POV Faith
What’s the opposite to déjà vu? Cos I have it. I hear all of the words, I see all of the smiles, and yet all I can remember is the absolute feeling of the bad. There is nothing familiar to me in anything that they say. All that I can recall is the way that it feels to have evil sliding it’s way through me, knowing beyond anything else that it damn well belongs there too. Yeah. That’s what I remember, just the memory of memories. Seeing all of my proudest moments back to back, all of the hurt, all of the pain… and all of it courtesy of me. So you can understand why I don’t have the smiles to return, why I can’t stand up and lead the cheers of ‘go me!’, because to me it all still sounds like so much crap.
It doesn’t make sense any other way. I would remember if I had been a hero, if I had walked through that portal, as Buffy says I did, and thrust myself at the leech to distract it from her. If I had buried my arms elbow deep into the tendrils of darkness to force them to suck everything from me whilst she rescued Tara… I KNOW I would remember. My whole fucked up life I just wanted to be good enough, and there is no way that I would forget a moment that finally proved to me that good was what I was. What I am. No. I would remember.
“Faith?”
And Giles can slide the paternal tone into his voice all damn night if he wants to, it still won’t make me nod my agreement.
“I don’t know what you want me to say. I hear you, I really do… but it doesn’t change anything, it doesn’t change what I know.”
“You were in a different dimension, fighting in the very pit of all evil, do you really expect that the beast wouldn’t have the power to affect your perception, your memories?”
“You tell me. Kinda screwy how it messed with my memories and not B’s though, not Tara’s either, you got an explanation for that one?”
I know I smirk as he bows his head, and I know I don’t mean to. It’s just all too fucked up. The whole gang gathering round to tell tales of big brave Faith, and me just sitting here feeling like stupid small Faith. I let my head bow too, let it stay that way until more words are spoken.
“When ‘I’ came out I was different, I had no real memory of time and experience, I was completely reduced to a feral existence. It’s different for everyone Faith, you can’t just dismiss what we’re saying because we can’t show you proof.”
“I can Angel, I can and I will…”
“No.”
I let my eyes travel to her. To Buffy. All the way across the room where I had made her sit. She wanted to sit with me, of course she did, but I couldn’t allow that. Couldn’t let her charm the words into me with soft and sure touches, let her cloud my memories of badness with the sweet feel of goodness. But she looks at me now and I wish that she was close to touch, to soothe. I can take my own pain, I can take years of it, but it’s so much harder to see hers.
“Aren’t you even going to let me speak Faith? I thought that that was the point in this, that you were going to listen, that you were going to hear.”
“Well all I’ve heard so far B, is a whole lot of shit I don‘t understand, do you have anything different to add?”
I know that my tone is harsh, but I’m just not able to stop it. Even as her eyes cloud over with broken emotion, I just can’t let it go. This feeling of failure, this feeling like I fucked it all up again.
“Well I have something to add, how ‘bout you listen to me?”
Gunn’s smooth as silk voice slides it’s way across the room, ripping my focus away from her pain. I had forgotten for an instant that there was still an audience, not only the Scoobs, but the LA gang as well, all of them having this nice little pow-wow to make me feel all good about myself. It’s going well. Really.
“You weren’t even in there Gunn, what the fuck do you know?”
“Don’t give me that crap. Where’s the feisty Faith I first met in LA? The girl who could take ten rounds of pounding and then dish out ten more, cos I’m telling you girl, there ain’t no way that that Faith would’ve gone into no messed up hell dimension and laid herself down for evil to bite a slice, not a chance.”
“You wasn’t there.”
“Wrong. I was right there. I was making slimy sushi outta those leech sized tentacles the whole time you were in there fighting. I know what I saw, what I heard… and girl you’ve got it all messed up.”
I want to bang my head hard against a wall. Either I am really wrong, or they are all in this together… I just… argh, it feels like maybe…
“I don’t know. I just don’t know.”
“Yay! A breakthrough!”
“Yeah, funny Cordy. Thanks.”
“I’m not going for the humour, but Jesus Faith, you’re as bad as the other one with the overload of feeling sorry for yourself. Get over it, you did good. Be proud. Don’t make me knock the sense into you.”
I eye her up as she stands from her seat, all purposeful and strong. Her tone not leaving any room for comebacks or argument. Just a minute to sit here and to think. To wonder again what the fuck really did happen inside of that damn portal.
“Okay.”
“Okay what?”
“I wanna hear B’s side to it, and Tara… both of you were there, I’ve got the low down on what these goons saw from the outside, so tell me… what really happened?”
I just want to know the truth. Not made up bullshit to make me feel better, but the truth. If I fucked up, so be it, I can live with that…
“I can tell you what I remember?”
I smile my approval at Tara, a wary smile that says I will listen. I can’t promise that I’ll believe what she says, but I will try to listen. Try to hear.
“I don’t know how long I was in there, I know how long they say it was… but time was different inside. It was like I could feel myself getting weaker, but nothing was hurting me… I saw Warren consumed, I… I wanted to help him, but I couldn’t move, like I was trapped…”
Willow’s hand is twisting softly through her hair as she speaks, fingers making soft blonde tendrils, instead of the dark and nasty kind. It makes me look to B again, makes me wish that I had allowed her to sit closer.
“…I was just waiting, I knew that you would come, that all of you would come… and then you did. I heard my Willow’s words to open up the portal, I watched as you and Buffy took those first steps inside… and I watched as Buffy fell.”
You what?
I know my eyes fly to both of them, two open faces offering me confirmation of a fact that I hadn’t heard before. I had never allowed the tale to progress this far, not allowed voices to get past the first lies of hero, and now it just brings more confusion, complete and utter confusion.
“I don’t… B didn’t fall, ‘I’ fell…”
“No Faith, listen to her… just listen, please?”
Buffy’s plaintive plea is enough to hold me back from cursing out disapproval, from cursing out my shock. I want to. I have a whole list of ‘what the fucks’ just dying to get out and be heard, but her tone, her voice, her eyes which look more tired than mine feel, they all reach in and touch me, they quieten me.
“You didn’t fall Faith, I don’t know what you saw, what you remember, but YOU did not fall… you pulled Buffy free, you were screaming so loud, she was screaming so loud, and you just pulled her free…”
“But…”
“No buts, it’s true. Tara’s telling the truth. When I stepped through that portal all that I could feel was totally alone. Deep down inside, alone. I lost sight of you Faith, all I could see was every bad thing I have ever done, I saw Finch, I saw myself leaving you… and I saw him. I saw Spike…”
“But…”
“Hey! She said no buts!”
Dawn shrieks it out as I try and break the story again, try and break my way through all of the bullshit and lies. I get that she wants to hear the story too, that she wants the confirmation in her young mind that I am the big brave hero she’s built me up to be. But this did not happen, I would remember. I would know if it had happened that way. I offer her a subdued wink, offer the room a weary sigh as Buffy begins to speak again.
“After you pulled me free from it, I could focus again, I could see Tara, I knew what I had to do, and I didn’t stop to think, I thought that you were with me, at my side… I didn’t realise that it had you too, that it was already creeping it’s way up your leg, wrapping around you… and god, I didn’t know that you were gonna fight it like that…”
“Fight it?”
“It’s true Faith, Buffy was busy rescuing me, and you were busy grabbing at every slimy piece of evil leech that you could get your hands upon…”
“No…” They have it so wrong, it all sounds so wrong! “…I could feel it inside of me. Jesus, guys… it was inside of me!”
“Actually, that kinda came later.”
Tara’s soft smile tries to lighten my load, but all I can do is to want the wall again. And the head smashing. Possibly really hard.
“You threw the first punch, I think you made it angry, it sounded angry, and that’s when it went inside of you, not before that.”
I just don’t know what to say. I don’t say anything, I just sit here and I wait until Buffy’s tones come back through the silence. Words which are coated in so much more than pain, which tug at something which I do remember.
“I watched it Faith, I saw it get you… I had Tara, I thought we were doing so well, and then I heard you scream, it was… god, it was just so bad, I turned and it had you, all of those sick evil things going inside of you, and the smell… it smelt, I don’t know, it smelt like burning flesh, like it was scorching from the inside…”
“I guess that explains the stink then.”
“Huh?”
“I keep getting these sniffs of burning flesh, makes sense if it was my flesh burning.”
“Well that’s just it, I don’t think it was you burning.”
And I can’t follow this shit anymore.
“So who was burning? You were burning? Tara was burning?”
“No, IT was burning. Whatever you were doing to it Faith, you were hurting it…”
“But I wasn’t doing anything! Don’t you all get that? I didn’t DO anything!”
I have to take a break from this. The confusion, the frustration. Pulling myself gingerly up to standing and stalking from the room, out to the kitchen and grabbing a drink. Splashing cooling water across my face as I try to wash away some of the fucked up feelings.
“Why won’t you believe them Faith?”
“Oh that’s just fucking great, I come out here for a bit of peace and quiet, so you damn well follow me out here? Can’t you just give me a minute Angel? Just a fucking minute.”
“And can’t you just calm down? Try deep breaths.”
And I do try, I am trying… but damn it! I want to punch something, maybe everything. It’s just such a fucking frustration not remembering a god damn thing that they say that I did, not remembering anything which means something.
“Don’t fuck with me okay. I’m fine, I just want a moment to chill.”
He’s brave enough to come closer, to take the soda from my hand and to pop the ring pull. Holding it back out to me like some kind of sacred gift.
“You don’t think I can open my own soda now?”
“I think that you can do anything you put your mind to Faith, but that doesn’t mean that you can turn your back on help when it offers itself to you. That’s all everybody is trying to do here, they want to help you.”
And here comes my sigh.
