Schmoop ficlets: Wesley/Illyria
Is fandom growing bloated on a schmoop-diet? Hope not, I'm barely halfway through posting...
This week's pairing is Illyria/Wesley, for whom you get four whole ficlets. I have a feeling schmoopedants, if such there be, would say only the first one or two are Classical Schmoop. There's a distinctly wistful, angsty underlying quality to the others. But then, this isn't a simple pairing, is it? Hope you enjoy!
Author Brutti ma buoni
Title Which Cheers, and Does Not Inebriate
Rating PG
Pairing/characters Wesley/Illyria
Word Count 550
Prompt shared illness
Setting January 2009
Note: for schmoop_bingo. All my responses for this challenge are set in the Rulesverse, a post-Chosen AU in which the Slayer Council develops into a fully rounded organisation. Wesley and Illyria have an ongoing relationship, though nobody calls it ‘love’.
“This is incorrect. This has never happened before. Such a thing is an abomination to my Godhead.”
Wesley sneezed violently. His head hurt. His throat hurt. His nose was blocked, and at the same time running unstoppably. He did not want to have this discussion. But Illyria looked so baffled, he had to make an effort. At some point when he could think clearly again, it would also be interesting that she was ill. It was indeed unprecedented. Was her shell weakening? What could that portend? Just now, though, he was too stuffed up to care.
“I’m afraid it’s really quite common. In winter, even in Los Angeles, people get the sniffles.”
“It is an ailment without dignity. Unpoetic.”
Wesley tried a chuckle. It bubbled and gurgled as no chuckle should. “No. No one has ever written an ode to the common cold, I believe.”
She was stalking the room, shedding tissues as she walked.
“Come back to bed. You have a fever. You won’t feel better for exercise.”
She reluctantly complied, and was nearly between the sheets when he unfortunately suggested some hot lemon drink or, “Perhaps even a nice cup of tea?”
The look she sent him suggested he had offered her a small glass of strychnine, or a glove full of broken glass. Sometimes, he thought she saw tea as her only true rival for his affections.
Tea. Clear, delicate, infinitely variable. Perhaps with honey, for his throat?
It was possible Illyria had a point about his tea fetish. She certainly knew where his thoughts had strayed, and narrowed her reddened-blue eyes accordingly, sitting with dignity on the side of the bed, as though lying down had never occurred to her.
But he went down to the Hyperion’s kitchens anyway, and brought up two mugs. His own was Lady Grey, fragrant and delicate. Illyria’s was Orange Zinger, his latest attempt to find a tea-like substitute she would appreciate. But the artificial orange wafting from the cup told him this would not please either of them.
She had returned to bed in his absence, apparently over the tea infidelity. She was, he thought, very near sleep. But she turned over to greet him, loose limbed and uninhibited.
He set down the mugs, and slipped in beside her.
“I’m sorry you’re feeling ill.”
She curled into his side. No warrior-king this, but a Fredlike human. Yet she wasn’t using her human form. It was possible that this was Illyria without defences. He laid a hand on her hair, caressing.
But then, it could be Illyria playing with humanity. She did sometimes enjoy the game.
His hand, unbidden, drew back from her.
Her eyes opened, slow and reluctant. “I smell falseness.”
“Yes. I’m afraid the zinger doesn’t look too promising. I’m sorry.” Hot drinks were safe for discussion. (That might also be why she thought he was obsessed with tea.)
“It matters not. I taste nothing. Life lacks savour. I do not wish to imbibe.”
Somehow, the extravagant self-pity convinced Wesley she was genuine. He cuddled down beside her, snuffling gently, tea quite forgotten.
“I’m sorry you became ill. It passes quickly, though it lacks dignity. Try to think of it as an experience common to humanity.”
“I am not human,” she said, very quiet.
For the first time, he thought perhaps she regretted that.
