Forbidden Fruit

by BettySwollocs

Copyright © 2004

toasterjoke@hotmail.com

Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Not mine. Waaaah! Please let me play tho…
Distribution:  The Mystic Muse:  http://mysticmuse.net
Want, Take, Have…
Feedback: Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease!
Spoilers: Post-Chosen.
Dedication: For Rachel. Here's to travel cluedo…
Pairing: Willow/Dawn

I've always been drawn to the forbidden. It's human nature I suppose, to want what one can't have. I, however, seem to possess this trait more than most. If you look close enough this simple fact can account for every major mistake I have ever made.

We'll start simple: Take me and Xander for instance. It's our final year of high school and for the first time in our lives we are both happily attached. Me, to Oz, my first love. Gentle, funny, considerate, the first man to look at me twice with anything more then distaste, or at best indifference in his eyes. We were happy and settled and at last my love life was good. After years of pining for my best friend, I had moved on. Or so I thought. At the same time, Xander was in a relationship with one Cordelia Chase. Queen C. Cheerleader and most popular girl in school. Girls like Cordelia did not date guys like Xander Harris. It just did not happen. Ever. But somehow the self-confessed geek, who hung out in the library and sucked at anything remotely resembling a sport, managed to seduce and enter into a reasonably long term, if somewhat unstable, relationship with this beauty. When a miracle of a relationship like this is formed, not even a fool like Xander would give it up in a hurry. He, therefore, was at his most unattainable. As was I. And I can tell you now, these two facts combined increased my attraction to him tenfold.

To enter into anything with him at this point would destroy two long-term relationships. He was forbidden. He was tempting. So I caved. In fact we both did. Not once even, but repeatedly until we were caught. The first was a fluke, dressed in our prom formalwear together and alone we slipped, and I had my first taste of the forbidden fruit I craved. From then we were hooked. We would sneak off whenever opportunity arose to rekindle the passion we had found. It took Oz and Cordelia simultaneously walking in on us mid-smooch to finally stop us. We came to our senses and returned to our partners begging for forgiveness, Oz took me back, Xander was not so lucky.

This debacle, I consider my first serious mistake. I am in no way saying that before this point I was infallible, but this really mattered. This caused pain in myself and three others. This was truly wrong, and I regret it to this day. That said however, presented with the same situation, the same temptations again, I don't know whether I'd have the will power to correct my mistakes.

The next case in point is my witchcraft. At the very start I learnt witchcraft to be an aid to Buffy and it has been, at times. My motivation however quickly changed. When Giles found out I was practicing the dark arts he panicked. He saw me headed towards the way he used to be in his 'Ripper' days, reckless and corrupt. Consequently he did the only thing he felt he could, he couldn't stop me altogether so he tried to push me in the right direction by hiding and banning texts containing darker magicks. By doing this, he unknowingly pushed me in the exact opposite direction. Dark magic became the forbidden and therefore my temptation. Being as week of will as I am I headed right for this new minefield. But unlike 'The Xander Incident' as I have termed it, my comeuppance didn't come in a matter of days or even weeks, no this one took years. I spiralled downwards into dark magic via several key spells as well as a general wrong attitude over several years. In my third year of college the people around me finally noticed what I had become. A junkie dependant on spells for my next fix causing trouble everywhere I went, messing with forces I had no right to control.

This is when I hit rock bottom. I was forced into magical cold turkey by my friends, a move which I needed more than anything although at times it was difficult to believe. I can confidently inform you that until you have suffered withdrawal from this type of addiction you can have no comprehension of true suffering. The worst of it all was the guilt and the knowledge that all blame lay at my own hands. After days of agony, months of pain and much longer of guilt, nightmares grovelling to all I had hurt, most of all my friends, I recovered. I became independent again, I could get a full night's sleep without waking up screaming and covered in sweat, I could be in a room full of my friends without bursting into tears under the crippling wait of what I had done. I felt human again. I could go on with my life. And I have done. Now it is a year later, after that final stage of recovery and I have resumed a full life with merely unpleasant memories and fading scars to show for this horrendous chapter in my life.

Now I am faced with a whole new temptation not unlike the fist in nature. I have become trapped in a spiral of lust aimed at the most inappropriate of targets. Yet, lust I fear does not do it justice. I am loathed to call it love, yet it goes beyond physical attraction. She captivates me. She consumes eighty percent my mental functions at any given time.

She is breathtakingly beautiful, strong yet gentle and caring, intelligent yet graceful, witty but not cruel with it. She is young and innocent and oh so deliciously corruptible . And she is forbidden. The one person I know that would cause the most trouble for me to become involved with. She is Dawn Summers. Sister of the slayer and my best friend Buffy Summers. A friend who has already forgiven me so much. Daughter of Joyce Summers, more of a mother to me than my biological parents will ever be. And treasured and protected fiercely by both.

Yet I cannot control the feelings I get when in the presence of this young woman. She is seventeen to my twenty-three, and a first year college student to my two years in software development. Oh, and as if she was unattainable enough she has a girlfriend. Jenna. Jenna is a sweet girl who appears to really like, possibly even love Dawnie. Buffy and Joyce are oblivious of this little fact. Dawn told me eight months ago because 'I would understand'. By this she was referring to my bisexuality, and the fact that I have been through the trials of coming out to friends and family already, a task which she is not quite ready to take on. So she told me about her feelings and about Jenna and I was reassuring and adult about the whole thing and I even went to lunch with the two of them to meet Jenna and scope her out. I still do so on a regular basis, without, of course the knowledge of anybody else in our little self-made 'family'.

