oh my god, i missed you, bud! thanks for the prompt. i apologize in advance for making this one SUCH a bummer.
set during s07e19 - "Empty Places" (if this piece has a theme song it's "Bloodied Up" by Alkaline Trio)
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“Hey, what about the vineyard?”
Faith knows she shouldn’t have said it, knows that even before she’s finished speaking, not that it makes any difference. Not that knowing she’s fucking things up worse has ever exactly stopped Faith from taking a situation from bad to fucking irretrievable before, especially where Buffy’s concerned but, fuck, she’d been trying to be better.
It’s just that Buffy has always been able to get under her skin the way no one else could, especially when she’s doing this. That self righteous, condescending scolding thing she does, like Faith’s the biggest loser on the planet, like the worst thing about Buffy’s life isn’t the looming apocalypse or the monsters trying to kill the herd of teen girls they’d amassed, but trying to talk to Faith.
Buffy stops and turns to face her again. “What?” her voice is quiet, cold. There’s an edge to it, sharp, familiar — a warning.
But Faith’s in this deep already. And maybe she’s a dumbass for trying to talk about this when Buffy’s already pissed, but, fuck, Faith thinks she’s right this time. For once, out of the two of them, it’s Buffy who’s blowing it, at least as far as the potentials are concerned. Buffy’s always been the one with friends, a boyfriend, a family that talks to her — she’s the one that knows how to be with people, to make them love her.
So why is it that now she’s icing these girls out, when they need her, need someone to make them feel like the fight they’re in is worth it? Why is Faith the one learning their names, taking them out, listening to their worries and wishes and idle chatter while Buffy withdraws and shuts them down and pushes everyone away?
So, yeah. Fuck it. Faith’s going to do this. It’d probably be better for them both if she just kept her trap shut, but she’s learned a thing or two about tough love in the last few years. Maybe it’s time for her to dish it out herself.
“How safe were they when you dragged them off to meet Caleb?” Faith pushes. Something in Buffy’s expression shutters, face going blank in a way that opens a sinkhole in Faith’s gut. But she doesn’t stop. “How safe was Rona, or Amanda, or Molly?”
Faith knows that Buffy’s going to hit her. She can tell when Buffy takes her first step closer, is dead certain by the second step. It’s a telegraphed hit, too — big windup, so B can put her shoulder into it. Faith sees it and she doesn’t move. A feeling flashes through her, quick and electric like lightning — it’s sick dread, it’s guilt, it’s anger and it’s something else, something familiar in the worst way.
Maybe it’s the Slayer, maybe it’s something wrong deep inside Faith in particular, but she sees Buffy’s rage crack the cold facade she’s thrown up between them and she welcomes it. She sees what’s coming and she lets it happen. She hopes that it will hurt.
And it does.
It’s the second time in as many days that Buffy’s hit her. The first time wasn’t so bad. Almost a lovetap — oh, it hurt like a son of a bitch, and it left her flush with humiliation. That’s what it was meant to do — put Faith in her place, especially in front of Buffy’s latest boy toy. The sucker-punch in the graveyard was straightforward enough. Faith didn’t take it to heart — she owed Buffy that one. More, actually.
But this feels different. Not only because Buffy hit her harder this time, not only because there’s no audience to show off for this time. No, this time it’s worse because it’s the first time Buffy’s ever hit her when Faith hasn’t deserved it.
Maybe for all the stuff in the past between them.
But Buffy didn’t hit her for any of that. Buffy hit her because Faith was calling her out, because she didn’t want to hear that she was being a hypocrite, maybe because she didn’t believe Faith had a right to tell her jack shit.
Mostly, because she wanted Faith to shut the fuck up.
Faith goes with it, one knee slamming to the asphalt hard before she manages to catch herself, both palms to the pavement. Her cheek is singing in pain, blood rushing through her ears so loud she almost can’t hear the swish of Buffy’s coat, the sound of her retreating footsteps.
She’s not sure if it’s better or worse that Buffy takes off so fast. Part of her wishes she could have seen Buffy’s face, to know if she was sorry. The rest of Faith is too scared to think she might not have been.
