Rustic Ghosts
by [R]
Rating: R
Spoilers: I think it's fair to say "Everything".
Author's Notes: I hadn't slept in god knows long at the start of writing. So.. sorry.
Decication: My muse. A world, for *my* world. Thank you.
Feedback: R. Feedback whore. Homosexual. Feed my addiction.
Staring up at the huge expance of filthy black sky, I idly wonder how it is that all those stars up there came to look like a streak of liquid fire. Slashed from end to end, tumbling over voids and other clusters of white, burning gases. And how come I've only just noticed it?
In all my twenty four years, how come I never once just stopped and looked up at that sky? It didn't matter what city I was in, what town. Whether I was there by chance or there with a reason. I never just, looked. And appreciated what was right above my head.
Sighing out the smoke in my lungs and bringing my head back down, I look around me and wonder what the hell happened. I used to see people jumping around, laughing and having fun. Now all I see is six billion losers looking for the fastest way out.
Throwing my smoke to the ground and crushing it under my boot, I push myself off the wall I'd been sitting on and head towards my hotel. Again. Another night of nothing. That's all I ever seemed to be doing nowadays anyway. Watching everyone else try to get out, watching from the side they'd never want to see.
The one that's infintely dark, cold and almost physically unbearable. I can count the nights I've gone to sleep without crying on one hand. And still have fingers left over for curly, larry and moe.
Pulling my cell phone roughly out of my inside jacket pocket, I flicked it open and grunted down the microphone. I despised these things. Wasn't the reason for not being a home, to be away from everything else? So what was the point in going anywhere, if you were gonna have something to remind you of all that crap with you, ready to burst out into a stupid fucking tune that the designers thought was cool.
"Speak."
"Well that's just fuckin' charmin' ain't it?!" a suntry voice rang out down the line at me.
"Cor, I *beg* you not to speak like me again. You sound like a preppy on their first hit of crack."
"Whatever. Do you have my goss hair gel?" I rolled my eyes at no one, praying that she couldn't get more transparent because if she did I'd be able to see right through her. Physically that is.
"Cor, you've never given a shit if I've pegged off with your hair crap before, so why don't you just spit it out already? I'm freezing my ass of out here and I'm pretty sure I have a mini bar waiting for me to delve into when I get back."
"The brood master wants you back."
"Why? I only just got here. I thought he wanted me to find that fucking demon and kill him already?"
"Yeah well. Apparently my mind crushing vision wasn't enough to make him give a damn. I swear, every day that guy wakes up his forehead's expanded another inch." Chuckling softly at her comment, I started the cold walk back to my hotel, and praying to the Powers that I'd remembered to pick up that plastic card key thing that opens my door. I swear, what the hell was wrong with keys for fuck sake?
"Did he say why? Or am I gonna have to beat it out of him when I get home?"
"Although I'm tempted to not say anything now and let you cream the bastard, I'm not *that* much of a bitch. Some of the time. Anyway, he said that this demon you're looking for isn't even *in* Canada anymore. Apparently it migrated to New York and got run over by a truck. Which I'd have to say was quite fortunate."
"The only thing fortunate about it Cor is that I get the hell out of this living freezer box they call a town, and actually have a key to my room."
"You're such a technophobe Faith."
"Kiss it Queeny."
"Loser."
"Blow me."
"Call me later?"
"Kay." Slamming my phone shut against my chest, I took a quick look around me before I let loose and made a running go for my hotel. The sooner I could get my ass out of the cold and back home, the better.
As I was running, I felt my side start to cramp slightly and I rolled my eyes before re-aranging my internal workings to get the blood in my body to actually flow through me. As apposed to just laying there and waiting for a jump start. I'd need jumper cables to get out of bed the next morning.
Because no matter how much Brood Boy wanted me back, there was no way I was gonna pass up a night in a swanky hotel with a complimentary mini bar.
As I neared the hotel I wondered idly if all the liquor in the small fridge could seep past my slayer senses and get me some way inebriated.
"You were supposed to be back last night."
