"Is everyone down here ok?" Was the first question that Faith asked when she and Buffy reached the bottom of the steps. Some of the girls were crying at the loss of their friend. Spike was rolling his eyes and was obviously being driven insane by all the teenage girls.
Some of the girls nodded or said yes and Buffy tried to think of what they should do first.
"Ok, nobody is allowed to go outside until further notice. These guys are playing with guns now and you can't fight with bullets like you can swords or any of the usual artillery. Spike? I want you to make keep a watch out in case they come back."
The two slayers turned around to leave. "W-where are you going?" One of the girls asked, sounding afraid.
"Faith and I are gonna get to the bottom of this. Spike's in charge until we come back."
"What if you don't come back?" The same girl asked, sounding much like a five year old whose mother had told them to stay in the car and was terrified of being left alone.
Faith glanced at Buffy from the side, wondering how she was going to handle this. Buffy didn't seem like she had a lot of patience for the girls.
Buffy motioned to Faith's wounded arm. "See that? It'll take more than a bullet to kill a slayer. We'll be back." And with that she turned around to leave, Faith following behind her.
Once they got outside the house, Faith caught up to Buffy better and walked beside her. "Know where we're goin' B?"
Buffy gave a sad smile. "Not a clue. But we'll figure it out."
Faith looked down at the road. "There's screech marks from where they pulled away."
"Good, then we have a direction."
They walked around for about twenty minutes, Faith following Buffy's lead and Buffy having no clue where she was going before passing a trashy run down house with a large bright yellow truck parked crookedly in the drive way. Two large guns were propped up in the back in plain sight and, when the girls got closer, there were more hand guns thrown carelessly around inside of it.
Buffy stared towards the house that had the front door left wide open save a ratty broken screen door in front of it. The widows were painted black. Faith glanced around suspiciously, her eyebrows slightly furrowed.
"That was way too easy." Buffy mumbled, tensing more and more by the second. Faith nodded.
"It's like they wanted us to fight them." The two slayers looked at each other quizzically, wondering what they should do. If it had been a simple vampire nest, they would have charged in already and dusted them by now, trap or not. But, even if they were slayers, they could be shot in the head just as quickly and easily than anyone. Even out here where we're standing would be more than close enough… Faith quickly assessed, Buffy meanwhile looking as if she were uncomfortable for some other conclusion she had reached.
But before either could share their observations or decide what to do, Buffy felt a sharp pain sear through her back, as if something had bit her. She passed out so quickly that Faith barely had any time to catch her after seeing the dart in her back. She broke the blonde's fall before she reached the cement beneath them, but only a second before she saw one sailing through the air at her. She dodged out of the way with Buffy just in time and tried to get a better hold of the blonde so she could get them out of there. But she was a second too late in moving with Buffy's limp body to handle as well and the last thing she felt before passing out was a sharp pain sear through the side of her neck.
Buffy strained to see in the darkness as she opened her eyes and came too. How long have I been out? Her head hurt like hell, but she brushed the pain away, focusing on the bigger problem at hand. Her eyes began to adjust to the darkness and she turned to the warm body sprawled out partially on top of her with one arm bent unnaturally under Buffy's body.
She didn't have to see her to know immediately that it was Faith. She knew the brunette's body shape and could smell her hair, but soon she could see her just barely as well. She tried to untangle herself from Faith's still unconscious body and carefully moved her arm from underneath her thighs. She needed Faith to wake up. They needed to get the hell out of there before something worse happened to them than just getting knocked out and thrown into some dark room.
She turned Faith over unto her back, now sure that her arm was very dislocated. It wasn't be a nice way to wake up, but it should do the trick and her arm would need to be shoved back into place… Buffy straddled her fellow slayer's waist to get into a good position to pop the bone in properly, placing one hand at the brunette's shoulder and one on her arm, shoving it hard back into it's proper joint in an instance.
"Oww!" Faith muttered in a voice that, to most people, would suggest that she had just stubbed her toe or done something of very little pain as Buffy let the pressure up from her shoulder and probed around the rest of her arm to see if she had placed it right or if there was any other injury.
Faith's eyes flew open in a second and jumped into a sitting position, nearly knocking Buffy off her until she realized who it was and relaxed somewhat. Buffy rolled her eyes at Faith's constant defensiveness and, not bothering to get off from Faith's lap, continued feeling up and down her arm and then around her shoulder unfazed . She was just checking for injury, nothing personal about it. So why did the contact with the younger slayer's skin feel so electric? Why was she going so slow with it? I'm just being thorough, Buffy told herself, not wanting to think about the fact that she didn't want to move away and lose any contact from the girl.
"You're arm was dislocated." Buffy stated, finishing up her probing.
