Fanfiction: He's The Light In Her Fridge
From Dusk to Dawn
Faith checks her arms; stake and knife, check; steel-toed boots, yes, vampire: almost ready. Said vampire comes out of the bedroom, shrugging on his duster. He looks happy, grinning widely in anticipation of their nightly patrol. Hunting’s been good lately; Clem’s predictions of business getting better have come out so far. One patch of Spike’s hair is still greenish from last night’s fight, when a Mazeltoth demon slimed them both from top to toe with his green sperm. They successfully interrupted a mating that in a matter of days would have covered Cleveland with billions of little froggy demons, but Spike’s hair’s still grass after several washings, so it will probably have to be re-bleached. It makes his blue eyes turquoise and his cheeks almost rosy in comparison. Faith tucks her arm in his and they make for the bike.
The moment they shut the front door a whining starts up.
“That the phone, love?” Spike asks.
“I guess,” Faith says. “Have you seen it lately? Haven’t touched it since we moved in.”
Faith finds her key and they get back in, in search of the phone. It keeps ringing obligingly somewhere in their bedroom, but in spite of its shrilling it can’t be found. The ringing goes on, relentlessly frazzling their jacked-up pre-patrol nerves. Spike finally kicks the door of the closet and yells, “Shut up or show yourself, bloody useless piece of technology!”
The door crumples from the impact of Spike’s sturdy boot and supernatural frustration. It reveals a heap of somber-hued sweaters and jeans lying on the bottom of the closet, since the shelving gave up its hold on life almost immediately after they arrived. Spike starts rooting around in the pile, the clothes flying up behind him like clods of dirt from a dog after a bone.
“Hey! I thought I lost that sweater,” Faith says happily, holding up a purple bat-sleeved object.
Spike grunts. At last the phone becomes visible, hooked up to a plug inside the closet.
“Oh, yeah,” Faith says, “I remember. That was the only working electricity I could find the first day.”
The phone is still ringing. Spike hands it to Faith with apprehensive fingertips. “Giles”, the phone blinks furiously. “Giles, Giles”.
Faith swallows. A summons from the Upper Watcher. Can this be good?
She presses the little green button and says, “Um, hi, Giles.”
“We were about to leave for patrol; just lucky we heard you in time.”
“Dawn? Here? Why? Um, let me check with Spike?”
Faith covers the phone with her hand and says to Spike, “Giles wants us to take Dawn for a couple of weeks while he goes to England. What do you think?”
She doesn’t particularly like Dawn, but as she’s Buffy’s sister she can hardly say no, can she? She does dread boring visits to the zoo and the mall. Maybe, since Dawn was all research girl, she can be parked at the library all day. This lightens the dread a little. Also she’s gonna buy Dawn earplugs, since no way can she and Spike lower the noise level of their fucking.
Spike is slow in reacting. His face gets that wooden suffering look she associates with Buffy. He lifts his hand absently and runs it through his freshly gelled hair, which rises up in pale yellow and green spikes. He clears his throat, shifts his duster more comfortably around his shoulders.
“Well, yeah, ‘course the Nibblet is welcome if she wants to come.”
“Well, it’s not Dawn on the phone, it’s Giles,” Faith says. “You wanna speak to her? You can ask Giles…”
“No, no, that’s fine,” Spike says hastily.
Although Giles accepted Spike as her Watcher, they are not exactly on speaking terms. Robin Wood and Giles conspired somehow to have Spike killed, and she sort of thinks she shouldn’t have slept with Robin because of that. Nobody touches her Spike.
Giles rattles on and Faith is dancing with suppressed slaying lust when he finally finishes talking. A nest of vampires, which they know about courtesy of Clem’s information network, urgently awaits destruction and their anticipation is honed to a fine point by now. They escape the nagging phone with a roar, diving nose-first into the murky grayness outside. Morgan has prepared a portable fire spell they want to use because it looked so cool when they tried it out, incinerating a trembling aspen from their garden as a vampire stand-in.
*
Faith is still lying in bed and being deliciously pampered. On last night’s little outing the biggest vampire tore a whole tombstone from the ground and used it as a Faith-bat, and although Spike dusted him at once, a fair amount of damage was done. She’s now a mottled purple-black all over her left side. Kennedy and Morgan took over the rest of the night for her. In spite of a slight panic attack at the thought of letting her hatchlings fly free, she has to admit she couldn’t have made it. So she’s lying back in the pillows, idly playing with her good hand in Spike’s still multicolored hair, when a rumbling in her belly announces an appetite more urgent than coming one more time.
Spike looks up from between her thighs and wipes off his mouth. “I’ll get it, pet. What do you fancy? Muesli with yogurt? Fruit juice?”
Pancakes with syrup would be really nice, but Spike’s culinary talents, although unfurling hesitant little wings, don’t stretch that far yet. She’ll have to ask Tara to show him how. For now she regretfully settles for muesli and coffee. According to Spike all this healthiness has improved her fighting and her scent, so there must be some point to it, but she herself hasn’t noticed any difference.
She closes her eyes, the better to enjoy the sounds of Spike wrestling with the fridge and the coffee machine. He’s on bad terms with them both right now, because he thinks they spoil his blood and boil his coffee on purpose. He refuses to take responsibility for his own role in the vampire-machine relationship and the three of them are really going to have to talk about it before permanent damage occurs.
A shrill sound makes her sit bolt upright in her bed, which aggravates her bruised ribs and sore butt. What the hell is it? A door opens and a man’s voice sounds. Faith stiffly levers herself off the bed and after slinging Spike’s duster around her shoulders goes to investigate.
It’s Giles. A sheep-skinned Giles in her kitchen, his neck hidden in pale yellow cashmere, looking annoyed and tired. Spike is making googly eyes at the tall Goth girl Giles has in tow. He’s forgotten he’s buck naked, and the girl stares back with great interest at the expanse of cream colored vampire skin behind the Corn Flakes box.
