Disclaimers: They belong to all sorts of people of
wealth, power, and wondrous creativity.

Spoilers: Bad Girls

Ratings Note: R for language, some mild f/f
interaction.

Summary: What I think happened after the episode.
All right, what I'd like to think happened. Call it an
AU.

Author's Notes: Bad Girls is the only Buffy episode I
have on tape. I may have watched more times than
is strictly necessary. This story came out of a dream
I had after a viewing.

Acknowledgments: To my Dad for watching the ep
with me, and falling for all the "bad" guys and gals
immediately. Also to Pretty Pretty Dawn Pares, for
fine, fast beta and Dawn Sharon for many helpful
comments.

*

"No, *you* don't get it. I don't care."

And it was almost entirely true -- Faith had never seen
the point of elaborate funerals. For Faith, the human
body was nothing without animus (though she wouldn't
think of it quite that way), and since the only real
*bad* trouble she and Buffy could get into had gone
glug-glug-glug with the corpse...

Well, there was nothing to worry about. Except that
Buffy was doing just that. Worrying. Fretting.

*Thinking*.

In her trendy-yet-good girl clothes, in her cute little
shoes, in her carefully mussed hair... Buffy was one of
those girls who could wear colors that weren't really
right for her and still look cute and fashionably
waifish, somehow.

"Buffy..."

"Faith, you have to know this isn't right."

And the look in Buffy's eyes just underscored the
words. Faith *had* to do this, because everyone had
to do this because that was how it was.

Not for the first time, or even the fifteenth, Faith
decided that what Buffy *really* needed was extensive
deprogramming. Really, Faith had only been doing
her civic duty.

Faith sighed, ran one hand through her hair. It was
still damp from the last-minute scrubbing (and
Faith wondered why after better than 7 years of
bloodstain removal the process never got any easier),
and the dampness added a certain amount of
unintentional hesitation to the movement. Faith
frowned.

"Faith --"

She shot Buffy a look.

"Fine, so the conversation is over. But why can't we
just talk to someone?"

"Anyone?" Faith smirked in a way she thought was
entirely internal. She knew Buffy's 'we' was mostly 'I.'
Perfectly understandable. Buffy certainly had no
reason to believe there would ever be a time when
there simply *wasn't* anyone to talk to.

"Giles might know... something we can do."

"Like what? Dredge the lake and retrieve Mr. The Corpse
for tasteful mounting?"

Buffy started turning a neat shade of pastel green
that blended well with her coat.

"There's *nothing*, Buffy. We were getting attacked right
and left by vampires. They were, you might remember,
falling from the sky. I made a mistake, and there is
*no* way to go back. You need to understand that.

"You also need to understand that we *still* can't save
the world from prison."

"And there's *still* a difference between slaying and
killing."

Faith flopped down on the squeaky little bed, stretched
her legs and crossed her arms. Any other person
would've gotten kicked out. Bodily, if necessary. But all
Buffy had to do was stand her ground and Faith would
let her claim it.

It was pathetic. But Buffy *was* a Slayer, too... had
to be some leeway somewhere for fellow slayers. Had
to trust the one who had your back. Something.

But being with another Slayer also meant that you
never had to take it easy. "Is there really a difference? I
mean, think about it. We kill night and *day*. It's not
like we stop and get to know these things --"

"They're *things*, Faith. A thing is different from a
person, hence the whole calling things 'things' thing."

"I dare you to say that five times fast."

Buffy grinned at Faith for a heartstopping moment of
what Faith would classify as 'victory' before pulling
back the humor and looking down.
 

"There's a difference, Faith."

"Which explains why you're dating a vampire. Uh,
huh."

"Don't talk about Angel."

//Because I'm not good enough?// Faith brushed it
off. "OK, so we only kill the Bad Ones."

"Exactly."

"And the ones who are unlucky enough to pick
easy-to-find nests..."

"Stupidity is no excuse."

Faith snorted. "Hey, I'm not making excuses. I'm just
saying we had no idea if those were the same vampires
who were working for Evil with a capital E."

"I reiterate, Faith: Things. Things that kill people on
a nightly basis, whether or not those people are us."

