Locusts
Liz Harris

I'll admit it, I'm scared. Ok, not for my life or anything- that don't happen. But I'm as scared as I've been in a long time.

He's back.

He's back and even though Wesley's a different person now who knows when they'll fall back into old habits?

I can just imagine. Wesley will stay late one night and then they get to laughing about the good old days when Angel was still an asshole and Wesley didn't have to be told twice to get on his knees and suck, one thing leads to another and boom -- Gunn who? Oh that guy I fucked so hard his first time I made tears come to his eyes? He's no one compared to you, Angel. Just a boy to tide me over till you came back. He doesn't fuck me the way you used to...

Sometimes I can see it all so clearly I think it's real. I get paranoid (me, fucking paranoid- I'm so goddamn whipped it's pathetic) for no reason. Like one time Wes had been hobbling around on that cane of his and he stopped to rest and ended up draping an arm over Angel's shoulder.

Now see, I know Wes 'ain't fucking around on me. He'd have to be a damn sight faster than his crippled ass is right now cause they've hardly been alone together. But even when they are it's all business- I could tell if it wasn't, Wes 'ain't that good of a liar.

So even though I know he ain't, I see the way Angel looks at him and I know- more than Wes ever will- just how much Angel wants a new conquest.

He got the old Wes eaasy. A kind word here, a soft look there, I don't see how it was too hard. This new Wesley, this one that I guess he helped create and that I have loved- it's a new territory for Angel to lay waste to. Like one of those fucking bugs that flies in, eats all they crops and flies away leaving a lot of destroyed earth.

That ain't gonna happen again. Wes may not be expecting it but I am and there ain't no way that shit is ever going to go down like it did before.

I've got to stop thinking like that. Wes wouldn't do that to me. Not even for Angel.

I don't even see why Angel came back. I mean, he couldn't have gone and had his epiphany elsewhere? Or maybe stayed dark for a while longer? I know I sure as hell wasn't begging at his doorstep. But in he came, uninvited. I knew I should have put down a sleeping bag in the back office. Would have kept all those unwanted elements out of our office. Yeah, 'our'. Not 'Wesley's', not 'Cordelia's', not 'mine'. Our place.

So we're back at 'Angel's place' and just 'cause he don't have the big office don't mean shit. He's still in charge and this little atonement game is going to get real old real fast for him. I know it and he knows it- and I'd bet Wes-man knows it whether he wants to admit it or not. But I don't think he's ready to- not yet anyway.

There's a lot of 'what ifs' going through my head, you know? What if being around Mr. I'm-the-only-Alpha-male-allowed pushes Wesley back into his old self- the guy who couldn't speak up to Angel to save his life. The guy I couldn't fucking stand.

I've tried to tell him -show him- just how much I like this new man. A million words of support crowd into my mouth and when I open up to let them out nothing happens. They just hang there on my tongue, thickening the air, making me sick from my own cowardace. Something always gets in the way. First it was that things were so new and we were still understanding each other and I was understanding what we were (lovers, gay, life partners- there have got to be manly-er names for fucking this good), then it was the gun shot wound, then the break up with Virginia...

So, yeah, whether he knows it or not, whether I've told him or not, I love him and I'm proud of him. I guess I'd fucking have to to do this. Washing his shirt like some little bitch. And not even cause I wanted to. I was so ready to tell him just what to do with it when Angel (always the fucking apple polisher) chimed in that he'd get out the blood. Yeah, I guess after 200+ years of feeding on humans you get to know all the interesting hints from Heloise. I'm sure Martha Stewart would love to hear all about how Baking Soda gets blood out of carpets (though from what Wesley tells me ol' Martha's a Grenthar demon and doesn't have blood anyway).

"Oh dear, I've gotten my blood on my favorite shirt."

"I'll clean it off Wesley cause I'll do anything to get on your good side and kiss your ass metaphorically 'cause we both know I want to do it literally."

That's not exactly how it went down but it's pretty fuckin' close. Like I really want Angel that close to Wesley's stuff again. Putting that nasty dead people stink into clothes that smell nice and fresh and clean even when they've been drug through sewer water and demon guts.

I just got so pissed thinking of Angel running his hands over a collar I nuzzle, buttons I unbutton, sleeves I tug at... running his tongue over the dried blood and trying to get off on it. No way. That path is closed to him now- has been for a while he just doesn't know it yet.

I think maybe he got a bit of that message when I jerked the shirt out of his hands and yelled that I could do it my own damn self. Mature, I know but I panicked. Wesley looked so happy that Angel was offering that I overreacted.

So I'm just scrubbing away like some Aunt Jemimah, happy as a mother fuckin' lark doing Wesley's whim. I think Angel played me. He volunteered knowing I wouldn't allow it and so he got Wesley thinking he's a great guy and me doing the laundry. It's not even a good shirt. It's that ugly orange one I keep telling him to throw out. The more I think about it the more pissed off I get.

And scared. Yeah, I'm still fucking scared.

Gunn. Scared. Shirt.