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This moment, Faith would argue, had been possible in many of the years they’ve known each other, given who the two of them are as people. Technically. Maybe it’s a little bit of wishful thinking, but not that far, in her opinion. A stroke of luck here, the right word, the wrong time…it could have happened before. There have been a lot of nights, she thinks, when B would have liked to put Faith on her knees, put her to work, but didn’t for one reason or another. She’s always had the potential for it, Faith called that shot early, just took a while to be proven right.
But in all honesty, she likes that it's now, when she has so much in their history to atone for.
It feels good, feels right that she should be on her knees. Kneeling like she's behind a pew again– like the times Ma found religion, sober enough to repent for the times she wasn't. But one way or another, Faith was something her mother never had much time for, and so the younger Lehane fell out of the church easy enough.
Faith never made a very good Catholic. Though she comes here in penitence, this is not a confessional.
Still, in the back alley behind a dingy little gas station, she feels washed clean.
Sheets of frigid rain crash down on them, not that either of the women in this alley notice. After a good fight, a good kill, their blood runs hotter. The air smells like spilled copper and bruised sweat, the petrichor and ozone of a raging storm, and of course, the slick tanginess of arousal.
She undoes the button of her partner's jeans with her teeth and her tongue. Takes a deep breath through her nose.
Salt-soaked cotton and skin and heat. Faith needs this. Needs to be absolved the best way she knows how. The beginnings of soreness pulse in her knees against the pressure of the rainswept, rough asphalt, but it doesn't matter. Nothing matters but the supplicant and her deity, whose back presses into a brick wall, hands twisting through the dark waves of Faith’s hair possessively. As is her right. It took a while to sort this out, but the scar on her stomach is all the proof Faith needs to know who she belongs to.
Even if they don't say that part out loud.
It's kinda funny, all things considered– what kind of a name is Buffy for a goddess? – but there Faith kneels, worshipping at the altar of a superhuman valley girl, California sunshine even in spite of the cold Atlantic wind rolling over them off the Chesapeake Bay.
B definitely looks the part of divinity, the warm amber glow of an old sodium vapor streetlight at her back, ringing her blonde tresses with an ochre-gold halo. The green of her eyes is nearly gone in shadows and lust-swollen pupils, looking down on Faith the way a divine being should. There’s a barely veiled possessiveness there, like this is the natural state of things between them, and more than a hint of hunger at Faith’s devotion.
Tugging the jeans down over Buffy's hips enough for her purpose, Faith presses her lips to every inch of exposed skin she can get, nearly ravenous. She just can't stop herself; every brush of contact between them stokes a fire at the nape of her neck, the bond between them as Slayers flaring to life. The tender skin of Buffy's inner thighs is slick with her arousal and possibly rainwater and Faith laps it up like a last meal, savoring the salt on her tongue.
The thin cotton of her panties clings, soaked with desire, outlining every inch of the perfect cunt underneath; Faith mouths over it in mindless desperation, noting every twitch that runs through tanned thighs, every broken, quiet gasp that falls into the crisp night air.
Buffy laughs breathily, a little catch in it when Faith’s nose brushes her clit. “Hah– I– I always forget, when I've been away, how needy– God!–mm, how needy you get after a kill. You really– oh, Faith– want to do this here?”
Faith’s response is muffled by the fact that she's more focused on tonguing over the damp cotton than forming words. “Fuckin’ need it, B.”
She could nearly whine when the hand tangled in her hair loosens, trailing down to her jaw. Holds it firmly, like a steel trap. A shiver runs through her. Christ, she'd die before she let anyone else manhandle her, but with B she's like putty.
In contrast with her iron grip, Buffy tilts Faith’s head up gently, forcing their eyes to meet. There's an avaricious glimmer behind green eyes.
“I like…seeing you like this. All desperate,” Buffy muses, chewing on her lip in a way that drives Faith absolutely nuts. God, makes her want to sink her own teeth in.
