Cold Comfort
The office was cold and silent. A few last rays of sunlight filtered through the blinds, casting swirling shadows across the floor, heightening the dust motes of the darkened figure leaning over the desk.
Wesley knew that resorting to the hip flask of whiskey in his drawer was a bad idea, but in light of the day he had gone through, he couldn't bring himself to care. He had always known that working for Wolfram and Hart was not going to be easy, but he hadn't counted on having to endure the sight of an ancient demon walking in the body of his dead girlfriend.
Fred.
Wesley gave a strangled, bitter laugh and knocked back a measure of the fiery liquid, the burning in his throat doing little to ease the cold ache of pain in his heart. He knew from repeated nights that seeking oblivion in this way never worked. In the early days he had derived a vague sense of savage pleasure in insulting Illyria via the alcohol that loosened his tongue, but even that had lost whatever poor appeal it once had. His feelings towards Illyria were so confused, such an ungovernable combination of resentment, hatred and a strange inexplicable pity and longing that he did not wish to think too deeply over.
And her unforeseen actions today had added another disturbing dimension to their relationship, which he already knew was dangerously unhealthy. How long had she known? He realised now why she had never killed him for what she regarded as his insolence. With the ability to appear at will as Fred, she didn't need to. Reminding him of what he'd lost was a punishment worse than any torture her impenetrable mind could devise for him. Yet… a part of him had wanted it. A wicked buried part of him had loved seeing her again; soft brown hair, doe eyes, all slender awkwardness and academic enthusiasm. God, how he had envied the Burkles, knowing that they would accept the lie and continue happily living, while he was forced to spend his nights retreating into isolation and agony. He would probably sleep in the office tonight. He had done it before, not caring if he awoke the next morning unshaven, in a rumpled shirt and smelling of drink. It occurred to him that at times he felt less alive than Fred.
He wasn't sure how much he had drunk now; but he had reached that point where he felt both detached from everything, yet at the same time intensely aware of physical sensations. He stared hard at the shot glass in his hand, as though by doing so, he could purge away this sullen emptiness.
Had Wesley but known it, he could have found a companion in Lorne who was at this precise moment in one of the city's many bars, trying to drown his sorrows in a similar fashion, but it never occurred to him. He had become so used to his own company over the last couple of years, being lonely was not unusual for him. In some ways, it was preferable. He had always been self-contained, even as a child, not wanting to reveal anything to his father that might be seen as inadequacy, and he had grown up the same way. His divide from his team after kidnapping Connor had forced him into self-reliance. Besides, who would he talk to, even if he wanted to? He still held Gunn responsible for his part in Fred's death, was still angered by Angel's agreeing to allow the Senior Partners to alter reality and violate their memories. Cordelia was gone. There was no one. No one – except Illyria.
There was a certain bitter irony in the fact that the being who had torn his life apart was the one link that maintained the shreds of his sanity. While everyone else seemed to be treading around him carefully, as though afraid he might explode at any minute, Illyria spoke to him as no one else did. She didn't flatter or hold back or patronise him. She spoke her mind, was most of the time painfully candid about Fred and – well, candid with just about everything. She was always direct, and some of the things she said were frightening, almost bordering on insanity. But she wasn't mad. Quite the opposite. She possessed a clarity that was unique. Terrible she might be, domineering and utterly ruthless, but she had a strict sense of principle, in her own, strange way. Nothing she had ever told him was a lie.
Which was more than he could say about most of his companions.
Wesley looked up. A strange prickling sensation rose along his skin, and he instinctively knew he was not alone.
"Wes?"
At that voice – her voice – he closed his eyes. He couldn't face this. Not now.
"Are you, like, mad at me or something?"
"Stop it." The walls of the office seemed to be pressing in around him. He couldn't breathe.
"Isn't it what you desire?" said Illyria. She came towards him, clasping her hands in an innocent, almost childlike gesture. Fred's Texan inflections sounded a painful contrast to Illyria's low expressionless tones, sending goose pimples rippling over his flesh. "I mean... you love me… I love you. What's the big deal?"
Something – an unpleasant mixture of nausea and desire – uncoiled in the pit of his stomach. He wanted to run towards the door but his feet – no, his entire body – was frozen. When he could bring himself to speak, his voice was lanced with pain. "I loved her."
"You loved this," she responded contemptuously, glancing downward. "And part of you still does. I can feel it in you." Slowly, she drew closer to him, brown eyes filled with a detached, calculating interest never seen in Fred. It repulsed and fascinated him; he felt dizzy – he couldn't be feeling this, it wasn't possible…
"I wish to explore it further."
