No infringement of the following characters and situations is intended.
Warning: Rated [MA] Mature Adults only. Contains occassional coarse language and violence.
Title: Title: Wesley Sometimes
Series: my Wes/Angel soap
Author/pseudonym: Hellblazer
E-mail address: havisham06@yahoo.com
Rating: MA
Pairing: A/W
Date: 10/11/00
Disclaimers: Don't own these characters, Joss Whedon, 20th Century Fox, Mutant Enemy, and the rest do. No copyright infringement is intended or inferred.
Warnings: sexual references, coarse language, violence, drug references, wholesale plagiarism/homage.
Summary: "Charlotte sometimes crying for herself; Charlotte sometimes dreams a wall around herself..." (read the book, listen to The Cure song).
Bibliography: "Charlotte Sometimes", Penelope Farmer, 1969.
"Raffles: The Amateur Cracksman", by EW Hornung, 1899.
Wesley sat huddled against the wall, shaking in spite of himself. He couldn't hear them, but he knew they were coming. He was out of stakes, out of bullets out of knives and out of his holy water mace.
He was sweating, a cold sweat that turned his skin to ice.
He couldn't stop trembling. He knew they were coming for him. He was Angel's man, and his death would be a small coup against Angel. Like a pack of wolves they'd waited until he been separated from the herd, and now they'd run him to ground.
He'd been alone in the university reading room, another late night session with the rare books the librarian had learnt to trust him with. Angel was off with Gunn chasing bad guys, and Wesley...Wesley was left being the good little student as usual.
Just because I'm the only one who's vaguely literate, he thought darkly to himself. Grade my paper, Angel? Check my bibliography, Angel? Not bother with anything more than the executive summary, Angel?
That's when he'd first noticed the shadows. He should have felt them, but being so close to Angel had dulled his senses. His skin had sprung instant goosebumps. The animal inside him knew he was in danger.
So he'd run. Through the library, through the campus. Through the carparks. And they'd chased him. They'd taunted him. They'd teased him and finally they'd cornered him in the union building, cowering in the cafeteria.
He cringed in the corner, trying to make himself small and unseen. He tried not to breath, to make himself silent and unheard, though he knew the smell of his sweat and the sound of his own heartbeat would betray him.
He huddled in the darkness and he knew they would come, they would find him, and it would be bad. The old terror burned white cold inside him. He rocked himself like a child. It was always the same, hiding in the dark, trying not to breathe, waiting to be found, waiting to be dragged out...
The fear...always...he remembered wetting himself as a child once when the door had been thrown open, blasting him with sudden light when he'd been found. The large shadow blocking that light. Shrinking back into the corner with the cobwebs and trying not to cry because that would only make it so much worse. Being grabbed by an iron hard fist, dragged roughly over the floor by his hair, leaving a shaming wet trail across the floorboards. Being thrown into the wall, cowering and waiting for the blows and abuse to come...he'd only been five.
He shivered bitterly and tried not to breathe. He wasn't about to give them the satisfaction of pissing himself in fright this time. The waiting was the worst. The waiting gave false hope of escape, when he knew there was none. He was always found. In his dreams, still, he couldn't move and he was always found.
Please please please please...he begged to whatever god might here him. Any god would do...just please. But, as always, they turned away from him. If the pleas of a terrified five year old failed to move them, he could hardly expect much from them now.
He started at a sound. A soft scraping. He could hear his heart thudding like the rushed footsteps of a large angry demon come to get him. Please...
One thought. One regret. Angel. Bittersweet. What was the point of having a protector if he left you alone to die. All the things he put up with, and in the end, Angel was no help at all. Angel, please...
Bitter tears streaked down his face. Angel, too, it seemed, had turned his face away.
Another soft whisper of sound. Wesley backed up against the wall, his heart beating so fast he feared rupture. They were here. He knew they were here. He could feel them...that unearthly dread of dark places that even Angel invoked in him. The fear, the knowing that something waited out there in the darkness. Something wicked. Something that waited just for him.
He choked back a groan. He wanted to faint. He wanted to throw up. He wanted it to be all over.
"Wesley..."
The shock of the voice made him gasp. He'd known they were there. They'd followed him, hunted him, played with him, but to call him...it was the most horrible shock. The realisation his childish nightmares were real, the memory of the dark hand reaching from the corner shadows and brushing his cheek.
"Wesley..." they hissed again, laughing, turning his name into a child's game.
"Wesley, Wesley, Wesley," they chanted, flitting about him.
"Wesley..." they mocked.
Shivering so badly he doubted he had enough control over his body to manage it, Wesley made himself stand. He pressed himself back into the cold bare concrete pillar and squinted into the darkness. He could see their yellow eyes, watching him like a pack of dogs. Dark shapes slipping in and out of the darkness.
"Wesley, Wesley, Wesley," they laughed.
