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It’s only been a few nights, but being back in Sunnydale has been a completely surreal experience. Hell, being out of prison for the first time in years was a trip all on its own, but in LA, Faith hadn’t had time to think about it. There’d been no slowing down, just the desperate race to save Angel and the time spent getting her ass beat or being unconscious in between. Sunnydale is different — there’s an urgency, but the days are still punctuated with something close to normalcy. In the end, that’s what’s been the most disorienting thing — not exactly the weirdness of being back, but the dozens of small ways it’s also been kind of… comforting.
On the drive back with Willow that first night, Faith had tried to anticipate and prepare for all the ways being here could hurt, all the ways it would test her, the things that would be the hardest to face, that would bring out the worst in her. When she had asked after who would be waiting for them at the house Willow told her about Joyce, and Faith had tried to stuff the tidal wave of grief she really had no right to feel down into the bottom of her gut — a slapdash fix, but one that should hold until they ended this current apocalypse (or it ended them). Faith braced herself for the strangeness of seeing Dawn so grown (she hadn’t expected her to get that tall, though), for that familiar mix of anger and pain when they drove past City Hall and she thought of the Mayor, for the sharp, knuckle-to-the-ribs pain of walking over the footsteps of her own worst mistakes, and especially for the heavy churning of guilt and frustration that Buffy always seemed to set her gut to. The worst parts, Faith had expected.
So, what really took her by surprise, the stuff that’s almost been harder than the regrets and the awkwardness, has been all the ways it felt good.
There was an odd comfort in pacing Sunnydale’s familiar streets, no guards leering over her shoulder, knowing she could pick any direction and just walk, as long as she wanted to, with nothing to stop her. Well, except for deadly demon attacks, but what else was new?
More than being back in a place she knew so well, there was the subtle, unasked for pleasure of being around other people. Especially the way those new girls looked at her — like she was a badass, like she had something to teach them, like they looked up to her. It made her kind of queasy, but in a good way, that naked, earnest admiration. Even Buffy’s house, despite being home to some of Faith’s most painful memories and deepest regrets, felt strangely like home — a place where she knew all the rooms, a table she’d sat and eaten at (well, probably not the exact one, the way the Summerses went through furniture, but still), floors she’d tread, doors she’d walked in and out of dozens of times.
And, perhaps most of all, there was Buffy herself. She’s not over it, of course— Faith didn’t expect her to be— but things between them aren’t half as miserable as Faith was worried they would be. She had spent years imagining coming back and had ultimately expected some combination of outright rejection, a humiliating argument to be let back into the fold, maybe having to get her ass kicked again for penance, but none of that had happened. If the price Faith had to pay to get let back into Buffy’s life was a fist to the jaw and her life on the line, she’d have paid it years ago.
(Or maybe she wouldn’t have been able to. Maybe the current apocalypse has incited a fire sale on Buffy’s forgiveness, and if she hadn’t been quite this desperate she would have spat in Faith’s face, demanded a higher price. Some nights, Faith is tempted to dwell on this idea. She feels a familiar, bitter despairing rage try to take root in her chest, at the fantasy of it, how real it feels, how palpable. Then she gets up to smoke or hit something and forces the thoughts out of her mind.)
Of course, that doesn’t make things simple. Buffy’s edgier these days and Faith seems to have a talent for setting her off, even when she’s trying to be on her best behavior. But getting snapped at or frozen out by Buffy’s idiotically shapely and sun-kissed cold shoulders didn’t change the fact that despite having the power to do so in a heartbeat, Buffy hadn’t turned her away in the end. Buffy had let Faith come back
Buffy needs her.
So, here they are: patrolling together. Skulking silently through graveyards and increasingly deserted streets, stakes in hand, knives strapped to their thighs and boots. Sometimes it feels so much like it had a few years ago Faith has to check herself — she usually forgoes the pinching and instead slips a few fingers up the hem of her shirt, lets them ghost across the thick, raised keloid scar on her stomach and yeah, that’s all it ever takes. Faith’s familiar with doubting herself, with arguing with her memories, her past, but if there’s one thing she’s learned you can never really argue with it’s a scar.
Tonight, they’re in the woods on the edge of town. There’s been rumors of strange noises, smoke rising every few nights in black wisps that stand out over the trees on windless nights. Occult rituals, supposedly. Dawn thinks it might have something to do with some ritual she read about in one of those dusty old books, something Caleb could be summoning to help hunt down the potentials. When Buffy had said she would go check it out tonight, there hadn’t even been a question of whether Faith would be going with her.
