Rating: PG-13

Pairing: Kennedy/Faith

Disclaimer: I don't own these characters, nor do I make any money from writing about them.

Summary: The latest Los Angeles heatwave leaves Kennedy feeling wet.

Notes: Written for the Kennedy round of the femslash minis community on livejournal. Prompts were a heatwave, rum, and slaying.

As far as living conditions go, Kennedy isn't too impressed with Los Angeles. Communal living isn't exactly her thing and she thought she'd left it far behind when they left Sunnydale. Angel's old hotel boasts lots of rooms but most of them aren't finished or even habitable and a grand total of zero of them have air conditioning. Naturally, she'd considered herself lucky when she ended up in a cushy single room with Willow who'd insisted on a little bit of magic-aided air conditioning.

Her luck ran out two weeks after they settled in, though, when they decided they needed some time apart.

Permanent time apart.

As it turns out, impending apocalypses have a tendency to bring people together who were never really meant to be in the first place.

It was a mutual decision, though, and they seem to be getting along really well as friends these past four weeks. That doesn't mean, however, that Kennedy doesn't miss the perks of the relationship. Between the fact that she now has to share quarters with three other girls and that their seventh-story room is comparable to a sauna in the middle of a typical Los Angeles heatwave, she's starting to reconsider their breakup if only for the convenience of a less sweltering room.

And besides that, she's a slayer now. She should be enjoying the benefits of slayer stamina with someone beside herself for a change.

Despite the fact that it's almost 3:00am now, a very wide-awake Kennedy climbs out of her bed, needing to escape the heat and noise of her room for a little while. Getting away from her three rambunctious and giggling roommates is probably a good idea too. Really, what can be so funny at three in the morning when it's so damn hot?

Kennedy knows the answer to that: nothing. Nothing is ever that funny.

Her roommates are just idiots.

Pulling on a small gray tank top and a pair of black shorts over her damp skin, she makes her way out of the room and down to the first floor where she knows it will be at least ten degrees cooler. Unfortunately for her, half of the other slayers in the building have the same idea. They're hanging out in every room, giggling and laughing like it's some kind of slumber party that she hasn't been invited to. Kennedy thinks she'll find some respite in Angel's office but Buffy and Dawn are in there, sitting in front of an oscillating fan and complaining every time it sways away from them.

Sighing, she turns around and decides to head for the roof. Not only might there be a breeze up there but it will also be completely devoid of any other people. Slayers they might be, but they weren't climbing ten flights of stairs unless Johnny Depp or an apocalypse was at the top.

Before walking out of the room, she grabs one of the bottles from a shelf near the door, hoping that Buffy won't notice. A victorious smirk spreads across her face when she makes it to the staircase without so much as a peep from Buffy or anyone else lounging around. She glances down as she begins to climb and turns the bottle she's holding by the neck so that she can read the label.

White rum. Not a bad grab.

She twists off the cap and takes a chug while she climbs the old carpeted steps, hoping the booze will distract her from the heat that grows with every floor. It doesn't quite help the way she'd planned though and by the time the reaches the roof exit, there's a fresh sheen of sweat covering her face and she's twice as hot as when she first left her room.

"God, is air conditioning such a prehistoric concept? I know it's an old building but . . . renovations, people. Look into it," she says to no one in particular.

She makes it to the edge of the building and rests her elbows on the brick ledge, sighing deeply. Looking down toward the ground below, she pushes her hair over one shoulder so that the slight breeze can blow over the back of her neck. She closes her eyes and just breathes, trying to remember the cold air from her last trip to her family's winter lodge in Aspen.

No matter how much she tries to think of cold things, though, it's still sweltering out and she can feel a bead of sweat make its way down her back underneath her cotton tank top. Opening her eyes in frustration, something across the way gets her attention and she tilts her head to the side.

The building next door has a pool on the roof?

She makes sure the lid on the bottle of rum is on tightly as she walks back to the center of the building. Her socks stick to the tacky gravel and tar but she doesn't care; they can be replaced in the morning. Steeling herself, she turns and faces the neighboring building, focusing on it for a few seconds before taking off in a quick sprint. Between slayer speed and strength and her sheer will, she leaps the twelve foot gap between buildings with ease and lands squarely on her feet on the roof of the neighboring building, teetering only for a second before finding her balance.

God damn she loves being a slayer!

The rooftop is vacant as far as she can tell and luckily for her, there are no security lights. That little bonus factor should make her spontaneous three a.m. dip that much easier. All she needs is some perv in an even taller building watching her take a swim in her birthday suit. And yes, she'll be swimming naked because no way is she going to explain how her clothes got wet to her roommates. This pool is her new hidden oasis and she's not giving up the location to anyone.

After taking a quick peek around to make sure that she's truly alone, she starts stripping down beside one of the lounge chairs at the side of the pool, leaving her hastily discarded clothing on it. In a last minute decision, she decides to ditch her panties too. Honestly, if she gets caught a pair of panties isn't gonna save her any embarrassment or harassment.

She cannonballs into the water, a huge smile on her face when she surfaces with her wet hair clinging to her cheeks and forehead. The cool water feels amazing on her overheated skin and she dips her head back under it so that the hair clinging to her face joins the others on the top of her head. For a second she briefly recalls the pool scene in the movie Wild Things between Neve Campbell and Denise Richards and she smirks.

"Perv," she says to herself, running her hands from the top of her hair back to keep the water from spilling down her face.

