Two Demons That Made It Happen
The Fsh'ka'shk'ka solution works like a charm. It should. It took Wes and Cordy two hours and three batches to get it just right. The insect-like demons - Angel can't remember the name, but he knows he can't pronounce it - are exploding as the red liquid touches their lavender-colored skin. It's very violent and very dramatic, but he can't help but feel a little silly.
Fighting with spray bottles is bad for his image.
Wesley doesn't seem to mind. He doesn't even seem to mind the droplets of purple ooze that have landed on his cheek. He's doing that geeky, over-enthusiastic thing and hopping around like a maniac. It's endearing.
"That should finish them," he says, finally. He pauses, and adds: "And that was rather fun, wasn't it? Less exhausting than hacking them to bits, but just as satisfying."
Angel shrugs. "I think I prefer the hacking thing."
"Right. It's more macho."
"I'm not trying to be ma-"
"Of course not. I never meant to imply that -"
"Wes?"
"Don't grovel."
"I'm sorry. I'll try not to - "
"Wes."
"Right."
It's a cool night in late November, and the city is anything but asleep. They step out of the abandoned building and cross the street to Angel's car.
"You've got a little -" Angel touches his cheek. "Goo," he says. "Right here."
Wesley rubs most of it off.
"And here -" Angel touches his forehead. "And on the left side of your nose. My left."
"Less exhausting than hacking things to bits, but just as messy."
"Yeah," says Angel. "You missed some." He reaches over and wipes a spot of lavender goo off Wesley's cheek.
It's only a second later that he realizes he might have crossed a line. Faces are intimate. There's a reason Cordelia makes fun of his social skills.
It's a demon. It's ugly.
That's all they really know.
Well, not all. But just about all. Because their witness - a homeless junkie hooker - was kind of vague. Big surprise.
They also know that it's purple, and that it kills people by drowning them without any water.
Wesley thinks it might be some sort of out-of-place water demon, and he's got a big thick book entitled Vanderlinden's Guide to Demons of the Pacific on the table. Cordelia has North American Undines, and looks bored.
Angel is flipping through Demons of the Depths. There's a detailed drawing of a school of naiads. They're naked and frolicking and it's really, really time to turn the page.
"I suppose it could be Arctic Naiads..." says Wesley. "They've never left the Arctic Circle before, but-"
Angel seizes on this. "One of them could have gotten stuck in the California current," he says. "She could have gotten washed down from Alaska."
"Except for the fact that this monster is purple. Arctic Naiads aren't purple. They're...pale. And naked."
Cordelia stands up. "You can slobber at the soft core porn. I'm going to make coffee." She yawns, and retreats to the kitchen.
"It could be Arctic Naiads..." says Wesley.
Wesley is playing with him now. Because Wesley is usually the one caught feeling silly, and now it's Angel's turn.
Wesley is sadistic. He's stood up and walked around the table, and now he's leaning over Angel's shoulder and inspecting the drawing. Their faces are too close.
"I don't know how I could have missed the possibility of Arctic Naiads..."
Angel likes people who talk back. It's why he liked Spike and it's why he liked Buffy. This, he thinks, is dangerous.
Cordelia re-enters the room and saves him. "Wes, you do realize you're coming onto a man who just totally made a fool of himself over lesbian porn?"
Angel sends happy thoughts in her direction.
Wesley is Wesley again. "It's not pornography," he says. "It's a scientific illustration and it's, it's..."
"Porn," says Cordelia. She sits down at her station again. "Hey," she says. "I have to leave a little early today. I'm having a party and I need to decide on my outfit."
The music is too loud and Angel decides that he really hates Cordelia's parties. He spent a few minutes talking to a nice girl named Bonnie, but she's found someone else to hang out with and he's sitting alone in a corner saving shrimp puffs for Wesley.
He doesn't quite want to admit that the shrimp puffs are bait. Because Angel hates parties and he needs to talk to someone sane.
Or, at least, semi-sane. Because Wesley doesn't hate parties, and he seems to like Cordelia's friends.
