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Mrs. Simpson
and the Chinese Grip Fandom: Angel
~ Lilah ~ Lilah has discovered she enjoys talking to Wesley almost as much as she enjoys fucking him. It's an unexpected development, but not an unpleasant one. When they first started screwing, their encounters were energetic but largely mute affairs, punctuated only by the occasional, "Now," or "There," or "God, oh God, oh SHIT --" But you can't keep banging someone on a regular basis without saying something to them, even if it's just, "Same time tomorrow?", and gradually Lilah found herself postponing for longer and longer the moment when she rolls out of Wesley's arms and his bed, slips on her skirt and blouse and pumps and pulls the door shut behind her. Now their times together are measured in hours rather than minutes, and they spend as much time talking as fucking. They rarely discuss work, either hers or his. At first, Lilah tried to use these post-intimacy chats to mine Wesley for information. Linwood had been throwing daily hissy fits over why she'd failed, in spite Wolfram & Hart's extensive resources, to discover what had happened to Angel and Cordelia Chase to make them both vanish, literally overnight. Wesley, in spite of his estrangement from his former friends, had seemed to be Lilah's best chance of finding out, but when she'd brought the subject up, he'd only laughed that low, hollow laugh he's getting so good at, and said he didn't know and didn't care. Lilah didn't believe him for a second, but, then again, she knew he didn't believe her when she said Wolfram & Hart had given up looking for Angel. Lilah was surprised when Angel turned up in a crate at the bottom of the ocean -- she'd had fifty bucks in the office sweepstake on him being dust -- but she wasn't surprised when she found out Wesley had been the one who'd fished him out. When Lilah and Wesley talk about things that matter, they lie to each other. So they talk about things that don't matter instead. Politics don't matter (Lilah is endlessly amused to find they have diametrically opposed views on every issue); music doesn't matter, nor books nor music nor theater. None of these things matter when they are curled up together in Wesley's bed; there is no currency to be earned by lying about trivia, and honesty has crept into their relationship in sly, unexpected increments. Honesty is dangerous, and Lilah is lately making a belated effort to turn their conversations back into warfare, verbal swordplay using sharp-edged words that slice and thrust and parry. These contests (not fights, because for a fight to start something must be at stake, and they never talk about things that matter) stimulate Lilah's intellect just as Wesley's touch stimulates her desire, and she suspects it's the same for him. Why else does he let her stay once the act is done? Tonight, the topic under discussion is the British royal family. Lilah can't remember how they started talking about this, although she is delighted when Wesley reveals the Wyndam-Pryces are a very tiny twig on the elderly and diseased oak which the House of Windsor has become. "So, if they all died," Lilah muses, resting her hand against his chest, "you'd be King of England." "All of them, and their cousins and second and third cousins and great-nephews and nieces by marriage -- if they ALL died, then potentially, I suppose, yes." Wesley glances down at Lilah. "Don't even think about arranging it." Lilah bats her eyelashes and gives him her patented "Who, me?" look. Wesley actually smiles. "Think about it," Lilah says. "The palaces. The money. The position." She rolls on to her back and tucks her arm behind her head; the sheets have worked their way down to her waist, leaving her chest and breasts exposed. Next to her, Wesley turns on to his side and props himself up on one elbow. "That's all you see, isn't it?" he says. "Acceptance by the established order. A guaranteed place at the top. There are more important things, you know." But that's easy for Wesley to say, Lilah thinks. If the Wyndam-Pryce blood isn't blue, it certainly has a distinct purplish quality. So much of what Wesley is has come to him as his birthright -- he is upper class, educated, the Watcher son of a Watcher family. So what if that family was more demonic under the surface than most of the slimy things that crawl around L.A.'s sewers? Wesley's inheritance is undeniable, unchangeable. The right to respect was part of the package he was handed when he came bawling out of the womb; he didn't have to fight for it the way Lilah did, with SAT scores and college grades and make-up and perfectly accessorized designer suits. Wesley might stop shaving and let his apartment degenerate to squalor, but that innate right to respect will never waste away. Lilah, on the other hand, will spend 15 minutes in the bathroom before she leaves, re-applying mascara and lipstick, putting on the mask of professionalism that demands the respect she wouldn't otherwise get. "More important things?" she scoffs. "Like what?" Wesley thinks for a second and then says, "Love." Lilah stares at him, trying to determine whether he's being serious or mocking the convictions he held so solidly and for so long. Much of Wesley's appeal to her lies in the fact that, at moments like this, she really can't tell. She raises an eyebrow. "King Edward VIII," Wesley elaborates, "gave up the throne of England for the love of a woman." Lilah watched a PBS special about this a couple of months ago. "Wallis Simpson." Wesley nods. "The establishment hated her, partly because she was divorced, partly because she was American, but mostly simply because she wasn't one of them." "I find it interesting that you should choose as an illustration the story of a blue-blooded Englishman brought up to protect and defend the status quo, corrupted by an American Delilah." She smiles languidly. "Or maybe Edward never really wanted to be King in the first place. Maybe Wallis Simpson was just the excuse he used to stop being the man everyone expected him to be. Maybe it was only when he was with her he could be himself." It's cool in Wesley's apartment. Lilah was too warm when she threw off the sheets, but now she's starting to feel the chill. Her nipples are hardening and rising; she could pull up the covers again, but she prefers the cold and the way Wesley's gaze keeps flicking down to her chest. "Maybe," he says, "it was only when he met her he realized he didn't know who he was. Who he was supposed to be." Wesley dips his head, and kisses the center of Lilah's breast, his tongue roughly caressing the darker, sensitive skin around the nipple. They've already fucked once tonight, but now Lilah sees potential for an encore. "They spread rumors about her," Wesley says, lifting his head from her chest. It takes Lilah a second to realize he's talking about Wallis Simpson again. "Scandalous stories." "Such as?" "They said she was a hermaphrodite." He kisses her quickly, in the hollow where the two halves of her rib-cage meet. Lilah wishes he'd quit talking and start on the other breast. "They said she was an expert in performing the Chinese Grip." Lilah laughs; it makes her chest shake, her breasts tremble. "She might have been one or the other, but not both. You need a vagina to do the Chinese Grip, and a pretty athletic one at that. Hermaphrodites' sexual organs are typically underdeveloped." She is both amused and more than a little flattered that Wesley neither challenges the statement nor asks her how she knows. Instead he says, "And you?" Lilah smirks. "I think we've already proved tonight that my sexual organs are anything but underdeveloped." "I meant," Wesley says, "the Chinese grip --" His tone is glib, but Lilah recognizes something else in him -- a frisson of excitement and curiosity. He's wondering if the Grip is just an old wives' tale, or if it's really possible. He's wondering if Lilah can do it. Lilah thinks of Wallis Simpson, and wonders if she was appalled by the things they said about her. If she was