Title: Untitled Vignette
Rating: PG
Pairings: referenced Wes/Fred
Word Count: 288
Warnings: Spoilers for S5
Summary: For 30_wounds Prompt #27: Battle fatigue.

+++

"You don't worship me at all, do you?" Illyria turns, looking upon him with eyes that are so familiar and yet the gaze is so foreign in that face. In the darkness at night it's almost possible for Wes to pretend that they're her eyes, Fred's eyes, again as the darkness hides the demonic blue of them, but Wes won't dare to let himself pretend.

She seems to just be figuring this out now - just another way this time was so different from the one she was used to. He had loved Fred, an emotion which Illyria can't grasp the intricacies of. To her, love is the same as worship. In her mind, Wesley should worship her because he worshipped Fred, Fred who Illyria had destroyed, overcome, to the victor goes the spoils.

Wes wishes that he doesn't feel drawn to her, that he could help it, pull himself away, but watching Illyria is like passing the aftermath of a car crash. He knows he shouldn't want to look, but he just can't stop staring. He's not sure what he's looking for. Remorse, maybe, some sign that Illyria understands who's life she took, understands that individual human beings do mean something more than a mote of dust in the universe. If they didn't mean anything, what was the point of living at all? Why did he hurt so damn much?

He looks at her, forcing himself to feel nothing, to not flinch at the sight of the demon wearing Fred's body like a hand-me-down suit, encouraging the numbness to swallow him whole. "And you really can't leave," Wes says with a sigh, wishing for the world to stop teasing him and just hurry up and end already.