fic: Relativity
May. 11th, 2004 07:49 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seldearTITLE: Relativity
SUMMARY: Her family ties have always been fragile.
CATEGORY: Thoughts, Vignette
SPOILERS: up to Angel S4 'Orpheus'
RATING: PG-13 for occasional language
DISCLAIMER:
(To the opening bars of 'Walk Through The Fire'):
I write this story, and I don't make cash,
From in my head these stories always burst.
They're characters so fine, it's sad that they're not mine!
Please ask to archive first!
AUTHOR'S NOTES: The only character in the Buffy/Angelverses who really moves me to writing and she's never been anything more than a guest character on the show! Dammit! This is primarily for Ang, who doesn't read fanfic, let alone Angel fanfic but who conceptualised the difference between relatives and family for me months before this was even conceived.
Relativity
She remembers his tenderness, the brush of his lips past her little-girl cheek, a benediction on 'his Faith.' She remembers the scent of him, the rush of musk and sweat and dirt and Daddy as he swung her up into his arms while she squealed.
Her life wasn't always squalor.
Then he vanished one day, betraying her to the bitter arms of her mother, who resented this daughter she'd been saddled with and made it clear Faith wasn't wanted. Faith grew up, worn thin with an acrimony that burrowed deep and left her riddled with insecurities.
Her family ties have always been fragile.
*
Sandra was her first Watcher. "I'm Sandra Dee," she told Faith that first day.
"Seriously?" Faith snorted.
"Seriously."
As it turned out, San's surname was De Niro, like the actor.
As Watchers seemed to go, she wasn't all that bad. A little stiff sometimes, a little critical of Faith's moves, but encouraging where she thought Faith had done a good job. On the whole, San had more going for her in the plus column than the minus.
They were never close, though. Never got that connection thing happening. For a while there, the lonely girl thought that San was a bit like a much-older sister. Not quite knowing how to treat Faith, but determined to give it her best shot.
They'd almost become friends.
Then Kakistos got to San, Faith got to Kakistos, and Faith went on the run.
*
Gwendolyn Post was her second Watcher. Technically. Enough said about that bitch. Faith gets itchy fists just thinking about Prim Miz Post. She wants to hit something every time she remembers that clear, confident voice telling her, "Faith, you're an idiot!" Way to make a girl feel good about herself.
If anything Gwen would be the bitchy aunt, the one whose comments are never forgotten, even years later. They scab over, but they fester, and it doesn't take a lot to bring out the old pain. Any mistake Faith makes, and the ghost of the old Watcher is there to mock it, dissect it, taunt it.
More than her mother's voice, Faith remembers Gwen as the voice in her head telling her just how much white trash she is, and how cheap she is counted by the white middle-class of Miz Post's kind.
But there's one thing Faith always chooses to remember about Gwendolyn Post.
Gwen is dead. Faith is still alive.
And she's still kicking, fighting, and slaying.
*
Then came Giles. Well, Faith met Giles before she met Miz Post, but Giles was Buffy's Watcher.
And that was half the problem.
As a Watcher, generally, Giles was great. A little bit cautious, but Faith figured all the Watchers had this built-in switch that got flipped the instant they had to mind a Slayer and advised caution, insisted on research, and tended towards long, boring lectures.
As Faith's Watcher... Well, that didn't work out. Ultimately, Buffy would always come first for Giles. After all, Buffy was the Primary Slayer - first called, best-liked...or something.
Avuncular affection did nothing for Faith - not when Buffy was getting the full paternal deal.
And, as said, that was only half the problem.
The other half was that Giles was cool, but he didn't have a clue what to do with a less-than-perfect Slayer. With Giles came all the expectations he'd had of Buffy, and none of the affection that Faith envied.
Oh, Giles was friendly, and he tried. She gave him marks for that. But in the end, it wouldn't make much difference. He was Buffy's Watcher. Faith got the leftover crumbs.
Faith didn't like having other people's leftovers. Especially not Buffy with her perfect school and her perfect friends and her perfect Mom and her perfect Watcher and her perfect life.
Screw that.
*
Then there was Wesley.
Good old Wesley.
Good young Wesley, sent into the field with no prior experience in dealing with the bogeymen in the cemetery. And no prior experience in dealing with other humans. There was no way the men on the Council were human, after all.
