This Is How It Goes

Faith grinned, looking very pleased with herself. "I guess I'm just naturally talented like that," she said happily.

"Don't tell me this is your first time with a girl," Buffy said, arching an eyebrow skeptically.

"No, it ain't. But there's only been a couple, B. You were the loudest, by the way," Faith said, grinning widely.

"Shut up," Buffy mumbled.

"You were -" Faith started to say, but her voice broke and she stopped abruptly.

Buffy looked at her curiously. "I was what?" she asked softly.

Faith plastered an entirely unconvincing smile on her face and said, "You were a fantastic lay, B."

Buffy glared at her, feeling as if Faith had just denied her an important moment. "That's what I've heard in my long and fruitful sexual career with two people," she said sarcastically, and suddenly remembered what had made her crave such simplicity.

She stood up abruptly and began picking up her discarded clothes, seeing Faith looking bemused in the corner of her vision. She felt vaguely as if something heavy was pressing on her chest, and felt a desperate need to continue the frenzied running she had began earlier. Angel, she thought, and almost yelled his name with frustration. So much for hunting and fucking away reality, she thought bitterly. Buffy kneeled down to grab her jeans and realized with a horrified sensation that there was a lump in her throat and tears pricking the corners of her eyes.

She sat down suddenly, still only in her underwear, and buried her face in her hands. She felt her shoulders begin to heave in uncontrollable silent sobs, and felt Faith's warm hand gently descend on her shoulder. Buffy couldn't look up, wouldn't, or else she knew that everything would come pouring out and she wasn't prepared for that yet.

"Buffy?" Faith said uncertainly, and the tentative affection in her voice made Buffy turn around blindly and cling to her. She pressed her face into Faith's shoulder and felt a terrible helplessness spread through her body. Faith seemed frozen for a moment, but then wrapped her arms around Buffy firmly and held her as she shook with sobs.

She felt a pervasive and overwhelming guilt. Thinking painfully, how gentle Faith was being. How Buffy had just used her to forget about her problems. How much she wanted to stay in Faith's arms forever and how she was lying to her. She cried and had no idea what to do. If she told Faith, would she try to hurt him? Convince her that he was a monster, had always been and would always be a monster? Could she trust her?

"Buffy," Faith said again, as Buffy's wracking sobs subsided a little. She gently drew back, grasping Buffy's shoulders and looking into her face.

"You know, B, girls don't usually cry hysterically after having sex with me. It's the guys that do that." Faith was gazing at her with an expression of such uncertain compassion that it hurt Buffy to look.

Buffy laughed weakly, wiping a hand across her cheeks. She didn't know what to say, how to start.

"I ... I guess I'm just stressed out," she said, and felt like a complete and utter asshole. She could barely look Faith in the eyes and see the disappointment etched on her face.

She needed to be more certain about him, she thought, and immediately knew that she was lying to herself. Angel was from another life. What he represented was so removed from Faith that Buffy couldn't even begin to reconcile the two. Would she have to choose? She wanted to keep them separate for as long as possible. She wanted desperately to live two lives, one with all the youth and innocence, the reassuring and familiar presence of Angel, and one with the newness and unpredictability of Faith, the excitement and delicious indecency, the frantic tearing off of clothes in graveyards. Buffy couldn't tell her yet. She had to discover unequivocally if he could recover, if she would have to choose between them.

She stood up shakily, Faith still looking at her with concern and gently holding her shoulder. There was something in Faith's expression that made Buffy ache, a resigned and deep sadness, as if she was thinking, "I should've known." I'm imagining that, Buffy thought fiercely. Faith doesn't do that. Faith doesn't fall for people, and she doesn't care what's going on with me.

Buffy grabbed the remainder of her clothes and turned to Faith.

"I think I'm gonna call it a night. You know, try to get my usual four hours of sleep," she said quietly, looking vaguely over Faith's shoulder.

"Yeah, sure, B," Faith said in a tone of forced nonchalance. "I'll do a couple more sweeps, see if there's any more lame-ass scheming going on."

"I — I'll see you tomorrow," Buffy said, and walked out, leaving Faith with clenched fists, fingernails digging into her palms.

Chapter 8: Own Little World

Author's Notes: This chapter may make some people...perturbed. Just keep with it. I promise.

