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Here's the next bit!
Previous parts are here
Hollow Heart
by Jane Davitt and Bit
Chapter Eleven
There's a flurry of demonic activity in the next few days though that keeps all of them busy. He barely has time to even check in at the offices, before heading out with Faith who's taken to the role of Senior Slayer with alarming alacrity. And if she threatens to "bitchslap" the more unruly elements in the ranks, then he hopes it's just an idle threat.
He hasn't even had time to take her on another date, just snatched the odd hurried meal at the greasy spoon on the corner before one of them is dashing off.
He's lingering over a cup of coffee and the Times crossword though, after a cholesterol-laden lunch, when there's a tap on the window and he looks up to see Giles raising a tentative hand in salute.
Really, it would be churlish not to nod his head and gesture at the empty seat opposite him and Giles is sitting down, filling up the space that had previously been taken with possible romantic excursions that Faith wouldn't sneer at and 14 across which was proving to be an obstinate little bugger.
"I didn't know this was one of your haunts, Wesley," Giles says as he scans the specials on the blackboard. "What would you recommend?"
"Well, it's up to you," he says with a smile. "What would you like your chips to come with?"
Giles snorts. "Ideally?"
Wesley shrugs, curious despite himself. "All right."
"There was this restaurant in Sunnydale that did the most marvellous steaks," Giles says. "And they called their chips 'fries' of course, but they really did know how to cook a pepper-encrusted filet."
Wesley indulges in a little gastronomic wistfulness himself -- that Chinese place three blocks from the Hyperion did the best sweet and sour chicken he'd ever had -- and then shakes his head. "I really wouldn't ask for the steak here."
The waitress drifts over and Giles charms her with a smile and gets her to take his order for a full English breakfast, which apparently is served around the clock.
"I'm going to regret this, aren't I?" Giles murmurs with the wince of a man anticipating indigestion.
"I hope not," Wesley says. "Giles -- we need to talk."
"We do, but here?" Giles protests.
"It's as good a place as any," Wesley says. It's cruel of him but he adds, "Unlike our last encounter, I don't plan to do anything indiscreet or ill-advised."
"You really are angry with me, aren't you?" Giles says. It's probably pure coincidence that his hand moves an inch or two and he begins to toy with the knife he's been given. "I hadn't realised that you were that inexperienced; do forgive me."
"I'm not talking about letting you fuck Faith -- " He manages to keep his voice low but his hissed words have a vehemence that makes Giles frown.
"Letting me? As I seem to recall -- "
"Shut the fuck up, Giles." His hand snakes out and clamps around the older man's wrist, who looks down at the tight bite of Wesley's fingers with surprise. The little teenage waitress is hovering with a steaming mug but she takes one look at them and scurries off in the opposite direction. "You should have told me about the pardon. I'm her Watcher."
"You're beginning to sound like a stuck record, Wesley," Giles says wryly, not sounding as pissed off as he should. He shakes his hand free and glances round. "Pity you scared off the waitress. I'm gasping for a cup of tea."
He wonders what Giles would do if he gave in to the urge to punch him for being so maddeningly obtuse when Giles' expression changes from amused to that empathetic smile that he thinks is even worse. "I couldn't tell you, Wesley."
"But you told Buffy and look how well that turned out," he says coldly.
Giles winces. "I didn't expect that," he confesses. "They'd been getting on so much better -- "
"You really do have a blind spot when it comes to her," Wesley says, but there's the lurking awareness that when it comes to Faith, his own lacuna is too depressingly wide to blunt the edge of his voice and he and Giles share something approaching a rueful smile.
"I remember when Slayers were properly respectful and obedient," Giles says. "I often wonder what that must have been like."
"Boring as hell," Wesley says.
"The dewy-eyed reverence from some of the younger Slayers does get wearing after a while," Giles admits.
Before the rapprochement gets too chummy, Wesley drags the conversation inexorably back. "Buffy. Is she likely to return in as hellish a mood as she left?"
