The Sidekicks' Holiday by CaptMurdock

Rating: R
Disclaimer: The characters of Willow, Tara, Gunn, Fred, Buffy, Angel, Cordelia, Dawn, Lorne and Groosalug are the creation of Joss Whedon and/or the writers of BtVS and Angel and are the property of Mutant Enemy Productions. The author does not retain any copyright to these characters and is using them in a not-for-profit way.
Distribution: The Mystic Muse: http://mysticmuse.net
Watchers: http://thewatcherscouncil.net
Feedback: Who, me? The Encouragement Whore of Babylon, need feedback? Perish forbid. Try me.
Spoilers: Buffy: "Entropy" and Angel: "Double or Nothing".
Author's Notes: The story begins the day after "Entropy" and no more than a few days after "Double or Nothing." Assume the two series are running more or less concurrently. Assume that this is AU after the above stories.
Pairing: Willow/Tara

Summary: Two couples each go on little vacations…unwittingly, to the same little hotel. Wackiness ensues.

"Uh, Buffy," Willow corrected her friend gently, as the Slayer threw several articles of clothing, none of them her own, into a suitcase, with little disregard for the niceties of folding. "I think you mean, muchachas, don't you?"

"I hope so," Tara added. She looked at Willow, with whom she had reconciled with only the night before. "I mean, I'm pretty sure you didn't grow any, um, strange, y'know, parts, while I was aw-way."

Willow grinned. "Well, you did give me a pretty thorough examination last night…"

"Ho-OOO-kay!" Buffy said, throwing up her hands. "And again with the reason I'm sending you guys off on a wild weekend! 'Cause if I have to hear any more sexual innuendo…ey…stuff like that, I'm gonna join a convent."

Tara giggled. "Now there's a picture: Sister Buffy of the Holy Stake. You'd look cute in a coronet and wimple."

Buffy glared at her in mock outage. "Watch it, Witchie-poo, or I'll show you my cross. Right cross, that is." She shook her fist in what was supposed to be a threatening gesture, but the grin bursting unbidden from her lips ruined the effect. Truth to tell, she was ecstatic that her best friend was back together with the woman with whom Buffy herself had grown rather fond of over the last two years. She knew they still had issues to work out, issues that they would need resolved for the long term, but for the first time since their breakup, Willow and Tara seemed able to put things in their proper perspective. The important thing, they had decided, was their love and their need to be together.

"I know this little place about an hour or so south of her," Buffy said, continuing her sales pitch-cum-royal command. "Nice, out of the way, cheap…" She didn't add that this roadside hotel was the place that she and Angel had agreed to meet for their "reunion" following her all-expenses-paid trip to the Happy Hunting Ground. Since it was nearly equidistant between the Greater Los Angeles area and Sunnydale, the hotel was neutral territory. "Just the place for two lovers to get away for the weekend."

"Oh, now you're Calendar Girl! Look, you two, life moves pretty fast on the Hellmouth. You deserve a break from it. And, frankly, I deserve a break from the Goo-Goo-Eyed Girls."

Dawn walked into the bedroom then. "What's up?" Spotting the suitcases on the bed, she turned back to Willow and Tara. "Oh, God, are you guys moving out already?"

"No!" Tara responded, laughing. "Buffy's just convinced us to go away for a few days for some…private time." The Wiccan's crooked smile and furtive glance at Willow told Dawn pretty much all she needed to know.

"Oh, that's nice," Dawn replied, grinning. She looked at the suitcases with clothes scattered haphazardly within, and then just couldn't help herself: "Well, you're not going to need a lot of clothes for that, are you?"

Buffy turned with deliberate slowness towards her sister, who realized her faux pas and blushed furiously. Tara folded her arms and gave her best maternal glare, while Willow managed something approaching a disapproving expression, although the amused undertone managed to shine through anyway.

Dawn shied away from the three elders giving her Major Stink-Eye. "Uh, I think I have some homework to do. Brain surgery, or, or rocket science. Uh, uh, underwater basket-weaving." Her slinking out of the run nevertheless had the joyous hop of a child whose bickering parents had made up big-time.

Buffy turned back to her two friends. "See? You are totally corrupting her. Now take just whatever you need – like she said, probably not clothes, and I can't even believe I just said that – and take off. I promise you, the world will not end. And if it does, I'll beep you, 'kay?"

Willow sighed in acquiescence. "Alright, Buffy, we're going, we're going. We just need a few things, like shampoo…

"Right," Willow concurred. "Oral hygiene is very important." At that, she sent a saucy look to Tara, who with a raised eyebrow sent it right back.

None of this, of course, escaped Buffy's notice. Smiling widely at the two lovers gazing longingly and naughtily into each other's eyes, she said, "Please leave. Now."

"Ah dunno," Fred said, her Southern accent becoming more pronounced with her discomfort. "Ah feel funny just goin' off and leavin' you guys to mind the store." She looked around the lobby of the Hyperion, where Gunn was lugging two duffel bags and setting them next to the round couch. Cordelia was leaning over the front desk on her elbows, while Groosalug was attempting to photocopy some papers for her; frankly, the Big Strong Hero was having the devil's own time with the document feeder. Cordy gave him an amused but affectionate glance, then turned back to Fred.

"You guys need some time alone. I got some quality time in with Groo – of course, coinciding with the whole angsty Three Days of the Condor Bit starring Wesley 'Screw-It-Up-Yourself' Wyndham-Price, but hey, I'm not begrudging myself that. So, now, it's your guys' turn to play Hide the –"

Rushing forward, Fred made several inarticulate sounds to cut the other woman off. "Uh, yeah, about that," Fred said, glancing back at Gunn, who either hadn't heard or affected not to have heard what Cordelia was about to say. "Um, Charles and I aren't…well, we haven't…he and I, well, really…" She trailed off as her face turned several shades of red.

Cordelia reached over and laid her hand gently on her friend's arm. "All the more reason to kinda, y'know, get away from it all. You and Gunn are going to do this dance around each other for weeks, maybe months, before you get down to business – or just get down entirely. This way, we cut to the chase a little bit." With a conspiratorial wink, she reached under the counter and pulled out a box from a very famous store in Hollywood whose name started like Fred's. "Here's a little something to, uh, enhance the negotiations

The young physicist's eyes widened when she saw the store's name on the box. Cautiously she opened it. Seeing the contents made her eyes grow even bigger and a squeal emit from her throat. Slamming down the lid as if it contained radioactive isotopes, Fred glared in incredulity at Cordelia. "I can't wear…something like that!"

"Sure you can! It's in your size. Two things I know: the preferred methods of killing slime-demons and how to shop for intimate moments." She patted Fred's arm. "Call it a gift. I mean, that," she amended, indicating the box, "It's a gift, for you. Both of you."

Fred smiled, went over to the duffel bag with her gear and slipped the box in. She then went around the desk into the office proper and hugged Cordelia. "Thanks," she whispered.

"So, everybody ready to go?" Lorne came into the lobby, saw Gunn hauling a few last items into the lobby and Cordelia and Fred break apart from their embrace. "You ready to head out, Cupcake?" he asked Gunn.