Buffy’s hand brushes along Faith’s jaw until it's resting by her lips; Faith’s greedy, always has been, so even as she knows she should wait, she wraps her lips around Buffy's index finger. Just a kiss to the pad, at first, but when B gives a haughty little nod, Faith takes it in deeper, tracing the length with her tongue.
She knows B is just as impatient for it as she is, but the woman is also, more than anything, in desperate need of control, always. And it makes Faith’s head go kind of fuzzy, just to sit at Buffy's feet and be good for her, like a dog, like the fuckin’ mutt she is.
It's a much more forgiving way to brush the divine than the point of a knife.
“So pretty on your knees,” Buffy murmurs absentmindedly, as Faith takes the additional fingers in her mouth to the knuckle. It's not enough, it could never be enough. There's an emptiness in her, born hungry, but at least when they touch, it completes some sort of circuit for their shared demon and she can pretend she's not alone. She can pretend that the space in her that has always been meant for Buffy can actually be filled for more than just a night.
Moaning around the digits, Faith pleads with her eyes. B angles her head up more, thumb brushing softly along Faith’s jaw. But then, almost cruelly, her fingers slip out. Turning over, they brush over Faith’s lips as if to shush her, tracing the shape.
Faith knows her lipstick is in ruins, smeared with her own saliva all over her mouth, and the shitty drugstore mascara she buys (‘cause she's trying to be a better person these days, which means no more shoplifting the good shit) is probably running with the rainwater all down her face. But that's okay. It gets her hot, actually, cunt clenching emptily at the thought of looking like Buffy’s cheap whore. Looking used, used the same way she's craving and yet being denied right now.
Of the two of them, she's always the less patient. Buffy's hand lingers; Faith chases, pressing her lips to the fingers, the palm, down to the wrist where she can feel a pulse beating under feverish skin, in perfect unison with her own.
Of the deadly sins, she can count at least three of them she's guilty of in this moment. Lust, always her favorite vice. Arrogant pride, that she should get to touch the woman she worships without permission. But the one Buffy's touch always brings out of her is greed.
Of course, Buffy doesn't let her get away with it. Her voice is cold steel as she warns. “Faith.” Starving dog that she is, Faith’s head remains bowed, trying to mark every inch of skin with bloodred lips.
The other hand knots warningly in her hair, as if B doesn't know that the slight tugging ache at her roots just turns her on.
“Look at me, Faith.” Buffy says, icy and commanding, the conquering hero. She says it in the same way she orders the junior Slayers around– the same way she talks to a demon before she puts a wooden stake the size of a table leg through its heart.
God, it gets Faith so fucking wet, makes her feel like that night and she’s about to get her knife back in the worst way but good at the same time, because sex and violence have always had an unhealthy tangle in their relationship, they're Slayers, of course it has, but she trusts B won't actually hurt her now–
She looks up, aware her eyes are wide, doeish, expectant.
“Open your mouth.” Buffy says firmly. Without her permission, or even her active thought, Faith’s jaw goes slack, body obeying Buffy for her.
Buffy traces Faith’s bottom lip with her thumb.
Then, deliberately, almost lovingly, spits in her mouth.
She gazes down darkly, teeth dimpling her lip as she takes in the sight of Faith, messy and ruined, with a covetous leer. “Swallow.”
Arousal burns under Faith’s skin as she obeys, just barely choking down a moan.
“Good girl.”
At that, she can't keep quiet, and Buffy knows that, smiling catlike at the ensuing whimper. Faith’s not good, but coming from those lips, she could almost believe it, and the thought is like a lightning bolt to her clit.
She pleads with her eyes, tell me what you want me to be.
“Are you going to whine for me again if I say you have to wait to taste it?”
Meanness feels right in that bubbly voice, golden and sharp, a twenty-four karat knife. Faith’s earned it, even just the performance of it. She knows Buffy gets off on knowing that she can reduce Faith to this; wrecked, pathetic, completely in the palm of her hand.
“You know I would.” Faith husks in response, she's already been laid bare before this woman so many times there's no point in pretending.
“And would you do that for anyone else?”
