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Oct. 22nd, 2005 05:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elgreyDarkness Visible, Part Nine
As the peroxide vampire went into the liquor store, Wesley inclined his head to hide a grin. He still hurt. Not just all the surface aches and pains, pulled muscles, bruised skin, the sting of unhealed cuts. Deep inside him there was a pain which constantly reminded him of those events that were still flashing through his mind, making him flinch inside, physically and mentally. In the shower it had overwhelmed him, how disgusted he felt with himself for allowing it to happen, but clarity had followed. He had woken from a kind of daze to find himself sobbing pathetically in Angel’s bathroom, riddled with self-hatred and contempt, and realized exactly how bloody stupid he was being. Of course he had let Angel into his apartment – the man was his closest friend. Of course he had been beaten in the ensuing fight – Angelus was ten times stronger than he was and had been planning for this confrontation before ever knocking on the door while he was still reeling from what had happened. Angelus had raped him not because of anything he, Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, was or had done, but because Angelus was a rapist. Angelus liked to do what was as nasty, sadistic, and likely to mess with the victim’s mind as possible. Given Wesley's insecurities, not to mention a hundred cracks and sneers about his sexuality over the years, it wasn’t surprising that the method Angelus had chosen by which to screw with him had been to…screw with him. Going over what he had done, he couldn’t actually find a way to make this his fault. And that was with years of training at making everything his fault. Wiping his eyes, and then slowly clambering to his feet in the now chilly shower, he had gone over events again. And again. They made him shudder, certainly, there were those flashes of nightmare memory – pain, fear, wall, floor, bed, flipped over, no, no, no… But he didn’t really see what he could have done differently given the limitations of being caught by surprise and not having super human strength.
He had made himself look at it head on and realized that he had been lucky that, for whatever twisted reason Angelus had chosen that method of hurting him, it hadn’t involved maiming or mutilation. There had been something sickening about the foreplay, that mimicry of concern, a mocking kiss pressed to his lips, the rasp of a tongue licking the blood from his face, fingers twisting and pressing as if this was Angelus’s right, to touch him anywhere he wanted, touch him in places no one else ever had, that Wesley had barely been aware that he possessed. But although it had made his skin crawl, it had saved him from being ripped open. He didn’t have to undergo the extra humiliation of having to crawl into hospital and ask some stranger to sew him back up again. He had literally walked away from what Angelus had done to him – okay limped away, but he had been on his own two feet and moving more or less unaided – and given Angelus’s legendary reputation for viciousness, that was a triumph in itself.
Holding onto the shower tiles as the world insisted on bucking and swaying around him, a hissing in his ears that only began to fade when he crouched down and let the blood rush to his head, Wesley told himself that Angelus wanting to hurt him was almost a compliment. It meant the demon thought Wesley was helping to keep Angel on the path to redemption; keeping him safe from the demands of the demon within him. In short, it meant Wesley was doing his job. When he thought of it like that – these cuts and bruises and that deep humiliating soreness inside him – it felt a little like affirmation that he was still doing good and helping Angel to do it as well. That was one of the things that made it hurt a lot less. He had hung onto that thought as he walked into that room where everyone knew what had been done to him and where he was going to have to look Angel in the eye and read the horror and guilt there of their most unpleasant shared experience.
One of the dangerous powers that Angel had over him – the one that meant the withdrawal of his affection was such a terrible weapon – was his ability to make everything feel so much better. Wesley could only think he must have been vulnerable and needy to the power of ten when he had first moved to LA because those early days were burned into his memory like a brand. Sometimes he could still taste the first eggs Angel had ever cooked for him. After what had taken place between him and Angelus in his apartment, he had dreaded being left alone with Angel, of having to confront what had taken place instead of shuffling past it quickly, like a motorway pile up, with his eyes averted, but Angel had somehow made confronting it not so dreadful. There had been all that compassion in his eyes, and that need to believe that Wesley could one day forgive him, that their friendship was still there. And at once, everything had started to feel so much better. His jumpy fear of Angelus was ironically being diluted by his feeling of safety at being around Angel. When Gunn, Lorne, and Spike were also in the room, that protected feeling cranked itself up another three notches. Amongst friends. That was how it felt. He had almost forgotten what a good feeling it was. Knowing the people sharing your space were also on your side; completely on your side; would even fight your demons for you, internal and external, to keep you breathing.
