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Almost half way through...
And this chapter comes with a cliffhanger warning ;-)
Previous parts are here
Hollow Heart
by Jane Davitt and Bit
Chapter Six
He ends up in the tiny spare room he used when he was a boy, finding the bed less soft now and a crucial four inches too short. Doesn't matter. The blankets are musty and itch, and that doesn't matter either.
Hearing Faith cry and not being able to get through to her is what matters and he's so out of his depth here --
He finds himself wondering if Giles goes through anything comparable with Buffy and how he copes. Maybe they need to form a support group or something. His thoughts, fatigue-twisted into surrealism take a while to remember that he won't be able to discuss anything with Giles, because they're not likely to ever be speaking together as friends again.
And when he's dealt with that thought, sternly reminding himself of Giles' many flaws and convincing himself that Giles would be no better able to help Faith than him, his mind gives in and he falls asleep.
The front door slamming sends him hurtling into wakefulness; heart racing, skin clammy as his mind races through a million possibilities, but it's not until he staggers out of his boyhood bed to look out of the window and sees Faith charging along the path that he allows himself to take a breath.
But when there's a million other possibilities about where she could have gone and if she'll be coming back, his hands are shaking as he goes through the rituals of making tea and toast.
She's gone all day, if he can pre-suppose that 'gone' will end when she comes back. But with every second, every minute, every hour that crawls by Wesley realises that he's building up a quite glorious anger. They're having a relationship. In truth, they've had a relationship of some form, albeit mostly dysfunctional, ever since they locked eyes in that library in bloody Sunnydale. And after everything they've done to each other, fought and fucked and forgiven, if she thinks that she can shut him out, then she's in for an exceedingly rude awakening.
He's not just her Watcher; he's her lover.
It's past teatime as he paces the small sitting room. There's an imaginary Faith sitting on the sofa and looking sorrowfully repentant as he berates her soundly, when the real version crashes through the door and shoots him a look as if to suggest that she wishes he'd died in her absence. He infinitely prefers the imaginary one.
He hasn't even opened his mouth when she makes the universal gesture for "shut the fuck up."
"I don't even want to fucking talk to you, Wesley," she snaps, heading for the stairs. And yes, she's fast but he has righteous indignation on his side so he's in the perfect position to grab hold of her arm in an instant.
"Well, that's a pity, Faith, because I want to fucking talk to you."
She looks up at him in surprise, flexing her fingers as a prelude to shaking him off then thinking better of it when she feels the cold muzzle of the gun against her neck.
"You're wondering why the gun, I suppose," he whispers confidentially in her ear. "Simple, really. I got bored of waiting for your sulk to end." His hand tightens as her body jerks in protest. "I would have been sympathetic; I would have listened had you cared to share your emotions with me. But perhaps you're not the only one feeling that they're good for little else than fucking. Forgive me for thinking that we were close enough that when you shut the world out, I'd be left inside with you."
There's a pause and then she says quietly, "You planning to blow the back of my head off, Wes?"
"Tempted to," he says dryly, "but I think the paperwork involved would be a sufficient deterrent even if I didn't prefer you whole."
She turns her head, slowly, slowly and then she's kissing him with a hunger he can't help connecting to the gun. They're both sick fucks at heart, because part of him, dark and buried, is loving the knowledge that of the two of them he was the closest to death just now. A threatened Slayer makes a black widow spider look cuddly and he just came very close to making Faith act instinctively.
He shudders, adrenaline-spiced blood rushing south, and the gun gets put aside and that's the last sensible, coherent action he takes for a while.
Her tongue is hot and invasive, as deep in his mouth as his is in hers and the taste of her is driving him crazy because it's good but it's not enough. His hands are tugging at clothes, his and hers, and he'd happily fuck her against the nearest wall with no more than the partial removal of her jeans and panties, but he's greedy for the sight of her body and his hands are craving the soft heaviness of her breasts to fondle and cup.
"Clothes," she mutters indistinctly, echoing his own concerns as she tugs helplessly at his jeans. "Off."
They're an awkward ballet of limbs as she puts her arms in the air so he can pull off her T-shirt, burying his face between her breasts as he wrestles with the clasp on her bra. There's no finesse, just a lot of fumbling and fun as she rips apart the front of his shirt and buttons ping into the far corners of the room.
"Green ain't your colour anyway, Wes," she giggles, shoving him back against the wall. "Stop pouting and fucking kiss me."
"Bossy bitch." Her kisses are so frantic and sincere that the wall scenario which was looming large again, gets abandoned so he can walk her over to the sofa and coax her on to his lap, which she does obligingly, arms winding round his neck.
Eventually it becomes necessary, if not annoying, to stop clinging to each other's lips and take in shuddering gasps for breath. "I think we really should both be naked," he muses, waggling his eyebrows at her breasts, which are jiggling delightfully. Her jeans are hanging low on her hips and he can see the shadowy cleft of her arse as she leans forward to tug off her sneakers and socks.
She stays kneeling on the floor, gazing up at him, all eyes and soft curves. "Gonna get you naked then, Wes," she agrees, pulling off his socks and running an exploratory finger over his instep. "Not ticklish? Way to spoil my fun."
He was going to say something. Something funny and just a little outraged but her hand curls over his cock, unmistakably hard under the denim and he's just swallowed his tongue. "Maybe you're ticklish here?" she suggests.
”Now that would be a tragedy," he says. "Because then I wouldn't want you touching me there, would I?"
"And you do, right?"
He reaches out and rests his hand over hers, pressing it down against his erection. "I do."
There's a sudden silence, as if they're both wondering what happened there as the phrase echoes back and forth between them, and he can't help thinking that if it's a proposal, he should, traditionally, be the one kneeling, but neither of them are exactly conventional and what he wants from her -- what he is to her -- is less and more than a husband would.
And that's far more thinking than he wants to do right now because she stands, a fluid rush upward that takes his gaze with it, and she's naked in moments and he's transfixed.
