Lucky Strikes
Dawn is careful when she applies her lipgloss. It's strawberry, sometimes, or vanilla if she can find it, and never too shiny. (She has to look properly dignified for classes; people are impressed when she tells them the school's name, but she only calls it Watcher University in her head.) She outgrew lipgloss years ago, and only uses it on these special occasions.
Faith likes the surprise more than the taste.
Dawn also dresses carefully; she chooses her skimpiest halter top, digs out a pair of leather pants from the closet. They're very different from the brown slacks and peasant blouse she wore this morning, offset by Romany-made and Romany-blessed jewelry. (She received several compliments between Advanced Hebrew and Beginning Mandarin, and a boy in Social Economics asked her to dinner. She said no.)
When she slides the leather over her legs, she first winces at their binding, then smiles.
Faith likes these, too. Especially when she wears nothing underneath them.
In improbably high stiletto boots, she clatters down the wooden stairs to the gym. Faith is there, as usual, pummeling the punching bag with joy. If she's not out slaying or at one of the local clubs, she's here. Waiting.
For Dawn.
As her heels clack closer to the basement, Dawn can hear Faith's punches slowing, slowing to a stop, and by the time she reaches the bottom, Faith is waiting with a grin. They kiss, once, and Faith smiles at its flavor--raspberry, this time.
"Hey, Dawn." She's already unlacing the halter top, and Dawn gasps at the cool air against her scantily covered torso. "Took you long enough."
Dawn shrugs, and her top flutters to the ground. "Sorry. I had to lock the door." Faith squeezes Dawn's right breast with one hand, while the other unbuttons and unzips the leather pants. "You wouldn't want one of the girls to walk in on us, would you?"
"Why not?" Faith chuckles as she kneels in front of Dawn, dragging the leather against her legs and easing them over the boots. "I'm here to teach, right?"
Faith shoves her tongue inside her, and Dawn gasps, "Wait, my shoes--"
She pauses, mid-lick, to smile up at her. "Leave them on."
Through a sliver of window, Dawn watches the sun setting. Faith's tongue circles her clit, and Faith thrusts into Dawn, knuckle-deep.
She clutches, desperately, at the banister when she comes. She barely notices the splinters in her palm.
Her shudders have barely ended when Faith disentangles herself from Dawn's legs, doffing her wifebeater in the process. "That was quick." Her navy sweats puddle on the floor, and she hops onto a nearby pommel horse, spreads her legs.
"My turn."
An hour later, Faith has left with her herd of slayers-in-training. Tonight's objective: immobilizing a newly-arrived werewolf without harming it too much.
Dawn's in the shower and out quickly. The pants and halter top are folded and stowed for now. She dons a newly-ironed skirt and a black silk blouse in their stead. Over this ensemble, she wears a tailored jacket, maroon to match the skirt. (She calls it her Watcher's outfit; it is her uniform when she's allowed to sit in on smaller Council meetings.)
She takes a minute to add curl to her hair (cut shoulder-length years ago, after a vampire caught his hand in her tresses and tried to bite her). Then, she slips her feet into slingback Manolo Blahniks, a celebratory gift from Buffy, when she was first accepted to Watcher U. She grabs her pack of cigarettes from her underwear drawer and selects one. (She stole the pack from Spike's jacket when he last visited. He thought it was just their usual hug.)
She doesn't wear nylons; they would get in the way.
She enters the research library--there are two, one for the schoolgirls, and one for the Watchers--with cigarette lit.
Wesley is there, as usual, boning up on his prophecies. He doesn't look up at her greeting, but he murmurs a "hello" in reply. It's only when she draws closer to a particularly important shelf (Sanskrit, Aramaic, and Egyptian prophecies) that he pays her mind.
"You should know better than to smoke around the books, Dawn." His tone is disapproving, but she only smirks.
"They've been around for hundreds and thousands of years," she shrugs. "A little smoke won't hurt them."
She lifts a hand, still clutching the cigarette, to caress the leather-bound spines. In a second, as quick as a normal human can move, he's behind her. He removes the cigarette from her hand, clutches her waist with his other arm. He's already hard, and she doesn't mind when he stubs her cigarette out in a nearby ashtray (placed especially for these occasions).
"What're you gonna do, Wes?" She presses her hips back into his, listens to his quickened breath. "Punish me?"
In answer, he yanks her skirt up, heedless of the door, left ajar. (They're the only ones in the house, and if anyone returns before sunrise, it's a medical emergency.) He finds her ready, fully aroused, and she's almost surprised when he angles her hips and thrusts into her--she hadn't heard his telltale zipper.
Soon, though, she isn't able to think about logistics. Wesley pulls at her hips and growls, and she bows her back, resting her face on a Phoenicean codex, translated into Hebrew. She wonders whether "to fuck" is a verb in Mandarin, and whether her instructor, a surprisingly young woman, will teach it to them.
Ten minutes or twenty, she can't tell, but she's close to coming a second time when Wesley finally groans in climax, slumps against her, and withdraws. She straightens her skirt while he fetches a paper towel to mop up the mess on the floor; when he hands her another, she shakes her head and leaves the room.
She doesn't say goodnight.
Dawn is late to wake that morning--her first class is pottery, and that begins late in the afternoon.
She stumbles to the kitchen in a tank top and Spongebob pajama pants (a birthday gift from Xander). Faith and Wesley are, as usual, discussing attack strategies over a late breakfast of tea and toast.
Dawn seats herself across from them, bowl of granola and strawberries in hand. There is ownership in both their smiles.
"Morning, Dawn." Faith eyes her cereal with envy.
Wesley pours her a cup of tea and sugars it heavily. "Did you sleep well?"
Dawn nods, smiles, dips her head, and doesn't laugh.
As usual.