Bitch (Faith/OC)
Title: Bitch
Fandom: BtVS/AtS
Pairing: Faith/OC
Rating: R
Warnings: Non-con. Sort of.
Disclaimer: I don't claim any ownership, I don't make any money, everything belongs to the Holy Joss.
Author's note: I wrote most of this, well, must've been almost two years ago. But somehow I couldn't end it. You know. The big finish. Le grande finale. Whatever. But now I have and my baby insisted I publish it, so... here goes.
The walls all around her are cold, empty. Silence fills the void between them and her.
She’s still breathing, whatever that means. Inhale, exhale. Breathing seems to make little difference now, cooped up alone in this sterile excuse for a room. Isolation - the true meaning of the word has never dawned on her before, but now she’s living it, one second at a time.
It’s only been a week since she was put in this cell, but she’s already forgetting the sights and smells of the outside world. Daisies. Not that she ever stopped to smell them. Sunrises and sunsets. Not that she was ever that interested in them. This place, it was always bound to give her some perspective on things like that, but she’d never imagined herself longing to see the sky turn all shades of red, yellow, purple. Yearning to feel fresh grass nestle in between her toes.
She’s only ever been a runner, always running from something. Now, running isn’t an option anymore. She can’t hide. She’s all she’s got.
A clattering noise outside the steel door. Key being twisted in lock. She sits up, swings her legs over the side of the painfully Spartan bed. Instinctively reaching for a weapon, and - naturally - finding none. It’s part of the whole being stripped bare thing. No armour, no weapons, just self.
Luckily, her strength has never been restricted to the use of manmade objects.
A sturdy, forty-something guy walks in, his body language instantly telling her he’s tense, on guard. Watchful. It’s all she can do not to give a slight smirk. He should be afraid. She might be in chains, but she’s not domesticated. Not safe for anyone, and she won’t ever be. As he stuffs the keys down his pocket, she stands up, straightens herself. He doesn’t approach her, just waits in the doorway.
“Recreational’s up,” he says. “Courtyard.”
She smiles, faking benevolence. “Whatever you say, boss.” She winks at him as she passes him into the corridor, where there are more of his kind waiting for her; big, brawny men with batons, the promise of a beating written on their faces. She knows their type. She’s met hundreds of them, all through her life. Bouncers. Security guards. All muscle and not much in the way of brains or even sentiment. Easy to beat. She knows she could take the lot of them out in about the time it would take them to even realise what was going on.
But she won’t. After all… she’s chosen her chains.
She could’ve kept right on running for the rest of her life, if that’s what she’d have wanted. Fighting them off one outfit after the other. Hiding underground. Never safe, never able to relax or close her eyes for even a split second. They would’ve been coming at her from all sides for the rest of her life. But she chose to give in. It’s been a week since then, and sure, she’s had reason to doubt that choice. Still… redemption, it’s worth at least a shot.
It’s worth more than a week incarcerated.
The courtyard is big, spacious. A desert of concrete surrounded by fences topped with barbwire. No open invitation to any attempts to escape. The other inmates, they’re already on the move. Doing laps, push-ups, getting pumped. She can’t help but chuckle. Looks like someone just handed her a lucky break. A way to let off some steam. She might not be able to do it the good old-fashioned way, with knives and stakes, but still. This is something to work with.
Without putting her body to work, she’d probably just wither away slowly. The physical’s always been her only release.
When they unlock her, she swings her arms a few times, to get the blood streaming to her hands. Her shoulders are constricted, her muscles taut. Attracting all sorts of gazes, she walks across the courtyard. Her forty minutes of heaven are about to begin.
Sweat pouring from her body, pearls of moisture forming on her brow; it’s time to hit the showers. She’s shown to the facilities by a female guard who looks just this side of blasé. Like she couldn’t care less if, pending her return, half of block D ended up strewn across the white tile floor, their time to serve cut short. Faith likes her. She’s got the idea; everyone in here’s got something bad to atone for. Something that makes them, for lack of a better word, expendable. This one doesn’t care what happens to them, and she probably shouldn’t, either.
