New Kind of Same
Title: New Kind of Same
Author: ubiquirk
Rating: R
Genre: genfic: drama
Word Count: ~6000
Character: Faith
Disclaimer: Not mine; no money.
AN: Second in the Avengers Series, though each story can stand alone. Written for the 2008 lynnevitational. Lots of thanks to
firefly_124 for betaing. Title taken from “Disappearer” by Sonic Youth. Story inspired by “No Future for You,” though it’s not necessary to have read it.
Summary: Set after “Chosen.” Faith did the all the right things - she helped save the freaking world, for god’s sake. She’s one of the good guys now, so everything will change, be all perfect and crap. … Right?
Multiple awards winner - details here.
Part 1
The Vorlutz demon lets out an enraged roar, running across the field towards them, long arms swinging in pendulumesque scything movements even before the Slayers are within range.
All twenty feet of it shine radioactive green, which matches the goo dripping off a mouthful of swirling tentacles tipped with nested pointy teeth.
This? This is gonna be good.
“Yo!” Faith yells, hefting her spear towards the sky and signaling the other girls to start forward. Her heart thumps with the fierce anticipation of fighting something more than fledgling vamps in a back alley.
But before she can move, a hand lands on her shoulder, and she turns to grin up into Robin’s face, imagining he might say something sweet about her being careful and all. Weren’t nice guys supposed to say shit like that? And Robin’s nice - the nicest guy she’s ever knocked boots with.
“Faith -”
“Yeah, yeah, Ace. No worries. I’ll be safe as houses.”
“Faith …”
“Right. It’s not like houses are all that safe - not the rat traps I grew up in anyway. Still, I’ll -” She leans in and up to give him a kiss, figuring her lips will say even more that way. Show instead of tell, and all that crap.
Robin’s hands on her shoulders hold her back. “I don’t want you fighting this one.”
She chucks him on the arm, performing the smile perfected over long years in getting men, and a number of women, to do what she wants - a hot flash of eye and too much teeth. “Come on. I won’t pull any crazy shit like I did with that vamp last Saturday.” She holds the spear up with her other hand and wiggles it a little. “Got a weapon this time and everything. ‘Sides, the baby Slayers are out in force.”
He doesn’t smile. “And that’s the thing. They’ll always be baby Slayers if you keep going in and saving the day. They’re never going to trust that they can do it on their own unless they … do it on their own.”
“What’re you saying?” Taking a step back, she shrugs off his touch.
His expression remains carefully neutral, mask-like, and she’s reminded of prison guards who’ve had just enough psychiatric training to think that affecting fake calm works on ‘unstable’ people. Principals must get some of that head-shrink mumbo jumbo too - why hadn’t she ever realized that about him?
Just as Robin opens his mouth, a blur flies past them, and both of their heads snap to the side to watch as Kira turns a potentially rough landing into a long roll, hitting with a rounded shoulder. The new Slayer uses the last of the momentum to pop up onto her feet before turning to run straight back into the fray.
“I taught her that,” Faith says.
“I know.”
She turns then, and they stand side by side, watching as Lakesha jumps to stand over a fallen Sherry, sword raised high. Bridget sneaks up behind the Vorlutz as Sherry and Kira distract it, but when she makes a leap for its back, she’s shaken off by a rippling flinch of the demon’s large shoulders. It bellows and windmills its arms wildly, forcing them all back.
“I could fight anyway.” Faith pounds the spear butt on the ground hard enough to feel the vibrations rattle up through the soles of her feet. They fade when they near her hurt-frozen heart.
“Yes, you could. But I’m asking you not to.”
“You’re asking me.” A little snort of disbelief escapes her.
“As the official Council member in charge of the Cleveland branch, yes.”
“And how did that get to be you anyway?”
“Someone had to be put on the paperwork for buying the building and setting up the school, and …”
“And I’m a con.”
“A wanted fugitive who can nonetheless do a lot of good on the outside.” He turns to face her, voice growing softer. “We still need you, Faith, just in a slightly different capacity.”
“Yeah, right.”
Robin doesn’t call her on the sarcasm, even though it sits so bitter on her tongue she wants to spit. Probably him pulling some kind of ‘don’t inflate the negativity’ crap.
Whatever.
A shudder washes through her, freeing muscles from shocky stillness. One loud “Yo, Sherry!” and the tall redhead turns, allowing Faith to toss her the spear.
As she walks away, ignoring Robin’s call, she figures down by the river’s gotta have a few vamps around. It may not be a big fight, a prophesied fight, like the demon, but the angry tingle clenching her hands into fists means she needs to hit something.
And if she stays here, it might be Robin.
And what’s worse is something in her isn’t sure that’s wrong.
~~~
Their ending isn’t an easily defined thing - it just kind of happens.
When she reaches for her cell phone, thinking to call him to mention adding knife fighting to the training regimen, she pauses with her fingers hovering over the buttons for a moment before putting it back in her pocket. She’ll see him later. It can wait.
The routine they developed of eating meals at the same time falls apart. Day after day, she sleeps in, or he works late, or she stays after training to show a girl a particular move, or … a million ors. Somehow, between the two of them, they cease spending those little bits of time together.
Faith stops showing up at the door to his room, figuring, after all that ‘let the noobs fight alone’ shit, the least he can do is make the effort to invite her for a fuck for a change.
He never does.
~~~
Everything’s a whirl after Sunnydale. Less than a week after closing the Hellmouth, Giles calls everyone together in Robin’s hotel room.
“Robson’s barely been able to make a start on sorting out the Council’s finances and such. We need a team to head for London as soon as possible to assist. I’ll be going, of course, along with Buffy, Dawn, Xander, Andrew and any of the international Slayers who’d like to come.”
Giles gestures towards where a still-bandaged Robin sits propped up against the headboard. “Robin has kindly agreed to head the American branch of the new Watcher’s Council and will take the American Slayers and any international ones who wish to remain to Cleveland.”
Whispers arise, accompanied by the rustle of clothing as people shift. Rona calls out, “What about Willow? You know, the scary powerful chick? What’s she gonna do?”
“Willow …” He shoots a quick glance around the room as if to once again convince himself that the redhead’s really gone. “Willow’s decided to … to pursue other endeavors at this time.”
The Slayers start to mutter, heads leaning together in small groups, and Buffy pushes off from the wall and walks out of the room without looking at anyone, leaving Faith wondering what’s got B’s panties all twisted this time.
Giles straightens from a faint slump, his voice growing stronger. “Which leads me to tell you that we won’t force any of you to serve if you have no wish to, but we need all of you. In fact, the people in this room represent our most valuable commodity right now - experience. Although the Council will temporarily gather in London and Cleveland, in the not too distant future, we’ll need to spread out and have training centers across the globe. And you’ll be the people leading them.”
Pushing recently polished glasses back into place, Giles continues. “I know it’s too soon, but time is a luxury we won’t be able to afford for the foreseeable future. Please let Robin or me know your decision by tomorrow evening so we can manage the travel arrangements. Thank you.”
He’s fast - Faith’ll give him that. She’d expected him to stay to confab with Robin, so him rabitting out the door even before the first wave of Slayers is a surprise. She has to push her way through a few others and book to catch up, but at least he’s heading in the opposite direction of everyone else and the hall is empty.
“Yo, Giles!” She grabs his arm when he doesn’t stop, pulling them both to a halt. “Hey, chill for a mo, bro. I wanted to talk to you about London.”
“Faith.” His voice echoes hollowly with discouragement.
“What - you think I won’t fit in?” She points to herself. “English guys are always going on about hot American chicks, and I’m like wicked hot, so what’s the prob?”
