Disclaimer: I don't own the characters. They belong to Joss Whedon and co.
Home
By Bohemian Storm
She unlocks
the door, making sure to close it behind her and engage the deadbolt. Angel can
kick her door open, she's learned, when the deadbolt
isn't it place. Something in the back of her head says he'd probably still be
able to do it, but Billy is dead, so unless Angel is suddenly worried about
Wesley's whereabouts, she doubts he'll be by. She smiles.
She drops her keys in the bowl by the door. It looks like home. It doesn't feel
that way. They keys clink against the glass bowl and she sees reruns of an old
television show playing in her head. Black and white, just like she remembers. Honey,
I'm home. There's no one else in her apartment. Just ghosts of her past and
she tends to ignore even those.
She doesn't bother turning on the lights. She doesn't need to see. It's lavish,
it's rich, and it's big. She knows the apartment from top to bottom. She can
tell you what each item cost. She's rich, after all. It's all money. All of it. The hardwood floors clacking under her high
heels; six thousand dollars to have it put in, just in the hallway and bedroom.
The shoes themselves cost a fortune. At least eight hundred.
She enters the bedroom. Drops her purse, then her briefcase.
It hits the floor with a thud. She winces. She probably just chipped the six
thousand dollar flooring. She thinks about picking it up for a moment, then decides to leave it where it is. She's not going to do
any work tonight. She has no reason to work. She just beheaded the boss and
took his place. She can afford to spend one evening getting drunk alone in the
dark. She's going to use the crystal flutes, she decides and not for champagne.
She wonders if there's any scotch or vodka left in the cabinet. She'd used the
regular glasses, but she has reason to celebrate.
She kicks off her shoes, leaving them where they fall. She should pick them up,
but she won't. Abandoned footwear is part of a home. She remembers this from
the girls she went to school with. Her parents would have never allowed it. Not
her stiff, rigid mother with her clean white floors
and her cigar smoking father with his library and vocabulary to rival a
thesaurus. She went to a sleepover once - her only party in middle school -
when she was twelve. She remembers the smell of it. It didn't smell like her
house.
And they left their shoes all over the floor.
She steps over them and goes toward the closet, unbuttoning her blouse as she
walks. She slips out of her jacket and hangs it next to all the others. The
blues, reds, grays and blacks, side by side, all her jackets. All her costumes. The blouse she tosses into the laundry
hamper. She unzips the back of her skirt and it follows the blouse, hanging
haphazardly on the lip of the hamper. Her fingers graze it as she passed and it
slips inside, dropping on top of all the other clothing with a soft swish.
In the dark she steps out of her pantyhose and leaves them lying on the floor
beside her high heels. She's not expecting any unwelcome visitors, but she's
learned not to take the chance. She opens the dresser drawer and flicks through
her clothing. She doesn't want to dress again. She wants to sit on her couch in
her underwear and a robe, but there's always the chance that someone will want
to see her. Gavin. Angel. Wesley.
She figures Gavin will show up within the next few days either way. He wants
her dead. She doubts the fact that he had to carry Linwood's head out of the
board room changed his feelings for her very much. Angel always wants her dead
for one reason or another and Wesley wants her for altogether different
reasons. She thinks that it's mostly because Angel wants him dead too.
The thought shouldn't make her smile, but it does.
She was taught never to dress down, even when she's alone in her home. It's
ingrained in her. She can practically hear her mother's voice snapping at her
to find a nice skirt. One can still look proper and feel casual. That's
her mother, alright. Rigid and cruel. Exactly what she grew up into.
She slides into a skirt and a loose shirt. It's instinct to pick these clothes,
to only feel at home with rich fabrics and luxurious carpets and all the
material things other people think they don't need. It's not because she's
shallower. She's better than they are. Better. Different.
She's important. That's why she's paid as well as she is. And maybe she does
think too highly of herself, but she doesn't know when such a thing became a
crime.
