Backup fic for Hth/Betty Plotnick in femslash_minis' Tara round.
i. Sabbath
The fuck of it all is - Faith's not even patrolling when she finds the witch. She's just stumbling through the woods in the back campus, heading for home.
It was a stupid party anyway. Frat boys with meaty hands, ugly skanks who couldn't dance, watery beer in the keg and skunky weed that clenched her stomach. Complete waste of her time, just like the rest of this town.
All her bitching vanishes when she hears the low, soft chanting. When she drops to her knees and peers around a scraggly pine tree into the clearing.
When she sees.
The girl is beautiful, round and naked and long dark-gold hair like syrup, turning in a slow circle, bare feet on pine needles, hands lifting like birds. Chanting, turning, and there's magic going down.
Nothing bad, nothing dangerous, just lights like fireflies lifting around the girl, tossing diamonds of light over her breasts, across her rounded belly, lifting and twisting, then flickering away. Flowers like the kind that decorate graves - lilies, orchids - twine around the circle, petals brushing over the girl's face as her head tips back, vines slipping around her neck.
The first thing Faith thinks is: I could have a witch of my own.
The second thing, fast on the heels of the first, is: *Damn*, she's stacked.
A twig breaks, or the light shifts, or Faith moves - some stupid thing that always happens in the movies, because nothing stays still for long, especially not Faith.
The girl yelps, stumbles back, folds her arms over her chest, her mound, drops her head and Faith's on her feet.
"Oh, *God*," the girl's saying, shaking her head, "Oh, no, oh -"
"Hey, hey -" Faith takes the girl's arm, feels panic-sweat over smooth warmth, and keeps talking. "It's okay, it's okay, you just shouldn't be out here alone at night, you know that, right?"
"I'm sorry?" She looks up at Faith, big eyes under long lashes.
Faith pulls a little closer, vinyl pants and beaded camisole brushing against sweaty bare-assed girl, and tries to keep her voice normal. "That a question or an apology?"
"A-apology," she says and bites her lip and it's *plump*, swelling, and when Faith traces its swell with her index finger, the girl's eyes widen and she stiffens.
Faith doesn't let go. "What're you doing out here?"
The woods are lovely, dark and deep: She read that on a poster once, and it's truer than some pansy poet ever knew. All the magic's flickered away and the witch just stares at her as Faith cups her cheek, swipes a trail of sweat away with her thumb.
"Nothing, I wasn't -"
Arm around her shoulders, Faith laughs. "Right, and I'm running for Miss America."
ii. Exchange
Xander showed Faith some of his favorite engravings. In the books in the cage, from the shelves in Giles's office, the secret books. Witches' Sabbaths - the naked women kneeling, rimming the demon - dancing naked together and rubbing themselves to ecstasy on their broomsticks.
And it's not like Faith has any patience for all that earth-goddess new-age Wiccan crap, but the pictures, those are different. Hot, and dark, all those thick inky lines and *Christ*, but those old monks were Class A pervs, drawing this shit.
Xander breathed through his mouth, his eyes flicking over the pages, then over to her, then back, like a rabbit jumping, and she knew he was hoping to get something from her in exchange.
"That's nice," she said, ripping out one engraving and stuffing it in her pocket. "Thanks, man."
She knocked his shoulder, cuffed his ear, as she rose and left. Put a little extra swing in her swagger, gave him something to ponder.
iii. Questions
You go to college to be someone else. To, what is it? *Find yourself*.
Tara's a freshman. *First year*, she calls it, some feminist BS that'd usually make Faith sneer and bark with laughter, but when Tara says it, she sounds like she actually believes it.
Tara's got a lilt to her voice, like the stammers and hesitation have softened up her tongue, and when she wraps her arms around Faith's neck and pulls her down, breathes words that might be spells into Faith's ear, Faith feels that voice all the way to her toes. In her pussy, in her fingertips, everywhere.
College parties suck, college students are even worse than high schoolers, but Tara's different. Somehow.
What Faith would like to know is, Who's Tara trying to be? To find?
iv. Accent
Faith figures she's all set.
She's got her own witch now, and she doesn't need a Xander because she hates West Coast doughnuts, and she's survived long enough to know she doesn't *need* a Watcher. Watchers get in your way. Watchers watch your back only if you're the good one, the pretty one, the Mom-and-friends blonde perky one.
A Mayor's way more useful than any cornholing, tea-drinking, spank-me-harder-Headmaster Watcher, anyway.
She's got a witch who can turn the dorm-room ceiling into real stars, into clouds and constellations that dance. Who smiles when Faith walks up to her, smiles in this fall of syrup-hair that's lighter than air, practically, hair that gets wet when they screw and whips across Faith's chest and tits when Tara's on top and riding and moaning with that lilting liquid accent of hers.
