Title: Avignon Days
Author: Mer
Rating: NC-17
Spoilers/Setting: To the end of Angel Season 4
Disclaimer: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel the Series, and all the characters appearing on either show are property of Joss Whedon, David Greenwalt, Sandollar, Kuzui, Mutant Enemy, 20th Century Fox, et al. All additional characters are property of their respective copyright holders.
Summary: Faith returns to L.A. and to Wes
Notes: Thanks to SaraSlash and Zyre for the line by line beta, and to Misty Pendragon for her input. The title is from An Orchard at Avignon by Mary F. Robinson

Avignon Days

And yet this time removed was summer's time—Shakespeare

There was a trickle of sweat between Faith's breasts, turning a little V of the thick ribbed wife-beater translucent, like etched glass. Tendrils of dark hair, fallen from a hasty twist, clung wetly to her neck, and more escaped as she tried impatiently to shake them loose. She couldn't brush them away; her arms were outstretched, holding two heavy barbells at precise right angles to her body.

Wesley chuckled, his legs propped comfortably upon the coffee table.

"Tell me again why we can't have the AC on like normal people? It's ninety fucking four degrees, kids and poodles are dyin' in SUVs out there."

"You're not out there. Nor in the car." Wesley observed mildly.

"No, I'm in an apartment with an air conditioner and a fucking sadistic bastard who won't turn it on."

"I like to watch you suffer." Wesley opened the Haigelian Codex, and made a few leisurely notes in the margin.

"I hate you," Faith said conversationally.

"Mmmm. And yet, you're here."

Faith was silent for a minute. "I like hating you. Keeps me sharp."

Wesley turned the page. "I see."

"You're not even looking!"

Wesley glanced up. The sweat was dripping from her forehead and even the tip of her nose now. Wesley went to fetch a glass of iced water from the kitchen, and brought it back to the couch before he slowly drank every drop.

Faith's arms were starting to tremble. Wesley's cock stirred.

"How much longer?"

"Longer."

It was ten more minutes before the first barbell fell with a dull thud to the carpet.

"Not good enough." He kept his voice implacable, dismissive, icily polite. Fred had collapsed under this tone. Faith cocked her hips and dropped the other weight just at his feet.

"Whoops, sorry, boss," she said sarcastically.

Wesley's voice didn't change at all. "Pick them up. Start over."

When Faith's arms rose slowly from her sides, they were already shaking.

***

She slept in the cage.

That first morning, when she arrived, she'd brushed past him and opened the closet without permission—to sling her duffle bag in, he presumed. Her eyes had widened briefly before settling into a twinkle.

"Hey, hidden depths, Wes."

She dropped the heavy bag to the floor instead, kicked it into the corner.

"Hello, Faith."

"Long-ass ride from Cleveland. Old lady kept going to sleep on my shoulder. I need a shower."

Over the water, "You got the tiles fixed."

She didn't say what she'd come for. He didn't ask. But when he'd brought out spare blankets and pillows for the couch, she'd taken the stack from his hand. She headed, without comment, for the closet, and pulled the bars latched closed behind her.

She'd had to leave the door open, though, and Wesley didn't close it, nor the door to his bedroom. Sometime in the middle of the night he woke to moonlight on his pillow, and realized he was listening for the faint whuffling sound of her breath.

He'd gone, matter-of-factly, to let her out in the morning. She made coffee. He read the paper. Neither of them, thank god, wanted chatter at breakfast. He didn't let himself wonder if she'd be there when he got back.

***

Wesley collected the last of the takeaway containers and tossed Faith a knife. Lilah would have known how much it cost, he reflected. Fred would have translated the mystic symbols graven on the hilt. Faith just caught it.

Wesley smiled. It was one of the things he liked about Faith. She was ... economical. Her words had a habit of cutting through evasion right to the blunt, crude, irreducible point. The lazy, arrogant grace of her movements boiled down to little more than that she never bothered to move unless she had to, and then just enough. The punch was a block, the kick launched a throw, because why make two moves when one would do?

It was an appropriate motto for what he had in mind.

Wesley picked up the matching blade, part of a rare set of daggers he'd obtained from Florence. He stood up and spread his hands. "Come on," he invited. "Time to train."

