Chapter Text
In those few seconds between sleep and full wakefulness, Faith wasn’t even halfway there yet before her preternatural senses told her she wasn’t alone. But it had been four mornings in a row of non-aloneness now, and she was almost used to it.
What was different this morning was that when she opened her eyes, her companion wasn’t still asleep, snoring softly, but was instead sat on the edge of the bed, facing away from her, long hair spilling loose down her back, the dark of it contrasting beautifully against the pale white of her skin. Faith smiled. She’d gotten used to this in the past, and could again. Easily.
But the smile faded as she took in the other girl’s posture, and felt the way she was just bleeding tenseness and frustration into the air around her. She’d turned up on Faith’s doorstep Monday night, a single bag in hand, asking, ‘Can I stay here?’, but refusing to give any clue about what was wrong. Faith hadn’t pushed. But maybe now was finally the time to.
“Hey,” she called groggily. “What’s up?”
No answer. No sign she had even heard her.
“D?”
“This was a mistake,” Dawn murmured.
“What?”
“A mistake. I shouldn’t have come here.” She got up and began searching for her clothes.
“D…”
Dawn ignored her. She’d located her panties and pulled them on, and then grabbed a pair of jeans that actually belonged to Faith. The slayer watched in amusement, wondering how long it would take her to figure it out.
“D,” she tried again.
Still no reaction. Dawn had gotten the tight denims past her thighs, but they’d go no higher.
“Dawn!”
“These aren’t even mine!” she finally exclaimed, in a tone that made it sound like Faith had played some deliberate trick on her. “Why are your hips so frickin’ narrow?” Back down they went, and she spotted another pair, possibly her own this time, across the room.
Faith was out of bed like a shot, and stopped her before she could get there. One-handed, she grabbed her arm, spun her around, and flung her back down onto the bed. “Maybe your ass is too friggin’ wide. Now, spill it, girlfriend,” she ordered, and plopped down next to her.
“I don’t know what--”
“Please don’t treat me like a complete idiot by finishing that sentence,” she warned, and Dawn hung her head. More gently, she continued, “So what’s going on? What are you doing here?”
“I… ran away from home,” she admitted, still not looking up.
Faith burst out laughing, and that got Dawn to look at her. To glare at her, in fact. “Hey! Bitch.” She made another half-hearted attempt to get up and collect her clothes, but Faith just yanked her back down again.
“Sorry, D, but… you’re, what, twenty now? Pretty sure the ship sailed on the whole running-away-from-home thing at least three years ago.”
“Okay, I ran away from my responsibilities, then.” She heaved a sigh that sounded way too weary to have come from a twenty-year-old. “I’m just… sick of it. Everything. Sick of lying to my roommate and having her think I’m a freak for all the weird occult books I’ve got, and for the people constantly coming by dropping off ancient manuscripts and stone tablets and saying things like, ‘Boss needs this translated by tomorrow,’” she said, lowering her voice as far as it would go in what was probably an impersonation of some guy back in LA. “Sick of working on them for hours and hours, then falling asleep in sociology ‘cause it was already light out by the time I finished. And I’m sick of the expectations, how it’s just totally taken for granted now that I’m gonna be a watcher’s apprentice when I graduate, and what if I don’t want to?”
“But I thought you did want to? You’re such a book geek--in a hot way--and you’re wicked good with languages and everything… It seemed like the perfect gig for you.”
Dawn bit her lip and nodded. “I know. That’s what I thought, too. And when I was a kid, you have no idea how much I used to bug Buffy to let me help with the research and stuff. It seemed so grown-up and important, y’know? I just wanted to be part of the gang, not feel so left out--I didn’t even really think about how much work it actually was, or how much they all seemed to hate it… except Giles, obviously. So now I got my wish, except the gang’s not even around anymore to make me feel included, ‘cause they’re spread out all over the world, and it turns out the only part of it I got was all the hard work. Believe me, I’m completely aware of the irony. I’m practically drowning in awareness.”
“Well, then… damn, what’s the problem?” Faith nearly sputtered, wondering how such a simple thing had gotten her upset enough to run clear across the country. “If you don’t want to do it, don’t do it.”
“You think I haven’t tried to get out of it? I’ve already told Mr. Higgins all of that stuff, and more than once.” When she saw the blank look Faith was giving her, she explained, “The watcher working with the LA slayers. He’s supposed to be my boss in two years. Except I wouldn’t want to work for him even if I still did want all this stuff. He’s arrogant, opinionated, not nearly as smart as he thinks he is, and he doesn’t listen… or even care about other people, apparently.”
