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Rattlesnakes

STRIPPED

He drew on the cigarette as he lit it, then waved the match out before tossing it away. Odd, that he should care whether or not he started a brush fire. He took a long drag. The tip glowed cherry red, another light in the darkness. He swapped the cigarette for another pull at his hip flask. There were thousands of lights spread out below him, such a pretty carpet of twinkling jewels. He took another drag on his cigarette. It was nice up here.

That was why he was just sitting there, drinking and smoking. He'd roared up here on his bike, unseeing and caring, blind with tears, helmet free, six sheets to the wind and careening all over the highways. Either the gods were watching over him or had turned away completely because he'd been neither stopped nor skidded under a truck. He'd kind of been hoping for the truck, or at least a bus, or something, but no. No such luck.

He took another pull, wincing at the taste. Road deaths were so cliched anyway. So was chucking yourself from the top of an old hotel. Not that sitting up here in the Hollywood Hills smacked of originality either, but it was quiet, and he kind of liked the idea of doing it here, under the Hollywood sign. Just to remind himself of how far he'd fallen, how much he'd sold his soul off, and cheaply, too.

He took another drag. It was nice up here. Nice and quiet and pretty. He could think up here. Think about his never born child, his broken heart and his complete waste of a life. The cigarette glowed again. He cared for no man, and no man cared for him. Would anyone cry at his passing? He doubted it. Would anyone even notice?

He'd done nothing but fuck up since he'd come to this country. He had blood on his hands. He'd sent the world to Hell through his inefficiency and there was nothing he could do about it. Better this than anything else. He stubbed out the cigarette on the ground beside him, watching the embers die. He pulled his revolver from the pocket of his leather jacket and made sure there was a round in the chamber.

"Freeze!"

Wesley turned around, an odd smile on his face.

"I said freeze!"

"Relax, Kate. The gun's for me, not you."

In denial of his words he pointed it directly at her. "Though suicide by cop works just as well. This way, he'll never know for sure."

"Angel?"

Pain knifed through Wesley's eyes.

Kate lowered her gun.

"What happened?"

"How would I know? He fired me. I have no control over him. I never did."

Kate's gun hung by her side. "Angel's losing it and you're going to kill yourself?"

"Angel has lost it, and yes, it's very selfish but emotionally distraught people are rarely rational."

He sounded rational. A near clinical coolness that unnerved her and convinced he was very much on the edge.

"How did you know I was here? Moon raking?"

"Video surveillance. Graffiti artists and arsonists are up here all the time."

"Oh."

"You picked a bit of a public spot for it."

"And here I was thinking it was nice and quiet under the sign of broken dreams."

"He hurt you, too."

Wesley scowled at her.

"You know nothing about me."

"I know you're Angel's man."

Wesley laughed. A short high pitched choke that sounded almost hysterical.

"Hardly," he managed, with an odd, ironic smile. "Angel and I parted brass rags."

"What?"

"We've split up. No longer together. No longer friends. I'm no longer even his employee."

"Why would he sack you? What'd you do?"

"Tried to keep him on the straight and narrow. He didn't like that. I was making him human. I was cramping his style."

"What's he going to do now?"

"Fuck knows. Kill lots of people? Like I really give a shit any more."

"So you're just going to give up."

"What do you want me to do?"

"Stop him."

Wesley laughed again. "Do you have any idea how many people have tried and died? Nobody says no to Angel. He's a spoilt little brat. Personally, I blame his father. No discipline. Now I had discipline. Had it in spades, and you don't see me slipping off the rails, do you?" He laughed again.

No, not slipping maybe, but pushed, very definitely pushed.

Wesley snatched up the half drunk bottle of vodka he'd brought with him, in addition to the whisky in his hip flask, threw the top away and took a very unhealthy swig.

"Don't do that."

"What?" Wesley held the bottle out to his side, sloshing the contents. "Drink in a public place? Go ahead, arrest me, officer," he taunted.

God, he sounded like Angel. Dressed in black leather, he looked like him, too. Was this just some pathetic role playing or something sicker.

Wesley waited for her, but with no handcuffs forthcoming he returned to his drinking.

