Aug. 22nd, '15: The Learning Curve
Title: The Learning Curve
Author: SweetChi
Rating: PG-13 (language!)
Crossover: Glee
Word Count: 2753
Disclaimer: I do not own Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Glee, I am making no money from this and am doing it purely for enjoyment.
Summary: After the events in "Revelations", Faith decides she's done with Sunnyhell.
Faith walked slowly through the hotel room of her newest dead Watcher, Gwendolyn Post. Fuck, she’d been so stupid to believe her. Bitch had been full of shit since day one. That’s why she was here pawing through her stuff now. Hey, times were tough when you were a young Slayer on your own, the least the crazy bitch could do now that she was dead was give up some cash and shit to pawn so Faith could keep paying her rent.
She gathered up all her jewelry - she had some pretty nice stuff actually, could probably get a lot for some of this - and dropped it in the duffle she’d brought. She bypassed the books, screw that noise, Giles could deal with that. Next she dug through the drawers, pausing to look up her reflection and sneer at the idiot that stared back. Shaking her head, she rolled her eyes and got back to searching.
“Sweet,” she muttered, finally finding some cash. She looked through the other drawers and not finding anything of interest, started scouting around for the woman’s purse. Not seeing it, she guessed she must have left it at the library where she’d tried to bash in Giles’ head. Self-disgust rolled through her again and she pushed it away quickly, instead focusing on her goal. It was fine, the library was on the way back to her place anyway. She’d just stop and take a look.
But once she was outside, the clear night air slapping her in the face and nothing to concentrate on but her steps, it was impossible to keep her thoughts at bay any longer.
It had already been obvious that she didn’t belong here, even before she tried to kill Angel and almost let her crazy Watcher electrocute everyone. She’d thought her and Buffy would be close, maybe be like sisters or some shit - they were the chosen two after all, no one else in the world knew what that was like. But Buffy shut her out at every turn - wouldn’t even talk to her about Angel, let alone let her in on the fact he was back from the dead (in a way).
And now…
Now that she’d screwed up so bad, it would be even worse. She’d been standing on the outside of a circle of people looking in before, now there’d be padlocked hundred foot fence of iron between them.
Maybe she should just leave.
The thought was sudden and hadn’t really carried any weight when it passed through her mind. But something about it made her stop and really considered it. Maybe leaving was the best idea. None of them would ever look at her the same after this. She’d fucked up royally and almost gotten them killed. She’d tried to stake B’s vampy loverboy and what was worse, at least to her, was that she’d looked like a complete idiot. She’d been pulled in hook line and sinker by Post’s BS. No one else had really known either, but Faith had spent at least twice as much time with her than any of the others. She should have known.
And now here she was, a wad of cash and a bunch of jewelry, on her way to get more. She could disappear for a while. Go somewhere and just do her own thing for a while. By herself. It was what she did best after all. They’d look for her, she knew. Not because they cared, but because she was the only other Slayer. The Council would be looking for her, probably wanting to assign a Watcher to her for real now that she’d proved how stupid she was. But she’d made it all the way from Boston to SunnyD… She could do this. And if they did track her down, so what. She was the- a Slayer, she’d just kick their merry British asses and send them back to the mother country. She just needed some time…
Decision made she picked up her pace again, this time with purpose. She needed Post’s purse if she was going to pull this off. She could go down to L.A., pawn this shit, use the credit cards the woman hopefully had for the crap she needed and then scatter them, set up a false trail, then take her money and go somewhere far away. They could spend forever trying to find her in L.A.’s underbelly.
Three days later found her out of Sunnyhell and in L.A. She’d gotten a lot more cash out of Post’s jewelry than she thought she would and used her cards all over the city for clothes, food and other little odds and ends. She’d even gotten an assload of cash out with her bank card - the pin number having been stuck conveniently on the back with a sticky note. She’d just dropped the cards randomly around some darker areas, knowing they’d be scooped up and continued to be used, and was now back in her motel room pinning a map of the U.S. she’d picked up at a gas station to the wall.
Walking back across the room, she grabbed a knife from the bedside table and hopped up on the bed. Getting a random shot was tough when you had Slayer skills, so she started jumping and spinning around, then let the knife fly at the map. Hopping down from the bed, she walked over to see where she was headed. She yanked the knife free and peered at where it had struck.
