Charity fic: Trust Me Universe
Jan. 30th, 2005 09:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thebratqueenGot another charity fic done! This one is for ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
wolfling who requested "a Wes/Angel story in the Trust Me universe. Something dealing with adjusting to having both sets of memories and/or something with them and the kids."
Other charity fics can be found here
The Hyperion diner was closed, as it usually was late at night. Angel knew that fact. He had it tucked away in his mind along with other facts, like how he'd once had a life - much as you could call it a life - doing nothing except being active at night. A life where sunny mornings were something to shun, and not prepare for by waking up at 5am to make sure the kitchen was up and running for the early morning crowd.
Angel knew the Hyperion hotel, which was a beauty of Art Deco design, smelled like mildew, dust, and memories, and provided the perfect home for a vampire who preferred to hide away in cavernous spaces.
Angel knew the Hyperion diner, which was made of chrome and vinyl, smelled like grease, ketchup, and cleaning solution, and provided the perfect home for a man who liked working with his hands, and creating a family out of all the friendships he could make in town.
Angel wasn't sure which set of memories was the right one. He wasn't sure if there *was* a right one.
He was currently sitting in one of the booths - third from the door, cracks in the seat covers patched up with silver duct tape - with a plate of half-eaten food in front of him and a sprawl of paperwork covering every available surface. The food wasn't healthy, but it appealed to the taste buds of someone who had once been a vampire. French fries, cheeseburger cooked medium rare, thick chocolate milkshake made with extra syrup. Food that was salty, bloody, and soothed the brain with chemicals that were not unlike emotions.
Angel told himself he'd eat better later. When he could actually stomach a salad without feeling as though he were chewing the wings of bugs, and tasteless wings at that. He had to, because mortal men needed to eat healthfully. But small steps. First it was eating, and trying to do so without constantly biting his tongue.
Angel sat forward and scribbled numbers down on a piece of paper.
He'd been at it for hours now. One legal pad had become two, had become three. Yellow lined paper surrounded him, some carefully placed, others ripped off and crumpled into balls that he only occasionally managed to sink into the wastebasket. He didn't have a killer's hand-eye coordination anymore. He found that he actually liked that. It made him feel safer around Connor.
Then there were times when he missed being a vampire. Such as now, when the door to the staircase opened, and Angel knew that a vampire's hearing would have told him someone was coming down the stairs long before that person arrived.
Wesley stood in the doorway. He wore the red sweater of his which was frayed around the cuffs, and the blue jeans that weren't quite as blue as they used to be. Five o'clock shadow dusted his jawline.
Angel had memories of Wesley. He had memories of Wesley looking exactly as he did now. Only the Wesley of memories didn't have a baby in his arms.
Not his own daughter, at any rate.
Wesley and Angel stared at one another. Finally, Wesley spoke, "She was getting hungry."
"Something wrong with your stove?" Angel asked. He didn't know if his tone was friendly enough to show this was only a question.
"The water," Wesley said, and in a flash this was Wes-the-stray. The starving man that Angel, diner owner and all around good guy had taken under his wing. This was a landlord/tenant conversation, only Angel cared about this tenant more than he'd first suspected. "It came out brown. I didn't want to trust it."
"Rust," Angel said. Immediately he knew all of these things: how the pipes were old, and some were in need of replacing. How sometimes Angel did the repairs himself, his hands and arms covered with dust and grease as Connor, in various stages of his life, handed him the tools with either a child's eagerness to be a big boy just like his daddy, or an adolescent's sullenness at being forced to help, or the Connor of now, who might still sulk but sometimes was responsible enough to take on the job without being asked. Sometimes. "I can fix it. But, um, yeah, don't feed that to her."
"Blue pitcher?" Wesley asked, nodding his head towards the refrigerator.
"Yeah," Angel said. "Filtered water's in the blue pitcher."
Wesley crossed the space to the work area, coming no where near Angel as he did, and with a practiced touch held Alissa in the crook of his left arm as he prepared a bottle of formula with the right.
Angel watched. He thought about offering to hold the baby, but for a moment he needed to see this. He needed to settle his memories around this Wesley. Wesley the father, who would do anything at all for his child and loved her with a staggering devotion that, Angel suspected, even Wesley didn't understand the depths of yet.