Faith began to circle, her eyes flickering over his body as she automatically sought out weakness, but she didn't attack. "Kinda dangerous," she observed, but her gaze lingering on the curved blade had an almost sexual heat to it. She liked sharp: Wesley remembered.

"I'm sure you can handle it." Wesley said, trembling on the edge of parodying his father's mocking tones.

Faith, never one to let a good entendre go undoubled, licked her lips. "I'm sure I could."

Wesley feinted high and right then came in close enough to knick the black bra strap showing on her shoulder. It parted under the point, and by the time he'd retreated to a safe distance a tiny line of red dots had risen in its wake.

"Neat trick." Faith glared. "What're you gonna do next, pierce my ears?"

"No." Nipples, perhaps, but that was for later. Wesley essayed a shallow slash at a stomach that was no longer there. Faith had leapt the couch and was half-crouched in its shadow. But she still hadn't attacked.

"Are you in the game, or out?" he demanded.

Faith threw the knife. It went whizzing past his left ear - and thunked into the wall behind him.

"Out." She said. "I told you. I've changed."

"That's a shame." Wesley kicked his own couch over, watching her skitter out of the way with Slayer reflexes, and came at her again.

"What's eating you, Wes? Since when does training mean we go all Highlander on each other? Not like we got some big monster I gotta turn into so I can fight this time."

Wesley showed his teeth in something that wasn't a smile. "Just me."

Faith tackled his knees and the two of them went down. "Not anymore."

Wesley blinked. The tone was right - fierce, challenging—but that so completely failed to be what he'd expected her to say that he had to bring the conversation under rapid review to discover what she meant. When he did, he was absurdly pleased. He supposed it wasn't just him anymore, at that. He had company now.

Company punched him in the mouth. He could feel his lip begin to bleed. Faith straddled his hips. "Are you in the game or out?" she demanded.

"In." Wesley slashed at Faith's chest, parting the fabric of her halter and leaving a solid red line behind. The rent swung open; Faith made no attempt to clutch it closed.

Her punch to his stomach felt a little half-hearted, though it was still enough to make him curl in to the side and try to dislodge her thighs' death grip on his hips.

He never had a prayer.

She did still when he slid the blade down along her windpipe: not so much for self protection as to watch, fascinated, as the matching line of blood blossomed on his own throat, crossing the stubble and the scar.

"What's the deal with the Corsican twins?"

Wes gathered a tiny drop of her blood on the blade and held it out so she could watch it run down the bright steel. "They're enchanted. By someone who didn't like dueling."

He cut the other strap and delicately traced the point of the blade over her breast, watching her nipples harden through the lace.

Faith grabbed the knife out of his hand. "Gimme that," she said, exasperated. Wesley had a moment to wonder if she'd actually believed all that Council nonsense about Slayers and Watchers and professional distance, and if he'd just betrayed her trust again. And then with an expert flick of the wrist, she began popping the buttons off his shirt.

He thought things might change after he fucked her. But she got up from his bed, thighs still sticky with his come, and crawled into the cage as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Wesley turned over into the luxury of his cool, empty sheets and savored the sound of the lock sliding home.

***

"Pink."

"Yes, yes it is." Wesley said testily.

"You wear pink."

"On occasion, yes, I have been known to wear a pink dress shirt."

"That so does not go with the whole scruffy, heavily armed thing you've got going lately."

"Hence," Wesley said patiently, "why I am throwing it out." He tossed it onto a pile on the bed, along with the inevitable collection of t-shirts crowded with advertisements, two clinging knits that were irretrievably blood and ichor stained, and a few of his older and less successful sweaters. His fist tightened in the fabric of one of the oversized shirts he'd borrowed from Gunn after his stomach wound. It was past time he cleaned house.

Faith came back from the kitchen shaking loose a plastic rubbish sack to bundle the clothing into. Wesley took it from her and presented her with her own duffle bag instead.

She backed away as if the emptied bureau drawers might attack. "Oh. No. Put 'em back, Wes. You don't have to, I mean, I don't need... I'm good."

Wesley turned his back on her and began neatly folding the clothes for Goodwill.

"I'm tired of tripping over it," he said composedly, "and I don't recall asking."

Slowly, tentatively, Faith perched her bag on the edge of his bed and began to unpack. Wesley pretended not to notice a glimpse of pink below the layers of black.

