A/N: Yes it has been ages. Yes, this was written a while ago, and
(hopefully) my writing style has improved since then, so if I continue with
this story, the quality will go up after this chapter. Judging by response,
I will/will not continue the story, so guys, this is the time to let me
know you love me.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~
Faith paced, her arms behind her back. The floor was littered with notebook paper, from digging through her song stash the previous hour. She sank down onto the blue bedspread, and sighed, her head in her hands. The phone rang, which made her jump.
"Shit! Arrgh!" she yelled, and then looked irritably at the corridor. "Buffy! Answer the phone!"
"It's for you," came the answering echo. With a small smirk at having pissed off Buffy unintentionally, Faith picked up the handset in her own room.
"Hey," she greeted, a little uncertainly.
"Hi. Look, luv, Lilah's getting' stressed, somethin' to do with image and the like, bloody woman, but she wants a 'band get together'," Spike's throaty voice full of unspoken humour came through the line.
"So, what?" Faith asked.
"So, I'm gonna come by, pick you up. Meetin' is at mine, seeing as how Lindsey's got a bunch of people at his place, and Li's brother is camped out at hers. And we aren't going near the cheerleader," Spike growled.
"I was a cheerleader!" she told him, mock angrily.
"Bully for you. You're not the epitome of a valley girl while you're at it. Look, be ready in ten minutes," he ordered, as the click signalled him hanging up.
Faith thought a second, staring at the handset. Then dived around her floor looking for something that could possibly pass as 'clean'.
"This is nice," Buffy said dreamily, leaning against Angel's arm. "It's cool to actually spend time together, you know?" Angel nodded uneasily, and let his gaze drift. A screech of tyres on the road outside shook him back to the present, and loud, heavy metal music blared from a car radio.
"What the HELL is going on?" Buffy declared furiously, shoving Angel away, and getting to her feet. She yanked open the front door, as Spike lounged in the doorframe.
"Glad to see the service's gotten better," he said insolently. Buffy glared.
"What do you want, Spike?" she demanded. "School hours are over, and your insufferable presence is no longer a requirement to Snyder's good books. Consider yourself un-new."
"Actually, hard though it is to contemplate for someone who thinks sun moon and stars revolve around her, he's here for me," Faith said mock sympathetically, patting her sister's shoulder, as she swung out the door.
"Faith? Where do you think you're going? Faith!" Buffy's voice rose in pitch as the brunette ducked inside the battered Desoto parked on the curb. The doors slammed, and the engine rumbled, as Spike pulled away from the curb.
"FAITH!!"
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~~*~*~*~*
"Faith! Glad to see you're here!" Lilah called, as the girl walked in the door. Faith looked around. The house was large-ish, faintly Spanish in style, with cream coloured walls outside, and a well kept garden. Inside, terracotta tiles were laid on the floor, and the kitchen was painted a pale blue.
"It's nice," she commented. Spike shrugged.
"S' a kitchen, luv. Not much use for it bein' nice, or whatever."
"Typical male," Lilah said scathingly, then laughed. "Actually, Spike, in your absence, someone else turned up."
"Oh yeah?" Spike asked, turning.
"Hello, little brother," a refined, English voice said coolly.
"Bloody hell! Wesley? What the hell are you doin' back from Oxford?"
"Flying visit," the dark haired Giles replied, with his father's sarcasm. "I'm here because it's the end of the quarter, you idiot. And I'm going off to Rome in six weeks, and the university said I could drop by the USA before hand."
"Great," Spike drawled, with a look of disgust. "A father clone. Wesley, when did you start dressing like a professor?"
The older man adjusted his tie.
"William, I have always dressed this way, if you cared to notice it," he said, rather pompously.
"Wait. You call him William, his dad just called him Will, and we call him Spike? What's up with that?" Lilah interrupted. Wesley shrugged.
"William's penchant for strange nicknames, I suppose. He's always been rather.odd. I think he was dropped on his head as an infant," he smirked.