"Yeah BB, the flight was great. Apart from the crappy movie they showed. Naw, I didn't have any problems what so ever getting this big ass sword you wanted me to get while I was out of the country, through customs for you. No need to thank me." I retorted, dumping my bag on the round sofa in the center of the hotel, and absentmindly ruffling Neonix's head, as she bounded up to me and put her paws on my hip, panting up at me. Angel got me the black lab for my 20th birthday. I think he regrets it, because the dog has more energy than I do.
"Sorry." He shrugged at me as he held out his hand for the piece of weaponry I had to fake ownership papers for to bring him. I reached into my bag and yanked it out of the wooden box, throwing it at him point first.
"Faith!" I heard Cor call out to me as she came out of the back office. She hated it when we did stuff like that. Randomly throwing sharp inpliments of death at each other with deadly accuracy. Although I never told him that my slayer senses kicked in just before I released anything, so it would sail past him instead of through him. He probably knew anyway.
"What? I was just giving him what he asked for!" I shrugged, my patent little smirk covering my face as I looked over at her, knowing that she'd save the lecture for the next time because she was glad to have me back. I personally think she was getting sick of being the only 'office girl' around the team.
"Shut your mouth you and go get the coffee." She nodded to the hallways underneath one of the huge stair cases and I rolled my eyes at her, still smirking as I wandered off into the kitchen.
Man it was good to be home.
As I climed the stairs out of my basement, having derailed for ten minutes before actually going and pouring out the coffee to take a shower and change, I could hear voices up in the main room of the hotel. Standing there, holding onto the banister and cocking my head to the side slightly, I forced the sounds of the 'Kittie' music out of my ears and head, and opened up my hearing just enough so I could hear exactly what was being said in the room above me.
"I still don't understand why you're here." That was broody boy. Didn't sound too happy to see whoever the hell it was. And I would have gone up and into the room, flaunting my sexuality at whoever it was to make them uncomfortable. It always make Cor crack up when I did that. Not only because it got the target figity, it never seemed to keep Angel on the cold and dead side of things either. But then I actually heard her voice.
"I told you. You have something that I want. I've come to get it, and I'm not leaving here without it." I stumbled backwards slightly, completely forgetting that I was stood on stairs. And if it wasn't for my lightning fast reactions and the fact I had hold of the banister, I would have fallen backwards and very probably broke my neck.
As quickly as I'd opened up my hearing, I slammed it shut again, my head once again being filled by the guitar riffs and violent drum beats of 'Kittie' and it softly wafted out of my speakers. I started to walk down the stairs slowly, trying not to make anymore noise that was absolutly necessary. Cause if I could hear her, then she could hear me.
When I reached the bottom, I walked backwards till the back of my knees hit my over stuffed leather chair and caused me to sit down abruptly. Making me wince from the sound of the air flying out of the stuffing underneath me. Breathing out slowly and slamming my elbows down on my knees, I leaned forward and quickly ran my fingers through my hair, keeping it off my face as I looked at the new scuffs I'd managed to put into my wooden floor. Again.
The sound of the door clicking closed above me made my blood run cold. I wasn't ready for this. I wasn't ready to face her. Shit, I know it'd been six years since I last saw her, but you don't get over the fear of someone wanting to beat you to death that quickly.
"Fai?"
"Shit Cor!" I said, jumping up from my seat, desperately needing to move to get the adrenaline to calm down in my body. It didn't work, no matter how much I directed some of my attention towards stopping it from flooding my body and screaming at me to run for the hills at a fast fucking pace.
"Sorry. I didn't mean to make you jump."
"Yeah? Well ya did." I snapped, immediately throwing her an apologetic look before starting to pace the lengh of my basement. Exactly 45 paces in length. 90 if I took really small steps.
"She just came to get a book that Angel had borrowed from her a while ago."
"Yeah, I remember. And if I recall I had to hide behind your desk for the entire time."
"You think she's gone yet?" the brunette asked me from her position of sitting on the end of my bed, breaking the silence that had wrapped itself around us since we stopped talking.
