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Disclaimer: Angel and
Wesley, thou art wholly characters which the Mighty Joss hath made. Let
us rejoice and be glad of it. What shall it profit a fan to seek credit
where none is due, and lose his soul and wordly goods to a lawyer?
Verily, I
say unto you that I receiveth absolutely no financial remuneration for
these efforts. Ahem ...I mean, amen.
Feedback: with thanks
E-mail
address: wiseblood@mindspring.com
Rating:
an -G- sty
Spoilers:
"To Shanshu in LA"
READ MY LIPS
(A
SHANSHU REVERIE)
by
wiseblood
Wesley's
first thought as he came down the stairs into Angel's apartment
was: How odd. It isn't like him to leave the weapons cabinet
ajar.
Wesley
clutched the twine-bound books closer to him, frowning in consternation
as he recalled their conversation before he'd gone out. He was positive
he remembered Angel saying he was going to lock up the scroll of Aberjian
in the cabinet ...
Perhaps
he'd been in the process of doing so, only to be distracted somehow? Or,
likely as not, the scroll itself was responsible. Certainly, the prophecy
had to be weighing heavily on the vampire's mind, never mind what he'd
said.
Although
Angel had certainly seemed to take the pronouncement of his demise in
stride, Wesley sensed in him a deeper withdrawal, a subtle distancing of
himself from his human companions. His gloom remained impenetrable,
lightened by not so much as a single shaft of figurative sunlight since
their discussion this morning. Understandable, certainly.
God
knows, this whole scroll business was nothing to laugh at.
Wesley
glanced more closely at the cabinet doors, a clammy chill breaking over
him as he saw the lock had been forced, the wood around it splintered.
He'd felt something when he'd first come into the office, but shrugged it
off. Now his suspicions were confirmed. Intruders, was it, or actual
thieves?
And
where the hell was Angel?
He
swept the apartment from one end of to the other, holding his breath. No
signs of life ... or undeath, for that matter. If there was a trespasser,
detecting them lay outside the range of his human perception.
But
then, what on earth was that noise? It sounded as if it were coming from
inside the cabinet....
Quickly,
he set the books aside and gingerly swung open the carved wooden doors.
He
didn't know what he expected to see, but it wasn't the odd little
contraption leaning against the back wall, half-hidden in the jumble of
daggers and axes. Cylindrical and grayish in color with small wires
leading from its top to a small mechanism on the side, the dull, ugly
thing was jarringly out of place amongst the gleaming antiquities.
Blinking at him with smug monotony, its
low
pulse echoed through the quiet, dark apartment.
Oh
no ... please, no ... this couldn't ... it was ... He backed away in one
huge step, his face freezing in an unconscious grimace.
Dear
God! -- it's set to go off ...
Stunned,
he stared at the tiny, malevolent red eye as it winked away another two
seconds of his life -- and then he was turning and running for the
stairway as if the Devil himself was at his heels.
The
explosion was so loud he didn't hear himself scream.
He
felt as if a giant hand shoved him brutally in the small of the back.
Like a doll thrown in a tantrum, he was lofted and carried forward, his
skin blistering, flames licking over him and singing his hair and
eyebrows. He choked on the powdery cinders filling his mouth and nose as
the sharp edges of the stairs crashed into his ribs and knees. A stunning
agony enveloped him.
All
was quiet, save for a high-pitched ringing in his ears. After drifting
for what seemed an interminably long time, he managed to peel open an
eye.
Around
him lay utter devastation. The apartment -- along with everything that
had made Angel's spartan existance a little less harsh -- was gone,
obliterated into meaningless, charred fragments.
Tragic
... Angel cared for little in the way of things, but Wesley suspected the
few possessions with which the vampire surrounded himself were cherished
in their own way, bringing him some comfort -- if, in no other way, as
touchstones for memories -- through the long, lonely years of his
existance...
And
now they were lost. The offices, too ... and the ceiling is probably
going to cave in any minute now ...
