Work Text:
The sun shines perfectly bright through the large window above Wesley’s bed - where he and Lilah have been fooling around for much of the morning. Their bodies are naked, their clothes decorating the floor of the bedroom in various heaps. Their nightly routine was bleeding further and further into the daytime.
“I’m really late,” Lilah stresses, rubbing her nose gently against Wesley’s. He can tell by the tone of her voice that she isn’t too worried about missing her morning meeting. “And in my line of work, they won’t just give me a stern talking to.” She remains pressed against him regardless, keeping the sheets that are half covering them warm. He can feel her heart beating against his and every time it causes him to wonder if what’s happening between them is a little too real. If things have gone more beyond just having sex.
Wesley raises his eyebrows, bringing a hand up to trace the curves of her back. Holding her closer if it’s even possible, to convince her not to go away. “Well, if you’d like I could give you a stern talking to.” She laughs in such a tender way and he almost doesn’t register the flutter in his chest over the excitement of her squeal when he pinches her arse.
“You could but…” she removes her body from his and the air suddenly feels a little cold, even as she settles beside him - stretching her limbs. She brings her hand up to trace the scars on his chest and he wonders if her manicure shadowing imaginary patterns on his skin is her way of knowing what’s between them is real. “With that accent of yours? I think we both know where that leads.”
“I didn’t hear you complaining last night,” he remarks, tracing his fingers up her arm. His thumb outlines small circles against her shoulder and she closes her eyes. “I don’t suppose there ‘s any way I could convince you to stay?” The sound of his voice aches with something he can’t quite understand.
Lilah smiles as she leans in and kisses him gently. “Why? You missing me already?”
She pulls away from him after a beat or two and props her head up by her elbow. They stare into the other’s eyes for a second, then two, three and so on. Lilah looks deeply at him like she’s searching for the answer. Something about the eyes being the window to the soul or whatever. And normally, he’d be put off and uncomfortable by another person’s eyes drilling into his, but things feel different somehow with Lilah. He doesn’t feel as though he has to turn away or look past her for a moment of relief. Instead, he feels some type of pull, to reach over and trace the shape of her face. Run his thumb over her sharp jaw and into the dip of her chin. He imagines she would lean into him like a cat wanting to be petted.
He knows she wants him to admit it, say the words out loud, that he wants her to stay. She wants to know what he’s really thinking inside that big brain of his. But the words remain stuck in his throat, unable to be articulated on his tongue that now feels thick. The feeling is painful, creating a burning sensation in his throat.
Lilah, somehow sensing this, bites her lip. She leans over the bed, her head disappearing out of view. After a few seconds of listening, Wesley knows she’s digging around in her pocketbook. A few moments later she reappears with her phone in her hand.
“I’ll make you a deal,” she says looking at him with all too familiar mischievous eyes and a grin before crawling overtop him again. “I’ll stay, but you have to tell Gavin for me.”
Wesley doesn’t even think much about it before taking the phone from her fingers. She already has several missed calls and voice messages from work that he imagines are not pleasant. Then again, he thinks no one would dare be daft enough to send Lilah a voicemail the least bit unpleasant. He sees Gavin in her recents and rings the number.
The trill of the phone sounds only once before Gavin answers. By the look on Lilah’s face, it’s clear she can hear the panic in his voice over her absence and it pleases her in a wicked sort of way.
Wesley hardly registers anything he says before cutting him off. “I’m sorry Gavin, but Lilah won’t be in today. She’s still in bed,” he says, “and I suspect she doesn’t plan to be leavening anytime soon. She assures me though that you’ll be able to handle everything. Best of luck.”
He doesn’t bother hearing Gavin’s response before he closes the phone and tosses it to the side, not bothering to see where it lands.
“Well done,” Lilah commends.
He leans up and kisses her passionately, taking her in his arms as she squeals against his tight embrace.
They spend another hour in bed followed by a twenty minute shower that Lilah assures is for the sake of not wasting water.