"Yeah by *you*," Spike grunted. "So, you're home. Big news. Can we go away now? The starchiness is beginning to get to me."
"Sure," Lilah agreed, leading the way through to a living area, with a both guitars and drums set up against the wall. It was fairly sparse, with a couch covered by a moss green throw against a wall, and not much else.
"Okay, first of all, clothing. I know we can't persuade Mr- Billy-Idol- stole-his-look-from-me into anything other than black, so we're gonna have to work with it," Lilah said, with a glance at Spike. "Faith, you generally wear black, so stick with those combats you have on, and I have something here." Faith glanced down at the plain black pants, and nodded.
"Linds, I know blue is your favourite colour, but work with me here. Girls go for blondes in black," she persuaded. Lindsey shot a dirty look at Spike.
"No, girls go for Spike in black. Girls go for me as me," he corrected. Lilah rolled her eyes.
"You will work with me, or you will get OUT Lindsey," she ordered, tossing him a bag. Lindsey, sighed, but obeyed.
"Faith, shirt," she added, and tossed a blood red shirt at the surprised girl. Faith caught it, and held it up. She shrugged.
"Looks okay."
"Great. We have half an hour."
*~*~**~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
"So, is Oz all ready to do the music thing?" Anya asked, sipping an iced tea. Willow nodded emphatically.
"Yup. He's got a new riff thingie to play, and he's been practising diminished ninths, which is really difficult, so he's going to use one, " Willow replied confidently. Then, "I think."
"Sounds cool," Anya shrugged. Buffy walked by, and stopped at the girls' table. She gave them a warm smile.
"Nice outfit Buffy," Anya complimented. Willow's eyes grew large.
"Has Angel seen that yet?" she spluttered. Buffy shook her head, enjoying the attention. She smoothed the front of the Chinese style pale pink short silk dress, and smiled again.
"Nope. But you know Angel. He'll either swallow, and nod, or blink. Master of the non-reaction. " She glanced at Willow. "We've discussed this, Will. Oz is king of the non-response, Angel is king of the non-reaction." The redhead laughed.
"Yeah, but that dress is likely to get at least a blink *and* a swallow." The guy in question walked up behind Buffy, and slipped his arms around her waist.
"Hey," he greeted. She turned in his arms, nuzzling into him, and kissing him lightly on the jawline.
"Hey yourself," she said softly, touching the place her lips had touched him, and wiping away a non existent smear from her pale pink lip gloss.
"Nice dress," he said without expression. Buffy rolled her eyes at Willow.
"Thanks," she replied drily. Xander walked up behind them both.
"Hey Wil-yikes! Buffy? I worship," Xander said jokingly, but his eyes were wide open, and staring at the clinging dress. Buffy laughed.
"Xand, stop it,' she said slightly awkwardly. "Look, it's new, okay?"
"Ooh, starting!" Willow squealed, almost bouncing in excitement.
"Chill, Willow!" Buffy laughed. The redhead managed to look excited and morose at the same time, before directing herself back to the stage.
The Dingoes mellow sound filled the small club, and the young people swayed to the music, still chatting lightly over the music, laughing, playing pool.
"Still good old dingoes," Xander commented.
"No! They're better. That chord really added to the last set," Willow insisted.
"Yeah, Willow," they agreed. The song came to a close, and the manager of the club came forward.
"Jeez. He exists. I thought he was a vampire or something, you know, never appears in direct light," Buffy commented. Angel chuckled.
"Um, Buffy? Vampires eat people?"
"He could be an evil manager," she shrugged. "I dunno. Just a suggestion."
"This is Aurelias," he said shortly, standing aside, as a new band moved into the spot the dingoes had been playing in.
"What happened to dingoes?" Willow protested.
"Aurelias, I've never heard of them around here," Anya mused.
The first few notes hit the air, and a steady beat was introduced. The singer was low, and rough, the song started off slow, and the attention was drawn to the stage.
As they listened to the words, Buffy laughed.
