Wesley was startled to hear a knock at the door. A glance at the clock on
the mantle told him that it was ten thirty. Not that late but still not
early enough for visitors.
He walked across his dimly lit living room and opened the door. "Oh my God."
The battered and bruised slayer looked up at him and smiled. "Hey Wes, long time no see."
"Faith." He exclaimed, taking in her bruises and injuries and pale complexion. "Come in."
"How are you Wes?" She asked, a small smile on her face.
She dumped a large duffel bag on the floor.
"I'm good." He replied and eyed the bag. "On the run?"
"Well, you did help me break out of prison Wes." She smiled slightly.
He looked uncomfortable for a moment and then he smiled. "Please, sit down. Can I get you anything? A beer?"
"Sounds good." She sat down stiffly on one of the couches.
He went into the kitchen and got a bottle out of the fridge, unscrewing the cap. He went back in to her and handed her the cold beer.
"How was Sunnydale? I'm guessing that it went okay seen as though you're here." He told her and sat opposite.
She shrugged and took a swig from the bottle. "What's okay these days?"
He nodded in agreement. "That's true."
"How is everyone? Angel, Cor?" She asked, looking through her lashes at him.
"Well, Cordelia is in a coma after giving birth to a woman called Jasmine."
"A woman called Jasmine? Don't women give birth to babies anymore?"
"It wasn't exactly a normal pregnancy." He ran a hand over his eyes and she noticed the bags underneath them and the stubble on his chin. "Angel is... well, he's coping. How are you? How did the apocalypse go? I gather you helped stop it."
"Yeah we stopped it." She told him and took another long drink of the beer. "We went into the hell mouth, Willow did her nifty spell that made all the potential slayers into slayers and then half of them died fighting."
"I'm sorry, that must have been tough." He sympathised.
"It was totally screwed up." She told him. "I was there for eight days and in that time I managed to get three of them killed in an explosion in a cave, I managed to get myself and a few of the potentials into a bar fight with psycho cops and then I failed to protect the ones that survived in the fight of the decade!"
"You can't blame yourself for all of that."
"Why not?"
"Because it wasn't your fault. When you go into battle people are lost, that's a given. You should be thankful that you're alive, not sorry that you made it and others didn't. They all knew the risks and they still chose to be there. You cannot blame yourself." He told her, knowing already what she was thinking. "It's not your fault."
"I have so much blood on my hands Wes; I don't think I can bear it." She told him, swirling her finger around the top of the bottle, avoiding his eyes.
"Why did you come here Faith?"
"Because I don't have anywhere else to go." She spoke so quietly he wasn't sure he'd heard her but when she looked up with glassy eyes he knew he had.
He got up and went to sit next to her. He put his arm around her and felt her crumble into his embrace. Her sobs were the only thing that could be heard in the quiet apartment.
"Let it all out." He told her, smoothing back her hair as she cried into his shirt. "Let it all come out."
"I just feel so lost! I have no home! I have nowhere to go! I'm sick of being who I am!" She sobbed, clutching his shirt so hard he knew it would leave permanent wrinkles.
But he didn't care.
"You can stay here." He told her. "You still have me Faith."
"I don't deserve you. After what I've done I don't deserve you!"
"It doesn't matter what you deserve. I want you here. I'm willing to forgive you for what you did. You need to forgive yourself. You were in a bad place but you've gotten out of it. You're not that person." He insisted.
Gradually her sobs subsided. "I don't deserve your kindness. I never did."
"I care about you Faith. You were my first slayer. Granted, you didn't really take to me but I'd like to think that in these past few weeks we've come close to being friends. Now that you're not trying to torture me with sharp objects."
She lowered her eyes. "I'm sorry."
"I know." He nodded and raised her head so she was looking at him. "And I forgive you."
"I don't get how you can do that." She told him. "I don't get how you can be so forgiving."
He shrugged. "When you get screwed over as a child you tend to be more forgiving as an adult."
