I looked down at the shirt that Faith handed me for a moment before looking up and watching her move around the cell, she looked like a caged animal and I guess when you get down to it that's what we are. We're caged and for the most part helpless, I wasn't going to let them - especially Lindsey - beat me down.
Standing, I tossed the shirt in the corner and sighed, realizing that wasn't one of my best plans to give Faith my shirt. Biting my lip I looked around and spotted a crumpled button down shirt, I walked over and picked it up, shaking it out and slipping it on. I don't know who's it was or anything but I needed to be covered, I can't get things done and make a point of anything walking around in a bra.
Faith started babbling again and there was something in here eyes that struck me and made me listen. He? Who's he?
"Who hides Faith?" I whispered softly, moving over towards her and touching her hand, hoping somehow to find the right way to get her to focus. "Talk to me. Tell me...w-who hides? I-is someone here?" I felt my stomach drop as my eyes darted around the room, unsure of what I wanted her answer to be.
Was it better to be alone down here then with someone that we don't know...
"He. He." I said quietly, turning my head every which when she comes closer. She shouldn't do that because rattle snakes bite back. Everybody knows that. Why did she never listen? She was bad girl too and we never listen. Can't even hear anything because there's this roaring behind your ears. She can hear it too I wonder if she does, she must because she wouldn't be here if she doesn't.
She touches me and I pull away with a hiss because you can't touch a rattlesnake. "Always." I nod at her and pull away walking back towards the door. I want out. I want out. I want out. Want to bang my head until they let me out and then maybe I can sleep or go away. Be away from here for just a little while. I miss him. He hides but he's real. He knows all about the voices, they haunt him too.
"Someone's always here." I whisper as I turn around and look at her again. She took a step to me and I take a step back, no where else to go. Don't come any closer. Don't touch me. I'm on fire you don't wanna touch me. Someone should tell her. She can listen but she won't and she'll touch and I'll burn.
Every moment that past, every movement from Faith proved to me more and more that Faith was too far gone to talk to rationally. Whoever got to her before hand - vampire or human - had done something to her, confused her and made her how she is now.
What hurt me was i didn't know what to do to help her, I don't know how to get through to her so we could get out of here. Lindsey would be back to torment both of us soon - it seemed in his nature - or even worse. Darla would make her way down here.
I wasn't ready to meet her, I didn't have a plan as to how I was going to apease her and get out of here alive. the one thing I did learn though was that using Angel against Lindsey was my best plan of action. Lindsey might be a vampire - but he's new, that's apparent by the bite marks still fresh on his neck - but he has a heart of some sorts. There are ways to get to him and his interest in tormenting me gave me insight to get to him.
Biting my lip I pulled myself out of my thoughts and tried to get back to the task at hand. Faith. I needed to calm her down, get her lucid in some way. "Who? Who's always here Faith?" I tried to move to her again but she backed away like I was going to trap her.
The look in her eyes went to my heart and I wondered if I had that same look as a child - helpless. I haven't been in Sunnydale for very long but I knew that Buffy wasn't like that...all the time at least.
I made another attempt to get closer to her, find a way to soothe her even just a little, but she looked at me with wild eyes and I moved back. Crying out when my back hit the bars and I slid down till I was sitting.
Sighing heavily in the corner I put my head against my knees, unsure of what to do. I've never been the strong one, Mamma always was and I wish so much that she was here, telling me what to do. "I don't...I don't know how to help..."
"Can't." I frown down at the butterfly, unsure with wings all ripped and torn. Doesn't know how to help, doesn't know how to escape. Caged birdie. I sigh and sit down too because I think that's what I'm supposed to do now. She's sad. I'm sad. Caged and trapped.
"They'll come back." I tell her but she already knows. She knows because she's magical, she has the light. She is the light. She misses them. She wants more. "You'll die here. We'll all die here." I promise her before crawling across the cold floor over to her. She flinches because of the burn. I make her burn now, she's only fire.