Buffy, to her credit, makes it sound like casual, idle curiosity. But she can't hide the capricious glint in her eye, ready to turn on a dime into territorial envy. She doesn't like to share her playthings.
“What do you think?” Some flash of her natural defiance, or maybe Faith just wants to be punished more. As much as she wants forgiveness, she's also always had the impulse to press on fresh bruises.
The hand in her hair tightens in warning, the ache deepening. There it is.
“Fuck no, I wouldn't, B. Only you.” Only ever you. An affirmation of her devotion.
Thus convinced, Buffy tugs at Faith’s roots, an order without words. No foreplay, nothing sweet or sentimental, just her head pulled in the direction of Buffy’s waiting cunt. Put to work; it's what she's good for.
The damp white cotton has a shine to it, a glistening that says it's not soaked from the rain, not entirely. Hooking a finger in the hem, Faith weighs the idea of pulling the panties all the way down– one twitch of her wrist and they'd tear, a hungry part of her brain supplies helpfully, except then B will be pissed– but in the end, she just pulls them to the side.
Her mouth waters at the sight of Buffy’s pretty cunt. Pink and perfect, just as golden as the rest of her, and yet glistening with slick for a fuck-up ex-con on her knees in a dingy alleyway. Her lips are swollen with arousal, she needs this, needs Faith’s mouth, and Faith feels a sort of bliss at that. At having a place where she fits, where she can be good.
Buffy gives a breathy sigh at the first brush of Faith’s tongue, slumping against the brick behind her bonelessly, something pent up exhaled. She can be more of a tease, Faith knows, but never too long after a successful hunt, with the Slayer surging through her veins.
Christ, she tastes good, salt and skin and pure, undiluted need. Faith makes to lick every inch of her, sliding her tongue between folds, sucking the puffy lips into her mouth– nipping slightly, ‘cause B likes it a little rough– tracing her tongue over the hood of Buffy’s clit and back down to dip inside her slick opening. So warm, so fucking wet in her mouth, this is the closest Faith will ever come to heaven– having her very own goddess grinding needily against her tongue. The pulsing buzz that's always pulled them together as Slayers intensifies with every touch; that, and just plain lust boiling down low, heating Faith from the inside out.
She looks up, meeting Buffy's eyes, and it’s like getting struck by lightning, sparks shooting through her skull, jolting down to that place at the back of her neck where Slayer senses live, further down to her aching clit. Buffy looks at her like she'd eat her alive when they're like this, just unrestrained hunger, and fuck, does it ever get Faith wet. It's like she's the only thing in the world that matters under Buffy’s gaze, a singular focus that goes bone-deep, cuts right to the heart of her and for once, deems her good enough.
Yeah. Hell of a fucking rush.
Every time she does this, she can't help but linger a little bit– which is the kind of sentimental girly shit Faith would die before admitting aloud, but whatever– because obviously one of these days Buffy’s going to realize that she shouldn't be wasting her time with Faith fuckin’ Lehane of all people and kick her to the curb. So yeah, maybe she takes her time a little, trying to map out Buffy's pussy with her tongue until she can see it with her eyes closed, drinking it all in like fine wine–
Buffy doesn't have the patience for that. “Be good for once.” The words sink into Faith’s stomach like a hot stone, she knows B means that she should quit being a brat and lick her clit, but Faith chooses to hear it as a commandment from on high, a path to salvation.
Not that she needs to do much but sit there and be a needy, warm mouth to fuck, a vessel for her goddess; Buffy's knots her hands through dark, rain-slicked hair and grinds herself against Faith’s mouth, shuddering sounds escaping her lips. Faith tries, of course, licking hungrily, matching the rhythm, but sometimes when she's doing this, focus really just…escapes her.
Because it's Buffy there, glowing above her. Eyes screwed shut, head tipping back into the wall, moaning like this is a religious experience for her– and what, is Faith not supposed to be a little fucking gone at that?
Thank God Buffy is rough with her. Tugs her back into place, the bloom of the sharp sting in her scalp bringing Faith back to herself.
“Use me, B. However you need–” Her pleading is cut off when Buffy does just that.
