Adjustment - Part XVII
It was getting late, and while normal people were getting groggy and ready to settle down to sleep for a solid eight to ten hours, Kennedy started to get anxious and excited. She needed to Slay, the feeling was unbearably agitating as she started to just get jumpy over absolutely nothing! The floor would creak under someone's foot or the door would creak upstairs and she would flip her head around needing to check her surroundings. It wasn't fear or apprehension, it was just edginess that was hard to ignore. She noticed that Faith and Buffy dealt with it too; both of them were much more subtle about it, but if you (as she had often) watched them closely as night approached and drew onward, they too started glance around them and reacting to things that only the three of them would even pick up on happening in the house. She could've even accepted that Faith was just like that – always looking over her shoulder and being aware of everything around her, but the trait was apparent, if not more so, in Buffy. The feeling was much worse tonight than usual, and she didn't really understand why that was… maybe she was just stressed out on top of it. She missed Willow and the time they would usually spend together, not to mention that she had been stressing all day over what happened between Faith and Xander.
She walked down the hallway and into the kitchen, which occupied Giles, Xander, and Willow. They were all seated at the table talking, most definitely about the mornings drama, and it was something she didn't want to listen to right now. The look on Willow's face made it clear she wasn't going to be able to pull her away for some talk time between the two of them. She was listening carefully to everything Xander was telling her, even though, from what Kennedy could hear from her eavesdropping as she poured herself a soda, Xander wasn't saying much. He would only say a little something after a strong urge from the other two asking something really specific that could be answered with a yes or a no, and most commonly, a shrug. She was about to leave when she heard Giles finally ask in a stern and confused tone,
"Why in heavens name would you do this? What was this sudden-"
"It's Anya's fucking birthday!" he answered angrily cutting Giles off. Giles looked down at his wrist watch and answered back, matching the young mans tone,
"In a few bloody hours it won't be, and you won't have that girl either! A little short sighted, don't you think? Wait, you probably didn't' think-"
"You have no idea how many hours I spent running over this in my head! You act like this was easy for me, you think I'm not upset too? I fucking lov… I care about her, okay, and doing this wasn't easy, but I needed to do it…"
"Giles, I can understand where he's coming from…" Willow added, "like me, he's lost someone who he cares about so much, and that feeling isn't going to go away, and being with someone like Faith, she's a Slayer, he's at a much higher risk of losing her… he can't go through that again…"
Giles removed his glasses and wiped them with a napkin before placing them back upon his face carefully and looking through them to make sure they were sufficiently clear.
"In all of my years of studies, and believe me, it's quite a large number of years… I never thought I would ever hear picking a lover, a partner, a wife… whatever you may wish to call it, I never thought it would ever be set up in such a factual, statistic way…" Giles tone made it clear that he was inwardly laughing at both of them, "love is something that sweeps you up and makes more sense than any logic that can ever be explained. Xander, when I saw you and Faith together, I was certain you understood that… hmm, wrong yet again, Rupert," he commented more to himself than anyone else, but not at any lower of a volume. "I was unaware that certain people were labeled with different risk factors… if I had been aware, perhaps I would've chosen my lovers differently… As for your solidarity with Xander's decision," he commented now directly at Willow, "may I just mention, that with your labeling Slayer's as a high risk relationship in the department of loss, and you too have suffered a loss as you claim just like Xander's, need I remind you that you seem to also be in quite the serious relationship with one?" With his final closing he glanced over at Kennedy and gave a soft smile in her direction before shrugging at the entire situation and shaking his head sadly.
With a final glance at the two he had left dumbfounded at the table he exited towards his office. He walked slowly down the hallway over to his office shaking his head softly the entire way. A pain welled up in his chest, knowing he could hardly image the agony Faith must've been in; to think how she was going to react to this new addition of pain into her already largely amassed collection of inward pains made him worried. He didn't necessarily go along with Buffy's theory that she was going to freak out and 'go bad' again, but he did fear that her self destructive tendencies were going to be seriously kicking in at any time. He wasn't worried so much for anyone else in the house, because he was sure of Faith, and the way she had shifted her anger over all this time, and it made him much more worried about her – if she was going to be angry, it was going to be at herself. If it were going to be at anyone else it would've been at Xander, and if she hadn't been in control of herself, she would've lashed out immediately when he had broken it off with her.
He had been worried about that possibility and had let Xander know how he felt about that.
( "You're a stupid boy… considering you've already had an experience where you've confronted her with something she didn't want to hear and you were almost killed, you decide to tell her something just as bad, not knowing whether another soul in the house is awake?"
"Sorry if I didn't pencil it in!"
"It's very sad that you think of a relationship, one which I would think would be one of the most spontaneous relationships ever considering the company, as something that you need to plan out. I guess it's equally as sad that I would even think she would hurt you… but you're right, she wouldn't – she was absolutely genuine in the way she loved you." ) With that he had exited the room which they had talked and only just met up with him again in the kitchen. He had busied himself much of the day with Wendy and her studies, trying to keep himself occupied.
He felt a strange thing at his reaction – it made him realize, that even though she was his for a very short time, she was his Slayer just as Buffy had been, and with that came a connection, an almost fatherly connection, that no matter how much was placed between them, whether it be time or battles or prison or anything, it was always there. And knowing that something happened to her, it truly upset him from deep within his soul. He could also see the anger inside of Xander, feeling for some reason obligated to make such a rash decision which he didn't want to, but felt that he had to. There was so much anger behind his cavalier attitude that it made it hard for him to make a solid decision on whether to rip the boy's head off or try and talk it through with him.
- - -
After Giles left the kitchen Kennedy did also but heading in the opposite direction. As she walked down the hallway she jumped slightly at the sound of Giles' office door closing at the other end of the house. She needed to talk to Faith about this jumpiness… it would give them something to talk about, and something for Faith to laugh at her about instead of thinking about Xander. She knocked at the door and heard Faith call from within the room,
"Come on in, Kennedy." She smiled to herself as she walked in wondering how she knew it was her.
"Hey," she greeted, trying to act as happy as Faith was pretending to be. Faith gave her a smile as she walked in then walked across the room to her pack of cigarettes and pulled one out of lit it. She placed the box down but then picked it right back up and held it out to Kennedy,
"You want?" she asked as she exhaled.
"No…" Kennedy answered a little confused. She glanced over at the floor by where Faith was standing and it all began to make perfect sense. "Having a little to drink?" she asked looking over at the floor covered almost completely in bottles of various forms of alcohol.
"Just a little," Faith answered with a small shrug.
"I was being facetious," Kennedy muttered rolling her eyes at the way Faith was acting.
"No, there's nothing on your face," she answered.
"You're plastered," Kennedy remarked walking closer to her and saying her words clearly.
"The walls don't need to be plastered…"
"You're fucking drunk!" she said again being very articulate.
"Oh, yeah…" Faith said with a shrug and an attitude of a typical, 'and, your point?'. She grabbed the remote control to the sound system and tossed herself up onto the bed landing on her back and bouncing up once because of the force of her jump. She pressed a button and the loud music filled the entire room. Kennedy walked over to the other side of the bed where all the bottles were just to get a better count, "what?" Faith asked quickly seeing her counting.
"Nothin'," she answered quickly picking her eyes up off of the ground, "is it just me or do you really feel like Slaying tonight?" She immediately regretted suggesting they do anything while Faith was in this state, but she needed something…
"Mostly I just feel like puking, but that's just me…" Faith admitted sitting up on the bed.
"Right… umm, did you eat anything?" She received a shrug as an answer and she groaned inwardly seeing at least a dozen bottles of booze on the floor. A normal person would probably be in a coma, but here was Faith bouncing up and down on the bed… a real good thing she had the constitution she did… or at least she pretended she did. "You should probably eat something… it'll help you sober up."
"Why the fuck would I want to do that?" she asked as she stood up and walked over to the window to toss her cigarette out of. The look in her eyes made it perfectly clear to Kennedy that no matter how drunk she may be, she was still completely aware of why she was trying to not be aware.
"It's not really my place, but… Faith, this isn't the way to deal with this."
"There's nothing to deal with," she claimed with a laugh as she walked by Kennedy headed back for the bed. Kennedy reached for her arm and kept her from walking,
"Don't talk like that!" Her tone proved how much she knew about Faith, and how dangerous it was for Faith to start thinking that way.
"Fuck off," Faith answered pulling her arm away from Kennedy's grip. Her grip was strong and as Faith pulled against it, she didn't expect it to match her own and she was thrown off of her already shifty balance. As she tried to step away, expecting to already have a freed arm, her step caught and she fell to the floor in a sitting position.
"I'm sorry," Kennedy quickly apologized seeing how quickly her expression changed from a happy and cheery, fake expression to a *very* upset look that was trying to be hidden beneath the surface. "It's okay," Kennedy quickly soothed holding her arm down to help Faith up.
"There's nothing about this that is fucking close to being okay," she answered angrily pushing away the aiding hand and trying to push herself up in a very unbalanced and drunk way. "I'm fucking wasted and he still won't get out of my fucking head," she muttered as she sank back down to the ground knowing she wasn't going to be able to get up without the help she would die before using.
"Faith, come on," Kennedy comforted offering her hand again.
"Just go away," she answered coldly looking down at the ground pensively. She hurt all over and she couldn't think of anything that could possibly make it stop. The added joy of the room beginning to spin around her was one she could've easily done without, but way too many drinks too late to be getting picky about the effects of the intoxication. There were a bunch of different 'drunks', as she thought of it – there was the drunk where you feel like you're on top of the fucking world and nothing can touch you, yeah, this definitely wasn't one of those. The 'drunk' she had was definitely… shitty. She felt dizzy and nauseous and the only thing the alcohol was doing for her was making her think it was okay to cry. It wasn't! She told herself she wouldn't fucking cry over him – if he never loved her, then he never would and she just had to get the fuck over it.
As Kennedy walked down the hallway she saw Xander walking into the living room. She could hear the television talking to everyone, so she knew there were probably a bunch of people in there. She turned in after Xander and took a seat on the couch next to Andrew. She looked at what they were watching and after a few minutes she could tell it was another one of her favorites, City By The Sea. The tension in the room was obvious, with Andrew, Robin, Xander and her sitting in there. She caught a few of the quick glances Wood was tossing over at Xander, and let me tell you, they weren't friendly. Xander sat rigidly in the chair not naïve to the situation and finally spoke up,
"Am I sensing a little tension in here?"
"Yes, you are," Wood answered confidently, "but if I leave… most of the tension will too." He stood looking down at Xander sitting there and walked out, anger apparent in his posture and demeanor.
The Next Day
After talking over the situation with Giles in a conversation that had begun on the, well it's unsure of whether to call it a fortunate or unfortunate topic, that there had been some vampire sightings throughout the town, Buffy headed towards Faith's bedroom. They had talked for quite a while on the subject, Giles being quite troubled by the situation. This was evident by whenever she attempted to add half of a joke, she was immediately scolded and placed back onto the real conversation on hand.
She walked down the five stairs and down the dim hallway before stopping and knocking on the bedroom door. She didn't get any answer so after a few minutes she slid open the door and walked in. She looked over and saw Faith lying down on the bed curled up to a pillow staring at the shadows cast upon the wall by the flickers of light caused by the outside world.
"It's a good thing you took a nap," Buffy said walking over to the bed and sitting down by Faith's feet, "we've got a lot of work to do tonight…" Faith barely breathed a response and continued to only be entertained by the shadows. "Come on, the three of us are going to patrol," she urged, without trying to sound like she was urging. She didn't see any movement and she added as she motioned to stand, "If your not up to it, that's fine."
"I'm up," she muttered, the words painfully familiar.
