Chapter Eight.
She didn’t know exactly where she went when the lights were turned out, but she knew that it wasn’t a happy place. Even when her sanity spared her enough not to make her relive every single sick sadistic minute of her life, she still woke up drenched in a sweat that could never wash away the pain. Could never have her waking up and feeling rebirthed. Reborn. Faith may have taunted Buffy with words of wallowing in the same old shit, but in truth, it was her who was stuck somewhere close to the bottom of the barrel. Desperate to climb out, desperate to give in, desperate to make the whole fucked up lot go away. Disappear. Forever.
It was the hands of darkness clawing at her skin, dragging her always down, that had her shoulders shaking in a basement. Not sorrow. Not guilt. Not some fucked up, misplaced gesture of repentance. Just agony and pain and a desire for an end.
She didn’t have the strength to beat herself to death. If she did, she may have used it.
Instead her rage coiled and spread in different directions, towards the pious voice that chased her through graveyards, towards a face that reflected enough of the good stuff to have her choking on the sickness that ached to break free. Shoot the messenger. Destroy the one that called her bad. That made her bad. Her whole fucking existence making her own existence more pointless. Who wanted Faith, when they could have Buffy?
No one. But then, who ever wanted Faith?
The Mayor.
The Mayor had wanted Faith. *His* pious voice tainted with more than enough sadism to attract the masochist in her. His heartwarming smiles just the right temperature of freezing to have her clinging tight for cold comfort. Easier to accept than the other kind. Than *her* kind. So much easier to delight and sneer through the giving of pain, than to sit back and accept her own.
She refused her own. It did not exist. She was not weak.
It was what her smirk said, it was what her snarl screamed. Leather coatings of second skins, offering protection for her own skin. A harlot painted twist that curled and curved upwards, shielding beyond doubt a mouth that cried to turn downwards.
No one ever got to see the truth behind every one of those lies. Even Faith herself refused belief in anything except the lie. She was the lie. It was all that she knew.
Air tainted like poison as it slipped fast through her lips. Promising her life, bringing only more anguish. Shoulders still shaking, everything breaking.
But she would not break.
She may be just as weak as Buffy assured her. She knew herself that she was probably weaker. But she would not break. Faith had inner strength. The strength of a thousand demons.
Tears, for Buffy, were nothing more than a wasted notion. She had no time for tears. A lifetime spent grafting the granite that her shoulders were crafted from; making herself hard, making herself strong. Tears didn’t ease the pain, they didn’t erase blame, and they sure as hell didn’t change the past. Yes. Tears were definitely a wasted notion. Yet Buffy had wasted a thousand tears beneath the steady stream of the shower.
The heat of the water breaking fast across her skin, the chill of her feelings breaking fast from her eyes. Tears. And every single one of them, a gift crafted for Faith.
Another wasted notion?
She didn’t think so. She wouldn’t allow herself to believe so. When Buffy had dictated to Faith that she starve, she had meant every word. That one word. All of her anger, all of her pain, directed and aimed with a single blow.
Faith wanted to hurt Buffy? Go right ahead. Faith expected Buffy to lay down and play dead? Not a chance in hell. Buffy didn’t play dead. Buffy had *been* dead. It wasn’t a game, it wasn’t about rolling in the dirt and seeing who landed on top; it was an end. A finality. Something that she wasn’t ready to accept with Faith. Something that the screen had begged her not to accept in the seconds before the darkness.
Tears were such a wasted notion, and yet her heart had broken in two when she had witnessed tears from Faith. All of that rage, all of that anger… and did people really cry tears of hate?
Buffy remembered crying tears of pain, tears of anguish, of loss and despair. She could not remember ever wasting a drop on hatred.
Another understanding? A Zen moment beneath the steady beating rhythm of the water that was only meant to cleanse her body? To hide her tears?
And which kind of tears were her own?
An answer she knew, an answer that could never be wasted; all of the above and so much more.
So very much more. Buffy couldn’t cry her tears in front of Faith anymore, that sanctuary had gone with the awakening she had wished for, but there was some source of comfort in knowing that she shared her tears with Faith still. That below her, somewhere deep down, Faith was crying the same tears. Not a chocolate flowing moat, no candyfloss in sight, but something more, something that she could build a bridge upon.
