fighting in the emptiness of this labyrinth (btvs | faith/tara + willow)

[fiachairecht]

fighting in the emptiness of this labyrinth. buffy the vampire slayer, faith/tara + willow. faith takes tara with her when she runs. 1.7k words, rated t. for badger79 in femslashex 2016.

I'd like to see Tara being a positive calming influence and Faith helping Tara with self-confidence and bringing her out of her shell

Originally posted with a few more lyrics fragments as section titles, but I think it works better without.

Tara knows Faith by absence first. She knows her before she knows her name, in the sharp silences after sometimes Willow says Buffy's friend used to— or There was a time when—. Tripping over the shape of a loss not yet final, and ending she doesn't believe in.

Tara knows she is nothing like the girl who used to fill those spaces, but she thinks sometimes she's playing the same role, anyway. A friend, and then

she

won't

be

because her blood is wrong wrong wrong, tainted black and one day soon hiding isn't going to work anymore.

When Faith resurfaces Willow's lip curls. Psychopathic super-bitch, she mutters, and Tara pretends she's never heard those words directed at her before. Smiles and makes a joke about not being good with violence because she's not, it's in her past and on her skin and its marks are never at home there. Just some other girl's history that she's living in right now before Tara, the real Tara, demon-blood Tara rises up, and this body falls away.

But she wants Faith. It's a surprise, like so many of her newfound preferences are, and this one she keeps closer than most because it's just like she's a kid again and she's not allowed. She's allowed to pin newspaper clippings to her walls, she's allowed to like coffee ice cream instead of chocolate, but this— Willow hates Faith, and Tara will go along with it

because

it's

easy

because she doesn't want to lose Willow just yet.

Still for two days it's all she can really think about, Faith Faith Faith in her traitor blood like maybe she's someone who would let Tara be fucked up and silent and not have to hide.

 

*

 

Tara knows Faith when she isn't Faith, at first, just a displaced aura flickering weakly against a body broken in a way improbably unsuited for it. She's sharp, jagged edges splintering further and further away from her, sad and mean like Tara had always said she wouldn't become, but Tara aches with the remembrance of loss.

Willow believes her, Willow casts herself into the nether realms with Tara to anchor her, and it's — it should be everything she's ever wanted, but no matter how easily their magicks fit together, she can't shake the memory of why they're doing this in the first place: of Faith, cold and alone with words like needles and an ability to protect herself that Tara had never sacrificed enough to gain.

So when Faith flies out of the church half wild and half angry and all so lost, Tara is there

and

Tara

falls

hits the ground with Faith's body on top of her like a fragile tower of crystals that collapses not only because of things outside but because its construction was flawed to start.

Faith hauls her to her feet and says run and to the others she says

i'll

kill

her

but none of the others even really notice — quiet Tara shy Tara not part of the group Tara, I'm a terrible hostage — so Tara runs anyway, because it's what she's always known for the past few years. Faith at her side, and that makes it a little easier.

She doesn't even believe her about the killing thing.

Not really.

 

*

 

Los Angeles is deathly bright even at night and just as full of monsters as Sunnydale, except more of them are human. Faith stakes a vampire a couple blocks from the train station anyway, Olvera Street's Mexican flags fluttering above them.

Tara covers her eyes for the fight. Ashes ashes ashes, so many things that are ashes now because she wasn't brave.

"You can, um. Go back now. If you want," Faith says. She jams her hands into the barely there pockets of her tight leather pants, and for a minute Tara's too busy staring at her to reply.

She isn't brave. Maybe she could be, with Faith. Isn't that why she had wanted her in the first place? "No," she says, and it's hard, it's so much harder to make choices aloud after leaving her home in silence, leaving Sunnydale with nothing but a blank stare through the back wall of a train. "No, I'm. I'll stay."

Faith fixes her with a pitying look. "People don't stay, T. But whatever. Don't expect me to watch your ass like this all the time."

"You're watching my ass right now," Tara says, because apparently now that she's been brave once it's harder to stop. All the words she's never said collecting on the back of her tongue, just waiting for her to open her mouth.

"Not your ass," Faith corrects, and, yeah, Faith's maybe staring at her breasts through her sweater like they hold some sort of key to fixing her mind or at least this night, and Tara knows parts of that look and thinks she should be scared

but

she's

not

because that look in Faith's eyes has a softness Willow swore it never would, and Tara has already made so many mistakes today what's one more?

