Kiss me, Judas
"What the Hell is he doing here?" Justine wonders aloud.
They're propping up the bar in her favourite dive, the sort of place where the lighting is low and nobody asks any questions, even when she walks in with her new "little brother." It's easier to bring him along than leave him alone; he still hasn't figure out how not to draw attention to himself, and anyhow she only lets him drink beer. 'No whiskey till you're seventeen,' she tells him. It's important to set boundaries.
"Who is he?" Steven asks, as he follows her gaze to an attractive if miserable looking man sulking over a pint glass in a corner booth.
"His name's Wesley. He's a friend of the vampire's, or at least he used to be. This isn't exactly the sort of place you spend your time when you have friends."
"Wesley?" Steven asks, his eyes widening. "As in Wesley Wyndham-Pryce, the man who died trying to protect me? He's alive?"
"He wasn't supposed to be," she answers cautiously, not sure just how much of that particular story Holtz would have told him. "Your father wouldn't have known," she adds, a 'He would never lie to you' hanging unsaid between them. There's something in his expression that disturbs her.
"What are you thinking?" she demands.
"Nothing" he answers defensively. "I just want to thank him for what he did for me. I want to shake his hand."
"I don't think that would be such a good idea."
Over the next few days Steven follows him. Justine has warned him that they don't know where his loyalties lie, but if he has any loyalties at all, he does not show them. He only once breaks free from the small solitary triangle between his apartment, that dank hole of a bar and the public library, and then only to go to the grocery store to buy red wine and ready meals. Once he is joined by a beautiful woman, whom he scowls at until she goes away.
As much as he wants to talk to the man, something holds him back, something so overwhelming it takes him days to identify it and leaves him confused when he finally does. It's not the sort of fear he is used to, not the sort of fear one finds in Quor-Toth. And so he finds himself not knowing how to react when his quarry suddenly stops dead in his track and calls out, not even bothering to look behind him,
"Did Angel send you?"
It's not that Wesley doesn't realize that he's being followed, he just can't bring himself to care. Perhaps it even gives him some glimmer of hope, as a sign that the world has not forgotten him completely. Somebody cares enough to think he might be in danger, or dangerous, or carrying more than twenty dollars.
But when he realizes just who is following him, he doesn't know what to think. He's seen enough to know that the boy is dangerous, but not much else. If there's an ambush coming, it's certainly taking it's time. Best, he reasons, to force his hand and get it over with, whatever that happens to be.
"Is this a reconnaissance mission, or did Angel send you to kill me?"
"Angel is in an iron box at the bottom of the sea," the boy answers matter of factly, his voice devoid of emotion.
"And you want my help getting him out?" he asks.
"Of course not. I'm the one who put him there."
Well, he certainly hadn't seen that coming.
"But you were getting along so well."
"He killed my father," the boy answers enigmatically. "My real father," he clarifies. "Holtz."
Of course.
Beneath the sea Angel's mind turns, as it always does when he's alone, to all of the horrible things he's done, the monster that lives inside him. After a week and a half he can no longer hide from that which he has always sought to push from his mind: the point at which the one has nothing to do with the other.
For once the part of him that wants to live and the part that wants to die are telling him the same thing. He must get out. He must die in the sun or else try to fix what he has destroyed. And in his desperation he remembers something he learned in Pylea, something too primal and terrifying to put into words, something he never even would have considered if his whole being wasn't crying out in terror at the thought of an eternity alone with himself.
When he reaches dry land it is night. He can't remember how he got there but he knows what he has to do.
Wesley had once been a cautious man, but caution was one of the things he lost the night he lost everything. So he tells himself that old adage about keeping your enemies closer that doesn't actually work very well when you no longer have any friends, and invites Connor back to his apartment for a cup of tea. He pushes down the thought that he may be inviting his own death, and the much more disturbing realization the he doesn't really care. Connor sits awkwardly on the edge of his sofa and drinks much too fast, but after some agonizing minutes he begins to talk. Wesley listens, happy for once to be engrossed in somebody else's problems.
He talks about his childhood in Quor-Toth with its seemingly endless catalogue of predators, the stories Holtz told him about their world: the England that was, the Utah that wasn't, the Los Angeles that made so little sense; the Angel that was an even cleverer monster than Angelis and the Wesley Wyndham-Pryce that was a hero instead of a traitor.
"I thought he'd told me everything about you," the boy confesses. "But he never told me you were so…"
Pathetic?
Useless?
Alone?
"So beautiful."
When Connor kisses him he almost laughs, because it's so obviously a trap. And even if it isn't a trap, it's still pretty funny: Angel's son, suddenly all grown up and calling himself Steven Holtz. Angel's son and him. He hasn't kissed a boy since he was in school (and even then not very often; you don't get to be head boy by being popular) but right now he can't imagine why not.
He is standing at the door to Wesley's apartment, dripping wet and full of purpose. Wesley isn't answering his door bell. It's four in the morning but in his mania he can't conceive of a reason that isn't his fault. Surely he must be hurting after what he did to him; he must be helpless, alone and in pain. The only question now is whether or not he'll be able to save him, or whether he's put up new wards since the last time he invited him in. It would have been the sensible thing to do, but after Angel breaks down the door he enters with no difficulty.
He finds them sleeping, wrapped around each other like lovers. The very picture of contentment.
"Well," Wesley remarks, recognising the dark figure towering over his bed, "this is awkward."