Satyricon au go go

No infringement of the following characters and situations is intended.
Warning: Rated [MA] Mature Adults only. Contains strong m/m sexual scenes, violence, coarse language and adult themes.

Title: How Soon is Now
Series: The Wes soap
Author/pseudonym: Hellblazer
E-mail address: havisham06@yahoo.com
Rating: MA
Pairing: A/W
Date: 2000
Archive: Yes
Disclaimers: Don't own these characters, Joss Whedon, 20th Century Fox, Mutant Enemy, and the rest do. No copyright infringement is intended or inferred.
Warnings: sexual references (m/m), adult themes

Notes: Mostly written, and obviously set, before the Season 1 finale, thus making it an au. Which it is anyway because the boys do a bit more than flirt in this. Most probably set around the episode War Zone.

This started off as a PWP, so please excuse the "I Like you, whooo" beginning, to paraphrase the Dandy Warhols. The meaningful stuff comes later. It's a modern romance :).

Spoilers: None if you're up to date in your viewing (Angel: Season 1). Some knowledge of the British version of Ultraviolet is recommended, but not absolutely required.

Pairing: Angel/Wesley

Credits: Thanks to Jill for the special travel arrangements. Thanks to Irene & JJ for immoral support. Thanks to Vera for raiding the big persons library for me. Thanks to Amazon, Blackstar, Kings, Minotaur Books & Foxtel for the research materials.

How Soon Is Now

EVER FALLEN IN LOVE (With Someone You Shouldn't've Fallen In Love With)?

Angel looked pained and uncomfortable, battered and bruised, hunched over on his bed, which was as far as Wesley had half carried, half dragged him up from the sewers.

"I'm sorry," Wesley mumbled, fumbling with the sticking plaster, one end caught in his mouth, the other end attempting to be severed rather awkwardly by a pair of scissors.

"I'm sure Cordelia is much better at this -" Cordelia was off on another audition.

"She's had a lot more practice," Angel remarked, doing his very best stoic as Wesley bound his most recent battle scars. He glanced down at the no longer bleeding gash in his ribs. "Takes a lickin' and keeps on tickin,"

Wesley gave him a rueful look, the sort of look a mother might give a slightly delinquent child, if Angel could remember the way mother's looked at wayward sons. He couldn't, not really. The thought saddened him.

"Angel?" He realised Wesley was watching him. Well, it went with the territory. Wesley was always watching him, like Diane Fossey amongst the gorillas, with a wary fascination, a curiosity that never wavered. Even now that Angel was used to having Wesley around to the point of forgetting he was there, he'd look up and find Wesley watching him, and knew that Wesley never ever forgot that he was a vampire.

"It hurts, doesn't it?" Wesley asked quietly, seeing the frown that deepened with every passing second.

"Well, yeah," Angel mocked him, then regretted it. That had been a personal, not scientific, enquiry.

"I'll live." He glanced at Wesley. "Well, whatever."

Wesley made sure the padded bandage over the hole in Angel's side where he'd been impaled was stuck fast to the taut, pale skin. He peered around to the muscular back to check the exit wound was equally secure.

"Darla certainly knew what she was doing when she made you," he murmured. He felt Angel tense slightly under his hands. "I'm sorry. That was in poor taste."

"It's okay. I know what you meant."

Wesley's hands trailed from one white square of bandage to the next. Even damaged he was still a work of art. A magnificent work of art. The one with the angelic face. It was true. So very true.

Wesley's fingers traced the elaborate tattoo on Angel's shoulder. He's read of it, often, he'd studied the crude sketches, but they did nothing for the artistry of the work. Nothing compared to the real thing.

"You like it?" Angel smiled, feeling Wesley touch him.

"Very much," Wesley murmured. "It's an evangelist representation of St Luke, isn't it. But you chose it to mean death. The Angel of Death. Cute."

"I thought so," Angel smiled slyly.

Wesley ran his hand softly along Angel's side, skirting the wounds. Angel's nipples sprang instantly hard; Wesley didn't notice, engrossed in the feel of the smooth cool skin, the hard muscle underneath, his touch turning from medical exploration to sensual pleasure without noticing until Angel let out a sigh and Wesley sprang back as if burned.

Angel grinned at him. "It's okay, Wes. I do guys as well. Or at least, I used to."

"Guy? Any guys?"

"No. Only ones I'm attracted to." He leant forward. "Ones I'm charmed by, fascinated by, intrigued by."

"Me?" Wesley squeaked.

He had Wesley's attention, and Wesley could see from the black cloth of Angel's jeans thrusting up, that he had Angel's.

Wesley sank down on the bed beside Angel, somewhat deflated. "You know."

"Yeah. Pretty obvious. No biggie."

Wesley processed this.

"How long have you known?"

"Since you showed up in LA."

"Oh. I thought I'd been more subtle than that. Still, for a creature who is one hundred percent predator, you can be jolly unobservant at times."

"Why?"

"Well, that first time I saw you, in the Bronze...love at first sight."

Angel tried to hide a smile, but failed.

"I know you're uncomfortable with what you are, Angel, but don't you think the dark and dangerous thing does it for me? Because it does."

Angel had no answer to that. He was almost flustered. Wesley was flirting with him. Seriously, this time.

"The love that dare not speak its name: a Watcher in love with a vampire. Silly really." Wesley shrugged. "Not that it mattered. It doesn't bother me, being gay, you know," Wesley declared.

Wesley might be happy with himself, but Angel sensed other people hadn't been, and their disapproval had scarred Wesley deeply. Angel understood those kind of wounds.

"I mean," Wesley continued blithely, "The Watcher's don't care, I mean, hell, they recruit out of Oxford, for god's sake."

Angel grinned.

"It's just that...well, you're being a vampire, they're not very tolerant. It's rather a don't ask, don't tell situation." He glanced at Angel shyly. "When I learnt you were a vampire, I felt...I felt betrayed, somehow. I suddenly knew how conflicted Buffy must have felt. I pitied her, and I resented her. I know I was hard on her, but you've no idea. This sort of thing, it happens, and the council's rules are very strict, very harsh. I was trying to protect her, in my own inadequate way."

"That time you took Faith, you could have, should have killed me. You took a terrible risk, protecting me," Angel realised.

"I know. It was unforgivable. The Council...they know...once you've come close to evil, touched it, let it seduce you..."

Angel pressed a firm cool kiss against Wesley's mouth.

"You're lost, entirely," Wesley whispered as he was pressed back against the pillows.

Angel covered him, touching him, nuzzling him softly. He licked Wesley's throat, feeling the pulse beat beneath.

"Angel," Wesley had to speak.

Angel hushed him, holding him with great care like a cat holds a mouse. "I've wanted to smell you, this close and warm, feel you, touch your skin..." his cheek grazed Wesley's.

"That's very flattering, Angel, but..."

Angel drew back, seduction playing on his lips.

"I promise to be careful. I promise to stop if I...I just want to taste you." His mouth smothered Wesley's, cutting off further protest.

They kissed for a long time, Wes barely breathing, barely touching, exploring the sensation. Wesley broke away, suddenly needing to actually breathe, and studied Angel, not quite believing this was happening. Angel smiled and kissed Wesley again. It was happening.

Angel gently removed the wire framed glasses, hung them carefully from the bed rail, and kissed Wesley again, the length of his body pinning Wesley to the mattress.

Angel slid his thigh over Wesley's, holding him in place. His free hand unbuttoned, unbuckled and unzipped. Wesley nearly choked on Angel's tongue as Angel's hand slid over him. He broke off kissing Angel, burying his face against Angel as that hand stroked him, soft at first, then harder and harder and faster and faster. He found himself looking down, watching Angel do that to him. Then he looked up, startled, and cried out "Angel!" as he came, his warm seed splattering over Angel's stomach and sheets.

"Sorry," he apologised.

Angel grinned and kissed him again. They twined together, Wesley no longer afraid to put his hands on Angel's body. Wesley's kisses became harder, more like a man's than a boy's. Wesley was still jutting hard into Angel's thigh. It was always the quiet ones. The fires burned deep, but they burned.

Wesley pressed against Angel, kissing him hard. Angel's hand ran along Wesley's flank, all the way down his back, over his buttocks and down to his thigh. Wesley pushed against him. That's what he wanted.

"I can't," Angel admitted quietly.

"I know. I'll take what I can get," Wesley answered somewhat breathlessly. After living in sin with myself for so long, thinking of you...." He kissed Angel again, long and hard.

Angel held him tight, his fingers teasing down Wesley's arse, flicking the nub, circling it, rubbing it, then squeezing in.

Wesley made a muffled groan and pushed against him. This was what Wesley liked, what he needed. Angel stroked and rubbed him, in and out. Wesley thrust almost blindly against him, grinding into his hip, grabbing his shoulders and rolling Angel onto his back, jerking forwards then pressing back onto Angel's hand.

"Wes," Angel surged against him, calling his name, burying his face against Wesley's skin, his scent. This was what he wanted, the smell of arousal, the thudding of Wesley's heart, the heat of Wesley's skin touching his.

Oh god, oh god...oh...god.

Angel felt Wesley's orgasm pound through him, and envied him more than he could form words to describe. Wesley sank onto Angel, spent at last, and pliant. Angel kissed his sweat beaded forehead affectionately.

Wesley glanced up, eyes somewhat glazed but happy. He settled more comfortably on top of Angel.

"Ow," Angel couldn't help wincing as Wesley's hands, desperate to cover and hold his skin pressed up against his ribs, accidentally pressed into his wound. He hadn't really felt it before. He felt it now.

"Angel, I'm sorry." Wesley tried to pull away but Angel stopped him, catching his wrist in an iron grip. "It's okay," he kissed him softly. "See." Another feather kiss. "Just be gentle with me?" he teased.

Wesley was studying him with Watcher's eyes again. "I thought you healed faster than this."

"Yeah, but not when I'm on a diet." Angel ran his hand down Wesley's chest, trying to change the conversation.

Wesley arched under those fingertips, then bared his throat.

"Don't, Wes," Angel looked away.

"If you're not going to bloody fuck me then you can at least drink," Wesley snapped, making Angel look at him again. "Please, he begged. "Let me...it's the only thing we can share."

"But I might..."

"I trust you," Wesley whispered. He could see into Angel's eyes, right into them. So this was what it was like to look death in the eye, to give yourself up to death.

Angel closed his eyes, held Wesley by the shoulders, and began licking and sucking and grazing at Wesley's throat, making him whimper and twist beneath him, then the urge could not be held off, and he broke the skin with a fury.

Angel's teeth tore into him, and Wesley gave himself up to Angel, gripping his flesh as he felt him drink, his blood flowing into Angel, warming Angel's skin against his.

Wesley bit down on his cry, and clung to Angel as he drank, deep gulps as their bodies locked together, losing himself in Angel's embrace, then suddenly Angel made himself tear away, panting, blood lust nowhere near sated.

"Wesley?" His face smoothed in concern. "Wes?" He checked the still warm skin, and bowed his head in relief. Wesley had only fainted.

Wesley woke to a cup of strong sugary tea being wafted under his nose. It was actually a mug of tea, but he wasn't going to quibble. His head was too muzzy to be bothered with the finer points of etiquette. He pushed himself up on the pillows and gratefully accepted the tea, holding it carefully in both hands, feeling it's warmth, sipping at it. He barely hid his surprise - it wasn't a bad cup of tea at all.

Ever the dutiful host, Angel proffered a selection of doughnuts, still in their cardboard box. Wesley took the sugar crusted one.

"Quite the little red cross, aren't we." Wesley teased softly. He could feel the plastic bandaid crinkling at his throat. He caught a look of remorse in Angel's face, and it surprised him. Things like that still surprised him. Yes, he loved Angel. Yes, Angel was more human than many mortals walking around, but he still never forget Angel was a vampire, the enemy, as he had been indoctrinated all his life, and yet, this vampire felt pity, remorse, guilt even. It was all very strange.

"Hey," Angel caught the cup that had started to slip.

"I'm fine," Wesley retreated his cup crossly, taking a bite from the sugary doughnut. Angel was right, damn him. The sugar rush was good. Almost too good.

Angel dipped forward and kissed him, as though reading his mind, tasting the sugar on Wesley's lips. Wesley closed his eyes and believed he could taste his own blood on Angel's.

The cup started to tip again. Angel caught it again.

"It's your fault, making what blood I've got left rush from my head," Wesley rebuked softly, a smile in his voice.

He considered Angel for a moment, then reached up and brushed the sugar crumbs from his lips.

"You're not warm enough to make the sugar melt," he murmured.

Angel pressed forward and kissed him again. Wesley was certainly warm enough, flushed pink in stark patches against white skin, eyes shining.

"Angel, why are you doing this?" He put out a hand to soothe the hurt he'd put there instantly upon the handsome face. "I know what I want, but..."

"What's in it for me?" Angel asked, and Wesley nodded.

Angel tilted his head. "I don't know. Maybe I like the frustration, living on the edge. Maybe I enjoy being with someone I know, like and trust. Maybe I like being with someone who knows me, who's read about every shitty little thing I've ever done in my life and still wants to be with me, maybe I like being with someone I don't have to lie to, or pretend to be something I'm not."

"I had no idea you were so lonely. I'm sorry, Angel."

"Don't be."

He kissed Wesley lightly on the forehead. "I'll order take out for later, to build your strength up." he announced as he flopped onto the bed beside Wesley, snuggling down, and Wesley wondered how things had suddenly gotten so domestic. Too domestic. He was confused, but for now he just drank his tea.

Angel curled against him and fell fast asleep. Poor guy, he must be tired, and it was well past his bedtime. Wesley sipped his tea as he watched him. Sleep of the dead was right. Angel was a dead weight against him, cold, still and unbreathing. This was the only time an ordinary mortal had a chance at killing a vampire, when they ere at their most vulnerable, when they slept, though you needed fast reflexes, for the had hunter's reflexes. They woke instantly and woke angry if disturbed. Watching Angel now, Wesley thought Angel was either very tired, very trusting or both, to leave himself exposed like this to someone who had vampire killer on his resume, who had in fact devoted his life to that very cause. He studied the perfectly chiselled features. Not that he wanted to. Kill him, that was. Not this vampire. Angel's trust was well founded. Wesley sipped at his tea quietly and wondered if vampires dreamed, and what they dreamt of. If nothing else, he was in a position to learn more about vampires than any Watcher before him.

MIRROR IN THE BATHROOM

Wesley woke to the sensation of being softly nuzzled, but it was another sensation in his groin that moved him.

"Wes?" Angel asked, confused as his lover pulled from his embrace and began to clamber out of bed.

"It's not you, Angel. It's the tea."

"Oh."

Wesley padded barefoot across the floor to the cold tiles of the bathroom, standing in front of the bowl and willing his semi erection to go down so he could pee with some semblance of dignity.

Pauline Quirk. That usually did the trick. It did now. As he washed his hands he realised he could see himself.

"Angel," he called out. "When did you get a mirror?"

"I was having so many normal, well, you know," he answered with a soft laugh from the doorway. "I decided to make it a bit easier on my guests."

"Much appreciated." Wes noted. He watched his reflection as he wiped his hands on the towel, then realised Angel was watching him too.

"It's like having an invisible friend," he joked.

Wesley saw Angel grin, then he was slammed up against the wall, held there by two very strong hands and kissed into breathlessness.

Pressed up against the tiles, Wesley watched himself caressed, undressed and ravished by an invisible lover. Invisible hands pulled at his hair and his clothes. Invisible lips and fingers left soft pink marks on his flesh where they passed. As Angel sank to his knees he watched himself writhe under an invisible touch, and it was the most erotic experience in his life. Not that there was much competition oh god, Angel. His hands squeezed the black hair. What Angel could do with his tongue...

Angel's lips, Angel's tongue, Angel's fingers fucking him. Oh, god...He watched himself come in the mirror. Angel swallowed him whole, still tasting salty when he came up for a kiss. Wesley leant against him weakly, breathing hard, then looked at his reflection. He drew away from Angel, steadying his breathing, leaning on the cool marble counter.

"Wes?" Angel asked, sensing something was wrong, when he'd thought it was so right.

Wes looked directly at his own reflection, standing there alone.

"I'm kidding myself, aren't I? This isn't real. How long before you want something more. Before you want something I can't give..."

"How long before I turn?" Angel finished the thought for him. "I don't have the answers, Wes. I didn't get to read the fine print on my curse. I know I can't risk... I can't...but watching you, giving you, making you come with my hands, for now it's enough."

"And later?"

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it."

Angel turned away from the mirror, towards him. "This isn't a sudden whim, a game we're playing because we got bored one wet afternoon. You've wanted this for a long time, and I...you're the only person I have in my life right now."

Two lonely desperate fools, thought Wesley. But Angel was right. It was all they could get and it would have to be enough.

"For someone who's supposed to be the strong silent type, you're very chatty tonight," Wesley teased.

"Someone has to be, what with your uptight English reserve and everything," Angel shot back, eyes smiling.

"Shut your mouth."

"Make me," Angel dared, light dancing in his eyes.

Wesley grabbed him and did just that.

NIGHT AND DAY

Wesley glanced up from his desk, Angel having appeared before him as if by magic. Wesley couldn't help but look Angel up and down. He was wearing that shirt, the one that was just about see through in the right light, the shameless vamp.

For a man who'd had no use for mirrors, Angel certainly knew how to look good. Still, mused Wesley, once a dandy...And he envied Angel. Everything came so easily to Angel. Wesley knew no matter how hard he tried, he could never carry off that wardrobe. Still, Angel had an unfair advantage. If you couldn't learn how to walk around in clothes after two hundred years you really weren't trying.

Wesley set his pencil down, all too aware he was salivating, possibly the desired effect, and gave Angel his full attention, also possibly the desired effect.

"Get dressed," Angel instructed cheerfully. "I'm taking you out to dinner."

"On a date?" Wesley had to ask.

"Yes, if you like." Angel smiled indulgently, watching Wesley flush. The poor guy. He'd spent his whole life surrounded by books. In many ways he was younger than... Angel's face saddened and he turned that thought away.

Wesley had sacrificed a life of pleasure for a life of study. It was time Angel redressed the balance a little and he mustn't tease Wesley about it, either. It wasn't fair. After all, spending his own wild days cavorting in pubs hadn't been particularly smart or clever. And besides, he found Wesley's naivete rather cute at times.

The candle flickered on the table between them, dancing in Angel's dark eyes. He leant close to Wesley, whispering, his eyes never moving from Wesley's, like a tiger on the hunt.

"I can't believe this is happening," Wesley started nervously.

"It's real. I want you."

"I've dreamt about you, being with you, for so long, like a lovesick schoolboy. Every time I'm near you, or even think of you, I, you know," Wesley admitted, blushing. "Angel, I..."

"Are you hard now?"

"Yes."

Angel's hand brushed Wesley's thigh under the table, and he felt Wesley jump.

"Good, I like you hard," Angel purred.

"I want to take you right here."

Wesley gulped. In the middle of a rather expensive restaurant?

"I'd throw you on the table, bite your nipples through your shirt..."

"Angel, please," Wesley choked.

"Then I'd pull your legs apart and,"

"Are you ready to order, Sir?"

Wesley jumped, making the table jolt and Angel smile.

"Er...um...yes...I'll have the steak, rare. And my friend,"

"Nothing for me, thankyou"

"Is on one of those fad diets," Wesley explained archly.

Angel never even looked at the waiter, still focused on Wesley.

The waiter said nothing. He was used to all sorts in here.

Wesley's steak arrived, not entirely beyond the help of a good vet, and Wesley surprised himself by devouring it with gusto.

"I love to watch you eat," Angel smiled. It was another vicarious pleasure he lived through Wesley.

Wesley tore off a piece of his breadroll and soaked it in the bloody gravy, feeding it to Angel.

Anyone watching would know he was dining with a vampire, and he didn't care. He wanted to show off. The vampire with the angelic face was his date for the evening. Wesley still couldn't believe it. Not even the bite on his throat felt real. All these months of pining, and now, without warning, his wish was granted.

The tip of Angel's tongue flicked out and licked his fingers that had held the bread, sending a bolt of lightning straight down into his groin. God. He'd get desert and coffee to go.

Angel straddled him, naked and beautiful, balancing the enormous slice of mud cake on a plate. He broke off another piece onto a fork and fed it to Wesley, leant down , kissing him, tasting the chocolate on his lips.

He sat back up again as Wesley swallowed.

"Are you going to feed me the whole cake?" Wesley enquired.

Angel nodded.

"I'll be sick."

Angel considered this for a moment.

"Tell me when to stop then," he reasoned.

Wesley nodded, squinting slightly in the light.

Sitting there, with a preternaturally beautiful incubus riding upon his midriff, the ceiling light made a bright yellow halo behind Angel, amusing Wesley no end. A Watcher and his demon lover. Together and yet forsworn from touching. Angel's vicarious life. Wesley unobtainable love. And yet, both were satisfied in this moment.

Wesley woke on his side in Angel's bed, hearing discrete muffled noises. Angel was feeding in the kitchen. The mental image Wesley conjured, having seen Angel feed more times than he cared to, still caused a coil of dread to curl through him. Even after Angel had fed from him, it still caused him disquiet, which is why Angel had snuck off while he slept, ashamed of his nature. As well a creature like him might feel shame for his unnatural needs, Wesley's Watcher upbringing lectured him, in spite of his feelings for Angel. But the same accusations could be levelled at Wesley for just about everything he'd done this night. He understood Angel more than most. Perhaps that was why he was in Angel's bed right now, wrapped in Angel's sheets.

