As he and Rupert began researching the markings together, Wesley found himself finally beginning to relax a bit. Despite the way things had started between them in Sunnydale, they had come to do well researching together, and it had become a comfortable thing between them. Of course, it had often led to other things between them...or not between as the case might have been, but still, researching with Rupert had been something Wesley had most enjoyed about his work with the Scoobies, and it was nice to be able to do it again.
While Rupert started reading through what he had called up in a source book, Wesley called up another text and set to work himself, settling on the couch next to his lover. The first text didn't seem to be of any use, though, so he was considering another book to call up when suddenly the door opened, and his father walked in, giving them a disapproving look as he announced that he was there to help.
His neck muscles starting to bunch again, Wesley pursed his lips together as he looked up at him. "We're doing fine on our own, thank you, Father," he told him. Closing the book in his lap, he raised it up to his lips. "The Saitama Codex." When he opened it back up as the text inside changed over, he could see his father inching over out of the corner of his eye.
"What did you just do?"
"These are source books, uh, templates," he told him. "Um, I use them to call forth material in our archives.
"So, you can simply call forth anything as powerful as the Saitama Codex?"
He could feel the tenseness in his neck starting to spread to his head. "Yeah, the archive is extensive. We have, well, almost any text you can think of."
"Do you realize how dangerous these books are?" his father asked. "And you have them displayed...open on a table."
Wesley wanted to hit back with a sarcastic comment but bit his tongue. "The most powerful items in my department I keep secure in a vault." He looked over at Rupert. "I know what I'm doing, father."
Giles wonder if Roger remembered anything he'd said to him earlier about leaving Wesley alone. It didn't seem like he did considering he was now standing in Wesley's office, badgering him about his source books. Roger was lucky his son was in the room also, or Giles wouldn't thrown him out the window.
"Roger..." he started.
The older man looked at him and raised his eyebrows. "Ah, yes, Rupert, I forgot to give you a message. The blonde out front said you had a message from Buffy's little sister. What is her name? You know, the one that was made and should've been killed but you were too attached to do so."
Giles' fists clenched at his side and he lowered his gaze. "Her name is Dawn. And if you ever speak of in that manner again, I will send you out the bleeding window!" he growled before looking at Wesley. "I need to see what she needs. I promised she could call me if she needed anything."
He leaned over and softly kissed Wesley on the cheek, not caring if Roger was there and quickly left the room. Giles was almost to the front desk when several men, dressed in black, rushed the lobby. His first instinct was to go back to Wesley's office but one of the men cornered him and the only option he had was to fight.
When his father suddenly conveniently recalled that he had a message to give Rupert, Wesley narrowed his eyes, wondering what he was up to. Roger Wyndam-Pryce didn't forget anything. Either he had purposely decided to wait to give the message or was making it up, he wasn't sure which. He kept his mouth shut until Rupert had left the room, leaning into his lover's kiss on his cheek.
Before he could say anything to his father, however, he was going on about the lock on his vault.
"I sure you, Father, that--."
He wasn't able to finish because at that moment, the lights went out in the office and an alarm began sounding. Wesley immediately rushed toward the door to find out what was going on.
"Does this sort of thing happen often around here?" his father asked.
"I think we should--DOWN!" he yelled when he saw the figure coming in through the door to his office.
As his father dropped, he grabbed a sword from nearby and thrust at the man...who reached out and pushed him across the room as though he were a rag doll. Falling to the floor, he watched as the intruder walked over to his table of books. He quickly threw his sword to his father, who was standing up, and grabbed another weapon, running over to help him, stabbing the intruder in the arm and knocking him down. He had just noticed what looked to be wiring and electrical nodules under the skin he had sliced open when his father started in on him.
"What do you think you're doing? I had attack priority."
"We're not fencing!" He couldn't believe his father was making a scene when this was going on!
"We still follow the basic rules."
The cyborg began to stand, so Wesley grabbed the sword from his father and thrust it into its gut. It sparked and fell over, lying still.