"Faith, you've been through a lot, it's okay if-"
"Whatever, it's fine," she answered sitting up and quickly pushing herself off of the bed and standing. Buffy was proud of her convincing tactics to get Faith out of her room, or at least just out of bed, but the proud feeling was quickly overruled by the pain she felt by seeing Faith's bloodshot eyes and strained features. She looked so tired and emotionally wiped out if she didn't know better she would've thought she was just recovering from a week long party of drinkin' and drugin'. Looking at her reminded her of the night in the motel when she realized what a bad sleeper she actually was, and how when her and Xander had been together, it had seemed to get better… now it looked like it was right back to where it was, if not further back.
She watched Faith walk over to a pile of clothes on a chair at the other end of the room, one that was apparently not completely all her own clothes. She watched as Faith rummaged through them and had to act as though the ones that belonged to Xander weren't even really there. She tossed them to the floor just as she did with all of the others, but if watched closely her eyes followed those particular garments all the way to the ground and lingered slightly on them before returning back to the pile. She finally picked out an outfit and piled them on her bed,
"Kind of nice for patrol, don't you think?"
"Won't take all night," she answered.
"Right," Buffy answered with a nod. Why the hell couldn't she be close enough with Faith to just be able to talk to her straight? The thought made her realize – Xander was close enough to talk with her straight… she had been close enough with her at one point… how many other people had gotten to be that close and circumstance crushed it? She was sure the number of people Faith had ever been close with in her life could be counted on one hand and that was being generous… as of right now, she could probably count it on a single finger… She found herself quickly moving her eyes and staring out of the window as Faith started to change without any heads up.
"So… umm… how are you doing?" Buffy asked feeling awkward enough being in the room, but way more awkward having her changing. Faith couldn't help but laugh at her for it and commented,
"And Spike said you had loosened up a lot more than a bit, but I think I might have to call the dick a liar." With that Buffy looked back over at a now fully clothed Faith – she was wearing a tight pair of black, leather pants and a red, halter top. She ran her fingers thoughtlessly through her hair and turned back to Buffy as she grabbed a leather jacket off of the chair. "Ready?" The look on Buffy's face was too easy to mock and it goes without say that Faith had to seize the opportunity, "what, is it Spike's birthday today or something… you all stuffy about him too?" Faith had since been informed that the day Xander decided she was too risky and meaningless to be with was in fact Anya's birthday, how ever many hundred years ago that exactly was. Being dumped for a demon she could almost accept… but a dead demon, she wasn't sure she could handle that thought. With an inward shrug she pushed any relating thought to the back of her head just adding it as another thing on her long list of, 'you'll never
believe I actually…' list. It was pretty long…
---
Xander watched from the kitchen as the three Slayers walked down the hallway and out onto the world where they were going to perform their callings… it was strange to think, after so long of there really just being one chosen one, that there were so many more, and three right there. He figured the way Faith was dressed was some cruel form of punishment for him – she looked like a sultry goddess. He ran his fingers nervously through his hair as he watched them all leave, not overlooking the door Faith slammed on her way out. It made him nervous any time Buffy would go out to slay, there was just so much that could happen. He worried about all of them, especially Faith. He had a scary feeling inside of him – he knew Faith was never one to be too careful when she was slaying, it was a game, a release, a fight between life and death that she toyed with to amuse herself. He could see her being even more careless in the state she was in. But that was why he had to do what he did – losing her was something he just wouldn't have been able to handle; just because they weren't 'together' anymore, didn't mean the worrying automatically disappeared. He cared about her a lot and there wasn't much he could see happening that would change that.
The way she had walked by him and hadn't even raised an eyebrow in his direction was classic Faith. He figured the way she was going to deal with this whole thing was to just ignore him, pretend like it was nothing. He couldn't help but remember the first time they had been together, his first time, and the mention of her name made his eye twitch furiously, but she only acknowledged his existence when she thought it worth her time. Although the memory validated his point about the way she acted, it also brought feelings that he didn't want to be dealing with right now. She had been his first, and with that came a sort of eternal place inside of him… even if it hadn't exactly been a storybook experience. He actually shook his head from side to side trying to clear the thoughts that were invading it.
He had made his decision and it hadn't been easy, but it was what had to be done. He could admit he still cared about her, hell, as long as it was only for him to know, he still loved her, but they couldn't be together – he couldn't handle it. He rested his head on his hand as he began to think about Anya, and his heart felt as though it were going to break. But nothing would ever beat, or at least he hoped he would never experience anything worse than having to hear Faith literally beg him not to leave her. Listening to that made his lungs deflate and feel like they'd never accept air inside of them again.
He caught himself drifting off into thinking about Faith again and redirected his attention back to Anya. The only thing he had done to deal with Anya's death was to jump into the sack with Faith… was that all it was? He knew he helped Faith deal with her problems, but Faith was him dealing. The thought made him angry at himself for thinking he could use her like that – he understood why she would be angry and not want to even look at him. He didn't want to look at him.
-----
As the three Slayer's walked down the dark sidewalk all had separate thoughts pertaining to the night. Buffy was glad she could get Faith out of the house and doing something she knew Faith probably took a little bit too much enjoyment in doing… it would help her blow off some steam. She couldn't help but feel a little awkward though – whenever she had gone on patrol she had always been the leader without any question or thought about it. And she would've continued with the same assumption except the posture and body language of not only Faith, but Kennedy also, made her question it. All three of them were Slayers… she used to go patrolling with Faith way back in the day but it was always kind of understood that she was in charge because Faith was new to the gig. It occurred to her then that Faith hadn't exactly been happy about that whole assumption either. And Kennedy, who seemed to be following much more in Faith's footsteps than her own would probably question what made Buffy in charge anyway. All of the answers she had for that question… the lists of battles and apocalypses… none of it really seemed to matter anymore.
Kennedy felt more comfortable than she thought she would – keeping pace with the other two took effort, but she followed their leads. Both of them had such different styles of scanning their surroundings, it was interesting to watch. She watched Buffy who walked quietly watching where she was going but having a very open perspective as to pull in all of her surroundings without looking like she was doing anything but looking down at the sidewalk. Faith on the other hand walked with a clear certainty and looked around at everything. When they'd pass people Buffy would get a quick glance and then proceed while looking down at the ground, where as Faith would stare them straight in the eye for a few paces and look them over.
Faith felt like she was doing all of the things she would normally do – she didn't have a set routine or anything, it just flowed… when things went down she just dealt with it, she never thought about it before hand. Her breath tightened at the thought as she drew a classic parallel in her life – slaying had always been like layin' for her. She scolded herself for doing the same thing with Xander – she would've been able to avoid all of this if she had just thought it through before she got so involved. Everything seemed like it should feel okay, but it didn't. Everything seemed kind of blurry and far away – she could hear everything just fine, but it somehow seemed like it was coming from a mile off.
"We should hit the heart of town and then work our way out from there," Buffy finally announced trying to establish herself as the leader.
"Good plan," Faith answered with a little more than a hint of sarcasm as she stepped past Buffy as a clear sign that she didn't have a problem slaying with her, but she wasn't about to be bossed around.
They all walked further into town and it was busy, but not too noisy. Most of the crowds were inside of restaurants or bars, not hanging out on the corners or sidewalks. They walked by one of the parking lots for a restaurant and there was a couple walking towards their car. Both were obviously intoxicated by the way they swayed from side to side as they walked and the woman had an almost continuous giggle. They were talking to each other as they walked and all three Slayers watched the scene carefully. Buffy and Kennedy motioned to keep moving, but Faith stopped and completely ignored them and found a shadowed area to just watch from. Kennedy and Buffy were forced to stop and wait and they stood by Faith.
"Faith, let's go," Kennedy said softly as she pulled on her jacket sleeve. She could see Buffy getting less and less patient with the whole situation, and the last thing she wanted to have to stand between was the two Slayers going at it again. Buffy had been really good about the whole Xander thing and had really backed off of Faith since it happened, but it was obvious she was ready to be set off again and start right back up on the challenges.
"Shut up." The comment was short and abrupt and it practically jolted Kennedy back to silence. Faith watched the couple closely and Buffy couldn't help but think Faith was just dealing with her breakup. She grabbed at her arm to tug her on but Faith quickly and angrily pulled it out of her grip and it was then when she heard her cue from the couple.
The man had been walking just next to the woman and as they neared the car he lowered his hand to her butt and gave her a teasing squeeze. The woman quickly removed his hand and shook her head while still giggling. He put his hand back on her lower back-
"Hey!" Faith yelled as she walked out from the shadows and into the parking lot.
"Faith, what the hell are you doing!?" Buffy asked trying to grab her and pull her back.
"Who the hell are you?" the man asked angrily.
"I think she's trying to tell you no."
"God, slaying is hard enough, why does Faith have to be a socially sound patrol too…" Buffy groaned to Kennedy.
"Strip clubs down the street honey, you're a block too far north," the man answered rudely as Faith approached.
"You would know, wouldn't you…"
"Excuse me, do you have any idea who I am?"
"No, but I could make a few guesses," she answered sharply still walking steadily towards them. Sirens started to go off in Buffy's head and she finally walked out into the lot,
"Let's go," she said towards Faith. "This is none of your business and we've been down this road before… *he's* not really our area," she hinted pointedly trying to get across the whole human bit. As she jogged towards Faith, Faith looked up at the roof of the restaurant and answered,
"No, but they are." As she said it four vamps jumped down from the roof and surrounded the four of them in the lot. Kennedy wanted some action but she wasn't about to jump in first – she didn't want to mess everything up. Each slayer took on two vamps and Kennedy rushed forward to help. Buffy dusted the first, then Faith knocked one to the ground by Kennedy's feet and she dusted it. The third vamp knocked Kennedy to the ground, but Buffy had her back and was right on it sending sharp punches on the vamp. Buffy dusted the third one just in time to look over and see Faith not dusting the last vamp but holding her hands up and stepping to the side as the vamp approached the man,
"Go ahead, have fun with him," she added ready to walk away. She wasn't about to break a sweat helping that creep.
"Faith!" Buffy yelled as the vamp was getting closer and closer to the man. She turned to Buffy and gave a histrionic shrug.
"Faith!" Kennedy screamed in warning as she saw another vamp with a wooden crate approaching Faith from behind. She barely had time to crinkle her eyebrows in a response before she felt the crate smash her in the back of the head. She fell forward with a groan and heard Kennedy and Buffy's running footsteps, so she didn't even bother to get up and stake the motherfucker. They'd handle it and she'd just stay right down there trying to make her head stop spinning.
As the two girls dusted the last vamps the couple jumped into their car and sped away, ready to deny anything that had happened that night, and think of it as a bad hallucination from impure alcohol.
"Faith, are you okay?" Kennedy asked rushing over to her. Faith had rolled onto her back and sat up. Buffy pushed Kennedy out of the way and yelled angrily,
"What the hell is your problem?"
"Back off," Faith muttered as she stood up.
"In case you've once again forgotten, as Slayers we kill vampires we don't feed people to them!"
"Don't forget the occasional advantage of fucking 'em every now and again," Faith spat angrily.
"Hey!" Kennedy scolded at both of them, "knock it off, would you?"
"Them's fightin' words, Faith…" Buffy mocked.
"I can't deal with you right now, B," Faith said motioning to walk away.
"You think I deal with you out of choice?" Faith kept walking trying to ignore Buffy's angry words,
"Where are you going?" Kennedy called out with concern.
"To go cool off," she answered without stopping.
"Probably more like going to get heated up," Buffy muttered angrily.
"You're going to let her go like that?" Buffy gave the same histrionic shrug Faith had and headed back towards home. Kennedy followed her knowing she'd probably cause more trouble for Faith than good.
- - - -
Dawn and Xander were sitting quietly in the front room, a smallish room of a very rectangular shape, it was longer than it was wide by quite a few feet so it was almost more like a big wide hallway. There were a few chairs in there and some books that Giles had scattered there. Dawn tirelessly flipped through them looking for anything she could feed her brain with. Xander let out his fourth sigh in the last thirty seconds and Dawn finally looked up at him. He looked miserable.
"You okay?" she asked with concern.
"I don't know."