Wesley stretched, feeling muscles he never knew he had cramp and protest. His skin stung against Angel's sheets where Angel had nipped him. Not bites, just rough play, like wrestling with a dog. Angel was showing he was in control, though it worried Wesley. It worried him that he never realised Angel had changed until he felt the fangs pressing against his skin. What really worried him was that he was seeing Angel with love's eyes, and that wasn't smart, for either of them. He worried about the fine line Angel seemed to enjoy walking. He forgot when Angel was laughing above him, playing with him and being so damn handsome, but now it came rushing up to the surface with a thousand other little guilts. If he and Angel fucked they'd be damned to hell. Those gypsies, such a sense of humour. Worse, Angel'' curse didn't specify that Angel had to achieve orgasm, it just made some vague reference to a moment of true happiness. What if Angel crossed that line just mucking about together, finding where Wesley was ticklish, reading to him from one of his many books, sharing a melting icecream just after sunset when the footpath was still warm from the sun.

Wesley rolled over. Maybe that's why Angel chose him, so he'd never be too happy with his choice.

On the plus side, Wesley thought, if Angel did lose his soul again, he'd be hard pressed to follow his usual profile of killing all those Wesley was close to. Cordelia was the only person who came to mind and she was an Angelus veteran. She wouldn't be an easy kill at least. Wesley had no other friends, not even back in England. His studies had always taken precedence. Not through choice, but through duty. It was only now that Wesley had rebelled against the cloistered life of a young Watcher in training., striking out and making his own friends, his own destiny. As for his family, they were geographically inconvenient and, truth be told, there were a few members of his family he shouldn't loose sleep over if Angelus were to rip their throats out. No, he wouldn't shed a tear over some members of his family at all.

The mattress sank down. Angel had returned, silent as a whisper. He slid across, snuggling up against Wesley, who tried to push him off.

"You're as cold as ice."

"Sorry. Can't help it."

Wesley humphed and tried to hide under the blanket, but that never worked.

"I hate you."

Angel chuckled softly. No he didn't.

Wesley played nervously with the telephone cord.

"I wouldn't normally contact you, Rupert, because I don't believe we have much to say to each other, and I suppose you've nothing much to say to Angel, either, but I'm trying to find a way of binding his soul permanently."

"A cure?"

"Not as such. Not for Angel. A more permanent curse."

"And he's willing to go through with this? Provided we found a way of binding his soul, that is."

"Yes," Wesley sighed.

Giles considered.

"Buffy..." he tried to broach the subject.

"This has nothing to do with Buffy. And I'd rather she didn't know." Wesley answered firmly. "This is something Angel needs. He's happy in his new life and I'd rather not have history repeat itself."

"Oh? Oh!" Giles adjusted his glasses uncomfortably as the truth struck him. So the rumours were true. First Willow and now...well, nothing new or either Angel or Wesley, he suspected.

"Wesley, you're taking a terrible risk, getting involved with Angel like that."

Wesley shook his head at the phone. "If you mean the Council's laws, they already know, I've no doubt of that. I put myself between them and Angel more than once. I'll have to answer for that sometime, they won't let that rest. I'll need to be made an example of. But if you help, at least I won't be risking Angel's soul."

"Well, I'm rather busy," Giles lied.

"Please." Wesley's begging was brief and to the point.

"All right. I'll see what I can find for you."

Giles let the phone drop and looked up to see Willow's expectant face in his doorway.

"Research? Can I help?"

I"VE GOT YOU UNDER MY SKIN

"There you are," Angel announced softly, finding Wesley brooding over open books spread across Angel's desk, face lit a warm yellow by the low watt lamp.

"No, don't get up," Angel added as Wesley began quickly folding the books shut. "I just came up for some coffee."

"Really." Wesley didn't believe him for a minute.

Angel paused, turning his back to the filter drip, shrugging slightly. "I woke up and you weren't there. I missed you." The admission was wrenched softly from the vampire, but not without effort.

Wesley smiled the sweetest smile.

"Really?"

Angel crossed the distance in an instant, pushing Wesley back with a damning kiss, one hand grabbing the back of the chair, the other pushing down amongst the books. Wesley rose up from the chair into the kiss. Angel began to lean on him, cupping his face in his hands...

"Hey, guys?" Cordelia called.

Angel dropped down out of sight like a stone.

"Hey, Wes. Seen Angel?" Cordelia asked, bypassing his dishevelled appearance entirely, did she note his sudden twitch as Angel, hiding under the desk, pressed close.

"Ah, no, uh, not today, haven't seen him, no." Wesley faltered.

"Asleep huh? Typical." Cordelia tossed off, checking the level of the coffee.

"Uh huh," was all Wesley could say.

"Late night?"

The pencil in Wesley's hand snapped.

Cordelia turned and glanced at him, but still his flushed appearance didn't register.

Wesley felt his fly slowly ease down, and Angel's skin brush against his. The breath caught in his throat.

"Oh, god, oh god, oh god," whimpered Wesley. "Oh god, look at the time," he fumbled. "He's really a sleepy head today. Worn out I suppose, up all night," Wesley laughed. "Ow." That was the point of a fang. He glanced down into the shadows and saw yellow eyes staring up at him.

"Cordelia," he faltered. "Could you pop down and get some doughnuts. I hate to ask, but I'm very busy. Please."

Cordelia scowled. "I'm not your own personal Cinderella you know." Whatever, She shrugged. Wesley was looking pretty worn these days.

"Okay. If you insist. But I'm not delivery girl. I'm not Xander."

"Never. Bye now." He smiled rigidly as she swung out of the office with a flourish.

Wesley eased his chair back a little.

"Angel?" he called with quiet worry.

"I'm fine. You just turn me on," Angel assured through pointed teeth. He nuzzled softly at Wesley. Wesley raised his hips, allowing Angel to inch down his pants. He shifted slightly, letting Angel's wicked tongue travel just that little bit further. His knuckles were white on the edge of the chair. Wesley closed his eyes and winced still as the bite came, deep in his flesh. He and Angel were joined, for a moment. Then he grabbed Angel's hair and pulled him back. That was enough. He fumbled in Angel's bottom drawer with a limp hand for a bandaid.

Angel took it and gently applied it, dark eyes concerned, as if to ask why Wesley let him do this, without really needing an answer.

Wesley hitched up his pants and Angel slid out from under the desk, stood and poured him a small measure of scotch, which he had the pleasure of seeing Wesley knock off in one swallow.

He brushed Wesley's cheek and was sitting, perched on the edge of the desk, just watching Wesley, when Cordelia returned.

"Oh, so you're finally up."

The boys shared a secret smile.

She threw the cardboard box onto the table. "I got the doughnuts. You can get coffee."

Angel shifted finally. "I'll do it." And Wesley had the pleasure of watching Angel make coffee.

"Sugar? Honey? Wesley suddenly realised Angel was talking to him.

"What?"

"Sugar, in your coffee?" Angel teased.

"I'll make it myself," Wesley scowled, getting up and snatching his cup off a nearly giggling Angel.

The world shifted a little as he poured the coffee. Damn, must have stood up too fast, he thought.

"Wesley!" You're bleeding!"

Wesley looked down where the bite had seeped through his beige cotton slacks, and bled profusely. Anti-coagulant in Angel's saliva, he remembered absently. Looking down, watching the blood spread, he started to get very light headed and...

"Wes!" Angel caught him and the coffee cup Wes had been holding in another random display of preternatural speed and strength.

"I'm sorry, Angel. Really, I'm fine," Wesley protested as he was propped up on pillows in Angel's bed. "It must have been the scotch. I've never had a head for it."

"I know you're a cheap date, Wes," Angel teased affectionately, but there were shadows behind his smile. He couldn't ignore the dark circles under Wesley's eyes he'd not noticed before, nor the deepening lines upon his face. Wesley wasn't well, and he'd never complained. Not once.

Angel let his fingers travel over the slight stubble on Wesley's jaw.

"Cordelia's gone to bring the car around, then we'll get you to a doctor."

"Angel, I don't need one."

"Yes, you do." He bowed his head. "I'm sorry. I just don't know how to look after you properly. I've never...never kept any one around for more than a few days. Not alive anyway. I could have killed you."

Wesley gave a look that said it might not be the worst way to go.

"Don't." Angel got up and paced. "I've got enough on my conscience without adding you to it."

"I'm a grown man, Angel. I can make my own choices."

"Not with this."

"Don't get snitty with me. You're the one who used me as a chew toy."

Angel just got up to leave."

"Wait _ Angel _ Don't go."

Angel stopped, his back still to Wesley.

"You could have said something."

"I regarded it as a rough sort of foreplay. I didn't want it to stop. It was the only thing I could give you."

Angel shouldered this news and stalked off to the kitchen, thumping about as he made the coffee. Angry at Wesley. Angry at himself. Unable to look at Wesley's pale skin. Not wanting to think of how Wes was going to explain the bite marks to the doctor. He found himself staring at Wesley's cup. Without thinking he bit at his own wrist and let the blood run down, dripping into the cup to mix with the dark brewed coffee. He took the cup into Wesley and watched him drink from it like a fussy mother.

Wesley drank deep, almost gulping, then stopped, making a face and held the cup out to Angel, only half drunk.

"Thanks, but next time, Angel, don't bleed into my coffee. It's unhygienic." He leant back against the pillows, looking at nothing in particular, rather than looking at Angel. But his face was less drawn than before. Damn Angel. Damn them both.

And then he was sick.

Angel stood in the shadows of the hospital cubicle, watching like a hawk as Wesley's heart was listened to, the still healing scars from Faith, and those more recent, inspected, and he turned away, biting down the ever present craving when he smelt the blood being drawn. Poor Wesley. The doctor had taken one look at him and Angel and leapt to the obvious conclusion. A couple of poofs playing at party games.

There wasn't much mystery about Wesley's illness either. Anaemia. Serious enough to be starting to make him really sick. The doctor put him on iron tablets. Angel added garlic pills to the equation. Ipecac for vampires. Because Angel didn't trust himself. Not really.

All of Angel's romances had been fatal attractions, and his relationship with Wesley was beginning to prove no different, no matter what promises he made to himself and to Wesley. He was trying, but it was so hard to fight his true nature. So very hard.

Angel closed the door to the bedroom softly and motioned for Cordelia to be quiet.

From inside the room carried the sound of Wesley's confused whimpering, the sound of sheets being twisted.

"Sounds like he's having a bad dream. Shouldn't we wake him?"

"No. It will pass. It always does." Angel murmured quietly.

Cordelia caught the 'always' and gave him a look, but Angel was buried deep in thought, automatically reaching up into the cupboard for two cups without being aware of doing so.

"No, Please..." Wesley's fevered plea cut through the room. "Please..."

Angel knew this dream, knew what it was about, what it was always about. He wanted to kill Wesley's father. To tear his throat out and...

"Angel?"

He glanced at Cordelia and realised he was seeing her through a red haze. He forced it down, fingers almost gouging marks out of the kitchen bench.

"I'm okay," he reassured her, his face smooth and repentant once more. "I just don't like to hear him suffer like that. No one should..."

"And you can't help him and it bothers you." Cordelia finished acutely.

Angel couldn't meet her eyes. "He's my friend and...I can help strangers but I can't help my friends? It bothers me."

"Wesley was hurt a long time ago. We all have to live with our demons." She grinned at him. "Sometimes literally."

Angel was staring solidly at the doors to his bedroom, behind which Wes had fallen quiet.

"You're worried about him."

"Of course I'm worried. I care about him. Very much."

Cordelia smiled.

"What?"

"I never thought I'd hear you say that. Not about Wesley anyway. You never used to have anything to say to him."

"I was wrong." Dark eyes held her with their intensity. "I've been guilty of errors in judgement in the past, more than most," he added wryly. "But I always imagined myself a good judge of character, able to size someone up in a glance. Most of the time. I misread Wesley. Badly. He's much stronger than he looks. When he was four he was afraid of spiders. So his father shut him in a shed full of spiders and left him there for hours, nearly a whole day, in the dark, with the spiders. He never screamed then and he never screamed when Faith tortured him. And I saw what she did to him. I was impressed. "With Faith or Wesley or both, he never elaborated. "He's a good man. I trust him with my life."

"He'll be alright, Angel. You just feel guilty because you bit him."

Angel bowed his head. He couldn't argue with that.

"I needed blood, Wes offered. It was no big deal. Really, it wasn't." He lied.

"You took too much." she accused.

"I know."

"When I took this job, you promised no biting," she reminded. "It's in my conditions of employment."

Angel just gave her his usual po faced expression, then glanced at the cup he held in his hand. He'd taken it down from habit. It was kind of nice, to have a habit like that, but now wasn't the time. He replaced it and took down another.

"Something wring with the cup?" Cordelia noticed his juggling act.

"No, that's just Wesley's cup." Angel answered honestly.

Cordelia made a face. "Wesley has a cup now? A special cup?" She shrugged. "Well, I guess he spends a lot of time here, Mr I Don't Have A Life." She frowned. "He's not like staying here is he? Been thrown out of his place?"

"No."

Another thought struck her, worse than the first. "He's not like sleeping over is he? I mean, because you can't..."

"No," Angel began to lie, but too late, the gears were working.

"You bit him!" She slapped him hard across the arm. "You said no biting."

"Just a little bite, it meant nothing," Angel dissembled somewhat unconvincingly.

"Are you evil again?" Cordelia was glaring at him.

"No." Angel tried to smile and shrug it off. "It's nothing, really. Wes'll be fine. I won't do it again, I promise."

Cordelia didn't believe him. He could tell.

"Tea?" he offered.

She wrinkled her nose. "No. Decafe."

She was still watching him warily. Just when she let her guard down around him, he'd do something like this. Like taking in a stray cat. You never really tamed them. When you least expected it, they bit and scratched at you.

Cordelia never asked where Angel slept while he nursed Wesley. She assumed he'd been a perfect gentleman and slept on the couch, and Angel never attempted to dissuade her of that notion.

STRANGE LOVE ADDICTION

Wesley was walking between the overstacked shelves of old and musty hardcovers like a kid on a sugar high in Toys R Us. This was one of Wesley's very favourite shops, a dingy and somewhat overpriced second hand academic bookshop situated rather ignominiously in the basement of an adult bookshop which loudly proclaimed it's XXX wares to the world in large neon letters. One had to bypass the main entrance, down some perilous stairs into a dimly lit labyrinth of stained and crumbing bindings and mildewed pages. Wesley loved it. He scooted about gathering so many books in his arms he was quickly forced to use Angel as his carrier so his hands were free to skim through even more books.

This was a treat for Wesley, a reward or more accurately an apology for the way Angel had been treating him lately. Though if Angel was really honest with himself, he'd been treating Wesley somewhat shabbily since day one. It was Angel's nature to be careless with people, even his friends, but with Wesley, so eager to please, he began to feel guilty and even cruel in his treatment of him.

Hence the excursion, billed as an excuse to stock their own private library, so they didn't have to rely on Sunnydale HQ, at all, if possible. Wesley felt his expulsion from the Watchers and their vast libraries keenly, and though he professed to be quite happy to spend hours in every library in town, Angel knew they'd both like it better if a greater part of his work could be done closer to home.

Wesley was looking at the foot high pile Angel had dumped on the counter with a somewhat forlone look, realising that sacrifices would have to be made.

Angel slipped a Visa card into Wes' hand, and shrugged when Wesley looked at him.

"Corporate card."

Wesley stared at it as though he'd never seen such a thing. "How on earth did get this?"

Angel shrugged again. "They don't really check. And besides, I've had to create a bit of a paper trail for myself. People ask too many questions otherwise."

"Like Kate."

"Like Kate." Angel agreed, somewhat tersely. It was still a sore spot, though no longer literally.

Wesley glanced at the card again.

"You used your real name," he murmured, reading it. Names had a certain power, and Angel had never used his, because that person was dead. However, as a name for official purposes only it attracted less attention than his more colourful sorbite.

"Just for tax purposes." Angel shrugged it off, but as Wesley watched Angel sign his name on the docket with an elaborate copperplate flourish, he was reminded again of Angel being a man out his time. It showed in the smallest ways, as in the style of his writing. No one wrote in copperplate any more, mores the pity.

Wesley was smiling.

"What?" Angel had to ask.

"Death and taxes. Not even you..."

Angel flashed him an ironic smile. "I've avoided them more than most. But if I want to live in their world,"

"You have to play by their rules. I understand." Wesley noticed Angel still used an outsiders terminology. Not fully assimilated quite yet. Neither was Wesley. As an Englishman in LA he felt more an outsider than Angel must do at times. He gathered up his books, experiencing a small spike of pleasure from the feel and smell of the old bindings.

PRIMARY

Wesley was reading on the couch, draped in a blanket like a Victorian invalid, socked feet peeking out from the end. His feet were cold. Angel's little dungeon was hard to heat and his circulation was shot to hell. He was skimming one of his latest acquisitions.

Angel grew bored with sitting in darkest the corner, lighting matches one after the other and watching them burn, the white wood curling into wizened, arthritic and fragile little sticks, easily ground between his fingers, the yellow flame swallowing them whole, running along the wood to within a millimetre of his flesh. Then he waved it out, tossed it away and lit another.

But he was bored with that now.

Wesley was frowning over a book on Zoroastrianism, ignoring Angel's brooding behaviour.

Eventually Angel cast down the box of matches and came over, kneeling beside Wesley.

Wesley glanced at him, then went back to reading.

"I'm sorry," Angel murmured.

Wesley laid the book down flat.

"It wasn't your fault. I invited you to drink from me. It's my fault for not being strong enough."

"Don't," Angel cut him off.

"I wanted to give you something."

"I know. I just...I just don't want you to pay with your life. I've got enough blood on my hands already. I'm not worth it."

"I think you are." Wesley replied softly.

Lost for words, Angel rested his head on Wesley's chest in a quiet embrace. He listened to Wesley's heartbeat, the sound echoing through his being, singing a song he wanted to answer. He pulled away. Listening to Wesley's heart always brought the hunger boiling up to the surface.

He sank down, leaning back against the couch, fighting down the need. Wesley's hand trailed absently through his hair, seemingly unconscious of the war that raged within Angel. Sitting there, so still on the floor, Angel gave no outward sign. Wesley's hand slipped down the nape of Angel's neck, and Angel ground his teeth slightly, fighting even harder.

He nuzzled back against Wesley's hand, wanting comfort, and Wesley gave it to him, understanding.

Angel tilted his head back.

"I like you staying here, but you never invite me back to your place. I've never seen it. I'd like to see it."

The hand stopped. "Angel," Wesley's voice was quiet yet firm. "Don't take this the wrong way, but, do you think that's wise? I mean, God forbid something should happen..."

"You want a safehouse. I understand, Wesley."

"I trust you, Angel, but,"

"But." Angel dwelled on the word bitterly.

"Angel," Wesley leant forward. "I mean no disrespect. I just think it would be prudent to have a disaster recovery plan, that's all." He stroked Angel's hair softly. "Besides, it's barely more than a monastic little bedsit, really. You're not missing out on anything. Your place is much nicer. Draughty, but nicer."

"It's okay, Wes, I understand." Angel spoke, but he was hurt, nonetheless. Wesley never forgot what he was. That was a good thing. It was sensible. He didn't want to remake mistakes, to torture and kill people he'd grown to care about. But it still hurt, to be reminded of what he was, so bluntly, by someone he...by someone he really cared for.

Angel got up suddenly and vanished into the kitchen to feed on the blood in his fridge.

Wesley tried not to worry. Tried not to think that Angel might be feeding a bit more than usual. Not that Wesley had any idea of what passed for normal with Angel.

Wesley locked the paranoid series of bolts and chains on his door behind him and then tiredly dropped his bag on the floor, letting it lay where it fall. When he'd described his room as a monastic bedsit, he'd glamourised it more than a little. It was a horrid, soul destroying little squat, but it was the best he could afford on what Angel paid him, having been cut off from every other source of finance, and all his best possessions, even some beloved books, in hock.

The neighbours were something else again, but lately, having been marked as Angelus' pet, they all gave him a wide and fearful berth. He switched on the dim watt globe and studied the mass of photos and drawings that covered the pinboard above his desk, lightly brushing the xeroxed lips with an ache borne of only a few hours seperation. His shrine to Angel had originally been the work of a profiler, not a lovesick boy, but now he found it hard to see the difference. He flopped on the bare and faded chenille cover of his bed, stared up into the flat black and white reproduction of his lover's eyes, and did what he did every night, listening to the lonely creak of the bed springs beneath him.

Sunset. The blades clashed back and forth in a quickening beat, each pressing in, sliding and thrusting fighting for dominance. Wesley was good, he'd studied at university. Angel was better, he'd had two hundred years experience on Wesley.

Angel forced Wesley into a corner and flicked his sword from him so fast and so violently Wesley felt a flare of real terror as Angel lunged, pausing his blade a millimetre from his throat.

Angel felt it to and it excited him. He kept his sword there for a beat, eye's burning, before lowering it with an elegant sweeping gesture of salute. Then Angel realised Wesley was bleeding through a cut in his shirt. Angel had caught him on his side while he'd been showing off. He hadn't noticed and Wesley hadn't said a thing. Angel knelt and eased up the shirt, touching the skin softly.

"It's just a nick. Not deep."

Wesley nodded, his eyes meeting Angel's. Angel held his gaze for a long moment, then leant forward slightly and licked the wound with the tip of his tongue. Wesley groaned softly as Angel's hands tightened on his waist, feeling Angel's mouth on him. His hand slid through Angel's hair. He leant back as Angel began to suck on the wound. He felt the pull, the slight tingling feeling, the desire that arrowed straight into his groin and he squeezed Angel's shoulder, his signal to stop.