"There could be more of them in the building," he said, looking down at it in amazement. What the bloody hell was going on? "We should get moving."
"That thing went straight for the templates when he burst into the room. You can't leave them like that."
Wesley looked over, realizing he was right. "Grab the books."
Once they were inside the vault with the books, Wesley pulled out his keys and opened a compartment to place the books into. Just as he was turning to his father, however, he saw the butt of a gun coming toward him, and a moment later, everything went dark.
The cyborg was strong and when it hit Giles, it hurt. "Bloody hell," he mutter as blood filled his mouth. He hit the cyborg and it stumbled back but then lunged at him again.
"Giles! Catch!" Angel yelled as he tossed a sword at him.
Giles caught it with one hand and impaled the cyborg. He blinked when sparks started to fly out from it. He pushed it over, and turned to go back to Wesley's office when another cyborg attacked him, pushing him out into the main lobby. There was mass chaos and it seemed no one knew what was going on.
He didn't know how long he had been fighting the cyborgs off, but suddenly the fighting died down. Giles turned to go down to check on Wesley when he ran into Fred. "Have you see Wesley?" he asked as he licked the blood off his busted lip.
"I just saw his dad a little bit ago and he said Wesley went up onto the roof. There's more up there," she said. "Roger and Angel went up there to help."
"Thank you, Fred," Giles said as he gripped the sword in his hand and went toward the stairs to the roof.
Groaning, he slowly opened his eyes and pushed himself up off the floor. His father. His father had hit him with a gun! Looking around, everything in the vault seemed untouched, but something was going on, and he didn't have time to go searching through every compartment. He went out to his office, where he found the cyborg still active. Quickly, he dealt with him, threatening to blow him up with the building to find out what he father was up to.
When he told him, Wesley growled and deactivated him before running to his desk and pulling out the gun he kept there. Running out of the office, he looked around for a moment, then headed toward the stairwell, leading to the roof.
His father was planning on taking Angel.
"Wesley!" Fred's voice called out. "I thought you were up on the roof! Your father..."
"My father is in on all this," he told her tightly. "Where's Rupert? Have you seen him?"
"He went up to the roof too because he thought you were up there!"
Growling, Wesley put on a burst of speed as Fred ran up the stairs behind him.
When Giles got up onto the roof, he didn't find Wesley. All he found was Roger, with some sort of magical device, and Angel lying on the roof. What in the bloody hell was going on? "Where's Wesley?" he growled as he lowered his gaze at Roger. "And what are you doing to Angel? Did you have something to do with this, Roger?"
"What do you think, Rupert? Do you really think I would come all the way to Los Angeles just to see my pathetic excuse of a son?" Roger asked with a bitter laugh. "And why should you care? You hate Angel as much as I do, or have you forgotten what he did to Jenny Calendar?"
Giles growled and moved toward Roger but stopped when he pulled out a gun. Giles wasn't armed so he took a step back. "Perhaps Angel and I don't see eye-to-eye about things but that doesn't mean I want to hurt him." He looked at the device in Roger's hand and finally saw what it was. "You're trying to take his will away? You want him to become your slave? What in the bleeding hell is the Council doing?"
"Do you really think the Council is this smart?" Roger asked as the roof door opened again.
When Wesley reached the roof and opened the door, Wesley found Rupert there along with Angel and his father...holding what he immediately recognized as the Staff of Devosynn. From the way Angel was grunting on the ground, he immediately knew whom the wand had been on. Levelling his gun, he stepped out onto the roof.
"Put that down and let them go," he told his father.
The older man shook his head. "Walk away from this, Wesley. You and Rupert. You'll never understand what we're trying to do here."
"You're using the staff to take Angel's will, make him your slave. Your cyborgs panic a bit too easily."
If the fact that he had gotten the information surprised his father, he didn't show it. "That creature is more dangerous to mankind than you realize. He's a puppet. He always has been. To the Powers That Be, to Wolfram and Hart. Now he's ours."
"You went to a lot of trouble to get this staff," Wesley said, noticing Fred sneaking around on the other side of his father. He hadn't seemed to notice her - not until she grabbed the staff from him and threw it to Wesley.
