Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Faith POV
“You think it's gonna rain?” It sounded absurd the moment Faith said it. Sometimes she’d ask stupid questions because she liked to hear the answer from his mouth. He always sounded so certain, in his own way.

“Nonsense. It’s a beautiful day.” Faith closed her eyes and listened to the sounds of the birds and the bugs. Felt the sun on her skin, felt the way her heart slowed down and the blood beat in her ears as the Mayor dispelled any doubt she might have had. Or tried to, at least.

“Now eat your sandwich.”

The feeling on her stomach, where the tissue was shiny and raw for a reason she couldn’t remember, didn’t fade. A light buzzing. It would do that when it was about to rain.

“I don’t know, it’s just… it always seems like it starts raining right about now.” It felt stupid before the sentence was even finished.

“You’re too young and too pretty of a girl to start wearing worry lines on your face.” Her smile was soft, like the blanket underneath her, like the voice she let lull her. The buzzing felt worse.

“Oh! Now hey, hey, heyyy-” Richard reached over and picked up a small snake that had been making its way across the picnic blanket like it was really rather embarrassed to be intruding, but the Mayor wasn’t having any of that.

He could make anyone feel welcome, anything.

“Hey there, little fella.” He laughed softly, brow furrowing just a few degrees. “I don’t know where you belong, but it’s not here with us.” Even when he said that, it wasn’t because he wanted it gone. It’s because he wanted it to get wherever it was going safely. Faith wasn’t looking at the snake, just him. When he chuckled, her face couldn’t help but reciprocate a smile.

“There you go.” He let it go and leaned back on the blanket. “You see, there’s nothing gonna spoil our time together. Now, who wants cheesecake? He laughed, but the buzzing stopped Faith from doing so too.

He leaned up and away, reaching into the basket.

“NO!”

She came like she always did, knife in hand, each steady step covering a room’s distance. The white and blue picnic blanket spattered with red. The birds stopped chirping, the bugs stopped buzzing.

It was gonna rain. White turned to gray and blue to black when the rain came and washed the warmth away. 

Faith ran, like she always did around this time. She never escaped her. It always ended the same way. Buffy took a step on the damp grass and it sounded just like the concrete of the roof of-

She fell, hands scrabbling for purchase. 

Clack. Clack.

Faith’s shirt was wet, brown streaks that looked red in the weird light of the morning going backwards. Night was coming like always. Buffy shone brightest then. 

Stumbling to her feet, she ran through the treeline. 

Clack. Clack. God, she was getting closer. Why couldn’t she just catch up and end it already?

The buzzing got stronger in the scar, and Faith’s legs turned to jelly. It felt like a whisper in her ear, a promise, a lock that was aching for the key Buffy had in her hand. The same key that killed Mayor Wilkins and ruined his picnic blanket.

It was totally dark now, and the trees turned shorter and grayer with each step until each one was a headstone. She saw her name on the one in front of her and fell in.

Her back hit a soft cushion with white sheets that were dry no matter how much rain fell on them. It was so warm, so soft. Her killer stood at the edge of the grave and looked down, calculating and cold. When she fell on top of Faith, she fell into her arms and embraced. The rain grew distant, sunlight glowing on them without a source.

She felt the jagged key slot into place just underneath her left rib and she sighed, nestling into Buffy’s arms. The chill of the rain, of the dark, of the running felt so distant now. She was completed. It always ended like this. Sometimes after running, sometimes after a fuck, sometimes after a “Hey, how do ya do!”

The key twisted and she screamed, she was undone.

She opened her eyes and looked at where the hurt was, but it wasn’t her stomach that was bleeding. Buffy’s stomach had the metal knife jaggedly sticking out of it.

“F-fuck, B, no no no-”

The blonde looked up at her with that confused pout Faith hated to love. Tears welled up in Faith’s eyes, or was that rain? At some point the white curtains had been replaced with muddy walls, soft sheets with a hard casket.

“It was supposed to be me- I didn’t mean… please, no-”

It was always her. Always her who bled, who fell, then Buffy would twist the key, wind her up like a doll, and the dream would restart. This was new. This was all wrong. She held Buffy close, wanting nothing more than to swap places, but her warmth was washed away with rain that tasted like steel in Faith’s mouth.

A while later, two hands gripped the edge of the grave.

Cold. The first thing that Faith felt was the cold. The second was the feeling of a dry throat, then cracked lips that split uncomfortably as she ripped a gasp from the sterile air around her. Her eyes scrolled to the left, towards the infernal beeping machine. Her hand felt fuzzy, like it belonged to someone else, smaller than it should have been. She didn’t want to look at it for long, and didn't like how it was lagging slightly behind the motions she gave it. An image came to mind of a shitty dubbed kung-fu movie she used to watch on repeat, the way the lips never matched the words. She sent a smile to her mouth, but the mouth itself couldn’t seem to be bothered to carry it out.

The blanket smothered her, damp with sweat, too thin to warm her. If anything, it acted more like a thin liquid barrier sapping what little warmth she had left. With a small whine, she sent the impulse to fling it off of her to her hand. After some consideration, the hand obeyed. The blanket didn’t go as far as it should have, wrapping around her ankle like a desperate, wet grip from a rainy grave.

Sitting up wasn’t as easy as it should have been; it hurt, the IV and needles inside of her pulling uncomfortably. So fucking cold. It was an instinctive motion to rip them out, frigid and clinical steel sliding out of her.

Her eyes widened, tracking a bead of blood gathering on her arm like they were eager to follow it out, her breath slowing down and her blood roaring through her ears.

“Get your shit together, Lehane.” Her voice cracked somewhere near the end of ‘together’, but she sure as shit wasn’t going to acknowledge it.

Swinging her legs over the bed, Faith tried to stand up. It didn’t pan out. Slayer strength be damned, her legs seemed to be questioning the wisdom of leaving the bed at all. Goosebumps tracked up and down her skin.

When she put her weight on her legs on the second try, they didn’t collapse back into a sitting position again, more like a swaying transitional stance one takes before falling on their ass. Her hand gripped the corner of the doorway after a few steps before she could fall. Each breath hurt, but that was the last thing on her mind.

Her steps grew a little steadier, but not the way they should have been. A part of her she had no interest in acknowledging wondered idly if Buffy had taken more than the knife out of her when she ripped it out, if she’d taken the part of Faith that had made her special with her like it was hers now. God, the sound.

Yeah, she could stroll down memory lane another time. She rounded a corner, wondering how it could be so dark in a place with so many lights. Her arms crossed around herself. She couldn’t seem to warm up, even though it wasn’t all that chilly in the room. No, the cold was in her, she knew it. Part of her ached for someone to rip it out. What kind of sound would it make?

Faith saw a flash of color as the double door in front of her squeaked open, a woman wearing a cardigan that made her headache develop a secondary, smaller headache on top of it. It was the same color as the bead on her arm the needle had left when she’d ripped it out. She blinked away the memory and padded towards the woman.

“Excuse me.” Her voice is worse than the door, Faith thought, “You know how to get to 3rd Floor West from here?”

The expression on Faith’s face didn’t promise a future of fruitful dialogue between the two parties. “Uh… what?”

Faith’s eyes darted up to the woman’s seemingly armored bob cut, then back into her eyes as she awaited an answer.

“I see. Um, you need some help or something?”

“Graduation.” It came out desperate, like the word was in rather a hurry to get out of her mouth.

“What?”

“Graduation. I gotta get to Sunnydale High School Graduation now.” Have to be there for the boss, have to help him, have to get warm, have to warn him she’s coming. He can make it all make sense.

“Well you can’t! I mean, Sunnydale High School isn’t even there anymore.” She nervously laughed in a way that made Faith want to take her stupid fucking Teddy bear and force feed-

It wasn’t her fault. She didn’t know who the hell Faith was. Sometimes Faith didn’t even know that. “What day is it?” Faith couldn’t stop the blinks that reflexively followed the tremble in her voice.

“Friday” Faith’s eyes darted down to the stuffed bear in her arm before returning to its owner.

“What date is it? The date.”

“February 25th.” The woman sounded less with each word she spoke, and more scared with each one that Faith replied with.

“What year?”

“Maybe I should get you a nurse?”

“What happened to the school?” Please don’t let her have won, please don’t let her be okay, please don’t have hurt her, please please please

“Don’t you just want to-”

“Just… Tell me.”

Faith didn’t let go of the breath she was holding until the woman stopped speaking.

Her new fuck-you-red cardigan was hardly solid, but the Teddy Bear was. Faith hugged it to her chest, half hidden underneath the fabric of the thing. She didn’t know why she took it, it was probably meant for some kid who was gonna croak in a month.

Probably gonna outlast me.

When Bob-Cut told her about the Principle’s death, it was like something cracked. Like the needles multiplied in her comatose body, metal worms eating her up from the inside. She could feel them in her heart. The awful, stabbing certainty that Bob Cut gave her. It was over. The fucked up experiment that was Faith Lehane had ended before it really began. Self pity like heartburn flooded through her, her grip on the teddy bear tightening to an almost hydraulic level.

It’s not over yet, Lehane. Can be, though. We can make it Five by Five, baby, a nice even sum. Just gotta zero out.

She shivered, and the night-wind cut through the cardigan with so many slashes. As the cold terror gave way to numb, self assured action, she felt it. The warmth that faintly buzzed in the roof of her mouth and spread through the back of her neck and up to her temples, like manicured nails idly playing with your hair and all the tingles that came with it.

Just gotta get warm, Lehane.

Her feet took her towards it, like a moth through a cold and wide night towards a distant light to die in. She wondered if moths were fully satisfied when their wings turned to ash, their blood to hissing smoke, the fire taking away any part of them that could be cold ever again.

She liked to think they were. 

Chapter Text

Faith POV
Faith leaned against the wall of Giles' house. The warmth in the back of her neck dragged her here like a kitten being carried by the scruff of its neck. She knew why the second she saw Buffy.

She’s alive.

Her breath was shaky, the air thick with realization, possibility. Their voices floated past her like cigarette smoke into the peaceful night. She’s alive, and I can kill her. I can get even.

Faith smiled with all the sweetness of a lemon as she tried not to think about the way the Slayer Connection had brought her here, the way it dropped her off only 15 feet and a wall away from probably the single most dangerous human alive. Her legs screamed in protest at the strain of the walk prior to this.

“The puzzle, it seems to me, is why Adam has stayed dormant as long as he has.” A warm, British voice said; he always seemed to juggle being perplexed with also being the most knowledgeable voice in the room. Faith did a hateful little mockery of him under her breath.

“When he’s not making performance art out of other demons, that is” Red. Who the fuck was Adam? What kind of name was that for a demon? Faith peered into the rather full room through the small window. There was a face she didn’t recognize.

“He’s probably working off an autonomic power source. And because he’s straight out of the box, he needs to charge up a while.” Guy liked to hear himself talk.

“Okay, what’s he charging up for?” Buffy. The warmth on the back of her neck started to feel like a sunburn.

“Based on the clues, I’ll go with killing spree?” Xander hasn’t died yet? Huh. Most memory alteration spells would be jealous of how quickly he left Faith’s mind.

“And that’s a best-case scenario.” Riley responded with all the urgency of a “Hang in There!” poster. “I suppose a little firepower would be a good idea right now.” He reached over to a gun on the table. Doesn’t look like any gun I’ve seen.

The shrill whine the gun made when Riley picked it up made Faith’s head split in two, she put her hands on her ears until it subsided. It sounded like the machine she was hooked up to, like needles and string and everything mean. 

“Hey! How did you do that? Is there like an on-off button somewhere in here?”

The Scoobies and Captain Cardboard kept on riffing on about the newest big bad, and Faith had half a mind to go find this Adam guy and handle him herself. Get rid of the distractions. They had unfinished business.

She saw Buffy practically crawl into the new guy’s lap, hand around his shoulder.

Her eyes closed, blood cold slick steel cutting her veins from the inside. Fantasies of Buffy talking about her with the exhaustion and the tremble of worry that she had when she talked about Adam. Images of Buffy in her lap like she’d dreamt so many times, a dagger in her that felt like a sigh. Faith couldn’t really focus after that. Her body was so fucking tired. She slid down the wall, pressing herself against it, the warmth in her neck dragging the back of her head to it. Animal instinct trying to get closer to her.

She dreamt of a voice that warmed her skin like sunlight. She dreamt of terrible Kung-Fu VHS movies she watched from her spot on the dirty carpet, cross legged. She dreamt of the taste of copper.

It had only been about thirty minutes, Faith knew. What woke her was the sound of the door opening as the Scoobies began to roll out of Giles’ house, bantering all the way to their various vehicles. 

God do they ever take a break with that shit? 

Faith barely suppressed a grunt of annoyed pain from one of Xander’s jokes. Not fair to blame him, she figured. Probably just the fact that I woke up from an 8 month coma. Her smile was bitter enough to make an onion cry. 

Sharp leaves, hard twigs were the only reason she wasn’t detected. But shouldn’t Buffy have seen her? She indulged the fantasy of Buffy noticing her and bringing her to justice. Of the tingle in the back of her neck clueing her in that she was right there! 

We’re gonna move past that, Lehane. 

Eyes that looked like holes poked in a polaroid stared out as the last two figures shambled along like they didn’t have any particular destination in mind, slowly towards a car. She watched their shoulders graze as they walked and closed her eyes. 

“Listen, Buffy, are you gonna be okay?” Riley turned to face her, holding her biceps, encompassing her like a cardboard cage. Perfectly clean, perfectly stale. 

Her eyes focused on green watery eyes that looked up at him. The man’s shadow obscured it as the cardboard cage grew just a millimeter tighter. He continued.

“I never met this… Faith girl, but from what I heard, she sounds pretty dangerous. A person like that isn’t much different than the monsters we hunt every day. You could even make an argument that they’re worse. I don’t want to see you get hurt.” 

Buffy pressed up against the human box, arms pushing him away slightly, but still in his embrace. Looking up at him. 

“Well if its monsters we’re talking about, I’m kind of the authority” she deadpanned, her voice corroding as she continued. “But like I said in there, she could be different now. Might not remember what happened, she might be scared, she might be alone.” 

Buffy’s eyes grew foggy and distant. Faith knew exactly what she was thinking, and it boiled her blood. 

‘Because she was, at the end.’ 

“In the military, they tell us that the most dangerous target is the scared one. Keep that in mind.” 

“Yea. Guess so.” Her reaction to Riley hugging her was delayed by just a second. Her arms wrapped around his back. 

“Just promise me, if she shows any sign of being a threat to you, put her down.” 

How she ended up at the Bronze was anyone’s guess. She vaguely remembered breaking into a store to steal some clothes, makeup, and a hand mirror. Her body went through the motions of acquiring and applying what she needed to get fed tonight, to get warm. Put me down? The rest of the trip was a blur. Just like on the way to Gile’s house, her feet dragged her along, the collection of nerves in her spine responsible for where she ended up. Her mind was elsewhere. 

“Gonna rain soon.” Her eyes closed tight, hand grazing over shiny skin. 

Been through worse. 

To say she was dressed particularly well would be what Ms. Dormer would call a fib. It was the kind of thing you wore to the Bronze to get laid, which was kind of the idea. Dark lipstick, darker eyes. Hollow confidence possessed her, stolen motions as she became blurry in the crowd. Five by five by five by five by five

Didn’t take her long to find someone. Faith hated the way the bags under her eyes looked like permanent stains, the way a jacket that would have fit her fine before her coma hung off of her, didn’t like the way the florescent lights of the Bronze bathroom made her look like an X-rayed skeleton, but apparently some guys went for that kind of thing. Fine by her. This one was tall, broad shouldered, had a voice that reminded her of stale wood. He smelled good. Smelled plain. 

Get a good buzz going, makes the sleeping easier. 

They danced on the floor, heat, blur, buzz, buzz, baby. “You’re a fucking awful dancer, man, anyone ever tell you that?”, she shouted over the music. 

“More than once.” He had the voice of someone who wasn’t paying attention to the conversation. That was okay, neither was she. Her smile was all there,vivacious, but something was delayed behind her eyes. The glimmer there followed behind, like a second delay between a mouth and its words in a terrible dub.

Everyone has to go through the motions sometimes. Right now it's about surviving, and it’s not too different from Boston, is it? Keep it copacetic, Lehane. 

She needed a warm place to stay that night, and she got it. Still she shivered, and felt something wet on her cheeks in the dark that night. After they were done, she got up, got dressed, slipped a few bills out of his wallet, and left. Got her own room at the same shitty motel she used to stay at before everything got… well, they were always bad. But worse.

Over the next few days, she stabilized. Cops were out for her, but Sunnydale PD weren’t exactly a dominating force to be taken into consideration. She’d watched one blind himself with his own flashlight while he was looking into a weird noise in the alley, had it turned backwards or somethin’.

Because she was the weird noise, she clamped down on her amusement. If the trashbags started snickering, that would have been a real cause for investigation. That was last night, and all she knew was that she hadn’t eaten since the day before that. If stomachs could give up on growling and go to whimpering, that’s about where she was. Fuck em’ was a weird thing to think about your stomach, but that didn’t stop her.

Faith watched Red and Buffy walk side by side through UC Sunnydale campus, but from a distance. Red was talking about something at Buffy, but Buffy had the same foggy look in her eyes that she had the other night. She looked.. almost happy. Almost. B can’t appreciate what she’s got. What else is new?

Part of her wanted to jump out and attack her right then and there. Something about seeing her like this, half-happy, pissed her off. Oughta give her a reason to appreciate what she’s got now. Her vision had spots like TV static, and after swaying for a moment, she turned and left.

Faith was surrounded by dark walls, watching a familiar face grained in VHS nostalgia. Her legs were crossed as she looked up at the warm words. The Mayor told her how it was, everything he said she already knew, and that’s what made it hurt so bad.

She kept wiping absently at the blood on her hands from the demon who brought her the gift. Couldn’t get it out. It was so bright against her skin. 

“See, the hard pill to swallow here is that once I’m gone… your days are just plain numbered.”

A jagged humor the shape of broken glass cut through her. Been that way for a long time, boss, you’re just now catching onto that? Thought you were supposed to be the smart one.

“Now I know that you’re a smart and capable young woman, in charge of her own life, but the problem, Faith… is that there won’t be a place for you in the world anymore. Right now I bet you’re feeling very much alone.” He shook his head, and Faith closed her eyes.

“But you’re never alone. You’ll always have me. And! You’ll always have this. Go ahead, open the box.” Her brow furrowed and her eyes caught on it, discarded in favor of the tape. “Don’t worry. It’s not gonna bite. That’s my job.”

He laughed, and Faith couldn’t help but reciprocate a small smile.

“Go ahead, open it.”

It looked like a cheap toy, like something that would have distracted her for hours as a kid. Her hands held it gently.

“Just because it’s over for my Faith… doesn’t mean she can’t go out with a bang.”



It wasn’t as fun as she thought it would be, a cold part of her numbly noticed. Joyce had opened the door without looking out the peephole (What the hell, Joyce?). Faith thought about knocking her out, but she didn’t deserve it. She wasn’t involved.

“Mind if I come in?” She brought a smile that didn’t feel at home on her face and a hateful looking razor in her right hand. The older woman stepped back with each step that Faith took forward.

Please don’t be a hero. Leave that to B.

To Joyce’s credit, she didn’t. A few minutes went by, sifting through unsent letters to Buffy.
Can’t judge her there, Lehane. Faith went through the motions of trying to justify herself to Joyce, but they weren’t really getting anywhere. That was okay. She wouldn’t listen to herself either.

When Ms. Summers called her psychotic, Faith remembered how the older woman used to laugh at her jokes. She remembered Christmas.

Joyce was sitting there on the bed, hands in sight, not giving Faith the slightest excuse to lash out. Relief and resentment at that were the only things that Faith could pick out of the emotional sludge that she was trying to sift through. Oh, and one more.

Rage. Where was she? Buffy was supposed to be here, it was supposed to be neat, it was supposed to go like the Boss said. Why couldn’t she just come and save her fucking Mom already? Didn’t Buffy see how valuable she was? How much Joyce was willing to sacrifice for her?

“Don’t tell me you don’t see it, Joyce. You’ve served your purpose. You squirted out the kid, raised her up, and now you might as well be dead!” She kept pacing, trying to work herself up to what was coming.

“I mean, nobody cares, nobody remembers, especially not Buffy, fabulous superhero. Sooner or later, you’re gonna have to face it– she was over us a long time ago, Joyce. Too busy climbing all over her new boy toy to give a single thought to the people that matter!”

Boiled blood slowed to stone. What if Buffy never showed up? What would Faith do? The knife was sticky with sweat in her hand. She didn’t feel hot, so she didn’t know why it was. Her heart raced.

“I mean, you’re her mother, and she just leaves you here to die!?”

Why did her words sound so desperate? So confused? A small buzz in the back of her neck, the near-silent sounds of footsteps on the shingles outside. She closed her eyes, breathed in, and leapt towards Joyce. She knew she wouldn’t reach her.

The whole left side of the room erupted into broken glass. The Dark Slayer hit the ground hard. That’s a fracture, Faithie. Better get even with her. Her arm trembled as she tried to push herself up. Buffy slammed down on her head hard, and Faith thought the ringing in her head sounded a little like the EKG machine at the hospital.

“Hi, Mom” Only a little out of breath, and who knows how far she’d run to get here. Her timing was perfect, her delivery superb.

Rolling away from Buffy, she launched up and fought with everything she had. Blow met block, fist met face, all the good stuff. But it couldn’t last.

Even an evil super-bitch like Lehane could only get so far on vending machine detritus after an 8 month coma. That was fine though, it was all gonna be alright. And hey,  when she pulled Buffy’s face down into her rising knee, it felt a little like a three course meal.

Buffy dragged her out of the room, and in the bedroom, Joyce pulled out her phone and started to dial 911. Only a dial tone. Faith must have cut the chords.

Where Faith slammed into the wall, she felt a little more real. Like bruises and scars Buffy gave her spread out from points of impact like water color filling out a hollow sketch. Breath, blood, Buffy, Faith, Blow, Block, Kick, Pain, Greed, all blurred and buzzed into a single dance.

Five by Five. We’re almost there. Only a little longer.

They slid down the stairs, both bouncing to their feet at exactly the same time.

“Was starting to wonder if you got caught up with the clean marine, B. Glad to see you made some time for mommy dearest.” She panted, backing towards the dark. Buffy couldn’t see her, not yet. “He know you snuck out to see me?”

“I told him I’d only be a minute.” Her eyes glassed over a little, only for a fraction of a second. There was more to that story. Still, Faith focused on the part of it that pissed her off. More fuel to the fire.

Faith rocketed forward to start another clash. Her motions were faster, meaner, crueler than Buffy’s ever could be. Sure, her muscles might be atrophied and malnourished, but with her background? That was a comfort zone.

Buffy fought well, but she fought worse. A sharp elbow to the stomach, a launched hand gripping around the blonde’s throat.

“Huh, I bet that’s a real long time for him.”

“Fuck. You.” There she is. Riley makes her half-happy, but only Faith can make her full on pissed. A small shiver of pride rippled through her.

“Get in line.” Faith purred.

Buffy responded with a punch to Faith’s stomach, sweet heat spreading through her abdomen like warm water through a cloth.

Getting ready to rain, soon.

“Ever occur to you, Faith, the reason we all forgot you is because we wanted to?”

White hot rage possessed her. She started throwing anything she could find at Buffy. Her words failed her. Most of the shit she was throwing was missing, and what did hit her either broke or bounced ineffectually.

Yeah, B. It’s occurred to me once or twice. Tears stung her cheeks, exhaustion making her shake like a hit bell. Buffy looked ready for another 10 rounds.

I don't have any time left.  

Faith turned and ran through the dining room into the living room where it was. The Mayor’s toy. When Buffy sprinted after her, Faith slammed the glass door shut on her face to make her fall through it. Her hand gripped the device before Buffy dragged her down into the broken shards.

At this point it was more like a fight between two alley cats than a fight between two mythical superhumans. Faith was losing. At some point they’d somehow stumbled into a standing position, and she swayed. In her right hand was the device.

“You know what this’ll do, right B? What am I kidding, how could ya? It’s a little parting gift from the Big M himself. It’ll give me everything that you have, get it?”

“So do it.” Buffy steeled her jaw. Those green eyes cut right through her.

“I will.” Faith heard her voice crack. The light of the lamp post outside showed her face clearly to Buffy now, dark bags under her eyes, a helluva lot skinnier than she should be. “I fucking will! You hear me? What don’t you-”

Her eyes searched Buffy’s and felt them search her right back. Hate seared through her then. Wasn’t supposed to go like this.

“I’ll never stop, B, you know that right? You can stop me right now. I’ll come after everything you love if you don’t stop me now.” Her voice shook like water on a leaf’s edge. “I’m bad.”

Faith’s hollow confidence had left her some time in the last minute, leaving her alone again. It was just a scared little girl again, in a fourth floor Boston apartment while it went out for cigarettes. 

“Faith…. It’s not too late.” Buffy took a step forward. Something glimmered in her eyes, but it wasn’t what Faith was looking for. 

Buffy was supposed to burn her up into sparks, purify her, not whatever the fuck this is. She wasn’t supposed to call her bluff. 

“I’m bad and-and it’ll never get better! Evil people don’t change, so stop wasting your time. I won’t get better.” Her voice reached a fractured crescendo. If she was more cognizant, she might have cared. 

And then it was gone. Even the anger. 

Her face shattered, and her tears made crack lines down her cheeks. 

“Please?” The device fell to the floor, forgotten. It was never the point. She hated the way her voice sounded so small.

“That would make it a lot easier for you, wouldn’t it?” Buffy said, her eyes glimmering with something like pity. It was an expression that deserved erasing, but Faith couldn’t help but notice a new laugh line on the side of her face that always quirked up first when she did that stupid half-smile.

“I… I have to…” Faith felt like she was going to be sick. Her eyes looked anywhere but the woman in front of her. The device was on the ground, discarded. She’d failed Him, again. She’d failed herself. Her breath quickened, panic flooding through a worn out nervous system.

Buffy’s eyes took in Faith now, really took her in. Faith saw Buffy’s eyes caught on the lines and scars, on how tired she looked. Faith covered herself with crossed arms, shivering, looking anywhere but her.

“Just gonna…” Her breath was light, frantic. She didn’t finish the sentence. Faith staggered past Buffy, through the open door, and into the night. Buffy didn’t stop her.

Chapter Text

Buffy POV

Buffy felt it respark again when she was sitting at home, preparing to go to Giles place. She was tying her hand up when a flash of warm static started at the top of her mouth, ripped through the back of her neck and ignited up its nape and into her eyes. TV static, or maybe what Giles once called ‘Komorebi’. Sunlight leaking through trees, he’d told her. He’d read it in a book somewhere. 

Is she having another nightmare?

When Faith was scared, really scared, it jolted through Buffy like adrenaline. It happened often, and the closer she was to Faith the worse it would be. She would be sitting besides her in the gray hospital bed, speaking to her softly, but when her eyes would flit back and forth under their lids and Faith started to whimper she would feel it: a dull static that made her teeth ring and made her need to protect her. To reach her. 

But she couldn’t. Buffy had only really reached her once. A hand of metal. She could feel the warmth around it like it was her own hand inside Faith. 

She didn’t know what to think about what the slayer connection did when Faith knew she was going to die. 

Faith wasn’t scared then. The connection purred between them while she shed her lifeblood on her own blade. She was content. 

But it wasn’t like Faith’s comatose nightmares this time. It was so, so much stronger. She almost collapsed in her bathroom. It tapered off, but only slightly. It was too much, far too much, like Faith always was. 

“Enough.” Her voice wavered around the word. The slayer connection wavered, and Buffy cut it short with a jagged knife. The leaves blew, the shadows fell, and only sunlight remained. 

That night, when the Scoobies convened to discuss Adam, she couldn't get out of her head. There was a black hole where Faith should be, somehow just as distracting as Faith’s presence proper. She should have known it wouldn’t be as easy as cutting the connection. 

She’s never made it easy, before, Buff. 

Buffy sat on the edge of the recliner Riley sat in. His hand occasionally drifted to her thigh. It was a distraction from the feeling Faith left, the special space left by a knife designed to leave horrible wounds. 

What the fuck? She shook her head from the morbid thoughts, her stomach roiling around. Her eyes nervously went to the phone, her hand vibrated as they talked about Adam. She did her best to focus on Riley’s words as he talked about Adam. He was safe. He was plain. He smelled lightly of wood. 

Buffy almost launched after Faith. She didn’t know to do what, but that’s what heroes did. Chase villains. It was a small, dull thought that bounced around her lungs  like a metal bead in a spray paint can. 

“I’ll catch up with you.” Green eyes met black expanse. Quiet streets wrapped around Faith protectively, black shadows that cast leaves where a woman should be. 

She was so weak. Buffy turned and took the steps up to Joyce two at a time. Her heart fluttered, a blur that scratched into solidity. There she was. Mom. 

“Hey, hey, it's okay." She held her mother on the doorway like she'd been held so many times. She wished she could comfort her in the way that only Joyce knew how to. Joyce was pinching her nose, face scrunched up. She was too still. Tears fought to escape. 

Looks like its gonna rain, soon. 

The thought seemed alien, but Buffy had other things to focus on. 

“Mom? Are you okay? Did she hurt you?” Her voice had a hardness. If Joyce gave her the answer she didn’t want to hear, she didn’t know what she’d do. 

“No. No, Buffy, but she could’ve.” She sounded tired. Her eyes opened, but no tears fell out. Buffy looked with her at the wooden vanity. An opened lipstick with ‘Harlot’ written on it seemed to ask them why they hadn’t protected it. 

“She came in with a knife and had me go up to the bed and sit down.Why didn’t you tell me?”, Joyce turned to her daughter with a furrowed brow. “I didn’t even know there was something to be worried about. The things she said-” 

Buffy cut her off, “Mom, I’m so sorry, I didn’t think she would ever do something like this. It’s me she’s after.” Her eyes glanced up and down Joyce to make sure there wasn’t a scratch on her. “What did she say to you?”

“Uh, well, I wasn’t exactly taking notes…”

“Well, now I know where I get my academic talent from.” A thin line, like Joyce’s smile but askew, with a recent laugh line having developed on one side. She just couldn’t seem to help herself. Her mother mirrored it, but neither smiled fully, nor long.

“It was mostly about you, not that that’s any surprise considering who she was holding hostage. She didn’t seem well,” her voice was thin and strained as she continued, “it was about you, and how you always left the people you cared about behind. First her and now…”

“Now what?”

“Now me.” It was a quiet statement. Joyce didn’t meet her eyes, but crossed her arms with one hand running through her hair.

“You don’t think…” Her daughter’s voice grew smaller for a second.

“No. I don’t think you’ve abandoned me, if that’s what you’re wondering. It’s just… she was looking for something in me. Maybe I didn’t look for the right things in her, when I knew her.”

The slayer pulled her in for a hug, and settled into her embrace like a leaf on the ground.

“It wasn’t your fault. There wasn’t a thing you could’ve done to prevent what happened between me and her. I’ll make this right, mom.”

“Okay, dear. Promise me you’ll be careful?”

Buffy made a doubtful noise, and they both laughed a little freer.

She stayed that night in her old room, recovering from what had happened. The physical strain wasn’t really there. Giles would probably say she was going easy on Faith. But Giles isn’t here. Was Faith going easy on her?

No. I don’t think Faith ever learned how to go easy.

The thoughts were bitter, like her mind was looking to lash out at a target it craved but couldn’t reach. At some point she found herself going to the chest in the corner of the room, under debris of daily life, and gently moving the things off of it to get inside.

Kneeling down, she parsed through the moonlight to find it at the bottom.

Faith’s jacket. She lifted it out, carefully, carefully, and unwrapped the knife within.

It almost seemed radioactive, like touching it would be a mistake, would change her irreversibly. It glowed in the dim light, more real than the space around it. Her fingers trembled as they wrapped around it.

Looks like its gonna rain soon

The thought seemed to vibrate off of the handle, but Buffy couldn’t let go. Static screamed through the nape of her neck, the roof of her mouth, and strange sensations were cast onto her from a distant source.

Like so many falling shadows.

Like a moth pulling a flame towards it from the far away.

She let go of it with a gasp. The moonlight had shifted angles in the way that light does with time, and the knife curved its lopsided smile at her from the bottom of the chest. The slayer shut it with a sound that felt less than final.

Tears ran down her cheeks, but since letting go of the knife, she couldn’t seem to remember why. The connection between her and Faith went back to sleep, and she was alone again.

That night, she slept wearing black denim that was too large for her.

“Well I’m just saying, she could be anywhere.” Giles rarely spoke just one meaning. Buffy had gotten used to it over the years. What he really meant was, ‘Let them take out the trash. “The Watcher’s council has arrived to…” The morning birds chirped bad poetry at each other outside.

His pacing in tweed stopped for a moment. His pacing and glasses wiping were less mannerisms and more diacritics. Their timing and manifestation could add whole new meanings to whatever he was saying. Gee, should write a Gilesian dictionary there, Buff. When he started to wipe his glasses, she knew he was stalling the second half of that sentence. 

“Anywhere? Likeeee the back of a van? Or in a black bag? Or anywhere like the Bahamas?” 

“You know very well what I mean. I’m just saying that beginning a search right now could very well cause friction with the Council. And believe you me, there are better people to have friction with.” The temple rubbing…. He’s worried. Of course he is, he cares about Mom like the rest of us. 

“I can do friction. They already rubbed the wrong way.” There’s the sigh. Buffy couldn’t kill the small shiver of glee at Giles’ expense, but moved on quick. 

“And,” she started, “It’s not right. You didn’t see her, Giles.” 

His pacing had ceased, glasses back on, now finding the bowl of fruit on his counter rather intriguing. “You didn’t hear me complaining on that front…” A snide remark that passed in the living room like a book falling in a quiet library.

Buffy ignored it, pressing on, “She was scared. I’ve never seen her that bad. It looked like the last real meal she’d had was fed to her through the hospital tube. You know, the one she left the better part of a week ago?” 

“Yes, yes, I understand.” 

“All I ask is that you help me reach her before they do. Please, I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important.”

He did a doubtful little tilt of his head and turned back to her, hand behind him supporting his weight against the counter.
“I’ve known you for many years, now, and I know when I haven't got the energy to argue with you. Very well. When the rest of us arrive, we’ll discuss it.” Pride, resignation, something else. Dread? Why won’t he look at me? He went further into the kitchen and prepared a glass of sweet tea (Buffy insisted he made the best sweet tea she’d ever had, but he had no plans on tasting it to find out) for her and an English Breakfast tea for himself, bringing them both out to the living room.

He asked about Joyce, then about school, and his eyes caught on the edges of her omissions. First about the omission of how Buffy unwrapped the knife, second about her grades. He didn’t pry. He wasn’t like that. She loved that about him.

A few minutes later, Riley, Xander, Anya, Willow and Tara just a few minutes after the other. Sure seems like they had plenty of coffee.

“Hey guys! How goes the morning?” Red asked with a nice little wave. 

“Not as good as yours, I’m guessing,” Xander said.

“You’re probably right” Willow said with a little smile that was all rounded on the edges, a faint glimmer of something that most wouldn’t catch. Buffy did. “Everyone, Tara-Tara, everyone” She did a little motion to present Tara, like she was one of those girls on a game show presenting the grand prize that you’re supposed to be really excited about.

Tara performed a wave.

“Thanks for coming Willow, and it’s good to meet you Tara; Wil told me you two met at a witchy club?”

“Club is a good word for it. I wouldn’t exactly call it a coven.” She had a quiet little hum of a smile, the kind of smile that made you feel just a little easier. Buffy liked her. “And you’re Buffy, right? Willow told me all about you.” She tilted her head as she talked.

“The one and only.” She didn’t sound particularly impressed at herself. “I really appreciate you coming, we’re gonna need all the help we can get.

After that, Riley, Giles, and Xander introduced themselves; Riley was somehow stilted in his introduction in a way that made Buffy wince, Giles was stilted in his introduction that made Buffy smile, and Xander wasn’t stilted enough.

Buffy was sitting in the recliner that Riley had last time. This time he didn’t seem to know what to do with himself, so he stood next to her, arms crossed. She’d called him this morning and told him what happened, heard his jaw stiffen when he asked why she didn’t tell him the night it happened.

She was tired. Faith cut the phone lines. She was more focused on her mom. Those were excuses she’d prepared, but he didn’t give her the chance to bust them out. He swept past himself with a ‘Nevermind’ that felt less like a dismissal of his own words and more of a dismissal of the ones she had yet to say.That was okay.

“So! I’ll just go ahead and get it out of the way, why do you three look like you have awful news?” Xander motioned at Riley, Giles, and Buffy vaguely.

“I’ll give you three guesses.” Giles quietly offered with all the generosity of someone putting down rat poison.

“It’s Faith.” Buffy said quietly.

“Just, like, in general? I mean that’s fair enough, methinks.” Willow looked to Tara who nodded after a split second of meditating on Willow’s words. Willow looked back, eyebrows angled up. Apparently she’d given Tara the rundown on just who exactly Faith was, what she was.

Buffy opened her mouth, but Riley spoke. “Lehane took Joyce hostage last night.” When the three others started to respond, he raised a hand to quiet them and added, “Nobody was hurt. The suspect entered and threatened Joyce at knifepoint, and brought her up to her bedroom where she kept her. It just sAeems like she was there as bait for Buffy here.”

“Mom didn’t get hurt. She was just shaken.” Buffy hugged herself. “But Faith got away.”

The suspect. Put her down. Riley’s voice bounced around in her head.

“Ooookay, so! Tall, dark, and hamstrung is on the loose in Sunnydale. How can we help? Do we need guns? I can probably buy a gun.”

“That won’t be necessary.” Giles added with a glance at Buffy, his chin resting between his fingers and his thinking-thumb (as Buffy called it).

“We’ve already got guns.” Riley added unhelpfully.

“No, guns won’t be necessary. I don’t want Faith to die.”

Riley looked down at Buffy in the same way you’d look at a puzzle piece that stubbornly didn’t fit where you’d like it to. “What do you mean? You want her captured alive? I thought the Watcher’s Council had plans for her?”

Buffy winced. Willow frowned.

“W-wait, the watcher’s council is here? Why didn’t anyone let us know?” Willow looked at Tara, and Tara back at her, creating a feedback loop of benevolent befuddlement. 

“Us? Oh, yeah, why didn’t anyone let us know?” Xander grasped the strange instinctive grouping together of Willow and Tara, almost finalized the thought in his head, and then let go of it like a construction site’s designated dumbass letting go of a ladder to scratch his palm.

“Because we just found out last night. They showed up last night, sitting right where you’re sitting, and asked me a few questions. If they’d thought to visit Buffy’s home instead, we might be having a very different morning indeed.” Giles sipped his tea, briefly slipping into consideration.

“Well… not… we.” Riley turned his head, scratching his chin. His eyes landed on the same fruit bowl Giles was transfixed by earlier.

“What do you mean by that?” Buffy’s voice sounded like a fish hook.

“Just… that the initiative has been keeping an open channel of communication with the WC about Faith’s whereabouts…”

“Even after she woke up?” Tara softly added, and Willow couldn’t help but look at her parted lips the same way Riley was looking at the fruit bowl.

“Especially after she woke up.”

The issue with Buffy was that when she darkened, you could feel it. It brought to mind how the darkness of an eclipse feels so much heavier than a normal summer night. The absence of day, rather than the presence of night.

Riley finished counting the Bananas, and with machine-like military discipline, started on the grapes.

“And you didn’t tell me? Did you know when she broke into my house? When she had my mom fearing for her life?” Her voice had a crack it you could cut yourself on if you ran your hand over it.

“....” said Xander.

“....” added Willow, with a follow up “...-” from Tara.

“.... , …” finalized Giles, who had at this point almost cleaned a hole through one of the lenses of his glasses.

All of their silences interrupted each other, shared looks, concerned faces filling the moment that led up to Riley ending it.

“I wasn’t included in that debriefing. I didn’t know until after Faith left.”

“Where. Is. She.” Buffy measured each word out, and seemed to find each of them wanting.

“Motor Motel on Broad, room 201. We plan on releasing the location to the WC in about an hour.”

He didn’t turn his head to watch Buffy leave.

Chapter Text

Faith

Water dripped in a staccato, a non-rhythm back dropping her thoughts offered by a faucet that never turned all the way off. It was distant, it was all distant. Pleasant numbness swallowed her like her eyes as she met her own eyes in the mirror, the velvety kind she always felt when she was at her lowest. The black beneath the barrel.

Where a humming warmth should have been buzzing there was nothing. Where sunlight should have been blossoming in the roof of her mouth, in her temples, in her heart, filling her the way that only she could, there was nothing. Faith had attacked Buffy's mother, the most important person in her life, and so Buffy had done the most reasonable thing: 

Cut her off entirely. Closed the door in her face, and left Faith out in a snowy night. Alone again.

Her mask had all but run away from her eyes, streaked mascara, but she didn’t really care about that. It was meant to fool others, not herself.

‘Can’t fool me. I know what’s under it all. Barrel and black, sweetie, barrel and black.’ The voice sounded like her mother’s, but she’d never said that. ‘Did I ever need to?’ 

Florina Lehane was always after salvation, at first from the Big G up high, and when she couldn’t get her fix from Him, from needle and bottle. Cold metal, wormed needles that gleam with everything she could have been but never was, breeding inside of her like heart worms.

‘They’re in you now sweetie, needle and string and everything mean, and doesn’t their cold feel so warm?’ 

Faith’s eyes were the same color as hers, two black holes in the sky the same way hers had been near the end. The thoughts spiralled through Faith, cutting through her heart and stomach, but she’d already vomited up all the bile she had. Her body’d given up on dry heaving a while ago. Don’t forget the Ruffles, Faithie. They tasted even worse than the bile.

As her body sagged, she mostly relied on the motel bathroom sink to keep herself up. She couldn’t keep anything down since the fight last night. Her left eye itched from the makeup she’d slept in last night. When she’d stumbled into the room there wasn’t any time to shower, or even undress. Barely enough time to get the bottle open, but we managed, didn’t we, Lehane? 

She dreamt of Buffy Summers last night, of salvation. Cold was the first thing she felt upon waking up, and then the pain, and then the numbness where hunger should be. Her face fractured and her knuckles bloodied as the mirror in front of her erupted. 

God had left her mother, watching her spiral around the drain with a perfect smile, a smile that looked like Buffy’s. 

Numbly, she walked to the corner where she’d passed out the night before and sat down, dizzy with even the effort of going there. Her body was shutting down, of course, but that was a given. In fact, the carbs from the cheap Rum she’d spent her last 10 bucks on were probably the only thing keeping her up.

One of Madre’s shitty boyfriends introduced her to the stuff when she was like, 13. Actually he wasn’t bad as far as Mom’s boyfriends went, he could have done worse. Could have introduced me to the shit he was introducing to the streets. "If you're gonna get addicted," he philosophized, "might as well be some legal shit."

Faith couldn't argue with that. Still a shitty rum. 

Now, despite what some sources would posit, Faith wasn’t stupid. She was the kind of gleaming, mean smart that excelled in ‘extra curricular’ activities, sure, but not stupid. 

The Watcher’s Council would come a’ running any minute now, and they’d win. Everyone knew that the best way to kill a Slayer was with a firearm of a double digit caliber, and they’d have more than enough calibers to take care of her and then some. Faith got to planning.

First they’ll unlock the door, with a whispered spell or the soft burglar-song of a good old fashioned lock pick. 

Faith watched from the corner, black eyes slowly scrolling the imagined scene in front of her as she planned out how exactly she was going to die. 

Council guys had the same kind of meaner-than-shit smarts Faith did, so they wouldn’t go barging in. They would send a quiet shot through the door they’d just unlocked. Angled down of course, both because someone hiding behind the door’s swing could be crouched down and because the floor had a better chance of stopping the bullet of a low caliber pistol than the shitty walls this place offered.

Wait, wait, wait. The scene rewound a tad, the bloodied Faith holding a bullet sized hole in her neck fading into nothing.

Optimism doesn't look good on you, Lehane. Quit dreaming; they don’t want you dead, they wanna take you back to England. Kill you in a right civilized way. Or worse.

She sighed and pinched her nose. A hang over headache was forming as blood pumped through her brain, and she could really feel it in her temples.

“Gonna have to bleed one of them before they even think of using something other than tranqs” She muttered to herself. It was the first time she’d spoken since leaving Buffy’s house, and her voice was raw and scrapped by tears that dried the throat rather than wet it.

“Got that knife from the-”, Faith’s throat hurt and her face scrunched up for a second before she continued, “guy the other night.” He was country. His breath smelled like tobacco chew and his clothes like the floorboards of an old truck. But his pocket knife was nice. So was his wallet. 

“Can use that to bleed one of them. Don’t need to do more than a scratch. Let em' know I'm not worth the risk of live capture.” Her voice frayed on the edges like the hem of her thrift store shirt.

But you will if they make you, won’t you? Wouldn’t be the first time. 

Her face messed up and she put a hand on the throbbing temple, and floated in the cold transitional space between salvation and fate. 

Buffy

Buffy ran like a gleam of sunlight over a lake, ripping out of the house and onto the lawn, starting towards the sidewalk.

“Wait!” 

(Giles, I love you, but now is not the time)

“Giles, you’re not gonna talk me out of going, I’m sorry.”

“Do…” The British man followed up the syllable with a jog up to her, something shining in his hands. “You think me that daft? I already told you I know when you can’t be dissuaded; I’ve come to offer you a ride.”

He held up the jingling keys, meeting her eyes head on. Buffy felt the frustration evaporate into a cloud of emotions, surprise, concern for his heart considering he was slightly out of breath from the jog, concern for her own heart at the way it clenched at the offered help.

“I… okay.”

“Well… very good, then!” He had clearly come out expecting a bit more of a fight, and seemed not to know where to put the confrontational energy he’d worked up in himself.

“Passenger seat, if you please,” He mumbled, and Buffy wondered where the hell else she would go.

They crammed into the car that seemed engineered for commuting to a bingo hall rather than speed through a town, but Giles made the engine bark and the wheels howl. Buffy held onto the oh-shit-handle, looking over at the older British man who was hanging onto the steering wheel like a bird on a perch.

“Giles?”

“Seatbelt, please.” He replied, voice sounding like a plucked string. Buffy’s mouth opened and then shut as she put it on. Her hands didn’t know what to do in her lap.

“Thank you.”

“Yes, well, safety is very important. A Watcher’s duties don’t end at the supernatural, they just begin there.” He cut someone off, with no turn signal of course.

“I didn’t mean about the nagging-” His mouth opened but she cut him off with a surrendering hand motion, “Not that it isn’t appreciated! I know that’s like, your love language. But I meant about the ride, and not trying to convince me not to go, or something like that. It means a lot”

Giles looked over at her for a moment before keeping his eyes on the road. Some tension seemed to drain out of his shoulders. One of his forehead wrinkles settled into a flatter shape like a lion curling up to sleep.

“Of course.” His voice was soft, no stutter or defensive nervousness to be heard. One could mistake him for gentle, unless of course you happened to be on the road with him at this time. 

“It only seemed right to save the “nagging” about this decision for later, when you don’t have an excuse to abscond.”

“Should have known you had an agenda.” Buffy’s smile, crooked and warm, infected her voice. There was a pleasant moment of silence (excepting the honked horns and squeal of another car’s breaks, of course) that hung between the two like the small motes of dust in the car. 

“....And what, exactly, is a “Love Language?” You could have put a scale in front of his mouth and weighed the British skepticism.

Buffy snorted and replied, “Just something Professor Walsh taught us about in Psyche.”

“Was she fluent?”

“Not even A1.”

They had passed through the nicer part of town that Giles inhabited, into the rougher parts. They were near Willy’s Place, she realized. 

Why did we let her stay there? We thought twice about it, I know we did. I know I did, but I still didn't help. Her eyes flattened, her mouth pressed into a line as the useless self loathing melted away. Something hard was left behind. Did. We're going to do it right this time. I will do it right this time.

It was jarring just how quickly the well kept roads and sidewalks began to crack, like she was going through a portal. She’d never really looked before. Green eyes, unblinking and lost in thought as the green grass in the wealthier part of town inexplicably shifted to yellowed grass littered with trash. 

They took in the things that Buffy hadn’t thought too much about before now, the way that no one smiled, the way their heads tracked the car as they went down the road. A frown as light as a falling feather on her face as she noted that sidewalks seemed to just… end. 

Hotels came and went by the car, and Buffy wondered how many Faiths were in each one. 

“What if they found her already?” Her voice was smaller than it sounded in her head, small in the way that it only got around Giles. She would have been embarrassed about it, she would have felt insecurity about such a childish fear, but never around Giles.

Giles never held that kind of thing against her. 

“They haven’t.” His voice had a cut to it, like it had been sharpened on a whetstone. 

“How can you be sure?” Buffy’s voice was paper. “What will they do to her? What… would they do to her?”

“Because I am.” Giles didn’t often sound certain about things, but when he did, he could make God second guess himself. “And they will do nothing to her, because they haven’t gotten her, and they will not get to her.”

“But if they do?”

After a moment of silence, they reached the end of Broad street. It was a dead end, green grass almost entirely replaced with weeds and littered trash blowing in the wind, only a few souls milling about, ghosts of wonder-why spending their days thinking about where it had all gone wrong. 

They’re blowing in the wind too.

In the parking lot Giles slowed and pulled into a space with a delicacy and slowness that contrasted so sharply with the way he was driving earlier it could cut the person considering it. 

The car snored in the parking space, Giles not taking his hands off the wheel. His voice rang out through the car, so different from the gentle librarian who she’d come to know, now the Ripper she needed. He wouldn't coddle her.

“If she’s lucky, she’d be killed.”

“Don’t think Faith and “lucky” belong in the same sentence.” Her mouth twisted around the joke, impersonating a smile. 

“If she isn’t lucky, she’ll be made to serve the Council in a more literal sense than a slayer like yourself. She would become a soldier, her only contact with the outside world being with the worst parts of it. She would be given the same food every day, have naught but a cell to spend her moments waking and dreaming, with no pretense of privacy or a future.”

Buffy didn’t blink, some irrational part of her fearing that if she blinked for a second Faith would be carted off in chains in a black van. Her eyes focused on nothing. 

“Recall, if you will, when I betrayed you. The sickness I put in your veins?” Pain seeped around his words, but he continued.

“That cocktail isn’t just for "good" slayers. Faith is far from the first slayer we’ve failed, but the Council would utilize her until there’s nothing left. And until there’s a threat they deem more severe than Faith herself, they would keep her on a steady trickle of it. It's been done before.”

Buffy felt her breakfast rushing up for a moment, gagging and putting a hand to her mouth. She only barely quenched the urge to lose it. 

“Faith isn’t a fool, despite what some might think. Something tells me Ms. Dormer told her of this reality of the Council, and Faith doesn’t plan on going alive.”

“She always was one to take things into her own hands.” The words were jagged and raw out of Buffy’s mouth.

“Beat her to it, then. I’ll keep the car running. Hurry.”

Buffy had every intention to. 

As far as doors went, it was pretty lousy. Buffy’s kick burst it open with almost no effort. Late morning light streamed into the place, so many lit up dust motes like stars in the sky against the stale darkness of the room. Her slayer sight adjusted rapidly, taking in the small room. It smelled like liquor, blood, it smelled like liquorice and lipstick, it smelled like her. Taking a tentative step in, she knew right away something was off. 

Buffy went flying, a force slamming into her from the right side of the room (how did Buffy not see her? She wasn’t even hiding behind the door.) The force wasn’t as strong as it should be, and Buffy fell to the ground mostly out of lack of preparation rather than strength. 

(Bet the door’s asking ‘Who’s lousy now!?’)

Her arms were held down by Faith’s knees, but fuck was she light. The filled out, muscled body that Buffy had noticed (Out of admiration for another slayer’s physical prowess, thankyouverymuch) was a thing of the past.

What kept her on the ground wasn’t Faith’s weight, but the pocket knife trained on her throat. 

“Knew you’d fin-” Buffy watched the words fizzle out in Faith’s throat before they finished. 

The woman on top of her looked confused, opening her mouth, “Y-you’re not supposed to be here. You gotta go, you’re not supposed to see this-” She shook her head and fell backwards on her ass, pocket knife abandoned. 

Fear shot out of her eyes like bullets and she started inching backwards as Buffy sat up.

“Not happy to see me?” Buffy’s quip sounded a little more hurt, a little more hurting than she’d intended it to. She stood up and started advancing on Faith. 

Without the makeup she was wearing last night, without the carefully chosen clothes to simulate more mass than there was in actuality, Faith looked broken. 

She looks scared of living. 

“They’re gonna be here soon, B. You don’t have to do this, don’t have to be like me.”

Her voice choked up, her back hitting the corner. She knocked over the open bottle of rum there but didn’t seem to notice. She couldn’t take her eyes off of Buffy. 

“Be like you? What do you mea-” Her question was interrupted by realization. She saw Faith’s knuckles bloody and lacerated, made worse by furious attempts to wash away the blood.

She doesn’t want my hands to get bloody, Buffy realized with a cold jolt. Her jaw stiffened as she advanced further. Faith’s legs pushed helplessly against the stained carpet, no fight left. 

“Not one to leave a job unfinished, huh?” Faith would be a smartass all the way to hell. Even still, she presented her neck to Buffy, craving finality and fearing it all the same. The friction between the two impulses was tearing the dark eyed woman apart. 

“No. I’m not.”

No blow came, no release, no unlocking to reset the dream. Buffy waited there, her heart an arena for a thousand warring emotions. Hate, Jealousy, Protectiveness, Possessiveness, Love, Fear. 

“You don’t belong to them.” 

You belong to me. 

Buffy shoved down the thought that was dyed the colors of hate and possessiveness in equal portions, staring down at the other slayer. Faith opened her eyes, those eyes that were so expressive no matter how hard she tried to hide her emotions. 

“You don’t answer to them. You answer to me.” 

Buffy reached down and lifted Faith up by the front of her shirt, sliding her up against the walls of the room, pressing her into it, a dark tinge of satisfaction as the other slayer whimpered in pain.

“You’re hurt?” Buffy felt the satisfaction morph into concern, fear even. 

Expressions as unreadable as the emotions Buffy was feeling passed over Faith’s face in the dark shadows of the dim room. 

“Thought that was kind of the point of tackling me through a window, B.” She winced and let out a sharp breath as Buffy pushed her further into the corner. Her brows pushed up in a triangle, face unable to hide the sting. 

“Sorry, you were in the way of saving my mom from a fucking psycho-” 

WAAAAAA 

“What the fuck was that?” Faith was, for a blessed second, distracted from her maelstrom of emotion. Whatever made that noise was even more miserable than she was, a sadistic part of her had to see whatever bleeding creature made that awful caterwauling. 

“That was Giles’ car. Honking.” At least Buffy had the good sense to look slightly embarrassed. 

“G Man is here? What the fuck, B, are you crazy?”

For a moment, Buffy held her there, the slayer connection roaring back to life slowly despite Buffy doing her best to cut it off. They were close enough together that when one inhaled, the other exhaled, and it was like playing tug of war with a single breath.

Then it was over.

Buffy let go. Faith immediately collapsed into the corner, yelping in pain.

“Can you walk?”

“Fuck-” Faith’s face was scrunched up in pain, her eyes gleaming dangerously up at Buffy. Bruises painted her wrists and the parts of her stomach revealed by the tanktop she wore.

“I tackled you didn’t I?" She grit out the question defensively, "Just… need a second.”

The dark slayer pushed her body one last time to stand, determination coursing through her veins like fire (although, let’s be honest, it was more like spite than anything) and stood a very satisfactory inch taller than Buffy Summers. 

“Five by five.” 

Faith smirked in the way she always did, and, very slowly, fell over. 

Chapter Text

Buffy

Buffy had slayer reflexes to thank, watching in slow motion as the rum bottle Faith had just knocked over rolled to the left and slow down just where Faith’s head would land. That would mean a concussion. If she was lucky. 

Faith and luck don’t belong in the same sentence. 

She moved like light glinting off a car’s side view mirror, instant and angled. Grabbing Faith, she lifted her up slightly, and almost asked if she was okay, but then she saw the head lull. 

Fuck, no, no, you do not get out of this that easily~

Buffy lifted her up a little too easily and felt her pulse. Steady. She let out a ragged sigh of relief, but the prickling pain in her heart didn’t go away.

WAHHHHHHHHHHHHH

Something was wrong, Giles wouldn’t honk that awful thing if there wasn’t. She had to hurry. Carrying her bridal style, Buffy didn’t bother closing the door behind her.

“Needed airing out anyways!” She justified to no one in particular. Racing down the stairs (more like the turtle than the hare, but the desperation made it a race) and over to Giles’ car, she opened the door to the backseat and tossed Faith onto it like some groceries. 

“O-oh dear, was she like that when you found her?!”

Buffy slammed the door shut to punctuate his sentence, then wrapped around the other side and got in the back as well, resting Faith’s head in her lap.

“Unfortunately not, she was as talkative as ever.” When quips trembled, you could tell Buffy was worried. 

“And so you just knocked her out?” He sounded exasperated as he peeled out of the parking lot. Buffy was very glad she was in the back with Faith to protect her head from the sudden increase in G-Force. Faith would joke about the G-man making G-Force if she was awake.

“Well done.” He added as a soft afterthought and began out of the parking lot. 

“While I live for your praise”, Buffy only half joked, “this wasn’t me. She just passed out mid sentence. Something’s really wrong with her Giles. Hasn’t been eating or.. Or something.”

“Well no, I don’t expect she would.” Surprise couldn’t be found in his voice, in fact it seemed to indicate you should maybe try the next village over if you really needed some. “The police are hunting her, she’s likely living off of vending machine goods.”

He sounded like he spoke from experience, and he was. The Ripper had had bad days too. 

“A-and her wounds didn’t heal at all from yesterday. God, I hurt her bad, I didn’t know it would…”

“And you couldn’t have. Now, as your watcher-” Giles did his absolute best to summon a stern bone in his body, “I advise you to save the remorse for after we ensure she’s stable. We have more pressing matters.”

Gile swerved into a lane of traffic. A news helicopter might’ve followed him just in case cops followed suit.

“Pressing? Like your right foot on that pedal?”

Giles didn’t let up on the gas, ignoring the jab all together. 

“Riley tipped off the Watcher’s Council of her location personally as soon as you left.” Silence filled the car like flood water. 

“Oh.”

“You Willow and Tara to thank for letting me know. Telepathy.” There was a hint of pride.