In the end, it doesn’t take too long, maybe twenty minutes of quick but cautious trekking through the brush, before Faith spots the first flickers. She reaches out, grabs Buffy’s wrist to catch her attention and gestures. Buffy catches her eye in the dark, holds her gaze, and deliberately inclines her head, taking a step forward and gesturing at Faith to hang back.
Buffy creeps forward, lowering her center of gravity just slightly, shoulders tense, that stalking cat kind of look she gets about her on a hunt like this. Faith lets her get a few paces ahead before following behind, equally slow, equally careful, feeling her heartbeat start to pick up, the familiar feel of anticipation tingling in her fingers.
There’s a fire in a clearing past this patch of dense brush. A fire surrounded by demons, that much is clear, a menagerie of humanoid figures and one that appears to be a giant spider, casting eerie shadows across the trees. They’re talking, but it’’s hard to make out what they’re saying over the sound of…
Tom Petty?
Abruptly, Buffy stands all the way up and throws a hand out, signaling Faith to stop.
Every instinct in her body screams at her to ignore it, to rush to Buffy’s side as she steps out of the darkness and into the bright circle of light the fire is casting.
“Clem?” Buffy’s voice surprised, but not alarmed.
“Oh hey, Buffy!” comes a bright friendly voice out of a demon that looks like a bunch of deli meats stacked on top of each other in the shape of a man. He’s wearing a bright Hawaiian shirt and clutching a red and silver can of Tecate in one wrinkly fist. “What are you doing out here?”
The demon, Clem, apparently, rushes to embrace Buffy, who hugs him back just as warmly. “Could ask you the same thing! We’re here following up on a lead about some kind of demonic summoning in the woods.”
“Guil-tee,” Clem sing-songs. “But the only thing me and the boys are summoning out here is a good time. Isn’t that right, fellas?”
An uneasy cheer from the milling crowd of demons at his back. Maybe not all of them are such big fans of the slayer.
“Who’s ‘we’ by the way?” Clem asks.
“Oh.” Buffy clears her throat, shifts on her heel to look at Faith, immediately finding her in the dark. “Faith, come on out. It’s fine.”
Hesitantly, Faith emerges from the shadows noting how the demons behind Clem and Buffy flinch at the sight of her. Oh, duh, Faith realizes she’s still clutching the wicked looking bowie knife she’d drawn in anticipation of a fight and tucks it sheepishly back into its sheath at her hip.
“Hey,” she says, nodding to Clem who nods back eagerly. She cuts her eyes to Buffy, looking perfectly at ease in the flickering firelight. “Friends of yours?”
“Yeah!” Clem answers for her, waving his arms in an expression that makes his loose flesh jiggle and a spray of beer fly out from the tall boy he’s clutching. “Oh, yeah, me and Buffy go way back. Met her through Spike actually, we all used to play poker down at Willy’s. Aw, man, say, Buff, did you hear about Willy’s?”
“No, what?” Buffy asks that eager, searching tone in her voice that she can’t seem to control when there’s good gossip to be had.
“Shut down,” Clem widens his eyes, taking a sip of beer and nodding at Buffy’s resulting look of dismay.
“No! Turok-Han?” Buffy guesses.
“Health inspector,” Clem says, shaking his head sadly. “Actually, Mol was there — Mol, tell ‘em about it. And you two, sit, sit. You want a beer?”
“Alright, so, apparently, someone called in a tip about the cats all over the place, I think it was Kar’voknath, because Willy finally made good on his threat to throw the guy out for stashing his egg sacs in the tank of the men’s toilet, but you know—” Mol, a demon whose arms and scalp are ridged with faintly luminous blue quills, begins to recount the story of Willy’s tragic closure by a county health official.
Faith finds herself urged to sit next to Clem, then has a beer thrust at her. She had hesitated over the can, afraid Buffy would call her out, be disappointed that Faith was cutting loose on the job, but Buffy herself seemed to have no compunctions about cracking open a cold one, though she declined the Tecate in favor of a Miller Light. Clem rolled his eyes playfully and leaned over to bat Faith’s shoulder with the back of his hand, saying lowly and affectionately, “Snooty, huh?”
“Always known her to be a bit of a priss,” Faith agrees, taking a long sip of the beer. It’s cold and fizzles pleasantly and Faith realizes with a pang that, since she spent her 21st birthday inside, this is her first legal drink of alcohol.