Gunn fixed Lorne with a lethal stare. "Look, I told you already: don't call me 'Cupcake', 'Sweetmeat', or 'Puddin'. It's Gunn. Or, if you gotta, Charles. Okay?"

Lorne shrugged. "Whatever you say, Sugar Plum." Leaving Gunn to roll his eyes and shake his head, Lorne strode over to Fred, who grinned shyly at him. "How 'bout you, Kumquat? Ready to blow this taco stand?"

"Ooo, that reminds me," Fred said, rubbing her tummy. "We have to stop to get something to eat on the way…"

"Are you sure that you guys can handle things while we're gone?" Fred asked one last time.

"I'm sure," came the answer, but not from anyone in the room. Angel came down the stairs, a little rumpled and obviously having not slept well, but was otherwise in decent spirits. "Just carry your pagers and if the world ends, we'll beep you. It's not like this place is that far away."

"Oh, yeah," Gunn interjected. "You got the directions to this lovenest?" Fred gave him a look, but he pretended not to see it. By way of answering, Angel pulled a sheet for paper from his paper pocket.

"Do not fear, Charles," Groo said, his battles with the copier at a standstill for the moment. "Angel, Lorne the princess and I will defeat all comers while you and the mistress Fred are away."

Fred took the paper from Gunn and looked at it, nodding. Suddenly she turned back to Angel. "Does this place have a coffee shop?"

"Good!" Another quick round of hugs for everyone from Fred, handshakes between the men, a nice squeeze for Gunn from Cordy, and a "don't do anything I wouldn't do" from Lorne (Gunn: "How big is that category?" Lorne: "Miniscule.") and they were off.

The Playa del Cajon was not the most luxurious beachside hotel in California. Part of this might have been because its name translated in Spanish as "Beach of the Coffin." Still, it did have the right touch of faded elegance, and was just enough off the beaten track for celebrities to get away for a quick weekend below Gossip-Columnist Radar; hence, it did enough business to stay open. It was the kind of place where any number of characters would come and go, most more or less on the make, having as good a time in the process as possible.

"I dunno," Willow said, shaking her head as she and Tara looked around the lobby. The furniture, while clean and in good repair, looked as if it had been there since the Ford administration. "This doesn't exactly scream 'four-star luurrve nest.'"

Tara gave her newly-reconciled girlfriend an arched and inquisitive look. "Do we really need one?"

"No, and we really can't afford one either. I'm sorry. It really doesn't matter, I mean, you're here, I'm here, and we're here, I mean, together, we 're here…"

"Goo-goo-ga-joob," Tara interjected with a grin. "Now which one of us is the Walrus?"

"How should I know? Ask Giles; that stuff's from his epoch, before there were even eight-track tapes, and dinosaurs ruled the Earth."

Tara giggled, feeling giddy and oh-so-pleased to be back with Willow. She had almost forgotten how unique the hacker and ex-witch looked at the world, and how comfortable she felt in Willow's presence. It made her almost forget why she left this woman in the first place…

Resolutely, Tara shoved that thought out of her mind. Changing the subject as quickly as she could, she said, "Let's check in and get to bed. It's getting late."

Willow gave her a look. "Late? It's barely four-thirty…oh. Right. Front desk ahoy."

With quiet efficiency, the desk clerk signed them in and got a bellhop for their suitcases, giving them keys for room 214. Hardly had the two women gotten onto the elevator with the bellhop when in the main doors walked Gunn and Fred.

The urban warrior-cum-demon fighter looked around the lobby of the Playa del Cajon. "Not too shabby, I guess. Needs to wake up and smell the millennium…" Fred lightly swatted his arm, making his jump and squeal in surprise and mock pain. "Hurtin' me! You've been hurtin' me!"

"Oh, stop, ya big baby," she drawled up at him, giving her best derisive, who-are-you-trying-to-kid look. She looked around, smiling in appreciation. "I think it's charming, kinda retro, y'know?"

"Yeah, retro, got it." Truth to tell, Gunn didn't mind, or particular care, whether or not the hotel was the Ritz. He was so ecstatic to be here with Fred, but trying hard not to show it. That would be bad for his down-with-it, unflappable image. These days, though, maintaining his street cred was less and less of a priority.

The desk clerk greeted them with professional formality. Gunn felt a twinge of amazement that the guy seemed unfazed by him being with Fred. How 'bout that…he's down with Vanilla-Chocolate Swirl. Let's hear it for The Modern World..

"Room 216, sir, ma'm," the clerk said, handing them keycards and motioning over the bellboy, who was returning from the elevator. The bellboy picked up their duffel bags and placed them on his cart. Fred shrugged slightly at the informality of their luggage, but the bellboy smiled back, dismissing any awkwardness.

"Wow, déjà vu," the bellboy muttered as he walked past 214, where he had just tucked in the two luscious peaches (one blonde, one redhead), on his way to Gunn and Fred's room.

"Oh, nothing, sir. I was just here a minute ago. Here we are, 216." He helped Fred and Gunn in with their bags, then accepted Gunn's generous tip. "Thank you, sir. You two have a nice time." Having accepted their thanks, he stepped out and let the door close. Shoving the tip in his pocket, he maneuvered his cart around and headed back towards the elevator.

He couldn't resist thinking about the two young obviously-in-love ladies in the room next to the racially-mixed couple. Ladies and gents, in theatre two-fourteen, The Incredibly True Story of Two Girls in Love; and in two-sixteen, Jungle Fever. He shook his head as he stepped onto the elevator. Now there's a double feature. Santa, can I have a camera for Christmas…?

Willow stood on the small balcony of their room, looking at the incredibly ocean view dominated by the setting sun. She reflected how nice this particular sunset was, as it was unsullied by the fear of approaching nighttime badness. They were far from Sunnydale and the Hellmouth, and quite a distance from Los Angeles or any other large urban population where vampires tended to congregate. She could stand back and enjoy the multitude of colors as the day met its end and gave birth to night.

She heard footsteps behind her, a measured tread that she knew as well as her own. A pair of arms slid around her waist to encircle her, one of the nimble hands moving up to cup her. Not under the chin, either. Willow giggled and wriggled but did not struggle. "We are outside, you know. This qualifies as Public Naughtiness."

"Then maybe we should get inside, y'know, for, um, Private Naughtiness," Tara replied, pulling the redhead in through the doorway. Willow made a show of grabbing the doorframe in mock desperation, but with little effort Tara was able to pull her free and maneuver her to the double bed, managing to plant a quick kiss or two on the way.

Willow pulled up the duvet and wriggled her legs under the blanket and top sheet, unfastening her jeans and hiking her butt up to get them off. Throwing them on the floor, she reached down to take her socks off. "Oo-oh," she cooed.

"Hotel sheets. They're so different than normal sheets, I mean, the sheets we have at home."

Willow shook her head. "Don't think so. I think it's just, well, hotels are where you come to, y'know, where you don't want people to find out about it and stuff, so there's that air of, uh, I dunno…"

"Illicitness?" Tara ventured, as she pulled her sweater over her head, leaving her dressed in bra, panties and little pink socks. "You think people only come her to cheat on other people…" she leaned over near Willow, one hand on the nightstand, "…'Frau Krausmeyer?'"

