Protocol, Part Twenty-Eight

[thebratqueen]

Previous parts can be found here.

PART TWENTY-EIGHT

The joy of winning lightened the air in their underground home. Everyone seemed happier, merrier. The storm had broken and the world was bright and born anew.

Celebrations started, encouraged by the news that the fighters were being sent back. The common room buzzed with the energy of it. People made plans, lists were drawn up to ask permission for animals to slaughter for blood and meat.

"You shouldn't do that," George said one afternoon. Wesley stopped to listen to this. For a moment he thought George had been speaking to *him*. Then he realized there was a small party of humans, demons, and vampires that the Glik'nak was addressing. It made for an interesting contrast to the day he and George had met.

"We have to plan," one of the women said. Wesley recognized her. She was named Eleanor. Her husband was in his late forties, and was an expert with explosives. He would've proven quite useful at home, but Angel had put him on the list of those who came with him. "We need to celebrate. People need to eat."

George did not seem pleased by this. Perhaps unaware that Wesley could hear them, he gave the group a significant look in Wesley's direction. "*He* can't celebrate. His vampire isn't coming home yet."

Eleanor looked abashed. "I thought that was a rumor."

George shook his head, the expression solemn in spite of the bobbing of his rust-colored chins, which Wesley now knew was a sign of strength amongst his species. "Angelus was taken."

"Then why send everyone back?" Eleanor asked, voicing the confusion of the group.

"I'm sure Spike knows what he's doing," Wesley spoke up, providing the answer even though he himself wasn't certain if he believed in it. But Spike seemed to care about Connor, and Connor was devoted to his father. It was enough to give Wesley hope.

Eleanor made a face of apology. "Your majesty, we meant no offense. I had no idea - "

"It's all right," Wesley told her. "Your families are returning. There should be celebration. Let's have a party for the night they return. I'm sure they will appreciate it."

"Can you join?" George asked.

"My Lord is away," Wesley said. "I can take joy in nothing except the knowledge that he is safe. But that doesn't mean that others must remain in mourning as well."

"If you're sure," George said.

"I am," Wesley said. "Take what animals you need. Mr. Gunn can help with the handling of it. Make sure there is enough for everyone. Have the vampires do the butchery. They know the best way to get out the blood."

"Thank you," Eleanor said.

For a brief moment, Wesley imagined himself in her place. "I know how much you miss your husband."

"When yours is back, we will celebrate too," Eleanor promised.

"A *bigger* celebration," George added.

"Everyone will be home then. It should be the biggest of them all," Wesley said. "Oh, and George?"

The demon perked up. "Yes?"

Wesley tried to make the correction kind. "He is not my vampire. I am his human. It's a subtle distinction, but an important one."

"Sorry," George said.

"Quite all right," Wesley assured him, then returned to his business.

***

The homecomings were difficult. Wesley watched them all from the upstairs level of the common room, stupidly searching the faces of all who arrived with as much intensity as he had searched the faces of the dead, though this time he would have been happy to find Angel's face among them. He knew he would not, he knew there would be word if Angel had recovered, but he kept watch all the same. Connor kept watch with him, and they shared looks of silent understanding.

Still, it was good to hear the sounds of happiness and joy. Cries of shock and disbelief as loved ones saw each other again, tore through the crowd to grab hold of one another. In the back of his mind Wesley made a note to freshen up on demon gestation periods, and mentally allocated supplies to the midwives who would no doubt be running ragged in the baby boom that was to come.

Wesley could not participate fully in any of this. A spouse could not give even the hint of possible happiness in the loss of his husband. Before had been all right. Angel was merely away, and likely to be home soon. Wesley could not have expressed joy in being left by himself, but he was not forbidden from making appearances at the various gatherings that had been held. On the contrary, he was expected to be there in his husband's stead, doing things his husband could not as part and parcel of making his life easier.

Now Angel was taken, which meant there were new rules.

Wesley dressed differently. He wore black trousers, and shirts of muted blue or grey. He kept his demeanor quiet, and respectful. He made only cursory appearances at gatherings, speaking words of respect and then going off to be by himself again.

He'd been trained to do all of this. It did not prove hard for him, however. Instead it was a lifeline. A way to behave which covered the icy grip of panic that had nestled against his spine.

