One More Time: Truth or Dare
by Sulks
Rating: PG-13

Author's Notes: Follows "Once More Around the Block."

Faith had been living at the Summers home for a month, and things had gone relatively smoothly. Both Faith and Buffy were working, which helped pay the bills around the house, and Dawn was doing well in school. She absolutely *worshipped* Faith, and Faith had grown to feel genuine affection for the young girl.

Things between the two slayers vacillated between excruciating awkwardness and uneasiness. They joked around with each other, but very cautiously, each afraid to set the other off. But night-time patrol made it seem like old times again, Faith cracking a few crude jokes at the vampires' expense and Buffy protesting that she was "not comfortable with the grunting." And slowly, things were becoming comfortable between the two of them again.

One night after a particularly boring patrol, they came home to an empty house--apparently Dawn was sleeping over at Janice's. Faith talked Buffy out of marching over to Janice's and bringing Dawn home, as Buffy was unhappy that Dawn hadn't bothered to ask first. And they decided that since Dawn wasn't around, they might as well get drunk.

"Let's play truth or dare," Buffy slurred, bringing the bottle of vodka to her lips.

"No," Faith uttered as she chugged on her bottle of Jack Daniels. 'Damn, I'm feeling this,' she thought to herself.

"Aw, what's the matter, F? You afraid of lil ol' me?"

Faith snorted, "hell, no. I can take anything you can dish out, Blondie."

"Oh, really?" Buffy purred, raising her eyebrows? She inched closer to Faith on the couch cushions, the dark slayer immediately drew back, disliking the sudden invasion of her personal space. The blonde just smirked.

"You go first," Faith said. "Truth or dare."

"Truth."

"Tell me something about you that I don't know."

"Back when I first started college," Buffy said softly, "this professor screamed at me in front of the whole class, I couldn't find my way, my roommate hated me and this vampire kicked my ass." She paused for a moment and then trudged on, almost painfully. "So I went to see you...I'm not really sure why, but it always felt like you were the one that could always understand me...except...you weren't you anymore. And it made me feel sick inside to see what I'd done to you, and I wanted to forget you, because it felt like something creeped inside me and died, seeing you lying there like that, and knowing what I'd done."

Faith shrugged, despite the fact that it felt like she'd just been punched in the stomach. She stared at the bottle of tequila in her hands and stared at the amber coloured liquor silently.

"Say something."

"I pick dare."

"What?"

"I pick dare."

"Oh," Buffy said, looking disappointed. She thought that just once, she could have a crack at the facade, but apparently Faith wasn't going to let her, despite being a little drunk. "I dare you to tell me the truth about why you worked for the Mayor."

A look of inebriated outrage spread across Faith's features, "that's not fucking fair!" She staggered drunkenly to her feet, fully prepared to stalk away.

"You were always afraid of me, and you're always gonna be, F," Buffy taunted, goading her into an argument, just wanting some answers.

"Shut up."

"I *deserve* an explanation, god dammit, I *loved* you and you fucking *betrayed* me."

"I said, 'shut up!'" Faith yelled, bringing her hands to her head. "Just shut up."

Buffy set her bottle of vodka on the coffee table and stood up, stalking over to Faith and grabbing her by the shoulders. "I want to know," she growled, "why you would give up everything we had to work for *him*."

Faith laughed bitterly and pushed the blonde away. "We didn't have *anything*, B. We just fucked a few times, *you're* the one that made that perfectly clear, remember?"

"I *loved* you. I TOLD you that I loved you. We'd just made *love*, and I was holding you and I told you that I loved you, and you fucking told me to get off you, and then you kicked me out!"

Faith snorted. "I guess you had a thing for murders, huh? You know you only told me that so I'd turn myself into the cops for killing Allan. You made it wicked obvious to me that you only loved Angel. You just used me to get off, don't fucking make it into roses and perfume, B."

"That's not true," Buffy said, angrily, swatting away the tears that sprang to her eyes. "I *did* love you."

Faith giggled. Buffy had never heard her giggle before, and coming from Faith a giggle was kind of scary.

"I'm sorry," Faith said, a smile of false mirth twisting her lips. "I didn't know that stabbing me so you could feed me to your boy meant you loved me. I mean, really, nothin' says love and caring like a knife in the gut, right? Damn, B. And here I thought you were an old-fashioned girl, I thought if you really loved me you would have sent a card, maybe even roses. But yeah, gee. Now that I know you "love" me, I can see how knifing me was equivalent to a valentine. If I'd known you were really like *that* we didn't have to be so vanilla, we could have added a few kinks." Faith's gaze hardened. "Why'd you have to go and ruin this, B? We were *good* before you brought the shit to the surface again. All we had was fucking, B. Just skin on skin, and lips here," Faith said, as she cupped her groin. "That's it."

"Don't," Buffy pleaded. "Don't cheapen what we had."

"It *was* cheap!" Faith exclaimed, throwing her hands in the air in exasperation. "*I'm* cheap. I didn't love you. I just wanted to *fuck* you, B. I fucking *hated* you for abandoning me, you--"

"What?" Buffy demanded, stepping closer to Faith. "What do you mean, I abandoned you? What're you talking about?"

"Nothing," Faith muttered, running out of steam, suddenly. "It's nothing." She grabbed her bottle of tequila and chugged the liquid, and stumbled backwards. "Damn," she muttered as her lips began to go numb.

"Faith--"

"Just leave me alone, B."

"I just want to understand," Buffy said pleadingly. "I want to understand how things could get so bad between us. We were so good once, remember?"

Faith shut her eyes. "Yeah," she whispered. "But shit never stays fresh with me for very long, eventually everything stinks up."

"Can we please forget this?" Buffy begged. "Forget this conversation happened? Can't we just sit down and watch a video? Please?"

"All right," Faith relented, settling back on the couch. "But we're not having this conversation again. Ever. Got it?"

Buffy said nothing, she just put in a video and sat down on the couch. Each girl stared morosely at the screen holding a bottle of hard liquor.

...continued in Morning After...