Wolfram and Hart wasn't ever all-the-way quiet. It was only late at night, after Fred insisted again that Knox get on home and he finally got, that she felt the heebie-jeebies of it. When she switched off the electromagical 'scope, and bottled the ifrits, and the computers stopped their jabbering, there was always a hint of screaming, coming from who-knew-where. Fred stood under the duct in her office. Cold air hissed, like a vampire pretending to breathe. Fred strained her ears, and heard--or maybe imagined--the sounds of torture, gurgles and sighs, carrying through the vents. If there was screaming, it was coming from a million miles away, maybe from the sub-sub-sub-basements no one had ever seen the bottom of, or maybe from another dimension altogether. It sounded like some poor soul frying in Hell, and Fred wouldn't put money against it being exactly that. This time of night, it felt like there was no guarantee you wouldn't be the one screaming before long.

Glass crashed, sudden-loud. Fred jerked around. A shriek trembled on her lips, good cow i'm a good cow, and her heart spasmed, then pounded stutter-stop-stammer. All the lights were off in the lab and she couldn't hardly see a thing. It shook her something awful, hearing that crash right when she was thinking about the souls Wolfram and Hart bought and sold like candy. Charles would laugh at her, if he was still the Charles that laughed. Even Wesley would get that little crinkle around his eyes--but thinking about Wesley wasn't helping her figure out what had gone smash this time. Shattering glass wasn't anything other than routine. Angel'd been thrown through three windows this week alone, and it was only Tuesday. No use getting bothered. The building was never empty. Just go and see who and what now.

Fred crept down the stairs, feeling like a mouse in a house full of very hungry cats. The lab overheads were off, and the two little desk lamps just made the shadows darker. A second crash came when she was halfway down the stairs, and Fred flinched back for a long, breathless moment before continuing.

The lab's main double doors were splintered on their frames. Whoever it was had gotten past security, all the security, but Fred didn't really trust that. Angel'd always managed to sneak into the place, even before it was his. Sometimes what Wolfram and Hart called 'security' was just another trap.

Fred stopped at the bottom of the stairs, where the dark was still thick enough to hide her. The lab was a disaster. Cabinets were busted open, and vials and flasks were scattered all over, drugs and poisons spilled out into smoking puddles. The big smash, Fred figured, was the mystically-locked case that held the spells and amulets she was trying to stop Wolfram and Hart from selling. Soul-corrosives, mindwipes, plagues--ugly spells that gave Fred shivers when she couldn't push away the fact that she worked for the people who'd invented most of them. But other than the mess of bottles and steaming chemicals, the lab was empty. Fred winced, thinking of poltergeists, then took a step forward.

There wasn't a sound when hands wrapped around her neck. Pain and pressure grabbed her throat, hard and brutal, all at once. Breath rasped behind her. Fred kicked back, struggling, and the hands held her as easily as Angel could've. She tried to bite, or scream, or something. She couldn't get her breath to do any of it, and for a moment she was madder at her own helplessness than afraid.

"You clean up nice, Texas," a voice whispered near her ear. "Sorry I wasn't in any condition to take advantage last time."

Fred managed a single strangled mouse-squeak. Faith. Why in hell hadn't she phoned Wesley when she'd had the chance? Angel--or even Spike--Lord, she was such a scatterbrain!

"But then, you were too busy gushing over Red to pay me any mind, no matter how much I was busy fucking saving your life, goddammit, fucking Wes and his bright ideas..."

The pressure on her throat loosened. The powerful hand dropped to her shoulder, keeping a grip like iron, and twisted her around. Fred coughed, dry and choking. She lifted a hand to her neck, closing her eyes for one pain-filled second. Wes had said Faith was evil, was, past tense, that she was mainly hurt inside, and it was his fault but she was better now, worth a chance--when? When had he said that? She couldn't remember. Faith had gone to Sunnydale, and then--well, wherever the rest of the Slayers had gone. How did Fred know that? And what in blazes was Faith doing here?

"What the fuck did you do with it?"

"Do...?" Fred tried to cringe away, but the hand on her shoulder squeezed. She whimpered, half-sure she heard bone grating.

"Don't fucking play games with me, Texas, where is it, where the fuck is it?"

