F A N F I C T I O N > M I S C . F A N D O M S
A Motel Room In Kansas by Amberina
Tara's not sure how any of this happened. Things went so fast and she wasn't really paying attention and then she was here, in a motel room in Kansas, with Oz of all people.
Oz used to scare her, and rightfully so. She used to infuriate him, she knew. So it worked out that she was afraid of him, didn't it?
But somewhere along the way, he got over it, and so did she. They still weren't comfortable around each other, not really. Not until the room started to fill up with smoke, and the alcohol started to drift through their veins. Then, and only then, could they really talk.
Oz got even more mellow when he was stoned. Tara got giggly, happy; she smiled for the first time in what felt like years.
They didn't talk about Willow - it was a sort of unspoken understanding between them. They both knew it would hurt too much.
It was okay, though, because as long as The Smiths were playing and the weed was burning they had plenty to talk about.
Oz told her all about the Smiths Stoner Revelations - he said it as if it had to be capitalized. Tara hadn't quite believed him. No, really, she had believed him, she just hadn't fully grasped what he meant by that.
Tara's figured out many things in the last few months. She would think Oz had too, if she wasn't so sure Oz knew everything. There was something about him that mesmerized her. He wasn't overtly cool, or funny, or good-looking, or anything really, he just was and it was fascinating.
Not that she was attracted to him. At least not in the way she had been attracted to Willow (but she doesn't think about Willow anymore), or even the way she had been attracted to Lisa Meyers in eighth grade. This is different, much, much different. But for some reason, Tara doesn't find it odd. Because he's Oz and what does it matter if he's male or female, or if he's a werewolf or a man, or anything? He's Oz.
Oz tilts his head back and closes his eyes and he's so involved in the music, and Tara's so involved in him. She wants to kiss him suddenly, and she doesn't stop herself, but she doesn't do it. She's just frozen in the moment watching him, and that's enough.
He blows his smoke out slowly, and everything's going in slow motion it seems. Hours should have passed, Tara thinks, but it's only been two minutes if the clock is to be believed.
Time ticks by slowly, oh.
so.
slowly.
Oz opens his eyes and his eyelashes flutter slightly and Tara wants him. She doesn't know why - why anything (why Willow had to die) really - but she wants him. And as long as the weed is burning and the alcohol is flowing through her veins like a river of intoxication, Tara doesn't wonder why she wants Oz.
She just does, like he just is, and it's good. As good as things can be, considering - but Tara does not think about that. She can't think about that. She must focus on Oz. On the moment. She cannot think about the past, or the future, or anything outside of the here and now.
There here and now, with Oz. Oz, and her, in a motel room in Kansas and if people knew - if people cared - certainly eyebrows would be raised. And maybe eyebrows should be raised, but Tara has a hard time caring right now.
"Oz."
Her voice does not sound like her own, not at all. It's a stranger speaking with her mouth, a stranger in her body - and isn't Oz just a stranger? Does she really know anything about him beyond the fact that he used to love Willow and played the guitar? Does she really care, though? She doesn't know.
Oz turns his head towards her, and he doesn't say anything, but she knows he knows because when their eyes meet there's - something she can't define, but a definite something. Something that says something's going to happen tonight, something something something - "Kiss me?"
And he does. He kisses her softly, and slowly, it's all so slow as his tongue lightly caresses hers, and where is this going? Where has he been? Why is the sky blue, and the grass green and why are they almost out of weed?
None of that matters. What matters is . . . nothing matters. Nothing at all. Just the moment - but the moment, yeah the moment probably won't matter later, so does anything matter? Ever, even?
Tara's beginning to doubt it.
So Tara kisses Oz, in a motel room in Kansas, and it would be so surreal if anything was real. The room spins around, and perhaps she's more drunk than she thought she was, or perhaps it's Oz that's giving her this feeling. She's under the influence of Oz - she wonders if that would show up in a breathalyzer test.
She giggles into his mouth and he smiles slightly.
"I should . . ." she thought the room would stop spinning when he stopped kissing but that is not the case, and she doesn't feel so good. "I should lie down."
Tara stands up and the room slips away from her for a moment. Spin, spin sugar. She closes her eyes, and feels herself spin. Yeah the world isn't spinning, she is. She is.
She feels Oz's hand on her back and then everything straightens slightly. But only slightly. She takes a deep breath and makes her way across the room to the bed. She collapses. No grace, she doesn't feel like pretend grace right now.
And she falls asleep, in a motel room in Kansas, with Oz smoking the rest of what little weed they have left, and she dreams. And in her dreams, things are not better than they are when she's awake, and things are not surreal, because nothing is real, after all.
Nothing.