*
Author Brutti ma buoni
Title Slip of the Tongue
Rating PG
Pairing/characters Wesley/Illyria, Lorne
Word Count 600
Prompt Pregnancy (male or female)
Setting July 2010
Note: for schmoop_bingo. All my responses for this challenge are set in the Rulesverse, a post-Chosen AU in which the Slayer Council develops into a fully rounded organisation.
Illyria was almost blushing. “We are to have a child,” she said, half-human in her pleasure and shyness.
Lorne choked on his margarita. “A baby? You? Having? You’re sure?” The demon couldn’t have sounded more incredulous if she’d suggested she wanted to take up clog dancing or keeping gerbils. Make that both.
“And the child is Wesley’s?” He had to check.
“Of course. Did I not say we were to have a child?”
Lorne looked at her flat plane of a belly. Couldn’t tell anything from that. “When is it due?” He was trying to be calm and normal about this. Illyria deserved as much, given her great strides towards semi-humanity.
“In eight months. I should not be sharing the news so soon, but my anticipation is too great to be borne.” Lorne tried to still his interior questions. She sounded so much like any new... mother.
But a few things needed to be clarified. Lorne had spent six years as mother hen to the weird and wonderful range of SSOs training for posts with the Slayer Council. Their variously magical and demonic talents sometimes led to troubles like this, and he now had some of the best mystical midwifery in the world on speed dial. But you had to sort out what the problem was before coping like a champ.
And did he ever have reason to be perturbed in this case. “Have you yet talked to Wesley about... practicalities?”
“Of course. Some things have yet to be resolved, but we are in agreement about the essentials.”
“Really? Because I would have thought Wesley... well, maybe ‘traditional’ isn’t the right word for him...” (Definitely not. What with the sleeping with the animated corpse of his girlfriend and all. But surely there were limits to Wesley’s liberal approach to sexual relations?) “But, he is aware that you are... somewhat different...?”
Dumb thing to say, Lorne. So very dumb. Illyria was almost nothing but different.
“And he’s content to carry the child?”
Illyria looked at him with a blank-slate face. Lorne was floundering.
A voice behind them said, “What?” It was Wesley.
Illyria said, deadpan, “Lorne was remarking that we do not have sex.” If Lorne had reliably been able to read the God King, he’d have been quite certain she was laughing at him. Because no, technically Old Ones had no gender, but he would never have said it in those words, let alone to the guy she very definitely did have the sex with. And that wasn’t even the biggest problem on his mind.
Wesley tutted. “You have been talking out of turn, haven’t you? This is supposed to be our secret.” He flicked a glance at the now terminally-confused empath, and decided to have mercy. “I think Illyria has, perhaps inadvertently, misled you. Neither she nor I is pregnant. We have agreed that it would be more than slightly discomposing for us even to consider having a child. The fact that she has no internal organs... and my own reluctance to...” He waved a hand abdomen-wards, vaguely indicating the massive changes that would be needed for any mystical pregnancy. “....well, on the whole, we thought not.”
Thank the goddesses. Lorne tried to keep a straight face, but he was still deeply confused. “But there’s a baby? Somewhere?”
Wesley simply shook his head. “Not my secret. Not my child. Not yours either,” he added, sternly, to Illyria.
It was seven weeks before Buffy and Spike announced that their second child was on the way. And even then, Lorne couldn’t be sure he knew what he thought he knew.
*
Author Brutti ma buoni
Title Far Seeing
Rating PG13
Pairing/characters Wesley/Illyria
Word Count 540
Prompt first ultrasound
Setting September 2010
Note: for schmoop_bingo. All my responses for this challenge are set in the Rulesverse, a post-Chosen AU in which the Slayer Council develops into a fully rounded organisation. For this one you need to know Spike and Buffy have a daughter, Annie, and another child on the way. They were conceived using donor sperm. Wesley’s, as it happens, but that isn't common knowledge around the Council.
