RE: [buffyloveswillow] FIC: Everything Fades In Time (1/1)

["Bill LaBarbera" <asagiri@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Kimber,
It was incredibly dark and well-written. It makes you think about the
wallls we all build around ourselves and how they got there.

Bill

-----Original Message-----
From: Kimber [mailto:kacoe@xxxxxxx]
Sent: Tuesday, August 01, 2000 12:19 AM
To: SapphicSlayer; BuffyLovesWillow
Subject: [buffyloveswillow] FIC: Everything Fades In Time (1/1)


TITLE: Everything Fades In Time (1/1)
AUTHOR: Kimber (kacoe@xxxxxxx)
DISCLAIMER: All BTVS characters belong to Joss Whedon and Mutant Enemy.
SUMMARY: A very dark piece. Willow runs into an old friend.
SPOILERS: none
DISTRIBUTION: The usual suspects. Anyone else, e-mail me please.
AUTHORS NOTES: This is probably the darkest piece I've ever done. It's
about as far
away as I've ever gotten from my usual writing style and feedback would be
greatly
appreciated.

-----------

Had you asked me five years ago why I was here  I wouldn't have answered
you. " I " in
the sense of me, who I am now and what I've become.

This is every bar in every town in every state in every frickin country in
the whole wide
world. There's bad wood paneling on the walls, a dart board in the back,
two pool tables
and a jukebox that plays music from an era I never lived in  and some
people just want to
forget.

The stench of stale beer and staler cigarettes hangs in the air like some
oppressive
prison guard just daring you to breath so he can reach down your throat and
squeeze your
lungs till you choke  or just don't care anymore.

I'm nursing my whiskey that stopped tasting like whiskey and more like shoe
leather a few
glasses ago. There's another woman at the end of the bar and she's got that
look. The
look of despair and terror and fear and disgust and 'bartender  set me up
again', echo's
through my ears and I know. I know. I know. The tilt of her head, the
straightness in
her back and the draw of her breath  I know it all.

And I drink down my shoe leather to try and forget.

Diving back, back, backward in time to a place like this only not. Replace
the jukebox
with a band, and the smell of beer and cigarettes with the scent of little
boys trying to
get into pretty girls pants  Replace the feeling of depression with sexual
tension and
you're there and God damn what a glorious time my youth was. Misspent and
misused and
wasted and worn down and she looks over and my heart is in my ears and she
say, 'Hey, it's
been a while.'

And my world just crashes down to the sea like a frickin plane with one
wing. I'm
spiraling out of control. Damn her beauty and grace and to hell with those
eyes that bore
right through me and I say, 'yeah. It has.' I swallow down the words
"fucking coward"
like I did the shoe leather. Sometimes my inner voice really pisses me off.

Her eyes are on me, through me in me like a God damn drill and I can hear
the whirring
behind my eyebrows and feel the screwing up and down my spine and she's
about to speak 
but stops  and just smiles that Goddamn smile I got lost in such a long
time ago. It's
my shit luck the map I made to get outta that smile is probably in a dump
somewhere under
a dirty diaper and a discarded newspaper and I sigh and think to myself,
"Ain't life a
bitch."

'You hungry?' she says and I laugh to myself. Christ, hungry for what?
Life, love and
the pursuit of some sort of socially acceptable happiness? Hungry for you
and those
cupids bow lips I used to have wet dreams about and your skin that must be
as smooth as
silk and I'm damned again when I can't tear myself away from that smile. I
shrug
noncommittally and say, 'sure'.

"Fucking coward."

So we're headed down the street and fall in step like old times  her on the
right and me
on the left. Isn't that just the way life goes sometimes? She's the
beautiful right to
my awkward left, the blonde perfection to my red nightmare and everything
that's cool and
Chosen and so right in the world. She's everything I'm not.

'You coming?'

I'm broken from my inner banter by her smile and her perfect blonde head
cocked to the
side looking at me quizzically. Off in dreamland again while she's tryin'
to steer me
'round the curves. I turn and nod like one of those toy dogs you see in
people's cars and
follow her in.

A waitress takes down the order we're placing from the greasy menus that
have probably
seen better days. She's got that far off look in her eye and I know all too
well what
she's thinking; "Anywhere but here,". Right on sister. She nods and heads
off to the
kitchen like the trained dog she was never meant to be and I wonder if the
coffee will be
good cause the atmosphere is lacking and company, well, the company used to
be my world.
Isn't it funny how everything seems to shrivel in time?

