FIC: Reflections 7: Reunion 4/4
Author: Trepkos
Pairing: Spike/Riley
Rating: NC17 overall
Standard disclaimer: no profit made, no copyright infringement intended.
Spoilers: None to speak of: except for previous stories in this 'verse.
Feedback: It’s what I live for
Previous parts:
Reflections 1: Down the Rabbit-hole 1/4 2/4 3/4 4/4
Reflections 2: Through the Looking Glass 1/5 2/5 3/5 4/5 5/5
Reflections 3: Sentence First! Verdict afterwards! 1/4 2/4 3/4 4/4
Reflections 4: Where do we go from here? 1/4 2/4 3/4 4/4
Reflections 5: On the Road to Los Angeles 1/4 2/4 3/4 4/4
Reflections 6: The Players Assemble 1/4 2/4 3/4 4/4
Reflections 7: Reunion 1/4 2/4 3/4
Reflections 7: Reunion 4/4
Angel couldn’t remember ever feeling so alone. He stalked through the night, looking a lot more purposeful than he felt, taking side-roads and alleys wherever he could, in the hope of finding some damsel in distress, or even just something to kill.
There was a clatter from behind him, followed by a female voice, uttering an expletive. He turned.
“Lilah,” Angel said blandly. “The two things I most wanted to see: rolled into one.”
“Ooh, cryptic. That’s such a turn-on; you know that, don’t you?”
Angel inhaled deeply and theatrically. “So it seems.”
“Yeah, well, don’t get your hopes up,” she said looking around, suddenly nervous. “You’re not responsible for whatever it is you think you can …”
She shut her mouth firmly, looking deeply annoyed that she’d opened it.
“Was there something specific you wanted, Lilah?” Angel demanded testily. “Or are you just here for a smutty conversation?”
“I just wanted to ask you - do you always give up this easily?”
As usual, Lilah’s attempt at ‘casual’ sounded painfully laboured Like Cordelia on stage.
“Okay,” Angel said snapping his jaws. “I’ll bite. Give up what, exactly?”
“Oh! She’d be cut to the quick if she knew! How soon you forget.” Lilah put a finger to her lips as if in thought. “I’m referring to Darla. You know, Lindsey’s new squeeze?”
“She’ll be the one doing the squeezing,” Angel said coldly. “She’ll have him for breakfast with her croissants,” he added. “Then she’ll come looking for me, when she wants something more …” He sauntered back down the alley the way he’d come, just so as to brush past Lilah as he murmured in her ear: “… substantial.”
Her sharp intake of breath was worth coming out for, all on its own. It would be wonderful just to change: sink his fangs into that swan-white neck. Not that turning her would make a noticeable difference.
He tasted blood; he’d bitten his own lip with a fang. How long had he been in demon-face? He had no idea.
Now that was worrying.
Suppressing it firmly, he walked away.
As he put some space between them, Angel went back over his last few thoughts, if they could be dignified with that title. He often played the ‘dangerous’ card with Lilah; usually that was all it was: play-acting. But during the encounter he’d just had with her, he’d been fully in the moment: got a genuine kick out of his effect on her. There had to be something wrong with that.
Something wrong with him.
A few moments later, without knowing how, but not needing to question why, he was standing outside the door to Wesley’s apartment. He’d never been there before. Sure, he dropped Wes off by the street entrance on occasion, after they’d been battling demons - he just never went inside.
But this was Wesley’s apartment.
Angel could smell him.
He could hear the scratching of Wesley’s pen and the soft sound of ancient pages turning.
It wasn’t good for a body to be alone too much.
Maybe there was one chair left now he couldn’t hear the music playing any more.
He knocked sharply.
~~
Wesley nearly spilled his coffee over the last extant copy of Venn’s Cyclical Codex when he heard the knock on his door. He got to his feet. No one ever knocked on his door.
Who on earth could it be?
Cordelia was out of town, and in any case, she would phone before coming round. That only left Riley: he had a key, but Wesley supposed there was a slight possibility that he’d forgotten it. Not thinking to use the spy-hole, he opened the door.
