Midnight at The Lost and Found - Angel/Wesley, PG
A little plot bunny bit me in the shins last night while I was sitting on the train waiting for it to go. I became infected with its venom and have forceably resisted...but ultimately succombed...
Title: Midnight at the Lost and Found (yes, inspired by Meatloaf)
Pairing: Angel/Wesley
Setting: Post AtS
Rating: PG
Summary: Angel is faced with his past and a collection of people he has killed...with a bit of sappy ending...
*cross posted to AO3*
Midnight at the Lost and Found
Hey Ricky, mine is empty, how ‘bout one for you
He was falling. His heart was pounding and his lungs burned for air and he was falling. Probably to his death. How was that for reality? He’d been alive for all of 60 seconds. He wanted to take a moment to really feel it, the beating of a heart, the intake of air, but the sky he fell through was on fire and the ground was rushing toward him and he was going to die. Again.
We could sell it out together, seems tomorrow’s overdue
Angel laughed at the absurdity of it. A vampire cursed with a soul, fighting for redemption and a chance to die, for real this time. He’d killed a dragon, bested the Black Thorn, averted the apocalypse. Again. Won his humanity…won back the right to rejoin the human race…for what? The dragon tossed him from the building as it fell, his blade sticking out of it’s chest, flames spewing, scorching the very air. He’d felt the beating of his heart seconds after he realized he was falling.
How high were they? Angel closed his eyes to block out the sight of the oncoming asphalt and prayed it would be over quickly.
Captain Video done went home, one pilot finally laid to rest
The air shrieked past him…or was that the someone screaming his name? His lung fought to function through the smoke and ash. The impact took forever, concrete and bone cracking, blood roaring, heart fluttering closer and closer to silence once more. Forever.
There was blood in his throat he couldn’t swallow. His blood. Convulsions shook him, he couldn’t remember how to scream. He could taste death. “Close your eyes,” he told himself, “let go.”
Above him the skies were lightening, dawn was breaking. It was over. He closed his eyes and turned away from the betrayal of finally winning everything, only to lose it. He exhaled, letting go of the air in his lungs, the beat in his heart.
Dragon lady’s gonna talk that talk, about who love’s who, who loves best
“Watch it lover, you’ll get run over you keep laying there.”
Angel opened his eyes, his hands running over his body in disbelief. The alley was gone. He lay on a street, a dark, unfamiliar city street, in front of a bar with a broken neon sign that blinked and fluttered with the words “Lost and Found” in faded green. He shifted to see who had spoken.
She wore red satin, an oriental jacket over a black mini skirt. Intricately embroidered dragons chased one another around the jacket and down onto the skirt. Cigarette smoke circled her dainty hands with the impossibly long fingernails and curled around the platinum blond updo that was once probably very stylish. She smiled at him and chewed her gum vigorously.
He sat up. Nothing seemed to be broken, though he ached all over. He put a hand to his chest and smiled when the thump of a healthy heart greeted it. “This is weird.” He distinctly remembered dying. Again. He stood up slowly, testing his limbs before stepping up onto the sidewalk beside the woman. “I should be dead.”
“Like I haven’t heard that before.”
“Where am I?” Angel asked, looking around him, then back to the woman. “Am I dead?”
She shrugged. “Lost and Found,” she said, gesturing to the sign. “Don’t know,” she added, pointing to him.
Angel squinted at her and stepped closer, trying to determine if she was being flippant or helpful. “Okay, am I lost? Or am I found?”
“That ain’t up to me, sweetcheeks.” She took a long drag from her cigarette and blew out a cloud of smoke.
“Who is it up to?” He was starting to get testy. He had gotten used to tests and trials and even the dying part was something he had experience with, but it had been a long, bad day. People died. His people. His friends. His…The faces of all the ones he’d lost past through him, Wesley’s last. He didn’t know if Spike or Gunn had lived through it, but he knew Wesley hadn’t.
She shrugged, seemingly untouched by his inward turn. “Up to you, I guess. You and whatever brought you here.”
“What does that mean?”
“You lose someone?”
“Lots of someones,” he whispered. Doyle, Cordelia, Fred, Wesley…all of them gone because they were a part of his life. His heart thumped erratically. “Are they here?”
