Fic: Out
Fic! Fic for fractal_bat who asked for "a story set in an AU season 4 where Connor hooks up with Wes instead of evil Cordy."
Out
It always began with reading prophecies.
Wesley could remember his time as a child, volumes of text being placed in his lap that were so thick they rose halfway up his chest, the words in them, he knew now, far more advanced than most Watcher children were expected to know at that age.
But he was expected to know them. Know, translate, act. No matter what the words were, or how horrifying the pictures that were beside them. Or, worse, the pictures that the words created inside of the canvas of one's mind.
There is never a time when a Watcher can allow himself to be frightened of reality. The world is what it is. The horrors exist. Fear, uncertainty, disgust - these things only get in the way of one's vows.
A Watcher protects the world, no matter what.
As a child Wesley read myths as well as histories. It was important to understand the difference between both. To read a folk tale and dissect it for hints of honesty, to read a town record and winnow out flights of fancy or exaggeration. Bluebeard could be a vampire. Guy Fawkes, remarkably misunderstood. One could never tell just by skimming the surface.
Tales and legends had their place as modern morality plays as well. Even if there was nothing of factual evidence to be found within the story, it was rare that one was placed in front of Wesley which did not have a lesson in it somehow.
Such as the legend of Cassandra, the one who saw but who was not believed. That one always stuck in Wesley's mind. At first he thought it was because the lesson there was that he would always be surrounded by those who would deny the truth: people who would have loved ones killed by demons and insist it was animal attacks, towns who would witness all the signs of a coming Apocalypse yet never move, never prepare to defend themselves.
Later, Wesley realized that was only part of it. Part of it was that they would be told, and then deny.
The other part is that they never wanted to be told in the first place.
***
"You in?"
The time leading up to the offer had been, oddly, comfortable and familiar. End of the world, death rattling at the door, signs and portents, and yet it was still the old, beat-up couch of the Hyperion lobby, it was Angel, and Gunn, and Lorne, and hours-long sessions of trying to make sense of the nonsensical.
Throw in some Chinese food and a break for MST3K on the tiny TV behind the reception desk and it would have been precisely like old times.
It *was* old times, too. In every possible sense. Wesley read through the jumble of Wolfram & Hart paperwork and felt the weight of two lives upon him, two realities (and how little he knew at the time of how true that sensation would be for him in the months to come).
One life: Angel's friend. Right-hand man. Fighting the good fight. Giving his all to help the cause. Ready and willing to lend a hand without any care or fear of the consequences.
Another life: Angel's friend. Right-hand man, albeit sometimes in a broad definition of the term. Fighting the good fight. Giving his all to help the cause. Ready and willing to do what he had to because he was the only one who fully understood the consequences.
"Do you recognize any of them?"
"Heat, fallen, shrine, flesh... none of it makes any sense."
It's not the first time that he's looked the vampire directly in the eye and lied to him. It doesn't even carry the dubious distinction of being the first lie which involves prophecies and Angel's son. Wesley doesn't spare too many of his thoughts on wondering whether it will be the last. The important thing was to focus on what had to be done.
Charles helps the cause more than he realizes. The papers are pulled out, the grand pattern noticed - Wesley notes to himself how often it is that grand ideas are boiled down to their barest essentials. The Beast, as they'll later know it, is represented by a symbol. The bigger danger, as Wesley hopes none of them shall know, is merely four words.
Still, large violence is what's called for and that's what Angel does best. He and the others - even Lorne - can form their small posse. They can be the ones saving the world from that particular threat.
"You in?"
Wesley holds the crossbow, feeling the rough wood and cold metal in his hands. He's used this weapon while fighting by Angel's side so many times. It's one of his favorites. He flatters himself to think that Angel knows that. Or, knowing, remembered it.
But it can't be that way.
Wesley throws it back. "No."
***
The night time air is dry. It itches at Wesley's skin, makes him long for a shower, or a long bath followed by an oiled massage and the naked companion of his choosing. He'd like it to be Fred, however his mind is more frank and conjures images of Lilah running slick hands and sharp fingernails along his chest and back.
