As Cordelia fumbled towards consciousness from the depths of slumber she slowly became aware of three simple facts. Fact number 1: she was naked. In itself this wouldn't have been so strange, but when coupled with fact number 2: she was not alone, it became a little more unusual. A warm body, also naked, was pressed tightly against her right side. An arm belonging to said body was draped loosely over her abdomen. The third and final fact was the most bizarre: the body definitely belonged to someone of the female persuasion.
Cordelia gingerly opened one eye and sighed as her foggy mind cleared and the events of the previous evening came flooding back to her. Homecoming dance, ogling Faith, spiked punch, Faith being sweet, slow dancing with Faith, kissing Faith, Faith taking her home, Faith in her bed...Cordelia blushed at the memories after this one. Faith's head now rested on her pillow. The slayer was still asleep. Cordelia smiled as she regarded the vision of beauty that was Faith in the morning. Her hair fell in unkempt waves around her face. Scrubbed of her make-up she looked young and innocent. And after last night Cordelia knew that was not a word to be applied to Faith...or to herself come to think of it.
In sleep Faith looked peaceful and unguarded. No pretence, no bravado, just Faith. Her lips were slightly parted and oh-so inviting. Cordelia reached out and softly ran her thumb over the full lower lip. She then took her index finger and lightly traced the cupid's bow of the upper lip. The touching scene was shattered when Faith suddenly opened her mouth and bit Cordelia's finger, causing the cheerleader to shriek something that would not have gone down well at a pep rally. Faith kept the finger between her teeth as she opened her eyes. Her lips twitched into a smile around Cordelia's finger as she watched her recover from the shock of being bitten.
"Morning." Faith said, with some difficulty.
"Morning?!? You nearly gave me a heart attack! I thought you were sleeping." said Cordelia indignantly.
Faith's only response was to close her lips around the digit and suck gently, drawing it further into her mouth. Cordelia watched, fascinated, and more than a little turned on. When Faith finally released the finger her lips were immediately occupied once more as Cordelia pounced on them in a hungry kiss. When they parted Faith propped herself up on an elbow and grinned down at Cordelia.
"You're a horny little thing huh?"
"Less of the little, short-ass."
"What? You got two inches on me at the most."
"They say size doesn't matter."
"Not sure if I'd agree with them there." Faith's expression suddenly changed. "Shit!"
"What?"
Cordelia was surprised by the exclamation, fearing it signalled realisation of regret on Faith's part.
"I'm late, so are you, it's 9.30! I was supposed to be training at 8."
Faith was out of bed and running around.
"Great. Like I'm not already 'the bad one'."
She picked up the dress she'd been wearing the night before.
"Well I sure as hell can't wear this to train in."
"Yeah, how would you do those high kicks and thrusts in that?" Cordelia agreed, distracted by the thought of Faith being all sweaty and out of breath and the vision of her muscles working under her skin and...
"I'm not talkin' about it restrictin' my movement," said Faith holding up the garment so Cordelia could see the huge rip down the side. "I'm talkin' about how somebody was too impatient to use zippers last night."
Cordelia flushed at this memory. She got out of bed, bringing the sheet with her to cover her body. She didn't quite have Faith's confidence to strut about in the nude in broad daylight. This seemed to amuse Faith quite a lot.
"Hey C, it's OK, I think I saw just about everything you had to show in the shower last night." She wiggled her eyebrows suggestively. "And I'd say you got nothin' you'd want to hide."
Cordelia smiled politely at the compliment but still held the sheet loosely around her. She had been brought up in a house where one did not parade around in front of others with everything hanging out. It just wasn't ladylike. Of course, a number of the things she had taken part in the previous night were far from ladylike, but that was different. Cordelia rummaged through her closet until she found what she was looking for. She held up her find triumphantly.
Faith gave a low whistle. "Hey C, any chance of me seeing you in that outfit?"
"I wore it last summer when Buffy took off to find her inner slayer or whatever and we had to keep the demons under control. I learned fast that leather prevents a lot of scraped knees." She handed the leather pants and jacket to Faith, "Here, you can wear this, it's more you anyway, 'slut-bomb' doesn't sit all that well on me."
Faith shrugged and climbed into the pants. Cordelia was secretly thrilled at the thought of Faith going 'commando' in a pair of her pants.
"Come on, come on, we have to get to the school before Buffy gets two gold stars and a lollypop and I get to stand in the corner."
Cordelia started to get dressed.
