Rating: PG-13

Pairing: Buffy/Kennedy

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

Summary: Kennedy gets a little bit more than she expects when she asks Buffy for some one-on-one training. (Set some time before Chosen)

Notes: Written for the Buffy round at the Femslash Minis Ficathon Community for snowpuppies who wanted Buffy/Kennedy with angry kissing/sex, laughter, and slaying a vampire.

"This is ridiculous."

"This is not ridiculous. This is important. A Slayer rite of passage, if you will."

"The part where I killed my first vamp four weeks ago was a Slayer rite of passage. This? This isn't a rite of passage. This is you using your old-maid slayer authority . . ."

"My what?" Buffy asked, both eyebrows raised.

". . . to make me look like a complete ass."

"Oh, I don't know. I think you make yourself look like an ass well enough on your own."

At that, Kennedy used her thumb to lift up the blindfold from her eyes and glared at Buffy, clearly not amused with the night's training exercise. Buffy smirked at her from the tree she was leaning against, daring Kennedy to continue to challenge her. Sighing, Kennedy slipped the blindfold back down into place and waited impatiently for the lesson to continue.

They were they only two people in the darkened cemetery, their voices carrying through the night. It wasn't exactly stealthy of them, but then again, they weren't exactly there for slaying. It was some one-on-one training that Kennedy had asked for (and was now regretting) seeing as that there was no chance of one-on-one anything back in the Summers' busy house. Not with that many young slayer wannabees around that all wanted attention when they could get it.

Hence, the cemetery became their temporary training yard.

"I don't understand the point of this," Kennedy grumbled.

"The point is," Buffy explained, "that slaying conditions aren't always optimum. Take a solid hit to the head and you can get dazed, your vision can cloud over. You can't fight a vamp if you can't see it."

"And what, blindfolding me and swinging some sacks of your stinking laundry bags in my general direction is supposed to prepare me for that?"

Buffy thought about it for a moment and shrugged despite the fact that Kennedy couldn't see her. "If it doesn't, at least I get some good entertainment out of the deal."

Kennedy scoffed, her hands clenching into fists at her side. "Right. I provide the quality chuckles and get nothing in return? Screw this, I'm out of here."

She took a few blind steps forward before moving to take off her blindfold and that was all of the opening that Buffy needed.

Grinning, Buffy released the heavy bag of laundry she intended on taking to the Laundromat after their training session, letting it swing towards Kennedy from the rope that was tied to an above branch. It hit Kennedy with a dull thud and she stumbled forward until she finally lost her footing and fell to the ground, face-first onto a freshly covered grave. She immediately rolled onto her back and sat up, tearing the blindfold from her dirt-covered face. The only part of her face that wasn't dirty was where the blindfold had been tied. She looked up at Buffy with wide eyes and a look of total shock on her face.

And Buffy couldn't help it. Though she'd put her hand over her mouth to hide her smile, she couldn't stop the laughter that came pouring out of her. She had to brace herself against the tree to keep upright, she was laughing that hard.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Kennedy asked as tried to dust herself off from her seated position. "There's corpse-tainted dirt in my nose and you're having a laugh riot? And is it too much to ask for a little bit of warning when you're gonna do something stupid like that?"

Buffy collected herself enough to stand up straight and walked over, doing her best to keep from cracking up again.

"Had you been prepared you wouldn't have been caught off guard like that."

"Of course I wasn't prepared, I was leaving!"

"You were storming off . . . again!" Buffy pointed out. "You'll never learn if you don't start to see that there's more ways than your way, Kennedy. You might not like the lesson but if you don't learn it, you'll find out the hard way every time."

"Think I'd rather figure it all out by trial and error than have you yukking it up at my expense every training session," Kennedy griped, using her mostly-clean hands to wipe the dusty soil from her face.

"Listen, I'm sorry," Buffy said. "Slaying is serious business. The blindfold exercise? Been through it. Felt the same way you did when Giles laughed at me - yes, he laughs - but it saved my life. Enhanced vision is great, but you need to be able to focus on your other enhanced abilities when it fails, and it will fail, Kennedy. Trust me on that."

Kennedy sighed and put her hands back behind her on the ground, resting back on them with her legs stretched out before her. It was obvious that she was trying to calm down and be reasonable.

"Alright, fine. We'll do the blindfold training then. But I swear, if I hear so much as one mousy little titter from you, I'll hang you up in one of those sacks and let my frustrations out on you like a snarky little punching bag."