Angel rocked back, hungry but in control, just.

"I'll get a bandage for that."

"Good idea," Wesley agreed.

He watched as Angel carefully applied the small white square to his skin.

"You were good. You've got to teach me that move."

Angel looked up.

"We'll work on it," he promised lightly, mocking Wesley. As if he could ever really take on Angel in a fight.

Wesley slowly, painfully, reached down for his sword, leaning on it slightly, then standing straight, ready.

"Wes," Angel made a don't be foolish gesture.

"You're faster, stronger and more experienced than I am. Of course you beat me. But I will learn how to beat you. Eventually," he added in reply to Angel's quirked eyebrow. He raised his sword. "En guarde."

Angel couldn't help but be amused. Wesley might be a bit foolish at times, but by God he was plucky. Wesley reminded him of the Black Knight from Monty Python. No matter how many times Angel knocked him down when they sparred, he kept popping straight back up, insisting it was nothing, even when he was bleeding. He never gave up. In his mind's eye Wes saw himself as Robin Hood or James Bond, a suave hero fighting the good fight. Ironic then that the two most memorable portrayals of English manhood had been cast by an Australian and a Scotsman. Even Van Helsing had been played by a Welshman.

The practice was hard, Angel was hard, but it was for his own good. Angel had been careless with Doyle, taken him for granted. Wesley was just mortal flesh, and Angel was determined not to see himself the cause of the death of another of his friends. Not again. Not if he could help it.

They prowled around each other warily.

"So, I bet your family would be freaked if they knew you were seeing a vampire," Angel distracted.

"Vampire nothing," Wesley sniffed. "Angel, dear, your family were in Trade, and I come from a long line of gentlemen. Admittedly broke ones, at least since the 1800s at any rate, but still. I doubt you'd be allowed through the front door, never mind the invitation requirement. Side door, maybe, if you weren't a vampire and my boyfriend."

"Three strikes, huh?"

"Yes, but that's okay, I still like you."

"You rebel, Wes," he teased. He saluted Wesley, then attacked.

THROW YOUR ARMS AROUND ME

Wesley glared at his watch.

"That's the trouble with your average demon. Never punctual."

Angel chuckled beside him. "They'll be here."

"You trust your source?"

"No. But they'll be here. They've got nowhere else to go."

Wesley let out an annoyed sigh and leant back against the brick wall.

Angel glanced up and down the alley way carefully, then swung in front of Wesley with a wicked grin and sank to his knees.

"Angel!" Wesley gasped. "What do you think you're doing?"

"What do you think?" Angel nuzzled Wesley's groin, enjoying his scent.

"But what if somebody comes?"

"That's the idea," Angel purred, still nuzzling.

"We could get arrested for lewd behaviour," Wesley hissed in a panic.

"Live on the edge, Wes." He smiled up at him, dark light in his eyes." "Come for me."

Wesley pressed back against the wall, eyes closed, one hand twisting through Angel's hair, tighter and tighter until...

"Angel!" he cried as his eyes snapped open.

Angel almost flew backwards with a wrenching blow.

"Angel!" Wes had his gun out and fired two shots, dropping both demons where they stood. He was still severing the head of the second demon when Angel sat up, clutching his head.

"Ow," Angel announced.

"You're all right," Wesley noted in relief. "I checked for a pulse before I realised," he shrugged and finished his grisly work with all the professional detachment of a fishwife.

Angel glanced at Wesley, the two dead demons and the parcel in the alley. He leant across the dead demon, grabbed Wesley and kissed him hard. He crawled over to Wesley, unzipped him and finished with his hand what he'd started, pressing Wesley back against the wall as he kissed him again, making him come at last, spilling warm over his fingers. They kissed slowly afterwards, the package momentarily forgotten, only caring about each other, the feel of each other, kissing each other as they half lay in the dirty, blood splattered alley.

Wesley stopped to breathe for a moment, brushing away the blood that showed in the graze on Angel's forehead. It wasn't swollen or bruised, or even really bleeding, but it hurt, and he felt Angel's skin flinch slightly.

"Shouldn't we get back to your place?" Wesley indicated the package with a tilt of his head. "Then I can put a plaster on that." He brushed close to the cut softly.

"And my bed is softer," Angel demurred.

Wesley grinned. "You have a one track mind."

"Just noticing that, huh?"

"Yes."

"Problem?"

"No." Wesley was really grinning. There were moments like these when he entirely forgot Angel was a cursed vampire, that Angel was anything but his boyfriend.

Angel leant forward and kissed him. Angel had those moments too.

Lights flashed down the alley. Angel grabbed Wesley's hand, pulling him to his feet.

"Come on, or we will be cited for more than lewd behaviour."

GLORY BOX

Another demon. Another dollar.

Angel walked out of the bathroom wearing nought but his black leather jeans, his hair wet and spiky, brought up short as a cross bow bolt flew past his chest and embedded itself deeply in the foam target beside him. Angel reacted with on of his more arch po faced looks.

"Sorry," Wesley flustered slightly, lowering his crossbow. "I didn't hear you. I was just indulging in a bit of target practice. "

"So I see." Angel took note of the collection of holes clustered around and inside the black centre. He'd have never have guessed Wes was a crack shot. But Wes always surprised him. That's what he liked about him.

"Sorry," Wesley apologised again.

"It's okay, Wes. I trust you."

"Really?" Wesley's innocent happiness morphed into sly challenge. "How much do you trust me."

"What do you mean?" Angel asked, throwing his damp towel on to the back of a nearby chair.

Wesley picked up an apple from the bowl on the kitchen table and tossed it to him. Angel caught it and stared at it.

"Prove it."

"Wes, I don't know," Angel laughed nervously, not looking at him.

"Coward," Wesley teased, his voice soft and low.

Angel glanced at the marks in the board, then at Wesley, then at the apple in his hand, tossing it slightly, feeling its weight and size, considering.

"Okay, but if you dust me, there'll be hell to pay."

"Agreed," Wesley nodded seriously. He reloaded his crossbow and lined it up carefully as Angel balanced the apple on his head and stood there, nervously, contemplating St Sebastian.

Wesley smiled wickedly down the crossbow, which unnerved Angel far more than he felt comfortable with, and fired. The bow flew across the room. Angel stood dead still and felt it slam into the apple above him. If he breathed, he would have let out a long, relieved sigh.

"Coward," Wesley grinned.

"I trusted you," Angel complained.

"Liar." Wesley was triumphant. He swung his crossbow over his shoulder, walked jauntily across the room and, standing directly in front of Angel, so close they were almost touching, he reached up and pulled free the wooden bolt, with the apple still skewered to it.

Looking at him, Angel slid the apple slowly from the bolt and took a bite from it, then offered it to Wesley.

"I suppose it is traditional," Wesley grinned, taking the apple in Angel's hand and biting where Angel had bitten.

He straightened when he heard Cordelia clatter down in the lift, but he didn't move.

She saw the target, the crossbow and apple, and guessed the boys had been mucking about. She also saw how close they were standing together, the way they were looking at each other, and shook her head. No. No way.

"Coffee? Tea?" she offered.

"Please," Wesley answered, his eyes never leaving Angel's. Angel's hand ran along the shaft of the bolt, Wesley's hand brushed his leather clad thigh, running softly down as Wesley leaned in and kissed him slowly, the bolt pressing hard against his stomach.

Wesley's hand rubbed down Angel's thigh.

"God, I love you in leather," he breathed.

That smile. "I know."

Angel groaned and pushed him away a millimetre. Too much, too close. Wesley understood. He could feel Angel, even though they weren't touching, he could see his hard nipples, the hunger in his eyes. If Angel generated any body heat the air would have shimmered between them. Wesley bit at the apple again as Cordelia turned around again, having managed to fill the kettle at last. They hadn't moved. They were still looking at each other. Inwardly she shook her head again. No way. Angel was just in one of his playful moods. Really really playful.

Wesley stepped back another centimetre at last, reloading his crossbow while holding onto the apple with his teeth. He didn't fumble once and Angel found watching Wesley's skill with the weapon highly arousing. Too arousing. He flashed Wesley a hungry smile.

Wesley straightened and took another bite of his apple. God, he wanted Angel. Talk about temptation and damnation. Eve had gotten off lightly in comparison.

"Angel, this tea is, it's escaped." Cordelia was scowling in the old tin that passed as a tea caddy.

"It's loose leaf. Wes likes it like that. Don't worry, I'll make it."

He left his dangerous proximity to Wesley and stepped into his kitchen, such as it was.

Cordelia glanced at what Angel was wearing.

"Are you evil again or is this just a fashion choice?'

Angel glanced down as Wesley brushed against him, he felt Wesley's hand feather over his arse as if by accident, and poor Angel looked physically pained, which he was. Wesley seemed smugly oblivious.

"No," he managed to answer. But it was close, so very close. And Wesley was standing so close to him.

Angel's voice was quiet and low. "I've shown you my trust, how much do you trust me?"

Wesley leant in close, his voice equally soft. "Tie me to your bed and I'll show you."

Angel's eyes flashed. Just the thought of Wesley's wrists manacled above his head, helpless to anything Angel might desire, made the heat burn and kick in his belly.

Wesley, seeing the reaction mere suggestion had played upon Angel, slowly and deliberately pressed his wrists behind his back, demonstrating his submission.

Angel's mouth went dry, all he could hear was the thrumming of Wesley's heart beat. All he could feel was the heat of Wesley's blood. He quickly looked away, barely regaining control of himself.

"Playing with fire, Wes," he warned. He walked to his fridge, leaning on the open door, feeling the cool mist caress his cheeks as he smelt the blood inside. Wesley might trust him, but he certainly didn't trust himself, not when he wanted Wesley so bad he could taste him.

"Hey, Angel, " Cordy turned to glare at him "Didn't your mother ever tell you not to leave the fridge door open?"

Angel looked up, somewhat disorientated.

"Guess she didn't," Cordelia amended more quietly.

Faith fidgeted as she waited for her visitor. She glanced up boredly as the door opened, then brightened with almost predatory glee as Wesley walked towards her. Tall, handsome, dressed head to in black, he walked with an easy confidence she'd never seen before. He took the seat opposite her and sat down, looking at her directly.

"Way to go, Wes. Finally got some."

"What? Ah..er..." he stumbled, reverting to the Wesley of old, colour flushing his cheeks. He squirmed slightly as she scanned him up and down.

"Angel?! You're doing Angel?! My, aren't you the sly one. Never knew you had it in you, Wes." She leered. "But I thought he couldn't, you know."

Wesley got a grip on his composure. "We improvise. And how did you know?" he asked conspirationally.

Faith grinned. "You're wearing his shirt. That's an Angel shirt." She nodded.

Wesley glanced down. "Oh. So I am. I'd forgotten. I only put it on because my shirt was ruined last night. Fighting demons," he added, seeing her arched eyebrow. "I do it all the time, I suppose. I like to feel...no one's noticed before."

"It's alright, Wes. I won't tell. Not that I've got anybody to tell. You and Angelheart are my only visitors."

"We care."

She glanced down at the inscribed desk.

"I know." Her voice was quiet.

"Anything I can get you?" he asked, and she could see the genuine concern through the glass.

He blames himself, she thought. He deserves to. He fucked up as much as I did.

"So why are you here, Wes. other than to brag about your new boyfriend?"

"To see you. To remind you that you're not alone. That I care. That I wish to make amends. That I will do everything in my power to help you, small and ineffectual though that may be."

She studied him.

"Aren't you worried about Angel losing his soul?" she questioned, deflecting his focus.

"Terrified."

"Can't you do something?"

"I spend every spare waking moment reading arcane alchemy texts until my eyes bleed."

"Gross, Wes." She rocked back in her chair, grinning.

"You've really got it bad, haven't you. I can totally see that. Those dark eyes, that tortured soul, body to die for. Careful what you wish for, Wes."

"I know."

"Do you?" Faith leant close. "Angel burns everyone he touches. I speak from experience. Be careful, Wes."

"I will."

HAND IN GLOVE

Wesley was beaming and brimming with cash from his latest devastating game of darts. Angel sank back in their hard wooden seated booth laughing as Wesley planted a couple of pints in front of them.

"You're a man of hidden talents, Wes I still can't believe you're a killer darts player."

"Ah, well, neither can anyone else. That's the trick of it." Wesley answered smugly as he sat down.

"Where did you get so good."

"From boredom, mainly. Even anally retentive Watcher's blow off their studies now and then." He looked up from his pint. "Honestly? I had a dartboard in my room. Sometimes I'd just play for hours on end rather than work on my essays. Then I realised I could play well, and well enough to win beer money. " He smiled. "My allowance didn't stretch that far, you see."

"Wes," Angel purred wickedly. "You're a darts shark."

Wesley shrugged. "Now you know all my darkest secrets," he grinned.

Angel sincerely doubted that. Wesley was full of surprises. A little human puzzle box. It was hard to imagine Wesley down at the pub on a Friday night, yet here they were, capping off a night's work in a faux British pub that bordered on serious twee, but was authentic enough for the homesick ex-pats crammed inside it.

Wesley was homesick. The beer wasn't the right temperature, and watered down, too, he suspected darkly, the pub was smoke free and the cricket and football were all delayed telecasts due to the time difference. He didn't say anything about being homesick, but he didn't have to, having dragged Angel to this far flung outpost of the Empire.

"So, you buying me dinner?" Angel prodded, teasing, still remembering Wesley's small wad of illgotten gains.

"No," Wesley smiled. "Complete waste of my hard earned dosh."

"You just like me because I'm a cheap date."

"It helps that you're good looking," Wesley matched his teasing mood. "I like my men drop dead gorgeous."

"Well, dead at least," Angel qualified, reflecting Wesley's grin. They must be getting drunk, to be flirting so openly. Angel was having fun. This, the noise if not the smell, it reminded him of old times, the not entirely regretted as much as they should be good old times in his misspent youth.

Wesley caught the memory in Angel's eyes, never once aware they were being watched themselves.

Wesley leant on the stone wall above Angel's lair. A soft breeze played across his face as he looked out over the night sky.

"It's almost pretty, up here, at night. Like a city of golden palaces, where nothing bad can ever happen."

"You're drunk," teased Angel, amused, lurking in the shadows.

Wesley turned, smiling. "Only a little. Just enough to be pleasantly...pleasant." He flashed a grin at Angel before returning to trying to find the stars past the man made ones. The wind ruffled his short hair and open shirt.

Angel thought he should get Wesley slightly drunk more often. He was relaxed, quiet, reflective, happy. The real Wesley with his childlike wonder at the world slipped out. Sometimes he wished Wesley had rebelled against his training earlier and had seen a bit more of the world, but seeing him like this, Angel was glad he hadn't. The touch of innocence, it had always attracted him. It attracted him now. Like a moth to the flame. He left the Shadows and stood beside Wesley, watching the skyline with him. It was kind of pretty, with all the dirt hidden, just a million glittering lights in the velvet darkness.

"I remember the first time I saw the lights in London."

"That must have been magical," Wesley smiled.

Angel tilted his head, remembering. It had made it harder to hunt, driving his kind into the alleys and back streets, but he refrained from telling Wesley that.

"It was. It was something special." He reached out and brushed Wesley's face. They came together for a kiss. It was a warm autumn night, they were both a bit tipsy and this was how such a night was supposed to end, with a long kiss in front of the LA skyline. The breeze played with Angel's clothes and Wesley's hand slipped under his shirt, stroking his cool flat stomach with his thumb. It aroused angel more than anything else and he held Wesley and kissed him deeper, his tongue thrusting into Wesley's heat, the only way he could take him. Wesley held onto him tight and the kiss went on and he never wanted it to stop. Nights like this should last forever.

SOUR TIMES

Wesley lay lengthwise on the bed, grabbing the sheets in his hands and laughing into the pillow. Angel was licking and blowing softly on his lower back. The sensation was very exotic.

"Angel," he murmured as he felt the tongue dip lower. "Oh, Angel," he sighed, undulating into the mattress. Wesley's breath caught. Angel grinned, knowing exactly what he liked, and the dipped to lick him there again.

"Angel? Wesley?" Cordelia called out from upstairs.

"Shit!"

Angel threw the blanket over Wesley, slithered into his jeans and ran out to meet her, pulling the bedroom doors closed behind him, open shirt fluttering in his wake.

"Cordelia, hi," he greeted her at the foot of the steps, thoroughly ruffled. "You're early," he flustered, fumbling with the buttons on his shirt.

Behind the closed doors Wesley eased himself into his pants, zipping very very carefully, and then slowly, sadly buttoned his shirt. Bloody hell, he'd been enjoying that.

Angel steered Cordelia around into the kitchen so that she was facing away from the bedroom, allowing Wesley to sneak out and pretend as though he'd just arrived, shirt untucked and barefoot. Angel shot him a sympathetic look over Cordelia's shoulder.

"Hey, Wes," she greeted. "You here already again? Are you living here or what? Did you get kicked out of your place?"

"No," Wesley just shrugged and slumped at Angel's table.

Cordelia looked from one to the other, sensing more than a little awkwardness in the air. Angel looked really distracted, and Wesley was dishevelled and disheartened.

"Anything up?" Cordelia asked.

"Not any more," Wesley sulked.

Angel struggled for a moment to remain straight faced, but eventually managed to master himself, leaning heavily on the back of Wesley's chair.

"Breakfast?"

"I guess."

Angel squeezed his shoulder. "There's always lunch and dinner," he promised.

Cordelia missed their meaning entirely and sat down, spreading out the morning's paper.

"Anything good?" Wesley asked, not terribly interested.

"You mean any beheadings or stuff, no, not so far." She scrutinised him more closely. "Weren't you wearing that shirt yesterday?"

"You know Wes, an entire rack of blue shirts, all the same," Angel improvised.

"Brings out my eyes," Wesley retorted peevishly.

Cordelia glared at him. "Somebody got out on the wrong side of the bed this morning," she accused mildly.

"You're not wrong," Wesley muttered.

Angel thumped down a plate of bacon and eggs in front of him before he could say any more.

"Eat up, Wes. You need your protein."

"I don't want my breakfast." Wesley snarled.

"More like brunch anyway," Cordelia noted.

"You need your protein, Wes," Angel tried to be charming. Wesley glared at him. Okay, Angel backed off, forget trying to be sunny.

"Don't mind him, Cordelia," he excused Wesley. "We were up all night."

"That's one word for it." Wesley muttered, poking at his egg with a fork. It was still runny. He hated them runny.

Angel leant on Wesley's chair and squeezed his shoulder. Man, he was tense. He began to rub the shoulder, but Wesley pulled away in a churlish gesture.

Angel could feel the anger rolling off Wesley.

"Then we stopped off on the pub on the way home." Angel tried to explain.

Cordy looked from Angel to Wesley, unshaven, dishevelled and as cranky as she'd ever seen him.

"You guys haven't been to bed yet, have you. It's alright for you Angel, but look at Wes. You're dead and he looks worse than dead."

"Thankyou." Wesley sniped.

"Look, you send Wesley home to get some beauty sleep, which he obviously needs, and I'll mind the fort. He'll scare away clients if we let him loose like he is now."

"She's got a point, Wes," Angel conciliated.

"Fine! Whatever! I'll sleep here? Is that okay?" He threw his fork down, got up, stalked into Angel's bedroom and slammed the door behind him.

Angel stood uncomfortably by his stove for a long minute.

"I... er, I'd better go see, how he is..."

"Sure, fine," Cordelia beamed her professional insincere smile. Better Angel than her.

She pulled the toast towards her, nibbling at it, still reading the paper.

She couldn't hear any shouting going on, which was good.

Wesley was huddled under the blanket, upset though he didn't know why. Angel sat on the bed and began stroking his hair.

"I'm sorry," he soothed.

Wesley didn't say anything, but he didn't say no, either.

"Cordy's right, you should get some sleep."

"I did sleep."

"A couple of hours. I watched you."

"Can't sleep." Wesley pouted. He was too stressed.

Angel slithered against him. "I can help with that." He promised, inching down Wesley's body.

Angel snuggled close and cuddled his unwilling paramour.

"You get really cranky if you don't get your breakfast hardon seen to, don't you," he teased, laughing, annoying Wesley who remained a tight, tense coil of moodiness beside him. Welcome to my world, he thought, cursed to have the bluest balls on the planet for all eternity. Fucking gypsies...was what had gotten him into this predicament in the first place.

"Come here and I'll make you come," he promised, grabbing Wesley's package fondly and squeezing slightly.

Wesley felt himself being turned over by vampire strong arms and held down on his back against the mattress.

Angel prowled over him, rolling him onto his back. He slowly undid the buttons on Wesley's shirt and laid it open, running his hands down Wesley's chest before moving onto his zipper, tugging Wesley's pants right off. He ran his hands down Wesley's thighs, parting his legs, leaning down to kiss Wesley's inner thigh. Wesley jumped and gasped, making Angel laugh gently. Wesley made soft panting noises as Angel's mouth and fingers worked their magic. Wesley made a quiet begging sound that meant more. Angel's fingers pushed inside him. Wesley moaned loudly. Angel stroked him on the inside, making Wesley moan again.

"Sssh," Angel laughed, moving up to cover Wesley's mouth with his own as he pumped him. He cold still hear Cordelia's heartbeat on the other side of the door and Wesley chose this moment to be vocal. He felt Wesley's pulse quicken, his muscles tense. He pushed deeper and Wesley came hot against him.

