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[elgrey]

Darkness Visible, Part Seven

Angel waited until they were gone before shutting the door firmly. He sat down on the bed and said, “Wes, maybe you don’t need to talk about this, but I do. And maybe you don’t need to hear my apology, but I need to make it.”

 

Wesley sat down on the overstuffed chair that had been left by the previous occupant. “Last time Angelus got out, he half-throttled me and tossed me off a balcony. That wasn’t your fault and neither is this. What’s the difference?”

 

“Last time Angelus got out it was your idea. I warned you what he was like and you wanted to go ahead with it anyway. Which did make me feel that anything that happened to you that wasn’t permanently scarring was on your own head. This was different. This was me ignoring everything Lorne had told me about not letting my own obsession with this demon rebound on the rest of you, and walking straight into the danger he’d warned me about. This is about me going after that demon even though I knew I couldn’t kill it because I wanted some cosmic payback for all the sins I have to atone for.” Angel took a deep breath. “I'm not apologising to you for what Angelus did to you in that bedroom. I'm apologising to you for not taking care to keep Angelus locked up where he should have been. I'm apologising to you for Angelus being around to do those things to you in the first place.”

 

There was a long pause before Wesley nodded, conceding the point. “Apology accepted.”

 

“And I need to talk about what he did.”

 

Wesley immediately locked down, averting his gaze, voice hardening. “I don’t.”

 

“Wes,” Angel’s tone was unexpectedly gentle and it made the man look at him despite himself. “I remember all of it. I know you do too. We’re the only ones who know what happened in there. The things Angelus said. The things he did. How much he enjoyed hurting you…”

Wesley had his eyes closed now, a hand up to his head to hide his face. “Angel…” He took a deep breath and looked up. “The truth is, I have no emotional capacity to cope with what Angelus did to me. Do you remember how Fred ran away when her parents came to see her? Because if they were real then Pylea was too and the only way she could cope with Pylea was to pretend it was just a fairy story? This is the same. This has to be a nightmare I had that no one else was a part of. And I'm sorry if that means I can’t help you with your nightmare either, but I can’t. I don’t have anything to give or to say that can help. I have to pretend it didn’t happen.”

 

“But it did,” Angel said, still very gently. “And I need to know that we’re okay.”

 

“We’re okay.” Wesley looked up at him. “It wasn’t you. I know it wasn’t you.”

 

“But I look like him and I smell like him and I sound like him and I'm as strong as he is. He got into your room and did those things to you because you trust me. We both know that’s true. Trusting me. Trusting a vampire who can lose his soul as suddenly as he gained it, and who is stronger than you and faster than you and can hurt you like no one else on this planet, got you tied to that bed trying not to scream for all those godawful hours.”

 

“Only two hours,” Wesley said quietly. “Two hours and twenty-four minutes give or take a few seconds before the blood loss made me black out. Not that I was counting.”

 

“My point is that…”

 

“Your point is that if my trusting you ended up causing me lots of physical pain it would be a natural response on my part to stop trusting you. Yes, it probably would, but I seem to have been contaminated by trust for you a long time ago, Angel, and I can’t just shake it off like a bad case of measles. You don’t actually sound that much like Angelus, anyway. Probably because he’s such a prick and you’re not. And you don’t smell like him either. He smells of blood and arousal, mostly, I think he must have a permanent hard-on. You don’t. Well, except when Darla was around. You smelled a little like him then. And I used to be scared of you, remember? You must have smelt it on me back then.”

 

“I remember.” And he did. Remembered grabbing Wesley in their first office, yanking him back against his body, demonstrating how fast he was. Telling him in that hard dead voice he used on him sometimes: “Because this is how fast I could take you if I wanted to.” He could remember the smell of fear and the rapid hammering of Wesley’s heart; the way he’d gone so still in Angel’s grip, like any prey animal seized by a predator, instinct kicking in that told him not to struggle or the predator would bite now instead of later.

