// One Neck, Two Chains
Disclaimer: The characters of Buffy: The Vampire Slayer and Angel are not mine and belong to Warner Brothers, Twentieth Century Fox, Mutant Enemy. They are used without permission. No copyright infringement is intended.
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Feedback is incredibly welcome.
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Angel S4 AU, post-"Soulless." Angelus/Wesley, R. Angelus is Wesley's project, or maybe the other way around; or, the kinkiest thing they could do to each other without actual kink. Thanks to Melymbrosia for the beta.
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Wesley knew who the shape at the doorway had to be, yet he always wondered if this time would be different. He stood aside from the door, watching.
The shape moved into the light. Angelus, hands in pockets, perfectly still. Eyes downcast. Waiting.
"Come in," Wesley said, because this was the game they played.
Angelus crossed the threshold and laid the sword down on the table. No traces of blood. There wouldn't be.
"You're late," Wesley said. He wondered how the man could smile without moving a muscle.
Angelus was still looking at the sword. "You're early."
"Sit down."
"While you stand?" Angelus folded himself into a chair. "Let's see. Tonight's hopeless: Three drunks, a stray cat--I thought you'd like that--one mugging, and a junkie. Plus a brace of virgins." He tilted his head. "No, let me think. Probably not virgins. Girls just aren't what they used to be. You?"
Wesley leaned against the wall. "I don't keep count." Which was a lie.
"Oh, I don't think it's about numbers." His gaze, slow and assured, traced the tense lines of Wesley's arms. He never looked at the neck anymore. Wesley was starting to wish he would. "All right. You're"--Angelus lingered on the word--"the boss."
Wesley moved away from the wall and toward the refrigerator. "I'll get the blood." A tremor passed through Wesley's shoulders. It took him a second to hit the button on the microwave. "It's fortunate that the city's infrastructure didn't go down. I've gotten quite fond of electricity." There. Make a joke. A little light conversation.
Your name was the last thing Angel said, they had told him. He didn't know how true it was.
Wesley set the mug on the table, on that most inappropriate coaster. A girl's face upon the porcelain, face shadowed beneath an umbrella: Monet. He used the coaster for no other purpose.
The lamplight quivered across the blood, red as damnation.
He remembered running with the others to stop Angelus and how he had been too late, the last one. Stop him, they had said at the end. Stop him. Whatever it takes.
Angelus sat up, elbows on knees. He made no movement toward the mug. "You haven't slept, have you."
He wasn't tired after tonight's tally. He supposed he would feel it later. He found the armchair and sank into it.
Angelus rose, light on his feet. He stopped to lean over Wesley. Wesley closed his eyes. He felt the kiss, light but never gentle, on his forehead, then his earlobe. He opened his eyes and touched the strong, graceful hands resting on his legs. Angelus was kneeling; his eyes, through the lashes, were avid. The hands moved upward.
Once Wesley had shaken with too many emotions to catalogue into safe, neat compartments. Once he had responded with his fist. He had thrown up afterward, wanting to do it again, wanting to have it done to him, failure compounding failure. He collected failures the way some men collected phone numbers.
I'm going to die again, Angel had said in that flat voice before descending, and descending, and descending.
"Why?" Wesley said, waiting for the next touch, the endgame. He stroked the dark hair. His hand moved down to trace an eyebrow, then the jaw, then paused on the back of the neck. Both of them playing at what they had once been.
"Why?" The hands moved again.
Wesley's breath escaped; his hips responded. "Yes." It came out with no more force than a whisper.
"Because you'll wonder, every night for the rest of your life, if he's returned to see what you've become. Because we have the city--"
One hand removed itself; returned to lay a white card on Wesley's thigh. The card didn't remain there long. Wesley wondered if it had landed face-up or face-down.
"--we have it more completely than he ever did."
Wesley remembered the sun's return, and fire, and ash. The city, saved but never safe.
"And because," Angelus said, silken, "he never thought you were worth giving what I give you."
There were no more words for a long time, after that old, bittersweet bedtime story. They ended up on the floor, descending, and descending, and descending. Angelus half-twisted, rising to meet his mouth. Angelus's own tasted of the night's blood. Hungry again, Wesley slammed him down, pinning him, the particular violence that he had never dared before. He knew who owned whom.
Angelus's eyes flared yellow, teeth bared and lengthening, then receding: the rules of the game.
"No," said Wesley, his own face changing into truth, discarding the game. "Leave it on."
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