Wow, deb. Great drabble. Love the strong imagery throughout.

sj, have you ever read Roz's story, Bed of Bones? About the first slayer?

It's just - wow. So damned strong that I hesitated about using the phrase, even though it originally came from Buffy herself. That's how much I associate it with Roz's story.

No, I haven't read much fic that is not written by Buffistas.

Oh, Roz is registered at b.org. She posted once or twice, I think in the fic rec thread. Not a regular, though - between the time difference and her schedule, she gets to parcel every moment out.

Which bites. I love her dearly and wish she was around more.

I don't always keep up in that thread. I will have to look for it tommorrow. Thanks.

sj, this was last year sometime. Let me see if I can find you a link to "Bed of Bones" - should just take me a minute.

edit: here we go: Bed of Bones

So far, the best First Slayer story I've read.

I wrote drabbles for Stanley and Crosetti(I've had a soft spot for the salami-brain since he offered to help Officer Thormann with his bedpan...that is a friend and a half.) And most of you are blinking and puzzled right now. Sorry.(but I know some of my public doesn't have lj) [link]

More of my Faith fic, The Long Road.

"Huh." There was something compelling about his stance, the way he watched her tailights trying to disappear. She stopped the cruiser, backing it up to where he waited.

• * *

He was a big man, with one of those faces, the kind where gauging his age was as impossible as it would be for a nun. He had deep laughlines, but no other wrinkles, yet his hair was white, and so were his eyebrows. He looked like a boxer gone to seed, soft in the middle, with hands that would make fists like ham hocks.

"Thanks for stopping." He climbed into the passenger seat beside her. "Nothing but commercials out there."

"No problem." She turned the volume down slightly, not really minding. "Tenderness on the Block" wasn't one of her picks anyway. "Where you headed?"

"South." The answer, flip on the surface, seemed oddly flat. "Just south. You?"

"South, for a few days. Then back on up north, but not this road." She heard her own voice smooth out. A few days in LA. She wondered what she'd find there. Angel, still helping the helpless? Wes, the forbidden fruit she knew better than to try for? Cordelia was gone; so was Fred. Gunn had done something bad, really bad, old school-Faith bad; she didn't know what, but the word was, he'd left Angel in disgrace. The Council had been alive with whispers. Something about a deal with the devil...

"You have anything to eat?"

His voice, still flat and uninflected, jerked her attention back to him. "Bag of tortilla chips. It's in back. Hang on, I'll pull over."

"No, don't worry, I can reach it."

He twisted around in his seat, his upper body partially obscuring his left hand. His voice was suddenly moving, and her reflexes caught and locked. She jerked the truck to one side, cutting hard and sharp behind a semi with Oregon plates, spinning it safely off the road onto the shoulder. She accomplished all this with one hand; the other was clamped around his wrist, pinning his hand - invisible in the depths of her bag - hard in place.

He screamed, a short breathless squeal.

"I was giving you a ride south, dude." Her mouth was a cold thin line. "Shitty way to say thanks, isn't it? Trying to liberate my wallet?"

"You're one of them." Lit by the incandescent flashes of passing halogen headlights, his features were mobile stone. His voice was thin with pain; her pressure on his wrist was unrelenting. Ahead of them, towering darkness, rose the Tehachapi mountains, and the road called the Grapevine. "One of the Girls. Shit, I should have known, I should have -"

"I'm not one of the Girls." Oh, man. Everywhere she went, everywhere. Why was everyone so fucking scared of the new Slayers? "I'm more than that."

He understood what she meant before she realised she said it. "You're one of the Two. Oh, God. Please," he whispered. "Please don't kill me."

"Stop talking like that. What the fuck is wrong with you? I'm not going to kill you. Of course I'm not. I don't kill human beings, even shitheads who try to rob me." She ought to boot his ass out, she thought, put him right back out there, let him rot waiting for a ride. But if he got one, and he robbed the driver, it would be her fault, and the legend would grow, the Two, golden Buffy, pitch-dark Faith, Snow White and Rose Red…

"Goddamnit." She released his wrist, and swung the Cruiser back onto Interstate 5. "I'll take you into LA. But you try stealing something, and I might forget you're human. Clear?"

He nodded. Faith set the Cruiser up the long road to Los Angeles, where memories waited.

• * *

Question for the LA folks. If you were driving south on the 5 and wanted the freeway exit for Wolfram and hart, which would you take?

Do we know what street they're supposed to be on? South Flower, I'm guessing, or something like it.

Of course I wrote the whole squad. About blood.http://www.livejournal.com/users/chicating/38491.html Russert, Felton, Giardello.(I'm especially proud of Gee's.) [link]