"Buffy was pretty far gone last night. What makes you think she'll be able to function at all this morning?"
"It's a slayer thing. We don't get hangovers. Which is cool."
Faith looked at the clock pointedly.
"Alright, alright." Cordelia sighed, she wasn't used to being ordered around like this. "I'm coming for God's sake."
"Hmmm, that sounds familiar." Faith said grinning.
Cordelia fumed silently at Faith's uncanny knack of being able to get her to blush. But then, Faith had a number of uncanny knacks, not all of which were quite so annoying. She slipped into a skirt and top and tried to produce some semblance of a hairstyle and make-up.
"OK, let's go."
In the car, both girls were quiet. Neither quite knew how to bring up the subject of what had happened the previous night and what it meant for the future of their relationship. Relationship, funny, up until a few days ago their relationship had mainly consisted of avoidance and the occasional pointed comment. How did things get so complicated so fast?
"Look, Cordelia..." Faith began uncertainly.
"Uh huh?"
Cordelia was interested to hear what Faith had to say. And she knew it was something serious as Faith had used her whole name.
"I just want you to know that...well, I know that you think I'm kind of a...ho..."
She paused here, expecting Cordelia to refute this claim. When no protest was offered she continued, slightly miffed.
"...so I wanted to tell you that I wasn't just using you last night, I mean...if you wanted to forget it that's fine...but if you didn't, well ...that's OK too...shit, you wanna cut in any time soon? I'm not real good with this kind of stuff."
Cordelia hadn't spoken because she was in shock more than anything else. She has expected Faith either not to mention what had happened or to pass it off as a one-night stand. She even had answers prepared to a few of the scenarios she had envisioned. One thing she had not expected was the heartfelt little speech she had just heard.
"I...uh..." Wow, way to be articulate Cordy, she thought to herself.
Taking this as a negative response, Faith immediately interrupted. "I mean, it's no big deal...I know you're this popular chick and you've got a boyfriend and stuff and let's face it...why the hell would you want to get involved with someone like me right? I..."
Again Cordelia was surprised at Faith's outburst. She thought she wasn't good enough for her or something. And although she had said it was no big deal, it was obviously important to her or she wouldn't have bothered with the offer of...what had it been an offer of? A relationship? A chance? Cordelia decided that she'd better say something quickly before Faith talked herself out of whatever she was feeling.
"Faith."
"Yeah?"
"I...I have no idea what this is between us, I mean, neither of us have ever been into girls before...so this is a bit of a shock to both of our systems, but I'm not going to deny that there is something there. Last night, when you kissed me, I felt something I've never felt before...and I've done my fair share of kissing. And then later when we were...you know...I never wanted it to end. OK, so I've got zero experience in that area but it felt pretty damn great to me..."
"No experience...you mean, even with guys?"
Faith's eyes were wide. Cordelia shook her head, embarrassed.
"Shit C, why didn't you say something...so I was your...wow...I don't think I've ever been anybody's first before...if you'd told me I wouldn't have..."
"No, I wanted to...I've never wanted to with anyone else...so you couldn't tell?"
Cordelia was pleased that she hadn't blatantly been a virgin.
"No way! You were really good. Sorry, that sounds like you got an A for math or somethin'."
Faith smiled apologetically.
"So, what I was trying to say is that I like you...and I think there's something there that I'd like to pursue...God knows what it'll do for my reputation but what the hell." Cordelia, tactful as ever.
Faith chose to ignore the reputation comment. "So what about Xander?"
"I'll have to tell him I suppose...don't know what I'll say. God, he's going to start getting a complex, he was totally obsessed with Buffy and she turns round and tells him she's in love with Willow. Then he switches his obsession to me, although who could blame him right? And now I have to tell him that I'm sorta into you. I don't think it's going to go down well. Maybe if I fixed him up with someone else?"
"Kinda runnin' low on girls in your little group huh?" Faith asked, wondering how she herself had managed to get involved with another girl. "Well, Larry seemed pretty interested in Xander last night, kept insisting they were 'two of a kind' or somethin', maybe that's someone to think about."
"I seriously doubt that...I would have known." Cordelia said, with conviction.
"Yeah, like you would have known that you would end up taking another girl home from the dance last night, right C?"
"Shut up."
They were drawing up to the school gates.
"OK, now if anybody sees us arriving together, what are we going to say? Actually, it probably already looks suspicious that we're both late...we should have some kind of story ready."
