So Not-Awkward

I - The Key

Now

It should've been awkward. Not the whole dating-a-girl thing. The dating-her-sister's-ex thing.

The dating-a-girl part of it wasn't weird, but it had been sorta surprising when it happened. Even though she'd grown up around it, it wasn't something she ever expected to be doing herself (and no, those three times with Amanda didn't count; they weren't dates, there'd been imminent-death-looming-just-over-the-horizon issues, and you couldn't even call it sex if you didn't get all the way to the orgasm, could you?). She decided pretty quickly that she liked it, though. A lot. Boys were great and all, but girls had better taste in movies… and clothes… and pretty much everything else. Girls didn't treat an afternoon shopping at the mall as some kind of torturous punishment. Girls didn't get all excited and try to spend an hour talking to you about sports as if you somehow actually cared. And girls were better kissers.

She seriously could not remember a time when she'd been happier. It seemed like she was finally being repaid for all the misery and crap she'd had to endure as a kid.

There had been only a single sucky thing about it so far, in fact: the looks you got when you walked around campus holding hands, or when you kissed in public. The guys just grinned and tended to follow you around, as if they expected that a threesome would suddenly break out, with them firmly sandwiched in the middle. The girls gave you the disdainful looks reserved for that sad wannabe who tried too hard. Which was doubly annoying when you just knew that one out of every four of those hypocritical sluts were screwing their roommates at night, and then had the nerve to look down on those secure enough to be public with it when the sun came up again. But she wasn't about to date some guy just to convince everyone she wasn't trying too hard to be Trendy College Girl. Her girlfriend was not a fashion accessory.

She was her sister's ex, however… sort of. There was no getting away from that, and that was definitely weird. It wasn't like she'd planned it, but it also wasn't like she was going to not do it just because her sister had gotten there first, sampled the hors d'oeuvres once, and decided they weren't for her.

This just proved, yet again, that her sister was a dumbass. 'Cause look what she'd missed out on…

Then

It hadn't taken Dawn long to discover that there was a slayer on campus. She wished she could put that down to her awesome instincts and great detective skills, but truthfully she might never have found out if the girl hadn't come up to her on the second day and introduced herself. Or re-introduced herself.

To say that Dawn was less than thrilled would be… kind of an understatement. "I don't believe her!" she'd exploded. "My sister sent a slayer to babysit me through college? Okay, is she completely crazy, or just feeling the guilt over not being here to do it herself anymore?" she asked of no one in particular, before turning back and speaking directly to the slayer again. "So, what, are you like gonna be assigned to me right through grad school, too, or are they gonna rotate a few of you through in shifts over the next few years?"

Satsu just seemed amused by the outburst. "Um, no, I'm not actually 'assigned' anywhere. I'm Class of '09. Pre-med. Go Bruins," she offered with a cautious little fist pump. "Willow told me you were going to be here, too. Just thought I'd look you up and say hi."

"Oh." Her anger washed away immediately, and a tide of embarrassment swept in to replace it. "Oh. So, uh… any chance you could kinda forget I just said any of that?"

"Any of what?" Satsu asked, and Dawn gave her a small, grateful smile. "Anyway, I just got here yesterday and I'm still finding my way around. Wanna help me explore the student union? Someone told me they've got a White Castle."

So they did (the White Castle thing was a dirty lie, as it turned out, but there was a Taco Bell), and by the end of the week they were meeting twice a day for coffee, getting together for study sessions, and checking out the campus party scene together. Dawn had never been great at making friends quickly, so to suddenly be in a strange place all alone, it was a relief to discover a friend who was sort of half-made already.

And naturally it wasn't long before they went out patrolling together, either, and one thing led to another, and by the middle of October…

Dawn slashed quickly, wincing as the knife blade sliced her palm, then handed it over to Satsu, who did the same. For just a moment she looked at the line of thick wet redness, slowly beginning to drip down the sides of her hand and onto the paper towel spread out on the floor. Just ordinary dark-red blood, not a thing in the world special about it. Until…

Satsu's fingertips hesitantly sought out Dawn's, then their hands clasped, and as their blood touched and mingled an explosion of green energy erupted outward. It crackled and jumped all around them, ricocheting off every surface, lighting up a room that had been almost pitch-black a moment ago. Their bodies went rigid as the power flowed through them, an electrocution without the pain, an orgasm without the pleasure. There was somehow no sensation to it despite it being the most intense experience either of them had ever had.

