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In the dream, they’re coming inside. They’re always coming inside, door won’t stop swinging, creaking, it’s an old door, and in the dream Faith feels so small, and she should get up. She should, should, should, but her legs won’t work. Her legs won’t work, but not cause anything’s wrong with them. They just won’t work because they refuse, buckle up against themselves and say no, no thanks, not today girl, and Faith tells her legs, but we gotta , and the legs say why are you talking to us like we’re not just you?
Faith gasps awake, and her legs work. She swings them out onto the carpet to be sure, stands up, and yeah, there they go. There she goes.
The dream’s still sticking to her insides, the kind where she knows it didn’t happen, only it did, still is. She can only remember it’s not because, again, legs working.
The apartment is underground, but she can feel it’s still dark out. She glances at the digital clock on the ground next to her bed, and it’s technically morning, and she’s not getting any more sleep in her, so she shoves her body into clothes. Shoves her weapons in her pockets. Then she’s going, going, going.
Every morning, It happens like this. She wakes up and chases all the shadows into sunup
*
Faith’s saving girls—and, most importantly, she’s real good at it.
Not like she’s trying to or anything. She’d save anyone. That’s the plan now: save everyone. As many people as it takes for her bones remember she was born for it. For it to stop feeling like someone shoved her in the wrong skin as a joke, just to see how bad she is at walking in it. She’s gonna save everyone until it feels like no one’s laughing at her for it. And then, she guesses, she’ll keep on saving people, because by then it’ll feel all natural-like, and not like she’s proving anything. It’ll feel like something she’s just gotta do. Like breathing or fucking or eating. It’ll feel like it feels for B.
But anyway. She still just ends up saving the girls.
Saves so many girls, it feels like they’re out looking for her, not the other way round. Only way to explain it.
Tonight it’s a young one. They’re always young ones, even when they’re older than her, but this one looks it, really. Huge eyes—doe eyes, Faith thinks they’re called. People used to tell her she had them. They don’t now, even though her eyes haven’t changed, so maybe it’s just the kind of people she sees nowadays. Or the kind of people she used to be seeing then.
This girl’s just trying to get home. It’s a big street—the kind that would feel plenty safe and inviting in the daytime, only it’s not daytime anymore, is it? See, because it’s not alleyways, mostly, where Faith finds them. She figures Angel’s got all the dark twisty places covered. So Faith goes looking out in the open.
It’s still dark, out in the open, every time. Only nobody tells you that.
This girl, she’s out in the open with some guy. He’s got a boyfriend look to him. And they’re arguing. Up the street, Faith sees another couple walking along, craning their necks over at the commotion. And then the guy calls this girl baby , calls her it like he’s always called her it, and the couple at the other end of the road breathes, nods, keeps walking. And Faith’s fists start itching for something bloody.
This girl, her wrists are shaking. She looks for her keys, and the guy with her says:
“Baby, just let me come up. You’re so pretty right now.”
Girl says, “It’s been a really long night.”
“Good one though, right? We can let it be good even longer.”
The girl says, “I —”
“You look so, so gorgeous, baby. I mean, you fixed yourself up all nice. And I just wanna be nice to you. Won’t you let me be nice to you?”
The girl says, “Look, it’s—”
Guy reaches out, grabs her wrist, she’s still fumbling in her bag for her keys, in the doorway of her apartment building.
The guy jumps, shrieks a little, when Faith grabs his other wrist out of the shadows.
“What the fuck , lady? I don’t have any money,” the guy yelps, spinning around to look at her.
Faith says, “Gee, I’m sorry. Was just following your lead. Grabbing people, right? That’s how you show ‘em you wanna be nice to ‘em?”
The dude rolls his eyes. “Fuck off, okay? We’re busy.”
“Hey, I’m just trying to be nice, buddy. We’re all friends here,” Faith tells him, and then locks eyes with the girl. “You know this guy?”
This girl gulps. “ … Yeah.”
Girl’s shaking. In little ways you don’t know if you don’t look for them—lips trembling, knuckles jagging up and down with little darts, jaw shifting under skin.
“Solid,” Faith says. “Just stand back a little.”
“What?” the girl says, but she moves, backing up as much as she can against the railing, and the guy’s gawping at Faith, all confused, fury bubbling up under his skin, and Faith likes this part. More fun if they’re angry.
When Faith reaches up over the low railing and hits him, she does it hard. Not as hard as she can, because he’s human, more or less, far as she can tell. But hard enough that he still staggers down the little porch stairs and grabs at his nose where the blood’s coming, wincing.
“Fucking bitch,” he tells Faith, a whimper.
“Yeah,” Faith smiles. “Good on you, figuring it out. Now get the fuck outta here before I help you figure it out some more.”
The guy stares at her, nostrils flaring. And then he does just like she says.
When he’s gone, Faith walks up the steps, and says, soft as she can, to the girl:
“You good?”
“He’s nice sometimes, you know.” the girl says, and then blinks before her eyes can wet. “Who are you?”
“They’re always nice sometimes,” Faith says. “And I’m the person’s gonna make sure you’re inside, door nice and locked, before he comes back.”
The girl slumps against the threshold, keys finally in her hands. “It won’t help. He’ll come back again. Another night, he’ll come back.”
Faith reaches into her back pocket and pulls out a business card. “I know. But, when there’s an again, you just call me. Or, call that number and ask for Faith.”
The girl takes the card, squints at it. “Is that a lobster?”
“Something like that,” Faith says. “You get inside now.”
The girl nods, jiggles her keys into the lock, cracks the door open. Past her, Faith can see a row of metal mailboxes, and another set of doors, glass ones, before the apartment front doors start.
“What about—” the girl starts, turning back around. “It just, I appreciate this. I do. I mean, I’m really confused? And you’re kind of weird? But I appreciate it. But um, it won’t help.”
“Oh yeah? And why’s that?” Faith asks.
Faith means it. The question. ‘Cause it never helps, none of it. It’s never helped Faith, at least. But she still can’t tell why.
