I Don't Date 8-1-8
The bitch's place still has electricity. Not just electricity; air-conditioning, which is nice when the average daily high is 90...in December. The price of LA becoming an outpost of Hell in exchange for a few promises from the American government, Faith supposes. Or global warming.
Lilah gives her the once-over and shrugs. "Come in, I guess," she says, and she's exactly the same, except for the lipstick, as she was six years ago when she was satin-smooth and coded queer at the club. "Have to take public transportation to get here?"
"Something like, yeah," Faith replies, eyeballing the place. Tasteful, attractive, soulless. Like a computer going through the Restoration Hardware catalog. "Know why I'm here?"
"To yell?" Lilah asks. "Most people don't visit the 8-1-8 without big, morally righteous reasons. It took Buffy three hours to figure out I wasn't lying when I told her the stupid plan? Angel's stupid plan. And I'm guessing you're here about...hmm, Wesley?"
Faith sighs, sits down on the couch. "You make getting pissed off seem stupid," she says petulantly.
"No," Lilah says, walking back into the living room with a beer for Faith and a martini for herself. "I'm just pointing out being pissed off at me for this state of affairs is intensely stupid, as I actively tried to prevent it."
Faith takes a swig of beer and leers at Lilah, who doesn't look bad for being the living dead and officially a Valley Girl Emeritus. She's wearing a pair of tight-ass flare jeans and a tank-top, and padding around barefoot, hair up in a bun. Looks almost harmless, unless you know better, and Faith does.
"Aw, are you bitter?"
"I've got an apartment in a building run by the porn industry in Sherman Oaks and Angel fucked up my law firm and set off Armageddon. Fuck yes, I'm bitter," Lilah says, downing the martini in one gulp. "So. Wesley. Why do you care and why should I care you care?"
"He's dead and Angel's off fighting the Big One," Faith says. "Meanwhile, you're camped out at the top of the food chain and people are afraid to piss without your permission. You know where he is."
"He's dead," Lilah says. "Which you yourself pointed out. He's probably with Fred right now, singing choirs of Go Angel Go. And yes, before you ask, still bitter, and no, I'm not going to get over it."
Faith laughs, because that petulant expression? Is so Buffy Summers is hurts, and the image of Lilah as the auntie of Buffy and Dawn? Enough to earn big laughs without even Lilah being amusing. "Hey, on that one?" she asks. "I get you. Fred was cute, but fuck, man. You're sex. Evil sex, and a little bit of a psycho killer playing soccer mom, but I'd have totally banged you if I were Wes."
Lilah crooks a quizzical eyebrow. "You do remember we did...and it was really awful, right?" she asks, face breaking into a grin as Faith's beer catches in her throat painfully before bubbling into her stomach. "What? I never told anyone."
"Yeah, right," Faith says. "Because what's his face, midget, Lindsey, didn't harass you into telling. Or Angel, for that matter."
"Angel can go harass himself. I don't kiss and tell," Lilah says, traipsing off for another pair of drinks. Faith considers this. It's true that shit nobody knew about Wes and Lilah until she was dead; it's equally true that Wes stared at Faith in awe when she told him about it on the way back from Stockton. "Oh, look, you're trying to have a thought!"
"Why do you let everyone call you a whore?" Faith asks, taking the next cold beer and sliding it over her cleavage to watch Lilah's pupils dilate with pleasure. "Me, I'm kind of a slut, and that's fair. I got slut pride. But you're not giving it up on Wolfram and Hart's say-so, are you? You keep it for your damn self."
Lilah is a hell of a lot hotter when she smiles for real, instead of those fake simpers and leers she uses to fuck with someone's head. And Faith is surprised how much she likes Lilah's smile. "Good thought," she says, sipping her drink. "It's a defense mechanism. If they think you're a whore, they think, hell, I don't know. That you're made of plastic and there's nothing to hurt except the image. Kind of like your slut pride. Nobody can break your heart if you don't have one, can they?"
Faith shrugs, looking at Lilah and feeling a conclusion almost hitting her, but not quite. Like there's just a little something more she has to hear before she can figure it -- and Lilah -- out. "It's easier to have a heart when you're working for the right people," she says, and even as she does, she knows it is a truly, truly fucking stupid thing to say.
"Oh?" Lilah asks, the claws out and glittering in her green-blue eyes. "And your life is proof of that? Oh, maybe you mean Buffy's life? Or...hmm, who exactly has a light heart in your circle of friends?"
"Fine," Faith says, slumping into the couch. "I came here to yell about Wesley, anyway, not get into who's happy and who's a whore. And you don't look like you know, anyway."
"No, as I've said about ten times, I don't know," Lilah sighs. "So, gonna shriek about dead, at peace, and finished Wes or not?"
Faith rolls her eyes. "That'd be a waste of air conditioning, wouldn't it?" she asks, aping Lilah's tone and finishing beer numero dos. "I think it sucks that he's dead, I think it sucks that LA is now literally Hell-A, and I think you agree with me about all of it, so yeah, fuck it. Not kicking up a fuss, Lil."
"Good," Lilah says awkwardly. "So that's that, then."
"Guess so," Faith says, recognizing that by the time she's finished her fourth beer and Lilah's on martini number six, there's probably going to be drunken groping. Maybe hitting and biting when Faith blames Lilah for Wesley; it's just the thing to do.
Besides, Lilah clearly knows where Wes is, and Faith will have to have a reason to worm it out of the old battleaxe after following the rules and biding her time. This doesn't suck, as far as reasons go, and Faith figures that Lilah knows how to play ball.
And she isn't going to be classed a second-rate lay for damn sure.