Fic - Brother of the Sword - Part 3/?
Title: Brothers of the Sword - Part 3/?
Authors: hotspur18 and quoshara
Pairing: Wesley and Xander
Rating: G
Summary: Airport layovers can bring unexpected results.
Wes -
I suppose it had been remarkably shortsighted of me to assume that Xander would know the full details of what the reconstituted Council had been up to, but at the same time, I had also assumed that the same process of endless paperwork had been adhered to. Then again, that had always been something which Giles had shown remarkable skill at avoiding, so perhaps it was not so surprising, but even so...
Perhaps we hadn't mattered all that much, in the end. If our world went to hell - any hell - what possible importance could that have upon what they were trying to achieve? We all did our best to keep the world safe - was it really so shocking that at times that included 'from one another'?
And besides. Besides, besides, how would a man tracking down Potentials in Africa have needed to know about the really quite unimportant misery of those who could quite legitimately be perceived as having given up fighting the good fight?
My irrationality, it seemed, could even last beyond the grave.
The thing was...it hadn't been merely a private unhappiness, or one of what I had learned to think of as a 'smaller apocalypse', centered solely around Angel and the rest of us. It had been something that had led to an altogether larger encounter - something that should, at the very least, have resulted in a pooling of information.
One of the old warrior Gods now walked the earth, trapped here for the foreseeable future. Another Hellmouth had damn near opened in a permanent way. People had died, trying to do the right thing - or were willing to. The losses were as grave on our side as they had been on that of those who had so quickly disowned us, and damn it, but yes. Yes, that did matter. It should matter.
If those who fought and died for the cause that was, after all, the only thing we all had in common, were not mourned - then how could they be remembered? How could the part they had played be honoured?
Had Giles's dismissal of our needs gone so far as to forget even the necessity of remembrance? Damn paperwork and all its accepted irrelevancy, that should have been one thing even he could not eradicate from his training.
No wonder, I reflected, that Xander felt himself unsuited to this work. So had Angel, and Gunn, and Cordelia, and even I, electing to fight instead on grounds of our own time and choosing. So, long ago, had Giles, before fate placed him in a position where he no longer had the freedom to choose his battles.
What was a revelation to me, however, was obviously not one for Xander, who was still utterly perplexed, frowning at me with an expression that said quite clearly how woefully inadequate any information I had given him had been up to this point.
It was one thing to absolve him of any involvement with the whole mess. It was quite another to realize that he was also ignorant of anything that had transpired.
I could only tell him those things which had been important to me. Not, perhaps, to the grand and overall scheme of things, to whatever great destiny or fate was being laid out for us with each new addition to our lives in LA during that time, but what had mattered to me, then and there, and caused my deliberate disappearance on my return.
With all my attempts at detachment, I could not begin where I should. There was only one thing that had governed my decisions then, and for me, that was the start of it all.
"I loved Fred, you see - I'm sure Willow spoke of her. And - she loved me back. And then..." Well. And then. That was the real thing, all wishing and emotions aside, the and then..."She touched something she shouldn't have, and she - she got used as a shell. By a warrior God named Illyria. And no matter what - The Council decided that to change anything - not that things could have been changed, but to even help - would be - that the consequences would be - " I stared down at the hideous carpet, and wondered when the English language had ever before held such paucity of expression. "Unacceptable," I finished, rather weakly.
Xander -
What could I say to that? The Council, not the old stodgy Council who’s families had been Watchers since… well, not since creation, but long enough as makes no difference… but the New Council, the one full of supposedly enlightened people, had known that a young woman was going to die at the hands of a supernatural power… and stood, on their pinnacle of Watchery knowledge, and allowed it to happen, offering no assistance.
“They just…” I could feel my expression dissolving into fury. “Those stupid fucking idiots. There have been so many times that I've been glad that so many of them died in the explosion.... and to wish that it had been more.”
Mentally, I was placing blame firmly on the members of the old guard, although, somehow, there was a niggling doubt in my brain.
