Who: Faith and her fourth ghost What: Badness When: December 20th, nighttime Where: Her bedroom. Rating: R. This one gets disturbing, mentions of past child abuse. Status: Complete as a narrative, open if someone might be able to get in her room.
Even Slayers couldn't go too long without sleep. After days forcing herself to keep going, Faith's body just ached and her mind was exhausted. Still bruised from her fall the night before, she finally gave in to the need, crawling into her bed, just for a little while. Things were getting more intense and with appearance of Twilight to Buffy, she suspected things were due to get even worse. But as much as the tension was getting to her, some sleep was vitally needed, if only an hour or two. The lights were off and she wasn't entirely sure where Sam was when she felt herself finally start to doze off.
It was the feelings of fingers brushing through her hair that woke her up again, blinking and disorientated. "Sam?"
A low chuckle filled the room, one she hadn't heard in a long, long time. "Guess again, baby girl."
Four words. Just four. Two of them a not particularly imaginative nickname. But that was all it took, to make her feel 12 years old again and back, with him. The fingers in her hair became rough, twisting sharply and causing her to cry out with pain. "Now, have you been having other men in here? Didn't we talk about that already, you little slut. That is not how this is supposed to work. This," his other hand slid over the bedcovers, down her body. "This is just for me. Now, what do you say?"
She wanted to resist. She wanted to scream that she wasn't the girl he'd once known, the child he'd once controlled and hurt so many times, in so many ways. She was supposed to be stronger now, a Slayer. But she just found herself whimpering slightly, just as she had back then. "Sorry. I'm sorry, Gable."
She almost wanted her Mom back. But her Mom had never saved her from him before. Usually passed out somewhere, high or drunk or both. Never saving her daughter from her stepfather. But then Sin Lehane had never cared what Gable did as long as he never left her and kept supplying her with cheap heroin. It never mattered to her how many extra bruises her only child started wearing, or how she became even more withdrawn and dropped out of high school altogether.
So it was stupid to think that maybe a ghost version of her mother would ever save her from the ghost of her stepfather.
The man smiled, showing teeth that were in serious need of a good dentist. Cracked from too many punches to the face. He was just as large as Faith remembered, towering a few inches over six feet tall, with large hands that were usually stained with someone's blood. A thug for one of the deadliest groups in the world, the Winter Hill mob of Boston. Whatever he wanted, he just took, even his step-daughter.
"You're supposed to be dead," Faith managed to spit out, though the touch had felt all too real. No icy crackles of static, nothing that a ghost was supposed to feel, but the heavy handed touch she had once known too well.
Gable smirked, looking just far too amused with the whole situation. "That's a matter of opinion, baby girl."
"Shut up," there was something in the way he said that that snapped her out of her frozen state, and she scrambled from the bed to back up against the window. "Don't call me that, just shut up."
"Or you'll what?" The thug sneered, standing up as well to come around, backing her up against the edge of the wall before he slapped her across the cheek with the back of his hand, sending her sprawling to the ground. "Face it, Faithy. You're never going to be strong enough to do anything other than what I tell you. I put up with you, you ungrateful whore. I kept a roof over your head, so your duty is to repay me however I see fit. And your debt isn't over yet."
He reached down, easily wrapping one of his hands around her neck as he lifted her back up again and pressed a kiss against her mouth. As much as Faith pressed her lips together, the taste of stale beer and cigarettes still made her nearly gag. It was just like before, feeling powerless to stop him taking whatever he wanted. His hand squeezed slightly at her throat as he caressed his thumb up and down the skin of her neck.
There was something about that gesture that made something inside her snap and she wrenched her head back, hard enough to slam into the wall behind her. The shock of pain was exactly what she needed to remind herself of who she was, of what she was, and she slammed her knee up as hard as she could into his balls, making the bastard fall back with a groan.
Faith watched him curl up with a rather unmanly whimper with a grim satisfaction. Her head hurt like a bitch and she was still shaking, but she didn't tear her gaze away from him. "I should have done that years ago, you son of a bitch." It hurt her throat to talk and there was still the issue of him being between her and the door. How long this bravado of hers would last, she had no idea. "And besides, I think I'm a little old for you these days."
He looked up at her with a glare, one that made her instinctively flinch. "You think you're so clever, you little bitch? You're not free of me yet you know."
"Maybe not," Faith managed to keep her voice relatively steady as she forced herself to keep looking at him. "But you can't control me, not any more."