Rated 'R' for violence.
Continued from here
Lilah never ceases to amaze me. I smile at her and kiss her forehead. She's looking so worried, even though she's trying to hide it. I can still see it in her eyes. "Oh I'm very tired. In fact you wore me out completely," I tell her, still gasping for air.
We lay down on the bed, holding each other. Skin on skin, enjoying the feel of each other. I wrap my arms around her, while she scoots close to me. It won't be enough to keep the nightmares away. But she will be there when I wake up. And that is enough for me.
Tiredly I lean in for a last kiss, my eyes already fluttering close. "You'll be here when I wake up?" She nods firmly, tightening her hold on me. I move closer, while she puts her head on my shoulder. Closing my eyes I drift asleep, knowing what will wait for me behind closed eyes, hoping it won't be there.
They were there again. Looking at me with those catlike eyes. But when they spoke it was not the voice I expected to hear.
"Stealing away my son huh? I don't easily give up, dear boy," Darla said. No, it wasn't Darla. It couldn't be Darla. Darla was dead or...wasn't she? Narrowing my eyes I glared at her. "What?" She sneered, "You think I'm someone else? Think again dear, this is Hell. Where else would I be?"
I was chained to the ceiling, my kneecaps crushed. I couldn't move, Darla kept circling around me like a cat. "You know sweetie. Usually I kill anyone who steals what is mine. But since you're already dead, I'll have to come up with something else."
Her hands slide over my back, sharp nails digging deep into my flesh. I bite my lip against the stinging pain. As she appears in my line of vision again I tremble at her smile. Her face is close to mine now and she leans in to kiss me, vamping out she bites my lip, tongue lapping out to lick up my blood.
"Such sweet blood. Now I know why Angelus keeps you around, dear boy." A knife appears in her hand and she starts to carve in my flesh. It burns and tears as she moves from my torso to my back. "Time to get my pound of flesh," she laughs. Gritting my teeth I close my eyes and think of someone. Anyone, someone will come for me, They'll safe me. Darla's laughter rings painfully in my ears as she carves out pieces of my flesh.
As she moves around again the knife is suddenly a piece of glass, my blood dripping from it. The hand is different as is the laughter. As I drag my head up to look Darla is gone and Faith is standing there. "Having fun again Watcher mine?" she smirks. "They got a whole lotta kick ass stuff here. I shoulda had that when we had our fun huh?" she winks at me.
Pushing her hands in her pockets she saunters around, looking with wide eyes. "You know Wes, no one gonna come for you right? Like no one came for you when I had you tied to a chair. They didn't come for you but they did come for me. Must be a real bitch knowing that they're only using you huh? You were such a fucked up Watcher. It's you fault I went off the deep end."
"That's not true," I tell her. It's not. Angel and Cordelia weren't using me. It's not my fault she did what she did. She made her own choice didn't she? What would she know, she's not real.
"Wicked cool!" Faith says, picking up one of the hot pokers. "We never did get to finish hot last time did we, babe? Time to correct that little mistake huh? Let's see if I can make you scream this time."
I clench my teeth together again as she pushes the hot poker against my chest, the smell of burned skin assaulting my nose. She'll never hear me scream, no on will...ever.
She laughs as she keeps on burning my flesh. Once she's done my chest, she's moving to the back. It hurts, so very much. My body is beginning to tremble all over. I'm not sure how much longer I can take this. Closing my eyes, I concentrate on keeping control.
"Wes! You dumbass! Look what a mess you gotten yourself into now."
"Cordy?" My eyes shoot open and I stare at the woman whom I believed to be dead. The woman I thought of as a sister. She prods me in the chest with her sharp nail. "But..I thought you were..." No she's not dead anymore is she?
"Dead?" She sneers. "Well yeah I am. Was. And who's fault is that huh?"
"No, I...I didn't...there was nothing I could've done." I shake my head at her.
She laughs and picks up metal bar, hitting it in my stomach hard. I can actually feel shards of metal piercing my skin. "Liar!" She shouts. "You of all people should have know. You should have know that wasn't the real me. In the beginning I still had a chance to get the bitch out of my body...but you weren't around so nada!" She keeps hitting me over and over with ever word.