His face grows extra serious, brow furrowing enough to redirect air currents, and since this is Giles-the-inscrutable, that’s way past mondo on the serious scale.
“What? What is it?”
He puts a hand on her shoulder. “You won’t be able to come to London with us.”
“Wha-huh? But … but you and Buffy, and we get along kinda now, and …”
And it’s everyone she really knows.
“Faith, with your record, there’s no way to get you through security. You not only don’t have a passport, you also can’t get one.”
She grins winningly, trying to channel the pounding of her heart into that extra sparkle of energy that gets ‘em every time. “Well, maybe not a legal one, but -”
“Faith,” he interrupts her, voice grown soft, “I … I’m sorry.”
“Yeah.” It’s little more than a faint exhale that escapes once he’s already a good ten feet away. “Yeah.”
~~~
A few weeks after the Vorlutz demon thing, Faith sits through a Thursday patrol meeting without paying much attention. Itching to dust some vamps, she lets out a happy sigh when Yuan finishes her report on last week’s cemetery runs.
“One last thing.” Robin’s voice grows loud to cover the rising sounds of conversation and chair legs scraping across floor as everyone moves to leave. “There’ve been some changes to the patrol assignments starting tonight.”
He pauses to shuffle the papers in front of him, clearing this throat. “Maria and Kira - you’re now lead on the North Coast Harbor patrol, which includes the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Stadium. Kira, you’re familiar with the area, so fill Maria in as you go.”
What the fuck?
The two girls smile at each other before Maria turns to Faith, her grin widening to show an excessive amount of tooth.
A double scoop of what the fuck - that chick never smiles at Faith.
Robin continues without looking up. “Lakesha - that means you take over the Westside patrol from Maria. Check with her about anything special to look out for.”
Lakesha nods, tight braids swinging, and Faith assumes her reassignment must be next.
Or not.
“That’s it, everyone. Be careful out there and happy slaying.”
Faith sits in rigid silence while the girls file out, most of them shooting her side-long looks from eyes wide with the scandal of it all. Under the table, her fists clench repeatedly as she counts them out of the room, and once the door closes, she makes it for another five beats before abruptly standing.
“That’s my freaking patrol.” Her fist bangs the table for emphasis.
“No, it was your patrol.”
“But that’s the place with the highest number of vamps! I bag at least three every night.”
“Which makes it perfect for training Kira and Maria. You do remember that that’s what we’re here to do - train them?”
“Robin -”
“Look, Faith. I don’t want to fight with you over this one. The long and short of it is the area around the Hall of Fame is just too full of people, most of them tourists coming from all over - a fresh set of eyes every night. Sending you in there time after time is just asking for someone to recognize you.”
“It clearly hasn’t happened in the last seven months.” She holds her arms out ‘here I am’ wide. “What makes you think it’s gonna happen now?”
Robin rubs both hands over his face, muttering something.
“What?”
Lowering them, he looks at her, meeting her eyes for the first time, but she wishes he hadn’t. She doesn’t like what she sees in them: sadness and - fuck - pity.
“You were on Fugitives Escape last night, Faith. Fortunately, it’s not the most popular of … of those types of programs, but almost a million people saw photos and video of you, all while hearing stories of adrenaline-junkie fueled killings and prison breaks.”
She’s sitting. She doesn’t remember sitting, but she’s certainly not supporting her own weight anymore.
“If the Council were up to full strength, then Rupert said we would have found out ahead of time and been able to stop this. But we’re barely back on our feet right now.”
Prison walls surrounding her, pushing in, finding her even here. Her vision grays with the lifeless color, fills with bars and razor wire. And she can’t breathe, can’t think, her heart jackrabbiting even as her muscles won’t move - body torn by the conflicting impulses and signals.
But she’s good now! She’s trying so hard. Doesn’t that mean anything?
A flash of red catches her eye, and Faith looks down to hands covered in blood - their blood - red, wet, fresh, as if six years haven’t passed.
Had she really thought she could just wash it all away?
No. Nonononono. Her mouth shapes the word over and over, but no sound emerges.
“Faith.” A gentle touch on her shoulder. “Faith, I’m sorry. Look, Rupert and I will do what we can about this, but for now, stay in the house as much as you can, especially during the day. I’m sure … well, uh …” He gives a little squeeze and is gone.
When she opens her eyes, her hands lie clean, clean, clean on the table.
But no one is fooled anymore - especially not her.
~~~
~~~
~~~
Part 2
After a month, she figures it’s safe enough to go out at night if she sticks to dark places. Turns out that episode of Fugitives Escape only pulled in about half a million viewers for the entire country, and odds are good she’ll never run into anyone who saw it. Giles also stirred up some legal mumbo jumbo by paying one of the prison guards to sue the studio for using them on video without permission, so the thing’s never gonna be shown again.
Or at least not on regular TV.
No, this time the shit hits her personal fan, being flung all around where she lives. Someone at the Cleveland house taped the show, and Faith knows of at least two copies making the rounds. There used to be three, but she put all the refrigerator magnets on one for an hour - sitting in the kitchen with it on the table in front of her, daring anyone who walked through to say anything - and now all it plays is some kind of trippy shit like you see on bad hippie acid.
They keep the other tapes away from her, but it’s not as though anything she can do now will make any difference.
They’ve all seen it.
~~~
The thumping of a herd of feet from the stairs turns into a gaggle of girls who crowd past Faith in the hallway, gossiping and laughing as they go.
“Can you believe that asshole?”
“He didn’t! What did …”
“I’m thinking pizza or maybe …”
“Sherry’s been so nice lately.”
“Yeah, but what does that …”
Past the stage of covert looks and fervent whispers, they stalk by her without any indication she exists, Slayer power roiling the air around them, a pride of alpha lionesses confident in their supremacy.
Faint chatterings of conversation, yells of argument, and shrieks of laughter haunt the air she walks through to her empty room and crowd inside after her.
Flopping across her bed, Faith flips on the TV to drown out the jungle of noise and shakes her head, disgusted with all the freaking animal metaphors running through her brain.
She’s turned into one of those sad fucks who watch too much Discovery Channel.
~~~
Shit, shit, shit! It freaking worked in Sunnydale - why won’t it here?
The girls all stand clumped to one side of The Basement’s dance floor, hands clasped tightly around their sodas. She even tried to play it extra cool and buy them real drinks, but Maria said something about underage drinking being a ‘gateway behavior’ to illegal activity, and everyone reared back from Faith like she was the freaking Typhoid Mary of convicts.
Enough of that crap. If there’s one thing that’ll work, it’s dancing.
“Come on!” She tosses back her shot and slams the glass down onto the closest table. Letting the music take her, Faith swivels her hips, raising arms over head. “Let’s show ‘em how it’s done.”
The dance floor is just crowded enough to make it interesting with the close press of flesh and heat while still yielding enough that she can move. Fuck, yeah! The beat takes her, flows through her until she becomes the music written in pure physical form.
It takes two songs before she even realizes she’s the only Slayer out there, and Faith dances through another to make sure they’re not coming. But she enjoys it less and less, her movements no longer effortless as she feels the press of their combined stare weight her limbs.
“What’s up?” she yells to Lizabelle, the sweet one who’s been pushed to the front by the time she’s worked her way back to them.
“I … I don’t think this music is … is really us.”
“You gotta be shitting me. This is one seriously primo mix of Brit electronica!”
“But … uh …” Lizabelle turns to look at Maria and Yuan, the leaders, whose smiles curl into sneers. Her next sentence comes all in a rush: “Wewanttoleave.”
