(fluffathon) FIC: Almost Perfect (Buffy/Faith, R)
TITLE: Almost Perfect
RATING: R
FANDOMS: BtVS/AtS
PAIRING: Buffy/Faith
SPOILERS: Post-“Chosen”
SUMMARY: Perfect happiness is overrated.
PROMPT: For globalfruitbat for Lee's fluffathon. Requested were water bazookas, a big dog, and a really big cake.
AUTHOR’S NOTES: I suck at fluff. Hopefully, this doesn’t suck for you.
Dawn’s birthday, her last birthday at home, and Buffy had once again been possessed by the spirit of June Cleaver. Flour coated the kitchen counters, dotted the Slayer’s nut-brown face, snowy white freckles.
Faith, perched on the sink, tried to steal some batter and got her hand smacked with a wooden spoon.
“Anyone ever tell you this Stepford thing isn’t that attractive on you?” Faith asked, rubbing the red spot on her knuckles. Ooh, hey-there was some batter transfer. Score.
“It’s Dawn’s birthday!” Buffy said, her voice climbing toward the higher registers of petulance.
Faith sucked the smear of pre-cake from her hand. “I know it, B.” She studied Buffy’s furious batter stirring, the furrows made in the creamy pink sea. “Why haven’t you ever baked me anything?”
“Why would I bake you something?”
The red spot was quickly fading, but the sweet stayed in Faith’s mouth. “No reason.”
***
Buffy was on her hands and knees, her panties ringing around her lower thighs like remnants of that freaky Japanese rope torture Faith never had the patience to try. The tiny strips of fabric cut into Buffy’s flesh, leaving needless welts beneath them. Maybe they’d stay until the next day. She should have rug burns, too: palms, knees, face.
Faith liked leaving marks. I was here.
***
Buffy said something about dressing up to go out. Faith was finished prettying herself up in ten minutes, and then went to annoy Buffy while she took for frickin’ ever to get ready.
Buffy was seated at her vanity, tracing the swell of her lips with a lip pencil. The effect sharpened her features: she was almost a caricature wavering in the glass before her.
The mirror eyes caught onto Faith’s slim, dark, reflection form.
“Is that what you’re wearing?” Buffy said, and frowned.
Faith, in her leather pants and most of a top, gave a little curtsey, pomegranate-dark lips twisting into a smile.
“That’s not dressed up,” Buffy said, and her eyes fell back to her own mirror image.
***
“You never get to pick the movie ever again,” Buffy muttered, her voice small and muffled; her mouth was pressed against Faith. Her whole body was pressed against Faith, a child clinging to her big sister’s arm, using the older, more world wise girl to shield her from monsters.
“I did not pick this,” Faith said, and popped some Milk Duds into her mouth. “It was just on TV.”
“And you said stop, have you ever seen this, I saw it when I was a kid-”
“-and it scared the shit out of me. I said that, too.”
Buffy ducked behind Faith’s shoulders, squeezing her eyes shut, as Cujo jumped violently against Dee Wallace’s car, its great jaws snapping and dripping.
“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” Faith added.
She hugged Buffy closer, but the blonde squirmed away when she realized Faith’s hands were still sticky with candy.
“Never again,” she said darkly, and settled her jade eyes on the television screen.
***
Apparently, by dressed up, B meant in a dress. And heels. And princess-colored makeup.
Unfortunately for Buffy, Faith did not have any of these things. Unfortunately for Faith, Buffy did.
This is how, an hour past their dinner reservations, Faith was in her underwear in Buffy’s closet. Buffy dismissed Faith’s insistence that the restaurant would give away their table; having Faith as a life-sized Barbie was so much better than crappy French food.
***
“You’re overreacting. It was an awesome idea-”
Buffy scowled and put some distance between herself and Faith, nearly hitting a run as soon as she burst through the door.
“It was a horrible, stupid . . . stupid idea!” Buffy said, brushing her arms forcefully, as though trying to dislodge bugs crawling across her skin.
“Well, the execution wasn’t great-”
“Stupid!” Buffy said, then walked into their bedroom and slammed the door.
Faith didn’t wait even a second before opening the door that had been slammed in her face and charging in after the blonde. Pfft. What was Buffy thinking? Like, oh yeah, the door’s closed, can’t possibly get in now.
