It was 9 AM on a Thursday, except Lilah didn't have work today, didn't have anything to do today except to eat food and watch the Macy's parade because it was Thanksgiving in LA. This was Lilah's one day where she got to eat and relax and try not to get too introspective into her fucked up life.
She realized at this moment that the parade was on, and that the pies needed to be finished, and that she was lying on Wesley's elbow, which apparently wasn't bothering him, but it was poking her in the chest and it hurt like Hell. She sat up, groggily, reaching for her robe since she didn't feel like cooking completely in the nude and besides, then Wesley might get too many ideas and distract her from Macy's. It was odd, strange, still having him here, practically moving in after the Rain, and now she was letting him in to the little traditions of Lilah Morgan.
She slipped out from under the covers, looking at her lover with an almost tender, yet bitter smile. She wasn't sure where to place Wes on her list of things she's thankful for. Yes, she cared about him and had a nice thing going on, but he drove her crazy and he cared about Fred, and those were two knives in her back that weren't coming out any time soon. The insanity wasn't too bad, she knew that in his own way, he loved her, as much as he could, but she was planning on dropping some stocks for a hitman to deal with knife no. 2.
But she reminded herself that Hallmark lied; Thanksgiving wasn't about introspection, it was about eating food and not being alone.
She was still shocked that Wesley had accepted her invitation two nights ago to spend Thanksgiving with her, she was sure that pleasure would have been given to his not-quite-ex-boss. But he'd run his hand through her hair and said that he didn't want a complicated Thanksgiving filled with animosity and crap, and that Lilah's simple dinner sounded lovely.
Lilah didn't know what shocked her the most, that he wanted to spend a holiday with her (and wasn't that a couple-y thing to do? Scary as Hell, dammit, they were a couple, as fucked up as it was...) or that something Lilah did sounded 'lovely', which scared her almost as much as being a couple did. Lilah wasn't supposed to do domestic, and here she was. Domesticated as Hell.
Maybe he felt guilty about the whole "Let's Dress Up as Fred" fiasco, maybe he was still grateful for her showing up at the Hyperion, finding him covered in battle scars from the Beast and Cordelia immersed in caring for Angel, Fred and Gunn having one of those, "I'm sorry, I love you, I'm so sorry, Oh God, I love you." conversations that made Lilah want to hurl, and no one there to bandage Wesley, since the kid was too busy glaring at Cordelia and Angel, (Nice try, kid, but you're never gonna get her) and Lorne nursing his wounds through bourbon. Hell, Lilah hadn't even known what she was doing there, except that it was raining fire and all she could think about was Wesley, was he okay, and was he alive? So she'd figured what the Hell, she wouldn't be able to sleep and she broke the rules and found him there, bleeding on a sofa. Angel and Gunn had looked about ready to kill her when she stepped in, and she'd actually found a reason to not kill the vampire (other than he was vital to her very own fun-filled apocalypse) when he'd seen the way she was looking at Wesley and told her,
"We lost. Beast won. Much pain. Care to help?"
So Lilah had spent that night bandaging up Wesley and gathering information for Wolfram and Hart, and later got freaking applauded by the Senior Partners after they told her that their company and Angel Investigations were to be allies during this fight, and Lilah better not fuck it up...
Except without the profanities.
Now he was lying in Lilah's bed, almost completely recovered and the apartment looked half-his, with his clothes, his books, and his weapons lying around, since last week he'd been too hurt to get out of bed, and then he'd just decided to stick around, in case Beastie-dear decided to pop up for some more mayhem. Lilah couldn't have taken him back there, not when the Beast was out there for blood... Angel said stick together, and Hell, she was planning on it.
Lilah moved some of his older tomes out of the way, flipping on the TV to Macy's Parade. She loved this, her favorite holiday tradition. Her father had taken her and her sister to it many times, when they were young and Lilah had been in it once, when she was still dancing. She'd been fifteen then, and remembered the piercing cold as she rode on one of the floats for the National Ballet, surrounded by prima ballerinas and had been pretending not to sulk until she passed Callista and Daddy, Callie yelling her name and her father with a look of pride on his face. Mom wasn't there, Mom never was, but it was kind of better that way, she'd found.