As he did, the image of Wesley flickered in his mind. In one world Wesley had been his friend, albeit one who had betrayed him. In another, his lover, albeit one who had caused the complete and literal upheaval of Angel's world.
Put the two versions together and Angel didn't know what resulted. On the other hand, considering the versions of Angel that Wesley was now aware of, it was very likely that Wes was having the exact same problem in reverse.
The silence dragged on, punctuated only by the sound of the microwave, then the happy slurps of Alissa eating her meal. Angel didn't have to ask why Wesley found it difficult to talk to him. Angel wasn't exactly sure what to say either.
In one world, Angel wouldn't have said anything. Stoicism was an easy and familiar path, and protected him from being hurt.
In another world, Angel had learned that his crutches had consequences.
He spoke.
"Turns out I have a sister."
Wesley's head turned around. Angel could see him try to puzzle that information out. "Didn't you always - *oh*."
"Yeah," Angel said, when it was clear that Wesley got it.
It was enough to get Wes to abandon the distance, and sit in the booth across from him. "She's not dead."
"Nope," Angel quickly scooped up his paperwork to get it out of Wes's way. "Very much alive. Married. With kids. Living in Ireland."
"Uncle Angel," Wesley's eyes traveled up and down Angel's face, as though trying to decide if the moniker fit.
"Two nieces, two nephews," Angel said. "They live in a cottage that's been in his family for years. And they're a lot nicer at being called at three in the morning than you'd give a lot of people credit for."
"You forgot the time difference," Wesley guessed.
"I didn't give a crap about the time difference," Angel immediately made a face of apology. "Sorry, Alissa. Don't imitate any of my bad words, okay?"
Wesley put Alissa's bottle down. He lifted her up onto his shoulder so he could rub her back. He was so very much a father with the ease of his movements and the care of his touch that Angel could in no way forget why he'd been so attracted to this stranger. "Was she happy to hear from you?"
"Yeah," Angel said. "Apparently we talk a lot. She's recovering too - uh, alcoholic, I mean. When we both got sober it brought us closer together."
"Has Connor met her?" Wesley asked.
"When he was younger," Angel said. "Nobody's rich so trips are kind of hard. But we're going to go over there this summer, him and me. Do a visit. Sort of a post-graduation, last chance for me to be with my son before he abandons me for college and being a grown up kind of thing."
"Is that what all this is?" Wesley indicated the paperwork. "Planning for the trip?"
Angel nodded. He pushed the paperwork around, sitting back as he looked at the numbers. "Yeah. Trying to work the budget. I've got a little money saved up but it'd be nice to do this and still have money for retirement."
"I could - " Wes hesitated, a hairsbreadth away from retracting whatever he was about to offer. "I used to deal with money for a living. If you'd like, I could help."
Angel smiled at him. "See? Told you you'd fit in here."
"I don't do any such thing, but thank you," Wesley shifted Alissa over to his other arm, giving her the bottle once again.
"She looks good," Angel said. He watched how shuttered Wes's face had become, and thought to himself that it had been cruel to talk about the good luck of his family when Wesley's recovered memories had done nothing but remind him he'd been a disappointment to his own in every universe. "Bet she thinks you'd belong here."
"Right now I wager she's thinking it's very nice when her tummy gets full," Wesley said, but Angel could tell that if nothing else talking about his daughter had eased some of the tension.
"You and Lilah having a kid," Angel said. "I can't get over that."
"You're not the only one," Wesley said.
"Your brains, Lilah's cunning," Angel tilted his head, thought about it. "Your cunning, Lilah's brains…. face it, Wes, your kid's going to end up taking over the world."
Wes quirked his eyebrows at him. "You realize that that's not as funny, considering everything that happened in our previous universe?"
"Yeah," Angel admitted. "Good thing there's no magic here. Worst Alissa can do is run for president."
"Prime Minister," Wesley said, with a quickness that revealed that he had the fantasies that any proud father would have. "She's half-British."
"Connor could be president," Angel said.
"He certainly could," Wesley agreed.
Silence joined them again. Wesley wiped stray drops of formula from Alissa's face. Angel looked down at his paperwork. He knew that in one world this was a habit for him: big life event, break out the legal pads and start adding up the numbers. Legal pads had come hand in hand with main events: first car, buying the diner, Darla's sickness, Connor's college fund.