“Well,” the girl says. “Seems like, like this thing you do? It’s all about, what, trawling the streets? Looking for girls in trouble? But, but the trouble usually happens when everyone’s already at home. And you can’t see that from the street.”
Faith says, “You’re right. Can’t,”
“And … and when they … when people hurt you? It’s usually people you don’t want to leave. Or, or to get beat up. It’s ... fuck, it’s usually people you beg to stay.”
Faith breathes, “Yeah.”
Fists feel itchy all over again..
The girl says, “Do you think that makes me a bad person?”
“If that’s all it takes to be a bad person, all of us are screwed,” says Faith.
The girl laughs, a little, and moves inside, the door swinging almost all the way shut, but stops it with her foot to—
“If I call, you’re really gonna help? You’d come over here?”
Faith says, “Every time,” and it feels like a prayer.
The door shuts, and Faith hears it lock. She looks up, and it’s starting to get light out. Bits of white washing all rough across the bottom of the dark sky. Making a mess of it.
*
“I need to steal your clothes,” Cordy says, barging through the makeshift curtain of Faith’s room.
“Wanna try that again?” Faith says.
Cordy rolls her eyes and steps back, knocks futilely on the fabric. “Better?”
“Yeah. Come on in,” Faith says, and pulls herself up to sitting. She’s been sprawled across the bed, thudding a tennis ball against the ceiling of her room—which is actually just Angel’s tiny subterranean living room, all half spruced up and almost humany now. A real bed with a thick quilt she’s always too hot for, but feels nice on her skin. Some random magazine photos cut out and pasted on the walls. Some string lights knotted up and glowing in a corner on the ground.
Cordy grins, walks immediately over to the little clothes rack in the back corner. “So, I can take?”
Faith says, “This karma for all the times I beat people up to steal their clothes or what?”
Cordelia sighs, plops down on the bed next to Faith, her fingers still skimming a pair of black leather pants.
Cordy says: “I wish. No, all my karma. I’m going on this date with this guy? And I was kinda wearing a leather jacket I took from you when I met him?—sorry, by the way. And before you ask, I already I put it back! But anyway, he seemed real into the whole dark, mysterious, leather girl thing. So I gotta keep the ruse going.”
Faith scoffs, leans back against the wall, kicking her legs out. “Have at it. Yo, pass me those chips though while you’re looking?”
Cordy reaches over to hand Faith the open bag of Ruffles at the edge of the bed, then resumes her search.
“Ick, you actually wear this?” Cordelia says, holding up Faith’s favorite top—this skintight black leather tank with thick straps over the open back.
Faith’s turn to roll her eyes now. “C’mon, like I didn’t see you wearing way trampier things back at the Bronze in old Sunny D.”
Cordelia doesn’t dignify that with a response, just an eyebrow raise.
Faith amends, popping a chip in her mouth: “Okay, maybe not trampier , but for sure like, an equal-opposite sorta trampy. You fully rocked some leather in your day.”
Cordelia sighs, eyes going all dreamy leaning against the wall, Faith’s top still clutched in her hands. “Ugh, I had this one burgundy leather skirt, with a slit up the thigh? Oh my God, to die for. With a matching jacket.”
“Don’t have it anymore?”
Cordelia sighs again, rougher this time. “Gone—we sold all our designer clothes, when Daddy lost all our money? Had to.”
Faith sucks in her lips, tastes the chip salt on them, to keep from saying something with the tide of anger rising up in her. But the anger wins out. “Right. Must’ve been wicked hard for you, Cor. Next you’re gonna tell me that—oh, gasp , you had to shop at the regular old supermarket instead of the bougie one with like, what, eight dollar lemons?”
Cordy says, “Well actually it’s a funny story, we never even used to do our own grocery shopping, so the first time I ever went, I — oh. Uh. I’m sorry. I didn’t realize?”
“Right.” Faith presses her thumbs hard into her knuckles. She’s gotta change this subject pretty much now or she’s gonna need to hit something. And she really doesn’t wanna hit Cordy.
Or, she does wanna hit Cordy, so much. But she also wants to not hit her, and mostly what she wants is the not-hitting urge to be the one that wins this little tug of war. Just this once.
Faith says: “Whatever. Anyway, what’s the deal with this guy?”
Cordy exhales slightly, turns back to the clothing rack and keeps rummaging. “Well, I only met him the once. But he seems nice? Great car. Good hair. Solid prospect all around.”
Faith shakes her head, crunches another chip. “No, I mean, why’re you going to all this effort for him? Special outfit and all. He’s just a guy.”
Cordelia’s pulling out a short, dark dress, stands up to hold flush against her skin, feeling the fabric. “Well see, that’s a thing we humans do? When we have dates? You put in effort.”
Faith can’t help but scoff again, and tells her. “Please. Like you need it.”
Cordelia beams. “Well of course I don’t need it . I mean, look at me! But it’s fun, getting dolled up. Makes you feel special.”
Faith says, “I can’t think of a single time I’ve ever gotten—the fuck was that you said, dolled up? For a date, Jesus. Sounds like some kinda bullshit to me.”
“Well sue me for trying to make a good first impression,” Cordy says.
Faith can’t help but laugh, dry and a little bitter barking out of her: “Guys’ll fuck anything that moves. Hell, they’ll fuck anything that—they’ll fuck anything, is my point. You could show up in fuckin’ burlap and you’d still be getting some.”
“Yeah, well maybe I’m interested in more than just getting some .”
Faith raises her eyebrows.
Cordy admits, “Okay, yes, I do also wanna get laid. But it’s not just about that. It’s about, I don’t know. Building something with somebody. You walk into a date and it’s like, I don’t know, this could be nothing. But it could also be everything , right?”
Faith shrugs. Her feet feel all restless, like she’s gotta go out running, or patrolling, or something.
“Only dates I ever been on were cause there was nothing better to do. I mean guys are just … well, beats watching TV, right? Just, get a little rush in.”
Cordelia narrows her eyes, and holds up the black dress. “I’m borrowing this. Thanks for the really depressing pre-date pep talk?”
“Any time,” Faith says.
