Some heavy Joel-Wednesday drama. Stay tuned for the next installment - which picks up RIGHT where this one leaves off ;)

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Enjoy~TLD

Part Eighteen: Unholy Martyr

Wednesday sat in the darkness. Waiting.

After a while she heard movement in the hall. She gripped the stake at her side – just in case.

He paused outside the door. He was dripping on the doorstep, but he was immensely pleased he'd thought to pick a room whose door faced the empty lot behind the motel rather than the highway to the front. In the darkness, no one had noticed the half-naked, dripping wet man who seemed to materialize out of the wooded lot like a wraith.

Exhausted, he wanted nothing more than a shower and his bed, but when he reached the door to his room, he froze in his tracks.

She was here.

He was just about to retreat, when his pride stung him. Don't be a coward, he scolded himself. Sighing heavily, he opened the door to his room.

He saw her, plain as day despite the pitch black of the room. He knew she saw him in the silhouette of the outdoor light through the open door.

She was sitting on his bed. Still. Silent.

He moved with deliberate slowness toward the bed. He was within inches of her body.

Her fragrance had filled the room in the time she'd spent waiting for him. It was beautiful. And appetizing. Her heart rate sped slightly as he approached her. And Joel felt a reaching in his gut that he couldn't explain.

He stopped at the head of the bed. Swallowed hard. Reached out his hand.

And turned on the light on the nightstand.

She blinked in the sudden light.

He tried not to retreat too fast, but his mind was begging his body to run away.

He closed and locked the outside door without looking at Wednesday, and then began to move into the bathroom. He needed a shower – and a little space – desperately.

"You're wet," Wednesday's cold voice stopped him in his tracks.

He didn't turn around, but dropped his head where he stood.

"Better wet than bloody," he replied, his voice a cold echo of hers.

"Anyone I know?" she pressed.

He sighed heavily, resignation weighing his shoulders down like a lead weight. Finally, he turned, and his tired, weary, and burdened eyes found Wednesday's.

She was impassive – stoic – as usual. Though she lounged on his bed, her arms were tightly crossed around her chest and her head was cocked slightly to the side as if she was studying a particularly interesting subject.

Her eyes were cold. Not judgmental. But cold all the same.

Joel sighed, and said in a voice of utmost exhaustion, "Does it matter?"

At this she smiled slightly – obviously taking his meaning in the opposite way that he intended.

Her eyes grew slightly wicked and a sardonic smile curled her lips. "Of course not."

She raised her eyebrows, "Save for a few exceptions, of course. Blood is blood, after all."

Had Joel been in even a slightly less self-deprecating mood, he would have laughed at her answer. As it was, he curled a tiny smile that didn't reach his eyes, before turning his back on her, mumbling something about a shower, grabbing a handful of spare clothes, and shutting the bathroom door behind him.

She wasn't sure why she'd come. If anyone had asked her, she wouldn't have even been able to manufacture an excuse. It was just a feeling in her gut.

Something was changing.

The cards were about to fall. She had to be there to see it happen.

He turned the water to near scalding, hoping to burn away more than just the blood and grime from his body and bow his head under the onslaught, watching, bleary-eyed, as the brown-tinged water swirled down the drain.

In the warmth of the shower, he could almost let go of the sickening images of the bloody and broken body of the serial rapist in the muddy underbrush. More difficult to let go was the hunger in his stomach and Lilith's words stabbing at his mind.

Suddenly, her image broke through his self-pity and disgust.

Her still body, water dripping from her raven hair, standing over the broken vampire at her feet, like an avenging goddess – Her eyes burning into his before he lost consciousness, a mixture of anger and concern welling in the blackness – Her soft, warm body curled up in his arms on the cold mausoleum floor…

She'd done what he'd asked and left. She'd trusted him, and now she'd come back.

Despite it all, despite the many, crushing layers of hate, fear, disgust, and self-loathing, he felt a swelling in his heart. A tiny smile curled his lips, and a new hunger grew in his belly that had nothing to do with thirst.

Without meaning to, he was suddenly remembering that fierce kiss – Wednesday's small hands gripping his face, fingers twining in his hair, her warm, sweet, soft lips, the fragrance coming off her skin, amplified by the rain dripping down her face, glistening off her skin like diamonds in the pale light.

He didn't see where his thoughts were headed until it was too late.

Suddenly, he heard Lilith's voice in his head again. She'd commanded him to kill her, to take her, and he almost had.

