Regala Electra
*
This is not about him. These memories are skin deep, ill forgotten, ill-begotten, and are not what define him, yet he stares into the mirror and that is all he sees.
They are the walking wounded. Their bloodstains are ghost-memories, faded away and merely forgotten. Scars are not what define them; perhaps they too fade, pale slivers of memory residing on skin, they do not hurt. Pain does not last beyond the first searing moments of it.
Their skin is not thin, nor their flesh deep.
*
A litany of scars gives his body the tangible story he tries to ignore. He does not like to look in the mirror too long. Scrape, scrape, straight razor edge. Blade presses against his skin, he does this for irony. And for irony's sake only.
His father stands over the basin, towel neatly folded over shoulder, cream covering the first stubs of whiskers perfectly.
"Now my son, you shall pay attention, this will also be your task as a man."
Forceful blue eyes remembering dark rooms with foul airs and doors that locked with a mighty clang, he nervously nods.
Scrape. Scrape. The blade pulls away peppered cream and leaves smooth flesh in its tracks.
He tries to do this when he is slightly older and alone in the bathroom. Screams as trails of blood mar his face. Mother arrives and hurriedly puts away blade, drops of clear white foam and dark red blood washed away, chiding him for he is too young. He wears a bandage and when his father comes home, he is beaten for touching what isn't his. After this, he sits in the cold dark place under the stairs and thinks that he will never escape and never heal.
The bruises do not fade for a week.
When Lilah arrives, tossing a bottle of Zinfandel into his arms, her two lips part in an amused smile. She slinks in, dances fingertips over the long scar on his neck, and leans in, the heady scent of somewhere exotic on her skin. Kiss on his cheek and it is not going to stay there for long. He wipes it away as he sets the bottle down, clink. Clink, she brings the glasses and settles on the couch, unbuttoning her jacket.
She does not tell of work, they do not care for that. She pries when needed, when she thinks she can actually be told anything. He lies and takes the glass with a final clink and makes a pact with a woman he cares for not. He cares for naught.
Smiles all around and she displays the lean line of untouched neck, he has refused to mark it yet. She sometimes touches it, the place where neck connects to chest, the hollow look there in her eyes begging him for something. Wesley sips his wine and sets down the glass.
They remove clothing, there is no pace here, everything falls and is done amicably under the best situations. If she tries to unzip his pants, he moves hands away, chiding her with kisses that do not fulfill.
Her legs are smooth, waxed, she once tells him she has it done because she enjoys that first burst of pain. It goes away, she says, moving his hand up to settle between her legs, it goes away and she waits to feel it again.
Lilah's panties are removed and he settles between thighs, noticing bruises that have not healed, yet he knows she is proud of this. They are her temporary memories, the sliced lip he tastes when she comes back from a failed business negotiation, the paper cuts from handling cases all day, she smiles when she arrives with these. These are her reasons, they are her children, born of her labors, an image that is twisted enough for Wesley to acknowledge.
Later, they rest on sheets and catch breath they forgot to inhale. Naked skin to skin, Lilah passes the cup, the faintest smear of lipstick from her mouth on it; the high-shine gloss she arrived with is nearly gone. Her hand closes over his wrist as he brings the glass to his mouth, the question unspoken. A fresh white bandage, he is fresh out now. Bandages are opened, tear-rip snap-pull, the scar will take time to heal if it heals at all. He does not mind a new addition to his scar-stories.
Traces over the faded bullet wound on his body, nuzzles his neck, hands ghost over all of his body. She wants to ask and he would not say a thing but what she wants.
You treat these like they are gifts, she does not say. He does not reply that he doesn't look into the mirror.
See me, and it is a joke when he wakes in the morning. She has left, amusing him with a gift of her own, the unfinished bottle. Drowning not in that, or blood that chokes his throat on dirt-grass-ground, he showers and the stream drowns the world. Sounds come to him not.
She has tied him to the chair and he shall scream, yet none shall hear. That is the promise and Faith shall keep it. Glass broken, shattered, Faith laughs and screams as though her life depends on it, tear rip pull rip scrape cut, what else shall she say? He has failed, he is her outlet. He hates her, yet he can only recall falling out the window as he ran away from Father, the dark scarier than the shattered glass falling, falling, and he is saved for there are no broken bones.
He wishes for broken bones every night, else he should face displeasure or drink, which shall cause him a new stay in the darkness. When he has opened the liquor cabinet and drank his full, the blade moves back and forth on pale arm, veins flowing, living blood, he does not wish for this.
When he passes out in his drunken reverie, the blade leaves in the morning and he soberly forgets his escape plan and embraces the confinement.