"I'm not sure she plans to return at all," Giles says quietly. "Since she went I've heard nothing from her, despite leaving many messages. She's -- lost to me. As distant as when she was dead."
"Save the melodrama," Wesley tells him roughly. "She's here, walking the planet. You can find her if you want to; see her, talk to her -- "
"I'm sorry," Giles said after a moment. "You're right. It's just so damnably hard to have her this angry with me."
"Do you know where she is?" he asks, his voice softer than he intended and Giles shrugs, giving the waitress a grateful look when she timidly places his tea down.
"With Willow, who was incredibly unforthcoming about providing any more details. It would seem that my feet get more clay-like with every passing week," Giles adds wryly.
"What you've been through, with Buffy, you'll always have a bond." Wesley feels like he's tiptoeing through broken glass as Giles stares intently at his mug and doesn't so much as flutter an eyelash in reaction. "And she knows that, no matter how stubborn she's choosing to be. She's lost so many people, Giles, that I'm sure by pushing you away she's sure that she's just preparing for the inevitable."
And why he's gone from being righteously indignant with Giles to trying to offer words of comfort via a pithy psychoanalysis of Buffy, he's not entirely sure.
"Possibly," Giles mutters non-committally, before giving a snort of laughter. "It would seem that you and Faith have the more healthy relationship these days."
Now it's Wesley's turn to look like he's trying to curdle milk with the power of his gaze. "Oh, would it?"
"Trouble in Paradise, Wesley?"
Oh yes, he's not feeling quite so sympathetic towards Giles anymore. Homicidal would be far more accurate.
"What the hell are you trying to say, Giles?"
Giles blinks. "I just meant that the two of you seem to be closer. Successfully combining -- well, I won't say business with pleasure, because that's not quite accurate, or fair, but you do seem --"
"We're not sleeping together now," Wesley says flatly. "I thought you knew that."
"You're a brave man," Giles says, his fingers busy with an unopened sachet of sugar. "I just don't know how you managed to persuade Faith to see it as a romantic gesture rather than a rejection of her charms." His eyes light with amusement. "Ah. She hasn't accepted it, has she? Poor Wesley."
"She's tolerating it." Barely, he thinks to himself, remembering the way she made their training session this morning seem like a particularly athletic form of foreplay, pinning him down and rubbing her breasts against his chest until Andrew of all people suggested that they get a room. "And she understands why, even if she's not particularly happy about it."
"And are you -- ?" Giles tails off and gives a greedy little moan as a laden plate of fried everything and chips is placed in front of him. "That is, are you happy about it?"
"Ecstatic," Wesley says flatly and maybe if Giles and he were closer and hadn't seen each other naked, touched each other, God -- he'd be able to confide in him. As it is, he feels as if Giles is titillated and too bloody amused about it for his liking.
"Not worried that she's going to get her jollies with someone else?"
Someone else? Someone who knows only too well what she's like, who's had her writhing and moaning under him? Someone like --
"Giles?" He waits until he has Giles' attention and then smiles at him, making it a clear threat. "Fuck off. You're not getting her again. Ever."
The shove he gives the table as he stands sends Giles' mug rocking dangerously. Wesley reaches for it and steadies it. He's not feeling petty right now. He's too busy imagining how pleasant it would be to watch Giles bleed.
"Wesley, I didn't mean that it would be me --" Giles has the grace to look apologetic and although fear would be a little too much to expect from a man who's faced an opening Hellmouth once or twice, there's a gratifyingly wary look in Giles' eyes.
"Yes, you did." Giles' lips part and Wesley glares at him. "One more word, Giles and you'll be eating that bacon with the aid of a straw."
Frustration replaces wariness but it's a measure of the man's intelligence that he stays silent. Wesley nods and walks away. He's half a mile away when he realises he's going the wrong way and he's still shaking with reaction.
It's easy to give Giles a wide berth in the next few weeks because his head, well, his everything, is taken up with Faith.
He barely sees her at work as she's so wrapped up in Senior Slayerdom; embarking on a series of training sessions that have the other girls complaining about aching muscles even as they trail in her wake like a procession of fluffy ducklings.