Wesley emerges from the bathroom followed by a remnant of heat and steam from the shower. He’s running a towel through his hair which has grown a little longer in the past months, beginning to curl at the ends. He leans against the doorway as he watches Lilah, who has picked through his drawers for clothes. She’s wearing one of his old Watcher shirts - white and a little wrinkled - as she slides on a pair of his boxers. Half the buttons are undone and even without his glasses and the distance between them, he still gets a good look at her breasts.
She catches him watching her. “Don’t worry,” she winks. “You can wear mine.”
If I can find them , he thinks, his eyes scanning the floor that’s covered in various articles of clothing. Not all of them are from the night before.
It seems very natural for her. Comfortably picking through his drawers and pulling out his things. Making jokes, unashamed about what they’re doing. He wonders how long they’re going to keep up this charade. How long it’s going to last without trying to picture how it’s going to end. He wonders if things have gone too far and ultimately decides they probably have. They’ve been doing this for months and it’s undeniable that each day Lilah Morgan gets a little closer in his life. A little closer to his heart.
She steps towards him with grace, kisses his cheek and pats him on the arse before swaying out of the room. He watches her every step and the view of her movement does things to his mind.
When she’s gone he finds a pair of pants and a t-shirt that hasn’t been worn to hell. Even though he’s showered he can still smell faint traces of Lilah on his skin, his clothes, and in his room. He starts stripping the bed sheets. Sheets that smell so much like her. Lotion with the faint aroma of roses and Chanel perfume.
There is a blouse that smells just the same that she tucked into his pillow some time ago. He leaves it, taking just the pillow case instead and their dirty clothes. In the hallway he has a stacked washer and dryer that occupies its own cupboard and he throws everything in before starting it.
When he’s done with the laundry he goes into the living room where he can hear Lilah cooking from the kitchen. It’s an open floor plan, the kitchen having its own little corner neighboring the dining table. He leans against the archway that semi-divides the kitchen from the rest of his flat. The room smells strongly of sausages and coffee.
He watches Lilah as she stands over the stove tending to a pan of sausage and scrambled eggs. Bread was sticking out of the toaster, waiting to be toasted until they popped. There was some water boiling in a kettle and beside that, one of his tea pots and a cup. Coffee was dripping strongly from a machine Wesley once worried would no longer have any purpose to him, but Lilah seems to make good use of it.
Lilah has made good use of everything in his life.
A small smile forms on Wesley’s lips.
He turns from her without a word. Goes to the front door and makes his way to the lobby where he finds the morning paper waiting outside for him. By the time he brings it up Lilah is setting the dining table he also thought would not get much attention. She walks back between the kitchen and table, bringing napkins, silverware, jam for the toast, some butter, salt and pepper shakers, her mug of coffee and his pot of tea.
“Sit down,” she says, pouring his steeped Earl Grey into a cup. The way she says it makes it seem obvious: sit down because we’re going to eat breakfast like we do every morning.
He takes his place at the head of the table, his mouth upturned in a smile of surprise. Shortly after Lilah comes carrying two plates full of the prepared breakfast foods.
“Thank you,” he says, setting the plastic wrapped paper aside. “It looks lovely.”
For a moment he sits still, unsure how to proceed. They don't do this. He can’t even remember that last time he had breakfast - let alone a proper meal. And where the hell did the cloth napkins come from? It dawns on him Lilah might know his own apartment better then himself at this point.
He watches Lilah spread jam on her toast and add salt to her eggs. She stops, stares at him.
“Is something wrong?” she asks. “Do you not like eggs? Or eat sausage? Or, anything really,” she teases, “because I would believe that.”
“Lilah…” he wants to argue but he isn’t sure what to say. She’s not entirely wrong.
“It’s just that I’ve never seen you eat anything…” she forks a bit of eggs into her mouth. “Well except…”
“Lilah…” he reaches over and touches her arm before she finishes saying something that is sure to make his face turn red. “It’s fine. I’m just…” he isn’t quite sure how to explain how ridiculously hard it is for him to function like a normal person. How, the last time he actually sat down and ate real food with people was now so far away and so tainted. “It’s lovely,” he repeats.
“Well, “ she continues, “I just felt after the night we had we could probably use it.” She winks.
“Right,” he agrees, letting her go and picking up his fork. He mimics Lilah until he feels comfortable. A bite of eggs following a sip of coffee - her eyes staring longingly outside the window.