Faith simply nodded and didn't move, finding herself staring up at Buffy's concentrated face as she worked and feeling as if she couldn't move her gaze away even though she wanted to. Buffy could be so cute sometimes when she was all business. She had noticed that the blonde had her basically pinned down by the waist, but didn't bother to wonder why she had chosen that position to pop her arm back in place. It just made it easy for her to get the right angle, she figured.
She looked around, trying to get a feel of their location despite the almost pitch darkness. Her head hurt like a mother and she smiled morbidly at the thought, nope, my mother could make sure it hurt a lot worse than that. She wanted to get up and explore her surrounds so she could have an idea of how deep the pile of shit they were in was, but Buffy had not gotten off her yet and she didn't want to be rude after Buffy had just helped her out. She was trying to be nicer these days.
"B?" Her husky voice questioned.
"Yeah?" She looked down and noticed for the first time how long she had just been sitting on top of Faith for no apparent reason and jumped up to her feet and away from Faith at the speed of lightning. Faith hopped up as well and both went searching through the room in opposite directions. Buffy moved over some boards propped on the wall and the room immediately lightened up from the sunlight coming through the black painted window glass. She turned around to give a questioning look at Faith at what the hell was going on.
They had both of us knocked out cold, why didn't they kill us? Why would they put us in here? This was way to good to be true. I can break through that glass and be out of here in less than three seconds and so could Faith.
Her thoughts were interrupted, however, when the brunette beside her did exactly as she was thinking and shattered the glass with her fist and climbing out quickly unto the lawn, only waiting for Buffy to come out as well before running. It wasn't until she stopped running at the end of the street near the graveyard that she noticed something was wrong.
Buffy caught up to her and looked around catching her breath. Vampires were walking around in broad daylight.
Faith walked right past her through the gates, holding true to her usual "act now think later" mindset. She fought with one for about five seconds before snapping off a tree limb and staking him through the heart. He was tall and fat, like the several other vamps seen walking around and instead of poofing into dust, he laughed at her. At first she shrugged it off and drove it through a second time, figuring maybe she had missed. And the next thing she felt was his fangs sinking into her neck a moment. She hissed out in pain, confusion, and shock before she felt the huge vamp ripped off of her and watched as the angry blonde began fighting him with an intensity unusual for the blonde.
Faith watched as she rubbed her neck as every blow Buffy delivered had virtually no affect on the vamp. Finally, Faith just grabbed Buffy by the arm and jerked away, deciding to make a run for it.
No one was on the streets. Buffy's house was a mile away and they ran until they got there, Buffy quickly fishing out her key and opening the door before collapsing inside and locking it behind them.
Some of the furniture was gone. "Willow! Spike! Xander!"
No one came. The house was quiet and had an overwhelmingly empty feel to it.
"This is seriously creepy, B."
Buffy looked over to Faith who had also sank down the floor beside her and nodded. The brunette had blood running down her neck from where she had been bit and it was soaking into her shirt. But she wasn't acting as if it really bothered her as usual, nothing ever bothered her. It annoyed Buffy when she did that. She had been bitten by three vampires before- the master, Angel, and Dracula, so she knew it had to hurt, just like a bullet wound or dislocated arm. But the big tough Faith had to make sure to pretend it didn't. Faith was like a wild animal in so many ways. She could never stop acting like a predator for fear that she would become prey. She was just as scary as them sometimes and probably more unpredictable.
Buffy finally got up and motioned for Faith to follow her as she walked upstairs to the bathroom hoping that the first aid kit was still there. Faith hopped up onto the counter once again as Buffy got out the kit and selected what she needed out of it. Faith moved her hair away from her neck with her hand and tilted her head to give Buffy better access.
"So what do ya think's goin' on here, B?"
Buffy shook her head and smiled slightly although she had no idea at what. This whole place seemed wrong and even surreal, Faith was hurt for the third time today, and she had no idea where everyone was.
"I don't know, F." She said teasingly. "But if you don't stop getting hurt, we're gonna need an even bigger kit." She pressed a cloth up to the wound to stop the bleeding as she carefully dabbed away the blood that had run down her shoulder and collarbone with a wet cloth. Her face grew serious as worry about the whole situation creped deeper and deeper into her brain.
Faith watched her fore head crinkle and must have known what she was thinking. "Don't worry 'bout it B, we'll figure it out." She felt lightheaded and her shoulder ached. She placed a comforting hand on Buffy's shoulder and flashed her most mischievous grins, hoping to make her laugh if nothing else. The blonde had been through enough lately as far as she was concerned and she didn't want her to worry about it too much.
"Faith, the potentials are somewhere unprotected, we don't even know where the gang is and vampires are walking around in the middle of the day and aren't even bothered by getting staked, and I have this odd crush on you! This is bad!" She finally let up on holding the cloth to the wound and looked to see that the bleeding had stopped, before looking up as she realized the last part of that had also been said out loud.