They were close. This was it. The moment when the door was flung open, when he was found, dragged out and...he remembered the feel of Angel's teeth tearing at his throat. This would be worse. Cold, painful, terrible.
"Wesley..."
A cold hand, reaching out of the darkness, touching his flesh.
"No!" Wesley screamed, and everything went white.
+
Angel stooped under the force of the water from the sprinklers. It was a strong steady downpour and it bent down on him, cold and dirty.
The entire floor was a disaster area. It looked like a bomb had gone off. Everything was burnt and fused. Against the walls, the Hiroshima like shadows of five vampires.
And at ground zero, Wesley lay crumpled, soaked to the skin, water pooling about him.
"Is he?" asked Cordelia.
"He's alive," Angel answered, grimly relieved.
Angel glanced about. Everything was burnt and blasted away towards the walls, but Wesley was untouched. Just unconscious.
"Spell feedback?" suggested Cordelia. "Looks like a doozy."
Angel looked around again and nodded.
"Looks like they hunted him down here, and he made a last stand."
Cordelia's hand was on his arm.
"It wasn't your fault."
He just looked at her. That scary look.
"Wasn't it?" He'd been sent across town on a wild goose chase, leaving Wesley alone and unprotected.
Only something, an innate sense that all was not well with Wesley, had drawn Angel here.
Wes.
Angel scooped him up in his arms. The water poured off him.
"Shouldn't we wait for an ambulance?"
"No."
With one last glance at the eerie ash shadows on the wall he swept out, Wesley in his arms.
Angel lay Wesley in his own bed in the hotel, stripped him and tucked the blankets in around him tightly.
"Shouldn't he be in hospital?"
"No."
Cordelia hovered.
"There's nothing wrong with him. A bit of shock, maybe, but I can keep him warm. Hospitals ask too many questions. Hospitals are too public. I can make sure he's safe here."
"What if he doesn't wake up?"
"He'll wake up."
Angel had spoken.
Several hours later and Wesley was still out cold. Angel was still hunched over in a chair beside him.
Cordelia was hovering, annoying Angel no end. More so as Wesley's continued refusal to snap out of it made Angel seem more and more selfish and wilful in his refusal to take Wes to hospital. He just didn't want Wesley anywhere he couldn't keep a personal eye on him. Because this was personal.
"Get me Gunn. I want to know who put the hit out on Wesley." He looked her in the eye. "This wasn't random. This was too smoothly orchestrated to be somebody's mad idea over a beer or several to make a name for themselves by going after my people. This was too well planned and executed too be amateur night. I want to know who wants Wesley dead so badly."
Though he already knew.
Wesley might think he was unsung in the greater scheme of things, but he was important enough to Angel for Wolfram and Hart to devote a great deal of time and money into trying to kill him.
Poor Wes. Angel wondered if Wolfram and Hart knew just how much Wes meant to him. Probably, though perhaps they might doubt it. Angel often doubted it himself, that a vampire could love, that a vampire could care, that even a vampire with a soul could give a damn. That a silly, fragile, woefully insecure little human could ever even register in his thoughts, let alone become so very important, the very thing his existence revolved around at times, not unlike the sun that still ruled his life, seen or unseen, it beggared belief. But here it was. Wes had got under his skin and he cared, he did care, despite himself.
And no mother fucker from Wolfram and Hart was going to get away with this latest attack. Nobody made a move on Angel's man and got away with it. His celtic blood hummed with revenge, and he concocted more and more elaborate plans on how to take the fight back to the lawyers until he dozed off, unable to help himself. Angel fell into a deep sleep, revenge still at the tip of his mind, until revenge was replaced with a more visceral need, and he dreamt.
Cordelia found Angel slumped back in his chair, dead to the world, and Wesley curled over in the bed, shivering. Sometime in the last few hours he'd contrived to kick all the bed clothes off.
"Angel, get with the program. You were supposed to be keeping an eye on him," she woke him loudly. She leant over Wesley, feeling his cheek. "His skin is like ice," She accused.
Angel just sat there and looked guilty as she fetched up the blankets from the floor and tucked them around Wesley.
Wesley moved and mumbled something, then suddenly his eyes snapped open and he struck her hand away.
"Get away from me! Women...women like you..." he screeched, wild eyed. "You drove him to it. You took him away from me. You destroyed him."
He rolled over, changing tone and expression instantly, looking directly at Angel. "You'll remember where I hid it. One last joke on them. He'd have a laugh. You won't forget to put it in the paper. Promise you will. I want them to know. I want them to know what we did and how we laughed on them. Promise me you'll publish it. All of it."
"I will," Angel agreed quietly, just to appease Wesley.
"Good, good. I don't want to go without leaving my mark. I want them to know...I want them to know I was there, even if I was only a passenger. Don't want to go without having done something..."