"Waiting, Wes," she says softly, commandingly and he stands, strips and then they're clinging to each other and this time the kisses don't stop, even when he's deep inside her, not until she rakes his back and howls.
He feels like howling himself.
She's a wet, hot, hard fist of muscle around his cock and each thrust forward feels like a battle waged and won when he gets a moan at the end of it. He can feel his body move into a space where the scuff of carpet against bare knees stops hurting, where the ripe scent of her body is close to tangible, and he fucks her because he wants her and she needs him and vice-versa and --
"God! You feel -- Faith -- "
He's stammering, babbling, awed in his head, but the words that emerge are clipped and hoarse and really, he's astonished he can manage actual speech when his brain is melting from the flurry of her fists, beating on his shoulders as she arcs and arches and shrieks and comes.
Afterwards they don't have their usual argument about cuddling, because they're clinging to each other, afraid to let go, cast adrift on a worn patch of carpet.
She's never been so approachable; fingers stroking through his fuck-damp hair, coiling herself around him and murmuring in appreciation when he traces glyphs on her back.
She sits up all-too soon though, batting away his hands, which are missing her already. "It's almost dark and I'm hungry." She gives him a rueful look from under her lashes, which doesn't fool him in the slightest. "Haven't eaten all day. I'm starving."
She's already wrapping his ruined shirt around her and padding towards the kitchen. "Where have you been anyway?" he calls after her, struggling into his shorts.
"Ran up a fucking mountain a coupla times. Kept seeing it from the window, figured I'd make it my bitch." She gestures vaguely at the shadowy shapes of the scenery outside the window.
"Faith, do you mean Brecon Ridge? The big, craggy one with the snow on top?"
She's rooting through the fridge. "I guess."
"It's miles away," he says coming up behind her so he can wrap his arms round her waist and looking over her shoulder at the diminished contents. "Could you bear bacon and eggs again?"
"Bacon 'n' eggs 'n' tomatoes 'n' mushrooms 'n' toast," she chants, gathering them up and turning round in the circle of his arms. "I was fucked up, Wes. Had to get away instead of busting your head, which, by the way, shows how I'm big with the self-development these days."
"Duly noted," he says, taking the food from her. "And I'm more grateful than you know."
"Sorta like your head the way it is." She ruffles his hair, like she can't not then places a finger over his lips. "Yeah, I know we have to have a big talk," -- she pauses to make ironic air quotes --"but it can wait, Wes. I stink, you stink, so let's wash, eat, and then we can talk about our feelings and stuff. Deal?"
"Deal," he says and until she's lounging back on the couch, feet propped up on the coffee table, her hands laced over a stomach she assures him is close to bursting, they stick to chatter or silence, neither of which is in the least bit meaningful.
"You want me to say I'm sorry?" she asks him as he sits beside her and frowns at the placement of her feet.
"Would you?"
"Might."
He reaches out and links their hands. "I don't need that. I just -- I'd like you to realise that I'm prepared to listen to you --" He stops, carefully rehearsed words drying up. "Don't shut me out," he says quietly. "Please? Last night, today -- God, I'm so bloody sick of being alone!"
"Wes?" She turns his face with her hand, coming up to kneel beside him. "Wes, I'm sorry. I am, okay? I'm just not used to having someone look after me for keeps, you know?"
He's absolutely sure that if he blinks wetness will spill over, so he keeps his eyes open as he nods, willing the tears away.
Her thumb rubs over the pulse in his neck soothingly and he manages to take control of his recalcitrant tear ducts.
"I know, but will just let me be there for you?" he says and if he sounds close to begging then he doesn't care.
"I'll try, Wes. But you can't make stuff unhappen." A shadow passes over her face and her thumb stills. "I've killed and that's never going to change. It's with me every day; Finch and that volcano guy and fuck, I can't even remember his name, and I hurt people; Will, Giles, B and yeah, she's been a bitch on wheels but then she's got the right, you know?"
Now it's his turn to run his fingers over her face as if he can erase the troubled furrows that have appeared there. "She does not have the right -- "
" -- and I hurt you, Wes," she finishes dully. "God, how can you stand to even look at me?"
"Because you've changed and so have I," he says softly, cupping her face so she can see how he's holding nothing back. "I've touched the darkness too, Faith. Maybe I needed to so when I found my way back, we had a commonality that wasn't there before."
"Or maybe the stubble just got me hot," she offers and it's a weak joke and she can hardly force out a smile to go with it but she touches the stubble in question and they're both stumbling over each other's faces; trying to read what their words can't say.
Finally she gives a tiny inarticulate moan which he now knows is her way of asking for what she doesn't want to ask for and he shifts on the sofa so she can inch up against him, linking her arms around him so it's like being hugged by a small, fierce jungle cat.
"So last night?" he prompts gently and she shudders against him but lifts up her chin determinedly.
"Last night -- the blood on my hands was real again and I lost it," she mutters. "Like, we'd been locked away just doing our thing and I'd been kidding myself that it was going to work. Like, that I deserved to be happy and then that guy -- and I thought if I could save him, then it'd all balance out but I couldn't. I don't deserve a second chance, Wes, and this isn't going to last forever 'cause Giles will find us and I'll go back to prison and it's where everyone thinks I belong anyway. So I freaked out. It's such a fucking mess."
And she's right there, but he can't help thinking that there's a way out of all this.
"You've paid for what you did, Faith -- yes, you have," he insists as she tries to interrupt him. "You might not ever forgive yourself, but you've -- repented." It's hopelessly Old Testament but he ploughs on. "You were willing to spend your full sentence in prison. I'm the one who made you leave and you did so for unselfish reasons and helped to save the world. Twice."
"Gold star for me," she murmurs tiredly.
