Home / Fan Fiction / Angel / Epiphany / Washington, DC

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.

Washington, DC
by The Brat Queen

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

Rated: PG

Summary: Angel and Wes discuss artwork, their relationship, and other things they don't understand. (Part of the Epiphany series, takes place after "Leyden Creek, VA")

Thanks to: Wolfling, Mer and WesleysGirl for the beta read.

"It isn't."

Angel let his hands rest comfortably in his coat pockets. Without looking at Wes, he repeated for the third time: "Is."

He saw Wes look at him out of his peripheral vision. "You're deranged."

"Entirely possible," Angel agreed. He flashed Wes a grin. "Still is though."

Wes was now giving him that look which wouldn't have been totally out of place in front of a classroom. Angel could picture Wes scolding a student who'd just given him a shit excuse for not doing his homework. "Angel, this is not art."

"Wes," Angel said patiently, "it is. It's abstract. It's modern. It's -"

"It's a box, Angel," Wes said, pointing to it with more care than he needed to. "It's a large, brown box, wrapped with string. If there's art it's on the inside."

Angel found himself actually smiling a little. "Not into the modern, huh?"

"I like modern fine," Wes said. "When it is actual modern art. This is, again I'll remind you, a box."

"It's different," Angel said. "I like it."

"Can you actually conclusively prove to me that this is part of the exhibit?" Wes asked. He gestured around them. "There's no placard."

Angel shrugged. "Maybe it doesn't have one."

"It doesn't have one because it's not art," Wes was getting seriously kissable with his frustration over the whole thing. "It's -"

"A box," Angel said. "I heard ya." A joke occurred to him. "Kinda funny, 'cause this art makes you think outside the - "

"You're hysterical," Wes spoke over him. "May we please look at something else? Or does the box's metaphor about man's role in the world still speak to you?"

Angel checked his watch. "We could go," he said. "It's closing up soon."

"All right," Wes said. He looked around the room as though checking for anything else that might appeal to him, then moved with the general traffic flow to the exits downstairs.

Angel followed. "Thanks."

"For what?" Wes asked.

Angel shrugged. "Indulging me."

"Going to the Smithsonian isn't a hardship," Wes told him. "Besides, you indulged me with the FBI."

"The weapons were cool," Angel said, then wondered if maybe he shouldn't have.

Out of nowhere he felt Wes's hand against, then inside of his. Angel stopped for a moment, enjoying the otherworldly sensation of being in a place where Wes allowed himself to touch Angel publicly.

As though reading his mind - a talent Angel wasn't entirely sure Wes didn't possess, Wes said, "Who knows us here?"

You used to care, Angel wanted to point out, but shut himself up because why remind Wes of a reason to stop? Instead he said "Wanna go for a walk? Or we could eat. You wanna eat?"

"I'm not hungry yet," Wes said, and then Angel mentally kicked himself for not seeing the next comment coming "You on the other hand - "

"Not hungry," Angel didn't look Wes in the eye.

"Liar."

Angel's hand tightened on Wes's. It wasn't entirely affectionate. "Let's not, okay?"

Wes lapsed into silence as they reached the front door, then stepped out into the twilight that was falling on the Mall. Without discussing it, they both turned in the direction of the Washington Monument.

Wes was quiet.

Angel was too.

Angel doubted, though, that Wes was currently thinking of the various ways he'd kill each and every person they were walking by.

It was hard. And not the good kind of hard either. Not the great, wonderful justonesecondmoreplease hard of holding off an orgasm because the longer you waited the more it felt so damned good. No, this was the real hard. The not-fun kind, where you never stopped feeling cold and your mouth tasted like metal and everything was empty except for the coiled snake of it deep down in your gut just waiting, waiting for you to flinch so it could strike and -

Angel held Wes's hand tighter, this time to comfort himself.

Of course this comfort came with a sting. Wes's pulse, throbbing against his dead hand, inviting him to bite and burst open a vein and taste that incredible goodness that was Wes's blood flooding into him and then shoving Wes up against anything flat and firm so he could press against that hot, mortal little body and take that hot, mortal not so little cock and pump it and make Wes gasp and squirm and beg and plead and cling and whisper pleasepleasepleasepleasefuckmetakemesuckmeGodAngelplease and Wes was his, all his, his for the taking like any other little toy he'd ever fucked and taken in his life and -

God damn it.

