Title: The Truth
Rating: R, for language mostly, adult situations
Pairing: Wesley/Faith
Summary: Wesley and Faith talk one night after she slays.
Disclaimer: I don't own it. Never will. Hail Joss and all that work with him.
Notes: This takes place after Not Fade Away, season five of Angel. Please read and enjoy. Comments are always welcome.
The Truth
Dammit, Faith thought. The night hadn't gone as planned. Too many vampires, not enough backup for her taste. Oh well. Life's a bitch, then you die. Which is exactly what he'd done.
"Why are you here?"
There he stood, dressed in a brown leather jacket, old blue jeans, dark button-up shirt, kickass boots, and a smirk the size of New Jersey. The first time he had appeared to her, she had tried to take his head off. Zombies just scared the shit out of her. Now he'd just become a nuisance.
"This and that."
"Bullshit."
Hands in his pockets, Wesley looked relaxed. If he was corporeal, he'd be down on the ground, sporting a fat lip or at least a nice shiner in the morning. Why'd he have to come back a ghost? She was tempted to put in a call to Spike, to figure out how he became corporeal. Only Spike had vanished a few months prior. Wolfram and Hart had long memories of who crossed them.
"Believe what you will. Your fighting technique is quite sloppy tonight."
Oh, here we go again. He'd told her about a million times that she wasn't training hard enough, that she needed to add a certain kind of training to her routine. Why couldn't he just tell her what he wanted out of her?
"Why don't you come on over here and show me how to do it? Oh wait, you can't. You decided that it would be better to check out than stay around. Right?"
He grimaced at her statement. Hitting below the belt might get him to tell her more than she knew. What did she know? Well, one, he wasn't corporeal. Two, he died, bleeding out, stabbed by some two-bit demon guy named Vail. Three, Angel and Spike took on so many demons, but had somehow had survived. Four, if she hadn't shown up, along with Buffy and a few others, she would have never known what had happened to Wes.
Of course, no one knew what happened to his body, since it had conveniently disappeared after Illyria had pummeled Wes's killer. That she found. It was messy. But no Wes. His scent ended in that room. Now that creeped her out. No one could track what happened to him after he died. So they had to believe Illyria when she said that Wes bit the dust, so to speak.
Then he appeared to her one night while she was fighting. It was bitterly cold, her hands stung from being exposed to the elements a little too long. Having him up in her face, telling her to get up and get inside right after being in one of the worst fights in a long time, scared the living shit out of her. She thought she was hallucinating. She had enough blood seeping out of her head. It was possible. Only he appeared again a few days later, off in the distance, watching her as she tracked another demon. Then she thought that maybe she hadn't taken enough time off after the head injury. No one else saw him. She was sure of that.
He rarely appeared when she had company. The few times he did, no one else could see him. Maybe she had a permanent injury to her brain.
"I wish it had turned out differently."
"Again, I call bullshit. You tell me one good reason why you took on Vail, knowing full well that he could take you down."
Wes sighed, crossing his arms over his body. How she wanted to shake him right then. Too late to knock some sense into him. The night air was still a bit chilly, but summer would hit them soon, making slaying hot and sweaty. Taking her jacket off, she swung it around, watching it pass through his shoulder as she did. Damn, she just couldn't get over that. She couldn't touch him.
"Believe what you will. I certainly did not intend to die that night."
They'd had this conversation a few times, usually when she was just frustrated with him for something he'd said or did.
"Didn't stop it though, did you?"
Even dead, he still looked tired. Was it his place to walk the earth as a tired soul? Was there something out there that was holding him here?
"I was supposed to distract him."
"Yeah, a knife would do that. Distract him, I mean. Killed you. You fucked up."
If steam could come out his ears, she bet she'd see it. She never crossed that line, until now. She often wondered why he kept moving. Faith figured that he'd heard that line way too many times in his life, several times from her in fact.
"Story of my life."
Shit, now he was shutting down. Big mouth, she thought. Now he'd never open up to her. Why did she care? Not like they were best buds when he was alive. Only now he was as much a part of her as he'd ever been. He was there every night she slayed, had been there since last winter. He would warn her of anything that might appear when her attention was elsewhere. It had saved her ass more times than she could count. She tried training the girls. Only with watchers in short supply, there was only so much she could do. Cleveland needed more than one good slayer on the payroll. Giles said that there were more slayers being trained every day. A dozen just wasn't enough anymore.
