This Is How It Goes

"Uh, yeah," Buffy said, and looked at Faith. "Did you get any more vamps after we — uh, um ..." Crap on a stick. "Split up?" she finished lamely.

Faith raised an eyebrow and grinned. "Nah, I think we got all the action we were going to that night."

"Right. Um, yeah, it was pretty uneventful. Dull, really. Almost makes you wish for those good old days where vamps tried something more interesting than attacking little old ladies," Buffy said, in a voice that was about two octaves higher that she normally spoke.

"Last night wasn't interesting enough for you? Geez, B, I think you oughta lower your standards." Faith's smirk was slowly driving Buffy insane. Not in the least because Buffy wanted to go suck on Faith's lower lip.

Buffy glared at her. "My standards couldn't get any lower if I tried, F."

Faith's grin grew, but not before Buffy caught a flicker of something that passed across her face. Was that hurt? Did she just hurt Faith? That bothered her more than it should. She deserved it, Buffy thought guiltily, seducing me like some kind of dirty seducer. Or seductress, maybe.

"I doubt things will stay calm for long," Giles said, who had clearly heard nothing of Buffy and Faith's strange exchange, and was busy cleaning his glasses. "Perhaps this would be a good time to increase your training, be prepared for whatever comes next."

"God, Giles, pessimist much?" Buffy said, more irritable than usual in the face of rampant sexual uncertainty. "How about a nice, `Go, relax, Buffy, soak up the very rare times where you don't have to worry about the impending apocalypse, and try to rebuild your crumbling social life'?"

"Yes, well, Buffy, you don't really have the luxury of relaxing for very long. You have a calling, and that calling requires certain sacrifices -" Giles started didactically, into what was undoubtedly going to be a long speech detailing Buffy's responsibilities.

"Yeah, I get it, Giles," Buffy interrupted, sighing. "`Blah, blah, one girl, blah, no fun.' No need for speechifying."

"Or two girls, really. The more the merrier, right, B?" Faith cocked her head and sent her a shit-eating grin.

Buffy gave her what she hoped was a libido-shriveling look.

"Well, then by all means go start training with Faith, if you can't suffer to listen to my blahing," Giles said dryly, moving towards his office again.

"What? Training with — with Faith?" Buffy shot an involuntarily desperate glance towards the girl in question, who cocked her head, eyebrows raised in an innocently inquiring way that wasn't remotely innocent. "Uh, don't you think I should do homework, or something? We don't want me flunking out of school and being forced to flip burgers to support my slacker lifestyle," she said, quietly panicking and not fully understanding why. Giles ignored her completely and disappeared into his office.

Buffy realized she and Faith were alone. No one around. With a perfectly durable table right in front of them that would probably feel fantastically cool on her back ... no. Stop that. Buffy did a quick, severe mental repression. She felt a strange, complicated swoop in her stomach and coughed weakly, trying to break the taut, deafening silence. She could feel the warmth of Faith's eyes on her.

"What's wrong, B?" Faith asked, mockingly sympathetic. Buffy very reluctantly turned to look at her, attempting to be nonchalant and failing utterly. "You scared? I would be too, I guess, skinny little blonde like you trying to take me on. I'll go gentle on you, I promise." Smirk firmly in place on Faith's face, except now there was something hazardous behind it.

"Your level of confidence is just ... obscene," Buffy said, immediately regretting her choice of words.

"I'm an all-around obscene person, B," Faith responded, shrugging. "If you haven't figured that out by now, I must be doin' something wrong." She very leisurely and very purposefully drifted her eyes along Buffy's form, lingering on her chest and legs.

Buffy snorted, partly to express her exasperation, partly to hide the small, unflattering squeak that escaped her mouth. "You know what? Fine, let's go train. And by train I mean `me kicking your skanky ass to another dimension.' Lemme go change into something a little more destruction-friendly."

Several minutes later: Buffy, in sweats and a tank top, Faith, in her customary leather-filled, curvage-accentuating outfit, which Buffy was not checking out in any way, facing each other on the library floor. Both of them were in fighting positions, visually looking for weaknesses or openings. Faith, that familiar cocky grin gracing her face, took the first shot, coming out with a right hook that Buffy dodged and responded with a hard kick to the stomach. Faith was quick, a little quicker than Buffy, and blocked it. They moved into a rhythm, dancing fluidly around each other as bruises piled up and muscles weakened.