He grins ruefully. "It does sound hopelessly dramatic, but you know that it's the simple truth, Faith. And what I'm saying is that you're out here, free, because of me. If you turned yourself in, the conditions you'd have to endure would be stringent and you'd have your sentence increased. That's unfair."
"Yeah, well I'm not the one you have to convince," she says. "Don't hear me saying I want to go back, do you? I figure I can do more good out here now I've got my head straight --"
"You can," he says earnestly.
"But you're the only one who thinks I've changed, and you're not the one calling the shots, Wes." Her hand cups his face. "Buffy is, through Giles. And I'm fucked."
"You're not. I won't let that happen." And if he says it emphatically enough then maybe it will become true. "I have contacts, sources. I'll get false passports; we'll go away to some obscure place with a large demon population -- "
"Sounds neat but you're talking out of your ass, Wes," she says, wriggling nearer so she can kiss his cheek; take the sting out of her words. "But thanks for the thought."
"It is a thought though," he's thinking out loud because a tentative, cloudy, murky plan is emerging. "There are areas where the Council won't send operatives; the Amazon Basin, several politically sensitive spots in South America, Africa and the Middle East."
Faith quirks an eyebrow and he knows that she's humouring him but at least she's making the effort to humour him, which is progress. "Always wanted to go to Brazil," she says wistfully.
"Well, maybe not Brazil, but Chile or Nicaragua. I could swot up on demons indigent to those regions and there are always vampires -- "
"Yup, always vampires," she echoes, lifting herself off him. "I need a smoke, we both need a drink."
And when she returns with the bottle of whisky and a lit cigarette wafting a thin plume of smoke in the air, her expression is calm, resolute, as she hands him the single malt. "Not gonna let you do this, Wes - throw everything away because of me. I can go back to prison, not gonna like it much but y'know, sometimes redemption sucks."
He takes a long gulp of the whisky, wincing as it hits his stomach in a fiery explosion. "You're not letting me do anything. I'm doing this because it's the right thing to do and you're my Slayer."
Faith flings herself down at the opposite end of the couch. "Appreciate the sentiment but -- "
"Oh, do be quiet, Faith," he drawls, because she's stubborn and self-sacrificing but he's fairly certain that he wrote the instruction manual on those two character traits. "I'm your Watcher, yes?"
"Yeah," she agrees unwillingly. "And you're also batshit insane."
"Thank you for the affirmation. Slayers should always obey their Watchers." He holds out the bottle to her, watching with narrowed eyes as she scoots up on her knees and he can see the shadowy curves of her high, thrusting breasts, the flat slope of her belly and the shadowy juncture between her thighs.
He can tell by her sly smile and the way she arches her back so the button-less shirt parts a little further that she knows exactly where he's looking. "That's a nice theory you got going, Wesley. Me obeying you -- " She shoves the bottle back at him challengingly.
"I have my methods," he says darkly, hamming up the pantomime villain impression by twiddling an imaginary moustache and the last of her bad mood dissipates as she snickers and rolls her eyes.
"Guess it couldn't hurt to test 'em out," she husks, fingering the collar of the shirt and the dense desperation of the room is instantly charged with this dark anticipation which is making his cock twitch. "C'mon then, Wes, give me an order and see if I obey it."
He blinks at her in silence and then smiles. "Hmm."
"That the best you got?" she says, sounding vaguely insulted.
"I'm thinking," he tells her. "It's tricky, you see. If I -- order -- you to do something that you're happy to do, well, it's not much of a test of your compliance, is it?"
He's having trouble sitting still with his cock swelling against the seam of his jeans -- unlike Faith, he'd got dressed again after they cleaned up -- and in need of adjusting to a less uncomfortable position. On the other hand, the discomfort is providing a nice distraction that's keeping him from embarrassing himself by drooling. Does she know how many of his fantasies have been about a Slayer who doesn't argue with every single bloody request he gives? And contrary to what she's obviously thinking, the requests wouldn't all be sexual in nature. Not overtly anyway --
Here and now though, yes, he's not likely to ask --tell her to do an hour of stake whittling without pouting about splinters. Oh, no.
"And that's not even touching the trickier still area of what I can do to you should you be obdurate and disobedient."
She stirs on his lap, eyes gleaming wickedly. "Something tells me that you'd come up with something, Wes." The way she's grinding against his cock leaves him in no doubt about her meaning.
"Is that so?" he murmurs. "Well, let's put this to the test. Kiss me --"
She leans forward at once, heading for his mouth, and he puts his hand on her shoulder to halt her. "I didn't say where."
There's the expected pout, lush lips pushing forward. "Don't I get points for initiative?" she asks.
"Possibly," he allows, "but you lose them for impatience. We'll consider you as having broken even then. Let's try again. Kiss me --" He unbuttons his shirt, exposing his chest, and taps a finger against his right nipple. "There."
There's just an instant of hesitation as if she's adjusting to the idea as she hadn't before, and then she scootches back a little and dips her head. He can feel the warm tickle of her mouth and the soft circle her tongue makes as she traces around the small bump.
"Good girl," he says blandly. Her teeth snap together audibly but she does it as she's straightening up and he chuckles. "Now I think I'd like you to take off my shirt."
Her eyebrows lift in a question and he smiles and touches the one she's wearing and then his own. "Both of them."
"Both of them, huh? Any preference for which one I get rid of first?" she asks, slipping a handful of cotton down her shoulder before hoisting it back up and failing utterly at looking prim.
Wesley pretends to give it some thought though really it's a win/win situation. "Why don't you exercise some more of your famous initiative?" he suggests and she's crawling the few inches needed to get to him and grabs a handful of shirt.
"Already ripped one of these tonight," she muses with a grin. "Wouldn't want you to think I was getting predictable."
And there's nothing predictable about the way she slowly undoes the last four buttons, taking such a long time that his teeth are gritted, fists clenched. But it would be churlish to criticise when she's nibbling and sucking at every inch of skin she carefully uncovers so by the time she tugs at his shoulder so she can pull the garment free, his flesh is adorned with a pattern of palest pink to deep red, souvenirs of her clever mouth.