“R-right.” Buffy’s face had gone blank. Well, her and Riley were pretty much over after that particular betrayal. It was… okay, as far as relationships went. The blonde started to reflect on it, but was interrupted by Faith nestling her cheek into Buffy’s hand with a murmur. 

Suddenly thinking about him was very, very hard.

“I know that Riley’s actions have hurt you greatly, and it needs to be acknowledged, but right now we should focus on evading the Council. They’ll probably arrive at the hotel within the next 15 minutes, hence the… honking. Now, it’s very important you answer my question to the best of your ability: did you leave anything that can be traced back to you at the hotel?”

She gasped, eyes widening.

“What is it? Buffy?”

“That’s it.”

“What? What did you leave there?”

“The honking is probably what knocked her out. Her exact words were something like, “What the fuck was that?!”” Buffy imitated, “Right before passing out. That was probably the most scared I’ve ever seen her.” 

“Well, maybe she was right to be scared of me.” A touch of playful, stung pride was in his voice, and he readjusted himself in the seat, “Means one of the slayers has some sense about her.”

Her laughter was light, light enough that Giles couldn’t help but smile. It was about 10’ am now, and there were a few clouds in the sky gleaming distantly, and the shitty little car passed into the greenery of Giles' neighborhood. A lock of hair fell over Faith’s eye when Giles went over a speed bump, and without thinking, a perfectly manicured nail brushed it softly away. 

Giles came through his front door first, but only by a few seconds, mostly to let everyone know in a loud (but strangely sophisticated) manner that Buffy would be arriving “momentarily” with Faith. Riley had just enough time to stand up and put on a frown that, he figured, would make him look like he meant business. Not that he knew that’s what he was figuring, because Riley’s inner world was… spacious. Spacious and dark. Like the inside of a cardboard box.

Everyone backed up from the door as they saw Buffy struggling to carry Faith. Not lift her, mind you, because they could see even from the generous distance they had to the dark haired woman that she was looking a little thinner.

“Move!” Buffy said to the room as she stumbled in and bee lined towards the couch where she laid Faith down semi gently. Faith whined when Buffy let go, and the blonde glanced her up and down to see if she had hurt her somehow.

“Oh my god, she’s so…” started Willow, shuffling a little closer to Tara-something she’d been doing for the last few months but somehow still hadn’t quite touched her yet. That the others knew of, anyways.

“Murderous?” Xander answered.

“Well that too, but I was thinking skinny.I-I mean, Faith didn’t used to be that skinny, did she, Buffy?”

“Depends on if ‘used to’ means ‘before the coma’; you ever wanna lose weight fast, I’m your gal” She deadpanned, and if Faith was awake to hear it, she probably would have attacked her for the shred of guilt that was hidden in her eyes. But Faith wasn’t.

“Oh.”

“Sorry, sorry, just- no, she didn’t used to be. Not even at the end of the coma. I’m uh…”

Fear split the ends of her syllables for a bit and she started to pace. Faith wouldn’t wake up from a second coma, she’d be stuck in the nightmares the blonde had given her until her death. Maybe even after then. Her eyes closed. 

My hands might be “clean” out here, but Faith was scared of me in that hotel room. Who knows what she sees in her dreams. Does she remember the good parts? Like I do? 

“An IV and a steady supply of calories will do her some good. I can get the Initiatives best doctors here within the hour.”

In Riley’s spacious, dark- er, expansive inner world, a piece of tape detached lightly from the cardboard it held together. That was remorse. Not for his actions, mind you, just from the talking. 

His former girlfriend stopped, turned her body on a pivot, and gave Riley a stare that would make Medusa blink first. Then she frowned, slightly confused. 

“Oh my god. You’re still here?” She looked at him the way he’d looked at her so many times in the past: like he was a stubbornly malformed puzzle piece that just wouldn’t do what it was supposed to, didn’t fit where it oughta.

Riley’s internal world felt a little more cramped, and so did his shirt.

“Uh, why wouldn’t I be?” He did a little twist of his face, a scrunching of the nose and a narrowing of his left eye, scoffing in an almost perfect mimicry of confusion. Almost. He looked like he was challenging her, making her small with a question. 

“Because you’re not welcome here, anymore, Riley.” Her voice was cold and she took a step forward towards him. Buffy couldn’t be made to be small, not for very long, anyways. 

It was like trying to fit the sun in a cardboard box. It would burn its way out eventually. 

“And if you think about pulling that stunt again, the whole feeding of information to outside parties behind my back-”

“I wasn’t “going behind your back”, Buffy, I was looking out for you! She’s a mur-dur-er, any one of your friends would do the same if they had access to the information I do.”

Riley looked around. So did the ‘friends’ in question. 

“No no no,” Buffy had on a small smile and closed her eyes, like she was explaining a simple misunderstanding to a particularly challenged child. “You went behind my back, you assumed you knew better than me about someone you never met.”

“I know enough.” His voice was venom off his tongue, “I read about her, you know. How much do you know about her? Hm?” He started to pace, one arm folded under his right, which was used to tap on his chin and occasionally jerk towards the unconscious woman on the couch.

Buffy watched him, eyes narrowing. Giles opened his mouth, “Maybe we shou-”

“Quiet”
“Quiet”
Both voices rang out at once, both giving him a look. Giles found the fruit bowl to fascinate himself with.

“I brought her file with me. Right there on the table. We had ourselves a little book club while you were out obstructing justice and bringing home the enemy.”

“She’s a person-” Buffy started, but Riley interrupted her with a low corrosion, words bleeding the air between them.
“No, she's not a person, she’s a criminal.”

His voice was frayed, hoarse, eyes wide as his voice hissed through the living room, the silence mocking him in the echoes of echoes.

“Get. Out.” Buffy’s voice was a whisper, but not because of timidity, but because she almost didn’t want him to hear her. Almost wanted him to give her an excuse to throw him out herself.

But he did. He looked a little lost, disoriented, like the shout had surprised him as much as it had the others.

“Uh… yeah.” Nodding and suddenly seeing the rationale behind such a suggestion, he started to leave. Buffy followed him to the door; after stepping past the boundary of the doorway, he turned, an apology on his lips.

“Listen Buffy I’m so-”

“If you try to apologize to me, I’ll-” She inhaled, darker words on the tip of her tongue, but she held them. “Just lose my number.” And with that, she slammed the door on another failed romance. 

Faith
Faith sat cross legged on the floor of the electronics shop she’d just broken into. The messenger had given her a tape to play, and there was nothing else for her to do here at the end of her rope. She pushed it in with dull brown stability. 

“Hello Faith. If you’re watching this tape, it can only mean one thing.” Faith looked up at the warm words as they washed past her, condensating on her cheeks, moisture running down them.

“I’m dead.”

Buffy Summers looked out at her from the past with a sad, vague nostalgia. “And that means that you won, in the end, you just weren’t awake to see it.”

When she laughed, sunlight splayed out on Faith’s face without any source at all. She closed her eyes and felt it.

“And let’s face it. Once I’m gone, there’s no place for you in the world. Your days are just plain numbered…. I wish I could have made the world a better place to wake up in.”

She sighed, getting up and sitting on the desk looking out at Faith. Closer to the camera Faith saw signs of aging. A coma of only 8 months and yet Buffy looked at least in her mid 30’s.

“Regrettably, we both have to accept that even my power to protect you, to look after you, is limited. But you knew that already, didn’t you?”

Moments passed through the staticky haze and light clicking sound of the electricity in the display.

““Now I know that you’re a smart and capable young woman, in charge of her own life, but the problem, Faith… is that there won’t be a place for you in the world anymore. Right now I bet you’re feeling very much alone.”

Her smile was warm, extra laugh lines on the raised part. Green eyes glimmered with a vivaciousness that a CTV monitor shouldn’t have been able to capture, a hint of mirth laced with poisoned love.

“But you’re never alone. You’ll always have me. And! You’ll always have this. Go ahead, open the box.”

She laughed, and Faith couldn’t help but reciprocate a small smile.

“Go ahead, open it.” She hesitated, but opened it right as Buffy said to her:

“Just because it’s over for my Faith… doesn’t mean she can’t go out with a bang.”

The box was empty, a blue and white cloth that looked like a picnic blanket where something should have been resting. She coughed and painted the fabric with a red, wet syllable. Her eyes were magnetically drawn to her left side and saw a jagged shard of metal that shone like a dead star sticking out of her. 

By itself, with no force touching it, it turned. 

Buffy

Buffy sat in the recliner, oddly thrilled at the prospect of not having to silently compete with Riley over it anymore. She sat in it cross legged, legs drawn up into it, green eyes bouncing occasionally to Faith’s sleeping body under the blanket Buffy had put on her. They were having a Scooby meeting, full fledged, all the stops, Giles pacing, Willow and Tara holding hands, and Xander… well, he was also there. 

“So wait, you didn’t even have to touch her? She just did all the knocking out for you?”

“If you wanna put it like that, then yeah. Kinda feels more like she was just passing out, though. Giles doesn’t think she’s eaten properly since she got out of the hospital.”

“Wasn’t that like, several days ago?”

“Yeah, and slayer metabolism is faster than a regular persons.”

“Oh, that’s good, then.”

Buffy gave Xander a look. “Faster means she needs more food.”

“Oh. Well it's good for us, it made capturing her a lot easier!”

“Not… entirely wrong, but it makes the matter of keeping her alive a touch more difficult.” Giles added.

Buffy nodded, “and I’m not letting her croak. Especially not in Giles’ house.”

“Much obliged.”

“So, the first step to being alive is… being awake, and right now she’s asleep, and-” Buffy started to play with her hands in her lap, trying to work out how to ask for help, “it would mean a lot if you guys could cast something. Something small to help her through the worst of whatever this is.”

Green eyes pointed at Tara and Willow, hoping to find some purchase.

“I know she was horrible to you, Wil, and I wouldn’t ask this of you if it wasn’t important, but-”

“I’ll do it.” Tara softly said, nodding. Like it was light. Like it wasn’t the most relieving thing Buffy had heard all day, like it wasn’t as if Tara let out the breath Buffy had been holding for seemingly an hour.

“Really?” said Buffy,

“Really?” said Willow. 

Willow didn’t look opposed to the idea, but certainly didn’t look like she was going to join the picket line in support of Faith bouncing back from whatever illness had slowed her rampage.

“She needs help, so I’ll help her.”

There was a raw silence, and they all looked at Faith for a moment. She was moaning in seeming pain, hand going to the part of her that Buffy had dreamed about for months now, like she was trying to get away from that part of her own skin. 

“But there are conditions.”

“Why?” Buffy looked at Tara with exasperated concern. “There’s always conditions, can we just… maybe pass on those?”

The Witch chuckled, “Well they’re not my conditions. I just mean conditions have to be in place for any kind of healing to happen. Especially with a case like this.”

Giles didn’t have the decency to look surprised. He sipped his tea, nodding along with what Tara said. He knew about this. 

“For one, the connection that you two have.”

Buffy looked like she’d been caught shoplifting. 

“Me? Her? No connection whatsoever. Disconnected, in fact. Violently.”

“Well, that’s kind of the issue, I think- it’s not too clear to me, but something happened between you two. Your auras are like… spaghettified together, if that makes sense?”

“I wish it didn’t.” Xander added, or rather, subtracted. 

“Are you talking about the Slayer Connection?”

“No, no, well, yes, but not really. I’m sorry, its hard for me to explain…”

Giles put his tea cup down on a chaucer.

“You got the gist of it right, Tara, but it is the connection between Slayers that you’re seeing- just strengthened and amplified to a dangerous degree. Buffy, when you confronted Faith, the connection between you two wasn’t weakened. It was multiplied.”

Xander made a noise of distress. 

“”Spaghettified" is a rather creative way to put it, but effective. Not only were you two permanently linked by the thaumocausal alteration of such an event, but the connection was strengthened due to the melting together of your two souls during the battle. For better or for worse, the connection that was once figurative has become much more literal.”

Buffy seemingly did an impression of a fish that was stuck on land for a moment, before she finally closed her mouth and reopened it a few time to make words. “So you’re saying we’re like… okay-” She felt her face getting a little red, so she went ahead and brushed past that to the topic at hand. 

“And how is that related to the “conditions” of her healing?”

This time it was Tara who spoke up, “because you severed the connection. Or at least, tried to. I don’t know exactly why, how, or if your reasons were good or bad, but it’s muffled. Dim, I guess. Something tells me that at this point, her body won’t accept anybody’s energy but her own-or yours. If you can even divide the two, at this point.”

Willow looked rather awestruck at Tara’s intelligence, and frankly, Buffy empathized. Willow opened her mouth to add-

“And usually these types of healing spells require us to get all goopy with our energy and spaghettify our auras with the patient, then guide that energy in a way that heals the hurt.”

Tara nodded approvingly, and Willow tried (and failed) not to preen. Giles took a look at them, realized they’d be doing that for a second, and offered one last footnote: 

“Which of course means that, while they can guide the energy, the only one who can provide it is you. You have to let her back in, which I don’t particularly envy.” Giles let the words weigh down on Buffy. It was a serious choice, and he didn’t know what he’d do in her shoes. 

“Okay.” She said it quietly, “I’ll do it.”

“There’s more to it-” Tara began, “Proximity is important. The closer you two are, the more efficient the flow of energy is. Kind of like how a hose is weaker the longer it is because of like, water pressure.”

Buffy closed her eyes and couldn’t stop the sigh. “Shit.” 

Faith was muttering something about a CTV, occasionally saying Buffy’s name, along with “please”s and “no”s. That didn’t make it easier for her to open her eyes, but the spell had to be done. Buffy wasn’t going to let someone die on her watch, and Giles wasn’t going to let someone die on his only couch. 

They had to make Xander leave, something about the fact that he was the only one who had no magical training, but Buffy suspected that Giles sent him away because he would say something that would break their concentration during the cast itself. Buffy moved the things in the center of the living room away while Tara and Willow set up the ritual circle, and Giles shuttered all the windows and kept an ear on the radio he had in the kitchen, tuned low and staticky, supposedly tuned into the comms channels of the Watcher’s Council. 

Buffy picked up Faith and gently set her in the center, doing her best to hate her when she nestled into any contact at all. 

“Why does she keep doing that?” 

“You know why”, Tara had said, and she was right. The ritual was more complex than it would normally be. Willow said it was because they had to use Buffy as an external power source for the spell. She stayed in the center with Faith’s head in her lap. The proximity was important for the spell to work properly (why do you think witches are always touching people when they heal them?), and also Buffy didn’t want to hear Faith whine like that again.

It moved something in her that she didn’t quite understand. Something like satisfaction, but in two gradients of shadow. 

“Okay, Buff, you can restore the connection now.”

Buffy nodded, and did so. Or tried to, anyways, but there was still radio silence. Did Faith not want her in?

I mean, would make sense.

Tara and Willow exchanged a look.

“What does that mean, why are you two doing that? What’s wrong?”

They looked apologetically at her. Willow spoke up. 

“The connection was damaged uh, at the middle somewhere. So you have to connect the two energies directly.”

“Great, get me an extension cable and I’ll get right on that.”

Tara smiled and said, again, infuriatingly sweetly and apologetically: “It’s not like that. When you severed the connection, what happened exactly?”

So Buffy told them. Told them about the jean jacket (not that she wore it to sleep that night, mind you), and told them about how when she touched the knife it lit her brain up like the fourth of July.

“And you said the connection dampened again when you let go of the knife?”

“Yeeup”

They looked at each other again, communicating entire libraries wor-

“Okay you two have to quit doing that”

“Doing what?”

“The thing where you look at each other and have, like, whole talks with loaded looks. Is that a witch thing? Can I get in on the loaded looks communication? Because if not, I’d kinda like to be in the loop verbally.”

They started to turn their heads, Buffy made a noise that you’d make when a dog picked up something it wasn’t supposed to eat, and they looked back at her. “That’s one of the connection points. The other is probably the wound. You’re gonna have to… touch it. Now that might seem uncomfortable-”

“Seem?” She looked like they’d just offered to run her over with a car for only a few dollars. “I don’t even want to see it, that’s so weird.”

They just shrugged and gave her a loaded look, and she wished they would go back to giving each other those. But she knew they were right. She knew they were right before they did. 

Her right hand had been slowly gravitating towards the wound that it had put in her, often without her realizing it, inching slowly across Faith’s stomach towards the place where she’d held Faith’s life and death in only one hand. It was like her right hand was eager to have that power over her again. 

She drew the slightly bloody tank-top up, slowly, slowly, unable to take her eyes away from it. There was a belly button piercing that Buffy figured she must have put in herself after she got out, since they took those things out when she was in a coma.

But you didn’t have time to get food? I’m gonna beat the fuck out of you for that when you wake up, Faith

There it was. The room had the lights turned off before they began, so it was only candle light, but Buffy’s mouth dried despite it. Her heart split seeing how big the scar was, raised, angry looking, twisting out (because you twisted the fucking knife) into patterns. She did that to another living being. How did Faith look in the mirror every day?

Her eyes drifted to the knuckles, to the small shards of glass that glittered in the candle light in the bloodied ends of her fist. Guess you can’t. I’m so sorry. 

And then she felt it. She didn’t remember moving her hand there, mind you, it was like it had a mind of its own, slowly inching across exposed skin to it. Once it was there, Buffy suddenly felt like there was no force magical or mundane that could get it off. 

It felt like when you drive over a hill too fast and are for a brief moment floating, the way your bones don’t know what to do with the sensation of anti-gravity, but so much more. She gasped as pure energy started to flood between her palm and the scar, could briefly feel it travel through Faith, picking up stray sensations as her soul extended into Faith’s body before being diluted. 

“Guys? Can we get to casting? Sooner this is over the better!”

Faith seemed to be having an equally visceral reaction, she moaned in a way that made Buffy want to- well anyways, she seemed to be arcing into Buffy’s touch anytime the Good Slayer tried to pull her grasp away. 

Tara and Willow were already apparently casting it, as fast as they could, but Buffy just didn’t notice them. Faith’s moans arced like her body did through different tones, resonating, sultry sighs into whimpers of pain and something else into exertion, face alternating between myriad emotions. 

This was, frankly, far too much of a capital ‘s’ Situation for Buffy’s liking. 

And then it stopped. The candle light brightened, the chanting stopped, with all 4 girls involved sweating profusely, which rather irritated Buffy. What the hell did they have to be sweating about? It was a petulant thought, but at least it wasn’t one about the way Faith’s scar hummed with her energy now. 

“Buffy?”

“Yea?”

“You can take your hand off, now, if you want.”

Buffy made no movement to do so. Then she did. She felt a little guilty with how Faith’s head thumped against the carpet as she scrambled away, taking deep breaths, trying not to think about the small whines that Faith made in her sleep when Buffy withdrew again.

“Why isn’t she awake yet?”

“Well, it's a healing spell, not a waking spell.”

“Great, so I just have to keep being embarrassed by myself?”

“Such is the burden of the Slayer.” Wil added in with a round little smile. 

They’d explained that they were sort of stuck there. Giles was the one who broke the news, and with how miserable he looked at the proposition, Buffy could tell he wasn’t lying because he wanted the company. Willow and Tara had to be there for at least a few days to make sure the spell stabilized, and Buffy had to stay there to offer a continual power source to the passive effects of the spell; and all 3 of them had to stay within a half mile of the location of casting or else it would be broken and the healing might potentially be reversed if that happens too soon. 

And Giles had to stay there because “I bloody well pay the rent, rites and rituals be damned” 

Of all of them, Buffy had to stay closest to Faith. Buffy had asked a question about bedding, and Tara and Willow gave each other a look, then turned to Buffy with four raised eyebrows and opened their mouth.

“Nope, you’re good, I got it. I’ll be fluent in Glanceology by the end of this.”

She tried to keep her composure, and so did Giles, but less successfully. Faith and Buffy got the spare bedroom, Willow and Tara got the couch (it was rollout, apparently, and Giles got rather flustered when they pressed him on it, but didn’t elaborate further). 

That night, Buffy thought about what would happen when Faith woke up. They were back to back in the twin bed, and even then she could feel her energy slowly siphoning out of her and into Faith, disappearing into and spreading inside of her. It was extremely fucking weird. Buffy asked for Giles’ bed instead to avoid physical contact with Faith, he’d offered her a knife and told her to sleep with it under her pillow, because there was “no chance” of him also giving up his bed. 

It was like living with Ebeneezer Scrooge but British and not actually terrible but Buffy was rather upset with him because of that so she’d make the little analogy in her head. Furthermore, she’d even imagine him in Scrooge’s striped pajamas. It didn’t have much cathartic power, however, because that was just what Giles actually wore to sleep.

I’ll just stay up in case she wakes up all super-bitch. That way she can’t get the drop on me. Yep. You won’t catch Buffy Summers off guard, no ma’am. 

She was asleep within about 18 seconds. 

Chapter Text

Faith

Warmth was the first thing that Faith felt when she woke up. Usually it was the other way around: cold in the waking, warm in the sleeping. Granted, she couldn’t exactly call what this was either of those two things. 

‘The transitional space between salvation and damnation?’ One part of her mind offered. The other part responded, ‘What are you, Emily Dickenson? Shut the fuck up.’ 

It was in Faith’s nature to run, it’s true, but there is another lesser known facet of her Modus Operandi most didn’t know about: an unmatched ability to put her head in the sand and pretend that whatever was currently happening to her wasn’t. 

It had been a skill learned early on, when her legs were too short to run, her room too small to hide. Not that she thought that right now, because her head was well and good in the sand. Or hair, in this case. 

Her back tingled with cold, despite the blankets wrapped tightly around her. Thick ones, not like the shitty ones she’d had at the motel. But her front was in blissful warmth. It had been the first time she’d felt a warmth like that in a long time. Since- 

Visions of rain that warmed her skin like hot blood spraying, the feeling of being unlocked, the sweet agony that chased all the cold away.

She whimpered softly, nestling further into the warmth, putting her head into the sand that smelled like coconut and vanilla and-

Yeah, definitely a dream. Better grip it by the nads and hold on tight, Faithie, because you know you’ll wake up in a world of hurt.

Cold the color of steel was what she remembered. That and the emptiness she felt when Buffy found her. She wasn’t supposed to find her out there in the waking world. 

B, I promise that the world won’t end if you stop fucking things up for at least a week.

Who knows where she was now. Maybe B just left her there in her hotel, like before. Faith used to think she was wrong for doing that, but now she saw the wisdom in doing it. Lost cause, experiment that failed before it even began. 

She just saw it before everyone else, Xander wanted a cut of the scam I sold, Willow wanted someone to be larger than life so she could be small, Ms. Summers wanted someone else to be a hero while B got to be a normal girl. 

But not Buffy. From the jump, green eyes that lit her ass up, saw right through the bullshit and hated her for it. 

That’s my girl.

For now though, she was here. She smiled into the hair of the girl who she’d never see again awake. Then the blonde shifted. 

Something’s off. Why isn’t the scar tingling? 

In fact, it felt much more like a hum than a tingle. That was new. New meant danger. New wasn’t a thing in dreams, no matter what some people with glasses and and doobies laced in chemicals clearly named by leprechauns might tell you. They were always things that existed in the psyche previously shifted around and jumbled up while the brain restructured and organized your memories. 

She’d learned that one night watching a late night Sci Fi channel special when she was alone in the house because Madre had fucked off for the night, so it was pretty much the word of God. Warm, fuzzy, grainy words of god.

Fuck. I’m awake. 

Jolting, she scrambled out of the bed and fell backwards, ass hitting the floor. What used to be an ass, anyways, now it was more like a protractor with skin on it. The sharp sigh from sucked in breath was louder than she meant, but it was better than the “FUCK” that was first in line out of Faith’s mouth into the waking world’s grand opening. 

As soon as she did that, she felt the cold. Her body was struggling to produce any body heat of its own, in addition to whatever metaphorical horseshit she couldn’t be assed to untangle right now was clearly happening. 

Her eyes went to the window. She started to stand. She took a single step, then her foot stopped and didn’t seem to want to cooperate. Faith could almost smell the hair sizzing where two Green eyes held her down solid. She didn’t even need to turn to look. 

“Where do you think you’re going?” The voice was tired, sleep hanging onto it like algae, but there was an edge under it that stopped her like a knife to her throat. 

Faith wondered if that’s what moms sounded like if they actually gave a shit where you went in the middle of the night. 

“Hell, probly, but I’m gonna make a stop at the Meat Palace first. Want something?” 

“First part’s true. Second one? Not happening.”

“B, why the fuck am I here?”

She finally turned and did her best to meet green eyes that burned right through her, cracking the dark discs where Faith’s eyes should be. Buffy was still sitting on the bed, and didn’t look to be making any effort to stand up, but had all the relaxed tension of a lion laying “at rest”. 

“Because you can’t leave.” Buffy didn’t smile, but a laugh line started to color itself in where the half-smile she wore would be. “Tara and Willow did a spell and now we’re stuck together. Deal with it.”

“Oh my god, you are fucking crazy.” Faith’s smile had that casual killing shine to it as she continued, “You don’t want to be anywhere near the blast radius when the Watcher’s Council shows up.” 

Dark eyes that tried to work themselves up, she took a step towards Buffy.

“Get it, B? I know you don’t give a shit about them, but you have that luxury. You never gave them the excuse to do what they’re gonna do to me. I have to worry about them, because they’re gonna put me down when they find me. I gave em’ every reason to.” 

Gave you every reason too, B, but you sure are shitty with a knife. Faith knew that was a lie as soon as she thought it, if Buffy really wanted her dead her eyes wouldn’t have widened in that way that pissed Faith off so bad when she ripped the knife out. 

Suddenly, she was against the wall. Again. 

Okay now she’s just making a meal of it.

“Don’t you ever say that again, Faith. You hear me? You don’t get to say that.”

Faith’s face was a playground where two sides of her brain were having a childish argument about what the fuck she said that pissed her off so much. Whatever it was, she wanted to know so she could say it again. 

Buffy cleared it up for her in short order, which Faith was grateful for. 

“Don’t ever say you’re something to put down, you’re not a fucking animal. You’re a person, and you fucked up. Animals don’t have to answer for what they’ve done, people do, so don’t try and get out of what you have coming.”

Faith didn’t know why, but her eyes started watering. Was happening an embarrassing amount lately, gotta be doing murder on her hydration. She got that shit under control though, and if Buffy saw it before she clamped down it, she didn’t show any sign. She just kept on ranting. 

“And you don’t get to run from this; you don’t get to run from me anymore, you don’t get to die yet, and you won’t leave me with all the shit you left behind.”

There was a moment of silence, and a distant, slightly delirious from lack of food Faith thought it wouldn’t be so bad to have Buffy hold her up against walls when standing was such a fucking ordeal now.

“So that’s it, then?” Faith rasped, “I’m just your prisoner? You had Red use Tarot cards to bind us together til’ death do us part? I thought I had issues, blondie, but this talk is doin’ wonders for my self esteem.”

“Tarot cards?” Her face scrunched up, and Faith didn’t know how to extricate the adorableness of the motion with the terror she was feeling at the moment. “No, Tara. She’s a witch friend of Willow’s.”

“Sorry, never got around to getting myself a Comatose News Paper subscription.”

Faith could have drank the guilt that flashed across Buffy’s face. It was beautiful on her. 

“You’ll have plenty of time to catch up.” The pressing weight disappeared from her front, replaced with cold and the future memory of a bruise that had yet to form. “Me and you are stuck together while you recover.”

Faith summoned everything in her to not collapse.

“I’m Five by Five-”

“Yeah, just like the last time you said that, when you keeled over like a real rebel. You haven’t been eating, Faith, and you just woke up from a coma. Your body is shutting down, and if Willow and Tara didn’t cast that spell you wouldn’t have woken up. Ever.”

Buffy’s voice was wet with rage like fresh ink, “so when you get your head out of your ass, you better thank them.” It would have been hard to take anyone else wearing Power Puff Girls pajamas seriously, but Buffy made it real easy. 

“It was a healing spell?” Her voice was raspy, like someone had just told her she’d forgotten to put a decimal on the tip amount written on a receipt. “W-why?”

Buffy didn’t grace Faith’s question with an answer. Faith saw Buffy looking at her lips, the mean satisfaction she got from starving Faith of answers, of satisfaction. Shame filled her.

Holy shit. B’s a real sadist. This is definitely worse than dying. 

“I washed your face, since you didn’t since you broke into my house and threatened my mother, but the rest is up to you. Go take a shower and then we’re having breakfast.”

Words bounced around Faith’s lungs for a while, half formed like the shallow breaths she took as Buffy walked out of the bedroom, not even giving her the chance to respond. The window wasn’t even locked, Faith noticed. Buffy knew she wouldn’t try to run. 

I’m so fucked. 

GIles

The Scoobies were not, Giles’ realized with the sudden cold clarity, a strictly serious people. Not that they were inept- with the exception of Xander, nor were they stupid- with the exception of Xander, but they certainly weren’t serious. 

But he was growing increasingly more serious about his personal space. 

Buffy, Willow, and Tara all wore pajamas. He seemed to be the only one who didn’t feel utterly at home, and it was his flat. Combined, their pajamas made a diorama with more colors in it than the flat had ever seen or ever would see again, and they were all congregating around him in the kitchen to have a conversation. 

“Whoa, so like, she didn’t try to-y’know- rip your head off? Or cut it off?” Willow questioned.

“Well she didn’t have a knife on her, but maybe with it we would have seen some results.”

She shrugged with a flattened mouth and wide eyes, like she was doing her best at proposing possible places to eat. 

“And are you…” Tara spoke with her eyebrows a bit, and Buffy seemingly responded without even needing to hear the words verbally.

“I’m five-” She politely broke into a coughing fit before correcting herself, “fine, sorry, was thinking of numbers.”

“Oh, don’t fret about me trying to make 9 people breakfast, Buffy, you can just plant your flag in that particular expanse of counter-” Giles started.

“9? There’s only like,” Buffy did a manual count, double checking his math, “Five. Max. And that’s only if Xander shows up on time.”

“Wrong. There are four normal people to account for, one normal slayer, which accounts for two people, and a starving slayer who is worth at least 3.”

“And Faith always did have a big stomach.”

“Wil,” Buffy whined at the betrayal. “Fine. I like that counter over there better anyways.” The blonde tactically retreated.

“So I trust she’ll be coming down soon? If she hasn’t absconded yet, that is.”

“She hasn’t. I can tell.” Buffy said, quietly, the temperature in the room dropping by a few degrees. “Ever since the… spaghettification, I can feel where she’s at. And, unfortunately, sometimes I can feel what she feels.”

Buffy smuggled that last part of the sentence out, hoping no one would catch it. 

“Wait, what do you mean? Like, you can tell what she’s physically feeling? Weird-”

“Fascinating.” Giles added, “from a magical point of view, anyhow.”

“Yeah it’s fascinatingly awful. I keep on thinking something is dripping on me but its just the hot water from the shower she’s taking up stairs. And my knuckles sting sometimes, in fact, most of my body stings.” She grumbled petulantly.

“Are you hungry?” Tara asked softly.

“I…” Buffy’s eyes drifted to the fruit bowl, but there was nothing there to be fascinated by anymore. Last night she’d snuck down and scarfed the whole thing down. 

“Yeah.” She squeaked. 

Willow was now standing directly in front of the fridge, battering Buffy with questions about the experience. Giles gathered all of his composure and politely asked for them to discuss this elsewhere, and then they heard it. 

“Hey.” The voice was raspy, a shadow of the voice that had threatened pretty much all of them with death under a year ago. Its speaker was a shadow wearing Buffy’s spare pajamas, a flat pink fuzz that was attacking all of the angst and darkness of the woman it was currently smothering, and winning. 

Faith.

Chapter Text

Faith

The breakfast passed with little fanfare. Faith didn’t stay long, saying a brief greeting, a thank you to the two witches, then she got a plate of food (not enough, not by a long shot) and took it upstairs to her and Buffy’s room. Everyone else was silent, and she didn’t blame them. What were they supposed to say to the Good Slayer’s little pet project? 

It wasn’t an unfamiliar experience for Faith, walking into a room and the mood’s switching, conversations stopping. Something of a comfort zone for her.

This is so fucked, thought Faith to herself, not so much wrestling with the idea as tapping out before the first round is over. So, so fucked in the head. She closed the door behind her as quietly as she could, hyper conscious of every movement she made the way only an unwelcome guest could be. Hell, she was quieter now than the handful of times she’d broken into someone’s house. 

Faith slid against the far wall, sunlight streaming over her head towards the door, leaving her in its shadow, cross legged with a plate on her lap. 

Her eyes glanced at the door as she started eating, making sure no one was coming in the same way she would when breaking and entering, especially before she became a slayer. After she was chosen, of course, the power got to her. So what if someone saw her break into a store? She was faster, stronger, better than the people who had always looked down on her. 

Want. Take. Have. It was something she’d observed in the more “successful” specimens of good ol’ Roxbury, the shittiest neighborhood of shit-ass Boston. Felt like a million miles away, now, even though it had only been a little over a year and a half ago that she’d been peddling shit on the same street her dad had. 

The most successful specimen of her neighborhood was ‘Charlie Says’, a slimy little shit of murky Irish origin. Who knew if that was his real name. A name is only what people call you, so if Charlie Says his name is Charlie Says, ain’t it so? 

She wondered how he was doing. Hopefully dead, but she doubted he had the decency to keel over. What are you talking about? You haven’t thought about CS in months. You’re stallin. 

And it was so. Her mind drifted back further and further into places best left buried under the always dirty snow of Boston to avoid her current predicament. She knew it, but god, anything was better than thinking about the punishment B was putting her through. 

Green eyes piercing her like bullets, getting closer, half gravity, half grace.

Sadistic bitch.

Cold comfort served on a bitter smile shaped like a platter. 

Ms. Summers’ eyes are brown, did B get the green from her dad? The question wasn’t pursued very far, being chased off by the memory of the older woman looking at her with disappointment, with fear hidden behind a stiffed jaw. 

Faith wouldn’t have hurt her, of course not, why couldn’t she see that? Memories of motion, of sharp edge gleaming towards Joyce's throat, an avenging that burst through the window right when she was supposed to. Always, always there on time. 

Guilt twisted in her gut. Was this all some plan to make her crack? To make her beg for forgiveness? Grovel at B’s feet and plead for absolution? Visions of the blonde offering such a thing flitted through her head and fluttered through her heart. Maybe that would be too easy. 

But what option did she have? The food wasn’t even half gone and she couldn’t take another bite. Visions of what she’d done to Joyce, to someone who had invited Faith into her home willingly on a holiday reserved for family, someone who had smiled at her and told her she wished Buffy would think more like her, someone who had trusted her. 

Anger tried to eat the guilt, circling in her stomach, mouth around its own tail.

Why the fuck did Ms. Summers do that? Why why why why- 

The door opened quietly, and there she was, the Golden Syllable looking down.

“B.”

Buffy closed the door behind her, the sunlight reflecting off of her hair and turning the green of her eyes to topaz glimmering truths. 

“You haven’t finished your food.”

“It's good, I was getting to it, just-” Faith’s excuses trembled, and her fist clenched with self hate. Faith Lehane didn’t choke on words, she didn’t stutter, she didn’t worry. That kinda shit would get someone like her killed. 

“I’m sorry.” The words leapt through Faith’s lips the second she’d let her guard down, remorse scraping her throat on the way out. Buffy took a step forward, taking her sweet ass time like the asshole she was. Her eyes brokered no mercy, offered no catharsis. 

“For?” She said with a tone that indicated that there were wrong answers. 

Faith clamped her mouth shut with imaginary wires. Buffy looked down at her lips, then back at her eyes, seeing Faith’s cowardice as clear as day. 

“Unbelievable. Finish your food, finish your healing. Clearly there’s nothing for us to talk about.”

Buffy rolled her eyes, exhaustion and disdain lacing her words as she turned around to go back out the door. Her hand hit the knob. It started to turn. Time slowed down for Faith, and she knew that this was it. 

The blonde would finally turn her back on her, would finally stop stopping her. Green eyes wouldn’t cut through her anymore, and that thought made her own eyes water. 

“Wait!” Her silence was cut, “Wait, please-”

Faith was closer now, on her knees near the center of the room, one hand supporting her from the crawl. Buffy’s hand stopped, then slowly turned the knob back to its resting position. The lock clicked.

The brunette was forced from her half crawl onto her knees with a single glance. Buffy waited.

God I hate this bitch. 

“I’m sorry, B, I’m so sorry for it all-” Her voice was wet, but the half formed silence around her words was dissolved. Sunlight framed her face from behind, but Buffy’s eyes were brighter still, almost blinding.

“And you ask me what I’m sorry for, but I don’t know where to start.” The words strangled her on the way out, “It’s easier to not start at all, it’s easier to end, and what I did to Ms. Summers was my best bet at getting you to end it for me, because I’m scared.”

Her hands were on her knees, gripping them until her still-healing knuckles turned white with the red of the scraped skin. She couldn’t meet the green eyes anymore, looking down at the ground where a shadow in her shape looked back at her.

“I’m scared of myself, I’m scared of begging for forgiveness that I won’t get, that I don’t deserve. And B, I want to make it right so bad. I want to make it right so bad that I’d rather die than try and fail. And you were supposed to save me from that, you were supposed to end it, but you didn’t.” 

Buffy stood there with her arms crossed, Faith could see it in the way that Buffy’s feet hadn’t changed their position, but Faith couldn’t meet her eyes. 

“Please believe me, B, I would never hurt Ms. Summers. I’d die for her, you know that-”

“I do know that, but would you apologize to her? I bet that’s harder for you, isn’t it?”

Faith hugged herself, tears running down her face, this was so much worse than she thought it would be. Fucking stupid to apologize, should have used that pocket knife to end it in the motel instead of that half assed plan to get Buffy to beat the shit out of her. 

“B, please, I just want to make things right-” Her words cut off suddenly with a hard kick to the stomach, and Faith felt a thrill at it, even when she rolled onto her side, coughing in pain. The air in her lungs had gone fishin’, and she could only whimper vaguely.

“Speak up then, if you want to make things right.”

God, thought she’d never start, Faith thought with a purr of satisfaction.

Faith gasped on the ground for a second, rolling over with a whine, holding her stomach.

“Speak up!”

“I-” Faith choked out, trying to get a scrap of air to stay inside of her long enough to get the words out, “think ya… missed… a spot-”

Buffy nodded at that and aimed another vicious kick in Faith’s ribs.

Her face was flushed with catharsis, pupils dilated with the hate, the satisfaction, with the pain from the connection echoing into her, the pleasure that she knew Faith was feeling that a hundred times worse. 

“Make things right?! You fuck up everything you touch, Faith, and all you’ve wanted to do since you rolled into town was put your hands on everything dear to me. My life was ruined by you. HOW could you make anything right?”

Buffy stepped over her, putting a foot on her chest to stop her from rolling around. It wasn’t right to attack Faith when she was weakened, already injured, but she just couldn’t help it. Every word out of her mouth, even tears, even apologies, even pleas, pissed her off.

Her foot ground against Faith’s chest, eyes on fire.

“It wasn’t enough for you, you tried to steal my life, but when you couldn’t do that, you tried to rip it apart. I really thought that you might’ve changed-”

Her face twisted in something like disbelief, eyes wide, ignoring the thrum that went through her when Faith writhed and whimpered.

“Just admit it B.” Faith choked out, “You liked that I made it hard for you. Everyone worshipped the ground you walked on until I came along. Part of you missed it, sure, but I’ve seen the way you feel. Their fawning was suffocating, wasn’t it? You liked that you had to force me to submit, didn’t you?”

Buffy fell onto Faith, straddling her now with her hands around her throat.

“You don’t get to make me admit to anything, you don’t get to question me. You’re the one begging me for forgiveness, so get to it, but it won’t be peachy. Apologize to me and I’ll hurt you, but if you don’t, I’ll leave you forever.”

Faith felt the hands on her throat, eyes flush with tears, feeling greed and fear roaring through her.

“I’m sorry for-” Buffy’s hand yanked her hair, bringing their faces closer together, Faith whimpering with the pain. “-for taking Ms. Summers hostage, but I wouldn’t have hurt her. You know I’m telling the truth, I wouldn’t have. Please believe me, B.”

The hand twisted painfully in Faith’s hair, but she knew that Buffy believed her. Her heart sang.

“A-and I’m sorry for trying to take your life, I-I just…” After a moment of silence, a slap.

“Keep. Going.” Buffy ground out.

“I wanted to be closer to you. You were everything I wasn’t, and I craved it, and…” Faith’s whole body was humming, especially the scar on her side that Buffy’s leg was ground up against from straddling her. “-and I wanted you to stop me, even then, because I knew I was going some place real bad if no one did.”

Their breaths were raw in the air.

“But you didn’t-”

“Don’t you fucking dare blame me for you being the Mayor’s pawn.” Buffy’s hand tightened around Faith’s throat until it bruised. Faith did her best to continue even past it.

“I’m not, I wouldn’t, I just… after Allan Finch, I was wandering in the dark. B, I left because I didn’t want you to leave me first.”

Faith’s voice was small, Boston accent thicker with the pain, with the catharsis, with her being unravelled under Buffy’s killing light. It made it so much easier, she realized, to apologize. The pain made her real, cracked the mask, freed her of the cage. This is what she was craving, and she knew it was what Buffy was craving too.

“I tried to help you.”

“I know.” Faith cried out, voice nothing like the false bravado she’d worn for so many years. “I know you did. I’m sorry, more than you know.”

“Not sorry enough.” Buffy’s voice was thick now with resentment and something else creeping gradually to the surface.

“Will you make me sorry?” Faith begged through the grip around her throat.

“Damn straight.”

Chapter Text

Buffy

And it went on for a while, the apologies, and the pain. Each apology hurt more than even her breaking hands, but she tried to make it even. Apologies and eyes that Buffy lost herself in, her hand around Faith’s throat like it was a hanging vine. Anything to keep her out of those quicksand eyes. 

The blonde felt more exhausted than Faith looked, like each blow to the brunette was healing rather than hurting. It wasn’t fair. Each second that Buffy held the threat of harm over her nemesis, the life slowly drained out of her through the mystical binding that they shared.

But it was nothing, she was unwavering, reservoirs of emotion feeding Faith faster than she could drink it; that was all okay, she would drown her in it. 

Buffy gasped, deep breaths, eyes looking down at the woman she was on top of, trying to ignore the way Faith’s eyes did that thing they did when they made eye contact. 

“What are you looking at?”

“Not sure, B, you want me to apologize for that too?”

“Do you want to, F?”

Faith, to her great discredit, seemed to consider it. In a thesaurus, under ‘Greed’, there’s a few vanity shots of Faith. 

“Truce?” Her voice was raw from where she’d been choked, it sounded like red honey. “I-I know I can’t make it right, but maybe you can. Help me?”

God it’s unfair when she does that. Green eyes bounced back and forth between dark lips and darker eyes, being held there, sinking in. Her frown turned from one of determined, glassy rage, to an opaque consideration. She remembered learning that Faith was at her house, she remembered the feeling of betrayal when Faith had tried to frame her for a murder she’d committed.

But she’d apologized, hadn’t she? She bore her neck, done the time, hadn’t fought back, and Buffy realized the con, the angle. Faith always had one, and she should have been looking out for it. 

If I don’t accept the apologies now, after a penance like that, then what does that make me? What does that mean I just did?

Means I’m no better than her. That I hurt just for the sake of it, for the thrill, that I’m the Slayer and nothing more. Anger and betrayal flushed through her like gas through an engine.

“I’ll think about it.” I can't believe she has the audacity to look hurt. Oh wait, yes I can.

Buffy looked at the bruise on her neck, her eyebrows going up like someone she hated had made a good point and she had to concede.

Okay, maybe she is pretty hurt. But she deserved it. I doubt she’d argue against that, and if she did, she deserves it extra. 

Faith tried to stand up, yelping in pain and holding her ribs from where Buffy had hurt them in the fight in the Summers residence. But the blonde wasn’t having any of that.

“Wait, wait-” She reached down and helped her up, one hand on the small of her back as she helped her to the bed. Faith opened her mouth to say something. 

"Quiet." Faith's mouth closed obediently before a noise even came out.

Faith leaned into the touch and into the soft bed. Her skin trembled underneath the blonde’s fingers like piano keys, muscle underneath (lean though it may be due to a lack of food) like the wires playing a melody of grunts and sighs, and occasionally a word too colorful for Sunnydale. 

I want her to be okay. The thought was as clear as mountain air as she helped Faith into bed. Exhaustion was flagging her as well, something about the encounter had eaten her fury just as she had eaten Faith’s sin, and she felt like she could take a nap despite waking up a little over an hour ago.

“B?” Faith said from underneath the blankets, finally having managed herself into a somewhat comfortable position. Don’t think about the way her voice cracks and her eyes glimmer. “How did I get here? What happened in the hotel? Can’t remember too well, and I don’t remember you offering me an uncovered drink.”

What? Oh. Oh. She doesn’t realize that she passed out from exhaustion at the hotel, does she think I knocked her out and the memory just poofed? 

“Faith, do you remember when I said you “keeled over”?”

“You sayin’ I wasn’t paying attention?” A splash of petulance, a pinch of hurt pride, and a good helping of bait to try and get a rise out of her captor/caretaker/mortal enemy/only-person-who-actually-understands-her/Buffy. 

“Well I’m definitely not implying it.” Buffy was standing with her arms crossed, left side of her face lit by the sunlight of the slowly rising sun, looking down at Faith. The brunette was on her side in the bed, at a diagonal angle so she could look up at Buffy as they spoke. 

Buffy continued after a sigh and a long blink of her eyes, “you passed out, Faith. You looked at me, said “I’m Five by Five”, and literally keeled over slower than the Leaning Tower of Pisa.”
Faith averted her eyes for a moment, and didn’t speak. 

She wasn’t aware of exactly what was happening in her heart every time it throbbed like someone was squeezing it, all that she knew was that it was probably best to not look into it too closely. 

It’s just complicated, is all. Yep. Calculus-quantum-mechanistics complicated. Mhm. Buffy affirmed to herself before treating it like she did most math homework. Put it into a nice little drawer dedicated to this sort of thing (only this time in her mind rather than her room), slid it shut, and ignored the dusty English voice in her head that offered a grim portent that procrastination always had consequences, and left it closed until shame and desperation opened it once more. 

Works every time. 

She continued, “Faith, tell me what happened when you escaped.”

“Oh, I’m sorry B, did you mean wake up?” The other woman tried to sit up on an elbow, but fell down with a yelp. Buffy twitched to help her, to comfort her, but she knew she shouldn’t. Even murderers ache, doesn’t mean I need to save them. Where, she wondered with a pang of annoyance, was the black-and-white certainty of Faith’s wickedness that she’d had just a few minutes ago?

Averting her eyes for just a second, she continued, “Y-yeah. After you woke up. Sorry.”

Faith stopped for a second, like the apology hurt worse than the breaking hands that healed. It broke Buffy’s heart. 

“I looked for someplace warm.” Her voice scraped out of her throat like it was trying to claw back into her chest, “kinda mugged some broad for her fuck-you-red cardigan to get out of the hospital- hey, don’t look at me like that, sunshine. I didn’t hurt her…. It was just… the implication. Was enough.”

“The “implication”?” Buffy’s look of incredulity could make milk curdle. 

“Yea, y’know, the implication of what could happen if she didn’t give me the cardigan and the teddy- the cardigan.”

“I don’t follow.” This was, strictly speaking, a lie. “What exactly was the implication?”

“That I would hurt her for the cardigan. Not that I would have, obviously.”

“So you’re saying you wouldn’t have taken the cardigan from her by force?”

“Never would have had to, because of the implication, y’know what let’s just move on. This is my story, save the questions for the end, B. Please and thank you.”

Buffy tilted her head with an exasperated sigh, waiting for Faith to continue before the Boston “broad” pissed her off too much. Who even says that?

“Then I got some clothes.”

“Want. Take. Have?”

“You’re a quick learner B. Pretty soon you’ll get to full sentences.” Oh fuck you, thought Buffy, eyes goading Faith to continue. “So anyways, found some clothes that would’ve fit me if I was a bit more filled out, but were good enough for the time being. Didn’t have time to take measurements and all that shit, y’know how it is. Then I got a hotel.”

Faith averted her eyes for a second. Just for a second. Something’s off. 

“How’d you get the money for the hotel?” The clear voice could have cut a diamond. 

“I didn’t hurt anyone, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“Sorry, it’s just that your silence on it had a certain implication to it.”

“Fuck off.” Buffy glared at her. If Faith had stolen from someone, hurt an innocent person, they had to make it right. 

“Talk.”

“Fine, let me break it down for you. I went to the Bronze, found some John who didn’t mind that I looked like I’d just gotten out of an 8 month coma, and did what I had to do.” There was a kind of distant, annoyed numbness to the idea, like Faith was being grilled by cops on where she was last Tuesday.

“Was colder than a witch’s tit outside, had to get warm, y’know?” She added as an after thought justification, like it would make it all make sense to the blonde whose eyes she was avoiding. “Might’ve been a carpenter or something. Smelled like particle board.”

Her nose scrunched up, a small frown, like she was really trying her best to remember his face.

Buffy’s mouth was half open, like a better understanding would just float into it. She what? Did what she had to do? What’s the “implication” of that? She’d never spent a night out in the cold, except for one particularly rough girl-scout’s camping trip, but that was with people that cared about her. They had smores, and people had heard her crying about how her fingers were chilly, and that was warmth enough. 

“Don’t look at me like that. I didn’t hurt anyone, so spare me the holier-than-thou shit.”

The blonde blinked, realizing now that she was looking not so much at Faith as straight through her. Why hadn’t she critically thought about exactly what she’d had to have been doing to get by, until now? Was she doing this kind of thing to pay for her room at the motel when I was still worrying about math tests and Snyder’s campaigns of terror?

“N-no, it wasn’t like that, I didn’t know.” Buffy sounded out, voice smaller than it had any right to be. 

“You didn’t want to know.” The darker woman graveled out, words textured resentment. “And I didn’t want you to know.” Buffy watched the bad blood slow to stone. “Anyways, gonna let me finish?”

“Yeah. Sorry.”

“It’s… well, from there I thought about what to do, cased you, watched you walking with Red on campus. Saw your new life that you’d built in the world’s shortest 8 months, til the messenger came.”

Buffy’s thoughts were pulled from the dark quagmire they’d been sinking into and back into the moment. Faith had been watching her? Was this after she cut off the connection? Was that why she didn’t notice her? Or had Faith been actively suppressing her presence? 

Or did I just not care enough to look? 

“Messenger?”

“Yea. One of the boss’ old guys, some demon, brought me a box with a tape on it.” Faith seemed far away for a second. “His blood was red. Doesn’t matter.”

Memories splayed out on Faith’s face like the shadows from the sun-lit leaves just outside of the window in their room. Buffy told her to continue. 

“The box had a tape and that weird little gizmo I had in your house. Big M told me how it was, the things I already knew, and some things I didn’t. He had a good way of doing that kind of thing.”

Silence fell between them comfortably, both in their own considerations. 

“Told me…” Buffy watched as Faith took some of her words and lock them in a drawer not unlike the one she had in her own mind. “... there was a way to keep going. To go out with a bang. The device was some weird, obscure thing he’d expended a ton of resources on getting for me. He knew he’d be dead if I got the tape, but he still tried to look out for me.”

Her eyes welled up, the sunlight catching on the beads like morning dew. Buffy wished she was brave enough to dry the tears. 

“It would let me swap bodies with you. Steal your life and give you my own.”

Buffy wanted to feel shock, indignation, some righteous fire that would make this whole thing easier. There was a reason angels were fictional, as far as Giles knew, and that was because things were never as simple as angels made them seem.

“We did some research on it, me and Giles. It couldn’t have been easy to get something like that, so why didn’t you use it Faith?” She heard the frustration in her own voice, she heard the wishing that Faith would have made it easier to hate her. If Faith had crossed the line into the truly unforgivable, if she hadn’t begged Buffy to stop her before dropping the device, it would have made things so much easier. 

But she didn’t. 

“Because I didn’t want to take your life, I’m too greedy for that small-time shit.” She gave Buffy a smirk that made her heart flutter.

“So you just said “fuck it?””

“Something like that, yeah. Besides, I would have fucked up your life just as bad as mine in the end, anyways, and something tells me Boss didn’t plan that far ahead.” 

Faith was the only one who cracked a smile.

Her brown eyes seemed to waver, suddenly unsure if she should be sharing all of this, and eventually that fear won out. She flicked her eyes away, clearing her throat, resetting before Buffy’s very eyes. Her voice was dry, then. 

“Anyways, you didn’t go for it, so I fucked off back to the hotel. When I broke into the electronics shop the night before to watch that video, I picked up a radio that could tune into the watcher channels, so I figured out pretty quick that they were on my trail.”

“And you waited for them?”

“Yea, until you came and fucked everything up.”

“Sure, blame it on me, the one who carried you bridal style to Giles’ shitty car.”

“You- come again?” Oh that’s good. Wish I could take a photo of her face and put it up on my vanity. “You got a weird sense of humor, B.”

“It’s a good thing I’m not joking.” Buffy tilted her head and gave Faith a matter-of-fact stare. 

“You couldn’t have even given me the grace of dragging me down the stairs? Not even a fireman carry?”

“Not hearing a thank you in there.”

“When I get my veggies and grow up big and strong, I’ll give you a few thank you’s after I beat your ass.”

“Almost scary, could use a little work on the delivery, but you’re getting there. Might wanna drop the blush though.” 

Faith put a hand on her cheek, like she would be able to feel the red. Buffy offered an unimpressed eyebrow. Faith scoffed and fell back to her previous position, like the effort of sitting up at all took a toll on her. 

“Cut the shit, B, why are we here?”

“Well it all starts with the big bang, according to my middle school physics teacher.”

Seemingly the words made Faith’s wounds hurt twice as bad, if the groans were anything to go by. That was the intended effect. 

“Fine.” She said, going over and sitting on the bed, pushing Faith slightly further against the wall none too gently. 

“It’s because of the fight on the rooftop. Apparently our slayer connection got uh… deepened.”

Now look who’s blushing. Buffy hoped the walking, talking wound next to her couldn’t see it. 

“Our energies got all warped and twisted together and… you’d have to ask Giles about it-”

“Pass.”

“-but the gist is that now you don’t accept any magical energy that isn’t your own. Or mine.” She didn’t try particular hard to hide the coppery displeasure at the idea. “Which means that we’re stuck together until this healing spell is over, since I’m basically the battery for the thing.”

“Fuck.” Faith sighed, and Buffy nodded in agreement. “I’m guessing it’s proximity based too, which is why I woke up with a mouthful of blonde hair this morning?”

Buffy wrestled with her words for a bit, trying to get them out, but they stubbornly bounced around in her throat before hopping back down into it’s depths. 

“Yea.” She squeaked. “That’s uh, pretty much the long and short of it.” She picked up on the magical theory pretty quick. Really quick, actually. Was Faith always this smart? 

The two caught up a little longer, and by the end of the talk, Buffy seemed more exhausted than she’d felt in a long time, while Faith looked all the brighter for it. 

Her bruises are almost gone, and it’s been just under an hour since I gave them, is she using my slayer healing factor too?

Faith

They spent a while catching up on minutia. She asked about Captain Cardboard, Buffy responded with a voice just a little less friendly than a thermonuclear warhead. Gonna file that one away for later use. 

Her wounds were healing as they talked, a hell of a lot faster than they had any right to, honestly. It was faster than slayer healing, even faster than vampiric healing. That spell the two witches downstairs must’ve had some serious juice. 

“So, who’s Adam?”

“Hm? How do you know about Adam?” Buffy sounded a little too tired to muster up any real surprise. 

“Spied on you the night I “escaped”, heard you guys talking about him. He some government demon?”

Buffy winced a bit at the weaponized word, but answered. “I wish. He’s like Frankenstein with a doctorate. Half cyborg, half demon, half human.”

“Three halves? Shit, sounds like you’ve got your work cut out for ya.”

Buffy laid down next to her, eyes starting to flutter shut. She yawned, and Faith didn’t seem to know what to do with herself. She was closer to the edge of the bed, so a part of her considered compulsively pushing her off like a cat with the most expensive piece of dishware it could find. 

She’s cute when she’s tired. Faith’s mind attacked the thought like she had an autoimmune disorder of the mind, psyche mobilizing into white blood cells to dissolve it before she had time to reckon with it. Fuck that shit, Faith, lock it up. You can’t touch her. You shouldn’t touch her. 

Even still, a hand gently moved a strand of golden hair out of the blonde’s mouth. 

Chapter Text

Faith

It was just her exhaustion, she said to herself, pushed up against the wall in her shrinking territory on the twin bed. Her eyes were fighting to close, the warm static of Buffy’s presence that prickled through the back of her skull like familiar fire, familiar thoughts. She tried not to look at Buffy’s face as they drew closer, and turned around to face the wall and close off her thoughts. 

The static, insistent, got worse. She felt Buffy worm towards her in the bed from behind, one hand draped across Faith’s stomach as the blonde seemed to wrap around her possessively protectively on pure instinct. 

What the fuck have you gotten yourself into, Lehane? 

Her face was on fire despite the cool of the plaster wall on her forehead, and she felt herself submit to the soft but very firm grip around her midsection. When B set on something, there wasn’t much you could do to un-set her.

You’re gonna fall asleep, and you’re gonna keep your eyes closed until she wakes up and realizes she’s protecting you from the most ferocious empty room around, and pushes herself off you. That’s what’s gonna happen, and you won’t move a muscle to show you were awake to be disappointed, because you won’t be. 

You’re not redeemed, you’re not accepted, and probably never will be. But you don’t need that anyways, you don’t need her arms around you, you don’t need the feeling of your back being covered, the feeling that you don’t have to look over your shoulder because you know what’s there and you know it cares about you and-

Faith fell asleep. She did. She really, really did. It was better this way, of course, and so she fell asleep. She fell asleep. 

It was for the best that she did, of course, because when Buffy did awaken, it went pretty similar to how Faith knew it would. A tightening of the breath, a release of the grip despite the way Faith forgot how to breath without Buffy pressing gently in on her stomach to give her a rhythm to live by, and a silent escape from the room into the living room where the scoobies were currently discussing something in the living room. 

The door closed near-silently, and it was for the best that Faith didn’t hear it at all. It was for the best that she didn’t feel the aching emptiness in the shape of Her metal hand.

It was for the best that she didn’t feel the rain hitting her pillow.

A few hours later she got out of bed. Colder than a witch’s tit in here. Feet feel like they’re about to fall off.

Her eyes landed on Buffy’s bunny slippers, and their beady little eyes landed on her too. 

“Fuck that.” 

She could tell by the sunlight outside that it was early evening, Sunnydale painted in tender, nostalgic colors. Sunset makes anywhere pretty. 

