Fumbling Towards Ecstasy
by onyxwaterfall
Rating: R
Disclaimer: Please don't; purely for entertainment. None of the characters are mine.
Warnings: Adult situations.
Note: Season 4ish. After the 'Bad Girls' thing, after Faith was stabbed, after the coma. Before the one where they swap.
Feedback: Always =D
PART 1: If I Shed A Tear I Won't Cage It
It had never occurred to me what it was. A tingling sensation that awakened the utter most depths of feeling within you. Something that organs could awaken, something that could be suppressed for your entire life. Something that would shorten your breath and stop your heart. It never occurred to me that she was feeling this emotion…for me.
Warm, no…hot beads of water trickled down my bloodstained body and stinging accompanied my senses…in the most worn down places. My naked form hurt from palm to finger, from hip to leg, from chin to forehead. I was in physical pain. I hurt everywhere. My knuckles were raw from bringing them into contact with so many sorry vampires' faces. My legs ached from the instantaneous stretch of muscle they had gotten from me flinging them in the direction of the fuckers. My eyes were red raw from insomnia. Insomnia from thinking. Thinking too hard.
About her.
My eyes. Tears stung them, reddened them; tortured my eyeballs and then dampened my cheeks, then without a trace, blended into the falling tap water that so gently but at the same time harshly cleansed my body.
I closed my eyes, the only remedy I had for healing them right now. Only the emotional pain kept on stabbing at me for all I could see was her. Her. Just Her.
I sucked in a tight breath as my throat threatened to constrict. I ran my fingers back through my wet chocolate hair and turned my face up towards the showerhead, forcing my face to feel the beat of the water against my skin.
I inhaled the scent of it; nothing…just oxygen and hydrogen particles combined, rendering my naked form a cleansed material. Releasing my hands from my hair, I let them fall to my sides, and just let them linger.
My hands.
I couldn't imagine using them for anything else but touching.
Her.
Even as I reached for a bar of soap, forced lather out of it from rubbing it back and forth in the palms of my hands, and moved them over my own skin, I couldn't imagine using them for anything else. ON anyone else.
The soap was soon rinsed from my skin and pulled down the plughole from connected particles of water…and as it went, so did the blood. So did tonight's residue.
I looked down towards the paint-chipped plughole, and at how the water would fall into a swirling motion before disappearing into the pipe beneath the hole. You couldn't tell which water was old, and which was new, because it was all clear. Not blood-red, not soapy. Just clear.
It was becoming warmer and warmer against my skin, steam from the taps dispersing and finding its own way around the room. I should've opened the window.
I ran my hand along the inside of my other outstretched arm, the visible bruises a reminder of "work" that night.
I winced as my fingers hit the painful spot. The bruise was a mesh of many colours, a whirr of ballsy soreness that throbbed and pricked and stung. Most of the time I didn't care if I was getting a bruise in a place I had landed hard. I just ignored it and before I knew it the bruise and scars had gone.
But not this one.
As my arm dropped slowly to my side, the other moved slowly along the toned skin of my stomach. Running southwards, thoughts of dread and flashes of that night forced themselves into my mind, and just as I thought my fingers would touch upon that scar, I flinched. Moved my hand away in a flash.
I looked down and a tear escaped my eye, fell straight down into the plughole. I looked at the scar there. It didn't hurt. If I had left my fingers there I most probably wouldn't have been able to feel it. But it was the scar. THE scar. The skin was slightly raised, a small slit just large enough to match the size of…of a matchstick.
I swallowed hard as I looked back up, ahead of me at the tiles that so badly needed a clean, then at the bar of soap sitting so contentedly on the holder that also needed a clean.
I never cared about that sort of thing.
But this.
I found myself sobbing hopelessly, as if my soul had left my body and my physical form had continued to move and breath and sob.
I was at the corner of the shower, my face up against the steamed up tiles and my legs beneath me, supporting the rest of my form. My hand pressed against the tiles also, as if to hold on.
And for some reason I was sobbing.
For some reason.
I stepped out of the shower, wrapping a white towel around me as I did. In front of me the mirror showed me what I looked like. Squeaky clean.
As always.
I crossed the bathroom to the sink and reached for a brush, and as I began running it through my soaked hair, I watched myself in the mirror. I looked like shit.