"As I was saying, my dear old Dad, he knew a thing or two about discipline, about keeping a son in line, treading the straight and narrow. Very straight." He did that odd hicuppy laugh again that really, really unnerved her. He was flying apart in front of her and a part of her wanted to help but didn't know how. The other was just curious enough to stare and watch, knowing that he'd made his bed with Angel and now he had to lie in it. "If Angel had had my Dad, he'd have grown up to be a good little boy, never speaking until spoken to, yes, sir, no sir, please don't lock me in there again, sir, I'll be good, I promise." He paused for another swig. "And then there was school. The same lesson, over and over again. Lie there and take it and never make a sound. Mustn't make a sound." Another swig, then he turned on her horrified face ferociously.

"And they were right. Speak up, and terrible things happen. Terrible things." He broke off, near weeping drunk. "Speak up and they'll slap you down so hard..." He glanced down at the homes beneath him. "Mustn’t make a sound. Someone might hear."

He threw the bottle up and shot it, shattering it into a thousand jagged pieces. Kate covered herself as the shards rained over them.

"There! Make some noise!" He fired off another shot.

"Stop it!" Kate held her weapon on him again.

"Stop it?" he questioned. He walked directly towards her gun. "Stop it or you'll give me what I want. You'll do that, Kate? Give me what I want?" He was so close, she could smell the alcohol on his breath. She could see the hardness in his eyes. "Give me what I really really want?" He whispered with soft seductive danger. Then he laughed and drew back a fraction.

"You can't. You won't," he mocked her. "You're like me, a sad, frozen little freak, too afraid to commit to bloody animal passion. Not like him. He's not afraid. Not of anything. He sees, he wants, he takes, he tastes. The whole world is his table. But you and I, we can't touch. Mustn’t touch. It's bad to touch." Emotions flashed in his eyes, so fast, one after the other. It was like watching the pieces in a kaleidoscope tumble together as the tube was turned. "Did your Dad beat the badness out of you too? You can't do it, can you. You can't fuck or kill or fight without feeling it. Not really. Not like he can."

He hunched down amongst the dry grass, sitting like a child. "Sometimes, I try not to feel, I make it go away...but I know I'm faking it. You fake it too, all tough and untouchable. You do it much better than I ever could. I wish I could be like you."

"You don't want to be me," she admitted softly.

He looked around, up at her, and they shared a silent understanding.

"Yes, you do know, don't you," he murmured, sounding like the man she was used to.

She knelt beside him, gently taking the bottle of tequila from his hand.

"You don't want this. This isn't you, and you know it."

"What am I then, Kate. Tell me. A failure? A fraud? A stranger in a strange land?"

"A good man."

Sad eyes turned cold again. "You don't know me at all," he sneered. "The things I've done. The things I haven't done. The blood on my hands. The things I've seen. That house in Phoenix..." he trailed off, horror in his voice, revisiting the memory again. "I was a bounty hunter for nearly a year. Not all the kills were clean. I'm a criminal, Kate. Do it." He pressed his forehead up against her gun, begging for it. She pulled her gun away, horrified. She'd seen his eyes. She'd seen it in his eyes.

"You'd do it for an animal."

"You're not an animal." She tried to find a warmth in her voice. "You told me yourself, you might have crossed the line, but you still care."

"Have you ever had a demon resist arrest?"

"A couple of times, yeah."

"It's not pretty, is it."

"No, it's not," she agreed, and she couldn't imagine it without backup. No wonder he was afraid. She could feel his terror like a living thing.

"Why do you do this?" She had to ask.

"Why do you? Protect and serve the innocents? Spill my blood and sanity down the drain so they can sleep safe in their beds at night? Somebody has to. I've stared into the abyss. I can't sleep tight at night, so it might as well be me. Is that why you do it, Kate? To save somebody else from the nightmares?"

She said nothing but her face said everything.

In the silence between them Wesley lit two cigarettes and handed her one.

"Why Angel?" she had to ask.

He gave her a look. "You know why. You wanted him. You still want him. He's everybody's walking wet dream. He certainly was the public schoolboy's. I'd read about Angel, you know, before coming here, but nothing, nothing...the reality...he draws you to him. He's irresistible. He's so alive, for a dead thing."

