Title: Strong
Author: Emily )
Rating: PG 13
Timeline/Spoiler: Pretty AU. Wes and Fred are together and she gets sucked into some wacky alternate universe where she does the damsely thing.
Summary: Fred wishes she could be strong.
For: Secret Santa for Rach
The man says "Over my dead body" and the girl - woman really - laughs desperately because isn't that cliché? And it would be. Over his dead body. Him. Dead if he doesn't go now. And she doesn't want him to die. Of course she doesn't. But, she thinks suddenly, anyone. Anyone but him. Just make him okay. Because his body is beautiful, all planes and curves and now she imagines it in pieces before her.
"Go", she whispers.
"You think I can?" He says in a low crackling voice, his eyes intent and desperate on hers. "Could you?"
Of course she couldn't. She loves him and she would die for him if it came to it. It has come to it except it's in reverse and just because he would doesn't mean she could ever let him.
"Wesley" She says, shaking her head as if saying his name will shake some sense into him. She thinks that if she were a man then she literally would. That's cliché too. Girls can kick ass, she thinks. She doesn't believe it though. Maybe Slayers and half demons could hold their own in a fight. Maybe they could beat Wesley to the pulp that she thinks might help. Fred is useless however. All the science and research in the world can't be used to convince him. If only she was strong, she would beat him black and blue to make him see. A single tear forms in her brown eyes and he moves a calloused finger to brush it away. Another tear spills out of them because it is never just one.
"Please. If it was you then you know you would tell me the same thing I'm telling you"
"And you know you would say the exact thing I'm saying to you"
A red sun begins its slow descent to the earth, its heat sinking deep into the dried up ground. She is not quite the typical damsel in distress. Her hair is brown - mousy brown, she thinks - not blond. He sees every colour in the spectrum in it and he sees every shade of light and dark in her brown - ordinary, she thinks - eyes. They are not blue like princesses in stories of old and she doubts she would feel the pea but she's still in distress. The chains binding her are tight and real. The rock pressed against her back is hard and bumpy.
Oh he found her in a state. Her calm assertions of how she would be fine turned into open weeping. She supposed it had something to do with Pylea. Being sucked from everyday mundane perfection of leaning her head on his shoulder into this strange new world. Or maybe it was random and she could have been anyone. It is never the why that matters though because why won't do any damn good. Fred thinks she's going to cry again because she is not strong and why did she ever think she could be?
Then he kisses her and the unfamiliar world she can't escape is gone. It all slides away like when the prince kisses the princess causing her to wake up from the deep sleep she is inevitably in. Fred's eyes open and she is dizzy but his strong arms ground her and hold her. She feels his eyelashes soft against her dirt smeared cheek and the ways she loves him hit her all over again. A smile plays on his lips before fading into seriousness. He is always serious and she finds it endearing. The way his mouth nuzzles at the skin above her stomach when they make love is endearing too. So is the way he will listen to her babble about the anything and everything that nobody else has time for.
She is going to miss him and now more than anything she knows she can't let him stay. Even though a part of her thought that if he wanted to so badly why couldn't she just be weak and let him? She couldn't be though and maybe she is strong in ways she didn't know. So Fred opens her mouth and in a lilting voice tells him that she doesn't love him.