After all, wasn't she supposed to make her Daddy proud, she'd always done that, carried on the family name to this very day, and dammit, she was getting introspective again. She took out the potatoes and started to peel them, losing herself in the world of giant inflatable balloons and even laughing when Miss Piggy and Kermit appeared.
Something else to be thankful for.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wesley woke up to the wonderful aroma of chives and turkey and pumpkin, and realized it was time for that American holiday that was just an excuse to stuff yourself silly, but, as Giles had put it, was a wonderful thing because even the vampires and demons here celebrated and besides, why turn down free food?
He was in Lilah's bed again, where he'd spent the past two weeks, half of them a haze due to the painkillers she got him, the other half an actual nice memory of Lilah, his nursemaid, and the comfortable familiarity that blanketed the couple now. He wasn't quite sure why he was still here, before the battle, the last time she'd been with him he'd blatantly used her, and realized it half way through the fantastic sex they were having when he realized that Lilah looked like she was about to cry, and through her moans he could hear the occasional choked-off sob. Hurting her was a brand new thing, and not something he'd liked, and he's simply thrown her under him and threw off the glasses, slowing down his pace a little, being a little more gentle, as if trying to tell her through the sex that he was sorry, that he knew who he was with. He wasn't good at apologizing to her, she was... unforgiving, to say the least, and afterwards, she'd acted like all was forgiven.
Then, later that night, when he was lying on the sofa and staring at the ceiling of the Hyperion, in massive amounts of pain and wishing he were dead while listening to Fred and Gunn apologize/make out/tend to each other's wounds, when he was at his lowest, she'd appeared. Standing over him with one of Cordelia's first aid kits and gently dabbing at his wounds with peroxide, slipping him a codeine tablet, silently looking at him as she bandaged him with hands that he didn't know could be so tender, surprising the Hell out of him. He couldn't have ever imagined Lilah like this, looking at him with worried eyes that were slightly puffy and shone with more emotion than he'd seen from the woman in all the time he'd known her, much less been sleeping with her. He remembered pulling her down for a kiss, getting blood on her lips, but neither of them cared. He remembered her heated exchange with Angel as to where Wesley should be her standing defensively in front of her lover. Jealousy looked horrible on her, but anger looked smashing.
"Don't worry, Angelus. I'm not the one who bites here." She'd said before helping Wesley to her car, sliding him gently into the leather seat, and allowing him to reach up and kiss her passionately, the action slightly hurting him, but he didn't care- her lips were worth it.
"Not yet, Tiger." she'd teased. "You're hurt, and blood all over me is not a turn on, believe it or not."
And so he'd stayed here, with her, not wanting to leave even after the wounds healed, under the guise of being protective, but dammit, he liked Lilah's company, he liked staying with her and watching her wake up, watching her morning routines, watching all the little things that made Lilah. He loved watching her get up, her hair all sexy and mussed, her routine after the shower, where she put lotion on, and sometimes, she'd let him do it. He was getting to know her, something that had come to him after she'd left, leaving those glasses behind, broken. He didn't know this fascinating, beautiful creature. She was no Fred, but that was part of her appeal, part of her beauty. He didn't pretend she was or dream she was, not usually, no. And she was right, every night he crawled into her bed, or her into his, and it was going to keep going that way because they both liked it too damn much and bloody Hell, they were fond of each other.
But Wesley's stomach was growling, and interrupting his deep, introspective thoughts, and the aroma of chives and baking potatoes was too much. Lilah had ordered most of the food from one of the more expensive eateries downtown, but potatoes and pies were her favorite foods, and they had to be made a certain way for Lilah to like them, he'd learned, so she was cooking those herself. Another thing he'd learned was that Lilah had to have things done her way, even if there was nothing different about it. He left his deep thoughts behind as he pulled on some boxers he'd found on the floor, and was for a moment, reminded of a scene in the Screwtape Letters where Satan's minion tells his nephew that the way to distract humans from their self-saving thoughts is to give them something much more of "the now" to think about, such as food.
He looked out to see his own Lady of Satan sitting on her leather couch, mashing the potatoes together as she watched the Macy's Parade idly- another silly Yank tradition that Lilah seemed to enjoy greatly. He leaned down next to her, giving her a kiss that caused her to look up and smile, used to her lover's continual presence.
