Ats - Surrender - PG (Lilah/Wes)
Title: Surrender
Author: dreamincolor
Fandom: Ats
Pairing: Lilah/Wesley
Genre: Romance/Dark
Rating: PG
Highlight for Warnings/Spoilers: **implied character death**
Summary: Her name on his tongue has a terribly familiarity.
Word Count: 1292
Disclaimer: Joss wins.
Beta'd by: the amazing deird1, who's help is invaluable. (-tackle smooch-)
A/N: For prompt #27, "more than life itself", of my table.
**********
Three knocks. Solid, but not loud.
Lifting her head from her pillow and freeing herself from the sheets - tangled tight around her legs from sleepless tossing - it was mere moments before Lilah was peering out through the keyhole at a familiar face.
“Lover.” Lilah’s voice left her in a purr as she swung the front door open, hand on her hip, and a smile on her lips.
Wesley’s eyes traveled up and down her body shamelessly, up over bare legs, and along the sheer, clinging curves of her nightgown. Reflexively, she smirked.
She loved it when he came to her.
“Lilah.” He greeted her with a slow smile, his frame outlined in hesitant, dim moonlight, creeping in from a window down the hall.
“You know,“ she glanced at her watch, raising a brow, “I did only get home from work an hour ago. I have to sleep sometime.”
His face seemed strangely relaxed; void of the usual scowl, but not of the usual hunger. As they moved over her again, his eyes were nothing if not predatory. “May I?”
“May you come in?” She leaned against the door frame with a leisurely smile, slowly giving him the up-down. He’d been out fighting. Dark jeans, and a shirt torn at the hip, exposing a glimpse of pale skin.
More rugged than his usual. She liked.
“Wesley, are you asking permission?” She raised an eyebrow suggestively, drawing the game out. “That’s a first.”
“Lilah,” His hand reached out to touch her fingers, looped out around the door frame. His skin was shockingly cold. “Invite me in.”
She smiled, something low in her stomach clenching in anticipation. She hadn’t seen him in over twenty-four hours.
Taking his hand, she pulled..
..but he didn’t budge.
His palm flattened against the air in the doorway, as if blocked by an invisible piece of glass. An invisible door.
She jerked away instantly, stumbling several feet backwards, and he only watched her, through those unnaturally bright eyes.
“Wesley..” Something inside her twisted painfully, and her voice sharpened, high and strained. “What happened to-”
“I slipped.“ Two scabs spotted dark at his throat, easily deep enough to scar. “Clearing out a nest. It was only a moment, just a single, wrong move..”
Jerking the drawer beside her open, Lilah’s hand fumbled until it closed around the handle of a pistol. Then, after a second’s thought, abandoned it in favor of a wooden cross.
“Lilah..” His eyes were as earnest as they’d ever been. “Please, invite me in.”
Hissing in disbelief - how stupid did he think she was - she held out the cross protectively in front of her. “Wesley, I don’t want to die.”
“Lilah, come here,” he coaxed, trying to ease her past the invisible barrier between them. “Give me your hand.”
She took a somewhat shaky step forward, lips pursed and the cross held out firmly in front of her, jabbing it forward enough to make him recoil. “Get away from me.”
Pulling back, he watched her through quiet eyes, his body shrinking down and away like something harmless and small, eyes full of what he must have hoped looked like sincerity.
“Lilah,” her name on his tongue had a terribly familiarity, “I only want-”
“Stop it. You’re a horrible liar, Wesley, not even death can change that.” Something inside her continued to ache and twist, and she shoved the cross out closer to him, throat tightening. “Get out of my hall.”
“You can invite me in, Lilah,” she watched his face harden subtly, eyebrows bowing down as his body straightened out, “and this can be something gentle and careful, something you chose. Something you enjoy.” Lilah cringed at the suggestion, but couldn’t shake the sudden surge of memory - of Angel kissing her ferociously on his office desk, licking and nibbling down her jaw and throat with an urgent hunger, until she could feel his teeth sinking down into her, penetrating her -
A memory that had made its way into her darker dreams.
“Or,” his eyes were unwavering, “I can catch you on your way to your car, or meeting a client for dinner.“ Her lips pursed in what she hoped resembled anger, but her shaking hands and sharp inhale were a giveaway, and he pressed on, “You can be born here, or I can take you in some filthy alleyway.” He stepped forward, and instinctively she started to step back.
No. She was safe behind the threshold. He would not scare her.
“-with bones snapping and blood spilling, and the beauty of it getting lost in the struggle..”
She was not shaking. She was not holding her breath.
“Or we can be here, like always. Just us -”
At his sides his hands opened towards her. Those beautiful, talented hands.
“- and I can give you something precious.”