When Cordy’s gone, Faith thunks her head back against the wall, breathes out hard, shovels a handful of chips in her mouth just to put the feeling somewhere.
*
In the dream, B’s there.
And she’s glowing, sorta, coming at Faith from up above, like how angels do in old Bible stories. When Faith’s mom used to drag her to church, she’d imagine the angels just like this, just huge and gold and melty and like they could swallow you if they wanted, only they won’t swallow you, not yet, because they gotta tell you something. You’re worthy of being told something.
Dream Buffy, gigantic and liquid and ready to swallow, opens her giant mouth, and it covers the whole sky. When she tells Faith the message, it makes Faith’s whole body shudder, like when you fall asleep but your body thinks it’s falling off a cliff.
Like how Faith, little Faith, Sunday school in the church basement with dead emaciated Jesus on the wall Faith, always imagined Mary feeling, when they come to tell her she’s pregnant—just fear, this shaking fear, whole world opening up inside you and you’re just gonna fall in, no choice but it, you were made for it, apparently, you gotta guess, so now push .
Dream Buffy tells Faith the secret she’s been gnawing for, and everything in Faith lights up like a house on fire, burning till it’s just charred foundation, bottom up and them crumbling down.
Buffy tells Faith the thing she’s wanted to know this whole time, and for a second, as Buffy swallows her whole, Faith feels like there’s nothing wrong with her. Nothing at all.
And then, next second, Faith forgets.
In the dream, she’s clawing out into the ether, it’s blue, dark blue, navy, but the kind Faith wants to eat, and it looks like such a soft blanket only when she grabs at it it’s nothing, not even anything for her nails to catch on at the ragged ends by accident. She’s trying to remember but it just won’t come, it’s not her’s, yet, and just a second ago she could smell B all around her, feel her presence creeping in like dusk on Faith’s temples, and now there’s—now there’s …
Now Faith is just grasping and groping. Then she realizes nothing is under her and she’s falling, and the fall doesn’t hurt. The fall’s not scary, not like being swallowed was.
Falling’s just what girls like Faith were born to do.
In the dream, Faith falls and lands in her bed, and it’s her bed at Angel’s apartment, the one shoved into what used to be the living room, and it’s her big expensive bed that the Mayor bought that she couldn’t reach the ends of even if she starfished all the way out, and it’s her shitty mildewy bed in the Sunnydale Motor Inn that creaked with every move, and it’s her bed in Boston, the one at Mom’s house that she came back to after every time she ran away, so small and the sheets and blanket were yellow and faded and she used to think they looked nice and old and maybe her Grandma made them, or someone’s grandma, and Mom said no, no they were just in the bin at church, for the taking, but she’s pretty sure they were from a big box store to begin with.
Faith is in her bed and the voices are coming, and they’re not stopping. The voices are screaming down the hall, and Faith is trying to burrow beneath her covers only she can’t, no cover, never can.
And in the dream Faith is in the church basement again, only it’s nighttime, and she’s waiting for Mom, and someone is saying, just be quiet, just be quiet, be good .
And in the dream Mom gets her, Mom’s picking her up and Faith can smell the booze on her, and they’re walking home and everything feels off, feels off, and she’s thinking, it isn’t supposed to be like this , but then, this is the only way it’s ever been. So how else would it be?
And in the dream she is at the Mayor’s office and he is saying, I’m a family man, Faith. Do you know what that means? And in the dream he’s taking her for mini golf and ice cream cones and he’s proud of her and when she buries a knife into someone’s gut for him, he claps.
And in the dream Angel is wrapping his arms around her in the alleyway outside of where she buried a knife in Wesley’s gut, and it’s raining, and she’s weeping. And in the dream she wants it to be done. All of it, all of her, won’t someone just end it, can’t go on like this for much longer, it’s just—
In the dream, someone is touching her and they won’t stop and it doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter, doesn’t matter—
Faith shakes herself awake, even though the dream isn’t ready to be done yet.
Fuck, fuck.
Her heart’s beating so fast. Huh. You’d think she’d be used to it now. But no, her heart doesn’t know. Her heart still thinks there’s more room for her to hurt, and it’s afraid.
She’s staring into her hands and the room is so dark and it’s not daylight yet, her clock tells her, which is good. Good. Okay.
The quilt is soft on her arms and too hot and the threads are thick and she runs her hands over it and then shoves it off of her, sweating
She pulls herself out of her bed, out towards the door. She fell asleep in her clothes, like she does most nights, so only a few steps to shove her feet in her shoes, grab her jacket, shove her weapons in her jacket, and clack her heels up the steps to the office and then to outside—
Angel’s at the top of the landing too, like he’s waiting for her. He’s fixing the stakes hidden in his sleeves as she comes up.
“Yo,” she says. “Fancy meeting a guy like you in a place like this.”
“Hey,” he says. “Was headed out to patrol, then heard you wake up. Figured I’d catch you.”
Faith’s throat feels dry and catching. “You heard—did I say somethin’?”
Angel shakes his head. “No. I heard your breath speed up, and your heart. Slows down when someone’s asleep. So, when they wake up, it does the opposite.”
Faith raises an eyebrow. “Vampires are fuckin’ creeps, man.”
“Don’t I know it,” Angel tells her, and they walk out into the dark street together.
“Should we run this together?” Faith says. “Strength in numbers.”
She doesn’t need him by her side to patrol. But her legs still feel all achy and her stomach all churning and everything in her half-asleep and all wrong, from the dream. And she could do with the company. Makes her itchy inside, to admit it, even to herself.
Used to be she’d wait outside B’s house in Sunnydale, headed out for patrol, just on the chance she’d catch her. And usually she would, and even though it’d be faster, to take opposite ends of town and meet in the middle, they’d always go together. And they’d talk the whole way and Faith would feel like a shiny piece of hard candy, cellophane glinting, irresistible.
“Yeah,” Angel says. “Sounds nice. I’ve been starting in this alley off—”
“No,” Faith says. “We take this my way.”
*
This time, when they save the girl, it’s from a demon.