Immediately, his father reacted, reaching out and grabbing Fred's arm. She let out a squeak of surprise and started struggling. "Give that back!"
"Let her go," Wesley hissed, moving forward and holding the staff up as a helicopter appeared overhead. "Otherwise, I'll drop this. The crystal shatters, and Angel is restored. So I reckon whether I live or die, your plan has failed."
"What if I just shoot her?" he said, raising the gun up to Fred's head. Before Wesley could say anything, he started swinging the gun again. "Or what if I shoot him instead?"
As the gun turned toward Rupert, Wesley suddenly started firing, unloading nine shots into his father. A moment later, Roger Wyndam-Pryce fell to the ground, quite obviously dead. As the helicopter quickly flew off, Wesley took a few steps forward, staring at what he had done.
Then he turned and stumbled over to the edge of the roof, where he threw up.
Giles was readying himself to attack Roger when Wesley and Fred ran out onto the roof. He stood completely still as he listened to Roger and Wesley speak, and out of the corner of his eye, he could see Fred was sneaking around to grab the staff. He reached forward at the same time Fred did, but she was quicker and soon the staff was in Wesley’s possession.
Before he could react, Roger had grabbed Fred and was pointing the gun at her head. Giles was ready to move when suddenly, in a blur, Wesley was firing off his gun. Soon, Roger fell to the rooftop, which caused Fred to stumble into Giles’ arms. With his arms wrapped around Fred, Giles watched his lover stumble off, and vomit.
“Wes--”
Before he could finish though, Fred and he looked down and noticed Roger’s skin was melting away to reveal several circuits. It really wasn’t Roger - it was a cyborg. “Wesley,” Giles said as he released Fred so she could check on Angel. He jogged over to the other man and grabbed his arms. “It wasn’t your father, love. It’s all right.”
He pulled Wesley against him. Perhaps it wasn’t really Roger, but Giles could feel how upset Wesley really was.
When Wesley felt Rupert's arms wrap around him, he let his lover pull him against him. He embraced him fiercely, holding him tight, feeling his throat ache and tears running down his face. It hadn't been his father? The...the man who had spent the last day making him remember all those years of feeling worthless, trying to shame him for his relationship for Rupert...it hadn't been him?
But it had felt like him. The voice. The walk. The eyes. The expressions. It had seemed like him. Wesley had thought he was dealing with his own father.
"I thought it was him. And I shot him," he managed to choke out. "He was going to kill you, so I shot him. I couldn't let him hurt you. I couldn't let him take you away from me again."
He looked up into his lover's eyes, wanting this to be a bad dream even if he hadn't really shot his father but some electronic facsimile.
"It doesn't matter that it's not really him. I thought I was killing him."
“Shhh. It’s all right, love,” Giles said as he held Wesley tighter. “We all thought it was Roger.” Even him. Whoever had made the cyborg was rather good and it made Giles wonder if it was someone from the Council.
Pulling back, he used his thumbs to wipe the tears from Wesley’s eyes. “You didn’t know. You were protecting me and Fred. You were doing what was right. I know it hurts, but you were doing what needed to be done.”
Giles wished there was more he could say. He couldn’t imagine shooting his own father, and didn’t know what else he could say to make Wesley feel better. Turning his head, he noticed Fred was helping Angel back inside the building. “Lets get you inside also. I’ll have Fred sent someone from her lab to get the cyborg,” he quietly said.
He took Wesley’s hand and led him through the door, making sure he didn’t look at the cyborg. Power had been restored to the building so Giles took Wesley to the lift, and when the door slid closed, he looked over at his lover. “Come here,” he whispered as he pulled him into another embrace.
As numbness spread through his body, Wesley let Rupert take his hand and lead him into the building. He felt as robotic as those cyborgs. Cyborgs. His father...or the man he had thought his father had been a cyborg. How? Where? Why?
