushing on Buffy. Once Xander got past the shock of Willow showing a sudden interest in girls, he had to admit that at least she had good taste in them. Now, Buffy seemed to be getting much closer to Willow. Did she have feelings for his bestest buddy in the whole world? Frankly, he would more surprised to find that Buffy liked girls than he was at Willow liking girls- Buffy seemed to be pretty aggressively into boys, "Especially big, dumb, brooding, mysterious types," he grumbled.
He knew Willow would be afraid to tell him that she liked girls in general, but Buffy in particular. She probably thought he would be mad at her, or call her a pervert or something. Which, by the way, is exactly what her parents would probably do if they ever found out.
"Poor Willow," he thought wistfully.
From himself, however, there would be no recriminations whatsoever. First of all, he really wanted Willow to be happy. There were times when he wished that he could have been the one... when he wished that he did feel passion for her. God knows she deserved to be loved. If a woman made her happy- truly happy, so be it. If it was Buffy, well that was good for both of them. They were both loyal, they were already friends... he loved them both... "Hell of a lot better than shacking up with a damned vampire!" he thought bitterly.
Xander felt like, if he couldn't have Buffy- and it seemed that that was the unfortunate case- he'd rather see her with Willow than with some guy that wasn't him.
Besides, thinking of the two of them together would fuel his fantasies for years! "What can I say?" he thought. "I'm a red-blooded male- the thought of two sexy women together? No badness there!"
Xander spent the remainder of second period imagining his two best friends in the world locked in a passionate- read: 'naked'- embrace.
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