Home / Fan Fiction / Angel / Epiphany / Still

Disclaimer: The following is a non-profit, amateur effort not intended to infringe of the rights of Joss Whedon, the WB, Mutant Enemy or any other copyright holders of Angel.

Still
by The Brat Queen

Spoilers: Up to Epiphany, after which Joss and I go separate ways.

Rated: NC-17

Summary: Angel and Wesley come to terms with what they've done. (Part of the Epiphany series, takes place after "Pressure")

Thanks to: Wolfling for the beta read.

This wasn't a time to deal with emotions. Gun. Dead body. Wes. This needed action.

"Get out of here," Angel said. He moved forward, his lethargy leaving him with every step. "Go. Now. It's not - "

Wes, probably already ahead of him on this train of thought, bolted. Or, more smartly, he walked. Because fuck knew the last person you wanted to be when gunshots were fired was the guy running away.

Especially if you were the guy still holding the murder weapon.

Angel debated the wisdom of that, but again knew that this wasn't the time to linger over questions.

There were shouts, and the sound of pounding feet. People were coming, probably guests and hotel management both, to see what had happened.

This, at least, was easy to deal with. Angel slammed the door and locked it shut. The solid, metal door clanged satisfyingly. He slapped the safety lock on then took in his situation.

This wasn't their room. Angel glanced at the room number on the emergency instructions and guessed that it was Andrew's.

Andrew, for his part, was seriously dead.

Well good for Wes.

Of course, this did leave them with a mess to deal with. Or really just the body. Angel knew enough about modern police work - thank you, Kate - that he knew bullets could be traced. That is, assuming you found the gun.

Angel debated removing the bullet but decided he didn't have the time nor tools for that kind of thing. Not with people banging on the door as they were.

Quick and dirty solution, then. He could do that.

Moving the bureau came first. It was a lot lighter than he gave it credit for - poorly made, too. The wood splintered under his touch as though it were little more than dry kindling. Even so, it was bulky enough that it helped to hold the door in place once it was shoved against it.

Then came the search for tools.

For whatever reason, Wes had brought their bags into the room. Angel searched through them, accidentally tearing one open in his haste.

"C'mon, Wes," he muttered softly. "Don't let me down. You were ready to kick my ass. I know you have to have - "

Aha! There it was.

Angel extracted a bottle and smiled. Trust Wes to remember that in rock, paper, scissors, fire beat vampire.

Especially when it was Greek.

"Sorry about this, Andy," Angel said, not really meaning it. "But I got this thing about Wes staying out of jail."

He threw the bottle down, aiming it at Andrew's torso. The bottle shattered, and liquid splashed over his body and face. It instantly ignited and began to melt away the evidence.

The smell, admittedly, was less than ideal.

Smoke alarms went off. Vampire hearing picked up the hiss of water in pipes, and Angel used a mace to knock out the sprinkler system before it could activate.

The pounding at the door became louder. Angel ignored it. He gathered up the bags instead, double checked the time, then ran straight for the curtains-protected windows.

Night air greeted him as he plunged five stories down.

The asphalt of the outside parking lot slammed into his feet. He took the energy, letting it ride through his body, then quickly made his way to the garage. They were parked on the second level, and if luck was with them they could grab Wes's bike and run before -

Angel stopped.

His car was there. The keys were in the ignition.

Wes's bike was nowhere to be seen.

"Oh great," Angel muttered.

Music was playing. Something loud and twangy. Smoke filled the air, clinging to his nose, eyes and skin. Around him, people talked, creating an undulating murmur of sound that was occasionally pierced through by a bark of laughter, or a shout of recognition at someone who'd just come through the door.

Wesley took all of it in, letting it settle within him, letting it fill the spaces in his brain that weren't being slowly dulled to uselessness by two weeks' worth of near-constant consumption of alcohol.

He drained the last of his beer out of his annoyingly chilled mug. Bits of foam clung to his lips and he licked them off, frowning when the taste didn't seem quite right.

"Is this American?" he asked, catching the bartender's attention.

"Bud," came the reply.

Wesley shoved the glass at him. "I'll have a proper drink this time. Whisky, not Irish. And beer, not American. I've no desire for sex in a canoe."

If the bartender cared for the specifics, he didn't ask. Beside him, though, a long-haired brunette frowned. "I'm sorry - what?"