"You know you can always talk to me, right? I mean I know there's a lot of things you think I won't understand, but… hey, having Buffy, Ms. Romantic Wreck, as a big sister, I'll understand more than you might think."
"Thanks, Dawnie," he answered with a chuckle.
"It's just hard, you know, when there's something you have to do that you know you have to, but you wish you didn't. And you know it's the right thing to do, but it never feels right… ever." Dawn mustered up the courage to ask him why he had done what he'd done,
"Xander, why did you-" but before she could finish the question Buffy angrily stormed through the garage door.
"Is everything alright?" Xander asked.
"I swear, her only purpose on this Earth is to make me miserable," Buffy stated angrily walking down the hall and into the kitchen. Xander stayed in the front room, hoping he was too obvious in how much he just wanted to see Faith. Kennedy followed a little ways after Buffy, and he assumed Faith would also. Kennedy slumped down in a chair next to Dawn,
"They're worse than little children," she groaned.
"Where's Faith?" Xander asked, not really caring how bad it looked for him to be asking.
"She didn't come back with us…" Kennedy answered; she immediately felt guilty and worried as the words passed through her lips.
"Where did she go?" he asked nervously.
"Why do you care?"
"Kennedy, come on… you don't understand, she'll get herself into trouble and…"
"And why do you care?" she answered back. She was the only other person to see how much Xander had actually hurt her and she wasn't about to let him just pretend that was okay.
"Please, I just need to make sure she's okay… I don't want to see her get hurt again and it be my fault."
"She said she was just going to go cool off…"
"Where!?" he asked trying to mask his panic. With a slight shrug as a response Xander grabbed his jacket off of one of the coat racks by the door and practically ran out of the door.
"Instead of trying to get everyone's last names on the mail box, we should just put, 'The House of the Confusing'!" Kennedy groaned as she sunk deeper into the chair.
- - - - - -
A few years back Alexander Harris would've stuck out like a sore thumb in the bar he walked into – but from his experiences since then and his style alterations he didn't look too bad. In fact, he looked pretty damn good walking in there strutting his stuff and clicking his heals on the floor confidently. He walked straight up to the bartender after taking a quickly glance around and seeing that there were just a few guys sitting around a table with a few pitchers of beer.
"Excuse me," he began getting the bartender's attention. He was ignored so he took it up a notch, "Hey!" The bartender turned around slowly and looked over at Xander, scanning him up and down to know whether to talk big or call over the bouncer.
"What can I do for you?"
"I'm looking for a girl… she's this tall," he said lifting his hand up to her exact height – something he had memorized crisply in the last few weeks, "dark wavy hair, really really pretty… have you seen her?"
"A bit earlier tonight I did…"
"Any idea where she went?"
"She was in here when a bunch of the younger regulars come in here – word got around that there was a party at one of the frats and the place emptied out… I think that's around when she left too…"
"Where's the fr-"
"Is she your girlfriend?" one of the men from the table asked loudly.
"What does it matter?" Xander asked quickly turning towards them. The same guy leaned over to his friend and commented,
"Man, she was a hell of a dancer wasn't she?"
"Hell yeah," he answered with a chuckle.
"Buddy, if I were you, I'd keep that girl on a short leash!"
"With a chain choker collar," the friend answered laughing, "if you know what I mean."
"She would look good in chains, wouldn't she?" the guy answered, the whole table laughing now.
"What'd you say?" Xander asked furiously walking over to their table.
"There ain't too many girls walking around here that look like that," they guy said further provoking him. "If she were mine I wouldn't let her out of the house!"
"Sounds like a great strategy towards a long-term relationship, really!" By now Xander was standing just next to their table and the guy stood up to face him,
"Well, seeming as how you're walking around town looking in bars for your girl, my guess is, you ain't got a great long-term strategy either…"
There had been few occasions in Xander's life where he had snapped – just completely lost his shit and lashed out of whatever caused it. It was a very rare occurrence, but when it happened, it was pretty scary. Everything pent up inside of him right now – he just didn't have nay other way of dealing with it. He reached out and grabbed the jacket collar of the guy and threw a quick right punch straight to his face. Luckily most of the guys at the table were mostly into the cheering part of the fight and didn't really feel like jumping in, except for the one who the guy had been talking to.
"Hey!" he yelled as he threw himself into Xander. The bouncer ran over to break up the fight and he grabbed the friend by his jacket and pulled him off. The first guy was back up with a bloody nose and before the bouncer could grab him he punched Xander in the face twice, once in the nose and once in the eye,
"I wonder if I punched the other side of your face if you'd call it a black eye, or a just a black eye socket!" he mocked angrily. Xander got in another good punch to the guys face before being grabbed by the bouncer and brought to the door. He wasn't a regular, he didn't get the privileges. He walked agreeably out with the bouncer who waited by the front door to make sure he didn't try to come back in.
"It's not smart to be a newcomer and make trouble…"
"I'm really sorry," he explained. "I just really need to find her… can you please tell me where that frat is?"
"I don't really think I want to be pointing a guy like you, who's angrier than hell at his girlfriend, in her direction… saw what you did to that guy in there, I don't want to know what you're going to do to your girl after the night she's been having.
"Believe me, sir, she could kick my ass in four point restraints!" The joke, and the fact that a hundred dollars happened to fall out of Xander's jacket pocket was enough to get him directions to the frat where Faith *might* be.
He walked up to the frat house and saw there were still dozens of college students going in the door. He fell in line with the rest of them without raising too much suspicion. As he walked through the door past a tall guy who seemed to be watching out for who he let in he called over to Xander,
"Hey you…" But Xander gave a half wave and kept walking and lost himself in the crowd. It took him about 0.00001 seconds to spot Faith in the crowd. She was dancing in the middle of the room, which had at least fifty students crammed into it dancing to the blaring music. Little to his surprise Faith had at least a dozen guys all over her and he could tell she was basking in the attention. He stood there starring at her being able to handle such a crowd of guys being all over her and he thought about how for a while he had been all she needed. He'd never seen her dancing with only one guy in the Bronze, or anywhere else for that matter… one was just not enough attention for her anymore. But he had been enough for her… He swallowed hard as his throat clamped shut.
He started to get angry again – he left her because he didn't want to lose her, but he wasn't about to watch her degrade herself like that and have all those men with their hands *all* over her. She was too good for this and the frustrating thing about it was that he seemed to be the only one who knew that. He knew when they had been together he had made her know she was worth more than this – but he was also the person who had treated her like garbage and made her feel worthless. And he knew the only way she could feel like she was worth something was like this… it practically made him sick to his stomach. None of those guys knew who she was, or what she had been through, or hell, how much time she had spent behind bars… how many people she'd killed… they didn't know how much she'd been through – they didn't know her!
He pushed his way through the crowd, pulling past girls grabbing him for a dance and fighting his way through the crowd of guys trying to get closer to the middle without making it too obvious. He finally got up behind Faith and not wanting to instantly be pushed away by the dancing crowd he put his hands around her waist, ensuring that if they moved it would be together. He wasn't sure why he hadn't expected it, but as soon as he touched her waist she began rubbing up against him, moving her hips to the rhythm and roughly against him. She raised her arms up and rubbed the sides of his face and slid them down his neck all behind her back without even knowing or for that matter, caring who he was.
Before he would've seen these gestures as signs of affection or foreplay, but he knew her so much better now, and the silky touches and curved thrusts all seemed so mechanical to him now. He knew for a fact that if she had done this years ago, when she first came into town he'd be instantly turned on and practically out of control by now, but now he felt sick and really sad. *Faith stop it* he begged in his head. What right did he have to say it out loud when she had begged him a few days earlier and he had purposely ignored her pleas? She motioned to move on to another dance partner but he held onto her waist firmly and she smoothly turned to look at the *jerk* who thought she already belonged to him. As her eyes met his he spat angrily,
"Since when are you into youngin's?"
"They need a little guidance… showing them how to treat a girl." She broke away from the crowd of disappointed guys and headed towards their make-shift bar. "Same," Faith stated to the kid standing behind the table followed by a sharp wink and smile. He lined up four shots of vodka and a glass half full of water.
"So are you saying all of us half decent guys should whip out a notepad and a pencil and jot down all these great pointers you're giving these assholes?" She looked up at him through the glass of water and answered,
"Pot calling the Kedamene black," she joked having to laugh at herself, "you were kind of automatically taken out of the whole half decent category about three days ago." She finished the glass of water and put it down on the table and began on her round of shots. He swallowed down that and continued,
"So tell me, what exactly should go on this list… I think I have the beginning but you can help me add on to it. First, to make a girl feel good make sure you get all over her, but don't forget, knowing her name is bad. Hmmm… second, can you help me out on this one? I only caught onto that one thing you were teaching them."
"Xander, go away," she answered swallowing down the last of the four shots. "I'm just having a good time – go home."
"Not a chance," he answered quickly. She began to protest and he added, "granted I didn't do a lot of college partying, you know the whole lack of college thing, but I did pick up on the fact that most of them end with the cops showing up… you'll be an easy target in about an hour at the rate you're downing those-"
"Go home." With that she walked away from him and back onto the dance floor. He groaned angrily and turned to the kid behind the bar,
"Hey, how much has she been drinking?" The kid smiled and picked up two nearly empty bottles of Absolut Vodka and waved them slightly for Xander,
"Mostly her." Xander nodded then found himself a spot leaning against the wall where he could keep a good eye on her. He was also keeping a watchful eye on all of the other guys around the room keeping their eyes on Faith. It was a level of awareness he had learned from her – but after two bottles of vodka, anyone's level of awareness was going to be impaired, even a Slayers. He became especially aware of two guys standing across the room from him – they had been eying her all night and kept making comments to each other as they watched. Now that wasn't really anything out of the ordinary considering everyone in there was staring at her, even the chicks, Faith's a lot of things, but low profile isn't one of them. But most other people were doing things and partying, these two guys seemed to have one focus, and it didn't feel right.
As he watched he saw a lot of things he didn't like – but there were actually a few he had to extol her on. He watched her consistently turn down any drinks she hadn't watched being pored, she never left the table with a drink – she drank them all right there and left. She knew she was drinking a lot, but she was also pretty aware of what she was drinking. Every time she went back to the table she always had a glass of water before having the usual four shots.
Her stamina was certainly something to brag about. She outlived the entire dance floor and as he had suspected, his two friends standing across the room moved onto the floor. One of them stood behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist while leaning his head on her shoulder and grinning at her. The other took her hand and whispered something in her ear. She didn't smile but gave a jaded rolling of the eyes and then a tired nod. With that they began to lead her off of the dance floor. Xander practically jumped up and walked quickly over to them,
"Where the hell do you think you're going?"
"I'll meet you up there," Kurt, one of the guys said to his friend. His friend, Tommy nodded and started to walk away with Faith again, still whispering sweet nothings in her ear, while Kurt stood in front of Xander.
"She's not going anywhere with you," he cut in trying to push past Kurt.
"I'd ask you if you wanted another black eye, but I don't think I can really call that mangled hole under that patch an eye." Between the emotions built up inside of him, the anger that had been causing his jaw to twitch all night, and the fear that they might actually get her out of his sight, was what probably made him a little scarier to be around.
"Listen to me you fucking punk, she's not going anywhere with you, got that!?" he screamed grabbing the kid by the collar.
"Woah, dude, you've got issues," Kurt said holding his hands up.
"No, I think a couple of college guys who stand around watching a girl all night get drunk and get tired just so you can have some fun, that's having issues," he stated angrily walking past Kurt and grabbing Tommy by the shoulder. "Train stops here, asshole."
"Dude, we were just going to have some fun," he said defensively as he held onto Faith a little looser.
"I don't think she'd have the energy tonight," he stated trying to hide the rage building up. He stepped up and took Faith from Tommy. Both guys saw it in their best interest to make a run for it – who let that psycho into the party in the first place?
"Fucking hardass!" Tommy yelled as they retreated.
