Fic - Lilah/Young Wes - Whose Love is Innocent
Things that make me go squee today:
1. Buying Cath Kidston raincoat. I love flowers and now can be covered in them when it rains. Which happens a lot in N.Ireland.
2. Eating chocolate Kendall Mint Cake. Sucking the chocolate off it and letting the sugary mint dissolve in mouth. Rated NC17.
3. Watching Doctor Who.
*is sucker for childhood angst* They had me with the whole "lonely little boy" thing. I wibbled for ages after that. Not quite as good as School Reunion, but still excellent. Though older girlie wept because K9 was no longer in it.
4. Finishing Lilah/Young Wes ficlet. Wait, it's not as dirtybadwrong as you think it will be...
TITLE: Whose love is innocent
PAIRING: Lilah/Wes
RATING: PG13 - I swear...
NOTES: Inspired by the magnificent work of the splendiferous cheesygirl, who capped bascially every scene of Murder Story. And made me a lovely icon. lonelybrit and I spent a great deal of time squeeing over them, while coming up with a plausible scenario for Lilah to meet with young Wesley. He's about eighteen, technically.
1650 words. Set the night after AtS Season 4 "Spin the Bottle". Quotes from "She walks in beauty, like the night" by Byron.
Lilah sat on the edge of the bed and slipped the pearl black silk camisole over her head. She noted the tiny tear along the seam with a degree of amused annoyance. Wesley seemed to take a perverse delight in… well, everything, to be honest. She smiled to herself, and shifted position carefully.
He was careless about her clothes. She never allowed him to see her exasperation, but she suspected he knew exactly how much she cared, and was correspondingly rougher when called upon to remove them.
The evening’s casualties included the new camisole, which he knew she’d ordered especially from Saks, though the matching briefs, which had been removed quite vigorously, had miraculously escaped any damage.
She pulled them on, the silk cool against her skin, which was still rather tender from his earlier ministrations. Wesley had been particularly tetchy, which tended to make him unpredictable, but fun. Something had happened back at the hotel, with Amnesia girl and the rest of Team Angel. Wesley had come back, all sullen and bruised and unforgivably desirable.
She patted his shoulder lightly, the skin soft and warm beneath her finger tips. In her years at Wolfram & Hart, she’d seen some interesting spells cast, but she decided that this little side effect might possibly be the most entertaining ever.
He stirred, shifted onto his side, and rubbed his fist over his eyes. “Ow!”
He jerked his hand away, revealing a poppy-centred bruise at the corner of his eye.
“That’s quite a shiner you’ve got there.”
Lilah didn’t think she’d ever seen Wesley move quite so fast. Or make such high-pitched sounds. He sat up abruptly, blinked, and then scrabbled off the bed, pulling the sheet with him and attempting to wrap it around himself in a vain attempt at modesty.
He succeeded mainly in getting the sheet tangled around his feet, then tripped over the Ferragamos that she’d abandoned at the side of the bed and landed face first on the floor.
“Agh!” he commented, then added a “Wha…?” for good measure.
“Wesley.” She leaned over the bed to get a better view of man and sheet in a fight to the death. “You break my shoes; I’ll dance on your spine in them.”
He backed away from the bed, and looked wildly around him. “Who… wha… when… where...?”
“How?” she finished for him. “Now there’s a question.”
“Who are you?” He grabbed a fistful of sheet, and pulled it around his legs and upper body rather like a toga. “And…” his voice tailed off a little, making him sound a lot younger than the eighteen years he looked. “…where am I?”
“I’m Lilah.” She licked her lips, slowly and deliberately. “And you are in -” she paused deliberately “- way over your head.”
She’d always known that there must have been quite a few incarnations preceding the current Wyndam-Pryce model. The most recent one was unpredictable, slightly dangerous, possessing a very poor sense of self-preservation, but that made for one hell of a ride.
Looking down at this younger version of Wesley, she suddenly realized exactly how far he must have come.
The boy who stared up at her in terrified fascination was exactly that: a boy. She allowed her gaze to linger on his upper body, the sharp angles and curves of elbows and collar bones, none of the loose-limbed body confidence that marked her Wesley. Well, that, and the actual marks, of course.
None of the permanent ones were hers, much to her private dissatisfaction. She’d licked once at the jagged line along his jaw, and he’d left a bracelet of fingerprint bruises around her wrist as he’d shoved her away.
She’d teased her fingers over the neat little hole at the side of his belly, traced the fine filigree of scars that Faith had scattered across his shoulders, all the way down to a pale tracery of thin lines lying low on his back. Her Wesley was a book, a story of a life lived in blood and bruises, and Lilah liked to read in Braille.