He had thought he had been killing his father. He had pulled the trigger without hesitation - all to save Rupert and Fred. Mainly Rupert. He had seen that gun swing toward him, and all he had been able to think of was that he couldn't let him die. He would never let anyone take him away from him again, especially not his own father.
And now...
He didn't even now what he was feeling. Relief that he hadn't actually killed his father? Relief that Rupert and Fred were all right? Thankfulness that Rupert was there? His mind was numb and whirling in uncertainty at the same time, and he didn't know what to do.
He had thought he was killing his father.
When they were in the elevator and Rupert put his arms around him again, suddenly everything snapped in Wesley. Everything that had been building up in him all day, everything that had happened on the roof - all the guilt, fear, disgust, sadness, loss, the feelings of inadequacy--it all came out in a rush as he pressed his face against Rupert's shoulder and began crying.
"I want to go home," he whispered. "Please take me home."
When Wesley collapsed in his arms, Giles tightened his grip on his lover. "I'll take you home, love," he whispered. When the door of the lift slid open, Giles walked Wesley out and let out a sigh of relief when no one was there. "Come on."
He walked Wesley through the building, making sure to stop by his office to pick up his things. They were almost to the lift to the underground garage when Fred walked up to them. "How are you two doing?" she asked, giving them both a concerned.
"I think we're doing all right," Giles answered as he kept a hold on Wesley. "How are you?"
"I'm doing okay. A little out of sorts but I think after a good night sleep, I should be okay," she said with a small smile. "Are you two going home?"
"I think we are, yes," Giles said as he looked over at Wesley.
While Rupert started reading through what he had called up in a source book, Wesley called up another text and set to work himself, settling on the couch next to his lover. The first text didn't seem to be of any use, though, so he was considering another book to call up when suddenly the door opened, and his father walked in, giving them a disapproving look as he announced that he was there to help.
His neck muscles starting to bunch again, Wesley pursed his lips together as he looked up at him. "We're doing fine on our own, thank you, Father," he told him. Closing the book in his lap, he raised it up to his lips. "The Saitama Codex." When he opened it back up as the text inside changed over, he could see his father inching over out of the corner of his eye.
"What did you just do?"
"These are source books, uh, templates," he told him. "Um, I use them to call forth material in our archives.
"So, you can simply call forth anything as powerful as the Saitama Codex?"
He could feel the tenseness in his neck starting to spread to his head. "Yeah, the archive is extensive. We have, well, almost any text you can think of."
"Do you realize how dangerous these books are?" his father asked. "And you have them displayed...open on a table."
Wesley wanted to hit back with a sarcastic comment but bit his tongue. "The most powerful items in my department I keep secure in a vault." He looked over at Rupert. "I know what I'm doing, father."
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"Roger..." he started.
The older man looked at him and raised his eyebrows. "Ah, yes, Rupert, I forgot to give you a message. The blonde out front said you had a message from Buffy's little sister. What is her name? You know, the one that was made and should've been killed but you were too attached to do so."
Giles' fists clenched at his side and he lowered his gaze. "Her name is Dawn. And if you ever speak of in that manner again, I will send you out the bleeding window!" he growled before looking at Wesley. "I need to see what she needs. I promised she could call me if she needed anything."
He leaned over and softly kissed Wesley on the cheek, not caring if Roger was there and quickly left the room. Giles was almost to the front desk when several men, dressed in black, rushed the lobby. His first instinct was to go back to Wesley's office but one of the men cornered him and the only option he had was to fight.
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Before he could say anything to his father, however, he was going on about the lock on his vault.
"I sure you, Father, that--."
He wasn't able to finish because at that moment, the lights went out in the office and an alarm began sounding. Wesley immediately rushed toward the door to find out what was going on.
"Does this sort of thing happen often around here?" his father asked.
"I think we should--DOWN!" he yelled when he saw the figure coming in through the door to his office.
As his father dropped, he grabbed a sword from nearby and thrust at the man...who reached out and pushed him across the room as though he were a rag doll. Falling to the floor, he watched as the intruder walked over to his table of books. He quickly threw his sword to his father, who was standing up, and grabbed another weapon, running over to help him, stabbing the intruder in the arm and knocking him down. He had just noticed what looked to be wiring and electrical nodules under the skin he had sliced open when his father started in on him.