“I get that, really… but don’t you get how hard this is? I don’t remember anything Angel, not a thing! All of it sounds like crap to me. It feels like crap.”
“Maybe you don’t remember, because you won’t remember.”
“And maybe you’re as full of shit as the rest of them.”
But I don’t mean it. He may be full of brooding melancholy, but he is not full of shit. Neither are the others… maybe it’s just me.
“What would be so terrible in listening to them, in believing in them like they believe in you? Surely you can give them that much, they deserve that much.”
“They do, I know they do… but it’s not about that, right? You know the score Angel, you know the ins and the outs of how it all works, of how ‘I’ work, so you tell me?”
“You want me to tell you?”
“Of course I fucking do! Someone has to make sense for me.”
I feel like I’m pleading, and I know just what he is going to say. My truth as he sees it, the truth as it is for me. Something which can’t be cured with any quick tales of bravery, stories of you did this and they did that. No matter how many voices want to speak it, there are just so many reasons that I can’t hear it. Can’t just accept it.
“You’re scared of believing in yourself, you’re terrified that it’s really the truth, because if it is, and it really is Faith, then you’re gonna have to stop doubting everything, doubting yourself… no more questions, no more drunken screams to the PTB. If you accept this, then you know that you’re good enough. And that is as bigger fear for you as being not good enough. Am I right?”
“You know that you’re right.”
And it does sound like sense to me. Not portals and tendrils and doom and gloom. Just the underlying truth of it all. I want so bad to be good enough, and yet I’m so damn scared that I might be. That everything which my whole life has been built upon will come crashing down around me. I’ve learnt to live with self doubts, I’ve had to learn to live with them… and now the thought of living without them is just so totally and utterly terrifying.
I let my dusty eyes meet his, shine my acceptance of the words to him as I feel my body deflate. Let his cool hands pull me tight into a hug.
“You have to let it go Faith, you can’t keep punishing yourself for every bad act, every bad deed. You have a purpose, you have a calling, and the only thing which will stop you from being your best is yourself. You’re the only thing strong enough to ever hold you back.”
“You have to say that, you’re a friend.”
“No, I don’t have to say anything, if I wanted to, I could say that you drink too much and that your language is appalling, that would be a friend thing to say. But not this, this is the truth, and you know it’s the truth. Now you just have to accept it.”
Yeah.
“You think I drink too much and my language is appalling?”
But I will scoot the issue. I heard him, it’s in there, but I’m not about to get all touchy feely with Angel in the kitchen, he knows me. He knows how I deal, and I trust that he’ll play along like he always does. Like I need him to. Pushing myself back from his hold to support myself against the counter. Not prepared to show a lack of strength, when all that I’m trying to do is to hold onto my strength.
“Yes on both counts Faith, you’d put a sailor to shame, a whole boatload of sailors. Irish sailors. But this really isn’t about that.”
“It isn’t? Cos bitching at a girl’s habits is a big issue Angel, you’ve gotta give me the chance to defend my honour.”
And here comes the look that just screams of the brooding and the melancholy and the oh so deep down intensity.
“No Faith, no defence necessary. You are who you are and you have to accept that, the same way as all of us do. You can strip away the language and the drinking, and the ‘five by five’ fast living, but underneath it all you’re still the same person. It’s about time that you looked inside and saw the goodness there, stopped trying so hard to hide behind the bad.”
“You think I’m hiding?”
“Aren’t you?”
And what the fuck do I know?
I let out another of the sighs which signal how much I don’t know and how tired I am. Tired of all of it. “I don’t know Angel, I wanna believe it, getting a gig as a hero instead of a fuck up sounds cool, but…”
I see it all again. I feel it all again. The darkness and the deeds. Twisting tight inside of me.
“…how do I know? How do I know what’s truth and what’s bullshit? How do I…”
“How do you trust? Because that’s what it all comes down to, trust. You don’t trust yourself, your own judgement of good, so you have to go back inside that room and look around at all of the people who want to talk to you. Do you think that Buffy would lie to you? Do you think that any of them could lie to you? Can you trust them?”
“What the hell is this Angel, fifty thousand fucking questions?”
I pull long and hard at the can wishing that it was more than soda, wishing that I could feel the harsh kick that told me I wouldn’t have to think for too much longer. But it’s still just soda. Still just me positioned under Angel’s knowing eyes.
“Are you ready to go back in there Faith? Are you ready to listen?”
And he really didn’t get the deal with the questions.
“I think I’m through with the listening for tonight.”
“You can’t keep hiding.”
“I’m not fucking hiding!”
“Well that’s good, cos I’m gonna say that the screaming kinda gives away your position… you do know that we can all hear you in there?”
I turn to see Willow looking almost apologetic for disturbing us, and I just wanna kiss her. Trying to deflect Angel when he’s in serious ‘setting you straight’ mode, can be pretty damn wearing, and she has just saved me from a whole lot more of it.
“Hey Red, you come to drag me back in there too?”
“Nope, no dragging, just refreshments. Anya’s pretty upset that you’re making her miss her supper, Dawn’s looking like she should’ve hit the sack hours ago, and all of the guys from LA just look like they wanna be, uh… in LA. So I’m getting drinks. Drinks and cookies.”
And drinks and cookies do sound good. Much better than trust and goodness and badness and portals. I offer to help, to carry a tray of the sweet stuff back into the lounge which is now full of the heartfelt glances. Eyes which all look to me in some kind of fucked up sympathy. A total overload of the caring and sharing. And I just sit here pretending that my cookie holds more interest than all the rest of them put together, not even finding the courage to lose my eyes in B. Scared of the disappointment I’ll find there.
“Are we ready to reconvene?”
And how about a no?
“I think that maybe Faith has had enough for tonight Giles, perhaps we can do this tomorrow, after everybody has had some sleep?”
“I really think that it would be advisable to get through it all now Angel, I understand that Faith is weak, but surely it would be better to finish with it tonight, rather than prolonging the agony.”
“And ‘I’ don’t want to miss my supper for nothing! Faith can take it, she’s a big strong slayer!”
“Quite obviously your supper is top of our agenda Anya…”
“Can you all just shut the hell up?”
Her voice makes the whole room turn. Makes me turn.
“Sorry guys, really, but I am so utterly exhausted, and so is Faith. There won’t be anymore of this tonight, I don’t care about suppers and prolonging the agony, or any of that other crap… all I know is that in the next ten minutes I will be putting Faith firmly into bed. What you guys choose to do is up to you.”
And no one is going to argue with her. She is already standing, already lifting Dawn and pointing her in the direction of the stairs, already turning to me and holding out her hand. And what is there for me to do, except take it?
I could count every crack in the ceiling another fifteen times and it still wouldn’t speed the seconds up enough for her to be here. Ten minutes? I’ve been sat here for twenty. Putting me to bed? I’m just about ready to collapse on my own. But still I sit here and I wait. I’ve acted like an ass to her tonight, excluding her from my touch, not listening to her words. Not even meeting her eyes. And now all that I can do is to sit here and wonder if the cool feel of her hand is the only touch she is going to give me tonight. It would probably be all that I deserve.
I just… it’s so easy to say the words, to speak to B about good enough not mattering, about how loving each other is enough to see us through, but maybe it isn’t. Maybe it does matter. Maybe I am still hiding, using fancy phrases to get me out of tight situations, pretending I can make the world a better place, when I haven’t even got the guts to make myself a better place. To let go of all of the crap which I allow to hold me back. I never figured on myself as a martyr, as a sack of self pitying bullshit, but maybe that’s exactly what I am…
The door handle turning is enough to make me jump, to make me hold myself ramrod straight and await her entry, watching as she comes through the door with her eyes held firmly on the floor, fussing endlessly around the room as she makes a grab at her bed clothes.
“B?”
“Uh-huh?”
Not looking, just moving.
“Are you pissed at me?”
“Why would you think that?”
“There’s the not looking at me, the clipped tones… it’s all there.”
And now she does look, arching those eyebrows high up on her face. “All night you’ve ignored me Faith! All night!”
“I didn’t… I wasn’t ignoring you.”
“Well I guess that just makes me stupid then, because it sure felt like you were ignoring me. The sitting yourself all the way across the room, the not hearing a god darn word I had to say… oh, and of course the secret little, not so hushed, conversations with Angel in the kitchen. Yep! Definitely stupid me.”
She’s pacing back and forth as if wearing a hole in the carpet is gonna make it all make sense, when all that it’s really gonna do is tire her little legs out even more.
“B stop, I’m sorry okay. I acted like an ass, and I’m sorry.”
“Carry on.”
“I uh…” And where are the words? The ones which say everything I feel. The ones which explain how hard it is to even begin to imagine that I’m chocked full of the good stuff instead of all the bad.
“Oh look, and now I get the silence. I’m gonna go to bed Faith, we can talk this one through in the morning. I’m exhausted, I know you’re exhausted, so lets just leave it. Get some sleep.”
“But Buffy…”
“No! I am so sick of hearing your ‘buts’, can you not just listen to me? Just this once, I’m tired Faith, I want to sleep. You can go over every reason that I’m talking crap to you, that I would lie to you, in the morning. That’s it. Now close your eyes.”
“Close my eyes?”
“You think I’m putting on a show for you tonight? Either close your eyes or I’m going in the bathroom to get changed.”
And man is she pissed! I do close my eyes though, it’s kinda scary… since we’ve been, I don’t know, together, she hasn’t been pissed at me at all. And I don’t like it. Or I like it too much. Something to consider as I imagine the pulling off of clothes over the tightness of curves. As I imagine her standing there butt fucking naked and raging her words out at me.
“Do you think this is funny?”