“Would it be all right if we saw it?” Wesley felt terribly embarrassed but also quite determined not to lose out due to essential awkwardness. He’d done that last time, and not known what he had lost. But now, watching Giles in his baffled but authentic pleasure in imminent fatherhood, Wesley had become aware that this was probably his only chance to share some of this perfectly normal, utterly mysterious process.
Buffy sounded wary. “Um, sure you can. You know... it’s not all that interesting.” There was then a muffled sound at her end of the line, of irritation and disagreement. Inevitably, it was followed with a, “Spike wants to talk to you.”
“Woman’s going nuts. She doesn’t know a miraculous happening when she sees one. Seriously, Wes, you don’t want to miss out on this again. I’m bloody well going through every minute of this, y’know?” There was a different muffled sound at the Summers end of the line. It was almost certainly Buffy expressing some doubt about Spike’s capacity to take the lead in her second pregnancy. Wesley even caught a few words “...ankles... third degree tearing... hideous floral tent-dresses... if only you could...”
But he knew what Spike meant. They were in virtually the same position, having left Buffy to her first pregnancy out of delicacy (his own excuse) or refusal to be involved (Spike). Now their odd arrangement had settled into comfortable normality, they were catching up.
And then there was Illyria. Baffled by Annie’s conception (without her knowledge or consent; not that she had been in any position to object), she conversely viewed the new infant as part of her personal entourage. A possibly difficult tendency, Wesley thought, unless Spike and Buffy wanted the world’s least reliable babysitter on tap in future. (Though it was partly his own fault for involving her in the first part of the conception process. Far better than tatty skin mags, but with far longer repercussions.)
But back to the point, and time to stop thinking of unrespectable matters. A new message appeared in his inbox, with a link to a locked filesharing site. He clicked. He watched, very quietly, as the screen filled with a grey-white-black blur of movement.
“Got it?” Spike checked, after a few seconds. “Head’s to the right. You can see the arms pretty well. Legs a bit blurred, they weren’t so far forward.”
“Yes. Yes, I can see quite well. It’s amazing how clear, actually. I’ve seen stills, but they...” Wesley’s voice gave out.
“Yeah. Pretty stunning, isn’t it?” Spike’s voice was proprietorial, and softer than usual. “What does Blue think?”
Illyria was looking over Wesley’s shoulder. She was perfectly silent and motionless, until she reached out one finger, and traced on the computer screen the line of the child’s spine.
“She is real,” she said.
Quietly, but Spike caught the words. “’Nother girl, huh? Bloody hell, Wes, couldn’t you at least sort me out some backup here?”
So different to last time - there were jokes, there was shared experience, there was open discussion. Wesley sat, determined not to let his misty eyes become teary, and smiled as he watched Illyria caress the facsimile of the image of the child who was almost-but-not-quite theirs.
*
Author Brutti ma buoni
Title Half-Light
RatingPG13
Pairing/characters Wesley/Illyria
Word Count 529
Prompt candlelight sex
Setting April 2013
Note: for schmoop_bingo. All my responses for this challenge are set in the Rulesverse, a post-Chosen AU in which the Slayer Council develops into a fully rounded organisation. ETA Since the last ficlet, Buffy has retired from leading the Council and gone back to a field placement in California, within easy reach of Wesley and Illyria in LA, and taking her family along. She was badly injured a month ago, and they have now returned to Slayer Council HQ in Scotland.
Illyria is dangerous in half-light. Wesley has learned this painfully and more than once.
In this light, she is dark, all the blue lost in shadow. She looks like Fred. But her eyes remain, when her lids are lifted, ice-blue, luminous, inhuman.
But nonetheless tonight, he lights candles. Seven on the dressing table, multiplied by the triple mirror inherited from his great aunt. Three more clustered in the glass holder by the bed.
It feels ritual, though he has examined his conscience and training, and does not believe there is any demon ceremonial likely to be triggered.
