a prelude to violence || Illyria and Wesley {chatzy}
Illyria stood still, frozen in place in the middle of the central room of the rooms that Wesley had laid claim to. They meant little to her, walls within walls. There were things here, things that he had owned before, things that he had come to possess anew. They meant nothing to her. Things crumbled to dust. This, she had learned. The only thing that stood the test of time was time itself. It had never been her enemy, but now, she felt its pull. Each moment passing her by left her with a growing sense of unease. It had plagued her, for the last hours. It had brought her here. And here she waited. She was uncertain how much longer she would wait, before she sought him more actively. It would not be long.
Wesley kept his head low as he entered the apartment block. He hadn't had the opportunity to assess what damage might have been done to his face in the mirror, but he felt the familiar sting of cuts and bruises. Nothing had. He hadn't suffered a thousand times over. Nothing that wouldn't be right as rain in just a few days. He must have been knocked out for a short while, yet he still felt tired. Pushing upon the apartment door with a heavy hand, he intended to sleep before he noted the dazzling blue hair of the being that stood in his living room. He offered a small sigh, leaning against the door as he closed it. "It's not the best time for a social call."
Illyria turned her head, as the sound of the door opening greeted her, as the feel of his presence drew closer. Her shoulders stiffened, as she felt the whispers of pain, and anger, of weariness that added themselves to the pieces that made him who and what he was. Her gaze darted, taking in the bruises along his skin, the crimson stains that marred his flesh and she felt her expression darken. "Then it is fortunate that I am not here to be social." She returned.
Wesley shouldn't have expected anything different. Wasn't lik Illyria to appreciate irony, though. It wasn't in her nature to understand that by referring to her visit as a social call, he was in fact referring to it was the opposite. "Yes. Quite. Can I help you?" he questioned distractedly, wandering to the kitchen and wetting a cloth to wipe the dried blood from his face over the sink.
Illyria watched as he stepped past her, following behind him, assessing him as he moved, as he walked, gauging his movements, the degrees of his injuries. "You are injured." A statement of fact, one which did little to please her if gauged by the stiffness to her tone, the tilt of her lips as they crept downwards. "I felt a sense of..." She hesitated, finding the words not all that simple to speak. Perhaps it was because of the last time they had spoken and all of the words that they had exchanged, then. "I was concerned for you."
Wesley wrung the cloth out in the sink, the water stained with orangey-red, but not all too severely. The cuts had stopped bleeding long before. "It's nothing," he replied, and meant it, as he helped himself to a glass, filling it with water to wash down an aspirin. Okay, perhaps not quite 'nothing'. He ached a bit, but expected that would go away soon. He turned, finding her eyes again. He was both irritated and flattered that she was there, and he was rather unsure which he'd have preferred to admit. "I had a disagreement with a colleague. It might have been worse."
Illyria's gaze narrowed at his words, at the dull scent of blood that coated his skin and cloth. "If you bleed, it is not nothing." She rebuked, her fingers finding his jaw, turning him to the light so that she could see his wounds more fully, her lips pressing tightly together in that moment as she surveyed the wounds along his temple, the thin line against his neck. "Who is it that has done this to you?" She questioned, her tone terse, her hand falling back to her side as she lingered near him. "And what is it that you would discuss with your... colleague, that requires so few words?"
Wesley was comforted by the thought that his headache would soon be lifted. Whatever Penelope had hit him with, it had left its mark. "I'm not bleeding any more, am I?" His fingers found Illyria's, guiding them from his face before he turned to the fridge, replacing his water with a bottle of beer, twisting off the cap before putting it to his lips. "You wouldn't know her," he responded truthfully. He was conscious, just for a moment of the rope marks on his wrists before lifting his eyes from them to find the electric blue of Illyria's penetrating gaze. "Wolfram and Hart might have come up. Some dead slayers. My honour. That sort of thing."