She shrugged again and dropped her cigarette to the ground, grinding it with the pointed toe of her boots. “Lots of people come here. Looking for what they lost, trying to find themselves, trying to lose themselves.”
“This isn’t what I expected.” Angel said. He felt foolish for hoping, for thinking he could still win something here. He was dead. Time to just move on.
“Time’s a wasting, cupcake. Can’t stand outside forever.” She lit up another cigarette and pointed at the clock tower behind him. “Midnight’s coming.”
“What happens at midnight?”
She almost smiled before putting the cigarette between her lips. “Last call.”
have a double, it’s getting late
He took a deep breath and pushed through the door. The interior was dark, lit only by candles on tables, neon lights along the bar and the jukebox in the far corner. The place was half full with people and demons, familiar faces all turning to see him as he entered. He swallowed a lump that had suddenly lodged itself in his throat. Faces of the dead, those he’d killed…in one fashion or another.
“Liam!”
He closed his eyes and tried not to feel the small hand that slid into his, not respond to the tugging on his arm to get his attention, not recognize that voice…”No, please…not this.”
“Liam, I’ve been waiting for you.”
He couldn’t let go of her, wanted to run away and wanted to sweep her into his arms and shower her with kisses to apologize…to buy her forgiveness…to not have to face the pain in his heart as he finally looked into her smiling face. He fell to his knees in front of her, tears streaming down his face. “Kathy.”
She threw herself into his arms and he sobbed, feeling her tiny frame in his arms as he had on the night he had killed her. He could almost taste her. “I told Father you would make it,” she said when she finally released him. “He didn’t think you would, but I knew.”
Angel looked up at her, followed her eyes toward the bar…swallowed and tried to steal himself. This was how this was going to go. He got to his feet and took her hand.
“I think I need a drink.”
you’ll get home, just rely on fate
Kathy took him as far as the table where his father sat, face as dour and disapproving as ever. He met his father’s glare, then moved on to the bar. “Whiskey, neat.” He tossed back the first one, than took the second with him. He stood at the side of the table and turned to face his father.
“Did not expect to find you here, Liam.”
“I could say the same.”
“Still drinking, I see.”
“It’s been a really bad day.”
“It isn’t over yet.” His father gestured with his chin toward a clock on the wall. “Eleven thirty. Time’s running out.”
Place just finally came alive, good old boys just arrived
“Don’t be such a spoiled sport, he’s got himself a whole half hour.”
Angel looked up, surprised. Doyle stepped up between Kathy and Angel’s mortal father, one hand patting the older man’s shoulder. “Besides, he’s been dead, alive and dead again in the last two hours. I’d think that’d earn him some slack.”
“Doyle.”
“Little rough, eh Angel?”
He could only nod and sip on his whiskey as Doyle came around the table. “And, a more than a little weird. What’s going on here, Doyle?”
He shrugged. “Don’t know.”
“You’re not much help.”
“Lost my connection, remember?” He pointed at his head, then tossed off his drink.
“What happens in a half hour?”
Doyle moved back for the bar, glancing over his shoulder. “Last call.”
Angel shook his head. The room was undulating around him. Faces familiar and not, humans he killed as Angelus, demons he killed as Angel…it spun him around and around until he felt like he was falling again.
The slap stopped him, stinging across his cheek and sending him sprawling on his ass. He looked up in disbelief at the mousy fop that stood in front of him. “Right then. I feel much better.”
“Spike?” No, not Spike. This was William. This was the person Spike had been before he was Spike. The person Drusilla killed when she made Spike. “I didn’t kill you.”
The not-Spike William person put his hands in his pockets and pursed his lips. “No, not directly. Doesn’t mean you aren’t responsible though.”
Angel picked himself up off the floor, brushing at dust that reminded him all to much of vampire dust. He nodded slowly. On some level he accepted that. Angelus killed Dru, Dru killed William. William killed…”Oh.”
“Pretty boy’s getting it now.” William said, glancing at his father and Kathy. “Look around you. Everyone here is dead because of you, in one way or another.”
The bar seemed a lot more crowded than it had when he came in. The tables were occupied, the bar lined, the dance floor filled. Hundreds, even thousands of people and demons moved around him. Children, elderly, pregnant women. It was overwhelming. They represented the ripples of his life, the wake he had left behind him.