'How have you been?' she finally asks with that same smile plastered on as
her perfect
pink nails curl around the coffee cup that's just arrived.

'Guess I've been better but I really can't complain.' Is my reply. I could
complain but
what would be the use? She'd give me a sympathetic smile and nod in all the
right
places. I can't believe people get paid to do that shit. Nod and smile,
nod and smile.
Smile, nod and frown just for a change of pace.

'What brings you here?' I ask. From the slight change that moves across her
face I know
what it is before she even gets a chance to answer.

'Nest. Not too far from here. Thought I'd wait till the sun was high and
burn them out'

Christ, how sadistic is that? Burn the undead bastards outta their home
without a
warning. Reminds me of someone else but not her. Someone else that could
ignite my blood
and make my feel alive. If I ever said that out loud I'd probably drop dead
on the spot.
I was never one for admitting my desires nor acting on them. "Fucking
coward" my inner
voice chimes in. I smirk. It's right.

She sees the look on my face and know I know it's, 'Faith taught me that.
The element of
surprise. Never let them see you coming.' She smiles when I nod my head in
expected
recognition of the sociopath bitch that tried to gut me like a fish.

Isn't it funny how you never forget some things? I remember the smell of
the knife she
held to my throat. It smelled like warm metal and the scent was mixed in
with blood from
a cut on my head, warm musty books her sweat and vanilla. She had the nerve
to wear
something as sweet smelling as vanilla on a night when I almost got gutted
like a fish.
The nerve of some people.

'Come with me.' Rolls off her tongue and out of her mouth as if it's an
invitation to some
exclusive Hollywood party. I look up at her like she has two heads and I'm
desperately
trying to ignore the third and she has all the guts and gall and nerve to
say it again and
make it familiar this time. 'Come with me, Will,' she pleads.

I nod my head like that damn plastic dog again and my inner voice kicks its
feet up onto
its desk with a wry smile and says "You'll *always* be a fucking coward."

We pay for the coffee, splitting the bill as always and on the way out I
smile at waitress
no-name and whisper 'Anywhere but here'. She nods in understanding. Then
the bell calls
her back to the kitchen like the trained dog she was probably always meant
to be.

The nest is close and I realize that it's about four blocks from my
apartment. The damned
are everywhere and no where, I guess. She pushes though the makeshift door
like a bullet
out of the barrel of a gun and I notice two things.

The first is that she was actually looking forward to this. . .I'll be
damned. Well, not
really. It shouldn't surprise me that there's a Slayer who has a lust for
blood. Or
would that be dust?

The second is that the attack, the barging though the door much in the style
of John
Wayne, the look in her eyes and the way she plays with them before burying
the stake in
their pathetic polyester shirts. I feel the wool being pulled away from my
eyes and I
finally see. . .she actually enjoys this. I watch her dust the last two
stragglers and
there's a glint in her eye I haven't ever seen before. It must be the
thrill of the
Slaying, the adrenaline rushing though her body and the hot blood pumping in
her veins.

She saunters over towards me and she's breathing a little heavy and she
says, 'Nothin like
a good slay.' And smiles that damn smile again.

'I'll bet,' I reply with a bit of sarcasm and a whole lot of "not
interested".

She looks though me and sees something. 'What happened to you?' She asks.

'You're kidding right?' Is all the lameness I can come up with. Damn her
for twisting my
tongue into knots that boy scouts would be proud of.

'Will'

'Don't!' I warn her a little loudly and a whole lot pissed off. She has to
do this now
after five years? She couldn't have done it two years ago, or three or four
or. . .I feel
her hands on my shoulders and I give her a look that tries to convey the
disgust and
desire I feel all at once. I think she gets the message cause she backs off
a few paces.
I mentally give my inner voice a dirty look and say "Who's the fucking
coward now?"

It doesn't respond.

We're walking now like nothing happened. I shouldn't have expected any less
but a little
more than this had crossed my mind. She just lets it go Just. Like.
Everything. Else.
We're turning now away from the planned route and I stop in my tracks. This
was not what
I was expecting. Not at all.