“Leave?” Faith comes to a full stop, arms falling limply to her sides.
Yuan elbows her way forward. “Yeah, leave.” She looks around, nose wrinkled in disgust. “This place is a dump, the music’s lame, and the guys are … gross.” She gives a dramatic shudder as a shaggy-haired guy in torn jeans and a plaid shirt brushes past. “Don’t they know grunge went out ages ago?”
Maria starts nodding, and most of the other girls bob their heads in time, though one or two like Lizabelle have pinched-looking faces.
“Okay, okay.” Faith spreads her hands in front of her in supplication. She needs to make this right, make this work, damnit. “We’ll go somewhere better, nicer. That guy who told me this place in the Flats was still cool musta been a vamp living in the nineties.” She laughs, forcing it.
“I don’t think so,” Maria says. “We’ve all got class in the morning, so coming out tonight … well, it just never was the right thing.”
When Yuan and Maria twirl on sharp heels to lead the girls out, heads raised in triumph, Faith just watches them go, the small apologetic smiles Lizabelle and Sherry cast over their shoulders barely registering.
For the first time in like ever she had respect, and it’s all slipping away, falling through fingers flashed red by colored lights, drip, drip, drip.
~~~
A month after Giles and Buffy’s gang took off for Jolly Olde, Faith lounges on a couch in the ‘entertainment’ room of the new Cleveland House Robin just bought in Fairview Park. The place used to be some hoity-toity boarding school for silver-spoon types, so it’s all done up in fancy textured wallpaper and wainscoting and crap. Damn thing’s huge and mostly empty, so it’s just her and Rona sharing popcorn and watching some lame-ass reality show with used-to-be famous people bitching and back stabbing each other as they’re made to live together. It’s annoying, but it also makes Faith glad the Sunnydale crowd she’s with now doesn’t pull that kind of shit.
The born-again ex-porn star’s going all biblical over another woman’s skimpy outfit - which really is tacky, Faith agrees, but more for the dayglo-pink color than the cut - when Vi runs in, waving a piece of paper. “Oh, my god! Rona!”
“What is it?” Rona looks up.
“We’ve … we’ve …” The redhead breaks off, fanning the paper across her face and chanting, “Breathe - it’s okay - just breathe.”
Faith jumps to her feet, glad for something more interesting than the crap TV they were watching. “Yo, chill! Tell me what it is, and we’ll go put some hurt on it.”
Rona goes over to grab Vi’s upper arm. “Vi?”
“It’s okay.” Vi grins and grabs onto Rona. “It’s great actually! I’m just too excited …” She waves the paper at them again.
Grabbing onto a corner, Rona steadies it to read for a bit. “No way!” She hugs Vi.
“I don’t know what’s gotten into the two of you, but if touching that paper does it, I’m staying the hell away.” Faith takes a half-step back, hands raised.
They turn to her, both trying to speak at once before subsiding into laughter.
Finally, Rona wipes a hand across her face and says, “It’s our assignments. All the Potentials from Sunnydale - I mean Slayers - have been assigned to run their own Watcher’s Council Training Houses. Vi got New York, where her brother lives, and I got Chicago, which is where I’m from.”
“Isn’t it great?!” Vi hands the paper to Faith.
“Yeah, great.” Scanning the list, she doesn’t see her name, though - fuck - even that little dweeb Andrew got something. Freaking Rome, for god’s sake!
“You must be staying here to run things with Robin.”
“Yeah.” Her voice sounds lame even to her, so Faith fakes perkiness when she adds, “But that’s great for you two - really.”
“Thanks.” Vi reaches out to take the list back. “I’m going to go and find everybody else to let them know.”
“I’ll come with you.” Rona smiles, a hint of mischief showing. “We want them to find out sometime this century.”
Vi just grins wider at the teasing and swats Rona on the arm.
Laughing, they head for the door.
For the next hour, Faith stares at the TV, not paying attention to what’s on but turning the volume up enough to keep from hearing the excited shouts and bursts of laughter coming from other parts of the house.
~~~
As soon as she leaves the club, Faith heads farther into the darkened part of the Flats because if she goes back to Prissy-Slayers-R-Us central right now, she’s gonna kill someone - again. Which would totally screw the pooch on her whole ‘path of redemption’ kick.
Besides, hanging on the southern East Bank provides easy access to things she can kill now that she’s been taken completely off of patrols.
“We’re gonna save you for special projects, Faith,” she singsongs, punching a stake into the first vampire’s chest with so much force that her hand sinks in after it and is caught for that elongated microsecond it takes the vamp to dust.
“Huh?” The second vamp’s mouth hangs a bit open, making him look like a complete dork, which should be impossible with fangs, but hey.
“And he’s a freaking principal, so it’s not like the special use of the word ‘special’ isn’t already built into his vocabulary. Who does he think he’s kidding ‘round here?”
She ducks an overly enthusiastic roundhouse and slips sideways under his arm as the vamp barrels past, kicking him in the back to add to his momentum.
When he comes to a sudden halt by hitting the alley wall - hard - he turns, bloody hands raised. “Look, lady. I don’t know what’s happening with you and your boyfri-”
“He’s not my boyfriend.” She punches him, a sharp right hook to the face that snaps his head back to thunk the wall. “I don’t do boyfriends. Boyfriends mess with your head.” Both hands fisted in his mangy Members Only jacket, she shakes the vamp hard enough to bounce his skull against the bricks behind him: plonk, plonk, plonk, plonk, plonk.
At the sound, she finds herself laughing - or is it crying? - the noises high-pitched and painful as they rip from her chest, tearing across her vocal cords as they fight to get out while she fights to keep them down.
“Okay!” His eyes are wide. “Friend then.”
“Ha! Friends are just as bad. Friends … (keen) … make you care.” She lets go, kneeing him in the ribs as he crumples forward. “Friends can … (keen) … hurt you, leave you.” The stake slides into the vamp’s back with no resistance - easy, all too easy, she needs something more, damnit.
Sinking to her knees as shudders overtake her, Faith gives in - yelling and pounding at the rough pavement, welcoming the sting of broken glass slicing the fleshy outsides of her fists.
She’s not sure how long she stays kneeling in muck made by the vamp dust mixing with what smells like soured piss and stale whiskey. Red covers her hands, dots the ground before her, an abstract painting of blood and frustrated rage.
Faith laughs, a dark, hysterical sound, and this time whatever was caught in her chest breaks free, spiraling out and away.
The baby Slayers don’t respect her?
Robin’s not gonna give her anything real to do?
Fine.
Screw this fitting in crap - she’s had enough.
~~~
All of her clothes and shit fit into one big duffle bag, and the room, with its pale-yellow walls and frou-frou white lace curtains, doesn’t look like she’s ever been there. Hell, it doesn’t look like she was ever supposed to freaking be there, and that probably makes it one of those symbolic thingies she should have noticed before. But hey, it’s not like she finished high school, and fucking the principal of one doesn’t completely make up for that - it’s not like he stuck English lit crap in her with his dick.
It’s three in the morning, and she doesn’t give a flying fuck as she clomps all the way down the stairs and out a slammed front door.
They don’t like the Flats?
She’s moving to the damn place.
~~~
~~~
~~~
Part 3
It sure as shit doesn’t look like much, especially after the shiny niceness of the Cleveland House, but the small one-bedroom apartment in National Terminal Warehouse is better than some of the dumps she grew up in, especially during her early teens when her mom crawled so far into the bottle she never came out.
