POV Buffy.
It’s really, really hard to remember the fun times, when the bad times won’t stop nipping at your ass. When duty is the only thing that’s allowed to fill your head from the minute you wake up, till the minute you fall wearily back to bed. And even then, no respite. No escape from dreams which haunt the periphery of your night vision. Screaming. So much damn screaming. My head would toss and turn with it, my limbs would tense and tighten with it, and in amongst all of that noise, I just couldn’t get a fix on what the source of the problem was. Slayer dreams at their sweetest. Why the PTB couldn’t just send us a detailed itinerary I’ll never know. No. Way too easy. A much better plan would be to send disjointed fragments of dreams, which leave me trembling with such fear, that fighting evil is the last thing I want to do. Yep! Full marks of planning to the PTB!
At least they have a plan. Our plans involve babysitting. Watching over the witches and waiting for a bad that we’re still not sure we believe in. Faith is sure. After she had spoken again to Angel, she had assured us all that it was the truth. It didn’t matter what Giles had to say, what Anya had to say. She has complete conviction in Angel. I have complete conviction in her. And of course the dreams . Hopefully not the kind that come true.
All it leaves us with is the name of a thing that we can barely pronounce. That we can’t even begin to understand. It sounds something like ‘Geraldo’. Straight up, the talk show host on the telly? I always thought that he was a little off… but not soul sucking evil leech off. It gives Dawn more excuse to watch the tragedy that is that talk show though, her eyes glazing over as she concentrates fully on the traumas of alcoholic parents and the affect that it has on the kids. I wonder if she thinks it would be a better life. Definitely more stable. I argued with her that it wasn’t really valid research, but she just raised her eyebrows and said she was doing research into the leechy moustache that sits just under the guy’s nose. What can you say to that?
As plans go she was leading the field. Cordy had hightailed it back to LA, going to retrieve Angel’s extensive information… but for us good guys here in Sunnydale? Nothing.
Every single second since the Bronze has been a torturous round of research, watching the witches, and working the Doublemeat. I’ve read more Latin then I’ll ever understand, but again, we aren’t getting anywhere. We’ve had snippets of information from Spike, all the news from the undead grave-vine. I almost resent it. Hate it so much. I see the way that he revels in it, the way that he almost taunts us with it before he’ll give it up. It’s not like we can beat it out of him, he is all that we have to go on right now. So I accept his predatory gazes, the darkness in his eyes as he tries to pretend that it’s all okay. That I can still even look at him without wanting to tear out my eyes. Erase every memory.
Maybe he thinks that it holds sway with me. That I’m on his side. That we shared something special..? All I know is that to me it feels like sickness, a sickness that I don’t ever want to remember, something that I never want to feel again.
I let the breeze in the air carry my thoughts away. Lean myself back against the wall and look for some sunshine. It is there, just behind the clouds. You only have to know where to look for it. I search out the tiny rays that have found a way to break through, let them caress my bare shoulders and infuse me with a little warmth. Let my mind wander for just a second, just one minute away from duty. I have ten minutes before Wills finishes classes, I can indulge.
Indulge is a word that makes me smile. I don’t care if I look like the crazy girl with a manic sized grin plastered firmly from ear to ear. I am insane. It’s almost official. And I love it. I love the way that just one flash to the memory of kissing her lips is enough to make me feel that everything is worth living for. I had felt the beginnings of it on my birthday, and in that murky little bathroom in the Bronze, I had found my truth in it. Just breathing in that same space of air as her makes me feel alive. Maybe more alive than I ever felt. I don’t know.
I remember touches of feelings I had never let grow. The touches before all of the bad ones had come. Touches in sparring, in training, in dancing. They had always meant something to me, a thing which I treasured, a thing that I had held dear. And now in my state of indulgence I have to wonder if they hadn’t always meant this. That somewhere underneath it all, we weren’t always destined to have this strength of feeling for each other. It had just always seemed so… naughty? Yeah. It was wrong. Wrong the way that slaying at her side had always made me rush home with thoughts about laying at her side. The surety in Angel’s presence, being knocked sideways by the complete confusion in hers. The danger scared me, the ride thrilled me. And it all ended up so badly. I stopped trying to work it through a long, long time ago. I spent that first few months after grad trying to understand what had happened, how so much had gone wrong. Why?
I think I had even started accepting some of the responsibility. So much so that when she had come back to us from that coma, I would have forgiven her everything. Would have offered her the hand that I had always meant to offer. Maybe offered everything that I had always meant to offer?
And I can’t take the blame for the next one. For what happened then. It still hurts to remember. It still feels like a blur.
It’s a time that I will never understand until I have had the time to talk to her about it. It certainly killed my sense of forgiveness, my need to bring her back to us. I hated what she did. How she did it. The ways that she hurt me. I hated it so much that it was more than easy to forget how much I had hurt her too. It didn’t matter… I had been ready to forgive, to accept, and she had thrown that back at me. In the end, all I had gained from that whole experience was more confusion. Not knowing what any of the feelings which invaded me meant. What she meant.
Could I really hate this girl in front of me, the one who was broken, who was asking for just the shot at making it right? Making it better. Could I hate the girl who had turned herself over to the police, because she believed that it was what I wanted? That it would prove that she was changing. That she was sorry.
God. I tried to make it hate. I succeeded in making it hate. It was so much easier than ever crossing the boundaries to the truth.
I hear Willow’s incessant chatter in the distance and look to see her walking my way surrounded by friends. Not people I know, nothing to do with the Scoobs. Just friends. Her eyes not bearing the worry of the world, but rather lighting with the thrill of the intellectual banter. It makes her shine, it makes me smile my greeting to her.
“Hey Wills, hard day at the office?”
She makes her goodbyes to the crowd and turns to me with a smile of her own. “Hey Buffy, you got the ‘babysitting Willow’ job for today then?”
“I requested it… I thought we could maybe get coffee?”
There hasn’t been the time yet to make my apology to Willow. To recover the connection that as best friends we have let slip. I have let slip. All the times that she had sought to see that I was okay, and I had brushed her aside to find my okay in him. It’s kind of repulsive. A repulsion I can imagine in her eyes, in the way that we have barely spoken since the other night. It forces my tone to embrace perky, my hand to clasp around hers as I try to cling on to the idea of friendship.
“Coffee’s good… although with the crazy super strong handholding, I may have to take mine through a straw…”
“Huh..? Oh… oh, right!” I let go of her hand and wince as she shakes some feeling back through it. “So how were classes?”
“Surprisingly good. I was worried I’d be distracted by the impending doomyness, but nope! It was nice to have something else to focus on… I’m SO losing my love of the Latin.”
“I hear ya Wills.” I lead her off in the direction of the coffee house. “No more love for Latin, and no more love of Geraldo.”
“Hirudo.”
“See!” I open my eyes wide, use my hands to exclaim it too. “I still can’t even remember the thing’s name… I have Dawn’s obsession with a chat show host, Faith’s insistence on calling it ‘rude dude’… Giles insisting it probably isn’t even real. I need a vacation.”
“The end of the world pretty much includes the whole world though Buffy, where ya gonna go to?”
Was I supposed to have answers for everything? “Oh, I don’t know, I just… a break would be nice.”
I see her gaze take on a faraway look, imagining her own kind of break. Her own time away from all of the crap. When her words come they sound like pleading. “Hey, you think that when all this is over, we’ll be able to get away for a few days? Maybe visit the guys in LA?”
“When all this is over Wills, we can do whatever we like. I’m gonna decree it.”
“See… you are mastering the Latin! Today a ‘decree’, tomorrow the, ‘Hirudo Beluosa.’”
It sounds so poetic, the way she lets it fall from her tongue. Shame it’s a great big soul sucking demon leech from the very pits of evil itself. “How about we abandon the foreign languages for today and concentrate on the coffee?”
“It’s a plan!”
And I KNEW I had a good plan in me somewhere! I take her arm and pull her the last of the distance to the house of the caffeine induced goodyness. Slide her into a booth and make my way to the counter. It’s fun to watch Wills get sloshed on the heavy stuff, but today we’ll keep it light. No crazy twitching and face pulling whilst I’m trying to work my way through apologies and explanations. I set the cups down and settle myself down. I don’t have to pretend anymore, I don’t have to offer my best friend the eyes that lack all sorts of anything. Don’t have to banish the real words behind the false ones. Her eyes are soft and green as they fall to rest on me, and I can see how hard she isn’t going to make this. How reassuring it is as her hand drops to mine and gives me the squeeze to continue.
“I guess you know what this is right?”
“My senses tell me coffee, but I’m gonna say we’re going with deep and meaningful.”
“Always so smart.” I draw in that breath that needs to be drawn, let it flow out. “I’m sorry Wills, I’m sorry for all of it… sorry for abandoning you, the others, sorry for lying to you…”
“It’s ok.”
It is?
“No Will, it’s not okay, I have to face up to what I did, the people I’ve hurt.”
“Yeah, facing up is of the good, but if you start, we all have to start… could take some time.”
“I don’t think anyone else comes close to touching my badness.”
She shakes her head a little, not morosely, more in disbelief. “Oh wow, you always have to be the front runner… Faith kills people, I go super suped up on the big bad mojo, Dawn gets all hari-kari with the whisky, Anya’s an ex-demon who took joy in evisceration… but you still think you’re leading the field for badness. Is it ego?”
And is she serious?
“You’re not mad at me? You don’t wanna turn me into a toad or something?”
“Nothing amphibious!”
Her eyes have flown wide and I forgot all about the frog fear. “Back up, breathe!”
It’s funny in the way that she just is funny. The Willow way.
“Breathing, backed up…” She slides me a little wink and I slide her a huge fat smile. “…but no, no turning, no madness… a little confusion, hurt. Definite wigging.”
“You’re wigging?”
“Double wigging.”
I let my face show the gravity of the double wiggings. “That’s pretty bad huh?”
“Well, it’s not everyday that you find out that your best friend is sleeping with a blood guzzling dead guy…” She pauses as I nod. “…OH! Wait!”
And now I think I’ll knot my brows in confusion, “Huh?”
“I guess I should be used to it. You and the blood sucking dead guys…”
In the end I settle for shaking my head and holding in the laughter. Letting her continue on her merry journey of humiliation. “…honestly Buffy? I’ve been thinking, and maybe you have an addiction too? Me and you could be sponsors… with the meetings, the twelve step path to recovery…”
“You’re a dope Will.”
She raises her eyebrows to tell me that she knows, that she plays it on purpose. That she wanted this to be bathed in light and not all about the heavy. It is a little heavy though. I still want to make it better.
“I never meant to go there, to go to him… I just, with everything.” And the sighs make their expected return. “I felt so bad being back, you guys were so… happy, so into the good times… at first I just didn’t want to break that. To ruin it for you.”
“You could of told us Buffy. We would’ve worked it out… there was gonna be movie nights…”
“I wish that I had. But he was there… and it felt like he understood me, knew the place I had come from…”
“The ground?”
“Death. It’s all I could taste at first, all that I could see.”
