Here's a birthday fic for the fabulous dreamincolor.

This is set slightly pre-Checkpoint, from season 5.
It's also heading towards an R-rating more than anything else I've ever done. *is nervous about this*


(Well, hon, you asked for something femslashy...)




Dreaming

The room is exactly like it was the last time she saw it – feature for feature – with only one exception.
That particular exception is currently leaning against the window sill, wearing a red tank top and jeans.

Yep – jeans. Which actually suit her pretty well.

As for the rest, it’s all there. Desk, bed, cd collection, weapons chest – everything. Just the way she wanted it.

“Damn, B. Why’d you give this place up?”

She walks forward slowly, trailing her eyes along the edge of the desk she never got to study at, and replies, “It wasn’t my choice.”

“There’s always choice.” Faith shakes her head, smiling sadly, and then turns to Buffy, arms still resting gently against the window sill. “Pizza or donuts, studs or hoops, good or evil, sister or world, to jump or not, to kill or not, to love or not to love, to be or not to be… all choice. Forever.”

Buffy grins, wryly. “You’re quoting Shakespeare. You.”

“Are you sure about that?”

And they stand, watching each other, just a few feet of carpet keeping them apart.

Fifty short moments later, the cat jumps onto her bed, and starts washing itself.
Faith watches it. Buffy watches Faith – the curls of her hair catching tiny glances of light as it comes through the window – and realises it must be almost evening. The window faces west, after all.

“It’s nearly time.”

“Yep.” Faith frowns and adds, “Seriously, B, I know you’re running short, but couldn’t you have spent a few of those hours being here? It’s got two doors and all that – perfect for some bawdy frenching.”

…which sounds kind of appealing, actually. “But you know I couldn’t. I had to move back home.”

“And why was that again?”

Weird. It’s important – always – but from here she can’t quite remember. “It’s a secret.”

“Not your secret,” Faith points out.

“It still needs to be kept safe.”

No reply.

Screw this. Buffy sits in the desk chair and spins, and the room goes bed, window, desk, bed, window, desk, bed-window-desk-bed-window-desk-bed-desk-bed-desk-bed-desk… and then becomes nothing but a mad blur of colour spinning back the other way. She slams her hand against the side of the desk, and stops.

“Have you found out her name yet?”

Buffy turns. Faith is sitting on the bed, patting their cat, with a soppy grin. “She’s kinda cute. But she needs a name.”

“I think she’s got one.” She joins them on the quilt cover, and tries to join in on the patting too, but Faith’s hand is in the way.
So instead she watches Faith’s hand, as the smooth even strokes move from head to tail in a constant circle.

The cat purrs – and then jumps off the bed and out the window.

“That was rude.”

Faith shrugs. “Smart, though. She’s got what she wants, and we’re left hanging – so we’ll still be mad on to pat her next time she’s got the urge.” She looks up, lips curving slightly. “It’s about power, B. Always is. The chick with the power’s the one who calls the shots.”

“When exactly did you get all wise?”

“That’s what freedom does to you.”

“Freedom?” Buffy frowns. “Is that what you call it?”

Faith’s smile is sad and far away. “Always.”

A breeze flutters through the window, billowing the curtains for a moment.
They barely notice.

“Power?”

Faith, who is sitting there with a wry look on her face, and her legs swinging idly off the side of the bed, nods. “Power.”

“I’ll bear it in mind.”

“That’s not why you came, though.” A raised eyebrow. Legs still swinging. “Is it?”

“It’s not?” Her heartrate increases for no reason at all. “Then why am I here?”

Curved hips. Messy hair. “Same reason as always, I’d say.” Quirked smile. Soft hands.

“This isn’t real, you know.” She says it reluctantly. “It’s just a dream.”

“You’re right, B. It’s not real.” Faith turns to face her, and says quietly: “So why don’t you show me something that is?”

…Buffy grabs her and kisses her, hard.

Faith responds as per normal – a brief moment of shock and then hands trailing up to sink into Buffy’s hair – and the kiss continues, both of them too caught up to notice the normal college-dorm sounds that should be outside in the hall if this were reality.

The shirt, though, is wrong.

Buffy breaks away first, annoyed and needing to catch her breath.
“That top’s the wrong colour. It should be white.”

“Don’t look at me. You’re the one who got it stained like this.”

Which could be true. But it will continue to be the wrong colour, and to keep Faith’s breasts hidden from view, so she rips it right down the front and throws it away.

Kissing resumes, interlaced with groping, hair-pulling, hands sliding over not-usually-bare skin, bursts of irritated lust from her and gaspy laughter from Faith, intimate whispers, licking, and the destruction of several more items of clothing.

And for a while the dorm room disappears and the world becomes lips and thighs and hands and eyes and boobs and blushes and deep shuddering breaths and frantic want and everything and nothing and them together…

* * * * *

Buffy wakes up, flushed.

Wow.

It takes a moment for her breathing to reach normal speed again, and she sits up in bed, pushing her hair back from her face, and listening to her heart still beating way too fast.

That dream (or rather, that sort of dream, because it’s always slightly different) has happened much too often lately.

Always pretty much out of nowhere.

Her heart is still pounding in her ears, her skin is tingling… and it’s ridiculous, really.

Completely ridiculous – but what is she supposed to do exactly? Say to Willow, “Hey Will, I’ve been having all these dreams of lusty badness where I’m putting the moves on my former archnemesis – who’s in jail, and possibly still evil, and a girl, and I’m completely not attracted to her, so could you maybe do some kind of spell to stop them from happening?”

She’d never live it down.

(And plus, there’s part of her – a teeny, not-at-all-totally-taking-over-her-brain part of her – that doesn’t actually want them to stop all that much.)

Buffy washes her face, and stumbles back to bed, where the sheets slide over her bare skin, her lips tingle with memories of things that didn’t happen, and her breathing still hasn’t really slowed down at all.

* * * * *

Faith wakes up, flushed.

There’s that dream again.

Her eyes stay closed for a minute, body still trembling, skin still singing, as she breathes in her last long memories of something that never really happened.

But then a guard in the corridor says something into his radio, the bed’s metal frame creaks below her, that fucking pipe is still dripping loud as ever, and the real world floods back in.

It was just a stupid dream.

Her heart’s still beating, way too loud.