Faith likes when it’s a demon, because it means she can hit harder. No holding back. She likes it too because it makes more sense, when it’s a demon. Girls are always grateful, when you save them from a demon.
Sometimes when you save them from the boyfriend, the girls just glare at you, and lick his wounds.
Some big spiny thing with dark green pus seeping out of its everywhere that Angel knows the name for because he’s a fucking nerd who spends all his time looking up demon varieties and thinking about his sins. But also he knows that the only way to kill it is to lop off its tail, and then strike, because it’s got some body-regenerating fluid stored in the tail? So Faith guesses his nerd shit is coming in handy right now.
Angel lobs the tail off and Faith buries her favorite knife in the thing’s gut, pushes it in just a little bit further, and the demon falls to the ground, dissolves into just the green pus, vibrating and smelling foul. Disintegrating a little bit of the road tar with it, leaving a pot hole that’s gonna fuck up somebody’s tires.
The girl it was trying to eat is quavering, falling to her knees, staring at the spot where the thing was. Faith inches forward, shaking the blood off her knife, and the girl’s got these watery eyes and this flyaway hair and these knobbly knees and Faith wants to wrap her up in a blanket and help her stay still and make sure she knows that the thing is never coming back. She’s good now. It’s good now.
Still on her knees, the girl they saved collapses into Angel’s thighs, gripping around his legs like little kids do, and she’s crying, and telling him:
“Thank you. Oh my god, thank you. You, you saved me—how did you? Oh, oh, thank you. Oh God. Oh my God. That thing…”
And Angel crouches down, so she has to let go of his legs, but the lady just buries her head in the crook of his arm then, and he tells her:
“Shhh. It’s okay. You’re alright, it can’t hurt you again.”
Psshh, fucking figures. Chicks always go for the broad shoulder hero guy. Makes ‘em feel all small and safe and secure, or whatever.
Faith stalks away into the night, scanning the boulevard—it’s quiet, mostly. Shops with big windows all gone dark and neat, tidy-looking homes.
And then a yelp. A crash, like glass going. A woman, calling out—
“Angel,” Faith calls, and he twists his head around. “Quit cuddling, we gotta move.”
He nods, slips the crying woman his business card, and then he’s following Faith.
Back into the night. Someone else out there who needs her, and she only feels a little guilty, in the back of her throat, that she’s grateful for that.
*
“But you can eat, right, like physically?” Cordelia’s asking Angel.
“Technically? Yes.”
The four of them are sitting around Cordy’s coffee table, Chinese takeout containers and paper plates and soda cans all arrayed.
Wesley, who’s sitting as awkwardly as physically possible on a throw pillow on the ground, and can’t figure out where to put his knees, says: “Remind me why we aren’t we eating around the dining room table again?”
Cordy rolls her eyes. “It’s takeout night! You don’t do takeout night at the dining table, you do it sitting on the floor watching bad TV,” and gestures at the TV playing Who Wants to Be a Millionaire on mute.
Wesley says, “Yes, but you’re not sitting on the floor. Faith and I are.”
Cordelia goes, “See, that’s just ‘cause it’s my apartment, so I get couch privileges. And Angel’s old, so that comes next, priority-wise. Gotta respect your elders.”
Angel says, “I’m not that old,” but still he doesn’t move from his couch seat.
Faith says, “I always like eating on the floor. Reminds me of when I was little.”
Cordelia gives her these really sad, welling eyes.
Faith tells her, “Jesus, we had a table. I just liked to eat on the floor. I, uh, thought it was kinda like a picnic. Like in the movies.”
And then everyone’s still staring at her without blinking, so she shoves a whole egg roll in her mouth for something to do.
Cordelia says, “And anyway, back to my point—Angel, I just don’t get why you won’t eat it. I mean, it’s good. Faith, isn’t this egg roll good?”
Mid-bite, Faith garbles out a yes .
“Gross,” Cordy says. “And thank you! C’mon Angel, won’t you try just one bite?”
He scowls across the couch at her. “I don’t feel like play-acting human. Besides, I can eat. Doesn’t mean it tastes good.”
Wesley perks up. “Oh, that’s fascinating actually. Not much research exists in the Watcher archives on vampiric taste buds. At least, not that I was able to read before I lost access. Can you taste anything at all?”
Angel shrugs. “Not much. Maybe if the flavor’s really strong? Honestly, I’ve never given it much of an effort. Don’t see the point.”
Faith swallows down her bite of egg roll and looks up at him from her spot sprawled across the floor: “That Spike guy though, he eats. So is he weird or are you? Like, do all vamps do it?”
“Huh?” Angel says, brow going even more furrowed. “Spike?”
Faith saus, “Yeah, Spike. Saw him when I was in Sunnydale last, uh, when I was …”
“Taking Buffy’s body for a spin like a new car?” Cordy supplies.
“...Yeah. Thanks Cor.”
“Any time!” Cordy says brightly, and forks some more swirls of lo mein onto her plate.
“But anyway,” Faith continues. “Saw him at the Bronze. Was going to town on that fried onion thing? Right before I talked to him.”
Angel blinks. “You … talked to Spike? While you were in Buffy’s body? What did you … say to him?”
Faith flashes back, getting all shuddery without meaning to. ‘Cause it was wrong, she gets that now, part of her downward spiral hitting rock bottom what the fuck ever. The Spike bit and the Riley bit and the body-stealing to begin with, it was wrong, and it’s why people like B can never trust people like her, but it’s also—God, there was this rush, wasn’t it? Being in B’s body and getting folks all riled up and feeling how it felt, for B to get riled herself, and wondering if it was ever like that when—
Faith tells Angel, “Uh, nothing important. Anyway, just try an egg roll, won’t you? They’re wicked good.”
Angel frowns in this way that makes his forehead go pug dog wrinkled, and grabs an egg roll from the container. Then takes the slowest, gnarliest bite of anything Faith’s ever seen. Like kids when she was growing up and they’d dare each other to eat dog food.
He swallows the bite down roughly, then sets the rest of the egg roll all dainty on a napkin.
Cordelia pats his knee all proud. “Well, I am very proud of you for trying. Look at Angel, going out of his comfort zone. Everybody give him a round of applause!”