"You knew he was a vampire before you worked for him."

"Of course," Wesley snapped crossly. Then realised. "Oh, right, yes, you didn't know, did you. Well, I used to be in the Watchers." He caught her look. "A professional guild of vampire killers." He let her second look go unanswered. The Watchers were more than that. the guild had become a sect, a secret society, a powerful and political force to be reckoned with, as much if not more so than the Grail, the Talamasca, the Freemasons and any of the myriad of splinter groups they may have spawned. Even they were all seeds from the same tree.

"Angel can pass easily for human. That's how he hunts. He smiles, he pleases, he charms, he seduces, then he destroys, utterly. That's his MO. He's a pretty and an incredibly vicious creature, but not terribly bright. Like any serial killer, he has a theme and he sticks blindly to it. There's a detailed profile in my flat, with probably a lot of cases you don't know about, if you want it, after..."

"You want me to finish your work for you?" she accused.

"Well, if you wouldn't mind. " He looked so endearing, as if he were only asking her to pick up his dry cleaning.

"You'd put all this shit on me? Angel is right, you are weak. Can't you ask your vampire killing pals."

That laugh again.

"They fired me, too. I'm no one. Nobody." He stood and she followed him.

"You think I'm dumping all this on you? You have the entire American justice system behind you. I have no one. Nothing. No money for guns. No one to watch my back. I'm a marked man anyway, so why don't I just end the suspense?"

"Why don't you try fighting? People do it, every day."

"With what? I'm a loser baby, so why don't you just kill me," he leered.

"Stop it."

"Stop what? I haven't done anything. That's the problem with me. All talk and no action."

"Then do something."

"You want to see something? See this!"

Wesley pointed at the ground and flames sprang up, tall ferocious flames consuming the brush about them.

"Are you crazy!"

The fire slashed down around them, surrounding them.

"Oh God," Kate shielded her face as the heat pressed on her. She couldn't see through the flames which carved out patterns down the side of the hill.

'Don't like my sad little tricks? Too hot for you?" Wesley asked, grinning insanely in the firelight. He glanced up to the heavens and it began to rain, out of a cloudless sky. He looked down her impassively as the burnt ground steamed and smouldered.

"How did you - " she backed away. "Oh, God, what are you?"

"A magician, nothing more. Just a trickster, with nothing useful to offer anyone."

"Stay away," she pleaded as he walked steadily towards her.

"Or you'll what? Shoot me? You haven't so far, and what if I decide to turn the bullets into snowflakes. What then?"

"Just stop."

He stepped close. "I'm harmless, Kate. Well, mostly harmless. It's all parlour tricks. I can't use my proper strength, I don't know how. I don't want to. Magic is pain. Magic is loss. Magic costs. I have nothing left to give."

"Just stop right there." She held her gun on him. "Damn, why did I trust you? You're just like him, a freak of nature."

"Then destroy me. Come on. One down, one to go."

Wesley pressed himself forward against her gun, holding the barrel right over his heart.

"Go on, ready, aim, fire," he hissed.

Kate tried to jerk back, away from him, but he held her tight with surprising strength.

"Let me go!" She pulled back hard.

The gun fired. Kate fell back in shock. Wesley smiled, then coughed, blood spluttering from his lips.

"Oh God. Lie down. Be still. Don't talk. You idiot," Kate admonished as she pushed Wesley back against the hillside, pressed down on the bloody rent in his chest and pulled her phone from her pocket.

Wesley stared past her worried face, up into the stars in surprise. He'd forgotten how much it hurt. He smiled and coughed again.

 

+

Cordelia stopped dead when she saw the blonde hair in the hospital corridor. She even shrank back when Kate turned around, Wesley's blood still smeared over her mouth from her attempts to resuscitate him.

"Oh God..."

"He's alive," Kate announced in a monotone. "The bullet missed his heart. Tore out a good size chunk of his lung though."

"He'll be alright?"

"As much as he can be. I told them it was an accident."

"Thank you."

"Your friend needs help."

"I know."

"How does he think he can help Angel if he..."