Shaking her head lightly - that's the last kind of thing she needs to be thinking about right now - she starts gliding easily through the water, doing casual laps on her back while looking up at the stars. Her ears are under the water but it's only a short time later when they pick up the unmistakable sound of footsteps coming up the stairwell. She knows that she can slip under the surface and hold her breath for a few minutes but that doesn't change the fact that her damn clothes are sitting on a lounger in plain sight.

The iron door opens and Kennedy takes a deep breath and slips under the water, sinking down to the bottom of the seven foot deep section. She glances up at the surface and notices a dim light come on above her. The footsteps get closer to the pool then stop suddenly. She silently scolds herself when she realizes whoever is there is probably looking at her clothes.

Almost a minute passes and Kennedy feels the burn start in her lungs. She tightens her lips and clenches her fists, trying to toughen herself up. Needless to say, she's a bit more than surprised when there's a loud swoosh noise and she looks up to see a body sinking into the pool, legs coming dangerously close to her head.

Okay, forget dangerously close. A kick to the jaw later and she pushes to the surface, coughing and spluttering for breath as she frantically searches for whatever attacked her. Never did she expect to come face to smirking face with Faith.

Hands find the top of her head and she finds herself back under the water and taking in a mouthful of it. The hands release her though and she surfaces again, spluttering even more than the first time.

"Are you crazy!"

"Certifiably, kid. And for the record, that right there was just a taste of what you'll get if ya tell anyone about my secret little slice of paradise here," Faith replies easily as she treads water. "But I see ya brought some booze so I'm gonna let ya stay."

In their close proximity Kennedy can smell the sweet aroma of white rum on Faith's breath. At first she's slightly peeved but then she relaxes. If Faith's not kicking her out, the least she can do is share.

"How long have you been coming here?" Kennedy asks her and Faith shrugs.

"Since the second night we got here. Spent some time on Angel's roof before so I knew it was here. Sure beats melting away with the slaybies over at Angel's Inferno any day."

"Why didn't you tell anyone about it?"

"What, and spend my post-slayage time with twenty girls in a pool when I'm tryin' to come down from the H&H's? Think again. You're here alone so I'm obviously not the only one who likes some privacy now and again." Suddenly Faith looks around and even down into the water. "You are here alone, right? I swear, dude, if there's another slayer holdin' her breath at the bottom of this pool, I'm gonna . . ."

"Relax, I'm alone," Kennedy replies.

Faith peers down into the water again and looks up at Kennedy with one of her eyebrows raised.

"You're naked?"

"You're judging?" Kennedy asks incredulously, indicating Faith's clearly naked form.

"Nah, I'm just . . . impressed actually. Most slayers? Got some pretty big sticks up their asses. Kinda a relief to find that I'm not the only one that ain't all prim and proper and shit."

Faith pushes off the wall and starts swimming backwards out toward the center of the big pool. She slips under the water and resurfaces, pushing her hair back away from her face. Kennedy regards her for a second and then follows her out to the middle, treading water a few feet away from her.

"Well, there's no stick anywhere near the vicinity of my ass. It's one of the joys of being a lesbian," Kennedy says and Faith chuckles, the moonlight making her look even younger than she is. "So why'd ya go slaying alone? Sure there are at least ten girls that would've loved to give some vamps a dusty ending."

Faith treads a little bit closer and Kennedy stays where she is despite her first instinct to move back.

"Because I like to savor it," Faith says, her voice huskier now. "B can play teacher. Me? I like to get out there, get sweaty, kick some ass, and feel the rush. Ain't no bigger thrill than slaying. Actually, I can think of one but I haven't been able to test it out yet." Her eyes look down to Kennedy's lips and then back to her dark eyes.

It makes Kennedy shudder.

"Yeah? What's that?" she asks. Faith might think she's being all sexy and intimidating but Kennedy can take it.

Faith gets even closer, her skin caressing Kennedy's now every time she moves her limbs to tread. Kennedy's pretty sure where this is heading but she keeps quiet. You don't take the lead with someone like Faith; you wait to be led. She fights her every instinct and stays quiet and still, ignoring the urge to initiate. This is Faith's game now.

She's just happy to be picked for the team for once.

"Slayer sex," Faith finally says, her sweet, warm breath caressing Kennedy's lips. "You know how good it got for you after you were called. Imagine that . . . with another slayer. Someone who feels everything the way that you do."

"Yeah, I'm imagining it," Kennedy says breathlessly as fingertips find her hips and pull her closer.

"Ya wanna do more than imagine it?"

Kennedy can't help the way her lips crack up into a grin when Faith asks that. She'd wanted to test out her new slayer stamina and now she was finally going to get a chance to do just that. She doesn't reply; she just wraps her hand around the back of Faith's neck and pulls her forward until their lips crash together in a hard, wet kiss. It's probably the only chance Faith is going to give her to show her dominant side so she takes advantage, lips nipping and tongue exploring until Faith pulls back with a smirk on her face.

"Shoulda brought a stopwatch," Faith says as they near the side of the pool.

"Why?" Kennedy asks, panting.

Faith grabs Kennedy's hands and guides them up to the concrete ledge that the backs of Kennedy's shoulders are now pressed against.

"Cos I wanna see how long I can hold my breath."

Faith disappears below the surface without another word and Kennedy's eyes widen just a moment later. A short gasp escapes her throat and she closes her eyes, grunting softly. They'll have to call Guinness tomorrow because she's pretty sure some kind of record is about to be broken here.