Willow's eyes went wide for a second, then she caught onto the game. "Um, shhhh! My husband Fritz will hear!"

"Your husband Fritz is nowhere near here!" Tara retorted, straightening up with hands on hips, trying to affect a stern expression on her face. "We are miles from where anyone will find us! Tonight you are in the hands of…" She broke off, trying to think of a good name for her 'character.'

However, Tara didn't react as Willow expected. She blinked in confusion, then looked rather self-conscious. "Y-you think I have a big butt?"

Willow felt guilty about spoiling the mood. "Oh, I'm sorry, baby. C'mon, really, no, I don't think it's too big; I like your butt just fine. Now get it into bed." A beat, then she added, unable to resist, "Before it hits the floor."

"Ohhhrrr!" Tara growled in mock-outrage, jumping onto the bed, grabbing a pillow and proceeding to smother her girlfriend, whose giggles were slightly muffled under the down-filled pillow.

"Ya gonna take all day and night in there?" Gunn called out to Fred, who was in the bathroom, doing what he had no idea. This was after she had spent a serious amount of time unpacking their bags and stowing their stuff into the myriad drawers. Gunn, who would have been perfectly happy living out of his duffel bag for the next few days, shook his head in bemusement as the physicist scurried around the room, deftly putting various items of clothing in drawers according to some secret method of organization. Must be some kinda nesting thing, Gunn mused, chalking it up to her five-year exile to the extradimensional world of Pylea.

"I'll be out in a minute," came the reply, for the fourth time in ten minutes. Gunn shook his head again and peered out through the glass doors, towards the balcony. He could just about see someone standing out on the balcony next door, a small woman with red hair. He was idling toying with the idea of opening the glass door and being neighborly by greeting her, when she appeared to step back into her room with someone else. Gunn couldn't make out anything about the other person at all. He shrugged and gave it no more mind as he decided to dress up a little for dinner, wondering where the hell Fred had put his good shirts.

Idly, he pulled up the duvet on the bed. "How 'bout that. Brand new sheets on the bed."

"Hey, whaddaya say we look through this little directory they got right next to the Gideon Bible, and find a good..." Gunn turned towards the bathroom door, and what he saw there made him lose his train of thought. "…reaaarrr-rum-rubble."

Fred walked slowly out of the bathroom, wearing a sheer red teddy that only left anything to Gunn's imagination if he didn't have 20/20 vision…which he did. Her natural shyness, evidenced by the blush she was trying to suppress, only made her wearing such a revealing outfit that much more provocative.

Gunn felt his lips purse automatically into a whistling position, and suddenly his clothes seemed to have shrunk as if having gone through the wash on hot about ten times. "Daaayyaamn," he said, stretching it out to three syllables.

Gunn blinked. "What? Oh, the outfit? Sucks." He let the crestfallen expression on Fred's face stay there for a second before he let out the punchline. "For a parka. I mean, not good with the keeping out the chill now, is it?" Fred looked down at her chest and saw how Gunn could tell she was cold; she crossed her arms over her breasts, which were lifted by the teddy's built-in pads, and glared at him. Gunn chuckled, decided to let the game end. "On you, though, it's phat."

She uncrossed her arms and put them around his neck. "'Phat.' That means good, don't it?" She stood on her toes and kissed him. Gunn put his arms around here, one hand cupping her butt and partially lifting her up closer. As one, mouths opened and tongues intertwined. After almost a minute, she pulled back gently. "Mmmm. Even with no pancakes, that's still pretty good."

He chuckled, then shifted his hands up to her shoulders, lightly stroked her neck and collarbones, then started to move the straps of the teddy down her arms. "Ah, no," she said, stopping his fingers. "Ya know how long it took me to be able to put this on?" She pushed against his chest, making him fall on the bed.

Laughing, she leaped on top of him, attacking the buttons of his shirt. Bemused, he lay back and let her have her way with him, lifting up slightly to let her get the shirt off. Fred trailed her fingers down his chest, his hard pectorals, his rock-hard stomach. "Move up," she instructed.

He inched up the bed, leaving Fred free to untie his boots and remove his socks. Slowly, drawing the moment out, she unsnapped his pants, pulling them off his legs and throwing them over the television set. His keys and loose change made an enormous racket falling out of the pockets, making them both chuckle.

Fred turned back to him, looking at his lower torso, seeing the obvious sign of his arousel beneath his boxer shorts. She grinned, tugging at the material. "Boxers. Ah knew it." She slid them off, gently leaving a trail of kisses from his mouth, across his neck, down his chest, lingering around his navel. With a mischievous grin, she traced an eccentric orbit with her tongue, driving Gunn a little – but only a little – crazy. "What – are you stuck? Or just lookin' for the Lost Ark of the Covenant?"

She looked at him saucily, inching downwards. "Oh, I don't know. Ya nevah know what you might – why, it's the Holy Grail!"

He laughed as he looked down to see what, or rather, what part of him she was looking at. "Uh, I don't know if you could call that 'holy,' but thank you very much."

"Well, Ah think it's a hidden treasure!" Fred replied. Before Gunn could reply to that, she had opened her mouth and gently taken his erect member in. The moist warmth he felt made his gasp, robbing him of breath for a moment.

With slowly-increasing speed, she bobbed her head up and down, sliding his cock in and out of her mouth. His hands itched to grab her, but lying on his legs she was out of his reach. He closed his eyes and grabbed the bedsheet in an iron grip.

Now she was slowing, and he involuntarily whimpered as she let go of his cock. She sat up and straddled his hips again. When he opened his eyes, he saw that she had lowered the straps on her teddy. She smiled as he sat up and reached around to undo the closures on back.

Two small but firm breasts popped out of their enclosure as Gunn pulled the teddy down. Pulling Fred closer to him, he gently enclosed a nipple in his mouth, making her shudder in pleasure. Now it was his turn to leave trails of kisses across her chest, at one point feigning inability to remove his tongue from the hollow of her throat before she playfully nudged his head to one side, "freeing" him.

Balancing carefully on her knees one after the other, she let him completely remove her lingerie. Now, with no clothing between them, Fred and Gunn regarded one another, as if in disbelief.

"My God," Gunn whispered. It was amazing how his voice, with its street-born resonance, could be so quiet.

"I know," she whispered back. She seemed almost afraid to touch him, ironic given a minute ago her touch was almost more than he could stand. "Some part of me keeps thinking that this is all some erotic dream I'm having and I'm still in Pylea and I'm never, ever gonna find my way home…"

"Hey," he said, cutting her off as her voice started to break, "you are home. Home is here. Here with me. And me with you. The world threw us a few curveballs on the way, but the freakshow is done. Okay?"

She smiled. "Better than okay." She gently pushed him down on his back and repositioned herself over him, one hand reaching down to guide him into her. She gasped slightly as the head penetrated her, then sighed with pleasure as she gently impaled herself on his full length. Gunn was a little worried that he might be a little more endowed than what she could comfortably handle, but after a second she looked down again and smiled, her long dark hair partly obscuring her features.