“Can I open my eyes?”
“No! God, you are so infuriating! I’m trying to be pissed at you Faith, could you at least quit with the smirking?”
Oops. I didn’t realise I was smirking out loud. Put a lid on the thoughts Faith, a lid for the naughty thoughts.
“I wasn’t smirking. I was… uh, grimacing?”
“Well quit!”
Holding my breath as the seconds tick by, dying to peek just a little, just a tiny little look see.
“Okay, I’m done. Your turn.”
I catch the clothes she tosses, my arm outstretching before my eyes have even opened, feeling like my slayer senses are all slipping right back into alignment. Something in this room just making them tingle and buzz with a certain deep intensity.
“Are you gonna close your eyes B?”
The hairs along my arm all standing to quick attention with the look that she gives me. Disdainful and pissed. And damn fucking hungry. Imploring my legs to feel the strength of the moment as I make a try at standing before her. At reaching out my hand to touch her. Not with coolness, but with heat. Forgetting pissed, just feeling this.
“Faith…”
Tracing the neck line to her bed shirt, the soft skin which marks the curve of her neck, eyes fixing onto the pulse which beats so strongly, which calls for me to touch.
“I’m pissed at you, do you understand that?”
“I get that.”
Feeling the fire in her gaze as she demands that I look at her, as her hand slips firm behind my head and commands that I look at her. And I’m not moving, I am so deep in those eyes.
“You hurt me tonight Faith, you pushed me away again… you talk about me not hiding, you give great sermons on me not hiding, and yet you still try and push me away. Why do you do that?”
My fingers are dropping down from her neck to slide across the front of her shirt, to seek the opening which sits so temptingly at her navel, to glide across skin and to revel in her gasps.
“I’m not pushing you away now, am I?”
“Stop it.”
Feeling the dip at the base of her back, bringing my hands into meet so as she is here in my hold. But not moving my eyes, nothing being able to tear my eyes away from the things which I see in hers. The things which speak louder than words. “You don’t mean that B.”
And feeling the trip as she hooks a leg around mine and sends me crashing back down onto the bed.
“Yes Faith, I do mean it. Now are you gonna get changed or are you sleeping in your clothes?”
“Maybe I’ll just sleep naked, you got any problem with that?”
Because I can do that. I can uncover myself to cover my embarrassment at her rejection of me. The way she doused the flames I was so expertly stoking.
“You can do what you like, I’m going to sleep.”
“What, you’re not even gonna help me? I’m still kinda weak B, I need a little helping.” And there is nothing at all hungry in the way which she looks at me now, just a little sad maybe, a whole lot sad.
“There’s only one thing weak about you Faith, and it has nothing to do with your physical strength.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“It means goodnight, it means sleep well, and it means that the sooner you can stop questioning yourself, the sooner I can stop questioning us.”
“You’re questioning us?”
“I’m going to sleep.”
“B?”
“Goodnight.”
And she turns her back to me. No little kisses that have marked out my last three days of living, just her back and her words. I don’t take off my clothes, I don’t even get beneath the sheets, I just lay and I count those cracks in the ceiling again. No times enough to have her coming back to me. Nothing ever enough to stop me from questioning myself. I let my eyes fall closed on the sight of the distance between us, an abyss I’m not brave enough to cross. I just love her so much, the only thing I’m certain of, the only thing I don’t doubt. And I can’t bear the thought of her questioning us. I need us. I need her. It is all that I can think about as I let myself drift down into sleep.
I feel it coming over me like a fog in the distance, rolling closer, coming closer, just waiting to engulf me, to consume me. And I know what it is, what it means. How the nightmares begin. Trapped in this sleep time confinement that allows no escaping of prisoners, the feeling just as bad as the portal itself. Hearing again the cock sure words which have fallen from my mouth every single night since I came back around, taunting me with the dread I had felt, the warning I should’ve listened to.
‘Don’t get eaten.’
Ha fucking ha. Feeling the touch of her hand as I turn to face the wall, the pinprick growing bigger… the void opening before us. And god do I try. Every word they have spoken, every sigh they have suffered for me, I try and hang onto it all. Try and see with my own eyes what they saw with theirs. Just blackness, the same fucking blackness.
‘B?’
My voice ringing hollow in my ears as I start the nightly search for her, as my knees graze with the sensation of falling.
‘Buffy?’
Still nothing. I know how this plays. I wait for the first slip, the first feel as the tendrils reach up and around me, the hoarse screaming which I know will rip harsh from my throat any second now. The loneliness surrounding me, the badness inviting me. Just waiting to see the show, to feel the first sense of shame as I take a look at a younger sized me. So full of crap, so full of badness. Swapping sex for beer, beer for sex, fast living and ‘five by five’, all of it just waiting here to slap me hard around the head, to remind me again of all that I am.
‘BUFFY!!!’
Ah yeah. There it goes. My scream as I see her fall right in front of me, the rage which consumes me as I deny evil the chance to ever taste the flavour of her goodness.
And what the fuck?
That didn’t happen! That isn’t how it happened! The pain infusing through me as I throw her from it’s path, my arms screaming out in god forsaken agony as I try for dear life to hold on to it, to keep it all back from her.
‘Oh fuck… argh…’
The words sounding the same, but the pictures all different. My head spinning in absolute confusion, worse than confusion. Two movies, back to back. Side by side. Not a kid full of shit, but a kid living in shit, seeing the stark bareness of walls which I had faced every night. Swapping sex not for beer, but for comfort, to feel like someone cared enough to touch me, to hold me. Whooping out the joy of my first slay, not because I was a badass, but because finally it felt like I had some control, like I had power. Not for anyone else, but just for me. I had power over me. The sickening feel of a cloven caress, still here, still prying into me… but different…
‘God no, please god, no…’
Begging that he take my life for hers… I was a slayer, I was replaceable, but not her… not marking me with her blood in that way, my first taste of absolute failure. The hissing of evil still haunting this nightmare with placating stabs of agreement, the tendrils wrapping tighter around my hands as I seek to beat them down. My eyes fighting the screen to shine bright on B as I see her lift up Tara, as she takes her into her arms… safe…
‘Buffy…’
Not knowing if she hears me, just feeling it flow right through me as her eyes lock into mine. The horror on her face… horror at me? My vision split between an unknown truth, and that which I am sure of. A memory which they say isn’t real, and a truth that I can’t remember. Oh fuck, all spinning in front of me, too much to see, too much to feel. Sunnydale assaulting me again as I train all of my strength into taming the beast, breaking my hand free and thrusting it with such speed, so deep inside of it, feeling her strength as my strength, striking a first blow for good…
‘Thanks B, I couldn’t have done it without ya.’
The sickening dread as it slips right inside of me, so different than before, like a fight to the death, the leech versus me. Evil versus… good? Taunting tones hurting me as it sucks at all of the things which I long to forget, as it slides inside the place I had always reserved for Buffy, the darkness that resides in unquenched desire, in all of the wanting, none of the having. And I fight it so fucking hard. Fight so hard to clear the fog that taints my view, that keeps me wrapped up in tireless edits of endless stakings of men that should never have been staked. Is it real, is this real? Struggling even in this dreamscape to keep the breath inside of my lungs, to keep the leech from pulling me down.
‘I don’t care…’
Thrusting my arms in deeper to pull back everything that it is stealing from me. The cocky smirk not a smirk at my smart ass little self, but a smirk at the fucked up face of evil. And I feel it howl. As I slide my arms in up to their hilt I hear it fucking bellow out a scream, and oh my god… I do remember. I fucking remember this! I’ve heard this scream before, I’ve fought this beast before.
‘Oh god, please… no more…’
I remember my words as I looked to B, as I saw her carry out Tara through the portal, knowing that I was done, that it didn’t matter anymore. No matter what… I had done it, I had stayed strong enough long enough for her to get Tara out. Not caring at the smell which rose up, which rises up again now, the sweet sick smell of burning flesh… not caring that I can feel the soft slide up my arms as it crawls deeper and deeper inside of me…
‘There’s my little firecracker…’
And I wanna stop and wave, because she is here, and I am not. Not caring this time as I see again the sick sadistic twisted smile of the undead soulless fucker, because he is here, and I am not. Knowing even as this nightmare wraps me up in it’s hold, that I will be leaving and they will be staying… that she will save me.
‘FAITH!’
And there she is. Blotting out the replay of an over shown bad movie, of events that never even happened, striding back through a portal that looks to be closing, shimmering so softly behind her as the leech sucks out the last that I can give it. And you know that I push it, that I let my fists clench on it as it clenches on me, my heart beating with the pounding sound of evil…
‘FAITH!!’
Just letting the sound of her voice carry me up and away… not caring, not even feeling anymore as the darkness finds a home in my heart, because there isn’t any room there, it doesn’t matter anymore, my heart is full of Buffy.
I Watch removed as she runs her way closer to me. My first time at seeing this, my first time at knowing the truth. The real truth. No longer a nightmare, just a memory… my fists clenching so hard, my face clenching so tight in the twisted grimace of pain, seeing for the first time the light as it shoots straight from me, the way it snakes a path along every tendril, the burning rising up again, sizzling through me, from me, right back into the centre of all evil.
Buffy.
I feel nothing but her inside as it spits me from it’s grasp, as the pain subsides into the sensation of just falling. My fists finally unclenching, my body going limp. I had nothing left to fight… I just had to trust. Had to let myself believe that if I gave it all up, if I let myself fall… that she would catch me, that she could catch me.
And she caught me.
“Faith… oh god, Faith!”
Shaking me, pounding at me. The sick stench of darkness still slipping through my soul, dragging me down, pulling me from her hold. Feeling the emptiness as her hands go from me, letting me fall, leaving me with nothing but the loneliness.