“And I was too wrapped up in my magic to even notice… I’m sorry Buffy.”
Huh? Her voice is soft and solemn and she’s speaking out of turn. This is my apology to make. Me who was wrong. I accept that. “No way. It wouldn’t have made a difference, I just… all I wanted was to be dead again, to be back where I had come from… to feel safe.”
I can feel the familiar feeling again. The warmth and the comfort. It did feel like my mothers arms, and I did miss it terribly.
“We didn’t realise Buffy, we thought… or I thought, that you were somewhere kinda helly… I never would of taken you from there if we had known.”
“It doesn’t matter anymore Wills, I’m happy to be back… it’s taken a while, I can admit that, but now I’m firmly of the happy.” I smile to prove it, she smiles right back. “All I want to do now is to beat this thing and get on with living. Not too much to ask?”
“The perfect thing to ask.”
We chink our cardboard cups together, as if we can confirm it with the gesture. Both of us wanting to get back to the happy times. “Anyway, enough of my grossly morosely bad stuff, what about you… what have you been up to?”
“Mostly just Tara.”
I can’t help but laugh a little. “It didn’t have to be sex Wills, I meant in general…”
“But it IS all I’ve been doing.” Her grin is all sexy and cute. “We’re practically under house arrest, we’re still getting used to the being back togetherness… and oh yeah, somehow we’re the key to big honking bad evil… what do you think we do Buffy? Talk politics?”
“Okay, point taken.” I had thought that all the hours spent up in their room was avoidance of me, or a deep devotion to research. It made more sense to think that they were just a pair of wanton hussy horn dogs. Made me realise that all the time I had been spending thinking about Faith, didn’t make me such a bad person after all. The easiness with which the duty thoughts were replaced.
“And you and Faith? You past the talking about politics stage yet?”
The coffee flies from my mouth in a perfect stream through the air. “Uh… politics?”
“Oh come on. The Bronze… you must know we’re not all stupid. Except Xander… he still isn’t sure he believes it.”
“I… we…” I know my mouth is trying hard to work, but what to say? How to explain it?
“I know, I know… you finally slipped out the stick and got with the girly loving… it’s great, right?”
“NO!” I turn red as the whole establishment looks towards us. Throw my widened eyes straight to Willow’s in a way that says, ‘Stop. Now. Or face the wrath of a pissed off slayer’. It’s good to see her laughing, catching the gazes of the onlookers.
“Nothing to see here folks. It’s tourettes… she’s medicated.”
And god, how does she sound so serious? I follow the shakes of heads from the crowd. The sympathetic glances. She is SO bad! “Thanks Will, as if the people of this town didn’t already think I was strange enough.”
“You can never be too strange!”
I nod my supposed agreement. Wonder what it would ever be like to be normal. “You do know though, we didn’t… you know… in the bathroom… we weren’t…”
“I know that silly, just teasing.” She arches the devilish eyebrows again. “Faith filled us in, just a little kissy kissy… nothing more, nothing less.”
“She filled you in?”
“We threatened to put a truth spell on her, she had no choice.”
I had thought that Faith had the better deal the last couple of days, watching the witches whilst I flipped the burgers. Now maybe I’m not so sure. The witches are evil. “That’s kinda mean.”
“And you’re kinda dopey.”
I am? I don’t know. I know I’m losing the thread of the conversation. I just vaguely nod, hope it covers it.
“Faith was just setting us straight… I think we over-teased her, she isn’t so keen on teasing, you should remember that.” And devilish again. “She really thinks a lot of you…”
“And I think a lot of her.” She’s almost all I think about in fact. “I don’t know what would have happened if she hadn’t come back when she had… if she hadn’t been there for everyone…”
My voice slips right back into the tone of solemn. Not sad, just honest. A truth that shouldn’t be laughed at. “…it was her Wills, seeing her again… remembering her, it all made me want more… made me want to live again, she just made me feel like living. Crazy right?”
“Not crazy.” She smiles so I continue.
“And then realising that she felt how she did, seeing the ways that she looked at me… god it scared me so much. I knew the truth. Knew how bad I was, how disgusting.”
“Hold up on the big words Buffy, it was a mistake. We all make them.”
“Exactly!” My head was nodding like a rocker in a mosh pit. “I saw how much she had changed, the way that she had made herself better, beaten her mistakes… and it just, I believed in her. I believed that I could get better… and the way she made me feel Wills?”
She is hanging onto my words. Hearing each of them. “All I want now is to be good enough for her.” And it’s the truth. I wanna wash all of the bad stuff away, banish the disgust so that I can stand in front of her and offer her everything that she deserves.
“Buffy!”
What? My mind is still offering everything that Faith deserves. She deserves a lot. I shake it though, regain some focus. “Huh?”
“You are good enough! You’re super good, like the goodest…”
“Not a chance, but thanks for saying it.” Now her eyes flash something other than happy. I don’t need sympathy, I’m not on a downer, I just know the truth. “Look Willow, these last few months I’ve been doing everything I can to make myself less, to make myself nothing… it’s a long way back, I get that.”
“I think that you’re wrong.”
“You do?”
“I know how she feels about you, regardless of the bad stuff.”
I have to sigh, and again it’s not sad. It’s just realisation of truths. “I abused her feelings before Wills, I don’t want to do that again.”
And it’s her turn to look confused. “Huh?”
I settle myself down, get ready to impart some ‘Buffy and Faith 101’. History for the masses. “You think I don’t know how she felt about me back then? The things that she offered me, the way that she made me feel?… I knew it all Wills, god, I couldn’t stand next to her without feeling the heat of it, the burning…”
And I do remember. The sparring. The training. The dancing.
“…and I took that, I played it, and I ignored it. I told her that she had made me a victim…” I pause to draw breath, to bitter laugh the truth to myself. “…yet all the time I knew how much that I had hurt her too. I let myself believe I was innocent, that I was better… could I have been more stupid?”
“Well, to be fair… she went psycho and killed people.”
“Besides the point!” And I know it isn’t, but it isn’t the point for now. “I just don’t want to play her again. I want this to be real.”
She gives me all the compassion, all the friendship, everything I could need with the look in her eyes. In the touch of her hand that sits warm against mine. “It is real Buffy, we all see it. From the minute she came back we saw it…”
“I hope so.”
“I KNOW so! In fact I decree it!”
My heart is pounding with the thought of love with Faith. Like my whole life it wanted to beat this way and I never let it, and now I have, it’s working overtime to compensate. My hormones are doing the same. I’m trying to ignore them. It’s all about the love. Uh-huh.
“I double decree it.”
I think back to the bathroom in the Bronze. So much and so little. And barely a minute to see her since. Lots of phone time. But no real time. No physical time. No ‘god damn it Faith, if you don’t touch me now I swear I shall explode… and hey, when ya do touch me..? I’m gonna be exploding anyway!’… no. Not a minute of time for that reality. I guess the world of badness decrees it. I slurp on my coffee till the noise which signals the empty cup, becomes annoying. Wiggle it at Willow, get up to get more. It feels so good to be in her space again… my best friend, and it feels like the first time I have spoken to her in months. It feels like a lifetime. I look back to her and smile, see her return it with gusto. I didn’t know how much I had missed her. How much I had missed everything in this crazy little thing called life.
I slide my way back to the seat after securing the caffeine. It’s probably not such a hot idea, more of the hard stuff, sleeping with the nightmares is bad enough. Extra stimulants definitely won’t help. I’m feeling carefree though. Like I could take on the world and win.
“So aside from the heavy stuff Buff, what’s it like?”
“Huh?”
“Well ya know, you… and Faith. Together. Kinda kooky right?”
I grin and shake my head back and forth. “Not so much with the kooky, to tell you the truth it feels a whole lot like destiny… that sounds insane right?”
“I guess it makes sense, ‘the chosen two’. Kinda puts you together whether you like it or not… definitely all destined.”
“It’s more than that Wills, it’s the power, the strength… the whole damn calling. They always say ‘one girl in all the world’… well we changed that, and it feels like we changed it for a reason. Like we knew how lonely it was, how hard it could be…and we said screw it. Almost like we were made for each other.”
And that was heartfelt. Doesn’t stop the giggles. The rolling of eyes. “You are so whupped, as in bad… as in ‘oh this feels like destiny’… smoted!”
And I don’t care. If this is whupped, then I love whupped. I love Faith. I can feel it.
“Thanks for your support and mockery of my heartfelt emotion!” I poke her in the side, just a little dig. “I forgot how good sharing with best friends was.”
“Hey, I do support you! Anything you want help with… any tips you might need? I’m happy to share, I‘m share gal!”
“Tips?”
“For the action stations. The girly loving baby!”
She thinks she can embarrass me. And I wanna cry out my laughter. Instead I force out the words. “Really Wills, that is SO nice of you to offer, but ya know?” She shakes her head, looks intrigued. I lift my hand, wiggle my fingers. “I’ve been practicing on myself for years now, really… I’m sure I can figure it out!”
And I wink, and I crow. Victory to the slayer. She just nods. And she looks. And she blushes. And I am SO the winner here. Take on Buffy and you know you’re going down.
I watch her compose herself, watch her mouth open in defeat. “I always knew you were super with the flexible.”
“Huh?”
“Well I wasn’t offering finger tips.” She lets her tongue peek out from between her pale pink lips, lets it run all the way around in the smallest dance of seduction. Barely there. Definitely noticeable. “And hey Buffy, if you’ve been practising ‘that’ on yourself for years… totally flexible. Big with.”
What can I do? I poke out my tongue.
“Well it looks to be in working order… you want to demonstrate further?”
And I laugh. And I admit defeat. It wasn’t really a fair fight, she does have more experience than me. “I’m saving the demonstrations Wills, and believe me, if I need tips?”
She smiles, she feels like a winner.
“I’ll be sure to ask Tara!”
And we descend again into giggles and fun. I love this. I love every minute of this.
“Tara is good, the best even… I’m thinking with Faith though, she’ll show you the way.” Her eyes go wide as she thinks it through. “Hey, maybe you’ll be giving us the tips!”
And I don’t want to think it, because if I start to think it I won’t be able to stop. My body keeps screaming out this need to go to her, and I have to keep dulling it with the needs of the world. With duty. With the other kind of destiny. We finish up our second coffee and head off into the early evening warmth. I have to get Willow home, then I have to go to work. If I’m lucky I’ll get to see Dawn for five minutes, if I’m super lucky I’ll get to see Faith for maybe one. I won’t let it get me down though, we have a deal. Save the world and then save us.
Me and Wills make the fun talk all the way to the house, my senses on full alert, yet my attention still resting with her. Still bantering, still having fun. Still just being Buffy and Willow. Not ‘big bad mojo witch’ and her vampire screwing side kick. Just us. Just friends.
Just slipping the key into the lock and turning the door handle. Still smiles, still fun. And then seeing what had happened in the front room! It was beyond apocalyptic. It looked like a massacre on a dairy farm. There was Anya and Faith and Dawn and Tara. All of them armed with a can of squeezy cream, all of them not caring where it went or how it got there. I didn’t know what to do, whether to laugh or to cry.
