Penumbra - part three
Summary: This fic was born directly out of this discussion: Wesley and co. seem to remember everything that happened in s3/s4 save for Connor himself. What kind of narrative would Cyvus Vail have implanted in their heads to explain everything that happened to them without Connor? This story attempts to answer that.
This story just keeps growing, hah.
Warnings: Swearing, some violence, some medical ick.
Penumbra
Part One | Part Two
Part Three
“You always have to know, Wesley,” Father told him once, “who you are, and where you come from. Everything you do is informed by that knowledge. This,” and he held up the corpse of the little bird that Wesley had been trying to bring back to life, “is not what you are. You are not a necromancer; you are not a common wizard. Spells are-are not to be played with; they are to be studied.” He stopped, and his gaze grew impossibly colder. “Never forget that, boy.”
Wesley had plenty of time to think about it later that evening, locked in the cupboard under the stairs. It’s probably the only piece of advice from his father that he remembers with any real clarity, even after everything-everything that he’d done and failed at. He is (Head Boy, a failed Watcher, a rogue demon hunter, a paranormal investigator, a warrior) Wesley Wyndam-Pryce, and he is from (the cupboard under the stairs, with its musty old coats and spiders) a long line of Watchers, each generation more illustrious than the last.
He is-
“A traitor.”
Wesley jerks awake. The first thing he registers is a frenetic sort of beeping, interspersed with an arrhythmic, tortured rasping. It’s only when the pain hits (and lord, it feels like Angelus is sawing at his neck, this time) that he remembers, and realises that the agonised rasping is actually the sound of his breathing.
“Wes! Wes, hey.”
Gunn? He turns his head toward the voice, but that movement ignites a terrible, intense agony that radiates from his flayed neck all the way down to his feet. He’s unable to do anything, even to move his head back to its earlier position, his muscles rigid, frozen. He can’t move-
He thinks he’s crying now, but he’s not sure; all sound has been drowned by the rush of blood in his ears and his chest hurts with how fast he’s breathing and please, lord, please, let him just-stop-let everything-
The nausea roiling in his gut crests, and vomit burns its way up his throat. He coughs and hacks and spits, before blessed darkness rolls in, and everything is lost.
-
“You have to wear that brace for a few more days, at least,” Fred tells him. “None of the arteries were cut, but, uh, they did have to stitch up some blood vessels and some of the muscles are torn, too, so-no moving your neck.”
Wesley doesn’t really mind some enforced immobility for a few days, given how deeply unpleasant the alternative is. That, and the wonderful painkillers going into his IV (“is this morphine?” he asks, and giggles like an idiot. “well, it’s bloody lovely.”). He only wishes that he is brave-or foolhardy enough-to attempt talking, or that Fred would appear in the limited range of his vision.
“I’m sorry about what happened last time,” Fred continues. “Nobody expected you to wake up that early; you’d-uh, you’d lost a lot of blood, and, um. You know.” She laughs uneasily.
He slowly moves the hand without the IV cannula, palm turned upwards. Fred’s hand rests in it for a moment, her warm fingers curling around his chilled ones, before she withdraws abruptly.
“It’s-it’s weird back at the hotel,” Fred says. “Just me and Charles, now. And sometimes Lorne.” She snorts. “Like the Ten Little Drakkens, you know? We’re getting picked off, one by one, and now with Angelus out there, we’re sitting ducks, and what we think we know and what we actually know about him are two totally different things, and-”
Wesley moves his hand further, bumps it against her thigh, and she stops.
She takes a deep breath, says, “Why?”
Wesley frowns.
“I don’t know if this was about a-prophecy, or something, but why didn’t you come to us? Why did you have to go to them?”
I don’t know. Fred, I’m so sorry, I don’t know.
“I mean-what did you think we’d say? We’re your friends, Wesley, and you still trusted Evil Incorporated over us. And-and I get that you didn’t mean for any of this to happen, and that, that they probably used you, but-”
He lifts his hand, gestures weakly for a pen and paper (father i can explain if you would just let me i can explain but there are only cobwebs in his mouth and fire in his throat), but Fred must be looking somewhere else because she continues talking.
“I think-you had not better come back to the hotel. At least until, well, some of this blows over. We’ve been reeling, Wesley, and honestly, Charles says we need to be with people we know we can trust, and I agree with him.”
Wesley’s hand drops.
“Take-take care of yourself.” There’s the slow creak of the door opening and then closing, and Wesley is left in silence.
He closes his eyes.
-
When Wesley wakes up again, it’s the middle of the night, and someone else is in the room.
“You know, I came to thank you, but you make for such a pathetic sight in that bed that I think I just pity you.”
The voice is both as familiar as his own, and that of a stranger’s. Not for the first time, Wesley wishes he can look anywhere other than the watermarked ceiling.
