Dirty old factories loomed over the street, blocking out the moonlight. Their windows were dark or broken. Half the streetlights were busted out. Most people didn't spend a lot of time in this part of the city at night. Hell, most people didn't spend much time here at all, period. Faith walked down the middle of the street, listening and watching with a stake in one hand and the comforting weight of a big, sharp knife at the small of her back. Boston was a lot different than she remembered it -- the place seemed smaller, somehow. But there were two things that were just like she remembered: the cold and the vamps. Some things never change.
The wind chill had the temperature in the negatives, cold enough that Faith didn't want to think about it. Slaying kept her pretty warm, but she was still bundled up, leggings under her jeans and a sweatshirt beneath her leather jacket. On her head she wore a knit beanie with the Bruins logo, a little homecoming gift to herself. Old snow was heaped in the gutters, stained brownish black from the city grime, and a few stray snowflakes swirled through the air. She could see her breath on every exhale. The street was quiet; all she could hear was the sound of traffic a few blocks over, the wind, and her own footsteps. Faith walked through the quiet for a block, then two. She was at the middle of the intersection when she heard it -- the unmistakable scream that said something is about to bite my neck. Faith had been to a lot of places, and that scream sounded the same in every language. She turned abruptly and ran toward the sound.
It seemed close, a few blocks away at the most. Faith ran fast, but the scream cut off abruptly before she reached its source. "Fuck," she swore, her boots thumping against the cracked pavement. As she got closer, she could hear another sound, though: the grunting, thumping, slamming sound of a fight in progress echoing out of a narrow alley, just the small space between two buildings. Not slowing at all, she ran into the alley at full speed.
The fight was already on, a little guy with a long, two-headed battle axe fighting a vamp in blue dickies and a flannel work shirt. She slowed to a stop and watched for a minute. The guy was small, but he was holding his own pretty well. The vamp faked left and then went in toward the right, moving with that supernatural speed the watchers always talked about, but the little guy was right there, using the wooden handle of his axe as a staff. He brought it up and made contact mid-chest, and the vampire went flying backward into the brick wall of a warehouse. Faith raised an eyebrow. This guy was not just holding his own, he had some serious mojo. No way a normal human could do that.
Remembering what had brought her running, she looked around the alley. There: a teenage girl in dirty jeans, huddled against the wall behind a trash can. This was the worst part of the job, the part that there were no slayer superpowers for. At least not for her. B was good at this shit.
Faith walked up to the girl and extended a hand to help her up. She took it and stood, slowly tearing her eyes away from the fight in progress. At eye level, Faith could see the girl was young, and still too soft around the edges to have been on the streets for long. "Hey," Faith said. "It's not safe here."
The girl nodded mutely, touching one hand to her neck as if she was checking for a bite mark. There was nothing there. "You got a place to go?" Faith asked. The girl shook her head again. "It's not safe on the streets," she repeated. "Sleep at a fuckin' homeless shelter if you have to, but you can't stay outside." Faith turned her toward the mouth of the alley, guiding her away from the fight.
"What-- what happened to that guy?"
"PCP," Faith said shortly. It was a lame explanation, PCP never turned anyone into a bloodsucker, but people believed it. "Just say no." She dug a battered business card with the address of a Salvation Army shelter out of her back pocket and handed it to the girl. "Go see this guy," she said. "Tell him Faith sent you. He'll give you a hot meal." He'd keep the vamps out of the shelter, too, but Faith didn't tell her that.
The girl nodded mutely, but didn't move. Faith pushed her a little until she moved into the street.
"But what--?"
"Just go." Faith was not in the mood to give a whole stupid made-up explanation to this girl, who'd probably followed the vamp here voluntarily. "And stay out of dark alleys," she said, already turning back to the fight.
The vamp had his back to her, and she lifted her stake and moved in to put an end to it when the little guy lifted his axe and charged in swinging. Faith stepped back just before the axe swung through the air and caught the vamp right at the neck. His head popped off his body and then both pieces disintegrated into ash.
"Nice job," she said, tucking her stake back into the pocket of her jacket and turning toward the little guy, wondering who -- and what -- he was. "You're pretty good with that axe."
"I've had some practice," he said, stepping forward into the light from the street so she could see his face clearly for the first time. She didn't know who she'd been expecting, but it was definitely a jolt to see a familiar face.
