RATING UPDATE: I think this is the point where it is safe to say the story turns M rated.
**Trigger Warning: Child Abuse/Sexual Abuse**
Until It Sleeps: Chapter 14
I linger in the doorway
Of alarm clocks screaming
Monsters calling my name
Let me stay
Where the wind will whisper to me
Where the raindrops
As they're falling tell a story
In my field of paper flowers
And candy clouds of lullaby
I lie inside myself for hours
And watch my purple sky fly over me
- Evanesence
She'd spent a fraction too long with Cheerio this afternoon. He'd been happy because she'd managed to steal him a packet of cigarettes - and although they were twice the strength he usually smoked and the taste reminded him of petrol fumes he took them with his giant smile. She had gone for the bright yellow box. To match his Cheerios.
It was a gift from her, his Princess. His Faith.
And he would smoke every damned one if it meant he died of a heart attack in the process.
She had been becoming more bold with her petty thieving, too. Having started with small things like crisps and chocolate bars to have moved on to cigarettes and dirty magazines, she was certainly developing an appetite for the criminal. It made her feel untouchable.
It made her feel like she could do anything.
She heard nothing from the other side of door 425 when she pushed her key into the lock. Now, she didn't need to stand on tip-toes to do it - despite having to still stretch her arm up she could do so without committing herself to the swing of the door.
As she entered she could hear soft, muffled giggles from further inside. Her mom and Doug must be drunk again. Dropping her plastic bag full of books, pencils and homework by the door, she pulled it shut behind her and stepped over the scattered shoes, around the corner into the lounge room.
Her mom lay sprawled on top of Doug on the couch, laughing at nothing, just disintegrating into giggles as soon as there came anything close to silence.
The girl shuffled her feet, and leaned against the wall. Doug glanced up and grinned.
"Hey. Kid." He slurred, a glazed look across his face.
Her eyes traveled from him, to her mom, to the beer bottles on the carpet, to an obscure white powder on the tabletop. There, they held, and she took a step forward, craning her neck to see what it was.
"It's coke, honey." Her mom answered the girl's unspoken question. "Doug got it for me.. fuck it's better than that cheap shit I've been drinking all this time." She shook her head, bracing her hands against Doug's chest and pushing herself upright, but slightly overcorrected and slid back against her armrest. With a considerable amount of coordination and effort Doug also pulled himself into a seated position. Her mom pointed in the vague direction of the half-empty bottle of gin on the carpet beside her foot. "Fuckin' waste, with this stuff around." Gesturing at the table she snickered. "You should try this, honey. 'd take you places you'd only dream of."
The girl glanced at the powder again.
...Out of here? She silently thought.
Doug smiled wider. "Good shit, kid." He grunted.
Then her mom flashed Doug a smile. "Isn't he just the greatest?" Giggling, she dropped her hand onto Doug's groin and kneaded, hard, her giggle giving way to an open laugh as his eyes rolled heavenward and he leaned back into the couch.
The girl made a face and turned away, intending to leave the room, but her mother's voice stopped her.
"Where the fuck d'you think you're goin', huh?" She demanded, redirecting the girl's attention to the couch. She had moved her hand away, folding forward to take in another line, and Doug's erection was pushing up against his tracksuit pants like he'd stuck one of the empty bottles of beer down there. He growled, snatching at her mom's hand, trying to guide it back, but she simply swatted it away, concentrating on slicing the coke like he'd taught her. "Later, baby." She promised huskily.
"Come on baby. you know you want it." He leaned into her, sliding his own greasy hand up between her thighs, fingers teasing. "Some o' this?" He attempted to wiggle his eyebrows, but thanks to the lines he'd already had he could only succeed in controlling his muscles to raise, then lower. Once. "We've never done it high before."
She shrugged him off irritably.
"I'm not done gettin' high, so you'll just have to fuckin' hold on a sec."
"Fuck, Jaz!" He shouted, slamming his back into the couch. "Fucking tease. You can't just leave me like this." As if to emphasise his point he pulled at his waistband and peered down at himself. "They're going blue!" He reached for her for a second time with his free hand, intending to pull her over to him so she could look herself.
But she was having none of `it'. "Fuck off!" She said, shoving Doug away. Unable to respond in nearly enough time he simply toppled over, coming to rest with his head jammed up against the arm of the couch. Jasmine scowled again.. "I said later, alright? Fucking-" Then eyes snapped up to the girl, whose own eyes immediately widened in fear. "Get her to fucking suck you off." She sniggered to herself, catching her own thought before voicing it. "She'll need the practice."
A laugh left Doug's mouth that was half way between a scoff and a snort, and the girl could see spit flying from his lips in all directions. He stared incredulously at her mom's face for a good minute, just laughing, chuckling... pausing.
Then he turned to the girl, and raised an eyebrow.