“Yes, well.” Wes didn’t look up. “You and I both.”
He sounded so bleak, so full of the aches that I recognized from my own pains. I moved forward and opened my arms to him. It was a gesture of comfort - the same one I would have offered to Buffy or Willow… or even Giles, if I had any thought that he would accept it. Wes just leaned against me, kind of tentatively. He was like the stray cat that used to creep up to my door when I lived in my parents basement - wary and unsure if he were going to be thrown off.
I wrapped my arms around him, offering him the shoulder to cry on that I had so long refused for my own comfort. “I’m so sorry, Wes.”
Wes’s arms suddenly tightened around me, fierce and protective. “And you'd know how I feel in what way if it were not for your Anya? I've grieved, little brother, I will for a while…but you?”
I just leaned into the hug... enjoying the returning of comfort as much as the giving, “I... have grieved... in some ways, Wes. Just, well.... There are so many regrets. There are times I.... I hate Andrew. And I shouldn't. Not his fault, ya know? That he lived and she didn't.”
Yeah, that’s me, full of guilt over things I can’t help and can’t change… some things that I really didn’t want changed. I couldn’t wish Andrew dead… not really… could I?
“And is that your greatest sin? To hate Andrew?” Wes voice was gentle and soothing and I could feel him rubbing circles over my back the way you do for a sick kid.
“No... I'm sure it's not…” I gave a self-deprecating laugh. “Just the one that first springs to mind.”
“I stabbed Gunn in the gut, I bullied Spike and Angel into going to what I think may well have been Hell, and none of that worked, so I think you're a few down on the stupidity for love meter.”
It was a weak joke, I knew. I could feel the pain in every word Wes spoke; feel it like it was my own, because, in an odd way, it was.
“Wes, Anya and I were over before the end. We still cared about each other.... but we both knew we were done.”
“But still…” My voice was tight and tense, as if I had to force the words out past the lump of emotion that was suddenly stuck in my throat, “If I thought it would bring her back.... I'd kill someone.. I'd kill Andrew.... “
And, as I finally said the words out loud, I realized they were true.
Authors: hotspur18 and quoshara
Pairing: Wesley and Xander
Rating: G
Summary: Airport layovers can bring unexpected results.
Wes -
I suppose it had been remarkably shortsighted of me to assume that Xander would know the full details of what the reconstituted Council had been up to, but at the same time, I had also assumed that the same process of endless paperwork had been adhered to. Then again, that had always been something which Giles had shown remarkable skill at avoiding, so perhaps it was not so surprising, but even so...
Perhaps we hadn't mattered all that much, in the end. If our world went to hell - any hell - what possible importance could that have upon what they were trying to achieve? We all did our best to keep the world safe - was it really so shocking that at times that included 'from one another'?
And besides. Besides, besides, how would a man tracking down Potentials in Africa have needed to know about the really quite unimportant misery of those who could quite legitimately be perceived as having given up fighting the good fight?
My irrationality, it seemed, could even last beyond the grave.
The thing was...it hadn't been merely a private unhappiness, or one of what I had learned to think of as a 'smaller apocalypse', centered solely around Angel and the rest of us. It had been something that had led to an altogether larger encounter - something that should, at the very least, have resulted in a pooling of information.
One of the old warrior Gods now walked the earth, trapped here for the foreseeable future. Another Hellmouth had damn near opened in a permanent way. People had died, trying to do the right thing - or were willing to. The losses were as grave on our side as they had been on that of those who had so quickly disowned us, and damn it, but yes. Yes, that did matter. It should matter.
If those who fought and died for the cause that was, after all, the only thing we all had in common, were not mourned - then how could they be remembered? How could the part they had played be honoured?
Had Giles's dismissal of our needs gone so far as to forget even the necessity of remembrance? Damn paperwork and all its accepted irrelevancy, that should have been one thing even he could not eradicate from his training.
No wonder, I reflected, that Xander felt himself unsuited to this work. So had Angel, and Gunn, and Cordelia, and even I, electing to fight instead on grounds of our own time and choosing. So, long ago, had Giles, before fate placed him in a position where he no longer had the freedom to choose his battles.
