Emptiness
written by Acacia Dyre
Warnings: Short, introspective bit, meandered from a small inspiration.
Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer is the creation of Joss Whedon as are all of the characters (i.e. Faith) and I own nothing, unless you count my fat barn cat and the used books in my collection.
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The qualities of time and silence had never been the ones Faith wanted most in her life. She was more interested in fun and pleasure. As she had once told Buffy, it wasn't worth it if you weren't enjoying yourself. And her use 'em and lose 'em philosophy had let her get away with a lot of bad choices with little consequences, until she had arrived in Sunnydale. That whole trip had been a mistake, and the result was the silence and time that she was left with.
Prison was all about time. She had a lot of time to do nothing; nothing she wanted. Faith worked in the prison laundry and that took up some of the time. The majority of her time was spent doing nothing in particular though. She worked out, she had her meals and slept, and she existed. She thought about her life, and where she had ended up, and most of all she thought about what had happened to bring her to the present. She tried to avoid too much thinking.
Prison was also all about routine. Mindless routine helped her with the goal of not thinking too much about the past. Every single day it was the same. The time to get up, the time to eat, the time to work, the time for exercise, the time for everything was regulated. It took all of the worry over choosing something from her. Faith could appreciate that in some small part of herself, it took her choice of bad versus good away from her. The traditional bad versus good choices anyway. There were new ways for her to be bad in prison. Those were becoming routine also.
The silence was the third part of the prison equation. Sure, there was plenty of noise. Women screaming at each other, the babble that passed for conversation, the orders given by the guards and the supplication of the prisoners. There was silence in each part of the noise; it was thick in what went unsaid. It was within Faith's thoughts like white noise, an absence of some unnameable thing she found herself missing. It grated on her senses as she tried to figure out what it was.
The obvious things were already eliminated; her freedom, the violence, the men, her self expression, everything left her feeling a bit more ambivalent about herself. Trying to figure out what was missing made her think about the past again though, which of course she was avoiding, and so not a lot was being accomplished. There were so many things that she wanted to do, and she avoided them by blanking her mind and following the routine.
She avoiding thinking about the apologies she wished she could make, and have believed. Stopped herself from trying to figure out ways in which she could make up for past mistakes and compensate those she hurt. She avoided all thoughts about Buffy and the time she spent in Sunnydale. There were no excuses for dwelling on things that she would never be able to control, her powers were not that great. The time and the routine and the silence left her with the one thing she couldn't avoid, the emptiness that was left behind from that missing piece, and Faith couldn't find a reason to care about filling that space.
written by Acacia Dyre
Warnings: Short, introspective bit, meandered from a small inspiration.
Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer is the creation of Joss Whedon as are all of the characters (i.e. Faith) and I own nothing, unless you count my fat barn cat and the used books in my collection.
+
The qualities of time and silence had never been the ones Faith wanted most in her life. She was more interested in fun and pleasure. As she had once told Buffy, it wasn't worth it if you weren't enjoying yourself. And her use 'em and lose 'em philosophy had let her get away with a lot of bad choices with little consequences, until she had arrived in Sunnydale. That whole trip had been a mistake, and the result was the silence and time that she was left with.
Prison was all about time. She had a lot of time to do nothing; nothing she wanted. Faith worked in the prison laundry and that took up some of the time. The majority of her time was spent doing nothing in particular though. She worked out, she had her meals and slept, and she existed. She thought about her life, and where she had ended up, and most of all she thought about what had happened to bring her to the present. She tried to avoid too much thinking.
Prison was also all about routine. Mindless routine helped her with the goal of not thinking too much about the past. Every single day it was the same. The time to get up, the time to eat, the time to work, the time for exercise, the time for everything was regulated. It took all of the worry over choosing something from her. Faith could appreciate that in some small part of herself, it took her choice of bad versus good away from her. The traditional bad versus good choices anyway. There were new ways for her to be bad in prison. Those were becoming routine also.
The silence was the third part of the prison equation. Sure, there was plenty of noise. Women screaming at each other, the babble that passed for conversation, the orders given by the guards and the supplication of the prisoners. There was silence in each part of the noise; it was thick in what went unsaid. It was within Faith's thoughts like white noise, an absence of some unnameable thing she found herself missing. It grated on her senses as she tried to figure out what it was.
The obvious things were already eliminated; her freedom, the violence, the men, her self expression, everything left her feeling a bit more ambivalent about herself. Trying to figure out what was missing made her think about the past again though, which of course she was avoiding, and so not a lot was being accomplished. There were so many things that she wanted to do, and she avoided them by blanking her mind and following the routine.
She avoiding thinking about the apologies she wished she could make, and have believed. Stopped herself from trying to figure out ways in which she could make up for past mistakes and compensate those she hurt. She avoided all thoughts about Buffy and the time she spent in Sunnydale. There were no excuses for dwelling on things that she would never be able to control, her powers were not that great. The time and the routine and the silence left her with the one thing she couldn't avoid, the emptiness that was left behind from that missing piece, and Faith couldn't find a reason to care about filling that space.