“Guys? Anyone… guys… argh!”
And yeah. Straight in the face, courtesy of Dawn.
It changed my mind about wanting to see her for five minutes. For any minutes. Made me throw off the worry of work and dive my way across the sofa to get to her, to hold her down and grab the can from her hands. To not care that it would stink later if we
didn’t clean up properly… I was going to work. Not my bad.
She screamed as I got her, as the nozzle ended up embedded in her hair. It was the best scream I’ve heard in months. Pure unadulterated joy. It sounded like fun times. And then it sounded like scolding.
“Oh for crying out loud!”
It wasn’t so much the volume as the tone. Either way we all stopped dead. All hung our heads like naughty children and turned to face Giles.
“I go out of the room for ten minutes and chaos descends?” He stomped his way to the coffee table, to the texts that lay slightly rumpled from the onslaught. “Honestly, I don’t know if any of you understands the seriousness of this situation…”
“Hey, chill Giles, it was my fault… I was just trying to lighten the tone, I didn’t mean for the stuff to get…”
“Faith, do I have to point out that we’re facing a possible apocalypse here? I thought surely that you would understand the gravity of the situation!”
He really was busting a gut. Maybe it was the cream stained literature, maybe it really was just the gravity of the situation, whichever… he was standing in front of Faith like an irate father, looking to give a lecture. Her face was a picture. Head slanted to the side as if she was taking his measure. Almost amusement shining bright through her eyes. I could picture a confrontation, could see how these two sides could collide at any moment. I felt like I wanted to protect her. Defend her.
I was over by Faith before I knew it, offering her a smile which brought her eyes round to me, took them from him. It raised my mouth further. Set my senses alight. I really have missed her. The stolen seconds between shift changes, the moments when we swapped witches, swapped duties. It wasn’t enough. Late night phone calls nothing compared to the wonderment of standing before her. Of knowing her truths and her knowing mine. I love her. And every single second that her gaze rests upon me I am falling in love with her, crazy madly deeply in love. So in love that I almost forgot Giles, forgot that I had started with a purpose other than smiling at her.
“Giles!” I remembered with shock, a nervous laugh. Turned to give him my full attention. This was my house, my home… and I had waited for far too long to hear laughter within it. “We all understand the gravity of the situation, we’ve been living with it for weeks.”
He cast his look back to the table, to chaos. “Your behaviour could better reflect that, I don’t think childish food fights are the right way to combat the forces of darkness. Do you?”
Oh come off it. He has no idea. I looked him straight in the eye, raised the can in my hand up to face level. His face level. Watched that moment of horror as he realised what I was going to do.
“Buffy…”
“Uh-huh.” I smiled as I let rip, as I covered my former watcher in the goodness of compressed cream. It was a sweet moment, made all the more sweeter by the look on his face. The disbelief, the shock… and then the smile. The taking off of glasses and the laughter in the eyes.
The room fell on a hush for a beat, no one quite sure if it was safe to laugh, if he really would accept this from me. I had no doubt. Not a worry. I know him well enough to know the glint that shines in his own eyes. The mischief. He held his hand out to Faith, collected the can from her and returned to me. And yes, I could have run, I could have slayer whupped his ass… but it wasn’t about that. I stood there and let him squirt me and I smiled right through it. Revelled in the laughter that Dawn found again, in the slaps on the back offered by Faith. In the happiness of the instant. I was learning. Every second with her I was learning.
It didn’t prompt a return to full on madness, it signalled the end of it. Everyone moving to clean up the mess. Me moving my ass up the stairs to find the fastest shower ever before work. Scrubbing away at my hair now and wishing maybe that I HAD diverted the attack with slayer speed. I was going to be late, of that I was certain.
I stand under the jets and let them do their job, let them run the almost too hot streams of water down my back. Kinda feels like heaven. I kinda know. Not taking the time to lose myself in it, just appreciating it. The floor is cold under my feet as I step out of the shower, grab blindly for a towel and wipe off the mirror. It’s always nice to see the smile now, so long I had forgotten what it looked like, and now I see nothing else. I wrap the towel around me, start fussing with my hair. If I tie it up now it’ll be easier to stick under the hat later. Always planning.
The knock doesn’t bother me, it’s a house full of girls, it would never bother me. “Uh-huh?”
“B, it’s me… can I come in?”
Oh hell yes! Not a negative in sight. “Err… sure Faith.”
I drop my voice to coy, it isn’t good to let her know just how much I want her. Like now. Step back so as she can get through the door without me falling upon her. On purpose.
“Hey.”
I just look. Watch her eyes as they slide over me in the best kind of way, chills of the nicest variety. She’s still kinda coated in all that cream, and I guess that’s why she’s here.
“Hey yourself, you come for the clean up?”
“I thought I did.” She moves a little closer, just the tiniest of steps into my space. And I stop breathing. I can’t breathe. She’s so intoxicating, the way that her eyes tell me everything she is going to do me. Everyway she is going to touch me. I think I gasp as her hand reaches my naked shoulder, as her fingers slide up to rest behind my head. “I missed you Buffy… duty sucks.”
And I don’t answer because I’m kissing her. My mouth so quick to quiet her words, my tongue demanding that she opens up to me. Shows me how much. And then I am lost. Feeling nothing past the way her touches smooth over skin, the way her kisses slip from hard to soft, from insistent to begging. I feel it all. As my back touches the solidness of wall, as I feel her body pressed up against me. I want this so much. More than anything, more than ever.
It’s not just a sigh that spills from my mouth as she pulls back, as her kisses become the gentlest flutterings against my lips. “You have to go to work.”
And she sounds so husky, so god damn sexy. “Don’t wanna.”
“You don’t?”
“Uh-uh.” I lean forwards to try and catch her lips again, scowl as she teases me, letting me so far and then pulling back. “Kiss me Faith?”
And of course she does. One last thing to remember her by, something to flip burgers to. It’s not enough, it’s nothing near what I want from her, what I need from her. But I can wait. She steps away from me and leaves me panting by the wall. Reaches into the shower and turns the knob all the way. Full steam ahead. And I don’t believe she’s going to…
Damn!
She is going to.
Her eyes are fixed on me, watching my reaction as she peels off her top, as she shows me exactly what she keeps hidden in her ample and rather pert box of treasures. And if I drool is that good? Cos I’m drooling.
“You see something nice B?”
She isn’t coming closer again, she really is getting ready for the shower, but wow! And more wow. And do all breasts look that good?
“Uh…”
“Oh come on B, you never seen a pair of tits before?” She’s laughing. I am pooling on the floor and she is laughing? I drag my eyes back to her face, that little triumphant gaze she holds over me. Oh yes. She got me good. And I love a challenge. I love it so much that I feel my fingers wrap around the top of my towel. Feel the fire race through my own eyes as I offer her a look at all that she is getting. A full look. An ‘oh my god, my towel is all falling open’ kind of look.
“Uh…”
And now who is drooling! “You see something you like Faith?”
And she doesn’t answer, she takes defeat. She fixes me fully with her gaze and just nods her head. Up and down. “There ain’t even words B.”
“Shower?”
And I know I’m bad, but she makes me that way. I offer her a wink, wrap the towel back around me and head out the door. I’m burning. I am burning all over. If I hadn’t have left the room then, I would be naked now on the floor begging that she consumes all of me, that she takes that look and turns it into a touch. She may have accepted her defeat, but we both know that it is me who has run from victory. Duty REALLY sucks!
I pass Wills in the passage back to my room. See that she has some of her own mischief flashing in the eyes. “Where’s Faith?”
“In the shower.”
She lets her gaze trail over my towel, over my flushed face. Dead set on my eyes. “Do you and her have a thing for bathrooms? Is THAT where the bond comes in?”
Oh what to do? I flip her the bird.
Then I listen to her laughter all the way to my room. I love the sound. My home is feeling like a happy one again.
Chapter 23.
The gloom in the room wasn’t an effect of bad lighting, but rather the impending sense of upcoming evil. As if it coated the very walls themselves, the air hanging stale with the odour of death. And Warren liked it, he wrapped himself in it. Had been doing his up most to feed it, to make it stronger. Since he had begun to realise the strength of the power infusing him, it had taken all of his self control not to go out and proclaim it to the world. Had settled for proclaiming it to just a select few instead. Random victims. A sadistic way to spend a Saturday night. His master revelled in it, growing stronger with every evil act committed, it’s own hunger growing, it’s own need to break free and to feed. The time was coming. The whole room could feel it.
Andrew could feel it as a chill to his bones. As tears which rolled down his face every time no one was looking. He felt guilt, he felt a sense of blame… but nothing could touch the fear. Could block out the sounds of the screaming as Warren had demonstrated the new levels of depravity to which he could sink. It had been bad with the Demon woman, but at least she still lived, still appeared useful. For the others they weren’t so lucky. Or maybe death WAS luckier. He hadn’t wanted to see, to acknowledge the malevolence that flowed so strong from the aura of his former friend, his former partner. But he couldn’t not look. Warren demanded it.
He watched him now. Watched him standing in the centre of the room as he was fawned over by Johnathan. As even the vampire seemed to sink down in his presence. He just looked so powerful, so strong. So unbeatable. Even his voice resonated with nothing but strength and determination. His plans forming like webs of evil in the depths of his mind, ready to catch them all. Destroy them all.
“I don’t understand why it’s taking so long? We had a deal… if you can’t keep to the deal…”
“It’s not that bloody easy! They all think I’m the lowest sort of pariah, touching their precious damn slayer…”
“You are the lowest the form of pariah. You’re a vampire.”
The beast within the façade of the man wanted to rise up, wanted to snarl out all his regained power and show this tossing idiot of a boy what a vampire could do. How it liked to feed. To rip out a throat and drink from the source of life. He knew that he couldn’t though. What Warren represented, the thing that he served… it was huge. It surpassed anything that the bloody Scooby’s could ever hope to fight against! It helped him to keep a focus, to remember that he was here for a reason, to smile slyly at the boy and accept his smug put downs. It didn’t matter in the long run.
Once the beast was raised, was set free, the boy wouldn’t stand a chance. He may think he was all big shot with the power now, but Spike understood evil. It didn’t respect partnerships, it didn’t respect anything. It destroyed everything. It was quite simply, evil.
“That may be, but it’s me who’s getting you your witches, you should remember that.”
“You’re getting me one witch Spike, the other I can get for myself.”
The thought of the witches excited Warren no end. The one with the innocence, who was the key to the one with the darkness. It made him smile. Made him blindly caress Johnathan’s cheek as his mind wandered through the endless possibilities. “We need a plan, you obviously can’t get me what I need without help, and I am not prepared to wait any longer. My master isn’t prepared to wait any longer.”
“What kind of plan?”
But he didn’t answer the vampire, turned instead to his meekest follower. “Do you fancy some more conjuring, some more of the big bad beast?”
“The same as before master?”
A grin wrapped tight around his lips. “Maybe stronger, can you do stronger?”
“Uh…I…” Johnathan withered ever further under his gaze. “…I can try.”