half the woman Lilah suspects she was, she thinks probably not. Wallis, like Lilah, understood that sex is a source of power, desire a mechanism of control. Men whisper about women who know seduction's dark secrets, but Lilah knows the truth is much simpler -- when you have something the other guy wants, you'll come out on top. Perhaps literally. But there's something provocative about the idea of the Chinese Grip. Lilah imagines drawing Wesley into herself, wringing the last drops of pleasure from him until he begs for release and even then not letting go until he is drained and exhausted, grateful and utterly spent -- She has often used her hands to tease him and enfold him. Delicious, now, the thought of enclosing him in an even tighter fist. "I go to yoga," she says. "You'd be amazed at the muscles it tones." "Then amaze me," Wesley whispers. Lilah sits up, and the movement causes the rest of the sheets to slide off the bed. She pulls Wesley up with her, then positions herself so she is sitting between his parted thighs. She wraps her legs around his waist. She leans toward him and kisses him slowly. "I can do that." The apartment's front door buzzer sounds, a jarring intrusion. "Ignore it," Lilah murmurs. "They'll go away." Wesley kisses her, but it's perfunctory and stilted, and it's clear his mind is already half-way across the lounge and on its way to answer the door. "C'mon," she says. "We didn't order pizza. It can't be anything important." But Wesley exhales and starts to shuffle backward on the bed. "I ordered books," he says, standing up and pulling on his pants. "They were supposed to arrive this morning." Lilah suppresses the desire to swear and instead makes a mental note to sell all her Amazon stock tomorrow morning. As Wesley reaches the bedroom door, she says, "Sign for them and get back in here." Again, that almost-smile. "That sounded like an order." "I'm an assertive woman." "I know." He's still smiling as he goes out the door. Lilah lies back on the bed and listens to the soft padding sound Wesley's bare feet make on the wooden floor in the apartment lounge. She's become used to the way he moves, knows how many paces it is from the bedroom to the kitchen or the bathroom, can anticipate just when he'll tread on the squeaking floorboard in the hall. Lilah isn't sure exactly when it happened, but over the summer she's grown as accustomed to his personal space as to her own. She listens to the rattle of the door chain being removed and the thunk of the bolt sliding back. She hears Wesley's voice talking to the caller; his tone is muted, the words muffled. She waits for the door to close again. But the door doesn't close. Instead, Lilah hears a second voice respond. Like Wesley's, it is indistinct, but it is no less recognizable for that. It's Angel. Angel is here. Lilah sits up in the bed, straining to make out what's being said. She can't, and neither man's tone gives much away -- all she can tell for certain is that they're not yelling at each other. Or trying to kill each other. Yet. This could get interesting. Angel knows about Lilah and Wesley's little arrangement -- he made that much clear when he caught up with her two nights ago. But Lilah hasn't shared the details of that encounter -- or indeed, even mentioned it -- to Wesley. Wesley probably still believes that Angel is ignorant of the new and different direction his sex life has taken while Angel was impersonating Jacques Cousteau. Right now, Lilah imagines, Wesley must be hoping the stink of week-old pizza that pervades the apartment is enough to mask her scent. Of course, it's much too late, but Wesley doesn't know that. Lilah smiles to herself and lifts a sheet from where it lies crumpled on the floor. She wraps it around herself, just tight enough to preserve her modesty and just loose enough to give the impression she's only covering up for form's sake. Then she opens the bedroom door and walks breezily across the lounge toward the kitchen, feigning indifference to both men. "Wes, did you remember to put the wine in the refrigerator?" she asks, glancing over her shoulder. Then she stops, turns around and says in mock surprise, "Angel, hi! I didn't see you there. Nice of you to drop by. Wes and I were just --" She smiles and shrugs. "Well, I guess you can pretty much work that out for yourself." For an instant -- just an instant -- a look of embarrassed horror flashes across Wesley's face, an echo of the well-bred, reserved English Watcher he used to be. Lilah feels an odd mixture of satisfaction at provoking him and sharp, unexpected hurt. He's ashamed of her. Ashamed that Angel has seen them together. "You should be careful," Angel says. "It's a risky business, sleeping with the enemy." He's looking at Lilah as he says it, but she doubts the warning is meant for her. The remark has an instant effect on Wesley. His face clears and hardens and, by the time he turns back to Angel, he is the model of composure. "Thank you for the advice. Now, since I have company, perhaps you could say whatever you wanted to say to me and leave." As barbs go, it's hardly vitriolic, but Angel looks oddly stung nevertheless. "It's about Cordelia," he says. Wesley hesitates, then looks in Lilah's direction. "I'd appreciate it if you would leave us alone for a few minutes. This doesn't concern you." Lilah shrugs and starts to go back to the bedroom -- she knows a dozen tricks for listening through doors and, besides, one of the first things she did when she began sleeping with Wesley was to bug his apartment. But she stops when she hears Angel's voice from behind her: "She might as well hear this. She'll know it soon enough." Lilah turns around. She smiles brightly. "Oh, goodie. I just love being first with the water-cooler gossip." Wesley is looking at Angel, his gaze intent, but the latter's face is unreadable. "You went to see Dinza," Wesley says. "Eleusian mystery Dinza? The dark demi-goddess of the lost?" Lilah asks. "The one with the really, really bad skin?" "That Dinza," Angel confirms. "She said I needed to use the Axis of Pythia to find Cordelia." "And?" Lilah prompts. "To cut a really long story short," Angel says, "I got it. You were right, Wesley. Cordy's gone. She's not in this dimension anymore. The Powers -- they made her one of them." Slowly, Wesley says, "I suspected something like that might have happened. The elevation of a seer is not without precedent. It's just exceptionally rare." "I used the Axis," Angel says. "I saw her. She won't be coming back. I just thought you should know where she is. That she's all right. That she's happy." Lilah notes with interest the way Angel's voice catches very slightly on the last word. "Thank you for letting me know," Wesley says politely. "Was there anything else?" Lilah has to suppress her laughter. She suspects Wesley's being deliberately callous, although she hopes he's genuinely indifferent. Whichever, he's making real progress, and Lilah is delighted both by his reaction and the look it provokes on Angel's face. Very quietly, Angel says, "No. That was all." He takes a step back, toward the apartment door. But Lilah isn't about to let this encounter end so quickly. There might be more to learn -- already she's got one piece of information which will make her the star of tomorrow's inter-departmental meeting -- but, more importantly, Lilah's having too much fun to stop now. Lightly, she says, "Guess that's good news about Cordelia. Now she gets to do that cute shining thing permanently. I know it's not everyone's ambition to spend eternity as a 100-watt bulb but, hey, if that's what she wanted, I say go for it. You glow, girl." She giggles at her own joke. Angel shoots a look in Wesley's direction which is equal parts anger and betrayal -- he probably thinks Wesley's been telling Lilah all about Angel's precious Cordelia during their post-coital pillow talk. In fact, Lilah's information comes courtesy of Wolfram & Hart's surveillance department, and Wesley has been as close-lipped about Cordelia as he has about everything