“Angel ...”
The sight of Angel on the threshold hit him like a physical blow, and his voice came out slightly breathless as he spoke the name, like a prayer. He hadn’t seen Angel since the evening when Spike had arrived; his banishment seemed to have lasted an eternity.
His knees wanted to bend and sink him to the floor.
He felt a terrible fool.
“Wes.”
Angel looked as though he found this encounter equally awkward.
“Good to see you know better than to put out a ‘Welcome’ mat …”
He indicated the unadorned coconut fibre affair on which his feet were still firmly planted, outside the door.
“… but may I …?”
Wesley realised that he was gawping at his employer. “Yes, of course, I invite you in.”
“Thanks Wesley. I appreciate it; though you might want to dis-invite me when I leave.”
“Oh …” Wesley said, pensive. “… I very much doubt that.” He stood back to allow Angel to step inside. “Sorry, can I get you anything? Coffee?”
“Please.”
Angel followed him into the kitchen.
Wesley knew Angel probably didn’t want coffee - he never seemed to drink it when Cordelia made it for him anyway. Nevertheless, he was grateful for something to do with his hands - apart from wring them nervously in front of him - and somewhere to look rather than at his unexpected visitor.
“So - not that I’m displeased to see you - damn!”
A spoon clattered to the floor, and he and Angel bent to retrieve it. Suddenly their faces were three inches apart. Wesley inhaled sharply and averted his eyes, then almost tripped over his own feet in his efforts to rise and move backwards at the same time. Angel waited until Wesley had regained his footing, then held out the spoon to him. Covering his confusion, Wesley took it to the sink and rinsed it as he hurriedly re-embarked on his train of thought; “- but what brings you here?”
“I’m not sure.” Angel glanced around the apartment as though checking for ghosts. “I think I need … guidance. Things have been really weird lately. I keep getting this thing: it’s almost like amnesia, but with the gaps filled in wrong. Like, the other night I -”
He sat down hard on a kitchen chair and put his head in his hands.
“- I came on to Spike.”
Wesley felt faintly sick. Why was Angel telling him this?
“Oh, that’s …”
“I didn’t mean to - but I had this, kind-of like a fake memory that things had gone badly wrong between me and Buffy and -”
“- and Spike just happened to be there,” Wesley finished for him.
‘- and I wasn’t,’ said a resentful little voice in his head.
“Yes. Exactly! It felt like I was primed, or charged up for something - some significant act - and it needed to … I don’t know, go somewhere - get let off - and tried to go down the path of least resistance.”
Angel frowned at himself. “Well, not that I’m saying Spike’s easy … I mean, we didn’t … he …”
Angel looked at his hands and didn’t notice Wesley’s look of mingled confusion and relief.
“I’m not proud of it Wes, and I don’t want to seem like I’m making excuses, but I don’t think I’m quite myself. I wasn’t trying to mess things up for him and Riley; but we have … some history -”
Wesley heaved a deep sigh, but once again, Angel failed to notice anything amiss.
“- and I guess I just lost myself. Then just a while ago, I was seeing fires everywhere, though there weren’t any, and the thought came into my head that Spike was my son - that I was somehow responsible for him … accountable for his behaviour ...”
“Aren’t you?” That sounded spiteful to Wesley’s own ears, so he elaborated - “I mean, in a way: as Drusilla’s sire?”
“You’re right, of course -” Angel looked uncomfortable - “and in more ways than that. But I never think of him like that. I’ll admit to thinking about him a lot of ways, but never as a son.”
“Was there anything else?” Wesley said abruptly, rather hoping that there wasn’t. He went back to the sitting room and Angel got up and trailed along behind him.
“Yes, and this is the worst. I don’t know if it’s connected, but just now, Lilah got in my face. I wasn’t in the mood for it, so I rattled her pretty good. Nothing new there, except that, the thing is, I got an actual kick out of it: I mean, really.” Angel looked extremely concerned as he admitted, “I was imagining myself biting her.”