“Sounds like your typical watcher,” Faith muttered.
“I’ve told him over and over that I don’t have time to do half his work, too, ‘cause I’ve got way too much to do for my classes already. But he just keeps sending couriers by with more stuff, and handwritten notes, like I’m supposed to be impressed he has his own personal stationery. ‘Terribly sorry, Ms. Summers,’” she mimicked in a not-half-bad English-accent, “‘but it’s ever-so-important we learn what’s in this scroll, even though it’ll probably turn out to be as harmless as all the others I’ve sent over and I’m really just trying to keep you away from that party Friday night, since I never got to go to any myself when I was attending university a thousand years ago in foggy old London town, therefore you shouldn’t be allowed to enjoy your youth, either. Pip, pip, cheerio.’”
“Ouch,” Faith said. “Yeah--asshole. But then you must’ve gone over his head, right? What’d G and your sister say?”
“I haven’t told them.”
“Why the hell not?”
“I shouldn’t have to!” Dawn stood up, and this time Faith let her. The younger girl began to pace. “Sometime during my final three years of college, you’d think my own sister would notice something was wrong and ask me about it. But to do that she’d actually have to come visit me, and I’m not holding my breath for that. I can barely even remember the last time I was even in the same room with her.”
Oh. Right. Dawn had so many awesome qualities that Faith had never appreciated in the old Sunnydale days, but unfortunately this was the one that she did remember from back then: the brat’s amazing ability to make herself the poor, put-upon victim of any situation imaginable. Guess it was too much to hope for that she’d grow out of it one day.
“Jesus Christ, D, you don’t think she’s a little busy with other stuff? Like tryin’ to make sure you don’t wake up with demons in your dorm room tomorrow morning? And hey, this is your life here--you can’t wait for someone else to notice and fix its problems for you. Fix ‘em your-fucking-self. That’s what being a grown-up is all about.”
“I’m not asking her to fix them for me,” Dawn replied angrily. She stopped pacing and faced the other woman. “But the noticing part would be nice. I’m just asking her to… care.”
“You don’t think she cares about you?”
“She probably does, but she could show it a lot better. How hard is it to pick up a phone more than once every six weeks?”
“Why does she have to be the one to make the first move?” Faith wondered rhetorically. “You came to see me. You could’ve gone to see her, be telling her all this stuff right now.”
“LA to New York is a way cheaper flight than LA to Rome,” Dawn pointed out with a half-grin. “If I’m gonna max out my credit card, it should be on important stuff--like a convertible. Or a shopping spree on Rodeo. When I do see Buffy again, I don’t want the first thing she does to be coming after me waving bills in my face. What, are you not glad to see me or something?”
For the first time since the conversation had turned serious, Faith allowed herself to notice and appreciate that D was still dressed in nothing but a pair of panties, and she let her appreciation of that fact show on her face. “No, I’m glad. Real glad. Seriously, I get any gladder here, I’m gonna have to go find some dry sheets.”
Dawn looked down at herself, blushed, and quickly found a nearby semi-clean tanktop and pair of shorts. “Perv,” she accused once she’d finished dressing.
“Guilty,” Faith agreed. “Proud of it, too. Perving’s one way of knowing you ain’t dead yet. Or comatose.”
Dawn took a seat on the corner of the bed, smiling politely back at her, and then grew serious again. “But I would’ve come here even if Buffy had been in San Francisco or Chicago. Because getting to spend the last two summers here in New York with you… well, part of me still can’t believe Buffy even let me do it. I know I was eighteen and everything and technically she couldn’t have stopped me, but if she’d wanted to she would’ve found a way.” Her cheeks flushed pink again as she thought of something. “And if she knew half the things we’d done together, first she’d lock me in my room until I was fifty, and then she’d come after you with her rocket launcher.”
“Bring her on,” Faith challenged.
“But they were the funnest times of my life,” the younger girl continued. “You and Spike are the only two people who knew me when I was a kid who don’t still treat me like I’m a kid, and especially that first year here it was so nice to go from the, ‘oh, God, oh, God, we’re all gonna die,’ of Sunnydale to just two semi-normal girls with a whole huge city to run around and play in for three months. It was simple, y’know? I guess I thought if I came here, and found you, maybe I could get that simpleness back. But it turns out it’s not that easy. In hindsight: duh.” She stared out the bedroom window at the spectacular view of the neighboring building’s brick wall.
