Title: Long Live Love

Author: Chosentwo4381

Email: chosentwo4381@yahoo.com

Feedback: Would be much appreciated

Archiving: List sites, ff.net, and the Realm, anyone else just ask

Rating: PG-13

Pairing: B/F

Disclaimer: Joss is God.

Author’s Notes: This is unbeta’d and I’m not even sure where the idea came from. I wrote this over Christmas break at like 4 AM over a couple of nights. The beginning got written after the middle and the end, and it was all a bit screwy when I wrote it down. I guess it’s slightly AU because I don’t think Lorne knows Faith, and I don’t keep up with Angel so I don’t know if he’s back in LA or not. I hope someone is amused by this piece of fluff.

I’m sitting in a karaoke bar in Los Angeles. I came to town for a visit and an old friend called me up and asked me to do a reading for her girlfriend so that she doesn’t have to a relationship counselor. Knowing my friends dislike of anything even remotely dealing with therapy, not to mention anything that cuts into time for sex, I agreed to do it in an attempt to prevent some real relationship problems.

Besides, she agreed to treat me to a rendition of ‘Come Away With Me’ in that smoky voice of hers. I’d listen to his Royal Broodiness sing all of Rent for that; well maybe it would take that plus ‘That Kind of Love’. But I digress. There they are now. They move through the crowd with the ease and poise that stem from their lethal grace. The darker of the two greets me with a hug and then pulls a chair out for the blonde.

“Take care of my girl while I brave the bar.”

I nod and turn to the beauty sitting at the table with me. “Now why don’t you tell me about your relationship with Dark & Lovely over there?”

“Well about 3 years ago, I told the woman that I’m in love with that I’d beat her to death if she apologized to me. Don’t look at me like that. I know that’s not the best way to go about declaring your undying love for someone. Huh, need to find a new word for that, cause undying reminds me of undead and I’ve had more than of the vampiric romance to last me the rest of my extra long Slayer life.

Speaking of my undead honeys, we’re right back to my original subject, Faith. It’s a beautiful name isn’t it? Okay I had followed Faith to LA after… let’s say an ‘incident’ back home. I’m from Sunnydale. It’s a sleepy little town. Same old thing night after night. Anyway, I followed Faith here, not here here, but LA here and I find her staying with one of my exes, so I’m annoyed. Not only do we have her apparent self esteem issues, but we’ve also got this thing with a guy. So I react in typical Buffy fashion and proceed to get mad.

I’ve got trouble adequately expressing emotions; at least that’s what our relationship counselor says. So an argument ensues, but then we’re rudely interrupted by some of our former employers. I forgot to mention that Faith and I used to work together.

We met when the branch of the company that she was working in lost its supervisor, and she had to relocate to Sunnydale, where we put in the same department. After some miscommunications and a bit of a stuff up in what should have been a routine operation, she quit and started working for a rival company. During her stint there she also attempted to court one of those exes of mine who used to do some contract work with my company over to her company with an impressive benefits package. It was the same ex that she was with here actually. He declined, and in a corporate war that I went freelance in her boss was defeated.

A bunch of other stuff happened, but that not really important. Long story short, we met, things got fucked up and she went to prison for a bit, I found her again, we started seeing each other and a relationship therapist just to make sure that we had all of our previous issues resolved. But my Faith, beautiful, loving woman that she is, has limited patience with our therapist and says that you are the man to see for this. So here we are,

Now I just go sing? There won’t be any burning and dying and I won’t have to be your queen? Just checking. You understand. You’re in the business.”

She walked off toward the song selection, stopping by the bar to give her raven haired companion a quick kiss. (Translated for those not familiar with the dark beauty, quick means just this side of appropriate in public.) Then the brunette joined me at my table.

“You do realize that your girlfriend is quite possibly unhinged don’t you?”  I asked as she drained the dregs of her Toxic Waste.

She sat the glass on the table before speaking. “Yeah Lorne, I do. But she loved be even when I was definitely psychotic, so it’s only fair. She turned to stare raptly as the blonde took the stage. As the song was being announced, she leaned over to whisper, “Besides, she’s great in bed.”

Long live love.