Buffy fic - The Aftermath (1/?)
Title: The Aftermath (1/?)
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Rating: PG-13 (future chapters will lead to NC-17)
Pairing: Buffy/Faith, Dawn/Faith, Dawn/Xander, mentions of Willow/Kennedy.
Word Count: 4,027
Summary: After Sunnydale sunk into the ground, the Scoobies and new slayers find themselves stranded at a small town motel while they wait for Giles to return with the bus. Cramped in close quarters, everyone gets a little stir crazy.
Spoilers: All seasons. AU to season 8 comics.
A/N: I had a plan for this, but once I started writing it took a completely different direction. Originally this was just going to be Faith/Buffy, but somehow I ended up writing some Dawn/Faith etc (To be seen later). Hope you enjoy anyway. I'll update as I can.
“Man down! Man down,” Xander wailed, as his gun slipped from his hands and he clutched frantically at his chest. His knees buckled beneath him and he sunk heavily to the ground as he gasped for each laboured breath. “Tell my parents… I love them.”
“You’re such a sore loser, Xand,” Dawn rolled her eyes, but giggled all the same. “And you don’t even like your parents.”
“Haven’t you ever heard the expression, ‘let the handicapped person win’,” Xander moped, pointing to his eye patch as he rose to his feet, and placed the gun back in the arcade game holster.
“Nope,” Dawn shrugged, putting her plastic gun in its own holster.
“Besides, it’s hard to aim with only one eye,” Xander continued, following Buffy’s not-so-little sister as she eyed the motel’s poor excuse for an arcade room.
“That’s how they do it in the movies,” she replied, absently tapping the blue and red buttons on a Street Fighter game.
“Yeah, well maybe I favoured the eye I lost,” he countered folding his arms across his chest.
“Did not,” she fought back half heartedly, bending down to insert a quarter into a Terminator pinball game.
“Did-,” Xander began but the next word got lost as his eye caught on the youngest of the Summers’ behind. Instinctively he brought up both hands to cover his eyes, even though one was already covered by a pirate-esque eyepatch, and he fought to keep the dirty thoughts from entering his mind.
She’s only seventeen. She’s only seventeen. She’s Buffy’s little sister. Buffy can crumple you into a ball with one hand - if she’d ever come out of her room.
“How’s Buffy doing,” Xander asked softly, knowing the absence of her sister was wearing on Dawn, even though she was doing a very good job of hiding it.
Dawn paused a second longer than needed as she pulled the plunger back and shrugged as she let it go, bringing the ball into play. She kept her attention focused on the game as she replied, “I’ve seen her just as much as you have. So, not at all.”
“I guess she’s still trying to figure out what to do with the rest of her life,” Xander suggested, regretting that he had brought the topic up. He really did not want to defend Buffy's recent decision to lock herself in her motel room and cut herself off from everyone, but on the other hand, Xander did figure that she deserved some alone time.
“It’s been a week since she’s left that crappy room,” Dawn growled in a low voice, hitting the buttons controlling the flippers a little harder than necessary. “She’s putting everyone else’s lives on hold too. All these girls depend on her now. It’s not like the world is safe now that we blew up Sunnydale.”
“I guess that’s why she’s taking the extra time to think things through,” Xander sighed, leaning against the pinball machine beside Dawn’s. “I mean, a year ago she only had to look after you. Now she’s got at least fifty slayers, not slayers-in-training, but real and true, full, red-blooded slayers and they are all looking to her for guidance and a new one finds us everyday. She’s about to embark on something that’s going to affect the rest of her life. I think these past seven years are really all starting to sink in to her poor little head. She’s fought the baddest of the bad, she’s fallen in love with the baddest of the bad, she’s lost more loved ones than I have fingers and she’s died and come back to life more than Elvis. She needs some time to process it all and come into the mindset where she is ready to move on and devote her life to this new cause.”