"Faith…" he said ignoring them completely. She was still standing and looked like she was just tired, but she didn't know what the hell was going on. "Hey, can you look at me?" he asked softly. She softly shook her head, barely noticeably, but rested her head on his chest and muttered,
"Let's just go back to your place, okay?" Swallowing the lump down in his throat he walked her out of the frat house and they walked gingerly back to the house. It took a long time needing to take a lot of breaks and Faith wasn't exactly moving too quick.
"God, don't you have a fucking car?" she muttered as they were about ten minutes away from the house. She was really too drunk to even know who he was or where she was even going. He had to breathe deeply to calm his stomach which was doing flips as he listened to what she would say. What could've happened if he hadn't found her? "Wake me up when we get there, okay?" she muttered as her legs finally gave out on her. He was quick to catch her since his arms were already stabilizing her as she walked.
"Okay," he said picking her up in his arms and walking the stretch of the block. He couldn't help but remember the last night he had done this – it was when he felt the closest to her, but also became aware of how dangerous that was and how quickly he needed to distance himself. He opened the door carefully with one of his hands that wasn't exactly a free hand, but it would have to pretend it was. He stepped into the house and saw the dim light coming from Giles' office. He stepped out quickly to greet Xander and was very surprised by what he saw.
"Look what I found," he said with more than a little anger in his tone.
"Everyone else is asleep." Giles answered as he absorbed what he was seeing. Xander was standing there with a badly bruised and swollen eye and a small blood stain by his nose and then there was Faith. It upset Giles to see her like that – she was limp in his arms with her head rested against his chest and her hair hung over her shoulder carelessly. He could see beads of sweat on her forehead that shinned in the overhead light. Her legs hung limply down towards the ground and-, Giles shook his head, she just looked so helpless. That was one of his Slayers, and there she was, needing to be carried home and she was completely comatose.
"Good." He answered sharply – he had been through way too much tonight and was in no mood to deal with anyone. Faith moved slightly in his arms and began to cough. It raised Giles' level of concern and he added,
"Someone should keep an eye on her tonight." He had also noticed Xander's immediate reaction when she coughed, and although he thought she just needed some rest and probably quite a bit of aspirin, he knew some time together might be exactly what those two needed. Seeing him holding her again made it impossible for him to forget how happy both of them were when they were together. Xander answered by walking quickly away and through the hallway with Faith towards her bedroom. He walked silently down the small five steps and into the dim hallway of her wing trying to just not say anything as he listened to the soft noises she made. He wasn't sure whether to think of it as sleeping or not, but… they were sweet little moans, or maybe even whimpers that she made – just one or two as he lowered her down softly onto the bed.
He thought by the way she acted when he placed her down that she might make up, but it was only a half sort of consciousness. He lowered her down onto the bed and she gripped one arm looped around his neck and lowered the other to the bed, suspecting that was where she was going to be put down. She opened her eyes just barely but her vision was blurry and instead of blinking furiously to clear them she figured it was probably for the best that it was blurry and just closed them again. He helped get her out of her leather jacket carefully supporting her with his arm behind her back as he did so. He gently put her head on the bed once the jacket was off and draped it on the end of the bed. Xander stood looking down at her as she lay there and his mind began to race with emotions and everything that had happened.
Xander stepped away from the bed and pulled off his jacket with a sigh. He tossed it habitually onto the chair full of clothes. He sighed seeing that some of his clothes were still there mixed in with hers. He felt like a real asshole for not thinking about how that must make her feel whenever she looked at it. He glanced back at the bed and saw her lying there. She was lying on her side with her head rested on her arm and her hair slightly in her face. He walked over pushed the strands of hair behind her head and sighed again. He stood there for a few minutes just watching her with his arms crossed tightly across his chest allowing all of the things in his head to just run savagely around his brain hoping they would eventually settle.
He glanced over at the table expecting to see the clock, which had been there… well, less than a few days ago when he woke up in here. He was surprised not to see it in it's usual station but he glanced around and saw it thrown to the floor. It had also been one of the first things she had woken up to in the last few days too… He picked it up and just righted it's position on the floor not wanting to impose on where she was putting things… it was close to five in the morning. He couldn't help but yawn in reaction to finally being able to notice what time it was. It had certainly been quite a long night – or would you call it morning? He walked around to the other side of the bed; he had habitually placed her down on her side and left his side empty… the brain was a funny thing – a sick and mean and spiteful thing that was having a lot of fun toying with his subconscious at the moment.
There was a soft knock on the door and Giles walked slowly in carrying a glass of water and some aspirin. He looked over at Xander debating whether to lie down or not and he gave him an encouraging, but small nod as he walked to the table next to Faith's side of the bed and put everything down quietly. He looked down at her for a moment and could see all of the irresponsibility and carelessness, but he also saw the pain and the self-loathing and self-destructiveness he saw when he looked at her. He gave a final glance up at Xander then left as quietly as he had come.
Xander eased himself onto the bed slowly trying not to wake her – she was the worst sleeper he'd ever met… and well, slept with. The random thought occurred to him that it's pretty unlikely you could ever really know whether someone slept well unless you were involved with them… there was his random thought for the day! He wasn't sure whether Giles' nodded and small smile had been what made him sit down, but he sat never the less. The alcohol was definitely helping him in the not waking up factor – she moved slightly and groaned as the bed moved, but didn't wake up. He sat up on the bed leaning his back against the backboard of the bed. He watched her sleep – he couldn't even swear that he blinked the entire time.
*I've never seen anything so beautiful* he thought to himself, *good, Xander, real good, watch a girl completely passed out and think it's beautiful… I've got some real issues…* he shook his head knowing his issues were what caused all of this. But the problem was, he couldn't decipher whether the effects of his issues had started when they first got together, or when they had just broken up. *I hate seeing her so upset* he admitted shaking his head and secretly wiping a stray tear from his eye. She was so amazing and here he was sitting right next to her and afraid to touch her. He knew for a fact if he wanted to keep her from waking up he should just hold her… but it wasn't his place anymore; he didn't have the right. He didn't have that right because he had taken it and crushed it with the most painful words and actions and broken promises he could have.
He glanced over at the clock on the floor again and it was quarter to six when she started to wake up. He didn't move – but he just watched her carefully and her actions were *painfully* telling to the way she was feeling. That was the thing with Faith, you had to be very observant to the small signs she gave because it wasn't very often that she'd tell you the way she was feeling. *She started telling me how she was feeling though…* Xander shook his head trying to ignore the thoughts now – he was all too aware of the pain she was in and he hated it with every fiber of his being, but it couldn't change what he did or why he did it.
She began to wake up and as she did she extended her hand out hoping to touch Xander and hold him as she always loved to in the morning. She wanted to have him right there and-
"Oh fuck," she muttered as she pulled her arm back so quickly it was like a whiplash. She didn't even look up to see the disgusting creep she had ended up with last night. She rolled over so that she wasn't facing him… if you could call it a him – she would rather refer to him and It right now. Judging by the headache she could feel already she could just imagine how much she had to drink and just how low her standards were – like she already said, she didn't want to look at It. She sat up with her head still hanging down as she accustomed herself to being awake. Her eyes were still blurry – in fact, they hadn't been all that clear when she went out patrolling in the first place – that's what losing a few days worth of sleep will do to you. She hated the groggy feeling when she woke up hung over though… it made even her feel a little powerless. She definitely didn't like it.
"Hey," she heard a voice behind her.
"Shut up, you fucking prick," she muttered everything blurry and sounding so far away but still annoying. She wasn't even listening to the It behind her so she couldn't recognize it as Xander's.
Xander was a little taken aback by the attitude, initially thinking she was aiming it at him! He thought he was pretty damn nice to her last night – he saved her ass!
"So you're always nasty in the morning… I thought it was just me… gee, I feel better now…" he stated sarcastically.
"Shut the fuck up, fucking smart ass," she muttered again angrily. She really had to stop drinking so much – these guys were getting more annoying every time. She didn't even want to get a good look around – she couldn't imagine the apartment was going to be any nicer than the prick in the bed next to her. She did however look down at herself and notice, *holy shit*, all clothes were still on except for her jacket… that's a first! *Whatever*, she thought – probably a sicker prick than any of the rest of them – wants to think he's getting away with something! She motioned to stand up but stopped and grabbed her temple with one of her hands painfully. *It'll stop… it'll stop… it'll all stop…* she repeated over and over again in her head trying to give herself the strength she was going to need to get out of wherever the hell she was and back home.
"There's water and aspirin on the table right there," Xander offered seeing she was in pain. He started to realize that she had no idea who he was or where she was… or what had happened while she was completely plastered.
"I may look dumb, but I'm not fucking stupid, asshole," she commented harshly now forcing herself to stand up. She couldn't stay here any longer – she had to get out of here.
Xander finally got up and made his way over the bed.
"Hey, hold on," he said seeing she was about to rush out of there.
"You had your fun, I'm out of here," she answered grabbing her jacket off of the bed.
"Faith," he said grabbing her arm gently. She looked up at him quickly – there wasn't anyone who would touch her like that. The voice could be ignored – the sight could be overlooked – the touch was unmistakable. She practically jumped when she saw his face.
Xander was surprised by what he saw. He had expected, especially after the way she acted when she woke up, that she would be angry when she realized it was him and think he ruined her fun, or… whatever she might think. He definitely didn't think he would've ever had the right to assume what would go on in Faith's head – she had been through a lot and had heard of everything else so there was little that wouldn't run through her thoughts… He was shocked by her actual response though – she looked up at him with a look of absolute excitement and happiness!
"Xander," she said turning to him and wrapping her arms around his neck. "We… we must've…" she muttered barely audibly. She wanted so badly for something to have happened that just made everything better again. She rested her head on his chest for a long moment pulling him close to her. Xander stood there unsure of what to do – he was so shocked by how she had reacted. It was true – all she had wanted was to have him back and that's what she thought happened. He stood there stiffly against her with his hands on her arms trying to convince her otherwise.
She hoped so badly something had just happened that settled everything between them last night – whatever it was – and now everything was back to the way it should be. As much as she wished this, she was pretty sure something that good couldn't happen to her. But she had to know… She looked up at him and touched his cheek with her hand bringing her lips up to his. She kissed his softly pulling him closer to her but with his hands on her arms he pushed her away finally getting control of himself.
"No way, Faith." It was sharp and unfeeling.
"Baby…"
"Faith, stop it," he answered taking a step back away from her.
"But… but… I thought that we," she rambled standing there feeling so alone now without his body up against hers.
"No."
"What?" she asked trying to put it all together while her head was absolutely pounding and she just felt like crying.
"Nothing happened, Faith. I found you fucking smashed with guys all over you and… it was a bad situation so I brought you home."
"A bad situation? What the hell do you call this?" she asked sharply. "You came looking for me? I'm not something you can control anymore-"
"Oh, but if I were still fucking you I could order you around!?"
"I'd do anything for you, and you fucking know it!" she screamed the tears starting to rim around her eyes.
"I didn't want to see you stumbling in that door after spending the night with some asshole who didn't give a shit about you and-"
"And you did!?" she screamed furiously.
"Don't do this," Xander said turning away from her and running his fingers through his hair.
"Just get out, Xander."
"Faith…"
"Just go!" she screamed angrily.
"I'm not leaving with you like this," he stated forcing his tone to be calm and low. She picked up the glass of water Giles had brought in and threw it at the wall. It shattered and the water splashed all over the wall – it was across the room from both of them.
"You already did!"
"Faith, just calm down."
"Just go away," she said her tone dropping down to pleading as she sank down to the ground and sat with her knees pulled up to her chest as she lowered her head down to her knees. His heart felt so broken he was surprised he was still standing. He looked down at her curled up practically into a ball on the floor,
"Faith, please…"
"Get out," she mumbled.
"Okay," he agreed. He walked up to her and touched her shoulder lightly with his hand then walked out of the bedroom – wiping tears from his eye as he left.