'What?' she turns to me with the confusion squarely planted in the irises of
her eyes.
She still doesn't get it after all this time.

'I think we're done here.' I say with not enough conviction and way too
much emotion in
my eyes. Damn her.

She walks up to me determinately all fire and brimstone streaming off of her
expression.
'We've only just begun.'

There's something there I never noticed before. Desire. I'll be damned yet
again. If I
had a dollar for every time she damned me into this little box filled with
unchecked
emotion and yearning and fantasy's and well, there goes that train of
thought. I get
derailed by her impatience and her hand firmly grabbing mine and yanking me
into a house.
I was about point out the fact that we were breaking and entering when I
notice
something. A picture of the gang in the hallway. She had this planned all
along.

'Damn it, Will.' She hisses out. And there it is. Anger, seething hatred,
love,
confusion and remorse all balled up and constricted and tied into. . .Three.
Little.
Words.

'Damn you,' I say. 'Damn you and your self righteousness and your self
pity and your
running away. Look at yourself before you go condemning me to even more
hell than I'm
already in.'

She grabs me and shakes me. Hard. As if shaking me would get rid of all
the. .
.everything. Get rid of all the everything. I feel the walls crumble just
a little bit
and my resolve weakens. She's the only one. The only one who can do this
to me and my
convictions and beliefs and the walls I worked for five long years to build.
Brick by
brick by brick by. . .

Her hands are in my hair now and she's a breath away. Her forehead presses
against mine
and I can feel her hot breath caress my cheeks and it cools the burning
tears that began
to roll down my cheeks God knows when. I grab onto her biceps for fear of
falling,
tumbling, soaring into those eyes that melt my resolve every time. Those
eyes that are
trying to bore into mine. I know because I can feel them through my
eyelids.

'Will,' she breaths out like some sort of desperate prayer to some God who
stopped
listening so long ago. 'Don't shut me out.' Her hands travel out of my
hair and down to
my cheeks and her thumbs are caressing away the tears that I've shed. I
want to tell her
it's useless and that she's just making a path for more to come but it's of
no use now.
Nothing is.

'Aren't you sick and tired of being sick and tired?' She whispers out. The
words almost
fall away before reaching my ears. Almost. I know what she means all too
well. Tired of
waking up feeling like you're living in someone else's skin. Sick of
walking down the
street and being just another helpless hopeless face in the crowd. There
was a time when
I was someone, when my life meant something but now. . .Now it's slipped
away with the
years and the words that were never spoken and the promises we never kept. .
.she never
kept. . . still ring hollow in my mind. 'I'm tired of the lies. Five years
of lies and
I'm finally done with it all.' She whispers just before tilting her head,
'but not done
with you,' and pressing her lips against mine with a passion I thought
trickled out of her
such a long, long time ago, 'Never done with you.'

I finally screw up the courage from deep down inside of myself to look at
her and I see
she is crying too. Buffy was always good for some tears but now they're
streaming down
her face like there's an endless supply behind those big hazel eyes. My
hands get a mind
of their own and now it's me wiping away the wetness from under her eyes
knowing that
there will be more. So. Much. More. And yes, her skin is just as silky
as I imagined
it.

I realize all at once or maybe not even at all exactly what we're doing and
how I'm
touching her and there's a faint tingle still on my lips from where she
pressed hers to
mine and I back off.

'Now who's running away?' She bites out angrily.

'I. . .,' the words fall away. There's really not much I can say at this
point to help
or hurt the situation any. I drop my head and grab for the table to steady
my legs that
have suddenly taken on the consistency of jell-o. 'It doesn't matter,' I
say in
resignation. 'Nothing much matters anymore.'

My inner voice does a little jig and grins manically at the fact that once
more, one more
time in one more little significant way I turn out to be exactly what it
expected. A
"fucking coward."

She turns away and is retreating from me the way I ran screaming from her so
many years
ago. She didn't run away, I did. I ran from all the passion and promise
and
possibilities. I just can't let her go. I'll never be able to let her go
again after I
kick my brain into fifth gear and string 5 coherent letters together to form
the lifeline
I've been searching for all this time. 'Buffy.' I reach for her and pull
her to me and
hold on as if my life depended on it. Somehow it does.

