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Lost and Found, Part Twelve

Wesley was terribly touched by that; so much so that he had to hastily drop his gaze so Angel wouldn’t see how moved he was by the vampire’s renewed declaration of friendship. “I’ll just grab a few things for now and get Gunn to help me move out on the weekend.”

Angel nodded. “Okay. Now, come and pick out a room.”

“I like the one I have.” They were standing outside it, by chance. It was next to Angel’s. Wesley opened the door so they could both look inside.

“Really?” Angel looked at him in surprise. “But don’t you have…bad associations with it? I was thinking you could have the bigger one over the hall.”

“I like this one. And it has good associations.”

“It does?” Angel peered in through the doorway and Wesley could see him remembering tossing Wesley roughly onto the bed and all those bouts of having his bandages changed, the painful limps across the room, the chilly sessions sitting in the bath while Angel washed dried semen out of his hair.

“I remember people I care for very much bringing me soup and ice cream, and another person trying not to hurt me when he changed my dressings even though I’d just lost him the only child he’d ever have.” Wesley risked meeting Angel’s eyes. “I want to keep this room.”

“I sort of think of it as yours now anyway.” Angel looked around the room with more interest. “We could repaint it if you like. Put some of your swords on the wall. Get you a better bookcase.”

“I have bookcases.”

“Okay, let’s work out where your furniture would go…” Angel pulled him into the room, excited by the project now Wesley had consented to it, examining the tiling in the bathroom with a critical eye in case it didn’t measure up. Wesley had forgotten how childish Angel could be about new enthusiasms. Perhaps because he’d had to be so restrained about Connor coming back, and not show any of the joy he was feeling too obviously in case it looked as if he were taking the boy’s acceptance for granted, he had clearly decided to channel his enthusiasm into decorating Wesley’s room as well. He demanded that everyone chipped in the moment the others came back, and worked out the best colour for the walls, curtains and carpets that Wesley was already perfectly satisfied with exactly the way they were.

Looking at paint colours and peering into abandoned rooms for furniture that could be moved to Wesley’s bedroom inevitably led to Connor pointing out which colours he liked best and which pieces of furniture he preferred, and by the time the sun was going down, Connor had unconsciously made it clear to everyone in the hotel that he now thought of the Hyperion as home.

They waited for him to head off to the bathroom with reasonable restraint and then met up in the hallway to give in and in Cordelia and Fred’s case utter barely muted squeals of relief. Cordelia hugged Fred and swung her around while Gunn, Angel and Wesley thumped one another in a manly way and Groo solemnly shook hands with Lorne.

“Okay, so his idea of home decorating is that from now on we cut the heads off every demon we kill so he can stuff and mount them and stick them on his wall, but, hey, it’s still an indication he wants to stay here, right?” Cordelia demanded breathlessly.

Gunn nodded. “Damned straight. No one bags a moth-eaten tigerskin for his bedroom if he’s not planning to stick around. You’re not going to let him have that in there though, are you, Angel, because that thing is probably harbouring all kinds of nasties?”

“Of course, if you don’t he may think it’s a reasonable idea to drop into the zoo one night and pull a Mowgli,” Cordelia pointed out.

Wesley frowned. “Didn’t Mowgli kill Shere Khan by tricking him into a gully and then getting a lot of cattle to stampede over him? I’m not sure it would actually be possible to replicate those circumstances in Los…” Seeing everyone looking at him with pitying expressions, he cleared his throat. “Not being strictly literal with the Mowgli references then? I see.”

Cordelia looked at Lorne. “Next time we go shopping one of us really needs to buy Wesley a life.”

“Top of my shopping list, princess,” the demon assured her.

Wesley looked at his watch. “Well, if you’ve all quite finished insulting me, I really do need to go and pick up a few things from my flat. Try not to do anything wonderfully exciting while I’m not here, will you?”

“Hah.” Cordelia poked him in the chest. “Don’t think we couldn’t if we wanted to. We’re just – pacing ourselves. Just because all you’ve seen us doing is the whole brain-melting tedium and constant poverty interspersed with moments of bone-shattering terror and near-death trauma, doesn’t mean we couldn’t be having a really fun time if we wanted to.”

Wesley was still grinning about that as he went down to the basement where his motorbike was standing next to Angel’s car. Gunn had brought it over for him a few weeks before, omitting to tell Wesley until he’d had the fun of riding around on it for a few hours that he’d never actually passed a test for driving a motorcycle, particularly not a high-powered Triumph. Thinking of that, Wesley examined it for new scratches and had to admit that he couldn’t actually see any despite Gunn telling him terrible things about taking it over loose gravel at high speed. He took off his glasses to put on the helmet and then almost jumped out of his skin as a familiar female voice drawled lazily:

“Why, Mr Wyndam-Pryce, you’re beautiful.”

He spun around with his heart hammering to see Lilah Morgan, wearing something tailored and no doubt expensive. She lazily picked a stray thread from her dark silk jacket and then glanced up at him in a way that he had to admit, if only in the privacy of his head, did light something of a fire in his loins.