Wesley looked at her. She was thin, with unnaturally large breasts. Her eyes were dark, and her hand moved with sharp, precise movements as it tapped her cigarette ashes out into a nearby tray. In other circumstances, he might have hit on her.

All things considered, he still might.

"American beer," he said, "is like having sex in a canoe."

Plucked eyebrows came together in a curious frown.

"It's fucking near water," Wesley replied. When this only earned him a small laugh he added, "Old university joke."

"Not from around here, huh?" she asked.

"What gave it away?" Wesley abandoned courtesy. His drink arrived and he concentrated on that instead. The beer was better and the whisky was harsh and soothing. He wanted to continue drinking, and stop thinking, and perhaps settle the question once and for all if he was going to ask someone if he could bum a cigarette.

Not that he'd started smoking, but it simply felt like a logical step.

"Gonna be in town long?" she asked. Bracelets twinkled from her wrist as she sipped her cocktail, and Wesley thought that he might have narrowed her accent down to being Brooklyn in origin.

"No idea," Wesley said. He felt the weight of his passport in his pocket. Every day he thought about how easy it would be to drive to JFK, and from there to return back to England.

He emptied his mug and signaled for another. Whether to drown the urge or the inhibitions that kept him from following through on it, he had no idea.

"Here on vacation or - "

"I'm terribly sorry but I don't give a damn," Wesley finally told her. "Now if I might finish my drink in peace?"

Her face pinched together in anger. "Fag."

"You don't know the half of it," Wesley told her retreating back as she stalked away. Another boilermaker came and he welcomed it with relief. He reached for his wallet and reeled only slightly when a large, pale hand slapped a twenty onto the bar in his place.

"It's on me."

"Fuck you," Wesley said cheerfully. He slipped off of his stool and shoved through the crowd. The bar was tightly packed, but he made it to the door. Cool, exhaust-filled Manhattan air greeted him, making his head throb. He ignored the yellow cabs that passed by and aimed his steps downtown.

He won a bet with himself when that obnoxiously familiar voice called out to him a few moments later. "Wesley - "

"I'm an idiot," Wesley said. He turned around to face the vampire, stopping with a good twenty steps between them. "I actually thought I'd found the one place on earth that you'd never dare set foot in. I should have realized that to you all the history here would be little more than a joke."

"Okay," Angel said, slowly coming forward. "I don't even know what half of that means. Wes, can we talk? Maybe just sit somewhere and - "

"Go away!" Wesley told him. He made a shoving motion into the air. "Leave me alone. I don't want to be with you. I've driven across this god-forsaken country yet again just to put distance between us. Why do you think I would want to speak with you?"

Angel indicated the two of them in a jerky, uncertain movement. "You want an answer besides what we're currently doing?"

Wesley decided this was answered easily enough. He turned on his heel and continued walking.

"Wesley," the vampire jogged up to him. He kept his hands in his pockets, which made his long coat flap about at his knees. "Wes, c'mon. What is this? We've been doing this for weeks now and - "

"How many have you killed?" Wesley asked.

Angel blinked. "What?"

"I'm making conversation," Wesley told him. "It's been two weeks since you've lost your soul, I was wondering how many you've killed."

"Wes, I haven't lost my -"

Wesley rounded on him. "You are not Angel," he said in short, clipped tones. "You are nothing like Angel. If you are not Angel, you are therefore Angelus and I want nothing to do with you. Now good evening."

"You don't believe that," Angel called after him. When Wesley didn't deign to reply, he added, louder, "If you believed I was Angelus I wouldn't even be here! You'd stake me!"

Wesley vanished into a subway station and tried to pretend that none of that was true.

This was hard.

Harder than hard, but Angel didn't let himself think about it. Instead he let Wes take the subway while he walked, trying not to linger on the fact that he could hear the trains moving beneath him. Could, in point of fact, use his senses to track the exact train Wesley took to a station a few blocks shy from Times Square, and then trace his steps from there to the hotel.

Or the fact that he could apparently do all this while being nowhere near the area.

It was imagination, he told himself, possibly for the thousandth time now since Chicago. He was only imagining Wes. Only imagining what he looked like and smelled like and felt like because it had been so long since he'd done any of those things and it wasn't the fact that his senses had gone on hyperdrive since -

Damn it.

Angel got control of himself. His hands were clutched tight, and nearly drew blood from his palms.

