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Body Shots
by Minim Calibre
Summary: Fred and Faith play some games and get some ideas.
Rating: R
Author Notes: To Mlle. Lizard, who was grumbling about earnest femslash.
To the three other lovers of Fredlet. To the wonder that is agave.
Story Notes: Spoilers up to AtS 4x1, Deep Down.
Disclaimer: These all belong to Joss, ME, 20th Cent. Fox, Greenwalt, and
other people who are not me.
Maybe it all happened because of the beating my noggin took when she
walked in the door. Not that she hit me on the head or anything like that,
in spite of the amount of head-hitting that goes on in this place. I just
hit it on the counter when I heard her footsteps in the lobby. I should
explain that I was under the counter at the time, which makes sense if you
think about it. I mean, glowing white aura or no, Cordelia's filing system
never did improve, and I figured maybe she'd stashed some relevant pieces
of paper there along with the emergency nail files and a couple pieces of
gum.
I was prodding the edge of something (it turned out to be a receipt for a
pair of shoes--charged to the business account) with one of those nail
files when I heard the aforementioned footsteps. They were too light to be
Charles, and besides, he always announces he's back. I thought maybe it
was Cordy, and I didn't really want her to catch me under her desk
sneaking through her hidden stuff so I beat a hasty retreat. I kind of
misjudged the clearance between the bottom of the desk and the top of my
head.
When they talk about seeing stars, it's a bit of an understatement.
Everything went a little supernova before it faded to a couple of big
hurkin' Pylean suns.
It wasn't Cordelia standing in the lobby. It wasn't anyone I could
remember seeing, and I'm pretty good with faces, and besides, there's no
way anyone could see her and not have her burned into his or her retinas.
She was standing there in a tight tank top and a baggy pair of pants,
holding a big old duffel bag and looking around like she'd just gotten
back from some hell dimension and couldn't quite believe she'd escaped it.
Which is a pretty common look around here, now that I think about it.
"Angel Investigations! We help the helpless, how can I help you?" I
chirped. After all, she wasn't anyone I knew, and she was in our lobby.
Therefore, it made sense that she was a client.
"Where's Angel?" Her voice was deep, kind of gruff, and not really what a
person would call patient, and from the sounds of things, I was wrong
about the whole client assumption.
"He's, well, he's... " she cocked an eyebrow and I gave up on
obfuscation. "Well, it's kinda funny you should ask. We're not sure."
"What, he went out for milk and didn't come back?"
"Something like that, yeah."
"Shit. Should have known something was up when he missed his semi-annual
visit to the big house. Where's Wes?" She was starting to look a little
panicky.
"We don't really say that name around here anymore. He's what you might
call persona non grata."
"Well, at least that's one awkward social encounter I'll be avoiding.
Cordelia?"
"Oh, she's been AWOL for as long as Angel. They pretty much vanished at
the same time."
She dropped her bag and stared at me for a minute before responding. "Let
me get this straight: Angel's missing, Wesley's fucked up again--big shock
there--and Cordelia's gone, too? Who's running the shop?"
"That'd be me. Well, me and Charles. And sometimes Connor, but he's run
off somewhere again."
"So who the hell are you?" She seemed more tired than hostile.
"Oh! Sorry, I must have been kind of distracted. I'm Fred. Can I help
you?"
"I'm Faith. I was kind of hoping Angel would have a job for me. He's not
here, but sounds like you're short staffed at the moment. How 'bout it?"
"Well, we don't really have any clients, but hey, this place being all
empty and echo-y is kind of crazy-making, and seeing as it's been three
weeks with no word from Angel or Cordelia, we could probably use a little
help. What is it exactly that you do?"
"I'm a Slayer. I also know my way around the laundry room and make a
killer license plate, but I just don't see those last two as career
paths."
I must have looked a bit clueless, because she filled me in pretty
quickly. "I'm fresh out of jail. Turns out there were some technicalities
that weren't handled quite right. Like my whole confession. Some bleeding
heart with an axe to grind took on the system, so here I am."
She smiled a little. I think I was expecting something mean and feral,
what with that whole prison thing, something like a stray dog grinning a
warning. What I got was kind of rusty, but sweet.
