Work Text:
Instincts
“You need to realize that she’s in love with you, Buffy.”
Willow’s voice was quiet but far from gentle, her accompanying expression nearly intense enough to be classified as grave. She clearly expected a stunned or scoffing response, perhaps dismissal or even anger. But Buffy’s lips twitched, and she began to snicker with amusement bred of irony more than real humor. She turned away quickly, trying to press her lips together tightly in an effort to stem the mirthful noises threatening to break forth, but she had seen Willow’s wide-eyed surprise out the corner of her eye, and that was enough to trigger a stuttering, snorting string of laughter that refused to be contained.
It wasn’t funny, really. Willow’s tone had illustrated that plainly enough, even without the confused, somewhat judgmental look she was casting Buffy’s way now. It was just that the information Willow seemed so sure was news to Buffy had long been obvious, even in the face of Buffy’s dubiously admirable talent of ignoring what she didn’t want to acknowledge. Did Willow really think her still so naïve, so singly focused that she couldn’t see what had never been subtle to begin with?
It wasn’t funny; it was closer to tragic, and not on Buffy’s behalf. What person in her life of equal strength and power- minus poor Riley- hadn’t been in love with her? Angel, Spike- of course Faith, the only other Slayer of the original Chosen Two, would be added in with the group of unfortunates. It wasn’t funny, really, and it certainly wasn’t a surprise.
“Buffy?” Willow said uncertainly, a pale hand drifting up towards Buffy’s quivering shoulders, and then trailing down to her side again without making contact. “Buffy, I’m serious. You can’t tell? Even after-“
“Willow, of course I can tell,” Buffy managed, sucking in a slow breath in an effort to steady herself. She sniffed, thumbing away tears that she wasn’t entirely sure were born only of laughter. “I’m not blind or deaf, and I did take a few psychology classes in college, even if the professor did go to the evil side. Of course I know.”
Willow’s brow furrowed, her hazel eyes squinting with her lingering confusion as she took a step closer to Buffy, searching her friend’s expression.
“Oh…oh, um, okay. Okay then. Well, if you know, then why…”
“Why am I laughing?” Buffy prompted, turning towards her more fully. “Why am I letting her make all the sexual innuendos and painful puns she still manages to come up with even with teenage hormones supposedly all grown up and somewhat matured? Why am I picking her as my spar and patrol partner, with dozens of other Slayers there to choose from, any time she’s around? Why am I turning away, every time I see her look at me without any trace of joke in her eyes?”
She started out speaking in an even, reasonable tone and volume, but by her last few words, Willow was flinching slightly, and even Buffy realized that the sudden heat in her face and the tension up her arms likely had to do with the fact that she was nearly yelling, clinching her fists against her sides.
She dropped her eyes, deliberately forcing one hand to relax, and moved it upward to rub her temple, aware only when she touched its skin of the beginning throb of a headache settling behind her skull.
“I’m laughing, because it doesn’t matter,” Buffy said finally, her voice steady again, but she didn’t lift her face to Willow’s as she spoke. “Think about it, Will. Think about the list of people who have been in love with me. Where are they now? Dead, undead, dead again, or gone to an entirely different continent to escape me. Faith’s been in a coma three times already, one more would definitely cross her over to at least one of those categories.”
What she didn’t say to Willow, but what she knew with absolute certainty to be true, was that Faith being in love with her, if Buffy acknowledged it, would ultimately, inevitably, be Faith’s destruction. It had already nearly happened once, back in high school, and that was without Buffy quite letting herself see things for what they were. How much worse would things be for her, and how much more disastrously would Buffy be setting her up to fall, if she actually let on that she knew of Faith’s feelings now?
And what did that say about the kind of person Buffy was now, that sometimes, she was so tempted to respond to them that she wasn’t sure if she cared?
Willow was still struggling to keep up, to connect the dots of the admittedly jumbled map of information Buffy was laying out for her. For someone so intelligent, sometimes Buffy did wonder if it was her best friend who was the less observant of the two of them.
“You mean…you’ve been letting her on purpose?” Willow said slowly, letting this obviously new possibility sink in. “You knew, and you still…but Buffy. That’s…that’s kind of…”
“Manipulative? Avoidant? Cruel? Using her? Yeah, I know, Will,” Buffy said wearily. “That’s me. I can be that way.”
