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Oct. 21st, 2005 07:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elgrey Lost and Found, Part Seven
Heart hammering, Wesley stumbled over to the banquette in the middle of the lobby and sat on it. He could feel the air crackling; a thickness to the atmosphere, as if there were a storm in the hotel with him and he sat just beneath the cloud bank; not so much magic as inevitability. He had always known that he would be required to pay for what he’d done. Everyone seemed to think it was enough that he’d had his throat cut and to have suffered as he had at the hands of the Angelus and the vampire Gunn but he had never quite been able to believe that he should only be required to pay with pain and near-death for what he’d done. Abandonment, rejection, becoming an outcast; that had felt more appropriate; but there had been the fear that taking Connor would have to be paid for with the lives of Fred and Cordelia. That was the compulsion that had made him huddle outside the Hyperion waiting to see them or someone who could tell him if they still lived. But now he’d been taken back into the fold did that mean that a new price had to be exacted? By forgiving him had Fred and Cordy damned themselves to the same terrible death as their counterparts in the other dimension?
He had to prevent that somehow. There must be a way. He was physically close to helpless right now, but there was nothing wrong with his mind. He needed to find a way to reason or scheme his way out of this.
It was only later that it occurred to him how strange it was that he had never doubted for an instant who was coming up those stairs. It could have been the Angel he knew coming back from that Glurg hunt; could have been Groo and Gunn and Cordy all spattered with demon pus and arguing about how long the hot water would stand up if they all bathed at the same time. But it wasn’t.
He raised his head as the basement door opened and the fear went straight through him. As if someone had rammed an icicle into the back of his neck and the chill had gone into his spine. He’d forgotten the fear. Odd that. It had been such an important part of his captivity. Feeling terrified all the time. Of pain, of death, of being turned, of fear itself. But perhaps it was a good thing; one of those things you couldn’t fake in front of a vampire because they needed to smell it on you, hear your accelerated heartbeat as you looked up and saw them, the things out of your nightmares, with those horrible smiles on their still-human faces. So, yes, this was something to be grateful for, the way that as Angelus and Gunn began to walk towards him, his body tried to turn itself inside out; because although he wasn’t moving; his spine and his kidneys and his skin all wanted to be somewhere else and were trying to slither away and leave him and his trembling legs behind.
“Wes, Wes, Wes…” A dazzling smile from Angelus. “Well, look at that. Here you are again and now Gunn owes me first go with the next virgin we find because he bet me you wouldn’t be able to sit down for a month.” Angelus didn’t come over to him at first, moving gracefully to the front desk, all his weight so perfectly balanced, like a prey animal confident of the kill, with all the time in the world to enjoy the chase, the capture, the hot warm succulence of jugular blood. He stood something on the desk, something small and box-like and silver but Wesley couldn’t get it into focus, the world was receding to a small circle of light in the centre of his vision and Angelus was occupying all available space. He was having trouble breathing around the hyperventilation; his heart hammering so fast no amount of oxygen could keep up. Not fainting was the real challenge because he couldn’t stall them while he was unconscious.
Gunn gave him a nasty smile. “Have to see what we can do about that sitting down thing. Can’t have you making me look inadequate.”
Which was when the lightbulb went off in Wesley’s head; not much of a bulb, really, more of a forty watt illumination, perhaps even one solitary Christmas light, but something to break the short circuit between his terror, his brain and his mouth. Angelus nodded at the stairs and said to vampire Gunn, “Go and look upstairs. See if you can’t find something juicy for us to share.” Which was when the all-engulfing fear of them finding Fred managed to overwhelm his brain-paralysing instinctive and learned fear of the two vampires who had tortured him for so many endless hours before, and that small illumination jolted the right words into his mouth.
“It’s really the other Gunn that makes you look inadequate.”
There, it was said. Words scraped out of the lodged place in his throat, and thanks to that new hoarse lower timbre his voice had post-throat-slash, it didn’t even sound as if he were terrified. He sounded almost calm, in fact. Reflective.
Gunn stopped in his tracks, his foot not even touching the first stair as he turned around with a really ugly look on his face. It was difficult to believe someone as handsome as Gunn could even wear that expression, but the vampire version could. Wesley felt that calm which he’d also forgotten about; the one that followed the brain-jamming fear; the terror static flickered through him like a lightning flash and then there was the moment of stillness afterwards when the terror underwent a brief evolution into the centre of the whirlwind. It was the pockets of calm that helped you reason and the spasms of terror that helped you stay alive; either because it galvanized you into the risk-taking actions necessary to escape or because the smell of the fear on you was so intoxicating that the vampires draining you didn’t want to give it up and pulled their fangs out, as if your death was an orgasm they didn’t quite want to reach.
“What you sayin’?” Gunn swaggered towards him, angry and threatening.
Angelus was grinning. That was their flaw, of course, the reason why vampires never worked well together, because most of them couldn’t feel loyalty or affection, and in Angelus’ case he just liked the air fizzle that came from strong emotion, anger and humiliation or fear or pain; even if it were an ally feeling it, it was still a buzz for him.
Wesley moistened his lips, snatching a needed breath, something to slow the hammer of his heart.
“It surprised me – at the time, I mean. I always assumed vampires had more stamina than humans. Not less.”
Angelus snorted. “Oh, Wes, you are so going to regret saying that to Chuck here.”
Wesley ignored Angelus because Angelus wouldn’t go upstairs and look for Fred; not when there was a show right here to hold his interest; and Gunn wouldn’t go upstairs while someone was challenging him who needed to be punished for it. That was something Angel and Gunn both had – even the good versions – the alpha male thing that could be tapped into, sometimes. Wesley had always tried to be tactful about it, with Gunn, to make it clear that he understood that Gunn was making a concession when he took orders from Wesley; that it didn’t make Wesley better or Gunn lesser, they were just allotted roles they had taken on to do with their individual skills. Wesley had the research and strategy know-how so he would decide on their plan of attack but once they were in the field, Gunn was the one who would probably have to deliver the killing blow, the one who had the superior height and strength and speed. It wasn’t discussed, it was just accepted by them both, without the need for muscle flexing. He couldn’t imagine challenging Gunn like this, just throwing an inadequacy in his face, because you couldn’t be male and not know where you fitted into a group of other males, strength and speed wise, and he was weaker and slower than both Angel and Gunn; he didn’t need to delude himself about that any more, not the way he had done in the past. Angel had demonstrated it to him on their first meeting in LA, the lion slapping down the cheeky cub, but then turning around and shoving the cub behind him when the first aggressor turned up. So, he would never have thrown down a challenge to Gunn unless he was prepared to take the consequences, and know that they would probably be physical and painful.
This Gunn was different, because this Gunn didn’t have any compassion for him or a sense of fair play, or that sweetness that was in the human Gunn that gave him that boyish smile and made him so gentle with Fred; that had made him, in the past, be very gentle with Wesley too. Wesley flinched inside and blocked that; hating to do this to their friendship, to turn it into something Gunn would probably be disgusted by, but knowing that this might at least stall the vampire Gunn for long enough to let Lorne get away with Fred. It was such a long trip, though, that was the problem. All those clunky metal echoing stairs to get down to end up twenty feet away from where Angelus was right now.
Wesley shrugged, averting his gaze. “It just surprised me. But then when I thought about the biology of it afterwards, it made sense. With the blood in your bodies being entirely borrowed, it’s probably inevitable that you can’t stay hard for as long as a human.”
Gunn loomed over him, eyes colder than hate. “You want to say that to me again, you snivelling little fuck? Maybe I should give you something to jolt your memory because you seem to be forgetting just how many times I made you squeal.”
Wesley swallowed hard, forcing his voice to stay even: “The lack of imagination was a surprise as well. I always found the Gunn in this dimension extremely…inventive. Whereas you…” He shrugged as gracefully as he could. “Well, it’s not really my place to criticize. I’m sure as mass murdering rapists go, you and Angelus are probably in the top ten percentile of your graduating class, but it did seem strange that an ordinary human with a soul could find all those different ways to make me lose consciousness just through…skill.”
Angelus whistled. “Well, well, well, Wes and Gunn from bizarro world sitting in a tree F-U-C-K-I-N-G.”
Wesley knew if he looked at Angelus the fear was going to make him trip, stumble, something in his brain short circuit again, but although vampire Gunn was frightening he wasn’t quite as bad. He answered Angelus without looking his way. “Not in trees. Too risky. But in his truck. And my apartment. And once in that little room downstairs where the janitor used to keep his mop and bucket... And, as I said, Gunn’s stamina was really extraordinarily impressive. Now, when he decided to fuck me, I really knew I’d been fucked.”
Gunn grabbed him by the shirt and yanked him forward. “And you knew it when I was doing you, too. Maybe your memory’s playing up? Is that it? Maybe I should remind you what you seem to be forgetting, right now. Like how I made you scream so loud your throat would bleed…”
Angelus grinned. “You’re so impatient, Gunn. We’re going to take Wesley back home with us and play with him all over again. You really need to christen this couch too?”
“Not the couch.” Gunn’s face changed, ridged brow, yellow eyes. “Maybe over the front desk.”
Wesley thought he heard something upstairs or outside, or perhaps it was just a manifestation of his own throttling fear that he was going to have to go through what that other Wesley had been forced to endure, and see Fred killed right in front of him; listen to her screaming for hours, murdered by people with the faces of men she trusted. The Gunn who was perhaps her first real love and the Angel who had been the knight without shining armour who had saved her from the monsters. No. Anything was better than that. He kicked out with everything he had, catching Gunn high up on the inside of his thigh, clipping his testicles with his heel in a way that was probably more painful than direct contact.
Gunn howled with pain and fury and Wesley threw himself at the weapons cabinet, not even because he truly believed there was any chance of getting there before them, but because it was the noisiest thing in the room, and if he could just yank some of those axes out…
Angelus was there before him; that terrifying vampire speed; smiling at him from in front of the weapons cabinet, shaking a finger at him in mild reproach. Wesley did the only thing he could do and threw himself at him, slamming the vampire into the glass. All sleight of hand and desperate sleight of hand at that; trying to keep them here, deafened to those sounds that their superior hearing might otherwise be able to pick up of Lorne’s shoes on the metal fire escape. It didn’t matter because the glass smashed and the weapons fell down; a glorious clatter of metal and glass; feeding the echoes of the Hyperion’s perfect acoustics.
Angelus grabbed him by the shirt and flung him away from him, Wesley skidding across the floor to slam into the front desk. Gunn pounced on him like a terrier on a rat, grabbing him by the scruff of the neck to throw him back at the weapons cabinet. A stupid thing to do, but vampires were mostly pretty stupid. That was what had made Darla and Angelus so dangerous; the way their human cunning had outlived the loss of their souls. Wesley snatched up an axe and Angelus backhanded him extravagantly, sending Wesley spinning in one direction and the axe in the other, but not actually breaking his neck. He slammed into Gunn’s legs this time, and found himself gazing up at that fanged face.