Stopping my pacing, I cocked my head to the side and closed my eyes, opening all my senses in a flash flood of stupidness, to see if she was anywhere near. I snapped my eyes open and tried to hide the slight stagger as I went to lean up against the nearest wall.
That was not one of my brightest ideas ever. So as soon as her smell had hit me, my entire body focused into her exact point in the city and picking up on her heart beat.
"You shouldn't do that Faith." Closing my eyes and placing the palm of my hand flat against my forehead, I nodded and sighed. I hated that she could still have this effect over me. Paralysing fear and child like excitement all at once.
Fear for what she'd do to me if she ever saw me again. And excitement of seeing the one person who could not only get my blood pumping faster, but could make my heart do that annoying as hell flutter thing in my chest.
"Yeah," I sighed, opening my eyes and dropping my hand back to my side. "I realise this. But we all know that I was never the brightest bulb in the box." I smiled at her weakly and walked over to my mini fridge, pulling out a bottle of water and gulping down half of it before throwing it over to Cor. She caught it and took a few long sips before speaking again.
"I hate that she does this to you ya know." I nodded at her, looking at one of the pictures on the wall, above my little kitchenette. There was one of me and Cor, sitting close together at the pier on a cold day, laughing our asses off at the fact that Angel, who was taking the picture, stepped back into a present Neonix had left for him. There was another one of me and the broody one doing tai chi that Cor had sneakily taken one morning a while ago. It was black and white and I had to admit: girl had some picture taking skills.
I smiled softly to myself as my eyes rested on the one of the three of us sat in a booth at a the local demon karaoke bar. Lorne had taken it, and we were all smiling at the camera and looking like we were having a good time. That, and we were slightly drunk. Which was funny to see, even I gotta admit that. I skimmed over all the others, which were just snap shots of me and Neonix, Cor and angel, me and Cor, the three of us together. Until my eyes landed on the one in the very center of them all.
The one of my and Her. I remember that night like it was just yesterday and not over half a decade ago. I know I'd said to the rest of them that I'd just go around to the club, but I couldn't help going to her house and seeing her before she arrived. Her mom was stood next to me, as she walked down the stairs and she leaned over and whispered that it'd look better with my mouth closed. Then there was the ten minutes of us just looking at each other, and then me blushing brighter than the sun as I told her how beautiful she looked. The blush was still evident in that picture. The one her mom had taken before she excused herself and I slipped out the door quietly.
Joyce had given me the picture the next day, when I stopped by the see if I'd left my watch there the night before. I'd come back to Buffy's house afterwards and we'd watched a movie together. She handed me an envelope and told me she thought I looked very beautiful the night before. Which shocked me. Because no one had ever said that I was beautiful before.
Shaking myself out of my thoughts, and trying very hard to push Buffy once more into the back of my mind, I turned around to see Cor had dissapeared back upstairs without me noticing.
Sighing heavily, I suddenly didn't feel like going out to our favorite resturant and eating as a welcome home. I didn't feel like going to our usual club afterwards and dancing till my feet felt like they were ready to bleed.
Pulling my sweater off over the top of my head and slipping out of my jeans, I threw myself down on my bed face first and cursed whoever the hell had invented crying.
I crawled myself up into a ball around one of my pillows and softly sobbed myself into oblivion.
"Pick up your god damn shit yourself!" I yelled at the top of my voice, trying to out do the sounds of Audiovent pounding out of my speakers. Not that it did me any good. All I got for my trouble was a slight twinge in my throat and Noenix staring blankly at me with her rope bone hanging out of her mouth.
No matter how much I wanted to forget that the crazy phase of the Mayor hadn't had any kind of effect on me, I hated that it did. Not in a major way I suppose. It's just, I seem to have turned into Monica Gellar. I hated it when things weren't where they were supposed to be anymore. It made me freak.
That why I ended up getting the basement converted into a sort of apartment, so I didn't have to tidy up the hall as I came out of my room. I swear, after 240 plus years, you'd think a guy'd learn to pick up his shit. And I really shouldn't have mentioned my similarities to that 'Friends' character. Because it'd now earned me the nickname of Gellar around here.
