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FIC: The Confessional (parts 4-6)
Title: The Confessional
Length: 12 short(ish to midlength) parts (and a few lines of prologue) in 4 posts.
Rating: R, for language and some images
Warnings: This fic contains reference to slash and some subjects which I guess could be considered controversial.
Pairings: This is not a shippy fic. B/A and A/S are explicitly referenced; many others are hinted at.
Summary: Angel visits Faith in prison. Takes places between AtS S1 & 2.
A/N: Although this fic has a definite time frame, it can't be read as "missing scenes". Among other things, Faith's prison is too far away for Angel to visit this often in one summer. This fic is much more of a "what if", especially towards the end.
Prologue, [1.], [2.], [3.]
4.
“How are you?” Angel asks.
“Fine. How are you?”
“Same old.”
“Oh?” I’m already bored.
“We got a board.”
“What?”
“A white board,” he explains. “We write down the demons we’re hunting. Keep track of where they are, their habits, stuff like that, and cross them off when we kill them.” Sounds proud; now he’s smirking, “I like to do the crossing off part.”
“Slicker’n snot on a glass door knob.”
He nods. “It’s neat.”
“Neat?”
“Well, we’re prepared.”
“Just like Boy Scouts.”
“I am not a Boy Scout,” he says, mildly offended.
“Well, you’re back in the battery. Cocked, locked, and ready to rock.”
He stares at me, then says abruptly, “Were you an army brat?”
“Huh?”
“I just thought, with the battery, and the ‘five by—’” he begins.
“Ah, ten-four on that, Cap’n. No. I watched a lot of war movies. They’re my favorite kind.”
“Apocalypse Now?”
“Shit no. How come everyone’s so Coppola crazy? Not that I didn’t like The Godfather, but give me Green Berets any day.”
“Really?” he asks, raising a brow.
“Hell yeah. John Wayne? Me and him, we could do our own rodeo with the way we’d ride. Talk about your bucking bronco, your bare-back—”
“Can we not?” he asks, looks slightly ill.
“Bet he’s hung like a stallion. What?” Officer, I’m innocent. “S’got the confidence of a platoon of tanks, is all I’m saying.”
“Okay, now, I liked that one.”
“What, Platoon?” I ask. “You don’t know shit from shinola, do you? Patton, now that’s a movie.”
Shakes his head. “Never would’ve guessed. You’re a conservative.”
“What? Conserve my ass. What I like is a hard fucker that doesn’t take any nonsense. Don’t give me any of this moral ‘what’re we doing,’ crap.”
“So you liked Robert Duvall.”
“Huh?”
“In Apocalypse Now,” he explains. “The Colonel who says, ‘I love the smell of—’”
“‘—napalm in the morning.’ Yeah, best line in the flick. The rest just complicates something that should be simple. It’s war. You kill the bad guys. End of story.”
“Sometimes you don’t know who the bad guys are.” All of a sudden he looks grave. Sneaky smart-ass, pulling on words like puppet-strings.
“Whatever,” I announce. “I like the way John Wayne walks.”
He smiles a little. You know, I can give most men a hard-on with just a few choice words—and yet, somehow that pales in comparison to being able to bring that light to Angel’s eyes. I feel triumphant, like I’m flying. “Remind me to show you my impression sometime,” he says.
Now I’m just shocked. “You’re shitting me.”
“Yes, I am,” he says gravely.
I laugh, and it feels so good. “You know the best one, though? Where Eagles Dare.” He just looks at me. “Don’t tell me you don’t know it! Clint Eastwood? Richard Burton?”
His brow furrows. “Did it have a pretty blonde in it?”
“Yeah, Mary Ure,” I say, without inflection. Right now, bringing up B is barely a blip on my radar.
“Okay, I remember now,” Angel says, nodding. “I didn’t see the end.”
“Oh. The double agent is—”
“Don’t tell me,” he commands, waving a hand. He’s still smiling.
I lean in, getting into it. “But you’d never guess. And when’re you gonna find the time to see it, what with you and your white board? It’s Colonel—”
Angel starts to stand up.
“Hey,” I say, lean back, back off. “Hey, okay, I won’t tell you, if it’s really such a big deal.”
“I have to go.”
“Look. I’m sorry—”
“No,” he says gently. “I mean, I have to go, Faith.” He opens his hand, showing me what’s in it.
“You got a beeper,” I say flatly. The call number window says “911.” Of course, because there’s a world out there that needs saving more than me.
“Yes.”
I look at him, lip curled. “Does it vibrate?”
His lips twitch. “What, you want one?”
“Oh God,” I breathe, dripping sarcasm, “do you think you could get me one?”
He blinks, startled. “I was kidding.”
