I'm such a liar… don't believe a thing I say. But for those gullible enough to still trust me, I actually do plan to finish this thing soon…

Red Moon

By SJC

It was time.

After tirelessly stalking her oblivious prey, the opening she was waiting for finally presented itself. She watched as the subject of her hunt excused itself from the group and foolishly went off on its own. She followed noiselessly and before the opportunity could be wasted pounced.

"Alright, Will, spill."

Her startled victim dropped the drink in her hand and spun around to face her hunter.

"If you meant spill my drink, mission accomplished." She tore a few paper towels off the roll and bent down to wipe up the mess.

"That's not what I'm talking about and you know it." Buffy glanced back through the doorway into the living room to make sure the others weren't paying them any attention, and then pushed her farther into the kitchen. "What's going on?"

"Are you feeling ok?" Willow questioned and tried to place a hand against her friend's forehead, but it was swatted away.

"With you and Remus, what's going on?"

Willow groaned as she finally recognized what Buffy's odd behavior meant- she had gone into gossip mode. "There's nothing going on."

"There's something going on, alright. I know there is because there's a little too much of nothing going on." The blonde nodded along with her statement, put on her best I'm-not-going-away-until-you-give-me-all-the-dirt-so-you-better-start-now face and waited confidently.

"What is that supposed to even mean? I don't know what you're talking about." Willow shifted uneasily, the first sign of her weakening. She was eyeing the door contemplating her chances of making a run for it when Anya walked through it.

"What's going on? Oh! Has Willow dished about the Remus-thing yet?"

With the two persistent blondes united, the redhead felt outnumbered and caged. They could feel it too, as they worked together to back her into a corner.

"We're your friends, Willow, it hurts when you keep things from us." Buffy pouted, playing good-friend.

Anya didn't hesitate for a moment to take up the role as bad-friend. "You're not getting out of here until you tell us what we want to know. So you can either volunteer it, or we can do it the hard way."

"No, Anya… I mean, if she feels she can't trust us…"

"Gah!" Willow threw up her hands frustrated. "I know what you're doing, and it's not going to work on me." She eyed the two girls warily as they kept silent. "It's not."

"Willow," Buffy was the picture of wide-eyed innocence as she took a step closer, "We're not trying to do anything. We just want you to talk to us."

"Talk about what?" She sighed defeated.

"We could start with why after being so chummy with our new favorite Brit for the past few days, you're suddenly avoiding him like the plague."

"And why you blush every time you look at him." Anya chimed in. "Did something happen between you two?"

Willow fidgeted in place nervously. "Sort of," she finally admitted, "but you can't tell anyone!" She looked at them sternly. "I mean it's nothing. It wasn't even really with him. I mean it was but it wasn't because I don't think he knows it was with him, you know?" She questioned in one long breath.

"You had a sex dream!" Anya deciphered the jumbled message.

"No! No I did not." She denied immediately, then paused. "Ok, maybe I did." She hung her head, ashamed.

"Willow," Buffy laughed, "was that all it was? It's not that big of a deal. You can't control what your subconscious dreams about."

"It's nothing to be ashamed about." Anya agreed, "This one time, I had this dream about Giles and he had this leather-"

"Stop!" Buffy and Willow covered their ears.

"Please promise me you will never, ever finish that story."

"Fine." Anya huffed, "I don't know why you both are so uptight." Her attention settled back onto Willow. "So, was he any good?"

"It was a dream, Anya. It wasn't real."

"Buffy's dreams come true."

"It was just a bad mixture of hormones and ice-cream before bed, not exactly in the same league as her slayer dreams. Let's just forget about it."

"But you can't, can you?" Buffy reentered the conversation, "That's why you've been acting all wiggy around him. You have naughty flashbacks every time you see him, don't you?"

"No!" She paused. "Alright, maybe. Since when did my sex life become so fascinating to you?"

"Are you kidding? My best friend thinking about changing teams? This is huge!"

"What? No team-changing for me! I'm gay. I'm more then gay, I'm like super gay!" The blonde girls shared a look. "Really. It was just one stupid dream that didn't mean anything. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go get back to work." And with that she fled into the relative safety of the living room.

Remus's head came up to watch her reenter the room, and he sent her a smile as she moved to sit in a chair across the table from him. She briefly found herself thinking of frying pans and raging infernos before she forced herself to look away. She pulled her book closer to her and tried to ignore the fact that his eyes were still on her. But it wasn't until later, when their hands brushed as they reached for the same book and she quickly pulled hers back a safe distance from his touch that he spoke up.

"Willow, did I do something?"

"Excuse me?" She appealed to whatever deity was listening that she could somehow avoid a second interrogation in one afternoon, but she had the distinct feeling she wouldn't be so lucky.

"Have I somehow offended you?"

"No, no, of course not." She tried to give him a reassuring smile but one glance at his face had her panicking and she ducked her head to hide her blush.