"How did you get screwed over?" She asked, curiosity piqued.
"I wanted to be a doctor." He told her and took the beer off her so he could have a drink. "My father was a watcher and so was my grandfather. He wanted me to carry on the tradition. He pushed me at school and the college and then university. Getting a B+ in an exam was unacceptable. It had to be straight A's all the way." He told her bitterly. "He survived the bomb at the headquarters a couple of months ago. He came here long enough to tell me he disapproved of my life here and then went back to England."
"Sounds like an asshole."
"What about your parents? I've never heard anything about them."
She shrugged. "Not much to tell. My father was a crack head who left my mom before she was even born. She gave me up when I was born and I lived in a home until I was eighteen. I was called at nineteen and I went to Sunnydale straight after."
"What happened when you left the home?"
"I lived in a bed sit in the bad part of town. I worked in a dodgy bar with dodgy clientele and slept with... too many men." She laughed through the pain. "Too many times. It was a relief to go to the hell mouth."
"I guess we've both been through the wringer." He told her and gave her the beer back.
"I guess." She took a drink.
"You can stay here, I have a spare room." He offered. "It would be nice to have the company. It's tense at the hotel. With Cordelia in the coma everyone is down and worried. I hate to admit it but I don't like going there anymore."
"I feel bad for C." She told him. "She may not have been too friendly with me, especially after I knocked her out but I always admired her. She had spunk."
"Yeah she did." He smiled fondly.
"You sweet on her Wes?" She teased, a rare smile on her face.
He blushed. "No! Of course not. She's just a friend. A very good friend. I think she and Angel were well on their way to getting together."
"Really?" The grinned. "Interesting."
"I see you still take an unnatural interest in other people's love lives." He smiled.
"Well, I have to when nothing's happening in my own." She joked.
"No men around for you?"
"Well, there was one. He was the principle of the new school. Robin Wood. We had a thing. He survived the fight but he died in hospital afterwards." She told him, the pain she'd felt at the time coming back. She forced it away. "See Wes, everyone I get with either dies or gets his eyeball poked out."
"Excuse me?"
"Xander." She informed him. "The resident evil thought that he could 'see' things so he made sure that he couldn't. Or rather, he was going to, but Buffy stopped him before he could finish the job."
"How unfortunate."
"You know, that thing, the First Evil, it turned itself into Mayor Wilkins." She told him, revealing something to him that she hadn't intended to. "It was hard. Seeing him stood there. I knew it wasn't him but it looked like him and spoke like him and it knew me! It knew what I was thinking, it knew what I was going to say and do!"
"The First Evil cannot physically hurt people; it has to emotionally hurt them."
"Well, it did." She told him and he saw a tear run down her cheek. "He was the only person who has ever truly loved me. He accepted me for what I was. Nobody has ever done that before."
"I accept you for what you are." He told her, looking a little hurt.
She turned to him and smiled. "But only recently. Back then you used to look at me like I was from a different planet. I was a liability."
"No you weren't."
"Don't lie Wes, I thought you were accepting me for what I was?" She teased and brushed away the tear.
He held up his hands in surrender.
"Anyway, what about your love life? There aren't any girls around here are they?"
"No, there's no one here. No one anywhere." He clarified. "There was someone. I believe you've met her."
"I have? Not that skinny Texan chick?"
He smiled. "Fred? No. She was a lawyer. At Wolfram and Hart. I believe she hired you to kill Angel."
She frowned. "What's her name?"
"Lilah Morgan." He told her. "The Beast killed her."
"I'm sorry." She offered. "Was it love?"
He laughed. "I doubt it."
"Never got the chance to find out?"
"Nope."
"It might have been better this way. Love gets in the way of life." She told him with a small smile on her face.
"Ever been in love Faith?"
"Nope." She admitted.
He turned to her and smiled. "Some people would say we're meant for each other. Two lonely souls with bad childhoods. Both of us afraid of love and running from something we wish we weren't."