"Morning, sunshine." She purred, looking up at him and giving him another, deeper kiss.
"Mm. Morning." He said before walking over to the kitchen to pull out some toast to munch on finding she'd been considerate enough to put on the tea. He made a note to tease her later on about how he was domesticating her- always fun to get a rise out of Lilah, it proved even more fun when the teasing turned sexual.
"Don't touch the pies, Wesley. They're sitting and I don't want to make any more because a certain Brit can't wait for the 'Yank tradition of gluttony' to start." she quipped. He smiled at her, grabbing his bread to go and sink into the couch next to her, giving her another kiss before settling in to watch the parade with her, wrapping one arm tightly around her.
"Huh. Katie must have had some work done." Lilah commented while mashing. Wesley was playing with her hair again, not that she minded; it was actually nice to have someone pamper her like that. Wesley also noticed, to his delight, that the only thing Lilah appeared to be wearing was the silk robe that he'd picked out for her one of their lazy days when Lilah had gone shopping online. His hand dropped from her hair to slip under her robe, getting a delighted purr from the brunette.
"Wes, hon, I've gotta finish these potatoes." She said, trying to move his hand away- not with much effort or success.
"Mm, later." he whispered into her ear before nipping her neck gently, moving towards her throat, ever so slowly, a mental countdown running through his head.
'5.... 4.... 3.... 2...'
And the potatoes were set on the table as Lilah gladly and willingly succumbed to his hands and his mouth, letting dinner wait for things more pressing.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wesley wasn't quite sure why he was here. Out of common courtesy, he guessed, since him and Lilah were on a non-introspective holiday quest, as they had agreed on, somewhere in the middle of last night. He'd run out to get more wine, since somewhere between cooking the potatoes and the second round- this time on the kitchen floor- they'd ended up drinking all of it. So Lilah, who was waiting for the delivery boys to come around with the turkey and everything else, had sent him out so she could finish everything "distraction-free".
And driving home, in Lilah's car (since his own had been damaged severely in that nice little rain of fire, and Lilah's had been protected by a couple layers of parking garage), he'd ended up pulling up next to the Hyperion, parking the car, and grabbing one of the three bottles he'd bought. He wasn't sure why the Hell he was doing this, but it just felt like he should. Be nice; give them some wine and head home to his Circe, who was waiting with her sirens and a nice, plump turkey.
When he walked in, Cordelia was the first to spot him, and she seemed to be directing everyone and everything with barks.
"Connor, Angel, put turkey in the middle! No! Don't touch that cornucopia! Damn Irish! Gunn! Fred! Where the Hell is my cranberry sauce! I don- Wesley!" She screamed, and Wesley was suddenly hit with 100 and more pounds of Higher Being.
"Hello to you too, Cordelia. Or should I call you the Turkey Nazi?" he asked with a smile. He hated the lot of them, but he did miss Cordelia, his only friend- the only other one who cared.
Speaking of the lot of them, they had all frozen to stare at him.
"Are you coming for dinner?" Fred asked, a little hopeful that maybe they'd have a nice family dinner, or something like that. It was almost enough for Wesley to say yes, but he saw in his mind Lilah's eyes, Lilah's lips, the hurt that would find it's ways past the barriers as she realized that Wesley wasn't coming home.
Somewhere in there, he realized that Lilah's draw might be beginning to overpower Fred's. Seeing her hanging all over Gunn wanted him to bail out of there faster, seeing Gunn's eyes promising murder made him want to find a sword. It wasn't just Gunn, the entire room was tense enough that you could hardly breathe- lucky for Angel.
"No, I'm sorry, Cordelia, Fred. I just came to drop off this wine." The look on Fred's face fell, breaking his heart just a little, but Cordelia smiled.
"Girlfriend's waiting for ya, huh?" He started, only to relax, it was Cordelia, who hadn't really seemed to care about Lilah and Wes and their twisted relationship- he'd told her himself, and she'd smiled, and winked, telling him that she'd seen it all.
"As a matter of fact, yes. I'm dropping off some Chardonnay from the both of us," emphasizing the "us". He handed the bottle to Angel, who'd come to stand behind Cordelia in his protective, obsessive way.
"Huh. Who would've thought- you're even driving her car." Angel quipped.