They took a moment to get used to the feel of each other. Fred looked down at his face again. "D'ya always look so serious?"

She nodded as she started to rock herself back and forth. "I'll see what Ah can do about that."

Although they had long since divested one another of their remaining clothes, Willow and Tara had not progressed much beyond some medium-level petting. Not that either one of them was writing letters to their local congressman to complain about that, mind you…

They were laying on their sides facing one another to achieve unlimited mutual access, hands gently exploring, teasing, brushing, with occasional lip action to stimulate and provide necessary moisture to critical areas. So far, Willow, who usually had the patience of a five-year-old in a candy store, or of Xander at the local comic-book emporium, for prolonged foreplay, had no made any moves towards initiating Serious Getting Down.

At first Tara thought that they were both taking their time because they wanted to savor the moment. The night of their reconciliation (at least, their physical reconciliation) was one of sweaty passion, where each had tried to devour the other like a barbarian at a banquet. They had lost track (or rather, never bothered to try keeping track) of how many times they made love before exhaustion had sandbagged them into oblivion and the morning light became their wakeup call. Now Tara was in the mood to take her time, to sample each flavor (she smiled internally at the slightly gross metaphor) before moving onto the next, instead of gulping down like a ravenous beserker.

In spite of all that, enough was enough. Tara was starting to ache in various places, and not from injury or fatigue. Tara sometimes liked being the aggressor, but the least Willow could do was deliver…

"Y'know, I like the foreplay and all," Tara ventured, as traced a finger around Willow's breasts in a figure-eight, "but can you just be humping me now?"

She had hoped for a smile and enthusiastic accord, but Willow merely muttered, "Potty mouth," albeit good-naturedly, and rolled onto her back.

Tara sighed, knowing now that Willow's busy brain had obviously trumped her other wonderful body parts. "Sweetie, what is it?"

Willow's mouth set in a grim line. "I keep waiting for the other penny to drop."

"Wait, maybe that's 'other shoe' or ' the penny' to drop…never mind." A heavy sigh presaged the rest of her soliloquoy. "I keep thinking, this is too good to last. Something's going to happen. The world's going to end. One of us gets kidnapped into another dimension. After six years, it's getting to be kind of a given, y'know? Happiness and Hellmouth don't mix."

"Will, our lives aren't scripted out, like, like some TV show. We're not at the mercy of, I don't know, some writer who decides one of has to d-die to improve the show's ratings. Life is uncertain, and it doesn't seem fair sometimes, but you can't let that make you unhappy, especially during the non-unhappy times. Oh, well, that would be happy times, I guess."

Willow looked at Tara, fear in her eyes. "I know, but I keep having the awful feeling that something's going to happen to you."

Now Willow looked away. "You can't make that promise, Tara," she said, unable to keep a derisive tone out of her voice.

"No, you ca –" Willow's contradiction was cut off when Tara reached over and yanked her girlfriend's face towards her own, covering her girlfriend's mouth with her own. For nearly a minute, the two women did nothing but wrap themselves together, trying to bring themselves in as much contact as physically possible; only the laws of physics denied them the ability to merge their bodies any further.

When Tara finally let her go, Willow smiled apologetically. "I'm sorry, baby. Me and my stupid, pessimistic brain trying to ruin our vacation."

"Impossible," came the answer with a smile. "You can't ruin this. Not as long as you love me."

Tara smiled again. "That's nice, and I love you with all my heart, but that's not exactly what I meant."

"Ooohhh, now we're back to the humping part –" Willow broke off suddenly, a curious expression on her face. Tara, somewhat exasperated, was about to inquire what was the matter now when she heard what Willow had heard: the groans of a man and a woman, coming through the wall next to the head of their bed.

They listened again, and the man's voice, muffled by the wall, came again. Tara looked quizzically as Willow sat up and pressed her ear to the wall. "What is it?"

The woman's soft cry came again moment later, making Willow's eyes go wide. "Oh my God – I think they're Doing It."

Willow nodded. "Uh huh. Total invasion of privacy." However, she had not moved her head a centimeter from the wall.

Willow rolled her eyes. "Well, why don't you say it louder, so they can stop having sex and listen to us talk about eavesdropping on them!"

Tara sat back and crossed her arms, pouting. "S-see, this is what I'm af-fraid of. That one of these days you're going to take the Midnight Train to Boystown."

Leaving on that midnight train, WOO-WOO! passed through the redhead's brain, but she wisely decided not too risk antagonizing her girlfriend. "Baby, c'mon. It's not about men or a man. I mean, really, I've been there, I've done that, and it's totally overrated."

"Yeah, whatev –" Tara started to mutter, when a particularly vibrant cry came from the woman next door. "Ooh, she sounds cute," the blonde Wiccan commented, before she saw the look on Willow's face.

"You hypocritical, two-faced…" Willow's mock rage lasted about two seconds before she dissolved into giggles at the "busted" expression on the blonde's face. She rolled on her back as she laughed.

Tara was caught between mortification and self-deprecation, so she settled for denial. "I-I, uh, don't know, uh, where you get your delusions…nerf-herder."

"That's 'laser-brain,' laser-brain," Willow said between giggles. She affected a nonchalance as Tara unfolded her arms and rolled over on top of her. "Oh, did you want something?" she asked.

"Mmmm…well, I think you need me to drag you away from the dark side of the Force," Tara said, delicating nibbling at Willow's neck and collarbone, then traveling down to the small, perky breasts.

"Ooo-ooh," Willow murmured as a pair of lips closed around her left nipple. "Mmm…you're right, I might need a refresher course, I mean, they say it's like riding a bicycle, but I think if you're riding a bicycle in this position, I'd say you're doing it wrong, although it brings a whole new meaning to 'A Bicycle Built For Two,' y'know?"

By this time, Tara had made her way down to Willow's waist, shifting herself so that Willow could spread her legs, allowing access to her center. Tara lowered her face into position. Placing her lips next to Willow's lips, beneath the damp red curls, she started humming. The vibrations made very interesting sensations along Willow's central nervous system, so it took her a few seconds to identify what Tara was humming:

After a slow, playful start, Fred and Gunn increased their rhythm. Actually, Fred was doing most of the moving, leaving Gunn to try to match her downward movements with slight upward thrusts of his own. Her long curly hair bounced off her shoulders and around her face as she bounced up and down.

She slowed once as she suddenly cried out and shuddered intensely, her eyes and mouth opening wide, startling Gunn for a second, before she smiled widely and moaned in pleasure, before resuming her pace. For his part, Gunn tried every trick he had ever heard of – biting his tongue, thinking about baseball and ugly relatives – to prolong how long he could last before he had to release. He knew he couldn't last much longer, when she began to keen as she approached peak once more.

Squeezing his eyes shut, he tried to hold himself back – just a couple of seconds, c'mon, she's 'bout to come again, don't wanna stop in the middle of that –

Fred suddenly slowed, stopped, then used muscles Gunn couldn't name and had no direct equivalent of, to squeeze his cock inside of her. Squeeze, release, squeeze, release…

With a hoarse cry, Gunn felt himself shoot inside Fred, just as she arched her back and roared out her own pleasure. Her head went so far back that Gunn, fearing she would fall off the bed, reached out and grabbed her hands, feeling her fingers clamp onto his with equal force. He felt the world gray out as the intensity of his climax robbed his brain of oxygen.

