FIC: Knockouts (BtVS/Firefly, Dawn/Saffron, PG-13)
TITLE: Knockouts
RATING: PG-13
FANDOMS: Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Firefly
PAIRING: Dawn Summers/Saffron
SUMMARY: All freaks together.
AUTHOR’S NOTES: Written for femslash_minis Round 110 for brutti_ma_buoni, who wanted outside the law, all freaks together, knockout
Saffron ran the brush through Dawn's long, auburn curls, smoothing the underside of Dawn's hair with her hand, the soft, cool skin of her knuckles tickling the back of Dawn's neck. Dawn watched their reflections in the ornate mirror above the vanity.
"Who will you be tonight?" Saffron asked. She twisted a strand of Dawn's hair around her fingers.
"Ramona," Dawn said, without thought.
"Ramona," Saffron purred. She pulled gently at the strand of Dawn's hair, and then released it. She smoothed the curl back down. "There," she said. "Pretty as a picture."
Dawn stood, still watching herself in the mirror. She ran her hands over the blush pink silk of her dress, feeling the ridges of her ribs beneath the cool second skin of the silk, the flat plane of her belly. In the mirror, she watched Saffron's hand snaking over the silk, coming to rest atop her own. Their fingers intertwined.
"You have time before your meeting," Saffron whispered. Dawn could feel Saffron's chest expanding and contracting with each breath.
"No kissing," Dawn said, and pressed her lips together, watching the shine of the knockout drops glistening on her mouth. She saw Saffron smile in the mirror, and then turned her back to it, turning to Saffron, pressing herself into Saffron's embrace.
They undressed on the way to the bed. Saffron laid out on her back, drew Dawn over her. Dawn's curls fell around them, a veil.
***
Dawn had thought, after Glory, that she was the key to a door no one had any interest in opening anymore. Now, being the Key was like being a Gemini, or left-handed: a quirky personality footnote, but not something that really meant anything.
She had thought wrong.
It started small at first. She pricked her finger and it didn't bleed. Buffy had brightly suggested that maybe Dawn had inherited some Slayer super healing, and they didn't think much of it.
The years stretched on, and Dawn noticed that her friends were aging ... but she wasn't. No grey hairs, no wrinkles, no aches and pains. Her eyes and ears stayed sharp, and so did her mind.
The people she loved faded away, and she stayed as lovely and fresh as a rose in its spring.
She stopped attending funerals, because there was no one left she knew. She had outlived them all.
Then she outlived Earth.
The Earth decayed, burnt up by misuse, and Dawn had no choice but to take to the sky.
She was a settler on Persephone right after the terraforming was complete. She moved often enough that people didn't question her odd presence. The magic was gone; she had outlived that, too. The last thing she needed was to be burned as a witch.
She searched the 'verse for the place where the freaks went.
After lifetimes, she met Saffron.
Saffron wasn't a freak, not like her. Saffron was savvy. Dawn was savvy, too. She'd learned to be.
Saffron could teach her more. Dawn let the woman take her home.
Wherever home had been then. Some things were variable.
***
"My little bird," Saffron whispered, tracing Dawn's brow bone with her index finger. "Fly, fly, fly away home."
Dawn's eyes found the clock. "Time to go," she said, and sat up.
Saffron pouted, and watched as Dawn slipped into her dress, searched the floor for her heels.
"You never stay," Saffron said. Dawn went to the vanity, and dabbed perfume onto her pulse points. She studied Saffron's lined face, her greying hair, in the mirror. Still a beauty, she thought. Just not enough for the work.
It was a young woman's game. Dawn was a reasonable facsimile. She pressed her lips together, bleeding her lipstick over her mouth, watching the glisten of the Goodnight Kiss.
"I never stay," Dawn said. "But I always come back."
She left, without looking back.