I shouldn't be writing this. I should be listening to my history professor drone for no apparent reason. It's so dull, though, and I figured in light and celebration of my new tattoo (Faith's slayer brand on her upper arm, I finally had the nerve to get it) I'd write me some questionably implied slash and, as confusing as this is, het, too. Couplings are Faith/Buffy, Faith/Angel, Buffy/Angel and hell only knows what else. Mind you, I'm just rambling.

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He didn't know why he believed her. She'd looked at him, though, her warm brown eyes wide, her full lips pouting, and she'd said, "I-I can't do this, Angel."

She shivered when he touched her, gently, and he pulled her into a hug. She didn't fight it, but she crumpled and folded herself into his embrace. Her hands were fisting into his shirt. He'd never noticed how small she was before. She was smaller than Buffy. She was so different, too. When Buffy cried, he would admit, she retained some degree of self—she didn't fall apart like Faith did, like a shattered mirror whose pieces were not the mirror at all, something entirely more lost. It was the saddest thing he had ever seen.

He took her in a little deeper, let his hands entwine in her soft, brown hair. Everything about her was different, so different—Buffy didn't need him. Faith did. He saw this in her indecision, in her blatant fear, in the way she flinched and whimpered each time his fingers grazed her skin.

He couldn't let her go like this.

"You don't have to." He murmured, his chin tucked atop her head. His own expression was unreadable, and he could feel her heart beating inside his own cold kettledrum of a chest. She was shaking; he couldn't condemn her to this. She wasn't more than a child.

"Get me outta here." She whined, grasping his leather jacket like it was the last lifeline she had left. She knew Buffy would be angry with this, but hadn't Buffy ever been lost? No. Perfect Buffy Anne Summers didn't get lost, perfect Buffy Anne Summers always followed the Chosen path, did what a Chosen was supposed to do. Faith hadn't been Chosen, she had been forced, she knew this much. She closed her eyes and rested her forehead against his chest, seeking a comforting heartbeat with those Slayer senses of hers, those Chosen senses, and when she found none she remembered you could almost never rely on the kindness of strangers, "Please."

He only nodded. He couldn't leave someone like this to be fixed by the law. This was too delicate a problem for that. He lightly pushed her at the shoulder and dropped his head in the direction of the window, "Go to my apartment and stay there."