It wasn’t redemption the powers had afforded him when they gave him back his heart, it was condemnation. He turned for the bar, slipped and landed on his knees, retching out a puddle of blood and bile and whiskey on the floor. There was no salvation. There was no chance of winning anything.
Every face brought him images of death, bloody death that he could never begin to atone for. He closed his eyes to hide from them, but it only made it worse. He screamed as they moved in around him and he collapsed on his side.
stools keep changing faces, and the night just slips away
“Oh for heaven’s sake.” He felt something on his face, a hand. It was slapping him. Hard. “Angel. Stop this!”
He opened his eyes. The crowd had pulled back a bit. “Cordy?” He wiped at the tears.
“More or less.” She smiled and ruffled his hair. “Get up.”
“What?”
“You’re wallowing. You aren’t here to wallow. Get up.”
“I don’t understand.” He let her help him to his feet. “What am I here for then?”
She slapped his forehead. “Hello, Mr. ‘I’d like to buy a clue’…if we were allowed to tell you, don’t you think we would?”
“We?” She slipped an arm around him and turned him to face the tables.
“See all those people? They’re all here because you, or rather Angelus, killed them.” She turned him again, this time facing the dance floor. “Them, you killed them after getting your soul back…demons, vampires, monsters, serial killers, you know.” She turned him again, toward the bar. “And this…this is us. The ones who died following you or inspired by you.”
“You brought me here.” He said, looking down at her. She smiled at him, that brilliant Cordy smile that made him want to smile too, despite the pain beginning to radiate from inside of him.
“Get the man a prize!” She hugged him tightly. “I’m proud of you, you know…beating heart and all.” She said as she pulled away.
Angel let his eyes sweep the faces at the bar. Some he didn’t recognize, others he knew better than his own.
and like a long distance love affair, soon you’ve got to pay
He turned slowly, a few days growth on his face, his hair disheveled. His blue eyes burned through the space between them. It was like getting kicked in the gut. He hadn’t had time for Wesley’s death to register, to feel the pain of it.
Wesley slid slowly from the stool and Angel felt it, the wound that had killed him, the passion with which he’d fought, the despair of thinking he might have failed. The closer Wesley came the stronger he felt it…and then, something else. Angel blinked at the tears in his eyes, held on to Cordy as his balance wavered. Moments of their time together flashed through him: the day they met in Sunnydale, in LA, fights, battles, long nights researching, hunting…unspoken expressions passing between them, suppressed emotions.
By the time Wesley reached him, his heart was roaring, his tears unchecked, the sobs shaking him. There was so much there in the inches between them, friendship, betrayal, death, love…and it was the final one that was filling the air around Wesley. He held up his hand, moving it over Angel’s heart. Their eyes met and Angel groaned with the heat of the emotion.
“Wesley…I-I” Words failed him. Wesley had given himself freely, right from the start. It had been Angel who held back, Angel who refrained from accepting what was given. Too much at stake, too much to fear. “I’m sorry,” he finally whispered.
Wesley’s hand came to rest on his chest and he stood there for a long moment, looking at it. “I’m not,” he said softly. “I’m a better man for having known you, Angel. All of us,” he hitched a thumb back toward the bar, “on this side of the room are.”
Wesley looked him in the eye. “We all owe you something.”
Angel shook his head, closing his eyes and wanting to pull away. “No, I-you don’t owe me anything, least of all you, Wesley.”
“Maybe me, most of all Angel.”
silver bullets in the jukebox, spin another round
“This could be our last shot at this.” Wesley said, his body moving closer, erasing the space between them. Angel couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move.
Lips. Soft lips touching his. Gentle, chaste, offering.
“Almost midnight,” someone said nearby.
“Angel.” Wesley’s voice was low, rumbling into Angel’s ear as his arms slipped around him and held their bodies together. “Let go. Let it in. Let me love you.”