"He knows he can't. That's why he did it. "

"He could stop Angel."

"He can't do that either. And he knows the consequences. He was punishing himself."

Kate just sniffed, shrugging off the weakness of the man.

"Could you do it?" Cordelia challenged. "Kill Angel? Face to face?"

Kate couldn't answer.

+

Wesley saw her and closed his eyes, turning his face away slightly, as much as he could, as much as he had the strength to.

"Don't you leave me too," she admonished. "Don't you dare leave."

He said nothing, though whether he could or not, even if it wanted to was another matter.

"You selfish bastard." She wanted to hit him. She wanted to scream and cry. She didn't, but it was there in her face.

"Don't leave me alone."

"You're not alone," he managed a croak.

"And you think you are?"

He looked away. She caught a glimpse of it in his eyes. Something had broken inside. Not just where the bullet had torn through him. Something had broken open and had bled, and was still bleeding.

"I can't save him. I've failed. I've failed at everything. Because of me, innocent people will die. Have died."

"It's not your fault, but if you give up, it will be. You're a Watcher. You know what you have to do."

"I wanted to save him," Wesley whispered quietly.

"I know. Some things just don't turn out the way they're supposed to."

He coughed wretchedly, the sound of it made her wince. Christ, but he looked grey and drawn.

"Colin should be here, to take care of you."

Wesley's eyes flashed with regret then resolve.

"No. He's better where he is. Safer."

"In a warzone?" Realisation dawned. "You sent him away, didn't you." It was a bald statement of fact.

"He's better where he is," Wesley insisted. He was becoming distressed, so she let the matter drop, for now. Later...it wasn't her place, but Colin should know what had happened, and she knew Wesley would never tell him. Wesley needed Colin and he needed to get over Angel even more, but now wasn't the time for harsh truths. When he was out of intensive care, that was the time. She'd let him have it then. What he'd put her through...the dark circles under her eyes made her look like a raccoon.

"Wes, you do know that the town is buzzing with the news that there was a brush fire in the Hollywood Hills last night, and today the name Angel is spelt out in large burnt letters just below the Hollywood sign."

She gave him a pitying look.

"Most people just settle for carving the name into a desk or a tree, not a hill."

"I'm not most people," he whispered quietly, and she couldn't help herself smiling.

+

Wesley law asleep on the pillow with his mouth open, breathing raggedly. He still slept like a child, albeit a sick one. He seemed to have reached some sort of peace though. That was good.

In the palm of his open hand he held the tiny silver cross, still with its broken chain, placed there by shadows unseen as he dreamt.

Wesley's eyes cracked open the tiniest fraction. For a moment he thought he saw a shadow by his bed, a partial silhouette outlined by the slatted window. Then he must have dozed some more for when he opened his eyes again, there was no one there. No one at all. He knew he hadn't imagined it. For there, in the palm of his hand, was his little silver crucifix. There was hope, afterall, he thought as he fell asleep again, his hand closed over the cross, taking comfort from its presence.

+

HERE WITH ME

Wesley let himself in with the key he'd found he still had in his pocket and walked quietly across the sunlit, polished floor, carrying a large battered brown suitcase. He'd half expected the locks to be changed, as a further insult, but no. The hotel was just as he'd left it, unhappy, unwanted and, for the most part, unlived in.

"Where do you think you're going?" Angel appeared suddenly from the shadows. "You're fired, remember?"

Wesley turned around slowly.

"I remember all too well. I've come to get my books because like hell am I going to let you keep them."

"Some of those books are mine."

"Don't you trust me?" A beat. "I guess not. You can watch me sort them, then." Two patches of red flushed his pale cheeks.

"So what's with the sunglasses then? Is this some sort of a statement?"

"The sunlight hurts my eyes. Now leave me alone."

"No." There was something different about Wesley, Angel could sense that much. Something very wrong.

"Angel, I just got out of hospital. I'm not in the mood. Go back in your room and wank over Darla. I'll be gone from your life in a minute, trust me. I hope you never see me again."

"Don't be such a child -" Angel reached for him but Wesley knocked him away. Knocked him flying into the patch of sun he'd left on the floor, causing Angel to scuttle away into the darkness. Angel stared up at him in horror. He could smell it now.