"Shhh." I soothe, I touch, I burn. My hand against her shoulder. It leaves a print. "You'll never forget me now." I promise her because everyone else forgets. They all forget and I keep going. I always remember.
"They'll come back soon but now it's just us. Us and the light." I say the words and then the light comes back, dancing in her palm. The corner of my mouth twitches up into a smile as I try to touch it.
Her words are constant babble, nothing's really coherent but at the same time a lot of what she says makes some sort of sense. Maybe I'm the one losing my mind now?
I look up when she touches my shoulder and I can't help but smile slightly. "I wouldn't forget you." Something in her eye catches me and it's almost like she can see things, tell things are going to happen. I push those thoughts aside and give her hand a light squeeze. "Nobody's going to die Faith, not here."
I let go of her hand and brushed her hair from her face. "I won't forget you because you're too strong to be forgotten." You're a fighter Faith, don't give up on me now, we have to get out of here. We're going to get out of this alive.
Biting my lip, I sighed; unsure where this was all coming from but I watched as she started playing with the tinkerbell light, trying to catch it like Willow had when we'd first started doing magick together.
Thinking of Willow and all the times we did spells I started to think of something that we had read together. Thinking it over I watched Faith closely and I wondered if I could pull it off, more importantly would Faith be stable enough for me to do it with. There was only going to be one way to find out.
"Faith?" I turned to her and made another tinkerbell light appear in front of her. If I can get her fixated I might be able to do this. "Do you want to play a game?"
Blink and you miss. Then it moves and stares you in the face. I look into the light but the light doesn't see me. I belong in the dark. She knows. Playing games. Like jumprope and hop scotch but I don't play those games anymore. I don't think I ever did play them. No. I play other kinds of games now. I am the pawn, the lamb, the sinking battleship. They are the slide into home. Go to jail. Do not pass Go. Do not collect two hundred dollars. Go directly to jail.
"Okay," I agree because there's nothing else except the light bobbing in front of my face. I want to touch it but I know it only burns, instead I'll play her game. This is the game I am destined to win. She has to lose. She has to die. She dies and he hides and I float somewhere in between. No angel to save us now.
Good, she wants to play. That just leaves all this up to me. I don't even know if I'm strong enough. Between broken fingers and Lindsey weakening me by drinking a few times, I'm not on my game.
Then again, when are you ever? I can do this, I know I can. I have to. I can't have these 'shiny' conversations with Faith all night till one of us snaps and get no answers.
"Ok Faith, step one is watch the lights, concentrate really hard on them ok. We've got to be quiet, quiet as mice. If you're quiet it'll work." I sighed and crossed my legs, placing my hands palm side up on my knees as I tried to concentrate. This had to work, it was most likely our only chance.
Taking deep slow breaths I felt myself start to relax and I hoped beyond hope that this would work, that Faith was occupied enough to let me slip in and hopefully she wasn't so far gone that I couldn't talk to her. There had to be a shread of normal left, I had to hope at least.
Everything got dark and I felt like I was in some black cloud, I couldn't see anything but I could feel the cold breeze on my skin. I knew it wasn't from the outside and that I started to break through and make my way.
"Faith? F-faith, can you hear me?" I took measured steps and hoped that I was doing this right, this was far beyond anything I've ever attempted before.
I watch the lights, because she's pretty and she's nice and she tells me to. I want to behave. I want to be a good girl. I'm just really bad at. But we're playing a game and now I'm going to behave. For her.
"I can hear you." I said surely, as I felt her coming nearer to me. She didn't belong her and part of me just wanted to toss her ass out. I mean, this was mine. This was where I hide and if someone knew about it, how would that stop Drusilla from breaking and entering? This was my one safe place and I shouldn't even let Tara in here. Guess that was what I got for playing games.
Still, it was good. Because I couldn't really communicate with her outside of this place. It was where I kept all of me, instead of just the broken little fragments that I kept on the outside.