Through the oak doors Cordy heard nothing except Wesley making small breathing noises, faster and slightly louder until they began to annoy her. It sounded like he was...no...no way...no way on earth. The Wesley noises stopped all of a sudden, and there was nothing but silence. See, nothing, she reassured herself, as Wesley sank down to sleep in Angel's arms.

"Sssh," Angel whispered again, kissing Wesley's forehead as Wesley sank in his arms in a contented doze. He watched Wesley sleep for a while, just watching him breathe, then carefully unwrapped himself and slipped off the bed.

Angel emerged, running a hand through his hair, still looking a little sleep mussed.

"You guys pulled another all nighter, didn't you."

He nodded. "Pretty much."

"Wes hasn't been home yet, has he."

Angel leant against the counter.

"No. There wasn't much point. The sun was coming up and I couldn't drive him."

She jerked her head towards the bedroom door. "Having lots of little sleep overs of late, aren't we."

"What?" Angel fumbled the cup he was fiddling with and nearly dropped it.

"You and Wesley. Bit more than friends." She pressed, pouncing on his slip.

"Something like that," Angel mumbled, eyes downcast.

"Angel!" Cordelia was suddenly very angry with him. "What about the no sex thing! Remember tat?"

"How can I forget. Nothing like that, really We're safe. It's just high school stuff, really."

"I remember your high school stuff," she accused.

"We're good, I promise."

"Well, okay." She folded her arms, disapproving. "Wesley?" she had to ask.

Angel shrugged. "Lots of long night together. We grew close." He paused. "How'd you know."

"Please," she gestured. "Wesley's always here, he's wearing your shirts and those bites were some kinky sex thing, weren't they."

Angel ducked his head. "Sort of," he admitted. "But I really did need to feed. I just left out the fun part."

"Please do." She instructed. "Just tell me one thing."

"Why Wesley?"

"No, it's okay. You don't have to explain Wesley. It's the virgin factor. I totally get that." she smiled. "Does he make you happy. Not that happy," she categorised.

"Yeah, he does."

"Good. I want you to be happy. But not too happy." she warned again.

They smiled at each other.

"You didn't have to hide from me, you know, Angel."

"I know," he admitted. He nodded back towards his bedroom. "We'll let him sleep. We really didn't get back til very early this morning."

"Sure," she smiled impishly. "And Angel," Cordelia halted him.

"Yeah?"

"You might want to change your shirt first," Cordelia prompted gently.

Angel glanced down, and saw he was marked with Wesley's seed drying in silvery maps of Polynesia splashed across the black silk. Damn.

"I'll mind the fort til Monica in there wakes up," Cordelia grinned, swinging away with the self satisfaction of having actually made a vampire blush.

LET'S GO TO BED

Wesley smiled with something approaching relief.

"I can't thank you enough, Willow," he nodded on the phone. "I know, but it's worth a try. Yes, I'm willing to risk it. Yes, I've got the restoration spell here. Yes, we can keep trying. Yes, I've got a pen. Start away." He repeated each word carefully as he wrote it down.

Coming up in the lift Angel could hear Wesley's voice, talking to Willow on the phone, and smiled to himself. He missed Willow. Then it hit him. He grabbed at his chest, falling against the wall. Oh god. He doubled over, sliding into a corner, gasping.

"Thank you again, Willow. You've no idea how much I appreciate your efforts. You're very welcome, " he smiled. Wesley let the phone down gently.

"Wes?"

Angel's weak call wiped the smile off Wesley's face. He ran to the lift and found Angel curled up into a ball on the floor.

"Oh god, Angel, I'm so sorry, I didn't think you were around."

"What happened?"

"A binding spell. Willow was reading it out to me...Oh god...Angel..."

Angel sat up, experimenting with the sensation of being a little more upright. He felt like the bad end of a good night.

"It's okay, Wes. I'm still here. I'm still me. No relapse." In spite of feeling like he'd taken a pummelling from the inside out he managed a wry smile at Wesley. "Maybe it worked."

Wesley's eyes widened in realisation, then pure joy. He threw himself at Angel like an excited puppy. They fell into the corner, mouths hungry for each other, hands grabbing at anything. Angel managed to stand. Wesley, still kneeling, pushed up Angel's shirt and kissed the cool flesh of Angel's washboard stomach. Only now did he feel like he had permission, and he held Angel with a confidence that was giddying and the feel of Angel's skin went straight to his groin. Angel pulled him to his feet wordlessly to kiss him, a powerful kiss between two grown men who were evenly matched in their passion.

Then they managed an odd little stumbling waltz backwards towards the bedroom, leaving items of clothing hastily strewn behind them, kissing furiously, laughing when they fell at last onto the mattress together. Angel hovered above Wesley, stroking his face tenderly, then straddled him, unbuttoning Wesley's shirt, pushing the fabric aside and tasting the flesh underneath. Wesley groaned as Angel's mouth covered his nipple. He ran his hands through the thick black hair, pulling at it as Angel's mouth pulled on him. He'd wanted this for so long, so long.

Angel's free hand undid his belt, unzipping his fly, sliding in to cup and fondle him, rubbing along his painfully hard erection, thumb circling the wet tip.

Wesley arched back with a sigh. Angel kissed his way down Wesley in a straight line until he made his way all the way down there, kissing the tip of Wesley's erection, then swallowed him, sucking, squeezing and stroking until Wesley bucked beneath him and came in his mouth with a strangled cry.

Tenderly Angel stripped him of the rest of his clothes.

Wesley smiled up at him as Angel lay along side him, flesh pressing flesh.

"You don't have to be gentle. I'm not a silly little virgin."

Angel said nothing. He rolled onto Wesley, his mouth devouring Wesley with animal need. Wesley's hands dug into the hard muscled back that moved above him. He cried. He'd wanted to feel Angel like this for so long, wanted to touch where he never dared.

Wesley rolled over with a cry of sudden need and felt Angel's cool skin cover his, Angel's hardness press against his thigh, leaving velvet strokes up and down as Angel moved up and down, kissing his shoulders. Wesley grabbed at the sheets. Please. Angel gripped Wesley by the hips, rose up and with a grunt began to enter him. Wesley pushed up to meet him, desperate to have Angel inside him, steeling himself to the sudden shaft of pain. Angel began to thrust forward, holding Wesley tight. Wesley climbed up on the bed, holding the brass rods in his fists and they rocked together, back and forth, hard and fast, Angel grunting low in his ear as he buried himself deep into Wesley with each powerful plunge, his hands claiming ownership of Wesley. They rutted fiercely in animal freedom until Angel cried out in a rush, coming deep inside Wesley.

Wesley leant back against him in relief. He turned around, touching Angel's human face tenderly, watching, worried, but Angel only held him close.

"Happy?" Wes asked softly.

Angel grunted noncommittedly.

"Truly happy?" Wesley pressed.

A further unintelligible murmur.

Wesley, still buzzing, was both relieved and devastated.

"It's because I'm not her," he accused. "I'm not Buffy. And I'm not Doyle. Or Spike or Drusilla. Or Darla..." e sulked.

"No," Angel was both gentle and patient. "You're my Wes, and I'm with you now. Don't try and compare yourself to my ex's, Wes. It's a long list and they all ended badly."

"I know." A beat. "What does that say about us?"

"That we're due for a change in fortunes."

Wes tried to smile. "Is this a curse thing or you just really difficult to be with."

Angel smiled and held him close. "Both. No guarantees, Wes. Just one day at a time."

"Funny, from a man who's going to live forever," Wesley mused quietly in his arms.

They lay together, comfortably half dozing in sated satisfaction, for a time Wesley couldn't measure, when the phone upstairs began to ring.

"And I gave Cordelia the day off," Angel groaned at the ceiling.

"It's all right. I'll go," Wesley volunteered nobly. "It's my job, after all." Wesley pulled on his trousers and ran up the stairs.

Angel stretched luxuriously on the bed and waited for Wesley to come back. Then he heard a crash.

He ran up the stairs, only to have a stake spear him to the wall through his shoulder.

He snarled.

"Angel! Don't!" Wesley screamed.

Angel clawed at the stake, ripped it free and drew back as another volley shot two through his thigh.

Too many. Too dangerous. He couldn't fight them. He could only cower and watch as they dragged Wesley into the sunlight.

No. Angel glanced desperately at the clock on the wall. Over an hour to sunset.

"Giles!" Angel was breathless, strung out, looking desperate, hovering on his doorstep.

Giles sprang up, startled, wondering if it had finally happened, because looking at Angel right now scared him.

"They've got Wesley," Angel pleaded.

Okay, that was the other bad scenario.

"When?"

"A few hours ago. I drove straight here. You've got to tell me where they'd take him. Would he be out of the country already?"

Giles slid on his glasses.

"Possibly. It all depends on how organised the grab was. They may be holding him while they arrange transport. I take it Wesley didn't go quietly, so they'll have to drug him and probably smuggle him out by some means other than in economy. That may take time to set up, but I believe they'd be ready to bundle him out of the country immediately. He's almost certainly out of the State already>"

"What will they do to him?"

"He'll have to answer for his failures with Faith and Buffy, his disobedience and failure to follow direct orders, and he'll have to answer for you."

Angel looked bleak.

"They're going to kill him, aren't they."

"Very probably. But first there will be a trial. For treason."

"Trial?"

"Think Spanish Inquisition rather than Old Bailey. The Watcher's Council are rather old fashioned that way."

If it was possible for Angel to turn several shades paler than he already was, he did so then.

"Giles, you've got to help me find him. Please."

Giles paused. He could really hurt Angel now. He could have his revenge. He wanted to. Angel deserved nothing less. But not like this.

Wesley's head hung down on his chest. The smell of ozone and his burning chest hairs filled his mouth and nose. He wanted to be sick. Summoning everything he had, he raised his head and looked his captors in the eye.

"You haven't even asked me anything." he spoke breathlessly, with effort.

"No," smiled the man with the switch, thumbing it before flicking it on again and Wesley arched back in a curve in the chair he was bound to with a cry as electricity arced across his skin again.

Giles looked like he'd pulled an allniter, books and travel brochures scattered all over his aparement in apparently unrelated piles.

"Willow, "I'm busy."

"I see that. I'm here to help."

Giles could see that Willow wasn't a child so easily dismissed any more.

"Angel phoned. He said the Watcher's had kidnapped Wesley. He said you might need my help. What can I do?"

Giles looked particularly harrassed.

"Do you know where they've taken Wesley?"

Giles rubbed his eyes.

"Back to England. To face the Disciplinary Council."

"Like what they wanted to do to Faith?"

Giles nodded.

"What will they do to Wesley?"

"Oh, put him on trial for crimes against the council."

"Oh. Can we get him a lawyer or something?"

"It's not that sort of trial, Willow. More of an inquisition."

"Like the Spanish Inquisition?" Willow's eyes were wide.

"The council is a stickler for tradition."

"What will they do to him?"

Giles fiddled with his glasses.

"Oh, they'll probably torture him, extract a confession, try him for treason, burn him at the stake, cut his head off and bury him at a crossroads with a stake through his heart as a heretic. That sort of thing. Like I said, big on tradition. I understand it's usual in these cases, though the last time I recall such a trial was nearly two hundred years ago. Getting into bed with a vampire is a serious thing." Giles reminded.

Willow nodded sagely and Giles realised exactly what he'd just said.

"They haven't? Angel wouldn't be so bloody stupid --"

"Oh no," Willow shook her head emphatically. She knew how badly they wanted to though.

"Oh god, does Angel know what they'll do to Wesley?"

"He has an idea, I think."

"He sounded powerful freaked on the phone. Poor Angel. Poor Wesley. You will; rescue Wesley, right?"

"We'll try," Giles promised unconvincingly. A part of him was more than happy to let both Angel and Wyndam-Pryce burn, but he would never be able to look Willow in the eye again, and, if nothing else, he had to set an example.

"They'll be taking Wesley back to England somehow. We can't even fly there because of Angel. We'll have to catch a red eye to New York, and I've booked us on the QE2. It's leaving tomorrow, as luck would have it. I just have to smuggle a vampire on board and Bob's your uncle."

"The QE2? That's nice," Willow smiled, then she remembered. "Not nice, the circumstances." She shrugged. "But how will Angel get inside Watcher Headquarters, him bein' a vamp n'all."

"That's the problem. Maybe, just maybe I can get him past some of the protective spells, but it's still a residence for a number of Watchers. There's no way he can get inside and no way he'll get out alive."

"What's he going to do?"

"He'll need a Slayer to get Wesley out. It's the only way."

"Buffy?"

"No. She can't cross the council. They'll punish her, too, then. She must stay out of this. And Angel doesn't want her involved," Giles stumbled over Angel's reasons.

"Because of Wes? Gotcha." Willow nodded. "Then who-" Her eyes widened. "Faith? He's getting Faith to save Wesley? But she'll kill him? And she's in gaol. What's he going to do, break her out of gaol?"

"Apparently, yes," Giles admitted. "I'm to meet them in LA tonight."

"I want to go with you. I want to give Angel my blessing." Willow insisted.

She was so heartfelt Giles relented. "Just to the airport. I think Angel might like to see a friendly face."

They roughly bound his hands and feet and mouth with duct tape, so he could no longer struggle or scream as the hyperdermic was stabbed into arm, sending him reeeling off the chair, face down onto the floor. But he was still partly conscious as they half carried, half dragged him across the room and threw him hard into what felt like a box, and he was still conscious enough to hear his muffled screams against the tape as the coffin lid was slammed down over him and nailed shut.

At first Giles wondered where Faith was. Angel had said he was getting her because he needed her. How Angel was going to do this Giles didn't ask because he didn't want to know.

Then he realised the young woman in the tailored business suit, hair swept up in a bun and almost no make up standing beside Angel, also dressed for a business meeting, was Faith. He did an obvious double take and she cracked a smile, a Faith smile.

"Neat disguise huh? It was totally Angel's idea, my being on the run and all. He busted me out." She looked at Angel again with both gratitude and satisfaction. "He was totally awesome."

Well, thought Giles, the disguise worked so long as she didn't open her mouth. Willow regarded Faith warily and he didn't blame her.

"Willow," Angel acknowledged in his offhand way, unsure of what else to say in such an uncomfortable reunion.

Willow, bless her, could roll with the punches better than most. She went forward, squeezed his hand and he let her hang a small pouch around his neck.

"It's a protection spell." She shrugged as she hung the small pouch around his neck and kissed his cheek. "Probably totally useless, but it's the thought that counts, right?"

"Your other spell worked, I think. Thankyou."

"It worked? Really"

His face shone for a moment, then clouded just as suddenly. She could see him falling into brooding.

"You'll get him back, Angel. I know it," she promised softly.

Angel was oddly touched. He kissed her full on the lips, leaving Willow breathless, surprised and not a little bit giddy.

They left Willow standing there, looking very concerned, Giles dragging his heavy carry on bag of books, struggling to keep up with Angel and Faith who loped ahead.

Great, following a wanted felon and a vampire. I need my head read, he chastised himself.

Angel glanced back as they went through the gates, and Giles saw the distress written deep in his face. The Romany had chosen their curse well.

WHY DOES IT ALWAYS RAIN ON ME?

Watcher's Headquarters, Aldbourne, England.

Wesley woke in pain, face down in the darkness, but he knew he was in England. Something about the air. Even down here, shut in a tiny cell adjacent the wine cellar, he could tell.

He knew exactly where he was. He'd never been in this dank little stone room, but he'd known of it. It was where they'd kept the odd demon, or, as in his case, rogue Watcher. It was a holding cell. It was dank, filthy, completely dark and cold. The dampness seeped up from the rough hewn stone wall into his already aching bones. There was no where to sleep, no where to piss. An cut deep into the stone walls were the despairing scratches made by the previous occupants. And as bad as this was, he knew it would get worse. Too many watchers had fallen in recent years, enough so that he, untried and untested in the field, had been given not one but two Slayers to instruct before his inevitable failure. A rogue Watcher was considered as dangerous as a rogue Slayer, if not more so. He knew he'd been brought back here to be made an example of. He knew he was going to die. It was just a matter of when, and how much he'd be made to suffer before hand.

He thought of Angel, and then stopped himself immediately. There was no use feeling sorry for himself. They'd had just one time together, but it would have to be enough. It was more than he'd ever dreamt of. At least he would go to his death knowing Angel had loved him.

He sat with his back to the wall, staring into the darkness. They wouldn't break him. He was quite willing to die before he recanted his friendship with the vampire.

Angel. Wesley didn't have to close his eyes to see Angel, remember the feel of him through the silk of his shirts, pressed against him, his clean smell. He was always clean, always washing himself. A touch of the Lady Macbeths, Wesley smiled to himself. He wanted to feel Angel's strong arms around him, Angel's voice telling him everything was going to be okay. Angel was the first and only person to protect him from the bad things in the world, and the loneliness, and the irony was not lost on him, Angel having spent most of his life being one of those bad things that waited in the dark. But he loved Angel more than anyone, more than life, and the loss of him caused him physical pain. He needed him now. His strength. His brooding calm. The comfort of his touch.

Kissing Angel was better than books, better than television, better than eating, and so wrapped up with demon hunting he couldn't separate the two.

Wesley found himself craving the cool silkiness of Angel's mouth. He wanted Angel's tongue rimming his lips, Angel's tongue fucking his mouth. He wanted it so bad he could feel it. Funny, until now he'd never realised just how often he'd had contact with Angel, just for comfort, sometimes just because they had nothing better to do. He remembered several times waiting around in Angel's car for some demon, the two of them necking like teenagers parked on lover's lane. There was one time, fresh from the kill and covered head to toe in slime,, Angel had dragged him into the back seat and kissed him until he came. Later in the shower he'd surprised himself with just how demanding he could be, wanting Angel's hands on his body, and knowing exactly where.

Angel. Even now, in spite of all they'd done to him and all the drugs they'd given him, the merest thought of Angel sent a spike of heat through his groin. A spike that pulsed warmly the more he remembered the feel of Angel's skin, Angel crying out his name. They couldn't take that away from him. He lay down on the damp stone, shoved his hand down his pants and focused on Angel as he brought himself off with fast strokes. Angel, he thought as he came. I love you.

Angel woke with a sudden start, spooking Giles in the plane seat beside him.

"What?" Giles asked, studying Angel's momentarily confused face.

"He's alive." Angel understood the fleeting touch he'd dreamt of. "He's still alive."

"How do you know?"

"I just know. I felt him. Dreamt him. Connected to him, just for a moment."

Giles studied the vampire, pale with worry. Perhaps it was true. Angel had always seemed to have a sixth sense where Buffy had been concerned. Now appeared that concern had been transferred to Wyndam-Pryce.

Angel was gloomily watching the dark night sky creep past the plane window, as if his thoughts alone could will the plane to go faster.

Is this what you deserve, Angel, Giles found himself thinking. To just sit here, waiting for your lover to die. Then he thought of Wyndam-Pryce. There but for the grace of God, Giles reminded himself. That's why he was here. Conscience was a terrible thing.

The QE2 ploughed majestically through the North Atlantic.

Faith glanced at the bow.

"Don't even think about it," Giles muttered, grabbing her arm and dragging her on.

Giles wondered why he suddenly felt like the lone adult in a St Trinian's film. Because, he answered himself, Faith always had that effect on him.

SUNNYDALE, CALIFORNIA

"Faith? They took Faith?"

"Well," Willow was backed into a corner. "They needed a slayer to get into Watcher Headquarters and she cares about Wesley. He saved her from the Council."

"And I don't care about Wesley?"

Willow scowled. "Well, no, you don't. You don't care about Faith. You don't even care about Angel any more."

"What, so they formed their own little club of rejects now?"

"They're a family. Like it used to be here. Sure, it's unconventional, but I envy them. When you love someone, you do anything for them."

"Yeah, Willow, I remember."

"Do you?" Willow frowned deeper. "Faith and Angel, they care about Wesley."

"And I don't?"

Willow frowned.

"No, you don't. You've always been rude to him. He doesn't deserve that. Sure, he was green when they sent him out here, but you never gave him a chance."

"You think it's my fault they took Wesley."

"I think you haven't helped. Anyway, that's not the point. Wesley might die. I'm doing what I can to save him so shut up and go away or help me." Willow had her resolved face.

Giles bleakly observed their tiny cabin for the next week, one single bed, one double. Faith shot past him to land with a bounce on the double bed. She rolled over, sat up and patted the space beside her.

"Don't sweat about it, Giles. Angel and I will bunk up, won't we, love."

Angel barely reacted.

Giles bustled to his bed, opened his suitcase and began extracting various books and toiletries and setting each in their prescribed place.

"And in the movie version the part of Giles will be played by Dick Van Dyke."

Faith's announcement brought a flicker of life to Angel's face as Giles scowled and continued to fuss.

"I'm having a shower," Angel announced as they divided up the cabin.

Giles looked positively annoyed, but Angel didn't care. He could still smell Wesley on himself, all over himself, and it was driving him insane.

Wesley huddled alone in the darkness, waiting. He could hear nothing through these stones, nothing. He needed Angel's voice, soft, strong, reassuring, caressing him with his words. Angel's voice as he read to him, lying across the bed like a discretely sheeted Greek god, turning the foxed and brittle pages of a tiny crumbling leather bound volume that smelt so good.

Dozing slightly in the warm comfort of his voice, Wesley thought he detected just the wisp of brogue. He heard it now an then in Angel's voice, just a faint echo, an unexpected lilt that even caught Angel by surprise.

