September 2000

Ouch. Ouch much. Again with the ouch here. Shit this is hard. Speaking right now is hard. Can barely hold this pen, let alone form words with it. I don’t even know if I’m dressed... oh wait, I am. In last nights clothes. Nice!

Hangover from hell in case you were wondering. Or should I say hellmouth? Whatever. God if Giles calls me to go out on patrol tonight cos I know he has finally gotten the info we need to kill that big demon fucker who’s been piling up corpses all over the place this past month, I think I’m going to have to scream at him. Well if my pounding head could withstand the noise I’d yell some, probably have to go with the fake "oh, I’ve a cold Giles, wouldn’t be full strength tonight I’m afraid" Maybe I should just pull the phone out of the socket just in case....yeah problem solved, cool. Now I can get back to the pain.

Man what was I drinking last night? Oh right, I remember. I can see the empty tequila bottle on the floor by the bin. Guess my aim was a little off last night. Shit, no wonder I feel like I’ve been dragged through a meat grinder and someone switched my tongue for sandpaper whilst I slept.

I think that’s what’s known as overkill Faith girl.

God how did I let myself get into this state? Things were okay for a while there last night. Out with B and the Scooby’s down at the Bronze. A little R&R cos Xander got his first paycheck and me and the Slayer decided to give ourselves the night off. Its not like we don’t deserve it, and I think both of us are getting a little stressed out with the tension that keeps cropping up between us when we’re alone. Safety in numbers I’m thinking right? Besides, B has needed to relax a little for awhile now cos I’m not sure what’s going down between her and Army Boy, but I’ve noticed that she is more than up for extra patrolling at the weekends instead of being out with him and she’s definitely been more grrr when he comes in and interrupts training lately.

The way I was seeing it though, all this is a good thing. In my favour kinda deal. Like if I actually bit down on this love that’s inside me for the Slayer and got over the bittersweet taste of it I might actually work up the courage to say something to her. Cowardice has never been a problem for me, even without the handy Slayer Strength I never was one to back away from something; would always put up instead of shut up if someone pissed me off or got under my skin the way B has been able to. But with her….with her I draw a blank when inside I’m yelling at myself to do something, anything to change things between her and me. All I’m doing is letting my gaze linger on her a little too long so she’ll notice; make lameass comments like how she should wear black more often and follow her innocent remarks with a few more lurid ones of my own that makes her blonde eyebrows rise and a soft, crimson blush creeps up her neck. You know just small things. Small flirty things that maybe hint to her I want something more, but the way I’m saying them and hell, the fact they are coming from me in the first place, get-some-get-gone-Faith, make it clear I’m not being serious. So yeah, her all grrr towards Army Boy and us having a few beers on a much-needed R&R session was good for a while there yesterday.

It was relaxed you know? Those times when you can just sit back and look at everyone around you and just know that its one of those times that can’t get any better. And I’m not trying to go all hearts and flowers here like Red, but sat with them all last night, waiting for the band to start up and seeing their faces laughing and joking, as if we didn’t live on a hellmouth and each and everyone of us hasn’t stared death in the face, some more than once, and been able to tell him to fuck the right off, gave me a kinda…I don’t know. Nice feeling inside. Its all the slayer time I’ve been hanging with B probably but all of a sudden last night, it hit me that things aren’t so bad in the land of Faith right now. The Scooby’s treat me as one of the team, yeah maybe the renegade-lives-by-her-own-rules-and-could-quite-easily-slit-their-throats-in-the-dead-of night- one of the team, but still, they bought me drinks and let me join in with the conversation. And then there was the Slayer. Minus the cardboard cutout that never went with any of her outfits anyway.

Around a table full of her friends she came and sat next to me. Of all the tops she could have worn she was wearing the backless strappy number I remember telling her she looked really good in (one of my braver moments). It was silvery and glittery and you know, kinda shimmered in the light inside. Normally I would have a problem with B wearing something like that and being so close, but having everyone there around us just melted the tension a way somehow. And I know that sounds fucked up, cos you’d think with them there B would be more with the Babble-fest explaining her tightness with me and not Army Boy these past few weeks, and I’d be equally stressed about one of them catching me stare too long at the Slayer walking over to the bar, swinging those petite hips of her. Especially that T-T-Tara; she looks at me sometimes with a quirky smile like she knows what’s going on inside my head, and she totally digs the idea that it wouldn’t be just her and Red the odd ones out anymore. I received plenty of those weird little looks last night, let me tell you. But none of it seemed to matter, didn’t bring up the walls between me and B, guess it helped to bring them down a little if truth be told.

