Fanning the Flames. Faith dances. Wesley watches. Post-"Chosen."
"You can see the lies in those real big eyes
Got the finger tattooed on her inner thigh
She'll tell you to jump she'll make you say "How High"
Want to have a good time? Don't have to ask her twice
Never let you win cause she can't lose
And you haven't walked a mile unless it's in her shoe.
She's a wild child, so incomplete
Like a real bad song playing on repeat…"
"Clueless" by Pay the Girl.
She's writhing on the floor, the strobe lights causing colors to flicker over and be absorbed by the black leather that encases her body. Men, boys really, crowd around her, but she shakes her head and glares with eyes rimmed with kohl until they move away. So she dances, alone and beautiful, and he watches her.
He doesn't know why he's here. Because she asked him, perhaps. His protests that he doesn't dance were ignored, and human strength was no match for that of the Slayer. His usually steely will failed in the face of her determination, and so here he is, standing in the shadows, wearing the old leather trousers that he hasn't worn for years, and a silky red shirt that she had pulled out of his closet and shoved at him. He's dressed much as anyone here is, and despite his protestations about his skill on the dance floor, he can dance. So why is he standing in the corner, all alone, when every glance that Faith sends him invites him to join her?
Perhaps because he still can't understand why she is here. Not just here, in the club, because if anyone is meant to dance the night away in a place like this it's her, but here, in L.A. Why had she stayed, when all the other Slayers had gone on to England and the new Council? Why had she stood next to him and watched the plane take off, and why had she followed him home? Why was she still sleeping on his couch, instead of getting her own apartment?
The answer is simple, if he really thinks about it. She's changed. He'd realized that already, of course- her behavior after he'd broken her out of jail showed an astonishing amount of maturity, if nothing else. But now he's finally starting to believe, rather than just to know.
She's changed, and he doesn't know what to do with her. He's not sure if he's let go of her torture, all those years ago. He thinks he has, but sometimes he looks in the mirror and sees the silvery scars, and he's filled with the same helpless anger all over again. He doesn't know what to do with a roommate who once tortured him for hours. He doesn't know what to do with a roommate who has such regret inside of her. He doesn't know what to do with a roommate who's a Slayer.
He's not even sure what to do with a roommate who's a girl.
He'd never lived with a woman before, nothing more than the occasional overnight at his apartment, and it took him a week or two to adjust to the sight of feminine products cluttering up his bathroom counter and makeup on his dresser. He's still not sure that he's used to the sound of someone else in his apartment at all, because he's been alone for so very long.
But despite all this, he is starting to believe that he is becoming ready to accept all that she's been offering him silently for weeks now. Never overtly, never anything that could offend him if he were truly uninterested, but there all the same. And he's been thinking about it so much that he's finally starting to realize the inevitability that is him and Faith together.
So what if there's more history and baggage between them than most entire families have to deal with, much less couples? So what if she's a Slayer and he works for a formerly-evil law firm? Even he can tell that there's something that's meant to be between them, and if he's not meant to be her Watcher, which he so obviously isn't, than perhaps he can be her lover.
And perhaps, the next time Faith looks his way with that inviting smile in her dark eyes, he will join her.