else. But if Angel can't figure that out for himself, Lilah isn't about to pour oil on already-churning waters. "If I'd been in Cordelia's shoes, I would have done the same thing," Lilah says. "I mean, what was the alternative -- spending the rest of her life here as the Powers' private cable channel? That's not destiny, it's bad tuning." Wesley looks sharply at Lilah, although it's unclear whether his displeasure is because he's offended on Cordelia's behalf or because it's obvious that Lilah is skating on extremely thin ice with Angel. The vampire's whole stance has changed; he's rigid with barely contained fury, all of it directed at her. It's exactly the reaction Lilah was hoping for. Angel's threatened Lilah so many times she's lost count, and once or twice she's been half-convinced he seriously intended to make good on his promises. But right here, right now, Lilah knows she's safe. Angel won't lay a finger on her in front of Wesley; what Lilah wants to know is, how far can she push him? "Still," she continues, "I can see how it'd be a disappointment, knowing the woman you love found the prospect of eternal luminescent celibacy more attractive than even one good fuck, especially when you've been under the ocean for 12 weeks thinking about nothing else --" She doesn't get any further before Angel picks her up and slams her into the apartment wall. She gasps, partly from the force of the impact and partly from sheer surprise. Angel's got her pinned by the shoulders, and her bare feet are several inches above the floor. Too late, Lilah realizes she seriously misjudged Angel's psychological state. He didn't lose his mind locked up in that box, but after three months bouncing around his own headspace, he must know what insanity tastes like, and Lilah now realizes his control is a much more shallow, fragile thing than it first appeared. Angel is more dangerous than usual, but he's also more vulnerable. This means the game is being played for higher stakes, and this thought thrills Lilah as much as it scares her. The sheet she's wearing falls away and lands in a wrinkled heap underneath her dangling feet. "Cordelia made the right choice," Angel says, his voice quiet and threatening. "She made a sacrifice because she had the opportunity to do good. Something you wouldn't know anything about." And maybe that's the truth -- maybe Cordelia really is that unblemished and saintly and Goddamned pure. But Lilah's been around long enough to recognize a palatable lie when she hears it. So has Angel. Lilah stares at him, meets his gaze and holds it, hunts in those dark, dark eyes for any evidence of doubt or uncertainty. She doesn't find it, but Lilah's a Wolfram & Hart trained lawyer, and lack of evidence hasn't yet stopped her mounting a case. "You keep telling yourself that," she says, gasping with the effort of speaking while Angel pins her to the wall. "Who knows? In a couple of centuries you might even start believing it." Angel's hand tightens ominously on Lilah's shoulder. She winces in pain, fully expects the next sound she hears to be her own bones snapping, one by one. "Get your hands off her." Lilah can see Wesley over Angel's shoulder. He's standing on the other side of the lounge, holding a loaded crossbow and wearing a flinty, determined expression. Angel looks at the crossbow, at Wesley, and finally back to Lilah. His gaze falters for an instant, his eyes dropping. Lilah sees him take in her nakedness, as if noticing it for the first time. Then she feels the crushing pressure on her shoulders ease, and she slides down the wall slowly, the plaster scraping against her bare back. "You can put that away," Angel says, gesturing at the crossbow. "I didn't come here to fight." Very slowly, Wesley lowers the crossbow. Lilah is about to reach down and retrieve the sheet, when she thinks better of it. She's worked as hard on her body as she has at everything else about herself; she learnt long ago that 'naked' doesn't necessarily mean 'vulnerable'. Just like clothing, it's all about how you wear it, and Lilah knows exactly how to wear her own skin. She lifts her chin, inhales just enough to expand her rib cage and raise her breasts. "I didn't come here to -- to fight." Angel glances at Lilah, glances away too quickly. Quickly, nervously, his tongue moistens his bottom lip. Lilah knows she's no stick insect -- she's a real woman, with a real woman's curves, rounded hips and full breasts. Now that she thinks about it, she realizes her body type isn't that different to Cordelia's. And the way Angel's looking at her -- Three months in a box, she thinks. With nothing else to think about. And if he could smell Wesley on her two nights ago, outdoors and after a shower, what must the scent in the room be like for Angel now? Pretty close to unbearable, Lilah thinks. She shivers, and this time it's not because the apartment is too cool. "Not to fight, no," she says. She moves toward Angel, cups her hands on either side of his jaw, and pulls him toward her. Before he has a chance to resist, she's kissing him. His mouth is cold against hers, a sensation matched by the coolness of the leather coat he's wearing as she presses her naked body against his clothed one. For a second or more, he resists, keeps his mouth closed, makes desultory efforts to push her away. But Angel could hurl Lilah across the room if he wanted to; a few halfhearted pushes are token resistance and nothing more. When she runs the tip of her tongue along his upper lip, she feels the final barriers crumble, and he opens his mouth, allows her to penetrate its cool interior. He still tastes faintly of brine; after three months, the ocean hasn't surrendered its hold on him completely. She hopes Wesley is getting all this. It's Lilah who breaks the contact first. She takes a carefully judged step back, appraises Angel. He's visibly reeling, almost overwhelmed. He couldn't turn back now if he wanted to. Lilah takes Angel's hand, and slowly draws him toward herself. Only now does she look at Wesley. Wesley hasn't moved from his position at the other end of the lounge. The crossbow lies discarded at his feet. He only pulled on pants to open the door, no T-shirt, and so Lilah can see his chest expanding and contracting more rapidly as his breathing quickens. "Lilah..." he says. "Lilah, let him -- let him go." Lilah laughs softly. She looks at Angel. "You want to leave? Door's right over there." Angel doesn't react. He doesn't even blink. Lilah looks at Wesley, and shrugs. "Gee, I guess he doesn't want to. Are you going to leave, Wes? Or do you want to stay and watch, Watcher?" "Lilah --" Wesley says again. His voice is strained, and she can't tell if he intends her name as a warning or a question. But he doesn't move, and he doesn't look away. Lilah has her answer. She smiles to herself. Sex is power, desire is control. Wallis Simpson would have understood.
