Crawling Towards Ecstasy

Crawling Towards Ecstasy
A/N: Not too sure if i should carry this one on. i kind of like it like this. but hey, if y'all want some more of it'm s'm sure i can accomidate your needs. after all, i'm a writer, it's what i do [winks]

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I flickered my eyes over the view in front of me. Row upon row of grey seating, uniformed, lined. Heads with brown hair, blonde, red, black, lolling to the sides, cheeks resting upon the cool, course material of their seats, leaning against each other.

A part of me longed to fine the solace of sleep. Drowning my mind in the fog that encompasses you when unconsciousness smothers you. A part of me is desperate to know what that silence feels like, where it would lead me. Like crawling towards ecstasy, I would imagine.

The warmth of the dimming sunlight is slowly giving way to the chill of the desert, returning me once more to a physical feeling I know all too well. Trapped in a prison of my own making, at least I can still remember what the warmth feels like, even if it was only superficial.

I can feel her eyes on me, roamoverover the side view of my body, as she snuggles down into the other corner of the back seat. Her half has a makeshift drape pulled closed, giving one of the original slayers the privacy she needs to hide from all the questions she knows are bound to come, with everyone else but the males and the witches being reborn as slayers.

I have no such problem because, like most times in my life, I’m just second best.

“This is my favourite of all my current bruises.” I felt the need to sigh, wishing I was lying when I said that. The thought alone crawls around my head, making me so pathetic even to myself. You think after years of this shit I would have learned some form of lesson about the blonde slayer sat not four foot away from me.

As I said to soul boy, the definition of insanity is repeating the same actions over and over again, expecting different results. I should take my own advice. It feels like I’ve been running into a brick wall for far too long. And every time I seem to be making some form of progress, some little thing reminds me of her. Like the top floor of angel’s hotel.

The vanilla musk that is just so her came out of nowhere and smacked me round the head with an iron bar. And then kicked me in the shin to just make sure I knew it was there. Although, dispite the stab of pain that came with the scent of her, it kinda prepared me for what I knew would come, the moment I saw willow in the hotel.

She shifted, leaning forward slightly, her eyes penetrating me just a little bit harder. Maybe she thought I was asleep like almost everyone else was. I hadn’t moved anything but my eyeballs in about two hours.

“What?” I turned my head, dropping my hand to my lap as I looked at her. Her skin flushed a gentle red color, making her look sexy as hell, at being caught staring at me.

“I was just checking if you were asleep.” I held her gaze for a few more moments, before turning my head back around and looked out at the fast moving landscape of sand and nothing much else. How long did it take to get out of this goddamn desert and to somewhere I could pee without having to worry about 30 other people witnessing the act?

“You’ve been watching me since we left shittydale.” For some reason, I felt the need to point that out to her.

“Or what was left of it.” I smiled slightly at her comment.

“Shit B. I always knew you’d level the town. I just didn’t think you would do it literally.”

“I..” she shifted, looking down at her hands and swallowing deeply before looking back up at me. I had the curtsey to look at her while talking to her this time. “Spike levelled the town not me.”

I didn’t miss the catch of emotion in her voice as she spoke his name.

“You loved him.” I didn’t ask.

“No. I cared for him.” She snorted and looked towards the roof of the bus. “How much of an idiot am I? Caring for two vampires with souls? I must have done some pretty crappy things in my old life.”

I didn’t say anything. Who was I to judge crappy actions?

Was there ever a time in her life that she cared for me? The question was burning its way inside of me, tunnelling its way through into my slightly tainted soul. Was there ever anything else but the slayer between us?

I looked at at the floor, shaking my head slightly before looking back out of the window, resisting the urge to punch myself. She’d never want me, even if I hadn’t made the biggest mistake anyone should never make. I figured she’d always want willow. Or.. Hell even riley was an improvement on me.

I was the dark to her light. How could you possibly care for someone, who contradicts you in practically every single way?

“Are you gonna shut that curtain Faith?” I blinked, suddenly remembering who was still watching me.

“What for? It’s not like the sun’s gonna be keeping you awake for much longer.”

She didn’t say anything else. Which suited me just fine. Talking to her was like talking to a dead relative that you loved. A painful reminder of exactly what you’ve lost, and how much it hurts you to be without them.

“I did.”

“What?” I turned back to her, shifting myself slightly on my seat, moving my now numb ass cheeks and looked at her again.

“Care.” I frowned, looking at her hard through the diminishing light and trying to figure out exactly what she meant. Cause I’m very positive that I didn’t ask her if she ever cared for me out loud. “I’m not sure if I ever told you that, way back when when everything hit the fan. But I did. Care, that is.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Cause everyone needs to hear it every once in a while.” My eyes flickered towards the front of the bus, resting on the painfully bald head of robin, as he sat at the front of the bus. To tell you the truth, I was surprised that he hadn’t croaked already. He got spiked by one of those monk guys. How his insides remained his insides is beyond my capacity of thought right now.

She cared for me?

“Like a friend.” I nodded my understanding and shifted again, propping one of my booted feet on the back of the chair in front of me. Of course. How else would she care?

“I never said that.” I snapped my head around so fast I think I gave myself whip lash. “I don’t know what I’m saying. But I know that I cared. More than I ever let on to anyone. I think that’s why it hurt so much when you betrayed me. I mean us.”

“Betrayed you?”

“I said that?” she coughed, looked slightly ashamed with herself before levelling me with her gaze again. “With..”

“Going to the mayor.”

“…Xander.”

The tension between us could have been cut with a knife, had anyone been within range to want to do so. I really hoped that no one else could hear what was going on back here. At least with the curtain open I could check on who was awake and who wasn’t.

“How am I supposed to respond to that?”

“I just thought you had a right to know.”

“Now? You spring this on me *now*? B, you could have had worse timing. If I was dead perhaps.” I sighed. “You could have said something back then.”

“But nothing could ever have happened.”

“No, it couldn't have done. But it would have been nice to hear. At the time.”

I turned my head back towards the front of the bus, sitting up a little straighter as willow and val jumped to their feet and rushing over to someone’s seat, leaning down and talking rapidly to each other.

Something was majorly wrong.

Red stood up again; turning her back towards me and giving me the saddest look I had ever received in my entire life.

And then I realised she was stood over robins seat.

The next ten minutes were a rush of softly spoken words and people waking up and getting off the bus, leaving only a few of us stood silently around his body. I don’t think anyone had a single word to say, except sorry, but strangely, no one said it to me, knowing that although there was a little of something there, it wasn’t the end of my world, like I’d thought so tim times before, and because of things much worse than this.

We buried him about 20 minutes walk away from the road, creating a head stone out of rocks we found all around, buried half into the sand. Xander handed me the last stone, and I smiled at him as I placed it on the top, looking down at robins name and dates carved hurriedly into the stone with a penknife.

Every started to slowly walk back towards the bus, talking quietly to each other, and leaving me stood there. I felt her hand on my arm, squeezing my flesh in a gesture of comfort. I smiled sadly at her before lifting my hand and running my fingertips softly down the side of her face, watching in rapt fascination as they passed her chin and trailed down her neck. I cupped the back of head gently, leaning down so I was level with her eyes.

“Buffy, don’t feel sad. Some things just weren’t meant to be.” I touched our foreheads gently, before pulling away and walking slowly back towards the bus.


End?