When Faith limps in, Giles’ eyes slide to her partially visible breasts first and she’s never disliked him more. He’s not supposed to look at her like that, he’s a Watcher and not as young and cute as he used to be. His face puckers up in distaste and the unfairness in that makes Faith’s blood boil. Ogling first, disapproval second, huh? Giles’ eyes slide around the kitchen furtively, no doubt discovering subtle signs of debauchery she can’t identify. Maybe it’s her dirty dishes stacked haphazardly on top of the counter, showing off their blemished bellies unashamedly. Well, she’s not ashamed of them, or her body. She folds her arms under her breasts and registers Giles jerking his head away with glee. What is it with the Watcher sneaking in unannounced and all?
The Goth girl squeaks like Dawn and of course, she is. She’s towering over Faith and her black-ringed eyes caress Spike’s naked form in a very grown up way. Spike stumbles a step forward, like a puppet on strings attached to Dawn’s eyes.
“Li’l Bit!” he says hoarsely.
“Spike!” Giles barks. “Go dress yourself, man, this is not appropriate.”
Dawn giggles and Spike obeys stiffly. Faith cannot imagine Spike obeying an order like that and looks at Giles suspiciously. Is this a spell? What have they done to the confident smiling guy who was eating her and making breakfast?
“Giles?” Faith says. “What are you doing here?”
Giles manages not to look at Faith’s half-clothed body again, but doesn’t meet her eyes either.
“I did call, Faith,” he says, frowning.
“Well, yeah, but you didn’t say you were coming today!” Faith protests. Or did he? Her mind might have been more on patrol than on arrival dates, but still.
Giles’ eyes shift away again. Something’s not right there. Dawn plunks down a carryall on the floor and settles herself on a kitchen chair, fishnetted legs crossed brazenly. Her vinyl skirt is both short and slashed, showing alluring glimpses of more Dawn than Faith has ever seen. Her legs are long and shapely, and when Faith wrenches her eyes away from them she meets Giles’, who must have been looking at the same spot she was. Ew.
Although Faith is glad that Giles hightails it almost immediately back to the airport, she still thinks his haste is a little bit insulting. They and their guest take their coffee in the living room. It looks halfway decent, although the Christmas tree is shedding badly. The Cheetos and Reese’s decoration scheme looks sad instead of inventive in the harsh light of day.
“Gee, you don’t often see a Christmas tree this time of year,” Dawn says perkily. “Cool. If you wait you can hang Easter eggs in it.”
Faith is kinda waiting for Spike to defend her and the tree, but he’s just staring at Dawn with this awe. She gently pushes his jaw in place when she walks past him. Spike gazes on, managing no more than a distracted nod. And Dawn just sits there, glowing with being gazed at.
The weapons room, also known as the second bedroom, is hastily restored for Dawn to its former identity. Dawn politely thanks Faith for letting her stay, but isn’t subtle enough to hide her dismay at the dusty, cramped room without any pretensions of it being a teenager’s dream. Or is it deliberate? Faith is a little shamed for thinking this. Dawn is Joyce’s daughter; she wouldn’t try to put her down.
“Hey, Dawnie, howya been?” Faith says. Lame-o, she thinks. “Still going to school?”
“Sure,” Dawn says. “I’ll need good grades to go to the Watchers’ Academy, or Cambridge maybe.”
She flips her black, purple tipped sheet of hair.
Dawn a Watcher? Scary, scary thought. But then, she was big with the Sumerian and the Turkish.
Dawn has brought a Grateful Dead poster, which she insists on hanging in the kitchen. It clashes with their yellowing wallpaper, but what wouldn’t? Faith resists the temptation to draw a big red circle around the day she’s gonna leave. She doesn’t know why Dawn is getting her riled so badly, she didn’t used to mind her. Anyway, Dawn is Buffy’s sister, she owes her hospitality.
Dawn and Spike return to their gaze-fest, and Faith decides to go shopping. Somehow Wal-Mart, usually empowering and comforting, really, totally pisses her off today. It’s full of mothers and kids obstructing the aisles and all the pristine packaging stares boldly back at her, daring her to buy them. There is nothing she wants, and when she returns a coupla hours later, sans groceries but with a great thundercloud hanging over her left shoulder, Dawn and Spike have only slightly changed position. They’re now turned towards each other, and sit talking softly, nodding and murmuring like delayed mirror images.
Faith joins them, but all they can talk about is Buffy, Buffy living, Buffy dying. Faith absolutely still thinks of Buffy now and then, but hey, she wasn’t a saint or something, just a girl with a mission and a hard life. The reverent words, endlessly repeated, start to grate real soon and she changes to go running. This could be a long visit.
*
Another snowy vampire filled night in Cleveland. She envies the monsters on nights like this; none of them seem to feel any pain from the weather. The human and more or less human members of the Faith gang are bundled into so many layers of clothing that they look like three of the seven dwarves. Faith is Grumpy and Morgan Sneezy, with Dawn standing in for Snow White. She’s dressed in expensive pale blue skiing clothes, which are light as air and keep her perfectly warm on patrol, even if she usually doesn’t contribute anything beyond comments on demonic languages. For the rest, Morgan throws combustion spells at vamps, covered by Kennedy; Faith kicks ass and dusts them; Dawn hangs out with Spike and Clem.
Her little gang is turning into a smooth fighting machine, but still, patrol is less fun these days. Faith is busy keeping her flock together, Spike is busy keeping Dawn happy, so there just doesn’t seem to be time for them to slay together like they used to. Thank God she’s only staying a month.
*
The house is always full now. Apart from the gang, Dawn is there all the time, which means they can’t fool around too much in bed or at all on the couch, and she needs breakfast and dinner and lunch at regular hours, and can’t get about on her own so she needs to be driven everywhere. Faith grits her teeth and tries to enjoy the company.
*
She gets back from an unsuccessful job interview one dark afternoon and finds Dawn and Morgan ensconced on the couch, forcing her to retire to the uncomfortable chair. She’s happy that Morgan has someone her own age to talk to, but it’s a drag to be odd wheel out.
