Title: Like A Kiss
Author: psimetis
E-mail: psimetis@hotmail.com
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: vampireW/T


Like A Kiss

(A Wishverse Vignette. The reader must make the assumption that Tara and Vamp Willow had somehow already met, and slept together at least one night.)

* * *

Tara found Willow, but was too late to save the dying girl in the vampire’s arms. In horror, she witnessed the aura of death blossom around the young, female body the vampire held with such intimate possessiveness. The witch had her spell ready--her arm poised to cast. At one potent word, the vampire would be dead.

Tara found that she could not do it. the incantation froze in her throat, and Willow raised yellowed eyes suddenly to her, her mouth bloodied.

Tara abandoned her attempt and fled.

An hour later, she found herself at a well lit and crowded coffee house, on a street that saw night as that eager time for human traffic and human interaction. Numbingly, Tara ordered a tea, and distractedly took the warm ceramic cup to the counter railing that lined the sidewalk. The bright coffee house hummed. Tara clutched her hot cup in both hands and felt the reassuring, casual bump and noise of the living behind her. Now was a good time to let herself cry.

Everyone around her pretended not to notice.

And as Tara let the weight of an innocent stranger’s death bear upon her, of ‘should have’, ‘could have’, and further, harsher self recriminations silently berate her, the witch’s wet eyes noticed a slender, pale hand--silver ringed, and black fingernailed--grasp her warm tea cup and pull it from her.

Tara tensed. She only turned her head slightly, knowing who stood close to her. Willow raised the cup to her lips and cooly blew.

The undead girl’s eyes, in the night play of the cheery street light, were cold, glittery, and amused.

“You tried to kill me tonight,” the vampire whispered, in little girl tones. Her small, pretty mouth, Tara noticed, no longer held the slightest taint of fresh blood.

The witch said nothing; she was beyond self-conscious shame. Three fresh tears fell from her eyes. She was never one for bravado and posturing.

Willow blew on the cup again, the steam jetting slightly in Tara’s direction. The blonde’s eyes flickered and broke her sad gaze with the vampire’s glittery depths.

“Not very Wicca of you,” the witch heard the vampire admonish lightly, and to Tara, the deliberately delivered word sounded almost vaguely like ‘wicked’.

The abrupt push into Tara’s back of a warm body from the heavily trafficked sidewalk startled her slightly. Instantly, she was aware of the pulsing presence of the young couple beside her, the two wrapped up only in each other. Cars with their distinct faced passengers passed before her eyes, the shiny vehicles inching slowly until they could come to rest and relieve their doors of eager, human cargo. On this vibrant street, in the midst of oblivious human company, she stood shoulder to shoulder with a murderous creature of unpredictable night.

It didn’t matter that for one night she had been intimate with this killer of humans; all things can be games with vampires.

And Tara did try to kill her.

“Yes,” Tara finally answered, almost bitterly as she finally wiped at both cheeks with the backs of soft, sweater sleeves. “Hunt and assassinate is not much of a w-witch thing.”

The blonde woman heard a surprisingly endearing giggle. It was such a feminine, engaging sound, yet another paradox from the mouth that had just sucked her latest victim dry. Tara returned her sad regard to that intriguing mouth once more.

She watched the mirth recede from those lips--lips which resumed their enigmatic, mona lisa quirk. Glittery, green eyes leaned in to re-capture her blue eyed gaze. The witch realized; they never did kiss, mouth to mouth, that night.

Willow’s tongue darted out suddenly, testing the tea temperature in the witch’s white cup. She then lapped, swirling her tongue lightly through the warm liquid.

Tara suddenly shuddered. She remembered the intimate touch of that tongue.

Willow slowly removed the cup from her mouth and then gently touched the ceramic’s edge to the watching witch’s lips.

Touched them like a kiss.

Tara’s breath came in short, soft puffs. The heat from the offered cup rose and swirled. She felt the insistent, soft pressure of the cup’s edge against her lips.

Tara’s mouth closed upon the rim of the cup, and she felt it gently tip. She sipped once, swallowed slowly, and then felt the cup tip to her mouth once more. She drank again.

Willow then removed the cup and drank from it once, deeply.

As the vampire set the cup down, she placed it deliberately at the fingers of Tara’s resting hand. Willow’s fluttery, cool touch trailed casually upon that hand, up to the soft sweater cuff, and playfully plucked it. The vampire moved then, circling around the witch, her small, slender hand traveling a territorial familiarity upon Tara’s arm. The vampire ran that hand leisurely across, then down the young woman’s back. The red haired girl finally spoke, as she slowly stroked the blonde like one would a cat.

“Don’t feel guilty for what you’re not capable of,” she heard the little girl tones lilt behind her, and Tara could imagine the tilt of the vampire’s head as her glittery green eyes gazed upon her. Another stroke of that firm, deadly hand.

“Just feel guilty for what you can do....”

Tara felt the press of that hand upon the base of her spine, and the cool touch of lips which suddenly--deliberately--marked promise upon her cheek.

“...but chose not to,” She heard issued upon her skin.

And then the touch of Willow withdrew, into the warm, loud, human crowd, and Tara was alone.

She shuddered. She shut her eyes, and her fingers found the tea cup. She raised it to her mouth and took a drink like benediction. But there would be no redemption in that swallow; this last drink made the sharing of the cup number four. Three sealed a bond between them. Four would complete it. And Tara took upon herself, the guilt of what she can do.

(end vignette)