Fanfiction || One Hundred || "Hardest Truth" || Buffy/Faith
Title: One Hundred
Prompt: Hardest Truth
Table: Here.
Author: Sapphire Smoke cuzimastripper
Beta: Aly
Fandom: Buffy The Vampire Slayer
Rating: PG-13
Pairing(s): Buffy/Faith
Word Length: 7,885 words
Summary: Faith would rather deny her past, then admit that she had ever been weakened by something so disgustingly human.
A/N: So it's been about six months since I've written fic for any fandom, and for that I'm sorry. My muse just wandered off one day and with it, my confidence. The only reason this fic exists was because I was manic about a month ago and needed something to put my excess energy into. But then it just sat there, in a folder on my computer, because I was afraid to post it. But... I don't know. That's stupid and I needed to get over it, lol. I think I just feel a little uncomfortable with it because I can tell the difference between something I wrote while manic versus something I wrote while depressed (which tends to yield better results imo), but my beta couldn't tell the difference so I may just be oddly paranoid xD Regardless, here's some fic. PLEASE don't get all excited about this story and that story possibly being updated now, since a) I don't have as much time to devote to writing as I used to and b) this may have just been a manic fluke and I might get all weird about trying to write again. I don't know. Just thought you all deserved the warning, lol.
007. Hardest Truth
“You need a fucking hearing aid or something?!” Faith exclaimed, whipping around to shove the Italian boy with the wandering hands back away a few paces. His face masked in surprise as he stumbled, somehow managing to not only trip over his own two feet in the process, but also to fall backwards; subsequently scraping his arm on a stray nail that was slightly protruding from the wall.
Karma, ladies and gentlemen.
Faith had half a mind to just throw him straight back out on his ass, though controlled the urge because she really couldn’t afford to pass up the fifty bucks that the douche had offered her. But for one kid, one night? That was like triple what she normally charged. Still, even though this rich bastard flashed around his money like it summed up the quality of his prepubescent cock, it didn’t mean that his money would save his wrist from being snapped clean in half if he ever tried to put his hand down Faith’s pants again.
Of course she could always just say ‘screw it’; beat the guy to shit right now and rob his ass blind. It’d get their interaction over with quicker, but that was about the only upside. The minute word hit the streets that she fucked over a client, her business would go down the shitter in a matter of days and she’d be forced into a lifestyle she didn’t want just so she could keep a fucking roof over her head. Faith didn’t want to constantly worry about where her next score was coming from; that’d be such a shit way to live. And contrary to the rapidly circulating rumor at Sunnydale High, she wasn’t actually bred with the sole purpose of one day becoming a con woman, prostitute, or drug dealer.
Fine, so maybe her ‘business’ wasn’t exactly legit either… or even legal for that matter, but Faith was pretty fucking proud of herself for finding a way to make money that actually did some small bit of good in between the complete clusterfuck of devastation that surrounded most of these kids’ lives.
Unfortunately, devastation didn’t seem to go anywhere near the Future Trust Fund Molester; who, out of everyone in the room, might stand to actually become a decent fucking person if only he had a rainstorm of shit in his life. Faith knew better than most that after you’ve lost everything, you’ll start to appreciate damn near everything that comes your way. Be a fucking idiot not to.
As irritating as he was though, Faith was glad the kid was privileged; meant he could pay out the ass, and she needed that right now. Directing him to the nearest cot in the already overcrowded, tiny motel room; Faith got real serious, real fast, “Read my lips, Pedro; cause I’m gonna say this one more time: I don’t fuck my clientele. So unless you wanna try your chances at avoiding the parental units while you stick that needle in your arm, I’d sit the fuck down and do what you’re told. I don’t tolerate bullshit here.”
It was a complete shit hole, but Faith made a point to keep it a safe place for these kids. It was either here or the streets for most of them. No one out there is gonna babysit you while you’re high; when you OD on a park bench in the middle of the night, no one will fucking care. When you fuck with drugs and the homeless, everything could go to shit in a matter of minutes. You’re a target for thieves and rapists when you’re fucked that bad, wandering around on your own. Not to mention vampires and whatever the fuck else out there that might want to feed on you.
They already knew though, what was left of Sunnydale’s homeless. They knew down to a T what really happened at night, but maybe they had to, to have survived this long. Just weird sometimes, hearing people other than B and her friends talking about vamps and shit. Faith had assumed that most people in this town were complete idiots, but apparently not.
“Dude, Faith can bench press like… a thousand pounds,” a regular and friend of Faith’s - a flamingly gay, seventeen year old pothead and chronic procrastinator - Nate, mentioned. Pedro laughed, thinking it was some kind of joke.
No surprise there.
“No lie; bitch is like Xena. Two weeks ago I saw her throw a guy who was easily like… fuck, he had to have been at least three times your size or something, out onto his flabby ass and into the rain, like the bastard was nothing but a bag of sticks.” A smirk crept across Nate’s face. “Wonder what she’ll do to you if you don’t quit being a handsy little hetero. Last dude that was rude to her ended up with a broken collarbone, but I think a guy like you could pull off the double arm cast look; probably even make it popular.”
Pedro looked torn between wanting to laugh and trying not to cry from that information, obviously still unsure of whether or not he was being fucked with. Faith lightly kicked Nate’s lounging figure on the carpet to get his attention. “Quit trying to scare off my clients unless you plan to find replacements for the one’s you lose,” Faith warned him. While her tone was light, she knew Nate could tell she was serious.
Not that he took it as such though.
“I already told you, Dimps; I’m gonna take you away from all this after I graduate. Get us a real apartment and everything. Pretty sure there will even be electricity and a bucket to shit in, if you wish hard enough. Cause wishes are fucking horses, or whatever.”
Faith laughed. “You repeated the ninth grade three times; exactly when the hell do you actually expect to graduate?”
She was met with a shrug.
“Probably when they start making school more appealing than pot and video games.”
“Why don’t you just-hey, hey, hey,” Faith interrupted herself as she held out her hand to Pedro, who was in the middle of tying a tourniquet around his arm. “I need that fifty in my hand before I see a needle in your arm. This ain’t a free ride, especially not for someone who can actually afford to pay it regularly.”
Pedro didn’t look too thrilled to hear that their arrangement for the day was about to become a permanent deal, but he was the one that offered that high of an amount in the first place. He wanted to be able to guarantee himself a spot whenever he came, since some days it could be next to impossible to get in.
Due to the motel room being such a tiny piece of shit, Faith could only hold six people at a time; or rather six cots, which honestly could hold two average sized kids in each, but not many people are willing to share a bed with a stranger. Not that Faith can blame them, but that’s all she can fit comfortably at the moment. Well, unless she wanted to start piling people into her motel room next door. Which, to be honest, wasn’t ever gonna happen because as much as Faith loved the shit out of some of these people, if she let crack heads and tweekers around everything that she owned it’d be just like handing out a sign that said, ‘free shit, have at it.’
Besides, most people in SunnyD didn’t even know about her safe haven for the perpetually fucked up. The only people who knew were those needing their fix and the motel manager, who got 10% of the monthly profits just to keep his fat mouth shut, plus however many rooms she was renting for the week. Besides, the Scooby Gang was all so fucking straight-laced and covered in goddamn rainbows that the very second that one of them figured out what was really going on, they’d up and tell Giles. Faith wasn’t sure if the old man would nark on her to the cops, but she’d rather not risk it, which was another reason for a separate room.
That way Xan could still come over during the day; chill and play Xbox for awhile, and Buffy could kick it with her at night after a good slay, relieving at least one of their H’s together. Neither of them had a clue about what was going on next door, although Buffy did nearly storm in there a couple weeks ago when some of the candy kids were being wicked loud at assfuck in the morning, destroying Buffy’s dream of getting any beauty sleep that night. The next day Faith had to put up a big ass sign in the room that said, ‘If you value your larynx, shut the fuck up after 11pm.’ There hadn’t been many incidents with volume since then, but now Buffy refused to sleep there.
Not that it mattered; Faith hated sharing a bed anyway. She used to never let anyone spend the night - would much rather gouge her own eyes out with a rusty spoon, in fact - but one night Buffy started pouting and somehow a temporary lapse of judgment occurred on Faith’s part.
Whatever. Buffy hogged all the covers anyway.
It was kinda perfect though, outside of the fact that Faith had to hire Nate to babysit whenever she went out to slay or party. Problem was, even though Faith told him that he couldn’t be stoned while he was fucking working, it was pretty obvious to anyone with eyes that he always left high out of his mind. There was no one else that Faith trusted though, so it wasn’t like she had any other option. Plus, leaving the place in the hands of a stoner was better than in the hands of… well, nearly any other addict who frequented the place.
Normally Faith didn’t accept kids who wanted a place to do the soft drugs; weed, most prescription crap, whatever… She had limited space and it was either the hardcore addicts that really needed the place, or the homeless kids who stupidly insisted on taking hallucinogenics even though the last thing they needed was to be out on the streets, out of control. But Nate was the one who suggested she start the place back in August, so she wasn’t about to turn him away if there were any spots available.
After Faith tucked away Pedro’s cash, she smacked him on the shoulder to get his attention again. She knew once he stuck that needle in his arm he’d be completely useless, and this was important. “And since you obviously weren’t listening before about my hands off policy,” she started, nodding her head towards the syringe he was holding, “You probably tuned out my policy on needles too like a dumbass, considering it’s a pretty fucking important rule in this place. So listen carefully, cause I ain’t in the habit of handing out second chances: you share your needles, I dislocate your spine. You leave them lying around the floor where someone could step on them, I shatter your kneecaps. I ain’t having this place turn into the Hepatitis capitol of the world, so use a clean needle every time or I ain’t hosting your habit anymore. Clear?”