“Good old Wes, stepping up to do what needed to be done when nobody else had the guts or the gumption. Of course, it all ended badly, but it’s all about intentions, whether you’re good at heart.” There’s a small, mocking pause. “But, hey, wait! There’s that thing about good intentions and the road to hell, too-I guess you’re just simply fucked, either way. Stupid society and its stupid morals, am I right?”
Wesley’s hand snakes towards the call button, but is caught by a powerful grip before he can press it.
Angelus’ face appears above him, teeth glinting in the shadows. “Uh uh,” he says, grinning. “No interruptions before the party’s even started, Wes.” He shifts his grip and twists, and Wesley opens his mouth in a silent scream as the bones in his wrist bend and creak. “Not when there’s so much fun to be had!”
Just when Wesley’s sure his arm is going to break, Angelus lets go. Wesley draws his hand in, trying not to move and failing miserably, and Angelus laughs.
“You know what the funny thing is? Angel’s still kicking around here somewhere,” he says, tapping his temple, “and knowing the guy? It’s so fucking hysterical that you think that he’s practically a saint.” Angelus’ face is so close to his now, and the smell of rotting flesh makes him want to gag. “You really don’t want to know the things he’s thinking about you right now.”
Without warning, he jumps onto the bed, straddles Wesley. The resulting pain has Wesley kicking futilely, fingers scrabbling at his neck brace, at Angelus, anything, anything to get free, but Angelus pins his arms, leans forward again. “Oh, all the things he wants to do to you-the ways he wants to make you suffer.” He snaps off the neck brace, throws it aside, and ghosts his mouth over the freshly stitched wound on Wesley’s neck, still hot and throbbing. “Mmm, I do love my handiwork, even if I say so myself.”
Wesley hardly dares to breathe.
Angelus laughs at his obvious discomfort, then sits up, resting his considerable weight on Wesley’s chest and driving the air out of his lungs. “You know what, Wes? I’m a considerate guy. You scratch my back, you bet that I’m going to scratch yours.” He pulls a pillow from below Wesley’s head. “So you want Angel back so bad? I’m going to give you Angel right now.”
With that, he presses the pillow onto Wesley’s face.
Wesley thrashes, his whole body heaving, burning for air. Angelus continues to press inexorably, even as Wesley-
(screams, begs with a voice that he thinks is gone forever, reduced to a rusty wheeze that sends white-hot pokers skewering through his neck)
and-
(he thinks he hears monitors wailing, more voices, muffled and distant in a world outside of his sightless, airless one, and he tastes blood and vomit at the back of his throat)
Angelus-
The pillow is removed abruptly, and Wesley takes in large, shuddering, painful gasps, his back rising off the bed with the force of his heaving. His breath stutters, and he coughs, and then he’s retching, and there are several hands on him, pulling him in different directions, up and to his side. Vomit burns through his nose and mouth and the metallic taste on his tongue just makes him want to gag more
(and god he wishes he can scream)
He’s slipping towards blessed oblivion, and he wants to welcome it with open arms, but he thinks he sees
(Cordelia, leaning against the door jamb, smiling, arms folded across her chest)
-but that’s impossible, and the thought follows him down into the darkness.
-
Wesley’s released from the hospital a week later.
He had no more visitors after Angelus-he isn’t sure if he should feel grateful for that, but he does know resentment, and a tiny inkling of fear that Angelus had already laid waste to the world Wesley had known once. He gathers his meagre belongings and takes a taxi back to his apartment.
For a moment he stands at the doorway, (lost), before he flicks on the lights and goes straight to his desk. He makes notes of all the instructions he received regarding his brace, medications, physiotherapy and wound care in neat, precise handwriting, and draws up a schedule. When he is done with that, he tears the paper and starts again.
He tires of the exercise after the fifth iteration. He crawls onto the sofa, disinclined to make the journey to his bedroom, and closes his eyes. A bone-deep exhaustion and the stubborn remnants of fever quickly pull him into sleep.
Evening sunlight is slanting through the windows when he’s woken up by a knock at the door. For a moment he considers not answering, but it hasn’t yet been so long that he’s lost all hope. He grabs a stake from his desk, then slowly opens the door.
“Hey, there,” Lilah says, holding up a fruit basket. “Just thought I’d check on you.”
Wesley grits his teeth. “Get out,” he says, his voice barely above a whisper.
She smiles. “Oh, come now, Wes. Is that any way to talk to a business partner?”
“You gave me the wrong spell.”
“On the contrary,” Lilah says brightly, “We gave you the exact spell you’d need to stop the Apocalypse.”
“You know better than I the kind of evil Angelus is capable of-”
“-which is still nothing compared to the actual end of the world. You saved the world, Wesley, even if you don’t know it yet.” Lilah gestures towards his apartment. “I could tell you all about it, if you want.”
Wesley sets his jaw, moves to close his door in her face. A few moments pass before the door opens again.
“Come in,” Wesley says.
-
(tbc)