Wesley doesn't dismiss these thoughts. He thinks to himself that they might help, though perhaps this is only denial.
He knows where Connor lives. Not that anyone on Angel's end ever cared to inform him of the demon child's whereabouts, but people on Angel's end are startlingly useless founts of information. Even, he has to admit, Fred. That's the problem with living a life based on the idea of how the world should be: it makes one remarkably likely to not notice the world as it *is*.
The difficulty is, of course, Cordelia. Wesley weighs several options in this regard. One of which is his gun. He's reasonably certain that a bullet through the head can solve most problems, but that requires knowing more about what's going on inside of the skull in question. A bullet can kill a human and temporarily incapacitate a vampire, but the child of a vampire and a former higher being are unknown factors in this equation.
Besides, there was no promise that the death of one or even both of them would produce the result that he's looking for. Fate has a nasty way of creating destiny no matter how many blockades are placed against it. The entire course of Angel's life was a testament to that.
Craftiness, then. Skill. Guile. And, as it turns out, not too small an amount of luck.
From his perch on the building across Wesley can see that Connor and Cordelia are both sporting injuries. There's discussion between them that Wesley can't hear, but the contents of it are discerned easily enough:
Connor wants to leave, Cordy wants him to stay.
Wesley smiles to himself, watching this. Cordy's trapped by the very thing he is: the lack of knowing what Connor would do. The inability to tip a hand too soon, give the game away.
In the end what wins is the stubborn nature and oft-misplaced chivalry that Connor shares with his father. The boy leaves, making what Wesley can only guess are promises that he'll return soon. Cordelia doesn't seem happy about it, but it's only after the boy has left their erstwhile apartment that a true look of annoyance and frustration crosses her otherwise beautiful face.
Wesley makes his own way downstairs before she can chance to look up through the windows and see him. He's not done with her yet - he can't be - but finding out whatever happened to his friend and putting an end to it is a task he triages for later. Right now Connor's the one who has what might prove to be a quite literal deadline.
The sky is darker by the time Wesley emerges at ground level. He casts about, hoping Connor hasn't followed in yet another of his father's footsteps by taking to the sewers. But no: there he is, down on the corner, heading towards a convenience store for what Wesley assumes must be medical supplies.
Wesley thinks he hears thunder as he jogs down the distance between them. Memories flash to him of skies turning to blood. He needs no visions to tell him that Angel and the others won't win their battle. He tells himself they wouldn't have won even if he'd been there, guns and crossbow in hand. He can believe that, because he knows his job is never to win the battles for anyone. What he has a harder time believing is that his absence doesn't affect how painful the fight is, or how deadly.
Even so, the moment is almost there, and soon his turned back won't be the betrayal that any of them care about.
"Connor!"
There's no rehearsed speech. Wesley has nothing prepared. He goes on instinct, willing the tides of Fate to turn towards him, to let his leaf be the one that is picked up by this particular current.
The boy turns on a heel, hands in readiness to attack. When he sees Wesley there is only confusion. "What - "
A metallic taste not unlike the warning of lightening is in Wesley's mouth. The hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. If he feels this, surely Connor does. And if they do, Cordelia must.
"There's no time," Wesley says, the God's honest truth. He looks around, knowing that this part of the prophecy is likely to be self-fulfilling. "Cordelia sent me. Something's happening. We have to prepare."
The request for Connor to help hooks him more than a suggestion of fleeing to safety ever could. However the mention of Cordelia makes him suspicious. "I thought she didn't trust you guys."
"I wasn't a part of that," Wesley says, glad for yet another dose of honesty. He spies a statue of the Virgin Mary across the street. He takes Connor by the forearm, drags him towards it. "Come on."
Connor hangs back, tugging him in the opposite direction. "Cordy's that way."
"There's something that she needs in that church," Wesley says, becoming all forms of kidnapper now: babies, teenagers, there's no limit to the tricks he now knows to deceive and confuse them. "Something that we have to do. *Hurry*."
A crack of thunder spurs them on. Clouds gather above them, looking more ominous than any Los Angeles rainstorm could ever hope to be.
