Authors: Eliza Lentzski
As the dancer came to her feet, Faith saw a familiar tattoo in the small of her back. The outline of the Superman villain suddenly jarred her memory. Faith fished into her back pocket and pulled two $20 bills out of her wallet. She handed the money to the woman still licking her juices from the corners of her mouth. The stripper leaned over and put the money inside her knee-high boots.
“Thanks for the
dance
, Lexi,” Faith chuckled. She grabbed her jacket off the ground and shrugged into it.
“You takin' off so soon?” the dancer asked with a small frown.
“Yeah,” the Boston slayer confirmed with a grunt. Her lit cigarette dangled precariously from her bottom lip. “Thanks for clearing my head, Lex. But I gotta get back to work.”
+++++++++++++++++++
Flashback
- Cincinnati, Ohio
Suggested Listening: Vertical Horizon - “Best I Ever Had (Grey Sky Morning)”
Buffy stared out the window of the airport hotel room. It was a modest sized room, but it suited their purpose.
“We've been here all day...” she murmured aloud.
The blonde slayer watched the planes landing and preparing to take off outside of the giant ceiling-to-floor windows. The windows weren't actually that large, but they felt like they took up the entire room. Well, the windows…and the beds.
Faith smirked at the woman innocently straddling her lap. The sheets were piled in heaps around their naked bodies, evidence of what activity had occupied their day.
“You complaining?” she asked through a twisted smile. “Cause about ten minutes ago, you were far from complaining. It was more along the lines of, `
Oh Fu
—.'”
Buffy placed a finger over Faith's lips, causing them both to smile.
“You're right,” the blonde said in a subdued voice, “but we don't talk about that.”
The elder slayer lifted her gaze from her lover and returned to staring out the window.
“What you lookin' at there, B?” the Bostonian asked, craning her neck to look out the window as well.
Buffy pursed her lips and continued to stare. “Nothing.”
The dark-haired slayer shifted in bed. “There has to be something crazy happening for your attention to be taken away from the sexy you're straddlin' right now,” she noted, gesturing to her naked body.
When Buffy failed to react, Faith propped herself on her elbows so she could look out the large window better. The sun was shining outside - odd for that time of year.
Buffy remained silent. Her silence rattled the brunette slayer.
“We shouldn't waste our time, B,” Faith said quietly after a moment. “We…don't have much.”
Buffy shifted her gaze away from the glass pane and looked back down at the woman between her thighs. “You're right,” she sighed. “We shouldn't.”
Faith stared intently at her blonde lover. “You could stay here, B.” She cleared her throat uncomfortably. “You know you could, right?”
The blonde slayer looked momentarily amused. “In a hotel in Cincinnati?” she lightly joked, although she knew that's not what the Boston girl was referring to.
Faith's eyes were dark. “I mean with me,” she clarified in a voice thick with emotion.
Buffy didn't reply, but instead nodded and gave the younger slayer a weak smile.
Instead of more words, the Chosen One lightly pulled her partner towards her. Faith helped by extending her arms completely, positioning herself so she was sitting upright. Buffy leaned forward and narrowed the distance between their mouths, lightly pressing her lips against the darker haired girl's. The Boston girl smiled into the elder woman's soft embrace.
Buffy began to bite lightly onto Faith's lower lip, nibbling on the pliable flesh between her teeth, eliciting a low purr from the back of the brunette's throat.
Without warning, the younger of the two flipped her lover onto the bed and repositioned herself on top of the blonde's naked form. Buffy squealed in surprise at the sudden movement.
The Boston girl smirked at the woman now lying beneath her. “You always were a bit of a screamer,” she chuckled.
“Only with you,” Buffy countered with a shy smile.
Faith bent her head and nuzzled her nose against the soft skin of Buffy's exposed neck. The Californian reflexively sighed at the brunette woman's confident touch.
“How did you find my spots so easily?” the blonde murmured aloud, moving her head to the side to afford her lover better access to her neck.
“It's my talent,” Faith responded, lightly nipping at the elder woman's sensitive flesh.
Buffy reached up and tangled her fingers in the brunette's unruly waves, pulling her partner away from her neck and up to her mouth once again. The two shared an intimate, lazy kiss despite knowing that their time together was coming to an end. Soon enough Buffy would have to board her bus back to Cleveland and Faith was slated to return to Boston.