Warmth infused Angel as Wesley’s lips found his, capturing him, melting him. He breathed and Wesley’s tongue caressed his lips, slipping into him, wiping away the bitter taste of pain. He groaned as Wesley’s hand cupped the back of his head, pulling him even closer. His knees were weak, his body trembling. “Angel.” Wesley whispered it into his mouth, claiming him, strengthening him, breaking him.
hanging on barely, hitch a ride away, belly up and bury, boy, all the hurt you feel today
The sound of the crowd around them grew to deafening volumes. The room spun and bucked as Angel’s hands moved finally, sliding up Wesley’s sides to hold him. Everything reduced down to the touching of hands and lips, bodies flush together, emotion painted with fingers and tongues and legs entwined. This was what he had lost…what he had never allowed himself to have…even with Buffy he’d held back, held a part of himself in reserve…He’d let himself think it was the demon he’d stuffed in the cage…but now he knew.
He didn’t dare let go, or open his eyes. He wanted to do this forever, kiss Wesley, feel open and alive. His heart was racing and he was starting to pant as their kissing deepened. Wesley’s hands on his back, his head, his ass. Wesley’s heart beating against his chest.
Everybody get back in line, last call for the Lost and Found
There was an explosion. The sound pushed them and they were falling, still holding one another, falling. Angel opened his eyes and felt everything tilt and spin. Wesley’s eyes were startling blue and smiling. He couldn’t help but smile back. Bright white light flashed around them and everything disappeared.
Then it was quiet, soft. Angel opened his eyes, unsure when he’d closed them. He was in his bed, in his room at the Hyperion. The window was open and morning sunlight was streaming in the room. His body was warm. So was the body spooned up against his from behind. He shifted and felt an arm tighten around his waist.
“Morning.” Wesley’s voice purred into his ear. Kisses smoothed over his neck, down his spine.
“Wesley?” Angel turned, and was met with more kisses.
“Yes Angel. I’m here.”
“Where are we?”
Wesley sat up and looked around. “Your room, it would appear.”
Angel looked at him and waited. “Second chances, Angel.”
“How?”
Wesley smiled and drew him close. “Does it matter?”
“I don’t know.”
“Fair enough. Let’s say we get dressed and go see the others. I’m sure they’re anxious too.”
“Others…”
“Yes. Today we all get a second chance.”
Angel got up and found clothes, letting Wesley take his hand to lead him out of the room and into the hall. They paused above the lobby and Angel gasped. Gunn and Fred, Cordelia, Doyle, Connor, smiling faces…alive faces…he turned to Wesley. “Tell me I’m not dreaming…I’m not lying on the concrete somewhere dying.”
“Liam!” He turned, and caught the whirl of running child that launched itself at him, holding her to him as tight as he could. “I knew it, I knew it!”
Angel didn’t mind the tears, or the way his hands shook when he finally put her down. He took her hand in his, and his other arm around Wesley and together they went down the stairs.
Lost souls in the hunting ground
“I don’t know how you pulled this off, mister.” Cordelia said after she hugged him. “But, boy am I glad to see you.”
Fred was next, her lithe frame all but disappearing in his embrace. “I remember everything…even the dying part. Its strange.”
He smiled, remembering the experience a time or two himself. “Yeah, it is.”
Doyle smirked at him. “Had a pretty good deal going on you know…could have asked a fella ‘fore you went and did this.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry.” Gunn stepped in to thump his back. “Look at you, all breathing and beating and human again.”
“Dad?” Connor moved closer, his eyes doubtful still. “Its still strange to know you and yet remember this whole other life.”
Angel nodded. “I’m getting the feeling.” He reached behind him for Wesley who came to him, took his hand without asking why. “Can you stay for a while?” Connor nodded and smiled. “This is Kathy…your aunt.” He knelt beside his sister, holding her close. “This is my son, Connor.”
“Maybe now you will understand me a little more, seeing as you have a son of your own.”
Angel whirled around to see his father descending the stairs. “Don’t look so surprised, boy. You brought us here.”
Doyle stepped up and turned Angel’s face toward him. “New messages, from the Powers that Be…and let me just say, thanks so very much for that…new job.”
Cordelia joined him, hands on her hips. “No more helping the helpless.”
“No?”
“No.” Wesley turned him around. The lobby was slowly filling. Familiar faces stared back at him, looking to him. “Second chances,” he whispered in Angel’s ear.