Slowly, she twists, kneeling and pressing her knuckles to the bruise she can already feel blooming under her skin. The skin is hot, her cheekbone aching and throbbing beneath her fingers as she moves to gently probe it, but there’s nothing broken.
All that buzzing, self righteous anger has flooded out of her, replaced with that old, lonely cored out feeling that Faith knows all too well. She closes her eyes, lets the blood from her re-opened split lip pool at her gum line, breathes in the scent of garbage and spilled drinks from the Bronze alleyway and fuck, she could be fifteen years ago — that filthy apartment, the sting in her cheek from a slap she’d earned from her ma because she couldn’t just shut the fuck up when she needed to.
Did this to your damn self, she thinks bitterly, gritting her teeth in rage and disgust at the feeling of tears welling up behind her eyes.
She’s always doing this to herself.
Faith sniffs hard and shakes her head, biting down on the broken skin of her lip until the pain cuts through the sorry feeling swelling up in her chest. She blinks back those stupid, useless tears, pushes herself to standing.
Alone in the alley, Faith pauses. She wonders for a moment if she’s welcome back at Buffy’s house, after this. Then it occurs to her that it doesn’t matter all that much how welcome shes is — there’s nowhere else for her to go. There’s no other slayers for Buffy to turn to. They’re stuck with each other.
Faith lets out a deep breath, brushing her fingers over her cheek one more time before she tilts her head to spit a mouthful of blood onto the pavement. Then she starts walking home.
Cwn Annwn - the hounds of underworld - is one of the thrilling images in Welsh mythology that inspires me a lot. #mabinogion #cwnannwn #celticmythology #mythology #deer #moon #whitegoddess #welshart https://www.instagram.com/p/Cp3BNKrozPv/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=
Catching up on #mythicmay with a #CwnAnnwn and a #djinn Prompts by @the_real_charamath #sketch #drawing #folklore #mythology #pencil #graphite #marker https://www.instagram.com/p/BxVXqlVnFsk/?igshid=ks94rpvlnvus
Hello! This is a bit weird to ask, but I wrote some Helena/MC smut and was wondering if it was okay to send you a link? I seem to remember you mentioned it was okay to tag you in fics, but I though best to ask first.
the moment I read helena smut I literally screamed “WHERE” and all my gay bones started shaking shsnshsns. and, babe, it’s always ok to tag me in stuff whether is just a meme or your own original posts, I may take some time to reply to it bc I’ve been busy af with college, they’re literally throwing exams at our faces and they hurt like bricks, but I swear I always take some time to read everything ♡.that said, PLEASE DO SEND ME THE LINK OF THAT SMUT CAUSE SWEET LORD JESUS, AM I THIRSTY FOR OUR GODDESS AND SAVIOR HELENA
for the fic writers meme: 4. How many fic ideas are you nurturing right now? Care to share one of them? 17. Do you write your story from start to finish, or do you write the scenes out of order?
4. How many fic ideas are you nurturing right now? Care to share one of them?
oof, god. a bunch. i’m in mass effect hell rn and there’s so much i wanna write and i just don’t have time to do them all. here’s a short list of stuff i’ve been thinking of lately
shepard/liara arranged marriage au
continuing my jack/miranda canon-divergent me3 au
clone baby au
mass effect space pirate au where the vibe is basically ‘season 3 of a sci-fi tv series with a ton of episodes where shep’s the normandy captain who leads a merc crew and miranda is the minor antagonist from seasons 1 - 2 who is about to do a face turn and join the crew’
au where miranda does patricide instead of running away from her dad and decides to hunt cerberus for sport once she’s inherited his estate and then later recruits a pissed off jack to help her and also they fall in love idk
morinth/shepard au that is TOO complicated to summarize but does involve morinth redemption and also war trauma
17. Do you write your story from start to finish, or do you write the scenes out of order?
usually chronologically! my brain kinda just works like that - i’m not super motivated to skip around a lot bc it just doesn’t super occur to me. i usually know roughly what’s going to happen next, but most upcoming scenes are just notes in an outline or ideas in my head. sometimes something very specific hits me and i might do a draft of it to write up to, but that’s the exception, not the rule