“Can I help you?” he enquired frostily, hastily putting on his glasses and hoping they bestowed him with some dignity as he did so.

“Actually, I’m here to help you.” She stepped forward and he had to admit that she really was a striking-looking woman. “Don’t go to your apartment alone.”

“Why not?”

“Why do you think?” As he continued to stare a challenge, she sighed impatiently. “Our seers say you’ve learned how to hop dimensions. That makes you a wizard of considerable power. That, combined with the inside information you have on Angel Investigations, just makes you way too kidnappable to resist.” She moved in closer and he felt her breath tickle his stubble. “And they wouldn’t even want to do anything fun with you, it would be all…drugs and hypnotism and lots of the wrong kinds of pain.”

“There are right kinds of pain?”

She smiled at him seductively. “Oh, you’re just begging me to demonstrate that one, aren’t you?”

He stepped back. “I’ve really had enough pain to last me a lifetime, Ms Morgan.”

“So formal. And here was I thinking that you and I were on the fast track to some really good meaningless sex before you pulled that little disappearing act. Still wondering how exactly you did that, I have to say. Leave one place, turn up in another six days later with no visible trail between the two. Neat trick if you can do it.”

He thought of that stinking basement in the other dimension and shuddered. “Trust me, you really wouldn’t want to learn that one.”

“You went after him, didn’t you?” She closed the distance between them and if it had been anyone but Lilah Morgan he would have said that was compassion in her eyes. “Connor?”

“I never left the city.” It wasn’t exactly a lie. He had stayed in Los Angeles throughout his little visit to another dimension.

She inclined her head, smiling. “Kind of an odd coincidence, isn’t it? You vanish in a big crackle of inter-dimensional activity and the next time our seers pick up anything it’s all happening here, and lo and behold there’s a teenage boy in Angel’s hotel that the Texas twiglet is calling ‘Connor’.”

“I can assure you that I have never been to Quor’toth and have no idea of how to get there.”

Lilah widened her eyes mockingly. “Scout’s honour, Mr Wyndam-Pryce?”

He made the scout salute. “Absolutely.”

She laughed. “I actually believe you.”

“Tell Linwood and his hired thugs that I don’t know how to get to Quor’toth or any other demon dimension he may have pencilled in for his summer holidays this year.”

“Go to your apartment alone and you’ll be telling him yourself. Probably over and over and over again. In between the writhing and screaming.”

He shuddered before he could stop himself and she narrowed her eyes, again that flicker of something that could almost have been human empathy in her gaze. “It really wasn’t Disneyworld you visited, was it?”

“It was nowhere that was useful to Wolfram & Hart unless you consider the basement of the Hyperion an area of outstanding natural beauty.”

Her eyes widened. “Is that it? Angel brought you here? He…? What did he do to you?”

“Nothing. And Angel didn’t bring me here. I just tried something that didn’t work and this was where I ended up, only not in the shape in which I’d left.”

She looked relieved and then mocking. “Oh, and the noble hero just had to disappoint everyone by going all goody-goody again and taking you in, didn’t he?”

Wesley shrugged. “What can I say? Once a champion, always a champion.”

“So you’ve kissed and made up with the Gang of…how many of you are there now?”

“Sorry, Lilah, you’ll have to stake us out in the old fashioned way to work that one out. We removed the security cameras.”

“I know. Why do you think I’m risking my life warning you about the welcoming committee at your apartment? Which, you still haven’t thanked me for, I notice.”

“He’ll send you some flowers.”

They both jumped as Angel and Gunn stepped out of the shadows, Gunn holding an axe in a way that was certainly not subtle.

Lilah glanced dismissively at Angel. “I’m expecting a little more than that for saving his life. Which is what I’m doing, by the way. At least the bits of his life that don’t involve lots of pain and suffering, not to mention hallucinogenic drugs.”

“Why are you doing that again?” Gunn enquired. “Cause I’m thinking ‘goodness of your heart’ probably not the reason.”

She shrugged. “Office politics. I want Linwood’s job. I’d do it better than he does and I’m much smarter. Just making sure that when the annual review comes up he has a few more blots on his copybook.” She glanced at Wesley. “And maybe I have a preference for you keeping that big brain in that handsome head of yours.” She looked him up and down in a way that was simultaneously insultingly obvious and annoyingly arousing. “And flowers aren’t going to cut it for this favour. For this you owe me a nooner.”

And then she was gone and Wesley found himself looking between Angel and Gunn in confusion. “What’s a nooner?”

Angel and Gunn exchanged what looked like a pas devant les enfants glance. “Something that makes it possible Lilah, the evil lying bitch lawyer, may actually be telling the truth this time, on account of her having her own entirely selfish motives for keeping you in one piece,” Gunn conceded with a shrug.

“One working piece.” Angel and Gunn exchanged another glance and then looked at Wesley curiously.

“I knew she wanted to get groiny with him.” Cordelia’s sudden appearance made Wesley jump nervously. “First Angel and now Wesley. You wouldn’t think it to look at her shoes, but that woman really has no standards.”

