by AntigoneUnbound » Tue Jan 07, 2003 10:47 pm
Gods Served and Abandoned
Part 6
Disclaimers: Joss, Marni, and ME own these characters, apparently having learned the price of everything but the value of nothing.
Spoilers: Up to season 5. I’ve played slightly with the timing of a certain Big Bad’s appearance, with some implications for Dawn’s entrance.
Rating: R for now; if it changes, I’ll give heads-up.
Distribution: Sure, with acknowledgement.
Feedback: Even more sure! Bring it on!
Thoughts are in italics—kinda like this, which I’m thinking as I write.
This chapter's kind of intense, for those who like advance notice of such things.
*****
"Baby, I’m so sorry you had to go through that alone. I just wish I’d been with you when you came out of class."
They were curled up in bed, Tara’s head resting on Willow’s shoulder. Willow was struggling to serve the presently-opposing gods of both comforting Tara and ripping Donnie’s throat out.
"Willow, sweetie, you can’t be with me all the time. And you shouldn’t be," she added, interrupting Willow’s protests. "In the first place, it’s not healthy, and in the second place, we’d never get any work done because we’d be making love all the time."
"Leaving aside the first argument, explain to me the problem with the second." She felt Tara smile against her skin.
"I’m not afraid of Donnie physically attacking me in front of other people. He’s a coward at heart, I know that. Remember how he reacted when Xander made fun of his beard at the Magic Shop? God, I wish I had his expression at that moment on film."
"Yeah, it was pretty classic. But Tara, are you sure? He seemed so…ugly when he was here. And from what you’ve told me," she added tentatively.
"He’s definitely not here to enroll in a social work program, that’s for sure. I just wish I knew what he was up to."
Willow paused, then decided to give voice to what she’d been thinking about for much of their time in bed.
"Baby, why don’t you talk much about Donnie? I mean, I get that he’s probably a really painful subject for you; that’s pretty clear. It’s just that…well, we tell each other everything about every other topic under the sun, and I don’t want to seem pushy or be all Intrusive-Girl, but it seems like he was definitely a big part of your past and, well…" She trailed off, hoping that some combination of words in the preceding avalanche had made it to the bottom of the mountain relatively intact.
She felt Tara shift slightly. It would have been imperceptible to anyone who didn’t know the movements of that wondrous form so thoroughly.
"Willow, I don’t mean to be all avoidant about Donnie. I just…I hate talking about him." She sighed. "Remember how you told me about reading ‘Bambi’ and taping the pages shut where the fire starts and Bambi’s mom dies? So that you could just kind of skip that part without even having to turn those pages? Well, that’s how I feel about Donnie right now. I want him out of my life—not just the present; I want to pretend he never even existed. And I know I can’t, but sweet goddess, it’s so tempting to try."
Willow pulled Tara closer, knowing that Tara would tell her if she needed less body contact right now. "I get that, Baby. And I don’t want to be Intrusive-Girl, even if it does come with a really cool cape." She heard Tara’s smothered giggle against her chest. "I just wanna say that I know Donnie did some pretty awful stuff, and nothing you could tell me would make me flinch, or look away. OK?"
Tara was silent for so long that Willow began to wonder if she’d said something terribly wrong. But then her girl pulled back slightly, just enough to look Willow in the face.
"I love you, Willow Rosenberg, in case you aren’t aware of that fact. I love you in languages that haven’t been written yet."
And then they curled back around each other, each form finding the niches of the other in ways that made separation seem like the most ridiculous of notions.
*****
A teenager…She’d crossed that threshold and there was no turning back. Not that she really wanted to, she realized. Each year brought her a little closer to leaving home and going to college. Donnie would probably never leave Cold Springs, or even their house, and that was fine with her. She’d be glad to do all the leaving herself.
She would leave her father, who was always angry but never really let her know why, so that she stumbled through the days trying to avoid one transgression only to commit another—all the while making guesses as to the code she was breaking. She would walk out the door knowing that if she tried to hug him, he’d stiffen up; and if she left without hugging him, he’d call her ungrateful. She’d visit only when she had to, instead inviting her mother to visit her as often as she could come. Maybe, when Tara was away at college, her mother would decide to leave this man who seemed to grow colder by the year. When Tara had learned "the facts of life," she’d been unable to stop herself from thinking, just once, about her own parents. Those two had actually…done that? At least twice, apparently. They still shared a room, but Tara could barely imagine them having even the most utilitarian kind of sex, much less actually making love for the pleasure of being with each other. Then again, it was hard to imagine how any woman could enjoy…that.