~ Angel ~ Too late, Angel realizes the seriousness of his mistake. He began to sense it as soon as Wesley opened the apartment door, and the thick, cloying smell of sex rolled around Angel, overpowering his senses, making it impossible to concentrate wholly on anything else. Wesley and Lilah and WesleyandLilah on his skin and his clothes and hair. Since he crossed the threshold of the apartment door, he's inhaled only when he's had to, to speak, but still the scent is so strong, so fresh that this paltry defensive measure is barely helping. Angel spent three months without sight or sound or touch or smell, his sense of taste drowned by the overwhelming flavor of salt. He dimly remembers Wesley saying something, shortly after his rescue, about lack of sustenance causing the hallucinations; privately, Angel thinks sensory deprivation was just as much to blame. Although his strength quickly returned, for the past week Angel has been struggling to adjust to a world where colors are too bright, noises too loud, smells too pungent. Yesterday, Angel couldn't look directly at the bright red shirt Gunn was wearing, and the noise of Fred gently closing a door two floors below his room in the Hyperion made him physically start. Today he thought he was doing better. Until now. "I didn't come here to fight," he says. Somehow it's difficult to make the connection between the sound of the words and the knowledge that he is speaking them. He's trying not to look at Lilah, but it's almost impossible not to. She is so close, so warm, and her naked body looks almost exactly how he imagined Cordelia's would, over and over again during those twelve endless weeks. Lilah is not Cordy, he reminds himself viciously. Lilah is not Cordelia, and Cordelia is gone. Gone to a better place, happy and unreachable, and thank you so very fucking much, Powers That Be. "Not to fight," Lilah says, "no." Then she kisses him. He should have known, he thinks dimly; what happened with Gwen Raiden should have been a more than adequate warning. He felt, for a few precious seconds, his heart beat in his chest, a pounding that deafened him, and his ears rang with the hiss of blood stirred to sluggish and unaccustomed circulation. His already-racing senses went into overdrive, and only one coherent thought had formed in his mind -- ((Cordelia)) -- before he seized Gwen and kissed her. He should have known. When he was first freed from his prison, he gorged on blood, driven by uncontrollable instinct to sate a three-month hunger. But he had also been starved of all sensation for the same length of time, and it is only now that Angel is beginning to understand that his impulse to feed that heightened appetite is just as great, and he is just as helpless in its grip. He should have known, but he didn't, and now he's finally achieving self-knowledge about thirty seconds too late to avoid making one huge and stupid fucking mistake, and Angel could almost start laughing, because doesn't that just sum up the story of his life? Bu the doesn't laugh, because Lilah is kissing him, and thinking or doing anything else other than kissing her back is impossible. He has been starved for so long, and she is a feast for his ravenous senses. He explores her tongue with his own, tastes the faint but distinct zing of exotic spices, cumin and ginger and chili, an eastern bazaar of flavors. Advancing further, he encounters the tang of alcohol, the smooth, full-bodied bouquet of fine red wine. The barest traces of gloss still stain the corners of her lips; the wax has its own distinctive taste, sweet cherries and bitter perfume. And, beneath all of this, another flavor, one so familiar it overrides every other note in the mixture. Angel can taste Wesley in Lilah's mouth. Lilah stops abruptly, and pulls away from him, and for a second Angel is too bereft to do anything other than stand there, reeling. He can't decide which is more unbearable -- the assault on his senses or the sudden absence of it. No, he can decide. The absence of sensation is far, far worse. Lilah says something. Wesley replies. Angel tries to concentrate on the words, the meaning, but the beauty of the sounds -- human voices, musical and ever-shifting in tone and timbre -- simply drowns him. Then a warm, smooth hand laid on his own draws Angel back into the moment. He stumbles to Lilah, and she raises her head so that her lips brush his ear. "What will you do for me?" she murmurs softly. Anything. Right now, Angel would do anything. He suspects she already knows that. Lilah hooks her fingers underneath the collar of Angel's coat and slides it off his shoulders. The leather crumples smoothly on to the floor at his feet. Slowly, Lilah undoes the top button of Angel's shirt. "Take this off," she says. Blindly, he obeys. His fingers are unusually clumsy, and he takes more than one attempt over several of the buttons. Lilah doesn't intervene, just watches, smiling at his fumbling. The shirt joins his jacket on the floor. Lilah glances downward, makes a tiny pointing motion with one finger. "And the shoes." A single tug undoes each laced boot, and a second later Angel is barefoot. He reaches to his belt, ready to undo the buckle, but Lilah's hand on his stops him. "Not yet. Not until I say so." Lilah's hand tracks upward from the belt buckle. Angel feels her long nails scrape his skin as she works her way up his torso, waist to neck, chest to back. For several long minutes, he is aware of nothing except the pinpricks of her nails on his skin, tracking an exploratory path over the surface of his body. Her fingers finally come to rest at the back of his neck, right at the top of his spine. "Come with me," she says. She moves backward, pulling him with her. At first, he thinks she's taking him to the bedroom -- but, no. They're moving in the wrong direction. Lilah is heading for Wesley's couch, a second-hand, over-stuffed sofa which Angel vaguely recalls came from one of the Hyperion's fourth floor suites. Lilah sits down, her bare back and thighs settling into the couch's contours. Her arms are still resting on Angel's shoulders, and he starts to lower himself to sit beside her. Her arms tense, stopping him. "No," she says. "In front of me. On the floor. On your knees." Power, Angel remembers. Lilah is all about power, and right now she has power over him. He should feel angry at that, he knows, but somehow he can't. Dimly, he is aware he has slipped into a strange, dream-like state, enchanted and enthralled. A sudden and terrible doubt seizes him, and he wonders if this is another hallucination -- perhaps in the real world he is still chained up on the ocean floor, straining against his bonds, silently screaming for a rescue which he only imagined, and which will never now come. No. No, that's not possible. None of the hallucinations that tormented him were as real as this. The cool lounge floor under his feet, Lilah's warm arms resting on his shoulders -- even these tiny details have more substance than the whole summer's worth of fevered imaginings. Angel can hold on to what is real, but only by seizing these sensations, testing each one and proving it empirically. And that's the source of Lilah's control over him. He sinks on to the floor, so that he is kneeling in front of her. He strokes her thigh with his hand, allows his touch to wander from her skin to the satin-feel of the cushions and back again. The richness and subtlety of texture makes his fingertips tingle; he is a famished man presented with a banquet. He strokes her again and again, one hand on the outside of each thigh, and after the first few caresses, Lilah puts her hands on top of his, so they are moving together, a single, rhythmic action. When he quickens the speed of each caress, hungry for sensation, she exhales sharply. Power. Control. Desire. Control -- He places his hands between her knees, palms outward, and pushes her legs apart. Her thighs splay, and the scent of her engulfs him. She is ripe and fragrant, a plump fruit hanging on the vine, skin almost ready to split open, sweet juice spilling out from inside. She is so fucking ripe. She is smooth and open, almost hairless except for a few dark curls right in the crease at the inside-top of her legs, where the waxing strip didn't perfectly adhere. He can see where the soft skin puckers and folds, see how it is already swelling and reddening with the most intimate of blushes. Below that, he can see where she disappears into herself, the place where the warmth and wetness inside her comes spilling out. "Come on," she says, and now there's impatience in her voice. "Come on." Angel looks at her, then raises his gaze to her face. He smiles, feels the first stirrings of control returning. "Ask nicely," he says, "and I might." Behind him, Angel hears the low sound of rasping laughter. Angel can't see Wesley, but he knows just where Wesley is standing, can feel Wesley's gaze burning into his back, can smell the musky scent of both stale and fresh sweat off him. "You heard him," Wesley says to Lilah. His voice is hoarse, perhaps with arousal -- although now Angel thinks about it, Wesley sounded hoarse when he answered the door tonight, and hoarse on the night of Angel's