Alternative Employment and the rise of Faith

Author: norgco <norgco[at]yahoo.com>

NC-17, Femslash

Couples: Faith/Xander eventually. Buffy/Willow possibly, others possibly.

Rating: NC-17 for adult situations. Femslash ahead!

SummarY: After Acalthla Buffy ran away. What if she had worked in a different line of work that desperate but pretty women work in?

Disclaimer: I own none of the characters.

Feedback: Please, I need some positive feedback after last time.

Authors note: This has a lot of Buffy, but I am setting up something that changes how Faith is treated and I think it will work.

A different early third season


Chapter 1

Xander walked into Rupert Giles apartment looking totally unlike the clown he usually appeared. The librarian had received a distinctly incoherent phone call, apparently from the hospital, claiming that the boy knew the location of his missing slayer. The dark haired boy was holding videotape in one hand, a distinctly bruised set of knuckles showing around the tightly gripped object.

"Xander where is Buffy and what on Earth is going on?" Parental concern for his daughter in spirit, and to a lesser extent the teen in front of him, warred with Ripper's distinct lack of patience and tendency to solve problems by hitting people.

"Just play the tape, you may have to wind back a bit but only a few minutes." Was the normally jovial boys only response.

After winding back the tape till Xander said 'stop' it played to reveal a sensationalist 'hidden camera' program that the Englishman had avoided like the plague. The voiceover was recognizable from the ads, always some sleazy subject done in the most tasteless fashion, like the porn industry. This one seemed to be about street prostitution in Los Angeles, and for a blessed few seconds the older man wondered if they had accidentally filmed the slayer staking a vampire. That was when one of the girls - none shown was old enough to be called a woman - walked up to the drivers window of the film car and offered to 'take you and your friends around the world.'

"Dad always records it. Anyway he knows how worried we've all been about the buffster and he called me from my room to see it and started telling me all about how he was going to go to LA and get 'your cheap whore friend to suck my d...' Giles I need a place to stay and probably a good lawyer in case he presses charges when he comes to."

Giles car, a few days later

"Does everyone know?" Came the hesitant voice of the girl in the back seat, startling Giles out of his reverie. He had been thinking about how he had wondered for months about how his charge was earning money, and assumed she was a waitress or had some other traditional dead end job girls with no skills or prospects get. And indeed she had been working in a traditional industry. He wondered what had happened to make this sort of employment acceptable to the girl he loved as a daughter.

"What, sorry Buffy would you repeat that?" The librarian asked.

"Giles does everyone know I'm a hooker?"

The documentary had given the general area she was working in and finding her from there required a few payments and assurances that they were not a/Vice Cops, bRival pimps, or cSerial Killers. No one would cooperate with the cops, the pimps were not making a dime out of her - she still fought like the slayer - and her few friends had stood by warily until the two men were recognised by 'Trixy', as she was known to them.

"I have no idea Buffy." Xander said from the drivers seat after a short silence. Giles was not really dealing well, so the conversation tended to lapse if he was required to answer. "We came to get you as soon as we had an idea where you were. No one I care about watches 'American Sleaze Exposed', so you could get lucky."

"Your dad..." They had mentioned the show and Xander's new living arrangements.

"I said no one I care about." The future construction boss cut her off quickly. "I have no idea about the rest of the town. Do you want to see your mom first?"

"She threw me out when I proved to her I'm a vampire slayer and saved the world regularly." Came the bitter response. "When she finds out I've been spreading my legs for money after nearly letting the world be destroyed by a vampire I was in love with she'll probably put a contract out on me."

Silence descended on them as the vehicle continued on into the night It turned out the watchermobile was actually perfectly capable of attaining and, for that matter, cruising comfortably over the speed limit, as long as the tweed clad one was not driving it in his usual manner. The Xandman was quite enjoying the drive, coming back through the winding coast road and cornering at twice the posted speed without any trouble at all

"Buffy I, I, I'm sure we can work something out with your mother, she really does love you and has been worried sick about you since you left." Giles pitched into the conversation.

"Yeah, sure."

Mayor Wilkins Office, 8:36 the next morning.

"Sir?" Deputy Mayor Finch said as he hesitantly entered the office.

"Come in, come in, and what brings you into my workspace on this fine autumn morning?" The Demonic Mr Rodgers asked in a bright and cheerful mood. He was practicing his putting and was doing better then usual at it.

"The slayer is back in town sir, and spent the night at her watchers house."

"Ah yes, probably hesitant about approaching her mother after the unfortunate Angelus mess." The satanic boy scout leader looked up at his deputy and gave him a thoughtful look. "Still, she did prevent the end of the world, thereby making my ascension possible."

"Yes sir."

"And I do believe in rewarding those who have done me favours, couldn't have gotten where I am today without that." The future demon said with no small amount of pride in his voice. "So, refresh my memory, what is there to do about this?"

"Ah, well there is the murder charge concerning slayer Kendra."

"Buffy – what kind of parent calls their child Buffy I ask you, I mean Buffy, why not Karen or Linda? - Ms Summers really is innocent of that, isn't she, so get that killed now."

"Yes sir." Finch wrote it down in his notebook. "She was expelled by Principal Snider over that incident."

"Which is not actually within his powers, the school board has to do that. Get that cancelled too."

"And the publicity about her, ah, summer job."