"Bear with me. You guys got Angel's soul back --"

"Don't --"

"So why not try to capture the beasts alive and work
that ol' White magic instead of *always* slaying?"

"Even if I was naive enough to think you believed even
a fraction of the bullshit it would *still* be bullshit,
Faith."

"You're cute when you curse."

"Bullshit, bullshit, bullshit."

They giggled together briefly. Buffy always seemed to
find Faith's enjoyment of Buffy's relative innocence...
interesting.

Faith turned and crawled over to the foot of the bed.
Patted the tattered coverlet. "C'mon, girlfriend. You
look *forlorn* standing there all alone. I keep expecting
some bad painter to come around to immortalize that
look of yours on black velvet."

Buffy responded with the 'you're not going to distract
me from this Important Issue' look. Faith had a
briefly surreal moment when she realized that it was
the exact same look whether they were talking about
routine patrols or manslaughter. She shook it off
when Buffy snuggled up next to her for a moment
before letting herself fall backwards on the bed,
leaving Faith face-to-face with what would be Buffy's
navel should all those nice girl clothes be removed.

"Faith, how are we supposed to deal with this?"

"I already dealt with it." She could hear the edge in
her voice.

"I.... I didn't mean it that way."

The other woman's voice was so quiet this time Faith
only barely heard it. The implications made her
freeze, even if she had been hopefully aiming for
something just like it. Faith twisted until she was
resting her head on Buffy's abdomen. Reached over to
coax Buffy's hand into her own. Her almost ludicrously
small palm was a little damp.

It made the calluses... softer.

Faith made her voice as gentle as she could.
"Sometimes there's nothing."

Buffy stiffened briefly, then Faith felt her consciously
relax again. For a moment, Faith wished her body
could come up with another reaction to trust than
the same old horniness it offered for everything
from boredom to abject terror.

"This is just... this is just *wrong*, Faith. We
shouldn't be able to... to just do *anything* because
we're Slayers."

//We *have* to be able to do anything.// Faith
shifted again, bringing more of her body into contact
with Buffy's and stifling both the groan and the
predatory smile that wanted to surface. She knew
Buffy would put up with all sorts of groping so long
as Faith didn't go Too Far. "But that's just it. We do
what we have to, and we do our best. We can't
always be perfect..."

"But murder..."

"... was a fuckup of phenomenal proportions. But
there's nothing more we can do. Not and still manage
to do our jobs... Shit, Buffy, *everything* we do is
life and death. Something like this had to happen
someday, don't you see?"

Faith rested her head on Buffy's chest, resisted the
urge to nestle more than was strictly reflexive. They
stayed that way for a while, and Faith let herself
relax to the rhythm of the other woman's heart,
didn't let go of Buffy's hand.

"But, Faith --"

Faith growled and pounced, silencing Buffy with a
short and carefully more-aggressive-than-lustful
kiss.

"Yahhh! Faith!"

Faith kissed her again, if only for making her name
two syllables. This time she kept her eyes open, and
drank in the scandalized terror in Buffy's own.

"What the hell are you doing?"

"I am the Evil Slayer, come to take your virtue away!
Surrender, for there is no escape!" And then Faith
threw back her head and cackled maniacally.

At which point Buffy flipped her off the bed.

"You know, you really should consider seeing a doctor
about this."

Buffy was laughing, the edge nearly gone...

Faith arranged herself into a slightly more dignified
position on the floor. "What this? The absolute
comfort in my own aggressively healthy sexuality
this?"

"Oh, I already knew there was no hope for that. I was
thinking more along the lines of fixing your tendency
to make weird grunting and cackle noises."

Faith narrowed her eyes and curled her lip. "There's
only one way to respond to that."

Buffy raised an eyebrow. "Oh yeah?"

Faith twisted herself into a crouch and pounced,
knocking them both back onto the bed and then to the
floor on the other side. "Yeah."

Buffy let Faith pin her arms. "And what's that?"

"Unnngh." Faith emphasized her point with a slow
full-body grind that was hard enough to let her know
for sure that Buffy was wearing buttonfly jeans
somewhere under that coat. Buffy was also giggling,
presumably at the lust that Faith knew was only a
little bit exaggerated.