(He has also learned to make these checks. Fucking Illyria has side effects, if done incautiously. Even the human consequences are vast, after all. No reason to think the supernatural world owes them any breaks.)
She has been very quiet today, which he did not expect. Furious still, perhaps, but she has protested for the entire five weeks since it happened, until now. (No, do her justice, she took an hour to kill the Hellbeast that ripped their family apart, first.) She is angry with Buffy, for being vulnerable, and at Spike for taking her away to recover. This is the first day she has stopped proclaiming her rage.
He knows it was needed. Buffy wanted to get away - to ‘go home’ in fact, to Scotland. Annie wanted to go too, her Californian adventure turned frighteningly dark. So the five months they had had with the girls within an easy drive were all the time they would have together.
Wesley is resigned to this. In fact, he thinks it would have been a mistake to continue for much longer. Annie and Rorie are not his children, not in any way that matters. The proximity made it too easy to forget. Back to being one of a crowd of benign adults in their background; safer for all concerned to be clear about that lack of connection.
Illyria disagrees.
This is his family: his ghost-girl and her conscienceless killer. This single beauty in his bed, both genders and none, endlessly inventive and amoral. He knows that without Lilah he would never have matched Illyria. (Sometimes, secretly, he knows too that Fred might never have matched the needs he had already learned.)
They are a good match now, he and Illyria. Tonight, he’s going to remind her of it.
She loves firelight; its delicate flickering a fascinating distraction. Power without substance is a conflict she has never fathomed. Multiple points of candlelight will make her eyes dance, her skin prickle with extra sensation. He will be able to make her gasp with mere fingertips. She will open for him, unfolding with need, curling her limbs around him as though to absorb him wholesale. (Could she, if she really tried? He thinks it likely. She is never safe.) It may become a marathon of pure sex, leaving them raw and the candles burnt to stubs.
But he’s hoping it will be more: one of those rare nights when he can talk to her of sentiment, and when she will consent to be beloved. Flickering in the half-light, and what he wants more than anything else in life.
Almost.
***
This week's pairing is Illyria/Wesley, for whom you get four whole ficlets. I have a feeling schmoopedants, if such there be, would say only the first one or two are Classical Schmoop. There's a distinctly wistful, angsty underlying quality to the others. But then, this isn't a simple pairing, is it? Hope you enjoy!
Author Brutti ma buoni
Title Which Cheers, and Does Not Inebriate
Rating PG
Pairing/characters Wesley/Illyria
Word Count 550
Prompt shared illness
Setting January 2009
Note: for schmoop_bingo. All my responses for this challenge are set in the Rulesverse, a post-Chosen AU in which the Slayer Council develops into a fully rounded organisation. Wesley and Illyria have an ongoing relationship, though nobody calls it ‘love’.
“This is incorrect. This has never happened before. Such a thing is an abomination to my Godhead.”
Wesley sneezed violently. His head hurt. His throat hurt. His nose was blocked, and at the same time running unstoppably. He did not want to have this discussion. But Illyria looked so baffled, he had to make an effort. At some point when he could think clearly again, it would also be interesting that she was ill. It was indeed unprecedented. Was her shell weakening? What could that portend? Just now, though, he was too stuffed up to care.
“I’m afraid it’s really quite common. In winter, even in Los Angeles, people get the sniffles.”
“It is an ailment without dignity. Unpoetic.”
Wesley tried a chuckle. It bubbled and gurgled as no chuckle should. “No. No one has ever written an ode to the common cold, I believe.”
She was stalking the room, shedding tissues as she walked.
“Come back to bed. You have a fever. You won’t feel better for exercise.”
She reluctantly complied, and was nearly between the sheets when he unfortunately suggested some hot lemon drink or, “Perhaps even a nice cup of tea?”
The look she sent him suggested he had offered her a small glass of strychnine, or a glove full of broken glass. Sometimes, he thought she saw tea as her only true rival for his affections.