“D? What’s really wrong?” Faith asked softly. Because everything she’d just said had been real believable. Confused about the direction of her future. Pissed off at that Higgins douche. Angry about having her linguistic abilities taken for granted and abused. Missing a happier time from days gone by. But Faith knew her, and knew that all of that combined still shouldn’t have been enough to get her to throw up her hands, say ‘fuck this,’ and run. There had to be something more.
“I’m… I mean, I think I’m… maybe… I’m in love,” she admitted, tucked a stray lock of hair behind her ear, and continued her study of the brick wall, unwilling to meet the slayer’s gaze.
“What?” Oh… fuck.
Perfect. Just perfect. Just what she needed. Just one more good thing in her life that was now forever fucked up.
D was the best friend Faith had ever had. They were closing in on three years now of this, of hanging out together, having borderline-illegal (and sometimes straight-out illegal) amounts of fun, and fucking whoever they wanted, including each other whenever they felt like it, no strings attached. Faith had always preached the “what are friends for?” philosophy, and Dawn had always seemed to feel the exact same way, proving to Faith, without a doubt, that her way was best.
But of course, Dawn had grown up around her sister and her sister’s friends, who all still believed that shit about sex messing with friendships, who thought that sex had to ‘mean’ something. Should Faith really be surprised that Dawn had eventually come around to believe the same thing? Should she be surprised that her luck had turned to complete crap yet again?
Now Faith had to do something she’d never done before: let someone down easy. Could she? Find the right words that wouldn’t make D run out crying, hating her forever? If she--
Wait--hold up a sec.
Faith replayed the words in her head, and they hadn’t been ‘I love you.’ So… could her luck have actually held for once? One way to find out.
“Really? Uh, cool. Not with… me?”
Dawn looked at her, momentarily surprised, then smirked when she recognized what must have been barely-concealed terror on the slayer’s face. “No, you stupid egomaniac. I mean, yeah, I love you, totally, but I’m not, like, in love with you. That would be… kinda weird at this point, wouldn’t it? Sorta like falling in love with Xander.” She shuddered a little at the thought.
“Yeah, but you haven’t screwed Xander,” Faith reminded her with a teasing leer, and then remembered how stupid it was to make assumptions like that. “Wait--have you?”
“No!” she exclaimed, laughing and shuddering again at the same time.
“So, okay, then who is she?” Fuck, she was assuming again. Who said it had to be a she? “Or he?” she hastened to add. “Is she a she, or is she a he? ‘Cause it’s just as cool if she’s a he. You know I’m a big fan of the hes myself, as long as--”
“She’s a she,” Dawn informed her, cutting Faith off before that could turn into a full-length babble worthy of Red. Her smile faded a little, and her gaze landed firmly in her lap as she half-mumbled, “She’s… y’know… a slayer.”
“And that’s… bad?” Faith wondered. “You got something against slayers now? You a slayerist or somethin’?”
“My best friend’s a slayer,” she said, gesturing in Faith’s general direction, and she couldn’t help suppress a little ripple of happiness to finally know for sure that D felt the same way about her. “And she’s spent eight months in a coma and three years in jail. My sister’s a slayer, and before long we’re gonna need two hands’ worth of fingers to count up all the times she’s died. You wanna know why I don’t wanna be a watcher anymore? ‘Cause I can’t become a teacher and friend to a bunch of girls, knowing that some of them are gonna die. And if I can’t even do that, I definitely can’t fall in love with one.”
“But you said you’re already in love with one.”
“Stop not helping!” Dawn exclaimed, throwing her hands up in a huff. “My point is, I don’t want to be in love with one.”
“And so you ran away.”
“Yeah.”
“‘Cause she might get killed. Maybe. Someday, way in the future.”
“Or tomorrow.”
“Yeah--or tomorrow,” Faith agreed. “So could you. You could walk outside ten minutes from now and get run over by a taxi. And if that happens, are you happy with the life you’ve had?”
Dawn wouldn’t answer. Or even look at her.
“This slayer… is it mutual? Is she into you, too?”
Shrug. “I think so. I mean, it’s not like we’ve actually said anything to each other about it, but when she looks at me, it’s…” Unable to help herself, she smiled at the memory, and Faith realized just how far gone for this chick she already was.
“Then get up, pack your shit, get your ass back to LA, and grab hold of her and don’t let go. You can’t live life playing it safe, D. Take a damn chance, or else who knows what you’ll miss out on?”
This time there was no humor in Dawn’s laughter. “Right. Like you did.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Nobody could get their defensive walls up faster than Faith.
“This,” Dawn said, standing up and stretching her arms out wide to take in the entire room, and the apartment beyond it. “This is you taking risks, not playing it safe? This is what you always wanted out of life?”