One week. That's how much time she was going to give him. If there were no changes, then ... she would do something. Thinking much further than that wasn't within Buffy's abilities. She moved through classes with an oblivious numbness, alternating between thinking about the feral, naked violence of Angel's face, and the gentle, uncertain compassion of Faith, of the way her voice broke, of the way she tried to cover it up with her typical cocky indifference.

Slaying made it easier not to think, to relinquish control to instinct and survival. Buffy once again found herself eager to hunt, to feel bones break and listen to the muffled sound of dust littering the ground. She didn't want to see Faith at all. Patrolling with her would just lead to more seemingly uncomplicated sex that quickly became complicated. Buffy seemed to lose self-control around Faith after a fight. She listened to ... other parts of her anatomy that weren't necessarily the most logical.

Buffy grew restless searching the cemeteries, failing to find what she wanted, until, finally, those prickles swept through her and she ran eagerly. Four vampires. Walking, laughing, utterly unaware of the fact that they were about to become non-existent in the next five minutes. Buffy didn't even bother with the time-honored quips and sarcastic exchanges, and moved fluidly through the graves with a stealth that surprised even her.

There was a second where one of the more observant vampires sniffed the air suspiciously, and turned around just as Buffy plunged the stake into his back. He dissolved with a shocked expression, and she moved on with a reckless ferocity. Every thought, every emotion, everything that made Buffy the high school girl was subsumed under a fierce desire for hunting, for the kill. She destroyed the other vampires with a vicious efficiency, stakes plunging home one after the other. She finished with the last one and was suddenly hit in the back of the head and went crashing to the ground.

Buffy looked up, head spinning, to see three vampires she had completely missed circling her. One of them lashed out with his foot, kicking her brutally in the stomach and causing her to curl up and whimper. They fell on her, punching and kicking, not giving her a moment to gain the upper hand. She thought vaguely that she might not get out of this. Buffy put her hands over her head, curled up, and cried out as each blow rained down on her.

Suddenly, there was one less pair of feet kicking, one less pair of fists punching. And then they stopped completely. Buffy opened her eyes weakly to see a figure ripping the vampires apart. Deep, vibrating growls emanated from him as he broke the neck of the last one and bent down over to pick up the stake.

"Angel?" she said brokenly, and pushed herself off the ground.

He didn't look at her as he staked the vampire lying supine on the ground. And then he turned his head and gazed at her with an expression of such confused loss that she felt her breath stop. He recognized her. Angel walked over to her hesitantly, moving to only feet in front of her. He was gaunt, but so beautiful. She had almost forgotten how his face looked when it was soft, when he was Angel and not Angelus or that feral creature.

"Buffy?" he whispered, and her heart ripped apart.

He fell to his knees and grabbed her around the waist, clutching her as if he was drowning. She could feel him shaking. She couldn't say anything.

~ — ~ — ~

Buffy left school early the next day to pick up some fresh pig's blood from the butcher's. Her mind was whirling, possibilities, reactions, futures moving through it. She arrived at the mansion and found Angel sitting on one of the jutting concrete slabs. He had found some of his old clothes and was buttoning a shirt, his hands shaking. She entered, clearing her throat, and he jumped and growled reflexively.

"It's just me," she said quietly, stopping.

He stood up and looked at her, lost.

"Buffy," he said raggedly. "I don't know what I'm doing. I feel ... is this a dream?"

"No, it's not. I don't how, and I don't why, but you came back," Buffy said, and her voice was uneven too.

"How long has it been? How long have I been gone?"

"Five months," Buffy said.

Angel's shoulders collapsed as he turned from her. "Months," he said in a soft, disbelieving voice.

She went up to him, touching his shoulder tentatively. He recoiled, let out a soft snarl. Buffy stepped back quickly, and he grabbed her arm. She shivered involuntarily at his touch, so familiar and yet so new.

"I'm sorry, Buffy. I — I didn't mean to do that."

She understood. He was still in the fight or flight mindset, the instinctual purity of survival.

"I brought you some blood," she said, and took out the container from the paper bag. He reached for it, and she could tell he was trying not to show how much he wanted it, trying to repress the ferocious hunger in front of her.

"Drink, Angel. Don't hold back because of me," Buffy said firmly, and he looked at her briefly before grasping the container, ripping it open and drinking deeply. He turned slightly away from her, so she couldn't see his teeth elongate uncontrollably, or how the ridges on his forehead formed.