“You had better succeed.”
The hand which had been caressing, held tight now to the boys face, making him nod his head in acceptance. “I will succeed.”
“And what about me?”
“You Spike are gonna be a hero! There on hand to save the witches.” He laughed manically as he said it. Amused by his own lack of wit. “The slayers can deal with the beast, and you my friend… you can bring me Tara.”
“The red head will fry me if I try and touch her sweetie pie.”
“And I’ll fry you if you don’t get me what I want! I’ve set you free from your binds, surely a demon as ferocious as you can handle two girls..?”
Spike preened under the praise. Didn’t realise he was being patronised. “Of course I can handle two girls, I handled more than that last night.” His thoughts fell back to the previous evening, since his power had been restored he hadn’t wasted time on waiting to see if he worked properly again… he proved that he did. Found the sweetest little things that Sunnydale had to offer and proved it in all sorts of ways. Practised the unmatched pleasure in drinking fresh, draining life. It was all a rehearsal, a practice until he could take her blood. Buffy’s blood. He’d been close enough to taste it on many occasions, drawing her steadily but slowly in, every time just one time nearer. But now that that had changed he wouldn’t care for slowly and softly. He would take what was his. Her.
“Well it’s settled then! All we need now is opportunity… the right circumstance.”
“I know their routine, I’ve been following them for days. Bloody idiots.” He let his mind wander over what he knew. When Buffy worked. When Buffy slayed. “Tomorrow night.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive.” He had functioned by her shift pattern for months, he knew it by heart. And now he knew enough to know the other’s one pattern as well. The way she hung around his slayer every chance she got. The way she looked at her. Wanted her. It made his blood boil. Made the demon in him howl. “They’ll be alone tomorrow night. The witches and the slayers… ”
“Perfect! Johnathan?”
“Yes master?”
“Be ready for tomorrow! This is it… the moment we have planned for.” Warren’s gaze was wistful, joyous. So much planning. So many months. And now finally she would be here. Tara. Almost the final step. So close.
Andrew’s tears were falling again. Soft tracks down his face. Memories of the girl playing fresh through his mind. He couldn’t stand it if it happened. Knew that he would crumble if he saw her here. Saw Warren touch her. He tried so hard to hold it in. To make it something that it wasn’t.
The noise of the demon at his side drew his gaze, made him slide his head around to take in her almost broken form. Her eyes held firm and he sought the comfort within them. It was strange the way a bond had grown between the two, no words spoken, but the tiniest amount of strength found in just knowing that someone was there. The demon was grateful for it. She had never believed that she would find strength in a human. A human boy at that. But he had held her gaze after everything that Warren had put her through, had offered her sorrow and understanding. Had shown empathy in his eyes. And it had held her up. Had stopped her from breaking.
When William the Bloody had walked through the door she had been thrown for a loop. He had recognised her almost immediately, taken delight in seeing her that way. He hadn’t assaulted her with verse though, and that was the biggest mercy. Instead he had sneered, had joined Warren in his quest of degradation. Had used one of her other names as he had taken his pleasure there. A name she hadn’t heard in a long time. And all that she wanted now, all that she could hold on to, was a chance. The hope of a chance. She would wreak vengeance worse than anything they had ever seen! She tried to show Andrew with her look, with the set of her shoulders. No. They were not beaten yet. A woman scorned had nothing on a demon scorned!
“What’s going on here?”
They both broke the look and shot their eyes to Warren. Neither able to speak. To do anything but cower back.
“Andrew..? Is it time to die?”
He shook his head with all the vigour that the binds would allow. Couldn’t stop the fear from sliding down his leg, the shivers that wracked his body.
“That’s good… I still have a plan for you. A role. A final chance to prove that you are useful.”
Andrew’s eyes swam with more tears, more snivels behind the gag which bound him. All he wanted was the chance. Just one chance. He stopped his body from shaking more as Warren touched him. “I want you to be useful Andrew, you’ve always been special to me.”
His smile carried all the way to the demon. “Hallie, Hallie… or should I say… Cecily?”
She only found a sneer for him. He really thought that he knew it all. He knew nothing.
“I can’t decide if you’re still useful… I don’t see that I’ll be needing you, and yet I’ve come to like you…” He slid his hand across the front of her body, the shards of material that still hung there. “…maybe you have one good ride left in you?”
He turned back to the vampire, “What do you think Spikey? Have you finished with her yet?”
“I don’t care, a couple of days and it won’t sodding matter.”
The words were enough to distract Warren. Not intentionally, Spike really didn’t care about the woman, the demon… whatever she was now. All he cared about was Buffy. Getting Buffy. The words still made the leader turn away though, made him speak more about the days which were soon to come. The time which would soon pass.
Spike let him, let him believe in his own self importance. As long as he was gonna help with the slayers then it didn’t really matter to him. It was like he had said… in a few days nothing would matter. It would be a world just for evil. For demons. And he would bring Buffy with him. Finally free the demon that wanted to live in her body. It would be perfect. He stood with his eyes steady as Warren gave him the last of his instructions. He wanted Tara, but he didn’t want Willow harmed. No unnecessary force. He needed her strong. Ready to perform.
By the time that the vampire had left, the gloom had hung even heavier in the air than before. But it was more than that now, it was anticipation. It was excitement. Like a hum, like a buzz. Rising up through the room until it almost sang with it. A tune for evil to march to.
POV Faith
I circle her slowly, around and around. Keep myself focused. Let my eyes travel up over her body, let my senses register her every move. Look for the telegraph. An easy way in.
“Are you ever gonna come close enough to hit, Faith?”
And I smile at her.
“You think you can hit me?”
She edges a little nearer, I can tell she feels a little braver. Her stance still tense, her muscles still held, but closer. Taking the risk. “I know I can.”
Her leg swings out exactly where I’ve been expecting it, aiming for my soft parts, my midriff. She’s really fast… but she isn’t fast enough. I catch her leg without any effort, hold her steady for a heartbeat, my grasp firm, yet my fingers soft. “You were saying?”
I give a chuckle as I let her go, as she drops back from me again. Not close enough to hit. Not close enough to touch. And it’s an easy spar, not even training really. Just a chance to work the tension out. To give aim to something that won’t disappear.
“I’m just softening you up Faith.” She smiles that smile that I want to trace. Meets my eyes with hers, nothing but challenge. “It’s my false sense of security plan, you DO know you’re walking right into it?”
And I circle her some more. I don’t know how long we have down here. Sent away from the others because our banter was distracting. Because the way that I couldn’t stop fidgeting and the way she couldn’t stop following me was, ‘making them dizzy’. They wanna crawl inside my head for a moment, understand just how dizzy, dizzy can be.
“Only thing I’m walking into is victory B.”
“I love the confident ones, they fall so much harder. Such satisfaction.”
I feel as she comes close enough again. Feint with my right, toss her my left. And she catches it, swings it and brings it straight up behind me. My shoulder blade screaming as she exerts just the right amount pressure. I know I could move, could drop her from me in less than a second, but I don’t. I let her hold on, let her have the power for just a minute, just to see what she does with it. What her next move is gonna be.
“Are you gonna say ‘mercy’, Faith?”
And what? That was it?
“Not a chance!”
I twist in her grasp and break from her hold, push the distance back to too far. My ears picking up the sound of heavy breathing, the steady beating of her heart. I let my eyes consume her, concentrate for seconds on the rise and fall of her chest, the flush that sits across her skin. Always stalking, always looking. Deciding my own next move. The places I want to touch her, to hold her. It makes me step forwards. Makes me dance into her space with one thought on my mind. Exerting my own power.
I see her mouth go to open as she notices me coming closer, no doubt some more banter to soften the occasion. But I don’t want soft. I want to touch her. To feel her. I slice through her defences with a speed which I am proud of, my hands latching onto her arms and spinning her round into a hold. Backed up against me, ass nestling tight. The strength in one arm enough to restrain her as I feel her yielding into my touch. Letting me feel the intimacy of her body pressed tight against mine. My lips falling to her neck to savour the taste of her skin, slowly up to her ear to whisper my words.
“Are ‘you’ gonna say mercy, B?”
And she whimpers… and it’s fucking touches me places I can’t even name. As if every one of my senses is keened to hear that sound, to feel it. Giving me nothing but the need to hear it again. Over and over. I feel her back pressing hard into my chest as she takes in a deep breath, my grip softening to let her turn in my hold. No longer her ass nestling against me, but the whole of her body. Her arms sliding down to meet at my back.
“And what if I don’t want mercy, Faith? What happens then?”
“Then I’ll just have to take you down.”
I show her the best that my eyebrows have to offer, wiggling their insistence that they would LOVE to take her down. And she takes it as an invitation. Her lips pressing firm against mine, softly sucking, drawing my lower lip into her mouth just so as she can run her tongue the length of it. Nip gently with her teeth. “You think you can take me Faith?”
My hormones are demanding it.
This slow dance of seduction that we have going, is perfect when you think about all of the things which we still have to work through, all of the things which we still have to face. It’s not perfect though when you consider how god damn much I just fucking want her! I want to hear her whimper all night from the way that I’m touching her, my name on her lips as I take her to all of the places that I’ve ever wanted to take her. It feels like the most intense need I have ever felt, burning straight through me. And I know that she feels it.
I wrap my leg around hers and swipe it away, my arm reaching out to brace us as we fall to the mat. Me against her, in the only kind of way that it has ever made sense. My thigh is resting hard between her legs, my chest pressing firm against her chest. And I can’t help but strike up the smallest of rhythms, just slow grinding pressure as I look into her eyes. “Do you want this B?”
And I know that we can’t, that this won’t be the time or the place… but I just want to hear the words. I want to hear the confirmation that she feels it too. That her body demands just as much from me as I am demanding from her. She drops her hand across my back leaving a trail of fire through my top, pausing at the gap of skin, the slightest glance of finger tip there. And then cupping my ass, pulling my rhythm harder against her, forcing my thigh to give her all kinds of friction.
“I need this Faith.”
Her eyes bare the truth as I close in for a kiss. Not able to stop my tongue from crashing straight through her lips, from filling her mouth. I just need to be inside of her. I don’t need to breathe, to take air, I just need this. This feeling like I’m burning from the inside out, all of me on red hot fire and all of it for her. The insistent rhythm dragging me along to feel things that I have never even felt with my clothes off. I break the kiss as I feel her hand slide down lower, caressing the crack of my ass with the ends of her fingers. Gasping as she sinks lower still, the slightest of teases running soft along the seam, tight across my pussy. “Jesus B…”
And it’s all that I can manage before my head sinks down, before I lose my focus in the feel of her fingers. No matter through pants, that it isn’t as close as I need… it’s still touching me. Just the gentlest of circles now, my breathing harsh and haggard against her neck as everything goes into concentrating my thoughts, to feeling the slip and the slide and urging for more. Her hips rising to meet every single plea that I am thrusting down into her. I forget where I am, I forget who I am. It’s all about the point of contact, about the way that her body is responding to mine. The way that her hands are still pulling me in, pulling me firm. The fingertips that are keeping steady rhythm, back and forth across the seam of my pants, constant applied pressure. I don’t even realise how close I am, would never believe that so little could bring me so close, not until I hear her ragged whispers in my ear.
