"Hey," Xander greeted softly as Faith looked out of her apartment at him through an only slightly ajar door. She looked at him for a long moment then turned away from the door, leaving it for him to come in through and close behind him.
He walked in and closed the door behind him, glancing around almost nervously. Her apartment was much different than her old motel room but he held onto a lot of the same feel. He guessed it must've just been the fact that she lived there. It was a small, railroad car styled apartment with a kitchen at one end of the single, narrow and long room and a bed at the other. The apartment was sectioned into three areas but there were no walls dividing them. In between the eating and sleeping areas was a couch and television. Duffle bags filled with clothes, weapons, and mementos seemed to line the walls rather than furniture. If anyone was ever unsure of the fact that Faith never settled (in any respect of the word) seeing her home proved it.
"It's been a while," she commented, only half joking, as she picked up her television remote off of the couch and put the TV on mute. He watched her toss it back down on the couch and then slide some stuff - what looked like a box or something - back into a backpack that was also on the couch.
"Figured I'd give you a little time…"
"Yeah, thanks," she answered.
"Can you add maybe an ounce of sincerity to that?" She looked over at him, trying desperately to ignore the painful twisting of her stomach. He saw that look in her eyes, the only one that was more noticeable to him than her evil one; it was her look of disappointment. It was a look that absolutely broke his heart to see despite how many times he'd messed up and seen it. Suddenly his logic, the logic he had gone over countless times while pacing around his own apartment as to why he shouldn't call her or come see her even though he really wanted to, seemed flawed.
"Listen," he finally spoke again, unable to look at her be so disappointed in him, "I'm sorry… I figured you needed some time to think… you know, some time alone."
"Yeah, that's me," she answered in that same sardonic, feigning a joke, tone. "I really need to bank up on my alone time." She harnessed her arms which had been narrating her feelings with her words and held herself with them. She watched Xander walk over to her fridge and start emptying the grocery bag he had in his hand. He didn't always bring stuff for her but whenever he went shopping for himself he'd pick her up some things. It was an attempt at filling the void inside of him that wanted to be able to take care of her.
"Look, I just thought…" he began as he put the food in the fridge, "you didn't seem to want to deal with me in the car… so I figured you wanted… some space." He spoke awkwardly and it threw both Faith and him off. Faith finally found the meaning at least she was looking for and answered,
"Oh, so really it's cause I didn't fuck you," she concluded.
"That's not-"
"No, no, no, I dig. I didn't fuck you in the car so you figured what the hell's the point of coming around…"
"You seemed distant so I-"
"Distant AKA didn't fuck you."
"Faith, I thought you wanted me to not be around for a while."
"Yeah, I can totally see where you got that from, with me saying it and all – Xander, I want you to not be around for a while, yeah, I think I recall saying that," she answered sarcastically.
"Yeah, because you come out and say what you're feeling all the time!" he defended.
"I say it when it matters," she answered just as quickly, "like, a little to the left, deeper, oh yeah, baby more," she moaned, mocking him mercilessly. It scared him a little that she was able to turn that moan on and off like she had a fucking switch!
"You know, Faith, I'm trying okay? Saying you're complicated is like the fucking understatement of the century!"
"You're always trying to prove that you're not like all the other guys, but you are! Oh, you're not going to get some so why come, huh?"
"Faith, stop it!"
"You're all the same, I don't care what you fucking say! What, you figured you'd give me a week or so to get all hot for you again? Newsflash, asshole, I was never hot for you, you're just a convenient fuck."
"There's no way I'm going to win this argument," he admitted, accepting his defeat.
"Which, knowing you, means you're not even going to try," she spat viciously.
He finished putting the last thing into the fridge and balled up the plastic bag trying to let his frustration fade before he proceeded. He looked as though he hadn't just been in an intense argument with an angry Slayer as he put a box of cereal on top of the refrigerator and tossed the balled up bag onto the counter.
