Disclaimer: I don't own Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I'm not making any financial/material profit from this piece of fanfiction, and no infringement is intended. In other words, please don't sue.

Crazy Insane, Insane Crazy

Whoever said she liked blood had been wrong.

Faith didn't like blood, not really. She knew a lot about it, like how it was difficult to get out of clothes, but surprisingly easy to wash off of skin. She knew it was bright, bold, primary, a colour that offended most people. They didn't like bleeding their lives away.

Faith didn't care about blood. It was red, tasted salty, and usually led her to whoever or whatever she needed to kill. She'd learnt to wear black when she killed, because blood didn't show quite so badly on it, and white when she wanted the hard shock of seeing red splattered all over it.

Faith didn't like pain either, not really. She just wasn't into masochism, not the way that Buffy always had been. Emotional, physical, it all boiled down to enjoying suffering, enjoying being martyred.

Faith didn't like martyrs. Dying for their fucking cause, with a smile on their lips and a song in their hearts—hey, wasn't that the way Buffy's boytoy had killed, back in the good ol' days before suffering and his soul.

She just liked the power that came with blood, pain, death. She liked being a god. She liked letting the knife slink casually here and there over their skin, carving away the bits she didn't like, leaving the bits she did. The blood got in the way. Sometimes she'd lean down and suck it away with lips and teeth and tongue, and sometimes she'd wipe it away with a towel, there there, all better.

Faith didn't really like sex, either, and that was a surprise, because she got a lot of sex. That was about power too. Sex was all about power, all about control, and she knew it. She was on top even when she wasn't. She was the one doing the fucking, even with her legs spread and her body being pounded into the mattress.

Blood was messy. Sex was messy. Death didn't have to be, but Faith preferred it when it was. She liked being able to lick her fingers clean, made her feel dirty, made her feel amused, made her feel powerful.

She wore pink lipstick, yesterday. Girly lipstick. It hadn't suited her. Faith didn't suit girly. Faith suited blood and red and death and sex. She painted her lips pink and glossy, painted her nails pink and shiny, then she sashayed out into the bright sunlight and pretended that her name was Buffy Anne Summers, and she was a fake blonde.

The nail varnish got chipped later that night, when she drove a cop's head straight through his own car window.

Buffy wouldn't have chipped it.

Faith didn't really like Buffy either, not really. Buffy was the definition of perfect, Faith thought. Faith wanted Buffy, wanted to be her, and if she couldn't be her, at least wanted to fuck her so hard she made her scream.

Faith didn't really like perfect. Perfect was an illusion. Perfect was something she couldn't have, and couldn't be. The fucking lipstick had looked all wrong anyway.

Faith suited leather and chains, not lace and frills. Faith painted her lips dark, dark red, and pouted in the mirror, wondering what she'd look like with fangs to go with the exotic darkness of her makeup.

Buffy wouldn't have hit the cop, not properly. She might have knocked him down, put him out of the fight, but she wouldn't have slammed his head through his window and let his buddies listen to the sound of him choking around the muzzle of his own gun.

Faith made him deep-throat the barrel before she pulled the trigger. Got blood all over her hands and bare arms, and all over the top as well. Pink didn't suit that. Pink wasn't a violent colour.

Faith thought about throwing the lipstick in the bin, then she had a better idea. A week later, Buffy Summers received one lipstick—Summer Pink—one nail varnish – Ocean Pearl Pink—and a bloody scrap of flesh, formerly an ear.

Faith didn't like men either. The way they grunted and gasped and groped, thinking only with their cocks. Faith liked the choking gasps they made when she crushed their windpipes, though.

A rather amusing thought, that she might just be becoming a serial killer. Or a sociopath.

Sociopath? Faith decided that was what Slayers were. Sociopaths. All that strength, all that power, and the fucking Watcher's Council wanted to keep them on a leash. Wanted to subdue that power, because they didn't have it, couldn't have it.

Faith didn't really like very much. She didn't like sleeping. Slayers' dreams were never good. Slayers' nightmares were always worse. She liked eating. Gluttony, one of the seven deadly sins. She liked chinese takeout, and indian takeout, and pizza takeout, and she liked the look on the delivery boy's face when she opened the door, stark naked.

Faith didn't really like being bored, either. She was getting bored, though. Repetitive existence did that to her.

She wondered about paying an old girlfriend a visit.

Yeah, that could be fun.