The town always rubbed Faith the wrong way, and nothing had changed since she’d been put into a coma. It had this nice, convenient little facade it wore like a death mask. There was an evil under it, inside of it like worms in the rind. 

Sometimes Faith felt like she was going crazy, here, being the only one who saw it for what it was. And she wasn’t thinking about the Hellmouth. That was easier to reckon with. Demons against Civvies, fine, rad, whatever. But that wasn’t what Faith was thinking about. She was thinking about the humans. The worms eating each other alive, worms of metal, of needle and string and everything in between. 

She’d crawled with the worms out there, had laid with them, let them eat her from the inside out while people like Buffy and Ms. Summers happily grazed in their Rockwell circle jerk.

“Fuck that all the way.” She whispered once more, with a little less feeling, turning away from the window, sunlight cold on her back. 

There was a thin little hallway that went from her door to the stairs downstairs. Luckily, she hadn’t run into Giles leaving his room yet, because then she’d have to say “my bad”, and even worse, have to hear “apologies” from him while they silently passed around the right of way like a hot potato. She shuddered at the thought. 

As she started down the stairs and passed the wooden dividing line between soft sheets that grew colder with Buffy’s absence and whatever fresh hell the Scoobies were concocting downstairs, she closed her eyes for something that could only charitably be called a blink. 

Silence had a sound, after getting Slayer powers, she’d learned to hear it. Interrupted words cut the air abruptly like a typewriter moving down a line, held breath burning holes through the ambiance. 

This silence was roaring. 

“You guys can talk shit about me, you know, would be kind of refreshing; not like I could put hand to ass right now anyways.” It should have sounded bitter, but it didn’t. It sounded like an ice breaker, voice as easy and light as it had been on the day she’d met them.

Faith prided herself on being an “effective” communicator, and now was no different. The silence made way like the Red Sea, her shoulders rolling with her stride, and she looked to see who all was there without looking like she was looking. 

Tara. Red. Xander. B. G Man. 

And Captain Cardboard. Huh. 

“We weren’t “talking shit”, we’re discussing the mission.” God, him and B really deserve each other. Her eyes flitted to the other girl, but shit, she looked more annoyed at him than she did. Trouble in paradise, huh? The mean part of her (that is, most of her) trilled. 

Buffy was resting most of her weight on the TV, wearing red leather pants that Faith idly wondered if she’d stolen from her at some point. The seed of pride’s sprouting was interrupted when she brought her eyes back up and met Buffy’s own. Concern swam around in them, all watery and weak. Faith wanted to hurl. 

With a look, Faith did her best to let her know not to start on some weird doting shit in front of her enemies. Would ruin appearances. The concern swam deeper into the mossy pools, slimy and blind. 

“Yeah, it’s Adam’s Big Day off, and we’re missing the show.” Buffy sighed, running a hand through hair that was stubbornly perfect even after getting out of bed. And was she seriously wearing makeup? She couldn’t even go anywhere. They were on house arrest. 

Riley looked at Buffy with naked disdain, mouth slightly open, and Faith wondered if her fist would fit in it. 

“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize we were just telling anyone about classified information.”

“Accepted.” Buffy chirped. 

“R-right, well, Riley has been very helpful in supplying us with the data from the Initiative. We have here a, uhm, list of abilities and things to be wary of when approaching Adam. Rather like a Demonological text, excepting, of course, the colorful vocabulary.”

If Giles said a sentence without at least 3 commas, he would probably drop dead.

Faith made her way to the far wall, since no one seemed to be making themself sparse and giving the coma patient a seat. Thank god for that. She thought with no small relief. She avoided eye contact with Xander, but it didn’t seem to be an issue since he had the same idea.

“So what’s the catch? Why haven’t the spooks taken out the trash yet?” Faith motioned vaguely at the “spook” representative, but Willow is the one who responded.

“Well, Adam is really resistant to most modern weaponry. Kind of the opposite of that one demon Buffy blew up! But um, he’s also resistant to most pre-modern weaponry. Plus he’s got some nasties working for him now, and the Initiative is struggling with the volume.”

“Yeah, guess they like to keep things quiet, huh?” She said with a Boston drawl and a tilt of her head and every ounce of remaining power to stop from looking at the blonde when she snorted at the wise-ass remark. 

“Yeah, this isn’t working. Lehane should be restrained, not chiming in on the threat that replaced her.” Faith counted about 3 neck veins. He’s wired. 

“Come tie me up then. We could have some fun.” She didn’t have any self restraint left, after all, and she looked at Buffy to drink the jealousy. Something was a little off about it, though. Didn’t give the satisfaction she thought it would. Whatever. 

“I’m not doing this. We’ll take care of this in-house.” Riley started to leave, but Faith raised her voice. Didn’t yell, just wanted him to hear her voice over the thrum of blood through his head that she could hear from the other side of the room. 

“If you could do that, then why are you here? You need B and you know it, so cut the shit and let’s talk shop. I’m not gonna get in the way of that, and if you want me to fuck off back to my cozy little cage upstairs, I will.”

Riley stopped, and she heard his teeth grinding together like cogs in his brain. Something’s off. He’s wired and something’s off. She could see it from a mile away, the way he reacted to things before they began, the way he was looking for an excuse to impulsively leave a situation, the way his hands shook and his veins popped. He was living large, alright, and burning out quick. 

Faith knew the signs the way she knew the alleys and corners of Roxbury. Her words didn’t come from slayer experience, but Faith experience. 

He turned his head, sighed, and started to turn back.

“Fine. Go back to your cage.”

“Aye aye.” She held up her hands in an appeasing motion, really not wanting to fuck shit up for once. She started to stand up and walk back towards the stairs before a hand barred her from exit.

Buffy’s hand. 

“She stays.”

“B-” Buffy’s glare just about decapitated her. Faith raised her hands in surrender on either side of her head, went back to her little spot on the wall, and looked at the fruit bowl on the counter. It was empty now, but there were some nice little dot patterns for her to count on there. 

“So the prisoner is the voice of reason, now?” This guy’s a real piece of work. 

“Yep, but mine’s louder. Faith stays. We need all the help we can get, and like she said, you apparently need it. So stop being picky about what that help looks like, and keep “debriefing” at us, Riley.” 

“And what if she goes behind your back again?”

Faith’s jaw rippled, her teeth didn’t grind because the near-hydraulic tension exerted by her jaw was so perfectly aligned between lower and upper jaw that the teeth would have shattered before slipping. 

“She won’t.” Faith tried to decide if she should feel a little humiliated or a little thrilled at the trust. “So let’s talk shop.” A little shard of the brunette’s vocabulary, a little flag in the territory of Buffy’s speech.

God this relationship seems exhausting. 

Tara, Willow, and Faith shared a glance. It should have been more awkward, considering the fuck-shit Faith did the year prior to Willow, but the awkwardness of this situation trumped it enough that it almost made her laugh. 

Finally, Riley conceded, going back to his posturing at the back of the couch. Buffy didn’t return to the TV, instead going to stand by Faith. She was a little shorter than Faith, but she felt a lot taller. 

Why the fuck are you standing by me? She thought with an exasperated whisper not unlike the kind a kid would give to a snot nosed saboteur trying to play halfsies with their hiding spot. 

Now he’s gonna be looking at me even more. Now everyone is gonna be looking at me even more. Fuck, man. 

The debriefing continued in stilted terms, strange verbiage breaking down mystical threats into parts less than their sum. Say what you will about Giles and his books, those books had a way of capturing what about a demon was dangerous by giving you the big picture. Demons weren’t something you could put on a spreadsheet, they were the thrumming emotion, the primal terror that exists as much in the heart as in the world. 

There was a blackened heart, a bloody beauty to them that Riley missed. Maybe that’s why Adam is the way he is, Faith thought. Only a slayer could appreciate that beauty, only they could be the finale to a violent, brilliant crescendo. 

Her view was different from Buffy’s, of course, but it always had been. She knew the demons ached to be hurt by her, knew on some level that the union of violence was a sacred thing that should be indulged, because the Slayer was no different. 

They weren’t heroes, weren’t some kind of arbiter of justice; they were simply demons turned on their heads. Faith never felt a camaraderie like the one she had with the demons she killed, the bliss that she knew they felt when she gave them a violent end so perfect a capstone for their violent life. 

Except when she was slain, when she experienced the buzz from the demon’s point of view. That had given her a real understanding of what it was to die to a Slayer, to get what you truly deserve.

Liberation. Completion. Riley couldn’t understand that. How could a cardboard box understand open skies painted with gentle, nostalgic light colored with blood and bruise? What a sad life. 

“He wants to be complete.” Her voice cut through the rabble, paralyzed Giles’ pacing, made Xander look at her for the first time, and Buffy look at her for seemingly the thirtieth time. 

“Wants to be free. Simple as that, right? You guys took a bunch of beings that are freedom taken too far and shaped their flesh into bars in their own cage. ‘Course he wants to know why he was made. Guy’s a walking paradox.”

She scoffed like it was obvious, adding on quietly, “Demons crave death, it’s their whole thing. Can’t be complete without that drive to cause it, without that drive to experience it, and you guys took that out of him.”

Don’t have to sound so sorry for the guy, F. Reel in the wet works.

“Just sayin’. That’s prolly why he’s uh… yeah.”

Everyone was looking at her. Giles was standing with his mouth slightly ajar, like she’d just sprouted horns and rapping in Aramaic. 

“Sorry.” She coughed out. Real smooth, Lehane, large and in charge. 

“Don’t apologize. That was… that was very good, Faith. Thank you.” A soft, slightly taken aback British voice intoned.

Praise felt alien, especially from Giles of all people. Her cheeks flushed, hating how small she felt; her armor was suited to jabs and attacks, but kindness was like a warm lake where her armor sank like a rock and blue hope choked her from within. 

Buffy’s hand brushed against hers, and Riley looked to the side. 

“So what do we give him?” She asked Faith softly in a voice that the brunette drank with an inhale like a final gasp that only catches water in the last moments of drowning. 

“The missing piece.”

Chapter Text

Buffy

Buffy hated the way it hurt to let go of Faith, almost as bad as realizing she was holding her in the first place. While asleep, sure, things happen, but Buffy hadn’t been asleep. She woke up, felt her hand on that fucking wound that just reminded her of the dark side in her that Faith wound up and set loose. 

It buzzed in her hand and in her heart. It hurt.

She let go with a gasp and stood up from the bed, steeling her jaw, looking down at the shape of Faith lying against the wall and trying to remember when she’d fallen asleep. Her breath caught in her throat for a moment, her face scrunched up, and she seemed to come to a decision.

Buffy Summers left her there.

It was for the best. 

Giles had talked her into inviting Riley back into his home for the exchange of information on the mutual enemy in the same way a roundabout talked a car into going the way they came, much to the driver’s frustration. He talked in his little british circles, his tweed mannerisms and aphorisms. 

And unfortunately, tragically, he was right. 

“You know,” Buffy had told him when she knew she was beaten, “your worst personality flaw is that you’re usually right.”

“I can’t help it.”

And then Faith came. She wasn’t supposed to be up this early, she was supposed to be exactly where Buffy left her just an hour prior. Where she was supposed to be. Green eyes burned a hole in the side of her head, flitting back and forth between Riley and the other slayer. 

There are a lot of types of people Faith shouldn’t be near. At the top, Buffy’s Boyfriends, and right under it, Military Members. Riley is two for two, just my luck! 

Faith had this way about her, something that spiked her heart with jealousy, this way of being able to defuse the tension in a room just as easily as cause it. Like others were just puppets dancing to invisible strings, and the Scoobies were no different. It was an old jealousy, like an insecurity one hadn’t felt since high school. 

Which is… exactly what this is. 

But then Riley tried to tell Faith to leave. That wasn’t his place, that was hers. On general principle, she vetoed it. She wasn’t even really thinking about it when her arm jutted out and stopped the other slayer from leaving the conversation, schooling all signs of nervousness out of her face despite the way her heart pounded away. 

She won. Faith stayed, and the debriefing continued.

“And how do we give him the missing piece?” Her whisper broke the ground of the silence with the weight of foreknowledge. Faith had taught her something, on the roof of the Mayor’s provided flat. Faith had given her a gift, a gentle and detailed teaching of the orders of death, the sequence of hurt and hurting that every Slayer danced to. 

Adam would dance too, if they played the song well enough. 

“Shit, anybody’s guess. I’ve never even seen the guy.” Eyes that should have black turned chocolate in the sunset light gleaming through the window met Buffy’s own. The blonde hadn’t released her hand, yet. 

Faith’s voice had the low tremor it did in it when she was concealing something from her. It was something that she could pick up more easily than ever, and not entirely because she had grown to know the other so much better.

The little clench that she got in her chest anytime she lied would throb when Faith lied, like she was the one lying. Or when how it gets cloudy outside, my lower rib gets all staticky. 

But that hadn’t started with the spell, it had been that way for all 8 months since the knife, the blood, the sound, and the fall. 

She gave Faith a look, and Faith looked away. The dance was shaky, the rhythm still being worked out, but they were getting there one tipsy step at a time. Buffy felt a buzz as the slayer connection got just a little more tangled up.

Then the doorbell rang. 

Low mutters rang through the living room like echoes from everyone but Riley and Faith. 

Maybe it’s a Jehovah’s witness, but Buffy knew exactly who it was the second the doorbell rang, somewhere inside. They were the shoe that dropped, the period at the end of a sentence, the ol’ comeuppance come for Faith. 

“I’ll get it.” She said, walking up to the thick door lit door, her hand only hesitating at the handle for a second. 

Two men from the Watcher’s Council ate her quaint little greeting she threw out. They gave the distinct impression that they knew exactly how this would go. They didn’t have an accent, but the Watchers weren’t British by default. No, to be part of their little Book Club you simply had to have already seen it all and gotten the ‘being surprised’ part of life out of the way. 

“We’re here for Faith Lehane.” His words had the effect of a surprise ice bath.

How did they know? Was it Riley? It didn’t matter. They were the watcher’s council, and they were here for Faith.

“In Sunnydale? Kinda got that impression, since I know you’re not here for me.” Her heart did the little throb thing, but the lie came a little too easily to her. 

The man squinted. His eyes looked like a shotgun barrel. “Right. Lehane disappeared from her last known location, seemingly taken by force. What do you know?”

“That she isn’t really the type to go peacefully? And that you’re probably really jealous someone else nabbed her before you could?”

“Mind if we come in?” He didn’t wait for an answer.

The other closed the door behind himself. He had his hands crossed over his lower stomach, one reaching into the jacket. Buffy could smell oil on his hands, the kind you used to clean a gun. She followed the other one deeper into the house.

She hid the flood of relief from her voice when she didn’t see Faith in the living room. Wait, how did she hide that quickly?

“Me casa, su casa. Or… Giles’s casa, su casa.” She fed her confusion to an exaggerated distrust and anxiety that they were in the house. They wanted her nervous, so she’d play the part. 

Faith had made herself scarce, but had also cut off the slayer connection. Did she think I’d tell them where she’s hiding? 

“And to what do I owe the house call?”

“Giles,” the man said, only glancing briefly at the speaker aimlessly wiping the inside of the dotted fruit bowl with a dry cloth. Gunbarrel eyes scanned the house, putting everything into its proper place in his mind, like he was drafting some report before ever sitting down at his desk. 

“We received intelligence that Lehane was staying at Motel 6 on the end of Broad street, room 201. When we arrived, there were some signs of struggle. We’d like to ensure her safety.”

“Is that what the gun in your shoulder holster is for?”

“That’s for my safety.” His toothy smile didn’t reach his eyes. 

“Right, well I’m quite sure you won’t need that here.”

“That’s reassuring.” He made no move to reassure them by taking the bloody gun off and putting it down, but that was no surprise. “Do you mind if I take a look around?”

Giles’s knuckles whitened. “I would tell you to be my guest, but I think that would be a little redundant.”

One watcher’s council member slowly, slowly wandered around the flat like a dog looking for a perfect spot to piss; his expression always morphing to a kind of fascination when it met something it didn’t understand, like a book that was out, or a fruit bowl with no fruit in it. 

He disappeared up into the second floor for a while, footsteps clacking loudly through the dead silent house. A while stretched into minutes, stretched into forever. Buffy thought he’d never come down, arms crossed over her shoulder and standing behind the couch, nervously glancing at the stairs.

But he did. And Faith wasn’t with him.

“Ms. Summers, are you staying in the guest room?” He had an easy, amused smile on his face. “We were under the impression you were staying in your dorms.”

“Just staying the night”, she said. Her eyes didn’t quite meet his.

“Right. I suppose that would explain the slippers, wouldn’t it.”

“Well, you’re suppose-d to take your nose out of my business. And Giles’s too, while you’re at it, since neither one of us answers to you anymore.”

His eyes didn’t leave her own. He knew something, damnit, she could see it on the corners of his smile, could feel it in the way his eyes made her teeth itch. Her heart beat fast, but she thought nice and slow.

I could get to him before he pulls out his gun. I could hurt him real bad. The thoughts felt alien, had an accent from somewhere she’d never been, and they made her stomach turn.

“Right then. We’ll get right on that.” He winked at her, raising a hand in a mechanical farewell to the rest of the Scoobies. No one returned it. After a few clacks of his boots, the door closed softly.

Buffy found Faith in their temporary lodging, leaning back against the headboard and reading a comic book with the lamp light. Her hair was damp from a shower she’d just taken, Buffy looked at where bruises she’d left had seemingly been washed away by the water. 

That’s a little fast, even for Slayer healing. Tara and Wil really pulled through.  

A slow flip of a page revealed two intense dark eyes that sized her up; she knew she was being analyzed as a threat. That something had changed. 

“Whatcha readin’?”

“A comic book I found poking out of your bag. Supergirl, huh?” Faith wore a lazy little smile that reminded Buffy of the jagged knife at home.

“Hey, I found it in your stuff first, so you don’t get to make fun of it.”

“My-? Oh. Yeah. Guess that makes sense.” Her eyes floated back down to the book as Buffy closed the door behind her. “I didn’t get to finish most of the comic books he bought me. He knew I couldn’t sit still long enough to read a denser book, but insisted I do some kinda reading every day, so-”

She vaguely motioned at the comic book, a smile at someone who had died months ago on her face.

“I grabbed a few more of them. After, I mean.” She didn’t really know what to do with her hands, or her face. “But they’re at my house. Maybe I can have Xander bring them to you.”

“No. No, it’s alright.” Faith was good at convincing someone she didn’t care. “If this one’s anything to go by, I’m not missing much.”

“Right.” She stepped closer to the bed, eyes landing on Faith’s, and the other woman flinched before moving over as far away as possible, shoulder pressed against the wall. Buffy raised her right hand to comfort her, but Faith only shied away further, stomach rising up and down quickly, her face of indifference cracking like a theater mask aging into uncanniness.

“You okay?”

“S-sorry, B,” She laughed, real easy, real light. Buffy hated it. “Guess I thought I saw somethin’ in your hand.” Faith looked confused, like she was trying real hard to convince herself of something. 

There was a quip Buffy could have made.

Instead, she nodded to Faith and lifted the blanket and slowly crawled into the bed. She heard Faith shiver; she was always cold. When Buffy separated from her a few hours ago she watched goosebumps rise in the shape of her as soon as she stood up, watched Faith tremble and hug herself before covering herself completely with the blankets. 

“So, what’s the secret?” She laid, cheek against the pillow, looking up at Faith who was nervously toying with the comics, watched the way Faith’s hands stopped for a second, watched the way breath got caught in a traffic jam in her chest. 

“Quit wigging,” Buffy cut through the panic like she would give Faith a reason to be nervous if she didn’t comply. So Faith complied. “Where did you hide? I mean, Xander and Willow were arguing about it for a good 20 minutes before Giles begged me to put a stop to it. So here I am. Give me what I need to bring peace to a house divided.” Her words glowed in the dim between them.

Faith’s smile was gentle, a little abashed, almost. Not that it stopped her from being an ass. “Y’know, I didn’t hear why I should tell you anywhere in that sentence. Did I miss it?”

“Because you won’t be able to hide from me if you don’t.” It was only half-serious in the same way that going 10 miles over the limit is just half-speeding. Faith’s breath paused, her heart beat loud enough for the other Slayer to hear it. She broke eye contact first. 

“The dryer.” She said around a small smirk, flipping a page idly in the comic book.

“Oh you’ve got to be kidding me-”

“Wish I was. Pretty sure that was Giles’s stuff, just about got strangled by some suspenders. I got the tweed-burn to prove it.”

Buffy started laughing, the kind of laugh interrupted by snorts and putting a hand over her eyes. All the better that she couldn’t see Faith watching her so closely. 

“This shit ain’t funny, B, I could have died. And that’s before the Watchers woulda found me.” 

The mention of the men dampened the mood, but only a little, and not enough to stop Buffy from giggling, but what Faith said next was. “B?”

She’d drawn her knees up to her chest, unable to look anywhere but the wall directly in front of her, like there was a sleep paralysis figure standing at the foot of her bed.

“What are ya gonna do with me when this spell is up? Are you gonna give me to them?”

“I don’t know what’s gonna happen to you.” Buffy answered, voice steady as a monorail, “but it’ll be me who does it.” It was a cold, cruel comfort, but Faith looked at her like it was something she had been too scared to hope for. 

“Thanks.” It would have sounded insincere, sarcastic out of Faith’s mouth at any other time, but there was a small sliver of something underneath that. It was something like relief, but muddled with so many other confusing emotions that Buffy only caught background radiation from that it didn’t have a word for. Even Giles would struggle to describe it.

“And tomorrow,” Buffy started, like she was describing a newly passed law, “we’re leaving. You’re already healed enough that Wil and Tara don’t need to be around anymore. Giles suggested we roll up the rug we cast the spell on to move the ritual site.”

“Clever.” Faith admitted.

“We’re going to my house” brown eyes met hers with a rare moment of sincere emotion, raw remorse, “and no, you don’t get a say in the matter. You’re going to make things right with my mom, and you’ll have to live with that. With us.”

Green eyes scrolled Faith’s face for signs of rebellion, smoothing them out like a hand over a crumpled piece of paper. She would come without much issue. 

“Lay down.” Faith’s eyes caught on her for a second, a moment of considering not obeying, but something in the other woman changed her mind. As it should be. Buffy held out her hand for the other woman to surrender the comic book in her hand, and she did. 

She opened the nightstand on her side of the bed and slid it gently inside, then she closed it. 

Click, and the lamp light was replaced with dim moonlight. She felt the other woman shuffle to a lying position next to her, and then felt goosebumps rise up on her own skin from a cold that Buffy didn’t really feel. It’s her. She’s cold and I keep getting the scraps of it. She doesn’t get to have that, she doesn’t get to have anything at all. 

So Buffy took it, just like she would take everything from Faith. After all, Faith tried to take everything from her, hadn’t she? It was justice, nothing more, nothing less. 

She pulled the blankets up and over Faith’s shoulder; the other woman seemingly was scared to do it herself. Good, she thought, and another part of her felt like that thought wasn’t so good, but that part was just a little too quiet for her to pay a lot of attention to it. 

She didn’t pull Faith in, but pushed her back against the wall, slowly. Surely. Taking her time. Until the other woman let out a surrendering sigh. Mine. That sigh is mine. That cold is mine. The thoughts were rivets sticking out of a particle board of frantic background sensation, as steady as rocky spires in the sea. 

Mine, mine, mine 

With her mantra, she wrapped Faith tightly in the blankets that surrounded them, pulled her closer and felt the shudders. Her teeth grazed Faith's neck, just to see if she would bare it. 

“Fuck, B-” She whispered, baring her neck and swallowing. Buffy watched the Adam’s apple bounce up and down once in the moonlight and her mouth went dry. Good. 

“No one else gets to have you, do you understand? Not after what you did, not after what you tried to do. I won’t let anyone take you away.” 

The connection was a live wire, humming like a metal transmission tower with a thousand power lines of potential, of information, and energy stretching out of it into infinity. Faith’s fear, her heart beat, her cold, her heat, her pain, her arousal, her desperation, all of it was right there and humming out of the scar. 

Buffy’s hand went to it.

“Please-” Faith whined when Buffy’s hand hovered over it, and the blonde let out a shuddering sigh at the sweetness. She wanted Faith to hurt, to beg, to plead and to break on her hands.

“Say it again.”

“Please, B, just- a little further, I’m begging you, please” She was whining, now, pleading for the pain that only her other half could cause. She smiled, her head light with the sounds of submission bouncing around in her head. This is how it should be. And she touched it.

It hit Faith like a defibrillator, her back arching into the palm, mouth just a little ajar, eyes fluttering. Part of her was trying to scramble away from Buffy because of that sweet fear she had, but not this part.

All of the cables of thought, all the power lines of tangled emotions, anxieties, neuroses, obsession with Buffy, the way she put Buffy on a pedestal just so she could tear her down, the hum under her skin, the desperate need for punishment, it was all hers now. 

“Fuck.” Buffy couldn’t take her eyes off of Faith, the way she writhed with the heat. Everything she was, all the complex emotions that Buffy had only ever dreamed of untangling, all the love-hate, the fear-craving mixing together in new colors that she’d never experienced. 

And it was all hers now. 

But under it all was the cold. An empty wind that howled in Faith’s hollow core, something that had been there from long before she’d become a slayer. It wasn’t connected to the slaying, to the betrayal, to her downfall, but it had been the blank foundation all of it was built on. 

So it was Buffy’s, now, too. It was her right. She filled it. 

Her side of the Slayer connection fed into Faith through the wound, energy sluggishly oozing into the other woman like molasses as Buffy closed the distance even further, surrounding Faith and truly trapping her against the wall. 

“G-god… please…”

She scattered the cold inside of Faith with the sourceless sunlight that made Buffy Buffy. The only thing that could fill the hole in Faith was her. Let there be light. Light and shadow danced in Faith’s core, and the light was winning. It would always win. 

Buffy brushed her lips against Faith’s neck, her collarbone, like she didn’t know what to do with the closeness. Part of her wanted to consume the other woman, part of her wanted to comfort her, part of her wanted to mark her with lipstick, so many echoes of the scar on her stomach. 

Sometimes she would press manicured nails into the shiny flesh just to hear the whimpers and to feel her writhe both away and into the touch, like she was playing an impossibly responsive instrument. Other times she would threaten to take the touch away, just to have Faith lean up into it and beg her through tears to keep her warm, to keep her whole. 

At some point, sleep came, and they shared a dream. 

Chapter Text

Giles

The night after the Watcher’s Doers had come and gone, Giles had some thinking to do, he was to read the manila folder that was mocking him from his desk in big military capital letters, and he was to cogitate on it. 

He read the lettering on the tab over and over. A sip of bourbon. FAITH H. LEHANE. A sip of bourbon. FAITH H. LEHANE, and so on. Riley had left it, and one man’s trash… well, not exactly a treasure. Something told him it was for the best that he got his hands on it before Buffy did. Something told him this wasn’t meant for a Doer like her. It was meant for a Watcher. 

And so he took it, after a few minutes and half a glass of aged bourbon, he softly opened it like he would any text on any other evil: with reverence, absolute terror, and a steady hand. 

FAITH H. LEHANE

BORN : 14 DECEMBER 1980

BORN IN : BOSTON, MASSACHUSETS 

CLASSIFICATION : PARA-HUMAN, SUB. SLAYER

The dossier was just a bland collection of pages and pictures, polaroids and fractured depictions of a life more broken than the people writing it cared to analyze. Weaknesses were listed like damage to a car on a public listing, short-hand lists of recommendations for both acquisition and “neutralization” of the young woman sleeping upstairs in the same house as them. 

They couldn’t even be bothered to write in complete sentences? Something about that stung. Like it was a greater injustice than the invasion. 

CRIMINAL RECORD (ABV.) 

AGE 13: ACCOMPLICE TO DISTRIBUTION OF CLASS 5 DRUGS. 

AGE 13: FIGHT WITH OTHER CHILDREN SAME AGE AT SCHOOL. PRINCIPAL NOTES ATTACHED (E) INDICATE OTHER CHILDREN SPREAD RUMORS OF SUBJECT’S DOMESTIC ABUSE. 

AGE 15: BREAKING AND ENTERING. 

AGE 15: SHOPLIFTING, VERBAL WARNING. 

AGE 16: GRAND THEFT AUTO

AGE 16: RECKLESS DRIVING

AGE 16: RAN A SMALL OPERATION OF SELLING STOLEN VEHICLES, CHARGES DROPPED

AGE 17: PROSTITUTION. NOTE: INDICATION THAT NOT FIRST TIME. HOW LONG? 

Oh. The words coldly went on, and on, and on. There were a few more pages, double sided, of course. It wasn’t quite like the texts he was used to; and the same things that Faith had felt earlier he felt now too: they had a way of reducing things, a way of making them less than the sum of their parts. It was cruel, it was cold, and it was foolish. 

RELEVANT HISTORY:

SUBJECT’S EARLY LIFE MURKY. 

SOCIAL SERVICES TRANSCRIPTS ATTACHED (B). 

BIO. FATHER LEFT EARLY. 

BIO. MOTHER [REDACTED] SUSPECTED OF DRUG ABUSE. SEE POSSESSION TRANSCRIPTS (N). RESORTED TO ABUSE OF PAINKILLERS AFTER WORKPLACE INJURY EARLY IN SUBJECT’S LIFE. SEE ATTACHED POSSESSION RECORDS (U), PRIMARILY HYDROCODONE-ACETAMINOPHEN AND OXYCODONE-ACETAMINOPHEN DISPENSED BY LOCAL PHARMACY. 

MOTHER’S BLOOD ALCOHOL LEVEL UNSAFE DURING TRAFFIC STOP (U-1), CHARGED WITH DUI, LICENSE REVOKED. 

WORKER’S COMP DRIED UP. INCOME SOURCE NOW UNCLEAR. PROST? 

INTERVIEW WITH SOCIAL SERVICES INDICATE SUBJECT FAITH LEHANE WAS VICTIM OF CHILD SEXUAL ASSAULT, SEE ATTACHMENTS B (SOCIAL SERV.) AND E (HOSPITAL RECORDS) FOR MORE DETAILS. 

MULTIPLE PERP, IDENTITIES INCONCLUSIVE. POLICE INVESTIGATION NOT WELL DOCUMENTED. DEAD END.

PROFILE: 

IMPULSIVE

AGGRESSIVE

HOSTILE TO CONTACT

PROMISING DISSOCIATIVE RELATIONSHIP TO OWN BODY

NOTE: GOOD TRAIT IN ALLY DANGEROUS IN HOSTILE. 

NOTE: DISPLAYS SYMPTOMS OF PTSD AND BORDERLINE PERSONALITY DISORDER

DESPERATE FOR NURTURE, HISTORY OF MANIPULATION BY QUASI PARENTAL FIGURES (G. POST, R. WILKINS.) 

NOTE: ABOVE TRAITS USEFUL FOR ASSET CONTROL. RECOMMEND MIDDLE AGED FEMALE AGENT FOR RECRUITMENT EFFORTS.

Giles closed the manila folder with a steady hand. He swirled the bourbon sitting next to him, what little of it was left, and down the drain it went. Buffy could never see this. No one should have seen it in the first place, of course, but she couldn’t see this. 

Part of him almost felt guilty for walking into the door left open by the initiative. Almost. But the impulse to guilt for intrusiveness had been long exhausted. When you were a Watcher, you couldn’t blink, no matter what you saw. 

He pressed a small indented part of his desk, and a panel popped out. Inside was a picture of Ethan Rayne, himself, and a few others when they had been fools freed. There were a few other things in the compartment. One of the master’s bones that the Anointed didn’t know about, a few loose type written manuscripts older than himself, and his journal on Buffy Summers, so similar to the one that the initiative had made for Faith. 

Like that journal, this dossier would be locked away, forever forgotten. Never again to be opened. He slid it delicately underneath those things, and with a steady hand, closed the drawer. 

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

Buffy

A little under an hour later the chosen two came quietly into the Summer’s house, Saturday’s dawn chasing them into the doorway. They closed it softly. Buffy looked behind her to mouth a silent warning at Faith, something about being quiet, the darker girl nodded.

Her tears had left black trails down her cheek like claw marks, and Buffy’s eyes caught on them like they were wounds she wished she could heal. But the hurt will still be there, won’t it? I don’t even know where to start. But that wasn’t quite right, of course she knew where to start.

Here. That was where she would start.

They made their way up the stairs, and she noticed with a comforting sting of irritation that Faith was somehow better at avoiding the creaky spots in the stairs than she was, despite not living there. Well, that’s not true anymore, is it? That rolled around against the walls of her heart for a while.

Once they were in the room, she watched Faith from the side of her eye. The other girl was subdued, somehow, the fire that ate her from the inside out was just a collection of smoldering embers. Well what were the girl scouts for if not learning how to get kindling for a fire?

Faith paced around, her new cage barred in nostalgia and could-have-beens, glittering cheerleading trophies smiling at her like she was a pet.

Her footsteps stopped. She came to the chest. The chest was there. She did not open it. Buffy released a breath she didn’t know she had been holding. There was a metal snake in there, a smile in steel that vibrated in her hand and screamed for more. But not today, she thought with a staining warmth, not today.

She didn’t know if it was necessary anymore to hold Faith in her sleep, to stroke her hair, to whisper to her and hold her closer when the nightmares came. Probably is. Now isn’t the time to take chances, she thought, and Faith whimpered her name. It was one of those dreams, she knew. Her brows twisted on her face; it wasn’t fair that the other girl had nightmares about her, after all, she’d only done what needed to be done.

Another part of her, locked in the chest on the other side of the room, glimmer-sick, sighed with excitement. Her lips parted to let it out. The breaking hands that hurt Faith so inside of the dream wrapped around her protectively in the waking world, nullifying her whimpers. She held her just a little tighter, not crushing, but giving her a shape to exist in. A place to belong.

Her thoughts crashed into each other slowly, deliberately, like the world’s slowest car crash. Fear. Pride. Protect. Possess. She leaned over and kissed Faith on the forehead. Every time felt like the first. The other woman relaxed into her hold that much more, her breathing steady and calm; Buffy knew that in her dream the knife was bleeding the awareness out of her, just by the tingling in her right hand. She wondered if she kissed her forehead there, too.

The dawn bled over Faith’s sleeping smile, as gently curved as the horizon. She would be healed soon, and then there was no telling what would come next. But for now, she smiled.

A week had passed since the night in the warehouse. Buffy used all of her powers of persuasion to get her professors to grant her more leeway, but she knew she would have to go back sooner rather than later. Right now she had bigger concerns. Every day: Sleep. Hold. Whisper. Dream. Eat. Drink. Heal. Heal. Heal. Faith was consuming her bit by bit, taking anything she would give her, whether that be time, energy, or pain. 

She's trying, she thought, and I don't think I'm prepared for that.

They'd kept patrolling after that night in the warehouse, but Buffy kept her on a shorter leash. For now, the dirty work was hers and hers alone. There was also the possibility of Faith reopening wounds, of having another episode (which she still won't acknowledge), or just plain getting hurt. No, she would do the dirty work for a while. 

Faith was making Joyce and herself breakfast downstairs, she could hear them talking the stilted but warm way they did nowadays. She got up, went down the stairs, and said hello. They both smiled at her. She smiled back. Faith stood close to her when she brought her the plate, she leaned over and whispered in Harlot Red into her neck, "Eat up, B~" 

Buffy was still in bed, staring at the ceiling, but now her face was a little bit redder. 

(All this time cooped up is getting to me.)

What she actually did was get up, open the window, and make her escape without having to see Faith in an apron in her kitchen. She had to follow the lead Faith had gotten for her. The cave was deep in the woods surrounding the campus.

“Faith!” It was too late, of course, for yelling out Faith’s name to make a difference. Running theme there, Summers. The blood was already shed, painting the dim cave floor. They were both on the ground, Buffy under Faith, her hands on Faith’s sides. Blood ran down her fingers, hot and familiar. Adam's bony biological rapier jutting out of her side. 

It pulled out. 

“Faith-,” she started, green eyes so wide open a vampire would need an invitation to make eye contact, but Faith didn’t let her finish the sentence. The other woman gritted her teeth and somehow stood. A black smile edged with blood, a tongue running over it.

“Chill, B. I got it.”

The hard ground was at her back, and didn’t seem to have any intention of letting go. This was her mistake, she had gone patrolling alone to find the cave that Adam was in, actually thinking she’d have a chance of winning by herself. “N-no, I’ll help you, I just-,” She gasped for breath, a hand going to her rib. It made a few too many cracking noises. “Are ribs supposed to bend like that?”

“Just get out of here, alright? I’ll catch up.”

“You’ll never catch up to me," she said. The words sounded like they hurt.

Buffy stood up, seemingly doing an impression of a blimp on fire, but somehow losing air even faster as she stood up. Her ribs clacked in protest, but she smiled anyways, meeting Faith’s glare head on. The other woman’s smile was gone.

“Interesting.” A robotic intonation observed. Faith sighed and closed her eyes as the voice continued, “Two slayers, reunited; an enantiomorph in action. What brought you here, “Faith”?”

“A car,” Faith said, turning and facing Adam and standing between him and Buffy. Her posture was lazily confident, but Buffy recognized all the coiled tension in her muscles. It was a sharp contrast to her own. Where she was a diligent, well trained martial artist, Faith was raw instinct. Something to do with her background, she’d told her once. She could put belt to ass before she was a slayer, now the belt was just bigger.

“Ah. Banter.”

“Not your speed either, huh?” She rocketed forward like a streak of leaked oil, a glimmer of a small little pocket knife as she stabbed him in the stomach. Didn’t look like it did a whole lot of damage, Buffy thought. Inhaling sharply in the way Giles once taught her to do to block out pain, she joined the fray.

Adam swung at Faith, but the other woman ducked under it with a meaner-than-shit little laugh.

“Come on, man, I got something for your ass right here,” she said, backing up in a way that dragged his sight away from Buffy. He stepped toward her with a launch that made the earth tremble, just in time to dodge the kick from Buffy. It wasn’t immediately apparent if he was smiling or grimacing. Faith looked… unimpressed.

Buffy winced at the protest from the fractured rib but continued in her onslaught. Faith dodged the swipe from Adam, and this time, Buffy connected. This one was a simple jab of a kick, the force of a truck all compressed into one small point on her heel. She hit the metal, and it crumpled. Adam let out a grunt of pain, but nothing more. His motion wasn’t interrupted.

“Nothing is working, Faith, we have to go!”

“Then go, B, see if I give a shit!” She laughed through a slam from Adam, smoothly moving to the side with the motion. Her eyes had that kind of reptile shine that Buffy had grown to know so well. It meant something bad was coming, it meant Faith didn’t have any plan of self preservation.

She really wouldn’t care if I left her here to die, would she? The realization was a cold, slimy thing worming its way through her and slowing her muscles. The pain was getting too much, her breaths shorter, slayer healing eclipsed by the movement repeatedly jostling the misplaced rib.

“I got a question for you, Adam,” Faith started, scarlet seeping through the earlier wound in her side from Adam’s proboscis, “have you ever really wanted to hurt something? Someone?” A faux pity draped across her face as she dodged another blow.

“Bloodlust is a paradigm I have no use for.”

“That so? I thought you were made of demons and… some white guy.”

“Correct.” Adam stood at attention, the aforementioned white guy’s military training seeping into his muscle memory. Faith pursed her lips for a second, pretending to think about something.

“Would you like to?”

“Wrath leads inevitably to demise. See: The Master. See: Richard Wilkins.”

“Thought the boss was more gluttony, myself, but hey. You’re the quotation guy. Or… guys.” She motioned vaguely at him, spitting out some blood on the floor. “But I agree.”

She’s stalling. She’s stalling and sending me her energy. Fuck, Faith, what are you doing? Buffy’s mind raced through the possibilities, the strategies that Faith could possibly be thinking, tried to read the shadows of intention always present on the slayer connection like shadows from falling leaves, but it was opaque. Brilliant and without shadow or signifier.

There was no telling what would happen.

“And I really want to kill you, man, and I’m just not feeling the love back. That little thing you pulled out on me? I’ve had bigger, sweetheart, and it’s just not gonna cut it.” If Buffy wasn’t focusing on keeping her foot in the door of the room called LIVING, she might have blushed.

“So come on, give us a kiss.” And she gave Adam that fucking smile.

It was uncertain if an entity like Adam could feel rage, but based on the look on his face, he was doing his best to reverse engineer the emotion so he could respond appropriately. A step that was perfectly measured in fractions of fractions, a motion that no body demonic or human should have been able to manage, but happened anyways, and the proboscis extended.

“FAITH! NO!”

Faith didn’t dodge it. It went right into her stomach, leaving through her back. She painted his pulsing arm with a Jackson Pollock splash of red, coughing color into the air. Harlot red looked so similar to the dark blood on her smile. The dark slayer took a step forward, and Adam tilted his head.

She jerked suddenly, elbow headed violently for the proboscis, but it rescinded just in time. His hand caught hers and squeezed. Tears blurred Buffy’s vision, the pain dragging her into a haze, but she heard Faith’s cries of pain. 

“All of that suffering, for nothing. Or was this its ending?” He mused, eying her with something dangerously close to curiosity.

“Just-” Faith was interrupted by her own groans of agony, "the missing... piece." Buffy saw a glimmer of steel like a plastic toy in Faith’s hand that held his own, and it all came together. Something made a

‘Click!’

Sound, and then there was the White.

Faith

A few days prior...

“So you’re telling me it doesn’t work…. ‘All the way’ on demons and other non humans, right?” Faith said with a raised eyebrow at Tara and Willow (in that order). She was skeptical of this thing’s effectiveness in the first place, it looked rinky-dink as hell, and the way it creaked when she squeezed it even a little bit wasn’t exactly soothing those concerns.

“R-right, it might cause a temporary blending of consciousness, but nothing else. Almost like-,” said Tara.

“-A possession in reverse. A repossession!” Brown eyes went up to the roof, like she would be able to see if the blonde directly above them was still sleeping. Something in her gaze looked like she did, and Tara and Willow dryly swallowed.

“Oh so you two finish each other’s sentences now?"

Something clicked into place in her head like a well oiled firing mechanism. A little smirk followed with it.

"You not driving stick anymore, Red?” She said it kind of low, but definitely not a whisper. There was just enough voice there to indicate a bizarre mix of disgust and pride in the Bostonian's voice. She cracked open a can of beer, leaning back on the couch, running a hand through her hair.

“I-I don’t know what you’re talking about! I never learned how to drive stick, and really I never saw the point in anything but automatic vehicles anyways, no matter what Giles says,”

Faith gave her a look, and 'Red' lived up to her nickname.

ADAITH POV:

It all made sense now, of course, why things had happened to him as a child. With fresh eyes he took it in, a sort of distant reliability informing his thoughts every step of the way, like a cheap pocket calculator that never seemed to run out of battery.

His father was out of the picture early on, like so many others in the Boston area. And like so many others still, he was Irish. That was all Adam really had to go on, and the drive to get more had died around 2 years before his mother did. She was Albanian. She died with a needle in her arm.

Adam was born with a needle in his arm. There was something poetic about that, he observed, but it was lost on him. He remembered the operating table that brought him to life out of so many demons, but that was all a distant nightmare now; it was just a symbolic representation of the reality of the situation:

I was born with metal in me, needle and string and everything mean, stitching me together and worming through me until there’s nothing left. Not even the hate.

A memory came to mind as he staggered, two stabbing wounds in his side, Mother Walsh leaning over him, high again, judging by the dilated pupils. 15/17th the way to a complete non-concentricity, of course, and the frayed circumference is an early indication of a cataract. Not that she will live that long. Like all flesh, she fades. The future will not know her.

She spoke in thick, slurred Albanian mixed with English. Her hand held up his strange-stitched one, now child like and small, and slowly put a cigarette out on the palm. Tears came to both of their eyes.

“It’s so beautiful, Faith, the way smoke comes out of you.”

“I love you, mama.”

“I love you too, Faithie. Give us a kiss.”

There was some kind of internal combustion at his core, and maybe that’s what his strange dream of having a uranium core meant, maybe it was the source of the smoke that made his mother love him. It hurt in his chest, it ached so, but the more it hurt, the more she would love him.

“GIVE US A KISS”

He screamed out in a woman’s voice, hands going to his long black hair and digging into the scalp. The words had no origin he could ascertain, no causal links to shape his perception by. What was the framework he could analyze this? Was it a surrealist manifestation?

His words would have caused embarrassment, if he was capable of that kind of thing. The uranium core in his chest throbbed. Ah, I am capable of that now. Interesting. And not only that, he was capable of being embarrassed of that embarrassment. Fascinating.

No, there is a reason I said them. I can feel it. It’s…. It’s in the lock.

All of his powers of cognition, fuzzy as they may be, gripped the situation to crunch some more numbers. Vision was fading. He wiped his eyes of the tears to see… himself, standing there, seemingly powered down. What… is happening?

“B? What is happening to me?” The name was familiarly alien on his new-tongue, the tongue seeming to speak it without his consent. Was he under the effect of an illusion spell? Or perhaps his systems had somehow been hacked to have false memories. “B? Does that mean Buffy? You are a… a variable, and variables aren’t supposed to cry. Don’t cry.” 

Memories of his mother’s boyfriends came, then. Some were better than others, he supposed; one taught him how to drive, how to steal cars from parking lots and sell them to scrap shops. That paid for the things he deserved to have. The jewelry that he couldn’t shoplift, the makeup that would make him feel as adult as he ought to have been.

Logical. Rational. It all just made sense, in a way, cold and distant. Steady, that’s me, baby. Steady. His mind’s voice had a Boston accent, raspy and far away, and he heard the tears on the edge of it.

The other boyfriends weren’t as good. They used him. Broke him open when he was just 14, and he remembered the light falling out of his eyes like yolks, leaving only a shell. 

Nature, of course, abhors a vacuum. That was elementary scientific knowledge. Spitting rage would arise out of the hole in him at any resistance. To destroy oneself was to experience the real, of course, since sensory perception began and ended at the boundaries of the flesh; therefore, to hurt was to ascertain ones existence. It was all an experiment.

Logical. Rational. Steady. That’s me, baby, that’s me.

So when something came between himself and the route of experimentation he had plotted out, he would simply… well, blow up wasn’t the right term. Blowing up indicated that there was something there with a latent potential kinetic energy (chemical or mechanical) to blow up. That wasn’t the case. There was the nothing, and then there was the rage. Out of needle and string came the everything mean.

And there it was. The Mean. The sum average of all the points that made up the life of Adam Lehane’s life, adding all of the infinitely small points and then obliterating them to make a mathematically palatable value:

THE MEAN

The variable was the mean, and the equation the only natural course of action, and the solution was DEATH. In the subatomic concert of the Nothing, there was chaos: sparks of non-causality giving rise to the order of death, and so it was. Needle-worms sparked against each other and gave rise to emotions he didn’t know he was capable of.

His eyes looked at the blonde that represented the entropy of his self contained system. She was the solution to the equation. One of them had to die, and Adam found that he didn’t care which one it was.

There was a flash of light, and the strange mechanism he held in his hand (not stitched, not green, not metal, but white?) fell down in a heap of broken springs. His consciousness flooded back into its old body.

Adam and Faith woke up in their own bodies, and knew each other.

“I see now,” he said to the bleeding woman, but his cold rationality had the edge of rust that Lehane always wore on her smile. He was poisoned, and they both knew it to be so. But he didn’t care.

“I know.” Faith smiled, a tricklet of blood going down her chin, and there was refrigerated certainty that possessed all of Adam's words.

Chapter Text

Buffy
Faith tugged at the string connecting her and Buffy, feeding her the glowing slack that hung across the space between them. It started out dim, Adam interrupting any concerted flow of energy, but then Buffy began to pull it out of her.

It was intoxicating, the roof of her mouth tanging with the taste of licorice, black n’ milds, blood, and rubbed lipstick. In her green eyes, flakes of dark brown rusted green eyes that shimmered with fresh perception.

Her ribs were stitching themselves together, bonemold breaking the breaks; it only took 15 seconds of a fresh energy flow from the darker slayer. But it had a cost, a figure in spilled blood that wasn’t stopping. Faith was flagging, taking blow after blow, any wound she landed returned instantly by a (more than) equal and opposite reaction. She was losing.

Buffy stood. Her ribs didn’t cry out in pain this time. 

“YOU’RE DISGUSTING!” Adam threw Faith into the wall of the cave, and Buffy's eyes flashed with black-gold colors splashed on the edges of her vision. The connection. It's letting me see the energy. “DISGUSTING!” He punched her in the stomach so hard that the rock wall supporting her spit dust out like it was the one getting hit.

“DISGUSTING. MURDEROUS. YOU’RE NOTHING. ZERO. NO. YOU ARE NaN. NOT A NUMBER.” His voice was rotting from the inside, a familiar accent coming over him; his face contorting in expressions that he was never designed to make. It would have been comical, hearing a robot talk in a Bostonian accent, were the circumstances not so fucked. He leaned over her, raising a steeled fist. Tears of oil and acid dripped out of his eyes onto the ground below them, sizzling and staining the dirt forever. His future-hand never landed. Buffy made sure of that.

“More than you’re about to be.” Buffy’s eyes weren't the pure green they normally were, rust and dark brown shadows flickering in and out of the edges as Faith's energy and her own combined. She raised one leg, twisted her body around for leverage, and pushed it out. The kick sent him farther than it had any right to. Something was different.

The string connecting her and Faith was so, so thin now; all she should do was fight the urge to consume the other woman entirely, to give in to the hunger. Adam tried to get up. The metal plating where he had been hit was now far deeper into his flesh than it should have been. Black blood welled around it, bruising and internal hemorrhaging filling out his arm like a crayoned coloring book.

“You don’t understand, B,” he said, like her name was just B, like it was just another variable in an equation that just refused to do what it was supposed to. “I am outside of the enantiomorph, subject to neither death nor killing. I do not murder, I do not destroy, I do not ravage. I dismantle. I understand through iteration."

“If it's that simple, why don't you just iterate your way out of here?" Buffy, very clearly, didn't quite know what that word meant. But from context clues, she pieced together that it was a process. Or maybe it was related to irritation. But she was sure that her sentence had the desired effect.

“I can leave at any time I want,” he said, and his face seemed slightly perturbed, like he was trying to work out how to make his feet do that.

“Do you need to turn off and start back up again? I’ll wait.”

“I will settle for turning you off.”

In another universe, one where his well oiled thoughts were churning along exactly as they should have, he would have left. He would recuperate and enact the phase of his plan that consisted of activating his sleeper agents within the initiative and hunkering down in their depths. To hide under their nose like a Trojan Horse virus.

But he didn't. Here, the thoughts were a tick behind, the minute cogs of cognition becoming more misaligned by the second. He wanted something for the first time in his existence. Something was off. He knew it. Somewhere along the line, he'd forgotten to carry the one, he'd forgotten to equalize the fractions, forgotten to replace a negative square root with an imaginary number…. but he didn't care.

Liberation had been right there on the blank page in his mind he was scrawling equations on with a mechanical, perfect handwriting, and he hadn't seen it. How could he have been so foolish? The key to his cage was HER. B. The equation and the solution all in one nicely wrapped variable.

He stepped forward in a perfectly tuned step, taking a swing with the dying metal arm, but Buffy easily dodged under it, more precisely than Faith would have, hitting the arm again; his arm sounded like a rusty crane trying to lift up the moon. Her breaking hands sundered his future-flesh. They rose up and grabbed the metal plating on his head, crumpling it like paper.

Another crushing kick to his chest sent him skidding back at least 5 feet.

“I’m losing. Why am I here? Why don't I care?” He sounded rather polite about it, like he was asking someone to repeat themselves.

“Hm." Buffy pretended to think, taking steps just as mechanical as his were a moment prior. "I think I like you just where you are."

Her hand stabbed into the same place her blade had gone in Faith like it was always meant to go there. Like a hole that she had the perfect puzzle piece to fill. Her arm twisted up and ripped out the uranium core inside. He garbled something about the rain. Adam died with a rusted smile that mirrored Faith’s own.

The Slayer leaned down to Faith, and whispered something in her ear. Faith was lost by then, falling into a perfect sleep more restful than the one that lasted 8 months.

A few days had gone by since Adam's decommissioning. The others simply couldn't believe it, what Faith had done. Xander even let out a low whistle of approval.

Fact of the matter was, the plan was genius. Willow and Tara told her about how Faith had asked them about the device a bit more, but were more worried about her using it on Buffy than anything else. Not that they were about to risk trying to take it from her. They liked their arms attached.

Buffy couldn't believe it either. If she hadn't shown up… the most childish part of her pouted at the fact that Faith saved her. That was hardly fair. Another part of her relished in it. The loyalty there, the way Faith smiled down at her with blood on her lips when she took Adam's proboscis in her place. Well trained, she thought, like you would after a dog finally learns to sit on command.

The healing was faster, this time around. It was almost as if the connection between them wasn’t so much a river, but the river bed; the more their energies exchanged, the more freely it went from one to the other. Like their lakes were connecting. A big lake.

Buffy’s head, she decided, hurt. She hadn’t slept well the night prior, Faith had been gone, after all. Sometimes she would just… do that. One night she would be clinging to Buffy like she was the only thing keeping her from drowning, hands digging into her shoulders until it bruised sweetly, threatening to push Buffy under the waterline of their blankets from desperation.

Or this. Where she just. Dipped. That was fine too. Faith was back the next morning, the space under her eyes a little darker, a ringed bruise around her neck, smudged lipstick giving her a permanent smirk. Acting like she was welcome there.

Which she was, don’t get Buffy wrong, but she didn’t have to act like she was. That rather ruined the whole thing.

“Yo, B, want some grilled cheese?” Her voice was a little too raspy, the way it got after Buffy choked her, she noted with a balled yarn of jealousy that she was not going to get into, thankyouverymuch.

“Not hungry.”

“Whatever, just as long as you don’t start bitching when we’re out tonight.” Her voice had a bitter little twang on the end of it. It was a hook with no bait, and Buffy was a fish pissed off enough to attack it anyways.

“Excuse me? In case you forgot, Faith, you are the super bitch out of the two of us.”

“Just so long as I’m super,” Faith said with a swagger into the living room where Buffy was looking at the TV (but not, as it were, watching).

“Why are you in front of the TV.” It wasn’t a question, just a statement.

Faith chewed the scenery, giving Buffy an unimpressed look. She looked to Buffy like a slutty cow. Chewing cud. The black tank top against pale skin was hardly helping the image, and the way Faith really made a point of taking her time finishing each bite was just going too far.

Buffy tried not to look at the scars, new and old. One big one flowering that Buffy had made, and two smaller ones left as pale, circular echoes of the fight with Adam.

“Who shit in your cheerios?”

“Who says that?”

“I asked first.” Buffy didn’t answer immediately, watching carefully the small trail of white cheese that trailed into Faith’s lips. Then she made a show of looking through the evil, bad, no good, rapscallion slayer in front of her and into the movie on the television. It was about a Christmas romance, probably had guns, and… a message about what really counts. Family.

Instead, she just got more eyefuls of Faith’s belly button piercing. Several, in fact.

“I just,” She started, sighing in frustration. She was having linguistic constipation, “just woke up on the wrong side of the bed, I guess. And class sucked today.”

“Well you shoulda flaked like I told you to.” Faith pointed the pointy end of the sandwich at Buffy like it was an instrument of teaching. She moved over next to Buffy, and Buffy could smell that distinctive perfume that made her throat go all dry (she was also pretty sure Faith shoplifted it the second she was able to lift herself out of bed from her injuries in the fight against Adam).

“They should hire you to do a motivational seminar.” Buffy’s voice had the ringing enthusiasm of a dropped metal pipe.

“Wait, was she hiding that gun in her rack?”

• William Shotel
• Billy Robins
• Catherine Martell
• Laura Palmer
• Hunter Hunt
• John the Defenestrator
• Sarah Gazelle Shellar

These were the names of the Vampires who lost their lives that night (excepting, of course, John the Defenestrator, who escaped through a window into the loving embrace of a moving car's front bumper.

Their blood wasn’t so much pumping as it was making a spirited attempt to get out and make a break for it. The shared slayer energy between them hummed back and forth, emotions spiking and strength surpassing even abnormal levels. Buffy could hardly hear for the blood rushing through her ears, and yet, she could hear everything. Even the little whimpers and grunts Faith let out as they fought Vamp after vamp.

Especially those.

The graveyard had run out of blood, but the hunt was still on. Energy humming under the skin that couldn’t be burned off easily, like the skin would go up in flames before the god damn rush ever did. It was overwhelming. It was intoxicating. It wasn’t exactly pleasant.

But it was familiar. Faith did it to her.

Faith licked her lips and smiled down at the blonde. She tried not to think of how it made her throb and turn. She didn’t take the hand the dark haired woman offered her.

“Message received, fuck me, forevermore.” Faith put her hands up in mock surrender, turning and walking away from the now risen Buffy.

“Not quite sure it was. That fight could have gone south fast.”

“Could? It did. That’s why I saved you.” She had the balls to wink at Buffy. Her lips opened to say something, laceration of licorice or both, but the words sputtered and died as she was pushed back against the stone crypt behind her.

I can hear the way her vocal chords twist air into whimpers, twisting around each other like lovers in bed- Oh my god, ew-

“I wouldn’t have needed saving if I hadn’t been trying to save you in the first place. Doesn’t that strike you as a little strange?”

“Not really. Saving people is what we do.” She gave Buffy a lazy little smile of a dead beat devil’s advocate. “But I’m sorry, B, I just- wanted to get the slaying over with so we could get to the swaying. The Bronze is only open a few more hours…”

Buffy’s glare had the same effect on Faith’s creeping sentence as the world’s noisiest 3AM stair.

“The Bronze? You want to go to the Bronze? As a wanted criminal?”

“Being wanted is kind of the fun of the club, B.” She sounded a little pissed at the way Buffy rolled her eyes dismissively.

“We’re not going “clubbing” just because you want to drink away the last year.” Buffy started to turn away, forearm bar loosening.

“We? Maybe not, but you’re not my boss, so I’m going. Simple as.” The turn stopped. The bar on Faith’s throat got just a little tighter.

 “Run that by me again?” Her voice lowered, and a few vampires in the nearby graves heard something in her voice that made them decide to extend their nap underground for a few hours, dug back down, and got cozy.

The throat under the bar gulped.

“I meant…” she looked into Buffy’s eyes and almost turned to stone, she had the face of someone who knew she was fucked. Well and truly.

“Please?” At least she doesn’t know that she could’ve just started with that.