Ohio.
Well, that sounded fucking boring. Which meant it was perfect. They’d probably start looking in places like New York or Chicago when they realized she wasn’t in L.A. The less populated the area, the less likely they’d think to look there. But that also meant she’d stick out more. She’d realized that on her way to SunnyD. Smaller towns noticed newcomers right away and wanted to be all up in their business. Maybe she’d go to Cincinnati or Columbus or Cleveland (what the hell was with Ohio and the letter C?). Nah, she’d do the same thing in Ohio that she’d done here - let the knife decide. When she got there she’d just buy a state map and let fate decide again. Not that she believed in that crap, but it was easier than trying to use logic and shit to figure out where to go.
It took her 2 days to get there. She pulled over at the first gas station she saw after crossing the state line, her motorcycle was doing fine on gas but she needed a map. The old black crotch rocket was something she’d picked up in Arizona after she’d hitched a ride with a truck driver that decided he wouldn’t take no for an answer. It wasn’t really his pathetic attempt at groping her that made her stop hitching, it was how much she’d enjoyed kicking his ass for even trying it. It was like something in her had just been waiting, daring, someone to make a move, wanting to feel their bones break under her hands and having the excuse that they’d deserved it. It had unnerved her and she’d decided it was probably a good idea to get a ride of her own.
She’d felt something similar in her fight with Buffy - that dark fucked up enjoyment. She’d liked the idea that little Miss Perfect had screwed up and that she, Faith, the outcast and second best, had to man up to fix shit. She’d fought with an intensity that felt righteous at the time, but now she recognized the jealously that burned in her - the need to take Buffy’s place.
Shaking herself out of her thoughts, she looked down to find the Ohio map already in her hand. She didn’t even remember going in the store… She needed to stop doing that, she had to start paying more attention now that she wasn’t on the Hellmouth - people there had blinders on, other places weren’t like that. A teenage girl wandering around at midnight would draw attention.
Walking over to the darkest side of the convenience store, she laid the map out on the ground, pinning one corner with a rock and another with her boot when the wind tried to drag it away. Straightening up, she took a look around and made sure no one was around then pulled out her knife, letting it dangle precariously over the map. She did a couple random circles and swoops over it while keeping her eyes locked on the sky before letting it fall. Quickly pulling the knife free and tucking it away, she snatched up the map and headed back toward her bike, using the ambient lighting from the store to read her new destination.
Lima.
“Fuckin’ seriously?” She said, stopping in her tracks. Was she really going to hang out in a place called Lima? It just sounded shitty. And boring. Well, the plus side was that no way would the Council or Buffy and her little band of misfits think to look for her somewhere called Lima, Ohio. On the other hand, the fucking dot marking the city was pretty little, meaning it was small and Faith would have a hard time blending.
“Then again…” She muttered, tracking the distance to Cleveland. Hadn’t she heard something about there being another Hellmouth there? It was pretty damned close to Lima. Close enough she could go get her slay on.
Well, she could at least go check it out, she thought, crumpling the map in a haphazard square and stuffing it in her pocket.
“I always fuckin’ hated lima beans,” she snorted, throwing her leg over her bike.
*******
Sue stepped out of the pet store, scowl firmly in place. Who did they think they were? Who did they think she was? To refuse to sell her monkey poop or give her the number or someone that would… Ludacris. Maybe instead of trying to send just the poop to Will, she should just search for a whole monkey… It would probably enjoy grooming that head of his.
She was just thinking up insanely hard drills for her Cheerios to do that afternoon (the torture might make her feel a little better), and her foul mood was still at its peak when she spotted the girl coming out of the convenience store across the street. Her hawk-like vision zoomed in and told her she was of school age, making her grin with the satisfaction of knowing she’d at least get to make someone miserable today.
She stared across the street, eyes locked on her target and taking in the details. The girl was wearing leather pants and a matching jacket, reading a weapons magazine and eating a corndog as she walked toward a black motorcycle. Sue snarled mentally, the roar of a panther echoing in her thoughts - the ones that thought they were tough were always the most fun to break.