Her voice left her in a low whisper, one that was softer than she might have liked. “Death.”
“Immortality. Power.” He paused long enough to let his lips tilt up in a small smile, “Companionship.”
She tried to speak, but her lips parted soundlessly.
He was lying, toying with her. This wasn’t the morally bound man she knew; this man - this thing - could pull her apart without a second’s remorse. This thing only wanted a meal.
“You and I, Lilah, bringing LA to its knees. Isn’t that what you’ve always wanted?”
She wasn’t safe. Not here - it wouldn’t take him long to find some way around the invitation - and certainly not at work. Angel had proved Wolfram & Hart’s penetrability only too many times.
And Wesley was much smarter than Angel had ever been.
“Wes-” Her voice shuddered with an uncharacteristic frailty as he stepped forward, his hands closing around the wooden tip of the cross she still held out in front of her - that extended just slightly past the doorway.
And she watched his knuckles whiten - if that was really possible - as his grip tightened; and as at what had to be instant pain, with his undead-palms pressed to sanctified wood, his face morphed into something ridged and demonic. Something animal.
And his now golden eyes fixed on hers, hypnotic.
“Lilah.”
The beast with her lover’s face leaned in close to the doorway, as close as possible without crossing the threshold; and she suddenly realized that she too was leaning forward, close enough that she could feel her own breath bouncing back off his lips and the motion of his fingertips hovering and moving the air over her extended wrist. Something inside her ached painfully as she weighed the alternative - envisioned a hired hand hunting him down - plunging a stake into his heart, turning him to dust.
Envisioned herself without him.
And if he wasn’t lying, if he meant what he said, and that hunger in his eyes - that need - was for more than blood..
Then he was ready to let himself possess her fully, and completely. Permanently.
“Lilah.”
His voice hit against her lips in an unneeded breath, a reminder of the mere inches between them, but it wasn’t until he whispered her name a second time, in a gentler, more intimate tone, that she realized she’d squeezed her eyes shut. Slowly, she opened them again -- this time greeted by the face she knew, ridge-less and smooth. Human.
Lilah’s lips parted again wordlessly, and in response his mouth slighted in the smallest of smiles, familiar eyes pleading with her.
And she couldn’t help but reach out just a few centimeters past the threshold, her fingertips skimming along his jaw line, her thumb brushing over his bottom lip.
“Wesley-”
The cross hit the floor with a clatter.
“Come in.”
**********
Author: dreamincolor
Fandom: Ats
Pairing: Lilah/Wesley
Genre: Romance/Dark
Rating: PG
Highlight for Warnings/Spoilers: **implied character death**
Summary: Her name on his tongue has a terribly familiarity.
Word Count: 1292
Disclaimer: Joss wins.
Beta'd by: the amazing deird1, who's help is invaluable. (-tackle smooch-)
A/N: For prompt #27, "more than life itself", of my table.
**********
Three knocks. Solid, but not loud.
Lifting her head from her pillow and freeing herself from the sheets - tangled tight around her legs from sleepless tossing - it was mere moments before Lilah was peering out through the keyhole at a familiar face.
“Lover.” Lilah’s voice left her in a purr as she swung the front door open, hand on her hip, and a smile on her lips.
Wesley’s eyes traveled up and down her body shamelessly, up over bare legs, and along the sheer, clinging curves of her nightgown. Reflexively, she smirked.
She loved it when he came to her.
“Lilah.” He greeted her with a slow smile, his frame outlined in hesitant, dim moonlight, creeping in from a window down the hall.
“You know,“ she glanced at her watch, raising a brow, “I did only get home from work an hour ago. I have to sleep sometime.”
His face seemed strangely relaxed; void of the usual scowl, but not of the usual hunger. As they moved over her again, his eyes were nothing if not predatory. “May I?”
“May you come in?” She leaned against the door frame with a leisurely smile, slowly giving him the up-down. He’d been out fighting. Dark jeans, and a shirt torn at the hip, exposing a glimpse of pale skin.
More rugged than his usual. She liked.
“Wesley, are you asking permission?” She raised an eyebrow suggestively, drawing the game out. “That’s a first.”
“Lilah,” His hand reached out to touch her fingers, looped out around the door frame. His skin was shockingly cold. “Invite me in.”
She smiled, something low in her stomach clenching in anticipation. She hadn’t seen him in over twenty-four hours.
Taking his hand, she pulled..
..but he didn’t budge.
His palm flattened against the air in the doorway, as if blocked by an invisible piece of glass. An invisible door.
She jerked away instantly, stumbling several feet backwards, and he only watched her, through those unnaturally bright eyes.