“That was dumb,” Angelus told his companion. “Don’t throw the human into the weapons rack. It’s elementary.”
“Do they have a whip in this dimension?” Gunn asked coldly.
“Didn’t see one.” Angelus still sounded cheerful, but he was crunching over broken glass, which was good as it was more noise; more of that covering fire Fred and Lorne needed to make their getaway. “Got a nice flail though. That should peel off his skin nice and slow. Or the handle’s a good shape for…” Angel smirked at Wesley. “Actually lots of things are a good shape for that. Good length too. Tell me, did the Gunn in this dimension measure up a little longer too? Or thicker? Or was it just…”
Wesley licked the blood from his lip. “What he did with what he has. Yes, more that really.”
He was yanked to his feet so fast his stomach felt as if it were still on the floor while he was upright. Gunn growled ominously: “This time I get to go first. And by the time I’ve done with him he’s going to be begging you to kill him.” Wesley felt Gunn’s hand on his belt buckle and couldn’t help the bone deep shudder of horror at being back in this place, being touched like this again, because this time the panic was inside him like a virus; every cell in his body seeming to remember at once that it couldn’t take this again; couldn’t bear to be touched in those places…
“Where do you want it?” Gunn snarled at him. “Over the desk? How about at the foot of the stairs? Or maybe I’ll just do you here…” He slammed Wesley down across the banquette. “The acoustics are good here. When Cordy was screaming in the lobby I swear I could hear it all the way up…”
“Fuck!” Angelus’s eyes turned gold and he turned on Wesley with a snarl of his newly ridged face. “Little girls upstairs, are they?”
Gunn yanked Wesley’s head up. “Were you trying to stall, you worthless little shit?”
Angelus was already marching towards the staircase. “This time you don’t just have to watch, Watcher. This time I’m going to make you fuck them too…”
“Or you could die.”
Wesley twisted his head round with difficulty, shock coursing through him, as he hadn’t even for a moment thought there was any possibility of rescue for him, only a slender chance of escape for Lorne and Fred.
“Oh wait,” Gunn continued evenly – the human Gunn with no brow ridge and brown human eyes that right now were looking cold with anger. The Gunn with a crossbow pointed straight at the vampire holding Wesley down. “You’re already dead. My mistake. Guess that means killing you doesn’t count as murder – just my good deed for the day.”
And there was Angel standing next to Gunn, black coat rippling in the faint breeze they’d brought in with them from the outside world; a long shining sword in his hand that could look as phallic as it liked, Wesley was still extremely pleased to see him and it. “Now get the hell away from Wesley and just maybe I’ll give you a ten second start to get back home.”
The vampire Gunn bared his teeth and pulled Wesley in front of his body. “I’ll snap his neck.”
Angel swung the sword, a few swishes through the air that made it sing along the blade. “The only way you get out of this dimension in anything except a dustpan is if you let him go, right now.”
Gunn’s attention was focused on his vampire counterpart. “You have no idea how much I want to kill you, do you?”
“You didn’t like me sharing your little fuck-toy?” Gunn sneered and tightened his grip on Wesley’s throat. “Come upstairs now and we can take turns with him.”
“I know you want to,” Angelus purred to Angel. “I mean, why wouldn’t you? You’ve had enough ass in your day to recognize a good one. But you wouldn’t believe how clueless the one in my dimension was. All those years at boarding school and he didn’t know a damned thing. That’s why mine was better. He was all sweet and new and fresh and innocent. Not so worn out as yours. Not that yours wasn’t tight too. I never would have known about him and Chuck. But, unlike yours, mine trusted me. Okay – not me, exactly, but the soul boy with the keys to my cell. Know what let me out?”
Angel and Gunn were moving carefully, blocking the exit to the front but advancing as Angelus and Gunn backed up. Wesley was pretty sure that even with his vampire speed and strength, vampire Gunn couldn’t make it to the door to the basement before Angel could get there, not encumbered by a hostage. He would know that too. Which would mean he probably would snap Wesley’s neck. Which was still much better than getting taken back to their dimension.
“Tell me,” said Angel conversationally. “I’m curious.”
“Wes did. Soul Boy was already dangerously near the brink. Thought the Powers had forgiven him because there was that baby all perfect and human and going to be the saviour of the world. And didn’t he love his big sappy fantasy of the perfect family gathered all around him. All those people he’d saved. Cordy and her visions she was keeping just for him because she believed in him and that was so special – yeah right, a cheerleader thinks you’re the champion of the universe and that means something? Does getting a soul just wipe out half the IQ points? Oh yes, and there was Gunn rescued from his deathwish. The guy who hated all vampires but he was working for Angel – didn’t that just prove how special Angel was? And sweet little Fredikins saved from the big bad scary horned jobs on Pylea. Handsome man who saved her from the monsters. She had the crush to end all crushes. And then there was Wesley – the Watcher who turned down the Council because he believed in Angel and his redemption. An educated man; trained since birth not to trust vampires and yet… He believed in Angel so completely that when he translated a prophecy that said Angel was going to eat the wailing brat in the crib next door he couldn’t bring himself to believe it. He did all this cross-referencing and got shamans to throw their chicken bones around and talked to the big scary Loa, and they all told him the same thing – that he had to snatch the brat or it was going to end up as vamp chowder. And he was almost going to do it, too, but then he spent one last evening with Angel. The bestest champion that had ever lived who’d taken in poor hungry little Wesley from the streets and trained him and fed him and never even made him give him one solitary blow-job in compensation even though – if someone could just draw Wes a diagram of what a blow-job actually was – Wes would really have liked to give him one. Or anything at all because he had the sweetest most innocent little crush a schoolgirl ever had on his noble champion boss. And, of course, once Wesley saw Angel with his wailing snot-nosed baby and heard how much Angel wuvved the puking mewling little brat and how he was so happy that he had him, Wesley just couldn’t bring himself to do the terrible deed.”
Angel flinched; eyes closing briefly while Wesley winced in vampire Gunn’s grip.
“Wesley told you.” Angel briefly lowered his sword. “Told the Angel you were before – the one in your dimension – about the prophecy.”
“Yes, he did.” Angelus grinned in delight. “And oh dear – too much happiness – knowing that the last piece was in place and his dear little friend trusted him completely and there was now nothing that could ever come between him and his darling baby son…Except me. Oh yum – baby blood, nothing like it. Remember how that tasted? And the smell of their neck just before you bite in…” Angelus licked his lips theatrically. “Kept Wesley alive though. I’m not the unreasonable type and he had just broken me out of jail. Not sure he was really grateful though. Even though I taught him so many fun new games…”
Wesley kept his eyes closed because he knew what Angel was thinking; about the dumb wide-eyed Wesley who’d first arrived in LA, from whom this Wesley now felt so separated that he could almost think of him as a separate entity. A separate entity Angelus had tortured and raped and driven mad.
“You’re going to die, you sick fuck,” Gunn said hoarsely. “And this time you’re going to stay dead.”
Wesley opened his eyes in surprise and saw the murderous look on Gunn’s face. That was the reckless look he got sometimes when he’d just rush in because he wanted to spill demon guts or dust a vampire. “Charles…” he warned.
Vampire Gunn smirked at his human counterpart nastily. “Yeah, Charles, better stay away or I’ll make your boyfriend pay. And pay. And pay. Don’t you love the way his spine arches when you drive into him in one deep hard stroke…? Bet he used to scream when you did that too…”
Gunn levelled his crossbow. “Keep talking, fangboy. It’s just going to make sweeping you up off the floor later that much less of a chore.”
“We’re going now,” Angelus said coolly. “And we’re taking your Watcher with us. Although I have to ask, Gunn, before I go – did you get off on his scar? Because I got to tell you – turned me the hell on all right; the way you can work your tongue in there and lick and lick. Maybe that didn’t do it for you as much as his tight little… but, Angel, buddy, I just know it was making your rod want to conduct a recital. Think about that when I’m…”
Angelus exploded into a swirl of dust. Wesley gaped at the place beside the vampire holding him in disbelief, because he’d been watching Angel and Gunn the whole time and Gunn’s finger hadn’t moved on his crossbow and Angel was still holding that sword and…
Vampire Gunn spun around, still holding Wesley in front of him as a human shield against this new threat. Wesley’s heart flip-flopped painfully in his chest as he saw Cordelia, Fred, and Lorne all holding crossbows; the two women both reloading. Cordelia said coolly, “That was for the Cordelia and Fred in your dimension, scumbag.”
Then the Gunn holding him jolted at some impact and Wesley was suddenly breathing in dust. And falling. Backwards. As he toppled over he realized that human Gunn must have just killed the vampire version of himself with a perfectly placed crossbow bolt through the back straight into the heart and he was now falling through his dust. Wesley tensed in readiness, squeezing his eyes closed for the impact with the floor and then he felt strong arms gripping him and Angel saying, “I’ve got you.”
He opened his eyes and stared up into the vampire’s face in disbelief. Angel smiled at him gently and said again, “I’ve got you, Wes.”
Wesley smiled back, seeing a blurry Gunn looming up somewhere very far away as the ocean rolled into some place around the back of his head. “I have to pass out now,” he said apologetically, and then everything was blissfully quiet for a while.
Wesley woke up to find himself still in the lobby of the Hyperion, now transferred to the banquette, still being held by Angel and with Gunn gazing at him anxiously.
“He’s back…” Gunn took his hand and squeezed it gently. “How are you doing, English?”
“Oh, fine, thank you.” Wesley tried to sit up and Angel and Gunn helped him to do so. He blinked in confusion and looked around the lobby. The first odd thing was the sight of Fred in knitting needle-heeled shoes of impossible impracticality in which she was deliberately stomping backwards and forwards on what appeared to be the contents of a Hoover bag. “Um, why is…?”
“She’s just being vengeful,” Angel explained. “I think Cordy lent her the shoes.”
Wesley noticed that Cordelia was holding a broom in one hand and the nozzle of a vacuum cleaner in the other. “So, which do you think would be the most demeaning way to have someone handle your ashes?” she enquired. “Swept or sucked?”
“I was gonna piss on them,” Gunn admitted. “But Lorne thought it was unsanitary.”
“And it would be – as well as being unworthy of you. Here you go, sugarplum – painkillers for that brand new vampire smackdown you received and a nice hot cup of tea.”
Wesley turned his head to find Lorne proffering two white tablets and a bone china cup. He took both automatically. “Um – thank you.”
“Well, thank you, crumpet, for the whole heroic stalling of the bad guys while I got myself and Fredilicious to safety. Luckily, our fearless demon hunters were just returning from their pus-a-thon with the Glurgs and so were in place to lend a helping hand.”
Fred beamed at Wesley from mid-stomp. “We were the real rescue committee. Gunn and Angel were the diversion.”