"Sounds like he's had a crappy love life," she commented. The beat picked up, and he lifted his head, his blue eyes direct upon her, sneering at her.
"Let me take my love and bury it, let me haul it six foot deep, I can lay my body down, but I can't find my sweet release, Let me rest in peace!"
"*Nice* song," she added sarcastically, her own hazel eyes on the stage. "Real sweet."
"He's *good*, Buffy," Willow turned around. Buffy folded her arms.
"It's Spike, he's not *nice*," she replied snottily.
The song ended, and various people clapped. Spike bent over the microphone.
"We got another one, only another is gonna sing it," he said, and picked up his guitar. A slim form moved into the dimmed lights, and curled a hand around the microphone, her head hidden in shadows. As the music began, she let her hips sway to the music.
"I wake up in the morning, and put on my face," it began, and the group swayed appreciatively. She was good, and the song was mellow.
"She's hot," Xander commented to no one in particular.
"Xander!" Anya snapped.
"Sorry, Ahn, but she-" He stopped and stared at the stage, as the singer tossed her long, tousled brown hair, and her smoky gaze met that of the audience.
"She's Faith?"
"Faith?" Buffy said, stunned, staring at the girl shimmying in front of the microphone, the tight red, shirt pulling across her chest, smiling as she sang.
"Faith? Wow," Willow mumbled, her eyes fixed on the stage. The song went on, and Faith rose in volume, but the melody was simple, wrapping itself around the people entranced.
"They've stopped moving," Buffy commented, sounding lost. "Why've they stopped moving?"
""They're listening," Angel told her, pulling her closer.
As the chorus came to a final end, the Bronze broke out into applause. Faith blinked at the crowd, onstage, and smiled.
"Good, Li?" she asked, as the other girl grinned.
"Hell yeah!" They spun into another song, and Faith sang with more confidence, and exhuberance. Again, the crowd exploded, and the end of the set came all too soon.
"That was -Aurelias," the manager said, sounding a little confused. "Uh, thanks guys."
Faith grinned, happily. They were a hit.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ A/N: Yup. S'all written aboutsix months ago, and I have another profile, so- this is much less likely to get updated. You want it, let me know.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~
Faith paced, her arms behind her back. The floor was littered with notebook paper, from digging through her song stash the previous hour. She sank down onto the blue bedspread, and sighed, her head in her hands. The phone rang, which made her jump.
"Shit! Arrgh!" she yelled, and then looked irritably at the corridor. "Buffy! Answer the phone!"
"It's for you," came the answering echo. With a small smirk at having pissed off Buffy unintentionally, Faith picked up the handset in her own room.
"Hey," she greeted, a little uncertainly.
"Hi. Look, luv, Lilah's getting' stressed, somethin' to do with image and the like, bloody woman, but she wants a 'band get together'," Spike's throaty voice full of unspoken humour came through the line.
"So, what?" Faith asked.
"So, I'm gonna come by, pick you up. Meetin' is at mine, seeing as how Lindsey's got a bunch of people at his place, and Li's brother is camped out at hers. And we aren't going near the cheerleader," Spike growled.
"I was a cheerleader!" she told him, mock angrily.
"Bully for you. You're not the epitome of a valley girl while you're at it. Look, be ready in ten minutes," he ordered, as the click signalled him hanging up.
Faith thought a second, staring at the handset. Then dived around her floor looking for something that could possibly pass as 'clean'.
"This is nice," Buffy said dreamily, leaning against Angel's arm. "It's cool to actually spend time together, you know?" Angel nodded uneasily, and let his gaze drift. A screech of tyres on the road outside shook him back to the present, and loud, heavy metal music blared from a car radio.
"What the HELL is going on?" Buffy declared furiously, shoving Angel away, and getting to her feet. She yanked open the front door, as Spike lounged in the doorframe.
"Glad to see the service's gotten better," he said insolently. Buffy glared.
"What do you want, Spike?" she demanded. "School hours are over, and your insufferable presence is no longer a requirement to Snyder's good books. Consider yourself un-new."
