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Faith didn’t think that she would end up picking pumpkins tonight, but here she is, wandering through a pumpkin patch with her girlfriend instead of the cemetery that they’re supposed to be patrolling. Well, there are worse fates.
Faith’s meandered into the white pumpkin area of the patch, and she searches through the rows. She’s not exactly sure what she’s looking for or what they’re going to do with the pumpkins when they’re done, but she keeps scanning for something. She’s not a huge fan of October or Halloween or really any of these big holiday activity things but she’ll do it for Buffy. And maybe it’s not as bad as she’d thought.
She looks over to the opposite side of the patch as Buffy calls her name, gleefully holding up a giant, fairly symmetrical orange pumpkin. She laughs to herself as Buffy makes her way to Faith, carrying the pumpkin on her shoulder.
“You find something?” Buffy asks, inspecting the pumpkins, and Faith points at one that looks nice. Buffy’s clearly more educated in the art of pumpkin picking than Faith is as she sets her pumpkin down and kneels, tapping Faith’s pick and listening. Apparently, the sound is satisfactory, and Buffy nods. “This one’s good,” she says, picking it up and handing it to Faith.
And then they go and pay, because Sunnydale seems to not only run 24-hour butchershops but also 24-hour pumpkin patches. Perks of living on the Hellmouth.
They still have a good three hours left and two cemeteries to patrol, so they carry their pumpkins around for a while before Buffy plops down next to a gravestone.
“What are we doing?” Faith asks, but she follows Buffy, setting her pumpkin down as she sits cross-legged in the grass.
“There’s no one out here anyway,” Buffy says, pulling her pumpkin towards her. “We can carve our pumpkins while keeping an eye out for any late risers.”
Faith sighs, a smile spreading across her face. “What’re we carving with?”
Buffy looks around, and after finding zero usable sharp objects in the middle of the cemetery (you never know in Sunnydale), she picks up her stake. “These?” she says, wincing slightly, and Faith can’t help but laugh.
“I bet I can carve a better pumpkin than you can,” Faith challenges, raising an eyebrow.
Buffy scoffs. “Yeah, right.” Faith stands her ground, though, so Buffy adds, “You’re so going down.”
So that’s how they end up sitting in a cemetery at four in the morning carving pumpkins with wooden stakes while surrounded by heaps of pumpkin guts. Honestly, not the weirdest thing they’ve done on patrol. Or to get out of patrol, for that matter.
And Faith will begrudgingly admit that she’s having fun. Maybe it’s just being with Buffy, but she feels… really happy. And very competitive, but that’s a given.
Faith’s just about finished her carving of Luna (which she thinks looks very cat-like, so all in all, a success). Not only is it clearly their cat, Faith feels that the carving reflects the little diva’s personality pretty accurately. She totally has this in the bag.
And then Buffy turns hers around, and she’s somehow managed to carve the entire Scooby Gang, capturing each individual’s appearance and personality as the pumpkin flickers with a candle that Faith has no idea where she found. She pulls out another, handing it to Faith to add to her pumpkin.
“Aw, is that Luna?” Buffy asks, leaning down to look at Faith’s carving. “She’s so cute!”
Faith stares at her incredulously. “You made that.”
Buffy shrugs. “And this is adorable. Mine’s too cluttered.” She shakes her head, looking at her pumpkin. “I did too much.”
Faith continues to stare at her like she’s grown another head along with an arm or two. Only Buffy would make a masterpiece like that and turn around to say it’s too cluttered. Faith sighs.
“That’s incredible, B,” Faith says, laughing softly and leaning forward to kiss Buffy. As she pulls away, she adds, “I bow down to the master.” Buffy laughs too, and they’re bathed in the glow of their pumpkins in the otherwise dark and silent cemetery. “I think I did a pretty good job for my first time, though.”
Buffy looks at her, surprised. “You’ve never carved a pumpkin before?”
“Well, yeah,” Faith says self-consciously, and Buffy grins.
“That’s what’s incredible, then,” she says, gesturing to Faith's pumpkin. “You know how many pumpkins I’ve carved?” Buffy laughs again. “I don’t even know how many pumpkins I’ve carved.” She takes another look at the pumpkin, smiling widely. “That’s really, really good, especially for a first try.” She sticks out her hand as Faith blushes. “Tie?”
Faith laughs, and she thinks that there’s a pretty obvious winner here, but she shakes on it anyway. “Tie.”
They sit there for a while longer, exchanging kisses and admiring the pumpkins before the sky starts to lighten and they decide to head home. Pumpkins in hand, they use their candles and guts-covered stakes to take care of the few stragglers they catch on their way back, and then they open the door to their apartment with orange-stained hands.
Luna pads down the hall to greet them, sniffing the pumpkins suspiciously. She ends up liking Buffy’s more, but Faith chooses to believe that Luna’s intimidated by the accuracy of Faith’s carving. Surely, that’s it; why else wouldn’t she like Faith’s pumpkin?
They set the pumpkins on their balcony, and Luna runs off to the farthest place in the apartment she possibly can, avoiding the new decorations. Buffy and Faith laugh, heading to their bedroom for a quick post-patrol nap.
Faith might be warming up to October.