“Baden-Powell’s, like, the major text on fire spells,” Dawn is saying to Morgan.
“I use Booth,” Morgan counters. “Less force, more subtlety.”
Both Baden-Powell and Booth are thick flaking tomes which exude musty smells and contain vellum pages full of illegible lettering. Faith yawns.
“What’s this, Faith?”
Morgan is holding up Clem’s nutrition book. It’s only slightly thinner and newer than the spell books.
Faith flaps a tired hand. “Cook book,” she says. “Full of healthy veggie goodness. Don’t bother.”
Morgan opens it anyway. ‘How to keep your humans’ hides healthy and glossy’, ‘Treating skin sores’, ‘Encouraging conception’, ‘Maximum weight gain’, Do you know what I’m thinking?”
Spike breezes in, so Faith will have to take a rain check on Morgan’s thoughts. Suddenly there is enough room on the couch, next to Dawn.
“How are my girls?” Spike asks no one in particular, and bends over to peck Dawn on the cheek and pat her hair.
Morgan meets Faith’s gaze and does an eye roll. Faith rolls hers back, a little relieved that she’s not the only one to notice the ickiness.
*
Faith has exhausted herself batting Morgan’s fire balls at targets, because although Morgan does a nifty ball of fire, she has no aim and needs a Slayer to get the damn things in the right place. She walks straight to the fridge, thinking about taking a long hot shower on her own, and gets out a carton of milk. The cold milk is glugging satisfyingly down her throat when she hears people talking in the next room.
“…come on, Dawn, this is so about Buffy! You don’t think he’d….”
“I liked him first, you know!”
Faith lets the fridge door slam a warning and Kennedy stomps into the kitchen. She colors up when she sees Faith. She fiddles about in the fridge, first picking up some sweet&sour pork leftovers, then a piece of moldy cheese, but doesn’t settle on anything. Faith’s milk turns to ice cream in her stomach.
“Faith? Come outside for a minute?”
“Okay.”
It’s nice outside. The sky is hazy, flimsy clouds are gathering mass for some serious snowing later on, but for now there is a watery yellow sun peeking through. Planes hum cheerily overhead, trains chuff by, with the highway adding the base note to the city music.
“Hoo-ee!”
“Jesus!” Kennedy leaps up and claps her hands to her ears. “Doesn’t it drive you crazy, these trains yelling in your ear all day?”
Faith looks up in surprise. “No, I kinda like it, kinda homey, you know.”
Kennedy looks at her long and thoughtfully. Faith thinks she might as well have ‘wrong side of the tracks’ tattooed on her forehead. She doesn’t care, but she thinks it matters to Kennedy.
“So, um, how long is Dawn gonna stay?” Kennedy asks, looking away from Faith.
Faith swallows. If even self-absorbed Ken has noticed something, it must be really bad. She kicks a heap of slushy snow into chaos. “Another two weeks, why?”
“Nothing.” Silence. “Want me to take her to the mall tomorrow, get her out of your hair?”
Faith blinks. Bit of dust in her eye. “Yeah. Thanks. That would be cool.”
She looks up to find Kennedy’s eyes on her, dark brown with serious tidings. Ken nods jerkily and claps her hand on Faith’s arm. “Take care. See, I actually knew that Will was going to break up with me for a long time, I could see her psyching herself up to it and not making it, but I didn’t wanna know. So I get what you’re going through.”
Shit. Kennedy should just have stopped after ‘take care’. Faith was actually grateful until then. Now she’ll have to admit something to herself she doesn’t want to.
*
Faith wakes up in the middle of the night because someone is crying. It can only be Dawn. Spike sighs a soft breeze against her neck hairs and gets up stealthily. Faith falls asleep again. Not her concern.
She wakes up again when the door opens softly and a very silent Spike comes in the bedroom again. She has no idea how much time has passed. He walks around the bed and slides in. Faith is almost asleep again when she realizes the body nestling against her is warm. Her body careens into overdrive and she is immediately chilled to the bone, heart banging against the door of alarm central to wake her up. She doesn’t move a muscle, but she knows that Spike will have noticed all these little signs of agitation. Dawn. Her fingers drill into her pillow in a rage so hot that she’s surprised that her cover doesn’t catch flame. What the fuck does that little bitch think she’s doing with her guy?
She turns on her back. Spike is motionless. Vague illumination from the streetlights show a light spot in the bed where his bleached hair is. That means he’s not looking at her.
“Spike?”
White flashes from eyes opening. He doesn’t speak. Faith puts a hand on his still warm stomach. Her hand twitches.
“Spike? What happened?”
Spike doesn’t answer, just lies there clenching his fingers. Now Faith has to believe the worst.
Something on his face is catching a glimmer of light. Faith reaches for it. It’s wet. She doesn’t need any more clarification. She yanks the covers away from Spike and gives him savage kick.
“Out!” she says. “Out now!”
Spike bends his head and she almost dies when she sees how humble and boyish his neck is, ghostly pale in the dark room. He gathers his clothes silently and leaves the bedroom. She can hear him dress and use the front door.
She lies staring at the ceiling for the rest of the night, eyes dry and painful from not crying. Her heart keeps hammering away and her stomach churns and spasms. So this is how it feels like. Having your heart broken is like when you drink too much coffee or eat something bad. She’s so stupid. If she hadn’t acted like a love-sick idiot, pretending to be all normal girl with a guy and friends this wouldn’t have happened. She’s gonna go back to lone wolf Faith right now. No more lovey dovey stuff. Ditch the gang. Disappear into the wilds of un-Watched America, doing good anonymously, driving off into the sunset on her trusty bike. This picture of the new lonely Faith finally makes her break out into silent sobs, silent because Dawn doesn’t need to know she’s crying. And why the hell is she lying here waiting for the sun to come up? She has nothing to fear from the night.