“Guys! I need help in here…”
Trying to open my eyes to see what the fuss is, where the fuss is, why her voice sounds so far away.
“B..?”
“Quiet Faith, don’t talk, don’t move…” Her hands are on me again, and what the fuck is all the excitement for? “…just lay still baby, it’s all gonna be okay.”
“What the…”
“I said be quiet.”
And I try. Trying to hold myself still as I feel something sliding under my skin, making my eyes bulge open as I realise the horror of what she can see. The blackness still inside of me, my body fighting hard to expel it.
“Buffy, what’s going on?”
“Oh god Giles, she was dreaming again, it woke me up… and then this.”
His own eyes bulge as he takes a look down at me. His mouth going from open to shut, to hand over the mouth to stop from…
“Oh fuck…”
My body ripping as I feel it shooting up my throat, bursting forth in streams of uncontrollable black vomit, all over the bed, all over me, all over B.
“I’ll get a bucket, I’ll uh… I’ll get the witches.”
Unless they have some kind of anti puking spell I don’t see what good they’re gonna be, but I can’t argue. My mouth is full of the sickening taste of the burning, laying heavy on my tongue, scratching harsh against my throat. And I just try and concentrate on the touch of her hand, smoothing circles across my back as I let more and more of the bad stuff spill forth. Wondering just how much of this evil shit I have left inside of me.
“It’s okay baby, it’s okay.”
My whole body sweating as I fucking turn inside out, expecting any moment to look down and see my entrails laying in pretty patterns across the bed. Great heaving gasps as I try to pull oxygen back into my lungs. As I just try and breathe.
“Buffy? Giles said…”
And almost losing it now at the look on Willow’s face. At her empty attempt at trying to thrust a bucket in front of my mouth, when already I’ve soaked the whole of the bed.
“It’s okay Will, I think it’s nearly over.”
“Right, well… I’m just gonna go to the bathroom, lose a little of those cookies which were sitting a whole lot nicer before I saw this, possibly I’m gonna lose tomorrow’s breakfast too…”
“Hey sweetie, what’s the problem?”
“Uh… no problem Tara, just uh…”
Wishing I could lock the damn door so as the whole damn house doesn’t get to come and admire the sight of me losing my guts.
“Oh goddess, is she… is she okay Buffy?”
“She’s fine, she just… it’s just more of the sickness. First time today, I thought we were over it.”
And I wanna tell her. I so bad want to stop for just a moment, just so I can tell her. I know what it is! I figured it out, all by myself, little old Faithy. Losing my guts but gaining some insight. I beat it! I beat the fucking evil, and now it’s got no where left to go, no hidden places inside of me that wanna give home to it’s whispering words of dark deceit. It’s gotta come out, it’s all coming out.
“Should I do something?”
“I wouldn’t come too close unless you wanna get sprayed, uh… just keep Dawn out okay? I don’t want her worrying…” She breaks from the command to rub again at my back, to whisper sweet words of comfort, to hold me closer no matter how much of the sickness I inflict upon her bedclothes.
“…maybe you could get some towels? I don’t know… a whole closet full of towels?”
“Right, towels. I think Giles is brewing tea, do you think she feels like tea?”
And no!
“Maybe when she’s done.”
“No…”
“Quiet Faith, don’t try to talk.”
“I’ll go get the tea and towels, I’ll be right back… and hang in there Faith, you’ll be fine.”
Her eyes slip to mine as she says my name and I see her little smile for me, even as I lay here writhing in my own putrid puke, she finds a smile for me. I wanna say something, but apart from the fact that my mouth feels full to the brim with slimy evil toads, I also know that Buffy would hush any of my attempts at speaking again. It makes me open my mouth even wider to let it all out, letting it just stream into more pools of darkness in front of me. Not trying to stop it, just letting it flow free. All of it out. Grabbing quick for air as I feel the final pieces slide from my throat, as finally at last, my body feels clean again. As I not only know the truth, but I feel the truth. I WAS good enough.
“That’s it baby, just breathe.”
Slipping her hands through my crusted up hair, to pull it back from my face, her eyes shining bright with confusion as I show her my most dazzling smile. Or maybe something close to a smile. I’m covered in shit, it really is hard to tell.
“B, I…”
“No talking, not yet… wait till it’s passed, just let it all out.”
“But it…”
“No! My god, you really do have trouble listening to me, don’t you?”
Shaking my head, not at her words, but at HER complete inability to listen to me!
“I’m okay B, it’s over.”
“How about you let me be the judge of that, huh?”
“No, I mean, it’s over.”
My words not ready yet to make complete sense, my mind still tumbling with the realisation that I was wrong, I was so fucking wrong. Because I was so fucking right. Me. Big bad me, with a soul full of darkness, I was right, I was good, and I swear I’m gonna start dancing any minute. Kinda like a funny feeling, like all of a sudden I’m just bursting with the light stuff… which reminds me…
“The light B, what the fuck was the light?”
“The what? Are you okay? Are you hallucinating, you want me to turn the lights down?”
She keeps rubbing at my hair, at my back, at every sick covered part of me, and I just laugh. I swear it’s all that I can do. I full on, straight up, from the bottom of my belly, I laugh!
“Buff, is she okay… I heard…”
Not caring as Wills come back from her bathroom jaunt, as Tara crowds into the doorway with the biggest damn stack of towels I have ever seen, because this is the best day of my life. I don’t care if I look crazed and manic, if even B is edging a little way back from me now, because I’m gonna keep laughing. It sounds so good. It IS good.
“Faith, baby… are you, can you… stop?”
“No way B…”
Collapsing my weight back to lying, and not even giving a shit that I’m wallowing in everything that my body just threw out. I feel great, I feel fucking great. So strong, so fucking strong and so fucking good!
“I brought the tea. Oh… oh my, is she quite alright Buffy?”
I try and stop the howling laughter, try and catch my breath to catch her eyes. Shining, they’re fucking shining at me. Not questioning me, no room for questions here, just shining. Making my eyebrows dance wild across my face as I look to her, as I trust that she will understand, she will feel it.
“Yes Giles, yes… she’s fine. She’s absolutely fine.”
And now she IS caught up in it. This private sensation that no other girl in the world can share, not one of them, it’s all me and her, it’s just me and her. Forget earlier, forget my hiding and running and playing at scared, I’m not scared, I’m a slayer for fucks sake, I beat evil, I fucking pound evil, and this is the girl that I do it all for.
“I’m fine Giles… really, just give me a moment…”
Pausing to find words, yet still not stopping the full wattage grin from lighting up the room. And it tugs at me again. The light, what the fuck was the light? I wish I could form the words to question the man in the know, but all that I can do is to lay here gibbering nonsense as they try and make a start at cleaning me up. Even Dawn allowed into the room, now that I’ve finished regurgitating the evil.
“That is so gross! I am so not going to school tomorrow, I’m scarred, totally scarred from living in this house…”
“It’s cool kiddo, B’s got a therapy fund for ya, ain’t you B?”
“Oooh, a fund? I have a fund?”
“There’s three dollars in my wallet, help yourself.”
And the look on her face sets me off again laughing. I know they all think that I’m a little with the skating close to crazy, but no way. B knows the deal, she’s laughing too. Even Dawn replacing the quizzical looks with a little of that Summer’s shine.
“I’m taking that three dollars, and I’m going back to my bed. Please don’t wake me again. Oh… unless there’s zombies! I never get a good look at the zombies.”
She leaves the room as if this has just been another normal night in the life of an American teenager. Makes me look to Giles and wish that she was British. Or not.
“You know Buff, she’s gonna need a hell of a lot more than that three dollars for therapy. I think I have about twenty put by for books, you want it?”
“Nah Wills, she’s good. If it gets too bad we’ll just lock her in the basement, she won’t need therapy to live down there.”
I let the banter slide it’s way around me, laying here pliant as they take turns at mopping up the mess, helping me take off some of the clothes which I’m glad I didn’t take off earlier. This would be a damn sight more uncomfortable if I was lacking all of the clothes.
“Right, well… uh, I think that’s as much as we can do Buffy. I assume we can leave the err… the rest of her to you?”
“Hey don’t blush Giles, it’s all good stuff under here.”
“I don’t doubt that Faith, not in the slightest.”
But he still colours up a little, takes off those glasses to have a quick rub. Even the witches stand up to leave. Collecting up all of the messed up towels and smiling another goodnight. From the birds beginning to chirp outside of the window I’d say it’s closer to morning. Either way it’s good. I’m still feeling the good.
I move from the bed with my new found strength to let her change the linen, stand here not moving as she slips the last of the clothes from my body. Breathing in so deep to stop the words of wanting from spilling from my lips. I do want, oh god do I want, but not now. Now I’m buzzing too much from exhaustion, from exuberance, from every damn thing, and I don’t just wanna lose her in that. When I show her all that I have for her, I want to be clear, I want to be concise. I don’t want to be buzzing from anything except from the feel of her.
“You ready to get back into bed?”
“Yeah, I’m kinda beat ya know, maybe I can get some shut eye without the nightmares now. Gotta be a bonus.”
She pulls the covers back and I slide my way inside, not nestling over to her, not quite sure if I’m allowed to, if all of this good cancels out the earlier bad. So I just lay here and listen to the sound of her breathing. Like music. Better than music.
“Faith?”
“Yes B?”
“Do you think it’s a little cold in here?”
“Hmmm…” And no. And definitely not. “…uh, yeah. Sure is. You wanna maybe, I dunno…”
“Come a little closer?”
“Yeah, you want me to come a little closer?”
