Drawing Comparisons

Rating: PG

Pairing:  Lucas (Empire Records) / Tara Mcclay (BtVS)

Spoilers: Everything and nothing.

Feedback: Makes my day

Word Count: 608

Disclaimer: If it was in the show, it's not mine.

Archive: At my site Checkmate (http://helsinkibaby.ahkay.net)

Summary:  Tara compares the Scooby Gang to the Empire Records gang.

Notes: For the Pairings That Ate Fandom Challenge, Round Seven. This was the fic that should never have been… I had “A Birthday Wish” all plotted, then Tara hit me with a line that I adored, that had no place there. Ergo, this.

 

Willow is jealous. She’s been trying to convince me that she’s not, but I know better. She’s all quiet and making with the furtive looks and the rounded shoulders, and she’s not talking to me the way she normally does. And when she does try to talk to me, she won’t look me in the eyes.

 

I miss Willow’s eyes.

 

The thing is though, I know why she’s jealous, and I understand it, even though she doesn’t have any need to be. Sure, Lucas might be coming to visit, and I’m going to show him around. We might have been on and off the phone for weeks, emailing back and forth, planning every second of the three days he’s going to spend here. And maybe, once upon a time, we might have been more than friends.

 

But I’m with Willow now, and Lucas knows that, and nothing is going to change between us, between any of us, because things are perfect as they are.

 

I thought Willow, of all people, would understand what Lucas and I share. Neither one of us come from what you could call traditional family backgrounds – my mom died when I was seventeen, his turned him over to the county when he was ten. He didn’t have anyone else, grew up in children’s homes, I grew up in a house that was abusive on a good day.

 

Neither of us really knew what family was until we found ourselves in the Empire Records store.

 

That place was a home and family to us, just like the high school library and the Scooby Gang were home and family to Willow.

 

Joe was our Giles, the father figure, the one who attempted to keep us on the straight and narrow, and even though he realised pretty early on that he couldn’t control us, he still liked to try.

 

Deb was our Buffy… not in looks, goodness knows, but in attitude, in toughness, in not taking any bullshit from anyone? Definitely.

 

Gina was our Anya… a woman you didn’t want to cross, a self-confessed bitch who was trying to change, who possesses the habit of opening her mouth and putting her foot straight into it. She doesn’t pull any punches, is brutally honest, but she’s got a heart of gold, somewhere. Deep down.

 

Then there’s Mark, who’s a lot like Dawn, though I think he’d hate me thinking that, for obvious reasons. But he’s like the bratty little brother who you have to take care of, who drives you nuts, but you love him and you wouldn’t have it any other way.

 

Then there was me, and then Lucas. My best friend, the one who understood me from the first time that I walked in there. The one who stuck up for me when Gina was being snippy, when Deb was being a bitch. Who showed me how to open the store (but not close it; he wasn’t allowed to do that), how to balance my till, how to spot potential shoplifters from a mile away.

 

Who, over time, became more than my friend.

 

And of course, that’s what’s making Willow so antsy right now. Because she remembers what we went through when Oz came back, how hard that was for us, how we were each so afraid that we weren’t going to make it through. Now she sees Lucas coming to town, my Oz, and she thinks the same thing is going to happen, that he’s going to come between us.

 

But he’s not, and he doesn’t want to, and that’s what I have to make her understand.

 

Because Lucas isn’t my Oz.

 

He’s my Xander.

 

Back to The Pairings That Ate Fandom