"Think it's my turn," she says, pausing briefly to mouth his cock through denim that's getting damper and darker before she raises herself up on her knees and shuffles gracefully around so he can see the sleek link of her spine come into view as she lets the shirt slip off her shoulders and pool against the back of her legs. "So how did I do, Wes?" she asks with her back still to him. "Am I an obedient little Slayer?"
"The best -- " he manages to say coherently, reaching blindly forward so he can touch the dimples that indent the smooth skin just above her arse. "Move around, let me look at you."
She turns her head with an impish smile that he wants to lick off her face. "Maybe I will. Maybe I won't. Gotta say I'm kinda curious about what you'll do if I decide that I don't want to follow orders."
"You could just ask me," he suggests mildly, praying to any god that's listening that she won't and then seeing the heat in her eyes and knowing that he's safe.
"Could," she agrees. "But it'd save time -- be more efficient -- if you gave me a quick demo, right?"
"What makes you think that the, ah, penalty would involve any exertion on my part?" he asks. "What exactly do you think I'd be demonstrating?"
That gets him an eye roll. "Come on, Wes! Told you I knew about Giles' little ways; you telling me you didn't go to the same school he did?"
He laughs. "Six of the best and an institutionalised corruption of the third form fags by the prefects? You're very behind the times, Faith."
"So you're not going to spank me then?" she says, placing her hands on her ass with an audible smack and fluttering her lashes. "My ass is safe if I tell you that I'm not gonna turn 'round unless you say 'pretty please'?"
"Are you?" he asks.
For answer, she turns her head to face the front, giving him nothing to see but dark hair and a beautiful back.
"I see," he says quietly, his lips twitching as he tries not to grin. Reaching out, he peels her hands off her bottom and wraps his hand around her slim wrists. "I'm afraid in the face of such flagrant disrespect for your Watcher's commands you leave me no choice but to --"
She takes in a quick breath and murmurs, "Yes, Wesley?" demurely, her shoulders shaking with suppressed laughter.
"You," he breaths in her ear, "are a minx, you know that?"
She leans back against his shoulder. "Spank me, Wes," she says throatily. "You know you want to."
"I don't think I'm alone in that wish," he drawls as she wriggles her arse against his cock, which has ceased to be painful and is now verging on agonising.
"C'mon, Mr. Wyndam-Pryce, how do you want me?"
And if that isn't a leading question --
He can't even risk having her over his lap as much as he'd love it. But he wants to last longer than the first flash of his hand on her warm skin. And if there was ever an illusion of who was really in control then it shatters as she hurls herself over the arm of the couch as per his instructions and arches her back.
"Hey, does this pose make my butt look big?" she simpers, with another ophidian shudder that makes her rear end shimmy voluptuously.
Wesley rubs his palm roughly over his cock as if to say, 'not now' and runs his other hand assessingly over the curves in question.
"Not big," he decides because he's not completely stupid. "But certainly rather pale and definitely impudent."
"Oh get to it, Wes, not gonna break," she sighs impatiently, kicking out one of her legs at him as he kneels behind her and it's just the incentive he needs to bring his hand crashing down with great force on her left cheek; sinking into the plumpness on contact and feeling the crack of flesh on flesh before he even hears it.
"That's for drinking milk straight from the carton," he intones stuffily because spanking Faith might be all his erotic fantasies rolled into one, but she's already snorting with barely held-back giggles and the notion that spanking some manners into her is possible is completely ridiculous.
"And that's for slamming doors," he continues, with another resounding thwack, which makes her shriek with laugher.
"Never do it again," she squeals and he gets one more smack in with the spurious reason that she always belches loudly after drinking Coke, which she does, but she's laughing too hard to keep still and he can't keep touching the heated curve of her arse without matters becoming too prescient.
"Aw, why did you stop?" she whines, arms hanging over the side of the sofa as she sprawls in a giggly, squirmy heap.
"Because I really, really want to fuck you," he says simply and she rolls over and pushes the hair out of her face.
"Only had to ask, Wes," she says, eyes swooping downwards. "Jeez, you must be in fucking agony."
She's already attacking his belt, his button, his zip and he gives a groan of relief as he pushes himself into her waiting hands. "Don't -- please, Faith. I'm hanging by a thread here."
"Poor Wes," she croons and sympathy from her is unusual enough to have him blinking in surprise for just long enough to allow her to yank at his jeans a crucial inch further with one hand and then his arse is bare against the couch, her hands are stroking his cock and balls in a perfectly timed, exquisite sequence of movements and he's leaning back and sighing.
"Don't get too cosy," she hisses, doing something terrible with a fingernail that has him yelping, but it gives her the space of time she needs to climb on top of him and sheathe his cock inside her. She's so wet and hot that it's like fucking, well, custard comes to mind, rich, thick custard and he goes cross-eyed trying to picture Faith's reaction if he shares that thought with her afterwards.
He rather thinks if he does, he'll be the one getting spanked.
She rocks gently back and forth and smiles down at him, sweet as sugar.
"Oh God."
He's right to be suspicious. In the space of one hastily taken breath she starts to ride him hard, slamming her backside -- and one day he's going to finish that spanking because it was fun -- against his thighs and moaning as his hands lift up to give her breasts something to bounce against.
It's wild, it's frantic, it's still playful, and he can feel one hell of a climax hovering and he's not even trying to hold back because they've got all night. He cranes his neck to take one of her nipples between his teeth and feels a cool ripple of air strike his back. Even then he doesn't turn, not with Faith moaning like that, one hand reaching back gropingly to cup his balls, the other supporting his neck, like the thoughtful girl she is.
Giles saying, "I'm sorry, is this a bad time?" as he drops a case to the floor and kicks the door shut behind him manages to get his attention though.