“Whatever you say, sexy mama,” Pedro responded, shooting her this pearly white grin that probably made all the girls in his private school go weak at the knees. But Faith wasn’t a school girl and she definitely wasn’t a virgin, so his attempt at ‘flirting’, for lack of a more appropriate word, fell flat in a matter of seconds.
“Call me that again and the hospital’s gonna be resetting your nose, kid. I got a name; use it.”
As Faith turned away from him, she could hear Pedro nearly moan her name like he meant to tease her with it, but the brunette ignored him and plopped down on the floor next to Nate. They didn’t say anything for a moment and Faith fixated her eyes on Hannah in the far corner of the room, setting herself up one monstrous line of cocaine. Faith sighed. Why the fuck wasn’t it obvious to these people not to screw yourself up to the point of near death? Seriously.
“Han!” Faith called from her place on the floor, not wanting to get up unless she absolutely had to. Hannah looked up at her, looking so much younger than her sixteen years, and Faith shook her head. “You’ve been doing a line every fifteen minutes like clockwork since you’ve been here. If you don’t chill the fuck out you’re gonna end up having a heart attack and I’ll tell you right now, it ain’t gonna be on my watch. Give it another half an hour then cut that thing in half, alright? Either that or I’m gonna make your bed available and you can spend the night in the rain.”
She wouldn’t really kick someone out when they were dangerously close to ODing - she’s not that much of a bitch - but no one knew that because it had never actually came down to that. Everyone just always listened to her, not wanting to risk fucking themselves out of this place; because no matter how shitty it was, it was still wicked chill.
Hannah looked a little disgruntled, but nodded her compliance. Nate nudged Faith in the arm and she looked over at him, one eyebrow raised in question. “You ever try coke?” he asked her.
“What’s it to you?”
Nate chuckled, expecting that response. Faith had always gotten really defensive whenever he brought up the drug subject. She would never answer him outright; she’d either avoid it entirely or go on the offensive whenever the topic was breached. It just wasn’t a conversation she needed to be having with anybody, period.
Faith knew it bore at his curiosity though: why she was doing all of this in the first place. Her answer was always the same: for the money. But Nate was convinced that if that were the case, she’d have just left everybody alone in there without a care in the world, letting them spin themselves out to an early grave. Instead, Faith always made sure someone was there to watch them. She enforced rules to make it safe for everyone. She cared.
Not that Faith would ever admit to that though. She wouldn’t budge from that answer and besides, it wasn’t like Nate’s batting average had changed at all; he still was sporting a big fat zero when it came to successfully getting Faith to open up. As did most people.
“I was just curious,” Nate answered, suddenly putting on this tone like he just became the smartest guy in the room. “You know, since you seemed to know exactly how much would be fatal for her just by looking at her size and how much she had done already. Only serious addicts can guestimate that shit.”
“Or anyone who can read,” replied Faith, shooting him a look that clearly read, ‘that was seriously your best guess?’ Anyone could have that knowledge if they just took the time to learn it, and since she offers half-day housing to drug addicts, kinda important that she knew her shit.
“You read?” He seemed genuinely surprised. Everyone always was though, because they assumed Faith was an idiot. It had happened so often now that it barely even bothered her anymore. Fuck everyone and their assumptions anyway.
“My TV only gets three channels, dude,” Faith replied, looking at him like he should have drawn this conclusion himself. “What the fuck else am I supposed to do? Bake?”
“Oh my god, yes; food…”
The word was said like he had just been pleasantly surprised by an unexpected orgasm and Faith snickered. “This is why you’re fat, you know. You smoke too much and then eat the entire left side of the McDonald’s menu.”
“Okay, no,” Nate started, holding up a finger in her face before swooping it down to motion to his nonexistent abs, “First of all bitch, this ain’t fat; my muscles are just resting. It’s not my fault you can’t tell the difference.” That earned a laugh. “Secondly… why the hell are you still here?”
Confusion crossed Faith’s features for a moment. “Huh?” Shit, was she supposed to do something today? Her memory has been such shit lately.
“For fuck’s sake, Faith; how do you not remember this conversation? It happened this morning! You said you needed me to watch tonight cause you had that thing with Bunny.”
“Buffy.”
Right… slaying, or whatever the hell they’re doing tonight. Fuck, where’s her head at today? She hadn’t been sleeping well for the past few weeks, but it never really started to affect her cognitive process until a few days ago. Out of nowhere Faith had seemed to have developed some sort of insomnia and it was royally pissing her off because she didn’t know how to fix it. Pills were useless to a Slayer because their bodies metabolized them too quickly, and she was too fucking restless all the time to even bother with attempting that meditation bullshit.
In the long run though, it probably didn’t even matter. Faith got enough sleep to function well enough physically, so she could still slay. That was really all that was important, anyway. Besides, the whole thing will probably just go away on its own; come a month and she’ll be sleeping like a baby again.
Hopefully.
“Whatever,” Nate dismissed with a wave, taking another hit off his joint. He hated Buffy’s name because for some reason he could never remember it, so eventually he just stopped trying; she had been ‘Bunny’ to him for like three weeks now. Faith didn’t know why she even bothered to correct him anymore. Maybe it became habit. “Are you dating her or something?” he asked while exhaling a puff of smoke, which he nearly ended up choking on as he started coughing violently.
Faith just stared at him. “Do I look like I’m the commitment type to you?” she asked, like he really should’ve known better than to ask that. “I might as well have an ‘open all night’ sign tattooed on my vag with how many people come in and out of it.” Nate was still violently coughing up his left lung, so when Faith made him laugh it pretty much put him in the realm of ‘okay, this could end badly.’ Actual breathing was touch and go there for a minute, but eventually Nate was able to breathe and function like a semi-normal human being again.
“You…”
Nope, nevermind.
Nate started coughing again, however still was offered no sympathy by Faith, who just sat there and waited for him to get his shit together. The only side-effects worth acknowledging were the fatal ones anyway, and she was pretty positive no one ever died from a coughing fit. It took a moment for Nate to get ahold of himself but finally he was able to execute proper words instead of nasty hacking sounds. “You’ve been spending nearly every night with this chick, Dimps,” he reminded her. “If she ain’t spreading her legs by now, then just admit defeat and move on.”
“Pretty sure I never said that she wasn’t.”
That made Nate sit up straighter. “But you don’t do anyone more than once. Is this psycho bitch stalking you or something? Because I know people who could fix that for you.” Faith nearly laughed out loud at that mental image. An entire gang of thugs wouldn’t have a prayer of taking down Buffy; they’d be laid out on their asses in five minutes flat.
Not the point though.
“She’s not stalking me. We just got some shit we gotta do together, is all.”
“Every night?” Nate asked, as though he were already convinced that Faith was feeding him a load of horse crap. She wasn’t though. Not really.
“Pretty much.”
Vampires didn’t exactly give the courtesy of a day off.
Nate just stared at her for a moment, an amused look on his face. Finally he turned back to his joint and said casually, “Well congratulations on your new girlfriend; I’ll be anxiously waiting beside my mailbox for the wedding invitation. You’ll be a fucking vision in white.”
Faith responded to that with a sarcastic smile and her middle finger. Nate laughed.
She still felt the need to defend her position though, cause he was right in a way; Faith had never slept with the same person twice. “She’s just a good fuck, that’s all. It ain’t gonna become a thing.”
“Uh huh.”
Faith fucking hated when people used that tone with her; like they thought she was stupid but were appeasing her anyway.
“What the fuck ever, man. At least I’m getting laid. When’s the last time you’ve even seen a cock that wasn’t your own?”
“Well I’m pretty sure you’re whipping yours out right now so we can measure, so…”
Despite her annoyance, Faith laughed. She looked up though when she heard a knock on the door. It was fainter though, so someone had to have been at her room. “Shit, who the fuck would be coming around right now?” It was too late to be Xander, yet too early to be Buffy.
Curious, Faith stood up so she could cross through the side door that joined the two rooms, only to find that the handle didn’t move. “Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Faith banged her head on the door. She forgot she had the manager do that; she didn’t need desperate addicts to have a free for all in her room. It still opened from her side, but that didn’t do any good right now, did it?
The knocking became louder, more insistent.
“Stop trippin’ and just go out the front door,” Nate told her, believing Faith’s paranoia to be stupid. He didn’t get why she hid this place from her friends, even though Faith thought the reason to be fucking obvious.
She hesitated.
“Jesus. If you’re gonna be a pansy about it then I’ll do it,” Nate replied in a bored tone, rolling his eyes as he turned from her. Faith was at his side in less than ten seconds, shoving him lightly out of the way as she scowled.
“Move.”
It was a fucked off time of day for anyone she knew to be stopping by anyway, so Faith bottled up her paranoia and headed towards the front door. It was probably one of those bible thumpers anyway; they were always scouring seedy motels, trying to turn prostitutes back to God or whatever it was that got them off these days. But when she pulled it open and saw Buffy on her doorstep instead of Jehovah's Witness, for the first time in her life Faith froze.
“What are you doing over there?” Buffy asked, face etched in surprise as she took in Faith in nothing but a sports bra and boxers in another person’s motel room. She drew her first conclusion within seconds and her tone got a little harder. “Are you…?”
“What?” Faith asked, but then it clicked in her brain; fuck yeah, Buffy just gave her an excuse! “Oh, right. Yeah.” But then Buffy’s face darkened considerably and in a moment of irrational panic, Faith retracted her statement with a louder, more insistent, “No!”