"What are you running from?" She whispered, her throat suddenly becoming dry.
"I've done some terrible things too." He whispered back, raising his hand to trail and finger across her cheek. "But sometimes it's easier if you stop running. If you embrace them and learn from them."
She licked her lips and felt him drawing her towards him. "Embrace them?"
"Yeah."
His lips grazed hers gently until she pulled his head towards her so that their lips were pressed tightly together.
She parted his lips with her own and let her tongue trail along his bottom lip. His tongue reached out tentatively and touched hers. Both of them seemed to jump at the intimate contact but he quickly brought his hand around the back of her head and pulled her flush against him. One of her legs slid over his so that she was straddling him. He leaned back so she was half laying on him. She titled her head so her tongue could explore his mouth, teasing him and tempting him into wanting more. Her hands strayed to his chest and to the buttons of his shirt. With nimble fingers she unfastened them and pressed her cold hands on his chest, making him shiver. She teased his nipples with her fingertips, making them pebble. He moaned into her mouth as she pressed herself down on his crotch.
He pushed her jacket off her shoulders and down her arms, leaving her in just a vest, no bra. He pulled his lips off hers so he could pull the top over her head. She leaned back so she could look at him, her eyes black with desire.
"Are you sure you want to do this?" He asked.
She nodded. "I'd like to see you stop me."
She slid off his lap and kicked off her shoes. He sat up and unbuttoned her jeans. He slid the zipper down and pulled her jeans off her hips and down her legs. She stood before him in a tiny thong which she quickly discarded.
"Like what you see?" She asked, her voice husky.
He didn't trust his voice so he just nodded.
She shoved him back onto the couch and straddled his hips again. She captured his lips in a scorching kiss, her passion for him becoming all too evident.
Her hands travelled down his body to his crotch. She heard him suck in his breath as her hands delved into his pants and pulled out his already hard member.
She stroked it a couple of times, enjoying the way his breath hitched as she ran her fingers up his shaft.
She gave his lips one last kiss and then leaned back, angling herself perfectly so she could lower herself onto him.
He hissed at the feel of her tight walls enveloping him. He murmured her name under his breath.
She lowered herself completely so she had taken all of him. She let out a moan of pleasure.
His hands grabbed her hips and he pulled her to him. His lips kissed patterns on her neck and breasts before settling on her lips again.
She started to move, a slow rocking at first but gradually increasing it to a frantic pace. His hands cupped her ass and he moved with her. The slight change in angle made him hit the spot inside of her that made explosions light up behind her closed eyelids. She cried out in pleasure and he kissed her neck.
She continued to ride him, letting out small moans each time he hit her g- spot. He let go of her ass with one hand and he found her pleasure spot with his other hand. He circled her clit with his fingers and pressed up hard.
She screamed out in pleasure and gripped his shoulders to keep herself from falling. He circled her waist with his other arm and held her to him, her breast pressing against his chest. Sweat slicked, they moved together as one. Her orgasm was building and he could feel it as her movements suddenly became frenzied.
"Come with me Wes." She gasped into his ear.
Her orgasm hit and he gripped her harder, moving her up and down, encouraging her movements. With two more hard thrusts he came into her, crying out as she wrapped herself around him. "Faith!"
Their orgasms subsided and they were both breathing heavily, wrapped around each other, wet with sweat. He stroked her back with his fingers and kissed her shoulder.
They stayed like that for what seemed like hours but was only about thirty minutes. She lifted her head off his shoulder and looked into his eyes. "That was pretty incredible."
"Even by your standards?" He teased, stroking her damp hair.
"Even by my standards." She agreed with a smile, sounding more vulnerable than he had ever heard her.
"You'll be okay Faith." He promised her.
"With you?" Her eyes looked hopeful.
"If you want to."
"I think I do."
He smiled. "That sounds pretty good."
"Maybe it will all work out." She mused and lay her head back on his shoulder.