Hollow shells did not cry. Empty eyes did not shed tears. And no demon ever, had sat shaking in a basement, the product of pain, anguish, loss and despair.
The heat of the shop had been almost unbearable. Not located inside the fancy schmancy mall that the girls were checking out, but placed somewhere down a little side street. A venue out of sight. It wasn’t that the shop was peddling filth of the nasty kind, it wasn’t that only the bad elements of society liked to hang out there, it was simply the fact that geeks liked to be geeks away from the teasing taunts of the jock strapped mall rats.
It worked for Xander, after all, this was meant to be a very secret mission. Something he had regretted saying as soon as he had said it. The drool pooling on Andrew’s lips almost instantly, his gaze torn between naked excitement and outright hero worship.
“This is *so* cool, oh wow, have you seen this one?!”
Xander breaking his gaze from the shop owner to see what was so important now? And look, *another* rare and limited edition, another comic book held beneath plastic to protect the contents from pawing hands.
But Xander didn’t want rarities and things coated in plastic. He wanted something that Faith could hold onto, a truth presented to her in words and pictures that he knew she would understand. Four years gone? She had a whole lot of reading to catch up on. And he knew just where to start.
Watching as the cashier was ringing his purchase through the till, he hoped again that this would be worth it. That maybe an act this simple could start to cut a path through the burning rage of Faith. He believed that it could. He had seen her in those moments, the ones which seemed like clarity, and he had not seen a soulless monster. He had seen a girl. A girl that he remembered loved her comics, that could sit for what seemed like hours of a lunchtime library meet, completely engrossed in the actions and adventures of some mythical superhero.
And he had seen the girl whose shoulders shook. Maybe, for him, the real moment of clarity. The moment when foreman Xander took up his place. Not at the helm, not like Buffy; he would never want to be the one who stood in her shoes, no matter how fashionable or highly affordable those shoes may be. But the guy, who even with only one eye, saw things. Looked over things. Seeing, understanding. And wanting to help.
Buffy had eaten breakfast, had taken a shower, had wasted a thousand notions; and now she was left feeling refreshed. Rejuvenated. Ready again to face a problem that wasn’t going away. That she didn’t want to go away. She may have still felt the stiffness of shoulder that told tales of her deep down exhaustion, but her shoulders no longer felt as if they might be close to breaking. Buffy had found her strength in the tears that had washed away with the shower, and now she planned to utilise that strength. To think with a clear head, and to plan accordingly.
Obviously, Faith was weak.
Buffy knew this as much as she knew her own strength. Sure, she had gathered comfort in the knowledge of sharing her tears still, but the tears she had witnessed were not the same as the tears she had wept. The ones she had witnessed had not washed away any pain, had not given purpose to thoughts and feelings all confused; no. The ones she had witnessed had only further charted a demise that had begun four and a half years earlier. That downward spiral, that loss of Faith.
Buffy remembered so well Faith’s crazed look. The one which seemed to have been perfected over years of practice, not brought to the fore so effortlessly in a dingy and dank smelling motel room.
‘I don’t care.’
And Buffy had believed every word. Felt every word as it sank through the laden down layers of her own confused mind. So scared. So shocked at Faith. And welcome to the downward spiral. Every detachment seeming greater in the weeks that had followed. Every look screaming psychotic, every word backing up the sentiment.
It had made it so easy to dismiss the terrified. To ignore the silent screamings that tore from Faith’s gaze in moments of enforced exposure: Psych Faith! Did ya like that Faith?
Only Buffy had seen that she hadn’t. Beneath the hate, the absolute unabated revulsion, Buffy had recognised the slice of betrayal. The hurt and the pain. Heck, she had relished in it… delighted at it. She had celebrated it with a knife to the gut. And the first of her wasted notions. The changing of her emotions.
It was hard to hate someone who lay broken before you. It was even harder to hate the one that you broke.
Faith was weak. Buffy was sure of that.