Sighing heavily, I picked up the chewed and narled blanket that Neonix just couldn't live without and flung it into the washer, ignoring the whining sound the dog was making, at the lose of her favorite thing.
It'd been a week since Buffy'd been in town and shaken me so badly I woke up with tears still streaming down my face the next day, red eyes and a full blown headache, that no amount of pain killers were going to get rid of. And no matter how much I cleaned upstairs, I just couldn't get her smell out of the place. Vanilla with a hint of that forbidden slayer musk that seem to drift out of our very pores.
Every time I felt a little bit better about her, I'd go upstairs and be hit again by her completely intoxicating smell. And it just knocked me in the gut like a fist, sending me right back to where I started from. I couldn't stand it, so I'd started using the other door into my room, to get outside.
"You know, we should think about paying for soundproofing down here." Jumping almost five foot in the air I spun around to face the broody one and very nearly threw my bottle of water at his head.
"Angel, you *fuck*! I've *told* you about sneaking up on me!" he smirked slightly as he came all the way down the stairs and tried to ignore the dog.
"You're only jealous." Rolling my eyes at him I clicked to Neonix and whistled softly, pointing to her corner and waiting for her to obey before turning back around to face the big guy.
"That's not the point. The point is: what are you doing down here? I mean apart from scaring the shite outta me."
"It's not there anymore you know."
"What?" I knew exactly what he was talking about. And my dumb act wasn't fooling anyone. But that didn't mean I was prepared to throw in the towel and act like everything was peachy.
"Her. It's gone Faith." He folded his arms over his chest. We've had this conversation over and over again. After he got over the first stinging slap of finding out that one of your best friends is crushing over your ex-love-of-your-life, he seemed reasonably willing to help me get past it, or help me through things like this.
"I know." I said angrily, throws my bottle of water across the room violently. I couldn't stand feeling this way. I hated reacting to her like this just about as much. "That doesn't stop me still feeling her here."
"You can't hide forever Faith. You work here, just like I do. But I have to go face it, I don't see why you don't." I didn't say anything, I just stared off to the other end of the basement, not wanting to hear what he was going to say next. I knew it was coming. "You've never had her and been torn away from you because it could never work."
He started to back up then and by the time he was half way up the stairs, I called out to him, stopping him in his tracks.
"Whoever said 'it's better to have loved and lost, to have never have loved at all', *obviously* has never tried it," before he got the chance to answer, I stormed off to the other end of the basement, out of his sight, and punched the bag chained into the corner.
It was kind of funny, in a morbid way, that she was able to rip a hole between me and my friends, without ever having been here.
"What the fuck do you want Cor?" I whispered harshly into my handsfree set, as I crotched down low in the graveyard's vegitation, waiting for the demon to show itself.
"Just wanted to make sure you weren't dead. You were supposed to be back by now."
"Funny things about demons Cor: they don't run on a timetable." Suddenly, I felt a large hand the size of a bear paw land on my shoulder, and I knew before I even turned around that it was the guy I was waiting for.
"Looking for me?" his slithery, hissing voice said to me. The sight of him shocked me slightly. I didn't think Angel meant it when he said he was a slithery looking little fucker. The guy was literaly a red snake, head, tail and all, but with the added bonus of arms and legs.
"Oh fuck." I heard Cor say something down the line to me, but as this demon had smashed me across the face so hard, the head set flew off my head and pulled free of my fone, immediately cutting off the call.
"Oh no you just didn't! that's the *third* fucking head set I've gotten broken you *ass*! Do you have any idea how much they co.." note to self: don't shout at the angry demon who has a mean left hook. Just kill the bastard.
Rolling out of the way of his huge tail, I flipped myself back up to my feet and faced off with him, my fighting stance in place and my 'Come fuck with me' look smugly plastered over my face.
