Archive of Our Own

“That’s supposed to be my vapid, cliche-ridden acceptance speech,” Buffy grumbled to herself as she stomped over to the snack table. “How many times have I saved their bacon while, if I do say so myself, looking amazing? How many?” She glared at a finger sandwich. It was playing innocent, but you could never tell with school-associated food. “They have no idea how hard it is to maintain good hair during an apocalypse.” Piling a stupid plate full of stupid chips and stupid, limp veggies, she decided that after exactly ten minutes of time with her friends there would be skedaddling followed by a date with the only men who never disappointed her: Ben and Jerry.

She gnawed on a carrot to stem the rage. There was marginal success.

“Rocking the battlefield survivor look, B? I gotta say, down and dirty suits you. Hook a girl up with your fashion pro?”

Despite the evening, Buffy smiled. “Sorry, I think they’re no longer accepting clients,” she bantered, turning to face her friend, “what with them being dead and...”

She stopped. Everything stopped. Faith had her hair up--she’d never seen it up, and it exposed her neck in a way that, on a Slayer, was amazingly provocative. The ribbon-and-chain collar only drew attention, and Buffy had the sudden, clear impulse to lower her lips there, to leave a trail of marigold lip gloss down Faith’s carotid.

And of course she was wearing a dress. Of course it was black. Of course it was lace and suggested being transparent, the long fringe swirling around her legs teasingly, making Buffy want to put her hands there.

Heat rising to her face, she shook her head. “Uh, sorry, I didn’t mean to space out there. You, uh,” she pushed the chips around her plate, “look good. Nice dress.”

“Hey, a girl’s gotta make an effort. Didn’t want to let down my date.” Faith’s slender, rough fingers dipped in like a snake and made off with some chips, and she snapped them down with a relish that made Buffy abruptly and uncomfortably aware of her teeth. The down-low-tingly kind of uncomfortable which she definitely was not supposed to be feeling about new-little-sister Faith. “If I’d known how you were gonna go, I’d have added some holes and a little grime on the old cheekbones.”

Buffy winced. “Sorry it took so long to fend them off. I was looking forward to the man-abuse.”

“Hey, sounds like I was the one who missed the party. Maximum slayage, and only Cordelia for company? Man, what a waste.” Faith flashed her a smile that was all dark violet lipstick and ivory teeth. “I got started on the man abuse without you, though. Creepo’s date thinks he’s two-timing me, and that he’s got the gift that keeps on giving down below to show for it. Seemed like the least I could do, y’know?”

For a moment Buffy just stared with wide eyes, but then she broke into full-throated laughter. “Part of me is vindictively jubilant to hear that and part of me...no, wait, all of me is enjoying it.” She grinned. “I feel suddenly much more cheerful about tonight.”

“You know those people who say living well is the best revenge? Fuck ‘em. I say revenge is the best revenge.” Faith was grinning with her, close enough to smell the smoke on Buffy’s skin, and whatever perfume she was wearing should have been illegal for the way it crawled its way into Buffy’s lungs and set its sights further south; rough hands slid around hers, making off with her food plate, and she barely noticed where Faith made it disappear to. Those flashing brown eyes were better than any stage magic guy’s white gloves for distraction.

She knew this would be a thing. It would require serious conversations and thinking deep thoughts. But tonight? Tonight she was going to just go with it.

That low, metaphorically-smoky whisper she kept swearing she’d get Faith to teach her made her lips tingle when the dark-haired Slayer leaned in. “I wanna dance, B. Just looking at you, I wanna dance. You can’t tell me after all that slaying, you don’t wanna dance with me.”

With a playful quirk of her lips, Buffy took Faith’s hand, breath speeding up the tiniest bit. Faith wrapped her fingers around the slender softness of Buffy’s wrist, careless of the dirt and soot clinging to her skin, and made a hole in the crowd until they were somewhere that vaguely resembled a dance floor under all the awkward, dance-in-place-and-pray teenage feet.

They danced.