"You left me first. You never asked me for my side of the story," I grate out.
"That should have given you a clue asshole! Wes! I would *never* just walk out on you like that."
"But..." I tried. My words were cut short as she rammed the metal bar hits my collar bone. I can hear it break before I feel it.
"No buts mister! You killed me, You gave up on me!" She lets the metal bar slide out of her hands and looks at me sadly. Her hand touches my face gently. "Why did you give up on me Wes? Why?"
I want to tell her that I didn't. I've looked for her. But she's telling me that Jasmine took over her body far before that. It is my fault, I did give up on her. I just didn't know.
She walks around me, her nails digging into my flesh, deeper and deeper and as she appears again Cordy is no longer there. It's Illyria.
"You can't be here," I whisper. "You're someone else now. You can't be here." She can't.
"You are correct," she smirks at me. "I am getting a second chance. The one you failed to provide me. Tilting her head, she looks at me with those piercing blue eyes. "They were right. You are not worthy." She sneers at me in that particular way of her. "You find yourself all alone again. I will not come for you this time." You cannot be saved by a lie.
She steps back and looks over my bleeding form. "Your form does no longer please me." She walks closer and puts her hands over mine. "Your hands no longer heal." She keeps looking at me curiously as she breaks every finger. I can't look away from her, from her eyes, her face. She's not real. Walking around me she pulls my fingers all the way back.
Finally I'm alone. Everyone is gone, they've left me here. In my own private hell. Where I should be. My body hurts so much I can hardly feel it, though there are flashes every time I move. Closing my eyes I try to lock my mind, move out of my body, remove myself.
"If you hadn't been so stupid and clammed up on everyone, not telling them what you found out. Holtz would have never gotten hold off me and I wouldn't have grown up in Hell. Steven would not have existed."
Wearily I look up. "Connor?" He's there. Sitting in front of me, crouching. He looks at me with narrowed eyes, sneering. He's not real either. He's alive he can't enter my hell. Right? Or did he die to, it's so confusing.
"Yeah, that's right. And hey, you know what else? If you hadn't taken me, dear old dad wouldn't have been swimming with the fishes. I wouldn't have gone nuts and try to blow up Cordy. And then dad wouldnt' have had to take that deal with Wolfram and Hart."
Which father is he talking about? Lindsey or Angel? The false or the true one? Blinking I frown at him. He's right. I know he is. I've messed up his live. What's the truth and a lie? I can't tell anymore. I can't tell.
"Hey lucky me. I can still do some more now. You can't go anywhere now, coward. Wanna see what I learned in Quar-Toth?"
Trying to flinching away I watch him approach me. He's like a cat, a hunter, like his father and mother. His eyes are dark with insanity. A look I've seen before. In the mirror. With one strong pull against my shoulders he removes the joints from the sockets. I don't actually feel it untill he lets go and I'm hanging on loose joints. The pain screams through my body, though I grit my teeth to prevent it from escaping.
"Why couldn't I stay, Wesley? Why did you leave me?"
No, no. I know that voice, it can't be. I'd recognize that voice anywhere. It's there in my dreams, my nightmares. It's there during the day's sometimes. She sounds so small, so hurt. Looking up I see her staring at me with eyes that hold nothing but accusation.
"Fred? I didn't leave you...I could never leave you." The fact that she thinks I could leave her hurts more then anything that's been done to me over the last day...days? I can't remember. How long have I been in my own private hell?
"You did! You were too busy running around, threatening people. *Shooting* people. You killed me!"
I watch as she morphed into Illyria. "You killed us," her cold detached voice announces. She tilts her head and looks at me curiously. As though I were nothing but a mere experiment on display. "Is this more grief?"
Closing my eyes I sigh. "No, it's not. I don't know why I'm here." Maybe she knows. She's a goddess, aren't they supposed to be all knowing?