"Come on then slimy! Bring it!" quickly, I reached behind my as he bolted forward and with my excellent pretrunatural speed, held it out in front of my body, tensing the muscles through out my torso, ready to take the blow. Of course, but this time, the demon was much too late to realise his mistake and move out of the way.
I smiled slyly as he shoved himself into my blade and looked at me with a mix of horror, fear and confusion. Horror of being caught with a knife in his gut, fear of what was waiting for him when he died, and confusion as to how a little, little girl like me could beat him to the punch.
Twisting the knife cruely, I yanked it upwards, hearing the ripping of his skin. Or whatever the hell it was, and the feel of his blood running freezing cold over my hand and forearm.
"You.. you.." he hissed at me softly as he started to slide slowly off my knife.
"I.. I.. thnk you are *such* a dumbass to not realise that a girl hanging out in a cemetary wouldn't have some sort of *reason* for being there." I smirked at him as he hit the ground and shuddered before laying completely still.
I didn't bother to look for my head set. There was no point. He definitely broke it when the mightly crack he gave me before. Taking one last look at his body, and flickering my eyes up to scan my surrounding as I took a step backwards, I turned and siftly walked out of the cemetary and straight back ot the hotel.
Getting back inside the front doors, I breathed in deeply, and for a slip second revealing in the fact that I couldn't smell her anymore. And then the rest of me kicking in and wishing it was still here, proving to me that she still existed. Looking over to the desk, I saw Cor sat on the top reading a magazine and Angel reading over her shoulder and I smiled to myself. If they only had the *subtext*.
"Hey y'all. Snake dude dead. Another headset bites the dust. What?" I said as they stared at me, Angel's eyes flickering down to my right hand and arm. Looking down, I saw what they saw. The blood. I didn't bother to wipe my hands off, or even let the knife out of my grip.
Taking a violently quick step back, dropping the knife as I went, I looked down at my hands and saw it all. The blood. Again. Just when I'd pushed it to the back of my mind, something happened to always bring it back out. I could see it, dripping off my hands, oozing under my finger nails. Even though the rational part of my brain told me that the blood I was actually seeing, was no longer there. And the blood that was had long since dried.
I could taste the coppery slime on my tongue, forcing unwanted bile to rise in my throat, but I swallowed it down and watched, as if they weren't my own hands, as I started to rub them together, causing a burning friction in my fingers.
Quickly, Angel was there, covering my hands with him, pulling them apart, not wanting me to add to the infinite number of scars already marring my once soft skin. He'd been there, and fought with me to get me to stop scratching the skin on my hands. To try and help me erase the invisible scars that lay there, dormant under the skin until one day I slip and they bleed out again.
"Faith. Faith look at me." I turned my black and grief stricken eyes up to his and started to feel calmer. It made it easier to have someone there who know exactly what was happening. "They aren't there anymore. Just like the smell Faith, they don't exist. You're not that person anymore."
Looking back down at my hands, a part of me knew he was right, but the rest of me was screaming for me to empty my stomach. Despite my legs nor speech being able to work. I quickly looked back up at him, praying that he knew.
I felt the vomit stinging the back of my throat and the shame burn at my eyelids as he quickly picked me up and ran outside with me.
I could not stand to chuck. It made me sob and hack more. It was gross. And it didn't make me feel any better that I was kneeling over a pool of the foul liquid, splatters of it trailing up my arms, and Angel holding my hair out of my face.
Spitting a few times, trying to get the slimy taste of my own bile out of my mouth, I sat back on my feet and shook my head, letting Angel know to let go of my hair.
"She's here." I said softly, unemotionally and physically felt him tense up at my words. I didn't mean to startle him. Nor was I going to tell him that Buffy was still in town. But for the last week, every single time I've gone out on patrol, or a job, I've felt her there. Almost as if she was next to me. But fuck if I'd make the first move. She wanted to play skulking in the shadows, then she can fucking well stay there.
Looking over my shoulder, he nodded to me and went back inside. Probably to go up to his room and brood. Or break something. Or both. But I just sat there, staring down at my own vomit and feeling so oddly detached from everything. Maybe it was her presence around me for the last week. Maybe it was because the old wounds had come back up to bite me in the ass. Again.
