Title - The Snarkmonster
Summary – Faith mistakes Rodney for a demon
Genre – Hurt/comfort/humour
Rating – 12A/T/PG13
Word Count - 1,370
A/N – Set prior to 'Five By Five' (Angel S1) - Faith's bad. In SGA, this is just before 'The Intruder' (SGA S2). Written for Stargateland's crossover challenge over on LiveJournal.

The Snarkmonster

The night was dark as pitch, but Faith could see and hear further than most other people. She was on the run as she had been for a while now. But thought she might as well use her powers to kill something to ease the rage that tended to accumulate within if left unchecked for too long.

Tonight she'd chosen a cemetery, which was rare for her. Usually she'd go into a town to find some low life, maybe go to a party afterwards. Get laid, crash in some nice pad. Pretend she was normal.

She'd already dusted two vampires when a bright white light shone three rows of gravestones away from her.

"Who's decided to join this little party?" she asked as she approached the figure that'd just materialised from the blinding light.

The creature looked like a man, but Faith wasn't fooled for a moment. Bright lights and teleportation were demon spawn related powers and maybe this would finally give her a worthy opponent.

The beast turned to face her, he was dressed in a tight, light blue shirt that matched his eyes, along with dark trousers. His mouth opened in surprise just before Faith smacked him in the face.

Instead of fighting back, he staggered, blood now pouring from his nose and split lip. His eyes were shut as he recovered slightly. "Ow! What the hell?"

Faith remained in a fighting stance and the vile fiend from hell matched her stance, but blinked heavily and winced all the while. Faith took that as an aggressive move and open invitation so booted him in the stomach and sent him flying back into a gravestone.

She ran over to finish him, but found him lying on the ground, coughing and rocking with his arms wrapped around his middle. He made no move to get up.

Faith kept her guard up and frowned in disappointment. "Aren't you going to teleport away or fight back or something?"

He asked, "Why are you attacking me?"

"You teleported into a graveyard. People like me fight things that show up in places like this."

The man coughed and sat up, leaning against the headstone he'd hit. "What do you think I am? A zombie or vampire?"

"Yes."

The man looked up at her, and despite the pain in his eyes, Faith felt a little twinge in her gut. The memory of the man she'd killed assaulted her mind and she couldn't breathe for a few minutes.

He was human.

And she'd nearly killed him.

When she came back to her senses, he was talking in a low voice, "Something went wrong with the Daeda… I mean the transporter… uh. What I'm saying is, do you have a phone?"

"No. But I can find one for you. Listen, can you walk? I don't really want to leave you in this place."

"The vampires?"

"Uh huh. Something like that." She reached down and grasped his hand and helped him upright. "I'm Faith."

"Rodney."

Now that she was looking at him as a human being, rather than an evil creature to be slain, she found that he was actually kinda hot, even with, or perhaps because of his slanted mouth and the softness around his midsection. He was going to have a couple of nice black eyes to go with his bloody face, but nothing a good clean up couldn't fix. After her hits, he probably needed a hospital, but strangely he hadn't asked for that.

Just as they were about to leave the graveyard, a real monster attacked them. Faith pushed Rodney to the side and he stumbled. She shouted, "Stay out the way!"

Faith hit the vamp a few times, not really getting any satisfaction at all. The need to look out for the man she'd unintentionally hurt kept her occupied. She wasn't too keen on the responsibility of that, but dusted the vampire after a fair few smacks anyway just to test the theory.

She helped Rodney up again. His eyes were wide and he was dabbing his bloody nose with an equally blood-stained tissue.

As they left the graveyard and went back onto the street walking past the houses, she asked him, "So, what is this, Star Trek? Teleportation and little green men?"

Rodney huffed and said, "And I could also ask about you. Superwoman trapped in a Hallowe'en special?"

Faith didn't rise to the bait, but it was tempting.

He continued. "I'm not green by the way. Unless where you broke my nose and fractured all my ribs has made green bruising?"

He stopped and Faith looked at him. He was gazing at her expectantly and she lowered her eyes to study his nose. "Just looks red to me. Like Rudolph."

"Hmph. Mock the man you beat up. Why the malfunction beamed me into an infested graveyard in the middle of the night, I've got no idea."

"Good thing I was there, or you'd be eaten by now."

"Now let's see the options here: beaten up by a crazy girl, or eaten by fictitious creatures of the night? I'm not sure which I prefer."

"You saw the dust in the breeze that thing turned into? Sorry to break it to you, but vampires are real."

"And little green men are not. Space vampires are though."

Faith spotted a likely looking house and went up the driveway. Rodney followed, complaining about his nose and concussion making him woozy. Faith ignored him for the most part, but he wouldn't stop talking and was becoming annoying. For a moment she wished she'd hit him harder or left him behind, but he was her problem now so she hissed, "Shut up for a minute."

Rodney scowled back at her, but stopped speaking.

Faith smashed the front window and unlocked the front door. No alarm. Perfect.

Rodney looked around uncertainly. "This is your place, right? Or shall we add breaking and entering to complete the fun proceedings of this night?"

"Sure it's mine, and I'm a saint. Just get inside and find the phone."

"I suppose this is a bad time to tell you I find hot headed women attractive."

Faith shoved him inside and gave his back a feral smirk. She should probably just beat him up and steal everything he had, but she didn't think he had anything at all, just the clothes on his back. Perhaps she could do something about that too. A hard night's work of slaying always made her hot. If she played this right, he'd be a quick and easy lay and then she'd leave him behind as she disappeared into the night. If the owners came back while he was still there, it wasn't her problem, right?

He was already talking on the phone. He was speaking in a low voice, but Faith could hear every word. He spoke of malfunctions and something called a 'Hermiod.' Sounded painful, whatever that was.

Faith pocketed some loose change that was on the table by the front door and relieved the kitchen of one of its knives for later slaying.

Rodney eyed the knife she held with great worry, so she quickly sheathed it in the holder slung across her back and winked at him. His voice stuttered for a moment and then he hung up.

"They'll be retrieving me in a few minutes. The malfunction's taking a while to fix."

Faith put on her best sultry expression and sauntered over to him. She rested her hands on his shoulders, turned him and pushed him back into the wall. She pressed herself against him and felt him tense up, which made her smile in hunger. She spoke right into his ear, "A few minutes? That's enough time to have some real fun."

He didn't push her away, although he winced from the bruises she'd inflicted. She moved her face round and brushed her lips across his, tasting his breath and a little of the blood that was still there. He still didn't pull away, so she took that as an open invitation. She leant in to deliver a savage kiss, when a bright white light enveloped them both.

The last thing she heard before they were both beamed up was Rodney breathe out a small and surprised, "Oh!"