Title: The Rules of the Game (2/?)
Author: X_tremeroswellian
Email: X_tremeroswellian@yahoo.com
Disclaimer: Only in my dreams do I actually own anything. All are property of Edward Allen Bernero and John Wells.
Rating: R for language, violence and sexual content
Spoilers: Up through and including "233 Days."
Summary: Bosco and Faith find themselves in a predicament in which they can use only their instincts to survive.
Distribution: My site Only Time, 55-HQ, and fanfiction.net. Others, just ask and I'll probably say yes.
Category: Story
Subcategories: Action/adventure/thriller/suspense/romance/friendship/drama/angst...does that narrow it down too much? *wink wink*
Feedback: Makes me write faster.
Author's Note: I sort of got this idea from a third season episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. But just for the very general plot idea. The rest came out of my own messed up mind. :)
Dedication: For Dem and Bree
The Rules of the Game (Part Two)
"Bosco. Bosco, can you hear me? Wake up!"
He groaned, his head pounding as though he'd had a few too many drinks the night before. And he was shaking. Either New York City was in the midst of an earthquake or he was having some kind of seizure.
No, he realized.
Someone was shaking him.
"Bosco, please wake up!"
A familiar voice was calling to him, an urgency to the person's tone.
He somehow managed to open his eyes, and he squinted. He found himself staring up into a pair of beautiful, worried brown eyes.
"Thank God. I've been trying to wake you up for like twenty minutes. I thought you might be in a coma."
Bosco blinked a couple times, feeling confused. "Faith?" he asked groggily, trying to figure out why she was at his apartment waking him up.
"Yeah, it's me," she answered, her strawberry blond hair hanging down in her face as she remained leaning over him.
"What are you doing here?"
"I think the question to ask is where is 'here?'" she replied, glancing around nervously.
He frowned. "Huh?"
Her gaze returned to his face. "Do you remember anything?"
"Not so much," he admitted.
"Yeah, well, there's something you should--"
Bosco moved his right hand up to touch the side of his head, but instead found Faith lying on top of him. "What the--"
"That's what I was trying to tell you." She winced as she moved off him. She held up her left hand and his right hand raised up along with it.
Bosco stared at the handcuffs in disbelief. "What the fuck?" He struggled to sit up, and managed to do so with some effort. He looked around, stunned to see nothing but trees and bushes surrounding them. "What the hell is going on?"
"I don't know. What's the last thing you remember?"
He closed his eyes, trying to recall what had happened. "Going into some abandoned factory...Chevchinko was there. Shit. One of his goons hit me with something." He rubbed the back of his head gingerly with his left hand. Then he opened his eyes and looked at her in concern. "Are you hurt?"
"I'm a little nauseus from the chloroform," she admitted, her face a bit paler than usual.
"Those fuckers," he cursed. He looked around again. "This is how they decided to get rid of us? By dropping us off in the middle of a damned forest?"
"At least we're still alive," she pointed out.
"Just wait until I get my hands on that stupid S.O.B. I'll wring his scrawny neck," Bosco muttered.
"Yeah, well, you'll have to find him first."
He heard the slight tremor in her voice and he quickly focused his gaze on her face. "What's wrong?"
"You mean besides the fact that we don't know where we are, how we got here, or how to get back? That's not enough?"
He started to reply when he realized that she was no longer wearing her uniform. She had on a white tank top, a pair of jeans and tennis shoes. He looked down and saw that he was no longer wearing his uniform, either. Instead, he had on a pair of jeans, tennis shoes, and a green t-shirt with a long-sleeved button down denim shirt over it. "They changed our clothes?" he said in disbelief.
Faith didn't respond. She was staring down at the ground.
A sick feeling settled in the pit of his stomach. He didn't want to ask, afraid of what she might say. But he had to ask anyway. "Faith?"
"Yeah?"
"Did they--do something to you?" Bosco asked uneasily.
She looked at him. "What do you--" she started to ask. Then her eyes widened. "No. No, I don't think so," she answered, shaking her head.
He released the breath he'd been holding. "Thank God."
They were both silent for a moment.
"So what do we do?" Faith asked finally, looking at him.
Bosco scratched his head. "I don't know. Maybe we can--" He started to stand up.
"Hey!"
He looked over at her as she rubbed her left wrist, frowning. "Shit. I'm sorry. You okay?"
"Yeah, just give me a little warning before you decide to stand up next time, all right?"
"I forgot. Sorry," he said again.
"It's okay." They both rose to their feet at the same time.
"Maybe we're not too far from a road or a house or something," he said.