 

“But I still trusted you even when I was afraid of you.” Wesley leant forward in case Angel missed the sincerity of his gaze. “I still trust you. Now. Today. This minute. And if you don’t like that, tough. Angelus did a lot of things to me, it’s true, but he didn’t find a way to make me stop trusting you and I like to think of that as a victory for our side.”

 

Angel shrugged. “Sounds more like the triumph of hope over experience to me.”

 

“Well, that too. My point is I know it wasn’t you.”

 

Angel put his hands up to his face, groaning inwardly. He couldn’t find the words; how much he regretted it; how angry he was with himself for his stupidity in risking his soul like that; how he wanted to grab Angelus and smash his face through the nearest mirror but Angelus was the one demon he could never lay his hands on; not without the aid of seriously dangerous drugs anyway. “I hate him so much. And, Wes, on some level, he is me.”

 

Wesley shrugged. “Living well really is the best revenge, Angel. Every time you save another life you are keeping him in hell. And the day you become human is the day he ceases to have any kind of existence. If you truly want to piss him off, go and save another puppy. According to Faith, that really gets to him.”

 

Abruptly, Angel put his arms around Wesley and held him closely, although not so closely that he couldn’t struggle free if he panicked, which he almost expected him to do; instead, he froze, and that hurt too, but at least it was consistent; at least this was something Wesley had done in the past. They both waited a moment, listening to the accelerated pounding of Wesley’s heart and Angel was sure they were both remembering that first office and their first tentative steps towards a friendship. Angel inhaled carefully and there was a scent of fear but it wasn’t as sharp as he’d expected; not the blind panic of raw terror that recent events amply justified.

 

“LA getting to you at last, Angel?” Wesley asked a little indistinctly. “I thought you weren’t comfortable with hugging?”

 

“I'm still trying to avoid the whole mud-wrapping thing.” Angel realized Wesley had a point, as he hadn’t got any better at hugging. It had come naturally to him with Wesley once; perhaps when he'd thought of Wesley as someone still somehow childlike, but there was too much water under the bridge of their relationship for it to come easily now. It felt damned awkward to him; all that strange body to body contact, elbows and ribs uneasily touching. But he couldn’t help remembering that he’d hugged Faith when she needed it – needed it because she was traumatized from torturing Wesley – and that therefore he owed Wesley a hug now. Not that Wesley seemed to particularly like being hugged, come to think of it, he was just sitting there awkwardly within the embrace, seeming to wonder exactly how, as an Englishman, one did this anyway. But Angel persisted; essaying a vague back rubbing motion that he hoped was comforting rather than just plain creepy.

 

Wesley remained awkwardly unrelaxed, but the fear scent was getting less, not more, and the awkwardness definitely seemed to have more to do with his lack of experience in being hugged than because of his proximity to Angel in particular. Angel realized that he hadn’t hugged Wesley when Fred had died either. Wesley hadn’t really invited it; he’d worn that flesh-covering turtleneck like armour and kept his elbows jammed into his sides as if any accidental contact with another body would cause him to shatter.

 

“Why do people hug again?” Wesley murmured.

 

“It’s meant to be comforting. Go with it.” Angel rubbed his back again, almost sure that he was doing this right. Wesley smelt of his shower gel, not blood, fear, pain, or Angelus’s come, any more. The hot water and the thin robe wrapped around his body had left him a particularly warm blooded creature to embrace. Angel could hear his heartbeat, sense the blood in his veins and arteries. He still smelt like food; he remembered from the last time that he’d fed on Wesley how long that had taken to wear off. It had been even more acute on the last occasion as Wesley had been not just the first human blood he’d tasted in nearly two years, but undoubtedly the most delicious human blood he’d tasted ever. Three months of starvation really made a vampire savour his next meal and while the pig’s blood had been welcome it had also been unsatisfactory, each snatched gulp promising nourishment but not entirely providing it. Drinking from Wesley’s skinny dirty arm, however, that had been ambrosia, the nectar of paradise, warm from the vein, delicious fresh human blood bathing his mouth and throat, each sip restoring sanity and strength. He had never needed a meal more or had one that tasted better.

