Chapter Text
It’s almost impossible to get comfortable in a straight-backed chair. Add to that the exhaustion that lingers after a serious gunshot wound, and it’s not one of Wesley’s better days. The boss can’t be seen to wilt, however, so he tries to stop the dead flower impersonation and glares impartially around the room.
No one seems to have noticed. In fact, Cordelia appears to be doing a comedy routine with her phone that defies description. He tries not to catch her eye but he’s too slow to look away. Wesley is left trying to interpret a series of grimaces, eye-rolls, and finger-pointing at the receiver. The headshake is a new one. Her head flops from side to side like it’s semi-detached.
"What on earth...?" he asks.
Cordelia glares at him in outrage and gestures angrily at the sliding doors behind which they’ve hidden the prodigal vampire. She’s mouthing something but Wesley has never included lip reading in his list of scholarly achievements.
"Cordelia..."
His mention of her name is met with a series of snorts and hisses that culminate in an angry stab of a button on her phone.
"...so do you think you can come?"
Ah, so that particular contortion of her lips signifies "Buffy". But why has Cordelia put this on speakerphone?
"Straight from Darla to Buffy, from one destructive deadly blonde to another," Cordelia screeches, drowning out the phone conversation.
"I really don’t think we should eavesdrop," lies Wesley. He wants to hear this as much as Cordelia does.
"You weren’t exactly my first resort, Angel," comes Buffy’s voice from the phone, somehow tinny and lacking the strength that he remembers. "But he’s your – um – childe or whatever, isn’t he?"
"Well, not exactly my childe, more kinda ...um...my childe’s childe...ah..."
Angel’s voice peters out and there is a moment of silence.
"Your grandchild?" Buffy’s voice is hesitant.
"No, well, kinda, so – what’s Spike done, exactly?"
"He’s disappeared."
"And that’s a problem, how exactly? I didn’t think you’d care."
"Um, hello. Evil undead, possibly unchipped vampire disappears and I don’t care? Besides he has a..."
"What was that last bit? You kinda – mumbled."
"I do not mumble. He has something of mine and we need it back. Badly. So you have to come to Sunnydale and do your childe location mojo thingy."
"My what?" Angel sounds genuinely baffled. Wesley shares his confusion but Cordelia looks far from puzzled. She looks downright furious.
"Giles says it’s like some kind of vampire homing beacon. You can sense where your childe is?"
"Oh." There’s a clink on Angel’s table, as if a cup of blood has been set down. "Yeah. Well, I wouldn’t call it a homing beacon, exactly. You know, it’s a funny thing, they had these beacons in World War 2 that..."
"Enough with the history lesson," snaps Buffy. "Are you coming or not?"
"I didn’t think you’d want me anywhere near you."
That’s said in Angel’s rueful little-boy voice but Wesley is not deceived. He’s been on the receiving end of that voice himself for the past few days. Sorry I left you to get shot in the gut. Sorry I didn’t come see if you were alive. Sorry I kicked you out of your job, your life, my world. Sorry to be crawling back to you like a snake about to strike. Sorry sorry sorry.
"Angel, we *need* you. What I want doesn’t really come into it. I’ll do what I have to do, as always. So, can you come find Spike for us or not? We’ve got a – thing – and we’re on a tight timetable here."
"Okay."
Cordelia half rises from her chair and then crashes back as if she’s having a vision. She’s shaking her head so hard that Wesley has a dizzying moment when he actually sees it come flying off.
"We’ll be there tonight."
Click.
Angel will still hear the dial tone when he walks into the room a second later.
"Hey, guys," he says, a big friendly smile splashed across his face. There’s a speck of blood on his chin. Angel’s usually so fastidious, like a big cat. Wesley itches to go over there and – wipe it off or something. It makes him feel nervous, on the back foot already for a conversation that he doesn’t want to have.