Faith

The Bronze was fucking bumping, baby. She felt back, living large, etc. Part of her started to remember when she was a ghost wrapped in a leather jacket too large, dancing against the man who smelled like wood dust and damp. Something rose up in her throat, a grunt that tasted like her stomach. She leaned into Buffy who danced against her like she had all those months ago (to Faith, just weeks), and felt her heart rise up like a charmed snake. And she moved like it too, her hands rising over her head in a revelation, invisible strings falling from her fingers over Buffy to make her dance in such a harmony with her.

But there was something missing. The howling empty was there, in between each beat of the drums, in between each lick of the guitar and ripped sigh from Buffy’s mouth. The kind of empty you’d fill with anything nearby. Eventually she drifted away from Buffy into the arms of some guy. She hoped Buffy would pull her back by the golden string that connected them, but she didn’t. A little further, and she’ll notice. And she’ll pull me back. She’ll stop me from drifting out, from drowning in that nothing.

But she didn’t.

The back door to the Bronze opened and she drifted out, dragged behind the Guy like a balloon, bouncing back and forth listlessly. Dragged through the door, stopping for a moment on the boundary between the night and the thrumming heat, looking back into the crowd for Buffy.

But the hand pulled her by her string into the open.

They were flirting in the alley, and Faith’s responses were half-hearted, but it wasn’t that she didn’t want it. She always wanted it, that’s what she was for. It made it better. It made it smoother, didn’t it? When she didn’t want it, it made things so much harder. He would use her, and because she wanted to be used, it was fine. Yeah. That’s how it went, baby, and she would always come out on top. The flirts that left her lips tasted like her stomach acid.

She reached up and linked her arms around his neck from behind, pulling him down like her own little balloon to pop. Her eyes closed, her lips parted, and she opened her mouth.

POP!

That was the sound of his breath leaving his lungs far, far more quickly than a human’s lungs were designed to accommodate. His face went through all the higher frequencies of the rainbow. Buffy hadn’t meant to hurt him, Faith could tell by the way her eyes turned into falling saucers. He doubled over.

“O-oh! Sorry, are you okay?” the blonde crouched down to help him up. The man’s eyes bulged a little as he nodded.

“Good! Now get lost.” He nodded again, real slow like, like he was trying to remember how to do that. He took very slow, very short steps back into the Bronze. As soon as he went inside, she licked her teeth like she was really preparing to dig in to this argument. Bitch has to ruin everything.

“Hey, what the fuck is your damage, B? Go get your own meat-“

Whatever dehumanizing bullshit she was about to say was interrupted by lips against her own. She was pushed back against the wall with a force that wasn’t exactly resistible, and she tasted Buffy’s lip balm on her mouth and felt the sharp sting of her teeth.

It was rough, it was mean, like two puzzle pieces that shouldn’t have fit together but Buffy forced together like a frustrated kid. Faith moaned into her mouth, and returned fire. Her hands wrapped around Buffy’s hips like they were anchors to reality, eyes fluttering closed as the vibrations from inside of the Bronze thrummed through the brick wall behind her ass and into her core.

Faith tasted like rum and coke, she tasted like licorice, she tasted like laceration.

She moaned into B’s lips, hand starting to drift down before an iron grip grabbed them and pinned them to the brick wall behind her so hard her knuckles bled. Buffy broke the kiss and looked up at her with something hateful, something that made Faith whimper, whine, and writhe like a beat dog. And that’s what she was, really.

“Didn’t I tell you-" Buffy breathed out, "that whatever happens to you, I’ll be the one who does it?”

Chapter Text

Faith

And I heard, as it were, the noise of thunder

One of the four beasts saying, 'Come and see'

And I saw, and behold a white horse

She didn't understand why her mother loved this song the way she did. Johnny Cash graveled the fiery word of god in a country accent over the shitty radio in the Oldsmobile while her her mother muttered around a B & M vague observations about 'the people around here, man', slipping into Albanian. It was a linguistic miracle that Faith could understand a single word, but she always did believe in miracles.

It was Sunday, and Sunday meant church. Church meant kneeling, it meant the hypnotic readings of words that etched themselves onto your red knees, it meant salvation at the end of the road somewhere. But the road was hard. And the road was long.

There's a man goin' 'round takin' names

And he decides who to free and who to blame

Everybody won't be treated all the same

There'll be a golden ladder reachin' down

When the man comes around

Her mouth was moist with the drying flavor of the black and mild she'd swiped out of her mother's purse earlier in the morning. It had first been about 3 years ago when her mother found out that she'd been taking out of her purse. She smiled a small private smile that wasn't meant for the thief to see, but Faith stole that too from the barely opened door to her room.

The smile said 'Little Faithie, all grown up, my little 12 year old woman.' She'd hoped her mother would hit her. From then on, Florina Lehane always bought an extra B & M to keep in her purse, wrapped up in plastic. On her daughter's lungs, nicotine inked the words of god.

Johnny Cash's graveling was replaced by gravel under wheel as they pulled into the parking lot. Quite the hooplah, Faith thought as she got out. Last Sunday, she'd wore makeup to church, just to see her mom's reaction; just to get one. Any kind of stimulus to remind her that there was someone still in there behind the hollow eyes. Something. Anything but the worms.

Faith cleaned off the lipstick in the bathroom before they went to church without even being scolded. Bullshit. It's all bullshit.

Today was a good day though. Those still popped up every now and then. Mom even cracked a joke with that fucked up thick Albanian accent and bugged brown eyes that could make a statue break up into pieces. They hopped out of the Oldsmobile and funneled into church with the other human shaped words waiting to be breathed in the house of God.

Father MacManus was giving the sermon, same one he did every Ash Wednesday. He was pretty good, as far as religious types went. Second generation Irish immigrant, just like the rest of them (matter of fact, where were all the fuckin' first generation ones?). He was out of the green and grime, Roxbury through and through.

God for the pain, Percocet for the gain. Or is it the other way around? Half of the mass were disenfranchised factory workers, an army of Florina and Faith Lehanes. Most of them, of course, were the walking dead out of the plastic plant somewhere deep in Roxbury's colon. It wasn't doing too well. De-industrialization had happened slow and fast all at once; like everyone knew it was coming, but still had the gall to shit themselves when the factories finally shuttered up like redbrick mausoleums.

The factory workers who 'Made this city what it is today!' were left behind of course. Nicotine stained breath of god, coming to be inhaled in the brass organ Father MacManus's host of choir boys (mostly pimply losers with a smart ass mouth) played every Sunday.

But there was absolution, there. There was relief. Father MacManus was sort of a New Testament guy, but that wasn't where the money was at. Here, people craved a wrathful god. It was a helluva lot easier to stomach than a nice one who still put them through hell. Unfortunately for the Massachusetts masochists, there was a lack of options; the Mac Man was just about all they had.

That was okay with Faith. She knelt down next to her mother and smelled the licorice that she seemed to habit softly wafting out with each mutter with a slurred, thick Albanian accent and a mind numbed by reverence. It was a rush, it was a drag, and they all held their breath together. 

And I heard a voice in the midst of the four beasts

And I looked, and beheld a pale horse:

And his name that sat on him was Death

And Hell followed with him

Her eyeliner was smudged from the sweat of the Bronze's swaying just a few minutes ago. This was new. It was dangerous, and it fucking hurt. Buffy was digging into her like a wild animal, biting her, kissing her, licking her, like each grunt of pain or plea for more of it was the only thing that would sate her.

"Fuck-" she whined, Buffy stopped holding her hands to the gristled brick wall behind them. It was better not to test her, though. They stayed there. She would be good for her. I'll be a good girl, I'll pray, I'll do my Hail Marys while you take my flesh as bread and my blood as wine. I'll be your eucharist, babe, just don't leave.

Suddenly the knee between her legs jerked up; if Faith didn't have supernatural slayer resilience, it would have hurt. Well, it would have hurt more. Her face went a deeper shade of red as sweat dripped down from her brow. The other woman was like a furnace.

Each kiss was like a cigarette being put out on pale, fresh skin, leaving red. It's so beautiful the way smoke comes out of you, Faithie.

"You're mine. Say it."

"You're mine, B." She said with a lazy smile, the same girl who took shit out of her mom's purse just to get hit.

Buffy put a manicured nail to the flowering scar and pressed the sharpest part in, in, in until a bead of blood welled out. She cried out in agony, feeling a new sweat pooling between her legs. Her God made her weep, sweat, leak, and bleed the sin out. Ounce by ounce. When she tried to put a hand to her mouth, God stopped punishing her. Green eyes glowered into her grime.

The nails were utterly still as B leaned in, pupils wide enough to drive a car through. "Take the hand away." Which one, she thought, but knew that was the point; B wanted to see if she would resist or submit. Which hand would Faith take away? The one tormenting her, or the one preventing Buffy from sipping the wine of her whines? 

Faith nodded through the tears, and returned her hand to her sides, splayed out against the dark wall like it was her only sense of stability in an earth quake. The nails twisted as Buffy drank the cries from the source, light pink lipstick against Harlot red.

"Say it."

"I'm yours, B, I-I'm only yours, please, please, plea-"

Normally the Golden Girl was new testament, but that wasn't what made the money, baby. Faith craved the fire of god's love, the ignition at the beginning of the nicotined words on her lungs. She would pull the wrath out of the Good Slayer like a nice, long drag. Gimme, gimme, gimme. Salvate me. Burn me into ashes and put me out under your foot, God, please.

Buffy

It was addicting, the salty sweet taste of Faith's sweat and musk, her heart pulsing with fear that she wouldn't be able to stop tearing into the darker woman. The slayer connection roared like a rapid, the spell that Willow and Tara cast to make the exchange of energies that much easier hadn't gone away like they'd said, but become a permanent third wheel in their fucked up situation.

The damned spell had moved into their basement, acted like it didn't hear anything involving rent, and raided the pantry. It was in. There wasn't anything they could do to get rid of it now, and Buffy found that she didn't particularly want to. Faith's glimmer-grime, energy stained in scars and stipulation fed into Buffy as the stronger slayer ate it hungrily.

Okay, well, it's only fair. Because I fed her so much energy while she was still healing. That's it.

Every little whimper she drug out of the other slayer's mouth blew up in her vision, colors spattering on the edges of her periphery. Beautiful things, gold, green, a syllable song. Giles had called it Thaumogenetic Synasthesia; when their connection was really charged like this it could happen. Tara had said it was probably her senses trying to display the energies of their connection to the brain.

"I'm yours, B, I-I'm only yours, please, please, plea-" The words, the whimpering, broken words coming out of eyes like shattered clay plates made Buffy's vision swim. Her core ached with the need to ache the woman in her hands. It's not sexual. She's just… not allowed to have a good time like that. And the slayer connection has side effects, Giles said so, this is just par for the course.

"Good girl," she said, left hand soothing Faith's messed up hair. The other hand twisted just a millimeter further inside of her property. Insatiable green eyes looked down at the bleeding pattern, hypnotized completely. The small beads of blood were… those were good, but they weren't what she was looking out. She could see Faith's essence flowing out like glowing honey and into her hand, catching and dripping on her fingers like-

It was a special kind of mind that could clamp down a thought like that; a mind like a cold steel trap. Buffy possessed such a mind, when she needed to. The thought had its leg just about cut off at the knee. It went no further.

Animal instinct alone pulled her hand to her mouth, and flicking her eyes into Faith's, slowly licked the glowing honey off of her fingers. Blood that tasted like metal mixed with the liqorice of Faith's mystical energy. The wounded woman, for her part, whined briefly at the cold left by her owner taking her hand out of her, brows knitting up before she got hypnotized by the sight of her own essence on Buffy's hand.

Pretty, isn't it?

Finger by finger, five by five, they watched the other. The message was clear. Every part of Faith was hers now. There was no room for interpretation, for disobedience, for hope, even for fear. It wasn't sexual, of course, just power; she would drink Faith of everything she had. Buffy's heart didn't beat like a kettledrum, her blood didn't rush like multitudes marching. No. Not at all.

The hairs on your arm will stand up

At the terror in each sip and in each sup

Will you partake that last offered cup

Or disappear into the potter's ground?

When she leaned down to kiss Faith's bleeding scar better, when she licked the small tricklets of blood from her neck, it wasn't because she cared. When she broke Faith apart in her arms in that alley, she didn't put her back together because she missed the way her toy felt in her hands. It was just part of the process.

When she whispered words of comfort to the crying woman left behind by the breaking hands, when she held her because she knew how cold she would get if she left then, it wasn't because she was in love. Just the slayer connection, Buff. Just power. Just control.

The thought crawled on, bleeding and limping, but the steel trap in her mind hadn't stopped it, just slowed it down a whole helluva lot. And the name on it was Love.

Whoever is unjust, let her be unjust still

Whoever is righteous, let her be righteous still

Whoever is filthy, let her be filthy still

Listen to the words long written down

When the man comes around

Her hand drifted across the scars, across the freshly scabbed wounds left by tooth and pink, manicured nails. Once they'd gotten home, Buffy had wrung her hands about the possibility of mom seeing Faith in this state. She'd think she got hurt on the patrol. Don't want her worrying. Over the last few weeks, Joyce and Faith's relationship hadn't returned to normal per say, but had found a new normal. Joyce didn't apologize for calling Faith psychotic (much to her relief, she had no reason to apologize), and Faith had apologized for stealing Joyce's lipstick.

She'd offered it back. Joyce took one look at it, had a wry smile, and shook her head, "You wore psychotic well. Keep it." You probably could have lit up a Christmas night with the red on Faith's face. The fact of the matter was that Joyce would start asking questions and fussing over her if she thought Buffy got her hurt.

Okay, maybe it's not just because I'm worried about mom worrying. But that's definitely part of it!

"Yo, B, it's cool. You don't keep your window locked, let's bounce up there real quick."

"I… don't?" Buffy said, pulled out of her little inner fretting to look up at Faith with wide green eyes. A flicker of dawn was crusting on the horizon like salt on a margarita glass. The other woman just laughed, real easy like she hadn't been just about torn apart by the blonde, then started up the front porch's supporting beam.

Buffy took the time to take out her earrings and remove her makeup from the wild night, looking at herself in the mirror for a moment longer than she meant to. She hadn't gotten rid of her lipstick yet. Pink nails went up to the two-toned lips, part pink, part harlot red. Smudges in a round shape kind of made her look crazy, not to mention the messed up hair and fucked up eyeliner.

"You look insane," she pouted at the reflection, "and don't sound much different…"

Faith was taking off her jacket, getting ready to sleep, but she wasn't having any of that.

"Take off the makeup."

"What, you don't like protection?" It was said innocently, and with Faith, that meant that it was probably far nastier than the things Faith usually said.

"W-what? No! I mean, yes, but that's not what I meant. Take off the makeup because you'll get a stye if you don't and it'll hurt, and- just take it off. Please."

The other girl was, for once, caught out. Her brows twitched, cunning little mind trying to find a smart ass remark to say and for once, coming up short. "Okay. Thanks, B." She got out of bed with a wince, hand flicking to the flowering scar on her side.

Buffy's hand twitched, her leg moved towards Faith, eyes wide and open. Light spilled out of them. She stopped herself, worrying her hands as the other girl walked past her into the bathroom and closed the door. A few minutes went by, silence to meditate before she went to bed, in the way that Giles had taught her.

Thoughts floated past her. They were external things, like all sensory phenomena, and to latch onto one was to have it stick to her perception. Her steel trap of a mind was disarmed, lying in wait, just for a while. The Slayer vigilance made it hard to sleep unless she did this beforehand. She wondered if Diana Dormer had taught Faith something similar.

A few minutes later, the other slayer laid down next to her, brown eyes flitting closed like she was fighting to keep them open. Buffy's hand floated an inch above Faith's skin, her face freezing as she took in the woman in front of her. The steel trap creaked.

It's not right. Whatever this is. It's not fair to her. She's trying to be good for me and i just keep punishing her. I don't deserve to touch her. Don't deserve her warmth, don't deserve the way her brown eyes look to me for something.

The half conscious, softly breathing body under her hand whined, and it shivered. That's just not fair. Buffy pulled her in, surrounding her, caging her, protecting her. The shivering stopped, and Faith nuzzled further into the grasp as pink nails softly dragged up and down her back.

Chapter Text

Buffy

Classes had to be attended. The show must go on. Or whatever. I can do it, just have to focus up and listen to professor… professor….

She couldn't even remember the poor guy's name. He was nice, but the subject was business communications. It was literally the easiest class you could find on the list. The homework had the answers written directly below the questions for God's sake!

Buffy was still fighting for a C. He droned on about email structure. Her mind kept on drifting back to the soul on the other end of the golden string that extended always and forever out of her right hand. It shook underneath her fingernails when Faith was experiencing powerful emotion. Or powerful-uhm, sensations.

It was part of the reason she had to put her foot down with Faith about absconding with the dead eyed denizens of the Bronze. When it was with a man, something about the connection felt sick. Her nails on her right hand would start to ache, her palm would itch and sweat, and bile would rise in her throat.

Which, of course, made no sense. Normally she would pick up feedback on emotions, sure, so why was it like that?

Whatever was up with that, she wasn't having with any of that nonsense. So. She put her foot down. Boundary set in no uncertain terms. Just had to do it in the only language Faith understands. Blood and hickeys. Giles has his weird little mannerisms, Tara and Willow have their weird glances she was still figuring out, and Faith had blood and hickeys.

I'm just an effective communicator.

"Buffy, what do you think about the implications of globalized networking on localized pricing? Do you think that the internet will make prices equalize across diverse contexts?"

The moment suffocated. Buffy opened her mouth.

"Guh-"

"Gosh, that sounds brutal, Buff," said Willow with a sympathetic reverse-frown. "That question has at least 10 syllables." Buffy groaned in reverberated, resonant agony as the echoes of the trauma went through her.

"And then I said… "Guh."" She whined into her forearms that she was laying her head into. It was better to hide the face of such a stupid, stupid, stupid loser than to flaunt it to the world.

"So… what were you thinking about?"

"Huh?" She squeaked conspicuously, "me? Um, my next class."

"Which one?" Willow had the empty sadistic eyes of a great white shark who just smelled blood. Buffy gulped.

"Comm… communications."

"I thought that was the one you were in," she said with that round little smile and those beady evil eyes and-

"Okay! Okay. I was thinking about Faith." Buffy wasn't blushing. And if she was, god damnit, it was because of the embarassment of the 'Guh' incident. She looked away from Willow for a second, seeing something dangerously close to interest there. "Nothing weird. Just about something that happened at the Bronze last night."

"Is that why you look so tired?"

Now what did that mean? Something puffed up in Buffy's chest to defend her honor.

"No. Well. Maybe."

"Before a day where you had early morning classes?" Willow's mouth opened a little, like she was tasting the fear, eyes flicking down to the blood pooling in Buffy's cheeks as she prodded further.

She decided to pull the dark jacket tighter around herself, like she was hiding under a blanket. It was too large and the motion only made it more apparent. Her "friend" went for the kill.

"And that's Faith's jacket! Next you're going to start smoking and wearing tank tops!"

It was the same one that she'd washed soon after Fatih was under her care, the same one that was splattered in her blood, tears in the rough denim from years of use.

'You look better in it, hey, look at me~', Faith had said that morning; she'd seen her trying it on when Buffy had thought she was still sleeping. She didn't know why she grabbed the damn thing, and was rising through an apology before Faith had interrupted her with a voice laced clouded from recent sleep.

She had stepped up to her, putting her hands on the lapels of the jacket, eyes flickering with recognition, thumb running over it in a way that made Buffy's throat hurt.

'Winner takes it all, B, what's there to be sorry for? We're five by five. Just bring it back to me in one piece'

"It was just what was convenient! I saw it just sitting around and I knew it was going to be cold today, so I did the responsible thing and bundled up. And if you think about it-" here came the finger wagging, "it's only fair. Faith isn't paying rent right now, or anything, so… it's the least she can do."

"The least she can do is dress you up like her?"

"Traitor." The time was coming for one of Buffy's classes, and she did her best to figure which option was better for her: a class that she'd been skipping for two weeks now (and hadn't really been paying attention to before that), or being grilled by Willow.

She didn't feel like getting up.

"W-well, I think it's great, don't get me wrong. I know you two were good friends" 'really, we're just good friends', "before everything went down. Maybe I'm just… okay, we're just worried."

"We?" Buffy scanned around like the royal We was going to jump from the treetops nearby.

"Me and Tara! A-and Xander. And Giles." Willow worried her hands, twisting them like slugs under salt, avoiding Buffy's eyes that gave her the distinct impression that she had better choose her words very carefully.

"We just… are you sure that this is the best way to help Faith? To help you?"

"I wasn't aware that I needed help," Buffy said as she shot up her eyebrows like this was all news to her, feeling something rankle in her that they had gone behind her back again. Find a new theme, guys.

"and I know for a fact that I don't need help with Faith. She's mine."

"Like, she's your prisoner?" The playful bloodlust was gone from her eyes now; she looked worried. Willow would be a god awful poker player. Something softened in Buffy at that, defensiveness rotting into a mulch of guilt. She shouldn't shut her out.

"No. I mean, yes," she sighed, feeling the exhaustion of the night prior hit her all at once, "but she's also my responsibility, I put her in that coma. She has no where else to go."

"And putting her in a prison would be an act of cruel and unusual punishment… for the prison."

Buffy snorted, Willow looked pleased with the quip, but both knew that this conversation wasn't over. Just delayed. She stood up, grabbed her bag, and went to class to face judgement.

Faith

She had a house call to make. Faith walked through the cemetery like it was the neighborhood, going towards a specific mausoleum. Tara had given her the location, didn't even have to act tough. She's a nice gal. The door opened silently into the shadows, dust fuming out slowly. Slayer eyes cut through the darkness like a rainbow, and the smell. Liquor. Self pity. Familiar.

Her boots made plenty of noise down the steps, she wasn't really trying to sneak, after all. Smoke played in the sunlight streaming from outside.

"Spike?" She liked the name. Rolled off the tongue like a gunshot. Had flair.

"I smell a slayer… two, actually. Blondies all over you." Her eyes locked onto the source of the sound immediately. The recliner. A pale hand drooped down next to the recliner, tipping a bottle of Jack Daniels back and forth precariously.

"You're one to talk, your roots are showing."

"What do you want?"

"Still deciding." Spike was Billy Badass around here, he killed two slayers, almost gave Adam the keys to the kingdom with a little subterfuge, drove over the Sunnydale sign on the way into town. God I want to meet this guy.

She closed the door slowly behind her, letting the creak cut the air til it bled, "I heard the Initiative got to you. Vampire without fangs, huh?"

"Right. Come to gawk, have ya?" He scoffed and threw something at the flickering TV. Miraculously, it stopped flickering and continued to play the episode of Passions that had been playing. "Oughtta sell some bloody tickets at this rate~" He trailed off into a grumble. When she finally walked next to the couch, his eyes were tracking her with a sharpness that made her smile.

She returned it.

"Nah. You mind if I take a seat?" Faith didn't wait for him to return, sitting down on the other seat, kicking her boots up next to his own.

"Yeah just sit wherever you'd like, really make yourself at home," he waved distractedly, he was looking at something else too intently to get pissed off. The wounds, the bruises, the hickeys trailing her, the cuts and scars. Spike had a little triangle of a grin, he was piecing it all together.

"Brilliant, just brilliant, she got you too!" he shrilled, "I got defanged but you got domesticated, didn't you, pet?" Faith was on him in the breath between moments, shitty little pocket knife to his throat.

"Careful, pet, this thing's dull, and I didn't bring a stake," her hand shook, her eyes going down to the hand. It wasn't fear of doing the deed, it was the restraint it took to not get started on decapitating him, very, very slowly.

"Then start talking," he said, tilting his head, rolling his tongue as he bared his neck like a cuss word, Fuck, I like this guy.

"You want your fangs back, I want my get back on the Initiative, get me? They sicced the Watcher's Council on me, and-" she licked her lips to alleviate the dryness, "well, I just don't really like em'."

A smile slithered from her face to his.

They got to work, exchanging information, mapping out the entrances to the Initiative headquarters, discussing the plot of the most recent episode of Passion- wait, no, they were sidetracked. Back to work. Faith told him everything she knew about Riley, Spike told her a bit about the origin of Adam. Project 514. An experiment that failed before it was born. Faith's hand shook, steadied out by the shitty Jack Daniels she stopped from a roll with a foot.

They were hived up under the college, half of the frat boys in there were military minded, blood curdled pigs. A slaughterhouse where the pigs ran the rigs, what a fucking joke. "And what about Riley? The guy with a jawline like a cowsplitter?"

"That's jus' about all of em, pet, gonna have to be more specific," he tilted slowly back and forth, rocking on the back two legs of the wooden chair he'd pulled up to the coffee table where the plans were being drafted.

"Captain Cardboard."

"Oh, Buffy's bounce?" Spike sneered and took a swig of the the JD. They were this kind of dark, hazy drunk where yellow zing tried to crawl out of their skin, even while grogginess blurred their mind. Like lightning stuck in a cloud.

"That's the one. Don't know what she sees in him, I've taken his type for a ride once, never twice," she said with a smile like sideways rain. Spike didn't buy it for a second.

"You're just jealous."

"That so?" She licked her teeth the way she did before hitting someone with a metal pipe.

"Hey, hey, no judgement here. But it's a fact, might as well own up to it if you want to get anywhere."

"Anywhere like where?"

"Away from here."

Passions hummed away softly in the background like an idling engine, the same dramas as there ever were, emotions dulled and pre-packaged. The two looked at each other through the darkness, Faith's eyes shining with an understanding like oil geysers. Here was a dark place. Here be the worms. She could see them shining in his eyes, eating him alive because there was no more blood for them to drink.

He was warning her. Fuck him.

"Fuck you," she decided to just go ahead and make that thought concrete, in case she forgot it, "I'm going to get some blood."

"Some what?" For once, Spike seemed to be caught off guard by another's words. "Where are you…," there was a darkness where once there was a light. He stood up, staggered to a hook on the wall and squinted through the darkness as he heard Faith's footsteps fade into the black night.

Through the clouds of droplets of Jack Daniels whiskey, a small spark of realization that quickly erupted through synapses and became a full fledged lightning storm, crackling and screaming through the dead (or soon to be) woods below.

"That crazy bird stole my car keys."

She parked. Hospital security would say it was more along the lines of trespassing. And somehow taking up four parking spots (a California record, in fact, not that Faith was clear minded enough to celebrate the occasion). Fuck em', she thought vaguely as she got out of the car, not quite knowing who 'em' was. But she did. They were Buffy.

It wasn't hard getting to the blood bank, just told a teller she was here for blood lab reports, wasn't feeling too good, naturally. Her reaction time was slower than it should be, she was dizzy, that kind of thing. She didn't get close enough for them to smell the liquor on her breath.

Faith was something of a vehicular mutant; she had learned how to drive drunk, and in far, far worse conditions than Sunnydale at 11 PM had to offer. Charlie Says had taught her how to drive, and he nursed a bottle of something without a label the whole time. But it smelled vile.

Sure he taught her how to drive so she could steal cars for him and launder them through the body shop, but he taught her how to DRIVE, damnit. No one could deny that.

The nurse told her to follow, and she did. For a time. It was a smooth side step into the room she knew they kept the blood in, the one she'd watched a few nurses go into with the vials and come out without. Her deduction was correct. She put a few bags into the leather jacket she brought with her and went on her merry way.

Fuck em' if they can't take a joke

A few minutes later she opened the door to Spike's crypt. Itt should have taken at least a handful of minutes, or maybe even a dozen depending on traffic conditions. The period between Faith getting the blood and walking into Spike's crypt again would have broken another California record (assuming anyone dared be close enough to measure it with any certainty).

"I want in." She tossed the man a bag, and he caught it. His vamp face was on before she even got close. She wagered he was planning on attacking her for taking the car keys.

He calculated what the bloody hell was going on, anymore, before opening his mouth and saying very carefully, "What the bloody hell is going on, you absolute bird."

"Sunnydale's too small to do the kind of crime I would back home, some pools are too small to piss in. My face is too hot to get a regular job, because they would recognize me from the police report about me breaking out with my luck."

"Bit narcissistic, innit?"

"Tell me I'm lyin'."

"You've got a better arse than a face."

"And yours swapped places at some point, so take off the vamp face and drink your dinner."

"What exactly are you asking?" The face faded like a mist from his face, but one brow was still firmly protruding in suspicion.

"I'm asking you to help me get the cash we need to do a damn thing against the Initiative."

"Bein' Buffy's pet doesn't pay much, does it? I wonder, does Riley let ya sleep at the foot of the be-" She grabbed the blood bag and threw it violently against the wall. Faith was faster than Buffy ever could have been, Spike didn't have any time to react at all.

"I got two more bags, so if you're gonna say something smart, make it really worth it."

"I know a back of house gambling ring we could try. Demons and the like." Spike switched tones like a fucking Xylophone.

"Guess that's a place to start."

Her eyes drifted to the softly humming TV, squinting before saying.

"How many episodes did I miss?"

Buffy

She was supposed to be home by now, and she's not. It wasn't quite possessiveness, and it wasn't quite worry, and it wasn't quite resentment; it was a new fourth thing somewhere between all three of those emotions. Her feet padded against the hardwood floor, back and forth, back and forth. The room felt empty without the adversary, without the woman she gave nightmares, without the one who whispered her name like a prayer, who muttered her hate like a kid's curses under their reverence at church.

It's gonna rain again. The thought was alien, but comforting. Faith was getting closer. Close enough that Buffy could feel the wet on her skin and taste the metal in her mouth. Buffy could die feeling that, and she'd set like the sun.

The door opened downstairs. Should she run down? Should she throttle her, love her with the breaking hands, kill her with eyes that love sideways?

It didn't matter. Steps came up the stairs, they didn't wait on Buffy to come to a decision, not like they were supposed to. Bitch. Buffy glared at the door hard enough to burn holes in it, and she knew that Faith could feel them. Two short shadows stood at attention under the door on the other side.

Rain dropped outside, little droplets that turned into rivulets that would taste like whisky and be sweeter than blood. She felt thirsty. Faith opened the door with a low look, shoulder bearing the brunt of the burning glow of Buffy's eyes.

"Where were you?"

"Hey."

"Hey, yourself. I asked you a question." Their voices were lowered to avoid waking up Joyce next door. Buffy hated the way her voice shook like a leaf in night time rain, but it hurt. What if Faith was going behind her back again? What if this was all a waste of time?

Leaves came off their branches, somewhere out in the dark.

"I wasn't fucking anyone, if that's what you meant. How about you?" It was acid thrown her way without much heart in it. Like someone coerced into a splash fight. Faith looked tired. She looks good tired. She looks good hurt. She looks good with her back to the wall.

Buffy's face flushed a light pink she hoped was hidden by the dark of the night. I would know if you were fucking someone, I would feel it. Now all I feel is the not-feeling you leave behind.

"I-I didn't mean that. I was worried." Her head skewed to the side, eyes twitching like she was confused by the impulses her brain sent to her face. Like a marionette pulled by strings she couldn't turn her head up to see.

The words slaughtered the tension in the room. Corpses of half-thought arguments, aborted barbs, jabs abandoned littered the space between them. Faith took off her jacket, and Buffy eyed the scars and red circles all over her from where she'd laid her claim the night prior.

"I'm yours, B, and I'm back now. Trained hounds don't need to be caught." It was a cutting remark, but the blade was dull, the arm was tired. Faith didn't even make eye contact, brushing past the blonde into the bathroom where she was looking into the mirror. 

She rolled her jaw as she heard Faith washing her face and brushing her teeth. Earlier in the night she'd done the same, but couldn't sleep without Faith to hold on to, without that glowing light she fed or stole depending on her mood. The wrath clawed at the edges of her eyes. Then the loneliness.

I missed her.

Buffy crawled into bed, leaving the space where Faith was supposed to be, and waited for her to be done in the bathroom. Boots clacked across the floor towards the door. They reached it. A door wrapped softly around the handle.

"Faith?"

The other woman shaped a silence around her words.

"Take off your boots." After a pause, Faith let go of the door handle. Buffy raised the blanket to let her under, and held her.

"When you decide you're done with this, you gonna move in with Riley?", the other woman's voice was raw, like it had been sharpening itself against the sentence for hours.

"Riley? What?"

"Yeah, y'know, Cardboard. Your bounce?"

"My bounce?" Her voice raised up like you do when your car goes over a hill too fast. The fall was coming, and it sounded like a laugh.

"Fuggit, forget it, B."

"Riley and me aren't an object, anymore. So last month." She did her best imitation of Cordelia post break-up (Buffy always suspected Cordy picked boyfriends based on how good the breakup would be to discuss at the lunch table), sounding dismissive and not-at-all bitter. Well, maybe a little bitter.

There was a golden smile. The car fell.

"He seemed like a prick, anyways." Faith said, and relaxed into Buffy's arms at last. Hers again.

Chapter Text

Richard Wilkins

Everything had a place, everything went into the little particulars God had set out for them, and since God probably wasn't real, he was the next best thing. It was all a man could do. He diligently slotted a hankerchief into his coat pocket, clicked the pen that was hanging inside of it once, then twice.

He knew he was a ball of neuroses that had combined like kids in a trenchcoat to become an exceptionally high functioning monster, but that was more than okay with him. His neuroses had gotten him this far. When someone burst into his home, Wilkins had never needed to think about where his gun was, where his bedside stake was. Precious seconds could cost you a life time, by golly, and I always was one for savings.

The knife gleamed like rain on a sunny day in front of him. He was in a shop in Kazachstan, so lately ruined by the Soviet fragmentation. It had oil, though, so he'd adjusted his investments accordingly.

"Qanşa turadı?" he asked her in a strange all American white picket fence accent, just for the price. He didn't come to bargain. A tourist who haggles with locals is just… well it's just not right.

"Jïırma bes mıñ tenge," the old woman said, there was the sound of turmoil going on outside. Twenty five thousand tenge, let's see, a little over 50 USD. Carry the one….

"And, sorry, could you remind me of the tale behind it again?"

His eyes caught on the ripple-razor in front of him. It would kill a slayer. That knife was thirsty, and he knew it was what he'd spent months on researching. More than that, he could feel moisture pooling around it like the air was trying not to cry.

It was smiling at him with it's pearly-white shine from the display case it was in. There were paper tags with cyrillic lettering covering it, but not able to completely drown it. They were starting to get damp.

"Of course," the shopkeep said in perfect English, a thick quasi-Russian accent contorting the words, "I know it well; my family has been guarding the Razor for generations heaped on each other."

This wasn't exactly a magic shop, it was more like a general goods store, they were in the modest back of house where a small shrine to the Virgin Mary looked at them with a tilt that made Richard wince in sympathy. That's gonna give you a nasty cramp, Mary-moo!

"Long ago, when salt walked like people," she began, "there was a terrible night. A storm blew over these mountains, never to be matched since. It blew down trees, tore homes asunder, but lightning only struck once, a silver tongue that licked the salt out of a lake at the foot of the mountain. The tongue became RAINSYDER.

"Rainsyder?" Wilkins asked, walking over to the display case with an amused gleam in his eye. The knife gleamed amusement right back at him.

"It's full name was "Demon of Makes-Rain-Rise-Up". Dark blue skin the color of the storm that sired it, a tongue of silver, eyes wagging back and forth. The storm cloud learned how to laugh from it, and it leapt up into the storm to carry it as its cloak. From mountain top to mountain top the demon would leap, laughing thunder, spitting lightning."

She waved a hand, not skeptical, but definitely a bit resentful. There was no awe in her voice.

"After a while of terrorizing the villages and shepherds of these mountains, a Slayer came and bade the mystics for help. Rainsyder could transform into rain at will, but it wasn't water. It was salt-silver, and it would dice up villages with so many salt-razors that looked like rain."

"Sounds very frustrating to fight."

"It was. So the mystics devised a spell. If the slayer fought the demon enough that it was forced to turn itself into salt-rain, they would freeze it in that form, but without motion."

"No… they didn't." He looked at her, and his eyes were a little too bright in the dark.

"It's not frozen. It's just paused, isn't it? It's still just as alive as it's ever been."

She was silent.

"Does it still want to taste Slayer blood?"

"Nothing is thirstier than salt."

"Ha! I like you," the woman didn't have the face of someone who returned the sentiment, "Here."

Wilkins reached into a pocket and found exactly the amount he 'd decided on long before coming here. It was around fifty times what the woman had asked of him. Money was no object to him. It was more than her entire village had seen in generations, it was enough for her to get out. To start living her life. But it was too late, wasn't it? 70 year old women with nothing to their names didn't go on life changing adventures. All she could do was try. The shopkeeper hobbled up to the display case and unlocked it. A smell like freshly fallen rain soaked the room, Wilkins tasted metal. He picked up the razor, looking up and down its wicked and flowing edges. Richard smiled at the razor, and the razor smiled back.

"Do you think it's gonna rain soon?", he asked the shopkeeper, but she didn't answer.

Faith

The not-sound was drumming against the invisible pane of glass that separated Faith's mind from the world, thinner now than ever. It was like the sound of rain, but wasn't. It wasn't coming from the window either, it was coming from the chest. Her ears twitched over and over to the non existent sound of rain falling, her eyes drifting shut from the relaxing imagined sound. Buffy was getting up for her morning class, that was what had woken her up, she assured herself. Faith focused on the sounds of her doing her makeup, letting them lull her to sleep.

Consciousness was drifting away, and she dreamed of freedom, of leaping from mountain top to mountain top, power without boundary. She felt lighter than she ever had, looking under her as she flew, seeing Boston flit under and behind her. All of those people down there, milling in the dirt, just to return to it.

Not her, baby, she rose up out of the salt in that Earth and became something greater. She napped peacefully. At some point during the dream, she had stood up out of her bed, eyes closed, and walked to the chest. When she woke up, she was cradling the blade she thought she would never see again against herself. What woke her was a prick as one of the sharp edges beaded blood against her shoulder.

She didn't know where the blood went. Didn't stain anything. Maybe into the black tanktop she was wearing, but it didn't matter. Her hands drifted up and down it reverently. The back of her mouth twanged with the taste of freshly fallen rain and felt dampness on her skin despite the warm dryness of the bed. She cradled the razor and remembered the Mayor. Her embrace tightened around it, not minding the way it stung her again and again.

Faith got up about a half hour later, walking sluggishly to the chest and placing it inside like it was a reliquary. Her mouth was ajar with the chest as she looked at it once last time. That thing would never rust. Never stain. Chuck, said the chest as Faith closed its mouth. She had a busy day ahead of her. Getting dressed in something approximating presentable to daytime society, she went downstairs where she heard Joyce making breakfast for herself and Buffy.

"-then what did you say?" Joyce asked. Good question Ms. Summers, what did she say?

"Guh. I said Guh, then just sort of floundered like a fish out of water! I'll have nightmares about that for the rest of my life." Her mother laughed at her anyways. Faith couldn't see the other slayer's face, but didn't need to. She could tell by the way a small smile instinctually rose on her face that Buffy was smiling, too.

"Yep. Laugh it up, keep on laughing at your daughter who will probably never be the same after that."

"Wait, so how did you remember what he said so well?" Joyce's voice floated around the room, but brown eyes looked only at the way Buffy's fingers slowly glided through her own hair before shaking it just so. The rays of gold off of her head were perfect. Effortlessly perfect.

"Have you ever heard of PTSD?" Buffy said, and Joyce began to reply before they were interrupted by a voice that couldn't decide between loud and quiet.

"Morning," she said, hands in her pockets. Joyce was holding a carton of eggs, looking at Faith with something that could have been interpreted as shock, but quickly turned to annoyance.

But not at Faith.

"Buffy? Why didn't you tell me she was up? I could have made enough for all three of us."

"Uhh, I didn't know she was…" the blonde looked good nervous, Faith thought to herself.

"It's alright Ms. S, I'm not hungry~", her stomach didn't growl, it was more like a bark. Or a yowl, perhaps, approaching a caterwaul. She didn't need to look to know the younger Summers was looking at her like a fucking sadist.

"Not hungry? Just starving, is all? You need food. Sit down." There was that Summers imperious voice; ancient generals reincarnated into valley girls. There wasn't much of an option. If a Summers said to do something, you just kinda did it. Her ass hit the seat next to Buffy's in short order. Joyce added some more eggs and started working diligently, asking Faith if she'd found anything fun to slay recently, and for a moment it was normal.

Buffy's hand found her own under the table. They softly gripped her own, like some form of support, some form of grounding. Faith wondered if she knew how terrible it was, the touch that made the cold go away, that gave her hope of something more. She was straight, so she didn't know what that "more" was, but it was there. It was there and it hurt like a son of a bitch. Her fingers interlaced with Buffy's, even though part of her knew it was a bad idea. It was the same part that she made a point of ignoring as much as she could. Sometimes she would even listen to that little voice, just so she could ignore it.

It was the same voice that advised her not to get drunk and steal Spike's car last night. Goes to show what that punk knows.

"Hey, Ms. S?"

"Hm?"

"I actually came to talk to you about something." Buffy's fingers paused and rubbed a question into her palm, and she tried not to shiver. Looking at the other woman's face now would be a mistake, said the little voice.

Fuck em', she thought, out of general principles.

She looked, and it was like looking at the sun, but she couldn't stop. The morning light glittered off of the slightly tired golden girl, but the sleep still on her was nothing more than dirt on a diamond. Faith wanted to wipe it away. Her hair was perfect, even the little frizz that was so readily apparent in the dawn glow. Joyce was distractedly muttering to herself as she put some more eggs in the bowl to mix. Faith couldn't help how her jaw dropped for a second, how Buffy's eyes rested on her lips, how green eyes tried to swallow her whole.

"Y-yeah, I was gonna ask," she started, not able to take her eyes from Buffy even as she did so, "if there's a position open at the museum. You know, something back of house, even if it's just janitor sh- stuff." Joyce had just put the eggs into the pan and they punctuated her sentence with a sizzle. Then, she about faced, an open expression of surprise there. That was enough to finally take her eyes off of Buffy, Faith thought with no small relief. Any more of those eyes and she'd get a nasty sunburn.

"What?" Said Joyce and Buffy in unison. Faith took a sip of the other girl's orange juice that she'd swiped at some point. Her lipstick left a little smirk on the glass.

Over the next week, Joyce showed Faith the ropes in the museum, how to turn her hands to something softer and more delicate than slaying. How to care for something. How to catalogue the inventory of the museum, take in shipments, how to use a typewriter to type up those same inventory sheets. It was honestly kinda fun. Restoring some of the pieces that came in with the restoration kit was strangely familiar. Reminded her of working on a car. Plus there was plenty of downtime that she could focus on other things.

Spike walked around behind her, eyeing up the crates and the half unpacked displays that surrounded them in the back of house like a delinquent with no intention to buy the things he touched. Black nails clacked against a wooden mask, when Faith told him to get his mitts off it he laughed. Domesticated. The word stung in the back of her head like poison, but she wouldn't tell anyone about it. That wasn't what she did.

When Spike wasn't here plotting and bringing her information, she thumbed through the old comic books the mayor had left her and that Buffy reclaimed. Sometimes she liked to imagine he was just in the other room so she could tell him all about the latest issue before he sent her to spill blood again. She was leaning on an elbow over her workbench, blueprints of the Initiative splayed out in front of her. Secret entrances, old blueprints, revisions, power plans, all of it. And most important, prison cells. Spike leaned over her shoulder to eye the prison cell prints and she resisted the urge to elbow him in the stomach.

They were trying, of course, to locate the room that Spike had gotten chipped in. No luck. The blueprints weren't exactly informative, and Faith did some asking around town (beating up Willy) that the one who had done it was contracted. What a shit show. There probably wasn't another human alive who could undo what was done to Spike.

But Willy had told her something else. He was still in town. There was one person they could access who knew where he was.

Riley.

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

Faith
It was something in the way she replaced meals with pills, bottles. Something in the way she cut herself up just to watch the smoke rise out. She threw her body away at every turn. Everyone knew Faith Lehane would die young.

Faith, however, always knew she would die on a good day.

Her mother had. It was the Sunday after Ash Wednesday. One of the best. Her brown eyes were shining like dark chocolate. She could even hold a conversation. She was beautiful on days like that. She looked like Faith.

Florina even looked like her daughter when Faith found her a few hours later with something foul in her mouth. Something that was a color she couldn’t describe, something that made her skin damp even before she saw it. Even before she smelled it. But she could taste it. That’s what made her come out of her room: a taste like metal.

After that she’d bounced around foster homes for a while. Met kids just like her. They didn’t get along too well, and when they did, they got along too well. A few of the foster parents were alright. Faith ached when they didn’t seem to think the same thing of her.

Fuck em’

Spike had his feet kicked up on the dash of his own car as Faith drove them out of Willy’s parking lot. Bags were loose under her eyes, old leaves decaying under rainwater. Her partner in crime had made fun of her for it, and she almost cried of relief. At least he didn’t pity her. Thank god someone didn’t pity her.

She loved that about him. He knew how she was, why waste either of their time asking?

At some point after one of the card games Faith was making a killing in, she’d kissed him. She’d closed her eyes and pushed him against the wall and imagined he was Faith and that Faith was Buffy. The music of the bar inside wasn’t like it was at the Bronze, it was some shitty country song.

The moment turned to ash in their mouths, they didn’t look each other in the eye the whole way back to the car. Silently, they agreed to never speak of it again. After that, they didn’t split up. If anything they were closer, now.

Dead leaf bags under her eyes were buried under more leaves, and more, and rain mulched them all together.

What she wanted was something that Buffy wouldn’t give her. She could, and she wouldn’t. She kept showing mercy, but it was like freeing a beat dog. What would they do with the freedom? A trained dog doesn’t need to be caught.

Spike was counting the blood bags he’d won, Faith had already counted her money on the way to the car.

“This fuckin’ guy in front of us,” she said, running a hand through her hair. She honked at him to start going because the light had turned green. The door opened. A man in black clothes got out with a sense of purpose that whetted Faith’s tongue. And here I thought the night was gonna be shitty.

Her right hand slowly pulled the gun she bought a few days ago up the door, finger on the trigger. Absolutely steady. Her other arm was hanging out of the window, casual.

“Hey man, I didn’t mean nothing by it! Just wanted to get a move on,” she said, balancing between de-escalation and her hope that he really wouldn’t take her apology sincerely.

Then another car pulled up behind her. Looked identical. Black SUV.

“Shit, shit, sh-” she grunted and pushed Spike’s head down just in time to avoid the crossbow bolt that sped through the window like it was paper. It was modern. There was a bulb leaking a small amount of water that her nose picked up on as holy water. She reached over and put her hand over it to protect Spike from the splash she knew was coming.

The Initiative employed these little metal bulbs of holy water that had explosives inside of them. The idea was to instantly evaporate the water inside to go inside of the vamp's lungs and... well it wasn't good. A small firecracker-like 'pop!' and her hand was in agony. Smoke and holy water sizzling into her palm, bubbling like cheap wine. Her smile ground into place. Lehane opened the door and started fighting.

Spike and her whirled around in black leather like dervishes. She shot out the street light nearby with her handgun before tossing it to the side. Punches like metal pipes, tasers that could only slow her, guns that she dodged just in time before getting grazed.

None of the men died. Some wished they had.

“Bloody tired of these freaks sneakin’ up on us.”

“Let’s put a stop to it, then,” she said, straddling one of the men and punching him in just the right place to knock him out instantly. The others writhed in pain. Spike kicked one in the face while he walked past. Spike opened the trunk without needing to be asked. They were good together like that, two mirrors against the other.

A few minutes later it was like nothing had happened at all. Spike kept fiddling with his blood bag before finally getting the faulty IV receptor to pop open and started drinking. Some spilled.

“You better clean that shit up.”

“Shut up, slag, none got on the damn- wait a minute, this is my upholstery in the first place. I’ll make it as bloody bloody as I bloody please,” he spat.

“All the more reason to keep it clean,” she replied smooth, before changing the subject. “They’re after me, you know. Riley wants me for something. Probably to experiment on me or something.”

“Think it might, just maybe have something to do with the fact that you’ve been selling information on their comings and goings before they can catch a single horny bastard in this town?”

“Nah. Started before then.”

“Figure,” he said, dripping the bag over his mouth for a second until he was reasonably sure no more blood was to be had out of this bag. “So. Do ya want ‘em to catch you?”

Faith thought about it for a moment, one hand on the steering wheel. Her eyes didn’t move from the center of the road, eyes like cigarette ashes, bags like leaves turned into mulch that no fire could ignite. Embers wilted.

She smiled.

“Nah. When I die, It’s gonna be on a good day.”

“Cheers to that.”

Buffy
It didn’t take her long to find out. At least, she didn’t think so. She didn’t think it had been going on too long, didn’t think that those two had done too much damage yet. But she didn’t know. One too many nights of hushed excuses and eyes like ashes, bags that never seemed to go away from Faith’s face, not even when she thought she was helping.

It wasn’t enough, apparently. They’d gone too far. One night when Faith had told her to go home, that she was going to keep patrolling for a while to burn off some energy, Buffy didn’t. No, she took to the streets and didn’t look back. Didn’t have to, she just turned left a few times down the road and ended right back at the graveyard where she’d left the other slayer.

She didn’t really know what she was expecting. Visions of blonde that was too short with long black hair, neck cut open and spilling rubies through the night, perhaps. Not this. They didn’t hear her, there was no way anything or anyone could, the rain was ribboning down over the cemetery.

They were dry, inside Spike’s crypt, and so was the third figure on his knees with tape over his mouth and eyes like walnuts. Passions splayed over the room in a warm triangle as the two figures circled him like hawks.

“Name?”

“Who do ya work for?”

“Don’t bother answering him. We already know.”

A twirl of silver in her hands that Buffy recognized like she would her father’s smile, distant, cold, and what made her who she was today. The knife. She’d found it. Her guts were a long snake writhing and thrashing inside of her. Run in there. Fight her. Make her answer. Why, why why.

That was a human in there. And Faith was working with a fucking vampire. She felt the cold rain slowly seep through dark denim, denim she wanted to give back to Faith. Denim she wanted Faith to give back to her in turn.

"Why are you after us?”

“Us? We don’t give a damn about the vamp.” He sat back on his knees, straightening his posture like a zen monk. He smiled in a perfect sideways bracket.

“Oi! Well… thanks for bein’ honest, I guess. Since this is no longer my problem, just gonna… you know.” He went over to the couch and crashed down, turning Passions up just a tick. Faith didn’t seem to mind.

“Alright. Why are you after me?” Her voice was kind, her accent a little thicker on the edges. Faith, what’s happening? Why haven’t you been sleeping? Why are you burning?

“Riley wants to give you a second chance. You have potential.”

“Yeah, like a car on fire. Plenty of potential, just not the fun kind. Don’t bullshit me.”

“I’m not. You think none of the people in the initiative have damage? Get real. You’re not special.”

“Then why’s he want me so bad?” She dangled a smile over his head.

“Fuck you.”

“Maybe next time, sweetheart, but you’re gonna have to get in line. Riley’s first. Was wondering how long it would take him to come after me, thought I’d give him a little push.

“We’re well aware of your activities.”

“Aw, I’m touched, but you know he’s not gonna catch me, right?

“We’re all hoping he doesn’t, ma’am,” his tone of voice said there was nothing more he’d like than to stamp her out forever. Her eyes softened, her face cracked like someone finally understood her. She leaned forward, gently kissed him on the forehead, and hit him once more to knock him unconscious. This time on the other cheek, shaking her left hand out and wincing with the pain.

“I’m getting outta here, gonna drop this guy off at their frat house. He can sing his song to his friends there.”

“Just don’t get pulled over, haven’t got new tags since the 70s,” the vampire deeper inside yelled out. He didn’t seem too concerned. She leaned over and picked up the man with ease, despite him weighing at least 200 pounds, tossing him over her shoulder without much care.

She didn’t get to the door. Buffy stood there, arms crossed, looking down at the three figures. Her heels clacked down the wooden steps of the shoddy little crypt, which in turn caused Spike to crane his head back.

"Oh bollocks. Listen, you two birds can fight, but do it outside the crypt. This place rumbles with a good shagging, it just won't be able to survive a fight between you lot."

"Spike?" Buffy said.

"Present," he confirmed,

"Stop talking." Both Buffy and Faith suggested. Spike opened his mouth, closed it, repeated it once or twice, then nodded. "Right then." He about faced, slid down a ladder in the back of the crypt, and closed it.

CLUNK! BING! SHUUUK! A small defensive force of locks sealed the trap door shut. One by one. Slowly. In the meantime, the two slayers had a staring contest with enough friction to start a fire.

"Come to save the poor little paramilitary freak?"
"Something like that. Or maybe I came to save you from yourself."

"Right," said the exhausted woman with a smile that looked so achingly familiar and far away all at once, "was kind of hoping you'd be trying to save me from your boyfriend and co."
"I'm taking on the threats in descending order."

Faith grinned with the kind of mania you got the day after an all nighter, all electric, all smoke. She shot towards the blonde with a round house kick to open up, but Buffy caught it with her right forearm raised to bar it.

Her left hand hooked down and hit Faith in her rib, but the angle made it glance; the other woman only laughed before bringing her knee down and constricting Buffy's arm before twisting her torso so that she ended up on top of her.

"I always did like being on top," she said with a gasp.
"Not as much as me." A fist like a battering ram sent Faith flying backwards onto a sarcophagus, knocking over a microwaved cup of blood that was just starting to approach the chillier end of lukewarm. She barely had time to grab the same cup out of the air as it flew towards her, and slid it across the floor with a toss. It didn't even tip over.

The two looked at each other from either side of the sarcophagus that Buffy was fairly certain Spike slept in, and the cup scccckrrrrrrreeeeeeeeeeeeeeepppppppd slowly across the floor. When it stopped, they began. Both leaped from their opposite positions onto the sarcophagus and exchanged a flurry of blows, kicks, each trying to swipe the other's feet from under them.

Neither seemed like they were going to get purchase, but then, finally, Faith used a dirty trick involving a quarter that won't be recorded here for fear of it being used maliciously by militaries globally. Buffy fell. Faith stomped down, but not on the blonde, she could never do that.

The stone lid cracked in twain under them and they plummeted a solid two feet into the sarcophagus' embrace. Faith was on top, and then she wasn't. By the time the dust settled, the blonde was straddling her with Faith's own knife gnawing at her throat. Something dangerous in her eyes.

"Use em' and lose em', right B?" The woman under her said in a voice like a blown candle, not seeming to mind the edge of the razor cutting into her throat with each pronounced syllable, "You got your kicks out of making me yours, pushed me up against that alley wall just to watch me fall. All for you."

Faith looked like she was all cried out. Nothing came. She didn't make an effort to fight back.

"It wasn't like that," Buffy said, jaw tightening so hard that getting the words out was a struggle.

"Then what was it like, B? I-I… I just wanna know," she said, eyes wide and watery, broken down. "Please just tell me it wasn't real, it'll be easier for us both, we can forget it. Just because I lo-" The words went up and then back down Faith's throat like a strangling hand, "Say you were using me. Just say it meant noth-"

Buffy lunged down and caught Faith's words with a kiss. It wasn't vicious, it wasn't hungry. It was shaped like the ripples in an underground pond. Her head raised up, Green eyes searching Faith's own desperately for something that was inside of herself.

Forming a sentence was like herding cats, but she managed. Just 3 words. That was all she needed to get out to the brown eyed girl under her. It would fix everything, she thought to herself.

"I love you," she said.

"You're an asshole."

Chapter Text

Faith

"You're an asshole," she said, and the bottom of the sarcophagus fall away. The walls of it were next, folding out, blooming like a stone flower, the sweet pollen of blood and whispers blossoming. Buffy's face bloomed too, sweat mixing with rain mixing with tears, pollinated.

She hated her. Hated that she didn't use her, hated that she didn't lose her, hated how much harder she always made everything. What kind of bullshit is this? Why would you say it now?

Faith pulled her into the rubble with her, twisting her mouth like a knife-hand to meet the blonde's. They were both getting wet from the rain Buffy wore, but neither cared. It was messy and it was desperate, just like Faith.

The knife slid out of the way just in time before it would push into her throat and end things a lot worse, and she laughed into Buffy's mouth at the look on her face. A shallow cut wept across her throat.

Her hands went to Buffy's waist, but then split up, one going to her ass and pulling her closer. Closer. Closer. Mine. Yours. Get off the high horse and roll in the mud for a while, B.

It was surprising that the rain didn't sizzle off them from the heat of the sheer friction. The slayer connection was overflowing. You could have lit a fucking city block with it. Golden energy with stripes of rust oozed up and spilled over the edge. Normal eyes couldn't see it, but with each kiss, they saw flashes of it. Kinda like looking at the sun for a second and closing your eyes tight. That's what it looks like.

"I love you too, have for a while," she said, voice like sandpaper, "but so what?" There it was. Fatalism like black mold crawling up the walls of their stone haven.

"So what? So what if so what? I love you and-and… you love me?"
Buffy said with a concerned twist of the eyebrows, it was similar to the face she made when her professor attacked her with that communications question.

"Yep."
"Oh god."
"Sucks, doesn't it?"
The blonde straddling her nodded. It was bad news. It was revelation. For now, though, it was a kiss.

It would have been better if you didn't say anything, B. I would have disappeared twice. Once from your life, then from your memory. We could have been happy, apart. Now I'll stain your walls black.

But the hurting-hope kept twisting in her gut, severing herself from herself, scraping against her walls, puncturing blackened lungs just to watch the smoke billow out.

She can't stain, Faith realized with relief like thin mountain air. After all, how could you stain the sky?

Buffy

Spike, Faith, and the Initiative novitiate sat on the couch like kids in the principal's office. All of them avoided each other's gazes, and all of them tried to avoid hers. No matter where they turned their heads, she seemed to be there, scowling, battering them with her brows.

Out of the three, Faith was the only to meet her eyes. Constantly. Aching for a fight.

It was, frankly, unbelievable. The three spent half of the time arguing with each other and the other half teaming up on her. Like pulling teeth she'd pulled pieces of the picture out of the chaos, figuring out what exactly had been happening with Faith and the Initiative.

They were still trying to kill her. Riley ordered it. And instead of telling me, she decided to get Spike's help to spiral out.

The Initiative man was sent "home", but it didn't get rid of the metallic taste stuck to the roof of her mouth. It always hung in the air when the other girl was anxious, even when she didn't say it. Especially when she doesn't say it.

She knew how Faith liked to get rid of that feeling; burning it up with a fight was the preferred option, but Buffy didn't give it to her. She would deny her even denial.

"It's still raining out there," Faith said, looking at the door with eyes a little too wide, a little too brown. She watched the goosebumps travel up and down the dark slayer's arms, watched her try and rub them back into conformity.