"Are you done?" he asked, his tone calm but the presence of anger and hurt blatantly evident. She stood there, still hugging herself, with tension radiating off of her. "What's wrong?" he asked. Usually after an argument Faith felt better and there was less tension. She shrugged and answered with quiet anger,
"You're just all the same…"
They looked at each other for a long moment until she finally broke their gaze. She turned and walked towards a bag against the wall and pulled a large sweatshirt out of it. She pulled it on over her t-shirt and it fell past her shorts on her legs, which was only a couple inches from her hip. Completely ignoring him, she sat down on the couch, sitting on one foot and pulling her other knee up to her chest. She clicked the sound back on resuming what she was doing before he got there.
"See," he said, his tone gaining a lot of much needed levity, "I'm not going to fuck this one up again. I'm not going to misinterpret you acting like you want me to leave to mean that I should. No sir, I'm seeing you acting like you want me to go so I'm going to stay."
She glared at him, not fully appreciating the humor since it was mocking her. He walked towards the couch and sat down, taking care to not sit on the duffle bag. He looked at the stuff that she had attempted to conceal inside of it and said in the same tone,
"Ooo, this looks interesting…"
"It's not," she answered curtly.
"I'm going to interpret that to mean that it is," he mocked. "So what is it?"
"It's nothing," she answered in the same tone.
"I'm going to interpret that to mean that it's a something." She glared at him and he added, "Let's have a look."
"Don't touch my shit."
"I'm going to interpret that to mean that you want me to see it."
"You're so fucking annoying!" she answered, finally losing her patience and really not wanting him to go threw that bag.
"I'm going to interpret that to mean that you think I'm sexy," he answered with a hopeful smile.
"Whatever," she answered, completely frustrated. She stood up off of the couch and walked to the bathroom which was off of the bedroom section. Xander watched her, unsure of whether or not she had gotten even a hint of enjoyment out of his joke. With her it was possible for her to think it was funny and leave so that he wouldn't see her thinking it was funny, or then again, she could just really not think he was funny.
Faith walked out of the bathroom and back towards the couch to see Xander looking at the pictures that had been inside the box in that bag. He looked up at her as she stopped abruptly,
"These are really nice," he said honestly.
She walked past him and towards the kitchen without a word. He sighed, trying to figure out how many times he could mess up in one day. He picked up a handful of the pictures and followed her into the kitchen.
"You loved him, didn't you?" he asked, glancing down at the picture on the top of his small handful. It was of Faith and Richard Wilkins sitting on a couch in one of the rooms in the Town Hall. They were both smiling and if Xander didn't know any better, well… he did know better. He tried to not be distracted by the details of the picture; he saw the black leather jacket she wore with glimpses of the intense weaponry just underneath it, he saw the snake-like demon sitting next to her, but most of all, he knew just how much blood was on both of their hands as they sat there together smiling.
"Why do you gotta always talk about the past?"
"Why do you always avoid talking about it?"
"Because in case it just happened to slip your mind, it wasn't exactly a good couple of decades for me, big guy," she snapped. There was a long silence until Xander added as he continued to look at the picture.
"You do absolutely anything for the people you love," he said more to himself then to her. "I guess that's why you're so hesitant to love anybody…"
"Wow," she answered sarcastically, "and all this time I thought it was just because all guys are assholes." Her tone was sarcastic, but it was different than before; it was quieter and more pensive and maybe even a little defeated. Whatever it was, it made him nervous.
"Hey," he said softly, "I'm sorry I went through your stuff. I didn't realize… this is really sensitive and-"
"This thing is done," she answered.
"What?"
"This thing… our thing… I don't want it anymore. It's done."
"I thought we didn't have a thing, Faith. Isn't that what you're always telling me?" He knew he had to stop being so defensive but he couldn't help it.
"Whatever it was, it's done. I'm…" she searched for the most hurtful word she could find, "bored."
"This is not boring! You fucking make sure of it with your fucking mood swings and bi-polar-" he cut himself off knowing the path he was headed down was certainly not going to make this better.
He was getting emotional about it because as many times as Faith had said this meant nothing and it was just meaningless sex, there was never a connotation that she was done with him. As much as he was aware of her insecurities, she knew just what his were too.
"Can you just-" he stopped again, feeling his voice hardening – a defense to keep it from cracking – and then continued, "Can you just be honest with me for once? What's this really about?"