Wesley stood upright and faced her, breathing hard. He squared his shoulders, speaking through clenched teeth. "Never. You – like this – it sickens me."
A playful smile. "Oh, lord. We both know that ain't true."
A shudder passed through him. "Stop it!" he cried, leaning away, and was alarmed to hear his voice come out so unsteady. His stomach lurched. He looked wildly around at the walls, the floor, just so he could look at anything that wasn't her. His head was swimming. Words left him in a disordered jumble of confusion. "Change back. Be blue. Be anything. Don't be her."
Silence.
She wordlessly transformed back to Illyria and Wesley felt his heart shatter in two once more. The sight of her aroused that now familiar sensation as though his chest had been ripped apart. He stared at her. Comparisons were futile, yet he could not stop himself. Her face was painfully familiar to him, yet so very different. The sharp cheekbones, the angular lines and delicate contours were all the same; but where Fred's sincere and transparent nature shone through everything she said and did, Illyria was aloof and distant, impossible to read. He could gaze into those eyes forever and be no wiser as to the mysterious being that had taken over Fred's body. He wondered how old she was. Wesley frowned, and once more tried to decide how he really felt towards the Old One.
There was something strangely compelling about her, in spite, or perhaps because of, the contradictory feelings she incited. Wesley could not think of anyone else who could stir such an equal mixture of awe and repulsion. She wasn't beautiful. Beauty implied softness and delicacy, and nothing about Illyria was soft. She was cold as ice, hard as crystal, something brilliant and remote and untouchable. She had the brightness of a diamond with its glass like hardness. She was magnificent and terrible. No, she certainly wasn't beautiful.
But she was heartbreakingly like Fred.
And that was enough.
"Leave," he said. "Now."
Something like a sneer passed across her immaculate face. Her full mouth was twisted in a thin line, hard and cruel. "I do not take orders from anyone."
His hands found the table, and he felt the wood, hard and reassuring, beneath his fingers. It restored to him a measure of strength. "What do you want, Illyria?"
"I told you. You made a promise to help me function in this world. This is something I wish to become better acquainted with."
"Not with me," said Wesley grimly. "Besides…" he raised himself up. "I thought you didn't care about feelings… or any of that human stuff."
"I don't. I am merely curious."
"And I really don't care. Go find yourself another lab rat."
She quirked her head to one side. "A rat?" she repeated.
Something of a smile almost flickered across Wesley's face. It never failed to amaze him how Illyria could be immeasurably ancient and imposing one moment and display a childlike curiosity the next. It was times like this that he almost genuinely liked her. "It's just a saying – never mind."
"You are upset."
"You noticed."
"You wish me gone."
He didn't answer.
"Your insolence is insulting," she said in a voice hard enough to cut through metal. She had become distant again, a creature cold and ageless and immovable. "I could kill you where you stand."
Wesley faced her unmoving. "Go on then." His voice was hoarse. He hardly realised what he was saying. It didn't overly bother him he was invoking the wrath of an ancient demon. Little did affect him these days. "It's not as though I have much left to live for."
Illyria cocked her head to one side in her characteristic gesture. Sapphire eyes probed his in a mixture of cool curiosity and uncertainty that until recently had been so alien to her. "You wish me to… end your misery? You truly feel that without Winifred Burkle, life is not worth living?"
"Yes," he breathed.
Illyria came closer to him. In contrast to the gathering gloom in the office, her skin was very white. Long and slender fingers half reached out as though to touch his face, but he pulled away. "You are so young," she said seriously, and there was something almost pitying in her tone. Pitying and sad. "So young and so naïve. Confined to one world and you declare yourself weary of this existence. You poor, sick, beautiful mortal. You know nothing and yet speak as though you have seen eternity. I have lived countless lives, seen things you could not even imagine and even though I am forced to endure as a hollow mockery of my former self, I am still not entirely willing to leave this shadow of a life. Be careful before you wish oblivion upon yourself so lightly. You don't know what nothingness feels like. I do."
"My life is nothingness," said Wesley dully. "Everything that made it worth living is gone. You may be above human emotions, but even you must understand desire. End it. End it all."
Her pale, narrow face betrayed no emotion. "As you wish."