The truly sickening thing is, that I really like Jen. As much as I would like to hate everything about her, it seems impossible. She is annoyingly perfect. And by that I mean that there isn't even anything annoying about her perfection, unless you happen to be actively looking for reasons to hate her. Jenna is a red-head like me but her hair is think and has a loose curl which I've seen Dawnie run her fingers through more time than I can count. Her eyes are beautiful green and even I have found myself caught in on more than one occasion. She's tall without being lanky at just a couple of inches above both I and Dawn. She dresses a little butch but not overtly so, with a liking for black and jeans with boots and belts, but she can lean towards the girlier side as well when she wants to and come out looking good. Basically, the girl is a real catch that in different circumstances even I would have made a move on myself.

Here in lies the problem. Dawn is he new Xander and Jenna is the new Cordelia only this time there are added deterrents/incentives. These being that If Buffy or Joyce or even Xander caught a whiff of me 'corrupting' Dawn there would be hell to pay and believe me pissing off a slayer is not on the list of my favourite things to do.

Dawn is forbidden.

Dawn is tempting.

I have a secret.

Actually I have several all in various stages of revelation. But it is only one which consumes my thoughts above all else. This secret is one that nobody outside of myself knows. One that I have been carrying around with me for what feels like forever although when I think about it, it has actually been only a few months. This is one I have absolutely got to keep to myself. I have far too much to lose for the sake something which could never happen anyway. I have caused enough pain, just by admitting it to myself. Why couldn't I have stayed in sweet denial, blissful ignorance for the rest of my life. No that would just have been too easy, too painless for my life wouldn't it?

I should be happy. I have the perfect girlfriend of nine months now, I have a family who loves me, I have an easy student life as I needn't work, mum's allowance covers what my grant doesn't. You'll all agree that life just doesn't get much easier than this right? Right? Wrong. The problem in my life exists within the confines of my brain. It's a problem which if I let escape from these confines could ruin all of the positive points I have just listed yet to let it remain there unshared taints my every thought and action until I cease to become anything beyond the limits it sets me. I realise I am being overdramatic, I'm young and hurting, so sue me.

I have a date tonight, with secret number two. Rated second due to two other people's knowledge rather than any less importance. Jenna. My love. My girlfriend of nine months that only one of my entire family and friends knows about. Why am I so chicken about telling them? Its not like they would react so badly to it, given their reaction to Willow: mild shock followed by acceptance and indifference. But somehow I just can't make myself tell them. So I kept it need to know only. Me, her, and the one person I had to tell in order to unburden my conscience: Willow. Willow told me that coming out is a step I had to take on my own only when I was good and ready. Which was awfully nice of her. Eight months she's kept my secret from her closest friends and family. That just makes me love her that little bit more.

Oh dear. Cats out of the bag now I guess. So that's it, my big secret numero uno. I, Dawn Summers, am completely, utterly and unmistakably in love with Willow Rosenberg. I realised this fact a few months ago, yet I am sure it was lurking at the back of my psyche much longer. It hit me like a brick wall one night while we were all out at the bronze. I had joined the rest of the scoobs there to celebrate Xander and Anya's wedding anniversary. Willow and I dance a few songs, not an unusual occurrence, but somehow that night we seemed closer than before, she was dancing with me less like a child, more like one of her girlfriends, the difference, although quite subtle was picked up on by Giles who shot her a disapproving glance or two. The real clincher however was when our few dances wee over and willow left me to dance with Buffy. I immediately filled with jealousy and anger towards my sister and after a few sleepless hours of pondering that night it hit me why.

Before that night Willow and I had been good friends, I admired her for her intelligence, her beauty and her strength beyond anyone else I knew. To have gone that deep into magic addiction and survived to laugh about it after I knew that she must be a much stronger person than anyone really gave her credit for. As well as this I saw things in her I thought few did her quirky sense of humour, her kind heart, her beautiful eyes. Of course in infamous 20:20 hindsight, all the signs of my above and beyond affection were there, I just never pieced them together to form the 'L' word.

She has had a handful of romantic partners both male and female throughout college and up to the present. None of them have lasted more than a couple of months and none of them, in my opinion, have been near good enough for my Willow. But then again who would be, other than me? But who am I to judge? I have a long-term girlfriend of my own, who I do believe I love, yet not with the all-encompassing passion that I have for Willow. There is only one single person I would give up Jenna for, and that is Willow. Not my mother, not Buffy, not any or all of my friends and family, only Willow. But that could never happen. To her I am at best a good friend, at worst the baby sister of a good friend, no wait, at worst, a sister figure, given that I am the daughter of the woman she treats as a mother, that's not so far fetched. To Willow I could never be girlfriend material and so I stay with the next best thing, swallow my feelings for the unattainable and continue my secret relationship with the other woman I love.

That brings me to tonight. Jenna and I are going out, as we do most nights. Tonight we plan on pizza followed by a stroll and possible a movie before she walks me back to my dorm and we make love until we collapse of exhaustion. It's a pattern, it's going to happen. And I will be happy as I can be in the arms of a second choice.

She thinks I don't know.

It's her secret, I'll let her believe it's concealed.

Besides I don't know what it would do to us if she found out I knew. That I'm taking what I can get from her even though I know the relationship is far from perfect. The truth is simple. I need her. I need her in my life and I need her in my bed so if she has another in her heart alongside me then I can deal. If her longing looks are sometimes directed elsewhere, I can cope, and if sometimes she moans a name which isn't mine, I can pretend I didn't hear. Then she will be non the wiser. We can continue our sham relationship and enjoy the halves and almosts we have. Because they are what I am hanging on to. Without them I descend a drop I am not ready to deal with yet. Maybe someday but not yet. If I can cling to my delusions for a while longer to allow for the padding to develop at the bottom of this inevitable drop I may just survive it.

The End

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