They eat quietly. Their utensils scrape against the plates and their cups cause gentle sound waves to bounce off the wood of the table. They can hear the traffic from below. There was a faint ticking from one of the clocks somewhere in Wesley’s flat.
Some time passes, and eventually Wesley removes the newspaper from its plastic wrap; waiting for Lilah to make some snarky comment about how no one gets the paper anymore. She doesn’t, but when he looks over she’s got a funny smile on her lips. She’s definitely making fun of him.
He folds open the front page to Los Angeles’s latest upheaval. A headline about the capture of a mass serial killer the police had been tracking for weeks. He’s claiming “the devil made him do it,” and if Wesley hadn’t spent his entire life going against the forces of evil, he might have been cynical about it. Beside it, a column about a bus accident; one dead and five others injured. There was also a small column about Wolfram & Hart but Wesley only skimmed it.
Another column seemed somewhat promising, talking about the possibility of vampires being real, but the further Wesley read into the paragraphs the less interested he became. To think, he’d spent his entire life being a watcher and studying vampires, helping slayers and all for some hack who probably still lived in his father’s basement to be spreading misconceptions about vampires.
At the bottom of the page there was a small ad for Angel Investigations which he barely glanced at.
The following pages consisted of more deaths, - nothing he could blame in Lilah's employers - the latest sports news and local politics; and pictures of the newest Hollywood stars and movie reviews which he would pull out later for Lilah. There was a snippet about motorcycles and the dangers of riding them. How you should always wear a helmet and obey traffic laws - something Wesley both understood and respected.
He folded the news up and put it back beside him, his eyes starting to strain. He picked up his tea, something that had been a long comfort for him. It’s still warm.
He looked over at Lilah with her bare legs crossed, sipping her coffee and half a piece of toast still on her plate.
“Nice view,” she motions her mug towards the window. He’s never really noticed it before.
“Nice day,” he adds, spreading some strawberry jam onto his toast. “Fancy a ride later,” he takes a bite. It’s something Lilah’s been asking about for quite some time.
“On your motorcycle?”
“Mhm,” he takes a bite of his toast and follows it with hot tea. Out of the corner of his eye he sees Lilah with a huge smile on her face.
“Well Pip Pip and Cheerio for me!” she exclaims, tapping her spoon on the edge of her coffee mug. Wesley nearly chokes on his tea, the hot water coming down his chin and onto the table. He laughs harder than he has in such a long time.
“Lilah,” he says, trying to get a hold of himself. She’s laughing too, no doubt a reaction to his own hysterics. He grabs her arm, “that is not what that means.”
“Well what does it mean,” she’s still grinning, the last bits of laughter bubbling from her throat.
“It means “farewell”,” he corrects.
She shrugs, an innocent mistake.
“You’re ridiculous,” he remarks, turning his attention back to the paper, though he’s hardly thinking about the LA news now.
“I’m ridiculous? I once saw a video of you pretending to be James Bond while doing the most absurd strip tease I've ever seen in my life. Sorry Pryce,” she said slightly mocking him but with a gentle smile, “secret’s out.”
Wesley nearly chokes on his tea again, his face flushed with shock that soon simmers into embarrassment.
“Hey, no worries,” Lilah reassures him, patting his leg. “It was very entertaining.”
He gives her a polite smile against the panic he’s now wrestling with in his heart, remembering how embarrassing that video tape had been. It felt silly to still be embarrassed and ashamed of how he used to be - even though that man was dead now. He had been embarrassed of himself back then and felt to curse Angel ever so slightly under his breath before he remembered his betrayal.
“Hope it wasn’t for your girlfriend. Virginia was it?”
“And why’s that?” He asks, trying to regain some composure.
She leans closer with a feline grin. “Because I like to pretend it was for me.” She pinches his thigh and something about the gesture makes him want to grab her hand and pull her into his lap even if he isn’t sure if she’s being genuine or not.
Wanting to change the conversation, he flips through the paper for the crossword which he gently tears out for Lilah. It pleases her, which he knows because he’s caught her several times in the early hours of the morning curled up at his desk filling out the grey squares.