It seemed endless time passed in which he could hear the blood beating in his ears. The office was unnervingly silent, the gloom of oncoming evening stealing its way through the blinds. Illyria was staring at him impassively, one hand slightly raised, ghostly white. He almost imagined he could see the bone beneath. Her blue hair and eyes glowed in ethereal contrast to the gradually enveloping darkness. Never had she appeared more ageless or distant as she did then. She was beyond anything he had ever encountered. What worlds must she have seen, what agonies and searing bliss must she have endured that he could not even comprehend. Worlds of torment and of unnameable beauty. Opaline towers as high as small moons. How small he must seem to her. He must appear as little more than a grain of sand at her feet.
Yet one she could not crush.
Why did she not do it? Why did she not end the weary progression of moments that passed for his existence?
"What's stopping you?" he said softly.
His words had an unprecedented effect on her. She snapped suddenly; he almost felt the self-control break apart like a taut piece of elastic stretched in the air between them. Illyria turned away, clenching and unclenching her fists. She was breathing hard, her thin chest rising and falling with oddly convulsive movements. He was reminded of the time her uncontrollable power had almost ripped her apart. Her voice was shrill almost to the point of hysteria.
"Don't speak to me, don't question me. If I don't kill you, it is because I choose not to."
Wesley started to laugh without mirth. He couldn't stop. His shoulders began to shake uncontrollably and he was obliged to lean against the desk for support. The odd wheezing sounds escaping his throat and the tight spasms that constricted his chest seemed strangely detached from him. Perhaps this apathy and hollow void that had engulfed him since Fred's death had obliterated all sensation. He laughed until tears began to leak from his eyes. God, how funny. How bitterly ironic. "You can't. You can't do it."
Illyria rose up. Her face was stark with fury, so full of hatred it stole his breath. Although in Fred's body it was a physical impossibility, she seemed to tower over him. Her hair crackled with electricity. For an instant he was able to see why worlds had once trembled at her coming. Her skin seemed to glow with a phosphorescent radiance as dazzling as it was terrible. "You think you have power over me? I, who once had legions at my command and worlds shuddering beneath my feet? You are so far beneath me it sickens me to converse with you."
"Then leave."
"Is that what you really want?"
His hands balled into fists. "Yes."
She cast him a scornful look and began to walk away, only when she reached the door, she turned back, and it was Fred facing him once more. She looked bewildered, hurt.
"Wesley, please… why are you being like this?"
He closed his eyes, so he wouldn't have to look. But he still had to listen. "Get out."
He didn't open his eyes, but knew she was still stood there, watching, waiting. When she spoke, he felt a jolt of shock pass through him at the words.
"What is love?"
"What?" he said in a low voice. When he opened his eyes, he was relieved to see Illyria facing him once more. Relieved, and strangely disappointed.
"Love," repeated Illyria, her cerulean gaze seeming to pierce his soul. Those eyes were the one bright thing in her porcelain skin. He was unable to look away. It was like being trapped in a sea of ice. "You say you loved her. Fred. What does that mean?"
Wesley turned away, feeling a terrible moisture stinging the backs of his eyes. "You would never understand."
She walked towards him with a graceful, yet curiously sinister movement, leashed power brimming just beneath the surface. Strange how their movements could be so at variance with one another. Fred was hollow-boned, moving with a fragile bird-like fleetness. Illyria was more substantial: strength and muscle were conveyed in the surety of her steps, the subtle rhythm that was tense and poised with alertness at all times. Wesley wondered if this had always been the case, or whether it was the effects of feeling insecure in a world where her powers were diminished. She was gazing at him; her crystalline eyes, for once, betrayed her. She was angered. He felt the hairs rise along the back of his neck.
"Dare not presume what I would or would not understand! You will answer me when I demand it."
"Why do you want to know?" said Wesley, looking hard at her, a challenge in his voice.
Illyria said nothing for some time; her shoulders stiffened with a painful tension. Something indefinable moved, not in her eyes, but behind them. She looked downwards, trying to feign composure. "I – I am experiencing… emotions, I think. It unsettles me. When you are not around, I wonder where you are. For some reason, it matters to me what you think. I… I feel the need to know your opinion of me." Illyria's head shot upright, anger shuddering through her slender frame. "It is disgusting, weak. This – this cannot be me. It is the shell – there is something – some memory that is making me feel this way!"
"What memory?" said Wesley harshly. "Fred's soul was –" his features suddenly grew taut – "her soul was destroyed. There is nothing of Fred left."
"No. I assume her form; I speak using her voice. Something of her must still exist inside me, it must, otherwise –"
"Otherwise you are feeling human."
She lifted her huge blue eyes to his. "Yes," she whispered.
He laughed, but it was an unpleasant sound, filled more with cruelty than humour. "This must be killing you, mustn't it?"