She'd taken one look at Wesley and written him off. The rule book rammed up his ass had been there since birth, possibly before. She figured it was ingrown, and without it he'd be this floppy little dickwad, instead of this self-righteous prat.
Faith had no use for books. She especially had no use for Wesley Wyndham-Pryce who would do it by the book or not at all. If Giles saw her in the shadow of Buffy, Wesley never saw her at all. She was just 'a Slayer' to him. Not even human.
She brought that fact back to him later when she made him pay for his sins in a litany of bruising punches and shallow cuts.
She's not sorry for what she said, although she is sorry for the way she delivered it. But regrets aren't something Faith dwells on.
He's improved beyond belief since then. He's got his bit of darkness - and God, that scared her when he stabbed the drugged out chick in the demon club - and it's rubbed the shiny edges off him, and worn down his perfection enough to make him human.
Wes is like a cousin you couldn't stand when you were younger, but who got so much better once he'd grown up.
Sometimes, Faith wishes he'd grown up a bit earlier. She still would have told him where to stuff his attitude, run circles around him, and generally hauled his ass into the twenty-first century, but she probably would have done it nicely.
Probably.
*
Richard Wilkins III. Mayor of Sunnydale. Evil demonic being.
What does it say about Faith that the father-figure in her life is a man that most of her acquaintances hope rots in eternal torment where a day is like a thousand years?
Others remember him as something akin to ultimate evil. Faith simply remembers him as the first man who didn't want her for her body, who didn't see her as just a tool to his hand, and who wasn't seeing her through the lens of Dear Buffy.
For the first time in her life, there was a man in her life whose interest in her was for her, Faith. Not the slut-ho she presented to guys like Xander, not the sugar-sweet innocence of B, not even the Slayer, Chosen One, yadda-yadda-yadda.
Just Faith.
She remembers the apartment he got her. She assumed he wanted to be her 'Sugar Daddy' but he never tried to get her into bed. He guided her, encouraged her, gave her presents; he cared. Nobody had ever cared about Faith before.
And because he cared about her, she cared back.
He even left a provision for her, a last will and testament of sorts, father to daughter. And she will never forget the affection of his last message, even if she denies the tears she wiped away before she looked at the contraption in her hand and left to turn Buffy's life upside down...or was that inside out?
In a way, it's just a little ironic that the man who encouraged Faith down the dark path was the same one who planted in her the seed of self-belief. That seed, nurtured and encouraged by others, started her journey up on the pathway a year later, leading out of the darkness into which he'd led her.
She'd never admit it to anyone, but sometimes she misses him.
*
Angel.
If Mayor Wilkins is her Dad, then Faith supposes Angel gets the role of big brother.
At first, she thought him all wrapped up in B, and he was, back then. However, without B, he's grown, achieved depth and purpose and meaning. His life isn't bound by her and her mission - no more than Faith's is - or ever was.
It's one point of commonality.
They've both had to move beyond the shadow of Buffy Summers and into their own sunlight. Metaphorically speaking in Angel's case.
They've both been down the dark path. They've both lived in hell for a long time - relatively speaking. They've both made their way back out. Of course, Angel's been doing it longer, has more to atone for, but Faith follows him because he's been there and he's making his way out, so there's no reason she can't.
And he seems to see something worth saving in her.
There's affection between them. Not the close, huggy type of stuff, but caring, consideration, respect, understanding.
Fallen from grace, fallen from regard, fallen from the daylight and everything good and pure and desirable; two of a kind. That's her and Angel.
She trusts him.
In a world of untrustworthy people, that means a lot.
*
Of course, in all this, there's Buffy. Not quite a sister. Not quite a friend. Loved and hated, respected and reviled. They're too much the same to pull apart, and too different to pull together.
Buffy had what Faith wanted: family. Faith had what Buffy wanted: freedom.
The light and the dark. The blonde and the brunette. The good and the evil. The leader and the loner.
They'll never be free of each other, not as long as there are stars shining over their heads and vamps to dust. An eternal paradox: the two who should never have co-existed, but did.
And trouble followed therein.
Faith will never quite forgive Buffy for having everything that Faith wanted without ever having to work for it. Buffy laughed; Faith suffered.
Faith suspects Buffy will never quite forgive Faith for trying to take from her everything she had without ever trying to earn it herself. Faith laughed and Buffy suffered.
They might be sisters in Slayage, but they'll never be friends.
Well, probably never.
