[BtVS fic] lineage and the Slayer line, Kendra/Faith
title: lineage and the Slayer line
author: Carla
disclaimer: Characters belong to Joss Whedon.
dedication: written for wisdomeagle in the femslash_minis minor characters round. She requested Kendra/Faith and Slayer dreams.
distribution: Please ask.
rating: 13+
length: 1600+ words
summary: All that's important is this: it's what you are.
Faith didn’t fall asleep until near dawn, when she crawled into bed (a mattress on the floor, but a year ago she didn’t even have that, just a worn blanket between her and the concrete, not even carpet, back when Mom was looking for a new boyfriend) under cold sheets. Usually she could go strong until three, four a.m., tops, before she was so tired she couldn’t recognize faces when they loomed up at her out of the alcohol-haze (not that many people did much looming or much of anything, she could outlast almost all of them), but earlier, before midnight, before she’d even left the house to go party, she’d been hit with this feeling, like a second wind, or a really good high, all electric energy and feeling like she was too big for her skin.
She’d gone out after, buzzing and bouncing, and she danced and she drank and she danced some more, she couldn’t keep still, on the floor, up on a table, out in the street when everyone else fell asleep and she couldn’t stand it, couldn’t handle the silence. She gyrated and twitched down the sidewalk, then the center line, then up the stairs of random buildings because they were there and she wasn’t out of breath.
And then she ran.
The little bit she went to school, Faith hated gym, it was pointless and boring, they never got to do the fun things the guys did, like wrestling and boxing, they played volleyball (which wasn’t so bad, except she got banned for hitting some girl in the face with the ball, which wasn’t Faith’s fault, the girl hadn’t been really hurt and she should have gotten out of the way faster or, there’s a thought, hit the ball back over the net), did step aerobics, and ran around the track. She hated that worst of all, going in circles and not getting anywhere, she did enough of that everywhere else.
But her blood pumped fast through her veins and she was hyper-aware of every muscle, and the way her fingers connected to her hands to her wrists and on and up and down, her whole body, long and lined and all in one. She couldn’t not run, she couldn’t stop, and she didn’t want to do either, she just wanted to keep going, boots against asphalt, the wind in her face sharp and new.
There was this guy, out of nowhere, out of a park, out of the darkness and he grabbed her arms, bent over her neck from behind, his body tight against her back, and she didn’t even think, she didn’t have to, she slammed her head back, heard the crack of his nose, and she leaned forward, bent her knees, and flung him over her head. He hit the ground, scrambled back to his feet, but she was ready, two fast punches, duck his grab, don’t think, just listen to the breath in her lungs, the blood and her heartbeat, and he snarled, his face all wrong, teeth too long and lunged for her. She wrapped her fingers around his wrists, let him push her to the ground, used their momentum to throw him again, kicked both feet into his stomach and helped him into the air, so hard and so far he hit a tree. She rolled on through, flipped upright, and when she turned he was gone, and dust motes showered to the ground.
Faith ran all the way home, felt the alcohol burn out of her body. She watched the sky lighten, false dawn, and sneaked inside. Her elbow clipped the glass her mother left at the edge of the counter, and she caught it without looking, so fast it barely started to fall before it was in her hand, not a drop of vodka spilled.
It was warm, but she drank it anyway and went to bed.
She hadn’t remembered her dreams in years, not since she was a little kid dreaming monsters and scary things in the dark, and Mom screamed at her to stop crying, stop sniveling, just grow up already.
The images hit as soon as she closed her eyes, before she thought she had fallen asleep, because she still wasn’t tired, not really, but she must have just passed out (maybe there was something else in the vodka, she should have known better), because suddenly she wasn’t in her room, she was somewhere with bright white sand and Technicolor everything else, sky and plants, and there was a girl.
She had dark hair controlled with thin little braids and dark eyes and dark skin and full red lips. She circled Faith, fast, and then stopped just in front of her.
“This is how it goes,” she said, and her voice was heavy and accented with something Faith didn’t recognize. “They’ll tell you no family and no friends and no life. The handbook says so, but it’s wrong, and they’re wrong.”
Faith opened her mouth but she couldn’t make her voice work, couldn’t even cough and make a sound. The girl smiled, and a shadow moved behind her, near the rocks, low to the ground.
“I think you’re supposed to listen,” she said. “You don’t have much time.”
The shadow moved again, closer, and Faith swung at the woman, just like she had the man near the park, but she ducked and twisted, grabbed Faith’s fist and rolled her over her hip. Faith hit sand hard, the woman on top of her; she pinned Faith’s wrists with her knees and smiled bigger and broader.
“You’re not ready to fight another, not yet. It hasn’t all transferred-I don’t really know how it works. That’s not something we have to understand. There are things, rules, and you aren’t right, even though you’re more like Buffy than me. Remember her name.”
The shadow leapt overhead, and it wasn’t a shadow, but another woman, sort of, more animal, face turned away.