 

It had made Angel acutely aware of Wesley’s scent and primordially territorial. It had felt wrong to be estranged from Wesley before that meal on the hired boat. He had dreamt of Wesley returned to the fold, part of Angel’s family once again, and woken up to find the man saving his life, Angel’s anger as spent as it had been in his hallucinatory dreams. He had known that Wesley was doing this as a penance, seeking atonement for his mistake, for his part in the creation of a Connor who had done this to his father. Justine had been in no such need of redemption but Wesley had insisted on her atoning anyway. So he had woken to the care of a gentle, nurturing Wesley and thought that this was it; the end of their estrangement; that Wesley would come back with him to the Hyperion and stay. But Wesley had left him there, to the care of Gunn and Fred, evidently still considering himself exiled from the family unit, and Angel hadn’t had the strength then to tell him to stay, and besides there had been Connor to deal with. But as soon as he’d had vigour enough, he’d been determined to restore the missing members of his family, to find Cordelia and fetch Wesley home.

 

Wesley, however, had proven surprisingly elusive about being fetched. He’d handed over the information about Cordelia and then simply…left. Leaving Angel looking after him in disbelief because it certainly hadn’t played this way in his mind. He was positively eager to offer Wesley absolution; to tell him he forgave him and he should come home now, but Wesley hadn’t given him the option and had resolutely refused to need to be saved or to appear to be in need of his forgiveness.

 

And yet Wesley had smelt like something that belonged to him. Not just because he was part of Angel’s family and needed to return to it, but because Angel had drunk his blood, not as he had done from Kate, for her sake, to save her, but as he had with Buffy, drank deep and long to pull himself from the brink of brain death to full awareness of his unlife. Wesley had lent him his warmth and sustenance and as a consequence Angel had clawed his way back to being; and that gave them a connection which he’d thought they both understood. They were literally bound by blood now.

 

On their next meeting, Wesley smelt like food and family and friendship to him whenever he inhaled; even above the scent of sweat and fear and demon blood and Lilah and Wesley’s own cuts and bruises, there was that unmistakable Wesley scent that Angel now thought of, unconsciously, as something belonging to him. But Wesley hadn’t agreed with that assessment at all. Wesley had walked off and left him with the information he needed and no hint at all that he had any intention of ever returning to the family fold. And the next time he’d smelt Wesley it had been on Lilah; all over Lilah in fact, just as Lilah’s scent had been all over Wesley; intimate odours of sweat and satisfaction. Territorial, head of the family, alpha male possessiveness aside, that had smelt wrong to Angel. Lilah was his enemy and Wesley wasn’t; had proven that he wasn’t; he didn’t like his friends being scent-marked by his enemies. Especially not when they were scent-marked so very…thoroughly.

 

He’d probed a little try to find out what this was: was she playing Wesley? Was she using him? Was she a danger to him? Was Wesley’s connection with her proof that, for all his saving of Angel, he was still a threat to them? His instincts had told him not. Wesley was an ally still. Voluntarily estranged now where once he’d been angrily banished, but it hadn’t been all atonement when he pulled Angel from the sea; he hadn’t just been there because his sense of justice demanded it; he’d been there out of friendship too. There hadn’t been cold precision in the way he spilled his blood; I owe you this much and no more. There had been love. So, he was with Lilah for his own reasons but not necessarily corrupted by her. Although no doubt she had done her best to corrupt him when leaving her scent all over him. Or perhaps not. Perhaps she’d been drawn to his cleanness because she was so very dirty. On some level, mistakes and betrayal and borderline insanity taken into account, Angel did think of Wesley as a clean spirit. He did what he did, even when it was so wrong it made the head spin, because he thought it was right, not out of ambition or greed or any other self-serving motive.

 

Angel made another awkward gesture towards rubbing Wesley’s back, noticing again the way Wesley’s shoulder blades stuck out, the way he remembered from hugging him before, how thin he was, how narrow, even with the muscle on his upper arms and chest, he was still thinner than any other man he knew.

