This story is for karraparis, for her winning bid on livejournal's helpthesouth auction. Thank you so much for your donation!
For the same auction, I am working on longer stories for Red Robin (also karraparis), Sweet Valley High (triciabyrne1978), Fear Street (liadela), and a new chapter for the CATverse (squeebers). Unfortunately, I will have no internet access for the next two and a half weeks. But that should give me extra writing time, right?
The auction for Alabama (Roll Tide) is closed, but if you would like to bid on a fic for charity, the next one should be starting soon. Visit helpthesouth. livejournal. com for more information.
This story takes place during season three.
Willow had never been all that comfortable at the Bronze. She went there on Friday nights like everybody else, but she really wasn't into the music or the crowds or the underage drinking. And she wasn't into dancing. In all her life she had never been able to picture herself skanked out and gyrating the way Buffy and Faith were just then.
Not that Buffy was a skank. She looked very cute-perky, even, with her blonde hair bouncing as she moved. Faith, now, she always looked trashy, but that was part of her charm. The dark lipstick and raccoon eyes, the tight black tank top that clung to every curve, the way she moved, like she was constantly-well-doing things that Willow wouldn't know anything about.
Faith looked absolutely free on the dance floor. Willow could only imagine what it would be like to be in that body. To have a slayer's strength, and the toned muscles that must have come from before, when she was just a girl. To have biceps sharply defined, shoulders broad and firm, nothing dainty or delicate about her. To be all hard and no soft. To be the one who caught everyone's eye out there under the lights, beads of dewy sweat on deeply tanned skin, dripping their way slowly down from her collarbone.
She could imagine herself in Buffy's place, so close she could smell the sweat. A slayer after a fight didn't stink. She smelled…sort of primal, and right. Willow didn't quite know how to put it into words, even in her own head, but she felt like that smell of sweat and exertion and righteous fury was the closest a passionless nerd like her was ever going to come to…to something that she would always be missing.
Faith turned her head ever so slightly toward Willow, one arm raised to pull the hair off the back of her neck, the motion of her dance never faltering. The power of the smoldering eyes just barely glanced off the wallflower holding a table all alone. Her mouth parted, teeth startlingly white against glistening red lips. For a moment, in her head, Willow could taste the lipstick.
And then Faith's gaze was back on the blonde in front of her. Willow meant to take a casual sip of her Sprite, but was a little too hasty and set off a coughing fit instead. Oz caught her eye from the bar where he had gone for a refill, and she waved to let him know she was okay. He nodded, and she smiled at him.
Thank goodness he was the quiet type. Thank goodness she was, too.
Author's note: I love Willow as a character, but it always bothered me that she spent three seasons showing interest in men and none in women, until suddenly, bam! "I'm gay now." For one thing, a woman who is attracted to men, even if she's primarily or exclusively interested in dating women, is not gay, she's bi. But more germane to this story, you can't turn gay. Even if you don't recognize or accept those feelings right away, they're going to be there.
And if Willow is going to have hidden stirrings for any woman (as well as a reason to keep them hidden!) I think it would be Faith.
Willow's slut shaming and self-deprecation are not necessarily the opinions of the author. Thanks for reading.