"Oz," she said, surprised. She talked to the Sunnydale crew all the time, but she had actually forgotten all about Oz. If asked, she would've guessed he'd died a long time ago. It was never a good idea to ask about old friends in circles like theirs.
"Faith," he said, still holding the axe in front of him warily. "You're alive. He stepped closer and sniffed the air lightly, as if to confirm that she hadn't joined the ranks of the undead.
"Twenty-two years tomorrow." She tried to stand still even though every instinct she had was telling her to grab the axe.
"Saw a slayer in Mexico," he explained. "Wasn't anyone I knew, so I thought--"
"Yeah," she said. "Things are a little different now. Tons of slayers runnin' around."
He seemed to take the information in stride. "Cool."
They turned and walked out of the alley, leaving the little pile of dust behind them. Faith tucked her hands in her pockets, one hand gripping the stake automatically. She wasn't normally one to ask a guy a lot of questions, but this seemed like a good time for it.
"Whatcha doin' in Beantown?" she asked, shifting uncomfortably as she did so. "'Sides killin' vamps."
"Grad school," Oz replied. "PhD in werewolves."
Faith let out a laugh and it echoed back off the empty buildings around them. "No shit," she said. "That's fuckin' awesome." She looked over at Oz and he was grinning too, his teeth bright in the pale glow of the moon. The axe rested on his shoulder, and she could see his hand as it grasped the handle, fingers loose and nails painted black.
"You?" he said, and it took her a second to get that it was a question.
"I'm here to slay," she said with a smile, pulling out her stake and twirling it in one hand. "Spread the gospel of clean livin' to the demons of our fair city."
"Good deal," he said simply, and they lapsed into silence. Faith had no particular place to go, so she followed her patrol path, leading him through the maze of old warehouses and factories where runaways and squatters slept and vampires sometimes fed on them.
She snuck looks at Oz out of the corner of her eyes as she walked. They hadn't been best buds back in the day, but she thought he looked the same: spiky hair, old jacket, nail polish and Converse sneakers. It was a weird reminder of her Sunnydale days; a blast from the past was something she could live without, but Oz himself she was kinda glad to see. It surprised her a little. She wasn't going to look into it too much, play the mind games of why, but she was glad to see him.
Oz was quiet, and so she looked a little more as they walked and listened and heard nothing. His hands were thick and strong, and the way he held the axe showed a light touch. He had full lips and a little stubble on his jaw, and Faith shivered at the thought of it scraping across her stomach, her inner thigh. She bit her lip and looked away.
Past the warehouses there were a few empty lots, a convenience store, and then a few blocks to Faith's apartment. She headed that way, thoughts of Oz's lips and teeth and strong hands chasing each other through her head. She was already wet, and she wondered if he could smell it, and fuck if that didn't turn her on even more.
Faith slipped through the gate of the little run-down Patrick Henry Elementary School, planning to cut through and take the shortcut because now she really wanted to get home fast. She didn't know if she'd make it all the way there or just push Oz down and fuck him under the jungle gym. Which would be fine, too. Not like it'd be the craziest thing she'd ever done. She was still thinking about it when all the hairs on the back of her neck stood up at once.
She stopped and looked around, reaching for the knife at her back before she even knew what she was sensing.
"Demon." Oz said briefly, and she knew he could smell the thing.
He pointed and they set off at a jog, trying to get there fast without alerting the demon to their presence. Faith held her unsheathed knife in her right hand, the blade almost glowing in the moonlight. She motioned to Oz and he slowed for one step and fell in behind her. He'd been pretty damn good with that axe earlier, no doubt about it, but he was still a civilian. She was the slayer here.
They rounded the corner of the building and found themselves in what was obviously a playground for real little kids - maybe a kindergarten or a preschool - where the jungle gym and the swingsets were barely as tall as they were.
Faith's heart was racing and her muscles were already tensed for battle. Her vision was narrowing the way it did before a big fight and her breath was coming faster. It took a moment for her mind to process what her eyes were seeing, and another several moments for the message to travel to the other parts of her.
What she saw was a demon, sure. One large demon by the swingset, one medium-sized demon on a park bench, and two little demons on the jungle gym. One of them was hanging upside-down from his knees. There were no human sacrifices, no black altars or vampire henchmen in sight.
Oz skidded to a halt right behind her and took in the scene at the same time. Papa Bear by the swings took a step forward, raising his hands in the universal we-mean-you-no-harm gesture.