But here was the story book all new and ready to be written on. The skin smooth, unscarred, although she wondered about his back. She’d often pondered the origin of those pale lines at his waist, stretched thin with growth. Her own ass bore testament to Wesley’s well-honed and possibly genetic disciplinary skills, although there was clearly an argument there for learned behaviour.
She found herself wishing for him to turn around, just so she could see those scars again. This version would be easy to break, all black-eyed blue-eyed innocence and honesty. But that would be no fun. She liked it better when they clashed properly, tongues and teeth and tempers.
The Wesley on the floor blinked owlishly, and put out his hand to the nightstand, patting it frantically. “I seem to have misplaced my glasses.”
Lilah opened the drawer and handed him an old pair. He kept them there so he could put them on to read after sex. He didn’t need them, but he assumed that it pissed her off, so he did it as often as possible. She never saw any reason to let him know how much it turned her on.
Wesley winced as the frames brushed against his bruises. Then he looked up at her again. His mouth fell open into a perfectly shaped ‘o’ of surprise.
“You’re a … well, um, a woman.” Two bright spots flushed his cheeks, and he rubbed his eyebrow distractedly, barely able to meet her gaze.
“Good catch, Wes. Are all the baby watchers as bright as you?”
The blush deepened. “Do we know each other?”
“In every sense.” She smiled at the tiny glint of hope in his eyes.
“So we…” He gestured vaguely with his hands, rather as if he was planning on kneading her breasts.
“Oh, yes. We...” she copied his gesture perfectly “Regularly.”
“So I’m not a…”
“And haven’t been for a very long time, according to your older self.”
“Thank god! I was beginning to worry.”
Lilah couldn’t help smiling. There was an ingenuousness about this Wesley, a gentle frankness that she’d never seen in her lover. This one didn’t just wear his heart on his sleeve; he waved it around carelessly as a tempting morsel for any passing femme fatale.
“You’re quite beautiful.”
She was slightly shocked at that. There was no particular awe in his voice; he spoke with the certainty of a scientist who has conducted research and now wishes to share his findings.
Then she thought of this Wesley’s life experience thus far - the boy had spent his formative years in an all-male environment. Given that his exposure to the female sex was probably limited to the school matron and possibly the cook, she had a feeling he might be grading on a curve.
“Thank you.” She bestowed an expensively perfect smile on him, one that owed much to Wolfram & Hart’s amazingly comprehensive dental plan.
“She walks in beauty, like the night.” Again he was speaking quite calmly, his tone almost musing. She must have seemed surprised, as he looked at her and nodded. “Your name, it means night. In Arabic. Or possibly a derivation of the Hebrew Delilah.”
She couldn’t help smiling at that. Even at eighteen Wesley was a master of allusion. “Think less Byron, more Samson.”
“Oh, surely not.” He took off the glasses and she got another glimpse of too-blue-to-be-true eyes. “All that’s best of dark and bright…”
With a degree of surprise she realized he was flirting with her, but she wasn’t going to be out-quoted. “'The smiles that win, the tints that glow, but tell of days in goodness spent'. That’s me, lover. Spending my days in goodness.”
“A heart whose love is innocent,” he finished, and looked up at her from under ridiculously long lashes.
And just for a moment she wavered. This wasn’t a relationship, they weren’t in love, she had no feelings for Wesley and he certainly had none for her. They’d gone as far as to bet on it. But suddenly seeing him like this, unguarded and open, she faltered. Then nodded her head decisively.
“I think we should see about getting you sent back to wherever the hell it is you came from.” She reached over to the nightstand and took her cell out of her purse.
“My study bedroom at the Academy.” Wesley reached out and pinched his forearm hard. “Ow!” Then he grinned. “It’s not a dream. Thank goodness. Nigel’s never going to believe this.”
Lilah rolled her eyes, then pressed the Hyperion on speed dial. It was the karaoke king who answered.
“Bonanza Boy? Yeah, I’ve got a baby watcher here too.” She listened carefully to his instructions. “Right, sage and arrowroot… page 113… in the original Latin. Yes, got it. Okay… thanks.”
She closed the cell and looked again at Wesley. He was still wrapped rather artfully in the sheet, gazing at her in something approaching adoration.
“I was wondering…” he began, then coughed a little. “When I woke up, we’d already…” He did the hand gesture thing again. “So, um, I was wondering if, perhaps… we might… if you were agreeable…” He trailed off and blinked at her expectantly.
“He said we needed to get this spell reversed as soon as possible,” she lied, rather smoothly she thought, considering.
“Ah. Right.” He nodded manfully, the flush returning to his cheeks again, a picture of wanton innocence.
She hadn’t been lying about the need for a quick spell reversal. She needed snarky sarcastic brooding Wesley back, and soon. He knew the rules of their game, and played it perfectly. She knew exactly where she was with him.
This Wesley didn’t even know the game was being played; never mind the rules of engagement. And that made him far more dangerous than her Wesley would ever be.