"It's okay, I brought your jacket," she said with a little half smile. It wasn't a fight, it wasn't a fire that could distract Faith, but it was what she was looking for the whole time. She would burn up just to feel warm.

Buffy took off the jacket (still a little damp from the drizzle outside, but had dried over the course of the visit to Spike's crypt), and held it open for Faith to put her arms through like a hug from behind. Her hands lingered like the wet on the jacket, sticking to Faith's sides on either side of the ribcage, then they were gone.

"I even kept it warm for you."
"And they call me a bullshitter."

"Only because you're not as convincing," she said dryly enough it almost knocked the rain out of the jacket entirely. Her hand went to Faith's, holding it, thumb rubbing up and down comfortingly. When they went out into the wet (now little more than a drizzle), their held hands made murmurations of raised skin on Faith's arm underneath her jacket.

Sun's rising, she thought as the first golden licks of the sun's daily drama brimmed over the horizon. They walked towards it through shimmering flecks of gold falling through the air, and their golden light brimmed right back at the dawn.

Faith

They tried to be quiet, really, they really really did. The only issue was that Dawn was haunting the bottom of the stairwell like a guerilla soldier. Fuck. She let go of Buffy's hand abruptly, and could feel hurt green eyes on the side of her cheek, heating it red, and still holding on to her fucking hand.

"B," she said out of the side of her mouth like a ventriloquist.

Buffy looked ahead, made eye contact with Dawn, mouth popped open for a second in the shape of an excuse but it didn't seem to want to come out of the den it had made in her lungs. Then, a second later, her brain caught up, and she finally let go.

"Uhh, Dawn! Hey! How's it goin? Why are you up so early?"
"Oh, you know. School day. Thought I'd get an early start." She said, moving her eyebrows like poisonous caterpillars.

The squirt knows. Fuckfuckfuckfuck. Faith had grown to really like the younger girl, even though she smelled a little strange, or rather, didn't smell strange; it was strange that there wasn't a smell. Everyone had a smell. Faith could smell a coin from 3 feet away blindfolded and tell you if it was a nickel or a dime. She was like a fucking bloodhound. At first she'd thought it was something all slayers got, but Buffy said she didn't really notice an increase in her smelling when she was called.

That was seemingly a Faith thing. Maybe, she'd wondered, it was because she was so good at smelling bullshit. And fear, which currently surrounded the slayers like body odor at a Quake LAN. She didn't need to smell the sense of superiority coming from Dawn, she could see it in the wolfish grin like a dead, hanging mouse.

"You guys are home late. Or should I say early?"
"R-right, you want me to take you to school, or make you breakfast? Or clean your room?"

B, you're a fucking terrible negotiator.

"Guess that could be a start," Dawn said, checking her nails for dirt.

It was strange, seeing Dawn again after all she'd done. Faith said a thanks to God that Dawn was at her friend's house when she had broken into the home to take Joyce captive. Not that it had made Dawn any friendlier when she first returned. Before Faith was coma'd by Buffy, Dawn looked up to her, talked about her like she was Billy Badass. Faith even offered to beat the shit out of some little girls that were harassing her at school, just to see the run rise up in her eyes.

It wasn't like that anymore. That was okay. Things were, however, slowly getting better. A new normal, a new dynamic. Once or twice she'd even taken her to school in Spike's black car, and Faith had seen a little of that old sun in her eyes when she thanked her, and even if it was behind clouds, it was enough for her.

Right now though, she was a monster.

"But see, Mom is almost done with breakfast, my room is spotless, and I kind of want to hold onto the leverage you've just walked in with your—" she took a tick to mentally convert her left into Buffy's right hand, "—right hand. Waste not, want not, right?"
She's worse than me, holy shit. Faith snuck a look at Buffy with an easy smirk, just eating the hollow dread on the blonde's face.

"Oh, and sis?"

"Yeah?" Buffy said with a sound like wind from an ancient sealed tomb.

"Your lipstick is smudged."

Buffy

She was vaguely aware that she missed class that day, but it was a tickling thing on the far reaches of her peripheral awareness. First thing she had done once she got upstairs away from the B E A S T's blackmail was shower. The water washed away water, steam pushing away mist, heat melting the cold out of her muscles. It ran over her, in between her, and she wished under it that Faith had gotten in with her.

When she'd gotten into bed, Faith took the shower, bitching after a while about the other girl hogging all the hot water. The suspect rolled around in bed, rubbing her legs together with a fingernail to her lips, little evils pulling up the edges of her mouth with each accented curse coming from the shower next door.

She should have been tired, but couldn't seem to find the time to fall asleep, thinking of Faith's hand under hers. Of the way Buffy could smooth out the goosebumps on Faith's skin with just a soft swipe of the arm. Of the way she looked with a knife kissing her neck, of the way she wished she could make her mouth metal to kiss with a cutting, too.

Faith interrupted her musings, crawling into bed with her, still slightly damp from the shower. Her drying hair would leave bruises on the pillow beneath it, but neither of them cared.

"Cold", she whined. It was chilly in the house, and walking wet through it must have been just such a hardship.

"Oh brother, you walked like, twenty feet from the shower to here."

For the "evil" slayer, she sure does whine a lot, she thought, then realized she wanted Faith to whine more. The dark haired woman open those round lips to say some bullshit retort but was interrupted by a keening sound as Buffy pulled her close and kissed her on the lips. Her arms wrapped around Faith, pulling her even closer until the boundaries between them became hypothetical.

The blankets were heavy on them, air seeming to smother underneath, while the air conditioning made the room outside of their sanctuary chilly. Right where I want you. Faith was tired, the bags under her eyes opened up and her brown eyes slowly fell into them. She almost whispered to her that it wasn't over, that she wasn't satisfied with the excuses for what she had done, that it wasn't okay what had been happening with the Initiative.

All of that was true, but none of it spoken. She watched her drift to sleep, eyes taking in every acre of the betrayer, her hand drifting to the brailed deed under Faith's left rib, reading it over and over.

She fell asleep.

They were back in Giles' spare bedroom, Faith wearing a white t-shirt that didn't go all the way down to her belly button, jeans that hung just a tad too lose, but wouldn't for long. She was putting weight back on in all the right places. Her chest was filled out like it used to be, in the way that made Buffy's mouth dry with jealousy. Bony hips had started to cushion again, more material to bruise, more surface to kiss.

Buffy turned the door handle to leave, the hallway fuzzy and undefined in the blurring light of the morning.

"Wait! Wait, please—," Faith pleaded, the words trembling in the air to make the hair on Buffy's neck stand up. Very slowly she turned the knob shut, the sound of the lock clicking roaring through the room.

Buffy turned to look at Faith, eyes taking in the sight. Brown eyes welling with tears, mouth ajar with apologies trying to escape. She wanted to pull them out with her tongue.

"I'm sorry, B, I'm so sorry for it all—", she said, Buffy's eyes trailing down the front of her; there was a good angle into Faith's cleavage from here. The tank top was loose enough to hang slightly when she leaned forward like she was, caught mid crawl.

Buffy was thirsty.

"And you ask me what I'm sorry for, but I don't know where to start. It's easier to not start at all, it's easier to end, and what I did to Ms. Summers was my best bet at getting you to end it for me, because I'm scared."
She fell back on her knees, hands gripping them, rain falling down her cheeks to glitter in the sunlight of Buffy's eyes.

"I know where to start," she said, before kicking Faith sharply in the stomach just to hear her whimper. It was right. It was just. She'd tried to steal her life, ruin it when she couldn't pull that off, betrayed her. All of Faith was hers, pleasure, pain, and everything stained.

The Betrayer coughed, holding her stomach, but didn't get up. Didn't fight back. She was breaking. Buffy walked past her, pulling her back by the hair and towards the bed.

"Sit," she commanded, sitting on the bed and leaning back on her palms, letting the blankets support her, looking down at Faith on her knees for her, waiting.

"Have you figured out where to start?"
"Yes."
"Is that the best you can do, F?"
"Yes, ma'am," she corrected, and the resentment tasted so sweet in Buffy's mouth.

Faith licked her lips, like she was in need of some chap stick, Brown eyes broken wide enough that their darkness shone out of them. Her cheeks were flushed, her hair messy from where Buffy had dragged her, her shirt messed up from the commotion, but Buffy's eyes shined a warning light when she even thought about fixing it.

When Buffy broke her down like this, with a whisper, with a cut, with a kiss, with a look, Faith's emotions smoked out of her like a factory chimney, artifical clouds glowing gold like fire in the sky.

She raised her eyebrow like it was a hand ready to strike.

Faith winced, but towards Buffy, like the one she feared was the only one that could comfort her, that could protect her.

"Good girl," she whispered, a soft, perfect hand going to Faith's hair and stroking it softly with the nails that had dragged it just a minute ago. Faith leaned into the touch, pathetic for the punishing love. Her hands trembled until they got to the button on Buffy's waist and popped it open.

Buffy arched her back and lowered the jeans down, down, down her ankles with perfect legs that seemed to curve on forever. Faith's eyes followed the horizon of blue jean into white skin as it traveled down, neck craning like a snake charmed.

Her panties were soaked, and Faith took them off of her like they were a holy object only taken out once a year, handled with utmost reverence.

"Are you sorry?"
"More than anything, ma'am," her voice was choked, looking to Buffy for salvation.

"Okay. Prove it."

She didn't guide her head, of course. It would remove the point. Faith had betrayed her of her own free will, after all; if she wanted salvation, she would have to do it of her own free will too. Not that Buffy planned on forgiving her for what she had done. She would begrudge her forever. Faith was sin, original, primordial—and that was how Buffy liked her. Forever atoning, but never redeemed. Forever breaking, but never broken. Forever pleading, but never satisfied.

The kiss was exquisite. Soft lips that felt more real than real, chaste, terror and reverence trembling up into Buffy's core. Her hand clenched out of pure impulse, nerves on fire spreading out from Faith's lips.

"Clean."

And Faith did. That long tongue that Faith liked to show off with a wink to whatever Guy she marked at the Bronze put to better use than taunting or tormenting. It started on the outside, softly, like it was asking for an invitation inside. Long wet strips painted her vulva in a glowing pleasure, slowly working her way up to the clit before stopping just short and making Buffy keen and arch and fume.

Kisses on her thigh drove her mad. The nails tightened. Faith whimpered for forgiveness. They loosened, but not completely. The marionette strings pulled her back to her duty until she buried her head in between Buffy's legs completely. Faith licked up the wet as fast as it was coming, hands slowly traveling up and down those far white thighs.

When Faith kissed her clit it felt like honey replaced her bones, pulsing, golden pleasure that started in her pussy but seemed to race through her legs and just stay there as her legs curled.

"I'm so sorry, B," kiss, "Please forgive me?", words spoken against her pussy running into her legs, "—Please?" licking up and in with that curved tongue that could whip lines into a brick wall.

"Fuck, Faith—"

Her hands pushed her a little further down until only her eyes were visible, Faith's nose against her clit as the tongue striped up and down, and the pleasure just kept building and building. It wasn't fair how good she was at this, it wasn't fair at all, and she should apologize for that next.

Kissing her thigh as she slipped a finger in and curved it up, in, picking a lock the way she'd watched Faith do so many times before. Each turn of her knuckle clicked something mechanical and purring inside of her, legs spreading ever wider. More to clean. More to redeem. More to worship. Each little twitch of her fingers into a curl making her shake and leak. Her eyes turned down saw Faith looking up at her like she was the moon, the stars, and everything behind them. Like she was her god.

The honey filled up her legs completely until slowly overflowing back into the pussy. Heat. Fire of God's love. Redemption. Forgiveness. A Grudge Like an Itch You Can't Help but Scratch. She saw Faith's eyes go down, her mouth open like she tasted possibility in the air. Buffy didn't even have to tell her.

She pounced on it like a woman dying of thirst, sucking on Buffy's clit, murmuring prayers of pleasure into it until the honey came out. Her entire body convulsed in pleasure as waves of technicolor gold flooded Buffy's vision, blinding, so blinding-

The sun was painting the backs of her eyelids red, replaced with obnoxious golden light as she blinked a few times. Her pussy was soaked, and the rest of her body wasn't much better, like she'd just run a marathon through the Amazon. Somehow, she felt less rested than before she'd fallen asleep. What happened?

Golden light. Lips coated with honey. A tongue curved in pleading shapes.

Her face went the same color as the red bleed-through of the sun on closed eyelids. Faith moaned in bed next to her, writhing, whispering "B" before suddenly stopping. Buffy knew she'd woken up. Buffy knew that the dream was one of the strange shared ones borne of their connection. Ohmygod. What the hell.

"Uh—good morning?"

Chapter Text

Tara

Even the bright yellow of her rain boots was dulled by the dreary overcast. They squelched through the gray and beige leaves of autumn's half hearted yield. It was cold. She'd turned 16 recently, but there hadn't been a birthday party. Squelch. Squelch. Squeak, her boots whispered, squooch. Their hearts weren't in it. She hugged her brother's hand-me-down Carhart to herself to try and get warm, but there was no warmth in it. At least it wasn't cold, but maybe I want to be cold, but the thought died in the womb. The jacket stayed on.

She remembered her father's grimace, flat as a stagnant pool, and she knew what was at the bottom. Mosquitoes, of course. Or maybe those were supposed to be at the top of the pool. She didn't know. Education wasn't a priority in the Maclay house, but neither was anything else. Things continued in the gray nothing, as they always had, as they never had.

Tara liked to come out here when the static got to be too much, when the buzz at the back of daily life here got too loud. Mosquitoes, of course. She used to try and love her town, Jasper, hidden like an embarassing sore in the ass crack of the Ozarks, but she couldn't. When she turned 12, she'd started to try and hate it. It wouldn't even give her that.

Jasper had regressed into a perfect sphere. Things happened because they did. They would continue to happen as long as they happened. Circular logic like that was somehow true, here. You wouldn't understand unless you've visited another perfect sphere like it, hidden black pearls in the countryside.

Her eyes flattened and turned the color of the gray sky to turn on the leaves underfoot. They were blending together with the groundcover of last fall, moisture and time compressing them into indistinction. Things here never really died. People fell in and out of "life" here, but the ball kept rolling, crushing lives under its inertia.

Would she mulch together with the rest of the leaves? Would anyone remember her stutter, or the way she put cards in the spokes of her bike to block out the static when she rode it, an unwelcome shimmer through the clotted arteries of the town? Or will I just melt together with the rest of the Maclays?

She cried and it could have been the rain. She wished it hurt, but it didn't. Nothing hurt anymore, pain, pleasure, hope, and fear were buried somewhere under the leafy marsh coating the mountains. It's all the same.

"M-mama, w-why won't it…", whatever thought was coming was crushed under the rolling.

Her mother had stuttered too, at least, that's what her sister had told her.

"You know what papa says, 'only a forked tongue stutters'. We'll learn you to be good, Tara, like we are," her sisters said, and she tried to listen. The tears fell freely now, something lovely melting inside of her like spring's first thaw.

Tara didn't want to be bad. Her mother had been bad, her father had told her, and with wickedness came fear. Her mother had been afraid. Afraid of what? If she could just reach out and touch the darkness on the edges of her mother's face, not the washed little Polaroids trapped in cheap dollar-store frames that adorned the Maclay house, but her face. Would it be wet with tears?

Was she bad because she had definition? Tara had been teaching herself how to draw recently (to a questionable degree of success, but that was okay). To make a clear picture, you needed shadows. Those never really landed in Jasper; the night wasn't black enough, the day wasn't bright enough. Her mother hadn't been like that, some smear of beige and gray from a sweaty hand palming a drawing. No, she'd been like Tara. Contrast. Stutter. Hoping. Forked tongue. Crying. Afraid. Smiling like the sun. Eyes like Gabriel's feathered wings.

Her tears unearthed something beneath her, or maybe it was bringing it to the surface. Green, god, it's greener than anything I've ever seen. A single plant slowly grew out of the wet smear under her feet. It didn't grow terribly tall, it wasn't particularly stout, but it was alive. More alive than anything she'd ever seen before. Watering it with her tears, sunning it with her smile, she leaned down and cupped it with hands too warm for this place.

"I-I've got you, you're here now. I'm here now."

That was the day her life changed.

Faith

"If you somehow win this, consider it a dying woman's last wish that you get some fuckin' listerine, pal—", she said, kicking the demon firmly in the chest to get him off of her. He was big (she'd seen bigger), ugly (but not impressively so), and mean (both of them knew she was meaner.) "But I think you'd rather die, right?"

"GRAHHH" he said, in pain. Not from the kick, but from the words, from which the slice of Faith's razor was a welcome relief. He didn't bleed thankgodhedidntbleed, instead exploding into sparks. Fine by her. She flipped the knife up a few times, feeling it scrape against her palm like hunger on the way down. Stings real nice.

"Real zinger," Buffy said, arms crossed in the after image of the annihilated demon.

"Jealous?"

"Of the demon? Depends. You think it's quiet in hell?" her smile was candy, caramelized on the edges. Her eyes danced with testing.

"You know I'd follow you there and back, B." Like a rash on your ass. Can't get rid of me that easy.

"Would you carry my bags?" She said, battering her lashes hard enough to blow Faith far up and away. Fuck off, princess.

"Uh-yeah," she coughed. Get your shit together, Lehane, you're not some schoolgirl with a crush on the cheerleader. Never was your speed. "but fair warning, I might lose a few things on the way." Her smile like metal you would cut yourself with while exploring an abandoned factory.

Buffy took a careful step towards Faith, tilting her head with that burnt sugar smile that made Faith's throat dry out. "You're not stupid enough to try to steal from me again." It was a whisper, but this close, it went through Faith's body like a tidal wave, sundering her over and over.

"Enough?!"Arrogant bitch. Faith licked her teeth and looked down at Buffy, meeting the gaze despite everything in her body wanting to bow her head and repent for the imaginary sin. It was like she had weights hanging from chains wrapped around her throat. Swallowing was hard.

She broke eye contact first.

I didn't sign up for this shit. Tara better make this worth my time.

Buffy snorted and turned around, walking down the street, knowing Faith would follow. I hate her. Holy shit, I hate her. For a second, Faith watched her walking in the heels and skirt, wrapped in the beat-to-shit denim jacket Faith wore that knight when she branded her. Something twisted in her stomach like a dying snake, thrashing and convulsing.

They hadn't talked about the dream. What was there to talk about? When she woke up she touched her lips, swearing she still tasted Buffy's gold on them. Was I moaning her name? Fuckfuckfuck, she'd thought, looking over at the other girl.

Buffy was looking at her lips, at her fingers, at her neck. Each time that vulnerable, powerful gaze scrolled over the parts she'd touched in the dream, it buzzed under Faith's skin. It was then that she realized that it hadn't been just one of them dreaming it.

It's just the slayer connection. That's all. It's acting up. Doesn't have to be a thing.

But the memory lingered, green eyes taking her in. Breaking her down into their component parts, seeing her in that way Faith hated. Buzzing with honey on her exposed skin. She rolled her jaw, just to feel an echo of the soreness of it when she was praying before Buffy in the dream. After a moment, she followed her, but didn't speed up to catch up, no sir. Not happening. Nope. No chance.

…

After a few seconds of speedwalking, Faith was side by side with Buffy again. She flicked the shitty Bic lighter she got from the gas station earlier to light up the end of the Black and Mild. Sweet smoke floated through the night, lit up by the streetlights they walked under.

They were there because Tara had given them a lead, she'd had a vision of some kind of a glowing sphere holding off an endless gray. The sphere was green. She'd said it was greener than anything she'd ever seen in her life, but an exception glinted in the back of her eyes.

"We goin' towards Broad? More worried about guns than vamps that way." She didn't sound particularly worried, though. Buffy had seen the gun in the glovebox of Spike's car, knew it was Faith's, but didn't say anything. Faith wondered why.

"Yeah, there's something weird going on down there, so I figured I'd go and take a look to see if maybe that… sphere… thingy is that way. I know it's outside of the normal patrol route, so if you wanna go home and get some Z's-"

It wasn't particularly fair, how the blonde could bounce between being Faith's worst nightmare and being just a girl. It gave her vertigo. Why is she so considerate? Maybe that was what made her so good at hurting, that thoughtfulness that she had. Maybe she learned how to hurt because she knew what to protect against. Faith was the opposite, trying to learn how to protect out of her knowledge of hurting.

"Nah, I'm five by five. Wouldn't be able to sleep anyways." Because you wouldn't be there, "had a coffee before we left." Buffy gave her that side eye she lived for, the stern one that made Faith snicker everytime.

"You might be the first slayer to die of heart and lung failure, just so you know."

"Better to burn out than fade away, right?"

There was a moment of silence that told Faith in no uncertain terms that she had said the wrong fucking thing, again. She sighed, took a drag from the B&M, and waited for the shitstorm.

"Is that what you told yourself when you started your little crusade against the initiative?"

Fuck me sideways, man, here we go.

"Somethin' like that." Buffy stopped dead in her tracks, Faith a few steps later, taking a lazy turn to level Buffy with a dull stare. Looked tired as always, sure, but right now it was just electricity brimming under her skin, lighting up the exhausted frame like an x-ray.

"What, you just thought I'd let you "burn out", walk into hell with a middle finger up at me? At everything I tried to do for you?" Buffy balked, wearing a small smile to which humor was an alien concept.

"You telling me it wouldn't be easier that way?" she rasped, angling her jaw to cut Buffy as the shorter woman walked up to her.

"No. I'm telling you that's the point. You'd rather burn in hell than try to do the right thing," she said, and Faith broke eye contact again. "but you won't. I promised everyone I care about I'd protect them from you, you know that, right?"
"There's an easy solution to that," she laughed devil-may-care, shrugging her shoulders like she just didn't see what the big fuckin' deal was, but her eyes still avoided Buffy's.
"No there isn't, Faith, because you're one of the people I promised to protect, so tell me what part of that you don't understand." Her words gritted, and she baptized Faith in her fresh tears.

Before she could stop herself, she was draped around Buffy like the jacket she wore, holding her together like Buffy had held her together so many times. Her hands rubbed her back, feeling like she couldn't figure out what to do with them. She could jumpstart any car, shimmy any lock, but how could she shimmy this one? I am the lock.

"Shit, B, I'm sorry. Just—" her words weren't coming, so used to hurting others that repurposing them to this was like trying to paint a house with the broad side of a knife. So she held her. Buffy cried onto the weird little cartoon guy, face buried in the "RUB HERE FOR GOOD LUCK!" on her shirt. Her body would be enough. She'd be a rag for the tears, for the snot, for the sin, for the blood. It was enough.

As long as she stays clean, I'll take it all, damnit. I'll eat her sin and drink her tears if I have to. Anything. But she stays clean.

They didn't talk about it. Buffy's words were drying on Faith's chest. Buffy walked closer to her after that, their hands occasionally sparking together in golden flashes of watery, invisible light that was felt rather than seen.

"Did you mean it?"

"About things goin' missing if you make me carry your bags?" Faith thought for a second, "Yeah. Yeah, I probably did."

Buffy snorted at that, wiping the remainders of the exchange off of her cheeks. She's beautiful when she cries. I mean, shit, she's always beautiful, but the way she shines through the wet— it's like rain on a sunny day.

"No, stupid, not that. When you told me you loved me back." Buffy put a hand to her mouth, eyes wide and hollow, realizing what she'd just said. Yeah you should feel stupid, that was a jackass question. You should have forgot you said it, you should have forgot I replied.

"Oh." It hung in the air like a gallows rope, swinging back and forth with their steps, over and over.

Yes. Always yes. I love you so much it'll kill me, one day. Maybe it already did. But you shouldn't love me back. A fire can't love a moth, it shouldn't. It shouldn't give a fuck one way or the other that the moth burns up in it's hell-haven. Better that way. Better.

"Nah," she said, eyes like volcanic glass shards as they walked, "figure it was just the slayer connection acting up again. Does that sometimes, not a big deal, y'know? Besides, I don't swing that way." A dead volcano now silenced, only a stack of burnt tobacco rising where lava used to spit and burn.

"Yeah," Buffy said, a release of a breath that she'd been holding since before she asked the initial question. It came out in strips, like there was something slicing it on the way out. "Me either. Don't know where that came from, sorry. I'm straight, too. Maybe the slayer connection got all confuzzled since Riley and I broke up…”

"Yea. S' okay, B. Shit happens." She waved off the words even while her heart combusted in its wrapping paper. Faith could cough it out in clouds all day and night for the rest of her life and it wouldn't be gone.

Chapter Text

Tara

She worried her hands strangely, feeling the hum around her in a way that even Willow just couldn't, like there was some possessing light surrounding it all, some latent potential. God, it was like a black storm with no lightning, it was like the eye of a hurricane, it was like a seed that hadn't blossomed yet. And there was something green, the same color that had haunted her for years and years, mocking her from the edge of her vision a green stripe painted in a light that shouldn't exist.

But when she looked down, there was nothing there. It was in her dreams, too, of course. Gray and beige static surrounding her and gored in half by brilliant green color that called out to her.
SOMETHING OUT THERE SOMETHING FOR YOU SOMETHING TO HOLD SOMETHING TO GROW SOMETHING TO FLOWER SOMETHING OUT OF THE BEIGE AND INTO THE BLUE SOME-

"Babe? Are you okay?" Willow said, her brows rubbing together like a fly's legs.

"Hm? Oh, yeah, I'm good," she smiled like a cloud. It wasn't a lie, she wasn't in a bad mood or anything, but there was more to it. "just got this headache that I can't shake.

She was wearing a hoodie that she hugged around herself as they walked together in the spring sunset. Was cold for this time of year. It felt good on her skin, her breath looked pretty in the chill.

"Well that's just cuz you're so darned smart. The ideas are trying to hop out like fleas," Willow always wriggled her eyebrows and bugged her eyes when she would tell a joke, and now was no exception. And just like every other time, Tara cracked and chuckled.

"D-do you want to check and see if any are leaking out of my ears?"
"Mm, I'd rather make sure your mouth is up to code. Someone has to do it."
Tara laughed behind the sleeve of the too-large hoody. Their arms brushed against the other.

"So responsible, Wil. Thank you," she said as they came up to a place in the park where a tree hung over them in so many soft green constellations.

"It's what I do," Willow said, putting on a stern, heroic expression. "now smooch."

Tara pecked her before leading her to the bench under the tree and leaning against her shoulder, head hanging comfortably. Willow's hair softly blowing reminding her of the sleeping willow trees in the park back home.

"Do you think I'm wrong? I-I know that you don't feel it… the energy in the air."
"No. I don't, and I'm happy that you can see things I can't, not doubtful."
Willow turned and gave a little peck on the top of Tara's head, smirking when Tara whined a little.

"Hopefully Faith and Buffy listen to what I told them. I…. think it's somewhere around that area of town."
"What is it that you sensed, exactly? Not doubting you, just wondering what we're up against."

"Uhm, hm. Well it was like…. repelling this static I've been feeling in the air. More like a hole where the static should be? K-kind of like a hole in a cloud cover?"
"Ooh, I love it when you wax poetic."

"Shush."

So they did, listening to the wind whisper for a while.

Buffy

The patrol was a wash, mostly just cardio through the parts of town that somehow looked better obscured by night. Faith was getting on her nerves, even when she didn't say anything. Mostly when she didn't talk, in fact.

"Just saying, I think we should take it to a pawn shop."

Buffy didn't know what to make of the inner sigh of annoyed relief in her (was that a new emotion? I really don't need one of those, right now.)

"It's a glowing orb, it's probably… I don't know, magical or something. Don't magic things glow?"

"Probably from a rave. Bet you 10 dollars I can get 10 dollars out of it."

Sigh.

They continued on. Right now, Buffy was holding the Orb of Rhetorical Authority, so the argument ended once she stopped talking. Faith seemed restless, but that was nothing new. Only ever calm when my hands hold her together in bed. The thought briefly spawned the idea of bringing up the dream she'd had to Faith, but she staked it right as it crawled out of the grave.

Bringing up the dream was a non-starter. Sheer humiliation lit the memory on fire, but it couldn't burn it away entirely; it just kept screaming on and on in her head. Her tongue in me, on me, finally putting it to good use-. The steel trap of her mind clamped shut, and a vindictive part of her imagined Faith getting her tongue caught in it and giving her those doe eyes, silently begging her to let it loose.

I have a trap I could close on that ton-

S I L E N C E. Her thoughts relented, for a time. She didn't love Faith. What she did feel for Faith was somewhere between unending hostility and fiery adoration, but if these two feelings are on a horseshoe, her current disposition towards Faith wasn't in the middle steel of the shoe, but somehow in the space between the two extremes, like lightning going from one end to the other.

No matter what, they would never be friendly. Faith probably wasn't capable of that kind of thing. So they would just bounce back and forth between trying to kill the other or trying to kiss them. Just slayer things, and only that. She didn't love Faith. That was hate. Hate with extra steps, maybe, but hate.

The streets were drying up of supernatural evil the further they went into the rotted dry grass of Sunnydale's periphery.

"The people here taste like shit. Spike told me as much, but it was what I was expecting," Faith said suddenly like she was reading Buffy's mind. Buffy hated when she did that.

"Expecting? Did you eat one of the locals?"
"Heh heh, well-", she laughed like a toad.

"Ew", Buffy said, squeezing an extra syllable out of the two letters, with pulp included.

"But nah, that's not what I mean, get your head out of the gutter," Buffy's face flushed and she sighed, rolling her eyes and crossing her arms while she walked. Not impressed. "Just mean that people in areas like this have poison in their blood. Born with it." Faith kicked a liquor bottle idly in front of her. The sidewalk cracked and it went trailing into the ditch as it hit buckled concrete.

"What?" Her neck craned, eyes wide, "what does that mean? Some people are just born rotten?"

"Some," she said, shuffling her shoulders and looking away.

"Right, I bet that makes it a lot easier to hurt them, doesn't it? Like they're less than human?"

Faith's voice cracked, she walked over her words like a tightrope over a chasm.

"I-it's not like that. That's not what I meant," Now she thinks she gets to be uncomfortable with the topic? Like she's not the one who brought it up?

"Then what did you mean, exactly?"

They stopped outside of a warehouse in the intestines of the worst part of town. A stone wall separated the rest of the world from the clean, stale parking lot inside of it. The rest of the world, of course, included the couple. Dim streetlights couldn't seem to dispel the night that grew out of the ground like black mold.

"Drop it, B," Faith warned, jaw rolling in her mouth, avoiding eye contact but coiled with something black and slimy. Like she wouldn't be able to control herself if the talk kept going. "I shouldn't have said a fuckin' thing, I should've known you wouldn't get it, but we've already had a fucked up night and I'd like to save this one for tomorrow please—"

"Get what?" Buffy laughed the way she did when wasn't shit funny, "Get some, get gone? Is that the "it"? You're going to make me understand, because right now, I don't. That's a fact, and here's another one for you, you hurting people just because they're "below" you isn't gonna continue. Those are people, not something to stake."

"Bullshit," her voice was spit fire, and she shook her head with a laugh like she couldn't believe what she was hearing. "Can't believe I got the privilege of hearing the Golden Girl herself lecture me about being kind to the oppressed."

"You say that like you're one of them, like you're somehow excused from what you did. These people might have had rough circumstances growing up, but so what? They've put up with a hell of a lot more than you and none of them did the things you did. You're a class of your own."

"Y-you dont know me." Faith took a step back but something about it angered Buffy even more.

"Don't I? You've got a choice right now, don't you? Be the bigger person and own up to your shit, or do what you always do and attack me because I'm telling you the truth."

Faith still didn't meet her eyes, quickly ducking under the white and yellow bar that let cars into the warehouse during its operating hours, staggering in long, furious steps towards what looked to be a guard shack. The lights were off, there was no one there.

Disappointment and surprise fought for the seat at the front of Buffy's mind. This wasn't one of the proposed solutions. Faith didn't run away from anything. Shit, she'd run into a sword if she could punch the guy holding it.

Great, I was hoping she'd settle for assault and not breaking and entering as a solution to an argument. Damn it.

Shaking her head, Buffy chased her, noting with no small amount of confusion that she was significantly faster than Faith. Not that she'd ever admit it to her, but Faith was faster than her. Only a little, her ego mediated. Tonight was different. Her feet staggered where Buffy's were unfaltering, she almost tripped more than once, her hands splaying out on the walls of the guardhouse before she got in. The door was unlocked. Now, what kind of guard house is that?

Out of the black into the blacker, still, Faith disappeared into the perfect dark of the inside. Is she drunk? Fury. Is she hurt? Terror. Why is she wigging out now of all times? Why couldn't she just haul off and hit me like I know she wanted to, that would be miles better than whatever-

Her thought ran off like a runaway train as she followed Faith into the guardhouse. It was never a good idea to follow a monster into a dark room, but she was Buffy. She could get away with that kind of thing. Still, though, she had to be careful. Faith wasn't a person. She's a monster. The hypocrisy rose up out of somewhere deep in her like bile and she swallowed it back down. She didn't sound like Riley. She didn't. I don't.

She cut the dark of the room with eyes like spotlights, body tensed to defend against the coming blow.

It never came.

Buffy dropped the bag holding the Orb and took a very careful step.

"Faith?" she said to the huddled mass in the corner. Its legs splayed out like it was trying to push the floor further away, brown, unseeing eyes blinded by something frantically looking at Buffy, pleading with her to stay away. She shook her head in some kind of grand negation.

"I-I-I-", she started, but never quite finished, like a record skipping over and over. Her face went from pure terror to something numb and far away. Buffy had never seen crying eyes look so dead, so dry before.

"I'm okay. Five. You know. Five by-… fi-." Faith's brow furrowed like she was trying to remember the words and failing, "fi. Fiv-." Tears flooded down her cheeks, but she looked like she was a stuck typewriter, jaw struggling to go to the next line down.

Agony wrote across her face. The sentence would not finish. It could not square.

Something shattered in Buffy as she realized what she was seeing. Years of masks and programming all breaking apart, this is the face underneath. I'm not meant to see this. No one is meant to see this part of another. No one is meant to see this part of themselves.

The insight was cold, alien, far off and far more sophisticated than she should have been capable of. That was because it wasn't so much insight as it was perception. Instinctual terror at seeing under someone else's skin, the horror as the boundary that divides the outside world of bacteria and flies and plants and sun and soil from the inner world of flesh and fears…. fails. She's going to get infected, she thought, looking at the open wound of fear and terror under the thick, callused skin Faith wore. It was an absurd thought. Buffy reeled.

"F-Five?", she asked Buffy. The blonde didn't have an answer.

Buffy's hand went to her mouth, waiting for words of comfort to come out as she watched her enemy try to summon any scrap of the years of programming. It was all slipping through Faith's five fingers.

"I…" she gasped suddenly, voice terrified, eyes looking right through Buffy, right through the wall, "M-my mom gave it to me. The poison. Born with it. Needles and… and string…. and everything mean."

Her face scrunched up like broken pieces of glass in a dustpan.

"Not a person. Not the same. Not like you. Born with it." Her voice had a monotone steadiness to it, like she was reciting the pledge of allegience. This was what was under it all. Convictions that went deeper than her bones; her neck cracked as she turned it slowly, slowly, slowly back and forth, rejecting it all even as she spoke it.

"She poisoned me. Her boyfriends poisoned me. I was 14 when it first… yeah. 14. Right?" Faith nodded to her own question. "After they-" Buffy felt very, very cold, but couldn't do anything but watch Faith start to slowly shake her head and gag on the words.

"Hurt me open. But I was already broken, right? Born with it. Right?" The dead eyes were defibrillated, life running into them suddenly, smiling even if her mouth didn't. Like Buffy could give her something she needed.

"Right, Buffy? I was already— it's houohow itis-" And like that, the moment was gone. The life fell out of Faith's eyes like egg yolk. Buffy wouldn't give her the hate that glued her together. The dream was dead, the hope was gone.

Faith suddenly got up and launched past her, and she didn't move, staring at the corner where the mass had been shattering into infinitely small, breathing, sobbing pieces. A second later she stood up, mind trying and failing to digest what she knew was the case.

She needs me.

She didn't get far. Only a few steps out of the door, in fact, leaning against it and vomiting on the lowest part of it. Buffy tasted metal before she smelled anything, and she followed it. That's where Faith was. They looked at the strange beige and black texture on the wall and pavement. It looked like you could scrub straight the wall and the oily stain would hang in the air like a black plastic bag in stasis. Oil. Metal. Rust. 

A finger with too many rings slowly raised up with superhuman steadiness. Buffy wrapped the black denim around Faith's shoulders softly, silently looking to what she was showing her.

"That's it, right there. That's what the poison looks like."

Chapter Text

Buffy

They walked through broken moments to the Summers home, silence interrupted only by the occasional hiccup from the woman she held together with her right arm. Her left held the Orb. Faith leaned against her more often than not, and no matter what, they didn't talk about it. Anytime Buffy opened her mouth, Faith trembled, winced like there was something awful coming.

She's not a person. She's a monster. She's a criminal. She's my friend. She's the one I love. She's crying and I'm the only one who can burn the tears. She's broken, but she wasn't born that way. No one is. She's not a person, she's so much better. She's a human. She's not a monster. She's so much worse. She's a human.

Broken pavement rose to meet their feet in jagged grins.

"It's gonna be a good day, tomorrow." Faith said, and Buffy felt like she was dragging a plastic bag on a windy day. "And I'm not ready for it."

The thought wasn't meant for her. Buffy let the wind carry the words away.

Faith's steps were more like falling interrupted by repeated reflex putting one foot down to break her fall than any kind of deliberate gait. Her eyes were like flat black colored paper. Nothing shone. She was rebooting. Buffy protected her from the noises, from the looks of others as they approached the familiar steps. She was tired, but that was the last thing on her mind.

Cicadas chirped. Some kids rode their bicycles through the late night black, unwelcome silver glimmers that made Faith wince and Buffy grind her teeth. It's not their fault. It's not their fault. She breathed through her nose. Anger wasn't what she needed right now.

"It's okay. Pretty sure they were aiming the toilet paper at the neighbor's house."

The joke sailed over the moment and just kept going, slowly sagging in white strips over it. She opened the door as quiet as possible, partly to avoid alerting the rest of her family, partly to avoid startling Faith. Any loud noise seemed to make her jump and lean further into Buffy.

She managed to persuade Faith into holding the strange sphere, watching how Faith rubbed it with her thumb compulsively. They made their way up the stairs, one at a time, one broken moment and one jagged tooth in the stair's grin at a time. Buffy didn't feel like she knew the house anymore. Wood under her feet turned to pavement. Wallpaper turned to dead grass and faded junk food wrappers skittering across its surface.

Needles. Strings. Everything mean. Burning Poison. Spit Fire. People like plastic bags blowing away. Wrapping around heads and suffocating them. Born broken.

Did they all have that poison in them? The colors that tasted like metal? The textures that looked like a failed experiment? Was she only protected from that fate because of circumstance? No. I would be better. I've always been better than her. Born broken.

Her eyes welled up as she helped Faith to the bathroom and sat her down on the toilet seat. She helped her take off her shoes. I would have been better. They hurt me open. I wouldn't have done what she did, no matter what. I was 14. She's different than me. My mom gave it to me.

She wiped the tears that threatened to fall on the ceramic under them. It was cold and uncaring, it wouldn't understand, she thought even while knowing how ridiculous the notion of a floor that would understand was. But damnit, this floor wasn't one of them.

"It's okay, Faith."

"I'm sorry."

"There's nothing to be sorry for."

"I'm sorry."

Buffy stood up and put a hand to her mouth, not looking at the red she knew would be where her eyes should have been in the mirror. Packed lunch. My mom gave it to me. The best daycare that Joyce Summers could(n't) afford. My mom gave it to me.A half smile that Buffy seemed to pick up almost genetically. My mom gave it to me.

Her throat choked and she stared out into the nothing in the hallway. The Nothing stared back.

"I'm sorry," Faith said, tightening the words around herself like a coat. Like a shell. Buffy didn't respond. My smile. My food. My light. My house. My justice. My values. My mom gave it to me. Faith had shown her everything her mother had given her. Colors a human body shouldn't produce. A taste like industrial runoff.

In the Nothing hallway, the wind carried plastic bags full of metallic taste.

After helping Faith into the shower, her eyes straying from the scarred body as much as possible, she asked her if she would be okay if she waited in the hallway. Faith nodded and she closed the door softly behind her, sliding down to sit against the wall. Wallpaper danced across dark expanse in front of her, faded candy wrappers in yellow ditches.

Dawn padded out of her room as silently as Buffy had come inside with Faith. The younger Summers almost tripped on Buffy's shadowy triangle, letting out a curse that the part of Buffy that hadn't accepted the reality of the situation filed away to blackmail her with later.

"Buffy? What are you doing up? Who's in the shower? I'm trying to go pee," she spoke through a groggy haze. All her older sister could do was smile humorlessly.

"Faith."

"Ugh. Freeloader," said Dawn. Buffy watched the faded candy wrappers travel on static winds. The light under the bathroom door put the sisters in a twilight.

"Yeah."

"What happened? Why do you look…. You're scaring me."

"I don't really know. She'll be out soon. Can you come back in a few minutes?"
"Is she gonna be okay?"
"I don't really know," she repeated, voice humid from the steam under the door. The water must have been scalding. Tears ran down her face, burning her cheeks and turning them red.

Dawn sat next to her, another triangle in the Summers pyramidal line. They listened to the scalding rain. She leaned against her older sister, brows furrowing in the dark, looking at the wallpaper with her sister. Their hands joined.

"I hope she's okay," artificed bravery put over her voice like armor. Is that what Faith sounded like as a kid?

"Me too, Dawn. More than anything."

Faith

Cold.

It was for nothing. Only a matter of time, really, before her poison burned a hole through the armor. That was okay. She didn't care. She watched her flesh redden, but it was only skin deep.

So cold.

Faith watched strange colors dance down the drain in broken spirals, and the drain was shaped like Florina's open mouth when—

Buffy

By the time the shower stopped, Dawn had gone back to her room, eventually. It had taken Buffy promising she would knock once the bathroom was open, and Buffy promising that she and Faith would be alright. Buffy lied about the second promise, but that was okay.

Faith walked into the bedroom she now shared with the original owner and looked out of place. Her face was pale, but her body's skin was splotchy red where her slayer healing fought a winning battle against the scalding from the shower. She looked at Buffy like she was waiting for Buffy to tell her what to do, so she did.

"C'mon. It's okay."
"Thanks."

She shuffled closer to the bed, face blank, eyes screaming unreconciled tones and emotions at anyone who could stand to look. Hope-fear, relief-dread, it was overwhelming. It was toxic. It was the kind of mixture that could give a Boston neighborhood lung cancer and coughs that tasted like metal, rattling breaths like their lungs were coated with plastic.

Buffy held out a hand for the other girl to come into her arms in the bed. Faith bit her lip, looking down at an angle, rejecting herself.

"The… it'll leak on you, B. Stain you," her voice was watery, terrified, "It's fine. I'll… maybe the couch." She turned and took half a stagger away towards the door. Buffy was faster. A strong hand smaller than Faith's own gently over it. Blue nails the color of the sky.

"I'm going to be okay. So what if your poison leaks out? I'm better than you, remember? Always was. Always will be."

To anyone else, from anyone else, this would have been a good combination of words to get a kick in the balls. Buffy wondered for a second if she would be receiving the feminine equivalent, but brown eyes looked up at her with something that hurt even worse.

Relief.

"Promise?"

"Give me your worst."

Her voice was a soft coo that drew Faith into her arms and then into the blankets like a siren's call. The Better One held her and kissed her forehead and told her it would all be okay. That she had stopped it. That she had stopped her.

"I stopped you," she murmured into Faith's wounds, "so you can rest easy in my arms."

Her breaking hands could tear down anything, even the Nothing. They ran up and down Faith's arms, rubbing color into them while she whispered that Faith could never beat her. Could never win. Could never stain her. With each promise came a keening sound and a nuzzling further into her. Plastic bags like black balloons popping in the sun. Wind freed. Smog that could never stain the sky. There was freedom in that.

Faith buried her face in Buffy's neck, and coughed out her heart all day and all night, and it still wasn't gone by the time morning rolled around. She opened her eyes and saw green ones looking right back.

Her heart was still there.

Chapter Text

Faith

Faith didn't know how Buffy didn't just outright choke her out, bruise her esophagus like a bent straw so no more smog would come out. Why's she so patient? Asshole. Breaking hands that could shatter her any time they decided to softly rubbed her back together, they formed her out of the clay puddle she'd fallen into. Light hummed out the places where their skin touched, which was most places. Faith was only wearing panties and a shirt Faith was pretty certain Buffy had stolen from Giles at some point, if the "WORLD'S QUIETEST LIBRARIAN" on the front was anything to go by.

For the world's quietest librarian, that's some loud ass lettering.

Their eyes were glued to each other in the morning light, neither willing to give in. Faith resented her for it. Resented how easy it all was, the hoping, the helping. It was broken only when Buffy pulled her closer, bandaging blanks around her, caging Faith's body like a cast while she healed.

Coconut. Faith nuzzled into the smell, so different from how she usually smelled that it almost made her sneeze, but she held onto the scent. She was too greedy to expel it.

I only deserve touch when it bleeds. When it bruises. I don't deserve this.

"It's okay," the voice glowed in the heat between them as her mind and body reconstituted. Faith keened and drank the sound. It went through her body like a wave as she shuffled to get closer. To get safe. To get warm.

"B?"
"Mm?"

"Say it again… please," and Faith noticed that was human enough to feel embarrassed again. Her face was red even through the comfortable numbness.

"I'm better than you."
Faith gasped and writhed, her eyes welling up in catharsis, in relief. She was still better. Buffy hadn't lied (she never lied). She's not stained. God, thank you, thank you, thank you- sharp nails softly dragged letters across her back as she cuddled further into the sky, as she touched the untouchable. I couldn't poison her. She didn't lie.

"I will always be better than you," and the nails went to Faith's hair and played in it for a while to make her dance and moan against Buffy. The affirmations of superiority made goosebumps rise and fall throughout her body and something pulse.

"Thank you~" she said, voice dripping white relief, smoky and rasped. Buffy just held her tighter, and Faith felt sunlight lighting her up from the inside like an X-Ray.

The details weren't perfect, but the clay was shaped like a person. There were little indents from light blue scalpels colored like the sky, things like hair, things like a smirk. Buffy dried her in her sunlight. It was time to go out into the world. There was work to do.

"H-hey, B?", she stuttered, after all, the details weren't perfect.
"Yeah?" Buffy yawned.

They hadn't slept. Oh well. They were getting dressed, Buffy in a black skirt with a warm-gray short sleeved shirt that dizzied Faith with the whirls and curves of the blonde's body if she tried to follow them. Faith put on her denim jacket, a red tank top that Buffy lent her since her clothes were mostly dirty, and black leather pants. It was kind of chilly out so she could get away with it.

"You think that you could keep my wig out last night between us? I know I don't…" she gulped, the words thick in her throat, hurting, "deserve it, and maybe it's useful information to you guys, but-"
"Faith." The addressed turned like a dog called, mouth a little ajar, eyes wide awake.

"No one will hear about it unless you trust them enough to tell them." Her eyes were fiery enough that a thrill of fear pulsed through her, usually that look was reserved for when she'd been particularly bad. "No matter what, I'll make sure of that. I promise."

When B gets to promising, you bet your ass she means it. If she told me the sun was taking a day off, I'd put a hundred bucks down at the bar and say 'Sun's not coming up today, assholes, watch this.'

"Okay. Cool."

"I'm gonna go downstairs and check on Dawn."
"You say it like you're talking about a dog that needs potty training."

"At least those are usually nice." Why's she wiry on the edges?

"You should go easier on her," Faith said, pulling on the boots.

"Well, she's a sh…. sheister. Yeah. That."

Faith broke up in laughs, and Buffy puffed up the inside of her lips, crossing her arms and trying not to smile either. Go on, laugh for me. Laugh with me. Even laugh at me. I'll take anything.

"Mhm. Laugh it up just because I don't like corrupting the youth with bad words."

"All I'm saying is that being a little shit is a thankless job, B, and it's not as easy as I make it look."

Faith stood up and rolled her shoulders like she was remembering how to use them. Buffy rolled her eyes like she wished she was forgetting how to use them. Her laugh opened and showed a glimpse teeth like angel wings. Easy as pie.

"I'll take it into consideration."

"That's all I ask."

When she went down the stairs, her heart pulsed a little too hard, a little too fast, thrumming through her temples. She told them. How could she not? Why wouldn't she? I deserve it. And maybe that was all true, but Buffy wasn't telling them. Instead she was telling Dawn off about something, but cut the words off when she saw Faith darkening the doorway into the kitchen.

Joyce wasn't up, for once. She's sick. Deserves to sleep in. Deserves to wake up to something nice.

"Yo."

Dawn turned around and the sun rose up behind her eyes like the sun outside.

"Hey Faith! Buffy was just telling me that I was to "keep my paws off the food" she's making for breakfast."
"J-just until it's done!"

"Tsk tsk, B," Faith reprimanded with eyes like onyx tossed up into the sun, "it does look pretty far from done."

"It does, doesn't it?" Buffy's hair was a little frazzled, scattered light, green eyes overwhelmed by the ingredients. Faith walked up to the Better and scraped the edge of her smile against her while she walked past.

Something evil clicked into place in Dawn's head, she could smell the shit eating grin from there.

"Why don't you let me take over? I can cook for you guys."

"Probably a lot better than Buff."

"Hey!"

Faith snickered as she took the situation over. 'First thing to know about cooking', Daniel (the same Mom's-boyfriend that had given her a taste for Sailor Jerry, one of the better ones) had told her, 'is to keep organized. Everything has a proper place. You should never have to think about where things are, your hand should do the thinking for you, dig?'

Daniel would blow up into sparks and probably start shooting the counter if he saw the apocalypse left by Buffy's culinary rampage.

Buffy was, naturally, making it worse by haunting the area and crossing her arms and so on.

"Sorry, it's kind of a mess, I was trying to find the onions—"

"It's alright. We can take a picture and show it to whatever nasty we don't feel like fighting, tell em' the infamous Buff will make a mess of them just like this if they don't shove off."
"Here we go—"

Dawn did her best impression of the Green Goblin cackle in the background.

Faith smelled blood, and she didn't stop even as Buffy rolled her eyes and hunkered down. While she neatly organized everything into little categories through muscle memory alone, bringing order to chaos, she just kept on talking shit.

You could strangle her and she'd still talk shit, long after other words grew silent from lack of air. It was like it was built into her tonsils or something. Her Boston accent softly hooked at the end of each culinary threat to the hypothetical demon.

"See these onions? How each layer is somehow cut at a different spot? That'll be you, pal—"

"It's not that bad."

"And that chopped bell pepper? We spent hours cleanin' up the seeds. From the ceiling."

"They were NOT on the ceiling," she started, but the torment continued, but Buffy kept haunting the counter that Faith worked on. Somehow, neither minded the other enough to push the other away.

After a few minutes, Faith had made some really good omelets for the Summers clan. She started to put up the ingredients, but Buffy pushed the fridge shut and leaned against it like a bouncer. Didn't even need to say anything, the raised eyebrow told Faith what exactly she was in trouble for. 'You better make one for yourself,' the eyebrow signed, 'O R   E L S E.'

So she did. Then she chopped up some fruit and tried not to think about the way Buffy's eyes trailed her hand like that was the fruit. Enough of that shit. Making my hand shake. "Why don't you set out the omelets while I finish up the fruits."

Buffy made an unsure noise, but Faith set down the knife and gave her a look a lot sharper than the paring knife on the cutting board. She obliged. And she calls her sister a brat, that shit runs in the family.

"And Dawn, don't touch anything until Mom gets here."

"Who died and made you Iron Chef?"

"Excuse me? I'm the one who cooked all this," Faith said to set that particular record straight.

"It's gonna get cold," Dawn whined.

"Better listen to your sister."

"Well you never listen to her."

"And it usually goes bad for me. Learn from my mistakes, kid."

She leaned against the counter, arms crossed and brandishing a smile. Buffy preened at Dawn like Faith was somehow the arbiter of justice for once, and had judged her the winner.

The clay dried. The features were clear. Every strand of hair realized in the sun-drying. There were some cracks, but all in all, it was prettier than it had been before it melted.

Joyce loved the food, like she always did. Faith was a good cook. She knew that about herself, but the praise from the Summers was a healthy ego boost. After the shit show, I kinda deserve that.

Her eyes lingered on Buffy putting a green grape between perfect lips. Fuck. The finger went still against Buffy's lips, and Faith's eyes suddenly met green ones dancing with sunny sadism. Fuck.

The Scooby gang was waiting for them at the magic box. Faith was fully formed now, clay more life-like with each shadow cast by leaves over head they walked through. Like they were leaving parts of their shadows on her face to give it more definition. Her smiles were deeper, her eyes were darker so that the whites of her eyes might be brighter, her hair somehow richer, her hair less pale.

It wasn't the same woman that had broken down, made of the same stuff, but Buffy had molded her into something subtly different in the cocoon of blankets last night. Something sturdier.

That was tested pretty quick. The bell over the door sang their arrival.

"Oh great, Faith crawled out of a ditch to make it to the meeting. And in an hour ending in A.M.!" Xander was a little redundant announcing Faith's arrival, the bell had done a better job of it, anyways.

"I'm a changed woman, Slander, I was in your dad's bed last night. Closer to the shop than my usual ditch."

"Slander?" He scowled, leaning his neck at a dangerous angle forwards like his head was just about to float off and circle the room, "first of all, that's not my name, and second of all… you're joking about my dad, right?"

It wasn't just Xander, of course. Giles was there, leaning against the counter. The words being thrown through the fragile atmosphere creasing him at his center. At a table, sitting and facing the door, was Tara and Willow. They looked like they'd been shopping. They look good. Happy. For lesbians, anyways.

Faith reckoned that thought was the best compromise between knowing that bumping uglies with another gal was weird and being happy for them. The two halves of her brain battled for a moment, but neither seemed to gain a foot hold. Neuropathic casualities, battallions of synapses wasted, it was a fruitless war and both were losing. A treaty had to be struck.

They met in the wet trench between pink terrain, set up a table, negotiated, and then signed an armistice. They agreed on a statement of good will between the internalized homophobia and the jealousy desire to see them continue to be happy. The statement was as follows:

They look good. Happy. For lesbians, anyways. Furthermore, they're pretty alright. For gays.

And that was good enough for Faith.

"Xander," said the Better One, sounding a lot like the strict ass teacher they had in Faith's class to rule over the hopeless masses with an iron fist. Xander rescinded his neck like a turtle and grumbled something with a glare at Faith, but she just popped her eyebrows and smiled Harlot Red at him, mouthing something that made Tara hide her face in her hands.

I win.

"I uh, like the place, G-Man. Old owner croaked right?"

"Croaked?" the term seemed just alien enough to rouse him from his annoyed headache, "oh, died. Yes. Rather definitively."

There was a moment where Faith nodded at nothing in particular, looking for something to compliment. She found something. Her finger jutted towards it, somewhat fuzzy from the distance and the ambient dust in the air.

"I like the uh…" Buffy's eyebrow was thoroughly unimpressed as she saw what Faith was pointing at, and turned to her.

"The boxes?"

"Yeah. The boxes. Up there."

"They're temporary."

"Bummer."

A few seconds later, they were saved by the bell. Buffy had kidnapped Dawn from Joyce and had her tail along, walking faster anytime Dawn got close to catching up. Jealous, B? Naturally, she was out of breath.

Dawn said something almost as awkward as what Faith had (praise be) and then got told off by Buffy for imaginary crimes and left to browse. It was time to get to brass tacks. Buffy walked over to the table where Tara, Willow, and Xander were all waiting. Faith watched her leave. Really watched her leave. Skirt looks good on you, B. Pissed off looks good on you, too. Her jaw rolled around with her thoughts.

Someone was watching her. She scanned the room with what she hoped was a casual turn of the head. There. On the mezzanine. Dawn looked down at her like a cruel Greek god, all smiles and latent carnage. Fuck. She saw me ogling her sister like a freak.

Dawn held up her hand rubbed her thumb and index finger together, wiggling her eyebrows in a universal word that drowned out the muttering from the scoobies by the table.

Moneyyyy…

The Summers were terrible. Nothing was off the table, including blackmail, apparently. It was for the best that they were confined to golden suburban cages; they were natural predators, an omni-invasive species. Unleashing them on the worst parts of Boston's urban decay would be like letting a tiger loose in a fucking petting zoo. Faith shivered and lost the staring contest, walking over to the table where the glowing orb had gathered the other scoobies. Her left hand twitched as she walked over Buffy leaned over the table, but harnessed it into pulling out a chair to sit in.

"I have a little Scooby-centric deal to deal with." She pulled the glowing sphere out of her purse and rolled it lightly into the approximate center of the table. Everyone leaned over and eyed it.

Not that impressive to me. Definitely a rave thing.

"You called a scooby meeting because of… an… orb?" said Willow.
"Well." Buffy said, clearly having not thought this far ahead, but finding her confidence quick, "yeah! I did. Tara had a vision, something about green and the sun, she said, and I found this in a puddle of something kind of green, and it looks like the sun to me."

"It's definitely a rave thing," Faith said, leaning back lightly on the back two legs of the chair with her hands crossed behind her shoulder. Green eyes lingered on the stud in her belly button under the red crop top. She met them. The blonde blushed and broke eye contact.

"Right. Forgot you're the expert on balls," Xander said, "My bad."

"Forgiven," she replied, pausing the chewing of gum.

"Not to mention ill advised parties where drugs are," the way Willow whispered 'drugs' you would have thought it was a Seance.

"Can't forget that," admitted Buffy. Faith nodded slowly and chewed her gum. They were all valid points of consideration in the current discussion.

"A-and slutty, glowy things," Willow added on, looking around for a moment for approval. ANYONE to save her from the weird shit she just said, and her savior was actually Faith of all people.

"Guilty as charged, Red," she said smoothly with the rocking of the chair, the arc shaped just like her smile. Giles finished doing some dusty task behind the counter and came over to see what the fuss was about.

"S-so, what is it?" Tara added, seemingly unable to take her eyes off of it. First time she's talked during the whole congregation.

"Well it appears to be paranormal in origin," said Giles.

Buffy glanced to Faith as if to see her reaction, then back at the Watcher. "How can you tell?"

"Well its so shiny," he said, as obvious as the sun rising.

Green eyes immediately pounced on her. The rocking stopped. Time stood still. A sick, sunny, sadistic half-smile from the Good Slayer. Like snow in summer. She raised her hand, rubbed her thumb against her index finger, and wriggled her brows.

Moneyyyyyy…..