“She is the beginning, and it passes one to another, to Buffy, to me, to you.” The woman touched Faith then, one hand to her chest, between her breasts, and being held down and not being able to speak wasn’t quite how Faith liked her sex, with or without a woman, unless she was the one doing the holding down, but it was also kind of hot. Plus, dream, and Faith could feel that energy again, beneath her skin, and it was strongest where the woman touched her, radiated away from that spot.
The world flickered, grew walls and bookcases and there was blood on the woman’s throat, a long line of it, and it dripped slow down her skin. She touched the fingers of her other hand to the wound, pulled them away clean, and the desert was back to solid, but the blood on her throat remained.
“There’s no time,” and she sighed, and then, “there’s never enough time. The first rule is there is not enough time before you die, and you will, young and probably violent. The second rule is there is only one of you-except not anymore, now there’s two-and hundreds of them, so all you can do is fight and keep fighting. The third rule is don’t kiss vampires, it complicates everything else.”
She had sounded way too cohesive and believable for a dream, right up until rule number three. Faith tried to move, but couldn’t do that, either, and she was a little bespelled by the voice and the words and the way the blood dripped so slow down the woman’s collar bone, but never touched her dark shirt.
The world shifted again, and the desert became a beach, warm wind and big palm trees and the ocean close enough she could hear the waves, feel them hit the shore.
The woman smiled, softer. “I always wanted to just sit and watch the water, under the sun, and I wanted to feel safe.” The smile faded, and she watched Faith’s face, sharp, leaned in close. “You’re not safe, not even during the day, not even at home. Don’t forget.”
Her body faded at the edges, and her hand sank into Faith’s chest, beneath her skin. She dropped her head, put those full lips against Faith’s mouth and kissed her, soft and steady, and Faith’s body heated and filled, like the woman poured herself inside.
Faith could still hear her voice inside her head.
Someone will come for you, will say strange things. You should have been found earlier, you should have been trained all this time, just in case you were called. You’re special. Remember this isn’t a job, it probably isn’t something you even want, because you don’t know what you are, but all that’s important is this: it’s what you are, it’s your destiny.
In the inbetween (sleeping and awake, desert and beach, maybe even life and death) Faith could see a lot of things: the woman on the beach, sitting cross legged and facing the water; a library and a body covered in a white sheet; and a man behind a bar, a girl pinned to the wall, his face at her neck, and when he dropped her and pulled away, his mouth was wet with blood.
Faith woke up, and didn’t scream. Instead she sat up, crossed her legs, and, while she waited, remembered her old dreams, and the things in them. It was crazy, dream talk, vampires and monsters, but she could still feel the kiss, and the fire inside, and everything felt so real, so true.
She liked the words, and the hope they brought: she wasn’t just another poor kid, failing at life. She had a destiny, whatever it was. She was special.
author: Carla
disclaimer: Characters belong to Joss Whedon.
dedication: written for wisdomeagle in the femslash_minis minor characters round. She requested Kendra/Faith and Slayer dreams.
distribution: Please ask.
rating: 13+
length: 1600+ words
summary: All that's important is this: it's what you are.
Faith didn’t fall asleep until near dawn, when she crawled into bed (a mattress on the floor, but a year ago she didn’t even have that, just a worn blanket between her and the concrete, not even carpet, back when Mom was looking for a new boyfriend) under cold sheets. Usually she could go strong until three, four a.m., tops, before she was so tired she couldn’t recognize faces when they loomed up at her out of the alcohol-haze (not that many people did much looming or much of anything, she could outlast almost all of them), but earlier, before midnight, before she’d even left the house to go party, she’d been hit with this feeling, like a second wind, or a really good high, all electric energy and feeling like she was too big for her skin.
She’d gone out after, buzzing and bouncing, and she danced and she drank and she danced some more, she couldn’t keep still, on the floor, up on a table, out in the street when everyone else fell asleep and she couldn’t stand it, couldn’t handle the silence. She gyrated and twitched down the sidewalk, then the center line, then up the stairs of random buildings because they were there and she wasn’t out of breath.
And then she ran.
The little bit she went to school, Faith hated gym, it was pointless and boring, they never got to do the fun things the guys did, like wrestling and boxing, they played volleyball (which wasn’t so bad, except she got banned for hitting some girl in the face with the ball, which wasn’t Faith’s fault, the girl hadn’t been really hurt and she should have gotten out of the way faster or, there’s a thought, hit the ball back over the net), did step aerobics, and ran around the track. She hated that worst of all, going in circles and not getting anywhere, she did enough of that everywhere else.
But her blood pumped fast through her veins and she was hyper-aware of every muscle, and the way her fingers connected to her hands to her wrists and on and up and down, her whole body, long and lined and all in one. She couldn’t not run, she couldn’t stop, and she didn’t want to do either, she just wanted to keep going, boots against asphalt, the wind in her face sharp and new.
There was this guy, out of nowhere, out of a park, out of the darkness and he grabbed her arms, bent over her neck from behind, his body tight against her back, and she didn’t even think, she didn’t have to, she slammed her head back, heard the crack of his nose, and she leaned forward, bent her knees, and flung him over her head. He hit the ground, scrambled back to his feet, but she was ready, two fast punches, duck his grab, don’t think, just listen to the breath in her lungs, the blood and her heartbeat, and he snarled, his face all wrong, teeth too long and lunged for her. She wrapped her fingers around his wrists, let him push her to the ground, used their momentum to throw him again, kicked both feet into his stomach and helped him into the air, so hard and so far he hit a tree. She rolled on through, flipped upright, and when she turned he was gone, and dust motes showered to the ground.