“You do know this isn’t the end of it Faith? I know something’s changed, I feel it… of course I feel it, but I’m still a little pissed at you…”
“I get that, and it’s cool. We’ll talk tomorrow.”
“Yes Faith, we’ll talk tomorrow.” Her head rolls to the side to catch me in her gaze, her arms sliding out to gingerly encircle me. “Preferably after we give you a shower though, cos you know, you kinda stink.”
I want to laugh, but I don’t laugh, I bite my lip really hard not to laugh, instead letting my eyes roll back in mock indignation. Rolling myself onto my back to poke my tongue out at those cracks in the ceiling. “Are you gonna wash my back, B?”
“I might do, but then…” I suck at the air as her hand slides light across my stomach, just the slightest of teasing touches. “…I might wash your front Faith, in fact, you play your cards right and I might just take care of all of the sides.”
And now I purr. I straight up fucking purr. My eyes falling shut as I just lose myself to the sensation of those soft teasing circles, to the thought of B taking care of all of my sides. It makes me want sleep already. It makes me want tomorrow. And more than anything, it makes me want her.
Chapter 33
POV Buffy.
I bustle my way around the room, trying so hard not to wake her. Kinda trying just a little bit to wake her up too. I want her to sleep, to have some solid sense of rest, but more than anything I want her to wake up. Want to see that light shining all bright in her eyes again, the smile that she slips to me whenever she purrs out her words. She hadn’t even stirred when I had got out of bed to get Dawn up for school. Hadn’t uttered a sound as I made my way to dressed, as below in the house, all activity was frantic. Nope. NO stirring at all of the sleeping beauty.
Makes me smile as I look at her now. So peaceful just laying there, so different from the tortured sleep she has been having for the last few days. I pray that this is it now. No more badness, please god, no more badness. And of course I know that there WILL be badness, we’re slayers, it kinda comes with the job… but no more heart stopping badness. Just the normal kind, the little bumps in the night, as opposed to the big old bumps which I am so totally sick of.
And sick. I never want to see anymore of that black stuff! All morning I’ve been running the towels and the sheets through the washer, but all to no avail. Some stuff just won’t shift. Means we need new linen. I hate shopping for linen.
Her soft sigh draws me closer to the bed, the way she tangles her body around the crisp white sheets as she slips from her back to her side. Her hair falling over her face, her eyelids fluttering on a dream that I wish for her is sweet. And I can’t keep my hand away, I don’t want to, I don’t try to. Just reaching out, so slowly, running fingers lightly across the curve of her shoulder, letting my weight go to sitting as I settle down to take a look at everything I have. And it is beautiful. So achingly beautiful.
There’s a part of me that never would’ve believed that she could make me feel quite so much, my heart full to the brim with every good feeling, smiles lighting my face just because. Because when you love like I love her, then you don’t need any other reason. Love IS the reason. I think another part of me has always known it and that is why it all feels so good, so natural, and so right. The chosen two.
She sighs again as I slip the cover a little further down her back, not to think the naughty thoughts, I don’t need to see her naked to think the naughty thoughts, but just to touch some more of her. My fingers growing in confidence every single time that they stroke across her skin.
“Mmmm.”
Smiling wider as a sound like contentment falls from her lips. I want her to be content, I want her to be happy. I want her.
“Faith, baby… you gonna wake up?”
Her nose scrunching a little as my words fall onto her ears.
“I’ve got something for you, if you did want to wake up…”
Marking little teasing patterns across the dip of her collar bone, up to her chin, tracing her lips.
“…I think you’ll like it, it’s really something nice.”
Her sighs, which still sound more like purrs, fall out fast again. Rolling her body so the sight of her breasts rises up to greet me. And oh goooood morning!! Who ever knew that a pair of breasts could make me feel so…
“Morning B.”
Hot.
“Morning yourself, although… it’s kinda more like lunchtime now.”
My lips licking themselves as I try and concentrate on the eyes. JUST the eyes.
“Damn, I guess I was tired.”
“Did you sleep well?”
“Fucking fantastic. Serious B, I don’t think I ever slept that good.”
Trying hard not to pout as she pulls herself up to sitting, as she pulls the sheet with her, wraps herself up. No. Not gonna pout.
“Well that’s good, sleeping good’s good, it’s really good.”
“Sure is girlfriend. Though the waking up is kinda sweet too.”
I smile my pleasure as her hand hooks tight into the front of my top, pulling me down to meet and to greet her, to press a soft kiss against the warmth of her lips.
“Definitely sweet.”
And she smiles too. Both of us sitting here and grinning like idiots. I said I wouldn’t stop grinning like an idiot, and I think that I really meant it. I can’t help the way that she makes me feel, the buzz of completeness that infuses me whenever she is near. And here. And looking so beautiful.
It almost makes me wish that I could forget the ‘serious’ talk that needs to be had. That I could forget about the shower that so needs to be taken to wash the last of the crusty remnants of last night from the mess of her hair. But I won’t forget, I can’t forget. Serious talks with Faith always leave me feeling stronger, more bound, more secure in whatever it is that we have, and I want to feel secure. I don’t just want the buzz with her, I want everything with her. And so I will talk, and I will ask, and I’ll insist upon all of her answers.
“So what do ya have for me B? I’m all wide awake and ready to receive…”
“I’ll bet you are, but no… that’s not it.”
“I saw you scamming on the goodies, I know where your mind is at.”
“Nah-uh, I wasn’t scamming Faith, that was just admiration.” I hope that my tone hides the truth of all that I really want to do to those 'goodies'. “What I do have for you though is food. Lots and lots of food.”
I cast my arm out across the room to the tray I had prepared for her lunch. All sorts of appetising treats to get her belly full and placated. Giles dispatched to the store to fetch a list of groceries that would normally feed an army.
“Looks good, looks damn good.”
I ignore the hungry gaze that she runs across my body and I rise to fetch the food. There will be so much time for feasting upon bodies later, first I want to take care of all of her other needs. I want to know if the strength that I can feel sliding in waves from her now, really is back up to full size. I think that it is, I don’t know the whats or the whys, but I know what I feel, and it feels as if all of the weakness has slid from her system along with the bad.
We take it in turns to slip the food into her mouth. All sorts of bagels and muffins, and fruit of the freshest kind. Her lips always taking longer to accept the food from me, wanting to play games of sucking the juices from the tips of my fingers, of letting her tongue roam free all around them as I just sit here and try so hard not to gasp. Not to moan.
“You alright there B? You look a little flushed.”
Her hand holding mine firm against her mouth, strawberry covered lips holding my eyes as prisoners.
“Yeah… I…” Feeling the throb in my groin as she does feast upon me. Little slow trips of her tongue that travel across each finger, down to the base and back up again. And god, why does so little, feel like so much? “…I’m fine Faith, really…”
“Really, really?”
“Uh-huh.”
Her hand dropping mine now to fall to the sheet, to ever so slowly… oh so slowly, bring it down an inch further… hinting at what’s hiding beneath. So close to the dark contrast that her nipples provide. And I have to stop her, I have to stop her before there is no stopping her, because there is a whole big part of me that is just begging her not to stop.
“Faith, wait.” Trying to sound so commanding, putting my hand onto hers, feeling the heat of her touch. “We need to talk, remember?”
“No way… man, you always wanna find the chat when I wanna find the naughty.”
“Maybe that’s something to do with you always wanting to ‘find the naughty’. And you still need a shower, cos if you think I want to get naughty with a girl that looks like she spent the night sliding through a sewer, then you are SO wrong.”
Or not.
“Well that’s kinda harsh...” She lets her lips curve down, but she can’t stop the shine from being in her eyes. I hope it means that she understands, that she wants to do this properly too. Air out the bad, before we find all the good. The naughty.
“…but I guess I’ll forgive you… as you looked after me so well.”
“I did?”
“Hell yeah. I ain’t never had a girl feed me in bed before, all sorts of other stuff, but never the feeding of the food. I liked it.”
I take the risk and kiss her softly on the lips again. Nothing prolonged, nothing to get me too full of wanting, but just enough to say that I’ll feed her anytime. That I liked it too. When I pull myself back, she isn’t smirking out anymore comments of the hot times, and I take it as the cue to continue. To start with the talking. Again.
“I need you to understand why I was pissed last night Faith, I don’t want to get all high and mighty, but you did hurt me a bit there, and I want to know why?”
“We’re diving straight into it then? No small talk first?”
“You want small talk?”
“I guess not. I always saw it as a waste of time.”
And time is precious.
“So why? Why after everything that we’ve been sharing, did you feel like you couldn’t talk to me? I don’t understand it, really I don’t.”
“It’s not that simple B, it wasn’t a case of just spilling my guts, although I guess the gut spilling of last night helped me some…”
“Last night?”
“Yeah. The sickness. The bad shit. Getting it all out.”
I let her take the time to order her thoughts. Watch as she closes her eyes and takes a few steadying breaths.
“What I said before B, about good enough not mattering, it was all just words, just things which felt like the right thing to say. The way I should feel. But you know, the whole time… man, it’s like, fuck… inside I always wanted to be good, to be better, but I didn’t believe in myself enough to be the better.”
“But you are good enough Faith, you are so damn good.”
“Just words again.”
I go to protest, to speak my own feelings, but her look won’t let me. It demands that I give her the room that she needs to speak.
“Inside that portal B, everything was so messed up, totally fucking messed up. I saw it all, every bad thing, imagined and real… everyway that I could never even dream of being anything other than bad. And I believed it. All the shit I had inside was making me believe it… I thought, I guess I thought… I don’t know. It wasn’t like I thought you were lying to me, I just thought that you were trying to protect me.”
“And now?”
