The Voices In My Head
Chapter One: Watch Me Fall
Author's Note: These three ficlets were originally three individual ones, but they do work together so I've grouped them under one fic. They don't have to be read in order, you don't even have to read one to understand another. They're only linked by the central relationships of Wes/Lilah and Wes/Fred and the use of the voice in the head.
Lilah Morgan had learnt to hate silences. In the silence, without the bustle inside her head over contracts, partners, death, apocalypse and Angel, other things bled through.
Other thing actually. Person, to be specific.
She sighed. Somewhere along the line, she had cultivated an inner voice. In her line of work, she had little time - or need - for friends. But occasionally, she needed someone to talk to. It didn't matter how much of her soul she had sold for her cushy office, designer clothes and enviable apartment, she was still human. So she would talk to herself. Her head voice could offer some pretty good pieces of advice. She ignored the fact that most of the time her strange conversations concerned Wesley.
Oh no, don't think about that, Lilah. It's enough you think about Wesley all the time, without talking about him in your head.
It was probably due to this hatred of silences that she hadn't told the woman now sitting opposite her to get lost. They were both nursing coffees inside the a barricaded diner they were sheltering in. The doors and windows were nailed shut, people hid inside and took advantage of the coffee machine and week old bagels before moving on. The woman across the table seemed to have made it her mission to get Lilah to open up.
"A man," the woman nodded. "And you thought it was just sex?"
"Started out that way," Lilah sighed.
"Doesn't it always?" the woman fell silent and watched Lilah. Lilah didn't look at her; she stared into her coffee and thought about him.
She thought about him way too much, which was strange, because she didn't do relationships. They never worked, there was too much emotion involved and in her line of work, the only feeling that worked for you was the one of self-preservation. Anything else was weakness and Lilah hated weakness. Right now, she couldn't afford weakness; she couldn't afford to let anything override her self-preservation. She was the sole survivor of the Wolfram and Hart massacre and she intended to keep it that way.
And who do you have to thank for that? Wesley. All those people he could have tried to save and he only wanted to save you. And you want to know what that means. But who says it has to mean anything?
"What are you running from?" the woman asked.
"Who says I'm running?" Lilah snapped.
"Lucky guess. So… What are you running from?"
Lilah leaned back in her chair and studied her companion before shrugging a little.
"Haven't you had your eyes open? Everyone's running. Rain of fire, neverending night, monsters… Who isn't running?"
"The people who are fighting it," the woman looked up at Lilah and cupped her mug in gloved hands. "I'm Gwen. You got a name?"
"Lilah."
He told you change your name. Are you ever gonna learn to listen to him? He's smarter than you will ever be.
"Maybe it would help if you had a Clyde."
"What?"
"You'd be Bonnie. Maybe it would be better if you had a Clyde."
Or a Wesley. You know it would be fun with him. Think of those days you would have to spend in motel rooms. Think of the nights you would have had to spend travelling. That's about as close as you'd ever get to a normal relationship. But here you are, all on your lonesome. You must be doing something wrong, Lilah, otherwise you wouldn't be here, you'd be all loved up with a certain devilishly handsome man.
She almost laughed at that. She had always thought love was twee and sweet, and running in slow motion through fields of daffodils with sappy smiles. The very thought was enough to make her cringe. Lilah was a "heinous bitch" - according to Cordelia Chase anyway. Lilah did sex, she didn't do love. It was as simple as that.
Simple? I would have said it stopped being simple a long time ago. I'd say it stopped being simple when you started to feel -
She didn't want to think about that. She had too much to deal with these days, what with the fact that she would never get her things back, the wound that wouldn't heal and the Beast.
Lilah eyed the young woman opposite her. She seemed the fighting type. But Lilah had been the fighting type once. Now it was all she could do to actually get up to find that stupid book. Maybe this girl had the fight knocked out of her. Or maybe she just didn't see the point anymore. The world was ending - for real this time. Why waste your time fighting the inevitable?
Oh for God's sake! Will you stop feeling sorry for yourself? What happened to you? You're like a simpering, love-struck teenager. Love is for suckers, remember? Suckers who are too weak to grab life by the balls and make it dance for them. What, so you're a sucker now?
Maybe she was. She couldn't seem to care anymore. If she was, she knew why. Originally, all that she and Wes had was just great sex and the opportunity to torment each other. Then it got…
Complicated? Or maybe you were right; maybe it did just get simple.
"You've already got a Clyde, haven't you?" Gwen asked.
"It's just sex. Was just sex."
"So when did things change?"
"I don't know… Actually, yeah I do… And you know the dumb thing? It was just one night. One night out of a hundred nights. So I stayed the night. Big deal. It shouldn't have changed anything."
But it did. You never knew it was possible to laugh in bed, did you? You never thought you could talk after sex, or just lie there and not say a word. It was all new to you, wasn't it? And it terrified you. Know why?
