A/N: Written for Kink Bingo, "penance/punishment". Contains (all consensual) violence, spanking, bondage, and (non-explicit) flogging. Set somewhat ambiguously post Buffy season 7 and Angel season 4. Title from Lady Gaga.
You and Me Could Write a Bad Romance
They aren't the same people they were.
It's a total cliché, Faith knows this. Doesn't make it any less true.
They spar with knives, drawing blood, every time on purpose. They spar and Faith holds back, holds back more than she ever did training with anyone, lets Wesley punch her so her head snaps back and her nose bleeds, lets him punch her until all she can taste in her mouth is blood. She lets Wesley's foot land blows that leave bruises that still fade too quickly but that hurt like a bitch anyway. He's cracked ribs more than once and still Faith lets him.
He shouts when she makes it too easy and then looks pleased when she splits his lip.
Before Faith came back to LA she knew what her blood looked like painting the tiles of his shower and swirling down the drain. Now there isn't a room left that she hasn't dripped all over.
The sparring is only a prelude. It's like foreplay.
She sits in Wesley's lap, straddles his hips in the chair, and remembers making him scream. She remembers taunting him, remembers rubbing against him, remembers the humiliation on his face when she'd felt his dick twitch and start to harden against her.
It makes her feel dirty.
She looks at Wesley and can see in his eyes that he remembers, too. How could he not?
She asks him to hurt her. He does, but he never goes too far and he takes care of her afterwards. It's a kindness she never offered him.
Faith wonders whether anyone besides Wesley even knows she's in LA. She guesses maybe, yeah. Now that Angel's gone over to the dark side or whatever, he probably has people to tell him everything that goes on.
But she never sees him. She never asks about him and Wesley never brings him up.
It's probably better this way.
Sometimes Faith makes Wes angry - on purpose, sometimes, and sometimes not - and he spanks her. Actually spanks her. She bends forward over his desk or he lays her across his knees, her panties around her ankles, and he spanks her so that it smarts and her ass turns red and sore. This doesn't last either, but it's good while it does.
She asks him if this is what he'd wanted, back when she was his Slayer and he was her Watcher. She asks him if he'd fantasized about it, having her in his power, punishing her for what a little bitch she'd been. She asks him if his little pansy ass would have ever been able to imagine something this good.
He never gives her a real answer. He slaps her harder and Faith bites her lip. She moans, drawing it out, and he can never resist her. Wes fucks her just like that, sometimes, against the desk, or sometimes Faith rides him and watches his face when he comes, his hands clenching her hips.
When his hand isn't enough, Wesley goes for the toys. He has a flogger that Faith likes best, that stings like a mother but she's had some of the best orgasms of her life after he uses it on her (endorphins are pretty fucking amazing). She can't lie on her back for a while afterwards, but that's alright.
Yeah. It's kind of messed-up.
It's lucky Faith doesn't give a shit.
They use handcuffs, too. Handcuffs, rope, Wesley's ties, whatever works. Sometimes Wesley will tie her to the bed and leave her and it doesn't matter how much she shouts. She yells herself hoarse sometimes but he never comes back until he's good and ready. He does his fucking errands while she's stuck on the bed, waiting for him to return. She thinks he likes hearing her beg, likes knowing that she is completely at the mercy of his whims.
Of course, Faith could probably free herself if she really wanted to. Slayer strength and all. But she never does.
Wesley always touches her raw wrists and her raw ankles very gently when he releases her. His touch is so light that Faith thinks she's probably imagining it, but maybe she isn't.
Faith has a hard time reconciling this Wesley with the Wesley she knew. He was such a prissy, stuffy know-it-all, running scared from the creatures in the night and with not a clue how to handle Faith. He'd probably been a virgin, too.
It's weird to think that the man he is now, he'd had that in him even then. The man who calmly clamps her nipples and won't let her come until he says so, this man with all his shattered pieces barely clinging together with scotch and fucking duct tape.
(And maybe with a little Faith. She's got a good name for this, right? A good name, nice and clichéd. But, yeah. She likes to think she's helping to keep him together, too.
She isn't the same person she was. She can be good for something.)
But it was in him even then, the darkness and the ability to so expertly control. That fussy little man had somehow been hiding her Wes, somewhere down deep.
She wonders if things would have turned out differently if that speck (okay, that fucking large speck) in her had been able to see that speck in him.
Faith thinks they're both a little bit (or, okay, maybe a lot) broken and she thinks that somehow their jagged pieces fit together. Not perfectly and not even well - they cut into each other, their edges not meshing, they cut and they hurt and they ache.
She wants the pain because it makes her feel.
She doesn't think anyone who wasn't also a fucked-up mess could ever give her any of what she needs.
It isn't about cruelty. Wesley is never cruel to her, no matter what anyone on the outside might say. Yeah, there's danger and pain, but it's never cruel. It's never something she doesn't want even if she can't verbalize the desire.
He would stop, if she really wanted him to. (She doesn't.)
It isn't entirely about sex. Not that Wes doesn't get off, they both do. The sex is fantastic (trust her, she's had a lot of sex, she knows what she's talking about) but it's only part of it. It's not even the important part. The sex is… the bonus.
It's mostly about getting what they deserve. Faith still thinks she deserves to be punished and Wes… Well, Faith thinks this is a form of punishment for him, too.
After, she always feels better. She doesn't know if Wesley does, too.
End