Paint covers the walls with splotchy irregularity, so old that whatever color it was originally has turned various shades of light gray, which actually coordinates with the darker gray the wooden doors and floor have aged to - like maybe hell’s own interior designer took a break from red and tried for a different monochromatic thing.
Faith figures she’ll make a joke of it, tell people it’s the latest look from some hip place like London - ‘retro urban punk grunge’ or some shit like that. Hell, she’s seen Sid & Nancy.
Course, someone would have to visit for her to have a chance to say that.
Still, it’s all hers, and even if the tile’s cracked and the grout’s stained an unbleachable gray, she doesn’t have to share the bathroom with anybody.
She just wishes the end of the kitchen didn’t have those freaking fake-wood rods pretending to hold up the ceiling. Some designer back in the day probably made a mint by telling people this was a cheap way to make two rooms look separate without putting in a wall. Instead, they’re just ugly, and Faith hates catching sight of them out of the corner of her eye where they float like bars in a sea of grayness.
~~~
Three weeks later, her second conversation with Robin since moving out isn’t going any better than the first.
“No.” It comes out firmly, though she wipes the dampness of slightly shaking hands on her jeans, one after the other, juggling the cell phone.
“But -”
“I said no.”
A pause and then: “Faith, you’re a wanted fugitive -”
Adrenaline races an icy hot course through her veins. “Is that a threat?”
“What? God, no, Faith. Look, I know things didn’t go well between us, but I’d like to think you know I’d never turn you in.”
She remains silent.
“Faith?” He sighs with exasperation. “All right. The truth is I can’t have you doing anything high profile, anything that might get you noticed, get you fingered -”
“Fingered?” A short bark of laughter escapes her, its sound cutting. “You been watching mob movies or something to get your ghetto on? It may fool the noobs, but why don’t you leave the bitchin’ slang to me and cut the bullshit?”
This time the sigh echoes tired and tinny from the earpiece. “The truth is, Faith, I don’t know what else to do. I can’t ask the girls, and I’d do it, but -”
“But you’re too important.”
“I’m too weak, is what I am.” Anger snaps across his words, but he suppresses it quickly, switching to his ‘super calm and reasonable’ tone of voice. She hates that tone of voice. “Look, Faith. You’re a Slayer, and no matter what else, you’re a damn good one. Because you’re a fugitive, I can’t give you normal duties any longer, but there’s still something you can do, something special, something important that no one else can do. Please think about it.”
~~~
The knife clatters to the ground, slipping from blood-slick fingers. Faith follows it down, down, down, welcoming the pain of knees hitting hard concrete.
Crissy slumps, head tilted at an unnatural angle, eyes wide and staring, just like the first one. She made a lot of noise when it happened, little whimpers of protest mixed with mewls of pain that sounded of disbelief, reminding Faith of the second one. Red spreads wet across the sliced midsection of her turquoise satin gown.
It was easy - so easy. Her hands weak and futile where they scrabbled at Faith’s.
The gray walls of the alley press in on Faith, bars on windows growing ever longer, filling the whole world.
Sour bile burns the back of her throat, and she gasps for breath, fighting the iron banded around her chest. Struggling against the instinct to bury her face in her hands, to run them through her hair, she holds them awkwardly away from her body, a body that doubles over, trying to curl in on itself.
But she needs to make it look like a mugging to throw off the cops, so after an unknowable amount of time, she straightens, lifts her head.
With horror, Faith watches one bloody hand reach out to yank the necklace from unresisting flesh. Breaking, it scatters pearls everywhere, the small beads of iridescent whiteness tainted with dark splotches of red.
She raises her palm in front of her, unclenching fingers to see the three pearls she caught coated completely in red. The red of her hand.
~~~
Now that she’s moving, she’s a freaking maniac.
Faith runs from Playhouse Square back to her lousy apartment on the east side of the river. And not just runs - she leaps over shit like that old OJ Simpson commercial, launching herself to sail high over trashcans and crates, coming down in jarring thumps that nonetheless never make her lose her footing.
Not even sprinting up five flights of stairs slows her, and she slams through her front door still riding the crest of one wicked-bad adrenaline wave.
She throws the purse across the room, where it slides into a dark corner with a crash. She’s gotta clean off the bloody fingerprints and dump it somewhere sans cash, but for now, she can’t stand touching the damn thing anymore.
Ripping the knife out of the back waistband of her jeans, she twirls, yelling and burying it in the dirt-gray wall at shoulder height.
It quivers before her, hilt dark red, and she raises her hands to see the color flaking off of them, disappearing to stain everything she touches without staying on her. And that’s seriously fucked up because she knows that’s the one place it’s never going to actually come off.
The piece of string loops easily over the handle as she ties the ends together, its three dark pearls hanging in emptiness. They swing slightly from her movements, and she reaches to still them.
~~~
It’s a good two and a half weeks before her cell phone rings for the first time since she moved out. Huh. The principal. But seriously, did she really expect one of the prissy Slayer types to call?
“Yo, Ace.” The nickname emerges with bite instead of affection. She hopes it makes him wince.
But if it does, it doesn’t show in his voice, which seems permanently set to the channel ultra-smooth. “Hello, Faith.”
“So whad’ya want?” She grips the cell phone hard enough that it creaks. “One of the noobs raise some stink like the con took her hairdryer or something? ‘Cause I gotta say that black one was mine and -”
“This isn’t about a hair dryer,” Robin interrupts. “I need to ask a favor of you.”
“A favor? Is that what kids are calling it these days?” She allows a hint of seduction to creep into her voice because - well, she’s not sure why.
“It’s got nothing to do with that … with us. It’s a Slaying job.”
“That’s rich coming from the guy who took me off every single freaking fight and patrol.”
“True, but this is different, special.”
The man’s a damn cucumber, voice completely emotionless, and she can’t tell whether his lack of reaction to her hurts or pisses her off, so she settles on pissed.
“Special. I’ve heard that freaking word before.”
Continuing as if he didn’t hear, Robin says, “There’s someone, a Crissy Brisbane, who’s a great danger to everyone in the Cleveland area. I need you to take her out.”
Faith wants to keep her mad on, but it’s been too long since she had a good slay, so she rises to the bait. “With a name like Crissy Brisbane, I’m assuming she’s passing as human?”
“Not exactly. She’s actually a human who’s also a Latere Demon.”
“You know I don’t speak Watcher.”
“A Latere is like … well, think of it as being like a sleeper agent, but one whose true self is pushed so deep they don’t know who they really are. It’s a defense mechanism left over from when humans began driving the demons out of this dimension - a way for the Latere to stay, even if in a partially humanized form.”
“Wasn’t that like centuries and centuries ago?”
“Yes, but it’s not as though demon evolution happens quickly, especially in terms of this species. When two Laterea mate, they lay their egg by merging it with a human baby, and it remains dormant for decades, which is what keeps the species fairly rare. It also takes an entire Coven to detect one, and they’re impossible to separate from the host. When the egg finally gestates, it’s sudden, taking over the human and growing into a twelve-foot-tall adult Latere in less than an hour.”
“Damn!”
“And therein lies the problem - this one is set to gestate any day now, and that kind of growth takes a lot of food, and Latere eat -”
“People, I get it.”
“And if attacking her causes the gestation to start, she’ll be too strong for me.”
“So what’s the prob - why can’t the baby Slayers bag this one?”
“As things stand now, the woman, she … well, she has no idea. She still thinks she’s human, looks human, acts human. For her, she is human … and it shows in everything she does. Not even Slayer senses can tell she’s not.”
Faith’s heart clenches in a chest too tight for breath, stomach knotting to join it. “So it’ll …”
“It’ll be … just like killing a human.”