“They were very…diverting,” Wesley admitted.
“Betcha didn’t know we were there until evil ass went all dustbunny, did you?”
“I was as surprised as he was.”
Cordelia leant the broom against a pillar and beamed at him. “See, for standing around looking all menacing and keeping the bad guys talking, Angel and Gunn are just dandy, but when you need some real vampire slaying done, you gotta go for the feminine touch.”
In light of his hereditary calling as a Watcher to just such a Slayer, not to mention recent events, Wesley could hardly argue with that. “Well, thank you. I’m very grateful for the rescue.”
Cordelia gave him another dazzling smile. “You’re welcome.”
Fred stomped a little more while Wesley watched her deliberately grinding her tiny pointy heels into the dust. There was something hypnotic about it and he noticed that Angel had to give himself a little shake before he could look away as well. “How are you feeling?” the vampire enquired.
“Oh, quite well, really. All things considered. Particularly pleased about the not being dragged back to another dimension to be horribly tortured part of the proceedings.” Wesley would have said more but he noticed what Gunn was holding in his hand and felt a wave of dismay wash over him. He straightened up, murmuring, “Oh dear…”
Gunn held up the mini video camera which Angelus had placed on the front desk, presumably to record their kidnap of their runaway victim. He looked very ominous.
“Gunn, I…” He swallowed quickly, darting a glance at Fred, and adding in a rapid undertone: “I hope you won’t be offended by what I… I was trying to stall and…”
Gunn grinned at him. “Offended? I already made ten copies and mailed them to my nearest and dearest. Ain’t every day someone tells the world I’ve got more stamina in the sack than an evil dead vampire.”
As Wesley evidently blanched in horror, Gunn sighed. “Joke, Wes. I’m not offended and I didn’t tell anyone. But I will be keeping this video in case I need it. Because I’m thinking you wouldn’t want me to show this to some girl you were trying to impress or mailing it to your Aunty Flo.”
“However did you guess…?” Wesley murmured faintly. He darted another glance at the man, wincing apologetically. “I really am sorry for what I said.”
Gunn slapped him lightly on the shoulder. “Hey, you were saving my girl. You could have told them I ate live newts for all I care if it kept them the hell away from her.”
Wesley blinked in confusion. “You think that’s worse?”
“Sure. That’s…ewww. Doing you really well and often in lots of places around the hotel – kind of sleazy, but also sort of cool.”
Wesley looked at him sideways. “I can’t tell if you have hidden depths or hidden shallows. Either way I think you’re scaring me a little.”
Gunn held up the tape again. “One thing I have to ask you though, Wes. What was Plan B?”
“I’m sorry, I don’t…?”
“Plan A was obviously – stall the Evil Dead until Lorne could get Fred out of the hotel. What was Plan B? You know, the part of the plan that stopped you getting dragged back to that other dimension by Vampy and Skanky?”
Wesley frowned at him. “I don’t know what you…”
Gunn sighed. “You know, I’d love to think the reason you had no Plan B was because you had so much faith in us playing the seventh cavalry and saving your skinny white ass in the nick of time. But I just know it was because you didn’t think that it mattered what happened to you as long as Lorne and Fred were okay.”
“Well…” Wesley couldn’t see the point in denying it. “Yes, but…”
Angel and Gunn sighed and exchanged a long look. Angel shrugged. “Looks like we’re back to the drawing board with this project.”
Gunn nodded. “Better get those old blueprints out and start over.”
“Start what?” Wesley wondered if those painkillers Lorne had given him were going to kick in any time soon. “What project?”
Gunn cuffed him very gently around the back of the head. “Operation Get Wes Some Self-Esteem And I Mean Yesterday.”
Fred paused in her stomping to come over and put her hands on Wesley’s shoulders, gazing into his eyes in a way that made his heart do that familiar flip-flop. “Thank you for what you did, Wesley. It was incredibly brave.”
“And incredibly stupid.” Cordelia also cuffed him around the back of the head, a lot less gently than Gunn. “Don’t ever do that again – the stupid spell, the stupid heroics – any of it.”
Wincing and holding the back of his head, Wesley murmured, “Yes, Cordelia.”
“You didn’t think we were brave and heroic?” Gunn enquired. “Not to mention kind of manly and impressive?”
Cordelia shrugged. “As decoys go you were relatively…big and shiny. But I think when Groo was guarding the basement single-handed so they couldn’t take Wesley away with them he was probably wielding his weapon in a slightly more heroic way.”
“You know, some of us are awfully sick of hearing about Groo’s weapon-wielding abilities,” Angel told her.
She just smiled at him. “And some of us are just going to have to get over it.”
“Princess…” Groo smiled at her tenderly. “Lorne and I agree that your vanquishing of the evil counterparts of Angel and Gunn should, in the tradition of your world, be commemorated in song.”
Cordelia stretched out a shapely ankle. “Well, that sounds like a very good idea to me. Just be sure to mention the new shoes I was wearing at the time. What rhymes with Balenciaga?”
Lorne looked at her shoes and raised an eyebrow. “You bought a pair of Balenciaga leather and crocodile trim zip up sandals on what we earn?”
“Well, they’re new to me.” Cordelia rolled her eyes. “Okay, I took them in payment for a case but it wasn’t as if the wife was going to miss them. She had like…five hundred pairs of shoes.”
“How come she gets a song?” Gunn demanded of Angel. “Weren’t we there being all manly and heroic? And wasn’t Wes the one risking his ass?”
Shifting uncomfortably, Wesley thought there had been quite enough discussion of his ass for one day and really hoped they could not mention it for at least five years.
Cordelia glanced across at Lorne. “What do you say? Do you think they should get a mention in the chorus? I don’t know you need to use their names or anything, but you could maybe say there were a few other people there apart from me, Fred and Groo.”
That was when the floor rippled again. There was an uneasy silence as Wesley and Lorne exchanged a glance. Lorne said, “That was what happened just before…”
Angel stood bolt upright and said, “Hush.”
There was a long breathless silence and then Cordelia said, “What?”
But Angel was already sprinting for the smashed cabinet and the weapons still littering the floor.
“Oh no…” Lorne shook his head. “No. No. And how about a resounding ‘No’?”
“But they’re dead.” Fred looked down at the dust beneath her heels as if she needed the reassurance it was still there. “We killed them.”
Groo held his sword at the ready, gently pushing Cordelia behind him, and Gunn had also snatched up a crossbow, moving in front of Fred. Angel stood in front of both of them, throwing axe in one hand and a sword in the other.
Even Wesley could hear it now, the faint sound of footsteps on the stairs up from the basement. His heart began to hammer a little faster and he saw Angel turn and give him a quick glance of mingled compassion and reassurance before turning back to face this new threat.
The door opened slowly to reveal…Faith and Giles.
Angel lowered his sword. “Faith? I thought you were still in prison…”
Wesley wondered if it was possible to pass out from sheer relief. “Giles, I thought you were coming tomorrow?”
Giles and Faith exchanged a glance and then spread out, advancing cautiously, both with weapons in their hands, Wesley noticed now. Crossbows.
“Oh!” said Fred abruptly, and she darted in front of Gunn. “It’s not them! I mean – this Angel and Gunn – they’re not the ones you’re looking for.”
Groo and Cordelia both grabbed Angel and yanked him behind them, Cordelia holding up her hands to say, “Your guys are dead and dusted.”
Fred pointed to the pile of dust. “See. Right there. Literal dust.”
Giles and Faith exchanged another glance and then much to Wesley’s relief, Giles lowered his crossbow. “Then, this Angel and Gunn are…?”
Faith marched up to Gunn and splashed something in his face. He flinched, wiping his face. “What the…?”
She showed him the bottle of Holy water. “Just checking.”
Angel backed up another pace. “I’m still a vampire. I just have a soul.”
“Yeah, bet you say that to all the Slayers.” She glanced at him appraisingly but didn’t splash him with Holy water.
“Generally only the ones he puts out for,” Cordelia assured her.
Faith shrugged. “Yeah, well, that’s why I’m here instead of B. Didn’t want her to have to stake the son-of-a-bitch – and there was the little matter of me wanting to do it myself just for the fun of it.”
Giles looked across at Wesley, his gaze compassionate and searching. “As you appear to have gathered, we’re from a different…reality, I presume. I don’t really understand how that works but I have to accept that it does as we’re here, and you were…where you were. We came here to dispose of…” He examined the dust. “But you already seem to have done it for us.”
“Which I’m still pissed about, by the way.” Faith looked down at the dust, face unreadable, then cleared her throat and spat with great accuracy into the centre of it; eyes murderous. “No one does that to my Watcher.”
“They were kind of holding Wesley hostage,” Fred explained apologetically. “And we really didn’t like them much either.”
“No, I imagine that you didn’t.” Giles was still looking at Wesley who felt exposed by the concern in the man’s eyes. “Are you all right?” Giles asked him gently.
Wesley nodded. “I had – good aftercare.”
“What about the other Wesley?” Angel pressed. “The one from your dimension. Is he…?”
Faith glared at him. “Insane? Yes, he was, pretty much. Luckily, after the last bout of fever he stopped remembering…anything – who we were, who they were – Fred and Cordy, Angel and Gunn. Willow did a cleansing spell, got rid of the last few cobwebs, which stopped most of the nightmares. Still wakes up screaming sometimes, of course, but he doesn’t know why. Can’t stand the sound of crying babies. They scare him. Apart from that he’s pretty much normal for someone who is twenty-nine and has no idea of anything that happened to him up until a month ago. Now he’s learning everything again, making good progress too – he can spell his own name, tie his own shoelaces. He can even read – as long as the print’s nice and big and there are pictures.”
Wesley was taken aback by the raw grief on her face. He had never expected to see any Faith looking like that because of some harm done to him. If the kernel of viciousness he had witnessed in Angelus was buried somewhere in Angel then presumably this ability to care for others must be somewhere in Faith too.
“I’m sorry,” he said gently.
She snatched a calming breath. “You don’t look too good either.”
“I was lucky. They didn’t kill anyone in front of me.”
“Wesley is re-learning things,” Giles sounded tired but determined. “He lives with me now – as does Faith. We share his care between us. He can manage simple lessons. He’s not unhappy. And he shows signs of having the same interests.” He removed his glasses so as not to meet any of their eyes. “I’m confident that he can learn to read to an adult level again, and perhaps even to translate, given time. It’s just a matter of not rushing him. There was no actual…brain damage. His mind just needed a…rest. Willow and Xander are taking care of him today. He feels quite safe with them – although we’d better be heading back as soon as possible.”
“I’m sorry,” Angel said. “Truly. We know we were lucky to get Wes back in even the bad shape he was in. At least he was still…Wesley.”