As clean as I was, my face told a completely different story. Thank god I was the only one who could read me. Why would anybody else want to, anyway. It seemed as if every time someone tried to, I pushed them away. It was the only choice I'd given myself. If I let someone get close enough to me, my defences would drop…and…I would let them in. All the way in. Then they would…twist…the knife. And for a split second a stab of pain rushed through me.
I replaced the brush on the side of the sink and grabbed a tie back, and pulled my hair back into it.
And there was my neck. I was thankful it wasn't pierced with two little holes.
I moved to go through to the bedroom that I so sorely wanted to be just a little cleaner…or perhaps just the dingy smell just to be a little less…dingy…and strong.
Shit.
My entire form froze (even my heart) as I looked on at what was before me.
My eyes grew wider and my hands began to shake.
'Y-you,' I barely spoke, my voice lost somewhere in my throat.
'Me.' Just as…samey. The same as before. Almost scary.
For some reason I was more upset than angry. And as the seconds passed by, I felt my features softening and tears welling up in my eyes. My throat constricted, and my lip quivered.
Then she started to move towards me, and I moved back. The wall was behind me as I soon found out when I hit it. I let out a whimper as I did, surprised by it being there, and my hands touched upon it, before one came to my mouth, and tears fell down my face, as if in a race against time.
My other hand clenched at the towel covering my stomach. All at once panic and worry had seemed to consume me and turn me into this blubbering mess. This wasn't me. I couldn't be scared.
She stopped a moment, watching me regress to this…vulnerability, before taking a cautious step towards me. Her eyes pierced me, just as that knife…my own knife, and as hazel and comforting as they used to be, they possessed some threatening…scary…
'No, don't,' I warned her, my voice so bloody shaky I hardly recognised it.
She stopped moving and looked down at her foot before looking back at me. 'Faith, I'm-'
'G-go away,' I told her, taking a deep breath before I spoke. This time I had sounded more like me. I tightened the towel around my body and wiped away the tears drenching my face. In a rushed effort to regain my walls of defence I had done these things. Tidied myself up. But what a lame effort that was. She could still tell, I could see that in her eyes. She knew exactly what I was feeling.
She shook her head a little, her eyes softening at my words of demand. She sucked in a breath and swallowed. 'We…'
'No,' I told her straight away, not wanting for her to say another word. 'Get out. Leave me alone.' For some reason I believed those words gave me back my strength, but if that was so, why did I stay where I was? Why didn't I move from that wall?
She took a few more steps towards me, cautious at my reprimanding words. First step she hesitated, and I flinched. Looked at her moving leg, kept my eyes there, willing the foot to take a reversal of direction. But no.
The second step. I watched it. Wished the same.
A third. And I held my breath, pressed my hands against the wall at my sides.
Then her hand. It reached for my cheek and I flinched, then winced at the thought of her hand touching my face. I watched it, reaching so fucking solemnly for my face. And all of a sudden it didn't scare me.
I let it touch my cheek, and as it cupped it I calmed. I watched it a moment longer, then my eyes traced back to hers. And she was looking into my eyes, just as she had been before, with that same serenity. That same…reassurance that she wasn't going to hurt me. Again.
She blinked and I let out my breath, inhaled one, exhaled. Inhaled another one. Lost track because the process happened too quickly for me to gain any comprehension.
It was more contusion than it was actual pain as her lips brushed against mine. God, what was she doing?
For some reason my mind quickly decided it was some narcissistic joke that she was playing on me, and I pushed her back. At first her eyes asked the question of "what did I do wrong," followed by "I shouldn't have." 'I-I'm so sorry, I-'
'Why did you have to come here?' I whispered, a hand still outstretched, just to keep her away from me.
I don't know if I had expected an answer out of that question or not. But I couldn't think of what she would say to answer it, other than, "to finish off the job." My heart cried at that. Not that I expected her to want to spare me, but the fact that someone so special to me wanted me to die so badly.
I don't know why, I deserved every inch of pain she inflicted on me, whether it was for her own satisfaction, or somebody else's.
However dissipated that pain seemed to be, it couldn't have topped the boost I was given as she retreated, and headed for the door. That look over her shoulder as she grabbed hold of the doorknob and pulled the door to. That glance could have killed me. If looks could kill.
PART 2: Companion to Our Demons
As stupid as I was, thinking she would want anything to do with me, I pulled the door to. But I had to see her one more time, and I realised that this was my chance. As I looked over my shoulder I saw her, scared as she had been, scared as she still looked. She must've thought I was going to hurt her. Again.