"What are you doing here, Tara?" I asked her, swinging my legs back and forth at the edge of my bed. My bed. My bedroom from when I was a little girl. Right before I left home. But I wasn't a little girl anymore and my fingertips gently picked at the bedspread, little dust bunnies falling to the floor. I wasn't safe here, but I was safe from Drusilla and that was all that mattered.
"How did you get in here? Break in with magick?" I asked her curiously, but it didn't really matter. Now that she was here I didn't want her to leave. It got lonely sometimes.
It took a bit of wondering but I finally found Faith, she was locked away deep inside herself and it seemed that she created the safest place to her. "There you are." I murmured, feeling relieved as I walked towards her.
I stayed standing, unsure of if I should sit or not, I didn't want to intrude anymore then I already was. But it was a needed intrusion, I couldn't talk to her otherwise. The riddles made my head hurt. "I came to talk to you, you don't make much sense out there..." I lowered my voice and tucked my hair behind my ear.
"I didn't...I didn't mean to break trust Faith, I just...I didn't know wh-what else to do. Can't try to find a way out with your head all confused like that." I sat down on the floor, my body still feeling weak and that made my spirit just as weak. "Do you umm...do you know what's going on out there?" Do you understand it? Have you figured a way out? Please...
Licking my lips I looked up at her. "I-I can leave if you don't w-want me here..."
"Yeah, I know." I looked down, dark hair falling in my face as I studied my hands. It wasn't my fault that I wasn't makin' much sense out there it was the only way that I knew how to survive without lettin' Dru kill me completely. Cause I knew if I gave her all of me she'd wring it out and then I'd be nothin'. I was keepin' the best parts of me hidden so she wouldn't find them.
"No!" I said quickly when she offered to leave. Now that she was here I didn't want her to go back out there. Out there they could hurt her and in here she was mostly safe. Just a shell for them to abuse with no substance. That was the only way to survive this thing. "I want you to stay." I reiterated as she sat down on the bed next to me, my hands instantly curlin' around the teddy bear I'd had when I was just a little girl.
"I know what's goin' on, and I know they're not gonna let us live that much longer. At least not me. You know what this is, right?" I snickered. "This isn't even about you or me, this is all about Angel. Just like everything else is."
My words sounded bitter but I wasn't really. How could I be bitter towards my simple saving grace?
I'm not sure what it was about this place but I felt a bit more relaxed now. Maybe it was because I didn't have to talk in riddles or anything to keep Faith's attention.
Brushing my hair off my face, causing me to wince when I touched the mark on my neck, I moved up and sat next to Faith on the bed, watching her movements to see if there was anything that I could do to make her snap out of her current state. "Can't stay Faith, you're needed you know."
She mentioned Angel and I remembered the things Willow told me about him and his connection with Buffy. Guess that connected him with Faith as well. "Yeah, it is about Angel. But they wo-won't kill us because they need him." I sounded more sure then I felt but something made me feel that I was on the right thought about it. "They need us both to get to Angel and if we fight them they'll just make things worse for him and us. We need to find a way out, getting away from Lindsey will be a big standing ground."
I think, I hope. Somehow it feels like it's the right thing. Neither of us want to die and I didn't want to watch her die either. She has such a spark in her that she doesn't see, but it's there.
Tentatively I leaned forward and touched her shoulder, brushing her long dark hair away from her face. "I need you." I said simply. "I won't lose you and I c-can't fight without you." I'm not strong enough, even though I try.
I noticed the marks on her neck and I winced, feeling tears form in my eyes. "I-I'm sorry. I'm sorry I wasn't strong enough to stop him..."