“So was I,” I snap. “I’ve got fingers, don’t I? And the sisters—Christ Almighty, but they’ve got fingers, too.”
“Good-bye, Faith,” he says softly.
“Fuck off.”
“I’ll be back next week.”
“Yeah. Whatever. I could care less.”
Other lies could broadcast more, but I’m not sure how.
*
Now, I said I’d tell you about Where Eagles Dare, so here goes. This plane goes down out in the boonies and there’s this general they have to get out—but the Nazis are all boobs; it’s the limey rescue team you gotta look out for (I won’t tell you who the dirty double-crosser is, in case you’re a spoil sport like Angel). It’s all quality action: blood everywhere, guys screaming in mortal agony left and right—right up my alley. Schaffer (that’s Clint) caps more guys in this one scene than Dirty Harry ever saw in his life.
When I first saw it, I almost peed my pants. I started bouncing in my seat, and when they got on the cable cars I jumped so hard I broke the damn couch. Luckily, it was Kit’s uncle’s couch. I was at his place ‘cause Mom took too many pills again. After that, we made the couch the castle and we played war all night. I’m not talking about any of that pansy cops n’ robbers, cowboys n’ Indians crap either. We had tanks, and artillery; we knew what caliber our machine guns were. We learned the whole NATO phonetic alphabet (I can still say, “fuck you, over,” in foxtrots and charlies).
Kit and me always played war and were never on the same side. We were always on about which of us was better, which of us got to use the water gun, which of us got to command the tanks. A lot of times, it came down to waling on each other. I always hit first and I always won, because I was stronger than him. But it was always tit for tat with Kit. He was faster, smarter, sneakier. He’d get back at me in ways I couldn’t fight. That’s why I liked to kick him when he was down, stood there with other kids and laughed at him. Lemme tell you, Kit was one ugly-ass little motherfucker.
Then my Watcher took me away and it was strange: I missed Kit at first. I even thought of ways to go get him out of Southie and bring him with me. But then you get Chosen and you just . . . forget. Scars fade with Slayer healing—the cigarette burns, bottle slashes, feelings you only settle by bashing your kid rival, just so you know you’re better than someone else. I became a Slayer and became a new person, someone without history; friends, family—they didn’t matter to me any more. Later, I heard Kit’s uncle beat him to death, or some sad shit like that. And all I got is this memory, sitting there with Kit watching Where Eagles Dare, and a thought like maybe I killed him, somehow, because I’ll never be a hero like Schaffer, or creeping Christ help me, Richard Burton.
Me, I’m the double-crosser.
5.
“How are you?” Angel says, and might as well be screaming “Stella!” for all the times we’ve been through this.
“I’m all peaches and cunt cream. How’re you?”
He raises his brows, but he sticks to his script and just says, “Same old.”
“Oh?” I say, prim again.
“Killing demons. We’re getting good.”
“Wolfram and Hart open their big box, yet?”
“No. Maybe it’s nothing, after all.”
“What?” I ask. “You? Hope? Optimism?”
“I’m a very optimistic person.”
“Get out.”
“I’m here, aren’t I?” I forgot to tell you how his gentle-voice sounds. It’s like a cat finding the square of sunlight on the carpet, the hush the fur makes against itself as the cat curls up, and I keep thinking—he used this tongue on Buffy.
“I didn’t ask you to come,” I snarl.
“I know.” I’m allergic to cats. They make me itchy. This isn’t how he looked at B, but it’s warm and close like camp-fire friendship and Jesus, how her cunt must’ve been like a furnace for him. Why can’t we just go back to talking about John Wayne and the smell of napalm in the morning? “How’ve they been treating you?” he says finally.
My mouth twists in relief. “The food sucks. Beans n’ dicks.”
“What?”
“That’s what they called it in ‘Nam,” I explain. “Military rations.”
His nose wrinkles, looks kinda funny. “That’s what you’ve been eating?”
I shrug. “It’s similar.”
“Sounds disgusting.”
“The beans are gross. The dicks . . .” I trail off, and smirk. They’re just hotdogs, in case you’re thick-skulled and wondering, but it’s not like I can resist the innuendo. “The dicks I like.”
He doesn’t skip a beat. “Miss us, don’t you,” he taunts, and it’s not a question.
Tou-fuckin’-ché! “You just said it sounds disgusting because you like to pretend you’re not a closet queen,” I taunt right back.
He rolls his eyes, but he’s smiling. “Not this again.”
“Come on, tiger,” I goad. “Tell. There have to have been some juicy pickle-dillos in your past.”
“You mean ‘peccadilloes’?”
“Uh. Yeah. I mean pickles, Angel. Long, thick, juicy pickles.”
Angel blinks, and then he shakes his head. “You’re impossible.”