Giles looked across at Wesley again. “I am terribly sorry for what was done to you. I should have realized when Angelus phoned but I thought he was just calling to…gloat. It wasn’t until the tape arrived that we… Well, you can imagine how we felt when we realized that you’d been there with them for all that time.” He looked very tired, shadows under his eyes and grey at his temples that Wesley suspected had not been there a few months before. “We did try to kill them on our first visit, but once we’d lost the advantage of surprise we got into a siege situation where they could hold us off almost indefinitely. Getting Wesley away from them seemed more important, so we beat a strategic retreat and left them to the Hyperion. And once we had Wesley back in Sunnydale he was so…ill that it was several weeks before I felt able to leave him even for… We tried to warn everyone in our reality that Angelus was back and Gunn was now a vampire. I didn’t expect someone to…”
“Punch their way in from another dimension like a big suicidal dork?” Cordelia enquired. “Hey, guess what? Who the hell would?” She reached out to smack Wesley around the back of the head again, then taking in Faith’s brooding expression, settled for an admonitory tap on the shoulder.
Giles said wearily, “I imagine it’s already been pointed out to you how incredibly stupid an idea that was?”
“Several times actually,” Wesley assured him.
Faith gazed into his face then looked at the scar at his neck. “Saw the tape. You already had that wound. How did that happen?”
Wesley swallowed. “Long story.”
Faith gave him a moment to tell it and then as he clearly wasn’t going to, nodded; respecting his privacy. She looked around at the others then looked back at him, ducking her head to keep eye contact. “They treat you okay here? Cause I’m a Watcher short. And I was thinking maybe it would be good for Wesley to…”
“Wouldn’t it just confuse him?” Angel said quickly.
“Freaked me out seeing another version of me here and I don’t have the whole brain trauma thing,” Gunn added.
“If Wesley was your Watcher why was he off with Angel and the rest of us?” Cordelia enquired.
“Cutbacks,” Faith shrugged. “The Council always were cheap bastards. They sent Wes to replace Giles but Wes sent them a report saying that they’d made a mistake and no one could do a better job of being Buffy’s Watcher than Giles. He was very earnest. Cited a lot of precedents – gave lots of examples of how good a Watcher Giles was and how an hour of practical experience in the field was worth a hundred hours of theory. So, they send in an assessment team to look at the whole Sunnydale situation. I’m not even thinking I’m going to be affected. We’re just all crossing our fingers for B and Giles that they can go back to being the way they were. Meanwhile, I’ve got my own Watcher.” Noticing Giles, she sighed. “Nothing against Giles – he knows I love him – but Wes was doing a good job. Taking a lot of crap from me, too, and not whining about it. Well, not much.” For a moment she almost smiled and then the reality of the situation came back to her and she sighed. “He was the rookie. Still had a lot to learn but I was training him up just fine and then the Council sends back a report saying, okay, Giles is reinstated but by the way Wes is fired because you don’t need ‘two Watchers for two Slayers in the same geographical location’. I think it was spite, you know? Because he questioned them. B and Angel are having the big angsty break up and there’s a lot going down, and before we can find Wes another berth he’s headed off on his rogue demon hunter thing. It was just lucky Angel took him in before he starved to death in some…” Again a smile threatened and then was banished. “Funny – I still can’t get out of the habit of thinking it was a good thing he ended up with Angel.”
Fred said compassionately, “But he still has you, doesn’t he? And Giles? And the people in Sunnydale?”
“Yeah, he has us.” Faith gritted her teeth. “And nothing bad any side of hell is getting within spitting distance of him this time.”
“I imagine he can sense that,” Wesley said quietly. “That you care about him. It would mean a lot to him to have people caring for him – showing him affection. He probably wasn’t used to…” Aware of the others all around him, he cleared his throat. “I imagine it’s probably enough for him now.”
“I have high hopes of his eventual recovery,” Giles said. “And in the meantime he is receiving the best possible care that we can provide between us.”
“I suppose the Council don’t pay the medical bills for fired Watchers, do they?” Cordelia enquired.
Giles looked up at her. “No. The Council consider Wesley none of their business any more. Which is why I’m not informing them of his current condition.”
“You know about his father?” Wesley asked. “That he – wouldn’t be good for him.”
Faith said, “Yeah, I know all about the emotionally abusive son-of-a-bitch on account of our Wes getting drunk under the table by me, one time, and us doing the sharing thing.”
Wesley tried to imagine ever having done that with the Faith in his dimension, feeling a pang for what might have been. “You must have been good for him.”
“Damned straight I was good for him. That was what got me so pissed with the Council. I was halfway through my uptight English Guy rehabilitation program and they closed the damned class.”
“And we Watchers are brought up to think that we’re the ones doing the training.”
Faith shrugged. “Yeah, never got that. B didn’t either. It so doesn’t work that way.” She glanced at him. “So, what do you say to the being my Watcher thing?”
Wesley took a deep breath. “Thank you for the offer, Faith. But I really do want to stay in my own dimension from now on. And although I think the chances of my ever being the Watcher for the Faith in this dimension again are slim to non-existent, I…”
“Can’t be spared,” Angel said emphatically. “Needed here.”
“Yes, sorry.” Cordelia folded her arms. “We have a hotline to the Powers here and we need our demon researcher guy.”
“Definitely needed here,” Gunn said. “Because, you know – research is really boring and how many guys are you going to find who actually like it? And ones that can do that and know how to cross-section a Slarkal demon with a katana – don’t exactly grow on trees. And, besides, sometimes you just really need a stuffy English guy around the place. Just because.”
“And we like him.” Fred put her arms around Wesley from behind him and beamed down at him. “So we want to keep him.”
Faith gazed at Wesley. “You really want to stay with the freak show here?”
“Yes.”
“Even after what went down in my dimension?”
“It won’t happen here.” Wesley gazed at her intently. “And this is where I want to be. These are the people…” he broke off in embarrassment.
Cordelia glared at him. “Say it.”
“I’m English,” he protested.
“Say it anyway. We all did.”
Sighing he admitted, “These are the people I want to be with.”
Faith glanced around at them. “Well, no accounting for tastes, but it’s cool.”
As another fizz and crackle rippled through the hotel and Lorne put a hand to his head again, Faith and Giles exchanged a glance. “Better catch that dimensional sewer tunnel, home, Boss,” Faith observed. She nodded to Wesley. “Take care of yourself, Wes. And if that vampire so much as looks at you funny, soul or no soul, you stake his ass.”
Giles nodded to Wesley. “I’ll save the lecture as I presume my counterpart in this dimension has either already delivered it or is en route to, but I do wish you a speedy recovery and good luck to you and your friends in – helping the helpless.”
“We’re all very sorry about your Wesley,” Fred told Giles gently. “We hope he gets better soon. I wish we could… Actually, can you wait just a…?” She kicked off the stilettos and ran barefoot up the stairs.
Cordelia looked after her in some perplexity. “She hasn’t been writing on the walls again, has she?”
Gunn also gazed after Fred. “No, she’s…sane.”
“It’s so hard to tell with the people around here somedays.”
They waited in slightly awkward silence while there was the sound of Fred scampering about upstairs, and then she was running back downstairs. Wesley saw in some surprise that she was carrying a copy of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s A Little Princess and a rather tatty-looking soft toy that appeared to have once been a rabbit. She jumped down the last three stairs and shoved the book and toy at Giles.
“These always made me feel better when I was feeling ill. The book’s even better if someone reads it to you, and Feigenbaum is just…well, he’s the master of chaos so he makes everything else calmer, because all the crazy things they go to him and he controls them.”
Giles opened the book. “It has your name in it.”
“Yes, but he doesn’t remember the Fred in… You can tell him I was a girl he went to school with.” She beamed suddenly. “You can tell him I had a crush on him, if you like. Because I think if I had been at school with Wesley I would definitely have had a crush on him on account of him being so smart.”
Giles smiled at her very gently. “If you’d been at school with Wesley in our dimension, you would have been a boy.”
“Maybe I would have been a girl just pretending to be a boy to go to that school because they had the best teachers in the world or something. Or it could have been all part of the crush. I could have been the world’s first eight-year-old stalker; and we could have had secret meetings in the boiler room because he was the only one who could know my true identity. I think it would have been very romantic.”
Giles looked at her for a long moment and then said, “I imagine you get on very well with the Willow in your dimension?”
“I was thinking of emailing her,” Fred admitted.
“You should do that,” Giles told her. “I’m sure you’ll find you have a lot in common.” He nodded to her and held up the book and toy. “Feigenbaum, yes? As in Mitchell Feigenbaum, presumably? I’ll see that Wesley gets these. And – thank you.” He said it quietly but with great feeling as he gazed into Fred’s eyes and squeezed her hand gently. “I think he’ll like them very much.” As Fred looked so touched that Giles wasn’t making fun of her gift, for the first – and hopefully only – time in his life, Wesley felt a strong urge to hug Giles. He resisted it, however.
Angel caught up with Giles and Faith just before they headed down into the basement. “I won’t let what happened in your world happen here, I promise. And – I’m sure your Wesley’s going to make it. They’re – tougher than they look.”
“Have to be the way life keeps kicking them in the teeth,” Faith muttered, but she nodded to him. “Just take care of the one you’ve got. And don’t think me being in a different dimension is going to stop me hearing about it if you don’t.”
Angel nodded. “I’ll bear it in mind.”
And then they were gone, and a moment later the hotel rippled again, the light fizzed and Lorne sighed and looked around for a sea breeze. “Inter-dimensional portals,” he sighed. “Not friendly to the empathic amongst us.”
Fred wrapped her arms around Wesley again, hugging him as if they were both listening to far off music. “But look what we’ve got – our very own Wesley who isn’t insane or in a different dimension being horribly tortured. I think we should celebrate, don’t you?”
“Presumably this celebration would involve tacos of some kind?” Gunn enquired.
She nodded cheerfully. “Well, now you mention it… There are some occasions that really need tacos.”
“Okay, sweetlips.” Lorne refilled Wesley’s teacup for him and sat down next to him with a bottle of aspirin and what looked like a triple strength drink. “Why don’t you and the Gunnster go and rustle up enough food to feed a small army of scarily thin women from Texas while Wesley and I sit here and let our painkillers work their magic, and think about how dead we’re not?”
Wesley exhaled and looked at the dust on the floor; realizing that it really was over and that other reality could now get on with being just a nightmare which some other people had temporarily shared with him. “That sounds like an excellent idea to me.”
They all jumped as there was the sudden roar of an engine at close quarters and turned to see Cordelia triumphantly holding up the nozzle of the Hoover. “Well, I feel the urge to vacuum coming on. This place is just so darned…dusty.”
With the painkillers kicking in and his eyes almost closing, Wesley slumped against an equally groggy Lorne, distantly aware of a scramble for coats and car keys and demands being made on Angel’s wallet, and then he was watching the nozzle of the vacuum cleaner magically whisking away the last grey remnants of Angelus and the vampire Gunn as Cordelia hummed cheerfully all the while.