Angel and Wesley exchanged a mutually insulted glance but before either of them could formulate a protest Cordelia had already moved on briskly to her next sentence: “So, what’s the plan? I’m presuming that sending Wesley off to get kidnapped for his…big mojo is probably not on the agenda?”

“I’d say keeping Wesley away from his apartment at all costs was more what we had in mind.” Angel frowned. “Linwood has every reason to be…”

“Screw Linwood,” Gunn put in. “Sounds as if Lilah’s going to be there waiting for him with a butterfly net every day Linwood and his goons aren’t. Wes definitely needs to be confined to quarters until further notice.”

“Do I get a say in this?” Wesley demanded.

Angel, Gunn and Cordelia all said ‘No’ with equal firmness.

“Because it occurs to me,” he continued, ignoring them, “that this is most likely a ploy to capture Connor. Lilah comes here to send all of you on a wild goose chase to my flat while Wolfram & Hart storm the hotel and steal Connor. Doesn’t that seem like the most likely explanation to you?”

Angel shook his head. “Wes, Lilah can’t make her pupils dilate at will or send out ‘mate with me now’ pheromones just to please her boss. I’m not saying that every word out of her mouth wasn’t a lie, but the naked lust – that was genuine.”

“Don’t kid yourself,” Cordelia assured him. “She’s expecting to collect on that nooner.”

“But Connor…”

“Isn’t the only valuable thing in this hotel.” Angel squeezed Wesley’s shoulder briefly and although it was annoying and patronising of them for to all be dismissing his comments, it wasn’t entirely unpleasant to be considered valuable.

They returned to the lobby to discuss Lilah’s visit, Wesley checking outside to see if there was any sign of a Wolfram & Hart SWAT team arriving to grab Angel’s son, while the others planned without him. He returned to the lobby to find Angel and Gunn nodding decisively at one another in a way that made him distinctly nervous.

Wesley looked between them. “I suppose recent events have rendered it impossible for me to point out that you, Angel, could never strategize your way out of a wet paper bag?”

Angel looked him up and down. “This coming from the guy who took a wrong turn to an alternate dimension last time he tried to alter time?”

Wesley sighed. “I knew it. Gunn, just remember the deep thought that went into Angel’s cunning plan to get you both into Wolfram & Hart.”

“Hey, smartass, Fred and I came up with this strategy.” Cordelia handed out weapons as she spoke. “You really think we’d let Gunn and Angel out there using a plan Mr Walking Real Fast and Use Myself As Human Bait Boy had dreamed up?”

Relieved, he nodded. “Okay, what is the plan then?”

He wasn’t terribly impressed with Cordelia and Fred’s plan either but he had to reluctantly concede that it was probably the best idea. Angel and Gunn were going over to Wesley’s apartment, armed with tranquilliser darts and large frightening weapons, and Angel was going to scare the stuffing out of anyone he found there who worked for Wolfram & Hart, making it very clear in the process that Wesley was off-limits and that if Wesley disappeared or was even a few minutes late coming home from the hot dog stand, Angel was going to hold Linwood personally responsible. Connor, of course, wanted to accompany them, something which made Wesley protest loudly that taking Connor into a situation where there were people already in place in kidnap mode was just insane, which only made Connor even more determined to go until Fred pointed out that if the Wolfram & Hart kidnappers split their forces and Lilah’s warning had in fact been a feint then while Angel, Connor and Gunn were all out of the hotel, the bad guys could rush into the Hyperion and grab Wesley from there. This, of course, also applied to Connor – the more likely subject for a kidnap attempt in Wesley’s opinion. But it certainly convinced Connor as an argument, and he conceded that Fred, Cordelia, and Wesley would be better protected by him and Groo than Groo alone. Wesley strongly objected to being classified along with the girls who needed to be protected as he was almost back to full fitness and was actually a demon hunter, thank you very much.

“Would that be a rogue demon hunter, Wes?” Cordy enquired with a straight face. “Because I’m still not too clear on what those old rogue demons actually are. Are they the ones with really bad table manners?”

“Well, having seen you attempt to eat linguine, I suppose you’re the person best placed to answer that…”

“Children…” Angel sighed. “Can we save the immature squabbling until after the evil kidnappers have been vanquished? Connor, stop teasing Wesley and give him the flame thrower. Cordelia, don’t you think someone chosen by the Powers That Be to bear a sacred trust should be above sticking her tongue out? Connor, I’m trusting you to keep them all safe, okay? Groo, can you guard the garden entrance with Wes? Cordy, you, Lorne, and Fred keep watch – obviously until people attack – whereupon hitting them with large heavy objects would probably be a good plan. Connor, don’t kill anyone human unless they really piss you off.”

“Angel…” Wesley protested, thinking of several weeks’ worth of ethical debates going west in a few careless words.

Angel rolled his eyes. “Okay, don’t kill anyone human unless Uncle Wesley or Aunt Cordy say you can. Gunn, let’s go and frighten some lawyers.”

“I’m all over that idea.”

As they departed jauntily on their mission, Connor turned to Wesley and Cordelia. “You do know I’m not going to call you ‘Uncle Wesley’ or ‘Aunt Cordelia’ – ever, don’t you?”