And Donnie…getting away from him would be the best of all, she decided. She hated the way he looked at her, called her ugly and fat and said that her parents were always talking about what a disappointment she was. She knew that last part wasn’t true, not all of it at least, because the one thing she did know was that her mother loved her. Sometimes she wasn’t sure she really deserved it, but it was the truth beside which all other truths dimmed: her mother loved her fiercely.
Donnie, though—Donnie seemed to loathe her to his core. And as painful as his words were, they didn't terrify her as much as his fists, that always found an opening no matter how she curled in on herself; or his hands, that slapped her and yanked her hair and squeezed her arm so tight that it bruised. And then there were his eyes, that seemed to follow her everywhere so that she never really felt safe unless she was within arm’s reach of her mother. She never knew what he was thinking, or what he was planning. And she never, ever knew why he hated her so much.
Only once, years ago, had she threatened to tell her mother about his beatings. His eyes had narrowed until only their inky darkness had been left. "You do, Tara, and I will kill you. I swear to God, I’ll kill you." And then his fist had landed in her stomach and she had lain, doubled up and crying softly, on the hard ground behind the barn.
She wondered if her mother knew. Donnie always managed to place the bruises strategically, such that there was rarely any evidence to anyone else, even their mother. Even so, her mother had asked her about Donnie on several occasions.
"Sweetie, you know you can tell me if you ever get hurt, right? You know nobody’s allowed to treat you bad, includin’ your brother."
"I-I know, Mom. I’m OK."
Had her mother believed her? She suspected that she was a terrible liar, but she desperately needed that skill in those moments, because she didn’t for a moment think that Donnie wouldn’t do exactly as he had threatened to do. Her mother was strong, and loved her like a lioness with her cub, but Donnie had the force of hatred on his side, and Tara knew that he would find a way, some way, to get to her. Hatred always found a way. Love looked for the best in people, and wanted to believe they’d learned their lesson, but hatred waited until the guard left the door for the briefest of seconds and then it killed you in the room where you were supposed to be safe.
She turned toward the mirror, torn between wanting to see the dress clearly and wanting to avoid gazing upon herself. She did have pretty eyes, she could give herself that. But everything else, including the new curves that were appearing on her body, seemed cause for disappointment and shame.
She squared her shoulder, preparing to join the others downstairs.
She wouldn’t always be here.
*****
Later that afternoon, Willow and Tara went over to Giles’ house to get the latest on Glory’s impending debutante ball.
"Do you want to tell the others what happened?" Willow asked softly as they approached the heavy wooden door.
"Want to? No. Think I probably should? Yes." Tara managed a small half-smile. "How ’bout a kiss?" she asked almost shyly, turning to face Willow.
"For moral support?"
"I was thinking more for yummy Willow-goodness, to be honest. But whatever gets the job done."
"How about we just assume you have a coupon with no expiration date on it, shall we? Good for one Willow-kiss, any time, any reason. No purchase necessary."
"Though we do have the…shopping trip ahead of us," Tara reminded her, arching her eyebrows in what could only be described as a leer.
"Anything to support the economy," Willow agreed, before leaning in to kiss her girl tenderly.
They were, at this moment, joined by Anya and Xander, approaching the door.
"See how Willow keeps her lips full when she kisses Tara? And looks as if she’s using her tongue less intrusively? I’d like you to try that, Xander."
"And I’d like to try going one full day without peering at the ground, searching in vain for a huge, gaping hole to swallow me up. But that wacky sit-com ‘Life with Anya’ apparently couldn’t spare the money for an editor." Xander sighed and smiled weakly.
As the four of them entered the warm house, Willow noticed Tara hang back slightly, just enough to whisper something in Anya’s ear. Whatever the murmured confidence, it made Anya smile with delight. Must be a spell for generating instant cash, Willow mused.
Grabbing a scone from a platter on the table, Willow leaned over and asked softly, "What did you tell Anya just now?"
Tara grinned with only the slightest trace of self-consciousness. "I told her that you really did keep your lips soft and full, and that you used your tongue purposefully, not randomly." Willow felt the temperature in the room head toward the triple digits. That’s funny—I never knew Giles lived in Hell. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Anya looking at her encouragingly, and with a seeming new respect. She nodded weakly, as Anya gave her an enthusiastic thumbs-up.