It's was all Doyle's fault, of course. He'd laid it on thick at times, pushing his Irish half to cover his demon side, and besides, it sometimes got him laid. The worrying part was that Angel's voice had sometimes rose up to met Doyle's, of its own volition. Then there was the time he'd walked upstairs, laughing quietly to himself at the stream of fluent and offensive Gaelic Doyle had let loose at the computer. Brushing, past him Angel had told him to wash his mouth out in that very same language, startling Doyle momentarily. After that it had become their private language, something they dropped into when they wished to confide away from prying ears, much to Cordelia's annoyance. Angel hadn't spoken a word of Irish since Doyle had died.

Angel rolled over on the bed, surprised at how sharp and freshly painful the memory still was. He didn't want to lose another...it hurt. He was always surprised at how much it hurt. He glared at the clock radio. Hours to sunset, by his reckoning. Until then, he was a prisoner of this tiny room.

Giles' books covered the tiny writing desk in the cabin, considerably smaller than a hotel room of the same rating. His eyes were tired from having to rely on the weak watt bulb in the desk lamp, unable to read by natural light. He was studying the sometimes sordid and chequered history of the Watcher's Council, back to the Crusades and earlier, though the records became increasingly patchy the further he went back.

He'd always believed, much like Wesley, that the Watchers were a proud organisation, steeped in history and tradition, and a rigid stuffiness Giles had initially rebelled against. There was, however, a dark side behind the stuffiness, ancient laws and punishments for transgressions and unlawful dabblings The Watcher's had the death penalty for those who broke their vows, and the means of punishment, unchanged for hundreds of years, were barbaric. These were the punishments devised by the Council for the witch trials and the Inquisition, tortures terrible enough to deter one from intercourse with demons, literal intercourse in Wesley's case.

Angel paced gloomily in the enclosed space, annoying Giles to the brink of homicide, or whatever you called murdering vampires with souls.

"For the love of God will you sit still or go away." Giles finally exploded.

"How am I supposed to discover some legal loophole or precedent if you're hovering there at my shoulder like something out of Poe. "Why don't you go and look for the or scare the other passengers again. I'm busy."

Angel stood there sadly. He wanted to ask if he could help, but he knew his help wasn't wanted. Giles was extraordinarily precious about his books, about letting a vampire have access to Watcher texts, and he made no secret of the fact that Angel was in no way forgiven for his past crimes.

Shoving his hands deep in his pockets, bowing his head, he drifted out of their quarters.

Angel ghosted down the corridors, a dark shadow of misery that made people get out of his way without question. He haunted the darkest corners of the deck, and the darkest corners of the bar, drinking slowly, the alcohol bitter on his tongue. He glowered darkly at the three quarters empty bottle on his table. Getting drunk hadn't solved his problems then, it wouldn't solve them now, but he had nothing better to do.

Giles' eyes fell upon the small worn leather bound volume Angel had left lying on the bed.

Good lord, Giles realised as he flipped through the pages, Angel was keeping a journal. However, it wasn't the innermost thoughts of a vampire, recorded in a neat old fashioned copperplate, that caught his attention. It was the sketches the decorated nearly every page. They were not only very good indeed, they were wonderfully candid snapshots of Angel's present life. Wesley, asleep, in what Giles took to be Angel's bed (and he'd worry about the implications of that later). Wesley bent over Angel's desk studying, deep in thought, frowning at the text before him; Wesley and Cordelia giggling, heads together over a late night Chinese takeaway. There was a warmth and affection in the strong, confident lines. The way he'd caught Wesley and Cordelia, arguing over the last doughnut in the box like two small children. Giles knew that look of Cordelia's all too well. Angel had captured it perfectly. Giles realised something else that gave him a pang of sadness. Angel, a vampire, had a family, a home, something Giles couldn't currently make a claim to. Not like this. Angel had people he really cared about in his life, people who involved him in their lives, right down to the smallest detail. Giles realised he was somewhat envious.

Then he flipped over to a double paged, sensuous nude sketch of Wesley, wanton lust in his eyes and fire in his belly, and Giles realised just how serious it was between Angel and Wesley. This wasn't just a passing infatuation.

Wesley hunched in the corner, slowly rocking himself, his arms locked around his knees. Angel would come. Angel would come. Angel couldn't fly to England. Angel would come. He must. Angel, please don't let me die alone, in the dark.

There were footsteps outside, lots of scuffing footsteps. The padlock rattled, the bolt was thrown back. He was blinded by the sudden light, cowering back in his cell.

"Fucker! Vampire lover!"

They piled in, an angry rugby scrum of boots and fists. Wesley tried to crawl up into himself like a turtle, nowhere to go, curled into the corner, rocking with the blows.

"That's for Weatherby, you bastard." The edge of the boot blinded him with light when it struck. He screwed his eyes tight shut. The blows struck down in such quick repetition he felt like he was an instrument, being played, made to grunt at each strike. This was retribution for the retrieval team he and Angel had wiped out in LA. Another blow struck him hard across the face, smacking his head back into the wall. Wesley sank down, unconscious, bleeding profusely from his scalp. They grabbed him by his hair and dragged him towards them in the centre of the cell.

"Shit. Vampire lover is right. Look." And they saw the bite marks on Wesley's throat. They dropped him as if burnt.

"Fuck." They inched away from Wesley's blood as it pooled on the floor about their feet, wiping their hands on their clothes.

"Contaminated scum!" They spat on him. "Vampire cock sucking bastard!"

One last parting kick and they were gone, leaving Wesley to bleed quietly into the stone floor.

Giles picked up Angel's journal from the desk and opened it to the offending page.

"That's private," Angel complained.

"What you do in your private life is a concern for all us. It certainly has been before. Does this drawing mean what I think it means? Are you fucking him?" Giles demanded, red with rage.

"No. You wouldn't be here having this conversation if I were," Angel lied darkly, chilling Giles. "But just because I don't doesn't mean I can't give Wes a hand. You want to know everythimg? Every little detail?" He sneered. "What, you want to know about the sweet little noises he makes when I go down on him?" Angel riled.

"Are you saying you're intimate with him?"

"You read my bloody journal. You know that I am. Just working with him day and night, having him so close..." Angel broke off in anguish. "Why the fuck did you think I needed to find a binding spell, a cure, a curse without loopholes?"

Giles boiled, but said nothing. Angel had made him complicit in this idiocy.

"I know it's stupid and dangerous but I love him and I'm tired of running away. Doyle said I needed to be with people, to care about people, but it's so hard...I get too close and..." Angel tried.

"Yes, I know what happens when you get to close," Giles reminded darkly. "I knew Wyndam_Pryce was besotted with you, but I never guessed he'd be so dangerously iresponsible. He must have known what would happen."

He did, but Angel thought it had only been his soul he'd been risking. He barely remembered the moment when Wesley had switched his allegiance from the Watchers to Angel, wholly and completely. He'd barely even acknowledged Wesley's sacrifice. He'd never dreamt the consequences for Wesley could be so dire.

"You knew about us," Angel protested. "You knew Wes and I were --"

"I never guessed it had progressed to this lunatic extent. Have your forgotten just what happens if you experience a moment of true intimacy and happiness?"

"Forget? I never bloody forget?" Angel screamed back. "You've got no fucking idea of what it's like to be me, to know I can never bury myself in his depths and say that he is mine. I can touch Wes, I can smell him and hold him without losing control, and I've had to work so hard for that. When I left Buffy, I couldn't...I couldn't be near people. "

"You're trying to build up an immunity?" Giles couldn't believe it.

"Buffy left me with a taste for it. "

"Blood? Human blood?"

Angel nodded. "But it's under control. I can drink without killing. Without turning. Wes trusts me..."

Giles tore off his glasses.

"You've been having sex with him and drinking his blood? Are you insane?!"

"For over two hundred years now, yes.

Giles slammed the book shut. "How dare you, how dare you treat this like a joke."

Angel snatched the book back viciously, nearly tearing the bindings, not to mention breaking Giles' fingers.

"How dare you - how dare you go through my personal papers. This is private, my private journal. It's none of your business."

"Everything you do is my business, if you remember. You've made it so."

"You're not the gaoler of me. You're not my Watcher and you're not my boss and you're certainly not my father. I don't answer to you."

"And who do you answer to when your irresponsible actions cause the death of innocent people?" Giles demanded coldly.

"You want to be my confessor as well? Gee, Rupert, is there anything you don't do?"

"Kill people."

"I haven't..."

"Recently? Not in the last week perhaps?"

"Fuck you. Wes knows exactly how close to the line I can walk, and he knows what to do if I cross it."

"Cross it?"

Angel shrugged angrily. "Somebody dropped an E in my drink once. I went a bit wild. Wes and Cordy can deal with it."

"You put them in danger?"

"It wasn't my fault. Wes knows that."

"How dare you risk his life..."

"Wes is a consenting adult, in case you've forgotten. Part of him doesn't care if he dies. I can feel it, when I feed from him. "

Giles snatched the book back, opened it to the offending pages and threw it back at Angel.

"You haven't put people in danger?" he accused. "What about the innocent bystanders to the fallout from your little games?"

"It won't happen. I promise it won't happen. Doyle said I needed to be with people, to learn to care, to live amongst them, but it's so hard. I want...things I can never have. I have them so close, under my touch...yes," dark eyes flashed. "We've been intimate. As close as I dare."

"You drank his blood." Giles accused.

Angel looked pained. "It's the only way I'm allowed to be with him. I can kill him, but I can't love him. Fucking gypsies," he screamed to the air. "I hate it. I hate this half life. You've no idea, so don't you dare judge me, or him."

"You want. You need. You're a spoilt brat, Angel. It's about time you learnt your actions have consequences. Terrible consequences."

"You think I don't?"

"No, I don't. "

Giles turned away, unable to believe it.

"You fucking moron," he managed at last. "After everything you did, the last time... and you just start it all again, playing sex games, knowing full well what will happen. And now you expect us to risk our lives to save your lover? When you obviously don't give a shit about what will happen if we do get him back, because you just don't care about what you did before, do you? You bastard. You killed my lover."

"If you don't help me, you'll have killed my lover," Angel screamed back.

Giles stood back, eerily calm.

"So let me get this right. I do nothing and your lover dies."

"Don't."

"Don't what?"

"Don't pretend you don't care. Don't pretend you don't care that a Watcher is going to die for the same choices you got to walk away from. Some of us don't get second chances. Are you saying Wes is one of those poor bastards that don't deserve to be saved?"

"Did Jenny deserve her death, I wonder?" He stared long and hard at Angel's face. "Oh, please, don't you dare insult her memory by pretending remorse. Only human's feel remorse, and you're not human."

"So that's it? You're going to keep her memory alive by slapping me in the face with my curse every chance you can get? Carry on her fine work? What, you think I'm in danger of finding true happiness with a skinny English Watcher?"

"Could you?"

"Love him like I loved Buffy? No. Never. But it doesn't make it less real, that I don't..."

"You can't even say it," Giles accused. "You have no idea what love is."

"Don't I? And you do I suppose. Well, teach me. Tell me what it's like to ache for someone with every cell in your body and never be able to touch them, to take pleasure in them. To miss his touch, his smell, like you've had both your hands cut off. To know that life without him would be a black empty void and the world would be a poorer place without the sound of his laughter. No, you tell me, because I'd like to know."

"I can't. You're not human. You could never understand."

"You forget, I was a man, once." Angel reminded quietly. "If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die?"

"No, you don't. You don't die. Jenny did. Where's the justice in that?"

"I'm sorry. I can't ever make amends."

"No, you can't."

"I'm trying."

"I see that." Giles softened in spite of himself. "But you're still dangerous, still so very careless with those about you. You've nearly gotten Cordelia killed on several occasions, Doyle is dead and now Wesley..."

Dark eyes burned.

"Your people are doing this to Wes. Not me."

"And why did Wesley break his vows?"

Angel turned away. "I didn't make him choose."

"Didn't you?" Giles pushed. "With those big dark eyes of yours that made Buffy break with the Watchers for your sake. You never thought that Wesley might do the same?"

"I never knew what they'd do to him."

"You must have had some idea. Wesley, in spite of his appearance, has knowledge and power. The Council aren't about to let him go rogue. A rogue Watcher in league with a rogue Slayer and a vampire? You can see they have no choice. Wesley broke the rules. He must be punished."

"Do you believe that?" Angel pushed back.

"No," Giles admitted. "However annoying Wyndam-Pryce was, he didn't death a death like that."

"Don't talk about him in the past tense." Angel complained. "He's not dead yet."

"Hadn't you better start preparing yourself for that fact."

"If Wes dies, will that bring Jenny back for you? Will that make you feel better?" Angel snarled. "Would that make your revenge complete? My lover for your lover? Is that the man you want to become, Rupert?"

Giles couldn't answer, and Angel swept from the room, darkness trailing behind him in a wake.

Christ, he could be dangerous in that mood, Giles realised, and made a move to follow him.

Faith stopped him in the doorway.

"Giles, you've got to get past what Angel did to you."

"It won't bring Jenny back."

"No. But he's punishing himself enough without you." She shrugged in frustration. "Wes, Angel and me, we've all fucked up our lives, and the lives of those about us. We're sorry. We're trying to make amends. Help us make amends."

"I don't think I can ever forgive him." He tried not to meet her dark gaze,

"Wesley forgave me," she reminded simply.

She swung away from him, nothing more to say.

"Where are you going?" Giles asked, glaring over the top of his glasses.

"Out to find Angel."

"He might want to be left alone," Giles warned.

"But he shouldn't be left alone," Faith shot back. She was worried about Angel and Giles shared her concern, from a health and safety standpoint at least. Angel's grief was eating away at him, and they had no idea of what would happen if he lost himself in that grief.

Wesley was desperately scratching barely remembered arcane patterns into the stones, using his fingers to find his way in the darkness. They'd seen the scars. They'd come for him for sure now. There was no getting away from the truth now. He'd taken a vampire, a demon, for a lover. It wasn't just grounds for dismissal, it was treason. He laid his spoon aside and began reciting, almost babbling, the Latin incantation. His last defence, his Watcher training.

The door swung open. Wesley's eyes flashed in the darkness. He began jabbering in archaic Latin, making them creep back.

"Don't try your tricks on me." The torch swung down and sent Wesley sprawling unconscious to the floor.

"Cheap parlour tricks, nothing more," he told them. "The boy will be punished for his transgressions." He glanced down at Wesley, lying face down on the stones, then walked off, without remorse, without regret.

Angel leant hard against the rails watching the angry ocean lash against the side of the ship. It matched his mood.

Wesley. The memory came to his mind again. Wesley arching back on his pillows, head thrown back, throat bared, chest rising and falling fast as Angel sucked his cock, long and lean as the rest of him. He could smell Wesley, taste him and feel him. He wanted him. He needed him. He didn't want to live without him. Not yet. Not ever. So long as Wesley still had breath in his body he could be saved. And if not saved, Angel thought grimly, then at least preserved by his side. No one was dying on his watch. Not again.

"Angel?"

He glared at her from the shadows, gripping the rail.

"Angel, you're scaring me," Faith faltered.

He turned his face towards the light from the windows, and she saw it was as handsome and unchanged as ever, but streaked with tears.

"Angel." Faith was lost for words. "Angel," She paused, shuffling on the spot, unsure of what to do, how to comfort him, if she had it in her to comfort him. Fuck, his heart was breaking right there on the spot.

"Angel," she wrapped her arms around him, and it felt good.

He let himself be held for a little while, then pushed away slightly. "I appreciate the offer, but I can't." He murmured.

"Curse thing, right."

"Yeah, but as much as I'd appreciate the comfort..."

"You're going to be true to Wes. I dig that. You were never a cheater, Angel. No one could ever say that about you. "

He turned and leant on the rail.

"We'll get him back", she promised.

Angel said nothing, alone in his misery.

She reached out, unsure, and touched his hand. Her fingers curled around him. He glanced at her once, then away, yet they stood together, touching hands, as the ship ploughed through the night.

They dragged him bumping across the worn stones and dumped him in his cell, kicking him against the wall, before walking out and slamming the door.

Wesley rolled over onto his stomach, coughing up blood and spittle onto the cold stone floor, afraid he'd choke if he stayed lying on his back or his side. He wasn't sure how long he'd been here now, he didn't know the day, the week, the hour. They came for him at all hours. He never knew when. He waited in dread for the footsteps, the jangle of keys, the scrape of the door.

He was soaking wet. They'd just done cold, plunging him into a bathtub full of ice water. They'd done all of Faith's five basic torture groups and more. Thank god Faith had been no student of history. She didn't know about the rack, ducking, electrocution. Everything from the Romans to Romania they had tried on him so long as they were sure it wouldn't kill him. Not until they knew what they wanted to know. Each time it was the same question. How much of the secret texts, his secret knowledge, had he betrayed to Angelus. Each time he'd said none. He'd never given Angel any information that couldn't be found in other sources. Each time they refused to believe him. He was accused of selling his soul and his sacred knowledge to the other side, amongst other, greater crimes. Each time he said no, they were wrong, and each time, they refused to believe him. He shivered and coughed. And waited.

They didn't know Angelus had a soul. Giles seemed to have left that out in his reports. Giles had left a lot out of his reports. That Angel had helped save the world when he hadn't been trying to destroy it, and, most importantly, that Angel had been dating Daddy's little girl. If Giles had been more honest in his reports, Wesley might have had a leg to stand on, an independent corroboration of Angel's non-hostile intent. But Giles' first duty had always been to protect Buffy. Wesley had made the mistake of following Giles' lead, and now he was paying for it.

Somehow, Wesley managed to fall asleep where he lay, too exhausted to care. The moment he closed his eyes he was with Angel, in Angel's bed, with Angel's cool hands running over his skin as he undressed him, Angel kissing his way down Wesley's body. Wesley undulated under his teasing tongue.

Angel rolled over in his sleep. He knelt between Wesley's thighs, smiling as he stroked and teased him, making Wesley twist and whimper. He leant forward and kissed him deeply, slowly, sinking into his mouth again and again before drawing back. His hands slid along Wesley's thighs, down to his hips, and Wesley's body arched forward as Angel sank into him. Deeper and deeper. Their hands joined. Their eyes held each other as they rocked together, faster and faster until Angel came, spilling deep inside Wesley. He slumped forward, sheened in sweat, still holding Wesley tight, kissing his mouth hungrily, kissing his ears, his neck, his teeth sinking deep into Wesley's flesh. He heard Wesley gasp and cry in his ear, the rush of his beating heart, tasted his blood, thick and warm on his lips.

Angel flew awake, haunted, hungry. He choked down on his desires, balling the bed sheet in his fists, blocking out the warm beating bodies close by him, turn himself away from Faith curled beside him.

Wesley stared into darkness, tears rolling down his face. It had seemed so real. If he had to die, he wanted to die in Angel's arms.

Faith rolled over in her sleep, slowly realising she was no longer, in fact, asleep. It also seeped through to her consciousness, a sound, a soft regular sound. The noise was close, immediately beside her, like the snuffling of an animal. Her eyes snapped open and she found herself staring at the cause of the noise. Angel's back, shaking slightly with each muffled sob.

Without a word she slid her arms around him and just held him, resting her cheek against his shoulder. Poor love. It was all getting a bit too much for him, this curse thing. Poor Wes. Angel fucked everyone he touched, no matter what.

Wesley was picked up and dragged roughly into the cellar from his cell, blinking in the relative brightness. He was held fast and made to stand in front of the Director who yanked the collar of his shirt down, tilted his head and passed an ultraviolet light over the bite, making it appear much more red and worried than it was.

"What is the meaning of this?" was demanded from him.

"Foreplay," Wesley answered too smugly, and was struck hard across the face for his impudence, making his eyes sting. He looked back up, slowly, defiantly, and was struck again.

"Bind him."

Wesley was shoved forward, slammed up against wooden slats which made either an odd triangle or part of a pentagram. His arms were grabbed and tied up, his shirt ripped open, exposing his back. Of course, the same old story. Caught necking and now here comes the whipping. He didn't think the cellar was big enough to swing a cat, but obviously it was. They must want the sound proofing. Can't let his screams disrupt the readers in the library upstairs. He wasn't going to give them the pleasure of screaming. Wesley tensed and waited as the Director teased out the tails of the cat.

The first strike was a sharp, familiar old friend. He remembered that pain. The second strike bit into his skin, and he bit into his lip. He remembered how much he had hated it. Three. Blood trickled from his mouth. Four. Blood welled up in the weals on his back. Five. The knots in the leather caught on his skin. Six. It burned and it tore. Seven. Oh God. Eight.

Wesley gritted his teeth and strained against the leather thongs that lashed him to the wooden triangle and held him, arms outstretched, unable to flinch from each stroke of the lash as it came down.

The Watcher swung the cat with grim ferocity, uncaring of the blood that splattered about the place. Wesley had always known the red stains on the floor had been more than someone clumsy with a bottle of red.

"We'll beat the devil out of you, boy!"

Wesley bit down. By devil, they meant Angel. His alliance with Angel was anathema to them. The discovery of the bite marks...that hadn't helped. Some of the Council were taking his betrayal very personally indeed.

He gasped as the weighted leather tore into the skin on his back. He pressed his head against the ancient oak. He was starting to lose it, from the loss of blood and the pain, but he'd never recant. Never.

Giles watched Angel twitch in his sleep. The sleep of the wicked.

"He's fretting something bad," Faith observed, bored with her game of patience. She'd learnt the game in gaol, and freedom, so far, was proving no less boring and constrictive.

"It must be hard for him to live with the fact that he might not get there in time to save Wesley. They have a week's head start on us. We can only hope they decide to kill him according to the lunar calendar. That gives us a couple more days."

"Why then?"

"It's a good day to die." Giles studied Angel again. "I never knew he could feel so responsible for his actions."

"Fuck that. It's Wes. He really cares."

