My Aching Veins
Disc: Nufffffing.
Chapter Three, an' all.
-
-
-
We're both going through adaptation. We're both floating through time, flailing wildly, trying to find something to grasp and hold onto. Luckily, we found each other.
I showed her around yesterday. If around were truly more than a crowded blacktop of women, a sweaty smelling cafeteria, and a library with mouldy books, glued together by the resin among their pages, I'd show it to her. We clambered through hallways, ran amongst others, and ended up outside, sitting on top of our own bench and staying completely aware of our surroundings.
She, more than I, had fallen beneath the 'new place, new smell, must explore' part of the Slayer within. We took, like animals, to examining each motion, movement, and scent of everything we could get our paws on. There was nothing dangerous, only curious.
I think she had been wishing for the stereotypical version of my home, black and white stripes, ball and chain, hammers to rocks. I could only hope.
We ended the day, a prisoner's day, outside still, sitting quietly amongst each other and exploring how many times we could look at each other and look away without speaking.
"I killed someone." This is the most productive she's been today, and possibly the most words she strung together since the previous night. I nod.
"Yeah?" She should talk about it, I guess. And who better to understand than I? Plus, I'm way into knowing. She shouldn't be here in the first place and whatever fucked up reason she has come up with I bet I can talk her out of.
"Yeah…." I kept my eyes on a swift lockdown, never releasing them from their gauge on Buffy, fading my vision in and out, in and out. "Accident?"
"No." Of course it wasn't. There isn't one reason in the world that Buffy Anne Summers should have to hurt another human being with purpose. I know her better than she knows herself and it was an accident.
"Then what?"
She found something else of interest on the ground, ignoring me. And that was where our conversation would end. Someday, later I knew, it would continue right where we left off, and the secret insides of Buffy Summer's mind would be revealed. Someday.
-
-
-
I was sick tonight.
There was bile and the night's dinner rising up in my throat between gasps. I couldn't breathe. I was suffocating, and I couldn't stop vomiting. I don't know what was wrong with me, but I had woken up in the night and it felt like hands were gripping my neck. I was trapped in a corner of a room and my body was rejecting it. This feeling was new and I didn't know what exactly it was or why it was happening to me. Buffy had an idea.
She awoke after my third retching and came to sit beside me near the volatile toilet. Her hands rubbed finger sized circles across my back and she stood over me like she cared. My heart exploded towards my throat again. She smiled and the world came into focus again. When I was finished, I looked to her and she guided me back to my bed. She sacrificed her warmth for me, tossing her own thin blanket to me before sliding into my bed beside me. She was skinny, we were lucky.
"What was that about?" She spoke of it like an awkward neighbour, an unexpected mood swing, instead of the expelling of my internal organs.
"Dunno'." I rasped, facing the wall, away from her eyes, away from her conversation. Why was she doing this? She doesn't care about me, I know. She cares about leaving, getting back home to her nice, warm bed and waking up to homemade smells.
"Are you sick or something?"
"No." I just finished barfing up my lungs. I want to sleep. No talking, just quiet. Please, Buffy, please.
"Okay." Her body tensed against mine and I felt heat radiating close to my neck as her hands moved to sleeping position. What was this? I closed me eyes. And hopefully she did too.
If she was awake the rest of the night, as I was, I didn't know. We didn't speak after that. Both of our conversations on hold for now, there wasn't much for us to talk about. She was entering a new world unguarded, I was pivoting myself, body included, against changing every part of me that existed before a year ago. We were together in growing past what the world didn't like of us, and it was easier with a warm body beside me. Much easier.
The next morning follows routine too delicately. I had memorized the schedule, but Buffy was still hesitant in her doings. We were separated for the morning, seeing each other during yard time and thereafter. We're seated outside, in our now "usual" spot, albeit a little closer to each other than before. The setting is the same with deflated basketball games, cautiously used training equipment, and gangs.
There's a group that runs itself here, headed by the stereotypical "man of a woman" with a seven haired moustache and a heavy mixture between fat and muscle. The rest are in the "lackeys", giving messages, threatening for money, and recruiting those who aren't revolted by the smell. They're called the "Unmentionables" and they're the widest known I can think of here in Stockton.
I've never chosen to mess with them. I've been without reason, and without longing for Solitary Confinement. I've kept my head low in this place, knowing if I didn't start a fight my name wouldn't be Faith LeHane. It's a nasty habit that I'm proud of, though one I won't show except on too special of cases.