Author: ubiquirk
Rating: R
Genre: genfic: drama
Word Count: ~6000
Character: Faith
Disclaimer: Not mine; no money.
AN: Second in the Avengers Series, though each story can stand alone. Written for the 2008 lynnevitational. Lots of thanks to
firefly_124 for betaing. Title taken from “Disappearer” by Sonic Youth. Story inspired by “No Future for You,” though it’s not necessary to have read it.
Summary: Set after “Chosen.” Faith did the all the right things - she helped save the freaking world, for god’s sake. She’s one of the good guys now, so everything will change, be all perfect and crap. … Right?
Multiple awards winner - details here.
Part 1
The Vorlutz demon lets out an enraged roar, running across the field towards them, long arms swinging in pendulumesque scything movements even before the Slayers are within range.
All twenty feet of it shine radioactive green, which matches the goo dripping off a mouthful of swirling tentacles tipped with nested pointy teeth.
This? This is gonna be good.
“Yo!” Faith yells, hefting her spear towards the sky and signaling the other girls to start forward. Her heart thumps with the fierce anticipation of fighting something more than fledgling vamps in a back alley.
But before she can move, a hand lands on her shoulder, and she turns to grin up into Robin’s face, imagining he might say something sweet about her being careful and all. Weren’t nice guys supposed to say shit like that? And Robin’s nice - the nicest guy she’s ever knocked boots with.
“Faith -”
“Yeah, yeah, Ace. No worries. I’ll be safe as houses.”
“Faith …”
“Right. It’s not like houses are all that safe - not the rat traps I grew up in anyway. Still, I’ll -” She leans in and up to give him a kiss, figuring her lips will say even more that way. Show instead of tell, and all that crap.
Robin’s hands on her shoulders hold her back. “I don’t want you fighting this one.”
She chucks him on the arm, performing the smile perfected over long years in getting men, and a number of women, to do what she wants - a hot flash of eye and too much teeth. “Come on. I won’t pull any crazy shit like I did with that vamp last Saturday.” She holds the spear up with her other hand and wiggles it a little. “Got a weapon this time and everything. ‘Sides, the baby Slayers are out in force.”
He doesn’t smile. “And that’s the thing. They’ll always be baby Slayers if you keep going in and saving the day. They’re never going to trust that they can do it on their own unless they … do it on their own.”
“What’re you saying?” Taking a step back, she shrugs off his touch.
His expression remains carefully neutral, mask-like, and she’s reminded of prison guards who’ve had just enough psychiatric training to think that affecting fake calm works on ‘unstable’ people. Principals must get some of that head-shrink mumbo jumbo too - why hadn’t she ever realized that about him?
Just as Robin opens his mouth, a blur flies past them, and both of their heads snap to the side to watch as Kira turns a potentially rough landing into a long roll, hitting with a rounded shoulder. The new Slayer uses the last of the momentum to pop up onto her feet before turning to run straight back into the fray.
“I taught her that,” Faith says.
“I know.”
She turns then, and they stand side by side, watching as Lakesha jumps to stand over a fallen Sherry, sword raised high. Bridget sneaks up behind the Vorlutz as Sherry and Kira distract it, but when she makes a leap for its back, she’s shaken off by a rippling flinch of the demon’s large shoulders. It bellows and windmills its arms wildly, forcing them all back.
“I could fight anyway.” Faith pounds the spear butt on the ground hard enough to feel the vibrations rattle up through the soles of her feet. They fade when they near her hurt-frozen heart.
“Yes, you could. But I’m asking you not to.”
“You’re asking me.” A little snort of disbelief escapes her.
“As the official Council member in charge of the Cleveland branch, yes.”
“And how did that get to be you anyway?”
“Someone had to be put on the paperwork for buying the building and setting up the school, and …”
“And I’m a con.”
“A wanted fugitive who can nonetheless do a lot of good on the outside.” He turns to face her, voice growing softer. “We still need you, Faith, just in a slightly different capacity.”
“Yeah, right.”
Robin doesn’t call her on the sarcasm, even though it sits so bitter on her tongue she wants to spit. Probably him pulling some kind of ‘don’t inflate the negativity’ crap.
Whatever.
A shudder washes through her, freeing muscles from shocky stillness. One loud “Yo, Sherry!” and the tall redhead turns, allowing Faith to toss her the spear.
As she walks away, ignoring Robin’s call, she figures down by the river’s gotta have a few vamps around. It may not be a big fight, a prophesied fight, like the demon, but the angry tingle clenching her hands into fists means she needs to hit something.
And if she stays here, it might be Robin.
And what’s worse is something in her isn’t sure that’s wrong.
~~~
Their ending isn’t an easily defined thing - it just kind of happens.
When she reaches for her cell phone, thinking to call him to mention adding knife fighting to the training regimen, she pauses with her fingers hovering over the buttons for a moment before putting it back in her pocket. She’ll see him later. It can wait.
The routine they developed of eating meals at the same time falls apart. Day after day, she sleeps in, or he works late, or she stays after training to show a girl a particular move, or … a million ors. Somehow, between the two of them, they cease spending those little bits of time together.
Faith stops showing up at the door to his room, figuring, after all that ‘let the noobs fight alone’ shit, the least he can do is make the effort to invite her for a fuck for a change.
He never does.
~~~
Everything’s a whirl after Sunnydale. Less than a week after closing the Hellmouth, Giles calls everyone together in Robin’s hotel room.
“Robson’s barely been able to make a start on sorting out the Council’s finances and such. We need a team to head for London as soon as possible to assist. I’ll be going, of course, along with Buffy, Dawn, Xander, Andrew and any of the international Slayers who’d like to come.”
Giles gestures towards where a still-bandaged Robin sits propped up against the headboard. “Robin has kindly agreed to head the American branch of the new Watcher’s Council and will take the American Slayers and any international ones who wish to remain to Cleveland.”
Whispers arise, accompanied by the rustle of clothing as people shift. Rona calls out, “What about Willow? You know, the scary powerful chick? What’s she gonna do?”
“Willow …” He shoots a quick glance around the room as if to once again convince himself that the redhead’s really gone. “Willow’s decided to … to pursue other endeavors at this time.”
The Slayers start to mutter, heads leaning together in small groups, and Buffy pushes off from the wall and walks out of the room without looking at anyone, leaving Faith wondering what’s got B’s panties all twisted this time.
Giles straightens from a faint slump, his voice growing stronger. “Which leads me to tell you that we won’t force any of you to serve if you have no wish to, but we need all of you. In fact, the people in this room represent our most valuable commodity right now - experience. Although the Council will temporarily gather in London and Cleveland, in the not too distant future, we’ll need to spread out and have training centers across the globe. And you’ll be the people leading them.”
Pushing recently polished glasses back into place, Giles continues. “I know it’s too soon, but time is a luxury we won’t be able to afford for the foreseeable future. Please let Robin or me know your decision by tomorrow evening so we can manage the travel arrangements. Thank you.”
He’s fast - Faith’ll give him that. She’d expected him to stay to confab with Robin, so him rabitting out the door even before the first wave of Slayers is a surprise. She has to push her way through a few others and book to catch up, but at least he’s heading in the opposite direction of everyone else and the hall is empty.
“Yo, Giles!” She grabs his arm when he doesn’t stop, pulling them both to a halt. “Hey, chill for a mo, bro. I wanted to talk to you about London.”
“Faith.” His voice echoes hollowly with discouragement.
“What - you think I won’t fit in?” She points to herself. “English guys are always going on about hot American chicks, and I’m like wicked hot, so what’s the prob?”