He grew agitated and Angel leant forward, soothing him until he dropped off.
"Okay," Cordelia asked, hands on her hips. "What was that all about?"
Angel looked up, thinking. "I don't know. But I don't think it was Wesley."
"What?"
Angel just shrugged.
Sweat broke out on Wesley's skin and he shivered again. Angel felt Wesley's brow...he was burning now.
He tossed Cordelia his car keys. "See if you can find an all night chemist."
"He should be in a hospital," she reminded him pointedly.
"Not yet. We just need to get his fever down. He'll be okay."
He leant close to Wesley after she left. "You'll be okay, Wes," he promised.
Wesley murmured and twisted in the bed, lost in dreams.
How amusing, how ironic, Wesley thought as he stepped from the bright Californian sunlight into the dark, cool, art deco tomb like interior of the hotel. A tomb fit for an Egyptian prince. And it would do for him. He was no prince, but his romantic heart appreciated the symmetry. He would have appreciated it, the aesthetic joke of it all. He, and even now, the memories came bitter sweet, He had always appreciated beauty and symmetry. Wesley was nothing but a servant to his master's creative genius. Even now, he did everything to please Him. Him, who would be dust by now. Him, who had been the be all and end all of Wesley's life.
Especially the end all. He walked to the counter, an old man now, an Englishman lost in a foreign country, with nothing but the suit he wore and the small brown case he carried.
He signed in, paying for three days. More than he needed, but he had always been overly cautious. He refused the bellhop and took his own key and suitcase to his room.
From the shadows, beneath the spreading palms that clustered in the lobby, a dark and brooding man watched his progress. The smell of death followed him, and this man caught it, and savoured it. Too many years of hunting made it easy to sort the weak from the pack, to spot a potential victim in a crowded hotel lobby. He pushed away from the wall and followed the man to the ornate brass lift doors. Hunted and hungry, the need for the hunt was still a hunger within him.
Wesley carefully removed each item from his bag and set it on the counter that ran along the wall of his room.
A finely cut crystal tumbler. He wasn't about to use the cheap and nasty glassware the hotel provided. He was a gentleman after all, from a time when that used to mean something, and he would do this as a gentleman would. A small bottle of very good whisky. A small brown paper wrapped jar of rat poison, and, finally, his prize.
He caressed his prize softly. It was his, his own work, he'd done this. His last laugh. But he knew there had been flaws. There were always flaws. In everything he did. Always fault to be found. And He always found it. He always judged him and found him wanting.
But he'd done this. He had taken it. Swiped it from the British Museum. Just like the old days. The old ways. But never worthy of Him. He'd have found some fault. Nothing he ever did was worthy of Him. Wesley was always found wanting. Always. Always.
He pushed his prize aside and unstopped the whisky. He poured himself a large measure, neat. He was well past the stage where he bothered diluting it with water. He knocked it back and poured another. He contemplated the brown paper bag. It was the coward's way out, but he'd been nothing else in his life. Why try to change now.
The voice whispered to him. He was doing the right thing.
He stroked his prize again. He had time. Time for his last game. One last game on them. One last game on Him.
He reached forward and pulled the bottle from its paper bag and set it on the counter. A squat brown bottle with a medicinal looking label and the legend, writ in bold capitals across the top: poison.
He looked at the bottle, then around at the room. The last room he'd ever see, garish wallpaper and all. Then he looked at his own hands, old now. And shaking. Damn nerves. They never left him. He never had His nerve, His calm, His pathological lack of emotion.
He poured himself another shot, and another. This was the long practiced way to deaden his nerves. This was the way he felt nothing. And soon he would feel nothing forever.
He unscrewed the bottle and gently shook out a generous measure of the white powder into his glass, then splashed whisky over it. He swirled it around, mixing the cloudy cocktail, then knocked it back.
He winced. Awful. But it was done. He'd had the nerve after all. No more pain. No more regrets, No more memories.
+
Wesley rolled over in Angel's bed, clutching the sheets, eyes red rimmed and open, but not really seeing.
"He never loved me. God help me, he never loved me. Not the way he obsessed over his women," Wesley ground the word between his teeth. His eyes were bright and feverish. "Oh, he'd risk everything, everything for his women. He'd happily destroy my life and his in pursuit of his women. And as for me, rarely ever a kind word, rarer still a touch. I was his secretary, his fag, his bagman, his errand boy...his patsy." Again he growled the word darkly. "Never his partner. Never his lover. Just his companion. The hired help. I could have been anybody. It didn't matter to him. I never mattered to him."
The wild eyes burned into Angel.
"I worshipped him, I craved every second in his presence, and yet I doubt I ever even made an impact on his thoughts. How could you treat someone so cruelly, someone who loves you so much, so obviously, so shamefully..."
