Chapter Eight
I feel so drained, emotionally and physically, as I sit at the kitchen table and try to listen to what Giles is talking about. I can't quite seem to take my eyes off of Faith either as she sits on the counter next to the stove, talking quietly to Kennedy as they both sip on a beer. It might not be barely noon, but that doesn't stop either of them from drinking. I'm almost relieved that Satsu, Veronica, Allison and a few of the other Slayers have gone out for the day. I don't think I can even look at Satsu right now without the guilt of what happened between me and Faith showing on my face and in my eyes.
My heart flutters every time Faith looks over at me and smiles a little. This is so not helping me pay any attention to the important conversation going on right now either. Willow keeps looking over at me too, and I know she's just dying to ask me what's going on with me today. I snap out of it long enough to look over at a very bemused looking Giles.
"Were you paying any attention to anything I just said, Buffy?"
"Uh, no?"
"And why is that?" Giles asks calmly.
"Didn't sleep last night and my head is in this whole other place right now." I reply and it's the truth, just a string of the truth and all I'm willing to share. "What were you saying, Giles?"
"I was saying how I think you and Faith should go back down into the cave and find Falken. It's imperative that we know exactly what he looks like right now. We cannot do anything until we know just who he is."
"We'll go tonight," I say as I look over at Faith, who just nods her head and brings her bottle of beer up to her lips and takes a swig. "Did you guys happen to figure out anything from those pictures Faith took?"
"There isn't much, just a vague timeline of events, a diary of sorts, leading up until just a few short days ago," he replies and he smiles over at Rachel as she joins us at the table. "There are clues that he plans to open the Hellmouth right here in Cleveland first and from the research I've done earlier this morning, he needs a blood sacrifice to be able to open the seal."
"But? I'm sensing a big but here," Willow says and I can't help but laugh. She turns to look at me and starts laughing too. "You are laughing because I said big but, aren't you?"
"There is a catch," Giles says, trying not to laugh at our innocent yet juvenile joke. "If Falken indeed decides to open the Hellmouth here, according to the ritual, he'll need the blood of a Slayer."
"Am I the only one thinking that the whole 'blood of a Slayer' thing is way too cliché and getting way too old?" I ask, rolling my eyes. "The same goes for all those vampires and demons who want to either take over the world, end the world, or make a literal Hell on earth. Can't they just give up and just stick to killing and maiming and doing whatever else they like to do?"
"Nobody ever said they are civilized beings, B. Gotta hand it to them though. They do have goals in life, a purpose. That purpose is being a major pain in our asses," Faith says with a laugh.
I roll my eyes at that and let out a soft sigh as I look back over at Giles. "So, what are we going to do then? Just go down, figure out who Falken is and come back home and come up with a new plan?"
Giles nods and I sigh again. If only it was ever that easy. I want to tell him there's a good chance we might not get out of there without attracting attention to ourselves. Faith isn't exactly stealthy and I don't know if I can handle being alone with her right now after last night. But I don't say a word and decide that there's probably nothing else that we can do right now. Giles usually knows best. Except when he doesn't.
As the others began to leave the kitchen, Willow gave me a look that said 'we need to talk' and motioned for me to follow her out to the backyard. Despite the heat of the hot midday sun, we sat on the patio around the large table and she stared at me long and hard, almost as if she was thinking of what she was going to say before she said a word. I kept trying to keep Faith off my mind since I can't always trust Willow not to get inside my head and listen to my thoughts. She only ever does it when she knows something is bothering me.
"So, what's up?" Willow asks casually as she cocks her head to the side and waits for me to answer her. "No, don't tell me," she stops me before I can. "There's major tension between you and Faith, more so than usual. Did something happen?"
"Define something."
"Ooh boy," Willow replies, looking a little excited and angry at the same time, if that's even possible and it is when it comes to her. "Spill. Tell me everything."
"Where do I even start?"
"How about the beginning?"
"Shouldn't we be more focused on Falken instead of my sex life?"
Oops. I shouldn't have said that. I feel my face burn in embarrassment as Willow's eyes nearly pop out of her head.
"You...you and Faith? You had sex with Faith?"
"Can you say it any louder? I don't think that old lady Mrs. Higginson down the street heard you."
"When did this happen? How did this happen? What about Satsu?"
"Will..."
"Oh you are not backing out of this one, missy. You are going to tell me everything," she says firmly and she shakes her head at me. "I can't believe you had sex with Faith!"
I am beyond mortified and rather angry with her now because as soon as those words left her mouth, Kennedy strolled out the back door with a very amused smirk on her face as she sat down at the table with us.
"Who had sex with Faith?"
I shoot Willow a glare that warns her not to say a word, but apparently Kennedy knows how to read minds because her eyebrows shoot up to her hairline as she looks at me. I bury my face into my hands, trying to hide the fact that I'm blushing furiously.