His face grows extra serious, brow furrowing enough to redirect air currents, and since this is Giles-the-inscrutable, that’s way past mondo on the serious scale.
“What? What is it?”
He puts a hand on her shoulder. “You won’t be able to come to London with us.”
“Wha-huh? But … but you and Buffy, and we get along kinda now, and …”
And it’s everyone she really knows.
“Faith, with your record, there’s no way to get you through security. You not only don’t have a passport, you also can’t get one.”
She grins winningly, trying to channel the pounding of her heart into that extra sparkle of energy that gets ‘em every time. “Well, maybe not a legal one, but -”
“Faith,” he interrupts her, voice grown soft, “I … I’m sorry.”
“Yeah.” It’s little more than a faint exhale that escapes once he’s already a good ten feet away. “Yeah.”
~~~
A few weeks after the Vorlutz demon thing, Faith sits through a Thursday patrol meeting without paying much attention. Itching to dust some vamps, she lets out a happy sigh when Yuan finishes her report on last week’s cemetery runs.
“One last thing.” Robin’s voice grows loud to cover the rising sounds of conversation and chair legs scraping across floor as everyone moves to leave. “There’ve been some changes to the patrol assignments starting tonight.”
He pauses to shuffle the papers in front of him, clearing this throat. “Maria and Kira - you’re now lead on the North Coast Harbor patrol, which includes the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Stadium. Kira, you’re familiar with the area, so fill Maria in as you go.”
What the fuck?
The two girls smile at each other before Maria turns to Faith, her grin widening to show an excessive amount of tooth.
A double scoop of what the fuck - that chick never smiles at Faith.
Robin continues without looking up. “Lakesha - that means you take over the Westside patrol from Maria. Check with her about anything special to look out for.”
Lakesha nods, tight braids swinging, and Faith assumes her reassignment must be next.
Or not.
“That’s it, everyone. Be careful out there and happy slaying.”
Faith sits in rigid silence while the girls file out, most of them shooting her side-long looks from eyes wide with the scandal of it all. Under the table, her fists clench repeatedly as she counts them out of the room, and once the door closes, she makes it for another five beats before abruptly standing.
“That’s my freaking patrol.” Her fist bangs the table for emphasis.
“No, it was your patrol.”
“But that’s the place with the highest number of vamps! I bag at least three every night.”
“Which makes it perfect for training Kira and Maria. You do remember that that’s what we’re here to do - train them?”
“Robin -”
“Look, Faith. I don’t want to fight with you over this one. The long and short of it is the area around the Hall of Fame is just too full of people, most of them tourists coming from all over - a fresh set of eyes every night. Sending you in there time after time is just asking for someone to recognize you.”
“It clearly hasn’t happened in the last seven months.” She holds her arms out ‘here I am’ wide. “What makes you think it’s gonna happen now?”
Robin rubs both hands over his face, muttering something.
“What?”
Lowering them, he looks at her, meeting her eyes for the first time, but she wishes he hadn’t. She doesn’t like what she sees in them: sadness and - fuck - pity.
“You were on Fugitives Escape last night, Faith. Fortunately, it’s not the most popular of … of those types of programs, but almost a million people saw photos and video of you, all while hearing stories of adrenaline-junkie fueled killings and prison breaks.”
She’s sitting. She doesn’t remember sitting, but she’s certainly not supporting her own weight anymore.
“If the Council were up to full strength, then Rupert said we would have found out ahead of time and been able to stop this. But we’re barely back on our feet right now.”
Prison walls surrounding her, pushing in, finding her even here. Her vision grays with the lifeless color, fills with bars and razor wire. And she can’t breathe, can’t think, her heart jackrabbiting even as her muscles won’t move - body torn by the conflicting impulses and signals.
But she’s good now! She’s trying so hard. Doesn’t that mean anything?
A flash of red catches her eye, and Faith looks down to hands covered in blood - their blood - red, wet, fresh, as if six years haven’t passed.
Had she really thought she could just wash it all away?
No. Nonononono. Her mouth shapes the word over and over, but no sound emerges.
“Faith.” A gentle touch on her shoulder. “Faith, I’m sorry. Look, Rupert and I will do what we can about this, but for now, stay in the house as much as you can, especially during the day. I’m sure … well, uh …” He gives a little squeeze and is gone.
When she opens her eyes, her hands lie clean, clean, clean on the table.
But no one is fooled anymore - especially not her.
~~~
~~~
~~~
Part 2
After a month, she figures it’s safe enough to go out at night if she sticks to dark places. Turns out that episode of Fugitives Escape only pulled in about half a million viewers for the entire country, and odds are good she’ll never run into anyone who saw it. Giles also stirred up some legal mumbo jumbo by paying one of the prison guards to sue the studio for using them on video without permission, so the thing’s never gonna be shown again.
Or at least not on regular TV.
No, this time the shit hits her personal fan, being flung all around where she lives. Someone at the Cleveland house taped the show, and Faith knows of at least two copies making the rounds. There used to be three, but she put all the refrigerator magnets on one for an hour - sitting in the kitchen with it on the table in front of her, daring anyone who walked through to say anything - and now all it plays is some kind of trippy shit like you see on bad hippie acid.
They keep the other tapes away from her, but it’s not as though anything she can do now will make any difference.
They’ve all seen it.
~~~
The thumping of a herd of feet from the stairs turns into a gaggle of girls who crowd past Faith in the hallway, gossiping and laughing as they go.
“Can you believe that asshole?”
“He didn’t! What did …”
“I’m thinking pizza or maybe …”
“Sherry’s been so nice lately.”
“Yeah, but what does that …”
Past the stage of covert looks and fervent whispers, they stalk by her without any indication she exists, Slayer power roiling the air around them, a pride of alpha lionesses confident in their supremacy.
Faint chatterings of conversation, yells of argument, and shrieks of laughter haunt the air she walks through to her empty room and crowd inside after her.
Flopping across her bed, Faith flips on the TV to drown out the jungle of noise and shakes her head, disgusted with all the freaking animal metaphors running through her brain.
She’s turned into one of those sad fucks who watch too much Discovery Channel.
~~~
Shit, shit, shit! It freaking worked in Sunnydale - why won’t it here?
The girls all stand clumped to one side of The Basement’s dance floor, hands clasped tightly around their sodas. She even tried to play it extra cool and buy them real drinks, but Maria said something about underage drinking being a ‘gateway behavior’ to illegal activity, and everyone reared back from Faith like she was the freaking Typhoid Mary of convicts.
Enough of that crap. If there’s one thing that’ll work, it’s dancing.
“Come on!” She tosses back her shot and slams the glass down onto the closest table. Letting the music take her, Faith swivels her hips, raising arms over head. “Let’s show ‘em how it’s done.”
The dance floor is just crowded enough to make it interesting with the close press of flesh and heat while still yielding enough that she can move. Fuck, yeah! The beat takes her, flows through her until she becomes the music written in pure physical form.
It takes two songs before she even realizes she’s the only Slayer out there, and Faith dances through another to make sure they’re not coming. But she enjoys it less and less, her movements no longer effortless as she feels the press of their combined stare weight her limbs.
“What’s up?” she yells to Lizabelle, the sweet one who’s been pushed to the front by the time she’s worked her way back to them.
“I … I don’t think this music is … is really us.”
“You gotta be shitting me. This is one seriously primo mix of Brit electronica!”
“But … uh …” Lizabelle turns to look at Maria and Yuan, the leaders, whose smiles curl into sneers. Her next sentence comes all in a rush: “Wewanttoleave.”