“Thank god for small mercies,” Wesley observed with feeling.

“Damned straight.” Cordelia raised her sword and they waited.

And waited. And waited.

After an hour and a half of waiting, Groo was the only one who wasn’t fidgeting as if he had inadvertently sat down upon an ants’ nest. He, in fact, seemed mildly surprised by their impatience. “Was it not sometimes necessary to keep absolutely still in the scum pits of Quor’toth?”

“We didn’t have scum pits.” Connor tossed his axe from hand to hand restlessly. “And on Quor’toth it was usually safer to keep moving. Are these people coming or not?”

“Not.”

Wesley spun around to find Angel and Gunn stepping through the basement door, and just for a second, his mind froze, even though he knew this Gunn was human and this Angel had a soul, for a moment his instincts were stronger than his reason, and the fear jolted through him.

Gunn didn’t notice anything, grinning from ear to ear as he swung his axe in his hand. “Not a feint and obviously not coming here as Lilah certainly told the truth about the evil kidnappers at Wes’s place. You should have been there. It was fun. Angel vamped out and I can tell you there was a lot of screaming, possibly some panty-wetting too.”

“Are you hurt?” Fred went forward anxiously.

Gunn waved a dismissive hand. “Few cuts and bruises and pulled muscles but I’m too pumped up to feel anything right now. Can you believe those sons-of-bitches were really going to snatch Wes? Had hypodermics there and everything, not to mention the whole van with men in white coats and trolley to strap him…”

Angel had already dropped his sword and started sprinting. He caught Wesley under the arms as the lobby performed a pirouette. “Easy, Wes.”

“Just…feel a little…”

“Are you going to faint like a girl?” The words were all the old Cordelia but the expression in her eyes was a hundred percent anxiety.

Wesley found a smile from somewhere. “I thought it would make a change from screaming like one.”

Angel and Connor helped him over to the banquette in the lobby and sat him down on it. Connor looked at him anxiously. “Why has he gone that colour? What are we supposed to do? Does he need smelling salts? Or should I slap him?”

“No, thank you.” Wesley held up a hand. “I wouldn’t hate a glass of…”

But Fred was already putting one between his fingers. “Have you got it?”

He nodded. “Thank you.” He sipped the water carefully, the world receding from that greyed out hissing place to something that came in more colour than monochrome. “I’m sorry it was just the… I hadn’t expected…”

“Angel and Gunn to come home all blood-spattered and bragging?” Cordelia demanded, sitting down next to him and taking his hand in hers. “Yeah, that shocked me too, cause it’s not as if they don’t do that every day.” She was still smiling at him, but there was that concern in her eyes that made him feel simultaneously anxious and warmed to the bone.

“I’m sorry,” Angel said penitently. “We should have thought how it would look to you – come in the other way.”

“No, it’s…” Wesley looked up at him. “I don’t why I… I was so sure it was a feint and it’s just the first time I’d seen you and Gunn…”

“Oh, damn.” Gunn bowed his head. “They came in that way, didn’t they? Vampy and Skanky from the other dimension – up from the damned basement.”

Connor looked between them in shock. “The vampires who hurt Wesley – they looked like you?”

“It was another world,” Wesley said quickly. “Things happened differently there. It’s not relevant to this dimension.” He focused on Angel’s red-spattered shirt. “You’re bleeding.”

The vampire shrugged. “They squeezed off a couple of shots. Nothing serious. But, they won’t be trying the kidnap thing again. I told them you were under my protection and if anything happened to you I was going to personally take it out of Linwood’s skin, piece by piece. I think they got the message.”

“Thank you.” Wesley looked up at him in relief. “Both of you.”

“Kind of figured we owed you one,” Gunn grimaced. “On the cosmic karma scale.”

“And you do owe Lilah one,” Angel admitted. “They had a whole special ops team there to grab you and they meant business.”

“Why didn’t you tell me the vampires who hurt him looked like you?” Connor demanded of Angel.

“I thought you knew,” Angel admitted. “You mentioned the vampires who hurt Wes, I figured he must have told you about it.”

“All he told me was that it wasn’t you who fed from him.”

“It wasn’t. Gunn and Angel didn’t do anything to me. They just share a physical resemblance to the vampires that did.” He winced at the blood on Angel’s shirt. “Shouldn’t we bandage that up? Or are you trying to look extra stoic in front of your son?”

“Well, I was,” Angel protested, “but as you’ve blown that now I may as well bitch and whine as much as usual.” He took a seat next to Wesley as Cordelia and Fred went off to fetch the bandages, not because, as they pointed out, the men were any less capable of doctoring themselves but because they were extra pathetically whiny unless they got female attention after being damaged in a fight. “So, what are you going to do about that nooner you owe Lilah?” Angel enquired.

Wesley looked at the rips in Gunn’s clothes, the bloodstains on Angel’s shirt. “Well, I do apparently owe her my gratitude.”

“It wasn’t your gratitude she was eyeing up back there.” Cordelia set the first aid kit down on the banquette. “Shirts off, manly warriors. Prepare to get the antiseptic where it hurts.”