"Buffy has a – thing. She’s asked us to go to Sunnydale and help her out. I told her I’d have to ask the boss." Angel rolls the word ‘boss’ around in his mouth like blood. Liar. He told her no such thing. But Wesley can’t confront him without admitting to eavesdropping.
"Oh, right," says Cordelia, head now nodding in short staccato movements. No wonder she gets headaches. "One blonde obsession doesn’t do it for you in the sex-having soul-losing stakes so you’re gonna go off to the other one when, let’s face it, we already *know* how that’s gonna turn out. Well, Mister I-can’t-keep-it-in-my-pants, you don’t get to decide these things anymore. Wesley does. He’s the boss of Angel Investigations."
It’s not quite the clincher that the triumphant Cordelia seems to think. Besides, Angel has already said as much.
"Can you tell us a bit more about this ‘thing’ of Buffy’s? What does she need us to do?" Wesley keeps his tone cautious and his eyes level. There’s a flash of something in Angel’s face but it’s gone before Wesley can be sure about it. Angel leans casually against the door, weight on one foot, hand on hip, a classic alpha male pose of dominance. Wesley fights the urge to lick Angel’s chin clean and goddamn groom him. He’s in charge here, not Angel. Otherwise nothing has really changed.
"All I know is that Spike has it and Buffy needs it. She needs *me* to find Spike. Oh, and it’s something magical so I need Wes to help in that department. You know. Hit the books or something."
Angel was more persuasive when he was evil. He was also a better liar.
"What are Gunn and I supposed to do while you’re off knocking private bits with Buffy?" demands Cordelia.
Angel straightens up and looms over her. Cordelia is not intimidated. Wesley recalls how his own heart used to race when Angel stood too close like that. But then, he’s always seen Cordelia as stronger than himself.
"We’d only be gone a night or two. If you have a vision, Gunn can take care of it or it’ll have to wait till we get back. I don’t really have a choice here, Cordelia. Buffy says it’s an end-of-the-world kinda thing."
"Oh," says Cordelia, shooting them both her unimpressed smirk. "Well, if *Buffy* says it, then it must be true."
She hesitates as if unsure where this is taking her.
"And you," she rounds on Wesley. "Are you just gonna sit there and let Obsesso here go back to his old ways? It’s like makeup. At first, you think that just a little lip gloss and eyeliner will do. But then there’s the sun and wind, and the gloss wears off, and the eyeliner runs. So you put more on. And you get heavy duty stuff. Before long it’s an inch thick and you’re putting it on with a shovel. And the next thing you know, you’ve turned into Gene Simmons."
Cordelia shudders at him triumphantly. Wesley gives her his best look of polite bafflement.
"Kiss!" she shouts.
"Okay," says Angel.
His lips don’t appear to smudge her perfect makeup. There’s no mark on her cheek when he pulls away. Wesley feels himself getting hot and remembers how it was when he first started working for Angel. All those cool looks and knowing smiles, the peering over his shoulder as he paged through ancient books, the casual brushes and the constant hard ons. Until one day, Angel cut Wesley’s pants off and fucked him over the corpse of a demon they’d just killed. That all stopped with Darla’s return, and the long dark haunting of Angel’s dreams.
Cordelia is blushing and simpering as if she’s stepped back a century in time. Is that all it takes to shut her up? He’ll have to try it.
"That’s all very well," Wesley says dismissively. "Angel, you’ve turned away from your mission before and look where it’s taken you. Are you sure you want to go down that road again?"
"This is different," says Angel. "It’s Slayer business. The Powers would want me to help with that."
Angel is smiling and earnest, like he’s never knelt in a sewer and sucked Wesley’s cock. It’s disconcerting. Wesley’s gut aches and he remembers the heat of the bullet tearing through him, the shock, the pain. And in his mind, he can’t tell why it’s different from the first time Angel fucked him.
"You may be right," he admits. Angel, surprisingly, has a point. If there’s one cause that the Powers always seem to get behind, it’s the Slayers.
