Disclaimer: I make no profit from this and I don't own any of the characters. It's all for my own amusement.
Feedback: Thanks go to Ruth Quist, awall, gopie and MysticWolf1 for their kind reviews. They fed the ravenous fiction ego that lurks in my head and made it want to give you more, so here you go.
Author's note: I couldn't resist a bit more Faith and Wesley interaction, I love them so. The meat of the story picks up in the next chapter, but until then…
……………………
The room is dark and the ceiling presses down upon him uncomfortably. A lingering sense of something wrong, something waiting just beyond his mental reach, taunts him in the distance, but every time he tries to grasp it, it slips away. He shifts uneasily as it continues to elude him, a growing feeling of anxiety creeping over him. Something isn't right, but he can't remember why that is.
The bed dips slightly and Lilah looks over at him with hunger in her eyes. He feels a strong desire to force it out of her somehow. He doesn't want her here but he can't let her go.
"Isn't this what you wanted, lover?" she asks him with a purr, and he crushes his mouth to hers to silence her. The sheets of the bed stick to him, and she laughs.
This seems familiar somehow, and he latches onto it eagerly, wanting her to take away the uncertainty. She can distract him from the awful truth. Gentle, talon-like fingers caress his face, sliding down his jaw line, and he feels afraid. Inexplicable, perhaps, but it suddenly demands all of his attention, all the more potent when he can't think of the reason for it.
"Wait, stop," he begs her, but she simply smiles and hushes him, her fingers continuing their course.
He finds now that he cannot lift his arms to protect himself and so bares his neck to her in submission. Her eyes grow hard and serious as she traces the outline of a gaping wound and her hair flashes red in the light. He can't breathe.
The red liquid seeps into the fabric of the sheets as she brings her coated fingers away, examining them carefully.
"You suffer so beautifully," she tells him sadly. He wants to answer her, to tell her that this is not the way it is supposed to go, but his throat will no longer work.
"No matter," she says with a sigh, "We both know you cannot save me." A baby cries in the distance and he panics again, struggling to rise. She pushes him back down.
"There's nothing you can do," she says, and a tear slips over her cheek as she turns her head away, watching the shadow approach. "Don't fight it now, lover, it's for the best."
She squeezes his hand and moves from his sight, but the bed does not spring back lighter with the shift of her weight. He wants to tell her that it is odd, but still, he cannot find the breath. He continues to bleed until he is soaked, and he feels profoundly humiliated. Don't leave me he thinks forlornly.
"Angel," he hears his own voice call out, though it couldn't have come from him. "Help me…"
But he doesn't. The approaching shadow materialises and Angel looks down on him, ridges and fangs erupting.
"I don't hate you," the vampire says as he looms down, and something muffles the light and sound. Wesley still can't breathe, but this time he knows he will die.
……………..
He woke to the sounds of movement in his kitchen and momentarily forgot where he was.
The threads of reality separated slowly from dream and he rubbed a hand over his eyes, determined not to give in to temptation and check his neck for a slash. At least the headache was gone.
"Son of a bitch…" floated to him through the bedroom door and the entire nights events smashed into him like a brick. The dread renewed once again.
He hauled himself up with the resignation that had lately attached itself firmly to his being and padded into his living room. It was with a great sense of detached unreality that he took in the scene.
Several bags littered a trail towards where Faith was sitting, cross-legged, in the middle of the kitchen floor, sucking on her finger. She glared at it for a second, then removed various items from the bag in her lap and delved into the open cupboard by her side, arranging them to her satisfaction. With that, she then screwed up the now empty bag and threw it over her shoulder. She reached for the next.
"Cupboard or fridge?" she asked the counter in front of her, and Wesley frowned. She waved a bag or oranges above her head to provoke his answer and he realised she was talking to him.
"Ah, the cupboard, I think," he stammered quickly, trying to cover his surprise.
The oranges were promptly plunged onto the shelf next to the other items and she pushed the door closed with her hip as she stood. She continued to rummage around the room without so much as a glance in his direction, and with a heavy blink, Wesley took a moment to scan his apartment.
The couch cushions had been rearranged into a vaguely nest-like structure with a blanket draped over the back. Objects like the remote, plates, glasses and food items in various stages of use lay scattered in easily accessible places. Faith's chunky boots lay next to each other under his coffee table beside a pile of screwed up clothing that had been hastily discarded by its owner. It took a second to process until Wesley took another close look at his guest.
Clothed now in a simple white tank top and khaki pants, Faith caught his appraisal and raised an eyebrow. "I went shopping," she said. He couldn't think of anything to say to that.
She moved further into the room and leaned round to get a pointed look at his wall clock.
"It's 9.30 you know," she informed him. There was a pause as though she expected him to react to that information in some way. "Shouldn't you be at work already or something?"