“Maybe this is the time to tell you that on account of wanting to set Connor a good example, you’re not allowed to have girls in your room.”

“What?” Wesley looked at him in disbelief.

“House rule.” Angel shrugged. “I run a clean hotel.”

“Except for the demon pus we never managed to get out of room 109,” Fred said brightly. She looked at Gunn appreciatively as he pulled his ripped sweatshirt over his head, revealing some exciting looking cuts and bruises and some impressive lean musculature. “I’m so glad I’m allowed boys in my room.”

“Sorry, Fred,” Angel deadpanned. “From now on I’ve decided you have to live like a nun so that Connor will grow up in an atmosphere of virtue and contemplation and – what are you doing with that crucifix?”

Fred held it up threateningly. “I’m just pointing out that anyone who comes between a Texan girl and her man can expect to feel the pointy end of a stake or the sizzling side of a cross.”

“If Fred’s allowed to have boys in her room I think I should be, too.” Wesley realized that had come out wrong. “Girls, I mean. Be allowed to have girls in my room.”

“Well, you can’t.” Angel shrugged. “Not while Lilah’s after your virtue. Nothing that woman wanted to do to you in bed would be a fit thing to have happening under my roof.”

Wesley had a brief flashback to Lilah eyeing him up in the car park. Damn. Definitely a blatant, unsubtle and positively insulting…sexy, really, really sexy come-on... “I might be able to obtain inside information on Wolfram & Hart.”

Cordelia patted his shoulder. “Gee, Wes, there’s no sacrifice you’re not prepared to make for the cause, is there?”

“I’m with Angel,” Gunn said in disgust. “No way do I want to be getting sweaty and naked in the same hotel as Lilah’s getting sweaty and naked with Wes cause that would just be…yeuch.”

“Does Wesley not now owe this woman a debt of honour?” Groo enquired.

Wesley held up a hand. “See, Groo thinks I owe Lilah a debt of honour. And Groo is never wrong.”

“He wanted Angel to paint his bedroom in summer splendour,” Fred pointed out.

“Except perhaps in the matter of some minor decorating decisions of no particular consequence.”

“Lilah would want to handcuff you to the bed and then…” Cordelia narrowed her eyes. “I’m just turning you on now, aren’t I?”

Wesley collected himself with an effort. “Handcuffs, you say? Shocking.” Memories of the cuffs clicking closed, the chain being wrapped around a pipe, jolted through him, but he dismissed it quickly. There was just that lingering chill, as if a cloud had passed in front of the sun. Then he thought about a woman – any woman – seeing him naked, seeing his scars, asking him about them. And Lilah would ask about them. She’d trace them with a manicured forefinger and whisper hotly in his ear that there was nothing like the signs of past torture to turn on a lawyer. He snatched a breath. “Actually… I think Angel may have a point about the enforced celibacy, at least for a while. I’m not really up to…dating.”

“Of course you’re not, pumpkin,” Lorne said tactfully. “You need to move in first, get settled, let Cordelia and I do something about your wardrobe. Like – burning all your clothes, for instance.”

“Teaching him to dance,” Cordelia added. “That would be another kindness to any women he might be planning to date.”

Wesley gave them both what he hoped was a quelling glance. “I would like to send Lilah some flowers though, if there’s a way to do it that won’t get her killed.”

“Information would probably be more use to her.” Angel tossed a wallet to Wesley which was intercepted in mid-air by Connor. “Took it from Linwood. You could always take her out to lunch tomorrow and give that to her. It has some interesting business cards she may find useful. Just resist the urge to put out however much she come hithers you.”

Connor sniffed the wallet curiously before tossing it to Wesley. “But if this woman you speak of is going to win power and influence for herself in the place of your enemies wouldn’t it be a good idea if Wesley did…”

“Give it up for the cause?” Cordelia enquired. “I don’t think so. I don’t think we’re actually desperate enough yet to start prostituting ourselves for information. Personally, I’m not even sold on the lunch idea. What if she drugs his food?”

“Fred and I can keep an eye out from a discreet distance.” Gunn looked plaintively at the bandages that weren’t being applied to his wounds.

Wesley reached for the bandages. “I think you can all back off and admit that it’s none of your business. At the very least I certainly owe her a nice lunch in a half-decent restaurant.”

“Is talking about lunch in swanky restaurants making anyone else hungry?” Fred had picked up the antiseptic ointment but now she put it down again.

“Now you come to mention it…” Cordelia rose to her feet while Angel pointed at the bullet holes in his chest pathetically. She tossed a bandage to Wesley. “Wes, you can patch these two up, can’t you? Lorne, Groo, want to accompany Fred and I to a place that sells large quantities of cheap hot food?”

“You sold me, sugar pie, especially if it means I don’t have to watch these two bleeding on the marble again.”

“It is always an honour to accompany my princess anywhere.” Groo bowed politely and Cordy beamed at him.

Fred kissed Gunn consolingly on the forehead. “Now, you know you’re always ravenous after you get to kill something. Don’t worry. I’ll be right back with lots of food.”