 

He breathed in his scent again and found that the fear was getting less; the heartbeat almost normal again. “Are we really okay?” he breathed. “Because I really don’t think I deserve to keep your friendship after what the demon who lives inside me did to you, but, I have to tell you, Wes, I really want to.”

 

“We’re really okay.”

 

It was strange to hear Wesley sounding choked up again. He’d used to cry so easily. Unused to anyone being nice to him. Typical affection-starved only child, sent off to a place where emotions shouldn’t be displayed in public, which had only meant he’d never learned a way to deal with them. A few years of Cordelia teasing him and Angel’s probably erratic affection and behaviour helping him towards gaining some self-respect, and Wesley was a guy who hardly ever cried these days. Angel waited and felt the man relax against him, a letting go of some of the need to be terribly brave about everything, and not let his guard down even for a minute in case reality coshed him with all its horror.

 

He risked another gentle stroke of his back, remembering where the bruises were but feeling Wesley probably needed the pressure right now. “I'm so sorry, Wes.”

 

“I know,” Wesley sighed. “You don’t have to keep saying it. It’s not like I'm the best person in the world at apologising myself.”

 

“Quite apart from that hideous emotional trauma to both of us, a bit of a setback on my road to redemption, wouldn’t you say?” He let Wesley choose when he wanted to draw back from the comfort he was offering; wondering even as he did it, if some subconscious part of him had needed to remind Wesley of how much he needed him; suspecting their motives towards one another were murky probably a lot of the time; finding a balance in their friendship that didn’t involve either one of them giving up too much self respect because he was Wesley’s cause and the champion to whom he had attached himself, but also someone Wesley would stake if he had to. Then there was the small matter of them having forgiven each other the unforgivable more than once.

 

Angel thought about all the things they’d been through the past few years; all the people and all the little fragments of their souls they’d lost. “Maybe we should go and see this swami pal of Lorne’s together. What do you think? We’re both pretty fucked up.”

 

“Literally in my case.”

 

“Wes…” Angel looked at him aghast and Wesley shrugged.

 

“There’s something cathartic about the worst having happened. In some ways there is a sense of relief because at least it’s over, and it was bad but I'm still here.”

 

“Yes.” It hit Angel for the first time that he was. He’d been so caught up in the horror of what Angelus – what a part of Angel – had done to Wesley that he hadn’t had time to be grateful that there was a new day dawning and Wesley wasn’t a vampire and he wasn’t dead; that he could still walk and talk and had all his limbs; hadn’t been flailed to death or mutilated or burnt alive or had the last drop of blood drained from his veins.

 

“We’re both still here.” Wesley stepped back another pace but it just seemed to be so they could talk to each other better, not because such close proximity to the vampire made him uncomfortable. “You’re not Angelus and you’re not a pile of dust.” He sat down on the bed and grimaced, half wry, half amused.

 

“What?” Angel sat down next to him, not too close, but close enough that they could both appreciate how close they were sitting with neither of them freaking.

 

“I was just thinking what complicated lives we lead.”

 

Angel sighed. “Yes. It’s a little worrying when we have to chalk one up for the good guys if I'm not a pile of dust and still have a soul, and you still have all your arms and legs and…”

 

“…still have a soul.” Wesley looked at him evenly. “Everyone has darkness inside themselves, Angel, you just have a more tangible darkness than most. If I had lost my soul I would have become a killer too. If you remember, even with a soul, I did become a killer for a while.”

 

Angel picked his words with care. “Wes, you do know that what you did tonight was pretty amazing, don’t you? Showing so much courage when Angelus was… Then just getting on with what needed to be done for the greater good. Most people wouldn’t have been able to do anything except sit in a dark corner and gibber after being put through an ordeal like that, but you went straight back out there, helped capture Angelus, helped trap that demon, gave those people back their souls, gave me back my soul. It wouldn’t matter if I offered you a job five years ago because I wanted to borrow your CD collection, I’ve still been proven right, haven’t I? You’re an invaluable guy to have around and the Council’s loss was definitely my gain.”