“Everything alright?” Clem asks. He frowns, looking disappointed. “Do you not like Mexican beer either?”
“No, no, it’s good,” Faith says, taking another drink. It is good — her throat was tight with that familiar creeping melancholy she can’t seem to shake, even though she’s out now, and the cold drink soothes that. But more, she can feel herself starting to relax, for the first time all night and she almost wants to laugh at the fact that she feels more at home in the company of these demons in the woods than she does with any of the people back at Buffy’s house. Instead of saying any of that she just clears her throat, tips her can out to tap against Clem’s, a toast. “Thanks.”
“Anytime, anytime,” Clem says, flapping a hand back and forth like he’s waving away her words. “You know, any friend of Buffy’s is a friend of mine.”
“Pfft, not sure she’d go that far,” Faith mutters before she can catch herself.
Instantly, Clem looks intrigued, leaning in. “Well, she doesn’t typically make a habit of dragging her enemies around on social calls. Well, except for Spike, but you know…”
Faith can’t help but wince. He seemed decent enough when they talked in the basement, but Faith hasn’t quite figured him out yet, or gotten her head around his deal with Buffy. Truth be told, she’s tried to avoid spending too much time thinking about it. Obsessing over Buffy’s lovelife never did any of them any favors. She’s trying not to indulge old habits.
“So… What then? You don’t look related.” Clem’s still studying her. Suddenly his eyes get wider, a sly grin spreading across his face. “Wait, wait, don’t tell me…”
“What?” Faith asks, a little amused despite herself. She can’t help but wonder a bit herself, how they come across to people who’ve never seen them together.
“Exes?” Clem asks, voice low and suggestive, red eyes sparkling in the firelight under his waggling brows.
Faith nearly chokes on her beer, laughing. “C’mon, get real.”
“I’m not joking and that’s not a denial,” Clem says. “Technically.”
Faith shakes her head, “Nah.”
“I don’t buy it,” Clem insists. He pauses, giving her a long, pointed glance over. “You meant to tell me you’re not…?”
“What I am ain’t relevant here,” Faith snaps, darting a nervous glance over her shoulder at Buffy, who appears to be so engrossed with Mol that she doesn’t even notice she’s being looked at. Thank Christ.
“Hey, hey, don’t get your panties in a twist,” Clem says, holding his hands up. “No judgment. You know, I got a brother who’s a little light in the loafers, if you get my meaning. And I was always friendly with Willow and Tara. You know, us demons are really very accepting, on the whole, don’t believe all the stereotypes.”
“No, that’s not, I mean—” It’s a little surreal, getting clocked by a demon partying in the woods, but hey— that’s Sunnydale. Faith catches herself, takes a breath and slumps back into the sunbleached lawn chair the demons invited her to sit in. After another sip of beer to buy herself time she says, “It was never like that with us. I mean, hell, I would have been down for it,” her stomach swoops when she says it, fear and years of tension almost making her sick, but it feels kind of good to say it out loud, finally. “But if I know anything about B, it’s that she doesn’t swing that way. Hell, I’d probably have more luck with Red at this point and she hated my guts almost as much.”
Clem rolls his eyes, jostling her with his shoulder. “Come on, that’s ridiculous.”
Faith frowns, a little put out. “Okay, yeah, so one of the teeny slayers has basically already called dibs, but y’know, we’re kind of even now on the going evil front. And I just got out of the slammer. Learned a thing or two about how to get a girl’s motor running, so—”
“Not that,” Clem cuts her off. “Though I’m not sure Willow is the type to— I mean, no offense to you, of course, but she’s always struck me as the type of girl that likes a little… romancing, y’know? Some courtship.”
“What? You don’t think I could court?” Faith’s trying to play it for a joke, but at least a little of her offense at the implication is real. Mostly because she’s got more than a few of her own doubts.
Clem fixes her with an incredulous look, jowls jiggling judgmentally. “Do you want to court? Her?”
Faith pauses, takes another long drink. She thinks about Willow, the time they’ve spent together since she’s been back and… nothing. No spark. No craving for more. “That’s besides the point.”
“I don’t think it is,” Clem says, sighing dreamily and gazing over at Mol and Buffy. “Dark times, kid. We try to make light where we can. That’s what this is, the party and all — we’re scared! Trying to find the little things that make life worth living. Drinks, good friends, Free Fallin’ on the radio,” he bumps her shoulder again, gesturing towards the girls with his beer. “Beautiful women.”