She dresses, stomping around and banging closet doors, hopefully depriving the little bitch in the guest room of some sleep. She doesn’t feel like eating anything; drinks from the tap and explodes from the front door, suddenly really worried if the bike will still be there. She’s halfway across the yard when she realizes there’s a dark form sitting on the porch steps, his head in his hands. Well, she’s not gonna look back. An image of a guilt-ridden Spike, sitting on the porch until he bursts into flame niggles at her. She just can’t make herself think of something else, but there is the little victory of not looking into her rear mirrors until she’s sure she can’t see him anymore. Too late she realizes he never shows up in any mirror.
So, where to go? She didn’t bring any of her stuff. Huh. Since when has she needed things to slow her down? She’s bad, she’s mad and she’s back. America, here she comes. She’s gonna ride until she drops. For no good reason Kennedy’s hotel suddenly appears on her right, and before she can decide to ride on past it, she’s parking her bike and hurrying through the lobby. At this hour, nobody is alert enough to stop her and she’s pounding on Ken’s door with her sight gone strangely blurry.
Ken, sleepy and disheveled, needs only one look to open up her arms. Faith has an out of body experience right then and there, looking down on the girl sobbing on Kennedy’s shoulder. Kennedy pats her back and murmurs soothing things. Mad bad Faith is not in charge, wet soppy Faith is.
It’s strangely peaceful to lie on Kennedy’s bed with a wet cloth over her face and listen to her call room service and putter around, probably dressing. She’s amazed at Ken, who seems to know exactly what to do. She has another heaving, tearing crying jag, and then Ken feeds her a giant breakfast, which seems to settle at least half of her floaty detached feeling.
When Faith is done with her third cup of coffee she starts shredding a croissant so she won’t have to look at Ken’s eyes, which have gone dark and serious.
She grabs Faith’s hands. “What happened, Faith? You two have a fight?”
Faith doesn’t want to say something out loud, because that might make things even worse, but then, could they be?
“He came back to bed all warm,” she says. Her voice is as broken as her illusions. “Means he musta been pretty close to the little bitch.”
She sees Ken swallow and tear up a bit. It’s sort of awesome to see someone cry on your behalf, like you’re important and loved. It sets her off again as well.
When they’re both calmer, Ken says, “And when you asked him what happened? What did he say?”
“He wouldn’t say, and I just kicked him out of the house! What do you think?”
Kennedy bends her head and strokes her arm. “So you’re not sure he actually slept with her?” she says slowly.
Faith is scornful. “What does it matter? He looked all sorry and sad, so he thinks he did something bad. And anyway, I should have done it before. You know what the last weeks have been like, all big puppy eyes and panting, close on little Miss Summers’ heels.”
“Yeah. Like watching him trail after Buffy herself,” Kennedy says. “Barf-worthy. You two were fun together, like partners, not like mistress and lap dog.”
Faith giggles. It’s a very small, sad giggle, but it’s a start. She devours some more breakfasty things.
“So, you gonna go back and kick her out, too?”
This makes Faith pause. Ken is right. Why should she leave? She’s got a cool job here, and friends. Let them fuck off and be unhappy somewhere else.
The phone rings. It’s Morgan. She tried Faith’s house and got no answer. They decide to go to Morgan’s place. Faith gets a warm kind of feeling in her stomach. It’s like she’s Buffy. People care about her, they rally for her.
They find Morgan in a sea of pastel colored maps of Cleveland. Her printer is spitting out sheet after sheet of something. Her face is smudged with ink and tiredness, but her cheeks are pink and her hands dance while she’s talking.
“See, I found these transactions, all by the same person. Someone’s buying land around here, big chunks of arable land, under different names, but if you track them through records it’s all the same company. Guess who owns it?” she says triumphantly.
Faith has no idea, but she’s too sweet in her zeal for them not to try.
“The mayor?” she offers.
“Arnold Schwarzenegger?” from Ken.
Morgan looks at them in scorn. “Have you been paying any attention to my research? It’s Clem and Willy. Don’t you get it? They’re buying land! They’re starting up the family business again.”
Faith shoves a map off the couch and sits down. She’s not feeling too bothered by all this.
“And this is evil how?” Kennedy says.
Morgan brandishes Clem’s cookbook. She needs two hands for it. “A recipe for baby liver pâté? What does that tell you?”
Kennedy goes up to Morgan and whispers. Morgan colors. “Sorry, Faith, you’re in no mood to hear this now, I know. You can go grill them later. It’s not as if I expect you to do it today, okay?”
A flash of shocking pink in the corner of Faith’s eye grabs her attention. Tara materializes. Morgan must have contacted her. Tara blows her a kiss and mimics stroking her hair. It’s like she’s really being touched, and of course she starts dribbling snot and tears again, but she’s past shame by now. They know the score anyway, so there’s no need to hold up a cool front. She’s not cool, she’s lukewarm and sodden with crying, but she doesn’t care. They have a nice crying foursome and it feels surprisingly good.
“I thought you loved Dawn,” Faith says to Tara.
“I do,” Tara says, but she looks stern. “But I don’t think she’s doing the right thing. I understand that they’re both sad about Buffy, but that’s no reason for Dawn to come between you and Spike. And Spike’s still mourning Buffy, I get that too, but it’s wrong to use Dawn as a substitute.”
Tara explains it all so simply. And yeah, it’s more sad than evil, and not about Faith at all. Her eyes get all clear and she just has to hug these girls to show that she loves them. She even forgets about Tara and her arm goes right through her. She knows exactly what to do now. It’s her name on the lease, she’s gonna go back to the house and tell them to clear out. The sadness won’t go away that easily, of course, but she’ll deal.
The girls come with her, all piled into Kennedy’s car. Tara rides along in a show of solidarity, although she could just wink out and materialize at her destination. Faith really appreciates it. The house is empty. Dawn’s stuff is gone and her bed is stripped. That’s cool, because who needs painful confrontations anyway? They order pizza. After the gorge-fest they go out again to the mall and pick out some clothes for Faith. Morgan has great taste, which you would never guess looking at her moth eaten pastel shapelessness. Morgan claims it’s her disguise. Whatever. Faith is not inclined to feel critical of them at all today.