rescue, when he explained about Holtz and Justine and exactly what had led Connor to put Angel in that damn box. Maybe Justine's knife nicked Wesley's vocal cords on its way through his neck; maybe this roughening of his tone is permanent. Or maybe his voice was just one more thing Wesley decided to change about himself over the summer, along with his lifestyle and his choice of fuck. But are the changes in Wesley cosmetic, or has there been a deeper shift in him, a sea-change? Angel has experienced his own sea-change. Angel knows he cannot and will never forgive the man who took his son. But if Wesley is no longer that man, the question of forgiveness falls away, and another replaces it, namely -- Who is this new Wesley, if he is Wesley at all? Wesley walks around to the back of the couch. Unhurriedly, he leans over and kisses Lilah on the lips. Then -- with a motion as fast as he was slow a moment ago -- he catches her wrists and holds them over her head. Wesley looks at Angel, still kneeling in front of Lilah. Then he looks down at her, meeting her gaze upside-down. "Say please," he says. Lilah wriggles, twisting to either side. Angel puts his hands on her calves, preventing her from moving too far. She arches her back and gives a low, wordless moan. Wesley silences her by putting his mouth over hers again. "Say please," Angel echoes. His voice sounds rough even to his own ears. As rough as Wesley's. "Please." Lilah forces out the word from between clenched teeth, her eyes squeezed shut. "Please." Angel looks up at Wesley, sees the same tiny smile of amusement on Wesley's face as he knows he is wearing. This sudden shift of allegiances feels natural, even inevitable, a reversion to a better ordered world. Angel places a finger just beneath Lilah's navel, and traces a route down her belly, mapping her the way she mapped him. He watches her face as he works downward, noting with satisfaction how his path is reflected in every tic of her features, every tiny gasp. When his fingertip disappears into the slim V that starts where her stomach ends, he sees her bite down on her lip, to keep herself from crying out. She's still in control. Not for long. With three fingers, he finds the single hard place in the center of her softness, and presses down -- not too hard, just hard enough. When he eases off the pressure, she arches her back, eager to maintain it. But the couch is low and deep, and with her hands secured by Wesley above her head, she has no way to get the leverage she needs. He lets her try a couple of times, then touches her again. This time, she cries out immediately, loud and desperate, all pretence of self-control gone. He works his finger deeper, until he finds the smooth, slippery channel that leads upward, into her. Then he uses his fingers to widen her -- he barely needs to touch her, she feels ready to open up at the slightest stimulation -- then, his palms and fingers cupping the outside of her, he slips his thumbs inside. Lilah gives a low cry. She isn't wriggling anymore; she's holding herself perfectly still, every thought and nerve-ending in her focused on the way Angel is touching her in this hidden place. She probably thought she knew what it felt like to be touched there, but Angel's about to surprise her. He feels a certain satisfaction at the thought: this is where two and half centuries of experience counts. Gently, so very gently, he pushes outwards with the flat pads of his thumbs. Lilah moans, then cries out, all the time remaining utterly motionless. She's wet now, and it's easy to slide his thumbs out then push them back in, pressing all the time. When he withdraws his thumbs for the last time, Angel glances up long enough to see Lilah's eyelids flutter open to reveal her eyes, dazed and punch-drunk. Now she knows how it feels to be swallowed up by sensation, enthralled and helpless. He allows himself a second to enjoy the victory. But he isn't finished yet. He slides his hands down her thighs until his hands rest on her calves. Then he leans forward, dips his head between her thighs and burrows forward, following the lure of her scent. Here, her skin is soft, so very soft; he explores by catching it, a section at a time, between his lips. Then, like a treasure chest buried in soft sand, he finds the hard, swollen knot of flesh nestling at her core. This he grips and does not let go. Lilah shudders and struggles, and Angel is aware of her hands on his shoulders. This means Wesley is no longer restraining her -- but restraint is no longer needed. The hands on Angel's shoulders aren't pushing him away. Angel parts his lips and touches her with his tongue. She feels warm -- more than warm, she is hot, and he knows he must feel equally cool to her. The insides of her thighs shiver against the sides of his head, and her hands tighten their grip on him. "Now," she urges. "Now." Then: "Goddamn you motherfucking vampire fuck, now!" She can swear as much as she likes. Angel has no intention of rushing. He takes a moment simply to taste her. If the body is a river, Angel is kneeling at the wellspring, where the water bubbles up from the rich earth. Everything that is intoxicating about life -- that miracle Angel traded centuries ago for thirst and the eternal chill -- is there to be worshipped at this shrine where he kneels. Here, there is warmth and skin so delicate he can almost taste the blood flowing in thread-fine capillaries just under the surface. His tongue and lips are warming now; he is absorbing her heat, stealing a little of her living warmth for himself. And why shouldn't he? It was so fucking cold under the ocean, and the world he returned to is so cold without Cordelia in it. He takes her hardness into his mouth and, gently at first but growing quickly stronger, suckles from her life. Lilah gasps, then sighs. She pushes herself against him, matches his rhythm. He can feel the throb of her pulse quickening inside her, and he wonders if she realizes she is keeping time with it as much as with him. Are humans even aware of how deeply the pace and rhythm of their lives is determined by this deep, internal drumbeat? Suddenly, Angel is aware of hands at his belt, unbuckling it. He remembers Lilah's unrestrained hands, still on his shoulders. Angel can't look up, but he knows if he did Wesley would be gone from his position behind the couch. And Angel can't look round, but he knows he would see Wesley behind him if he did. Wesley's hands remove Angel's belt, then move to the zipper at the front of his pants. But here Wesley stops, his hands frozen in place. Forget the attitude and permanent scowl; Angel is certain that on some fundamental level, Wesley is still Wesley, never entirely able to step beyond propriety and good breeding. In a second he'll take away his hand. Lilah bucks and moans, writhing under Angel's unrelenting tongue. Then Wesley's hand, instead of lifting away, presses down, gripping Angel through the fabric of his pants. The sensation is raw, unexpected and feels amazingly, intensely good, and now Angel knows Wesley is a different man to the one he knew before, because the Wesley Angel used to know would not have done this. And that realization is both unsettling -- because it means that this new Wesley is an entirely unknown quantity -- and profoundly arousing. Angel can feel himself half-hardening at the touch. He tries to concentrate on Lilah, but now all he can taste on her is Wesley. Where Angel's tongue is, Wesley has already been, and she is thick with his essence. Angel dives deeper into her, straining his tongue at the root in his desire to capture the taste. To know the Wesley she knows. Wesley's hand slides down the zipper of Angel's fly, then slips inside his pants and eases out his stiffening cock. There is a second's delicious freedom, like being freed from the box all over again, then a furious, consuming need for contact. Wesley, as if reading Angel's mind, obliges him by wrapping his hand around the shaft and pushing back the foreskin. Angel is as helpless under Wesley's touch as Lilah