Then they were gone and Angel and Gunn were exchanging hurt ‘the women of our dreams don’t love us’ looks.

“But we didn’t get to kill anything!” Angel protested. “We only got to – bruise and frighten them a little.”

“Never mind.” Wesley picked up the ointment and handed Connor a bandage. “I dab, you wrap. Which reminds me – I need to show you some books on Ancient Egyptian culture. I think you’ll find it fascinating. One of the most interesting things in my opinion is the different approach to the anthropomorphisation of animals. Whereas in western culture we tend to attribute certain characteristics to animals – cunning for foxes, courage for lions and so on, and those attributes are consistent in the most ancient mythology and children’s books written many thousands of years later, the Ancient Egyptians could have two different gods represented by the same bird or animal that displayed entirely opposite characteristics. For instance…” He noticed that Angel and Connor were rolling their eyes at one another and sighed. “Fine, no lessons outside of school hours.”

“We brought your books,” Gunn offered in consolation. “They’re in the basement. I didn’t let Angel bleed on them.” As Wesley carefully stuck on the sterile gauze with elastic adhesive, Gunn added, “And you dress wounds way better than Cordy does too.”

“It’s easier when you’ve had them yourself.” Wesley winced at the bruising on Gunn’s ribs. “Are you sure nothing’s broken?”

“Don’t think so. Wouldn’t hate a painkiller or six though.”

Connor’s attempt to dress Angel’s wounds was much more slapdash. He smeared Neosporin across them thickly and then applied the gauze with rather too much force before having some trouble with the sticky tape. Wesley left him to it and went off to make Angel and Gunn cups of tea so they could take their painkillers. When he got back, Angel was protesting that he thought Connor had really done enough nursing for one day and he should let Wesley finish up.

“He won’t learn if you don’t let him practise, Angel,” Wesley pointed out, handing Gunn his tea and the extra strength Tylenol.

“Well, he can practise on the next person who gets injured.” Angel took the bandage out of Connor’s hands and gave it to Wesley. “He’s enjoying this way too much.”

Wesley sighed but took the bandage and gently strapped up Angel’s ribs while Connor watched critically.

“So, you don’t pull it so tight then…?”

“No, because on a human that would cut off the blood flow, not to mention causing them considerable pain, and I always find it best to treat Angel as if he were any other human, except for the not panicking and rushing him to the emergency room when he staggers in bleeding from several different wounds that would actually well – kill any other human.”

“But he’s not any other human,” Connor pointed out.

Wesley applied another piece of antiseptic gauze to Angel’s third bullet wound. “No, most people don’t have a destiny that is recorded in sacred texts. Just the two of you.”

Connor exchanged a glance with Angel that was proud and fond. Not looking up from his bandaging, Wesley said, “Connor, could you get Angel some blood? You need to pour it from one of the packs in the fridge into one of the plastic beakers – not a metal one and definitely not a mug any of the rest of us use – and put it in the microwave for one minute. Do you remember how to use the microwave?”

“Of course. Cordy says I’m already way better at using technology than he is.” Connor jerked a thumb at Angel and set off at a sprint.

“So is a two year old with impaired motor skills and ADD,” Gunn pointed out.

“Wes, I was trying to keep him from the whole…blood-drinking creature of the night thing…” Angel murmured.

“I know.” Wesley stuck the last piece of waterproof tape around the gauze and then looked up at him calmly. “But he needs to accept you for what you are, Angel. Or rather you need to realize that he has accepted you for what you are.”

Connor bounced back out of the kitchen carrying the beaker, before Wesley had finished clearing up the first aid supplies.

“Here you are.” He thrust it at Angel and watched curiously.

Nervously, Angel sipped at the blood and then as his hunger kicked in, gulped and swallowed.

“What does it taste like?” Connor demanded.

“You should try some.” Wesley packed the last of the supplies away neatly. “We all have. Well, except for Gunn, who’s squeamish, but then he’s frightened of rats.”

Angel grimaced. “Ugh, remember that time Cordy drank it straight out of the fridge? That was gross.”

“Time of the month?” Gunn asked sympathetically.

“Demon pregnancy,” Wesley explained.

“Let me try it.” Connor held out a hand and Angel handed the beaker to him. Connor took a gulp of blood, savoured it for a moment and then swallowed. He shrugged. “It’s not so bad – kind of salty.” He offered the beaker to Gunn who shook his head.

“I’ll pass, thanks.”

“Wesley?” Connor offered it.

Wesley took it from him and handed it back to Angel. “Once was enough for me. I found the thickness of the liquid difficult to deal with. Too much like school gravy. I kept thinking someone was going to make me eat all my Brussels sprouts.”

Angel finished the blood in a few gulps and Connor took the beaker from him. “Do you need more? Wesley says it helps you to heal faster.”

Angel looked at him in surprise. “Well, if you don’t mind, I...”

“Sure.” The boy gave him a cheerful smile and headed off to refill the beaker.

Angel looked at Wesley in surprise. “He seems…okay about it.”

