Too Close

TITLE: Too Close

AUTHOR: Midknight

CHAPTER: 1 of 1

FANDOM: Buffy the Vampire Slayer

SHIP: Xander / Faith

RATING: NC-17 - Sex and Language

CATEGORY: Romance. Angst and Erotica

SPOILERS: A couple, Season Three and Seven

UNIVERSE: As per cannon, with one small change: Wood never, ever, ever existed. Ever.
Set after the final episode.

DISCLAIMER: None of these characters belong to me. They belong to Josh Wedon and whoever else does. I pay homage to them and I make no profit from this story in any fashion, way or means.

AUTHORS NOTE: I apologize before hand and hope you will forgive any errors or blatant discrepancies.

FEEDBACK: Yes Please. It helps. It really, really helps. - midknight_tales@yahoo.com

Faith ducked and the blade whizzed over her head. She kicked out, catching the vampire on the shin dropping him to his knees and sending the blade skittering off into the night. She spun and swept the feet out from under the other vampire. Her feet hit him in the face as she flipped first onto her hands and then back onto her feet in time to spin and stake the first vamp.

She could here the clash of swords and spared a quick glance in Xander's direction. He was holding his own with two vamps as well, but what worried her were the three that were running in their direction. They had been training together a lot, but she doubted he could handle those kinds of odds. They were becoming seriously outnumbered. She only hoped that those three were the only other ones at the cemetery. The longer this fight went the more undead attention it was likely to attract.

She dodged a punch and then let him land one. He over balanced on the next one and she drove her knee into its belly and her elbow into the base of his neck at the same time. The three were much closer and a glance told her Xander was still battling his two. She needed to dust this vamp and relieve some of the pressure off Xander before the other three arrived. It must have realized this because it rolled away from her, circling warily, putting itself between her and Xander. It smiled at her in malice. "No, no. My friends will deal with your little boyfriend and then it's your turn Slayer. There might be more of you bitches around now, but it just means there's more Slayer blood to go round." He snarled.

"Damn it" she thought furiously, scanning the oncoming vamps and her and Xander's rapidly deteriorating situation. One of the three split off in her direction while the other two headed for a retreating Xander. They figured they take him out and then gang up on her. She had to get through to him and soon.

She shouldn't have let them get separated, but the ambush was so sudden and brutal and unexpected. It was just meant to be a quick sweep on the way to a late night movie. They'd taken out the two that originally jumped them with relative ease, but then these four showed up out of nowhere.

The bastard vampire kept blocking her and his friend was closing fast. She wanted to charge just ram him out the way, but she knew that was the mistake he was waiting for, but she had to get to Xander, against four vamps he didn't stand a chance. She wanted to scream for him to run, but she knew he wouldn't and then she was facing two vamps and he was facing four.

She saw him stumble and go down behind a tombstone and the four vampires followed. She screamed his name and her world turned to molasses. Time slowed to a crawl like in some warped version of The Matrix. Another, wordless scream tore from her throat as she saw a sword rise and begin its descent. She charged no longer caring as her vision went blurred and red. She heard a dull noise, like an implosion, but it didn't register as she literally ripped the heart out of the vampire in front of her. It turned to dust around her arm as she continued forward. The other vamp actually turned to run, but it never got the chance as she pounced and wailed on it with every ounce of strength she had.

She beat it to death. It turned to dust beneath her fists, but she didn't stop even when her knuckles pounded into the ground... The hand on her shoulder gave her rage a new focus. She could barely see, her ears were filled by the strangest wailing sound, whose source she could not seem to find, but she rose, turning and swinging her fist at the same time. The vamp barely dodged back in time, evading a punch that would have taken its head off.

She kept throwing punches and kicks and the blurry shape of the vamp kept retreating. It was shouting something at her over and over again. Xander was dead. What could this creature say to change that? Nothing. When she finally had it trapped between her and a crypt wall, she was breathing heavily, but she charged anyway. She had it by the throat and had a fist cocked to finish it when its strangled cry finally broke through the madness that had descended upon her. "Faith!!" it had been shouting her name all this time. "How did it know her name? Why wasn't it fighting back? Where were the others?" her rational mind reasserted itself and asked. Her reflex was still to pound the creature in front of her to dust.

