Across Seasons: Where Dreams Cross

[valyssia]

Summary: Research runs afoul.
Rating: FRT: Contains Some Mature Themes: Parental Supervision Suggested.
Word Count: 1,075.
Commas Brought to You By: Howard Russell.
Pairing: Buffy/Willow.
Continuity: follows the events of Empty Spaces, story three Crossed Wires.

Prompts:	#320 Sculpture at Taming the Muse.
	#080 Warmth from Table B (modified) at Lover100.

Disclaimer: Another day, another…they don’t pay me anything at all. I just do this to amuse myself and you. That’s what allows me and mine to slip under the radar while playing with characters created by those more fortunate than us.

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Where Dreams Cross

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Warm wetness on my lower lip makes me all gooey inside. It’s like I licked it. No big, right?

It wouldn’t be if it had been me. Only it wasn’t. It was her. Holy mother mairzy doats and dozy doats…I still feel her; lingering traces; phantom caresses; warm, wonderful tingles radiating beneath my skin.

Touching her lips has been a goal. One of those unspoken, barely admitable goals that friendship, no matter how strong, wasn’t going to allow. There are lines. Parts that are bad. Funny that the better part of those parts aren’t the parts that modesty covers.

Well, maybe not ‘better.’ Prettier?

‘No,’ I amend, remembering her cleavage, and the unhealthy longing I’ve felt time and again to see and touch and—umm…all of those pretty, always-clothed parts associated with cleavage. Funny how such longings always come with a side order of petrifying fear.

Other parts were safer. The perfect arch of Cupid’s bow, a thin, slender, delicate sculpture, folding back on itself, creasing, dimpling, becoming plump and pouty.

Her lips.

All of her is like that—beautiful sculpture, like Venus de Milo only slenderer, with better cheekbones and better hair and—umm…arms. Or all of her I’ve seen has been like that—what with all of those pesky clothes that somehow, sometimes, probably make her prettier.

I wouldn’t know for sure.

Clothing’s like that. It’s pretty, but mostly all about covering a socially reasonable percentage of those parts. So much so that we wear two, sometimes three layers of clothing over most of our parts—‘double bagging’ the most sensitive parts to protect them and keep the best goodies from falling out. Not that I have that problem. She does.

But then there are her lips. Her beautiful, sensuous, smooth, silky, slippery, sumptuous, perfectly kissable lips. No clothing’s required for those babies. They wouldn’t be so good for talking with clothing, or whistling, or chewing. But that’s bad. Nibbling on them makes them all rough and dry and less kissable.

I slip away into a wonderfully woozy, fantasy/memory thingy. Kissing Buffy. There are other kinds of nibbling that are delightful. And there’s smushing, and stroking, and smacking, not the mean, slappy, unhappy way, but because when you’re kissing, lips make that funny popping sound no matter how hard you try not to.

Everything from my bellybutton up does a fair impression of that light, airy, lighter-than-air thing that happens when you crest a hill on a rollercoaster. With effort, I sober. I could’ve reached out and touched her lips at any time. Any time I wanted to face a funny look, or worse, get cold cocked into next week.

Needless to say, I didn’t. I waited and she…

She tasted different. That was a surprise. We had mochas. I sort of thought she’d taste like chocolate and coffee. She did, but there was more. Something subtle. Sweet and spicy. Not ‘chili’ spicy, but ‘allspice’ spicy. Did she have cinnamon and nutmeg in her coffee?

I don’t think so. So what was that?

The best answer I can find is ‘her.’ Underneath it all, that’s just how she tastes. I reach up to touch my own lips, hoping to renew the fading sensation. It’s gone.

She’s gone. I know she’s gone. I don’t have to open my eyes to know. I don’t want to open my eyes because I don’t want to know that she’s gone.

I’ve been sitting here like an idiot—because what else would I do—with my mouth lolling, half open for—

I don’t know how long.

A long time. Too long I’ve sat here, feeling heavy, dazed and distant…sinking, like this was something from a fairy tale. Her kiss bathed me in warmth and made everything drift away, or made me drift away from everything else. I float, bobbing up and down with the waves, but I’m not wet. I’m comfy and dry, and my head’s hopelessly fuzzy, a lint trap between my ears.

Nothing matters. I drink in the comfort for what feels like forever or half of next week. 

Something crashes. A sound so loud the table rumbles. I snap upright. The table I was slumped over on?  My eyes open and I see Giles and books, lots of books.

That was a book.

The crash was a book. It makes sense. There isn’t much in a library that’s heavy enough to go boom like that that isn’t a book, or something book related. As loud as that was, I expected to see a toppled bookcase.

Giles stares at me bemused. “My apologies,” he says, the book he must’ve fumbled still rests askew half on the table and half in his right hand.

Heat rises in my cheeks before I really understand why. Butterflies muscle their way in to take control of my tummy. Who knew butterflies could be such brutes? I look down. A small puddle of drool wets the table, looking impossibly large. I tear my eyes from that and look around. We’re alone. It’s just us. Was Buffy even here?

Of course she was. I kissed her.

But then where was Giles?

My heart falls. He was here. I remember. I was studying the Mythros Gable. Kids are getting hurt again and we need to know why. Buffy wasn’t here. She breezed through on her way to patrol. Xander went home early. I was here and Giles was here and—

I shoot to my feet. And I had an alarmingly realistic, totally uncensored, semi-lucid dream about kissing my best friend in front of Giles. As I wonder how that must’ve looked, my face finishes its transformation into a brazier, red hot coals replacing my cheeks, flames licking my forehead.

He doesn’t know. How could he?

Thoughts like those are small comforts when faced with the enormity of having such a deeply erotic fantasy anywhere. But here? Right under Giles’ nose? There are certain situations that can suck all of the comfort from the world. I know that now. I could’ve lived without knowing that.

He has to know something. He’s just too polite to—

Carelessly, I shovel my books into my arms, identifying them by their glossy covers, snapping said covers closed, barely watching what I’m doing.

“Willow?” Giles says, concerned, as my autopilot engages. I have to get out of here. “Where are you—?”

I run from the library as fast as my legs will carry me.

Comments

[sparrow2000]

I have nothing insightful to say about this other than the intensity of Willow's dream compared with the reality of her waking up made me want to curl up in a corner - her embarrassment is such a living thing.

"And I had an alarmingly realistic, totally uncensored, semi-lucid dream about kissing my best friend in front of Giles." You just know she's going to have difficulty looking Giles in the face for days afterwards.

I thoroughly enjoyed these snippets of confusion and misunderstanding. The teenage mind is a terrifying thing and you catch that really nicely throughout.

[valyssia]

It might say something about my emotional maturity that I relate to all of these reactions so well. If so, I suspect it's nothing good. *sigh*

Thanks again for taking the time to read and comment, sweetie. *big hugs*

[passionfruit_kisses]

Poor Giles must be so confused. Willow probably felt that every instant of her dream was tattooed across her face, but Giles, caught up in research and regarding them all as children, couldn't or wouldn't see it even it were quite obvious. It's going to be a long time before Willow can be comfortable in the same room as him again, though.

[valyssia]

I think Giles is pretty much suspended in a perpetual state of bemusement early on in the series. It's one of the few things about those episodes that's wonderfully fun to watch.

And yeah, this would mortify Willow. Imagine her avoiding the library, where the books live.