They'd discovered this by accident one night when a fight with a Fyarl demon had left them both battered and bloody, and one girl had offered the other a hand up. The energy from those few drops of blood had only caused a handful of green sparks, but it was enough to lead to more experimentation, and then these late nights together in the janitor's closet. Because it wasn't the energy flowing around and through them that kept them repeating the act over and over, it was what the energy created.

As they sat across from each other with folded legs, a small, green-ringed ball appeared above their clasped hands, growing from the size of a marble to that of a soccer ball. In it they could see a rugged mountain range formed of dark purple rock, with an angry red sky behind it, and forks of lightning stabbing down from black clouds. Every detail was perfectly-vivid, and as three-dimensional as if they were looking through a window. It was a scene somehow captivating in its savage beauty, and they stared fixedly into it until it vanished a few minutes later, replaced by an entirely new setting.

Every time they did this it was different, every dimension they peeked into a fresh wonder. They'd seen frighteningly-alien landscapes, vistas of beautiful blue oceans and green plains, and worlds with massive cities not so much different from their own.

Dawn knew that with a little more blood they could widen the portal and jump through, landing in a whole new place that maybe no human had ever even set foot in before. They never would, of course, because who knew if they could ever get home again, but she loved that the possibility was there, that she and her friend had this ability to come together and do something so magic, so unique. Maybe any slayer's blood could do this mixed with hers, but she didn't think so. Buffy's never had. Somehow Satsu was special.

But Dawn had pretty much already figured that out before they even discovered this trick.

The storm of energy swirling around them suddenly grew stronger, more intense, and somehow, even though it was still perfectly silent, it seemed to be getting louder, as well. The portal began to pulse: smaller-larger-smaller-larger-smaller-

Dawn cried out - not in pain, but in… something. Her eyelids fluttered, then her eyes rolled up to the whites and she collapsed to the floor. Satsu let go of her hand to reach for her, and the portal and the crackling electricity vanished instantly.

When the real world blurred back into sort-of-sharp existence a few moments later, the Japanese girl was cradling her head and shoulders and looking down on her with deep concern. "Dawn? Are you okay?"

"I think so," she said after giving her body a few seconds to let her know of any serious problems. "What happened?"

"You tell me. Actually, no - don't bother," she corrected herself. "Doesn't even matter, because that's it - we're not doing it again. Sure, it's cool, but I'm not letting you die over it."

"Whatever." Dawn was too tired to argue about it right then. She could probably talk her into changing her mind in the morning if she felt like it.

Another few seconds passed. Strength began to return to her limbs and she allowed herself to be helped up. As she sat up their faces passed within just a few inches of each other, and in a carpe-diem, oh-what-the-hell moment, Dawn finally found enough courage to press both palms against the other girl's cheeks and pull her in for a kiss.

Time passed, and it was only when she realized that the kiss wasn't being returned that she pulled away. "What?" she asked, cringing inwardly but trying her best to hide it and appear nonchalant.

"What are you doing, Dawn?"

"Umm… kissing you?"

"Why?" Satsu clearly wasn't as excited by it as Dawn had hoped for, but she didn't exactly seem upset by it, either. 'Dubious curiosity' might be the best description for the way she was staring at her.

"'Cause I've been wanting to do that for about three weeks now, but kept chickening out. But I guess I was all woozy and stuff from the blood-loss and the passing-out, and your lips were right there and really kissable and so I just sort of… did."

"Why?" she asked again. "You're not - "

"Please don't finish that sentence," Dawn begged her. She reached for the roll of gauze that they'd brought with them, and began wrapping the still-seeping cut on her palm. From past experience she knew it would be nothing but a dull-pink scar by lunchtime the next day, and even that would have faded completely by the weekend; she may not have slayer- or vampire-healing, but she was far from normal.