"Do I pretend," Wes asked, as though they'd been having a conversation, "that I'm completely unaware of how much you're brooding, or do I persist in acting as though I've a brain in my head and I am also not blind?"

"Just thinking," Angel said, not wanting to get into it because his mind was still burning with the idea of how quick he could make Wes lose control even if - or maybe especially if - he took him right then and there, in public, where a whole city of nobody who knew them would forever know Wes as the guy who came while screaming Angel's name.

"Banner day then," Wes said. He pretended to mull it over. "I could go get that sculpture of Lucifer, if you'd like. Give you the right props for this sort of thing."

Angel glanced over at Wes, a question in his eyes as his mind conjured the image of the fallen angel sculpted in bronze and quartz that he'd seen at the museum.

"You stared at it for nearly a half hour," Wes told him. "Darling, you're not subtle."

Darling. Angel tried to remember when Wes had started calling him by little pet names. He couldn't remember the exact time. He felt like he should. Like that should have been a milestone. Now he took it in stride. Even though at the moment he didn't feel like he had a right to the words.

"You can't brood," Wes said, as though this were an Angel Investigations meeting and he'd just announced that they were switching to a new billing system. "We'll talk about something else if we must."

"Like what?" Angel asked, meaning the question in all honesty. "There a topic here that's safe?"

Wes thought about it, and Angel felt relieved that he wasn't the only one noticing the wet paint surrounding their conversational corner. "You could ask me more questions," he offered.

Can I kill your dad? Angel thought. Can I torture him right in front of you and teach you how to torture people using him as a starting block? Can I fuck you right here right now and do it so hard you forget everything you ever knew or cared about?

Can I stop this? Can I just, please, stop this?

Wes's hand tugged on his. "Brooding again."

"It's not that fucking easy," Angel said, taking his hand back and hating that, hating the flicker of rejection that went through Wes's eyes but being powerless to stop it all the same because he couldn't trust himself to touch Wes, not right now.

"Then tell me," Wes said. "Explain to me why."

Angel shoved his hands in his pockets and kept walking.

He was stopped by the feeling of Wes's hand connecting sharply with his head.

"Excuse me," Wes said, now looking gloriously pissed off at him, "but I don't recall you being allowed to ram your head up your backside and wander off. I asked a question. You'll do me the courtesy of an answer."

He hated this. The wanting to talk but the knowing that he couldn't. He wasn't allowed. He wasn't -

Wes grabbed him by the lapel and kissed him, his tongue demanding an entrance that Angel did not have the ability to refuse.

"Stop brooding," Wes told him again, and this time Angel could hear it because it was brooding or kissing and kissing always won.

He wrapped his arms around Wes, drawing him into the protection of his coat, and let their mouths play, teasing and finding one another over and over again.

Wes pulled away, and Angel thought that he made a sound of disappointment - some tiny noise to ask the sexy British boy to come back - but Wes spoke before Angel could make the request a formal one.

"How did you kill your sister?"

And that was it. Angel pulled away again, stalking off because damn it this was not the conversation he wanted to be having with Wesley, or anyone, or at all because words had power and this was not an invocation that he wanted to make.

Wes followed. Angel wondered if he was going to get shot again.

"I'm not stupid," Wes told him. "Why do you persist in acting as though I am? I know who you are - "

"Then stop taunting me!" Angel snapped, and there it was, that coiled snake, ready to flex an entire body made of muscle and lash out because it was much too much. He thought of his mother and sister and Buffy and Wesley and mortal blood and painful desires that cut him to the bone. "Stop doing this, Wes. Stop acting like this is easy. What's inside of me isn't nice, or fun, or friendly. It's evil and deadly and -"

"And?" Wes prompted, when Angel cut himself off.

Angel gave Wes a good, long stare. "It wants you."

Wes at least had the decency to shiver.

"I'm trying to protect you," Angel said.

"This isn't the way," Wes said. "Shutting yourself off is never the way."

"Worked for a hundred years," Angel pointed out.

"You went mad," Wes replied, the look in his eyes removing any glibness from the statement.

Angel looked around, wishing for a bench or something he could sit on. Lacking that, he resumed the walk to the Memorial, although now at a pace that Wes could easily follow. Somehow the storm of anger inside of him had faded just as quickly as it came, leaving him with the dull ache of pain that was his every so-called living moment. The argument, for him, boiled back down to its very essence: Wes wasn't safe with him, but Angel didn't have the balls to make him go away.