He wrapped his arms back around her. "It will, eventually. Life works that way. All you need is hope and trust and a little bit of faith."
The End
He walked across his dimly lit living room and opened the door. "Oh my God."
The battered and bruised slayer looked up at him and smiled. "Hey Wes, long time no see."
"Faith." He exclaimed, taking in her bruises and injuries and pale complexion. "Come in."
"How are you Wes?" She asked, a small smile on her face.
She dumped a large duffel bag on the floor.
"I'm good." He replied and eyed the bag. "On the run?"
"Well, you did help me break out of prison Wes." She smiled slightly.
He looked uncomfortable for a moment and then he smiled. "Please, sit down. Can I get you anything? A beer?"
"Sounds good." She sat down stiffly on one of the couches.
He went into the kitchen and got a bottle out of the fridge, unscrewing the cap. He went back in to her and handed her the cold beer.
"How was Sunnydale? I'm guessing that it went okay seen as though you're here." He told her and sat opposite.
She shrugged and took a swig from the bottle. "What's okay these days?"
He nodded in agreement. "That's true."
"How is everyone? Angel, Cor?" She asked, looking through her lashes at him.
"Well, Cordelia is in a coma after giving birth to a woman called Jasmine."
"A woman called Jasmine? Don't women give birth to babies anymore?"
"It wasn't exactly a normal pregnancy." He ran a hand over his eyes and she noticed the bags underneath them and the stubble on his chin. "Angel is... well, he's coping. How are you? How did the apocalypse go? I gather you helped stop it."
"Yeah we stopped it." She told him and took another long drink of the beer. "We went into the hell mouth, Willow did her nifty spell that made all the potential slayers into slayers and then half of them died fighting."
"I'm sorry, that must have been tough." He sympathised.
"It was totally screwed up." She told him. "I was there for eight days and in that time I managed to get three of them killed in an explosion in a cave, I managed to get myself and a few of the potentials into a bar fight with psycho cops and then I failed to protect the ones that survived in the fight of the decade!"
"You can't blame yourself for all of that."
"Why not?"
"Because it wasn't your fault. When you go into battle people are lost, that's a given. You should be thankful that you're alive, not sorry that you made it and others didn't. They all knew the risks and they still chose to be there. You cannot blame yourself." He told her, knowing already what she was thinking. "It's not your fault."
"I have so much blood on my hands Wes; I don't think I can bear it." She told him, swirling her finger around the top of the bottle, avoiding his eyes.
"Why did you come here Faith?"
"Because I don't have anywhere else to go." She spoke so quietly he wasn't sure he'd heard her but when she looked up with glassy eyes he knew he had.
He got up and went to sit next to her. He put his arm around her and felt her crumble into his embrace. Her sobs were the only thing that could be heard in the quiet apartment.
"Let it all out." He told her, smoothing back her hair as she cried into his shirt. "Let it all come out."
"I just feel so lost! I have no home! I have nowhere to go! I'm sick of being who I am!" She sobbed, clutching his shirt so hard he knew it would leave permanent wrinkles.
But he didn't care.
"You can stay here." He told her. "You still have me Faith."
"I don't deserve you. After what I've done I don't deserve you!"
"It doesn't matter what you deserve. I want you here. I'm willing to forgive you for what you did. You need to forgive yourself. You were in a bad place but you've gotten out of it. You're not that person." He insisted.
Gradually her sobs subsided. "I don't deserve your kindness. I never did."
"I care about you Faith. You were my first slayer. Granted, you didn't really take to me but I'd like to think that in these past few weeks we've come close to being friends. Now that you're not trying to torture me with sharp objects."
She lowered her eyes. "I'm sorry."
"I know." He nodded and raised her head so she was looking at him. "And I forgive you."
"I don't get how you can do that." She told him. "I don't get how you can be so forgiving."
He shrugged. "When you get screwed over as a child you tend to be more forgiving as an adult."
"How did you get screwed over?" She asked, curiosity piqued.