Faith starts to bring her hands together, when Angel scowls: “Everybody don’t.”
Faith claps anyway, and so does Cordy with her fingers all splayed, and Wes looks like he doesn’t wanna be left out, so he joins in, with this dainty rich person sorta clap where you’re hitting just the base of your palm with your fingers.
Angel grimaces at them, and curls his arms around a throw pillow. “You guys are mean.”
Cordelia snorts softly at him. “C’mon, you love us.”
“Doesn’t mean you’re not mean!” Angel says, half a smile on his face.
Wes is digging through the takeout containers, stacking up the empty ones and combining the half-full ones. “Only one wonton left—Faith, do you want it? I know those are your favorites.”
Faith grins up at him, and somewhere in the back of her brain she feels surprised, and then she shakes that away, stabs her fork into the container and shimmies the wonton off of it and onto her plate.
“Thanks,” she tells Wes. Her voice feels all weird and soft and all she can think—as she chews the wonton, as Cordy and Angel argue about whether they’d be each other’s lifelines on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire because both of them want to use Wes as theirs but want the other to pick them, and Wes ignores the argument because his legs are aching and finally storms to the dining room to haul himself in a proper chair, and then everyone starts laughing at him because there was an armchair behind him the whole time—all she can think is God, when’s it gonna stop feeling like a trick? Them being nice to her. All these people, who just … want her here. Who laugh when she’s in the room and it’s not at her.
*
In the dream, someone is digging into her, claws and words and whatever else they got, and Faith feels all small and raw and pink, like meat waiting to be cooked.
When she wakes up, she’s screaming. Or, no, she realizes, as she comes back into her body again, feet tingling with the blood rush. No, what it was was that—
She was screaming so loud she woke herself up.
Fucking of course that’s what it was.
Angel’s rushing towards her, she hears the footsteps, sees his hands snaking around the slit between the two curtains that cordon off her room.
“Faith?” he asks. “Can I come in?”
“Sure,” Faith says, throat dry.
He sweeps the curtain aside, does that thing where he moves real quiet, which Faith’s grateful for, since she’s pretty sure a loud noise would send her over the edge.
And then he’s sitting on the edge of the bed, hands folded in front of him on her quilt.
“Where, uh, where do you get all this stuff?” Faith asks, trying to keep her breathing, her heartbeat, all steady, because she knows Angel can hear how it’s skittering like a scared cat fresh born. “All your old furniture, and quilts, and stuff?”
“Antique shops mostly,” Angel says. “Some estate sales. Your quilt though is from a yard sale, I think—got it ‘cause it looked homemade. I always feel like blankets are better when you know somebody made it for someone they love.”
“Yeah,” Faith says, voice caught in her throat still, harder this time. “I get that.”
Angel tells her: “My mother, when she was pregnant with my sister, she was working on this quilt for her. And I’d run all around the house, looking for fabric scraps. Stealing them from the maid’s sewing basket, just to have something to give her.”
“How old were you?” Faith asks. She’s trying to fight the urge to claw into her own hands with her nails, that she’s been letting get too long. Her heart’s still going crazy.
“Ten, I think.”
Faith would laugh if she could, just to make her throat feel lighter, but it’s not coming. “Hard to imagine you being little, ever.”
Angel swallows hard. “Do you wanna tell me what happened?”
Faith shakes her head without meaning to. “Just. I dunno. Nightmare.”
“You have those a lot?”
“What do you think?”
“You can not answer this, if it’s too much. But, what happens? In your nightmares?” Angel says, and grabs one of her hands. Like he could tell she was gonna rip into her skin with it if someone didn’t do something.
Faith looks up at the ceiling, blinking quick. “I dunno. Just … I never had the kinda dreams that made sense. Didn’t even really notice the Slayer dreams, like the prophecy kind, when they started happening? They were just as weird as all the rest of it. But these are … I dunno. People I knew.”
“What kind of people?”
Faith looks at him, says again: “What do you think?”
Angel looks back, eyes all dark and heavy and everything about him quiet.
“I get nightmares too. Hell, most of my dreams are nightmares,” he tells her. “All the … the people I hurt. Killed. Plenty of them for fodder. Don’t think I’ll ever run out. Don’t think I ever should.”
Faith feels like someone struck her, feels like when she was a little kid and a bee stung her right by the eye, feels like—fuck, God, she needs to stab something, fuck, just, she thought he got it, and how can he not get it and, and, and, maybe no one does, maybe she’s so far gone the only person who thinks they know her is just a reformed serial torturer, fuck, okay, just—
“Hey, hey,” Angel says, grabs her other hand. “Tell me what’s going on in there.”
“Not those kind of people,” Faith says, gulping for air. “My nightmares, they’re not like that.”
“Not … the people you’ve killed?” Angel asks, piecing it together.
She shakes her head.
Faith says: “Dream about them too, but it’s different. Goes down easier. I guess, I … I know what to think about it, when those happen. I know what it means, about me.”
Angel’s voice creeps out of him like cold air through an opened window: “And, these kind of dreams, you don’t know what they mean about you?”
Faith’s heart is going so fast again. So fast again, and the dream is sticking to her insides, fuck, she thought it was gone, but it’s sticking, the dream is all seeping and thick and covering her mouth, squeezing around her throat, and everything it wrong, right now, everything’s wrong, always been wrong, and she feels so small , she feels so—
“When I have them—” she starts, trails off.
“Hey. Breathe for me, okay?” Angel says, places a hand on her back, and makes himself breathe with her.
They take in a long inhale together, a long exhale, again, and again, and again, and Faith could almost laugh, being shown how to breathe by a guy who doesn’t even need it.
“When I have these dreams,” she tells him. “It feels like—like maybe everything makes sense. So I guess, I know what these ones mean about me too. Only it doesn’t feel right.”
She’s crying, she realizes. She doesn't wanna be. God, she so doesn’t wanna be. But Angel’s hand is steady on her back, even as the tears come down, even as the weeping starts to rip through her all merciless.
“Faith, it’s okay.”