What if…

His mind ranged out and another devastating wave of self-loathing hit him – tinged now by a deep and crushing wave of sadness.

I love her, he thought. I have to leave her.

He let the waves of torment roll over him for another few moments before he shut off the water, toweled off, and threw on fresh jeans.

Gazing into the mirror, he saw that he was shaking. He didn't want to do what he knew he must.

Don't be a coward, he thought, over and over, and he watched his reflection as his form slowly stopped shaking. He set his face in a mask of disinterest, and left the bathroom, his fresh shirt carelessly forgotten on the sink.

She watched him in the low light. He was highlighted by the florescent glow streaming out of the open bathroom door, hiding most of his face in shadow.

He was shirtless, and his bare chest bore a network of white scars. She felt a strange urge to trace them with her fingers. She twitched, but didn't move from her seat.

He opened his mouth to speak, but the words died in his throat. He stopped, and stared at his feet.

So he was surprised when Wednesday spoke.

"Pugsley is rather put out with you, you know," she said, without any hint of sarcasm.

Joel almost choked out a laugh at her unexpected comment, but he managed to squelch it, and instead looked at her with a confused, if not slightly pained, expression.

"How so?" he replied, his voice only politely interested – although curiosity was burning inside.

She adjusted her position on the bed, sitting up more fully now.

"First of all, you took off, right after he finished fixing your bike, for a big vampire showdown – and you didn't even invite him, and secondly, you managed to completely destroy said bike only minutes after he fixed it," she relayed, smiling slightly at her brother's anger as she spoke. "Tsk, tsk," she mocked, raising an eyebrow.

Joel smiled despite himself. Then, realizing what he was doing, he smothered the smile and returned to his disinterested, deadpan expression.

"Guess I'll owe him an apology," he said.

"Hardly," said Wednesday, scathingly.

A moment of silence passed as they stared at each other.

"Spit it out, Joel," said Wednesday suddenly, breaking Joel from his trance.

"I'm sorry-" he began in a rush.

But Wednesday moved quicker.

Suddenly she was on her feet beside the bed.

"Don't," she said coldly.

Her eyes blazed black fire and her eyebrows arched in a scornful and dangerous way. She crossed her arms.

"Joel," she said, slowly, and clearly. "Do you imagine that I require your presence in my life?" she said, coldly.

Before he could muster a response, she continued.

"If you would like to play the martyr and suffer to 'save me,' by all means, do as you wish. But, know this, I do not need to be saved, nor do I desire your suffering – yet," she added seductively. She smiled a slightly sinister smile and moved toward him.

Reflexively, he took a tiny step backwards.

She tilted her head and raised her eyebrows mockingly, her eyes dancing with black fire, "Are you frightened of me, Joel?" She echoed his words to her in the graveyard.

When he said nothing, she continued, moving slowly toward him.

"Perhaps you should be," she began, conversationally, "Of the two of us, only I have killed two vampires in the last day. Only I have maimed two more. And, if I remember rightly, if it were not for me, you would be a pile of ash twice over by now."

She stopped, inches from his body, his back pressed against the wall.

"So, make your choice. Suffer for nothing, or fight for something."

She was close – too close. A part of him ached to back up, but he was cornered. The irony hit him slowly – the fiercest predator of humankind, backed up against the wall by a small, pale-faced girl. He didn't have time to think about that though, because the other part of him was aching to move forward. Aching to touch. Aching to take what she offered.

The silence between them lengthened as the battle raged within Joel.

Their bodies were opposites. Wednesday stood calmly, relaxed. Only her eyes betrayed her anger, her ferocity. Joel's body strained in stiffness, his fists balled so tightly that his knuckles nearly glowed white, his jaw clenched, and his eyes burning with an intense fire of desire and restraint.

It was like the graveyard all over again. One voice in Joel's head screamed at him to maintain control, to hold, to restrain, to fight. But the other pulled at him, burned him, tormented him, whispered seductively in his ear… Take her.

Only this time, the voice wasn't Lilith's and Joel saw the same burning desire he felt was mirrored in Wednesday's eyes.

With a movement that felt like a sudden rush of air from his lungs, a deep refreshing breath, Joel made a choice.

He stopped fighting himself and reached out for the girl he knew he'd fight for, and alongside, no matter the cost, because the alternative – giving her up – was unendurable.