I closed the door behind me, being careful not to slam it. But with my every effort, the door still seemed to echo through the air.
I just stood a moment. I don't think I'd ever seen her that scared in her entire life. And scared of me. Her fellow Slayer, connection-clad. Not anymore.
We'd both made it perfectly clear how different we both were, way before I'd…
I swallowed and licked over my lips as I rubbed my fingers over an irritated spot on my other arm.
She didn't want anything to do with me anymore. So much of me wanted to blame that on her. But with every ounce of anger, frustration, pain I had inside me, I could do nothing but blame myself.
I knew how torn she was from the moment I had met her. Still, I had used that in her defence. And it had resulted in her having a near-death experience. If I hadn't been so foolish, perhaps I could've saved her.
I can't stop thinking that perhaps I could have, if I had pushed. If I had tried, just that little bit more.
I listened to the clicks of my pointy heels on the concrete pavement, and the splash as they disturbed already settled puddles of water. I hugged myself, my arms tight around my body. I was cold.
I was cold because of me.
But it scared me.
No. Not the cold. The emptiness. There was a void. A deep, penetrating, icy void. Transparent. Invisible. That lack of connection was becoming more and more apparent as I trekked further and further away from her place.
And it hurt. No. It stung.
I couldn't stop the pain. Deep in my gut. And it stung more and more as I saw her expression, her body language. She had tried to get away from me, her body backing towards the wall she knew was there. Normally she would be the one to stand her ground. But look. She couldn't stand still. Her fear was making her move.
It tickled as it tumbled towards my chin. But I didn't laugh. I moved a hand to wipe away the cold tear from my face, and sobbed out a cry, upset that she had rejected me.
I had to be able to understand that she didn't want me to be around. Within the vicinity of her. Yet I couldn't. The selfish quarter of me could not bring myself to get around the fact that we were supposed to be apart. We weren't even supposed to exist in the same time, together. But here we were. Separate as good and evil, opposite as fire and water. One could kill the other. Simple as that.
I stopped in my tracks, hearing a faded scream in the distance. Someone was in distress. I spun round, sure that the scream had come from that direction, and before I had a chance to realise this, my legs had flicked into running mode. I looked all around, checking for any possible alley that could be possessing a distressed human and a needy vampire. Nothing. Nowhere. No alleys. Just these roads. All clear, all deserted. Still the screaming continued, and as I ran in the direction of it, a part of me grew. Thinking. It could be her.
I banged on the door, now sure that the screaming had come from here, then, to no avail, I stepped back. Stood a moment, then kicked the door in.
Hunched. She had awarded herself a corner in which to sob in. Hopelessly. She didn't even notice me as I stood in the doorway, just looking at her. God, she was so torn.
I stepped in, out of breath still, and trying to still myself as to not coax her. My face scrunched, my eyes furrowed a little. I stepped further in, and closed the ruined door behind me. I sucked in a nervous breath before taking steps in her direction, each step making me realise further and further just how lost she was.
My senses told me to back off, although my legs refused to listen. And as I sat down in front of her, reached a hand to her arm, they told me still to get back. She didn't notice me. Her eyes were in a place that I believe were far from here, even if it looked like she was looking at the space between us.
It took me a while before I could speak up, scared that she might freak out on me. Though I was glad I did, because when I uttered her name, her eyes looked up to me. 'Why were you screaming?' I continued, my hand upon her arm, not moving.
She looked at it, though. Examined its position on her lower arm, then followed my own arm back up to my eyes. I saw her jaw clench and her eyelids slide shut. Then she rested her head back against the wall as she exhaled a long, silent breath.
'It was a vampire,' she told me, her entire self still, except of course for her moving lips, which came together at the end of her sentence.
I paused a moment, before agreeing silently. 'I see.' Panic over.
We were both silent a moment before she opened her eyes, raised an eyebrow, looked down at my hand, then moved her arm away. I flinched, moved my hand back, and inwardly kicked myself for thinking she would let me so much as touch her.
'I thought you-'
'I know,' she said quickly, her tone normal, low, almost dry. 'Panic over.'
It felt to me as if in that time that I had gone she had let her defences slip back up, as if a steel square once again encompassed her, protected her from everything she would ever be afraid of.