Faith dropped her bad choice of weapon on their bed, and then danced over piles of Buffy’s discarded clothes to another door shut in her face. Faith leaned against the bathroom door, rapped softly with her knuckles. Buffy ignored her, but Faith could hear water pelting the shower floor, and grinned.
“Maybe you should make me pay for my little backfiring experiment,” Faith said, tracing her fingers slowly over the smooth wood that supported her weight.
There was a long pause, and then Buffy’s (slightly less annoyed than moments before, Faith noticed, grinning) voice cut through the muffled din of the water. “Like how?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Faith said, her fingertips dusting circles across the cool wood. “You could have me bathe you. Since, you know, you’re such a dirty girl-”
Faith’s support suddenly fell from beneath her, and she stumbled a little. Righting herself, she looked up into Buffy’s unamused face.
“I’m not a . . .” Buffy blushed, and Faith’s grin widened. “. . . dirty girl. And if I am, it’s your fault!”
Faith laughed, and slipped a hand around Buffy’s naked waist.
“I agree,” Faith said.
Buffy’s nose scrunched. “That’s not what I meant-”
Faith nodded solemnly, and started walking Buffy back into the bathroom, towards the waterfall in the shower.
“I know, B. I feel very, very bad about getting you-”
Buffy frowned, but didn’t stop Faith’s herding her. “Covered in sticky wet ashes?”
“So using a Super Soaker full of holy water isn’t the best way to slay. I just thought we’d try something new!”
They were under the water now, both of them, Buffy ash-covered and still scowling slightly, Faith fully clothed.
“As long as you’ve learned your lesson,” Buffy conceded moodily.
“I’m a quick study,” Faith murmured, and forced Buffy against the tile wall. Water beat down upon them, and if Buffy had further admonitions, they were lost somewhere beneath the downpour and Faith’s hungry mouth.
***
“B, this isn’t going to work. We’re not . . . shaped the same,” Faith argued lamely, obediently stepping into the dress Buffy was shoving at her anyway.
The pink silk slip caught around Faith’s hips, and Buffy helped the slippery fabric shimmy up the other woman’s body. Her small fingers tickled against Faith’s waist, but the touch was slightly muted by the fabric of the dress.
“Don’t be silly. Of course-”
“No, we’re not, I have bigger shoulders, and, you know, breasts-”
Buffy stopped adjusting the dress and shot Faith an evil look.
“I have breasts.”
Normally, Faith would have shrugged Buffy’s insecurities off, or just told her to stop being such a girl. But, standing in Buffy’s closet in a dress - a pink dress! - she felt vulnerable, like she wasn’t wearing anything at all.
Buffy waited a moment for Faith to respond, and when she failed to, said again: “I have breasts.”
“I know you do! I-I enjoy your breasts.”
Buffy pulled off a decent impression of a not amused schoolteacher for a long moment, unwavering, unblinking. Finally she sighed, rolling her eyes.
“You are so lame,” Buffy said, and pulled Faith’s dress free from her hips. It pooled around Faith’s feet, and before the girl could protest or ask what, exactly, was going on here, Buffy was on top of her, relieving her of the rest of her clothes.
***
Faith returned home from a run-slash-patrol - Buffy had said something to the effect of, if you don’t burn off some of this energy, I’m going to call that America’s Most Wanted guy and tell him a fugitive is messing up the couch cover I just straightened - sheened with sweat, comfortably exhausted.
She was two steps into the foyer when she realized something was off. There was an unnatural sweet smell permeating the house. Faith paused, alarmed; had Buffy been obsessively Febreezing again?
“Uh . . . B?”
“In the kitchen!”
With the slow, suspicious pace of walking through a dreamscape, Faith followed the siren’s call of Buffy’s voice. The girl was standing over the stove, fitfully mixing a bowl of something tan and textured.
“What are you doing?”
“Making German chocolate cupcakes.”
Faith blinked. “Um-why? Nobody died did they? You’re not funeral baking . . . ?”
Buffy scowled. “No. Just . . . no reason.”
Faith studied Buffy’s beautiful face, pinched in concentration as she worked the coconuty icing.
“You know, B,” Faith said, sidling up beside Buffy. “German chocolate’s my favorite.”
The apples of Buffy’s cheeks reddened slightly. “Yeah. I know.”
“You didn’t bake something for me, did you-”
Buffy’s cheeks blazed. “Why would I bake you something?”
Faith grinned. “No reason.”
She scooped a fingerful of frosting from the bowl and into her waiting, grinning mouth. Buffy just kept stirring.