TITLE: Purposed Dream
AUTHOR: Blaire Ryan
RATING: R, Heavy
CLASSIFICATION: Faith/Spike Angst, Sex, Blood
SUMMARY: Faith has spent sixty years fighting for her redemption, but one vampire can make her forget about all of it.
SPOILERS: Umm, various mentions of everything up to Into the Woods and Reunion.
DISTRIBUTION: Eternal Bitca, anyone else just ask.
DISCLAIMER: Joss de Whedon, Mutant Enemy, Kazui Sandollar, FOX and the WB all have their grubby hands on the characters and property such.
FEEDBACK: Desperately wanting!
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Answer to Challenge #26 at You Got the Stones?
It was proof that anything could happen. Really, who could have expected its return? Not after over fifty years. It was funny enough almost to chuckle at, but Faith didn't chuckle much at all lately. More than six decades ago, she'd loved the music that was now blasting on the tiny little speakers spread throughout the building. They'd play it at raves, and it was perfect to listen to while on E. Perfect for the dancing, the teasing, the foreplay on the dance floor. But, it didn't last. It was considered old fashioned for decades, something that only classicists listened to. Faith never thought she'd see it come back, but just like the black leather that was now popping up everywhere, replacing the synthetic silks as the "in" style, the music came back too.
She sensed them now, forgetting all thoughts of repetitive culture. Two of her kind, but of course they were soulless. There was only one vampire in the world with a soul now, and it was Faith, the slayer-come-vampire. It was different before, but… she didn't want to think about that right then. She had a job to do. She used the tainted senses she possessed, part vampire and part slayer, and was able to find them with little trouble. They were talking to two women, pretty bleached-blondes. No doubt, they would be going soon, but the girls weren't going to be getting the night they expected. The vampires looked young, they probably wouldn't even bother to sleep with the girls first, just drain them and drop the bodies in some dumpster.
Moving from the full bar, Faith went to earn one more piece of her redemption.
August 2003
Cordelia, Wesley, and Gunn could hear the noise from the fight in the basement. Wesley cringed when he heard the creak of metal, bending as a body impacted with it.
"Don't you think we should do something?" Gunn asked, as Cordelia and Wesley did nothing still. "I mean, they've been at it for nearly an hour."
Cordelia shook her head as she highlighted a sentence in a printout from the demon database. "Hey, as long as they're not doing the dirty down there, I say let them beat the hell out of each other," her words were punctuated by more than a hint of annoyance.
As he stood up and stretched, after more than an hour of sitting and waiting for something to do, Gunn laughed, "You and my man Angel have a fight?"
Cordelia looked up for the first time in an hour, dragging her attention from her studying. "No, of course not. Mr. 'I can't kiss my girlfriend because I don't think she has any self control at all' won't fight. He just sits there silently and never gives me any indication that he takes what I'm saying seriously. I mean, one loss of a soul and a trip to hell, and now he's mister celibate! I mean, we've been going out for a year! A whole year, and he gives me these damn little pecks. It's like kissing my grandma!"
Wesley had remained quiet throughout, and was about to remind Cordelia of the dire consequences should they get to close, when the door to the basement was flung open, neatly interrupting him. Faith stumbled up first, cradling a sore arm and sporting a nice bruise on her side. Angel was next with bloody rag rapped around one leg that was also causing his limp.
"Overeager much?" Cordelia asked losing her annoyance. The bloody rag must have been one of his shirts, because he wasn't wearing one. That was causing more than a little distraction for her angry, hormone-addled brain.
Faith grinned and punched Angel in the arm, "Angel here is pretty surprising. He doesn't take losing very good."
Angel gave a look of mock shock, "Losing. I wasn't the one that got thrown over the washer and into the support pillar. I wouldn't call that winning."
Faith was about to argue when Wesley broke in, "Don't you two think some caution could be exercised when you are training? It didn't sound to me that you were being careful," He took a sip of his tea, then looked annoyed when Faith casually plopped down next to him.
"Do I sense someone going into stuffed-shirt Brit mode? Virginia been too tired all week or something? Come one Wes man, accelerated healing, both of us. And I'm sure Cordy is plenty happy to see Angel with his shirt all torn and manly. Even if it was made that way by an itsy little girl like me," Faith iterated, and held up a hand to stop Wesley's flustered response. "Don't worry Wes man, I'm sure Virginia is giving ya plenty."