Dawn kicked the machine as her last ball fell through the drain and she turned and leaned back against the machine mimicking Xander's stance, “I know. I get it. It’s just - and I know I’m being selfish here - but I’m tired of staying in this seedy motel. I’m seventeen and I’ve barely gotten my first kiss and it was with a vampire! I want a life. I want to graduate from school and have real friends, not Buffy’s, no offense.”
“Oh why would that be offensive,” Xander pouted, “It’s cause I only have one eye isn’t it.”
“Stop it about your eye,” Dawn smiled slightly and gave him a soft punch on the arm, “I like the eye patch. It makes you look dangerous.”
“Really,” Xander blushed, “Dangerous. I like that.”
“Maybe even,” Dawn paused and bit her lip, “Sexy pirate.”
“You think,” he whispered, his blush extending to the tips of his ears.
“Xand, you macking on the lil-miss of the Summers’,” Faith interrupted, leaning in the door way, arms crossed with one eyebrow raised.
“What?” Xander jumped, standing up straight and laughing nervously, “Course not, she’s like twelve.”
“Seventeen,” Dawn whined, and punched him in the arm again, this time with full force.
“Ow,” Xander howled in pain, grasping his injured arm.
“It makes sense that the girl made from B would inherit her massive hormones,” Faith chuckled and Dawn opened her mouth to protest again, but Faith continued before she could, “But that doesn’t mean you can take advantage of her. Maybe I should let B know 'bout this.”
“No, no,” Xander exclaimed, raising his hands in defense. “We don’t need to involve B -uffy.”
He gave Dawn an apologetic nod and then quickly slid past Faith and out of the arcade.
“Thanks a lot,” Dawn growled, giving Faith her best angry glare.
“Trust me, lil D, I’m doing ya a favour,” Faith said with a wink, “He isn’t much in the sack.”
“Yeah, well I heard different,” countered Dawn, feeling the need to defend Xander’s manhood.
“What, from the vengeance demon,” Faith chuckled some more and hopped up to sit on the pinball machine.
“Don’t talk about her like that,” Dawn replied through grit teeth, “She’s dead.”
“Yeah, I remember,” Faith said, the playfulness in her voice had disappeared and her gaze fell to her hands in her lap. “I was a major player in that fight.”
“Don’t give yourself too much credit,” Dawn mumbled, bitterly.
Faith looked up from her hands and for a moment Dawn could see in her eyes all the regret and demons the dark slayer was battling inside. Faith sighed, “How about a little credit? I know I’ve got the shady past goin against me, but come on. I’ve been working hard at this redemption thing. Can’t I get some props, or a good job?”
“You want to be complimented on not murdering people,” Dawn said grimly.
“Well, yeah. I got all this hot and heavy darkness brewing inside and I’ve been keeping it all tightly wrapped up. Do you know how hard that is?”
“No, I honestly don’t. I’m starting to feel a little uncomfortable being alone with you, though,” Dawn laughed, nervously.
Dawn began to walk away, but Faith held her wrist, lightly. “I know you don’t trust me, Dawn, but there was a time that you did. A very brief time, mind you. I’m going to do what it takes to get that back.”
Dawn’s expression softened and she shook her head, “I’m not the one you need to win over. If you’re going to put any effort into anything, do it for Buffy. She’s the one you turned your back on. You’re not going to get to her by going through me.”
Her grip tightened on Dawn’s wrist, “That wasn’t what I was trying to do.”
“I know,” Dawn whispered, “But when it comes to you, Faith, I trust Buffy’s instincts.”
“You didn’t when you made me leader and booted Buffy from the house,” Faith said, letting go of her wrist.
Dawn’s eyes fell to the ground and shame filled her voice, “Buffy needed a break. She had lost perspective. You were just… convenient.”
With that, Dawn turned on her heel and left Faith alone in the dark arcade room.
“I’m sick of being convenient.”