“Angel, your son grew up in a hell dimension and was raised by an eighteenth century vampire hunter. Is it really so surprising that he can take a little blood drinking in his stride? Connor’s a very intelligent boy with a strong desire to do good and a craving for family as strong as…your own.” He looked at the doors of the hotel. “Wolfram & Hart probably are going to come after him at some point.”

“Let them come.” Angel flexed his bandaged arm. “With you, me, Connor, Gunn and Groo here, not to mention Lorne’s empathy, Cordy’s demon glowy powers and Fred’s super-charged science brain, they’re going to have a hard time trying to get any of us. As long as we stick together.” He looked at Wesley intently.

Wesley nodded. “Good point.”

“And we can do a lot more good together than we can separated.”

Wesley looked up at Angel in surprise. “I wasn’t planning on going anywhere.”

“Kind of not an option any more, Wes.” Gunn handed him his keys. “Your place is pretty much trashed. I think you can wave goodbye to your security deposit. But the books are fine. So are the weapons. The couch is kind of…icky though.”

“Hey, they shot me three times, I had to bleed somewhere,” Angel protested.

“Some of the furniture is sort of…” Gunn turned to Angel. “What’s the word I’m looking for?”

“Kindling.” Angel picked up his tea and gazed at it. “Didn’t we use to drink coffee before Wesley came back here?”

“It’s insidious.” Gunn shrugged. “Fred’s started wanting marmalade on her toast in the mornings. And Groo asked for a ‘biscuit’ with his tea yesterday.”

Wesley smiled smugly. “At last, civilization comes to Los Angeles.” He looked at the keys. “‘Kindling’? Really?”

“We stopped you being kidnapped,” Gunn offered in mitigation.

“Well, that was… I do appreciate that.” Wesley thought of hypodermics and restraints and men in white coats torturing him politely with long pointed objects, and shuddered. “Really appreciate that.”

“Tomorrow we can start decorating Wesley’s room.” Connor patted him on the back and handed Angel another beaker of blood.

“The room I like exactly the way it is now?”

“That’s the one.” When Connor beamed at him like that, Wesley could definitely see the family resemblance to Angel.

“And – even better than that, now I’m living here permanently, we can step up your lessons considerably. Work on that Latin and Greek a lot more.”

Connor’s face fell and he turned to Angel. “We really need to drum up more business. Help more…helpless.”

“Definitely. We’ve got all these extra mouths to feed now.”

“Plus, it keeps Wesley busy researching.”

Wesley looked at Angel. “You do want Connor to get into Oxford, don’t you?”

“Notre Dame.”

“But that’s an American university, Angel, you can’t possibly want him to go there. I was thinking perhaps…Balliol. Its medieval library is really outstanding, and it has an excellent cricket team.”

“He’s American.”

“Only – technically. His father’s Irish.”

“His mother was American and he was born in America.”

“But in an area of mystical convergence.”

“How do you get from being born in an alley in Los Angeles to two undead parents, neither of whom are English, to Connor having to go to Oxford and play cricket?”

Wesley shrugged. “Well, of course, if you want the boy raised as a complete philistine…”

“Notre Dame is a great college!”

“Gunn, they’re scaring me.” Connor looked between them as if he thought they might be about to sprout two heads.

“That’s just what having two parents is like, kid.” Gunn put an arm around Connor’s shoulders. “Only you got really lucky, and you have…how many is it now? Seven?”

“None of you are old enough to be my parents except for Angel. You get annoying older sibling privileges and nothing else. Except for Wesley, who I’ll grudgingly accept as a mom-substitute.”

Wesley rose to his feet. “Where did I put that flame thrower…?”

“I’m not sure, but I know I’d really like to see you handle it…”

They all wheeled around as Lilah walked down the stairs into the lobby, immaculate as always. She smiled at Angel. “You know the last few times I was in here you were either being tortured or torturing someone. Both of those are always such a good look for you.”

Angel bared his teeth at her in something approaching a smile and held up his beaker of blood. “Lilah. What a not pleasant surprise.”

While Connor looked at her with frank curiosity, Lilah looked Wesley up and down again. “Do I get that thank you now?”

Wesley inclined his head. “Thank you. I’m grateful for the warning. However – spotty your motives for helping us may be, the assistance is still appreciated.”

“Lose the ‘us’, handsome. I wouldn’t step across the road to help the rest of the goody-goodys but you’re a special case.” Lilah walked around him while Wesley made no attempt to hide his irritation at her blatantly checking him out. Wesley tossed her the wallet Angel had given him.

“A present from Linwood. It may be of some use to you.”

She caught it effortlessly. “It may be at that. But don’t you think saving you from being horribly tortured merits…?”

“I was going to suggest lunch at a place of your choice.”

Lilah smiled seductively. “How about breakfast in bed?”

Gunn raised his eyebrows while Angel rolled his eyes. “Subtle, Lilah.”

“She’s very pretty,” Connor observed to Gunn.

Lilah glanced over at him. “Is this the back-from-hell-spawn?”

“I’m Connor.” He held out a hand as Fred had instructed him to do when meeting new people.