“Now I know that I was lying to myself. I saw the truth B, I felt the fucking truth. All of it...” I watch her as her head shakes, as a little smile pulls up the corners of her lips. “…you were still wrong about the hero part though.”
And I CAN protest this one.
“No way, if you saw it all, then you know what happened. If it wasn’t for you, then we’d all be on the losing side. You ARE the hero and you’re just gonna have to get used to that.”
“Maybe at the beginning, when we first went through, then yeah. But you came back for me B. Both times you came back for me.”
“Both times?”
“Uh-huh. Even when it was the bad stuff, when the evil shit was messing with my memories, whatever… both times you came back for me. You saved me. Damn it girl, you brought me back to life. In my eyes that makes you the hero.”
She is so sweet, and so wrong. And I really do love her.
“I shouldn’t have left you in the first place, I should have made sure that you were standing at my side. God Faith, when I realised what was happening, when I saw what that thing was doing to you… I totally freaked out. Ask Wills, I practically threw poor Tara down, went all sorts of crazy trying to get back inside the portal. It wasn’t about being heroic, I just needed you. I shouldn’t have left you.”
“You had to get Tara out, that was the job. You didn’t have to come back for me though… slayers are replaceable, the world was saved. But you came back. It means a lot.”
And I have to shake my head. Her words just don’t speak the way that they should do. I almost understand. I think. I can’t empathise, I have never been made to feel like less, like the people that love me would ever leave me behind. But I think I understand why she feels what she does. No one ever cared enough to call her names like ‘baby’, and I guess that no one ever really cared enough to not leave her behind.
“Slayers ARE replaceable Faith, you’re proof of that to me. I was replaced, by Kendra, and then by you… but that’s not the point here. The thing that matters, the only thing that matters, is that YOU are not replaceable. I had to come back for you, not just for you, to save you… but for me. I need you and you have to start understanding that.”
“Ain’t never been needed B.”
It isn’t said in pitying tones, in a way which makes me feel sympathy. It is just said the way that it is. “Well now you are. Crazy concept I know, but don’t worry, I’ll help you get used to it. It’ll be like a mission, teach Faith to feel needed.”
She shifts a little in her seat, moves the pillow that she’s resting against, and settles back down. Blows one of her big Faith sighs straight out from her lips. And I have to remember to tell her that being needed, it really isn’t such a burden. That it’s a good thing.
“When I spoke to Angel yesterday, I wasn’t trying to cut you out, to ignore you or anything… but sometimes it feels like he gets me so well. Fuck, he does get me so well. It’s kinda scary.”
“He is perceptive. Comes with age I think.”
“Yeah, I guess. It’s like I heard everything that you and the guys were saying, but I just couldn’t believe it all… I mean, I felt crap still, my memories were all over the place… and it just took Angel to make me realise where I was going wrong. That I was hiding or something.”
She fidgets some more as the tough words come out. Her still a little crusty hair, falling fast in front of her eyes. Maybe still hiding a little. I take the chance and raise my hand, just to slide that curtain back behind her ears, to make her eyes find mine.
“You don’t ever have to hide from me Faith. No matter what it is, what you feel, I will always be there for you. Okay?”
“Easier said than done B. You know…” She draws her gaze away again, drops it to the sheets, to anywhere but me. “…I’m probably more scared of not hiding from you, than anyone else ever. Kinda dumb right?”
“Not dumb, never dumb. Definitely misplaced… but yeah. I get it. I’ve never been one for jumping up and down and shouting out my feelings, in fact, I’m pretty good at hiding things myself… too good sometimes. But I love you Faith…”
Her eyes sweep back up to catch mine. To hold them steady. “…I more than love you. I feel you, and that’s something that I don’t want to hide from anymore. I’m not saying that it’s gonna be easy, most things I do are never easy, but I want to try.”
I can see the way that she’s biting on her lip, and for just a moment I fear that she’s going to tell me that it’s all too much. That hiding from all of our history is just so much easier than finding the place where everything is truly okay between us. A place where we don’t ever have to hide from anything anymore. It’s the little chuckle she gives though that beats back my fear, because I do know her enough to know that our depth of feeling could never be laughed at.
“You know, back in the day, I never would’ve believed we could ever sit and talk like this B. I knew that we could make the damn fine hot stuff, that was a given, but I never believed that we could have the more.”
“Well you better start believing it Faith, because the more is all that I’m interested in.”
And that came out so wrong!
I know it by the smirk on her face, the little piece of herself that she never truly hides. “'All' that you’re interested in? You mean you don’t have any interest in the hot stuff?”
Making me laugh, making me retract my words.
“You know what I mean! Of course I’m interested in the hot stuff, I have a whole heap of healthy interest in the hot stuff, but it’s more than the hot stuff.”
“It really is isn’t it?”
Making me smile at the wonder in her voice. Making me confirm her words.
“Yes Faith. It really is. I’m no expert when it comes to the matters of the heart, but I do know that mine is full of you, and I know that I want the more. More and more of you, no more hiding, no afraid to say the things that we feel inside. I need you, all of you, every little insecurity, every bad habit… I want the lot Faith.”
Her nod is almost imperceptible, the blow of her breath that tells me she has the fears the same as mine. That I would want an easier option than everything that loving her entails. What’s a darn sight more perceptible is the smile that splits her face, the cocky little tone that slips straight back into her voice.
“You want all my bad habits B? Every single one of them?”
“Uh… I think so, maybe you should give me a quick run down, what am I in for?”
“You asked for it girlfriend.” Her body perking up as she pulls her self back up to sit straight, punching the pillow into comfort again. “First off I hog the remote, I hate watching girly crap, got no time for soap operas. I always leave my clothes on the floor, and dirty bath towels, I never clean up after myself, oh, and I belch at the dinner table and I don’t say pardon.”
“You sound like Dawn… except for the soap opera part, that girl loves her soap opera. Is that everything?”
“No way B, that was just the mild stuff…” I give her a look as she gives me that big old shit eating grin. “…I’m ALWAYS horny. There ain’t no way I’m gonna be with you and not want you every minute of the day. Not sure if that’s a bad habit, but it is what it is.”
“Okaaay, I think I can live with that one. Anything else?”
“Nah, I’m done. The rest can be a surprise right? Something to look forward to.”
She wiggles those sexy as anything eyebrows at me, and all that I can do is to think of the things to look forward to. A whole lot of things. Me and Faith. It has me grinning like an idiot.
“What about you B, you got any nasty little habits I should know about?”
“Me? No way, I always tidy up after myself, I never belch at the dinner table, and I take a low fat yoghurt whenever I get the carnal urges. I’m like Mary Poppins.”
“You’ve got a flying umbrella?”
“No! I’m practically perfect in every way!”
She laughs. I laugh. It feels so damn good.
“I dunno B, I reckon you’re hiding a few things. You sure you don’t have a secret little porn addiction, something that you feel you need to keep from me? Cos I can take it… just lay it all on the line for me.”
And the only thing that I really want to lay on is her. She is my addiction, my craving, the thing that I desire above all others. I risk letting it all boil over this time as I move my way back to her lips, the lips which are curving up right into that lustful look again, the look which assures me that the ‘horny all the time’ habit, really wasn’t a joke. And so I give her the kind of kiss that assures her that my ‘I can live with that’ comment, wasn’t a joke either.
Just losing myself in the feel of her mouth as it yields beneath mine, letting me set the pace, letting her tongue dance against my tongue in all sorts of highly erotic ways. Pulling myself slowly back as I suck the last of the kiss from her lips.
“Damn B, you got anymore of those ya wanna lay on me.”
And don’t mention laying again! I really do want to get her in the shower, get her all cleaned up from the ordeal of last night. Still not a hundred percent sure what the ordeal was all about, where it came from. If it really does mean that it’s over.
“I was thinking shower.”
“I like your thinking.”
“I was thinking ‘you’ shower, you do still kinda stink a little. Your hair needs a good scrub…”
“Well you try puking out a hells load of evil and see how you smell!”
She looks a little hurt, so I offer a little placation. Another small kiss, a run of fingertips through the hair that is all sorts of crusty. “I wasn’t bitching Faith, I was just saying…”
“Yeah, yeah, I get it. I need a shower!”
Not even thinking as she throws the covers back on all that they have kept hidden, on the body which I can picture every time I close my eyes. It doesn’t stop the sharp intake of breath though, the gasping for air as I let my gaze run wild across each of her curves, over firm sitting breasts and a tummy so tight. And have I ever mentioned that she is beautiful?
“You enjoying the view?”
“Uh-huh.”
Nodding my head in beat with my heart. It’s kinda fast, up and down. Trying to tear my eyes away from the big prize, the only place on her body that I haven’t let my lips wander to yet. Still waiting to taste the essence of Faith.
“If ya hadn’t called me stinky, I’d let ya have a go, but I’m still hurt B. Maybe if you wash my back real good, I can be persuaded to comply…”
And I’m already moving, already pulling myself up to standing and leading the way to the bathroom. I have to lead the way, there is not a chance that I could walk behind her and not just jump her ass. Nope. I’m gonna lead the way and I’m going to wash her back.
And THEN I am going to jump that ass!
*****
I envy the water. Sitting here on the toilet and listening to the sounds of the shower flowing over her, I totally envy the water. I know that I could be in there with her, that I could already be providing the back wash that I had promised I would give, but I wanted to take the time. To prolong the moment until I touch her again, because when I do eventually touch her again, I know how intimate it will be, how it will be an affirmation of everything that we have said to each other… and I do want to wait. For just this moment I want to exist within the temptation, the expectation, with the totally insane feeling that everything I want, everything that I need, is just a seconds touch away.