"Yes," Giles reluctantly agreed. "I suppose he does." Giles watched Angel move and murmur again. He wanted Angel to suffer. He enjoyed it. But to want Wyndam-Pryce to die as part of his revenge, that, he knew, would make him little better than the creature he reviled.

Angel cried out in a half sleep, clutching at the sheets. He cried again, moving as though fighting an invisible foe in his sleep.

"Giles, should we wake him up? I've never seen him like this. He's scaring me."

"No. He could be dangerous. Let the nightmare run its course." There was some small satisfaction in Giles' voice.

Angel rolled over onto his stomach, whimpering. As they watched, welt marks raised up like rope burns and bled across his back.

"God, what is that?" Faith recoiled.

"Some sort of stigmata. I'm not sure, but I think he's imagining, or even feeling Wesley's punishment. " Giles stared. "A vampire with stigmata, it's unheard of. Angel must blame himself terribly." Again Giles did not seem quite as concerned as Faith thought he should be.

Angel's cry turned into a low growl and the wounds began to fade. He grew quieter, eventually falling into the death like sleep they were more familiar with.

Giles kept watching the now smooth skin.

"I had no idea his empathy with Wesley ran that deeply."

"Maybe he just wanted to take Wesley's pain, because he knows it's all his fault." Faith's voice was thick with emotion.

"Maybe," Giles agreed softly, seeing her unspoken point.

Sunnydale...

"Angel and Wesley? Angel and Wesley?"

Willow scowled at him. "Will you stop saying that."

"But Angel and Wesley?"

Another glare.

Xander shook his head. "Just when you think you know a guy." He shook his head again, but he still couldn't get his mind around the concept. First Willow and Tara, and now...this? Angel and Wesley?

"How?" he had to ask.

"They're friends. It happens." She reproached. "Friends can sometimes wake up with more than friendly feelings you know. If you mean the other how, Angel still has his curse, remember."

"So it's just holding hands?"

Another glare.

"I'm trying to help them with the curse thing but I'm not sure it worked. It's hard because we don't really want to test the theory."

"That would be bad." Xander agreed. "That what you're doing?" He nodded at the books spread out on Giles' desk.

"No. I'm in standby research mode. We don't know what the Watcher's might do to stop Angel rescuing Wesley. I'm here to help, if they need me. I cast a protection spell for Wesley, but I don't know if it works long distance."

"Would they really hurt him? I mean, he's one of them."

Willow frowned again. "He was. But Faith went bad, Buffy quit, he asked them to help Angel and he stopped them taking Faith back to London to be punished."

"Yeah, I can see why they'd want to hurt the guy." Xander agreed.

Willow glared at him yet again.

"Wesley doesn't deserve that."

"Is that nerd solidarity I'm hearing, or something else."

"Shut up, Xander. If you want to help, help, or go away. I'm busy." She gave him the same ultimatum she'd given Buffy.

Xander nodded. "I can get the doughnuts. Sugar coated, right?"

Wesley wasn't really aware of being cut down and dragged back to his cell. He was only aware that he was curled on his stomach, breathing in short, harsh gasps. His back was burning.

Footsteps again. The heavy door rattled and scraped open and Wesley choked back to semi consciousness on the fumes. Then it was splashed over him, burning every inch of exposed and bleeding flesh. He screamed. He heard a match strike. Dear god. He knew what it was, reeling from the fumes. Petrol. The fumes made him gag. He scrabbled to his hands and knees and cowered in the corner, trapped. Oh, God...

Michael caught the match and snuffed it out with his fingers. "No. Not like this. Wait. Leave it to the tribunal."

Wesley slumped to the floor, sobbing.

"So here you are, drowning your sorrows again." Giles sat down, moving the bottle away from Angel. Angel snatched it back, hunching over both it and his glass like a dog over its bowl.

"Angel, this isn't the way to deal with the waiting. Wesley will need you sharp and focused when we arrive."

Angel's face twisted in anguish.

"You've no idea. Every time I sleep, I dream of him. I feel what they do to him..."

Angel looked like he hadn't slept properly since the flight to New York.

"I had no idea."

"I drank his blood. There's a connection between us." Angel shrugged it off. "This is more than that. It's driving me insane."

Giles could see that. Angel looked in bad shape, close to the edge. What waited on the other side made Giles' blood run cold.

"Angel, try and keep it together. For Wesley's sake."

Angel grew even darker. His hand trembled slightly as he raised the glass to his lips.

"Easier said than done, Rupert."

"Try."

Giles picked at the linen table cloth. "I'm sorry about before. It's obvious you do care about him, in your own way. And you're right. He doesn't deserve to die. Not like this."

"What can we do? I can't go into the Watcher's stronghold by myself. I'll never get to Wes alive, in one piece," he amended.

"If we get there in time for the tribunal, I can try pleading his case."

"If they don't listen?"

"You and Faith will have to go in."

"Brute force?"

"The last resort of the desperate."

Angel's face was pinched and pale. "I never meant for this to happen."

"I know."

Angel's face turned to stone before his eyes. "I'll be the decoy. Promise me, you and Faith, you'll get him out?"

"I promise," Giles agreed hollowly. Angel was going to his death. For a vampire walking into Watcher's headquarters, there was nothing but death.

"Tell him," Angel tried. "Think of something cool, tell him I said it."

Wesley huddled and shivered on the ground, retching, half blind and soaked to the skin, still dripping petrol. God, he was guilty of manslaughter at most. They'd told him the needle was full of tranquilisers. Was it his fault he'd believed them when they'd told him they had no plans to kill Faith?

Why must they do this to him. He'd done no evil with Angel. Was he not fighting on the side of good? Wasn't Angel as important as the Slayer, if not more so? Why were they doing this to him? He'd never betrayed his vows. Never.

Faith was asleep on the bed, a stretched out little street urchin.

Angel was sitting at the writing desk, putting the finishing touches to a letter which he signed, folded and sealed into an envelope of ship's stationary.

"For Wes," he explained, handing it to Giles.

Giles took the envelope and stared at it, not sure what to make of it.

"It mainly deals with giving him the business, the car, whatever worldly possessions I have that he might want, my books and stuff, and a personal note." He shrugged. "You'll give it to him, right?"

"Yes, of course." Giles agreed absently, still staring at the envelope. The last will and testament of a vampire. Now there was a thing. He'd never really thought of them as having lives, possessions, jobs, loved ones. And yet some of them did. Some of them were almost human.

LONDON CALLING

The immigration officer glanced twice at Angel's passport, but it was a high quality fake, and he was waved into Britain at last.

"It used to be so much easier," he remarked to Giles as they walked out to where the buses and taxis were waiting. It was dusk, and Angel, strikingly handsome, clad head to toe in black and wearing dark glasses, looked so much like a visiting celebrity that a number of his fellow passengers and the people who had arrived to greet them gave him second and third looks.

A bullet slammed into the white sided bus beside him. Angel stopped, startled, staring about. Another two struck him in the chest, slamming him up against the side of the bus. He scanned the screaming crowd and saw several dark figures flitting about on the edges, all armed.

"Run!" he pushed Giles towards the carpark. "Your friends are here to greet us". Another bullet speared through his arm. "Ow." These jokers had been practising, and what the fuck was in those bullets anyway.

"Target sighted, sir!"

Colefield glanced at the small mirror set into the sites of his gun. Sighted was an ironic term, considering he could only see the vampire's two travelling companions.

"He's moving - fast!"

"Don't lose him!"

They broke through the crowd in pursuit

"Fuck, look how fast he's going!" They clocked Angel on the tracer they'd got him with.

Giles leant on the bonnet of an old BMW, winded. Christ, he was getting to old for this.

"Giles! We've got to help Angel! They'll kill him!" Faith pleaded. "Let me go back and deal with them."

"No." Giles popped the door, slid behind the wheel and turned the engine over in just one try.

Faith grinned, clambering in beside him, surprised and impressed. "Something you want to tell me, Giles?" she teased.

"Not now."

The car squealed out of it's space. Giles roared round the carpark, past the retrieval team on foot, skidding to a halt in front of Angel.

"Get in!"

Angel didn't need telling twice. He threw himself into the back seat, and they took off, fishing tailing wildly, back door flapping until he managed to pull it shut, bullets shattering the rear window.

Angel dug out the tracer in his shoulder with his fingers and threw it out the window as the sped along the highway, wind screaming through the shattered window.

The Taxi pulled to a stop in front of a small, crumbling Notting Hill town house, in the cheaper, more colourful end of the street.

Faith pressed against the window like a kid on sugar. "Wow, this yours, Giles? Pretty cool."

Giles mumbled some reply, getting out of the cab and paying the driver.

They bundled through the door, leaving Angel standing uncomfortably on the doorstep. Giles had the pleasure of watching him squirm for several moments before finally inviting him in. Angel brushed past with a glare, knowing Giles had enjoyed that too much.

They dragged Wesley roughly to his feet.

"Et tu, Michael?" Wesley had to ask.

Colefield couldn't even meet his eyes.

So that was it, then.

Michael bent to fasten the shackles around his feet and hands.

"What do you think I'm going to do? Make a break for it? Gesture hypnotically?"

No answer.

"The silent treatment. Right. I'm unclean. Of course. You know, you guys should really get with the 21st century. I don't just mean your new guns, which are nice, and the big shiny labs, which are nice too, but, you know, be a bit more tolerant of other people, their lifestyle choices. No? This isn't the 16th century, Michael. They're going to kill me."

Still no answer. Wesley decided to conserve his strength. He was well past breaking point and anger could only carry him so far.

"Ow." Angel leant over the back of the chair, naked to the waist as Giles dug the bullets out of his flesh.

"Got it." Giles held it up to the light. "Carbon tipped bullets. I'd heard of them, but I'd never seen one before today though."

"So the Watcher's have finally joined the 21st Century. I'm so happy for them," Angel groused as Giles put the bullet aside and dug out the other one from Angel's back.

"They know we're here," Faith paced nervously.

"There's nothing we can do about it now. " Giles dropped the last bullet into the dish. "We try and get Wesley out. Nothing has changed. "

"I'll take them on. They come for me and Angel, I'll take 'em," Faith promised, with somewhat more bravado than she felt, Giles decided, watching her.

The flesh colour bandaids stood out rather starkly on Angel's pale skin. Giles felt he was getting far too adept at performing minor surgery on vampires. Once upon a time all one had to know about vampire physiology was where the heart was, for plunging through with a wooden stake.

Of course, that was the problem of serving on the frontlines instead of being safely ensconced within the estate walls of the Watcher's Council. Things got messy. Not all monsters were evil, and not all Watchers and Slayers were entirely good. None could be described as wholly good or evil at the moment as it happened. Ironically, Wesley came closest out of all of them. He'd rebelled not because he was young and foolish, though that too, but because he believed what he was doing was right. It seemed sad that the most idealistic amongst them should also be the one to suffer most. It was the way of things. Giles began to wonder when he'd become so old and cynical.

Angel didn't feel a thing, leaning on the chair while the bullets were dug from him, too distracted about Wesley to think or feel anything else. Giles didn't know why he was surprised by Angel's singular focus. Angel had always been somewhat obsessive in his affections That he had latched onto Wesley, that was the surprising part. Oh well, opposites attract, Giles thought. He didn't know enough about Wesley to know he and Angel shared a great deal of commonalities as well. Giles taped up the last of the bullet holes.

"I thought vampires healed faster than this."

"They do. Sometimes. I haven't...you know. Since LA."

Dear God. Angel was starving. He hadn't fed in over a week. Giles had thought it had just been grief and fear that had made his cheeks pale and brought dark circles to his eyes.

Faith picked up on the conversation. "Angel, you need to feed, you've got to keep your strength up, for killin' those losers." She hopped up, itching to be doing something. "I'll go to the butchers for you. How much do you need."

"You can't," Giles remembered. "BSE. Mad cow disease. They're not allowed to sell it. Legally anyway, and we don't have time to find a black market dealer. Aside from the fact that would further announce our presence."

"Well, where are we going to get Angel his stuff from then?"

Angel glanced up to the ceiling.

"The attic," he answered.

They both looked at him dumbfounded.

"Rats," he smiled.

"In my attic? Bloody hell."

"I'll get rid of them for you, Giles. Just give me a bag. For the bodies."

Giles handed him a plastic bag with distaste. "Just don't break anything."

For the next couple of hours Faith set out and cleaned Giles' cache of weapons while Giles flipped through his books, making notes in a small pad, all the while to the odd thud, and, for Giles, the occasional teeth setting crash of his treasured belongings as Angel hunted in his attic.

Finally, Angel came back down again with a weighted bag of blood smeared hairy little bodies.

"That is so gross," Faith declared.

"I'll brush," Angel promised.

"Not with my toothbrush you don't," Giles insisted.

Angel flashed him a grin.

"Nice gear up there, Giles."

Giles scowled.

Angel handed over the rats to be disposed of.

"I suppose I should thank you." Giles eyed the bag, but that was as far as he got.

Angel did look better.

"You should get some rest."

"I can't."

"Try."

Angel shook his head. There was no way. Not when he was connected to Wesley in his dreams. And besides, he had work to do.

THESE DAYS

Wesley slumped in his seat, never bothering to stand, sit up or even look up as the High Council of Watchers filed into the hall in their robes, looking exactly like the collection of Oxford dons that most of them were. Wesley managed an air of insolence in spite of everything that had been done to him thus far. They hadn't broken him yet and he wasn't about to spare them his anger and defiance.

He had believed in the Council once. With his life he had believed in them. Until he met Angel. Now he was to be punished for no man could serve two masters, and he had made his choice.

The hearing was called to order, a supreme court judge serving that duty.

"You have been charged with the following crimes against the Watchers Council: dereliction of duty., disobeying a direct order, giving comfort to the enemy, the passing of classified information, murder and treason."

A sheaf of papers tied with red tape was handed to the judge. He sifted them for a moment.

"Does the prisoner have anything to say?"

When they asked him if he had anything to say, he looked them in the eye and said nothing. There was nothing he could say that they wanted to hear.

"Then by the order of the Watcher's Council of England, you have been found guilty to the charges of dereliction of duty, disobeying a direct order and giving comfort to the enemy. I find your willful silence a treasonable crime in of itself."

Wesley remained silent.

With great solemnity the judge paused and draped the black square of silk over his horse hair wig.

"You have broken your solemn oaths with the Council. You have caused us the loss of not one but two slayers. You have wilfully disobeyed and disrupted council business. You obstructed and destroyed a retrieval team in the course of their duty. You have conspired with demons. Such actions cannot be tolerated, nor seen to be condoned. The penalty is death. You will be taken from this place and burnt at the stake until you are dead. Your body will then be decapitated and buried at a cross roads unshriven."

The gavel came down with a bang, sealing Wesley's fate.

At least they couldn't call him the worst behaved Watcher in their long history. Aleister Crowley had seen to that.

He hadn't admitted to the charges, but there had been little point in arguing against the overwhelming evidence. He had refused to tell them why he had chosen to help Angel. That part, what little he had read in the scrolls, he kept secret. His true relationship with Angel, he kept secret.

Angel was sitting at the table, reading the Guardian, particularly an article on yet another set back to the Good Friday Agreement.

"You never did tell me why you left Europe in such a hurry in 1916."

Angel turned the page over carefully. "You know better than that, Giles," was all he said.

Giles sipped his tea. Funny, he'd never thought of Angel as a political animal, but yet, watching Angel sit at his dining table, field stripping their small arms cache, he could believe it. There was something about a mad Irishman loaded for bear in London that gave Giles a distinct sense of unease. He almost laughed to himself. An Irishman who was in love with an Englishman. Angel and Wesley were starcrossed whichever way you looked at it.

"Have you ever thought of going back?"

"No."

"No one would know you."

Angel looked up.

"Giles, just leave it, alright?"

Giles nodded, leaving Angel alone. Angel was the one with the gun in his hand, afterall.

They all stopped when there was a knock at the door. Angel motioned them to stay and slipped down the hallway, gun out, ready, though he'd hardly expected the Watcher's to knock. Though they were mostly public school boys. He wrenched back the door and stopped, gun in the air, speechless.

"Angel?" She asked, seeing his expression.

He turned away, unable to deal.

Buffy made to follow him down the hallway but Giles stepped in front of her.

"Buffy, what are you doing here?" He demanded.

"To rescue Wesley. I care too," she pouted.

"How did you find us?"

"This is your house, Giles," she gestured. "Not exactly hiding out, are you. I looked up the electoral rolls. I can do research. Giles, don't you think if I could find you, they will, too?"

"They already know we're here. At least on home ground we have a chance, if they come after us."

Still he wasn't letting her pass.

"Giles, nice welcome."

"You shouldn't be here Buffy. We're in enough trouble with the council already. I wanted you to stay out of it, to stay safe."

"I don't care from Council fatwa. Wesley was my Watcher too and I won't let them kill him."

She pushed past Giles into the front room.

Faith looked her up and down with a sneer.

"I've got nothing to say to you, B."

"Suits me," Buffy returned.

Angel slammed his gun down on the table and stalked off.

Faith put down the sword she was sharpening and slid off the couch and followed him.

"What is it with those two," Buffy complained to Giles.

"Buffy, kitchen, now," Giles commanded.

Giles walked Buffy through to the kitchen. Angel ignored her, directing his concentration instead back to the arsenal Faith had managed to scrounge for them on the streets, adding to Giles meager collection. A selection of small arms and knives. She knew what he liked. He reached for one knife and fumbled, dropping it.

"Hey," teased Faith, making a show of inching away from him. Then she saw his hand was really shaking. "Hey," she slid onto the floor, picked up the blade for him and rested her hand softly on his knee.

"She's really got you spooked, hasn't she. Who knew B was such a ball breaker." Then realisation dawned. "She doesn't know, does she. She'll freak."

Angel gave her a sour 'thanks for catching up' expression.

"Poor you," Faith sympathised.

Giles had assumed his usual frowning posture when dealing with Buffy.

"You shouldn't have come here."

"Faith's here."

"Faith is already considered an outlaw with the Council. She has nothing to lose. Buffy, listen to me when I saw this, this could go badly. I want you out of this. Safe. Away from ground zero."

"You can't leave me out of this."

"Buffy, I'm giving you a direct order." But he knew it was no use, the girl had never taken an order from him in her life.

"Well, just stay out of sight. You can help me. Just give Angel some space, some room to move. He feels very responsible and he doesn't need his concentration broken by you. Please don't distress him any more than you have to."

"I distress him?"

Giles looked impatient, but kept his voice calm. "You broke his heart, Buffy. He doesn't need to relive that, not right now. There's a very good chance he won't survive this rescue attempt. He needs to stay focused. Please, let him be."

Buffy gazed up the hallway, listening to the murmur of Faith and Angel's voices, with a longing she told herself she didn't feel any more.

"I don't want to get him killed," she promised quietly.

When Buffy walked back into the lounge she found Faith sitting close to a bowed over Angel, her hand resting on his arm. The moment they saw her they broke apart, eyes averted. Oh yeah, nothing going on between those two.

The chains weighed heavily, pulling him down. The manacles rubbed raw the skin on his wrists, but still he stood, raising his head to his full height. He'd never thought it would come to this. Never this. He'd been so proud, in this very hall, the day he'd been initiated as a full member of the Watcher's Council.

"You have been a great disappointment to us, Wesley," The head archivist addressed him informally, almost sympathetically.

"You shouldn't be surprised. I come from a long line of bastards." He looked directly at the Director who had flogged him.

"Isn't that so," he challenged.

"You don't understand why I have acted as I did. There's no way you could, hiding behind your walls, behind your books. Try fighting your battle on the streets sometime This war is not about vague prophecy. It's about real people, with real lives. Not all prophecies are true. Not all monsters are evil. The rules you make here cannot and do not apply out there. It's a dirty nasty little guerilla war where good people are made to do terrible things, and for expedience truces are formed with the most unlikely allies. You cannot fight an enemy without living with him, learning his ways."

"Do you think that excuses your relationship with the vampire Angelus?"

"Angel is..." he paused. If they didn't know about the prophecies on the vampire with a soul he wasn't about to enlighten them. "Angel is my own affair."

"You'd sleep with a demon? You disgust me, boy."

Wesley met the hate in the Director's eyes with his own. "Then you shouldn't be disappointed. You've never expected anything more from me."

He addressed the Council. "Kill me. Stay hidden in your ivory towers. You're irrelevant and the tragedy is you don't even realise it. I am honoured to die for my friends. I know in my heart I tried to do the right thing." He smiled at them.

"Get him out of my sight." The Director barked. "He is corruption on us all."

Giles spread the BTA map out on the low coffee table.

"I'm sorry, he flustered. "But it was the best I could do on such short notice. Trying to obtain a local ordinance map might raise suspicions. Besides," he wiped his lenses, "Rolling around in the countryside with a van load of American tourists won't arouse much suspicion. Derision, yes, but not suspicion.""

"You know, honey," Angel drawled in an outrageous mid-western accent. "I thought it'd be bigger. I don't know why we had to come all the way here to see a bunch of old buildings."

Faith giggled. Buffy glared at both of them and they fell silent as if flicking a switch. Giles was suddenly reminded that Angel was as much a foreigner in California as he was. The British Isles were, afterall, for over a hundred years, Angel's old hunting grounds.

Giles spread out his rough sketch of the sprawling estate and large house that formed Watcher's Headquarters.

"It's like something out of Brideshead," Buffy supplied helpfully,". Angel shot her a glance, but said nothing.