“Wesley..” Something inside her twisted painfully, and her voice sharpened, high and strained. “What happened to-”
“I slipped.“ Two scabs spotted dark at his throat, easily deep enough to scar. “Clearing out a nest. It was only a moment, just a single, wrong move..”
Jerking the drawer beside her open, Lilah’s hand fumbled until it closed around the handle of a pistol. Then, after a second’s thought, abandoned it in favor of a wooden cross.
“Lilah..” His eyes were as earnest as they’d ever been. “Please, invite me in.”
Hissing in disbelief - how stupid did he think she was - she held out the cross protectively in front of her. “Wesley, I don’t want to die.”
“Lilah, come here,” he coaxed, trying to ease her past the invisible barrier between them. “Give me your hand.”
She took a somewhat shaky step forward, lips pursed and the cross held out firmly in front of her, jabbing it forward enough to make him recoil. “Get away from me.”
Pulling back, he watched her through quiet eyes, his body shrinking down and away like something harmless and small, eyes full of what he must have hoped looked like sincerity.
“Lilah,” her name on his tongue had a terribly familiarity, “I only want-”
“Stop it. You’re a horrible liar, Wesley, not even death can change that.” Something inside her continued to ache and twist, and she shoved the cross out closer to him, throat tightening. “Get out of my hall.”
“You can invite me in, Lilah,” she watched his face harden subtly, eyebrows bowing down as his body straightened out, “and this can be something gentle and careful, something you chose. Something you enjoy.” Lilah cringed at the suggestion, but couldn’t shake the sudden surge of memory - of Angel kissing her ferociously on his office desk, licking and nibbling down her jaw and throat with an urgent hunger, until she could feel his teeth sinking down into her, penetrating her -
A memory that had made its way into her darker dreams.
“Or,” his eyes were unwavering, “I can catch you on your way to your car, or meeting a client for dinner.“ Her lips pursed in what she hoped resembled anger, but her shaking hands and sharp inhale were a giveaway, and he pressed on, “You can be born here, or I can take you in some filthy alleyway.” He stepped forward, and instinctively she started to step back.
No. She was safe behind the threshold. He would not scare her.
“-with bones snapping and blood spilling, and the beauty of it getting lost in the struggle..”
She was not shaking. She was not holding her breath.
“Or we can be here, like always. Just us -”
At his sides his hands opened towards her. Those beautiful, talented hands.
“- and I can give you something precious.”
Her voice left her in a low whisper, one that was softer than she might have liked. “Death.”
“Immortality. Power.” He paused long enough to let his lips tilt up in a small smile, “Companionship.”
She tried to speak, but her lips parted soundlessly.
He was lying, toying with her. This wasn’t the morally bound man she knew; this man - this thing - could pull her apart without a second’s remorse. This thing only wanted a meal.
“You and I, Lilah, bringing LA to its knees. Isn’t that what you’ve always wanted?”
She wasn’t safe. Not here - it wouldn’t take him long to find some way around the invitation - and certainly not at work. Angel had proved Wolfram & Hart’s penetrability only too many times.
And Wesley was much smarter than Angel had ever been.
“Wes-” Her voice shuddered with an uncharacteristic frailty as he stepped forward, his hands closing around the wooden tip of the cross she still held out in front of her - that extended just slightly past the doorway.
And she watched his knuckles whiten - if that was really possible - as his grip tightened; and as at what had to be instant pain, with his undead-palms pressed to sanctified wood, his face morphed into something ridged and demonic. Something animal.
And his now golden eyes fixed on hers, hypnotic.
“Lilah.”
The beast with her lover’s face leaned in close to the doorway, as close as possible without crossing the threshold; and she suddenly realized that she too was leaning forward, close enough that she could feel her own breath bouncing back off his lips and the motion of his fingertips hovering and moving the air over her extended wrist. Something inside her ached painfully as she weighed the alternative - envisioned a hired hand hunting him down - plunging a stake into his heart, turning him to dust.
Envisioned herself without him.
And if he wasn’t lying, if he meant what he said, and that hunger in his eyes - that need - was for more than blood..
Then he was ready to let himself possess her fully, and completely. Permanently.
“Lilah.”
His voice hit against her lips in an unneeded breath, a reminder of the mere inches between them, but it wasn’t until he whispered her name a second time, in a gentler, more intimate tone, that she realized she’d squeezed her eyes shut. Slowly, she opened them again -- this time greeted by the face she knew, ridge-less and smooth. Human.
Lilah’s lips parted again wordlessly, and in response his mouth slighted in the smallest of smiles, familiar eyes pleading with her.
And she couldn’t help but reach out just a few centimeters past the threshold, her fingertips skimming along his jaw line, her thumb brushing over his bottom lip.
“Wesley-”
The cross hit the floor with a clatter.
“Come in.”
**********