Law
"What is the law of the jungle? Strike first and then give tongue."
- Bagheera, 'The Jungle Book'
"Heeeee-ya!"
Faith's hand paused in the popcorn bowl whilst she considered something.
"So d'you think Miss Piggy is a Slayer? I mean, that's a pretty powerful karate chop."
Buffy didn't look up from the old issue of Cosmopolitan she was flipping through. "If she is the Count von Count better watch out."
"Man! That would be the best Muppets episode ever. One! One roundhouse kick ah ah ah! Two! Two roundhouse kicks ah ah ah! Three! Three – ow!"
Buffy retracted her elbow. "I get it."
"Jeez, B, lighten up." Faith gave Buffy a cross look as she rubbed her side.
"Sorry. It's just – we've been here two nights now and there's no sign that anything at all is wrong, much less that this place is the centre of an evil plot to torpedo Christmas. We're wasting our time and we're in a cheap motel." Buffy tossed aside her magazine and sighed heavily.
Faith rolled her eyes. "If it wasn't for the incident with the sandwich I'd say that Giles was trying to give you a break. It's been a couple of months since Sunnydale became a crater but since then you ain't stopped and you need to. After all, there's dozens of Slayers now and we've only had like one apocalypse in all that time. Which was so lame that Andrew could've dealt with it all on his own."
"I don't know." Buffy shook her head and held up an illustrative thumb and finger. "We were that close to a world ruled by Flower Fairies."
Both shuddered before contemplating the narrowly-avoided horror for a moment. Faith recovered first.
"Whatever. My point is that even if this trip has been a waste of time, even if we don't find the Au'shan here, at least you've had the chance to relax a little. Y'know, take the weight of the world off your shoulders before the next crisis rolls along."
As Faith spoke Buffy had slid off the motel bed and walked the short distance to the window. She looked out into the neon-tinged dark of the night. "But that's just it. I can't relax."
Now Faith sighed. Buffy turned to face her. "Don't get me wrong, I want to, but I'm just so tense all the time and I don't know why. Give me some vampires, maybe I can take my frustration out on them. But I can't sit around doing nothing any more."
Faith tipped her head back and laughed.
"What?"
"Oh, I know your problem. You need to get laid, sister."
"I do not!"
"Oh c'mon, this is me you're talking to. If anyone is in touch with their base instincts it's me, you haven't had an outlet in months and I can't see you taking up squash or boxercise. It'd be driving me up the wall too."
"Faith, I do not need –"
"Oh you do. Look, there's a bar along the street, let's go see what the local nightlife is like. Maybe we can pick you up a –"
Out on the street, a woman was screaming.
"It was a horrible, deformed child. And it went down that manhole," the woman said, pointing tremulously at said street furniture. However she was drunk and the small crowd that had gathered seemed disinclined to take her seriously – except for the two young women from out of town.
"Why is it always sewers?" Buffy asked Faith when they went back to the motel to get the necessary equipment.
"Would it be any fun if we didn't smell by the end of the night?" Faith replied, hefting her bag of weapons and heading out of the door.
They lowered themselves in quietly, Buffy's flashlight showing only dank walls and slime until about fifty feet down. At that point the narrow vertical tunnel met a larger horizontal one, and there was a strange fruity note to the usual stench of effluent.
It took twenty minutes of exploration to discover the huge chamber, which was brightly lit, and hot from the furnaces and the exertions of its inhabitants – hundreds of two-foot high, deeply ugly goblins, with long, sharp nails and green skin. They scurried to and fro around large cauldrons of thick, red liquid, sometimes stopping to stir the contents. In the distance, above the roaring of the fires, there was the clink of glass.
"You know, I'm convinced that John Lithgow is going to be responsible for all of this," Buffy said, retrieving a crossbow from her bag, "whatever Giles says about a demon called the Duchess."
Faith was busy arranging her sword belt. "Either way I'm guessing these little guys are the Au'Shan Zbreh. Though they're uglier than in the books, and way more in need of a manicure."
This received a nod from Buffy, who pointed toward a doorway at the other side of the chamber. "I'll bet that's where we'll find our target. You ready?"
