Disclaimer: I own nothing but the idea.
A/N: This is pretty angsty, so you're warned. This is my idea of how Faith and Buffy might deal with the consequences of the Chosen spell, so obviously there are spoilers for Chosen. This isn't really nice on them and doesn't feature a happy ending. I hope you'll like it. Please review and let me know.
It was a feeling Buffy tried to hide, with success. She also tried to smother it, with far lesser success. Which made her all the more frustrated. She shouldn't be feeling what she was feeling, it was wrong, twisted. After years of patrolling every single night, getting bruises everywhere and bloodstains all over her clothes, after years of having nobody to share the burden with, she finally had everything she'd wanted so bad. She wasn't the Chosen One anymore. She wasn't alone anymore. She could finally lead a somewhat normal life, share the burden with thousands of girls just like her.
She hated it.
Faith also tried to hide the feeling, with a lesser degree of success. After all, it was like trying to repair a dam with a cork. Or some weird metaphor like that. Trying to hide it was useless, because it simply gushed out some other way. Usually, if she was lucky enough to actually find a vampire to dust, she'd take it out on him/her. It. She'd take hours slaying it, use it like her own personal punching bag. It made her feel better for a while.
As for the smothering, Faith was never the type of girl to smother her feelings. Not much for self-control. That feeling, that horrible feeling, she let it grow, day by day. She hated it.
She hated them.
At one very precise moment, it became too much for Buffy to even attempt to smother. She had just got back to her apartment in Cleveland after her nightly patrol. As usual, she hadn't met one single vampire on the way. But she still patrolled every night, out of habit perhaps, wishing, hoping that she might run into some fledgling that she could have the satisfaction to dust. Or better still, a demon who could actually put up a fight and maybe get a few good punches in. God only knew what she'd give for a bruise. Or a cut.
If only…
No, no 'if only's. No wishing, no wishing she could… No. She was seriously going crazy. What was it with her? What the hell was wrong with her? Why the hell did she wish she could take it back?
And then the phone rang. She got a lot of calls from the Scoobies; nobody had stayed in Cleveland after it became clear that there were more than enough Slayers around to keep everything under control. So they had all scattered. Except her, of course. She still hoped for some Hellmouth-y goodness she could fight off. But she never called them; she was too ashamed for that.
It was Giles on the phone. He told her to sit down but she didn't. So he went on with a sigh and told her that a group of patrolling Slayers had killed Spike without knowing who he was. He had, apparently, tried to tell them that he had a soul, he told them he was Buffy's friend but they didn't know who Buffy was. So they had killed him. It was understandable, really.
Buffy put the phone down and sat down on the bed. She didn't cry. She wouldn't cry for Spike. Spike had ceased to be an active part of her life a long time ago. All guys had ceased to be an active part of her life right now and there really was no way any guy could be. Especially not anyone who had known about all there was before the scythe and that stupid spell and all there was now. Especially not anyone who knew just how important Buffy had once been and just how unimportant she was now. The rags to riches story in reverse. And as for a guy who didn't know about all that - the Slayer duty, vampires, everything – that was even worse. He'd have no chance of ever knowing her. Buffy had long given up the thought of having a normal boyfriend.
So if she had no love life at all, meaning she definitely didn't care about Spike, what was it exactly that was making her clench her fists so hard that her fingernails cut into her own flesh? What was it that was making her shake all over and breathe so quickly? What was it that-
They didn't know who Buffy was.
If there had been anybody standing outside Buffy's apartment door at that moment, they would have heard her laughing. They would have heard her laughing for a long time.
Faith's way of dealing with the feeling was obviously healthier. Bottling up equals bad. At least she never made her own palms bleed.
A day after Buffy's phone, Faith's phone rang. She was surprised. She didn't get many calls at all. At first, Robin had phoned every day, trying to get to see her. He'd really liked her and for the first couple of months, when everything had seemed so perfect, when the whole 'every girl who can be a Slayer, will be a Slayer' deal seemed great, they'd stayed together, all of them. She and Robin had been a couple, and she got to spend some quality time with the Scoobies. It was nice.
But soon it became clear that things were not so good. That horrible feeling started to grow inside of her, poisoning everything, everyone. She could not be with Robin anymore. She couldn't stand to be with the Scoobies anymore. So she'd left. They had her phone number of course, but she'd made it quite clear many times that she didn't like talking to any of them anymore and pretty soon they had all stopped calling, even poor Robin.
So she was surprised.
She was even more surprised when she heard Buffy's voice at the other end of the line.
Buffy thought it was so ironic that even now, when there were so many Slayers around, the only one could understand was still Faith, and only Faith. She could have called her before, of course, but she was scared. What if Faith was dealing better? What if Faith was happy now and would not understand?
They didn't know who Buffy was.
She'd understand.
Faith also thought it ironic that even now, when there were so many Slayers around, the only one who could possibly share her feeling might be Buffy. She had long stopped believing that Buffy's life was perfect. In the brief time at Cleveland, she'd come to know her much better. They weren't so different after all. In fact, they were frighteningly similar. She'd stayed in Cleveland long enough to see Buffy change. Long enough to see how she looked at any one of the new Slayers they might come across, long enough to see how restless she grew in the long weeks without any vamps to kill, long enough to hear her cry herself to sleep. Angry tears. She knew that B was feeling exactly like her.
She left because she knew that if she stayed close to Buffy long enough, they'd both finally burst one day and do something bad. She had this image in her head of them stealing a machine gun each and killing every single Slayer they came across until things went back to the way they were before. When it was just the two of them. But that would be wrong.
Yes, staying close to Buffy wasn't a very good idea.
A phone call, perhaps, was less harmful, but still…
They talked for a long time.
They decided to meet up the week after. Buffy knew of a tiny town where there was a huge vampire nest. Apparently, no Slayers had been there for two months, which gave a bunch of poor vampires time enough to sire half the town and have the fun they used to have before so many Slayers existed. That's where they'd go.
Because they both knew they couldn't live like this much longer. All the new Slayers, they could, because they were only ever used to being in thousands. But Buffy and Faith? They had once been the Chosen Two. What were they now, the Chosen 54349?
How could they possibly live with that?
So they went in together, armed with three stakes each and the scythe. They'd share it.
The nest was really huge. Around 50 vampires greeted them. They'd made sure to go in during daytime so that all the vamps would be in there, and they were. So they fought them.
It was a pity no-one was there to watch them fight, because it truly was an amazing sight. The two Slayers delivered blow after perfect blow, covering each other's backs, fighting together, like they were meant to. The scythe flew from Faith's hands to Buffy's and back in perfect parabolas. They staked, they beheaded, and mostly, they just punched and kicked, because this was what they were born for, this was what they were meant to do. Finally, it was just the two of them. Finally, they had a purpose again. Finally, they didn't feel so old, useless, angry, common, meaningless, frustrated, resentful, ashamed, old, old, so old. Finally.
They died, of course. The odds were too much even for the Chosen Two. But they did dust every single vampire there. Only then did they let themselves die.
The Scoobies found them the next day, following Willow's hunch that something wasn't right. They found them lying side by side, holding hands in a pool of blood and dust, the scythe lying a few feet away, forgotten. Just the two of them.
The way it was before.