It’s like the sweetest torture. My voice laughing as she makes a play at singing a selection of shower tunes whilst she washes away the grime, but I’m not really laughing. Nope. No way. Really I’m sitting here just letting all of my slayer type senses come out to play. Eyes tracing her body through the barrier of the shower curtain, ears preening to catch the sound of every movement, every breath that she takes. It’s making me kinda heady. Making me feel that the sweetest torture needs to move into the realms of the sweetest pleasure, and it needs to do it soon. I may have slayer strength, but even my solid strength of will is crumbling fast before her. Letting the wanting take the precedence over the waiting.
“Are you nearly ready for that back wash Faith?”
Almost a whisper, not trusting my voice not to crack over everything that a simple back wash could mean.
“Almost B, gotta get through another shampoo and rinse first, this crap really is tough to shift.”
Her own tones are slightly ragged, making me appreciate that she is prolonging the moment just as much as I am. That for all her comments of now and now and now, she can also value the sensation that exists in drawing it out, in knowing that you can have it, but waiting to experience it. And it’s almost a shame that I already got past the waiting stage.
“I could help you rinse your hair too?”
“You not scared you’ll get covered in crap?”
And I want to be covered in her. I rise slowly, surely, take a long moment to peel the top from my body, unclasping a bra to let my skin feel free, unburdened. Hands popping the buttons on jeans and stripping them away from my legs. Hooking in panties and making them vanish. It’s almost as erotic as when she strips me bare, because I know that I’m stripping for her. Know that inside of that shower, even under the roar of the water, her ears will pick up the sounds. That her mind will be telling her that I am now naked, that I’m coming to get her.
I take a small second to look in the mirror, to see the grin which still isn’t moving from my lips. It’s nothing like seductive, nothing like a sex kitten, but it does speak volumes on how much she means to me. I just can’t stop smiling. Keeping it firmly in place as I turn my attention to pulling back the curtain, to offering her all that I am. Just me. Just for her.
“Hey.”
“B… you look…”
And her words stop there. Instead she lets her eyes do the talking, running them slowly all over me like a lovers caress, her tongue darting out to lick at lips which glisten from the water of the shower.
“Is there room in there for two?”
Still no more words, just a hand reaching out to take mine, linking fingers through my fingers to help me step inside. Not pulling me close to her, just standing me in front of her. The steam of the shower doing absolutely nothing to stop the bumps of shivers from raising high across my skin.
“You cold B?”
“No, not cold.”
Speaking words but not hearing them, communicating in so many different ways other than with words. In the way that my chest slips into rhythm with hers, in the way that our eyes just can’t tear apart, can’t break through the intensity of this gaze.
“You wanna share the shower?”
Feeling as she steps back, as her hand which is still linked to mine pulls me ever so delicately forwards, the steady streams of water breaking from behind her to touch against my skin.
“You like that B? Is the temperature okay?”
“It’s nice, it’s warm.”
“Sure is.”
My eyes still not moving from hers, instead letting my free hand pull away from my side to trace the things that my eyes can not see. Almost moaning as they find the slick tightness of her navel, circling slowly around a belly button that I want to lose my tongue to.
“I thought you wanted to wash my back, you wanna wash my tummy too?”
“I thought I told you I’d wash all of your sides. This is a side.”
Losing the shared rhythm of our hearts as her chest rises more rapidly, as my ears pick up the distinct harshness that my touches are producing.
“That is a side B, but you don’t have any soap… don’t you need soap to wash?”
“Well pass the soap then.”
I breathe in deep as I lose all contact, just watching as she turns from me and picks up the shower gel, holding out my hand for her to deliver a healthy sized palm full. Waiting patiently for her to set the bottle back down, and letting my hands rub together to create a froth, a bubbled foam with which to cleanse her.
“You wanna start with my back?”
“Sure thing, turn around.”
And again I pause. As she turns away, as she stands there just waiting for me to touch her, I freeze within this moment. Caught in the final fear of the intimacy, the heart pounding knowledge of everything that touching her will mean to me. And I don’t plan to speak the words, I don’t even know where they come from, if I was thinking them inside, but they do come. Beating back any fear, any worry and any doubt, because I do want this. I do want her.
“I love you Faith.”
Echoing amongst the tiles that she braces herself against, making her turn her head back over her shoulder and throw me a look of absolute approval, her lips moving to confirm what I feel, that she feels it too.
“I love you.”
Everything that I needed to hear.
I wait as her head turns, as it dips beneath the water that flows steadily from the shower, making the streams cascade heavy down her back, giving me something to work with. My hands almost shaking as I bring them up to reach her, placing them in silent reverence against her skin and slowly beginning to move them. Up and down, across her shoulders, feeling the pronouncement of each one of her muscles, the way that they yield as I run my touch along them. Not hard, not a massage, but still firm, working my fingers across every inch of skin. Lifting her hair and letting it fall to the side as I find the path along the back of her neck, not able to resist the urge of washing behind her ears. It makes her giggle a little, a sound that’s still new to me. That still calls to me.
“You’re being very thorough B…”
“You have no idea.”
Letting my palms slide down in the river of suds to find the outline of her hips, the skin that sits so perfect at the base of her back. And I can’t resist leaning forwards, not a single part of me able to stop myself from feeling my skin make contact with hers, just so slight, just my hands finding a grip as I trace out her ass with the feel of my pussy. Making her moan, making me moan. The smallest of grinding rhythms taking precedence over any kind of wash.
“That feels nice.”
“Uh-huh.”
A funny kind of power in holding her this way, firm in my grasp and marking her with a scent that I know is running steady between my thighs. My head bending to place soft kisses against the skin of her back, each bone in her spine worshipped wholly by me. I push my tongue gently out to find the flow of the water as she leans herself further forwards against the tiled wall, arms raising to give her body a brace, something to hold onto. And she’ll need it. I need her. I have been longing for her.
I don’t even think as my fingers slide upwards, leaving her hips to make the trip up and around, grinding harder against her as I feel the weight of her breasts fall into my hands. Catching the harsh moans as I slide her nipples firm between my fingertips, rolling them round, pinching them oh so softly but still so surely.
“You like that baby?”
Another harsh sigh beating back the sound of the running water, as she pushes her body further forwards, just trying to make my touch come harder. And it does, of course it does. I need to feel her. I move myself the slightest of distances until I am pressed right up against her, my whole body screaming out it’s pleasure at being this close, my hands grasping tight now as I massage her breasts, whispering soft into her ear, asking that she tells me…
“Is this what you wanted Faith?”
Because I know that it is, I know it is what she has been waiting for since the evil spat her out of it’s grasp, just waiting for me to reconfirm all that we had discovered before we had discovered hell. Our own slice of heaven, the best heaven I have found.
I don’t wait for an answer, I already know the answer, instead eliciting another cry as my mouth latches onto the skin of her neck, not wanting to mark her, but wanting to feast upon her, needing her to feel the tightness of my lips and the tightness of my hands. So much pressure and all of it is for her.
“B…”
And she’s trying to make words.
“Buffy…”
In between the ragged breathing, and the sighs which spur me on, she is trying to make words. It’s kinda impressive, and it makes me respond. Letting go of her neck to answer her call…
“Yes baby?”
I purr it out to her as she purrs to me. Taking control and loving it.
“I need you B… I need you to touch me…”
And I thought that I was touching her. Yeah. I know what she means.
“Touch you Faith?”
But playing so dumb. My hands softening on her skin now, those light little pinches of nipples back in play as I wait to hear what she has for me.
“Fuck…”
And that’s kinda abrupt.
“You want to fuck?”
Her ass pushes out tight against my pussy with an answer to my question. Demanding, requesting, her voice sounding taut across her words.
“I want you, I so fucking want you… touch me.”
Now I am the one sighing, moaning, letting the air hear the feeling that her words force right through me. I don’t let it stop me though, don’t let it bring me to the somewhere that I want to take my time getting to, the need to take the command growing with every caress, every touch.
“Say please Faith?”
And now she growls. I swear it, I can hear her growling. She breaks a hand away from the tiles to make a grab at one of mine, thrusting it with such strength to that place between her legs, coating me in the feel of the desire that slips between her own thighs, proving to me with her actions just how much she has been needing this. It makes my heart jump, makes my heart jump even more than it was already jumping, and I don’t need power plays, not here, not now… all that I need now is her.
“Oh fuck yes…”
Her words reach up to my ears as I start a slow leisurely rhythm with the tips of my fingers. Brushing just softly against her, backwards and forwards, I know the kind of pressure that I liked to be touched with and so I give her the same, trusting that her clit is as sensitive as mine, that the way that I touch myself is just the way that she wants to be touched.
“Is that good baby?”
Her sighs enough to assure me, enough to make me stop my words and let my lips get back to her skin, biting the kind of bites that she had placed so sexily against mine. Pulling my hips away from her ass to make the journey down, sliding along her backbone again… my fingers working, my tongue working, my mind spinning out of control. There is just one place that my mouth wants to go to, one place that I have yet to claim of hers, and I know that I can’t stop myself now… that I need to taste her. Even amongst the still strong swirl of the water, I need to place my lips against her pussy… I have to taste her…
She moans in almost anguish as I break my hands away, a last firm tweak of her clit to offer a promise that I will return, that I want so much more…
“Faith… baby, turn round for me?”
Watching her legs as they shake on her turning, smiling out my love for her as her eyes fall deep into mine. And if I could pause on a moment, then this would be it. Not touching her, but my body so alive from touching her, seeing nothing in her eyes except absolute adoration for me. It’s a pretty fulfilling moment.