He had been alone before. Every day of his life until he met up with Angel and Cordelia again in L.A. That terrible time after he’d taken Connor when his friends had turned their backs on him. This was different. This was better. When he thought about how alone he wasn’t these days, nothing, not even what Angelus had done to him earlier, had the power to sting him at all.
“Why are you smiling?” Spike opened the car door, making Wesley start. “Is this it? Sanity taken wing at last? Flip flapping its way to the nearest institution with green walls and wrap around pyjama jackets?”
“I’ll have you know that of the admittedly rather high proportion of Watchers to be diagnosed as clinically insane over the past two hundred years only six of them have been ancestors of mine.”
“Six?” Spike echoed. “Six Wyndam-Pryces in the loony bin? I hate to break it to you, Wes, but that is not a good batting average.”
“Compared with the Palmer-Davisons we’re top of the sanity league. They had seventeen confirmed insanities in the family before eighteen forty-five.”
Spike hefted the two clinking carrier bags into the back of the car; the square outline of a bottle of JackDaniels unmistakable through the thin plastic. He started the car again. “Just as a matter of interest how many Wyndam-Pryces have been killed by vampires?”
“Oh…lots.” Wesley shrugged. “I think we stopped keeping count in about eighteen thirty two. It was getting embarrassing. And that was without going into the demon savagings and werewolf fatalities.”
“You’re making a lot more sense to me.” Spike pulled out into the traffic with more care than usual. “It’s a scary kind of sense admittedly but it’s there. Does anyone in your family ever have a kid just because – I dunno – they feel broody?”
Wesley laughed in genuine amusement. “Don’t be silly.”
“So you just keep getting churned out to be demon kibble?”
“No, we keep getting churned out to fight demons and Do Good.”
“I wonder if you’re the first.” Spike glanced across at the man next to him.
“The first what?” Wesley frowned in confusion.
“Wyndam-Pryce to do what he was bred to do. To actually Do Good.”
Wesley looked at his knees. “I don’t think my family would have such an up close and personal relationship with incipient madness if we didn’t always want to do good. I wanted to do good when I went to Sunnydale. Doesn’t mean that I succeeded.”
“You’re succeeding now.” Spike reminded him. “You saved a lot of people today. Including Angel. I’d say you can definitely chalk one up for inbreeding.”
Wesley laughed, despite himself, then clutched his abdomen and winced. “Ow. And…shut up.”
As they pulled up outside the office of Angel Investigations, Spike said conspiratorially, “Want a swig of Jack before Gunn sees you?”
Wesley looked tempted but then sighed. “Angel will smell it.”
Spike held up a packet of peppermints. “Way ahead of you. Let me light a cigarette too.” He untwisted the cap of whiskey and handed it to Wesley, who took a tentative sip and then gasped as the alcohol hit home.
“That stuff is good,” he said hoarsely. “For American whiskey anyway.”
“The best of its inferior kind.” Spike waited for Wesley to take another couple of gulps and then took the bottle from him and handed him a peppermint. He lit a cigarette and waved the smoke in Wesley’s direction to drown out the whiskey fumes, making him cough and almost choke on his peppermint.
They both jumped guiltily as the passenger door opened to reveal Angel. “So glad to see you’re not being a bad influence, Spike.”
“Hey, I have a rep to maintain.”
“How old are you two anyway? Fourteen?”
Wesley pointed to Spike. “He made me do it.”
“I believe you. The food just got here. There is more special fried rice than anyone could possibly eat in a lifetime and your tea is stewing.”
As Spike carried the two carrier bags filled with alcohol down to the basement, Angel tried and failed not to look as if he was hovering anxiously around Wesley as the man took the stairs a little carefully behind Spike. The shower and the time lapse meant that Wesley’s muscles were all stiffening up nicely, meaning that putting one foot in front of the other was taking quite a toll. As he reached ground level, he swayed and Angel immediately grabbed his arm to steady him.
