Fanfiction: One More Sad Song
On the other side of town, near the park, total night had just fallen and the few people brave enough to be walking along were hurrying to get to their respective destinations. It wasn’t as though everyone in Sunnydale knew that the town sat on a Hellmouth, and that vampires and demons ran loose at night, but the citizens did realize that Sunnydale had an unusually high percentage of disappearances and strange, unexplainable deaths. Being outside at night in a sparsely populated area of the city—like the park—was just asking for trouble. Within minutes, the entire area was completely deserted. A warm spring wind pushed dried leaves over the grass and rustled the few that remained in the trees. Everything appeared tranquil, as if the nighttime would finally be peaceful for once.
Just then, the sound of screeching tires washed over the scene as a swerving black car rounded the corner. Recklessly charging ahead, it barreled down the street. Faced with a dead end near the park, the driver decided that a single curb was insignificant and subsequently drove over it, bouncing the car onto the park’s meticulously groomed grass. As it narrowly avoided trees and benches, the car suddenly lurched back into a street and ran directly into a well-lit sign that read, in bold letters, “WELCOME TO SUNNYDALE!”
Standing no chance against a three-thousand-pound vehicle, the sign promptly collapsed backwards with a boom onto the asphalt, and the car finally skidded to a stop. The driver-side door opened, spilling numerous empty bottles onto the ground. The ones made of glass shattered as the dust from the rampage settled peacefully.
A black-clad man fell out the open door, landing in the broken glass. He didn’t even notice, staring dazedly at his new surroundings.
“Home…sweet…home,” Spike drunkenly muttered before passing out in the street.
Some time later, a brown-haired girl in dark clothing came out of the park and almost tripped over Spike’s prone form. Moonlight dancing off her large hazel eyes, she regarded the wrecked sign, filthy car, and unconscious vampire with something akin to indifference. Originally, she had wanted to just sit inside her crumbling motel room and watch an old black-and-white movie on television, but a sense of restlessness had come over her, forcing her outside. To walk. To gather her thoughts. And to patrol.
Rolling her eyes, Faith approached the car, not fearing the vampire in the least. Stepping over him, she entered the open driver’s side door and began rummaging through the assorted items that littered the interior of the car. Half-full bottles of booze and cigarette butts constituted most of what she found, but there were also a few dented cassette tapes with names like “Sex Pistols” and “The Ramones” scribbled on with marker. Disappointed that there was no money to be had, and oddly intrigued by this vampire who would be so bold as to lie about conspicuously in a town with not one, but two Vampire Slayers, Faith got out of the vehicle and slammed the door loudly.
Jolted awake by the intolerable bang, Spike opened his eyes and immediately scooted away from the girl who was sitting complacently on the hood of his beloved black car. Not that he was afraid, of course—just surprised. His eyes narrowed, trying to focus on the odd little smile that was being thrown his way.
“Who the bloody hell are you?” he belligerently accused. Where was his alcohol, anyway?
“I’m no one,” Faith responded, her eerily confident smile never faltering. “Just a Slayer.”
Spike was on his feet instantly, a smirk crossing his face. “So Buffy’s dead then, is she?”
“Not really, vampire.”
“I do have a sodding name, you know.”
Faith affected a concerned look. “Wait, ask me if I care,” she said, her words dripping with sarcasm.
“The name’s Spike. Remember it.” Irritated that this teenage girl could get under his skin so easily, Spike felt the urge to rush in and rip her throat out, but he calmed himself instead, figuring that he could get some information on Buffy from Little Miss Know-It-All.
“Spike as in…William the Bloody?” Faith asked. “For real?”
“Right, William the Bloody, blah blah,” Spike said, reaching into his dusty leather coat and pulling out some cigarettes. A lighter appeared in his other hand a moment later and soon he was smoking away and talking to a Slayer, of all people. “And you’re name isn’t ‘No One’, so let’s hear who you really are, love.”
“Faith,” the Slayer replied. Then she wiggled her hands in front of her and spoke in a voice that was purposely aggravating. “Remember it,” she said, barely able to contain her laughter.
“Clever.”
