The request takes her breath away.

What he asks is the biggest stunner, but it's shocking enough to hear him speak. He rarely does anymore. All afternoon they've sat in his pitch-dark apartment, the only light the glow from the television.

He'd been watching a movie when she came, and didn't bother to switch it off, so she set about clearing off a space on his couch. Ancient priceless texts with the wings of pizza boxes spread over them. Faith found a garbage bag under the sink (carefully not looking in the sink, where there's a leaning tower of fur-encrusted plates) and made a sweep through the living room, grabbing up aged containers of lo mein, curry and stuff she can't identify. "Jesus, Wes. You're like a bear with furniture." If someone had predicted this back in the day when Wesley Wyndam-Priss had been her Watcher, she'd never have believed it. "You've turned into a guy's guy. And I don't mean that in a good way." He didn't speak or react, so she stacked the books neatly on the floor and sat next to him.

"Aw, Christ, a foreign movie. If I wanted to read, I'd go to the fuckin' library." She said this stuff only to get a reaction, but he said more nothing. She settled in, watching. It was Japanese, but there was no sword-swinging or that guy who reminds her of that ancient John Belushi samurai bit, only more over the top. Too bad. Faith could get behind some sword-swinging. She notified Wes of this, but he didn't seem particularly interested.

The light of the TV in the darkened room hurt her eyes, so she didn't bother with the subtitles. She thought about Dana instead. Dana seemed to be getting better. Giles had thought for whatever reason that she might be a good person to talk to Dana occasionally. (Why, because she's been crazy as a shithouse rat too? Faith was ashamed sometimes at how much less it took to break her. How could she counsel a girl who's endured what Dana has?) Wes she took on completely on her own. Nobody else seemed to notice how much worse he was getting. Much as she loved Angel, how fucking blind can he be? Something sure as hell happened between those two to make him that way, but she hasn't been able to get either of them to say what.

"Hey," she blurted. "This is a total fucking ripoff of The Ring. How lame is that?" Faith knew better, of course. She just wanted to get a rise out of Wes. He's dug himself such a deep ditch, though, that there's no rise that'll pull him out of it.

An hour later, she announced, "This is fun, Wes. Just like a trip to Easter Island, only without the long plane ride." Not so much as a twitch. He just watched the TV screen, impassive. She got up and rummaged through Wes's fridge, not the best idea she'd had all day, but damned if she'd sit here in his non-company without at least a beer. After some searching she found a bottle of some black English shit you could stand a spoon up in, but that was what it'd take to get past the smell from the refrigerator anyway.

The credits were running when she took her seat by him. Wes sat there watching them as if he could read Japanese. Hell, for all she knew, maybe he could. Apparently he could read black on black, too, because he kept staring at the screen after it went dark.

She drew in a breath to make another remark when he turned to her and said in a calm, dispassionate voice, slightly roughened by disuse: "Faith, do you remember the things you did to me?"

Faith wants to turn her face away, to squeeze her eyes closed, but she holds his gaze. She owes him this. "Yeah, Wes. I remember." She steels herself for what's next.

"I want you to do them again. Now."

The next thing she knows, she's on her feet, the beer bottle rolling and foaming over, lapping at her shoes. "Jesus." Her voice shakes. "No." What had that blue-haired insect bitch done to him?

"Wouldn't you say you owe me a favor? After all, I did break you out of prison."

"Stop it."

"I think I should like to start with the sharps this time. Unless you think cigarettes...."

"Stop. I won't torture you. How can you even ask?"

Now he holds her in his pitiless gaze, much as he stared at the TV. "I need ..." The thought seems to get lost somewhere before it reaches his tongue.

She flashes back to that earlier self, standing over him as she does now, only then with a shard of glass in her hand. His eyes had been locked on hers then, too, full of terror and defiance. A piece of shit, he'd called her. This cuts so much deeper. That he could suggest this now --

"That's not what I am," she insists. "Not anymore." Who is she telling?

"Really?" His head cocks in this altogether creepy way, as if whoever's in there isn't quite human. "I thought that's what we all are."