“It’s not ,” she tells him, and she’s sobbing now, properly sobbing, she’s always sobbing on him, isn’t she, ever since the alleyway, and before that she can’t remember the last time she cried, and now she can’t seem to stop. Always coming out of her, like someone turned a valve on.
“Okay,” Angel says. “It’s not.”
“It’s not,” Faith repeats, ragged. “‘Cause, ‘cause when I have these dreams, everything makes sense suddenly, right? Like, like I’m really all wrong. Always have been. And maybe, maybe that’s why all this happened, huh? Because I’m wrong, and I’m … I’m broken, and, and I deserve this? And maybe that’s—”
She’s crying harder, her head falling into his chest and her chest hurts, her arm hurts, her everything, she tells him:
“Angel, maybe I’ve never been good. And maybe they could all tell. All the people who—and that’s why, that’s why they…everybody who ever hurt me. Maybe they just knew what kinda person I was gonna be. I mean, it had to have been for a reason, right? All the … all the hurt. It has to be for a reason, ‘cause if it’s not then—”
And then she can’t talk anymore, then it’s just the weeping, and there’s nothing either of them can say, so he just lets her weep, wraps his arms around her as she cries, and his arms are so heavy, and that’s nice, something solid and steady and reminding her she’s real, and it hurts to be real, but maybe it’s better than the other thing, or maybe it’s not, maybe it would be better if she just didn’t exist, or never did, maybe all she’s ever done was—
“You’re good,” Angel tells her, his voice real soft. “I want you to know that. You’ve got it in you. Always have. And sometimes, sometimes terrible things just happen. I should know.”
“How’s that?” she asks, and it hurts to talk, with how hard she’s been wailing.
“When I was him,” Angel tells her. “When I would hurt people? Wasn’t anything to do with them. Was because there was something wrong with me. Sometimes I, I even picked people who were especially good. Just for the … the ways I could bring them even further down. Higher to fall from. And all that? That’s about me. It’s about the person doing the hurting.”
“Huh,” Faith says, an echoey wet laugh coming through her. “Yeah, you were all kinds of fucked up, huh?”
Angel laughs back, and Faith can hear it moving around in the hollow of his chest.
“Angel,” she says, breaks away from the hug, and her nose is all full of snot, and her eyes are all waterlogged and stinging with the tears.
“Yeah?”
“There’s something else I don’t get.”
“Lay it on me.”
Faith says: “It’s just. I mean, things are good now. Hell, things are better than they’ve ever been. I got ... people now. Who want me around, if you can imagine it. So then why’s … it hurt so much? Why’s it hurt more now than it did before? More than it did when it was actually happening?”
She’s staring at her hands, running her thumbs over the threads of this quilt, that somebody’s grandma or something made for them, love in the stitches.
Angel says, “Sometimes I think that when it’s quiet? And when it’s good? That’s when we can really feel how bad it got, all the other times. How low we were. And we couldn’t have known then. Because we had nothing to compare it to.
Faith laughs again, this sad, half-snorting, half-crying bark that’s all snot anyway. She wipes at her wet nose with the back of her hand. “Well that fucking sucks. Any way I can get out of it?
“Like how?”
“I dunno. Can you write me a note? We can play hooky,” she says, ribbing him lightly in the side.
“ Ow ,” he says. Huh, so maybe it wasn’t that light. “And I’ll see what I can do.”
Faith grabs for the box of tissues on the ground next to her bed, scrubs at her hands and her nose and her mouth with them, has to keep grabbing more and more because the paper is tearing into nothing, how hard she’s rubbing it at her skin.
Angel says, “It’s still dark out. You wanna go kill something?”
“So much,” Faith says. “Meet you at the top of the stairs?”
*
She saves a girl from a vampire—feels good, when it’s that. Classic. Right. Stake plunges in and the vamp turns to nothing, and then it’s just Faith.
Angel’s a few blocks away, chasing down the vamp’s buddy, so it really is just Faith.
She helps the girl up from the ground, where she’d been crouching, hiding in a pile of cardboard boxes somebody’d set out for recycling.
“Thanks,” the girl says, though as Faith pulls her up, she sees she’s more of a woman than a girl. Looks older than Faith. Something in the eyes. “The fuck was that, by the way?”
Faith shrugs. “Oh you know. Men.”
“Men don’t usually try to bite me. Least, not that early on they don’t,” the woman says, laughing a little, dusting the street grime off her pants. “Jesus, wait. Was that a vampire? Are there vampires? That a thing?”
“You catch on quick,” Faith tells her. “Uh, you ever have any more trouble like that, you can reach us here, okay?”
She hands her a business card, and the woman glances at it, and pockets it.
“Thanks, kid,” she tells Faith. “You alright out here though? Seems like odd work, for a girl your age.”
Faith says, “You’d be surprised.”
The woman nods. “You get home safe, alright?”
Faith feels a little dizzy, like the dream is rushing back, only it’s just at the edges of her now. Barely pressing in, and she can hold it back. “Yeah. You do the same?”
“Count on it,” the woman tells her.
Faith watches as she walks down the rest of the street, heads into an apartment building with a bright light blaring out on the sidewalk, and the door shuts behind her.
Faith shoves her hand in her pockets, keeps the other one out, twirling her stake in the night. And it feels good in her hands. Feels strong. Feels like she can get a few more dustings in by first light, and her heart is sort of eager and shining, thinking about it.
*
Faith’s running a comb roughly through her hair with one hand, other hand’s got nails skittering nervously on Angel’s little antique dressing table, the one he set up in front of the mirror she made him buy.
“What are you doing?” says a voice from right behind her—and there’s no one in the mirror, and even though Faith knows it’s him, she still jumps a little.
“You gotta stop doing that, man, or else I’m not joking about putting that bell on you,” she says.
Angel says, “Aren’t you supposed to just be able to tell that I’m there? Preternatural vampire-sensing ability and all that? Bell’s a bit a much, if so.”
“B calls ‘em her vampire tinglies,” Faith says, a faint smile, remembering. “And yeah, but you don’t set them off so much anymore. Maybe ‘cause I’m used to you? Or maybe just ‘cause you’ve gone soft.”