Kennedy wants to go to Willy’s Bar & Grill to question Willy, but Faith doesn’t feel like kicking ass today. After drinking champagne and watching a very soppy British movie at Kennedy’s room Faith decides to go home, alone. They all offer to sleep over, but Faith really wants to do this. They’ve been awesome, but Faith just wants to be by herself for a minute, rehash all those feelings and decisions she made today, see if they hold up when she’s on her own.
In her bedroom she finds that Spike’s duster and clothes are still there. He must have forgotten them in his hurry to go away with his new love. She’ll dump them tomorrow.
She makes a giant batch of popcorn and tries to watch another movie. For some reason the kid reminds of her Spike, with his sharp little face and the way he cares for his crazy mother, and she can’t suppress a visual of him and Dawn holding hands on a plane, looking happy and beautiful. Stupid movie. She turns to another channel, a truly horrible movie she’s seen before, but at least she’s sure there is no Spike in there. But there is a jilted lover and Faith turns off the TV. She gets it already, she’s not the only one to go through this. The point is, watching all those dumb movies doesn’t make her feel better when she’s the one starring in her own weepy story.
The popcorn is cold when she remembers it again. The fridge is almost empty, and to top it all the fridge light is dead. This makes Faith cry. She’s lost count of the amount of times she has cried today, and she isn’t even drunk. Hey, booze would be a good thing about now. The beer is gone, but she finds a bottle of JD in the cupboard. The living room looks utterly bleak without the TV and the vampire. In a surge of angry energy she wrestles the ugly dead Christmas tree out to the yard and sets it on fire. There, at least it’s doing something useful now. The tree gives off a nice smoky smell, only slightly spoiled when a forgotten Cheetos package flames up and dies in a puff of black smoke. Ugh.
She stands in the yard watching the tree burn up and the last red ember glows out. Too bad her achy heart won’t burn out that easily. She trudges back inside. The living room looks even worse now, so she takes the JD to bed. Hopefully she’ll pass out soon. The first taste is bad, and the second no better. What do normal people, who can’t slay away their frustrations, do when there is nothing on TV and there is no one in their bed? Drink and drugs, is the only answer she comes up with. Well, maybe tomorrow. Just plain old sleep will do for now.
Her brain won’t fucking stop replaying every Spike and Dawn picture it has stored, and she wishes she could switch it off like the broken jukebox it resembles. If Buffy had to go through this a coupla times, no wonder she preferred to be dead. Maybe she’ll follow her example and jump off a bridge or something. She gets up, finds one of his unwashed T-shirts and puts it on her pillow. The scent fills her nose with musk under comforting pepper and powder and she can be weak this once.
She has fallen asleep, apparently, because she wakes up with a shock when someone starts tapping the front door. Who can that be? Finally, when she’s shuffled up sleepily on her bare feet, the tentativeness of the knocking clues her in. Here comes repentant lover. She doesn’t know what she’s gonna do, or say, all her girlfriends’ admonitions have flown out of her brain. She’s just gonna take it as it comes, she guesses.
It is the repentant lover. He’s standing there, hands jammed in his jeans pockets, eyes downcast, pale and small against the looming darkness. He left the duster, Faith remembers. Was that a signal that he would return? If so, she’d been too numb to pick up on that. Subtlety not being her thing.
“Is she…?” Faith jerks her head in the direction of the dark yard.
Spike shrugs almost imperceptibly and bites his lip. “I put her on a plane,” he says. He still looks at his shoes, not at her. “Can I come in?”
She opens the door. He hesitates on the threshold, looking at her from under his brows. He thinks he might need to be invited in, Faith realizes. She could have thought of that, it’s like changing the locks on a human lover, but she didn’t. If it’s about him she just doesn’t think.
She waits until he takes a deep breath and slowly lifts one foot into the house space.
She wants to ask, if Buffy dropped out of Heaven right now, would you go with her? But she doesn’t, because she knows the answer, always has. She lets go of the door and walks to the bedroom.
“I was sleeping,” she says, and crawls into bed without looking back.
Faith waits for what must be at least a minute, and he’s still not there. She can’t do the waiting thing anymore, turns her head and lifts the comforter.
“Well?” she says impatiently.
He’s standing there in the door opening, one hand in his hair, his other hand splayed against his dark shirt. He shrugs it off quickly, takes his shoes off with jerky movements – she hears a shoelace break – and slithers out of his jeans. The clothes lie where he stood and he gets in bed, slow again. Faith turns her head away again and hears him settle carefully a few inches away from her body. She sighs. Men. She wiggles backwards until her ass is in its usual position against his belly. He hesitates, she can feel his icy hand hovering over her hip, and finally decides to clasp her as he always does. His face comes to lie against the back of her head.
“Faith…” he says in a low rough voice.
“Shh. We’ll talk tomorrow.”
They shift around a bit and settle finally in the grooves they’ve worn against each other. He warms up quickly and Faith sleeps.
*
Faith wakes up like always, warm and safe, nose against Spike’s backbone. After a second of sleepy stretching memory kicks in and she freezes. She lies down again with slow soundless movements. Spike is still sleeping. There’s lots of ways they could do this. Talk now, fuck later. Fuck first, talk after, what’ll it be? Her instinctive decision from last night, to let him back in, doesn’t feel wrong, but she wants to chew on it a bit more before she swallows. She can feel the sun outside demanding to be let in, and she can’t let that happen, so she’d better get outside and meet the sun on its own turf. Even though the bedroom is on the north of the house, she closes the curtains extra securely. Sneaky sun might try to get in anyway. Faith leaves the nest with its familiar comforting sleep smell and the still warm drowsing vampire, silently gets her clothes and dresses in the kitchen.
