FIC: Drive Darling, Drive (BtVS, Buffy/Faith, PG-13)
TITLE: Drive Darling, Drive
RATING: PG-13
FANDOMS: Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel
PAIRING: Buffy/Faith, mentions of past Buffy/Angel and Faith/OFC
SUMMARY: I can’t compete with the riders in the other heats.
AUTHOR’S NOTES: Written for the femslash_minis Depeche Mode round for beer_good_foamy who requested the pairing with back story, role reversals, locked doors, and these lyrics from “Behind the Wheel”: Oh little girl, There are times when I feel/ I'd rather not be the one behind the wheel/ Come, pull my strings/ Watch me move, I do anything
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: Title from BOY’s song “Drive Darling.” Summary from the Rolling Stones song “Start Me Up.”
And I knew then it would be
A life long thing
But I didn't know that we
We could break a silver lining
-Tori Amos, “Scarlet’s Walk”
Faith is fourteen and behind the wheel of her mom’s boyfriend’s Plymouth Reliant, which is a fitting fucking name for the car, she thinks, since Ricky is basically a human parasite sucking up Faith’s welfare money and her mom’s drugs. Faith isn’t that tall yet, so she sticks a couple of pillows behind her back, and then her feet can reach the pedals.
Shelly Mitchell squirms in the passenger’s seat. Shelly has her feet up on the seat and her knees hugged to her chest, and for a moment Faith forgets why she’s bothering to bring her along at all, but then Shelly looks around, making sure there are no witnesses which is pretty pathetic, but when she cranes her neck, the thin, lacy strap of her bra slips out from under her shirt, and it’s black, and Faith would like to see the rest of it.
“Maybe we shouldn’t do this,” Shelly says, which is a phrase that, historically, has had a zero percent success rate with getting Faith not to do things.
Faith twists the keys in the ignition until the car coughs to life. “The concert is too far to walk, and I’m not hitching again until I get another knife.” (The last knife was confiscated by the DCF dick on his last visit.) “So either we drive, or we don’t go.”
Shelly’s frown is fading. Faith figures that’s close enough, and she guns it.
***
After Sunnydale becomes a crater in the earth, Faith goes to Los Angeles. To Angel. Buffy hates that she’s allowed to do that; she hates that she’s invited. Buffy hates that Faith knows what’s going on with him in a way she doesn’t, in a way she never will. Buffy has a whole bright, shiny world ahead of her, but Angel is still a thorn in her heart and Faith is still something bitter in her mouth.
They have checked into a hotel up the highway-the road they have made destinationless, like that poem Buffy barely remembers, “Where the Sidewalk Ends”-and Buffy sits on the hard hotel mattress and wishes they had thought to pack practical things like pajamas. Dawn emerges from the steamy bathroom in a fluffy white robe she found in the hotel’s empty closet. (Buffy doesn’t think this is that kind of hotel, so it probably belongs to an ex-guest, but apparently Dawn isn’t as worried about skin diseases as she is.) Dawn bounces down next to Buffy on the bed, pushing against Buffy’s shoulder with her own.
“A vacation!” Dawn says. “Did you ever in your whole life think you’d get an actual, honest to God vacation?”
“Yeah,” Buffy says. “All we had to do was defeat an eternal evil and rewire a spell from the dawn of man.”
“See?” Dawn says. “You’ve totally earned a little R and R.”
Buffy starts smiling, but slowly, and she knows it’s a mistake as soon as she hears her phone ring. Dawn answers it with her complete lack of boundaries re: Buffy’s things. She says hello brightly, and then she’s quiet for a long time. Buffy’s smile is gone, and she is on her feet searching Dawn’s face for information when Dawn hangs up the phone.
“Angel’s dead,” Dawn says.