So why am I on the wrong side of a bottle of tequila today then?

Good question. One I bet my own hung over ass I’m gonna have to explain to B when I next see her, as even though I got steamed here in the safety of my own room last night, if I recall I was pretty much passing the halfway mark back in the Bronze before I even made it back here. And though my recollection of stuff that happened is a bit hazy, as it would be when you enter into a contest with the rational side of your brain to see how many shots it will take to get it to shut the fuck up with the "don’t do this Faith girl, you’ll regret it in the morning."(Well it got that wrong cos I didn’t even regain consciousness till this afternoon so fuck that line of reasoning anyway.) I still remember enough to know that I might have screwed things up between me and B royally last night.

Argghh my head still hurts; I really don’t want to be going into this right now. It’s funny though, but sometimes when I start writing all this shit down it makes it all clearer in my head. Though tonight it’s up against some wicked Mexican roadblocks in there I have to say. Its true though, kinda gives me a release just like kicking the shit out of some demon or disfiguring a vamp so he looks even more hell bound than he did in the first place will get rid of the dark feelings inside; the tension and the pain of being who I am, in love with the person I am in love with and going back and forth in my head whether she could ever love me. Yeah even if it is hard to go all Psyche 101 on myself it does get me thinking clearer. And right now that’s probably a good thing.

Everyone was up and dancing. The band really rocked, some grunge combo not too heavy and not too fucked up so they weren’t wailing about being seventeen and fucked up the ass by their home ec teacher. We all did the big group dancing thing, but it got kinda awkward out there with ex-demon chick hanging off of Xander’s neck the way she does and Red and T-T-Tara exchanging those looks they never think anyone notices, but we all do. Man those two Wicca’s could induce diabetes if they aren’t careful one of these days, but fuck it! Last night for some reason I just thought it was cute to see them so into each other. Me and B did the only decent thing, we left the couples to their smoochies (Red’s term has stuck now, sorry) and went to get another beer. And she’s watching them out there on the dance floor, this look in her eyes like she’s wishing she was out there dancing with someone herself. But wait, no Army Boy here so she can’t do that. I started to feel a bit grrr again as that thought swam freestyle through my brain so, with the added extra courage of a couple of beers inside me I leaned across to her and raising my voice over the din of some really cool guitar I asked her where Army Boy was this evening.

"If you wanna dance so much, why didn’t you invite your honey along?" I tried to remain calm, but the scorn I feel for him just creeps through anyway these days.

I thought she might go with a sarcastic comment, sometimes I just invite them in, you know, cos they’re the things I can usually deal with. But she surprised me. She does that a lot.

"I don’t particularly want to dance with him anymore."

I’m guessing that took a lot of guts of her own to say, and fuck me if I’m going to blow this one slim chance I see before me.

"No?"

She shakes her head. Biting her bottom lip a little and cos the band is so loud, and I’m so close to her I can hear her breath start to come in short sharp bursts.

Yeah I know how that feels B.

"How about dancing with someone else? How’d do you feel about that?"

Oohhh, heart racing now. Yep, hammering away in there like a fucking racehorse. If I look down I know I’ll see my chest heaving up and down. It had to be.

"Depends who asked me to dance." Well what did I expect in response to a question like mine? She had to go with something as equally…what’s that word…enigmatic?

And here is my chance. Here’s the fucking lottery draw and for once I am in the right place at the right time and I have my numbers all picked out. I downed my beer in one swallow, like I needed the extra time or boost to actually get me to form the words in my head you know? And she is looking at me nervously, out of the corner of her eye, flicking those emerald eyes of her on me for a brief second then staring intently at the label on her Bud, like it was the fucking Holy Grail or something.