And then there's the itinerary of dates that he's taking her on. Long walks on Hampstead Heath. Trips to the Renoir to see arthouse movies with enough flesh in them to keep her gaze rivetted on the screen. Romantic dinners at the little Italian place in Bloomsbury. Even a day trip to Brighton so they could stagger, hand in hand, over the pebbles and at the end of every date are the kisses, each one more devastating than the last. Each one harder and harder to walk away from, to leave her wanting, when they both want the same thing.
But Faith still won't say it. He's starting to think that she never will. Not because she can't but because she doesn't feel the same heart-wrenching giddiness that he does. Instead she vacillates between mammoth sulking fits when he struggles free from her arms or the light-hearted flirting that put him there in the first place. Sometimes he thinks he's going mad. And just when he's sure that he's teetering on the very edge of insanity, she'll rest her head on his shoulder, ruffle his hair and murmur throatily, "You're so fucking good to me, Wes." He finds that he can live on crumbs much better than he ever thought.
*****
Then one day he opens his mouth to invite Faith to an exhibition of weapons through the ages at the British Museum and she stops him with her hand pressed against his mouth in a brief caress.
"My turn, Wes," she says, her eyes gleaming.
"I'm sorry?"
She sighs and prods his chest with her finger. "I'm asking you on a date, Wes. I can do that, can't I? Not breaking any rules? 'Cause I never, like, got a list, so -- ."
"No," he says quickly, before she changes her mind or says something that stamps all over the flicker of hope her words have lit. "Of course you can. Er, what are we going to do?"
"If I told you, it wouldn't be a surprise," she says, dimpling, which makes him instantly suspicious. "Oh, and, Wes?"
"Yes?" he asks her retreating back.
"Dress casual."
It turns out to be Laser Quest. He digs his heels in, protesting loudly until she pouts extravagantly and then has a whale of a time, cornering a pesky child who's decided that Wesley represents all that is evil and has knocked him out of the first two rounds when they were, technically, on the same team, and reducing the brat to tears of fury.
"Told you this would be a blast," Faith says later as she eats a generic burger and slurps noisily at a thick, pink shake.
He eyes a fry dubiously and then dunks it into ketchup. "Yes, you did."
"And?"
He grins at her. "It didn't suck."
She smiles like the sun coming up and he doesn't protest when she leans across the table and kisses him, leaving him tasting of grease and salt and not caring all that much.
So, the sun is shining and the birds are singing and there are new rules of engagement as they wage a battle of dating wills, and it's the most fun he's had since those handful of times in the cottage when he was inside her.
He takes her to see the National Ballet of Cuba at Sadlers Wells, she makes him go to punk rock karaoke in a beer-soaked pub in Kings Cross and holds his hand tightly all the way home because he's sung Teenage Kicks without a murmur of protest. He takes her to Ladies Day at Ascot, though she absolutely refuses to wear a hat and she takes him dog racing in Walthamstow and snogs him senseless when her greyhound romps home at 25 to 1.
The differences don't end there. When he's taken her out, they exchange frantic kisses under glowing streetlights. But on Faith dates, that always seem to involve large quantities of alcohol, they end up entwined on his sofa or the ratty couch in her room, mouths glued to each other, thrusting against each other, her hands prodding and pulling him, enticing him to touch all that warm skin under her clothes.
"You're driving me crazy," she sighs after one particularly fraught make-out session when his fingers are damp from daring to skirt forbidden places. "Why do you have to be so fucking stubborn, Wes?"
"I could say the same of you," he pants, pushing at her knee so she relaxes the death grip of her thighs and he can slide away from her. "But I'm far more patient than you, Faith. It's -- you're worth waiting for."
She sighs then, settles back on the cushions and finger combs the hair out of her eyes. "You keep saying stuff like that and it all seems so easy. Too easy, y'know?"
He's beginning to, but he just settles for what he hopes is an enigmatic smile and strokes the back of his hand against her flushed cheek.