"I wanted to be a doctor." He told her and took the beer off her so he could have a drink. "My father was a watcher and so was my grandfather. He wanted me to carry on the tradition. He pushed me at school and the college and then university. Getting a B+ in an exam was unacceptable. It had to be straight A's all the way." He told her bitterly. "He survived the bomb at the headquarters a couple of months ago. He came here long enough to tell me he disapproved of my life here and then went back to England."
"Sounds like an asshole."
"What about your parents? I've never heard anything about them."
She shrugged. "Not much to tell. My father was a crack head who left my mom before she was even born. She gave me up when I was born and I lived in a home until I was eighteen. I was called at nineteen and I went to Sunnydale straight after."
"What happened when you left the home?"
"I lived in a bed sit in the bad part of town. I worked in a dodgy bar with dodgy clientele and slept with... too many men." She laughed through the pain. "Too many times. It was a relief to go to the hell mouth."
"I guess we've both been through the wringer." He told her and gave her the beer back.
"I guess." She took a drink.
"You can stay here, I have a spare room." He offered. "It would be nice to have the company. It's tense at the hotel. With Cordelia in the coma everyone is down and worried. I hate to admit it but I don't like going there anymore."
"I feel bad for C." She told him. "She may not have been too friendly with me, especially after I knocked her out but I always admired her. She had spunk."
"Yeah she did." He smiled fondly.
"You sweet on her Wes?" She teased, a rare smile on her face.
He blushed. "No! Of course not. She's just a friend. A very good friend. I think she and Angel were well on their way to getting together."
"Really?" The grinned. "Interesting."
"I see you still take an unnatural interest in other people's love lives." He smiled.
"Well, I have to when nothing's happening in my own." She joked.
"No men around for you?"
"Well, there was one. He was the principle of the new school. Robin Wood. We had a thing. He survived the fight but he died in hospital afterwards." She told him, the pain she'd felt at the time coming back. She forced it away. "See Wes, everyone I get with either dies or gets his eyeball poked out."
"Excuse me?"
"Xander." She informed him. "The resident evil thought that he could 'see' things so he made sure that he couldn't. Or rather, he was going to, but Buffy stopped him before he could finish the job."
"How unfortunate."
"You know, that thing, the First Evil, it turned itself into Mayor Wilkins." She told him, revealing something to him that she hadn't intended to. "It was hard. Seeing him stood there. I knew it wasn't him but it looked like him and spoke like him and it knew me! It knew what I was thinking, it knew what I was going to say and do!"
"The First Evil cannot physically hurt people; it has to emotionally hurt them."
"Well, it did." She told him and he saw a tear run down her cheek. "He was the only person who has ever truly loved me. He accepted me for what I was. Nobody has ever done that before."
"I accept you for what you are." He told her, looking a little hurt.
She turned to him and smiled. "But only recently. Back then you used to look at me like I was from a different planet. I was a liability."
"No you weren't."
"Don't lie Wes, I thought you were accepting me for what I was?" She teased and brushed away the tear.
He held up his hands in surrender.
"Anyway, what about your love life? There aren't any girls around here are they?"
"No, there's no one here. No one anywhere." He clarified. "There was someone. I believe you've met her."
"I have? Not that skinny Texan chick?"
He smiled. "Fred? No. She was a lawyer. At Wolfram and Hart. I believe she hired you to kill Angel."
She frowned. "What's her name?"
"Lilah Morgan." He told her. "The Beast killed her."
"I'm sorry." She offered. "Was it love?"
He laughed. "I doubt it."
"Never got the chance to find out?"
"Nope."
"It might have been better this way. Love gets in the way of life." She told him with a small smile on her face.
"Ever been in love Faith?"
"Nope." She admitted.
He turned to her and smiled. "Some people would say we're meant for each other. Two lonely souls with bad childhoods. Both of us afraid of love and running from something we wish we weren't."
"What are you running from?" She whispered, her throat suddenly becoming dry.