She let herself sink down on the unmade surface of her bed. After a few moments, Willow joined her, casting a quick glance towards the bedroom door, as though to make sure no one was eavesdropping outside it or ready to burst in on them. It wasn’t an unwarranted concern. Between the newly called Slayers, Dawn, and Andrew, the newly developed Slayer Headquarters was full enough most of the time to only questionably allow for personal space, even with locked doors and supposedly private bedrooms. It was certainly better and more spacious than it had been back in Sunnydale, when Buffy had shared her three bedroom house with thirty something Potentials, but sometimes it seemed only marginally so.
“Those weren’t the words I would have used,” Willow protested, and Buffy narrowed her eyes back at her, one eyebrow raised in skeptical challenge. “They aren’t, Buffy. What I was thinking is, if that’s what you’re doing, and why you’re doing it, knowing what you know…that’s…it’s kind of sad.”
Sad…huh. Buffy wasn’t so sure she liked that word, or that perspective of herself. Actually, she was pretty sure she preferred to be called a manipulative bitch.
She opened her mouth to inform Willow of this, but Willow was still talking, her words less careful now, more to the point.
“Because all those people you just mentioned who loved you, Buffy, they were all people that you loved too. And for at least two of them, you didn’t realize it, until it was too late. In fact, that was the real problem between you, what really got in the way and caused some of the issues you’re dancing around actually talking about.”
She stared at Buffy meaningfully, as though waiting for her to finish her train of thought. Only Buffy had no clue what she was trying to say.
“Okay, fine, I suck at relationships. I know this. Hence my single status. What’s your point?”
“Buffy, if you already know that Faith is in love with you, and you pretend you don’t know, because you’re concerned about what could happen to her if you let her know that you did…well, that doesn’t make complete sense if you’re using those other people as a comparison,” Willow pointed out to her slowly. “Because you did love them. All of them. So…your avoidance only makes sense, as a Buffy pattern of behavior, if you actually do love Faith. But don’t realize it.”
She paused again, then hammered her point, stake to the chest in blunt forcefulness. “But it sounds to me like you do realize it. You just won’t talk about it.”
Buffy stilled. How had this discussion gone from funny, even if of the blackest type of humor, to painfully close to the bone kind of reality, the kind she had no ability or will to deal with? And what made Willow think that saying it out loud like some sort of challenge or intervention was enough to make that change?
She stood up abruptly, almost lurching forward in her haste to separate, and realized to her own annoyance that although her bedroom was one of the largest in the sleeping quarters wing, it still wasn’t big enough to bring as much space between her and the other woman as she wanted right then.
“Then what makes you think that I would want to talk about it now?”
Her voice was harsh, almost biting; it was the voice of Buffy the commander who took no excuses and made tough decisions that cost lives, the voice that was meant to shut down feelings and put up walls. It wasn’t a voice that she enjoyed putting on towards her friends, or even when necessary in times of crisis. This wasn’t a crisis situation, but somehow, it felt more than necessary to engage with Willow in the same tone she would use if it were.
But Willow was hardly the same girl who had cringed and stammered at the idea of confrontation, or who had such little self worth that she allowed herself to be pushed around. The woman she had become was strong and confident enough to look Buffy in the eye and call her out without flinching, and that was exactly what she did then.
“It’s true, isn’t it? You love Faith. You know that she loves you, and you love her too.”
“This is becoming ridiculous,” Buffy deflected, aware even as she shook her head in feigned disbelief that she was using the gesture to avoid looking Willow directly in the face. “We have things we need to be doing, Will, and this isn’t one of them. Besides, I think we’ve had enough Buffy focus for one conversation, so if these are the places you want to go, then why don’t we turn the laser focus on you? What about you, Willow, do you love Kennedy? How are things with Oz these days? Any other people catching your eye?”
“Things with Oz are complicated, but there aren’t any harsh feelings there,” Willow responded, not taking her bait. Rather than becoming distracted or defensive, she answered calmly and evenly, to Buffy’s chagrin. “He’s dating someone else, and I hope he’s happy. I love him, and he loves me, we always will, but we won’t be able to love each other in a relationship, and that’s okay. As for Kennedy, no, I don’t love her, and I don’t think I ever will, but I care about her. She thinks she loves me, but she doesn’t. She’s too young still to really know how she feels. For now though, things are working, and when they stop, we’ll talk about it, and hopefully we can go about our lives without it being too terrible. No one else is involved or interesting to me now.”