Slowly, slowly, Fred brought herself back up, then leaned down to him, her hair swinging over her face like a cloak. He felt himself gently pull out of her as she shifted position to lay on top of him, curling her legs up, sweat commingling and running onto the sheets. For several minutes, the only sounds were ragged breaths from the both of them.

Fred smiled as she felt arms, shaky but strong, wrap around her body, as if protecting her. She raised up to look into his face, to see his lazy smile. "Y'okay?"

"Oh, I'm sorry, were you not feelin' well a few minutes ago?" she asked solicitously.

"Nawww…jus' feelin' a whole lot better now," came the diffident reply. He pulled her slight figure up towards him and planted a kiss on her mouth, which he could tell was on the verge of making a wisecrack.

She trailed a hand over his slick chest, marveling at the moisture on the both of them. "Mah goodness," she drawled. "We'd better not do this on a dirt road, 'cause we'll end up in a mud puddle."

He shrugged. "I think I'd be having too much fun to care…as long as you were there too."

Fred opened her mouth to say something in response to that, when a sound coming through the wall made her lose her train of thought. "What was that?"

Gunn blinked, then raised himself up on his elbows as she scrambled off him closer to the wall. He then heard it, too. "Sounds female. Definitely female."

She gave him an arched look. "Thank God I got an expert with me." The twinkle in her eye was enough to tell him she didn't mean it except as a joke. She was about to say something else when a brief shout came through the wall. "Do you think she's in trouble?"

Fred's jaw dropped. "Charles Nathaniel Gunn! You have the world's dirtiest mind – on Earth or Pylea!"

"That ain't true and how'd you find my middle – Great. Now I haveta to kill ya, otherwise you might repeat it." He scooted up to rest his head against the wall. "I'm tellin' ya, people only sound like that when they're cheatin' on somebody else."

Fred tsked at him and pressed her ear against the wall again. After a short silence, she heard another female cry. But this voice sounded different. No, she thought, that's not two women in there…are there? At that moment there was another…no, two moans, two distinctly different voices…both female.

"There's two women in there!" Fred whispered, unable to keep a note of shock out of her voice.

Gunn raised his eyebrows. Try as he might not to stereotype her as a "backwards Southerner" (her intellect and scientific knowledge already went a long way, in his mind, towards destroying the image of her as a dumb hick), he had wondered to himself if she would be tolerant of same-sex relationships. Actually, even though growing up in L.A. might make him a little more 'cosmo' (as Cordy might put it), he still wondered how he felt about it. He had met gay people before, but this was the first time that their sexuality was any sort of an issue for them. Just because everybody knew pretty much everything about everybody in the 'hood didn't mean you had pay-per-view access to the Booty Call.

She shrugged. "I dunno," she drawled. Gunn noted that when her accent got thicker, it meant she was either excited or nervous. "Ah mean, they gotta perfect right to do what they want, consenting adults do, and hey, Ah went to college. Y'know, stuff happens in them dorms. Not real thick walls, either." She looked at him appraisingly. "Don't tell me y'all –"

"Hey, no, mama, I got no problems with the, y'know, chicks doin'…well, chicks doing. World's a cold place when you got nobody. I know. So, I'm not going to be laying down a trip on nobody's love life." He considered. "'Cept maybe Angel's, but that's gotta whole 'tragic consequences' clause to it."

Fred giggled, then moved down to lie next to him, her head nestled in the crook of his arm, one arm thrown over his chest. They continued to listen to the occasional calls coming through the wall, audible but not clear enough to make out any names. Mostly Fred and Gunn just chuckled to themselves, but soon the pleasurable sounds had another effect on him in particular…

Fred sat up and glared at the proof of Gunn's renewed passion. She turned back to him, her expression seemingly one of disgust.

"Hey, it's just – I'm not getting off – Listen, it's not what –" Gunn tried to cover the situation, but finally realized that any attempts at explanation would just dig his grave a little deeper.

Slowly, the harsh look on Fred's face melted, and the cold place in Gunn's stomach started to melt away. She reached out to stroke his member lazily. Her eyes twinkled as she said, "Seems a shame to waste it."

Gunn knew he'd been had. With a grin on his face, he sprang up, and with astonishing speed flipped Fred over onto her back and himself on top of her, effectively pinning her. He quickly clamped his mouth on one of her nipples, greedily sucking it in a calculated move to make Fred go limp with desire. That, and the finger that went between her legs and inside her folds, accomplished that project.

Gasping, she felt herself flooding her lower regions and bloodflow hastily rearranging, causing her skin to rapidly flush. She reached up and planted kisses on his neck, chest, wherever she could reach, trying to contact as much of his skin as she could.

After Tara's impromptu symphony, Willow was wet, willing and eager to get under way. The blonde crawled back up and placed her right leg between Willow's spread thighs, getting as close to her pussy as possible. A slight shift on Willow's part and the opening lips pressed again Tara's thigh, sliding up and down.

Delicate, clever hands reached up to full breasts, lifting, cupping, teasing, at times gripping with almost painful intensity. Willow hardly had time to think between grinding herself against Tara and kneading those wonderful breasts. As always, Willow found her intellectual faculties go on strike during times like this; putting her ever-busy brain on hold in favor of her ever-eager beaver (she had expressed this to Tara once, and was rewarded with a rare burst of belly laughter from the normally shy Wiccan) was definitely one of the perks of making love.

She shifted one of her own legs in the space between Tara's, feeling her lover's labia, dripping with moisture, contact her skin. The delicious heat gave her all the incentive she needed to start a new rhythm, so that Tara could have fun too. The blonde smiled down on the redhead as she took felt her nerves catch fire.

Even though they knew that the couple next door could probably hear them (having heard them both come loudly a minute or two ago), they felt no need to restrain their cries of joy. When Willow came a few minutes later, she sounded off unashamedly, her hands leaving Tara's breasts to thud against the wall and headboard, incoherent vocalizations that may have started out as words tumbling nonsensically from her mouth. Tara felt a certain pride in that; usually, Willow sounded out words in a stream-of-consciousness fashion similar to when she talked in her sleep.

I must be doing something right. Or rather, doing somebody right, Tara thought naughtily, before her central nervous system turned to molten sugar and her own climax overtook her. She almost shrieked as she slumped forward, catching herself on her hands so she wouldn't slam into Willow. Her lover's hands also raised up to support her as she gently eased down, shuddered with release. Then she was on top of Willow, feeling tiny arms encircle her that were themselves trembling with pleasure in the last vestiges of orgasm.

They lay there for several minutes, legs and arms entwined, as blood roared through their vessels, making them both flushed and sweaty. The scent of their musk hung about them like a cloud, and already stains were beginning to show in the sheets.

Forehead to forehead, the two gazed into one another's eyes, especially as vision returned to normal following their respective climaxes. Tara shifted her head slightly to bring her lips to Willow's, tongues touching briefly but sensuously.