It was getting late, and while normal people were getting groggy and ready to settle down to sleep for a solid eight to ten hours, Kennedy started to get anxious and excited. She needed to Slay, the feeling was unbearably agitating as she started to just get jumpy over absolutely nothing! The floor would creak under someone's foot or the door would creak upstairs and she would flip her head around needing to check her surroundings. It wasn't fear or apprehension, it was just edginess that was hard to ignore. She noticed that Faith and Buffy dealt with it too; both of them were much more subtle about it, but if you (as she had often) watched them closely as night approached and drew onward, they too started glance around them and reacting to things that only the three of them would even pick up on happening in the house. She could've even accepted that Faith was just like that – always looking over her shoulder and being aware of everything around her, but the trait was apparent, if not more so, in Buffy. The feeling was much worse tonight than usual, and she didn't really understand why that was… maybe she was just stressed out on top of it. She missed Willow and the time they would usually spend together, not to mention that she had been stressing all day over what happened between Faith and Xander.
She walked down the hallway and into the kitchen, which occupied Giles, Xander, and Willow. They were all seated at the table talking, most definitely about the mornings drama, and it was something she didn't want to listen to right now. The look on Willow's face made it clear she wasn't going to be able to pull her away for some talk time between the two of them. She was listening carefully to everything Xander was telling her, even though, from what Kennedy could hear from her eavesdropping as she poured herself a soda, Xander wasn't saying much. He would only say a little something after a strong urge from the other two asking something really specific that could be answered with a yes or a no, and most commonly, a shrug. She was about to leave when she heard Giles finally ask in a stern and confused tone,
"Why in heavens name would you do this? What was this sudden-"
"It's Anya's fucking birthday!" he answered angrily cutting Giles off. Giles looked down at his wrist watch and answered back, matching the young mans tone,
"In a few bloody hours it won't be, and you won't have that girl either! A little short sighted, don't you think? Wait, you probably didn't' think-"
"You have no idea how many hours I spent running over this in my head! You act like this was easy for me, you think I'm not upset too? I fucking lov… I care about her, okay, and doing this wasn't easy, but I needed to do it…"
"Giles, I can understand where he's coming from…" Willow added, "like me, he's lost someone who he cares about so much, and that feeling isn't going to go away, and being with someone like Faith, she's a Slayer, he's at a much higher risk of losing her… he can't go through that again…"
Giles removed his glasses and wiped them with a napkin before placing them back upon his face carefully and looking through them to make sure they were sufficiently clear.
"In all of my years of studies, and believe me, it's quite a large number of years… I never thought I would ever hear picking a lover, a partner, a wife… whatever you may wish to call it, I never thought it would ever be set up in such a factual, statistic way…" Giles tone made it clear that he was inwardly laughing at both of them, "love is something that sweeps you up and makes more sense than any logic that can ever be explained. Xander, when I saw you and Faith together, I was certain you understood that… hmm, wrong yet again, Rupert," he commented more to himself than anyone else, but not at any lower of a volume. "I was unaware that certain people were labeled with different risk factors… if I had been aware, perhaps I would've chosen my lovers differently… As for your solidarity with Xander's decision," he commented now directly at Willow, "may I just mention, that with your labeling Slayer's as a high risk relationship in the department of loss, and you too have suffered a loss as you claim just like Xander's, need I remind you that you seem to also be in quite the serious relationship with one?" With his final closing he glanced over at Kennedy and gave a soft smile in her direction before shrugging at the entire situation and shaking his head sadly.
With a final glance at the two he had left dumbfounded at the table he exited towards his office. He walked slowly down the hallway over to his office shaking his head softly the entire way. A pain welled up in his chest, knowing he could hardly image the agony Faith must've been in; to think how she was going to react to this new addition of pain into her already largely amassed collection of inward pains made him worried. He didn't necessarily go along with Buffy's theory that she was going to freak out and 'go bad' again, but he did fear that her self destructive tendencies were going to be seriously kicking in at any time. He wasn't worried so much for anyone else in the house, because he was sure of Faith, and the way she had shifted her anger over all this time, and it made him much more worried about her – if she was going to be angry, it was going to be at herself. If it were going to be at anyone else it would've been at Xander, and if she hadn't been in control of herself, she would've lashed out immediately when he had broken it off with her.
He had been worried about that possibility and had let Xander know how he felt about that.
( "You're a stupid boy… considering you've already had an experience where you've confronted her with something she didn't want to hear and you were almost killed, you decide to tell her something just as bad, not knowing whether another soul in the house is awake?"
"Sorry if I didn't pencil it in!"
"It's very sad that you think of a relationship, one which I would think would be one of the most spontaneous relationships ever considering the company, as something that you need to plan out. I guess it's equally as sad that I would even think she would hurt you… but you're right, she wouldn't – she was absolutely genuine in the way she loved you." ) With that he had exited the room which they had talked and only just met up with him again in the kitchen. He had busied himself much of the day with Wendy and her studies, trying to keep himself occupied.
He felt a strange thing at his reaction – it made him realize, that even though she was his for a very short time, she was his Slayer just as Buffy had been, and with that came a connection, an almost fatherly connection, that no matter how much was placed between them, whether it be time or battles or prison or anything, it was always there. And knowing that something happened to her, it truly upset him from deep within his soul. He could also see the anger inside of Xander, feeling for some reason obligated to make such a rash decision which he didn't want to, but felt that he had to. There was so much anger behind his cavalier attitude that it made it hard for him to make a solid decision on whether to rip the boy's head off or try and talk it through with him.
- - -
After Giles left the kitchen Kennedy did also but heading in the opposite direction. As she walked down the hallway she jumped slightly at the sound of Giles' office door closing at the other end of the house. She needed to talk to Faith about this jumpiness… it would give them something to talk about, and something for Faith to laugh at her about instead of thinking about Xander. She knocked at the door and heard Faith call from within the room,
"Come on in, Kennedy." She smiled to herself as she walked in wondering how she knew it was her.
"Hey," she greeted, trying to act as happy as Faith was pretending to be. Faith gave her a smile as she walked in then walked across the room to her pack of cigarettes and pulled one out of lit it. She placed the box down but then picked it right back up and held it out to Kennedy,
"You want?" she asked as she exhaled.
"No…" Kennedy answered a little confused. She glanced over at the floor by where Faith was standing and it all began to make perfect sense. "Having a little to drink?" she asked looking over at the floor covered almost completely in bottles of various forms of alcohol.
"Just a little," Faith answered with a small shrug.
"I was being facetious," Kennedy muttered rolling her eyes at the way Faith was acting.
"No, there's nothing on your face," she answered.
"You're plastered," Kennedy remarked walking closer to her and saying her words clearly.
"The walls don't need to be plastered…"
"You're fucking drunk!" she said again being very articulate.
"Oh, yeah…" Faith said with a shrug and an attitude of a typical, 'and, your point?'. She grabbed the remote control to the sound system and tossed herself up onto the bed landing on her back and bouncing up once because of the force of her jump. She pressed a button and the loud music filled the entire room. Kennedy walked over to the other side of the bed where all the bottles were just to get a better count, "what?" Faith asked quickly seeing her counting.
"Nothin'," she answered quickly picking her eyes up off of the ground, "is it just me or do you really feel like Slaying tonight?" She immediately regretted suggesting they do anything while Faith was in this state, but she needed something…
"Mostly I just feel like puking, but that's just me…" Faith admitted sitting up on the bed.
"Right… umm, did you eat anything?" She received a shrug as an answer and she groaned inwardly seeing at least a dozen bottles of booze on the floor. A normal person would probably be in a coma, but here was Faith bouncing up and down on the bed… a real good thing she had the constitution she did… or at least she pretended she did. "You should probably eat something… it'll help you sober up."
"Why the fuck would I want to do that?" she asked as she stood up and walked over to the window to toss her cigarette out of. The look in her eyes made it perfectly clear to Kennedy that no matter how drunk she may be, she was still completely aware of why she was trying to not be aware.
"It's not really my place, but… Faith, this isn't the way to deal with this."
"There's nothing to deal with," she claimed with a laugh as she walked by Kennedy headed back for the bed. Kennedy reached for her arm and kept her from walking,
"Don't talk like that!" Her tone proved how much she knew about Faith, and how dangerous it was for Faith to start thinking that way.
"Fuck off," Faith answered pulling her arm away from Kennedy's grip. Her grip was strong and as Faith pulled against it, she didn't expect it to match her own and she was thrown off of her already shifty balance. As she tried to step away, expecting to already have a freed arm, her step caught and she fell to the floor in a sitting position.
"I'm sorry," Kennedy quickly apologized seeing how quickly her expression changed from a happy and cheery, fake expression to a *very* upset look that was trying to be hidden beneath the surface. "It's okay," Kennedy quickly soothed holding her arm down to help Faith up.
"There's nothing about this that is fucking close to being okay," she answered angrily pushing away the aiding hand and trying to push herself up in a very unbalanced and drunk way. "I'm fucking wasted and he still won't get out of my fucking head," she muttered as she sank back down to the ground knowing she wasn't going to be able to get up without the help she would die before using.
"Faith, come on," Kennedy comforted offering her hand again.
"Just go away," she answered coldly looking down at the ground pensively. She hurt all over and she couldn't think of anything that could possibly make it stop. The added joy of the room beginning to spin around her was one she could've easily done without, but way too many drinks too late to be getting picky about the effects of the intoxication. There were a bunch of different 'drunks', as she thought of it – there was the drunk where you feel like you're on top of the fucking world and nothing can touch you, yeah, this definitely wasn't one of those. The 'drunk' she had was definitely… shitty. She felt dizzy and nauseous and the only thing the alcohol was doing for her was making her think it was okay to cry. It wasn't! She told herself she wouldn't fucking cry over him – if he never loved her, then he never would and she just had to get the fuck over it.
As Kennedy walked down the hallway she saw Xander walking into the living room. She could hear the television talking to everyone, so she knew there were probably a bunch of people in there. She turned in after Xander and took a seat on the couch next to Andrew. She looked at what they were watching and after a few minutes she could tell it was another one of her favorites, City By The Sea. The tension in the room was obvious, with Andrew, Robin, Xander and her sitting in there. She caught a few of the quick glances Wood was tossing over at Xander, and let me tell you, they weren't friendly. Xander sat rigidly in the chair not naïve to the situation and finally spoke up,
"Am I sensing a little tension in here?"
"Yes, you are," Wood answered confidently, "but if I leave… most of the tension will too." He stood looking down at Xander sitting there and walked out, anger apparent in his posture and demeanor.
The Next Day
After talking over the situation with Giles in a conversation that had begun on the, well it's unsure of whether to call it a fortunate or unfortunate topic, that there had been some vampire sightings throughout the town, Buffy headed towards Faith's bedroom. They had talked for quite a while on the subject, Giles being quite troubled by the situation. This was evident by whenever she attempted to add half of a joke, she was immediately scolded and placed back onto the real conversation on hand.
She walked down the five stairs and down the dim hallway before stopping and knocking on the bedroom door. She didn't get any answer so after a few minutes she slid open the door and walked in. She looked over and saw Faith lying down on the bed curled up to a pillow staring at the shadows cast upon the wall by the flickers of light caused by the outside world.
"It's a good thing you took a nap," Buffy said walking over to the bed and sitting down by Faith's feet, "we've got a lot of work to do tonight…" Faith barely breathed a response and continued to only be entertained by the shadows. "Come on, the three of us are going to patrol," she urged, without trying to sound like she was urging. She didn't see any movement and she added as she motioned to stand, "If your not up to it, that's fine."
"I'm up," she muttered, the words painfully familiar.
