Faith watched them from a chair by the window, where she sat with cigarette in hand, legs dangling across the sill and out into the night, trying to catch any breeze that might be wandering by in the stifling hot air. She stared at the rise and fall of their chests beneath thin, sweaty t-shirts, breathing in patterns that echoed but didn�t equal. She wished for a moment that she was a thin, sweaty t-shirt, pressed between two sets of inked Irish flesh.
She flicked some ashes out the window. Not that she hadn�t dropped a few suggestions, to each separately and both at once. It had dropped her jaw and spun her world around to be turned down each and every time- politely, charmingly, but firmly rejected.
Men didn�t reject Faith. She could count the ones who had on one hand and have fingers left over to make a fist. Angel had, but she would never doubt that if she�d taken just a little more time, and if the unfortunate psychotic breakdown hadn�t happened when it had...
She tossed the cigarette butt out the window and stared at her hands for a moment. Bygones. Don�t look back, Faith, don�t ever look back; you never know what you�ll see chasing you.
Her eyes wandered over to the bed; Connor�s face was crumpled in distress, soft whimpers coming from his lips. She waited, knowing what would happen. She�d watched it happen again and again the three nights they�d shared this dingy room, and she still couldn�t name the feelings it stirred in her. Fascination, envy, longing, regret...all and none of the above. She lit another cigarette and watched them.
They always fuckin� knew. Even fast asleep, lost away in dreamland, each knew the other�s heart.
Murphy�s arm slowly, lazily crawled out from under his chest and moved across Connor�s shoulder. The whimpering stilled and Con�s face eased back into peaceful sleep.
She�d seen a lot of fucked-up things in her day. She�d seen the crazy shit people would do for loyalty and for love. Buffy flinging herself out windows for Angel, Wesley twisting under her own knife and still having the guts to spit at her feet instead of selling out his friends, Angel fighting off all his inner doubts and demons to get back to his people and his son. But none of that held a candle to the devotion between the two sleepers she was watching.
Forget being called back, like Buffy was. For the sake of his brother, either one of the McManus boys would crawl up out of his grave of his own free will. All of Buffy's wailing about giving up heaven...Connor and Murphy would dance their way through hell if they could do it together, and toast Satan in thanks for the privilege.
Faith breathed a cloud of smoke out into the heavy air. An unexpected benefit of the Slayer healing powers; her lungs healed themselves as fast as she could poison them.
There was only one bed in the room, and when the boys fell asleep and by the time they awoke Faith would be sprawled across the third of it their puppy-pile didn�t occupy. Sometimes they�d absorb her into their tangle, and she�d awaken to find her face pressed against Murphy�s back or her legs intertwined with Connor�s. She always reacted to waking like that the same way: gently, she�d pull herself free of the human knot, then retreat to her chair by the window to smoke and watch them tie themselves together again.
Her heart ached vaguely as she watched them, a lonely feeling she�d spent her whole life pushing away. There was symbolism there, something she�d always hated to think about, but at three o�clock in the morning when the thermometer hovered at ninety and the humidity glued her heavy dark hair to her skin, the meanings swelled relentlessly inside her.
The way the three of them fell into bed at night was the same way they did their work during the day; she was in their partnership, but not of it. Their sleeping bodies welcomed her into their unconscious embrace, but the instinctive need for it, and the comfort it gave them, were missing from her heart. They gave her a gun and were thrilled to have a Slayer on their side in a fight, but she could never quite understand the passion they had for their work, couldn�t hear the higher voices calling them onward.
They never treated her as less than an equal, never made her feel less than welcome. But there were parts of their lives, their hearts, their bodies, that she just couldn�t share.
Connor had tried to explain it to her, that first evening in the bar. She had been drinking and dancing all night, feeling the fire in her blood flare higher than anything but killing could make it go, sending the sweet itch through her body until she couldn�t stand it. She�d seen Connor sitting in a corner, watching her dance with a half-smile on his face and a light in his blue eyes she thought she�d recognized.
So polite, such a goddamned gentleman when he tried to dislodge her from his lap. �Na, Faith, come on,� he�d chuckled, drawing himself back in the chair, away from her attempt to mold her body to his. �It�s not like that, you know.�
�Why not?� she�d grinned, slipping her fingers into the waistband of his jeans and tugging. �No reason it couldn�t be, just have some fun, Con...�
His smile flickered sad for a moment. �I can�t explain the reasons, Faith, but it isn�t...� He reached out and gently laid his hand against her cheek. It was cool, not warm with lusting blood like it should have been. �I can�t.�
She dropped her feet to the floor and stood up, stiffly, awkwardly. She never had to play this role. �You and your brother both,� she muttered, scuffing the toe of her boot against the sticky floor. �What�s up with you two, anyway? I offered to take you solo, I offered to take you together, and I never thought I�d find two guys who�d pass that up...�
He shook his head again and stared at the floor just past her heels. �It�s not your fault, Faith. Doesn�t have anything to do with you, really.�
She took a drag on the cigarette and watched the outline of them breathing in the dark. He�d tried to explain it to her. Tried to explain the callings of angels to her, a daughter of earth and hell. How the angels had redeemed them of their human sins, given them a purpose- but exacted a price.