He forced himself to walk slowly. It was a discipline. He could do that. No different from the Tai Chi he used to calm himself. Slow and steady. With the energy and not afraid of it.

Oh who was he kidding? He was terrified.

Still, it got him home. Or what was going to pass for home these days.

It had taken him a couple of days to pick up Wes's trail again. A schedule that limited him to nighttime travel had hampered his progress. Driving hadn't proved that hard. Fortunately his car was powerful enough that it hardly needed him to move. He could mostly sit there and let it find the way.

He and Wes had played hide and seek across a few states, with even a quick trip up into Canada. Each time they met up it was the same thing - confusion, accusations, Wes throwing the old name in his face. The fights would get worse and Wes would bolt.

Angel figured this was probably his last shot. Wes had come into the country via JFK. If he was going to leave, he'd take the same route out.

Angel was not going to let Wes go without him.

Angel followed Wes - or the sensation of Wes, at least - to a hotel that would have been easy to miss if you didn't know where you were looking. It was simply a door in the middle of far more eye-catching office buildings and restaurants.

Angel entered, tagging on the heels of someone who had opened the door already, and found himself surrounded by a cave-like lobby decorated in modern, dark blue.

He walked until he found the front desk. Slow, careful movements produced a credit card - a company card, leftover in one of Wes's bags. He signed for his room with a quick scrawl, then stuffed his hands back in his pockets. He declined any offer of help with his luggage. His car was in a lot on 34th street. He'd have to get his things later.

He let the bellhop take him upstairs, though. The elevators and other hallways were just as dark as the lobby. He thought that maybe it was because it was late night, but a lack of windows suggested the hotel was always like this.

Oh well. Not like he was going to complain.

His room was at the end of a small cul-de-sac. The bellhop swiped the key for him, then held the door open to a room that was smaller than most hotel rooms, but still lush and reeking of opulence.

He wondered why Wes had gone for a more expensive hotel. There were Holiday Inns in New York, he was certain of it.

The bellhop went through the routine of showing him how everything worked, then vanished when Angel managed to produce a tip.

The door snicked closed and Angel was left alone with his thoughts.

He immediately took the comforter off of the bed and headed for the bathroom. Without looking, he draped it over the wall to wall vanity mirror.

It made things a little better.

Wesley curled up in his bed. The sheets were dirty, and tangled. A natural by-product of the fact that he'd been in them for - he checked his watch - a day and a half now with only pauses now and again to use the loo and attempts to use cold showers to ease the throbbing behind his eyes. He thought about getting up but couldn't just yet. His mind kept flashing back to the night before, and who he'd run into.

He'd been followed. Again. He'd been found. Again. The vampire had persisted in doggedly pursuing him.

Wesley abstractly wondered if the whole thing wasn't some rather elaborate request for Wesley to stake him. If the vampire -

Oh, Hell, it was Angel. He couldn't remain clinical about it.

It was but it wasn't. Those hadn't been Angel's eyes looking at him back in Chicago. Angel would have never greeted the sight of a murdered human being - any human being - with a smile.

No. This was something new. Some darker, different Angel, who looked like Angelus when viewed from just the right angles.

And Wesley hated it.

Hated it, because he still loved it. Him. The man behind those eyes. This not-Angel who paraded around in his lover's body.

Lord, was he really that much of a whore? Happy to roll over for any man who was strong enough and handsome enough to catch his eye?

Wesley lay on his side and stared at his gun. The gun. The one that had killed Andrew. The one that had shot Angel, and countless demons before him.

The barrel of it stared back at him. He wondered, if he shot himself, where precisely the kill would fall in the gun's tally: good, or evil?

He got up and went out for a drink.

He picked a new bar, this time. Not far from the hotel. He knew it wouldn't take long for Angel to find him again, and perhaps he wanted that. Needed it, even if he didn't know what he wanted to happen after.

He decided to forego the illusion of pacing himself and ordered his whisky straight, throwing it back as though it would somehow quench the ache inside of him that he knew was naught but dehydration. It had been days since anything resembling water had passed his lips, American beer notwithstanding. He drank and kept drinking, pausing only for pretzels and the like when his stomach roiled and threatened to get rid of all the lovely alcohol that was making his brain swim. The salt eased the chemical disruption and allowed him to keep going, to order shot after shot as though each one could erase his feelings and memories bit by bit.