In her mind, many, many times over in so many years to come the girl would have run. She would have just picked up her stuff and run for it. Out the door. Out a window. She wouldn't have cared. But here, in this reality, where it happened, with even a real name to hold her tight to the world, the little girl froze.
"How's about it, kid?" He leered at her, already rising from the couch, the beer bottle sticking straight out. "Whaddya say?"
She shook her head.
"Oh go on you wuss!" Her mom slurred, giggling. "I do it all the time. Consider it.. my birthday gift to you. My boyfriend's dick. Yours to be fucked."
The girl blinked, suddenly completely distracted, and peered around Doug's approaching form, at her mother's face.
"What? Yah you heard me. Eight years ago today I squeezed you out of my fuckhole and hoped to all fuck you weren't breathing. And look at that- you were." When that answer didn't seem to compute with the girl, she laughed, then added "What?" with a punctuated shrug. "Want a fucking medal or somethin' for living this long?"
The girl's eyes darted up to the calendar that hung on the wall. A naked woman with enormous breasts and no panties stared back at her as she straddled the engine of a car, black oil dripping from her body.
Today was December 14th.
She stared at it until Doug's shadow distorted her line of sight and his hands reached for her shoulders, turning her sharply towards him.
"Come on, kid. Let me make a woman outta you." He growled.
She squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head furiously, trying to pull away. She could feel the fabric of his tracksuit pants fall to his ankles, bunching up against her own shins. She could feel the heat of him close to her right ear, and once again she tried to duck, escape. He simply jerked her forward again. The end of his dick slid past her cheek. She could feel it - hot, wet. Sticky. It left a mark on her skin.
She gasped, terror ripping through her, unable to see, unable to move, unable to scream.
"Your mouth, you idiot. It goes in your mouth. Just like sucking a lolly pop."
`No' she mouthed, shaking her head, then pressing her lips together as hard as they would possibly go.
"What's that?" He hissed. She didn't answer. She didn't open her eyes. Tears slid unbidden out from under her eyelids. "I didn't fucking hear you. What did you say?" When she didn't answer for the second time, he buried a hand in her hair and yanked it back so she would look up at him.
Her knees buckled. She fell forward against him, feeling the hair on his legs tickling her face. Completely limp. If she was completely limp he wouldn't be able to move her, to control make her stand where she didn't want to be.
"Don't make me hurt you you little fucking bitch."
His other hand dug into her left arm, gripping tightly, fingers boring into her skin, pressing into ligaments and tendons and muscles so hard it made her cry out. He lifted her up to him, back to the height he wanted, pressing her mouth against the tip of his erection so that she could taste it. but she was sobbing now, her little body shaking with fear, her legs utterly useless.
"STAND UP!" He bellowed, slicing his hand across her cheek. She fell to the floor instantly, rolling onto her side, bunching herself up, shielding herself from him.
And as he reached down, as he pulled her upright for the third time and pressed her body against him, proving she couldn't get away, proving she was small, insignificant, that he was in shut off her mind, and remembered the woman.
December 14th
December 14th
Today is my 8th Birthday.
Faith jerked awake, instinctively rolling away from her position, pulling herself semi-upright and vomiting yet again, expelling the dream from her body. The taste of him from her mouth. Her hands, fingers pressed into the grass leaving dark prints in the dew. Her breaths came in short gasps - her entire body shook with the cold that had settled over Sunnydale, bringing with it the first real signs of winter. Her mind reeled, her body following closely behind as she pushed herself weakly to her feet and stumbled a few steps backward, only falling to her knees again, silent tears streaming down her face, arms wrapped around her body, shivering.
What was the date.
What the fuck was the date.
"Faith?"
"Buffy?"
Buffy's eyes flew open, and she sat up immediately, without even registering who it was, breathing heavily, legs scrambling to remove the bedspread from her sweating and overheated body. In a flurry of feet, sheets and encased goose down she scrambled off the bed, lurched across the room and bent over her knees, bracing a hand against the wall.
"Buffy. Buffy it-it's me." A hand touched her shoulder and she flinched instantly, spinning around, sidestepping the contact with a semi-feral hiss.
"Don't touch me."
"Faith it's okay.. it's just me."
Angel reached for her again, this time trying to move around so she could see him. Without needing to focus on her face she simply fell away from his shadow.
"I said don't touch me!" She snarled. "Get the fuck away from me."
"It's just me. you know." The voice remained soft, but had now taken on an edge of hesitance. "Your ol' pal Wills?"
But Buffy ignored her, turning back to the wall, arm reaching once again for the support of something inanimate... something stable.
"What's the date?" She demanded.
Angel frowned. "It's not important right-"
"Tell me the fucking date!" Faith shouted, her voice fading into a hoarse cry at the end, her breath puffing out in thick clouds of steam. Her lips were beginning to turn a shade of blue, matching the beds of her nails.
Angel glanced away.
"It's the 14th, Buffy... It's...a week to the solstice."