They’re shoved in the showers ten at a time. Faith drops her clothes, the uniform jumpsuit, and gets under the running water. It’s colder that she’d expected, and the sensation makes her gasp. She curses her reflex. Who wants to look weak in the company of murderers?
She doesn’t know if anyone’s checking her out. She doesn’t even particularly care. Let anyone have a look if they want. Look, but don’t touch. The way it’s always been.
That all gets shot to hell when, seconds later, someone grabs her wrist and twists her arm up her back. It’s unexpected, and she doesn’t move a muscle. Anywhere else, she would’ve had her assailant on his or her backside before they got the chance to cry assault. But here... it’s a different deal altogether. She turns her head to the left, to the right, only to discover no one’s left. No one but her and her attacker, who Faith now hears breathing right next to her ear.
“New kid,” her attacker wheezes, and Faith feels a hand sliding down her side to her hip, pressing.
“You want something?” Faith retorts. Waiting for a response, she moves her free hand to the white tile wall, leaning against it.
“Funny you should mention it,” the faceless aggressor croons, twisting Faith’s arm so hard she feels her muscles tensing almost to the point of snapping. This woman’s strong. Not slayer-strong, but definitely built. “’Cause I got this itch I need you to scratch.”
Like that. Faith has a hard time keeping from laughing out loud, letting her laughter echo, bounce off the sterile walls. She instantly knows how to play this. It isn’t hard. She’s been playing this game since she was just a kid. She allows her arm to tremble slightly, applying her most weakened, meek voice while grinning broadly at the facing wall. “Let go of my arm. Please, I won’t be any trouble. Just let go of me, I’ll do whatever you want.”
“’Course you will.” The burly woman slowly lets go, then puts her hand on Faith’s shoulder, pushing her so that she spins around to face her. A tall, thirty-something woman with a buzz-cut, wide-shouldered. Probably awe-inspiring to just about anyone who hasn’t seen what Faith’s seen, lived what Faith’s lived. The woman’s not entirely unattractive, if you go for the whole butch thing.
Faith doesn’t.
She diminishes herself, producing that helpless look, that afraid, unsure appearance that men always seem to appreciate. For extra effect, she bites her lip. The whole rape victim look, she’s got it down perfectly. Years and years of training, and the Oscar goes to...
“What do you want me to do?” she asks in a broken voice. Like cracked china. Fragile.
The woman, who’s not going to win any Miss Congeniality contests any time soon, smirks. “Go down.”
Figures. Faith nods, gets down on her knees. She knows that if she can pull this off - and of course she can - she won’t ever be bothered again. The thing is, if she hadn’t been the person she is, she might’ve just bent to this woman’s will, thinking if she kept her head down, she’d be in the clear. But Faith knows that’s all nonsense. None of that ‘do your own time’ crap is going to save you.
This is familiar. The cold floor, water pooling around her shins. She recalls one time, down at the docks - it was a rainy night... but that was long ago, before just about the dawn of time, or at least it seems that way now. She fakes a quiver as she puts her hands on the other woman’s hips: and she is opening up to her, her firm thighs apart as she runs her fingers through Faith’s hair, pulling her in, like you’d pull in a fish on a hook.
Faith slides her tongue in, tasting the other woman, drawing a sigh from her. Her tongue stiff, she’s drawing circles up and down and inside of this unknown somebody. She’s good. She knows she’s good. Which is why she’s got her assailant completely off guard, coming in her mouth, when she bites down on her most sensitive. Like a viper striking, Faith is up on her feet in no time, placing a hand on her mouth to keep her quiet. She can feel the muffled screams vibrate against her palm.
The element of surprise. Vital to any relationship.
“You can scream all you like, really,” Faith says, wiping the blood from her mouth with the back of her free hand. “Bet you got that warden all bribed and good. But it would really just spoil the mood, don’t you think?” She removes her hand, and the woman is silent - she just sags down on the floor, curling up into a foetal position, her face contorted in a mask of indescribable pain. Faith sits down on the floor beside her. Makes herself comfortable, or whatever passes for comfortable in a place like this.