"Because you are a vicious bitch."
"So you know me."
They don't know her. They think they know her. Vicious bitch.
It's a mask, like all her suits and skirts. She remembers that when she first
started working for Wolfram and Hart, the expensive clothing made her feel like
a princess. Pretty, naïve thoughts flickering through her
mind, drowning the great depths of intelligence there. Sometimes she's
surprised that she went anywhere within the company. She felt so awestruck in
the beginning. She knows that she didn't project that image because Lindsey
once asked her, only two weeks after they had both been recruited, how she kept
so still and professional when the other lawyers spoke to her.
She remembers smiling prettily at him. She remembers the look he got when she
did it. That look she learned to use as she got older. She smiled so sweetly, then said, 'Well excuse me if I don't wet my fucking pants
like a pathetic little lap dog every time someone important enters the room.' A
blatant glance at his groin was all that was needed. He hated her from that
moment.
She leaves the bedroom, fingers trailing on the wall as she walks down the hall
and enters the living room. Light from the street lamps outside filters through
her blinds and although she doesn't need the light, she opens them. Her living
room is cast into an orange glow and she turns toward the liquor cabinet before
her eyes have the chance to take in everything on the street below her.
It's easier to avoid the things that make you uncomfortable.
She tells herself than any normal human would feel guilty, seeing the people
living in filth on the streets below while she lives in a gorgeous apartment.
Normal people would feel guilty. She doesn't. They annoy her, the homeless who
beg for change when she takes the short walk between her apartment building and
her car. She worked for her money; every cent of it. She's not going to give it
away to someone who couldn't even be bothered to finish high school.
She pours herself a drink with a steady, calculated hand. She's been pouring
herself drinks for many years. She does it perfectly. It never spills.
She's so glad he's dead.
"He doesn't know anything. There's nothing to take advantage of."
"Except you.
She wishes she could have arranged for Gavin to join Linwood, but she supposes
her current position will have to be good enough. Vice
President. She likes the sound of that. It's power; it's everything
she's been working toward since joining the company six years ago.
She takes a sip of the drink and sits down on her sofa, wondering what her
parents would say. Her father is dead. Her mother is lost. He died of a heart
attack when she was eighteen. She can't say she ever really missed him.
Her mother, on the other hand, is just gone. Lost inside that tangled mess the
doctor still insist is a brain.
She sighs, downing the drink and pouring another. Her throat is burning, but
she ignores it. The flashing lightly on her answering machine catches her eye
and her finger hovers over the play button for a long moment. It could be
Linwood. His final testament on her answering machine.
It could be Gavin, ranting, filled with death threats.
Or, it could be ...
She presses the button and his voice fills the room.
"I have that volume you've been looking for. Most of it is still in the
original Romanian text, so it's not exactly easy to read." He pauses.
"I'll bring it over for you tonight."
And right on time, there is a knock at her door. She smirks, puts down the
drink and walks down the hall. He has impeccable timing, always showing up just
as she's thinking about him.
She unlocks the door and leans against the frame, studying him. Maybe her mother
was right. Maybe it's best that she's always ready for a visitor.
"Did you get my message?" he asks.
She nods. "Just now."
He holds up the book. "Here it is."
She takes it from him. "Is that all?"
"No."
And he kisses her and the door slams shut behind them both. She knows her half
finished drink will be forgotten; poured down the drain the next morning. She
can't find it in herself to care. Nor can she find the energy to be worried
about the unlocked front door. Let Angel kick it down if he wants. Let Gavin
walk on in. It's easier to not care.
They both stumble over her discarded shoes as they make their way into the
bedroom.
"You should learn to pick up after yourself, Lilah,"
he tells her, as his mouth presses to her throat. "It's not like you to
leave things lying around. It's not neat."
She agrees with him, but the words are lost against his mouth and her shoes are
forgotten. She'll think about them the next morning, however, and be reminded
that they make her bedroom look like a home.
End