Faith hardly ever said sorry, but she seemed to be able to do that with him on a regular basis. She had a lot to be sorry for when it came to him.
"Shit. My big mouth. Sorry. I wasn't there."
His face did not brighten like it did the first time she stuck her foot in her mouth and said she was sorry. Now he just frowned her way. Since he was around more and more, he caught her at her worst times, like right now. Tonight's slaying had sucked, literally. Rubbing the spot where the one vampire thought he could chow down, Faith shuffled over to him, one hand stuffed in her jean's back pockets, jacket tucked tightly against her.
"I just wish you'd tell me why you're here," she announced, trying to be honest with him.
"Is it enough that I am here? I couldn't be with you in life, why is it so hard for me to be here for you after I'm dead?"
"Um, maybe because that part dealing with being dead. Dude, this is just so fucked up. Not that I'm complaining about your help. Saved my ass a few times."
"A few? I seem to remember more than a few."
Yes, there were definitely more times than a few. With no hands to shake or no hug to give him, how else would she show him that she did care?
"OK, more than a few. I'd miss it if you went poof tomorrow."
A small smile played on his lips, like he'd been handed the best compliment ever. She'd rarely seen him really smile. Wondering what it would take to get him to laugh out loud, she smiled in return. He smiled back finally, not able to block her enthusiasm from getting to him.
"I would also. I plan on not going anywhere anytime soon. I guess you're stuck with me."
She'd rather be stuck with him a fully solid human being. Then she'd be able to sock him one. This she could deal with though. For a while, that was.
"You ever think what it would be like if you had stayed being my watcher?"
"Every time I see you."
Maybe this was why he was here, guarding her against the evil that she encountered almost every night of her life. Was he possibly making up for what he didn't accomplish in life?
"I'm kinda thinking we would have killed each other," Faith started. "Or fucked each other," she mumbled, continuing her train of thought out loud.
"What did you just say? Faith, I would have never."
Getting close to him was never a problem. Hell, she could just walk right through him, no difference in her book. As she approached him, he backed up.
"Dude, you so would have. If I offered right now, you'd be on it in a minute."
"On it? Faith, I'm your watcher. It is forbidden for a watcher and his charge to engage in any kind of…"
"Hanky panky. Oh, come on. Look at Robin. Who do you think fathered him?"
Faith approached again, only this time Wesley stopped stepping away from her. Good, she thought. We need to get this out in the open once and for all.
"It would not have been appropriate to say the least. I do realize though that we did have some issues to work out."
Issues? Crap, that's what he'd call their staring each other down the whole time she was in Los Angeles to get Angel back in the fold. That kiss they shared right before she left just wasn't saying goodbye. If there was a Richter scale for kisses, that one would have brought LA down. Of course, no one else knew about it. Not like she ran around telling people that she'd made out with her watcher.
"Not like you ever did appropriate."
"True," he answered back.
Faith shivered a little at the wind that had picked up not moments before. Summer couldn't come soon enough. More backup couldn't come soon enough. The fact that she hadn't gotten laid in who knows how long pissed her off beyond belief. That was probably why she brought up their steamy kiss. She'd have something to dream about when her head hit her pillow.
"So why are you here? No bullshit, no story made up, no beating around the bush mister. Just tell me the truth."
"I missed you," he sighed as his hand came up to cup her cheek.
He would pass right through her, she thought. He always did, the few times he'd tried to touch her. Only this time he didn't. It should have scared the living crap out of her, but it didn't. The touch didn't last very long, but he had managed it somehow.
"I missed you too," she slowly told him as he turned from her. "Don't go."
His head turned with her missive. "I'll stay, for as long as you like."
Faith was so not going to cry right in the middle of an alley in Cleveland because her now dead watcher just told her he'd never leave her. Things were going to get better. They had to. Wes was there, by her side, watching her back like he always should have. She guessed she'd take him any way she could. Only she wished he were really there, instead of lurking in the shadows.
"You better. Now, about my fighting technique? You just don't know what the hell you're talking about."
Faith had to lighten the situation. He might not appear the next night if it got too serious for him. Better to talk about slaying, fighting and training. She couldn't lose him again. And she wanted to see him smile, very soon.