Title: Self-Doubt
Fandom: BtVS
Author: badly_knitted
Characters: Buffy, Faith.
Rating: PG
Word Count: 350
Spoilers: Early Season Three.
Summary: Faith’s attitude towards slaying has Buffy doubting herself
Content Notes: None needed.
Written For: Challenge 399: Amnesty 66, using Challenge 14: Performance Anxiety.
Disclaimer: I don’t own BtVS, or the characters.



Faith is everything Buffy is, only more. Where Buffy tries to downplay her Slayerness, not wanting to draw attention or make her friends feel inferior, Faith revels in everything she is, relishes the kill, draws energy and a lust for life from it. Somehow that makes Buffy feel weirdly inadequate, like maybe her calling was a mistake, a wrong number, and she’s somehow letting the Slayer side down by being less than she should be.

Is Faith the better Slayer because she enjoys it more, embraces the lifestyle with a wanton enthusiasm that Buffy can’t hope to match? Does Faith embody what it means to be the Slayer while Buffy is nothing more than a poor copy, a second-rate wannabe, little more than an amateur, accidentally recruited to the big leagues but hopelessly outclassed?

Faith’s tales of her slaying exploits are so much bigger, wilder, and more thrilling than anything Buffy can boast. Not that she WOULD boast, or not much, but even if she did, Faith would still outshine her. All Buffy has to do is watch her friends’ faces as they hang on Faith’s every word, listening to the tales of her heroism, eating it all up. Xander is practically drooling. Buffy feels overlooked, side-lined, practically forgotten about. Maybe she peaked when she killed the Master.

Should she step down, gracefully move aside and let Faith be the Slayer? Buffy doesn’t exactly hate what she is, but her Slayer duties get in the way of having any kind of normal life. Maybe Faith is just better suited to being the Slayer, sort of a temperament thing.

Then Faith goes berserk on some vamp’s ass, beating him to a bloody pulp instead of just staking him, and Buffy changes her mind. There’s enthusiasm, and then there’s being plain out of control; no prizes for guessing which side of the line Faith falls on.

Okay, Buffy might lack Faith’s lust for the kill, but she makes up for it with emotional stability. Plus, she has more experience. Maybe there are still things she can teach Faith about being the Slayer.


The End