"If I've said something or done something to upset you-"

"No. You haven't. You're fine. I mean, you've been great. It's not you." She closed her eyes and damned again the one stupid dream that caused this whole mess. Unfortunately, all it did was serve to bring it back to her mind in vivid detail. Her eyes flew open and she forced herself to make eye contact with him. "Really, it's nothing. I just didn't get much sleep last night."

Buffy and Anya who had deliberately scooted closer to observe the interaction snickered into the books they were pretending to read.

"Oh. Is this some sort of…" he broke off, not sure how to phrase it, "girl thing?"

Buffy choked on her laughter and Anya gave up all pretense of not watching.

"No!" Willow exclaimed, once more surprised at the streak of sheer idiocy present in every male regardless of his intellect. Then when she realized he had actually given her an easy out, she changed her statement. "Actually, it sort of is. I'd rather not really talk about it."

"Ah, good. I mean, that's no problem. I'll just, um, go get another book." He made his retreat as fast as politeness would allow and Willow slumped into her seat, equally relieved.

"Oh, that was hilarious." Buffy wiped her eyes that had started to tear from laughing so hard.

"I'm glad my suffering amuses someone." Willow spit out bitterly.

"Aw, poor Willow. You know, you could always just tell him the truth." She said, sitting on the arm of the redhead's chair and putting her arm around her friend.

"How would humiliating myself further help matters any?" She asked.

"I think Buffy's right," Anya agreed, "A good shag would probably solve more of your problems then you realize."

"What? Are you insane? I don't think sleeping with him- or anyone for that matter, is a good idea for me right now. Besides, I don't even think of him like that. "

"Willow, I don't know if you're happy in denial land or what, but face facts. Obviously you do think of him that way or you wouldn't have had that dream. And this definitely wouldn't have upset you so much if you weren't attracted to him. If you really didn't care you would have been able to laugh it off. Truthfully, I've never seen you this worked up about a dream before."

"Alright. Maybe there's a teensy eensy little speck inside of me that's mildly attracted to him. But that's it. Besides, now isn't exactly a good time for anyone to get involved. We don't need to deal with anymore complications."

"I know." She tightened her arm around her friend in a half hug. "I just worry about you is all. I just want to see you happy again."

"Thanks, Buffy, but starting something right now with anybody just isn't smart."

"I uh, found the book." Remus broke in as he entered the room, feeling slightly less uncomfortable then when he left.

"Good. Gosh, I wonder where Xander is. He should have been back by now." Buffy said, motioning with her eyes to Anya.

"Oh, yeah. I hope he's all right. Maybe we better both go look for him." Anya said a little too loudly and winked at the slayer. Their devious plan was completely transparent to the witch being left behind, and she glared at them as they made their escape.

"Just-"

"Ignore them?" Remus finished her sentence for her. She nodded once.

"You're starting to catch on." She smiled at him, starting to finally put the dream behind her as they settled into a comfortable silence and resumed their research.

Meanwhile, Anya and Buffy had run into Xander not three feet from the door and quickly spun him around, starting to walk him away from the house.

"Uh, where are we going?" He questioned.

"Away, so that Willow and Remus can have a chance to talk."

"Why do they need to talk?" He asked, not any less confused.

"Willow had a sex dream." Anya butted in.

"What?" He yelped.

"I think she really likes him, but she's too damn stubborn to admit it. I just want them to have some time alone to work through this." Buffy explained.

"This is Willow we're talking about. If you leave them there for a year, you really think anything is going to happen? Besides, what about the British guy that's factoring pretty heavily into your plan. Does he even have any idea what's going on?"

The two girls exchanged a look.

"Well, we hadn't really gotten that far. But we know he likes her…"

"And that's about the only thing you do know about him!" He sighed and tried to calm himself down. "This isn't one of your little romantic movies. This is our friend and some guy we know nothing about. We hadn't even met him until a few days ago. I know focusing on this feels a lot better then thinking about the mega-evil that keeps frustrating us, but I won't allow you to sacrifice Willow just because you two don't feel like facing our sucky reality right now."

"Xander, she's my best friend too. You're way off. I'm not using her as some sort of distraction. You're right when you say I'd rather deal with this then the fact that we have no leads on our current big bad, but I wouldn't do anything if I wasn't sure. Remus is a good man; I get a really good vibe from him. And I honestly believe that even with all the bad around us, or maybe because of it, he could give Willow some real happiness. And she so deserves it; you know what she's been through. I only wish she would stop being so damn reasonable and just go for what she wants."

"Buffy, you didn't just…" Xander closed his eyes as Buffy's widened with sickening realization.

"Anya- I didn't mean-" Buffy tried to take back the last sentence she had uttered but it was too late. Anya's demon visage had slid on and she gave a sheepish shrug.

"Done."