Illyria’s hand fell away, though she made no move to step away from him, her agitation evident in the tense line of her shoulders and the tight line of her jaw. Her fingers curled, tightening in against her palm, the chitin creasing beneath the effort as she stayed herself, her gaze narrowing as his met hers, as the smell of beverage added its scent to the air. "There was no harm done to the Slayers by your hand -- you were punished for these deaths?" She questioned, her jaw jutting outwards, her lips thinning, her frame taut.
Wesley gave a small shrug. Illyria's words were true. He hadn't harmed any slayers. Quite the opposite, in fact. He had protected them where he could. "Punished may not be... exactly accurate. More like interrogated over. Like I said, I'm fine." There was no judgement or resentment in his voice over what had befallen him. He probably would have done the same thing himself, had the situation been reversed, though he doubted Illyria would see it that way. She was insanely protective. It was actually flattering, in a way.
Illyria’s nostrils flared, a flush of anger and resentment burning in the center of her chest at his words, at the nonchalance with which he spoke them, the way in which he passed over his wounds, uncaring to the damage that had been done. Yet damage had been done. By one that he had trusted. Betrayal, it seemed the coin of trade amongst them. It was not an amoral word, an emotionless word, in this day and in this age. She had felt its sting and so had he, and she was not so forgiving as he. Too many in this world considered him enemy, held him in their targets. Too many that she could do nothing of. "I would know who it is that has done this to you." She spoke, her voice low, her gaze steely.
Wesley had once been tortured for hours on end by a borderline-psychotic rogue slayer. He had been shot. Stabbed. Had his throat cut. Died. Bruises were nothing. He was a demon hunter. They were to be expected. Though he hadn't quite expected them to come from one he had considered an ally. Illyria's gaze was penetrating, her eyes wide, her voice insistent. "Watcher," he sighed. "Penelope Fairfax. She had some concerns. Must I repeat myself? It's over now. We're settled." It wasn't lost on him that he was speaking to her as one might to a rebellious child, in spite of the fact her years dwarfed his considerably.
Illyria's head tilted towards her shoulder at his words, as he spoke the name of the woman responsible for the assault upon him. She knew the name and she knew the face that went with it. Consort to Rupert Giles, each of them Watchers. She knew them, for she had watched them, and watched those that came and went from the places they called home, to find and track those that she had been tasked to kill. "No, not yet." She spoke, stepping back from where she had been standing near him, turning in one fluid motion to bring her hand upwards, a ripple of energy spilling from her to create a portal, stepping through it without hesitation and pulling it closed behind her.
Wesley's body stiffened as he stepped forward from the kitchen. It was only when she opened the portal that he realized her meaning, what she was doing. "Illyria!" He proclaimed, reaching through the air to grab for the God-King, but finding nothing but air as she stepped through the portal. It closed before he could follow her. "Damnit," he murmured, scrambling for his phone and his car keys. He supposed it would be a while before he actually got to have a decent sleep of the natural variety. His fingers typed the message quickly as he rushed through the door. 'Something is coming to you. Don't antagonize her. Be careful.' Message sent. He merely hoped th advice didn't come too late.
a fate worse than death || wesley and illyria {chatzy}{potw}
Synopsis: Wesley, furious at the discovery that Illyria has been using Fred's form to harm those that he considers friends, goes to confront the once God-King in her Sanctum only for the conversation to take several unexpected turns as truths come to light.
Wesley had known he would find her at the sanctum. If she had taken form, that was where she would appear, where she would return after she had completed whichever atrocities were on her to-do list for the day. Fred had spoken of some, but Wesley would cause Illyria to speak of the rest. He armed himself with his shotgun, pulling it from the back seat of the car that he parked amidst the broken glass and graffiti outside the dilapidated warehouse. She had no security, to speak of. She did not believe herself to require it, and in truth, she was probably right. As he entered, she said his name in a plain, stiff tone. She recognized him from his very soul. She did not have to see him to know him. "You're quick," he responded, his tone equaling hers as he steadily crossed the space between them.