Tea. Clear, delicate, infinitely variable. Perhaps with honey, for his throat?
It was possible Illyria had a point about his tea fetish. She certainly knew where his thoughts had strayed, and narrowed her reddened-blue eyes accordingly, sitting with dignity on the side of the bed, as though lying down had never occurred to her.
But he went down to the Hyperion’s kitchens anyway, and brought up two mugs. His own was Lady Grey, fragrant and delicate. Illyria’s was Orange Zinger, his latest attempt to find a tea-like substitute she would appreciate. But the artificial orange wafting from the cup told him this would not please either of them.
She had returned to bed in his absence, apparently over the tea infidelity. She was, he thought, very near sleep. But she turned over to greet him, loose limbed and uninhibited.
He set down the mugs, and slipped in beside her.
“I’m sorry you’re feeling ill.”
She curled into his side. No warrior-king this, but a Fredlike human. Yet she wasn’t using her human form. It was possible that this was Illyria without defences. He laid a hand on her hair, caressing.
But then, it could be Illyria playing with humanity. She did sometimes enjoy the game.
His hand, unbidden, drew back from her.
Her eyes opened, slow and reluctant. “I smell falseness.”
“Yes. I’m afraid the zinger doesn’t look too promising. I’m sorry.” Hot drinks were safe for discussion. (That might also be why she thought he was obsessed with tea.)
“It matters not. I taste nothing. Life lacks savour. I do not wish to imbibe.”
Somehow, the extravagant self-pity convinced Wesley she was genuine. He cuddled down beside her, snuffling gently, tea quite forgotten.
“I’m sorry you became ill. It passes quickly, though it lacks dignity. Try to think of it as an experience common to humanity.”
“I am not human,” she said, very quiet.
For the first time, he thought perhaps she regretted that.
*
Author Brutti ma buoni
Title Slip of the Tongue
Rating PG
Pairing/characters Wesley/Illyria, Lorne
Word Count 600
Prompt Pregnancy (male or female)
Setting July 2010
Note: for schmoop_bingo. All my responses for this challenge are set in the Rulesverse, a post-Chosen AU in which the Slayer Council develops into a fully rounded organisation.
Illyria was almost blushing. “We are to have a child,” she said, half-human in her pleasure and shyness.
Lorne choked on his margarita. “A baby? You? Having? You’re sure?” The demon couldn’t have sounded more incredulous if she’d suggested she wanted to take up clog dancing or keeping gerbils. Make that both.
“And the child is Wesley’s?” He had to check.
“Of course. Did I not say we were to have a child?”
Lorne looked at her flat plane of a belly. Couldn’t tell anything from that. “When is it due?” He was trying to be calm and normal about this. Illyria deserved as much, given her great strides towards semi-humanity.
“In eight months. I should not be sharing the news so soon, but my anticipation is too great to be borne.” Lorne tried to still his interior questions. She sounded so much like any new... mother.
But a few things needed to be clarified. Lorne had spent six years as mother hen to the weird and wonderful range of SSOs training for posts with the Slayer Council. Their variously magical and demonic talents sometimes led to troubles like this, and he now had some of the best mystical midwifery in the world on speed dial. But you had to sort out what the problem was before coping like a champ.
And did he ever have reason to be perturbed in this case. “Have you yet talked to Wesley about... practicalities?”
“Of course. Some things have yet to be resolved, but we are in agreement about the essentials.”
“Really? Because I would have thought Wesley... well, maybe ‘traditional’ isn’t the right word for him...” (Definitely not. What with the sleeping with the animated corpse of his girlfriend and all. But surely there were limits to Wesley’s liberal approach to sexual relations?) “But, he is aware that you are... somewhat different...?”
Dumb thing to say, Lorne. So very dumb. Illyria was almost nothing but different.
“And he’s content to carry the child?”
Illyria looked at him with a blank-slate face. Lorne was floundering.