Wesley's eyes pleaded with Angel for an answer. "How can you hold yourself so remote from someone who wants to love you so badly they fear they may break like the waves upon the shore. How can you be so unmoved..." he broke off, weeping.
"He seems to know you." Cordelia remarked, trying to settle Wesley back down into the bed with soft words and touches.
"Part of the delusion. I could be any one." Angel assured her blithely.
He watched Wesley twist away from Cordelia, not wanting any part of her or her help. Only it wasn't Wesley. These weren't his words, his emotions. Something had a hold of Wesley. Something had a hold and it wasn't letting go.
Cordelia yelped as Wesley suddenly grabbed her wrist.
"He did it. He did it. I couldn't stop him. Nobody could ever tell him what to do. Least of all me."
Cordelia shot Angel are look.
"Are you sure he's not talking about you?"
Wesley succumbed to the fever again, muttering softly, his eyes moving rapidly under closed lids, seeing a world or a memory they could not.
+
Wesley opened the door, almost falling into Angel's arms.
"If you've come to kill me or rob me I'm afraid you're too late on both accounts," Wesley announced in slurred tones.
"You're drunk."
"For many years now," Wesley grinned self consciously. "Well, don't just stand there. I should like the company, but I'm not a spectator sport for the whole hallway." He closed the door after Angel. "I would like the company. It's so much worse, alone. You don't mind, do you?"
Angel was inspecting the bottle of rat poison and the empty glass on the wood panelled counter that ran the length of one wall. He could already smell the arsenic on the man's breath.
Angel said nothing. The why he didn't care about. He'd picked the man as easy pickings. He was no longer possible prey, his blood was tainted, but soon, what little he had Angel would inherit. All he had to do was wait. And not long, by the way the man stumbled.
Angel glanced up, trying to match the man to his actions.
"Why this?" Wesley smiled at his handsome stranger. "Melodramatic I know. I was dying anyway."
Angel knew that. He could smell it. Syphilis. Disease and decay.
"For my sins, I suppose, many and varied as they are. I suppose I deserve nothing more but I wasn't going out like that. This way has some small measure of dignity. At least, in comparison."
Angel nodded, knowing and understanding. He glanced at the small writing desk in the corner, a neat envelope laid out in the centre of the blotter. It was addressed to The Times.
Wesley saw his eyes. "Could you post that for me. I'll give you the money for it. Please, one last favour to a dying man." He pressed the coins into Angel's cool palm. "I used to fancy myself a man of Letters. I was complete rubbish, of course, but it would be nice, to think, if they at least bothered to read it, that it might stir some dust." He smiled to himself, a vaguely impish smile that made Angel like this man, in spite of himself.
He was curious. He'd stay. He'd seen men die before, but he suspected this man had a story to tell, and stories, for Angel, were few and far between these days. More than that, he detected something of a kindred spirit, a man who had been young once, who had made choices, unconventional choices, choices he was now paying for.
Wesley suddenly half fell onto the bed. He was pale and sweating. And a little scared. So fast. It was happening so fast.
"But where are my manners," he chastised himself. With trembling hands he managed to pour a measure of whisky for Angel and a very large one for himself, which he swallowed in one gulp, the result of years of practice.
Angel pulled up the nearby chair and sat down. His eyes wandered the room. Something...every now and then he felt the presence of an ancient evil, but he read nothing off this man except fear, death and regret, so Angel dismissed the prickling on the hair at the nape of his neck. He never saw the careful near invisible slits in the plaster behind him.
+
Wesley was sweating and whimpering in Angel's bed. Cordelia dipped the cloth in the small bowl of water and wrung it out. Surely they could do something more for Wesley than this. This might be medicine as Angel remembered it, but… she hoped Gunn found an open drug store soon. Gently, she pulled back the blanket that covered Wesley, and stopped.
Cordelia dropped the blanket in horror.
"Oh god, what's happening to him."
Angel peeled back the blanket, revealing the red sores that covered Wesley's skin. He, too, blanched. This couldn't be real.
"What are they?"
"A rash."
Cordelia dropped the blanket and backed up.
"From poisoning," Angel elaborated. "Arsenic poisoning, I think" he advised her. "But they can't be real..."
"They look real."
Angel ran his hand over Wesley's forehead. Manifestations or...damn. Wesley would know. Wesley would know what to do.
Angel threw down the book in frustration. "Possession, past life regression, transmigration of the soul, delirium, psychosis, I just don't know." He looked across at Cordelia, but she shook her head.
He should know. He should be able to tell...but he couldn't. He couldn't sense anything untoward, but Wesley was much more sensitive to the vibes in old hotel than Angel was, and Angel simply didn't know Wesley well enough to discount an organic origin entirely, and it galled him. His lover was in trouble and he should know, he should just know what to do. He rested his head in his hands. He should know what to do. If he couldn't save Wesley, what use was he?