***

Faith lolled on the couch.

"Bite." Wesley said briefly, from above her.

"Bite me."

"Perhaps later," Wesley promised, "if you behave."

"No way am I eating that thing." Faith eyed the dangling pepper with fear.

"I assure you, you are. Now open your mouth like a good girl."

Faith grabbed for his crotch. "Rather open my mouth like a bad one."

Wesley seized her wrist, hard, and twisted. "Faith."

Her voice was small. "Wesley?"

"Bite."

Faith screwed up her eyes and mouth and took the tiniest possible bite.

Wesley backhanded her across the face. They were both breathing hard, loud in the quiet. He glared dangerously.

"Alright! Jesus." Faith snatched the pepper from his hand and sucked it off the stem whole, a raised eyebrow inviting admiration for her sucking expertise.

Wesley's stern expression didn't waver until she began to chew.

"That's not so... gah! It's... wah. Wah!" Faith flapped her hands urgently, her face going alarmingly red. Her eyes started to stream. Wesley admired the effect. He really had to make her cry more often, he decided, although the running nose rather detracted. He handed her a pocket-handkerchief.

She threw it at him. "Water, you asshole!" Faith found her voice. She was hopping up and down now.

Wesley didn't move. "Milk is better."

"Fine, milk, Gatorade, fucking TEA, I don't care. My mouth is on fire."

"Yes."

"Are you trying to kill me?"

Wesley smiled. "Very slowly, perhaps. Do you feel cooler?"

"Are you insane? I ... huh. Yeah. A little."

Wesley nodded, satisfied. "Pre-Columbian Indians ate them for that purpose, as well as using them in war and medicine. It's effectively a primitive form of air conditioning."

"I hate brownouts."

"Complain to the power company."

"Too much effort. It's hot. You're here."

"Was that an attempt at some sort of sequitor?"

"Complaining to you's easier."

"You're a very spoiled, selfish girl," Wesley said severely.

"Do I get a spanking?"

"Of course not!"

Faith pouted. "Why?"

"Because it's bloody hot. The last thing I need is a sweaty Slayer across my lap. Don't ask stupid questions." Wesley withdrew another pepper from the jar. "Bite."

Faith bit and chewed obediently. Tears began to run down her cheeks again.

"Serbe you ride if I gabe you a blowjob now," she said sulkily.

Wesley picked up the handkerchief and handed it to her again. "Blow." He cocked his head, considering the image her words had suggested, then proffered another pepper. "Bite. Only half this time."

"You're all heart."

"Spread your legs."

"No, oh no. No way. Wes, please..."

Wesley smiled. He did like it when she begged.

"Now."

He carefully rubbed the exposed pepper seeds over her inner and outer lips and clit before tucking it well up inside her, then perched on the arm of the sofa and put on his glasses to observe the effects of his experiment more closely.

"The five basic torture groups, wasn't it, Faith?" he said meditatively. "This is hot. What's next? How about some audience participation?"

It hadn't been mentioned between them since that time in the alley. For the first time, Wesley saw real fear in her eyes. His hand gently cupped her cheek. "You always did kind of have the hots for me, didn't you?" he quoted. "All that straddling?"

"You're not wrong," Faith panted. Wesley flipped her over unceremoniously, unzipped his trousers, and pushed his cock into her arse with nothing more than sweat for lube. Lord knew they had enough of it. And then the air hit her cunt and Faith began to writhe.

***

"You should get out more, Wes."

Wesley looked up from his correspondence. "Mmm?"

"I've been here two weeks. You stay in every night. No dancing, no drinking, no poker with the guys, no sad lawyer office parties."

"I've had a houseguest."

"I'm not gonna die if you leave me alone for the night. Go out, have fun. Get laid."

"I'm getting laid," he pointed out.

"So get laid more. All work and no play makes Wes a dull boy."

"I can hardly bring home a date under these circumstances."

"I'll go to bed early." Faith sat on his lap. "C'mon, Wes. Doesn't it get you hot and bothered, you screwing some girl six ways from Sunday and me in the dark, listening?"

