(no subject)
Who: Faith Lehane and Damon Salvatore.
Where: The woods outside the city and back into the city to w/Out Benefits
What: Faith tries to handle her ticked off-ness about Wolverine leaving (oh and the rest of her life is fucked up too)
When: After she talks to "crazy" Fenris about him kidnapping a cat.
Notes: Animal death inside of here. Faith kills a dog. One of Mindy's dogs, to be exact. Also a hell of a lot of TL;DR.
It was funny how even in a large empty abandoned club with two levels and a dance floor that went forever, Faith could feel so closed in. People had left the castle before. It wasn't news, wasn't something she hadn't heard of before. Laura left. Not that she'd really known the girl, but it had happened before. Someone had gone back to whatever their life was and Faith just moved on. Why bother wasting time caring if it was just going to be the same bullshit next time someone left.
They're better off. She could lift her chin up and say that out loud all those other times. Someone left, she'd have a drink. They're better off. Just, the longer she stayed here the less and less she thought that was true. Sure, they had their lives - their friends, family maybe, but it was the same bullshit they'd escaped from. If she went back home, she'd be an elevator drop down to killing Angel. Then ... then it'd be whatever everyone else had already told her would happen. Some big surprise there. All that fate and destiny bullshit she'd been told since she was called would finally have some real resonance -- if she would actually remember it.
This time, though, this time it felt different. It pissed her off that someone had left. That she didn't get out of it what she had wanted. Obviously, this was about her, but she knew that he'd be better off back home. She remembered those talks -- those conversations where he mentioned how it wasn't the same here, that he had it better with the people he knew, that he had a team -- a family of sorts back there.
Here... what the fuck could he have here? A broken Slayer who didn't want to show up for the team building exercises because she wanted to sleep in? One that mouthed off and flirted her way into a dead end with a guy that had more gravel in his voice than a back road? Her shoulders rolled back, a few vertebrae of her back making a satisfactory pop sound as air was compressed and released. Her mouth easily found the lip of the bottle, lifting it and tipping her head back as she moved through the woods. She could've been a team member. Could've gotten up earlier, maybe made some big difference. She was telling Damon she might be a good guy for a bit... so why hadn't she? What was so wrong with her that she couldn't even try to make a difference.
This single bottle of booze probably wouldn't have made much impact on her, but the one she had finished off before her trek outdoors was the one that was slowly sinking into her in the moment. It was the one that made things less clear, less vivid. Even all the leaves seemed sort of muted from the sharp reds and oranges she knew them to be. As she walked, the liquid in the bottle splashed against the sides, sloshing around, reminding her that there was still more to drink.
Her features twisted up into a fit of disgust, a hand grabbing to the nearby tree and pushing off of it, as if she had considered punching it but opted to just use it for leverage. Something was off about all of her instincts and it wasn't just the alcohol. Something was making her feel more vulnerable, weaker... as if she'd let something she shouldn't have slip by her fingertips. Buffy had her friends, she had family back home. Even here she had her little crew of high school friends, defending her, trying to prove that Faith was just another mistake in their line of trusting people. She belonged in jail, in prison... somewhere that she couldn't be a danger to all of Buffy's dear friends.
Even the castle wanted to trap her. Push her up against walls and make her realize that Buffy was always going to come first, she was always going to be there to slide a knife into her gut and put her in her place. Back to the room. Back to that darkness and crowded space where she was just one of a sea of many. Easy to lose track of; quick to silence.
Replaceable.
When the bottle finally emptied, the arc she threw it in ended in a tree and shattered the bottle into a few dozen pieces. Not quite so aware of things, she went to clean up the mess, feeling the way the shard pushed in against her palm. The sting of pain making her realize that she wasn't trapped in some insane castle prison, she was outside in the woods, trying not to be pissed off at a complete stranger for abandoning her. She had to laugh, the sound of it hollow even in her own ears because out of all the people she could get mad at for leaving, it was someone that she never even knew his real name. All that talk about Wolverine and it took realizing that Kitty had been part of his team to find out his name.
It was almost like a sick joke being twisted around on her after he left. Make her trust him, try to understand, even relate and it wasn't even a two-way street. Just another lie from someone that she was supposed to respect. Her fist clenched up, not realizing that the shard of glass was still pressed in her palm. It sliced deeper, the streak of warm crimson flooding over her palm and dripping to the ground. Droplets pooled on the top of her boot and slid down to catch in the ridges of the rubber sole. In her current state she barely registered the injury. The initial sting of pain long forgotten amongst the anger and rage that still built up.
