Illyria (somuchgrace) wrote in welcomethreads, @ 2013-09-14 22:06:00 |
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Entry tags: | illyria, wesley wyndam-pryce |
Who: Illyria and Wesley Wyndam-Pryce
Where: Their Room
When: Late August/Early September
What: Illyria and Wesley talk about her trying to set him up with Claire
RATING: PG-13 for a little angst.
STATUS: log; complete.
Illyria was frustrated. The humans here did nothing but speak over computers and mill around in herds, taking their assigned spaces as if those who set themselves in power in this place had some true authority to dictate where she resided. The boundaries that hemmed them into this place felt oppressively small, and their apartment was worse - all walls and small windows and teeming humanity above and below and beside. It felt small. Illyria already was trapped within a small, frail form. To then close that form up into ever smaller spaces was. . . uncomfortable. She didn't understand how they never felt it, the pressing in of walls and the lack of vastness in their lives. There was so much they were unaware of, so many worlds they had no vision to see. Their existences were small, lived in boxes. It was beyond bearing. And she was held here by forces they had no explanation for, power she couldn't touch even to identify its source. She disliked being helpless. It chafed at her, a constant irritant. And yet. She was not sure she was eager to leave. She wished for the ability to leave, and to tear out the throat of whoever saw to her incarnation. But here those who had been gone were not. It mattered. More than it should. Still, she couldn't spend too much time in the space allotted her without needing to walk. She'd paced the limits of the town a half dozen times already, but kept trying, testing the limits as if they might alter. That done, she climbed to the root of their assigned cell, standing at the edge and watching the people below. They did nothing of interest, but she watched anyway. She saw Wesley below, and moved finally, hours later, drifting back downstairs and into their apartment a few moments after Wesley had returned. "There are more housed here, again," she told him, speaking up from directly behind Wesley. Wesley found himself also lacking direction, as there were only so many books he could leaf through before they came up with no real ideas. He was still determined to try and get people where they belonged. There was an ever present concern that when he did, he might have to go back to his death too. He wanted to live, despite his pain and grief. He had no hope that Fred was on the other side. Her soul was burned away, and anything left of her was in Illyria. He suspected his contract with Wolfram & Hart was a factor in his future too. It all added up to nothing good. Trying to understand the magic there was a distraction. His neat ways stopped around the time Fred died, as a side effect of not caring any more. The apartment was clean, it was merely starting to get clustered with books and his notes. He created a few maps of his own, highlighting certain areas, and he got a bulletin board for it. There were small pins in the places people said they appeared at first. Wesley spent a good portion of his time looking at the map. And drinking. He was glad to have the others around, even seeing Lilah again was giving them some closure, but he had his demons hanging over his head. Illyria was a walking one, and at the same time, she was one of the few things that seemed constant and comforting. To call the former god comforting was an insane thought, but she was familiar. Wesley found himself doing small acts of courtesy and kindness, sometimes to appease her, and others because it felt like the thing to do. “Yes, the numbers do appear to be growing. I can’t see a pattern in how many come through.” It was frustrating. He hated having no answers. It spelled trouble for them each time, and without his brain, what use was he? Wesley looked at the map, puzzled. He forgot to shave again that morning so his scruff was more than usual. He snapped out of his focus and looked over to Illyria. Right. He was supposed to talk to her. “Angel told me he threatened you, and I asked him not to. Would you care to explain to me why you fought?” He wanted to hear her side of it. Illyria circled around him, neatly evading a pile of books. No one would ever accuse Illyria of being kind, but she was protective of Wesley, in her way, and she orbited around him. She had no real touchstone - not only in this town, but in this time. She aided the others, and there were times when she showed a glimmer of affection for them, or familiarity. Sometimes even a ghost of a sense of humor. But none of it was solid, none gave her real purpose. Wesley didn't either, but he was closest. Had she been Fred and not Illyria, she would have looked after him - pushed him to sleep, taken the poisonous drink from him, kissed and touched. She did none of that, but she had her small ways of showing consideration that she wouldn't have with anyone else. She left his things where they were, and didn't disturb his patterns of research. Around new company she was a shadow at his shoulder, watching for any sign of threat. Once he fell asleep and woke to a blanket draped over him that hadn't been there before. It wasn't much. Illyria would never be Fred. But it was something. Blue eyes studied Wesley's face, taking in the