“So are we throwing down, or what?”
“I was gonna ask you the same thing. You do know I’ve killed two Slayers, yeah?”
Faith snorted. “So?”
“Doesn’t it scare you?” Spike responded. Obviously this girl wasn’t the typical Slayer.
“Doesn’t it scare you that I’ve killed hundreds of vampires?” retorted Faith, hopping off the hood of the car and coming to stand mere feet away from Spike.
Smiling and exhaling a puff of smoke, Spike said, “Not really, love. I’m not the run-of-the-mill vamp.”
“And I’m not the run-of-the-mill Slayer,” Faith added, almost bouncing up and down in anticipation of a fight. “So come give us a kiss.”
“Look,” Spike said, tossing his cigarette into the street, “I came here to get even with another vamp, and possibly the other Slayer, so—”
“What vamp?”
“Aren’t we curious all of sudden?” Spike mocked. “Just point me towards Angel, all right?”
“What’s your problem with Angel?”
Spike made a motion with his hand, suggesting that he wanted to answer, but couldn’t find the right words. “Long, long, long story,” he said instead.
“Well,” Faith said, moving even closer and gazing right into Spike’s eyes, “I have time.”
Disconcerted by Faith’s sudden change of heart, Spike took a step back out of surprise. “Shouldn’t you take offense that I bloody want to kill Buffy and Angel? Two people who I assume are your friends?”
“‘Friend’ is a word for people who act nice to your face and then talk shit behind your back,” Faith spat. “So why should I care about my ‘friends’, when they’re probably talking about how much they hate me right now?”
Taken aback again by Faith’s constantly shifting mood, Spike retreated another step. “Let me get this straight: you…don’t like Goldilocks and her poof of a boy-toy?”
Faith took one step forward to make up for Spike’s retreat. “No. I hate them about as much as they hate me. Gets old after a while, you know?” She sighed and looked up into the night sky. “All I hear is, ‘Oh, Faith, do you want to come to the Bronze? Oh, Faith, do you want to go on patrol?’ I’m a fucking afterthought for Buffy, Angel, and the rest of them. There’s only one thing worse than being hated outright, and that’s when that same hatred is concealed under a god damn mask of friendship.”
“I know what you—”
“Shut up! You don’t know—” Faith interrupted, before being cut off.
“No, you shut up, Slayer,” Spike said, forcing Faith to involuntarily move back.
“I know better than you can bloody imagine, okay? I felt that same feeling for nearly a century when Dru and I were hanging around Angel. He could never tolerate me, because I was better. Stronger, faster…better. And he hated me for it. But he could never come out and say it, you know?” A fleeting smile of pain flickered over Spike’s face before vanishing as quickly as it had appeared. “But things are gonna be different this time around. Mr. Forehead has ruined things one too many times for me, and this time, I play for sodding keeps.”
Suddenly thoughtful, both Slayer and vampire said nothing for several minutes, letting the night creep and settle around them. Faith broke the silence first.
“I guess we have something in common, then,” she said quietly, going back to sit on the hood with her hands in her lap. “It wicked sucks, huh?”
Spike came and leaned against the car a few feet away from Faith. He couldn’t help but notice that she looked young, and lost, and alone. “Yeah, it’s rough. Things are gonna change, though. I can promise you that much.”
Faith was staring at the ground. “Do you…um…want help?” She knew it was wrong to ask, wrong to team up with a vampire that didn’t even have a soul. But she just needed to belong to someone, have someone watch her back and take care of her when things were hard. She needed a real friend, one that wouldn’t secretly despise her for her faults and insecurities. “‘Cause I could help. If you wanted me to, I mean.”
Spike regarded Faith, whose eyes were still aimed at the ground. Having lived for more than a century, he’d learned a thing or two about people and their problems. Watching Faith, he saw fragility bundled up in a shell of hardness, one meant to keep everyone at a distance, lest they get too close and break down her barriers. She seemed scared of something…everything.
“I guess we work together then, Faith,” Spike said softly. He laughed a little. “Cheers to us, right?”
Faith finally looked up, a tiny smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.