"I don't think they'd let us off somewhere and make it that easy for us to get back," she said, shaking her head.
He sighed deeply, knowing she was right. "What I don't get is why they didn't just kill us."
Faith frowned. "It doesn't really make any sense."
"No, it doesn't." He paused, pushing aside the thought for the time being. They were alive and that was all that mattered. "I guess the only thing we can do is start walking, right? I mean, eventually there has to be an end to the woods."
"Yeah, eventually. The question is, what direction do we go?"
Bosco looked up. The treetops were blocking his view of the sky. "If I could see the sun, I'd be able to tell what time it was and what direction we were headed in."
"Guess that option's out," Faith remarked with a sigh.
"Guess so." He looked around. "That way," he said, nodding to their left.
"You sure?"
"Got a better idea?" he snapped.
Faith stared at him for a moment, a look of hurt crossing her face before she looked away. "No."
He sighed and closed his eyes. "I'm sorry, all right? I didn't mean to bite your head off."
"Fine."
"You ready?" he asked, glancing down at their bound hands.
"Yeah."
Without another word, they headed to the left, deeper into the woods.
"Let's take a break," Bosco suggested.
Faith nodded her agreement. "Sounds good to me."
They'd been walking for what felt like hours, but it was hard to tell since they had no idea what time it was. They sat down together, both leaning against the trunk of a tree.
She took a long, deep breath and exhaled slowly, trying to ease some of the tension from her body. She had a dull headache and her stomach ached terribly. She found herself wishing she'd listened to Bosco when he'd told her to eat more pizza. She grimaced as she pulled her knees up, then reached down to rub her sore feet, which were killing her thanks to the one-size-too-small tennis shoes that Chevchinko and his men had put on her.
"This sucks," Bosco announced, picking up a twig and hurling it at a tree a few feet away.
"No kidding," she muttered. Her stomach growled.
He glanced at her. "Told you ya should've eaten more pizza."
"Shut up, Boz."
There was a moment of silence.
"I have to pee."
Faith groaned and buried her face in her free hand.
"Hey, I'm not real happy about this, either, all right?" he said defensively.
"What are you complaining about? All you have to do is whip it out. What am I supposed to do when I have to go?" she demanded.
Bosco sighed and rubbed his head. That was a good question. "I don't know, but I really have to go." He looked at her, waited until she was ready to stand up, then rose to his feet. They walked a little way, then stopped.
"Turn around," he said, feeling uncomfortable.
Faith rolled her eyes. "Oh, yeah. Like I wanted to watch." She turned around so their backs were to each other.
A moment later, "Well, at least I'm still wearing my own boxers," Bosco commented. She could hear the grin in his voice and she shook her head. After another moment, he turned to face her. "Done."
"Good for you."
"You need to go?"
"Not that badly," she muttered, embarrassed.
He shrugged. "Suit yourself." Bosco looked around. "Should we walk some more?"
"Yeah," Faith answered tiredly. "We'll have to stop when it gets dark and who knows how long that'll be from now?"
He nodded. "Maybe we'll be out of here by dark."
Somehow she seriously doubted that. And from the look on Bosco's face, she knew he did, too.
"I think we're going in circles."
Bosco looked at her. "We're not."
"Yeah?" She nodded toward the ground that lay in front of them. "Then how do you explain the shoe prints?"
He stared at them, then turned and looked behind them. "Son of a bitch! I can't believe this," he said angrily.
Faith sighed and leaned heavily against a tree.
He studied her, concerned by how pale she was. "Maybe we should stop for the night, try to get some sleep."
"It is getting dark," she commented. "Might not be a bad idea."
"Good. I'm exhausted. I feel like I could sleep for a week," he complained.
"You and me both."
They found a large pile of dead leaves a few yards away and decided that that was the closest thing they were going to find for pillows. They both laid down on the ground on their backs.
"Night, Bosco."
He glanced over her. "Night, Faith." Bosco stared up at the trees, wondering why everything was so quiet. Other than a few crickets chirping occasionally, and the wind blowing through the leaves, all was still. He frowned, then swallowed. His throat was dry and he was hungry.
"We'll have to do something about food and water tomorrow," she said, her voice breaking through the quietness as though she was reading his mind.
"Yeah, I think that has to be our first goal," he agreed. He glanced over at her. "You ever been camping?"
"Sort of. When I was a kid, Stanley and I had this tent we'd pitch in the backyard once in awhile when our dad would get drunk. I mean, most of the time we'd just hide in our rooms until he sobered up, but every once in while we just couldn't stand being in the same house with him." Her voice was quiet, distant.