"Buffy?" Kennedy asks after a moment and I take my hands away from my face. "Seriously? When the hell did this happen?"
"Please don't say anything to anyone," I say quietly. "Kenny, please don't."
"This is just..." Kennedy trails off and shakes her head as she opens the beer she'd brought out with her. "This is just fucking epic, you realize that?"
I know there's no way to get out of this conversation and as much as I want to walk away, I'm not that much of a coward. I laugh nervously as Kennedy casually puts her arm over my shoulders as she moves her chair closer to me and she gives me a smirk that tells me she is going to dive right in there and demand details I do not want to tell anyone, much less her.
"So, are you playing on our team now?"
"I'm not answering that."
"Oh come on, Buffy. You can't sleep with Faith and not be playing on our team! If you two weren't going back down in the caves tonight, I'd say its cause for celebration!"
"She's not the first," I say under my breath as I shove her arm off of me.
"No? But you haven't been with anyone in what, three years? Did you have some sapphic adventures we don't know about?"
"Kenny, do yourself a favour and just drop it," I say defiantly as I cross my arms over my chest.
"It's not every day you walk out to hear the words 'sex with Faith' and find out it's you, of all people," she chuckles softly and Willow smacks her across the arm. "What Will? Sure, sex and Faith is a normal thing, but with Buffy?"
"Me of all people? What the hell is that supposed to mean?" I ask, not sure if I should be amused, angry or offended by that comment.
"It's just that you are Buffy," she states as if it's a well-known fact. "You are emotionally closed off. You haven't been with anyone for as long as I've known you. From what I remember you telling us years ago when we'd gone out drinking and you let drunk Buffy out to play, you told us that sex had to mean something and not just some random fuck. I believe you also said that Spike doesn't count."
"I am not emotionally closed off!"
"You are," Willow says softly and she winces a little as I whip my head around to look at her. "Buffy, you are emotionally closed off. Just look at your relationship with Riley. You were never in love with him, you never allowed yourself to love him. And look at your relationship with Sat-"
"What?" Kennedy laughed as she looked over at Willow then back at me. "You are fucking Satsu too? This is turning out to be one helluva great day!"
"Oh god, kill me," I mutter under my breath as I bury my face into my hands again. "Kennedy I swear to god if you tell anyone any of this, I will personally kill you."
She laughs again and I'm starting to see just why she and Faith are such close friends. I don't know why I haven't seen it before and I realize there's a lot of things I haven't seen until I've really begun to open my eyes recently. It's as if I've been looking at everything and everyone around me through a glass wall, seeing only what I want to see through all the distortions said glass has. The same goes for when it comes to Faith. To say that last night didn't throw me off balance in an understatement. My brain hasn't stopped replaying every moment over and over again.
"So," Kennedy says as soon as she stops laughing. "Who else knows about you and Satsu?"
"Just Will and Faith."
"That's it?"
"That's it," I reply softly and I find my embarrassment fading and feel myself start to relax a little. "Kenny, I swear if you say a word to anyone else..."
"You'll kill me. Got the memo already, Buffy. Surprised you haven't realized this by now, but I don't go and gossip. That's just not me. So now that we've gotten this news out of the way, I actually came out here to talk to you about Falken. Years ago when I was living in New York, before I came to Sunnydale as a Potential, there were rumours."
"What kind of rumours?" I ask, my curiosity now piqued and rather relieved she was changing the whole subject completely. "Rumours about Falken?"
"He used to run some underground club just outside of the city, was real popular with the emo kids. Back then, he looked like a kid himself, nothing more than some sixteen year old with shaggy hair, bad skin, lanky as fuck. Dude could've used a good meal or two back then," she laughs as takes a swig of her beer before she continues. "There were rumours that he had power, like real power. Like magic. Nobody really believed it, they thought it was all those druggies tripping out and getting paranoid and what not. He swayed a lot of the kids into joining some kind of a cult. It was a few months before the regulars at that club started to turn up missing. Starting to think now that they just didn't go missing and that he didn't just kill them off."
"But he isn't a vampire, so if they didn't go missing and didn't end up dead, what happened to them?" Willow asks and Kennedy just shrugs nonchalantly.
"My guess? Guy like Falken, he probably has vamps working for him and had them turned. Sired, whatever you want to call it. I don't know really, I didn't really think about this until Faith and I got talking this morning about her run-in with Falken. When we first found out about him, the name sounded so familiar. I got in touch with an old friend of mine back in New York and she's the one who brought him up and told me that the old rumours are floating around again."
"Why didn't you say anything inside?" I ask her, knowing that Giles would be really pissed to find out that she's known about Falken for far longer than we all have.
