Chapter 4: Wet 'N' Wild
A/N:
Sirius and Willow thank you for supporting their fun ;) And I appreciate all the reviews - and *especially* the recs. Mad, MAD thanks to anyanka & Erica!!
LOL~ and don't hate on their meal of pasta and mashed potatoes! That's all I lived on in college, thanks my Sirius-ly bad cooking skills (ha!ha! Yeah, I'm never going to get tired of that pun ;) I never thought that was a weird combo! : )
Willow mused to herself as she set the kitchen table. Even though their home-cooked meal had ended up inedible, she thought the least she could do for Padfoot was *try* to make dinner look nice with some plates and fun printed napkins. The napkins were her favorite - she had found them in a cupboard, clearly left over from Halloween, since they featured little witches on it. Mind you, she typically didn't like the commercialization of her religion to be all pointy-hatted with wands and warts, but it amused her. She thought, at the least, that Padfoot could get a kick out of it.
And maybe Willow could use that as an 'in' to learn about his magic.
She had promised herself that she wouldn't push - and she wouldn't - but she was still dying of curiosity to learn why his magic felt different from her own.
Of course… She wondered idly if maybe it was wrong of her to want to know more about his magic. It was only recently that she had finally been able to understand and communicate with her own brand of magic. What if his style was more exciting or seductive or dangerous somehow? She still felt like a ticking time bomb. What if he was able to set her off? What if by exposing herself to him she harmed her recovery process - she was supposed to be in isolated mediation and self-reflection right now, after all.
Heaving out a frustrated sigh, she placed the napkins on the table. Her life just had too many 'what ifs'. She felt like Indecisive Gal when it came to decisions, big or small. Well, okay, not that she had ever been Focused Decision-Maker Gal.
Except of course when she decided to embrace dark magic and destroy the world. That sure was one hell of a decision.
She sat down for a moment and rubbed her temples gently. Okay, she had screwed up. Majorly so. But sometimes she wondered if it was really going to haunt her for the rest of her life. That thought scared her - that she would feel like this forever. Having that ribbon of guilt tightening around her chest constantly made her heart burn with remorse. And while she had healed her magic and was able to perform some things, she was far too scared to ever do major magic again.
It was moments like now that that she wished her Baby was back here with her. She needed to be held, to be allowed to forget her pain - if only for a moment.
She had thought, in the back of her mind, that maybe having a houseguest for a few days would allow her to take a mental break; to maybe selfishly pretend she was a normal twenty-two year old girl for a while. Unfortunately, Sirius kept bringing a lot of her darker thoughts to the forefront with his innocent questions.
Like asking for her autograph. She got. It was a joke. Clearly. But instantly her mind went back to the time in Sunnydale right before Giles brought her here.
Willow had been on a nighttime walk, just wanting to get out of the house for a while since the awkward moments were getting too hard to bear. Somehow, she had found herself in front of Willy's. Not that she had meant to go there - consciously anyways. But once there she decided that a nice, hard drink would be real good right about then. Then, while she was drinking she got approached by two nasty-looking demons and a vampire wanting to buy her shots. They had thought she was a freaking rock star, all aflutter over the 'Dark One', and the vampire even *asked her for her autograph*.
It had taken far too much willpower - especially then, right after the Event - to walk away, but she had.
Even though her dark side had wanted to destroy every evil thing in that place, Willy included at the time.
The oven buzzed, breaking her reverie. Willow took ten deep breaths to calm herself and retrieved the pizza.
"Padfoot! Dinner's ready!" she called as she began cutting slices. After waiting a minute for him, she left to find him, in case he hadn't heard her.
Actually, where had he gone? He had put his clothes in the washer thirty minutes ago.
Willow scanned the rest of the house- the spare bedroom that she had given him for the next couple nights, the small study, and then she finally walked down the basement.
Her eyebrows rose of their own accord as she took in the sight before her.