And so, he made, in his estimation, the most selfish decision of his life, and pulled Wednesday into his arms. For a moment, he felt true fear. What if I hurt her? What if I lose control? What if my selfish wish to keep her ends up getting her killed?

But the look in Wednesday's eyes quelled him. She was unafraid. She stared back with glowing onyx eyes, her face alight with triumph and arousal. She looked strong and determined. She was right; vamps had a reason to fear her.

Maybe we can win this after all, Joel thought wryly.

Joel smiled the first truly untroubled smile of the day, and pressed his lips tenderly against Wednesday's.

What he was unprepared for was her reaction.

Wednesday had never spent a day of her life in fear; confusion, irritation, desire, vindictive pleasure, sadistic revenge, and cool detachment, sure – but fear? Never. For Wednesday, the world was simple. There was only what she wanted, and what she took.

So even now, as she prepared to open herself up to a new vulnerability beyond anything she'd ever experienced, she felt only desire and need. And what she desired, Wednesday took.

She wasn't a prude, by any stretch of the imagination. It wasn't some moral compass that had left her untouched; she'd just never found a man she didn't detest, let alone one she actively desired. She wasn't frightened by the fact she'd never had a man in that way. Even more, as she contemplated the vulnerability she foresaw, she couldn't help but feel that the risk was greatly overshadowed by the rising surge of power she felt as she stared into Joel's eyes.

He was hers. She knew she had him.

So when he kissed her softly, her fingers gripped him roughly and she deepened the kiss, pressing ferociously before pulling away slowly, longingly, her breathing speeding up and her body beckoning Joel closer.

He ached and strained, and with a tiny moan of both desire and rebellion, he pressed his body back to Wednesday's.

Smiling to herself, she took a step backwards, pulling him with her, toward the bed.

Joel froze.

He pulled his face back from Wednesday's by a fraction of an inch and caught her eyes. His brow crumpled in confusion and he raised an eyebrow – the question obvious on his face.

She smiled wickedly back.

"Are you sure?" he whispered.

Her eyes narrowed. "I know it's been a few years since you've last seen me, but do you imagine that, in your absence, I've ever done something I don't want to?" she replied in a both scathing and seductive voice.

Joel smiled slightly, "There isn't a person on earth that could make you do something you didn't want to do," Joel replied softly, smiling, and rested his forehead on hers.

Joel felt his body warm and his heart leap. She wanted him. She cared for him as he cared for her. Despite it all, what he was, what he'd become, what he'd brought upon her, she wanted him. For a small moment, with his head resting against hers, her warm body in his arms, he felt a sweet, swelling lightness that he imagined could only be felt in Heaven.

And then, with a snap of memory, he felt anxious, unsure.

Joel was not a stranger to sex.

Lilith encouraged her minions to 'bond' and occasionally rewarded them by taking them into her own bed.

She'd taken Joel after his first kill on the day of his 'rebirth.' He'd been shaken and feral and clinging to new life as only one who'd spent time in Hell could possibly understand. After his kill, his feral intensity had faded slightly into confusion and disorientation. He'd started running – too frightened of what he'd become and what'd he done to stand still and face facts – but she'd caught up to him, stroked him, coddled him, calmed him, and took him to bed.

At the time, he'd thought it had brought him back to his senses. He'd thought it evidence of Lilith's affection for him. He knew now it was only another way of taking from him.

And she trained her students in the same art of taking – taking pain and pleasure and life and love and innocence. When it came to vampire sex, the credo was – take or be taken. Joel soon learned that to fight the advances of one of his 'sisters' was to be shamed and humiliated before being tortured into submission. So when they tried to take, he took back. In this case, 'love' was truly a battlefield – often more brutal that combat practice.

Joel had no experience of sex within love.

He felt sick with himself again. How could I possibly be good enough for her? I'm a monster.

He pulled back again.

She looked up at him. He was a bit wild-eyed, his eyes welling with tears but flashing with stress. His jaw was clenched like he was just about to say something he really didn't want to. She was going to have to yell at him again, she knew. He was about to try and save her from the big, bad, Joel-monster – again. He just didn't get it.

She put a small hand to his cheek, and smiled, her eyes boring into the flashing anxiety of his own, warming him, reassuring him. At the feel of her hand, his jaw relaxed and he unknowingly rested his weight heavier into her hand.

After a long moment, he smiled. And with a sigh that was both a relief of giving into desire and a mustering of courage, he lifted her off her feet in a sudden, sweeping motion, and laid her gently on the bed.