Title:
Deathly
Author: S.N. Kastle
Category: BtVS/Angel, Faith.
Summary: "When
one act of kindness could be deathly." Someone had to tell her.
Timeline: Post-last
seasonish.
Rating: R, for language.
Disclaimers: Not mine. Joss is still
my hero. And, yeah, Aimee Mann. Vignettes are the coward's way into a new pairing,
but this girl might have more to say. Meantime, it was pushing up daisies.
Distribution:
Please link to my site.
Gratitude: To LS and her inspirational Buffy/Faith
vid. And k reads everything I write now, and thank fucking goodness indeed.
Feedback:
snk@wearemany.net
DEATHLY
Behind the glass Angel looked old, and he never looked old, and that's how Faith knew.
"I'm gonna get you out of here," he promised, dropping the end of the sentence as he stood up and the phone fell. He fumbled and caught it, reflexes on autopilot, but he just hung up and turned away. In all those movies where the no-good boyfriend gets thrown in the slammer for crimes he only committed to keep the family fed, in the ones on Lifetime where women did unjust time for shanking some abusive asshole, those kinds of characters were always putting their hands up on the glass. Like you could feel anything through there. Like it was a connection. And it wasn't really glass anyway, just this thick plexiglass shit, probably bulletproof. Like that would make a difference. Like any of it did.
He'd said they needed her. That he'd do whatever it took, that the Council might come help. Time off for good behavior, he'd said, trying not to sound like he wanted to know if that would be true.
She'd been on excellent behavior. She'd kicked a guard once and, okay, his knee had broken. But he'd been grabbing two of her girls by the tits every time they stood out for count and there wasn't much point in being the one they thought would protect them if you didn't. Good behavior or not.
There were week-old copies of the Los Angeles Times in the TV room with none of the real news, just some stabbing somewhere and some new movie and it was two hours after Angel had left before she wanted him back, wanted to ask questions. Wanted to know how it had happened and what everyone was saying. Buffy died a hero, of course. For the kid. For some sister. That was the kind of thing Buffy did. Faith knew that much. Mostly, she wanted to hit something.
Three of her cellmates so far had been in recovery. One had OD'd and then the other two had been moved out to some maxiumum maximum-security place because they'd actually gotten more aggressive the longer they'd been sober. They'd made Faith feel sane, and all that talk about steps and shit had sunk in despite the snark she'd given them, despite all the times she'd pushed her way to the front of the phone line and swallowed hard when Angel picked up the phone. When she didn't hang up, she'd say, purring like it was all a big come-on, "I'm sorry, I was trying to reach Evil Anonymous? I must have the wrong number." And he'd laugh low in his throat and say her name like a prayer, like it meant more than misguided loyalty, and she'd try to accept what help he had to offer.
She wasn't accepting things very well anymore. Buffy was dead. Buffy was dead. Buffy was dead. But it wasn't like the Wizard of fucking Oz. She wasn't going to click her laceless sneakers and wind up in whatever dimension Buffy'd been whisked off to. She wasn't going to bring Buffy home in a balloon or a house or whatever shit they'd had there. Oh, Scarecrow, I've missed you most of all. She remembered that much.
Oh, Buffy, I've missed you most of all. Yeah, fuck that. She wasn't going to say something like that. Leave that for Xander, resident straw-for-brains. Better yet leave it unsaid altogether, because everyone knew Buffy was the one people wanted to remember.
And Joyce, too. Angel hadn't told her that before. "Too much all at once," he'd said, "I know. But before it was just..." Yeah. Too much even separately. And Buffy was dead. And Joyce wasn't there, and Dawn wasn't real, and still there were these bars between her and the people who might need her, this plexiglass shit between her and Angel. And none of it was a match for her. For her will, maybe. Not her strength. Her good behavior.
Last week's Times was talking about actors striking and some wetlands a bunch of lawyers wanted to make into offices and these radical-types wanted saved for the whales or birds or whatever. They were just words. Old words. Not the kind of old words that might be hiding in one of Giles' books, some Latin or Greek that would spill from Willow's lips and unlock whatever bound Buffy. Just words. About people missing each other or not even noticing they were gone.
And Angel saying he'd get her out, that was probably just talk, too. People didn't really come back for her. Asphalt briefly glassy in the rain and cries for help all dried out and people went back to doing things like it was just a job. In every generation, and then there'd been two, Thing One and Thing Two, Wes left balancing a fishbowl for those weeks they'd had more fun than fights. Fights, just not with each other.
Now there wasn't even anyone left to fight. Just herself, she thought, or that's what Angel would say when he got all wordy and intense about helping her, which he sometimes did. When he sometimes came to see her, which was not every week. Or every other week. Or really that often, especially given she was stuck with the same damned people twenty-four hours a day, the same stupid arts and crafts classes and work detail -- push the iron, pull the iron, fold the sheet -- like a cross between a sweatshop and kindergarten.
Win the battle, lose the war, day by day she was good or not so good and anyway no one else was keeping track. It wasn't like she'd get a goddamned gold star for being happy every day of the week. Now at least she had a better excuse.
She looked for any excuse. Any reason to take that good behavior down a notch or two and still be able to look him in the eye if he asked why she'd been in the hole for three weeks if things were going so well. She punched the wall two inches from the ear of this new bitch who'd been in her face and the plaster drew blood but no one got hurt. No one got caught. She mouthed off to a guard and stopped just before calling him a fat fuck, just before she couldn't take it back with a smile and a promise to try harder cause he was a good Christian and always fell for that redemption line.
She found the excuses, but she didn't take them. Angel came back and she'd been the fucking princess of time off for good behavior. He looked his age and played his fingers across the window in a nervous rhythm and she knew, she'd fucking known it all along.
"I'm not giving up," he said. He said it again, and he said her name like she was something to believe in. She touched her palm to the glass, one cold hand against another's.
"Me neither," she said, words hot in her mouth, and she almost meant it.
END.