She paused, looking at Buffy meaningfully, a challenge. “So that’s me, all discussed. Let’s go back to you. Because see, here’s the difference with you and Faith and me and Kennedy. Kennedy knows how I feel, because we’ve talked about it. She might think that one day she can change me, but I’m honest with her about who I am and where I am with things, even if she doesn’t always want to see it that way. But you and Faith, you’re not honest about anything, not even to yourselves. And I’m completely certain that Faith has absolutely no idea how you feel, since you’ve been really good at keeping yourself in the dark too.”
Okay, Buffy was not going on with this discussion. Somewhere in time Willow had crossed over from simply becoming willing to have conflict into actually refusing to back down from it, and Buffy definitely did not like that new personality trait being aimed towards her. Especially when she couldn’t find a part of Willow’s argument to point out as incorrect.
So Buffy resorted to her usual method- persistent defensiveness. It had its uses both physically and emotionally.
“Why is this any of your business anyway, Willow?” she demanded, crossing her arms over her chest and fixing a narrow-eyed stare in the other woman’s direction. “Why are we even having this conversation? What is it to you, why do you care?”
“Wow, Buffy, really?” Willow blew out an exasperated breath, shaking her head. One freckled hand drifted up to tug at the ends of her own hair, twining through it in a distracted, agitated manner that made Buffy suspect she would prefer to be pulling at Buffy’s. “You seriously even have to ask that? That’s an actual question you’re going to say out loud?”
“Well, yes,” Buffy insisted, setting her jaw. “I don’t ask questions just to hear myself speak. Most of the time, anyway.”
“Buffy, you give five page speeches just to hear yourself speak, why would you refrain from asking a few questions for the same reason?” Willow shot back at her, her tone far sharper than Buffy was accustomed to hearing from her. “Besides, the answers should be obvious, and the questions are insulting. I care because you’re my friend, one of my best friends. Maybe you don’t think that’s enough to make what you do with yourself and your life my business, and maybe you’re right, maybe it isn’t. But I don’t actually care, because I can see for myself how what you’re doing affects you.”
She took a slow breath, calming herself, and softened her tone slightly.
“You’re limiting yourself, Buffy. You’re keeping yourself and Faith in the same battered little box you two have always been in, and it’s not keeping you safe anymore, if it ever was to begin with. It’s hurting you. That’s why I care, because I have a damn hard time sitting back and just letting someone hurt you- even yourself. And besides,” she added, almost as an afterthought, but with determined emphasis to this last sentence, “Faith is my friend too.”
When Buffy made a choked, disbelieving noise of objection, Willow spoke more loudly over it, pretending she hadn’t noticed. “She’s my friend, and now she’s family. And I don’t like to see her being hurt either. Even by my best friend.”
Buffy had a lot of questions about these statements, one of the most prominent being when Willow and Faith had become apparent BFFs and what exactly she had been doing while this was taking place to keep from noticing. She opened her mouth, ready to ask exactly this, but she surprised herself.
“She’d be hurt a lot worse if I did any differently, Willow. This is just how things have to be. We’re Slayers, and it’s us. We can’t be anything else than allies at arms’ length, our history and just, I don’t know, just who we are wouldn’t let that happen. It would just blow up in our faces and take other people down in the process.”
Willow tilted her head, giving her a somewhat cryptic smile.
“I know that’s what you believe, Buff. But you’ve never actually tried. And I don’t think it’s true. Not anymore.”
For a few seconds, Buffy actually considered what she was saying. She thought about the possibility of talking to Faith, actually communicating in some way other than needed exchanges of information or frustrating, circular double meanings that Buffy wasn’t entirely sure she understood, even when she was the one giving them out. She thought about spending time with Faith that wasn’t related to slaying or with others close by, useful to hide behind or insert between them if needed. She thought about challenging Faith’s innuendos and sorting through her own thoughts and feelings on the other Slayer, actually making some effort to figure out what did and didn’t apply anymore and what she should do with it.
She considered, and almost as quickly shuddered at the very thought of the disastrous outcome she was sure would occur.
“I have stuff to do, Will, way more important stuff than talk about something this silly. Real stuff. Stuff that needs to be done,” Buffy informed her, far more jerkily and awkwardly than she had intended to. “I’m going for a walk. To, uh, go do the stuff.”
“A walk, huh? To Faith’s room? Nah, that would never happen, because for a badass Slayer, you’re too much of a coward,” Willow retorted.
Buffy glowered, half-heartedly flipping her off with one hand. She heard Willow’s irritated exhalation in response, but she could have sworn she also heard a low chuckle that sounded like it came from her too.