"You are here, because you deserve it. Is that not what you taught me?" Her voice holds wonder and surprise. As though she's learned something new. "You killed her," she accuses coldly. I can't deny it. I did kill Fred. Wasn't fast enough to save her, clever enough, *good* enough.
"You are where you belong," Fred tells me. "You killed me. I don't need you, you never loved me."
"No, that's not true! Fred, please!" I start to plead. But before I can say anything else, she vanishes. I can feel my walls crumbling, breaking down. The pain is inside out now, I can't do much to stop it.
It is sometime later that I can feel another presence near me. I'm afraid to look up, not wanting to know who's there this time. Though strangely enough this presence feels different. Risking a look, I see Gunn approaching me.
He stalks toward me and puts his hand on my face. "You look awful, Wes," he shakes his head. Pulling his hand back I can see it ball into a fist before it plunges in my stomach. "I guess that's what you get for stabbing friends." Walking around me he laughs. "At least you stab them in the front and not the back." He's in front of me now, holding up a scalpel. My eyes go wide and there's nothing I can do to stop him from plunging it into me. "There, now we kinda settled the score. Enjoy your stay in hell." He mock salutes me and vanishes in a cloud of smoke.
Suddenly the voices are everywhere. Shouting, pleading for help. Accusing, cursing laughing.
"I'm sorry! I'm so sorry! I tried!" But trying isn't good enough and I know it. I keep yelling at them until tears blur my vision and my throat is sore from screaming. By the time my vision returns to normal, the voices are gone, though they still ring in my ears. I'm a murdered, I'm right where I belong. In hell.
"Looks like I was right wasn't I boy? Even when dead you muck up everything."
Squeezing my eyes shut I try to block out that voice. The voice that haunts me since childhood. He can't be here now. Just can't. It's not possible.
"Look at me boy! Have you no sense of decorum left in that rotten body of yours?"
As on reflex my eyes snap up to meet his. Decades of training drilled into me. I can't disobey this man. I watch him walk around me. Slowly, laughing, sneering. "Look at you. You pathetic creature, you failure. I should have drowned you at birth. That woud've spared me a whole lot of trouble and humiliation. You were a mistake since the beginning. A freak accident that should've been eliminated."
I feel like throwing up as I watch him pick up an all to familiar cane. He bends it a few times and then walks back to me.
"Failure! Mistake! Disappointment! Unworthy! ..."
He keeps on cursing at me, accentuating each word with a stinging blow of the cane. I close my eyes and drift away. It's nothing I haven't heard before, felt before. I grew up with this.
A sharp sudden stab make me open my eyes again. Father is gone, but she's back again. Fred? She smiles at me sweetly and I can't help but smile back.
"Did ya have a good time, Wes?"
I look at her surprised. This is not her normal tone of voice, not her normal speech pattern. She moves closer, her hands sliding softly over my body before she digs in her nails. Tears sting in my eyes as she cuts through skin hard, moving in to lick up some blood. As I drop my head and look down I note that there is a whole pool of blood beneath me. Vaguely I wonder whom it belongs to.
There's only one person who's not come to visit me in my personal hell. She never comes to visit, never accuses, never calls me a failure.
Never.
Lilah. Yet, I'm waiting for her. But I'm not sure if I'm waiting for her accusations or for her to come free me from Hell. After all, I couldn't free her from her Hell, why would she bother coming to safe me? Suddenly the chains fly loose and I fall to the floor. It opens wide and there's fire beneath me, consuming me whole, burning my skin.
"Fire wouldn't be ever lasting if it really consumed anything."
"Lilah!" Panting for breath my eyes fly open, sweat is covering my body. I'm slightly disoriented at first. But then I remember. The roof, the rain, the shower and later the bed. Lilah indeed. She did come for me and she didn't run away again. She stayed. And she saved me from the worst nightmare. At least Angel and Angelus weren't here this time. Though, Fred seems to always be there.
Lying back down, I try to steady my breathing as I gaze at the ceiling. I'll be fine. I just...have to keep my eyes open, don't sleep. We'll be fine. I hope I didn't wake up Lilah, she's worried enough.
