(no subject)
Notes, Part One, Part Two, Part Four, Part Five (final part)
Failure to Communicate, Part Three
Getting information out of Cordelia and Wesley was a little like pulling teeth, but all the way back to the office, Riley persisted in his best bright-and-breezy tone while Xander helped him out. It felt a little like they were a comedy double act doing pratfalls for the world’s toughest Monday night crowd, but Wesley was too polite not to answer a direct question when it was aimed at him, and Cordelia, despite her loyalty to Angel, still had some Issues which kept her chipping in, so, however unwillingly it had been offered, they had finally got the facts out of them. Faith had come to LA. Faith had accepted the contract on Angel’s life, not because she wanted to kill him, but because she wanted Angel to murder her. When everything she had done to him and to Buffy had not proven enough for the vampire to come at her with sufficient anger, she had concussed Cordelia and kidnapped Wesley, torturing him so that when Angel kicked in the door of the apartment where she was holding his friend, what he would see would be enough to make him lose it. But Angel still hadn’t lost it. He had saved the damsel in distress, despite everything she had done to those who loved him. Even more bizarrely, when the Watchers’ Council had offered Wesley the chance to get even with the woman who had tortured him, he had sided with her against them and, just like Buffy and Angel, risked his own life to save hers, irretrievably burning his boats with his former employers in the process.
The pool of silence spread out from that final explanation until it seemed to seep into the upholstery.
Riley wished he didn’t understand. If anyone had told him that he would sacrifice the career that mattered to him so very much, give up being part of something he believed in, alienate himself from people who he had always thought felt the same way that he did, to save a werewolf, he would have assumed the person telling him was on some kind of mind-altering drugs. Sometimes a man had to hold onto what was right even when everyone around him was telling him otherwise. He had known that it was right to save a teenage boy from being experimented on, whatever he might become on occasion, just as Wesley had apparently known that it was right to save a teenage girl from being assassinated, however troubled she might be.
“I didn’t do it for her,” Wesley offered, a little defensively, perhaps concerned about being labelled a masochist with a martyr complex. “I did it because I trust Angel’s judgement.”
“Oh, well, that makes it so much better.” Xander took both hands off the wheel to raise them to heaven and Riley had to grab the wheel to keep it steady.
“He’s earned it,” Wesley insisted.
Riley noticed that for the first time Cordelia was not coming in with the support and agreement. He glanced over the seat her. “You don’t agree?”
Before Cordelia could answer, Wesley said: “We’re in the business of saving souls. That’s what we do. Faith was a soul in need of saving.”
“Really?” Xander glanced in the rearview mirror and seemed to be holding Wesley’s gaze. “I thought she was a psychopath who tried to steal my friend’s life and get her killed before coming to LA, where, along with other assorted counts of anti-social behavior, she beat the crap out of you.”
Stolidly, Wesley repeated: “Saving Faith was the right thing to do. And Buffy must have come around to Angel’s way of thinking, because she helped to save her as well.” Riley was sure he wasn’t the only one who heard that silent ‘so there’ which Wesley was mentally adding to that sentence. It was, however, an unanswerable argument, and they drove the rest of the way in silence.
Despite being so tired that Riley had been thinking he would need to carry them up the stairs to the office, Wesley and Cordelia both waved off any offers of assistance, and led the way up to the office with a hopeful look on their faces that made him and Xander exchange another grimace.
Cordelia pushed open the office door and looked around expectantly, while Wesley opened the door into the inner office and gazed in; as if there was a missing piece of themselves they were hoping to recover. His narrow shoulders slumped when the room turned out to be empty, a grey weariness washing over his face as he turned away. Cordelia couldn’t keep the disappointment from her voice as she said: “I thought he might be back by now.”
Watching them, Riley was reminded of latchkey kids coming home from school, hoping there would be a parent there to greet them, but instead finding that once again they would be cooking their own supper. Was that what Angel was to them? Not just their employer but their surrogate father? And did that make Buffy the wicked stepmother in their lives? And what the heck did that make him? He realized his head was already starting to thump just thinking about it.
Wesley checked the office phone for messages and then sighed. “Perhaps he’s decided to stay the night in Sunnydale.”