Willow was wrong. That was all there was too it, she was very, very wrong, Buffy fumed to herself as she half strode, half marched away from her, her steps growing faster and closer together as she moved further away. She wasn’t exactly sure where she was going, or even what it was she intended to do when she arrived at this unknown destination, but she felt a strong need to keep moving, to put time and distance between Willow and her crazy words. Somehow, she hoped, that would make them stop bouncing around like pinballs in her brain.
Willow was wrong. Just wrong, not even a little bit right. She had just been a lesbian for too long now, so she was seeing the world through lesbian-colored glasses. If lesbians had a color. What would a lesbian color be, anyway? Pink? Like a dark, fleshy pink, like inside a woman’s-
NO, she was not going down that path of thought. She was not thinking about any woman’s part, of any kind, especially not any particular woman’s. This was the craziness that came from talking about something so crazy!
That’s what it was, crazy. Okay, so Faith flirted, and said things, and was constantly getting in Buffy’s space and on her every last nerve whenever their paths crossed. Which seemed to be more often than strictly necessary, if you asked Buffy. But that was Faith. That had always been Faith. Even when she went to the evil side, she always seemed to find it necessary to be coming up on Buffy picking fights and running her mouth and coming up with excuses to verbally or physically skirmish somehow. Buffy was used to it, and over time, she had finally come to accept exactly what she told Willow she already knew was true. It was Faith, and Faith was in love with her. Even if she would never have the nerve or the gall to actually come and say it out loud without any kind of irony in her tone.
That was Faith, though, not Buffy. What Faith did and what she felt in the privacy of her own brain had nothing to do with Buffy. Well, it did, but it didn’t affect what Buffy felt. It didn’t mean that Buffy felt things too, or should feel things, or was denying feeling things. Besides, even if Buffy did feel things, which she didn’t- she wasn’t going to even let herself think the word love about any of this, because, wrong- even if she did feel things, not talking about it, or doing anything about it, that wouldn’t make her a coward. It would just make her sensible. Sometimes, not doing things was the smart thing to do, the reasonable and right thing to do. It did not make her a coward. Who was Willow to call Buffy a coward, how could she say that when-
Buffy was so busily engaged in both her indignant thoughts and her long, striding steps, that she didn’t actually pay much attention to where she was going or care how she arrived at the unplanned destination. That is, until she heard a husky, amused, and all too familiar female voice call out to her.
“Hey, B, where’s the fire- whoa!”
Before Buffy could look up, jump back, or otherwise avoid the oncoming collision of bodies, calloused but nevertheless gentle hands were on her, grasping her at the shoulder and waist in apparent effort to keep her from knocking into the other person at full speed. The other woman held onto her, steadying her from falling.
Buffy made a startled, wordless noise in her throat, and her eyes opened wide with the shock of the physical contact. A faint electric sensation sparked through her in response to it, even before she had consciously registered the identity of the hands and the voice attached to them, and her own hands instinctively grabbed at the other woman to better secure herself.
“Uh….hey, B, didn’t know we were on such close and personal terms of affection,” Faith Lehane wisecracked, giving Buffy’s waist a playful squeeze with the hand still not removing itself from her side. “There isn’t actually a fire, is there? Or the demonic slash vampiric equivalent?”
At the other Slayer’s joke, Buffy’s brow furrowed, slow to take in her meaning. Only when she briefly met Faith’s eyes, then looked down to notice her own hands, still clamped over Faith’s upper arms for no sensible reason that she could discern, did she hurriedly release her and take several large steps back, putting more distance between them. Huffing aloud, she rolled her eyes, then crossed her arms over her chest tightly and spread her palms over her sides in a near embrace.
This was a reasonable reaction. She was just making sure that Faith wouldn’t have easy access at grabbing for her waist again. This had nothing to do with the lingering sensation of Faith’s warm hand, easily felt through the thin material of her shirt. It wasn’t like Buffy was trying to replace that feeling with her own more neutral touch.
It wasn’t.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
Buffy had intended for the question to come out casually, but somehow the words sounded tense, defensive, and demanding, even to her own ears. That seemed to happen a lot around Faith. She wasn’t surprised when Faith scoffed, eyebrows lifting, and put her hands on her hips in a slightly skewed mirror of Buffy’s own posture.
“Well, hello to you too, princess. You do realize that you were the one who almost mowed me down, and not the other way around, right? Because maybe you ought to tell that to your voice and your face, they don’t seem to have reality sorted out too great.”
