RP: Just when this place seemed tolerable... Characters: Faye, open-ish (poking at River) Time/Date: Just after dark, September 14 (Tuesday) Location: Faye's room (306), lobby Warnings/Rating: language/narrative cursing, Faye being moody Summary: Spike is gone... again. Faye isn't sure how to handle this. Status: Open(ish?), ongoing Note: Yes, I know I fail. Really, I do. This is backdated because Faye would have freaked much earlier but I didn't know how to write it out until now. Also, because I have been battling computer issues and feeling bad. Excuses are shiny, right?
Faye must have stared at the Blackberry for at least an hour and a half, considering but never succeeding with the expression of her thoughts. What would she do - yell at the idiots who had ripped her heart out all over again? Plot some sort of half-baked uprising with little care about her own safety? Or would she put on a brave facade over Spike, but point out that Dug had done nothing to deserve the cruel fate everyone assumed - effectively pulling the 'you would kill a puppy' card? What good would come from either option? She'd just end up being 'sent home,' as well.
But maybe she wanted that, in the off-chance that 'returning home' wasn't a synonym for death. Maybe she wanted to just go home and forget it all, forget that she'd been so close to having the man she loved back as if nothing had changed. After all, in the end, it didn't matter whether he was truly sent home, killed, or even tortured then killed. How would that be any different than the fate he would inevitably meet before the point in time she called home?
He was dead. Spike Spiegel was dead, and he had been for a year. She'd already gone through this, had her destructive tantrum, and moved along. She'd already looked into his eyes - haunting and mismatched as they were - and resigned herself to his near-suicide. She knew he was fatalistic, stupid, inconsiderate of the fact that others gave a shit about him, and considered better-off-dead by more people than she cared to count. Been there, realized that, accepted it with much reluctance and anger: Faye knew the whole, sad story, even if it had now been twisted to include mad scientists.
That's all this was, right? It was just a re-run of what had already happened. He'd made a nuisance of himself, shot a stocker... Same difference as making a nuisance of himself and shooting some bastard from a crime syndicate. Or pissing off a former brother-in-arms. Right? So it was the same. Exactly the same.
Or not. She tried to tell herself that it was, but she couldn't forget having him again. Even if he was still his usual, frustrating self... She wouldn't want it any differently. Not really. He was who he was, and that was part of the incomprehensible attraction she held for him.
Why did he find it so easy not to care about his own life, though? Or lives, if she were to believe the talk of having more than one. Not that it mattered, really. That fatalistic lunkhead had told her he was on the last life. There was no option for imagining him back into existence again.
If not for other people knowing him - if not for seeing his name on an actual list of missing people - she might have assumed that he was no more than a ghost, that she truly had imagined him to life. But he wasn't, and that was why it hurt so much. She'd really had him back, only to lose him again. Somehow, this twisted, parallel existence wasn't just some nightmare.
Why couldn't she accept Spike's take on reality and pretend it was all just a dream? Why was reality so concrete to her, even in a place like this?
Faye let out a frustrated sigh and tightened her jaw, only barely managing to convince herself that throwing the phone across the room would not bring him back. (It hadn't worked the last time!) She needed to run away. Desperately. Before she went crazy and started shooting people with imaginary bullets... while crying about how unfair life was and how she wanted to wake up from the nightmare, now.
Such lunacy honestly didn't feel too far from the present; and the scariest part was that Faye acknowledged it.
She didn't like elevators and she didn't like stairs. What she liked was the Redtail and its usefulness as a means of escape. No matter how many times she pressed the button on her bracelet, however, it wouldn't appear. Either the bastards were hiding it just out of the remote's range or it wasn't on the island. Somehow, that wasn't surprising. Not now.
There were other means of escape - or, technically, escapism - to consider, though none quite so useful as disappearing. She could drink herself into pretend happiness, pick a fight with someone, or... Well, the other option was the reason she wandered into the lobby. There was one person she knew who could make her feel the exact opposite of emotional. He could make her forget everything but the here-and-now, help her release the anger and frustration.
Faye's finger hovered over the name in the directory, fingernail barely touching the paper as it trailed from the name to the room number. "Five-thirteen," she murmured aloud. Her finger trailed back to the name just to be certain before falling to the paper resignedly.
Right. She would just walk right up to Jayne's door and... What, exactly? Tell him she was pissed off at the universe and wanted to fuck it all away? Ask him to help her kill a few crazy kidnappers? See if he'd had the ammo returned along with his gun? Kick him for reminding her so much of Spike?
With a frustrated growl, Faye shoved the directory away and slammed her fist onto the surface where the directory rested. There was a second's pause - perhaps even two - then she drew her hand back and shook it out, hoping to dull the pain.
"Shit," she hissed. On the inside, she was seething, overflowing with the anger which desperately needed to find its way out. Yet, she was also hurting - physically and emotionally. Her eyes were glassy, but she refused to cry. Absolutely refused. Now that she was familiar enough with the island to assume that every move inside the hotel was being watched, she wouldn't allow herself to cry. Or, at least, she would try her damndest to avoid that show of weakness.
But... if they were watching, then that meant they might be listening. And if they were listening...
"You're vicious bastards, you know," she declared. Her voice was lower than normal speaking tone yet still full of the raw emotion which spurned the comment.
It was likely obvious that the word 'vicious' held a much darker and more-insulting meaning to Faye than it might to someone else, though that was probably one of the less-noticeable things about the situation. After all, she was standing there with reddened knuckles and glassy eyes, talking rudely to someone who wasn't even physically there. All the while, her mind reeled, dancing between sadness and anger, violence and escape.
She didn't really know what to do, and she certainly didn't notice that someone else was nearby...