stubble. "You look ill kept," she informed him, though there was no insult in it, just fact. Her brow knit just enough to cause a thin line between them, and then smoothed again. "He believes himself the leader he is not, here. He claims insight he does not have and seeks to give me orders. As if he holds that right. As if any here do. I did his bidding by choice, not by order." And because Wesley had, and as vengeance for what was done to her - by Hamilton, even by Wesley. She wouldn't punish him for having stripped her of her powers, but her anger over it had never really faded. She had funneled it into Angel's battle because it had been in her interests, for many reasons. Here, Angel had no more purpose than she. Illyria resented his presumption otherwise. "We did not fight," she added If they had, she would have won. "You are lonely, here," she added, subject veering suddenly wildly off track. Wesley was presumably her priest, her right hand, or at least that was the title they went with at first. In many ways she ended up his body guard instead. She was hovering nearby, and strangely it did make him feel safer. Illyria was a loose cannon, but for whatever reason he trusted her. As far as he trusted anyone these days. They had a connection. It stemmed from Fred, but they warped it into one better suited for them. He advised her and helped her understand the world, and she let him slightly under her guard. Their situation was unique and disturbing, and yet it existed and he could not shed it. Somewhere she had Fred’s memories. She was a part of the woman he loved for years, and the only thing left. “Yes, it is quiet here, more difficult to sleep then I realized.” Wesley stopped sleeping well some time ago, and he never got the habit back. He had to live on ‘mostly good enough.’ “I am doing fine. You do not need to be concerned.” He still remembered to eat and drink water on top of alcohol, occasionally. “Leadership is a hard habit to break. You know that better than most. He’s falling back on what he knows best in order to get by.” He decided to break his drinking streak and moved into the kitchen to boil water instead. Tea would give him a nice jolt, for a short time. “It gives him purpose. I wouldn’t take it personally.” Wesley went along with what made Angel comfortable because it was easy and he respected the man. Despite everything that happened between them. They made the only peace they could find. Angel knew what a broken man looked like. Wesley wondered if he thought it was justified, that it was what passed for karma after taking Connor. Not Fred’s death, but his pain. He came back into the room she occupied while the water boiled and leaned against the door frame, folding arms. “I have people here to keep me from being lonely. Claire is not a substitute for Fred. I thought you understood that and why I didn’t want you to pretend until I was dying.” For him there was no replacement for the woman he loved. Wesley thought that was best, what woman felt right being compared that way? “The consideration is appreciated but unnecessary.” "I was worshipped. My armies followed out of awe, love, and fear of annihilation. Disloyalty would have meant instant death. You doubted Angel long before he proved worthy of such doubt. He is inconsistent, weak with his own failings and insecurities. Ill suited. He always has been. The world chose poor champions." Fred had loved Angel. Once with intent, and later as family. Illyria understood neither of those things, and Angel - who had little patience for her - annoyed her. But there was lingering loyalty. It had brought her back to fight beside him, after Wesley's death. She could have sought violence anywhere, but she had chosen to stay, to finish the battle against those who had led to Wesley's death. Even though the greatest cause had been Angel himself, who began the fight, and Wesley, who had failed to win his part of it. She hadn't blamed Angel, though she could have. She watched Wesley as he emerged again, cocking her head. "You object to the lie of my being Fred. Yet you felt desire for her form. Claire Saunders has her face, and her form, but is not her. She would suffice. And she is no threat." Illyria stopped, mouth pulling down at the corners faintly. "You have spoken to Angel. He has no real understanding, but believes that he does. He is deluded." Illyria didn't understand Wesley's impulses, much of the time. But Angel had no better comprehension than she did. He was no human either. He might be nothing but a half-breed, but it was still not the same. "The people here do not fulfill the function you needed from Fred. She could." Wesley smiled wryly as she talked about Angel, and he couldn’t really disagree with her assessment. “I doubted him for a variety of reasons. His temporary soul being a major one. I remember Angelus well.” He spent more time with Angel, but he would never forget Angelus. It was at the center of their issues together. Wesley was a Watcher and naturally suspicious of the vampire he heard horror stories about. It was difficult to get rid of those prejudices, especially after he saw Angelus for himself. “We follow people that inspire us. Angel for all of his weaknesses and insecurities has a certainty of purpose. It’s difficult to find these days.” The idea of helping the hopeless was attractive to each of them for differing reasons. Wesley just wanted to feel like he mattered, to make a difference. He