Angel With A Devilish Angle

~Frank~

I waited until Zack had stalked off or had been dragged off anyway, to completely ignore his warning and go after Faith. He was supposed to love her, being her older brother - even if it was only by 30 minutes - and yet he'd made her so miserable. Even I had noticed how damn unhappy she was and I barely knew her.

I had absolutely no idea where I was going to find her because after a while she had disappeared from my view, that and her brother had got my attention by telling me to stay away from her. To hell I would, she had her own life and she should be able to say whether I should stay away from her or not.

Finally I found her huddled up in the branches of a tree, her knees drawn up to her body, her arms wrapped around her legs and her face buried in her knees, sobbing. I didn't hesitate to climb straight up until I reached her. Briefly she looked up, obviously hearing my scrabbling. Her face had make-up trails down her cheeks as well as where it had been rubbed across her face when she slept.

"Frank?" She said quietly.

"Yeah, it's me Faithy," I answered as she shuffled so I could get up onto the branch properly. That done, I put my arms around her and pulled her towards me, hearing her burst into a fresh set of sobs. "You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to," I said quietly, kissing the top of her head.

"Thank you."

"So what do you wanna do today?"

"Erm, get dressed would be a good start I think," she sniffed, leaning away from me. I laughed, rubbing her shoulder and she cracked a small smile at me, her emerald coloured eyes glinting with a hint of happiness. I then stopped and smiled at her.

"Just so you know, I'm not going to think any less of you."

Faith frowned at me suddenly and I wondered why until she brought her soft fingers up to my lips and drew them away, crimson liquid staining the tips. She frowned harder, pulling the sleeve of my hoody over her hand and pressing it back to my lip that I now realised was swollen and sore.

I flinched slightly but she continued to press on it. That was until I brought my own hand up, closing my fingers around her hand and bringing it away from my face. She continued to frown though, as she glared at her lap before looking up at me, her features more softened than they had been.

"I'm sorry, for what he did to you."

"You shouldn't be sorry, it's not your fault," I replied, brushing her long hair back behind her ear.

"It is though, Frank." She moved her eyes back to her lap, taking back her covered up hand and using it to wipe her eyes. I found it hard to believe, right then, that Faith was a 22 year old woman since she looked more like an emotionally confused teenager. "He's my brother, you're my friend. You were fighting because of me."

"Faith, it wasn't your fault," I reassured, with a smile. "Come on, I think we need to play doctors and nurses."

"Huh?"

"My lip needs attending to since it's still bleeding, and I need something cold on my cheek to stem the bruising," I said as I began my climb back down the tree to the ground and she hastily followed after me, obviously not wanting to be left alone. "I would have said doctors and psychiatrists, but you don't wanna talk about it."

Faith smirked at me now as we began to walk back to my bus. "Psychiatrists are doctors, sweetie."

I furrowed my eyebrows a little, but kept smiling. "Your pretty smart to say you're Zack's sister."

"We're both pretty smart, we just never really applied ourselves in school," she shrugged. "There were too many preps that needed attending to for us to be bothered with being the nerds we actually are."

"Okay so academically he might be a nerd but I find it hard to believe if he's dumb enough to make you so unhappy."

"Sarah's gonna hurt you," she mumbled in a sing-song voice, with a grin.

"And why might that be?" I raised an eyebrow at her.

"You implied Zack wasn't the Jackass-meets-Dirty-Sanchez nerd she fell in love with," she explained. "But don't worry, I won't let her hurt your pretty face."

"Yay!" I yelled, throwing my arms around her in a hug and we laughed at ourselves, stumbling from the imbalance of weight when I had literally thrown myself on her. "I'll love you forever now."

"You should love me anyway cause I'm your friend."

"I do, I just meant I'll love you more for saving my pretty face," I answered, leaving one arm around her neck as we weaved around people and buses, fully aware of the looks my injuries were drawing. "You know," I then spoke up, scratching my chin, though finding it a stupid thing to do since my chin hurt.

"I know what?"

"I always thought nerds look more like Mikey, than you two."

"You haven't seen my school photos," she scoffed with a laugh. "I had braces and glasses until I was 19, when I got the braces off and my eyesight corrected itself."

I grinned, pulling open the bus door and she headed up the steps.

"Nerd."

"Pansy," she retorted, poking her tongue out at me.

"I like being a Pansy," I pointed out as I followed after her onto the bus.

"And I like being a Nerd, now sit down so I can play doctors and nurses with your face."

"Yes Nurse Baker," I smirked, sitting down where she pointed as she wet some cloth and advanced towards me, so to begin cleaning my injured lip up.