Five quiet moments

Rating: PG13 (language)
Disclaimer: I do believe in Joss Whedon! I do! I do!

1.north and south

She fell asleep when Angel wasn't looking, leaning slowly on the couch like an old building, crumbling down without a sound, until her back was bent and her eyes were covered with Angel's shadow. He just noticed when she was centimetres away and the instincts kicked off, forgetting some eighties miniseries playing almost mute on the TV and focusing in facts, proximity and intentions of the attacking subject. Only not. Only it was Faith falling asleep, falling in every sense of the word, like consciousness had totally abandoned her in his hands. She fell and fell and her face brushed Angel's shirt in a clumsy caress, and he stopped her fall wrapping his arms around her. Once again, he thought. Later, when tickles of inactivity started biting at his fingertips, the ghosts of blood circulation knocking at the door, he kind of regretted not waking her up and sending her to bed. Kind of. Only not.

2.'twas the night before christmas

Faith wears tinsel aroud her hips and the smell of cheap champagne all over her, like the whores he used to kill back in the dark days, but today she acts like a princess and maybe -just maybe- he's a bit drunk on her and her new-found sugar-fueled Christmas spirit to tell her that she's spilling tinsel bits all over the car seat. She hums quietly on her seat, mesmerised by the streetlights, laughing softly at the Santa Clauses melting in the heatwave. It's Christmas' Eve and when they get caught in a traffic jam after finishing a job she laughs and kisses him like it was New Year a week ahead schedule.

3.global warming

Buffy's talking nonstop about the latest incoming apocalypse and Angel goes to the shadowed window, overcome with worries about her again, why has she come, she is asking for help, is she? There, out in the sun, Faith is getting a suburban tan still in her leather pants and jacket, spread all along the dirty stairs, eyes closed, lips parted. And Angel's soul, a thousand times lost, a thousand and one times recovered, aches from longing, to go out and lie in the light with her. No apocalypses or demons or stories coming back to haunt you. Only the sun, the vampire and the rogue slayer.

4.under your weather patterns

It's raining like there's no tomorrow and Faith wants to kill and wants to die, so badly that there's one of this Freudian-whatevers when she trips over and shouts the truth straight at him. It's still raining when Angel opens his arms and she crawls inside, shivering under the storm. "It's ok, it's ok", he whispers, but the sounds of the world are trapped outside and all she can hear is the faint echo of a heartbeat that stopped ages ago lulling her to a place full of red and greys. And once she's there, she isn't so sure about what she just said.

5.soft skin is weeping

First time they fucked she couldn't sleep afterwards, trying to figure out the shadows they had left on the wall and wether or not "fuck" was a word Angel would use for sex like Angelus surely did. Sunrise lights the room but doesn't get in and she is still there, not running away, not sleeping, not thinking anymore, and he nicks the duvet, the greedy bastard. Faith turns and now she's running her lips down the nape of his neck, she's kissing the wings on his back, and knows he woke up the moment she moved because none of them ever slept tight, but she waits until she memorizes the smell before talking.

"Where's your soul?" she whispers, ready to fight or ready to fall asleep depending on the answer. Angel just turns back to face her and Faith nods and closes her eyes, yawning. Still there. Still good.