A voice behind them said, “What?” It was Wesley.
Illyria said, deadpan, “Lorne was remarking that we do not have sex.” If Lorne had reliably been able to read the God King, he’d have been quite certain she was laughing at him. Because no, technically Old Ones had no gender, but he would never have said it in those words, let alone to the guy she very definitely did have the sex with. And that wasn’t even the biggest problem on his mind.
Wesley tutted. “You have been talking out of turn, haven’t you? This is supposed to be our secret.” He flicked a glance at the now terminally-confused empath, and decided to have mercy. “I think Illyria has, perhaps inadvertently, misled you. Neither she nor I is pregnant. We have agreed that it would be more than slightly discomposing for us even to consider having a child. The fact that she has no internal organs... and my own reluctance to...” He waved a hand abdomen-wards, vaguely indicating the massive changes that would be needed for any mystical pregnancy. “....well, on the whole, we thought not.”
Thank the goddesses. Lorne tried to keep a straight face, but he was still deeply confused. “But there’s a baby? Somewhere?”
Wesley simply shook his head. “Not my secret. Not my child. Not yours either,” he added, sternly, to Illyria.
It was seven weeks before Buffy and Spike announced that their second child was on the way. And even then, Lorne couldn’t be sure he knew what he thought he knew.
*
Author Brutti ma buoni
Title Far Seeing
Rating PG13
Pairing/characters Wesley/Illyria
Word Count 540
Prompt first ultrasound
Setting September 2010
Note: for schmoop_bingo. All my responses for this challenge are set in the Rulesverse, a post-Chosen AU in which the Slayer Council develops into a fully rounded organisation. For this one you need to know Spike and Buffy have a daughter, Annie, and another child on the way. They were conceived using donor sperm. Wesley’s, as it happens, but that isn't common knowledge around the Council.
“Would it be all right if we saw it?” Wesley felt terribly embarrassed but also quite determined not to lose out due to essential awkwardness. He’d done that last time, and not known what he had lost. But now, watching Giles in his baffled but authentic pleasure in imminent fatherhood, Wesley had become aware that this was probably his only chance to share some of this perfectly normal, utterly mysterious process.
Buffy sounded wary. “Um, sure you can. You know... it’s not all that interesting.” There was then a muffled sound at her end of the line, of irritation and disagreement. Inevitably, it was followed with a, “Spike wants to talk to you.”
“Woman’s going nuts. She doesn’t know a miraculous happening when she sees one. Seriously, Wes, you don’t want to miss out on this again. I’m bloody well going through every minute of this, y’know?” There was a different muffled sound at the Summers end of the line. It was almost certainly Buffy expressing some doubt about Spike’s capacity to take the lead in her second pregnancy. Wesley even caught a few words “...ankles... third degree tearing... hideous floral tent-dresses... if only you could...”
But he knew what Spike meant. They were in virtually the same position, having left Buffy to her first pregnancy out of delicacy (his own excuse) or refusal to be involved (Spike). Now their odd arrangement had settled into comfortable normality, they were catching up.
And then there was Illyria. Baffled by Annie’s conception (without her knowledge or consent; not that she had been in any position to object), she conversely viewed the new infant as part of her personal entourage. A possibly difficult tendency, Wesley thought, unless Spike and Buffy wanted the world’s least reliable babysitter on tap in future. (Though it was partly his own fault for involving her in the first part of the conception process. Far better than tatty skin mags, but with far longer repercussions.)
But back to the point, and time to stop thinking of unrespectable matters. A new message appeared in his inbox, with a link to a locked filesharing site. He clicked. He watched, very quietly, as the screen filled with a grey-white-black blur of movement.
“Got it?” Spike checked, after a few seconds. “Head’s to the right. You can see the arms pretty well. Legs a bit blurred, they weren’t so far forward.”