Wesley focussed on the middle distance. “’Like amnesia but with the gaps filled in wrong,’ was that what you said?”
“Yes, why? Have you heard of this kind of thing? Am I going nuts? You’d tell me if I was, right?”
“Yes …”
“I am going nuts?” Angel looked alarmed. “Or you’d tell me if I was but I’m not?”
“No. No, it’s just that I’ve been experiencing something rather similar myself - like waking dreams. There was one where I was …” he cleared his throat. “Well, I wasn’t in your good graces: far from it. I’d committed some terrible offence: done something unpardonable. I’d stolen something from you - a thing you valued above all others. I don’t know what it was, but I did know that things would never be -”
He paused and swallowed hard.
“- would never be right between us again.”
Angel looked intently at Wesley - really looked at him for the first time that night - but Wesley turned his face away as he went on, “I thought I was just over-tired but if you’ve experienced the phenomenon as well, then perhaps it’s more significant than I first thought.”
“So, have you any idea what might be causing it?” Angel glanced at the books scattered around the desk and spreading onto the floor. “Looks like you’ve been researching something fairly complex.”
Wesley tried to pull himself together: put his Watcher’s head on.
“I can’t tell you much, but all I can say, is that we’re approaching a very critical juncture: a temporal crossroads, if you will, but of much greater significance than the ones we negotiate every day. There are two sets of conflicting predictions - two possible destinies ahead, but also partly behind, like strands crossing and re-crossing. What you and I are seeing or experiencing could well be the consequences of some of the choices we have made, or are yet to make, or even choices we didn’t make but which are still hovering on the verge of possibility.”
He became deadly serious. “I don’t want to alarm you, Angel, but what you do - how you behave, and the choices you make - in the next few days, or even hours, could be absolutely crucial.”
Angel looked almost sorry he’d brought the matter up. “Well, how do I know which is the right thing to do?”
“You don’t. And Angel, I don’t want you to spend the next week trying to second-guess yourself; you must follow your own path. But I do urge you, before acting on any impulses, do think very carefully. Your role in this is pivotal.”
“Let me get this straight.” Angel looked perplexed. “You want me to think carefully before I do anything rash … but then maybe do it anyway?”
“I’m sorry Angel, I don’t have a cut and dried answer for you.”
Wesley shook his head helplessly. If he didn’t have the answers when Angel needed them, what use was he?
“I wish I did. All I know is that these ‘flashes’ or ‘episodes’ if you like - at least the ones I’ve been experiencing - well, what they show seems … somewhat dire. I would prefer to think they could be avoided somehow. I really don’t want -”
He squeezed his eyes tight shut, but was unable to sear an image from his mind: a woman he’d never met before, bound and gagged - by him - and kept locked in a closet. He looked down at his hands and was sure he could see a bloody axe, just hanging in the air waiting for him to grasp it. He felt Angel’s hands around his shoulders, and for an instant jerked away, imagining them to be round his neck.
Angel made him sit down on the armchair, and a few seconds later, he felt a glass being pushed into his hands. Dumbly he took a sip of what he thought would be water, but was in fact whiskey. He choked, and Angel slapped him on the back.
“I don’t remember if that does any good,” Angel said sheepishly.
At last, Wesley felt capable of meeting Angel’s gaze, but Angel wasn’t meeting his. He was looking into some deep, fiery place beyond the stars: some howling void.
“No!” he cried out despairingly, gripping Wesley by the upper arms. “You took him!” he shouted. “Why? Why did you take him?”
“Took who?” Wesley said urgently.
“I don’t know.” Angel shook his head. “I … don’t know.”
He sawed the air with his hands, fending off imaginary opponents. “I have to leave now. I’m sorry. I know you didn’t do anything - yet.”
“Angel, I know this isn’t the right time but if you ever need … what I mean is, I’m your friend, first and foremost. Nothing that happens - or will happen - will ever change that.”
Wesley grasped Angel’s forearm.
“I hope not,” Angel replied grimly, and left, closing the door carefully behind him.