"What if I asked you to dance?" I said it without looking at her; cos if I read the situation totally wrong and that’s not what she wanted me to say, then I didn’t want to see her eyes when she turned me down. I can handle most things, but rejection from her would just be one thing too fucking much to deal with.

"Why don’t you try and ask me?"

Bitch! She wants me to say it again? How much does she already think I’m going out on a limb for her anyway? Shit I could feel myself balancing way off beam already in this thing between me and her; one more step and I was gonna be falling over the edge!!

This time I did manage to look at her.

"B, wanna dance?"

And I held my breath in. Seriously just took it in and thought if she says no, I just won’t let it out and she can deal with an asphyxiated slayer at her table.

"Yes."

Just that one word. It was all she needed to say; for once the woman that has clocked 100 words per minute with that mouth of hers managed to say just one word and make it feel like she’d said a thousand to me. I took the half-filled beer bottle from her hands and put it down on the low table in front of us, then returning to hands that were now anxiously twiddling their thumbs, I just took one of them in my own and led her to the dance floor. And even though we’ve done the dirty dancing thing before here in the very same club this time was different. This time it wasn’t out of some fucked up voyeuristic display for the guys in there. She wasn’t getting back at Giles, or Angel and I wasn’t trying to prove I was the baddest chick on the block with a chip the size of Kansas on my shoulder.

This time it was just between me and B.

Man if the world could have stopped its relentless turning then I would have been the happiest person alive. I had what I wanted right in front of me. So beautiful and so perfect I had to remind myself to breathe when the song slowed down and she moved in a little closer to brush up against me. Christ this was what I had dreamed about happening for months now and I didn’t know what to do in response in case this was all down to the beers she’d had and she wasn’t really dancing with me but in her mind she has a fantasy going on that involved someone tall dark and handsome. Well fuck that! I thought. Enough with the doubts already Faith girl! You asked her to dance, and here she is dancing with you. So make like you know what you are doing and grab on to her.

Didn’t matter that people could see the way the two of us moved so gracefully together. Didn’t matter that Xander’s eyes were popping out and a knowing smile was lighting up T-T-Tara’s features. Didn’t matter that for a brief second in B’s eyes I saw her hesitate as I hooked my arm around her waist and I could see her ask her herself what the fuck she thought she was doing dancing with me in the Bronze. All that mattered was her skin touching my bare arms as she moved with me to the rhythm of the slow, deep penetrating song that was coming from up on stage. All that mattered was the fact I had asked and she had said yes. I didn’t care about anything else right then. Last night her swaying against me, me smiling down at her with that slutty half smile I’m beginning to realise makes her breath catch in her throat just like mine does to me whenever I see her walk into the room was all that I cared about. B in my arms, halle-fucking-ulah!!!

I should have known though, that just because I glimpsed happiness for one brief moment it wouldn’t stick around so I could get to know it better. Yeah should have known that from the start, Faith girl.

The music had stopped. It was like there was silence everywhere cos all I could hear was the beating of my own heart and the raspy quick breaths coming from B. When had I slipped both hands around her waist? Bringing her in closer to me, close enough to be able to hear her breath and see the light sheen of sweat breaking out on her skin. Neither of us seemed to notice anyone else standing near us. Like the noise had zeroed out to nothing, so had the Scooby’s and everyone else on the dance floor. It was like the world just existed of me and the Slayer. At least that’s how it felt to me. And neither of us was letting go. We weren’t even moving anymore, whether the band was still playing or not, we were just stood. My hands resting on her hips, I flexed my fingers a little and sure enough they touched each other when I moved them to her waist. And at some point B had moved her arms up to my shoulders. Don’t know when that had happened either. But I felt their weight on me, lightly clutching, maybe I even felt a finger dip beneath the thin strap of the vest I was wearing and caressed the flesh there too. I knew that this was one of those moments when if you utter a word, even a small one, it would shatter the thing that had enveloped us and we wouldn’t be able to recapture it no matter how hard we tried. So I didn’t. Instead I smiled down at B, and this time it wasn’t one of my slutty expressions when I wriggle my eyebrows and suggest with that one look how much I enjoy a good fuck. It was the smile that I’ve held back all these months in her presence, only letting it show when her back was turned and no-one else was around to see it. It’s the smile I guess everyone has within them when they know who it is they love, and they want that person to know it too. It’s a smile that I know I’ve only ever been able to wear for her. And when she sees the corners of my mouth go up, I’m looking at almost a mirror image of it on her face. I just know in that instant that the Slayer feels it too. Feels this thing between us. She gets it. And my mind doesn’t go AWOL on me or tries to tell me its wishful thinking when I see her smile up at me like that. It just sorta calmed, you know? Like it reached this plateau and it didn’t want to think anymore about how me and B can never be together, how can a girl like her ever love someone like me? It wasn’t thinking that anymore. Everything was just still inside. Calm. Peaceful.