is under his. Wesley grasps him more firmly, and it's all Angel can do not to bite down. The temptation is almost overpowering -- he could drink from Lilah right here, and he knows her blood would be thick and sweet, a richer meal than Angel has known in years. But to give in would be to relinquish his control again, and Angel will not allow himself to do that. And there is another reason: it's no longer Lilah's taste Angel craves. It's Wesley's. He sucks harder and harder at Lilah, driven on by her wordless, frantic cries, by her fingernails digging into his shoulders, by Wesley's hand working him, most of all by the need to lose himself in this glorious maelstrom of physical sensation. Angel gives one final, long lick, and Lilah shudders and comes, arching her back and yelling her satisfaction. As he relaxes his mouth, he can feel the spasms of her orgasm deep within her, life's drumbeat rhythm beating a victory tattoo. Lilah sinks back into the couch, her body melting into the deep cushions as she gives a slow sigh. Angel raises his head to watch her; she is languid, regarding him, cat-like, from beneath half-lidded eyes. Angel sees her gaze lower to his groin. "So," she says, her voice still part-rasp, "is tonight over? Or is it just starting?" Angel can feel the solid, warm mass of Wesley's body against his back. He can feel Wesley's hand on his cock, so tight, but no longer stroking him. He could stop now, Angel realizes. He has glutted on sensation, fed an appetite starved too long, has used and been used by Lilah and in the process shaken off the last remnants of the fugue state he'd succumbed to while under the water and had almost fallen back into when he looked into the Axis and saw that Cordelia wasn't coming home. He could leave now. But if he goes now, it will be without what he came for. Without what he now knows he came for. Angel reaches down, places his hand firmly and deliberately over Wesley's. "We're just starting."
A year ago, he knew exactly who he was, where he fitted. Every possible action could be classified easily into one of two exclusive categories, either/or, zero/sum -- Things Wesley Does, Things Wesley Does Not Do. The former category included researching, making tea, being polite to strangers and listening to the BBC World Service on the tiny radio he bought in Heathrow the day he boarded the plane to California to take up his post as Faith's Watcher. Back then, Wesley didn't spend a lot of time thinking about what kinds of actions might fall into the second category, although if he had, the list might have gone something like: attacking and attempting to rape the woman he was falling in love with, kidnapping the infant son of one of his closest friends, turning his bedroom closet into a cell and holding a prisoner in it for weeks in the kinds of conditions which would outrage Amnesty International if they knew, and sharing his bed with an unrepentant instrument of everything evil and twisted that Wesley has spent his life to this point fighting against. At least one thing hasn't changed: Wesley still listens to the BBC World Service. He never misses Gardeners' Question Time. And then, of course, there's what Wesley is doing right now -- leaning against Angel, his chest flush against Angel's broad back, his cheek resting on Angel's shoulder, his arms around Angel's waist, his hand gripping Angel's cock. Yes, this is very firmly in the category of Things Wesley Never Used To Do. Which is not to say he didn't want to. The attraction was there, almost from the first moment Wesley met him again in L.A. -- Angel's insouciance, his indifference to Wesley, the way he simply and effortlessly WAS everything Wesley was trying and failing to be, and the disinterested scorn with which his gaze pierced and fractured Wesley's unconvincing Rogue Demon Hunter façade. ((Hello, Angel. I wager you thought you'd never see me again. To tell you the truth, I hadn't given it much thought one way or the other.)) Wesley had lived his life until then in search of an approval always withheld from him. He'd failed his father, failed the Council, and had come to L.A. in search of someone else whose approval he could seek. Or maybe he was just looking for someone else to fail. Angel -- old and guilty and steeped in a first hand knowledge of evil that fascinated Wesley as much as it terrified him -- could have been either and, in the end, was both. And when Angel gave his approval, Wesley lapped it up, drank deeply of it, like a parched man. And if he wished -- hoped -- for something more than Angel's platonic, paternal blessing, he resigned himself merely to being grateful for what was offered. He wore another mask -- no longer the Rogue Demon Hunter, but the Faithful Friend. And then fate and prophecy and sheer bad, dumb luck shattered that guise, and for the first time in his life Wesley was alone, with no higher authority to please, nothing to fall back on except the one person he had never had faith in: himself. He has spent the last months stripping back the layers that have swathed him, onion-like, since his childhood. But every time he peels one back all he finds underneath is another, and Wesley isn't sure what he'll find at the core, if anything. There's a possibility that who he is now is just another layer. Because Wesley has spent his whole life trying to please other people by being like them, and now he has cast all that aside he has become a brooding, taciturn vigilante. He has become Angel. He is still not himself. He still does not know who that man is, if he even exists. And the only way he can think of to find out for sure is to exorcise Angel for good. "So, is tonight over?" Lilah asks. "Or is it just starting?" A second's pause, and then Wesley feels Angel's cool hand on his. "We're just starting," Angel says thickly. In this position, his cheek pressed against Angel's back, Angel's tattoo fills Wesley's field of vision. It is all he can see, and the pattern is seemingly endless, the stylized image of the gryphon grown to monstrous proportions. Up close, Wesley can see each individual line of ink traced out underneath Angel's skin, as fresh and distinct as the day it was inked. And how long ago was that? Fifty years? A hundred? More? Angel's back is cool and dry and soft, like fine leather. Sweating is just another one of the long list of things vampires don't do; yet when Wesley inhales he thinks he can smell the faint but distinct tang of salt off Angel, as if somehow he has absorbed the brine he was steeped in for months. Wesley breathes in again, and wishes for an instant for a vampire's sense of smell, the better to be able to distinguish between the confusing mélange of scents. But the overall effect is one of overwhelmingly powerful familiarity -- Angel smells of the Plymouth's upholstery and the Hyperion's musty corridors, of dust and blood, all scents which have defined Wesley's life in the past several years and which he has been denied during the past months. Just breathing this in feels like coming home. Unexpectedly, Angel stands, his body rising and unfurling, the wave of motion carrying Wesley up with him. Wesley lets go of Angel, and when Angel turns around to face him Wesley gets his first view of the hardness he felt under his grip a second ago. Angel's cock is straight and thick and dark. It's beautiful. Wesley knows it's slightly absurd to apply notions like beauty to a part of the anatomy which is at best oddly designed and at worst just plain ridiculous, but Angel is power and strength embodied and of course it makes sense that his manhood should be the natural -- literal -- extension of that. No wonder he caught Darla's eye when she decided she wanted to make herself a playmate. Angel's physical presence is as much a curse as the one the gypsies laid on him -- in fact, it is more so, because without it, he probably would have passed under Darla's notice and lived and died the mortal life he was supposed to. Wesley just wants to look at Angel. To look and look and keep looking. Perhaps, he