“I did not almost mow you down,” Buffy countered, fighting to suppress the automatic and absurd mental image she was carrying of herself on a tractor, complete with a farmer’s hat and overalls. “I was about to stop. I have good reflexes. You just interfered.”
Faith’s raised eyebrows seemed to climb higher than she would have thought possible. But rather than argue any further, Faith just chuckled, shaking her head.
“Right, okay. If you say so. What’s the hurry, girlfriend? You’d think someone had told you the shoe store was going out of business, or something.”
Faith laughed again, her arms dropping down to her sides, but Buffy’s posture didn’t relax along with hers. Eyes widening again, this time from alarm, she quickly looked around them to see if anyone was near enough to be watching or listening to their exchange before she hissed back at her.
“I’m not your girlfriend! I’m not anyone’s girlfriend!”
“Okayyy,” Faith drew out, clearly bemused. She lifted up both hands as though in surrender, staring at Buffy. “I’m aware. It’s an expression, B. Chill. Didn’t know your single status was such a touchy topic. Hell, I’ve been single all my life, even in prison. And for someone as hot as me, that’s a damn accomplishment.”
“It isn’t an accurate expression,” Buffy informed her. “I prefer for people to be accurate when they call me a label.”
She decided not to touch on the comments about her singleness, Faith’s singleness, and especially not Faith’s hotness. Those were just not interesting topics of conversation, it had nothing to do with them being uncomfortable or anything.
“Okayyyyy,” Faith drawled, even more obnoxiously exaggerated than the last time, and she smirked, clearly enjoying herself as she shifted her weight over one leg. “Hello, Buffy Anne Summers, female coworker, colleague, sister Slayer, half of the original Chosen Two, and peer of similar age and status within our role in society. Is that accurate enough of a label? Because if you need more than that, you’re gonna have to ask Willow, or get a dictionary.”
“I’m not asking Willow anything,” Buffy muttered irritably, more to herself than to Faith. “Especially nothing about you, me, and labels like girlfriend. That’s exactly what I am not about to do.”
Faith’s eyes narrowed, and she took a step towards Buffy, scrutinizing her. Damn Slayer hearing, Buffy had time to realize before she spoke.
“Don’t tell me that you’re actually worried that people could think we are.”
“Huh? Think we’re what?” Buffy bluffed, blinking deliberately in a bad effort to appear innocent and oblivious. Faith, who was neither, and who knew by now that Buffy wasn’t either, just stared at her, not buying the act.
“Are you slow today in everything but your feet? Girlfriends, obviously. As in the pelvic kind. Are you seriously worried that people think we could be literal girlfriends?”
“Okay, first off, ew, don’t ever say the word pelvic anywhere within my earshot again,” Buffy evaded, giving a dramatic shudder in effort to stall her response and distract Faith’s. “Second off, of course not, no one would think that, don’t be ridiculous.”
“Oh, okay, so you’re not worried,” Faith echoed, “not at all. It’s ridiculous, and you almost bit my head off, but no worries. It’s too ridiculous to worry.”
Buffy didn’t want to look up at Faith. She really, really didn’t want to; she wanted to get out of her general vicinity, with minimal further exchanges of words and eye contact, as quickly as possible. But something about the tone of Faith’s voice was difficult to ignore.
Faith sounded sarcastic and nonchalant, as usual, but for once, it wasn’t convincing. Buffy was not oblivious to the hurt beneath her tone, nor the way Faith unconsciously stepped further away from her, actually leaning her body back as much as was possible to give her even further space. She might not acknowledge it, even to herself, but Faith had truly been upset by Buffy’s denial.
Buffy opened her mouth, starting to say something, then shut it again, eyes averted. She could feel Faith observing this, far more comfortable than Buffy was at direct, unwavering staring in her direction, and Buffy fidgeted, ill at ease even before Faith spoke again.
“Hey, no worries, B. You’d have to be crazy to want to date someone like me, right? And people know it’s me who’s the crazy one around here, not you. Your golden girl rep remains intact.”
She turned her back on Buffy fully then, flapping a hand in a dismissive wave that looked to Buffy more like a swat in the air, lacking a target to crack down on.
“Later, B. Or not. Wouldn’t want people to talk.”