“Nah, I’m easy; trust me. Come on,” I dig. “I met Spike. Did you fuck him? If you didn’t, you’re more of a pussy than I thought. That boy sizzles. I can’t believe B—uh, B—Beatrice—hasn’t done h—um . . . hasn’t done his colors. Because you know Beatrice. His—um. Fashion designer? Black isn’t his color.”
“Yes it is,” he snaps. Then, because he’s not going to let me get away with it, “He doesn’t have a fashion designer. He doesn’t need one.”
“Do you just know these things, or what?”
“I just know.”
“And you say you’re interested in the opposite sex. What’s my color?”
He’s still scowling. “Pink?”
“And that just proves you’ve seen more pricks than a dartboard,” I shoot back. “Come on. Christ, you’re his Sire. You made him, and you still couldn’t get a piece of that ass? And did I even mention his ass in my list of shaftable features?”
“You weren’t listing features, and we’re not having this conversation.”
“Lean. Long, ropy muscles. Chiseled abs. Chiseled everything. Cheekbones that could cut lips. And shit, those lips. That tongue. And that di—”
“I said, we’re not having this conversation.”
“What, don’t you trust me?
“Why should I?”
“I was being . . . what do you call it, rhetorical.”
“You were being nosy.”
I sigh happily. “Hit a nerve, did I?”
“Lay off it.”
“I did!” Gleeful—gay—God, I want to giggle. “You’ve fucked him, haven’t you?
“I said shut up, Faith.”
“I’ll bet you were real bump-monkeys back in the day. Bet the crack of dawn wasn’t safe from you two. Then you got a soul and—and what?” I never much liked connect-the-dots but right now the end-picture looks like a great big cock up one fine ass, and I’ve never seen anything so hot. “You fucked him again, didn’t you,” I conclude.
He doesn’t say anything. It’s almost like he’s already said it.
“You did! You fucked him with a soul, and that’s what you’re so ashamed of, isn’t it.”
It’s like stabbing someone. The surprise in his eyes, suddenly realizing he’s been betrayed, the pain, the shock. It’s fun to look at. He opens his mouth, like a dying man waiting for the blood to gurgle out, then . . . he just closes it. Like he can’t even say anything.
“Because it was all about control, wasn’t it,” I announce. “It was a ‘who’s your daddy thing.’” What a beast he must have been, what an asshole rapist—someone darker, more brutal, more sadistic than I could ever be; it makes me feel so good. Dig it in, drive it deeper, hear his howls and taste the blood. “A ‘come to papa.’ A ‘get on your knees, son, and suck my—’”
“Wesley said not to visit you,” Angel interrupts suddenly.
“C—c—. . .” Cock. Cock. Cock. I’m trying to say it, trying to finish my sentence. And all I can think is, Wesley? “What about Wesley?”
Angel goes on, voice still sharp, clean, cold. Like a knife. “He said you weren’t worth it. A waste of my time. A lost cause.” Then he twists the blade, and it hurts as much as when Buffy did it: “He said a lot of things. I guess he was right about all of them.” Then he hangs up.
I think I just found Angel’s threshold, and he didn’t invite me in.
*
My first Watcher was Laine Caldwell. I still remember the click her heels made when she knocked on our door. I remember that Mom slurred, “Come in,” and sloshed amber liquid on the floor. I remembered thinking that I didn’t know a woman could look as poised or powerful as Laine looked when she crossed the threshold, that I didn’t know a woman could look as pitiful or profligate as my mother looked next to her.
A real mommy, I guess, should save me from my nightmares. Mine couldn’t, though, because my nightmares were real—my father’s dark obsession, my mother’s drunk depression, holes in my window, needles on the pavement, shadows and rape and hate. Then Laine entered that room, and I exited reality. She gave me the kind of nightmares a kid is supposed to have. Then she told me they were just as real, that the monsters I’d never had the luxury to invent were coming for me, and she wouldn’t turn on the light, check under the bed, or ever make them go away.
Six months later, my mother was dead and Laine wasn’t a surrogate for that something I’d never had. I was barely old enough to be on my own, and she was laying humanity in my arms, swaddled and helpless, and expecting me to care. The closest Laine ever came to saving me from the scaries was telling me I could save other people from them. That was supposed to be the difference between Laine’s world and the other: in Laine’s I could fight back.
In Mom’s, I could only live. Her world was all grays, and next to that, bugaboos and vampires look like black and white. But I’m her blood, aren’t I; I’m in her world; I’m her gray. I am my mother, looking down at me growing inside her rounded belly, wondering why I’m supposed to care about you, why I’m supposed to take care of you.