Right now, the Unmentionables are roaming. The closest one to us is a short, stocky looking woman. Debbie, I think her name is. She's real made out for this kind of stuff. Her face is squished together to show only two small slits in her face for eyes. I don't know what happened to her cheek bones, but I hear they're their somewhere. Buffy questions her. "Who's that?"
"Debbie. Personal assistant to the macho, some people you don't wanna' mess with, unless you're like us." Buffy bounced a strange, questionable look towards me. "Look, B, we may be Slayers and a little higher on the food chain than everyone else, but stay away from them. There's punishment for even bein' involved with those sort of fights. Jus' stay out of it." She smiled and nodded, in what I hopefully thought was royal agreement.
Both sets of our eyes followed Debbie as she rocked back and forth on her heels, waiting patiently for someone, something. Her stringy blonde hair that fell at each side of her face shined brightly with grease and other substances. I could almost feel Buffy shuddering beside me. Personal and hygiene were her favourite two words put together. Debbie's business soon arrived in the form of another lanky member of Unmentionables. They stood too close to each other, whispering and discussing things with cautious glances every few directions.
Debbie's eyes crossed briefly towards us I noticed, and lingered for the longest moment time could muster then. I stared back with resonating pressure for her to glance back again. Unfortunately to my ego and Slayer side, she looked once more during the conversation and pointed the slightest of fingers towards us. I grabbed Buffy's hand and moved us to another position. Luckily, she followed without question.
The next time we came face to face, if you could call our last encounter a face to face, it was in the most public place of Stockton and transformed into the biggest mistake of my career here.
We seated ourselves in the dining hall in a far back corner where the whole congregation could be viewed by us. Buffy sat exploring the contents of tonight's lump of nutrition and swore it growled at her. I wouldn't be one bit surprised if it did. Unmentionables were scattered here and there, stealing food because their bodies were more important than ours, threatening, and making deals. It was inevitable that we would be visited, after the staring game that had happened earlier.
When Debbie and yet another lackey, one I hadn't ever seen before, made their presences to us, I shushed Buffy with a quiet glance and slowly stood.
"Slayer," Debbie snarled, grinning and showing two rows of yellow, crooked teeth. Buffy shot me a look with incredibly wide eyes and slightly parted lips. I smiled in return. Slayer had ironically grown as a name for myself when a few unwelcome "visitors" with pointy teeth made their appearances in Stockton.
"Got nothin' for you here, Deb."
"Who's that?" She nodded towards Buffy, like a piece of meat, rather than a walking, talking machine.
"No one you know." My fits were clenching, turning white, burning against my palms. Nobody was screwing with B, here. Debbie's eyes averted from me to Buffy as she spoke, the lopsided grin never disappearing. Buffy cringed in displeasure and made a move to stand beside me. I stopped her.
"Not going to introduce me to your new friend, Slayer?"
"Wasn't plannin' on it." I felt my muscles tightening up, throwing each other at my insides, begging for release. If I let go, if I lost my control, there would be no stopping me. I wouldn't relax until faces melted beneath my fingers and heads went rolling. I was a machine when threatened.
"So what, I can't talk to her?" Debbie finally tore her eyes away from Buffy and made to stand in front of me, her stubby fingers rising, as if ready to strike between my eyes. I was maybe an inch taller than her, but her body mass easily overtook mine. She raised a fist, ready to wallop, and the whole room went into madness. It was like each and every prisoner had built in radar for when the slightest bits of tension and airiness for a fight was shown.
My fists slammed into her face before she could gather enough energy for a single sock. And there, I unleashed. A veil was taken off my head, chains were released, and I was the Slayer again. I was the Slayer, beating out my stress against ruthless numbers of vampires, demons, and the evil I was born for. My legs were swinging, making circles in the sky, and the whole of the room formed an unbreakable circle throughout the area. A few other Unmentionables joined and I was jostled in a cloud of prisoners. I was stuck in an infinite loop, hitting, tearing, and kicking with every ounce of strength that was still alive within me. If anyone could stop me, I'd dare them. There was truly only one person in the room who had the power to, but I'd lost her along the way and hoped she was beside me, alive in the Slayer as well.
I had broken sometime in the last two minutes. My insides, everything I'd been working towards in this place, the reasons I was here, it all disappeared and washed away within me. I didn't know if I'd see it again, but now, all I cared about was seeing Debbie's face in the cracks of the floor.
-
-
-