Buffy was already there, as was Dawn. In response to Willow’s questioning look, Buffy explained, "Mom has an opening tonight at the gallery. It was too late to get a sitter, so I brought Dawn with me."
"Hey Dawnie," Tara said warmly. Willow grinned to herself at the sight. It was obvious that Dawn adored Tara, and conversely. The difference is that Tara doesn’t have a huge crush on Dawn, Willow thought, watching them hug. She’d teased Tara about it once, but Tara insisted that Dawn looked at both of them like older sisters.
"Yeah, most girls look at their older sisters and blush like crazy whenever they see them. At least, the girls who end up on Jerry Springer."
Now, she stepped forward and hugged Dawn herself, and then draped a proprietary arm over her girlfriend. Why don’t you just urinate around her to mark your territory? She found her actions amusing, but nevertheless kept her arm where it was. No use giving the kid any false hope…
Buffy looked at both of them, a question within her glance. Tara squeezed Willow’s hand, and then said, "Actually, before we get started, I should probably let you know something."
"You’d like to explore bisexuality?" Xander’s expression—half joking, half hopeful—was quickly rendered fully immobile by Willow’s hard smack on his arm.
"I’d rather plunge toothpicks into my eyeballs," Tara replied, smiling at him sweetly. Then she looked at Willow briefly, gathering her confidence and trying not to be rattled by the eyes that were locked on her. She rarely commandeered floor time at Scooby meetings; clearly, everyone knew that something was amiss.
"Um…My brother Donnie seems to have a hard time taking ‘no’ for an answer," she managed, her smile faltering. "He drove back to Sunnydale sometime yesterday and he caught me coming out of class this morning."
Four voices formed a jumbled chord.
"Whatever could he be planning to do?"
"Did he think we were joking at the Magic Box?"
"…not lay a hand on you, Tara!"
"…crawl under his eyelids and melt his brain from the inside out."
Tara held up a hand, and the others restrained themselves to a manageable array of threatening poses and glares.
"I’m not sure what he thinks he can do, but we’re taking lots of precautions. I won’t be alone with him; I already told him I won’t talk to him. I can’t imagine he’ll try to grab me by my hair and drag me back to the family cave."
"Just the same, Tara, this must be disconcerting to you, to say the least." Giles looked at her with concern.
"And to say the most, it must be wigging you out," Xander offered. Tara smiled at both of them.
Dawn stepped forward, shifting her weight from one foot to the other. "Tara, if you’re ever at your place by yourself and you’re scared, or even a little, you know, disconcerted" (here she rolled her eyes meaningfully), "I’d be glad to come over and stay with you. You know, until Willow gets back," she added, catching Willow’s arched eyebrows.
"That’s really sweet of you, Dawn, but I don’t think it’ll come to anything like that. But maybe I could call you tomorrow, just to check in and get some moral support." Dawn beamed as Willow ascended into yet another niche in the heavenly mansion that was her love and admiration for Tara. She doubts her own voice so much, and yet she always knows just what to say to make other people feel good.
"I just thought you should know, in case anything comes up. Andthank you all, again, for s-standing up for me at the Magic Box."
"He’ll still have to go through me," Dawn said threateningly, crossing her arms defiantly over her ‘Hello Kitty’ t-shirt.
"And me," Willow piped up—unnecessarily, she realized, as Tara looked at her with a faintly teasing grin.
"Now—let’s get back to the more p-pleasant subject of Glory, shall we?" Tara had had her fifteen minutes of Scooby fame and didn’t really care for more. She saw Buffy looking at Dawn, arms still crossed, with an affectionate smile. Sothat’s what an older sibling who loves their little sister looks like, she thought with a sudden pang. I always wondered.
"Do we have any more information on this Key thingy?" Xander asked.
"The ‘Key thingy,’ to use Xander’s technical language, appears to be utterly imperative to Glory’s success," Giles replied.
Willow turned to the Watcher. "You still think Glory’s trying to open some portal?"
"Yes, I do. That’s what all of the available texts suggest…Balthazar’s Oracle, The Scrolls of Timenthus—"
"Demon Portals for Dummies," Xander interjected.
Giles looked up in irritation. "Well, Xander, since you almost certainly have everything related to the intellectually challenged, I would expect you to have located that particular reference."
"Hey, that’s sorta harsh," came the wounded response.
"As is Glory, which is why I would ask that we concentrate on discerning her true nature, as well as the nature of the Key." Giles looked only slightly penitent; then again, so did Xander.