When she put it like that it did, rather. After that it became a regular part of their routine. Never the same woman twice, of course. Wesley preferred that they not become distractions. He wondered when Faith would claim the privilege of an evening out herself, to slay if not to pursue other ... interests. She was notoriously bored by a quiet domestic existence. But so far she seemed curiously content.

***

One night, in the dark.

"What was her name?" Faith's voice was low, but it carried across the apartment. Wesley sat up from a half-doze, but her face was in shadow and he could make out nothing but one bare foot, flung out close to the bars.

"Who?"

She kicked the bars to make them clang. "The old roommate."

"Justine."

Faith was quiet.

"You miss her?"

Wesley chuckled. "Not in the slightest."

"You miss someone." It wasn't a question.

Wesley hesitated. Was she... jealous? No, surely not. He certainly didn't feel inclined to attempt explaining his arrangement with Lilah, nor its ending, much less the loss of Angel's friendship.

"Goodnight, Faith," he said gently.

"Yeah, yeah. Don't let the bed demons bite."

***

Wolfram & Hart had their own cemetery, funeral and plot included. A death benefit. It was macabre, yet practical. Wesley couldn't decide whether the point was to fend off grave robbers seeking mystical components or simply too many questions from the authorities, but the graveyard lay half an hour outside Los Angeles proper. Fortunately, long summer evenings gave him plenty of time to arrive. It was tasteful, well maintained, the grass as thick and smooth and chemical as a carpet. At least he could be certain he would be undisturbed by vampiric visitors, no matter how long he lingered. It was in the contract: every corpse was buried with a thin sliver of wood embedded in the heart. Lilah said you could barely see the scar.

Wesley wondered if Lilah had had the chance to visit her own grave, before the transition was complete and she was recalled to hell: or head office, if there was a difference there. He rather thought not, or she would have invited him along for a little posthumous sex on the tombstone. It was the sort of thing that appealed to her sense of humor.

He sat there as the sun set behind the hills and talked to her. Little things, nothing profound or sappy, just stories he felt she'd appreciate. A new translation he'd found of the Shah-nama, with an appendix cross-referencing the supernatural element. Faith's reaction to sushi. Angel attempting to use the intercom.

When he set fire to the dollar, he more than half expected to find it again, whole, in his wallet. Some deals are not so easily broken. But there was ash on his fingers and a tiny scorch mark on the grass. Wesley covered it with an expensive spray of tiger lilies; she'd always hated roses.

He dusted his hands and stood, tweaking the crease in his trousers straight. Dusk was falling, it was time to get home. Tomorrow, Wesley decided, he'd send Lilah a memo.

On second thought, Wesley turned back at the edge of the parking lot and pulled a single stem from the bouquet. Lilah wouldn't miss it, he told himself, though he wasn't as sure of that as he'd like to be. What he did know for certain was that Faith would rather have a single stolen flower than the most elaborate arrangement he could have his secretary order.

It wasn't until after he'd climbed the stairs that it occurred to Wes that his bond might take more than one form. But by then she was already smiling.

***

"What did you do all day?" Wesley asked.

Faith shrugged. "Slept in. Watched TV. Went outside and got in touch with the whole lack of guard towers thing. Made prank phone calls. The usual."

"You know there's a job for you, if you want it."

"At Angel and Hart? No offense, Wes, but I've done the whole join-the-enemy-team thing. It doesn't end well."

Wesley gave a dry chuckle. "What does?"

"Ice cream?"

"You didn't have to wash the sheets."

"Besides, I'm not really down with the office romances," Faith added. "Or the office. I'm more of a freelance kinda girl. Unless you're after me to kick in for the rent..."

"I'll take it out in trade."

"Don't... tell him I'm here?"

"Not until you're ready." Wesley promised.

"It's just... Angel. He's all about the good fight. And I'm kinda trying to figure out who I am when I'm not fighting."

"You saved the world," Wesley pointed out. "I'd say you've earned a holiday."

"So did you, with all that peace and love crap," Faith pointed out. "How come you don't even get a week at Club Morally Ambiguous?"

"Someone has to do the paperwork."

***

Wesley enjoyed the feeling of someone choking on his cock. Just a little, long enough for them to become ever so slightly panicked, but nothing so crass as to make them outright struggle or be sick. His fingers, wound in the girl's blond hair, gently drew her head back.