"Naw." I shook my head when she said that they needed us for Angel. "This shit's only temporary, Tara. Once they get what they want we're as good as dead. Really? I'm surprised I'm not dead yet. They're just waitin' ya know? Waitin' to send him the corpse of the Slayer he saved. Like that's gonna be enough to stop him or something. And you? Once you do your little spell, you're totally worthless to them. We ain't got time, Tara. And I'm not goin' back out there to chill with a crazy fucking freak and get beat on til I can't take it no more. I'll stay here until it's over. It's not so bad in here."
She could stay with me if she wanted to but I knew that in the end she was probably stronger than I was. She would wanna go back and fight even though her weapons? Not really as good as mine or even close. But they knew that about her and gave her more leeway than they gave me. All those little shocks and zips and blips from the past? I'd pass. She could be sneakier than I could be. Only thing I could do was throw a lucky punch before my ass ended up laid out on the ground again.
"You don't need me." I laughed at her. "You don't even know me. Trust me, if you did? You wouldn't even be in here." I gave her a look but she knew it was true. C'mon, Sunnydale Gang still must talk about the naughty slayer that fucked everything up for B. I refused to believe that she didn't know.
I saw the tears sparkling in her eyes and I groaned.
"Please tell me you're not gonna cry. I'm not good at this touchy feely crap." I said pointedly as she quickly blinked back those tears. Thank God. I couldn't handle 'em right now.
"You don't gotta worry about me. I'm fine in here. Sorry if I'm a total fucking fruit loop on the outside but even if I wasn't? I wouldn't be doin' you any good."
We're caged and for the most part helpless, I wasn't going to let them - especially Lindsey - beat me down.
Standing, I tossed the shirt in the corner and sighed, realizing that wasn't one of my best plans to give Faith my shirt. Biting my lip I looked around and spotted a crumpled button down shirt, I walked over and picked it up, shaking it out and slipping it on. I don't know who's it was or anything but I needed to be covered, I can't get things done and make a point of anything walking around in a bra.
Faith started babbling again and there was something in here eyes that struck me and made me listen. He? Who's he?
"Who hides Faith?" I whispered softly, moving over towards her and touching her hand, hoping somehow to find the right way to get her to focus. "Talk to me. Tell me...w-who hides? I-is someone here?" I felt my stomach drop as my eyes darted around the room, unsure of what I wanted her answer to be.
Was it better to be alone down here then with someone that we don't know...
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She touches me and I pull away with a hiss because you can't touch a rattlesnake. "Always." I nod at her and pull away walking back towards the door. I want out. I want out. I want out. Want to bang my head until they let me out and then maybe I can sleep or go away. Be away from here for just a little while. I miss him. He hides but he's real. He knows all about the voices, they haunt him too.
"Someone's always here." I whisper as I turn around and look at her again. She took a step to me and I take a step back, no where else to go. Don't come any closer. Don't touch me. I'm on fire you don't wanna touch me. Someone should tell her. She can listen but she won't and she'll touch and I'll burn.
That was the moral of this story.
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What hurt me was i didn't know what to do to help her, I don't know how to get through to her so we could get out of here. Lindsey would be back to torment both of us soon - it seemed in his nature - or even worse. Darla would make her way down here.
I wasn't ready to meet her, I didn't have a plan as to how I was going to apease her and get out of here alive. the one thing I did learn though was that using Angel against Lindsey was my best plan of action. Lindsey might be a vampire - but he's new, that's apparent by the bite marks still fresh on his neck - but he has a heart of some sorts. There are ways to get to him and his interest in tormenting me gave me insight to get to him.
Biting my lip I pulled myself out of my thoughts and tried to get back to the task at hand. Faith. I needed to calm her down, get her lucid in some way. "Who? Who's always here Faith?" I tried to move to her again but she backed away like I was going to trap her.
The look in her eyes went to my heart and I wondered if I had that same look as a child - helpless. I haven't been in Sunnydale for very long but I knew that Buffy wasn't like that...all the time at least.
I made another attempt to get closer to her, find a way to soothe her even just a little, but she looked at me with wild eyes and I moved back. Crying out when my back hit the bars and I slid down till I was sitting.
