This Is How It Goes

"Like you left me yesterday morning? In your bed?" Buffy asked, her voice quiet and hard.

Faith paused, swallowed, her fingers tightening around the bag.

"Except you didn't, Faith. You came back." Buffy said, almost plaintively. She reached out to touch Faith and then hesitated, pulled back. "You got scared, I know. You got scared of us. You freaked and left and probably did a bunch of self-destructive things, but you came back."

"Yeah, and look how great that turned out," Faith said roughly, bitterly. She jerked her head, lifted the bag. "Here's me not repeating that mistake."

Buffy watched her, feeling something urgent and panicked. "What about me?" she asked quietly, desperately. Faith's hands quavered a little.

"You'll do better without me." Faith heaved the bag over her shoulder, strode towards the exit.

Buffy intercepted her fluidly, moving between her and the door. She kept her stance straight, unthreatening, but her eyes were hard. Faith stared at her intently, cocking her head. "We gonna fight, B? That it?"

"I'm not letting you just walk out of here, Faith. You're not shutting me out like that. You wanna leave? Fine. Try it." She felt her muscles tightening automatically, her weight shifting slightly to change to a more offensive position.

Faith smirked mirthlessly. "You honestly think this is gonna stop me, B? You think I won't hit you?"

"Only one way to find out, F," Buffy said harshly, ironically echoing earlier, playful words, and punched her in the face.

Faith's head snapped back and she stumbled. She raised her head, eyes bright with anger, and dropped her bag on the floor. Buffy watched her silently.

Faith lunged forward suddenly, feinting to the left and kicking out with her right foot. Buffy felt a boot firmly connect with her ribs and flinched. She responded with a left hook, her fist colliding with Faith's cheek bone and feeling skin tear. Blocked another punch from Faith and kicked her in the stomach.

This wasn't like sparring. There was no holding back, both of them fighting with a desperate, angry urgency. Fists landed and muscles shuddered and ribs cracked. Faith's lip and cheek were bleeding, Buffy clutching her side and breathing shallowly as they danced around, with each other. Faith's eyes glittered with rage and adrenaline, her mouth curled in a sneer. There was no verbal exchanges, no sarcastic quips. Words were superfluous. This was their language, the purest, most honest language between them. Silent except for grunts and crunches and plaster shuddering.

Buffy spun with a roundhouse kick, feeling her foot hit a jawbone, and Faith smashed into the wall face-first. She moved quickly, twisting one of Faith's arms savagely behind her back and moving in, pressing her against the wall. Faith struggled viciously, rotating and wrenching her shoulders. Buffy held on, gripping harder, and Faith snapped her neck back suddenly, head-butting Buffy and causing her to stumble.

She couldn't say how long they fought, couldn't count the injuries on both of them or say how much her muscles burned. Couldn't say how each punch she landed induced both fierce satisfaction and aching guilt. How both bodies held such a plethora of deep emotions that everything blended together. Rage, lust, love, guilt, pain, relief, sadness.

They fought until Buffy could barely feel her left arm, until each breath burned her ribs. Faith was gripping her shoulder, face contorted with pain and fury. They circled each other, acknowledged the damage caused, and Buffy abruptly moved. Right hook which Faith blocked, left hook which she didn't, slamming her back against the wall. Buffy moved in, forearm at her throat, pressing in close, and looked into eyes that held the same intensity she felt in hers. There was a moment of mutual hesitation, of mutual uncertainty, before Buffy acted.

She removed her arm from Faith's throat and abruptly grabbed the back of the other Slayer's head, yanking her forward and crashing their lips and bodies together. Her tongue thrust in roughly, her hand pulling Faith's hair as she devoured her. She could taste blood in Faith's mouth, could feel their tongues meet in a savage collision. Faith moaned unrestrainedly, her hands clutching Buffy's ass and pulling her closer. Buffy ground her hips forward and they both let out shuddering groans of pain and pleasure.

Their breathing was shallow gasps and moans, damaged limbs and injuries burning like the heat between their legs. Buffy had never felt such a need to possess, to dominate, had never felt such a violent urgency like what she was feeling now. Faith was hers, only hers, and she conveyed it. She had broken down those barriers that Faith erected with punches and kicks, and now she broke them down with teeth and fingernails. She tangled a hand in Faith's hair and yanked her head back fiercely, moving her mouth down to suck roughly on Faith's neck. Faith's entire body was shivering, her hips surging frantically, her back arched. She growled as Buffy bit down, hard, on her pulse point.

