FIC: You and Me and Her (Buffy/Cordelia/Faith, R)
TITLE: You and Me and Her
RATING: R
FANDOM: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
PAIRING: Buffy/Cordelia/Faith
SUMMARY: Some things are inextricable.
AUTHOR’S NOTES: AU assuming Cordelia survived AtS season five. For femslash_minis Round 58: Threesomes, as per brutti_ma_buoni’s request.
Faith’s lipstick stained everything.
***
None of them could stand to stay in Los Angeles. There was a lot of work to be done, but not by people like them, and the specter of Angel’s ghost hung too heavy over the city. He was the one thing they had in common; leaving the City of Angels was the only decision they ever made unanimously.
***
“Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?”
Cordelia’s reflection arched a perfect eyebrow, but did not turn to acknowledge Faith, sprawled on the bed, as lithe and limber as a boa constrictor. As a concession to the heat, she had stripped to her panties, her pale skin opalescent in the soft light of Cordelia’s makeup mirror. At the glass, Cordelia sweated in a designer dress.
“Maybe it would be you,” Cordelia said, “if you recognized that makeup comes in shades other than black.”
Faith rose from the bed, went to join Cordelia at the mirror. Faith wound her fingers through Cordelia’s curls. Later, her fingers would smell like perfume.
***
There were girls to find, girls to train. Willow did that voodoo that she did so well, and that was how they found them. That was the easy part.
***
“Did you ever think, way back when, that this is how we’d end up?”
Buffy snorted. “Way back when you were killing people, you mean? No.”
Faith frowned. “When back when it was just us, the Chosen Two, I mean.”
Buffy sighed, and for a moment they walked in silence through the moonlit cemetery.
“I thought Angel and I would be married, and my mom would still be alive to meet her grandchildren.”
“Her half-vampire grandchildren? Did logic not get in the way of your future plans?”
“Give me a break,” Buffy said. “I was seventeen.”
Faith looked out over the crumbling headstones, the empty night.
“Bet you never thought it’d still just be you and me,” she said.
Buffy didn’t say anything, but she took Faith’s hand.
***
Buffy and Faith followed Willow’s spell; they followed the girls. Cordelia followed her visions. Faith was better at recognizing when a girl had to go her own way, and mostly she left Cordelia to her own; Buffy was incensed that Cordelia refused to share her pipeline to the PTB. It was a constant source of discord, and Faith was impressed that someone managed to rile Buffy more than she herself did.
***
Cordelia dropped her bags in the hallway; they were immediately picked up and spirited away by two young Slayers. She had been somewhere with sun; her skin was more bronzed than it had been when she left, her hair tinged with gold.
“So nice of you to drop by,” Buffy said.
“I was in the neighborhood.” Cordelia’s unpitying gaze wandered the foyer briefly. “I see you still haven’t hired a decorator.”
Buffy’s jaw tautened. “I have more important things to do than pick out curtains.”
“Clearly.”
Buffy took a step forward; usually this was usually sufficient to force her adversaries to step back. Cordelia didn’t budge, however, and soon they were just inches apart. Buffy’s hands curled into fists.
The corner of Cordelia’s mouth quirked up into a smile, and Buffy’s anger washed away. She stood up on her toes to kiss Cordelia.
“So, you missed me,” Cordelia said.
Buffy’s anger fired up again, but not enough for her to pull away from their embrace.
***
Their schedules didn’t always align, and their temperaments rarely did. It was a bad idea all around.
***
Buffy and Faith made the bed, holding the sheets taut between them.
“She might not come today,” Faith said. “She said ‘maybe.’”
“You mean I’m not enough to warrant fresh linens?” Buffy asked, and Faith colored slightly, averted her eyes. Buffy managed not to smile too much.
***
Cordelia’s perfume haunted the hallways. The sheets always smelled of it, even when she was gone.
***
The quiet growl of the Plymouth Belvedere. Buffy didn’t know how Cordelia could stand to keep the thing around; just hearing it made her sick. Faith, she knew, had no such reservations; she enjoyed necking in the roomy bench seats. They heard the car pull up and hurriedly finished their chore, smoothing the quilt down and tossing pillows against the headboard.
Cordelia beat them to the stairs; she was halfway up when they reached the top.
“Somewhere desert-y?” Faith asked. Cordelia’s jeans and leather jacket were dull with sand.
“Sonora. Nudillo demons mutilating cattle; nothing too hairy.”
Faith took her hand. “Let’s get you out of those clothes.”
***
It was the middle of the day, and the house was full of young Slayers. Still. Some things could not wait.
They went upstairs, and they locked the door. Faith stood before Cordelia, Buffy behind her, and together they undressed her, two pairs of hands making light work. They fell to the bed in a tangle of limbs, Buffy and Faith still dressed, Cordelia naked between them. Cordelia moved her hands through the swarm of girls buzzing around her, kissing and stroking, removing her lovers’ clothing a button or a ribbon at a time. Their clothes hung off them like wings, like auras, pale secondary silhouettes framing them.
They could taste the desert on Cordelia, the mineral-rich taste of sand and limestone muting her usual sweetness. Faith fisted Cordelia’s curls in her hand and pulled tight until Cordelia gasped into her mouth, her neck arched. Buffy closed her teeth down on the exposed flesh, rested her open palms on Cordelia’s chest to feel her shake.
Faith snatched the hairpins from Buffy’s chignon, let her golden hair tumble down. Mirror, mirror, on the wall. Smudges of Faith’s lipstick stained her skin like bruises.
***
The next morning, the Plymouth was gone. The smell of Cordelia’s perfume lingered.