"I know I'm not, okay?" she said. Now that she'd done it, and it hadn't gone nearly as great as she'd sometimes allowed herself to dream about, the embarrassment was setting in. It was lucky that taping the bandage in place gave her an excuse not to look at the other girl. "But I still wanted to do it. I don't know why. All I know is that when I wake up in the morning, I can't wait to meet you for breakfast. I sit in class and spend the last twenty minutes of it staring at the clock 'cause I know you're waiting for me in the library. Some guy asked me out at a frat party last week, and I turned him down because, even though he was hot and even seemed kinda sweet - for a frat guy, if that's even possible - he wasn't you." She took a deep breath, then, in a tumbling rush, admitted, "It's stupid, I know it's stupid, 'cause I really like being your friend and just hanging out with you and now I've probably totally messed that up 'cause obviously that kiss was a seriously stupid idea but I just kinda hoped that maybe you felt some of the same things - "

A soft hand cupped the side of her chin, and gently but insistently drew her head back up, and her blue eyes met her friend's brown ones.

"Maybe I do," Satsu admitted, and Dawn's face broke into a relieved smile. "But I'm not sure we should do anything about it," she added, and the smile was short-lived.

"Oh."

"You're the best friend I've had in… a long time, Dawn. You're smart, and beautiful, and funny, and brave, and thoughtful, and yes: sometimes I think about it. But I think I finally learned my lesson about dating straight girls. It just hurts too much."

"But I'm not straight!" Dawn objected. Satsu's eyebrows quirked upward, and a smile tugged at the corner of her mouth at her friend's sudden vehemence, but she remained silent and allowed her to go on. "Or I mean, I have been - mostly - but… Look, I'm not anything, okay?" she huffed. "I'm just me. And right now all I know is that there's no one on this whole campus, or in this whole city, or in this whole dimension that I'd rather be kissing than you."

The slayer's smile grew a little, but she said, "It's just not a good idea. Getting over your sister was hard for me, and I don't - "

"But I'm not her! I don't wanna have sex with you!"

The smile became a grin, half-amused, half-bemused. "Oh. Wow, thanks. That's flattering."

"I mean, not yet," she clarified, grinning a little herself. "My sister screwed everything up - maybe on purpose, 'cause she does stuff like that. Okay, it's not like I have the hugest amount of experience with this, but I think that if you want a relationship to be real and last longer than three hours, you don't jump straight to the sex. You build up to the sex, over the course of many dates. Or three or four, at least." When Satsu's gaze wandered to the room's lone, darkened window, and she chewed at her bottom lip in silence, Dawn added, "I can prove that not every Summers girl is as thoughtless as she is. Promise. I can do it the right way."

The other girl continued staring out the window, and after a few moments passed with nothing, Dawn knew that she'd pushed too hard, said too much. Maybe, if she was lucky, Satsu would still be her friend in the morning. Maybe, if she was really lucky, the slayer would think about all of this for a few days or a couple of weeks and be willing to talk about it all again. But right now…

She sighed, checked that her bandage was in place, and got to her feet - and suddenly there was someone standing right in front of her, and soft, warm lips pressed against hers. After the first couple of seconds of shock, her hands found their way down to a slim pair of hips, and then Dawn was kissing her back. It seemed to last both forever and for barely any time at all, but when it ended, Dawn couldn't hold back a little moan at the quick, teasing dip the slayer's tongue made into her mouth.

"Wow," she breathed, when she found her voice again. When she finally opened her eyes, Satsu was staring back at her, her expression unreadable.

"We're not having sex tonight. Or tomorrow night, either."

"Okay," Dawn murmured happily, and leaned forward until their foreheads were touching. "But you're willing to go out to dinner with me tomorrow, right?"

"I have dinner with you almost every night," Satsu reminded with a friendly smirk.

"Yeah, but I'm not talking about chicken and noodles from P.F. Chang's in your dorm room while you try to help me with my biochemistry homework. I mean dinner."

"You want me to wear a dress, don't you?" the self-admitted - and proud of it! - tomboy teased.

"I wouldn't hate it if you did."

"I know I'm probably an idiot for even considering this, but…" Satsu let the sentence trail off, and went back in for another kiss.