Faith pulled away from the elder woman's addictive mouth. Buffy gave the beautiful slayer a concerned look. “What's wrong?” she asked, touching the side of Faith's aching features.
“I need to taste you again,” the brunette rumbled in a thick voice.
Buffy chewed on her bottom lip and whimpered. The need in the Boston-born slayer's words made her chest ache. The Chosen One propped herself up on her elbows and nodded her acquiesce, not breaking eye contact with the younger slayer.
Faith couldn't help the low chuckle that escaped her mouth as she settled herself on her stomach and slipped her forearms beneath the elder slayer's thighs.
Buffy quickly snapped her thighs together and sat upright. “What?” she demanded, feeling a little vulnerable. “What's so funny?”
The dark-haired girl gave her lover a lopsided grin. “Sorry, B. Didn't mean to make you self-conscious. I just got the Church Giggles about something.”
“Oh?” the blonde slayer asked with a raised eyebrow. “About what?”
Faith's fingers went to the insides of Buffy's knees and she gently coaxed the Californian's thighs open once again. She placed soft, warm kisses on the tender flesh of Buffy's inner thighs, pulling quiet moans from the elder girl.
“Was just thinkin',” Faith explained, nibbling her way closer to Buffy's core, “that this might be my new Happy Place.”
“Wh-Where exactly?” Buffy panted, letting her thighs fall apart even wider on the mattress. The blonde wanted nothing more than for Faith to busy her mouth with more intimate acts instead of the current conversation.
Faith licked along the length of Buffy's dripping slit with the flat of her tongue. The blonde groaned and arched her back, thrusting her naked breasts in the air.
The brunette sat back slightly on her haunches, her generous mouth curved into a mischievous smile. “Between your thighs, lover.”
+++++++++++++++++++++++++
Present Day
- Cleveland, Ohio
Suggested Listening: Katy Perry - “Thinking of You”
Outside the bridal shop window, a small jet plane sliced through the air leaving a small trail of white exhaust behind.
“What do you think of this flavor, hun?”
Buffy's hazel-eyes widened slightly when she realized her fiancé had caught her daydreaming. “Sorry,” she rushed, turning her head to look at him. “What?”
Preston pointed at the small slice of wedding cake with the tines of his fork. “The raspberry chocolate?” he clarified, raising an eyebrow. “I figured it would be on the top of your list.”
The blonde girl shifted her gaze away from the large picture window at the front of the store, and back down to the several pieces of flavored cake on the table.
“Oh, right,” she stated without much emotion. She stabbed at a hunk of cake with her sample fork and brought the wedding dessert to her lips. “Yummy.”
The past few months had been a flurry of activity. Between wedding planning and slaying, the blonde slayer hadn't had a lot of time to reflect on anything else. But despite the chaos of her personal and professional life, she'd still spent far too much energy thinking about Faith.
She hadn't heard from the Bostonian since the engagement party. No phone calls. No emails. No Internet chatting. Buffy was convinced the dark-haired girl had probably blocked her from every modern form of communication. She probably wouldn't even accept a message via carrier pigeon or the Pony Express either.
To make matters worse, she and Preston had actually been getting along the past few months. She couldn't remember the last time they'd had a big blowout argument. Between getting flowers, ordering invitations, making a guest list, and everything else that went into planning a wedding, her fiancé had been sweet and patient and extremely involved. Normally all of this would have made the Californian overwhelmingly happy;
but even with Preston behaving like the perfect Future-Husband lately, the blonde was unable to shake her thoughts of Faith.
And this, invariably, led to guilt.
Just when she thought she'd gotten over the Bostonian, something small would remind her of her sister-Slayer - especially airplanes and Mexican food. Buffy knew she shouldn't still be feeling this way about the other slayer. Her thoughts and emotions shouldn't be straying.
But with every step towards the wedding, she couldn't stop herself from wondering what Faith would think about all her bridal decisions. When picking out her bouquet for herself and her bridesmaids, the blonde couldn't help but wonder what the Boston brunette would think about the flower arrangements. When Buffy stood before the three-sided mirror and gazed at her reflection in the bridal boutique during her latest gown fitting, she had wondered what Faith would think of her dress rather than the more natural thoughts that should have gone back to Preston's opinion. Everything always came back to Faith.