~~
TBC
Pairing: Spike/Riley
Rating: NC17 overall
Standard disclaimer: no profit made, no copyright infringement intended.
Spoilers: None to speak of: except for previous stories in this 'verse.
Feedback: It’s what I live for
Previous parts:
Reflections 1: Down the Rabbit-hole 1/4 2/4 3/4 4/4
Reflections 2: Through the Looking Glass 1/5 2/5 3/5 4/5 5/5
Reflections 3: Sentence First! Verdict afterwards! 1/4 2/4 3/4 4/4
Reflections 4: Where do we go from here? 1/4 2/4 3/4 4/4
Reflections 5: On the Road to Los Angeles 1/4 2/4 3/4 4/4
Reflections 6: The Players Assemble 1/4 2/4 3/4 4/4
Reflections 7: Reunion 1/4 2/4 3/4
Reflections 7: Reunion 4/4
Angel couldn’t remember ever feeling so alone. He stalked through the night, looking a lot more purposeful than he felt, taking side-roads and alleys wherever he could, in the hope of finding some damsel in distress, or even just something to kill.
There was a clatter from behind him, followed by a female voice, uttering an expletive. He turned.
“Lilah,” Angel said blandly. “The two things I most wanted to see: rolled into one.”
“Ooh, cryptic. That’s such a turn-on; you know that, don’t you?”
Angel inhaled deeply and theatrically. “So it seems.”
“Yeah, well, don’t get your hopes up,” she said looking around, suddenly nervous. “You’re not responsible for whatever it is you think you can …”
She shut her mouth firmly, looking deeply annoyed that she’d opened it.
“Was there something specific you wanted, Lilah?” Angel demanded testily. “Or are you just here for a smutty conversation?”
“I just wanted to ask you - do you always give up this easily?”
As usual, Lilah’s attempt at ‘casual’ sounded painfully laboured Like Cordelia on stage.
“Okay,” Angel said snapping his jaws. “I’ll bite. Give up what, exactly?”
“Oh! She’d be cut to the quick if she knew! How soon you forget.” Lilah put a finger to her lips as if in thought. “I’m referring to Darla. You know, Lindsey’s new squeeze?”
“She’ll be the one doing the squeezing,” Angel said coldly. “She’ll have him for breakfast with her croissants,” he added. “Then she’ll come looking for me, when she wants something more …” He sauntered back down the alley the way he’d come, just so as to brush past Lilah as he murmured in her ear: “… substantial.”
Her sharp intake of breath was worth coming out for, all on its own. It would be wonderful just to change: sink his fangs into that swan-white neck. Not that turning her would make a noticeable difference.
He tasted blood; he’d bitten his own lip with a fang. How long had he been in demon-face? He had no idea.
Now that was worrying.
Suppressing it firmly, he walked away.
As he put some space between them, Angel went back over his last few thoughts, if they could be dignified with that title. He often played the ‘dangerous’ card with Lilah; usually that was all it was: play-acting. But during the encounter he’d just had with her, he’d been fully in the moment: got a genuine kick out of his effect on her. There had to be something wrong with that.
Something wrong with him.
A few moments later, without knowing how, but not needing to question why, he was standing outside the door to Wesley’s apartment. He’d never been there before. Sure, he dropped Wes off by the street entrance on occasion, after they’d been battling demons - he just never went inside.
But this was Wesley’s apartment.
Angel could smell him.
He could hear the scratching of Wesley’s pen and the soft sound of ancient pages turning.
It wasn’t good for a body to be alone too much.
Maybe there was one chair left now he couldn’t hear the music playing any more.
He knocked sharply.
~~
Wesley nearly spilled his coffee over the last extant copy of Venn’s Cyclical Codex when he heard the knock on his door. He got to his feet. No one ever knocked on his door.
Who on earth could it be?
Cordelia was out of town, and in any case, she would phone before coming round. That only left Riley: he had a key, but Wesley supposed there was a slight possibility that he’d forgotten it. Not thinking to use the spy-hole, he opened the door.
