Buffy the Vampire Slayer Preferences + imagines/one shots

Willow - Band-Aid

So many stories I hear about falling in love happen so quickly. There's a spark, the feeling hits them like a shot of espresso and they just know that they're gone. Head over heels, breath knocked out of their lungs: irreversibly, irrevocably infatuated.

But with her...

I knew her as a friend. As the girl who helped me up when I skinned by knees on the playground. The girl I'd share my crayons with and who would hold my hand when I was scared of the school nurse. The friendship grew just as we did, but we never grew out of it. She continued to be the one I'd copy off in tests, despite how much she'd nag me. The one who I'd look to when we had to pick a partner for a project and grin when I saw her already looking at me. The girl who was my go to, my confidant, my anchor, my favourite person in the world.

And then she got a boyfriend. And it shouldn't have mattered. Oz was a brilliant guy and I was selfish for feeling like he stole her away. They were happy for the longest time.

I loved her as a friend for 13 years.

So it didn't happen in one singular moment.

I don't know at what point I started to love her as more than a friend.

It could have been when she re-ensouled Angel from a hospital bed.

Or when she dressed up as a ghost for Halloween.

Or when she gave me her last animal cracker because she knows the rhinos are my favourite, just the other week.

It could've been her quirky sweaters, her enthusiasm for college or her reluctance to break school rules despite being a wicca in her spare time.

At some point, I fell in love with my best friend and I almost didn't realise it.

Until, I stood here, in this spot, looking at her with her hands in mine, my knees bleeding.

I suppose it makes it more scary that this wasn't a quick, fleeting feeling. I've almost always felt this way about her, which is going to make this all the more devastating when she finds out.

Tears well in my eyes and her eyebrows contort into a concerned frown.

"Hey, it's okay! It's not far to campus. I'll get you all cleaned up."

I look over my shoulder and the vampires we were running from have disappeared. I see Buffy in the distance fighting a few more off, her blonde ponytail shiny in the moonlight.

I turn back to Willow and sniff, "I'm fine." I say, although my knees are ripped open because I tripped up on the sharp gravel of the cemetery path when Buffy told us to run. "Is Buffy fine?"

"She's fine," Willow says without looking back. "Come on."

She slips her arm through mine and we take a slow walk back to her dorm.

It gets darker and colder and my knees hurt more and more but Willow keeps talking in an effort to distract me. She's warm and she's Willow, and she's the only reason I'm not crying right now. When she helped me up off the floor, something in my brain smoothly clicked into place. In a moment so insignificant, I accepted with a strange, calm clarity that I love her. 

I sit gingerly on the edge of her bed when we get back to her and Buffy's dorm. And, of course, she has a fully decked out First Aid kit stored in her nightstand. 

"Just pass me some tissues. I can do it myself, Will."

"Baloney! I didn't take that first aid course for nothing! I'll do it. Now..." she holds up two colourful boxes of Band-Aids, "Sesame Street or Lion King?"

I smile.

I let her gently clean up my knees and I have to admit, she did a better job than I would have done. The scrapes are too big for the kids' Band-Aids she offered me, so she uses big, plain ones and sticks a little Big Bird on over them. 

Once she's packed up the kit and put it back in its drawer, she asks, "What do you want? Tea? Hot chocolate?" I notice she doesn't offer me coffee because she knows it'll keep us up and it's currently - I check the clock - midnight. 

"What do you want?" I ask as I carefully get up, only wincing a little. 

She flips on the kettle saying, "You're the patient."

"You make it sound like I'm recovering from hip surgery or something, Will." 

She laughs and I do too, picking up two matching mugs to give to her. She just stares at me for a long moment after, eyes soft and warm, like the way I feel when I'm around her. 

"What?" 

She blinks, a soft smile forming on her lips, but she doesn't say anything.

I wonder how long this can go on. If it'll go on forever. Being in love with your best friend is one thing, but when that person's a girl, and you're a girl, it's another. Am I doomed to pine after a girl who will never think of me that way, or do I bite the bullet and tell her how I feel? 

"Hey, are you sure you're okay?" 

I blink out of my thoughts and feel myself blush. "Yeah, Will. I'm fine."