She shook it, smiling at him widely. “Lilah Morgan. I had high hopes of vivisecting you when you were a baby, but unfortunately for my promotion prospects Daniel Holtz ruined that dream by carrying you into Quor’toth.”

“He’s dead now.” Wesley had to admire the way Connor said that without a visible flicker of emotion, despite the turmoil he was undoubtedly feeling inside. “So, why do you particularly want to do sex with Wesley?”

She shrugged. “He’s so wonderfully incorruptible and I’ve always liked a challenge. And I like the way he looks.” She glanced across at Wesley again in a blatantly undressing him with her eyes way. “Ever seen a present in a really special wrapping and just been itching to take it home and get all the ribbons and paper off…?”

“Can you not discuss your sexual fantasies in front of my son?” Angel demanded.

“I’d much rather be discussing them with Wesley over lunch.” Lilah turned back to Wesley. “So, tomorrow? I’ll pick you up at twelve. You may as well say yes. I’d hate to have to send in an extraction team.”

“Try it.” Angel picked up an axe. “See how many pieces of them you got back.”

“Ooh…” She beamed at Wesley. “He’s protective, isn’t he? Does that mean that if we do lunch I’ll not only be getting my next stab at corrupting you, I’ll also be annoying soul boy?”

“You do that just by existing, Lilah,” Angel assured her.

Wesley held up a hand. “I’ll be glad to have lunch with you, Lilah. Thank you for your help today. Twelve o’clock tomorrow will be fine.”

She nodded and stepped back. “And we’ll just both take it as read that science geek girl will have Macgyvered some super-duper tracer to stick to you so I can’t kidnap you for my own evil purposes and we both know that and yadda yadda. I hate having to state the obvious.”

“And yet you do it so often.” Angel folded his arms. “Any particular reason why you’re still here?”

“The warm fuzzy welcome was just so hard to resist. You know, every time I look at you I can’t help thinking the first time I saw you – that was really your perfect setting – stuck in a pit fighting for your life like an animal…”

Wesley took Lilah’s arm and walked her to the door. “Thank you again, Lilah. I’ll see you tomorrow at noon.”

She looked him up and down again, smiled in a way that left him breathless and said, “I’ll look forward to it.”

As Wesley headed back for the banquette, Gunn was nodding to Connor. “And that was your first catfight. There’s sometimes more hair pulling but otherwise that’s pretty typical.”

Connor was still watching the way Lilah moved in that tight skirt and high-heeled shoes. “She’s very…attractive.”

“You know all those medieval texts Wesley was telling you were full of misogynist claptrap, with Lucifer always appearing in the guide of a beautiful women to try to steal the virtue of the loyal knights and drag them down to hell…? Women like Lilah are the reason those stories exist.”

Wesley sighed. “She did do us a favour, Angel. And in her own way I think she is…honourable.”

“Well, have sex with her in someone else’s hotel or we’ll have to fumigate your room.”

Gunn nodded at Angel while addressing Connor. “The post-catfight flouncing and pouting is also pretty typical.”

“I’m not flouncing,” Angel retorted. “I just object to the woman who tried to cut up my son putting the moves on my friends.”

Connor looked at Wesley with his head on one side. “I think she just likes him. She smells different when she’s near him and her body temperature rises when she touches him. That’s because of the wanting to do sex with him part, yes?”

Gunn raised an eyebrow. “That’s a sneaky talent to have. It’s going to be difficult for a girl to play hard to get with you, isn’t it?”

“Okay, why was Lilah, the queen bitch of the universe, just here?”

They looked up to see Cordelia at the head of the returning party, all of them carrying bags full of spicy-smelling food.

“She wants to do sex with Wesley,” Connor explained. “She’s having lunch with him tomorrow.”

“Promise me you’ll shower before you come back here – and I mean six times at least.” Cordelia handed him a bag of food. “Oh, and ask her where she got those shoes.”

“This was so not how I wanted my son to find out about the birds and the bees,” Angel muttered sulkily.

Connor was already searching for chicken wings. “Oh, that’s okay, I already heard Gunn and Fred. Fred’s kind of noisy.”

There was a moment of awkward silence before Angel cleared his throat. “Um – Connor – we don’t usually discuss…”

“I know.” Connor grinned at him as he bit off a mouthful of chicken wing. “I just think Fred looks cute when she blushes.”

Cordelia looked between her and Gunn. “Hey, so does Gunn.”

Fred narrowed her eyes. “Connor, I can do things with electricity that will make your hair stand on end for a month.”

Connor held up his hands. “Sorry.”

Gunn looked across at Wesley. “You’ll be giving him extra homework for that, right?”

“It’s a promise,” Wesley assured him, handing food around.

Lorne sat down next to him and held up a glass he had managed to replenish already. “To a new world, sugarplums. To friendships reforged and heirs restored and most of all to not being more than usually dead for another whole long day.”

Wesley held up his tea and Angel leant forward to touch his beaker of blood against Wesley’s cup and Lorne’s glass. Gazing into Wesley’s eyes, Angel said with a smile that warmed Wesley all the way through, “I can drink to that.”

***