OPEN (please Faith needs to meet more people, limited doesn't begin to describe her social circle)

[fivebyfive-x.livejournal.com]

((Backdated to the day BEFORE Valentine's Day, because RL just decided to chill out now instead of yesterday. Feel free to interrupt. Faith won't stab you, I promise.))

Valentine's Day?

Thud.

Valentine's Day.

Snap.

Valentine's Day!

Faith's hair fell into her face and there was an angry smile on her face... but anyone that either knew her or was perceptive enough could see the tears in her eyes. She slashed and spun with her knife, cutting angry hunks out of the unlucky tree that had drawn her attentione. Her knife was growing sticky with sap and she didn't care.

Tomorrow was Valentine's Day. The day of lovers and sweetness and cookie-faces and all of that bullshit. And Faith was not in a mood. She wanted to keep attacking this poor tree until all of her humanity was hacked away along with the wood. She couldn't handle the turmoil in her mind. She couldn't handle her conflicting emotions or the fire inside of her. She was supposed to be reformed. She was, wasn't she? She was all better. No more bad. So why... Why had she...

With a scream more animal than human, Faith slammed her knife into the tree. Hard. With all of her slayer strength even. The sharpened blade slid into the wood easily all the way up to the hilt... and stuck there. Tears were now bubbling up more noticibly in her eyes but she just blinked to drop them down. She sword loudly and set to work getting her knife out.

Fucking Valentine's Day.

Comments

[twoyearsmissing.livejournal.com]

There was something very wrong, it didn't need any explaining it was obvious. Jack reached round her to tug at the knife. "Try me."

[fivebyfive-x.livejournal.com]

Physical contact. Way too much physical contact. Or... almost physical contact, rather. Still... He was so close to her and no one had been that close since Dean. What if she went to the bad place again? What if she went over the edge? He was attractive. And... sure she hadn't exactly pounced and pinned Dean down in the hallway as he screamed for help but...

She slid away from Jack and looked away.

"You can't help me. No one can help me." Her voice was still dead and cold but there was something else in it now, a fire of desperation. "I'm beyond help." The last phrase was barely a whisper. Her hands gripped her arm to keep from turning back to him. It raised her sleeve a little, revealing the bottom of her bruised wrist if anyone was observant enough to catch it.

[twoyearsmissing.livejournal.com]

"I said pretty much that the time I nearly killed the one person I'd give up everything for, trust me, you're not beyond help." Maybe he was just seeing an element of himself there or something that reminded him of Suzie and the want, need to help was there. Could just be that he'd been around JD to long. He'd noticed before her moving the sleeves down but when he saw, his eyes stayed a moment.

"Playing a little rough?" Jack gave a slight smile that then faded. "Or did someone hurt you?" There was real concern there, whatever a slayer was she seemed like she was more than capable of handling herself, but then again Jack had been more that capable of looking after himself, knowing when to run, hide and look how far it had got him, nearly killed, but he'd found the consequences and learned so much more, then again that had ended up with him dead and stuck in the living world since.

"Look you have no reason to talk or even trust me, but I've been there, I made it back. Gives a little perspective. You want to talk, I'll listen." He should just walk away, but he'd screwed up so much it was a chance of setting something a little bit better.

[fivebyfive-x.livejournal.com]

She ignored his opening remark, not wanting to state all of the people she had killed. Helpless ones, elderly. Not to mention the volanologist. Almost killed? Almost killed? She had almost gotten Robin killed. She was right there with him.

And who the hell was this guy. Didn't he know better than to talk to strangers? Especially strangers with knives. Angry crazy strangers with knives none-the-less. Didn't he know the first rule of being someone like her? You keep to yourself, simple as that. There wasn't fuzzy feelings, or bonding, or buddy-nights at the mall. There was going too far too fast and then disappearing into the night. Cheap thrills and surreal mornings. She had lived her whole life alone, Not relying, NEVER trusting.

And still, that small part of her that had always wanted someone. The part that had used to curl up beside her mother's passed out form when she was five, just to try and absorb some comfort... Wanted to turn to this guy and tell him everything. Her past, her "redemption", actually TRYING to get better, her... her... her loss on control with Dean. The guilt POUNDING in her mind. That stupid fucking guilt that she couldn't get out.

