The dude that crashed down from heaven

Faith opens her mouth widely so she can put on her black stripe of eyeliner without blinking. Her reflection in the mirror looks pale, greenish even. She hopes it is because of the puke green paint on the bathroom door. Her invisible companion, who has decided he needs to be in the tiny bathroom at the same time as she to put in thick globs of hair gel, jostles her arm. And how weird is it that Spike's invisibility in the mirror has affected the tube of gel he's holding?

"Hey!" she snaps. "Mind the arm!"

Now she looks like Crybaby. Kinda cool, but not for tonight. She sees a Q-tip floating towards her in the mirror. She snatches it out of the air and grunts a thank-you.

The council pays them both a small salary, a stipend as they call it, Faith for being the Slayer and Spike for acting as Watcher-In-Training. It doesn't stretch to houses with big bathrooms or attractive interior decorating, even out here in the middle of nowhere, a.k.a. a suburb of Cleveland. At least Giles pays for full medical, which is more important for a Slayer than a swanky apartment.

Faith finishes her Egyptian left eye and goes on to the right. It's always difficult to make it exactly the same, so she concentrates hard and ignores Spike's mutterings. He thinks she should get on with it already.

She gets out her lipstick and paints her mouth, bites a tissue, powders, paints it again. The Faith in the mirror still looks pale. Slayer healing should get its butt in gear, all her other wounds have healed up, although there are still big red zippers all over her belly. She hopes they will fade in time, even if Spike admires them and licks them regularly. He thinks battle scars are sexy. Anyway, that's what he says.

Rouge. She needs rouge for that healthy all-American glow. As she applies the color, she suddenly thinks that maybe, for Cleveland standards, she has overdone the eyeliner a little. Then again, she has seen what goes for fashion on her few forays into the glittering nightlife of Ohio, and she is sort of sure big hair went out of style when Dallas went off the air.

"Do my eyes, too?" demands Spike.

Faith pictures a raccoon-eyed Spike besieged by the local talent.

"I think you are pretty enough without it," she says, capping the lipstick tube. "You look like the dude that crashed out of heaven coz he pissed off God."

The son of the morning snorts and thrusts out his full lower lip. Faith would like to suck on it, but sticks to tweaking his ass, so as not to smudge the lipstick. It's a really nice color called Deadly Nightshade, courtesy of Sunnydale Wal-Mart. It's nearly gone, she notices regretfully.

The beauty session is finished. She twirls around for Spike. "You think I look nice? Nice enough to make friends?"

Their mission tonight is to make friends, or meet potential friends, and possibly even witches or friendly demons. After Faith's close encounter with Untimely Demise Spike has decided he hasn't taken his Watcherly duties seriously enough and that she needs a team to survive. Faith is afraid she won't make any, because she never has before. Except Buffy, and look how that ended.

Spike looks at her, chewing on his lip. "You look gorgeous. So do I. But do we look friendly and approachable, that's the question…"

Faith looks down at her purple corset top and black leather pants. Spike is in dark purple and black as well. The only female member of the Cleveland population whose clothes she's paid any attention to wore tight pink stretch polyester, and the guys plaid shirts and beards. She's already doubtful about their friend-finding mission, and this clothes crisis is not helping. She thinks about changing into her ripped blue jeans and a T-shirt of Spike's, to hide her corset and what's in it. No, they'll have to take her as she is.

They go through the rules once more. There will be smiling. Alcohol will not be consumed. They will pretend not to smoke. They won't mention vampires, Slaying, magic or sex.

"But how will we know if people want to be our Scoobies if we don't mention these things?" Faith argues as Spike settles behind her on the bike.

He wraps his arms around her securely, which Faith still thinks is very romantic, she and her man on the bike.

"The books say you should look friendly, laugh a lot and your body language should be open," Spike says.

Spike and his new passion for How-to books. Faith has acquired the habit of making detours around the colorful heaps of paperbacks on the coffee table.

So. Open. "Legs open?"

"It's not literal," Spike explains, punctuating the words with an impatient jab in her ribs. Faith can feel his eyes roll behind her back. She likes to aggravate him because he's so cute when he gets wound up, all wildly disordered hair and waving arms.

"How did you make friends before?" Faith asks.

Spike shrugs. "Play pool, get pissed, beat each other up, drink someone together. You know."