Buffy's hands traveled down, quickly and roughly unbuttoned Faith's jeans and jerked them down, raising Faith's legs and flinging them off of her. Moved her hand to cup Faith through her panties, pressed her palm hard against Faith's clit, and found the flimsy material soaked through. Faith cursed in a rumbling growl, her hips bucking, her hands still clutching Buffy's ass as she thrust her hips behind her hand.

Buffy wrenched Faith's underwear off, quite possibly causing it to flutter down in tattered pieces, and grabbed the other Slayers' legs, lifted her up, and hooked them around her own waist. Supporting Faith now with only her body pressing between her legs, she positioned her hand, slid through wet, swollen folds and shoved fingers deep inside of Faith. The other girl's entire body surged forwards, her uneven cry increasing as it found Buffy's hips.

Her fingers, her hand, her hips and body thrust forward and Faith wasn't just moaning, she was yelling, cursing, shouting incomprehensible words and Buffy's name. She grasped one of Faith's legs, fingernails leaving little half-moon marks around her thigh, and continued the rhythm. Her fingers sunk deeper inside, enveloped by calescent warmth, and Faith cried out in a mixture of pain and ecstasy.

Faith's hands found Buffy's hair, pulled her head forwards, and kissed her hungrily, moaning into her mouth. Buffy felt her walls throb around her fingers, felt how her legs shuddered, felt her hips heave with her thrusting, felt how close she was to the edge already. She increased the pace, moved faster inside of Faith and the other Slayer ripped her mouth away to groan loudly. Buffy moved her lips down, sucked on her earlobe.

"Come for me, Faith," Buffy whispered into Faith's ear, and it pushed her over that edge. Hard.

Faith went rigid, opened her mouth to make small, pathetic whimpers and gasps, grabbed the back of Buffy's neck for support and shook as her climax crashed on her. Buffy felt it around her hand, the clenching, the searing warmth, and curled her fingers more, pressed her body closer and molded it to Faith's, as it rushed over her. Could almost feel it with her, could almost taste it when she scraped teeth gently on her sweat-slicked neck and Faith let out her breath in a guttural groan.

Buffy didn't move as Faith's shudders decreased, as her hands fell limply to Buffy's shoulders, as she sagged against her. She just held her, incongruously gently compared to what had just occurred. Her ribs were burning, jolts of pain every time she inhaled, but she could barely feel them with the sensation of Faith's naked thighs wrapped around her. Warm breath across her shoulder blades as Faith's chin nestled into the curve between her neck and shoulders, as the other Slayer's chest stopped heaving.

Buffy felt content, satiated, a soft glow inside her. Even with numerous scrapes, throbbing injuries, horrendous memories from the past two days, holding Faith as she came down felt perfectly, exactly how it was supposed to be. She would stay, because there wasn't an alternative. They fit together, complemented, supported, infuriated, satisfied each other, and it felt so fucking right.

Buffy drew back, clasped Faith's thighs and gently unwrapped them from her waist. Faith's feet, still somehow wearing her combat boots, hit the ground with a soft thud. Her head was down, refusing to look at Buffy. She cupped Faith's face in her hands, brought her head up and saw tears and mascara running silently down her cheeks. God, she looked so small, so fragile. Faith was trying to furiously repress her sobs, keeping them in her throat even as the tears poured out, and it made her look agonizingly young.

"Faith," Buffy said softly. "Let go. Stop holding on."

She clasped Faith to her, wrapped her up, felt her stiffen and tense, half-heartedly push Buffy away. Buffy held on tighter, not letting her go, and then, finally, felt her break down utterly. Faith's muscles went slack as a cry tore itself out of her throat. They sunk to the ground together, Faith clutching onto her shoulders as tightly as she had been just minutes ago. Her body was shaking with sobs, her cries muffled in Buffy's shoulder. Buffy held onto her, stroking her, murmuring into her hair, and felt as if her heart was shattering.

"I didn't mean to — I'm sorry. God, Buffy, I'm so sorry," Faith gasped, gripping Buffy's back as if she were drowning. "I didn't realize — I didn't see him." She took a deep, shuddering breath. "I see him now. Every time I close my eyes."

"I know," Buffy said quietly, unevenly. "I do too."