Willow was about to express her love for Tara verbally when she heard the woman next door moan loudly. This was followed by the man saying something neither Willow nor Tara could make out, but the intent came through even if the syntax did not.

"Are-are they at it again?" Tara said, amazed. "Aren't men supposed to just, y'know, roll over and f-fall asleep…I mean, after? Or is that just 'lesbo propaganda'?" She grinned.

"I think I've seen one or two pamphlets about that, but no, not always true about men, well, I can't say about all men, because hey, I've never slept with all men, just the one m –" Willow stopped herself, on the verge of bringing up a subject that was, she thought, a thorny one around Tara.

However, the blond witch smiled and shook her head. "Sweetie, it's okay. Y-you can say his name. I won't spaz out about it."

Right on cue, Tara flopped off of Willow, shook her head back and forth with her tongue hanging out, writhing her body as if doing The Alligator, and waving her hands in the air, making a "GAAAAAAAAHHH!" sound before collapsing in laughter.

"You're hilarious," Willow muttered, lightly slapping Tara's side as the blonde kept giggling. Willow's ire vanished quickly, however.

"So, anyway," Tara inquired, rolling back to face her girlfriend, "when you and Oz w-were, um, in-intimate…"

"…did he ever do things to you with his tongue or was it all about sticking his big, thick c-cock in your pussy?"

Willow had to blink, several times. It wasn't often that Tara got into "spicy talk," but, brother, when she did…"Do you eat me out with that mouth?" she mock-retorted.

"Yes, and very well, too!" Tara replied, pleased with the slightly shocked expression on Willow's face, which wasn't easy to come by.

Another set of moans and keens came through the wall, making Tara roll her eyes. "I can't believe they're at it again so soon, though."

"Well, I suppose," Willow said, gently nudging Tara down on her back and positioning herself over her, "that we have to score another one for the Home Team." She started planting kisses down Tara's body, down the breasts, along the nicely-covered ribs, a quick skim of the belly button (which always made Tara giggle), down across the hips, and finally to what Willow called The Golden Fleece. She gently parted the dark blonde curls and slipped her tongue past the already-engorged lips.

Tara by this time was already feeling her toes curl up of their own accord, when she felt Willow's rhythm and movements change. Not wanting to sit up and possibly ruin the moment, she tried to guess precisely what Willow was doing by nerve endings alone. It took her some time to do it that way, but she eventually got it,

"Omigod, Will, are you…are you using the Sam Kinnison thing? Oh, god, I'm, I'm gonna kill Xander for showing us – on second thought, maybe I'll kiss him, Anya won't mind, will sh – Oh, c'mon Will, capitol letters! CAPITOL LETTERS!"

This time, Fred and Gunn's lovemaking was all passion, very serious and not much play, pure physical pleasure filtered through a complex strata of emotion. Conditioned by uncounted millennia of genetic memory, the human machine carried out its replication cycle on autopilot.

Supported himself on his arms, Gunn thrust himself against her, inside her, as she wrapped her legs around him, heels digging into his spine and buttocks. Fred held him as close as she could, seeking to drag him even further inside herself.

He didn't last as long as the first time, but seeing as she had gotten her cookie more than once already, he didn't feel too bad about it…

"I love you, Charles," she whispered in his ear as he lay panting on top of her.

He raised himself up to look in her face, glowing not only from sweat but also tears of (hopefully) joy. He smiled down at her, brushing the plastered bangs from her forehead. "I love you, Winifred."

She couldn't keep from wincing as he spoke her real name, but she chose to not make an issue out of it. "Ah don't know about you, honey, but Ah am starving," she drawled.

Gunn rolled off of her and reached from the room-service menu in the nightstand drawer. Handing it over to Fred, he said, "See if you can find something in here to chow down on, babe."

The physicist quickly flipped through the menu, handed it back to Gunn, and said, "Yes."

"Thank you, this looks wonderful," Tara said as the bellboy set up the room-service cart in the middle of the room. She had tried to just take the cart from him out in the hall, but he had insisted on setting it up for "M'dam." So Tara had been forced to put on a robe and make Willow hide in the bathroom.

He actually was being very courteous and professional, feigning to not notice the rumpled sheets, the closed bathroom door, Tara's modeling the latest in Just-Been-Fucked looks, and the scent of female musk in the air. Good God, it smells like a mustang ranch on payday, Tara thought with a chuckle. The bellboy continued setting out the cold collation of meats, cheeses, condiments, bread and salad that they had ordered, and as a nice touch put the two-liter bottle of 7-UP in an iced champagne bucket.

Tara signed the room-service bill, adding a generous tip, and showed the bellboy out. Once the door was closed, Tara tapped on the bathroom door. "Frau Krausmeyer? Zee coast ees clear!" she said in a baudy (and abominable) French-German accent.

The redheaded "frau" opened the door, thankful to be let out of her confinement. "I thought he'd never leave. Why do ya s'pose he felt the need to come in?"

Tara shrugged. "Maybe he thought he'd get some fodder for a letter to Penthouse Forum.."

Stepping naked out of the bathroom, Willow replied, "Yeah, well, he's shit-outta-luck on that – Penthouse Forum?" She looked at her lover appraisingly. "You read that?"

Willow's expression betrayed the fact that she didn't buy that for a minute (mainly that Penthouse Forum was nothing but articles…about sex), but she chose to make an issue of something else. "How many times must I tell you, Madam Plushbottom, this is a no-clothing zone!" She quickly undid the robe tie and tugged the soft material down off Tara's shoulders, effectively trapping the other woman's arms, letting Willow tug the blonde towards her and give her a passionate kiss. Finally, she released the blonde, who shrugged the robe off and padded nude with her lover over to the cart.

Willow gathered up bowls of dressings and condiments onto one arm, waitress-style, and picked up the large salad bowl. "Here, let's take this over the bed."

Tara frowned slightly. "I dunno, Will, we might make a mess-- Um, sorry, don't know what I was thinking," she added, reconsidering the state of not only themselves but the bed, upon which a hastily-thrown duvet covered a multitude of sins.

She picked up the plates of cold cuts and the basket of bread, but Willow shook her head. "No, no. The cold cuts are okay, but leave the bread. I draw the line at breadcrumbs in bed." Tara giggled and brought over the cold cuts. Picking up a slice of turkey, she popped it into Willow's mouth.

Chewing the thinly-sliced meat, Willow smacked her lips appreciatively. "Mmmmm! Proteins!"

"I'll just have salad for now," Tara said, sitting cross-legged on the bed and placing the salad bowl between the two of them.

Willow nodded, picking up the small bowl of Thousand Island dressing and dumping the entire contents into the large salad bowl. Picking up a leaf of iceberg lettuce, she swished it around in the dressing and, disdaining the concept of salad forks, shoved it in her mouth, leaving a healthy trace of dressing hanging rakishly from her lip. She grinned. "Now that's the way to eat a salad!"

Tara chuckled. "I think the salad is on the side of whole lotta dressing! God, Willow, you're as bad as Dawn!"

