Title: Oh, How We Grow
Disclaimer: This is purely for entertainment; none of the characters are mine.
Rating: PG-13
Summary: A short fic, exploring how Buffy came to have such intense feelings for Faith.
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Chapter Two - Sharing the Pain
Never, I repeat NEVER has she given up on slaying and ran. Until the night when an entire team of them ambushed her, and she had no choice left but to run from them.
I had my feet running away from myself as I hurried at top speed to the door, listening to her yelling to let her in.
When I pulled her inside I watched at how they all tried to get in and couldn't. I slammed the door shut and turned to face her, and the anxious look upon her face telling me she had not had a good night. But it was about to get ten times worse when she fell to the floor, and I realised, as I looked closer, that Faith was really not having a good night. She was wounded. And badly. A vamp had either used her own stake on her or found another tough and penetrative implement to wound her with.
Either way, panic was the first emotion to come over me, and anxiety the next. I knelt down beside her barely conscious form, dumbfounded at how weak she appeared, now that she was here, lying before me, the complete opposite of the Faith I knew.
Her normally tough exterior was melting away at the speed of lighting as she began to stutter what had happened. 'I didn't, I didn't see them c-coming, there were so many…'
My hands moved to her shirt and pulled it up, seeing immediately the wound on her lower abdomen. 'Oh my god,' I mumbled to myself. I swallowed anxiously and pressed fingers to my forehead, trying to think what to do.
I looked down at her shirt and the blood had stained a large part of it that it looked as if she'd been shot. She tried to sit up, but each attempt was a fail, worse than the last. She was visibly weak, physically too weak to stand, even sit.
Seeing her this way made me a bag of nerves, I barely knew what to do.
But as I carried her upstairs and into my bedroom, and lay her upon the bed, I saw the expression in her face. I think she trusted me.
I scrambled in the first aid box looking for things to heal this wound. And as I brought in a bowl of water and a sponge, and began cleaning away the area, I could feel it. I could feel the wound as if it were my own. The pain, the excruciating pain that she was feeling, was right there with me.
And as she winced, when I cleaned the wound, I apologised, and fought back tears, questioning why this had happened to her and not to me.
I pressed the gauze to her stomach, and the tape that would hold it there. Her expressions had calmed and she watched me gently as I tried my best to fix her.
- - -
I handed her a glass of water and climbed upon the bed, intending to watch her. I needed to know she was okay before I could do anything about these vampires outside.
There was an army of them. Where they came from, god alone knows. Just trying to get my head around the fact that Faith was lying here, upon my bed, in the weakest form I'd ever seen her in.
She drank the water and handed it slowly back to me. I quickly placed it on the night stand and turned back to her, lifting a hand to stroke back the hair in her face. I didn't notice her looking into my eyes as I concentrated on the shiny curls upon her head. I could still feel the pain.
I finally caught her eyes looking into mine, and I couldn't look away once I saw. 'B…' she uttered quietly. I moved my feet from underneath me and sat beside them, leaning with one hand on the comforter, the other sliding into hers.
'Uh huh?' I said, my voice breathy, light. I didn't wanna trouble her, and so I tried to hide what I was feeling. Had she heard it all through the way I spoke to her, it'd have troubled her.
'I've never been scared of them,' she started, her voice weak, without the strength that was always behind her. 'Not until today.'
I swallowed hard as she told me this.
'I was just fighting, as I normally would do, and then it was like…ten others were there. And one caught me off-guard. And it was like…at first I didn't even feel anything. Then I saw there were more of them coming…so I had to run.'
I could feel the tears threatening to tumble down my cheeks, her story of how she ended up here actually tearing me apart.
'Faith,' I mumbled, bringing a hand back up to her head, and just stroking it a moment. 'You scared me,' I started, my tone low, quiet. But I knew it would waver. I couldn't keep the tears back much longer. 'I thought I was gonna lose you for a moment there,' I continued, and the tears indeed did begin to hurry down my cheeks, but all at once she was shushing me, and reaching up to wipe them away.