Part Seven
And this chapter comes with a cliffhanger warning ;-)
Previous parts are here
Hollow Heart
by Jane Davitt and Bit
Chapter Six
He ends up in the tiny spare room he used when he was a boy, finding the bed less soft now and a crucial four inches too short. Doesn't matter. The blankets are musty and itch, and that doesn't matter either.
Hearing Faith cry and not being able to get through to her is what matters and he's so out of his depth here --
He finds himself wondering if Giles goes through anything comparable with Buffy and how he copes. Maybe they need to form a support group or something. His thoughts, fatigue-twisted into surrealism take a while to remember that he won't be able to discuss anything with Giles, because they're not likely to ever be speaking together as friends again.
And when he's dealt with that thought, sternly reminding himself of Giles' many flaws and convincing himself that Giles would be no better able to help Faith than him, his mind gives in and he falls asleep.
The front door slamming sends him hurtling into wakefulness; heart racing, skin clammy as his mind races through a million possibilities, but it's not until he staggers out of his boyhood bed to look out of the window and sees Faith charging along the path that he allows himself to take a breath.
But when there's a million other possibilities about where she could have gone and if she'll be coming back, his hands are shaking as he goes through the rituals of making tea and toast.
She's gone all day, if he can pre-suppose that 'gone' will end when she comes back. But with every second, every minute, every hour that crawls by Wesley realises that he's building up a quite glorious anger. They're having a relationship. In truth, they've had a relationship of some form, albeit mostly dysfunctional, ever since they locked eyes in that library in bloody Sunnydale. And after everything they've done to each other, fought and fucked and forgiven, if she thinks that she can shut him out, then she's in for an exceedingly rude awakening.
He's not just her Watcher; he's her lover.
It's past teatime as he paces the small sitting room. There's an imaginary Faith sitting on the sofa and looking sorrowfully repentant as he berates her soundly, when the real version crashes through the door and shoots him a look as if to suggest that she wishes he'd died in her absence. He infinitely prefers the imaginary one.
He hasn't even opened his mouth when she makes the universal gesture for "shut the fuck up."
"I don't even want to fucking talk to you, Wesley," she snaps, heading for the stairs. And yes, she's fast but he has righteous indignation on his side so he's in the perfect position to grab hold of her arm in an instant.
"Well, that's a pity, Faith, because I want to fucking talk to you."
She looks up at him in surprise, flexing her fingers as a prelude to shaking him off then thinking better of it when she feels the cold muzzle of the gun against her neck.
"You're wondering why the gun, I suppose," he whispers confidentially in her ear. "Simple, really. I got bored of waiting for your sulk to end." His hand tightens as her body jerks in protest. "I would have been sympathetic; I would have listened had you cared to share your emotions with me. But perhaps you're not the only one feeling that they're good for little else than fucking. Forgive me for thinking that we were close enough that when you shut the world out, I'd be left inside with you."
There's a pause and then she says quietly, "You planning to blow the back of my head off, Wes?"
"Tempted to," he says dryly, "but I think the paperwork involved would be a sufficient deterrent even if I didn't prefer you whole."
She turns her head, slowly, slowly and then she's kissing him with a hunger he can't help connecting to the gun. They're both sick fucks at heart, because part of him, dark and buried, is loving the knowledge that of the two of them he was the closest to death just now. A threatened Slayer makes a black widow spider look cuddly and he just came very close to making Faith act instinctively.
He shudders, adrenaline-spiced blood rushing south, and the gun gets put aside and that's the last sensible, coherent action he takes for a while.
Her tongue is hot and invasive, as deep in his mouth as his is in hers and the taste of her is driving him crazy because it's good but it's not enough. His hands are tugging at clothes, his and hers, and he'd happily fuck her against the nearest wall with no more than the partial removal of her jeans and panties, but he's greedy for the sight of her body and his hands are craving the soft heaviness of her breasts to fondle and cup.
"Clothes," she mutters indistinctly, echoing his own concerns as she tugs helplessly at his jeans. "Off."
They're an awkward ballet of limbs as she puts her arms in the air so he can pull off her T-shirt, burying his face between her breasts as he wrestles with the clasp on her bra. There's no finesse, just a lot of fumbling and fun as she rips apart the front of his shirt and buttons ping into the far corners of the room.
"Green ain't your colour anyway, Wes," she giggles, shoving him back against the wall. "Stop pouting and fucking kiss me."
"Bossy bitch." Her kisses are so frantic and sincere that the wall scenario which was looming large again, gets abandoned so he can walk her over to the sofa and coax her on to his lap, which she does obligingly, arms winding round his neck.
Eventually it becomes necessary, if not annoying, to stop clinging to each other's lips and take in shuddering gasps for breath. "I think we really should both be naked," he muses, waggling his eyebrows at her breasts, which are jiggling delightfully. Her jeans are hanging low on her hips and he can see the shadowy cleft of her arse as she leans forward to tug off her sneakers and socks.
She stays kneeling on the floor, gazing up at him, all eyes and soft curves. "Gonna get you naked then, Wes," she agrees, pulling off his socks and running an exploratory finger over his instep. "Not ticklish? Way to spoil my fun."
He was going to say something. Something funny and just a little outraged but her hand curls over his cock, unmistakably hard under the denim and he's just swallowed his tongue. "Maybe you're ticklish here?" she suggests.
”Now that would be a tragedy," he says. "Because then I wouldn't want you touching me there, would I?"
"And you do, right?"
He reaches out and rests his hand over hers, pressing it down against his erection. "I do."
There's a sudden silence, as if they're both wondering what happened there as the phrase echoes back and forth between them, and he can't help thinking that if it's a proposal, he should, traditionally, be the one kneeling, but neither of them are exactly conventional and what he wants from her -- what he is to her -- is less and more than a husband would.
And that's far more thinking than he wants to do right now because she stands, a fluid rush upward that takes his gaze with it, and she's naked in moments and he's transfixed.