thinks, there's still something of the Watcher in him, after all. Angel looks at Wesley looking at him, mistakes his captivation for hesitation. He makes the tiniest of gestures toward his hardness and asks in a low, amused voice, "Changing your mind, Wesley? If you don't want this, why'd you make me this way?" "Funny," Wesley says, "I could ask you the same thing." ((You made me this way.)) Does Angel understand? Wesley hopes he does, suspects he doesn't. One of Angel's great gifts is a blissful lack of awareness of the effect he has on those around him. Angel takes a step closer to Wesley. His earlier disorientation and apparent confusion have gone; the predator in him is back in control. "Are you sure you can want this?" Angel asks. Wesley thinks for a moment Angel is challenging him, then reconsiders. His face is soft, intent. He really wants to know. Wesley allows his gaze to shift from Angel for a second, to where Lilah is reclining on the couch, naked and sated. She is propping herself up on one elbow, the better to watch the show; her other hand rests lightly between her legs. In position and attitude, she is Manet's Olympia made flesh. "Lilah," he says. "Get off my couch and make yourself useful for a change." She looks at him for a second before tipping her head back and laughing throatily as she understands him. Then she gets up and goes into the bedroom. Wesley moves in on Angel, pulls him toward himself and kisses him, deep and hard, at the same time moving sinuously against Angel's body so that Angel's hardness presses against his own cock, which is growing fuller in the limited space inside his pants. Wesley's glad he didn't take the time to pull on underwear to answer the door. Angel kisses him back hungrily, and for an instant Wesley thinks he can feel Angel's teeth start to sharpen and grow, just as Angel makes a tiny noise at the back of his throat which is not unlike a growl. The demon is close to the surface, and it is hungry. Wesley leans back, opens his eyes, wonders if the gaze that meets his will be yellow-eyed under a hard-ridged forehead. But Angel's eyes are dark, his face smooth. Lilah comes out of the bedroom, holding a squat, half-used tube in her hand and a packet of cigarettes in the other. She throws the tube across the room, and Wesley catches it with ease. "Thank you, Lilah." She sits down in the arm chair opposite the couch, one foot on the floor, the other leg hooked over the armrest. "Little Miss Helpful," she says. "That's me." She lights a cigarette -- Wesley is sufficiently familiar with her habits by now to know this is an indulgence she permits herself only rarely -- and takes a long draw on it before blowing the smoke into the air to create a swiftly dissipating gray plume. Wesley unscrews the tube's cap and squeezes its contents into his palm. Then, without breaking eye contact with Angel, he strokes his hand over Angel's cock, coating it with the cool, slick jelly. Angel's lips part as he gives a tiny moan. Wesley strokes him again, harder, compressing him, capturing him, holding him tightly, so tightly. The feel of Angel in his hand, in his control, is exquisite. Then he feels Angel's hands on him, unzipping his pants and tugging them down over his hips. He feels his cock spring free, but the constriction of his clothing is instantly replaced by the constriction of desire, the tautness of need making him ache. He suddenly all too aware of the draft from beneath the door on his bare chest and arms. Angel's fist closes around his balls, cupping him, squeezing him with a gentleness that would be tender if it didn't heighten his need into a feeling so intense it is almost painful. Wesley tries not to cry out, and can't stop himself. He retaliates by rubbing Angel harder, forming his fist into a funnel and stroking Angel until he can no longer resist the urge to thrust into it. This is a contest: they are pushing each other to the limit, seeing whose control will break first. Angel makes another thrust into Wesley's grasp, then starts to pull him toward the couch. They stumble toward it together, made clumsy by desire, and Wesley feels his pants slip lower and lower as he moves. Tendrils of cigarette smoke wind around them, and Wesley is vaguely aware that Lilah is watching from the armchair, giggling and occasionally offering gleeful suggestions. But Wesley isn't listening, and neither is Angel. This isn't about Lilah; suddenly Wesley sees her for what she is, just a decoration on this layer of his onion existence, something else that will be stripped away when the time comes. They stop at the end of the couch, and Angel forces Wesley down so that he is bending over, balancing his weight on the overstuffed armrest, hips raised. It takes every ounce of resolve Wesley possesses not to reach behind himself, pull Angel down on to him, or to shout at him to fucking HURRY UP. But he doesn't, because this is about control. About who loses it first. Then he feels Angel slide into him, and for a second his vision darkens and blurs at the edges as the sheer force of it threatens to overcome him. He feels Angel's hips moving against him as he works his way deeper and deeper into Wesley, as if seeking to touch something at his very core. And now Wesley wants so very badly to be touched, because the deeper Angel goes, the better it feels. The sensation of movement is so deep, now, that it is easy to imagine the friction sparking a fire somewhere below the pit of his belly, something inside that has been tinder-dry his whole life suddenly catching alight, the air he's gasping in fanning the flames until his insides char. Then, without warning, Angel changes his position, lowers himself so that he is lying against Wesley's back, placing his hands on Wesley's shoulders. Wesley can feel Angel's lips moving as they brush Wesley's cheek on each thrust; after a second, he realizes Angel is whispering something, so quietly Wesley is not sure whether he even knows he's speaking. And now Angel is covering Wesley's body completely with his own, chest to back, arms on arms, and it feels to Wesley as if his center of perception has completed its migration from his brain to his balls to his belly before finally settling just underneath his skin. Angel thrusts into Wesley again, painfully hard, his hand squeezing Wesley's shoulder with bruising force. Wesley bites down on the edge of the couch cushion, feels his eyes start to water, but the hurt is worth it because it feels good, more than good, better than good, and Angel is driving into him, reaching deep into Wesley, retreating then pushing in again, each time getting that much closer to Wesley's core, his center, his soul. Angel's touch within him grows and subsides, over and over, breakers on a beach. Wesley pushes back, compelled by the desire -- the need -- to draw Angel into himself, deeper and deeper, until finally he touches that part of Wesley which has been hidden, frozen, beneath dead onion layers all this time. And when contact is finally made, Wesley will grip Angel fast, hold him tight and close and not let him go. Then, with a cry of release, Angel comes; Wesley feels him convulsing in the throes of orgasm, surging against Wesley as he rides out the swelling, breaking wave of bliss. The last spasm fades, and Angel's weight settles on to Wesley's back, pinning him down. Angel relaxes his grip on Wesley's shoulder, and his arms slip around Wesley in an embrace that is astonishingly compassionate. Angel's hands -- both hands -- find and fit themselves around Wesley's cock, squeezing him, stroking and caressing him with a gentleness that is all the more effective because it is the last thing Wesley expected from him. The feel of Angel's hands around his cock is filling him up to overflowing, the pulling and stroking and touching and caressing more than he can stand, and Angel's voice softly speaking to him, Angel's lips touching that place just behind his ear -- -- Until finally gentleness wins where strength could not, and Wesley willingly relinquishes the last of his