Angel sat back watching, holding back a smile. He had to admit; Delia did have a sort of glazed look in her eye. 'Must be too angry to say anything,' he thought to himself. And Wesley, he was acting a little… overly. Probably was fighting with Virginia over jobs again. She didn't think he should be working for nothing when she obviously had plenty of money both of them to live without the threat of death everyday.
"Enough," Angel said, successfully cutting of all arguments that were brewing. "Delia, how's the research coming on the Tadscalda beast? Is there a way to neutralize those lightning bolts that hover around it?"
February 2067
Faith wondered absentmindedly why she was thinking of these things now. That was a pretty insignificant event in her life, comparatively. She shook off the feeling though, along with the slight unease in preparation for battle. These vamps had a strange aura about them, familiar, along her line. The power radiated off them, but at least they couldn't have been a year.
They hadn't noticed her slipping into the alley, following their careless dance of preemptive death. She wanted to change that though. "Hey, ugly vamp one and two! Over here!"
The two vampires had been in the midst of going into their game faces, thoroughly terrifying the prey that had preened on their arms just moments before. But when Faith appeared out of the shadows, they bristled with anger.
"This is our hunt, bitch. Go get your own," The man looked liked he'd have been a boxer if the sport wasn't illegal. Big meaty fists, arms like fifty-pound hams, and his ears looked like they'd been cauliflowered plenty.
Faith didn't pull out a stake yet, no need for "crazy minion reaction syndrome" to cause them to take hostages. "Let's see what I have here. Two stupid minions, two girls crazy enough to say yes to your ugly asses, and little old me. Didn't your Sire ever teach you not to play with your food in public? You don't go into a club where a room full of people can see you, morons, then come out and eat them in an alley. What if the cams saw you? What if I saw you, and had to teach you a lesson?"
The smaller, more attractive fledgling stepped forward. "You stupid bitch. You think you can come here and insult me and my compadre in front of our food and get away with it? How bout we see how pretty you are with your face all cut up?"
Faith came near him, moving both of the vampires away from their cowering prey. She reached a hand out and ran it along the smaller, actually attractive vamp's chest. "Really? You'd mess up my pretty little face?" Her hand came into a fist of his shirt, and he went flying across the alley, into the wall.
The second stooge was attacking her immediately, knocking Faith off her feet and onto the dirty ground. She heard the tear of her new leather pants, and decided the playtime was over. "Damn you bitch! We told you to get your own prey! Now you're going to-" Burly was cut off as the stake was shoved through his chest. He screamed as his body disintegrated into millions of dust particles.
"Sorry about your friend, his breath was just too disgusting," Faith said as she stood up off the urine-lined cement. "I mean, it's been sixty years since I was human, and I still remember personal hygiene."
The second vampire was on alert now. Arms raised in a combat stance, Faith was a little surprised. Most vampires ran insanely towards her and she could stake them right away. "You are a traitor! You kill your own kind!"
Faith laughed, "He wasn't my kind, and neither are you."
The vampire sniffed, "I can smell you. You are a vampire! Don't pretend you are not!"
Faith shook her head, "No, I've got a soul. But you won't last long enough to get to know it."
The vampire pounced, landing a kick to her side. Faith swung her feet around, sweeping the vampire onto the ground. Before he could react, she buried a stake in its heart, not reacting quickly enough to remove the jagged wood before it was enveloped with the rest of the body in ash. It didn't matter to her, though. The two were dusted, and she hadn't seen anymore in the club. She could go home and sit in the dark, now.
"I'd try and pick dates with a pulse next time, girls. Men are trouble enough," she said to the two blondes, and stalked off into the night. At least, she tried, but her step was interrupted by bumping into someone she'd met only a few times before. None of those times had been especially happy.
"Spike," she whispered.
September 2003
They were outnumbered, in a big way. Fifteen demons, all wearing those god-awful Scourge uniforms. Fifteen demons against Faith, Angel, and Lindsey.