I am my mother, beating Wesley because he’s mine, to take care of and take control of, beating Wesley because he was supposed to take care of control me. He’s become his father—
“There’s one thing I want you to remember. You are a piece of—”
We’ve become our parents, who were only ever children in a life-long war of who gets to be in charge.
In Laine’s world, I can hold a man down and make him bleed. I can hold humanity cradled in my hands, and it’s my child, my very own. I am my mother, who tried to have an abortion but instead had me.
6.
When I walk in, Angel isn’t sitting there with the phone in his hands as usual. When I sit down and gingerly pick up mine, he just looks at me. Finally, almost grudgingly, he picks it up. “Hey,” I say.
“Hey.”
“So, how are you?”
“Fine,” he clips off. “We’re all fine.”
“I’ve been good, too.” First time he didn’t ask.
“Wesley asked about you.”
Look who’s asking, now. I lick chapped lips, and say, “Did he?”
Angel’s lips flat line. “Yes. I told him how you . . . were.” He tilts his head. “Did you know Wes was in the hospital a while back?”
I ask him to repeat that. I stutter.
“Yes,” Angel says again, nodding. “Not, of course, because of what you did to him. He doesn’t even have scars from that, you know. Shallow cuts.” His voice is toneless, unemotional—simply observant. “I know that technique. And yet, I didn’t have a soul the last time I used it.”
“I’ve got a soul, and I’ve done plenty of things,” I concede. A dodge, a block, a guard, then move in for the kill. “But at least I never made a vampire my bitch like you did—made him wait to come until after I did, made him suffer, made him like it—”
He stiffens, but his voice is rich and rippling, for a moment makes me think of what satin sheets must be like when people fuck between them. “Wesley didn’t like it, Faith. You were the one enjoying it. Remember?”
“And you hate it, don’t you,” I spit, “because you wanted it to be you. You want to be the one making Wesley whimper; you want to be the one getting off on his pain. You want to do to him what you did to Spike, and you hate yourself for it because you’re in love with—”
“At least I’m not the one on my knees.” His jeer is sudden and soft, a whisper, but the sex in the satin has turned brutal. “What would Daddy think of you,” he says, “letting the government, of all things, put you away? At least Dick was a worthy master. Or he would’ve been, if he had Ascended. But I forgot, he failed, didn’t he? Because you failed him.”
I’m going to rip his heart out, and dance in his blood. I’ll slather it on me and it’ll make me slick; it’ll turn me on when I put a stake through the heart in my hands. “Because of Buffy,” I snap. “Or oh, did I forget?” I mock. “Buffy is the one who likes to make vampires come for her, isn’t she? Makes you call her name out in the night even though she can’t hear you, won’t ever hear you—”
“That’s enough,” he says suddenly.
“Go fuck yourself! Because that’s what you do, isn’t it? Fuck yourself saying her name. Or is it his? Come on, tell me Angel, is it his name you—”
“This conversation is over,” he says simply, and hangs up.
“That’s right. Walk away. Walk away and whip off, because that’s all you’re ever gonna get. No one’s ever going to want you after what you’ve done, no one’s ever going to love you.”
I’m banging on the glass, and the C.O.s are coming to drag me away, and can you tell it’s not him I’m talking about. It’s not him at all.
*
It wasn’t always this way. There was once a man who loved me.
Look, I understand the mayor was a . . . a bad guy, big bad if we’re speaking Buffy-speak, which we’re not. But out of all the people who’ve claimed to love or like me, he was the only one who gave me things. I’m whatsit called: materialistic, superficial? I needed to touch how he felt for me; his love for me was tangible. In my reflection on that knife and I saw how he saw me—as a weapon, something powerful, hard sharp cold beautiful, and no one’s looked at me that way before. Plus it was a wicked pointy killing instrument; how could he not love me?
Sure, he had that hang up about flossing, and he made me clean between my toes more than’s frankly sane . . . but I never had the kind of love that slapped me, scolded me, told me I should eat my greens, wash behind my ears, wear pastels ‘cause I look so pretty in them. No one ever minded how ragged my nails were before him, and it felt so good to have someone notice and warn me to take a file to them or no cookies tonight, Faith.
That’s what it comes down to. All I’ll ever understand is control, a heavy hand; my world is dominance submission dom sub dom sub I win you lose. I’m a cause that’s already lost, Wesley said.
I see myself in the surface of that knife. A weapon, to be used.
*
Continue to part [7.].
Length: 12 short(ish to midlength) parts (and a few lines of prologue) in 4 posts.
Rating: R, for language and some images
Warnings: This fic contains reference to slash and some subjects which I guess could be considered controversial.
Pairings: This is not a shippy fic. B/A and A/S are explicitly referenced; many others are hinted at.
Summary: Angel visits Faith in prison. Takes places between AtS S1 & 2.