Auburn eyebrows shot upward at the mild rebuke. "Oh, yeah? I happen to think I'm worse than that!" Picking up another dressing-laden leaf, she suddenly put her hand holding the lettuce between Tara's legs, rubbing it against the blonde's golden curls, enjoying the startled shriek coming out of her girlfriend's mouth.

"Willow! What are you – I can't beli –" She looked down at herself to confirm the cold, wet sensation she felt from her lower regions. "Y-you got Thousand Island on…on my c-cooter!"

"And you got cooter on my Thousand Island!" Willow replied in parody of an ancient ad campaign. She ate the lettuce laden with dressing and Tara-dew. "Two great tastes that taste great together!" she burbled happily, slightly blurred by the chewing of vegetable.

Tara, however, was not going to let Willow get away so easily. Plunging her left hand in the bowl of mayonnaise, she brought out a large quantity of the white substance. Willow wasn't quite able to put up her hands fast enough to keep Tara from glooping the gunk in her face.

It was hard to say which one of them was laughing harder at that point, as it became a free-for-all food fight, with salad dressing and sandwich condiments turned into weapons of war. ("Wait – no mustard!" a ranch-dressing-covered Tara said, afraid that some of the pungent substance might irritate eyes. "Acceptable," Willow accorded, taking the mustard bowl and tossing it back on the cart…actually, it missed, but neither cared).

Two very messy women eventually settled down and in the middle of licking each other clean (or clean-er) began to make love to each other again.

"I dunno how we're going to explain the sheets and stuff," Tara muttered as she soaped Willow's back in the shower. As meticulous as they were in licking one another clean – or, at least, in licking one another – they were still rather sticky from their Battle of the Network Salad Dressings. Since neither of the girls wanted to be away from the other after their months of separation, they came to the ready conclusion of showering together. However, at least in Tara's mind, that wouldn't erase the results of their little combat from the bed, which now looked like several kinds of demon had died there.

"We don't explain anything," Willow replied with a shrug and a pleasured wiggle. Tara's finger did very nice things to the nerves in her back and sides. "What, you think we're the first couple to do the Nasty in their hotel room?"

Tara chuckled. "I-I wouldn't know, sweetie. But I think we set a new standard with the Nasty Au Jus."

Willow laughed, turned carefully in the cramped confines of the shower/bath, and kissed her lover. Tara dutifully started to clean Willow's front, now that her back was less available. Strong, nimble hands slathered soap over small breasts, lingering there far longer than it was needed to ensure cleanliness. A pair of smaller hands rubbed over the chest, gathered bubbles, and moved to spread the lather on a pair of larger breasts.

Tara raised an eyebrow as she looked down at their soapy bodies, giving her best sultry look, then leaned in to kiss Willow. She gently backed them both towards the showerhead, letting the spray rinse them off head to toe. The water cascaded over them as they held each other, running over faces and closed eyes and sealed lips.

Silently, as rivulets of steamy water ran over their skin, they began to move together, against one another in an ancient rhythm, a dance that women might have practiced from the beginning of time, a dance that no man could know. Lips reluctantly disengaged as heads needed to reposition, to rest on shoulders, to allow bodies to move closer together. Hands moved into the secret places, stroking, spreading, caressing.

"Remind me to call Guinness," Gunn remarked, having watched his diminutive lover tuck away more food in one sitting than he had ever seen her eat in a day, which already seemed beyond human standards of consumption. They lay on the bed surrounded by several empty dishes, from which steak, chicken, roast beef, fruits, vegetables and various ancillary items had come, dishes which now lay like dead soldiers in a culinary battlefield.

"Mmmmm…Guinness!" Fred exclaimed, licking her fingers clean. "Ah'm not much for beer, but I could use somethin' to wash that down."

"How 'bout Niagara Falls?" he quipped. That earned him a dirty smile and a not-so-affectionate elbow in the gut. " Oooff! Hey, I'm usin' them ribs!"

"You sho' are, baby," Fred drawled, rolling over on top of him. They had not bothered to get dressed for dinner. Fred had had to hide in the bathroom while Gunn had pulled on his jeans to receive the room service. Before he could join her on the bed upon her return, she had made him take his pants off. "Can't you read the sign?" she had said in her best schoolmarmish tone, pointing to an imaginary sign hanging right above the bed. "No Clothing!" "Yes, ma'am," he had replied, dropping trou.

She raised up and looked at him sharply. "Oh, now you're worried about your virtue?"

Chuckling, he answered. " Nooooo. I mean, should we be doing, uh, y'know, this kinda stuff, so soon after we ate? Aren't we supposed to wait an hour?"

Fred rolled her eyes. "That's for swimming, ya big galloot!" She attacked him with renewed vigor.

"Oh, my bad-- oh, you're good," he amended, as his nervous system suddenly shifted gear.

Presently, she was straddling his hips again, but this time, he was on his knees, supporting most of her weight, freeing her to move as she needed to. Chest to chest, the two of them moved together with rising passion.

After drying off from the shower, Tara moved to strip the bed. Fortunately, only the ground sheet was really messy; the top sheet and the blanket were okay.

Willow shook her head as she toweled her hair dry. "I'm surprised you didn't bring a washing machine along on vacation."

"I would have, but-but then I wouldn't have had room for the whips and chains," the blonde quipped.

"Whips and chains? Why, Ms. Maclay, were you planning on something…kinky?" Willow smiled, sauntering over to her girlfriend who was re-making the bed.

Tara straightened up, shaking her head. "Oh, no. They were my mother's. I just keep them for sentimental reasons." She gathered Willow in her arms and kissed her passionately.

Since neither one of them happened to be wearing a watch then (or, come to think of it, anything, really), there was no telling how long that kiss lasted…until a sound of rhythmic squeaking came through the wall.

"Oh, you've got to be kidding me!" Willow nearly shouted, breaking contact with Tara's lips with a audible pop! Tara whimpered at the truncated contact. "Oooh, baby, did that hurt?"

"I think I got bruised lips," she whimpered in her best Mommy-make-it-better voice.

"Well, I'm just gonna haveta kiss 'em and make 'em better!" Willow pecked her lover on the lips.

Tara smiled. "You're so good to me." The squeaking became louder, and now a girlish peal of pleasure sounded out. The young Wiccan looked at her hacker paramour, glanced at the newly-made bed and shrugged. With a sigh, she said, "Once more into the –"

For the next several hours, the festivities continued inside their respective rooms. The sounds that each couple made only seemed to spur the other on, a perfect example of a feedback loop, as either Willow or Fred would say. While irritating at first, the calls and their eventual response, like the yodeling of the Swiss Alps, like the whistled silbo language of the Canary Islands, became almost encouraging.

It's hard to say, as dispassionate observers we are, which couple finally succumbed to fatigue first. All that can be said that it was during the small hours of the night, the time that is said to be the loneliest of all, that four young people in love exhausted themselves and their partners, and fell asleep, wrapped in one another.

The approach of dawn went unobserved by the occupants, being on the other side of the hotel from those rooms with an eastern view. Eventually, however, daylight awoke four extremely tired people…and they fervently wished it hadn't.