There were several moments of near silence, Faith inhaling shakily as her sobs died down. They stayed enfolded in each other on the ground until Buffy drew back, grasping Faith by the shoulders and peering into her tear-stained face. She traced her thumb over one of the tracks, wiping off the running make-up. Still so beautiful, she thought in amazement. More even, now that there was a glimpse into what lay behind that faГade. To see those deep, brown eyes waver with an emotion that wasn't arrogance or rage. Buffy ran her thumb gently over Faith's sensual, full mouth, blood on her bottom lip, and it parted to breathe in sharply.

"How do you do this to me?" Faith asked, her voice soft and disbelieving. "I don't know who I am when I'm with you."

"I do," Buffy said quietly, and cupped Faith's streaked, anxious face in her hands, gazing at her closely. "You're a Slayer. You're my Slayer." Her eyes ran over Faith's face, lighting on her bruises, her tear tracks. "You see things that no one else does and you say them out loud. You're fierce and sexy and wild and horrendously cocky." She trailed a fingertip over her cheekbone. "You try so hard to cover up things you don't want other people to see, and you don't even realize how beautiful they make you." Faith bit her lip, averted her eyes.

"I need you to be here, with me. I need you to stay and not shut me out," Buffy said fervently, her voice breaking. "This is us, Faith. This is you and me, right now. We're going to deal, because I'm not letting you just walk away."

Faith raised her eyes to look back at her. There was still so much uncertainty, so much pain and confused anger in them. Her bottom lip, trembling, suddenly stopped as her jaw clenched. Buffy could see her trying to repress the emotions spilling out, to contain and shove them back down, and failing as they etched themselves on her face.

"Why are you doing this, B? Why're you trying so hard?" Faith asked, screwing her eyes shut. "You care that much about a fuck-up like me?"

"Yes, I do, and you're not a -"

"A murderer?" Faith spat hoarsely.

Buffy grabbed her head, roughly turned it to face her. "Don't ever say that." Faith could barely look her in the eyes. "I was right there, Faith. I saw it, I lived it. I know how confusing it was, how chaotic. It wasn't your fault."

"You think that matters?" Faith said vehemently, wrenching Buffy's hands away and cringing a little at the pain in her shoulder. "There's still a body, B. And it's 'cause of me. Sayin' it was an accident isn't gonna make that guy any less deader."

"No, it's not. We're never going to forget that, and you know what? We never should," Buffy said tightly. "But we -"

"Stop saying 'we'!" Faith shouted suddenly, her eyes blazing. "It was me, Buffy, not you!"

"But we," Buffy continued decisively, ignoring her outburst, "shouldn't let it destroy us, or stop us from doing what we need to do."

Faith was staring intently at the floor, still looking quietly livid. Buffy inhaled deeply and pushed herself off the floor awkwardly, clutching her side and gasping softly with the pain. She straightened up and gazed down at the slumped figure below her.

"You're not alone in this, Faith. I'm here, and Willow, Giles, and Xander, they're here too. I'm not giving up on you. Not now, not ever," Buffy said, deep emotion making her voice waver. She stretched out her hand, offering it to the other Slayer.

Faith raised her head hesitantly, eyes flicking back and forth between Buffy's hand and face. There were several moments where they stayed in the same position, Faith collapsed on the ground in a small heap of tangled limbs, and Buffy, standing up, her hand outstretched, until one of them moved. Faith extended her own hand and Buffy grasped it, feeling a surge of hope and tentative happiness that made her heart pound and her stomach soar.

She pulled Faith up, ignoring the sharp pang in her side and arm, and they stood inches apart. Buffy gazed at her steadily while Faith's eyes shifted around the room, refusing to land on an object. She quietly marveled at the girl in front of her. Faith wouldn't let any bullshit slide in other situations, situations where she knew the lines and steps, knew what to say to make hearts pound and the atmosphere tighten. And yet, here she was, in all of her glorious insecurities and anxieties, barely capable of accepting another person's help and compassion, and Buffy had never felt such an aching tenderness towards her.

She knew what Faith understood. Fists and kicking and fucking were the language that Faith spoke. Dropping her in a place where that communication only went so far, and she was suddenly awkward and tentative, almost inchoate.

Buffy put her hand gently on Faith's cheek, meeting her eyes as they reluctantly moved to hers. She leaned in and kissed her softly, slowly, just a brief meeting of lips. Faith sighed into her mouth and Buffy felt her muscles soften, loosen, something flow into the space between them and warm it. Buffy pulled back and wanted to say something to her, wanted to say, "I love you," and, "you feel like coming home," but instead glanced down and failed to repress a small smile.