Ducks: Queen of Frickin' Everything

Title: I Would Be 1/1
Author: Ducks
Email: ducksfanfic@yahoo.com
Livejournal: theantijoss
Rating: R
Content: Darkness, implied sexuality, adult situations, language
Grouping: B/A/F
Summary: Sometimes love means feeding the illusion.
A/N: This was an exercise I did to practice this particular grouping for a possible ficathon entry. No plot or anything… just a sort of free flow abstract, nonsensical thingy. One of those deals you scrawl on scrap paper when a bloodthirsty plot bunny wakes you in the middle of the night. Little fucker.

Funky capitalization is on purpose. *G*

~


They are all full of shadows. While Theirs are deeper, more deadly, hers are almost tame. She has vanilla ghosts, in the big scheme of things.

Darker on either side of her. They’re like a spiritual Oreo, she thinks.

I’m the creamy-sweet center. Only...

She’s not as sweet as she thinks They like to think she is. She never was. They need to put her up on this pedestal -- the One Who Never Breaks ((the way They did)). They can't believe she would fall. They never could.

It's a special blindness.

She broke, all right. She sure as Hell did fall... she just didn’t kill anybody ((directly)) when she did. ((Everyone's evil is more honest than hers. No Satanic temples or skinned misogynists or automatic crossbows or portals to Hell. No mass murders or dead lawyers or a century of torture or three years in prison...just souls covered in bruises and welts and gashes that never really heal.))

She fell apart quietly. Privately. She only broke... two beings. That she knows of. She's never told them about that Empty Time. They'd feel guilty, and there's no reason to now.

They have enough guilt already.

He slants a semi-sweet smile her way, and She growls like a tiger prowling, crawling along beside her on the bed. They both look like shadows right then, darkness cast in firelight. Looking at each other. Looking at her. Hungry.

Darkness meets darkness. Going hunting for the Light. On all fours, like...

Eat me alive. Suck me dry...

She loves it. She loves to play her part for them: The Innocent. They think they let her think she’s in control. She lets them think they’re letting her. It's another twisted game like all the many others they play.

He inhales them both like a hunting beast... She responds with a surrendering sigh.

Faith laughs. "Check you out... blushing." Licks the end of her nose fondly. The Ski Jump, She calls it. It’s perky, He always says. Perfect.

Maybe she’s a little more innocent than They are. How They can look so… ravenous and tender at the same time escapes her comprehension.

She’s never thought to ask Them. She takes Him in her arms, where it doesn't matter anyway. He just is what He is, and that's who she loves.

"Don’t say anything. Just touch me."

Innocent. It’s been a long time since she really was... if she ever was at all.

"What could I possibly say?" He whispers, and it’s all the things He ever said to her a million years ago that shouldn’t matter anymore.

It's enough... she’s lived with less. She remembers time when she lived with… Nothing.

But she doesn’t – can’t – dwell on that.

Here, now, it’s joyful, and that’s a lot more than she used to…

"Move over a little."

There’s plenty of room in their endless bed for three.

"It’s too hot."

He doesn’t have a body temperature, but he kicks the blanket off anyway, for her. She doesn’t say anything to thank him, but reaches for His hand while She at the same time starts to laugh from Her place Below...

"Why do you always taste like candy, B?"

"Don’t. Start singing that song again."

"What's the matter, Angel? Don’t like New Edition?"

"Not particularly."

"Get your finger out of my face."

"Make me."

"Candy girl! You are my world! Your love's so sweet, you're a special tre—"

"Faith!"

"You want to talk about the pot and the kettle, baby: Barry Manilow’s people called – they want you to C&D pig-slaughtering their suck tunes."

"I beg your pardon?"

"Can't you two save it for later? God, I feel like I’m running a kindergarten sometimes."

Buffy pulls Them down to her, one each to a breast... interrupts Their game. They like to pretend they fight over her. Figuratively and literally. Like ancient children.

She laughs again. "And for tonight’s special... Buffy Summers pretends to take the wheel!"

He laughs with her. They all laugh together this time. Inside joke, because she almost never does take it. She loves having them take... their taking is giving to her. Faith says she's The Sub.

(("Two Doms and A Sub. Sounds like a porn flick."))

"Lie here beside me."

Their softs and hards fit together, however they arrange them: side by side, sandwiched, kneeling, one on knees, one on all fours, one on their back. Sometimes they roll around, lounge like cats, purring at each other, snuggling from nose to toes... lapping, petting, stroking…

Biting.

"Ow. Not so hard."

Someone almost always bites. Everyone usually gets off on it. They all pretend she’s innocent, when hers is a... particularly twisted kink, because that's Her Thing.

Pretending not to be kinky when you're kinky is kinky, Faith tells her. They all know Buffy likes to feel His fangs in her throat.