It was the kind of thought that allowed her mind to reclaim and repackage the softly, softly approach. The one where she allowed her musings to trip light down the path to forgiveness. Recovery. A place which remembered every look which came before the crazed. Looks which were crazed in such a different way. Just as fear inducing, just as confusing. Way more intense. A look she would waste a thousand notions upon, if she ever got the chance to see it again.
So… softly, softly? How did you go softly with someone that hadn’t had four years to gain a greater insight, to gain maturity and learn the labels for feelings that had felt so volatile and destructive at the time?
Not a clue. Not a one. All that Buffy *was* sure of, was the strength she had found under a steady stream of hot water and in the shedding of clothes that bore two days of misery. The feeling of refreshed and rejuvenated that still encased her ever weary limbs.
And that was a clue, wasn’t it?
A clue she still pondered the sanity of, as she made her way back down the stairs. Still with the feeling of perky, of hope, but overloaded with a distant sense of trepidation. She was glad that the others were still all out on the shopping trip, because there was no way that they would okay this one without a stern session of therapy first. It was official. Buffy was mad.
But, and to her it was a big but, she felt mad with a sense of purpose. She had thought it through until it made sense. Until it made the only sense. Washing away the misery had done her a world of good; so how good would it feel to wash away four years of misery?
And it wasn’t like she was *completely* mad. She was armed. Her grip holding comfortable around the handle to the crossbow, her finger nowhere near the trigger, but her reflexes so much quicker than Faith‘s. Buffy felt secure in her trepidation. She hoped that it showed.
“Faith?”
That’s it. Tone steady. Non-committal. “Are you awake?”
“Did you bring back the bagel?”
And smiling in spite of herself. “No. I can get you something to eat though, if you’re hungry?”
She steadied the misgivings that the situation forced her to feel and instead crept closer to the cage. Arm slightly raised, not taking aim, just showing her strength.
“My last meal?”
“Nothing like that. This is just protection. A warning.” She shrugged her shoulders dismissively in Faith’s direction. “I’m hoping I don’t need it.”
“I’m locked in a cage. Unless you’re planning target practice, I don’t see you needing it.”
Buffy’s eyes stayed soft as Faith pulled herself up before her, nothing menacing, not yet, just walking closer to the bars. Maybe a sitting target.
“No to target practice, my aim doesn’t need improving…” Eyes dipping from soft, to unsure. “…I’m letting you out.”
“What?”
“I’m gonna let you out.”
“Have you totally lost it?”
Possibly. Probably. She tried to gather her tone back towards steady and sure. As if it was the most natural thing in the world for her to open up a cage on someone that had vocalised wanting to beat her to death. “No, this is a sane thought. I have the crossbow…”
“Why?”
“The crossbow?”
Because she thought she had made that quite clear. Raising it in Faith’s direction again, just to reiterate.
“No. Why are you letting me out?”
Not so easy to explain. Not so easy to talk about washing away misery, about Zen moments attained beneath the repetitive beating of the cleansing water. She went with less deep. Not so meaningful. “A shower.”
Met by silence.
“No change of clothes yet, Wills is out buying outfits, but you can shower…”
“Red’s buying outfits?”
It was a horror that had crossed Buffy’s mind too. “Yeah. I told her nothing too…”
And she was going to use humour. Buffy was good with humour. Faith not so much. She was much better with the bitter.
“Fuck it B, just get me a jumpsuit. If we’re gonna play prison, I may as well get in costume.”
Instead she had to fight to cling tight to the softness in her eyes. Just allowing the slightest glint to shine through her gaze, that small reminder that none of this was a game. “Don’t make me turn around and walk away again Faith. I know you’re angry, I know you’re hell-bent on revenge, but let’s make this easy, okay?”
She counted through a slow ten as her eyes locked tight to Faith. Not flinching from the intensity, not rolling over in the face of all of that contempt. Standing steady and sure. “I let you out, you stay calm. We go upstairs, you take a shower, you come back in here, and then I’ll fix you lunch. Do you think you can manage that?”
Double the ten count.
“Well?”
“Fine. Whatever. Just get me the fuck out of this cage.”
