Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer is the intellectual property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, et al; Gundam Wing is the intellectual property of Sunrise, Kodansha, et al; and Naruto is the intellectual property of Masashi Kishimoto, Shueisha, and VIZ Media. No money is being made from this story and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
Author's Note: In late August of 2005, a meme went around livejournal in which you listed 12 characters and then answered various questions about them. The trick was that you couldn't look at the questions first. One of my questions was whether Sasuke would do better paired with Faith or with Duo Maxwell. "Obviously," I said, "they should have a threesome."
Beware of making jokes. Sometimes they come back to bite you.
Summary: An unfortunate accident with a demonic portal dumps Faith, Duo Maxwell, and Uchiha Sasuke into a hell dimension. Knowing these three, things can only get worse from there...
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Part X: In which a sticking point is reached
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Faith tried to pay attention to Sasuke's glare and stream of unintelligible curses, but it was nearly impossible to keep her face straight. (Especially with Duo alternating between leers and laughing his head off.) Sasuke was too damn sexy for his own good -- the way his wet shirt clung to his chest was absolute proof -- and with sopping bangs plastered over his forehead, dripping trails of water down his cheeks, he was too damn cute for his own good as well.
She wanted to jump him and put his mouth to better use. She bet she could make Sasuke stop scowling for at least an hour straight, given half a chance.
Finally, Duo stopped laughing long enough to sweep a sheet of water at Sasuke. Sasuke didn't even bother ducking, just held up his hands in a weird gesture and the water split, curling around him like foamy wings -- not even the backsplash hit him.
Faith whistled. "Now that's cool. Instant barbecue, whatever, but force fields? Those are useful."
"He says it's a variant of two other techniques," Duo translated after a minute. "And get this -- one of them is walking on water. This I have got to see. I mean, seriously, he'd be like Ninja Jesus!"
Looking distinctly unamused, Sasuke laid one hand flat on the lake and levered himself up onto the face of the water, like he was climbing up onto a table -- first the other hand, then a foot, and then both feet -- and stood upright, balancing easily against the tiny ripples. He waved one hand as if to say, "There -- happy now?"
After a long moment of sheer what-the-fuck-I-can't-believe-my-eyes, Faith found a grin and careless slouch. "I can't wait for Willow to see this," she said. "She'll flip. Then she'll have a field day going into the implications on Christian theology and start trying to convert everyone to being Jewish, until she remembers she's all Earth Mother pagan now."
"Your witch sounds more and more interesting every time I learn something about her," Duo said, as he slashed his hand through the water under Sasuke's feet. "Me, I'm just glad Father and Sister Helen never saw this." He sounded kind of strained.
"Magic freaks most people out at first," Faith said. "Don't worry."
"Who's worrying?"
Sasuke folded his arms, looking distinctly irritated. "We go house now." He aimed an easily-dodged kick at Duo's head, and then started walking along the surface of the water, toward the valley bend and the western shore of the lake.
"We might as well follow," Faith said, starting to dress -- putting dirty clothes on right after she'd finally gotten clean felt nasty, but there was always time for another bath and some laundry once they checked out this house. "You want to dry off, or should I carry your stuff while you swim?"
"Drying off takes too long and there's no reason to make Sasuke pissier than he already is," Duo said. "I'll take my chances with the Creature from the Black Lagoon... and I warn you, if you break my guns, I'll come up with very inventive revenge."
Mr. Voodoo's mutilated, headless corpse flashed in Faith's mind before she slammed the door on that image. "You sure you wanna go there? 'Cause I have to warn you, too much invention gets in the way of venting. And I thought you wanted some quality venting time." She pulled her shirt down over her head and stretched to make sure it sat properly.
She glanced up and caught Duo's eyes lingering on her breasts before he snapped his attention back to her face. Faith smiled.
Oh yeah. The second they finished checking out this house, she was jumping Duo. And if Sasuke thought that was unprofessional, he could go jump in the lake. Again.
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Sister Helen would've shaken her head and told him not to make the lady carry all his stuff as well as hers, but Duo had never been that big on chivalry to start with, and Hilde had broken him of any lingering tendencies pretty damn quick once they really got to know each other. It was a convenient pose, nothing more, and right now convenience said that Faith was stronger than he was, he wanted to keep an eye on Sasuke, and getting out of the water would be slightly embarrassing, so...
"Race you!" he called, and dove into a front crawl, slicing through the water.
Duo was a colony brat by birth and preference, but the two things he'd almost move to earth for were real skies and open water. You couldn't waste water in space, couldn't contaminate what you might be drinking tomorrow, so he'd grown up doing without except for water fountains and the fake rainstorms that washed down the streets and houses every couple weeks. At the church, Sister Helen had introduced him to sponge baths and quick immersions of his hair into the sink; he'd fought her, but secretly he loved the feel of water. G and the Sweepers could afford actual showers -- five minutes max, but still, showers! You could drown in them with a bit of ingenuity.
And then, on earth, he'd seen the ocean.
Even on a tight schedule, even facing off against Heero that first time and scrambling to keep their Gundams from blowing sky high, a good third of his mind had been staring around speechless in awe.
After that, he'd made a point of taking swimming lessons at every school that offered them. G had tried to teach him in an immersion tank, but while that had kept him from drowning a couple times early on, it wasn't the same. The water was trapped, tame, nothing like the ocean.