Buffy’s expression shifted from angry to confused, then immediately moved right over to suspicious. “Who’s in there?” she asked.
“No one. I broke into it, alright? Just lay off,” Faith snapped, double checking to making sure that the door was pulled tightly behind her. It was, but that was only a small comfort in comparison to the current fuckfest that was this situation. “What are you even doing here anyway?” she demanded, wondering why the hell this had to happen now.
“Well considering how you spend a consistent hour every night complaining about how you should have eaten before we left, I thought tonight we might skip that annoyance and actually go to dinner,” Buffy replied.
Alright, Faith had to admit that it sounded like a pretty wicked plan.
“However-”
…That didn’t though.
Buffy started to advance on her, voice dangerously low. “The fact that I just found you half naked, coming out of someone’s motel room, kind of makes me want to smash your face into the nearest brick wall; you self-centered, slutty little-!”
“Hey, whoa!” Faith interrupted, holding up her hands as annoyance crossed over her features. Buffy needed to back out of her space right the hell now. “First of all, B; this thing we’re doing? It ain’t exclusive. So I don’t know why you’re getting your panties all in a bunch, but-”
Faith’s words were cut off by an uppercut to the jaw. She should have seen that one coming.
“Don’t tell me we aren’t exclusive, Faith! We talked about this!” Buffy shouted, like Faith actually knew what she was referring to. It was probably one of those conversations where Buffy rambled and Faith was too ADD to properly listen. Seriously, Buffy should know better by now. “You said you’d try, and this is the amount of effort you’ve put into it? You can’t even go a month?!”
Oh, maybe she did say something to that effect. But fuck, Faith just thought it was one of those things you said; like, ‘I’ll try to be nicer’ when you fucking hate the person or whatever. It’s some sort of polite bullshit, isn’t it?
Whatever. That ain’t even the point. The point was…
“Will you chill the fuck out?! I haven’t been fuckin’ anyone but you, so you seriously need to stop going all Bridezilla on me, B; cause this ain’t the way you wanna go if you want to continue doin’ the dirty.”
It was true; Faith hadn’t fucked anyone else but Buffy. But frankly she just chalked it up to being too damn busy to lead an active sex life; the only reason she fucked Buffy so often was because it was convenient.
Or at least that was what she told herself.
Buffy pointed angrily at the motel room door. “Then explain to me why you were in there, dressed like that!”
Jeez, she was acting as if Faith was standing there in fucking lingerie.
“Like I said, I broke in. I was bored.” Faith shrugged carelessly and leaned against the wall. “Why does there have to be some huge explanation? You know this how I hang out; comfortable. Besides, these are boxer shorts, not a goddamn g-string. So can you just chill with the accusations for a second so we can stuff our faces? Cause seriously, now that you said food it’s all I can think about.”
Buffy narrowed her eyes and didn’t speak for a long time. Faith knew she was searching for any sign of a lie on her face. If she found one though, she didn’t say. Buffy crossed her arms over her chest.
“Fine, but we’re having another conversation because if we don’t, I’m pretty sure I might strangle you.”
Faith smirked.
“Kinky.”
“You say that now.”
The conversation came right after dinner, and Faith wasted no time telling Buffy whatever it was she wanted to hear. Buffy was the best fuck she’d had in ages, so why the hell would she want to give her a reason to leave? Maybe it wasn’t the most honest thing, but Faith was rarely comfortable when it came to revealing the truth. So she made her truth what Buffy wanted it to be and even though it was a lie, it was good for them; fucking dandy with a side of peaches, or whatever. So Buffy should have forgotten all about the motel room, right; just fucking trusted her and left things how they were for once?
Yeah, right.
Buffy had this nasty little habit called ‘curiosity’ that Faith wished she’d make a better effort to suppress. The end result fell anywhere from getting yelled at by an overweight museum guard for touching the Wooly Mammoth, to being led into an ambush that would get one of them nearly killed. And, alright, Faith knew that she wasn’t exactly ace at being covert ops or whatever either, but Buffy’s “wait, stop, think” policy seemed to only count when she wasn’t actively trying to become Nancy Drew.
So really, Faith should have seen this coming.
After leaving Nate at the motel while she ran errands, Faith came back to her motel room sore, sunburnt, and grumpy. Having to walk everywhere was shit and a half, but short of jacking a car she didn’t have any other options. Faith put her bags on the table before changing into some new clothes, needing to feel less like a sweaty hobo after a long walk in the hot summer’s sun. The solution only mildly worked, but that was good enough for now; she needed to get these bottled waters to the speeders so they didn’t shrivel up like fucking raisins on her carpet. After grabbing four of them, Faith opened the door that connected her room to the next, not prepared for the sight that greeted her on the other side of it.
Everything she was carrying immediately dropped to the floor. Shit.
“Faith.” The icy voice was all too familiar. As the brunette stared at Buffy standing in the middle of her secret life, watching her tear a cheerleader-sized hole between her two worlds; Faith didn’t know whether to stand tall or fall apart. They pulled at her so hard she was forced to stand still, and that made her want to set fire to the world.
So naturally, she finally chose to yell instead.
“Nate! What the fuck, man.”
He was the only one that touched the damn door when strangers came to it, so this was obviously his doing. Some friend.
“She threatened me!” It sounded more like an excuse than an apology, and that irritated Faith more considering Nate didn’t look like he put up much of a fight; there wasn’t a scratch on him. Buffy probably forced him to wear Birkenstocks or something else that was horrendous, and within minutes Nate would have surrendered the fort in a fit of tears and self-loathing. “Why do you always gotta pick the crazy ones, Dimps? Damn.”
Buffy opened her mouth to retort to that, seemingly offended, but she was drowned out by Faith.
“I don’t know, why do you always have to be such a stoned fucking idiot?” she shot back. The whole room reeked of pot and Faith was pretty sure that if Nate wasn’t high he wouldn’t make such stupid fucking judgments. He knew she didn’t want Buffy to know about this place. He fucking knew it. “You wanna screw up your life, go right ahead; but you don’t fuck with mine. You shouldn’t have let her in here!”
“The crazy bitch shoved a piece of pointy wood at my nuts; I love ya to death, but fuck that. There are just some things I will not sacrifice for you.”
Men were such fucking pussies.
“Uh, hello? Still here, you know,” Buffy interrupted, stepping into Faith’s line of sight. She didn’t look too thrilled but hey, you know what? Neither was Faith. Fuck this shit. “And still waiting for an explanation for the ‘Secret Life of an American Drug Addict’ set up you’ve been sneaking off to in here, if you care enough to finally share!” The last word was shrieked so loudly it made Faith’s head ring.
You know, for being worded like a choice, it didn’t sound too much like a choice.
Regardless of whatever was about to go down though, Faith didn’t want to do it here. “Nate, just shut up and watch everyone a sec while I deal with this, yeah? And make sure everyone’s getting hydrated and shit; I don’t need any more fucking drama to deal with today.”
Without even waiting for an answer, Faith left for her own bedroom. She knew Nate would do as she said, just as she knew Buffy would jump to conclusions the second they were alone. “Are you on drugs?” the blonde screamed, not actually waiting for an answer after she had closed the door behind them. “Do you have some kind of death wish?! Those things are- why didn’t you tell us? I could have helped, or Giles; he’s the helping sort of type who’s an actual adult, but instead you just shut everything inside of you and choose to forget that there are people that care about you, like you always do, and I just-”
“Oh for fuck’s sake, B; do I look like I’m on drugs to you?!” Faith interrupted, every word implying that Buffy was an idiot for even thinking so. It fucking frustrated her though; the girl would always jump straight to the worst thing she could think of, never just taking a second to stop and look at the shit that was right in front of her face. “You see needle marks, meth sores, or bags under my eyes? Hell, are my pupils even dilated? No. So do me a favor and stop expecting the worst from me, cause it’s really starting to piss me off.”
Buffy was temporarily struck mute as she took in the evidence that Faith had presented her, but it didn’t last long. “Well if you’re not doing drugs, then why are you having parties with them!?”
Faith’s expression went flat. “B, if that shitfest was your idea of a party you gotta stop watching those SVU marathons and go out once in awhile. Cause seriously.”
Buffy pointed erratically to the other room. “Well what else was I supposed to think? That looked exactly like one of those… those rape dens and-”
Faith snorted; she couldn’t help it. “A rape den? What’s that, B; like a bear cave for the Chester Molesters of the world?” She smirked, continuing to jest, “Storing a shit ton of greasy food and kidnapped hookers in their secret rooms, planning ahead so that they can sit pretty and avoid the five-ohs through winter?”
“I’m not joking!” Buffy insisted, glaring at her for the unwarranted sarcasm. “People lure women or children or whoever to these awful places to get them high before they rape them! There are beds in that room, Faith-”
“Cots, actually.”
“Whatever! Ugh, why are you not taking this seriously? Don’t you understand what’s going on?” Buffy pressed, desperately trying to make Faith see her creatively invented, yet overdramatic ‘reasoning’. “We need to find out who’s renting that room because I guarantee you it’s some fat, old pervert who’s using that poor, naïve, probably Stockholm Syndrome-ridden gay boy as a front so that he can round up all the attractive teenagers in the area and take them to his dungeon of… of pain or-! Hey, stop laughing!”
It was too much. His dungeon of pain? Buffy seriously needed to lay off the cop drama marathons; she skated right past a dozen other sane conclusions and landed on ‘kidnapping serial rapist who has a pet gay’. It was fucking hilarious and Faith couldn’t stop laughing, which only aggravated Buffy further.