She knew something about the calling of an Angel, about redemption and purpose. But her Angel had never asked that price. If he had, he probably would�ve been dust before finishing the words.
�We had to give up something, a sacrifice for the calling,� he�d said, swirling the dark liquid in his glass. �Proof of dedication and all.� He was settled down in the chair now, long legs sprawled out in front of him in a way that reminded her of Spike, somehow, and that made her itch all the worse because damn, all the Powers knew she�d thought about taking that pony for a ride a time or two...
�...and what they took was the desire.� He lifted one shoulder in an eloquent shrug and sipped his beer. She blinked and tried to focus on something other than the raging in her blood and mind.
�Desire?�
�For the flesh.� He smiled wearily at her over the edge of the glass, slowly blinking those eyelashes that she wanted so badly to feel dancing on her skin.
She stared at him, letting her disbelief show clearly. �You two don�t get turned on anymore.�
�Nah.�
�Not by anything.�
A ghost of a smile on his lips. �Nyet.�
�Not a girlie magazine, not a porno flick, not a lap dance?�
�Non, ma cherie.�
She arched an eyebrow. �And I take it you�ve...tested this?�
�You might say it�s largely a matter of...faith,� he said, smile widening at the pun. �But we have enough evidence to believe it.�
She�d still been skeptical, and nursed hurt feelings the rest of the night. But after watching them for the past few days- the way their eyes slid over her when she changed in front of them, the way they walked past the girls on the corners without a blink of acknowledgement, the way the three of them could wake up in the same tangled sheets without any of the awkwardness or embarrassment she�d come to expect from men over the years- she�d come to think there was something to the theory. She wasn�t sure if it was truly the work of a higher Power or just a manifestation of their own beliefs, but Connor said that since the morning they woke up in that South Boston jail cell, they hadn�t felt the �desires of the flesh� at all.
Faith watched them sleeping, tangled up like puppies in the sweaty sheets, and wondered what it would be like to have even a shred of innocence restored like that. Certainly the Power that took an interest in her path and Angel�s didn�t seem to be interested in giving anything back to them. Just throwing obstacles in their paths, endless fucking temptations, and tormenting them with memories of what they�d done in the bad old days...
Murphy stirred slightly and blinked sleepy eyes at her. �Faith?� he mumbled. �Wha�cha doin�, come back t�bed...�
�It�s all right,� she said soothingly, trying to hide the catch in her voice. �Just havin� a smoke. I�ll be there in a minute.� Satisfied, his eyes drooped closed again, and he edged closer to Connor before going still.
She sighed and swung her legs back into the hot little room. She did need to get some sleep, they�d be hunting again in the morning. And she needed to get back to her own patrols soon. The boys had talked about backing her up, but for all their �fear no evil� routines she wasn�t sure they were ready for vampires.
She stubbed out the cigarette and stood up, brushing a few stray ashes from her tank top and ragged boxers. She tugged the elastic band loose from her hair, letting heavy dark waves fall down around her shoulders; then put it back up again, tighter, so it wouldn�t stick to her face and neck. She took a step towards the bed, head down as her hands fumbled at the band, then looked up and stood still.
On the wall over the bed, hovering over the knotted-together bodies, was the shadow of the crossbars in the window. On either side of it, the shadows of ragged curtains mixed together into a vague shape of wings. She stared at the image for a long moment, a winged cross standing guard over sleeping innocents.
The swirling lights of a police car in the street made the image shiver, like the wings were flapping to stay aloft, hovering protectively over their charges.
Faith�s hand came up instinctively, and slowly went through the motions of the cross. She hadn�t done that in years, since well before she herself was called by the Powers beyond all things.
She studied the sleeping faces, lying pale and fine against holy images sketched in black ink. The unbidden thought flickered through her mind- just being this close to them would probably make her own Angel break out in hives. The essence of something holy fairly rose from their skin, their pure and unshaken belief in something strange and mystical and unexplained. Not so unlike Angel for all that, stubbornly clinging to his hope for redemption no matter how many times it kicked him in the face.
She looked out the window again at the city of her childhood. On both sides of the country, Boston and LA, she�d found herself alongside warriors for the light, no matter how many times she tried to walk away into the darkness. She wondered if it was some silent calling in this world�s night. She wondered if the specter of redemption sang to the fallen, if the steps of the doubting were summoned forward to faith.
Feedback is like oxygen.
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