And that was progress; seeing the hate beat back by resignation. It was also comforting as she dipped her fingers into her pocket to produce the keys. She *really* didn’t wanna have to use the crossbow. That would not be progress. Resignation should be easier to control.
The steady stream of beating water was not so comforting for Buffy this time around. Now it was much more distracting, much more intense in its ability to provide Zen moments of enlightenment. Not quite as intense as the moment that Faith had shed her resignation though; that had been way more intense, had spawned way more of the understanding.
In her mind she had already told herself that caresses intent with brutality had no place touching Faith’s skin. As Faith had shed her dungeon rank clothes - stood before her with that same familiar edge of defiance, that same familiar smirk of something unnamed - Buffy had felt the urge to touch with the absolute brutality of desire. A sudden feeling, a remembered fear, a choke which had sprung from the back of her throat as Faith had posed naked before her.
A choke which had been the only word spoken, as she had turned and climbed into the shower. And now, just sitting, listening to the monotonous, trying to disembark from the new train of thought, the new rush to find a wreck. Because this could only ever end in a train wreck…
Affectedness. Affect. Affection.
None of her labels of maturity covered the one word that she herself had spent more than four years forgetting. Desire. Not for words of friendship, for hands held in understanding. But for the Want. The Take. And the Have. For skin that burned with heat, for hands that dipped her flesh in fire. For Faith.
And welcome to the start of the real spiral downwards.
She had choked on her feelings back then. Just like now. Had played the game without reading the rules. Hadn’t understood what she had been stoking with all of those coy smiles of flirtation, what she had been provoking with all those dances of intimacy at the Bronze. She had thought she could touch the fire and not get burnt. She had learnt the hard way.
“Can you pass me a towel?”
The voice that broke through the distraction of her thoughts, through the now silent shower, was enough to have Buffy raising the crossbow high again. An act of protection.
“What?”
“A towel. I asked for a towel.” A towel would definitely be good. “And stop pointing that damn thing at me! I get it, you’re armed and dangerous. I’m terrified. Now the towel?”
Buffy’s arm offered the towel without her eyes ever moving. Fixed so tight to Faith’s gaze, not daring to waver, not daring to wander. “Do you feel better?”
“Five by five, B.” Not sure who was the prisoner as she held the eyes that were glinting back at her. Eyes that seemed so much more assured without the protection of second skins. “Nothing like a quick shower to cure four years worth of deep sleep. I’m almost ready to roll.”
So very much more assured.
“Which is my cue to say, back to the cage!” Trying to sound just as assured, just as unshakeable. “Come on, you keep this easy and I’ll make you that something to eat.”
“I’m nothing but easy.” Faith’s gaze also not dropping as she returned her worn clothes to her body. Fixing on Buffy. Fixating on Buffy. So many different thoughts rewiring her thinking, her ideas on payback. On revenge.
And this could work.
“This doesn’t change anything Buffy, but I appreciate it all the same.”
Just a little offering. A little space to place a smile.
“Huh?”
“I appreciate the shower, letting me use the john. I thought I was gonna explode down there…” But not too much. Not blowing it. “…I promise I’ll go easy when it’s time to take payback.”
“Wow. You’re so thoughtful.”
She was now.
She *had* been resigned. Resigned to being Buffy’s bitch, to doing as the armed slayer dictated, to being as inconsequential as she had always found herself being. Then she remembered. She remembered the rules to the game that they were playing. Not the one on the roof, the one that had ended in the mother of all knock outs, but the one that had inspired the ferocity of all the later play. Green eyes which dipped soft beneath lashes, cheeks tainted by something much warmer than the California sunshine.
Faith had shed the safety of her costume and she had seen. And she had remembered. Before the time had come to taunt her demons with cries of unwanted affection, of wasted desires, she remembered that look. The sound of the chokes as Buffy had first realised the taste of the seduction that Faith was wrapping so tight around her. The blush that had provoked her to always push it further. To want more.
Want, take, have. Destroy.
“Yeah, I’m real thoughtful. This doesn’t change anything though. I’m still getting my payback.”