“Sorry,” Faith apologized halfway through her laughing fit, trying to get ahold of it. “But Jesus, you gotta be the most paranoid person I’ve ever met. Wow.” She shook her head in disbelief before explaining, “The room doesn’t belong to a rapist, B; it’s mine. So stop trippin’ for a second and breathe, okay? You didn’t just accidently stumble onto the world’s most nefarious criminal mastermind; it’s fine.”
Buffy’s eyes widened. “Your room?” she repeated, like the concept was incomprehensible. “Why do you need two rooms? Actually no, sorry; that wasn’t the question that mattered. What I meant to say was: why the hell do you need to fill your second room with junkies?!”
“Can you stop shrieking at me? Christ,” Faith complained, rubbing her ear in annoyance. Buffy really didn’t understand how grating she could be sometimes.
Faith meant to just leave it at that - cause it wasn’t any of Buffy’s damn business - but since the blonde’s conclusions seemed to paint her either as a drug addict or a secret rapist, for once Faith figured the truth might be better. “I’m just keeping them safe while making some extra cash, okay?” she answered, tone defensive. “For fuck’s sake, before these kids practically hand-deliver themselves to vamps; alone, doped up, living on the streets…”
“Then why aren’t you helping them get clean?” Buffy accused, as if within the span of five seconds Faith somehow managed to turn into some monstrous person. “You could save them that way, but instead you’re take advantage of their situation; making money off it! That’s…” she shook her head in disbelief, “Ugh, that’s really disgusting, Faith.”
Okay, whoa; how in the fuck did she just get turned into the bad guy here? She saves these kids from being something’s midnight snack on a regular basis, yet still gets bitched at because she’s not a what, fucking licensed therapist? Screw that.
“What the fuck am I supposed to do about it, B? Huh?” Faith held out her hands as she stated the obvious to the girl in front of her. “You know what happens when you take away an addicts’ stash? They find a way to get more, even if that means putting a dick in their mouth as payment. You wanna lecture them; give them the standard health warnings, tell them they’re gonna die? Well no shit, Sherlock. They’re not idiots, Buffy; they know what they’re doing to themselves.”
Buffy’s ignorance on the subject really infuriated Faith; she didn’t understand how Buffy could stand there and preach her high and mighty bullshit when she didn’t even know the first thing about drugs, let alone a serious addiction. She made the solution sound so insanely simple that it almost made Faith want to cry with laughter. If a drug addiction was such an easy thing to beat, no one would fucking have one. And yet…
“Death isn’t the thing that scares them, B,” Faith explained impatiently, “it’s being forced to face their shitty life sober. So their needles, their pipes? That’s all their world is; they can’t see anything else. The longer it goes on, the more wrapped up they get, the clearer the picture of their life becomes: what they are now is what they’re convinced they’ll be for the rest of their insignificant, miserable little lives. Even if they see someone right next to them recovering, they still manage to convince themselves that it won’t be like that for them; as if a life outside of drugs is like some kind of lottery to be won and since they didn’t bother buying a ticket, they’re shit out of luck. They don’t wanna deal with disappointment, so they don’t even bother hoping anymore.”
“So you see, for your little plan of action to be an actual solution, they’d gotta start facing the fact that they might fuck their chance up.” Faith arched an eyebrow, folding her arms across her chest as she harshly informed her, “They won’t though. They’ll hold onto it like some kind of ‘in case of emergency’ button just in case it really is their last chance. And yeah, maybe one day, one of them will actually grow a pair, take the risk everyone else was too much of a pussy to take, and finally get some fucking help. But they gotta be the one to do it, otherwise they’ll end up relapsing and then the second time around seems even harder to do.”
Faith knew she should have stopped talking ages ago, shouldn’t have let this bother her so bad, but once she got going it was hard to keep herself from shoving the truth in Buffy’s face. “So yeah; the lectures, the warnings, that ray of hope you wanna shine up their ass?” Faith said, her tone becoming heavier as she neared the end of her point, “All you’re doing is rolling out the carpet for someone who doesn’t want the attention; chances are they’re just gonna end up running even further away.”
Faith must have gotten used to hearing herself speak, because the silence that followed her last sentence felt unnaturally thick as it hung between the two Slayers. It destroyed Faith’s irritation almost instantly; leaving her exposed and vulnerable. That feeling by itself was bad enough, but it tripled once Buffy finally spoke.
“So when did you finally decide to stop running?”
The question was soft, as if Buffy knew it shouldn’t have been said out loud. Faith tensed, her body subconsciously slipping into a defensive stance. “Just because I get something doesn’t mean I lived it. I ain’t gonna pretend my life was fucking Sesame Street or anything, but I didn’t run from it like some kind of-”
“Human?”
Faith looked up at her, not expecting that answer but realizing it fit. “Yeah. Me and you, we’re better than that shit. We were born strong. Why I can do something with them, y’know? Cause no one else can.” She points out the window at some random man getting into his car. “Yet if a Regular Joe is over there to supervise instead of me, odds are that one day - be it ten fucking years, or even just ten days from now - he’ll be the one with a needle in his arm, cause that’s just how shit works.”
By her expression, Buffy clearly thought Faith was just being pessimistic. So she explained, “Adaptation, or whatever it’s called; you blend into what’s around you for survival. It’s like a basic human instinct or something. So if drugs are all that’s around you…” Faith shrugged, trying to portray indifference. “It’s just what people do. But we’re not people, so this gig was practically no risk and all reward; you can’t beat that.”
During Faith’s explanation, Buffy’s right eyebrow slowly crept higher and higher so that when Faith was finally done it made everything she just said feel completely irrelevant because obviously her opinions had been dismissed some fucking time ago.
“You’ve really convinced yourself all this?” Buffy finally asked, sounding legitimately shocked for whatever reason. Now it was Faith’s turn to raise an eyebrow, however hers was a bit more challenging.
“Twenty bucks says I know what I’m talking about,” she cockily replied. “Go look it up, seriously; survival adaptation is actually a thing. I’m not trying to bullshit you.”
“I wasn’t talking about that,” responded Buffy with a sigh. “I meant… you really think that we’re more evolved than everyone else?” She was met with a look as though she should have figured that one out for herself, which made Buffy’s eyebrows knit together in disbelief. “We need food and water to survive,” she told her. “We cry when we’re sad, and smile when we’re happy. And yeah, we’re stronger and faster than most; but in the end we still need their basic needs to survive, we feel the emotions that make them human. All we have is enhanced abilities, Faith; not an entirely different DNA makeup.”
She took a step towards Faith, her expression painted with conflicting emotions. “Just because you’re a Slayer, doesn’t mean that you have to be strong every second of your life”. Buffy’s words were softer now, making Faith fidget uncomfortably. “You said you don’t run from things…”
“I don’t.”
“Then why are you lying to me?” Buffy challenged, looking her dead in the eyes. “You knew I wouldn’t buy your ‘Slayers are more evolved’ bullshit line because I am one, so why did you even bother? I don’t understand what the big deal is, Faith. Even if you were an addict before, you aren’t now. And if that is the case, I don’t understand how you can be ashamed of that; it takes so much strength to overcome something like that.”
Faith was starting to feel a bit suffocated, so she backed away forcefully. “Strength born from weakness is fucking bullshit, B,” she responded, unaware she had said anything until after the words had already left her mouth. “All you’re doing is leveling out the scale again; it’s not some great accomplishment.”
“It is when you go from being one of them to housing them, to being around that stuff all day long yet don’t touch it.”
Faith’s expression turned to stone as she stared at Buffy for a long moment. “Why the fuck are you so convinced I was one of them?”
Her answer was far too simple. “Because it’s the only explanation that makes sense.”
Faith outwardly scoffed at that, yet offered nothing in response. She figured that a conversation can’t be one sided, and eventually Buffy would be forced to drop it as she would have nothing to build off of.
The silence stretched on.
“Is it even about the addiction?” Buffy asked finally. “Or is that you don’t want to admit that someone as strong as you could ever be weakened like that.”
“I’m not weak!”
The exclamation was a knee-jerk reaction; a force of habit that couldn’t be controlled. Faith could let so many things go, but not that; never that. Because she wasn’t fucking weak. Her mom would say it halfway through her drunken beatings, trying to break her. But she didn’t. She fucking didn’t. Never in her goddamn life would Faith ever accept that her mother weakened her. Even if it was true. Even if that was the reason she started shoving needles into her arms. Because in the reality she had accepted, that didn’t fucking happen. Period. It was just a nightmare that sometimes lingered in the background of her life; close enough to remember, yet far enough to dismiss.
That was the one thing; the hardest truth for Faith to accept had happened… and she just wasn’t ready to yet. It was all linked together in this mess of a time that made her hate herself, and so for the sake of her sanity she just… denied it even existed. It was just better that way.
Faith looked like a trapped animal that needed to escape, and so Buffy took a step back so as to not suffocate her. “No,” she agreed. “You’re not.”
It sounded as though Buffy actually meant what she was saying, which should have been a comfort for Faith, yet did nothing but confuse the hell out of her. Buffy wasn’t stupid; she had to have known she was finally getting somewhere after that kind of reaction, so why did she stop pushing? Buffy never stopped pushing; she liked being right.
And even though Faith would never admit it, Buffy was right.
But then Buffy smiled softly at her and finished with, “because Slayers aren’t capable of being weak,” and Faith finally understood what it was that Buffy was doing; accepting her truth, even though she knew it was a lie.
A smile crept across Faith’s features as a heavy weight lifted off her.