“I did this?”
“Love did this.” Cordelia said.
remedy for all your ills at the lost and found
Title: Midnight at the Lost and Found (yes, inspired by Meatloaf)
Pairing: Angel/Wesley
Setting: Post AtS
Rating: PG
Summary: Angel is faced with his past and a collection of people he has killed...with a bit of sappy ending...
*cross posted to AO3*
Midnight at the Lost and Found
Hey Ricky, mine is empty, how ‘bout one for you
He was falling. His heart was pounding and his lungs burned for air and he was falling. Probably to his death. How was that for reality? He’d been alive for all of 60 seconds. He wanted to take a moment to really feel it, the beating of a heart, the intake of air, but the sky he fell through was on fire and the ground was rushing toward him and he was going to die. Again.
We could sell it out together, seems tomorrow’s overdue
Angel laughed at the absurdity of it. A vampire cursed with a soul, fighting for redemption and a chance to die, for real this time. He’d killed a dragon, bested the Black Thorn, averted the apocalypse. Again. Won his humanity…won back the right to rejoin the human race…for what? The dragon tossed him from the building as it fell, his blade sticking out of it’s chest, flames spewing, scorching the very air. He’d felt the beating of his heart seconds after he realized he was falling.
How high were they? Angel closed his eyes to block out the sight of the oncoming asphalt and prayed it would be over quickly.
Captain Video done went home, one pilot finally laid to rest
The air shrieked past him…or was that the someone screaming his name? His lung fought to function through the smoke and ash. The impact took forever, concrete and bone cracking, blood roaring, heart fluttering closer and closer to silence once more. Forever.
There was blood in his throat he couldn’t swallow. His blood. Convulsions shook him, he couldn’t remember how to scream. He could taste death. “Close your eyes,” he told himself, “let go.”
Above him the skies were lightening, dawn was breaking. It was over. He closed his eyes and turned away from the betrayal of finally winning everything, only to lose it. He exhaled, letting go of the air in his lungs, the beat in his heart.
Dragon lady’s gonna talk that talk, about who love’s who, who loves best
“Watch it lover, you’ll get run over you keep laying there.”
Angel opened his eyes, his hands running over his body in disbelief. The alley was gone. He lay on a street, a dark, unfamiliar city street, in front of a bar with a broken neon sign that blinked and fluttered with the words “Lost and Found” in faded green. He shifted to see who had spoken.
She wore red satin, an oriental jacket over a black mini skirt. Intricately embroidered dragons chased one another around the jacket and down onto the skirt. Cigarette smoke circled her dainty hands with the impossibly long fingernails and curled around the platinum blond updo that was once probably very stylish. She smiled at him and chewed her gum vigorously.
He sat up. Nothing seemed to be broken, though he ached all over. He put a hand to his chest and smiled when the thump of a healthy heart greeted it. “This is weird.” He distinctly remembered dying. Again. He stood up slowly, testing his limbs before stepping up onto the sidewalk beside the woman. “I should be dead.”
“Like I haven’t heard that before.”
“Where am I?” Angel asked, looking around him, then back to the woman. “Am I dead?”
She shrugged. “Lost and Found,” she said, gesturing to the sign. “Don’t know,” she added, pointing to him.
Angel squinted at her and stepped closer, trying to determine if she was being flippant or helpful. “Okay, am I lost? Or am I found?”
“That ain’t up to me, sweetcheeks.” She took a long drag from her cigarette and blew out a cloud of smoke.
“Who is it up to?” He was starting to get testy. He had gotten used to tests and trials and even the dying part was something he had experience with, but it had been a long, bad day. People died. His people. His friends. His…The faces of all the ones he’d lost past through him, Wesley’s last. He didn’t know if Spike or Gunn had lived through it, but he knew Wesley hadn’t.
She shrugged, seemingly untouched by his inward turn. “Up to you, I guess. You and whatever brought you here.”
“What does that mean?”
“You lose someone?”
“Lots of someones,” he whispered. Doyle, Cordelia, Fred, Wesley…all of them gone because they were a part of his life. His heart thumped erratically. “Are they here?”
She shrugged again and dropped her cigarette to the ground, grinding it with the pointed toe of her boots. “Lots of people come here. Looking for what they lost, trying to find themselves, trying to lose themselves.”