It struck him that he hadn't really considered his standing in the group anymore, especially since things had become more complicated. He hadn't actually given much thought at all to his plans since the day he'd left the hotel. Faith's blunt question brought home just how directionless he was now, and he had no idea what he should do next. Getting through each five minute slot had taken up much of his concentration these last few days.
"Things have changed somewhat since you were last here, Faith," he began, expecting to have to launch into a lengthy explanation despite his feeble attempts at evasion.
"No shit," she replied with an obvious up-and-down look at him. He frowned disapprovingly at her, the beginnings of annoyance stirring already. "Anyway, that's not what I meant. I get that you guys aren't all with the friendlies right now. It doesn't matter to me. I meant that isn't it about time we got our asses over there? Angel's gotta be half way to a hernia right about now."
"You can't be serious."
"What?"
"I'm not just going to just turn up for work and pretend that nothing has happened. I'm not Angel's hired babysitter. And certainly neither are you."
Faith rolled her eyes at him then in that long-suffering way Cordelia used to do, and the initial twinges of annoyance morphed into full-fledged indignation. One night on his couch and a highly questionable attempt to restock his kitchen did not buy her this kind of familiarity. She didn't know him, and she was in absolutely no position to judge his actions.
If he admitted it to himself, he was slightly unnerved by the elusiveness of her motives. He couldn't figure her out, and that never put him at ease. Being on guard against her every move and imagining threats where it was proven again and again that there were none had left him on edge, and he had to make the conscious effort to force himself back into calm.
"Faith, I'm not going to argue with you," he said, trying to squash her before she got started. It was clear to anyone with even half the social intelligence of a stone that an argument was exactly what she wanted.
Faith didn't even bother to dignify that patented Wesley condescension with her attention. He was trying to redirect her, but she would not be put off that easily. She continued as though he hadn't interrupted her.
"Oh come on, Wes. I'm not asking you to act all normal or anything." Wesley began to shake his head at her and she could see she was losing him. "Look, you know we gotta do this. Don't tell me you've been hiding here all this time."
That did it.
"It's not a case of hiding," he said, exasperated. Despite all his efforts, he was heating, and the damn girl was behaving like she was enjoying it.
"Oh yeah? Okay then, so why? What'd he do, fire you or somethin'?"
Wesley thought for a second before he answered quietly, "In a manner of speaking."
Oh, shit, came to mind, but Faith didn't give it voice. The self-depreciating triumph on Wesley's face at a point well made further destroyed her footing.
"So you see," he began again, turning for the bathroom, "no one's exactly expecting me, or you for that matter. I'm sorry if that inconveniences you."
What had started as a little game of wind-up-Wesley had begun to fray her own temper, and she began to smoulder herself. She wondered if Wesley liked the person he had become, or was becoming. As he shut the door on her, she wondered if he had even noticed. He surely couldn't be in that much denial.
"You're a real piece of work, you know that?" she shouted through the door to him, registering the intentional silence as he ignored her. Running water began as though to drown her out and she clenched her fists. She decided to try for the guilt-trip effect.
"What about me, huh? Does it look like I have a choice here? I've gotta go do this thing whether I want to or not, I've got nowhere else to go. The least you could do is have the decency to be there with me."
The door was opened again suddenly with such force that Faith half imagined the resulting suction pulling her from the room, and she smirked to herself with satisfaction.
"What makes you think I owe you a thing?" Wesley asked her dangerously, and there were just too many implications being suggested. In a blatant attempt to divert the conversation back to flippancy, she began to laugh at him, and it diffused her doubt somewhat. That was a route she knew she had no defence for.
"Jesus, Wes, did you get up on the wrong side of the bed or what."
He made an infuriated noise and turned to go back, stopped only by Faith's hand gripping the door. She made a point of looking at him straight, all humour gone from her face.
"Let's just get this sorted once and for all," she implored him seriously. "Angel will find us sooner or later, and I want it to be on our own terms. He won't leave it alone, Wes, and you know it."
She had his attention, and she could see him considering the truth of her reasoning. He looked about as thrilled by the prospect of being hounded by Angel as she was, although she knew that was at least in part the reason why he wanted to completely avoid the issue in the first place.
He wasn't keen on being used, that much was clear. They had something in common, then. At least this way, they had the chance of setting down their own rules before Angel started making assumptions. If she was going to be around him for the next indeterminable amount of time, trapped almost, it was going to start off on the right course. No one forced Faith to do anything she didn't want to.
"For Connor's sake," she added when the indecision stretched, needing that last nudge to persuade him.
Immediately, it felt like a cheap shot. The flash of self-disgust that crossed his features seemed truly to hurt him and she regretted having said it. Any thoughts to chastise her for using the child she didn't even know as ammunition against him were buried thoroughly by that pain as though he had accepted the unvoiced accusation.
He nodded slightly at her then without a word, and she wondered why he seemed to look so defeated.