“Leave?” Faith comes to a full stop, arms falling limply to her sides.
Yuan elbows her way forward. “Yeah, leave.” She looks around, nose wrinkled in disgust. “This place is a dump, the music’s lame, and the guys are … gross.” She gives a dramatic shudder as a shaggy-haired guy in torn jeans and a plaid shirt brushes past. “Don’t they know grunge went out ages ago?”
Maria starts nodding, and most of the other girls bob their heads in time, though one or two like Lizabelle have pinched-looking faces.
“Okay, okay.” Faith spreads her hands in front of her in supplication. She needs to make this right, make this work, damnit. “We’ll go somewhere better, nicer. That guy who told me this place in the Flats was still cool musta been a vamp living in the nineties.” She laughs, forcing it.
“I don’t think so,” Maria says. “We’ve all got class in the morning, so coming out tonight … well, it just never was the right thing.”
When Yuan and Maria twirl on sharp heels to lead the girls out, heads raised in triumph, Faith just watches them go, the small apologetic smiles Lizabelle and Sherry cast over their shoulders barely registering.
For the first time in like ever she had respect, and it’s all slipping away, falling through fingers flashed red by colored lights, drip, drip, drip.
~~~
A month after Giles and Buffy’s gang took off for Jolly Olde, Faith lounges on a couch in the ‘entertainment’ room of the new Cleveland House Robin just bought in Fairview Park. The place used to be some hoity-toity boarding school for silver-spoon types, so it’s all done up in fancy textured wallpaper and wainscoting and crap. Damn thing’s huge and mostly empty, so it’s just her and Rona sharing popcorn and watching some lame-ass reality show with used-to-be famous people bitching and back stabbing each other as they’re made to live together. It’s annoying, but it also makes Faith glad the Sunnydale crowd she’s with now doesn’t pull that kind of shit.
The born-again ex-porn star’s going all biblical over another woman’s skimpy outfit - which really is tacky, Faith agrees, but more for the dayglo-pink color than the cut - when Vi runs in, waving a piece of paper. “Oh, my god! Rona!”
“What is it?” Rona looks up.
“We’ve … we’ve …” The redhead breaks off, fanning the paper across her face and chanting, “Breathe - it’s okay - just breathe.”
Faith jumps to her feet, glad for something more interesting than the crap TV they were watching. “Yo, chill! Tell me what it is, and we’ll go put some hurt on it.”
Rona goes over to grab Vi’s upper arm. “Vi?”
“It’s okay.” Vi grins and grabs onto Rona. “It’s great actually! I’m just too excited …” She waves the paper at them again.
Grabbing onto a corner, Rona steadies it to read for a bit. “No way!” She hugs Vi.
“I don’t know what’s gotten into the two of you, but if touching that paper does it, I’m staying the hell away.” Faith takes a half-step back, hands raised.
They turn to her, both trying to speak at once before subsiding into laughter.
Finally, Rona wipes a hand across her face and says, “It’s our assignments. All the Potentials from Sunnydale - I mean Slayers - have been assigned to run their own Watcher’s Council Training Houses. Vi got New York, where her brother lives, and I got Chicago, which is where I’m from.”
“Isn’t it great?!” Vi hands the paper to Faith.
“Yeah, great.” Scanning the list, she doesn’t see her name, though - fuck - even that little dweeb Andrew got something. Freaking Rome, for god’s sake!
“You must be staying here to run things with Robin.”
“Yeah.” Her voice sounds lame even to her, so Faith fakes perkiness when she adds, “But that’s great for you two - really.”
“Thanks.” Vi reaches out to take the list back. “I’m going to go and find everybody else to let them know.”
“I’ll come with you.” Rona smiles, a hint of mischief showing. “We want them to find out sometime this century.”
Vi just grins wider at the teasing and swats Rona on the arm.
Laughing, they head for the door.
For the next hour, Faith stares at the TV, not paying attention to what’s on but turning the volume up enough to keep from hearing the excited shouts and bursts of laughter coming from other parts of the house.
~~~
As soon as she leaves the club, Faith heads farther into the darkened part of the Flats because if she goes back to Prissy-Slayers-R-Us central right now, she’s gonna kill someone - again. Which would totally screw the pooch on her whole ‘path of redemption’ kick.
Besides, hanging on the southern East Bank provides easy access to things she can kill now that she’s been taken completely off of patrols.
“We’re gonna save you for special projects, Faith,” she singsongs, punching a stake into the first vampire’s chest with so much force that her hand sinks in after it and is caught for that elongated microsecond it takes the vamp to dust.
“Huh?” The second vamp’s mouth hangs a bit open, making him look like a complete dork, which should be impossible with fangs, but hey.
“And he’s a freaking principal, so it’s not like the special use of the word ‘special’ isn’t already built into his vocabulary. Who does he think he’s kidding ‘round here?”
She ducks an overly enthusiastic roundhouse and slips sideways under his arm as the vamp barrels past, kicking him in the back to add to his momentum.
When he comes to a sudden halt by hitting the alley wall - hard - he turns, bloody hands raised. “Look, lady. I don’t know what’s happening with you and your boyfri-”
“He’s not my boyfriend.” She punches him, a sharp right hook to the face that snaps his head back to thunk the wall. “I don’t do boyfriends. Boyfriends mess with your head.” Both hands fisted in his mangy Members Only jacket, she shakes the vamp hard enough to bounce his skull against the bricks behind him: plonk, plonk, plonk, plonk, plonk.
At the sound, she finds herself laughing - or is it crying? - the noises high-pitched and painful as they rip from her chest, tearing across her vocal cords as they fight to get out while she fights to keep them down.
“Okay!” His eyes are wide. “Friend then.”
“Ha! Friends are just as bad. Friends … (keen) … make you care.” She lets go, kneeing him in the ribs as he crumples forward. “Friends can … (keen) … hurt you, leave you.” The stake slides into the vamp’s back with no resistance - easy, all too easy, she needs something more, damnit.
Sinking to her knees as shudders overtake her, Faith gives in - yelling and pounding at the rough pavement, welcoming the sting of broken glass slicing the fleshy outsides of her fists.
She’s not sure how long she stays kneeling in muck made by the vamp dust mixing with what smells like soured piss and stale whiskey. Red covers her hands, dots the ground before her, an abstract painting of blood and frustrated rage.
Faith laughs, a dark, hysterical sound, and this time whatever was caught in her chest breaks free, spiraling out and away.
The baby Slayers don’t respect her?
Robin’s not gonna give her anything real to do?
Fine.
Screw this fitting in crap - she’s had enough.
~~~
All of her clothes and shit fit into one big duffle bag, and the room, with its pale-yellow walls and frou-frou white lace curtains, doesn’t look like she’s ever been there. Hell, it doesn’t look like she was ever supposed to freaking be there, and that probably makes it one of those symbolic thingies she should have noticed before. But hey, it’s not like she finished high school, and fucking the principal of one doesn’t completely make up for that - it’s not like he stuck English lit crap in her with his dick.
It’s three in the morning, and she doesn’t give a flying fuck as she clomps all the way down the stairs and out a slammed front door.
They don’t like the Flats?
She’s moving to the damn place.
~~~
~~~
~~~
Part 3
It sure as shit doesn’t look like much, especially after the shiny niceness of the Cleveland House, but the small one-bedroom apartment in National Terminal Warehouse is better than some of the dumps she grew up in, especially during her early teens when her mom crawled so far into the bottle she never came out.