"Wes, don't do this," Angel's voice came to him, and Wesley wondered how long had it been. How many minutes or hours had it taken for the vampire to find him?

"It's none of your concern," Wesley replied. He closed his eyes. He wanted to be elsewhere. He wanted to be nowhere. He wanted to be back in time, before his mistakes had blood all over them.

He wanted to remember when that time had even existed.

"It's not the way, Wes," Angel said. He took the bar stool next to him, his dark bulk blotting out the light of the television that hung from the ceiling. "Trust me. I've got a little experience in this area."

Wesley laughed. The sound was harsh, and painful to his throat. "No, you don't, Angel. You've absolutely no idea."

Angel looked at him. "I think I know a little something about killing. About feeling guilty because - "

Wesley laughed again, rubbing his eyes. Lord, was he destined to forever have this misunderstanding with Angel? For the vampire to always, always forget that the greatest problem of all was Wesley's love for him?

He turned, wanting to shut Angel up, wanting to make the entire thing quite clear with a single, quick gesture.

Wanting, he had to admit, to taste his lover again.

He moved to kiss Angel, his mouth salivating at the prospect of feeling those familiar lips against his own.

Except it didn't happen, because Angel jumped, and danced away, his bar stool falling down to the cracked tile floor with a room-silencing clatter.

Wesley stared at him, saw the panic in Angel's eyes. "Oh," he said, quietly. "You do know."

Once again he fled before Angel could stop him.

Damn it, damn it, DAMN it, Angel thought, chasing after Wes. He took advantage of speed this time, quickly catching up to Wes before he could disappear into the Broadway crowds. "Wesley - "

"Who are you?" Wes snapped, turning on him. "To judge? To look at me with contempt?"

Angel shook his head. "I don't. I swear to God I - "

"I killed for you!" Wes shouted, stabbing a finger at him in a motion so violent that it might as well have been a stake. "For your well being I made myself a murderer. And you - you - "

"Wes - "

"You do this and dare think that I don't measure up?" Wesley asked. He came forward, the force of his anger enough to make Angel step back until he was pressed against a jewelry store window. "What? Am I not good enough for you? Or dark enough, even?"

"Wesley, you don't understand - "

"You have no right," Wes said, his voice cracking in the alcohol-drenched dryness of his throat. "No right, considering all you have done, considering your past, to reject me."

"I'm not rejecting you," Angel snapped, panic making him lose his patience. "I'm - "

Someone passed by. Wes stepped closer to him in order to make way. Angel turned, avoiding the contact. The action pushed him even closer to the window and made him turn his face, putting the glass into his peripheral vision and making his elbow jerk back automatically before the view that threatened him could stare him right in the eyes.

The window shattered, kick-starting a loud burglar alarm that clashed nicely with the high-pitched cracking of the glass as it collapsed into the display and down onto the sidewalk, imbedding some of the sharper shards in Angel's cheek and hand as it went.

He and Wes stood there, stupidly, staring at one another.

"Oh my God," Wesley whispered.

Angel swallowed. He smiled sheepishly. "I was trying to tell you."

Wes came forward, completely ignoring the chaos that threatened them. He put his hand up to Angel's cheek - the untouched one - and turned him back towards the display. Towards the jewelry, which was shown on velvet cloths, pillows, and mirrors.

Towards his own reflection.

Angel closed his eyes, unable to look at himself in spite of the forced acceptance the Powers had put him through.

"Holy God," Wes breathed, and this was about as religious as Angel had ever heard him. "Angel, how long have you - "

"Wes," Angel whispered, tension seizing every muscle in his body as he tried not to move, to hurt Wes out of turn or, possibly worse, to open his eyes, "Please."

There was a moment of silence, then Wesley tugged on his hand. "Come on. It isn't safe."

And with those five words suddenly Angel's world lurched towards right again.

Anything could be right, if Wes was taking care of him.

They went back to the hotel. It had been a bit of a run, but fortunately they'd managed to avoid anyone who might have had hopes of arresting them. The night had been late enough that, Wesley supposed, there were other things for the police to worry about.

And they could just both consider themselves fortunate that the owner of the store hadn't been inside with a shotgun. Why said owner hadn't protected his window display with a metal gate as everyone else did, Wesley had no idea.

