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Poor Wesley had never done fieldwork of any sort. On a whim he'd applied to become a research assistant for a project in Africa. It would have paid a fair salary. He'd never really been out of Europe. He'd wondered what the Serengeti would look like. But he threw away the acceptance letter almost exactly to the hour one full day after he'd recieved it. Duty called. Sunnydale, Hellmouth. A group of tightly-knit strangers who couldn't seem to understand the magnificent importance of The Council, neither its truth nor its power. An alien land which didn't know how to appreciate fine tea, with insubordinate charges who didn't appreciate his efforts. Things were no good, no good at all. Cordelia fills his view, suddenly. Fair Cordelia! Who walks in beauty through the incessantly sunny hallways of this damned school, with its awful construction, and a host of Evil waiting to fester out from underneath its bowels. The vision of the beautiful and extraordinarily bright young student brightens the darkened hallways of Wesley's mind. Ah, but to dream about kissing those lips-- the hallways stop abruptly. Meek He was as necessary to Angel as a boot. The explosion had been more difficult than getting knocked out at The Ascension. During his brief foray as an independent agent, having his skills using basic weaponry while tracking down demons and matching illustrations and facts to the blunt brutality of some poisonous monster, its girth five times your own. But a lucky strike, and the wall falls. The monster is slayed, hit at the proper organ. As it topples over, he calls up the memory of stepping in at a Methodist church, because the rain had gotten bad. He had plans to keep the motorbike for much longer than a short time. He'd never quite seen a choir like that. He is Joshua, and Jericho comes tumbling down. A giddy and absurd exhiliration blows up from within him like a small, red balloon. And the American expression, to holler "Tim ber!" He wonders how Angel got the walls around his heart to fall so swift. WIth kicks as with the force of a jackhammer, not needing any mystical invocation at all. Mourn Before the shadow of betrayal had cast the doubts and the little disappointments adding up like a series of cruel accidents, a waterfall of not so minute resentments cascading over the more raw pain underneath which just wouldn't stay drowned... Before it rose up to the surface in the shape of a stranger, like a malady, a sign of things to come...Before all this, almost through the dreck, they were friends. And it was easy, after time: It was too brief. A series of successes, good hunts. But through the months and years it became evident that one of them was in love with the other, while the other refused to fathom what kind of world it would be like if their friendship bent and warped into...into something scarier, and physical, more physical than being brothers at arms. Because that would be gay. Obviously, only one of them swung that way. What was not obvious, to an eye which obdurately refused to see it, or perhaps had seen too much in what was first just meant to be a casual glance, is perhaps a reflection of a multitude of tiny, warm moments which pieced together a picture far too awful to behold in its entirety, a love that dare not speak its name. Hunger And Thirst It is an incredibly lazy and positively decadent summer day, and they are both naked but the oddest thing is that they've had a lull in between several rounds of the most imaginative and impassioned rutting either Lilah Morgan or Wesley Wyndham-Pryce have done with anyone else. "Let's do something we've never done before." He looks at her with the most blase and fond expression she's ever noted on a lover post coitus. Something that says both "already?" and "I'm ready for another go." "And what could that possibly entail?" is his rejoinder. "I'm going to sing to you," she smirks. "And you have to sing something back." He gives her a look like "You can't be serious!" but she's already started. She's humming, no words. He recognizes a bit of Il Trovatore. His subconscious makes note that it's the shortest minute he's ever heard. "Okay, it's your turn. So blow me away." Without hesitation Wesley sings "Hot Blooded" by Foreigner, a slightly off-key version that makes up for it with a lot of gusto, but he doesn't finish because Lilah takles him and quick as sin he's in, she's up and over and he can feel the laugh in her mouth vibrating through his as they begin to use their teeth. When Wesley wakes up, his crotch is wet. But his eyes are going to stay dry. Everything is as still as a tomb, and it is an eternity before the sun rises. Mercy Some backyard hick with nothing to his name always showed a little bit in the way Lindsey overcompensated to make it seem as if he'd never known penury and want. But what was obvious to Wesley was that Lindsay almost always lost his top whenever Angel was around. It was easy to notice when it showed a lot which meant that Lindsey was not in control of the situation as much as he would have liked. It was easy for Wesley to recognize the signs. Lindsey had shown up one, two, three times; three different blocks of time in the lives of Angel's people, which they all still were (or again? however many times it took), strangely. Sequentially, for part one and part three of these Lindsey periods, Wesley found himself at first aghast, and then later, meaning now, grimly amused, that on repeat occassions Lindsey would come to him for a casual screw. Clean Of Heart Winifred Burkle was such an utter girl. A charming, bobbing, pretty slip of a girl. Brilliant, too. Loquacious. Like a trilling flute, or a nightingale. That's what she sounded like. And the notes meant angles and curves