She walked back and sat down on one of the concrete slabs, watching him tenderly as he tried to hide himself. Angel finished, inhaled deeply, centering himself, and turned around with his face smooth again.

"I haven't told them you're back," Buffy said hesitantly.

"Them?" His face scrunched up in a frustrated effort to remember. He was looking around him, avoiding her eyes.

"Willow, Giles, Xander ... Faith," she said the last name quietly.

"God," Angel said breathlessly. "I haven't thought about them in ... so long."

Buffy looked at him, almost afraid to ask. "Did — did you think about me?"

Angel snapped his head to look at her, his expression suddenly intense and fervent. "I never stopped thinking about you, Buffy."

She inhaled sharply, felt herself falling back into the rhythm of them, of the comforting and reassuring pull. They looked at each other and Buffy couldn't tear her gaze away. Until Angel turned his head away and Buffy saw that his eyes were oddly bright.

"Who's Faith?" Angel asked a moment later, his voice steady, and Buffy almost stopped breathing.

Hearing her name from his mouth transported Buffy to a surrealistic world where they existed simultaneously. She felt her chest constrict and swallowed hard. And then promptly almost started laughing as she imagined them side-by-side, Faith with her cleavage, leather pants, swagger and predatory smirk, and Angel, silent, stoic, conservative, dark clothing, standing as if the weight of the world were on his shoulders. And then she almost started crying.

"A Slayer, actually. She came here from Boston after her Watcher was killed. She's, uh, eccentric. Kind of a handful," Buffy said, a little shakily.

Angel looked at her closely, picking up on the change in tone, caught the sadness and deep underlying affection.

"I don't want you getting in trouble because of me. Don't come here more often than you have to," he said, turning away from her.

Buffy's stomach clenched. Of course he would be all noble and avoidy. Angel thrived on denial and abstinence. It was the fire to his brooding. They both knew too well what happened when things didn't stay strictly separate with them. All of her juvenile fantasies of him coming back never really dealt with this part.

"Yeah, of course," she said, trying to keep her voice light. "I should, uh, get back to Giles. He worries if I'm not there to mangle the English language enough."

Angel twisted his head and looked at her steadily. Buffy turned around and began to walk out, and it was only through Slayer senses that she heard him say quietly, "I missed you."

~ — ~ — ~

The next week passed by in an interminable haze of avoidance, denial, and confusion. Buffy visited the mansion whenever she could, even if they interacted with each other in a painfully awkward way reminiscent of 7th grade school parties. There was still so much between them. Love, lust, heartache, causing each other unimaginable torment, killing off each others' friends, the list grew increasingly strange. They believed, at least on the surface, that they would be able maintain a platonic relationship. A belief that was challenged whenever they got within five feet of each other.

Buffy found herself utterly torn. Angel or Faith. Vampire vs. Slayer. Sex = lost soul and homicidal tendencies vs. sex = miraculous pleasure, nasty urges, torn clothing. They were both so vibrant in their own ways, so painfully beautiful. She ached to think of Faith's disappointed sadness, of Angel's broken eyes. So many thoughts and emotions were careening through Buffy's body.

She had been studiously avoiding Faith and the others, and they were beginning to notice. She stopped by the library for a hasty, "Hi, everything's good. I'm going patrolling," and then practically ran out. Buffy knew she was going to have to come clean about Angel, but that was a conversation that needed excessive amounts of mental preparation and possibly a crossbow.

Guilt became a pervasive, ubiquitous presence in Buffy's mind. She thought about Faith, about that aching tenderness that revealed itself, about how much she wanted to spend the night in a bed and not on a concrete slab in a mausoleum, about that cocky smirk that infuriated her. And then she thought about Faith's cynicism, that bitter expression that looked like it belonged on a 75 year-old spinster who cursed the world. Thought about the sardonic laugh that preceded, "I ain't a flower and chocolates girl." The other Slayer became a constant, almost reassuring ache in her chest, grounding her, reminding her of a life outside Angel and their secrecy.

Buffy slipped off one night later in the week to the mansion, carrying her usual offering of pig's blood. Angel was reading on one of the couches that had been manufactured out of apparently thin air, and he looked engrossed and serious. He glanced up as Buffy entered, though, and his face lit up, or as lit up as it could be in his repressed, weak condition.