"What do you think you're doing? I had attack priority."
"We're not fencing!" He couldn't believe his father was making a scene when this was going on!
"We still follow the basic rules."
The cyborg began to stand, so Wesley grabbed the sword from his father and thrust it into its gut. It sparked and fell over, lying still.
"There could be more of them in the building," he said, looking down at it in amazement. What the bloody hell was going on? "We should get moving."
"That thing went straight for the templates when he burst into the room. You can't leave them like that."
Wesley looked over, realizing he was right. "Grab the books."
Once they were inside the vault with the books, Wesley pulled out his keys and opened a compartment to place the books into. Just as he was turning to his father, however, he saw the butt of a gun coming toward him, and a moment later, everything went dark.
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"Giles! Catch!" Angel yelled as he tossed a sword at him.
Giles caught it with one hand and impaled the cyborg. He blinked when sparks started to fly out from it. He pushed it over, and turned to go back to Wesley's office when another cyborg attacked him, pushing him out into the main lobby. There was mass chaos and it seemed no one knew what was going on.
He didn't know how long he had been fighting the cyborgs off, but suddenly the fighting died down. Giles turned to go down to check on Wesley when he ran into Fred. "Have you see Wesley?" he asked as he licked the blood off his busted lip.
"I just saw his dad a little bit ago and he said Wesley went up onto the roof. There's more up there," she said. "Roger and Angel went up there to help."
"Thank you, Fred," Giles said as he gripped the sword in his hand and went toward the stairs to the roof.
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Groaning, he slowly opened his eyes and pushed himself up off the floor. His father. His father had hit him with a gun! Looking around, everything in the vault seemed untouched, but something was going on, and he didn't have time to go searching through every compartment. He went out to his office, where he found the cyborg still active. Quickly, he dealt with him, threatening to blow him up with the building to find out what he father was up to.
When he told him, Wesley growled and deactivated him before running to his desk and pulling out the gun he kept there. Running out of the office, he looked around for a moment, then headed toward the stairwell, leading to the roof.
His father was planning on taking Angel.
"Wesley!" Fred's voice called out. "I thought you were up on the roof! Your father..."
"My father is in on all this," he told her tightly. "Where's Rupert? Have you seen him?"
"He went up to the roof too because he thought you were up there!"
Growling, Wesley put on a burst of speed as Fred ran up the stairs behind him.
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"What do you think, Rupert? Do you really think I would come all the way to Los Angeles just to see my pathetic excuse of a son?" Roger asked with a bitter laugh. "And why should you care? You hate Angel as much as I do, or have you forgotten what he did to Jenny Calendar?"
Giles growled and moved toward Roger but stopped when he pulled out a gun. Giles wasn't armed so he took a step back. "Perhaps Angel and I don't see eye-to-eye about things but that doesn't mean I want to hurt him." He looked at the device in Roger's hand and finally saw what it was. "You're trying to take his will away? You want him to become your slave? What in the bleeding hell is the Council doing?"
"Do you really think the Council is this smart?" Roger asked as the roof door opened again.
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"Put that down and let them go," he told his father.
The older man shook his head. "Walk away from this, Wesley. You and Rupert. You'll never understand what we're trying to do here."
"You're using the staff to take Angel's will, make him your slave. Your cyborgs panic a bit too easily."
If the fact that he had gotten the information surprised his father, he didn't show it. "That creature is more dangerous to mankind than you realize. He's a puppet. He always has been. To the Powers That Be, to Wolfram and Hart. Now he's ours."
"You went to a lot of trouble to get this staff," Wesley said, noticing Fred sneaking around on the other side of his father. He hadn't seemed to notice her - not until she grabbed the staff from him and threw it to Wesley.
Immediately, his father reacted, reaching out and grabbing Fred's arm. She let out a squeak of surprise and started struggling. "Give that back!"