They went to Angel's room. Wesley's was bigger, but Angel had their supplies, and at the moment Angel himself was in need of first aid. Wesley sat him down on the bed, then searched through the bags to find razors and tweezers.

"Red bag," Angel prompted him, after a moment.

"Thank you," Wesley said. He found the necessary items then sat down on the bed beside him.

They locked eyes for a moment.

They should kiss. Wesley wanted to kiss him. It was against the laws of God and man that the two of them weren't sharing physical contact - or intimate contact, at any rate. Yet the memory of Angel's rejection was still fresh in his mind. Wesley resigned himself to holding his hand out, and letting Angel rest his injured one inside of it.

Wesley got to work. His movements were slow, but not nearly as drunken as he would have thought. He supposed the adrenaline rush had sobered him slightly. He began to make cuts in Angel's hand, picking out the glass shards with the tweezers as quickly as he could before the skin healed over.

Angel sat still, accepting the care with hardly a flinch. His eyes were dark, however, and desperately young looking.

The silence went on for ages before Angel finally spoke:

"So what's new with you?"

Wesley's mouth twitched. He didn't want to laugh, and yet -

"Wanker."

"Drunk."

"Asshole."

"Sprinter."

Wesley looked up at him. "What?"

"With the running," Angel said. "I was going for a - I mean you leaving and - okay, can I take a mulligan?"

Oh God, this was Angel. In spite of it all, Wesley could recognize that inane babbling anywhere.

"No," Wesley replied. He meant it to be joking, but the answer came out seriously all the same.

Angel nodded, accepting it. "So do you want to go first or do I?"

"You already know my half of it," Wesley told him. He lingered over Angel's hand, taking his time about removing the glass because next on the list was Angel's cheek and he wasn't quite ready for that sort of closeness.

"I did a challenge," Angel said, taking his turn without protest. "A trial. For my soul."

Wesley allowed curiosity to guide his words. "Did you win?"

"My soul's still here."

"That wasn't what I asked you."

"They wanted me to choose," Angel said. "The Powers did. To be Angel or Angelus."

Wesley dabbed at a pool of blood in Angel's palm with a wet cloth. "And did you?"

"Yeah."

Wesley looked up at him. "What was your answer?"

"Me," Angel replied. "I chose me."

Wesley mulled that over.

"I - I understand if that makes things different between us," Angel said. "I know you didn't sign on to actually snuggle up to my dark side. If you wanna - "

"Go on with your tale," Wesley told him. He continued to ferret out pieces of glass.

"You know the part where I woke up," Angel said. "The reflection I didn't find out about until I caught up with you again in Indiana. And my strength and all - that was Chicago too. I just didn't realize it."

"Strength?" Wesley looked up.

"The other thing I was trying to tell you," Angel said. "Whatever I did, whatever happened - changed me. Everything's more now. Stronger, faster - everything."

Wesley looked down at the hand that he'd assumed had kept healing up on him so quickly because his own movements were slow and intoxicated.

"I've been breaking a lot of things," Angel said. "I reach for stuff and it snaps right off. Good thing the car's nothing but solid metal or else - "

"Me," Wesley realized, thinking back to the bar. "You thought you would break me."

"Yeah," Angel said.

Wesley took his hand back and thought about this.

"Kind of appropriate, huh?" Angel asked, softly.

Wesley looked back at him. "What?"

"Worrying about breaking you," Angel explained. "You know, considering."

Wesley straightened up, staring down at him. "Considering what?"

Angel shrugged. "What happened. You and Andrew. I mean if I hadn't - "

Wesley struck him. Then, upon second thought, switched hands and hit him again, this time aiming for the cheek with the glass in it. "How dare you, Angelus?" he asked, the full name coming to him as though it were second nature - like a parent scolding a child using first, middle and last. "How dare you take this and make it part of your own little drama? Andrew was my murder and mine alone."

"For me!" Angel defended himself. "You said it yourself! You killed him for me. If I hadn't corrupted you - "

"You corrupted nothing," Wesley said, then added: "Ass."

Angel looked at him flatly. "Because you were so gung ho about murdering people before?"

"What do you think of me?" Wesley asked. "Honestly? Did you fancy me some innocent until the moment we met? Do you think that I never did wrong until you came into my life? That I was some kind of virgin to all things evil? For God's sake, I worked for the Council!"

"You thought they were good," Angel pointed out.