She jumps from the table and goes to find a pen. There is a clattering in the kitchen and seconds later she returns, beginning to fill the paper out with ease. Wesley knows anything relating to the law or TV shows and movies she knows in a snap.
There is more silence until seemingly out of nowhere Lilah reaches out to him.
“Hey Wes,” her voice sounds like it’s aching with some sort of deep regret. “About all that stuff I said, about you being Judas Iscariot… I was just trying to get under your skin.”
Wesley smiles slightly and wonders if this is one of her tricks. He turns her hand over and runs his thumb back and forth along a faded scar. Almost as if his betrayal to Angel was a burden they both shared. “No,” he muses, “you were right. I betrayed Angel. I’m sure he would agree with you as well.”
“Still, you thought you were doing the right thing,” she says, repeating herself from a time before.
“Seems to happen a lot doesn’t it?” He turns blankly to the paper, thinking about all those times he’d fucked up. The lines of ink just blur together and he starts to feel lightheaded.
“What does?” Her fingers close against his thumb.
“Me, thinking I’m doing the right thing but ultimately screwing everything up and being a failure.” There was a pause. Lilah was silent. “You’ll get used to it.”
“I just don’t want you to torture yourself about it,” she squeezes his hand before pulling it away. “That’s all.”
Wesley raises one of his eyebrows at her. “I thought you liked a little torture,” he remarks.
“Only if I’m the one doing it. Or Angel, depending…” She starts running one of her toes along his leg. No doubt trying to lull him back to their current affairs. “And you’ve never disappointed me.” She’s got a wicked grin on her face. The one Wesley finds himself drawn to.
Wesley scoffs, pinching the paper down to look at her. “That’s only because I think you get more out of this than I do.” He knows she’s going to respond with something sexual, it’s their pattern.
“This what?” she taunts, bringing both her long legs up and resting them comfortably on his lap. They have a bet going. Should one of them be foolish enough to call their relations together a relationship , would then own the other person a dollar. Lilah’s money was on Wesley to crack first.
“You know what I’m talking about,” he sets the paper down and runs his hand along her calf.
“A relationship,” she answers.
His hand stops at her knee and Wesley looks at her, stunned.
“Another word for liaison,” she clarifies. “Nine down. Twelve letters,” She etches it into the paper, and Wesley throws her legs off of him.
“ An illicit sexual one at that,” he mutters into his cup.
There is more quiet between them. Wesley sipping his tea and Lilah her coffee - clicking the pen and tapping down words onto the newspaper clipping. When Wesley looks up from the photographed carnage he sees Lilah with her feet tucked up in the chair chewing the top of the pen and for a moment he thinks he likes this better than the sex. Just sitting here in almost complete silence, watching Lilah in the natural Los Angeles glow; her hair tucked neatly behind her ears and her diamond earrings gleaming in the sunlight.
He smiles, perhaps without meaning to but he somehow can’t help it; and it takes only a second for Lilah to catch him. She stops chewing, stares, and instead of taunting him, smiles back.
Screw it, he thinks.
He reaches over and pulls Lilah’s chair a little closer to him before scooping her into his arms. She submits easily and without hesitation, complaints, or protests - throwing her arms around his neck.
Wesley kisses her gently and passionately. It’s the only thing he knows. His mouth on hers, their tongues slow moving. He knows the feeling of her body relaxing into his, hearing the sound of the pen dropping and the comforting feel of her fingers in his hair. They could stay this way forever.
But Lilah pulls away after a comfortable amount of time. She bites her lip and presses her forehead against Wesley’s. “You made me drop the pen.”
“Should we just go back to bed?” His eyes were closed. Lilah’s fingers were still mingling gently in his hair. He thinks he feels Lilah swaying them ever so slightly from side to side but he isn’t entirely sure.
“It depends,” she murmurs. “What’s a word for “as the best of its kind?”
“Parexcelence,” he replies, opening his eyes. Lilah is smiling deeply at him.
She gives him one final kiss before leaving him cold and retrieving the pen. When she returns she settles back onto his lap, back facing him. He settles his chin in the dip between her neck and shoulder as he watches her fill out the squares. His arms lay around her waist in a comfortable embrace.
