Second Best

By

Anessa Ramsey

Disclaimer:  Everything Buffy belongs to Joss Whedon.

Summary:  Just a very, very short piece from Faith's point of view on her       relationship with Spike.

Spoilers:  Two years after Season 7.  In my world Buffy died fighting the First.

         She hates it when he stares off into space when no one is looking.  She hates how he closes his eyes when they have sex.  Those are the times when he's thinking of her.  He's imagining her hair, her eyes, and her scent.  She's just a poor substitute for the woman he really wants to be with and she accepts it.  It's the role she's been cast in.  When you've been second best your whole life you get to a point where you don't try to be first anymore.  It hasn't changed.  Not even now that she wants it to. 

         For one year they've been sleeping together.  She thought she could handle it at first.  It was all she'd ever known.  Then he'd shown her what love felt like and even though he was thinking of someone else when his hands touched her in love, for a few fleeting moments she got to think that he felt it for her.

         The previous night was the last straw.  He called out her name when he came.  He didn't even realize it and he never saw the tears in her eyes that shown like tiny crystals.  He didn't notice the way she curled away from him as he drifted to sleep.  It was time to go.  She threw things into her bag blindly, wondering if anyone would understand.  She couldn't stay.  The slamming of the apartment door was all that was left of her by the time she walked out.  She couldn't be second best anymore.