Because you liked it.
"Why did it then?"
Lilah hadn't been listening. The implications behind her thoughts had frozen her. What if she had liked it? She didn't, did she?
Why keep staying if you didn't like it?
"Hey? You in there? I said, why did it change things?"
The gloved ran waved in front of her face and Lilah focused back on her.
"I don't know. But it did. He saved my life. Big massacre where I used to work. He got me out."
"Sounds like a good guy."
"Exactly. I don't do good guys."
No, Lilah Morgan definitely didn't do good guys. You don't love someone who is your exact opposite. You don't love someone who hates everything you stand for and vice versa. You don't love when you're a Wolfram and Hart attorney. Just look at Lindsey. Look where love got him. She had survived well enough without love for the past few years and she didn't need it now.
"You do now," Gwen pointed out with a slight smirk.
She's right. A good guy gave you what no bad boy ever had.
He had told her to leave town, she remembered scornfully, but there was no way she was going to do that. This was her town and she was going to get her life back.
And she didn't need Wesley Wyndam-fucking-Pryce for that.
Oh please. You can't say you didn't like being with him, you know. You loved it. You never realised he was so strong, did you? You didn't give him a second thought and now he's every thought. He's just a man, Lilah. At least that's what you keep telling yourself. So why do you love him?
That was uncharted territory. She had come close to using the "L" word in regard to Wes before. But she had explained that away as fear. She had never seriously considered it. The very idea was ridiculous.
"Do you think you can fuck someone for six months and never care about them?" Lilah asked Gwen suddenly.
"I dunno," Gwen shrugged. "Never exactly had a boyfriend. But… I'd guess no. 'Cause there's gotta be some reason you keep going back."
See? Even she can see it. Why the hell can't you? You lost everything, Lilah. You're not you anymore. Why not just admit it? Give it up. You know you loved him.
"So what if I did?"
"Huh?" Gwen frowned at her.
"So what if I did care? I'll never see him again, what does it matter?"
"It doesn't. He'll probably die, if he hasn't already."
Lilah swallowed hard. Why did that make her go cold? Why did it make her skin prickle, the hairs on the back on her neck stand on end? Why did it make her heart clench?
"You love him, don't you?"
For a moment, Lilah thought the words had been inside her head, but then she saw Gwen's sympathetic face.
"What makes you think that?" she snapped.
"I dunno. Maybe 'cause you seem so hung up on making me believe you don't give a damn. Maybe 'cause you're trying so hard to pretend you're still the bitch you obviously used to be. Maybe 'cause you looked so miserable when I said he's probably dead. Just a lucky guess."
Pretty accurate guess, wouldn't you say, Lilah?
"I don't do love."
"And I don't usually do running, but check it out."
"He's… He's a good guy! I can't love a good guy! And you know what… He's stubborn and… and he's reckless."
"Sounds like just your type."
"But that's just it, he isn't my type. And I'm only looking for the stupid book so I can give it to him 'cause then I can get my life back."
"And it's got nothing to do with you wanting to see him again."
"Exactly."
They fell silent and stared at the table.
When did it get to this? When did you end up in a diner waiting for some guy with a book, talking to a girl you've never met? And don't say it was when the Beast killed everyone in Wolfram and Hart, we both know it goes back farther than that.
And so what if it did? After all, love was just a feeling, a sickness you could get over.
Gwen stood up, smoothed her top and looked at Lilah for a moment before saying anything.
"Good luck with the running," she said. "Use the tunnels. They should be safe now the surface is the devil's playground."
"Thanks for the advice. Have fun with your running."
"Oh, don't worry, I'll be back as soon as the lights come back on. Be careful, it's not so safe out there, all the things that go bump in the night have come out to play."
"Don't I know it."
"Well, it's been fun watching you fall."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
Gwen didn't answer; she just walked away, around the diner's counter and down into the basement.
It's not like you needed her to explain what she meant. You know what she meant. She watched you fall in love with him. She watched you stop fighting it and finally give in. Now you've just got to admit it.
"Lilah?"
Lilah looked up into the nervous face of the guy she had tracked down for her book.
"Sit down," she said. "Got the book?"
"Here," he pulled it out of his jacket and pushed it across the table toward her. In reply, she thrust some notes at him.
She stood slowly and suddenly; she was Lilah Morgan again. She had her fight back. She was going to survive this. She was the Bitch Queen from Hell and she was going to make sure she got her life back.
She slipped around the counter and into the open basement Gwen had left through and her guy had entered through. She found the opening into the tunnels and slipped inside. One hand gripped her revolver and the other hugged the large book to her stomach, protecting her aching wound.
The bitch was back.
Lilah, Lilah, Lilah. When are you going to realise that you're never going to be that bitch again? Not while you love him… It doesn't stop being real just 'cause you got your groove back.
It just grows. You'll keep on falling, Lilah. Who knows when you'll stop?