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TITLE: Awakening
AUTHOR: Tesla
RATING:
SPOILERS:
CHARACTERS: Angel/Wesley
DISCLAIMERS:
SUMMARY:
NOTES: This is an Angel-Wesley fic for vampirefever's birthday. Her request, my first at writing this pair.
-----
Wesley could have sworn he'd been killed. He thought the knife had gone into him, and that he'd wake up, bleeding, on the floor of the sorcerer's den.
Only, Illyria had followed him in, and rushed in screaming, in Fred-guise. She changed at the last second and broke the scrawny old neck.
It seemed like it happened a very long time ago, longer ago than was worth remembering, really. The effect of the recovered memories, overlaid atop the false ones, made him feel as if he'd lived both times.
Two facts were unchanged, two facts that stood out like rock outcrops in poor soil: Lilah was still dead---but apparently not with them---and Fred was still dead, and, apparently gone with Illyria.
"She opened some fuckin' bigger hole in time, this go-round," Spike had said. "Sucked them all into it. Said they could choke on dust in her world. What was that all about?"
"It sounds as though she took them all back to her dimension," Wesley said. "They can't hurt anything there. Everything's dead."
"Good for Blue," Spike had said then.
And then they had started to reorganize the old office. It was a bit odd, going on with life (or unlife) after you've given it up.
::
Earthquakes, the local news had reported. An earth tremor had ruptured the gas mains under the Wolfram & Hart Building, and flattened the warehouses behind the old Hyperion Hotel. Which was damaged, a bit.
So were they all. Gunn still walked stiffly, from his smashed kneecap, and Wesley had scars across his back from the claws of some creature. Spike still was drinking double rations of blood to repair his wounds, and Angel...
Angel was in a coma.
Hooked to an I.V., receiving the benefit of the best mystical remedies straight from Rupert Giles and Willow Rosenberg, Angel lay in his old bedroom, dreaming dreams. His eyelids twitched in simulcrim of REM sleep, and he looked strangely----
beautiful.
Instead of looking like he had when Wesley had pulled him up from the bottom of the ocean, Angel was the image of some young prince on a marble tomb. Cold, unmoving, and young.
It brought up all of Wesley's old, reluctant, heedless , hidden love for Angel. Wesley thought he'd gotten over Angel, thought he'd killed his feelings. And certainly, Angel wouldn't---
Wesley was thinking, Wouldn't look at me after what I've done, but it was a question if Angel would look at anyone again.
"I don't know," Spike said, now. "I've never heard of this. You can't tell with Angel, there's no telling what powers he was mucking about with." He seemed ill at ease, standing there. "I don't know, Wes."
"What can it hurt?" Wesley asked. "The suggestion came from Giles, and you know he's not given to---"
"To much at all," Spike said. He snorted. "All right, then," and he bent and bit Angel's neck.
Nothing happened for a moment, then Angel's eyes opened.
"Spike, you can stop," Wesley said.
Spike ignored him.
Angel's hands slid up along Spike's arms, along his shoulders, and then he was gripping Spike's neck, twisting it.
With a roar, Spike raised his mouth, and Angel let go.
"Sorry," Spike said, to Wesley. "Been a while."
"What---" Angel began, sitting up, and rubbing his neck. "What the hell is going on?" He glanced around. "And this is the Hyperion."
"Genius, we've got here," Spike said.
"Wait," Angel said. "We won?" He looked---
disappointed?
::
Angel was walking, a little stiffly, with Wesley, after greeting Gunn. Gunn was moved to the point of tears to see Angel, and gave him a bear-hug. Which Angel returned, returned with caution, until he realized that Gunn wasn't going to let him go any time soon.
"Angel, man," Gunn kept saying, slapping him on the back again and again.
Angel, yes, but his time away had made him more into the vampire, and less the man. His eyes, wide and dark, met Wesley's briefly, over Gunn's shoulder. "I'm sorry," Angel murmured to Gunn. "I'm sorry."
Gunn stepped away. "Hell, man, we all had free will," Gunn said. "We all did things. I sold out Fred for my upgrade, Wesley stole your kid, Cordelia---"
But at that, Angel lifted his hands.
It was difficult to see how they could go on, given the destruction of their lives.
But one did, one went on. And Wesley found himself interested in the small details of saving lives, helping the hopeless and helpless, such as Anne's street people, such as finding new Slayers who made their way to Los Angeles from everywhere. Giles and Willow called and e-mailed, quite as if the reconstituted Angel Investigations was a welcome part of the fold.
Even Spike.
Spike was still his own particular brand of champion of the lost, who showed up with uncanny timing whenever Wesley had gone to the British import shops, but otherwise roaming about doing good. He and Charles trained together and drank together.