***
Buffy remembers what it was like being in Faith's body. How Faith's heart beat faster than Buffy's own, the perpetual tension in her chest and fists. Her smell, lipstick and licorice; the clean, earthy, wild smell of a horse or fox. And back before Faith's instincts had overridden her judgment, the knife in the man's chest and the blood on Buffy's hands, back before everything changed, Buffy remembers Faith's taste: the crayon taste of the heavy lipstick coating Faith's lips, the smoky sharp whiskey taste of Faith's mouth.
That was a long time ago.
Buffy can still feel Faith's body pressed against hers, before Angel, after Angel. Buffy’s wrists in shackles and Faith menacing against the wall as she told all her secrets, all the mayor’s secrets, to a girl she was sure wouldn't tell a soul. Dead girls don't talk.
If she'd never been dead, Faith wouldn't be a Slayer. Faith's life would've been so different--no tension in her chest, no tension in her fists. Buffy isn't sure anymore if Faith deserves her sympathy, but when she thinks of the girl Faith could have been, she feels guilty.
Buffy remembers the slide of the blade into Faith's gut, her heavy hot blood welling over Buffy's hand. It had taken hardly any force at all; the knife just pushed into Faith like a part of her, a lost bone nuzzling back against her ribs where it belonged.
Buffy had already decided to kill her. And later, after Faith's eyes had opened after months of dreams, after everything changed again, Buffy had driven to Los Angeles and wondered if she could make that decision again.
Buffy drives to Los Angeles again, and she thinks of the girl Faith could have been. She thinks of the girl she would be if she'd never met Faith.
***
Los Angeles is a burnt out war zone. Buffy's throat feels raw when she inhales the acrid air, and the sun hangs low in the grey sky in perpetual twilight. Buildings are scorched rubble with broken windows. She doesn't see many people crawling through the wrecked streets, but the prickle along Buffy's spine that tells her a demon is near never abates.
Willow had activated the GPS tracker on Faith's phone, and Buffy drives over cracked asphalt watching Faith's dot pulse on the map on the screen of her phone. It hasn't moved in a long time, and Buffy wonders if she's dead. She'll never find out what happened to Angel, then; dead girls don't talk. Buffy’s sense memory goes to the way she felt enclosed in Angel's embrace, and then suddenly, unexpectedly, catches on the smoky sharp whiskey taste of Faith's mouth, the easy warm wet slide of Faith's tongue against hers, so easy, effortless, like a part of Faith belonged inside of her.
Buffy turns left onto Mulholland something, and in the dusky grey twilight, Buffy sees a silhouette of a familiar body, one she lived inside, once. Faith is sitting on the hood of Angel’s car, and she is watching the sunset like she can't see the wrongness of it, like it's beautiful.
Buffy parks and walks to Angel’s ash dusted car. Faith doesn't turn, her eyes on the rotten peach pulp sun low in the sky.
“Hey, B,” she says.
Buffy walks around the car, pulls herself up onto the hood next to Faith.
“Where'd you find him?” Buffy asks, but Faith’s mouth just turns sourly, and when she speaks, it's not to answer the question.
“Did you ever want to just get in the car and keep driving?” Faith asks.
Buffy thinks about being Anne, but that isn't what Faith means. What she's talking about is more like when Faith was Buffy. What she's talking about is more like Buffy sinking into the delusions of the asylum, lining up her friends’ unconscious bodies in the basement and thinking, This could be so easy.
Buffy doesn't say anything. Faith presses her lips together, an anxious movement that is the same as a girl spreading lipstick over her mouth.
“I loved him, too,” Faith says. “Now there's no one left who loves me.”
Buffy bites her tongue. “Let's go,” she says. She hops off the hood, offers Faith a hand down. Faith takes it, and then she hands Buffy the keys.
“You better drive,” she says.
The keys are cold in Buffy's hand, but Faith's hand was warm. Buffy waits until Faith gets into the passenger's seat, and then she slides in behind the wheel. Faith is leaned back in her seat, her eyes closed, the poor sun reflecting on her face. She looks warm and gold and young, like the girl she could have been, maybe.
Buffy turns the key in the ignition, and the engine purrs quietly to life. She doesn't know where they're going, but she drives.