Fanfiction: Point Of View
Email: obsessed@obsessedmuch.net
Disclaimers: Faith is not mine. She belongs to Joss Whedon and more than a few other people. Pity. Author’s Notes: Ficlet to break into the list. Unbeta’d and off the cuff. Gotta love an improv. Faith POV from prison.
I like to stay here until the last second. Just hang tight here, heels on the other side of the scuffed yellow line, shoulder leaning against the cold metal, looking out across the way to the rest of the cells. Looking over that way, I can pretend for about two minutes that I’m a visitor. Until that siren goes off for the last time, three hard loud blasts that piece my eardrum and make me shut my eyes and swallow hard no matter how much I prepare for it. Gets me every time. But I still hang here. I’ve got the timing down now.
It starts in the north corridor, the screech-buzz-clang of the electronic doors moving on their tracks. Down here in Block C, it’s almost impossible to hear the beginning of the circuit. Slayer hearing, though, that’s the thing that gets me into the groove, gets me into the timing until I’ve got it nailed to the second. The guard harasses me, comes up the row, dragging her stick on the bars. That might make the other girls step back into the little black hole behind them, but I’ll be damned if it’s gonna make me give up even one more breath of free air.
“Hope that door catches you one of these days,” the guard growls at me, her own misery and anger finding a perfect target in my defiance. “You ever seen a broken hand? It hurts like a bitch. I wanna be the one that sees you catch it, too. Wipe that look right off your face.”
It’s coming. I can feel the vibrations in my shoulder where I lean against the doorway. It’s got it’s own pattern, I know it like my own heartbeat. So easy to keep smiling at her, keep my eyes locked on hers while I count it out.
//whir…buzz…buzz…click…buzz…//
Step back into my cell at the last instant, smile still in place and not flinching at all when the guard slams her stick against the bars right at my face. Keep grinning until my jaw aches, until she’s gone, and it’s lights out, and I can move away.
Find my bunk in the dark and keep staring at the bars. Eight more hours until the door opens again.
-end
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