"Fine, what does heliotrope smell like?" It sounded like a flower, though this was Wesley she was talking to, so it could just as easily be a demon.
"You," he said, yawning.
"This is getting kind of circular."
"Mmm. I suppose you're right. There's some on the patio if you're curious." Wesley's voice trailed off as sleep finally overtook him.
Not a demon, then. One of however many flowers he had growing on the patio, so "not a demon" didn't do much to narrow the field. She stared blankly into the dark, more bothered by the whimsical words than she'd been by his earlier upset.
***
"Wes, crumpet, long time no see! Which, as we work in the same building, takes some effort on your part." Lorne got up from his desk and crossed to his wet bar. "Seabreeze?"
Wesley shook his head. "No, but thank you."
"You all right, kiddo? I'm getting a weird kind of vibe off of you. Everything a-okay upstairs?" Lorne sipped his drink and looked at Wesley expectantly.
"Everything's well. A prophecy about a shimmering bank revealed after torrential rains and devastating floods turned out to be a rather spectacular gemstone find, which, thanks to our quick translation turnaround, allowed for an even more spectacular return on land investment."
"That's not quite the upstairs I meant, pumpkin--although I'd been meaning to congratulate you on the Sri Lanka discovery. So what is it? Girl trouble?"
Lorne was watching him carefully, reminding Wesley yet again why he tended to avoid interaction with psychics when he had things on his mind. Particularily the talkative ones. He kept his face schooled into a polite, almost open expression, and chose the easiest way to avoid an awkward conversation.
"Nothing I can't handle. How is business?"
"Business is, as they say, booming. I just single-handedly arranged the coup of the century--NSync reunion show, you wouldn't believe what I had to go through to get Justin to agree to it, the little diva. I didn't even know Britney could bend like that, but she's a trooper, gotta hand it to her."
The danger of interrogation over, Wesley propped himself on the edge of Lorne's ornate and frightfully antique desk. This month, Lorne had decorated with a baroque chamber theme. He and Angel were fairly certain it would be Deco or Stickley for the next round of changes; Lorne never kept one theme for very long.
"Dare I ask?" he said, a slight lift to his brow.
Lorne refilled his glass and took a healthy swig. "Suffice it to say, Mr. Timberlake is probably cured for life of flip requests, and he's on better terms with La Brit than he's been since their Mickey Mouse Club days."
"I take it the actual details remain highly confidential?"
"Au contrare, mon petit. Though, I'm going to have to ask that you not breathe a word of it until after next month's strategic tabloid leaks, convieniently scheduled for the day before her comeback attempt is released. "America's Sweet Tart" needs all the free publicity it can get." He set the drink down and focused his attention on Wesley again. Perhaps the assumption of safety had been premature. "Enough trying to change the subject. What's troubling you?"
Wesley smiled, well aware of the slightly bitter twist of his lips, but unable to entirely eradicate it. "It's nothing, really. Just my periodic belief in the possibilty of redemption proving to be unfounded."
The dead-serious look on Lorne's face should have been comical against the maribou and satin of his ensemble. It was anything but. "I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt here, Wes, and assume you're not talking about the brain-sucking bitch from hell who can't seem to stay put?"
"That's right. Lilah mentioned she had to meet with you about contracts last week. But no, I'm afraid the redemption I'm referring to is my own." He met Lorne's eyes, enjoying the discomfort that flashed across the demon's face as he took in Wesley's casual acceptance of his own damnation.
Lorne looked away first, making a show of stirring his drink. "So, why don't I tell you every dirty little secret of the tour negotiations, up to and including how much J.C. demanded for hairstylists; that one would put even Angel to the blush."
The third draft of her letter wasn't going any better than the first two. Leaving goodbye notes was another thing she was seriously out of practice with, especially when she knew it would be read as a suicide note by the recipient. Impatiently, she blew a strand of hair out of her face and crumpled the paper into a ball.
There were a number of things she didn't want the note to do, including sending Wesley off on a wild goose chase, adding to whatever guilt he felt, and leaving any hint of where she was heading. The last one was the easiest; if she prepared the note a week or two in advance, before she had any idea which direction she was going to set out in, there was no way to hint at anything. Simple. The first two, on the other hand, were decidedly not simple.