“Angel, will you stop it?” Wesley pleaded quietly. “You’re making me feel like that old man you body swapped with.”
Gunn looked up from trying to decant special fried rice onto the plates. “Skanky and evil?”
“Really really old.”
Spike took another drag on his cigarette. “Angel – body-swapping – old man – Do I want to know?”
“No.” Angel took the cigarette out of his hand and tossed it onto the grate. “We’re trying to eat.”
“He broke up with me.” Wesley gratefully accepted the cup of tea from Lorne. “He thought I was Fred.”
Spike looked him up and down. “Not really seeing the resemblance. Or the logic.”
“He let me down quite gently. If Angel and I actually had been dating at the time I would probably have been only slightly traumatized.”
“If you’d been dating Angel you would have obviously already taken one too many blows to the head anyway,” Spike shrugged. “So, a little more craziness would hardly have mattered.”
Wesley noticed that Lorne and Angel were still hovering around him and looked between them in confusion. “What?”
“You need to sit down,” Spike told him. “Otherwise they have to stand there ready to catch you in case you fall over.”
“Oh.” Wesley lowered himself carefully onto the couch, wincing as every muscle in his back ached right along with him. He gritted his teeth as he pressed a hand to his spine, feeling the place where the table edge had caught him.
“I'm sorry,” Angel said at once.
Wesley looked up at him wearily. “Not you, remember? Angelus.”
Angel grimaced. “Still… Sorry about the coffee table too.”
“I never liked it,” Wesley reassured him. “Too many sharp corners.”
“Maybe we should all buy rubber furniture from now on.” Gunn put a plate in front of Wesley and a fork in the hand that wasn’t holding a cup of tea. “That would really piss off Angelus the next time he got out.”
“Take a bit of explaining when you brought a bird home though, wouldn’t it? ‘No, really, I'm not a care in the community patient, I just have to live in a state of perpetual readiness for when my demon within boss goes Hannibal Lector on me again and tries to bounce me off the furniture.’ Spike poured himself a glass of whiskey and then handed the vodka to Lorne. “I can’t see you or Wes pulling too often if you have to make that explanation every time.”
Lorne shrugged. “Well, let’s face it, those two aren’t exactly threatening Warren Beatty’s reputation now.” Seeing their expressions, he grimaced apologetically. “And I respect that in a human. There’s not enough celibacy these days. Voluntary or otherwise.”
“Could you not talk about us as if we’re pathetic losers who can’t get a date?” Gunn pleaded.
“But you are pathetic losers who can’t get a date,” Spike pointed out helpfully.
“And that’s why it stings.”
Wesley took another sip of tea. “Sometimes broken furniture can be fun.” As they all looked at him in confusion he said in shock, “Did I just say that out loud?”
Angel narrowed his eyes. “Lilah.”
“Oh.” Gunn sat back in the couch. “Makes sense.”
Lorne nodded too. “You know, I think we all guessed that was less about hearts and flowers than depravity and bondage.”
“What was your first clue?” Gunn snorted. “Lilah’s rap sheet for incredible evil? Or the bite marks Wes used to show up with on his neck?”
“I think it was the shoes. No woman wearing shoes like that is not going to want to tie her man to the bedpost and make him beg for mercy. And I'm betting those bite marks went all the way down.”
“Can we not talk about tying people to the bedpost?” Angel pleaded, flinching. “Or bite marks on people’s necks? Or begging for mercy?”
Spike was looking at Wesley with renewed respect. “So, Wes and this Lilah chick used to…?”
“Oh, sugar, did they ever,” Lorne nodded.
“Are we talking…?”
“Dirty, nasty, spank me, Jesus, I’ve been a bad, bad boy,” Lorne confirmed.
“You’re just guessing.” Wesley forked some more rice into his mouth.
“Sweetpea, I'm anagogic, remember? My guesses are like other people’s eyewitness accounts. Especially as you hum way more often than you think you do.”
“Damn.” Wesley conceded the point with a shrug. “Well, that’s all academic now anyway. It’s back to being me, Wheel of Fortune, and a game of word puzzle of an evening.”
