Cursed Love Chapter Two

Faith had said in her dream. Everything else about the dream had now faded away except for those words, Faith’s words. Words those were unfortunately or fortunately true. Yes, Buffy was in love with Faith. She had realized that long time ago, but amidst saving world and making it a safer place there never was a right time she could say it aloud to herself let alone to Faith. Not to mention the fact that it always seemed like everything was against them; almost as though karma had forbidden her love. Except for at that moment in that town, somehow everything had overturned.

Buffy strode lazily behind Faith wandering around the woods surrounding the cave while Kennedy and Willow had left to question the locals and the police. With every step she took towards the distant hill her feelings towards the beauty who hadn’t spoken a word to her since they had accidentally met couple of hours ago, grew stronger and stronger. Buffy had worked in close proximity with the other slayer in numerous occasions but never had she ever had her feelings grow in such rapid speed as it was doing right at that moment.

She stood still looking at the scene around them. The occasional one or two trees here and there only interrupted the green pastures of the ground while a river un-apologetically ran right across. Occasional chippers of distant birds accompanied the rhythm of the river as the sun made its descent behind the hills that seemed to be all around them. The scene was so beautiful and romantic that it was no wonder Buffy’s suppressed love for Faith was emerging out.

The slayer wanted to say something like wow or whoa…at the scene but it just seemed inappropriate and she remained silent with just a smile on her face. Then it hit her. The hills…the mountains…the river and …Faith sitting on the bank with her legs just touching the film of the water. It was the exact scene from her dream. Except it was two strange women and not Faith but the background was the exact same.

Normally when a dream reappeared in her reality, Buffy never discarded it as a co-incident. Nothing in her life was a co-incident. But somehow with the romance that seemed to be in the air of the present scene, Buffy did not want to break the moment with her worries.

She simply walked up to the bank and sat beside the brunette. Before Buffy could let her mind think, the moment took over and her hand unconsciously reached the water and scooped some and brought it up. Almost automatically as her hand had done so, Faith’s head tilted back just as the brunette in Buffy’s dream had done. Buffy let the water pour on Faith’s face as she felt her tongue nearing her neck to intercept the downward flow of one particular stream. Faith smiled and opened her mouth at the same time, and Buffy trailed her tongue upward and at the last minute changed the path to the earlobe instead. To which Faith reacted by pulling the slayer to fall back on ground with her. As soon as their bodies landed, Buffy concentrated on the droplets on Faith’s face. Once that was done she finally let her lips lower to the younger slayer’s lips and just sucked the lower ones. Faith lifted her head wanting more but Buffy just pushed her back and leaned closer to do the same to the upper ones when Faith put her hand behind her head and made the kiss complete. Buffy reluctantly let the kiss get deeper as hands wandered on Faith’s body. She let her hand reach her breast and let it massage for a moment or two before she let it slide down to the stomach then slipped it through her pants. Faith’s legs parted automatically as Buffy’s fingers’ reached its destination.

Then Buffy froze. Faith froze. Buffy stared right into Faith who was looking at her with mirror expression.

“Wouldn’t you call that a nightmare…. after all you killed me?” Faith certainly had seen the dream/nightmare.

Buffy’s eyes hadn’t diverted but her mind was quickly in overdrive trying to make sense of the dream. It wasn’t just that the dream wasn’t weird enough but now that Faith had seen the exact same dream possibly at the exact same time meant.

“Hey B” Faith said yanking Buffy back. “Unless you want to put your fingers to its use…could you take them out?” Faith brought attention to the exact point they had both stopped.

“Oh!” Buffy said looking down at her hand between Faith’s legs but somehow didn’t take it out.

“B its okay.” Faith who was gazing at Buffy’s hand too, knew exactly why Buffy was afraid to pull it out. She put her hand on Buffy’s wrist while the usually stern slayer lowered her body once again. Faith lifted her head just a little to reach Buffy’s ears and whispered gently as she tugged Buffy’s hand at the same time. “I am not going to die. You haven’t killed me…”

“Yet…” Faith added with her patented cocky voice but as soon as Buffy heard the last word, tears burst out. She did not want to kill Faith. She had once done it but it was different time … and certainly different place…but right at that moment and at that place even the thought of Faith dying was tearing Buffy from inside. She resisted Faith’s pull on her wrist, as she feared the worst. She was scared that the nightmare would repeat itself. So, was so scared that her mind had taken a complete back seat as her heart overloaded with all her feelings for the younger slayer.

“I can’t….” Buffy confessed between her sobs. “I can’t see you die…”

“I am not dying B…” Faith consoled stroking Buffy’s cheek with her hand.

“Yeah but…. I won’t…I won’t ever do it again….” Buffy had to say it, she had to tell Faith now, “I won’t kill you Faith…I love you….”

Faith’s grip on Buffy’s wrist loosened as the words registered in her thought. She let Buffy’s hands be where they were as she pulled the blonde into a kiss. As the kiss deepened Buffy’s fingers slowly danced with the same rhythm as the two slayers tongues were playing. …And the mountains were white and the hills were green. The sky was blue and the river was sparkling.

