for katemonkey in the Angel femmeslash ficathon

*

She sees the jacket first. Black leather and metal studs on a sturdy redhead with an unflattering hair cut. Faith is sitting in a dimly lit booth, looking at the mirror behind the bar. She sees the reflection of a cigarette, a glass of whiskey, a pale hand tilting it back and putting it down empty.

Faith is leafing through an old, thin book, handling the brittle pages with deliberate carelessness. She can hear Wesley's reedy protests despite the fact that Wesley didn't see her take it. She doesn't plan to let him see her return it either, which takes some of the fun out of dog-earing the pages, but not enough to make her stop.

She lifts tired eyes from the book to the mirror again, in time to see the redhead in the jacket smirk at a man who snarls at her then turns away. She shrugs at the bartender, who fills her glass again. Her face loses expression when he walks to the other end of the counter, and she stares into the glass before drinking again.

Faith is sick of reading about death and demon dimensions and hell-gods, and she has plenty of money for a change, thanks to the credit card Wesley also didn't see her take, so she gets up, holding her place in the book with her thumb, and moves to the bar.

Up beside the redhead, who doesn't look at her until she lean over and asks her for a cigarette.

She looks first at Faith's face, then at her breasts, then at her hands and the book she's holding on the counter. She pushes the pack toward her without taking her eyes off the book, and doesn't look up again until Faith has taken the cigarette and handed the rest back.

Faith smiles. "What's up?"

The girl smiles back with half her mouth. "The bottom. Of lots and lots of glasses."

And that's the nicest thing Faith has heard all night, because it's only nine o'clock and unless this girl has a Slayer's metabolism she's going to be the world's easiest lay by ten thirty, or sooner. Faith orders a beer, and another whiskey for her neighbor, who lifts an eyebrow at her.

"For the cigarette," she says. "My name's Faith."

"Hi Faith. I'm Justine." A cock of the eyebrows. "Good book there?"

"Reading about hell."

"Yeah?" Genuine amusement in the smile this time. "Professional interest?"

"Have a friend who spent some time there. Actually," she frowns, "a couple of friends. Which should feel a lot weirder than it does."

"I know what you mean."

"Oh yeah?"

Justine shrugs. "My boyfriend...or boss....he was kinda both—jumped a portal to a hell dimension about a year ago."

"What'd he do that for?"

"Vengeance crusade."

"Those are always a bitch."

"Yeah." She swirls the ice in her glass. "Used to do a line in vengeance myself."

"Really. And what do you do now?"

"Kill vampires."

"Good work if you can get it."

"I guess you'd know."

Faith freezes. "What do you mean?"

Justine shrugs. "You're in the game professionally, right? Slayer? True calling?"

Angel would be proud of her, Faith thinks distantly as she stares at Justine, and seconds pass by in which her hand is not wrapped around Justine's throat.

Justine sees the tension in Faith's arms, the way her foot is poised against the barstool as though she is about to leap away, and adds, her voice just beginning to slur, "I spent the summer locked in closet by a Watcher."

Faith's eyebrows arch toward her hairline. She does not relax. "No kidding."

"British guy. Wesley." She takes a drag from her cigarette. Looks carefully at Faith. "Has a picture of you in his desk."

This time Faith's hand shoots out before she has a chance to will herself calm, gripping Justine under the neck and throwing her from the stool into the nearest empty table. She leaps down lightly, ignoring the shrieks and protests over her shoulder, and hauls a panting Justine up by her shirtfront.

Stares into a guarded face and sees just enough fear to satisfy her. The bartender is yelling from behind her, and a hefty looking bouncer has come to attention against the opposite wall. She stares into the other woman's face for half a minute.

"Christ, what is your deal?" Justine pulls herself out of Faith's grip, stumbling back a step toward the crumpled table.

The bouncer is moving toward them now. Faith looks from him to the wide eyed people at a table three feet away, then grabs Justine's arm in one hand, picks up her book in the other, and hauls them both out the nearest door into the street outside.

She doesn't release Justine until she is sure they're alone. She pushes the other woman to the wall, ignoring her wince and her quiet swearing, and leans in over her, speaking low.

"This is my deal, Justine. Some bitch I've never seen before thinks she knows me well enough to make stupid jokes about shit she doesn't understand." "I didn't say I—"

Faith leans closer. "Just so we're clear? The mayor of fuckin' Los Angeles would be more likely to have a picture of me sitting on his desk than Wesley Wyndham-Price."

"It wasn't—"

"Now I want to know what *your* deal is before I start to figure he had the right idea and put you someplace dark and quiet."

"It wasn't on his desk."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"The picture!" Justine is beginning to look more frustrated than angry. As though making Faith understand is somehow important to her. "It wasn't *on* his desk, like in a frame. It was in a drawer, underneath a lot of other stuff. And it wasn't just you in the picture, you were standing with this blonde girl. It looked like you were in a library or something."