"Are you sure you're all right?" He asked gently, stroking her flushed cheek with a single finger.

"Oh, yes, I'm fine," she said, flustered, betrayed by her desire to reassure and please him.

"Good," Wesley said, smooth as butter, and forced her head down again.

There was no sound in the apartment, but Wesley knew, just knew, that behind the closet door Faith was pressing her face into a pillow to stifle her laughter. More fine, blond, almost invisible hair glinted on his jeans.

He was dressed, because he didn't care enough to alter that condition more than function required. She was naked, because he liked to look at her naked. Her breasts bounced. Fake, but they'd made a good job of it.

Wesley thought her name was very possibly Jennifer. He let his hands fall to the side, watching the slow avalanche of blond as she picked up her head and looked confused.

Wesley took her hand and drew her to her feet, then guided her steps back until her calves brushed the foot board and he could simply push her back onto the still-made bed. Orders, he'd found, were often counterproductive. He spared another grateful thought for Faith. Sometimes she might flout them, but she never looked confused.

He took possibly-Jennifer's slender ankles in hand and drew her legs apart, then leaned forward to rub the head of his cock against her entrance. She froze up and Wesley nuzzled her neck so she couldn't read his eyes, and he'd be free to smile.

No doubt she was paralyzed with the twinned fears that he meant to fuck her without a condom, or that he didn't and, if she blurted out a warning, she would look a fool. Wesley knew exactly how debilitating the latter fear could become, if carefully nurtured. He drew out the moment as long as he could, silencing her with a long harsh kiss, before he slid back down her body and began to lap at her clit.

The girl jumped in surprise. Apparently casually met strangers didn't often volunteer to perform cunnilingus. Wesley glanced at the nightstand that he knew concealed a battery of, er, battery operated devices and returned to flickering a practiced tongue over her clit. It wouldn't normally have been his choice either, but then this wasn't for her.

Wesley's mind lingered on a lithe, darker form, real breasts that were still crisscrossed with red lines from their last collision, strong hands that were now quite thoroughly bound out of reach of her own cunt. The girl was whimpering now, "God, please, there," little words that sounded as though she were being stabbed. Faith would be straining to hear. But soon, now, she wouldn't have to strain at all.

Wesley added teeth and the girl shuddered and whined her way into the first orgasm of the night. The first of many, regardless of what she had in mind. Wesley would never violate a girl who said no. But it was all a matter of how you asked the questions.

Wesley covered her mouth with his and sucked out a breath, making her laugh with surprise. He groped blindly with his right hand and turned a vibrator on full blast, sliding it between them. The blond yelped and jumped again and Wesley brushed a hand in soothing circles over her hip. "It'll feel good," he promised, "once you get used to it."

Indeed, her hips were already starting to rise into the hum. Wesley wondered how many orgasms a woman could have before she stopped being able to talk. And how much longer after that point she could still scream. Ah, the pleasures of research.

Finally she fell asleep. Wesley made an exception to his own rule and let her stay in the bed, because she was dead to the world and clearly going to be incapable of movement for quite some time. He did, however, walk over and open the closet, where Faith was indeed ineffectually grinding her hips against whatever she could reach.

She stopped once she saw him, though, and tried to play it off. "Jesus you picked a screamer, Wes. A girl can't get any sleep around here."

Wesley smiled. There was more than one way that "loud" could be torture. A few quick strokes to his aching cock was more than enough to bring him off after so much frustration, and the expression on Faith's face as he splattered it with come was truly indescribable.

"You. Total. Bastard." She grated, when it became clear that Wesley would neither bring her off nor untie her, nor even wipe her skin clean of his slowly drying come.

Wesley smiled benignly at her and wandered off to sleep on the couch to the lullaby of Faith cursing like a sailor. The girl was gone by morning.

***

"'Night, Wes." Faith stood up abruptly, and the lap robe, disentangled, fell at her feet. She stepped out of it indifferently and kept walking. Normal, except that lately he rated a casual brush of her knuckles across his shoulders if not an actual kiss. Except that it wasn't all that late, and Faith never missed the reveal when there was any chance the woman might cry.

Impulsively Wesley caught Faith's hand as she went by. It was shaking.

She jerked it free. "Sorry if you were counting on some Slayer nookie. The little woman has a headache."