Paint covers the walls with splotchy irregularity, so old that whatever color it was originally has turned various shades of light gray, which actually coordinates with the darker gray the wooden doors and floor have aged to - like maybe hell’s own interior designer took a break from red and tried for a different monochromatic thing.
Faith figures she’ll make a joke of it, tell people it’s the latest look from some hip place like London - ‘retro urban punk grunge’ or some shit like that. Hell, she’s seen Sid & Nancy.
Course, someone would have to visit for her to have a chance to say that.
Still, it’s all hers, and even if the tile’s cracked and the grout’s stained an unbleachable gray, she doesn’t have to share the bathroom with anybody.
She just wishes the end of the kitchen didn’t have those freaking fake-wood rods pretending to hold up the ceiling. Some designer back in the day probably made a mint by telling people this was a cheap way to make two rooms look separate without putting in a wall. Instead, they’re just ugly, and Faith hates catching sight of them out of the corner of her eye where they float like bars in a sea of grayness.
~~~
Three weeks later, her second conversation with Robin since moving out isn’t going any better than the first.
“No.” It comes out firmly, though she wipes the dampness of slightly shaking hands on her jeans, one after the other, juggling the cell phone.
“But -”
“I said no.”
A pause and then: “Faith, you’re a wanted fugitive -”
Adrenaline races an icy hot course through her veins. “Is that a threat?”
“What? God, no, Faith. Look, I know things didn’t go well between us, but I’d like to think you know I’d never turn you in.”
She remains silent.
“Faith?” He sighs with exasperation. “All right. The truth is I can’t have you doing anything high profile, anything that might get you noticed, get you fingered -”
“Fingered?” A short bark of laughter escapes her, its sound cutting. “You been watching mob movies or something to get your ghetto on? It may fool the noobs, but why don’t you leave the bitchin’ slang to me and cut the bullshit?”
This time the sigh echoes tired and tinny from the earpiece. “The truth is, Faith, I don’t know what else to do. I can’t ask the girls, and I’d do it, but -”
“But you’re too important.”
“I’m too weak, is what I am.” Anger snaps across his words, but he suppresses it quickly, switching to his ‘super calm and reasonable’ tone of voice. She hates that tone of voice. “Look, Faith. You’re a Slayer, and no matter what else, you’re a damn good one. Because you’re a fugitive, I can’t give you normal duties any longer, but there’s still something you can do, something special, something important that no one else can do. Please think about it.”
~~~
The knife clatters to the ground, slipping from blood-slick fingers. Faith follows it down, down, down, welcoming the pain of knees hitting hard concrete.
Crissy slumps, head tilted at an unnatural angle, eyes wide and staring, just like the first one. She made a lot of noise when it happened, little whimpers of protest mixed with mewls of pain that sounded of disbelief, reminding Faith of the second one. Red spreads wet across the sliced midsection of her turquoise satin gown.
It was easy - so easy. Her hands weak and futile where they scrabbled at Faith’s.
The gray walls of the alley press in on Faith, bars on windows growing ever longer, filling the whole world.
Sour bile burns the back of her throat, and she gasps for breath, fighting the iron banded around her chest. Struggling against the instinct to bury her face in her hands, to run them through her hair, she holds them awkwardly away from her body, a body that doubles over, trying to curl in on itself.
But she needs to make it look like a mugging to throw off the cops, so after an unknowable amount of time, she straightens, lifts her head.
With horror, Faith watches one bloody hand reach out to yank the necklace from unresisting flesh. Breaking, it scatters pearls everywhere, the small beads of iridescent whiteness tainted with dark splotches of red.
She raises her palm in front of her, unclenching fingers to see the three pearls she caught coated completely in red. The red of her hand.
~~~
Now that she’s moving, she’s a freaking maniac.
Faith runs from Playhouse Square back to her lousy apartment on the east side of the river. And not just runs - she leaps over shit like that old OJ Simpson commercial, launching herself to sail high over trashcans and crates, coming down in jarring thumps that nonetheless never make her lose her footing.
Not even sprinting up five flights of stairs slows her, and she slams through her front door still riding the crest of one wicked-bad adrenaline wave.
She throws the purse across the room, where it slides into a dark corner with a crash. She’s gotta clean off the bloody fingerprints and dump it somewhere sans cash, but for now, she can’t stand touching the damn thing anymore.
Ripping the knife out of the back waistband of her jeans, she twirls, yelling and burying it in the dirt-gray wall at shoulder height.
It quivers before her, hilt dark red, and she raises her hands to see the color flaking off of them, disappearing to stain everything she touches without staying on her. And that’s seriously fucked up because she knows that’s the one place it’s never going to actually come off.
The piece of string loops easily over the handle as she ties the ends together, its three dark pearls hanging in emptiness. They swing slightly from her movements, and she reaches to still them.
~~~
It’s a good two and a half weeks before her cell phone rings for the first time since she moved out. Huh. The principal. But seriously, did she really expect one of the prissy Slayer types to call?
“Yo, Ace.” The nickname emerges with bite instead of affection. She hopes it makes him wince.
But if it does, it doesn’t show in his voice, which seems permanently set to the channel ultra-smooth. “Hello, Faith.”
“So whad’ya want?” She grips the cell phone hard enough that it creaks. “One of the noobs raise some stink like the con took her hairdryer or something? ‘Cause I gotta say that black one was mine and -”
“This isn’t about a hair dryer,” Robin interrupts. “I need to ask a favor of you.”
“A favor? Is that what kids are calling it these days?” She allows a hint of seduction to creep into her voice because - well, she’s not sure why.
“It’s got nothing to do with that … with us. It’s a Slaying job.”
“That’s rich coming from the guy who took me off every single freaking fight and patrol.”
“True, but this is different, special.”
The man’s a damn cucumber, voice completely emotionless, and she can’t tell whether his lack of reaction to her hurts or pisses her off, so she settles on pissed.
“Special. I’ve heard that freaking word before.”
Continuing as if he didn’t hear, Robin says, “There’s someone, a Crissy Brisbane, who’s a great danger to everyone in the Cleveland area. I need you to take her out.”
Faith wants to keep her mad on, but it’s been too long since she had a good slay, so she rises to the bait. “With a name like Crissy Brisbane, I’m assuming she’s passing as human?”
“Not exactly. She’s actually a human who’s also a Latere Demon.”
“You know I don’t speak Watcher.”
“A Latere is like … well, think of it as being like a sleeper agent, but one whose true self is pushed so deep they don’t know who they really are. It’s a defense mechanism left over from when humans began driving the demons out of this dimension - a way for the Latere to stay, even if in a partially humanized form.”
“Wasn’t that like centuries and centuries ago?”
“Yes, but it’s not as though demon evolution happens quickly, especially in terms of this species. When two Laterea mate, they lay their egg by merging it with a human baby, and it remains dormant for decades, which is what keeps the species fairly rare. It also takes an entire Coven to detect one, and they’re impossible to separate from the host. When the egg finally gestates, it’s sudden, taking over the human and growing into a twelve-foot-tall adult Latere in less than an hour.”
“Damn!”
“And therein lies the problem - this one is set to gestate any day now, and that kind of growth takes a lot of food, and Latere eat -”
“People, I get it.”
“And if attacking her causes the gestation to start, she’ll be too strong for me.”
“So what’s the prob - why can’t the baby Slayers bag this one?”
“As things stand now, the woman, she … well, she has no idea. She still thinks she’s human, looks human, acts human. For her, she is human … and it shows in everything she does. Not even Slayer senses can tell she’s not.”
Faith’s heart clenches in a chest too tight for breath, stomach knotting to join it. “So it’ll …”
“It’ll be … just like killing a human.”