"B," I sighed out deeply, feeling a shock wave of her movement rippling through the air and hitting me like a tidal wave. "You might as well come out. It's not as if I don't know you're there."
Her shadow emerged from the vines near the gate archeway, and I could feel her eyes piercing my skin. For a brief second it made my entire skin crawl from the feel of it. I never knew what it was like to have someone staring so intensely at me before. Sure I've had the leers and the cat calls. But never this. Never with history there.
"What do you want?" I said, barely above a whisper. I knew she'd heard me. Slowly, she walked forward and stood behind me, looking down over me to the puke, and to the blood coating my arm in a thick, dried up and yet still sticky blanket.
"Why was I never told you were here?"
"Because you would have beaten me to death." I said harshly, letting forth a bit of my bitterness as I stood up and carefully avoided putting my right arm anywhere near my bare flesh, "and no one would ever like to see you turn out like me." We both subconsciously flicked our eyes down to the liquid at our feet and then we made eye contact for the first time in over six years.
We didn't say anything to each other. And after a few minutes fo her piercing stare, I turn around and walked into the building, knowing she was following me, knowing that whatever the hell she'd come to say was gonna get said, whether I wanted to hear it or not.
Nodding over towards Cor, I walked through the hallway and took out my keys, thrusting it into the lock and twisting it, slamming the door open and walking down into the dim blue haze of my room. Those lights Angel has all over the place may not hurt his god damn eyes but fuck man! I couldn't control my eyes 24/7, it hurts like a bitch for one. And for another I'm a slacker at heart and I hate to do more than I have to do.
When I got to the bottom of the stairs, Neonix bounded over to me, but on instantly recognising the stain on my amrs, wagged her tail, barked a greeting and fled back to her corner, chewing on a licence plate as she went.
Flinging my keys onto the bookshelf next to the stairs, walking over towards the shower, I pulled off every piece of clothing I was wearing and quickly shoved them into the open fireplace. Throwing open the door to the shower, I flung on the water and I really didn't give a flying fuck on whether Buffy was there or not. She chose to come down here. She can see the scars.
The water was so hot it wouold have scalded my skin if I hadn't had the presence of mind to adjust my body in time. That's one of the beautiful things about being a slayer. As well as the fast healing crap. Of course, that only really helped if I looked inside of myself and adjusted elements of myself to speed it up.
I could still feel her watching me. I knew, without even turning around that she was sat on the end of my bed, flickering her eyes around my room occasionally, and then right back to my body under the spray of the shower water.
"You gonna tell me what the hell you're doing here B?" I said, spitting out a mouthful of water before turning around in the shower, to look at her through the plain glass doors.
"I still don't get why no body told me you were here."
"What the fuck does it matter B? You have your fucking life, now how about you piss off and let me live mine." Closing my eyes as the shampoo ran out of my hair and into my eyes, I cursed slightly, placing the heels of my hands over my eyes.
"What was all that about outside?"
"What?"
"You. Being sick." I chuckled slightly. See, it's highly unlikely that a slayer'll get sick. Unless it's something bad, like major flu. Or poisoning. Or something like that.
"Just a friendly reminder from an old ghost." She frowned slightly, looking at me in puzzlement. I'm glad to see that my presence wasn't having any effect over her at all, unlike her on me. Jesus, her even being in the same room as me was making my thought processes slow down to an almost stop.
Reaching out of the shower door, I grabbed a thick wire brush that was hanging near by and covered it in liquid soap. Half a bottle to be exact. Stepping out of the spray, I held my right arm underneath it and started to scrub. I'd probably be here for the next ten minutes, scrubbing my skin red, raw and bleeding. I'd rather have my blood covering my body, than something else's.
"Faith? Faith! You're gonna hurt yourself!" I heard B cry out to me as she saw the deep scratches down my arm and the small rivers of blood running out of them.
"Yeah? No shit. Why the fuck do you think I'm doing this?"
...to be continued...