Faith sighs. "I'd go for that, except the last part. So would demons, I expect. But I meant, how did you do it when you were human?"

Spike's face falls. "I didn't have any."

Faith is faintly disappointed. She has always imagined Spike as one of these swanky heroes on a horse, waving his sword and rescuing maidens, like people did in the past. He has kinda rescued her, after all, even if she's no Buttercup.

Faith roars off on her gleaming black steed to the first bar. It's actually an English pub, called the Green Man. Faith has picked it out because of its name, which sounds kind of demony. Spike slips his hand under her jacket and squeezes her breast, which almost makes her swerve off the road. Faith whoops with glee, and they have a great time on the slippery roads, Spike's icy hands wandering everywhere and letting in winds that bear greetings from the north pole, Faith writing crazy black words on the gray tarmac to get him off her pillion seat.

They leave the black and white road to continue on its own and enter the orderly world of color coordinated parking lots. Their destination beckons to customers with a smiling chartreuse electric guy blinking on and off. The crowd inside couldn't be more different from Stinky Ned's. The people are a sea of ice cream shades and sip clear colored drinks from blue bottles with their hungry pastel mouths. Faith thinks she looks like an inkblot on the fancy carpet and checks if she drips black stains. The flowered carpet under the thick soles of her boots cringes but doesn't change color.

She swaggers over to the slab of gleaming cherry stretching into infinity and plunks herself down on the plump leather of a stool shaped like a pistachio green tampon. She sits with her back to the bar, legs open like Spike said. She can feel the bartender ooze up behind her, coldly swishing a wet cloth around her bare elbows.

"Two tequilas," she orders without looking at him.

Spike comes up to her, a big smirk on his face. "Lovely place, pet. What made you pick it?"

Faith shrugs. "The name? Kinda demon-friendly."

"Uh-huh," Spike says.

Their drinks arrive. They've both licked, tossed and sucked before Faith remembers The Rules.

"Fuck! Spike, we drank. Now what?"

Spike doesn't answer; he grins his sexy grin at someone behind her back. Faith turns. It's a sleek middle-aged person in a pink dress shirt with a collar like John Travolta as Tony

Manero. He smiles at them with lots of very white even teeth and Faith bares hers in instinctive threat.

"I can see you are an adventurous couple," the guy starts out. "Hi, I'm Jaye. And you are?"

"Not interested," Faith cuts in, because she doesn't like the gleam in Spike's eye.

Jaye hesitates, dancing a little on his tasseled loafers, alternating inviting looks at Spike with hungry forays into her cleavage until he gets that Faith calls the shots and leaves with a sigh.

"Let me tell you, pet, that slagging people off is not going to make us friends."

Faith rolls her eyes. "Baby, believe me, that guy is not prime friend material. He just wanted us for a threesome or something, or to join him and the wifey. That is so not what we're here for."

Spike looks unconvinced. "So?"

"Would you have done him in the old days? You and your vampire Mom?"

Spike makes a face. "Dru? We'd have eaten them, yeah."

"Let's split, Spike. People who make good food probably don't make good friends."

"Faith, all human beings make good food. We need to be a bit more selective now."

Three bars later, they're still being very selective. Everybody who's approached them wants either to fight Spike or fuck Faith or both. And the other way around in nightclub the Pink Zone. Making friends on purpose is hard. How did Buffy do this? Spike suggests taking up a hobby, or night classes, bonding over homework, but going back to school is the last thing Faith's prepared to do.

"Let's just go back to Stinky Ned's and play pool," she suggests.

In Stinky Ned's there is really no point in sticking to the 'no smoking' rule. No one would notice, and they might die from instant nicotine poisoning if they didn't spread some protective smoke around themselves. There's a deep beat underneath the music Ned plays, and the pool table beckons. Faith starts to feel more herself. This is her kind of place, where there is the spice of real desperation underneath the bluegrass music and the rough talk. There could be dancing, or fighting, she doesn't really care which. Spike's swagger broadens and he stares back hard at the men who swivel their heads slowly around to check out the newcomers. They've been here before, but they're not exactly regulars yet. Ned behind the bar nods at Spike and taps a beer for them. It's a cheap brand, but it tastes the better for all the ridiculous waters and Diet Cokes they've swilled, which are giving Faith a sugar high and bellyache.