"We have a bunch of rooms, although some of them are still a little
damaged from the earthquake. You can take your pick."
The rusty smile turned into a big old grin. "Got any with a bathtub?"
I showed her up to a suite with a huge tub. "Gimme a sec, I'll get you
some soap and towels."
There was still some Mister Bubble with Connor's baby things, so I put it
on top of the stack of towels next to the bars of Ivory. "Here you go," I
told her as I handed off the bundle. "I'll be down in the lobby if you
need anything."
After a couple of hours, I started to get a little worried. I mean, call
me paranoid and all, but with everybody and his uncle disappearing around
here, it never hurts to check and make sure a body is where you put him or
her last. I've suggested to Charles that we might want to look into
microchips with some sort of GPS--it'd be easy enough to put together--but
he's not too keen on the idea. Says it's a little too "X-Files" for him.
I guess I'd forgotten just how good a bath feels when you haven't had one
in a few years. I knocked on the door, waited a sec, then just walked in
when I didn't hear anything from the room.
"Faith? Are you okay in there?" I called out.
The sound of water splashing reassured me, but not as much as the sound
of her voice. "Yeah, five-by-five. Hey--while you're here, could you bring
me a towel? I left them on the bed."
She was sprawled in the tub, one leg up against the tile surround, and
covered in bubbles. Even her hair, which was piled up all wet and dark and
bubbly and kind of Bride of Frankenstein-y. I couldn't look away; my first
sexual dream may have been about the Mouse King, but the second was all
about Elsa Lancaster.
"Here's your towel... sorry to bug ya." I held it out and she stood up,
not bothering to rinse the bubbles. It was kind of like the Botticelli
Birth of Venus, only dark and without the shell or the wind or the roses.
And with me and a towel instead of the nymph with the cloak.
I had a feeling that I wasn't going to be dreaming about the Mouse King
or Elsa next time I had a chance to get some shut-eye.
"So, you hungry?" I asked. When in doubt, food's good, and Charles wasn't
due back for another few hours. Besides which, prison food's the butt of
enough jokes that I figured there had to be a grain of truth to them.
"I'm starved." She finished toweling off and pulled on her clothes. "What
have you got?"
"Well, nothing here really, but there's a great taco stand just down the
street, that is, if you like tacos, and who doesn't like tacos? I mean, I
guess some people probably don't like tacos, but--"
"Tacos are cool. Got anything to drink with 'em?"
In hindsight, which, as everyone knows, is always 20/20, I probably
should have said "no" or "just water" or "I could pick up some root beer
while I get the food", but like I said, I'd hit my head pretty hard when
she walked in, so I thought tequila'd be a good idea. And anyone can tell
you that tequila's pretty much never a good idea, especially if you're
having the kind of thoughts you really should scrub right out of your
brain before you're tempted to act on them in spite of having a sweet,
wonderful, loving boyfriend who happens to be gone for the night, but I
made the suggestion before watching her eat.
Again in hindsight, maybe I should have suggested some innocuous food,
like burgers or cous-cous. Or at least eaten somewhere with a table
instead of sitting on top of the bed.
"You were right," she said from around a mouthful of taco. "These are
damn good." The tip of her tongue darted out to catch some sauce before it
could escape, and I took another hasty shot of Cuervo as she polished off
the last bites. "Gotta admit, though, they're kinda messy."
I handed her a napkin from the stack and refilled both our shotglasses.
"Pass the lime?"
She wiped her mouth and grabbed a couple of citrus wedges from the plate
I'd set out, handing me one and spearing one so it was kind of upside down
on the top of her glass. "Wanna see a neat trick? You've seen that Molly
Ringwald movie with the lipstick?"
I nodded, because who hasn't seen The Breakfast Club? She grinned at me,
put the shot glass in her cleavage (lime side out), sorta scooted her
shoulders together, dipped her head, and did the shot hands-free. When she
raised her head, she was still grinning, but her teeth had been replaced
by the bright green of the lime rind.
"What about the salt?" I asked.