Illyria 's head tilted, turning to face him directly as he entered through the worn, tattered doors that led to the heart of her sanctum. Her gaze turned, in stiff and quick succession, from his gaze, to his hands, to the weapon that he held straddled in them, and once more to his features. A brow angled, sharp and curious, as she observed his stance, and his weapon. "You would do violence." It was a statement, and yet there was something more to it. A sense of perplexity, curiosity, and beneath all of that still, the air of being offended, insulted somehow at his audacity.
Wesley stiffened as she turned toward him, more out of anger than out of fear. He had for some time been convinced she would not harm him, but he was no longer certain he wouldn't harm her. His eyes drifted unwavering to his gun, and then back to hers. "I might," he responded icily. "Haven't decided yet." He cocked the gun with a 'click' that echoed through the vast, dank space around them, fully aware that it would do little to harm her on a serious level, but that it would at the very least, sting like a bitch.
Illyria felt her shoulders stiffen, a spasm in the left that pulled it up, and back, an agitated shift of synapses and electric impulses within her form. She watched him, unwavering, unblinking. She did not fear him. He would not destroy her, he could not, now more than ever with the consciousness of his beloved trapped inside her own. And still, his words, his actions evoked an unsettled sensation, brought an edge of a frown to the corner of her lips as she observed him. "The weapon you wield is insufficient to do harm." She stated the obvious, as always, though still she did not move either towards him or away from him. "Why would seek violence, now?" She questioned, her head canting towards her shoulder, her gaze unyielding still.
Wesley narrowed his eyes, bitterly and reluctantly lowering the gun as she brought attention to its inability to harm her. "Yes," he agreed. "Might hurt a bit though." He had ceased pointing it directly toward her, but Wesley kept the gun in hand as he moved forward, closer still, his gaze penetrating at her question. Did she not know? Had she not seen what Fred had told him? "There was a young woman you hurt. Red-head." His words hung like knives as he watched her face search for memory of her actions. His mind wandered again to the question he was unafraid to ask. How many others had suffered? How many had she killed? "She's a friend of mine," he added coldly. "I'd like to know what you did to her."
Illyria studied him as the weapon fell away, his stance stiff and agitated as he drew nearer to her. "Perhaps," she conceded, though it did not seem a concern to her. Pain, like all things, faded away, and it was not something that she feared as they did. She was not mortal, not as they were. A sense of understanding passed through her, as the sharp and cold accusations spilled from Wesley's lips. "The witch." Her gaze narrowed, at the recognition of the fact that she had spoken, bluntly and without forethought. "I left her her life," she argued, her jaw stiffening with his continued agitation that rubbed against her in tangible waves. "I took only her memories."
Wesley furrowed his brow at the dismissive nature he should have grown to expect from her. She did not display concern, regret, friendship. Not unless they were in particularly special circumstances. This, he felt, was not even a blip on the radar to her. Willow had been just another victim in a long line. Was the spell still active, between the two of them? He was unsure whether or not she qualified. The truth only arose with those individuals he considered closest. Once Illyria may have qualified, but perhaps not now. "To what end?"
Illyria felt her lips press together, his emotions rampant and boiling beneath the surface of his features cast in a scowl. "I could not risk what she and Winifred may have conspired," she spoke, her words curt, growing agitated as she found herself compelled to speak, and a frown blossomed on her features. "I stripped from her all knowledge of me, lest she would seek to hamper me." Her jaw tightened, her displeasure darkening her gaze as the words left her lips.
Wesley raised his gun quickly, pressing the barrel of it to Illyria's throat. What Willow and Fred might have conspired, Wesley didn't know, but it sounded as if Fred had been seeking help, looking for a means by which she could control her problem. Illyria had taken it. It didn't matter what she could swat away the gun, and him with it, with no more difficulty than one might swat a fly. It was the intend that mattered. "Will there be any lasting effects? Will she recover, be as she was, but without the memories?"