Sighing heavily in the corner I put my head against my knees, unsure of what to do. I've never been the strong one, Mamma always was and I wish so much that she was here, telling me what to do. "I don't...I don't know how to help..."
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"Can't." I frown down at the butterfly, unsure with wings all ripped and torn. Doesn't know how to help, doesn't know how to escape. Caged birdie. I sigh and sit down too because I think that's what I'm supposed to do now. She's sad. I'm sad. Caged and trapped.
"They'll come back." I tell her but she already knows. She knows because she's magical, she has the light. She is the light. She misses them. She wants more. "You'll die here. We'll all die here." I promise her before crawling across the cold floor over to her. She flinches because of the burn. I make her burn now, she's only fire.
"Shhh." I soothe, I touch, I burn. My hand against her shoulder. It leaves a print. "You'll never forget me now." I promise her because everyone else forgets. They all forget and I keep going. I always remember.
"They'll come back soon but now it's just us. Us and the light." I say the words and then the light comes back, dancing in her palm. The corner of my mouth twitches up into a smile as I try to touch it.
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I look up when she touches my shoulder and I can't help but smile slightly. "I wouldn't forget you." Something in her eye catches me and it's almost like she can see things, tell things are going to happen. I push those thoughts aside and give her hand a light squeeze. "Nobody's going to die Faith, not here."
I let go of her hand and brushed her hair from her face. "I won't forget you because you're too strong to be forgotten." You're a fighter Faith, don't give up on me now, we have to get out of here. We're going to get out of this alive.
Biting my lip, I sighed; unsure where this was all coming from but I watched as she started playing with the tinkerbell light, trying to catch it like Willow had when we'd first started doing magick together.
Thinking of Willow and all the times we did spells I started to think of something that we had read together. Thinking it over I watched Faith closely and I wondered if I could pull it off, more importantly would Faith be stable enough for me to do it with. There was only going to be one way to find out.
"Faith?" I turned to her and made another tinkerbell light appear in front of her. If I can get her fixated I might be able to do this. "Do you want to play a game?"
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"Okay," I agree because there's nothing else except the light bobbing in front of my face. I want to touch it but I know it only burns, instead I'll play her game. This is the game I am destined to win. She has to lose. She has to die. She dies and he hides and I float somewhere in between. No angel to save us now.
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Then again, when are you ever? I can do this, I know I can. I have to. I can't have these 'shiny' conversations with Faith all night till one of us snaps and get no answers.
"Ok Faith, step one is watch the lights, concentrate really hard on them ok. We've got to be quiet, quiet as mice. If you're quiet it'll work." I sighed and crossed my legs, placing my hands palm side up on my knees as I tried to concentrate. This had to work, it was most likely our only chance.
Taking deep slow breaths I felt myself start to relax and I hoped beyond hope that this would work, that Faith was occupied enough to let me slip in and hopefully she wasn't so far gone that I couldn't talk to her. There had to be a shread of normal left, I had to hope at least.
Everything got dark and I felt like I was in some black cloud, I couldn't see anything but I could feel the cold breeze on my skin. I knew it wasn't from the outside and that I started to break through and make my way.
"Faith? F-faith, can you hear me?" I took measured steps and hoped that I was doing this right, this was far beyond anything I've ever attempted before.
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"I can hear you." I said surely, as I felt her coming nearer to me. She didn't belong her and part of me just wanted to toss her ass out. I mean, this was mine. This was where I hide and if someone knew about it, how would that stop Drusilla from breaking and entering? This was my one safe place and I shouldn't even let Tara in here. Guess that was what I got for playing games.
Still, it was good. Because I couldn't really communicate with her outside of this place. It was where I kept all of me, instead of just the broken little fragments that I kept on the outside.