He realized that part of the problem with his figures was that he was putting some aside for a baby's needs. Clothes, food, furniture - little ones took up a lot.
"You could have another child," Wesley said.
For a second Angel thought Wes had managed to read his mind. Then he understood that for Wes, this had been a revelation of his own. Kathy wasn't dead, and Angel didn't need a boon from the Powers that Be in order to get someone pregnant.
"Could," Angel dragged the point of his pencil back and forth on a page, darkening the line that underscored a calculation. Mortgage plus car payment plus electric plus heat. "So could you."
"I think I'm still coming to terms with the first," Wesley said. He hugged Alissa closer to his chest. "It's surprisingly wonderful, actually."
"But terrifying," Angel guessed.
"Indeed," the word came out of Wesley like a breath. "How does anyone do it? How did *you* do it?"
Angel was surprised at Wesley looking to him for guidance. Usually it was the other way around. "Lots of mistakes. Figure it out as you go. You're doing great so far, Wes. I know you can handle it."
"That makes one of us," Wesley sat back. The vinyl creaked under his weight. "It's not easy. Before I at least had focus. Now - "
Angel again saw the flicker of one Wesley over another. "It's confusing?"
Wesley nodded. "And there are sides to my personality that both forms of me did not share."
"Like what?" Angel asked.
"Like practicality," Wesley said. "Like sacrificing yourself for the greater goal."
Angel didn't like the sound of this. "What greater goal?"
"Her," Wesley said. "Angel, I'm poor and to top it off I'm on the run from the law. If she had even a little money - "
"If you send her back to Lilah's folks she'll get raised by a nanny and wonder why her parents don't love her," Angel said, and the heat of his words came from all forms of himself, all parts of him which knew how important it was for a child to be with its father. "Think about it, Wes - your folks were loaded. Did they do that great a job with you?"
Wes stared at him.
"Okay, you know what I meant," Angel said, which he hoped was as good as an apology.
"She's homeless," Wesley said. "I have - I have *nothing*. Angel there were weeks when we were living out of that car. What kind of life am I giving her?"
"Wes, I was a bankrupt alcoholic," Angel said. "Connor still loved me. Connor's *still* my son. There is nothing on this earth that will mean more to her than you do. And you *have* a home. You live here."
"Your home," Wesley said.
"Yeah," Angel said, the agreement coming out of him with an emotional punch of confidence that made it a statement and a promise all at the same time.
Wes's mouth twitched. Angel squirmed uncomfortably at that until he realized Wes was giving him a bemused smirk. "Was that your idea of a romantic proposal?"
"Proposal is a *big* word," Angel said, nowhere near ready for that kind of conversation. "But, yeah, might have been a little…. relationshippy…. look we've had sex, Wes, I'd be lying if I said I didn't like it."
"I never thought I'd have sex with you," Wesley said.
"You're not that bad looking," Angel said.
"You're a little unapproachable," Wesley countered. "Or you were. Here you're… rather personable."
"Charming?" Angel suggested.
"That was true of both universes," Wesley said.
"You were always my friend," Angel said. "That meant a lot to me. Both times."
"You hardly knew me here," Wesley said.
Angel nodded towards Alissa. "I knew enough."
"Our destiny to meet one another," Wesley mused. "For it happened twice without you specifically requesting it."
"You noticed I was gone," Angel reminded him, and wondered if he could find a way to tell Wes he was touched by that.
"Does it make you feel - I don't mean this disrespectfully," Wesley said, "but does it make you feel responsible for everything that happens here? You *created* this world."
"Okay, not until you pointed it out like that, no," Angel thought about it. "No. No. I asked for some stuff, but the rest was out of my hands. It happened because it was going to happen."
"One might be tempted to ask if the part where I became a raging sex-addict once the chips were down was due to your intervention," Wesley said.
"If I'd requested you be a raging sex addict I'd have also mentioned the part about you living next door," Angel replied.
Wes did not reply, and instead gave a silent and thoughtful look upstairs, where his current apartment was.
"I'm not used to flirting with you," Angel admitted.
Angel thought Wes was going to reply with a comment about none of this being something they were used to. Instead Wes said, "I like it when you do."
"Which version of you was that?" Angel asked.
"Both of them," Wesley replied.
