Wooing The Superpower
Kennedy joins the other potentials on the couch and slaps Amanda's leg lightly. Amanda blushes, for possibly the fifth time this evening. "Hey," says Kennedy.
"Hi..."
"So are you going to do it?"
"Am I going to do what?"
Kennedy raises her eyebrow in a perfect arc of mockery. "Well, duh. Are you going to hit on Summers?"
"Don't you think that would be, um, inappropriate? Because she's in charge, and all. And technically my guidance counselor, I think."
"Not Bu... nice try." Kennedy winks. "Like you think I can't tell when a girl is jonesing for her best pal? Please. I went to boarding school."
"Dawn's not my... pal," Amanda clarifies. "She's hardly even my acquaintance. Actually, most people kind of pretend they aren't acquainted with me. Swing band isn't exactly a chick magnet, despite the excellent facial control it gives you."
"Yeah, but girl, now you got muscles," Rona says, flexing hers.
Amanda grins quickly, then remembers, "But Dawn's Buffy's sister. She's probably not going to be impressed if I go to her all, 'I'm a Potential Slayer!' She'll just go, 'Yeah, and I know more about demonology than you can ever hope to learn, because you'll be too busy killing vampires dead... er to take samples of their DNA.'"
"I think you should go for it," says Vi, clutching her knees to her chest. "Really. It would be super romantic and interesting, and you have no idea how many weeks we've spent with nothing to gossip about except Kennedy throwing herself at Willow."
"And we aren't allowed to talk about that," Molly sighs, "or else Kennedy will hit us."
Kennedy smirks and hits Amanda's knee again. "So you're going for it, right?"
"I don't know, guys. I mean, I don't even know if I feel... that way about her. And usually when I have a crush on someone, I get all stuttery and nervous and accidentally insult him when I mean to ask him out, which lands me in the principal's office... a lot."
"No big," says Rona. "If you accidentally beat her up and she sics big sis on you, we've got your back."
"We did kill that vamp the other day," Vi reminds her. "And we're getting better with training every day, and I hardly ever confuse my left and right anymore."
"I feel much more confident knowing that you're on my side," Amanda lies, squeezing her legs together in nervousness. The front door slams, and Dawn and Andrew enter the living room with appropriate flourishes.
"We are victorious!" Andrew announces. "Many munchies to be enjoyed by all. We have ice cream sandwiches, cheese puffs, mini-Snickers bars..."
"Also broccoli and brussel sprouts," says Dawn, pouting. "Because if we don't buy healthy foods, Buffy gets mad, and trust me, you don't want to see my sister in a snit."
"Hi Dawn!" says Amanda, which comes out more chipper and non sequitury than she hoped it would. "Um. Can I help you carry in the groceries?"
"Remind her you've got Slayer strength," whispers Rona, and Amanda hastily jumps to her feet before anyone else can give her advice.
"Sure," says Dawn. "There're just a couple more bags out in the car. Xander's trying to prove his manliness by carrying as many bags as he...." There's a crash in the foyer. "Possibly can," Dawn finishes. "Hey Amanda, are you in the mood for cleaning up spilled groceries?"
Amanda is kneeling on the floor, mopping up broken eggs, when Dawn bends down to help her. "Thanks for helping out," she says. "You'd think that having all those girls around would mean fewer chores for me, but no. You wouldn't believe how many dirty clothes they generate. Not to mention dishes, and the lack of private sleeping quarters, and well..."
"Yeah. I kind of got the feeling that potential Slayers aren't at the top of the list of awesome people in Dawn's universe."
"Well, that probably depends on the potential."
"Oh."
"Because, well, if there were a potential who was really pretty and smart and competent and not totally weirded out by the lifestyle of the poor and demon-obsessed, that would be pretty cool." Amanda doesn't know if Dawn is looking at her or not, because she's totally absorbed in staring at the floor, blushing furiously. "And if, for example, she managed to carry her own weight and then some, if she was the kind of potential who was probably going to become a Slayer to rival my sister..."
"Yeah," says Amanda softly, and manages to look up, which turns out to be a bad idea from the maintaining equilibrium perspective, because Dawn's hair, twisted into a knot, and the curve of Dawn's chin when she stares at the floor together give Amanda the strong urge to say something hideously inappropriate, like, "Do you know that, if it's not possible already, it will be in a few years for two women to combine their genetic material to create a fetus who's a blood-relative of both?" which is slightly better than her first instinct, which is to say, "Do you want to have my babies?" and way better than what actually comes out, which isn't actually a sentence so much as a squeak as she shoves three boxes of cereal aside and leans in to kiss Dawn.
When their lips touch, everything changes, and Amanda feels a charge not unlike killing a vampire, no thoughts, no hesitation, just the sensation that she was born for kissing girls, for the softness of Dawn's lips. She closes her eyes, loops one arm around Dawn, and gently teases Dawn's mouth open till there's just a slit of space where she can slip her tongue. She's never kissed anyone before, but that's irrelevant. Dawn's mouth was designed for kissing; Amanda just needs to discover the right proportions of lips and tongue and the hand that has, on instinct, slipped from Dawn's shoulder down to her back, and is toying with her bra through a thin layer of green cotton.
"Heyyy," she hears Kennedy say in a low voice, followed by a not-very-nice whistle. Her instincts tell her that the rest of the potentials can't be far away, but they also tell her that they don't matter, that she should keep kissing Dawn while she takes her upstairs, one hand on Dawn's hip and the other figuring out the whole unhooking-the-bra problem. She's never been upstairs in Dawn's house before, but that's okay too; Dawn pivots them towards her bedroom without breaking the kiss or making Amanda feel anything less like a rockstar for being able to elicit that high-pitched keen from Dawn's throat with just two hands and her mouth.
This is, quite possibly, the best thing that's ever happened to her, and she's only just begun.