used to crave the attention and power that Angel got simply by walking around and taking charge of a room. Now he knew that true power wasn’t so obvious, and he wanted none of it. “She’s not Fred. I do not know how I can fully explain this to you. But what I lost I cannot get back. And it would hardly be fair to subject someone else to that. Claire would no more want to be a replacement than I would want her to be.” He did not know the woman well, but he couldn’t imagine that she was interested in that kind of cruelty. Wesley considered how to explain it to her while he folded his arms. Finally he looked at her again. “Let’s see if this works. I am dead, in our world. You were there with me.” And she cared, he saw the pain and fury in her when she arrived. He took a step closer to her. “If you saw a man with my face, would that be enough for you? Or would you know the same thing that I do? It will never be the same.” Maybe a part of him hoped that she’d agree, that he wasn’t so easily exchanged. Illyria looked away from him, eyes mapping restlessly around the room before she settled on Wesley again. "Angel is a creature of two natures. One side will never be in true ascendance because he cannot release one. The human controls his conscience. The demon gives him his strength. They cannot live in harmony. It is why half breeds are without real power. They are watered down already. Even those without souls are forever at war with their own nature." Illyria spoke with her usual assurance, as if all she knew and said was indisputable. That was rarely as true as she believed it to be, though. Illyria often forgot that her word was no longer law just on strength of no one having the power to truly challenge it. Or not forgot so much as ignored the reality of her changed existence. The smallness of her life now made her feel caged, she clung to the illusions that all she had been was waiting, somewhere, to be reclaimed. She recoiled slightly, the question getting through more than any other past warnings from Angel or Wesley himself had. Illyria frowned. "It is not the same. I am not human. I have not spent a short span of years pining for affection," she snapped. But there was a hint of something thoughtful in her expression, too. "Your species craves contact. Your attraction to one who looks like her is proven. She has no echo of Fred to complicate it. It could be viable, if you allow it." But there was less ringing certainty in her tone. She watched him step in closer, letting him approach without moving toward him in turn. Illyria was quiet and then offered slowly. "You reek of solitude, and drink too much. It is disquieting." I'm concerned, anyone else would have said. Illyria didn't, but the implication was there. Wesley agreed with her assessment of Angel in this case. “Yes, I see that with Spike too. Before he had the soul, I’ve heard he was still at war with himself.” He only interacted with him briefly before the soul, and he was evil of course, but what he heard from Sunnydale was that things were never as simple as they seemed. “But there’s duality in human nature too. Demons, humans, witches, werewolves, perhaps we have more in common than we’d like. To varying degrees.” He spent his entire life researching the supernatural, and he still had very few answers about the motivations or reasons for other creatures. Only that they all managed to survive in this strange balance. At least until one side got stronger than the other. He felt a brief flutter of satisfaction that she did not argue with his question. “But you understand more now, don’t you?” Wesley knew she had her own motivations for bothering Claire on his behalf, which was why he asked Angel to back off. He was not able to see Illyria the same way Wesley did. She was not Fred, but she was an individual, one he was getting comfortable being around. “It wasn’t her appearance I loved. It was everything about her. Her mind and heart and courage.” As usual, talking about Fred was both heartwrenching and made him feel completely empty. “She was the shell, that was your name for it. And the shell is nothing without the person within it.” Wesley took her words for what they were and smiled faintly at her. “I doubt you’re the only person worried about me. It’s difficult to explain to them, let alone to you.” Illyria didn’t understand emotions, although maybe that was why he bothered to try. “Whenever the hurt starts to lessen, I feel … guilty that it does. I don’t want to move on, because that means ….” She was really dead and gone for good. Intellectually he knew that, but emotionally, it was still a problem. “I’m not ready.” "It was simpler, in my time. We fought, we ruled, we destroyed. We held no sentiment or conscience, suffered no fleeting attacks of mercy that left claws waiting at our naked backs to thank us for our leniency." They had very little joy, too, though Illyria had only recently come to see a true difference between the joy humanity was capable of and the satisfied enjoyment of a battle won or an enemy vanquished. It had been all she knew, and thus she had no reason to miss what that life had lacked. She wondered now if she returned to her time and her world, if it would feel lacking. If it would be lessened by this thing she had become now. It was disquieting to wonder so. She chose to ignore it, most of the time. Even in her time there had been disparity, those with love and concern. Illyria