“Not happening,” Faith mutters and empties the rest of her drink. Immediately, Clem gestures to a demon a few seats away who tosses them another cold can from the cooler. Clem catches it for her and pops the tab with a satisfying cracking sound, beer fizzing over the lip of the can as he passes it, so Faith has to duck down and sip of the top before it spills all over.
“Speak for yourself,” Clem says, puffing up his chest and whacking her on the back good naturedly. “Earlier tonight Mol told me my neck flaps looked tidy and supple. Supple! I think I have a shot.”
“Wow,” Faith rolls here yes. “When’s the wedding?”
“Oh, don’t be such a sourpuss,” Clem says. “You’re missing the point. It’s hope, Faith. You’ve got to let yourself have a little hope, especially in times like these.”
“Yeah, well, there’s hope and there’s delusion. Like I said — Buffy doesn’t swing that way.”
“No, see, that’s what I was trying to say,” Clem says, snapping his fingers so vigorously his arm flaps shake. “Why are you so sure she’s, y’know, not batting for both teams?”
Faith’s heart stutters in her chest. “Do you know something?”
“Not, per se, but,” Clem grins, smugly, “look my gaydar is pretty solid— got you, didn’t I?-- and she’s always… pinged.”
“She pings?”
“She pings!” Clem says it so loudly that Faith feels Buffy pause her conversation to look over at them.
Flushing, Faith shoots to her feet, surprised at the way she can’t help but sway a little, and yanks Clem up after her, taking his weight with another slight lurch when he stumbles into her.
“You guys alright?” Buffy asks.
“Yeah, yeah, just taking a little walk,” Faith says, shushing Clem who’s started to giggle into her shoulder. “Be right back.”
She fast-walks them away, one arm looped around Clem’s waist. “You’re being wicked loud, she’s gonna hear you.”
“And what?” Clem asks. “You think she’s gonna be mad?”
“Yeah.”
“Why? Buffy’s not a homophobe.”
‘“No, whatever, just— it’s me,” Faith says. “She wouldn’t like that it’s me.”
“Ah, yeah. Your history,” Clem says.
“What do you know about it?” Faith huffs, thinking, Buffy talks about me?
Clem shrugs, patting down his khakis for a pack of cigarettes. He pulls one out and lights it, before offering another to Faith who accepts. “Not the whole thing, I’m sure, but you’ve come up before. Actually, when you showed up today and she introduced you, I was like oh, that makes sense.”
Faith takes a drag from the cigarette, wishing she’d grabbed a third beer from the cooler before dragging Clem away from the fire. Despite everything, she can’t help but ask, “What do you mean?”
“Well, she would talk about Faith sometimes the way she’d talk about, I don’t know, Angel,” Clem says, gesturing wildly with his cigarette, smoke swirling in the air between them. “Like,” he clasps his hands together and brings them up to lean his cheek against them, sighing girlishly and looking downcast. “Like that.”
“You’re lying.”
“Okay, not like that exactly, but,” Clem agrees, rolling his eyes. “But, y’know, the spirit of it. Unconsummated longing.”
“It was consummated with Angel, which was the root of the damn problem, from what I hear,” Faith scowls, ashing her cigarette with perhaps a little too much force.
“And you two never…?” Clem waggles his eyebrows, a motion so aggressive it makes his forehead wrinkles ripple. At Faith’s unimpressed look, he holds up a finger and adds quickly, “Still counts if she freaked out.”
“No, no. Never happened.”
“Huh.”
“You sound disappointed,” Faith notes, pushing a stream of stinging smoke out of her nostrils.
“Well, sure,” says Clem. “Aren’t you?”
Silence descends, only about half as uncomfortable as it probably should be. Clem finishes his cigarette and politely allows Faith to smoke a second one before she’s ready to go back to the group, buzzing with nicotine and alcohol. She settles back down by the fire, perched on an overturned log. Clem introduces her to a few of his other demon friends and before long Buffy and Mol join them, Buffy sitting close enough to Faith for their knees to brush occasionally. Clem notices, shooting Faith a sly look. She stiffens, glaring at him until he rolls his eyes and shrugs, letting his attention slip back to Mol.