He wasn't going to lose Wesley. His anger boiled at The Powers That Be. He could save strangers, fine, but when it came to someone he actually cared for...
Please help me, he begged. But as usual, his prayers went unanswered.
+
"It's all right, I've got you."
Angel helped the old man back onto the bed.
Wesley was unnerved by the strength of those arms, but the pain made him care about little else. It was a simple way to die, but nobody had told him it was so bloody painful. He hated to show weakness, but weak he was, and there was no way of hiding his distress. His skin was covered with a cold sweat and he was vomiting blood. He was dying and it was going to be a dreadful death and somehow, he felt he deserved it.
Angel came back down the stairs, deep in thought, to be confronted by Cordelia at the base of them.
"Wesley?" she asked.
"Oh," Angel was brought back to the present. "He's getting worse. He was violently ill - be thankful you weren't there for that. He's in so much pain and he keeps begging me to forgive him."
"For what?"
Angel shrugged. He couldn't understand Wesley’s ravings. "I think the ghost had a very unhappy life."
"I think the ghost found a kindred soul," Cordelia observed sadly.
Angel suddenly stopped.
"I remember now..."
"Remember?" Cordelia gave him accusing look. "You remember? You were here?"
"1932."
"You here in the Thirties?" She rolled her eyes. Of course he was. Vampires kept to the same hunting grounds. Even the good ones.
"Briefly," he admitted. "I remember this guy, he tried poisoned himself." He suddenly looked upstairs. "Wes..."
Angel turned to Cordelia. "Check suicides."
"Suicides, of course. God, I hate this place." Cordelia went behind the desk and pulled out the first lever arch folder she and Wesley had compiled on the hotel's sordid history.
"Thirties. Suicides. Right..." she muttered, opening it up and flicking through the pages.
+
"Who was he?" Angel asked quietly, sitting close by the dying man.
Wesley blanched, then smiled.
"He always said I had no face for cards. He used to lie to me, trick me, because he knew I could never keep a secret, the truth could be read in my eyes. He kept so much from me. Considering we were thick as thieves, actual thieves," he smiled at Angel. "He never trusted me, not once." He paused for a moment, either feeling or remembering a sharp pain. "I of course put my life in his hands from the first instant, foolish boy that I was. I was his constant, if unwelcome companion. Not just the aloofness in which he held my heart, you understand. Everyone, and I mean everyone, regarded me as a joke, a nuisance, an annoyance, something to be ignored, put up with, endured. I came as his shadow and was regarded as something less. I doubt anyone ever really saw me. I know nobody ever missed me. He was the sun around which we all revolved." He sighed. "I think he only kept me around so he could reflect in his own glory. He was an incredibly vain man. I reflected his deeds, his accomplishments. I was his mirror. No more than that."
"And you stayed with him."
"What else could I do. I loved him. He had my soul, and I was bound to him. I had no choice." Wesley looked down. "I don't suppose you can know what it's like, to be bound to someone in deeds, but never really in spirit."
Angel said nothing, but he knew. Or at least, he was beginning to. He recognised in this man the end of a journey Angel himself was just beginning.
"He taught me everything, and he taught me nothing. What use are my skills to society at large? Who cares whether I lived or died? At best all I ever was a nuisance, an irritant. A mosquito to be swatted. In the end, we did nothing, were nothing, our works all forgotten."
Angel shifted, the works striking uncomfortably close. All his own works were forgotten. All his great deeds. There was no one left alive to remember them.
+
"I can't find any Manders in any of the hotel records Wes and I collected," Cordelia complained. "Are you sure about this? Wesley could be just hallucinating."
"Manders died in this hotel." Angel insisted.
"Well, big surprise there," Cordelia gestured.
"Somehow Wesley is reliving his death."
Cordelia gave him a 'so' expression.
"If we don't snap Wes out of it..."
"He might die? Angel, you've got to do something."
Angel gave her a look.
Then they both looked at the table covered with books. With no Wesley, they'd have to look this up themselves.
"You look up Manders. I'll look up...whatever the hell is going on here."
+
Angel leant near over the bed. Death was now in the man's eyes. So very clearly. So very close. Angel knew it well. He could almost taste it. He wanted to taste it, he needed to taste it. The man looked up into his eyes, afraid, and yet not afraid. Welcoming death. Angel drew away...unhappy to see himself reflected in the man's eyes, the angel of death. He would not, could not...it was a weakness in both of them. He sat back, and watched the old man tremble in pain, fighting his death, even now, trying not to show the pain which ripped through him. Such a display would be unseemly. Angel marvelled at his bravery. The end would be soon now, the painful, dreadful end as the man sank into a coma, the poison overtaking him at last.
+
Cordelia smugly handed over the fruits of her research.
Angel scanned the brief death certificate. Suicide. Poisoning. Self inflicted. That was it.