Dimly,
he thought he heard a muffled cry. Oh, God ... let Angel not have been
upstairs ... He gulped at the tears pinching his throat, his mind's eye
framing a horrible picture of the vampire lying pinned somewhere in the
wreckage above, burning to death, alone ...
He
prayed: Dear Lord ... I know I haven't been very attentive of late, but
... please -- not now, not like this -- at least for Angel ... it
mustn't end this way ... we have to hold onto hope ... I do believe there
is a reason for everything ... even this ...
Ashes
fell like soft benedictions around him, sparked with brief ghosts of
flame before expiring in the rapidly deoxygenating room. A rough fit of
coughing seized him; he felt as if his body was trying to forcibly expel
his lungs out of him in huge, throat-clogging chunks.
...
Wesley ... Wesley!
He
could almost hear the crisp, haughty English voice, see the high, white
walls of the Watcher's Academy with their staring ancestral portraits
rising above him as he shrank under his fathers looming condescension.
He
despised himself as he writhed like a pitifully creeping worm under the
tirade: Have you learned nothing here? Years I've spent, drumming the
lore into you -- years! You can't possibly be as dense as you are clumsy!
Listen: We have only so much power, and no more. Within limits, we can
impose a puny order, but to act outside the law and will of the world
creates only entropy ... utter chaos ...
...
Wesley ...
It
was madness, that intractibly rational man had said, to think otherwise.
Then
I am mad, he thought, as mad as ever Angel was, fresh from Hell and just
as damned ...
They'd
tried so hard, the three of them -- vampire, seer and "rogue demon
hunter" -- made their stand against horror upon horror as the first
harbingers of the End of Days had ingressed upon the world ... and now
the curtains were being drawn on their efforts before they'd even had a
chance to properly taken the stage ...
...
Wes ...
He
flinched sluggishly as a coal landed on his hand, searing him with its
infernal kiss before he could twitch away. Angel is despondant, convinced
his earthly existance is pointless, and I -- I am here, in the vampire's
lair ... and I never told Angel the things he might have -- never
truly conveyed my regard for the man ... and now, it's all too late ...
...
Wes!
And
I believe I hear oblivion, calling my name ...
Unfair,
all of it -- bloody, cruelly unfair -- and pathetic -- that this should
be the end ...
His
eyes shut against the destruction; the bitterness of ashes, and something
more that ate like acid brine at the back of his throat, made him gag
weakly. His forehead rested on the edge of a step, and he stared at the
tiny sparkling bits of grit that littered it, imagining himself so much
smaller than the least of them.
Forgive
me for everything ... my weakness, my failings as a Watcher, and as a man
... my fear ... so unworthy ... forgive me ...
Suddenly,
with an unexpected familiarity he could hardly imagine, much less
believe, he felt himself dragged upward and turned. Hands -- cold, yes,
but so gentle, even in their urgency, that he almost wept -- touched his
face, turned it. Fingertips like smooth chips of ice pressed his carotid,
taking his pulse, then moved swiftly away.
No,
please, his mind cried, don't leave me!
If
he'd been able, he would have moved of his own accord, but instead he
felt himself braced upright and clutched tightly. He registered the
faintly intimate scent of a certain sandalwood-based cologne, felt the
soft folds of a coat -- so unseasonal in these climes -- against his
cheek -- and now, faintly, he heard his name, shouted close to his ear --
Wesley!
I'm
alive, he wanted to cry out, but crowding out even that impulse was the
simple amazement that the vampire had found him.
The
sensation of feeling himself raised with amazing ease in the powerful
arms and draped across broad shoulders that flexed effortlessly and
lifted -- he swooned, though whether it was from the sudden change in
blood pressure, or something else, he couldn't say.
He
felt himself drowning, tumbled like a broken shell in the laboring surf
of his heartbeat. Blackness pressed its evil thumbs on the margins of his
vision, and he felt his hands tingling where they swung and brushed the
vampire's buttocks. Fresh air partially revived him as he was carried up
and out of the inferno, and along with it, a renewed awareness of pain.