 

Wesley’s expression had been gradually changing throughout Angel’s speech and the vampire realized belatedly that what he had taken to be Wesley becoming increasingly touched by Angel’s words was in fact dawning suspicion. Something confirmed when Wesley got out of his chair and shouted: “Lorne!”

 

“I'm me, dammit!” Angel protested.

 

Wesley had already backed away. “First, hugging, and now – affirmation speeches? Lorne!”

 

They burst into the room with stakes and tranquilliser guns at the ready, Gunn hurrying to Wesley’s side while pointing a tranq gun at Angel. “Are you okay? What is it? Did he hurt you?”

 

Angel rolled his eyes in disbelief. “I was just trying to be nice!”

 

“He hugged me.” Wesley’s eyes were flinty with suspicion. “Lorne, make him sing again.”

 

“Hugged you?” Spike narrowed his eyes as he looked at the other vampire. “You’re not Angel.”

 

“I am Angel!” the vampire protested. “Lorne…?” He gave the green demon his most beseeching look.

 

“His aura feels like Angel.” Lorne was the only one not carrying a weapon. “And there’s the whole puppy dog eyes thing. Would Angelus know how to do that?”

 

“Hugging?” Gunn countered. “We’re supposed to believe that Angel goes in for hugging now?”

 

Lorne conceded the point with a grimace. “He’s got a point, cupcake. You’d better sing something for me.”

 

Angel groaned and Gunn jerked the gun at him. “Hey, this is no picnic for us either. We have to listen to you.”

 

“I really don’t think my singing is that bad,” Angel muttered before launching into a verse of ‘Mandy’ that, he couldn’t help noticing, made everyone wince except for Wesley who was unfortunately trying so hard not to wince that he might as well have just clapped his hands over his ears like Spike.

 

“Sounds like Angel,” Gunn admitted.

 

Spike cautiously removed his hands from his ears. “And how. God, two hundred and fifty years to work on it and the guy still can’t carry a tune.”

 

“It is Angel.” Lorne turned to Wesley gently. “Looks like he really was just trying be nice, crumpet.”

 

Wesley looked at Angel awkwardly. “So, that was you? Saying those things?”

 

“Yes!”

 

“And the…hugging?”

 

“Yes. All me. Trying to be empathic and touchy-feely and generally…mud-wrappy.”

 

“With Wesley?” Spike demanded. “What were you thinking? The guy’s English! He doesn’t know how to respond to that kind of crap on a good day. Next time just clap him on the shoulder and talk about the weather. It’s what he understands.”

 

Wesley gave Angel an apologetic grimace. “A cup of tea would also be okay. Perhaps some discussion of the latest Test Match results?”

 

“Well, excuse me for trying to be evolved,” Angel muttered. “I kind of thought beating the crap out of someone demanded a bit more in the way of an apology than a cup of tea.”

 

Wesley winced again. “I think tea covers most things really. But I'm sorry I assumed you were an evil soulless demon because you said something nice to me. It was just a bit…of a shock.”

 

“I can be nice,” Angel protested. “I'm often nice. I distinctly remember being nice on other occasions.”

 

Gunn and Wesley exchanged blank looks of confusion and then Gunn nodded. “Sure.”

 

“Absolutely,” Wesley said a little too quickly. “Lots of other occasions…”

 

“…that we can’t actually remember right now,” Gunn finished ruthlessly. “But, hey, doesn’t mean they didn’t happen.”

 

Wesley was gently pushing the others towards the door, clearly embarrassed at his reaction. “Thanks, Lorne, sorry to bother you. No, really, Gunn, it’s fine. Spike, that isn’t funny…” He turned around and gave Angel a look of abject apology that would have mollified the vampire even on a day when Wesley hadn’t been understanding past the point of saintliness about his incredibly brutal and degrading treatment by Angelus. “I’m sorry. My nerves must be… Sorry.”