"Actually, hard though it is to contemplate for someone who thinks sun moon and stars revolve around her, he's here for me," Faith said mock sympathetically, patting her sister's shoulder, as she swung out the door.
"Faith? Where do you think you're going? Faith!" Buffy's voice rose in pitch as the brunette ducked inside the battered Desoto parked on the curb. The doors slammed, and the engine rumbled, as Spike pulled away from the curb.
"FAITH!!"
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~~*~*~*~*
"Faith! Glad to see you're here!" Lilah called, as the girl walked in the door. Faith looked around. The house was large-ish, faintly Spanish in style, with cream coloured walls outside, and a well kept garden. Inside, terracotta tiles were laid on the floor, and the kitchen was painted a pale blue.
"It's nice," she commented. Spike shrugged.
"S' a kitchen, luv. Not much use for it bein' nice, or whatever."
"Typical male," Lilah said scathingly, then laughed. "Actually, Spike, in your absence, someone else turned up."
"Oh yeah?" Spike asked, turning.
"Hello, little brother," a refined, English voice said coolly.
"Bloody hell! Wesley? What the hell are you doin' back from Oxford?"
"Flying visit," the dark haired Giles replied, with his father's sarcasm. "I'm here because it's the end of the quarter, you idiot. And I'm going off to Rome in six weeks, and the university said I could drop by the USA before hand."
"Great," Spike drawled, with a look of disgust. "A father clone. Wesley, when did you start dressing like a professor?"
The older man adjusted his tie.
"William, I have always dressed this way, if you cared to notice it," he said, rather pompously.
"Wait. You call him William, his dad just called him Will, and we call him Spike? What's up with that?" Lilah interrupted. Wesley shrugged.
"William's penchant for strange nicknames, I suppose. He's always been rather.odd. I think he was dropped on his head as an infant," he smirked.
"Yeah by *you*," Spike grunted. "So, you're home. Big news. Can we go away now? The starchiness is beginning to get to me."
"Sure," Lilah agreed, leading the way through to a living area, with a both guitars and drums set up against the wall. It was fairly sparse, with a couch covered by a moss green throw against a wall, and not much else.
"Okay, first of all, clothing. I know we can't persuade Mr- Billy-Idol- stole-his-look-from-me into anything other than black, so we're gonna have to work with it," Lilah said, with a glance at Spike. "Faith, you generally wear black, so stick with those combats you have on, and I have something here." Faith glanced down at the plain black pants, and nodded.
"Linds, I know blue is your favourite colour, but work with me here. Girls go for blondes in black," she persuaded. Lindsey shot a dirty look at Spike.
"No, girls go for Spike in black. Girls go for me as me," he corrected. Lilah rolled her eyes.
"You will work with me, or you will get OUT Lindsey," she ordered, tossing him a bag. Lindsey, sighed, but obeyed.
"Faith, shirt," she added, and tossed a blood red shirt at the surprised girl. Faith caught it, and held it up. She shrugged.
"Looks okay."
"Great. We have half an hour."
*~*~**~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
"So, is Oz all ready to do the music thing?" Anya asked, sipping an iced tea. Willow nodded emphatically.
"Yup. He's got a new riff thingie to play, and he's been practising diminished ninths, which is really difficult, so he's going to use one, " Willow replied confidently. Then, "I think."
"Sounds cool," Anya shrugged. Buffy walked by, and stopped at the girls' table. She gave them a warm smile.
"Nice outfit Buffy," Anya complimented. Willow's eyes grew large.
"Has Angel seen that yet?" she spluttered. Buffy shook her head, enjoying the attention. She smoothed the front of the Chinese style pale pink short silk dress, and smiled again.
"Nope. But you know Angel. He'll either swallow, and nod, or blink. Master of the non-reaction. " She glanced at Willow. "We've discussed this, Will. Oz is king of the non-response, Angel is king of the non-reaction." The redhead laughed.
"Yeah, but that dress is likely to get at least a blink *and* a swallow." The guy in question walked up behind Buffy, and slipped his arms around her waist.