'Ey, ey…B…' she whispered. 'Look at me…'
When I thought I saw it I could still myself. That need. That longing desire to have her here, to be with her.
'You will never lose me, B. Never.'
And then silence. All of a sudden it seemed like I was opened to this light in her eyes, telling me that she was gonna be here, for me, that she wasn't gonna leave me. And that she wanted to be here for me.
'Really?'
The moments from then on were lost because all I remember was her uttering just two words, and me asking to hold her.
'I promise.'
'Can I…hold you?'
- - -
The morning came all too quickly and as I blinked my eyes open the sun informed me fast that it was time to get up. I looked down at the slumbering Goddess laying on my shoulder, her form so beautiful, so sound.
I moved my head to lay it upon hers, pressing my nose to her hair, and inhaling the scent, a combination of vanilla, and roses and…just everything Faith. I noticed our fingers were entangled and I felt my heart trip into double time as I realised that I'd spent the entire night in the same bed as her.
I looked across at the clock, and noticed how it said 8:36. It was still pretty early. I inhaled against her head, once again absorbing those beautiful scents she had. My eyelids fell at the sheer content of lying beside her, feeling my body beside the warm glow of hers, and feeling her breath against me. With every inhalation I would tingle, knowing she was alright, knowing she was here, she was really here. With me.
I moved my legs to find further comfort and she began to move around also, and I inwardly cursed at coaxing her. It seemed alright though, as she seemed to settle down, and tilt her head up towards mine. There was a short silence as the sound of sheet contact faded and she opened her eyes to mine. 'Morning,' she said gently, and I smiled at her, noticing she was now awake.
'Hey, you.' I sighed and continued. 'How are you feeling?'
She seemed to think about it for a moment, before replying. 'A lot better.' Her voice was croaky from sleep, but still it sounded gorgeous as ever. 'Buffy,' she began once again, and I found myself floating. Being here now, with her, and she wanted to be here. This was perfect.
'Hmm?' I asked quietly.
'Thanks for staying with me. I…don't really know what I would've done without you here,' she told me, her voice like a lullaby to me. It was so soothing, it went right through me, and eased me. She was okay. So I was okay.
'You know I'll always be here for you, Faithy.'
She furrowed a brow and my stomach tightened. I don't usually call her that.
'You nicknaming me now?' she said quickly and I sat up a little.
'Oh, and B isn't a nickname?'
'It's an initial, it's different.'
'What's wrong with Faithy?'
She paused and thought for a moment, and I watched her thinking of her response. 'It's…different…it's kinda kinky…I think…I think I like it.' She smiled and I chuckled a little.
'My Faithy,' I mumbled, forgetting that my mouth was pretty much right next to her ear.
She rolled over onto her side and looked up at me, a mischievous yet attractive smile coming to her lips. 'What did you say?' she said cheekily, poking me in the stomach and watching me for the slightest waver.
If I didn't look so 'deer caught in the headlights' I probably could've got away with dismissing it. It wouldn't have worked cos for my next response I had nothin'.
'I'm yours?' she whispered gently, beginning to circle her finger on my stomach. I looked at her, trying not to break my expression, and as she looked down at her hand, then up at me again, I sat up a little and decided to be serious.
'I…want you to be.'
Silence. Crap. This was the moment where she'd either run out on me or tell me that this surprised her…or…if I was lucky enough, might even return the gesture.
I guess I was too caught-off-guard to realise that we were close enough for any kind of action, but as she closed in on the space between us and pressed her lips to mine, my heart tripped, once again.