control. The fire inside him explodes, becomes a conflagration that consumes him from balls to brain to fingertips, flames on his skin, in his belly, crawling red-orange-white across his vision. The room darkens; the fire subsides. Wesley lets out a long breath, and feels his legs and arms turn to water. He allows himself to slide off the arm of the sofa so that he is kneeling on the floor, his arms resting on the couch cushions. Wesley's cock is sore and too-sensitive; Angel lets go of it with care, his fingers feather-light and forgiving. Then he wraps his arms around Wesley, holding him in a loose yet tender embrace. He's still whispering, and now Wesley hears for the first time what Angel's been saying to him. "She's gone. She's gone, and I needed you to... I need you..." Wesley feels wetness on his face, and when he licks his lips he tastes salt. The sea, from Angel's eyes. He is weeping an ocean for Cordelia. For Wesley. For all of them. Throughout this act, Wesley thought he was fighting Angel, and now he suddenly wonders if Angel was ever fighting back. Wesley was so intent on what he meant to get from Angel, he never stopped to consider what Angel wanted from him. Wesley intended to shed that layer of himself which Angel made, to cut through it and uncover whatever of himself was beneath. But now he has, he is suddenly uncertain, afraid he has made a mistake. There is more humanity in Angel as he holds Wesley now than Wesley has felt in himself for months. If he casts off Angel, he casts off this, too. But it's too late, of course. The decision's already been made. It was made at the moment when Wesley lifted baby Connor from his crib and took the child from his father for good. For good. He really did believe what he did was for good. Suddenly, Wesley is aware of the sound of slow clapping. Lilah is applauding them. "Hell of a floor show, boys." She takes a final draw on her cigarette and flicks ash on to Wesley's carpet. "Now, for the encore, I thought we could --" "No encore," Angel says. Abruptly, he stands up, hikes up his pants and fastens his belt. Wesley can sense the change in him -- like a switch flicking from one setting to another, every hint of vulnerability, of tenderness, vanishes from him, a sudden shift in polarity. "Such a pity," Lilah purrs. "Do you take bookings? We usually get a stripper for the office party, but you'd be just so much more --" Angel looks at Lilah, and in that look is more contempt, more derision, more pure, unbridled loathing than Wesley thought a single glance could contain. He reaches out a hand, and for a second Wesley believes Angel's next action will be to break Lilah's neck. And if he does, Champion or not, there'll be a crossbow bolt through his cold dead heart faster than -- Lilah recoils in the armchair. Angel's hand moves to her neck, then suddenly diverts from its path and dips down. He pulls a cigarette from the open pack she's holding. "Got a light?" Lilah exhales, and strikes her lighter. Angel lights the cigarette and draws on it. Then, just as Wesley thinks he's going to retreat, he puts out the hand not holding the cigarette, and places it on her pubic bone. In a low voice which nevertheless carries to Wesley across the room, he says, "I could have bitten you. Right there. I didn't. Goodnight, Lilah." The apartment door has opened and shut again before Lilah can formulate a response. Angel doesn't look back as he leaves. When they're alone again, Lilah says tartly, "Not much for enjoying the afterglow, is he?" Her face is petulant, tone sullen. Of course, Wesley thinks: Lilah can't stand not being the center of attention. She thought she was going to star in tonight's feature presentation, and she ended up being the audience. Maybe tomorrow, Wesley will be amused by that. But there's nothing more he wants from her tonight. He walks into the bedroom, lifts Lilah's clothes from where they fell when she shed them at the foot of his bed, and carries them back into the lounge. Dismissively, he throws her the skirt and blouse. "Time to go home, Lilah." Lilah raises an eyebrow. "Don't you want to finish our conversation?" Wesley thinks back to what they were talking about before Angel arrived -- the Royals, King Edward and Wallis Simpson. It meant as little as his conversations with Lilah ever do. They never talk about anything that matters. "I want to sleep," he says curtly. Something else flits across Lilah's face, something Wesley can't immediately identify. It might be disappointment. But she stands up and starts to pull on her skirt, shrug on her blouse, a pornographic movie on rewind. Once she's dressed, Lilah retrieves her bag from the bedroom and takes out a hairbrush and a compact. Wesley waits impatiently as she smoothes her hair into place, powders her already flawless complexion and colors her pout. Usually, he finds this ritualistic approach to personal grooming amusing; tonight, he's simply irritated by it. "For God's sake," he snaps when she produces a tiny implement he at first takes for a torture device but which turns out to be a pair of eyelash curlers, "just once, can't you go out a mess?" Lilah raises her eyes from her compact and says simply, "No. No, I can't. Not even once. But it's okay. I don't expect you to get that." She snaps the compact closed and drops it back in her bag. She fishes out her car keys and goes to the door. Unlike Angel, however, she stops to look back at Wesley. "One question." "I'm tired, Lilah --" "King Edward and Wallis Simpson," she persists. "What you said -- about love being more important than power. Were you being serious?" Wesley has made it a rule never to talk to Lilah about anything important. His views on the British Royal Family can hardly have any impact on the eternal battle between good and evil or the inevitable approaching apocalypse, for which he and Lilah will undoubtedly be playing on opposing teams. Yet, the way Lilah is looking at him, he'd swear they did. But the question has been asked, and a part of Wesley's mind can't help trying to answer it. Wesley used to know what he believed in, but those beliefs were part of the rigid set of rules the man he used to be had internalized unquestioningly as part of his compulsive quest for approval. Now he's shattered everything he once accepted implicitly, and Wesley is finding it harder than he imagined it would be to rebuild the house his soul lives in from the ground up. Sometimes he likes to goad a response from Lilah by saying things he doesn't mean. Sometimes he can't see the meaning himself, the way he used to, and what he says only reflects the hollow bitterness he feels. And what frightens Wesley is that, increasingly, he can't tell the difference between the two states of mind. Power and love and desire and control. Perhaps King Edward and Mrs. Simpson knew exactly what they each wanted, and traded power and control with each other accordingly. Or perhaps they were caught up in a mutual destructive desire, not unlike the Chinese Grip the rumormongers whispered about behind Mrs. Simpson's back. After all, what was the Chinese Grip, other than a way of describing a desire so intense, so consuming, that it swallowed you up until you couldn't physically extricate yourself? Control and desire and love and power. Wesley doesn't know in what order or degree to apply those words to the forces that draw himself and Angel and Lilah together. They are all Chinese Gripping each other, sometimes enthralled like Edward, sometimes in control like Wallis Simpson. Flux is the only constant between them. He doesn't have an answer for Lilah; or, at any rate, an answer he wants to give. He shrugs. "Does it matter?" Lilah smiles, and suddenly her good mood appears to be restored. "Of course it doesn't matter." She tosses her hair one more time, and opens the apartment door. Her voice mocking, she says, "Goodnight -- Edward." Coolly, Wesley answers, "Goodnight, Mrs. Simpson." The door closes behind her, and Wesley is alone in his apartment. He breathes in, smells cigarette smoke. And the sea. |