Chapter Text

Buffy

Sweet smoke fell up into the sky, blotting out one star after another. The cicada-song was unaware of the God that would destroy them all, unaware of the fact that she couldn't save them. That no one could. I'm not enough. My sister is nothing, and I'm even less.

And what about the chore chart? How do I know which ones were actually done before she… before she always existed? It was a remedial consideration, like she was trying to fix a burning house by sweeping the floor. Who taught her how to do the dishes? Who argued with her black and blue that it was her turn?

Faith leaked grape flavored smoke into the night; apparently she had a sweet tooth. Buffy complained, but when Faith went to put it out, she held her hand to stop it. I'll always complain, but please don't stop. Her thumb rubbed against Faith's hand. Reminding her to exist.

Sweet silence fell up into the sky, blotting out one star after another.

"She's not my sister," she said, and watched the silence fold like smoke lightly disturbed.

"Bullshit."

"You heard the monk, Faith."

"Fuck em'," she replied. Then took a drag, and Buffy didn't think she was going to continue, but she did. Her words shaped silence that didn't disturb a thing, so unlike Buffy's.
"So what if they made her a little out of order. Happened to a guy I knew back in Boston, and he turned out alright."

"A guy you knew back in Boston was created by an ancient sect of monks out of an abstract— energy?"

"… and he turned out alright," she said it like she just didn't understand what Buffy didn't understand, twitching a gun trigger smile the way she did when she was trying to get under Buffy's skin.
"You got a problem with that?"

"No, no, I believe you," she said, holding her hands up in surrender and laughing like dry weeds under foot, "and I'm sure he was a lot more normal than you."

"And don't you forget it."
They glimmered their eyes together for a second, but Buffy broke the eye contact first. Her hand was in the space between them, and she didn't realize she was waiting for something until Faith's hand interlaced with it wordlessly.

"And don't forget this either," she said, tapping the B & M into an ash tray, "out of the two of you, Dawn is the normal one."

"Is not—"

"We can skip the conversation, B, just letting you know how it is."

Buffy fumed for a moment, and wanted to take her hand away to punish Faith, but couldn't quite muster the courage. Instead her fingers tightened just slightly, her thumb nail now broken lightly scraping against Faith's left hand.

They both looked like shit, honestly. Fighting Glory hadn't gone well. When they were staggering home, she remembered saying to Faith,

"We're fighting a losing battle. We can't beat her. No matter what," but Faith had just cracked up through a cracked rib,

"First time?"

Their clothes were torn, blood turning to dried paint, but the wounds had closed; the fractures had glued themselves better. Every day they were around each other they grew stronger than they had been before. Buffy could move as fast as Faith used to, Faith was as strong as Buffy ever was, like they were borrowing each other's power at will. As freaky as it was, she had to admit that the improved healing factor was nice.

But it still wasn't enough.

"What makes you so sure she's normal?" she asked, voice feeling small, like the stars would suck it up at any time, a million far away drains.

"Because she has secrets," she said softly. "Because she thinks no one knows she wants a trampoline, that she still wants one, even though she's too old."

"She does?" Buffy… didn't know that, actually.

"Has for years, apparently. Joyce told me she stopped asking about it at like, 13."

"How did you know about it?"

"There's a catalogue picture of a trampoline taped to her window right where the trampoline should be, B, does she gotta read out her diary to you like a bedtime story?"

"Well how was I supposed to know?"

"Guess it's not your fault. That's my point, though; if she was fake, then you would know everything there was to know. What you see is what you get with that kind of thing. She's more than what you or me see. Those eyes of hers see the world, too, and they've got their own little suns behind them. Just like yours."

The sweet smelling cigarette was getting shorter now, and Faith didn't see Buffy gaping at her from the side, seemingly distracted by her own thoughts.
Did something possess her? No, no. She's always had a way with words, but usually them to get into a fight.

"I stopped asking for a trampoline too, but later on than Dawn did. I kept on asking my mom to just-" Faith scoffed and waved her smoke in the air vaguely, ""put it up there somewhere, mami, put it up there!"," she shook her head and laughed, "I guess I wanted her to put it on the apartment building roof? Fuck if I know what I was thinking."

She coughed for a second, something full, sweet coming out. Her heart.

"She just kept telling me, "Viti tjetër, next year! I'm savin' up. We'll put it on the roof." That was my first time getting conned. Or maybe she was getting conned. I uh—", Faith's voice cracked for a second, but it could have just been the harsh drag she'd just coughed up, "sometimes I think she wanted it too. Maybe she actually was saving." The last words had a bitter after burn, lips like ashes, "Sorry."

"Don't apologize. Please, just… keep talking."

At some point they'd come closer together on the steps, Buffy holding onto her and leaning her head into her shoulder, relishing each breath of that smoke she hated.

"Okay. Yeah. Um, shit, where was I? I think I stopped asking like… around… 14. Yeah. I was 14. Figured if the sky didn't want me closer to it by that point, it probably never would."

Hurt me open.

I was 14.

Buffy held her tighter, held her closer, and looked at the Nothing where a trampoline should be. Cinders burnt out in the plastic filter after a while of that, who knew how long. Faith didn't seem affected by her own words.

"She's normal because we're going to treat her like she's normal. She's your sister because you're going to help me build her a fuckin' trampoline. Simple as, and if you say she's not your sister again, I'll just call bullshit again."

"Okay."

"I'm serious, B, I'll fight you if you even think about backing out."

"Oh my god, fine."

"Okay. Now you go talk to her. You let her be a little shit, because it's a-"

"Thankless job?"

"Yeah. Something like that. I'll still be here when you get done in there. Prolly." Buffy leaned up and kissed Faith on the cheek, fluttering her eyelashes against Faith's hair. It's not love. Together, for just a second, they stared at the Nothing Trampoline.

When Buffy had said she would save up, Faith steeled her jaw and dulled her eyes. She shook her head all the way out the door. Probably used the wrong combination of words, there. Part of her was pissed at Faith for not being there while she recounted the fight to the gathered Scoobies. Part of her buzzed, the warmth in the back of her throat that she'd grown so accustomed to the warmth on the other end of the string that led out of her right hand.

"Bet it was nice to see Faith get her ass bea-"

"Xander, can you take this seriously for once?!" She didn't realize she'd raised her voice until it was too late. Everyone eyed her like springs surrounding a black center tarp, hooking into her, relying on her, supporting her.

"O-oh god, Xan, I'm sorry."

"No, it's okay. I was outta line."

"It's really not. I just… I'm sorry, I think I need some sleep. Been a hard few days."

Giles stopped her on the way out, and they talked about it all, the same as they ever did. It was hollow warmth, but comfort nonetheless. He didn't know what to do. He didn't know what to say. That was okay.

Buffy just reminded him to keep existing.

That evening, when she was walking inside, a car screeched so loud behind her she thought it was gonna run her over. She whipped around, prepared to dive for cover, but saw the source of the burning rubber. Spike, pulled up on her curb. He kicked open the door and got out of the black cadillac that he and Faith took turns stealing from each other.

He walked up to Buffy like he was hot shit.

"Oi, Slayer."

"Spike, don't take this the wrong way—", she said, punctuating the sentence with a punch like a firetruck.

Her response was as conclusive as it was concussive. His nose bled in two easy streams and he held it. She winced in sympathy. "Sorry, just… for the whole thing with Faith and the Initiative. You know how it is."

"Fuck! Ow! God, you crazy bat!" One more sympathetic wince from Buffy before he kept yapping. "But the other Slayer gets off scot free? I see how it is, anti-vampirical discrimination and the like-"

"Actually, she got a lot worse."

"Wait, really?" A lot of the pain seemed to just… disappear. It was like magic.

"Why are you here?"

"Wel-"

"Five. Words. Or. Less." He wiped the blood of his nose and thought for a second, counting out the words with little nods as if to a rhythm.

"Delivering. A. Package. To. Faith." He judged the distance between Buffy's fist and his face, "Bitch." He swung his neck around like he was a bird challenging a rival, never breaking eye contact. "And the things bleeding heavy so you're hauling it about. It's in the trunk."

"What's in it?"

"Already got hit by one slayer, not looking to piss off the slag, too. Ask her yourself." He popped open the trunk. It was a wooden crate with some straw hanging out of the lid. "Probably some kind of hell… fire… shotgun, or sommad."

"Does sound like something she'd get," she admitted with a tilt of her head, "Who's it from?"

"Some bloke who owed her a favor before he went back home to his hell dimension."

"Of course." What was I expecting?

"Right. Get it out. Hope it hits your toes on the way down."

She found Faith on the back porch, again. The last traces of the sun were going down; it was a reflection of the night prior, minus the silence. Buffy was growling and grunting dragging the box through the narrow fence door. The other slayer just leered and smiled. Ass.

"Yep! Don't worry! I-I got it. You just stand there and be-" a grunt, "Sultry! And Useless!"

"On it, boss. Want me to ask Giles the best ways to slay a door, while I'm at it?

"Shut up."

"Yes ma'am," she said, brown eyes closing around Buffy's involuntary shiver at the words. Like they were taking bites.

"And help me!"

Faith didn't, for once, offer much resistance. Buffy started to go up the stairs, but Faith shook her head. "Nah. Out there." Her head motioned towards the Nothing where a Trampoline should be.

"Faith? What is this?"

"You already know what it is."

"Is it stolen?"

"Probably."

Buffy met her eyes, squinted for a second, but the other Slayer didn't budge. She just waited until the blonde acquiesced, then they carried the crate out into the square overcast by a catalogue clipping.

Together, they tore Nothing down.

Dawn

No one talked to her like an adult, no one held her like a child, she just got the worst of both worlds. Buffy tried to look anywhere but her, especially after yesterday. She just had a bad day, just like you. It's not fair to hold it against her. But she still did. She was supposed to be sure of things, (even though she's wrong all the time, but at least she's confident. She never says she doesn't know things. She's supposed to tell me she knows better. I'm supposed to know better than her knowing better).

But she wasn't. She hadn't.

"Hey, kid."

Faith's silhouette was carved out in the amber light of the doorway.

"What." Faith was the only one who actually talked to her like a human, so of course, she just hardly talked to her at all. Maybe it was shame, or something. She should be ashamed. She made my sister cry. She made my sister weird.

"Come on. Your sister got you something."

"Good for her."

"We're skippin' the conversation, D, get up and follow me downstairs or I'll haul you over my shoulder." Fuck. She means it. I hate it here.

"Whatever. You don't even pay rent," it was a shot in the dark, even though she felt like only Buffy could hurt Faith. Like she was a werewolf and Buff was a silver bullet, or something.

"Makes three of us."

"Whatever!" She was already putting on her shoes, bookmarking the thing she wasn't really reading, "and I want thirty dollars, or I squeal about you staring at my sister's ass."

"10 bucks, unless you want B hearing about you saying "ass"."

No wonder Buffy beats the hell out of her like it's a routine.

Down the stairs and into the night, there was a shimmer where the Nothing should have been. Where a catalogue picture should have been, now there was steel, and wire, and spring, and a black mirror shining with the stars over head.

I won't cry.

Buffy and Faith were on either side of her as they walked her to the same trampoline she'd seen in the catalogue a few years ago.

Dawn didn't ask where it came from, how much it cost, when they'd gotten it, and they didn't offer. All three of them just jumped on the trampoline that they were definitely too old for. Maybe tomorrow they'd find the time to care, but tonight they jumped in the dark until their legs were singing pain and their lungs burned like sweetened cigarette smoke.

IF Dawn cried, it was through a smile, and the tears fell up into the sky, becoming one star after another, one bounce at a time. 

It's a good thing she didn't. Not at all. 

Chapter Text

Faith

For better or for worse (let's be real, almost certainly the latter), Buffy trusted her more than anyone in the world. She knew why. Because you'll never beat me. Because you can never win. The soft rasp on the edge of Buffy's voice, the familiarity of the words spoken just over a week ago haunted her. Yeah B, keep talking shit, I got something for you. Burnt pride that desperately tried to keep her mind in order. 'Everything's got a proper place, dig?' Daniel Mom's-Boyfriend would wig out if he tried to cook in my mind (Mom's-Boyfriend was added on like a last name to the end).

Frankly, she thought, it was fucked in the head that Buffy trusted her at all. Straight up twisted. She laid with her fingers interlaced behind her head as she watched her captor/confidante/frenemy/girlwhostabbedme/girlwhoshouldstabmeagain get ready for work. If Buffy noticed her staring at her ass when she leaned over to pull up some jeans, she didn't acknowledge it.

Nothin' to acknowledge. I'm Five by Five, wasn't looking at shit, just spacing out. This is America, a girl can't space out anymore? Pretty sure that's amendment protected, so go fuck yourself.

You can never win. The remembered words shivered between Faith's legs. She looked back down to the comic book she was reading.

"Faith." Guess B got jealous of Wonder Woman.

"Buffy." She didn't lower the comic book, just stared over it. Y'know, just to try and get Buffy to rip it out of her hands and pounc-

"Do you have any plans for today?" Look me in the eye if you're gonna ask stupid questions.

"Other than getting grilled? Gonna catch up on the shipment at the museum." Faith had taken over Joyce's workload at the museum in the last few weeks. No one asked her to. She never brought it up unless directly asked. Joyce was the one who told Buffy.

"O-oh. Thank you."

"S' fine, B. Director thanks me biweekly," she said with a wink. Hate it when she's grateful to me. Her eyes flicked down to the wringing hands. Buffy was wearing some of Faith's rings; Faith pretended not to notice, pretended not to savor the sight.

"Well, I was just wondering if maybe you wanted to go and do something tonight."

A few smart ass remarks that would have gotten her hit upside the head as a kid (and maybe now, too) rolled to the end of her tongue, then back into her throat. 'Sure, we could patrol, like we do every night', or 'I could move some stuff around so we can get a good argument in', but they didn't come.

She crinkled the edge of the page while Buffy looked anywhere but her. The morning light heated B's cheeks red. Her outfit was cute, just some jeans and a stylish graphic-T that Faith told her she bought for her a while back. Faith told her she bought a lot of things. Like that perfume she was wearing. Like those shoes she wore. Like the earrings piercing her like Faith's own little knives. Bought. Ha ha.

"I guess I could make some time," she said, trying to act casual. Her own cheeks were red so that was a fucking wash. Five by five, Lehane, get your shit together, everything's got a proper place and that red should definitely not be on your cheeks.

Buffy just gave her a smile like a sun rise half horizoned.

Hate her. Who smiles like that? Who the hell does she think she is? What kind of greed drives a person to beat someone half to death then ask them out on a… an outing. Yeah.

Faith watched Buffy leave, listened to the door close, and counted the steps down the stairs. Sorry, Diana, she thought, tossing the Wonder Woman issue to the side before reaching into the blanket and laying all the way down from her position of her back leaned against the headboard.

She rolled over to the side of the bed that Buffy always slept in, feeling the blankets softly pressing against her skin and imagined that they were the sound of Buffy's voice. Her panties got lost somewhere along the way, with a curse and a toss. Luckily, they missed Wonder Woman.

It was a bad habit she had, whatever this was. Every fucking morning, like clockwork, she'd roll over to Buffy's side of the bed and rub one out. This is so fucked in the head. Whatever. The Golden voice surrounded her and caressed her skin as she rolled around in it, reaching into the warm curtains of it and wrapping it around herself.

'I'm better than you.'

"Fuck-", she murmured with something like resentment. The voice-blankets pulled closer and vibrated around her, through her. A hand went down to her pussy, soaking and hurting like it had all morning.

'Always was.'

She bit her lip, face going soft pastel reds as she felt the wetness welling up around her fingers like she'd hit an oil reservoir. They circled the outer lips, carefully avoiding the clit. She didn't deserve it. Not yet. The fantasy always grew out of the same start, sometimes details changed in subtle ways, but it always had the same gist: her losing.

The concrete of Angel's mansion cold against her back, wrists shot through with agony as iron bands strangled them over her head. She was clothed, at the start, but Buffy walked in a semicircular arc, green eyes like emerald shards. Faith wondered if they were enough to cut her clothes off with a glance.

"You thought you could get away with it?" She said, eyes like acid forcing Faith to bow her head, "Betraying me? Trying to steal my boyfriend?" Buffy traced her fingers on the river shaped razor the mayor had given Faith.

"I-I'm sorry, god you don't know how sorry I am, B. I'll do anything, just please-" She'd said it a million times, but the more she apologized, the hungrier Buffy was for it, it was like trying to sate a wildfire with kindling, but what choice did she have? Her begging trailed off, she didn't know what she was begging for, but the way her pleading hemorrhaged the

Suddenly she was pushed against the stone pillar hard enough to bruise her shoulder blades, a silvery edge gnawing at her throat close enough to shave.

"Who's 'B'? Try again."

Fresh tears ran down her cheeks, dark eyes wide enough to fall into if you weren't careful. She tried to talk, but winced with each mocking bite of the razor at her throat. Blood bloomed out in beads from a million small points along her neck.

"I'm sorry m-ma'am."

"Good girl." Buffy almost sounded surprised, proud. The soft hand at her cheek replacing the knife at her throat, green eyes watching the whimpers bleed out of Faith's throat. Faith looked at her like she was God come down to punish her personally, eyes wide in reverent awe. The knife slowly trailed down her body.

Buffy kissed her so softly even as the infinite sharp of the hunger-knife went through her clothes like they weren't even there, all of her defenses torn through. God didn't even have to look, holding Faith's head even as the blade cut away the stained, torn shirt and it fell to the ground. Then came the pants. She leaned down, eyes not leaving Faith's as the denim screamed and shed to the ground in slow fiberfall.

Where the knife had gone a little too far, Faith bit her tongue as the metal kiss tore her pale skin and released bright red. She didn't dare say anything, didn't risk further wrath. Buffy stood back up, eyeing her new canvas.

"I'm going to make you sorry."

"Y-yes, ma'am."

"I didn't ask you."

"Yes, ma'am."

"You've been good for me, Faith, do you deserve a reward?"

Faith whimpered and shook her head no. Buffy leaned forward and kissed her neck, tongue darting out and cleaning the blood from her, taking the suffering like sustenance. Next, she drank the whimpers, hollowed the surrender out of her like sucking marrow.

The blade was a metal hand hugging Faith's curves, one of Buffy's hands holding her hip while the other (shining) one went to Faith's ass and raised up right at the crease of the swelling curve, threatening to cut but then at the last second turning and raising by the flat of the blade. The cold made her yelp and try to get away.

That was the plan, of course, and Buffy laughed like bells. The naked betrayer leaning into her, moaning and whimpering and repenting, pleading for warmth even as she made the cold on the opposite side of her.

"You're so good for me, Faith, you're such a good girl for me."

Faith trembled in the cold and tried to get closer, closer, even through the humiliating nakedness. Her nipples hard against Buffy's black leather jacket, her legs twisted together in a vain attempt to hide the clear-bleed between them.

If she's close enough to touch, she's too close to see. That was all she could do to hold on to the tattered, cut-into-slices pride. And god, Faith needed her touch. Needed to be real. Needed soft hands that cut her into pieces that fit together.

Laughter like cold sunlight.

The knife drifted and turned, like it was testing her body for weakness, slowly going between her thighs, kissing the lips of her pussy and drinking the clear-bleed like water. Faith trembled in the fear like a leaf that was held in two perfectly manicured fingers, crumbling and fragile.

"N-no, wait-"

"Shh… I won't hurt you, if you're good. And you'll be good for me, right?"

"Yes, ma'am. I'll do anything, anything at all, just please don't—I was just using Angel to get to you, I, promise-"

"I said be quiet." The knife twitched up, the tip going just inside and Faith convulsed with the cold sting. Her heart pounded, eyes wide with the terror, pussy thrumming with each lace of danger. Faith was absolutely still, the sting of the curved tip gleaming hungrily for any excuse. And then it was gone.

The cold was replaced by flesh and fire, Buffy's fingers going into her with a love that contrasted so prettily with the cutting cold of the knife now slowly trailing over her ass as Buffy fingered her. Her teeth left dark, deep indentions in Faith's neck, in her shoulder, around her nipples.

Her light, her honey was seeping of the hand inside of Faith and cleansing her of all of her corruption. Slice, the knife would whisper red into her and she would jolt forward into the hot in front of her, away from the cold cut. She felt like a fucking instrument being played.

The poison was leaking from each thin, dark line in her skin, being bled of the toxins in her blood as Buffy replaced it with purity. With light. With Godliness. Redemption with a catch.

Honey pooled in her legs with each pulse of stigmata, she whimpered and pleaded and begged.

"Cum for me."

"B! God~", the orgasm threatened to carry her away on waves of gold, golden light splashing behind her eyes as she wrapped the ocean of sound and softness tighter, rubbing her legs against Buffy's voice murmuring cotton reminders of her superiority.

It was violent, thrashing through her, around her like she was a raft in a hurricane. It slowly faded, and she buried her nose in the blankets that smelled like the Adversary. She imagined Buffy telling her it was okay, of wrapping her in thick blankets like these, that she forgave her.

Of cleaning her of the blood and holding her tight; her own body a bandage around Faith's laceration.

"It's okay. I'm here, I'll always be here," she would whisper, and Faith would believe her.

But not here, and not now.

Here the sun turned cold, the gold steely against her skin; the honey drained out of of her no matter how she clenched her fingers to keep it. She was never here, she thought, feeling the way that the blankets loosened and the heat escaped. Her voice was a memory fading fast, it couldn't wrap around her and hold her in place, but the wounds weren't healed yet.

"N-no, don't-" she whispered, voice far from her lips.

Cold.

Faith did her best to remember what touch was like. Her breath quickened, the Nothing buzzing in its worm song. 'They're in you now, sweetie. Worms in the black.' Tears welled up from her eyes and she hid her face from the sun, turning her face into the cold where Buffy used to be.

Can't see me like this, and she tightened her eyes with rusted red bolts in their corners, wet with rain. The shutters squeezed tight to block the sun's eye and let her be in the darkness, but the splotches of pressure-green looked just like her eyes. Can't escape it. Can't escape her. Can't catch her. Can't reach her.

Cold.

She felt like a plant growing out of the cracked stone workshop floor of a factory, fed by golden brown chips from the rusted ribcage that used to be a roof, where the sun only shone in like a policeman's light through an alleyway. But, still, she grew, just to follow the fractured light from the sun that passed by for a few hours every day, even if she could never burn rightly.

Then, the missing. Then, the waiting. Then, the cold.

Faith didn't deserve touch, she barely even deserved the burning. It wasn't fair of her to try and greed out more from Buffy, rolling in her blankets, bleeding memories and dreams over the bedspread, but I always was greedy. It wasn't hard to distract from the lacking, of course. A needle, a knife, a puff, some fucking Guy from a bar. Any simulacra of touch was enough for her. It would have to be.

It would have to be, because Faith had always been in love with the sun, and the closest she could get to its far away golden green was jumping on a rooftop trampoline. For now, the jut of her knees against her chess and the faded echo of Buffy's voice on her skin would have to be enough.

Buffy

Rust ran through the golden-brown. Something tugged at her right hand, a string she couldn't see but that her eyes tracked like she could. Something's wrong. The string slacked, like it had been caught, like the last thing the person on the other end wanted was for Buffy to come back. Her brow furrowed, hearing muffled sounds shaking along the string like the two slayers were just cans on a string.

She turned, stepped towards the door, and tried again. The slack tightened, pleading for her to come back, that it would do anything just please, please, come back. Buffy took a step forward again, hand wrapping around the door handle. The same hand that was tied to Faith.

Something's off, but it's not my problem. I'm gonna open this door, fight my way through the St. Patrick's Day celebration on campus (there was suddenly a robust Irish American community in Sunnydale, conveniently just in time for St. Patty's Day), and sit my butt down to learn. And to study. Mhm. Yep. Business Communications, here I come.

Out in the hallway of a few-seconds-later, she dialed Willow's phone number, tapping her nails against the wood just out of sync with the ringing.

"Hello?"

"Hey!" The word was spoken with enough force to blow paper out of your hand, if you weren't careful, "Wil, could I possibly, please, per chance get a favor?"

Grogginess. Doubt. A few grumbles. Buffy didn't need a supernatural connection to sense all of these things from the other end.

"Hmmmmm. Okay, fine, I'll show you the notes from class later."

"Thank you! I was just going to have you take not- oh, yeah. Wait, how did you know that?"

"Magic."

After the call concluded (with adulation and myriad displays of gratitude, of course), she looked up the stairs, then took the first step on the golden-brown tight rope just out of the spectra of her sight. 

Chapter Text

Faith

Light went with touch, color came with touch, heat came with touch; but they left with it too. Everything was falling away from her as she laid there in the shirt that had been stolen from Giles, then subsequently stolen from Buffy herself. Even my theft is second hand.

A few minutes had gone by and she was spiraling. Feeling every step Buffy took down the stairs too much to bear, and she didn't know why. It wasn't like she needed to be at Buffy's hip every single second of every single day. Bullshitter. You need her and you fuckin' know it, you're just in your feelings about the fact that she doesn't need you.

She tried to shake the thoughts out of her mind, a few times, but they were dug in deep. I'd need pliers for those ones. Would just need to reach in with the razor and pull out that metal. Maybe that would kill the cold. Maybe so, but in any case, she didn't get up. Faith just sat there, legs pulled up to her chest, chin resting against her knees, making herself small. Making herself easier to hold.

Closing her eyes, she let Father MacManus give a sermon through her lips. She couldn't remember the words to his St. Patrick's Day sermon, but her mouth did. The words floated up and pooled on the ceiling, lost in each other as Faith tried to doze off.

Always wondered how you remembered this shit, mom. Guess now I know. You didn't. Ha ha.

And that was how Buffy found her. Holding herself, words and tears clouding around her in mumbled reverence. Faith didn't notice her for a few moments, not until the door closed softly behind her.

The second that click resonated through the room, and Buffy leaned back against it with her hands folded behind her, supporting her. Faith tried to pull the blankets up further around herself, tried to find her words, but they were lost somewhere up in the cloud of prayers.

"S-shit, B, you can't knock? Thought you were going to class."

"Thought wrong," she said, voice cold. Almost frustrated. Faith tried to meet her eyes, but only got up to her mouth.

"Forget something?"

"Maybe I did. What's eating you?"

"Depends on if I'm in the graveyard or the Bronze that night."

It got the rise out of Buffy that she wanted it to, and Faith couldn't stop the tired smile that flared up with the annoyed huff.

"Tell. Me. What's. Wrong. The string-thing is going haywire and I'm not going anywhere until it doesn't feel like I'm a fish on a line." Fucking slayer connection, fucking gay witches. Of course she doesn't actually care. But there was something else there, something in the way that Buffy's brows twitched, the way she looked Faith up and down like she was looking for hurt that she could heal, hurt that she could tend to.

It's not concern.

"I-" her voice caught up in her throat and she looked away.

"Faith?" Her voice was low, swimming under the surface like something bigger and stronger than the little raft she was floating on, and Faith couldn't decide if she wanted to shy away from it or cower into it. "Tell me what's wrong," and it wasn't a request, it wasn't a suggestion, it was a command.

Her lips moved involuntarily, remembering obedience to Buffy just as well as they remembered prayers to God; it was the same little simpering collection of nerves and synapses responsible for both tasks, somehow grouped together in her subconscious.

"Sometimes I get cold," she said, listening to Buffy take off her jacket and hang it on her chair. Guess she's staying a while. Making a meal of it. Maybe she'll make popcorn. Faith waited a second for the Better to just take the scrap and go. Sure, the meat of her pain might be poisoned, but that didn't mean she was gonna share with any old mooch. Even if it tore her stomach in two and leaked poison like oil into her blood.

Buffy didn't take the scrap. She sat on the edge of the bed and looked at her like an FBI interrogator, green eyes that could win a staring contest with the sun. And a stupid little frown.

"Why?"

"Uhm, because—" her skin trembled and she wrapped the blanket that smelled like Buffy's words around herself tightly. Her breath hitched for a second. Shut up, Faith, be quiet for once in your life, she thought in a voice that sounded just like Florina's bad days.

Out of the two survival instincts: Fawning and Flight, the Fawning response mechanism always won out when it came to Buffy. She'd bare her neck and all the words that came out of it. You know, like an asshole.

"Because what?"

Faith closed her eyes and gritted her teeth, hating the welling up in her eyes. The words came out like bullets tweezed out of a gunshot wound, viscera and gunpowder steaming.

"Because I don't deserve to be warm, I barely deserve burns. It's all I think about, you know, a needle, a knife, a fuck, a fight. Little burns."

Her eyes were just windows into some cold, distant ghost galaxy, now. Buffy's face didn't change, took it all in impassively. She stood up and walked to the door. Faith didn't watch her leave, looking out at Sunnydale's green trees dancing to a hymn she couldn't hear. She thought they sucked at it.

The door didn't open. It didn't close either. The two clicks that came were of shoes dropping. Then Buffy going into the bathroom to change back into her pajamas. Something just wasn't clicking into place in her head.

This was the part where she left.

This was the part where Faith was cold.

This was the part where Nothing won.

Instead, Buffy came out with bunny pajama pants and a loose shirt. She steeled her jaw, acting like this was her shining armor and she was off to war.

"B, what the fuck are you doin?"

"What's it look like I'm doing? Getting into my bed, last I checked it was my name on the pillows."

"You didn't have to say that out loud, you know that right? Even I'm not mean enough to bring that shit up."

"Move."

So she did. It was just muscle memory, that same little squealing part of her brain called the Amygdala, evolutionarily adapted to fear, had been in Faith's case molded to the purpose of worship. Of obeying. She stayed well on her side of the bed, she didn't know if Buffy was just planning on napping, and eradicated any hints of hope that there could be any other reason, so it was best to play her distance. Didn't work too well.

Buffy pulled her in, and she tried not to fall apart. It was the fire she'd been looking for, burning her to cinders until there was nothing left to freeze. She couldn't help the whimper, couldn't help but think of the fantasy in between her legs just moments prior, of the way that she didn't even think to put her panties back on (how the fuck was I supposed to know she was coming back?)

Every inch that the other slayer touched lit up like a live wire, and she leaned into the touch, let herself be molded back into the shape of a person after she'd cut herself into slices. Only the Better could undo the damage she'd done to herself; her way of making Faith hers, she supposed.

"Faith?"

The girl moaned something shaped like fear, purple and bright, eyes closed and mouth ajar. Buffy took her hand away from her cheek just to watch Faith whine and writhe towards it, like she was drinking every expression, every ounce of desperation. After a few moments of being starved of it again, of the cold not going away, Faith opened her eyes to beg silently. Her pupils were blown open, she looked wired.

"You don't have to be cold," she said, slowly bringing her palm back to Faith's cheek, "all you have to do is tell me when it hurts. I'll be here for you, that's what—", in the brunette's enthusiasm to feel the warmth again, her lips had brushed up against Buffy's thumb, lighting the Slayer's face up like a Christmas tree.

"—that's what friends do. Okay?"

You don't understand. I can't help it. You can't stop it, no one can. You can just keep it away for a while.

Faith felt the thumb brush her lips once more, this time of it's own volition, and she restrained the urge to open her lips and take it in. She did. Because Faith was strong like that. Instead, she closed her eyes and kissed it, and nuzzled deeper into Buffy's arms so her entirety could be encompassed.

"Say you'll tell me."

"I'll tell you," she rasped back, feeling something in the slayer connection grind and whir and glow.

"Say you're mine."

"God, B, I'm yours," the fire leapt up and encompassed her completely, turning her to sizzling smoke and blindings of the light. Buffy leaned in and kissed her, took it all, the words, the whimpers, the wails and the weepings.

"All of you. You know that, right? Even the pain is mine."

Faith keened, only able to whimper as the nails tightened in her scalp for a fraction of a second. Buffy's voice wrapped around her, her lips opening but Faith didn't hear the worlds, but felt it layering around her in cotton certainties and tightening with each syllable.

"F-fuck, yeah, I'm sorry I didn't te-"

"Just fix it," she clearly wasn't interested in apologies, or in excuses, just action. Faith nodded.

"I didn't mean to make the connection all… yeah."

Green eyes gleamed. They didn't seem impressed, and Faith suddenly understood what it was like to be an ant under a magnifying glass. She writhed closer for a kiss, and then hid from the slayer's wrath by hiding her face against her.

Buffy rubbed her hand against her back, going lower, lower, and stopping at the small of her back. Then she smelled Faith's hair, kissed her neck, smelled her shoulder (whatthefuckwhatthefuckwhathefuck), and Faith started to panic.

The hand on her back froze, and then Buffy leaned back. No, please no—

She raised her head, and seemed to follow the scent to the discarded panties on the other side of the room.

"Fuck."

"Huh," said Buffy.

"W-wait, I'm sorry, I didn't know you were coming back and… and I can explain."

"Why you were doing that in my bed? I'd like to see you try."

Faith's words failed her, falling out of the ceiling cloud like dead birds.

But, suddenly, the warmth was back. It lifted her up, pushed her deeper into the bed and tightened its grip around her.

Buffy gripped her hard enough to bruise, kissing her all over, like she needed Faith to understand what she'd meant by owning all of her.

"From now on, don't even think about doing something like that in my bed again. You even threw them across the room."

"I'll…" Faith bared her neck when the other woman made her intentions to mark it clear, she moaned and imagined soft lips to be made of metal, spilling blood and kissing with a cutting, "…get… them. I don't know what's wrong with me-"

She tried to lift up to go get her dignity off of the floor, but she was pulled back into the bed almost violently.

Slowly, but firmly, a leg rose up in between Faith's legs. To mock her, she figured, Buffy drinking in the moans each time Faith rocked against it with a rolling of her hips. I'm doomed. It's a wrap.

Eventually they dozed off, and in her dream, Faith was warm.

A few hours later Faith gasped away and slammed her hand down on the alarm clock at exactly 11:59. The alarm to start getting ready for her shift at the museum was set for 12. Charlie Says once taught her how to keep track of the time when she was sleeping, not that she really understood how it worked, it just sort of happened when she slept now. Always up one minute before the alarm she set.

'Bahsterds were chasing me, had to hide in the sewers, I did. Didn't have alarm clocks down there, but the pigs always stopped lookin' around 1 AM. That's when I'd get out and do ma work. Learned that 3 hours is all ya need, really. Yer gonna learn too, keep rollin' with me. Just like yer old man did.'

The distance from Boston and the experience under her belt, she had figured, would make Charlie seem less bizarre to her. Ms. Dormer had taught her to fight demons, ghouls, vampires, ghosts, not to mention all the crazy shit she'd been at ground zero for in Sunnydale. Somehow, none of that seemed to make Charlie less strange to her from the distance.

If anything, it was a bit frightening how even Demons looked well adjusted in comparison.

"Pst, B." There was cold on her skin where warmth should have lived, goosebumps spreading like bacteria on a food left out overnight. Brown eyes lit on fire by the waves of gold spread over a pillow with BUFFY SUMMERS written (in cursive).

Her heart split open.

I love you. Sometimes I think you love me back, that it wasn't all a fluke, that this isn't some power play; but that's just a nightmare. I pray to God every morning you don't love me back.

"Hey, jackass, you're drooling," was what she said, instead.

They got dressed, and Buffy stood a little closer than she used to. Faith was just gonna let her hair hang down, but she got a warning glance from Buffy, then heard something about looking professional for work.

"No one sees me, I just lurk in the back of house."

"Well, I see you, are you saying my opinion isn't worth your coworkers'?"

The trap had hungry teeth of steel and wire, Buffy's eyes like sunlight reflected under fresh ground cover. That was the kind of rhetorical spring that would take your leg clean off.

God dammit. Can't stand her. And quit blushing, Lehane, you're gonna pass out if you don't start pumping the blood out of your cheeks.

Faith knew when a battle was lost, so she acquiesced, opting for a cute little do with her hair hanging in two bangs on either side of her face. It framed her face younger. Buffy helped her, soft nails making everything perfect.

Clay molding into the shape of a person.

"Perfect," the Better said with a voice that made Faith grateful she was sitting down. They were in front of the vanity, and she would occasionally look at where Buffy's eyes were. A few harrowing times, they would be waiting for her, there. Reflected steel sunlight under ground cover, waiting to trap Faith there forever and let her bleed out if she wasn't careful.

Baby blue nails tapped up and down on Faith's shoulders as she looked at her canvas. There were holes in it left by teeth and grip, bruises seeping out of her neck like a Morse code telegram. B-U-F-F-Y. Hers.

"Hold on," she said, stepping away from Faith so the Bostonian could breathe for a second. When she came back, the relief ran away (wish I could, too) as she held up one of her chokers.

"You put collars on all your girls?" Her voice scraped, encrypted by the ciphered bruises.

"Huah?" the other girl honked in confusion, her face going bright red the way that Faith loved (I win, fucker.)

"Come on, B, clock's ticking," and she let the collar lay around her neck. Blue nails cut into her neck, but she didn't whimper this time (she did bare her neck, though).

They left at 12:24, and the shift started at 1. Buffy was dressed up in Valley Girl regalia, Faith dressed up in black with exception to the green insignia against the dark gray shirt behind it.

"I MIGHT BE WEARIN' GREEN BUT YOU CAN PINCH ME!", it clarified to the world. After a few moments of analysis that made Faith squirm and adjust her belt, the blonde gave a chipper little "Good!" and led her out of the house.

It was a good day outside. Another one.

When will I be ready to die? Should have been ready for a good day like this. St. Patty's would be a good one to go out on… Guess I can put it off a little while. Don't wanna kill the vibe.

They made their way out of the neighborhood wreathed in gold and green dancing to silent wind-hymns and into the more densely populated area. It was always weird just how close everything was to everything else in this town, somehow walkable and suburban all at once.

There were drunks here (hell yeah) day drinking and no doubt preparing for a pathetic small town St. Patrick's Day parade. She wished she could attend, but she was busy. Wonder if they have a service today at the church… wouldn't be surprised if I'm the only catholic here, though.

As they walked, more than a few people leered at the suggested course of action written on Faith's chest (plenty leered at the curves underneath them, too). Buffy gave a look to anyone who thought to take the words at face value. Faith didn't know exactly why the other girl was coming with her to work, surely she had more important shit to be doing. Like figuring out information on Glory. Or trying not to act disgusted by her gay witch friends.

Or hell, I dunno, class.

"You shouldn't skip class so much, y'know that, right?" she said as they arrived at the museum.

"Did you get turned at some point and I just failed to notice? Do I need to invite you into the house when we get back, because clearly something's taking your body for a ride."

Yeah, you.

"Okay, wise ass, laugh it up, but I'm serious," she said, opening the door to the back of the museum with Joyce's keys and into the darkness. She flicked on the lights in the miniature warehouse in the back. Against one wall was a modest workbench for restoration (and sitting on your ass and reading comics when you ran out of things to do).

"Weren't you always the one bugging me to skip class? I distinctly remember you pulling me out of a window during a Bio test."

"I thought you might change your mind before you made it all the way out," she justified, continuing, "I'm just saying, B. That was when…" her words had left her for dead, apparently. "That was when I didn't want you to pass your classes, y'know?"

"No, I can't say I do, Faith; you're saying, what, you were actively sabotaging my academic life? The love life and social life weren't enough?"

Ouch. Buffy sat on the workbench (right on top of one of her comics, Faith tried not to get excited about reading it later), dangling her feet with that innocent look that told Faith she was on a fucking minefield.

"Listen, B, it's not like I knew I was doin' it—"

"Convenient."

"Can ya just listen to me for a second? Please?" Her voice was thick with frustration, try to be sincere for one fuckin' second. When she got upset her accent got all thick and she couldn't make eye contact. Usually was a good sign she was about to punch someone out.

Something in her voice made Buffy quiet.

"Yeah, of course. Sorry."

"S' okay. Prolly deserved it," Buffy started to say something and Faith waved the words away. "Listen. I didn't have the things you had, I didn't have the opportunities, and frankly, you don't deserve them any more than me."

Her eyes shone as she met Buffy's stare head on. For once, hers was more intense. Buffy balked, that humorless little line cutting across her face.

"And that's why it pisses me off when I hear about you wasting it; don't get me wrong, I appreciate you comin' back and…. y'know. It's just that my mom woulda beat the shit out of me if I was skipping classes like that. Joyce is too good to say it, so I will: If you keep skippin' class, I'll beat the fuck out of you."

In front of Buffy was another side of Faith, some latent part of her that hadn't been activated in months. It was like watching a sleeper agent be remotely activated and start speaking Russian.

The Boston accent was thicker than Irish creme, a stare that could make a statue rub the back of its head and mumble a 'yes ma'am', and Faith was doing a lot of talking with her hands. Yeah, this was a Southie neighborhood matriarch telling a bad ass kid that if they didn't get into a better neighborhood when they grew up she'd kill them.

"Get it, B?" She huffed like a bull.

"Yeah," she squeaked, rubbing her thighs together and looking down.

"Good, now fuck off the workbench, I got work to do."

"Faith?" The brunette hummed a question mark as she organized her work space 'everythin's got a proper place, maaan'

"Thank you."

"Don't mention it. Seriously, it's creepy."

"Oh, whatever," Buffy said with a laugh, rolling her eyes.

"Also, Tara called earlier. Forgot to tell ya with all the—" she waved off the whole gay episode in their bed like it was no thing at all— "y'know. Anyways, you should call her back. If you're gonna stick around, you can use the phone on the wall over there; I'm gonna get started on this. Honestly there's not as much to do as I figured…"

Buffy let her lull off into thick mutterances, smiling small as she walked over to the phone and dialed Tara's number.

Chapter Text

Charlie Says

"Good goddamn," he said to no one in particular. Not that he was alone, a few muscle-men surrounded him. He'd use them, sometimes. He ran a hand through graying, lovely hair that seemed to defy gravity; everything about Charlie was just odd to look at. If you asked someone how old he was, they would only be able to answer:

'Somewhere between 30 and 70?', and they would be wrong.

No one knew how old Charlie really was, because he gave a different answer each time. Part a de fun of it all.

"Prick picked a shitty day to die, dihnd' he?"

"Figure," said one of the muscles.

The week before St. Patrick's day and Lawrence Lehane drank himself to death just outside of the run down excuse of a house he'd been staying in for the last few months.

Wonder if the gal he's been screwin' with that big prick of his knows. Her place, anyhow, but I'll do her a favor and get rid of the body for her. Let her pay me back some other time.

"Alright boys, lift him up. We'll give him a proper burial."

"Didn't he owe you money?"

"That's the thing, did, ya idiot. Past tense. Show some fuckin' respect to the dead. 'Sides, we'll just add the funeral cost to Faithie's tab, go and visit her in a while. I've been meaning to catch up with her."

He licked his finger and opened up the little red book he carried everywhere. It was a tiny surveying book, pages decimated into little squares that he would fill in with numbers, like filling in so many graves.

Charlie'd developed a strange little notation system (he always was good with math) for keeping track of debts; each person was reduced to something less than the sum of their parts in his ledger of actions and reactions.

Once your debt was squared, that was that, nice and neat.

"Five by Five," he'd explained to Faith years back, "means your debt is squared with ol' Charlie; that allllll the numbers fell right where they're supposed to. See?", he showed her the ledger. He never showed anyone the ledger. There she was, and her smile opened up his world as she read through her little page. Not quite five by five, she owed him for some gum he'd gotten her (with interest) a few days prior, but getting there. Makin' payments.

"Keep on doin' work for me and you'll be five by five, too."

Buffy

"Hey Tara, what's up?" Buffy said, twirling her finger around the phone, occasionally looking back at Faith carving away at something on the workbench. Something about her hands was extra interesting today, something in the way the shadows hugged her face like extensions of the dark locks of ha-

"O-oh, Buffy! Sorry… didn't think you'd be there. I was just calling to see if Faith or Joyce knew where you were."

"Well, I think we've narrowed that down. Whatcha need?"

"Uhm, well, it's about G-glory, we've been doing some digging and got some scraps that we wanted your opinion on."

"Got it. I'll be there," her jaw steeled and her hand clenched the phone. Breath, Buf, just like Giles taught you. You'll beat Glory just like you beat every other big bad. You have to.

"Hey, do you think you could also bring the, uhm, knife?"

"Uhhh," she postulated, before Tara saved them both from the static of Buffy's thoughts.

"The Razor, Faith's old one?"

"Oh. Why? Because it's just so shiny?"

"No, no, it's a lot to explain and h-honestly Giles could do it a lot better than I could."

"Well it's not just mine to-" But it is. A handle like wet summer soil shifting in my hands, Rainletting red waters on my arm, a pen to write my name on Her flank forever. The visions pulsed through her head at just the mention of the fucking thing, cheeks flushed, knees weak. Her eyes went to Faith on instinct, taking in the mirrored response on her face.

She watched the red rain swell up in Faith's cheeks and come out of her forehead, thinner, clear as air now in a light sweat.

"Fuckin' hot in here—" the Branded said. She realized that Faith didn't even know why she'd suddenly blushed, suddenly felt the same pulse in between her legs that Buffy did.

"H-hello?" Tara said, a thousand miles away.

Knife sliding in like the wound had always been there, designed for her hands to fill its yawning. A lock designed for the key rather than the other way around, and I'm the key.

Rain gathered between Buffy's legs as she jealously regarded the shadows cradling Faith's blushing face. The other slayer was trying to focus, brows furrowing as her nipples hardened underneath the crop top she was wearing. Buffy's eyes glanced down to them, eyes lingering.

Going to rain, again.

"Buffy? A-are you there? Are you okay?" The concern coated the edge of Tara's soft lilt like poison. It shook her out of the trance, even if just for a second.

"Y-yeah, I'm here! Right as rain!" A little hand of embarassment tried to find a handhold in the cliff face of her mind, but it was raining in the dark, and the holds were as slick as they were shallow. It fell into the growling rapids below, forgotten forever.

"Okay…. I'll see you soon, and please, bring the knife?"

"Got it. On my way."

A few miles away—underneath Faith's pillow— was the blade, hibernating. On it's edge, rainwater salivated. It trickled and seeped into the pillow around it, Harlot Red lipstick from the kissmarks on it's broad side blurring slightly, staining the pillows above and the sheets below.

Buffy walked into the Magic Box about an hour later. Around this time of the early evening, the dust was lit on fire, turned into little clusters and galaxies to walk through. They're already here.

"You guys didn't even look when the bell rang. Either you have terrible customer service skills OR the situational awareness of a Dodo."

"Or both," offered Xander with a bovine expression.

"Or both," Buffy conceded, "and if this thing cut my purse on the way here, I'm billing the Magic Box."

The others gave her the typical greetings while Giles wandered around the Magic Box, gathering papers like an accountant's ghost. "Yes, quite… that goes there. I should think so, anyways. Hum. I own the bloody place, it goes here if I say it does… but it doesn't." Soft murmurs like that floated in the air around him as he finished up the closing rituals before joining the meeting properly.

Anya stayed at the counter and handled the closing duties of the shoppe while they bickered.

Seeing that the accused was currently busy, Willow decided to defend his honor. "In Giles' defense, it's not his fault you lost the sheath."

I didn't lose the Sheath, Buffy felt the thought roll through her like thunder, but she has a shift to finish at the Museum right now.

"I don't think it ever had a sheath, Wil," she said, huffing and wrestling the thing out of her purse. Few appreciated just how talented Buffy was at stuffing shit inside of her purse. A small bottle of makeup remover, lipstick, lip balm, a few feminine products, a stake, a bottle of holy water in an old bottle of makeup remover (had caused a few mishaps in her time), and finally… the Knife.

She'd shoved it as deep as she could. Where she couldn't remember it. It had been wet when she'd gotten home, smelling like freshly watered plants breaking out of asphalt, and she knew why. No, I don't. I don't know why it was wet and I don't want to know.

It smiled up, shaped like Faith's smile. She pulled it out before it blinded her.

"See?", she said, "the thing doesn't even have a shape. It's all like… flowy."

"Who needs a shape when you have a sharp?" More wise words from Xander.

"Fair enough."

"You could have wrapped it up, at least. I can see a few points of failure, as it stands," Giles said behind glowing glass discs where his eyes should be. He leaned down to take a sip of the tea he'd had brewing while finishing up some things around the shop before joining them.

"Aren't you supposed to have my back?", Buffy said, quirking her lips.

"I am, but having your back means preparing you for all eventualities, not patting it incessantly. A good slayer never has a cut purse." Buffy rolled her eyes and put the purse down on the table that all the Scoobies sans Giles occupied like Knights of the round table.

Buffy thought about putting the Sharpness down next to it, but her hands were buried deep in the wet, warm soil of it's handle. Her grip didn't loosen, even when Giles looked at her hands and back at her with that little glint he had when he was questioning her silently.

Tara broke the moment.

"O-okay, so, I wanted to get everyone together while it worked for our schedules, and since Buffy is going to be absent from the rest of her classes for the day, I figured it would be a good time to share what we've learned about Glory."

Buffy mouthed 'Traitor' at Willow, who let out a near-silent snicker. Like a goblin. Or a fairy. Or a fairy goblin.

"And most of my crew called in sick, meaning, of course, getting wasted at various establishments." Xander smiled hard enough to squeeze the bitterness out of his eyes like lemonade.

"R-right," Tara continued, "anyways, we've been doing some reading on Glory."

Look at how Xander actually looks interested, the way that Willow is listening to what Tara is saying instead of watching her lips like a hawk. They don't know the information either.

Something in Buffy was relieved at that, her brow a little less furrowed, her breath a little bit lighter.

"She's a g-goddess from a hell dimension, which we already knew, but just to recap: she was one of three hell gods, but the other two got worried she was getting too strong and too sadistic, so they banished her. Guess you could s-say they scared the hell out of her." Tara raised up her eyebrows, just for a second, wrapping her own halved chuckle around herself for warmth.

"Good one," Xander said with a trailing smile and just a hint of jealousy.

"Thanks. Uhm, anyways, we wanted to look into possible weapons that we could use against an enemy like that. Giles can tell you more."

Willow whispered something with a proud smile into Tara's ear as they let Giles take over.

"Very good Tara, thank you. That allowed me to put a respectable dent into my cup. So, as we've already covered, she's a hell Goddess," The information didn't seem to cheer up Buffy, very much. "but that doesn't mean invulnerable. It's important that we understand that she is a fugitive, a-a stranger in a strange land, as it were.

"Emphasis on strange," Willow said, twanging the last word.

He took a sip of liquid sophistication before continuing.

"Quite. On that table is the accumulated wisdom of the ages regarding her," he indicated the aptly described accumulation of tomes scattered and piled on top of the table. "Our research hasn't borne much fruit, as of yet, but I need more eyes on this than just my own."

What if Glory rushes in, tears everything down around us, will we put the books over our heads to protect ourselves from falling debris?

But what else do we do?

She rolled her jaw, hating how weak she felt, seeing Giles see it.

"Well, I did some research with my fists the other night and accumulated some wisdom of my own. She hit harder than me, was faster than Faith, and funnier than Xander."

"Hey!"

"She's right, Xander. Not that I've ever met the woman, but statistically speaking, she's almost certainly funnier than you," offered Anya from the register.

Buffy ran a hand through her hair, eyes looking through the table and all the useless words of dead men. "All I know is that the monks weren't fighting her, just containing her. They knew Glory better than we could ever hope to, and that was their best bet."

Buffy finally put the knife down and crossed her arms, feeling the silence fall over them all. Part of her wanted to give up, knowing how hopeless it all was.

'First time?', the hopeless woman asked through a cracked rib and a broken smile. Faith didn't need prospects. She just kept going. Because Fuck em', that's why. Five by five, etc. etc.

"So they're a good place to start," she said, bringing everyone back to attention. "And they didn't have a demon turned good, they didn't have two exceptionally talented witches, they didn't have… Xander, and they didn't have a Watcher. If they could manage to keep her occupied for all that time without those, then we should be more than able to finish the job for them."

"Well said, Buffy." Giles finished his tea and set it down, taking off his glasses to wipe them, bags under his eyes apparent. Has he not been sleeping?

"And while discussing the matter of finishing the job, as it were, with Tara yesterday, Anya made a suggestion:"

There was a moment of silence.

"Anya?" He repeated.

"More than one, actually. Your tills look like a squirrel is nesting in them, Giles. Hopeless. You have to be stricter about organizing the denominations. And you're out of crystal balls, so we need to order some more and mark the price up by 10%." A moment of adjudication passed. "Make it 15."

"Anya." It was good that he'd taken off the glasses, and Buffy couldn't help the smile on her face while she watched him pinch his nose.

"Also, for a librarian, your books are so unorganized-"

"Anya!" Giles shouted desperately, "Please, just… tell them what you told me last night."

"About the stock room needing cleaning?"

"About the weapon."

"Oh! Well you should have just led with that-", Giles looked like a prisoner of war on the 10th day of torture, "anyways, I told you to have Buffy bring the knife here. From how it was described, it sounded like a demonic weapon. That kind of thing usually hurts."

Anya finished counting the tills and walked behind the counter, picking up the knife and flicking it like a kid at the aquarium. Buffy tried to restrain the impulse to take it from her and own it. Her mouth watered at the way it reflected images in rippling ways, like the steel was somehow always bending.

"Yep. Definitely demonic. Well, not demon-made, more like… made-of-demon."

Buffy made a noise like a goose honking, but with a question mark at the end.

"This isn't metal. It's flesh, you can tell by the smell," from Anya's sniff and little smile, it wasn't a particularly unpleasant one. Buffy shivered at the implication of that. "But I have no clue how that happened. Normally this kind of thing is exclusive to the Static Hell Dimensions, and I tried to avoid those during my tenure as a vengeance demon. Getting from one place to the other took forever. And I don't mean that in some idiomatic, stupid way like you might be thinking. I mean it actually takes forever."

They all took a moment to digest that information. It didn't seem to agree with their stomachs.

Buffy broke the silence.
"So… okay. Could we figure out more about the demon? Does it even matter?"

"Of course it does, don't be silly. At least, not around me. If this is just the unfortunate flesh of some lesser demon, then you'd be better off trying a gun."

"And if it's something more?" asked Willow.

"Then it could be exactly what you're looking for."

Chapter Text

Faith

Foster parents came and went after mom died, or maybe it was more like they stayed, but Faith came and went. No matter how fast she went, she always felt like she was standing in place. A foster parent abandoning her, beating her, swapping faces, but she just stayed there.

What were hands compared to the Nothing?

Charlie had been a friend of her father's, always there, always counting away in the back of it all. Was dad a plastic bag in the wind, like me? He'd been old since her mother was young, that was all mom knew. Now she knew nothing at all.

"I need cash."

She looked like shit, and probably tasted even better. The last Guy seemed to think so; she remembered he smelled like the cloth seats of his car. It wasn't paying enough, anymore. The older she got, the more the market was drying up, cops stopped wanting a piece once she turned 16, the civs just a few months later. Sure she still got the occasional job, but it wasn't paying the rent.

Technically, it wasn't rent, but her current foster parent demanded a tithe of sorts. If he didn't pull it out of your wallet, he'd pull it out of your back. Fuck that. Not again. She robbed a few guys every now and then, only Johns that weren't planning on staying in town long, the kind that tried to fasten their belt tight enough to choke their shame, but that was hardly a steady source of income.

"Heard you're the guy. You knew my dad, right?"

Charlie Says ran a restaurant, the kind of place that you'd forget if you knew what was best for you. Allegedly, the cuisine was Bostonian, whatever that meant. Only a few people were in there with them, none of them looked like cared about anything at all, and when Faith scanned the room for eyes to stare down, she found none.

Conflict would have made it easier. Someone judging her for this shit would have made it easier to do it.

Can't say fuck em' when there's no em.

"Lookin' for work? You Larry's kid?"

"Yeah."

He was a short, ferocious little man with a golden tooth and a voice like a can being opened. She couldn't help but like him. He wrapped around the counter and stepped out, a few solid inches shorter than her. For some reason she couldn't quite determine, he wasn't wearing a shirt, just sweat and pock scars.

"Y' can call me Charlie. Charlie Says."

"Charlie Says what?"

His mouth froze for a second, like he hadn't anticipated that response. He must have heard that fucking joke a million times. His smile made her jacket feel too loose. She smiled back. His body was old, but his face was young. When he ran a hand through his hair, it never seemed to come back down, rising from his head like cigarette smoke.

He laughed and it sounded like a low velocity car collision, the kind of fender bender you'd have in a parking lot.

"Says is the last name, dearest. H-here, come on. Shiiiet—" he threw a towel onto his shoulder and led her back into the kitchen. It smelled of oil, of sweat, of work, and of cigarette smoke. Faith lightly brushed past a young guy who couldn't have been more than a few years older than her. Probably 18.

"Shit, sorry, didn't see you."

He didn't seem to hear her, worshipping at the shrine of the mop drain in the far corner, making the girl nearby wince with every wretch.

He's not wearing a shirt either, and his hair looks like it was pulled out in some spots, what the fuck, man?

"J-Roc! Get the FUCK out of the way! Is my chicken counted?! Is my chicken separated?"

Charlie's voice boomed loud, louder than a human should have been able to produce, almost sub sonic, atmospheric. It made her cower and made J-Roc evacuate his guts into the mop pit, staggering to his feet and hiding his face from Faith.

"I need wings so start. Fucking. Counting. I need 21 wings in the first order, not thighs, not legs, but wings. Not explainin' ya again. You can eat your pills after you're done for all I fuckin' care."

His face the kind of thing you'd see in a depiction of a God of wrath from an ancient Buddhist thangka, sweat shining over it, voice going hoarse with the strain of channeling a hate that wide.

And it had come from absolutely nowhere.

Out of the nothing comes the mean.

"with what few teeth yew've got left, fuckin'…", he muttered, turning on the faucet over the mop bucket before venturing further into the guts of the restaurant. It seemed to never end, getting greasier and oilier the deeper you went in. Dead rats were in traps (the lucky ones), detritus and broken shards of the lives of the vagrants who Charlie now employed scattered all over the place. He never swept them up. He would never erase them. He would never save them. He would keep them like trophies to scream and boom at until they melted into his nothing.

Then, he would forget about them forever, and so would the rest of the world.

Faith trembled like a leaf, eyes wide as she looked at J-Roc. Eyeliner ran down his cheeks in twin lines. He counted the chicken, then double counted it with shaking hands, and Faith saw his face properly.

He's pretty. So pretty. And in his mouth, she saw voids where teeth used to be, but the remaining ones looked healthy.

"Shit, Faithie, I'm so sorry— he just needs a little push in the right direction every now n' then. A lot of people like that around here, and I do my best to guide them, but… y'know how it is. C'mon then, dearest. Yer first job is here in the… where the fuck did I put it.."

