Clueless
by Lowdeen
Rating: PG-13
Author's Notes: This is nothing more than a fluff piece. I thought it was fun to envision Faith as a clueless egomaniac, hung up on herself to the point of the ridiculous.
Faith was absolutely sure, as she looked at herself in the mirror that she was the shit.
Hot shit, to be exact.
"Look at me. I'm fucking irresistible." She twisted this way and that, trying to catch a glimpse of her ass. "How can anyone not be attracted to this? How can anyone not form a line a mile long just to kiss my feet? Back me up here, Buff."
A groan was her only answer, coming from behind and slightly to the right.
"You have got to be the most self-absorbed, self-obsessed, vainglorious excuse for a human being I have ever seen. Even the evil queen in Snow White doesn't stare into the mirror as much as you do."
Buffy Summers, the long suffering best friend to one Faith Cameron rolled over onto her stomach on her bed. Truthfully, Faith wasn't all that bad most of the time and, only got into her 'peacock strut' as Buffy liked to call it, whenever she was nervous about something. The question here was, what ants had crawled down her pants today?
"When I grow up," Faith said in a sarcastic voice, "I'm going to get a house made up of nothing but mirrors. The walls will be made of mirrors, the ceilings will be the made of mirrors and even the roof - - it'll be so garish and cheap, my neighbors will hate my guts and dump garbage into my backyard."
Despite herself, Buffy snorted rather inelegantly in her pillow at the outlandish statement. But knowing Faith like she did, she wouldn't put it past the girl if only because the brunette had a perverse sense of humor.
"But seriously, Buffster. Do I look spectacular or what? Damn, my ass looks good in these jeans. If I weren't me I'd be trying to get with me in a New York minute."
"Yeah Faith. You look like a million yen. Now why are you nervous?"
Buffy rolled back over, not entirely able to squelch the twisting, writhing sensation in her gut as she tried desperately not to out and out ogle at her best friend. No matter how much she pretended otherwise, she couldn't stop the decidedly racy thoughts from running through her mind. Thoughts one should definitely not entertain about ones best platonic friend. Especially if said platonic friend was the same sex as oneself. Besides, this is just a phase, she thought, automatically time tripping in her mind back to the day her mom had said the exact same thing when she'd walked in on her eight year old daughter placing two naked Barbie dolls in their little doll bed and explaining to the older woman, when asked, that the Barbies were making a baby -- just like what mom and dad did at night in their room.
But despite every attempt to write off the attraction and to rationalize it, she still found herself transfixed by Faith's admittedly very well rounded ass.
Snapping out of her lust inducing daze when Faith suddenly turned around, Buffy swallowed at the two intensely burning dark eyes which had trained on her.
"Buffy, you're my best friend and I can tell you anything and everything, right?"
For a brief moment lasting all of two seconds, Buffy thought the other girl knew of her desires and was about to confront her. In those two seconds, she thought she was going to die right there on her bed of a heart attack. 'She was so young,' people would say at her funeral. 'So much potential.'
Returning from her morbid thoughts, she said very carefully, "That's right, Faith. You can tell me anything. Best friends, remember? Through thick and thin, till death do us part. Always."
Faith grinned and almost blinded her blonde friend with the pearly white brilliance of her smile.
"Aw, Buff. You're the bestest bud a girl could have."
Buffy tried not to flinch at the innocently heartfelt sentiment and instead urged Faith to continue with her own smile.
Faith's gaze turned inward and her smile grew inadvertently wider. Whatever she was thinking about was definitely of the happy variety, complete with an extra slice of goodness.
"I'm in love," she stated abruptly, completely missing the sharp intake of breath and flash of pain that marred the blonde's features.
"You're … in love?" Buffy was already weeping fat, wet tears inside, futilely trying to brace her heart against the inevitable rainstorm and knowing that it was far too late to stop the tear rending across that sensitive organ.
"Yeah, love. Next thing you know, I'll be reciting bad poetry and serenading by the light of the moon."
"Who?"
The question came out barely a croak and seemed enough to snap Faith from sappy sweet contemplations.
"You'll never guess. But guess anyway."
It took considerable willpower for Buffy not to pummel the cheerful brunette with a pillow let alone play the stupid game. She shrugged listlessly and was rewarded with a name.
"Cordelia."
"Cordy's not into girls!" She blurted out, quickly feeling parts shame and parts triumph at the disappearance of the blinding smile.
"Well, she's into me … Or she will be as soon as I let her know I'm interested."
Buffy stayed quiet for a moment but then asked in a hesitant tone of voice. "I didn't know you were into girls."
Faith smirked adorably, an expression near and dear to Buffy's heart. "I don't want to limit my possibilities. Besides it wouldn't be fair that half the population is deprived of my charms, don't you think?"
Buffy didn't know what to think. She'd known her best friend for seventeen years of her life and she only now realized she was a raving slut -- No, that wasn't really fair, she thought, admonishing herself. It wasn't as if Faith knew all her secrets either, most notably that gigantic Sears Tower sized crush she had on the brunette. But that was something else to ponder. If Faith was into girls, why the hell wasn't she into Buffy? Although her own ego wasn't prone to running amok and swallowing whole towns, the diminutive blonde was sure she was quite the catch herself.