“This isn’t what I expected.” Angel said. He felt foolish for hoping, for thinking he could still win something here. He was dead. Time to just move on.
“Time’s a wasting, cupcake. Can’t stand outside forever.” She lit up another cigarette and pointed at the clock tower behind him. “Midnight’s coming.”
“What happens at midnight?”
She almost smiled before putting the cigarette between her lips. “Last call.”
have a double, it’s getting late
He took a deep breath and pushed through the door. The interior was dark, lit only by candles on tables, neon lights along the bar and the jukebox in the far corner. The place was half full with people and demons, familiar faces all turning to see him as he entered. He swallowed a lump that had suddenly lodged itself in his throat. Faces of the dead, those he’d killed…in one fashion or another.
“Liam!”
He closed his eyes and tried not to feel the small hand that slid into his, not respond to the tugging on his arm to get his attention, not recognize that voice…”No, please…not this.”
“Liam, I’ve been waiting for you.”
He couldn’t let go of her, wanted to run away and wanted to sweep her into his arms and shower her with kisses to apologize…to buy her forgiveness…to not have to face the pain in his heart as he finally looked into her smiling face. He fell to his knees in front of her, tears streaming down his face. “Kathy.”
She threw herself into his arms and he sobbed, feeling her tiny frame in his arms as he had on the night he had killed her. He could almost taste her. “I told Father you would make it,” she said when she finally released him. “He didn’t think you would, but I knew.”
Angel looked up at her, followed her eyes toward the bar…swallowed and tried to steal himself. This was how this was going to go. He got to his feet and took her hand.
“I think I need a drink.”
you’ll get home, just rely on fate
Kathy took him as far as the table where his father sat, face as dour and disapproving as ever. He met his father’s glare, then moved on to the bar. “Whiskey, neat.” He tossed back the first one, than took the second with him. He stood at the side of the table and turned to face his father.
“Did not expect to find you here, Liam.”
“I could say the same.”
“Still drinking, I see.”
“It’s been a really bad day.”
“It isn’t over yet.” His father gestured with his chin toward a clock on the wall. “Eleven thirty. Time’s running out.”
Place just finally came alive, good old boys just arrived
“Don’t be such a spoiled sport, he’s got himself a whole half hour.”
Angel looked up, surprised. Doyle stepped up between Kathy and Angel’s mortal father, one hand patting the older man’s shoulder. “Besides, he’s been dead, alive and dead again in the last two hours. I’d think that’d earn him some slack.”
“Doyle.”
“Little rough, eh Angel?”
He could only nod and sip on his whiskey as Doyle came around the table. “And, a more than a little weird. What’s going on here, Doyle?”
He shrugged. “Don’t know.”
“You’re not much help.”
“Lost my connection, remember?” He pointed at his head, then tossed off his drink.
“What happens in a half hour?”
Doyle moved back for the bar, glancing over his shoulder. “Last call.”
Angel shook his head. The room was undulating around him. Faces familiar and not, humans he killed as Angelus, demons he killed as Angel…it spun him around and around until he felt like he was falling again.
The slap stopped him, stinging across his cheek and sending him sprawling on his ass. He looked up in disbelief at the mousy fop that stood in front of him. “Right then. I feel much better.”
“Spike?” No, not Spike. This was William. This was the person Spike had been before he was Spike. The person Drusilla killed when she made Spike. “I didn’t kill you.”
The not-Spike William person put his hands in his pockets and pursed his lips. “No, not directly. Doesn’t mean you aren’t responsible though.”
Angel picked himself up off the floor, brushing at dust that reminded him all to much of vampire dust. He nodded slowly. On some level he accepted that. Angelus killed Dru, Dru killed William. William killed…”Oh.”
“Pretty boy’s getting it now.” William said, glancing at his father and Kathy. “Look around you. Everyone here is dead because of you, in one way or another.”
The bar seemed a lot more crowded than it had when he came in. The tables were occupied, the bar lined, the dance floor filled. Hundreds, even thousands of people and demons moved around him. Children, elderly, pregnant women. It was overwhelming. They represented the ripples of his life, the wake he had left behind him.