(Open for Lilah)
Lilah never ceases to amaze me. I smile at her and kiss her forehead. She's looking so worried, even though she's trying to hide it. I can still see it in her eyes. "Oh I'm very tired. In fact you wore me out completely," I tell her, still gasping for air.
We lay down on the bed, holding each other. Skin on skin, enjoying the feel of each other. I wrap my arms around her, while she scoots close to me. It won't be enough to keep the nightmares away. But she will be there when I wake up. And that is enough for me.
Tiredly I lean in for a last kiss, my eyes already fluttering close. "You'll be here when I wake up?" She nods firmly, tightening her hold on me. I move closer, while she puts her head on my shoulder. Closing my eyes I drift asleep, knowing what will wait for me behind closed eyes, hoping it won't be there.
They were there again. Looking at me with those catlike eyes. But when they spoke it was not the voice I expected to hear.
"Stealing away my son huh? I don't easily give up, dear boy," Darla said. No, it wasn't Darla. It couldn't be Darla. Darla was dead or...wasn't she? Narrowing my eyes I glared at her. "What?" She sneered, "You think I'm someone else? Think again dear, this is Hell. Where else would I be?"
I was chained to the ceiling, my kneecaps crushed. I couldn't move, Darla kept circling around me like a cat. "You know sweetie. Usually I kill anyone who steals what is mine. But since you're already dead, I'll have to come up with something else."
Her hands slide over my back, sharp nails digging deep into my flesh. I bite my lip against the stinging pain. As she appears in my line of vision again I tremble at her smile. Her face is close to mine now and she leans in to kiss me, vamping out she bites my lip, tongue lapping out to lick up my blood.
"Such sweet blood. Now I know why Angelus keeps you around, dear boy." A knife appears in her hand and she starts to carve in my flesh. It burns and tears as she moves from my torso to my back. "Time to get my pound of flesh," she laughs. Gritting my teeth I close my eyes and think of someone. Anyone, someone will come for me, They'll safe me. Darla's laughter rings painfully in my ears as she carves out pieces of my flesh.
As she moves around again the knife is suddenly a piece of glass, my blood dripping from it. The hand is different as is the laughter. As I drag my head up to look Darla is gone and Faith is standing there. "Having fun again Watcher mine?" she smirks. "They got a whole lotta kick ass stuff here. I shoulda had that when we had our fun huh?" she winks at me.
Pushing her hands in her pockets she saunters around, looking with wide eyes. "You know Wes, no one gonna come for you right? Like no one came for you when I had you tied to a chair. They didn't come for you but they did come for me. Must be a real bitch knowing that they're only using you huh? You were such a fucked up Watcher. It's you fault I went off the deep end."
"That's not true," I tell her. It's not. Angel and Cordelia weren't using me. It's not my fault she did what she did. She made her own choice didn't she? What would she know, she's not real.
"Wicked cool!" Faith says, picking up one of the hot pokers. "We never did get to finish hot last time did we, babe? Time to correct that little mistake huh? Let's see if I can make you scream this time."
I clench my teeth together again as she pushes the hot poker against my chest, the smell of burned skin assaulting my nose. She'll never hear me scream, no on will...ever.
She laughs as she keeps on burning my flesh. Once she's done my chest, she's moving to the back. It hurts, so very much. My body is beginning to tremble all over. I'm not sure how much longer I can take this. Closing my eyes, I concentrate on keeping control.
"Wes! You dumbass! Look what a mess you gotten yourself into now."
"Cordy?" My eyes shoot open and I stare at the woman whom I believed to be dead. The woman I thought of as a sister. She prods me in the chest with her sharp nail. "But..I thought you were..." No she's not dead anymore is she?
"Dead?" She sneers. "Well yeah I am. Was. And who's fault is that huh?"
"No, I...I didn't...there was nothing I could've done." I shake my head at her.
She laughs and picks up metal bar, hitting it in my stomach hard. I can actually feel shards of metal piercing my skin. "Liar!" She shouts. "You of all people should have know. You should have know that wasn't the real me. In the beginning I still had a chance to get the bitch out of my body...but you weren't around so nada!" She keeps hitting me over and over with ever word.