"I thought they did what they had to," Wesley replied. "I thought their goals made it all worthwhile. I still think that as a matter of fact."

"So stake me."

"Don't make me hit you again."

"Evil's right here, Wes," Angel said, patting his chest. "I accepted it. My good and bad, all rolled into one. You agree with the Council then I should be dead."

"Stop being so damned literal," Wesley told him.

"I don't think I am," Angel said. He got up, pacing. "Don't get me wrong, Wes, I want to be with you. But let's notice a pattern, huh? Cordy's vision, everything we do together, you end up killing Andrew - "

"Pardon me," Wesley said, "but what was that middle part again?"

"Everything we do together," Angel replied.

"Could we perhaps narrow that down some?"

"You know," Angel said. He rolled his hand in the air. "The blood drinking, the kinky sex, the - "

"Have you gone absolutely insane or were you always this arrogant?" Wesley asked, genuinely curious.

"Huh?"

"Angelus," Wesley said, not entirely certain of why he was comfortable using the name but not seeing a reason to stop either, "I can assure you that there are thousands if not millions of mortals who engage in less than purely Christian acts of sex without either becoming murderers or having your input."

"But -"

"I can assure you."

"'Less than Christian'?" Angel quoted.

Wesley rolled his eyes. "Kinky. Sex with whips, chains, bondage and yes, even bleeding."

"Yeah but you -"

Wesley looked at him.

"You?" Angel asked.

"I owned handcuffs before I met you, you know."

"You tell me this now?" Angel asked. "In the middle of a fight? This is when you think I'd like to find out this information?"

"You didn't ask," Wesley said, simply.

"Excuse the lack of mind reading!" Angel shot back, clearly more off his guard than angry. "Christ - you didn't think I might want to know?"

Wesley shrugged a single shoulder. "We had other things to deal with. And your imagination always proved rather satisfactory."

"Yours too," Angel replied. He sat down on the edge of the bed again, a few feet away from Wesley.

"Doing things in sex which create incredible orgasms isn't evil," Wesley told him. "On the contrary, it's what one might call the point."

"Shaddup," Angel murmured. He rubbed his eyes, which caused trickles of blood to slip down his cheek.

"Let me," Wesley said. He moved over to Angel's side and began to take the glass out. After a moment he admitted "I did think I had corrupted you, however."

"How?" Angel asked, his eyebrows furrowing.

"By letting you drink my blood," Wesley replied. "By encouraging you to deal with your dark side."

"Yeah I got that one in the bag, Wes," Angel said. He made a motion of finality. "Stick a fork in that, 'cause woo boy."

"You're trembling."

"Didn't say it doesn't scare me shitless."

"What did the Powers say about all this?" Wesley asked.

"I think I'm fired," Angel replied. "Which is fine, because I quit."

Wesley sat back. "Quit? You mean -"

"Not helping," Angel clarified. "I still want to help people and do good. I'm fine for good. I like it. Keeps me off the streets. But being prophecy boy. Being whoever the Powers or whoever else wants me to be. Being this - this pawn between good and evil." Angel's mouth twisted in distaste. "Screw that. I wanna be me."

"And who is that?" Wesley asked, quietly.

Angel shrugged. "Still figuring that part out."

Wesley swallowed. "Let me know when you find out the answer?"

"Wes?"

"Yes?"

"You're a fucking moron if you don't think me being here with you right now isn't part of that answer."

"I love you," Wesley blurted.

Angel looked at him quizzically, perhaps understanding that Wesley didn't consider this a positive thing. "Yay?"

"No," Wesley said. He sat back so they could properly face one another. "I love you. All of you. Good and..."

"Not so good?" Angel filled in.

Wesley nodded.

"I'm gonna have to stick by my 'yay' here," Angel told him.

"No," Wesley shook his head. "Don't you understand? I love all of you. Not just Angel. I - I broke my vow to you."

"Which one?"

"Andrew asked if I could stake you if you turned," Wesley confessed, meeting Angel's eyes. "I wasn't certain of it."

"You could love me even if I lost the soul?" Angel asked.

"Yes," Wesley admitted.

Angel stared at him for a long while. "That's pretty impressive."

Wesley blinked. "What?"

"That you've got that much forgiveness in you."

Wesley's breath caught, and he realized there was far too much space between them.

He wrapped his arms around Angel, and kissed his lover hard.