She looked over at Faith who was in the process of striking a pose and asked curiously, "How are you going to bring up the subject with Cordy? She's not exactly your biggest fan."
"She's probably just frightened of my animal magnetism." She scowled when she caught Buffy sniggering. "And anyway," she continued, her self esteem not scratched in the least, "My fortune cookie said this week would be a good week. There's no way she can resist me when all the cosmic forces are aligned in my favor."
"What do you mean no?"
"Did you not hear me the first five times? Repeat after me, I don't want to go out with you, Faith. As in, do not. As in, not if you were the last person on earth and I had a choice between doing you and a sea urchin. As in, I don't know how you manage to walk through doors with that over-inflated thing you call a head on your shoulders. As in, no, never, not this lifetime. Now, did you hear me this time?"
Faith scrunched up her brows. She honestly didn't understand the words flowing out of Cordelia's mouth because, surely, the tall lithesome brunette had misspoken. There was no way that she, Faith, was being turned down. That kind of thing just did not happen. In fact, it never happened. She was very proud that she had a success rate of a hundred percent when it came to things she wanted. And she wanted Cordelia. Seeing that the other girl was probably suffering from heatstroke and clearly not in her right mind, she decided that a more aggressive approach was in order.
"So when should I pick you up?"
"Arrrghhh!!"
The jungle yell echoed and rebounded and frightened small freshmen but it was the sight of Cordelia Chase, stomping a furious path through the halls that struck true terror into those that witnessed the march.
"Fuckin' A" Buffy heard as she walked over to Faith. She had been surreptitiously observing Faith's crash and burn technique off to the side, secretly hoping deep down that this would be the result. But seeing her best friend's expression of confusion mingled with the slightest hint of doubt in herself, made her feel extremely guilty.
"Are you all right?" She tentatively stepped into Faith's line of sight, wishing desperately that the dark haired girl would give up her mad crush and see the love that was right in front of her.
"Huh? Oh yeah, I guess." But still, the uncertainty didn't leave her face. Faith's thoughts were a mass of confusion. Could it be true? Was her admittedly over-inflated sense of self nothing more than a grand delusion brought about by too many years of coddling by overindulgent parents? Was her fortune cookie wrong and if so, did that invalidate all the fortunes she'd eaten before? Was she really not 'all that'? She didn't know what to think so she did what she always did in times of crisis, she grasped onto the one constant in her life.
"Buffy."
"Faith?"
"… I got … turned down." It was difficult. She almost choked on those four words, having never expected to string them together in a sentence and actually mean it as more than a joke. "Am I not attractive? Am I not loveable? Am I not mouth-wateringly scrumptious? If I asked you out, you'd go out with me, right Buffy?"
Surprised hazel eyes widened at the presumably innocent question. This was a once in a lifetime chance, dangling there, taunting her to take it. Never let it be said that Buffy Summers didn't squirt through that window of opportunity like a greased eel.
"I'd love to go out with you, Faith. Pick me up at seven. And don't be late for our date." She emphasized all the important words before turning tail and nearly running out of there, leaving a more than confused Faith still adrift like a lost tugboat in a vast sea of bathwater.
Exactly at seven, Faith drove up Buffy's driveway and made her way up the front steps. During the afternoon, she had done some deep thinking and was now in a much calmer frame of mind than before. She'd resolved that when Buffy said date, it didn't mean that they were going on a date date but rather a friends hanging out together type of date. And she'd also chalked up Cordelia's reaction to PMS. No doubt, if she asked the leggy cheerleader again in a day or two, Cordy would be falling into her arms, grateful for another chance to go out with her.
So, with her world in complete balance once again, Faith rang the doorbell.
Faith had the distinct feeling that something wasn't right. It wasn't exactly a wrong feeling, more of a disquieting one. She tensed as Buffy's breast brushed lightly across her arm again. What was that -- the hundredth time Buffy reached for the popcorn and managed to rub some part of her body against some part of Faith's? It was of particular interest that the tub of popcorn was resting between their seats and no full body reaching was necessary to get the buttery kernels.
Faith said nothing, not only because they were at an exceptionally bloody part of the movie and she didn't want to miss any of the torn off limbs flying around but because she found the contact leaving behind a pleasantly tingly feeling inside.
All through dinner and now, all through the decidedly violent movie that Faith insisted on seeing, Buffy had tried to make it quite clear that this was most emphatically a date date with a few hundred carefully deployed hints. But so far, nothing, nada, zilch. She was running out of ideas and was all but doing a lap dance on the girl's lap as it was when a flash of inspiration lit her up like a ganga trip.
Faith would never take her as a serious potential love interest with years of platonic friendship hanging between them unless Buffy made a bold move. She did just that, making her boldest move yet by grabbing Faith's face and kissing her for all she was worth before she could chicken out.
It was supposed to be brief, just enough to let Faith know how she felt but the soft lips she'd dreamed about so often were too captivating to leave without thoroughly tasting them. And of course, when tongues finally met shyly for the first time, Buffy was not going to let go until the danger of suffocation finally forced her to leave her personal heaven on earth.
"Buff?"
"Yeah Faith?"
"It's my animal magnetism again, isn't it?"
Buffy slapped her lightly on her chest before immediately pulling Faith back into another searing kiss.