Title: The Powerlessness of Books
Rating: PG
Pairing: Fred/Wes
Spoilers: Shells and everything up to it.
Word Count: 430
Feedback: Makes my day
Disclaimer: If it was in the show, it's not mine.
Archive: At my site Checkmate () , Fanfiction.net; anywhere else, please ask.
Summary: Wesley's always been Book Man
Notes: For the LiveJournal Writer's Choice "Books" challenge
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Wesley's always been Book Man, legacy of his upbringing, legacy of his Watcher training. Always more comfortable with books than with people, they were his sanctuary, his refuge when his father's disapproving glares were too much, when the ridicule of his peers could no longer be ignored. He might not have been the quickest of movers, the fastest of fighters, but he could be the most learned of them all, and that's what he took pride in.
Too much pride, he knows that now.
Because when he moved to California, things changed for him. Free of the Watcher's Council, an ocean removed from his father, he became all the things that he had never been. A fighter, a leader, a friend.
And for the longest of times, a would-be lover.
But Fred never looked at him as she looked at Gunn, and he was left alone with his books, a cold substitute for her warm smile.
He wonders now if Wolfram and Hart knew when they recruited him that books, knowledge, were his weakness. That in showing him a book that could be any book he wanted, they were guaranteed his interest.
His interest, and most of his time. But not his heart and soul. Those were already lost long ago, and he'd given up hope of ever getting them back, of Fred ever looking at him as he looked at her.
Then she bestowed a miracle upon him, came to him with a smile and a kiss of untold promise, and suddenly, he had the girl of his dreams and all the books he could ever read.
He had everything.
Until the day he sat in her bedroom for the first time, reading.
That day, the only book he wanted to read was the book that would tell him how to cure her, how to save his beautiful, brave Fred from the torture she was going through.
That day, the book he ended up reading was A Little Princess out loud, her head on his shoulder, and he would have read forever if it meant that she would stay.
Strange, that with all the books in the world, all the magic, all the demonology he could have ever wished for, the most powerful words of all came from the pen of Frances Hodgson Burnett.
But even that wasn't powerful enough, because she's gone.
She's gone, and a demon walks in her stead, reminding him with every passing day of what he's lost.
She's gone, and all he's left with are his books.
She's gone, and he's left with nothing.