Title: Believe the Lie
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Pairing/Characters: Buffy Summers/Faith Lehane
Rating: FR13/PG13
Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer belongs to Joss Whedon and company.
Prompts: Written for LJ's 100_situations for Table #3 and Prompt #82 (hit).
Notes: Set after Season Three.
Summary: Sunnydale is small and Buffy can't let on that she feels something more.
Long after the bruises have faded away, Buffy can still sometimes feel Faith's punches and kicks. Her skin will ache and throb as if it has been freshly bruised, just like her heart still does. When this happen, she will do everything possible to avoid the mansion on Crawford Street, Faith's old apartment and the hospital, but Sunnydale is small and Buffy can't let on that she feels something more for Faith.
She doesn't think that Giles or her friends will fault her for being unlucky in love once again. After all, Buffy seems to remember one of them repeating some trite cliché about how people can't control their hearts back when Angelus was roaming the streets of Sunnydale. At the same time, Buffy knows that there is a small part of her that loathes herself for falling in love with another pretty face that ended up deceiving and betraying her, not to mention the damage that Faith inflicted upon Willow, Xander and Giles.
The bruises are long gone, yet Buffy can still feel every one that Faith inflicted. And she does her best to pretend that she never felt anything for Faith, until she believes the lie just like everyone else does.
**END**