There was pure hatred in the eyes that flashed upon him; he was struck as though by an icy blast of winter air. She was so terribly beautiful it hurt to look at her for too long.
"You think to mock me? You, whose emotions are so pitifully transparent, it is a wonder your enemies have not exploited your weakness to their full advantage? I have seen the results of feelings. Pain and vulnerability, futility and despair. Why do you mortals allow yourselves to be so ruled by your feelings? Is it because you have such a short time to live? When I was in my full glory, there was no place for emotion. Only immortality and total power. Emotion was weakness. Weakness was death."
Wesley released a breath in a slow, ragged gasp. "Is that how you regard it? A weakness?"
"I don't know what I think of anything any more. This world has altered beyond all recognition. I despise it."
"That's something we both have in common."
"We have nothing in common," she responded, with a flash of her old arrogance. And even though he told himself he didn't care about her, that he wished she had never come into his life, Wesley still flinched slightly at the contempt in her voice.
"Then why are you still here?"
It was Fred that answered him.
"'Cause that's the way you want it, right? Just you and me… alone… together."
He shuddered, and something like a shivering cold pleasure lanced across his skin. He could not deny she had Fred down perfectly: the slightly gawky mannerisms, the adorable balance between timidity and impulse, the gentle honesty. She could not have done a better job had she spent years rehearsing. It was this, even more than her outward appearance that caused the blood to stop in his veins. What was the first thing the Watcher's Council had always told him? That it was imperative to separate truth from illusion. But when the illusion was so real, so bittersweet, if he never wanted it to end, if he could believe it for just one blissful moment… would it be wrong? Who would he be hurting? Not Fred, certainly. Fred was gone. There was nothing of her left, no abstract plane in which her soul could have an awareness of his betrayal. His thoughts were rapidly disintegrating and spiralling out of control. If only she would stop… if only she would never stop…
Wesley tried to speak but his voice seemed to have died in his throat. She had moved closer. His body responded instantly. He would have backed away, only the desk was behind him. There was nowhere to run.
"Stop this," he breathed unsteadily.
His nails were biting into his palms. God, she even smelt like Fred, a unique scent that reminded him of soap, fresh linen and early morning air. It isn't real, he told himself over and over, but the thought seemed vague and unfocused, with none of the clarity of the brown eyes facing him.
"You don't want me to stop." It was Illyria's voice once again, but the eyes remained brown. "Your lust permeates the very air. You think I cannot sense your desire for me?"
"Not for you," he said harshly. "Never for you."
She laughed, and it was Fred's laugh, light and girlish. "Gee Wes, you sure know how to make a girl feel special."
He was drowning in her eyes. This was madness. He wanted to run. He wanted to put his arms around her. He wanted her gone. He wanted her moaning beneath him.
They were barely inches from each other now, a few strands of light brown hair fell forward, half covering her face, and brushing against his skin. He drew in a sharp breath at the feather light touch. His hands slid upwards without his realising, fingers entwining in the fine tresses. She half closed her eyes, with a slightly embarrassed smile. Her smile. Let me in, that smile seemed to say. Let me help you. And, from some half stirred fragment in his imagination, he felt the words graze the edges of his consciousness; don't you want to see how deep I go?
His hand brushed against her jaw line and Wesley paused an instant, realising he had not touched her since Fred – he swallowed. He had expected the skin to be marble hard, an effect of hollowing out the body she now inhabited, but she was soft and warm; he could feel the blood beating beneath the skin.
Or perhaps it was his own pulse.
His voice, when he found it, seemed to come from far away.
"How can you not be her?"
"Shush," she said gently, one hand coming to caress his face with a gentle movement. He shuddered against her. "Shush now."
A dizzying light-headedness had seized him. Almost in a dream, Wesley heard himself say, "Would it be enough? Knowing that I'll only be seeing her?"
"Oh, don't be such a grouch," she whispered teasingly. "Ain't you gonna kiss me?"
"I –" He was paralysed and blinded all at once. He could see himself in her eyes, reflected into infinity. This was madness. All he had to do was take a few steps then he would be out of the room. Just a few steps. Just a few…
"Wes… you have to move on. It's ok. I understand, I do." Reeling from lust and whiskey, Wesley could only listen, half stupefied as she continued to whisper softly, "I don't want you to hurt anymore. Give us this one goodbye. Then you can be free. Wesley." She breathed his name against his lips. Something like a bolt of lightning shot through his blood. "My Wesley."
"Always," he said, and kissed her.