"I don't--Faith--"

Faith shoved her away with a growl. Fred stumbled, catching herself against the lab table in the middle of the room. Faith spun around and shattered another cabinet with a powerful kick, sending more glass shards to the littered floor. She crouched down and pushed her hands through the mess. Without even stopping to think that Faith could have killed her a moment before, Fred yanked her back by the elbow and took her hands. Blood welled out of deep gashes on Faith's palms.

"Everyone knows how to bleed," Faith muttered.

"What are you saying?" Fred bit her lip and picked slivers of glass out of the cuts, smearing Faith's blood over her lab coat.

"Goddamn Wesley." Faith didn't even seem to be listening. She swayed on her feet, like all of a sudden that Slayer strength of hers had drained away. Fred glanced into her face. Kohl-dark makeup blended into the deep circles under her eyes, stark against the whiteness of her face. Her eyes blurred, unfocused, unsteady. She shook herself, and seemed to see Fred again.

"You're just like Angel, fucking sanctimonious, you think they call you champions because you're always right." Faith made a fist in front of her, lines of blood trickling between her clenched fingers. When she opened her hand, the cuts were already gone. "Doesn't work that way, Texas. This place doesn't give a shit for 'right'. You'll make more if you've gotten rid of it."

Fred started, "More...?" and then her mind flashed to Faith, laying in one of the Hyperion's dusty rooms, sleeping, but not, because no one was that still when they slept. And for a moment she had no idea where that memory fit. With a sickening sense of disconnection, Fred realized she knew Faith but she didn't know from where, that they'd met and she didn't have the slightest clue how. Faith had saved them all--somehow--and then Fred said, "Orpheus," not because she remembered but because the word was there, attached to Faith in a way she didn't understand.

Faith clutched her wrist, and her eyes were a hurt falcon's, black and fierce and dangerously desperate. "Where is it?"

No sooner did Fred think of lying than Faith had her pinned against the lab table, and the wrist she held was creaking under the pressure of her grip. She used her weight to press Fred into the edge. "Where--the fuck--"

"Angel told me to stop them from making it--we don't sell that stuff anymore--"

"I know you don't sell it, Jesus Christ--"

Fred gritted her teeth against the pain in her wrist, the cold deadness of her hand. "Faith, it's just withdrawal. I know what you're feeling, but we can help you..."

"God, not another one," Faith said. "Buffy really helped, didn't she? Your hero Angel helped? Until all his mind-fucks caught up with him, shit, I can't, don't you get it, you can't help me, it doesn't take, it doesn't--"

Fred shook her head, listening to the rough, broken tone of Faith's voice more than her words. "What you're feeling..." she started again.

Faith focused on her again, so sharp, like Angel's weapons display, and she smiled so suddenly that it hurt to see it. "Oh, you think you know how I feel?"

Before Fred could answer, Faith caught her chin in her bruising fingers and kissed her. Fred pulled back, but Faith anticipated her and pushed harder. The table edge dug into Fred's back, and Faith used her body to bend her over it, pressing her into the scatter of books and files. Fred shoved at Faith's chest with her free hand. Faith only kissed her harder, forcing her tongue into Fred's mouth, tasting of dusty cigarettes and day-long heat. Fred whimpered and tried to roll sideways, off the heap of reports and lab equipment, but Faith had her legs on either side of Fred's, trapping her. Her fingers slid down from Fred's chin to rest on her throat. She didn't try to choke Fred's breath away, but Fred could feel the warm throb of bruises from Faith's first attack and she knew it was a threat.

Fred squeezed her eyes shut and begged her body not to feel. It wasn't working, Lord, anything but. Her hand on Faith's shoulder wasn't pushing her away as much as it was clutching the denim of her jacket, as if Fred was afraid she'd vanish if she let go. It'd been so long since she'd been kissed by a woman, because nobody here knew everything about her college days and Fred had been happy to keep it that way. And it wasn't fair, it wasn't right. Faith had attacked her and she barely knew why and now this--

Faith softened the force of her kiss, her invading tongue suddenly teasing and playful. Fred drew in a shocked breath, more surprised by the change than by the kiss itself. Faith's hand rested just above her breastbone, fingertips moving in tiny circles across her skin. A quiver ran over Fred's skin, like a fly-stung filly. She wanted to reject Faith, to push her tongue out, but instead somehow she was kissing her back. Warmwetsoft, didn't make sense, but Fred almost moaned before she remembered that she shouldn't, that this was wrong.