"But we don’t know what the Portal opens to, right?" Tara asked, a slight frown furrowing her brow. "I mean, it could be a demon dimension, or another Hell-Mouth…Anything, really."
"Tara’s right, I’m afraid," Giles nodded slowly. "There’s maddeningly little information about Glory, beyond the apocryphal and the wildly conjectural."
"And he just said…?" Xander whispered to Willow.
"Lots of wild rumors; few hard facts." She was accustomed to being Xander’s personal thesaurus.
"We do, however, have one new piece of information regarding the Key," Giles was saying.
"Which is?" Buffy asked, leaning forward intently.
"It appears to be in human form."
There was a brief silence, while everyone tried to wrap their minds around this concept. Some, like Willow and Tara, had mind to spare while Xander, in particular, had trouble making his ends meet.
"So the Key is actually a human?" he asked, perplexed.
"It would appear so, though this represents a transformation of sorts. That is, the Key did not originate as a human being. It appears to have its genesis as a kind of energy, or mystical essence. The transformation into human form appears to have taken place relatively recently; probably within the last year."
"Why would it be turned into a human?" Tara asked.
"Probably to hide it. There’s some indication that a group of monks actually possessed the Key and effected the change in order to keep Glory from finding it and opening this portal."
"God, what would the person look like…somebody who was created to hide something so important from such an evil creature?" Buffy wondered aloud.
"You gotta figure it’s pretty skanky," Dawn replied, almost to herself.
"So our next job is to find the Key before Glory finds it. Because if she can’t find it, she goes home with some nice consolation prizes and leaves us alone, right?" Xander looked around hopefully.
"We should be so lucky," Anya muttered. "Glory seems to have some major anger management issues and she doesn’t seem like the gracious loser type."
"Anya’s right; I suspect Glory will prove to be an indefatigable foe," Giles said slowly. "However, Xander’s point is also well-taken." At this pronouncement, everyone at the table fought the urge to fall out of their seats in a dead faint. "Without the Key, Glory is, in effect, thwarted in her ultimate goal. So yes, we should make every effort to find the Key."
A short while later, as they were leaving, Xander grabbed Anya’s arm excitedly. "Did you hear that? Giles said that my point was well-taken! I have a point, and people should take it well!" Willow suspected that this was the closest Xander had ever come to having a gold star on a school paper. Suddenly, she felt a hand grip her elbow. Turning, she saw Anya smiling at her.
"I’ve always thought that Tara had the loveliest smile, and now I know why. It’s because of your talented mouth! Good for you!" She gave Willow a small but not-painless punch on the shoulder and winked again before heading out into the night.
"Uh, Tara—about your friendship with Anya…"
*****
On her way home later from her evening class, Willow stopped by the Espresso Pump to pick up decaf mochas for both Tara and herself. Tara was at Xander and Anya’s, where Willow would pick her up on her way home. She felt better knowing that Tara wasn’t alone, wasn’t where her wretched brother could find her. How in the goddess’s name do those two share DNA? Maybe a mix-up in the nursery...I should check into that.
Just outside the entrance, she practically dumped both drinks on the stocky figure standing in her path.
"Well look here! If it ain’t Tara’s friend—Willow? Is that it? Yeah, Willow!" Donnie’s voice was loud, and bluff. "I was hopin’ to run into you!"
Willow felt disgust roll up and over her as she took in Donnie’s proximity and his overly-familiar smile. Narrowing her eyes slightly, she asked, "What do you want, Donnie? Tara isn’t with me, and you’re not going to get to her."
Donnie looked at her, his wounded surprise as fake as the plastic flowers in the vases on the tables. "That doesn’t sound very friendly, I gotta say. Why, I just wanna get to know Tara’s friends a little bit; you know, make sure she’s in good hands." He winked at this last part, and Willow felt her stomach lurch.
There is no way this creature can be Tara’s brother. Aloud, she said, "Donnie, I have nothing to say to you. I don’t know why you came back, and don’t give me some bullshit about looking after Tara’s well-being."
"Now that’s some awful rough language from such a pretty girl," he said with mock disapproval, grinning around his words. "I need to look out for Tara. I’m the only brother she’s got."
"Good thing," Willow retorted, unable to stop herself. "Any more and she’d be dead."
The leering grin froze for a moment, and then crept back over the thin lips. "I don’t know what kind of things Tara’s been tellin’ you all, but there’s two sides to every story, at least where I come from."