“Come on baby…”
Over and over. Better than the whimpering. Calling me forth. Calling me baby?
It intensifies every second of it, hearing her words and giving her what she wants. As if she’s in tune with me, as if she knows just how close she is taking me. It’s not fucking, it’s not even that close to fucking… but damn it I don’t care. I feels fucking perfect. I bite down onto my lip as the pressure reaches an almost aching crescendo, as her fingers rub as harshly against my pussy as I am pushing down onto hers. Sounds exploding in my ears, colours fucking bursting in front of my eyes. And I push more. Crushing her beneath me with the size of my want.
“Do you feel me B, uh… can you feel this..?”
Her whole fucking body is telling me she feels this, but damn it, her voice. It sounds like nothing I’ve heard before. All of that wanting. And all of it for me.
She breathes her ‘yes’ into my ear as she goes rigid beneath me, holding me tight, and holding me firm. Just in one place, pushing her hips up as hard as she can, pulling me in as tight as she can. As close to breaking point as I am. As desperate as I am. And I fucking love it. Love the sigh that breaks from the back of her throat as it crashes straight through her. The sigh that matches from my own throat. It’s pressure I don’t want to break, still softly grinding, knowing that I need more. Lips finding lips again as she seeks the kiss to bring her back down, her steady rocking against me becoming less and less. And finally stopping. Coming to rest. Just me above her, nibbling my way from her mouth to her neck, my tongue stretching out to taste the sheen on her skin. I can’t even try and make sense out of what she is saying, my face still buried in the crook of her shoulder as I attempt to grab back onto reality. Feeling the smile that slides across my lips as I become aw are of every place that her body still touches mine. How easy she lays underneath me. How well it all fits. And I want to say something. I have so many things to say, things that I want to say. Not even knowing how to start.
“This is messed up.”
“Hmmmm… huh?” I try not to laugh as she stiffens beneath me, as she moves her head to find my face. “You what?”
And it is ok, I do have more to the sentence. “This, I mean… a girl like me, normally I have trouble keeping my pants on…” I offer her the cockiest of grins. “…now it seems like I can’t get my pants off.”
She just returns my grin with one of her own. “We’re taking it slow remember..?”
And that makes me laugh a little of the frustration away. Makes her start sliding the hand that was nestled snug against the swell of my pussy, all up and away. Leaving me to hiss with the last of the contact. Then creeping to a new destination. Fingertips running along the edge of my pants, just dipping beneath… “Did you wanna take your pants off Faith?”
Singsonging it with the sweetest of teases. And I just answer with a growl. Cos god yes! I so fucking wanna take my pants off!
It makes her laugh now, a real laugh. Makes me bring my face close to hers again to wrap her up in a kiss. An affirmation of everything I am feeling for her. Losing myself again in a need which still seeks to be sated.
“Ooh… will you two be taming the big bad evil with all of the kisses?”
And what the fuck?
I swing my head to the door and find Anya standing there watching us, the gleam in her eyes making me wonder just how long she has been playing the voyeur. My senses have been totally lost in all that is Buffy. The same Buffy who is now squirming underneath me and looking for an out. And I’m not moving. Happy to have her resting there. Not caring so much who knows it. I turn my attention back to the peeper.
“Do you think it would work Anya?”
I drawl it out slow, maybe try and bring some flush to her cheeks with the tone in my voice. Flick any embarrasment away from the two of us laying prone on the floor, straight over to her. I see her considering, the unhindered gaze taking it’s time to process the sights. Finally meeting my eyes with anything but embarassment.
“It would work better with your clothes off.”
And she’s good. And she’s right!
Buffy is practically begging me to get up off of her now, and I have to comply. Ease myself slowly up to let her rise to her feet. I wanna moan the loss of contact, of closeness. Settle instead for grinning at the cute little pink flush that B HAS found to cover her cheeks.
“We were just sparring Anya, uh… why would we ever spar naked..?”
Yeah Buffy. Even I believe you. JUST sparring.
“Well if that was sparring then I want to get in on this training regime!… The research is getting beyond tedious…”
She walks down into our space as if it’s the most natural thing in the world to stumble across two girls dry humping in the basement. “…and speaking of tedious, Giles wants you back upstairs… he has some more of those frightfully interesting facts that he just can’t wait to share.”
And that totally just bitch slapped the hornies.
“So what’s the what?”
“Oh it’s nothing important!” She’s nodding her head as if she’s the sage on all things important. “He’s been reading some old medical books, I think he wants to impart some general leechy knowledge…”
“Can life get any better?”
“Come on B, it’ll be fun…”
“No it won’t.” She looks pretty sure of herself. Doesn’t stop her from moving though. Sighing her exit from our innocent little ‘sparring’ session. And I know just how she feels. It makes me hook my fingers into the back of her pants as she goes to leave, tugging her softly, just to get her to turn and to look. Watching Anya leave as she gives us this last second of goodbye.
“Hey.”
She fixes me with a smile, a softening of her eyes. Lets herself relax as I bring my arms up around her.
“Do you think this will ever be over Faith? That we’ll ever get the time to actually be together.”
It’s all that I want. “Sure we will.”
“When?” And I can hear all of my own need hidden within her one word.
“Soon.”
It’s the best that I can do. She reaches the small distance to place a sweet kiss to my lips. Slips her hand down into mine as we turn back towards the others, back amongst the bad stuff. Coming up through the door and finding all of their eyes lost in the research. It was Giles who turned first, the one who had called us back.
“Ah girls, was the training session good? Do you think you’ll be able to concentrate now?”
“Sure thing Giles, it was a wicked work out… slayed some of that tension, you know?”
I could hear Buffy stifling something behind me. Anya offering a sly grin in front of me. And everyone else oblivious. All of them dulled by the endless pages of words that they had been forced to endure. It made me feel guilty for a moment, until I remembered how long I had waited on the moments. Then I just smiled some. Even as I was forced to listen to the lecture on the leeches I kept smiling. Trying hard not to close my eyes as I was forced to turn pages with the rest of them. Nothing to distract us until Dawn arrived home from school.
Things with me and Dawn are kinda cool. I haven’t had the chance to sit her down and sort it through, but she’s not holding it against me. We don’t flaunt anything in front of her, and so far she hasn’t brought it up. Has been happy to just hang with me without getting into the heavy. But I am just waiting on a chance to speak to her, I want to reassure her again. I did come here for her.
We kept at the tedious awaiting the sundown. An excuse to stop, to order food, to make arrangements for slaying. For babysitting. And it was me that offered to stay. I wanted more than anything to go scratch my itch on the undead bastards of the world, knowing my pent up energy would make light work of all of them. But I really did wanna have that chat with Dawn, wanted to make sure that things really are okay. Buffy isn’t the only Summers girl that I have grown a gigantic soft spot for, and I want Dawn to realise that. To know that she still means so much to me. And I’d come armed for the occasion. Remembering the gift I’d brought with me all those weeks ago that I still hadn’t gotten round to imparting. Figuring that the grotty state I had put it in would leave it pretty much undesirable.
I waited until Buffy had left to seek out her sister, finding her up in her room, hitting the school books. “Hey Dawn, whatcha working on?”
“Algebra. It sucks. I can feel my brain melting.”
“For real?”
It sounded kinda painful.
“Totally, you think you guys have it bad with the research? Ha! You wanna spend a day working out the values of your X’s and Y’s.”
I just nodded. Cos yeah, like I knew what the fuck she was talking about. Math genius was never my thing. I walked my way fully into her room and joined her on the bed. Plopped the worse for wear soft toy straight down on top of her text book.
Saw her face wrinkle in something close to… disgust? “What IS that?”
“It’s for you… it’s a gift.”
I kept my face straight and solemn. It was nice to always find a little fun.
“Uh… right. A gift.” I could see her eyes trying to understand the what’s and the why’s. “Is it my birthday… a really bad birthday?”
“No, I just wanted to get you something… do you like it?” I kept my voice steady, pretended like I couldn’t see any reason for her obvious apprehension.
“Yeah… it’s great, it’s erm… what exactly is it?”
And then I had to laugh, had to ruffle the Cordy styled hair that sat straight on her shoulders. “It’s a soft toy ya dork, I bought it for you when I got here… never got round to giving it to you, figured that now was the perfect time.”
“Right… and where did you buy it Faith? The toy shop in hell?”
I looked it over, and yeah…it was kinda messed up. Caked in some of the blood from the night I had issues with the mirror. It had helped me through that night though, crazy as that sounds. It was something to hang on to. Something soft amongst the shards. “Yeah, sorry bout that… it did look better, a lot better.”
“Hard to believe.”
“And yet it’s still true.”
She picked it up gingerly in her hands, turned it slowly around. “Why did you get me a soft toy anyway? Did you forget how old I am?”
“No…” I took it back off of her, let it rest in my own hold for a moment. “…I just, when I was coming here… I knew how much things sucked for you and I wanted to make it better… I guessed you’d either laugh at it, or love it.” I shrugged my shoulders. “Either way I figured it’s a winner.”
She went quiet in the way that let me know that she knew we were having a chat. A serious conversation.
“You do know that I meant it when I said that I came here for you? No matter about B and me, I came here for you.”
“I know that, really… but Buffy? I just don’t get why… and how..?”
I thought about the birds and the bees talk. Instead I decided to be honest. To tell her the things that I haven’t even had the chance to say to B yet. She deserved it. To not be lied to. “Because I love her Dawn, I kinda always loved her…”
She scrunched up her face to let me know that she thought it was all kinda gross.
“…before when you asked about the aggro? Well that was it. I loved her, it made me kinda wacky.”
I looked at her and waited for the truth to sink in. The knowledge that it had always been Buffy for me. I expected some shock, some gasped surprise.
“I knew it!”
“You what?”
“Seriously… I always used to tease Buffy about you and her… but then, with the uh… killing and stuff…” I nodded my okay. “…I figured I was wrong, and when you came back and things were..?”
“Not of the good.”
“Yeah, not so good… then I thought I was WAY wrong. I’m a kid, like what do I know about signals?”
“I’m an adult, and I don’t know shit.”
“Well obviously not… not if you want Buffy!”
She laughed, and I looked hurt. Then I joined in the laughter. I know she’s only teasing, I know how much she adores her sister.
“But you’re okay with it, yeah? Not full of the anger, a little resentment?”
“I’m okay with it. Really.” She offered me a sincere little smile. Quickly turning into a cheeky Dawn style grin. “I am kinda shocked that Buffy could ever pull a hot chick like you though!”
And that made me laugh. “Aw Dawn, you think I’m hot?”
“Not really, not like… Brad Pitt hot. But for a girl you’re not that bad.”
I took the compliment and assured her she was pretty darn hot as well. JUST as hot as her sister. She wanted me to say more, but there was not a chance in hell. No one was hotter than Buffy. It was the truth.