Angel smiled. He didn't lean over to kiss Wesley just yet, but he knew it would happen before the night was out.
End.
wolfling who requested "a Wes/Angel story in the Trust Me universe. Something dealing with adjusting to having both sets of memories and/or something with them and the kids."Other charity fics can be found here
The Hyperion diner was closed, as it usually was late at night. Angel knew that fact. He had it tucked away in his mind along with other facts, like how he'd once had a life - much as you could call it a life - doing nothing except being active at night. A life where sunny mornings were something to shun, and not prepare for by waking up at 5am to make sure the kitchen was up and running for the early morning crowd.
Angel knew the Hyperion hotel, which was a beauty of Art Deco design, smelled like mildew, dust, and memories, and provided the perfect home for a vampire who preferred to hide away in cavernous spaces.
Angel knew the Hyperion diner, which was made of chrome and vinyl, smelled like grease, ketchup, and cleaning solution, and provided the perfect home for a man who liked working with his hands, and creating a family out of all the friendships he could make in town.
Angel wasn't sure which set of memories was the right one. He wasn't sure if there *was* a right one.
He was currently sitting in one of the booths - third from the door, cracks in the seat covers patched up with silver duct tape - with a plate of half-eaten food in front of him and a sprawl of paperwork covering every available surface. The food wasn't healthy, but it appealed to the taste buds of someone who had once been a vampire. French fries, cheeseburger cooked medium rare, thick chocolate milkshake made with extra syrup. Food that was salty, bloody, and soothed the brain with chemicals that were not unlike emotions.
Angel told himself he'd eat better later. When he could actually stomach a salad without feeling as though he were chewing the wings of bugs, and tasteless wings at that. He had to, because mortal men needed to eat healthfully. But small steps. First it was eating, and trying to do so without constantly biting his tongue.
Angel sat forward and scribbled numbers down on a piece of paper.
He'd been at it for hours now. One legal pad had become two, had become three. Yellow lined paper surrounded him, some carefully placed, others ripped off and crumpled into balls that he only occasionally managed to sink into the wastebasket. He didn't have a killer's hand-eye coordination anymore. He found that he actually liked that. It made him feel safer around Connor.
Then there were times when he missed being a vampire. Such as now, when the door to the staircase opened, and Angel knew that a vampire's hearing would have told him someone was coming down the stairs long before that person arrived.
Wesley stood in the doorway. He wore the red sweater of his which was frayed around the cuffs, and the blue jeans that weren't quite as blue as they used to be. Five o'clock shadow dusted his jawline.
Angel had memories of Wesley. He had memories of Wesley looking exactly as he did now. Only the Wesley of memories didn't have a baby in his arms.
Not his own daughter, at any rate.
Wesley and Angel stared at one another. Finally, Wesley spoke, "She was getting hungry."
"Something wrong with your stove?" Angel asked. He didn't know if his tone was friendly enough to show this was only a question.
"The water," Wesley said, and in a flash this was Wes-the-stray. The starving man that Angel, diner owner and all around good guy had taken under his wing. This was a landlord/tenant conversation, only Angel cared about this tenant more than he'd first suspected. "It came out brown. I didn't want to trust it."
"Rust," Angel said. Immediately he knew all of these things: how the pipes were old, and some were in need of replacing. How sometimes Angel did the repairs himself, his hands and arms covered with dust and grease as Connor, in various stages of his life, handed him the tools with either a child's eagerness to be a big boy just like his daddy, or an adolescent's sullenness at being forced to help, or the Connor of now, who might still sulk but sometimes was responsible enough to take on the job without being asked. Sometimes. "I can fix it. But, um, yeah, don't feed that to her."
"Blue pitcher?" Wesley asked, nodding his head towards the refrigerator.
"Yeah," Angel said. "Filtered water's in the blue pitcher."
Wesley crossed the space to the work area, coming no where near Angel as he did, and with a practiced touch held Alissa in the crook of his left arm as he prepared a bottle of formula with the right.
Angel watched. He thought about offering to hold the baby, but for a moment he needed to see this. He needed to settle his memories around this Wesley. Wesley the father, who would do anything at all for his child and loved her with a staggering devotion that, Angel suspected, even Wesley didn't understand the depths of yet.
As he did, the image of Wesley flickered in his mind. In one world Wesley had been his friend, albeit one who had betrayed him. In another, his lover, albeit one who had caused the complete and literal upheaval of Angel's world.