Connor kept a watchful eye on him. They ate breakfast together as they had before, Connor sprawled in his chair and picking at bacon and dabbing at eggs with his toast and using his fingers to pick up stray crumbs in a manner which would have resulted in Wesley's hands being broken and not healed for a day if he had been so stupid as to have attempted something like that when he was Connor's age. But Connor was a bright young man, and Wesley could no more hold table manners against him than he could hold vampirism against Connor's father. At least that was the way of it now.

"Are you okay?" Connor asked him, on more than one occasion.

"I'm fine," Wesley would answer. Or sometimes he would allow himself to say, "I miss your father."

"What about - " Connor would give a significant look, which was the new sign language for "panic attack" " - you know?"

"Fine," Wesley would answer, and to him it was not a lie. It *was* fine, if he was capable of leaving the room and going about his duties. If he was not currently curled up tight into himself with his lungs filled with lead and his heart trying to tear itself out of his chest, he was fine.

"Could you tell me if it wasn't?" Connor asked once, shrewder than most boys his age. "I know you're not supposed to tell Dad."

"I am to never give your father the impression that I have wants or needs," Wesley said. "How that relates to my dealings with those who are not your father varies on a case by case basis."

"So you try not to talk about it," Connor guessed.

"A spouse does not give the appearance of wants or needs," Wesley answered. Then, relenting, added, "But thank you, Connor."

***

The lockdown was eased, but only slightly. Connor was allowed out to lead hunting parties. Various humans and other species immune to the power of sunlight were also allowed out to start on repairs to the bomb-damaged parts of the fortress.

Wesley stayed inside. The current battle was over, and he had no plausible way of finding loopholes that would have allowed him to go into the fresh air.

He took to the greenhouses, spending time gathering up plants for magic and medicine, othertimes simply sitting on a bench, his eyes closed, and his imagination working overtime to assure the terror inside of him that he was not dying, he was not in a tomb, he was safe, and Angel would be home eventually.

Xander came to join him one day, which was how Wesley found out Xander was back.

"They needed a smaller team," Xander explained. "Big army wouldn't do it, and Angel would've wanted all those people back here anyway."

"Is he all right?" Wesley asked.

"He's got the best of the best going after him," Xander said, which Wesley knew was not an answer. A look of self-deprecation lent a tone to the rest of his words. "That's why they sent me here."

"Spike was worried about you," Wesley said. He wondered if Xander's presence was a message from the other vampire, a sign that he was again trying to show Wesley that they had at least one thing in common.

Xander seemed uncertain of what to do with that information. He flicked a lock of hair out of his eyes, smearing travel-dust across his forehead. "I think Angel was worried about you. Pretty sure he was. Hard to say. He doesn't talk much."

"I miss him," Wesley said. He twisted his wedding ring around his finger.

"They'll get him back," Xander promised. "It's a vampire, a witch, and a slayer. Since the next phrase out of my mouth isn't 'walk into a bar' pretty much all that's left is the ass-kicking."

"Let's hope they are good at their jobs," Wesley said.

***

Torture was interesting when you had both perspectives on it.

As the person who had frequently been on the not-pointy end of the knife, Angel had enjoyed it. It had been his art, his life - or his unlife if you wanted to get pretentious about it, and in spite of Spike's frequent accusations to the contrary Angel did not. But either way it was what he lived for. Paintings drawn in blood and agony. Operas of screams. He had done whatever he wanted to whoever he wanted and had loved every minute of it.

*Being* tortured was another thing entirely.

Angel could tolerate being tortured. The vampire body could take a lot - which actually he knew from the non-pointy end of the knife as well. One time he had turned a human just so he could have a vampire's immortality to play with and see what it was like to cut the same spot over and over, slicing it as quickly as it healed. And to take off body parts and reattach them, sometimes not even in the same place. Hands had gone on backwards. Feet were put where a thighbone used to be. Eyes, it turned out, could not be replaced so easily, but the empty socket provided a convenient hole in which to put things, some of which didn't even have to be white-hot in order to cause pain.

So he knew there was a lot that his own body could tolerate, especially from those with little to no imagination. Bones could reknit. Skin could grow smooth. Burns could fade.

But the *spirit* was the important thing.