And she's got money. An apartment, new clothes that she exchanges for even better ones (pink? lace? No, and it doesn't matter how nice he is to her, she's not wearing shit that makes her look like a 'tard), and a girlfriend who smiles, moans, chants.
"C'mon," Faith says. Friday night - Tara's sitting cross-legged on her mattress, frowning over homework, and Faith drops the garment bag over her books. "Got you something, want to take you out."
Take my girls out, Uncle Pat would say, that long winter when he moved in with Mom and every first Friday of the month when his disability check came in, they'd go out for Italian and Faith would steal sips of red wine and try, for once, not to sass back.
Tara strokes the dress and looks at Faith, eyebrows wrinkling up like that other witch's boyfriend's would. "I don't know -"
"Pretty girl," Faith says and slides her hands up Tara's thighs. "Dress you up."
She's got a hotwired sedan waiting in the dorm parking lot and Tara looks like a million fucking bucks in black silk. Low-cut, slit up the thigh, her hair up.
And Faith's never been a real girl, not with the slumber parties and make-up conversations and practicing kissing on each other - when she kisses, she's not pretending. But she does Tara's hair, fingertips running through that long, soft hair, over the hot scalp, and she presses her mouth to the top of Tara's spine and feels the shiver go right through her.
v. Superstar
They go to some club Faith's never been before, upscale and classy, with velvet benches and swing music and people done up like in old movies.
And maybe she's dreaming all this, because she's got a wad of money in her pocket and the guy onstage crooning looks half-familiar (little, cute, chipmunk cheeks) - he's her boss, he got them in to the show, that's right - dreamlogic trickles back. And her girl, her witch, is leaning against Faith and sucking on her neck and pushing her hand up Faith's thigh.
She's flush - with money, with heat, with this unerring sense that everything's going to be all right - and she gets them another round of Cosmopolitans. Heavy on the grenadine, and the bartender doesn't card because Faith lets him watch when she kisses Tara.
And Tara's drunk and this is their night. They're dancing, just like old movies, Faith's hand on Tara's round ass, kneading the silk until it heats in her palm and then it's like touching skin. Tara's mouth, slick with alcohol and sugar, stained red like blood, but the opposite. Sweet, not metallic, and hot, not cold.
No vampires here, no duty, no Buffy and nothing but a dance that swirls on and on, out into the alley and Tara turns her ankle in the heels Faith bought her and then they're kissing again, sandwiched between the dumpster and a pile of crates.
Cold air, warm Tara, arms that loop and leg that nudges, and Faith kisses her harder, down her throat, across her collarbone, around the top of her tits and then between into that crevice of heat and sweat, looping her tongue and squeezing Tara's waist and ass until the witch grunts and pushes against her. Hand through the skirt's slit, up over stockings and garters, and she's got Tara spread out against the wall. Butterfly on a pin, painting in the MFA, glowing in the low light and saying Faith's name, all hers. Lipstick smeared everywhere, mouth and chin, shimmy up and back and Faith goes down on her knees.
Tara fills her palm, her fingertips, her mouth. Everything about her is warm and round, so full of something that it makes Faith ache.
She doesn't know romance, doesn't care about love: All that shit's for girls (real, normal) like Buffy. What Faith knows is how to kill and move and stalk and dance and fuck. What she's learning, every time Tara ripples against her and breathes her name, though, what she's learning is something else.
Tara's good and wet, enough for two fingers inside and Faith's lips locked around her clit, tongue pushing at the hood, and another finger pushing up between her ass, tasting and teasing until Tara's rippling full-time and breathing so heavy it's thunder, pressing her thighs against Faith's ears and Faith's blind, and dumb, and mute, even, but she's not stupid. One hand in her fly, knuckles in her cunt, and she's sucking until Tara starts coming, her pussy clenching and releasing, sucking up Faith's fingers even deeper, and Faith keeps going as Tara bats at her head and shakes and then comes again, and it's beautiful.
All white and gold skin, dark hair catching the light, black silk and smeared lipstick. Faith sits back on her knees and wipes her hand across her mouth.
Little shudders are running through Tara, her hair's loose and her mouth swollen, and she can't seem to hold herself up. Faith stands, presses against her, gentles her with mouth and hands.
And when Tara says, "I love you," Faith wakes up.
vi. Rampage
Because whatever she's learned, it's nothing that Tara knows. Tara's a hick and a shitty witch. Faith sees her cuddling with Willow and wants to puke.
She plays Buffy better than Buffy ever managed, but when Tara narrows her eyes at her and stutters worse than Faith's ever heard, it's time to get gone.
None of them know; they see Buffy, they think it's Buffy. Tara looks at her with those wide goggly eyes - eyes that she's seen puffy in the morning and sleek with kohl on the dance floor - and Tara knows.
And Faith hates that. More than anything.