It was soft at first, as though testing her, gauging what her response would be, before intensifying with the swiftness of desire. Strong hands seized her upper arms, fingers pressing into the skin. It was Fred's tender skin he touched, feeling the fragile bones in her shoulders, the comforting warmth through her clothing. He had half turned his body towards her, bringing her closer to him. Somewhere, echoing dimly in the depths of his mind was the thought that he should fight this, but he had been fighting for so long.
He didn't want to be alone anymore.
Just this once, he wanted to feel.
Her hands were a little uncertain; cold against his neck, so cold he jumped. It struck him as vaguely amusing that one who had lived so many lives could be so unknowing when it came to a fundamental human interaction.
But then she wasn't human.
This couldn't be happening. This shouldn't be happening. It felt like a dream, and one he never wanted to leave. The office had tilted crazily and he was aware of nothing but swinging shadows around him. The world had narrowed to a chilling darkness where pleasure and pain blurred exquisitely, where there was nothing but cold and fever and the searing touch of those fingers.
"Your hands are cold," he said aloud, half wonderingly, and she silenced him by brushing her fingers over his mouth, and he kissed each one tenderly. Her eyes closed, the lashes sweeping down, pressing against her cheeks like delicate bird wings. He could feel her slight weight down every line of his body; they were pressed so close that he wondered if the shuddering he felt came purely from himself or them both.
"Wesley –" she whispered.
He could feel her heart thudding against his; saw the pulse beating hard in her neck and his mouth moved down the hollow of her throat, resting there a moment. He knew his fingers were digging into her shoulders with a force that must be painful, but he didn't care. He didn't care about anything except that she keep making those soft sounds in the back of her throat, and that she pressed herself further into his hold, so he could feel the shaking tension of the soft, warm body against his. Her hands snaked their way behind his head, entangling in his hair, twisting and pulling as he felt, rather than heard, her ragged breathing. He was falling, drowning, and he never wanted to resurface.
His back struck against something hard and painful, and he realised they had fallen back against the desk. Something – an old volume perhaps – fell to the floor with a heavy thud. For Wesley, the room had begun to return to focus and he began pushing her top from one shoulder, afraid of losing this sense of oblivion. She had pulled back slightly, her hands still around his neck.
"I hurt you," she said.
"Yes," said Wesley. "But don't stop."
She leaned over him, long hair falling over his face, brushing against his shoulders. He found her lips again, but this time it was different. Before it had been him kissing her, but now she was responding with a fierceness and desire that matched his own. Sensing her response to him, hungry, urgent, wild, Wesley felt a seizing sort of paralytic shock, even as his body scorched with desire. His heart was pounding against his ribs as her fingers sought and found their way under his sweater, and the touch was icy, yet it burned.
Oh he was feeling, all right.
He pulled her harder against him, feeling a heartbeat banging painfully against his ribs and not knowing who it belonged to, and it didn't matter. Her mouth was burning against his; he traced her full lower lip with his teeth, needing to taste more of her. It was hunger, fire, urgency, as necessary and as vital as breathing. He felt the rush of blood in his body; heard a roaring in his ears and felt as though he were dying. It was a gloriously sweeping relief to know that this was a force he could not fight, a passion he could no longer deny. Her hands were fierce, her lips bruising, and he wanted it, wanted it more than he had ever wanted anything in his life.
This wasn't tenderness, or warmth, or gentleness, or any other emotion he would have associated with being with Fred. The kisses they had shared had been sweet and affectionate, and even when passionate, had never been a clash or a desperate assault of brutal intensity. She was hurting him; he felt it in her frozen touch, the way his heart seemed to be bleeding inwardly, the score marks her nails left across his skin. But then he was hurting her as well; perhaps he wanted to hurt her. One of her bare shoulders was exposed, and his other hand pulled her skirt higher up her legs with a sharp tug, knowing he was being aggressive and there was a terrible sense of satisfaction at the knowing. A part of him hated her even as he loved her. It was piercing and cold sort of ecstasy; when she shivered he felt it pass through his bones like a winters chill. Even when he had been with Lilah in the violent power struggles their encounters always resulted in, he had always maintained control, always held something back. Not so anymore. Intensity and emotion tore through his body in shock waves, as he lost herself to the sensation of being broken, burned, annihilated.
He knew it was Illyria, knew that being with Fred would never be like a jagged piece of glass splintering his chest, half pleasure, half pain, but it seemed an irrelevant fact, far away and detached from himself.
But it was Fred's name that left his lips.
He had spent night after lonely night in drink and isolation dreaming of Fred, longing for Fred, and this was the only way he could have her than so be it.
If this was a lie, he didn't care anymore.