“Oh, your mouth– God you're so good– Faith, so good letting me–” Buffy's rambling, holding Faith’s mouth to her cunt like she's trying to drown her in slick heat, hips working desperately as she grinds her clit against Faith’s tongue.
As she fucks Faith’s mouth! – Hallelujah, amen, and all that– shit like this used to be the stuff of wet dreams for Faith and somehow it's something that happens semi-regularly for her now; what a merciful deity her own personal religion has.
Buffy’s hips jerk hard enough to bruise a normal person; sometimes Faith wonders if she was chosen as a Slayer just to be the blonde’s very own chew toy, a thought that fills her with a warped little thrill in some of her more deviant moments. She belongs to Buffy, in whatever way her creator sees fit. And she’s glad she can keep up, really– Faith’s seen what happens to those who couldn’t, discarded, forgotten, reduced to a what’s his name again? – but sometimes she wishes the marks would stay more. Let her be reshaped as her goddess sees fit with the violet blossoms of broken capillaries under the skin, teeth marks indented in flesh; in her image, amen, Buffy’s already her cynosure, her exemplar, though Faith herself wouldn’t use such flowery terms, and everything good in her is shaped after Buffy.
Their eyes meet again, a needy flush high on Buffy’s cheeks, an intent stare as she looks into Faith’s eyes and holds them there, rivulets of rainwater dripping off her chin, making her gleam in the light.
“Touch yourself,” she demands, pure and greedy, “I want to see it.” A shaky breath is punched out of her lungs when Faith’s tongue flicks at the perfect moment, meeting the thrust, “be a good girl and do what I– oh, right there, shit– tell you!”
Pride purrs in Faith’s chest; making Buffy curse always feels like a victory. Fuck knows why she’s a grown ass woman and she still hardly swears, but every time Faith manages to draw it out, it’s proof of how much B needs her, ‘cause who else is breaking her walls down like that?
And of course, she doesn’t need to be told twice; her clit’s been aching this whole time, blood rushing after the fight, she’s only gotten wetter. Shaky fingers on her free hand tear the button free, tear it out of the whole jeans, actually, because fucking Levi's didn’t think about women with superpowers when they made this shit, but whatever, they’re tight enough they’ll stay up and rubbing one out is vastly more important to Faith. Obeying is more important. A surge of relief floods through her when she begins to circle her clit, pleasure expanding through her, hot and urgent.
She moans as bolts of desire shoot through her, the sound low and throaty into Buffy’s cunt, which just gets B going more, the rhythm of her rolling hips becoming jerkier, more urgent. And Buffy’s pupils are huge, her attention undivided and carnal as she watches Faith touch herself.
“There she is, there’s my girl,” she mutters obscenely as she fucks Faith’s mouth, voice raising as she actually addresses Faith, tongue sharpening in warning. “Don’t get any ideas though, you wait until I’m done.”
Which isn’t far off, Faith knows. They’ve done this enough that she knows what it means when those green eyes go all glossed over, when Buffy starts breathing in shaky bursts, when her hand sneaks under the hem of her shirt, under her bra and grasps a perfect tit harshly– if the fresh wave of arousal wetting her chin wasn’t indication enough.
They don’t have to speak; practice and the preternatural connection between them as Slayers tell Faith B needs more. Three fingers slide into Buffy’s waiting heat, pistoning rough and fast, B likes it to ache with the stretch a little, and her cunt pulses eagerly in welcome.
“Good–oh, God, good fucking girl, Faith! you feel so good inside me–”
Her voice catches when Faith’s fingers start to curl, and then she’s just making wild, unintelligible sounds, so loud Faith’s kinda surprised no one in the convenience store hears them. Thunder rolls overhead as Buffy gasps, throwing her head back, one hand unlacing from Faith’s drowned hair to strike out at the wall behind her, leaving cracks in the brick. Around Faith’s fingers, she pulses and clenches and gushes, faster and faster, and the hand remaining in Faith’s hair grips hard enough to sting.