had just not been among them. She had been above such things. Or so she thought. Illyria didn't understand. She was trying to, though. For anyone else she wouldn't have bothered. "Yet you waited. You desired an association with her, but refrained, standing aside for Charles. Because of your exile over Angel's son, and then even when the memory of such was taken from you. You waited. You drank, and you pined and failed to act and then Fred was gone and I stood in her place. Acting before such failures would save you the regret of years wasted without motion." She hesitated, chin lowering just a little in a strange slip of body language that reflected her hesitancy. "I would spare you regret," she said finally. "The scent of it offends me." The insult seemed tacked on for the sake of pride more than genuine. There was something beautiful in the way Illyria spoke. It was lyrical. Poetic. Strange at times and difficult to follow, depending on where her mind was going, but there was nothing like it. "Simpler, yes. But the complications we have are part of what makes the modern world unique. Sentiment … it can be a torment and reassuring." Wes knew she could never fully understand, they were too alien from each other, and yet he kept trying. It could be the Watcher in him, always ready with patient explanations. Fascinated by anything different and outside of the normal. He had no interest in simple. Simple was boring. Wesley's curiosity was something he shared with Fred. Only she had a mind like his, in their team. "I … sometimes forget how much you know." Wesley still felt a small amount of embarrassment for his past actions. No matter how much he changed, at heart he was that bumbling fool that the others used to affectionately mock. He did not strike fear in the hearts of many, for most of his life. It was because of his personal shame that he stood aside. He didn't fight for what he wanted. He waited too long and Fred moved on, and he let it go. Illyria was right. He did pine and dwell and acted abhorrently at times. All in the name of unrequited love. "I appreciate that, Illyria. Sincerely. I do not want to bother you with my emotions, so if it displeases you … you don't have to stay here." Wesley felt strangely flustered by it. The idea of her seeing straight to his heart was assumed before, she was extremely astute, but he was self-centered in his pain. He didn't hesitate to think of what it might feel like for her. Before it was due to indifference, she was the creature who killed Fred. "I'm sorry. I've been absorbed in other things." Illyria watched him, and then offered slowly, with something approaching discomfort. "What I know, I see through my eyes. Fred's memories, but without the same view of them. I can see how long you coveted. She did not, until the last." Because there was some. . . stray tendril of awareness that saw that it bothered him, and Illyria had not intended such. Illyria's memory of Fred's life was still spotted with holes, but since the change that had left them aware of Angel's son again, she recalled more. She could put the fragments into some semblance of order now, if she tried. She didn't often do so. She leaned away from him. "Your apologies were not sought, and are not wanted," Illyria snapped, slightly flustered. "I would remain here. With you." In a box in a building built by their unintentional captors. There were places she'd rather be, but no company she'd rather keep. And this town had yet to show its true purpose. Wesley needed protection, even if he thought that he didn't. He had been killed once, she would not allow it again. Illyria's head tilted, the gesture still slightly inhuman and wholly her own, with no real hint of Fred. But there was a touch of humor when she added. "And it is pointless to offer me freedom to leave. Had I wished such I would have taken it. And there is no escape from this realm that has been found." Wesley nodded and understood what she was saying. Memories were one thing. Feelings about those memories were another. Although she did say she was interested in exploring more about what she knew from Fred. That wasn't a subject he was ready to address. "Yes, I loved her a very long time. She was under no obligation to feel the same, but I was lucky when she did." He waited all that time, assuming it was never going to come. Watching her with Gunn, and then with Knox. Knox who deserved nothing but the worst kind of hell. "You do not have to ask for an apology to deserve one. You are always welcome here. It's comforting," he admitted the last reluctantly. Perhaps it was to keep him from being alone. If she wasn't there, he would purposely avoid the others. Slowly but surely he was trying to reach out. He might even converse willingly with people soon. Some day. The two of them were both solitary now, with the exception of each other, and he could live with that. He knew that gesture, and it no longer hurt him the way it did before. Illyria was becoming her own person to him. Not just the woman who shared Fred's looks and memories. He smiled wryly back. "Hopefully for those who want to go back, there will be." Wesley had to stay there, if he had the option. Starting over in Maine was a strange thought, but that was what he had. Or he went back to his death. "If you want to stay, I am glad to have you here. But let's leave Claire alone, shall we? Judging from her scars, she's had enough of a hard time." |