Angel stayed in his rooms, and ventured out at night. Gone, of course, were the necro-tempered windows; he was a night creature again. As was Spike, actually, but Spike had managed to keep one of Angel's fleet of cars. Spike never seemed like the daylight restricted him; he acted as though it was a mild inconvenience.
"He's reverted to the same old charmer he always was," Spike complained. "We need to go shake him up."
"Leave it, Spike," Wesley said, feigning interest in Giles' latest e-mail.
"Buffy says she'll come," Spike said, with elaborate disinterest.
Wesley sat back in his chair. "Maybe that's too much of a shake-up." He looked at Spike. "So, you're....talking to Buffy?"
Spike glared at him, then nodded, very briefly. "She says that if I don't go to London, she'll come here."
"Yes, that may rouse him, indeed," Wesley said. "Go to her."
When he found out that Spike had gone to Buffy, Angel didn't look sad. He didn't even look surprised.
"Means we're short a vampire with a soul," Gunn said. "You comin' out now to kick demon ass?"
So Angel did. He didn't have his leather coats, but somewhere in the hotel, he'd kept the old black cashmere duster that he'd been wearing back in Sunnydale. He had the same expression that Wesley had see back then, too, the repentant one, of someone who had done wrong and was trying to make it up to the victims. He came out with them, and despatched the bad with no joy, and went back upstairs to his room.
"At least he ain't out in the alley eatin' rats," Gunn commented, sharpening stakes.
"I heard Anne ask if you still had your law degree," Wesley said, not wanting to talk about Angel. "I hope that means that you'll consider the legal aid work?"
Gunn blinked, looking down at the knife in his hand. "Yeah," he said, finally. "I put Fred in harm's way, to keep the knowledge. I may as well use it for good."
"We all put Fred in harm's way," Wesley said. "Knox plotted it; I sulked and removed myself from her; and she---she touched it without a protective suit on. We all agreed to be there, every one of us, so we can all share the blame for everything. It's what you said when Angel woke up."
"That's what Anne says," Gunn replied, still focused on the stake he was cutting. "She says that we've got to get Angel to understand that he didn't make any of us do it."
::
"We're concerned about you, Angel," Wesley said, later that night. The old Wesley would have stood, diffidently, in the doorway. "We're still your friends, you know. We've always been your friends."
Now, he came into the room and stood behind his friend's chair.
Angel just looked tired. He sat by an open window, looking out at the night skyline, his hands palm-up in his lap.
"I don't know, Wesley," he said. "I'm afraid to care about anyone. Or to have anyone care about me. Bad things happen to all my friends. I nearly killed all of you."
"You can't shut everyone out," Wesley said, gently.
Without looking at him, Angel gave a short laugh. "You should talk."
Wesley put his hands on Angel's shoulder, and gripped them. Under the black wool, the muscles tensed. Standing there, Wesley saw what Angel had been looking at: Wesley's own reflection in the glass above the raised sash. If the glass had been down, of course, they would have seen nothing there.
"I'm trying," Wesley said. "I'm still here, Angel."
Angel's neck bowed. "Yeah? Well, I can't be your father figure any more, Wes. It's obvious that I've failed at that."
"I would disagree," Wesley said. "But I don't want you for a father. I just want---" he stopped, and went on, doggedly,
"---you."
Angel didn't raise his head, but slowly, he raised his right hand and gripped Wesley's left hand. "I should tell you to forget it," Angel said gruffly.
"I'm quite old enough to know what I think," Wesley said. "And what I feel. And to stop denying myself what I want just because I want it. We're similar in that, Angel."
"I'm tired of fighting," Angel said. He moved, and Wesley felt his breath on his palm as he spoke. "I'm so tired, Wes."
"Rest, then," Wesley said, and gently pulled his hand out of Angel's grip. He came around to face Angel, and pulled him to his feet, Angel obviously cooperating. "Let me help you," Wesley said, calmly, to still his sudden flood of confidence.
"All right," Angel said, his eyelids half-closed, his gaze on Wesley's mouth. His tongue moistened his lower lip.
Wesley grabbed him by the shirt and kissed him, hard.
::
Downstairs, Gunn looked up from his row of stakes on the table. He heard distinct thumps, as if large shoes were hitting the floor. After a moment, came even more unmistakeable thumps.
Gunn shook his head to himself. He put down his pocketknife and got out his cellphone. He dialed a number, then waited patiently through the blast of house music and the voice mail message. "Hey, man, it's Charlie. You owe me fifty bucks, and I don't wanna hear any shit about the exchange rate. I know you kept one o' those Swiss accounts! Later."
Whistling, he hung up. He thought he may go around and see Anne, after all.
###
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