Playing it a little bit rough? WHat was he- Oh... Her wrists. She slammed her hand down her arm and pulled the sleeve down. Could he see the ring of bruises around her neck? The bruises where Dean's hands had been? When he'd tried to strangle her? Her mind spun a little and she turned to face him. She forced a dark smile onto her face.

"Rough doesn-" The joke choked in her throat. She couldn't joke not right now. So she turned away and faced teh tree again. "You should have seen what I did to him." She said simply, reaching up to wrap her fingers delicately around the hilt of the knife.

She didn't turn around but the words still floated clearly. "I really... I've been screwed over by the world more than my fair share. Taken more hits than I can count. How do you know how far my darkness goes?" She gave one final tug and the knife came free in her hands.

She turned to face him, blade in one hand, the other clenched into a fist. Her eyes with the midnight black that they'd been with Dean, a trick of the light mixed with her conflicting emotions. Her dark red hair hung a few strands in her face. Her knucles were white from squeezing so hard and she raised her chin a little.

"How do you propose to fix me, Jack?" Her tone wasn't empty anymore. There was a low growl in it. Not anger. No, it wasn't anger. There was an edge of sex appeal on it, as her chest rose and fell with every breath. But it was more than that. It was.. It was desperation. Hopelessness. The sound of a girl who had accepted her life as an outcast and a failure long ago and had no chance of changing it...

[twoyearsmissing.livejournal.com]

Jack had lived a life that, he'd been a conman, done some unspeakable things to keep going and even a torturer at one point in his life. He'd got a close friend killed when he was younger and another recently, he'd also been stabbed by someone he was trying to help, then again it hurt like hell yes, but in his own way he'd seen it as helping her. JD hadn't seen it that way of course but Jack hadn't meant for it to go that far, Ianto and the others too when they'd been told about it didn't want much to do with her again. Rose had reacted badly to it as well, but he still needed to keep Suzie close, it was in his mind partly his fault. He should have done more to help her.

"It's one of the universes best tricks, and when she really wants to screw you over, you know about it." He watched her carefully. "I can't die, not for lack of trying." He shrugged, this whole situation was unsettlingly familiar except this time he could see the knife openly, last time, well he hadn't learned about it's presence until it was burried to the hilt in his chest and through his heart. "What happened to him?"

He was silent a moment in thought. "I was a conman, damn good at it too. It was a way of life. Someone had something I wanted, play along, flirt a little. Charm them, fall into bed. Have fun then take it and run, steal a little extra too sometimes. Most of my time spent running, never staying still, never a place to call home." Not that his home growing up had ever been that really, sure he knew his mother loved him, cared about him and wanted nothing more than keep him safe but his father. Jack closed his eyes a moment trying to get rid of the anger at that point that surfaced when he even thought, let alone talked about his father, he willed it to pass. Go back to the empty darkness that was the majority of his mind.

"Well it depends if you want fixing?" He hadn't been looking for it when the Doctor found him, he wasn't even sure if he had thought he could be saved, looking at her he wondered if she even wanted to, or had she just given up and decided no-one bothered enough to even try.

[fivebyfive-x.livejournal.com]

What had she done to him? Well... She hadn't strangled him, that was for sure. Hadn't tried to kill him. But... She had... She had...

"It wasn't supposed to go that far." Hysteria crept into her voice as she remembered the night. "I didn't think it would go that far!" She put her hands to her face and turned away from him, her mind reeling. She'd done terrible things in her day. Tortured, maimed, killed. All for one of the greatest loves of her life. Was that sappy? QUite, but it was true. She'd never really loved a man, other than possibly Robin but it was hard for her to think about him, it made her hurt in ways she couldn't explain. She'd loved the mayor, deeply. He was the only father she had ever known.