It wasn’t redemption the powers had afforded him when they gave him back his heart, it was condemnation. He turned for the bar, slipped and landed on his knees, retching out a puddle of blood and bile and whiskey on the floor. There was no salvation. There was no chance of winning anything.
Every face brought him images of death, bloody death that he could never begin to atone for. He closed his eyes to hide from them, but it only made it worse. He screamed as they moved in around him and he collapsed on his side.
stools keep changing faces, and the night just slips away
“Oh for heaven’s sake.” He felt something on his face, a hand. It was slapping him. Hard. “Angel. Stop this!”
He opened his eyes. The crowd had pulled back a bit. “Cordy?” He wiped at the tears.
“More or less.” She smiled and ruffled his hair. “Get up.”
“What?”
“You’re wallowing. You aren’t here to wallow. Get up.”
“I don’t understand.” He let her help him to his feet. “What am I here for then?”
She slapped his forehead. “Hello, Mr. ‘I’d like to buy a clue’…if we were allowed to tell you, don’t you think we would?”
“We?” She slipped an arm around him and turned him to face the tables.
“See all those people? They’re all here because you, or rather Angelus, killed them.” She turned him again, this time facing the dance floor. “Them, you killed them after getting your soul back…demons, vampires, monsters, serial killers, you know.” She turned him again, toward the bar. “And this…this is us. The ones who died following you or inspired by you.”
“You brought me here.” He said, looking down at her. She smiled at him, that brilliant Cordy smile that made him want to smile too, despite the pain beginning to radiate from inside of him.
“Get the man a prize!” She hugged him tightly. “I’m proud of you, you know…beating heart and all.” She said as she pulled away.
Angel let his eyes sweep the faces at the bar. Some he didn’t recognize, others he knew better than his own.
and like a long distance love affair, soon you’ve got to pay
He turned slowly, a few days growth on his face, his hair disheveled. His blue eyes burned through the space between them. It was like getting kicked in the gut. He hadn’t had time for Wesley’s death to register, to feel the pain of it.
Wesley slid slowly from the stool and Angel felt it, the wound that had killed him, the passion with which he’d fought, the despair of thinking he might have failed. The closer Wesley came the stronger he felt it…and then, something else. Angel blinked at the tears in his eyes, held on to Cordy as his balance wavered. Moments of their time together flashed through him: the day they met in Sunnydale, in LA, fights, battles, long nights researching, hunting…unspoken expressions passing between them, suppressed emotions.
By the time Wesley reached him, his heart was roaring, his tears unchecked, the sobs shaking him. There was so much there in the inches between them, friendship, betrayal, death, love…and it was the final one that was filling the air around Wesley. He held up his hand, moving it over Angel’s heart. Their eyes met and Angel groaned with the heat of the emotion.
“Wesley…I-I” Words failed him. Wesley had given himself freely, right from the start. It had been Angel who held back, Angel who refrained from accepting what was given. Too much at stake, too much to fear. “I’m sorry,” he finally whispered.
Wesley’s hand came to rest on his chest and he stood there for a long moment, looking at it. “I’m not,” he said softly. “I’m a better man for having known you, Angel. All of us,” he hitched a thumb back toward the bar, “on this side of the room are.”
Wesley looked him in the eye. “We all owe you something.”
Angel shook his head, closing his eyes and wanting to pull away. “No, I-you don’t owe me anything, least of all you, Wesley.”
“Maybe me, most of all Angel.”
silver bullets in the jukebox, spin another round
“This could be our last shot at this.” Wesley said, his body moving closer, erasing the space between them. Angel couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move.
Lips. Soft lips touching his. Gentle, chaste, offering.
“Almost midnight,” someone said nearby.
“Angel.” Wesley’s voice was low, rumbling into Angel’s ear as his arms slipped around him and held their bodies together. “Let go. Let it in. Let me love you.”