…………….
Faith waited impatiently in the car for Wesley to come out of his apartment building, taking the time to fiddle with the air conditioning controls and roll down her window. She stuck an elbow out and rested it over the door like a trucker. She then rearranged her legs awkwardly and managed to shuck one foot up onto the seat, leaving her upper thigh and knee projected upwards. It would bug the hell out of Wesley.
His one condition for accompanying her to their first appearance at the hotel was that he would be the one to drive, and she'd acquiesced to his demand gracefully. One more excuse not to come along and he'd be firmly rooted to his apartment carpet.
Leaning her head back and closing her eyes, she relished the brief moment of peace and freedom, not daring to dwell too intently on what the immediate future might hold for her. It occurred to her that, had she not been bound to her new mission so securely, she would currently be completely without purpose. Not to mention still in jail. It was perhaps the reason why she had convinced herself of this responsibility so entirely.
She promised herself then to make sure she didn't get carried away with herself and to examine her moves more logically. The moment she got to emotionally involved with this, she would have to stop. It was all in the interests of self-preservation. Make too many connections and you get weighed down and drowned, and she did not want to go through that again. She couldn't afford to.
Pulling her traitorous thoughts away from introspection, she concentrated again on the current situation. It was time for Mission Number Three: get this tragic freak show on the road. And Wesley was taking his God-damned time about it.
She briefly entertained the idea of rummaging through the contents of the glove compartment to alleviate her boredom when Wesley finally emerged, a large and heavy looking duffel bag slung over his shoulder. He opened one of the back doors and swung it into the car before climbing into the driver's seat.
"What's in the bag?" Faith asked him as he pulled away from the sidewalk.
"Some books we might need, and some of the research I've been doing," he answered simply, not taking his eyes from the road.
"Fun," she said, it being evident that he was not in a particularly chatty mood.
She looked him over as he drove, surprised to find that he hadn't shaved. That, combined with his new dress sense kinda… suited him. He also wasn't wearing glasses, and she briefly wondered if she should be concerned by that fact. She brushed it off. Wesley, meanwhile, was using the road as an excuse not to have to look at her and ignored her scrutiny valiantly. Faith found herself amused.
Cracking each finger individually from tip to knuckle took up about five minutes of the journey, but so far failed to induce a reaction from him. Drumming her fingernails repeatedly across the dashboard also got no response.
She reached forward to the radio and deliberately began punching random buttons, pleased with the hideous noises it began eliciting with her clumsy attempts at tuning. Wesley's grip tightened slightly on the wheel and she hid a smile, warming to her act. She let her tongue protrude slightly and furrowed her brow, feigning confusion as the volume increased and it settled on a particularly intrusive dance station. Wesley immediately leaned over and turned it down.
"Are you even wearing your seat belt?" he demanded, irritated.
"Concerned for my safety now, are ya?"
"I'm more concerned about the potential damage to my windscreen if you decided to fly headfirst through it. I'm sure you would be just fine."
"Wow, thanks," she drawled, clicking her belt into place despite herself. "Since when did you become so acidic, anyway? It's like I can hardly breathe around here without you chewin' me out. You need to relax."
She purposely looked away from him and out of the window, and she guessed he would appreciate the space. She tapped her palms rhythmically against her leg in time to the music as if she hadn't even noticed his struggle to compose himself. It gave him the time he needed. He took in and released a long, slow breath and pulled the car round a corner.
"I'm sorry," he said eventually with genuine apology, "I've just been… I'll try to be more…civil."
"Hey, I don't need doors held open or anything," she told him, trying to lighten the mood. He smiled slightly, and she was satisfied.
The rest of the ride to the hotel progressed in a far more companionable silence from then on, and Faith made the effort to catalogue the landmarks on the way. As they pulled up and parked, a distinct feeling of reluctance began to take hold. She couldn't imagine where it had come from, or why it had made itself known now, but she didn't like it.
As Wesley went about retrieving the books and locking up the car, Faith stood and stared up towards the roof of the huge hotel, taking it all in. Now came the crunch. She knew without a doubt that once she started this, there was no backing out. She'd get sucked into this stupid little goody-goody camp and swallowed whole if she wasn't careful, and the mere thought of receptionist-Faith and all its sugary connotations made her shudder. There was no way on this sunny green earth that she was going to let them dull her edges. She'd see to it her Watcher stayed that way too.
Wesley strode towards the doors with a false bravado she knew he didn't feel and halted when she didn't follow. He turned back to her.
"Are you alright?" he asked with a frown when he noticed her stern face. She shook herself.
"Yeah, I'm good," she said, and put on a mask of nonchalance to put him more at ease. This would go a lot more smoothly if at least one of them looked like they knew what they were doing.
She walked past him to go through the doors first and was actually relieved when he fell in place directly behind her. She didn't have to do this alone. He had her back.