A/N : AU-ish, Angel season 5 if Faith had joined the cast after Chosen. Dark-ish, mentions of knifeplay and violence.
Disclaimer : Joss is boss. Quotes from the episodes "Five by Five" and "Release" gotten from a transcript website.
He keeps hurting her. Faith thinks maybe that's why she keeps coming back.
Once, long ago, when Faith's world was too much make-up and leather pants and school libraries and stuffy English men and Scooby meetings she wasn't always invited to, when it was five by five and want, take, have and get some, get gone, when it was fucking up and knives and blood and murder and a man she still can't stop thinking of as a father, she thought he would be the most vanilla man on Earth and on all those other dimensions she didn't give a shit about. She thought he'd be fumbling and awkward and he'd know no other way to fuck than missionary, that he'd come too fast and would leave his partner hanging, body throbbing for release they'd have to find themselves.
But that was before, before blunt, sharp, cold, hot and loud, before prison and Wolfram and Hart, before the betrayals (so much, too much, always too much) before the darkness and the fear and the anger and the violence (and isn't it funny that she thought she knew violence before? She didn't, not really, not until she was intimately familiar with the feeling of a blade piercing skin and muscles and organs that don't turn to dust, of blood on her hands, of a blade in her skin, of blood gushing out of her belly, quite a ride).
Vanilla is definitely not what she's thinking now, though, not while they're fucking hard and fast and wild against his bedroom wall. He's never gentle with her, and he's always silent – grunts and pants and the occasional gasp, but nothing more ("I think I want to hear you scream." "You never will.") and she's pretty much the same. She doesn't think she could take it if it was any different, and she thinks he knows that ("I was your Watcher, Faith – I know the real you.").
They know it's fucked up, them, together, like this. With their history, they shouldn't even be spending more time together than absolutely necessary. She wonders what her prison shrink would say about it, sometimes. Then she remembers that he was no good, really, she could always avoid talking about the stuff that really bothered her by throwing him some fake (true) daddy issues. He'd listen to her talk about her abusive (absent) father and he'd write some notes in his stupid little notebook, nodding, and then explain to her that she craves fatherly affection, and that's why she joined the Boss, and that's why she took a shiv to the shoulder in a courtyard riot that time, when she pushed that one guard out of the way, the old man who always sneaked her candy between the bars of her cell when no one was looking.
Whatever. She just liked chocolate.
But they both know this is fucked up, anyway, so that's gotta count for something. They know it's not love. They know that whenever they're together, the other is carefully not thinking about someone else – not thinking about California sunshine and blond hair, not thinking about science and glasses. If they know it's not about love, maybe it doesn't matter that she made him bleed, maybe it doesn't matter that he's the one who pushed her when she was wavering between light and dark. They can fuck and not have it mean anything.
But it does mean something, maybe. Maybe it means something that when he goes down on her ("Come on, Wesley! Where's that stiff upper lip?") he bites, maybe it means something that he squeezes her wrists hard enough to leave marks, maybe it means something that he takes a knife and traces shallow patterns on her thighs, and maybe it means something that she lets him ("You're a rabid dog who should have been put down years ago!").
But after, when they're lying on his bed, sweat cooling down on their skin, she doesn't want to leave right away, not like she would with someone else. He looks at her, chest heaving as he tries to regain his breath, and doesn't try to kick her out. Her eyes drift to his neck, to a line of white, raised tissue. She knows that scar. She knows where he got it. ("The broken glass, the shallow cuts… so I would remain conscious.") Slowly, she reaches out and traces it with her finger. There's a flicker in his eyes. Slowly, ever so slowly, she leans over and kisses him.
It tastes a little like forgiveness. ("See? Wasn't so hard, was it?")