We talked a little more of the love stuff, her asking questions, me offering answers. It was strange being so open, but it all felt so easy. Kinda natural. I promised her with my most honest tone, that I would never hurt Buffy. That I really was in love with her, that I wanted to make her happy. It’s when the scales were tipped over into super serious. Crazy heavy. Her words sounding as child like as I had ever heard them.
“Does that mean after… that after you guys have beaten the big bad… will you be staying here Faith? You won’t be leaving us?”
Fuck.
That was where my mind had run then. I hadn’t even given it a thought, had just focused on beating the bad and then being with Buffy. I hadn’t logicked it through to include living arrangements and relocations. I liked LA. I had found a place for myself there. Could I really just leave it all behind for this? I had run my eyes over to hers. Seen all the worry and the fear. Not of a big bad, of an evil monster. But of abandonment. Of being left behind again. And my heart gave me the only answer that I could ever offer.
“I’ll be here for as long as you need me kid… I told you that before. If you and Buffy want me to stay here… then yeah. I’ll sort my stuff and I’ll be here.”
“You promise?”
“I promise.” And it did feel like the only words to say. Not listening to my worries, to my own fears of everything to do with families and structure and love and commitment. I knew that I could make a home here. It already felt like home here.
I stayed up in Dawn’s room, just hanging out whilst she did her work. Offering as much helpful advice as I could to get her to finish quicker, played her a couple of hands of cards once she was done. When Buffy got back from the slaying we coerced her into joining us. Ignoring Giles’s stern gaze to make just fifteen more minutes for the smiles and the sunshine. And it did make me see how good it could be. How normal it could be. What this real home could feel like.
I didn’t mention any of that to B before I left though. Before I came back to my apartment. I haven’t even told her how crazy in love with her I am, it’s hardly right to tell her that I’m thinking about moving in. No. I’ll wait until the time is right. Give it a day or two.
I made sure to ring the gang in LA before I went to my bed, I wanted to catch up with the info process and see how much longer till Cordy brought all the good stuff back. The lack of real knowledge here is getting folks down. And of course I wanted to talk to Angel. I may not be ready to tell Buffy yet about my grand moving plans, but I was ready to tell him. To see what he would think if I moved on from LA, if I stayed here in Sunnydale. It was amusing to hear his laugh. His words.
“Since when did you start asking for permission Faith?”
And it did seem kind of funny. But I just wanted him to be alright with it. I owe him so much, damn it, I admit it… I fucking love him so much, and I don’t ever want to just walk out on him.
He gave me every assurance I needed that Angel Investigations could cope without me, that he could cope without me. Yes he would miss me, he missed me now, but I had to do what was right for me. He said that all I needed to do was to work out if this was what I really wanted. Family life in the suburbs. Was it for me?
He said that I should be sure before I offered it. And I know that, and I promised. And I am sure. It is what I want. To be with Buffy and to be with Dawn. A place where I know I can be happy. A place where I can know love.
I had lots to think over as I went to my bed. Not near enough room for duty thoughts, as all I could feel were Buffy thoughts. So easy to let my mind drift back to earlier, to let my hand drift down my body. To feel fingers slide deep inside of my pussy as I panted out her name. I want it so damn much, to feel her… to really feel her. I’m fucking aching for her. No self fulfilling climax even coming close to dampening my need. And I wonder if she feels it too. If her mind wanders over my body the same way that mine wanders over hers. If her own fingers seek to make good on the promises we had been offering each other since the Bronze.
Fuck. I just want to taste her. To touch her.
To erase everything bad in the truth of how good we are together. How well it all works now that we want it to work. Now that we’ve finally grown up enough to accept all that it means. Jesus… all I really want to do is to tell her that I love her. For the moment to sit perfect, for the whole fucking world to quiet just long enough for me to get it out. Just long enough for her to hear me.
“I love you Buffy.”
It feels so right to speak it out loud. It’s the most right I’ve ever felt my whole life. And it lulls me into the most perfect sleep. Finally dreaming my sweet dreams.
The gloom in the room wasn’t an effect of bad lighting, but rather the impending sense of upcoming evil. As if it coated the very walls themselves, the air hanging stale with the odour of death. And Warren liked it, he wrapped himself in it. Had been doing his up most to feed it, to make it stronger. Since he had begun to realise the strength of the power infusing him, it had taken all of his self control not to go out and proclaim it to the world. Had settled for proclaiming it to just a select few instead. Random victims. A sadistic way to spend a Saturday night. His master revelled in it, growing stronger with every evil act committed, it’s own hunger growing, it’s own need to break free and to feed. The time was coming. The whole room could feel it.
Andrew could feel it as a chill to his bones. As tears which rolled down his face every time no one was looking. He felt guilt, he felt a sense of blame… but nothing could touch the fear. Could block out the sounds of the screaming as Warren had demonstrated the new levels of depravity to which he could sink. It had been bad with the Demon woman, but at least she still lived, still appeared useful. For the others they weren’t so lucky. Or maybe death WAS luckier. He hadn’t wanted to see, to acknowledge the malevolence that flowed so strong from the aura of his former friend, his former partner. But he couldn’t not look. Warren demanded it.
He watched him now. Watched him standing in the centre of the room as he was fawned over by Johnathan. As even the vampire seemed to sink down in his presence. He just looked so powerful, so strong. So unbeatable. Even his voice resonated with nothing but strength and determination. His plans forming like webs of evil in the depths of his mind, ready to catch them all. Destroy them all.
“I don’t understand why it’s taking so long? We had a deal… if you can’t keep to the deal…”
“It’s not that bloody easy! They all think I’m the lowest sort of pariah, touching their precious damn slayer…”
“You are the lowest the form of pariah. You’re a vampire.”
The beast within the façade of the man wanted to rise up, wanted to snarl out all his regained power and show this tossing idiot of a boy what a vampire could do. How it liked to feed. To rip out a throat and drink from the source of life. He knew that he couldn’t though. What Warren represented, the thing that he served… it was huge. It surpassed anything that the bloody Scooby’s could ever hope to fight against! It helped him to keep a focus, to remember that he was here for a reason, to smile slyly at the boy and accept his smug put downs. It didn’t matter in the long run.
Once the beast was raised, was set free, the boy wouldn’t stand a chance. He may think he was all big shot with the power now, but Spike understood evil. It didn’t respect partnerships, it didn’t respect anything. It destroyed everything. It was quite simply, evil.
“That may be, but it’s me who’s getting you your witches, you should remember that.”
“You’re getting me one witch Spike, the other I can get for myself.”
The thought of the witches excited Warren no end. The one with the innocence, who was the key to the one with the darkness. It made him smile. Made him blindly caress Johnathan’s cheek as his mind wandered through the endless possibilities. “We need a plan, you obviously can’t get me what I need without help, and I am not prepared to wait any longer. My master isn’t prepared to wait any longer.”
“What kind of plan?”
But he didn’t answer the vampire, turned instead to his meekest follower. “Do you fancy some more conjuring, some more of the big bad beast?”
“The same as before master?”
A grin wrapped tight around his lips. “Maybe stronger, can you do stronger?”
“Uh…I…” Johnathan withered ever further under his gaze. “…I can try.”
“You had better succeed.”
The hand which had been caressing, held tight now to the boys face, making him nod his head in acceptance. “I will succeed.”
“And what about me?”
“You Spike are gonna be a hero! There on hand to save the witches.” He laughed manically as he said it. Amused by his own lack of wit. “The slayers can deal with the beast, and you my friend… you can bring me Tara.”
“The red head will fry me if I try and touch her sweetie pie.”
“And I’ll fry you if you don’t get me what I want! I’ve set you free from your binds, surely a demon as ferocious as you can handle two girls..?”
Spike preened under the praise. Didn’t realise he was being patronised. “Of course I can handle two girls, I handled more than that last night.” His thoughts fell back to the previous evening, since his power had been restored he hadn’t wasted time on waiting to see if he worked properly again… he proved that he did. Found the sweetest little things that Sunnydale had to offer and proved it in all sorts of ways. Practised the unmatched pleasure in drinking fresh, draining life. It was all a rehearsal, a practice until he could take her blood. Buffy’s blood. He’d been close enough to taste it on many occasions, drawing her steadily but slowly in, every time just one time nearer. But now that that had changed he wouldn’t care for slowly and softly. He would take what was his. Her.
“Well it’s settled then! All we need now is opportunity… the right circumstance.”
“I know their routine, I’ve been following them for days. Bloody idiots.” He let his mind wander over what he knew. When Buffy worked. When Buffy slayed. “Tomorrow night.”
“Are you sure?”
“Positive.” He had functioned by her shift pattern for months, he knew it by heart. And now he knew enough to know the other’s one pattern as well. The way she hung around his slayer every chance she got. The way she looked at her. Wanted her. It made his blood boil. Made the demon in him howl. “They’ll be alone tomorrow night. The witches and the slayers… ”
“Perfect! Johnathan?”
“Yes master?”
“Be ready for tomorrow! This is it… the moment we have planned for.” Warren’s gaze was wistful, joyous. So much planning. So many months. And now finally she would be here. Tara. Almost the final step. So close.
Andrew’s tears were falling again. Soft tracks down his face. Memories of the girl playing fresh through his mind. He couldn’t stand it if it happened. Knew that he would crumble if he saw her here. Saw Warren touch her. He tried so hard to hold it in. To make it something that it wasn’t.
The noise of the demon at his side drew his gaze, made him slide his head around to take in her almost broken form. Her eyes held firm and he sought the comfort within them. It was strange the way a bond had grown between the two, no words spoken, but the tiniest amount of strength found in just knowing that someone was there. The demon was grateful for it. She had never believed that she would find strength in a human. A human boy at that. But he had held her gaze after everything that Warren had put her through, had offered her sorrow and understanding. Had shown empathy in his eyes. And it had held her up. Had stopped her from breaking.
When William the Bloody had walked through the door she had been thrown for a loop. He had recognised her almost immediately, taken delight in seeing her that way. He hadn’t assaulted her with verse though, and that was the biggest mercy. Instead he had sneered, had joined Warren in his quest of degradation. Had used one of her other names as he had taken his pleasure there. A name she hadn’t heard in a long time. And all that she wanted now, all that she could hold on to, was a chance. The hope of a chance. She would wreak vengeance worse than anything they had ever seen! She tried to show Andrew with her look, with the set of her shoulders. No. They were not beaten yet. A woman scorned had nothing on a demon scorned!
“What’s going on here?”
They both broke the look and shot their eyes to Warren. Neither able to speak. To do anything but cower back.
“Andrew..? Is it time to die?”
He shook his head with all the vigour that the binds would allow. Couldn’t stop the fear from sliding down his leg, the shivers that wracked his body.
“That’s good… I still have a plan for you. A role. A final chance to prove that you are useful.”
Andrew’s eyes swam with more tears, more snivels behind the gag which bound him. All he wanted was the chance. Just one chance. He stopped his body from shaking more as Warren touched him. “I want you to be useful Andrew, you’ve always been special to me.”