“Yes. Yes, I can see quite well. It’s amazing how clear, actually. I’ve seen stills, but they...” Wesley’s voice gave out.
“Yeah. Pretty stunning, isn’t it?” Spike’s voice was proprietorial, and softer than usual. “What does Blue think?”
Illyria was looking over Wesley’s shoulder. She was perfectly silent and motionless, until she reached out one finger, and traced on the computer screen the line of the child’s spine.
“She is real,” she said.
Quietly, but Spike caught the words. “’Nother girl, huh? Bloody hell, Wes, couldn’t you at least sort me out some backup here?”
So different to last time - there were jokes, there was shared experience, there was open discussion. Wesley sat, determined not to let his misty eyes become teary, and smiled as he watched Illyria caress the facsimile of the image of the child who was almost-but-not-quite theirs.
*
Author Brutti ma buoni
Title Half-Light
RatingPG13
Pairing/characters Wesley/Illyria
Word Count 529
Prompt candlelight sex
Setting April 2013
Note: for schmoop_bingo. All my responses for this challenge are set in the Rulesverse, a post-Chosen AU in which the Slayer Council develops into a fully rounded organisation. ETA Since the last ficlet, Buffy has retired from leading the Council and gone back to a field placement in California, within easy reach of Wesley and Illyria in LA, and taking her family along. She was badly injured a month ago, and they have now returned to Slayer Council HQ in Scotland.
Illyria is dangerous in half-light. Wesley has learned this painfully and more than once.
In this light, she is dark, all the blue lost in shadow. She looks like Fred. But her eyes remain, when her lids are lifted, ice-blue, luminous, inhuman.
But nonetheless tonight, he lights candles. Seven on the dressing table, multiplied by the triple mirror inherited from his great aunt. Three more clustered in the glass holder by the bed.
It feels ritual, though he has examined his conscience and training, and does not believe there is any demon ceremonial likely to be triggered.
(He has also learned to make these checks. Fucking Illyria has side effects, if done incautiously. Even the human consequences are vast, after all. No reason to think the supernatural world owes them any breaks.)
She has been very quiet today, which he did not expect. Furious still, perhaps, but she has protested for the entire five weeks since it happened, until now. (No, do her justice, she took an hour to kill the Hellbeast that ripped their family apart, first.) She is angry with Buffy, for being vulnerable, and at Spike for taking her away to recover. This is the first day she has stopped proclaiming her rage.
He knows it was needed. Buffy wanted to get away - to ‘go home’ in fact, to Scotland. Annie wanted to go too, her Californian adventure turned frighteningly dark. So the five months they had had with the girls within an easy drive were all the time they would have together.
Wesley is resigned to this. In fact, he thinks it would have been a mistake to continue for much longer. Annie and Rorie are not his children, not in any way that matters. The proximity made it too easy to forget. Back to being one of a crowd of benign adults in their background; safer for all concerned to be clear about that lack of connection.
Illyria disagrees.
This is his family: his ghost-girl and her conscienceless killer. This single beauty in his bed, both genders and none, endlessly inventive and amoral. He knows that without Lilah he would never have matched Illyria. (Sometimes, secretly, he knows too that Fred might never have matched the needs he had already learned.)
They are a good match now, he and Illyria. Tonight, he’s going to remind her of it.
She loves firelight; its delicate flickering a fascinating distraction. Power without substance is a conflict she has never fathomed. Multiple points of candlelight will make her eyes dance, her skin prickle with extra sensation. He will be able to make her gasp with mere fingertips. She will open for him, unfolding with need, curling her limbs around him as though to absorb him wholesale. (Could she, if she really tried? He thinks it likely. She is never safe.) It may become a marathon of pure sex, leaving them raw and the candles burnt to stubs.
But he’s hoping it will be more: one of those rare nights when he can talk to her of sentiment, and when she will consent to be beloved. Flickering in the half-light, and what he wants more than anything else in life.
Almost.
***