She stuffs in a quick breakfast and walks outside chewing. The air outside shoves sharp needles of cold and brightness up her nose. With her head turned aside she walks into the yard until her eyes stop streaming and she can appreciate the sheer exhilarating sparkle of the morning. After months of grey skies and shadows, the sky and the snow seem to explode with pure new color, straight from the paint tube without any murkiness or doubt. The sky is bluer than Spike’s eyes, the snow as white as his skin and the sun competes with the yellowness of his hair. Faith takes in a few deep chilly breaths through her nose, eager to savor the non-smell of a world this fresh and young. Even Cleveland is pretty now, all her blemishes covered with a flattering layer of cushiony white, like a wedding dress.
There sure is a whole lotta snow covering their almost lawn, hiding all the unpleasant reminders of neglected gardening, of not even knowing where to begin gardening. Clearly making a snowman’s in order. Faith has only the haziest memories of making one before but it can’t be too hard if a kid can do it. She huffs and she puffs, rolling the rapidly growing ball on a zigzag pattern across the lawn. The snow under her boots triggers more winter memories of youth, that popping crackling sound your footsteps made, so that you knew by your ears alone if the snow was good for making missiles and men.
Her exertions have made her hot and sweaty, while at the same time she feels the cold biting the skin of her cheeks. The tips of her fingers are bright red and throbbing with life-giving blood. She knows that if she goes on too long, Slayer energy or not, they will turn white and dead with the onset of frostbite. She stuffs them in her pockets.
Spike the snowman is still bald and sightless. Faith looks around for materials to use for his hair and eyes, and is attracted by a flash of yellow from the black anorexic trees at the back of their lot. She tramps towards them through the knee-high snowdrifts and enters the woods. Fifteen feet in, the whole atmosphere has changed and Faith stops walking to take in her new surroundings. She isn’t in a suburban lot on the bad side of a big city any longer, but in the middle of wise and ancient nature, waiting patiently for spring. All sounds are muffled, and Faith can no longer identify their origin without thinking.
She puts one foot forward. The sound of her boot breaking through the snow is like a gun shot. A small white animal shoots up a tree and disappears. Faith tries to remain completely still, hoping to lure the little magic creature out of hiding again. At first her own breathing and the slight rustling of her clothes annoys her, as she can’t seem to stop them, but then she finds the right mindset for this. She pretends the sunny wintry forest is a moonlit graveyard, and the little pointy-nosed thing a demon, and then she has no trouble staying Slayer-still. A tiny pink snout inches forward around the bole of the tree and Faith, mouth open so she can keep motionless and not even blink, sees it snuffle and run back down the tree to disappear again under the snow. Faith wishes she knew anything about animals, like its name for instance. Other things she can guess, like the fact that it’s a predator, with its sharp little teeth and nervous speed.
She plods forward, looking for something yellow and something blue to make her Spike-man pretty. A tiny point of something thin and bright pokes through the snow. She kneels down to brush away the white powder and uncovers a five-pointed bright yellow star. It’s beautiful, and next to it is an even brighter red one. She can’t use that though, it’s the wrong shape to use for a mouth or bloodied fangs and she doesn’t want to tear up the beautiful thing.
While she’s kneeling there, she sees tiny tracks in the snow. They seem oddly spaced. Two identical prints of furry feet close together, then two bigger feet a little forward from that, with more space in between. Approaching these tracks in a V from the right are different tracks, four identical feet spaced one by one; a four footed thing setting its feet down one on the left, one on the right. Faith tries to mimic how the first animal must have walked, and ends up putting her hands side by side in the snow, using them to jump off and ending up with her two feet a little in front and by the side of it. It has to be like a frog or a rabbit, she deduces. Somehow frogs seem unlikely in this setting, although she doesn’t know why she thinks this. She follows the tracks. The other animal crosses the rabbitfrog tracks and there has clearly been a tussle, for the snow’s disturbed in a circle. Faith sees a few drops of blood, and then a dragging spoor though the snow. Good guess the other animal’s a predator, although she doesn’t know what kind. It’s won, anyway.
Thoughtfully Faith retraces her tracks. Rabbits and predators. A fox, or a wolf, maybe? She feels that she and the predators, little or small, are very much alike. They’re fierce and fast, and she imagines cracking a little neck with her teeth and feeling the hot blood spout into her mouth. She’s like them, a she-wolf.
She reenters the semi-civilized world of their suburban lot. No, she isn’t a wolf. She isn’t preying on a herd of sheep; she’s defending them against predators. She’s a sheep dog. This image is distinctly less cool and evokes bad hair days, but it still feels right. Yeah. Faith, defender of the pack. No, herd. Wolves run in packs. But dogs are descended from wolves, aren’t they? Wolves turned to the light side of the Force. It feels Slayerish and right, attuned to life and the rhythms of the wild world, and somehow out of place in this spot, a tiny patch of nature surrounded on all sides by smelly heavy industry and shrieking trains.
And what is she doing with Spike exactly, associating with a wolf? Or could Spike be classified as an honorary sheepdog? A picture of Spike with bed head surfaces in her mind and she smiles, her cheeks stiff in the frosty air. And Buffy, always pretending to be a sheep, and unhappy at the thought of being a dog, or resembling a wolf. Hmm. How did Buffy’s deal with the Scoobies, clearly all sheep related creatures, work? And why would she, Faith, need sheep around her? Well. Maybe to remind the shepherd dog that she wasn’t a wolf, so she wouldn’t run away into the wild and join the pack again, huh? For the second time in two months, she wishes she could talk to Giles right now. Not the embarrassed Giles who came in to bring Dawn, but the real one. He might have something to say on these matters. Or even Wesley. Wesley had kinda unsheepified the last time she’d seen him.
She puts the hair on her snowman Spike. There is too much contrast between the bright yellow leaf and the dead white snow. Real live Spike has creamy skin and paler hair, and he has much more life in him than this cold white frozen water.
Faith has successfully evaded thinking about yesterday so far. Now she can’t keep it in any longer. Her stake is always in her pocket, and she gets it out and stakes the snowman. He’s the kind of vampire that doesn’t turn to dust right away, so she kicks him to little pieces and stamps the pieces to powder. She kicks and kicks until she’s created her own little snowstorm, a whirling hot fury in the middle of a tiny white vortex. She takes a deep breath and looks around the yard. It just looks tussled and no one would know there was a snowman standing here a minute ago. She tosses the stake into the woods. Bad stake.