***
Heart hammering, Wesley stumbled over to the banquette in the middle of the lobby and sat on it. He could feel the air crackling; a thickness to the atmosphere, as if there were a storm in the hotel with him and he sat just beneath the cloud bank; not so much magic as inevitability. He had always known that he would be required to pay for what he’d done. Everyone seemed to think it was enough that he’d had his throat cut and to have suffered as he had at the hands of the Angelus and the vampire Gunn but he had never quite been able to believe that he should only be required to pay with pain and near-death for what he’d done. Abandonment, rejection, becoming an outcast; that had felt more appropriate; but there had been the fear that taking Connor would have to be paid for with the lives of Fred and Cordelia. That was the compulsion that had made him huddle outside the Hyperion waiting to see them or someone who could tell him if they still lived. But now he’d been taken back into the fold did that mean that a new price had to be exacted? By forgiving him had Fred and Cordy damned themselves to the same terrible death as their counterparts in the other dimension?
He had to prevent that somehow. There must be a way. He was physically close to helpless right now, but there was nothing wrong with his mind. He needed to find a way to reason or scheme his way out of this.
It was only later that it occurred to him how strange it was that he had never doubted for an instant who was coming up those stairs. It could have been the Angel he knew coming back from that Glurg hunt; could have been Groo and Gunn and Cordy all spattered with demon pus and arguing about how long the hot water would stand up if they all bathed at the same time. But it wasn’t.
He raised his head as the basement door opened and the fear went straight through him. As if someone had rammed an icicle into the back of his neck and the chill had gone into his spine. He’d forgotten the fear. Odd that. It had been such an important part of his captivity. Feeling terrified all the time. Of pain, of death, of being turned, of fear itself. But perhaps it was a good thing; one of those things you couldn’t fake in front of a vampire because they needed to smell it on you, hear your accelerated heartbeat as you looked up and saw them, the things out of your nightmares, with those horrible smiles on their still-human faces. So, yes, this was something to be grateful for, the way that as Angelus and Gunn began to walk towards him, his body tried to turn itself inside out; because although he wasn’t moving; his spine and his kidneys and his skin all wanted to be somewhere else and were trying to slither away and leave him and his trembling legs behind.
“Wes, Wes, Wes…” A dazzling smile from Angelus. “Well, look at that. Here you are again and now Gunn owes me first go with the next virgin we find because he bet me you wouldn’t be able to sit down for a month.” Angelus didn’t come over to him at first, moving gracefully to the front desk, all his weight so perfectly balanced, like a prey animal confident of the kill, with all the time in the world to enjoy the chase, the capture, the hot warm succulence of jugular blood. He stood something on the desk, something small and box-like and silver but Wesley couldn’t get it into focus, the world was receding to a small circle of light in the centre of his vision and Angelus was occupying all available space. He was having trouble breathing around the hyperventilation; his heart hammering so fast no amount of oxygen could keep up. Not fainting was the real challenge because he couldn’t stall them while he was unconscious.
Gunn gave him a nasty smile. “Have to see what we can do about that sitting down thing. Can’t have you making me look inadequate.”
Which was when the lightbulb went off in Wesley’s head; not much of a bulb, really, more of a forty watt illumination, perhaps even one solitary Christmas light, but something to break the short circuit between his terror, his brain and his mouth. Angelus nodded at the stairs and said to vampire Gunn, “Go and look upstairs. See if you can’t find something juicy for us to share.” Which was when the all-engulfing fear of them finding Fred managed to overwhelm his brain-paralysing instinctive and learned fear of the two vampires who had tortured him for so many endless hours before, and that small illumination jolted the right words into his mouth.
“It’s really the other Gunn that makes you look inadequate.”
There, it was said. Words scraped out of the lodged place in his throat, and thanks to that new hoarse lower timbre his voice had post-throat-slash, it didn’t even sound as if he were terrified. He sounded almost calm, in fact. Reflective.
Gunn stopped in his tracks, his foot not even touching the first stair as he turned around with a really ugly look on his face. It was difficult to believe someone as handsome as Gunn could even wear that expression, but the vampire version could. Wesley felt that calm which he’d also forgotten about; the one that followed the brain-jamming fear; the terror static flickered through him like a lightning flash and then there was the moment of stillness afterwards when the terror underwent a brief evolution into the centre of the whirlwind. It was the pockets of calm that helped you reason and the spasms of terror that helped you stay alive; either because it galvanized you into the risk-taking actions necessary to escape or because the smell of the fear on you was so intoxicating that the vampires draining you didn’t want to give it up and pulled their fangs out, as if your death was an orgasm they didn’t quite want to reach.
“What you sayin’?” Gunn swaggered towards him, angry and threatening.
Angelus was grinning. That was their flaw, of course, the reason why vampires never worked well together, because most of them couldn’t feel loyalty or affection, and in Angelus’ case he just liked the air fizzle that came from strong emotion, anger and humiliation or fear or pain; even if it were an ally feeling it, it was still a buzz for him.
Wesley moistened his lips, snatching a needed breath, something to slow the hammer of his heart.
“It surprised me – at the time, I mean. I always assumed vampires had more stamina than humans. Not less.”
Angelus snorted. “Oh, Wes, you are so going to regret saying that to Chuck here.”
Wesley ignored Angelus because Angelus wouldn’t go upstairs and look for Fred; not when there was a show right here to hold his interest; and Gunn wouldn’t go upstairs while someone was challenging him who needed to be punished for it. That was something Angel and Gunn both had – even the good versions – the alpha male thing that could be tapped into, sometimes. Wesley had always tried to be tactful about it, with Gunn, to make it clear that he understood that Gunn was making a concession when he took orders from Wesley; that it didn’t make Wesley better or Gunn lesser, they were just allotted roles they had taken on to do with their individual skills. Wesley had the research and strategy know-how so he would decide on their plan of attack but once they were in the field, Gunn was the one who would probably have to deliver the killing blow, the one who had the superior height and strength and speed. It wasn’t discussed, it was just accepted by them both, without the need for muscle flexing. He couldn’t imagine challenging Gunn like this, just throwing an inadequacy in his face, because you couldn’t be male and not know where you fitted into a group of other males, strength and speed wise, and he was weaker and slower than both Angel and Gunn; he didn’t need to delude himself about that any more, not the way he had done in the past. Angel had demonstrated it to him on their first meeting in LA, the lion slapping down the cheeky cub, but then turning around and shoving the cub behind him when the first aggressor turned up. So, he would never have thrown down a challenge to Gunn unless he was prepared to take the consequences, and know that they would probably be physical and painful.
This Gunn was different, because this Gunn didn’t have any compassion for him or a sense of fair play, or that sweetness that was in the human Gunn that gave him that boyish smile and made him so gentle with Fred; that had made him, in the past, be very gentle with Wesley too. Wesley flinched inside and blocked that; hating to do this to their friendship, to turn it into something Gunn would probably be disgusted by, but knowing that this might at least stall the vampire Gunn for long enough to let Lorne get away with Fred. It was such a long trip, though, that was the problem. All those clunky metal echoing stairs to get down to end up twenty feet away from where Angelus was right now.
Wesley shrugged, averting his gaze. “It just surprised me. But then when I thought about the biology of it afterwards, it made sense. With the blood in your bodies being entirely borrowed, it’s probably inevitable that you can’t stay hard for as long as a human.”
Gunn loomed over him, eyes colder than hate. “You want to say that to me again, you snivelling little fuck? Maybe I should give you something to jolt your memory because you seem to be forgetting just how many times I made you squeal.”
Wesley swallowed hard, forcing his voice to stay even: “The lack of imagination was a surprise as well. I always found the Gunn in this dimension extremely…inventive. Whereas you…” He shrugged as gracefully as he could. “Well, it’s not really my place to criticize. I’m sure as mass murdering rapists go, you and Angelus are probably in the top ten percentile of your graduating class, but it did seem strange that an ordinary human with a soul could find all those different ways to make me lose consciousness just through…skill.”
Angelus whistled. “Well, well, well, Wes and Gunn from bizarro world sitting in a tree F-U-C-K-I-N-G.”
Wesley knew if he looked at Angelus the fear was going to make him trip, stumble, something in his brain short circuit again, but although vampire Gunn was frightening he wasn’t quite as bad. He answered Angelus without looking his way. “Not in trees. Too risky. But in his truck. And my apartment. And once in that little room downstairs where the janitor used to keep his mop and bucket... And, as I said, Gunn’s stamina was really extraordinarily impressive. Now, when he decided to fuck me, I really knew I’d been fucked.”
Gunn grabbed him by the shirt and yanked him forward. “And you knew it when I was doing you, too. Maybe your memory’s playing up? Is that it? Maybe I should remind you what you seem to be forgetting, right now. Like how I made you scream so loud your throat would bleed…”
Angelus grinned. “You’re so impatient, Gunn. We’re going to take Wesley back home with us and play with him all over again. You really need to christen this couch too?”
“Not the couch.” Gunn’s face changed, ridged brow, yellow eyes. “Maybe over the front desk.”
Wesley thought he heard something upstairs or outside, or perhaps it was just a manifestation of his own throttling fear that he was going to have to go through what that other Wesley had been forced to endure, and see Fred killed right in front of him; listen to her screaming for hours, murdered by people with the faces of men she trusted. The Gunn who was perhaps her first real love and the Angel who had been the knight without shining armour who had saved her from the monsters. No. Anything was better than that. He kicked out with everything he had, catching Gunn high up on the inside of his thigh, clipping his testicles with his heel in a way that was probably more painful than direct contact.
Gunn howled with pain and fury and Wesley threw himself at the weapons cabinet, not even because he truly believed there was any chance of getting there before them, but because it was the noisiest thing in the room, and if he could just yank some of those axes out…
Angelus was there before him; that terrifying vampire speed; smiling at him from in front of the weapons cabinet, shaking a finger at him in mild reproach. Wesley did the only thing he could do and threw himself at him, slamming the vampire into the glass. All sleight of hand and desperate sleight of hand at that; trying to keep them here, deafened to those sounds that their superior hearing might otherwise be able to pick up of Lorne’s shoes on the metal fire escape. It didn’t matter because the glass smashed and the weapons fell down; a glorious clatter of metal and glass; feeding the echoes of the Hyperion’s perfect acoustics.
Angelus grabbed him by the shirt and flung him away from him, Wesley skidding across the floor to slam into the front desk. Gunn pounced on him like a terrier on a rat, grabbing him by the scruff of the neck to throw him back at the weapons cabinet. A stupid thing to do, but vampires were mostly pretty stupid. That was what had made Darla and Angelus so dangerous; the way their human cunning had outlived the loss of their souls. Wesley snatched up an axe and Angelus backhanded him extravagantly, sending Wesley spinning in one direction and the axe in the other, but not actually breaking his neck. He slammed into Gunn’s legs this time, and found himself gazing up at that fanged face.
