Darkfic: #005 - Lost Haven
Challenge at 50_darkfics
Title: Worlds Divide
Author: lilhobbit
Fandom: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Prompt: #005: Lost Haven
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: angst
Word Count: 1197 words
Characters: Original Characters, Giles
Series: Turning Blue
Author's Notes: Just came to me while watching Angel Season 5.
Previous installments:
· Turning Blue timeline [and Envenom]
“Even heroes are replaceable. If a hero dies or loses her way, someone will simply step in your place.”
He was rubbing his eyes, holding onto his glasses lazily with his other hand. There was exhaustion in his voice, the kind of emptiness a drained person would withhold. The room was cold tonight, unlike before and she noticed it immediately. She didn’t mind though; believing falsely would be worse than knowing right away.
“I can’t go on anymore,” he told her, piercing her small frame with his tired eyes.
“Didn’t think you could,” she finally confessed, equally worn out and weak. They had never been possessed by one another, merely leaning towards because there was no one else to hold onto. A relationship of comfort as some said - As numb and hollow as indifference. She didn’t understand him, why he was losing faith or regaining it. All she knew was that he had been reliving something, trying to gain some piece of happiness through her, but he’d misjudged.
“A week ago you would’ve asked me to come with you, fight the good fight and burn like a torch in the darkness.” She reveled in this image, could clearly see the same details he saw in his inner vision. They knew now people weren’t shaped like that: guided and trained away from the path of wrong. To him she was lost. “However you’ve seen and heard too much. You know now I’ll never be as the rest.”
It was the same as swallowing poison, having to listen to her confession. He’d known of her potential for some time now, but blindly believed it was never an option. Yet the sweetness she might’ve once had was gone, washed away by the tempest that’d made homeless in the first place. She wouldn’t leave these walls, wouldn’t admit how much she needed to go. In this hour she could only recognize the part of her that wished for pain, violence and decadence. Everything was like Mars had said, so brilliantly recognized long before him. Only the ghosts of the past made her move, think, and eat. Only the ghost that spoke to her at night held sway over her now. She would surely be seduced and he couldn’t fight it nor did he have the right to.
“I don’t understand you. I do however know that even to you I’m just a Slayer, a project,” she carried on lightly, spoke her accusations without haste.
“You touched me because you thought it was the only way to anchor me here - That maybe by allowing me my whims, my fantasies, you could influence me.” God, talking like this stung her eyes, filled them with hate. It was because she’d needed Raine so much that he was here with her. It was because she’d wanted to purge herself free from Caleb so much that he had held her. And afterwards all of this felt just as bad as the evil alternatives she could’ve chosen instead. Physical fascination, true love - it was neither! Then what was it? What was there left?
He didn’t deny it. However he knew he’d been there just as much for himself as he’d been for her. It was never just giving, it was also getting. She’d revealed a dark side of him, a reflection he didn’t recognize. They didn’t belong in each other’s worlds, could not help one another beyond this. “We were friends,” she said to him, gaining his attention again. He lifted his gaze and saw another empty expression on her face. “But the truth is we’ll never be student and teacher, or lovers again. We won’t mean nothing either.”
She rose and clutched her hands to fists. That lost look in her eyes was much more hateful than when they’d first met. “I’m no longer lost, but I’m not found either. Do us both a favor and leave. Don’t try and save me anymore.”
“You’re giving up just like that?” He questioned, accepting her view on the end of their illusion, the relationship that never was. He wouldn’t give her release that easily though for without the chains of their closeness he was allowed to tell her she was wrong, tell her how she was self-destructing. She didn’t view it that way though.
“Get the fuck away, leave. Go join your happy, shiny, suffering people and save the world. Let me finish my rounds my own way.” How malicious she was when pushed; he’d never been able grasp just how bitter she’d become. The tragedies that’d shaped had begun even before her Watcher’s death and he’d had such trouble reaching her that her finally accepting him could be considered a miracle.
Her voice was tainted by now; she was holding back the hurt that’d begun emerging. Cutting things quickly was in both their interest, and he felt the same, so why was he still standing there?! The two sides of a coin never met until the illusion was created when the coin spun around itself with such speed that the two images became one. Their speed was drained; the coin lay on the ground, one side up, one side down. They should just leave it at that.
“I can’t just leave. If I go you’ll-,” he tried to reach her but she shunned his touch and withdrew. Those hurt eyes cast everything hidden in their depth straight into him, setting him ablaze in an instant. “I’ll reach out to the wrong person?” She asked, voice void from her earlier insecurities. She was just empty, bleeding everything he’d given her onto this floor so she needn’t carry it close to her heart anymore.
“You’re needed and I’m not the one who needs you anymore.”
Upon hearing about this, Marshall would be angry beyond words. He’d become irate, out of control. He treated this girl like a precious pearl on his hand palm, much like his twin had. To know that the person he’d believed would cure her and unmake changes the tragedy of her past had caused had in fact plunged her into second darkness would aggravate him. After that, there’d be no more words between them. She’d be alone again and he would just carry this as a scar in his flesh, a mistake perhaps.
He didn’t want that, he wanted to remember everything the way it’d felt while experiencing it. It’d been natural, it’d been kind. She’d been more animate than before, shown signs of emotions she’d hidden. And now they were both renouncing it as a mistake, a bad call. The safe place where they’d been able to push their fears aside was crumbling, or had it already crumbled?
She sat down, turned her gaze from him and stared at the white wall, the approaching apathy cleaning her face from any expression that might’ve given a clue as to what she was going through right now. She’d made her choice and was embracing it fully. He tore his eyes from her, glanced at the door pensively.
“Goodbye, Roxanne,” he spoke as lightly as he could. She didn’t turn around when he opened the door.
“Bye, Giles,” she only whispered after he was gone.
- fin