"Waiting, Wes," she says softly, commandingly and he stands, strips and then they're clinging to each other and this time the kisses don't stop, even when he's deep inside her, not until she rakes his back and howls.
He feels like howling himself.
She's a wet, hot, hard fist of muscle around his cock and each thrust forward feels like a battle waged and won when he gets a moan at the end of it. He can feel his body move into a space where the scuff of carpet against bare knees stops hurting, where the ripe scent of her body is close to tangible, and he fucks her because he wants her and she needs him and vice-versa and --
"God! You feel -- Faith -- "
He's stammering, babbling, awed in his head, but the words that emerge are clipped and hoarse and really, he's astonished he can manage actual speech when his brain is melting from the flurry of her fists, beating on his shoulders as she arcs and arches and shrieks and comes.
Afterwards they don't have their usual argument about cuddling, because they're clinging to each other, afraid to let go, cast adrift on a worn patch of carpet.
She's never been so approachable; fingers stroking through his fuck-damp hair, coiling herself around him and murmuring in appreciation when he traces glyphs on her back.
She sits up all-too soon though, batting away his hands, which are missing her already. "It's almost dark and I'm hungry." She gives him a rueful look from under her lashes, which doesn't fool him in the slightest. "Haven't eaten all day. I'm starving."
She's already wrapping his ruined shirt around her and padding towards the kitchen. "Where have you been anyway?" he calls after her, struggling into his shorts.
"Ran up a fucking mountain a coupla times. Kept seeing it from the window, figured I'd make it my bitch." She gestures vaguely at the shadowy shapes of the scenery outside the window.
"Faith, do you mean Brecon Ridge? The big, craggy one with the snow on top?"
She's rooting through the fridge. "I guess."
"It's miles away," he says coming up behind her so he can wrap his arms round her waist and looking over her shoulder at the diminished contents. "Could you bear bacon and eggs again?"
"Bacon 'n' eggs 'n' tomatoes 'n' mushrooms 'n' toast," she chants, gathering them up and turning round in the circle of his arms. "I was fucked up, Wes. Had to get away instead of busting your head, which, by the way, shows how I'm big with the self-development these days."
"Duly noted," he says, taking the food from her. "And I'm more grateful than you know."
"Sorta like your head the way it is." She ruffles his hair, like she can't not then places a finger over his lips. "Yeah, I know we have to have a big talk," -- she pauses to make ironic air quotes --"but it can wait, Wes. I stink, you stink, so let's wash, eat, and then we can talk about our feelings and stuff. Deal?"
"Deal," he says and until she's lounging back on the couch, feet propped up on the coffee table, her hands laced over a stomach she assures him is close to bursting, they stick to chatter or silence, neither of which is in the least bit meaningful.
"You want me to say I'm sorry?" she asks him as he sits beside her and frowns at the placement of her feet.
"Would you?"
"Might."
He reaches out and links their hands. "I don't need that. I just -- I'd like you to realise that I'm prepared to listen to you --" He stops, carefully rehearsed words drying up. "Don't shut me out," he says quietly. "Please? Last night, today -- God, I'm so bloody sick of being alone!"
"Wes?" She turns his face with her hand, coming up to kneel beside him. "Wes, I'm sorry. I am, okay? I'm just not used to having someone look after me for keeps, you know?"
He's absolutely sure that if he blinks wetness will spill over, so he keeps his eyes open as he nods, willing the tears away.
Her thumb rubs over the pulse in his neck soothingly and he manages to take control of his recalcitrant tear ducts.
"I know, but will just let me be there for you?" he says and if he sounds close to begging then he doesn't care.
"I'll try, Wes. But you can't make stuff unhappen." A shadow passes over her face and her thumb stills. "I've killed and that's never going to change. It's with me every day; Finch and that volcano guy and fuck, I can't even remember his name, and I hurt people; Will, Giles, B and yeah, she's been a bitch on wheels but then she's got the right, you know?"
Now it's his turn to run his fingers over her face as if he can erase the troubled furrows that have appeared there. "She does not have the right -- "
" -- and I hurt you, Wes," she finishes dully. "God, how can you stand to even look at me?"
"Because you've changed and so have I," he says softly, cupping her face so she can see how he's holding nothing back. "I've touched the darkness too, Faith. Maybe I needed to so when I found my way back, we had a commonality that wasn't there before."
"Or maybe the stubble just got me hot," she offers and it's a weak joke and she can hardly force out a smile to go with it but she touches the stubble in question and they're both stumbling over each other's faces; trying to read what their words can't say.
Finally she gives a tiny inarticulate moan which he now knows is her way of asking for what she doesn't want to ask for and he shifts on the sofa so she can inch up against him, linking her arms around him so it's like being hugged by a small, fierce jungle cat.
"So last night?" he prompts gently and she shudders against him but lifts up her chin determinedly.
"Last night -- the blood on my hands was real again and I lost it," she mutters. "Like, we'd been locked away just doing our thing and I'd been kidding myself that it was going to work. Like, that I deserved to be happy and then that guy -- and I thought if I could save him, then it'd all balance out but I couldn't. I don't deserve a second chance, Wes, and this isn't going to last forever 'cause Giles will find us and I'll go back to prison and it's where everyone thinks I belong anyway. So I freaked out. It's such a fucking mess."
And she's right there, but he can't help thinking that there's a way out of all this.
"You've paid for what you did, Faith -- yes, you have," he insists as she tries to interrupt him. "You might not ever forgive yourself, but you've -- repented." It's hopelessly Old Testament but he ploughs on. "You were willing to spend your full sentence in prison. I'm the one who made you leave and you did so for unselfish reasons and helped to save the world. Twice."
"Gold star for me," she murmurs tiredly.