Put the two versions together and Angel didn't know what resulted. On the other hand, considering the versions of Angel that Wesley was now aware of, it was very likely that Wes was having the exact same problem in reverse.
The silence dragged on, punctuated only by the sound of the microwave, then the happy slurps of Alissa eating her meal. Angel didn't have to ask why Wesley found it difficult to talk to him. Angel wasn't exactly sure what to say either.
In one world, Angel wouldn't have said anything. Stoicism was an easy and familiar path, and protected him from being hurt.
In another world, Angel had learned that his crutches had consequences.
He spoke.
"Turns out I have a sister."
Wesley's head turned around. Angel could see him try to puzzle that information out. "Didn't you always - *oh*."
"Yeah," Angel said, when it was clear that Wesley got it.
It was enough to get Wes to abandon the distance, and sit in the booth across from him. "She's not dead."
"Nope," Angel quickly scooped up his paperwork to get it out of Wes's way. "Very much alive. Married. With kids. Living in Ireland."
"Uncle Angel," Wesley's eyes traveled up and down Angel's face, as though trying to decide if the moniker fit.
"Two nieces, two nephews," Angel said. "They live in a cottage that's been in his family for years. And they're a lot nicer at being called at three in the morning than you'd give a lot of people credit for."
"You forgot the time difference," Wesley guessed.
"I didn't give a crap about the time difference," Angel immediately made a face of apology. "Sorry, Alissa. Don't imitate any of my bad words, okay?"
Wesley put Alissa's bottle down. He lifted her up onto his shoulder so he could rub her back. He was so very much a father with the ease of his movements and the care of his touch that Angel could in no way forget why he'd been so attracted to this stranger. "Was she happy to hear from you?"
"Yeah," Angel said. "Apparently we talk a lot. She's recovering too - uh, alcoholic, I mean. When we both got sober it brought us closer together."
"Has Connor met her?" Wesley asked.
"When he was younger," Angel said. "Nobody's rich so trips are kind of hard. But we're going to go over there this summer, him and me. Do a visit. Sort of a post-graduation, last chance for me to be with my son before he abandons me for college and being a grown up kind of thing."
"Is that what all this is?" Wesley indicated the paperwork. "Planning for the trip?"
Angel nodded. He pushed the paperwork around, sitting back as he looked at the numbers. "Yeah. Trying to work the budget. I've got a little money saved up but it'd be nice to do this and still have money for retirement."
"I could - " Wes hesitated, a hairsbreadth away from retracting whatever he was about to offer. "I used to deal with money for a living. If you'd like, I could help."
Angel smiled at him. "See? Told you you'd fit in here."
"I don't do any such thing, but thank you," Wesley shifted Alissa over to his other arm, giving her the bottle once again.
"She looks good," Angel said. He watched how shuttered Wes's face had become, and thought to himself that it had been cruel to talk about the good luck of his family when Wesley's recovered memories had done nothing but remind him he'd been a disappointment to his own in every universe. "Bet she thinks you'd belong here."
"Right now I wager she's thinking it's very nice when her tummy gets full," Wesley said, but Angel could tell that if nothing else talking about his daughter had eased some of the tension.
"You and Lilah having a kid," Angel said. "I can't get over that."
"You're not the only one," Wesley said.
"Your brains, Lilah's cunning," Angel tilted his head, thought about it. "Your cunning, Lilah's brains…. face it, Wes, your kid's going to end up taking over the world."
Wes quirked his eyebrows at him. "You realize that that's not as funny, considering everything that happened in our previous universe?"
"Yeah," Angel admitted. "Good thing there's no magic here. Worst Alissa can do is run for president."
"Prime Minister," Wesley said, with a quickness that revealed that he had the fantasies that any proud father would have. "She's half-British."
"Connor could be president," Angel said.
"He certainly could," Wesley agreed.
Silence joined them again. Wesley wiped stray drops of formula from Alissa's face. Angel looked down at his paperwork. He knew that in one world this was a habit for him: big life event, break out the legal pads and start adding up the numbers. Legal pads had come hand in hand with main events: first car, buying the diner, Darla's sickness, Connor's college fund.