“Lunch first?”
“Whatever you say, girlfriend.”
Topped with a wink. A return to the huskiness she had memories of mustering just for Buffy. Lunch first. And then payback. Her demons were in agreement; it was a damn fine plan.
A plan that she nurtured as easily as she nurtured the silence. Let Buffy sit in front of her and wonder at what was going on. It levelled the playing field a little… made Faith’s ongoing confusion seem not such a problem. Faith wanted to do this right. Wanted to extract as much second hand pain as was humanly possible. Quite a big ask, but she more than felt up to the task. It’s what her smirk said. What her secret smile screamed.
It all came down to payback.
Buffy may have comatosed her own feelings of desire, but four years of actual coma had done nothing to dampen the memory for Faith. The time when want, take and have, had meant nothing like destruction, had just meant the simplicity of the action. Before Buffy had torn herself from Faith to throw herself at Angel, before she had ever stared her down with a look so high and mighty and proclaimed her as bad. Called her a killer.
She hated that pious voice with such passion.
‘You *killed* a man.’
No shit.
That had changed the name of the game for Faith; from desire to destruction. But if those green eyes still dipped beneath lashes for her, if those cheeks still blushed pink for her, then it was going to make the destruction so much more sweeter, so much more desirable. A part of her had felt like dying with every single step that Buffy had taken away from her. Now she felt alive again. Back in the saddle. Ready to play.
“So B..?” Taking notice of every look, every breath, every rise and fall of her chest. “You ever gonna tell me where we are?”
“A basement.”
“Don’t fuck with me.”
“Sorry Faith, I forgot about the lack of humour. I hoped the shower might have refreshed you.”
Definitely refreshed.
“I’m locked back in this cage - how refreshed did ya think I’d be feeling?” Keep the eyes tight. Do not drop the stare. “So where are we?”
“LA - Angel’s place if you want specifics. After Sunnydale went boom, we didn’t know where else…”
“Angel’s place?”
“Right… Angel left Sunnydale. I forgot you didn’t know.”
“He left?” For a moment Faith forgot everything. A moment when you have to step back and beg confirmation for something you never expected. No plan, nor appetite for destruction, just disbelief. “Angel *left* you?”
“Sure. Four years ago. Right after graduation.”
And this silence she didn’t offer as part of a plan. Just taking the time to fit new fragments into an ever expanding picture of the time she had missed. Memories mixing with new truth. Questions to be asked.
“How did he… with the poison…”
“I cured him.”
More questions. “You?” More disbelief. “But, how?”
Her eyebrows dipping as she forgot to take bites from her lunch, as her mouth hung open in obvious speechlessness. Words eventually coming with the hint of a sneer, with something she wasn’t trying to shape and mould to fit her growing disguise. “The dead fucker drank from you?!”
“It wasn’t…”
“You *let* him drink from you?!”
“What else was I supposed to do?”
And Faith had no answer. No anger at Buffy’s action as she fought to rein in the feeling. A deep breath. Composure. “You could have thought of that first, ya know, before you stabbed me and let me jump off the roof.”
“I’ve said sorry.”
“And I’ve told you it don’t mean shit. Means even less now I know this.” And it did. “I thought you gutted me for a reason - a fucked up reason, sure - but still a reason. What was I B, a going away gift?”
“It wasn’t like that. I didn’t know…”
“Save it.”
Because she wouldn’t get into this now. The time when she stood before Buffy and demanded answers, she wanted no barriers, no bars, nothing to stop Buffy from feeling the pain of her blows. Now she just wanted the time to slice through the fresh layer of confusion, more facts to be focused on, more nonsense to make sense from.
So, Buffy had stabbed her. Had wanted to feed her to Angel. Angel had left Buffy. Sunnydale had gone boom. And now they were in LA.
It wasn’t much for four years gone. She couldn’t even guess at how much more there was to add to the ever growing list of things she didn’t know she didn’t know. Or something.
It was so much easier to focus on the plan. On the first and most important of all the facts. The thing that she did know she knew for sure;
Buffy had stabbed her.
And it all came down to payback.
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