Wesley plops down in the chair next to Angel and makes some comment about the pretty girls. Angel passes him the shrimp puffs.
"Where does she get them?" asks Wesley. "They show up every time she has a party and they're like small pieces of Heaven, but I can never find them anywhere else." He munches on one, content.
Okay, Angel thinks, this has gone far enough. I like him too much. He's stopped the groveling and now he's kind of fun and I've started thinking of him in completely the wrong way.
Angel doesn't swing that way. Most of the time. There have been incidents. The tales Spike could tell...
And that's the problem. Because Wesley is far too similar to what Spike used to be.
Angel's sense of smell is a blessing and a curse. He can always tell when someone's had sex, and he can always tell the gender.
Angel knows three things:
- Cordelia doesn't sleep around half as much as everyone thinks she does, and,
- When she does have sex, she tends to go for guys wearing really expensive cologne, and,
- Wesley is bisexual.
Angel can't decide whether that last item is a good thing or not. Angel doesn't do romance. Not after Buffy.
"Angel, are you awake?"
He snaps out of his thoughts to Wesley poking his shoulder.
"Sorry," he says. "Just thinking."
It's nasty and purple and it puts up a really good fight. Wesley gets badly clawed. So when the beast is killed, they head back to Cordelia's apartment to fix him up.
His shirt is stuck to his side with the dried blood, but the bark is worse than the bite. It's a pretty shallow cut. They get the shirt off and sponge it and disinfect it and Cordy makes snarky comments about Wesley's physique. She's twice as snarky when she's shaken.
It's not a bad physique.
"I'm going to bed," announces Cordelia. "I'm sleepy. Dennis will attack you if you burn the place down."
Wes grimaces - Angel thinks that it's supposed to be a mock-sad face - and mutters something about how disappointed he is. It's not a very funny joke and Cordelia ignores him.
It's a cue to leave, but they don't. Because Wes doesn't really want to move, and because Angel kind of likes looking at him shirtless.
I should take him home. Because if I don't I might act on something. And I'll regret it.
Wes sighs.
This is how it started with Spike. Darla and Dru out of the room, him napping on the sofa. I jumped him and we fucked on the floor.
"We should leave," says Wes. "I'm going to pass out on Cordelia's couch. She won't like that."
Angel helps Wes up. He lets the other man lean on him, because picking him up all together and carrying him down the stairs would just be insulting.
Angel drives Wes back to his apartment, and helps him in.
"I'm fine, really," says Wes. "You don't need to tuck me in and read me a story."
Angel lets him go onto the couch. "Need anything else?"
"Tea."
Angel knows where all the tea is - he's watched Wesley make it a thousand times - and he's glad of the opportunity to leave the room. There's too much sexual tension. Angel doesn't do sex.
When he comes back with the tea, Wesley is asleep, and he can't decide whether to wake him up or leave him there. He opts with the first choice. Wes groans a little, but makes his own way to the bed.
"Do you still want the tea?" asks Angel, and follows him.
"Yes. Please." Wes takes the tea and somehow manages not to spill it. "I have some stronger medicine in the bedside," he says, and puts down the tea to look for it.
Angel is hovering. He can't help it. He hovers enough that he does catch a glimpse of handcuffs next to the pills. They're plain handcuffs, not the fuzzy kind, but they probably get the same use.
Interesting.
Wesley pops a few pills with the tea and collapses into the bed.
"Are you okay?" asks Angel.
"I'm fine." His voice is fuzzy.
"Don't die," says Angel.
He lets himself out.
When Wesley walks into the office two days later, Angel grabs him firmly by the shoulders and kisses him.
Wesley blinks very quickly. Angel kisses him again.
"That was unexpected."
"I'm a spontaneous guy."
It's a lie, and Angel knows it. Angel hasn't been spontaneous in decades. He can't afford spontaneity. He's thought of little else the last few days.
Wesley kisses him.
Angel knows, somehow, that Wesley will never grovel again.
Cordelia is, as usual, fashionably late to work. She brings coffee, and doesn't ask why Wesley and Angel are smirking.