She hurt, she ached in a way she could not understand or had experienced before and she wanted to transfer that pain. Her fist strained back again, but froze when a hand cupped her cheek, stroking it lightly in a way she had come to know and love in the last few months. She gasped and let go of his throat. Her name came from his lips again. This time it was not a cry, but with a note of concern. "Xander?" she enquired softly in disbelief. Her vision cleared momentarily and she could see him.

"Yes, Faith. It's me. I'm okay..." he tried to answer, but she didn't quite give him the chance as she flew at him, enveloping him in her tight embrace. Her sight went watery again and she realized she had been crying all along. She released him when she heard his ribs creak, but then proceeded to check every inch of him for injuries finding only scratches, scrapes and a lot of dust.

He took hold of her hands to still them and reassured her that he was really okay. Faith was still too stunned and disbelieving to transform thought to words, but at least her tears had stopped. "He's alive. He's alive!!" she thought and it repeated itself over and over again filling the void and soothing the ache that had formed deep inside her. Then another thought intruded: "He's alive, but you almost just ki..."

"Oh God." She said, her voice sounding gritty and strange to her ears. She could feel the blood drain from her face and he must have seen it too. Again the world went watery. A small voice in her head questioned if it was possible for one person to hold this many tears and another answered that she must have been storing them up, they were both drowned out by the hard voice of her guilt. Her watery world suddenly went dark and warm strong arms wrapped them selves around her. He held her to him and she realized she had actually gone cold as the heat from his body warmed and comforted her.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry." She repeated over and over again into his shoulder. He held her tighter and rocked her gently. She felt his lips on the top of her head shifting and he shushed her. They stayed like that for what felt like ages, but she couldn't say how long it really was before her tears once again subsided and her mewled apology became sniffling. She couldn't quite manage to let go of him yet, but she let him create a little separation between them as he grasped her chin and tilted her head to look up at him. "I'm fine. We're fine." He told her in a tone that made her believe it as his eyes held hers in a steady unwavering gaze before he lowered his lips to his.

The soft touch of his lips to hers opened a floodgate of need in her as she found a more familiar channel for the intense emotions that were running through her. She opened her mouth under his, tilting her head to cement their lip lock as she pressed her body hard against his, aggressively snaking her tongue into his mouth to duel with his. She writhed against him; dry humping against his thigh as she kissed him hungrily. He froze; a little startled at the intensity of her reaction, but soon his hands were caressing her back and roughly fondling her buttocks as he returned her kiss with equal ferocity. She pushed him backward until they slammed into the wall of the crypt behind them. She could feel his cock, hard and throbbing against her lower torso through the denim of his jeans and her t-shirt as she mashed her body against his. Her skin felt like it was on fire while at the same time chilled to the point of raising prickling gooseflesh. She moaned into his mouth at the sensation of her nipples hotly pressing back into her breasts as they tightened and grew in the confines of her bra, trapped between the pressure from her arching spine and the hard plane of his chest.

Need rushed through her, robbing her of thought as thoroughly as her anger and grief had earlier. She wanted him, here, now! She needed him inside her. Needed the visceral reality of feeling him fill her as an affirmation that the life she had build with him had not been lost and that this was not just a trick of her mind trying to protect her sanity. Her jacket had half come off her shoulders and she roughly shrugged it off, thrashing it about wildly when it caught on her left hand until it came free before she dragged his shirt from his jeans. She broke their kiss panting heavily, partly with the need for air and partly with the intensity and urgency of her desire. She tugged roughly at his belt, frustrated when it didn't immediately succumb to her attempt to undo it. The urgency of her need seemed transmit itself to him and they were suddenly tearing at each others clothes, trying to remove enough to create the intimate connection they both craved.

They shift, rolling along the wall as they wildly captured and released each other's lips in short, but passionate kisses while they try to undo their pants. She ends up trapped between him and the wall when she finally gets his pants undone and she can snake her hand into his boxers to slide her hand up and down the length of his thick, throbbing cock and he groans into her mouth. He tugs at her tight leather pants after unbuttoning them. For, the first time ever she curses her penchant for wearing tight leather pants. She had him free, warm, hard and throbbing in her hand after she fishes him out of the fly of his boxers, but try as he might he cannot get her pants and panties far enough down her thigh for her to spread them and guide him inside her. The whine that bubbles from her throat is pure frustration only modulated slightly enjoyment as he slides his hand between her legs and roughly saws his fingers through her wet, swollen folds and rolls her clit against her. "Turn me. Turn me now! Take me from behind!" she cries, letting go of his penis, her desire-filled mind having figured out a way for her to get what she so desperately requires.