Wesley ripped off his sunglasses and glared at him with angry yellow eyes.

"Hello, Father," he announced coldly.

Angel shook his head. No, it couldn't be happening.

"It's not want you think," Wesley continued softly, pocketing his glasses, his eyes shifting back to their normal blue. "I was dead, but they brought me back. I'm not like you. I'm different." He knelt down before Angel, quite unafraid. "You've made me a dhampir. Six of one and half a dozen of another. I get to walk in the daylight. I don't feed. I don't fear crosses. I hunt vampires. I'm the next best thing to a Slayer. Better, because I can track my Sire and his kin like a bloodhound." He stood. "Happy birthday, Daddy," he mocked, then went upstairs to pack his things.

Angel just watched him walk away, unable to mask his distress.

+

"Wesley...Wes."

The young man ignored him and carried on methodically emptying the majority of their bookshelves into his suitcase.

"How are you going to get all those home."

"It's not your concern," Wesley muttered, still with his back to Angel, flicking through a book quickly, trying to ascertain whether it was worth keeping or not.

"We need to talk."

"The time for talking is long past. You made that clear." The book thunked on top of the others in the open suitcase.

Angel made to move a step closer.

"No." Still without looking at him, gesturing or even speaking the words, a barrier threw itself up between them, one Angel knew he could not cross.

Wesley picked another book from the shelf and flicked it open, flapping through the old brown pages.

"You know, I thought I'd lose my gift, now I have an aspect of the demon, your demon, to be precise, but no. I'm better than I ever was. I guess it's Their way of evening things up a bit. I'll hunt you down and kill you if I have to," he added, softly and coldly, still sorting the books.

He felt Angel's...what was that? Regret? He shrugged it off. He'd been pushed too far. He needed to steel himself for what was to come.

"Why this?"

"It takes a thief," Wesley muttered, tossing another book on the pile. "It's better this way. I couldn't ask Buffy to do it. She might deserve a lot of things, but not this."

At the mention of her name, he felt Angel stiffen as if having taken a body blow. Good. The bastard deserved it. All of it. Wesley had more blood on his hands through Angel and he wasn't about to let the vampire forget it.

"It's over between us?"

"I'd say so. You chose your side, Angel. I've chosen mine. Have a nice life." Wesley sneered, dropping another book in his suitcase.

+

Wesley sat on his lounge, glaring at the unopened suitcase that sat squatly on his coffee table.

Rule number one. Never have sex with your ex.

Wesley leant back on his couch and covered his eyes. He couldn't believe it had happened. But it had. The still fresh bite marks on his shoulder were testament to that.

They'd fought, they'd snarled at each other. They'd grabbed each other and fought and rolled on the floor. He'd bitten Angel with his still human teeth and Angel had come all over him. Christ, he wish he'd known that's all it took. They'd bitten each other in a frenzy. For the first time ever Wesley hadn't worried about the consequences of tasting Angel's blood on his lips.

Oh God, this couldn't be happening. It didn't matter that it had meant nothing, that they'd both been thinking of someone else. It had happened. Wesley had to live with it.

How had Buffy done it: resisted him, sent him to hell? He had new found respect for her, which he didn't like at all, because she was the one who'd set him on this path.

He stared up at the flaking plaster of his ceiling. He was in hell. His one saving grace was that now Angel didn't care, he was in no danger of finding happiness with Wesley. Ever.

Wesley went to his desk and studied the cuttings, notes and photos pinned above it. Angel, Darla and Drusilla. Somehow, he'd stop them. He'd stop Angel, and his bitches. He would kill them all. He had to.

He took his gun, pressed it to Angel's two dimensional black and white forehead and snapped the hammer down on an empty chamber. He'd stop Angel and his women, and then, maybe, the Council would have him back. Not that he'd go back. But to be asked, it would be small compensation. Some small acknowledgment of his efforts. He could re-enter their fold, even though he was a freak now. He could do all their dirty work for them. After all, more vampires were killed by their own children than by any rogue demon hunter.

 

+

Jan-Feb 2001

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