Title: Just Desserts (1/?)
Author: nailbunny617
Pairing: B/F eventually…I think…
Rating: PG-13 for now
Disclaimers: No, I don't own any of these characters, I'm just taking them for a joyride and mean no harm. Oh and if girlsmut is illegal where you live, move! If it's not your cup of tea, then I suggest stopping reading right now.
Author's Notes: This just kinda came pouring out of me. There's a lot of excellent B/F stuff out there, and I thought maybe it was time I tried my hand at it. This is starting out as more of a character study than an action story. I don't know where it's taking me. Oh, and I'm no lawyer, but I needed to make convenient little assumptions here…sorry if it doesn't work that way in the real world. Oh and I kinda muck with the timeline. It's my world, here, get over it.
I sat in my tiny little cell on the shitty little bunk, staring at the semi-crumbling little wall. Just like I'd done for a year. It's funny, in a not really funny kind of way, how much I was forced to think that year. I had counted the weeks, the days, the hours, the minutes I stared at these plain walls.
You could say that I have a tortured soul. You could say the cards were always stacked against me. You could say that I have the worst luck in the world. You could say that, but something deep inside me thinks you'd be wrong. See, I've come to the conclusion that I deserved it. Every single second of this miserable existence of mine.
I mean, even when I thought I had a surefire way outta this life, I fucked it all up. I had to pick the one person who could see through me. Angel. Even though I didn't have the words, even though I didn't have the understanding, he did. I tortured Wesley. Angel said to me once that he wasn't sure who I hurt worse; Wes or me. I tried not to listen to him, I tried to shut him out, but he was right. Like always. Quiet, brooding, observant and he saw right through it all to the suicidal little girl. Little Faith, huddled in a corner whimpering, cowering from all the pain in the big bad world.
Fuck Angel.
No, no, I couldn't ever bear to hate Angel. Try as I might to deny it while serving my sentence, maybe he did do the right thing. Obviously my suffering wasn't supposed to end. I had to help it along, so I turned myself in. Full confession. I could tell the cops didn't believe me, so I gave them details I knew wouldn't have been released to the press. I left Buffy out of it all. How could I explain it so they would understand? How could I explain it when I didn't understand? They asked me why it happened, how a little girl could kill a grown man with a wooden stake.
I couldn't tell them the truth. I saw it in their eyes, I knew they didn't really want to hear, that they weren't ready to listen. So I told them what they wanted to hear. I didn't give them an explanation, just the facts.
I didn't know the explanation myself, not the real answer. Sometimes I wondered about Buffy, I wondered what she was doing right at that moment. Was she happy? Did she ever think of me? But every time it started, I shut it all down. I couldn't go down that road again. There was something about the girl that brought my self-destructive tendencies to the forefront. She smiled at me and I rebelled. I hid. I ran. I lost myself in the sex and the violence, like always.
No one can love me.
Willow saw it. She called me on all my shit. I threatened to kill her and all I got in response was pity in her eyes and vitriolic, cruelly accurate words. I couldn't really go through with my threats and she knew it.
Would anyone risk the end of the world if I were held hostage? Would anyone make a trade with pure evil to ensure my safety? No, I don't suppose anyone ever would – not even me.
I still wonder if they'd thought I really killed that scientist. I bet they do, after all I didn't give them much reason to believe in my sanity. I guess I wanted to be their villain. At least it was some kind of passion.
During the initial stages of my incarceration, I idly wondered if maybe someday one of them would come visit me. They never did. A tiny part of me still held out hope, though. A regret so painful, so vivid that I could barely breathe through it. That's what I lived with for that year.
I tried not to think about the night outside these walls. I tried not to think of all the vamps and demons and various bad guys that were begging for me to slay them. My hands itched, every muscle in my body screaming for release.
That was the only purity I'd ever known. The thrill of the fight. Truly something I was born to do. I threw myself into a fight with everything I was. I lost myself in the rhythm, in the moment. Everything else that was there every other second would just melt away. The fear, the hate, the old habits, the bravado, and yes, the love. It was something I couldn't fuck up. It was something almost holy in a way.
Some people have prayer. Some people have confession. Some people even use sex. But for me, that moment of absolution and clarity of being can only come through a rousing fight. I guess maybe I was good at it because I went into it all knowing I had nothing to lose.
I, after all, am nothing.
Shutting my eyes, I rubbed the palms of my hands over my eye sockets until I saw the starbursts on my eyelids. That had become my life, this introspection. There were some things, though, that I still couldn't bring myself to face.
I wonder if people ever notice that I despise mirrors. I always have. Looking into a piece of glass and seeing my eyes, the eyes that look so much like my mother's, brings back unspeakable things. Can I get away with blaming everything on my sordid childhood? No, I don't think so, but how convenient that would be.