"Mother Mary," Gunn muttered as he tried to get out of bed. His legs, unfortunately, just weren't up to the task, so he fell back onto the pillow. "That's it. Stick me with that fork, baby, 'cause I'm a potato ya left in the microwave too long."

"Oh, you are sooo pitiful," Fred shot back, climbing out of bed and walking towards the bathroom. Her gait, however, was so atypical that Gunn noticed it immediately.

As she reached the bathroom door, Fred started singing "I'm An Old Cowhand From The Rio Grande." Gunn laughed, pushing himself off the bed with superhuman effort and following her in.

Someone was calling her name. Over and over again. What vicious beast would torture her like this?

Oh, that vicious beast. The one I'm sleeping with – or trying to sleep with, as the case may be. Willow capitulated and forced open eyelids that some joker had obviously Krazy-Glued together while she slept. Focusing her eyes, she gazed upon the face before her. By the light of the blazing sun under a clear blue sky, by the intimate light of scented candles, this was the face of a goddess.

"Y'know, baby, I love you, but only my feeble condition prevents me from sending you on a one-way trip to Dirt Nap City," Willow groaned.

Tara took the threat of bodily harm with all the stark terror of being attacked by puppies. "And good morning to you, too, sweetie. C'mon, get up."

"Let's get some breakfast downstairs, and, and we could go for a walk on the beach."

Willow sat up. Incapable as she was of being truly angry at her newly-reunited love, Take-Charge Tara and her Mighty Itinerary were a bit much to take after such a late night. "Does the concept of 'vacation' completely elude you?"

The reminder of their months of separation made Willow change tracks. "Yeah. I've missed you, too." Tara's expression grew solemn briefly; she then broke the moment by leaning forward and kissing Willow. She started to bound out of bed when she stopped, as if hitting a wall like Wile E. Coyote, then sank back down with a surprised expression on her face.

Willow started to get up herself, concerned. "Tara? Baby, what's wr-- Ooohh, my goodness," she exhaled, as dozens of muscles, large and small, protested being used after a night of "abuse."

"Uh huh," Tara agreed, feeling the effects of her own "love hangover." "Now I know how the Tin Woodsman felt."

Laughing, moving like septuagenarians, the two women helped each other out of bed.

"Naaaaahhh!" Gunn cried as hot water hit him below the belt. He was, unsurprisingly, very tender down there. Dutifully, Fred moved herself between the shower spray and him, letting it hit her backside. "Ah, thanks, babe. That smarts!"

"Ah'll bet!" she said, gingerly soaping his chest. His hands gently lathered shampoo into her long dark hair. "We have ta make sure that part still works…we might want to use it again someday!"

Gunn chuckled at that, then laughed when a memory flashed into his head. "Oh, God, I forgot about that!"

"Kinda embarrassing story…okay, Sherman set the Way-Back Machine." Fred playing punched some imaginary buttons on the shower/bath tile, so he went ahead. "Y'know how guys, when they get to that certain age, called 'puberty' by some people, and the kid is real hormonal and he's just discovered this great thing he can, kinda do to himself, y'know, with his hand?" He made the universal back-and-forth motion with this closed fist.

"Yeah, I've read about that," Fred said in a bright tone, as if discussing an interesting and controversial treatise on quantum physics.

"Okay, so – now, ya promise you won't laugh…no, look who I'm talking to, never mind," he said, watching Fred giggle and deciding he'd tell the story anyway. "Well, a young guy wants to, y'know, experiment a little, try a few things out, to, like, facilitate the process…"

After hearing him trail off, she couldn't hold her curiosity anymore. "Charles, what did you do?" she asked, only partially succeeding at keeping a scolding tone out of her voice.

"I used shaving cream." When she laughed, he rolled his eyes and plunged on. "Well, it was available, and cheap, and it felt nice at first, and I figured if anybody, y'know, caught me, I could just say I was shaving."

"Hey, gimme a break, I was a kid. How was I supposed to know how tender…that skin down there is?"

"That ain't the half of it." Might as well jump off with both feet/ "That shaving cream I used? It was Menthol."

"Dang it! Where's my wallet?" Willow snarled, throwing clothes all over hell's half-acre. Tara stood by the door, dressed and ready to go down for breakfast. She was still hoping to catch the All-You-Can-Eat Breakfast Buffet.

After they had stiffly gotten out of bed, and helped each other with a few stretching exercises that the redhead swore were invented during the Spanish Inquisition ("Okay, I'll talk, I'll talk!" she cried at one point when Tara helped her with a leg-stretch, "I shot the Lindbergh baby, I kidnapped JFK…no, wait…") they got dressed.

"Wow…clothes," Willow had murmured. She wore jeans and a white blouse, while Tara went with cargoes and a blue pullover longsleeve, which as usual extended well over her wrists.

Now Willow was being a maid's nightmare trying to find her wallet. Articles of clothing flew with abandon, as Willow was certain that her clothes (and Tara's) had formed a conspiracy to hide her billfold.

A brassier flew through the air and landed on Tara's head. Picking it off, she said, "I think that's my cue to wait out in the hall." Opening the door, she strode out.

Stretching the last of the kinks out of her back, Tara turned when she heard a door open. It was actually the room next to theirs. Out walked a small, slim brunette woman in a peach-colored sundress and sandals. Tara gave her a quick once-over automatically, not out of any real desire to "branch out," but her days of being a virtual nun were so over…

Fred was impatient to get to the breakfast buffet. Gunn was still lacing up his boots, not being a man for slip-on loafers. Fred turned and saw the blonde girl standing in the hall, her looks toward the open door of her room indicating that she, like Fred, was waiting on somebody.

Gunn came out of the room then, closing the door behind him. He saw the woman that Fred was talking to and prepared to make polite, but short, conversation. He took half a second to check her out, curious as to who had been making with the mating calls to all hours of the night. Well well well. Have Mercy!

"G'mornin'" Gunn said, giving his best I-was- not-undressing-you-with-my-eyes smile.

"Morning," Tara repeated back. She took a quick look at the African-American man and the Texas woman, trying not to think about what they obviously must have been doing in the next room last night. I have to admit, though, they make a cute couple!

Willow bustled out of the room. "Found it! Okay, we're off – Oh! Hi there!" she said, seeing that Tara was talking to someone.

In a strangely-frozen, crystalline second, three people recognized one another simultaneously. In the next second, enough blood drained out of three faces to give Angelus himself a tummy ache.

"Willow?" Gunn asked, incredulous, recognizing her from when she came to tell Angel some bad news.

"Gun?" Tara started, thinking someone around there was packing concealed weapons.

"Gunn?" Willow asked Fred, pointing to Gunn, asking if the two of them were an item.

"Gunn," Fred said simply, hooking her arm through Gunn's and beaming up at him. He smiled back, then looked over at Tara. Fred, only vaguely familiar with Willow, looked over to the blonde. After a second, Willow, too, gazed at her girlfriend, if only to see what she was going to say in this potentially embarrassing situation.

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The Sidekicks' Holiday

by CaptMurdock

Copyright © 2006

captmurdock@msn.com