*
Relatives are people you don't get to choose. You're bound to them by blood and circumstance and nothing more unless you choose.
Family is different. Family are the people with whom you share more than just blood; the people for and by whom you shed blood, who shape you and mould you into the person you are and will be. Her family is scattered all over the place, some still alive, some still dead. They've made her, moulded her, formed her, cracked her, scarred her with pain and jealousy, and polished her with kindness and belief.
Relatives are easily left behind, but it's harder to get rid of family.
In jail, she learned she couldn't help what people thought of her if she wanted to be herself. What she could do was change the way she reacted to them.
And so she controls her reactions now, putting into practise what she only learned in theory in the pen.
It's not perfect. Her life isn't perfect. The people she hangs with aren't perfect.
They fight and scuffle, they hold grudges and sulk. She's hurt some of them beyond imagining, and some of them hurt her beyond imagining. There are some she'd like to be rid of and never will. Their ghosts will wander through her memory, having left their stamps long after they've moved on.
There are others who will laugh and tease, support and succour, offer and accept.
And it's enough for the moment. It's a fragile feeling and it won't last. She knows that.
It won't be this way always. She still remembers the faint kindness of her father, even through the later emptiness of his abandonment. And nothing is set in stone.
Not even family.
But what she has, she has now.
And she's always lived in the now.
* fin *
Note for the SG-1 readers: If you're waiting for SG-1 fic, you'll probably be waiting a while. The muse is occasionally waving old half-finished fics in my face, but she's not feeling terribly enthused about the show or the fanfic lately.
SUMMARY: Her family ties have always been fragile.
CATEGORY: Thoughts, Vignette
SPOILERS: up to Angel S4 'Orpheus'
RATING: PG-13 for occasional language
DISCLAIMER:
(To the opening bars of 'Walk Through The Fire'):
I write this story, and I don't make cash,
From in my head these stories always burst.
They're characters so fine, it's sad that they're not mine!
Please ask to archive first!
AUTHOR'S NOTES: The only character in the Buffy/Angelverses who really moves me to writing and she's never been anything more than a guest character on the show! Dammit! This is primarily for Ang, who doesn't read fanfic, let alone Angel fanfic but who conceptualised the difference between relatives and family for me months before this was even conceived.
Relativity
She remembers his tenderness, the brush of his lips past her little-girl cheek, a benediction on 'his Faith.' She remembers the scent of him, the rush of musk and sweat and dirt and Daddy as he swung her up into his arms while she squealed.
Her life wasn't always squalor.
Then he vanished one day, betraying her to the bitter arms of her mother, who resented this daughter she'd been saddled with and made it clear Faith wasn't wanted. Faith grew up, worn thin with an acrimony that burrowed deep and left her riddled with insecurities.
Her family ties have always been fragile.
*
Sandra was her first Watcher. "I'm Sandra Dee," she told Faith that first day.
"Seriously?" Faith snorted.
"Seriously."
As it turned out, San's surname was De Niro, like the actor.
As Watchers seemed to go, she wasn't all that bad. A little stiff sometimes, a little critical of Faith's moves, but encouraging where she thought Faith had done a good job. On the whole, San had more going for her in the plus column than the minus.
They were never close, though. Never got that connection thing happening. For a while there, the lonely girl thought that San was a bit like a much-older sister. Not quite knowing how to treat Faith, but determined to give it her best shot.
They'd almost become friends.
Then Kakistos got to San, Faith got to Kakistos, and Faith went on the run.
*
Gwendolyn Post was her second Watcher. Technically. Enough said about that bitch. Faith gets itchy fists just thinking about Prim Miz Post. She wants to hit something every time she remembers that clear, confident voice telling her, "Faith, you're an idiot!" Way to make a girl feel good about herself.
If anything Gwen would be the bitchy aunt, the one whose comments are never forgotten, even years later. They scab over, but they fester, and it doesn't take a lot to bring out the old pain. Any mistake Faith makes, and the ghost of the old Watcher is there to mock it, dissect it, taunt it.
More than her mother's voice, Faith remembers Gwen as the voice in her head telling her just how much white trash she is, and how cheap she is counted by the white middle-class of Miz Post's kind.
But there's one thing Faith always chooses to remember about Gwendolyn Post.
Gwen is dead. Faith is still alive.
And she's still kicking, fighting, and slaying.
