Summer Peach
I hate them.
There, I've said it, and I'll say it again as long as I need to. I hate them. I hate how they look at me with those eyes (or in one case, their eye), condemning me for being myself. They dislike me before they ever got to know me, and no matter what I do it will never change that. I might have been different, once-upon-a-time, kind of different... So easily fucking different that it hurts to make jokes. It hurts to wake up in the morning wanting nothing more then to pound back a shot of liquor so strong that it make my throat bleed. Oh, a shot of nails would do quite fine, with a broken glass chaser. Even now it's how I normally feel.
But it all might have been fucking different. So different if she had stayed alive. If the one thing that no one ever expected hadn't happened, if Tara hadn't been hit by that bullet.
A dark haired woman, a body strong from fighting, but also scarred so deeply that she'd forever be tough. That dangerous kind of beautiful that no one would approach on their best day, hung around in a grave yard. When one lives in a world where they know things go bump in the night, and creepy crawlies try to drain pretty little girls, she wasn't scared. It had been a long time since one, Faith Lehane, had been afraid. Now in her old age, old age for a Slayer that lived life as recklessly as she did, she could barely remember what fear tasted like on her tongue... just the faintest memories of bittersweet and acid that made her mouth dry. She remembered what had made her afraid, and looking back it was stupid. It was when she had learned to ride a bike, the nameless, and now faceless in her mind, person had one hand on the seat, and had been pushing her. Palms sweaty, heart beat racing, sweating like a mule in the desert. A disgusting taste coating her tongue, and the nerves that if the adult let go she'd soil her panties.
It had been lesson number one.
Don't ever trust anyone, most specifically the person you trust the most.
That lesson was just reinforced time over time through her years, and she grew up quickly because of it. By the time she was seven she acted like she was fourteen, when she hit ten, she already had the jaded attitude of a person three times her age. The people that took care of her felt uncomfortable being around her for so long, and her name was a cruel irony. Faith. A name for someone who had none. Faith. The belief that there was something beyond the shit of her life, that if she sliced up her thighs to ribbons, because it was easier to hide the healing lines there, that she could believe that eventually it would all be better. That one day she would wake up and realize that she had a purpose to her life. Faith. For a solid year when she was a teenager she hated her name, damned the people that gave it to her, and more then once had felt that it would be better to sit outside at night, where she knew things went bump.
Then Faith found out that there was something disgustingly and amusingly wonderful about her name. The fact that when she lit a cigarette, snapping the Zippo lighter closed against her jean clad thigh, and blew smoke into the person's face, that when she said her name was Faith, it disturbed them. She became the woman, even if she was still only a blooming teenager, that mothers told their children to avoid. 'Don't go near that slut' 'don't talk to that juvie tramp', and for the first time in her life, the taste of others fear was like the sweetest fruit juice running down her tongue. There was something so sinfully delicious about it.
At sixteen she was considering which car would be the best to hot wire. Then she met a girl. The same old story, bad girl meets good girl. Good girl doesn't condemn bad girl. Bad girl now seeking out good girls company. Then both girls get horizontal and the good girl turned out to be the really naughty one.
Years from now, even if she hadn't been called as a Slayer, even if she had gone to jail... even if she was sitting in a graveyard right now, she'd remember the name of that summer romance.
Tara.
Faith didn't know the girls background, or her family, or who she really was, and she had never made the effort to find out. She was much to busy doing other things.
The heat of their breath mixing, Faith's tasting of tobacco before she gave it up, Tara's of sweet fruit, a summer of peaches. Faith had never had a moment of kissing the sweet girl when she didn't taste of peaches, even her skin tasted of them. Even when she licked between the folds of her labia she still tasted peaches. The fruit was more erotic then it had ever been, and to this day she couldn't eat it without getting wet.
Pushing the shy woman against a brick wall, one of her hands finding it's way up under her shirt, pushing up her bra to take a firm hold of a mature breast. Tara had a good handful even when she was a teenager, and it was like being with a mature woman, someone who would take Faith through all the steps, even if Faith refused to listen to those steps. One of her thighs pushed between Tara's legs, skirt hiked up around her waist. The heat of Tara's sex a damn near furnace, scalding Faith forever. Tongues battling, teeth coming into play because Faith didn't want softness and niceties. If people watched they would have thought that the scary brunet had the control over the situation, but they would have been wrong, because while Faith had been pure impulse, Tara was restraint, and let her do this, but would stop her before it got to far.