His smile carried all the way to the demon. “Hallie, Hallie… or should I say… Cecily?”
She only found a sneer for him. He really thought that he knew it all. He knew nothing.
“I can’t decide if you’re still useful… I don’t see that I’ll be needing you, and yet I’ve come to like you…” He slid his hand across the front of her body, the shards of material that still hung there. “…maybe you have one good ride left in you?”
He turned back to the vampire, “What do you think Spikey? Have you finished with her yet?”
“I don’t care, a couple of days and it won’t sodding matter.”
The words were enough to distract Warren. Not intentionally, Spike really didn’t care about the woman, the demon… whatever she was now. All he cared about was Buffy. Getting Buffy. The words still made the leader turn away though, made him speak more about the days which were soon to come. The time which would soon pass.
Spike let him, let him believe in his own self importance. As long as he was gonna help with the slayers then it didn’t really matter to him. It was like he had said… in a few days nothing would matter. It would be a world just for evil. For demons. And he would bring Buffy with him. Finally free the demon that wanted to live in her body. It would be perfect. He stood with his eyes steady as Warren gave him the last of his instructions. He wanted Tara, but he didn’t want Willow harmed. No unnecessary force. He needed her strong. Ready to perform.
By the time that the vampire had left, the gloom had hung even heavier in the air than before. But it was more than that now, it was anticipation. It was excitement. Like a hum, like a buzz. Rising up through the room until it almost sang with it. A tune for evil to march to.
POV Faith
I circle her slowly, around and around. Keep myself focused. Let my eyes travel up over her body, let my senses register her every move. Look for the telegraph. An easy way in.
“Are you ever gonna come close enough to hit, Faith?”
And I smile at her.
“You think you can hit me?”
She edges a little nearer, I can tell she feels a little braver. Her stance still tense, her muscles still held, but closer. Taking the risk. “I know I can.”
Her leg swings out exactly where I’ve been expecting it, aiming for my soft parts, my midriff. She’s really fast… but she isn’t fast enough. I catch her leg without any effort, hold her steady for a heartbeat, my grasp firm, yet my fingers soft. “You were saying?”
I give a chuckle as I let her go, as she drops back from me again. Not close enough to hit. Not close enough to touch. And it’s an easy spar, not even training really. Just a chance to work the tension out. To give aim to something that won’t disappear.
“I’m just softening you up Faith.” She smiles that smile that I want to trace. Meets my eyes with hers, nothing but challenge. “It’s my false sense of security plan, you DO know you’re walking right into it?”
And I circle her some more. I don’t know how long we have down here. Sent away from the others because our banter was distracting. Because the way that I couldn’t stop fidgeting and the way she couldn’t stop following me was, ‘making them dizzy’. They wanna crawl inside my head for a moment, understand just how dizzy, dizzy can be.
“Only thing I’m walking into is victory B.”
“I love the confident ones, they fall so much harder. Such satisfaction.”
I feel as she comes close enough again. Feint with my right, toss her my left. And she catches it, swings it and brings it straight up behind me. My shoulder blade screaming as she exerts just the right amount pressure. I know I could move, could drop her from me in less than a second, but I don’t. I let her hold on, let her have the power for just a minute, just to see what she does with it. What her next move is gonna be.
“Are you gonna say ‘mercy’, Faith?”
And what? That was it?
“Not a chance!”
I twist in her grasp and break from her hold, push the distance back to too far. My ears picking up the sound of heavy breathing, the steady beating of her heart. I let my eyes consume her, concentrate for seconds on the rise and fall of her chest, the flush that sits across her skin. Always stalking, always looking. Deciding my own next move. The places I want to touch her, to hold her. It makes me step forwards. Makes me dance into her space with one thought on my mind. Exerting my own power.
I see her mouth go to open as she notices me coming closer, no doubt some more banter to soften the occasion. But I don’t want soft. I want to touch her. To feel her. I slice through her defences with a speed which I am proud of, my hands latching onto her arms and spinning her round into a hold. Backed up against me, ass nestling tight. The strength in one arm enough to restrain her as I feel her yielding into my touch. Letting me feel the intimacy of her body pressed tight against mine. My lips falling to her neck to savour the taste of her skin, slowly up to her ear to whisper my words.
“Are ‘you’ gonna say mercy, B?”
And she whimpers… and it’s fucking touches me places I can’t even name. As if every one of my senses is keened to hear that sound, to feel it. Giving me nothing but the need to hear it again. Over and over. I feel her back pressing hard into my chest as she takes in a deep breath, my grip softening to let her turn in my hold. No longer her ass nestling against me, but the whole of her body. Her arms sliding down to meet at my back.
“And what if I don’t want mercy, Faith? What happens then?”
“Then I’ll just have to take you down.”
I show her the best that my eyebrows have to offer, wiggling their insistence that they would LOVE to take her down. And she takes it as an invitation. Her lips pressing firm against mine, softly sucking, drawing my lower lip into her mouth just so as she can run her tongue the length of it. Nip gently with her teeth. “You think you can take me Faith?”
My hormones are demanding it.
This slow dance of seduction that we have going, is perfect when you think about all of the things which we still have to work through, all of the things which we still have to face. It’s not perfect though when you consider how god damn much I just fucking want her! I want to hear her whimper all night from the way that I’m touching her, my name on her lips as I take her to all of the places that I’ve ever wanted to take her. It feels like the most intense need I have ever felt, burning straight through me. And I know that she feels it.
I wrap my leg around hers and swipe it away, my arm reaching out to brace us as we fall to the mat. Me against her, in the only kind of way that it has ever made sense. My thigh is resting hard between her legs, my chest pressing firm against her chest. And I can’t help but strike up the smallest of rhythms, just slow grinding pressure as I look into her eyes. “Do you want this B?”
And I know that we can’t, that this won’t be the time or the place… but I just want to hear the words. I want to hear the confirmation that she feels it too. That her body demands just as much from me as I am demanding from her. She drops her hand across my back leaving a trail of fire through my top, pausing at the gap of skin, the slightest glance of finger tip there. And then cupping my ass, pulling my rhythm harder against her, forcing my thigh to give her all kinds of friction.
“I need this Faith.”
Her eyes bare the truth as I close in for a kiss. Not able to stop my tongue from crashing straight through her lips, from filling her mouth. I just need to be inside of her. I don’t need to breathe, to take air, I just need this. This feeling like I’m burning from the inside out, all of me on red hot fire and all of it for her. The insistent rhythm dragging me along to feel things that I have never even felt with my clothes off. I break the kiss as I feel her hand slide down lower, caressing the crack of my ass with the ends of her fingers. Gasping as she sinks lower still, the slightest of teases running soft along the seam, tight across my pussy. “Jesus B…”
And it’s all that I can manage before my head sinks down, before I lose my focus in the feel of her fingers. No matter through pants, that it isn’t as close as I need… it’s still touching me. Just the gentlest of circles now, my breathing harsh and haggard against her neck as everything goes into concentrating my thoughts, to feeling the slip and the slide and urging for more. Her hips rising to meet every single plea that I am thrusting down into her. I forget where I am, I forget who I am. It’s all about the point of contact, about the way that her body is responding to mine. The way that her hands are still pulling me in, pulling me firm. The fingertips that are keeping steady rhythm, back and forth across the seam of my pants, constant applied pressure. I don’t even realise how close I am, would never believe that so little could bring me so close, not until I hear her ragged whispers in my ear.
“Come on baby…”
Over and over. Better than the whimpering. Calling me forth. Calling me baby?
It intensifies every second of it, hearing her words and giving her what she wants. As if she’s in tune with me, as if she knows just how close she is taking me. It’s not fucking, it’s not even that close to fucking… but damn it I don’t care. I feels fucking perfect. I bite down onto my lip as the pressure reaches an almost aching crescendo, as her fingers rub as harshly against my pussy as I am pushing down onto hers. Sounds exploding in my ears, colours fucking bursting in front of my eyes. And I push more. Crushing her beneath me with the size of my want.
“Do you feel me B, uh… can you feel this..?”
Her whole fucking body is telling me she feels this, but damn it, her voice. It sounds like nothing I’ve heard before. All of that wanting. And all of it for me.
She breathes her ‘yes’ into my ear as she goes rigid beneath me, holding me tight, and holding me firm. Just in one place, pushing her hips up as hard as she can, pulling me in as tight as she can. As close to breaking point as I am. As desperate as I am. And I fucking love it. Love the sigh that breaks from the back of her throat as it crashes straight through her. The sigh that matches from my own throat. It’s pressure I don’t want to break, still softly grinding, knowing that I need more. Lips finding lips again as she seeks the kiss to bring her back down, her steady rocking against me becoming less and less. And finally stopping. Coming to rest. Just me above her, nibbling my way from her mouth to her neck, my tongue stretching out to taste the sheen on her skin. I can’t even try and make sense out of what she is saying, my face still buried in the crook of her shoulder as I attempt to grab back onto reality. Feeling the smile that slides across my lips as I become aw are of every place that her body still touches mine. How easy she lays underneath me. How well it all fits. And I want to say something. I have so many things to say, things that I want to say. Not even knowing how to start.
“This is messed up.”
“Hmmmm… huh?” I try not to laugh as she stiffens beneath me, as she moves her head to find my face. “You what?”
And it is ok, I do have more to the sentence. “This, I mean… a girl like me, normally I have trouble keeping my pants on…” I offer her the cockiest of grins. “…now it seems like I can’t get my pants off.”
She just returns my grin with one of her own. “We’re taking it slow remember..?”
And that makes me laugh a little of the frustration away. Makes her start sliding the hand that was nestled snug against the swell of my pussy, all up and away. Leaving me to hiss with the last of the contact. Then creeping to a new destination. Fingertips running along the edge of my pants, just dipping beneath… “Did you wanna take your pants off Faith?”
Singsonging it with the sweetest of teases. And I just answer with a growl. Cos god yes! I so fucking wanna take my pants off!
It makes her laugh now, a real laugh. Makes me bring my face close to hers again to wrap her up in a kiss. An affirmation of everything I am feeling for her. Losing myself again in a need which still seeks to be sated.
“Ooh… will you two be taming the big bad evil with all of the kisses?”
And what the fuck?
I swing my head to the door and find Anya standing there watching us, the gleam in her eyes making me wonder just how long she has been playing the voyeur. My senses have been totally lost in all that is Buffy. The same Buffy who is now squirming underneath me and looking for an out. And I’m not moving. Happy to have her resting there. Not caring so much who knows it. I turn my attention back to the peeper.
“Do you think it would work Anya?”
I drawl it out slow, maybe try and bring some flush to her cheeks with the tone in my voice. Flick any embarrasment away from the two of us laying prone on the floor, straight over to her. I see her considering, the unhindered gaze taking it’s time to process the sights. Finally meeting my eyes with anything but embarassment.
“It would work better with your clothes off.”
And she’s good. And she’s right!
Buffy is practically begging me to get up off of her now, and I have to comply. Ease myself slowly up to let her rise to her feet. I wanna moan the loss of contact, of closeness. Settle instead for grinning at the cute little pink flush that B HAS found to cover her cheeks.