Buffy swallowed, watching Faith’s hips sway as she started to stride away from her. Realizing where her eyes were directed, she hurriedly moved them up to Faith’s back, noticing the tense set of her shoulders, and her stomach churned with an uncomfortable sensation strangely close to guilt. Faith turned the corner of the hallway, nearly about to disappear from Buffy’s view, when Buffy called out to her, suddenly and urgently sure that she didn’t want to leave their conversation on such adversarial terms.
Especially if it was maybe, just a little bit, possibly her fault that Faith might be upset.
“Hey- Faith! Wait.”
Faith stopped, her body turning slowly to only partly face Buffy, one foot still pointed towards hall’s turn, as though still pursuing exit. She didn’t say anything, just lifted an eyebrow, her face set carefully into a stony expression Buffy could not entirely interpret.
“Wait,” Buffy repeated, the words limp and lame sounding even to her own ears.
She took a few slow, awkward steps towards the other woman, reaching out a hand, then letting it drop back to her sides. What exactly was she reaching for, anyway- Faith? Why had her hand been thinking of touching Faith, when she was no longer walking away?
“B, you’re running hot and cold, not that this is new and unusual behavior for you,” Faith muttered. She crossed her arms, making no move either to come towards Buffy or to further step back. “Make up your mind, because a minute ago, seemed like you were saying you couldn’t deign to be seen speaking to me without first having to draw up a certificate proving your membership to the Heterosexual Society. And also making me write an essay on the purpose of our need to converse, which you may or may not give your approval on. And now you want to stand here and stare at me?”
Buffy blinked, making a confused face at the other Slayer. She had lost the trail of Faith’s words somewhere around the second sentence.
“You know, for a high school dropout that uses her cleavage more than books for getting needed info, you have a strangely large vocabulary sometimes. Have you been hanging out with Willow a lot?”
When Faith’s mouth pressed together, and her eyes flashed dangerously, Buffy realized quickly that implying the other girl was both dumb and slutty probably wasn’t a good start to an apology. She hurried on, feeling her own cheeks flush as she tried to smooth past it.
“I’m, uh, that was a compliment, I mean, I’ve hung around Willow for years now and none of that ever rubbed off on me. Besides, what do I know, maybe you read a lot and I just don’t see it, maybe that was the only thing to do in prison or something?”
“As a matter of fact, it was,” Faith said tightly. “That and work out. So that’s what I did. Read, work out, and think of a lot of shit I’d done and what I should have done instead. Not that you’ve ever asked, and not that you probably care to know.”
Most of the time, Buffy would have agreed with her. Faith’s time in prison was a touchy subject for them both, and not one she cared to discuss or hear the details about.
But when she considered it now, she realized that actually, she did care to know. She was curious what Faith had experienced in her years in prison, and how it was that she had kept herself there for so long, Slayer powers, inner demons, and all.
But maybe now wasn’t the time to admit this. She was supposed to be apologizing, not pushing her further away.
“Right, uh…I was just trying to say….about what you said, earlier,” Buffy fumbled, licking her lips. She saw Faith’s eyes drop down to them, possibly unconsciously, and flushed, deliberately standing up straighter in an effort to appear more together. “Um, that isn’t true. About you being crazy. No one thinks that. Anymore, anyway.”
Faith’s expression didn’t change; she seemed to be waiting for something else, something more. As Buffy blinked again, trying to figure out what that something else might be, Faith exhaled, uncrossing her arms and somewhat wearily running a hand through her hair.
“Is that supposed to be a Buffy Summers version of a compliment?”
“Well, no,” Buffy hedged, not wanting to give that specific label to what she had viewed as more of a semi apology. “More like, uh, being fair and accurate in labels.”
She expected Faith to roll her eyes or otherwise blow this comment off, but instead, the woman chuckled, her shoulders losing some of their tension. Faith took a few steps closer to her, drawing near enough to Buffy again that she could touch her if she wanted, and Buffy inched closer unconsciously, as though in automatic response. Faith leaned in, taking over what space still remained to distance them. Close enough for Buffy to feel the warmth her body emanated, Faith dropped her voice to a low, smoky murmur that made Buffy’s skin warm and her heart beat a fast staccato in response.
“So….if people don’t think I’m crazy…what do they think? Give me the scoop, B….straight up.”
The innuendo in her words was obvious even to Buffy, made all the worse by Faith’s proximity. Buffy squirmed, her eyes shifting to the side as she fought equally strong desires to push Faith away and to draw her own body even nearer to her. She was uncomfortably aware of a low, not unpleasant twisting sensation in her groin that she tried to blame on possible premenstrual cramps rather than any other possible cause.