"Angel, you probably won't be able to enter. It is a residence, at least in some wings, and there will be mystical barriers and safeguards. Faith, if this is the case, you'll have to go in, alone. It's most likely they'll be keeping Wesley in the cellar, here. There's no way out so it'll be close hand to hand fighting. The odds are not good."

"I'll take them. I'm the bad slayer, remember I live for a good fight."

Angel smiled at her with something that Giles thought could only be pride, almost a father's pride. How strange, and yet not in the least, as Angel had cast himself in the role of her Watcher.

"Our best hope is that they'll have taken Wesley outside for his execution. Tonight is the solstice. They won't be expecting trouble, not from Angel's kind. They'll kill him at sunset. Angel, it will be close..."

"I'll do it." He didn't care. This was Wesley.

"Right. You and Faith try and get some sleep for now. It will take us a few hours to drive there. We'll need to leave while it's still light."

Angel glanced out at the dark grey London morning through Giles' rain spotted windows.

"That shouldn't be a problem.

"Way inconspicuous, Giles," Faith laughed at the white van not much older than she was parked in the street.

Giles pursed and flustered but said nothing. It had been the best he could do with their time and cash constraints.

Angel climbed in up front beside him, leaving the two girls to occupy separate corners in the back, glaring at each other.

Giles handed Angel a Glock pistol as they waited at a set of traffic lights.

"I don't want this."

"You might need it." Giles pressed gently, and Angel understood, horribly. One bullet for Wesley. He hunched over, cradling the pistil in his hands, and Giles was surprised to find he actually cared, that he understood the horror Angel was going through, and pitied him.

Giles squinted up at the sky. "You'd better climb into the back now, Angel. It's starting to clear."

Angel squeezed between the seats into the bare metal space at the back of the van. Giles threw a travel rug after him, and he hunched down behind the passenger seat, wrapped in the blanket, looking very much like a grim English holiday maker at a grim English beach in Summertime.

THE CUTTER

Wesley watched the sun turn the sky a brassy rose as it began to sink behind the trees, the sky above him rendered a soft lavender. He'd been hoping for something a little more dramatic; blood red skies, maybe a tempest. Even the weather reminded him how unimportant he was in the scheme of things. He heard the ravens call to each other in the trees as they began to settle for the night. He could smell the fresh cut wood of the faggots piled neatly around the oak beam. He glanced around, taking in his last look. A short life and an unhappy one.

The van rolled to a pebble crushing halt under the shadowed walls of the large and ancient estate that was the seat of the watcher's Council. The doors opened and Angel and Faith jumped down.

"He's here, about 100 metres away. I can hear his heartbeat," he answered Giles' questioning look, ignoring Buffy's. "He's frightened." Angel added quietly, real concern in his voice.

"I don't doubt it."

Angel was itching to go and Faith with him. They didn't waste time on goodbyes.

Giles watched Faith and Angel scamper over the ten foot high solid stone wall as if were no more than a small sty. God knows what was waiting for them over the other side. Neither was welcome, and both probably expected.

Wesley walked as steadily as he could towards the soon to be bonfire they had built. He'd be the Guy, he thought abstractly. The thought amused him oddly. He saw faces that he knew, had thought he knew, glancing away as he was led past them. There was desperation and anxiety in his face, and a certain recklessness, too. He was determined to meet his death like a man. He smiled at his captors and they punched him, doubling him over and striking him to the ground. He was dragged over well kept lawn onto the oak cross, his arms outstretched and pinned down. They held the nails over his wrists, then hammered. Wesley looked straight up into the sky. One, two, three blows and it was done. Then the same on his feet.

Gritting his teeth with the sudden surge of gravity tearing at his flesh he was raised up on the cross and stood amongst the kindling, part Norse sacrifice, part punishment . It was a nice view up here. The sun was setting. As the last of the orb slipped below the horizon the torches broke out. The light in the darkness, a rite that could be traced back to the Mithraic cult the Watchers had evolved from.

"In the name of the light, by order of the Council." The first torch touched the timber. Others followed, tossed, thrown or tendered carefully to make sure they caught.

Oh god. The heat flared up and caught in his throat, burning off the oxygen and water about him. The smoke got in his eyes. He laughed. That was a song. Oh God. Were his trousers cotton or polyester blend? The heat was making his skin blush. Oh god. Oh Angel, Angel, please, forgive me for leaving you like this.

A dark figure dashed across the lawn, then fell back, his hand shielding his face from the firelit crucifix. Bastards. He wondered if that had been done for his benefit or Wesley's. He made himself look upon it. It was a moving crucifix. Wesley was still alive, still conscious. Angel growled.

Wesley squirmed against the cross, unable to escape the heat or the flames. His skin was pink and sweating. Please don't let me scream, he prayed, as the flames began to lick at his feet. He stared out at the congregation. At least he wasn't going to die alone.

Angel hurled himself through the flames, slamming hard against the cross, toppling them both backwards with the rending snap of timber. They landed heavily in a whoosh of cinders. Wesley cried silently from the weight of Angel on top of him, and from relief.

Angel protected Wesley with his body as cross bolts thudded into the ground around them. One speared through his shoulder but he had no time to care.

Through the flames he could see Faith fighting. Beneath him, Wesley groaned. A bullet had torn through Angel and entered him. Another grazed Angel across the scalp. An arrow speared them both to the cross like a vampire and human kebab. Angel wrench it out with a snarl.

"Forgive me," Angel pleaded, crouching above him, steeling himself to rip Wesley's hands and feet free of the wood. Wesley refused to scream as he was pulled free, his flesh tearing and sticking to the nails, torn free like a memo from a noticeboard. Angel grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and dragged him well free of the cinders and flames.

"Can you walk?"

Wesley shook his head. "I don't think so. I'm so sorry," he apologised.

Sssh," Angel soothed him, stroking his hair, all the while casting about desperately for a way out that didn't involve flames, crucifixes or outraged Watchers. In answer to his prayers Giles roared up in the van right beside them. He'd never been so glad to see Rupert Giles in all his life. Giles covered them with a gun as the back doors burst open.

"Quick! Get in!" Buffy leant out, reaching for them.

Angel scooped Wesley up in his arms and made another flying leap into the back, rolling hard across the metal floor with the impact. Wesley whimpered in his arms, squashed under Angel again.

"Faith!" Angel commanded, calling her off. She leered at the Watcher's left standing, fire in her eyes, then the ran, scrambling into the van as they drove off, Angel firing one last parting shot over her head as they moved off, hitting one senior council man squarely between the eyes. Angel had the satisfaction of seeing the bastard crumple to the ground before they shut the doors and squealed off, tyres screaming.

Angel braced himself against the wildly rocking wall, then slid over to Wesley whose eyes fluttered open at his touch.

Buffy was staring at him. He looked away, glancing at Faith, who seemed beat up, but okay. At least, she would be. Finally, he looked down at Wesley in his arms.

"Still with me, " he smiled down at Wes, then glanced over Wesley's head to the van window.

"Giles, company," he warned.

Giles pressed the accelerator down flat in answer. The tiny van pressed forward slightly, but struggled.

"Faith," Angel commanded.

Faith, grinning, smashed out the window of the van with the butt of her gun, took careful aim at the pursuing white jaguar, and fired.

The shot echoed loudly around the inside of the van. The bullet speared through the windscreen of the jaguar. It slewed wildly off the road, slithering then tumbling down a steep embankment.

Satisfied with Faith's triumphant grin, Angel turned back to Wesley, who was still bleeding quietly in his arms.

"We need to get him to a hospital." Buffy insisted.

"Keep driving," Angel instructed Giles.

"He needs to be in a hospital."

Angel gave her one of his darkest, most impatient looks.

"Yes, but not the one nearest to The Watcher's Council. It's the first place they'll look. Keep driving." He instructed Giles.

Angel sat back on his heels, braced against the side of the van, easing Wesley into a more comfortable position in his arms. He tried to be gentle, but Wesley still winced and groaned between gritted teeth.

"Sorry," he apologised again.

Wesley reached up and brushed his cheek, leaving it smeared with blood.

"Knew you'd come. Hoped you'd come."

"Of course I came. You're my partner." Angel insisted sweetly, stroking Wesley's hair.

Wesley coughed and another tear ran down his face, from the pain or his touch Angel didn't know.

"Ssssh," Angel soothed as the van rocked violently. "It'll all be over soon."

Crouched in the corner Faith watched Wesley bleed profusely with absolute horror.

"That's what the Watcher's would have done to me? Wes was going to give me to them, to do that?"

Angel looked up, solemn again. "No. Wes never wanted to hurt you. They probably would have put you on probation. Sent you to the Watcher's Home for Wayward Slayers for a year or two. No television, pleats and lots of English boarding house food. What they did to Wes is solely reserved for Watchers who break their vows, disobey the Council and hang with demons. And more than that: they're losing control and they needed a scapegoat. They wanted to make an example of him."

"They made their point."

"Yeah, they did." Angel looked down at Wesley again. Wesley coughed badly, his breathing ragged.

Buffy just sat in the opposite corner, staring at them, at the way Angel held Wesley, the way Angel was stroking Wesley's face, the way Angel was looking at him.

Wesley's blood was smeared up his cheek. He could smell it, feel it. The hunger burned, but he tried to control it.

"Angel," Wesley managed.

"Yes."

"Hold me."

"I am holding you."

"Oh."

Angel held him tighter. Wesley raised his face to Angel's and Angel kissed him desperately. He felt Wesley respond, and then fade away, falling limp in his arms.

Buffy saw the kiss and her whole world rocked and tilted over sideways. But not as much as Angel's. Wesley's head lolled back loosely.

"Wes? Wes! Come on, Wesley, don't do this, please, I need you."

But Wesley couldn't answer him.

"Wes? Wes, don't do this. " Angel pleaded. "He's going into shock." Angel panicked. He lay Wesley down, his head on the bunched up travel rug. "Faith, you'll have to help me. Wes, come on, Wesley, please," he begged. "Just a little farther. Please stay, Wes, please stay."

WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE?

Angel stood in the dark corner alone, away from incriminating looks, not meeting anyone's eyes, especially Buffy's. Her presence here only made things so much worse, and he just wasn't in the mood to deal.

He finally did glance up at last as Giles stopped in front of him.

"They say he'll be fine. Well, mostly fine. He's stable, out of danger, and as well as can be expected," Giles announced, as though he couldn't quite believe it.

The tension visibly washed out of Angel. He leant back against the wall so it could hold him up, covering his face with his hand, overcome.

"He's exhausted, of course. Dehydrated, malnourished. They tortured him, certainly. The hospital staff wanted to call the police. I dissuaded them from that course of action. They think he's some sort of political prisoner. Which isn't far from the truth." Giles cleaned his glasses. "His ribs are broken."

Angel knew that. He'd heard them snap the same time as the wood when they'd fallen together on the cross.

Giles put his glasses on and studied Angel carefully. "That's what caused the pneumothorax. But you knew that. "

"I knew. It's how we separate the weak from the flock."

"Of course. It must be very handy for you."

"Not really." Not when you could hear and smell your lover drowning in his own blood.

"It was quite incredible what you did, stabbing him in the chest with that pen."

"You thought I was going to kill him," Angel challenged, huffy.

Giles was looking at him with overtired disdain.

"It was a close run thing. You took a terrible risk with Wesley's life. " Giles accused.

"I didn't expect him to get so bad so fast. The nearest hospital wasn't the safest option, either."

"Nor is this one, I think you'll find. It was a very reckless gamble to play."

"I knew he'd survive the trip." Angel parried defensively.

"You hoped he would survive it. What would you have done if he had died? Turned him?"

Angel didn't like this line of questioning. "It's hard to turn someone once they're dead."

"Would you have tried?" Giles pressed.

Angel flustered. "No, maybe, yes."

"You'd do that." It was a bitter accusation.

Angel looked distraught. "I can't lose him."

Giles put his glasses back on, slowly and deliberately. "It wouldn't be Wesley any more. You know that. He wouldn't have a soul. You wouldn't be able to control him. And what would you do when you grew bored with him, one might ask, the way you grew bored with Spike and Drusilla? What then? Turn him lose in the world? You've never changed, Angel. You always act on impulse, you never think things through."

Angel glowered at him with a dark malevolence that chilled Giles to the bone with memories.

"You're not my father," Angel hissed between gritted teeth. "So don't presume to lecture me like one."

Giles, still blanching, realised he'd struck a very raw nerve indeed. He also realised that it possibly wasn't the wisest thing to do, to goad the vampire formerly known as Angelus, one of the most notoriously evil and vicious vampires in written history. Especially when that vampire was already very upset. Angel might have a soul, but he still had a wicked Irish temper.

"He's asking for you," Giles fumbled, changing tack fast.

Angel's whole face lit up, the change so rapid it left Giles somewhat off balance.

Giles rested a hand on his shoulder.

"He's asking for you. Go on," he urged.

Angel's face was alight with grace and wonder. Wesley was both conscious and wanting him.

They watched him glide down the hall to Wesley's room, they glimpsed him stoop to place a tender kiss upon Wesley's forehead, Wesley's weak but affectionate smile up at Angel, and the way Angel held his hand like he was never going to let it go. Angel thought Wesley might hate him for this, but Wesley just wasn't that petty.

Buffy turned away, her world still shaking. It was okay to get a new life, a new love, she was young, but Angel...Angel wasn't supposed to...not find somebody else, not after all the things he'd said to her...how could he...he was supposed to be alone for eternity. Not stroking the fingertips of Wesley Wyndam-Pryce with his lips.

"Go now," Giles instructed her. "I'll stay here, to make sure they're safe."

"But..."

Giles shook his head. Now was neither the time nor the place.

She turned and began to walk away, alone. She had no part to play in Angel's world any more. That much was obvious.

As she walked down the hospital corridor she turned, sensing him standing behind her. Just standing there, like always.

"Do you love him?" she demanded, discounting any of Angel's actions up until now.

"Yes," he answered quietly.

She glanced away angrily.

"How could you...How can you when you said you'd always be mine."

"It was true. But you wanted things, a life I couldn't give you. You wanted something else. Someone else. Wesley doesn't want a house in the suburbs, kids and a dog. He wants to fight demons. With me. Wesley isn't afraid to live in my world, to be a part of my life, such that it is."

"So you're with him."

"Yes."

"You expected me to brood over you for another hundred years? I thought so too, but then I realised I cared about my people. A lot."

"But..."

"Wesley? He fights alongside me without any special powers or any special destiny. I respect that. He's a good friend. I can talk to him. I trust him with my life and I...he's very important to me."

"Do you love him?" She asked, voice trembling.

He tilted his head, considering his answer.

"Not the way I loved you. It could never be the same. You know that."

"It doesn't help," she cried.

"I'm sorry. But you knew we had no future together."

"And you and Wesley do?"

"We have a here and now."

"How can you..."

"What, learn to respect and love someone I work beside night and day, someone I trust with my life? Oh, I don't know," he snapped. "You flaunt your new boyfriends in front of me and then chastise me for finding friendship and comfort with Wes. He's a good man. A good man," he repeated softly to himself.

Wesley was a skinny English gay ex-watcher who'd just been tortured and crucified. He was never going to have a normal life. Angel wasn't stealing that from him.

Her eyes welled up with tears.

"I thought I knew you."

"You never did. It wasn't possible."

She turned and walked out of his life.

Angel returned to Wesley's side. Regrets, he had a few.

Wesley frowned. Fumbling with his bandaged hands he turned Angel's palm up towards him, the skin still seared from where he'd touched the wood of the cross.

"Oh Angel," he hadn't realised.

"Ssssh." Angel kissed Wesley softly on the forehead. "It was nothing," he smiled.

"It was not 'nothing'", Wesley insisted quietly in his precise English tones. "You saved my life."

"I put you in danger in the first place."

"It was my choice to make. Angel, what we do, what I've done with you in the last few months counts more than a lifetime spent with the Watchers."

"The saving people bit? I thought you meant the sex," Angel teased.

Wesley giggled, winced and spluttered.

Angel stroked his brow. "Sorry."

Wesley smiled. It was all right. Everything was all right between them.

COOL FOR CATS

"Faith, pay the man." Angel handed her ten pounds as the taxi rolled to a stop.

"Are you sure this is wise?" Giles asked again. "I thought you wanted to maintain a low profile."

"Fuck that. I'm not running or hiding from them. They want to come after Wesley again, they can find out exactly just how I earned my bad ass reputation."

The handsome face was set in a murderous scowl, the dark eyes glowed with simmering rage and Giles knew Angel was set on his path. Angel turned to Wesley and his face shifted instantly to that of a young man in love. Giles tried to be unmoved, but a part of him was glad for Angel, that he'd found some purpose, and someone to share it with, someone who wasn't Buffy. Giles was paternal enough to hate all of Buffy's boyfriends, especially Angel. He couldn't forgive Angel for the things he had done, or forget, but nor could he deny being touched by Angel's fierce devotion to his friends.

Angel carried Wesley from the cab and set him gently on the footpath, the perfect gentleman.

Wesley shouldn't have been out of hospital, much less on the town. But he'd never willingly shown weakness, not in front of Angel, not even now.

Wesley had changed. Living on the mean streets had made him older and harder, with the vaguely cynical air of a disappointed romantic. He'd grown a confidence within him that even made Angel defer to him on occasion. Now Giles understood why those close to Wesley respected and loved him, why they were so fiercely loyal and protective. Wesley had grown up, grown tough, grown human. War had indeed made a man of him at last.

Wesley looked up at the pub's old leadlined windows, rapt.

"This was a good spot in your day?"

Angel shrugged. "Probably wall to wall yuppies now, but yeah."

They walked through the door, instantly enveloped in warmth, cheerful noise and the smell of hops and roast beef which evoked a craving in Wesley almost as sharp as the smell of warm bodies evoked in Angel.

They found a relatively quiet corner on plump leather seats. Wesley looked around eagerly.

"I like your style," he grinned at Angel.

Angel grinned back. It was a given.

Angel reached across and slid Wesley's glasses gently back on.

"I kept them safe for you," he shrugged.

Wesley peered over Angel's shoulder at the menu scrawled on the blackboard in large uneven letters, his appetite back at last, and with a vengeance.

"Oh, look, Angel, they've got black pudding, just for you," he teased.

Faith looked up. "Pudding? I didn't think vamps ate pudding."

"It's made with blood," Angel explained, amused, knowing what her reaction would be.

"Gross!" She looked at Giles. "The Watchers would have made me eat English food until I was a good little Slayer?"

"Most probably, yes."

"Sick bastards."

"Would it have worked?" Wesley enquired quietly.

"Another week of having to eat this crap? Yeah. I'd break. For sure."

Wesley smiled slowly, vindicated. No amount of insolence could stand up to English institutionalised discipline. The system had been perfected when Angel was a boy. It was cruel, brutal and dehumanising, but it worked. Faith would have been a model slayer by the end of it. Of course, model slayers died fast but that was neither here nor there. Not to the edicts of the Council. It was outdated but it had once held true, and a part of Wesley still believed wars were best won with steady, disciplined and well trained troops. Ragged bands of guerrillas had their place but...

Angel carefully placed the pint of bitter in front of Wesley. Wesley was almost salivating. He'd missed English beer.

"Just the one. The doctor said you shouldn't be drinking at all."

"Yes Mum," Wesley smiled, pulling the pint towards him.

Faith rolled her eyes. A night out with the olds. Still, it wasn't like Wesley could go out clubbing, even without her ever having seen him dance. The poor guy could barely drag himself to the toilet without assistance.

Poor Wesley. He was happy enough when Angel was around, but when he wasn't, she'd seen the mask slip. They'd really hurt him.

Still, it brought out a protective guilt in both her and Angel, and they waited on him hand and foot. Wesley enjoyed that, rather too much.

Faith knew Wesley's happy smiling face was just an act. It had always been an act. Wesley always liked to pretend he was in control. She could dig that. But she'd seen the real Wesley. And she'd heard him, weeping in the middle of the night, pushing away Angel who was trying to comfort him.

"Don't touch me!" Wesley screamed.

"You should have let me die. That's all I'm good for. I could have at least died well. Instead I got you all into trouble. That's all I do. I'm useless, a fraud, a waste of space."

"No. No you're not." Angel spoke quietly. "That's your father talking. It's not true and he'll never be able to say those things to you again."

Wesley sobbed helplessly.

"Sssh. You're not a failure. You're not useless." He kissed Wesley's forehead softly. "I don't know where I'd be without you, without your knowledge, your help, your bravery, your friendship." He pressed his forehead to Wesley's. "I need you. I need you beside me. I can't follow my destiny all by myself. I don't want to."

Wesley sniffled. "I wasn't in the prophecy. Just you."

"Clerical oversight." There was a chuckle in Angel's voice. "The guy who does all the research never gets the credit."

"Don't." Wesley tried to draw away. Angel followed him.

"Don't what? Love you?" He murmured. "Too late."

Wesley looked up at last.

"Don't, please. I'm not worth it. I'm worthless. I'm worse than useless. You nearly died for me Angel. You can't do that. I fucked everything up, again."

"Extenuating circumstances. Not your fault."

Angel prowled across the bed towards him like a panther. "Do you love me?"

"What?"

"Do you love me?"

"Yes, but -"

"But nothing, butthead," Angel teased softly.

"Angel, don't, please," Wesley begged in tears as Angel drew too close. "You can't love me, not when I hate myself so much."

From the door Faith saw Wesley hunched over on the bed, trembling with tears, the stripes across his back still bleeding.

"God, Wes, I'm so sorry. For what I did to you, for screwing up your career with the Council, I'm so sorry."

Angel nodded over Wesley's shoulder, then, with a jerk of an eyebrow, told her to go. He appreciated her remorse, but this was private. Faith's betrayal was just part of the problem.