"Well yes now this is where it's good to have friends." The old warlock exclaimed. "Have a look-alike come forward and admit to being a poor exploited child driven into prostitution by social neglect, you know the drill."

"Yes sir, within a week the slayer will be just someone who happens to LOOK like someone who was in the tabloids for a while."

"Well if that's settled I have a meeting with the town accounting firm at 9:00. Keeping an eye on expenditure is the key to good spending practice, and that's the key to the low taxes that have let my little town grow."

"Yes sir."

Willow Rosenburg's living room, that afternoon.

"Oh Buffy that Larry and his friends, I should have Amy turn him into a rat." The red head finally said. She had met her friend at school, or rather on the lawn across the street from the school. There had been a lot of 'welcome back' talk, and for that matter a lot clearly not being said. Or at least, not said to her.

"Its not important."

"Buffy he called you a, well I can't tell you what he called you but that show should be sued for defamation, I mean I didn't watch the show but…"

"Willow I have something important to say to you." A very serious tone from the slayer now.

"Ok." The red head straightened her fluffy jumper and looked at the blonde nervously.

"Its about why I can't stay with you." Buffy began. "I appreciate the offer but…"

"I'm too boring? I can be exciting, I know I can teach you hacker program algorithms, that's fun, and really exciting."

"No, it's, well. About Larry and the rumours."

"Yes."

"They're true." Giving a second for that to sink in she continued. "I was a total wreck after sending Angel to hell with his soul, and on the bus I realized I nearly let the world get sucked in and would have if Xander hadn't lied to me. And then I was in LA with not job, a weeks rent paid in advance in a tiny place and no food, and this guy offering me money for a blowjob."

The hacker was staring at her goggle eyed now.

"I took the money and sucked his cock and then I bought groceries for the week. It was good money and I didn't have to make life and death decisions and risk my friends lives and I felt so bad I didn't even feel bad about it."

"Oh, oh, oh well that's awful, I mean I'm so sorry I, why didn't you call me, I would have helped."

"Wills I was a mess and not thinking straight." Which was the understatement of the century, in more ways than one. "But it's not why I can't stay here."

"Buffy it's alright, I, I mean you're still my friend, I don't care about what you were doing." And she really didn't. Having grown up in the household of Ira and Sheila Rosenburg had rubbed off, and 'being judgemental about non-victimising life choices' was not something she did. And then there were the reasons that had nothing to do with environment factors like parents.

"Wills I, ah, well two things, or, two things that are one thing in a manner of speaking, I mean."

"Buffy it's alright."

"Xander said you'd accept me no matter what."

"Well he's known me since forever so trust that. What is the big secret."

"Well see, do you know what the most common male fantasy is?"

"Scoring the winning touchdown at the Superbowl?" Having grown up with Xander and Jessie gave a certain limited understanding of the male mind.

"Women who like women, like sex with them. It pays well and I had a girl who I did it with if a john asked."

"Oh." The eyes went back to saucer sized.

"And I met a demon who reads your destiny, he'd just opened a karaoke bar actually and he read me."

"You know your destiny? What is it?"

"It was to never fall in love with a man who turned out to be ok."

"Buffy that's terrible."

"Only one of them was even human, well except for a microchip and Steroids and some genetic modification." The slayer added. "At least two more vampires, including Spike, but never a nice, decent guy."

"That's awful but I'm sure there is someone out there for you."

"Well it's the connection that mattered, cause I went back and asked about it."

"Connection?" Not seeing it, the hacker sat and waited. Buffy noted that Xander, by contrast, had guessed a long before this point, when she told him and Giles in the car the previous morning before coming home. She had had to know if they would accept her BEFORE losing what little of a life she had.

"The connection between the fact that I keep desperately trying to make matches with men work, keep telling myself I'm hopelessly in love with them, and the fact that I really enjoy sex with women more."

"But, but, but, you were being exploited by the patriarchy, I mean how could you know based on that experience, I mean not enjoying them like that? And how do you know the demon told the truth, 'cause, you know, demon, not always with the truth?"

"Wills, trust me, some of the johns really do try to make a girl happy, its and ego thing. And I realized that girls, mostly ones I worked with but a few johns wives as well, I always got off with them."

"Always?" The witch in training squeaked.

"I had an obsession with Angel, and I really thought I loved him, I kept telling myself that and letting it run my life when no sane human being would."

"So you can't stay here because you think I'm homophobic." The look on Buffy's face brought another guess. "Or that you won't be able to bring girls home? Honestly Buffy it's ok, mom gave me the 'it's ok to be gay' speech years ago."

"I can't stay because I don't want to bring pretty girls home here, when the prettiest, smartest, sexiest girl in the world already lives here."

The lawn in front of Sunnydale High, next morning.

"So, how do you feel about your first day back." Xander Harris asked the slayer.

"Surprised, nervous about facing the mob, anxious to restart my life."

"And your mom?"

"I'll call her from the library, after I see how Giles went when he told her I was alive and ok." And she was so not looking forward to that information.

"And how did Will take your coming out speech?"

"Surprisingly well, a squeak and a nervous smile and a 'I don't mind but you understand I'm with Oz' right?" The slayer answered. "Willow is so straight."

"Ah Buffy, if she was straight she wouldn't have mentioned Oz as a reason not to date you." Came the counter from 'the one who sees'. "Cause that means he's the reason not to, unlike just not being into girls."

TBC…