Cordelia rolled her eyes. “How long does it take to say ‘Sorry I was a jerk’ anyway?”
“There were faults on both sides.” Wesley automatically closed the open books and began to put them in a pile. “Things were very different for them when they were in Sunnydale. And it’s natural that they are going to need a period of adjustment to this new arrangement.” He picked up the books and winced as their weight tugged at his injuries.
“Here, let me.” Riley plucked the top six books off the pile, earning himself a glare from Wesley which he pretended not to notice. Sometimes it was useful to be a cornfed boy from Iowa, a guy could pretend to be a lot denser than he really was and could usually get away with it. “They go in the back office, right?”
He led the way while, behind him, Cordelia said pointedly to Xander: “Why are you two still here? The babies are all saved now.”
“We just want to make sure you’re okay.”
Xander was leaning against the wall, looking as unhappy as Riley felt. Turning back to Wesley, Riley found that the guy was putting books back onto shelves with dogged determination. As he straightened up, the light caught the wet gleam of blood on his neck and Riley caught hold of the collar of his combat jacket and pulled it back to look at the wound in concern. A diagonal slice on his neck that had broken open and was weeping red tears. He touched the skin next to it in concern, already wondering where they kept the First Aid kit around here: “Is that from a claw?”
He felt Wesley tremble under his fingers, like a tree shivering in a breeze. He had been so brisk and controlled throughout the evening, but his voice had a crack in it as he said, with a pleading note that hurt Riley like the skewering demon barb that had impaled him: “Please, don’t touch me.”
Riley snatched his hands away as if Wesley were a hot surface. “Sorry.”
The guy must be so close to cracking. Riley suspected that what Wesley really needed to do was rock and sob, but he couldn’t, because he had used up a lifetime’s allotment of weakness in Sunnydale and had none left now for emergencies. Riley knew he wasn’t the right person for this job, but he was the only other person in the room right now and that seemed to make it his responsibilty to try to say something that might help.
“What Faith did to you… It’s bound to leave a….” Not a mark. Stupid to say that, when they both knew the guy was still all over slashes and bruises, a criss-crossing of quivering cuts ready to break out bleeding again from one careless pressure. “It’s okay to be upset about what she did to you.”
“We did it to each other.” The terse note in his voice was as brittle as broken glass. There was a wealth of self-loathing behind it that stabbed through Riley again. Even when he had discovered most of his certainties were based on lies, that the woman he respected and admired was the creator of a monster and perhaps a monster herself, and that the woman who fought and killed demons had also loved one once, he had still known that he was on the side of right, and he hadn’t automatically assumed that he deserved to be suffering like this.
“You didn’t do anything to her except help save her life at the risk of your own.” He didn’t know why he needed to get through to this guy so badly, but it felt important; something to do with needing to find his own clarity by holding the flashlight for this guy as he stumbled towards his own understanding.
Wesley looked up at him and his eyes were haunted. “I made her a torturer.” He turned his head away quickly, and Riley felt breathless with pity for him. He wondered how a guy had to be raised when he blamed himself for becoming a victim.
“Using that logic, I made her a rapist, but I’m not blaming myself for that. I’m definitely good with blaming her.” He wanted to put his hands on Wesley’s shoulders and force him to look at him, but Faith had made him an untouchable; it was impossible to pat him on the shoulder for reassurance because his shoulders had been mercilessly scored with glass, and completely out of the question to enfold him in a comforting hug because his ribs were purple with the imprint of Faith’s boots.
“I think Xander already did that to her, back in Sunnydale.”
The quiet sentence, those eyes still not meeting his, made him flinch inside at how much damage this girl had inflicted. Yet he couldn’t deny that, keeping pace with his anger on behalf of her victims, was pity for the girl he had held in his arms and who had been so oddly surprised by a tender kiss, who had seemed moved almost beyond bearing to be told that she was loved.
“Nah, it was consensual the first time - if a little lacking in after-act-snuggling - and the second time, Angel stopped her from getting to third base.”