“Damn fucking right we aren’t.”
- FIN -
Prompt: Hardest Truth
Table: Here.
Author: Sapphire Smoke cuzimastripper
Beta: Aly
Fandom: Buffy The Vampire Slayer
Rating: PG-13
Pairing(s): Buffy/Faith
Word Length: 7,885 words
Summary: Faith would rather deny her past, then admit that she had ever been weakened by something so disgustingly human.
A/N: So it's been about six months since I've written fic for any fandom, and for that I'm sorry. My muse just wandered off one day and with it, my confidence. The only reason this fic exists was because I was manic about a month ago and needed something to put my excess energy into. But then it just sat there, in a folder on my computer, because I was afraid to post it. But... I don't know. That's stupid and I needed to get over it, lol. I think I just feel a little uncomfortable with it because I can tell the difference between something I wrote while manic versus something I wrote while depressed (which tends to yield better results imo), but my beta couldn't tell the difference so I may just be oddly paranoid xD Regardless, here's some fic. PLEASE don't get all excited about this story and that story possibly being updated now, since a) I don't have as much time to devote to writing as I used to and b) this may have just been a manic fluke and I might get all weird about trying to write again. I don't know. Just thought you all deserved the warning, lol.
007. Hardest Truth
“You need a fucking hearing aid or something?!” Faith exclaimed, whipping around to shove the Italian boy with the wandering hands back away a few paces. His face masked in surprise as he stumbled, somehow managing to not only trip over his own two feet in the process, but also to fall backwards; subsequently scraping his arm on a stray nail that was slightly protruding from the wall.
Karma, ladies and gentlemen.
Faith had half a mind to just throw him straight back out on his ass, though controlled the urge because she really couldn’t afford to pass up the fifty bucks that the douche had offered her. But for one kid, one night? That was like triple what she normally charged. Still, even though this rich bastard flashed around his money like it summed up the quality of his prepubescent cock, it didn’t mean that his money would save his wrist from being snapped clean in half if he ever tried to put his hand down Faith’s pants again.
Of course she could always just say ‘screw it’; beat the guy to shit right now and rob his ass blind. It’d get their interaction over with quicker, but that was about the only upside. The minute word hit the streets that she fucked over a client, her business would go down the shitter in a matter of days and she’d be forced into a lifestyle she didn’t want just so she could keep a fucking roof over her head. Faith didn’t want to constantly worry about where her next score was coming from; that’d be such a shit way to live. And contrary to the rapidly circulating rumor at Sunnydale High, she wasn’t actually bred with the sole purpose of one day becoming a con woman, prostitute, or drug dealer.
Fine, so maybe her ‘business’ wasn’t exactly legit either… or even legal for that matter, but Faith was pretty fucking proud of herself for finding a way to make money that actually did some small bit of good in between the complete clusterfuck of devastation that surrounded most of these kids’ lives.
Unfortunately, devastation didn’t seem to go anywhere near the Future Trust Fund Molester; who, out of everyone in the room, might stand to actually become a decent fucking person if only he had a rainstorm of shit in his life. Faith knew better than most that after you’ve lost everything, you’ll start to appreciate damn near everything that comes your way. Be a fucking idiot not to.
As irritating as he was though, Faith was glad the kid was privileged; meant he could pay out the ass, and she needed that right now. Directing him to the nearest cot in the already overcrowded, tiny motel room; Faith got real serious, real fast, “Read my lips, Pedro; cause I’m gonna say this one more time: I don’t fuck my clientele. So unless you wanna try your chances at avoiding the parental units while you stick that needle in your arm, I’d sit the fuck down and do what you’re told. I don’t tolerate bullshit here.”
It was a complete shit hole, but Faith made a point to keep it a safe place for these kids. It was either here or the streets for most of them. No one out there is gonna babysit you while you’re high; when you OD on a park bench in the middle of the night, no one will fucking care. When you fuck with drugs and the homeless, everything could go to shit in a matter of minutes. You’re a target for thieves and rapists when you’re fucked that bad, wandering around on your own. Not to mention vampires and whatever the fuck else out there that might want to feed on you.
They already knew though, what was left of Sunnydale’s homeless. They knew down to a T what really happened at night, but maybe they had to, to have survived this long. Just weird sometimes, hearing people other than B and her friends talking about vamps and shit. Faith had assumed that most people in this town were complete idiots, but apparently not.
“Dude, Faith can bench press like… a thousand pounds,” a regular and friend of Faith’s - a flamingly gay, seventeen year old pothead and chronic procrastinator - Nate, mentioned. Pedro laughed, thinking it was some kind of joke.
No surprise there.
“No lie; bitch is like Xena. Two weeks ago I saw her throw a guy who was easily like… fuck, he had to have been at least three times your size or something, out onto his flabby ass and into the rain, like the bastard was nothing but a bag of sticks.” A smirk crept across Nate’s face. “Wonder what she’ll do to you if you don’t quit being a handsy little hetero. Last dude that was rude to her ended up with a broken collarbone, but I think a guy like you could pull off the double arm cast look; probably even make it popular.”
Pedro looked torn between wanting to laugh and trying not to cry from that information, obviously still unsure of whether or not he was being fucked with. Faith lightly kicked Nate’s lounging figure on the carpet to get his attention. “Quit trying to scare off my clients unless you plan to find replacements for the one’s you lose,” Faith warned him. While her tone was light, she knew Nate could tell she was serious.
Not that he took it as such though.
“I already told you, Dimps; I’m gonna take you away from all this after I graduate. Get us a real apartment and everything. Pretty sure there will even be electricity and a bucket to shit in, if you wish hard enough. Cause wishes are fucking horses, or whatever.”
Faith laughed. “You repeated the ninth grade three times; exactly when the hell do you actually expect to graduate?”
She was met with a shrug.
“Probably when they start making school more appealing than pot and video games.”
“Why don’t you just-hey, hey, hey,” Faith interrupted herself as she held out her hand to Pedro, who was in the middle of tying a tourniquet around his arm. “I need that fifty in my hand before I see a needle in your arm. This ain’t a free ride, especially not for someone who can actually afford to pay it regularly.”
Pedro didn’t look too thrilled to hear that their arrangement for the day was about to become a permanent deal, but he was the one that offered that high of an amount in the first place. He wanted to be able to guarantee himself a spot whenever he came, since some days it could be next to impossible to get in.
Due to the motel room being such a tiny piece of shit, Faith could only hold six people at a time; or rather six cots, which honestly could hold two average sized kids in each, but not many people are willing to share a bed with a stranger. Not that Faith can blame them, but that’s all she can fit comfortably at the moment. Well, unless she wanted to start piling people into her motel room next door. Which, to be honest, wasn’t ever gonna happen because as much as Faith loved the shit out of some of these people, if she let crack heads and tweekers around everything that she owned it’d be just like handing out a sign that said, ‘free shit, have at it.’
Besides, most people in SunnyD didn’t even know about her safe haven for the perpetually fucked up. The only people who knew were those needing their fix and the motel manager, who got 10% of the monthly profits just to keep his fat mouth shut, plus however many rooms she was renting for the week. Besides, the Scooby Gang was all so fucking straight-laced and covered in goddamn rainbows that the very second that one of them figured out what was really going on, they’d up and tell Giles. Faith wasn’t sure if the old man would nark on her to the cops, but she’d rather not risk it, which was another reason for a separate room.
That way Xan could still come over during the day; chill and play Xbox for awhile, and Buffy could kick it with her at night after a good slay, relieving at least one of their H’s together. Neither of them had a clue about what was going on next door, although Buffy did nearly storm in there a couple weeks ago when some of the candy kids were being wicked loud at assfuck in the morning, destroying Buffy’s dream of getting any beauty sleep that night. The next day Faith had to put up a big ass sign in the room that said, ‘If you value your larynx, shut the fuck up after 11pm.’ There hadn’t been many incidents with volume since then, but now Buffy refused to sleep there.
Not that it mattered; Faith hated sharing a bed anyway. She used to never let anyone spend the night - would much rather gouge her own eyes out with a rusty spoon, in fact - but one night Buffy started pouting and somehow a temporary lapse of judgment occurred on Faith’s part.
Whatever. Buffy hogged all the covers anyway.
It was kinda perfect though, outside of the fact that Faith had to hire Nate to babysit whenever she went out to slay or party. Problem was, even though Faith told him that he couldn’t be stoned while he was fucking working, it was pretty obvious to anyone with eyes that he always left high out of his mind. There was no one else that Faith trusted though, so it wasn’t like she had any other option. Plus, leaving the place in the hands of a stoner was better than in the hands of… well, nearly any other addict who frequented the place.
Normally Faith didn’t accept kids who wanted a place to do the soft drugs; weed, most prescription crap, whatever… She had limited space and it was either the hardcore addicts that really needed the place, or the homeless kids who stupidly insisted on taking hallucinogenics even though the last thing they needed was to be out on the streets, out of control. But Nate was the one who suggested she start the place back in August, so she wasn’t about to turn him away if there were any spots available.
After Faith tucked away Pedro’s cash, she smacked him on the shoulder to get his attention again. She knew once he stuck that needle in his arm he’d be completely useless, and this was important. “And since you obviously weren’t listening before about my hands off policy,” she started, nodding her head towards the syringe he was holding, “You probably tuned out my policy on needles too like a dumbass, considering it’s a pretty fucking important rule in this place. So listen carefully, cause I ain’t in the habit of handing out second chances: you share your needles, I dislocate your spine. You leave them lying around the floor where someone could step on them, I shatter your kneecaps. I ain’t having this place turn into the Hepatitis capitol of the world, so use a clean needle every time or I ain’t hosting your habit anymore. Clear?”