He does as she commands and she steps slightly back from the crypt wall, so that when she places her wide splayed fingers on it, she is bent slightly forward. "Come on, X!" she encourages him over her shoulder, her voice throbbing and husky with the urgency of her need and his hand reaches for her hip. In her new position, she can spread her legs a little further, feeling the leather and lace bite into her skin as she strains against them to give him access. It isn't much, but it's enough. She feels him slide the head of his cock through her wet folds and find her entrance. He takes a firm grip on her hips and with a growled exhalation he thrusts forward and pulls her back at the same time, ploughing into her. She lets a out a short, sharp gasp, her back arching, her fingernails scrapping against the rough stone in front of her as his thick, long shaft stretches and fills her slick, but clenching and resisting flesh in a way that has become so familiar to her that she doesn't know how she had lived without it in the past.

He crotch slams into her ass with a smacking sound and he grinds against her for a moment and she grinds back. He doesn't stay buried in her for long, but drags his cock back through her tingling channel. She braces herself and then thrusts back when his hips jerk forward once more. Their pace is frenetic as he pounds in and out of her with hard long, powerful strokes which she augments with thrusts of he own as she bends her elbows and pushes back from against the wall. Their bodies connect wetly, her ass cheeks quiver and shake from the impact of his pubic bone, sending shivers up her back. He draws in loud, heavy breath each time he pulls back and pants her name as he thrusts forward and exhales. Her own breathing matches the flow and ebb of his cock inside her. The stone work in front of her eyes shifts and blurs to the point of abstraction as she matches him stroke for stroke, her blood pounding in her ears and her heart pounding in her ribcage like a jackhammer.

He shortens his strokes, but makes them faster and even harder. His hands leave her hips and slide up along her waist and over the side of her ribs, under her t-shirt. He frees her breasts with the simple expedience of pushing the cups of her bra roughly over the top of them. The textured material scrapes across her sensitive skin and drags on the tight, swollen nubs of her nipples, making her bite her lips as the sensations knife into her chest. But, she lets out a heavy sigh when his strong, warm hands grasp the firm globes, his fingers massaging with firm rhythmic pressure while his palms roll her nipples and press them back against her swollen areola.

She can feel the wave of her climax building. Each stroke, each firm caress powers it on and driving it higher. Her tight sex resists him as he plunges forward, trying to stall his forward momentum and trying to deny him access to her molten core, but failing with the delicious result of hot, pleasurable, sizzling friction that makes her belly quiver and then contradicts itself by desperately clutching at his smooth, throbbing shaft when he retreats unwilling to lose his filling and stretching presence. He squeezing pulls at her breasts, testing the firm but pliant flesh. She drops her head and she can see the shape his hands straining against the material of her t-shirt as he mauls her breasts with pleasurable result. She lets out a grunt at a particularly savage thrust, but immediately hisses: "Yes!" to encourage him to continue, pressing back and rolling her hips to grind her ass into his crotch.

Her pussy clenches around him in short, intense spasms flooding her snatch with her slippery cream. She is close, oh so close and the wave of her orgasm is cresting and rumbling wildly to the shore of completion. She feels his breath, warm on her shoulder and the angle of his penetration changes slightly, hitting new spots inside her and bringing her just that little bit closer. She can feel his chest on her back, sliding back and forth, the material of his shirt and her t-shirt rubbing hotly against her smooth skin. He nuzzles at her hair and his lips find her ear. His breathing is loud and ragged and she imagines his teeth are gritted before he whisper: "Can't... Can't hold back much longer, but I love you, Faith. I love you and I ain't going anywhere." his words are punctuated with hard, jerking thrusts burying him deep along with heavy groans, but it is his words that push her over the edge and she cums when he does with a hoarse cry that mingles with his deeper bellow.

Her pussy locks in a tense moist, velvet fist around his cock, yielding only slight to allow him to swell and pump his seed into her in thick, hot ropes. The wave crests and crashes on the shore of her senses with heavy surges of pleasurable energy that makes her back a hard bow of bone and muscle. Her eyes go wide and the world goes out of focus when she blinks rapidly trying to process all the sensations that flood her body and mind. Her muscles tense and relax involuntarily, twitching as electric sensations dance across her nerves. Her taut stomach shudders as her channel ripples around him, milking him as his hips continue to thrust, his spurting cock still drying to get even deeper inside her. He gives a little groan as he shoots the last of his seed into her and the jerking of his cock in her tight confines stills. The material of her t-shirt is sticking damply to her skin with the sweat of their exertion as she gulps in shuddering breaths. She feels his forehead rest lightly between her shoulder blades and his hands drop away from her breasts with one last firm caress. Her skin tingles, feeling prickly and alive and small shocks of sensation make her snatch clench as the intensity of her climax slowly dwindles and reluctantly returns control of her body back to her.