"Faith, you've been through a lot, it's okay if-"
"Whatever, it's fine," she answered sitting up and quickly pushing herself off of the bed and standing. Buffy was proud of her convincing tactics to get Faith out of her room, or at least just out of bed, but the proud feeling was quickly overruled by the pain she felt by seeing Faith's bloodshot eyes and strained features. She looked so tired and emotionally wiped out if she didn't know better she would've thought she was just recovering from a week long party of drinkin' and drugin'. Looking at her reminded her of the night in the motel when she realized what a bad sleeper she actually was, and how when her and Xander had been together, it had seemed to get better… now it looked like it was right back to where it was, if not further back.
She watched Faith walk over to a pile of clothes on a chair at the other end of the room, one that was apparently not completely all her own clothes. She watched as Faith rummaged through them and had to act as though the ones that belonged to Xander weren't even really there. She tossed them to the floor just as she did with all of the others, but if watched closely her eyes followed those particular garments all the way to the ground and lingered slightly on them before returning back to the pile. She finally picked out an outfit and piled them on her bed,
"Kind of nice for patrol, don't you think?"
"Won't take all night," she answered.
"Right," Buffy answered with a nod. Why the hell couldn't she be close enough with Faith to just be able to talk to her straight? The thought made her realize – Xander was close enough to talk with her straight… she had been close enough with her at one point… how many other people had gotten to be that close and circumstance crushed it? She was sure the number of people Faith had ever been close with in her life could be counted on one hand and that was being generous… as of right now, she could probably count it on a single finger… She found herself quickly moving her eyes and staring out of the window as Faith started to change without any heads up.
"So… umm… how are you doing?" Buffy asked feeling awkward enough being in the room, but way more awkward having her changing. Faith couldn't help but laugh at her for it and commented,
"And Spike said you had loosened up a lot more than a bit, but I think I might have to call the dick a liar." With that Buffy looked back over at a now fully clothed Faith – she was wearing a tight pair of black, leather pants and a red, halter top. She ran her fingers thoughtlessly through her hair and turned back to Buffy as she grabbed a leather jacket off of the chair. "Ready?" The look on Buffy's face was too easy to mock and it goes without say that Faith had to seize the opportunity, "what, is it Spike's birthday today or something… you all stuffy about him too?" Faith had since been informed that the day Xander decided she was too risky and meaningless to be with was in fact Anya's birthday, how ever many hundred years ago that exactly was. Being dumped for a demon she could almost accept… but a dead demon, she wasn't sure she could handle that thought. With an inward shrug she pushed any relating thought to the back of her head just adding it as another thing on her long list of, 'you'll never
believe I actually…' list. It was pretty long…
---
Xander watched from the kitchen as the three Slayers walked down the hallway and out onto the world where they were going to perform their callings… it was strange to think, after so long of there really just being one chosen one, that there were so many more, and three right there. He figured the way Faith was dressed was some cruel form of punishment for him – she looked like a sultry goddess. He ran his fingers nervously through his hair as he watched them all leave, not overlooking the door Faith slammed on her way out. It made him nervous any time Buffy would go out to slay, there was just so much that could happen. He worried about all of them, especially Faith. He had a scary feeling inside of him – he knew Faith was never one to be too careful when she was slaying, it was a game, a release, a fight between life and death that she toyed with to amuse herself. He could see her being even more careless in the state she was in. But that was why he had to do what he did – losing her was something he just wouldn't have been able to handle; just because they weren't 'together' anymore, didn't mean the worrying automatically disappeared. He cared about her a lot and there wasn't much he could see happening that would change that.
The way she had walked by him and hadn't even raised an eyebrow in his direction was classic Faith. He figured the way she was going to deal with this whole thing was to just ignore him, pretend like it was nothing. He couldn't help but remember the first time they had been together, his first time, and the mention of her name made his eye twitch furiously, but she only acknowledged his existence when she thought it worth her time. Although the memory validated his point about the way she acted, it also brought feelings that he didn't want to be dealing with right now. She had been his first, and with that came a sort of eternal place inside of him… even if it hadn't exactly been a storybook experience. He actually shook his head from side to side trying to clear the thoughts that were invading it.
He had made his decision and it hadn't been easy, but it was what had to be done. He could admit he still cared about her, hell, as long as it was only for him to know, he still loved her, but they couldn't be together – he couldn't handle it. He rested his head on his hand as he began to think about Anya, and his heart felt as though it were going to break. But nothing would ever beat, or at least he hoped he would never experience anything worse than having to hear Faith literally beg him not to leave her. Listening to that made his lungs deflate and feel like they'd never accept air inside of them again.
He caught himself drifting off into thinking about Faith again and redirected his attention back to Anya. The only thing he had done to deal with Anya's death was to jump into the sack with Faith… was that all it was? He knew he helped Faith deal with her problems, but Faith was him dealing. The thought made him angry at himself for thinking he could use her like that – he understood why she would be angry and not want to even look at him. He didn't want to look at him.
-----
As the three Slayer's walked down the dark sidewalk all had separate thoughts pertaining to the night. Buffy was glad she could get Faith out of the house and doing something she knew Faith probably took a little bit too much enjoyment in doing… it would help her blow off some steam. She couldn't help but feel a little awkward though – whenever she had gone on patrol she had always been the leader without any question or thought about it. And she would've continued with the same assumption except the posture and body language of not only Faith, but Kennedy also, made her question it. All three of them were Slayers… she used to go patrolling with Faith way back in the day but it was always kind of understood that she was in charge because Faith was new to the gig. It occurred to her then that Faith hadn't exactly been happy about that whole assumption either. And Kennedy, who seemed to be following much more in Faith's footsteps than her own would probably question what made Buffy in charge anyway. All of the answers she had for that question… the lists of battles and apocalypses… none of it really seemed to matter anymore.
Kennedy felt more comfortable than she thought she would – keeping pace with the other two took effort, but she followed their leads. Both of them had such different styles of scanning their surroundings, it was interesting to watch. She watched Buffy who walked quietly watching where she was going but having a very open perspective as to pull in all of her surroundings without looking like she was doing anything but looking down at the sidewalk. Faith on the other hand walked with a clear certainty and looked around at everything. When they'd pass people Buffy would get a quick glance and then proceed while looking down at the ground, where as Faith would stare them straight in the eye for a few paces and look them over.
Faith felt like she was doing all of the things she would normally do – she didn't have a set routine or anything, it just flowed… when things went down she just dealt with it, she never thought about it before hand. Her breath tightened at the thought as she drew a classic parallel in her life – slaying had always been like layin' for her. She scolded herself for doing the same thing with Xander – she would've been able to avoid all of this if she had just thought it through before she got so involved. Everything seemed like it should feel okay, but it didn't. Everything seemed kind of blurry and far away – she could hear everything just fine, but it somehow seemed like it was coming from a mile off.
"We should hit the heart of town and then work our way out from there," Buffy finally announced trying to establish herself as the leader.
"Good plan," Faith answered with a little more than a hint of sarcasm as she stepped past Buffy as a clear sign that she didn't have a problem slaying with her, but she wasn't about to be bossed around.
They all walked further into town and it was busy, but not too noisy. Most of the crowds were inside of restaurants or bars, not hanging out on the corners or sidewalks. They walked by one of the parking lots for a restaurant and there was a couple walking towards their car. Both were obviously intoxicated by the way they swayed from side to side as they walked and the woman had an almost continuous giggle. They were talking to each other as they walked and all three Slayers watched the scene carefully. Buffy and Kennedy motioned to keep moving, but Faith stopped and completely ignored them and found a shadowed area to just watch from. Kennedy and Buffy were forced to stop and wait and they stood by Faith.
"Faith, let's go," Kennedy said softly as she pulled on her jacket sleeve. She could see Buffy getting less and less patient with the whole situation, and the last thing she wanted to have to stand between was the two Slayers going at it again. Buffy had been really good about the whole Xander thing and had really backed off of Faith since it happened, but it was obvious she was ready to be set off again and start right back up on the challenges.
"Shut up." The comment was short and abrupt and it practically jolted Kennedy back to silence. Faith watched the couple closely and Buffy couldn't help but think Faith was just dealing with her breakup. She grabbed at her arm to tug her on but Faith quickly and angrily pulled it out of her grip and it was then when she heard her cue from the couple.
The man had been walking just next to the woman and as they neared the car he lowered his hand to her butt and gave her a teasing squeeze. The woman quickly removed his hand and shook her head while still giggling. He put his hand back on her lower back-
"Hey!" Faith yelled as she walked out from the shadows and into the parking lot.
"Faith, what the hell are you doing!?" Buffy asked trying to grab her and pull her back.
"Who the hell are you?" the man asked angrily.
"I think she's trying to tell you no."
"God, slaying is hard enough, why does Faith have to be a socially sound patrol too…" Buffy groaned to Kennedy.
"Strip clubs down the street honey, you're a block too far north," the man answered rudely as Faith approached.
"You would know, wouldn't you…"
"Excuse me, do you have any idea who I am?"
"No, but I could make a few guesses," she answered sharply still walking steadily towards them. Sirens started to go off in Buffy's head and she finally walked out into the lot,
"Let's go," she said towards Faith. "This is none of your business and we've been down this road before… *he's* not really our area," she hinted pointedly trying to get across the whole human bit. As she jogged towards Faith, Faith looked up at the roof of the restaurant and answered,
"No, but they are." As she said it four vamps jumped down from the roof and surrounded the four of them in the lot. Kennedy wanted some action but she wasn't about to jump in first – she didn't want to mess everything up. Each slayer took on two vamps and Kennedy rushed forward to help. Buffy dusted the first, then Faith knocked one to the ground by Kennedy's feet and she dusted it. The third vamp knocked Kennedy to the ground, but Buffy had her back and was right on it sending sharp punches on the vamp. Buffy dusted the third one just in time to look over and see Faith not dusting the last vamp but holding her hands up and stepping to the side as the vamp approached the man,
"Go ahead, have fun with him," she added ready to walk away. She wasn't about to break a sweat helping that creep.
"Faith!" Buffy yelled as the vamp was getting closer and closer to the man. She turned to Buffy and gave a histrionic shrug.
"Faith!" Kennedy screamed in warning as she saw another vamp with a wooden crate approaching Faith from behind. She barely had time to crinkle her eyebrows in a response before she felt the crate smash her in the back of the head. She fell forward with a groan and heard Kennedy and Buffy's running footsteps, so she didn't even bother to get up and stake the motherfucker. They'd handle it and she'd just stay right down there trying to make her head stop spinning.
As the two girls dusted the last vamps the couple jumped into their car and sped away, ready to deny anything that had happened that night, and think of it as a bad hallucination from impure alcohol.
"Faith, are you okay?" Kennedy asked rushing over to her. Faith had rolled onto her back and sat up. Buffy pushed Kennedy out of the way and yelled angrily,
"What the hell is your problem?"
"Back off," Faith muttered as she stood up.
"In case you've once again forgotten, as Slayers we kill vampires we don't feed people to them!"
"Don't forget the occasional advantage of fucking 'em every now and again," Faith spat angrily.
"Hey!" Kennedy scolded at both of them, "knock it off, would you?"
"Them's fightin' words, Faith…" Buffy mocked.
"I can't deal with you right now, B," Faith said motioning to walk away.
"You think I deal with you out of choice?" Faith kept walking trying to ignore Buffy's angry words,
"Where are you going?" Kennedy called out with concern.
"To go cool off," she answered without stopping.
"Probably more like going to get heated up," Buffy muttered angrily.
"You're going to let her go like that?" Buffy gave the same histrionic shrug Faith had and headed back towards home. Kennedy followed her knowing she'd probably cause more trouble for Faith than good.
- - - -
Dawn and Xander were sitting quietly in the front room, a smallish room of a very rectangular shape, it was longer than it was wide by quite a few feet so it was almost more like a big wide hallway. There were a few chairs in there and some books that Giles had scattered there. Dawn tirelessly flipped through them looking for anything she could feed her brain with. Xander let out his fourth sigh in the last thirty seconds and Dawn finally looked up at him. He looked miserable.
"You okay?" she asked with concern.
"I don't know."