“That was dumb,” Angelus told his companion. “Don’t throw the human into the weapons rack. It’s elementary.”
“Do they have a whip in this dimension?” Gunn asked coldly.
“Didn’t see one.” Angelus still sounded cheerful, but he was crunching over broken glass, which was good as it was more noise; more of that covering fire Fred and Lorne needed to make their getaway. “Got a nice flail though. That should peel off his skin nice and slow. Or the handle’s a good shape for…” Angel smirked at Wesley. “Actually lots of things are a good shape for that. Good length too. Tell me, did the Gunn in this dimension measure up a little longer too? Or thicker? Or was it just…”
Wesley licked the blood from his lip. “What he did with what he has. Yes, more that really.”
He was yanked to his feet so fast his stomach felt as if it were still on the floor while he was upright. Gunn growled ominously: “This time I get to go first. And by the time I’ve done with him he’s going to be begging you to kill him.” Wesley felt Gunn’s hand on his belt buckle and couldn’t help the bone deep shudder of horror at being back in this place, being touched like this again, because this time the panic was inside him like a virus; every cell in his body seeming to remember at once that it couldn’t take this again; couldn’t bear to be touched in those places…
“Where do you want it?” Gunn snarled at him. “Over the desk? How about at the foot of the stairs? Or maybe I’ll just do you here…” He slammed Wesley down across the banquette. “The acoustics are good here. When Cordy was screaming in the lobby I swear I could hear it all the way up…”
“Fuck!” Angelus’s eyes turned gold and he turned on Wesley with a snarl of his newly ridged face. “Little girls upstairs, are they?”
Gunn yanked Wesley’s head up. “Were you trying to stall, you worthless little shit?”
Angelus was already marching towards the staircase. “This time you don’t just have to watch, Watcher. This time I’m going to make you fuck them too…”
“Or you could die.”
Wesley twisted his head round with difficulty, shock coursing through him, as he hadn’t even for a moment thought there was any possibility of rescue for him, only a slender chance of escape for Lorne and Fred.
“Oh wait,” Gunn continued evenly – the human Gunn with no brow ridge and brown human eyes that right now were looking cold with anger. The Gunn with a crossbow pointed straight at the vampire holding Wesley down. “You’re already dead. My mistake. Guess that means killing you doesn’t count as murder – just my good deed for the day.”
And there was Angel standing next to Gunn, black coat rippling in the faint breeze they’d brought in with them from the outside world; a long shining sword in his hand that could look as phallic as it liked, Wesley was still extremely pleased to see him and it. “Now get the hell away from Wesley and just maybe I’ll give you a ten second start to get back home.”
The vampire Gunn bared his teeth and pulled Wesley in front of his body. “I’ll snap his neck.”
Angel swung the sword, a few swishes through the air that made it sing along the blade. “The only way you get out of this dimension in anything except a dustpan is if you let him go, right now.”
Gunn’s attention was focused on his vampire counterpart. “You have no idea how much I want to kill you, do you?”
“You didn’t like me sharing your little fuck-toy?” Gunn sneered and tightened his grip on Wesley’s throat. “Come upstairs now and we can take turns with him.”
“I know you want to,” Angelus purred to Angel. “I mean, why wouldn’t you? You’ve had enough ass in your day to recognize a good one. But you wouldn’t believe how clueless the one in my dimension was. All those years at boarding school and he didn’t know a damned thing. That’s why mine was better. He was all sweet and new and fresh and innocent. Not so worn out as yours. Not that yours wasn’t tight too. I never would have known about him and Chuck. But, unlike yours, mine trusted me. Okay – not me, exactly, but the soul boy with the keys to my cell. Know what let me out?”
Angel and Gunn were moving carefully, blocking the exit to the front but advancing as Angelus and Gunn backed up. Wesley was pretty sure that even with his vampire speed and strength, vampire Gunn couldn’t make it to the door to the basement before Angel could get there, not encumbered by a hostage. He would know that too. Which would mean he probably would snap Wesley’s neck. Which was still much better than getting taken back to their dimension.
“Tell me,” said Angel conversationally. “I’m curious.”
“Wes did. Soul Boy was already dangerously near the brink. Thought the Powers had forgiven him because there was that baby all perfect and human and going to be the saviour of the world. And didn’t he love his big sappy fantasy of the perfect family gathered all around him. All those people he’d saved. Cordy and her visions she was keeping just for him because she believed in him and that was so special – yeah right, a cheerleader thinks you’re the champion of the universe and that means something? Does getting a soul just wipe out half the IQ points? Oh yes, and there was Gunn rescued from his deathwish. The guy who hated all vampires but he was working for Angel – didn’t that just prove how special Angel was? And sweet little Fredikins saved from the big bad scary horned jobs on Pylea. Handsome man who saved her from the monsters. She had the crush to end all crushes. And then there was Wesley – the Watcher who turned down the Council because he believed in Angel and his redemption. An educated man; trained since birth not to trust vampires and yet… He believed in Angel so completely that when he translated a prophecy that said Angel was going to eat the wailing brat in the crib next door he couldn’t bring himself to believe it. He did all this cross-referencing and got shamans to throw their chicken bones around and talked to the big scary Loa, and they all told him the same thing – that he had to snatch the brat or it was going to end up as vamp chowder. And he was almost going to do it, too, but then he spent one last evening with Angel. The bestest champion that had ever lived who’d taken in poor hungry little Wesley from the streets and trained him and fed him and never even made him give him one solitary blow-job in compensation even though – if someone could just draw Wes a diagram of what a blow-job actually was – Wes would really have liked to give him one. Or anything at all because he had the sweetest most innocent little crush a schoolgirl ever had on his noble champion boss. And, of course, once Wesley saw Angel with his wailing snot-nosed baby and heard how much Angel wuvved the puking mewling little brat and how he was so happy that he had him, Wesley just couldn’t bring himself to do the terrible deed.”
Angel flinched; eyes closing briefly while Wesley winced in vampire Gunn’s grip.
“Wesley told you.” Angel briefly lowered his sword. “Told the Angel you were before – the one in your dimension – about the prophecy.”
“Yes, he did.” Angelus grinned in delight. “And oh dear – too much happiness – knowing that the last piece was in place and his dear little friend trusted him completely and there was now nothing that could ever come between him and his darling baby son…Except me. Oh yum – baby blood, nothing like it. Remember how that tasted? And the smell of their neck just before you bite in…” Angelus licked his lips theatrically. “Kept Wesley alive though. I’m not the unreasonable type and he had just broken me out of jail. Not sure he was really grateful though. Even though I taught him so many fun new games…”
Wesley kept his eyes closed because he knew what Angel was thinking; about the dumb wide-eyed Wesley who’d first arrived in LA, from whom this Wesley now felt so separated that he could almost think of him as a separate entity. A separate entity Angelus had tortured and raped and driven mad.
“You’re going to die, you sick fuck,” Gunn said hoarsely. “And this time you’re going to stay dead.”
Wesley opened his eyes in surprise and saw the murderous look on Gunn’s face. That was the reckless look he got sometimes when he’d just rush in because he wanted to spill demon guts or dust a vampire. “Charles…” he warned.
Vampire Gunn smirked at his human counterpart nastily. “Yeah, Charles, better stay away or I’ll make your boyfriend pay. And pay. And pay. Don’t you love the way his spine arches when you drive into him in one deep hard stroke…? Bet he used to scream when you did that too…”
Gunn levelled his crossbow. “Keep talking, fangboy. It’s just going to make sweeping you up off the floor later that much less of a chore.”
“We’re going now,” Angelus said coolly. “And we’re taking your Watcher with us. Although I have to ask, Gunn, before I go – did you get off on his scar? Because I got to tell you – turned me the hell on all right; the way you can work your tongue in there and lick and lick. Maybe that didn’t do it for you as much as his tight little… but, Angel, buddy, I just know it was making your rod want to conduct a recital. Think about that when I’m…”
Angelus exploded into a swirl of dust. Wesley gaped at the place beside the vampire holding him in disbelief, because he’d been watching Angel and Gunn the whole time and Gunn’s finger hadn’t moved on his crossbow and Angel was still holding that sword and…
Vampire Gunn spun around, still holding Wesley in front of him as a human shield against this new threat. Wesley’s heart flip-flopped painfully in his chest as he saw Cordelia, Fred, and Lorne all holding crossbows; the two women both reloading. Cordelia said coolly, “That was for the Cordelia and Fred in your dimension, scumbag.”
Then the Gunn holding him jolted at some impact and Wesley was suddenly breathing in dust. And falling. Backwards. As he toppled over he realized that human Gunn must have just killed the vampire version of himself with a perfectly placed crossbow bolt through the back straight into the heart and he was now falling through his dust. Wesley tensed in readiness, squeezing his eyes closed for the impact with the floor and then he felt strong arms gripping him and Angel saying, “I’ve got you.”
He opened his eyes and stared up into the vampire’s face in disbelief. Angel smiled at him gently and said again, “I’ve got you, Wes.”
Wesley smiled back, seeing a blurry Gunn looming up somewhere very far away as the ocean rolled into some place around the back of his head. “I have to pass out now,” he said apologetically, and then everything was blissfully quiet for a while.
Wesley woke up to find himself still in the lobby of the Hyperion, now transferred to the banquette, still being held by Angel and with Gunn gazing at him anxiously.
“He’s back…” Gunn took his hand and squeezed it gently. “How are you doing, English?”
“Oh, fine, thank you.” Wesley tried to sit up and Angel and Gunn helped him to do so. He blinked in confusion and looked around the lobby. The first odd thing was the sight of Fred in knitting needle-heeled shoes of impossible impracticality in which she was deliberately stomping backwards and forwards on what appeared to be the contents of a Hoover bag. “Um, why is…?”
“She’s just being vengeful,” Angel explained. “I think Cordy lent her the shoes.”
Wesley noticed that Cordelia was holding a broom in one hand and the nozzle of a vacuum cleaner in the other. “So, which do you think would be the most demeaning way to have someone handle your ashes?” she enquired. “Swept or sucked?”
“I was gonna piss on them,” Gunn admitted. “But Lorne thought it was unsanitary.”
“And it would be – as well as being unworthy of you. Here you go, sugarplum – painkillers for that brand new vampire smackdown you received and a nice hot cup of tea.”
Wesley turned his head to find Lorne proffering two white tablets and a bone china cup. He took both automatically. “Um – thank you.”
“Well, thank you, crumpet, for the whole heroic stalling of the bad guys while I got myself and Fredilicious to safety. Luckily, our fearless demon hunters were just returning from their pus-a-thon with the Glurgs and so were in place to lend a helping hand.”
Fred beamed at Wesley from mid-stomp. “We were the real rescue committee. Gunn and Angel were the diversion.”
“They were very…diverting,” Wesley admitted.