“Whatever you say, sexy mama,” Pedro responded, shooting her this pearly white grin that probably made all the girls in his private school go weak at the knees. But Faith wasn’t a school girl and she definitely wasn’t a virgin, so his attempt at ‘flirting’, for lack of a more appropriate word, fell flat in a matter of seconds.
“Call me that again and the hospital’s gonna be resetting your nose, kid. I got a name; use it.”
As Faith turned away from him, she could hear Pedro nearly moan her name like he meant to tease her with it, but the brunette ignored him and plopped down on the floor next to Nate. They didn’t say anything for a moment and Faith fixated her eyes on Hannah in the far corner of the room, setting herself up one monstrous line of cocaine. Faith sighed. Why the fuck wasn’t it obvious to these people not to screw yourself up to the point of near death? Seriously.
“Han!” Faith called from her place on the floor, not wanting to get up unless she absolutely had to. Hannah looked up at her, looking so much younger than her sixteen years, and Faith shook her head. “You’ve been doing a line every fifteen minutes like clockwork since you’ve been here. If you don’t chill the fuck out you’re gonna end up having a heart attack and I’ll tell you right now, it ain’t gonna be on my watch. Give it another half an hour then cut that thing in half, alright? Either that or I’m gonna make your bed available and you can spend the night in the rain.”
She wouldn’t really kick someone out when they were dangerously close to ODing - she’s not that much of a bitch - but no one knew that because it had never actually came down to that. Everyone just always listened to her, not wanting to risk fucking themselves out of this place; because no matter how shitty it was, it was still wicked chill.
Hannah looked a little disgruntled, but nodded her compliance. Nate nudged Faith in the arm and she looked over at him, one eyebrow raised in question. “You ever try coke?” he asked her.
“What’s it to you?”
Nate chuckled, expecting that response. Faith had always gotten really defensive whenever he brought up the drug subject. She would never answer him outright; she’d either avoid it entirely or go on the offensive whenever the topic was breached. It just wasn’t a conversation she needed to be having with anybody, period.
Faith knew it bore at his curiosity though: why she was doing all of this in the first place. Her answer was always the same: for the money. But Nate was convinced that if that were the case, she’d have just left everybody alone in there without a care in the world, letting them spin themselves out to an early grave. Instead, Faith always made sure someone was there to watch them. She enforced rules to make it safe for everyone. She cared.
Not that Faith would ever admit to that though. She wouldn’t budge from that answer and besides, it wasn’t like Nate’s batting average had changed at all; he still was sporting a big fat zero when it came to successfully getting Faith to open up. As did most people.
“I was just curious,” Nate answered, suddenly putting on this tone like he just became the smartest guy in the room. “You know, since you seemed to know exactly how much would be fatal for her just by looking at her size and how much she had done already. Only serious addicts can guestimate that shit.”
“Or anyone who can read,” replied Faith, shooting him a look that clearly read, ‘that was seriously your best guess?’ Anyone could have that knowledge if they just took the time to learn it, and since she offers half-day housing to drug addicts, kinda important that she knew her shit.
“You read?” He seemed genuinely surprised. Everyone always was though, because they assumed Faith was an idiot. It had happened so often now that it barely even bothered her anymore. Fuck everyone and their assumptions anyway.
“My TV only gets three channels, dude,” Faith replied, looking at him like he should have drawn this conclusion himself. “What the fuck else am I supposed to do? Bake?”
“Oh my god, yes; food…”
The word was said like he had just been pleasantly surprised by an unexpected orgasm and Faith snickered. “This is why you’re fat, you know. You smoke too much and then eat the entire left side of the McDonald’s menu.”
“Okay, no,” Nate started, holding up a finger in her face before swooping it down to motion to his nonexistent abs, “First of all bitch, this ain’t fat; my muscles are just resting. It’s not my fault you can’t tell the difference.” That earned a laugh. “Secondly… why the hell are you still here?”
Confusion crossed Faith’s features for a moment. “Huh?” Shit, was she supposed to do something today? Her memory has been such shit lately.
“For fuck’s sake, Faith; how do you not remember this conversation? It happened this morning! You said you needed me to watch tonight cause you had that thing with Bunny.”
“Buffy.”
Right… slaying, or whatever the hell they’re doing tonight. Fuck, where’s her head at today? She hadn’t been sleeping well for the past few weeks, but it never really started to affect her cognitive process until a few days ago. Out of nowhere Faith had seemed to have developed some sort of insomnia and it was royally pissing her off because she didn’t know how to fix it. Pills were useless to a Slayer because their bodies metabolized them too quickly, and she was too fucking restless all the time to even bother with attempting that meditation bullshit.
In the long run though, it probably didn’t even matter. Faith got enough sleep to function well enough physically, so she could still slay. That was really all that was important, anyway. Besides, the whole thing will probably just go away on its own; come a month and she’ll be sleeping like a baby again.
Hopefully.
“Whatever,” Nate dismissed with a wave, taking another hit off his joint. He hated Buffy’s name because for some reason he could never remember it, so eventually he just stopped trying; she had been ‘Bunny’ to him for like three weeks now. Faith didn’t know why she even bothered to correct him anymore. Maybe it became habit. “Are you dating her or something?” he asked while exhaling a puff of smoke, which he nearly ended up choking on as he started coughing violently.
Faith just stared at him. “Do I look like I’m the commitment type to you?” she asked, like he really should’ve known better than to ask that. “I might as well have an ‘open all night’ sign tattooed on my vag with how many people come in and out of it.” Nate was still violently coughing up his left lung, so when Faith made him laugh it pretty much put him in the realm of ‘okay, this could end badly.’ Actual breathing was touch and go there for a minute, but eventually Nate was able to breathe and function like a semi-normal human being again.
“You…”
Nope, nevermind.
Nate started coughing again, however still was offered no sympathy by Faith, who just sat there and waited for him to get his shit together. The only side-effects worth acknowledging were the fatal ones anyway, and she was pretty positive no one ever died from a coughing fit. It took a moment for Nate to get ahold of himself but finally he was able to execute proper words instead of nasty hacking sounds. “You’ve been spending nearly every night with this chick, Dimps,” he reminded her. “If she ain’t spreading her legs by now, then just admit defeat and move on.”
“Pretty sure I never said that she wasn’t.”
That made Nate sit up straighter. “But you don’t do anyone more than once. Is this psycho bitch stalking you or something? Because I know people who could fix that for you.” Faith nearly laughed out loud at that mental image. An entire gang of thugs wouldn’t have a prayer of taking down Buffy; they’d be laid out on their asses in five minutes flat.
Not the point though.
“She’s not stalking me. We just got some shit we gotta do together, is all.”
“Every night?” Nate asked, as though he were already convinced that Faith was feeding him a load of horse crap. She wasn’t though. Not really.
“Pretty much.”
Vampires didn’t exactly give the courtesy of a day off.
Nate just stared at her for a moment, an amused look on his face. Finally he turned back to his joint and said casually, “Well congratulations on your new girlfriend; I’ll be anxiously waiting beside my mailbox for the wedding invitation. You’ll be a fucking vision in white.”
Faith responded to that with a sarcastic smile and her middle finger. Nate laughed.
She still felt the need to defend her position though, cause he was right in a way; Faith had never slept with the same person twice. “She’s just a good fuck, that’s all. It ain’t gonna become a thing.”
“Uh huh.”
Faith fucking hated when people used that tone with her; like they thought she was stupid but were appeasing her anyway.
“What the fuck ever, man. At least I’m getting laid. When’s the last time you’ve even seen a cock that wasn’t your own?”
“Well I’m pretty sure you’re whipping yours out right now so we can measure, so…”
Despite her annoyance, Faith laughed. She looked up though when she heard a knock on the door. It was fainter though, so someone had to have been at her room. “Shit, who the fuck would be coming around right now?” It was too late to be Xander, yet too early to be Buffy.
Curious, Faith stood up so she could cross through the side door that joined the two rooms, only to find that the handle didn’t move. “Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Faith banged her head on the door. She forgot she had the manager do that; she didn’t need desperate addicts to have a free for all in her room. It still opened from her side, but that didn’t do any good right now, did it?
The knocking became louder, more insistent.
“Stop trippin’ and just go out the front door,” Nate told her, believing Faith’s paranoia to be stupid. He didn’t get why she hid this place from her friends, even though Faith thought the reason to be fucking obvious.
She hesitated.
“Jesus. If you’re gonna be a pansy about it then I’ll do it,” Nate replied in a bored tone, rolling his eyes as he turned from her. Faith was at his side in less than ten seconds, shoving him lightly out of the way as she scowled.
“Move.”
It was a fucked off time of day for anyone she knew to be stopping by anyway, so Faith bottled up her paranoia and headed towards the front door. It was probably one of those bible thumpers anyway; they were always scouring seedy motels, trying to turn prostitutes back to God or whatever it was that got them off these days. But when she pulled it open and saw Buffy on her doorstep instead of Jehovah's Witness, for the first time in her life Faith froze.
“What are you doing over there?” Buffy asked, face etched in surprise as she took in Faith in nothing but a sports bra and boxers in another person’s motel room. She drew her first conclusion within seconds and her tone got a little harder. “Are you…?”
“What?” Faith asked, but then it clicked in her brain; fuck yeah, Buffy just gave her an excuse! “Oh, right. Yeah.” But then Buffy’s face darkened considerably and in a moment of irrational panic, Faith retracted her statement with a louder, more insistent, “No!”