Faith cut Wesley open and Buffy made his soul bleed. It’s what Slayers do.
"We’ll leave at sunset. Angel, you’re driving."
As if there were any doubt.
***
Angel has spent 300 years in hell. The drive from LA to Sunnydale is only three hours but Wesley knows how Angel must have felt. The vampire hasn’t stopped making awkward conversation since he turned the key in the ignition.
"Another funny thing that happened to me – well, maybe not so funny, really – was the time I got my soul and kinda went crazy. I guess overwhelming guilt will do that to a guy. Not to mention a diet of rats. I don’t really recommend it. They taste like – well, like vermin, I suppose, if you ever – not that I think you’ll end up...Anyway, rats. Yuk. But that’s not really what I meant. It’s more about the time after the rats, if you see what I mean?"
The countryside is too dark to see much but Wesley is leaning back, pretending to be casual, looking up at the stars. It’s a hot clear night, more summer than autumn, just the way that summer is more winter back at home. Wesley has grown so used to the LA haze, a thick golden miasma in the air, that he’s forgotten how brightly the stars can shine.
"I went back to them, you see; Darla, Spike and Dru. I caught up with them in China of all places. Don’t suppose you’ve been to the Forbidden City, have you, Wes? It wouldn’t be the same now without all the eunuchs. Mmm. All soft and plump with buttery thighs, the kind you can... Right. Um. The Dowager Empress was a vampire. That’s why a slayer was called in Peking and led the Boxer Rebellion. The history books don’t say much about that, because it’s underground history and all, but I thought maybe your Watcher chronicles had something?"
There’s a star shining over Sunnydale and they’re driving towards it. Wesley wishes it were morning so he could stuff Angel in the trunk. Anything would be better than listening to the big-kid shtick all over again, letting it lull him, maybe even starting to believe it.
"I tried really hard because they were family and I had to be with them. I had to see if I could make it work. Maybe I could change them, or channel and control them. Their blood called out to me in my dreams."
"And you were fucking them," offers Wesley. It’s the first thing he’s said in over an hour.
Angel swerves to pass a granny and changes lanes. He’s driving very fast for a trip that seems to be taking forever.
"I tried to live off the blood of evil-doers. There are lots of them during a rebellion."
"It all depends on your definition of evil," says Wesley.
Angel appears to ignore this and continues doggedly with his story. "Darla found out and tested me with a baby. Pure innocence. I looked into its eyes and saw its soul. She wanted me to drain it and toss it out with the night-soil. I thought I could control my family and all it would cost was this one life. If I proved myself to her, I could be one of them again and – and make them stop, lead us into situations where the only victims would be the guilty. That’s what I was thinking. Looking back, it seems crazy now."
Wesley chooses his words carefully. He’d rather not respond at all but Angel is looking at him hopefully instead of at the road. "You don’t have a price to pay, to return to the service of the Powers. If that’s what you’re asking me."
"The Powers aren’t my family."
The car swerves again. Wesley pushes hard against the floor with his foot, even though he *knows* that the brakes are on Angel’s side.
Angel is still looking at Wesley instead of the traffic. "Another thing. Spike killed that Slayer. He wasn’t even in the service of the Empress but he was there and he was hot for a kill. Spike ended up saving her throne for her. Ironic, huh? He was so proud of it, like a little kid, skipping along the road, wanting Daddy’s approval. My approval. We were staying at the mission house. It was an American mission, no crosses or anything, so I took him out the back and did him in the chapel. He loved it and I – belonged."
It’s like being shot again. Wesley clutches his gut and looks carefully out the window, ignoring Angel and traffic both in favour of the night sky.
"What do you want of me?" he whispers.
Oddly, that seems to silence Angel for a while. Maybe Angel doesn’t know either.
When the silence grows thicker than the hot air outside, Wesley decides that it’s his turn to talk.