Padfoot was dimly lit by the over-hanging bulb, looked frustrated as he muttered and pointed a stick towards the washing machine that was oozing soapy liquid. He kicked his foot forward, from the pool of water where he stood, and shook the stick. "C'mon, you sodding, broken thing! Work!" He then declared something - it sounded like Latin to her ears - and waved the stick again.
She was torn between giggling at the mess he had, again, made and snatching that stick to inspect it.
"Padfoot?" she asked with a grin. "Having some more problems?"
He instantly turned as he heard her and pocketed the stick. "Problems? Me? No, not really. Nothing I can't handle, anyway," he stated with a charming smile.
Willow giggled as she walked towards him, being very careful to stay past the edge of the puddle. "Really? Cause it looks you're going for shower number two today."
He shrugged nonchalantly and his smile turned sheepish. "Hey, its not everyday a guy gets warm water. I thought, hey, why not take another bath?"
"Well, then, by all means, go ahead. Maybe I'll step upstairs and give you some privacy." Her earlier thoughts of Padfoot flew back at her - how he was 'hot in that gee-I-just-want-to-bathe-him kinda way.' Willow had a horrible urge to do that right now.
But that would be wrong.
All kinds of wrong.
Mostly, because she was gay!
…Right?
His eyebrow raised and he shot her a flirtatious look. "Well, now, you don't *have* to give me any privacy," he teased.
Again, she rolled her eyes. Because, quite honestly, she wasn't sure how to respond when he flirted with her. It was slightly weird, on account of him crashing in her house, and being an older, mysterious man who was quite possibly homeless. Then again, it was slightly fun, because he *was* an older, mysterious man who also happened to be attractive, in that Aragorn-sorta way.
Not to mention, she didn't take his words seriously because there was something about him that made her think he was a natural born flirt - even if he was out of practice.
"As a gracious host, I think I'll do just that. Besides," she added with a smirk as she gestured to his soaked pants, "there's no way I want to end up looking like you."
"Is that right?" he asked slowly.
"Yup," she answered back as she went to turn off the washer and fixed the problematic device. Finished, she turned back to him with an amused smile.
And got soapy liquid splashed on the front of her shirt. A cry of outraged indignation went through her.
"Now you look like me," Padfoot laughed satisfactorily.
"You- you - Arrgh!" She gave him her 'pouty' face, in order to make him feel bad. "Look at me! I invite you into my home, and then you take advantage of me and get me all wet!"
His laughs stopped with a shocked face. "Uh…" he trailed off as he observed his damage. "Um, ah." He shook his head in a stunned sorta way. "Uh, sorry, terribly sorry," he finally managed while Willow gave him an odd look.
'What was his deal?' she wondered.
"Dinner?" he said with a squeak and then cleared his throat. "Dinner's ready, you said?" he added in his normal tone.
"Yeah… It's upstairs." She continued staring at him for his sudden and weird apology.
Then as she thought on it, she realized why he had reacted that way. Open Mouth, insert foot, and all that. She felt her cheeks start to flush, but then she realized just how funny Sirius' reaction was.
Willow couldn't help but torture him a little more, not when it was rather amusing. She masked her face back into the clueless one she had previously and added, "before we eat though, we better get you out of those pants - and me out of this shirt."
"Wha-What?" he stammered with a strange look on his face - and she could have sworn he gulped.
"Hello?" Willow waved her hand in front of his face. "Someone's letting me stay here. I don't want us to get water marks on the floor," she commented as she shook her head.
"Honestly, did you really think it was okay for us to get everything in the house wet? This isn't a cave, after all. I think I might have some oversized sweats upstairs that you can borrow until your clothes are better. Then we can eat."
"Oh, yeah. Of course. Water marks. That would be bad. Definitely that," he mumbled as he walked up the stairs.
Willow grinned wickedly as she followed him up. Padfoot was turning out to be an interesting houseguest, at the very least.
A/N:
Review, por favor! Muchisimas gracias!