"You know you can always talk to me, right? I mean I know there's a lot of things you think I won't understand, but… hey, having Buffy, Ms. Romantic Wreck, as a big sister, I'll understand more than you might think."
"Thanks, Dawnie," he answered with a chuckle.
"It's just hard, you know, when there's something you have to do that you know you have to, but you wish you didn't. And you know it's the right thing to do, but it never feels right… ever." Dawn mustered up the courage to ask him why he had done what he'd done,
"Xander, why did you-" but before she could finish the question Buffy angrily stormed through the garage door.
"Is everything alright?" Xander asked.
"I swear, her only purpose on this Earth is to make me miserable," Buffy stated angrily walking down the hall and into the kitchen. Xander stayed in the front room, hoping he was too obvious in how much he just wanted to see Faith. Kennedy followed a little ways after Buffy, and he assumed Faith would also. Kennedy slumped down in a chair next to Dawn,
"They're worse than little children," she groaned.
"Where's Faith?" Xander asked, not really caring how bad it looked for him to be asking.
"She didn't come back with us…" Kennedy answered; she immediately felt guilty and worried as the words passed through her lips.
"Where did she go?" he asked nervously.
"Why do you care?"
"Kennedy, come on… you don't understand, she'll get herself into trouble and…"
"And why do you care?" she answered back. She was the only other person to see how much Xander had actually hurt her and she wasn't about to let him just pretend that was okay.
"Please, I just need to make sure she's okay… I don't want to see her get hurt again and it be my fault."
"She said she was just going to go cool off…"
"Where!?" he asked trying to mask his panic. With a slight shrug as a response Xander grabbed his jacket off of one of the coat racks by the door and practically ran out of the door.
"Instead of trying to get everyone's last names on the mail box, we should just put, 'The House of the Confusing'!" Kennedy groaned as she sunk deeper into the chair.
- - - - - -
A few years back Alexander Harris would've stuck out like a sore thumb in the bar he walked into – but from his experiences since then and his style alterations he didn't look too bad. In fact, he looked pretty damn good walking in there strutting his stuff and clicking his heals on the floor confidently. He walked straight up to the bartender after taking a quickly glance around and seeing that there were just a few guys sitting around a table with a few pitchers of beer.
"Excuse me," he began getting the bartender's attention. He was ignored so he took it up a notch, "Hey!" The bartender turned around slowly and looked over at Xander, scanning him up and down to know whether to talk big or call over the bouncer.
"What can I do for you?"
"I'm looking for a girl… she's this tall," he said lifting his hand up to her exact height – something he had memorized crisply in the last few weeks, "dark wavy hair, really really pretty… have you seen her?"
"A bit earlier tonight I did…"
"Any idea where she went?"
"She was in here when a bunch of the younger regulars come in here – word got around that there was a party at one of the frats and the place emptied out… I think that's around when she left too…"
"Where's the fr-"
"Is she your girlfriend?" one of the men from the table asked loudly.
"What does it matter?" Xander asked quickly turning towards them. The same guy leaned over to his friend and commented,
"Man, she was a hell of a dancer wasn't she?"
"Hell yeah," he answered with a chuckle.
"Buddy, if I were you, I'd keep that girl on a short leash!"
"With a chain choker collar," the friend answered laughing, "if you know what I mean."
"She would look good in chains, wouldn't she?" the guy answered, the whole table laughing now.
"What'd you say?" Xander asked furiously walking over to their table.
"There ain't too many girls walking around here that look like that," they guy said further provoking him. "If she were mine I wouldn't let her out of the house!"
"Sounds like a great strategy towards a long-term relationship, really!" By now Xander was standing just next to their table and the guy stood up to face him,
"Well, seeming as how you're walking around town looking in bars for your girl, my guess is, you ain't got a great long-term strategy either…"
There had been few occasions in Xander's life where he had snapped – just completely lost his shit and lashed out of whatever caused it. It was a very rare occurrence, but when it happened, it was pretty scary. Everything pent up inside of him right now – he just didn't have nay other way of dealing with it. He reached out and grabbed the jacket collar of the guy and threw a quick right punch straight to his face. Luckily most of the guys at the table were mostly into the cheering part of the fight and didn't really feel like jumping in, except for the one who the guy had been talking to.
"Hey!" he yelled as he threw himself into Xander. The bouncer ran over to break up the fight and he grabbed the friend by his jacket and pulled him off. The first guy was back up with a bloody nose and before the bouncer could grab him he punched Xander in the face twice, once in the nose and once in the eye,
"I wonder if I punched the other side of your face if you'd call it a black eye, or a just a black eye socket!" he mocked angrily. Xander got in another good punch to the guys face before being grabbed by the bouncer and brought to the door. He wasn't a regular, he didn't get the privileges. He walked agreeably out with the bouncer who waited by the front door to make sure he didn't try to come back in.
"It's not smart to be a newcomer and make trouble…"
"I'm really sorry," he explained. "I just really need to find her… can you please tell me where that frat is?"
"I don't really think I want to be pointing a guy like you, who's angrier than hell at his girlfriend, in her direction… saw what you did to that guy in there, I don't want to know what you're going to do to your girl after the night she's been having.
"Believe me, sir, she could kick my ass in four point restraints!" The joke, and the fact that a hundred dollars happened to fall out of Xander's jacket pocket was enough to get him directions to the frat where Faith *might* be.
He walked up to the frat house and saw there were still dozens of college students going in the door. He fell in line with the rest of them without raising too much suspicion. As he walked through the door past a tall guy who seemed to be watching out for who he let in he called over to Xander,
"Hey you…" But Xander gave a half wave and kept walking and lost himself in the crowd. It took him about 0.00001 seconds to spot Faith in the crowd. She was dancing in the middle of the room, which had at least fifty students crammed into it dancing to the blaring music. Little to his surprise Faith had at least a dozen guys all over her and he could tell she was basking in the attention. He stood there starring at her being able to handle such a crowd of guys being all over her and he thought about how for a while he had been all she needed. He'd never seen her dancing with only one guy in the Bronze, or anywhere else for that matter… one was just not enough attention for her anymore. But he had been enough for her… He swallowed hard as his throat clamped shut.
He started to get angry again – he left her because he didn't want to lose her, but he wasn't about to watch her degrade herself like that and have all those men with their hands *all* over her. She was too good for this and the frustrating thing about it was that he seemed to be the only one who knew that. He knew when they had been together he had made her know she was worth more than this – but he was also the person who had treated her like garbage and made her feel worthless. And he knew the only way she could feel like she was worth something was like this… it practically made him sick to his stomach. None of those guys knew who she was, or what she had been through, or hell, how much time she had spent behind bars… how many people she'd killed… they didn't know how much she'd been through – they didn't know her!
He pushed his way through the crowd, pulling past girls grabbing him for a dance and fighting his way through the crowd of guys trying to get closer to the middle without making it too obvious. He finally got up behind Faith and not wanting to instantly be pushed away by the dancing crowd he put his hands around her waist, ensuring that if they moved it would be together. He wasn't sure why he hadn't expected it, but as soon as he touched her waist she began rubbing up against him, moving her hips to the rhythm and roughly against him. She raised her arms up and rubbed the sides of his face and slid them down his neck all behind her back without even knowing or for that matter, caring who he was.
Before he would've seen these gestures as signs of affection or foreplay, but he knew her so much better now, and the silky touches and curved thrusts all seemed so mechanical to him now. He knew for a fact that if she had done this years ago, when she first came into town he'd be instantly turned on and practically out of control by now, but now he felt sick and really sad. *Faith stop it* he begged in his head. What right did he have to say it out loud when she had begged him a few days earlier and he had purposely ignored her pleas? She motioned to move on to another dance partner but he held onto her waist firmly and she smoothly turned to look at the *jerk* who thought she already belonged to him. As her eyes met his he spat angrily,
"Since when are you into youngin's?"
"They need a little guidance… showing them how to treat a girl." She broke away from the crowd of disappointed guys and headed towards their make-shift bar. "Same," Faith stated to the kid standing behind the table followed by a sharp wink and smile. He lined up four shots of vodka and a glass half full of water.
"So are you saying all of us half decent guys should whip out a notepad and a pencil and jot down all these great pointers you're giving these assholes?" She looked up at him through the glass of water and answered,
"Pot calling the Kedamene black," she joked having to laugh at herself, "you were kind of automatically taken out of the whole half decent category about three days ago." She finished the glass of water and put it down on the table and began on her round of shots. He swallowed down that and continued,
"So tell me, what exactly should go on this list… I think I have the beginning but you can help me add on to it. First, to make a girl feel good make sure you get all over her, but don't forget, knowing her name is bad. Hmmm… second, can you help me out on this one? I only caught onto that one thing you were teaching them."
"Xander, go away," she answered swallowing down the last of the four shots. "I'm just having a good time – go home."
"Not a chance," he answered quickly. She began to protest and he added, "granted I didn't do a lot of college partying, you know the whole lack of college thing, but I did pick up on the fact that most of them end with the cops showing up… you'll be an easy target in about an hour at the rate you're downing those-"
"Go home." With that she walked away from him and back onto the dance floor. He groaned angrily and turned to the kid behind the bar,
"Hey, how much has she been drinking?" The kid smiled and picked up two nearly empty bottles of Absolut Vodka and waved them slightly for Xander,
"Mostly her." Xander nodded then found himself a spot leaning against the wall where he could keep a good eye on her. He was also keeping a watchful eye on all of the other guys around the room keeping their eyes on Faith. It was a level of awareness he had learned from her – but after two bottles of vodka, anyone's level of awareness was going to be impaired, even a Slayers. He became especially aware of two guys standing across the room from him – they had been eying her all night and kept making comments to each other as they watched. Now that wasn't really anything out of the ordinary considering everyone in there was staring at her, even the chicks, Faith's a lot of things, but low profile isn't one of them. But most other people were doing things and partying, these two guys seemed to have one focus, and it didn't feel right.
As he watched he saw a lot of things he didn't like – but there were actually a few he had to extol her on. He watched her consistently turn down any drinks she hadn't watched being pored, she never left the table with a drink – she drank them all right there and left. She knew she was drinking a lot, but she was also pretty aware of what she was drinking. Every time she went back to the table she always had a glass of water before having the usual four shots.
Her stamina was certainly something to brag about. She outlived the entire dance floor and as he had suspected, his two friends standing across the room moved onto the floor. One of them stood behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist while leaning his head on her shoulder and grinning at her. The other took her hand and whispered something in her ear. She didn't smile but gave a jaded rolling of the eyes and then a tired nod. With that they began to lead her off of the dance floor. Xander practically jumped up and walked quickly over to them,
"Where the hell do you think you're going?"
"I'll meet you up there," Kurt, one of the guys said to his friend. His friend, Tommy nodded and started to walk away with Faith again, still whispering sweet nothings in her ear, while Kurt stood in front of Xander.
"She's not going anywhere with you," he cut in trying to push past Kurt.
"I'd ask you if you wanted another black eye, but I don't think I can really call that mangled hole under that patch an eye." Between the emotions built up inside of him, the anger that had been causing his jaw to twitch all night, and the fear that they might actually get her out of his sight, was what probably made him a little scarier to be around.
"Listen to me you fucking punk, she's not going anywhere with you, got that!?" he screamed grabbing the kid by the collar.
"Woah, dude, you've got issues," Kurt said holding his hands up.
"No, I think a couple of college guys who stand around watching a girl all night get drunk and get tired just so you can have some fun, that's having issues," he stated angrily walking past Kurt and grabbing Tommy by the shoulder. "Train stops here, asshole."
"Dude, we were just going to have some fun," he said defensively as he held onto Faith a little looser.
"I don't think she'd have the energy tonight," he stated trying to hide the rage building up. He stepped up and took Faith from Tommy. Both guys saw it in their best interest to make a run for it – who let that psycho into the party in the first place?
"Fucking hardass!" Tommy yelled as they retreated.