His eyes scan the clues of the crossword. Eight down, the vampire slayer. He thinks of Buffy. The clue above it says, a woman who practices occult magic and he thinks of Willow, wondering if maybe The Powers are trying to tell him something. But then his eyes fall on nineteen across, author of the Divine Comedy . Lilah already has it filled in, no doubt, what prompted her earlier apology.
She fills out twenty-two across while pressing her cheek into his. Manipulation of a sort. Mindgames. He wonders if that’s what they’re doing, but he figures you can still play those sorts of games while being affectionate with someone. Maybe even in love.
After a few more minutes Lilah mostly has the puzzle filled out with the exception of one word. She pushes it away from them before he can get a good look at the final clue.
“Do you want to go see a movie today?” Lilah loves movies. Her hands reach for the paper and find the movie selections. The first one being the new Star Wars he was intending on seeing with Gunn, though, that obviously wasn’t going to be happening anymore. Even still, it’s the first movie Lilah suggests and Wesley’s glad her back is to him so she can’t see the conflict in his eyes.
Her finger runs under another movie title. “What about Signs? It’s got aliens in it, and I hear it’s supposed to be funny. Might even get you to laugh.”
He scowls at her but she doesn't see and they decide to go see the movie in the late afternoon/evening. Lilah tells him he’ll be driving - no doubt a ploy to get more time riding behind him without having to ask.
Lilah insists on doing the dishes while Wesley paces back and forth between putting things back in their respected place and wiping the table. He also pours the remaining coffee and tea into each of their cups before setting the pots over to Lilah to be washed.
Lilah is humming as she washes. Her hands rubbing back and forth, deep in the soapy basin with the sleeves of his shirt rolled to her elbows. He isn’t quite sure of the tune but he knows it means she is relaxed. She once told him there was something about mundane chores at the end of a long night that put her at ease. Somehow doing the laundry or sweeping the floor after dealing with monsters and demons (literally and figuratively) all day made her feel normal.
Wesley takes the towel rag and thwacks the tip against Lilah’s rear. She jumps with a gasp before rearing around and splashing him with hot, soapy water. The kitchen fills with laughter from both of them before simmering back into a comfortable quiet. Lilah finishes the dishes while Wesley switches the wash from the washer to dryer - putting the dial on the delicate setting for Lilah’s clothes.
After everything is put away and tidy they wander over to the couch with their second cups of tea and coffee. Wesley sits on the couch while Lilah settles herself beside him, feet tucked into the cushions and her under his arm. She’s got the crossword and pen bunched in her hand while he flips through images on the television.
They settle on a horror movie from the 80’s. Catching the last ten seconds of A Nightmare on Elm Street , just as Freddy pulls Nancy’s mother through the window of her home. Embarrassingly, Wesley couldn’t originally figure out how Freddy pulled her though the window so fast until Lilah explained to him it was actually a blow-up doll. Not only did she appreciate its older visual effects, there was something about it just being a movie that leaned into the more normal feeling she mentioned earlier.
When Wesley sets the remote down, his eyes glance to the only book sitting on the coffee table. Dante’s Inferno - the copy Lilah bought him. The copy she signed on the inside with a red pen. Love, Lilah. It never meant anything to him before, but now there is something about the way he’s here in his flat, and so is Lilah - who blew off an important meeting to spend more time with him. And she made breakfast and washed the dishes. She tucked under his arm and he isn’t unhappy about it. The inscription never meant anything before but now he wonders if it does, if things have changed between them.
Lilah leans over, setting her empty coffee cup on the table. She skims the last word on her crossword. Four down. She fills it in with ease on his thigh. He catches a glimpse of it before she folds the paper into a tiny square and tucks it into the pocket of his shirt. She yawns and stretches herself, laying her head in Wesley’s lap. He sets his cup down on the table beside him and runs his fingers through her hair in gentle motions - thinking deeply about the last answer to her crossword.
Two down. Four squares:
Tender and passionate affection. Taken from the definition: a profoundly tender, passionate affection, often mingled with sexual desire , for another person.
The answer was love.