Spike is standing in the kitchen door bare chested, like a dollop of Kool Whip against the bluish snow, looking on with his face tight and closed. She walks up to him, shoulders roughly past him to get in. She peels off her outdoor clothes and tosses them away from her. There’s coffee. Good. She drinks a cup silently, warming her frozen heart and hands. She sets the empty cup down with a click. It cracks.
“So,” she says.
Spike swallows. “How mad are you?”
She smashes him up against the wall and rams her forearm against his throat.
“Pretty fucking mad!” she says, but pressed up against his body all she can think of is loving, not killing.
He’s limp and penitent in her arms. He turns his head away and spreads his arms. “Okay,” he says. “Do it. I’m sorry.”
“Aw, fuck. I’m not Buffy,” Faith says and lets him go. “Get your martyr kick somewhere else. Just tell me why.”
She sits down at the kitchen table, gets up again to get two new mugs and pours coffee. Spike sits down across the table from her, not touching her.
He takes a deep breath and blinks rapidly. “She just…she just smelled so much of Buffy. I know it was wrong, but…”
Faith holds up her hand. “You made me no promises. I just want to know…this is hard. I don’t wanna go through it again. Will something like this happen again?”
“No, it won’t.”
This talking thing is tricky. What she really wants to know is, did you fuck her, how many times and in what positions? It’s on the tip of her tongue, but she stops it from falling out. Because if she ask this, and he answers, other things might come out that she won’t like. Does he love her at all?
They like to drink their coffee hot, dark and strong like themselves, but it’s tepid by now because they have waited too long. Faith can’t stand the way he looks at her anymore, the blue of his eyes so dark it’s grey, that pretty mouth that should just kiss and swear all serious and tight. She gets up and clambers on his lap. It’s awkward, like she doesn’t even know him. She has to get away from his eyes and hides her face in his neck, where the skin is unblemished and pearly white. No hickeys or bites from former girlfriends, whatever they marked him with doesn’t show on the outside. Faith licks the skin, but he is clean and almost tasteless. She nibbles the tendon under the ear, then gnaws at it in earnest. Spike shivers and leans his head away to give her better access. She can feel under the tips of her fingers that Spike’s eyes are closed.
“You want to brand me, Faith? You don’t have the teeth for it,” he growls low in his throat.
That means he thinks it’s sexy, Faith knows. So does she. She sits up straight again, keeping her hands in the soft curls of his neck, and looks at him again. He looks steadily back. He often looks at her like that, all open and willing, all ‘take me I’m yours’, but what does it mean, when he really hankers after another Slayer, or worse, her little sister? She doesn’t know. It has to mean something that he’s here with her and not with Dawn.
She bends over to him, he’s almost warm under her hands now, his body eager to take on her heat, and kisses him with her eyes still open. There’s a head rush from feelings, so many of these feelings crowding in her head, she can’t name half of them and they make her hands tremble and her eyes burn. Aw shit, there’s gonna be another of those dumb crying things. Spike holds her neck and the small of her back tenderly and kisses her ear. Fuck, all the tenderness is not gonna make the crying time any shorter, but is kind of a relief to do it on his shoulder for a change.
Spike is just lifting her up, and Faith is mostly okay with the idea of sex in a minute, when the kitchen door opens noisily and someone comes in. Not now, she could scream in frustration, but doesn’t.
“Hey buddy, Faith,” Clem burbles. “Howya doing? I brought beer and dip!”
Morgan told her something about Clem, but Faith can’t remember what. Spike squeezes her hand, which she takes to mean that there will be sex later. No surprise there. Clem has come to watch some silly rerun on their TV, and Faith realizes the whole drama thing has passed him by.
“Where’s Dawnie?” Clem asks, and Faith feels sorry for him when Spike throws him a very dark look.
“Back to LA,” Spike says curtly, and thankfully Clem has sense enough not to pursue it.
They settle on the couch, and Faith wraps around Spike like spaghetti round a fork and plays with his fingers under the plaid. She’s actually sort of fine with this, maybe just cuddling was a better idea than fucking like bunnies right now, when she’s still kinda shaky on her own feelings and Spike’s.
She feels nothing but Spike’s lips, doesn’t look, just imagines them pink and swollen and tasting sweeter than spun sugar. She’s sinking into a happy kissing coma, drinking and licking from his mouth, when there’s a disturbance outside. A car stops, girlish voices shriek with excitement as they approach.
Faith freezes and hides under the blanket. More people, and now? But you can’t blow off the friends that were majorly kind to you, so she uncovers herself and tries to look friendly as they burst in. First in is a kind of Christmas sausage, which reveals itself on closer inspection to be Willy wrapped in glowing spell cords. Faith stares, too surprised to move, as a small black shape hurtles at Clem and socks him a big one on the jaw.
“Ha! Got them!” Morgan shouts and Kennedy makes a triumphant fist over the unconscious demon.
What the fuck? What are the girls thinking of, laying out and capturing these guys? Clem’s a friend and Willy’s a harmless acquaintance, and human.
“Ken, what the hell did you hit Clem for?” Faith asks.
“Faith, I told you yesterday, I’m sure I did!” Morgan protests but then she remembers yesterday, with Faith in less than receptive state, Faith can tell by her face. Her cheeks are bright red with cold and agitation, as red as the breast of her birds, who tweet and flutter like maniacs.
Kennedy finally registers the entwined Faith-Spike creature and several emotions flit over her face until she decides on caution.
“Hi Spike,” she says neutrally.
Only Faith feels the tremor in Spike’s voice when he says, “Hi Ken.”
Kennedy fiddles with her stake, and what she’s doing with it Faith has no idea, because it sure won’t work on Clem no matter where she sticks it. Morgan and Kennedy look at each other. Morgan pushes the living wurst on the uncomfortable chair and clears her throat.
“Spike, Faith,” she begins formally, “we have discovered that Willy and Clem were about to embark on a horrible crime.”