The church doors are locked to them - rather symbolically so, Wesley thinks - but Connor tears through them like wet clay. The metal bars peel back, the doors crash open.
"Let's hope there's no one about to hear that," Wesley comments. He spies a bench, nods in its direction. "Put that across the doors to keep them shut. That one over there as well. There'll be plenty of people trying to crowd in here soon enough, let's not make it easy for them."
Connor drags the stone benches into place. "What about Cordy?"
"This is something we need to do," Wesley says. "A ritual. It can't be interrupted."
"Okay," Connor dusts his hands off. "Now what?"
"Lets find something out of the way," Wesley says.
They climb up to the belltower. Wesley debates the wisdom of this, knowing how likely it is for the bell to be put into use before the hour is out, but the stairs let them out into an attic of sorts. One doorway leads towards the rope for the bell, the other to a stuffy room that is crammed full with used candles, dust covered books, and faded choir robes.
There are windows along the eastern wall, their glass dirty and covered with soot. Connor walks towards them, his reflection staring back at him even as his eyes stare out into the night. "Something's happening. Something big." He turns to Wesley, his blue eyes suddenly possessed of the youth that he is supposed to be. "Something *wrong*."
The first spark of fire falls past the windows. More follow it, their hisses audible even through the cracks of the windowpanes.
"There's something we need to talk about," Wesley moves a stack of prayer books aside and thinks to himself: Shrine.
"Something Cordy wanted us to do," Connor says. The storm outside bathes his skin and hair in an unearthly orange glow. The air around them grows thicker, warmer, and Wesley thinks: Heat.
"Something she wanted *you* to do," Wesley says. "I volunteered to help."
Connor's eyebrows furrow together. "Why?"
"Because - " Wesley takes a breath. The words come to him from somewhere. "Because you've never had a childhood, or family, or friends, or anything that's real. And if this is the end of the world then she - I wanted you to have something that is."
"Really?" Connor asks.
"Really," Wesley says, and thinks: fallen.
"What?" Connor asks.
Wesley steps forward, takes the boy into his arms, kisses him until both of their bodies respond to the stimulation.
And as he fulfills what only he knows was the second half of the prophecy, he thinks to himself: flesh.
Out
It always began with reading prophecies.
Wesley could remember his time as a child, volumes of text being placed in his lap that were so thick they rose halfway up his chest, the words in them, he knew now, far more advanced than most Watcher children were expected to know at that age.
But he was expected to know them. Know, translate, act. No matter what the words were, or how horrifying the pictures that were beside them. Or, worse, the pictures that the words created inside of the canvas of one's mind.
There is never a time when a Watcher can allow himself to be frightened of reality. The world is what it is. The horrors exist. Fear, uncertainty, disgust - these things only get in the way of one's vows.
A Watcher protects the world, no matter what.
As a child Wesley read myths as well as histories. It was important to understand the difference between both. To read a folk tale and dissect it for hints of honesty, to read a town record and winnow out flights of fancy or exaggeration. Bluebeard could be a vampire. Guy Fawkes, remarkably misunderstood. One could never tell just by skimming the surface.
Tales and legends had their place as modern morality plays as well. Even if there was nothing of factual evidence to be found within the story, it was rare that one was placed in front of Wesley which did not have a lesson in it somehow.
Such as the legend of Cassandra, the one who saw but who was not believed. That one always stuck in Wesley's mind. At first he thought it was because the lesson there was that he would always be surrounded by those who would deny the truth: people who would have loved ones killed by demons and insist it was animal attacks, towns who would witness all the signs of a coming Apocalypse yet never move, never prepare to defend themselves.
Later, Wesley realized that was only part of it. Part of it was that they would be told, and then deny.
The other part is that they never wanted to be told in the first place.
***
"You in?"
The time leading up to the offer had been, oddly, comfortable and familiar. End of the world, death rattling at the door, signs and portents, and yet it was still the old, beat-up couch of the Hyperion lobby, it was Angel, and Gunn, and Lorne, and hours-long sessions of trying to make sense of the nonsensical.
Throw in some Chinese food and a break for MST3K on the tiny TV behind the reception desk and it would have been precisely like old times.
