Author's Note: A great big thank you to SlayGal, Faithful, rma and Hugo for their reviews! And to whoever nominated this fic at the Barefoot Awards… THANK YOU! You rock! lol. The nomination was very unexpected, but nonetheless welcomed :)

Chapter 12: This Boys' Life

Quietly, Faith stands at the kitchen sink as she washes the plate she has just eaten off of. She dries it, returns it to the cabinet, and turns to survey the room. Everything is neat and in place so she switches off the light and moves to the living room. The room isn't used much, so it is also clean. Glancing at the clock she notices that Nick should be arriving soon.

In the upstairs bathroom she brushes her hair and adjusts her clothes. She's still wearing the tank top and cargos.

Restless and anxious, she wanders into her mother's bedroom. Her eyes fall on the jewelry box and she feels drawn to it. Running her fingers over the wooded surface, she gently pulls open the box. Rummaging around, she finds the cross necklace that used to belong to her grandmother and picks it up to get a closer look. It's a simple silver cross on a simple silver chain.

As the cold silver warms from the heat of her hand, she drifts back to her conversation with Ms. Nelson. The demons could be anyone. She starts to think about some people from school, wondering who seems more demonic than others. Who is the most suspicious? A thought suddenly occurs to her, and although it does not appeal to her, her mind pursues it. Nick, she suddenly realizes, has never questioned her about the supernatural things that have occurred. Why not? She asks herself. Because he's a demon, a distant part of her mind answers, because he wants to kill you…

The sharp knocking at the front door snaps her out of her thoughts. Pocketing the necklace, she leaves her mother's room and slowly descends the stairs, still disturbed by her train of thought. She stops at the door, frozen, while her hand rests on the doorknob. Taking a deep breath, she turns the knob and pulls the door open to reveal Nick standing on the front porch bathed in an unnatural yellow color from the porch lights.

"Hey Faith." He smiles at her.

She doesn't return the smile because she is lost in her thoughts. Vampires can't come in without an invite… "Hey Nick."

He stands on the opposite side of the threshold, watching her and waiting to be welcomed in. She stands to the side, a physical invitation for him to enter because she will not say the words. She is testing him. She feels like time is slowing down, seconds stretch on for millennia while she waits to see if Nick, this boy that she has trusted, is a vampire.

He raises an eyebrow at her, clearly confused as to why she is not speaking. After a few more seconds he takes a step forward, but not into the house.

"Are you okay? You look a little freaked out." She watches his feet as they near the door jam. "Did something happen after you left school? Something to do with Ms. Nelson?" His left foot steps onto the wood floor, then his right foot follows. He is inside the house.

Sighing in relief, she quickly walks around him to close the door and locks it.

"Faith, you're scaring me. What's wrong?" he asks concerned.

She leads him towards the living room couch. "I'm sorry Nick. I haven't had a good day." She sits down and he follows her, sitting down in a chair. She continues, "Ms. Nelson told me today that this demon cult is gonna try to resurrect their leader and I have to stop them, but I don't know what I'm doing! I haven't even fought any real vampires yet. What if I fail? What if I get killed?" Tears begin to collect behind her eyes, "I don't wanna die."

He moves from the chair and sits beside her on the couch. Tentatively, he reaches out a hand to place it on her shoulder as a gesture of comfort.

She wipes at her eyes, embarrassed that she is crying in front of him. They sit, silently, for a few minutes until she regains control of her emotions.

"I still have a question, though."

He removes his hand to lean forward, resting his arms on his knees. "Shoot."

"Why aren't you freaked out by all this vampire stuff?" She looks at his eyes but he doesn't meet her gaze. Instead he looks down at his feet.

"I'd rather not say." He says softly.

She rises from the couch and takes a few steps across the room, ringing her hands together worriedly. "That's not good enough, Nick."

He looks up at her but she refuses to turn and look at him.

"I need to know." She continues. "To trust you, I need to know." She waits for him to answer.