“See, I don’t know what you’re in here for-what’s your name?”
“Lucy,” the woman mouths, gasping for air. Her blood is all over the floor now, tainting it, trickling away in little rivers. Looking back, months later, Faith will wonder what possessed her to answer at all.
“Luce, I don’t know what you’re in here for, and I don’t much care, but I think you should probably remember this. You got away lucky. I’m a fucking murderer, Luce, and if I wasn’t dead set on redemption, you’d be all over this place in bits and pieces by now. So consider this your lucky day, ‘cause no one’s ever tried to make me their bitch and got away with a petty fucking mutilation before. Is that clear?”
Her victim nods feebly, her eyes big wide chasms of fear and disbelief in her square-jawed face. Faith nimbly gets up on her feet again, bends down and strokes her forehead. She’s almost tender. What was that Buffy was talking about? Mercy? Yes. She is merciful.
“Lucky, lucky Luce,” she smiles. “Now, don’t you be feelin’ lucky any time soon, okay?”
Walking out of there to get her clothes, nodding to the guard who is still looking handsomely apathetic, something is raging inside her. The temptation she’s been fighting, inside of her, the urge to turn around, go back, bend down and twist the woman’s neck until it snaps, until the life drains out of her. Feel that flame extinguished by an accomplished hand. Back in her cell, when no one is around anymore to see her, she is shaking, nails scratching up and down her arms.
She is sick. This is no surprise to her. She has known for years that something inside her is twisted, something she can’t reach to mend. Perhaps something is simply missing, nuts and bolts, that makes the frail fabric of her humanity come apart at the seams. It doesn’t really matter. What matters is now, she has all the time in the world to fight that part of her telling her Go ahead. You know they deserve it. Be the one to do, and never to be done to again.
Later in the night, lying awake on her back and staring up at the empty starless ceiling, she’ll figure it out. Today was a roadblock, something she got over. Redemption isn’t something you can send for by mail. You can’t just sit around waiting for it. You have to earn it. One step at a time. One unperformed justified murder after another.
Fandom: BtVS/AtS
Pairing: Faith/OC
Rating: R
Warnings: Non-con. Sort of.
Disclaimer: I don't claim any ownership, I don't make any money, everything belongs to the Holy Joss.
Author's note: I wrote most of this, well, must've been almost two years ago. But somehow I couldn't end it. You know. The big finish. Le grande finale. Whatever. But now I have and my baby insisted I publish it, so... here goes.
The walls all around her are cold, empty. Silence fills the void between them and her.
She’s still breathing, whatever that means. Inhale, exhale. Breathing seems to make little difference now, cooped up alone in this sterile excuse for a room. Isolation - the true meaning of the word has never dawned on her before, but now she’s living it, one second at a time.
It’s only been a week since she was put in this cell, but she’s already forgetting the sights and smells of the outside world. Daisies. Not that she ever stopped to smell them. Sunrises and sunsets. Not that she was ever that interested in them. This place, it was always bound to give her some perspective on things like that, but she’d never imagined herself longing to see the sky turn all shades of red, yellow, purple. Yearning to feel fresh grass nestle in between her toes.
She’s only ever been a runner, always running from something. Now, running isn’t an option anymore. She can’t hide. She’s all she’s got.
A clattering noise outside the steel door. Key being twisted in lock. She sits up, swings her legs over the side of the painfully Spartan bed. Instinctively reaching for a weapon, and - naturally - finding none. It’s part of the whole being stripped bare thing. No armour, no weapons, just self.
Luckily, her strength has never been restricted to the use of manmade objects.
A sturdy, forty-something guy walks in, his body language instantly telling her he’s tense, on guard. Watchful. It’s all she can do not to give a slight smirk. He should be afraid. She might be in chains, but she’s not domesticated. Not safe for anyone, and she won’t ever be. As he stuffs the keys down his pocket, she stands up, straightens herself. He doesn’t approach her, just waits in the doorway.
“Recreational’s up,” he says. “Courtyard.”