Oh God, kissing. Kissing Wes. It felt so good, so perfect, so right. Angel didn't want there to be a time when he wasn't kissing Wesley.

And yet -

"Wes," he murmured, not really pulling away. "I still don't know my own strength."

"If you and I don't fuck right now I might die," Wes breathed across his lips. Angel felt it like a hand on his dick.

"Right there with you," Angel said. "Believe me. It's just if you and I do fuck right now you might and that's just not how I want this reunion to go."

"I need you," Wesley insisted and Christ Angel wanted to be there for him. Wes's hands were touching his chest, his neck, pulling at his shirt. "Please. Angel - Angelus, please?"

Angel's eyes wetted with tears. So many people had said the words "Angelus, please" in his life. More than he could ever count.

Not a single one of them had ever said them the way that Wesley just did.

"Okay," Angel agreed. "Okay, we'll think of something we'll - God that feels good."

Wes's hand had moved lower, and was cupping and stroking him through his jeans. "How bad are you? You drove, you must have some control then, yes?"

"Not so's I'd want to use your bones as a test case," Angel replied.

"Your mouth?" Wes asked. "Have you good control of that?"

Blowjobs. Trust his brilliant boy. "Yeah, I could do that. I mean not that I tried it on anybody else before I got here but - "

"I could fuck you."

The words came out in a rush and Angel had to replay them in his head to make sure he'd actually heard them. "Do you want to?" he finally asked, when he felt pretty certain the suggestion was real.

Wes looked pretty surprised about it himself. "It - it would be safe, would it not? If you were underneath? If I was the one holding you?"

Angel smiled. "Yeah. I think that'd be safe."

The look of astonishment hadn't left Wes's face. "We could do that, then."

Angel thought about reminding Wes that this would be a first for them, but decided Wes was nervous enough. Instead he stood up and demonstrated what little control he had by stripping off his clothes. "Wes," he said, once he didn't have a stitch on. "I'd love it if you fucked me."

Wes surged up to meet him. They tangled in a kiss as Wes turned him around and pushed him back onto the bed. Then he was treated with a strip show all his own as Wes shucked his clothes off, then crawled on top of him.

Wes was hard. So was he. Their hips ground together and Angel knew that there wasn't going to be a hell of a lot of foreplay. Instead he lay back, trying not to move more than he had to, trying to make sure he didn't hurt Wes as they got reacquainted.

"Lube?" Wes asked, his eyes dark and hazy.

"Blue bag," Angel replied, nibbling on his lower lip.

"You put the lubricant with my magic supplies?"

"You really wanna argue about this right now?"

"If you turn into a toad so help me I'll - "

"Wes? Fuck me."

Lube was gotten. There was a second of debate, then Angel decided to stay on his back. He wanted to watch Wes, wanted to see his face when he went inside of him.

This wasn't a first - not for Angel, at any rate. Hell he'd have done this for Wes over a year ago if Wes had asked it. But Wes had preferred bottom and so they'd stayed that way.

Feeling Wes tease his ass with lube-slick fingers, Angel decided this had definitely been worth the wait.

Wes was clearly nervous, and it took a second for him to get the position right, but once he got it he slid in good and slow and Angel thought he might lose his mind.

"God," Wes murmured, awed.

"Right there with you," Angel agreed.

He threaded his fingers through the headboard, not trusting himself to hold Wes's hand. Instead he locked eyes with Wes, pouring his love and trust in him into that expression, letting it say everything that his touch right now could not.

"I love you too," Wes replied.

They fucked. Wes didn't take long to find the right way to do it, and once the perfect rhythm was hit neither one of them felt a need to stop it. The headboard creaked and groaned under Angel's hands, then snapped as the pleasure became too much to take, became more than he could stand because it was Wes, Wes who he hadn't lost, who still loved him, who would stick with him no matter what, who -

"Christ!"

He shuddered, coming with a jolt so sharp his vision blurred white. Some instinct made him clamp down on Wes's cock and Wes's hand clutched him painfully as he came in turn, sobbing out something that sounded a hell of a lot like his name.

They lay together in a sated, sticky mess. Angel shook the splinters off of his hands, then dared to rest his arms around Wes.

"Love you," Wesley murmured, his head burrowed against Angel's chest.

"Love you too," Angel replied. He sat in silence for a moment, thinking, then suggested: "Let's go home."

Fin.