"It we took that turn-off, we’d end up in San Diego," he says, gesturing vaguely to his left. It’s not true but Angel won’t know that.
Angel gifts him with one of those confused looks that Wesley used to find so cute. "You want to go to San Diego?"
"No, no, I’m just saying that – well, I’ve been down that road."
"To San Diego?"
"Yes, to San Diego." Wesley welcomes the annoyance. It warms him and he starts to hurt, like pins and needles after a rush of returning blood.
"Why do you want to go to San Diego?"
"I don’t want to – look, I went to San Diego. Do you want to hear about this or not?"
Angel shrugs but his lips are twitching. Prat. "Sure," he says.
"I went to Sea World there. I can’t remember why, now. It was a day out for Buffy and the others. No doubt I found it frivolous at the time. But now..."
"But now?" Angel prompts him when Wesley lapses into his habitual silence. It didn’t used to be habit, but now he wears it the way he wore Angel’s coat, the night he met Virginia. Too big for him, but oh, how he loves the feel of its heaviness on his shoulders.
He thinks about Virginia, how she dumped him the night of Angel’s epiphany, as if there were only room for one person to fuck Wesley over at a time. It didn’t hurt as much then, when he was still numb. Now, his anger simmers low and hot. He turns the heat up a little on Angel.
"I saw a tank of sharks there. They weren’t what I was expecting. They were so big, so powerful, they had a strange kind of grace in the water – almost beautiful. Their teeth were so huge in their mouths, it was like they were always grinning. Always smiling. But I knew, looking at them, that those smiles would rend me to pieces in an instant if they could."
"Uh-huh," says Angel. "We’ll be there soon. Are you alright? How’s the gut?"
"I don’t blame a shark for being a shark, Angel."
Wesley shivers when Angel’s hand rests on his knee. Just changing gears. Changing down as they begin the slow drive through the suburbs of Sunnydale.
"In their own way, sharks are beautiful. What I do mind is when a shark pretends to be a – a dolphin. The bite hurts more then. Do you understand?"
Angel nods blankly. "Yeah. You don’t like sharks. You like dolphins. Right?"
Wesley moves Angel’s hand back onto the gearstick. "How much longer until we get there?"
***
They pull up outside Giles’ shop just before 11pm. Wesley has never been more grateful to get out of anywhere than Angel’s car. He stretches his legs and breathes in the Hellmouth. This was his home for a while and it feels like a homecoming of sorts. He wonders if *this* audience will be as difficult as his family back in England. He’s not sure that he cares, in any case. Everything he’s feeling is focused on the creature getting out of the other side of the car, giving Wesley the eager, hopeful smile that sucked him into hell. Wesley wants to hit something but he’s too angry for it to do much good. Besides, Buffy hits back and Angel – might not.
"Well, here we are," says Angel, heartily, sounding how Wesley imagines a football coach might sound on the day of the big game. "I got you here in one piece. That’s one less reason for Cordy to want to kill me. I’d better call and let her know."
Angel fishes a cell phone out of his shirt pocket, drawing Wesley’s eyes to his broad chest. There’s no heart beating there but Wesley imagines that he can see a slight rise and fall anyway. He can’t see Angel’s nipples either but he knows how they taste, slick with sweat after a hard fight. It’s pure Sunnydale that he wants to taste them again, to lick and bite them until Angel comes in his pants like a teenager.
"Hi, Cordy – yeah, I know we help the helpless – oh, I see." Angel puts his hand over the mouthpiece. "There’s a beep," he explains to Wesley. "I’m supposed to leave a message."
Wesley nods but his eyes go straight back to Angel’s chest. With any luck, Angel will be too busy trying to master the intricacies of a recorded message to notice.
"It’s Angel here. That’s A-n-g-e-l. So, we’re here. Wesley’s fine. The car’s fine. I’m fine. Do I just hang up now or what?"
Wesley leaves him to it and heads into the shop, taking a perverse enjoyment from the moment of surprised silence, and the way they all look over his shoulder for someone else.
