since everyone's ficcing, here's some more of "The Long Road".
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“Not shitting you, yo. It was, like, I don’t know – we go to bed and wake up, and sometime between moonlight and morning, we’re cult objects and killers. They wouldn’t take our money. They couldn’t get our asses out fast enough.” She yawned cavernously. “It got stronger every day. We’d stop in a town, check for potentials, take them with. Within a day or two, a few would disappear, and so would a whole lot of people. I don’t know what’s happening, or why. But there are fewer people out there than there were a week ago. Trust me on this one. Maybe you didn’t notice – up here in this big glass tower, and anyway, you don’t get out during the day and you’ve had other stuff to deal with. But outside LA? The herd’s being culled, Angel. We don’t know any more than that.”
"We'd heard some of this, of course." There was a sense of disturbance, visible on his face. "Not that things were this drastic. Sunnydale went boom, what? About five weeks ago? If people are disappearing at this rate, we should be on it."
"Yeah." She thought for a moment, her brain feeling sludgy with lack of sleep. "Of course, what with this company you're running being All Bad All The Time and Associates, I guess it's possible that your people are involved in the whole thing from the wrong side. Any chance they'd been disappearing people and not telling you?"
"Yes." He hated having to say it; his jaw was locked with reluctance. "Look, Faith, you look wiped. Let me set you up in one of the guest suites -"
"No." She got to her feet. "No offense, man, but this place gives me the total flamey creeps. I'd have nightmares here. Not a good place for a slayer. Don't sweat it - I have access to mondo bucks, I can do a hotel. But can we get together in the morning, and figure this out?"
"Of course. Let me call my secretary, she'll find you a room and take you over there - she's a vampire, but keep the stake in the pocket, OK? And Faith - sleep easy."
- * *
The motel, a nondescript little place on the edge of Beverly Hills, had a neon palm tree out front, parking for the cruiser, and a room on the ground level near the pool. It also had surprisingly comfortable beds.
"Is this OK?" Harmony, roused or rousted from whatever she'd been doing by a peremptory command from Angel, showed no resentment. She'd met Faith downside, asked her what level of comfort and privacy she preferred, dialed one number, and found this Summer Palms Motor Lodge. "I mean - Angel said you didn't want anything too fancy."
"Yeah, this is great. Thanks - good find. A little weird, finding a room this easy. I wonder if the rest of the hotels in LA are half-empty?" Faith sat on the bed, kicking her shoes off, tucking her legs into a semi-lotus. "So, Angel tells me you used to hang with Cordy, back in Sunnydale. What happened?"
"I got bitten during graduation." Harmony understood Faith's question at once. "I'm lucky to not be dust - I was, like, the most naive vampire ever. I screwed up, and then I screwed up some more. Angel let me keep this job. If he hadn't..."
Her voice trailed off. Faith watched her; there was something in Harmony's face, a kind of sorrow, perhaps even regret. It startled her. For a moment, Harmony had looked alive, suffering, in a way that only the souled are supposed to be able to suffer. "Hey," she said, and without thinking, reached a hand out to Harmony. "Whoa. Are you crying?"
They were, in fact, tears. "I'm sorry," Harmony mumbled. She wasn't a decorative weeper; her face immediately got blotchy, and her lower lip wobbled. "I just - I haven't been able to sleep, the past month or so."
Something, an instinct kept in a pocket of Faith's subconscious, stirred to life. "Trouble sleeping," she said slowly. "You mean, like, nightmares? Or what?"
"Nightmare, singular. Same dream. Over and over and -"
She broke down completely. The force of her weeping moved like a small storm, her blonde hair swaying, her shoulders buckled and wretched. Faith got off the bed and took the girl in her arms.
It hadn't happened this way since prison, not with a woman. Sex had been scarce, pretty far down the to-do list since Sunnydale went up; a couple of times with Robin, and that had been fun, but she'd backed off. There was something about the son of a dead Slayer wanting to screw a Slayer at all that creeped her out. And she wasn't B, either - she'd never done a vampire.
Harmony was cool to her touch, her skin soft but chilly. She kissed the girl, breast, belly, the inside of both knees. Faith found a small scar on Harmony's lower abdomen, a pucker about an inch long. Appendix, she thought hazily, and laid her tongue against the scar, one hand holding the girl's thigh, the other busy elsewhere...
Harmony cried out, once, twice. The tears had stopped.
They lay on the bed for awhile, not touching. The encounter had not been meaningless, but it was done, and they both knew it.
"I'd better head out." She fumbled around for the heels that had come off while Faith held her legs in place. "Sunrise, not so good."
"Cool. Before you go, though, do me a small favor, OK? Tell me about that dream you've been having."
There was a flash of something in Harmony's eyes; for a moment, Faith thought she could smell fear. "You think it might be important?"
"Fuck yeah. Why else would I ask?"
They sat by the pool, Faith smoking. As the dream that had kept Harmony from sleep since right after the Sunnydale hellmouth had imploded spooled in detail for her consideration, Faith began to understand.
- * *