“Heads up!” Buffy shouts, her voice carrying through the midnight air of Sunnydale’s 9th cemetery across to her slaying partner, all while she's tossing another vampire reflexively over her shoulder.
One more of many, it would seem.
The slayers had been fighting for what felt like (according to Faith) 12 years, and the horrors didn't stop coming - Faith had joked when they arrived that they'd intruded on an undead frat party, and, actually, it might’ve been true; the fanged nightmares had definitely been having some kind of debauched gathering and were clearly less than impressed to meet face to face with two slayers;
The same slayers that were covered in blood and other unspeakable graveyard debris by now and most of the vampire ash, probably. Carnage appeared to be nearing it's end - thank fuck.
Faith, slightly crouched, picks up Buffy’s cue, and nods once, but she's just a fraction too late.
Some blonde wearing a Sunnydale Razorbacks sweater is grinning like a madman and Faith has less than a second to process his ugly wrinkled face and the huge hunk of gravestone that's flying towards her.
Oh shit.
She braces herself for impact….
…It never comes.
Instead there's a blur as Buffy runs from the ever growing pile of dust from discarded vampire bodies and makes a hectic beeline towards Faith, who's suddenly knocked on her ass.
Then there's a distinct Summers’ scream of excruciating pain as the stone that'd been destined for Faith's head instead, shattering, comes to a hard, sickening ‘crunch’ directly into Buffy's torso.
Faith's momentarily stunned, both from everything that's happened in the last 0.3 seconds and from having all the wind knocked out of her by a flying vampire slayer.
She's got no time to get her bearings however, as Mr. Razorbacks is smugly approaching her from behind.
“Asshole!” she yells, scrambling to her feet and dispatching him with a flick of her stake. Three more are coming at her, two from her left side side, one from the right , and she's on them fast; kicking and punching ferociously.
“Just… don't… know when to…. quit, do ya?” she asks through gritted teeth, not expecting much of a response from the vampires (who are swiftly all back to being dead where they belong) and she's kneeling down in the dirt beside Buffy.
There's blood. So much blood. And Buffy's eyes are closed - unconscious.
Cmon, Faith. You learned about all this shit. Airway, breathing, circulation.
“Buffy?” she ventures, taking off her jacket to stem the impressive blood flow.
“Ok, I'm gonna stop the blood first. Then we're gonna get you to the motel and I'll bandage you up, k?”
She can't help the worry in her voice as she does this, speaking to the patient, going through the motions.
She's surprisingly good at first aid; between the slayer stuff and having been left unattended a lot as a very adventurous child, she'd picked up a fair bit.
She’s also pretty good with emergencies, not letting herself lose focus or panic too much.
Gotta get this done. She let the adrenaline take over, at least until after the crisis was dealt with. And this one was far from. .
Buffy is breathing - thank fucking hell - and the jacket seems to be doing… she wouldn't say good, but a mediocre job at keeping blood where it was meant to be. The wound is in her side, meaning Faith's able to somewhat effectively tie the jacket around it, needing her hands free to pick Buffy up.
Yes, moving her wasn't ideal, but if she called an ambulance there'd be a whole bunch of explaining to do and lies to make up and it'd honestly be faster if she just did this herself. So she lifts Buffy up, as carefully as she can, and carries her back to the motel room.
Fortunately the place was so bad that even if the desk clerk was there, he probably wouldn't even notice the bleeding woman. As it was, he wasn't there anyway, so Faith made it to her room without hindrance.
She puts Buffy down gently on the bed, blood immediately pooling from her onto Faith's blankets.
Not that she gave a crap. It wasn't the first time they've been bloodstained, anyway.
“Stay there” she instructs, her hands hovering over Buffy's still body as if she might just get up and march away.
She wishes she'd cleaned the room better, having to climb over a few empty cans and discarded clothes to get to her first aid stuff.
There's real bandages in here, and a bottle of some very strong rubbing alcohol that's been used to clean so many of her own wounds. She gets to work fast, removing the red-stained jacket and cleaning out the injury.
“Kinda glad you're asleep right now, cuz this stings like a mother”
There's some bits of gravestone stuck in her flesh, which Faith pulls out firmly but gently, cleaning up the blood flow as she goes (another thing you're advised against, but Faith knows what she's doing - mostly).
Once it's all done, she completes the bandaging on Buffy's side neatly, and after dealing with the smaller cuts and rolling the slayer into the recovery position, she steps back, sighing heavily.
Buffy's still out, but at least she's not bleeding everywhere.
“What in the hells were you doing, idiot?” she scolds, perching on the bed next to her. She doesn't want to disturb her or sit on the blood, so it's kind of an awkward one leg on the bed, one hovering situation.
She scans her eyes over Buffy's injured body, shaking her head.
“Gonna have words when you're awake I fucking swear…”
She feels her hand bunch up some of the bed clothes and curl into a fist in some kind of frustrated anger.
She sighs, standing up.
“I'm getting a drink or something. Whatever.”
She pours herself a glass of water, takes a sip, and abandons it. There's no sound apart from Buffy’s steady breathing and whatever she can hear travelling in from outside.
Agonizing.
She leans against the grubby motel wall, listening to the sound.
Until it stops.
“Buffy?” she's crouching over her instantly, checking her pulse, putting an ear to her mouth.
