Title:  The Deepest Cut

Author Contact Info:  [email protected]

Disclaimer:  I don't own anything.

Feedback:  Please.

Summary:  Post "Seeing Red" short-fic, dark, character death

Distribution:  my website www.consummatelove.com

******************************************************************************

Her cloudy gray-green eyes fluttered, and then closed, as she shut out the sight of the (bright, life, misery) pool of (pain, energy, love) blood that nearly covered the pristine white tiles of the bathroom floor. 

A week ago she had thought she knew two beings who wouldn't have let her blood flow so freely to the floor (tainted, discarded, unused, unwanted).  One who would look at her with sorrow and (always) love and struggle against something primal that roared inside to (eat, suck, fuck, drink) before he pulled her back from the brink.   Another who would watch her life (gush flow bleed) from her veins and laugh at her attempt for relief before (no waste) he made sure there was no mess to be had on the floor and no (limp, inert, ashen) body for her friends to happen upon in the morning. 

But a week ago she hadn't known (ignorance, bliss?).  Then there was the night when one had tried to (hit, push, force, grope) rape her in this deceptively pristine room and she had forgotten her own (self, purpose, strength) power for a few terrifying seconds.  And then he was gone and she was on her way to the other, who would (comfort, forever, fortify) hold her and make her remember why she had to keep going. 

Two hundred miles away from her (sorrow, obligation, toil, lies) home she had followed the gossamer thread of connection (soul) that bound her to him even after years of (longing, mistakes, tears) distance.  And he was there, with her (the other, the goddess), and she knew then that she was all alone (unworthy, abandoned, wrong) and that she didn't need to keep going.

Today had been reassuring (lying, deceiving, illusory) words until they left her (thankfully, blissfully) alone for movies and a sleep-over at Xander's.  Then it was darkness and a bottle of vodka (bitter, burning, obliterating) to thin her (conscience) blood. . .

Blood that had run (pouring, voluminous, sticky, thick), and then slowed to the thinnest trickle, as her bare arm laid over the side of the bathtub in the room where she had thrown up when the first had left her (once, twice, three times) and the other had tried to make her feel (wrong, dirty, used, bad) love again.

She knew when she drew the sharp dagger that she had used to (gut, revenge, cut) stab Faith across the translucent flesh of her wrist that she wouldn't be going back to Heaven (mom, belonging, home). But she had to escape this Hell, the (mockery) pale imitation of her former life.  She hoped the new Hell would be (pain, fire, ice, oblivion, whatever) different. 

And then she was (limp, inert, pale) dead and her lifeless eyes stared into the nothingness.

And one howled (rage, anguish) at the loss of her (blood) life from a box at the bottom of the Pacific, while the other bowed his head (soulled, praying) in a cave somewhere in Africa.