What was a revelation to me, however, was obviously not one for Xander, who was still utterly perplexed, frowning at me with an expression that said quite clearly how woefully inadequate any information I had given him had been up to this point.
It was one thing to absolve him of any involvement with the whole mess. It was quite another to realize that he was also ignorant of anything that had transpired.
I could only tell him those things which had been important to me. Not, perhaps, to the grand and overall scheme of things, to whatever great destiny or fate was being laid out for us with each new addition to our lives in LA during that time, but what had mattered to me, then and there, and caused my deliberate disappearance on my return.
With all my attempts at detachment, I could not begin where I should. There was only one thing that had governed my decisions then, and for me, that was the start of it all.
"I loved Fred, you see - I'm sure Willow spoke of her. And - she loved me back. And then..." Well. And then. That was the real thing, all wishing and emotions aside, the and then..."She touched something she shouldn't have, and she - she got used as a shell. By a warrior God named Illyria. And no matter what - The Council decided that to change anything - not that things could have been changed, but to even help - would be - that the consequences would be - " I stared down at the hideous carpet, and wondered when the English language had ever before held such paucity of expression. "Unacceptable," I finished, rather weakly.
Xander -
What could I say to that? The Council, not the old stodgy Council who’s families had been Watchers since… well, not since creation, but long enough as makes no difference… but the New Council, the one full of supposedly enlightened people, had known that a young woman was going to die at the hands of a supernatural power… and stood, on their pinnacle of Watchery knowledge, and allowed it to happen, offering no assistance.
“They just…” I could feel my expression dissolving into fury. “Those stupid fucking idiots. There have been so many times that I've been glad that so many of them died in the explosion.... and to wish that it had been more.”
Mentally, I was placing blame firmly on the members of the old guard, although, somehow, there was a niggling doubt in my brain.
“Yes, well.” Wes didn’t look up. “You and I both.”
He sounded so bleak, so full of the aches that I recognized from my own pains. I moved forward and opened my arms to him. It was a gesture of comfort - the same one I would have offered to Buffy or Willow… or even Giles, if I had any thought that he would accept it. Wes just leaned against me, kind of tentatively. He was like the stray cat that used to creep up to my door when I lived in my parents basement - wary and unsure if he were going to be thrown off.
I wrapped my arms around him, offering him the shoulder to cry on that I had so long refused for my own comfort. “I’m so sorry, Wes.”
Wes’s arms suddenly tightened around me, fierce and protective. “And you'd know how I feel in what way if it were not for your Anya? I've grieved, little brother, I will for a while…but you?”
I just leaned into the hug... enjoying the returning of comfort as much as the giving, “I... have grieved... in some ways, Wes. Just, well.... There are so many regrets. There are times I.... I hate Andrew. And I shouldn't. Not his fault, ya know? That he lived and she didn't.”
Yeah, that’s me, full of guilt over things I can’t help and can’t change… some things that I really didn’t want changed. I couldn’t wish Andrew dead… not really… could I?
“And is that your greatest sin? To hate Andrew?” Wes voice was gentle and soothing and I could feel him rubbing circles over my back the way you do for a sick kid.
“No... I'm sure it's not…” I gave a self-deprecating laugh. “Just the one that first springs to mind.”
“I stabbed Gunn in the gut, I bullied Spike and Angel into going to what I think may well have been Hell, and none of that worked, so I think you're a few down on the stupidity for love meter.”
It was a weak joke, I knew. I could feel the pain in every word Wes spoke; feel it like it was my own, because, in an odd way, it was.
“Wes, Anya and I were over before the end. We still cared about each other.... but we both knew we were done.”
“But still…” My voice was tight and tense, as if I had to force the words out past the lump of emotion that was suddenly stuck in my throat, “If I thought it would bring her back.... I'd kill someone.. I'd kill Andrew.... “
And, as I finally said the words out loud, I realized they were true.