Pulse good, breathing bad. Breathing none, Infact.
She immediately starts pressing down on Buffy's chest, counting rhythmically. “one, two, three, four….”
She's strong, so the pressure isn't too hard to maintain. When she gets to fifteen though, she cringes as she feels one of Buffy's ribs crack.
Faith tries not to think about it.
She reaches thirty, and watches Buffy's chest rise with the second-hand air Faith gives her.
And that's all she can give her - broken ribs and used air.
Second hand air from a second rate slayer.
Faith should be the one bleeding out in a graveyard. The one with broken ribs and losing breath.
This all should've been her.
Buffy's lips taste like blood and stone and something she can't place.
Doing the breathing for her, it's not at all like kissing, and it's definitely not anything like those stupid sappy movies or hospital drama type things her mum used to watch sometimes. (Not that she was thinking about kissing Buffy. She'd never do that, especially when she was meant to be playing doctor.)
Bad Faith, we’re not. Thinking. About. It - even a little.
But it was kind of intimate, and her mixed emotions were fighting their own battle while Buffy fought to stay alive.
Faith is beginning to tire; even a slayer can't keep this up for too long.
Maybe she's crying, she's not sure.
“Don't you dare fucking die on me, Summers, I swear to fucking God..”
She keeps going.
“... twenty six, twenty seven, twent-” She doesn't know how many times she's counted to thirty, or how long it's been.
She's thinking about that stupid thing in the dramas where one of the doctors takes their gloves off and announces someone's death. She wouldn't even know what time it was.
Then, there's a shuddering breath, and Buffy’s chest rattles, uncertain, like it's not sure it wants to be awake. Like a footstep on fresh snow.
Her eyes are open and she's frowning, looking around herself.
“Faith…?” she says, sounding like she smokes fifty a day.
Faith scrambles off her as Buffy - stupidly- tries to sit up.
“What…?” she hesitates, falling down again instantly.
“You're a fucking idiot, B!” Faith replies, the adrenaline from the crisis leaving her body and being inexplicably replaced with inordinate rage.
Buffy is examining her surroundings, the gross apartment walls, damp ceiling, and bloodied bedsheets. She's poking at the bandage.
Faith hissed at her. “Don't touch that! That's keeping the blood inside your body, genius.”
If Buffy hears the hint of venom, she doesn't say so. “Did we win?” She's still frowning, still confused, but she's remembering the events that led up to this moment, slowly.
“What?” Snaps Faith, pacing.
“We - You, nearly died, Buffy! That vampire threw someone's grave at me, you saw! You warned me! Why’d you run right for it? Dunno how you didn't lose all the blood you ever had!”
“But I didn't. Thanks, for… I assume this was you?”
Faith sighs.
“Not the fucking point. You shouldn't have stopped him. I could've handled it”
“Handled it? Faith, he was going to kill you” Buffy frowns, coughs, and flinches in pain.
“You shouldn't have stopped him. Next time don't bother, okay?” she turns away, tears forming in her eyes.
“Faith, if it had hit you it definitely would've killed you. The angle you were at and the aim he had, you'd be - (she swallows, painfully) - you wouldn't be standing here. I couldn't j–”
“Whatever” Faith snaps, definitely starting to cry. She stops pacing, whipping around to glare angrily at Buffy and swiftly storms out of her own room, slamming the door after herself.
Buffy flinches again.
Faith really was the most confusing woman she'd ever met.
She attempts to move, but even twisting or just moving anything other than her head and one arm is too painful. She can't follow Faith. But this is her motel room, she'd have to come back eventually, right? It wasn't like she could be expecting Buffy to leave, considering she couldn't even sit up without a whole world of hurt.
So she waited.
Lo and behold, the waterer did return. Buffy said nothing as she came into the room, definitely a lot less… whirlwind than previously.
Faith traipses over to the sink for some water.
“Hey”
“Hi” Buffy croaks back. “I was gonna get out before you came back, but uh -” she stops, not wanting any mentions of the injury to rile Faith up again.
“Yeah.” was her response, putting the glass down.
“Look, I'm sorry. About the yelling. I was just… “ she pauses.
“I was worried. I've never seen you take a hit like that. And I don't get why you did it. I mean, you're the slayer. I'm a slayer. If I'd died, they wouldn't miss me.”
“Faith…”
“I dunno. That's kinda the first time anyone's done anything for me like that. Not just the almost dying thing because yeah obviously that's never happened. I mean the taking a hit for me. Trying to protect me. Not used to that shit, I guess”
She's looking down at the floor, using her toes to move a discarded chocolate wrapper.
“Well get used to it” Buffy says, slightly firmly.
“We got each other's backs.
And you're not just ‘a slayer’. I was just getting used to not being the only one, be a real bummer if you died”
Faith emits a light laugh, and Buffy smiles.
“Plus. I've had practice. Remember?” she scoots as much as she can over to the side of Faith's bed, inhaling a little from the pain, and gestures for her.
Faith obliges, tentatively taking up space next to her.
“You're part of this now, Faith. I'm gonna do for you what I'd do for Willow, or Xander, or Angel. I'm not gonna let anything happen to you”
Faith nods, suddenly feeling extremely tired.
Buffy kisses her on the head as she falls asleep.
She can already feel her wounds beginning to heal.