Part Twelve
Previous parts are here
Hollow Heart
by Jane Davitt and Bit
Chapter Eleven
There's a flurry of demonic activity in the next few days though that keeps all of them busy. He barely has time to even check in at the offices, before heading out with Faith who's taken to the role of Senior Slayer with alarming alacrity. And if she threatens to "bitchslap" the more unruly elements in the ranks, then he hopes it's just an idle threat.
He hasn't even had time to take her on another date, just snatched the odd hurried meal at the greasy spoon on the corner before one of them is dashing off.
He's lingering over a cup of coffee and the Times crossword though, after a cholesterol-laden lunch, when there's a tap on the window and he looks up to see Giles raising a tentative hand in salute.
Really, it would be churlish not to nod his head and gesture at the empty seat opposite him and Giles is sitting down, filling up the space that had previously been taken with possible romantic excursions that Faith wouldn't sneer at and 14 across which was proving to be an obstinate little bugger.
"I didn't know this was one of your haunts, Wesley," Giles says as he scans the specials on the blackboard. "What would you recommend?"
"Well, it's up to you," he says with a smile. "What would you like your chips to come with?"
Giles snorts. "Ideally?"
Wesley shrugs, curious despite himself. "All right."
"There was this restaurant in Sunnydale that did the most marvellous steaks," Giles says. "And they called their chips 'fries' of course, but they really did know how to cook a pepper-encrusted filet."
Wesley indulges in a little gastronomic wistfulness himself -- that Chinese place three blocks from the Hyperion did the best sweet and sour chicken he'd ever had -- and then shakes his head. "I really wouldn't ask for the steak here."
The waitress drifts over and Giles charms her with a smile and gets her to take his order for a full English breakfast, which apparently is served around the clock.
"I'm going to regret this, aren't I?" Giles murmurs with the wince of a man anticipating indigestion.
"I hope not," Wesley says. "Giles -- we need to talk."
"We do, but here?" Giles protests.
"It's as good a place as any," Wesley says. It's cruel of him but he adds, "Unlike our last encounter, I don't plan to do anything indiscreet or ill-advised."
"You really are angry with me, aren't you?" Giles says. It's probably pure coincidence that his hand moves an inch or two and he begins to toy with the knife he's been given. "I hadn't realised that you were that inexperienced; do forgive me."
"I'm not talking about letting you fuck Faith -- " He manages to keep his voice low but his hissed words have a vehemence that makes Giles frown.
"Letting me? As I seem to recall -- "
"Shut the fuck up, Giles." His hand snakes out and clamps around the older man's wrist, who looks down at the tight bite of Wesley's fingers with surprise. The little teenage waitress is hovering with a steaming mug but she takes one look at them and scurries off in the opposite direction. "You should have told me about the pardon. I'm her Watcher."
"You're beginning to sound like a stuck record, Wesley," Giles says wryly, not sounding as pissed off as he should. He shakes his hand free and glances round. "Pity you scared off the waitress. I'm gasping for a cup of tea."
He wonders what Giles would do if he gave in to the urge to punch him for being so maddeningly obtuse when Giles' expression changes from amused to that empathetic smile that he thinks is even worse. "I couldn't tell you, Wesley."
"But you told Buffy and look how well that turned out," he says coldly.
Giles winces. "I didn't expect that," he confesses. "They'd been getting on so much better -- "
"You really do have a blind spot when it comes to her," Wesley says, but there's the lurking awareness that when it comes to Faith, his own lacuna is too depressingly wide to blunt the edge of his voice and he and Giles share something approaching a rueful smile.
"I remember when Slayers were properly respectful and obedient," Giles says. "I often wonder what that must have been like."
"Boring as hell," Wesley says.
"The dewy-eyed reverence from some of the younger Slayers does get wearing after a while," Giles admits.
Before the rapprochement gets too chummy, Wesley drags the conversation inexorably back. "Buffy. Is she likely to return in as hellish a mood as she left?"