Faith broke the kiss and rasped somewhere near Fred's ear, "You like that, don't you?"

Fred held her breath and unfelt everything Faith had done, thought of Wesley--the dip of his bottom lip when he was disappointed, the hurtshocked despair in his eyes when he found out--because of course he would find out--and she whispered, "No."

No sooner was the word out than Faith's hand dropped from her throat and grabbed between Fred's legs, hard, as if it was an even better place to strangle. Maybe it was, because Fred's breath whooshed out of her body just the same.

"No," Faith said, quiet and husky. "No, you wouldn't. This, though--" She squeezed. Fred's hand clutched helplessly at her shoulder. The heat of her hand, the pressure--Fred bit back a cry and forced herself to stay still, not to reveal anything.

"Maybe only the second-best actor," Faith said, and now her hand was undulating, rising and falling like ocean swells, up and down and Fred could hardly understand what she was saying. "But I still know a liar when I see one." She dipped her head closer, kissed the side of Fred's throat, her tongue darting out to touch her carotid artery, feeling the bird-quick pulse there. Fred trembled and forced herself to move away. "Do you think," Faith whispered, in an amused voice, "that anybody'd rescue you, if you yelled?"

Fred wanted her voice to come out steady, assured. Instead, she squeaked, "Of course they would," like every damsel in distress ever. She closed her eyes and imagined being roped to train tracks with a steam engine shrieking as it bore down on her, and Faith twirling her moustaches which just went to show how silly it got in her head when she was under stress, because the somehow the moustaches didn't detract from Faith's hotness in the least, and why had Fred ever agreed to work at Wolfram and Hart anyway?

Faith was laughing at her. "I knew this place before you did, Texas. Don't think Lilah never showed me a few ways in. Screaming won't do you any good. So be good, huh?" Her voice dropped at the end, and she was mouthing Fred's jaw, licking behind her ear. "Be good," she muttered again. "Good girl..."

Fred fought to relax. Faith could do anything, had been known for doing whatever hell-bent scheme entered her head, without thinking. There was no way Fred was getting out. She leaned back on the lab table and ran through trigonometry proofs in her head. Anything but what was happening. Anything-- Then Faith's hand moved away, and this time Fred couldn't stop a whimper, a tiny sound, but Faith heard it, and chuckled. Her eyes were more alive than when she'd first spun Fred around, and there was only the slightest tremor in her fingers when she reached for Fred's buttons.

She undid them, agonizingly slowly, holding Fred's gaze and grinning at her fear. One, then another, then the lab coat brushed open and Faith worked on the smaller buttons of her blouse. Fred tensed with each one. A scream was struggling in her throat, no matter what Faith said about nobody hearing. It was just the thought, the terriblewonderful idea of what would happen when all of those buttons were open. Her knuckles were white on the table and her blouse was gaping open and Faith's eyes were so dark and knowing. The last button--

Fred jerked sideways, away from Faith, away away away. For an instant she thought she was free and she looked wildly for the door, but then she was yanked back to the table and this time there wasn't even a pretense of gentleness. Faith shoved the papers and files from the table, knocking everything into the mess on the floor. Fred yelped when she was tossed against the edge like a sack of sugar, and Faith tore open the lab coat and blouse until they tied her arms to her side and she couldn't stop anything. Faith's mouth was on her and this time she bit, hard, teeth scraping over the point of Fred's collarbone. Faith sucked until bruises blossomed under her mouth, down from Fred's neck to the hem of her bra, the one that worked hard to reveal more than it hid.

Faith's teeth tore it like it was nothing. And then--

And then Fred couldn't help struggling, but this time it wasn't to get away. Faith licked her way over her aching nipples. Fire surged through her nerves. Fred moaned, gave in, forgot that Faith could kill her--might, still, because she was sucking so hard that Fred might not survive anyway. She could feel herself clenching and releasing, waiting for the return of Faith's hand, the sweet invasion that she didn't want. Then her skirt was down around her knees and she was even more bound into place. Fred tried to count how many turtleneck days would follow this, lost count, tried again, her brain fuzzy and incoherent as Faith worked her fingers down, lower, oh Lord, lower--

Faith's finger sank into Fred's swollen, slippery pussy like a lie, soft and innocent. Her teeth bit down on the side of Fred's breast, a sharp surprise, and her fingers dug into the skin under Fred's ribs, holding her in place like iron, but the hand brushing Fred's clit was gentle, so gentle. Fred whined, her hips moving forward, begging for more.