******
Dawn was sick of the crumby motel they had been staying in for the past week and a half. After Sunnydale was erased from the map, it had seemed like they were free. Free from the Hellmouth, or at least they had managed to close one of them. Now there were hundreds, maybe even thousands of slayers all over the world and Buffy no longer needed to keep the weight of the world on her shoulders alone.
Secretly, she had hoped that Buffy would pack it in, at least partially. Dawn wanted to settle down and live a normal life, because so far, there had not been anything normal about it. She was still trying to wrap her brain around the fact that she had really only been alive for three years, despite all the memories that she, and everyone else, had of her.
She remembered being held hostage with her mother, by Faith when she had suddenly woke up from her coma. She could remember sitting beside her mother on her mother’s bed, as Faith played dress up with her make up. The fear was so great that she had started trembling, but still she was trying so hard to pretend that she was not. She could still feel the light caress of her cheek as Faith’s fingers lightly brushed Dawn’s long hair back behind her ear and asked her if she liked to play with her mother’s make up too.
She did not understand how it could be that the memory was not real. If she had not been there, then what really happened? Was it only her mother on the bed? Did Faith brush her mother’s hair behind her ear?
Eww, Dawn cringed. Somehow, that seemed worse.
So now, here they were, in butt-ass no-where’s-ville. A town about half the size of Sunnydale, that consisted of a few mom-and-pop shops, the motel they were staying at and a church. It had only one cemetery that seemed proportional to the size of the town; which meant even the vampires did not bother coming here.
They had only traveled about fifty miles on the school bus, before they found the town and decided to stop to attempt to patch up the wounded. The next town was still another hour away and Giles did not think they could all make it that long. They had found a small town doctor’s office, where Dr. Samuel Jameson almost choked on his chicken leg when he saw the bus pull up and unload the injured in front of his house/office.
Most of the slayers had already begun to heal, so even if their wounds had seemed life threatening before, their status had already been upgraded to going to be just fine. However, those that did not have the slayer blessing, or curse, were in worse shape. Robin Wood was at the topic of the critical list. He was conscious, but just barely, and so he was treated first. Andrew had been inflicted with a small wooden splinter and had been begging for someone to kill him because the pain was too much. Xander had mustered up all of his manliness and punched him in the face, knocking him out. Many of the girls thanked him, but his thoughts had been on Anya and he hardly noticed.
After Dr. Jameson gave Robin the best patch up he could, he told them that Robin would need to go to a real hospital. There was internal damage that would need surgery to repair and Giles took the bus and drove Robin to Los Angeles. She had not seen or heard from Giles in the week since he left them there, but she assumed that he had talked to Buffy. Faith had opted not to go on the journey to sit at Robin’s bedside, and he seemed to be quite hurt and confused by it. Faith did not seem to notice. Now that they had stopped another apocalypse, the sexual excitement of their fate’s uncertainty was gone and Faith’s interest seemed to be disappearing as well.
A few more slayers had found them, claiming to have some kind of force drawing them there, but none of the new slayers had met the fabled Buffy yet. She had locked herself in her room when she got there and had not been seen since.
They had about fifty slayers, all packed into the fourteen cheap rooms they had been renting and Dawn was not sure where the money for all this was coming from. She knew Buffy certainly could not be the one paying for all this, but she did have her suspicions that Willow was working some sort of magicks to make it work.
Buffy and Faith each had their own rooms and Willow was sharing with Kennedy, but Dawn was cramped into a room with two double beds, with Xander, Andrew, and two other slayers and it was not especially fun. Except for the part with her staying in the same room as Xander. The crush that had seemed to dissipate for awhile had returned in full force after he had given her the speech about her being extraordinary when she had thought for a split second, that she was a potential slayer. Unfortunately, they were not alone in the room, and Dawn had her suspicions that Andrew was trying to hog Xander for himself. She decided that the next time Willow came up for air from Kennedy, she would ask her to work some mojo and get her a room she could share with Xander.