Buffy found herself hitting harder than usual, being more uncontrolled with her shots as she became increasingly and irrationally angry at Faith. What right did she have to do that? We were fine, slaying and being all unsatisfied, why did she have to go and complicate things by satisfying? This was really all her fault, she thought. With her sluttiness and ... cleavage. Of course, it didn't help that Faith looked like a beautiful, reckless machine when she was fighting.

Buffy left too many openings in her anger, which Faith took full advantage of, and Buffy realized she was losing, being backed into the library wall. Faith dodged a hard punch and slammed her shoulder into Buffy, sending her back against the wall and reminding her, at a really inopportune time, of all the good (no, not good) things that had happened recently against a wall.

And suddenly Buffy wasn't really that angry anymore, and some other foreign emotion was making its presence known. She became almost hyper-aware of her own breathing, of Faith's predatory, triumphant expression, of the proximity of their bodies, of the way she was practically drooling to run her tongue along Faith's collarbone. Her body responded on its own as she grabbed the front of Faith's shirt, reveling in the surprised, hungry look she received, and pulling her flush against her own body.

Her own lips found Faith's, one of her hands on the back of Faith's neck while her other found her ass. Buffy shoved her roughly against her own hips, and heard Faith's sharp intake of breath. Without even realizing it, she hooked one of her legs around Faith's and felt as if the space between them was miles too long. Warm tongues found each others' mouths and Faith moaned in a way that made Buffy want to have violent, nasty monkey sex.

Buffy moved her hand from Faith's ass and cupped one of her breasts through her shirt, ripping a deep, shaking groan from Faith. She felt a rush of something that was half liquid arousal and half intoxicating power. She, a girl generally inexperienced with girl-on-girl action, and she was pulling noises like that from Faith. Faith, the tough, unflappable one, the jaded "I've seen all the shit you can throw at me" Southie. Buffy sucked on Faith's bottom lip and moved her hand down to cup her through her pants, and Faith bucked her hips against Buffy's palm, gasping.

A door slammed open nearby and Buffy suddenly realized where they were. She jumped, shoved Faith away from her, and whimpered pitifully at the loss of contact. She turned her head and saw Willow and Xander entering the library, laughing and not noticing the illicit almost-sex that Buffy and Faith had just been having a second ago.

She knew she looked flushed and more than a little ruffled, and was wondering how exactly she was going to explain her appearance when she couldn't breathe. Then Buffy looked at Faith and saw her lick her lips slowly and deliberately, and almost moaned. She saw how dark and wide Faith's eyes were, how she was staring at her like she wanted to take her against any surface available and fuck whoever was watching, and she bit her lip to stop herself from doing something monumentally idiotic. What was wrong with her? She had just initiated something which would have been just a tad inappropriate in a school library.

"Hey, Buff," Xander said, completely oblivious to Buffy's inner struggle between logic and the burning desire to fuck Faith senseless. "Wil and I were just discussing whether Mrs. Milton's mole was actually proof of demonic activity." He stopped and looked at her. "I really hope you were just working out, `cause otherwise we need to seriously talk about some anti-perspirant. Maybe an inhaler."

"No — um, just training. Yeah," Buffy said in a weak, strangled voice, moving away from Faith's heated stare and desperately trying to ignore her. She grabbed the water bottle resting on the table and gulped it down more violently than she had intended.

"You guys officially have the shittiest timing ever," Faith mumbled, sitting back at the table and resuming her "I'm bored and screw everything" position.

Xander looked at her with a growing smile. "Why? I hope we weren't interrupting something naughty and sweaty and which should be described in great detail."

"Ha!" Buffy said, a little too loudly, as three pairs of eyes swiveled in her direction, one of them being thoroughly amused. "Ha. That's — that's not — ha — you know, Faith's just pissed `cause this was like the one time she was beating me. She was just getting ..." Buffy paused, aware she was about to say "lucky" and knowing that would evoke some sort of sexual innuendo from Faith. "An unusual amount of luck," she finished weakly.

Willow raised an eyebrow, apparently decided to ignore the increasing awkwardness of whatever was going on, and changed the subject. "So, what's the what with the paranormal slackage lately?" she asked, dumping her bags on the library table.

"Maybe they just realized they should get outta dodge before we beat the shit out of them," Faith said apathetically, examining her nails. Buffy tried not to stare at her fingers.