"Tell me how it feels," Faith demanded. "Tell me."

Fred thrashed her head back and forth. "I--don't--"

Faith breathed in the words, covering Fred's mouth with hers, devouring her. The press of her fingers grew more insistent. Warmth spread through her thighs and up through her stomach. Fred sagged against Faith, collapsing onto her hand--into the unrelenting sensation of her touch. Her breath twitched, shuddering, as Faith toyed with her, rubbing then drawing her hand away, and each time her touch was firmer.

"Tell me," she said again, pressing, harder, "how it feels."

"It's--too much--I want--" Fred wanted to die, wanted to go back in time and stop this from happening, wanted it to never end, wanted to scream.

Faith's thumb pressed down on her clit, harder and harder and this time Fred did scream. It hurt, oh Lord it hurt it hurt and she was going to come. Somewhere beneath the pain she knew she was building towards an explosive orgasm. Her legs were shaking and she couldn't catch her breath. She wanted to twist away from Faith's hand but she was pushing towards her, her hips flaring forwards into that hurt-hot touch. Her head thrown back, her hands clawing at the smooth tabletop, Fred felt her muscles tightening and oh God she was going to--she was--

Faith took her hand away and stepped back.

Fred fell back on her elbows, panting. Tremors ran through her body, leaving her pussy clenching, empty and aching. "What--"

"That," Faith said, edgy and trembling, "that's how it feels."

"F-feels..." Fred stared. The words couldn't break through the thrum of her pulse. She wanted--needed--Faith's hand, her mouth, anything--

"Don't fucking tell me you can help me, Texas," Faith said, and it was almost a sigh, like maybe, somehow, she regretted--everything. "Not when it's like that, all the time."

Frustration blazed through Fred. "I can."

Faith rolled her eyes, started to turn away.

"Take off your jacket." Naked except for torn remnants of skirt and blouse, Fred didn't care what she was saying. She only knew that she couldn't let this end like this; not even for Wesley. She hurt too badly, hurt enough that finishing was the only way--and her own hand, small and shameful, wouldn't be enough.

Faith raised an eyebrow, but the jacket slipped from her shoulders almost before the words from Fred's mouth.

Track marks crisscrossed, red and vivid, up to the creases of both elbows. Fred wondered how bad they'd been before, that Slayer healing couldn't even dent them. How much--how long? What had Faith been shooting, when the street supply of Orpheus ran low?

But beneath Faith's black tank top, her nipples stood out, high and proud, and Fred fell into her, like light into a black hole, and couldn't help thinking that she'd passed the event horizon long ago. They kissed, and Fred tasted coarse hair caught between their mouths--smoke and smog. Then she was sucking those nipples through the fabric of Faith's shirt and Faith groaned like she'd lost at something, and she hated that surrender. Her hands crushed Fred's shoulders, and she pulled her down, until she lay on the floor, on a bed of glass and poison.

Fred backed away only long enough to work open Faith's fly. She expected Faith to be dirty, somehow, maybe of vampire dust or slime demons, but Faith tasted of soap and sweat, and of warm moving bodies. She was soaked, and Fred gasped when her fingers tucked inside the seam of her jeans and spread her so easily. Lord, she'd never felt anyone so hot--Slayer metabolism, maybe, or just Faith burning with fever. It was eerie how still Faith stayed, because Fred could feel the tension in her muscles, the way she held herself back. Fred skated her tongue over Faith's slit to tease her. Faith twisted, said, "Like that like that oh fuck oh--"

Buried in sweat and scent, Fred curled her tongue until Faith's moans turned wordless. Her clit was swollen and dark with blood, pulsing like her heartbeat. Fred nuzzled the curls of black hair. She sucked down and deeper and thought about taunting Faith the way she'd been taunted; but while she thought, she moved her fingertips lightly along the sides of Faith's clit, and then Faith froze, silently, her mouth open around a name she refused to say. She came like fireworks, bursting and fluttering and then, just when Fred thought she was finished, her body would twitch and shiver again.