Wesley stood and pressed his cool wrist to her forehead. It looked flushed, but she seemed more clammy than hot in spite of the balmy weather. "I'm not surprised. You must be coming down with something. I'll get you some aspirin."

"No! I'm fine. Chill out. This overprotective vibe is so ruining your cold-hearted image."

"I'm getting you an over the counter drug from the bathroom, not rushing you to the emergency room," he said mildly. Clearly she became fractious when she got ill. He wondered if he should insist that she take the bed for the duration.

"No drugs!" Faith spun away from his hand, but not before he'd seen the illogical flash of fear.

Several things clicked into place at that. Things he should have noticed sooner: Not hunting vampires, not going clubbing. Not wanting to see Angel.

"All right," he agreed quietly. "No drugs." Wesley came up behind Faith slowly, making certainly she could hear him coming. He wrapped his arms about her waist. She froze, which only made the tremors more noticeable, and then slowly gave in and relaxed back against him, letting her weight sag from his arms. She felt very small.

"How long has this been going on?"

"How long do you think?" She flashed back. It was a warranted rebuke, he supposed, since it was his plan that had set the Orpheus running through her veins.

"First time. At B's. After that, not till Cleveland. I'm good, Wes, I can handle it."

He ignored that. "How long does it last?"

"How the hell should I know? Not like I'm checking my melting watch."

Wesley pulled her back down to the couch, retrieved the fleece throw from the floor and bundled her up before pulling her in to his chest. "We'll get through this," he promised.

Faith nodded solemnly, like a child. "I'm so cold. Why is there ice? This some kinda Titanic thing? 'Cause I don't wanna drown."

"Merely a documentary," Wesley improvised in soothing tones, wishing he knew what Faith was seeing. He smoothed her hair back from her forehead. Surreptitiously he checked the blinking clock on the VCR. He'd have to call in to work tomorrow.

***

It was a month before Faith told him all of it, apropos of nothing as she chopped tomatoes. Or maybe it was the flashing knife that reminded her, the ooze of red on her hands. The crater. The pendant, which made a vestigial part of Wesley itch for his Watcher's books. So that's where Angel had disappeared to. He'd said remarkably little when he returned home, at least to Wesley. These days Cordelia seemed to be his only confidante, and she was hardly in a position to talk back.

The vote, and being chosen leader, in the fewest possible words. Wesley felt a burning in his chest. How well he remembered that feeling. Calling his father, and stuttering off into silence... he could do better than that for her.

"I'm proud of you," he said awkwardly.

Faith switched to chopping onions, her hair hiding her face. "Your little Slayer, all grown up. Tell it to Hallmark."

His Slayer, yes, in a way that Buffy never had been. He was able to summon the first pity for Buffy he could recall since she'd lost him his job with the Council. Friends that turn on you, and a fight you can't leave. Oh yes, he knew that one. Just because of his relationship with Lilah, they all assumed he'd betrayed them... Wesley pushed the bitter thoughts aside.

The girl Anya, who Wesley barely remembered meeting, dead. The Slayers called all over the world, which explained a lot about the garbled reports they'd been getting from usually reliable sources. The school bus, the principal.

"And did he surprise you?" Wesley asked, finally.

Faith shrugged. "I guess. I was surprised he went all Harlequin on me."

"Where is he now?"

"New York, I think. Something about inner city youth. Man's always gotta have a mission. I kinda tuned out after the word school."

Wesley smiled.

"You didn't leave after you, er, got all bouncy with me," he pointed out with just a hint of smugness.

"Why do you think I sleep in the cage?"

Wesley carefully did not look at her. "I wasn't certain, actually. Serving out your sentence, in a sense? Reassuring me that I wouldn't wake up to an improvised blowtorch? A feeling of safety?"

"That would be D, all of the above. But mostly—I got this thing, where I run away a lot when things get heavy. The bars—helped with that, last time."

Wesley dumped olives and anchovies into the bubbling sauce, and started peeling garlic. "I'll get a stronger lock."

It was a strange way, he reflected, to say I love you.

They were both quiet for a moment.

Then Faith threw a piece of pasta at the ceiling. It stuck, dangling. "Dinner's ready."

"I wish you wouldn't do that," Wesley complained. "The kitchen is starting to look like a cave."