I step forwards until I am back inside of her space, her arms lifting to encircle me, her lips falling to kiss me. Hungry kisses, kisses which call our hips back into a rhythm of wanting, a kiss which reminds me exactly where it is that I want to kiss her now. I make myself pull away again, dropping to my knees under the relentless fall of the water, not caring as it slides over my face and across my lips, I just want to taste her. Smiling up into her eyes as she sees what it is that I am going to do for her… her back collapsing against the tiles on the wall, her legs spreading as I run my fingers through the streams on her thighs…
“I love you Faith.”
The words coming again as I prepare myself to encounter this new feeling, this new touch. Something I have never done with anyone, something that I have only ever wanted to do with her.
Her answering words are lost to me as my face draws the final inch forwards to let my tongue reach out and finally touch her, so softly… so barely there, the hair which has started to grow back since she was sick, tickling now against my own lips. And I want more. Hearing my own growl as I push my tongue harder, my hands coming up to grip at her hips and to pull her tight against me. I want to consume her…
“Oh fuck B…”
My senses rising as her hands wrap harsh in my hair, urging me onwards, encouragement falling from her lips as I suck her clit solidly between mine. And I love it. I love this feeling, I love this taste… so musky, so heady, so similar to me, and yet so different… and I’m drowning in it. Bucking hips hard to capture as her body rides hard against my face. So I let go, let a hand drop to meet my tongue, to search out the place that I want to fill her, her legs shaking again as I enter my fingers deep inside of her centre. Hard solid thrusts to match the pressure of my tongue. So fast, feeling all of her walls tighten as she tenses around me… fucking her hard, sucking her harder… wanting to feel the force of her climax, losing myself in the force of her climax…
“That’s it baby…”
My mouth breaking away to look at her face. So many moans, so much pleasure, so much more… in and out, until I forget the out, just burying my hand deep inside of her and feeling the throb. My fingers pressed tight against the front of her pussy, my thumb keeping a rhythm against the rigid feel of her clit. Watching her head throw back, hearing her screams peel out. And I truly am lost to it. Loving it. Riding it out right along with her, until her body comes to rest, until she collapses against the wall and slides down to meet me. Her lips not stopping to speak, just taking mine in a kiss that shows every bit of appreciation that she has for all that I just did for her. For loving her.
And I do love her. Completely.
*****
I’m not quite sure how and when we made it back to the bedroom, I just know that I am laying in the middle of the bed and that she is laying across me, her mouth curving up into the sweetest of smiles as she places a final kiss against my pussy.
I remember her words saying that it was only fair to return a favour, and I remember my words agreeing that it was everything that I wanted. After that it’s all just a blur. A jumbled sensation of touches and sounds, words ringing out in delight and in love. I let my hand go to her face now, urging that she comes up to meet me, gives me a kiss to solidify the moment.
“You want MORE kisses B?”
As if I could ever have enough.
“I like the kisses.”
“I like you.”
Smiling even more as she moves around to be next me. As she wipes the hair which is drenched in either water still, or sweat, not so sure, away from my face, delivers the kisses all over me, not just to my lips, but to my nose, my eyes, to all of me.
“Ya know B, this has to rank up there with the best day ever. I sure haven’t had any better.”
“Yeah, it has been a great one, but you do know that everyone will be home soon? We can’t just stay up here all day.”
“Can’t we pretend I’m still sick? That I didn’t quite get all of my strength back yet?”
“And what’s my excuse?”
She looks all thoughtful for a moment, as if truly trying to work out a way to make staying in bed a viable option.
“We can say that you’re lazy, it works for me.”
And I poke her, because I am so not lazy!
“No way! Plus we do have to get up. Angel and the gang are heading back to LA tomorrow night, and we’ve got that little bon voyage get together thing to organise. It’ll be good to let them know that their golden girl is all back to normal again.”
“I wish that they didn’t have to go B. I get that they have to get back, but I’ll miss them, I don’t feel like I’ve spent anytime with them.”
I catch the wistful sigh, the truth in her words.
“You know that we can visit right, that they’ll come back and see us.”
“Just like they always visit here?”
And I know what she means. There hasn’t been an upkeep in visitation, but then there was a time when there were good reasons for that. Reasons which are so long past now, which don’t mean anything anymore.
“It’s different now Faith. When Angel first left, it all still hurt. There were issues… reasons for distance. But that’s changed now. I don’t see any reason that we can’t be one big extended family… I know that I want to keep in touch, and I’m sure that they won’t just let you disappear.”
“I’m still gonna miss them.”
She pouts a little as she says that, and I have to kiss the pout away. “It’ll all be okay, trust me. Anytime that you wanna hightail it to LA, you just tell me. Heck, maybe you can take Dawnie with you… give us all a break.”
And she laughs, and she nods. “Yeah, I can see it now… her and Cordy let loose in the malls. Should be funtimes.”
“Expensive times. We can forget the therapy fund!”
“She won’t need it, shopping IS therapy for girls like them. I swear, whenever Cordy’s pissed, she just spends the day shopping and she’s right back on form. Just start a shoe fund, it’ll work much better.”
I agree. I remember the pleasure in shopping and in shoes. I also sigh. I remember how much it all costs.
“I think I need to find a job again first. I’m so fired from the Doublemeat, which you know? Not at all bothered about, but me and finding the jobs is not such a fun time… maybe we’ll win the lotto…”
“You should talk to Angel… seriously B, they get by with the cash they make from the demon hunting, don’t see why you can’t do the same. Why we can’t do the same.”
And has she been reading my mind… or maybe talking to Anya.
“Have you been talking to Anya?”
I have to ask.
“No way girlfriend… she’s great and all, but I think she still thinks that I have a thing for Xander. It’s kinda creepy. I mean, I never had a thing for Xander. I had a thing with Xander, but that was all. I certainly don’t want Xander.”
And that was a whole lot of Xander all in one sentence.
“She can be a little possessive, but she’s great once you get past that. Lacks a little tact, but she’s really pretty harmless… her heart is good.”
I let it rest there, I really don’t need to delve into the past with Xander and Faith. Nope. Not even gonna think it.
“I don’t know about the pay for slay though Faith, it just seems so… wrong.”
“No way, we risk our life daily, why shouldn’t we get rewarded? You don’t see firemen doing it for free… policemen, hell, anyone else. Don’t see that we should, especially when we need the money.”
“But…”
“No, I’m gonna talk to Angel, see if he can’t set something up.”
And I let her carry on. It isn’t the worlds most terrible idea, and we do need the cash. It just seems a little wrong still… like saving lives should be our reward. But then saving lives doesn’t pay the rent. Or buy the shoes. I smile my way through all of her ideas until I hear the door slam somewhere down below, until the raucous chattering of my sister and my friends reminds me again that we can’t stay in bed all day. That we really will have to get up.
“I think it’s time to rise and shine girlfriend.”
“Hey, you called me girlfriend?”
Uh-huh.
“Well you always call ‘me’ girlfriend.”
“Yeah… but that’s what I do. I ain’t never heard you say it though B. Sounds kinda nice. I’ve never been someone’s ‘girlfriend’ before.”
“And I’ve never had a girlfriend before...” I laugh just a tiny bit at the little eyebrow raises and suggestive smirks. “…I do like it though, the girlfriend thing. I can see why Wills and Tara are always smiling…”
I roll myself away from her reply to pull myself from the bed, throwing myself into the strenuous activity of getting dressed again. I really don’t want to. Naked with Faith is SO much more fulfilling, but I do have to go down.
Stairs. Yep. Not letting that thought run away with itself.
“Are you getting up Faith?”
“Do I have a choice?”
“Nope! I’m going to tell everyone that you’re back to full health and that you’ll be down in just a minute… don’t keep me waiting…”
“I’m loving all this forcefulness, I never knew you had it in you B.”
Her lustful look drawing me back to the bed, a final little look at the beauty that she is.
“Well I never had you in me before Faith, it kinda enthuses a girl.”
My words making her laugh, my mouth making her kiss me.
“You want me in you now?”
“Uh-huh… but no. I’m gonna go down, hang with the others. If you hurry I’ll make you something to eat. Something easy and non burnable, maybe toast. Or bread. Or I could ask Tara to mix up some pancakes… have you had Tara’s pancakes?”
And she’s already moving, and I’m already leaving. Meeting Willow in the passage as I smile my way from the door.
“Hey Buff, good day?”
“The BEST day!”
“Oooo, do I sense that someone finally got to cork popping?”
“You’re getting just as bad as Faith, you do realise that?”
And she gives me a cheeky little smile, a saucy little wink.
“I’ll guess you’ll be wanting ME soon then, I should warn Tara, ‘Buffy’s turned into a hussy’, I never would’ve thought it…”
“In your dreams Wills.”
“Occasionally, just to spice things up. Hope you don’t mind.”
Mind? I just stand here in shock as she makes her way past me to the bathroom. Cos Wills? And me? And dreams? And spice? And what!?
I think it’s a full minute until I get my brain under control again. A flush finding my face even though there is no one here to see it. Turning and going to trudge my way towards the stairs.
“Hey Buff?”
And turning again as my best friend who just violated my virtue calls me back towards her.
“Yeah?”
“Any idea why the shower is on? Why the shower curtain’s looking a little worse for wear?”
“Not a clue Wills, but if you figure it out, be sure to let me know.”
Winking as I make my way from her again. Smiling at the virtues that I violated myself in the bathroom. Yes. This was the best day ever. And it makes me wonder what the night time will bring. I have my fingers crossed for good, it feels like everything good. In fact I’m gonna insist upon the good, because not only do I have to shop for more linen tomorrow, it also seems that I’m gonna have to shop for a new shower curtain too. Vaguely remembering the tightness I had gripped with once Faith had turned her tongue to me. But shower curtain shopping? Urgh! The price I pay for happiness!
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