 

Angel took a breath he didn’t need just because the occasion seemed to warrant it. “I'm not upset your nerves are still twanging – just that it’s me being pleasant to you that convinces you I can’t really be me. Seriously, don’t I ever say anything to you that is remotely…nice…?”

 

“Yes, of course you do. All the time.” Wesley came and sat down next to him, face still full of apology under its patterning of cuts and bruises. “I was just… I overreacted. I'm still a little twitchy, I suppose.”

 

“Yeah, well being viciously beaten in your own home can do that to a guy.”

 

“And thank you for what you said.” Wesley averted his gaze, unconsciously giving Angel a clearer view of his battered cheekbone as he did so. “It’s appreciated.”

 

“You’re welcome. Going by your reaction it sounds as if it was a little overdue. And thank you for not ramming a stake through my heart the first chance you got. That’s appreciated too.”

 

Wesley pulled a face. “Do we have to do the whole thing about asking each other if we’re okay again now? Because I didn’t really enjoy that much the first time.”

 

Angel shook his head. “Me neither. But we are, yes?”

 

“Oh yes.” Wesley nodded emphatically. “And we’d be so much better if we didn’t have to talk about it any more.”

 

“I'm good with that.”

 

They sat there in silence for a moment, Wesley automatically pulling the towelling robe around himself as they did so. Angel looked up at the ceiling for a moment, his memory an unpleasant flash-film of images of Wesley being thrown around his apartment, slammed down onto the bed and… He winced. “Is there a Test Match on at the moment?”

 

Wesley frowned. “You know, I'm not sure. I’ve rather lost touch.”

 

“They have sport here too, you know. Kind of.” Angel risked a look at him. “The hockey’s good.”

 

“Girl’s game,” Wesley said dismissively. “And not even one of the really vicious girl games like lacrosse. And they don’t have sport here, Angel. I’ve seen part of what they call a football match. It’s rugby with crash helmets and shoulderpads and lots of stopping for no apparent reason.”

 

“It’s to fit in as many commercials as possible,” Angel explained. “That’s how the networks make their money.” He cast around for something else to say. “There’s baseball.”

 

“It’s just rounders with a bigger bat.” Wesley pulled a face. “And cheating because they count it even if you don’t go all the way round the bases in one go.”

 

“They get extra for that. It’s called a home run.”

 

“They’re the only runs that should count. Anyway, it’s a children’s game.”

 

“Not over here,” Angel persisted. “Here it’s for grown ups.”

 

“I really prefer cricket.”

 

“They don’t play that here. Games that last five days don’t really grab the American interest in the way they do with you Englishmen.”

 

“Short attention spans,” Wesley sniffed. “It’s the MTV generation.”

 

“And possibly the way that cricket is totally interminable unless you are brainwashed into liking it from an early age and so can stand the long wait while the bowler walks all the way back to start his run and the fact that most of the time even when he’s run all the way in and thrown the damned ball all that happens is the batsman misses it and the wicketkeeper catches it and throws it to the bowler who starts on the long walk all the way back again.”

 

“Only if it’s a fast bowler,” Wesley protested. “If it was an slow bowler or a spin…” He looked at Angel in obvious surprise. “You don’t like cricket?”

 

“I'm Irish,” Angel reminded him. “Not really my national game.”

 

“Yes, but… You’re almost British.”

 

“Really not,” Angel assured him.

 

“You don’t even like those trendy one day games they play in pyjamas?”

 

“Wes, trust me, nothing about cricket ever has been or ever will be ‘trendy’.”

 

Wesley stared into space a little longer. “So, what is the national game if you’re Irish?”

 

Angel frowned. “I…You know it’s been a while since I was there.”

 

“Well, what games did you play when you were growing up?”

 

“Brawling, drinking too much, and trying to have sex with tavern wenches mostly.”

 

“Oh.” Wesley contemplated that for a moment. “But that was presumably just a hobby, not actually your national game?”

 

“Bit of both, I think.” Angel tried to remember. “I was pretty good at it anyway.”