Angel frowns, but in this way that feels loving. “You going out?”
“No. Why? You got a hot date coming over you want me to clear out for?”
“No.”
“‘Cause that blonde cop lady seems like she’s got the hots for you. I bet you, you show could up all oh, I’m so tortured, Kate. And she’s all Yes, Angel? And you’re all And the only thing that can help are your soft—”
“ Faith. ”
“You didn’t even know what I was gonna say!” Faith says, licking her lips all meanly.
“Lemme take a wild stab and say something crass and sexual?
“Damn,” Faith says. “It’s like you know me.”
“So, you’re not going out?” Angel says, swinging back to the subject.
“Jeez, no. What’s with the third degree, grandpa?”
Angel says, clearing his throat. “Well. Just. Your hair—you’re … you don’t usually …”
He gestures down at the comb in her hand.
Faith scoffs. “What? You’re saying I look like a slob most of the time?”
“No!” Angel says quickly. “Just, you usually go for more of the, uh, unkempt sort of—”
“Unkempt?”
“Not unkempt,” he corrects loudly. “More … wild? I, I don’t know the terms, but uh, the wavy hair sort of your look… not that it doesn’t work for you. Because it totally does. Uh, work for you. I mean your hair’s great, just great. I was just telling Cordelia the other day in fact, that your hair is usually so—”
“Great?”
“Exactly! Great.”
He looks sort of like a little puppy dog you catch eating out of the people food that’s trying to cover it’s tracks, with the big eyes and the confusion.
Faith grins. “Well that was fun. Thanks for playing, big guy.”
She slaps Angel warmly on the arm, then leans back against the dressing table, laughing lightly.
Angel exhales. “You’re mean.”
“Sorta why I’m here, isn’t it?”
Angel says: “And you didn’t answer my question.”
Faith clears her throat, turns around, to start combing her hair again. Staring at the mirror, right into the spot where he would be, but isn’t.
“Uh. Yeah. I was just gonna—B said, said I could call her? Or, okay, I asked if I could call her. Sometime … But she said yes! Which is almost the same thing. And I thought, you know, it’s been a while, and maybe I could …? But then I thought, hey, maybe she’s not around and then I’m the idiot leaving fifty messages on her machine. So I sorta …. called Giles? He sends his, um, regards, by the way. I think that’s what he said. Also said as far as he knows Buffy’s gonna be home all day? At her house, not her dorm. Uh, Joyce said the house needed like, a real good clean, and roped her in, is what she told him. So she’ll be there, and I thought I could just, you know … call?”
There’s a little gulf of silence, and then Angel says. “So, you’re combing your hair to … talk to Buffy on the phone?”
“Yeah,” Faith breathes.
“… On the phone, where she can’t see you?”
Faith turns, brow furrowed, and turns back around to smack him lightly on the arm again, with the comb this time. “What about it?”
“ Ow!” Angel goes, wincing a little and grabbing at his arm. So, right, not so lightly then.
“Sorry. Look, doesn’t mean anything, the combing. I’m just nervous I guess. Looking for something to do with my hands.”
“Yeah, I guess you are,” Angel says.
“What?”
“Nothing! I agreed with you.”
“Yeah, but you’re said it in this way.”
“What way?” Angel says, and he’s making that little dog face again.
“You know what way,” Faith says.
“I really don’t,” Angel insists. “Anyway, I should be going.”
“So you do have a hot date.”
“Not even remotely. Just figured I should, you know, clear out. So you and Buffy can—talk. Undisturbed.”
“Uh,” Faith says, bites her lip without meaning to “Okay?”
“Okay,” Angel says, turning on his heel to walk to the door.
“Uh, Angel?” Faith asks.
“Yeah?”
“Should I tell her, um. Anything from you? Like, I dunno what people say. That you send … regards? Or, say hi, or whatever?”
Angel stares into the middle distance, so still he’s a statue for a second. “Tell her I … no, that’s okay.”
“You sure?”
“No,” Angel says, with a sad grin, and turns to walk away again. As he’s disappearing up the stairwell, he calls out: “You kids have fun!”
“Thanks, grandpa!” Faith calls back up the steps, and then turns to the mirror again.
Her hair’s still all frizzy at the stop, in the way that it always gets. The bottom looks nice though, curling a little without her meaning for it to, like always, even when she tries to make it lie straight.
B’s hair looked like that, last she saw her. Been curling it lately, Faith guesses. She wonders when that started—some time after she knifed Faith into a coma, she guesses.
It makes her stomach do this sort of shiny, gnawing thing, thinking about it.
Fuck, she should just stop killing time and call —it’s just that, God, what if Joyce picks up. Like, last time she saw Joyce she’d just held her hostage and threatened to kill her and stole her daughter’s body.
And she’s really not sure how to say hey Joyce how’ve you been hope the cleaning’s going well could you pass the phone to Buffy after all that.
She’s not sure why it feels easier to try to talk to Buffy, when she’s the one whose body Faith stole. And maybe it’s not easier. It’s just, Faith doesn’t know how not to talk to Buffy. It makes all her insides grind together, thinking about what it would mean, to never talk to her again. Makes everything in her feel rough and breathless and all wrong.
And, okay, talking to Buffy usually makes her feel rough and breathless and all wrong anyway. But maybe a better kind?
Because, like, under that, there’s this—something. Whatever it is. It’s the thing that makes her keep coming back.
She exhales, walks over to Angel’s phone in the kitchen, and dials the number, and her fingers are sweating, and the line is ringing, and she can hear her own breath, her own heartbeat, so loud in her, so loud, and all her blood jumping up giddy and terrified.
And yeah, this call could be nothing.
But then again, it could be—
“Hello?” Buffy says into the line.
“... B! Hi. Uh, don’t hang up.”
“Not hanging up.”
“It’s me. It’s Faith.”
Buffy says, “Yeah, got that.”
“So,” Faith says. “Um. How’s things?”