“I used to be able to have really dirty sex whenever I wanted it.” Spike took another swig of whiskey before picking disconsolately at a spring roll. “You know the kind you can’t even spell? Where what you’re doing is so unbelievably filthy that you even shock yourself? And your spinal column actually feels as if it’s been separated from the rest of your body by the…?”
“Can we not talk about this now?” Angel demanded.
The others looked at each other guiltily. “Sorry, man.” Gunn grimaced at Wesley. “Didn’t mean to be… You know.”
Wesley shrugged. “I don’t mind. Is there any more tea?”
“I’ll get it for you.” Spike took the cup from him and once safely out of sight of the others mimicked pouring whiskey into it. Wesley nodded at him.
“Don’t even think about it.” Lorne looked up. “I don’t need to be a Skilosh to know what you’re doing back there, Billy Idol, and you are not ruining the honed perfection of my tea with some cheap grain alcohol. Come back here with a single malt and maybe I’ll consider it.”
"On what Angel gave me? Are you nuts? That cheap bastard has never shelled out for a single malt in his life."
“No alcohol for Wes.” Gunn glared at Spike. “He’s on painkillers. It’ll make him spacey.”
“Like anyone would notice the difference,” Spike protested.
“I’ll get the tea.” Gunn marched into the kitchen, poured what Spike had prepared down the sink and made Wesley a fresh cup.
Spike shrugged apologetically. “Sorry, mate, I tried.”
Gunn put the cup back down in front of Wesley gently. “There you go.”
“Thank you.” Wesley sipped it resignedly.
“They have to sleep sometime,” Spike told Wesley. “Give it a couple of days then you and me can hit a strip joint, get rat assed, fleece a few losers at pool, and then pick up a couple of hookers on the way home.”
“I'm better at darts actually.” Wesley took another sip of tea.
Angel looked at him in disbelief. “And this is the only flaw you see in Spike’s plan?”
Wesley shrugged. “It would be different.”
“That’s it. From now on you don’t leave the building with Spike. In fact, you can’t even be alone with Spike. There will be no interacting with Spike of any kind.”
Spike grinned across at Wesley. “Almost too easy to wind him up sometimes, isn’t it?” As Angel continued to look agitated, Spike rolled his eyes and hit Angel on the shoulder. “Lighten up, will you? You seem to be missing the big picture here.”
“Which is?” Angel demanded.
Spike nodded his head at Wesley. “That Wes is okay. I mean, yeah he’s not all shiny happy, good as new, yet, but he’s doing a hell of a lot better than anyone else on the planet would be right now. I think mental instability is actually seriously underrated as the fast track to sanity.”
“I’ve often thought that myself.” Wesley dipped his nan bread into the nearest foil packet. “Is this okra or spinach?”
“It’s green.” Gunn peered at it. “Hard to tell.”
“It’s very nice.” As Angel stared at him, Wesley gave him a gentle smile. “And Spike’s right, Angel. I'm really okay. Nothing that happened today was my fault. For once, I didn’t screw up. Bad stuff happened but there was nothing I could have done to prevent it and we dealt with what got thrown at us. Ultimately, we saved the day, killed the demon, and even if none of us got the girl, we didn’t end up permanently dead either. By our standards, that was a pretty good day.”
Angel looked at him for a moment and then said, not without awe, “I think you’re getting weirder.”
Wesley nodded. “It’s possible. But I'm not a gibbering wreck and I'm actually quite pleased about that.”
Spike shrugged. “If Wes was entirely sane he wouldn’t be doing this job in the first place. None of us would. Let’s face it, none of us are here because of the excellent pension plan or exciting career prospects.”
“No dental either.” Wesley took another sip of tea.
“Do you think you just think you’re okay because you’re actually Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band crazy?” Lorne cautioned. “Or is this a genuine state of peace you’ve managed to attain?”
Wesley considered. “Not sure. But it feels better than wanting to crawl into a dark corner and rock.”
“You’re not seeing any pixies or anything?” Gunn pressed.
Wesley looked around the room and shook his head. “Not yet. I'm still getting…flashes.” He looked at Angel. “You know.”
The vampire nodded. “I know.”
“But, it’s already starting to feel like something that happened a long time ago and to someone else.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t be alone.” Angel handed him some more of the possibly okra-possibly spinach stuff he seemed to be enjoying so much.