It’s like CNN. Spike and Faith sit up straighter. Faith notices a twitch in Clem’s left ear. He would like to know what he’s done, too, she guesses.
“We have irrefutable evidence that these two have been buying land for their new business venture.”
Yeah, and?
“We’ve found out what kind of business they were starting up. You see, Clem’s family used to raise human beings for slaughter, back in the old days. Right, Spike?”
Spike shrugs and nods. “‘S what he told me. Business folded before I knew him. Too many people came to California in the Goldrush, not enough isolation to make it work.”
“Willy’s family were like Kapos, they were overseers for the demons, and they got well paid and possibly some lifespan extension,” Morgan continues.
Kapos musta been some kind of traitors. Faith always knew Willy was a weasel.
Morgan flourishes printed schemes with lots of lines and squares and little numbers on it. “We’ve even found the blueprints, with plans of stables and drinking troughs and hatcheries!”
“You may not be aware of this, pet,” Spike says calmly, “but human beings don’t procreate by means of eggs.”
Morgan curls her lip at him. Their faces are at the same height, and the idea that Spike would ever fear this fluffy little ball of pluck makes Faith almost giggle. “Of course we do, Victorian ignoramus.”
Prejudices are starting to show through and it ain’t pretty. The leader must now intervene.
“There will be no slagging off of each other,” Faith says sternly as she gets up. “We will hear the evidence of both parties, stated calmly, with no calling of names.”
She’s watched these court movies often enough to know how it’s done.
Spike revives Clem with a splash of beer and helps him onto the couch.
“Gee, young lady, you wield a mean right hook,” Clem mumbles, rearranging his disordered wattle carefully.
“Clem, Morgan and Ken here think you’re starting up a human meat farm for demons. They’ve got pretty good evidence, whaddya say?” Faith says, in her role as judge.
“What?” Clem bleats and waves his ears and arms around, folds flapping like a middle-aged lady’s flesh. “Are you insane? What have you done to Willy? You know we’re good guys!”
“Better tell the girls what kind of cattle you were gonna raise, mate,” Spike says patiently.
“Ostrich!” Clem says. “Ostrich, it’s, like, the new beef! Why didn’t you find my purchase of ostrich eggs on the web, huh, and the trouble I’ve had importing them and the bribes I had to pay the city officials, human city officials, I might add. I’m an honest business man. I gave up eating human flesh a few lifetimes ago. Have you ever seem me eat human?”
He has a point. And he has as much right to do wrong and repent as anyone else, of course. But Ken wouldn’t be Ken if she didn’t find new bone to pick.
“So you ate my ancestors!” she says threateningly. “Assisting the white man in genocide, were you?”
“Please!” Morgan says. “Is eating Indians worse than eating Irish?”
“Some of them were Spanish…,”Clem starts, but sensibly doesn’t finish the sentence. Spike’s elbow in his ribs might have helped to bring that point home.
Faith does the summation. “So, guys, until we have further proof, we’re assuming Clem and Willy are innocent, right?”
Morgan and Kennedy nod reluctantly. Morgan waves her hand and her biggest bird flies up and pecks at a strategic spot in Willy’s bindings. They darken and fade away.
“What the fuck where you Powerpuff cunts doing?!” Willy says angrily. “Don’t think I’m ever gonna serve you…”
He’s cut off by Clem’s rubbery paw on his lips. “Hey, buddy, don’t go saying things you might be sorry for,” Clem says, with remarkable composure for a guy who’s been rudely hit and splashed with beer in the past ten minutes. “Mistakes were made, coulda happened to anyone, right?”
“Yeah,” Faith says. “It was a good piece of research, very clever thing you did, Mor. And you knocked him out just right, Ken. Unconscious, no permanent damage.”
Faith is kinda sorry for the girls. They spent a lot of time on this, and she should have noticed it before and put a stop to it, or asked Spike or something. Because she and Spike must have been pretty spectacularly unavailable for consultation on this. It’s really her fault, too, so she gets up to make coffee to atone, apologizes to Willy and Clem, finds cookies and is real busy with it.
Spike is slouching on the sofa, not really joining in the relieved talk, and she plunks down next to him, to indicate once again that he is totally forgiven. At least as far as the gang needs to know.
Tara materializes with a ping in the middle of the room. That ping is so thoughtful of her, but that’s just how she is. She looks tired and drawn, which must be a conscious effort on her part, a message.
Spike vibrates under her arm, but it takes seconds before he starts to talk. First he checks out Faith’s face, as if asking permission, then rubs his hands on his jeans. Faith may not be the smartest cookie in the basket, but by now she has gotten through loud and clear what the question is gonna be about.
“How’s Dawn?” he asks quietly, but it happens to coincide with a lull in the conversations, so everyone hears it anyway.
Faith can see Morgan and Kennedy rev up, but she yanks out their ignition-cables with a look. Her business. She’s shared all her woes with them, but they’re not the boss of her heart issues.
Tara rubs her forehead. “She’s not fine, of course, but sort of okay. We talked, and she realizes she needs help. She’s very confused, right now, and she’s been through a lot.” She looks sideways at Spike. “There had been something similar…some trouble with Mr. Giles, which is why she went to stay with you. So, you don’t need to feel it’s all your fault.”
Spike’s cheek muscles clench visibly. He does think he’s to blame, Faith supposes. Well, so does she, at least in part. Whatever Dawn tried on him, he was wide open to it. But if there’s one thing she believes in, it’s that people make mistakes and they have the right to try to do better. Because if not, she wouldn’t have any right to exist.
Morgan tells Tara all about the Willy and Clem cock-up, but the mood is gone. The gang dissipates like smoke, leaving Faith and Spike to watch TV by themselves, which she doesn’t mind at all. It’s hard enough to deal with her own feelings about Spike, she doesn’t need the girls judging eyes adding to it. She puts her head on his shoulder and he presses a brief kiss on her hair. She doesn’t want to look at him right now, the feeling of his hand in hers is enough.