"Reflections over Eighty-Six Proof"
"We were safer? You really don't care anymore do you?"
He felt the unfamiliar sensation of hatred begin to boil inside him. It started off slowly, but it began to rise. He balled his fists closely by his side and began to feel the venom forming at the back of his throat. But, without a second passing, he stamped out the contempt that had welled and put on his best face.
"He'll need more blood. I'm fresh out."
Wesley couldn't resist flashing a small half-smile at the two when their eyes traveled to his unsleeved arm. Gunn might have been raised by the streets, but surely he would realize what the rag tied off above his elbow symbolized. Fred was probably light years ahead of her other half. She was, after all, a brilliant scientist. Wesley held his half-smile as he walked out the doors of the Hyperion. His satisfaction at their ignorance was all the consolation he needed.
Try as he might, Wesley could not shake the events of the night out of his mind. He blamed it on the Academy. Being a Watcher meant simply that. Watching. And always picking up on even the slightest details. "Bloody idiots," he thought. He finished his glass and reached for the bottle that sat upon his small table. It was, after all, his only company for the night. As he poured himself another drink, his mind began to wander. He blamed it on the bourbon.
He had never been a big fan of the drink. Too sweet for his taste, and not nearly enough bite that the average bottle of scotch held. He considered it brutally American. But he had grown increasingly tired of the blended sort, and since his excommunication from his new family, money had become something of an issue. Not that he was poor in any sense of the word. He had secured quite a few favors from the underworld in his short stint at Angel Investigations. Most of which he turned into cash shortly after his hospital release. Couple that with the small group of 'demon hunters' he had banded together, Wesley had the ability to live comfortably, in the average sense of the word. But, more often than not, he found himself at the small liquor store on the corner regularly. It was tonight, while heading for his normal dose of cheap Canadian scotch that he decided to try something a bit different. After all, when in Rome...
He settled for the familiar sight of a black label and the large 'No. 7'. He only bought two bottles, knowing that the large amount of blood he had lost would no doubt render him drunk much sooner than he was used to. At this thought, Wesley had to fight back the impulse to laugh hysterically. After all he had been through, Angel was still an unbearing influence on him.
It was a few hours later, and a bottle and a half further into seclusion, that the events of the night began to pester him more. Either Angel had not drank as generously from him as Wesley had first thought, or Wesley himself had been drinking to generously for the past three months. He had hoped to drink himself to bed, but he found himself staring off into nothingness and a rage building inside of him like an open fire. "The audacity!" he spat to no one in particular. How could the two of them, of all creatures on this Earth, accuse him of not caring anymore? They had turned their back on him months ago. They had left him in that hospital bed, an open target for Angel's wrath. Fred, the woman who he had dreamed about since his boyhood days, had even told him he was not welcome within the confines of his family anymore.
Yet it was he that didn't care? He killed his drink in one menacing gulp, then reached for the bottle and poured yet another.
That's when his thoughts began to shift. Again, he blamed the bourbon. His mind traveled back to himself. And, for no apparent reason, began to recount the shortcomings of his life. He thought back to the days he spent locked in his cupboard. How it was so still and so dark and so terrifying. He'd often scream to convince himself he was still alive. He thought back to Sunnydale, to Buffy and Faith. Faith. That name alone caused him to skip his glass and instead take a pull off the bottle itself. He had failed her in so many ways. He was young and arrogant, preaching from a Bible that was written by men trapped in their own version of reality. It held no weight in the world he had entered. Yet he had clung to it, until the very people he thought he embodied cast him aside like he was garbage. He had washed his hands of the Council long ago, but to this day he could not shake that the feeling of disappointment. His minded shifted forward, to a wooden chair and a gag. To shards of glass, pummeling fists, and blood. And to Faith. He recounted the hours of agonizing torture at her hands. He could still feel the raging desire to exact his revenge on her in that alleyway on that rainy night. But when he saw Angel cling to her, not out of pity but out of sympathy, he thought he had found someone he could follow. Someone who was the ideal that he had always believed in. He knew firsthand just how wrong he was.
Another drink, and his mind continued to move forward. He thought of Billy and the rage that had clouded his mind. How he had tried to kill Fred simply because she was of the opposite sex. The thought made him shudder. He had never been the same since that night. That's when his drinking began. He was always careful to conceal it from the others. But the nights were long, and though Billy's influence had died with him, the memories would not. He tried to wash them away, but he couldn't. They refused to drown under his sea of disgust and alcohol. He thought of Connor and he bit back the choking sensation the name had begun to cause. He instinctively rubbed his head over the stubble on his neck and across the gaping scar that marked him. He had double guessed the decisions he made every night, and every morning he reached for that scar, hoping it was gone and that it had all been a whiskey-driven nightmare. But every morning he was disappointed. Ironic, that he now found himself disappointed with himself.
The rage and contempt he had so easily fended off earlier would not be denied now. Without thinking, he killed the last quarter of his last bottle and launched it against the wall. It crashed violently, and shattered into hundreds of glass slivers. Wesley eyed the mess he had just made, in his mind picturing it as all of his shattered dreams. But in reality, it was just something else to clean up in the morning. He couldn't live like this forever. Drinking til all hours of the night and sleeping with Lilah was definitely shaking your fist at the gods. In fact, to most people it would be a death sentence. Death sentence. Before he even realized, Wesley's mind shifted gears. He had seen death. He had seen the brutal reality of lives being taken, whether they were dead or undead. In fact, he had stared Death in its face. And, he realized, he had simply smiled. The scars that Faith had left behind, the bullet he had taken for Gunn, the blade slicing across his throat, and the suffocating pillow he couldn't push away. They had all tried to kill him. They had all failed. Again, Wesley felt a grin pulling at the corner of his mouth. Death had failed Wesley as often as Wesley had failed himself. And yet, he was still alive. He was the medium through which Faith had found her redemption. He was the reason that Charles Gunn was still wielding his ax. He was the reason Fred was still breathing and not a dehydrated corpse. He was the reason that Angel was being nursed by his family and not wallowing through hunger-induced hallucination. In the grand scheme of things, it all came back to him. Wesley Wyndam-Price. At this thought, he glanced toward the aluminum briefcase that was sitting against the wall. It held every bit of information he had been able to gather concerning the disappearance of Cordelia. No doubt Angel would be after it soon. How would this encounter...
He was interrupted by the sound of his cellular phone. He glanced down and saw a message from Hawkins. His second in command had tracked down Mr. O'Leary's kidnapper. "Full assault tomorrow night", Wesley murmured. His thoughts turned back to Fred's remark. He didn't care? Ha! He was the only one who did care. He had saved Fred's life when she had turned her back on his. While she and Gunn at run throughout Los Angeles like lost children, Wesley was the one who had tracked down Justine and finally brought Angel back to dry land. He lay back on his sofa and began to drift to sleep. He had more than righted his own wrongs. And yet, after all his trials, they had still turned their back on him. He had always cared, whether they had or not. He couldn't bring himself to do otherwise. After all, they were his family. For the life of him, he couldn't come up with a reason for helping the people that had turned on him, much the way the Council had so long ago. He blamed it on the bourbon.