Even at his surprise and momentary embarrassment at realizing Xander and Cordelia had now joined them, it jolted through Riley, another barb of jealousy, because Angel seemed to have the knack of turning up when he was most needed, while Riley had no supernatural senses to tell him when the people he cared about were in need of a dark avenger swinging through their window. When he glanced up at Xander, the boy was trying so hard not to make his sympathy for Wesley evident, better than Riley at realizing the guy needed to be treated like the grown up he clearly was.
“Yeah, one-on-one alone time with Faith. Never a dull moment, eh?” That catch in Cordelia’s voice as she tried to sound upbeat and careless made Riley get up and walk across the room. He was so angry with Angel right now. How could he have left them like this?
Xander said quietly: “Wes, it’s been a long night. I know you’re a Watcher and all, and you probably can’t help yourself around those musty old books, but don’t you think you ought to think about getting some rest?”
Cordelia gave another bright little laugh, that also carried that brittle note: “Have you seen his place? Walk through the door with an open cut and you’ll have gangrene before you reach the kitchen. It makes Xander’s basement look like the Ritz.”
“It’s temporary.” Wesley looked like a man who could hardly be suffering more if his testicles were in a vice, but even knowing they were just adding to his feeling of humiliation and self-loathing, couldn’t stop Riley from pressing on with all the wrong questions.
“Is that where you stayed after…?” After your employer comforted your torturer and left you to take care of yourself?
“I told Angel to drop me there. I didn’t want to disturb Cordelia any further. Angel had called her to let her know I was safe, and I knew she had a concussion….” Wesley broke off in annoyance. “None of this is any of your business.”
Firmly, Riley said: “You two need to come back to Sunnydale with us.”
Xander nodded emphatically. “Seconded.”
Cordelia and Wesley gazed at them in disbelief. “No,” Wesley said. “Absolutely not.”
Cordelia folded her arms. “Not for all the Versace in Milan.”
“You can’t stay here.” Riley folded his own arms with equal emphasis. “Wesley doesn’t even have a sanitary place to stay.”
“He’s staying with me,” Cordelia retorted.
Xander shook his head. “You two can’t seriously intend to go on working for Angel after what he did to you?”
“He saved me.”
The absolute conviction in those quiet words from Wesley was a shock, and Riley saw Xander give a little start.
Wesley gazed up at them as if he had seen the light and carried its glow within him now. He reminded Riley uncomfortably of some priest who had come through a crisis of faith with his belief in God reaffirmed by the experience, and who would never now doubt again. “That’s what happened. He sent Cordelia and I away because he correctly surmised that Faith was a danger to us, and then he found both of us, and he saved me, at the risk of his own life. If either of you have forgotten this, a Slayer is stronger than a vampire and Faith had accepted a contract on Angel’s life. But he came after me anyway.”
Xander gritted his teeth. “You know, Wes, you really need to start asking more of the people in your life than that they won’t walk away and leave you to die at the hands of a sadistic psychopath.”
“Why?” Wesley reached for another book, wiping his sleeve over its leather binding, despite the way he was clearly too stiff to move without considerable pain. “It’s more than I’ve known before.”
Xander looked stung. “You think if this had happened in Sunnydale that no one would have looked for you?”
“Honestly?” Wesley glanced up at him without condemnation. “I imagine Faith could have kept me tied to a chair for a week before any of you except for Cordelia wondered what had become of me. Probably no more than I deserved, but not very comforting all the same. Angel found me within hours.”
“Christ, Wesley, what kind of monsters do you think we are? Giles saved your life when you were captured by Balthazar. Buffy would have looked for you, and she would have found you and….”
“And what? Blamed me for traumatizing Faith with my interference and driving her to the point where the girl had no choice but to torture me for kicks?”
“Why would she have needed to?” Xander countered quietly. “You seem to be pretty good at doing that yourself.”
Wesley’s eyes flashed in annoyance. “I don’t think I deserved what Faith did to me.”
“Don’t you?” Xander held his gaze and Riley saw again a glimpse of the man this boy was on the cusp of becoming. He had never realized that Buffy’s unemployed high school friend had all this steely strength under the surface. “What, none of it? Or are you measuring it out there? Maybe you deserved the beating, but not the slicing? Or maybe you deserved the slicing, but not the home-made flame thrower in the face? I’d like to see some conviction there that none of this was your fault.”
