DISCLAIMER: Angel and Buffy belong to the genius that is Joss Whedon
and not me. No money is being made from this and no copyright
infringement is intended.
DEDICATED: For warpedscientist who requested a drabble… erm, it got
away from me again.
ARCHIVING: Only with the permission of the author.
SPOILER: Set after the end of Angel the series.
As the Old World Ends... A New World Begins
By Celievamp
This is the way the world ends…
This is the way the world ends…
Not with a bang but with a whimper. She's quite sure about one thing: she doesn't want to die, not here, not today, not like this. Kate Lockley has taken on vampires and demons and City Hall before and won without breaking sweat but these guys are tough. And there's no one left but her. Angel is dust as is Spike, Wolfram and Hart have permanently shut up shop. This apocalypse seems curiously exact, going after Angel and anyone the vampire was ever close to. His former cronies – public schoolboy Wesley and street urchin Gunn (strange bedfellows in every sense) and that oddly pretty girl Fred are all dead. The green demon-guy Lorne fled before the end. And Cordelia Chase has vanished off the face of the earth. Literally, by all accounts. She's asked for help but The Powers That Be seem permanently engaged and the Watcher's Council is in disarray. The Slayer is otherwise engaged. It's the end of the world for everyone, it seems, but there's more than one apocalypse going on. A place called Sunnydale vanished off the map a few months back. And after months when the sun shone black, fire rained down on the City and a woman called Jasmine had held almost the entire world in her thrall it had all seemed so normal for a while. The calm before the storm. That she knows and accepts these things terrifies her. It wasn't so long ago that she was a cop, a detective with a good reputation, a clean sheet, a career path that was going places. She had friends and colleagues who respected her and a father who loved her and was proud of his cop-daughter making detective. And then in the blink of an eye it all changed. She saw the other side, the dark side. Something inside her fractured, warped. And there was no going back from that.
Flight or fight. She tried the first but it didn't work out for her. So now she's giving the second a go.
Her back is to the wall. A slow choked gurgle that might be laughter comes from the mouth of the nearest demon. The stench is overpowering. She knows the kind of despair she knew the night that Angel saved her life. Even if she does kill these guys there will only be another lot of flesh eaters around the next corner. Somehow she got stuck in a FPS but there isn't a save point in sight. Fight or die. And she's seen enough to know that even that might not be the end of it. She raises the sword again but her arm is so tired. She's not even sure if decapitating this thing will kill it.
Then there is movement above and to the side of her and another sword flashes in her peripheral vision. She half turns to meet this new attacker and a voice of smoke and honey drawls "Hey, it's okay Blondie, I'm a friend." She has time to notice dark hair and dark eyes and beestung lips before the demons press their attack again.
They fight and the woman is good, better than good. No one could be that good and be entirely… human. "Who… who the hell… are you?" she gasps out.
"Faith… friend of a friend… Giles got your message… said you might need help…"
Giles meant the remnant tatters of the Watchers Council which meant that this was a Slayer. Faith… Automatically Kate raised and braced her sword to block a blow that would have taken her face off and the jarring contact makes her bones ache and her teeth rattle. Faith takes out the demon and the one next to him and suddenly they are in clear air.
They are gone. Butchered or fled. Whether they had prevailed or like many of their kind the red-orange line splitting the horizon signifying a new day (the last day?) terrified them more than two (mostly) human women, Kate did not know. Their breath steamed in the chill dawn air. They were both bleeding from a dozen or more wounds.
"You got a place we can go?" Faith asked. "I'll heal but you… you're gonna need doctoring."
"Yeah, I got a place," she said. She led the other woman through the crumbling smoking streets towards her building. She's the only one living here now and there's been no power for days but a trickle of water still comes through the pipes and most of the windows and the roof is still intact. She unlocks the door, steps over her threshold and that's as far as her legs take her. She's aware of Faith's strong arms around her holding her up and then it all goes away.
