The Brink Of Your Mind

Creed
A/N: (creed n. 1. a confession of faith) been a while, i realise this, but i'm here now, so please don't shoot me. and! do not forget to R&R.
A/N2: one more thing; i finally figured out where this is going. so... bare with me while i work out the finer details. heh. [is evil] [shuts up and gets on with fic]

~ ~ ~

Faith dropped her head back to lean against the tree she was sat against, and once again checked the position of the moon as it streaked across the sky. Only a few more hours before sunlight. A small frown creased up the centre of her eyebrows as she contemplated the stars. Buffy should have been here by now.

It wasn’t like her asteral self to skimp on the night time trips. When buffy first started appearing to her, faith was a little more than pissed. In fact, she was fucked right off because the little blonde seemed incapable of leaving her alone, and granting her some form of peace.

But gradually since the trips started, faith had become used to buffy’s night time visits. Looked forward to them actually. The ghost buffy wasn’t like the everyday buffy. She was calmer, more relaxed. And dispite all the cryptic bullshit, she was much more easier to understand.

She brought her eyes back level with the garage’s parking lot and watched the phone company engineers as they worked on the payphone. She guessed they did it now so it’d be ready for the next days business. Everything was so much more quiet at night. No vampires to fight, no monsters to kill. Nothing, just an endless kind of quiet the likes of which faith had never known.

She looked back up at the sky again and sighed. Where the fuck was buffy?

~ ~ ~

she felt as if her knee was making a perminant indentation in her cheek. After the dream, she hadn't particularly wanted to go back to sleep, for fear of what she’d find once she got there. She was hoping it would be faith in the middle of her woods, as it has been countless times since she’d gone walk-about. But a part of her was terrified that the nightmare future would be once again waiting for her in the darkness.

She’d dragged herself from the comfort of her bed and sat on her windowsill, the window cracked open wide and letting in the cool breeze, that was still blowing in after the rain, brushing teasingly across her body. She was watching the tree just outside her window, fasinated by the leaves as they swayed back and forth in the wind. It was lulling and peaceful, and instilled a calm in her that she’d only recently been able to find with faith.

She sighed, lifting her head and wincing as a jolt of pain shot up her neck and ran through her shiff shoulder muscles. Damn. She shouldn’t stay motionless for so long. She snapped her body up fast, groaning in satisfacion as her neck and shoulders cracked, releasing the tention she’s unwittingly invited.

Sliding off the wooden ledge she squeeked softly as her ass protested in pain, causing her to limp to the bathroom. When she got there, filling a glass full of cold water, her eyes caught her reflection in the mirror. She looked like shit. Not enough sleep.

What the fuck was she doing? Wasn’t the whole reason of those dark nightmares to help her with understanding faith? Wasn’t the whole point being that when she didn’t have them anymore, she was safe from them? Safe from becoming a cold blooded killer? She shuddered at the thought and moved silently back to her bedroom, where she stood at the foot of her bed and starred at it, thoughts twirling in her mind.

If she didn’t go to sleep, she couldn’t know when that future had been extinguised. If she didn’t sleep, she couldn’t talk to faith.

Where the fuck are you b?

Buffy blinked, looking around the room and shaking her head. Did she just hear, what she thought she just heard? Cocking her head to the side, she listened again, wondering if in her sleep deprived state she’d simply *wished* that faith was calling to her.

She shrugged, turning to go back to her window when it came again, loud as anything and crystal clear;

Are you *ever* gonna get here b?

That was definatly faith, and she was definatly sounding bored and restless. And hidden behind that, was a slight infliction of vunrability. Of someone who’s waiting, but doesn’t want anyone to know. Doesn’t want anyone to find out that she needs something other than herself.

“jesus, the things I do for that woman.” Buffy mumbled to herself, rolling her eyes before she walked over and fell, almost gratefully, into the softness of her matress and wrapped herself up in her quilt.