Buffy’s expression shifted from angry to confused, then immediately moved right over to suspicious. “Who’s in there?” she asked.
“No one. I broke into it, alright? Just lay off,” Faith snapped, double checking to making sure that the door was pulled tightly behind her. It was, but that was only a small comfort in comparison to the current fuckfest that was this situation. “What are you even doing here anyway?” she demanded, wondering why the hell this had to happen now.
“Well considering how you spend a consistent hour every night complaining about how you should have eaten before we left, I thought tonight we might skip that annoyance and actually go to dinner,” Buffy replied.
Alright, Faith had to admit that it sounded like a pretty wicked plan.
“However-”
…That didn’t though.
Buffy started to advance on her, voice dangerously low. “The fact that I just found you half naked, coming out of someone’s motel room, kind of makes me want to smash your face into the nearest brick wall; you self-centered, slutty little-!”
“Hey, whoa!” Faith interrupted, holding up her hands as annoyance crossed over her features. Buffy needed to back out of her space right the hell now. “First of all, B; this thing we’re doing? It ain’t exclusive. So I don’t know why you’re getting your panties all in a bunch, but-”
Faith’s words were cut off by an uppercut to the jaw. She should have seen that one coming.
“Don’t tell me we aren’t exclusive, Faith! We talked about this!” Buffy shouted, like Faith actually knew what she was referring to. It was probably one of those conversations where Buffy rambled and Faith was too ADD to properly listen. Seriously, Buffy should know better by now. “You said you’d try, and this is the amount of effort you’ve put into it? You can’t even go a month?!”
Oh, maybe she did say something to that effect. But fuck, Faith just thought it was one of those things you said; like, ‘I’ll try to be nicer’ when you fucking hate the person or whatever. It’s some sort of polite bullshit, isn’t it?
Whatever. That ain’t even the point. The point was…
“Will you chill the fuck out?! I haven’t been fuckin’ anyone but you, so you seriously need to stop going all Bridezilla on me, B; cause this ain’t the way you wanna go if you want to continue doin’ the dirty.”
It was true; Faith hadn’t fucked anyone else but Buffy. But frankly she just chalked it up to being too damn busy to lead an active sex life; the only reason she fucked Buffy so often was because it was convenient.
Or at least that was what she told herself.
Buffy pointed angrily at the motel room door. “Then explain to me why you were in there, dressed like that!”
Jeez, she was acting as if Faith was standing there in fucking lingerie.
“Like I said, I broke in. I was bored.” Faith shrugged carelessly and leaned against the wall. “Why does there have to be some huge explanation? You know this how I hang out; comfortable. Besides, these are boxer shorts, not a goddamn g-string. So can you just chill with the accusations for a second so we can stuff our faces? Cause seriously, now that you said food it’s all I can think about.”
Buffy narrowed her eyes and didn’t speak for a long time. Faith knew she was searching for any sign of a lie on her face. If she found one though, she didn’t say. Buffy crossed her arms over her chest.
“Fine, but we’re having another conversation because if we don’t, I’m pretty sure I might strangle you.”
Faith smirked.
“Kinky.”
“You say that now.”
The conversation came right after dinner, and Faith wasted no time telling Buffy whatever it was she wanted to hear. Buffy was the best fuck she’d had in ages, so why the hell would she want to give her a reason to leave? Maybe it wasn’t the most honest thing, but Faith was rarely comfortable when it came to revealing the truth. So she made her truth what Buffy wanted it to be and even though it was a lie, it was good for them; fucking dandy with a side of peaches, or whatever. So Buffy should have forgotten all about the motel room, right; just fucking trusted her and left things how they were for once?
Yeah, right.
Buffy had this nasty little habit called ‘curiosity’ that Faith wished she’d make a better effort to suppress. The end result fell anywhere from getting yelled at by an overweight museum guard for touching the Wooly Mammoth, to being led into an ambush that would get one of them nearly killed. And, alright, Faith knew that she wasn’t exactly ace at being covert ops or whatever either, but Buffy’s “wait, stop, think” policy seemed to only count when she wasn’t actively trying to become Nancy Drew.
So really, Faith should have seen this coming.
After leaving Nate at the motel while she ran errands, Faith came back to her motel room sore, sunburnt, and grumpy. Having to walk everywhere was shit and a half, but short of jacking a car she didn’t have any other options. Faith put her bags on the table before changing into some new clothes, needing to feel less like a sweaty hobo after a long walk in the hot summer’s sun. The solution only mildly worked, but that was good enough for now; she needed to get these bottled waters to the speeders so they didn’t shrivel up like fucking raisins on her carpet. After grabbing four of them, Faith opened the door that connected her room to the next, not prepared for the sight that greeted her on the other side of it.
Everything she was carrying immediately dropped to the floor. Shit.
“Faith.” The icy voice was all too familiar. As the brunette stared at Buffy standing in the middle of her secret life, watching her tear a cheerleader-sized hole between her two worlds; Faith didn’t know whether to stand tall or fall apart. They pulled at her so hard she was forced to stand still, and that made her want to set fire to the world.
So naturally, she finally chose to yell instead.
“Nate! What the fuck, man.”
He was the only one that touched the damn door when strangers came to it, so this was obviously his doing. Some friend.
“She threatened me!” It sounded more like an excuse than an apology, and that irritated Faith more considering Nate didn’t look like he put up much of a fight; there wasn’t a scratch on him. Buffy probably forced him to wear Birkenstocks or something else that was horrendous, and within minutes Nate would have surrendered the fort in a fit of tears and self-loathing. “Why do you always gotta pick the crazy ones, Dimps? Damn.”
Buffy opened her mouth to retort to that, seemingly offended, but she was drowned out by Faith.
“I don’t know, why do you always have to be such a stoned fucking idiot?” she shot back. The whole room reeked of pot and Faith was pretty sure that if Nate wasn’t high he wouldn’t make such stupid fucking judgments. He knew she didn’t want Buffy to know about this place. He fucking knew it. “You wanna screw up your life, go right ahead; but you don’t fuck with mine. You shouldn’t have let her in here!”
“The crazy bitch shoved a piece of pointy wood at my nuts; I love ya to death, but fuck that. There are just some things I will not sacrifice for you.”
Men were such fucking pussies.
“Uh, hello? Still here, you know,” Buffy interrupted, stepping into Faith’s line of sight. She didn’t look too thrilled but hey, you know what? Neither was Faith. Fuck this shit. “And still waiting for an explanation for the ‘Secret Life of an American Drug Addict’ set up you’ve been sneaking off to in here, if you care enough to finally share!” The last word was shrieked so loudly it made Faith’s head ring.
You know, for being worded like a choice, it didn’t sound too much like a choice.
Regardless of whatever was about to go down though, Faith didn’t want to do it here. “Nate, just shut up and watch everyone a sec while I deal with this, yeah? And make sure everyone’s getting hydrated and shit; I don’t need any more fucking drama to deal with today.”
Without even waiting for an answer, Faith left for her own bedroom. She knew Nate would do as she said, just as she knew Buffy would jump to conclusions the second they were alone. “Are you on drugs?” the blonde screamed, not actually waiting for an answer after she had closed the door behind them. “Do you have some kind of death wish?! Those things are- why didn’t you tell us? I could have helped, or Giles; he’s the helping sort of type who’s an actual adult, but instead you just shut everything inside of you and choose to forget that there are people that care about you, like you always do, and I just-”
“Oh for fuck’s sake, B; do I look like I’m on drugs to you?!” Faith interrupted, every word implying that Buffy was an idiot for even thinking so. It fucking frustrated her though; the girl would always jump straight to the worst thing she could think of, never just taking a second to stop and look at the shit that was right in front of her face. “You see needle marks, meth sores, or bags under my eyes? Hell, are my pupils even dilated? No. So do me a favor and stop expecting the worst from me, cause it’s really starting to piss me off.”
Buffy was temporarily struck mute as she took in the evidence that Faith had presented her, but it didn’t last long. “Well if you’re not doing drugs, then why are you having parties with them!?”
Faith’s expression went flat. “B, if that shitfest was your idea of a party you gotta stop watching those SVU marathons and go out once in awhile. Cause seriously.”
Buffy pointed erratically to the other room. “Well what else was I supposed to think? That looked exactly like one of those… those rape dens and-”
Faith snorted; she couldn’t help it. “A rape den? What’s that, B; like a bear cave for the Chester Molesters of the world?” She smirked, continuing to jest, “Storing a shit ton of greasy food and kidnapped hookers in their secret rooms, planning ahead so that they can sit pretty and avoid the five-ohs through winter?”
“I’m not joking!” Buffy insisted, glaring at her for the unwarranted sarcasm. “People lure women or children or whoever to these awful places to get them high before they rape them! There are beds in that room, Faith-”
“Cots, actually.”
“Whatever! Ugh, why are you not taking this seriously? Don’t you understand what’s going on?” Buffy pressed, desperately trying to make Faith see her creatively invented, yet overdramatic ‘reasoning’. “We need to find out who’s renting that room because I guarantee you it’s some fat, old pervert who’s using that poor, naïve, probably Stockholm Syndrome-ridden gay boy as a front so that he can round up all the attractive teenagers in the area and take them to his dungeon of… of pain or-! Hey, stop laughing!”
It was too much. His dungeon of pain? Buffy seriously needed to lay off the cop drama marathons; she skated right past a dozen other sane conclusions and landed on ‘kidnapping serial rapist who has a pet gay’. It was fucking hilarious and Faith couldn’t stop laughing, which only aggravated Buffy further.