"It was arsenic. Rat poison," he remembered, handing the certificate back.
"You remember?"
Angel nodded. "I was with him when he died."
Cordelia looked askance. "You didn't do anything? You didn't stop him? You didn't take him to hospital?"
"He'd already taken it when I'd got there. And what was the point. He was an old man and he was dying anyway. I was with him at the end."
"And you stole all his money, didn't you."
Angel shrugged. Dead man's money...how the hell did she think he could afford this place? But he knew Cordelia was getting very good at sorting out what she wanted to think about and what she didn't, especially when it came to Angel.
"But what about Wesley?"
"He never swallowed any poison."
"But he's got all the symptoms. You said so yourself. The rash and everything. If he really believes he's dying..."
Angel looked at her in horror. "He just might do it."
"You've got to wake him up. Now. I don't care how dangerous it is. We can't lose Wesley."
She called after him as he went up the stairs: "I hate your stupid haunted hotel. It makes the Bates Motel look cheery in comparison!"
Angel shut out Cordelia's recriminations with the door. He turned to Wesley, whimpering and trembling like a wounded animal in the bed. His skin was wet and cold.
Wesley was starting to convulse.
"Wake up! Wes!" Angel shook him. This had gone on long enough.
"Wesley! This ends now. Wake up! Wes!" Angel shook him, then slapped him, hard. "Wes!" He struck him again, harder.
Wesley's pulse was all over the place.
"Wes, Wes, please." He gathered him in his arms. "Don't leave me. Please don't leave me. I need you. I'm lost without you."
Angel heard a slight muffling beside his ear, then "I'll get you an A to Z."
"Wes!" Angel held him tight.
More muffled noises.
"Angel - can't - breathe."
"Oh, sorry." He let Wesley lie down again gently, fussing over him. He felt Wesley's forehead. The fever had broken. His thumb brushed the skin, but Wesley turned his face away, the red bruise on his cheek already showing.
"Angel, I'm tired."
"Of course," Angel realised. "You rest. I'll let you rest."
+
Wes was standing, pale and thin, loosely clad in black. Angel's clothes. He seemed deep in thought, trailing his hand over the wall. As angel watched, he realised Wesley's fingers never touched the paper.
"You're up," Angel greeted.
"Yes," Wesley patiently acknowledged the bleeding obvious.
"You should be in bed."
Wes looked at him at last. "I couldn't." His past ordeals could be glimpsed in his eyes for a moment.
"You nearly died."
"Of arsenic poisoning?" Wesley shook his head. "Never happen, well, not with a mild dose anyway."
Angel gave him a blank look.
"Part of a Watcher's training, leaning a bit on the machismo side I will admit, is developing a tolerance to certain poisons...it's part of our work, messing with dangerous substances. It's a bit like Russian roulette, seeing how much you can swallow without keeling over. A hangover from the old Hellfire days, I'm afraid." He smiled. "Don't look like that, Angel. The Watchers were quite mad, bad and dangerous to know before middle class morality set in. As it happens, I used to be quite good at it, despite being a skinny bastard. Of course it means I have a very high tolerance for certain compounds," he reminded gently, and Angel realised just how much he didn't know about Wesley, how much there was buried beneath that surface. How a young man who came off like a conveyancing lawyer had actually experimented with a large number of natural and manufactured substances under controlled conditions, all in the name of his science.
Angel stroked his hair softly, standing so close he could feel Wesley's breath on his skin.
"How exactly did you manage to fry those vampires? Old boy scout trick?" He had to know.
"Something like that." Wesley swallowed dryly. "Pyrokinesis. I had a bit of trouble with firestarting when I was very small. But it was sort of like bed wetting, it was just a phase and I grew out of it. I've never...I guess I was scared, scared like I was as a child. Brought it back. It's gone now."
"You sure?"
He nodded, determined. He didn't want it back. He wanted to forget what that old dread felt like.
"Okay," Angel soothed. "It's okay." He stroked Wesley's cheek softly. "You really did have a horrid childhood, didn't you."
Wesley turned his face away, but that was expected.
The constantly being the wars had worn Wesley down, but it wasn't wholly that. Seeing his own death so clearly had scared him, but it wasn't his death he feared, it was being judged. He'd seen what it had done to Angel, and he knew, deep down, he didn't have Angel's strength.
"Wes, what's wrong? You haven't been really happy for weeks now. You've been like a bear with a sore paw."
"And you haven't?" Wesley shot back sourly.
Angel ducked his head.
"I haven't been sleeping well."
Wesley shrugged. A few months ago, he would have been entirely aware of that. But now...
"Wesley, what's the matter. Is it me?"
"Maybe. Ever since you moved here. Maybe it's this place. It's evil. The atmosphere is oppressive. And all these empty rooms..."
"All the comforts of home."
That brought Wesley up sharply.