An almost hysterical bubble of laughter escaped her as she stared at blank page number four. Immediately post-trauma, it had seemed like such a simple plan. Even when he'd taken matters into his own hands and moved her in with him, she hadn't foreseen any complications. This was Wesley, after all. Effete, irritating, pompous, life-ruining Wesley. Who was the only reason Giles hadn't killed her, who turned out to be nothing like she'd imagined he'd be, who liked plants, who was almost as likely to get absorbed in a video game as he was to get absorbed in arcane research, who thought she smelled like some exotically-named flower, and who was the first person she'd dared to connect with since leaving Sunnydale. Sometimes, Buffy marvelled at her own stupidity.
It wouldn't happen again. This time, she'd stick to her self-imposed rules--maybe in a decade or two, she wouldn't make such an appealling trophy and could ease up a little, but not until then. And this time, she'd be armed with Council phone numbers in case of emergency. Glancing at the clock told her she still had plenty of time before Wesley got home from work. With a small sigh, Buffy gathered the crumpled pages and shoved them into the back of a drawer.
Wesley's bedroom still smelled liked they'd spent the better part of the night and most of the morning in an effort to rid the world of sexual tension. Which, she figured, was mainly her fault. After all, she was the one who'd been trying to glut herself on sensation in preparation for a coming drought. Burying her head in his pillow, Buffy tried to steel herself for the coming separation while wondering how the hell things had wound up at this point. Nothing to lose wasn't supposed to be a temporary state.
Tired of feeling maudlin indoors, she collected the notebook and pen from her room, and wandered out to the patio. The blaze of color that had shocked her when she'd first seen it was now comfortingly familiar, the vined-in walls and wrought iron benches making it seem less a part of a recently-constructed townhouse and more like something out of a child's fairytale. That was, she figured, the point: for Wesley to have somewhere he could retreat to, somewhere where he wouldn't be reminded of glass buildings and responsibilities. She understood the sentiment well enough to feel almost uncomfortable about invading his sanctuary with her physical evidence of the latter.
Instead of writing her letter to Wesley, she drafted two long-overdue missives to old friends, reassuring them that she was fine, apologizing for leaving the way she did, and telling Xander and Willow in turn how much she loved them and missed them. She didn't bother to ask any of the things she'd wondered for years, if Xander had ever gotten back together with Anya, or if Willow was still with Kennedy, if Xander had ever forgiven her for the loss of his eye and the loss of his faith in her. Nor did she ask the new questions, like asking Willow if she'd known of Giles' plan. Even if she'd wanted to know the answers, she wasn't likely to ever learn them.
Buffy sealed the envelopes that marked the close of yet another part of her life and stared blankly at the various pots and planters. The light midday breeze ruffled the leaves and flowers. To her left, a bright yellow lemon bobbed on its slender branch, each movement threatening to send it toppling to the ground. Blinking away the fog that had overtaken her mind, she gathered her things and went back inside.
She'd leave both the letters in Wesley's care when she left, with instructions on when to send them. He could take care of the where. Opening the drawer, she took the balled-up drafts from the back and smoothed them out. She re-read each one carefully, looking for things she could reuse, and finally managed a short note of explanation cribbed together from the bits and pieces of what she'd been trying to say.
(I didn't spellcheck, because I'm a freak, and it's 2:10 in the AM here.)
Edited to add:
have now spellchecked. Please ignore spelling errors.
(And yes, I do have more, but I haven't polished it at all, so it's still in the doc, not here. It's only 919 words more so far. You have most of it.)
I really love this story.
I really love this story.
t beams
I finally managed to get the passage that was bothering me worked out. I almost cried. The rough transition was really, really frustrating. If I'm really good, and don't start playing around, I can hit 19000 words tonight.
Wow, that was nice to wake up to. Thanks, Plei.
He all. Thanks for the notes. A handful of edits on the last part.
In all honesty, I think there's only three or four parts to go. Maybe five.
I think there's only three or four parts to go. Maybe five.
Mooooommmmmm- Victor's being mean to us.
Plei, I so very much adore this story. I love an unconventional pairing that's so beautifully crafted, it doesn't read like slash, it reads like a script idea regretfully abandoned by the PTB because the storyline didn't quite mesh with the pairings they'd decided to follow. Brava, sweetie. Gorgeous.
Fay! I loved that! Mean to to say so earlier but I've been inventorying at Nic's office and have been basically asleep when not performing said count-y task.
Plei, ignoring the spelling, there's a word missing:
She didn't realize was struggling until he rolled off of her
Isn't that *she* was struggling?
(And oh, crap, "Britney bend like that" made me make a noise....)
(edit refux: and Victor's a tease.)
Word added!
(Well, okay, word added to the draft; I'm too lazy to go back to the actual thing.)
The NSync stuff, I fear, made me giggle. I think it's the part I like best in all the world.
