when nothing you do matters | April Catch-All

[slayerskiss]

Who: Faith + assorted others.
What: Catch-all for the month of april.
When: April (and late march in one of them)
Where: Clochouse mostly. But also all over.

Content Warnings: vampire killing, talk of mass murder, awkward third wheeling.

Comments

[entreats]

[ What a prophecy. Someone dies for half an hour, and there's immediately another one to fill their shoes, and then another one. And what when the first one comes back?

Ange kind of feels like whoever thought up this system didn't fully think it through very well. ]

That must be kind of awkward. [ She slowly says, after having considered it for a moment. ] Being the third in line like that, I mean.

[ Sure, sure. There probably were generations ahead of that Buffy person - or so Ange assumes, anyway. But even so.. ]

Usually stories make the whole chosen one sound a little cooler than 'if two people just happen to die, I might become special.'

cw for neglect

[slayerskiss]

[Ange would be right. The Watcher's council of old were idiots playing with fire and congratulating themselves when they got burnt.]

Kendra didn't come back. [It's selfish that she's so honestly glad of that. She already felt like they all looked at her as if she was filling shoes that weren't hers, she can't imagine all the ways she'd be shunted off to the side if she couldn't even be used as the back-up.] So it was just me and B, sharing a spot that we were always supposed to have to ourselves.

'Course, she did have it to herself for a year. We had the same powers, but the world still revolved around her. Friends, Watchers, family, weirdo vampire boyfriends. I got a shitty motel room that vampires didn't need permission to break into. [She shrugs, like she's not still extremely bitter about the difference in their treatment. That when she made a mistake and lodged a stake in that guy's heart, nobody even gave it a moment's thought that Buffy could have screwed up like that. Because Buffy is good. Because Buffy's the fucking hero.]

Anyway, technically I was uhhh... god, I don't know, about ten thousandth down the line? Most Slayers don't live long after being called, so there's a high turnover rate. Besides, I'm not rich, but isn't that how inheriting anything works?

cw: talk of past suicide

[entreats]

[ Ange makes a little bit of A Face at that, tilting her head left and right before shrugging her shoulders. She supposes there are some similarities, sure, but she still thinks this entire weird chosen deal from Faith and the others' world is still a little different from just a regular inheritance.

And Ange "part of the 1%" Ushiromiya would know. ]

Usually it's not quite as long lasting. My idea when I tried to kill myself was that everything would end with me there.

[ The Ushiromiya family fortune. The Ushiromiya family abuse cycle. The powers of Beatrice, the golden witch. ]

If I had properly died there, rather than getting stuck in some sort of weird witch-induced time loop of alternate realities, then it's not like there suddenly would have been some random person out there who'd have to deal with all of my mess from then on. So I definitely think you got a rougher deal in that sense.

[ Especially since even though Faith doesn't sound very affected by the stuff she's talking about, Ange can't help but think that it's bothering Faith all the same, judging by what she's seen from the other and knows. ]

cw for talk of past suicide

[slayerskiss]

[She smiles, thinly and humourlessly.]

I had a rougher deal before I got called, though. I was a dirt poor runaway from the foster system with no power over anybody who wanted to hurt me. At least when I suddenly got the abilities I could hit people hard enough to make them reconsider. [She shrugs. It's more Buffy's thing, thinking of it all as a curse. A set of responsibilities, the weight of the world on your shoulders, the inability to live a normal life.

Of course, a normal life for girls like her and a normal world for girls like Faith was always going to be pretty different. Dark Slayer or a homeless orphaned nobody, both would have ended in prison or dead.] If I died when I wanted, it'd all go to some other girl. Might have ruined her life, might have saved it. Can't say that I really cared at the time.

...Though, gotta say, that sounds like a whole clusterfuck. [She furrows her brow.] Reminds me of a Vengeance Demon, honestly.

[And Alex - Or Malice, as she ended up being called.]

cw for talk of past suicide

[entreats]

[ Ange considers it for a moment. If she knew that all her pain would be pushed onto someone else the moment she jumped off that building, would she still have done it?

... maybe. She can't say for sure that she would not have done it because of that, but she does know she would've cared. Hesitated. The choice to end everything had been so easy exactly because Ange knew it wouldn't affect anyone but her, after all.

It's a little reminiscent of the talk she had with Faith close after Sayo's confession, especially with what Faith is saying about this as well, and Ange shakes her head, trying to get it out of there for now. She doesn't want to think about it too deeply. ]

I'm really sorry stuff was always bad for you regardless.

[ It sounds surprisingly genuine on Ange's part. Sure, there's not a whole lot of emotion in her tone - not as much as there might be with someone else - but every inch of Ange's body language seems to indicate she means it. ]

I know it's just how life is. [ Unfair. ] But that doesn't mean I can't get annoyed at it anyway for your sake.

cw for talk of past suicidal ideation

[slayerskiss]

[Throwing her destiny away to give it to someone else never really struck Faith as much of a moral dilemma. She never really had the chance to consider that maybe being a Slayer was anything but a gift, and she wasn't in the right mind to slow down and consider at that moment. The people Faith had actively hurt and killed when taking them along with her to hell pressed on her mind far more than sparing some stranger who would've been doomed in a few years anyway. She's just not a selfless enough person. She could pretend that she liked to think that it would be someone better than her, but the truth is, Faith didn't give a damn about a world that never gave a damn about her.

Faith's reaction to sympathy has always been mixed. She never wanted to be someone worthy of pity, not in the way that they pitied her in Sunnydale. She wanted to be a hero, she wanted to matter.

But Ange's acknowledgement takes her by surprise and Faith raises her eyebrows. Oddly touched. It's more kindness than most people showed her in her own world. She shrugs, all the same, offering a small smile.]

Yeah. Well. I'll get mad for your sake and you can get mad for mine. We'll call it a trade.