He realized that part of the problem with his figures was that he was putting some aside for a baby's needs. Clothes, food, furniture - little ones took up a lot.
"You could have another child," Wesley said.
For a second Angel thought Wes had managed to read his mind. Then he understood that for Wes, this had been a revelation of his own. Kathy wasn't dead, and Angel didn't need a boon from the Powers that Be in order to get someone pregnant.
"Could," Angel dragged the point of his pencil back and forth on a page, darkening the line that underscored a calculation. Mortgage plus car payment plus electric plus heat. "So could you."
"I think I'm still coming to terms with the first," Wesley said. He hugged Alissa closer to his chest. "It's surprisingly wonderful, actually."
"But terrifying," Angel guessed.
"Indeed," the word came out of Wesley like a breath. "How does anyone do it? How did *you* do it?"
Angel was surprised at Wesley looking to him for guidance. Usually it was the other way around. "Lots of mistakes. Figure it out as you go. You're doing great so far, Wes. I know you can handle it."
"That makes one of us," Wesley sat back. The vinyl creaked under his weight. "It's not easy. Before I at least had focus. Now - "
Angel again saw the flicker of one Wesley over another. "It's confusing?"
Wesley nodded. "And there are sides to my personality that both forms of me did not share."
"Like what?" Angel asked.
"Like practicality," Wesley said. "Like sacrificing yourself for the greater goal."
Angel didn't like the sound of this. "What greater goal?"
"Her," Wesley said. "Angel, I'm poor and to top it off I'm on the run from the law. If she had even a little money - "
"If you send her back to Lilah's folks she'll get raised by a nanny and wonder why her parents don't love her," Angel said, and the heat of his words came from all forms of himself, all parts of him which knew how important it was for a child to be with its father. "Think about it, Wes - your folks were loaded. Did they do that great a job with you?"
Wes stared at him.
"Okay, you know what I meant," Angel said, which he hoped was as good as an apology.
"She's homeless," Wesley said. "I have - I have *nothing*. Angel there were weeks when we were living out of that car. What kind of life am I giving her?"
"Wes, I was a bankrupt alcoholic," Angel said. "Connor still loved me. Connor's *still* my son. There is nothing on this earth that will mean more to her than you do. And you *have* a home. You live here."
"Your home," Wesley said.
"Yeah," Angel said, the agreement coming out of him with an emotional punch of confidence that made it a statement and a promise all at the same time.
Wes's mouth twitched. Angel squirmed uncomfortably at that until he realized Wes was giving him a bemused smirk. "Was that your idea of a romantic proposal?"
"Proposal is a *big* word," Angel said, nowhere near ready for that kind of conversation. "But, yeah, might have been a little…. relationshippy…. look we've had sex, Wes, I'd be lying if I said I didn't like it."
"I never thought I'd have sex with you," Wesley said.
"You're not that bad looking," Angel said.
"You're a little unapproachable," Wesley countered. "Or you were. Here you're… rather personable."
"Charming?" Angel suggested.
"That was true of both universes," Wesley said.
"You were always my friend," Angel said. "That meant a lot to me. Both times."
"You hardly knew me here," Wesley said.
Angel nodded towards Alissa. "I knew enough."
"Our destiny to meet one another," Wesley mused. "For it happened twice without you specifically requesting it."
"You noticed I was gone," Angel reminded him, and wondered if he could find a way to tell Wes he was touched by that.
"Does it make you feel - I don't mean this disrespectfully," Wesley said, "but does it make you feel responsible for everything that happens here? You *created* this world."
"Okay, not until you pointed it out like that, no," Angel thought about it. "No. No. I asked for some stuff, but the rest was out of my hands. It happened because it was going to happen."
"One might be tempted to ask if the part where I became a raging sex-addict once the chips were down was due to your intervention," Wesley said.
"If I'd requested you be a raging sex addict I'd have also mentioned the part about you living next door," Angel replied.
Wes did not reply, and instead gave a silent and thoughtful look upstairs, where his current apartment was.
"I'm not used to flirting with you," Angel admitted.
Angel thought Wes was going to reply with a comment about none of this being something they were used to. Instead Wes said, "I like it when you do."
"Which version of you was that?" Angel asked.
"Both of them," Wesley replied.
Angel smiled. He didn't lean over to kiss Wesley just yet, but he knew it would happen before the night was out.
End.
