August 2000

Okay so something weird happened today. And I know that shouldn’t come as a big woo-hoo surprise considering I live on a Hellmouth, home to the weird and not-so-wonderful but what happened today freaked me out as much as any of the weird wiggy shit I’ve seen as a Slayer.

I’m round at the Magic Shop. Wanted to tell Giles about patrol last night, though of course omit any actual details of how the slay went down. Giles always gets that concerned look when me and B have wailed a little too...what’s that word he used...vehemently! Yeah that’s it, he goes all furrowed brow and starts polishing his glasses, saying "maybe you shouldn’t have wailed so vehemently" well maybe he doesn’t say wailed, another long word probably. One that I still have to look up in a goddamn dictionary to find out what the fuck he is talking about. And as I didn’t have my pocket dictionary on me today, or even own one in the first place, I gave Giles the NC-12 rating of last nights slay. And then before he could zone in on the bruises on my hand that were only beginning to fade, I asked him about news on the demon front to you know, distract him. And suddenly its like "Oh Anya needs some help, do excuse me Faith" Ha! So that would be a no then? Giles batting zero for once, psyche! I know I shouldn’t be all with the woo-hoo here but fuck it man, if Giles can’t come up with the goods every once and awhile there’s hope for the rest of us.

I smiled at his obvious discomfort for coming up empty again and swung through to the training room. Even if I did spend the best part of last night kicking the dead shit out of that vamp’s ass my body was still all tingling and my muscles were grrr all over again every time I thought of B out with Army Boy. Best cure I know for that when the sun is up and most of the big bad is asleep - Slayer Training. You don’t get that cool feeling of bones breaking beneath your fist, or get to see a vamp turn to dust and get that, I don’t know, good feeling inside like B says, but it does work off the tension and today I had a lot of tension to work off.

Now I’ve already said that Slayer Sense is like super sense. It ain’t no Superman deal with bionic hearing or whatever, but its better than your average person you know? So I should have known that whilst I was ragging on the punchbag, I mean really kicking and throwing my weight behind every punch I delivered, I wasn’t alone in the training room. I should have had the Slayer Tingle at least. I guess I was zoned out but this time it wasn’t some peaceful fluffy ti-chi place I was at, but that dark place inside me which dusted that vamp last night wishing it was Army Boy. I finished with a roundhouse kick to the bag and I swear it almost came off from the ceiling when I did. That’s when I realised I wasn’t alone.

"I think you killed it"

My head snapped around so quickly if I didn’t have slayer strength I know I’d have a mean case of whiplash round about now. I did get a face full of sweaty tangled hair that stung my eyes for a second when it hit them wide open like. Then that feeling inside started, just like it always does when I see her, and I felt my body heat up, my heart hammering a little in my chest. I told myself it was down to the workout, purely aerobic. Yeah right! She was smiling at me, smirking a little at her own little joke and it just looked so cute. I was helpless to do anything other than stare at her. I tried to come up with something cool to say in return, one of my trademark comebacks that makes her eyes roll at me, but I was like some schmuck on a first date, all stuttery and shy. Hey I was T-T-Tara again! Oh bloody hell, as Spike would say.

She was just inside the doorway to the room, I don’t know how long she’d been standing there. Standing there watching me, like I stand and watch her sometimes when she’s working up a sweat. Okay so I don’t really think B was imagining ways to get me naked on the floor in the shortest time possible, so maybe it wasn’t like when I watch her but you know, a slayer can dream.

"My mom said you called round last night"

Okay so we’re going with something that’s gonna get me all riled up again. I managed to look away from her, just in case that green eyed monster was gonna make an appearance when I replied.

"Yeah, nothing special though B. Just Slayer time, you know?"

When I looked back to her I could have sworn I saw a flash of disappointment in her eyes. Like maybe she thought I’d come around for a different reason, a non-slaying reason. Okay, we’re getting weird. And there’s this tension in the air like there has been lately between me and her, like we both have stuff to say but neither of us are gonna say it.

"Oh" Good response there B, that’s gonna help de-tense the room. Is that even a word? Fuck it, don’t matter anyhow.

Time to act casual Faith. Time to be the usual me and not let on how my heart was pounding at the sight of her and not let my face break out into the kinda smile that aches your jaw cos it just won’t go wide enough.

"So did you and Arm...err did you have a nice time out last night?" Ooops, that was close. I can’t bring myself to say his name anymore, can’t even write it down in here let alone say it!

She looks at me and she looks as though she’s warring with herself to tell me something. Something deep, or important or I don’t know, something she probably thinks she shouldn’t be saying to Faith, cos well I’m just Slayer Faith, good for the fighting but not for the girl talk. Besides she’s got Red for that, right?

WRONG!!

"To tell you the truth Faith" Man I love it when she says my name. Makes me smile. "I would rather have been with you"

And she smiles when she says it. Its a mixed kinda smile, like she knows she shouldn’t be wishing that in the first place, cos like Army Boy is her honey and honey time is supposed to not be about wishing you were somewhere else, but still she was smiling at me. And I’m like on total heatwave alert in my body now, plus my mind has gotten in on the act so its all zooming around with the thoughts in there again. Made me dizzy I tell you when I started to think too much about what she just said, why she said it. It was like a fucking tornado in there! I went and sat down on the bench, I might have pulled off a casual stroll, I-need-to-take-the-weight-off- type of walk over there I don’t know. I just know when she decided to take this as her invite to come sit next to me it only made things worse in my head.

"Oh" Now it was my turn to say the worlds shortest sentence.

I threw her a half-smile. I didn’t know what else to say. Well that’s not quite true, what I wanted to do was ask her why she’d just said that? Why were things in the land of Buffy not okay on the honey front? Had she ever thought about swapping sides? Playing for the other team maybe? Say B, wanna grab a movie and perhaps dinner sometime?

Okay my thoughts were running away on me again, dinner and a movie, like that would work!

She’s feeling the tension too now. I could tell cos when I lent down to the floor for my water bottle our arms brushed together and I felt her pull away from me. Like all the times I’ve had to do the same thing with her cos feeling our bodies touch just gives my skin too much sensory input and I have to pull away or else I feel like I’m gonna spontaneously combust just by touching her.

And there’s two ways I know this none-conversation with B can go. I can break a habit of a lifetime and actually ask her something personal or I can just sit and stay silent like always and wait for her to break into her speed-talking shit when maybe one sentence I’ll catch in full and only half of what she says will make sense. And I’m just about to go with the latter, I see her out of the corner of my eye gearing her breath up for her opening statement and I know it won’t be long before she starts when some hidden part of me, the part that doesn’t worry about saying the wrong thing and freaking her out, the part that is sick of it all being one-sided, rollercoaster jonesing for the Slayer, the part that actually has a pair on her and isn’t afraid of using them, came out with….

"Yeah, I’d rather you’d been with me too B"

If that ain’t the weirdest thing to happen to me since I’ve been here in Sunnyhell, I don’t know what is!!

Five by five