Dancing with Faith was all heat and rhythm and pounding heartbeats. It wasn’t nice or cool or fun or even crazy - it was like something burned into the bones of the world, like slaying, like Giles’s magic, like the girls in her dreams going back and back until there was sand and sky and nothing else, like fire and air and blood and stone. Everybody made room for them, backed up like they were a live wire sparking, and the way her skin burned she wouldn’t have bet against roasting anybody who got in the way. Anybody except Faith, who was up in her space in a way that was going to give every teacher in the place a coronary any second. Who didn’t give a fuck about the soot and grime and blood that was smearing itself all over her skin and her dress every time her body rocked against Buffy’s, every time the beat drove them together like a... like a.... like a thing that went with another thing and made heat and light and lots and lots of noise. Who was laughing and alive, so alive it hurt, so alive it made her want to dive into Faith’s fire, to dance and eat and slay and fuck and never, ever stop.

She would never for the rest of her life be able to remember how they wound up on the front steps of the school, laughing like lunatics with their arms around each other so tight it hurt. There was something involving Willow blushing and Xander staring and some stupid teacher (she really couldn’t be bothered with which one) yelling about school policy and Faith - gloriously mussed, eyes wide and dilated, voice pitched like a drunk Faith - yelling right back in terms that would have made a sailor run screaming up the street with his pants on fire. Or something. She was laughing too da... too fucking hard to care. “Fuck.” See, there, she’d said it. “Fuck. Fuckity fuck Cunty McBitchface. Ha!” Faith doubled over, almost in tears, laughing so hard she had to clamp her hand on Buffy’s shoulder to hold herself up. They stumbled down the stairs together, mutually unsteady, and fetched up against one of the sensible sedans in the teacher’s section with an audible thump that set them both off again until they were clinging to each other to stay upright.

Whether the kiss started in her brain or Faith’s, she had no idea, but it brought them together like mutual gravity and left them stranded against the car afterward gasping for breath, lips bruised and cheeks flushed and their bodies trembling like they’d run a marathon and thrown down with a legion of demons at the end. Faith’s eyes were wide brown pools of shimmering heat, her tongue flicking against her battered lipstick like she was trying to taste Buffy on her mouth, and those rough hands tightened on Buffy’s shoulders with enough force to make the bruises from the night’s preceding entertainment feel like foreplay. “Jesus, B,” she breathed, her voice so low in her throat it vibrated Buffy’s skin to hear it, “you’re gonna kill me one of these days.”

One hand resting on the curves of Faith’s waist--when had that happened?-- and one shakily smoothing a stray lock of hair from her face, Buffy drew in a ragged breath. That turned out not to help as much as she’d expected, mostly because Faith’s legs were almost entwined with hers and with every inhalation the other girl moved slightly against her with a teasing heat and friction.

“Um.” She tried to pull some brain cells together long enough for a sensical thought. “Things I want to do to you are not killing,” she breathed, and laughed a little. “And I did actually mean that the way it sounds.”

“No shit.” Faith stared, laughed, slid against her tight enough that their dresses made a single damp layer of lace and satin between slick skin that was started to throb with an ache that was anything but unpleasant. Faith bent down and pressed hot lips to the sweat and soot clinging to Buffy’s throat, tongue flicking at the salt and charcoal taste, then breathed into her ear in a way that would have belonged in a porno if it wasn’t so raw with need. “All I’ve got is a cheap motel room, B, but it’s yours for the askin’.”

A small, hungry sound escaped Buffy’s throat, and she tightened her grip on Faith’s hips. “As much as my mom loves you, I think she wouldn’t be happy about us getting x-rated in my room.” She grinned, turned them both around to push Faith up against the car, and brushed her thumb over her lover’s kiss-bruised, smeared-lipstick mouth. Her lover. That was a new thought, and she decided she kinda liked it. “So definitely your place.”

Faith made a sound down in her throat that could not possibly have been expected to fit under as paltry a word as ‘moan,’ then wrapped her lips around Buffy’s thumb in a way that managed obscene and gorgeous on its way to melting her into the best-dressed puddle in Sunnydale.