Bosco gazed at her in the darkness. "Did he ever...uh...did he ever hurt you?" he asked, swallowing hard.
There was a moment of silence.
"No. He never laid a hand on either of us. Or Mom," she said finally.
"Physical abuse isn't the only way to hurt someone," he said, his voice quiet. He leaned up on one elbow, faced toward her. "Was he mean to you?"
Faith sighed and raised herself up to peer at him. "Bosco, why do you want to know all these things?"
"Because you never talk about your life, what things were like for you when you were growing up, and... I just... I wanna know, Faith."
She reached up with her free hand and plucked a leaf out of her hair. "Was he mean to me? Yeah. Yeah, he was. Nothing I ever did was good enough. It didn't matter what it was: school, work, fixing dinner." She shook her head. "I never brought friends to the house because I was afraid of what he'd say to them. Or what he'd say to me in front of them."
Bosco waited for her to continue, but when she didn't, he let out the breath he'd been holding. "I'm sorry, Faith."
She shrugged, her gaze on the ground between them. "Don't be."
He nodded, looked at the ground. "Guess neither of our dads could have competed for the Father of the Century Award, huh?"
"Probably not, no," Faith agreed. She laid back down on her back.
"You ever miss your brother?" he wondered aloud.
"Yeah, sometimes," she admitted.
"You guys close growing up?"
"I guess so. I mean, we kinda had to be."
"Yeah." Bosco laid back down and stared up the treetops.
"You miss Mikey?" she asked softly.
"I miss the way he used to be. The way he was before dad screwed him up," he replied.
"What was he like?"
Bosco took a deep breath. "He was a good kid. Did really well in school. He was smart, really smart. He could've gone onto college and been like a doctor something. But Mikey, he was... he was sensitive. Believed all of Daddy Dearest's B.S. about how stupid and worthless he was. He dropped out of school and started taking drugs. He threw his life away because of that asshole." He shook his head angrily.
He heard the rustle of leaves and looked up to see her gazing down at him. She reached out and squeezed his arm gently, remaining silent.
Bosco let out a breath and managed to smile at her. She smiled back faintly and laid back down. They were both silent for a long time. "Hey, Faith."
"Yeah?"
He hesitated, hoping what he wanted to say didn't come out wrong. "I'm glad you're here."
"What?" He could hear the confusion in her voice.
"With me... I mean, instead of someone else," Bosco said, stumbling over his words.
"Yeah, well, you're stuck with me, so that's good," she joked.
He smiled faintly. "I mean it, Faith."
There was another moment of silence. "I'd rather be stuck with you than anyone else, too, Boz." She paused. "Except maybe George Clooney."
He chuckled. "Good to know I rate right up there with Clooney." He glanced over her. "You'd rather be handcuffed to me than Fred?"
She didn't answer him.
Bosco frowned. "Faith?"
She exhaled slowly. "Yeah. Because he'd be on my case the entire time about how this whole thing is my fault."
"It's not your fault," he said instantly.
"He's divorcing me."
His mouth dropped open. "What?"
There was a long pause. "He said the only good things that ever came out of us being together are Em and Charlie. That I never made him happy."
Bosco was furious. "That asshole!"
"He was just being honest," she said quietly.
"No, Faith. He was being mean," he replied angrily.
"We've never been happy together, Boz. The only reason we got married in the first place was because I got pregnant with Emily. I haven't been in love with Fred for a long time."
He studied her in the dark. "Damn, Faith. I'm sorry." He shook his head. "What are you gonna do?"
She sighed deeply. "We'll have joint custody of the kids. I'll be looking for a smaller apartment."
"Fred's gonna keep you guys' place?"
"No. He's moving, too."
"Then why can't you stay?"
"I can't afford that apartment, Bosco. Not without the money Fred's bringing in with his delivery job."
"If you need a place to stay until you find another apartment, you're welcome to stay with me," Bosco offered.
She glanced over at him. "Thanks, but I'd probably drive you nuts in two days."
"What? No, you wouldn't. Did he tell you that, too?" he asked, feeling angry again.
Faith didn't answer.
"Whatever he said to you, Faith, he was wrong. He's a jerk and he's a moron. Don't believe him."
"Thanks, Boz," she said, her voice soft.
He nodded, wishing her husband was there so he could punch him in the face.
They both quieted down, lost in their own thoughts. Bosco was beginning to think she'd managed to fall asleep, when she spoke again.
"Bosco?"
"Yeah?"
"I have to go to the bathroom."
-- End Part Two --
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