“Angel ...”
The sight of Angel on the threshold hit him like a physical blow, and his voice came out slightly breathless as he spoke the name, like a prayer. He hadn’t seen Angel since the evening when Spike had arrived; his banishment seemed to have lasted an eternity.
His knees wanted to bend and sink him to the floor.
He felt a terrible fool.
“Wes.”
Angel looked as though he found this encounter equally awkward.
“Good to see you know better than to put out a ‘Welcome’ mat …”
He indicated the unadorned coconut fibre affair on which his feet were still firmly planted, outside the door.
“… but may I …?”
Wesley realised that he was gawping at his employer. “Yes, of course, I invite you in.”
“Thanks Wesley. I appreciate it; though you might want to dis-invite me when I leave.”
“Oh …” Wesley said, pensive. “… I very much doubt that.” He stood back to allow Angel to step inside. “Sorry, can I get you anything? Coffee?”
“Please.”
Angel followed him into the kitchen.
Wesley knew Angel probably didn’t want coffee - he never seemed to drink it when Cordelia made it for him anyway. Nevertheless, he was grateful for something to do with his hands - apart from wring them nervously in front of him - and somewhere to look rather than at his unexpected visitor.
“So - not that I’m displeased to see you - damn!”
A spoon clattered to the floor, and he and Angel bent to retrieve it. Suddenly their faces were three inches apart. Wesley inhaled sharply and averted his eyes, then almost tripped over his own feet in his efforts to rise and move backwards at the same time. Angel waited until Wesley had regained his footing, then held out the spoon to him. Covering his confusion, Wesley took it to the sink and rinsed it as he hurriedly re-embarked on his train of thought; “- but what brings you here?”
“I’m not sure.” Angel glanced around the apartment as though checking for ghosts. “I think I need … guidance. Things have been really weird lately. I keep getting this thing: it’s almost like amnesia, but with the gaps filled in wrong. Like, the other night I -”
He sat down hard on a kitchen chair and put his head in his hands.
“- I came on to Spike.”
Wesley felt faintly sick. Why was Angel telling him this?
“Oh, that’s …”
“I didn’t mean to - but I had this, kind-of like a fake memory that things had gone badly wrong between me and Buffy and -”
“- and Spike just happened to be there,” Wesley finished for him.
‘- and I wasn’t,’ said a resentful little voice in his head.
“Yes. Exactly! It felt like I was primed, or charged up for something - some significant act - and it needed to … I don’t know, go somewhere - get let off - and tried to go down the path of least resistance.”
Angel frowned at himself. “Well, not that I’m saying Spike’s easy … I mean, we didn’t … he …”
Angel looked at his hands and didn’t notice Wesley’s look of mingled confusion and relief.
“I’m not proud of it Wes, and I don’t want to seem like I’m making excuses, but I don’t think I’m quite myself. I wasn’t trying to mess things up for him and Riley; but we have … some history -”
Wesley heaved a deep sigh, but once again, Angel failed to notice anything amiss.
“- and I guess I just lost myself. Then just a while ago, I was seeing fires everywhere, though there weren’t any, and the thought came into my head that Spike was my son - that I was somehow responsible for him … accountable for his behaviour ...”
“Aren’t you?” That sounded spiteful to Wesley’s own ears, so he elaborated - “I mean, in a way: as Drusilla’s sire?”
“You’re right, of course -” Angel looked uncomfortable - “and in more ways than that. But I never think of him like that. I’ll admit to thinking about him a lot of ways, but never as a son.”
“Was there anything else?” Wesley said abruptly, rather hoping that there wasn’t. He went back to the sitting room and Angel got up and trailed along behind him.
“Yes, and this is the worst. I don’t know if it’s connected, but just now, Lilah got in my face. I wasn’t in the mood for it, so I rattled her pretty good. Nothing new there, except that, the thing is, I got an actual kick out of it: I mean, really.” Angel looked extremely concerned as he admitted, “I was imagining myself biting her.”
