Wash Away
by [R]
Rating: R
Author's Notes: Ok, this one's a bit weird. Total one off, random inspiration, and not very good, might I add. But never mind. You chose to read this, so suffer lol. This is at the end of s7, it's from Faith's p.o.v, and I'm not gonna tell you anything else, work it out for yourself, you lazy buggers.
There's blood on my hands. I can feel it slivering all over my skin, seeping into my pores, riddling beneath my skin. Infecting me. Creeping up my wrists as I hold them in front of my face, thick rivers of crimson liquid spilling down over my elbows to slowly drip, drip, drip at my feet.
My eyes trail slowly over my forearms, watching as the old blood dries and is instantly ran over by new lines, creating a firey apperition over my skin. Appropriate, as it's burning right through me and into my very soul.
But I know I'm just imagining things. There isn't that much blood, just a splash over my palm, very small rivers running over my fingers. It's my mind creating the images I least want to see. But even if I close my eyes, the picture of blood still remains.
My eyes flicker to the floor, and I almost jump back a step as that ocean of blood comes into near contact with the tips of my shoes. There's just so much blood. Spreading out, covering everything it touches, drowning the ground with its sickly shades of deep red and death.
I never knew such a small body, could hold so much blood.
The silence was shattered by the knife hitting the floor, like a baseball smashing a glass window pane. It vibrated off the walls, crashing into my skull and deafening me, drowning out the sound of my own frantic heart as it beat mercilessly against my rib cage. Threatening to implode within my own chest, almost promising to end my life, just as hers was now over.
Her eyes stared up at me, green pools that used to be once so full of emotion, seething anger hiding the compassion and friendship beneath. Endless oceans of feelings and thoughts, secrets hidden behind their color. Now dull, lifeless. Empty.
I was standing in her blood now, could almost feel it running underneath my shoes. But I didn't care. I found myself suddenly too weak to move, too cracked to speak, and too broken to even care. I could feel them all watching me. Their eyes painting their horror over my body, imprinting my failure across my skin.
Falling to me knees, I felt small droplets of blood rise up from the impact and land on my face, but I didn't blink. I didn't move. I just watched her. Some small part of my mind wishing and praying to a god I no longer believed in, to bring her back to life. To me.
"You have to Faith. If you don't, then everything'll be over. You, me, everyone."
I could still hear her words ringing out in my mind. Forcing me, pushing me, pleading with me. Always willing to play the marter that no one ever expected her to be in the first place. But she knew what had to be done, as did I.
That didn't mean I was any more willing to do what I had to do. To do what others couldn't.
But no matter how hard she begged, I just couldn't bring myself to do it. I couldn't force myself to do what I had to do. Every single part of my mind, body and soul were screaming at me to just walk away. To ignore how badly I would have failed, to not care so long as I wasn't the one to do it.
But she knew me, like she always did. Knew what buttons to press, knew what pain to bring to the surface. To make me angry, to make my entire body fill with the surpressed rage that my time in prison had locked away. But rage, like any other emotion, will not be held forever. And once it is set free, it'll never be caged again.
"Are you a murderer? Cause I am. And if it comes down to picking between you and the world? You haven't shown me anything that makes me want to pick your side." And then…
The knife just slide in her like it was butter. Pressing through skin and cartalage, piercing itself through the bone, and slamming straight into her heart. The one place I always wanted to be. And now I was.
"Faith?" I could hear Red calling to me, trying to drag me out of the self induced catatonia I had locked myself within. And I knew I had to move at some point, but I couldn't get over what I had done, what she had forced me to do, and the loss I now felt at her absence.
And yet, even in death, with her eyes so frighteningly vacant, half of her body covered and soaking in her own lifeforce, her skin turning paler by the minute that she wasn't in that body anymore, she was still the most beautiful girl I had ever seen in my life.
"Faith, we have to go." I felt myself being pulled to my feet, and led from the room, but my eyes refused to stop their staring at her. Because I knew that the moment I left that room, would be the last time I would ever see her again. Despite the grotesque image of her final resting place, I still wanted to burn it into my memory, because I never wanted to forget a moment with her.
The door closed on her, leaving her laying there on her own, and then the sobs came. Bittersweet, harsh, entire body wracking sobs. They made my entire bone structure shudder as I heaved and fell to my knees, balancing myself on my hands as my tears fell to the floor in front of me.
The rain washed away my tears and drowned them in their depths. Forever lost to the world. Just like she was. But I had to be strong, we had to be strong. For her, to fight. To live like she did. Like the world was as it should be, to show it what it can be.
I stood up and looked towards the sky, before looking at her, no our friends, before slowly starting to walk away.
Buffy used to like the rain.