"Sorry to disturb your school, folks," he said in a low, gravelly voice, keeping his eyes down near their feet. He had purple skin and three horns sticking out of his forehead.
"Kids, it's time to go," called Mama Bear, casting nervous looks at Oz's axe. She had purple skin, too, and was wearing a pink muumuu, despite the fact that it was about four degrees out there. It was always hard to tell with demons, but Faith thought she might be pregnant. She felt sick.
Moving her knife hand so she could hide the weapon behind her body, Faith took a step back. "No -- don't go because of us," she said clumsily. "We're uh-- sorry about the interruption."
"Sorry," Oz echoed. "Have a nice night."
Together they backed away, until they were out of sight of the playground. Faith's heart was still beating fast, and she had a whole lot of adrenaline in her system now that had nowhere to go. The hair on the back of her neck was still standing on end, screaming THREAT. All her slayer senses were telling her to go back and finish the job. She leaned her back against the wall of the school and bent forward, gulping air into her lungs and trying to quiet her instincts.
"You okay?" asked Oz quietly.
"I will be," Faith said grimly. "Soon as I convince my slayer senses that I'm not murdering children on a playground. Christ."
Oz backed away for a second and then reappeared. "They're gone," he said, standing close enough that he could give her a hand up if she needed it, but far enough away that she could still breathe. That was good. Breathing was good right now.
A minute passed, and Faith pushed herself up to standing. "Good," she said, turning away from the playground and back toward her apartment. After she'd taken a few steps, she realized Oz wasn't with her.
Too tired to turn around all the way, she looked back over her shoulder and saw him standing there, the business end of the axe resting on the ground at his feet, his head tilted to one side, with a funny look on his face.
"What?" she asked. "You comin' or what?"
He didn't reply, but he swung the axe up to his shoulder again and walked over to join her. They fell into step as they made their way across the playground, Faith heading toward her apartment and Oz following silently.
They left the school grounds and crossed the pot-holed residential street that ran next to it.
"So, not evil," Oz said. It wasn't a question.
"Not today," Faith agreed.
"Cool," he said. Faith waited to hear more, but he didn't say anything else.
When was the last time she'd seen him? More like when had he seen her? Was she in Buffy's body, fucking her white-bread boyfriend? In a coma? The amount of time she'd spent actually conscious in Sunnydale was pretty small, and it was basically all bad before her little stopover in the California State Correctional System.
Faith tried to think about it, and she tried to think about what she might've done to that family of demons on the playground -- on a playground, for fuck's sake -- and then she tried not to think at all.
Oz was still there, still soft and hard in all the right places, still holding that axe with a light touch that suggested he might know how to apply just the right kind of pressure to other things. It was still a cold night, the kind to spend indoors making your own kind of heat.
All that, and Faith just felt old and tired. All that work, all that time spent in prison and in therapy and in proving herself to every damn person she could think of, and it all could have gone down the drain in one night. Nevermind that those were demons -- they were a family on a playground. And Oz was someone who'd taken one look at her and thought evil. She didn't even know if that was good or bad.
They'd reached the brick townhouse that held her apartment, and Faith waved at it with one hand. "This is me."
Oz nodded, and Faith started to turn away. She had a few rounds with a punching bag and some late-night pizza delivery to get to. Had to burn off the post-patrol jitters somehow, and her old methods were not happening tonight.
"Hey," Oz said from behind her. Faith turned around to look at him. "Happy birthday."
Faith snorted, then laughed. "Yeah," she said. "Thanks." A great birthday. Typical.
"I have class tomorrow," he said. "But if you want to have a birthday coffee or something, you should come by." He patted down the pockets of his grimy jeans, and produced a business card, only a little bit creased. Faith took it and looked at it in disbelief.
It had a little red and gold seal in one corner, and it said
Harvard University - founded 1636
Daniel Osborne
Assistant Instructor, Folklore and Mythology
Office Hours Monday and Wednesday, 2:00 - 4:00
In the corner, there was an address and a phone number. Faith's eyes zeroed in on the phone number. Digits. Now that made sense to her. She looked up at him and grinned, deepening it just enough to flash a dimple.
"Yeah, okay," she said. "Maybe I will."
Oz grinned back. "Cool," he said, "see you." He hefted his axe back over his shoulder, turned, and walked off down the street.