1. Buying Cath Kidston raincoat. I love flowers and now can be covered in them when it rains. Which happens a lot in N.Ireland.
2. Eating chocolate Kendall Mint Cake. Sucking the chocolate off it and letting the sugary mint dissolve in mouth. Rated NC17.
3. Watching Doctor Who.
*is sucker for childhood angst* They had me with the whole "lonely little boy" thing. I wibbled for ages after that. Not quite as good as School Reunion, but still excellent. Though older girlie wept because K9 was no longer in it.
4. Finishing Lilah/Young Wes ficlet. Wait, it's not as dirtybadwrong as you think it will be...
TITLE: Whose love is innocent
PAIRING: Lilah/Wes
RATING: PG13 - I swear...
NOTES: Inspired by the magnificent work of the splendiferous cheesygirl, who capped bascially every scene of Murder Story. And made me a lovely icon. lonelybrit and I spent a great deal of time squeeing over them, while coming up with a plausible scenario for Lilah to meet with young Wesley. He's about eighteen, technically.
1650 words. Set the night after AtS Season 4 "Spin the Bottle". Quotes from "She walks in beauty, like the night" by Byron.
Lilah sat on the edge of the bed and slipped the pearl black silk camisole over her head. She noted the tiny tear along the seam with a degree of amused annoyance. Wesley seemed to take a perverse delight in… well, everything, to be honest. She smiled to herself, and shifted position carefully.
He was careless about her clothes. She never allowed him to see her exasperation, but she suspected he knew exactly how much she cared, and was correspondingly rougher when called upon to remove them.
The evening’s casualties included the new camisole, which he knew she’d ordered especially from Saks, though the matching briefs, which had been removed quite vigorously, had miraculously escaped any damage.
She pulled them on, the silk cool against her skin, which was still rather tender from his earlier ministrations. Wesley had been particularly tetchy, which tended to make him unpredictable, but fun. Something had happened back at the hotel, with Amnesia girl and the rest of Team Angel. Wesley had come back, all sullen and bruised and unforgivably desirable.
She patted his shoulder lightly, the skin soft and warm beneath her finger tips. In her years at Wolfram & Hart, she’d seen some interesting spells cast, but she decided that this little side effect might possibly be the most entertaining ever.
He stirred, shifted onto his side, and rubbed his fist over his eyes. “Ow!”
He jerked his hand away, revealing a poppy-centred bruise at the corner of his eye.
“That’s quite a shiner you’ve got there.”
Lilah didn’t think she’d ever seen Wesley move quite so fast. Or make such high-pitched sounds. He sat up abruptly, blinked, and then scrabbled off the bed, pulling the sheet with him and attempting to wrap it around himself in a vain attempt at modesty.
He succeeded mainly in getting the sheet tangled around his feet, then tripped over the Ferragamos that she’d abandoned at the side of the bed and landed face first on the floor.
“Agh!” he commented, then added a “Wha…?” for good measure.
“Wesley.” She leaned over the bed to get a better view of man and sheet in a fight to the death. “You break my shoes; I’ll dance on your spine in them.”
He backed away from the bed, and looked wildly around him. “Who… wha… when… where...?”
“How?” she finished for him. “Now there’s a question.”
“Who are you?” He grabbed a fistful of sheet, and pulled it around his legs and upper body rather like a toga. “And…” his voice tailed off a little, making him sound a lot younger than the eighteen years he looked. “…where am I?”
“I’m Lilah.” She licked her lips, slowly and deliberately. “And you are in -” she paused deliberately “- way over your head.”
She’d always known that there must have been quite a few incarnations preceding the current Wyndam-Pryce model. The most recent one was unpredictable, slightly dangerous, possessing a very poor sense of self-preservation, but that made for one hell of a ride.
Looking down at this younger version of Wesley, she suddenly realized exactly how far he must have come.
The boy who stared up at her in terrified fascination was exactly that: a boy. She allowed her gaze to linger on his upper body, the sharp angles and curves of elbows and collar bones, none of the loose-limbed body confidence that marked her Wesley. Well, that, and the actual marks, of course.
None of the permanent ones were hers, much to her private dissatisfaction. She’d licked once at the jagged line along his jaw, and he’d left a bracelet of fingerprint bruises around her wrist as he’d shoved her away.
She’d teased her fingers over the neat little hole at the side of his belly, traced the fine filigree of scars that Faith had scattered across his shoulders, all the way down to a pale tracery of thin lines lying low on his back. Her Wesley was a book, a story of a life lived in blood and bruises, and Lilah liked to read in Braille.
But here was the story book all new and ready to be written on. The skin smooth, unscarred, although she wondered about his back. She’d often pondered the origin of those pale lines at his waist, stretched thin with growth. Her own ass bore testament to Wesley’s well-honed and possibly genetic disciplinary skills, although there was clearly an argument there for learned behaviour.