Preston was the safe choice. Preston was the `normal' choice. He was attractive and stable and uncomplicated. He was Riley without the Army-demon training. Faith was violent and dark and an ex-con. Faith was everything Buffy had always told herself was dangerous and wrong for her. Plus, she was a
girl.
And as the days before the wedding ticked by, Buffy was no closer to a decision. Were these just cold feet, the Chosen One pondered, or did she really want to be making wedding plans with Faith instead of Preston?
“So we've got to meet with the caterer later and talk to her about a gluten-free option for my sister.” Preston noted, not bothered by Buffy's lack of enthusiasm. “I'll never hear the end of it from her if there's nothing at the reception that she can eat.”
Buffy made a noise of agreement. Preston continued to drone on happily about wedding details, while the blonde slayer turned her eyes back toward the window pane and watched another airplane cut through the cloudless sky.
+++++++++++++++++++
Present Day -
Boston, Massachusetts
Faith sat in front of the small television set and flicked through the limited amount of channels. “Fuckin' nothing on,” she murmured to herself. She took another long pull from the bottle of Jack in her hand and paused when the phone beside her shrilly rang.
The dark slayer felt something tighten in her chest and her breath slightly hitched in her throat. She hadn't heard from Buffy since the engagement party. True, she hadn't made it easy for the elder girl to contact her. She'd blocked her emails and chat requests and had deleted voice mails without listening or replying.
But maybe…maybe Buffy was calling to apologize. Maybe she was calling to say that she'd made a mistake. Maybe she was calling to say she was just downstairs and to buzz her up.
She carefully set the half-filled, glass bottle on the coffee table. She wiped her slightly damp hands on the thighs of her jeans and picked up the phone. “Hello?” she answered.
“So are you coming to the wedding or what? `Cause I haven't gotten your RSVP yet,” the annoyed, yet feminine voice complained.
The Boston woman struggled momentarily to place the voice. “Kennedy?”
“Yes. It's me,” the younger slayer responded curtly. “You haven't sent your RSVP card back. So what's up?”
Faith swallowed hard. Of course it was too much to hope that Buffy would actually cancel the wedding.
“Why are you doing wedding stuff for Buffy?” The raven-haired slayer asked, avoiding Kennedy's original question.
The former boarding-school brat snickered to herself. “Don't ask how I somehow got stuck doing these follow-up calls,” she admitted. “I guess Wills got me more whipped than I thought.”
The Boston girl gripped the phone, but didn't respond.
“Are you broken or something?” Kennedy said into the receiver. “Where's the not-too-subtle comment about me wrapped around Red's fingers?”
Faith sighed miserably. “Sorry, I, uh…just feeling a little under the weather I guess.”
“Dude, you'd better be there,” Kennedy warned. “Don't make me suffer through a Buffy wedding on my own. Frilly dresses and Mariah Carey aren't exactly my thing, ya know,” she quipped.
“I don't know if I'm gonna make it, Ken,” the Boston slayer sighed. She rubbed at her temples and closed her eyes. “It's, uh, not a good time over here. Pretty busy.”
“Oh, don't give me that crap,” the other brunette slayer sharply complained. “You could skip away for a long weekend.”
Faith furrowed her eyebrows together. It seemed odd to her that Kennedy would be so insistent that she show up at the nuptials. “Willow didn't tell you?” she asked cautiously, remembering the shocked and mildly horrified look in the redhead's eyes when she'd interrupted Faith and Buffy on the back porch.
“Tell me what?”
“Nothing,” Faith lied, lightly punching her fist against the arm of the couch. “It's…it's not important.”
“So what do I tell Buffy?” Kennedy pressed.
“Tell her whatever you want,” Faith snapped in reply.
The brunette in Cleveland didn't give up easily. “She keeps bugging me about you coming,” the young slayer noted wistfully.
Kennedy's words made the Boston girl pause: “Why would she…did she say
why
she wanted me there?”
“No,” the other slayer stated.
Faith's swallowed hard. “Yeah, well, she knows how I feel about this wedding.” The words felt sour in the Bostonian's mouth.