It was amazing. Just a few moments, her lips to mine, so mellow. I could feel all of these emotions beginning to rush to the surface of me. As the kiss began to heat up we began to sit up together, she pressed her body to mine, and I felt her wince, imagining her stomach still hurt from last night. She never moved her lips from mine, but as I began to explore her mouth, I felt her hands begin to roam my body, running her hands up my sides, down my stomach, holding me to her. I sucked upon her lower lip, just tasting this gracious enormity that was becoming my Faithy. She moaned into the heat of my mouth as I moved a hand to the middle of her lower back and ran over it with my fingers, and I felt her shiver…I knew she was ticklish…
I raised my hands to her face, running them along every inch of skin on the way there- her sides, over the soft contours of her breasts, her shoulders her neck, her jawbone, and her face. She moaned blissfully, and I felt shivers running through me, just to know that we were here, now, she was kissing ME; god I was so scared of this moment. This would determine where we go from here, and it was nearly…it was coming, it was…now.
She pulled away from me and I opened my eyes to the smiling face that was Faith's gorgeous self.
'Oh my god,' I whispered on one long exhaled breath, and collapsed back on the bed, and lay there, just tingling, experiencing, realising that one kiss was enough to inebriate my entire being, and I was ringing, buzzing…making with the warm fuzzies.
I heard her chuckle and lean over, and lean her chin in her hands, and she rested her elbows upon the bed, and watched me. I looked at her, just jovial, basking in the moments that were these.
'Wow…' I said, breathing out, my own voice bed-ridden still. 'That was…aahhh.' I turned over and buried my face in the pillow, nearly biting into it for the excitement came over me like a wave of ecstasy.
I felt her move a hand and slide it onto the skin above my ass, then slide it up, up my back, so carefully, so sensually.
I hummed low in my throat and turned over, to look at her. 'Am I dreaming?'
She shook her head and smiled at me. Her hand was now resting upon my stomach, underneath my shirt, imperturbable, cool.
'Did we just kiss?'
She hummed a little. 'Mmm, what you mean like this…' And oh god, there it was again, her beautiful soft lips upon mine, gentle, inviting, buzzing, powerful, pensive, innocuous. A thousand things and many more. I leant up into the kiss, but as dominating as I had known for her to be, she pushed me down, and soon was climbing a top me.
She relaxed into my body, but as she pressed herself to me, she winced once again; this time pulling away, because of the pain in her stomach. I straddled her waist, and she sat up, on my stomach.
I looked up at her face to see her trying to ride out the pain, and her furrowed eyebrows as the waves of pain began to subside.
I moved my hands to the rim of her shirt and looked up into her eyes again. 'Let me see?' I asked softly. She nodded, and with her permission I lifted her shirt, up, above her head, and set it down on the comforter beside us. I peeled the dressing back slowly, and glanced at her expression; again, wincing with the pain.
It had healed a lot already, the whole slayer-power taking effect the moment of the injury took place. Even so. She guessed that I was gonna clean it up for her again and put on a new dressing, and as I told her I was gonna go to the bathroom to get some stuff, she rose from the bed, and told me she'd come with.
So she sat down, upon the toilet seat as I cleared up the extra blood that had come from the wound, and as I wiped it down, she hissed at the pain. 'I'm sorry, Faithy,' I told her and she shook her head, and closed her eyes.
'It's okay.'
When the dressing was done, I took her waist in my hands, and kissed her stomach just beside the dressing, the chiselled contours beautiful, rock solid, the skin a hazy caramel and her body warm. I pressed my lips to it, softly, as I stayed, knelt down before her, having dressed her wound from here.
I moved back and she met me at the floor, the cool ceramic tiles most probably a relief from the warm summer heat. I pulled her close and eventually into an embrace.
'Faith…' I started, talking into her ear, my own voice purged of power that I tried to enforce myself into, so people would gather the impression that I was 'tough stuff.'
'Yeah…'
'I can…feel it.'
'My stab wound?'
'I know it sounds strange…but I can feel it, I can feel the pain, the excruciating pain, and I'm wondering how you're copin' cos it's killin' me. How do you cope?'
There was a silence and she slid an arm around me, and up around my shoulder, and leant her chin upon that shoulder.
'I have you.'
TBC
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