"Angel’s right behind me," he says, when the moment lasts a bit too long.
"Hi, Wesley, how are you?" asks Willow with a friendly smile, coming forward for an awkward hug that turns into a handshake.
"I’m well," he answers politely, as he’s been taught, not bothering to explain the horrors of injury, painful convalescence, fighting evil and himself, and a lover’s betrayal. "How are all of you?"
"Yeah, good," says Buffy, wandering past him and out the door. Rupert is offering him tea when she reappears with Angel, side by side but carefully not touching. He accepts the tea while Angel holds his phone aloft and informs the room, "You’re supposed to just hang up. When you’re finished."
"And they say *our* schools are bad," quips Xander. "Well, Giles says it, if that counts."
"Yes," says Giles, his sharp eyes at odds with the vague smile he’s giving Wesley. "Well, it’s good to see you. Both. Shall we get on with it?"
"There’s blood in the fridge," says Buffy, tugging Angel in the direction of the back rooms.
"Old Spikey won’t mind if you help yourself," calls Xander, rolling his eyes at Willow.
They all jump when the cell phone rings, lying where Angel abandoned it on the countertop.
Xander repeats the eye-roll that he must have learnt from Cordelia – or taught her, Wesley’s not sure which. "Angel’s phone plays *Bonanza*?"
"Cordelia programmed it," says Wesley, picking up the phone.
"Hello? Ah, Gunn, good to hear from you. Yes, we arrived without me dusting him... Yes, he did talk for the whole three hours... No, we didn’t – er – do that. No one would. It could cause traffic accidents. Besides, there wouldn’t be enough room for someone to fit...I’m not going to discuss this with you, Gunn. No, not now, not ever... Yes, I do know that that’s a very long time... No, I do not – oh, put Cordelia on... I see, I’ll tell him... Yes, we’ll kick Spike’s ass if – no – no there will be none of *that* kind of carry on... No, I do not think that a vampire at each end is a good thing... I have to go now... Yes, I will remember at all times that he is the evil undead. Thank you, Charles. Good-bye."
The others look at him expectantly.
"That was Charles Gunn. He works with us and he’s a wonderful chap. He’s my best friend."
The latter is said almost defiantly at Angel, who has just emerged from the back of the shop with a brimming cup of hot blood. He raises it to his lips and drinks slowly, no other reaction visible.
"Cordelia was at her hairdresser’s. Apparently, there’s been a dreadful accident involving a vision and a bottle of hair dye. Gunn wouldn’t say any more."
"What was the vision?" asks Angel. He has a blood moustache and he’s looking boyish again. It makes Wesley want to lower his guard but Angel probably knows that.
"You and I were in a forest clearing, digging for something. There were leaves falling on us from the sky; lots of leaves, apparently. I have no idea why that matters but Cordelia seems to think it does."
"That’s it?" asks Buffy, incredulous. "What kind of vision is that?"
"The helpful kind." Willow beams at everyone. "Our ancestors cut down all the trees around here so there’s only one forest near Sunnydale – that nature reserve, you know the one – so now we know where to look for Spike."
"It’s not necessarily related to your search for Spike," says Wesley. "Angel’s visions concern his mission."
Buffy ignores him, looking down at her feet instead. "Boots. Good sturdy boots. I must have some, somewhere. The kind that go with jeans and a sweater. Tight, tight jeans. Skin-tight, yes. And elegant but oh-so-practical walking boots."
Willow follows Buffy’s lead, examining her own tennis shoes with dismay. "I guess these’ll do. For hiking in a forest. I’m already wearing practical footwear. How sad is that?"
Angel is looking at Buffy but not at her shoes. The mention of skin-tight jeans seems to have riveted his attention. Wesley wishes Gunn were here right now so that they could grab a pair of sticks and beat Angel’s head in.