"Just like always."
They reached the other side a few minutes later, leaving behind a trail of dead and dying goblins and no small amount of chaos. Several cauldrons had been tipped on their side, and the red liquid oozed and bubbled on the floor.
The doorway led to a second chamber, and some larger demonic opposition, apparently the hired muscle. The slayers made short work of them, and soon the only other creature left in the second chamber was their nemesis: the Duchess.
She stood on a dais, tall, with eyes like two emeralds and flame-red hair, and seemingly unperturbed by the fact she faced two slayers alone.
"Your grace," said Buffy, circling the dais and holding a sword at arm's length.
"My dear slayer," she responded, in a regal British accent.
"I have to say," Faith said, doing the same circle-and-sword action as Buffy on the opposite side, "trying to take over the world at Christmas through cursed cranberry sauce? That's just weird."
The Duchess smiled slightly, and shrugged her shoulders for a moment. "I thought about breeding evil turkeys, but there are so many vegetarians these days. In any case, condiments are much easier to manufacture."
"Well, you should crack open a jar now because I think your goose is cooked," said Buffy, and then she launched herself forward.
As she did, a jet of energy sprang from the Duchess' fingertips and all went black.
When Buffy came to, she felt a hand being placed on her shoulder. Instinctively she brought her arm up and smashed it into the face of her assailant.
"Ow! Fuck, Buffy! Motherfucker!"
Faith staggered backwards onto the dais, clutching her jaw.
Buffy twisted round, slightly aghast. "Oh God, Faith, I'm sorry, I thought you were the Duchess."
"Ow. No."
"Where is she?"
Faith dropped her hand, then offered it to Buffy, helping her up. "She's gone, I got her just below the ribcage with the tip of my blade, she screamed and then vanished. Think we might not have heard the last of her, but we've stopped this scheme anyways."
"Good." Buffy rubbed her head where it had hit the floor. She could feel a bump. "Giles didn't warn us about the Force lightning – was I out for long?"
"Nah, just a minute," said Faith, shaking her head.
"Okay. Um, again with the sorry for hitting you."
A grin. "We're cool. And now totally equal for that time in the Sunnydale High library."
Buffy smiled back. "For sure."
Faith looked around. "So. Much as I do love hanging out an underground vault, weren't we about to go to a bar?"
The local bar was playing LeAnn Rimes when they arrived and, as Faith remarked, they were easily the hottest people in the place, even if they did smell a little of sewerage. She ordered them two bottles of beer.
They danced in the bar like they danced that time in the Bronze.
It was several bottles each before they left, and as the men in the place were all been gross, Faith's initial objective in turning up remained unachieved.
But then, Faith figured, if you want a job done well you should always do it yourself. She put her arm around Buffy's and steered her toward the motel.
When they reached the door to their room, Faith said, "remember I used to say I always got hungry and horny after a fight?"
Buffy laughed. "I don’t think Xander's ever let me forget it."
"Well I still do. And seeing as there's no food around here –"
Without further preamble she shoved Buffy up against the door and, pushing her pelvis forward, leaned in for the kiss, half expecting to get another whack on the jaw.
Instead, she got a guttural moan and almost as passionate an embrace in return. They fell into the room and onto the bed, tearing at each other's clothes and searching out hip and breast and thigh with their hands.
Buffy was packing. "So was that your first time, with, er, a girl?"
A freshly dressed Faith walked through from their bathroom, roughly brushing her damp hair. "Uh, no. Basically there was plenty of fighting in prison, and very few McDonald's branches or available men even assuming you wanted either. So yeah, not exactly new to the girl action. You?"
"Yes, it was very much of the new. Though I guess with finding out about Willow I'd thought about it. And even before last night our relationship was always intense, so –"
Faith gave her a wry smile. "You always did like the bad seeds."
She walked over to Buffy and placed her hand on Buffy's shoulder. "Fancy getting all tense again sometime soon?"
Buffy kissed her once, quickly, on the lips.
"I wouldn't rule it out. It sure as hell beats squash."