She smiles, faking benevolence. “Whatever you say, boss.” She winks at him as she passes him into the corridor, where there are more of his kind waiting for her; big, brawny men with batons, the promise of a beating written on their faces. She knows their type. She’s met hundreds of them, all through her life. Bouncers. Security guards. All muscle and not much in the way of brains or even sentiment. Easy to beat. She knows she could take the lot of them out in about the time it would take them to even realise what was going on.
But she won’t. After all… she’s chosen her chains.
She could’ve kept right on running for the rest of her life, if that’s what she’d have wanted. Fighting them off one outfit after the other. Hiding underground. Never safe, never able to relax or close her eyes for even a split second. They would’ve been coming at her from all sides for the rest of her life. But she chose to give in. It’s been a week since then, and sure, she’s had reason to doubt that choice. Still… redemption, it’s worth at least a shot.
It’s worth more than a week incarcerated.
The courtyard is big, spacious. A desert of concrete surrounded by fences topped with barbwire. No open invitation to any attempts to escape. The other inmates, they’re already on the move. Doing laps, push-ups, getting pumped. She can’t help but chuckle. Looks like someone just handed her a lucky break. A way to let off some steam. She might not be able to do it the good old-fashioned way, with knives and stakes, but still. This is something to work with.
Without putting her body to work, she’d probably just wither away slowly. The physical’s always been her only release.
When they unlock her, she swings her arms a few times, to get the blood streaming to her hands. Her shoulders are constricted, her muscles taut. Attracting all sorts of gazes, she walks across the courtyard. Her forty minutes of heaven are about to begin.
Sweat pouring from her body, pearls of moisture forming on her brow; it’s time to hit the showers. She’s shown to the facilities by a female guard who looks just this side of blasé. Like she couldn’t care less if, pending her return, half of block D ended up strewn across the white tile floor, their time to serve cut short. Faith likes her. She’s got the idea; everyone in here’s got something bad to atone for. Something that makes them, for lack of a better word, expendable. This one doesn’t care what happens to them, and she probably shouldn’t, either.
They’re shoved in the showers ten at a time. Faith drops her clothes, the uniform jumpsuit, and gets under the running water. It’s colder that she’d expected, and the sensation makes her gasp. She curses her reflex. Who wants to look weak in the company of murderers?
She doesn’t know if anyone’s checking her out. She doesn’t even particularly care. Let anyone have a look if they want. Look, but don’t touch. The way it’s always been.
That all gets shot to hell when, seconds later, someone grabs her wrist and twists her arm up her back. It’s unexpected, and she doesn’t move a muscle. Anywhere else, she would’ve had her assailant on his or her backside before they got the chance to cry assault. But here... it’s a different deal altogether. She turns her head to the left, to the right, only to discover no one’s left. No one but her and her attacker, who Faith now hears breathing right next to her ear.
“New kid,” her attacker wheezes, and Faith feels a hand sliding down her side to her hip, pressing.
“You want something?” Faith retorts. Waiting for a response, she moves her free hand to the white tile wall, leaning against it.
“Funny you should mention it,” the faceless aggressor croons, twisting Faith’s arm so hard she feels her muscles tensing almost to the point of snapping. This woman’s strong. Not slayer-strong, but definitely built. “’Cause I got this itch I need you to scratch.”
Like that. Faith has a hard time keeping from laughing out loud, letting her laughter echo, bounce off the sterile walls. She instantly knows how to play this. It isn’t hard. She’s been playing this game since she was just a kid. She allows her arm to tremble slightly, applying her most weakened, meek voice while grinning broadly at the facing wall. “Let go of my arm. Please, I won’t be any trouble. Just let go of me, I’ll do whatever you want.”
“’Course you will.” The burly woman slowly lets go, then puts her hand on Faith’s shoulder, pushing her so that she spins around to face her. A tall, thirty-something woman with a buzz-cut, wide-shouldered. Probably awe-inspiring to just about anyone who hasn’t seen what Faith’s seen, lived what Faith’s lived. The woman’s not entirely unattractive, if you go for the whole butch thing.
Faith doesn’t.