Wesley forgot her. Wolver-- Logan left her. Laura went home. Angel was part of the problem. Fenris was kidnapping kittens. Buffy... Faith just shook her head at the thought of the blond Slayer trying to offer up some sort of peace offering, some trial membership to the great big club of her little friends. All the two-way streets she'd found in this place almost all started with someone telling her no at first. Even Sam, even the guy that kept dropping by her place to dirty up the bed-sheets had started off telling her that she wasn't worth his time.
Worthless.
Standing in that one spot for so long, her weight started to waver, the light-headed feeling making her body swim a bit more than she'd realized it was doing a moment ago. Her hand was soaked, the piece of glass proudly lodged into her palm and showing no real sign of remorse for practically bleeding her out and there was that low growl in the distance. Even her Slayer hearing had picked that up, but she thought it had been the wind, maybe one of those weird animals everyone talked about.
Eight-legged sheep and eyeless beasts.
Swallowing hard, she turned around, possibly too quick to let her body catch up to her. The blood loss clearly not helping her in this fight against whatever was circling around her. Shaking her head she tried to focus on her surroundings, her fist opened, carefully plucking the large piece of glass from her hand and letting it drop to the ground with a clink of sound. It had hit the other pieces, pieces that she knew would be bigger... sharper...
"Don't you bring me that bottle empty, girl. I'll make sure you never touch another one of them."
When it lunged for her all she can think to do was drop lower to the ground. Instinct wasn't on mark right now, but once she was low to the ground her fingers could wrap around a piece of glass that was more fit to be a weapon. All her stakes are at the club and she knows better than to carry a knife these days.
"It's called a loss, Faith. You'll get used to it."
She could adapt.
When she lunged forward, the blurred mess of what she assumed was fur ... or a heavy jacket slowed before her, giving her that opening. Her right foot planted as her left one stretched outward, elongating her stance until her arm extended out and she plunged the broken neck of the bottle into the soft underbelly of whatever it had been. The sound it made --
A sharp cry echoed through the woods, high and pitched to where in her state of confusion and slight disarray, she could easily mistake for a cry of pain. All these people. All these things that she doesn't know about, doesn't understand -- doesn't want to learn about. Demons and monsters that live next door to the rest of them and no one cared.
No one does anything and all she wanted to do was her job. She just wanted to do what she was supposed to do and now, standing over the body of whatever it was -- she's reminded of just how easy it was to make those mistakes.
The crunch of leaves came from her left and she wasn't sure who it was, but she wasn't going to stick around to find out. Her footsteps can't carry her away fast enough. There wasn't a blonde Slayer running beside her this time. Just a phantom memory of earlier problems that she still can't seem to shake. Her shoulder collided into the hard bark of a tree sending her down to the ground. Her knee lands on a branch, chin skidding against the hard ground. She tasted dirt and the metallic tint of blood from biting her own tongue. Her stance shook as she rose back to her feet again, trying to move through the woods and down those back alley-ways to the club. She's certain whatever was in the woods could have followed her. That someone might look for her. Ask her why she did it?
Two weeks could pass and they could ask her to her face. Make her see just what sort of a monster she could be when pressed hard to do what she had been trained to do.
In the middle of the club, she just stood there. A haze of misrecollection and memories that wouldn't fade. Her breathing returned to normal and the pool of blood forming near her foot stopped when it hit the side of her boot. Shutting her eyes only put her back in that alley. Back in those woods. Back in that dark club the castle trapped her in for a week.
"You're nothing."
She just stood there wondering if she was still enough, if the blood continued to trickle from her wound, if eventually she'd be good to go for two weeks. She just needed that time. She needed to have control over something in this fucked up place and if it wasn't over her life, fuck it all, she'd make sure she could control her death.
"You're weak."
When her knee buckled under the pressure of her own weight, she cried out when it smacked to the hard tile. A sharp pain resounded through her thigh, the fall from earlier proving to be more than just a bump that needed Bactine. Rising to her feet she moved quickly to the sink. This was familiar, this was the easy part. She tried to scrub at her hands, but the gash on her palm just reopened every time she ran it beneath the water. After the third time of trying to rinse it away, she laughed to herself, trying to figure out just why it was her own blood that she couldn't wash away after all this time. Exhaling in frustration, she moved to reach for a towel, winding it over her palm as she went to try and clean off her knee.