She wakes to the gentle insistent pull of stitches in her forearm holding together the tear that ran a good six inches from the back of her hand. She can still move her fingers so the tendons are okay. Something to be thankful for. She can feel a dull ache in her hairline, another across her left shoulder where one of the demons scored her with his claws. She can feel more claw marks across her belly and the weight of bandage on her right thigh and foot.
"You're good at this," she whispers.
"I was thinking of maybe trying for med school after… if there is an after," Faith said. "One thing about slaying you get plenty of practice at emergency trauma medicine."
"Do you think that there's gonna be an after?" Kate asks, studying the dark eyes that are intent on her skin. She is aware that she is mostly naked under the sheet that covers her. Normally she is careful about showing her body; she has scars now but she has the feeling that Faith isn't one to bother about scarring.
"Hope so. Got a lot more living to do," Faith grins and after a moment Kate grins back. She isn't imagining the connection between them. Faith finishes with her hand and quickly and efficiently bandages it. "We… you need to get more supplies if you can," she says.
We… "There's a free clinic a block or so down that the looters seem to have missed so far. We'll go by later, stock up again. Need to get more food as well."
"Yeah, I kinda noticed the cupboard was bare. The thing about slaying… it always gives me an appetite," Kate wasn't imagining the appreciative look on Faith's face as she sat up slightly, the sheet falling away from her breasts, "for all kind of things."
"I'm kinda hungry too. It's been a while since…" Faith's lips met hers, gently, sweetly, then more insistently though still careful of their mutual cuts and scrapes. Kate's good hand was wrapped in Faith's dark hair, the heavy tresses like silk as she wound her fingers into it. Faith's body arched over her, Kate's legs parting as Faith straddled her thigh, warm leather, flesh and bone pressed against her core as Kate began to rub herself against the dark haired girl who was still pretty much clothed. Her fingers scrabbled for buttons, anxious to remove the other woman's shirt. Faith's hands closed on hers, stilled her movements.
"Easy there. Just let me…" She straightened up a moment, lifted the shirt off over her head and tossed it onto the nearby chair. A few seconds later the bra that was all the more sexy for being utilitarian and plain joined it. Kate let her gaze feast on warm olive skin, fine grained, the dark plump nipples just beginning to firm. She drew one into her mouth, smiled around it as she heard Faith gasp her name. She let her tongue tease it for a moment then withdrew a little, drawing wet trails across the warm flesh before blowing gently over the skin.
Faith's leather clad thigh pressed into her and Kate gasped, grinding herself against it. Faith's fingers were scribing circles over her arms, back and breasts, she seemed to be humming under her breath. Every touch seemed to energise Kate, her skin seeming to blaze under the other woman's touch. She had never felt more alive. "What is this?" she gasped. "Why…?"
"Don't know for sure," Faith said. "But a while ago Red, a witch-friend of mine did a spell to get us out of another end of the world gig. She raised all the potential slayers all over the world to their power. Thousands upon thousands of them. My guess is that if you were twenty years younger you'd have been one as well. You'd have been a damn good one from what I saw. You were on fire out there." The dark slayer lowered her head and began to kiss her way down Kate's body.
Kate felt as if she were on fire in here as well. She smoothed her hands over the skin tight leather clad butt, nuzzling at the other woman's throat, the delicious friction across her clit starting to burn through her. As she felt Faith's fingers caress between her legs she felt it surge through her, leaving her clinging to the other woman, a little surprised to find tears in her eyes.
"Hey, it's okay. Like you said, it's been a while. And you're discovering new things about yourself. Though I'm not the first woman…"
Kate shook her head. "No… " She wasn't one to kiss and tell and Faith wouldn't get any more than that until she knew her a hell of a lot better. And some things might still be too precious to speak of. She sent a mental prayer to wherever Cordelia was these days. Thank you. Thank you for you. Thank you for this.
Faith lowered them both back to the mattress again, wrapped her arms around Kate as Kate pulled the sheet back over them both. Dim dusty sunlight filtered through the shuttered and barred windows marking time across the floor. They would be safe for a while. They could forget.
If the earth moved today, it would have nothing to do with the apocalypse.
The End