“We were just sparring Anya, uh… why would we ever spar naked..?”
Yeah Buffy. Even I believe you. JUST sparring.
“Well if that was sparring then I want to get in on this training regime!… The research is getting beyond tedious…”
She walks down into our space as if it’s the most natural thing in the world to stumble across two girls dry humping in the basement. “…and speaking of tedious, Giles wants you back upstairs… he has some more of those frightfully interesting facts that he just can’t wait to share.”
And that totally just bitch slapped the hornies.
“So what’s the what?”
“Oh it’s nothing important!” She’s nodding her head as if she’s the sage on all things important. “He’s been reading some old medical books, I think he wants to impart some general leechy knowledge…”
“Can life get any better?”
“Come on B, it’ll be fun…”
“No it won’t.” She looks pretty sure of herself. Doesn’t stop her from moving though. Sighing her exit from our innocent little ‘sparring’ session. And I know just how she feels. It makes me hook my fingers into the back of her pants as she goes to leave, tugging her softly, just to get her to turn and to look. Watching Anya leave as she gives us this last second of goodbye.
“Hey.”
She fixes me with a smile, a softening of her eyes. Lets herself relax as I bring my arms up around her.
“Do you think this will ever be over Faith? That we’ll ever get the time to actually be together.”
It’s all that I want. “Sure we will.”
“When?” And I can hear all of my own need hidden within her one word.
“Soon.”
It’s the best that I can do. She reaches the small distance to place a sweet kiss to my lips. Slips her hand down into mine as we turn back towards the others, back amongst the bad stuff. Coming up through the door and finding all of their eyes lost in the research. It was Giles who turned first, the one who had called us back.
“Ah girls, was the training session good? Do you think you’ll be able to concentrate now?”
“Sure thing Giles, it was a wicked work out… slayed some of that tension, you know?”
I could hear Buffy stifling something behind me. Anya offering a sly grin in front of me. And everyone else oblivious. All of them dulled by the endless pages of words that they had been forced to endure. It made me feel guilty for a moment, until I remembered how long I had waited on the moments. Then I just smiled some. Even as I was forced to listen to the lecture on the leeches I kept smiling. Trying hard not to close my eyes as I was forced to turn pages with the rest of them. Nothing to distract us until Dawn arrived home from school.
Things with me and Dawn are kinda cool. I haven’t had the chance to sit her down and sort it through, but she’s not holding it against me. We don’t flaunt anything in front of her, and so far she hasn’t brought it up. Has been happy to just hang with me without getting into the heavy. But I am just waiting on a chance to speak to her, I want to reassure her again. I did come here for her.
We kept at the tedious awaiting the sundown. An excuse to stop, to order food, to make arrangements for slaying. For babysitting. And it was me that offered to stay. I wanted more than anything to go scratch my itch on the undead bastards of the world, knowing my pent up energy would make light work of all of them. But I really did wanna have that chat with Dawn, wanted to make sure that things really are okay. Buffy isn’t the only Summers girl that I have grown a gigantic soft spot for, and I want Dawn to realise that. To know that she still means so much to me. And I’d come armed for the occasion. Remembering the gift I’d brought with me all those weeks ago that I still hadn’t gotten round to imparting. Figuring that the grotty state I had put it in would leave it pretty much undesirable.
I waited until Buffy had left to seek out her sister, finding her up in her room, hitting the school books. “Hey Dawn, whatcha working on?”
“Algebra. It sucks. I can feel my brain melting.”
“For real?”
It sounded kinda painful.
“Totally, you think you guys have it bad with the research? Ha! You wanna spend a day working out the values of your X’s and Y’s.”
I just nodded. Cos yeah, like I knew what the fuck she was talking about. Math genius was never my thing. I walked my way fully into her room and joined her on the bed. Plopped the worse for wear soft toy straight down on top of her text book.
Saw her face wrinkle in something close to… disgust? “What IS that?”
“It’s for you… it’s a gift.”
I kept my face straight and solemn. It was nice to always find a little fun.
“Uh… right. A gift.” I could see her eyes trying to understand the what’s and the why’s. “Is it my birthday… a really bad birthday?”
“No, I just wanted to get you something… do you like it?” I kept my voice steady, pretended like I couldn’t see any reason for her obvious apprehension.
“Yeah… it’s great, it’s erm… what exactly is it?”
And then I had to laugh, had to ruffle the Cordy styled hair that sat straight on her shoulders. “It’s a soft toy ya dork, I bought it for you when I got here… never got round to giving it to you, figured that now was the perfect time.”
“Right… and where did you buy it Faith? The toy shop in hell?”
I looked it over, and yeah…it was kinda messed up. Caked in some of the blood from the night I had issues with the mirror. It had helped me through that night though, crazy as that sounds. It was something to hang on to. Something soft amongst the shards. “Yeah, sorry bout that… it did look better, a lot better.”
“Hard to believe.”
“And yet it’s still true.”
She picked it up gingerly in her hands, turned it slowly around. “Why did you get me a soft toy anyway? Did you forget how old I am?”
“No…” I took it back off of her, let it rest in my own hold for a moment. “…I just, when I was coming here… I knew how much things sucked for you and I wanted to make it better… I guessed you’d either laugh at it, or love it.” I shrugged my shoulders. “Either way I figured it’s a winner.”
She went quiet in the way that let me know that she knew we were having a chat. A serious conversation.
“You do know that I meant it when I said that I came here for you? No matter about B and me, I came here for you.”
“I know that, really… but Buffy? I just don’t get why… and how..?”
I thought about the birds and the bees talk. Instead I decided to be honest. To tell her the things that I haven’t even had the chance to say to B yet. She deserved it. To not be lied to. “Because I love her Dawn, I kinda always loved her…”
She scrunched up her face to let me know that she thought it was all kinda gross.
“…before when you asked about the aggro? Well that was it. I loved her, it made me kinda wacky.”
I looked at her and waited for the truth to sink in. The knowledge that it had always been Buffy for me. I expected some shock, some gasped surprise.
“I knew it!”
“You what?”
“Seriously… I always used to tease Buffy about you and her… but then, with the uh… killing and stuff…” I nodded my okay. “…I figured I was wrong, and when you came back and things were..?”
“Not of the good.”
“Yeah, not so good… then I thought I was WAY wrong. I’m a kid, like what do I know about signals?”
“I’m an adult, and I don’t know shit.”
“Well obviously not… not if you want Buffy!”
She laughed, and I looked hurt. Then I joined in the laughter. I know she’s only teasing, I know how much she adores her sister.
“But you’re okay with it, yeah? Not full of the anger, a little resentment?”
“I’m okay with it. Really.” She offered me a sincere little smile. Quickly turning into a cheeky Dawn style grin. “I am kinda shocked that Buffy could ever pull a hot chick like you though!”
And that made me laugh. “Aw Dawn, you think I’m hot?”
“Not really, not like… Brad Pitt hot. But for a girl you’re not that bad.”
I took the compliment and assured her she was pretty darn hot as well. JUST as hot as her sister. She wanted me to say more, but there was not a chance in hell. No one was hotter than Buffy. It was the truth.
We talked a little more of the love stuff, her asking questions, me offering answers. It was strange being so open, but it all felt so easy. Kinda natural. I promised her with my most honest tone, that I would never hurt Buffy. That I really was in love with her, that I wanted to make her happy. It’s when the scales were tipped over into super serious. Crazy heavy. Her words sounding as child like as I had ever heard them.
“Does that mean after… that after you guys have beaten the big bad… will you be staying here Faith? You won’t be leaving us?”
Fuck.
That was where my mind had run then. I hadn’t even given it a thought, had just focused on beating the bad and then being with Buffy. I hadn’t logicked it through to include living arrangements and relocations. I liked LA. I had found a place for myself there. Could I really just leave it all behind for this? I had run my eyes over to hers. Seen all the worry and the fear. Not of a big bad, of an evil monster. But of abandonment. Of being left behind again. And my heart gave me the only answer that I could ever offer.
“I’ll be here for as long as you need me kid… I told you that before. If you and Buffy want me to stay here… then yeah. I’ll sort my stuff and I’ll be here.”
“You promise?”
“I promise.” And it did feel like the only words to say. Not listening to my worries, to my own fears of everything to do with families and structure and love and commitment. I knew that I could make a home here. It already felt like home here.
I stayed up in Dawn’s room, just hanging out whilst she did her work. Offering as much helpful advice as I could to get her to finish quicker, played her a couple of hands of cards once she was done. When Buffy got back from the slaying we coerced her into joining us. Ignoring Giles’s stern gaze to make just fifteen more minutes for the smiles and the sunshine. And it did make me see how good it could be. How normal it could be. What this real home could feel like.
I didn’t mention any of that to B before I left though. Before I came back to my apartment. I haven’t even told her how crazy in love with her I am, it’s hardly right to tell her that I’m thinking about moving in. No. I’ll wait until the time is right. Give it a day or two.
I made sure to ring the gang in LA before I went to my bed, I wanted to catch up with the info process and see how much longer till Cordy brought all the good stuff back. The lack of real knowledge here is getting folks down. And of course I wanted to talk to Angel. I may not be ready to tell Buffy yet about my grand moving plans, but I was ready to tell him. To see what he would think if I moved on from LA, if I stayed here in Sunnydale. It was amusing to hear his laugh. His words.
“Since when did you start asking for permission Faith?”
And it did seem kind of funny. But I just wanted him to be alright with it. I owe him so much, damn it, I admit it… I fucking love him so much, and I don’t ever want to just walk out on him.
He gave me every assurance I needed that Angel Investigations could cope without me, that he could cope without me. Yes he would miss me, he missed me now, but I had to do what was right for me. He said that all I needed to do was to work out if this was what I really wanted. Family life in the suburbs. Was it for me?
He said that I should be sure before I offered it. And I know that, and I promised. And I am sure. It is what I want. To be with Buffy and to be with Dawn. A place where I know I can be happy. A place where I can know love.
I had lots to think over as I went to my bed. Not near enough room for duty thoughts, as all I could feel were Buffy thoughts. So easy to let my mind drift back to earlier, to let my hand drift down my body. To feel fingers slide deep inside of my pussy as I panted out her name. I want it so damn much, to feel her… to really feel her. I’m fucking aching for her. No self fulfilling climax even coming close to dampening my need. And I wonder if she feels it too. If her mind wanders over my body the same way that mine wanders over hers. If her own fingers seek to make good on the promises we had been offering each other since the Bronze.
Fuck. I just want to taste her. To touch her.
To erase everything bad in the truth of how good we are together. How well it all works now that we want it to work. Now that we’ve finally grown up enough to accept all that it means. Jesus… all I really want to do is to tell her that I love her. For the moment to sit perfect, for the whole fucking world to quiet just long enough for me to get it out. Just long enough for her to hear me.
“I love you Buffy.”
It feels so right to speak it out loud. It’s the most right I’ve ever felt my whole life. And it lulls me into the most perfect sleep. Finally dreaming my sweet dreams.
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