So What Happens Now?
As soon as Spike had mentioned his own fatigue, I took a quick look around and realized that we were all looking more than a little weary. More than unerstandably, none of us was at our best, physically or mentally, and some rest would almost certainly be the right thing to do
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I nodded, taking his words and curling them up inside me, somwhere just above that part of my chest that ached. Every thing was different, and just inside that simply-structured thought were a whole lot of heavy spaces. I was different, Illyria was hurtfully so...even the hotel couldn't feel the same. No matter how much we might wish otherwise.
But somehow I couldn't direct that sentiment towards Wesley. Just across from me, there seemed a sense of acceptance settled about his shoulders...or at least the understanding that we would have to ready ourselves for whatever was next. Because, well, 'that is what we do'. Once upon a time, a part of me had felt betrayed by the changes I witnessed in Wesley...I was sure that he was leaving us behind. But sitting here now? I could finally see that the change was who he was.
A bit of Darwin shadowed the eyes I couldn't look away from, a reminder that to survive, we must adapt. It stirred a part of myself I had put away ever so long ago...Pylea ago. I needed to remember what is was like to survive again. After all, surviving meant alive -- at least mostly. So when had something so strong started to sound to defeated in my mind?
"I never thought you were a penny," I said finally, making a soft attempt at humor. "Not even once."
"The phrase is English in origin, actually... and it used to be 'bad shilling'. I think it referred to counterfeit currency, if I'm not mistaken."
The word counterfeit quieted me again, if only for a while. To call Illyria a copy was an injustice to us both, as much as right and wrong entered into these things. There had been nothing artificial about are argument...if anything it had been too real.
For everyone involved, I think. And...
"So, where the hell are you and I now?"
I was startled right out what might have been a promising ramble. Something of old even. I actually tried to stay in that moment for a bit.
"Well," I offered. "You are sitting right there, and I am..." I broke off, embarrassed. Whatever the Fred of old might have found to say, hadn't I already concluded that I was as far from her as could be? Wesley had asked the hard question, forming the words that seemed to be circling for the longest time. All of this time, really.
He deserved an answer that was just as direct.
"I'm different," I tried again. "This is different," my hand reached out to travel the space between us before coming to rest on the flask. Fingers laced over Wesley's, forcing his steady tapping to come to a stop. The sound of it had felt entirely tooeven for the moment.
"This is different," I repeated. "But it's still this."
A warmth sparked where the flask had somehow managed to remain cool, perhaps drawing heat from my body where it cast itself across the table as I leaned in for a kiss. Words seemed to be fail me more often than not now.
But maybe I didn't need them.
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"Good to know," I responded. A weak offering, but about all of the mirth I had the ability to summon at the moment.
The entire room still seemed to exist under some somber, weary weight. We were still illuminated only by a small light, leaving us surrounded by darkness, and everything was quiet, except for the brief and intermittent attempts on our parts to speak. The slow, steady tap of the flask against the table, the almost imperceptible movement of my wrist I barely noticed.
I'd asked the question that seemed to hang heaviest and most unspoken between Fred and I. A bold gambit for me, in this situation, involving this person-- I was the one who tended to be the reticent. Fred seemed startled, and took a moment to leave whatever thoughts she'd been gathering and address the question.
"Well... You are sitting right there, and I am..."
It began as a typically Fred, strictly literal interpretation of the query, but I watched the wheels turn behind those impossibly wide brown eyes as the gears shifted.
"I'm different. This is different."
Nodding, I found myself reflexively holding my breath as Fred's hand found mine and stilled it, forcing us again into silence punctuated only by breath and word, and at that moment, only Fred had either.
"This is different. But it's still this."
Fred leaned forward across the tiny table. There was no thought involved in my closing the gap, my lips meeting hers in a kiss that brought on a torrent of memories so strong it nearly made me break the connection. After a moment or two in which neither of us seemed likely to pull away in anything approaching regret, I did ease away from Fred, rising from my chair and stepping around to her. Guiding Fred to her feet, my arms had snaked around her faster than I could ask them to, and I resumed the kiss, more fervently this time, pressing my mouth to hers.
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Once Wesley leaned in to meet my kiss, granting a certain permission I didn't even know I was waiting for, I finally felt a little of something inside me let go. All day -all of this life- had been about taking in. Holding in...the words and the thoughts and the hurt my heart couldn't let go of.
Until now. He tasted like the whiskey we had shared, only different. Not like that different that was surely me...the one that was so frightening. Sharp and bittersweet on my tongue, this was a different I wanted to explore. Reaching up with the hand that had once held his, I felt the table shift, and the sound of the flask tilting down onto its side seemed very, very far away.
And I was willing...desperate even...to leave it unnoticed and abandoned until Wesley pulled away. Almost immediately the cold began to settle back in, starting right in the middle of my chest, like before.
"Wesley?"
It was all I could manage to say. It was all I really had the courage to say. And then it was all I had to say because then he was there, just in front of me and guiding me upwards. The direction alone was a pleasant enough sensation, but once Wesley's arms wrapped around me my mind was whirling again. Demanding to know why I would ever have been satisfied with something so simple as direction.
"Wesley," I whispered once more, just before our lips met again. His name. I hadn't ever really been able to understand why everyone always shortened it before, cutting away that half of who he was. Surely as I was Fred, he was Wesley. But now, with everything that was, and wasn't, I could begin to understand the process. Corners and hearts get sharper and harder, and people get tired. Sometimes even a syllable is too much, I suppose. And yet it seemed to me one of the few parts of who I was, that I was willing to cling to. Even as I clung to him.
I might have murmered his name just one more time, trying the new-old sound of it and sharing it between us as I continued to taste the whiskeyed corners of his mouth. Lips trailed downward, tracing over his scar in an overly aged and silent apology...I sadly lacked in courage when I needed it most it seemed. In some ways it tasted just like the whiskey.
My fingers traveled upwards...just like I had moments before...gently undoing the first button of his shirt so that my mouth could continue to Wesley's colarbone.
The warmth there was....
...and the weakness came back. And for a moment all I could do was bury my face there, skin to skin.
I kept waiting for the next thing to happen. For whatever was bound to come next, or just as surely to be taken. We only lost them when we loved them most, and while visions of Charles and Angel and Cordy played through me I couldn't help but feel the part where Wesley and I belonged there to.
But as I held him tighter a different thought came. Even with that ache we were still here. And this time it wasn't just Wesley holding me, supporting me even when I still wanted to pretend I could stand. No, this time we were holding each other...with something that felt, and tasted like equality.
It was more than enough to tilt my face upwards again, towards Wesley's mouth.
I...
I wanted more.
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