Faith keeps expecting Buffy to pull Faith to her feet and usher her back to the house, but Buffy seems content to linger in the firelight, nursing her own beer and seeming to lean further into Faith’s space by degrees, until their shoulders are slanted together. Buffy looks the most relaxed Faith has seen her since getting back to Sunnydale, sleepy-eyed and placid and when Faith closes her eyes and lets herself soak in the sensations — Buffy’s quiet breath beside her, the murmur of conversation, the crackle and warmth of the fire, the smell of woodsmoke and pine — she can almost pretend that the world isn’t ending, that she and Buffy are different people entirely, ones without so much history weighing them down.
Eventually, though, the party starts to wrap up.
“Gotta get back into my burrow before the sun comes up, or, y’know, bzzzt,” says Drirgriruuth the Unholy, waving his forelegs in the air illustratively. “Really nice meeting you, though,” he adds cheerfully. “Look me up if you’re ever in the tunnels under the industrial district.”
Faith and Buffy help Clem load up his car and clean up the trash they’ve left strewn around.
“Just because darkness is threatening to consume the earth and unleash ceaseless horrors on us all doesn’t mean we can just turn into litterbugs,” Clem says. “Do you two need a ride back to town?”
Faith waits for Buffy to answer. After a beat she shakes her head and smiles, “That’s okay, Clem. Thanks for offering, but we’re going to walk.”
“Suit yourselves!” Clem says cheerfully. He shoots Faith a meaningful look before he ducks into his car. “Get home safe, ladies! Faith, don’t forget what I said!”
Buffy turns to her, after Clem drives off. “What was that about?”
Infuriatingly, Faith feels herself blush. “Y’know, it wasn’t important. Something about—” Fuck, shit, fuck— “skincare.”
Buffy narrows her eyes, and Faith fights the urge to cringe at the lameness of her answer, but for once she gets lucky and Buffy spares her an interrogation. After that, they start walking. “Sorry. I should have let you get a ride back, if you wanted. I was hoping the walk home would sober me up a little. I don’t need a lecture from everyone.”
“S’fine,” Faith says. “Wouldn’t have wanted you out here on your own.”
“I can look after myself.”
“Didn’t say you couldn’t,” Faith grimaces. God, how does she manage to mess this up every time? “I just—”
“It’s okay. I’m messing with you, F,” Buffy says, bumping their shoulders together and smiling goofily at Faith in a way she never thought she’d be on the receiving end of again F, it never really had quite the same ring as B, and Faith feels like she can count on one hand the number of times Buffy actually hit her with it, but it never failed to make her heart skip. Knowing Buffy was playing along. That she wanted some of that closeness between them Faith was always striving to get. “I meant it, y’know. I really am glad you’re back.”
The words are like a blow to the stomach, in a good way. The first time it was hard to buy, like Buffy was just saying what she needed to say in that moment. Now, alone and not fighting, it feels real. A few moments pass before Faith manages to swallow down the lump in her throat so she can make her voice light enough to say, “Sure. Bet you missed me.”
“I didn’t miss the fighting and competition and hurting each other,” Buffy says, matter of factly. Faith flinches, and Buffy, noticing, leans close enough for their arms to touch again. “I missed this though.”
“Walking around at night? Hanging out?”
“Is that so hard to believe?” Buffy asks. “It meant a lot to me, you know? You didn’t… There was another girl, before you. It always bothered me that I never got to really know her that well. Not-not as well as I wanted to, anyway. And then when you showed up, when you stuck around I thought…”
That they could be friends, that they could look out for each other, protect each other. Buffy doesn’t finish the sentence, but she doesn’t have to. They’re both thinking about it.
“Fucked that up, didn’t I?” Faith says, because she can’t turn around and say Buffy, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry until everything is suddenly fixed.
Faith’s not sure if it would be worse if Buffy tried to brush it off and make her feel better, or if she decided to join in and read off a list of Faith’s crimes and betrayals like Faith’s been waiting for her to do for days now. Luckily, Buffy doesn’t do either of those things, just shrugs and keeps talking. “Did you miss me?”
Every day, Faith almost says, and the most fucked up thing about it is that it’s the absolute truth. Even when she’d been at her lowest, darkest points, lost in that whirlwind of grief and rage that almost took her apart, even when she’d set out to do her cruelest work against Buffy, Faith had missed her, wanted her, yearned for her. All she’d wanted, through everything, was to be important to Buffy, to leave a mark. She’d done it. In the worst ways possible, but still.
“Yeah,” she says gruffly instead and leaves it at that.
“Faith,” Buffy says, slowing down.