"What the fuck are you talking about?" she asked, forcing a laugh. "Xander, I just told you that are little fuck buddy thing, is over. Why is that a shocker? I'm amazed you kept me satisfied for more than a couple runs, props to you, alright?"
"Why now, huh? Why not after a week or a month ago or in a month? Why did you decide now?"
"I didn't decide anything," she claimed, "you just ain't getting me off like you used to."
"I don't understand how after you just started opening up to me and… that it, isn't it?"
"What are you talking about?"
"In the car, you talked to me. You told me things that you don't tell people… you let me kiss you and-"
"Shut up! I don't want this, okay? Can you just listen to me? I don't want this…"
"We don't have anything, Faith…" he mocked.
"I don't want to care! I don't want to feel this way when you don't show up or… Xander, I just don't want this. I don't want to love-" she stopped herself as that word that she so rarely said went through her lips.
Xander looked into her eyes; they met for only a quick moment before he felt her pull him into her. She kissed him hungrily and he grabbed her hips, picking her up off of the ground. She wrapped her legs around his waist, holding herself up; he raised his hands to her face and held it tightly as he kissed her passionately. She grabbed the front of his shirt and pulled it open, busting several of its buttons as she did so. He lowered his hands to the bottom of her shirt and both of them pulled the sweatshirt along with her t-shirt over her head.
She moaned softly into his mouth as he ran his hands over her white bra. God, he knew just where she needed to be touched. He lowered one hand to her lower back to help support her and raised the other to push her hair from her face. He looked deeply into her eyes and her tilted face with her mouth slightly ajar as she breathed heavily. She loosened her legs from his waist and let them drop to the floor so she was once again standing. Still looking at him with that expression the meant that both of them realized how sexy she was, she unbuttoned his jeans and pushed them to the floor.
Xander looked into her face, and yes, she was sexy as soon as she woke up in the morning from a ten hangover, and damn was she sexy when she looked at him like that, but he knew it was a mask. He had come to love those times when he pretended he didn't see the mask but on the times when he could see it, he felt guilt for the other times on top of the actual guilt. He took a deep breath and a small step back, looking her over. Everything about her seemed so soft and natural and pure… everything else was just the mask she put on to try and protect that vulnerable, sweet girl underneath. He looked at the cross she wore, resting just above and slightly between her breasts.
Faith's strength was because of her beauty. Her fault was her beauty. It hadn't been the first time Xander had thought that if she had been a twiggy, flat girl with no curves and straw-like, frizzy hair, could she be more true to the way she really felt? He knew one day Faith woke up and decided she was going to play 'tough-girl' to survive… the catch was that she hadn't figured out how to go back.
"What?" She asked, growing uncomfortable with his longer than usual ogle.
"I love you," he answered with all the honesty that his soul contained. "I really love you…" he repeated, as if it were the first time he was realizing it. He took the small step back towards her, feeling an intense need to kiss her. He stopped, just before he was about to lean forward to kiss her, the tension radiating off of her again. He looked into her eyes and she shook her head as she clenched her teeth uncomfortably.
"No…" she muttered. "Don't touch me," she added as he put his hand on her arm. She shook it off as though it had burned her, quickly bending down and picking up her sweatshirt and tossing his at him. "I don't play that game," she said angrily, then pulled her sweatshirt on.
"I'm not playing!" he answered emphatically.
"Get out," she answered, turning away from him. He grabbed her arm to say something mean or hurtful, whatever would make him not feel so vulnerable, but he felt her shaking.
"Why are you shaking?"
"I'm not," she defended weakly, pulling her arm away.
"What did I do wrong?"
"What is this, a question and answer session? Get the fuck out."
"Well usually when I do something wrong you're sure to tell me all about it…" he answered angrily, even though it was a lie. Faith had a thing where she didn't say anyone did anything wrong because she figured she had done a lifetime of wrongs already, so who was she to cast the stone.
"You knew that… you knew this was meaningless. I told you that. It doesn't mean anything…"
"Apparently it does! It means something to me and I'm more than sure that it means something to you too!"
"What do you want from me?"
"I just want you."
"I don't even have me," she answered.