He grins ruefully. "It does sound hopelessly dramatic, but you know that it's the simple truth, Faith. And what I'm saying is that you're out here, free, because of me. If you turned yourself in, the conditions you'd have to endure would be stringent and you'd have your sentence increased. That's unfair."
"Yeah, well I'm not the one you have to convince," she says. "Don't hear me saying I want to go back, do you? I figure I can do more good out here now I've got my head straight --"
"You can," he says earnestly.
"But you're the only one who thinks I've changed, and you're not the one calling the shots, Wes." Her hand cups his face. "Buffy is, through Giles. And I'm fucked."
"You're not. I won't let that happen." And if he says it emphatically enough then maybe it will become true. "I have contacts, sources. I'll get false passports; we'll go away to some obscure place with a large demon population -- "
"Sounds neat but you're talking out of your ass, Wes," she says, wriggling nearer so she can kiss his cheek; take the sting out of her words. "But thanks for the thought."
"It is a thought though," he's thinking out loud because a tentative, cloudy, murky plan is emerging. "There are areas where the Council won't send operatives; the Amazon Basin, several politically sensitive spots in South America, Africa and the Middle East."
Faith quirks an eyebrow and he knows that she's humouring him but at least she's making the effort to humour him, which is progress. "Always wanted to go to Brazil," she says wistfully.
"Well, maybe not Brazil, but Chile or Nicaragua. I could swot up on demons indigent to those regions and there are always vampires -- "
"Yup, always vampires," she echoes, lifting herself off him. "I need a smoke, we both need a drink."
And when she returns with the bottle of whisky and a lit cigarette wafting a thin plume of smoke in the air, her expression is calm, resolute, as she hands him the single malt. "Not gonna let you do this, Wes - throw everything away because of me. I can go back to prison, not gonna like it much but y'know, sometimes redemption sucks."
He takes a long gulp of the whisky, wincing as it hits his stomach in a fiery explosion. "You're not letting me do anything. I'm doing this because it's the right thing to do and you're my Slayer."
Faith flings herself down at the opposite end of the couch. "Appreciate the sentiment but -- "
"Oh, do be quiet, Faith," he drawls, because she's stubborn and self-sacrificing but he's fairly certain that he wrote the instruction manual on those two character traits. "I'm your Watcher, yes?"
"Yeah," she agrees unwillingly. "And you're also batshit insane."
"Thank you for the affirmation. Slayers should always obey their Watchers." He holds out the bottle to her, watching with narrowed eyes as she scoots up on her knees and he can see the shadowy curves of her high, thrusting breasts, the flat slope of her belly and the shadowy juncture between her thighs.
He can tell by her sly smile and the way she arches her back so the button-less shirt parts a little further that she knows exactly where he's looking. "That's a nice theory you got going, Wesley. Me obeying you -- " She shoves the bottle back at him challengingly.
"I have my methods," he says darkly, hamming up the pantomime villain impression by twiddling an imaginary moustache and the last of her bad mood dissipates as she snickers and rolls her eyes.
"Guess it couldn't hurt to test 'em out," she husks, fingering the collar of the shirt and the dense desperation of the room is instantly charged with this dark anticipation which is making his cock twitch. "C'mon then, Wes, give me an order and see if I obey it."
He blinks at her in silence and then smiles. "Hmm."
"That the best you got?" she says, sounding vaguely insulted.
"I'm thinking," he tells her. "It's tricky, you see. If I -- order -- you to do something that you're happy to do, well, it's not much of a test of your compliance, is it?"
He's having trouble sitting still with his cock swelling against the seam of his jeans -- unlike Faith, he'd got dressed again after they cleaned up -- and in need of adjusting to a less uncomfortable position. On the other hand, the discomfort is providing a nice distraction that's keeping him from embarrassing himself by drooling. Does she know how many of his fantasies have been about a Slayer who doesn't argue with every single bloody request he gives? And contrary to what she's obviously thinking, the requests wouldn't all be sexual in nature. Not overtly anyway --
Here and now though, yes, he's not likely to ask --tell her to do an hour of stake whittling without pouting about splinters. Oh, no.
"And that's not even touching the trickier still area of what I can do to you should you be obdurate and disobedient."
She stirs on his lap, eyes gleaming wickedly. "Something tells me that you'd come up with something, Wes." The way she's grinding against his cock leaves him in no doubt about her meaning.
"Is that so?" he murmurs. "Well, let's put this to the test. Kiss me --"
She leans forward at once, heading for his mouth, and he puts his hand on her shoulder to halt her. "I didn't say where."
There's the expected pout, lush lips pushing forward. "Don't I get points for initiative?" she asks.
"Possibly," he allows, "but you lose them for impatience. We'll consider you as having broken even then. Let's try again. Kiss me --" He unbuttons his shirt, exposing his chest, and taps a finger against his right nipple. "There."
There's just an instant of hesitation as if she's adjusting to the idea as she hadn't before, and then she scootches back a little and dips her head. He can feel the warm tickle of her mouth and the soft circle her tongue makes as she traces around the small bump.
"Good girl," he says blandly. Her teeth snap together audibly but she does it as she's straightening up and he chuckles. "Now I think I'd like you to take off my shirt."
Her eyebrows lift in a question and he smiles and touches the one she's wearing and then his own. "Both of them."
"Both of them, huh? Any preference for which one I get rid of first?" she asks, slipping a handful of cotton down her shoulder before hoisting it back up and failing utterly at looking prim.
Wesley pretends to give it some thought though really it's a win/win situation. "Why don't you exercise some more of your famous initiative?" he suggests and she's crawling the few inches needed to get to him and grabs a handful of shirt.
"Already ripped one of these tonight," she muses with a grin. "Wouldn't want you to think I was getting predictable."
And there's nothing predictable about the way she slowly undoes the last four buttons, taking such a long time that his teeth are gritted, fists clenched. But it would be churlish to criticise when she's nibbling and sucking at every inch of skin she carefully uncovers so by the time she tugs at his shoulder so she can pull the garment free, his flesh is adorned with a pattern of palest pink to deep red, souvenirs of her clever mouth.