The sunlight began streaming through the barred window and the lights flickered on. Morning. As the door to my cell slid open, I rolled off my bed and landed solidly on my feet. Walking like a zombie, I made my way to the mess hall and obediently shoveled the sludge they passed off as food into my mouth.
I wasn't really there. No - I was in a different kind of prison, my own mind.
The guards came to get me, and I realized that I'd almost forgotten what day it was. My parole hearing. The public aid lawyer the courts insisted on assigning me had explained the situation countless times. Something about me being a minor and coming from my background, the DA couldn't find it in herself to charge me with anything that would keep me longer than my eighteenth birthday. Well, as long as I behaved.
"Happy Birthday, Faith."
"Thanks, Esposito." I don't know why, but the guards liked me. Quiet, docile, obedient little Faithy. I'd only ever gotten in one fight. My first week, the big bad Bertha of the ward cornered me in the shower. I almost laughed because it was all so trite, from the movies. The resident bulldyke come to claim the newbie with about fifteen of her harem. I had promised myself I would never harm another human being, but their humanity at that moment more closely resembled a pack of wild animals. I never lost sleep over breaking a couple of their bones.
The guards thought I'd stumbled into the middle of the latest gang war and I didn't see fit to disabuse them of the notion. But that one incident and big Bertha's obvious fear of me was enough to ward off any other attempts to own me. I was left completely alone and I liked it that way.
I didn't bother dressing up for my parole hearing. In the movies they're always in echo-y rooms with three bored looking people who always let out the bad guys and keep the truly innocent ones.
"Do you know why you're here?" The lady in the middle has really bad glasses and even worse teeth. I thought maybe if I didn't look at her, I wouldn't gag.
"Yeah, due process and all, I've come up for release on good behavior."
"Do you think you deserve a second chance?"
That gave me pause. Long enough that they actually started to look interested in what I might say. I got the distinct feeling that these people didn't see honesty very often. Well, maybe it was about time they got some.
"No, I don't really think that I do." The blonde guy on the right looked like he was about to frown big time, so I continued. "But then again, you've read my file, right? Well, I think maybe I never really had a good chance in the first place. I guess I'd like to think of this as my first real shot at making things right."
There was a huge pause. I could've dusted about twenty vamps without breaking a sweat in the time it took them to look at each other and come to some decision. I was sweating just sitting there under their microscope. I didn't like the close scrutiny. My life cannot bear examination.
"Well, Faith, you'll get your chance. And I don't want to see you back here. Good luck."
And that was it. Wasn't there supposed to be more? Just because I convinced three people in a cramped room that I meant it, I was free. A convicted murderer. Free. I tried not to shriek with joy.
Maybe joy wasn't the right word. There was a ton of fear there. Stark terror. I meant my words, but I didn't think I was ready to act on them. I thought I'd never be ready.
'I can never face her,' I thought over and over again.
The guards, looking both happy and sad to be rid of me, escorted me to a little room where I changed my clothes. The last outfit I wore in the big bad world. I didn't have much else. Travel light and maybe I won't be caught up in anything again was my plan. Not like before.
Emotions were never really my thing. They're tricky little fuckers, making you think that you love somebody and that maybe, just maybe, they love you back. Or twisting what was once a pure love into something darker, tainted by jealousy.
It's kind of funny to know that the gang referred to me as the dark slayer. I don't think it had anything to do with my hair and eyes. What's so funny is that to be a slayer, you've gotta be pretty dark in the first place. Yeah, B is surrounded by friends and family, people who support her, but there's always that little something she's gotta keep separate. That dark place inside that she tries so hard to pretend isn't there. The part of us that loves the fight, that's excited and rejuvenated with every punch and roundhouse kick.
I never understood why she fought it so hard. Or why she tried so damn hard to be normal. We were never supposed to be normal; that was the whole point of being a vampire slayer. One person to set aside from humanity in order to protect the rest of it.
Wasn't that how it worked?
Cordelia and Wes were waiting for me. I bet Angel would have given anything to be there, but since the sun was shining happily down on the world, he was...indisposed. Wes nodded at me, which is more than I thought I would ever get from him. Maybe he understood. Maybe Angel explained it to him. Maybe he found demons of his own to battle and came to recognize a fellow in arms. Maybe I'd ask him to explain it to me sometime.
Cordy, on the other hand, was apparently not too happy with this development if her glares were any indication. I didn't bother to glare back, I didn't have the energy. It was weird enough to be outside, in the sun, with no walls or barbed wire or eyes constantly roaming my body. A girl could get used to this, I thought.