He had done a lot of horrible things in his time. For that he deserved unhappiness, and punishment. The very thing that made him understand that *was* part of that penance. His soul sat uneasily inside of him, ready to leap on any excuse to remind him of his worthlessness, of how little he'd done, of how much he deserved to go right down to Hell and worse besides.

But that had nothing to do with this.

To survive torture you had to disagree with it. To rally against it, in spite of the urging of your mind that it was best if you gave up and believed that it was what should happen to you. The mind did not like dissonance, or the belief that it could not control the world. So if you could not keep the whips and the Holy Water from tearing apart your back, then surely you *needed* this to happen. You *made* this happen. You made it with your evil, and your failures, and your sin.

But that was bullshit.

This wasn't God's punishment. It was demons, sent by the enemy. And the breaking of his bones might hurt and his heart might feel as though it could throb when a metal sword was sliced right through it, but it had nothing to do with redemption.

So Angel fought against it. He retreated to his mind, and stood fast with the knowledge of who he was. Sometimes he clung to it by the barest hint of his fingernails, but he knew if he was to survive then he had to hang on.

Connor was the first thing. His son. His perfect child. He had raised him right, and had kept him safe, and to Hell with any God or Power that dared to suggest otherwise. If Angel had done nothing else in his life, he had done right by Connor. And if that was the *only* thing Angel had done right in his life, then he could still die and feel happy.

But there was more to it than that.

Normally it was only Connor, and now that Connor was 18 there was a sense of completeness to it all. He was still a boy in many respects, but he was closer to being a man than he was to being a child. If Angel died, Connor would still be on the right path. He didn't need his father to hover over him, or hold his hand anymore. All Angel could do was offer advice, and words of wisdom (such as he had) and even then Connor would make up his own mind after weighing all the information.

Connor loved him, but did not need him, and Angel had come to think of that as a finished deal. He could let himself die if he had to. It would be all right.

Now it was not, and it took Angel some time to realize why.

He had a husband. *Him*. Not Connor, not anyone else, *him*. And the marriage was new, and therefore ripe with possibilities, and in truth he hadn't even explored a single one.

It was strange to even think of. He did not have a life. He didn't often grant himself that luxury. He acted, he helped others, *that* was his penance.

But Wesley was not there for penance, nor for punishment. He was there for Angel, and that was all that mattered to him.

Angel felt protective of his spouse. Wesley was educated, yet vulnerable. Sexually sophisticated, yet staggeringly innocent. He was helpless in the truest sense of the word, so tied up with rules and expectations that he would sit and die rather than break a one. And the only person in the entire world who had the ability to truly take care of him was Angel.

What sort of a life was that? Angel wondered, but as soon as he did he knew the answer: it was a child's life. A *new* life. A life like he himself had known once he had discovered that his soul did not have to mean nothing but agony. That there could be happiness, and laughter, and family.

Wesley didn't know what family was. Wesley didn't know what *any* of that was. He'd been locked away from all of that for fear of offending a theoretical someone who would have hated Wesley for having the audacity to smile.

Angel was not that someone, and when Wesley smiled it made his eyes shine a bright sky-blue, and made Angel think of the afternoons when he was mortal and would lie out in the fields with the sun warming his skin and the grass tickling his feet and hands.

Wes needed to learn about these things. He needed somebody to teach him how to want, and how to like things. How to have expectations for himself, and how to enjoy the stages of marriage. Marriage could be an enjoyable thing, even in an arrangement such as theirs. It didn't have to be a prison. It could be a partnership, with Angel giving Wesley everything his heart desired. Or at least doing so whenever Wesley figured out what that was.

Until then there could be little things. Normal things. Blood in tiny teacups. A mortal body curled up against him, filling his nostrils with the scent of bookleather, and spice. Conversations which made Wesley stop looking at him like some kind of a monster. Presents which brought out that hidden smile.

And through it all he would show Wes what it meant to be alive, even if that meant Wes came to want things other than him. A mortal companion, perhaps. Maybe even children. Angel was his husband, not his jailer. He would not keep Wesley trapped for his own amusements. He would find a way to make Wes happy. He deserved nothing less.

So Angel thought of that as his body was punished, his face betraying no hint of the tableaus playing out inside of his mind, giving no indication that he was, in fact, miles away from the room which reeked of sweat and pain, and was sitting on a blanket with a young man who took his job very seriously, and who regarded melted marshmallows with a suspicious but still visible delight.