You stop talking to yourself when you are nearly a teenager. That hiss, that reminder always hints back to a time when there were several voices to take the share of the dark-dark-dark- coldI'msolonely-daddy, I'll be a good boy.
He is proud when he is received as a Watcher and the darkness does not come to haunt him in dreams. Forgets, and the bruises and scars from childhood have healed and he has grown away, away from the dark- cold-lonely.
He is not scared of life, then, he is not afraid. He is brave and strong, and he shall have respect because of lonely places and streams of blood that felt as though they'd never heal. He is a joke and a parody and Father merely disapproves with a frown or a tone in his voice. Less calls and he deletes the last message Mother sends, unknowing her son has laid on the ground with a sliced throat and a lie to his name, as she informs him that distant cousin Amelia is getting married to a man of noble lineage.
They haven't received any new information and Wesley thanks his newest contact, a youthful man with aged eyes. This one does not ask for much, a few incantations and a few looks in the other direction, so he is helpful and infinitely trustworthier than Lilah in stockings, eyes offering nothing but a fall that will soon hurt.
Yet Wesley only asks for the request to be made and the contact has come through, no reaction towards the dirty wine glasses on the table or the panties lying conspicuously next to them. There is only the swift nod and Wesley hands over the cash and the spell, a dangerous one, yet that's the whole point.
The phone rings and Wesley listens to the hesitant voice after the beep. Another lost soul, another lost cause, heard about his services, did they? Well, he does not answer, instead he dresses and re-examines the scab-wound on his arm. It must heal.
A pillow leaves no mark. Angel knows this, he is granting Wesley one last gift, a gift he never asks for. Wesley asks for nothing, he begs, he falls, he sputters, he is weak.
The bandage is heavy against his throat and the pillow suffocates him, he is not in the dark again, because he cannot breathe. Deserves to die and suffer and burn like this, but this isn't�what he wants. That isn't who he has become. There is a reason, terrible but true. And for this, he struggles for air and is rewarded burning, burning that fades into his lungs like a dull, tired flame.
Now, he stands over again, and the view is reversed. There is no pillow or softness to offer and Wesley wouldn't dare offend Angel with it. A life for a life, blood for blood, Wesley returns the favor.
He slices coldsharpcold against his arm. His blood is too thick, he doesn't mind losing it. Woozy, bloodless, he remembers this lightness, knows it too well, but it is a comfort to him for the first time in his life. He listens to nothing, not to Justine or Angel's feeding, this is not about them or him. Returning the favor and when he is empty, that is better. For the moment.
He should carve his name on his own skin, words that do not mean anything. It does not last. He doesn't look for a blade.
Lilah is on the phone now and he manages to actually listen to her, as she speaks in a strangely mellow manner. Today, Lilah softly informs him that she wears stockings, of the purest, most ridiculously expensive silk. She tosses away her designer shirt (so she says and he hears the distant thump over the phone) and confides to him that she is thinking of him. Wesley could get used to this, so he mustn't get attached to it at all.
She arrives that night, brown hair loose and free, spilling over bare shoulders, a stunning dress she wears and it is not for him. Wesley does not admire this view and he touches smooth, painted lips with his own and makes sure she isn't being followed.
Of course, this is not a secret.
They cannot help it; they are envious and spiteful, yet they do not care. Wesley does not care. He has kept a careful record of her coming and goings. It is the only way to conduct this affair.
Leaving the floor where he has enjoyed himself quite thoroughly, he enters the kitchen, preparing a pot of coffee. Tick hiss tick, the dark liquid begins to sputter into the pitcher, dark-dark-dark it falls, drip drip drip.
He remembers the heat hot burn of the bullet into his flesh. The first strike of color in his vision is red and he gathers fingers to hide the wound, body burning, needing sleep, overwhelmed with pain. Pain overwhelming, dying, sleep, please, he begs for it, it hurts. He knows he shall die in this instant. Not yet, oh, it cannot be yet, still he reaches out, finger barely touching the steaming liquid, the hot burn like a remembrance he cannot escape as he soothes the burnt finger in his mouth, unconsciously tasting flesh, keeping a sense- memory.
He retraces the wound on naked skin with his burnt digit. It has healed, faded and forged out of new skin that does not quite fit, too obvious a scar, too forgotten of the pain.
Wesley rips it open after he is discharged from the hospital, clutching his chest, hot burning pain overriding the scream in his throat, the blood seeping through the white bandage, he mustn't tell anyone. He just covers it up, adds a fresh bandage, for perhaps it will not last. It does.
He is grateful for it.
