Fic dribbles 2

[thebratqueen]

It was becoming impossible. Too good, too perfect, in that keen, sharp, felt like a direct cut through his chest kind of way (up and down this time, not straight through, because it was different, everything about it was different).

And it was stupid, and wrong, and in truth he hadn't really let go of the idea that he didn't belong here, that it was all a mistake, and he'd just stumbled over some hidden portal out of Hell and landed here, in Watcher-created Purgatory, and any day now some auditor was going to notice a souled vampire missing on the not-kidding-around torture inventory and haul him back where he came from.

Which meant he wasn't supposed to be here. Which meant he shouldn't make connections, make ties, make *this*.

Or maybe he should, because it was a mistake, and when they found him again it would go away like someone had pushed a big reset button and made it all right again.

Or maybe he knew he belonged in Hell, and knew with even more certainty that a tiny sin added to his list now wasn't going to make much difference.

He craved the light. Ached for it. Felt it under his skin until every sound just past that door drove him skirting up towards madness again. But he fought it, because sanity was here, now, with Wesley and he'd cling to it with every bit of his strength if he'd had to.

And he'd ignore the tiny voice that asked him if this wasn't madness, this fantasy of tiny bits of bliss that were given to him freely by one who had every right to hate him. Who had hated him at the start.

Whatever it was, Angel held on to it. Clutching it to himself so hard that he barely slept, terrified of the loss or gain of sanity that might occur should he dare close his eyes. He passed out, yeah. Council bastards made sure of that. But as soon as he could he grabbed up towards wakefulness again, happily mortgaging his rest into a dim and uncertain future. Life became a matter of moments. This moment. Then this one. Then the next until Wes was there, blue eyes eager and enraptured, fountain pen scratching away as he wrote down tale after tale, Angel digging far back into his memory to find every detail, padding stories out with nuances he never would have cared about in the past, taking a memory that could be wrapped up in a sentence and filling it instead with talk of Darla's lace, Dru's cascading curls (put into her hair by a maid, and of course that was a story in and of itself), the shine of his own belt buckle, and Wes, ever fascinated, wrote it all down in a blur that would have done a vampire proud.

Wes, who sat closer and closer each time. Who didn't notice when the dirt of the floor smudged his pants, or when the dinner bell had long gone silent, or when night bled into day and neither one of them had moved.

There was a lesson there, Angel knew. Because Wes sat and nobody asked for him. And the blue eyes that looked at him so curiously became damped down and clouded when he finally did rise, stiff-legged, and make his way towards the door.

So it wasn't wrong, Angel figured, to encourage him.

Less wrong still to sit closer - or as close as the chains would allow, with Angel quickly learning how to hide the blood that leaked down onto his hands when he strained too far and Wesley, Wes, became worried and frightened.

Very wrong, though, to lean further still. To draw closer to him when Wes sat with his head against the bars, hints of his own private despairs seeping through him, his face so weighted and inanimate that it was impossible not to touch him, not to break that final barrier at last, and wrong most of all to enjoy it, to kiss and moan and feel Wes responding in return, his own body jolted into life as now he was the one straining against metal, trying to get as close as he could through all the restraints that were meant to keep Angel from touching him. But it didn't matter. Because they touched, and kept touching, and Angel knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that this would not be the last of it. Real or not, sane or not, this would keep happening, and for Wes alone he knew he'd find a way to get them both out of this.

He told Wes that, once, as they sat in their respective corners, Angel's body too shattered for even love to move him, and Wes had reached back, stretching his arm as far through the cage as he was able, touched his cheek and smiled, saying that he believed in him.

Okay, that may have helped ease the bunnies a bit.