"It's a deal," Buffy replied.

She extended her hand out for both a handshake and to help Kennedy up, but it seemed as that Kennedy had other plans in mind. Using all of he might, Kennedy tugged Buffy's hand and caught her off guard, pulling her down astride her on the dusty mound of fresh earth.

Buffy tried to scrabble up to her feet but Kennedy had a grip on her wrists and kept her pinned there, a wicked smile on her face as she did so.

"Not so nice to be brought down to my level, is it Sarge?"

"I can't believe you just did that!" Buffy said, struggling. "When someone extends an olive branch, you don't beat them on the head with it!"

"It wasn't an olive branch, it was an arm. The very same arm that swung a fifty-pound sack of rancid laundry at me and sent me flying into the dirt. I'd say this makes us almost even," Kennedy replied, smirking.

"I'd say that makes you crazy!" Buffy argued. "And it's not rancid! Now let me up!"

"There's just one problem with that," Kennedy said. "We aren't exactly even-steven yet. I landed face down in the dirt. You didn't."

Buffy stopped struggling and gave Kennedy a cold hard glare.

"Don't even think about it," she warned.

"Oh, I'm not that low, Buffy. I'd never push your face in the dirt. But that doesn't mean that it still shouldn't get dirty."

Before Buffy could protest, Kennedy pulled her wrists harder until they were chest to chest. She smudged her dirty face all over Buffy's, laughing as Buffy grimaced and tried to pull away.

"You're disgusting!" Buffy mumbled, trying not to open her lips as she spoke. She didn't want dirt in her teeth.

But then she found herself parting them as she felt Kennedy's lips brush over hers, more insistent with every second that passed. Soon she was actively kissing back, though she wasn't sure when it had turned from a dirt-smudging war to an inappropriate make-out session. And why the hell was she actively participating?

She opened her mouth to voice her protests but Kennedy took advantage of that moment too and snuck her tongue in, slipping it over and around Buffy's. Buffy's protest turned into a soft moan and suddenly she couldn't remember what she was protesting anyhow. Maybe it had something to do with global warming because she was suddenly getting all kinds of warm.

Slowly but surely Kennedy's grip on her wrists loosened but instead of pulling away, those hands found their way to the back of Kennedy's neck and pulled her even closer. She could practically feel Kennedy's smile against her lips but instead of acknowledging it, she just continued to push every thought to the back of her mind and went with feeling instead.

It was unfortunate for them both, however, when the next thing they felt was the earth rumbling beneath them as whomever had been buried in the grave there had chose that moment to crawl out of it. Buffy and Kennedy tumbled off to the side with Buffy landing on top yet again.

Typical Buffy, always on top.

The vamp sprang up from the grave, sending loose dirt flying off of him in all directions. Buffy was able to shield her eyes but Kennedy ended up with it covering her face and, unluckily for her, getting into her eyes too.

Buffy immediately jumped up and leapt into action, leaving Kennedy scrabbling on the ground to try to right herself.

"I can't see!" Kennedy yelled, trying to rub the dirt from her watering eyes.

"Bet you wish you'd paid attention to the lesson then, huh," Buffy replied, grunting as she landed blow after blow on the newbies vamp's face.

Though she couldn't see, Kennedy could practically hear the smirk on Buffy's face and it made her roll her sore eyes. She struggled to her feet and stood with both of her arms out in front of her, thinking that she could leap into the fray . . . if she could just figure out where it was!

"Heads up!" Buffy suddenly yelled and Kennedy rubbed her eyes hard enough to get a glimpse of the vamp right as he collided with her and sent her flying right back into the dirt.

She kept her senses enough this time to wrap her arms around him and keep him trapped there until Buffy could swoop in and finish him off. And finish him off Buffy did, showering Kennedy's body, face - and freshly seeing eyes - with a fresh layer of vamp dust. Kennedy coughed and spluttered and laid back on the dirt pile, finally giving in to her destiny that night to be a filthy mess. She heard rather than saw Buffy approach and lifted her head, cracking one eye open to find her standing at her feet with her arms crossed over her chest and a grin on her dirt-smudged face.

"At least I gave you a warning that time," Buffy said cheekily.

"Yeah, well . . . you have dirt in your teeth," Kennedy replied tiredly

She smirked as a blush crept up over Buffy's cheeks, then rested her head back on the ground and closed her eyes. If getting a bit messy was the price for getting a little down-n-dirty with Buffy Summers, it was a price that she was happy to pay.