TITLE: The Pool
AUTHOR: Mexx
RATING: PG
PAIRING: Wesley/Lilah-ish. Lilah’s pov.
IMROV: #52. Tori Amos song title: The Pool.
DISCLAIMER: Do I look like Joss or the ME Grr-Arrg monster? Er, that would be a no. Not mine, never will be.
FEEDBACK: My first Wesley/Lilah fic, my first improv fic, so be kind. Any comments much appreciated.

Deep, deep down he knows he’s already there. Cool water, obsidian waves lapping at his soul, darkness slipping around his heart like a malignant cancer; slow, patient, insidious.

He lays awake at night, after I’ve left, thinking of what he’s doing, how to stop it. He can’t. He’s already drowning in it.

He wants to be free of this mess, he wants the scar garnishing his throat to be healed and he wants back his desk at Angel Investigations and he wants to belong to them again. He wants to be free of the sinking feeling. The sunken feeling.

Poor boy; straight laced, prim and proper Wesley Wyndam-Pryce… he thought he was staying afloat. Didn’t think he’d end up fucking a woman that tried to kill the people that love him. Loved him.

He hates that he isn’t in control anymore. He hates that I’m the one that comes to his door, that I’m the one that fucks him, and I’m the one who gets to walk out. He may make cutting comments, he may peel back the sheets and slip out of bed to get a brandy when we’ve finished, pretend that he’s leaving me, but in the end all it is is his pathetic attempt to stop himself from drowning.

He hates that he’s falling, and he hates that he knows it. He’s slipping into a deep, dark maelstrom that he can’t pull himself out of, and he knows it. He’d rather he could drink himself into a drunken stupor night after night and not know what he’s doing to himself than acknowledge this inner turmoil that’s eating him up inside.

He hates that I know he’s slipping.

He hates everything, and that is why he’s slipping.

And that’s why I want him. I want him because he’s lost everything that once meant anything to him, because soon he’ll be so submerged in the darkness of his depression and loneliness he’ll be ready for what I have to offer.

Every night that I slip through the door to his apartment, enter his bedroom clad only in stockings and underwear and watch him watch me, I know how much further he has fallen.

He watches the sun rise every morning, and set every evening, he watches his friends slip further and further away from him and I watch him slip further and further into the obsidian depths of darkness.

He betrayed his friends-- the people he loves-- albeit for a good cause, but he still betrayed them, and that is the ultimate darkness that is sucking him down into the pool of depression and anger he is caught in.

He’s being consumed by his betrayal, and it’s eating him alive. He’s falling into the pool, nearly completely submerged, hands and arms and limbs flailing in a failing attempt to swim to the surface and gasp precious air and be free of the heart wrenching misery enveloping him.

Cool water, obsidian waves lapping at his soul, darkness slipping around his heart like a malignant cancer, slow, patient, insidious. He’s in it already, and it’ll drown him in his own sorrow.

--finis