Dawn stopped in front of Buffy’s door on the way to her own room and decided enough was enough. She had never signed up for sharing a room with four other people in a motel room that seemed barely built for two. Dawn knocked lightly on Buffy’s door and waited a few seconds for a response before knocking louder a second time.
“Buffy, please talk to me. Let me come in and see you,” Dawn pleaded. She missed her sister, not to mention she was still a little worried about Buffy’s stab wound. “I need you.”
She heard some movement from within the room and then Dawn could hear the sounds of the chain lock being removed and the turning of the deadbolt. The door opened and a very tired looking Buffy poked her head out.
“What is it,” her voice raspy from disuse.
“Uh, I miss my sister. It’s been a week since you’ve locked yourself in this room, never to be seen again,” Dawn complained.
“Sorry, Dawnie,” Buffy breathed with a fatigued sigh, “I guess I lost track of time.”
“It’s unhealthy to lose track of this much time and alone,” Dawn protested.
Buffy walked back into her room, but left the door open, inviting her younger sister in. “I’ve just been so tired.”
“Did you know I’m stuck in a room with four other people and I have to share a bed with Xander and Andrew,” Dawn complained, “And Andrew still thinks girls have cooties so Xander has to sleep in the middle to separate us!”
“That’s awful,” Buffy said, but there was no emotion or feeling in her voice. Dawn could not even tell if she was listening to a word she was saying.
“You don’t even care,” Dawn growled with tears beginning to well in her eyes.
“Of course I do,” Buffy said unconvincingly and collapsed back onto her motel bed. The covers were scattered all over the bed, indicating that she had been spending a lot of time in there.
“Why are we still here,” Dawn screamed at her. “I hate it here, I want to leave.”
“Where are we suppose to go, Dawn,” Buffy yelled back and for the first time showed true feeling in her voice, “Giles is still in LA with our only mode of transportation and even if he was here, where are we supposed to go? We don’t have a home anymore, so where would you like to go?”
“I don’t know, but somewhere,” Dawn cried, the tears spilling out and flowing down her cheeks, “I want a normal life.”
“So did I,” Buffy spat the words back at her, sitting up on the bed and glaring at her, “That’s all I’ve ever wanted.”
“So you were born with a destiny,” Dawn said, “Get over it.”
“Get over it,” Buffy repeated the words, anger filling her voice. She walked over towards her sister so that they were an inch apart and then said coldly, “You’re not even real.”
Dawn’s mouth dropped open, but she could not make a sound. Instead she slapped Buffy hard across the face and ran out of the room, slamming the door behind her.
******
Buffy rubbed her sore cheek. She had to admit, her sister definitely had some power behind her blows for a normal girl, if she could call her that. She grabbed a handful of ice from her ice bucket and held it to her stinging cheek. She stood in front of the mirror in the bathroom, letting the water drip off her chin, after the ice melted, into the sink.
“What did you do,” Faith asked as she threw open the door, slamming it behind her similar to what her sister had just done and making her way to the bathroom, where she stood leaning against the door frame.
“Hello, Faith. Come on in,” Buffy groaned, rolling her eyes and tossing the small chips of ice that had not finished melting into the sink.
“Don’t mind if I do,” Faith smiled slyly and took an ice cube from the bucket, “Now, what did you do to the kid?”
“Mind your own business,” Buffy said bitterly. “It’s sister stuff.”
“I think it stopped being sister stuff when your sister ran from your room bawling her pretty little eyes out,” Faith said, pausing to suck on a corner of the cube before continuing, “I think you really broke her heart.”
“She’ll get over it,” Buffy said emotionless, checking out her red cheek in the mirror. “It’s not like I haven’t let her down before.
“Cut the kid some slack, she’s been through a lot,” Faith said, trailing the ice on the top of her chest and then dipping it in between her breasts. The top of her white tank top grew increasingly transparent as the ice melted and dampened it, revealing hints of her black bra beneath.
Buffy glanced over towards Faith and watched as goose bumps began to spread across her chest as she continued to spread the ice cube across her skin. Buffy turned away quickly as she felt a slight shiver travel through her body. “What are you doing?”