A/N: Although this fic has a definite time frame, it can't be read as "missing scenes". Among other things, Faith's prison is too far away for Angel to visit this often in one summer. This fic is much more of a "what if", especially towards the end.
Prologue, [1.], [2.], [3.]
4.
“How are you?” Angel asks.
“Fine. How are you?”
“Same old.”
“Oh?” I’m already bored.
“We got a board.”
“What?”
“A white board,” he explains. “We write down the demons we’re hunting. Keep track of where they are, their habits, stuff like that, and cross them off when we kill them.” Sounds proud; now he’s smirking, “I like to do the crossing off part.”
“Slicker’n snot on a glass door knob.”
He nods. “It’s neat.”
“Neat?”
“Well, we’re prepared.”
“Just like Boy Scouts.”
“I am not a Boy Scout,” he says, mildly offended.
“Well, you’re back in the battery. Cocked, locked, and ready to rock.”
He stares at me, then says abruptly, “Were you an army brat?”
“Huh?”
“I just thought, with the battery, and the ‘five by—’” he begins.
“Ah, ten-four on that, Cap’n. No. I watched a lot of war movies. They’re my favorite kind.”
“Apocalypse Now?”
“Shit no. How come everyone’s so Coppola crazy? Not that I didn’t like The Godfather, but give me Green Berets any day.”
“Really?” he asks, raising a brow.
“Hell yeah. John Wayne? Me and him, we could do our own rodeo with the way we’d ride. Talk about your bucking bronco, your bare-back—”
“Can we not?” he asks, looks slightly ill.
“Bet he’s hung like a stallion. What?” Officer, I’m innocent. “S’got the confidence of a platoon of tanks, is all I’m saying.”
“Okay, now, I liked that one.”
“What, Platoon?” I ask. “You don’t know shit from shinola, do you? Patton, now that’s a movie.”
Shakes his head. “Never would’ve guessed. You’re a conservative.”
“What? Conserve my ass. What I like is a hard fucker that doesn’t take any nonsense. Don’t give me any of this moral ‘what’re we doing,’ crap.”
“So you liked Robert Duvall.”
“Huh?”
“In Apocalypse Now,” he explains. “The Colonel who says, ‘I love the smell of—’”
“‘—napalm in the morning.’ Yeah, best line in the flick. The rest just complicates something that should be simple. It’s war. You kill the bad guys. End of story.”
“Sometimes you don’t know who the bad guys are.” All of a sudden he looks grave. Sneaky smart-ass, pulling on words like puppet-strings.
“Whatever,” I announce. “I like the way John Wayne walks.”
He smiles a little. You know, I can give most men a hard-on with just a few choice words—and yet, somehow that pales in comparison to being able to bring that light to Angel’s eyes. I feel triumphant, like I’m flying. “Remind me to show you my impression sometime,” he says.
Now I’m just shocked. “You’re shitting me.”
“Yes, I am,” he says gravely.
I laugh, and it feels so good. “You know the best one, though? Where Eagles Dare.” He just looks at me. “Don’t tell me you don’t know it! Clint Eastwood? Richard Burton?”
His brow furrows. “Did it have a pretty blonde in it?”
“Yeah, Mary Ure,” I say, without inflection. Right now, bringing up B is barely a blip on my radar.
“Okay, I remember now,” Angel says, nodding. “I didn’t see the end.”
“Oh. The double agent is—”
“Don’t tell me,” he commands, waving a hand. He’s still smiling.
I lean in, getting into it. “But you’d never guess. And when’re you gonna find the time to see it, what with you and your white board? It’s Colonel—”
Angel starts to stand up.
“Hey,” I say, lean back, back off. “Hey, okay, I won’t tell you, if it’s really such a big deal.”
“I have to go.”
“Look. I’m sorry—”
“No,” he says gently. “I mean, I have to go, Faith.” He opens his hand, showing me what’s in it.
“You got a beeper,” I say flatly. The call number window says “911.” Of course, because there’s a world out there that needs saving more than me.
“Yes.”
I look at him, lip curled. “Does it vibrate?”
His lips twitch. “What, you want one?”
“Oh God,” I breathe, dripping sarcasm, “do you think you could get me one?”
He blinks, startled. “I was kidding.”
“So was I,” I snap. “I’ve got fingers, don’t I? And the sisters—Christ Almighty, but they’ve got fingers, too.”
“Good-bye, Faith,” he says softly.
“Fuck off.”
“I’ll be back next week.”
“Yeah. Whatever. I could care less.”
Other lies could broadcast more, but I’m not sure how.