~ ~ ~

“impacient much?” faith’s mouth cracked into a small grin as she heard buffy approching from behind her in the woods. “I *was* trying to sleep.”

“and you’re doing what now exactly?” the blonde threw herself down next to faith, nudging her with her shoulder before settling back against the tree.

“being perpeually annoyed by you?” faith chuckled, pushing her hands into her jacket pockets before flicking her hair out of her face.

“I live to serve.”

“tell me that again when you’re back. I have a few things you could be doing.” Faith nearly choked on her own spit.

“buffy summers! Are you *flirting* with me?” buffy smirked at her, falling silent as she watched the engineers work.

“so what’re they doing?”

“fixing the phone. If you hadn’t shown up when you did, I was contemplating stealing one of their cell phones and waking you the hell up.”

“aww, you’d become a felon, for me?”

“don’t flatter yourself twinkie. It’s that whole annoying you thing kicking in.” a slight silence hung in the air between the again, comfortable, like the cool breeze that was tickling faiths bare stomach. broken only by the night time activities from the forrest behind them.

“I heard you, you know.”

“heard me what?” the tall brunette wiggled her eyebrows in a sugestive way, causing buffy to smirk at her, before shuffling closer to faith’s side and dropping her head back against the tree.

“you frighten me sometimes. I heard you being bored and annoyed.” Faith blinked dramatically and shot her a questioning gaze. “where the fuck are you b?” the blonde did a decent impression of faith’s husky voice, only her bostonian accent sucked, causing faith to out and out laugh at her attempt.

“well I was hoping that if I was waiting for you, you wouldn’t show up and ruin my night.”

“so you were gonna ring me why?”

“strange thing that; hoping you wouldn’t show up, only to get annoyed at the thought that you wouldn’t.” faith shrugged, leaning forward and resting her arms over her knees, picking at a blade of grass she’s plucked from the ground. “this is a real head trip, you know?”

buffy suspected that while faith was enjoying the new sensation of someone actually giving half a shit about her, she wasn’t exactly used to everything that came with it. For starters, the worry that appeared when they don’t show up, the constantly thinking about how to make them laugh. What would they do if you said this, how would they react if you did that. She guessed, correctly, that faith didn’t have the first clue how to deal with stuff like this.

It came easy to her, because she’d had friends her whole life. Even when she was a freak. She didn’t have to think about those small, little details anymore, because it was subconcious. She figured it’d take some getting used to.

“yeah, it’s weird at first.”

“what?”

“having a friend.” Faith snorted and shrugged. “worrying when they don’t turn up. Wondering why they did. It takes some getting used to.”

Faith didn’t say anything, just continued to pick blades of grass from before her and twist them into little knots, looking off at the engineers with faigned interest.

“I’m not going anywhere you know.” Faith chuckled softly under her breath. “well, ok, soon as mom wakes me up I’m going back to my body but.. I’m not gonna leave you.” Still faith didn’t say anything. “I don’t know a lot about you, hell, I don’t even know your last name, but that doesn’t mean I don’t wanna hang with you.”

“it hurts.” Faiths whispered confession came after another long silence, only this one wasn’t so comfortable. The air impregnanted with the need for words. Only buffy knew she couldn’t speak first. “sometimes, when I don’t expect it, it hurts so bad that.. that I can’t breathe.”

The elder slayer didn’t say anything, looking at the workmen as they started to pack up their equiptment and knowing, instinctivly, that whatever she said, rightnow, would ultimatly be the wrong thing. Because sometimes, words just weren’t enough.

Instead, without watching herself, she reached out her hand to where faith’s was dangling over her knee. She curled her smaller fingers gently around faith’s middle, ring and pinkie fingers, squeezing gently as she waited for faith to shrug off her gesture.

She didn’t, just curled up her hand and squeezed her fingers back, before relaxing. And then they just sat there, watching the sky as it rolled by, together, buffy holding on to faith’s fingers as if she were the one in pain, and faith was the one trying to help her.


To Be Continued..