“Betcha didn’t know we were there until evil ass went all dustbunny, did you?”
“I was as surprised as he was.”
Cordelia leant the broom against a pillar and beamed at him. “See, for standing around looking all menacing and keeping the bad guys talking, Angel and Gunn are just dandy, but when you need some real vampire slaying done, you gotta go for the feminine touch.”
In light of his hereditary calling as a Watcher to just such a Slayer, not to mention recent events, Wesley could hardly argue with that. “Well, thank you. I’m very grateful for the rescue.”
Cordelia gave him another dazzling smile. “You’re welcome.”
Fred stomped a little more while Wesley watched her deliberately grinding her tiny pointy heels into the dust. There was something hypnotic about it and he noticed that Angel had to give himself a little shake before he could look away as well. “How are you feeling?” the vampire enquired.
“Oh, quite well, really. All things considered. Particularly pleased about the not being dragged back to another dimension to be horribly tortured part of the proceedings.” Wesley would have said more but he noticed what Gunn was holding in his hand and felt a wave of dismay wash over him. He straightened up, murmuring, “Oh dear…”
Gunn held up the mini video camera which Angelus had placed on the front desk, presumably to record their kidnap of their runaway victim. He looked very ominous.
“Gunn, I…” He swallowed quickly, darting a glance at Fred, and adding in a rapid undertone: “I hope you won’t be offended by what I… I was trying to stall and…”
Gunn grinned at him. “Offended? I already made ten copies and mailed them to my nearest and dearest. Ain’t every day someone tells the world I’ve got more stamina in the sack than an evil dead vampire.”
As Wesley evidently blanched in horror, Gunn sighed. “Joke, Wes. I’m not offended and I didn’t tell anyone. But I will be keeping this video in case I need it. Because I’m thinking you wouldn’t want me to show this to some girl you were trying to impress or mailing it to your Aunty Flo.”
“However did you guess…?” Wesley murmured faintly. He darted another glance at the man, wincing apologetically. “I really am sorry for what I said.”
Gunn slapped him lightly on the shoulder. “Hey, you were saving my girl. You could have told them I ate live newts for all I care if it kept them the hell away from her.”
Wesley blinked in confusion. “You think that’s worse?”
“Sure. That’s…ewww. Doing you really well and often in lots of places around the hotel – kind of sleazy, but also sort of cool.”
Wesley looked at him sideways. “I can’t tell if you have hidden depths or hidden shallows. Either way I think you’re scaring me a little.”
Gunn held up the tape again. “One thing I have to ask you though, Wes. What was Plan B?”
“I’m sorry, I don’t…?”
“Plan A was obviously – stall the Evil Dead until Lorne could get Fred out of the hotel. What was Plan B? You know, the part of the plan that stopped you getting dragged back to that other dimension by Vampy and Skanky?”
Wesley frowned at him. “I don’t know what you…”
Gunn sighed. “You know, I’d love to think the reason you had no Plan B was because you had so much faith in us playing the seventh cavalry and saving your skinny white ass in the nick of time. But I just know it was because you didn’t think that it mattered what happened to you as long as Lorne and Fred were okay.”
“Well…” Wesley couldn’t see the point in denying it. “Yes, but…”
Angel and Gunn sighed and exchanged a long look. Angel shrugged. “Looks like we’re back to the drawing board with this project.”
Gunn nodded. “Better get those old blueprints out and start over.”
“Start what?” Wesley wondered if those painkillers Lorne had given him were going to kick in any time soon. “What project?”
Gunn cuffed him very gently around the back of the head. “Operation Get Wes Some Self-Esteem And I Mean Yesterday.”
Fred paused in her stomping to come over and put her hands on Wesley’s shoulders, gazing into his eyes in a way that made his heart do that familiar flip-flop. “Thank you for what you did, Wesley. It was incredibly brave.”
“And incredibly stupid.” Cordelia also cuffed him around the back of the head, a lot less gently than Gunn. “Don’t ever do that again – the stupid spell, the stupid heroics – any of it.”
Wincing and holding the back of his head, Wesley murmured, “Yes, Cordelia.”
“You didn’t think we were brave and heroic?” Gunn enquired. “Not to mention kind of manly and impressive?”
Cordelia shrugged. “As decoys go you were relatively…big and shiny. But I think when Groo was guarding the basement single-handed so they couldn’t take Wesley away with them he was probably wielding his weapon in a slightly more heroic way.”
“You know, some of us are awfully sick of hearing about Groo’s weapon-wielding abilities,” Angel told her.
She just smiled at him. “And some of us are just going to have to get over it.”
“Princess…” Groo smiled at her tenderly. “Lorne and I agree that your vanquishing of the evil counterparts of Angel and Gunn should, in the tradition of your world, be commemorated in song.”
Cordelia stretched out a shapely ankle. “Well, that sounds like a very good idea to me. Just be sure to mention the new shoes I was wearing at the time. What rhymes with Balenciaga?”
Lorne looked at her shoes and raised an eyebrow. “You bought a pair of Balenciaga leather and crocodile trim zip up sandals on what we earn?”
“Well, they’re new to me.” Cordelia rolled her eyes. “Okay, I took them in payment for a case but it wasn’t as if the wife was going to miss them. She had like…five hundred pairs of shoes.”
“How come she gets a song?” Gunn demanded of Angel. “Weren’t we there being all manly and heroic? And wasn’t Wes the one risking his ass?”
Shifting uncomfortably, Wesley thought there had been quite enough discussion of his ass for one day and really hoped they could not mention it for at least five years.
Cordelia glanced across at Lorne. “What do you say? Do you think they should get a mention in the chorus? I don’t know you need to use their names or anything, but you could maybe say there were a few other people there apart from me, Fred and Groo.”
That was when the floor rippled again. There was an uneasy silence as Wesley and Lorne exchanged a glance. Lorne said, “That was what happened just before…”
Angel stood bolt upright and said, “Hush.”
There was a long breathless silence and then Cordelia said, “What?”
But Angel was already sprinting for the smashed cabinet and the weapons still littering the floor.
“Oh no…” Lorne shook his head. “No. No. And how about a resounding ‘No’?”
“But they’re dead.” Fred looked down at the dust beneath her heels as if she needed the reassurance it was still there. “We killed them.”
Groo held his sword at the ready, gently pushing Cordelia behind him, and Gunn had also snatched up a crossbow, moving in front of Fred. Angel stood in front of both of them, throwing axe in one hand and a sword in the other.
Even Wesley could hear it now, the faint sound of footsteps on the stairs up from the basement. His heart began to hammer a little faster and he saw Angel turn and give him a quick glance of mingled compassion and reassurance before turning back to face this new threat.
The door opened slowly to reveal…Faith and Giles.
Angel lowered his sword. “Faith? I thought you were still in prison…”
Wesley wondered if it was possible to pass out from sheer relief. “Giles, I thought you were coming tomorrow?”
Giles and Faith exchanged a glance and then spread out, advancing cautiously, both with weapons in their hands, Wesley noticed now. Crossbows.
“Oh!” said Fred abruptly, and she darted in front of Gunn. “It’s not them! I mean – this Angel and Gunn – they’re not the ones you’re looking for.”
Groo and Cordelia both grabbed Angel and yanked him behind them, Cordelia holding up her hands to say, “Your guys are dead and dusted.”
Fred pointed to the pile of dust. “See. Right there. Literal dust.”
Giles and Faith exchanged another glance and then much to Wesley’s relief, Giles lowered his crossbow. “Then, this Angel and Gunn are…?”
Faith marched up to Gunn and splashed something in his face. He flinched, wiping his face. “What the…?”
She showed him the bottle of Holy water. “Just checking.”
Angel backed up another pace. “I’m still a vampire. I just have a soul.”
“Yeah, bet you say that to all the Slayers.” She glanced at him appraisingly but didn’t splash him with Holy water.
“Generally only the ones he puts out for,” Cordelia assured her.
Faith shrugged. “Yeah, well, that’s why I’m here instead of B. Didn’t want her to have to stake the son-of-a-bitch – and there was the little matter of me wanting to do it myself just for the fun of it.”
Giles looked across at Wesley, his gaze compassionate and searching. “As you appear to have gathered, we’re from a different…reality, I presume. I don’t really understand how that works but I have to accept that it does as we’re here, and you were…where you were. We came here to dispose of…” He examined the dust. “But you already seem to have done it for us.”
“Which I’m still pissed about, by the way.” Faith looked down at the dust, face unreadable, then cleared her throat and spat with great accuracy into the centre of it; eyes murderous. “No one does that to my Watcher.”
“They were kind of holding Wesley hostage,” Fred explained apologetically. “And we really didn’t like them much either.”
“No, I imagine that you didn’t.” Giles was still looking at Wesley who felt exposed by the concern in the man’s eyes. “Are you all right?” Giles asked him gently.
Wesley nodded. “I had – good aftercare.”
“What about the other Wesley?” Angel pressed. “The one from your dimension. Is he…?”
Faith glared at him. “Insane? Yes, he was, pretty much. Luckily, after the last bout of fever he stopped remembering…anything – who we were, who they were – Fred and Cordy, Angel and Gunn. Willow did a cleansing spell, got rid of the last few cobwebs, which stopped most of the nightmares. Still wakes up screaming sometimes, of course, but he doesn’t know why. Can’t stand the sound of crying babies. They scare him. Apart from that he’s pretty much normal for someone who is twenty-nine and has no idea of anything that happened to him up until a month ago. Now he’s learning everything again, making good progress too – he can spell his own name, tie his own shoelaces. He can even read – as long as the print’s nice and big and there are pictures.”
Wesley was taken aback by the raw grief on her face. He had never expected to see any Faith looking like that because of some harm done to him. If the kernel of viciousness he had witnessed in Angelus was buried somewhere in Angel then presumably this ability to care for others must be somewhere in Faith too.
“I’m sorry,” he said gently.
She snatched a calming breath. “You don’t look too good either.”
“I was lucky. They didn’t kill anyone in front of me.”
“Wesley is re-learning things,” Giles sounded tired but determined. “He lives with me now – as does Faith. We share his care between us. He can manage simple lessons. He’s not unhappy. And he shows signs of having the same interests.” He removed his glasses so as not to meet any of their eyes. “I’m confident that he can learn to read to an adult level again, and perhaps even to translate, given time. It’s just a matter of not rushing him. There was no actual…brain damage. His mind just needed a…rest. Willow and Xander are taking care of him today. He feels quite safe with them – although we’d better be heading back as soon as possible.”
“I’m sorry,” Angel said. “Truly. We know we were lucky to get Wes back in even the bad shape he was in. At least he was still…Wesley.”
