Warning: fantasies of sexualized violence, plus references to canon!violence
Note: written for comment_fic on livejournal. Prompt: Faith/Willow, smile
When she first met Red, she thought she had a sweet smile.
She didn't like looking at it.
Willow's grin, sugary and excited and oh-so-innocent.
Smiling when she got to help. Because she loved to do the right thing.
Smiling to be nice. Because she was so damn nice.
There was something in Faith that wanted to hold that sweet girl down and shove her tongue down her throat, wanted to bite that lower lip swollen. Willow's smile, more than anything, made Faith want to dirty something innocent. Faith knew this want came from that twisted sick shit inside her, the thing that she had where everyone else had something ... better. But it didn't stop her from thinking about it.
Later, when they were enemies, Faith wondered what it would be like to kill Willow. Soft body crumpling under Faith's strength. Revenge for being so good, and for knowing Faith wasn't. She didn't want this, she wanted the other fantasy, the better one, the one where Willow is surprised and confused but then is ashamed at how much she loves it, the fantasy where Willow begs her to be rougher, where Willow begs her to bite down and make her scream. But these fantasies, these sounds and pictures were harder to come by now that they knew Faith was evil. Every time she tried to think of Willow, tried to conjure an image to help her get off before she slept, it melted into something else, something sick. This may have been the worst part of being her enemy - knowing that even if she ever got to touch Willow, ever got to feel her sweet smooth warmth, all that could come of it was horror. The destruction of something clean and bright.
In a way, Faith was grateful when she felt the blade in her own gut.
Years later, they met again. Not in someone else's body, not while lying about why they were there. Just Willow coming to get her from LA.
Willow was all business in the car ride. Important work to do, no one had the luxury of grudges. So it was no surprise that Willow was civil to her as Faith became part of them again. But it was surprising, even after everything Faith was and did, she still, once in a while, got to see it. Willow's sweet smile.
It was only by asking others, Spike and Andrew and even Buffy, that Faith found out that it was not the same smile she left behind years ago.
Turns out, Faith wasn't the only one who had a monster inside of her, a big thing with teeth that had be kept reined in. And it turned out that sweet little Willow was enough of a magic badass to make even someone as strong as Faith crumple like wet newspaper if she lost her temper. And even more surprising, it turned out that Willow was actually capable of losing her temper that much. And then some.
It also turned out that Willow had figured out how to live with what she lost, and with what she did. She didn't pretend, she just... lived with it. Every single day.
And she still smiled.
She still loved to help, to do the right thing, to show kindness, to laugh and make laugh.
Faith realized that her smile, her Cheshire-cat grin, didn't symbolize purity and innocence and perfectness and everything else that screamed how not-human Faith really was. Now, when Faith saw Willow smile, she knew it meant something else. Something honest and raw, a victory on lips that have felt tears, an act of defiance against the sins that would try to define her.
The first time Faith kissed Willow, Willow was surprised. But when Faith felt the motion of Willow's lips, the curve of her smile, Faith was glad she waited for the right time. When she could smile back at Willow and mean it.