"You may not need your boots," says Giles, restraining Buffy with a word, even though she’s up and almost out the door, bouncing with Slayer energy.
"Why not?"
Giles lifts a small book from the counter and it falls open at a much-thumbed page. "This is a copy of a manuscript from the time of Christ, itself copied and preserved by a community of heretic seers in the Middle Ages. I think I understand this passage in it now. ‘Then shall the Chosen One, the vampire with a soul, and his Eromenos, do battle with the Winnower under the falling leaves for the Stone of Morpheus.’ I think that this refers to Angel and Wesley, and that they are fated to go alone."
"What’s an eromenos?" asks Willow. "That’s Greek, isn’t it?"
"What’s the Winnower?" asks Angel.
Wesley avoids Giles’ eye and thanks all the gods he can think of that Buffy’s crew are incapable of picking up a dictionary. Except for Willow, maybe.
"Yes, you’re quite right, Willow, it’s a Greek word. This is an ancient Greek prophecy. An eromenos is a – er – a male sidekick, I believe would be the best modern translation. Yes."
Xander can’t contain his laughter. His gaze ricochets back and forth between Angel and Wesley. "What? You mean, like Hercules and Iolaus?"
Giles’ grin at Wesley is unholy. "Yes, Xander, exactly like Hercules and Iolaus. Also, like Hercules and Hylas. Zeus and Ganymede. And many others, I understand."
"Geek," Buffy laughs at Xander. "So, there’s a prophecy." Her tone turns gloomy. "Why is there always a prophecy? And why haven’t you mentioned this one before now?"
"I wasn’t sure how it applied, before now."
Giles is carefully not looking at the tent in Wesley’s pants, where he’s been hard since Angel licked off his blood moustache and started to scratch his chest. Lazily rubbing one pec with his blunt thumb. He’s still doing it. Wesley angles his overnight bag to hide his erection from the others. He knows it’s too late to hide anything from Rupert.
"What’s the Winnower?" repeats Angel, apparently tired of waiting his turn.
"Traditionally, that’s a title for Death," says Wesley, flatly.
"Great," says Angel. His smile is broad. He really means it. "So, when do we get started?"
"I think we need to know a little bit about this Stone of Morpheus before we go plunging off into a battle with Death," says Wesley. "I’m rather assuming that it’s what you’re all looking for, and that Spike has it?"
"Yeah, the sneak bleach thief," says Xander. "He stole it from Buffy and took off, God knows where. Well, except that those ancient Greeks know where. And Cordelia. How is she, by the way? Still – um, perky?"
"Actually, Spike didn’t steal the Stone. I gave it to him."
Everyone turns to look at Buffy.
"What?" she asks, wrapping her arms around herself, looking like a helpless little girl. "I thought it was just some old rock. One of Giles’ bits of that wall. You know. Hadie or something."
"You’ve stolen stones from Hadrian’s Wall?" demands Wesley, a flood of outrage pulling him out of an old-fashioned funk, brought on by a 2000-year-old Greek and a prophecy of him as Angel’s boytoy.
"Unless the eromenos is Spike," suggests a girl, sitting behind Willow. Wesley hasn’t noticed her before now, and he has no idea who she is.
"Ah. Quite," says Giles. "Thank you Tara. I hadn’t thought of that. Well, Angel? Which is it, Wesley or Spike?"
Angel hefts an axe that he seems to have pulled out of thin air, swinging it dramatically in graceful swoops. His smile is very bland. "I guess we’ll just have to wait and see, won’t we?"
All eyes follow the axe as it weaves and plunges, its head catching and reflecting the light. Angel might have hypnotised them all but the light is tarnished and Wesley aches with it.
The axe stops suddenly, caught in Buffy’s deceptively slender hand. "I want to go too," she says.
"It would be a shame to waste those boots," agrees Angel. He’s still smiling.
They both turn to Giles and Wesley knows, like a stab in the chest, that he’ll agree. They can achieve anything when they’re together.
***