More dribbles

[thebratqueen]

I'm bouncing all over the timeline, I know. I'd try to number these but with the bouncing I'd have to constantly keep changing them. So - Angel in a cage, Wes arguing with the Council, then sometime after this happens (before the shaking, before the kissing)



Angel's eyes went unfocused again. Wesley willed himself not to panic. He kept still, controling his heart rate as best as he could, trying to project absolutely nothing of his terror.

"Angel," he said, trying to draw the vampire's attention to him. "Angel."

The vampire shook his head, drunkenly. He curled up tight against the wall, and Wesley became far too keenly aware of the slack in the chains, of the bruises on Angel's throat, of how easy it would be for the vampire to wrap the metal around his neck again and try once more to snap his head clean off.

It was possible. Statistically difficult, but not out of the realm of chance. The odds of it happening were insane, but at the moment... at the moment sanity was exactly the problem.

"Angel," he said again. "What were you saying? I didn't hear you."

Angel's head twitched. He brought his hands up to his eyes, rubbing them. Wesley longed to yank his hands away. The vampire's cheeks were already red from the repeated friction.

"No," Angel moaned. He jerked his head to the side, as though turning away from someone who wasn't there. "No."

"Angel," Wesley snapped, and this time his tone brooked no argument. It was the tone of headmasters. Of matrons. Of his father. "You were speaking to me. Is eye contact now too much to ask for?"

Angel's hands dropped down. Brown eyes blinked open and closed as though the vampire had to consciously remember how. "Wes?"

Wesley's spirits sank. It was as though Angel was noticing him for the first time. Still, he took whatever avenue he was able. "Yes. I'm right here. Can we continue our conversation?"

Misery weighed every muscle in Angel's form. Wesley felt heavy himself just looking at him. "I - I can't. They - "

"There is no one here but me," Wesley said, his voice crisp once again. He silently told the ghosts, hallucinations, or whatever they were to bugger off. "We were talking. Do you remember?"

A frown slowly shaped Angel's face. It would have been comical, if not for the marked contrast this gave to their conversations from previous evenings. Before the nightmares started. Before Angel began jumping at shadows and muttering to himself about things not being true and wouldn't they please just go away?

"I - " Angel swallowed, and a hint of clarity flickered through his eyes. "Weren't - weren't you saying - "

"We were talking, yes," Wesley agreed, gently prompting him. With all of his will he urged the vampire to follow the conversation, as though he could mentally grasp him by the hands and pull him out of the madness. It was all he could do not to reach through the cage.

"Yeah," Angel said, the memory returning to him. His hands dropped down to the ground, now, and Wesley almost fainted with relief. He would have staple gunned Angel's hands to the ground if it would have done him any good. The thought of the vampire killing himself was absolutely unthinkable.

Wesley realized Angel was studying him. "You're dressed. Fancy."

Wesley shrugged, dismissing the now dust-stained tuxedo as though it were nothing. "There's a party upstairs."

Again there was a pause as Angel tried to work this out. "Christmas, right?"

"Correct," Wesley told him. He smiled, hoping it would add to the encouragement.

"You should - " Angel made a vague gesture, most of the meaning lost in the sluggishness of his movements. "Don't. I'm not - "

"I haven't anyone to be with," Wesley told him.

Angel seemed surprised by this - or as surprised as he was able. "You didn't get a date?"

Wesley thought of Caroline, last seen bending the ear of Joshua. "No."

"Family still alive?" Angel asked, his voice mysteriously rough.

"Yes," Wesley said. He sat down on the ground, crushing the reminder from his father not to be late for cocktails that night which he'd carefully placed inside of his trouser pocket. "But we've no holiday plans together. I've no one to be with, Angel." He thought about adding to this, directly asking the vampire to be his only companion, then worried it might be too much, that the extra detail would give way to the lie. Instead he said, "So I thought we might talk again. If it's alright."

Angel stirred. The chains scraped across the floor, and Wesley nearly wept with joy as the slack was taken from them as Angel crawled as far away from the wall as he was able in order to sit closer. A foot of distance separated them from either side of the bars. Wesley felt an irrational urge to reach out and brush the dirt away from the vampire's face.

"What - " Angel looked faintly shamed, "what were we talking about?"

Wesley thought back over all the topics he'd tried, dismissing all the requests for memories that had only prodded Angel deeper and deeper into his despairs and the taunts of his invisible attackers. "Music. Do you recall?"

"Oh yeah," Angel said. He rested his elbows on his knees, his body still obviously not totally under his control, but at least it was more relaxed than it had been. A moment passed as the vampire thought. "You were - you were saying.... you didn't like it?"

Wesley smiled, glad that Angel had achieved coherence enough to remember the one completely trivial and harmless topic that they had discovered. "It's not my taste, I'm afraid."

"It's a classic," Angel defended.

"So's syphilis," Wesley replied.

"I think it's pretty," Angel muttered.

Wesley found this impossible to believe, but he continued all the same. "It's a song about a cake."

"It's a metaphor," Angel said. He twitched, as though shying away from an unseen hand.

Wesley ignored the ghost, or whatever it was. He caught Angel's eyes again. "It's a very silly metaphor."

"Maybe," Angel admitted. He met Wesley's eyes for a moment, and Wesley dared to hope he saw a hint of peace in there. "I like it."

Wesley found himself longing to pat the vampire on the hand. "That's all right then."