The stiff breeze, cold and filled with the smell of fall blew in Sue’s face as she stepped up on the curb in front of the gas station, closing in on her prey. It seemed to be telling her to stop, but that just made her all the more determined.
“Well, well, what do we have here? A little afternoon truancy?” She said, stepping into her path.
The girl looked up from her magazine and instead of the usual deer in the headlights look Sue was used to, she got a raised eyebrow and a look of boredom.
“I’d like to think of it as life experience,” she said with shrug, taking a big bite of the corndog.
“From the looks of you, I’m not going to argue that your life will be filled with eating gas station cuisine. That doesn’t change the fact that it’s a school day. Meaning that you, you little felon in the making, should be passing the time in a classroom until the day comes that society has done the favor of having you locked away in a ten by ten cell with Big Bertha - stamping out license plates during the day and penning your memoirs of prison love at night while you cower under your bunk, hiding from Bertha’s hairy man hands.”
The girl’s chewing had slowed as she listened to Sue’s diatribe, she swallowed hard and her lips twisted in distaste.
“That’s quite the imagination you got there, lady. But I’ve got no plans of bein’ anybody’s bitch, so take your fantasies somewhere else,” she said, angling around Sue to get to her bike.
“Do you have a motorcycle license?” Sue pressed. She was actually enjoying herself. She’d come over here in the hopes of knocking some kid that thought they were tough down a few pegs, but had found something even better, more fun - someone that wasn’t scared of her at all.
“Cops in this town wear track suits?”
“Merely a concerned citizen, making sure that little minors are doing what they’re supposed to be doing.”
“I’m emancipated. I don’t need to do shit.”
“Well, hate to burst your greasy little bubble there, Kat Von Dee, but there is no emancipation law in Ohio,” Sue said, pulling out a small but thick book from the waistband of her pants. “I keep all the laws pertaining to minors on me at all times so I can remind little freedom seekers like you that you’re really no better than dog in a fenced yard.”
“Man, you are eight different kinds of fucked up,” the girl said, eyeing her warily then shrugging. “I was emancipated in Boston. So what?”
“It means you get shipped back to your yard, Toto,” Sue said. Actually, she wasn’t really sure what it meant. She knew kids in Ohio couldn’t be emancipated, but she didn’t know what it meant to have a kid there granted freedom from their parents in another state. She was just fishing - and she wasn’t disappointed with what her hook caught.
The girls dark eyes went dangerous and flat, “You want me to leave your shitty little town? Fine. But ain’t nobody makin’ me go back to Boston.”
She stared right back at Sue, not intimidated at all. In fact, she seemed to be daring her to do something. Instead of being annoyed, like she usually was when her lessers (i.e. everyone) met her eyes and didn‘t back down, Sue felt a glimmer of respect. The girl was all cocky attitude and sharp tongue, much like a young Sue Sylvester.
But there was a glimmer of something else under there - a weight. What was a girl like this doing so far from home? Did she even have a home? What happened in Boston? Why was she emancipated? Sue’s interest was piqued - not an easy thing to do. But there was one other thing that made Sue decide she wanted this girl to stick around.
She had the perfect build for a Cheerio.
“Okay, listen up, delinquent. As an educator, my high moral code demands I see a youngster like you in school. It eclipses my need to report your lawless ways,” Sue said, trying for a sincere face. The girl raised an eyebrow, unmoved. “I’ll get you into McKinley High, you attend classes every day, maybe consider a few after school activities, and I’ll forget about reporting this.”
She’d been ready to blackmail her into the Cheerios right away, but something in her told her to wait. She had the blood of the world’s two best Nazi hunters in her after all, the chase was ingrained into her very being. Her instincts had told her that if she pushed the cheerleading card right away the girl would leave without a look back, never even considering it. As the girl rolled her eyes, she knew she’d chosen wisely - as if Sue Sylvester ever did anything but.
“School? For real? And one fucked up enough that they let you teach there? I don’t think so.”
“Well, I do. And my thoughts are the only ones that count, so I’ll see you on Monday.”
Sue turned away and started back across the street without looking back. Either she’d be there come Monday or not. She wasn’t going to stand around trying to convince her - that would just backfire.
Anyway, her two o’clock ninja poop was coming up fast and she needed to get somewhere secure.