"In the beginning I was just like you. Too far, too fast, no regrets no looking back. No real friends, they held you down... I just kept going. And then I met a man, the only father I ever knew since mine was AWOL and my mother was too busy passed out on the coach to say anything about him. And then... I murderered people. More... more than I'd like to think about. I was a cold-blooded killer, no mercy, or regret. Mayor said so-and-so needed to be taken out of the pictures and I toddled off to do it." The hysteria was fluxuating in her voice. On some words she would drop down to the dead empty toneless sound and then the next her voice would be shaking with every syllable. "There's a long story but I won't bore you with the details. I ended up in jail and when these guys came to kill me, I ended up back in Sunnydale, where the whole mess started. I was trying to be all good girl and reformed and that bullshit. The Council sent me here, thinking a chance of scenery would do good for me. Guess they were wrong. I'm hopeless. A monster, nothing more."

She wanted fixing. She wanted to stop being a monster. He had conned people? She had slaughtered people. She knew the life he described, she had lived it. But how could she tell him any of that? That all she wanted was to be loved, not wanted, have a fucking friend for once in her life. Robin had shown her love. He had shown her that she was capable of it and how it felt to be like that. And then he had left her. ANd she ws supposed to be the cliche crybaby of the century? No and thank you. She was a monster that's what she all said.

"It was never supposed. Never supposed to go that far." She wouldn't face him. She wouldn't turn around and look at this guy who was being so kind to her when all she wanted to do was cut her anger and guilt out of this tree. Somehow, ever slash on the tree was like a slash on her, bleeding out the bad blood or some of that bullshit.

Her hand traveled to the rim of the neck of her sweatshirt. She pulled it down a little bit, to reveal the ring of still dark bruising where Dean had tried to strangle her, to kill her. The sound choked in her throat.

"It's never supposed to go that far."

[twoyearsmissing.livejournal.com]

"I tortured people." That usually supressed dark part of his personality was allowed to be shown then, "Keep them alive. Not that I haven't killed. Let people take a fall for me, trick them into things..." A twisted smirk played cross his face.

"Nothing ever means to go that far, but it happens." Jack regained some control as he shook his head, hands into his pockets his turn to turn away from her.

[fivebyfive-x.livejournal.com]

She was overtaken by a sick sense of competition. And maybe a desperate need to make him leave. He wasn't looking at her like a monster, and that was -really- screwing with her self image. He thought he was worse than her? SHe was supposed to save the world and she had... she had...

"I raped him." She turned to look at him, her voice trembling. "It started out as just playing rough. I'm into that kind of thing, ya know. Verbal sparring, nothing too skanky but... I hit him too hard, I guess and he told me to leave and... I wouldn't. Not that... that he didn't get his own hands on my before that." She had pulled down the neckline of her shirt to show the still semi-dark bruise around her neck from Dean's hands. It would have been almost gone but the contact with Gillian awhile back had slowed the healing process.

She spun around and punch the tree, hard. The pain somehow altered her perception of reality, making her head less fuzzy. She slammed her knuckles into it again. She didn't think to use the knife in her hand. No, that was far too impersonal. Her knuckles were bleeding as she punched teh tree again and again. She didn't want to see the look of disgust on his face, didn't want to watch him walk away. She wanted to sit here and wallow tell herself what a horrible person she was. WHat did she care what Jack thought of her anyways? Just one more judgement on her soul. He wasn't the first...

[twoyearsmissing.livejournal.com]

The husky who had remained silent before gave a single bark, wasn't even a real bark and looked up to her pet, who nodded down to her. "You're right." He said quietly.

Jack's face when he turned back was unreadable, whatever he may have been thinking it certainly wasn't obvious. "So do something about it, don't fall further." He looked to the dog who was now by his side.

[fivebyfive-x.livejournal.com]

He wasn't gone? He hadn't left. What the hell? That messed with the plan, her ideal reality. Faith turned to face him, her face wild and unconformed She walked closer to him, hands bleeding, neck bruised, eyes unfocused. She shook her head, hair framing around the edge of her face.

"How? How the fuck do you propose I do that?" She wasn't threatening him or pushing up into him. It was strange for her. Here was a guy, questioning her reality and she wasn't kicking his ass. He seemed different than the other 99% of the male population. She narrowed her eyes into a slight glare and shook her head. She wasn't sure she wanted to hear his answer. A part of her knew that any path back into the light would be a bitch to travel. Falling was easier...

[twoyearsmissing.livejournal.com]

"Honestly. I don't know." He regarded her a moment. "There's probably a lot you don't want to share, a lot you don't even realise." He shrugged. "Look, I can heal your hands if you want."