"Always such a pleasure listening to your eloquence, Faith," Giles said, re-appearing from his office. Buffy thanked all the deities she had ever known that he hadn't done that two minutes ago.

"Who knows what goes on in the minds of the slimy citizens of Sunnydale, Wil?" Buffy said, regaining a semblance of control over her brain. "I'm personally hoping that we overwhelmed them with our new strategy of half-assed strategizing."

"Ah, yes," Giles said sardonically, raising an eyebrow. "The lazy high school student approach. I believe that was one of Alexander the Great's favorites."

"Don't scoff, Giles. Stats don't lie." Buffy looked confused for a moment. "Except when they do. But they don't lie now. Vamp killings are down and we are properly proud. How about we at least try to bask, and not ask questions that have answers we're not even gonna like?"

"Basking, not asking. I second that," Xander said, raising his hand. "Now, about Mrs. Milton's mole. Me and Wil were thinking some sort of slow-growing demon fetus, `cause we swear it's expanding."

~ — ~ — ~

"God, I spend way too much time in the cemetery," Buffy mused out loud. "`Going out clubbing with your friends?' No, Mom, I'm going to swallow a pint of vampire dust and contract some undiscovered disease, right next to dead Mr. Weston."

"Talking to yourself, B?" Faith said, appearing suddenly.

"Gah!" Buffy yelled, pressing a hand to her pounding chest. "Don't do that!"

"Why not, when I like to see you squirm so much?" Faith cocked her head and gave her a lopsided smirk.

Buffy ignored the not-so-under undertones of that comment and continued walking, with Faith coming up beside her.

"You avoiding me, B? I mean, unless Red's started poppin' steroids and suddenly developed a talent for aiming, I figure I'm still your best patrolling buddy," Faith said, looking at her closely.

"I'm not avoiding you. I'm just ... perfecting my solo abilities."

Faith gave her a skeptical look clearly communicating "stop the rampant bullshit," but didn't say anything. A minute later:

"So, what's on the menu tonight, girlfriend? Vampires, demons, screwing against a tree?"

"I'm — you — I don't even know how to start answering that," Buffy sputtered. "I don't think I could muster the disdain that comment requires."

They walked along in a slightly tense silence. Buffy could feel Faith grinning.

"What the hell are we doing?" Buffy asked suddenly, vehemently, stopping and turning to face her. "What am I doing?" she said in a high-pitched voice that sounded much more hysterical than she meant it to. "And what are you doing?" She pointed at Faith accusatorily, and then gestured at both of them emphatically. "And — and what are we doing — together?"

Faith raised an eyebrow, mouth forming into an unruffled smirk at her histrionics. "We got horny, we fucked. Ain't rocket science, B."

Buffy stared at her. "That's it? Horniness equals sex? No, `huh, maybe we should stop and think about this,' or, `why am I having naughty thoughts about a girl?'"

"Is that what's got your panties in a bunch? That I'm a chick?"

"One panty-buncher on a very long list. I — I don't just go around having amazing sex up against mausoleum walls with someone I've just met. I have a distinct rule against that," Buffy said, avoiding looking directly at her.

"That good, huh?" Faith asked, smiling indecently and looking exceptionally self-satisfied.

"So not the point, Faith. Pay attention to my rambling," Buffy said, trying to inject a note of stern teacher disapproval into her voice. "It's — is it just screwing?"

Faith laughed cynically. "What, you want something more? I ain't a flower and chocolates girl, if that's what you're getting at."

"I don't know what I'm getting at," Buffy mumbled, looking intently at the ground.

"Look, B. I'm gonna explain this to you," Faith said, slightly patronizingly. "We're Slayers, two of a kind. I totally get that smacking around vamps gives you that special kind of itch, `cause I got the same condition. It makes sense for us to help each other out in that area. Who cares if we're both chicks?"

"That's — that's still not really the point." Buffy glared at her. "I guess having random, meaningless sex isn't really an issue with you," she said, more coldly than she had meant to.

"No, not particularly. Why would it be? I know what I want, and I get it. Simple." Faith's mouth was growing into a tight line.

"No thought for the consequences?"

"What fucking consequences? See, they have this new thing called a condom, B. Stops a lot of those pesky complications. You should look into them."

Buffy narrowed her eyes at Faith. "What if I want to think about the consequences? What if I'm not all about `get some, get gone' and ignore everything else?"