Faux
by Lucie
Rating: PG

Disclaimer: Character belongs to Joss Whedon.
Author's Notes: Sorry, this doesn't really give you much. And it's damn short. Just wanted to write like I write. There will be more! I think that's all I have to say...but feedback of any kind would be great.

She looks inside herself, and blinks upon finding something that was unexpected. Her heart thumps inside its cage and she look upwards at the sky, frowning. Rain is going to fall. She is lying on her back, completely vulnerable to the torrents that are about to unleash from the black. She doesn’t notice. All she now knows is that her lust has been replaced by something else, and it is eating away at her inside. She turns her head and squeezes her eyes shut, as if to shake the thoughts away. But the truth remains.

The girl had gone.

Mentally pausing, she slides three fingers into her pocket and fumbles around for the feel of cardboard. She adjusts her position so she can fit her whole hand into the tight leather and pulls out the crushed carton, grateful that there still seemed to be at least a couple of sticks in there. The glint of steel flickers in her fingers. Drag. Exhale. The darkness seems to be everywhere now. Drag. Exhale. But her light dances to and from her lips. Drag. Exhale.

Cigarettes are so goddamn artificial.

Then again, so is she, in her tacky clothing and plastered make-up. She’s fake all over. Fake like her love and her affection and her hugging and her cliched words. Of course, in keeping with her fake persona, she assumed she had lost the ability to feel a long time ago. Maybe that’s why it took her so long to realise that for the past couple of months, she had been feeling a whole lot.

‘Stubborn bitch’.

Her words drift out to no one but herself. They shock her, flinching her into movement. The dark forms of the surrounding trees lean inwards, taking on the ominous shapes of a million vampires and a million dirty fathers. Sitting up, she takes another drag and spits out the smoke at the willowy forms. Fuck you all. She stands, body flowing with the head rush. Breathe in Mother Nature. Forgot what that feels like? She glances at her watch; the fake numbers glow dully through it’s cracked face.

Morning, Faith.

She flicks the cigarette butt onto the earth. Just a little present from a vampire slayer. Looking towards the emptiness where her blond silhouette had faded, her mouth lifts a little at one corner.

She begins to walk. Yet this time, she knows where she’s headed.

...continued in Broken...