Faith grunts and keeps walking.
“Faith,” Buffy says again, and grabs ahold of Faith’s sleeve, stopping her in place.
“What?”
“Can you let me just…”
Faith feels it when Buffy releases her sleeve, but she doesn’t make a move to turn towards her, unsure of what stupid thing she might say or do under the weight of Buffy’s gaze. What her face might reveal that she’s trying so hard to keep under wraps.
She didn’t come back to get anything from Buffy, not forgiveness, not a place back in her good graces, not whatever it is Buffy might be offering by admitting that she missed Faith.
Faith had come to help. To do good, without needing a reward or Buffy’s approval or anything — to be good because she had the power to be, and not for any other reason.
So Faith waits, stock still, and tries not to shake when she feels Buffy’s body pressing into her from behind, when Buffy’s arms wind their way around her abdomen.
“You drunk or something?” Faith finally croaks, when a few beats have passed and Buffy has failed to release her.
Buffy hums, a sound Faith feels in her chest. “A little.”
Faith barks out a laugh that sounds disturbingly close to a sob and then clears her throat. She hates how stiff she feels, how her heart won’t stop racing, how she can’t even enjoy the sensation of Buffy’s arms around her, finally. “What’s this about?”
And then she hates herself worse because as soon as she asks Buffy releases her, stepping away with a sniff and Faith turns around.
“Sorry, just… when you got hurt and you were in the hospital, in a coma. When you still helped me against the mayor. I went to see you and when I looked at you lying there that was all I wanted to do.” Buffy rubs the heel of her palm over the corner of her eyes, and keeps going, voice wet. “But I couldn’t because you were— and so— Sorry. Yeah, I’m a little drunk.” A laugh, brittle, self-conscious. She shakes her head and blinks up at the treetops. “And I don’t drink all that often, bad experience in college one time, got a little ooky, and I guess I didn’t realize it makes me kinda, uh, grabby, so—”
And all Faith can do for a moment is look at her. Buffy, anxious but sincere, with the pale dawn light just starting to filter in through the canopy of trees dappling her skin. Her hair is messy, her makeup smudged and she’s so beautiful and Faith had missed her and she knows now that, impossibly, Buffy had missed her too. Finally, Buffy heaves a sigh and drops her gaze back to meet Faith’s and there’s this look in her eyes that Faith swears she—
Ping! Annoyingly, it’s Clem’s voice in her head that does it. But, what the hell, they could all be dead tomorrow anyway.
Faith’s not sure if it’s hope or just plain reckless stupidity that inspires her to duck in close, pausing just a moment before her lips meet Buffy’s to see if she’ll pull away. When Buffy doesn’t, Faith leans in the rest of the way, brushing their lips together. She doesn’t go all in — she’s got some sense — but it’s still enough to send tingles shooting across Faith’s scalp, to make her lung seize up in her chest. She keeps the kiss chaste, but lingering, so there’s no room for doubt when she pulls away. She doesn’t want to leave Buffy with something benign and inconsequential, a peck between friends. A real kiss. One real kiss and she’ll be able to face whatever comes tomorrow and the next day and the next day. Faith is sure.
As she starts to pull away, Faith nearly startles at the feeling of Buffy’s hand coming up to brush the edge of Faith’s jaw, her fingertips dancing featherlight but real against Faith’s skin as Buffy leans in, just for a moment, and kisses Faith back.
And then it’s over.
“Faith,” Buffy’s voice is warm and low, gaze tender but slightly wary. She lets her fingers slide gently down Faith’s cheek. “I’m not sure—”
“I’m not asking for anything,” Faith cuts her off, embarrassed at the shake in her voice she can’t quite hide. “I just wanted— to do that. Just one time. I missed you.”
Buffy’s fingers play across her own lips. Faith’s not even sure she realizes she’s doing it. “That’s why you kissed me?”
“Yeah.”
“We didn’t used to do that, before,” a slight, strangled pause, “everything.”
“Yeah, well, I still missed it,” Faith says, feeling the back of her neck start to heat up. “C’mon. We should get back.”
“Okay,” Buffy says and falls into step beside her. She hesitates for a moment, before slipping her arm through Faith’s, leaning into her again.
By the time they make it back to Revello Drive, the sun is almost up, a seam of pink glowing against the horizon. Buffy stays close, their arms still touching until they’re all the way up the porch, before she finally breaks away to open the front door.
Faith takes a deep breath and steps through after her.