"Mine had severe fire and brimstone damage." He answered coolly, trying to resist the urge to have stakes pop out of his wrists. He loved Angel dearly, but the vampire tested him too much.
"Yeah, plus you're sharing lipstick." Cordelia remarked. "Zinfandel, huh? I like that colour, but it's a little too much for me."
Wesley self-consciously wiped his mouth before the cell phone interrupted the awkward silence that had followed Cordelia's remark.
"Yes?" he asked, hearing Lilah's voice on the end. "No, I just dropped by Angel's to give them some wine. Why? Well, it is the nice thing to do. I wanted to see Cordelia. Make sure she's all right. Uh-huh. The food's all ready? All right, I'm coming. Don't start without me." Wesley said into the phone, surprising Cordelia with the tenderness in his voice. She could read Wesley almost, he cared for the lawyer from Hell, and she cared for him too. She smiled, relaxing a bit. Wesley needed someone for him, someone who could care like Lilah did. They were gonna get a lot of trials, they all were.
"You go get to her. We women don't like to be kept waiting." Cordelia smiled, stepping forwards to hug him again and kiss him on the cheek. The ex-watcher gave her a smile in return, grateful for her caring and understanding. He never would have dreamed that the Queen C would end up one of his best friends- and would be the only to stick by him.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wesley and Lilah were curled up on the sofa, watching her Sex and the City DVDs, full and content after a dinner that had been absolutely delicious- much to his surprise. He'd never taken Lilah to be a cook, but her mashed potatoes were quite good when done her way. She was curled into the crook of his arm, sipping on some champagne and caressing his fingers with hers, letting their food settle before they headed off to bed, too stuffed and satisfied tonight to do anything else.
"So, did we succeed at having a non-introspective Thanksgiving?" he asked her, turning the volume down slightly.
"I guess. There was some introspection, but I think you kept those annoying thoughts away." She smiled up at him, realizing how she'd gotten so much more comfortable with him, gradually so. "You?"
"Mm. Same here. Can't understand why I'm so damned tired, though."
"Turkey has some chemical in it, makes you really sleepy." she murmured, an old Cosmo article coming back to her.
"So, let me get this straight, we'll sleep all of tomorrow night, wake up tomorrow and..?"
"Go shopping." Lilah smiled at the horrified look on her boyfriend's face. "It's the tradition."
"Damn American traditions." Wesley muttered, and looked down at the amused, yet sleepy look on her face. He flinched as one of her nails swept over his ticklish palm and her grin turned more predatory.
"Don't even think about it, Lilah." he warned her, only to have the lawyer do it again. He growled playfully, scooping her up into his arms and carrying her into the bedroom.
"Temper, temper." she scolded. "What are ya gonna do to make these thoughts go away?" "Oh, I don't know. You've surprised me with your domestic habits today, maybe I'll get you to fold my clothes." he quipped, only to get mock smacked by Lilah.
"Shut up, Pryce."
"Ooh, who's got the temper now?" He asked, dipping his head down to hers.
"Why, Wesley, I thought you were too tired?" she feigned astonishment in her voice. He grinned, peeling off her skirt and murmured,
"I'm never too tired for you."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
He was watching her, all curled up against him, a content look on her face as she started to fall asleep, too tired to even contemplate moving. Her bare skin was warm and smooth against him, and he was almost too hot for the blankets- after all, he had his own Lilah blanket that was much more fun. Her hair was messy and her lipstick was slightly smeared- God, she was sexy and beautiful.
"You're lovely, you know that?" He asked, and she grinned, snuggling closer.
"I try." His hand was stroking her back, gently massaging her, and she was drifting happily into dream land- after all, she had to rest up for shopping tomorrow.
"You know, it's funny, Lilah, I think I might actually like you a helluva lot more than I realized." He said, and some part of her inside that had been frozen too long melted. That was another piece of her that surrendered to him, and for once, she didn't care.
"Good, cause that's what I'm thinking, too." She kissed his lips, gently. "Now go the Hell to sleep, lover. We've got to be up early."
Suppressing a groan, Wesley let sleep chase the thoughts away, and the warmth of Lilah's arms. Happy Turkey Day to him and her, and fuck the rest of them.
END
Fiction
Home