Still, when Faith licks her lips and arches an eyebrow and says, "So, you wanna, then?", the invitation clear in her voice, what comes stumbling out instead is "N— not yet."

Faith doesn't deserve any more lies, but this is all moving

so

much

faster

than Tara had ever imagined and, Goddess help her, they're not even friends.

Faith just shrugs. "Yeah, okay," she says, and Tara tells herself she's imagining the regret in her voice. "Let's just find someplace to crash for the night. And you can call your little Scooby friends and tell them not to come after us."

"They're, um. Not mine. Not really. I just knew Willow a— and I barely met the rest before—" She can't meet Faith's eyes. I am, you know, yours, she had said to Willow ... a day ago? So close in time, and she already feels like someone entirely different made that promise. It feels like a lie even though it shouldn't have been.

"Huh," Faith says, and she looks like she's just been proved right about something, like she's going to say something else, but a siren sounds too close before she can. "Come on, she says, and grabs Tara's hand, and together they walk.

It is this which should be a lie even though it isn't: Faith's hand in hers, Faith's eyes flickering like salvation.

 

*

 

They build a life. They're both good at that, Tara discovers. Drop and run, don't think you need to feel at home anywhere, mourn without feeling any of the grief behind the practise lest it tear you apart.

Angel finds them an apartment, takes them on as vague employees of Angel Investigations. Tara researches, Faith slays, and neither of them really talk but Tara's sure that even though this is the strangest friendship she's ever been a part of, they are friends, or something like.

They're helping people, one at a time, and it feels right even though it shouldn't because

she's

doing

good

like she wanted to do with Willow and never could while her demon blood was there waiting waiting waiting by the Hellmouth for her family to come for her, for everyone else to finally see.

Tara thinks, some nights leading up to her birthday, about what it would be like to kill these people instead, see them broken and bloody at her feet, claws and fangs bursting from her skin. She wonders if Faith has the same thoughts, if she sees the faces of the humans she killed on top of every vamp she stakes now.

She doesn't ask, but there's nights when they both stumble home together and catch each other's eye not really on accident, and Tara knows she's right.

Her birthday passes, and they still don't talk about it until the night they're coming home after a late evening grocery run

and

Faith

freezes

in front of a demon, and it's not until four heads of broccoli to the face (Faith) and one axe to the back (Tara) later that it's dust.

Faith recovers first, drags her and their remaining food home and shoves a jar of peanut butter in her hands. "You need self defence lessons, princess."

"And you need to talk to someone about your hatred-redemption thing," Tara counters.

Faith snorts. "Sure. That'll go over well with the normals. I've already got Buffy's little gang calling me psychotic every time I smile, I don't need professionals doing the same."

"I— I was thinking more like ... Angel. Or me," Tara says softly. "We're someones. And we can help."

"Look at you." In the candlelight of their apartment, she's wreathed in gold and

so

unbearably

alive

and in so much pain that she can't really be irredeemable like Willow said on their last call, the one that made Tara slam the phone down instead of hanging up politely like she was taught.

"You're growing up so well," Faith says, like she's meaning to mock Tara but she can't.

It's easier to meet Faith's eyes now. "I learned from you. Being brave. Moving forward."

Faith turns away. "Haven't you heard? I'm the bad Slayer. I just kill things, I don't get to be the role model or the teacher or—"

"Not true." Tara reaches for her, pulls Faith down til she's sitting on the couch next to her. Skin electric against skin, just like it's been since Faith, newly vibrating with the power of being back in her own body, had collided with her outside the church. "You're strong and you care and I'm—"

And then she's not speaking anymore because

Faith's

kissing

her

hard and hot and sweet, leaning over so Tara's pressed into the couch, and Tara's kissing back, sliding her hand up under Faith's shirt because she wants this, wants Faith and wants their life together to be something more.

They're both breathing hard when Faith pulls back, and Tara shuts her eyes when Faith pushes a strand of hair out of her face with surprising tenderness, sparks skittering across her skin in the paths Faith's fingertips leave behind.

"Okay," Faith says, and it's an effort for Tara to wind their conversation back to talk to someone and understand what Faith must be talking about.

She doesn't ask for clarification, doesn't say anything that might make Faith want to run again. "It's better than before," is all she says. Her hands are still under Faith's shirt, and she slips them up, flicks open her bra.

"Better," Faith agrees, and kisses her again.