A hit, a palpable hit.
"Go to hell, Angel."
"Been there, done that." He leant against the wall, hands in his pockets.
"What is it, Wes. It's not this place. You can go through every room burning sage if it will make you happy. And it's not your rotten home life because you deal with that on an everyday basis. So, what is it? Talk to me, Wes."
"You mean you're actually making time to listen to me? That's new." Wesley continued feeling the wall somewhat angrily, trying to ignore Angel.
"What's that supposed to mean."
"That maybe my constant string of crises are nothing more than a pathetic cry for help. That being in danger is the only way I can get your attention."
"That's not it."
"You sure?"
"Pretty sure." He pushed himself off the wall.
"Come on, Wes. No cryptic hints. You know I'm no good at that stuff. You want my attention, you've got it. One hundred per cent. I'm here. I'm all yours. Tell me."
Angel moved close so Wesley had no escape.
"Wesley, what's wrong, tell me." Wesley had been so out of sorts for so long now. At first Angel thought it was the constant stress of being beaten to within an inch of his life, and that was part of it, but now he was coming to realise this poison was old, and had been working its way through Wesley for quite some time.
"Don't you know," Wesley hissed at him, angry that Angel was so clueless. "I'm in love with a vampire." Wesley complained bitterly. He almost spat the word. "Worse, I'm in love with...Angelus," that last was whispered, almost as if Wesley couldn't believe it.
Angel was flummoxed, thinking Wesley preferred his bad side until he realised Wesley was referring to the text book Angelus. The one in the chronicles.
"You're not in the Watchers any more, Wes, you can do what you like. Who you like," he added with a smile.
Wesley glared at him.
"Angel, in case you've forgotten, I wasn't just trained as a Watcher, I was raised as a Watcher. It wasn't a job, it was my vocation, my calling. Yes, I was complete crap at it, but I believed. I was taught, all my life, that it was my sacred duty to hunt and kill vampires, to assist the Slayer in this quest and that neither Slayer nor Watcher should play snugglemonkeys with drop dead gorgeous vampires. I love you Angel, but there's a part of me that still screams at me that it's wrong. That I'll be damned to Hell for all eternity."
It had been his sacred duty to destroy the vampire named Angelus, and instead, Wesley had fallen in love with Angel. Mad, bad, crazy burning love and the conflict was eating him up inside. He'd chosen Angel over his duty, he'd been disgraced, punished and he resented being made to choose. He hated himself for being so weak, for being so easily seduced and he was terrified that he'd be punished further for his transgressions.
Blue-grey eyes stared into near black ones.
"I was willing to stand up in the Watcher's Council and declare my love for you. Then they flogged me, nailed me to a cross and my own father set fire to me." His eyes fractured like brittle glass. "I was terrified. I was in pain. I don't think I can go through that again."
"You won't," Angel promised. "I'll protect you."
Wesley's eyes doubted this promise.
"Oh, Wes," Angel gathered him close in his arms. "Wes, Wes, Wes," he teased softly, kissing the top of his head. "We're a right pair," he murmured. Wesley, too, he knew now, was a seething pit of guilt and regret. He held him tighter "Don't you think, that fighting by my side, The Powers That Be might cut you a little slack? That they might forgive? That this was meant to be?"
Wesley looked at him and Angel let him go, burnt by that look.
"Stop fighting so hard, Wesley. You'll burn out completely if you keep on like this. You're not a wicked or weak person. Trust me, I should know." He kissed Wesley's forehead softly. "You've got a good heart. You only have to listen to it."
"I'm afraid."
"I know. But if you fall, I'll catch you, I promise. You'd do the same for me."
Wesley scowled. He saw another scenario entirely.
Angel tried a different tack. "You're stronger than you think Wes. You survived all that. Don't dwell on it. Just know you can get through it. What doesn't kill you..."
"Hurts like buggery."
"You said you wanted it rough," Angel countered softly, knowing now Wesley was joking mildly.
"Does it always have to be so hard? Sometimes, I'm frightened, and I don't like being afraid. You're not an easy man to love, Angel."
"Neither are you."
Wesley grinned cruelly. "Guess not. I love you, Angel, I want to be with you, but sometimes, it just seems like the world's out to get us."
Angel surprised him by answering in the affirmative. "Yes it is. You especially."
"What?" Wesley squeaked.
"Wolfram and Hart have put a contract out on you."
"Me?" Wesley was wide eyed. "Why?"
"Because you're important to me."
"Oh." Wesley digested this, then smiled.
Angel knew that smile.
"Really?"
Angel shook his head in disbelief. Wesley's raw and bleeding self esteem was finally boosted not by words or encouragement but by being considered worth killing. Strange lad, but Angel loved him dearly.
"Don't worry. I won't let them harm a hair on your head." He kissed Wesley on the top of his head. "I promise. You're very important to me."