Where: The woods outside the city and back into the city to w/Out Benefits
What: Faith tries to handle her ticked off-ness about Wolverine leaving (oh and the rest of her life is fucked up too)
When: After she talks to "crazy" Fenris about him kidnapping a cat.
Notes: Animal death inside of here. Faith kills a dog. One of Mindy's dogs, to be exact. Also a hell of a lot of TL;DR.
It was funny how even in a large empty abandoned club with two levels and a dance floor that went forever, Faith could feel so closed in. People had left the castle before. It wasn't news, wasn't something she hadn't heard of before. Laura left. Not that she'd really known the girl, but it had happened before. Someone had gone back to whatever their life was and Faith just moved on. Why bother wasting time caring if it was just going to be the same bullshit next time someone left.
They're better off. She could lift her chin up and say that out loud all those other times. Someone left, she'd have a drink. They're better off. Just, the longer she stayed here the less and less she thought that was true. Sure, they had their lives - their friends, family maybe, but it was the same bullshit they'd escaped from. If she went back home, she'd be an elevator drop down to killing Angel. Then ... then it'd be whatever everyone else had already told her would happen. Some big surprise there. All that fate and destiny bullshit she'd been told since she was called would finally have some real resonance -- if she would actually remember it.
This time, though, this time it felt different. It pissed her off that someone had left. That she didn't get out of it what she had wanted. Obviously, this was about her, but she knew that he'd be better off back home. She remembered those talks -- those conversations where he mentioned how it wasn't the same here, that he had it better with the people he knew, that he had a team -- a family of sorts back there.
Here... what the fuck could he have here? A broken Slayer who didn't want to show up for the team building exercises because she wanted to sleep in? One that mouthed off and flirted her way into a dead end with a guy that had more gravel in his voice than a back road? Her shoulders rolled back, a few vertebrae of her back making a satisfactory pop sound as air was compressed and released. Her mouth easily found the lip of the bottle, lifting it and tipping her head back as she moved through the woods. She could've been a team member. Could've gotten up earlier, maybe made some big difference. She was telling Damon she might be a good guy for a bit... so why hadn't she? What was so wrong with her that she couldn't even try to make a difference.
This single bottle of booze probably wouldn't have made much impact on her, but the one she had finished off before her trek outdoors was the one that was slowly sinking into her in the moment. It was the one that made things less clear, less vivid. Even all the leaves seemed sort of muted from the sharp reds and oranges she knew them to be. As she walked, the liquid in the bottle splashed against the sides, sloshing around, reminding her that there was still more to drink.
Her features twisted up into a fit of disgust, a hand grabbing to the nearby tree and pushing off of it, as if she had considered punching it but opted to just use it for leverage. Something was off about all of her instincts and it wasn't just the alcohol. Something was making her feel more vulnerable, weaker... as if she'd let something she shouldn't have slip by her fingertips. Buffy had her friends, she had family back home. Even here she had her little crew of high school friends, defending her, trying to prove that Faith was just another mistake in their line of trusting people. She belonged in jail, in prison... somewhere that she couldn't be a danger to all of Buffy's dear friends.
Even the castle wanted to trap her. Push her up against walls and make her realize that Buffy was always going to come first, she was always going to be there to slide a knife into her gut and put her in her place. Back to the room. Back to that darkness and crowded space where she was just one of a sea of many. Easy to lose track of; quick to silence.
Replaceable.
When the bottle finally emptied, the arc she threw it in ended in a tree and shattered the bottle into a few dozen pieces. Not quite so aware of things, she went to clean up the mess, feeling the way the shard pushed in against her palm. The sting of pain making her realize that she wasn't trapped in some insane castle prison, she was outside in the woods, trying not to be pissed off at a complete stranger for abandoning her. She had to laugh, the sound of it hollow even in her own ears because out of all the people she could get mad at for leaving, it was someone that she never even knew his real name. All that talk about Wolverine and it took realizing that Kitty had been part of his team to find out his name.
It was almost like a sick joke being twisted around on her after he left. Make her trust him, try to understand, even relate and it wasn't even a two-way street. Just another lie from someone that she was supposed to respect. Her fist clenched up, not realizing that the shard of glass was still pressed in her palm. It sliced deeper, the streak of warm crimson flooding over her palm and dripping to the ground. Droplets pooled on the top of her boot and slid down to catch in the ridges of the rubber sole. In her current state she barely registered the injury. The initial sting of pain long forgotten amongst the anger and rage that still built up.