“Well, I wouldn’t say it’s exactly what I always dreamed of when I was a whiny little kid back in Southie, but yeah, I’m happy with it. Why shouldn’t I be? I got a decent place, a decent job, I can fuck a different hottie every night if I feel like it, I can go to games at Yankee Stadium and beat the ever-holy crap out of the New York assholes who talk shit about my Sox hat… I like it just fine, thanks.”
“Okay. Good for you.” Dawn nodded. “And sure, as a consolation prize, I guess it’s not bad. Doesn’t change the fact that the one thing in your life you ever really wanted you were too scared to go after.”
“I don’t know what you’re--”
“Please don’t treat me like a complete idiot by finishing that sentence,” she warned, throwing the slayer’s earlier words right back at her. “What, you think I couldn’t tell how you felt about her? I knew you were in love with her even before I knew girls could kiss girls… which made it kinda hard to understand at first when you’re a sheltered twelve-year-old with fake memories completely created by a bunch of monks who probably didn’t know jack about sex, but whatever. Point is, I knew. I know. So why is it okay for you to wuss out on what you want ‘cause you’re too scared, but I do the same thing and somehow I’m letting both of us down?”
Fuck, the brat really was too damn smart for her own good sometimes. “What do you want me to tell you?”
“That if I walk out that door and go find the woman I love, you’ll do the same.”
Did Dawn honestly think she hadn’t ever wanted to do that? Like about a million different times? She shook her head. “It’s too late. Way too late.”
“It’s not.”
“We missed our moment. If we ever had one in the first place.”
Dawn pulled a chair out, sat down, and smirked at her. “Lame.”
“What’s lame?”
“You’re lame. And your excuses are lame. You never let her know how you felt, and even now you’re still pissed at her for rejecting you.”
“Hey, she never rejected me--!”
“‘Cause you never gave her the chance. Safer that way. It felt like she did, though, didn’t it?” Dawn asked, smirk still in place. “It still stung, right?”
“Fuck you!” Faith snapped, and now she was the one staring hard out the window. “How did this suddenly become about me, anyway?”
“Because I’ve been waiting years for an excuse to tell you this, and your amazing hypocrisy finally gave me one.” She pulled out her phone and pressed a button. “You know what? I’ll call my slayer and ask her out, right this second, if you’ll do the same with yours. What do you say?”
“You’re crazy,” Faith sulked, crossing her arms and still refusing to look at her.
“And you’re a coward.”
“I am not a coward! And I’m not anywhere near as smart as you, but I’m still smart enough to know when something’s a lost cause. And this one is. I’ve got zero shot with her.”
“Why?” Dawn inquired.
“For one thing, we tried to kill each other. Hard to build a relationship on that.”
“She and Angel tried to kill each other. Spike, too. Didn’t stop her from loving either of them,” she pointed out. “Okay, keep going. What’s the next excuse?”
Faith ground her teeth together and tried to control her anger. Killing Dawn would be majorly frowned upon, by a whole lot of people. And the satisfaction she’d get from it would probably only last a few seconds. “How about what you just said? Angel. Spike. Not to mention her giant wind-up toy soldier. Notice something they all have that I don’t? Like, say, a dick?”
“But what about--?” Dawn started to say, and her eyes flicked toward the closet.
“You know fucking well what I’m talkin’ about--don’t act dumb,” Faith warned, not in any mood for jokes at that moment. “Even if I hadn’t screwed all that other shit up, even if I’d been the absolute picture-perfect goody-two-shoes slayer, I still never had a chance with her. You ‘n me, we might not be gay, but we’re also never gonna be elected Straightest Girl in America, either. She’s practically got the campaign posters printed.”
“Right, that’s why she wasn’t just boinking Satsu for the last six months.”
For the first time in… years?… Faith was stunned speechless. Her mouth opened and closed two or three times, but no sound came out. Dawn just sat and watched her, her smirk more annoying than ever.
Finally, Faith found her voice enough to get out a single word: “Bullshit.”
The smirk somehow grew even bigger. “Seriously? You mean you seriously didn’t know? It’s only been, like, the number-one piece of slayer-gossip since March. Someone told me they’re even talking about it on internet forums. How could you not have heard?”
“You might not have noticed, D, but with the little extended sabbatical from Slayer HQ I’ve got goin’ on here, I don’t get much gossip, and my subscription to the newsletter ran out. And I wouldn’t know what the hell an ‘internet forum’ was if you hit me in the face with a laptop.”