The Dark Slayer was back.
We were silent a long time, still also. Then I decided to say something. I don't know that I should have. But it just felt right to me at the time. 'We were both in a bad place.'
She looked at me once again, her head still against the wall, her arms supporting her on the floor. It took me a while to understand her expression. Hate, I think. 'I thought of all people you would be the first to realise that.'
'I shouldn't have…'
'Don't apologise. It's not your fault.'
More silence. I let her continue.
'Just surprised me. Didn't expect for you to show.'
I nodded to myself and gently, carefully ran a hand back through her now half dry, down hair. It had been in a tie-back before, but now it was down. Perhaps she had relaxed at the thought that I was going away. Leaving the room. Never coming back. She probably took comfort in knowing that perhaps that was the truth. 'I didn't mean to hurt you,' I told her in no louder than a whisper, my voice carefully soothing, or at least I believed.
I was surprised to see that this time she didn't flinch. Her eyes followed my hand however, and once out of her hair, her own caught it. I heard her suck in a breath and once again I kicked myself as she sobbed it out.
She broke down before me, as torn and sore as she had been before, when she was scared of me. Perhaps she still was. Maybe she just…contained it better. After all she was now fully dressed…well…in a pair of shorts and a tee. Ready for bed, I assumed, rather than wearing nothing but a towel.
'Hey, shh,' I said to her, quietly, and moved in towards her, my lips soon catching a falling tear that challenged others for her chin. Still, she sobbed harder as my lips touched her soft skin, and I moved an arm to embrace her. Cautious as I had tried to be, I inched it slowly, making absolutely sure it was okay for me to embrace her, by looking for any sign of her moving away from me. But when my second arm wrapped itself around the middle of her back, a little lower than my other arm, I calmed, knowing she would let me hold her. Even if it was just for a little bit.
PART 3: Comfort on the Way to Comfort
My entire moral code slipped from me as her arms sandwiched me between them and her body. And I felt so safe. There was no other way to describe it. I couldn’t understand, however, how she had the power to scare me and sooth me, all at the same time.
It couldn’t be that damned connection because if I recall there was a large void where that “connection” used to be.
I just let her hold me. Let her body move according to her breaths and embrace me according to her intentions. I leant my head upon her shoulder, mad at myself for moving from her before.
We didn’t move for a while. Most certainly didn’t intend to. Well, I didn’t. I believe she didn’t either because we must’ve been sat there for a good couple of hours before uttering a gentle, ‘You got it?’ to me.
I moved my head from her shoulder to see her eyes somewhat teeming from the mixture of curiosity, aspiration, empathy, supremacy…love. ‘I, er…yeah. Was…right outside my door.’
I moved back out of her touch, as her arms loosened their hold on me, and quietly hated myself for moving at all.
‘I thought you might have.’ She smiled a little, and when I didn’t smile back, it faded. I should’ve smiled. I like her smile. It would’ve stayed if I had shown her I had appreciated her comment. Instead I blanked her, didn’t move a facial muscle until I decided to lick over my lips, and get up off the floor.
I heard her get up also, and a little shuffling as she straightened out her jeans and cami top. Her short leather jacket fit her nicely, a little loose, but fitting enough, and I couldn’t help let my eyes just take in all this, just for a second.
There was an awkward silence as the space between us stayed at its length, and I fidgeted with my fingers. Fingers that itched. To…to touch.
Then something clicked inside of me.
The way she was looking at me told me a parable of “Let Me Stay” and I was glad I had looked into her eyes at that moment or I might have missed it. No, I don’t think so because…
PART 4: In the Struggle to Find Peace
All of a sudden my lips were pressed to hers, my arms were gripping her shoulders, my body was pressing itself against hers, my voice box was forcing out moans I had no recognition of at first. I sandwiched her body between the wall and mine, the kiss becoming more passionate as every second passed.
Ninety-nine percent of me was glad I had recognised the look in her eyes, though that one per cent was worried she didn’t want this. Luckily that was a smaller percentage, because if it wasn’t I’d have backed down and slapped myself at how stupid I was being to think for a second that she wanted me as much as I wanted her.
I tried so hard to drink in the image of her before me, as bare as she had been before (except for that the towel was wrapped around her). Her brown curls splayed across the pillow, gleaming as they surrounded her face. I pushed one back from her face, watching her eyes as they rolled back and her eyelids fell, my touch apparently affecting her morals.