She wears a lot of turtlenecks, even in the summer.

"Ummmm..."

A tangle. So many ways tangled together, falling.

The first time She kissed her, it snowed the next day. (("Have you ever kissed a girl before?"))

He almost left with the sunrise… if there had been one at all he'd be gone, because she couldn't convince him…

He wasn't only Shadow.

Later she realized she was hungry for it. The darkness. Some time later, after the knife in the gut and the teeth in the throat, after he walked away and she went to sleep.

drinkfrommeyoufinallydidit.
You killed me.
It's never over.

Spike had been right about that much. They've all got it.

Lust for death… lust for sex… lust for… ((A real good day.))

Now she can touch it… they feed her darkness. Her Natural Enemy and her Shadow Self.

There’s nobody here but the three bodies... only one of them dead, and yet... a thousand ghosts of...

Everyone... everywhere... everything that ever came inside. All the things they are and were and could still be with just a single ((right or wrong or ultimate)) act.

Haunted. She is too, just not so...

Bloody.

There’s more than enough here for everyone. Him with the broad and strong and her with the lean and curvy...

Delicious. She likes to watch them...

Bite.

She probably should have been more embarrassed or... angry when they told her.

Wehavetobehonestwitheachotherwe'vebeenhavinganaffairithasnothingtodowiththewaywefeelaboutyouitjusthappened.

If she was really the Good Girl they think she is, she would have walked away in rage and hurt and disgust, but…

It was okay because she was already Bad, and they were already... paired. He and she. She and she. The former had always, always been, and the latter was an accident in Italy after too much wine and a sparkling Tuscany night, soaked from the fountain where they sang for Poseidon and pennies from the local boys…

All together wouldn’t be all that different... would it? But it is. In the best of ways, because there is always plenty of…

Skin… blood… hands… mouths…hearts…teeth…cries…shadowsandlight…

To go around.

She pauses again to let the memory pass.

"Buffy, are you all—"

"Sh. Kiss me."

It is possible to kiss twice at once...

Angel never really laughs. He only sort of chuckles when he's happy or amused...

And sometimes He just goes blank and She gives her a look that says She hopes they’re ready if...

He reassures them -- it’s not possible for That to happen again. It only comes once in a...

Once upon a time?

No perfect happiness? Then what's the point? Are three hearts and souls really safer than two? Or one?

"Please..."

Someone always begs. For orgasm. For life, for death, maybe. For all kinds of things denied, taken away, lost, given up, stolen, never had.

They’ve all got a death wish.

Or so they’ve been told...

"Shhh. No talking now."

No thinking. No breathing, no...

It’d be so easy for any of them to...

Be left breathless or leave...

"I can hear you thinking. Don’t think. Feel."

Doesn’t She know she hasn’t really felt anything since...

It’s not a coincidence they’re all here together.

"That feels so..."

Good together.

She always smokes a cigarette after – banished to the patio. Naked in defiance, staring down at the city. Buffy's only rebellion is eating fruit – revolting against the ((demonic)) anti-carb movement. ((I'd starve to death without starch!)) He tucks his hands behind his head and just stares up at the ceiling, wearing nothing but the sheen of their sweat and a satisfied half-smirk, one of his legs tossed casually over hers.

It’s nice to be safe together, and not...

"I’ve decided. I'm not getting out of bed tonight."

"Fine. You got forever to save the world. We mere mortals have to work for a livin', pumpkin butt."

"Faith, don't call him that."

"I was kidding, B, God."

"Ladies..."

She laughs and says it makes them sound like ho’s and he's their...

"Mac Daddy! Daddy Mac! Woot!" She dives on him. Tickling ensues.

"See, this is why she shouldn’t eat chocolate." Sugar and caffeine and a cousin to cocaine...

"Get off!"

"Already did."

It’s love, she knows it is. It’s not so shiny as she thought that wiggling little bird should be...

((Two in the bush? No pun intended.)) But still. Love.

"Let’s get up, get out and kick some ass, kids. The night's a-wastin'."

They shift and roll and he rises first. He won’t let them go out alone, even if he has to follow in the sewer beneath their feet.

"We're big Slayers you know. We can patrol alone."

"It's part of my job to help."

"Don’t you have a hobby?"

"Same as my job."

"Oh, shuffling papers is your hobby too? Cool."

Buffy asks Her to lay off because there’s work to be done. No more time for playing now.

She’s still the responsible one, even though... she's not who They think she is.

And life moves along like...

"Don’t use all the hot water, Big A."

"Would you ladies care to join me?"

They exchange a grin. Sometimes it's easy to…

"Hell yeah!"

Love and be loved, whatever that means. Even in places where the sun never shines.

~~~~~~
The End