Tara had chosen when they were finally in bed together, exploring with tongues and hands. It had been Tara who had snuck her fingers into hidden wet places that no one else, except Faith herself had touched. It had been Tara who had been Faith so hard on her neck that she had bled, and it was by Tara's tongue that brought Faith to her first orgasm. A summer of peaches, and of hidden gropes, and secret meetings, of Tara eventually showing Faith real magic. Not just card tricks, but levitating. It had been Tara herself who had told Faith that for all the darkness she wore on her skin, her aura was so bright that she'd never tarnish it no matter how hard she would try.
Then Autumn came, and with the first leaf falling, Tara seemed to be whisked away on the wind. Never saying goodbye, never even looking sorry when they were together the last time. It had been the same as always, racing heartbeats, sweat skin, and she left the lingering taste of peaches everywhere.
That's when Faith had learned her second lesson. Lesson Two; Never fall in love, and if you do... hurt the fucker before they tore your heart out.
Which is why she it never worked out for her anymore, why she had strangled the Scoobies donut boy. He was too sweet not to fall for, and if she killed him it would have just been easier, and they would have hated her. Faith would have loved to be hated.
It all hurt.
It hurt to see Tara there, her Tara. Except when she gotten close enough there was no longer the smell of peaches, this wasn't her summer girl. It never would be again, the recognition wasn't in the witches eyes, she only had doe eyes for the red bitch... who knew the control of magic like she knew that her best male friend was letting himself get fucked by the local male vampires... which she didn't know at all. Tara had been the one to finger her, metaphorically... she wouldn't do it physically anymore even if Faith begged, when she was roaming around in Buffy's body. Recognizing her aura as if it wasn't second nature to her.
It probably was.
So Faith left.
Her soul was bleeding, gushing blood all over the place, and she wasn't the real Slayer... and she knew what they all thought when they looked at her. 'Don't talk to that slut Slayer' 'stay away from the psycho... she's gonna end up in jail anyway.'
And she did.
And they took her out to do a special mission.
And she did it.
Never knowing that Tara was dead. Never being told, it was as if they had all forgotten. What was one death to countless. A shy lesbian witch? Wasn't that big of a deal... and Red was off gallivanting with a lesbian slayer now, getting all moaning with her. No black for her. Later they told Faith about Willow's venture into trying to bring about the end of the world, because Tara had been killed by a stray bullet from a geek with a gun. How pirate boy, still fucking vampires by the way... big member of the Dracula fan club, had stopped her with a story about a crayon. Fuck that. It had been a good thing Faith hadn't been told, because the world would be gone right now.
I hate them.
Staring at that gravestone, I wish I could go up and kill them all. Slit Buffy's throat, poison in Giles tea, get a Skragkalafva demon to curse Willow so she destroys herself by using her magic, take out the other one of Xander's eyes, and then crush his voice box... that's a fate worse then death for him. I can stand here staring at this gravestone the entire night, picking out deaths for every member of the Scoobie gang, past, present, and future.
But most of all.
"I hate you!"
I can hear my voice echoing in the graveyard, the vampires were already dead, and even if they weren't they know better then to come near me when I'm in this mood.
"I hate you! I fucking hate you so much!"
I bring my foot up and smash it on the top of the headstone, taking out a chunk of the last name. Another kick and there goes the date. Another kick and a piece of marble flies across the graveyard.
"You didn't say goodbye! You didn't tell me you where leaving! You didn't acknowledge me when I saw you again! You stole my heart and never gave it back! Took it to the grave with you!"
I don't feel the tears right now, but I would, they were hot and angry, and hurt. I just keep kicking, ignoring the numbness in my foot, even Slayers can break bones you know.
"You could have stopped the bullet! You let yourself die! I hate you! I hate you! You never loved me! I... I hate you!"
My voice trembling, everything came into sharp contrast. The tears, my broken toes, the eerie silence of the graveyard that said that even the bugs were quiet. The destroyed gravestone in front of me that was a ruined as my heart was. I collapse on the soil, it was hard, no longer a fresh grave by any means, and I let myself fall forward, my face in the grass... and taking a deep breath I smelt it.
Peaches.
It wrapped my senses like arms, and turning over, laying on my back, the only people seeing my emotional breakdown was the stars which stared quietly at me. I felt like laughing. Instead I just took deep breaths and let my body relax, falling away from myself. I was much too old for a Slayer anyways.
"Here lies Tara Maclay, a girl that tasted of peaches in the Summer... and here lies Faith Lehane, the person who loved her enough to follow her to hell."
If they found my body in the morning, I wasn't in it to greet them with a smirk and a sarcastic comment.