"I've done some terrible things too." He whispered back, raising his hand to trail and finger across her cheek. "But sometimes it's easier if you stop running. If you embrace them and learn from them."
She licked her lips and felt him drawing her towards him. "Embrace them?"
"Yeah."
His lips grazed hers gently until she pulled his head towards her so that their lips were pressed tightly together.
She parted his lips with her own and let her tongue trail along his bottom lip. His tongue reached out tentatively and touched hers. Both of them seemed to jump at the intimate contact but he quickly brought his hand around the back of her head and pulled her flush against him. One of her legs slid over his so that she was straddling him. He leaned back so she was half laying on him. She titled her head so her tongue could explore his mouth, teasing him and tempting him into wanting more. Her hands strayed to his chest and to the buttons of his shirt. With nimble fingers she unfastened them and pressed her cold hands on his chest, making him shiver. She teased his nipples with her fingertips, making them pebble. He moaned into her mouth as she pressed herself down on his crotch.
He pushed her jacket off her shoulders and down her arms, leaving her in just a vest, no bra. He pulled his lips off hers so he could pull the top over her head. She leaned back so she could look at him, her eyes black with desire.
"Are you sure you want to do this?" He asked.
She nodded. "I'd like to see you stop me."
She slid off his lap and kicked off her shoes. He sat up and unbuttoned her jeans. He slid the zipper down and pulled her jeans off her hips and down her legs. She stood before him in a tiny thong which she quickly discarded.
"Like what you see?" She asked, her voice husky.
He didn't trust his voice so he just nodded.
She shoved him back onto the couch and straddled his hips again. She captured his lips in a scorching kiss, her passion for him becoming all too evident.
Her hands travelled down his body to his crotch. She heard him suck in his breath as her hands delved into his pants and pulled out his already hard member.
She stroked it a couple of times, enjoying the way his breath hitched as she ran her fingers up his shaft.
She gave his lips one last kiss and then leaned back, angling herself perfectly so she could lower herself onto him.
He hissed at the feel of her tight walls enveloping him. He murmured her name under his breath.
She lowered herself completely so she had taken all of him. She let out a moan of pleasure.
His hands grabbed her hips and he pulled her to him. His lips kissed patterns on her neck and breasts before settling on her lips again.
She started to move, a slow rocking at first but gradually increasing it to a frantic pace. His hands cupped her ass and he moved with her. The slight change in angle made him hit the spot inside of her that made explosions light up behind her closed eyelids. She cried out in pleasure and he kissed her neck.
She continued to ride him, letting out small moans each time he hit her g- spot. He let go of her ass with one hand and he found her pleasure spot with his other hand. He circled her clit with his fingers and pressed up hard.
She screamed out in pleasure and gripped his shoulders to keep herself from falling. He circled her waist with his other arm and held her to him, her breast pressing against his chest. Sweat slicked, they moved together as one. Her orgasm was building and he could feel it as her movements suddenly became frenzied.
"Come with me Wes." She gasped into his ear.
Her orgasm hit and he gripped her harder, moving her up and down, encouraging her movements. With two more hard thrusts he came into her, crying out as she wrapped herself around him. "Faith!"
Their orgasms subsided and they were both breathing heavily, wrapped around each other, wet with sweat. He stroked her back with his fingers and kissed her shoulder.
They stayed like that for what seemed like hours but was only about thirty minutes. She lifted her head off his shoulder and looked into his eyes. "That was pretty incredible."
"Even by your standards?" He teased, stroking her damp hair.
"Even by my standards." She agreed with a smile, sounding more vulnerable than he had ever heard her.
"You'll be okay Faith." He promised her.
"With you?" Her eyes looked hopeful.
"If you want to."
"I think I do."
He smiled. "That sounds pretty good."
"Maybe it will all work out." She mused and lay her head back on his shoulder.
He wrapped his arms back around her. "It will, eventually. Life works that way. All you need is hope and trust and a little bit of faith."
The End