"And what exactly is the other side to ‘Big brother terrorized his little sister’? ’Cause I’m thinkin’ that’s something only cowards do—at least where I come from," she added sarcastically.
"Now don’t go gettin’ all witchy on me, OK? Don’t cast some crazy spell on me." The grin was back in place, dismissal written in his eyes.
"I don’t need to, Donnie. You’re not worth the energy, and I have better things to do."
"Like my sister?"
Willow froze, choking around her fury. She realized, with utter clarity, that she had never hated another living creature as much as she hated this man-child in front of her. She felt magic roll unbidden to her mind, down her arms and into her fingers. With the flick of a wrist, she thought suddenly, heady with the realization, she could literally obliterate him. Forcing herself to breathe deeply, she steadied herself and then looked him in the eye.
"You are the most pathetic creature I’ve ever seen. How you came to share the same blood and lineage with someone like Tara, I will never, ever understand. Then again, I don’t need to. I know enough to promise you that things will go very, very badly for you if you try to make trouble for her in any way. She has more people here that care for her than she ever had in her so-called home."
Donnie tilted his head, his gaze unreadable. "You threatenin’ me?"
"You pick the verb. As if you’d know what that is," she added with a dismissive nod, and started to step around him.
"You know what I don’t get?"
"Nearly enough sex, I imagine." She watched with pleasure as his face flushed white.
"I don’t get what you see in her. Has she ever told you what she was like, before she came up here?"
"I know everything I need to know about Tara, and I’m sure as hell not looking to you for supporting documentation."
"She tell you about the clothes she wore to school? The ones that Momma made and other kids laughed at?"
My baby, young and perfect, wearing clothes made by someone who lovedher.
"She tell you about sittin’ alone on the bus, every damn day for twelve years almost, ’cause she was too timid to say ‘boo’ to anybody?"
I wonder what she thought of across all those miles? I bet she made up the most wonderful stories.
"She tell you about kids callin’ her lezzie all through school ’cause they found that one love letter she wrote that other girl? Huh?"
Tara wrote a love letter to someone else? Whoever she is, I hope she kept it, because it must have been beautiful. My Tara, with her wonderful words.
"She tell you about never havin’ a date—not to Prom, not to nothing, ’cause she was such a freak?"
And now she’s mine. I get to be the first person—and the last, if I have anything to say about it—to show her how beautiful she is.
Finally, she stared at Donnie, whose grin had been replaced by an angry, downward slash.
"Mostly she tells me how happy she is now, and how glad she is that she got away from the beer-bellied loser with whom she, through no fault of her own, shares a gene pool."
His eyes narrowed to slits, and he leaned closer toward her, raising his hand as he did. Then he seemed to remember his surroundings, and pulled back just slightly.
Following his gaze, Willow whispered venomously, "Do it. Forget about all of them. Pretend it’s just you and some little girl. That’s your style, isn’t it?" Leaning forward herself now, she hissed, "Just do it. Make one move on me, or—Goddess help you—on Tara, and I will fuck with you in ways that defy mortal comprehension."
She pushed around him and left the coffee shop without looking back.
*****
To be continued
Edited by: AntigoneUnbound at: 1/7/03 9:05:46 pm
).
at: 1/6/03 2:34:16 am
Pardon me, in advance ... this feedback is written with Santa Anas blowing stuff all around, making me quite fuzzy headed. 
Donnie really should go back to the hole he come from, over there he can obviously do more to woman then he should according to law. Sunnydale police might not do much about vampire troubles, but domestic problems shouldn't be a problem for them.
Mary. I just gave you a thud. Now I am very stingy when it comes to giving other people 'thuds' but this line weakened my knees so much I just gave in to the pull of gravity.
. Also feeling anxious about him talking about Willow, (hmmm you're definitely getting me worried there). Donnie is obviously still thriving on the fact he thinks he can continue having the power of fear and intimidation over Tara, and he knows exactly how to get to her by mentioning Willow.
wow, mary!! I've been away from the ol' computer for a while, and now I come back to multiple update goodness-- ending with a supremely, awesomely old-school wiccan ass-kicking!! (of the verbal variety.) oh my god that was sexy. willow laying donnie out like that. and it was so great how everything he said to her, trying to make her think less of tara, only made her more dreamy about her lover's childhood...donnie really don't know spit if he thinks anything he could ever say would diminish willow's love for tara. wow, that was great. there were so many amazing moments in this update, I can't list them all (but I'll try!):
sad, but a step on the journey of healing.
. Damn prick! 