“Good? Uh, Mom’s got me doing some crazy spring cleaning thing, but it’s kinda nice? Like, cathartic.”
“I know,” Faith says.
“You know?” Buffy says.
Fuck. Okay, gotta backtrack or she’s gonna know Faith did recon before this call, and she can’t be exposed as that creepy, not yet, ideally ever. Uh. “Yeah. Just, cleaning feels good. Getting all the crap out.”
“Um,” Buffy says. “How’s LA?”
“Good. Alright. You know, fighting the good fight,” Faith says.
“And the gang? They’re good?”
“Yeah—well, Wes is, you know, Wes. He’s ridiculous,” she laughs. “But in a better way than he was, back in Sunnydale? And Cordy’s, you know.”
“Cordy’s Cordy,” Buffy agrees.
“Yeah,” Faith says, laughing again, and then wonders if she’s laughing too much. What’s the normal amount to laugh? “She’s good though—rooming with a ghost.”
“Well I bet that saves on the electric bill,” Buffy says.
“Nah,” Faith says. “He runs it up, actually. Always watching movie marathons while Cordy’s out. Blasting the stereo, turning all the lights on.”
“Damn. You can’t even get conscientious ghosts nowadays,” Buffy says, with a little laugh of her own, and then the laugh dies a little too quick. Because naturally, she’s gotta ask: “And. Ah. Angel? How’s he?”
“He’s Angel,” Faith says. “Uh, no, he’s good. Been helping me a lot. Uh, fixed up a spare room for me and all that. Kinda sucks, having a place with no windows and all. But beggars can’t be choosers, or whatever they say.”
“Oh. That’s, that’s good. I’m glad he—that’s good,” Buffy says, her voice going all distant and faint.
“Yeah. I uh, I asked him if he wanted me to say hi for him? But then he just got all weird about it.”
“Sounds like him,” Buffy says, and her voice is still all distant, and it’s making Faith’s insides itchy.
“How about on your end?” Faith asks. “How’s the gang, and the town and all?”
“Oh, town’s being terrorized by this unkillable demon Frankenstein cyborg guy,” Buffy says, all matter-of-fact. “But the gang’s good.”
“Yeah, that’s kind of a regular Tuesday for you guys, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know about that,” Buffy says. “But I also don’t know that we even have a regular anything, anymore? So, maybe.”
“You’ll get him,” Faith says. “You always do.”
“Try to,” Buffy says, a little strained.
And it makes Faith ache, makes her wanna hop on a bus and drive up there and help B beat this monster guy down, knock him into dust and the two of them can beam over his broken body, just totally synched, like they used to be, maybe, once, almost.
And then there’s a voice in the background on Buffy’s end—Joyce, calling out for her
Buffy says: “Uh, I gotta go. Mom’s breaking out the power washer so, like, anything could happen.”
“Right. ‘Course. Well, uh. Thanks. For not hanging up.”
Buffy says, “I’m, um. I’m glad I didn’t. I mean this was like, almost a normal phone call.”
“How bout that. Who woulda thought we had it in us?”
“We’re bordering on impressive,” Buffy says. “But anyway, I should …”
“Yeah. I should too,” Faith says. “And B?”
“...F?”
“Take care of yourself.
“Yeah. You too, Faith.”
Buffy hangs up then, and Faith exhales hard, turns around to lean against the wall, and it feels like she just ran an entire marathon, all breathless and a little proud and still mostly incredulous, that what she did’s something you physically even do , even though people actually do it all the time. But still. Different when you do it yourself.
Faith pops the phone back on the wall mount, and bounds up the steps to the office to find Cordy sitting at her desk, looking over some client invoices.
“Cor?” Faith asks. “Let’s say, hypothetically, that I just called Buffy on the phone and it went okay. What would you say—hypothetically!—is the amount of time I can wait to call her again?”
Cordy spins around in her swivel chair, beaming. “Ugh, thank God , I was so bored. Right, okay, there’s a number of factors to consider. Like, what was the tone of the call? Was there lingering?”
“Lingering?”
“Yeah, like did she hang up as soon as there was a lull, or was there chit chat? Like, the kind she didn’t have to make, but did anyway.”
“I think there was chat.”
“Okay, good, that’s important intel. Um, right, does she have caller ID, and if so, how many rings did it take for her to pick up the line?”
Faith scrunches up her face, thinking. “Uh. Not sure? Who even has that kind of info?”
Cordelia rolls her eyes. “Look, don’t show up for girl talk if you’re not prepared with hard data. This isn’t amateur hour!”
Faith can’t help but smile. “It was a really good call. I mean, I think. Actually, the more I think about it the more I’m convinced it was awful and I said everything wrong? But also, it was good? Like, I know it was good. I think?”
“Huh,” Cordy says.
“What?”
“I just, I dunno. I’ve never seen you like this.”
“Like, what?” Faith asks.
“All … flustered. It’s entertaining.”
“I’m not flustered!” Faith says. “I don’t get flustered. I’m fine. I’m five by five.”
Cordelia raises an eyebrow. “Okay. Whatever you say.”
“I am! Shut up,” Faith says. “I gotta go.”
She pushes out the doors of the office and into the sun, and realizes she didn’t actually have a plan. Plus, daylight, so kind of limited in the killing things option, which is usually what she does when she’s not sure what to do with herself.
So, that pretty much just leaves food. She heads off in the direction of the diner, and then her thoughts are swirling again, different kind of swirling than her nightmares, but not too different.
Her head’s just spinning and a little dizzy and poring over every last word she and Buffy said on that call, only she can’t remember the exacts of everything now, and maybe her voice was too loud, or too weird, or too needy, and maybe it’s all going wrong. And she’s not even sure what the all is . Just that it’s something tender and weird and touchy and achy and when she thinks about it for too long she thinks she’s gonna burst, and—
And it’s good. Maybe. Maybe this could be good. Or something. Whatever.
Everything in Faith feels too tight and too loose and too weird all at once, and maybe, mostly, she’s just hungry. Which she’s sorting out as soon as she gets to that diner, so that’s good.
Except maybe that’s all of it, forever. Just her being so hungry.