"Right, how 'bout we say that I left my panties at your house last night and I had to come by this morning to pick...owww"
Faith rubbed the spot on her thigh where Cordelia has slapped her.
"That's not funny. And anyway, you weren't wearing any panties."
Cordelia thought for a moment.
"OK, we'll just say that you walked me home last night due to my date getting completely inebriated and that it was too late for you to walk home alone so you just stayed over."
"That might work if I was a normal girlie girl, but somehow a slayer afraid to walk home after dark ain't gonna be very convincin'."
"That's true...OK, how about we say that while you were walking me home, we were attacked by vamps and you were wounded and I had to tend to your wounds? Will that work do you think?"
"What if they want to see the wounds?"
By now they were out of the car and on the way to the library.
"Just tell them they're...in a very private place."
"Private place? I don't know if I'll be able to say that without laughin'."
"Well, you'll just have to. God, you'd be no good as a double agent, would you?" Cordelia observed, irritably.
She took a deep breath and pushed through the swing doors into the library with Faith at her heels.
"Well, well, how are we all feeling this fine morning?" Cordelia asked, deciding that acting like her normal self was the best course of action.
The state of the room's occupants answered her question for her. Willow was seated at the table, wearing a pair of sunglasses and cradling a cup of coffee. Her hands were shaking slightly. Her face was a kind of greyish white. She didn't even acknowledge the new arrivals, afraid to move too much in case the contents of her stomach decided to put in an unexpected appearance. Xander was in much the same state, his head was on the table, cushioned on his folded arms. He sat up slowly at the sound of his girlfriend's voice.
"Cordy, I...what happened to you last night?"
"What happened to me? Nothing, no thanks to you. Anything could have happened to me, I could have been attacked by vamps or abducted by aliens for all you cared. But thankfully Faith walked me home when you proved that you couldn't hold your liquor."
Xander looked at Faith with bleary, blood-shot eyes. "Thank you."
"No problem Xand-man, it was my pleasure."
She emphasised the word pleasure while looking directly at Cordlelia. Cordelia once again cursed the blood that rushed to her cheeks when subject to one of Faith's innuendoes. Luckily Buffy and Giles came in at that point, sparing Cordelia's blushes. Buffy looked full of life, the only sign of the previous night being the rather large hickey on the side of her neck. Giles, although completely out of breath, still managed make a show of looking at his watch and then at Faith who had the decency to look sheepish at least.
"Where've you two been?" Buffy asked.
"The two of us? Been? Together? Why do you say that?" Cordelia for some unexplained reason went into panic mode.
"Weeeeelllll, you both weren't here this morning and we saw you arrive in your car, so I figured that you'd been somewhere together." Buffy was confused by Cordelia's reaction to a perfectly innocent question.
"No big deal B, I walked Cordy home last night after you all got wasted on the punch and we were attacked by some wicked rowdy vamps. I got a bit beat up and she fixed me up. I stayed over there." Faith looked at Cordelia with an expression that said 'see, I can lie when I need to.'
"Are you alright? Were you badly wounded?" Giles asked, concerned.
"It's not that bad, C here saw to it just fine."
"Cool." Buffy and the rest seemed satisfied with that answer. Cordelia sighed with relief. Buffy approached Willow nervously.
"Hey, you feeling better yet?" she asked quietly.
"Go away, I hate you. How can you be so bright and breezy? It's not fair."
Despite her rantings Willow allowed Buffy to massage her temples, alleviating some of the pounding in her skull. Xander thought he'd better get up and make some sort of gesture. He stood unsteadily, leaning on the table for support. When he was sure he wasn't either going to fall or vomit he made his way shakily towards Cordelia who looked at Faith ominously.
"Cordelia, I am so sorry I ruined your big night, I know how much the whole homecoming thing meant to you. And then I go and get drunk and you're left to clean up the mess. Twice in one night..."
"It was more than twice, right C?"
Cordelia stepped on Faith's foot, hard, causing the slayer to hop away from the couple.
Xander didn't pick up on Faith's meaning. "...first in the gym and then with Faith. I guess it wasn't all you hoped it would be huh?"
"Well, not quite what I had envisioned, no."
"I'm so sorry..."
"Don't apologise, it wasn't a total blow-out..."
"I just wanted to say I'm sorry. But I'd totally understand if you want to kick my ass, or hurl abuse at me, or dump me."
"Actually Xander, about that...what do you think of Larry?"