 

“I was quite a good off-spinner at school.” Wesley smiled at the memory.

 

Angel grimaced. “You do know that if you tell Gunn that he’s going to assume it’s something dirty?”

 

Wesley blinked in confusion. “Why would he?”

 

“Because you went to a single sex boarding school so everyone assumes that most of the things you said you did at school are actually dirty.”

 

“But they weren’t,” Wesley protested.

 

“Don’t shatter their illusions.”

 

“What about the amusing anecdote I told about the jam roly-poly?”

 

“You really don’t want to know what Gunn thinks that one is about.”

 

Wesley looked stricken. “The toad in the hole story?”

 

“Better not to go there.”

 

“Why didn’t you correct them?” Wesley demanded indignantly.

 

Angel shrugged. “I guess because it was really funny and… they were so impressed.”

 

“Impressed?”

 

“By your misspent youth living a life of Byronic debauchery in the Huxley House Dormitory. And you being so upfront about it. Even Lorne was kind of shocked and he counsels baby-eating demons. Given how innocent your adolescence really was, I thought you might want the cool points.”

 

“And because it was funny?” Wesley returned grimly.

 

Angel conceded the point with another shrug. “Yeah, that too.”

 

“Didn’t Spike at least know what I was talking about? Although it pains me to say it, we are countrymen.”

 

“Well, he knows what he means when he talks about having black pudding for breakfast but I think he thought you being posh it probably meant something else. I think he was actually the most impressed…” Angel trailed off. “You know, it was a lot funnier before Angelus did all those unspeakably evil things to you.”

 

“I get that.” Wesley took a deep breath. “Angel, do you know why Angelus…did what he did.”

 

Angel could have done with taking another deep breath he didn’t need, just to steel himself to go on with this conversation. “Because he’s angry with you for tricking him and he thought you’d hate it the most.” He didn’t add anything about Angelus thinking that Wesley had unresolved issues about his sexual orientation or his relationship with Angel or Gunn; Angelus had really covered that himself with all the jeering he’d done earlier.

 

Wesley met his gaze. “He’s wrong. I’d hate being dead the most.”

 

Angel narrowed his eyes. “Are you telling me that because it’s true or are you telling me that because if I should become Angelus again you want him to think it’s true?”

 

Wesley’s gaze never wavered. “I'm telling you that because it’s true.”

 

Angel supposed that it was something of a tribute to Wesley’s inscrutability that even now he didn’t know if he was being used as a messenger service for the demon who lived within him or if Wesley really was telling him he preferred dishonour to death. With Wesley one could never tell. Either way it seemed best if they both acted as if Angel believed it. “I'm glad it’s true. I’d much rather you were alive as well. Do you think you’ll be up to apartment hunting tomorrow or do you want to leave it for a few days?”

 

“What?” Wesley looked at him in confusion.

 

“I don’t think going back there would be a good idea. If it was your dream home, maybe, but as the place was a pit even before Angelus went there I definitely think you should look for a new address.”

 

Wesley looked mutinous and then evidently memories of what the apartment was like, all the broken furniture not to mention that bed with its soiled sheets and blood-stained pillow, he reluctantly conceded defeat. “I suppose I could look around for somewhere else.”

 

Angel nodded. “I’ll pay for your security deposit as I think we both know it’s a bust. Gunn has already offered to be your chauffeur for the apartment hunting. I think he’s waiting to take you home – to his home, I mean. He’s worried about concussion. Wants you somewhere he can keep an eye on you. He doesn’t think you should be alone. Neither do I.”

 

“Gunn’s fussing?” Wesley said in surprise.

 

“You scared him. I suppose being more accurate I scared him. He thought you were a goner.” Angel looked at Wesley closely. “You’re not, are you?”

 

“What?”

 

“Going to do something stupid with whiskey and pills or shards of broken glass?”

 

“No.” Wesley paused before he answered, which made Angel feel better about the likelihood of him telling the truth. “I'm really not.”