“Sorry,” Faith apologized halfway through her laughing fit, trying to get ahold of it. “But Jesus, you gotta be the most paranoid person I’ve ever met. Wow.” She shook her head in disbelief before explaining, “The room doesn’t belong to a rapist, B; it’s mine. So stop trippin’ for a second and breathe, okay? You didn’t just accidently stumble onto the world’s most nefarious criminal mastermind; it’s fine.”
Buffy’s eyes widened. “Your room?” she repeated, like the concept was incomprehensible. “Why do you need two rooms? Actually no, sorry; that wasn’t the question that mattered. What I meant to say was: why the hell do you need to fill your second room with junkies?!”
“Can you stop shrieking at me? Christ,” Faith complained, rubbing her ear in annoyance. Buffy really didn’t understand how grating she could be sometimes.
Faith meant to just leave it at that - cause it wasn’t any of Buffy’s damn business - but since the blonde’s conclusions seemed to paint her either as a drug addict or a secret rapist, for once Faith figured the truth might be better. “I’m just keeping them safe while making some extra cash, okay?” she answered, tone defensive. “For fuck’s sake, before these kids practically hand-deliver themselves to vamps; alone, doped up, living on the streets…”
“Then why aren’t you helping them get clean?” Buffy accused, as if within the span of five seconds Faith somehow managed to turn into some monstrous person. “You could save them that way, but instead you’re take advantage of their situation; making money off it! That’s…” she shook her head in disbelief, “Ugh, that’s really disgusting, Faith.”
Okay, whoa; how in the fuck did she just get turned into the bad guy here? She saves these kids from being something’s midnight snack on a regular basis, yet still gets bitched at because she’s not a what, fucking licensed therapist? Screw that.
“What the fuck am I supposed to do about it, B? Huh?” Faith held out her hands as she stated the obvious to the girl in front of her. “You know what happens when you take away an addicts’ stash? They find a way to get more, even if that means putting a dick in their mouth as payment. You wanna lecture them; give them the standard health warnings, tell them they’re gonna die? Well no shit, Sherlock. They’re not idiots, Buffy; they know what they’re doing to themselves.”
Buffy’s ignorance on the subject really infuriated Faith; she didn’t understand how Buffy could stand there and preach her high and mighty bullshit when she didn’t even know the first thing about drugs, let alone a serious addiction. She made the solution sound so insanely simple that it almost made Faith want to cry with laughter. If a drug addiction was such an easy thing to beat, no one would fucking have one. And yet…
“Death isn’t the thing that scares them, B,” Faith explained impatiently, “it’s being forced to face their shitty life sober. So their needles, their pipes? That’s all their world is; they can’t see anything else. The longer it goes on, the more wrapped up they get, the clearer the picture of their life becomes: what they are now is what they’re convinced they’ll be for the rest of their insignificant, miserable little lives. Even if they see someone right next to them recovering, they still manage to convince themselves that it won’t be like that for them; as if a life outside of drugs is like some kind of lottery to be won and since they didn’t bother buying a ticket, they’re shit out of luck. They don’t wanna deal with disappointment, so they don’t even bother hoping anymore.”
“So you see, for your little plan of action to be an actual solution, they’d gotta start facing the fact that they might fuck their chance up.” Faith arched an eyebrow, folding her arms across her chest as she harshly informed her, “They won’t though. They’ll hold onto it like some kind of ‘in case of emergency’ button just in case it really is their last chance. And yeah, maybe one day, one of them will actually grow a pair, take the risk everyone else was too much of a pussy to take, and finally get some fucking help. But they gotta be the one to do it, otherwise they’ll end up relapsing and then the second time around seems even harder to do.”
Faith knew she should have stopped talking ages ago, shouldn’t have let this bother her so bad, but once she got going it was hard to keep herself from shoving the truth in Buffy’s face. “So yeah; the lectures, the warnings, that ray of hope you wanna shine up their ass?” Faith said, her tone becoming heavier as she neared the end of her point, “All you’re doing is rolling out the carpet for someone who doesn’t want the attention; chances are they’re just gonna end up running even further away.”
Faith must have gotten used to hearing herself speak, because the silence that followed her last sentence felt unnaturally thick as it hung between the two Slayers. It destroyed Faith’s irritation almost instantly; leaving her exposed and vulnerable. That feeling by itself was bad enough, but it tripled once Buffy finally spoke.
“So when did you finally decide to stop running?”
The question was soft, as if Buffy knew it shouldn’t have been said out loud. Faith tensed, her body subconsciously slipping into a defensive stance. “Just because I get something doesn’t mean I lived it. I ain’t gonna pretend my life was fucking Sesame Street or anything, but I didn’t run from it like some kind of-”
“Human?”
Faith looked up at her, not expecting that answer but realizing it fit. “Yeah. Me and you, we’re better than that shit. We were born strong. Why I can do something with them, y’know? Cause no one else can.” She points out the window at some random man getting into his car. “Yet if a Regular Joe is over there to supervise instead of me, odds are that one day - be it ten fucking years, or even just ten days from now - he’ll be the one with a needle in his arm, cause that’s just how shit works.”
By her expression, Buffy clearly thought Faith was just being pessimistic. So she explained, “Adaptation, or whatever it’s called; you blend into what’s around you for survival. It’s like a basic human instinct or something. So if drugs are all that’s around you…” Faith shrugged, trying to portray indifference. “It’s just what people do. But we’re not people, so this gig was practically no risk and all reward; you can’t beat that.”
During Faith’s explanation, Buffy’s right eyebrow slowly crept higher and higher so that when Faith was finally done it made everything she just said feel completely irrelevant because obviously her opinions had been dismissed some fucking time ago.
“You’ve really convinced yourself all this?” Buffy finally asked, sounding legitimately shocked for whatever reason. Now it was Faith’s turn to raise an eyebrow, however hers was a bit more challenging.
“Twenty bucks says I know what I’m talking about,” she cockily replied. “Go look it up, seriously; survival adaptation is actually a thing. I’m not trying to bullshit you.”
“I wasn’t talking about that,” responded Buffy with a sigh. “I meant… you really think that we’re more evolved than everyone else?” She was met with a look as though she should have figured that one out for herself, which made Buffy’s eyebrows knit together in disbelief. “We need food and water to survive,” she told her. “We cry when we’re sad, and smile when we’re happy. And yeah, we’re stronger and faster than most; but in the end we still need their basic needs to survive, we feel the emotions that make them human. All we have is enhanced abilities, Faith; not an entirely different DNA makeup.”
She took a step towards Faith, her expression painted with conflicting emotions. “Just because you’re a Slayer, doesn’t mean that you have to be strong every second of your life”. Buffy’s words were softer now, making Faith fidget uncomfortably. “You said you don’t run from things…”
“I don’t.”
“Then why are you lying to me?” Buffy challenged, looking her dead in the eyes. “You knew I wouldn’t buy your ‘Slayers are more evolved’ bullshit line because I am one, so why did you even bother? I don’t understand what the big deal is, Faith. Even if you were an addict before, you aren’t now. And if that is the case, I don’t understand how you can be ashamed of that; it takes so much strength to overcome something like that.”
Faith was starting to feel a bit suffocated, so she backed away forcefully. “Strength born from weakness is fucking bullshit, B,” she responded, unaware she had said anything until after the words had already left her mouth. “All you’re doing is leveling out the scale again; it’s not some great accomplishment.”
“It is when you go from being one of them to housing them, to being around that stuff all day long yet don’t touch it.”
Faith’s expression turned to stone as she stared at Buffy for a long moment. “Why the fuck are you so convinced I was one of them?”
Her answer was far too simple. “Because it’s the only explanation that makes sense.”
Faith outwardly scoffed at that, yet offered nothing in response. She figured that a conversation can’t be one sided, and eventually Buffy would be forced to drop it as she would have nothing to build off of.
The silence stretched on.
“Is it even about the addiction?” Buffy asked finally. “Or is that you don’t want to admit that someone as strong as you could ever be weakened like that.”
“I’m not weak!”
The exclamation was a knee-jerk reaction; a force of habit that couldn’t be controlled. Faith could let so many things go, but not that; never that. Because she wasn’t fucking weak. Her mom would say it halfway through her drunken beatings, trying to break her. But she didn’t. She fucking didn’t. Never in her goddamn life would Faith ever accept that her mother weakened her. Even if it was true. Even if that was the reason she started shoving needles into her arms. Because in the reality she had accepted, that didn’t fucking happen. Period. It was just a nightmare that sometimes lingered in the background of her life; close enough to remember, yet far enough to dismiss.
That was the one thing; the hardest truth for Faith to accept had happened… and she just wasn’t ready to yet. It was all linked together in this mess of a time that made her hate herself, and so for the sake of her sanity she just… denied it even existed. It was just better that way.
Faith looked like a trapped animal that needed to escape, and so Buffy took a step back so as to not suffocate her. “No,” she agreed. “You’re not.”
It sounded as though Buffy actually meant what she was saying, which should have been a comfort for Faith, yet did nothing but confuse the hell out of her. Buffy wasn’t stupid; she had to have known she was finally getting somewhere after that kind of reaction, so why did she stop pushing? Buffy never stopped pushing; she liked being right.
And even though Faith would never admit it, Buffy was right.
But then Buffy smiled softly at her and finished with, “because Slayers aren’t capable of being weak,” and Faith finally understood what it was that Buffy was doing; accepting her truth, even though she knew it was a lie.
A smile crept across Faith’s features as a heavy weight lifted off her.
“Damn fucking right we aren’t.”
- FIN -