Okay, probably a dumb question. She spit out the rind and--quicker than
my booze-befuddled brain could react--licked me. Charles, I reminded
myself, I should be thinking about Charles. Who wasn't there, and who
hadn't just decided that my clavicle was an acceptable substitute for a
tongueful of NaCl. I don't exactly have the filled-out up-front to
duplicate her trick, so I kind of improvised by shooting, skipping the
lime, and going right for the lick.
She tasted like the Mister Bubble, which sounds like it should have been
gross, but instead made me think back to my second year of college when I
got really, really baked and somehow ended up playing naked hairdresser
with Caroline Pierce, only we couldn't find any hairgel, so we used
shampoo instead, which lead to showering. Ever since then, soap's tasted a
lot like sex.
"My mouth's saltier." She pulled me up before I could answer.
It was. It was also soft, hot, and sorta spicy from the dinner and the
drinking, and the edges of her lips burned a little from the combination
of tequila and the lime juice. I hadn't kissed a girl since grad school.
Turns out that, like taking a bath, it feels even better when it's been a
while.
"Wow." Faith sounded a little dazed. "That's some mouth you've got on
you."
"Thanks. Likewise." I made a nervous giggle, which I hate, but it's one
of those nervous reactions you can't seem to help, and if ever there was a
situation that was nervous-making, this was it.
Well, nervous-making for me. I'm not sure Faith knows what nervous is. Or
subtle, either, but it's not like I was complaining when she pulled off my
shirt.
"Not much meat on you, is there?"
"Sorry. Puberty kinda didn't do as much for me as it did for the rest of
you all."
"I like it. Trust me, after getting stuck in a place where the best
lookers were Big Bertha and Bigger Bertha, it's nice. Besides--" she
licked me again, this time from the top of my pants all the way up to my
ear "--I know I could take you."
It was getting hard to talk while her lips and hands were doing things
that made my brain short out, but I think I might have pointed out the
double meaning in what she'd just said. It came out of my mouth as "okay",
which explains how my pants and undies ended up on the floor.
"You've got the littlest stomach," she said. "I like the way it dips in."
Faith grabbed the bottle from the nightstand and poured some on my belly
button. "Functional, too," she observed before dropping her head and using
me as a shot glass.
At which point I had the last of my not-so-brilliant ideas for the night.
Sweat's salty, bodies are salty, and the pH of some portions of the female
anatomy tends towards the acidic, which gives you the lime. It's all just
simple chemistry. Or maybe simple chemical, like ethanol. Which isn't all
that simple, really, but does a good job of brain functionality
impairment, almost as good as Faith, and that might just barely explain
why I decided to push her head just a little further down...
Her enthusiastic taking up of the idea explains why that was the last of
them. The traces of Cuervo stung, but not in a bad kind of way, more in a
push-her-head-closer-and-scream kind of way that wound up turning into an
open feedback loop where the harder she licked and sucked, the louder I
yelled, and the louder I got, the harder she licked. I was reminded of
systems theory and tightly coupled systems being more prone to wind up,
get all unstable, and explode, which is pretty much what I did, knocking
the bottle off the bed in the process.
Thank goodness for carpeting.
Faith slid out from between my thighs and let me catch my breath while
she took off her clothes. As good as she looked with the bubbles, she
looked even better without them, and that's not the ethanol and agave
talking. I was still kind of fuzzy and light-headed, so I stroked her
slowly and gently, until her breasts tasted more salty than soapy, and her
pussy was wetter than a floodplain after a thunderstorm. We wound up in a
tangled mess of hands and tongues and loud, sloppy noises--feedback loop
again, which is bad because we're both pretty loud--finally passing out
for good sometime in the middle of the night.
I woke up with my head located somewhere south of her knee and her breath
tickling my toes. It was still dark, which meant I wasn't totally screwed,
even if I was thoroughly fucked. I prodded her with my foot until she woke
up.
"Faith?"
"What?" She blinked at me and yawned, obviously none to happy about being
awake.
"I'm gonna go to my room before Charles gets back. Maybe we should keep
this to ourselves for now?"
She shrugged and burrowed into her pillow. "Sure thing. But next time?"
"Yeah?" I didn't bother trying to tell either of us there wouldn't be
one.
"Drinks are on me."
End
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