"You left me first. You never asked me for my side of the story," I grate out.
"That should have given you a clue asshole! Wes! I would *never* just walk out on you like that."
"But..." I tried. My words were cut short as she rammed the metal bar hits my collar bone. I can hear it break before I feel it.
"No buts mister! You killed me, You gave up on me!" She lets the metal bar slide out of her hands and looks at me sadly. Her hand touches my face gently. "Why did you give up on me Wes? Why?"
I want to tell her that I didn't. I've looked for her. But she's telling me that Jasmine took over her body far before that. It is my fault, I did give up on her. I just didn't know.
She walks around me, her nails digging into my flesh, deeper and deeper and as she appears again Cordy is no longer there. It's Illyria.
"You can't be here," I whisper. "You're someone else now. You can't be here." She can't.
"You are correct," she smirks at me. "I am getting a second chance. The one you failed to provide me. Tilting her head, she looks at me with those piercing blue eyes. "They were right. You are not worthy." She sneers at me in that particular way of her. "You find yourself all alone again. I will not come for you this time." You cannot be saved by a lie.
She steps back and looks over my bleeding form. "Your form does no longer please me." She walks closer and puts her hands over mine. "Your hands no longer heal." She keeps looking at me curiously as she breaks every finger. I can't look away from her, from her eyes, her face. She's not real. Walking around me she pulls my fingers all the way back.
Finally I'm alone. Everyone is gone, they've left me here. In my own private hell. Where I should be. My body hurts so much I can hardly feel it, though there are flashes every time I move. Closing my eyes I try to lock my mind, move out of my body, remove myself.
"If you hadn't been so stupid and clammed up on everyone, not telling them what you found out. Holtz would have never gotten hold off me and I wouldn't have grown up in Hell. Steven would not have existed."
Wearily I look up. "Connor?" He's there. Sitting in front of me, crouching. He looks at me with narrowed eyes, sneering. He's not real either. He's alive he can't enter my hell. Right? Or did he die to, it's so confusing.
"Yeah, that's right. And hey, you know what else? If you hadn't taken me, dear old dad wouldn't have been swimming with the fishes. I wouldn't have gone nuts and try to blow up Cordy. And then dad wouldnt' have had to take that deal with Wolfram and Hart."
Which father is he talking about? Lindsey or Angel? The false or the true one? Blinking I frown at him. He's right. I know he is. I've messed up his live. What's the truth and a lie? I can't tell anymore. I can't tell.
"Hey lucky me. I can still do some more now. You can't go anywhere now, coward. Wanna see what I learned in Quar-Toth?"
Trying to flinching away I watch him approach me. He's like a cat, a hunter, like his father and mother. His eyes are dark with insanity. A look I've seen before. In the mirror. With one strong pull against my shoulders he removes the joints from the sockets. I don't actually feel it untill he lets go and I'm hanging on loose joints. The pain screams through my body, though I grit my teeth to prevent it from escaping.
"Why couldn't I stay, Wesley? Why did you leave me?"
No, no. I know that voice, it can't be. I'd recognize that voice anywhere. It's there in my dreams, my nightmares. It's there during the day's sometimes. She sounds so small, so hurt. Looking up I see her staring at me with eyes that hold nothing but accusation.
"Fred? I didn't leave you...I could never leave you." The fact that she thinks I could leave her hurts more then anything that's been done to me over the last day...days? I can't remember. How long have I been in my own private hell?
"You did! You were too busy running around, threatening people. *Shooting* people. You killed me!"
I watch as she morphed into Illyria. "You killed us," her cold detached voice announces. She tilts her head and looks at me curiously. As though I were nothing but a mere experiment on display. "Is this more grief?"
Closing my eyes I sigh. "No, it's not. I don't know why I'm here." Maybe she knows. She's a goddess, aren't they supposed to be all knowing?
