Fic: For Phoen (1/1)

["buffythebushkangaroo" <buffythebushkangaroo@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

(This time it might actually post the subject.) 

For Phoen Dusk,
Who suggested I rivet myself to a keyboard,
And write, well, something.

Maybe I will even elicit an emotion.

Anne-Lise,
Poor muse and storyteller.


--


Some days I feel more than a little like a vase of salt left out in 
the rain. Every day, I'm just a little bit less.

*

As her legs encircle, I am filled with the scent of her. The scent 
of past and present denies all thought of future, and my skills of 
battle are belied by passion. My eyes remain closed, for she has 
instructed me to remain so, and her warmth against my thigh is as 
nothing compared to the feather-light touch of her fingernails 
against my lips. 
In the fullness of night I am forever the hunter, my senses 
keening, eyes always open and scanning. Here, I have no need of my 
senses, for she has senses enough for us both. I am anticipation and 
surrendered hunger, as she is my satiated fulfilment.
Her roaming fingers travel my lips, caress my face, so smooth... 
How many scars lie hidden, deep within? Yet she knows all of them, 
knows how each was earned, how hard-won. Maybe that's why she loves 
me, for her reasons are often as enigmatic as her moods. She moves 
her hands away from my face, down to my neck and shoulders. Here a 
pause as she leans closer, warm breath upon faint perspiration. The 
crown of her head touches upon my chest, and now my breast, and its 
there that she pauses, listening to the thundering drums of our 
hearts.
For a time we do not move, simply to sit, clad only in the gowns of 
our hair, breathing in uneven unison. Her cheek is warm against my 
breast, as she soothes and invigorates my primal heart.
Unbidden I open my eyes, and in the still-gloom of dawn I see her 
looking back at me, her face suffused with joy. I lower my eyes, 
averting my gaze from so close to my soul and tearing away from this 
vision of her beauty. I am forever in awe of her in these moments, 
held captive by fleeting perfection.
She kisses me one last time; I feel the momentary warmth pass 
through the cloak of my hair, feel her whispered breath as it stirs 
the remnants of night, and as she slips from my room to rejoin her 
beloved Tara, I am left alone once more with my tears.

*

My natural inclination to approach my sister seems, somehow, 
dispelled by an unnatural inclination to... what? Gather her in my 
arms, lower my lips to her face and kiss away those soul-wrenching 
tears? To part her trembling lips with my tongue and...
"Dawn?"
I spin around to face Willow staring curiously at me, her unkempt 
hair capturing my panicked attention.
"I was..." What was I doing? Spying upon my sister as she made love 
to the woman I loved too? The woman now standing uncertainly before 
me, whose eyes must surely see right through me? "I was..." And then 
the tears well up, as I knew they would if ever I were to be 
confronted with the truth. I sink to my knees for I have no more 
strength left to stand. My sobs bring both Tara and Buffy rushing to 
my side.
"Wh..." Tara begins.
"Dawn?" Buffy asks.
"...What's wrong, Dawnie?" Tara completes.
But I can't answer. For how can I? How can I admit my burgeoning 
feelings for these women I love, my own sister amongst them?

*

"She's sleeping," Buffy tells us. Tara looks at me so sadly that I 
know what she must be thinking. Surely Buffy would want us out of her 
house, away from her sister, who has been somehow corrupted by our 
midnight solace? 
Buffy looks up at me with tear-reddened eyes. "I don't know what's 
wrong with her," she says. "I... I'm not very... I can't..." Buffy 
seems as though she herself is about to fall apart.
"She's in love," Tara tells her, and I nod.
Buffy's forehead furrows as she tries to comprehend what we're 
saying, reinforcing the perceptions that she too has gained.
"With me?" she asks, and a note of hysteria colours her voice.
I shake my head. "I think maybe with all of us. Certainly with me."
"We should go," Tara states, indicating both herself and I, her 
words as heraldic of change as if uttered by the Metatron itself. 
Buffy, though, shakes her head.
"I can't lose you," she says, quietly, and we all look at each other 
nervously and uncertain.

*

"I just came to see if you were okay, Dawnie." Actually, I'd been 
elected to come in by Buffy and Willow, but I do care so much about 
Dawn.
Dawn turns her almost-lifeless gaze upon me, savaging my soul, 
flaying my tender heart. I sit beside her and tentatively reach 
across the abyss, and she draws me into her arms in a tight embrace 
so unexpected, I'm unable to react. A thousand denials scream in my 
mind, and a thousand thoughts rush through my head, but my almost-
spoken admonition melts into a breathless sigh as she lowers her head 
to plant a kiss against the throbbing pulse of my throat.
Her fingers caress my nape with ruthless tenderness, sending 
languorous waves of delight cascading throughout my body. A sweet 
tongue of fire flickers to life low in my belly, threatening to 
become the roaring blaze that will engulf me in sensual flames with 
each sybaritic stroke of her gentle fingertips.
"No!" I wrench myself from her arms and stumble backward into her 
tiny writing-desk. "D...Dawnie, I c...can't!" Anguish worsens my 
stutter, and my voice becomes lost in a choking sob.
"Don't you love me?" Dawn asks, her voice lost, and miserable, and 
small.
"You know we do." Willow, standing in the doorway, astonished Buffy 
beside her, tears leaving their silvered tracks on her cheeks.

*

Scattered thoughts penetrate the isolated numbness of my mind. 
Foremost amongst them is the stark redness.
Tara's scream fails to evoke a response from me.
Somehow the world has faded to shades of dullest grey, shrouding 
her in wreathes of moonlight.
Tara's second scream brings Buffy running, but I can't drag my eyes 
away from Dawn.
I drift towards her small, frail form, knowing that there's 
probably something I should be doing. Screaming too. Dialling 911. 
Fainting, perhaps.
"Dawn?" Buffy's frantic cry daggers my heart more forcefully than 
any stake she could have wielded.
Dawn's hair is spread outwards like a shimmering fan about her 
shoulders, the deceptive blush of life still a stain upon her pallid 
cheeks, her rosebud lips parted for a kiss she'll never knowingly 
receive.
Tara's last scream fades as the blackness takes me, my mind slowly 
robbed of consciousness yet still somehow focused on the twin pools 
of crimson beside Dawn's wounded wrists.

*

Some say it's only the first love that kills you, that everything 
that may come after will be pale and easy by comparison.
No words, only memories...
Willow came into my room but I wasn't interested, so I guess you 
could say she raped me; I was certainly unwilling. The pain of her 
sucking at my nipples made me yell yet this seemed only to excite 
her. The efforts she made with my numb body surprised me, and the 
warm, slick patch she left on my hip would once have delighted me, 
but instead I was left feeling only nauseated. 
I needed to be alone with my grief, alone in my Hell. But I waited 
until she came, folded her hot damp body around me, and then I slept. 
She was gone when I awoke. 
That was three weeks ago, and yet still I keep going, somehow, in a 
Hell not of my making.

*

END