*
Now, I said I’d tell you about Where Eagles Dare, so here goes. This plane goes down out in the boonies and there’s this general they have to get out—but the Nazis are all boobs; it’s the limey rescue team you gotta look out for (I won’t tell you who the dirty double-crosser is, in case you’re a spoil sport like Angel). It’s all quality action: blood everywhere, guys screaming in mortal agony left and right—right up my alley. Schaffer (that’s Clint) caps more guys in this one scene than Dirty Harry ever saw in his life.
When I first saw it, I almost peed my pants. I started bouncing in my seat, and when they got on the cable cars I jumped so hard I broke the damn couch. Luckily, it was Kit’s uncle’s couch. I was at his place ‘cause Mom took too many pills again. After that, we made the couch the castle and we played war all night. I’m not talking about any of that pansy cops n’ robbers, cowboys n’ Indians crap either. We had tanks, and artillery; we knew what caliber our machine guns were. We learned the whole NATO phonetic alphabet (I can still say, “fuck you, over,” in foxtrots and charlies).
Kit and me always played war and were never on the same side. We were always on about which of us was better, which of us got to use the water gun, which of us got to command the tanks. A lot of times, it came down to waling on each other. I always hit first and I always won, because I was stronger than him. But it was always tit for tat with Kit. He was faster, smarter, sneakier. He’d get back at me in ways I couldn’t fight. That’s why I liked to kick him when he was down, stood there with other kids and laughed at him. Lemme tell you, Kit was one ugly-ass little motherfucker.
Then my Watcher took me away and it was strange: I missed Kit at first. I even thought of ways to go get him out of Southie and bring him with me. But then you get Chosen and you just . . . forget. Scars fade with Slayer healing—the cigarette burns, bottle slashes, feelings you only settle by bashing your kid rival, just so you know you’re better than someone else. I became a Slayer and became a new person, someone without history; friends, family—they didn’t matter to me any more. Later, I heard Kit’s uncle beat him to death, or some sad shit like that. And all I got is this memory, sitting there with Kit watching Where Eagles Dare, and a thought like maybe I killed him, somehow, because I’ll never be a hero like Schaffer, or creeping Christ help me, Richard Burton.
Me, I’m the double-crosser.
5.
“How are you?” Angel says, and might as well be screaming “Stella!” for all the times we’ve been through this.
“I’m all peaches and cunt cream. How’re you?”
He raises his brows, but he sticks to his script and just says, “Same old.”
“Oh?” I say, prim again.
“Killing demons. We’re getting good.”
“Wolfram and Hart open their big box, yet?”
“No. Maybe it’s nothing, after all.”
“What?” I ask. “You? Hope? Optimism?”
“I’m a very optimistic person.”
“Get out.”
“I’m here, aren’t I?” I forgot to tell you how his gentle-voice sounds. It’s like a cat finding the square of sunlight on the carpet, the hush the fur makes against itself as the cat curls up, and I keep thinking—he used this tongue on Buffy.
“I didn’t ask you to come,” I snarl.
“I know.” I’m allergic to cats. They make me itchy. This isn’t how he looked at B, but it’s warm and close like camp-fire friendship and Jesus, how her cunt must’ve been like a furnace for him. Why can’t we just go back to talking about John Wayne and the smell of napalm in the morning? “How’ve they been treating you?” he says finally.
My mouth twists in relief. “The food sucks. Beans n’ dicks.”
“What?”
“That’s what they called it in ‘Nam,” I explain. “Military rations.”
His nose wrinkles, looks kinda funny. “That’s what you’ve been eating?”
I shrug. “It’s similar.”
“Sounds disgusting.”
“The beans are gross. The dicks . . .” I trail off, and smirk. They’re just hotdogs, in case you’re thick-skulled and wondering, but it’s not like I can resist the innuendo. “The dicks I like.”
He doesn’t skip a beat. “Miss us, don’t you,” he taunts, and it’s not a question.
Tou-fuckin’-ché! “You just said it sounds disgusting because you like to pretend you’re not a closet queen,” I taunt right back.
He rolls his eyes, but he’s smiling. “Not this again.”
“Come on, tiger,” I goad. “Tell. There have to have been some juicy pickle-dillos in your past.”
“You mean ‘peccadilloes’?”
“Uh. Yeah. I mean pickles, Angel. Long, thick, juicy pickles.”
Angel blinks, and then he shakes his head. “You’re impossible.”
“Nah, I’m easy; trust me. Come on,” I dig. “I met Spike. Did you fuck him? If you didn’t, you’re more of a pussy than I thought. That boy sizzles. I can’t believe B—uh, B—Beatrice—hasn’t done h—um . . . hasn’t done his colors. Because you know Beatrice. His—um. Fashion designer? Black isn’t his color.”