Faith, oblivious to Buffy's reaction to her, sucked on the ice cube for a few more seconds before tossing it into the sink and replying, “We’re hitting record heat temperatures here and I’m hot. I gotta cool down somehow.”
“And why do you have to do that here,” Buffy grumbled, running a brush through her long, tangled, blonde hair for the first time in a week.
“I’m bored,” Faith said with a shrug. She moved closer to Buffy and they both watched each other through the mirror. “I’m bored, I’m hot and I’m horny,” and with the last few words, Faith laid her hands down on the bathroom counter, on either side of Buffy, locking her in place. She pressed herself against Buffy’s back and moved her lips to Buffy’s ear, all the while looking her straight in the eyes, “You game?”
Buffy held Faith’s lustful stare until Faith took one hand off the counter and pressed it firmly on Buffy’s hip, trailing it slowly over her lower abdomen and teasingly allowing only the tips of her fingers to disappear under the waist band of her low-rise jeans. Buffy’s head rolled back onto Faith’s shoulder, her eyes slipped shut and her mouth fell open slightly as Faith’s fingers lightly brushed the top of her panties. She pushed back against Faith so that their bodies were flush against one another; Faith’s front pressed tightly against Buffy’s back. She brought her hands back behind her and grasped Faith’s butt and Faith nuzzled her cheek with her nose. Buffy began to move her bottom against Faith’s crotch gyrating in a silent dance, causing Faith to let out a soft, low grunt showing the affect it was having on her.
“Is this what you want,” Buffy whispered, clutching Faith’s butt tighter.
“Hell yeah,” Faith breathed, her hips following Buffy’s lead on their own.
Buffy turned in Faith’s arms to face her and moved her lips a breath away from the dark slayer’s and whispered in a husky voice, “In your dreams.”
With those words Buffy shoved her back against the wall and walked out of the bathroom. Stunned, Faith stood there motionless for a moment before finally recollecting herself, “Oh come on.”
“I’m not interested, Faith,” Buffy said, returning to her bed. “I’m not gay.”
“I’m not gay either,” Faith assured her, “It’s pure sex. We need it to survive and since the only two guys around here are one I’ve done and one who’s playing for the other team, I gotta improvise.”
“Improvise with someone else. I’m not interested,” Buffy said, firmly.
“Fine, it looks like the brat is begging for her first time anyway,” Faith shrugged and began to head towards the door.
Buffy leaped up from her bed and grabbed Faith’s arm roughly, “Leave my sister alone.”
“Relax,” Faith chuckled, breaking free of her hold and lightly pushing her aside, “I’m just playin with you, B.”
“I’m so not in the mood, Faith,” Buffy growled, bawling up her fists at her side.
Faith glanced down at Buffy’s fists and leaned back a little, crossing her arms, “Are we throwing down? Cause that’ll just leave me even more sexually frustrated.”
“God, you’re like a guy,” Buffy said shaking her head, “Don’t you ever think about anything else?”
Faith thought for a moment, “Food, but the kitchen’s closed.”
“Get out,” Buffy sighed, opening the door to her room.
Faith did not budge. She looked at the open door way and then back at Buffy, “We both know you need a little action. We had one hell of a fight a week ago and you haven’t had anyone to get your rocks off with.”
Buffy grabbed Faith by the shoulders roughly and pushed her out the door, slamming it and locking the dead bolt behind her.
“When you go back to bed and you’re lying there, you’re not gonna be able to sleep cause all you can think of is me, B,” she could hear Faith yell out through the door. She could even hear the big grin she was sure Faith was wearing.
“Get a life,” Buffy said softly, crawling back into bed and shutting her eyes. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, clearing her mind of all that had happened, not just tonight, but her entire life.
Her body still hummed from her close contact with Faith and before she even realized it, her hand had travelled down her body and into her panties. In truth, she had not felt so alive in a long time.