Faith groans as he shrinks and slides out of her, her sex tightening again in a last ditch attempt to keep him inside her, but fails. The combined juices of their passion follow his retreating cock and trickle wetly down the inside of her thigh. She takes one hand off the wall and collects the mixture from the inside of her thigh and from between her folds, making her snatch twitch, before it can drip onto her panties or pants. She rolls the creamy, slippery liquid between her thumb and fingers. She brings her digits to her face, smelling the exotic scent of sex as they glisten wetly in the dim light of the moon. He can't see her pop her fingers into her mouth and taste the fruit of their union with relish.

He staggers a little as he steps back, having to lay his hand on the small of her back to maintain his balance. Her own legs feel a bit weak and quivery and she is glad for the support of the wall. They pull their pants up and straighten their clothes as best they can, still breathing heavily. She opts to remove her bra and stuffs it into her pants packet. Their movements are slow, their expressions thoughtful as they both process the intensity and savage passion of their coupling and the reasons behind it. They both end up sinking to the ground, their backs against the crypt wall, sitting next to each other, neither saying a word as their breathing and heart rates return to normal while they stare out at the starry night. She takes his large, strong hand and turns it over, so that the palm is facing upward. She toys with his fingers for a moment and then gently laces her slimmer digits with his. "I love you too, Xander." She states softly and seriously and feels his fingers squeeze hers in acknowledgement.

"So... What happened, X?" she asks. " I saw you go down. I saw them move in to finish you. How are you still alive?" she explains her query further. He reached into the neck of his shirt and drew out a thin silver chain. It had something on the end of it. It looked like a small amber crystal. "You know daylight savings time? Well, this is where it gets saved." He told her, dangling the crystal in front of her with an impossibly smug grin on his face. She had the urge to punch him, but instead she spoke his name in a tone that defined threat and exasperation. He raised an eyebrow. "I've had a bad day here, Xander. Usually you're very cute and amusing with the funny, but humour me and just give me a straight answer. Please?" she asked in a more sedate tone.

"Fair enough. Willow made it for me to try out. It stores and concentrated sunlight. I released the stored sunlight and Poof! The mean vampires go all dust parade and I get to keep all my vital bits." He explained. "You're going to the funny side of the force again, Xander." She warned before asking: "So. Why did you wait so long to use it? Why'd you cut it so close?"

"I was being tactical. It's a one shot deal, so I waited for the other vamps to get close enough." He answered a little to quickly and without a single quip. She put her hands on her hip and raised her eyebrow while throwing a questioning stare at him. She kept it up until he started to fidget. He finally hung his head and his expression went sheepish. "I couldn't remember the activation words." He mumbled. "Sorry. Come again? I couldn't hear you." She asked hoping she was keeping a straight face. She couldn't believe that after the sheer terror she had felt at the thought that he had been killed; she could actually still find this funny. He gave her a long, hard look and then shrugged. "I couldn't remember the activation words. Okay?" he stated. "You know me and Latin. Sol carpe illuminari maximus. It doesn't exactly roll off the tongue you know. I'll have to talk to Willow about that." He defended his position.

She stared at him for a moment and then slid her arms around him and gave him a quick hug before resting her head on his shoulder. "I'm glad you remembered, but Xander, Baby please don't do that again." She said quietly as his arm slid around her waist. "I thought you like 'THAT' You certainly came loud and hard enough?" he asked playfully, his irrepressible wit returning, knowing full well that was not what she was referring to. "I don't like 'THAT', like you, I love it and we can do 'THAT' as often as you like. Hell, I rather intend for us to do 'THAT' again as soon as we get home, at least a couple of times actually, but I was referring to you almost dying. Don't do it again, X. It was just too close." She qualified her tone light, but honest and imploring. He looked into her eyes for a moment and replied: "Yes, Dear." His words may have been flip, but the look in his eyes told her he understood and would do his best to be safe. With, the lives they lead and the dangers they willingly faced, that was all she really could ask for. He kissed her forehead and her world took the final step to being right again.

THE END