Note: Short chapters, short chapters…
Disclaimer: I wish I owned BtVS… but alas…
Dedicated To…
All those wonderful people out there (online and otherwise) who kept me company during these increasingly quiet winter nights. ;) Hey, you know who you are. Thanks. (And my lovely girlfriend, Karen! *blows kiss*)
Mandie - *pout* Well I'm spoiled. So it's okay for me to be evil. You let me get away with everything anyhow. Mwuahaha… no, not really.
Jess - *mock gasp* What's wrong with jello? I happen to like jello! But I wouldn't mind a Faith graphic… *flutters lashes* I might forget how positively ancient you are.
VixenRaign - *laughs* Well… you'll see.
GrimSage - Thanks. It took me forever to kick this sequel off. Writer's block. What do you do when you can't write? I tried everything… even washing my hands for an extended period of time. Repeatedly. My only result was dry hands. Where's my lotion…?
Norwalker - Sorry about the long wait, I went snowboarding in Vermont. *grins* Next piece.
rain - I wouldn't say that Red's the one who hurts Faith, exactly…
lil badass - You need to get yourself some sleep, girl. Really. *laughs* And. Doesn't Willow know where Faith lives? I didn't study Season 3 too closely. But let's just say, for clarity's sake, she could've always asked someone… but that's Willow's story. And Willow's story is a completely different story. *sticks out tongue* Live with it.
Note: Constructive criticism always welcome… as well as senseless praise. Hey, a writer does have some needs…
Part II – "Red"
Laughter from the television melts into the nothing.
I stare at the ceiling, trying to focus, counting the cracks, but I find myself counting the days instead. Days since I've seen your face, or heard your voice... since everything started to spin and blur. All too many to count, too faded to recall.
The room is littered with used cigarettes and ash. Remnants of a hopeless effort to keep the numbers right.
That's how it started. A stick for each day gone by without you... then it became two. One to tally the days, another to remember you.
To remember how it felt to hold fire in my hands.
And then one wasn't enough to remember you anymore, I needed more. Always more. I can't remember which one is for the days... it's so many, too many. I'm so confused.
Red. Your little pure, loyal, clueless, redhead groupie. Not so pure, loyal, or clueless anymore.
I stained her, B.
I stained her... and I can barely remember it.
How did everything get so ugly?
Everything's so out of control. Everything passing like a nightmare-ish movie on fast-forward. Trying to grasp at moments passed uselessly, I hardly knew what happened.
It's all thrown and lost into smoky hazes, flashes of red hair, and heated freckled skin. To have the rush of being the one in control - the one winning.
To be like you.
To be, if not with you, like you. To be just a little closer. To soothe the ache just a little more. To know that I know you better than anyone, if I can't have anything else - If you won't let me have anything else.
Red came into my room the day after us, if there was ever an us, and I was still buck-naked. She confessed later, murmuring into my neck, that she had meant to ask me if I knew what had been bothering you. I think maybe nothing would've happened, if she had just walked out. But she didn't.
As she stood there, entranced, the something in me from the past kicked in... and everything from then on is too distorted to remember.
Maybe I don't want to remember.
The secret, if that was what it was, didn't last long. A few days later (three? was it only three?) you found out that I was fucking your best friend... and the day you confronted me was the last day I saw you. The expression on your face... I smirked in triumph and my words were cold, but secretly, I crumbled.
We talked, with Red standing in the middle, the self-appointed referee, and I watched as you became increasingly agitated. Admit it, B, you were just jealous.
I'm winning now.