Wesley forgot her. Wolver-- Logan left her. Laura went home. Angel was part of the problem. Fenris was kidnapping kittens. Buffy... Faith just shook her head at the thought of the blond Slayer trying to offer up some sort of peace offering, some trial membership to the great big club of her little friends. All the two-way streets she'd found in this place almost all started with someone telling her no at first. Even Sam, even the guy that kept dropping by her place to dirty up the bed-sheets had started off telling her that she wasn't worth his time.
Worthless.
Standing in that one spot for so long, her weight started to waver, the light-headed feeling making her body swim a bit more than she'd realized it was doing a moment ago. Her hand was soaked, the piece of glass proudly lodged into her palm and showing no real sign of remorse for practically bleeding her out and there was that low growl in the distance. Even her Slayer hearing had picked that up, but she thought it had been the wind, maybe one of those weird animals everyone talked about.
Eight-legged sheep and eyeless beasts.
Swallowing hard, she turned around, possibly too quick to let her body catch up to her. The blood loss clearly not helping her in this fight against whatever was circling around her. Shaking her head she tried to focus on her surroundings, her fist opened, carefully plucking the large piece of glass from her hand and letting it drop to the ground with a clink of sound. It had hit the other pieces, pieces that she knew would be bigger... sharper...
"Don't you bring me that bottle empty, girl. I'll make sure you never touch another one of them."
When it lunged for her all she can think to do was drop lower to the ground. Instinct wasn't on mark right now, but once she was low to the ground her fingers could wrap around a piece of glass that was more fit to be a weapon. All her stakes are at the club and she knows better than to carry a knife these days.
"It's called a loss, Faith. You'll get used to it."
She could adapt.
When she lunged forward, the blurred mess of what she assumed was fur ... or a heavy jacket slowed before her, giving her that opening. Her right foot planted as her left one stretched outward, elongating her stance until her arm extended out and she plunged the broken neck of the bottle into the soft underbelly of whatever it had been. The sound it made --
A sharp cry echoed through the woods, high and pitched to where in her state of confusion and slight disarray, she could easily mistake for a cry of pain. All these people. All these things that she doesn't know about, doesn't understand -- doesn't want to learn about. Demons and monsters that live next door to the rest of them and no one cared.
No one does anything and all she wanted to do was her job. She just wanted to do what she was supposed to do and now, standing over the body of whatever it was -- she's reminded of just how easy it was to make those mistakes.
The crunch of leaves came from her left and she wasn't sure who it was, but she wasn't going to stick around to find out. Her footsteps can't carry her away fast enough. There wasn't a blonde Slayer running beside her this time. Just a phantom memory of earlier problems that she still can't seem to shake. Her shoulder collided into the hard bark of a tree sending her down to the ground. Her knee lands on a branch, chin skidding against the hard ground. She tasted dirt and the metallic tint of blood from biting her own tongue. Her stance shook as she rose back to her feet again, trying to move through the woods and down those back alley-ways to the club. She's certain whatever was in the woods could have followed her. That someone might look for her. Ask her why she did it?
Two weeks could pass and they could ask her to her face. Make her see just what sort of a monster she could be when pressed hard to do what she had been trained to do.
In the middle of the club, she just stood there. A haze of misrecollection and memories that wouldn't fade. Her breathing returned to normal and the pool of blood forming near her foot stopped when it hit the side of her boot. Shutting her eyes only put her back in that alley. Back in those woods. Back in that dark club the castle trapped her in for a week.
"You're nothing."
She just stood there wondering if she was still enough, if the blood continued to trickle from her wound, if eventually she'd be good to go for two weeks. She just needed that time. She needed to have control over something in this fucked up place and if it wasn't over her life, fuck it all, she'd make sure she could control her death.
"You're weak."
When her knee buckled under the pressure of her own weight, she cried out when it smacked to the hard tile. A sharp pain resounded through her thigh, the fall from earlier proving to be more than just a bump that needed Bactine. Rising to her feet she moved quickly to the sink. This was familiar, this was the easy part. She tried to scrub at her hands, but the gash on her palm just reopened every time she ran it beneath the water. After the third time of trying to rinse it away, she laughed to herself, trying to figure out just why it was her own blood that she couldn't wash away after all this time. Exhaling in frustration, she moved to reach for a towel, winding it over her palm as she went to try and clean off her knee.