“Some of it was my fault.” Wesley closed his eyes, a headache clearly throbbing painfully. “I didn’t deserve what she did to me, but I did contribute to her becoming someone who was capable of doing that. I just hadn’t realized until I was tied to that chair that Faith considered me one of the people who had betrayed her. Until that moment, I hadn’t thought I mattered enough to Faith to be worth hating.”
Riley decided that he was making an executive decision here. These two were too vulnerable to leave here, where anyone with a grudge against Angel could just walk in and grab them. Even leaving aside the fact the guy was a vampire with a curse that could make him turn evil in the blink of an orgasm, and was probably just using these two to help him brood his way towards some kind of redemption for all the serial killing he’d done in the past, he had a lot of enemies. That police detective already seemed to be working her way up to a grudge, and there couldn’t be any shortage of demons out there who had it in for the one of their own who had joined the white hats. And now it turned out there was the Watchers’ Council and an evil law firm with who both had it in for him as well. These two were just too fragile, physically and emotionally, to be left to the mercy of this life. At least if they were in Sunnydale, they would have a support system around them, and a Slayer to give them her protection. Hellmouth or no Hellmouth, it had to be safer than here. He glanced across at Xander to see if he was in agreement, and then at his nod, stepped forward decisively.
As if she knew his thoughts, Cordelia moved between him and Wesley and reached out to stroke the Englishman’s hair back from his contusion-mottled forehead. She looked tired and close to tearful but very determined. “Wes? Will you take me home?”
“Of course.” His expression was so gentle when he spoke to her. He even dredged up a reassuring smile that temporarily lit up his bruised, bony face.
She smiled back, and even though a few minutes ago they had seemed lost without Angel, now it was as if these two had all they needed just with each other. Riley felt as if a forcefield had just been erected around them, keeping them in and the rest of the world out. “Will you stay over with me?” she added.
“Of course,” Wesley repeated, giving her another smile. A moment before, Wesley had been sitting there, a breath away from shattering; Riley had been wondering how to get the pieces of him into Xander’s car without dropping any on the sidewalk when they rescued him, but now as Wesley stood up, it was as the older brother of an adopted sister who needed his comfort and protection. “I’ll take you now. How’s your head?”
“It’s been better.” She pulled his arm around her shoulders as if he were an overcoat, and he pressed a kiss to the side of her head.
“Do you have Tylenol at home?” He shook the bottle of painkillers at her in enquiry. “Or shall we pick up something stronger on the way home? I think we need to keep these in the office if at all possible.”
As Riley watched, wrong-footed, Cordelia escorted Wesley to the doorway and then gave them a slightly triumphant look over her shoulder. “We need to lock up now.”
Exchanging a glance with Xander, Riley had it confirmed that they had been outmaneuvered. “But…” Xander began.
“Oh yes.” Wesley paused in the doorway. “Thank you very much for your help. It’s very much appreciated. I’m sorry if we were a little…well, I’m sure you understand. But we are grateful for your assistance.”
As Xander and Riley both kept standing and staring, feeling their ‘let’s kidnap them for their own good and take them to Sunnydale for de-programming’ plan trickling through their fingers like water through a dam, Cordelia said: “And we need to lock up now, so….” Her sweep of the arm invited them to leave ahead of them, and Riley found himself automatically obeying.
Realizing that he was also exhausted, he tried to rally: “Look, I really think you should consider….”
Cordelia tried out her best attentive but confused expression while Wesley’s actually looked genuine. “We’re fine,” she assured them breezily. “Just a little in need of a hot shower and a warm bed and clothes that - no offence - don’t smell of Xander sweat.”
“Oh yes, thank you for the loan of clothing.” Wesley held up a hand. “If you could just hang on a moment. Cordelia…?”
As Riley watched in bemusement, the two of them climbed into the elevator and shut the doors, the old machinery cranking them down into what was presumably the vampire’s Den of Dark Pain. “But…” he tried again. The only answer was the clank of the gate being slid back and the distant sound of Wesley and Cordelia holding a conversation that did not in any way include them. He turned to Xander who shrugged helplessly.