The pool table is empty and Faith challenges Spike to a game. She's feeling lucky tonight. When she's chalking the tip of her cue, a new bartender comes in and replaces Ned. There's something familiar about him, but Faith can't remember what exactly.

Halfway through the game – she's losing - a song she likes comes on and Faith starts moving to the beat. She's the only woman dancing on her own, but what does she care? Most of the men in the room look at her with eyes that would like to touch and grope but Faith isn't bothered. She's really dancing for Spike.

From the corners of her eyes, Faith sees Spike circle the dance floor, or what you would call the small open space between the bar and the pool table if you were being kind to Ned. His eyes are focused on her face, never wavering or breaking contact. Faith turns her body, like a passion-flower following the sun, to keep her face towards Spike as he walks slowly and deliberately through the crowded bar. It's as if he's attached a cord from his heart to hers, never slackening the tension that is stretched taut between hem. Her heartbeat speeds up and her breath becomes deeper. It's foreplay, and he isn't even touching her. He is claiming her though, very publicly telling the other guys in the bar that she's his, something she would never have thought she'd let a guy do to her, but with Spike everything's different. Every inch of her is his, not only all the pieces other guys want, but her heart and guts as well.

The throbbing rock music fades out and changes to a slow twanging number. Faith would have stopped dancing and returned to her beer but Spike is walking towards her, clearly intending to dance. She stands still and waits for him. He puts his arms around her and they fit together like groove and tongue, as always. His knees just above hers, her hipbone below his. Faith buries her face in his neck, unable to keep from giving him a quick hungry nibble on his scar. She feels him hardening against her as they slowly sway to the music's nasal complaining, 'Stand by your man'. Her mom used to listen to this until the record had turned grey, and the memory of her Mom's scent of hairspray and old smoke mixes oddly with the present. Oh yes, she will stand by her man, vamp or not, until what? Until she dies, she guesses, killed in the line of duty. It'll be a good couple of years, if she's that lucky. Maybe she'll have seven, like Buffy, maybe less. As long as Spike is with her, she'll go at life at full tilt. He makes her give everything.

When the music stops Spike walks her to the bar and hoists her up on a stool, slipping in between her legs. Faith feels the roughness of Ned's bar top under her bare elbows, so different from the smoothness in the downtown bar. She much prefers it here. Spike runs his fingers up and down her leather-clad thighs. Faith lets her head fall back and closes her eyes. She doesn't need sight to feel this. Her Slayer antennae sends strong danger signals of Beware, Vampire! down her spine, Spike's fingers set off a trail off sparks upwards and they meet in a dazzling burst of fireworks halfway.

Dimly through the light show a half-familiar voice says, "Your usual, Spike?" and two shot glasses and a bottle of JD materialize near the trailing ends of her hair on the bar.

Spike's hands freeze. "Willy? Thought you went down with Sunnydale…"

Willy's little half whine, half laugh. "Us other citizens got out in time, Spike. Hard to miss the portends. Bought myself a sweet portion of old Ned's here, he's retiring soon. Business gonna be looking up, they say."

Faith lifts her head and checks Willy out. He's the same weasely guy with the fake smile and the voice from Little Italy.

"Hi," she says.

Willy's Adam's apple bobs up and down. "Hey, Slayer," he answers without enthusiasm. "I thought you were, um, out of the game?"

So, even the demons know about the Slayer in prison. Faith shrugs. "I'm here, ain't I?"

Willy nods and turns away. Spike pours them each a shot. Faith can see him think, his eyes don't see her anymore. It's a Giles look, a Watcher look, seeking advantage and weighing options. She really doesn't want to see it on her lover's face. She grabs his belt and yanks him close, bites his Drusilla scar again.

"Home, James," she growls in his neck.

His fingers dig into her upper arms with satisfying intensity. He calls to Willy to put up a tab for him and they leave. Spike keeps a light hold on the back of her neck when they walk out, so there's no single moment that he doesn't touch her. When they're home and she's riding him, moonlight streaming though the window so that Spike is made of pale blue ice, Faith thinks fleetingly of their mission. But who needs friends when there is the perfect lover filling you up to the farthest corners of your mind and body with his cock and his eyes and his love?

TBC