"Faith…" he said ignoring them completely. She was still standing and looked like she was just tired, but she didn't know what the hell was going on. "Hey, can you look at me?" he asked softly. She softly shook her head, barely noticeably, but rested her head on his chest and muttered,
"Let's just go back to your place, okay?" Swallowing the lump down in his throat he walked her out of the frat house and they walked gingerly back to the house. It took a long time needing to take a lot of breaks and Faith wasn't exactly moving too quick.
"God, don't you have a fucking car?" she muttered as they were about ten minutes away from the house. She was really too drunk to even know who he was or where she was even going. He had to breathe deeply to calm his stomach which was doing flips as he listened to what she would say. What could've happened if he hadn't found her? "Wake me up when we get there, okay?" she muttered as her legs finally gave out on her. He was quick to catch her since his arms were already stabilizing her as she walked.
"Okay," he said picking her up in his arms and walking the stretch of the block. He couldn't help but remember the last night he had done this – it was when he felt the closest to her, but also became aware of how dangerous that was and how quickly he needed to distance himself. He opened the door carefully with one of his hands that wasn't exactly a free hand, but it would have to pretend it was. He stepped into the house and saw the dim light coming from Giles' office. He stepped out quickly to greet Xander and was very surprised by what he saw.
"Look what I found," he said with more than a little anger in his tone.
"Everyone else is asleep." Giles answered as he absorbed what he was seeing. Xander was standing there with a badly bruised and swollen eye and a small blood stain by his nose and then there was Faith. It upset Giles to see her like that – she was limp in his arms with her head rested against his chest and her hair hung over her shoulder carelessly. He could see beads of sweat on her forehead that shinned in the overhead light. Her legs hung limply down towards the ground and-, Giles shook his head, she just looked so helpless. That was one of his Slayers, and there she was, needing to be carried home and she was completely comatose.
"Good." He answered sharply – he had been through way too much tonight and was in no mood to deal with anyone. Faith moved slightly in his arms and began to cough. It raised Giles' level of concern and he added,
"Someone should keep an eye on her tonight." He had also noticed Xander's immediate reaction when she coughed, and although he thought she just needed some rest and probably quite a bit of aspirin, he knew some time together might be exactly what those two needed. Seeing him holding her again made it impossible for him to forget how happy both of them were when they were together. Xander answered by walking quickly away and through the hallway with Faith towards her bedroom. He walked silently down the small five steps and into the dim hallway of her wing trying to just not say anything as he listened to the soft noises she made. He wasn't sure whether to think of it as sleeping or not, but… they were sweet little moans, or maybe even whimpers that she made – just one or two as he lowered her down softly onto the bed.
He thought by the way she acted when he placed her down that she might make up, but it was only a half sort of consciousness. He lowered her down onto the bed and she gripped one arm looped around his neck and lowered the other to the bed, suspecting that was where she was going to be put down. She opened her eyes just barely but her vision was blurry and instead of blinking furiously to clear them she figured it was probably for the best that it was blurry and just closed them again. He helped get her out of her leather jacket carefully supporting her with his arm behind her back as he did so. He gently put her head on the bed once the jacket was off and draped it on the end of the bed. Xander stood looking down at her as she lay there and his mind began to race with emotions and everything that had happened.
Xander stepped away from the bed and pulled off his jacket with a sigh. He tossed it habitually onto the chair full of clothes. He sighed seeing that some of his clothes were still there mixed in with hers. He felt like a real asshole for not thinking about how that must make her feel whenever she looked at it. He glanced back at the bed and saw her lying there. She was lying on her side with her head rested on her arm and her hair slightly in her face. He walked over pushed the strands of hair behind her head and sighed again. He stood there for a few minutes just watching her with his arms crossed tightly across his chest allowing all of the things in his head to just run savagely around his brain hoping they would eventually settle.
He glanced over at the table expecting to see the clock, which had been there… well, less than a few days ago when he woke up in here. He was surprised not to see it in it's usual station but he glanced around and saw it thrown to the floor. It had also been one of the first things she had woken up to in the last few days too… He picked it up and just righted it's position on the floor not wanting to impose on where she was putting things… it was close to five in the morning. He couldn't help but yawn in reaction to finally being able to notice what time it was. It had certainly been quite a long night – or would you call it morning? He walked around to the other side of the bed; he had habitually placed her down on her side and left his side empty… the brain was a funny thing – a sick and mean and spiteful thing that was having a lot of fun toying with his subconscious at the moment.
There was a soft knock on the door and Giles walked slowly in carrying a glass of water and some aspirin. He looked over at Xander debating whether to lie down or not and he gave him an encouraging, but small nod as he walked to the table next to Faith's side of the bed and put everything down quietly. He looked down at her for a moment and could see all of the irresponsibility and carelessness, but he also saw the pain and the self-loathing and self-destructiveness he saw when he looked at her. He gave a final glance up at Xander then left as quietly as he had come.
Xander eased himself onto the bed slowly trying not to wake her – she was the worst sleeper he'd ever met… and well, slept with. The random thought occurred to him that it's pretty unlikely you could ever really know whether someone slept well unless you were involved with them… there was his random thought for the day! He wasn't sure whether Giles' nodded and small smile had been what made him sit down, but he sat never the less. The alcohol was definitely helping him in the not waking up factor – she moved slightly and groaned as the bed moved, but didn't wake up. He sat up on the bed leaning his back against the backboard of the bed. He watched her sleep – he couldn't even swear that he blinked the entire time.
*I've never seen anything so beautiful* he thought to himself, *good, Xander, real good, watch a girl completely passed out and think it's beautiful… I've got some real issues…* he shook his head knowing his issues were what caused all of this. But the problem was, he couldn't decipher whether the effects of his issues had started when they first got together, or when they had just broken up. *I hate seeing her so upset* he admitted shaking his head and secretly wiping a stray tear from his eye. She was so amazing and here he was sitting right next to her and afraid to touch her. He knew for a fact if he wanted to keep her from waking up he should just hold her… but it wasn't his place anymore; he didn't have the right. He didn't have that right because he had taken it and crushed it with the most painful words and actions and broken promises he could have.
He glanced over at the clock on the floor again and it was quarter to six when she started to wake up. He didn't move – but he just watched her carefully and her actions were *painfully* telling to the way she was feeling. That was the thing with Faith, you had to be very observant to the small signs she gave because it wasn't very often that she'd tell you the way she was feeling. *She started telling me how she was feeling though…* Xander shook his head trying to ignore the thoughts now – he was all too aware of the pain she was in and he hated it with every fiber of his being, but it couldn't change what he did or why he did it.
She began to wake up and as she did she extended her hand out hoping to touch Xander and hold him as she always loved to in the morning. She wanted to have him right there and-
"Oh fuck," she muttered as she pulled her arm back so quickly it was like a whiplash. She didn't even look up to see the disgusting creep she had ended up with last night. She rolled over so that she wasn't facing him… if you could call it a him – she would rather refer to him and It right now. Judging by the headache she could feel already she could just imagine how much she had to drink and just how low her standards were – like she already said, she didn't want to look at It. She sat up with her head still hanging down as she accustomed herself to being awake. Her eyes were still blurry – in fact, they hadn't been all that clear when she went out patrolling in the first place – that's what losing a few days worth of sleep will do to you. She hated the groggy feeling when she woke up hung over though… it made even her feel a little powerless. She definitely didn't like it.
"Hey," she heard a voice behind her.
"Shut up, you fucking prick," she muttered everything blurry and sounding so far away but still annoying. She wasn't even listening to the It behind her so she couldn't recognize it as Xander's.
Xander was a little taken aback by the attitude, initially thinking she was aiming it at him! He thought he was pretty damn nice to her last night – he saved her ass!
"So you're always nasty in the morning… I thought it was just me… gee, I feel better now…" he stated sarcastically.
"Shut the fuck up, fucking smart ass," she muttered again angrily. She really had to stop drinking so much – these guys were getting more annoying every time. She didn't even want to get a good look around – she couldn't imagine the apartment was going to be any nicer than the prick in the bed next to her. She did however look down at herself and notice, *holy shit*, all clothes were still on except for her jacket… that's a first! *Whatever*, she thought – probably a sicker prick than any of the rest of them – wants to think he's getting away with something! She motioned to stand up but stopped and grabbed her temple with one of her hands painfully. *It'll stop… it'll stop… it'll all stop…* she repeated over and over again in her head trying to give herself the strength she was going to need to get out of wherever the hell she was and back home.
"There's water and aspirin on the table right there," Xander offered seeing she was in pain. He started to realize that she had no idea who he was or where she was… or what had happened while she was completely plastered.
"I may look dumb, but I'm not fucking stupid, asshole," she commented harshly now forcing herself to stand up. She couldn't stay here any longer – she had to get out of here.
Xander finally got up and made his way over the bed.
"Hey, hold on," he said seeing she was about to rush out of there.
"You had your fun, I'm out of here," she answered grabbing her jacket off of the bed.
"Faith," he said grabbing her arm gently. She looked up at him quickly – there wasn't anyone who would touch her like that. The voice could be ignored – the sight could be overlooked – the touch was unmistakable. She practically jumped when she saw his face.
Xander was surprised by what he saw. He had expected, especially after the way she acted when she woke up, that she would be angry when she realized it was him and think he ruined her fun, or… whatever she might think. He definitely didn't think he would've ever had the right to assume what would go on in Faith's head – she had been through a lot and had heard of everything else so there was little that wouldn't run through her thoughts… He was shocked by her actual response though – she looked up at him with a look of absolute excitement and happiness!
"Xander," she said turning to him and wrapping her arms around his neck. "We… we must've…" she muttered barely audibly. She wanted so badly for something to have happened that just made everything better again. She rested her head on his chest for a long moment pulling him close to her. Xander stood there unsure of what to do – he was so shocked by how she had reacted. It was true – all she had wanted was to have him back and that's what she thought happened. He stood there stiffly against her with his hands on her arms trying to convince her otherwise.
She hoped so badly something had just happened that settled everything between them last night – whatever it was – and now everything was back to the way it should be. As much as she wished this, she was pretty sure something that good couldn't happen to her. But she had to know… She looked up at him and touched his cheek with her hand bringing her lips up to his. She kissed his softly pulling him closer to her but with his hands on her arms he pushed her away finally getting control of himself.
"No way, Faith." It was sharp and unfeeling.
"Baby…"
"Faith, stop it," he answered taking a step back away from her.
"But… but… I thought that we," she rambled standing there feeling so alone now without his body up against hers.
"No."
"What?" she asked trying to put it all together while her head was absolutely pounding and she just felt like crying.
"Nothing happened, Faith. I found you fucking smashed with guys all over you and… it was a bad situation so I brought you home."
"A bad situation? What the hell do you call this?" she asked sharply. "You came looking for me? I'm not something you can control anymore-"
"Oh, but if I were still fucking you I could order you around!?"
"I'd do anything for you, and you fucking know it!" she screamed the tears starting to rim around her eyes.
"I didn't want to see you stumbling in that door after spending the night with some asshole who didn't give a shit about you and-"
"And you did!?" she screamed furiously.
"Don't do this," Xander said turning away from her and running his fingers through his hair.
"Just get out, Xander."
"Faith…"
"Just go!" she screamed angrily.
"I'm not leaving with you like this," he stated forcing his tone to be calm and low. She picked up the glass of water Giles had brought in and threw it at the wall. It shattered and the water splashed all over the wall – it was across the room from both of them.
"You already did!"
"Faith, just calm down."
"Just go away," she said her tone dropping down to pleading as she sank down to the ground and sat with her knees pulled up to her chest as she lowered her head down to her knees. His heart felt so broken he was surprised he was still standing. He looked down at her curled up practically into a ball on the floor,
"Faith, please…"
"Get out," she mumbled.
"Okay," he agreed. He walked up to her and touched her shoulder lightly with his hand then walked out of the bedroom – wiping tears from his eye as he left.