floofwolfe
Offline
when the roof caved in
and the truth came out
i just didn't know what to do
||| :::::.::::..:::...::.....:....::...:::..::::.::::: |||
and the truth came out
i just didn't know what to do
||| :::::.::::..:::...::.....:....::...:::..::::.::::: |||
It felt like there was a hurricane of revelation roaring at the base of Faith’s skull, which would account for the growl of white noise in her ears.
Faith had been more than prepared to expect the unexpected from this Jin character. In fact, she had very nearly given up on expecting anything at all, just to save herself the trouble of correcting whatever assumptions she would end up making. What was it that had her so stunned, then? Jin had just thrown most of her assumptions out the window, but she hadn’t been making those assumptions in the first place, right?
His claim that Gabriel (and when did Adams become Gabriel?) had some kind of emotional attachment to her was starting to sink in. Jin obviously harbored quite a few more vices than Gabriel – she had worked that much out, but not to such a degree. There was a wider gap in morality between Jin and Gabriel than she had originally thought, but that was more due to the fact that she had been over-villianizing Gabriel, apparently. Jin could, in fact, control his insubstantial state at will; that was a bitter pill to swallow, metaphorically and literally. Both man and ghost were simultaneously smarter and stupider than anyone had the right to be.
And, most profitable of all, Jin wanted his host dead. A fact which Gabriel seemed to be oblivious to the depth and severity of, or just oblivious to the fact itself.
A task which Jin once again simultaneously chose the right and wrong tool for the job.
Looking at it from his logical perspective, it was the right choice. Faith was inclined to obey him (especially in Gabriel’s voice, although Gabriel himself could theoretically counter that order just as easily), likely to scratch his back after he ‘scratched’ her addiction, and also maneuvered into a position where she was obligated to run his errands if she wanted a continual supply.
Looking at it from Faith’s newly morphine-boosted perspective, Jin had just made the mistake that would cost him everything. He had given her enough morphine to ration herself for at least a couple days and extra cocaine to sell or trade for more morphine. He had force-fed her the first dose, which gave her the boost she needed without making her reveal that it was morphine she was taking or forcing her to show how deep her weakness ran by taking a dose the moment it was made available to her. But most especially, he had given her knowledge that Faith would use to play both Gabriel and Jin while drove them apart.
Faith was lying there on the bed for a moment, marshalling her thoughts into some semblance of order and trying to come up with a plan to exploit the gulf between Jin and Gabriel, when she realized that it wouldn’t do for Gabriel to walk in and confiscate her new supply of painkiller.
The redhead bolted upright and nearly swooned at the too-sudden movement. Although she usually took morphine through a hypodermic, the gritty-bitter taste of swallowing the pill dry gave her a placebo-effect boost before the painkiller actually kicked in, which was only a false relief. Still, with little in her stomach besides whatever Tylenol hadn’t yet been absorbed, the pills would kick in quick and hard.
So with a glance at the empty doorway to be sure Gabriel wasn’t around to witness a display of her so-far hidden power, and a brief hope that the action wouldn’t make her keel over, Faith grabbed a bag of drugs in each hand and pulled them both into her inter-dimensional storage pocket.
An instant later, she realized that Jin was probably still lurking around.
So if Jin happened to discover her new power, and the fact that she had been hiding it… besides his own (limited) knowledge and application of it, that knowledge was unlikely to make it very far. Even if he went to tell Gabriel, the iceling would (hopefully) ask questions about how Jin had found out, which would leave Faith free to reveal the fact that Jin was explicitly working against Gabriel’s goal of dragging her through withdrawal. So it was a secret for a secret, balanced on a scale of knowledge.
Balanced, but not even. The fact that Faith was hiding a new, non-offensive, non-defensive power of some unknown-quality, compared to the knowledge of Jin’s goals and how much he had opposed Gabriel…
Barely even a contest.
But only if Gabriel asked the smart questions, when the time came. And Gabriel’s blindness weighed heavily on Jin’s side of the scale.
Which could, possibly, call for further manipulation of the poor sap. Manipulation that would stem from an idea he had already brought up, and that had already been shot down.
Faith discarded anything that worked against clear, logical thinking. So her new-found pride was getting kicked out on its a**. Why was she so quick to defend herself, to warn Jin against underestimating her? It was better if she encouraged them to underestimate her, and so held power over the both of them. Pride was rearing its ugly head in places it certainly didn’t need to be. Better that she chip away at her self-image, maybe squeeze out a bit more emotional weakness out of Gabriel. Jin was fairly sharp; he’d pick up the cues she fed them, and he seemed to be sharing his observations with Gabriel so far.
The best lie was made up of a dozen little truths that were twisted to prove a false core. And the redhead had plenty of good evidence for Jin and Gabriel to misinterpret.
Just as long as she could keep herself from assassinating Gabriel the moment he walked through the door.
[******** hell,” Faith growled on the exhale, curling up on the bed and grabbing a pillow to shove her head under. So now she needed a good story, real evidence to back it up, a perceptive-but-not-too-perceptive ghost, and a live iceling. Simultaneously.
Easy; if the pill kicked in soon, if Jin held to the behavioral pattern he’d been setting so far, and depending greatly on Gabriel’s entrance and general emotional gullibility.
Depending greatly on Gabriel… Well, I’m ********]