Until he came along.

She saw him first. He’d come up behind me. Sorry to say no Slayer tingle gave me warning this time, and the first I knew about it was B’s eyes changing; anxious, wide, flicking around madly as if she was only now realising where she was and who she had just been dancing with. And at first I’m all confused, cos fuck it man, that had been our perfect moment you know? That had been it. The moment when the world stops and only the two of us existed, cos at the end of the day that’s how much I feel for the Slayer. Like the world is only made up of the two of us. And that was the moment she knew it too, I could see it in her eyes. Damnit, I know I saw it in her eyes so why was she now looking like a vamp caught in Slayer headlights?

"What’s going on Buffy?"

Of course then it hit me. Him. She dropped her arms from my shoulders and moved out of my grasp so quickly it was like she’d not even been there in the first place.

"Riley. I didn’t think you’d be here."

"Obviously."

I’m watching her face, and she’s flushed and I can see that she’s trying to come up with something to say, something to cover up this whole scene of being caught by her honey in the arms of someone else, and not just anyone else, but in the arms of Bad Slayer Faith. Oh yeah I can tell B wants to get out of this one and I bet she wasn’t about to tell old cardboard face that he’d just interrupted something fucking earth shattering between us, and that just pissed me off.

Before she gets chance to do a Babble about too many beers, and we were just having a laugh, and it was all down to me taking advantage of her anyway and so glad you’re here now honey to protect me from big bad Faith, I turned around to him, my eyes all lidded and summoning up the bitch that lives so close to the surface sometimes and making sure my voice is loud enough so B can hear me too I go…

"Chill Army Boy, I was just keeping her warm for you."

The hate that I could see in his eyes for me at that moment gave me a perverse feeling of joy inside. It faded though when I glanced back at the Slayer and saw those emerald eyes of hers fill with pain. I shouldn’t have said that. Part of me right then and there knew I should never have said it, knew that it would hurt her and that’s the last thing I ever want to do. But fuck it. Couldn’t take it back. Couldn’t turn around and apologize to B the way I wanted to with Army Boy standing there, hell I probably couldn’t have apologized even if it had been just me and B. I mean how do you take back words that cut like glass?

So instead I did what I always do. What everyone expects me to do. I acted as though I didn’t care. About B, about the dance we’d just shared, about the moment when I knew that she wanted me too. I didn’t care about any of it. At least that’s what I started to shout at myself inside, as I left those two on the dance floor, a dismissive look in my eyes when B looked at me. I walked away from her, willing myself not to go back and tell her how sorry I was, pleading with her to forgive me. I wasn’t capable of that last night.

All I was capable of was drinking. Dulling the pain inside. Making it all go away. And when I got sick of the looks B kept throwing me that were all mixed together so one minute she was looking at me with hate, and the next with regret, and the next with something my confused, drunk mind told me was love. When I got sick of seeing Army Boy go into overdrive proving to anyone watching, but especially proving to me that he had B, she belonged to him. When I got sick of the whole fucking lot of them, I left with a bottle of tequila I’d snatched from behind the bar and a crazy notion in my head that if any vamp jumped me on the way home, I might not put up a fight this time.

But none did. And here I am now. I think my hangover is easing up. Might grab a shower. Probably should eat. Don’t really want to do either. I know what it is I have to do. I know what can make this pain inside go away. I just don’t know if I can do it.

I need to see the Slayer.

And I need to tell her…

…everything.

Fuck five-by-five right now, I just want this over with.