Faith ignores that. Makes herself ignore it. "And how the fuck would you know what was in his desk if you spent the summer locked in his closet?"

"He let me out a couple of times to take a bath. I found it while I was looking for something to hit him with."

"So he catches you snooping around his desk and you ask him about the picture and he says 'oh yeah, that girl with the dark hair is a Slayer.' And then tells you all about me. Is that what you're saying? Cause, I don't buy that."

"I'm not selling it. The closet door was thin. I heard him talking to people sometimes. Heard him fucking people. Didn't have anything to do except think, so I figured a lot of stuff out." She shrugs as best she can with Faith bearing down on her. "You came to me, remember? And you started talking about hell, and vampires—"

"You brought up the vampires."

"You didn't think it was weird, though, did you? And I remembered the picture and I figured it out. You know," a short laugh, "this whole thing is sorta funny. I used to think I wanted to meet you."

"Really."

"Figured we had stuff in common."

"Oh really. What?"

"He's pretty when he bleeds, isn't he?"

Faith stares at her a second. Takes a step back. "Who?"

"Wesley Wyndham-Pryce. What kind of man has three Y's in his name? I ask you."

"When did you see him bleed?"

"Round about the time I slit his throat."

Without noticing, Faith has continued to back away from Justine, but now she stops. An involuntary shudder runs through her body. Justine doesn't miss it. Watches Faith with irritating insinuation, and possibly just a little admiration.

Images she can no longer afford to enjoy rise up in Faith's head—Wesley bound, gagged, wilting beneath her hands like a submissive lover. His eyes, angry and defiant behind the fog of pain. They had been that way ever since—or maybe they were just like that when they looked at her. She had noticed them through the Plexiglass divide when he came to her in prison.

She looks at Justine, and remembers the first of many questions that had come to mind when she saw Wesley again for the first time in two years. "His throat. That was you?"

A smirk again, and obvious pride. "That was me. Didn't have exactly the effect I planned on, but when do things ever go how they're supposed to? Still, it's a nice little cap for his collection. The one you started, if I heard right?"

Faith's head jerks to the side. She has suddenly lost the ability to meet the other woman's eyes. "That was a long time ago."

"Didn't look all that old, as scars go. 'Course my perspective was limited, what with being in a closet and all. He only let me look once."

"He *let* you look."

"All fake casual, you know, opening my door before he pulled on his shirt. Like he wanted me to see him. See them."

Faith doesn't ask why Wesley would want Justine to see his scars. It's a gesture she's pretty sure she recognizes. Seeing it in Wes....disturbs her more than it should.

And suddenly she's tired of this conversation and this girl and her pathetic, smart-ass innuendo. She wants to see Wesley, look at him hard and decide whether his scars could be worse than her.

Somewhere in this town there has got to be a cheap piece of ass that *doesn't* have an opinion on her most recent felony.

Justine is leaning with her back against the wall and her hands stuffed into the pockets of her jacket.

Faith turns to go.

Five steps away Justine calls after her. "Wait a second. Faith. Please."

It is a different tone from any she has used since they started talking, so Faith stops without turning around. "Yeah."

"I was just running my mouth. I didn't mean to piss you off. I wanted—"

Faith turns a little. Looks over her shoulder. Justine is fidgeting.

"Look, you're the Slayer. I haven't had anyone since Holtz—my boss—left. There's still stuff I need to learn." She takes a step forward, mute pleading in the spread of her hands. "You could teach me."

Faith laughs—actually laughs out loud—because it would be funny anytime, but with Wes fresh on her mind it's fucking hilarious. Her, teaching. The Council would collectively shit themselves.

She turns back toward Justine, still smiling. "Sorry. I'm good at two things—fucking and fighting, and right now I have enough ass to kick without taking on projects. 'Sides, what am I gonna tell you? Pointy end of the stake goes in the vampire. End of story."

Justine's face relaxes in disappointment. Faith waits for her to make the obvious crack, but seconds pass and it doesn't come.

Another bar it is, then.

They stare at each other until Justine shuffles backward a step, then turns swiftly on one heel and goes back inside the bar. Faith watches the door swing shut behind her.

Wesley is the kind of person now who would have understood her three years ago. Justine changed him, along with other stuff he won't talk about. Faith has changed too, but not as much. She thinks about people and situations the same way she always has. The only difference between then and now is the drawing back at the last second, the belated voice in her brain that sounds so much like Angel.

She is drawing back now, listening to the voice that tells her not to drag Justine home to Wes and drop her on the front step as though she were a cat and Justine a mutilated bird.

She turns and walks toward distant street lights and more deserving victims. She fingers the stake in her belt loop, and thinks about hell.

Thinks about staying where she is.

*

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