"Think it's my turn," she says, pausing briefly to mouth his cock through denim that's getting damper and darker before she raises herself up on her knees and shuffles gracefully around so he can see the sleek link of her spine come into view as she lets the shirt slip off her shoulders and pool against the back of her legs. "So how did I do, Wes?" she asks with her back still to him. "Am I an obedient little Slayer?"
"The best -- " he manages to say coherently, reaching blindly forward so he can touch the dimples that indent the smooth skin just above her arse. "Move around, let me look at you."
She turns her head with an impish smile that he wants to lick off her face. "Maybe I will. Maybe I won't. Gotta say I'm kinda curious about what you'll do if I decide that I don't want to follow orders."
"You could just ask me," he suggests mildly, praying to any god that's listening that she won't and then seeing the heat in her eyes and knowing that he's safe.
"Could," she agrees. "But it'd save time -- be more efficient -- if you gave me a quick demo, right?"
"What makes you think that the, ah, penalty would involve any exertion on my part?" he asks. "What exactly do you think I'd be demonstrating?"
That gets him an eye roll. "Come on, Wes! Told you I knew about Giles' little ways; you telling me you didn't go to the same school he did?"
He laughs. "Six of the best and an institutionalised corruption of the third form fags by the prefects? You're very behind the times, Faith."
"So you're not going to spank me then?" she says, placing her hands on her ass with an audible smack and fluttering her lashes. "My ass is safe if I tell you that I'm not gonna turn 'round unless you say 'pretty please'?"
"Are you?" he asks.
For answer, she turns her head to face the front, giving him nothing to see but dark hair and a beautiful back.
"I see," he says quietly, his lips twitching as he tries not to grin. Reaching out, he peels her hands off her bottom and wraps his hand around her slim wrists. "I'm afraid in the face of such flagrant disrespect for your Watcher's commands you leave me no choice but to --"
She takes in a quick breath and murmurs, "Yes, Wesley?" demurely, her shoulders shaking with suppressed laughter.
"You," he breaths in her ear, "are a minx, you know that?"
She leans back against his shoulder. "Spank me, Wes," she says throatily. "You know you want to."
"I don't think I'm alone in that wish," he drawls as she wriggles her arse against his cock, which has ceased to be painful and is now verging on agonising.
"C'mon, Mr. Wyndam-Pryce, how do you want me?"
And if that isn't a leading question --
He can't even risk having her over his lap as much as he'd love it. But he wants to last longer than the first flash of his hand on her warm skin. And if there was ever an illusion of who was really in control then it shatters as she hurls herself over the arm of the couch as per his instructions and arches her back.
"Hey, does this pose make my butt look big?" she simpers, with another ophidian shudder that makes her rear end shimmy voluptuously.
Wesley rubs his palm roughly over his cock as if to say, 'not now' and runs his other hand assessingly over the curves in question.
"Not big," he decides because he's not completely stupid. "But certainly rather pale and definitely impudent."
"Oh get to it, Wes, not gonna break," she sighs impatiently, kicking out one of her legs at him as he kneels behind her and it's just the incentive he needs to bring his hand crashing down with great force on her left cheek; sinking into the plumpness on contact and feeling the crack of flesh on flesh before he even hears it.
"That's for drinking milk straight from the carton," he intones stuffily because spanking Faith might be all his erotic fantasies rolled into one, but she's already snorting with barely held-back giggles and the notion that spanking some manners into her is possible is completely ridiculous.
"And that's for slamming doors," he continues, with another resounding thwack, which makes her shriek with laugher.
"Never do it again," she squeals and he gets one more smack in with the spurious reason that she always belches loudly after drinking Coke, which she does, but she's laughing too hard to keep still and he can't keep touching the heated curve of her arse without matters becoming too prescient.
"Aw, why did you stop?" she whines, arms hanging over the side of the sofa as she sprawls in a giggly, squirmy heap.
"Because I really, really want to fuck you," he says simply and she rolls over and pushes the hair out of her face.
"Only had to ask, Wes," she says, eyes swooping downwards. "Jeez, you must be in fucking agony."
She's already attacking his belt, his button, his zip and he gives a groan of relief as he pushes himself into her waiting hands. "Don't -- please, Faith. I'm hanging by a thread here."
"Poor Wes," she croons and sympathy from her is unusual enough to have him blinking in surprise for just long enough to allow her to yank at his jeans a crucial inch further with one hand and then his arse is bare against the couch, her hands are stroking his cock and balls in a perfectly timed, exquisite sequence of movements and he's leaning back and sighing.
"Don't get too cosy," she hisses, doing something terrible with a fingernail that has him yelping, but it gives her the space of time she needs to climb on top of him and sheathe his cock inside her. She's so wet and hot that it's like fucking, well, custard comes to mind, rich, thick custard and he goes cross-eyed trying to picture Faith's reaction if he shares that thought with her afterwards.
He rather thinks if he does, he'll be the one getting spanked.
She rocks gently back and forth and smiles down at him, sweet as sugar.
"Oh God."
He's right to be suspicious. In the space of one hastily taken breath she starts to ride him hard, slamming her backside -- and one day he's going to finish that spanking because it was fun -- against his thighs and moaning as his hands lift up to give her breasts something to bounce against.
It's wild, it's frantic, it's still playful, and he can feel one hell of a climax hovering and he's not even trying to hold back because they've got all night. He cranes his neck to take one of her nipples between his teeth and feels a cool ripple of air strike his back. Even then he doesn't turn, not with Faith moaning like that, one hand reaching back gropingly to cup his balls, the other supporting his neck, like the thoughtful girl she is.
Giles saying, "I'm sorry, is this a bad time?" as he drops a case to the floor and kicks the door shut behind him manages to get his attention though.
Part Seven
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