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sb_fag_ends2013-03-23 08:49 pm
rahirah) wrote in sb_fag_ends2013-03-23 08:49 pm
Entry tags:
Slippery Slope
Title: Slippery Slope
Prompt: 29 - K'an; Dangerously Deep
Setting: Post-Gift AU (Barbverse)
Warnings: None. Well, spoilers for POM, if anyone cares - this is an excerpt from a scene from one of the later chapters.
Rating: PG13
When Faith found her again, Buffy had retreated to the Hyperion's roof. Perched on an air conditioning vent, she gazed out at the light-polluted L.A. skyline and studiously ignored the other Slayer. Faith said nothing, just stood there in a pose painfully Spike-like: head cocked, thumbs hooked into her belt. Studying her. Buffy wondered idly if Faith intended to push her off the roof, and just as idly, if she should let her. Dramatic irony. Or something. She swallowed. "How's Spike?"
Faith gave her a look - justified; it had been a challenge as much as a question - and squatted, hands loose between leather-clad knees. "Alive," she said. "For now. Pretty sure in his current condition he'd leave a corpse if I staked him, and we got enough of those already. Willow's keeping an eye on him." She pursed her lips. "Question is, how are you?"
Buffy's jaw set at a belligerent angle. "Look, it sucks beyond telling that Riley's guy died, but he was two seconds from ramming a stake through Spike's chest. It was self-defense."
"Uh huh. No other way Spike coulda stopped him than ramming his teeth through the guy's throat."
Shouldn't they at least be using the guy's name? She'd seen the nametag on his fatigues, spattered with blood, but it might as well have been written in Sumerian, because all she could remember was his face, drained and waxy above the raw gash in his neck. If Spike had been human, and Riley's guy had pulled a gun on him...
But he wasn't human. Alive, now, apparently, but not human. Not anywhere close to it. When demon blood ran in her own veins, and Faith's, how much did that matter? Shouldn't they all be judged on their actions? And was that just an excuse? She stared down at her fists, clenched hard on her knees. "Maybe there was. But you know damned well there's not always time to think of that in the middle of a fight. And until someone can prove otherwise, he's earned the benefit of the doubt."
Faith rose lithely to her feet and nodded. "Okay."
Buffy blinked, feeling stupid. "Okay what?"
"I'm gonna to talk to Spike. Get his side of the story. And then I'll decide." Faith's dark eyes were inscrutable. "That's still our deal, right?"
It was what she'd asked of Faith last year - that where Spike was concerned, she wouldn't, for once, be the one who had to decide. She'd been insane to think that could work. But she'd been insane to think any of this could work, that she and Spike could end up any other way than this. If she'd gotten there a minute earlier, it would only have postponed the inevitable. Faith hadn't waited for an answer - she was already heading for the stairwell. It would be easier, maybe, to just wait up here.
But Spike had earned a hell of a lot more from her than just the benefit of the doubt. Buffy scrambled to her feet. "Wait up," she said. "I'm coming too."
End
Prompt: 29 - K'an; Dangerously Deep
Setting: Post-Gift AU (Barbverse)
Warnings: None. Well, spoilers for POM, if anyone cares - this is an excerpt from a scene from one of the later chapters.
Rating: PG13
When Faith found her again, Buffy had retreated to the Hyperion's roof. Perched on an air conditioning vent, she gazed out at the light-polluted L.A. skyline and studiously ignored the other Slayer. Faith said nothing, just stood there in a pose painfully Spike-like: head cocked, thumbs hooked into her belt. Studying her. Buffy wondered idly if Faith intended to push her off the roof, and just as idly, if she should let her. Dramatic irony. Or something. She swallowed. "How's Spike?"
Faith gave her a look - justified; it had been a challenge as much as a question - and squatted, hands loose between leather-clad knees. "Alive," she said. "For now. Pretty sure in his current condition he'd leave a corpse if I staked him, and we got enough of those already. Willow's keeping an eye on him." She pursed her lips. "Question is, how are you?"
Buffy's jaw set at a belligerent angle. "Look, it sucks beyond telling that Riley's guy died, but he was two seconds from ramming a stake through Spike's chest. It was self-defense."
"Uh huh. No other way Spike coulda stopped him than ramming his teeth through the guy's throat."
Shouldn't they at least be using the guy's name? She'd seen the nametag on his fatigues, spattered with blood, but it might as well have been written in Sumerian, because all she could remember was his face, drained and waxy above the raw gash in his neck. If Spike had been human, and Riley's guy had pulled a gun on him...
But he wasn't human. Alive, now, apparently, but not human. Not anywhere close to it. When demon blood ran in her own veins, and Faith's, how much did that matter? Shouldn't they all be judged on their actions? And was that just an excuse? She stared down at her fists, clenched hard on her knees. "Maybe there was. But you know damned well there's not always time to think of that in the middle of a fight. And until someone can prove otherwise, he's earned the benefit of the doubt."
Faith rose lithely to her feet and nodded. "Okay."
Buffy blinked, feeling stupid. "Okay what?"
"I'm gonna to talk to Spike. Get his side of the story. And then I'll decide." Faith's dark eyes were inscrutable. "That's still our deal, right?"
It was what she'd asked of Faith last year - that where Spike was concerned, she wouldn't, for once, be the one who had to decide. She'd been insane to think that could work. But she'd been insane to think any of this could work, that she and Spike could end up any other way than this. If she'd gotten there a minute earlier, it would only have postponed the inevitable. Faith hadn't waited for an answer - she was already heading for the stairwell. It would be easier, maybe, to just wait up here.
But Spike had earned a hell of a lot more from her than just the benefit of the doubt. Buffy scrambled to her feet. "Wait up," she said. "I'm coming too."
End