Faith ran all the way home, felt the alcohol burn out of her body. She watched the sky lighten, false dawn, and sneaked inside. Her elbow clipped the glass her mother left at the edge of the counter, and she caught it without looking, so fast it barely started to fall before it was in her hand, not a drop of vodka spilled.
It was warm, but she drank it anyway and went to bed.
She hadn’t remembered her dreams in years, not since she was a little kid dreaming monsters and scary things in the dark, and Mom screamed at her to stop crying, stop sniveling, just grow up already.
The images hit as soon as she closed her eyes, before she thought she had fallen asleep, because she still wasn’t tired, not really, but she must have just passed out (maybe there was something else in the vodka, she should have known better), because suddenly she wasn’t in her room, she was somewhere with bright white sand and Technicolor everything else, sky and plants, and there was a girl.
She had dark hair controlled with thin little braids and dark eyes and dark skin and full red lips. She circled Faith, fast, and then stopped just in front of her.
“This is how it goes,” she said, and her voice was heavy and accented with something Faith didn’t recognize. “They’ll tell you no family and no friends and no life. The handbook says so, but it’s wrong, and they’re wrong.”
Faith opened her mouth but she couldn’t make her voice work, couldn’t even cough and make a sound. The girl smiled, and a shadow moved behind her, near the rocks, low to the ground.
“I think you’re supposed to listen,” she said. “You don’t have much time.”
The shadow moved again, closer, and Faith swung at the woman, just like she had the man near the park, but she ducked and twisted, grabbed Faith’s fist and rolled her over her hip. Faith hit sand hard, the woman on top of her; she pinned Faith’s wrists with her knees and smiled bigger and broader.
“You’re not ready to fight another, not yet. It hasn’t all transferred-I don’t really know how it works. That’s not something we have to understand. There are things, rules, and you aren’t right, even though you’re more like Buffy than me. Remember her name.”
The shadow leapt overhead, and it wasn’t a shadow, but another woman, sort of, more animal, face turned away.
“She is the beginning, and it passes one to another, to Buffy, to me, to you.” The woman touched Faith then, one hand to her chest, between her breasts, and being held down and not being able to speak wasn’t quite how Faith liked her sex, with or without a woman, unless she was the one doing the holding down, but it was also kind of hot. Plus, dream, and Faith could feel that energy again, beneath her skin, and it was strongest where the woman touched her, radiated away from that spot.
The world flickered, grew walls and bookcases and there was blood on the woman’s throat, a long line of it, and it dripped slow down her skin. She touched the fingers of her other hand to the wound, pulled them away clean, and the desert was back to solid, but the blood on her throat remained.
“There’s no time,” and she sighed, and then, “there’s never enough time. The first rule is there is not enough time before you die, and you will, young and probably violent. The second rule is there is only one of you-except not anymore, now there’s two-and hundreds of them, so all you can do is fight and keep fighting. The third rule is don’t kiss vampires, it complicates everything else.”
She had sounded way too cohesive and believable for a dream, right up until rule number three. Faith tried to move, but couldn’t do that, either, and she was a little bespelled by the voice and the words and the way the blood dripped so slow down the woman’s collar bone, but never touched her dark shirt.
The world shifted again, and the desert became a beach, warm wind and big palm trees and the ocean close enough she could hear the waves, feel them hit the shore.
The woman smiled, softer. “I always wanted to just sit and watch the water, under the sun, and I wanted to feel safe.” The smile faded, and she watched Faith’s face, sharp, leaned in close. “You’re not safe, not even during the day, not even at home. Don’t forget.”
Her body faded at the edges, and her hand sank into Faith’s chest, beneath her skin. She dropped her head, put those full lips against Faith’s mouth and kissed her, soft and steady, and Faith’s body heated and filled, like the woman poured herself inside.
Faith could still hear her voice inside her head.
Someone will come for you, will say strange things. You should have been found earlier, you should have been trained all this time, just in case you were called. You’re special. Remember this isn’t a job, it probably isn’t something you even want, because you don’t know what you are, but all that’s important is this: it’s what you are, it’s your destiny.
In the inbetween (sleeping and awake, desert and beach, maybe even life and death) Faith could see a lot of things: the woman on the beach, sitting cross legged and facing the water; a library and a body covered in a white sheet; and a man behind a bar, a girl pinned to the wall, his face at her neck, and when he dropped her and pulled away, his mouth was wet with blood.
Faith woke up, and didn’t scream. Instead she sat up, crossed her legs, and, while she waited, remembered her old dreams, and the things in them. It was crazy, dream talk, vampires and monsters, but she could still feel the kiss, and the fire inside, and everything felt so real, so true.
She liked the words, and the hope they brought: she wasn’t just another poor kid, failing at life. She had a destiny, whatever it was. She was special.