"Let her go," Wesley hissed, moving forward and holding the staff up as a helicopter appeared overhead. "Otherwise, I'll drop this. The crystal shatters, and Angel is restored. So I reckon whether I live or die, your plan has failed."
"What if I just shoot her?" he said, raising the gun up to Fred's head. Before Wesley could say anything, he started swinging the gun again. "Or what if I shoot him instead?"
As the gun turned toward Rupert, Wesley suddenly started firing, unloading nine shots into his father. A moment later, Roger Wyndam-Pryce fell to the ground, quite obviously dead. As the helicopter quickly flew off, Wesley took a few steps forward, staring at what he had done.
Then he turned and stumbled over to the edge of the roof, where he threw up.
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Before he could react, Roger had grabbed Fred and was pointing the gun at her head. Giles was ready to move when suddenly, in a blur, Wesley was firing off his gun. Soon, Roger fell to the rooftop, which caused Fred to stumble into Giles’ arms. With his arms wrapped around Fred, Giles watched his lover stumble off, and vomit.
“Wes--”
Before he could finish though, Fred and he looked down and noticed Roger’s skin was melting away to reveal several circuits. It really wasn’t Roger - it was a cyborg. “Wesley,” Giles said as he released Fred so she could check on Angel. He jogged over to the other man and grabbed his arms. “It wasn’t your father, love. It’s all right.”
He pulled Wesley against him. Perhaps it wasn’t really Roger, but Giles could feel how upset Wesley really was.
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But it had felt like him. The voice. The walk. The eyes. The expressions. It had seemed like him. Wesley had thought he was dealing with his own father.
"I thought it was him. And I shot him," he managed to choke out. "He was going to kill you, so I shot him. I couldn't let him hurt you. I couldn't let him take you away from me again."
He looked up into his lover's eyes, wanting this to be a bad dream even if he hadn't really shot his father but some electronic facsimile.
"It doesn't matter that it's not really him. I thought I was killing him."
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Pulling back, he used his thumbs to wipe the tears from Wesley’s eyes. “You didn’t know. You were protecting me and Fred. You were doing what was right. I know it hurts, but you were doing what needed to be done.”
Giles wished there was more he could say. He couldn’t imagine shooting his own father, and didn’t know what else he could say to make Wesley feel better. Turning his head, he noticed Fred was helping Angel back inside the building. “Lets get you inside also. I’ll have Fred sent someone from her lab to get the cyborg,” he quietly said.
He took Wesley’s hand and led him through the door, making sure he didn’t look at the cyborg. Power had been restored to the building so Giles took Wesley to the lift, and when the door slid closed, he looked over at his lover. “Come here,” he whispered as he pulled him into another embrace.
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He had thought he had been killing his father. He had pulled the trigger without hesitation - all to save Rupert and Fred. Mainly Rupert. He had seen that gun swing toward him, and all he had been able to think of was that he couldn't let him die. He would never let anyone take him away from him again, especially not his own father.
And now...
He didn't even now what he was feeling. Relief that he hadn't actually killed his father? Relief that Rupert and Fred were all right? Thankfulness that Rupert was there? His mind was numb and whirling in uncertainty at the same time, and he didn't know what to do.
He had thought he was killing his father.
When they were in the elevator and Rupert put his arms around him again, suddenly everything snapped in Wesley. Everything that had been building up in him all day, everything that had happened on the roof - all the guilt, fear, disgust, sadness, loss, the feelings of inadequacy--it all came out in a rush as he pressed his face against Rupert's shoulder and began crying.
"I want to go home," he whispered. "Please take me home."
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He walked Wesley through the building, making sure to stop by his office to pick up his things. They were almost to the lift to the underground garage when Fred walked up to them. "How are you two doing?" she asked, giving them both a concerned.
"I think we're doing all right," Giles answered as he kept a hold on Wesley. "How are you?"
"I'm doing okay. A little out of sorts but I think after a good night sleep, I should be okay," she said with a small smile. "Are you two going home?"
"I think we are, yes," Giles said as he looked over at Wesley.
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