The sun was setting on the west and the streets were illuminated with a beautiful orange light that seemed to be wrapping the town. So that the random couples that walked by holding hands completely lost in each other could steal a moment from the rest of the world. For a moment they could take solace in the light that still shown brightly on their lover’s face but threatened to be dark everywhere else and kiss or touch each other to share the affection that the whole scene seemed to accelerate in anyone who was in love.

“I can see the reason why Dina and Jack chose this place for their honeymoon.” Kennedy said aloud as she watched a couple on the other side of the street basking in the romance of the scene that just wanted lovers to completely fall in love.

“Yeah…something about this whole town…seems so, …” Willow agreed as she watched the sun nearing a distant hill from the side street café.

“Yes…and look at the sun…it feels as though it is about to go hide in between that mountain and that hill.” Willow was pointing so that her girlfriend understood what she was saying.

“Wow…” The slayer just marveled at the view. “I can’t believe that the mountains are snow covered even in mid July. And it is just not as hot as the summer is supposed to be. The weather feels like …”

“Perfect.” The waitress said who was holding their second rounds of soda. “Everything about this town is just perfect. Including the weather. It is always this pleasant temperature through out the year.”

“Yes, it is but this is the town of love. And lovers don’t need rain or snow or cold. We need bright sun and beautiful sunsets and mesmerizing sunrise. We need the green pastures to run and play freely, we need snow covered mountains to recite poetries … whoa…I am sorry.” The waitress caught herself before she went off rambling. Which, by the look of her, seemed like she was capable of. “I am Madeline Haze by the way. Call me Maddy, I own this little cafe and when I see a new couple in town I just get a little excited.”

“Oh that’s okay. We were both just captivated by the scene…like you said it just is perfectly romantic.” Willow looked at her girlfriend who seemed extra sexy as the orange light fell on her dark curls.

“That is because this town is cursed.” Maddy was still smiling even though she used a negative word like curse.

“Cursed?”

“Yes, cursed with love. If you come here with a person that is your true love, your heart can never deny it. And you can see the reason why…everything about this place is like it encourages you to fall in love and if your heart is already in love how can you ever deny it here.” Maddy was watching the sun as she told the story. “It was about 10 years ago that I came here with my business partner David…but in actuality my true love. We came here and within hours we were all over each other. It was like every wall that we thought existed between us just evaporated. Most of town folks’ story is similar…”

“Wow that is so sweet…” Willow was touched by the look on Maddy’s face, which still beamed with the thought of David.

“But…how come you call it a curse?” Kennedy asked.

“I don’t know dear…they say there were two lovers that lived here centuries ago…somehow one of them died or was killed…then the other cursed this town with love…I myself don’t know how falling in love can be a curse but they call it a curse and I don’t care…All I know is that if it weren’t for this place I would have never admitted to my feelings…so we just didn’t want to leave this place…and we settled here.”

“So, once you fall in love you can’t leave this place…may be that is the curse?” Willow speculated aloud.

“Not really…I know plenty of couples who came here fell in love and left…settling here is entirely up to you. This place only makes it possible to see and acknowledge the love inside you … it doesn’t create it.”

“Then what are those statues about at the west end cave?” Kennedy asked feeling comfortable with the older woman.

“Oh! You have already been there…and you came back…that is good. My husband must have called you.” Maddy pulled up a chair and now sat down with the girls. “Jerry call David and tell him they made it out…” She yelled at her employee before she turned to the girls again. “He told me about a group of people coming to investigate the disappearance of Jack and Dina…and had told me that he would send you all to the cave and I thought it was a terrible idea but now that I see you two have made it back I am just relieved.”

“Well I guess we did make it out…it wasn’t as though anything stopped us…” Kennedy said thinking they had come out of hell mouth alive…coming out of a cave which was unusually big didn’t seem big of a deal.

“That means you love is not cursed.” Maddy put each of her hand on each of the lover’s hands and squeezed it as though they had just achieved something.

“What do you mean?” Willow asked.

“Not everyone’s love is meant to be…now when lovers come here and if their love is forbidden then the whole town has to suffer…and the cave feeds on the cursed love…when David saw the two of you…he thought may be your love was cursed and he didn’t want to take chances so he sent you all there…and now that you have come back there is nothing to worry about.”

“I don’t get it…what do you mean by feed the cursed love…is that what happened to Jack and Dina…was their love cursed.”

“Their love was forbidden dear…and they didn’t make it back so yes it was cursed love.”

“What do you mean by feeds on…?”

“You saw the statues honey…they don’t come back…"

Kennedy and Willow were back inside the cave and between the statues. They were running past rows and rows…hoping that what they feared hadn’t happened. Willow didn’t even want to think …she just wanted to run…run...run past all the statues…run past the cave…run out of that town…if she could…

“Willow….” Kennedy called but in a whisper…almost hoping that her girlfriend didn’t hear her. But Willow did hear and she came slowly to where Kennedy was… Kennedy’s head was covering a statue behind her. Willow approached slowly with tears already in her eyes. The youngest slayer pulled her witch towards her and just hugged her while Willow saw past Kennedy and into the statue of Buffy.