"Faith," Fred said. "Faith." She tasted the name as if she could connect it to a memory. The sick feeling of disconnection threatened. Fred was slick with arousal, hot chills sliding under and around her broken recollection.

Faith growled and rolled them over, Slayer-quick, kneeling behind Fred with her mons pressed into Fred's bony hip. She thrust forward, and grunted. Fred whimpered. Faith's fingers found her from two directions. One arm looped around her ribcage and snuck down to her clit. The other was behind her, fingers diving into her, thumb tight and high and almost in--there. Fred blushed, felt her pulse in her skin, thrumming. "Faith..."

Faith bit her shoulderblade. "Want it," she panted, "want it," and at first Fred heard it as a question, Faith asking her permission, but it wasn't. Faith was talking about Orpheus.

Fred moved forward, but Faith followed, pushing into her hip, fingers moving, all at once. Fred's mouth fell open, letting out a sigh she didn't know she'd been holding, and then she was sighing and gasping with every move Faith made. Sensation rippled deep inside her like a tide threatening to flood. Fred flowed, lazy and hot, like lightning made liquid. Faith's caresses pulled pleasure from her, flaming and frantic and ohsoneeded.

Faith's hips rolled forward, so fast. She was close again, Fred could hear it in the tiny sounds she made, the almost-words.

"Oh God--oh please," she said, when Faith came again, and her fingers stuttered to a stop for an agonizing moment. Faith began again, harder harder harder, and one moment Fred was on the edge and the next she'd passed over, beyond.

She thought of supernovas, of helium fusion, of explosions that took a billion years and destroyed everything in their path. She cried out, helplessly, inexorably. This time she hoped no one could hear, that no one would ever know. She danced like solar flares ionizing the atmosphere, she hurtlovedhated, the orgasm sweet and lasting, lasting, Faith muttering fuck oh fuck into the bumps of her ribs.

When it was over, Fred wanted to throw up.

She scrambled to her feet, shaking. The muck from the floor streaked her clothes, what was left of them. Faith crouched on the floor, staring up at her, one hand casually lifted to her mouth. She licked it clean. Blood streaked her shoulders, where glass had sliced through the back of her filthy tank top, but the cuts were closed. Fred felt wobbly, like she didn't know how she could even stand--not after that. She looked away from Faith's stare. She hated herself. Faith's body was shaking again, shivering. She clenched fists to try to hide the tremors, and Fred thought she wouldn't ask again. Faith wouldn't beg.

But she did.

"Please," she said, in a broken voice, low and rasping. "Please."

"You're a champion," Fred said, and tears pricked her eyes. There was a lump in her throat, huge and horrible, because what kind of champion did what they'd just done?

"Fuck your goddamn champions," Faith said, ferocious again, a flash of brutal anger that was scarier because it was so thin, so thin over her desperation. "I'm not your fucking hero. I'm a Slayer, that's all."

"You won't be that even, much longer, not if you go on like this." Fred smoothed her torn skirt, working away each wrinkle, brushing each stain, looking anywhere but at Faith.

"There are a thousand more where I came from. What does it matter?" Faith fastened her jeans, yanking the zipper closed. "Besides, who are you saving, huh, Texas? Who the hell's winning at this game anyway?"

Fred remembered Angel's hunched, Armani-covered shoulders as he stared solemnly at them down the length of the boardroom table. He talked about heroes and champions and how the biggest changes at Wolfram and Hart would come from within. "It's not about winning--"

"It used to be. Trust me, I was there." Faith stood up like she was pushing against a terrible weight. "It was about doing right, no matter what looked right--what looked easy." At this, her eyes traveled over Fred.

And Fred hated her.

For an instant, her gaze flickered over to a cabinet, out of the way, high up. Faith saw where she looked. And she laughed, so hollow, like it was part of her that was already dead. Fred knew what she'd done: turned Faith over to being some vamp's bite-bitch, gave her up to riding Orpheus until her brains leaked out her ears.

She remembered, didn't remember: Faith saved you; she saved you all, once.

Fred watched Faith go, leaving to destroy herself--one way, or another.

She didn't care.

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May 21, 2005