She diminishes herself, producing that helpless look, that afraid, unsure appearance that men always seem to appreciate. For extra effect, she bites her lip. The whole rape victim look, she’s got it down perfectly. Years and years of training, and the Oscar goes to...
“What do you want me to do?” she asks in a broken voice. Like cracked china. Fragile.
The woman, who’s not going to win any Miss Congeniality contests any time soon, smirks. “Go down.”
Figures. Faith nods, gets down on her knees. She knows that if she can pull this off - and of course she can - she won’t ever be bothered again. The thing is, if she hadn’t been the person she is, she might’ve just bent to this woman’s will, thinking if she kept her head down, she’d be in the clear. But Faith knows that’s all nonsense. None of that ‘do your own time’ crap is going to save you.
This is familiar. The cold floor, water pooling around her shins. She recalls one time, down at the docks - it was a rainy night... but that was long ago, before just about the dawn of time, or at least it seems that way now. She fakes a quiver as she puts her hands on the other woman’s hips: and she is opening up to her, her firm thighs apart as she runs her fingers through Faith’s hair, pulling her in, like you’d pull in a fish on a hook.
Faith slides her tongue in, tasting the other woman, drawing a sigh from her. Her tongue stiff, she’s drawing circles up and down and inside of this unknown somebody. She’s good. She knows she’s good. Which is why she’s got her assailant completely off guard, coming in her mouth, when she bites down on her most sensitive. Like a viper striking, Faith is up on her feet in no time, placing a hand on her mouth to keep her quiet. She can feel the muffled screams vibrate against her palm.
The element of surprise. Vital to any relationship.
“You can scream all you like, really,” Faith says, wiping the blood from her mouth with the back of her free hand. “Bet you got that warden all bribed and good. But it would really just spoil the mood, don’t you think?” She removes her hand, and the woman is silent - she just sags down on the floor, curling up into a foetal position, her face contorted in a mask of indescribable pain. Faith sits down on the floor beside her. Makes herself comfortable, or whatever passes for comfortable in a place like this.
“See, I don’t know what you’re in here for-what’s your name?”
“Lucy,” the woman mouths, gasping for air. Her blood is all over the floor now, tainting it, trickling away in little rivers. Looking back, months later, Faith will wonder what possessed her to answer at all.
“Luce, I don’t know what you’re in here for, and I don’t much care, but I think you should probably remember this. You got away lucky. I’m a fucking murderer, Luce, and if I wasn’t dead set on redemption, you’d be all over this place in bits and pieces by now. So consider this your lucky day, ‘cause no one’s ever tried to make me their bitch and got away with a petty fucking mutilation before. Is that clear?”
Her victim nods feebly, her eyes big wide chasms of fear and disbelief in her square-jawed face. Faith nimbly gets up on her feet again, bends down and strokes her forehead. She’s almost tender. What was that Buffy was talking about? Mercy? Yes. She is merciful.
“Lucky, lucky Luce,” she smiles. “Now, don’t you be feelin’ lucky any time soon, okay?”
Walking out of there to get her clothes, nodding to the guard who is still looking handsomely apathetic, something is raging inside her. The temptation she’s been fighting, inside of her, the urge to turn around, go back, bend down and twist the woman’s neck until it snaps, until the life drains out of her. Feel that flame extinguished by an accomplished hand. Back in her cell, when no one is around anymore to see her, she is shaking, nails scratching up and down her arms.
She is sick. This is no surprise to her. She has known for years that something inside her is twisted, something she can’t reach to mend. Perhaps something is simply missing, nuts and bolts, that makes the frail fabric of her humanity come apart at the seams. It doesn’t really matter. What matters is now, she has all the time in the world to fight that part of her telling her Go ahead. You know they deserve it. Be the one to do, and never to be done to again.
Later in the night, lying awake on her back and staring up at the empty starless ceiling, she’ll figure it out. Today was a roadblock, something she got over. Redemption isn’t something you can send for by mail. You can’t just sit around waiting for it. You have to earn it. One step at a time. One unperformed justified murder after another.