"You know, Angel, you've really got to thank Darla for me, if we get out of this. I mean, now that I have all these great vampire senses, I know that I'm not the only one scared shitless. I sure could have used this when I was still working for Wolfram & Hart," Lindsey McDonald said as he buried a knife in a Jhahrisa demon's neck, cutting out the source of its strength.
Angel said nothing, but continued to fight. He actually wished that his childe and grandchilde were still in Los Angeles right then. It would have made this war on the Scourge much easier, considering how much Darla hated demons that thought they were better than vampires. Her childe may have been helping them, but he was still a fledgling, even if a powerful one.
The fight wasn't exactly going well after half an hour. The stupidity of the fanatic demons were allowing them to be picked off one by one, but many were warrior demons, much harder to kill than the average vampire or street urchin demon. Some went down by neck breaking, some required the heart to be removed. After several retreats, and more than a few sprained joints, only eight of the fifteen demons had been taken down.
"You know," Faith said between placing a kick to the chest of one demon, and blocking the downward swipe of a stick from another, "This is getting really, really annoying," Pulling the stick from the scaly creep she smashed it over his moisture-wanting head. "I'm always up for a good little fight, but I do not like these demons that somehow can play nice with each other."
Managing to get behind the demon that was currently focused on him, Lindsey wrapped his arms around the neck of the beast; tugging hard enough separate the head from the rest of the creature. He grimaced as viscous purple blood began to eat away at his clothes. "Somehow, I agree with you Slayer. None of the demons we ever worked with at Wolfram & Hart had much sense of camaraderie, more of an 'all about me' attitude. Probably why they were so easy to take down."
Faith lanced out with the heal of her boot, but the demon's head moved too quickly. Her foot became buried inside the rotting wood of the wall. The demon took advantage of this, and before Faith could react, he had her by the arm and flung her against the ground.
Angel spun around at the sound of the bones of her arm breaking, a bloody demon windpipe in his hand. "Faith!" He launched himself at the massive Eckzar demon, but was too late to stop it from pressing a ceremonial blade against her throat. Angel could only find the breath to howl as he used the same knife that had cut into his friend to disembowel the creature that had done it to her. Angel continued after it was dead, thrust after thrust into the gut of the dead thing. Smearing green gore all around.
At the fury they saw, and the realization that seventeen of their fellow Scourge now lay dead, the last trio of demons ran. Lindsey was read to give chase, when he looked to the ground and found the dark slayer's lifeblood running from her gore-coated neck. "Lindsey!" Angel called to him, "Run. Find a phone and call an ambulance!"
Lindsey came closer, as Angel tried helplessly to put pressure on the huge wound. "Hurry! Dammit, she's losing a lot of blood. We need to get her to a hospital!" The puddle of blood beneath her body was massive, and growing.
"Angel. They won't be here in time. There's no way they could save her," Lindsey knew Angel had centuries to deal with wounds. He knew the truth, but refused to accept it.
"No, she can survive. She has to survive! We can't let her die! Run, damn you!" His hands were coated in Faith's red essence, and she had lost consciousness long before. "Go!"
Coming down on his knees next to the two, Lindsey watched as Angel's eyes took a glow of rage, and then began to fade to helplessness. "We can save her, if not her life, at least her existence."
Angel looked at him as if he'd sprouted horns. "That's… disgusting. We are taught from the beginning! That's not allowed. One of the first things the sire…" he faded off, realizing the idiocy of the situation. Of course you were never to turn a slayer, it was basic, drilled in from the beginning. If you see a slayer, run. If you must face her, and manage to keep her from killing you, do not turn her no matter what.
Lindsey shook his head quickly, "I know what Darla said, just as the Master said to her. But it's for protection. The soulless vampire would be killed immediately, for turning her after being murdered. The slayers keep their souls, and their need to kill vampires."
Angel put the thoughts together in his mind. It made sense, actually. He'd never really thought about turning a slayer since gaining a soul. Definitely never Buffy. She'd hated the existence he had to live and it was not a question. As an unwritten rule, it had been just that, a rule. But now…
"Do we have the right? To make this will destroy her life. Do we have the right?" Angel asked himself more than Lindsey.