No way. It just wasn’t possible. Little Miss Narrow-and-Straight had been banging Tokyo Rose? For real? Or was it just some fake-out, some front they had to put up to infiltrate some demon dyke bar or something…?
Of course, that wouldn’t make much sense, ‘cause even if the demons bought the two of them as a couple, they’d still know they were slayers, and would have to be pretty stupid to let ‘em in…
Maybe she was trying to win a bet. Or a contest--she wanted to be ready when the ‘Show Us Your Lesbian Vampire-Slayer Girlfriend and Win a Million Dollars’ people knocked on the door. Or maybe she was pitching a reality show about her life and was trying to spice it up a little, throw in a bit of girl-on-girl to give it some edge. Or--
“So did you have a third excuse?” Dawn wondered, interrupting her increasingly-crazy thoughts and snapping her back to the present. “Or was that pretty much it?”
Faith suddenly felt tired. Really tired. And impossibly old. “What do you want from me?” she asked with a heavy sigh. She knew what she wanted from Dawn right now: for her to go far away, so Faith could go back to sleep. She was looking forward to waking up and discovering that the last four days had all been a dream, one she could hopefully forget before she’d finished breakfast.
“For you to step up and take a chance on the thing you want the most. Fix your own life. Remember, like you just told me to do?” She waited for Faith to respond, but when there was none, shook her head and continued, “I could’ve fallen in love with you so easy, so many times. Know why I never did?”
“‘Cause I don’t do Valentine’s Day, I suck at remembering birthdays, and potential in-laws would get one look at me and kill themselves out of horror?”
“Because even though I think you could’ve loved me, too, and we could’ve maybe had something really great, I would’ve always known that I could never be anything but second-best to you.”
Faith didn’t bother to deny it. Why should she? It was true, after all, and they both knew it. “So if you wouldn’t let yourself fall for me, how’d it happen with your LA girl?” she wanted to know, though she only half-paid attention to the answer. Her head was suddenly full of other stuff. “You said you didn’t want it to happen with her, either.”
“I didn’t.” Her chuckle was rueful. “You, I had plenty of time to prepare for. Build up my defenses. She caught me by surprise.”
“What’s she like?”
Dawn considered it for a moment before answering. “A lot like you. And a lot not. She’s… sorta perfect, I think.”
“Then don’t let her get away,” Faith warned.
“I won’t if you won’t.”
“It’s too late,” Faith said again through lips that felt thick and numb. She sounded half-shellshocked, like she was talking to herself. Like maybe she was repeating a mantra that played constantly in her head, just below the level of consciousness. A steady drumbeat that kept her from doing something stupid and risking getting hurt. …too-late too-late too-late too-late too-late…
“Whatever,” Dawn said with a shrug. “She’s hopelessly clueless, and you’re hopelessly stubborn. And I’m wondering why you guys never got together?” She shook her head, bent down, and retrieved her bag from the corner.
Faith seemed to have drifted away in a sea of her own thoughts, and didn’t even notice that Dawn was packing her things. When she was ready to go, she finally had to touch the other woman lightly on the shoulder, just to remind her that she was even there. When the slayer’s eyes turned and focused on her, she told her, “I’m gonna catch a cab to the airport. And I should probably call Buffy, let her know I’m okay.”
Faith recovered enough to smile and say, “Yeah, she’s probably worried about you. Have a good flight. And bring that girl back out here sometime so I can meet her. I wanna make sure she’s good enough for you. Anyone that’s too much like me is someone I start to worry about.”
“I never said I was gonna go out with her,” Dawn pointed out.
“Call it a hunch that you will. Eventually.”
“Well… maybe,” she allowed, with the tiny hint of a mischievous gleam in her eye. “And what about you?”
“Bye, D.”
She looked like maybe she wanted to argue it a little more… but finally decided not to press it. “Goodbye,” she said, and leaned down for a kiss. A long, slow, wicked hot, and way-more-than-best-friends kiss that had parts of Faith’s body warming up fast and getting ready for more, even though her brain told them not to get their hopes up. “Thanks for everything.”
“Yeah. No problem. That’s… what I’m here for. And by the way, I didn’t mean that before about your ass. I actually love your ass,” she told her, reaching around to give it a quick, playful smack, and Dawn laughed and kissed her again, quick and dry this time.
She made it to the bedroom doorway, paused, and turned back. “Why does she have to be the one to make the first move?” she wondered, again echoing some of the slayer’s earlier words… and then disappeared. Faith heard the front door open and close, and just like that she was all alone again.
She flopped back onto the bed and lay staring up at the waterstained ceiling.
What. The. Fuck?