Every seeping bandage, the red engulfing all color, swallowing everything in its sight, this is real. It is better than anything he has ever accomplished and he wonders if this is what pride feels like. The scars are not him, he knows this, yet these are the parts that Lilah caresses, the only parts of him that she never questions.
The sun rises as he stares outside, the day is Sunday and his coffee grows cold. Lilah wakes up, unashamed of her nudity as she wraps the shirt that is too large for her on her body, leaving it unbuttoned. She sits next to him and asks if he'll go to Church to confess his sins. He tells her that he is not Catholic.
He prepares breakfast, not for her or for himself, but as a reason not to look at her anymore, the turn of her lips always quirking into a smile meaning something else than amusement. She takes down clear glasses from his cabinet, not paying attention as she turns to him again to ask a question, but she will say nothing. Shatter crash. A shout is muffled.
Bright red on clear, near invisible glass and flushed white, pale skin. He moves her hand to the faucet, holding her delicate, deceiving wrist under the full spray, watching the near-translucent water wash down on bright-red-blood. ("Just run your hand under the water, it won't hurt at all after a bit." Mother is a liar.)
Should I kiss it to make it better, he asks, his other hand barely touching her soft cheek unstained by the few tears sparkling in her eyes. Those eyes are dark and she fears this, this open wound, so he shuts off the water and brings the still bleeding mark to his mouth, the copper bitterness even worse than when he swallowed that glass of blood.
("Dear God�that's nummy," he lies and attempts not to vomit, remembering his mouth bloodied by school bullies and the reopened wounds by a father that did not want a coward for a son.)
"What the hell are you doing?" she whispers in affronted shock, breaking the contact, cradling her hand against her body, a red stain smearing against exposed flesh.
"Go clean up," he commands. "Lest you bleed all over my apartment."
Flicker of a frown, yet she continues to shrink from him. She leaves, the shirt removed and left to fall a puddle on his floor, unstained yet marked nonetheless. He'd burn the shirt, it does contain her scent now, but he minds it not for the moment.
He forgoes breakfast and amuses himself with the glass shards. He holds the shattered remnants in his hand, putting pressure on it, closing his fist. Nearly, nearly close enough and he closes his eyes and tries to create new wounds. The old ones last even beyond tangible evidence of their mark.
Wesley enters her apartment; Cordelia has ordered take-out and happily munches with her hair neatly pulled back, looking the very nineteen years of her life. The color has returned to her face and she grins as he comes in.
"Feeling better?" she sharply inquires, one eyebrow cocking upwards in examination of his body.
"Yes," he groans, the body still in the early stages of healing. He has nearly died and is grateful that he has survived.
Brown eyes examine him and are apparently pleased, at least, this is what Wesley's perception of her concurs. She gently chides, "Don't hurt yourself."
"Why Cordelia," he teases, enjoying the banter, "I think you sound almost worried about me."
"We both are," the voice intrudes. Angel waits until Wesley is seated before he too settles down, his own seat a chair set slightly apart from the couch. "I was worried about you both," he confesses, look unreadable, but obviously still processing the past events.
Cordelia perks up, "Just another hell-raising, raise-increasing day of the office�right, Wes?"
He doesn't catch onto Cordelia's bald hint as he promises Angel and Cordelia, "I shall be fine. Needn't worry."
Cordelia wraps him in an embrace, soft and warm, smelling of exotic spices from the food, yet also a subtle familiar scent underneath. ("We're family.") "Idiot, don't even try to play hero with us, that's Angel's job," she teases with a kind light in her eyes.
Angel chuckles softly and sips the mug that Cordelia has left out for him on the coffee table. Cordelia returns to her food after she asks Wesley if Phantom Dennis can get him anything from the kitchen.
As for him, Wesley realizes, now more than ever, that he is a part of something. It is wonderful and freeing, yet he is completely terrified, although he cannot explain why. This cannot last, he thinks, please let it last just a bit longer. This one will hurt worse than any pain he has ever gone through.
He carefully takes care of his body when he goes to his apartment, ignoring and eventually forgetting the foreboding feeling.
Now, after he has emptied the glass shards into the garbage, he watches the flames lick at the edges of a picture, curling inwards into black ash and exhaling smoke. He sees Cordelia and Angel no more as the faces melt and burn away in the fire.
Lilah presses shower-fresh lips against his neck, paying certain and careful attention to the scar, the laugh hidden in her throat. She drips-drips-drips damp hair as she flicks it over her shoulder, water drops falling into the small fire, nothing left of the picture but dust and ash. She asks him if he's finally cracked as she unbuckles his pants.
He answers, just burning off an old scar.
End
Fic