He leans back on the couch and sighs. "Okay."

"Okay?" she turns around to face him.

His gaze is fixed on some unknown point as he starts to speak. "About a month ago, me and my sister Michelle were watching television in the den. My parents were in the kitchen, my mom was cooking dinner and my dad was reading the newspaper. Everything is normal, right?" He runs a hand through his hair. "Michelle was begging me to braid her hair and I kept telling her that boys don't braid hair, but she was stubborn. Finally I agreed to do it and she ran up to her room to get a brush and her butterfly hair clips. I heard this noise, like a thump, but I figured she dropped something. After a few minutes she didn't come back down and I was getting impatient so I went upstairs to find out what was taking so long. I was calling her but she didn't answer. Her door was partly open and when I opened it…" he pauses, "when I opened it I say her laid across her bed, kind of like she was thrown there… and there was blood all over. Her pink bed sheets were covered in it. I couldn't scream, I couldn't move. I was frozen. Then I heard this noise come from the roof outside the window. I ran over and looked out, and that's when I screamed. There was a man, or at least it looked like a man, on the roof. When he heard me scream he turned around and I saw part of his face. That's when I could tell he was a vampire."

Faith moves closer to him as he begins to cry. She places herself on the couch, sitting on one bent leg and facing him, as she puts her arms around him. He leans into her and cries. She begins to cry with him, feeling his pain because she's been through something similar.

"He must have been waiting by the window for her to go up to her room. The box where she kept her hair clips was on her desk next to the window. That's how he grabbed her, I think. He grabbed her, pulled her out and killed her, then threw her back inside."

When both their crying stops, they slowly move apart. She reaches for the box of tissues on the end table and offers it to him. As they both dry their eyes, she says, "I'm sorry."

He nods but doesn't have enough control to speak yet and a few more minutes pass by before he does. "That's why I know about vampires. That's why we moved here to Boston." He laughs an unhappy laugh. "Can we talk about something else now?"

"Sure. We can talk about whatever you want." She assures him.

"What was your life like before all this slayer stuff happened?"

She leans back into the couch, getting comfortable. "Mostly there was just Ronnie. It's pathetic, I know, but we hung out with the same group of people and one day he asked me out and I just said yes."

"Who'd you hang out with? You seem more like a loner to me." Nick says.

She laughs. "I am… or was at least." He smiles back at her, understanding what she means. "I didn't have many friends when I was younger because everyone's parents knew my mom was an alcoholic and they wouldn't let their kids near me. When I reached high school I met a group of people that didn't know about my mom so I just started to hang with them. They were okay."

"Why don't you hang out with them anymore?" he questions.

She plays with her fingers, slowly chipping off the black nail polish. "When my mom died, the whole town found out. I broke up with Ronnie at the funeral, and it was really his group of friends, not mine. I haven't talk to any of them since."

"You're not alone anymore." He says quietly.

She answers him just as quietly. "I know."

"What about before Ronnie? Any other guys?"

"Steve." She answers. "When I was fifteen I dated this guy named Steve. He was a year older than me, but he got left back a year so he was in most of my classes. He was nice to me, and he seemed normal.  We didn't go out for long, though. He was a total klepto and he had this obsession with cheerleaders. He wanted me to join the squad so I could get one of those uniforms with the short skirt." She laughs out loud. "Can you picture me in a cheerleading outfit with a set of pompoms?"

Nick begins to answer but she sends him a look and he closes his mouth. He can't stop his smile, though.

"Anyway, he wanted too much physical stuff so I broke up with him."

"Good choice." He agrees with her.

"And you? How many girls' hearts have you broken?" she jokes with him.

"Only one. A girl named Grace, back in New York. I was dating her for about a month when we had to move. We both decided that the long distance thing wasn't gonna work, so we broke up."

"Good choice." She repeats his words.

He begins to talk again, telling her about his hometown and his old friends. She listens, absorbing everything she can, and neither notices the time as the clock ticks into the early morning hours.