It *was* old times, too. In every possible sense. Wesley read through the jumble of Wolfram & Hart paperwork and felt the weight of two lives upon him, two realities (and how little he knew at the time of how true that sensation would be for him in the months to come).
One life: Angel's friend. Right-hand man. Fighting the good fight. Giving his all to help the cause. Ready and willing to lend a hand without any care or fear of the consequences.
Another life: Angel's friend. Right-hand man, albeit sometimes in a broad definition of the term. Fighting the good fight. Giving his all to help the cause. Ready and willing to do what he had to because he was the only one who fully understood the consequences.
"Do you recognize any of them?"
"Heat, fallen, shrine, flesh... none of it makes any sense."
It's not the first time that he's looked the vampire directly in the eye and lied to him. It doesn't even carry the dubious distinction of being the first lie which involves prophecies and Angel's son. Wesley doesn't spare too many of his thoughts on wondering whether it will be the last. The important thing was to focus on what had to be done.
Charles helps the cause more than he realizes. The papers are pulled out, the grand pattern noticed - Wesley notes to himself how often it is that grand ideas are boiled down to their barest essentials. The Beast, as they'll later know it, is represented by a symbol. The bigger danger, as Wesley hopes none of them shall know, is merely four words.
Still, large violence is what's called for and that's what Angel does best. He and the others - even Lorne - can form their small posse. They can be the ones saving the world from that particular threat.
"You in?"
Wesley holds the crossbow, feeling the rough wood and cold metal in his hands. He's used this weapon while fighting by Angel's side so many times. It's one of his favorites. He flatters himself to think that Angel knows that. Or, knowing, remembered it.
But it can't be that way.
Wesley throws it back. "No."
***
The night time air is dry. It itches at Wesley's skin, makes him long for a shower, or a long bath followed by an oiled massage and the naked companion of his choosing. He'd like it to be Fred, however his mind is more frank and conjures images of Lilah running slick hands and sharp fingernails along his chest and back.
Wesley doesn't dismiss these thoughts. He thinks to himself that they might help, though perhaps this is only denial.
He knows where Connor lives. Not that anyone on Angel's end ever cared to inform him of the demon child's whereabouts, but people on Angel's end are startlingly useless founts of information. Even, he has to admit, Fred. That's the problem with living a life based on the idea of how the world should be: it makes one remarkably likely to not notice the world as it *is*.
The difficulty is, of course, Cordelia. Wesley weighs several options in this regard. One of which is his gun. He's reasonably certain that a bullet through the head can solve most problems, but that requires knowing more about what's going on inside of the skull in question. A bullet can kill a human and temporarily incapacitate a vampire, but the child of a vampire and a former higher being are unknown factors in this equation.
Besides, there was no promise that the death of one or even both of them would produce the result that he's looking for. Fate has a nasty way of creating destiny no matter how many blockades are placed against it. The entire course of Angel's life was a testament to that.
Craftiness, then. Skill. Guile. And, as it turns out, not too small an amount of luck.
From his perch on the building across Wesley can see that Connor and Cordelia are both sporting injuries. There's discussion between them that Wesley can't hear, but the contents of it are discerned easily enough:
Connor wants to leave, Cordy wants him to stay.
Wesley smiles to himself, watching this. Cordy's trapped by the very thing he is: the lack of knowing what Connor would do. The inability to tip a hand too soon, give the game away.
In the end what wins is the stubborn nature and oft-misplaced chivalry that Connor shares with his father. The boy leaves, making what Wesley can only guess are promises that he'll return soon. Cordelia doesn't seem happy about it, but it's only after the boy has left their erstwhile apartment that a true look of annoyance and frustration crosses her otherwise beautiful face.
Wesley makes his own way downstairs before she can chance to look up through the windows and see him. He's not done with her yet - he can't be - but finding out whatever happened to his friend and putting an end to it is a task he triages for later. Right now Connor's the one who has what might prove to be a quite literal deadline.
The sky is darker by the time Wesley emerges at ground level. He casts about, hoping Connor hasn't followed in yet another of his father's footsteps by taking to the sewers. But no: there he is, down on the corner, heading towards a convenience store for what Wesley assumes must be medical supplies.