His thoughts seemed to drift out of his scalp and up his hair before wandering off, ventriloquating vague directions to either himself or Faith before ending up in the back. It was a narrow, claustrophobic space before the kitchen gave way to the part of the restaurant he'd closed off. Back there, Faith saw newspapers covering the windows, light that seemed to show shapes but nothing more. There were booths back there, it was identical to the rest of the restaurant just dark.

Someone back there moved. A collection of shapes shuffling in perfect silence, underneath blankets. Whoever it was was laying down on one of the booth seats.

The sight would stick with her until the day she died. Perfect. Stale.

"Here. Need ya to take the mold out of this bread, we'll be makin' bread pudding with it."

"Right, good for you, but I was referring to the drug cooking, not the food cooking."

Charlie reached into the bread, dirty, callused hands that were stronger than they had any right to be. They might have been delicate, once. They kneaded it like muscles, like control.

"And the car stealin, I'm sure. Got a few corners you could sell your ass on, if that's more your speed, no difference to me. Right now, though, you're gonna watch me."

His hands split the dry-damp bread from itself, broke it, annihilated it and owned it. Faith felt something rising up in the back of her throat. He held down the mass like it was a throat, and with the other hand plucked out a chunk of mold, tossing it on the table to be swept into the bin later.

"C'mere. Nothing to be scared of. Go on, then." His voice was welcoming. Like she could control the mold, too. She knew she shouldn't have gone over there, shouldn't have watched the demonstration, but something about him pulled her closer, closer.

Tears sprang to her eyes for the first time in months. She'd forgotten how. Charlie had a determined grimace, ripping out chunk after chunk of the ruined bread, leaving perfection behind.

"This is what I do to all my men. You're one of the boys now, too, y'know, and you'll rip out the mold before you ever get close enough to rat me out. Can't risk it. Keep watchin', pudding. The work is important."

And she watched him rip out the mold, bit by bit. He would serve the infected, pristine bread to customers who couldn't give less of a shit if they tried. There were a thousand eucharists, a million J-Roc's rolling around under blankets in the back of house, having their mold ripped out of their hide for the feeding.

She rolled up her sleeves, put her hands in, and took control. The empty, clean spaces she left behind reminded her of the gaps in J-Roc's jaw.

Buffy

"I should probably call Faith and ask her if the Mayor told her anything about the knife, have her come down here and, y'know, exposit." Buffy said, pretending like she wasn't anticipating the push back. Like it would surprise her for everyone to jump at the mention of the other slayer like animals on a fresh kill.

"Maybe we could do a seance with Jack the Ripper, while we're at it!" Xander said.

"Come on Xander, seances don't work unless you have the real name," Willow corrected, "we should try like, John Wayne Gacey."

"Should I be worried you know three serial killers by name?"

"Nooo, you should be worried that you thought that was three serial killers instead of just one."

Buffy pinched her nose. Found her inner peace. The garden of her mind, as it were. She took a step, smelled something foul, and then saw the neighbor's dogshit on the bottom of her boots. Garden : ruined.

"Perhaps," Anya cut in, voice laden with unconsidered truths, making Buffy actually look at her instead of into the backs of her eyelids, "John, Wayne, and Gacey were three different serial killers piloting the large man's body."

The garden was currently being devoured by a biblical cloud of locusts.

Xander was thoroughly impressed by his girlfriend's revolutionary insights.

"Babe, this is why I love you. This is the forward thinking that this group needs. What we don't need is to bring Faith into the fold." Anya did a little half smile and an abashed look at the ceiling, feigning humility just in case it could get her another scrap of praise.

"Buf, maybe Xander is right?" Willow said, concern like thorns.

"Wait wait wait, do you hear yourself right now?", the slayer replied, "No, Xan, don't give me that look— I don't mean about you being right. I mean how you all talk about Faith."

She backed up a few steps, arms crossed, back facing the door some 20 feet behind her, face charred by her own silhouette. Still, those eyes glimmered at her friends. They talk about her like she's an animal. They talk about her like Riley, they talk about her like I talk about her. The realization made her eyes water and nose sting for a moment the way it would when you drive past a trash burn; so many particles of incomplete plastic combustion going into the air forever, looking for lungs to live in.

Her eyes went to Giles for support, but he was watching her, carefully. Like he knew something more than he wanted to let on, but also like he knew that she had to voice this, that it would be disastrous if he were to come in and put white out over the words of hurt as he had so many times before.

His support was silent, he nodded at her to continue, orange discs shining back at Buffy. Tara did the same, worrying her thumb over her palm.

"You all talk about her like you understand her, like you can judge her." Only I can do that, Buffy thought. "Do you know how hard it is to try and claw your way back from what she did? Because I don't."

Buffy shrugged, letting the question ripple the dust.

"Who do you think is picking up my mom's shifts at work so she doesn't have to take leave? Who do you think got Dawn the trampoline? It wasn't me. I didn't even know she still wanted that, I thought she forgot about that stupid thing years ago."

She couldn't help but laugh bitterly at the thought, opening her mouth to continue, but didn't get the chance before Wil cut in.

"And who do you think held a knife to my throat, Buf? She tried to frame you for murder, in case you forgot! I-I know the spell we cast made you two closer but expired a while ago. There's no reason for you two to be so…" Willow twisted her hands in the air like she was trying to use magic to conjure the word.

"Creepy." Xander said, "She's useful, sure. Even has some nice stories and… other things," he scratched at his neck and glanced at nothing in particular before sliding past it. "But we shouldn't just welcome her with open arms. In case you forgot, that didn't go peachy keen last time."

"There wasn't a last time. None of you even saw where she was staying, so don't act like we put her up in a penthouse. One person welcomed her with open arms, and then he ate Principal Snyder." Buffy's arms were crossed, eyes going to the dagger that Anya had just put back on the table.

Normally, Xander would have snickered at the memory. This time though, he looked ashamed.

"Uh, well. I saw her room."

"What?"

"One time. Tried to talk to her during the…" he took a moment to count his fingers, "third apocalypse. Needed some help with something— she didn't really offer the kind of help I was looking for." He rolled his tongue in his mouth, the edge of his smile quirking up like he was remembering a distant dream.

Buffy felt like there was petroleum in her gut and all she wanted to do was puke it out. She would talk to him about that later. Privately. For now, she shoved it as deep as she could.

"So did I. I tried to talk her off the edge, but…" she looked at the ground, brows twisting. Faith was already falling. My hand missed hers by just a few inches. But maybe it's not too late now. "My point is that she's trying; and Wil, I'm sorry for what she did to you, but you don't have the monopoly on being attacked by Faith. In case you don't remember, she tied me up to a wall, tried to steal my boyfriend, beat the hell out of me…"

"Yeah I know Buf, but that makes this weirder, you see that, right?" Willow said it like she was desperately trying to understand, voice fraying on the edges. I love you, Willow. You don't understand, not even a little, but at least you're trying.

Buffy could have argued with her until she was black and blue in the face, but unfortunately…

"You're right," Buffy said, clapping one hand against the still-crossed forearm of the other and shrugging with a tightening of the jaw. Silence fell before Buffy continued.

"You're right that it's weird. That she's out of second chances, that it's irrational. That I have no reason to reach out again." She met Willow's eyes. "But that's what I'm doing. Maybe when all of this is over, for better or for worse, I can tell you why I did it."

"You? Explaining yourself? When pigs fly," Xander said, but it wasn't poison on the edge. It was a smile that cut across Buffy's face.

"Ha. Ha.", Buffy enunciated.

"Buf, I… I don't get it. And I don't accept your apology. I'm sorry," Willow said with a crumpling, "because it's just not your apology to give. She needs to tell it to me. Tell it to Xander, to Giles, to all of us. In case you haven't noticed, she's been avoiding us just as much as the inverse. I don't know what she's been through, you're right, but I don't care either."

'No, you don't get it. I don't care.' Is Willow lying now, like Faith was then?

"What I care about," Willow laughed a humorless little comma into the sentence, "is what she put us through. What she's putting us through, now. I don't want to see you disappear, Buf. When's the last time we had a proper Scooby meeting like this?"

Buffy looked down at the floor, baby blue nails digging into her arm while Willow dug into her actions.

"So. Invite her. She's one of the Scoobies now." Willow's words seemed to stun the entire gang, including Buffy, who honked an italicized question mark at her.

"If she's actually trying to redeem herself, or… whatever you two are doing, then it won't be a problem—and if it is a problem, then I'll fight her. No magic. No knives. Just fisticuffs; if she thought fighting you was bad, she's gonna learn what that word really means."

The laughter didn't so much cut the tension as blow it up with a thermonuclear warhead. Giles face crinkled like paper, Tara's laughs rang like windchimes, Xander chuckled like a shitty car turning over, and Buffy snorted the moment up and away.

Sharks. They're all sharks. I'm so lucky to have them.

Chapter Text

Buffy

She left the phone on speaker when she called up Faith, crossing her arms and hanging her head. Somehow, she knew that this would be a pain in the ass before Faith even answered the phone. On the third ring.

"Yo."

"Third ring?"

"Yeah I was listening to music, B, is that okay with you?"

Buffy rolled her jaw, eyes like bright green cartoon acid as she scowled at the phone. On the other end, of course, Faith could feel the stare. Despite all the healing, all the scar tissue over the old wounds, part of them never actually escaped the hallways of Sunnydale High, of Buffy prickling with jealousy when Faith tried to talk to Scott Hope.

Of the way she'd look back at the blonde to drink out of her bitter cup, to sip her jealousy like wine and float back to her and act like nothing had happened. That same prickling jealousy came, then, stabbing out from underneath Buffy's skin like it was trying to get out. Static.

But this time she wasn't jealous of Faith (maybe she never was, but she'd kick you in the face if you implied it), but jealous of the music. You'd rather listen to music than me? I could make you feel me, instead, make you bruise and moan and sing ME a song.

"Are you almost done with the shipment at the museum?"

"Yea, gonna head back home here in a bit."

"Do you think you could stop by the Magic Box first? We're having a Scoobie Meeting."

"Uhhh— you sure that's a good idea, B?"

"When have I ever had a bad idea?"

The question was hard enough to hit your head on if you walked into the conversation too quickly. Her sharks that she called friends were slowly congregating around the phone. Nosy. I hate them. Giles was pretending to survey the nearby wall for dust. Xander was reading a book (that was upside down) just a few feet away.

Probably my fault for calling Faith on speaker phone, in all fairness.

"Xander and Red told you that was a terrible idea too, right?" A comic book page sloooowly flipped on the other end of the line.

"Maybeeeee, but we need your help with something."

"Well, maybeeeeee you should listen to them. They're trying to look out for you, B."

Xander gesticulated as if to say "Thank you! At least the murderer has some sense!"

"I can look out for myself. Be here in half an hour?" 

"Half an hour? I'm 25 minutes away-"

"Kaythanksbye."

"Man, fuck me sidewa-" the line cut off as Buffy hung the phone up.

Charlie Says

It didn't take long for Charlie to adapt to the supernatural reality of Sunnydale. Mystical ideas tended to through him like light through an empty room, finding nothing to light, not even floating dust. It was the same way with God.

He was the most devout man in every Sunday worship, but Father MacManus never looked at him twice. Maybe he somehow knew that the zealous fervor would find no purchase in the soil of Charlie's mind, that the second he left the House of God, the House of God left him too.

At first he thought the man in the alley was a regular run of the mill vagrant, high on some California shit that made it want to eat one of his boys. Find your own snacks, he thought before decking it with a nearby steel pipe. The fucker didn't go down, so Charlie shot him a few times. Then a few more. Eventually it fell .

The Vampire sat there gurgling blood in the alleyway it had jumped him in. Bullet wounds that were slowly healing in it's ribcage. Charlie would occasionally finger the holes open, callused hand exploring it, feeling the flesh pulse and try to restore around it.

"Got a nasty fuckin' face, you do. Shhh, s'okay. Some of my boys do, too. Doedn't change a thing. Doedn't change a thing."

He reached into his jacket pocket, pursing his lips when he found a small little glass bottle of Holy Water that he carried for good luck, straight from the Mac Man, god bless 'im. His lips were dry, his tongue cracked from the withering of habitual methamphetamine use.

Charlie took a swig of the holy water, gurgled it a little like mouth wash, feeling the color seep back into his mouth before leaning down to the male vampire.

It was a demon, soulless evil. Not like him. I got plenty of soul, dearest, plenty plenty plenty. He smiled with some distant cousin of love, leaned down, and kissed him on the lips. Red smoke sizzled up through the screams of the beast, and Charlie gargled that too.

His mouth was a little less dry.

Faith

"Man, fuck me sideways," she bitched, but was cut off by the dial tone. The work was actually finished. She'd lied about having to do more of it out of the suspicion that Buffy would pull some shit like this and she wanted to protect what little peace she had.

Fuck, fuck fuck.

She made her way to the Magic Box after wrapping up everything at the museum. Everything was in it's proper place. For someone who had such a messy life, she always deliberately ordered a work space, it was a compulsive habit that had been developed while working at Charlie's. There was only chaos there, so she had to crystallize it, maybe then she wouldn't melt into him.

The bell neutralized the chatter that had been filling the room prior, all eyes on her. 'Yeah, I'm hot, so what?', she thought, knowing that wasn't why the room was dead on her arrival.

"Yo," she tilted her head up to cut the wave of judgement from Wil and Xander and that fucking empathy from Tara. Fuck em'. "What's the sitch?"

She took her place near B, resisting the urge to mess with the collar choker around her neck, feeling like a warm hand around her throat each time she spoke, like a thumb tracing her Adam's apple and threatening to crush it while she writhed.

Something in the Slayer connection hummed as she pulled out the chair next to her Keeper. Good girl, it seemed to say, everything's got a proper place. Even you.

"Glory is the sitch in question," Buffy said, hand tracing against Faith's outer thigh, destabilizing her, making her less real.

"The Bitch in question, maybe. You all know more about her than me though, so why am I here?"

She tried not to be such a defensive prick, she really did.

"Not the only one, apparently. Maybe we just wanted to involve you," Willow said. Faith met the look head on, a laugh on her lips that couldn't quite animate itself.

"Really?" Faith scoffed with a raised eyebrow, trying not to wince as the rubbing on her outer thigh paused with a warning in its stillness. "Don't hold it against me if I don't buy that, Red."

"N-no, she's telling the truth," Tara cut in, speaking up for the first time in some time. Maybe now the time was right. Faith's eyes turned to her, not friendly, but certainly not hostile. Out of the twin blacks of her eyes she looked at Tara, an animal judging if the new figure was a threat or not. Cautious.

Tara continued, "It was our idea to involve you. B-buffy believes in you, and so we believe in you."

Xander made a noise, tilting his head back and forth. Yeah, that's what I'm sayin'. I sure as shit don't believe in me. The belief was a dangerous thing. It was one thing to repent before God, but God never spoke back. Never told you the right thing to do. Just listened to your apologies, let you break himself on the rocks at his feet. The whole appeal is that you believed in HIM, not that he believed in YOU.

This was worse.

"We know what you d-did, but we also know what you're doing. Buffy tells us all the time how you're helping out around the Museum, at the house, with patrols. And I think that maybe you helping others is helping you, that maybe that's how you heal." Bullshit. "And I think that maybe you don't think you deserve a s-second chance, and maybe you don't. I don't know. But you never betrayed me. You never hurt me. So I'd at least like to give you a first chance."

Willow looked at Faith with a paused glint in her eye, then back at Tara. Faith could tell that she had been talked into agreeing to this whole thing by Tara at some point. Shouldn't have listened to her, Red. You had the right idea about me.

"S-sorry. I know that was a lot, I guess it was just on my mind."

"No, no, it's uhm. Yeah." I need a fucking cig. And a drink. Maybe even a fight. Wonder if Willie's is open right now. "Thanks."

Red right through her, seeing all the terrible things that would happen if that first chance Tara offered her was squandered, Faith's body just a 3D window into catastrophe. I'll give as good as I get, can guarantee you that, she thought, but her heart didn't seem to join in the clamor.

"We'll be there for you," Buffy chirped "like death and taxes." Her voice had a barb that made Faith tremble, or maybe that was the thumb that slowly started circling again.

"Yes, very well said, Tara," Giles started. "and we were hoping that perhaps you could help us devise a way to fight Glory. We were looking into weapons that could possibly harm her— as I'm sure Buffy has already told you, Glory is a hell-goddess that was banished from her dimension."

A moment of silence passed, and with every millimeter that Faith's eyebrow raised, Giles' own fell. He looked over at the new suspect.

"Uhm, I was getting to it! Just been busy. And all. And I'm pretty sure I mentioned it to her at some point, and if I didn't, it just never came up."

"Never came up, B? She swung you around by your ankles to toss you through a window, then suplexed me. I didn't even know you could be suplexed without the suplexee being in on it. Would have been nice to know she was a— what was she again?"

"Hell God," Willow chirped, "and apparently a Hell of a wrestler." Tara murmured a smiling approval that seemed to feed Willow like sun on a leaf.

"There wouldn't happen to be a screen recording, would there?" Xander asked.

Giles put a line break in the dialogue with a heavily English accented clearing of the throat. He had one hand on the table that he was sitting on, looking down at the two Slayers, eyes darting down to Buffy's hand on Faith's thigh like a schoolmaster's ruler.

"Anyways."

"…", he let the silence fester, unblinking stare like a book lobbed at your head. They might not be in a library any more, but he still commanded the preternatural capability of dehumidfying a room of all noise with a glance.

"We identified the knife that Richard Wilkins gifted you as being of demonic origin. We were wondering if perhaps you could shine a light on it, perhaps he told you anything-anything at all about its make, its origin, because all that we know of it is that it is wholly unlike any other weapon known to man or demon."

Faith blinked.

"Uh, shit, G-man, I wish I knew what to say. He never told me about it. I never asked about the things he gave me, y'know? Would be rude, I guess."

"It would be… rude?" Buffy asked, and Faith didn't need to look over to see the raised eyebrow. She could hear the brow ruffling against itself.

"Yeah, rude. Someone gets you a gift you don't fuckin' grill them on it, you say thank you, and you mean it."

"R-right, of course. Now, there is one more thing I needed to ask about. When you and Buffy had the, erhm, confrontation on the roof, did you feel anything strange about the knife? Did it give you any mystical impressions?"

"Are you asking me how it felt to get stabbed with a knife shaped like a Doc's autograph?"

"In a manner of speaking."

"Had better," she lied, "but the knife wasn't the one spilling their guts."

Xander hid a laugh with a cough.

"Of course. Apologies."

"S' fine, we're Five by Five, I don't mind talking about it or anything. Was just a shank between good friends."

She put on an easy smile, feeling Buffy's expression combust into shame, into nostalgia, into need. Buffy's hand had returned to her own lap after Giles saw what they were doing, but Faith saw movement in the corner of her eye from where her hand was twitching, whether to stab or to stroke or both, Faith didn't know. Faith didn't particularly care, either.

Giles articulated air for a moment before Tara of all people saved him.

"R-right! Well, about that… I think maybe you could help us scry the origins of the blade. When you and Buffy… uhm, well after that, both of your auras were permanently tied to the blade. It's a part of you two, now, like a lightning rod between you. Whatever the case, we can use that connection to explore the blade, if you're willing…"

What the fuck?

"First problem with that is that the blade is at the house, second is that I'd rather not explore that thing any more than I already have," Faith lied (again).

"Lucky for you, I have solutions to those problems," Buffy grinned, "Firstly, the knife is already here." Buffy pulled the shine out of her purse and plopped it on the table, the dark slayer's cheeks going red when she saw the Harlot Red lipstick still on the flat of it. "Secondly, you're going to do the spell."

"And what if I don't want to, B?"

Buffy raised an eyebrow, not backing down.

"Then say so."

Willow and Xander looked back and forth between the two as the silence got thick enough for the razor to cut. Faith did it with a scarred, scratched up voice, breaking the eye contact.

"How do we do the spell?"

Chapter Text

Faith

"Come up with anything yet?" Giles said, swooping down the librarian's ladder that he'd repurposed to get up and down the Mezzanine in the back of the magic shop.

"Candles maybe, or bath oils of some kind," Xander was grasping for straws. It was dire.

"I saw a really cute sweater at Bloomie's, but I think I want me to have it."

"That blue one, right?"

"Oh my gosh, yes, with the little-" Buffy's musing was cut short by a suspicious little scowl at Faith. They were researching components for the spell to scry deeper into the Blade's history, supposedly. In actuality, they were researching what to get Tara for her birthday.

Faith winked at Buffy and blew the scowl wide open.

"I pay attention."

"To look for weaknesses, maybe," Buffy grumbled.

"Among other things, B."

"With each line of banter," Giles sighed, "I grow a wrinkle. Please, fill me in on what a sweater has to do with the spell."

And so they did : the consensus of the Not-so-Brights of the Round Table was that they had to find Tara a good birthday gift in order to increase the odds of her casting the spell successfully. "Can't have her all distracted," Buffy had said at one point in the explanation that Giles regretted requesting, "angst and feelings of resentment do not mix well with pointy ends. So, no angst allowed on Tara's birthday."

"Faith can attest to the thing about the pointy ends and resentment," Xander appended.

After some Bostonian drawls that can't be written down for risk of the paper combusting, some interventions from Buffy, and finally Giles berating them for not being able to find a gift for a witch in a magic shop, they were interrupted.

Faith's nose pricked up the second he got too close, in her mind she'd been keeping track of his steps through the place without even realizing it. Habit. Waiting for a threat to reify, craving something vicious. This man had a low hum in her mind.

Probably just some civ with sticky fingers.

Not her problem.

And then he made himself her problem. Men's faces tended to be a blur unless she really got to know them (Xander had just graduated into 'distinct' status out of the man-mass), so she didn't bother looking at that. The only thing that stuck out to her the man's vaguely pubic beard.

But the smell— that caught her attention.

Dead leaves. Mulching. Rain rotten. Tobacco Chewed. Lost.

He leaned over on the side opposite to Buffy and Xander, right next to Faith. She was pretty sure he looked down her shirt on the way by. He spread his hands over the table and took in the heap of books that they were tossing around between them during their "research", beady, uncomprehending eyes taking in a book at random like it was an animal he wasn't sure how to skin.

"Are all these magic books?"

Buffy and Xander blinked up at him, silence squishing between them.

Insecurity melting into arrogance melting into insecurity melting into—

She could hear it all in his voice. He was a big fish in a very, very small (probably incestuous) pond.

"Private collection. Books for sale are against the walls over there," Giles said with a masked look of concern as he brushed past to the million ill-defined tasks of the store.

"All these books got spells in 'em? Turn people into frogs, things like that?"

"Why? You looking for a witch to turn you back human?" Her voice was smooth, hateful, and she sloooowly flipped a page in the book she wasn't actually reading. The man laughed uncomfortably, but he was the kind of asshole who just kept pushing when knew he was in the wrong.

"I'm all natural, darlin', what about you guys? Are you all witches or what?"

"The fuck did you just call me?" Faith tilted her head, blood rushing through her temples. Brown eyes the color of oil met hazel ones like foliage that had never truly been alive.

"I didn't call you anythin', was just askin' questions like I have a right to. First amendment, dammit, same thing that lets Satanic books like that get written."

"I was talkin' about "darlin'", I don't know what you're talking about, but you should probably do it somewhere you're not outnumbered. Go back to bumfuck, Missouri, or whev-"

"OOOOkayyyyy-" Buffy cut her off. Right before I got to the part about the shoving and the beard, god damnit. "Clearly this place isn't for you, you disagree with it, whatever, but you can disagree from a respectful distance."

"Out of smell-shot, preferably," Xander said, wrinkling his nose. Imagine how I feel, this guy fucking reeks.

"Oh I'm sorry, I thought this was America," the man started, Faith pinching her nose. The bell chattered, but the laughter under it did all the ringing.

Tara

Tara had a dream that night.

She was asleep in a field, not of any crop or yield, but an endless expanse of leaves that may have had color on their own, but together were a reversed rainbow. Melted into nothing. Less.

Her pillow was soft, some of the leaves pulled over her, warming her with their damp. Nothing stirred in the infinite below her, it was as if it was the entire world was holding its breath, waiting to see what she would do when she opened her eyes.

The pillow was soft despite scattered shoots of straw sticking out of the age-tendered canvas thread. She battered sandy eyelashes open. It wasn't a pillow she was laying her head on, but another head.

A scarecrow.

It was lying next to her, angled so that she could rest on it. She couldn't remember how she'd fallen asleep here. She couldn't remember why the scarecrow was so familiar.

It had no face, but had on a dress shirt tucked into jeans, a camo pocket knife in it's pocket. It wore a Carhart jacket.

"Papa?"

She saw his face where his face should be.

"I love you."

A rope was tied around the scarecrow's neck, snaking off, leaving into the leaves. It was strained and tight around the canvas neck.

"Say it back, papa."

The rope just tightened. No breath could come. No words could leave. Straw and leaves fell out of the holes in his head. Her grip just tightened. Her eyes just tightened. Her heart just tightened.

When she'd woken up, she'd been inconsolable, but she couldn't remember the dream. It had faded. All she remembered was rope and the smell of her father's jacket. Willow held her until the smell was forgotten again, as it had been for months, and when Tara cried, her grip just tightened.

They went shopping. Tara felt new clothes on her shoulders in the dressing room, felt familiar hands on her shoulders when Willow leant in for a kiss. On the way to the Magic Box, not a single leaf fell from their tree, and when the wind blew, the trees laughed with the two women joking below them.

"Insect reflection! That is so good—" Willow said.

"That'd be funny, if her centre of power was…"

It wasn't the voice that stopped her in her tracks. It was the smell. Old rain welling out of her eyes.

"Well, what do you know?" His laugh was damp against her skin. "What's the matter? You don't have a hug for your big brother?"

"Brother?" her girlfriend sounded confused, like she was trying to figure out if she should be hurt or not.

"Willow, this is Donny," she said after a moment. Her smile came. Her smile went.

They greeted each other, but something was wrong. Why was he here? How did he find her? Did the others come to drag her back like a rope into an infinite field of leaves? What if Willow didn't find her again, what if—

Breath. In and out. You tell that to Wil all the time, so do it for yourself.

"And these are muh-my friends." She said, motioning her head towards the table where a very unimpressed trio were currently taking in the scene. Donny must have made a bad first impression. Hopefully he won't be around long enough to make a second or third one.

"What, all of you hang out?", he sounded as unimpressed as they all looked, but swept it under that arrogant insecurity he had about him, bludgeoning her with a backhanded compliment about how few people she had met in highschool.

"How did you find… I mean, how come you came?"

"Well duh, birthday girl, we came down in the camper." The bell rang. Father : Enter stage left. The Scarecrow walked in. They hugged. His voice left his head like brittle, old shards of straw.

Papa. Why can't you say it back?

Faith

"Nah, I'm good on this, I'll catch you later, B."

She decided to fuck off. Something about the sight of Tara wrapped up in brittle arms and a fading smile that Willow couldn't seem to see just set something off in her like a brush fire. Fuck. That.

B called out after her, but didn't follow. For the better, this time. Maybe it was the being grilled on if she was worth forgiveness, maybe it was the way they actually decided to try like they were saints, maybe it was the way she didn't deserve redemption at all. No matter what the source, she was feeling impulsive, hair trigger, baby.

Somehow, her feet led her to the camper.

It wasn't night time yet, but who gave a shit? She took a look back at the Magic Box and pulled out the Razor. It melted into her hand like a lover, smiling in the evening sun. She used it to force the door open with a prying motion, sliding the hooked tip down and into the shoddy lock mechanism and pulling inwards, similar to how you'd open a house door with a credit card when you locked yourself out. It clicked open.

Good thing too, cause I was about to bust this bitch open.

She bounded up the steps two at a time. She didn't look back to see if anyone saw, hunching down to fit in it without hitting her head as she looked for something. Don't know what, yet. A lot of chewing tobacco, a confederate flag, a gun that probably hadn't been used since grandpappy's time. The most childish part of her compared Charlie to these shits.

My abuser would beat your abuser's butt! Ha, ha!

Her hand sifted through family photos. A beautiful woman with a smile like green leaves laughing atop sunrays…. hanging from a human stick that Faith recognized as Tara's father.

His genes didn't even fight back. She looks just like her mother. Same kindness. Wonder if that's why he… nevermind. Diana told you not to psychoanalyze, Lehane, and she had good reason: if you do it wrong, you end up more ignorant to the subject, not more. Shit, do you even want to know this guy?

Normally, she would have tossed the photo. Or at least put it down softly out of respect. Instead, for some reason she couldn't… quite figure out… she pocketed. Faith didn't dare psychoanalyze herself, but not because she was worried about becoming more ignorant. No, she was worried about maybe doing it right.

By the time they left the magic box, the door to the camper was securely locked, everything perfect back in its place. Faith never left a place of work disorganized.

She had told the gang that she'd be back to the MB to talk shop on the way out, telling them later tonight. Technically, she thought, it's still later and still tonight. I got time. Her nose smelled bullshit and fear fighting for top dog on the playground, both just rolling off of Tara. Somethin' wrong there. Her folks weren't supposed to be there, that much was clear. Faith didn't quite understand. Something wasn't clicking right.

My folks ran from me. Seems like it's the opposite in her case. Something's up. Somethin' somethin' somethin'. When Faith caught a hint of an echo of the somethin', she had to check it out. Maybe it was also the pent up energy from before getting to her, shit, she didn't know. She let her feet do the thinking, and her hands do the talking.

They convened and seemed to agree that Faith should be right in front of Tara's dorm room in the middle of the night, picking her lock with small metal miscellanea. Click! The chanting was kind of a sorry excuse for a spell, blurred through tears and whispered like Tara had a gun to her head.

Latin blubbering. That can't be good.

"Yo. What's this?"

The blubbering paused. Faith chewed her mint gum. Forebodingly.

"Uh-uhm, I'm just casting a scrying ritual. You know, for demons. I was hoping that maybe it would help me figure out the knife."

Her smile. Slips off her face like water the second it goes up, like it's following the lies out of her mouth.

"That why you're crying?"

"Well, the spell called for onions."

A moment ticked by. Tara sniffled.

"Onions?"

Tara crumpled. That was the last of her. All that she was, all that she had built up since coming to Sunnydale expended in a last ditch effort to lie and preserve herself. And she had said the spell called for Onions.

She hid her face from Faith. She hid her face from her Father. She hid her face from her Mother. And she sobbed.

Faith knelt down and comforted her, even though she didn't know what for. After a few broken sobs, she sat down. She waited. She listened the words coming out of the Daughter Scarecrow like broken wheat through canvas nothings.

It all pieced together, bit by bit, what was happening. A little prodding here and there, a question tugged at a loose thread in the canvas sack, and then all the straw and leaves came pouring out. Faith didn't dissolve. Plastic bags tended to be resilient to natural molds and rots, after all. She just stayed, forever and ever, until the climate collapsed and the sun blew the earth up.

They actually convinced her she's part demon. That all the women in her family are part demon. Bullshit.

"You think you're all rotten? That you're all demons that can't be redeemed?" she said.

Tara nodded in broken, fragmented arcs. Faith nodded smoothly, taking it in.

"Okay. Sure."

Some part of her knew that she was a hypocrite, that this was exactly what she told herself every miserable morning she had to look in the mirror, that she'd recited to herself since childhood, but damnit, that was her line. She earned it. She did the crime and got the prize. Her self-hate wasn't some hand me down bullshit like Tara's.

Fuck that. I'll show you what I think of your resentment.

"You're sure?"

Tara nodded.

"You're positive?" (Pah-si-tive)

Tara nodded, big watery eyes turning to Faith.

"Then tell it to her. Tell her she's a piece of shit demon scum who never meant good for the world. That she only made it worse."

The Hypocrite held up the face that Tara had forgotten many years ago. A broken sob crushed the remaining fizzles of magic. Her hands went to the small, faded picture that looked so much like her. Blue eyes met oil pools for a moment, then back to the picture of the best woman Jasper, AR had (n)ever seen.

"Tell her," Faith said softly, and waited in the silence. Tara never opened her mouth, and her grip around her mama just tightened.

Chapter Text

Buffy Anne Summers

The beach was beautiful, always was, and she never appreciated it as much as she should have. That was okay with mom. Mom understood. And where had that gotten her? Another argument rolled out over the sand and crashed, the waves burned all the way up to her knee from where she was sitting, and she smelled the sun hot enough to make sand blister and waves crack.

He's leaving again. He's just leaving the salt behind. She had her father's eyes— the same green, but his was muddled and weak where hers were clear.

'There's a sun behind your eyes, sweetie. I love you.'

It's all you, mom, all you.

It was a sunny day in Los Angeles, she was young, her whole life ahead of her, and her father's long shadow only grew as he walked away for the last time. Her mother tried to hide her sobs, but the salt dried on Buffy's knees, crystallized by the sun.

She didn't turn to watch him leave.

He abandoned them because he was weak, because there was something missing that made someone right deep down, because he that's what weak people did. Abandon those close to them.

I'm good enough. He wasn't. It's better that he's leaving.

Buffy didn't wear sunscreen that day. She must have forgotten it— too eager to get out of the house where the fighting had nowhere to air out—but somehow she didn't sunburn. She didn't even tan. Sitting under the Summer's sun for hours, feeling the tears dry under her eyes and mom's sniffles crystallize into so many salt forms, she didn't burn.

It went right through her.

Charlie Says

This was the kind of work he was suited to, the stalking, the way his own plan pulled him into so many strips of flesh, dividing his smile into fragments and screams. All comes together, then it all comes apart. Grape flavored smoke floated out of the drain hole across the street from the Magic Box.

Maybe ol' Faithie went legit. Got a real job in the real world. Good for her.

He'd been tracking her for a while now. Been in town for a few days, rotting up its walls and seeping through its bread. Putting his fingers in it, callused, dirty things with finely kept and rounded nails. His smile shined out of the dark, two binocular glints where eyes ought to be.

Doedn't look like Faith is doin' a lot of work. Too messy for my Faith, anyways, she always keeps the space clean. Clean clean clean. Can't handle the mess, it breaks her down, yes it does. Must just be visiting. Didhn' take her for a hoodoo girl, maybe that's Florina's legacy.

The plan tugged, greasy string tightening and pulling his head a little further apart. He popped a pill. The twine loosened, for a time. Not yet. It hasn't all come apart, yet.

"Got the van ready?"

One of his boys grunted an affirmative. Shook towards him like a zombie trying to dance him, but he didn't look to see it. He held out of his left hand for the keys to fall in a few moments later.

"What's this then?" A whole family of hodunks got out of an ancient camper like it was a clown car. He waited with baited breath, grimacing and grinding his teeth.

"Alright. Alright." He watched Faith leave the store about 5 minutes later, going up into the thing. Something about seeing her made his heart race, made him pull apart just a little more. Warmer.

He took another pill. He gripped the keys. When Faith left the Magic Box, he left the sewers to follow.

Buffy

It got bad, sometimes, when people left her, when people abandoned her like she was the problem. It wasn't her. It wasn't. Faith was weak. Faith was soluble. Faith wasn't like her, and that was why she left. When she came back, she tried to do it from the back entrance to the Magic Box, but Buffy had been there first. She'd heard quiet shuffling, a little too quiet. If it had been a raccoon or something there would have been more noise, but this? It was silence in the shape of a person.

The second Faith opened the back door to the Magic Box she was pulled into the training room by the hem of her shirt, a foot cutting down on her black boot and making her yelp in pain during the arc downwards. Crushed.

Under her, Faith started to fight back, then saw who it was holding her down. Felt the hand rubbing against her Adam's apple, the strength in the thumb. She was beaten.

"Easy come, easy go? You think you can just leave like that? You've been gone for hours, Faith— what, were you out on a big day off with Spike while I was here waiting?"

Don't look up at me like you're scared, like you're hurt. Put those eyes away.

Almost as if reading her mind, Faith obeyed. She schooled the scared out of herself, and Buffy missed it.

"How long were you posted up by the door, sweetheart? I was jus' going out for a cig."

She put on a big smile, teeth white against the red, like a shooting target. The pressure slowly pressed down on Faith's neck. Solar stare burning her to crisps, salt drying on the edges of her eyes, green water clear as day.

"Tell me! Tell me you weren't with Spike. Tell me you weren't making it all for nothing."

"B—" the pressure on her neck cut off her words, and Buffy ached when the fear welled up in Faith's eyes again. Her heart bled even as she rolled her hips on Faith looking for something she didn't understand.

"Tell. Me."

Why does she have to be scared of me? Why do I have to enjoy it? Why do I have to care? Why do I have to need to make it better? Why do I have to make her better? I should abandon her before she abandons me and never look back. She's not strong enough to do the right thing when it counts, no matter what excuses she might have.

"I was—" she choked, but still didn't raise her hand against the other Slayer. Buffy rubbed loving bruises into Faith's words, shaking and hating with each syllable, "being good. I-I was being—" her eyes started to lose some light, but she wouldn't get out of it that easily.

"Being what, Faith? Doing what?" Those two were the same thing, after all, no matter what reasons you might ha-

HURT ME OPEN.

The words almost shattered her, but the momentum, the haze of it all that drove her fucking crazy around Faith was even stronger. She gritted the thought away.

"Keep. Talking. Never been a problem for you before, so don't let me stop you now."

"I was being good for y-you. I wouldn't… please."

Buffy's grip loosened, but did not let go. Never. One hand thumbed the choker to hide the new bruises that would surely come soon. It would make it hurt less when she looked at Faith.

Her eyes widened, feeling her weaponed words turned against her. Suddenly she felt like she was the one being hunted. Being good for you? Seriously? Perhaps Faith was reading her mind, knowing what she wanted before she even knew.

"U-uhm. Right. That's right. You were," she worked through the words like start and stop traffic, not knowing where to put her eyes as Faith gleamed and glistened and breathed under her. Her hand stayed right where it was, the other one trailing up to the cheek, a soft should've-been-red color made by the moonlight from the nearby window. Thank god there was a training mat, or else she would have gotten hurt. Buffy didn't seem to be interested in taking accountability for that hypothetical injury.

"F-fuck," Faith rasped, trying to take deep breaths. Here. She's here. The woman was blushed and sweating and recovering, her nipples hard and shaded under the morose moonlight. Buffy's hand rose up to the cheek hidden beneath black curtains of hair that fell like black waterfalls, and something growled through her hand when the cheek rose to meet her hand eagerly.

The Betrayer spoke first, brown eyes infecting Buffy's like an oil spill in the Pacific.

"Just don't stop touching me. You can hurt me, y-you can break me, but just…" tears welled up in Faith's eyes, lips shaped like sunset clouds going to kiss Buffy's hand, staining it.

"You say you want that, Faith, and then you do your best Carl Lewis impression. You told me you'd be back for patrol, but apparently, whatever you ditched us for was more important."

Even with the scorning, her thumb pried for entrance to Faith's mouth, rubbing the bottom lip so softly.

"I-I'm sorry, I'll explain better next time, B. I just. I ran because—"

Another pressure cut her off, the blonde swooping in and catching her mouth in a vice, breaking her apart, tearing into her. Blood beaded from where she'd bit Faith's lip, and the part of her that was still, y'know, human, tried to lift her head up. Red saliva stretched out forever between them until Faith realized what was happening and seemingly pulled herself up by the red rope into another kiss.

She was sitting up and Buffy straddling her in her lap, a hand supporting Buffy's back, wrapping around her before suddenly she was slammed back into the mat by the blonde.

"I don't want explanations. None. If you try to give me any more excuses—" Buffy's eyes were cold, the words freezing the waves mid crest. There was a glacier there that could cut Faith up the side and send her into the deep if she didn't take heed of it.

She didn't need to finish the sentence. It had already finished itself in Faith's mind.

"Okay, uh, shit. I left the Magic Box, y'know, because-"

Buffy's hand pulled her hair violently back so hard she thought it would rip out. It didn't, but the tears did.

"God! Ah, no excuses, I get it. Five by five, just… fuck. I didn't go to Spike's, I didn't do anything crim— I didn't do anything wrong. Believe me? Please?"

"Keep talking."

So she did. Everytime she started down a rogue trail of contexts, the collar tightened, the leash pulled her back to reality. She broke and entered. Twice. She just can't resist. Criminal. Through and through. But when Faith told her what she stole, and what she did with it, the hateful Sun of her mind seemingly couldn't blister catharsis and stigmata into the other woman's skin.

She showed Tara she wasn't a demon. None of us even knew something was wrong.

Buffy didn't leave, of course, because she wasn't like Faith. She wasn't weak. No, she stayed, she sundered, she kissed, and she licked the salt off of Faith's cheeks blistering with absolution.

Faith

"Don't ever try and leave me again."

"You've got me dead to rights, B," the Betrayer whispered, writhing against Buffy's grip as if to demonstrate that she was stuck.

Even if Faith wanted to escape (which she very much didn't), there was no way that she could. As good as a criminal as she might be, Buffy had thought it all through. For every single possible trick Faith could pull out of her sleeve, she had a counter. It would be mechanical. It would be perfect. It would be cold beyond cruelty. Every attempt to overcome the Blonde's strength would be a failure, and the first failure would be in trying it in the first place.

So she submitted. She bore her neck for Buffy to kiss and hurt, moaned when the hand went down to the tits she'd seen Buffy looking at for months and months, pleaded for mercy when perfectly manicured nails went underneath the shirt and pulled on the piercing painfully before going back to sadistic, comforting murmurs and strokes.

Buffy was on a power trip. Her eyes were blown wider than any druggie's, deep green oceans that would swallow you whole and boil you in the waves. As the dark bled out from the center of the green, Faith felt like she was sinking further and further beneath the reach of the sun.

Her Keeper would hurt her enough to make her beg for more, would pleasure her enough to beg her to stop, but the pleas landed on deaf ears. She wasn't in control. She had to lay down and do the time. This was what she got for leaving out of nowhere, for lying, for being wrong.

It wasn't sexual. It wasn't. This was just how Buffy exerted her control over her, how she showed her who was boss. To show she could. Faith didn't understand, couldn't understand, wouldn't understand why she bucked up her pussy against the knee between her legs, why she wrapped her arms around Buffy and tried to hold her close like a life raft even as she was drowned by her.

Whatever that's about, not my fuckin' problem.

"God, B-, anything you want, anything, anything, anything—" she rolled her hips, getting closer and closer, her scar shaking and trembling. Buffy's hand went to it in answer and it was cold, hard as steel, sharp as a blade's edge. In her mind eye, she imagined metal shaped like a barb going inside of her, over and over, her wound welcoming Buffy inside of her with so much red rain.

"I'm so c-close, just a litt-"

The door opened.

"Hey, Buffy, Tara's back and brought cooki-" Xander stood there like a marmot. His facial muscles had seemingly gone on strike and wouldn't form an expression until new legislation passed.

Buffy and Faith were on the ground, sweaty, frozen and looking at him with wide eyed, naked terror.

"Chocolate chip?" Buffy squeaked.

Chapter Text

Buffy

It was like a highway collision on black ice, the kind you drive by and lose count of all the cars in the pileup, each one drifting slowly to doom, the kind you thank god you've never experienced and hopefully never will.

"Guys! Tara brought chocolate chip cook-" Willow slid on the black ice ground, bumping into Xander, neck craning to the bizarre sight on the training mat. She made some efforts to twitch her jaw back into place.

"Wait, wait, it's not what it looks lik-" Buffy started, but didn't get to finish.

"I say, the pastries are rather-" Giles swept into the doorway and lightly bumped into Willow, "oh, excuse me, Willow, I wasn't paying attentionnnnn-"

Buffy stood up off of Faith and tried to find something to do with her hands that felt cold in the other woman's absence. "Not what it looks like! Not that I even know what it looks like, but I was just— uh"

Giles squinted and adjusted his glasses to look closer at Buffy's neck. Suddenly, she remembered Faith kissing it at some point during… whatever that was. Skank!

"I wasssssss…"

"She was beating the shit out of me, what's it to you guys?"

Oh now you sound casual, so above it all. Where'd the stutter go, F? Disappear when you closed your legs?

Buffy did not like Faith right now. To be clear, she didn't ever like her (on general principles), but this— this seduction, skankiness, pouting, showing her cleavage, and just being an all around tramp put her much lower in Buffy's estimation.

I'm single, so instead of stealing my man, she's trying to steal my moans. She's not even gay. And neither am I. She's just trying to rob me. Criminal. Skank. Skank. UGH.

"Well you don't look too beat up…" Willow said, eyes flicking back and forth between the two slayers who were still panting, narrowing her gaze like she was looking down a scope.

"And you're still seemingly full of shit, so she couldn't have done too good a job. Of the beating it out of you, I mean." Xander said, his smile pH 1.

"Is your pocket full of shit, too, or are you just happy to see us?" Faith replied, arms crossed, pointing at… well. Xander flustered something out and left.

"Ew," Buffy intoned, watching him leave.

"Hey it's your pal, B."

Giles decided to cut in, here, watching him leave and then furiously attacking his glasses with a handkerchief.

"Tara has arrived. She has information on the razor— arranged a rather savvy spell to extricate the information we're looking for. You two clean up."

He didn't look particularly happy with the information he was being confronted with, eyes like longswords, darting down to her neck.

"Faith, your choker is too low. As for you, Buffy, fix your shirt. We don't have time for fighting right now. Get cleaned up so we can discuss Tara's findings."

And with that, they were alone again.

She couldn't restrain it, the licks of anger rising up out of her chest, the sharp static in the slayer connection, immediately turning on Faith.

"You skank!"

It was a vocabulary term that she hadn't thought of in at least 5 years, when her mother first used it to describe someone in a muttered, low voice (a person that looked and acted kind of like Faith, now that she thought on it). In the last 2 minutes, she'd thought it at least 15 times about the woman next to her.

"Hey, Superbitch, you're the one who went hulk hogan on me the second I opened the door—"

"Because you snuck in hours after you said you would be back, and what was that with the begging? Do you think that's going to work on me? The pouty lips, the heaving…" Buffy motioned to her own cleavage, which was unfortunately not impressive enough to make the point clear. Faith got what she was saying, though, she always had a good read on Buffy.

"What, do you want me to wipe my lips off?"

"Maybe. Or maybe I just want you to wipe off the smirk."

"Oh fucking brother, don't act like you didn't crave it, that you didn't want to make me your bitch, and now you're too childish to be happy it worked? Fuck outta here with that, B."

"I'm sorry, let's rewind," she said in the tone of a distinctly not sorry person, "I don't want you to be my bitch, Faith, you seem to have some sexuality-confusiality going on—"

"Nah nah nah, don't even put that into the conversation. We're both straight, you just… you want to make me your bitch."

It was an olive branch.

Buffy rolled her tongue in her cheek, humming, looking down at the heaving cleaving for a split second, then offered her side of the truce.

"And you're trying to like, what, get one over on me? Since I don't have a man to steal, you're just going to cut out the middle man and steal from the source?"

Faith adjusted the choker, blinking a few times. Her head tilted to the side, like she was weighing the thought against the side of her skull.

"Yeah. Prolly somethin' like that."

"Okay. Yeah," Buffy nodded, pouting a little, like this whole conversation was a waste of time.

"Yea."

"Yeah."

They looked anywhere but each other, letting the words settle on the ground like snow. Finally, Buffy turned and walked through the silence. In the Magic Box's main lobby, Xander, Willow, Dawn, and Tara were all sitting down, Xander staring at nothing, Willow leaning over and stealing glances at the two slayers and whispering into Tara's ear.

Anya and Giles were loitering behind the counter. Anya was saying something like 'well I just don't know how anybody was surprised—', but Buffy couldn't make out the specifics.

A broom leaned next to Tara, wrapped up in ribbons.

"Hey guys," Buffy said as they closed the distance to the table, the other slayer following along, never letting the distance grow too great. I don't want her to be my… god, is that like a prison thing? Was she born in a prison? Normal freaks grow up in barns, but that's not good enough for her, nooo, she's probably born and raised in maximum security.

It just so happens that she ends up in that position in relation to me. Coincidentally.

A collage of helloes went past them, but, notably, no lines of sight. Except Dawn's.

Dawn hadn't seen them, and Buffy could tell that no one was spilling the beans, but the girl wasn't stupid. Beady little Summers eyes would clash with Buffy's on occasion, squinting like she knew she was up to something. It was Faith's fault! I had nothing to do with it!

"So! Tara's birthday and she brought the cookies? We sure are some mooches, huh?"

Buffy threw a smile into the dark, endless hole of the conversation, and waited to hear it land. It never did.

She tried one of the cookies. It was pretty good.

They discussed the spell that Tara and Willow had devised, telling them the basic premise of it:

In order to unlock the story of the Razor, they would have to finish the act once started.

"The Hokey Pokey and do it all again?" Buffy said, and tried not to glow when Faith snickered behind her.

But that was the premise. In a controlled environment, they would use a spell to make the knife (pokey) ephemeral and non-material (hokey), finally reenacting the events on the rooftop (and do it all again!). That would rouse the blade in the same way it did the last time. That would wake up the demon long enough for them to gather data on it.

Simple.

Except it wasn't. It would be time consuming, expensive, tedious, exceptionally difficult. And under it all was this prickling, this static in her right hand. Her eyes were chained to the place underneath Faith's shirt, and when they rose, they would see the other woman's eyes looking into nothing, flushed, leaning against a beam for support as they discussed the logistics of recreating the battle, nodding along and giving them any information that might help them.

She's such a freak. Oh my god.

Buffy stood next to her, shoulders brushing, her right hand falling down to graze against Faith's left. The softness of it was sharp enough to scrape skin raw. They exchanged gifts with Tara, but Faith skipped giving her one.

She already gave her a gift better than any of ours. Always has to one up us.

The thought didn't have the poison it should have. Someone had reached up to the dial over all their heads and lowered the brightness of the conversation to a sleepy dim murmuring and chattering about the next day.

Ding!

"Bollocks, must have forgotten to lock the doorrrr— Ah. Mr. Maclay."

The man was thoroughly drained of something. Faith's nose pricked up and that made Buffy sniff, then she smelled it. She hadn't even noticed before, but now the smell of old car seats, bloody flags, dead leaves, chewing tobacco: it was overwhelming.

He wanted Tara back. No one was particularly surprised. Tara looked like she was thinking about going over, just for a second, but it was short lived. Faith gave her a look, and somehow it shook her out of the spell.

"I swear to god if you don't get in that car I will beat you do—"

Faith punched the man with the pubic beard in the throat before anybody could muster up a witty response.

"Can I come?"

The father looked appalled, of course, that was kind of his neutral expression. His daughter had inherited it genetically.

"Tara! Don't you see what's happening here? You've made a congregation of… of thugs," he motioned at Faith, "and skanks—", he looked around the room, and then just went ahead and motioned at Faith again, "and criminals," before he could motion at Faith for a third time, Buffy cut him off.

"Okay find a new theme," that one's mine, already. "she's not going anywhere she doesn't want to, capiche?"

"She's not going anywhere, alright, that much is very clear!", the daughter shrilled, "She's going nowhere fast with you… you miscreants!" The daughter motioned at Faith even while looking at Buffy.

At some point during the daughter's shrilling, a bell rang, hidden underneath a crack in her voice.

Somewhere in the shop, a candle wavered, then went dark.

"Don't you people get it? It's for her own good, she hasn't told you because she's scared to, but she's a demon! Tara, baby, it's okay, it's okay. I know you're scared. We are too, but we love you, alright?"

"No offense, but couldn't this have been a letter?" Buffy said, quickly losing patience with the situation.

"Uhm, sir?" Giles said, and Mr. Maclay turned towards him before Rupert clarified, "not you, apologies, Sir? Sir we're closed. I apologize for any misunderstanding, I haven't gotten around to locking up yet, and this is a personal matter. We open up tomorrow at Nine AM, you're more than welcome to come back then."

The man looked fairly normal. He had slightly rambunctious gray hair that rose from his head like a smoke stack, a clean shave, only a little taller than Buffy and a little shorter than Faith. He looked behind him as if Giles were talking to someone else.

When he spoke, his voice was like a can opener. Something terrible was in the can.

"Me? Oh, I'm just here to talk to my friend."

Who is this guy's friend? Mr. Maclay?

Faith's hand interlaced with hers. It was tight. Her hand was clammy, cold, iron, but Buffy didn't notice, only her hand did. The thumb rubbed comforting circles into Faith's hand, drawing the shapes of Real in little rings.

Everyone looked at Mr. Maclay, but he looked just as confused as the rest of them.

"Well if one of these freaks is your friend, I'd recommend finding some better ones. They're real pieces of work. Maybe her," he pointed at Tara, "I understand she's very social nowadays."

"Does anyone know this guy?" Xander said.

Everyone looked at each other and tallied up their responses. Buffy watched them. Then she saw Faith.

It was written on her face in so many porcelain cracks. All the color was gone. All the light was drained out of the eyes. No glimmer of mischief, no flash of rage, no low glow of lust. Just. Nothing. Like Faith's eyes were holes to the back of her skull and nothing more. Her face was abject terror.

"Faith?" Buffy said, reaching out with the slayer connection and not even realizing it.

Physically, the other slayer was right next to her, but the connection was acting like she was miles away. Golden light that couldn't be seen stretched up and into the Eastern horizon through the roof, far, far, far away in a place where the snow charred and the bricks coughed.

The short man pulled something out of his pocket. Buffy watched with wide eyes as he started tightening a black tube on the end of his gun. She tried to move to act. Faith stopped her.

"Don't. Move. Please." Faith was shaking like a leaf. Buffy had only seen her like this one time, before they'd fought Kakistos. Is this guy a vamp? The senses aren't tingling. Maybe a warlock?

"Oh," said Mr. Maclay, looking back and forth between Faith and the short man, "I can see I've… I've gotten involved in something I didn't mean to. I'll get out of your way. Kids? Come on."

They started to step out of the Magic Box, but they didn't get far. A small 'unce!' and Mr. Maclay fell over in a silent thud. Tara screamed, Buffy gasped, but Faith wouldn't let her move.

"Just stay. Please, B, don't—"

"He's going to kill them!" She whispered under her breath.

Charlie, somehow, heard them.

"No, no, it's not like that. I'm not," he paused, chewed on the words, grinded his teeth and looked like he forgot how to blink, "I'm not an animal. I'm just here to talk to Faithie. Got a message to deliver, business-like, and if anyone tries to interrupt me, I'm going to put this mutt DOWN!"

The short man screamed like a brass band, voice breaking on the edges, filling up his lungs until they were fit to burst, octaves too loud, decibels that made everyone jump like physically pushed.

He sounded like he was in agony, kicking the moaning body that used to be a man, however awful.

"So everyone jus' be real quiet. Faithie," Charlie sounded like he was on the verge of tears, like the rage had left nothing behind in him, but something in Buffy knew that wasn't true. There was oceans of it.

"Yer old man's dead," a moment paused, Faith looked to the side and back, "I know, who gives a shit, but see, we have a problem. He owed me some— GET YOUR SHIT HOOKS OFF THAT DOOR!" he screamed at the daughter, but aimed the gun at her father's head, and never looked away from the Scoobies.

"He owed me some money, see, and… and I know we were squared up, Faithie. Five by Five, remember? You were. All squared up. All growed up. But we're all going to take a minute while I tell ya what you owe me now. What it'll take to be five by five again, okay? And the more interruptions we have, the worse 'is chances get. I'm scared, okay? He's losin' color, and I need your help, all of ye, to make sure he gets out of here safe and sound. So everyone shut the fuck up, sit still, because I'm almost done."

Charlie still hadn't blinked. Beady black pearls shone into Faiths.

"Ya owe me eighteen thauwsend, seven hundred, fiftetew dollars, and eighteen cense. I had to deal with his body, he drank himself to death a few days ago before we got to 'im. Larry had style, and he had a big fuckin' prick"

He laughed like a car crash, and his teeth were perfect, except one golden one.

"A-anyways, uh, that rings up to about 650 dollars. The rest is all of his debt, accrued."

"With interest?" Faith's voice was raspy, reedy, a shadow of herself. The rest of her was on the other end of the connection, somewhere on the East coast of the US.

"No, no, that's all suspended for the time bein'. Wouldn't be fair, and all. Now we can discuss a payment plan, we can discuss work, we can fix this. I know yew've got this whole slayer thing goin', I grilled a few of those fanged nasties about ya. Proud of ye Faithie."

"Okay." Faith nodded through red eyes.

"Okay. I'm real sorry about the mess, I just… he was gettin' in the way of things. Acting rashly. Wasn't supposed to be here at all, no clue who this prick is."

"It's okay."

"Shieet, I uh, I-I'll take the cleaning money off the bill."

"Okay."

"Alright." He leaned up, sweat running down his completely calm face, ran a hand through his hair.

"In 30 seconds from me openin' that door, you can help yer pops, okay?"

Silence.

"Just nod if you understand me. I know you rats haven't gotten to big words yet, so that'll do fine."

The Maclays nodded.

Ding!

For 30 seconds, nobody moved, nobody spoke, and the silence was cut only by the moans of the bleeding man.

Chapter Text

Faith

Well. It was fun while it lasted.

Faith sat outside of the ICU room with Mr. Maclay beeping away, rattling away inside. Doctors said he would be okay. Already knew that. Charlie wouldn't kill him unless he had to. Maybe back home, he would've, but here he's being careful. Fucker can be careful, when he needs to be.

Tara walked out like curtains blowing in the wind until a clothesline caught her. Willow held her. Made her there. Faith just listened. Listened to the sobs. Listened to Willow comfort her.

"It's okay, shh, it's okay. He's gonna be all right! He's already far right, so it's not a big leap, is it?" Shitty joke. But Tara laughed. The wind blew, but the curtains stayed on the line. Something about the scene made Faith's teeth buzz and ache in their gums, made her legs tap and made her rocket out of her chair to go find a vending machine, something, anything.

Maybe I'll steal some blood for Spike. Fuck it. Already a criminal. Already a skank. Already almost got someone killed.

She didn't know how she ended up in the head-case ward. Maybe she felt like seeing the place before she moved in. Buffy and Giles were there too. She tried to brush past, but quicksand with sky blue nails caught her before she could get too far.

Green eyes like whirlpools. Like plants growing up out of Faith's sun-cracked asphalt. Shit.

Giles was muttering to himself, looking at the patients moaning and writing in the beds. It smelled stale in there, like dead thoughts were collected in the bed pans every night to be dumped in the morning by legions of nurses. Ranting and raving filled the dim space, just crazy enough to overwhelm the raving in her own head.

"… Glory appears to be having this effect, somehow, on certain locals. No clue how it works, or what's happening, just… just raving. No rhyme or reason. Dagon Sphere has no effect on them, there's nothing like it discussed in the Watcher's apocrypha or canon…."

Buffy and Faith listened to him rant and rave quietly, and Faith closed her eyes and focused on the lines of light being traced into her hand by the woman next to her.