"Not sure. Didn't think I had any information that would help us in finding him now. Like Rachel said, his appearance changes. Who the hell know what he looks like now. For all we know, he could be some old man or some little kid, like that Anointed One. Maybe he isn't even a he anymore. He could be some drop dead gorgeous woman with a great set of tits and a killer smile."
I'll never understand how we can go from talking about my personal life, to talking about our newest big bad and then in all seriousness of the moment, completely burst into giggles like a bunch of kids who had just heard the dirtiest joke ever. It made me feel slightly better about Willow and Kennedy finding out about what happened between Faith and I. It didn't make me feel okay with it though, unfortunately.
I knew I had a lot of thinking to do, but me and thinking sure don't mix when we have a big bad we need to deal with like yesterday. The kind of thinking I need to do needs to wait until after we put a stop to whatever Falken has planned. It's the kind of thinking I need to do after I've had a decent and full night's sleep, something that feels like I haven't had in months despite the downtime we'd all just had. I think back to a few nights ago when I was sitting out in the rain for hours just thinking and how everything since then fell into place. It's crazy-and it's not-how much has happened in just a few short days. I should be used to life changing on a whim, but it's not something you just get used to no matter how often things change this way.
Taking the advice of my tired mind, I went to my room and tried to get some sleep, praying to the gods I know don't exist that I didn't have those dreams again. All I wanted, all I needed was a couple hours of sleep. It was far too much to ask for when I couldn't seem to find an off switch for the thoughts running through my mind.
I walk behind Faith as we approach the entrance to the cave. The sun is about to set and I'd slept away most of the day, tossing and turning, but nevertheless managing to get a few solid hours of much needed sleep. Faith hasn't said a word to me since we left the house and it is making me nervous and angry. I wonder what is going through her mind right now, especially after last night, but I know better than to know that she's thinking of it. She can't give me what I want and it didn't mean what I wanted it to mean. It was just sex, a roll in the sack. Nothing more.
Just thinking of that was making me really angry at her and its taking all the willpower I have not to stop her from walking and punch her repeatedly in the face just to let off a little steam. That's all past us seeing how we haven't come to blows since Sunnydale. But what happened between us last night just sent us to places I don't think I'm quite ready to be right now. Especially not with Faith.
"What's the hold up, B? Come on," she urges as she leads the way into the cave and turns around and waits for me to follow her. "You ain't scared, are you?"
"No," I reply hesitantly as I follow her inside the dark mouth of the cave.
I'm furious and I know she knows I am. I don't know if she knows why I am, but believe me when I say she'll be hearing about this at one point or another tonight. I shouldn't be so worked up over this and I know I shouldn't let feelings and emotions come into play. This is Faith after all and everything about what I am feeling towards her is a world of wrong. But I keep wondering why it feels so right, why it feels like this is the way it should be between us instead of the way it's always been.
My eyes adjust to the darkness of the passageway as we quietly and quickly make our way down. I need to stop these thoughts from clouding my mind, it's dangerous for me not to have all my senses on high alert in a place like this where we have no chance of getting out alive if we're caught down here. I should be focused on finding Falken, focused on staying out of sight of any vampires and demons that come our way. I shouldn't be focused on the fact that, even in the darkness, I can't seem to take my eyes off of Faith's ass. Which, by the way, look amazing in those skin-tight jeans she decided to wear tonight. I speed up, walking by her side inside of behind her and she stops me as we reach the wider part of the passageway.
"Before you say anything, I know now is not the time to talk about it, but we need to talk about it."
"It?" I ask, not having a clue what she's getting at. "Do you mean talk about what happened last night?"
She only nods before she continues walking. We say nothing more as we approach the same set of stone stairs that lead down into the Hell city below. It's far too quiet down here compared to last night and I let her take the lead, sticking to the shadows, behind walls and buildings, as we make our way to the same building we'd strolled into last night without a second thought. I don't know why or when exactly I decided to grab onto her hand, but the feel of her hand in mine, our fingers intertwined, felt so natural and not out of place as it should be. If she minded, she didn't show it, nor did she take her hand away from mine as we crouched behind the crumbling wall, looking and listening for anything that would come our way and blow our cover.
We make our way inside the building and she stops me as we reach the same door of the room we'd gone in before. I listen and hear voices on the other side, a man and a woman speaking in what I'm guessing is a mix of Latin and Spanish. It's too late for us to run out of there before our cover is blown and the door flies open and a man, a boy really, instantly has a hold of us by the back of our necks.
"Well, well, I was wondering when you two would grace me with your presence," he says, laughing as he drags us inside the room and throws us as if we're nothing more than ragdolls across the floor. "I don't think I need to do any proper introductions, Slayers. Vivienne? Why don't you get the shackles we use for intruders, I mean, distinguished guests."
Yeah, I think we definitely found our big bad.