Wesley thinks he hears thunder as he jogs down the distance between them. Memories flash to him of skies turning to blood. He needs no visions to tell him that Angel and the others won't win their battle. He tells himself they wouldn't have won even if he'd been there, guns and crossbow in hand. He can believe that, because he knows his job is never to win the battles for anyone. What he has a harder time believing is that his absence doesn't affect how painful the fight is, or how deadly.
Even so, the moment is almost there, and soon his turned back won't be the betrayal that any of them care about.
"Connor!"
There's no rehearsed speech. Wesley has nothing prepared. He goes on instinct, willing the tides of Fate to turn towards him, to let his leaf be the one that is picked up by this particular current.
The boy turns on a heel, hands in readiness to attack. When he sees Wesley there is only confusion. "What - "
A metallic taste not unlike the warning of lightening is in Wesley's mouth. The hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. If he feels this, surely Connor does. And if they do, Cordelia must.
"There's no time," Wesley says, the God's honest truth. He looks around, knowing that this part of the prophecy is likely to be self-fulfilling. "Cordelia sent me. Something's happening. We have to prepare."
The request for Connor to help hooks him more than a suggestion of fleeing to safety ever could. However the mention of Cordelia makes him suspicious. "I thought she didn't trust you guys."
"I wasn't a part of that," Wesley says, glad for yet another dose of honesty. He spies a statue of the Virgin Mary across the street. He takes Connor by the forearm, drags him towards it. "Come on."
Connor hangs back, tugging him in the opposite direction. "Cordy's that way."
"There's something that she needs in that church," Wesley says, becoming all forms of kidnapper now: babies, teenagers, there's no limit to the tricks he now knows to deceive and confuse them. "Something that we have to do. *Hurry*."
A crack of thunder spurs them on. Clouds gather above them, looking more ominous than any Los Angeles rainstorm could ever hope to be.
The church doors are locked to them - rather symbolically so, Wesley thinks - but Connor tears through them like wet clay. The metal bars peel back, the doors crash open.
"Let's hope there's no one about to hear that," Wesley comments. He spies a bench, nods in its direction. "Put that across the doors to keep them shut. That one over there as well. There'll be plenty of people trying to crowd in here soon enough, let's not make it easy for them."
Connor drags the stone benches into place. "What about Cordy?"
"This is something we need to do," Wesley says. "A ritual. It can't be interrupted."
"Okay," Connor dusts his hands off. "Now what?"
"Lets find something out of the way," Wesley says.
They climb up to the belltower. Wesley debates the wisdom of this, knowing how likely it is for the bell to be put into use before the hour is out, but the stairs let them out into an attic of sorts. One doorway leads towards the rope for the bell, the other to a stuffy room that is crammed full with used candles, dust covered books, and faded choir robes.
There are windows along the eastern wall, their glass dirty and covered with soot. Connor walks towards them, his reflection staring back at him even as his eyes stare out into the night. "Something's happening. Something big." He turns to Wesley, his blue eyes suddenly possessed of the youth that he is supposed to be. "Something *wrong*."
The first spark of fire falls past the windows. More follow it, their hisses audible even through the cracks of the windowpanes.
"There's something we need to talk about," Wesley moves a stack of prayer books aside and thinks to himself: Shrine.
"Something Cordy wanted us to do," Connor says. The storm outside bathes his skin and hair in an unearthly orange glow. The air around them grows thicker, warmer, and Wesley thinks: Heat.
"Something she wanted *you* to do," Wesley says. "I volunteered to help."
Connor's eyebrows furrow together. "Why?"
"Because - " Wesley takes a breath. The words come to him from somewhere. "Because you've never had a childhood, or family, or friends, or anything that's real. And if this is the end of the world then she - I wanted you to have something that is."
"Really?" Connor asks.
"Really," Wesley says, and thinks: fallen.
"What?" Connor asks.
Wesley steps forward, takes the boy into his arms, kisses him until both of their bodies respond to the stimulation.
And as he fulfills what only he knows was the second half of the prophecy, he thinks to himself: flesh.