"Is this the price you paid for joining Wolfram & Hart, Wes? You believe now that you're no better than those fuckers? That nobody is? Do you even believe anymore that there's anyone worth saving?"

Had he ever believed that Faith was? She'd never been sure -- from where she stood, it looked like he'd bowed to Angel's wishes, that's all.

His gaze still holds hers. "I need ... to feel something."

It's this statement that knifes through her, makes her take the ropes that he wordlessly hands to her.

This time Wes doesn't struggle against the ropes. As she stands frozen he urges her on -- dares her, almost taunts her -- his voice rough, yet silky. "It's still in you, Faith. The same as it lives in me, and always has."

"Shut up." When she was a kid her mother used to send her off to Sunday school with the neighbor, just to get her out of the apartment while she nursed her hangover and whatever loser had come with it. Faith remembers hearing about Eve and the snake, and this is just how she always imagined the serpent would speak, all smooth and insinuating.

"Just reach down, a little below the surface. It's all there, isn't it? Dark and boundless --"

Snatching up a sock from the mound of laundry on a chair (she can't imagine when he last changed his clothes, much less washed them), she stuffs it in his mouth. "Is there some part of 'shut up' that isn't clear to you?"

She drops onto his lap, jerks his shirt open, sending buttons ricocheting across the room. The sound reminds her of the sudden demise of the little fake pearl necklace she loved as a girl.

"So you think about this." Funny how much energy Faith has put into not thinking about it. Yes, she'd taken a hard, unflinching look at everything she'd done, but since then she'd filed it in the Pointless to Dwell cabinet, which is stuffed to overflowing.

She pushes his shirt back, letting it slide down his arms to get caught up on the ropes, contemplating the smooth skin of his chest. The cuts she'd made had left no external mark -- except for the first one, fueled by rage and impulse. Then she'd gotten into the rhythm of torture, inflicting pain without causing unconsciousness, punishing him for her abandonment, for reminding her of her own worthlessness.

Lightly she traces a finger over the mark she'd left with the glass, and Wes groans as if she'd laid it open again. "Torture is not gonna save you, Wes. It's sure as hell not gonna save me." He looks away. "You don't believe in it, do you? You don't think you can save people. That people can save themselves. Why'd you stay with Angel for so many years?" She strokes the faint line again, lets her fingers trail down toward his belly. Closing his eyes, he makes a choked noise deep in his throat. "Did you think you'd learn to believe? Or were you just punishing yourself?" She's pretty sure she knows the answer already.

She lets her hands roam over his skin, her thumbs tweaking his nipples. Anger flashes in his eyes, hotter than it burned when she had been torturing him. "Shit, Wes," she murmurs. "What the hell happened to you?"

He tries to arch away from her touch, but there's nowhere for him to go. As he turns his head away, she catches sight of a scar under his jawline that she's never noticed before, almost ear to ear. Old enough to have paled, but thick enough that she knows he's lucky to be alive after this.

Faith traces a finger along its length. "What did this to you?" She pulls the sock from his mouth.

Wes's face takes on a curious blankness. "I don't -- It was a long time ago."

Not that long. "What the fuck happened?"

He closes his eyes, struggling to connect with a memory. Faith has never seen him look so old. He says something that sounds like Ka-Nhor.

"What's that? Some kind of demon?"

"I don't know," he stammers.

Something seems to rise up between them then, and she senses it's this -- whatever the hell it is -- that has robbed him of his ability to feel. Faith rises, backs away.

"I can't do this," she says. He's left a knife out for her use, but she picks apart the knots in the rope instead of slicing through. She's damn good with knots, and undoing it takes some time. "I don't know how to help you."

She walks to the door and looks back. Wes sits unmoving in the chair, his back to her, as if still tied there.

It's like The Ring. Sometimes you think you've laid your ghost to rest, but you find you've only fed it, fueled its power to consume and destroy. She feels it shifting deep within her, rousing from its years of sleep.

She tries to think of something to say, but finally just turns and goes, making no sound but the soft click of the door behind her.