“About you? I don’t know, Faith, how do I know what other people think about you without asking them. I’m not a mind reader, so how should I know what they think?” Buffy attempted to deflect.
Faith didn’t draw back. She licked her full lips, slowly and deliberately, and Buffy’s breath caught as her eyes automatically dropped to watch. How did Faith make them look so damn soft and full and…nope, not finishing that thought.
“You know what you think, though,” Faith prodded. Her hand came forward slowly, a warm palm resting against Buffy’s bicep, and Buffy tried and could not suppress the shiver that ran through her at her touch. “You could start there. What do you, Buffy Summers, think of me, other than possibly not crazy anymore?”
This was definitely dangerous territory. This was the time where Buffy should jerk away, taking back a well defined space between her and Faith again. This was the time she should cut off any emotions beyond irritation, where she should make an excuse, any excuse, to find somewhere she had to be and something she had to do. Somewhere and something that would not involve Faith Lehane.
The air had changed between them, charged with a nearly visible electricity alit with the possibility of something both scarier and more exciting than Buffy could find words for. She could barely breathe with the thickness of the anticipation pulsing between them, closing them off from everything else in the world, as they both waited for Buffy to make her choice.
And Buffy tried to make the choice that seemed right, the choice that seemed safe. She tried to shrug away from Faith, to dismiss her, to break the space with careless words meant to rebuild the emotional wall she had always made sure to duck behind when it came to interacting with Faith. It was what she had always done before, any time the wall seemed about to crack or peel away.
Buffy opened her mouth, but just before she spoke, Willow’s face flickered into her thoughts. She envisioned the disappointment in the other woman’s eyes, the way she had looked at Buffy as though she thought less of her as she called her a coward. She remembered how she had inwardly flinched at Willow telling her that she was hurting herself, and as she raised her eyes to Faith’s, she let herself understand for the first time that it was true.
She was hiding. She was hiding from Faith, from everyone, and even from herself. And she was so damn tired of trying so damn hard to maintain the effort of staying safe. When had it ever worked, anyway? Physically, mentally, emotionally- what made Buffy Summers, the Slayer, really think she could ever, in any way, be safe?
Buffy breathed in shakily, then let her breath come back out more slowly as she continued to think. But thoughts were what always seemed to trip her up, whereas impulse and emotions, as much as they sometimes hurt, had nearly always seemed to steer her in the direction she needed to go. It was how she operated as a Slayer- not by logic and thought, but by instinct and gut. It was part of the reason she was still, against all odds, here to stand in front of Faith at all, the reason she was the longest lasting Slayer in history.
Maybe this was one more thing she had to do by impulse.
“I think…” she said slowly, in response to Faith’s challenge of a question. “What I think of you, Faith…is that I’m scared to let myself know what I really think of you.”
Faith’s hard expression flickered, and she blinked, taken aback, her hazel eyes losing some of the flint they had harbored. She blinked again, shaking her head, as though to clear her ears from mishearing Buffy’s words.
“You- you what?”
Buffy swallowed, her lips suddenly dry, and resisted the urge to lick them as she attempted to explain herself, without giving herself the time to think first about what words might emerge.
“I…I think, I think I don’t want to know what I think because I think what I think, I mean, what I think of you, is something I don’t want to really know. Because it might be something I’ve been trying not to think, for a long time now. Or maybe something I always did think, but didn’t know it, or didn’t want to know it. I think if I knew it, it would be too hard, or too much, or it would hurt, or you would do something to make it hurt, or I would do something wrong, or mess it up, or one of us would- I don’t know, it’s a lot of thinking and a lot of feeling, and so I just-“
Faith’s hand reached out between them, pressing a gentle but firm finger against Buffy’s lips as her eyes locked on Buffy’s and held them without words. Buffy’s breathing stuttered, and her words died on her tongue. She could think of nothing else to say; she could think of nothing, period, except Faith’s eyes, dark, deep, and plain with their desire.
Faith’s hand slid over from Buffy’s lips to cup her cheek in her palm as her head tilted slightly, a wordless request that Buffy assumed to be one for permission. Whatever Faith saw in her expression must have been close enough to a confirmation, because Faith took a breath, leaned forward, and closed her eyes, just as she pressed full lips against Buffy’s, just firmly enough to draw Buffy’s apart.