How long would it take Buffy to notice just how
hot she was getting?

She didn't even think about relinquishing her
position.

Buffy pushed up against her hands a little harder,
Faith pushed back a little harder. They increased the
tension push by push until Faith could almost
*hear* the way normal mortal bones would break
given the same treatment as their own.

Faith wasn't sure when she'd started thrusting against
Buffy, but they'd also maintained eye contact this
entire time, and the only thing in Buffy's eyes was
that smug little look of determination and a bit of
that wide-eyed 'ooh, what's next, sis?' that Faith had
come to expect from the other woman.

So she didn't stop.

"Faith..."

"Um-hmm..."

"Does this count as sex?"

"Ummm. Depends."

"On what?"

"Will you make me stop if I say yes?"

Buffy nodded, expression not-at-all firmly entrenched
in 'and this is the way it is' mode.

"Then no..." Faith brought their hands down a little
from the high point above Buffy's head and slid
down the other woman's body. Bit the few closed
buttons of Buffy's powder blue pseudotrench off and
nudged the fabric away with her face. "This isn't
remotely sexual."

And then Faith dove in and sucked one nipple into
her mouth through Buffy's thin t-shirt and bra.
She pulled hard and made sure to get the fabric as
wet as possible. Buffy froze beneath her, then
moaned. Faith stopped suckling long enough to
blow cool air over Buffy's shirt.

The other woman jerked beneath her and abruptly
twisted hard enough to free her hands. Faith sighed
to herself and rolled off, watching Buffy stand up
and back away a bit, holding her coat together with
one hand. After pacing a little, she said:

"This falls into the realm of things I'm not
comfortable with."

"I guessed that while you were walking around
wondering where and how you should stand so that
I received no mixed messages."

"God, that's annoying."

"Hey, you can find a vampire through a muddy
footprint, I can tell when I've raised the little hairs on
the back of someone's neck in a bad way. We all have
our special skills, Buffy."

"Fuck that. You are not allowed to be pissed that I
said 'no.'"

"Not *allowed*?"

"It's in the girl handbook, Faith. Look it up."

Faith put her head in her hands for a minute and
laughed. "OK, fine. I'm not pissed at you. Happy?"

Buffy looked around the room a moment, apparently
focusing on duct tape and dirty clothes and the
general sense of shab Faith knew her place couldn't
help but give off. She was probably trying to remember
why she'd come here in the first place, and Faith
didn't really want that to happen.

"Look, I'm attracted to you. Big shock, I know, but I
am. And sometimes when I look at you I think I might
have a little chance..."

And that was enough to get Buffy looking at her again,
focusing on Faith as opposed to her own thoughts.

"I'm not gay, Faith."

Faith shrugged. "I know. Personally, I don't think that
has shit to do with anything."

"Enlighten me, Sexy Spice."

"Laugh if you want, but nerves are nerves. Some things
feel good, whether or not we think they should. So why
bother to get hung up on who's making you feel
good?" Faith grinned with as much cheer as she could
manage, gave Buffy a conspiratorial look. "Hey, I'm
even a friend. We're golden."

Buffy crossed her arms, rocked a little on her heels
before meeting Faith's gaze again. She looked a little
sad, which made Faith's guts twist. "Because that's
not who I am."

"Yeah. OK."

A few moments of awkward silence.

"I guess I should get going..."

"Yeah, I've got some shit to do, too..."

Buffy turned for the door, paused.

Faith spoke into the silence. "I guess it would be pretty
pointless to mention that the Ho Handbook says it's
not cheating if you're doing it with a member of the
same sex."

Quiet laugh. "What if you're *dating* a member of
the same sex?"

"Well, then it's cheating. But you *are* allowed to do
it with members of the opposite sex."

"That's... helpful."

Faith stared at the soft hairs on the back of Buffy's
neck. Thought about licking there, slowly. "But not
convincing, hunh?"

The other woman turned back to face her. Shook
her head and smiled ruefully. It wasn't *actually*
condescending...

And then Buffy walked out and closed the door
behind her.

End.