Illyria stiffened, her gaze narrowing as he moved, the feel of the steel pressed against her skin seeming oddly scalding despite the chill of the metal itself. She knew it was not the weapon that she felt, however, but the anger that emanated from him, piercing and filling the space around him with a blaze. It took only a moment to thrust the weapon from her, her fingers wrapping around the barrel and twisting it away from her and into the empty space beside her. "You dare not harm me," she spoke, coarsely, "now more than ever yet you waste time and words with such displays." Her gaze blazed with agitation. "She suffered nothing of lasting harm, for which you should be grateful, and instead you challenge me!"
Wesley fought to maintain control of the gun, but Illyria's grip was so forceful that if he had not released, she would have broken his fingers prying it from him. Fuming, he grabbed her neck, gripping the same spot where the gun had been, though his fingers did nothing but serve to force her to look at him. It was like touching a statue, her skin like marble both in smoothness and hardness. "DON'T tell me what I should be grateful for! This? None of it is worth being /grateful/ for." His words stung with spite as he released her again, stepping back. She was right, infuriatingly so. He could not harm her, not without some special force, but he could take out his frustrations on her. "You took her from me, and every day you're alive... you take her still. It was easier when I thought that Fred was dead." The words shocked him, both in their content and their tone, and almost ashamedly, he let his eyes sink from hers.
Illyria let out a sound, something between a hiss and a low growl as his hands latched upon her skin, the bare marble hollow and curves of her throat, though the sound itself was more felt than heard. The clatter of the gun as it fell to the ground echoed beside her, and her fingers latched onto the lines of his jacket and shirt, tightening against the fabric reflexively, every ounce of willpower in her being taken in that moment to keep from flinging him, from pummeling him for his audacity. He may not have been capable of harming her but it was his intent and it rankled her in ways that she could not begin to express that he would dare touch her in such a manner. "Unhand me," she seethed, giving him one opportunity to do so, her palms pressing against his chest as his hands fell away to push him back from her, to give space between them once more, her pride bruised far more than her physical being. "Yet you fight for her, defend her still." Was that bitterness, concealed beneath her agitation as she spun from him, an agitated series of steps taken back, and forth once more. "This was no more my choice than it was yours," she continued, drawn to a sharp stand still as she turned to stare at him once more, her expression contorted. "This half life, this shadow of an existence, it is as cruel a fate as any I might have bestowed upon my enemies and yet here I stand, here I /suffer/ because you could not let what part of her remained pass from you, and yet I endured, because I must, because you said that there was hope." The words tore from her, ripped from her thoughts and spewed out in front of her in a torrent, and she hated them for the truth within them, and for the truths that lingered still, far too close to the surface of her thoughts.
Wesley stiffened at the threatening manner of her words. He had known he could not hurt her, not with his bare hands. Probably not with the shotgun she had just decimated, either. Heeding her words, he released her, stepping back from her but still burning with fury. He had no doubt she could feel every bit of it. She felt everything, everything of his, and yet, in her own heart, she was a mystery. She had been darkened by his loss, and he couldn't fathom how to ever pull her back into the light when Wesley wasn't even sure he himself regarded there. "No. You didn't ask for this," he confirmed bitterly. "None of us did, but we're stuck with it, aren't we? You can't go, and she can't stay." He hurtfully recalled her last words to him. Please Wesley, why can't I stay? Grief in him burned anew, not just for the fact she had died in his arms but for everything that had come afterwards. "I could have let you burn," Wesley said at last, his eyes meeting hers, showing emotion that hers lacked. "You could have gone off like a nuclear bomb, killing us all. Is that what you had preferred? I weakened you to keep you alive, and because, you're right. I couldn't let go of what remained - of her... but I take it back. I don't have hope. Not any more."
Illyria felt the anger that burned in him, more potent than the hands that had pressed to her skin. Anger and grief and hatred and loathing, and it tore at her, all too poignant a mirror of her own rage, her own frustrations, her grief. She had felt such things once. She had relished them, for they had been a reflection of herself, of her power. Now, they existed inside of her without her permissions, filling her with contempt for the human affectations. Grief. "I would have suffered a thousand deaths to what you have left me to." She spoke, her words harsh, choked, the fine mask of impassivity cracking beneath his emotions and her own. "To a world where I do not belong, where I am less than nothing." Her fingers curled, pressing into the palms of her hands as she stared at him, her voice tight, her words clipped, and terse. "You were my hope. My guide, and you left me here, alone, with nothing but grief. You made me this, this --" She gestured helplessly to the room, the mockery of a kingdom that she had once known. "ghost of what I was, with nothing but your ghost and hers to haunt me.”