She found herself wishing for him to turn around, just so she could see those scars again. This version would be easy to break, all black-eyed blue-eyed innocence and honesty. But that would be no fun. She liked it better when they clashed properly, tongues and teeth and tempers.
The Wesley on the floor blinked owlishly, and put out his hand to the nightstand, patting it frantically. “I seem to have misplaced my glasses.”
Lilah opened the drawer and handed him an old pair. He kept them there so he could put them on to read after sex. He didn’t need them, but he assumed that it pissed her off, so he did it as often as possible. She never saw any reason to let him know how much it turned her on.
Wesley winced as the frames brushed against his bruises. Then he looked up at her again. His mouth fell open into a perfectly shaped ‘o’ of surprise.
“You’re a … well, um, a woman.” Two bright spots flushed his cheeks, and he rubbed his eyebrow distractedly, barely able to meet her gaze.
“Good catch, Wes. Are all the baby watchers as bright as you?”
The blush deepened. “Do we know each other?”
“In every sense.” She smiled at the tiny glint of hope in his eyes.
“So we…” He gestured vaguely with his hands, rather as if he was planning on kneading her breasts.
“Oh, yes. We...” she copied his gesture perfectly “Regularly.”
“So I’m not a…”
“And haven’t been for a very long time, according to your older self.”
“Thank god! I was beginning to worry.”
Lilah couldn’t help smiling. There was an ingenuousness about this Wesley, a gentle frankness that she’d never seen in her lover. This one didn’t just wear his heart on his sleeve; he waved it around carelessly as a tempting morsel for any passing femme fatale.
“You’re quite beautiful.”
She was slightly shocked at that. There was no particular awe in his voice; he spoke with the certainty of a scientist who has conducted research and now wishes to share his findings.
Then she thought of this Wesley’s life experience thus far - the boy had spent his formative years in an all-male environment. Given that his exposure to the female sex was probably limited to the school matron and possibly the cook, she had a feeling he might be grading on a curve.
“Thank you.” She bestowed an expensively perfect smile on him, one that owed much to Wolfram & Hart’s amazingly comprehensive dental plan.
“She walks in beauty, like the night.” Again he was speaking quite calmly, his tone almost musing. She must have seemed surprised, as he looked at her and nodded. “Your name, it means night. In Arabic. Or possibly a derivation of the Hebrew Delilah.”
She couldn’t help smiling at that. Even at eighteen Wesley was a master of allusion. “Think less Byron, more Samson.”
“Oh, surely not.” He took off the glasses and she got another glimpse of too-blue-to-be-true eyes. “All that’s best of dark and bright…”
With a degree of surprise she realized he was flirting with her, but she wasn’t going to be out-quoted. “'The smiles that win, the tints that glow, but tell of days in goodness spent'. That’s me, lover. Spending my days in goodness.”
“A heart whose love is innocent,” he finished, and looked up at her from under ridiculously long lashes.
And just for a moment she wavered. This wasn’t a relationship, they weren’t in love, she had no feelings for Wesley and he certainly had none for her. They’d gone as far as to bet on it. But suddenly seeing him like this, unguarded and open, she faltered. Then nodded her head decisively.
“I think we should see about getting you sent back to wherever the hell it is you came from.” She reached over to the nightstand and took her cell out of her purse.
“My study bedroom at the Academy.” Wesley reached out and pinched his forearm hard. “Ow!” Then he grinned. “It’s not a dream. Thank goodness. Nigel’s never going to believe this.”
Lilah rolled her eyes, then pressed the Hyperion on speed dial. It was the karaoke king who answered.
“Bonanza Boy? Yeah, I’ve got a baby watcher here too.” She listened carefully to his instructions. “Right, sage and arrowroot… page 113… in the original Latin. Yes, got it. Okay… thanks.”
She closed the cell and looked again at Wesley. He was still wrapped rather artfully in the sheet, gazing at her in something approaching adoration.
“I was wondering…” he began, then coughed a little. “When I woke up, we’d already…” He did the hand gesture thing again. “So, um, I was wondering if, perhaps… we might… if you were agreeable…” He trailed off and blinked at her expectantly.
“He said we needed to get this spell reversed as soon as possible,” she lied, rather smoothly she thought, considering.
“Ah. Right.” He nodded manfully, the flush returning to his cheeks again, a picture of wanton innocence.
She hadn’t been lying about the need for a quick spell reversal. She needed snarky sarcastic brooding Wesley back, and soon. He knew the rules of their game, and played it perfectly. She knew exactly where she was with him.
This Wesley didn’t even know the game was being played; never mind the rules of engagement. And that made him far more dangerous than her Wesley would ever be.