Wesley focussed on the middle distance. “’Like amnesia but with the gaps filled in wrong,’ was that what you said?”
“Yes, why? Have you heard of this kind of thing? Am I going nuts? You’d tell me if I was, right?”
“Yes …”
“I am going nuts?” Angel looked alarmed. “Or you’d tell me if I was but I’m not?”
“No. No, it’s just that I’ve been experiencing something rather similar myself - like waking dreams. There was one where I was …” he cleared his throat. “Well, I wasn’t in your good graces: far from it. I’d committed some terrible offence: done something unpardonable. I’d stolen something from you - a thing you valued above all others. I don’t know what it was, but I did know that things would never be -”
He paused and swallowed hard.
“- would never be right between us again.”
Angel looked intently at Wesley - really looked at him for the first time that night - but Wesley turned his face away as he went on, “I thought I was just over-tired but if you’ve experienced the phenomenon as well, then perhaps it’s more significant than I first thought.”
“So, have you any idea what might be causing it?” Angel glanced at the books scattered around the desk and spreading onto the floor. “Looks like you’ve been researching something fairly complex.”
Wesley tried to pull himself together: put his Watcher’s head on.
“I can’t tell you much, but all I can say, is that we’re approaching a very critical juncture: a temporal crossroads, if you will, but of much greater significance than the ones we negotiate every day. There are two sets of conflicting predictions - two possible destinies ahead, but also partly behind, like strands crossing and re-crossing. What you and I are seeing or experiencing could well be the consequences of some of the choices we have made, or are yet to make, or even choices we didn’t make but which are still hovering on the verge of possibility.”
He became deadly serious. “I don’t want to alarm you, Angel, but what you do - how you behave, and the choices you make - in the next few days, or even hours, could be absolutely crucial.”
Angel looked almost sorry he’d brought the matter up. “Well, how do I know which is the right thing to do?”
“You don’t. And Angel, I don’t want you to spend the next week trying to second-guess yourself; you must follow your own path. But I do urge you, before acting on any impulses, do think very carefully. Your role in this is pivotal.”
“Let me get this straight.” Angel looked perplexed. “You want me to think carefully before I do anything rash … but then maybe do it anyway?”
“I’m sorry Angel, I don’t have a cut and dried answer for you.”
Wesley shook his head helplessly. If he didn’t have the answers when Angel needed them, what use was he?
“I wish I did. All I know is that these ‘flashes’ or ‘episodes’ if you like - at least the ones I’ve been experiencing - well, what they show seems … somewhat dire. I would prefer to think they could be avoided somehow. I really don’t want -”
He squeezed his eyes tight shut, but was unable to sear an image from his mind: a woman he’d never met before, bound and gagged - by him - and kept locked in a closet. He looked down at his hands and was sure he could see a bloody axe, just hanging in the air waiting for him to grasp it. He felt Angel’s hands around his shoulders, and for an instant jerked away, imagining them to be round his neck.
Angel made him sit down on the armchair, and a few seconds later, he felt a glass being pushed into his hands. Dumbly he took a sip of what he thought would be water, but was in fact whiskey. He choked, and Angel slapped him on the back.
“I don’t remember if that does any good,” Angel said sheepishly.
At last, Wesley felt capable of meeting Angel’s gaze, but Angel wasn’t meeting his. He was looking into some deep, fiery place beyond the stars: some howling void.
“No!” he cried out despairingly, gripping Wesley by the upper arms. “You took him!” he shouted. “Why? Why did you take him?”
“Took who?” Wesley said urgently.
“I don’t know.” Angel shook his head. “I … don’t know.”
He sawed the air with his hands, fending off imaginary opponents. “I have to leave now. I’m sorry. I know you didn’t do anything - yet.”
“Angel, I know this isn’t the right time but if you ever need … what I mean is, I’m your friend, first and foremost. Nothing that happens - or will happen - will ever change that.”
Wesley grasped Angel’s forearm.
“I hope not,” Angel replied grimly, and left, closing the door carefully behind him.
~~
TBC