Wesley felt selfish for the first time since he had watched Fred close his apartment door behind her as he left. The two of them, between them, they found the best of ways to make him feel like crap. Knox had chosen this for them and Wesley had killed him with a bullet to the chest. He had died far too quickly, his pain nothing compared to theirs. "It was my job to help you find your place," he said at last, confused as to how they had breached this topic of discussion when he had desired nothing more than to berate her over what she had done to Willow, and all the others she had harmed, the ones he didn't know about. "I was your guide. But there was a condition. You don't kill. When you stop killing, I will guide you again, and you can belong, as you once did." They were unfair, his words, for she could never truly belong. She was from another world, another time, another body. Nothing in this world was familiar to her - nothing but him, and she barely had that any more. He could hardly stand to look at her, and who could blame him. "You have killed. I watched you. And though you would consider me to be so, I'm not stupid. I know they were neither the first, not the last human lives you took."
Illyria lips pressed into a thin line, as close to a scoff as she could muster, her shoulders rising and falling in a gesture that was neither a shrug not entirely voluntary. "You wished me to abide, and so I did. That was your price, and I paid it, as it suited you. I held no obligation to abide, after." After he left her. After he died. "I killed those that stood in my way, those whom it pleased me to do so, those that would have harmed me." Disdain, arrogance, challenge, in her words and blazing in her eyes as she watched him, as her steps carried her in an agitated semi circle around him, prowling around him in a half loop. "What should they matter to me?" What did any of it matter?
Wesley infuriated her, and even without the advantage of her empath abilities, he knew it. He infuriated her because he had never batted an eyelid at her. She had never made him tremble. He had never feared her. When she had come to know him he had already lost everything. He didn't care what she might take from him. He didn't now. "The world isn't black and white. I know that better than anyone, but we don't kill, not if we can avoid it. You complain that you don't belong? Try belonging. Your power sets you apart, yes, but your arrogance, your inability to bend is what separates you from us - from me."
Illyria scoffed at his words, wheeling to face him, her expression stern even with the edges of it worn with her aggravation and frustration. "Angel used me to kill in the name of his morality, and yet when I would do so for my own purposes you would call it murder. I kill to further my place in this world, to gain power, or what passes for power, position in this world." Her chin jutted, at his words, at his defiance. "There is no purpose in this world, no sustenance in this world for me, beyond that. No place for me, except what I would make for myself."
Wesley shook his head, stepping back toward her. "To kill demons. Illyria, it isn't the same, and you know it." He abandoned his crumpled weapon as he turned from her again, seeing in her eyes that she meant every word. She would not be driven from her goals, and if that was true, he would have to find another way. This was easier. If he could rationalize that she was dangerous, a killer, a potential threat, it would be easier to find a way to quell her from the world completely, to bring back Fred in her place. "I'm not fool enough to presume you might need me, or anyone for that matter, but you know where to find me if you change your mind." Somehow, he doubted that she would, as he started for the door.
Illyria stiffened at his words, at the accusation in them, and she felt her chest constrict as he turned from her. "You are wrong." The words spilled from her, her shoulders stiff, her posture rigid, though whether to rein in her own violent urges or in a physical protest against the things that fell from her lips even she was not entirely certain. "I do need you. I needed you, then. You made me what I am, you made me feel these things ...." Her hand pressed against her armor, against the rigid lines across her abdomen, fingers digging against the tightness inside of her as if she could rip it from her. Her gaze was bright, her lips cast into a pained frown as she stared at him, willing him to stop. "These things which I was never meant to feel, things -- human sentiments, and then all that was left in their wake was grief. I grieved for you. A human. One single human, whom I knew for a fraction of all of the millienia within I had existed, and I felt grief, for you. Grief, which is inevitable, again, for you will leave me again, and yet I find myself compelled to speak these words to you, in a hope that you will stay, and that in staying you will alleviate this.... grief. This loneliness. And I despise you for it, and myself, for what it has made me, reduced to this, and yet still I speak these things because I do -- I need you, Wesley. You are... " There was a hesitation, a silence as she struggled, without success, to find the words for what she wished to speak. "You are more than just my guide, in this world. You are... you were... my friend."