Grasping hard and holding Faith there, Buffy grinds frantically, chasing her peak with a mindless intensity until, with a low groan, she climaxes hard, her whole body going tight and tense, and now that she’s allowed to, it’s easy for Faith to follow to her own peak, hurriedly rubbing her clit until she sees stars bursting behind her eyes.
It’s the kind of orgasm that makes her wish she wasn’t trying to quit smoking, ‘cause goddamn, does she need a cigarette. It’s kinda funny– Father Taggart used to sneak out back after a particularly moving mass for a smoke, and she gets it now. After a religious experience like that…yeah. Sometimes you need a cig.
Sitting back on her heels, Faith just lets it wash over her. The bite of the cold downpour, the warm glow of a really good orgasm, the way Buffy looks at her after.
Pretty, perfectly-manicured fingers brush damp strands of Faith’s hair out of her face, almost tenderly. They’re both fucking drenched, the rain’s still battering down, like it didn’t have the decency to wait while something profoundly important was happening. If the weather did decide to revolve around B and her whims, it’d be only right. It seems like everything else does; it’s natural.
Fuck’s sake, she’s so gentle now. Merciful. Just running her fingers through Faith’s hair, resting on her cheekbone, thumb brushing away what Faith’s sure are black trails of mascara running down her face. And not saying a goddamn thing. Maybe that means Faith did good. Or Buffy’s got her own guilt to work out.
B must find whatever it is she’s looking for, because she finally breaks the silence. “C'mon,” she says softly, offering a hand to help Faith up, “let's get back to the hotel. I need to wash all this gunk off.” She frowns, taking in the state of herself, jacket stained with dark green demon blood spatter. “These clothes are probably ruined.”
Faith accepts the hand up. It's always slightly strange, the space that follows. They're not friends, not exactly when they do things like that, but they're not entirely lovers either. Faith doesn't know how to be if she's not begging for forgiveness, and the moments connecting the act and the after are disjointed, an unsteady transition.
The fervor fades afterward; outside of the sacrosanct light of Faith’s worship, it’s easier to see the details; cracks in an old painting. The weariness behind those eyes, the years. It’s easier for Faith to be fucking normal about it– as much as she can be anyway. Just two sides of the same coin, two women each broken in their own ways. Buffy is still…everything good, to Faith. But it’s not due to any holiness. Just herself, which is apparently enough to earn Faith’s fucked up devotion.
But then again, the way they've orbited each other over the years has hardly been conventional. She’ll be whatever B needs her to be.
There's a moment where Buffy doesn’t let go of her hand. Just kind of holding it like she forgot she had it, while her eyes study Faith’s face.
“...you okay?”
It's hardly peak aftercare. It's also the most anyone’s ever bothered for Faith, and for way less rough shit. Makes her feel kinda stupid and wanting and – anyway. She pushes that down.
“A little light kink never killed nobody.”
And she’s still holding Faith’s hand. That’s not normally how this goes. But then again, Buffy was off in Europe, dealing with some weird cult while Faith held down the fort stateside– maybe she forgot how they’re supposed to be. Or maybe she saw some shit in Faith’s eyes when she was doing all that staring. It’s weird, is all.
The rain comes down unceasingly. Pools in the cracks of the asphalt. Flickering streetlights and shitty gas station signage lights glowing off the puddles.
It's never happened that it's raining when they've done this before. Buffy’s a vision; hair slicked and dark from the rain, face dewy and shining where the light catches it, chest rising and falling heavily under her sodden, now-clinging blouse– the Notebook, eat your heart out. B made her watch that shit but even the most dramatic kiss in the rain doesn't feel like it's got shit on this, just holding hands and meeting each other’s gaze. Not when it's them.
“...That’s not an answer.” Buffy finally says, cocking an eyebrow, lip beginning to stick out in the beginnings of a reprimanding pout.
And maybe it's nothing. Maybe B's got so much residual guilt over how the Spike thing went that she's overcompensating. But their hands are still clasped. It's something.
It's not quite an embrace, but still, it is the second time Faith’s felt like she was reborn in a rainswept alley.
“I'm five by five, Blondie.”