I can still smell the stink of stale beer and staler cigarettes in her hair
but it doesn't
matter now. There's a scent there deep down that is distinctly and forever
Buffy. Years
of oppression and depression and desire well up inside of me all at once and
I nip at her
neck and suck on her earlobe and my hands are suddenly everywhere and no
where all at
once.

She turns around as if suddenly aware that I may actually be in this because
I want it. .
.need it. 'Need you,' she manages to say in between searing kisses.

We make it as far as the living room and she pulls me down to the ground
with her and now
*her* hands are everywhere and I can tell she wants me. I can feel it
through the
camisole top she loves to wear without a bra, smell it when I dip my head
down to trail
light kisses across her taunt abdomen and I hear it in the moan that escapes
her throat
when the zipper of her leather pants are finally down and my fingers crawl
into the
promised land.

I'm on her, in her, all over her and words don't do justice to the tiny
space between
emotion and response or the line between need and desire. I realize
suddenly that the two
of us are moaning and as she arches into my hand I clamp down on hers and
wonder only for
a nanosecond exactly how it got there and when.

Short intermission for the clothing that's left clinging to our bodies and
she's kissing
me in a way that I'd only dreamed of and never dared to think would come
true. I push
into her once more with delicate fingers but this time it's slow and
deliberate and the
look on her face tells me everything. She's always wanted it all along.

'Will,' she breathes out between the moaning and writhing and gasping for
air.

I kiss her and my hips pick up the slow rhythm her fingers are tapping out
between my legs
and her eyes. . .her eyes betray the sureness of her touch and I can tell
she's deathly
afraid of waking up any moment with her own hand in the cookie jar and I
whisper, 'It's
always only been you,' and I kiss her chastely and the fright and fear
slowly fades from
her eyes. 'Even though we've never done this before,' I kiss her again
with more
certainty and more passion and a little bit more tongue, 'You could always
make me come.'

The words hit her like a mac truck and she increases the pace and so do I
and she's more
ready than she's ever been. She says my name, moans *my* name and that's
all the
incentive I need to break though the walls we built against each other. We
reach the
summit together and I cry and cry and cry. . .and my walls crumble to dust
the way only
the Slayer was capable of.

And for once my inner voice just sits back and grins.

------

The first rays of the morning sun beat though the curtains and dance across
my lovers
back. Contentment and exhaustion sent us both into a peaceful rest after
making love over
and over again.

The scars are still all across her back from when she was captured and
tortured for weeks
by a demon with an S&M obsession. Everything fades in time I guess, even
these scars I'm
tracing with my finger along her back. It all fades in time.

I barely rested in the weeks that she was missing. Sleep and food and drink
were just
pesky things that got in the way of my seeing her face again. Once she was
found. . .it
was as if she were lost. Something died inside of her in the weeks she was
gone and once
I found her I lost her all over again bit by bit and piece by piece in the
days leading up
to her leaving. Until there was noting left. Till now.

Now she stirs under my touch and rolls over and gives me the most curious
look of
confusion, then understanding then fear. I bend down and try to convey
everything and
nothing all at once with the morning kiss I've always dreamt of giving her.
I pull away
and look at her and I think she understands. Everything fades with time.

'Got anything to drink?' She mumbles through the haze of just waking.

'Sure. Orange juice okay?'

She smiles and says, 'I was thinking more along the lines of whiskey.'

I touch her cheek and brush some errant hair away from the face I will never
get enough
of. 'I think we've both done enough forgetting, Will. Now is the time to
remember.'

She smiles a little sadly and nods her head almost imperceptibly. 'I
thought I could
forget, but I couldn't. Every time I closed my eyes I saw your face.'

I know the feeling. 'Do you hate me?' I ask for some unknown reason. Hate
me for not
finding you soon enough and letting you slip away from me and hate me for
letting you get
captured in the first place. Despise me for not protecting you the way I
always swore I
would. Disgusted by me because I didn't have the guts to tell you how I
wanted you for so
long such a long time ago. After all this, I still need to know.

'Yes' she softly replies. 'But I just can't stop myself from loving you
too.'

And maybe, just maybe. . .that's the way it should have been all along.

~*FINIS*~

--
Your humble bard,
~~Kimber

::: I WALK, I TALK, I SHOP, I SNEEZE :::
E x q u i s i t e + C o a l e s c e n c e
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* Member #10 of THE Citzens of Kane - I have Christian's tousled hair on
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