"I'm not sure she plans to return at all," Giles says quietly. "Since she went I've heard nothing from her, despite leaving many messages. She's -- lost to me. As distant as when she was dead."
"Save the melodrama," Wesley tells him roughly. "She's here, walking the planet. You can find her if you want to; see her, talk to her -- "
"I'm sorry," Giles said after a moment. "You're right. It's just so damnably hard to have her this angry with me."
"Do you know where she is?" he asks, his voice softer than he intended and Giles shrugs, giving the waitress a grateful look when she timidly places his tea down.
"With Willow, who was incredibly unforthcoming about providing any more details. It would seem that my feet get more clay-like with every passing week," Giles adds wryly.
"What you've been through, with Buffy, you'll always have a bond." Wesley feels like he's tiptoeing through broken glass as Giles stares intently at his mug and doesn't so much as flutter an eyelash in reaction. "And she knows that, no matter how stubborn she's choosing to be. She's lost so many people, Giles, that I'm sure by pushing you away she's sure that she's just preparing for the inevitable."
And why he's gone from being righteously indignant with Giles to trying to offer words of comfort via a pithy psychoanalysis of Buffy, he's not entirely sure.
"Possibly," Giles mutters non-committally, before giving a snort of laughter. "It would seem that you and Faith have the more healthy relationship these days."
Now it's Wesley's turn to look like he's trying to curdle milk with the power of his gaze. "Oh, would it?"
"Trouble in Paradise, Wesley?"
Oh yes, he's not feeling quite so sympathetic towards Giles anymore. Homicidal would be far more accurate.
"What the hell are you trying to say, Giles?"
Giles blinks. "I just meant that the two of you seem to be closer. Successfully combining -- well, I won't say business with pleasure, because that's not quite accurate, or fair, but you do seem --"
"We're not sleeping together now," Wesley says flatly. "I thought you knew that."
"You're a brave man," Giles says, his fingers busy with an unopened sachet of sugar. "I just don't know how you managed to persuade Faith to see it as a romantic gesture rather than a rejection of her charms." His eyes light with amusement. "Ah. She hasn't accepted it, has she? Poor Wesley."
"She's tolerating it." Barely, he thinks to himself, remembering the way she made their training session this morning seem like a particularly athletic form of foreplay, pinning him down and rubbing her breasts against his chest until Andrew of all people suggested that they get a room. "And she understands why, even if she's not particularly happy about it."
"And are you -- ?" Giles tails off and gives a greedy little moan as a laden plate of fried everything and chips is placed in front of him. "That is, are you happy about it?"
"Ecstatic," Wesley says flatly and maybe if Giles and he were closer and hadn't seen each other naked, touched each other, God -- he'd be able to confide in him. As it is, he feels as if Giles is titillated and too bloody amused about it for his liking.
"Not worried that she's going to get her jollies with someone else?"
Someone else? Someone who knows only too well what she's like, who's had her writhing and moaning under him? Someone like --
"Giles?" He waits until he has Giles' attention and then smiles at him, making it a clear threat. "Fuck off. You're not getting her again. Ever."
The shove he gives the table as he stands sends Giles' mug rocking dangerously. Wesley reaches for it and steadies it. He's not feeling petty right now. He's too busy imagining how pleasant it would be to watch Giles bleed.
"Wesley, I didn't mean that it would be me --" Giles has the grace to look apologetic and although fear would be a little too much to expect from a man who's faced an opening Hellmouth once or twice, there's a gratifyingly wary look in Giles' eyes.
"Yes, you did." Giles' lips part and Wesley glares at him. "One more word, Giles and you'll be eating that bacon with the aid of a straw."
Frustration replaces wariness but it's a measure of the man's intelligence that he stays silent. Wesley nods and walks away. He's half a mile away when he realises he's going the wrong way and he's still shaking with reaction.
It's easy to give Giles a wide berth in the next few weeks because his head, well, his everything, is taken up with Faith.
He barely sees her at work as she's so wrapped up in Senior Slayerdom; embarking on a series of training sessions that have the other girls complaining about aching muscles even as they trail in her wake like a procession of fluffy ducklings.