Buffy responded on instinct, letting her lips be parted by Faith’s, letting Faith’s scent mingle over her, the warmth of her body coming into close contact with her own. She kissed her back, soft, slow, tentative at first, and Faith responded in kind, giving Buffy the space and opportunity to change her mind and draw back. But Buffy didn’t. She didn’t want to. Her body felt alit from within the longer it remained enmeshed with Faith’s, every nerve of her skin sparking and singing with shivery awareness of life in a way she had not felt in years- maybe had never quite felt before at all.
It was Buffy who gripped Faith’s hair in one fist, tugging her closer not quite gently as she deepened the kiss into something rougher, messier, almost urgent. It was Buffy who forgot to breathe when her tongue slid against Faith’s, whose heart stuttered and then galloped out of control as Faith’s hand splayed across the small of her back and pushed her body closer still, so they stood torso to torso, pelvis to pelvis. It was Buffy whose teeth nipped at Faith’s lower lip, whose nails dragged down Faith’s scalp and started to ascend her neck.
But it was Faith who pulled back.
Breathing unevenly, chest heaving, Faith swallowed hard, seeming not to hear the muffled noise of instinctive protest Buffy issued as she disengaged from her lips. She didn’t step entirely out of reach, her hand still resting on Buffy’s back, and her free hand, shaking, drifted up to lightly touch Buffy’s face. When Buffy, equally breathless, looked into her eyes, she saw the other woman’s arousal, but it was overshadowed by confusion, even fear.
“You…you didn’t hit me,” Faith breathed out, staring into Buffy’s eyes, seeming to be searching for a very specific response.
Buffy felt Faith’s palm twitch against her cheek and realized that it wasn’t only Faith’s hand that was shaking. She drew in a still unsettled breath, then let the impulse to cover Faith’s unsteady hand with hers take over, giving it a gentle squeeze.
“No,” she replied, her voice small but sure.
“You didn’t pull away,” Faith continued, seeming to need to say these words aloud, as though the events could not quite be real to her without Buffy confirming them.
“No,” Buffy murmured, swallowing, pressing her hand just a little more firmly against Faith’s. “I didn’t.”
“And you kissed me.” Faith’s voice was nearly a whisper, holding hope and awe and the same lasting fear that Buffy had already observed in her gaze. “You kissed me back.”
This was the time, Buffy knew, where she could take it back. This is the time where she could draw the line, forever, where she could label what had always sparked and buzzed between them as nothing to be taken seriously, the temporary blurring of the line as nothing more than curiosity, never to be repeated. This was the time she could step back from Faith’s grasp, cross her arms against further physical or emotional contact, and keep herself distant. Keep herself safe, and maybe keep Faith safe too, in the long run.
She could take it back, and Faith wouldn’t protest. It seemed to be what she expected, something she would not challenge or fight. It would be the easy thing to do.
But it wouldn’t be right. And Buffy knew now, with a certainty that was rare for her when it came to any sort of emotional connection or relationship, that it was not what she wanted.
She laced her fingers through Faith’s, gently easing them to accept hers, and then brought their joined hands down from her face to settle just above her heart. Faith’s eyes trailed down to follow their path before looking back at Buffy, her brow slightly furrowed, even as Buffy’s heartbeat slowed to a steady rhythm beneath their clasped hands.
“I did,” Buffy told her, keeping Faith’s hand firm against her beating heart. “I kissed you back.”
When she leaned in, Faith met her halfway, eyes closed, her arm encircling Buffy’s waist in a tight embrace. Buffy could feel the firmness of her muscle under spare flesh, and she marveled at the contrast of Faith’s strength with her soft skin and the curve of her breasts, pressing into Buffy’s own. She smelled coconut shampoo and a hint of tobacco, mingled with something deeper, a scent that was uniquely Faith’s own. As Faith’s mouth met hers, wet, working, and so very wanting, Buffy’s free hand slid beneath the material of her tank top, drawing Faith just as close in to her as Faith was holding her.
This would have to be a conversation, with words that were more than bantering insults and insinuations, more than stilted half sentences and questions that were only partially asked. They would need to talk, maybe a lot, and maybe more than once. But right now, no words were needed. Right now, all the words they hadn’t said, all the gestures they had never completed, they all seemed superfluous when they simply let lips and hands take over. And Buffy was fine with this, more than happy to let her body take control, to show the feelings she always seemed to overthink and screw up when she tried to put them into words.
Sometimes, a Slayers’s body had better instincts than their mind. And after all, when it came to the physical aspects of Slaying, she and Faith had always been a fantastic team.
The end