and would "unfortunate" be the wrong discriptive to describe what happened when Wesley's need for such a sweet and lively girl amped its velocity to the max so that it not only matched but exceeded Gunn's own desire when the two men found out they both had the Southern belle's affections in sight as a prize? To each his own, and love is war so nothing need be fair. Did they know, at first glance, that each would kill for her? What did they see? Innocence? Shyness, at first, as Miss Burkle pieced together the remnants of her sanity although one can't possibly be unsullied after having to do that, can one? When Fred came out of her cave, and came back into the dimension she was born into, two suitors ended up vying for her hand in girlfriendage. In the beginning, she chose Charles. And Wesley, he turned away. Peace It is the most excruciating pain that he has ever felt. And as his whole body burns, the intensity almost feels like pleasure. When Wesley came to America, the only scars he had were on his back. Very faint, so that no lovers have pointed it out. One very fine leather belt, wielded across the buttocks and the entire back such that by thirteen, when Wesley'd left for boarding school and shared bathrooms with other boys, no one there had anything to say about them, either. So very faint. Faith's technique was brash and crude and smartly effective, having left marks which stayed vivid for a good, long while. The gunshot wound is not, as he might have guessed, a concentrated dot on his abdomen. There is a wide scar which needed to be made to extract the bullet, such an overreaching span for such a little thing. A slit throat leaves a mark that is very clear to see if the person he is talking to looks at him closely enough. Sometimes someone might not see it at first encounter; a third conversation or visit makes it easier or more likely to be noticed. It is only readily visible mark that Wesley possesses. At least on the outside. A pillow leaves no scars. What is funny is the absolute pleasure of trading bruises whilst braking furniture. Those earmarks made making The Joy of Sex, madly dispossessed-- to, no, for, their very own personalised and limited edition. But then the memories could never fade after the last trace of bruises on his body did. All he had to show for it was a dollar worth more than two souls. This is it, then. Gladly "Bramare." "What does that mean?" "To yearn for. Archaic." She kisses him impulsively. A task she achieves skillfully, as he's still flipping the pages of a book they've recently acquired, her arms twining round his neck a bit while keeping her glass of chianti from losing a drop. She takes a sip, he ducks his head to keep on reading. The fireplace is gigantor humongous, feeding them a nice, toasty feeling from quite some feet away. "Wesley?" "Hmm." "I love you. Just like you love me." He smiles and puts the book down on the coffee table, and picks up his glass. "Shall we make a toast?" and his eyes are sharp, and clear, and utterly open. "To four delightful years," she answers. "To four delightful years," he murmurs. He'd given up his friends, or maybe they'd given up on him. She'd sold or sublet or invested or put into storage everything she'd thought she'd needed. "Festina tarde," she affirms. He nods and swallows. "Yes, but look what we've got now. Everything is exactly as it should be." They will stay here in Italy as they have done for a while. Perhaps another four years, more likely for the rest of their lives. Living is easy. "What do you remember?" "I wasn't thinking about them." "But you can. And you are now." Thoughtful, his lips purse and brow furrows. "A pink helmet...demonic pregnancies...and a nice, big truck." She kisses him again. "Oh. And Karaoke." They've finished the bottle, and they curl into the comfortable, old, expensive couch. They curl into each other. Hours, minutes. It all seems to happen in an instant. She admires his tanned body. "You don't feel like a kept man now, do you?" They'd tried to make the land fruitful, all two and a half acres of it. Wesley has, after all, some botanic knowledge to guide him. It is nothing compared to the work they have done. They've had to, in ways, learn everything all over again. But everything here was something they were happy to learn. Virginia had heard of cooperative organic farms housing college-age students, but when her father learned it was a co-ed environment he hadn't been impressed. She'd wanted to do it because a cute lecturer had visited her school saying he'd be in charge of it that term. When Magnus denied the request she'd mulled things over and remembered how, when she was little, she'd played in the garded sometimes and made mud pies if she could cajole the nanny into keeping it a secret. She'd thrown away the brochures, but wondered: what would it be like to make things grow? Wesley does not like the idea of keeping animals. They keep no pets, and if they stay together forever it is understood that there shall be no pitter patter of little feet. Time is slower in Tuscany. Virginia and Wesley languor blissfully while immersing themselves in their brand new life, which never felt strange or new in a plasticy, awkward way. Like the plants they are trying to nurture, so, too, has their home nurtured their lives. It doesn't feel like a cardboard cutout. It doesn't glitter with the hordes of fresh faces slated to be the next big thangs. It doesn't bite with the ferocity of commitment to defeat the dark forces of evil, and it doesn't ask for Wesley's life each night. The sky is full of a trillion specks of flaming light. The air is thick with the scent of loamy earth, or clove and flowers and other trees besides the olive. They will take this white-pebbled road together, their striada bianca. |