“Yes it is,” he snaps. Then, because he’s not going to let me get away with it, “He doesn’t have a fashion designer. He doesn’t need one.”
“Do you just know these things, or what?”
“I just know.”
“And you say you’re interested in the opposite sex. What’s my color?”
He’s still scowling. “Pink?”
“And that just proves you’ve seen more pricks than a dartboard,” I shoot back. “Come on. Christ, you’re his Sire. You made him, and you still couldn’t get a piece of that ass? And did I even mention his ass in my list of shaftable features?”
“You weren’t listing features, and we’re not having this conversation.”
“Lean. Long, ropy muscles. Chiseled abs. Chiseled everything. Cheekbones that could cut lips. And shit, those lips. That tongue. And that di—”
“I said, we’re not having this conversation.”
“What, don’t you trust me?
“Why should I?”
“I was being . . . what do you call it, rhetorical.”
“You were being nosy.”
I sigh happily. “Hit a nerve, did I?”
“Lay off it.”
“I did!” Gleeful—gay—God, I want to giggle. “You’ve fucked him, haven’t you?
“I said shut up, Faith.”
“I’ll bet you were real bump-monkeys back in the day. Bet the crack of dawn wasn’t safe from you two. Then you got a soul and—and what?” I never much liked connect-the-dots but right now the end-picture looks like a great big cock up one fine ass, and I’ve never seen anything so hot. “You fucked him again, didn’t you,” I conclude.
He doesn’t say anything. It’s almost like he’s already said it.
“You did! You fucked him with a soul, and that’s what you’re so ashamed of, isn’t it.”
It’s like stabbing someone. The surprise in his eyes, suddenly realizing he’s been betrayed, the pain, the shock. It’s fun to look at. He opens his mouth, like a dying man waiting for the blood to gurgle out, then . . . he just closes it. Like he can’t even say anything.
“Because it was all about control, wasn’t it,” I announce. “It was a ‘who’s your daddy thing.’” What a beast he must have been, what an asshole rapist—someone darker, more brutal, more sadistic than I could ever be; it makes me feel so good. Dig it in, drive it deeper, hear his howls and taste the blood. “A ‘come to papa.’ A ‘get on your knees, son, and suck my—’”
“Wesley said not to visit you,” Angel interrupts suddenly.
“C—c—. . .” Cock. Cock. Cock. I’m trying to say it, trying to finish my sentence. And all I can think is, Wesley? “What about Wesley?”
Angel goes on, voice still sharp, clean, cold. Like a knife. “He said you weren’t worth it. A waste of my time. A lost cause.” Then he twists the blade, and it hurts as much as when Buffy did it: “He said a lot of things. I guess he was right about all of them.” Then he hangs up.
I think I just found Angel’s threshold, and he didn’t invite me in.
*
My first Watcher was Laine Caldwell. I still remember the click her heels made when she knocked on our door. I remember that Mom slurred, “Come in,” and sloshed amber liquid on the floor. I remembered thinking that I didn’t know a woman could look as poised or powerful as Laine looked when she crossed the threshold, that I didn’t know a woman could look as pitiful or profligate as my mother looked next to her.
A real mommy, I guess, should save me from my nightmares. Mine couldn’t, though, because my nightmares were real—my father’s dark obsession, my mother’s drunk depression, holes in my window, needles on the pavement, shadows and rape and hate. Then Laine entered that room, and I exited reality. She gave me the kind of nightmares a kid is supposed to have. Then she told me they were just as real, that the monsters I’d never had the luxury to invent were coming for me, and she wouldn’t turn on the light, check under the bed, or ever make them go away.
Six months later, my mother was dead and Laine wasn’t a surrogate for that something I’d never had. I was barely old enough to be on my own, and she was laying humanity in my arms, swaddled and helpless, and expecting me to care. The closest Laine ever came to saving me from the scaries was telling me I could save other people from them. That was supposed to be the difference between Laine’s world and the other: in Laine’s I could fight back.
In Mom’s, I could only live. Her world was all grays, and next to that, bugaboos and vampires look like black and white. But I’m her blood, aren’t I; I’m in her world; I’m her gray. I am my mother, looking down at me growing inside her rounded belly, wondering why I’m supposed to care about you, why I’m supposed to take care of you.
I am my mother, beating Wesley because he’s mine, to take care of and take control of, beating Wesley because he was supposed to take care of control me. He’s become his father—
“There’s one thing I want you to remember. You are a piece of—”
We’ve become our parents, who were only ever children in a life-long war of who gets to be in charge.
In Laine’s world, I can hold a man down and make him bleed. I can hold humanity cradled in my hands, and it’s my child, my very own. I am my mother, who tried to have an abortion but instead had me.
6.