This lake wasn't like the ocean either, not really, but Duo figured the hell dimension aspect more than compensated. Besides, fresh water didn't sting the eyes anything near as much as salt.
He glanced up, tracking Sasuke's black figure against the purple smudge of shore-grass. Maybe a hundred meters past the bend, the kid stopped and sat down -- probably on dry land, though right now Duo wouldn't put it past Sasuke to sit on water just to freak people out. Duo angled toward him and dropped his feet to walk once he got within shouting distance of the shore.
The safe-house was hidden in a thick grove of those rust-colored fake willows, but the two angles he could see from the water were square and clearly constructed rather than natural, and the lines looked sound. "Nice place, Sasuke-kun," he called as he slogged through the shallows, wringing out his hair.
Sasuke shrugged. "It's the only place, unless we want to build our own shelter or sleep in the open. That might be safer -- this house is probably the first place any natives will check if they come to this valley -- but I'd prefer not to waste time building something when we may leave this world tomorrow. And walls will keep any firelight from revealing our presence."
"Sounds reasonable," Duo said. "Faith's bringing my gear -- you want me to wait here for her while you go soothe your paranoia by setting traps and other secret ninja stuff?"
"I'm not paranoid. I'm realistic," Sasuke said with a glare. Duo gauged it -- compared to the start of this trip into Wonderland, it wasn't half as strong. He was wearing down. Good.
"It's not paranoia if they're really after you?" he suggested, and then waved his own words off. "Whatever. I'll sleep better with a security perimeter, and I trust you to do it right. See you in a bit, Sasuke."
He clapped his hand on Sasuke's shoulder and let it linger just a second before giving the ninja a gentle shove toward the trees.
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The trees were all wrong, but they were still trees, more familiar than the rest of this world. Sasuke knew how to deal with trees -- he hadn't grown up in a village called Hidden Leaf for nothing.
He tugged a tripwire, checking its tautness, and wished people were half as comprehensible as trees. He'd never managed to figure out his own parents, let alone his broth-- let alone that man. His old team made even less sense, if that was possible, and while Orochimaru was fairly straightforward in going after what he wanted, his actual desires were nonsensical. Immortality was an illusion; pain and death were the only constants. Someday Orochimaru would run up against that immutable fact, hard and messily.
Sasuke regretted that he probably wouldn't be around to watch.
Duo and Faith fell right in with the rest of humanity, making no sense. Right now, for instance, Duo was watching Faith whittle a rough comb from a fallen branch, using one of his matte-black knives. Making a comb was understandable -- they both had long hair -- but the way they were sitting so close together on the shore, their thighs touching, and the husky tone in Duo's voice as he talked...
This was a mission -- an unexpected mission, true, but it was no time for hearts and flowers! Especially not out in the open when they weren't paying attention to their surroundings.
Faith finished the comb and handed it to Duo. He spun it around his hand and then reached over to gather a handful of Faith's hair. Their eyes caught for a long moment; Faith's mouth twitched into a grin, and Duo drew a breath to speak.
"If you're going to have sex, do it inside," Sasuke said as he dropped from a tree.
Faith jerked around, knife raised reflexively; Duo collapsed in a fit of laughter. Faith prodded him with a toe. "You ---- explain?" Duo just laughed harder. Faith shrugged, plucked the comb from his lax hand, and started untangling her hair.
Sasuke watched Duo laughing, and wondered why he'd interrupted instead of just taking watch and making them do more work later. He couldn't afford cloudy motives; he needed a clear mind, controlled, focused.
After a minute, Duo's laughter began to subside. "Oh, I take it back, I take it all back -- you do have a sense of humor," he wheezed. "Good boy! Have a biscuit!"
"I'm not a dog," Sasuke said, folding his arms and glaring. And he hadn't meant that as a joke!
"True, and the world is a better place for it," Duo said, his voice still shaky with amusement. "After all, I'm not much into bestiality. Humans, on the other hand, I like just fine. Want to come inside with us, Sasuke?"
Sasuke blinked. Did he... Duo could not have just said what Sasuke thought he'd said. Not that blatantly. Yes, he and Faith teased, but they had each other if they wanted to go that route. Why bring Sasuke into the mess, when he'd made it clear he wanted nothing to do with their idio-- with them?
"I'll take the extended pause as a 'no,'" Duo said with a careless shrug. "Too bad -- your loss. I hope you're not too bored while Faith and I are busy." He rose gracefully to his feet and tapped Faith on the shoulder. "Sasuke says no," he told her in English. "---- you and me, chica. I want to see how ---- you can be."
"---- your ---- dreams," Faith said. "You sure, Sasuke? I think you would have fun." She held out a hand in bizarre invitation.
Sasuke shook his head, but somehow the insult got lost on the way from his mind to his tongue, and he stayed silent.
He kicked off his sandals and waded into the lake so he couldn't watch them leave.
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AN: Thanks for reading, and please review! I'm particularly interested in knowing what parts of the story worked for you, what parts didn't, and why. Also, please tell me if I'm not giving enough background for any of the three series in this crossover -- I'm trying to be clear without resorting to exposition dumps, but if I'm leaving stuff out, I'd like to know so I can fix it! (Conversely, if I am infodumping, please tell me that too.)