He
coughed thickly, wincing as Angel swung him down. One of those cool hands
now came to cradle the back of his skull, keeping it off the
debris-strewn street. He oriented upward and met Angel's dusky
brown eyes, fixed upon him with a mixture of anguish and raw, helpless
concern so strangely out of place on his usually expressionless features
that Wesley would have laughed, a bit uncomfortably, if he could have
managed it.
"Easy,"
he felt, more than heard, Angel murmur, his warm silk voice a comforting
rumble close to Wesley's ear. His breath, drawn only for the purpose of
speech, stirred the hairs at Wesley's nape, and he shivered. He opened
his mouth, felt the delicate skin across them splitting -- again the soft
rumble. "Don't try to talk ... the ambulance is coming."
If
he could only hear over the damnable ringing ...
The
blast has deafened me, he realized. I suppose all those times I was
forced to read Father's lips after having my ears boxed will come in
handy after all ...
He
focused on Angel as he drew a little away. Something haunted the
vampire's expression, casting his beautiful face into the agonized lines
of a funerary statue. So pale ... and how weary he looks, freighted with
all the cares of a mortal man. What's become of his detachment, Wesley
wondered, he looks so sad ... always so sad ...
"Scroll
--" he began, but the effort was lost as another bout of coughing
tore at him.
"It's
gone," Angel said distantly, gazing at the blackly spiralling gouts
of smoke that belched from the building's gutted doorway. His tilted jaw
was underlit red, his brow crowned in shadow.
Wesley
gathered spit, making a face around the taste of soot as he moistening
his shrivelled tongue. "Cordelia ... is she -- ?"
Angel's
eyes swung back down to Wesley, who now saw, unconcealed, the terrible
grief that lay in their depths.
"Alive."
Angel's lips compressed. He swallowed convulsively and looked away, a
hand pressing Wesley's shoulder as the ambulance pulled in close and two
white-clad EMTs quickly climbed out. "But something's happened to
her -- I don't know --"
The
doors of the van slammed open, cutting him off. The technicians pulled
down a rolling gurney in a flurry of focused intensity.
"Sir,
if you could step back, please," they instructed him, and Wesley
watched helplessly as the vampire was jostled to the side while he was
strapped with business-like efficiency into a back splint. They hefted
him onto the gurney with a concerted grunt. He felt the predatory
blackness encroaching, hovering just beyond the flickering edges of his
consciousness, and his eyelids fluttered.
You
don't know him -- what he's capable of ... Wesley thought dreamily,
catching sight of Angel's corded, white hands clenching and unclenching
at his sides ...
What
murder ...
And
what tenderness -- he lifted me so easily ... like a child ...
As
soon as he could, the vampire wedged himself in, gripping the railing as
if to maintain fierce possession. The technicians traded glances, perhaps
only now taking note of Angel's ethereally pale skin.
"Sir,
are you hurt?" One tech approached to inspect him. He could almost
read their minds through the tissue-like transparency of their carefully
neutral faces -- unnatural pallor, due to possible blood loss or shock
...
"No."
Angel retreated a couple of steps, still managing to project an imposing
and austere regality in spite of his sooty dishevelment. He gestured
impatiently toward the gurney. "Please, just ... tend to him."
They
moved to bundle Wesley into the van. He watched Angel tell one of the
technicians, "I'm coming with you" -- and saw them rebuff him
with kind but unwavering firmness. Impressive, that. He would have
crumbled instantly under the crushing weight of that ... stare.
"I'm
sorry, sir, there's no room --"
"We
need to stabilize your friend. It'd be best if you follow ..."
Wesley
watched as Angel's quick, incandescent fury warred with reluctant
restraint until, finally, iron control won out and he mastered himself.
They snapped the plastic oxygen mask over his face, and through a mesh of
lashes he saw, or thought he did, the vampire's lips move as he whispered
to himself.
Wesley
... please. Don't leave me ...
Darkness
fell in an endless night of no stars, but not before he felt Angel's hand
on his feverish wrist -- holding on as if it were he who needed the
contact -- as if it were he, and not Wesley, who had nothing else to
lose.
********
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