Demoralized, exhausted people, he could possibly get into Xander’s car, but these two seemed to have gotten their second wind. Xander said: “I’m good with clubbing Wesley unconscious and stashing him in the trunk, but you’re going to have to tie up Cordelia.”
Thinking of those cuts on Wesley’s wrists, Riley shuddered. He kept seeing that skinny guy tied to a chair, struggling as the glass sliced into him, until he was cutting his own wrists on the blood-stained ropes. Then he thought about what Xander was asking and blanched. He held up his hands in defeat. “Not even if the world’s widows and orphans depended on it.”
Xander rolled his eyes. “Okay - she’s scary, but you’re a soldier - you’re meant to be good at dealing with scary things.”
“Demons - yes, women - no. Especially not that woman.” Riley gave Xander another look over. “Was is it with your dating choices anyway? Cordelia, Faith, and - did Anya really used to be a demon?”
“Of a kind.”
“What kind?”
Xander’s face did a lot of things that suggested it wanted nothing to do with the next few words that came out of his mouth: “The kind that punishes unfaithful men by pulling out their entrails, or occasionally removing all their skin while they’re still trying to use it. But she’s human now. Completely human and therefore in no way a legitimate target for any demon-killing military types.”
“Oh, the warm and cuddly kind of ex-demon then.” Riley shook his head. “And my aunt tells me I have a death wish just because I joined up.”
“I don’t have a death wish, and Cordelia hasn’t killed anyone. Well, not anyone human anyway.”
“Great, you’re batting one for three out of your girlfriends so far then.”
“Faith was never my ‘girlfriend’, just the person who…you know.”
“Used you for sex and then threw you out?”
Xander’s expression was more annoyed than wounded. “Okay - for two people having all these communication problems, you and Buffy sure do seem to do a lot of talking about the rest of us.”
Realizing the young man had a point, Riley gave him an apologetic grimace. “Sorry. She was just filling me in on Faith’s greatest hits.”
Xander shook his head. “I don’t really qualify to be on that list. Like Wesley, I didn’t even make it onto Faith’s official rap sheet. After all, what’s a little attempted rape and murder amongst friends?”
Again, he was seeing those cuts, not just the ones she had sliced with such shallow precision across Wesley’s skin, turning him into the canvas for her to express all her frustrations with the Watcher’s Council, the world, and her own self-hatred, but the ones that had bitten into his wrists. A man had to be struggling pretty hard to do that to himself and not even notice. Feeling sick, he said: “Do you think she…? With Wesley…? He couldn’t exactly get away.”
Xander’s appalled expression mirrored his feelings exactly. “I’ve no idea, but I can tell you that Wesley would probably rather have a home appendectomy than tell us about it - and you now owe me for a bottle of brain bleach.”
“We’ll share one on the way home,” Riley assured him.
The clank of the elevator reminded them that the two people they had been hoping to rescue were coming back up. This time when the metal gate was pushed back, it revealed a smiling Cordelia, now wearing a black t-shirt that was several sizes too big for her, and Wesley wearing a black sweater over a black t-shirt, both of which were several sizes too big for him. Riley felt that their determination to replace the clothes he and Xander had supplied, with clothes from Angel’s wardrobe was not exactly a random decision.
“Thank you for the loan.” Wesley handed over his jacket. “Not really my style, but much appreciated.”
“Yes, thank you.” When Cordelia gave Xander back his coat, there was a hint of that softness in her expression that she had displayed in the warehouse. Quite gently, she said: “You don’t need to worry about us. We’re really fine.”
Xander gazed back at her, expression defeated. “Wish I could believe that, Cord.”
Cordelia gave a little shrug. “Hey, at least we’re not living on a Hellmouth.”
“Take care, Cordy.” Xander put his arms around her and hugged her gently, pressing a kiss into her hair. After a moment’s hesitation, she wrapped her arms around him too, and for a moment they clung to one another, and then they were reluctantly separating, two pairs of brown eyes both bright with unshed tears.