"Angel, I'm just a useless piece of shit and you should have let me die. You should have...should have..." Wesley sobbed in his arms.

"Wes, Wes," Angel held him tight. "Look at me," he demanded gently. "Wesley, do you trust me?"

"Yes."

"Do you believe in me?"

"Yes."

"Then believe me when I say you are worth it. You are a good and valuable person, Wes. Trust me." He hugged him tenderly, careful of his injuries.

"I hate what I am," Wesley spoke quietly in Angel's arms.

"I don't," Angel reassured.

In the hallway Giles motioned Faith to be quiet. He indicated downstairs and she followed.

"I knew Wesley's father was an arrogant bully and a complete bastard, with a sense of self importance that far outweighed his actual worth," he remarked as he added a tea bag for the pot. "But I had no idea he monstered his children as much as he monstered novice Watchers, perhaps even more so, though I should have guessed."

"Wes is pretty screwed up, huh?"

"That would be a fair assessment, yes," Giles agreed.

Angel kissed Wesley on the lips.

"Angel," Wesley drew away. "Sex isn't the answer."

"No. In my case definitely not. I just wanted you to know how much I..."

"I know."

"But."

"But."

"The self loathing never stops, does it."

"No," Angel agreed sadly. He gently kissed Wesley's brow again.

"Cup of tea might help," Giles offered in the doorway.

Wesley hiccupped, snuffled and wiped away another tear, embarrassed.

"I'm sorry. I'm not used to people being nice to me," Wesley apologised.

Poor bastard, Giles thought, handing across a cup, it was probably true. Though with Angel sitting beside him, watching him like a hawk, one arm still supporting him protectively, he thought Wesley might be in good hands at last, and the irony was not lost on Giles. Not at all.

Faith flopped onto the bed at their feet, to Giles' chagrin.

"Tell us a bedtime story, Angel."

"Faith," Giles warned. But seeing his broken little crew, maybe it was just what they needed.

"Not too gothic," Giles warned.

Angel sipped at his tea and smiled. It always tasted better in Britain.

"Once upon a time, there was a young and foolish man in Paris, a long time ago, and his name was Stephen," he began, the echo of his soft lilt could just be heard in his voice.

Wesley curled against him, listening to Angel's voice echo in his chest.

Angel kissed the top of his head and continued.

It was funny. Faith had never been allowed to have a pet as a child, but now, it was like she had one, when Angel let her look after Wesley. Maybe it was because Angel was deep in the guilts, or maybe the smell of Wesley's blood turned him on, which was gross, but, either way, he let her take watches. Angel was teaching her to be responsible and responsive, and she kind of liked it.

Wesley reached across and adjusted Angel's collar. It was an almost unconscious gesture, as was Angel's tilt of the head so his cheek brushed Wesley's hand.

Giles thought Angel was skating dangerously close to true happiness right about now. Yet there was a sadness in Angel. It hung on him gently like the soft mist of rain about them. Regrets for his past life and deeds, regret for the hurt he had caused Buffy. Regret he could never be the lover he wanted to be for Wesley. Regret that his partnership with Wesley had very nearly killed his friend. It would have been a long time, perhaps never, before Angel could look at Wesley without thinking of him on that cross. And sadly for Angel that was a good thing, a necessary thing.

The boys shared a secret smile across the table and looking at Wes, happy and mostly whole, Angel thought he was going to burst as his soul surged forward.

"Angel?" Wesley frowned, seeing his lover's face. "Angel, what's wrong?" There was real concern in his voice. "Don't, please don't." He pleaded. He leant forward and brushed a tear from Angel's cheek softly with a bandaged hand.

"Don't. It's over now." he promised solemnly.

"I hate that..."

"You' haven't destroyed my life, Angel. You've given me a purpose. A reason to be. Thank you."

Angel looked away. Since when was Wesley the cool, sensible one. Wesley had a strength and peace inside him that he wasn't afraid to show any more. He watched Angel with patient concern. Angel wasn't easy to love. But very much worth very cost demanded, and Wesley was willing to pay.

That was Angel's charm, leading by temptation. Hopefully they were on the right path now.

Angel knew that he would lose Wesley one day, that was a certainty. But seeing the light in his eyes, Angel knew he could never do anything to change that light, he could never cheat death or cheat Wesley, make a cheap facsimile of Wesley to keep with him always. He couldn't. The rare boyish smile, that was the essence of Wesley, and he'd lose that. It wasn't worth it.

Sunnydale...

"It's Cordelia," Willow answered Xander's look. "They phoned from London. Wesley's okay, sort of. He will be anyway. Angel saved him. He was very heroic. Oh." She looked at Xander. "Buffy knows."

"How'd she take it."

"How do you think," Willow asked of him.

"That bad, huh."

"I don't think she'll ever speak to him again."

"So, not all bad, then."

Willow gave him yet another look.

DADDY I'M FINE

Wesley glanced fo'r'ard to the bow of the QE2.

"Don't even," Angel warned dourly.

Wesley, crestfallen, sighed and resigned himself to their fate, dinner with the Lassans, who seem to have adopted the two young men. Wesley was sullen and standoffish, believing in his extreme paranoia that they were sent by the Council to spy on him, or worse. Angel found them charming, especially the way they fussed over Wesley. Wesley for his part was extremely rude and petulant, but they understood he was convalescing from a car accident in England, which was why he couldn't fly. And they were so glad he had Angel to look after him.

Wesley found their attention suffocating, especially as he was now exiled from his own family, own country, everyone and everything he had known, all he had been taught and brought up to believe in. Angel meanwhile was revelling in a new degree of inner peace a state that was all Wesley's fault and this was his punishment for it.

Giles had flown back to Sunnydale, now that the mission had more or less been accomplished and Wesley, using his influence as an invalid, had insisted a very reluctant Angel visit the town of his birth, because he knew the opportunity might never arise again.

It was a slowly darkening twilight when they pulled up at the church yard with it's old, tumbled and crumbling stones staggered drunkenly beside the worn path to the front door. It had been a long drive that had evoked stronger feelings in Angel than he had thought possible, as achingly familiar landmarks had swung into view through the windscreen. Angel glanced at the spire nervously, but Wesley was already out of the car, and he wasn't about to show weakness in front of him.

"Angel?" Wesley stopped walking to ask, seeing the expression on his face.

Angel shivered dramatically.

"Angel, what is it?" Wesley was now quite concerned.

"Somebody just walked over my grave," Angel nodded to where Wesley stood with a wan smile.

Wesley looked down at the weathered stone.

"Liam," he murmured.

"As was."

Wesley fished in his pocket for a piece of paper and a soft pencil, and, kneeling by the worn stone, placed the paper against it and began to draw across it in wide sweeps.

"Wesley, what are you doing?" Angel was bemused.

"Taking a rubbing."

Angel cocked an eyebrow. "Isn't that a little morbid?"

"It's for my records."

"Wesley," Angel reminded gently. "You're not in the Watcher's any more."

"I still have my records," Wesley persisted.

"It's nice to have a hobby."

Wesley finished recording the dates in his neat and precise handwriting and rose, unsmiling. "I have studied and trained my entire life to be a Watcher. I know no other life, no other occupation, and now that life is cut off to me."

"You've got our work."

"Your work," Wesley corrected. "I'm just the hired help."

Angel shrugged. "I can make you a full partner, if that's what's bothering you."

"No," Wesley shook his head. "It's Angel Investigations. The Powers That Be don't want any one else. Besides Angel and Wyndam-Pryce Investigations is too much of a mouthful."

"If you think so," Angel teased.

Wesley let out a sigh and pointed to the neighbouring stone. "There's your family. Go and repent, make your peace, dance on their grave, whatever. I'll be waiting by the wall."

Angel glanced down at the stone that bore the names of his family. He glanced back at Wesley, easing himself painfully down against the drystone wall, carefully unfolding the second half of the sandwich he'd kept in his coat pocket from lunch. God, he looked so frail and brittle. Angel had seen corpses who looked better than Wesley did right now.

He gazed down at the gentle turf covered rise that marked the grave. What could he say? That he'd fucked up? He couldn't undo what he'd done. Just try and make up for it.

"Hello Father. Guess what, I own my own business now. I've got a home, a car, friends. How about that, huh? Oh, and I save souls. Lots of them. Saved that one by the wall there. And Da, this would kill you, if I hadn't killed you already, well, anyway, he's my lover. He nearly died for me. Because he loves me. That ever enter your philosophy? Someone who loves me enough to die for me? I don't think so. Well, bye, Da. It's been real."

He strode back to the car, grabbed the travel rug and wrapped it tightly around Wesley's shoulders. He rubbed Wesley's hands between his own.

Angel crouched in front of him. "You're colder than I am. I don't want you catching pneumonia, now."

"I'm sorry, Angel. I had no right to make you come here."

"I'm glad you did. I've been scared of coming back here for a long, long time. Now I have, it's not so bad. I did dreadful things here, but it's history now."

"In that case would you think it dreadfully morbid if this student of history took some photos for his files. I want to know you, Angel. I want to be a part of your life. All of it. Even the dreadful parts. I want to know where you came from."

"This is where I came from. You want to know about Liam?"

"Yes. I have my notes, but it's all hearsay. No one has ever heard your side of the story before." Grey eyes looked into black. "Show me."

"You know Interview With The Vampire's already been done, Wes," he teased.

Wesley gave him a look.

Angel pulled Wesley gently to his feet, fastened the buttons on his coat like a fussing mother and took his hand.

"I was baptised in this very church." He began. He led Wesley down the hill, through streets that had barely changed, examining each one with a critical eye until he stopped, looking around. Yes, here.

"This is it? Where Darla turned you?"

Angel nodded. "The original femme fatale." He shrugged.

"I heard she was quite a beauty."

"She was."

He tugged at Wesley's coat. "This is where Liam died. I'll show you where he lived, as such. And he dragged Wesley to the raucous pub across the road.

Angel stopped on the threshold, unable to enter.

"Horrible," Wesley agreed.

It had been turned into one of those hideous American fake Irish chain pubs.

"Come on, I know another," Angel prompted, staring bleakly at the cheesy ultra Darby O'Gill interior. They back out and turned around the corner. It was true, that in his time, Angel had known every pub in Galway.

The warmth of the pub they did find finally forced Wesley to carefully peel the gloves from his hands. Angel couldn't help but notice blood still dotted the white bandages.

Wesley hid his hands again under the table, unable and unwilling to explain how he'd come to have the marks of the crucifixion in a catholic country.

"Wesley, you don't have to...Wes?" Angel stopped.

Wesley, who had been gazing around the pub like a tourist, had ceased and was frowning over Angel's right shoulder.

"Change places with me."

"Why?"

Wesley cocked his head vaguely in the offending direction. "Old pub mirror at 12 o'clock, Invisible Boy."

"Oh," Angel understood, and agreed to the shuffling around.

"Of course, if we'd come here late, no one would have noticed."

Wesley gave him a thin lipped look.

"It's good that you look out for me," Angel conciliated.

Wesley slumped back in his seat, cold where Angel had been sitting, whereas Angel now luxuriated in the brief warmth of Wesley's seat.

Wesley. Angel studied his friend affectionately. Christ, he looked ill. Angel rolled a cardboard beer coaster absently across the table like a wagon wheel.

"I wanted to show you more tonight, but you look all in. I'll take you back to the B&B after dinner."

"It's all right," Wesley's calm voice reassured. "I'll go exploring tomorrow, while you're sleeping. You can draw me a map."

"It won't be the same."

"I'll still be up by sunset. We can walk around together then. I promise."

Angel felt for his hand under the table, holding it between his own, brushing the skin around the bandage with his thumb.

"Cursed to live in different worlds," Angel mused sadly.

Wesley's finger's brushed Angel's under the table.

"Don't be silly. I have to put up with you more than most couples have to put up with each other," he smiled. "Yes, we are cursed never to walk hand in hand in the sunlight, but I can live with that."

"Sometimes I wonder if I can," Angel murmured. His eyes tracked around the pub. "It's true what they say, you can't go home again."

"It's not the same, is it," asked Wesley, following Angel's thought's across his face like clouds across the sky.

"Yes and no," Angel shrugged. "It's hard, walking streets I walked as a boy, being stared at like a tourist."

"Tell them you were born here."

He could do that, he supposed. He could pass the verbal exam on local geography, just, but he'd probably flunk the recent history. The coaster still rolling across the wood under his fingers came to an abrupt halt.

"You called us a couple," he realised.

"I've met your parents. I thought it was official now."

Angel grinned. Wesley always amused him when he was overtired, because that's when Wesley said what he really thought, instead of saying what he thought he should.

"I guess it does," Angel agreed.

Couple. Angel was still stopped on the word. Though without quite the cold dread he'd felt when Buffy had said the word. This time it was different. Wesley was an adult. Well, legally anyway. As for kids, a life in the sun, Wesley had already made his choices to give those up. As for the sex, well, in spite of Wesley rather coming out of his shell about what he liked and wanted since Angel had rather recklessly taken his virginity - he should have never have believed Wes about that - Wesley was still innocent enough to find satisfaction in conversation and a cuddle before he went to sleep. Sure it was a freak show, but most people would say that about two guys together anyway, never mind the fact that one was a vampire.

Couple. Wesley was his first adult relationship in a long while, if ever. It was frightening. And he liked it.

TIL I WHISPER YOU SOMETHING

Angel made polite small talk in Irish while picking up their room key from the B&B proprietress, a widow in her 60s. She reminded Wesley of one of the pepperpots from Monty Python. Their hostess nodded and smiled at Angel at first, then began to give him a few odd and disconcerted looks.

"What was that about?" Wesley asked as he followed Angel up the narrow creaking staircase.

"Nothing. I just think I'll use English from now on. My Irish isn't just rusty, it's antique."

"Oh. I'm sorry."

"Why?" Angel stopped to glance round at him.

"You're a stranger in your own land."

Angel shook his head. "It's what the servants speak, anyway. Irish was never spoken in polite society," he qualified for Wesley who seemed rather startled by his remark. "I went to great pains to burn every bridge between myself and my heritage. It doesn't matter."

But it did. Wesley knew it, but he let the matter drop.

It was a small room on the top floor with sloping ceilings and the most rudimentary fittings that regulations required. Prudishly they'd been given a single bed each, but there was enough room for two to just squeeze onto one bed. Wesley sat propped against the pillows reading, while Angel lay at the foot of the bed with his chin propped on his hands, watching television.

Wesley's hand curved absently over his buttocks and Angel made a small purring noise. Wesley's hand absently followed the seam in his trousers from waistband to crotch, over and over. The effect on Angel was startling. Everything was primed and ready, he felt his body pressed against every inch of chenille bedspread, and the television was a mere background drone to the pulse of blood in his head, but he fought it, hands digging into the mattress as Wesley stroked him to distraction.

This was nice; warm, comfortable and safe, like he'd never felt, here in Galway, before.

And he'd keep Wesley safe. Standing by the window, watching the achingly familiar night through the imperfect narrow glass panes while shadows from the moon played through the trees and danced over the garish 70s wallpaper, muted now to a more acceptable black and white design by night. He could hear Wesley's soft breathing, curled in the bed. His breathe warmed the room slightly, the central heating having long since been turned off. Angel wanted to be out there, hunting in the night. But his place was here, watching ver and protecting his lover. He rested his cheek against the cold glass. A part of him still craved to run free in the night, in the streets he knew in his heart, to hunt, to feed. He pressed against the cold. He was hungry. The memories were strong here, and thick in his blood.

He glanced down at Wesley, and smiled at the way the moonlight caught the tiny silver cross he'd brought Wesley just yesterday that now hung at his throat, winking slyly at him as Wesley breathed. He'd brought it for Wesley to protect him from others, but from himself as well. He swallowed the cold air and bit down on the hunger.

The white foam that washed along the side of the ship and the biting wind were the only real clues that they were underway in the vast, black ocean. That and the thrum of the ship's engines under his feet. A steady thump that beat in time with Wesley's heart.

Wesley was alone by the railing, and for a moment Angel felt real fear, but then he realised Wesley was just moping, watching the moon flicker sporadically on the waves through the broken clouds.

Angel greeted him softly with a hand on his back, then turned Wesley's face towards his and kissed him. His lips were cold. Wesley's hand's were on him, holding him, Wesley's tongue was pushing into his mouth. He pulled back. Too much. Too fast. He kissed Wesley lightly in apology, just a brush of lips on skin.

"What was that for?"

"You looked lonely."

"Oh." Wesley looked touched. "Not lonely. Wistful," He explained. "Strangely, this has been one of the best weeks in my life. Just the two of us. I wish we could travel the world together."

"We can," Angel promised.

"When? When I'm old and grey? When do we get any time alone together? When do we get more than a week off from Armageddon? Do The Powers That Be even understand the concept of paid recreation leave?"

"We have now."

"This isn't a holiday. This is me convalescing. Angel, they tortured me for over a week. I nearly died. I stopped breathing," he reproached.

"I know." Angel didn't want to be reminded. Wesley was healing fast, but he was still walking wounded, and the implication that Angel should have rescued Wes before he'd been so badly hurt was all too clear.

"Whatever happened to spending six months somewhere exotic in Europe, taking in the waters for my health."

"Went out with steam engines, Wes. I'm sorry," he added, realising he'd sounded a bit smug, having been part of that world.

"I'd like to do that, with you. Six months touring the continent. But I suppose you've already been there and done that."

"Not for a while. Not with you," Angel placated.

They were so close he brushed his cheek against Wesley's.

"You're cold." He wrapped his scarf around Wesley. "You should keep warm."

"Yes, Mum."

"Hey," Angel grinned.

Wesley just smiled, happy someone cared.

Wesley's hand gripped the railing, taking strength from it. The wind was buffeting him something cruel, and he still had nothing like half his strength back.

"I didn't tell them, you know, about you..." he spoke softly. "I didn't tell them about your soul, the prophecies, your being chosen by the Powers That Be. They can figure it out for themselves. I didn't want them...interested in you."

Angel brushed his ear with the lightest of kisses.

"You did good, Wes," he breathed. "I'm proud of you."

"I don't think the Watcher's are fighting on the same side any more." Wesley spoke quietly, sounding appalled.

"They are," Angel reassured. "Just a different war. We're sort of so close to the front lines that to them it looks like we're well behind enemy lines."

Wesley looked up. "The Government will disavow any knowledge?"

"Yeah, that sort of thing."

"You know I'll do anything I can to help you."

Angel hugged him close.

"You already have," he assured.

The ship headed into choppier water. Wesley frowned in pinched concern at the new motion.

"Come inside now, love," Angel guided, his voice rising and falling much to his annoyance, a legacy of their recent trip to Ireland. He scowled at himself.

"What is it?" asked Wesley, always concerned when Angel had that dark look on his face.

"Me," Angel groused. "I sound like a peasant. I was only thee a couple of days."

"Sure enough," Wesley teased. "I kind of like it," he added quickly. The soft lilt that escaped every so often make him giddy, or was he just dizzy. It was hard to tell, especially on the deck which was starting to gain a real personality in it's movements. Wesley stared at the deck beneath his feet as though it were a disobedient dog.

That couldn't be right, thought Angel. Wesley was definitely starting to glow whiter than he was under the moonlight. No, not right at all. Now he was just torn between dragging Wesley indoors or letting him lean over the rail. As it happened, a bit of both was called for.

"Hate you," Wesley cursed Angel's preternatural inability to grow ill, though in truth, Angel had been immune since a very small boy. No need to bore Wes with his nautical feats right now though, he suspected such stories of adventures in tiny skin covered boats tossed on wild Irish seas would not be appreciated. Comfort and good humour in the face of bitter abuse was the best he could offer.

SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL

A week later things had returned to normal, as much as anything in their lives could be called normal anyway. Wesley had a collection of scars and a lifetime's aversion to the smell of barbeques and open fires, but other than that, he was good.

It was just like being married, Angel thought, as Wesley shot another mild glare at the booted feet propped up on the corner of the desk. All work and no sex. Not that it was Wesley's fault. He couldn't live with the responsibility, and Angel understood. So they were stuck practising the withdrawal method, though sometimes Angel liked to push the envelope to see how far he could go before he past the point of no return.

Wesley was excommunicated from the Watchers, but he'd also come into a sudden, though contested, inheritance, so it wasn't all bad.

It would be a while before the Watcher's Council returned to fully operational anyway. Their actions had no doubt stirred them up like a stick dragged through an ant's nest. The night the vampire Angelus had rescued his lover, a disgraced Watcher, from a burning cross in the very heart of Watcher central. They'd probably still have sleepless hordes of grad students slumped over texts and seers fumbling to explain why no-one had foreseen or prevented it. Questions would be asked, and Angel was glad he wasn't in Giles' shoes should rumours of Angel's prior relationship with Buffy Summers surface.

The Watchers probably wouldn't come after Wesley again, but there were no guarantees, not in this life. The Watchers were in serious danger of making a martyr of Wesley, though, and that would never do. So for now he and Wesley were free to fight the good fight and live their lives, as such. To the Watcher's, Wesley was already dead, in name at least, a concept Cordelia was still trying to come to grips with.

Wesley was copying notes from a translation looking the very essence of a young academic, bar the fading burns, welts and bruises. Cordelia out enjoying retail therapy.

They'd put Faith on a bus in London with a ticket to the South of France to a friend Giles knew from way back. Whether she got there or not was another matter, but at least they'd given her the second chance she'd asked for.

Wesley looked up and found Angel watching him. They shared a secret, affectionate smile. They were big on second chances.

(end)

ã September 2000

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