I had tried to picture this in my head so many times, each time being interrupted by the harsh reality that encompassed my entire mentality. Yet still, even as I tried to still my whirring thoughts they raced and raced, challenged my breaths for speed, and with each inhalation they become more erratic, heavier, lustier. It drove my potentially inebriated sex to become more and more satin, tingly, “juiced.”
And still, all I wanted to see before me was this perfect figure I had so often dreamed of, this gorgeous brunette, every curve and contour fruit to my greedy eyes.
The only light in the room was the lamp shining through the window, apart from that the shadows cast on her body told me a story of where toned curves and contours of her body lay.
I tried not to rub against her centre as I sat upon her, legs folded on either side of her body, but with every effort I had ever possessed I could not help it. My efforts against it soon disappeared when a moan escaped her beautiful lips, and I thanked to god that she was wanting this still.
My mind flashed back to when we’d spend hours fantasising about the perfect sex; and who it would be with. I had inwardly cursed at myself so many times for not having the courage to tell her that she was the one who topped any other being I’d ever wanted to be with; Angel, or otherwise. A part of me wished I had told her then. But what would it have changed?
I ran a steady but scared hand gently along her naked thigh, making note of every curve, every single inch. As it moved inwards I heard her breathing become irregular, her chest heave erratically as breaths of air forced its way in and out faster than what was normal for her.
I watched her face as my hand slid further and further up her leg, frustratingly slowly, and I watched as it stopped. The contrast was unnoticeable had I not been watching, but ever so slightly her facial features softened, and I replaced my hand on her hip this time. Then, slowly, calmly, moved it over her stomach…felt how the toned skin told a story of…my mistake. My hand paused, what I imagined to be a scar beneath my fingers. ‘I…I’m so sorry…’ I muttered, moving my hand away, and looking at what I could see of the scar.
I leant forward and planted a soft kiss upon her lips, and after pulling away she uttered a whispered, ‘Relax.’ Meant for me, a part of me told me she was telling herself. And as her eyes came open to me, I offered a gentle smile, and she returned it, warming me immediately.
I moved back to her, to kiss her again, and I let my tongue across her lips, lightly, just sweeping it momentarily across her wonderful lips, praying that she would allow me entry once again. And as she did, and I slid my tongue in, I relaxed into her body, let myself melt into her, let my tongue explore, play games with hers.
When I broke away, began kissing her neck, she stilled me. ‘Please, Buffy…’
I moved back a little to see her eyes, and they were filled with what I think was apprehension.
‘Be careful,’ she uttered softly, and I nodded my head, feeling the hair on my back move as I did.
Already I could smell the sensuous aroma of both of our inebriations, and the atmosphere seemed to become more and more claustrophobic as my fingers buried themselves in the hilt of her, then withdrew, buried, then withdrew. Her hips moved up against my hand and my expression stayed still as her face scrunched, and she whimpered my name. My name.
I listened as the soothing sound of her voice reverberated against the walls of her throat, and as I continued at the desperately inebriating motion, I consumed every sound she made. Rushed breaths, her feral-becoming moans, the noise of the sheets screeching as she ran her hands along them.
Then, without admonition, she let out the loudest moan, quickly assuring me she had finally come. For me.
I had never watched a sunrise before, but it was right outside of my window, and as I held her, as her back pressed up against my front, and my arm covered her, I watched it.
She had hardly moved. Perhaps once in the past two hours. I didn’t know. I hadn’t really slept. I had watched her as she slept. But she hardly moved that I forgot every time she did, mostly because it was hardly an inch.
I looked down at her slumbering form, finally contented because she was back. That space was gone.
It sounds soppy, I know. But she filled it; I silently thanked her for that.
I ran fingers along her naked skin, beneath the simple white sheet that covered us both. She was so soft. Her skin was soothing to me. It comforted me. I wished mine was like hers. I let my hand linger upon her hip, and buried my face in the space behind her head, her hair in a disarray upon the pillow. But I did not care. Just inhaling her scent was enough to tell me that I was safe, now that I was here with her.
And she was in my arms.
It had never occurred to me what it was. A tingling sensation that awakened the utter most depths of feeling within you. Something that organs could awaken, something that could be suppressed for your entire life. Something that would shorten your breath and stop your heart. It never occurred to me that she was feeling this emotion. For me.