*
Then came Giles. Well, Faith met Giles before she met Miz Post, but Giles was Buffy's Watcher.
And that was half the problem.
As a Watcher, generally, Giles was great. A little bit cautious, but Faith figured all the Watchers had this built-in switch that got flipped the instant they had to mind a Slayer and advised caution, insisted on research, and tended towards long, boring lectures.
As Faith's Watcher... Well, that didn't work out. Ultimately, Buffy would always come first for Giles. After all, Buffy was the Primary Slayer - first called, best-liked...or something.
Avuncular affection did nothing for Faith - not when Buffy was getting the full paternal deal.
And, as said, that was only half the problem.
The other half was that Giles was cool, but he didn't have a clue what to do with a less-than-perfect Slayer. With Giles came all the expectations he'd had of Buffy, and none of the affection that Faith envied.
Oh, Giles was friendly, and he tried. She gave him marks for that. But in the end, it wouldn't make much difference. He was Buffy's Watcher. Faith got the leftover crumbs.
Faith didn't like having other people's leftovers. Especially not Buffy with her perfect school and her perfect friends and her perfect Mom and her perfect Watcher and her perfect life.
Screw that.
*
Then there was Wesley.
Good old Wesley.
Good young Wesley, sent into the field with no prior experience in dealing with the bogeymen in the cemetery. And no prior experience in dealing with other humans. There was no way the men on the Council were human, after all.
She'd taken one look at Wesley and written him off. The rule book rammed up his ass had been there since birth, possibly before. She figured it was ingrown, and without it he'd be this floppy little dickwad, instead of this self-righteous prat.
Faith had no use for books. She especially had no use for Wesley Wyndham-Pryce who would do it by the book or not at all. If Giles saw her in the shadow of Buffy, Wesley never saw her at all. She was just 'a Slayer' to him. Not even human.
She brought that fact back to him later when she made him pay for his sins in a litany of bruising punches and shallow cuts.
She's not sorry for what she said, although she is sorry for the way she delivered it. But regrets aren't something Faith dwells on.
He's improved beyond belief since then. He's got his bit of darkness - and God, that scared her when he stabbed the drugged out chick in the demon club - and it's rubbed the shiny edges off him, and worn down his perfection enough to make him human.
Wes is like a cousin you couldn't stand when you were younger, but who got so much better once he'd grown up.
Sometimes, Faith wishes he'd grown up a bit earlier. She still would have told him where to stuff his attitude, run circles around him, and generally hauled his ass into the twenty-first century, but she probably would have done it nicely.
Probably.
*
Richard Wilkins III. Mayor of Sunnydale. Evil demonic being.
What does it say about Faith that the father-figure in her life is a man that most of her acquaintances hope rots in eternal torment where a day is like a thousand years?
Others remember him as something akin to ultimate evil. Faith simply remembers him as the first man who didn't want her for her body, who didn't see her as just a tool to his hand, and who wasn't seeing her through the lens of Dear Buffy.
For the first time in her life, there was a man in her life whose interest in her was for her, Faith. Not the slut-ho she presented to guys like Xander, not the sugar-sweet innocence of B, not even the Slayer, Chosen One, yadda-yadda-yadda.
Just Faith.
She remembers the apartment he got her. She assumed he wanted to be her 'Sugar Daddy' but he never tried to get her into bed. He guided her, encouraged her, gave her presents; he cared. Nobody had ever cared about Faith before.
And because he cared about her, she cared back.
He even left a provision for her, a last will and testament of sorts, father to daughter. And she will never forget the affection of his last message, even if she denies the tears she wiped away before she looked at the contraption in her hand and left to turn Buffy's life upside down...or was that inside out?
In a way, it's just a little ironic that the man who encouraged Faith down the dark path was the same one who planted in her the seed of self-belief. That seed, nurtured and encouraged by others, started her journey up on the pathway a year later, leading out of the darkness into which he'd led her.
She'd never admit it to anyone, but sometimes she misses him.
*
Angel.
If Mayor Wilkins is her Dad, then Faith supposes Angel gets the role of big brother.
At first, she thought him all wrapped up in B, and he was, back then. However, without B, he's grown, achieved depth and purpose and meaning. His life isn't bound by her and her mission - no more than Faith's is - or ever was.
It's one point of commonality.
They've both had to move beyond the shadow of Buffy Summers and into their own sunlight. Metaphorically speaking in Angel's case.