“He won’t be.” Gunn spooned some more rice onto Wesley’s plate.
“I’d like not to be alone.” Wesley glanced around at them. There were still the memories of Angelus’s smug leering and casual brutality, of course; they were going off liked timed explosions in his brain, flashes of white light and blood bright pain; but there were already other memories overlaying them; the feel of the magic spell holding the demon back; the sensation as it was forced into the box; the way the souls had looked as they shimmered in the air; walking back in to find that it was Angel they were talking to; Angelus defeated; his friend saved. And then there were the other memories of concerned faces and gentle touches, of tactful silences and kind words. The four people in this room who had proven themselves to be friends indeed when adversity struck. “Just for a few days.”
Angel indicated the basement. “You know, this place is pretty big. Maybe some of you could camp out here for a while?”
“I could do that.” Gunn’s expression as he turned to Angel was no longer that of an enemy. “Just don’t go drinking blood in front of me every five minutes.”
“Talking of blood.” Spike held up a spring roll. “Anyone mind if I dunk this in some O positive?”
“Yes!” Gunn and Wesley both told him.
Lorne looked at the vampire in disbelief. “I was thinking that after all that demon chasing and spell casting today that nothing could spoil my appetite – but what do you know, you managed it.”
“You’re beyond gross,” Angel told the other vampire. “You actually manage to give evil blood sucking demons a bad name.”
“I was going to heat the blood first.”
“That makes all the difference, of course.” Gunn shook his head. “Sheesh, vampires are pigs.”
“I'm not,” Angel protested.
Wesley nodded. “Angel reads Camus in the original French and used to hang around with Voltaire. Nothing porcine about him.”
“And in the peroxide corner, Spike sings along with the Sex Pistols.” Gunn shrugged. “I think Angel wins the culture round.”
“I was the one who was a poet. He was just a useless drunken layabout.”
“But you drank your braincells into oblivion while I was expanding my horizons.” Angel took a spring roll for himself. “Cogito ergo sum much better than you.”
“You forgot to add ‘neener’,” Wesley observed. He winced as his back hurt again and Angel gave him a look of abject guilt. Wesley sighed. “Angel…”
“You should have let them take you to the hospital. Get an X-ray at least.”
“I don’t need an X-Ray or anything else that I don’t have in this room.”
“I know how hard you got thrown around.”
“Nothing’s broken,” Wesley assured him.
Angel gazed at him intently, trying to read his thoughts, needing to feel that ever-present connection between them, that thread of friendship, needing to know that it wasn’t severed and that Wesley wasn’t going to fragment. “Isn’t it?”
Wesley looked up at him, returning his gaze with a frank one of his own. He could read in their eyes that the cuts and bruises still looked spectacular and when he lifted his head like that he guessed everyone could see the teethmarks in his throat but he hoped his eyes were as calm as he felt. “No, Angel. Nothing’s broken. I promise.”
“I can drink to that.” Spike held up his whiskey bottle.
Lorne leant across to fill Gunn and Angel’s glasses with wine before lifting his own Sea Breeze. Sighing a little as he looked at the alcohol denied to him, Wesley solemnly lifted his teacup. “To being unbroken.”
They touched bottle, glasses, and cup as Angel returned the man’s gaze and echoed his words gently: “To being unbroken.”
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Date: 2005-11-13 01:24 pm (UTC)Thank you! I am a sucker for the family thing myself.
I loved the part where the guys are talking about English food and sports. And what the heck IS Marmite? ;)
Marmite is a yeast extract that is yummy on toast. Or not, if you don't like it (like
Oh, and I absolutely adore the whole conversation between Wes and Spike in the car.
I really liked the way Spike became increasingly protective of Wesley, Gunn and Lorne as S5 of Angel went on. I think S6 could have been absolutely wonderful, with the Illyria and Wesley vibe and Wesley and Gunn rebonding and Spike becoming more integrated into that unit and so on. Thank goodness for fanfic and being able to read everybody else's versions of 'what happened next'.
Thanks for sharing this! :)
Thank *you* for reading it and giving me feedback. It's very kind of you.