Deep down he had to admit that he was glad that Wes had followed him, glad that Wes refused to leave. Because that made it not his responsibility. Not his fault for the screw-up. He could turn to any metaphysical cops and claim his innocence, such as it was.

He followed me home. Can I keep him?

Angel stopped, hesitated, then reached a hand out for Wesley's. Wes's hand slipped into his in return.

"Maybe we should go back to the hotel?" Wes suggested.

"Maybe I should just go," Angel replied, not really meaning it.

"You need to eat," Wes said, making this a decision that was a half-step from being an order.

"I'm fine," Angel said, not meaning that either.

"Either we find a butcher's, or I'm cutting myself right now," Wes warned.

Angel wanted to sigh, or take his hand back again, but did neither. He looked around. There had to be someplace he could score some blood. DC was actually a pretty heavy vampire town. The sewers and rail system were better than New York's.

He didn't want blood, though. Or, more to the point, he did. Which made him feel he shouldn't have any.

Angel's wants were never, in his mind, his should-haves.

And there was the practical problem. A few tastes of Wes's blood had gotten him on humans again. Warm, hot, throbbing humans. Pig's blood was like water in comparison, and stale water at that.

He wondered why that didn't make it a penance enough for him to drink it.

"There's always hospitals," Wes said, his telepathy as sharp as it always was. Or maybe Angel really wasn't that subtle.

"Fine," Angel said, not wanting to think about it. If Wes lead him to a hospital, he'd go to a hospital. He'd find the blood bank, crack open a bag, and drink his plastic fill.

They changed directions and Angel wondered if Wes really did know where there was a hospital around there. It was entirely possible. Wes tended to spend the driving portions of their trip either writing in his journals or studying maps and guide books.

Angel tried to bring himself back to that, the happy memory of him and Wes, on the road, like two people without a care in the world instead of two people who clung to the East Coast like a pair of leeches because the West Coast was scaring the crap out of them.

Or - it scared Angel, and Wes stayed along for the ride.

But if Angel closed his eyes and didn't think about it it became nice. Fun. Two men, driving the country, stopping wherever they wanted, finding little out of the way hotels that didn't mind if they locked themselves away all day and fucked each other like honeymooners. Wes, actually having fun sometimes because he wasn't working or having to run a business. He was on vacation, and letting his guard down a little, and buying stupid neon-colored baseball caps that said "Miami, Florida" on them and not caring that they looked god-awful when he wore them because sometimes it was just nice to not care about how you looked to anyone.

And Angel thought about other things they could do. Hunting, ironically enough. Angel hadn't done it in centuries - not the animal kind, anyway - but he had vague memories of being hauled out on trips, and Wes struck him as the kind of guy who wouldn't mind it. Angel thought about renting a cabin, maybe in Montana, and spending days just drinking beer and eating whatever they caught and just locking themselves away from whatever bothered them.

When he really got into it, he pushed the fantasy along from there. The two of them buying a place, maybe even up in the mountains. Plenty of snow, but with fireplaces to keep them warm. A ranch, maybe, with horses, because Wes had a body that told you he knew how to handle horses, and a big SUV to drive them into town for supplies but for the most part just them, and the horses, and maybe a dog or two - which told you how much of a fantasy it was, that Angel ignored the idea of the smell of wet dog in a cabin - and Wes with a cowboy hat and some flannel that, really, wouldn't look that bad on him and even made a cute contrast with the glasses in a kiss-me-now kind of way, and this being their life, their existence, from then until always.

And it could work. It could, in the world that he imagined this. Because there were no demons, or Powers, or anything but the two of them, and Wes got to be manly and competent and show off all those little camping tricks he'd learned in scouts or where ever the hell Wes had learned how to tie elaborate knots and figure out first aid using mud, twigs and a little spit, and Wes would like it, Angel knew he would.

Except -

Except that world didn't exist.

So the fantasy always warped, right around then. Wes, glasses fogged and cheeks flushed with cold and smiling at him as he climbed out of the SUV turned into Wes, the only human for miles and miles as Angel's winter-cold body became hungry and snapped his neck in two, feasting on the fluid inside. And the warmth and beauty of this little fantasy-house became something he could never be a part of, because there was nothing warm and beautiful inside of him, it was all a façade, and a thin one at that.