Lindsey watched as the blood began to slow, "Angel, if we don't make the decision, she won't have a life to destroy. She's lived a life, older than most slayers, but she is going to die. We can save her."
The decision wasn't a hard one. Angel could not stand by while one of his best friends' lifeblood drained onto the floor of an abandoned warehouse. He would turn her, and hope god would have mercy on him.
February 2067
God, he was gorgeous. That was the first thing that came to Faith's mind as they sat down in the water boutique. She'd thought it was ridiculous nearly sixty years ago, when the "Water Franchise" began to spring up around the country. Who was stupid enough to go to a store to buy overpriced bottled water? It was free from the tap, right? No one would ever go to the damn places.
Faith laughed at the memory, and Spike looked at her strangely. "Sorry. I was just thinking back on when they first opened an 'Aqua Spot' in LA. Cordelia took Angel there when they first got engaged. After he did the Shanshu 'become human miraculously' thing, anyway. He thought it was stupid too. None of us but Delia thought it'd last the year. But she went out and bought a ton of stock in it," Faith related the story laughing, and grabbed a menu off of the wall.
Spike nodded, still not saying anything. Pressing an order key in the table, he chose one of the countless brands of water. After Faith had chosen her poisin, she decided to continue. Her "nephew", if she could think of Spike like that, was being surprisingly quiet. From what she'd known of William, he'd never been much of the silent type. Always had something to say, actually.
"Anyway, she and Angel lived off that purchase for years. Being Angel, he gave most of it to some needy half-demon clan or something, but they lived large for a while. When the public schools were turned into recruiting stations, their kids had no problem getting into the good private ones. All cause of this place."
Faith was beginning to get tired of Spike's lack of response. He hadn't stopped staring at her with those damn icy blue globes. "Okay, Spike. I know you're not interested in Cordelia and Angel's cute little kids. You're too much of a badass for that, right?" Faith asked frustrated. He still said nothing, only stared her in the eyes. "Talk to me, dammit!" She was suddenly glad there were only two other patrons in the botique at this hour. And the ones that were there only glanced her direction for a moment, then returned to their conversation.
"Sorry luv, just sizing you up. Last time I saw you, we didn't get much personal interaction. Not with that whole Scourge War issue. I mean, it wasn't too bad. I got my chip out during the whole mess, even if Poof didn't like it. But now, I'm just checking you out. Gotta know what makes my auntie tick," Spike said all this with a nonchalance that surprised Faith. She had expected more after half a century.
"Please. Don't call me auntie. You're way too old to call me that," she sipped her water, noticing the minute differences between the kind she drank now and the kind that was in her apartment. With filtering technologies being what they were, there definitely wasn't a large difference. Only her vampire sense of taste could really discern a flavor distinctiveness.
Spike chuckled a sexy laugh. "What, 130 years too much for ya? It's but a blink of an eye with our lifestyles. Kind of a perk being eternal," he downed the rest of the water like it was real alcohol. "Well, at least it used to be. Was a lot easier to take when my poisin was still for sale. And my fags, haven't smoked them in ages. We have to find other things to keep us entertained," The moment Spike winked at her, she knew she was in trouble.
Smiling seductively and licking her lips, Faith asked coily, "And what are these things?"
Faith was told, and twenty minutes later in her apartment, she was shown. Sweatily, with an amount of blood play that would have made her sire proud, she was shown.
As they lay in her bead, panting, bite marks healing throughout their bodies, Spike managed to ask "Have fun, slayer? I know I did."
Faith laughed, "Yeah, I did. But, this is breaking parr for me. I'm supposed to be kicking you out right about now. Kind of a 'wham, bamn, thankyou ma'am' thing."
Shaking his head, Spike ran his fingers down the dark-haired vampiress's back, stopping at the swell of her buttocks. Kneading lightly, "Really? But I'm sure we're not done yet. And tonight is only the tip of the iceberg, you know. Cause slayer, I have a few things I want to introduce you to before I-" William the Bloody's carefully prepared speech was interupted by the grinding of his bedmate's hips, and her lips closing around his.
"Oh, we'll have plenty of time for talk later. Now, we have other engagements," were Faith's words before her mouth became much too busy for talking.
Fin
So, anyone want sequel? Think you can come up with a challenge?