Wesley was still smiling.
He was worth something. Dead, yes, but worth something.
Wesley's hand continued to trail over the wall, almost unconsciously.
"Wes, what are you doing?" Angel had to ask.
"Divining," Wes answered simply. His hand slowly circled around a spot on the wall. He pressed his hand against that spot, then pulled back, judged the plaster's thickness, and punched the wall, cracking open the plasterboard.
Angel was surprised, though he didn't know why. Wes was at least a brown belt in several martial arts, though you'd never know just to look at him.
"What are you doing to my wall," Angel asked of him as Wesley began picking and scrabbling away at the plaster.
"Treasure hunting." Wesley muttered. He made a hole big enough to fit his hand through. "See?" he announced, extracting his hand, now holding a dusty and plaster covered artefact.
He looked at Angel suddenly.
"Angel, this thing, it's screaming power and evil."
Angel looked at the small object in Wesley's hand. Cursed? Well, it figures.
Wesley glared at the dusty canoptic jar.
"You're an ugly bugger, aren't you." He looked back up to Angel. "I suppose you'll want me to look up and perform the standard decursing for this?" He sounded tired again. "It looks like it belongs in a museuem, but we can't rightly give it back to them cursed, can we?"
Angel shrugged. "You know what to do?"
"I guess." Wes was soft spoken again, unsure.
"Stop that."
"Stop what."
"Pretending you're useless."
"Well, I am. Mostly."
"You used to act like you knew all the answers..."
"Well, I don't!" Wesley snapped, suddenly angry, not happy to have his Sunnydale humiliations brought up again, ever. "Are you happy now? I told you, I know nothing. At least, nothing of any use. I never do."
Angel grew tired of this.
"Stop it. That's your father talking." Angel felt a wave of anger rise from Wesley and backed off that topic.
"You know more than I do," Angel tried to placate, unsuccessfully. Wesley was giving him a 'not hard to do' look.
"Wes, look, I know you've taken a beating in more ways than one, but you do know what you're doing. I've seen you in action. Trust me when I say this, you are as good as you thought you were. Better. Not everything goes the way we want, but you can do this. You are skilled practitioner of the dark arts. More than that, you have a gift."
"Curse." Wesley muttered.
"I'll tell you about curses." Angel cupped Wesley's face in his hands.
"Listen to me, Wes. Don't deny your birthright. You have power with in you. You know this. Don't deny it. Don't let it scare you. Embrace it. Learn to use it."
"Yes, Master Yoda."
Angel rapped him gently on the forehead.
"You're impossible. Play the fool, but don't be one. You can be our secret weapon."
"Not so secret now."
"Yeah, I know. Wolfram and Hart know more about us than we do. It's annoying."
"They're the ones who pushed me into the magic, big time. If it wasn't for them, I wouldn't have tapped it."
"I know. Ironic, isn't it."
"Maybe. But I don't know what I'm doing."
"Yes, you do."
"No, I don't." Wesley insisted. "I made it stop. I made it go away. I never ever did anything more than party tricks after that. Surface stuff. It mortified me. Do you know how bad I was, how dangerous I was...before I controlled it? Do you know what they did to teach me that control? They locked me away and..."
"Wes, your father beat you because he was scared of you."
"Well, that makes it all right then."
"No, it doesn't. But he's passed his fear onto you."
"So he screwed me up. What did your father ever do for you?"
"We're not talking about me."
"One of these days, we will," Wesley bargained slyly, still wanting to write the definitive biography of a vampire.
"Wes, I'm serious." Angel brought him back to the point. "Giles said the Council were terrified of what you might do on your own, or working for me. He was right. And now I know why. You're a kick arse sorcerer, Wes."
"It was just a fluke." Wesley insisted.
"No it wasn't."
"Yeah, right. You want me to do stuff like that again? Use the Force, Luke? It's not that easy. I don't know how and in case you haven't noticed, I've got no one to show me."
He was glaring at the wallpaper, not like this conversation one bit. Didn't Angel realise he hated it, that to feel that surge of power go through him was terrifying. That the fine hairs on his arms were still standing on end, statically charged. That being good at what he did would only make him more of a target.
The wallpaper he was staring at burst into flames.
"Oops." Wesley patted it out. "See? I'm a danger to myself and others."
"You'll learn." Angel insisted, then frowned at the hole in his wall and the scorch mark above it. "Meanwhile, I'm docking your pay for this," he advised.
Wesley hung his head.
Angel patted him on the shoulder.
"You can practice your magic out the back," he assured. "Just not in the house."
Wesley raised his head to make a smart crack, but thought better of it. Instead he went with nodding obediently. He hefted the jar in his hand again.
"What do you want me to do with this?"
"Whatever needs to be done. You know best," Angel advised him, neatly dropping the whole problem in his lap, again. Business as usual, then.