They've both been down the dark path. They've both lived in hell for a long time - relatively speaking. They've both made their way back out. Of course, Angel's been doing it longer, has more to atone for, but Faith follows him because he's been there and he's making his way out, so there's no reason she can't.
And he seems to see something worth saving in her.
There's affection between them. Not the close, huggy type of stuff, but caring, consideration, respect, understanding.
Fallen from grace, fallen from regard, fallen from the daylight and everything good and pure and desirable; two of a kind. That's her and Angel.
She trusts him.
In a world of untrustworthy people, that means a lot.
*
Of course, in all this, there's Buffy. Not quite a sister. Not quite a friend. Loved and hated, respected and reviled. They're too much the same to pull apart, and too different to pull together.
Buffy had what Faith wanted: family. Faith had what Buffy wanted: freedom.
The light and the dark. The blonde and the brunette. The good and the evil. The leader and the loner.
They'll never be free of each other, not as long as there are stars shining over their heads and vamps to dust. An eternal paradox: the two who should never have co-existed, but did.
And trouble followed therein.
Faith will never quite forgive Buffy for having everything that Faith wanted without ever having to work for it. Buffy laughed; Faith suffered.
Faith suspects Buffy will never quite forgive Faith for trying to take from her everything she had without ever trying to earn it herself. Faith laughed and Buffy suffered.
They might be sisters in Slayage, but they'll never be friends.
Well, probably never.
*
Relatives are people you don't get to choose. You're bound to them by blood and circumstance and nothing more unless you choose.
Family is different. Family are the people with whom you share more than just blood; the people for and by whom you shed blood, who shape you and mould you into the person you are and will be. Her family is scattered all over the place, some still alive, some still dead. They've made her, moulded her, formed her, cracked her, scarred her with pain and jealousy, and polished her with kindness and belief.
Relatives are easily left behind, but it's harder to get rid of family.
In jail, she learned she couldn't help what people thought of her if she wanted to be herself. What she could do was change the way she reacted to them.
And so she controls her reactions now, putting into practise what she only learned in theory in the pen.
It's not perfect. Her life isn't perfect. The people she hangs with aren't perfect.
They fight and scuffle, they hold grudges and sulk. She's hurt some of them beyond imagining, and some of them hurt her beyond imagining. There are some she'd like to be rid of and never will. Their ghosts will wander through her memory, having left their stamps long after they've moved on.
There are others who will laugh and tease, support and succour, offer and accept.
And it's enough for the moment. It's a fragile feeling and it won't last. She knows that.
It won't be this way always. She still remembers the faint kindness of her father, even through the later emptiness of his abandonment. And nothing is set in stone.
Not even family.
But what she has, she has now.
And she's always lived in the now.
* fin *
Note for the SG-1 readers: If you're waiting for SG-1 fic, you'll probably be waiting a while. The muse is occasionally waving old half-finished fics in my face, but she's not feeling terribly enthused about the show or the fanfic lately.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2004-05-11 03:54 am (UTC)But what you've written really makes the character come across. I really must back-watch the Buffy eps I've missed...
:)
no subject
Date: 2004-05-11 04:27 am (UTC)Yes, you should watch the Buffy eps you've missed... :)
no subject
Date: 2004-05-11 04:34 am (UTC)I liked this fic. I've only seen smatterings of Faith, so I can't comment on her characterisation specifically. However, you've really brought across a background, a history of an established character without retelling the story depicted in the TV shows. It gives the character more depth than the screen can offer. If I was to give a constructive crit, the only one I could go with is about tense - the tense left me a little bit uncertain in some places, but that may just be me used to all past tense stuff :)
And a really nice tie-in at the end too. Solidified what you were talking about. Well done!
no subject
Date: 2004-05-11 04:36 am (UTC)Yeah, the tense kinda confused me, too (which is really worrying), but I was on a roll with the present tense and didn't want to switch it all to past.
no subject
Date: 2004-05-11 04:38 am (UTC)And, well, I'm procrastinating.
And my name was mentioned! How could I not read??
no subject
Date: 2004-05-11 04:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-11 04:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-11 05:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-11 04:53 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-11 05:08 am (UTC)When are you going to write something I can read? *smiles sweetly*
no subject
Date: 2004-05-12 07:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-13 01:16 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-13 01:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-13 01:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-18 10:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-21 04:26 pm (UTC)