Wesley watched their display of emotion in some concern and then hastily proffered a hand to Riley, presumably before the man attempted to embrace him. They shook hands briskly. “Thanks again for your help. And do give me regards to Buffy and…everyone else in Sunnydale.”
“You’re welcome and I will.” When Riley released his hand he wished he didn’t feel so much like a climber letting go of another mountaineer’s lifeline.
Wesley seemed to read that in his eyes. An expression of surprise washed over his face and he said, less briskly, and with more kindness: “You really don’t need to worry about us. Angel will be back tonight or tomorrow at the latest.”
With a huge effort of will, Riley bit down the ‘Well, that makes me feel so much better’ that was screaming to be let out and saw Xander this time heroically do the same. He shook Cordelia’s hand while Xander solemnly did the same with Wesley. “Take care, Wes.”
The Englishman looked quite touched at the warmth in Xander’s voice. “You too. Remember, we’re here if you’re ever in need of our assistance.”
“‘In case of apocalypse, call 555 Dark Avenger?’”
Wesley didn’t so much as blink. “Yes, we’re still ironing out the bat signal apparatus.”
Then, Riley and Xander were ushered out of the office quite politely and with smiles of what seemed to be genuine warmth, and accompanied to the parking lot. Riley even felt a brief spasm of envy when he saw Wesley pulling on that crash helmet and swinging his leg over that really quite impressive motorbike. Next to it, Xander’s car looked even more battered than it had when he had first seen it; a situation not helped by the way it seemed to be slumped down on its suspension. Belatedly, Riley remembered that it was actually Xander’s father’s car and that, according to Buffy, Xander’s father was not the most pleasant or patient of men. Cordelia climbed onto the back of the motorbike and wrapped her arms around Wesley’s waist. “Bye then,” she said quite cheerfully.
“Yes, thanks again. Safe journey back to Sunnydale.” Wesley started the engine, and then roared out of the car park with what Riley had to admit was some panache.
Xander sniffed. “Of course, anyone can look cool on a motorbike.”
Riley nodded, still watching Wesley pulling out into the neon lit street. “Totally.”
As they walked back to the car, Xander said conversationally: “Well, we came, we saw, we kind of conquered, and at the end of it all, I want to punch Angel on the nose even more than when we left Sunnydale. I don’t know if that’s progress or not.”
“If he’s still in Sunnydale, how about you hold him, I’ll stake him.” Riley slid into the passenger seat and felt the car bounce creakily underneath him. He was sure he was now sitting three inches nearer the ground that he had been before. “Sorry about your father’s car.”
“Hey, at least it gives the guy an actual bona fide reason to hate and despise me. You have to find the silver lining.” And then Xander was wearily turning the key in the ignition and they were sputtering out of the parking lot with a lot more exhaust fumes and a lot less of the style that a high-powered motorbike bestowed upon the driver.
***
They drove home in darkness, at first welcome, after all the sight-smearing neon of the overcrowded never-sleeping city, and then more and more tiring. They took it in turns to drive, changing over at a rest-stop on the way where they poured more sugar and caffeine into their systems. He and Xander didn’t talk much. There wasn’t a lot to say. The ‘what if’s were too near and too present to be in need of discussion. It had been an illogical impulse to go to LA, when perhaps all the time the person they had really needed to talk to was, not Angel but Buffy, and yet if they hadn’t done it, Riley had no doubt that Cordelia and Wesley would have been killed. Angel would have gone home to an empty office and perhaps never even known what had become of them. Or perhaps they would have left him a note. Perhaps he would have come home to a piece of paper telling him when and where the babies were going to be sacrificed and he would have arrived there in time to collect their corpses. For the rest of his undead existence he would have known that if he had only driven a little faster, left a little sooner, they might have lived, but then, he was probably used to the guilt by now, would two more deaths on his conscience really sting that much among so many?
“Riley?”
He realized he was gripping the steering wheel so hard that there was a danger of him losing all feeling in his fingers. “Just thinking about how dead those two nearly were.”
“I know.” Xander shook his head. “I’m going to be thinking about that for a while.”
They kept thinking about it all the rest of the way home.