Self-hatred came on him as comfortable and familiar as the coat he was wearing and with it the burning frost that filled his heart at the realization which, though not new, felt like new each and every time he thought of it, and it was the realization that he was dead, and a monster, and Wes was neither and that someday, no matter what, Wes would leave him.

Angel tried to imagine it. Tried to picture coming back to DC decades or centuries later, with no Wes to hold his hand or argue about artwork or obsess over maps or try to make him eat because he loved him, cold, dead monster that he was and -

"Stop it," Wes hushed, appearing in his arms again. His fine hands touched Angel's cheeks and Angel leaned into the caress as though it brought salvation. "Shh. Stop."

"Can't," Angel managed. He felt that yearning to curl up in on himself and tremble.

"You're stronger and better than this," Wesley said. Lips ghosted over Angel's face. A hot tongue flicked at tears he didn't even know he was shedding.

"I'm not," Angel said, because that was the point, really. He wasn't. Not in any way that mattered.

"Are," Wes said, this time with a light smile that showed that yes, he was aware that once again their arguments had gotten to a school yard level.

Angel wanted to smile back, but couldn't. He wanted to be himself, but couldn't.

He didn't even know what he was anymore.

He looked at Wes silently, begging him to understand that.

Wes, God bless him, was as good a translator as always.

"You're hungry," Wes said, brushing at Angel's cheeks with quick, efficient fingers. "Hardly a state for rational thought. You're you, and therefore never much for rational thought even at the best of times. I do not deny that we've a large and serious problem on our hands, but absolutely nothing will be solved if you continue to chase your tail in this manner. Let's address the immediate problems first, then worry about saving the world. All right?"

"All right," Angel repeated. It didn't feel that way, but for Wes he could try this. Hell, for his own sanity he could try this. Focus on the tiny problems, and worry about the big ones later.

Hell, wasn't like the big ones were going anywhere.

"Hospital, then," Wes told him. He brushed a quick kiss over Angel's mouth, then continued walking.

After a while, Angel felt strong enough to try. "Wes, what about - "

"Immediate and superficial problems only," Wes replied.

Idly wondering what the hell state his emotions were in, he happily rode the mood swing that Wes's words conjured. "You like hunting?"

Wes blinked, analyzing the sequitor, then offered "Animals or demons?"

"Animals," Angel said, knowing the answer to the second option already.

"I've done some fox hunting in my time," Wes said, and Angel's mind immediately did yet another attempt to figure out what Wes's pre-Sunnydale life was like. "I enjoyed it."

Angel mentally congratulated himself for figuring out both hunting and horses, with little to no clues to guide him. "We could - do you want to? I mean, while we're traveling?"

"We could," Wes agreed. He squeezed Angel's hand. "Do you have something in mind?"

"I might," Angel admitted.

"May we still go through Chicago?"

"We can go through Cancun if you feel like it," Angel replied and felt, as if by magic, the usual banter return between them. The snake had slithered off. To where Angel had no idea, but Wes had told him not to think about it, so he wouldn't.

Wes shook his head at the suggestion. "I'm not much for beaches. Texas might prove interesting, however."

"We could do Texas," Angel told him. He thought a bit more. "Do you - we could go outside the States if you wanted. Canada. Europe. Been a while since I've seen Hong Kong."

Wes didn't look as keen on this idea. "We could."

"Don't have to," Angel said. "Just suggesting it."

Wes nodded. "Duly noted."

Angel felt like there was some test to being Wesley's lover, and that he was slowly but surely failing it.

He wanted to succumb to it - give in to that feeling of failure, admit that it had all gone seriously wrong, and that he had to leave, and that it was over and Wes should go on and find a normal life with a guy who would at least grow old and die with him...

... and then he actually laughed at himself, because it wasn't like that speech had worked well with Buffy and if it didn't work on your soul-mate, who would it work with?

Again his emotions bobbed up and down like a roller coaster. He tugged on Wes's hand, pulling him close enough to wrap an arm around his waist.

"Seriously in love with you," Angel said.

"Same here," Wes replied. There was concern inside of his crystal blue eyes, but when Angel didn't dip down into depression again, Wes relaxed and nestled closer. "Let's feed you, then go back to the hotel and you can bugger me silly."

"Sounds like a plan," Angel said, making a mental note to make sure Wes ate as well before they got too distracted.

They went off to the nearest hospital - or at least the nearest one Wes had somehow known about - and Angel plotted out how he'd steal blood from the inside.

Along the way he wondered, in the back of his head, who the guy following them was.

Fin.