Wesley slowed, heart drumming harder at her words, at the openness of her. It must have been magic. That was the only thing he could believe, for never would she assume to be so vulnerable before him without the influence of it. She was Illyria. God-king of the Primordium. She would not commit herself to being tied to the essence of any one human. In spite of himself, breaths heavy and eyes heavier, Wesley looked toward her again, seeing the sincerity in the face that held, usually, so little emotion. Any changes in the lines of her face were subtle, yet he could read them. "I never intended to make you feel-- that." His own truths uttered in answer to her own. In truth, he had barely cared what she had felt for him. He had cared about little, then. He cared about more things, now, but he loathed it, much like she did, because it hurt. They had that in common. "You are surprised, because you've never viewed human life as important before, because we were nothing but ants to you... but the ants look different when you're at their side, don't they?" His words were free from mockery or judgment. They simply /were/. "You need me, but you do not wish to, because I'm... human, and a fragile one, at that." Sighing, he made to lessen the distance between them, his eyes never leaving hers. "You hate me because I died. You hate me because I don't seem to care that I died, or might die again, and you hate me because you /don't/ hate me." He didn't assume to touch her. He would not, but there was a softening in his eyes, some sort of sympathy. "Perhaps we could both find hope again, but to live at the price of so many others... That is what's worse than death to me, just as living in that shell, without your power is worse than death to you. If you truly wish it, if we ever were friends..." The word almost jammed in his throat like an oversized cough drop. "Help me find another way. Help me shake them."
Illyria did not want to want him to stay. His gaze reflected her own, his face a mirror to her of all of the things that she had not wished to say, that she did not wish to feel, and yet feel them she did, and say them she had, and it ate away at her. Beholden to such magics, such flimsy things, weakened by them, as if she was not already weak. /I reek of humanity./ The words echoed in her mind, in her memories. She held herself to silence, as he spoke, as he acknowledged her fears, her doubts. Her gaze was troubled, the silence speaking for itself. She could not refute his words. They were truth, and anything that she might have said to deny them were kept from her by the nature of the magic that wove the air around them. Her head tilted, down somewhat, half away from him, though the act was a helpless, futile one. She could not shield herself from him, any more than she could deceive him. Her hand drifted, lurching from her stomach to his, to press against his chest, not in an aggressive gesture as it had before, but as if to ensure that he was actually and physically present. Her gaze shifted towards his, a slip of a breath escaping. "If that is... what you wish." She conceded, after a long moment of silence. "What you are compelled to do, this fate to which you are bound, I would see you free of it." A hesitation came, again, her chest aching with the weight of things that even she could not fully comprehend. "If I had known --" She found herself at a loss for the words, again, her thoughts convoluted, twisting in upon themselves. "I would have found a way to keep my promise." She found herself shying away, suddenly, her hand drifting from his chest, her shoulders curling in slightly as if to make himself smaller. She did not know if he even recalled those last moments, and the words that had passed between them, the words emblazoned in her mind, the words that had torn at her when she came to realize what had become of him, of what the Wolf, the Ram and the Hart had condemned him to. /It won’t hurt much longer, and then you’ll be where I am. We’ll be together./ The last comfort that she had been able to offer him, the last fragment of hope in his life, in his dying breath, and they had taken it from him. Taken it from her, as they had taken so much from them both. Together, perhaps, they would see the Wolf, the Ram and the Hart suffer for it.