And then there's the itinerary of dates that he's taking her on. Long walks on Hampstead Heath. Trips to the Renoir to see arthouse movies with enough flesh in them to keep her gaze rivetted on the screen. Romantic dinners at the little Italian place in Bloomsbury. Even a day trip to Brighton so they could stagger, hand in hand, over the pebbles and at the end of every date are the kisses, each one more devastating than the last. Each one harder and harder to walk away from, to leave her wanting, when they both want the same thing.
But Faith still won't say it. He's starting to think that she never will. Not because she can't but because she doesn't feel the same heart-wrenching giddiness that he does. Instead she vacillates between mammoth sulking fits when he struggles free from her arms or the light-hearted flirting that put him there in the first place. Sometimes he thinks he's going mad. And just when he's sure that he's teetering on the very edge of insanity, she'll rest her head on his shoulder, ruffle his hair and murmur throatily, "You're so fucking good to me, Wes." He finds that he can live on crumbs much better than he ever thought.
Then one day he opens his mouth to invite Faith to an exhibition of weapons through the ages at the British Museum and she stops him with her hand pressed against his mouth in a brief caress.
"My turn, Wes," she says, her eyes gleaming.
"I'm sorry?"
She sighs and prods his chest with her finger. "I'm asking you on a date, Wes. I can do that, can't I? Not breaking any rules? 'Cause I never, like, got a list, so -- ."
"No," he says quickly, before she changes her mind or says something that stamps all over the flicker of hope her words have lit. "Of course you can. Er, what are we going to do?"
"If I told you, it wouldn't be a surprise," she says, dimpling, which makes him instantly suspicious. "Oh, and, Wes?"
"Yes?" he asks her retreating back.
"Dress casual."
It turns out to be Laser Quest. He digs his heels in, protesting loudly until she pouts extravagantly and then has a whale of a time, cornering a pesky child who's decided that Wesley represents all that is evil and has knocked him out of the first two rounds when they were, technically, on the same team, and reducing the brat to tears of fury.
"Told you this would be a blast," Faith says later as she eats a generic burger and slurps noisily at a thick, pink shake.
He eyes a fry dubiously and then dunks it into ketchup. "Yes, you did."
"And?"
He grins at her. "It didn't suck."
She smiles like the sun coming up and he doesn't protest when she leans across the table and kisses him, leaving him tasting of grease and salt and not caring all that much.
So, the sun is shining and the birds are singing and there are new rules of engagement as they wage a battle of dating wills, and it's the most fun he's had since those handful of times in the cottage when he was inside her.
He takes her to see the National Ballet of Cuba at Sadlers Wells, she makes him go to punk rock karaoke in a beer-soaked pub in Kings Cross and holds his hand tightly all the way home because he's sung Teenage Kicks without a murmur of protest. He takes her to Ladies Day at Ascot, though she absolutely refuses to wear a hat and she takes him dog racing in Walthamstow and snogs him senseless when her greyhound romps home at 25 to 1.
The differences don't end there. When he's taken her out, they exchange frantic kisses under glowing streetlights. But on Faith dates, that always seem to involve large quantities of alcohol, they end up entwined on his sofa or the ratty couch in her room, mouths glued to each other, thrusting against each other, her hands prodding and pulling him, enticing him to touch all that warm skin under her clothes.
"You're driving me crazy," she sighs after one particularly fraught make-out session when his fingers are damp from daring to skirt forbidden places. "Why do you have to be so fucking stubborn, Wes?"
"I could say the same of you," he pants, pushing at her knee so she relaxes the death grip of her thighs and he can slide away from her. "But I'm far more patient than you, Faith. It's -- you're worth waiting for."
She sighs then, settles back on the cushions and finger combs the hair out of her eyes. "You keep saying stuff like that and it all seems so easy. Too easy, y'know?"
He's beginning to, but he just settles for what he hopes is an enigmatic smile and strokes the back of his hand against her flushed cheek.
Part Twelve
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