"Hey," he greeted. She turned in his arms, nuzzling into him, and kissing him lightly on the jawline.
"Hey yourself," she said softly, touching the place her lips had touched him, and wiping away a non existent smear from her pale pink lip gloss.
"Nice dress," he said without expression. Buffy rolled her eyes at Willow.
"Thanks," she replied drily. Xander walked up behind them both.
"Hey Wil-yikes! Buffy? I worship," Xander said jokingly, but his eyes were wide open, and staring at the clinging dress. Buffy laughed.
"Xand, stop it,' she said slightly awkwardly. "Look, it's new, okay?"
"Ooh, starting!" Willow squealed, almost bouncing in excitement.
"Chill, Willow!" Buffy laughed. The redhead managed to look excited and morose at the same time, before directing herself back to the stage.
The Dingoes mellow sound filled the small club, and the young people swayed to the music, still chatting lightly over the music, laughing, playing pool.
"Still good old dingoes," Xander commented.
"No! They're better. That chord really added to the last set," Willow insisted.
"Yeah, Willow," they agreed. The song came to a close, and the manager of the club came forward.
"Jeez. He exists. I thought he was a vampire or something, you know, never appears in direct light," Buffy commented. Angel chuckled.
"Um, Buffy? Vampires eat people?"
"He could be an evil manager," she shrugged. "I dunno. Just a suggestion."
"This is Aurelias," he said shortly, standing aside, as a new band moved into the spot the dingoes had been playing in.
"What happened to dingoes?" Willow protested.
"Aurelias, I've never heard of them around here," Anya mused.
The first few notes hit the air, and a steady beat was introduced. The singer was low, and rough, the song started off slow, and the attention was drawn to the stage.
As they listened to the words, Buffy laughed.
"Sounds like he's had a crappy love life," she commented. The beat picked up, and he lifted his head, his blue eyes direct upon her, sneering at her.
"Let me take my love and bury it, let me haul it six foot deep, I can lay my body down, but I can't find my sweet release, Let me rest in peace!"
"*Nice* song," she added sarcastically, her own hazel eyes on the stage. "Real sweet."
"He's *good*, Buffy," Willow turned around. Buffy folded her arms.
"It's Spike, he's not *nice*," she replied snottily.
The song ended, and various people clapped. Spike bent over the microphone.
"We got another one, only another is gonna sing it," he said, and picked up his guitar. A slim form moved into the dimmed lights, and curled a hand around the microphone, her head hidden in shadows. As the music began, she let her hips sway to the music.
"I wake up in the morning, and put on my face," it began, and the group swayed appreciatively. She was good, and the song was mellow.
"She's hot," Xander commented to no one in particular.
"Xander!" Anya snapped.
"Sorry, Ahn, but she-" He stopped and stared at the stage, as the singer tossed her long, tousled brown hair, and her smoky gaze met that of the audience.
"She's Faith?"
"Faith?" Buffy said, stunned, staring at the girl shimmying in front of the microphone, the tight red, shirt pulling across her chest, smiling as she sang.
"Faith? Wow," Willow mumbled, her eyes fixed on the stage. The song went on, and Faith rose in volume, but the melody was simple, wrapping itself around the people entranced.
"They've stopped moving," Buffy commented, sounding lost. "Why've they stopped moving?"
""They're listening," Angel told her, pulling her closer.
As the chorus came to a final end, the Bronze broke out into applause. Faith blinked at the crowd, onstage, and smiled.
"Good, Li?" she asked, as the other girl grinned.
"Hell yeah!" They spun into another song, and Faith sang with more confidence, and exhuberance. Again, the crowd exploded, and the end of the set came all too soon.
"That was -Aurelias," the manager said, sounding a little confused. "Uh, thanks guys."
Faith grinned, happily. They were a hit.
* ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ A/N: Yup. S'all written aboutsix months ago, and I have another profile, so- this is much less likely to get updated. You want it, let me know.