"What are you doing here, Tara?" I asked her, swinging my legs back and forth at the edge of my bed. My bed. My bedroom from when I was a little girl. Right before I left home. But I wasn't a little girl anymore and my fingertips gently picked at the bedspread, little dust bunnies falling to the floor. I wasn't safe here, but I was safe from Drusilla and that was all that mattered.
"How did you get in here? Break in with magick?" I asked her curiously, but it didn't really matter. Now that she was here I didn't want her to leave. It got lonely sometimes.
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I stayed standing, unsure of if I should sit or not, I didn't want to intrude anymore then I already was. But it was a needed intrusion, I couldn't talk to her otherwise. The riddles made my head hurt. "I came to talk to you, you don't make much sense out there..." I lowered my voice and tucked my hair behind my ear.
"I didn't...I didn't mean to break trust Faith, I just...I didn't know wh-what else to do. Can't try to find a way out with your head all confused like that." I sat down on the floor, my body still feeling weak and that made my spirit just as weak. "Do you umm...do you know what's going on out there?" Do you understand it? Have you figured a way out? Please...
Licking my lips I looked up at her. "I-I can leave if you don't w-want me here..."
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"No!" I said quickly when she offered to leave. Now that she was here I didn't want her to go back out there. Out there they could hurt her and in here she was mostly safe. Just a shell for them to abuse with no substance. That was the only way to survive this thing. "I want you to stay." I reiterated as she sat down on the bed next to me, my hands instantly curlin' around the teddy bear I'd had when I was just a little girl.
"I know what's goin' on, and I know they're not gonna let us live that much longer. At least not me. You know what this is, right?" I snickered. "This isn't even about you or me, this is all about Angel. Just like everything else is."
My words sounded bitter but I wasn't really. How could I be bitter towards my simple saving grace?
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Brushing my hair off my face, causing me to wince when I touched the mark on my neck, I moved up and sat next to Faith on the bed, watching her movements to see if there was anything that I could do to make her snap out of her current state. "Can't stay Faith, you're needed you know."
She mentioned Angel and I remembered the things Willow told me about him and his connection with Buffy. Guess that connected him with Faith as well. "Yeah, it is about Angel. But they wo-won't kill us because they need him." I sounded more sure then I felt but something made me feel that I was on the right thought about it. "They need us both to get to Angel and if we fight them they'll just make things worse for him and us. We need to find a way out, getting away from Lindsey will be a big standing ground."
I think, I hope. Somehow it feels like it's the right thing. Neither of us want to die and I didn't want to watch her die either. She has such a spark in her that she doesn't see, but it's there.
Tentatively I leaned forward and touched her shoulder, brushing her long dark hair away from her face. "I need you." I said simply. "I won't lose you and I c-can't fight without you." I'm not strong enough, even though I try.
I noticed the marks on her neck and I winced, feeling tears form in my eyes. "I-I'm sorry. I'm sorry I wasn't strong enough to stop him..."
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She could stay with me if she wanted to but I knew that in the end she was probably stronger than I was. She would wanna go back and fight even though her weapons? Not really as good as mine or even close. But they knew that about her and gave her more leeway than they gave me. All those little shocks and zips and blips from the past? I'd pass. She could be sneakier than I could be. Only thing I could do was throw a lucky punch before my ass ended up laid out on the ground again.
"You don't need me." I laughed at her. "You don't even know me. Trust me, if you did? You wouldn't even be in here." I gave her a look but she knew it was true. C'mon, Sunnydale Gang still must talk about the naughty slayer that fucked everything up for B. I refused to believe that she didn't know.
I saw the tears sparkling in her eyes and I groaned.
"Please tell me you're not gonna cry. I'm not good at this touchy feely crap." I said pointedly as she quickly blinked back those tears. Thank God. I couldn't handle 'em right now.
"You don't gotta worry about me. I'm fine in here. Sorry if I'm a total fucking fruit loop on the outside but even if I wasn't? I wouldn't be doin' you any good."
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