Warmth infused Angel as Wesley’s lips found his, capturing him, melting him. He breathed and Wesley’s tongue caressed his lips, slipping into him, wiping away the bitter taste of pain. He groaned as Wesley’s hand cupped the back of his head, pulling him even closer. His knees were weak, his body trembling. “Angel.” Wesley whispered it into his mouth, claiming him, strengthening him, breaking him.
hanging on barely, hitch a ride away, belly up and bury, boy, all the hurt you feel today
The sound of the crowd around them grew to deafening volumes. The room spun and bucked as Angel’s hands moved finally, sliding up Wesley’s sides to hold him. Everything reduced down to the touching of hands and lips, bodies flush together, emotion painted with fingers and tongues and legs entwined. This was what he had lost…what he had never allowed himself to have…even with Buffy he’d held back, held a part of himself in reserve…He’d let himself think it was the demon he’d stuffed in the cage…but now he knew.
He didn’t dare let go, or open his eyes. He wanted to do this forever, kiss Wesley, feel open and alive. His heart was racing and he was starting to pant as their kissing deepened. Wesley’s hands on his back, his head, his ass. Wesley’s heart beating against his chest.
Everybody get back in line, last call for the Lost and Found
There was an explosion. The sound pushed them and they were falling, still holding one another, falling. Angel opened his eyes and felt everything tilt and spin. Wesley’s eyes were startling blue and smiling. He couldn’t help but smile back. Bright white light flashed around them and everything disappeared.
Then it was quiet, soft. Angel opened his eyes, unsure when he’d closed them. He was in his bed, in his room at the Hyperion. The window was open and morning sunlight was streaming in the room. His body was warm. So was the body spooned up against his from behind. He shifted and felt an arm tighten around his waist.
“Morning.” Wesley’s voice purred into his ear. Kisses smoothed over his neck, down his spine.
“Wesley?” Angel turned, and was met with more kisses.
“Yes Angel. I’m here.”
“Where are we?”
Wesley sat up and looked around. “Your room, it would appear.”
Angel looked at him and waited. “Second chances, Angel.”
“How?”
Wesley smiled and drew him close. “Does it matter?”
“I don’t know.”
“Fair enough. Let’s say we get dressed and go see the others. I’m sure they’re anxious too.”
“Others…”
“Yes. Today we all get a second chance.”
Angel got up and found clothes, letting Wesley take his hand to lead him out of the room and into the hall. They paused above the lobby and Angel gasped. Gunn and Fred, Cordelia, Doyle, Connor, smiling faces…alive faces…he turned to Wesley. “Tell me I’m not dreaming…I’m not lying on the concrete somewhere dying.”
“Liam!” He turned, and caught the whirl of running child that launched itself at him, holding her to him as tight as he could. “I knew it, I knew it!”
Angel didn’t mind the tears, or the way his hands shook when he finally put her down. He took her hand in his, and his other arm around Wesley and together they went down the stairs.
Lost souls in the hunting ground
“I don’t know how you pulled this off, mister.” Cordelia said after she hugged him. “But, boy am I glad to see you.”
Fred was next, her lithe frame all but disappearing in his embrace. “I remember everything…even the dying part. Its strange.”
He smiled, remembering the experience a time or two himself. “Yeah, it is.”
Doyle smirked at him. “Had a pretty good deal going on you know…could have asked a fella ‘fore you went and did this.”
“Sorry.”
“Don’t be sorry.” Gunn stepped in to thump his back. “Look at you, all breathing and beating and human again.”
“Dad?” Connor moved closer, his eyes doubtful still. “Its still strange to know you and yet remember this whole other life.”
Angel nodded. “I’m getting the feeling.” He reached behind him for Wesley who came to him, took his hand without asking why. “Can you stay for a while?” Connor nodded and smiled. “This is Kathy…your aunt.” He knelt beside his sister, holding her close. “This is my son, Connor.”
“Maybe now you will understand me a little more, seeing as you have a son of your own.”
Angel whirled around to see his father descending the stairs. “Don’t look so surprised, boy. You brought us here.”
Doyle stepped up and turned Angel’s face toward him. “New messages, from the Powers that Be…and let me just say, thanks so very much for that…new job.”
Cordelia joined him, hands on her hips. “No more helping the helpless.”
“No?”
“No.” Wesley turned him around. The lobby was slowly filling. Familiar faces stared back at him, looking to him. “Second chances,” he whispered in Angel’s ear.
“I did this?”
“Love did this.” Cordelia said.
remedy for all your ills at the lost and found