When I walk in, Angel isn’t sitting there with the phone in his hands as usual. When I sit down and gingerly pick up mine, he just looks at me. Finally, almost grudgingly, he picks it up. “Hey,” I say.
“Hey.”
“So, how are you?”
“Fine,” he clips off. “We’re all fine.”
“I’ve been good, too.” First time he didn’t ask.
“Wesley asked about you.”
Look who’s asking, now. I lick chapped lips, and say, “Did he?”
Angel’s lips flat line. “Yes. I told him how you . . . were.” He tilts his head. “Did you know Wes was in the hospital a while back?”
I ask him to repeat that. I stutter.
“Yes,” Angel says again, nodding. “Not, of course, because of what you did to him. He doesn’t even have scars from that, you know. Shallow cuts.” His voice is toneless, unemotional—simply observant. “I know that technique. And yet, I didn’t have a soul the last time I used it.”
“I’ve got a soul, and I’ve done plenty of things,” I concede. A dodge, a block, a guard, then move in for the kill. “But at least I never made a vampire my bitch like you did—made him wait to come until after I did, made him suffer, made him like it—”
He stiffens, but his voice is rich and rippling, for a moment makes me think of what satin sheets must be like when people fuck between them. “Wesley didn’t like it, Faith. You were the one enjoying it. Remember?”
“And you hate it, don’t you,” I spit, “because you wanted it to be you. You want to be the one making Wesley whimper; you want to be the one getting off on his pain. You want to do to him what you did to Spike, and you hate yourself for it because you’re in love with—”
“At least I’m not the one on my knees.” His jeer is sudden and soft, a whisper, but the sex in the satin has turned brutal. “What would Daddy think of you,” he says, “letting the government, of all things, put you away? At least Dick was a worthy master. Or he would’ve been, if he had Ascended. But I forgot, he failed, didn’t he? Because you failed him.”
I’m going to rip his heart out, and dance in his blood. I’ll slather it on me and it’ll make me slick; it’ll turn me on when I put a stake through the heart in my hands. “Because of Buffy,” I snap. “Or oh, did I forget?” I mock. “Buffy is the one who likes to make vampires come for her, isn’t she? Makes you call her name out in the night even though she can’t hear you, won’t ever hear you—”
“That’s enough,” he says suddenly.
“Go fuck yourself! Because that’s what you do, isn’t it? Fuck yourself saying her name. Or is it his? Come on, tell me Angel, is it his name you—”
“This conversation is over,” he says simply, and hangs up.
“That’s right. Walk away. Walk away and whip off, because that’s all you’re ever gonna get. No one’s ever going to want you after what you’ve done, no one’s ever going to love you.”
I’m banging on the glass, and the C.O.s are coming to drag me away, and can you tell it’s not him I’m talking about. It’s not him at all.
*
It wasn’t always this way. There was once a man who loved me.
Look, I understand the mayor was a . . . a bad guy, big bad if we’re speaking Buffy-speak, which we’re not. But out of all the people who’ve claimed to love or like me, he was the only one who gave me things. I’m whatsit called: materialistic, superficial? I needed to touch how he felt for me; his love for me was tangible. In my reflection on that knife and I saw how he saw me—as a weapon, something powerful, hard sharp cold beautiful, and no one’s looked at me that way before. Plus it was a wicked pointy killing instrument; how could he not love me?
Sure, he had that hang up about flossing, and he made me clean between my toes more than’s frankly sane . . . but I never had the kind of love that slapped me, scolded me, told me I should eat my greens, wash behind my ears, wear pastels ‘cause I look so pretty in them. No one ever minded how ragged my nails were before him, and it felt so good to have someone notice and warn me to take a file to them or no cookies tonight, Faith.
That’s what it comes down to. All I’ll ever understand is control, a heavy hand; my world is dominance submission dom sub dom sub I win you lose. I’m a cause that’s already lost, Wesley said.
I see myself in the surface of that knife. A weapon, to be used.
*
Continue to part [7.].
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This sentence begins as lofty poetry, then comes slamming back down to earth with perfect Faith crudity. Great balance.
And that just proves you’ve seen more pricks than a dartboard
*snorfle*
the monsters I’d never had the luxury to invent
Oh. OH. This speaks to me more than you'll ever know. So much to love, here.
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I don't even particularly like Faith- I just found her unsympathetic- except here (warts and all) you've made her a thing of frail beauty.
The Confessional
(Anonymous) 2005-09-17 04:45 am (UTC)(link)Re: The Confessional
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And I'd love to have it on Scribes, but I'm getting it beta'ed right now, and I'd perfer it if it was the beta'ed version that was archived. It may be a couple weeks, but I'll be posting again when the new big better version is done. Thanks a lot!
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Thanks!
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Thanks again.