Giles looked across at Wesley again. “I am terribly sorry for what was done to you. I should have realized when Angelus phoned but I thought he was just calling to…gloat. It wasn’t until the tape arrived that we… Well, you can imagine how we felt when we realized that you’d been there with them for all that time.” He looked very tired, shadows under his eyes and grey at his temples that Wesley suspected had not been there a few months before. “We did try to kill them on our first visit, but once we’d lost the advantage of surprise we got into a siege situation where they could hold us off almost indefinitely. Getting Wesley away from them seemed more important, so we beat a strategic retreat and left them to the Hyperion. And once we had Wesley back in Sunnydale he was so…ill that it was several weeks before I felt able to leave him even for… We tried to warn everyone in our reality that Angelus was back and Gunn was now a vampire. I didn’t expect someone to…”
“Punch their way in from another dimension like a big suicidal dork?” Cordelia enquired. “Hey, guess what? Who the hell would?” She reached out to smack Wesley around the back of the head again, then taking in Faith’s brooding expression, settled for an admonitory tap on the shoulder.
Giles said wearily, “I imagine it’s already been pointed out to you how incredibly stupid an idea that was?”
“Several times actually,” Wesley assured him.
Faith gazed into his face then looked at the scar at his neck. “Saw the tape. You already had that wound. How did that happen?”
Wesley swallowed. “Long story.”
Faith gave him a moment to tell it and then as he clearly wasn’t going to, nodded; respecting his privacy. She looked around at the others then looked back at him, ducking her head to keep eye contact. “They treat you okay here? Cause I’m a Watcher short. And I was thinking maybe it would be good for Wesley to…”
“Wouldn’t it just confuse him?” Angel said quickly.
“Freaked me out seeing another version of me here and I don’t have the whole brain trauma thing,” Gunn added.
“If Wesley was your Watcher why was he off with Angel and the rest of us?” Cordelia enquired.
“Cutbacks,” Faith shrugged. “The Council always were cheap bastards. They sent Wes to replace Giles but Wes sent them a report saying that they’d made a mistake and no one could do a better job of being Buffy’s Watcher than Giles. He was very earnest. Cited a lot of precedents – gave lots of examples of how good a Watcher Giles was and how an hour of practical experience in the field was worth a hundred hours of theory. So, they send in an assessment team to look at the whole Sunnydale situation. I’m not even thinking I’m going to be affected. We’re just all crossing our fingers for B and Giles that they can go back to being the way they were. Meanwhile, I’ve got my own Watcher.” Noticing Giles, she sighed. “Nothing against Giles – he knows I love him – but Wes was doing a good job. Taking a lot of crap from me, too, and not whining about it. Well, not much.” For a moment she almost smiled and then the reality of the situation came back to her and she sighed. “He was the rookie. Still had a lot to learn but I was training him up just fine and then the Council sends back a report saying, okay, Giles is reinstated but by the way Wes is fired because you don’t need ‘two Watchers for two Slayers in the same geographical location’. I think it was spite, you know? Because he questioned them. B and Angel are having the big angsty break up and there’s a lot going down, and before we can find Wes another berth he’s headed off on his rogue demon hunter thing. It was just lucky Angel took him in before he starved to death in some…” Again a smile threatened and then was banished. “Funny – I still can’t get out of the habit of thinking it was a good thing he ended up with Angel.”
Fred said compassionately, “But he still has you, doesn’t he? And Giles? And the people in Sunnydale?”
“Yeah, he has us.” Faith gritted her teeth. “And nothing bad any side of hell is getting within spitting distance of him this time.”
“I imagine he can sense that,” Wesley said quietly. “That you care about him. It would mean a lot to him to have people caring for him – showing him affection. He probably wasn’t used to…” Aware of the others all around him, he cleared his throat. “I imagine it’s probably enough for him now.”
“I have high hopes of his eventual recovery,” Giles said. “And in the meantime he is receiving the best possible care that we can provide between us.”
“I suppose the Council don’t pay the medical bills for fired Watchers, do they?” Cordelia enquired.
Giles looked up at her. “No. The Council consider Wesley none of their business any more. Which is why I’m not informing them of his current condition.”
“You know about his father?” Wesley asked. “That he – wouldn’t be good for him.”
Faith said, “Yeah, I know all about the emotionally abusive son-of-a-bitch on account of our Wes getting drunk under the table by me, one time, and us doing the sharing thing.”
Wesley tried to imagine ever having done that with the Faith in his dimension, feeling a pang for what might have been. “You must have been good for him.”
“Damned straight I was good for him. That was what got me so pissed with the Council. I was halfway through my uptight English Guy rehabilitation program and they closed the damned class.”
“And we Watchers are brought up to think that we’re the ones doing the training.”
Faith shrugged. “Yeah, never got that. B didn’t either. It so doesn’t work that way.” She glanced at him. “So, what do you say to the being my Watcher thing?”
Wesley took a deep breath. “Thank you for the offer, Faith. But I really do want to stay in my own dimension from now on. And although I think the chances of my ever being the Watcher for the Faith in this dimension again are slim to non-existent, I…”
“Can’t be spared,” Angel said emphatically. “Needed here.”
“Yes, sorry.” Cordelia folded her arms. “We have a hotline to the Powers here and we need our demon researcher guy.”
“Definitely needed here,” Gunn said. “Because, you know – research is really boring and how many guys are you going to find who actually like it? And ones that can do that and know how to cross-section a Slarkal demon with a katana – don’t exactly grow on trees. And, besides, sometimes you just really need a stuffy English guy around the place. Just because.”
“And we like him.” Fred put her arms around Wesley from behind him and beamed down at him. “So we want to keep him.”
Faith gazed at Wesley. “You really want to stay with the freak show here?”
“Yes.”
“Even after what went down in my dimension?”
“It won’t happen here.” Wesley gazed at her intently. “And this is where I want to be. These are the people…” he broke off in embarrassment.
Cordelia glared at him. “Say it.”
“I’m English,” he protested.
“Say it anyway. We all did.”
Sighing he admitted, “These are the people I want to be with.”
Faith glanced around at them. “Well, no accounting for tastes, but it’s cool.”
As another fizz and crackle rippled through the hotel and Lorne put a hand to his head again, Faith and Giles exchanged a glance. “Better catch that dimensional sewer tunnel, home, Boss,” Faith observed. She nodded to Wesley. “Take care of yourself, Wes. And if that vampire so much as looks at you funny, soul or no soul, you stake his ass.”
Giles nodded to Wesley. “I’ll save the lecture as I presume my counterpart in this dimension has either already delivered it or is en route to, but I do wish you a speedy recovery and good luck to you and your friends in – helping the helpless.”
“We’re all very sorry about your Wesley,” Fred told Giles gently. “We hope he gets better soon. I wish we could… Actually, can you wait just a…?” She kicked off the stilettos and ran barefoot up the stairs.
Cordelia looked after her in some perplexity. “She hasn’t been writing on the walls again, has she?”
Gunn also gazed after Fred. “No, she’s…sane.”
“It’s so hard to tell with the people around here somedays.”
They waited in slightly awkward silence while there was the sound of Fred scampering about upstairs, and then she was running back downstairs. Wesley saw in some surprise that she was carrying a copy of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s A Little Princess and a rather tatty-looking soft toy that appeared to have once been a rabbit. She jumped down the last three stairs and shoved the book and toy at Giles.
“These always made me feel better when I was feeling ill. The book’s even better if someone reads it to you, and Feigenbaum is just…well, he’s the master of chaos so he makes everything else calmer, because all the crazy things they go to him and he controls them.”
Giles opened the book. “It has your name in it.”
“Yes, but he doesn’t remember the Fred in… You can tell him I was a girl he went to school with.” She beamed suddenly. “You can tell him I had a crush on him, if you like. Because I think if I had been at school with Wesley I would definitely have had a crush on him on account of him being so smart.”
Giles smiled at her very gently. “If you’d been at school with Wesley in our dimension, you would have been a boy.”
“Maybe I would have been a girl just pretending to be a boy to go to that school because they had the best teachers in the world or something. Or it could have been all part of the crush. I could have been the world’s first eight-year-old stalker; and we could have had secret meetings in the boiler room because he was the only one who could know my true identity. I think it would have been very romantic.”
Giles looked at her for a long moment and then said, “I imagine you get on very well with the Willow in your dimension?”
“I was thinking of emailing her,” Fred admitted.
“You should do that,” Giles told her. “I’m sure you’ll find you have a lot in common.” He nodded to her and held up the book and toy. “Feigenbaum, yes? As in Mitchell Feigenbaum, presumably? I’ll see that Wesley gets these. And – thank you.” He said it quietly but with great feeling as he gazed into Fred’s eyes and squeezed her hand gently. “I think he’ll like them very much.” As Fred looked so touched that Giles wasn’t making fun of her gift, for the first – and hopefully only – time in his life, Wesley felt a strong urge to hug Giles. He resisted it, however.
Angel caught up with Giles and Faith just before they headed down into the basement. “I won’t let what happened in your world happen here, I promise. And – I’m sure your Wesley’s going to make it. They’re – tougher than they look.”
“Have to be the way life keeps kicking them in the teeth,” Faith muttered, but she nodded to him. “Just take care of the one you’ve got. And don’t think me being in a different dimension is going to stop me hearing about it if you don’t.”
Angel nodded. “I’ll bear it in mind.”
And then they were gone, and a moment later the hotel rippled again, the light fizzed and Lorne sighed and looked around for a sea breeze. “Inter-dimensional portals,” he sighed. “Not friendly to the empathic amongst us.”
Fred wrapped her arms around Wesley again, hugging him as if they were both listening to far off music. “But look what we’ve got – our very own Wesley who isn’t insane or in a different dimension being horribly tortured. I think we should celebrate, don’t you?”
“Presumably this celebration would involve tacos of some kind?” Gunn enquired.
She nodded cheerfully. “Well, now you mention it… There are some occasions that really need tacos.”
“Okay, sweetlips.” Lorne refilled Wesley’s teacup for him and sat down next to him with a bottle of aspirin and what looked like a triple strength drink. “Why don’t you and the Gunnster go and rustle up enough food to feed a small army of scarily thin women from Texas while Wesley and I sit here and let our painkillers work their magic, and think about how dead we’re not?”
Wesley exhaled and looked at the dust on the floor; realizing that it really was over and that other reality could now get on with being just a nightmare which some other people had temporarily shared with him. “That sounds like an excellent idea to me.”
They all jumped as there was the sudden roar of an engine at close quarters and turned to see Cordelia triumphantly holding up the nozzle of the Hoover. “Well, I feel the urge to vacuum coming on. This place is just so darned…dusty.”
With the painkillers kicking in and his eyes almost closing, Wesley slumped against an equally groggy Lorne, distantly aware of a scramble for coats and car keys and demands being made on Angel’s wallet, and then he was watching the nozzle of the vacuum cleaner magically whisking away the last grey remnants of Angelus and the vampire Gunn as Cordelia hummed cheerfully all the while.
***
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Date: 2005-10-24 04:23 pm (UTC)