She hates me. I did this. She told me I couldn't stain her, and she was right, but I'll stain her life. I'll paint it all black. But that can wait. Just a little longer. Just a little longer. Just a little longer.

Their shoulders were brushing like pillow and cheek, and the knowledge that the blonde would hate her for her part in this, for how hard she fucking made everything, frothed in her mind like mad men's ravings.

Just a little longer.

A soft circle in her hand. A golden light. Fingers interlacing with hers.

Just.. a little….

Buffy

She's going to leave me again. I can feel it. Scared. Weak. Please don't leave me again. Please don't fall asleep without me again. Just stay with me a little longer. I'll hurt you later, I promise, but for now I need you to stay with me.

Buffy rubbed circles into Faith's hand, molding the clay there back into shape before it fell apart like a bad plan. Circles of light. Goosebumps rising and falling like murmurations under her touch. Giles pondered as the two women stood behind him, oblivious (or maybe not, it was hard to tell sometimes) to what was happening behind him, so focused on the supernatural implications of the madmen of Sunnydale.

Just a little longer.

An oil spill in her hand, petroleum running down Faith's cheeks, salt burning up under Buffy's circling.

Just… a little…

That night, Faith tried to run. It was the middle of the night. Bugs chorused outside as if to hide her steps. Buffy didn't need to hear them. She followed the Empty-Where-Warmth-Should-Be outside. On the back porch, there was a half smoked pack of Newports. The other slayer was almost to the treeline, walking in a trance to the black, waiting for the tree streets to collapse around her and hide her completely from the world, from herself.

When Buffy was a kid, before her dad had left, they had a little Dutch Shepherd named Cooper. He would always open his mouth and act like he was going to bite you, but would just roll his head around like he was trying to piece together how, and whine until you'd pet him. Then he would gnaw on your arm halfheartedly. Like that was how he kissed. Like that was how he laughed.

Buffy saw his death shadow underneath the house. The shadow stunk. He'd disappeared a few days before, and her father told her that he'd be back.

'Liar. Daddy's a liar,' she thought for the first time.

Dad drug the shadow out, rotting and stinking but still him.

"Sometimes when Dogs get old, they like to run away. Not because they don't love us, but because they like to, uh… you know. Be alone at the end," he'd said. He never was good at these kind of talks.

Why couldn't we be alone together?

"Alone?" Something in Buffy's voice clicked against itself, like a motor misaligned. Like something wasn't working. Tears fell, snot oozed, and she looked at Cooper's mouth. No one pet him to make him laugh at the end. No one gave him their arm to kiss.

Wasn't my arm good enough?

Faith never reached the tree line. It opened up to swallow her, but arms around her from behind held her solid. Blonde hair splayed out and mixed with black, and she hugged the other woman for dear life. For her dear life.

Buffy wouldn't let her go under the house. Buffy wouldn't let her turn into a Death Shadow.

She breathed into the jacket for a while, smelling the tobacco and the leather and the licorice. Those weren't the smell of death. Not yet. She wouldn't let that happen. Just a little longer. I need you in my life just a little longer. The woman in black shook in Buffy's hands, like she could wither up and blow away at any second. She hated her, she resented her for getting Tara's family hurt, for so many secrets wrapped around her like a mummy.

"I brought him here, B."

"Maybe, but that doesn't mean he can bring you back with him."

"It should."

The other slayer turned around, face charred by the shadows. Eyes kindling. Not much left. Buffy leaned in and touched their lips like flint against steel, something to keep them warm in the cold spring night, something they could huddle around.

It had to stay lit. They had to protect it. Just a little longer. Just…

Kisses like clouds softly gliding in the moonlight. Tears like the moon. Salt like stars. Their hands met silently, the connection igniting between them, a fickle flame so delicate against the wind.

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you, B."

"I know."

Buffy didn't need to forgive her. Not yet. Not tonight. She didn't need to hate her, either. All of that could happen in the morning. For now, just for a little longer, they drifted against the night sky towards the trampoline. She offered a hand that Faith took after a moment of hesitation, and then they laid together on the reflected nylon firmament.

"You won't escape me. You can't run away from me, no matter how hard you try," she'd whispered to Faith in so many different ways, and accepted her muttered prayers, her whispered 'thank you, thankyouthankyou's, taking them into her lips directly from the source.

Her hand rubbed circles on Faith's back. She hadn't left. She didn't let her. Now the other woman leaned into her, nuzzling for the warmth that only she could offer, flickering in her hands like a shadow cast in a California sunset. Eventually, black lashes fluttered shut, like she was resisting sleep. Buffy's eyes took in their shape, measured them in so many lines, counting them instead of counting sheep. Her eyes closed, too.

Just a little longer. Just… a little…. lo

Faith

Just a little longer came and went, the morning rose over them, heralded by birds chirping like ICU heart monitors. Chirp! Tweet! Beep! Beep! Beep! The Chosen One was still asleep, lips slightly parted, hair making a fiery halo around soft lips, warning the night away.

Faith's hand teased at the cheek, almost touching, but her wax melted and it fell to the Earth so far away. Pussy. Buffy was the only one strong enough to close the distance, Faith was weak, she could never touch her. Only be touched. If the touch was forced, then she didn't need to deserve it.

Shit show. Now she was laying here shivering in the warm, beeping, chirping songs of Sunnydale's new day. But it's just a little colder. He's here. I'm here. Eventually we'll make the sun choke out and keel over like a lifelong smoker after one too many.

The knife vibrated on the trampoline between them. She didn't know if she was planning on getting to Charlie, or if she was planning on disappearing into the woods and the leaves forever. When all the blood had been drained by the blade, would she rot, or would she be a husk of skin and face and plastic never granted the rest of decomposition?

Faith rolled off the trampoline and walked to Home. She had breakfast to make.

Joyce

Joyce didn't know what had happened, she was shuttered in a special kind of ignorance. It was the same ignorance that let her ignore vampires, ignore demons, one that she'd built up instinctively through years of living as an upper middle class citizen of Los Angeles, the same grouping of mental muscles that allowed you to turn homeless people into blurs of cracked pavement, delirious voices into the rattle of blowing plastic bags.

It wasn't like she could do anything about it, right? It wasn't like she could save the Lehanes of the world, even if she did see them. She had her own to take care of.

Joyce Summers, like her daughter, purposely blinded herself to certain things in the world that were inconvenient to the seeing, but what she did see, she was kind to. There was a purity in that. Maybe it was better. Faith had cracked up out of the asphalt, and Joyce Summers watered her every morning.

She's flowering.

Joyce watched Faith make them all breakfast. There was something she didn't know, something in the silence that she sensed, rattling like plastic and cracking the quiet like concrete under the sun, but that was okay. She probably didn't want to know.

"You don't have to make us breakfast every morning, Faith."

Dawn started to protest, but her words splattered against the back of her teeth when Joyce shut it down with a look.

"It's not a problem, Ms. S, it's something to keep my hands busy."

Idle hands are the devil's playground, she thought. Her mother had always told her that, and she'd always told it to Buffy in turn.

"Well, it's very appreciated. And I got a call from the museum— they said you're doing great. Good enough that I'm starting to wonder if you're aiming to steal a sick woman's job."

Faith snickered, "I'm not that stupid, you're gonna kick this things as— butt," she caught herself as the wafflemaker smoked, the double 's' disappearing into the steam, "and I'm not Jonesing to be next in line."

"Good!" The chirped response sounded just like her daughter.

Buffy

She woke up alone, slayer hearing picking up on each line of banter from inside the house, on each sway of the dancing trees near the treeline, of the beeping of a hundred million birds. Her heart skipped a beat, the bird chirps pausing with it, eyes darting to the treeline.

No, nonono, she can't have—

The knife smiled up at her from the black Nylon, like a metal, three dimensional rip. Her hand went to it, feeling it tremble as the golden light because visible. It was like an antenna for the connection, golden light suddenly half-visible, stretching from it's metal to the scar on the other end. Up, up, arcing, then oozing in a line into the house. Faith was inside there, cooking her family breakfast like nothing had happened (she only acted like nothing had happened when something had very much happened, it was always pouts and loaded glances during "peaceful" times).

Buffy's smile was perfect walking in. Want to play this game? I wrote the rules, honey. She sat down, and nobody talked about what had never happened last night. Dawn's eyes darted back and forth between the two, trying to click puzzle pieces together, but she got nothing but the typical berating for being too greedy with the OJ. Again.

Without a second look at Faith, just a polite 'thanks!', she went upstairs to shower and get dressed for the class that day. The other slayer would answer for it all, but not now. She'd missed too many classes because of her, and she wasn't going to let Faith tear it all down. Not again.

Buffy donned her armor: pink pants, a black top, and a scarf. Faith would call it "a bunch of bullshit" in that distracted Boston drawl that made the back of her neck tingle and her cheeks combust.

That's anger, Buff, mhm. We're angry at her right now, so if anything's going to com OR bust, it'll be her.

She was brushing her teeth when the thought invaded, and she stared through the mirror, blinking a few times. There was some white froth on her lips, and noticing it only made the California forest fire on her cheeks spread with newfound speed.

Nope. We didn't just think that, actually, and we're gonna spit this out and get to class. We're big girling.

The classes flowed around her like a river around a rock, her mind idly taking in the information. Comms. Finally. She'd just about gnawed her way through the pencil, staring through the back of the pimply plaid-laden boy sitting in front of her, occasionally taking a break from doing it to tap it idly against the desk while she waited for class to start.

Well, that wasn't entirely accurate. She wasn't waiting for the professor to arrive, she was waiting for Willow to arrive. Instead of her dear friend, some guy sat down next to her.

Can anything go right today? Or yesterday?

He sniffled. Buffy pink-popped some bubblegum, doing her best to present her anticipation as regular boredom. Her eyes darted over her sunglasses to the clock. Is she coming today? Or is she helping Tara? Shit, I'm a terrible friend, I should have called and checked up on her.

Some guy sat next to her. Right in Willow's seat.

'Looks like a particle board Pinocchio,' drawled a simulated Faith from the left side of Buffy's imagination, looking the guy up and down the way she would any other mark. 'Fragile. Can't lie. Doesn't have the creative spark for that kinda thing, B. Kinda guy to do what others say cuz he'd splinter and bust under a 'maybe'. Try him.'

"Uhm, hey—" Buffy started, wishing she had Faith's bravado (talking to things trying to kill you came much more naturally to Buffy than more basic social interactions).

The man looked at her with dull eyes that couldn't decide between being green and brown, his mouth habitually ajar.

"The guy who sat down there before you had…" she took off the sunglasses, looking around and leaning towards the deer-in-her-headlights, "an accident," she hissed with an embarrassed look.

"O-oh."

"But it's okay! I think they cleaned it up. Or wiped it off, at least," she offered.

By the time Willow walked in, class had already started, and the seat next to Buffy was the only open one. She looked tired, but not particularly miserable. In fact, she looked like she was having a better morning than Buffy was.

"Finally," Buffy whispered out of the side of her mouth. Class had started. "I thought you were a Witch, not a When."

"I'm branching out."

"How's Tara? Is… is she alright?"

"She's holding up. It's not like her and her father are on good terms, and he's in stable condition," Willow grumbled it like she was disappointed. "But who was that guy? Did you beat the deets out of Faith yet?"

"Trust me, I'm going to, right after I beat the deets out of this class"

"It's communications, Buff… there's not much to get."

"If it was miscommunications, I'd be acing this," Buffy replied, looking like a beat dog. The professor called her name, and Imagined Faith snickered to her left.

Faith

Joyce headed to the museum. She was having a good day, those were getting more and more common. Less outbursts, less cracked asphalt in the Summers shell. Good. Every morning, she waited for the other shoe to drop, for something to go wrong, for her to fuck it all up. Joyce wasn't her mom, didn't even pretend to be, thank fuck, but she was a good woman.

Maybe it's for the best that she's not my mom, I don't got a good track record with parental figures.

Florina Lehane

Lawrence Lehane

Charlie Says

Diana Dormer

Gwendolyn Post

The Big M

Shit, could prolly off Glory by calling her mommy.

The thought was supposed to be funny, but it just twisted and rotted in her gut, like a dog under a house. She had her hands splayed against the wall of the shower, curtains burning her skin as she thought of Mr. Maclay's blood burning the walls and floor of the Magic Box.

'I'll stain your walls.'

It was happening exactly like she knew it would the moment Buffy refused to let her die in that Hotel. All of it was coming together, all of it was coming apart. She turned off the shower and dried off, going into her room and getting dressed. Something simple. Didn't have to go to work today, so she just put on some bullshit. Jeans. A white shirt. Whatever wasn't dirty.

The day blurred by. She cleaned her gun, kissed her knife, read her comic books, prepared, prepared, prepared. Before she knew it, it was 4 o' clock.

She smelled Dawn through the door before seeing the black dots underneath it.

"Yo, you coming in or not?"

The air froze before the knob to Buffy and Faith's shared room turned and the younger sister came in, looking mad at her for realizing she was there. Not my fault you're a shitty sneak.

Faith reassembled the pistol she'd brought from Boston what seemed like a million years ago, the blackened cloth cleaning up residuals, the smell of oil in the room. Dawn clicked the door shut behind her, Faith didn't talk. Instead, she opened up the window next to her and lit up a Newport. Technically she wasn't supposed to smoke inside, so that's why she smoked with part of her head outside.

"What are you doin'?" Dawn asked.

"Wondering what you want."

"Was that a gun?"

Faith didn't bother gracing that question with a response. Dawn just went ahead and barreled on.

"Did you ever use it? Back in Boston?"

Oh Jesus fucking Christ, I see where this is going.

"Yeah. A few times."

"Did you… did it hurt anyone?"

Faith put the cigarette out on her palm habitually, letting the slayer healing get rid of the scar as soon as it came. Better than coffee. She crumpled it up and threw it in the small trash bin, just so Buffy would get pissed at her when she got back.

"Yeah. Mostly just used it to scare people, same way they used theirs to scare me."

Dawn looked excited by the idea. Natural born little monster, just like big sis.

"And did you ever got shot? Did it scar? Can you show me?"

"Yea, wait, wait, no— why are you in here? Don't you have homework to do? Isn't your sister gonna be back soon? Does she know you're here?"

"What, home?"

"You know what I mean," Faith said, narrowing a side eye at her.

"Do you think it would be a good idea to tell her I'm talking to a criminal?"

"Better than her finding out on her own. Now answer my question, why are you in here?" She sat down on the bed, wishing she could just sleep forever.

"I want to hear a story, just one! From Boston, y'know?"

She had that gleam in her eye, the same one Buffy would get sometimes, like she had already gotten her way and it was just a matter of time before you realized it. Fuck. Faith eyed her for a second, double checking the gun to make sure it was empty before setting it to the side.

"Just one, and none of the gun shit, that's weird," she was hoping would dissuade Dawn, but it was like trying to scare off a Pirrahna with scraps of meat. The little monster just nodded up and down feverishly.

"Alright, so me and my buddy Tommy had to get in to a concert we didn't have tickets for…"

Chapter Text

Faith

Dawn wasn't satisfied with the story about her and Tommy sneaking into the venue for a band back in Boston, she gauged (correctly) that if Faith had done something like that, she had done worse, the eyes both judging her and admiring her twisting inside of her like tongs.

Dawn wants a story? I'll give her one.

It wasn't a fun story, it wasn't one that would impress anyone, it was a story where there were no winners. Faith was about 15, just a little older than Dawn, and had heard some fighting in the men's locker room. She was looking for some asshole who owed her money, or something—she couldn't fucking remember, so she went in.

Tommy was painting the room red, bleeding out of his mouth and nose, squealing like a stuck pig with every hit to the gut. The noises were too wet, too weak to be called screams anymore. Football team, by the looks of it, sure felt like it by the way the big one stopped her dead in her tracks.

Faith tried to get them to stop, talked her shit, the works. She got a fist in the gut for her efforts, and then it all went black.

"Is that it?" Dawn asked,

"That I can remember," Faith said, honestly.

"So what's the part you aren't telling me?" Fucking Summers. The Slayer rolled her jaw, lips twitching in a smoke thirsty grimace. Her eyes looked at the flowering wallpaper for a moment. The birds chirped like so many hospital machines outside, the trees silently swayed like armies of faceless nurses.

"I won. Blacked out, I really don't remember anything after the gut punch, like I said. One of my fingers was broken bad enough to show some bone, but Tommy told me later it wasn't them who did that to me."

Dawn blinked, brow taking shapes, accomodating the words. There was still that ignorant glimmer like Faith was cool or something.

Burb barbies are all the same, drool over the grime that they don't have to live in. I'm sure it looks real cool from a 20 mile distance, sweetheart, I'm sure it's a real fuckin' movie.

That was what made her look away, that admiring, that fawning over what she'd done. What she was. It tasted like metal in her mouth. Her face twisted for a moment so short that she passed it off with a sniffle.

"Anyways, the cocksuckers were in the hospital for a few days, listening to their own breathing, if they were awake at all. One of them was in a coma. Brain damage, I think."

You don't think, Lehane, the best you can do is act, and you did plenty of that. You don't even know if that asshole ever woke up, you hope he doesn't because you're scared of the life he'd wake up to.

"O-oh. And the others?"

"Few broken bones, some concussions, plenty of broken teeth. They had to pry one guy's tooth out of my forehead when I was under."

Christ, Faith, you're a fucking mess. This is why you don't tell stories.

"Did it scar?"

"Huh? Dawn, you're fucked in the head, sh- I mean, uh. Twisted. You're twisted."

"Show me," she said, crossing her arms with a smile that told Faith all the ways she could ruin her already precarious reputation if she didn't cough up the deets.

"Yeah, yeah. Fuck," she raised her hair and showed a small white bump on her forehead, glinting in the evening light. The guy was taller than her, she thinks he was the one who punched her in the gut. Tommy didn't talk about it, really, so she had to piece it together herself: he punched her in the gut and then she blacked out, launched her forehead into his teeth, broke a lot of it, then kicked him back and used the equal and opposite force (thanks Ms. Tupps) to knock over one of the douchebags behind her.

From there, it was anyone's guess.

She let the hair flow back down over it.

"Wicked!" she said that way Valley Girls did, where they used laughs like diacritics, "so like, why were they beating up Tommy? Did he owe them money? Did he have drugs or something? Did he.. you know, do one of their girlfriends?"

"He was a faggot," Faith said, looking bored by the information. Like it was nothing at all, because it wasn't. When she'd gotten the ass reaming by the principal afterwards, he'd told her as much, that people like him would always get picked on. That people like Faith would always find fights. She tried to deny it, but the longer she lived, the more she found the fights, the more she saw faggots like Tommy get bled out in the streets, the more she knew it to be true.

"W-what? What did you just call him?" Dawn looked… genuinely disgusted. Spare me the suburban sanctimony. You're the one who asked, brat.

"Fag. Took it up th— he liked boys, y'know? C'mon, we're in California, you're telling me you haven't seen em' around? If you can see their belly button, they're a fa-"

"Don't say that word."

"Why? Just a word."

"It's not…" Dawn looked to be struggling to piece together exactly how to address this development, like the blood and the bones were fine, but a little bit of bigotry was where she drew the line on her sadistic glorification,
"it's not nice. You shouldn't talk about people like that, there's nothing wrong with them."

Faith rolled her eyes, feeling tired of the conversation, but she was locked in now.

"Sure, whatever, but where I'm from, you keep that shit under wraps or you'll get Tommy'd. He mighta been a fag, but he was my fag, y'know? I just… I looked out for him and he looked out for me, a fag and a fuck-up, the Gruesome Twosome."

Dawn couldn't help but ring a laugh out, even while she looked at Faith like she grew a second head, how's that for a gruesome twosome? Faith laughed too.

"Okay, but seriously, stop calling him that."

"Jesus Christ, alright, you win. What are we calling him?"

"A friend?"

"Not anymore, but sure. A friend."

She told Dawn more about him. About the way she thought she had a crush on him when she first met him because of his long hair, his green eyes, his angel face and the red on his cheeks, and then he turned out to be gay which took him firmly out of her dating pool and straight onto her shit list. Unfortunately, he single handedly made up about 30% of her skunk-weed sales.

They loved each other, they'd steal each other's makeup, steal each other's perfume, and if they couldn't get around to having something stolen, they'd gift it to the other. And then he'd left. Once he saw her spit poison and leak smoke all over the lockerroom. Everyone left, in the end.

"So, in the lockerroom, was that the first time you used your Slayer powers? Or like, did you already know and were just waiting for the right time to use it?"

"Hm? O-oh, yeah, those. I got those 2 years later."

Boston-made monster, baby, metal under my skin and smoke on my breath. Fuck you. Go Celtics.

It should have disgusted Dawn, Faith's natural violence, it would have been comforting to Faith. She missed Buffy's green eyes, the way they'd pin her to the moment like a butterfly to a page. They'd judge her right, they'd make it all okay. They'd kill her.

But this? This was fucked in the head. Dawn looked more excited by that than anything.

"Ohmygod, you took on three guys without the powers? That's insane!"

Faith just popped her eyebrows like she was trying to see the appeal of it all.

Is he still listening to the ICU machines chirp every morning? Does he dream of birds with mechanical tweets? Does he see the red of this sunset on the back of his eyelids? Coma'd him good, didn't I? Just like I coma'd Mr. Maclay. I deserve one more coma from B, just to make it even.

"So, how did you meet Charlie?"

There was a silence and a disorientation, like Faith had stood up too quickly and felt all the blood in her body rush out of her head at once. She shook her head.

"I'm not gonna talk about Charlie, matter of fact, we're not gonna talk about Charlie at all. We're gonna keep him out of it." Dawn looked at her, worried, and Faith hated that look, so she threw her a bone.
"Want to hear about hotwiring cars?"

Buffy

She couldn't control everything, she thought, but didn't really believe it. Why couldn't she? She just needed to do more. To be wider. To be stronger. Her hands had to stretch out across the world, eclipse the world with her protection. The road was long, the road was hard, but she'd reach down and rip it out of the ground and make it a sword, if she had to.

Faith was out of control, needed an attitude adjustment or something. Buffy stormed up the stairs, bringing the energy damnit, she'd stewed on it all day. All the things she did, all the things she said, everything to reduce her control and make her life that much harder. It had to stop.

Someone from Faith's past had just shown up, shot Tara's dad in the stomach, and the Boston Bozo was acting like nothing happened at all. Her heels loudly pounded the wooden floor.

Good, she needs to know I'm coming.

Her hand went to the doorhandle for a second, but then paused. There were two voices inside that somehow hadn't noticed her arrival. The voices were muffled, but she could make out the low conversation if she put her ear to the door. It's my room, I can listen in all I want. It's not weird.

"Wait wait wait, so you used to steal cars? How?"

"Civics, Accords, Camrys, that kind of thing. They're all pretty easy to steal. Early 90's was the best, but you can get a late 90's one up and running with some elbow grease. Haven't tried the 2000's stuff, been a while since I've had to boost one."

"Okay, that's the how, cool! But… why? It's not like you could sell them."

Great! My sister is having her criminal awakening the moment I'm gone. They grow up so fast. Buffy crossed her arms like a parent who was going to ground you for the unforeseeable future.

"Depends. Had some guys pay me to steal their cars and rough it up on the highway, then ditch it. Insurance fraud, y'know? Most of the time though, I'd just take the car to one of Charlie's buddies who owned a body shop and they'd strip it for parts."

"Cool!"

Okay, this is going to stop riiiight about now.

She opened the door, the first thing she noticed was the smell of a cigarette in the room, great, she's smoking in here, too? What's next, is she going to reveal she hasn't been potty trained?

Green eyes stared at the crumpled cigarette in the trash with a force just short of causing the bin to explode into sparks. Her spotlight stare turned to Faith, shaking her head and scowling for just a split second, more like a tightening of the eyes. A taste of what was to come.

"Dawn," she said, "come with me. I need to talk to you."

"But me and Fa-"

"Now."

Dawn grumbled something nasty under her breath that Buffy pretended not to hear while her older sister closed the door behind her. Buffy decided to let the silence percolate for a second.

She turned and walked down the stairs to the Kitchen, knowing that Dawn would follow, hearing another muttered nasty on the way there. When they reached it she took out the stuff for a sandwich, the kind that Faith always made, with the extra stuff she would never explain.

"So, explain to me, slowly, what do you think you're doing?" Buffy asked,

"Getting grilled, mostly," she said, even popping her lip like Faith, the sight of it made Buffy's nostrils flare.

"Grilled? It sounded more like your brain was being fried than anything. You don't talk to her, okay? Why doesn't that register with you? Faith. Plus Words. Equals bad!"

"Cause it was Faith! You talk to her all the time."

"Hanging out with Faith is not cool, Dawn. OK? It is dangerous… and icky."

Dawn scoffed, rolling her eyes and looking away.

"Well, you don't think Faith's icky."

The Slayer turned to get back to work on the sandwich, getting more frustrated by the second. The ingredients seemed to be playing hide and seek, and she was losing.

"Yeah, well, think again, sister."
A moment passed. The ingredient she was looking for was right there. Her hand was paused in mid air as something clicked in her mind. Buffy closed the cabinet without getting the ingredient, and turned around to face Dawn.
"What does that mean?"

"What do you think it means, Buffy?"

"I asked first."

"And I got the last word, so you have to go first,"

"ROCK" said Dawn
"SCISSORS" said Buffy at exactly the same moment.

"I hate you," the more "mature" one of the two said.

"Didn't ask, don't care. Now go on, fess up, what do you think it means, Buffy? Why don't you think you find Faith icky, huh?"

She's the devil. A monster. Maybe Glory is just trying to save us all. Maybe Giles has a tome on her somewhere, 'THE DAWN OF THE APOCALYPSE'. I can see it, clear as day. Medieval scrawlings of her eating villages, or something.

"Guhhhm, well, I do, so jot that down. I just think you're being weird."

"Liarliarpantsonfire", Dawn accused. It's like that, then. Okay.
"no,they'renot,they'requiteadmired!"
"yournosegrowslonger,kindalikesnyder"Damnit!

Buffy just couldn't win, today, by the looks of it. Her cheeks were reddening, her habitually crossed arms turning into something more like a self-hug against the piercing winds of Dawn's interrogation. She found her words. Barely.

"Okay, okay! I think she's… okay."

"To look at, right?" Dawn snorted.

"I watch her back. And only her back."

"Lower back, maybe."

"Upper!" Buffy squeaked, her face redder than the abandoned tomato slice on her sandwich. "Upper back!"

"Quit lying, sis. Admit it, I know you two were making out in the training room, I have ears y'know. They were all muttering about it, and you had that lipstick on your neck—"

"I-I was defending myself, she bit me!"

"Oh, I'm sure." A lecherous, bloody little smile, popped up eyebrows like she had allllll the cards.

"Dawn! She… she is a killer," Buffy hissed, glancing at the stairs, tapping her senses against the slayer connection to get a rough estimate of the other woman's location. Still in her room, good. "I can't have a crush on someone who hurts, who steals, someone who ruins everything she touches."

The Monster pursed her lips, unimpressed.

"Which one of us are you trying to convince? Think again, sister, because you don't look too ruined to me, and with the way she looks at you, I think she'd agree."

We can start with exorcism spells, go down the list. maybe some restraints. Not a vampire, but holy water could help narrow it down to other supernatural creatures. Maybe she's like, a tulpa…. is that a thing? I can go to Giles after this.

"Well, I can't speak for Faith, but Buffy is straight." Buffy nodded, made a little hum, crossed her arms. That was fact. Probably in the Bible somewhere. She took a drink of the orange juice, letting the glass circle be a big ol' period at the end of her sentence.

"Buff, I've seen cursive straighter than you."

Buffy coughed up the OJ she was sipping. If any got on Dawn, she didn't show it. Just a little carnivorous smile.

"Besides," her little sister continued, seemingly not content with shredding Buffy, apparently she wanted to atomize her, "you dated a vampire."

"He was different! He had… inhibitions. He was good. Good inhibitions that stopped him from stealing cars. I think. Do you think he ever stole cars?" The blonde could only look to her sister for guidance.

"And Faith's got you. You're plenty of inhibition. Anyways, I have to bounce, promised I'd watch Tremors with Janet. You keep trying to…" she motioned at the sandwich, "put all this together. Ciao!"

Like a tornado, Dawn left a sacred, ruined silence in her wake.

Chapter Text

Chapter Text

Faith

She isn't going to let me go.

She loves me.

I love her, and she loves me.

There isn't a damn thing I can do about it.

An hour passed. Stars flew over-head in great swarms, bats shone down on them from their tree tops, hanging like sweet, glistening fruits. The two slayers kissed, hoping that the dark would blanket them with plausible deniability, that it would stay just a little longer.

Buffy's golden light healed the wound that she had caused, the way only she could. It had stopped bleeding. Her hand stayed there, underneath her slightly-too-small-for-Faith coat, pushing up Faith's crop top and running her thumb across it. Healing it. Hurting it. Sipping her whines.

Fuck, fuck, fuck—

Mascara was running down Faith's face (shit, might as well stop putting it on with all the bitching and crying I've been doing), and she leaned into every kiss, every touch. The blonde handled her like she was the most delicate thing in the world, her kisses softer even than the light, stale breeze of the cemetery.

"I own you, Faith."

Damn, stabbing me wasn't enough? Now you're calling dibs?

"N-nah, B, I know you got a thing for 'putting me in my place', but—"

"Say it."

The words were sighed breezes that melded into the wind through the trees, and like them, Faith writhed under its whispered force. Her pussy ached, leaking, her scar thrumming under the voice as Buffy softly, slowly constricted around her like a python.

Or was it the other way around? Was the scar leaking and her core in between her legs thrumming, hurting? Had Buffy's healing been fragile, tenuous, stringing her along? Just thinking about it made both sensations overwhelming. It lifted her up and took the weight out of her bones.

"No, y-you don't. I'm not your bitch, B, but nice tr- ah!"

Buffy's hand trailed up between Faith's legs, nails dragging against the denim there, before firmly cupping her crotch. Making Faith try to close her legs but only worsening the friction there.

The blonde only needed to bat her eyelashes, and the miniature gust was enough to just about blow the weightless Faith into the stars, shining and leaking all the way to Kingdom Come.

"Say again?"

"I'm not—"

Light blue claws near-white in the moonlight hooked into Faith's jeans, popping the button. All of the dread, all of the inertia that had been weighing Faith down had been robbed from her, leaving only a blazing fire.

"I need to know you'll behave, that you won't be a problem, that you won't try to take from me again, Faith. I need you to be good for me. I need you to prove it."

Ohmygod.

"Maybe we could go back to you beating the shit out of me? I think I saw the stake fall somewhere over there, and besides, we're straight."

"We?"

The hand paused, and Faith thrust up against it to try and get the warmth, but the pleasure turned to ashes. Her brown eyes dared to open and into Buffy's emerald eyes. Wrath. Something big. Something wide. A green cage that Faith would walk into, lock the door behind her, and toss the key out through the bars.

"We aren't straight, F, I am. Dawn told me how you leer at me when you think I'm not looking," she said, hand going down Faith's pants.

That little fucking monster.

"Dunno what you're talking about, Dawn especially doesn't know what she's— oh shit"

Her face was on fire, the hand now cupping her without the denim in the way, the golden light directly defibrillating her like an electric shock. Arching her back, she cried, wept, begged for more, but the other woman didn't offer her any.

"Awfully wet for a straight girl."

I'm in hell and it's all I ever dreamed of.

"That's sweat, B, d-don't get it twisted."

The hand left her panties, leaving Nothing in its wake. Faith whined and writhed and nuzzled into the other girl, hiding her face against her shoulder, smelling and rolling her lips against her neck like Buffy's sweat was lipstick.

There was a silence. She dared a look.

Buffy stuck out her tongue and licked her left hand of the slick coating the two fingers that had been pressing most against Faith's panties. Visions flew like bats in the night through Faith's mind, of Buffy licking up the remaining blood on her right hand, of moaning, of owning.

"Doesn't taste like sweat."

The Good Slayer's eyes were a frenzy, wide and dilated, like the bottom of the ocean. All salt. All burning eyes. An orphaned glimmer of sunlight burning strangely through the night. How do I blink again?

Faith made a noise.

"Tell me. Tell me I have nothing to worry about. That you'll be good for me. That I own you."

Buffy needed to hear it, like she would tear Faith apart like gift wrapping to find the gleaming words in her chest. I can use that. I can get her to rip me open. Easy as pie.

"Nah," she said, brown eyes looking up and down between Buffy's lips and those green caged eyes. "Your info is bunk, B, but nice try. It's just the slayer connection acting up, goin' on the fritz. If you want to "own" me, you'll uh…"

Faith swallowed, mouth suddenly dry, head suddenly light. Surely that was just the bloodloss. She pressed on, ignoring the way Buffy's raised, prodding eyebrow lit her on fire.

"you'll have to do a lot better than whatever this is, I think you were getting closer when you were shanking me."

"You want to hurt? Is that all it takes?"

Faith pretended to not be sure, shrugging with her lips and eyes alone.

"Should've known you'd be that easy," Buffy said with an innocent half smile that punctured Faith and reeled her in. They were laying on their sides facing each other, but Buffy kept on controlling her, making her lean more on her back than her side, encroaching on her territory and pushing her down.

Her eyes fluttered shut and Buffy leaned in to kiss her on the lips, it was wet with whetted appetites, a string of saliva gleaming gold, messy blonde bedcurtains gathering in the grass.

I'm so fucked.

The hand with Faith's own dried blood softly cupped her cheek, and as Buffy drew her mouth away, held down the Betrayer's head to stop her from following. Was that whining noise a wild animal out there? Sure as shit wasn't me, that's for sure. Someone should look into that. Could be dangerous. Her thoughts were delirous distractions, running away without her, because the adrenaline-terror-horniness-lust-deathdrive cocktail was no place for thoughts. It was outright inhospitable.

A thumb went to Faith's mouth.

"Open. Clean."

Okay, dude, whatever.

Soft, rounded lips opened up and took the thumb in, sucked her own screaming, bitter blood stains off of it. Little Miss Perfect has to be pristine, has to be spotless. I'm just her rag. The blonde's smile was enough gold to buy a small kingdom.

Her head was full of golden, warm, static as she darted out her tongue to clean Buffy's hand some more. Luckily, there wasn't too much for her to do. Her jaw was sore from the motion, but she missed the thumb, her mouth full of nothing now.

"P-please, god, don't… why are you doing this—"

"I'm not. You are. Just admit that I own you."

The words were desperately scrambling against the back of her teeth, trying to get out before Faith ground her jaw shut. Can't give in. Won't lose.

"No." The words were choked, and she didn't dare breath through her mouth for fear of more coming out, so she huffed like a bull and closed her eyes.

One hand held her together, the other broke her apart. One hand cradling her, one hand crushing her. The Breaking Hand travelled between Faith's legs again, meaner, crueller than before. Buffy had had enough.

"Try again," a voice like a ray of sunny steel piercing Faith through the stomach. Buffy had reached into her panties and lulled her into security, lulled her into that nuzzling, obsequious mewling, just to annihilate her.

Her fingers had been so close to the clit, so fucking close to that little nub of nerves and nows… and for a second, Faith thought they wouldn't touch it. That Buffy would leave her hanging, running her fingers through her slick like careless hands in the wind of a car window, and then, so suddenly… agony.

She'd pinched. Twisted. Murmured comforting, controlling, caged words as she punished Faith for disobeying. For not being hers (yet, anyways).

"Shhh, it'll be okay. Just. Say. It."

"No—" Faith cried out, nuzzling into Buffy, holding onto her like she was a liferaft. The squeezing only intensified. Fuck! Ithurtsithurtsithurtsithurts

"Fine. If you're not mine…" she said, cutting the edge of a blue nail into Faith's nerve bundle, giving her a white hot reason to leave, "then get up. I won't stop you. Not this time. Get up, button up your pants, and go find some release at the Bronze. That's what you do, right?"

Her words were like candied razor blades.

"G-god, please, it hurts!", she cried, but she didn't leave, if anything she ground into the agony. At least it was touch. At least it was Buffy, "B, pleasepleaseplease, I'm begging you—"

And yet she writhed, and yet she blushed, and yet she moaned and leaked and bled clear slick that didn't taste quite like sweat.

"Tell me I own you," she said, slayer strength pushing down hard in the pinch even as the other hand cradled Faith closer. It's gonna come off. She's gonna cut it off with those fucking nails and I'll never be able to cum again just because she said so and I'll deserve that. "Break for me."

"Fuck! You own me! You own me—", she cried, sobbing into Buffy. The pinching didn't stop, but it didn't get worse either. She had to do more. Say more to prove herself to her.

"I'm your bitch," she gasped, feeling herself get nauseous from the sheer pain of it all, feeling herself get light headed with the ecstasy of finally COMING CLEAN. "You own me, you carved your name into my side and I touch it every night and wish you were still inside of me. I'd do anything for you, B, and I hate it. I hate you. Please don't leave me. Please don't—"

Her words were more like hoarse cries now, sobbing, rolling her hips into the hand that cuts.

"D-don't leave me. Hold me. Hurt me. I'm yours to k-keep, to break, to punish," she felt high, the hand finally releasing the pressure off of her agony very carefully. Only bliss remained as the blood flowed like lava into the clit. It hurt, yes, but it was so much more. She ached all the way inside, like her body was fully remembering what she wanted, like she craved the other woman to be inside her just one more time, whether it be with a stake, a sigh, a sliver, or a smile.

Faith Lehane would take all of the above.

"I'm yours. You own m-me. Youownme. Younme—" her words melted as she gasped, Buffys hand lightly teasing her pussy, golden light rubbing a mystical healing into her walls even while causing the sensations of pain and pleasure to magnify, to multiply. It was too much, far, far too much for any one person to handle, but she would do it. She would take it all for her.

"Good girl…" Buffy smiled, the blacks of her pupils large enough to swallow Faith whole. Her smile was shaped like the curve of a flower petal, soft, gliding. I'm done for. She won. I lost. The Breaking Hand got to rewarding her, giving her the release that she'd been denied for weeks on weeks since Buffy had forbid her from seeing other men, from even pleasuring herself in their bed.

It didn't take long. The golden light she was rubbing into Faith's labia, that slayer connection that had been so strengthened, was turning into honey and flowing through her. Filling her up. First her legs buzzed with that warm, grainy sensation, then her feet, all of her arching into her as if she was being inflated like a fucking balloon by Buffy's gold.

"Shhh, it's okay, I've got you."

Faith whined and arched and craved. Her crop top was torn (how on earth that happened was anyone's guess), and a light sheen of sweat made the tops of her breasts into waxing moons. Buffy took it all in, her Healing Hand putting all of Faith's stray hairs back into place, even as the Breaking Hand made them fall over themselves just as fast.

It rubbed softly, but firmly, the middle two fingers carving fear and hope in equal measure into her. It was time. She had to be filled. Burned alive. The blonde crooked her fingers into Faith. Her nails weren't terribly long, but they weren't terribly short either, and the sharp pain stung so fucking good.

Her whimper was pathetic, but even her neurotic ass couldn't string together the letters to spell out S-H-A-M-E. Her legs shook violently as Buffy hollowed her out, crooking in that spot over and over, each time making her leak violently, making her hold onto Buffy tight enough to break a normal human's bones. If she didn't, she didn't know if she would still exist.

"I-I'm so… god, Buffy!" It was the first time in a while that she'd said her full name, and she said it like the Long, True name of GOD. It was alien and sacred, as all things of this nature should be.

She didn't have to open her eyes to know that Buffy was drinking this in, reveling in her victory. It was complete, it was cruel, and worst of all, it was kind. This was the immolation she'd been searching for : golden fire burning her from the inside out like a moth in it's final throes of blazed completion. The Climax that she'd been building up to for her whole life.

Redemption.

Or at least, it should have been redemption, if Buffy was New Testament. But she wasn't. The bitch.

"I'll d-do anything, B, just let me cum, pleaseeee", she whined, voice cracking like porcelain. Constantly edged. Forever condemned. Purgatory, Faith thought, was always worse than Hell. She missed the agony, missed the stake through her scar, missed the way Buffy pulled her nipple rings so hard she thought they'd rip, missed the way she squeezed her clit until it started to turn purple. All of those would be preferable to this god damned edging.

"I know you will, Faith, just… be patient." It was difficult to see Buffy through all the tears, but those eyes, those hungry, controlling eyes that cut through her and branded her skin said one thing: she wanted to devour.

Please. All of me. Bite by bite.

Her hands stopped curving into Faith, waving off the whines, carefully and delicately removing the jeans so she could access all of Faith. The dark haired woman obliged, helping her, rushing, giving her a canvas to paint on. Buffy sat on her knees just past Faith's feet, sizing her up.

"Where's the knife?"

Oh shit.

"I-in my jacket… there's a pocket on the inside. In there. Too big to carry anywhere else."

Buffy hummed in consideration.

"That was pretty sharp of you."

If you were even a bit less hot, I'd kick you in that fuckin' half smile. What the fuck, B.

Her vocabulary had gone on vacation, so she opted for a hateful, needy noise at the awful pun. Buffy laughed like church bells. Her hand got the blade, the smiling crescent moon so thirsty, so wet, rain water already pooling on the edge. Drooling. Wanting. Aching. Just like Faith.

Faith's black panties were still on (and thank god for their color because there was a sizable portion of them now considered a minor body of water), but the way Buffy smiled at them made her heart clench and her thighs tighten. She shook her head.

"W-wait, don't…", she gulped, face red, flush with sweat, "don't hurt me."

It was a real terror, Buffy with that knife, like she'd had in so many of Faith's best dreams, the kind of dreams that made her ache. She thought of that Tears for Fears song: The Dreams in which I'm dying are the best I've ever had. Her legs half-crossed, knees together, even as her pussy craved whatever Buffy had planned for her.

"Then leave," Buffy said, far away. Her control was already complete. Faith was ordered, her moves already planned on so far ahead. The Slayer didn't let go of the knife, simply tapped and scraped it when she wanted Faith to spread her legs. Making goosebumps rise, letting the flat of the blade drink her sweat like a silver tongue.

HER knife scraped, threatening to break the skin, teasing it like shapes under a curtain. Eventually she reached the core. Faith's legs were spread to accomodate her, and she sat on her knees between them, looking down at what was hers. The knife rested on Faith's lip, the blade teasing out a bead of blood, and then slowlyyyy trailed down her chin, twisting and loving red raw down it. It didn't break the skin, but left raised indents of aggravated skin. Buffy wouldn't scar her where others could see. She was a good owner.

It went further down, cutting into the fabric of Faith's crop top, laughing tears down the middle until it was entirely split. No, no this is…. okay well this is fucked up in so many ways, but she can't just… she mentally muttered to herself, looking anywhere but the hungry eyes that ordered her just so.

"Open the shirt for me, Faith." The addressed woman shook her head for a second, daring disobedience for just a second before the tip of the blade welled up another bead. She opened it, shrugging off the fabric. Her hands hid her breasts, like her own little two hills to die on. The blade brushed them away with a suggestion, barely even a touch. She put her hands to the side, relying on them for support, leaning back slightly and eye level with Buffy.

The flat of the blade held up one of her tits, weighing it, gauging it's worth. It was fucking cold. She shivered, and just that tiny motion threatened to cut herself on it. The hook of the blade went up and teased, pulling at one of her nipple rings. The wind blew and made her already hard nipples titanium. It kept tugging.

"Is this mine too? Or should I take it from you the hard way?"

"What the fuck are you- ah!" She winced, but didn't dare pull away. The best she could do was lean forward to alleviate the pain, but suddenly the tugging on the piercing stopped. The point of the knife was pressed directly into her nipple, making her eyes sting and her mouth taste metal as a small rivulet of blood from the shallow cut.

Buffy's hand was as steady as death and taxes. Green eyes burned into her own.

"Want to try that again?"

"N-no."

"No what?"

"No ma'am."

"Answer my question. Does this piece of metal belong to me?"

"Y-yes ma'am," she said, face on fire with fury, with shame, with raw arousal.

Pressure dissipated from the nipple and she gasped in relief, but the knife kept traveling down until it reached the hem of her underwear. This could get ugly unless Faith was very, very, very still.

She didn't even take a breath, didn't even blink, even stopped the wind from blowing for a moment with the sheer survivalistic terror. Slowly, and right over Faith's most sensitive spots, Buffy cut the panties off.

"And this?" she said, flinging the black fabric off of the blade like discarded cuts of meat before getting back to work. "Is this mine, too?"

She asked it so innocently, like she was asking the breed of a dog. Her head tilted, voice lilting, light, breezy. The blade was directly in the slit of Faith's pussy, frigid fire.

"Y-yes ma'am—" Faith whispered.

It turned slightly, and Buffy wasn't even looking at it. It hurt, but it didn't break the skin. "Sorry, say that again? This wind, y'know."

The wind hasn't blown in like, 13 seconds, you prick. Fuck you. I hate you.

"Yes ma'am! Please don't hurt… hurt there."

"So, what, you're saying this belongs to me too?"

"Yes. God, yes."

"Alright." Buffy nodded, and leaned down.

Her tongue was longer than Faith had anticipated, hot wet stripes so antithetical to the freezing steel of the knife, twisting on her. Buffy kissed all of her so gently, playing her like an instrument with her tongue as the hot honey light started to fill up Faith's bones again. It started just trailing on the outside, of moaning into Faith's pussy as she drank her clear-blood.

The blade wasn't forgotten. Sometimes Buffy would rest her cheek against Faith's thigh, sometimes her tongue would lick it, other times the blade would. Red and clear glistening on her thighs, shallow, shallow cuts that just made Faith's pussy ache from the cold of the wind getting into the wounds.

She would take it all for her. She would be good. Hers to mark up and break if she so chose. Faith was pretty sure she came with a warranty.

Her tongue eventually went inside of her, twisting and flowering inside of her. Buffy's nose occasionally brushed up against the clit as the strong, definitely-longer-than-average tongue curved up and into her. Faith was pretty sure with how light she felt, the tongue could lift her up off the grass if Buffy really tried.

"Ah, God, damn—" she muttered, eyes closed and but still welling tears, fists gripping the grass so hard her knuckles went white. She was close. Fuck. Fuck. The tongue twisted inside of her like a snake, turned inside of her like a key, and she just kept on clicking. Her toes curled, her eyes rolled up as the hot honey flooded up through her legs and shone out of her eyes and pooled up in her shoulders and forearms, but she just COULDN'T come.

WHWHYWYWHYWHWYWHYW

"Please.. I just…" if I had a dollar for every time I said that, some distant, cold part of her said. "Let me cum?"

She was punished enough. She had done enough. She needed rest. Redemption. Resolution.

"Cum for me, Faith."

The permission was enough, in fact, Buffy knowing that Faith needed permission was enough. Complete humiliation. Complete reliance. Complete incompletion. Her legs trembled and quaked and tightened as Faith was hollowed and hallowed. Buffy drank everything that came, greedily, not letting any rain drop, but the bliss didn't stop. The slayer connection was buzzing through her, intensifying the orgasm just as brutally as it had the pain, making her shake and tremble so bad she thought she was having a fuckin' seizure.

Eventually, after a few gentle kisses on her pussy and on her wounds, Buffy came back up to wrap Faith in her jacket, holding her together through the shock.

The dissolution orgasm lasted for a long while, at least two sways of the trees in the wind overhead, at least two kisses to her lips, one strand of saliva, one kiss on her forehead, and ended with an assurance that it would all be alright.

For a time, Faith really, honestly believed her.

She was hers now. Maybe she always was. Sweet defeat.

Chapter Text

Buffy

She didn't even need to cum, something about the taste of Faith, the cries that she ripped out of the dark haired slayer, the hot static that built up in the other girl's bones… Buffy felt all of it. The connection cauterized the two together, it broke the skin barrier, it made everything melt together. Pleasure rolled out of Faith’s body and into her own like a shimmer on the top of a wheat field.

It created a feedback loop, of course. Pleasure doubled as Faith picked up on the reverberations of it from Buffy, and when her Owner held her close and kissed her, it only intensified. The pleasure didn't begin and end at the wracking orgasm, but seemed to sway softly in the wind, never in stasis, only going up and down like they were sailing on an ocean of light.

"Huh." Buffy observed.

Faith sighed and snuggled deeper into her. Static discharge of slayer energies zapping between them, echoes of pleasure, fragments of echoes of visions of herself over and inside of her. God, I didn't look like that did I? The sight of her hungry, unfamiliar green eyes bleeding into her mind directly from Faith's was seriously wigging her out.

Her cheeks flushed. Part of her wanted to shove Faith away and tell her it meant nothing. She simply gave Faith the relief she needed. I don't have to pretend to like you, though. Something about the thought didn't ring right. Cold certainty that always made these decisions easier was so far away from her now.

The wind blew, but only a shade of a breeze reached them down below. Her prisoner's hair shuffled slightly in it, her brow furrowed, her lip worried and quivered like it was some great injustice that Buffy hadn't stopped the wind itself while she was doing all… that.

She needed release. Who knows what would have happened if I didn't give it to her? I've seen the way she shakes, the way her hand trembles and her eyes water when she hasn't killed. Hasn't fucked. I'm her keep-in-checker, so I have to… handle… that. Ugh. I need a break.

"Oki doki-", she squeaked to herself, nodding.

"Shut up, B, fuck."

The blood was pooling in her cheeks, the rasp, the whisper in Faith's voice going straight between her legs. Straight! Just like me! Her hands saw the other woman while her green eyes held her. Made her real. Unlike the things that Buffy had just done to her. Mhm.

There was, deep in the Summers girl's mind, a box. It was like any other box, maybe a bit more pink, a few stickers—probably a makeup box— but it was a box nonetheless. That was where she shoved the memories of drinking Faith, the sensation of blood being sucked off of her thumb, of the broken little whimpers and squeals she cut out of her with the tip of the knife that had brutalized Faith months and months ago but that she dreamed of every fucking night.

She always was a messy packer, and now was no different. The memories hardly fit in the repression box (Buffy had to put most of her body weight on the lid to get the latch closed), but damnit, she managed. The lock clicked.

And yet, there they stayed, just a little longer.

"We got to fucking bounce, G!"

"Believe you me, I heard you the first time!", Giles shouted, preparing a crossbow tipped in some dreadful poison. Faith looked at Buffy, Buffy gave her a stern look that made the other woman avert her gaze.

Good. 

"Is the bow almost crossed, Giles?" her own voice didn't seem completely unannoyed. They did have to bounce, Faith was right. Their quarry was fast, and they were sure it was headed straight for its master.

"Crossed! Let's get to it, then, shall we?" Giles said, running past Faith (I hate it when he runs. Old men should not be that fast, methinks) and into the streets of Sunnydale. Luckily, there were practically no bystanders. One young man with rounded glasses took one look at the idiots running past him, did a little puff of his lips, sighed, and just kept walking. That kind of annoyed apathy when faced with incomprehensible supernatural terrors was the Sunnydale special.

Faith almost knocked him over, but Buffy caught him.

"Sorry about her! She's! Sorry!"

"Not really!" a distant voice shouted, and only getting more distant. Buffy continued running after her, catching up after not too long.

They were chasing some weird snake like demon (I hate snakes. I've decided. Done deal. They're right up there with the 1995 Macy's Spring Fashion Catalogue) that had come into the Magic Box, taken one look at Dawn, and high tailed it out of there. She knew what that meant.

Glory is looking for the key. She can't know. No matter what. 

Even with Giles unsettling athletic prowess and their slayer speed, they just… couldn't… quite… catch… up.

BWAM!

          'WHAT IN THE FUCK!?'

                    BANG BANG BANG

                                 Hissssssssssssssssssssssss!

                                         BANG BANG. 

                                                       hssss… his…………hssssss….

Silence.

It didn't take long for them to break out of the thin line of forest separating them from the road that the snake demon was now on. There was a mini van with a freshly crumpled bumper there. Faith put out both hands to stop the other two before they could leave the cover of the trees. Her eyes were wide, her lashes absolutely unmoving curves in the darkness, but Buffy's eyes were able to pick up their subtly different shade of darkness to that of the night.

"GOD DAMNIT! FUCKIN' NASTIES!"

BANG BANG BANG. 

Charlie walked into view, circling the now dead snake demon with his pistol in hand. He was running his hand through the smoke stack hair curving upwards.

"ERIC! WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT! CHECK ON THE FUCKING CHAFING DISHES!"

"Oh my," Giles muttered under his breath.

"What's a 'chafing dish'? Is that some kind of bomb?" Buffy asked, leaning her head into Faith's personal space. Smells like that black and mild flavor I told her I liked the scent of one time weeks and weeks ago. The one she hasn't stopped smoking since. Good girl. 

Faith wasn't amused by their commentary. She pinched her nose.

"Nah, it's… fuck me, man," she had a long suffering sigh, "it's a food thing. Keeps the food hot when you deliver it to events and shit."

"Oh, so he delivers bullets AND food hot n' ready?" Faith grumbled something nasty under her breath while Buffy tilted her head innocently.

"Chu-chu-charlie I fink the chafing dish is… fu-fu-fucked."

"ERIC" was an old man, skinnier than anyone should be. His words were distracted, wandering things, like fear alone was the only thing corralling them into a sentence.

"What?" Charlie whispered, and Buffy felt the shiver in Faith's skin, wanting to smooth it like wrinkles in a bed sheet. "Are ya telling me… you didn't arrange em' right?"

"I jush didn't expec' to get into a crashh"

"STOP BLABBERIN AT ME! JUST! FUCK!"

He stormed over to the back of the van. What he saw made the whites of his eyes big enough for Buffy to see from the 15 or so yards that separated them.

"FUUUUUACCCK!" There was a terrible cacophony of banging pans and so on. Whatever it was, it was bad.

"Oh my," Giles said again, and for a second, Buffy thought that that was all he was going to say. "Is he always like this?"

"Only on good days. On bad days, he's uh… he's worse."

"So, wait, how did he even find a kitchen to work in? How did he find events to cater already? Why not just sell drugs? He does have those, right?"

"It's fuckin' Charlie. He could find work in Death Valley if you dropped him there by helicopter."

"Perhaps we should test that hypothesis," said Giles.

Charlie wandered back to the front of the van, putting his head in his hands and deliberating. Looking at the snake. Looking at the car. Looking at Eric.

"OK. Here's what we're gonna dew. Toss the disposable chafing dishes, put the rest in the passenger seat," Eric interrupted to ask where he was gonna sit, and Buffy was surprised that he didn't get shot for the audacity.

"Yew shit, you're gonna be in the back, we're takin' the nasty back to the kitchen. Where the fuck else would ya be?"

"Guh?" Okay, Faith's personality is starting to make a lot more sense. "Is he gonna? No, no" Buffy nervously laughed, "right? He's not going to cook the snake, right?"

Silence met her. Of course he was going to cook the snake demon. What else would he do with the transmogrified snake deity?

"Wait a minute, hold up," Spike said, hands up like he was directing some over eager traffic. Faith and Buffy were in his crypt, staring him down like bad cop and worse cop. "I thought you kept your hound on a tighter leash nowadays, Slayer, but now that it's convenient you just want to tap back into that supply line me and her had going?"

Buffy pretended to think for a second, "yeah! I think that just about covers it." She gave him a humorless, cold little smile, doing enough arm crossing for the both of the slayers (since Faith was appraising Spike's liquor collection).

"Ayaight, then, all you had to say. Faith, wanna go hit up Clem, see if he knows some guys who know some guys?"

"Ahem, in case you forgot, I'm still standing. Same place as I was half a second ago," Buffy said, a paragon of patience.

"Right, where are my manners? Hello, Buffy. Faith, wanna go hit up Clem, see if he knows some guys who know some guys?"

"Sounds like a good time to me, I'm game. Been a while since I've seen him."

"Clem!" Buffy suddenly exclaimed, one of her brows twitching at the exclusion of her in this plan, "let's go see how he's doing! See if he's eaten any kittens lately!"

"B, Clem ain't like that. He's vegetarian."

"He's what?" Buffy looked at Faith like she'd grown another head.

"Y'know, doesn't eat meat or whatever."

"I know what veget- nevermind. Just… just stop aggravating me. Lets go pay Clem a visit. We've got a shopping list of all the things Giles can't get for the hokey pokey."

That was what they were calling it now. The ritual. Where Buffy would have to shed Faith's lifeblood on her blade once more. The thought made her sick. The thought made her mouth water. Faith just kept giving her damp, eager, brown looks every time they talked about it, like she would do anything for Buffy.

Anything? 

Her face lit up, and she decided to lead the way to Clem's, turning around like a toy soldier.

"Let's go!" Inside, Faith and Spike looked at each other as Buffy opened the door and stepped out into the night. They followed, though, of course, because Buffy commanded it. She just kept right on walking. In completely the wrong direction, of course, but she walked, alright.

"How long til you reckon she realizes she hasn't got a bloody clue where she's goin'?"

"Ehh," Faith said, wrinkling her nose a bit and calculating, "'bout thirteen seconds."

"Twenty three seconds."

"Five bucks to the victor?" Spike said.

"Yep."

"You sure you want in on this?" Faith had said, to which Buffy responded,

"I'm an expert at poking. Poker was probably named after me." She even threw in a little half smile. Because she was feeling generous, but Faith just groaned.

Buffy lasted about half a round of demon poker. The demons looked like the last thing they wanted to do was to win against her, in fact, they looked just as put out about her losing as she felt.

When she stood up from the table, muttering something and knocking over her chips, some of them winced. Good. That's the least they can do. One even cowered. Just for that, she would let them live. At least long enough to finish this game. She would show mercy, because that's what heroes do. 

In all seriousness, she didn't like this place. It was grimy, dim, like it was trying its best to hide her light in so much smog. As much as she hated losing, part of her was relieved when she got to stand up and take a step outside.

Brown eyes met her green ones, one brighter than the sun, the other darker than the night.

'Do you want me to come with you?' Faith's eyes said to her, the connection buzzing and sparking from the glanced contact, so much so that Buffy felt like she could hear Faith's voice in her head.

'No,' she said, with just a twitch of her brow, a sigh that was never finished, and a lowering of her top eyelid. 'I like you just where you are. I'll come back for you when you're done.'

She didn't feel her heart race when Faith blushed, looking away towards her cards. She didn't feel hungry as she walked past her, eyes glancing down her black tanktop, her bra sticking just out of. She didn't. Not one bit.

Faith

"So, wait, the demon got ran over? Why did it run away in the first place?" Dawn asked.

"Maybe it saw you eating a booger?" Buffy offered.

They went on bickering for a while, but Faith tuned it out. The older Summers would say her name if she wanted her attention, the younger one would probably throw something at her head.

Still haven't forgiven the little shit for spilling to her sister.