"You are here, because you deserve it. Is that not what you taught me?" Her voice holds wonder and surprise. As though she's learned something new. "You killed her," she accuses coldly. I can't deny it. I did kill Fred. Wasn't fast enough to save her, clever enough, *good* enough.
"You are where you belong," Fred tells me. "You killed me. I don't need you, you never loved me."
"No, that's not true! Fred, please!" I start to plead. But before I can say anything else, she vanishes. I can feel my walls crumbling, breaking down. The pain is inside out now, I can't do much to stop it.
It is sometime later that I can feel another presence near me. I'm afraid to look up, not wanting to know who's there this time. Though strangely enough this presence feels different. Risking a look, I see Gunn approaching me.
He stalks toward me and puts his hand on my face. "You look awful, Wes," he shakes his head. Pulling his hand back I can see it ball into a fist before it plunges in my stomach. "I guess that's what you get for stabbing friends." Walking around me he laughs. "At least you stab them in the front and not the back." He's in front of me now, holding up a scalpel. My eyes go wide and there's nothing I can do to stop him from plunging it into me. "There, now we kinda settled the score. Enjoy your stay in hell." He mock salutes me and vanishes in a cloud of smoke.
Suddenly the voices are everywhere. Shouting, pleading for help. Accusing, cursing laughing.
"I'm sorry! I'm so sorry! I tried!" But trying isn't good enough and I know it. I keep yelling at them until tears blur my vision and my throat is sore from screaming. By the time my vision returns to normal, the voices are gone, though they still ring in my ears. I'm a murdered, I'm right where I belong. In hell.
"Looks like I was right wasn't I boy? Even when dead you muck up everything."
Squeezing my eyes shut I try to block out that voice. The voice that haunts me since childhood. He can't be here now. Just can't. It's not possible.
"Look at me boy! Have you no sense of decorum left in that rotten body of yours?"
As on reflex my eyes snap up to meet his. Decades of training drilled into me. I can't disobey this man. I watch him walk around me. Slowly, laughing, sneering. "Look at you. You pathetic creature, you failure. I should have drowned you at birth. That woud've spared me a whole lot of trouble and humiliation. You were a mistake since the beginning. A freak accident that should've been eliminated."
I feel like throwing up as I watch him pick up an all to familiar cane. He bends it a few times and then walks back to me.
"Failure! Mistake! Disappointment! Unworthy! ..."
He keeps on cursing at me, accentuating each word with a stinging blow of the cane. I close my eyes and drift away. It's nothing I haven't heard before, felt before. I grew up with this.
A sharp sudden stab make me open my eyes again. Father is gone, but she's back again. Fred? She smiles at me sweetly and I can't help but smile back.
"Did ya have a good time, Wes?"
I look at her surprised. This is not her normal tone of voice, not her normal speech pattern. She moves closer, her hands sliding softly over my body before she digs in her nails. Tears sting in my eyes as she cuts through skin hard, moving in to lick up some blood. As I drop my head and look down I note that there is a whole pool of blood beneath me. Vaguely I wonder whom it belongs to.
There's only one person who's not come to visit me in my personal hell. She never comes to visit, never accuses, never calls me a failure.
Never.
Lilah. Yet, I'm waiting for her. But I'm not sure if I'm waiting for her accusations or for her to come free me from Hell. After all, I couldn't free her from her Hell, why would she bother coming to safe me? Suddenly the chains fly loose and I fall to the floor. It opens wide and there's fire beneath me, consuming me whole, burning my skin.
"Fire wouldn't be ever lasting if it really consumed anything."
"Lilah!" Panting for breath my eyes fly open, sweat is covering my body. I'm slightly disoriented at first. But then I remember. The roof, the rain, the shower and later the bed. Lilah indeed. She did come for me and she didn't run away again. She stayed. And she saved me from the worst nightmare. At least Angel and Angelus weren't here this time. Though, Fred seems to always be there.
Lying back down, I try to steady my breathing as I gaze at the ceiling. I'll be fine. I just...have to keep my eyes open, don't sleep. We'll be fine. I hope I didn't wake up Lilah, she's worried enough.
(Open for Lilah)